Airthan Ascendancy - A Hard Military Space Opera Adventure (Aeon 14_ The Orion War Book 8) by M. D. Cooper

Author:M. D. Cooper [Cooper, M. D.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Wooden Pen Press
Published: 2018-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

THE BRIEFING

STELLAR DATE: 10.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: River Station, Styx Baby-9

REGION: STX-B17 Black Hole, Transcend Interstellar Alliance

Sera walked into the briefing room and settled into a seat next to Cheeky and Sabrina, unable to miss that the two were holding hands.

She glanced at Finaeus, who was standing on the raised platform next to Earnest, their heads bent together as they flipped through a series of holoimages that she imagined must be notes and information for their presentation. He seemed focused on his work and entirely unperturbed by the display of affection between his wife and Sabrina.

“Stars, Sera,” Cheeky muttered. “Put your eyes back in your head, already.”

“But what about Finaeus?” she blurted, glancing at the man who was now stabbing his finger at the holodisplay and shaking his head.

“We’ve talked with him,” Sabrina said. “Everything’s fine.”

“It’s something that’s been coming for a while,” Cheeky added. “He and I still love each other, but our situations don’t really allow for spending a lot of time together. We had a good run—and we’re going to stay married—I’m just exploring AI stuff with Sabrina.”

“AI stuff?” Sera cocked an eyebrow.

<Mental merging,> Jen supplied.

Sera knew the basics of what that entailed, mainly that it was one of the steps in making new AIs. She wondered if that was what Sabrina and Cheeky were planning on doing, but decided not to pry.

She only replied with, “Ah.”

At that moment, she was distracted by the arrival of Krissy and several members of her command team, as they settled into the row behind Sera. They would not be directly involved in the mission, but everyone knew that there was a strong chance that things could go belly-up and the cavalry would need to be called to save the day.

Even if we succeed, we’ll probably still need to call them in, Sera mused.

She’d given a lot of consideration to what would happen after they defeated Airtha. It was her hope that the majority of people under the AI’s thrall would realize that they’d been on the wrong side and rejoin the rest of the Transcend without a fight.

But Sera knew that was little more than a dream. It was very likely that the Transcend would never reform as a single entity again.

Over the next five minutes, the rest of the strike team entered the room, and the low murmur of conversation filled the space as they waited for the briefing to begin.

Seraphina and Fina settled into seats on the far side of Cheeky and Sabrina, while Misha, Nance, and Flaherty all sat in the back row—rather, Flaherty stood behind the back row.

Katrina entered with her crew shortly afterward, a team consisting of Kirb, Carl, and Camille, all of whom had been with her since the beginning of her misadventures in Bollam’s World five centuries prior. They were joined by one of Katrina’s newer crewmembers—if a century aboard the Voyager made him ‘new’—a rather bulky, four-armed man named Elmer.

A grey pillar of light appeared to one side of the room, and Sera noted that it represented the Voyager ’s AI, a rather staid individual named Troy.

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