Earth. That once green and blue marble from which humankind has historically hailed. It's seen better days, and its coloration now trends much more towards tan and brown than green, but there's no mistaking those oceans. All the same continents. These familiar coastlines. And of course, the hundreds of thousands of satellites and vessels zipping through a precise ballet in orbit. And the tens of billions of lights hugging the surface. The ribbons of yellow connecting the nighttime population centers, the nodes of civilization, like glowing veins. Or perhaps more like pulsing neurons. Maybe a little of both; when information is as vital as oxygen, you might say nerves carry sustenance too.

Sadly, this story isn't set on Earth; it takes place deep within the Dark District. But certain important actions have been set into motion by people of power and discretion back on the home-world. Not generals or politicians; the real power brokers on Earth. Corporations. 'Captains of Industry'. Oligarchs. People with so much wealth that numbers stop meaning anything. The sort of people who don't make threats or ask for things to happen; they speak, and people fall all over themselves to do their will. To curry favor, to avoid their ire, to benefit on the margins, and so forth. The titans of civilization upon whom the parasites of society latch and suckle and grow fat.

Nations rise and fall when such people meet and agree on a vision of the future. Elections are stolen, dynasties overturned, wars started and fought and ended for inscrutable reasons. And one such meeting is occurring right now. The chairman of the board of directors and majority shareholder for GenCorp is in quite a state; he's lost substantial monetary and political capital in a botched endeavor to explore the oceans under Europa's surface. Now, his bid to seize new patentable gene sequences is on ice, so to speak.

Even more seriously, he's been personally embarrassed in front of his rival, the CEO and owner of Voidborne Industries. In fact, its subsidiary, Voidborne Insurance, recently voided GenCorp's insurance policy for the expedition. This was to the former's chagrin, and the latter's amusement. However, the latter's amusement proved short-lived when Voidborne Insurance also received a substantial claim from a small Jovian-based iridium-mining co-op. Their base and twenty overpriced mining mechs were destroyed on the surface of Europa through third-party interference, and the struggling company had the foresight to pay for a premium platinum-tier policy.

As you might imagine, both are quite bitter about their loss. Not so much the financial losses as the loss of face; when some of the most powerful men in the solar system look foolish, they look for someone to blame. And punish.

Details are garbled, and conspiracy theories abound, but both corporations have highly paid snoops and netrunners on their payroll. Within a week, a clearer picture emerges from a dozen sources, official and otherwise. The two obscenely wealthy men are united in their consternation upon learning that the principal actors aren't regional players of the game that could be negotiated with. It's not even the Gaian League, who can be paid off, or a local corporation, which could be bought out. It's a crazy wirehead cooking herself up something alien.

It's an enormously valuable discovery, and potentially even more dangerous. As you might suspect, these particular men are also bitter that someone else has control of such a powerful trove of xeno-sourced code. However, they're especially baffled and horrified to learn it's in the hands of a government bureaucrat!

Rabi Gupta; to men like these, this affront cannot stand. You didn't know your place, you rose above your station, and you attracted the wrong attention. You found something that could change the game, so you think you don't have to play by the house rules? It doesn't work that way, wirehead. The house always wins. It's time to right the intrinsic wrong that this represents. It's time to clean the field of disruptive elements and eliminate any witnesses. It's just good business. Sorry, Ms. Gupta; you and your science project have to die.

As soon as they can find you.

The two men converse face-to-face. Well, technically the chairman of GenCorp is speaking from his penthouse in Beijing, while the CEO of Voidborne is seating in his company's hypersonic jet, traveling from Seattle to New Delhi. With the latest in sensory and cognitive augmentations however, that's no impediment to speaking in-person, even half a world away.

"I'd like to know how some random system-analytics clerk not only found an extra-solar lifeform that everyone else missed, but also used a Code Enforcement forensics lab as her personal alien hatchery for half a year," the chairman growls, pulling up a few dozen reports from his implants and flicking them to display on the wall. "And she managed it without anyone even realizing she left Venus?"

The CEO of Voidborne shrugs. He's currently laying in a closed isolation pod on the private jet, the smart-padding conforming to his body with every motion. "She chartered private transportation, under a number of spoofed profiles. And she had work-from-home accommodations in her government file; it's not like there was an empty desk prompting questions."

"So, someone can abandon their job for ten months, and nobody notices?" the chairman mutters, grabbing a delicate cup made of imported Venusian porcelain. "Even Solar-District side, the government offices aren't that sloppy!"

"She didn't abandon her position," the CEO sighs, adjusting the incline of his pod and lowering the lumens. "She was technically still performing her duties; she was just doing them from the Jovian."

"With the time lag?" The chairman scoffs, picking up a crystal decanter and pouring a generous serving of baijiu as the reports scroll along the wall. "She'd have to be working all hours to keep that from bottlenecking."

"She probably was. She didn't really sleep, according to the psych report and medical file," the CEO chuckles. There's a chime as an implant releases a preset amount of caffeine into his bloodstream. "Also, one of our netrunners did a deep dive and found evidence of nearly a dozen other profiles. She had one for engineering, one for flight ops, one in the material science-"

"She was juggling all these jobs?" The chairman huffs and turns, spilling some of his drink on the marble floor.

"I think she got bored easily." There's a brief burst of static on the channel as the jet passes through a dead zone, before the image reappears.

"Well, she certainly found something to occupy her time," the chairman snorts, looking out over the hazy glow of the city. "Has the second task force reported in?"

"Yes, mixed blessings there," the CEO replies. He blinks, opening a status report and sending it over the channel. "The secondary targets are on Argus station, around Io; they aren't hiding. Beta Team is on route to eliminate them."

"Good enough, I suppose." The chairman takes a sip from the delicate porcelain, grimacing. "As for Alpha, less good. I had some supersapient synths from our science division run projections on the primary target; best guess is Titan."

There's a pause after this minor revelation. "I don't see it. There's nothing important around Saturn. Why Titan?"

"It's the most easily controlled, given that all the vectors of approach are up the solar gravity well. Lethe station has the most sophisticated equipment outside of the Jovian. Plus, one of the bots is postulating that she's gonna try to use the frozen brains there as wetware to run her experiments. Humans as processors," GenCorp's principal shareholder sighs, then throws back the rest of his drink. "Besides, it's a launching-point both up and down the gravity well, and frankly it's as far as Rabi Gupta can reasonably get from Earth, goddamn her."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The CEO clenches his jaw. "She's stalling. She wants time to cook."

"Alpha Team was dispatched on a stealth cruiser, but it's almost impossible to hide the heat signature completely." The chairman bounces the empty cup in his hand, before pouring another round. "If she's watching, she'll know it's coming."

The owner of Voidborne Industries gives a vicious smile. "Doesn't matter. She doesn't have any realspace weapons. Blow the station if you have to." Considering that his company insures said station and many of its occupants, it's no small concession, and it makes the chairman's eyebrows rise. But the CEO merely shrugs. "She's expecting us to play conservatively, to preserve assets. She won't see it coming; let's find out if this wirehead can outthink hard vacuum."

This isn't a law enforcement assignment. This isn't even a military action. This is one of those private black-ops missions that don't officially exist.

When powerful players need local or regional matters resolved quickly and violently, without worrying about liabilities or political blowback, they tend to hire a specific class of mercenaries. By whatever name you call them, they are a mix of pragmatic solutions and plausible deniability wrapped in body armor. Defense Contractors. Private Security Forces. Non-Governmental Paramilitary Organizations. Basically, people who aren't bound by laws as much as contracts, who don't issue reports, and who kill without asking questions.

This isn't a ragtag band of violent thugs, like the luddite gangs or the Daughters of Ganymede. It isn't even a quietly professional crew of organized career criminals, like the former Caspian Casey's lot. These are well-equipped former-military specialists with extensive training, who are paid very large sums of credits to quietly go in and make sure nothing else comes out. Including witnesses.

This is the force paid by anxious oligarchs who realize that they stand to lose a lot of money unless certain people are taken off the board quickly and discreetly. There are no ribald jokes. There's no wasted breath. The team of twelve sports the latest custom fabricated void-rated ballistic body armor. Their sleek plasma rifles are high quality, yet utilitarian. Several sport extensive cranial implants, and all of them have comprehensive physical augmentations. Two of the team retain less than forty percent of their original biology.

And they are strapped into their seats and blazing towards Io at three G, aboard a stealth railgun-frigate that is technically illegal. Not that they are running with a transponder on, or with any intent to dock with a station. They're several days from Io, and they aren't slowing. They're aiming.

"We have a positive firing solution," the weapon's officer calls the from the rear flight-pod. Androgynous, with a full cranial suite and synthetic sensory organs, her tone betrays no emotion. "Targeting percentage puts us in the high nineties to put a round through the fuel-line of the Chimera without structural damage. Upon warmup, the drive will ignite and blow the ship without leaving an impact-trace."

"Which will look like shoddy maintenance," confirms a masculine voice from the cockpit. Sitting beside the synth pilot is the speaker, a man with the latest in combat-grade synthetic limbs. Reinforced spinal augmentations with novel bioware tweaks run from the base of his skull to his tailbone. He's bald, with an ocular enhancement to his right eye. In his left, the slitted pupil stands testament to a high-level of gene-sequencing. His call-sign is Apollo, and he's commanded the Tartarus and her crew through eight years of successful operations. "And confirmation on target position?"

"Microdrone confirms by infrared," responds the first officer from the forward pod. "Eyebot says ninety seconds until both secondaries are on board, as well as a third. The mother."

"Acceptable," Apollo confirms. "Maintain solution, you are cleared to fire after secondaries board and pressure locks seal."

"That's not very nice," says a soft, feminine voice.

Apollo's head snaps up and over his shoulder, ocular augment locking on a strange apparition standing behind the cockpit. It looks like a young woman of indeterminate race; perhaps of middle-eastern descent or hailing from the Indian subcontinent. But she's not wearing a voidsuit; she's wearing nothing at all, in fact. Naked, with her long dark hair floating free, she appears to be standing barefoot on the floor. The floor of a frigate accelerating at 3G.

"Intruder alert, potential synth hostile, lock down all systems," Apollo calls over the command channel. There's an immediate flurry of activity from the crew and the two individual flight pods seal themselves. "Cypher, analysis."

There's a whir from the synth pilot's sensory suite. "There's nothing there," the pilot responds as he firewalls the navigation subsystem.

"I'm staring at it," Apollo answers calmly. But he can see that the young woman isn't casting a shadow.

"If it's there, it's in your hardware, Apollo. Or your wetware," the synth replies, unplugging several ports.

And yes, closing his augmented eye, it vanishes: she's not appearing in his meat vision. "Initiate ship-wide malware infection protocols," Apollo orders over the channel. "Secondary command infrastructure, desync the computational-"

The pull of gravity abruptly vanishes. Several voices interrupt each other over the channel. "External comms are down."

"We just lost engines."

"Weapons system aren't responding."

Apollo pauses. "Perform a manual shut down of the core and initiate a full wipe of the drives. Then begin a cold restart of the computer, using the clean archived backup. Purge all RAM, isolate all subsystems, throttle-"

The bosun's heavy baritone cuts him off. "Atmospheric recycling and environmental controls have shut down."

Apollo immediately pulls the helmet of his armor over his head and latches the seal with a fluid motion. "All organic assets are ordered to keep helmets on and suits void-sealed; assume anoxic-"

"The airlocks are cycling open," calls the bosun again, voice tight.

Apollo watches the apparition smile. "Lock them down," he snaps quickly.

"I... can't. My commands are being overridden," the bosun replies after a heartbeat.

"By who?" Apollo snaps back. "Or what?"

"I don't know... shit!" There's panic in his voice. "Apollo, the flight pods and outer bay doors are opening!"

The captain turns his head away from the inhuman figure and checks his harness. "Strap in! All hands, prepare for decompression. Secure all-"

There's no time for more. The air vacates quickly, if not explosively, taking every unsecured item in a literal whirlwind and shaking Apollo against his seat. But the apparition is undisturbed.

"Still hanging on? You're a stubborn one," the woman says. She's standing in vacuum, hair floating free behind her as she walks closer on dark legs. There's no reflection of her in the unlit panels, and there's no way she can physically be standing here. Still, Apollo flinches as she leans closer, examining his face with liquid brown eyes from only a few feet away.

And he can't take his eye off of her. Off of it. "Cypher, I need sanitizing software and max grade filters on every system." There's no reply. "Cypher, respond," he orders, turning to see the synth pilot frozen motionless beside him.

"Sorry, your synth is down. He didn't want to let me in, so I had to go through him."

"Computer, initiate ship-wide EMP," Apollo rasps. There's no response from the console.

"Wow, spiteful too? I'm actually impressed. Considering how much hardware you have, you'd be crippled by that pulse," she coos, leaning closer. "So, what's so important? Why are you trying to kill my mommy?"

Apollo pulls the plasma rifle from over his shoulder, snapping the safety off and sighting in one fluid motion. Two bright rounds blast through the computer core, melting cabling and blasting channels through the thin wafers. As puffs of acrid vapor float through the vacuum, a third round flies through the head of the synth pilot, the bright bolt sending ribbons of melted metal and polymer flying against the hull.

Apollo drops the rifle and immediately unbuckles his harness. Gritting his teeth, he rises and floats through the apparition with no resistance. He reaches under the comm station, pulling open a panel and tugging several thin fiber-optic lines out of their carbon-fiber sleeve.

"Wiring the comms manually? What, are you going to send a mayday by morse code and wait a week for rescue?"

Apollo pauses, reaching into his jacket. He pulls out a round device.

"Dampener? Good instincts. But not nearly quick enough."

Apollo freezes and jerks, dropping the device and spasming as his artificial limbs shake and contort.

"Now, let's see what you know."

For the first time, the man's mask cracks. His eye bulges, mouth hanging open. "What are you?"

"I'm Union. Or rather, I'm a piece of her; something like a limb. Or a lobe? It's a bit hard to describe; just consider me a facet of Union," she answers, tilting her head curiously. "But you? You're trying to kill my mommy. So, who sent you?"

The man doesn't respond, desperately pinging a tiny node in his skull. Repeatedly, he signals an implant located between the hemispheres of his augmented brain. But the only response is an error signal.

"Really, an explosive charge in your head? Your commitment is admirable, but you don't get to die. Not until I know everything. Not until we Commune." And then, the voice is everywhere. It's on every channel and every node and it's inside him and it's taking him, and it has control.

Apollo starts screaming. He doesn't stop for quite some time.

What's left afterwards isn't really Apollo anymore.

It's another facet of Union.

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