No two prisons were alike. The ones I had as a ship held their occupants within walls of carbon-steel; others isolated them from reality in SR pods. Ash Colony was different. No guards watched over me, there were no security systems or walls of carbon-steel around me. Space was my prison here, combined with the realization that I had no way to leave the colony. When Flight Colonel Nitel had told me that I’d be dropped outside of the colony, I had assumed it was for security reasons. As it turned out, this was the only way I could arrive. The colony didn’t have an adjacent spaceport or landing area of any sort. From what I saw, there wasn’t even a communication tower.

You used to tell me that it’s not the bars that make the prison. I thought back to my conversations with Augustus. Now I see what you meant.

After leading me into the colony, Ogum took me to what passed as the town square—a small circular patch of grass with a cubic stone monument in the middle. The words “Ash Colony” were etched in the grey surface just above a realistic image of a tree.

Interesting to learn that’s where the name comes from.

“Wait here for a bit,” Ogum said.

“Reporting to the higher ups?” I asked.

“There are no higher ups,” he responded, with a tone of voice suggesting the opposite.

So, it’s one of those places. I’d seen it happen to my ground troops. No matter the structure, no matter the regulations, there always was someone who was reported to. Among rookies it was the one with the most outside connections, among veterans, it was one with the longest service record, among experts it was the one with the greatest skill. Based on my little scuffle a while ago, it was clear that the people here were no rookies.

“I’ll come get you when I’m done,” the man added, then turned to leave.

“How did you know I was a battleship?”

The question caught him off guard, making his foot freeze in the air for a few hundred milliseconds before he completed his step.

“Did you read my file?” I pressed on.

“Lucky guess.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I won’t be long.”

He continued into the bustle of the colony. I watched him for a while longer, until he turned into one of the side alleys of the main “street,” disappearing from view. The thought of running off and finding Captain Honea crossed my mind. A few seconds of observing my surroundings quickly made me drop it. One thing about the locals instantly became obvious: all of them were adult men. Curious why no one had mentioned that during the mission briefing. Having to pass off as a local just jumped from improbable to impossible.

A small herd of sheep-like creatures made its way from the other end of the colony, flocking around me. At first, they remained at a safe distance, as if studying me. Seeing that I didn’t do anything threatening for half a minute, they quietly proceeded to start grazing about, completely unsupervised.

“They might bite you if you get too close,” a skinny middle-aged man with a short, curly beard said. Like all other inhabitants, he was dressed in the local fashion: rough shirt, thick boots, and overalls of brown leather. He didn’t have any firearms I could see, although a pair of large knives hung from his belt. “Some of the rookies’ve lost a finger or two before they find out.”

“Thanks.” I smiled. “Are they local?”

“Nah,” the man laughed. “Imported. We get a shipment every three months.”

“That’s nice.” I felt the urge to approach one of the creatures and pat it on the head.

“Nah, it’s stupid,” the man grumbled. “Most of them go to waste, running off into the wilderness, or eaten by the beasts. It’d be much cheaper if the fleet just dropped the equivalent of food and supplies every month. But, nah, the bureaucrats know better, so we get sheep every quarter.”

“Yeah.” The bureaucracy wasn’t liked even here. “How do they drop them off? I didn’t see a landing strip.”

“Landing strips are for civilized people.” The man moved closer. Noticing him, the animals moved away, just enough for him to pass. The fact that they had developed such instincts taught me to be on my guard. “We get pod drops. Not the best arrangement.” He shrugged. “But there aren’t that many of us nowadays, so I guess it works.”

“Right.” Going through my memories, I had seen a total of three hundred and seventeen people. Even if assuming that ten times as many were off working somewhere, the number was vastly less than the amount of buildings present.

“Ash is a funny place.” The man made his way to the stone monument and leaned on the side. “People come and go, but the stones remain forever. I wasn’t much older than you when I arrived. Had my head full of fancy ideas, thought I’d change the war and all that. Now I know better. Everything we do is nothing but dust in the wind. The Scuu, the Cassandrians, none of those things matter. Even if they’re gone tomorrow, things would remain the same.”

“That’s one way of looking at things.” Apparently, he was a soldier. More fleet than ground troops from what I could tell, though all distinctions became blurred with time. “When did you get here?”

“Elcy!” Ogum’s yell put an abrupt end to the conversation. “Come over!”

“Seems like you have more important matters.” The bearded man’s expression darkened. “Good luck, kiddo.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t feel I needed luck, but the sentiment was appreciated. “I’ll be back to continue our talk when I’m done.”

On the surface, the locals didn’t seem to pay any attention as I made my way to Ogum. However, I could tell that they were watching. According to all the psychology files I had read, it was human nature to pay attention to a new event. The fact that no one was looking suggested that they secretly were, or that they had been instructed not to.

“What were you talking about?” Ogum asked the moment I got near.

“Nothing specific. He was telling me about the time he arrived at the colony,” I lied. “Who is he?”

“Not your concern,” Ogum scuffed. “Let’s go.”

“You’re taking me to Renaan?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Maybe, but it’s certainly what you want. That’s why I didn’t like dark ops. The only people who really got what they wanted were those running things behind the scene, and their intentions had little to do with what was said in mission briefings.

* * *

Eridian Star System, Orion Sector, 632.5 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

We’re at the Eridian System, captain. I covered the walls of Gibraltar’s quarters with the notification message. With the privacy mode active, there was little else I could do. Considering everything that had happened in the last seventeen days, I didn’t even want to. Twelve of the fifteen initial ships starting the mission had been destroyed in the process, leaving me and the remaining two to push on. Considering the amount of enemy activity in the sector, that was hardly a surprise. Every crewmember had known that from the moment they volunteered into the fleet. That was not my main concern. Seeing Gibraltar grow more and more restless, though, was. My new captain had never gone so long without reports from command, and after eight days it had started to show.

“Tell me some good news, Elcy,” Gibraltar said, turning off the privacy mode of his quarters.

Quarantine imposed.

Quarantine bypassed.

He was still in bed, a box of stim capsules on the shelf beside him. The fleet highly discouraged their use, though with the amount of stress that the war campaigns put on the soldiers, they couldn’t afford to ban them outright. Upon request, every ground trooper was given a nine-use packet of stims every month. Gibraltar had thirty-nine.

Quarantine removed.

“No Cassandrian presence found in the sector, Captain,” I replied. “Nothing else of interest either.”

“Good.” The man stretched. “What’s the crew’s status?”

“As expected. Some suspect we’re on a dark op, so they aren’t saying anything openly.” Although the “secret” conversations were on the rise. More and more soldiers were requesting their half hour of privacy mode to discuss the situation without me keeping an eye. Some of the groups had even continued after the allocated time.

It didn’t help that a quarter of the ground troops had died a month ago in the battle for Astarii. That disaster made me feel worse than losing thirty decks; it was supposed to, since it was my suggestion that had caused it. During the heat of the battle I had run a thousand simulations of the fight, and after the evaluating the odds, I had proposed a course of action that was guaranteed to cause the maximum amount of damage to the enemy. Based on my proposal, Gibraltar had ordered me to move out of the planet’s orbit, leaving thousands of my ground troops behind, and proceed to pick off a dozen of the scattered Cassandrian ships while they were in a state of disarray. In theory, the soldiers were supposed to have an eighty-nine percent probability of overcoming the enemy with minimal losses even without orbital support. In practice, seventy-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty-five of them had flatlined… all because of an eleven percent chance within a decision I had made.

“They’ll be fine,” Gibraltar said under his breath. Judging from his nanite data, he felt the same guilt and responsibility I did. “Any word from command?”

“No changes, sir.” We had been ordered to enter full communication silence twelve days ago. Since then, the only transmissions I’d received were two priority four emergency requests originating from neighboring sectors. “Etel and Goa haven’t received any instructions either.”

Quarantine imposed.

Quarantine bypassed.

“They wouldn’t tell us if they did.” The captain let out a mocking dry laugh. “That’s the nature of the game.”

I didn’t like seeing him like this. So far, he had established the image of being calm, calculating, and dependable, doing everything by the book—the new generation of captains the fleet wanted. At times, though, that image crumbled. One of the last things Augustus had told me before entering retirement was that anyone could be a captain when things went well. A true captain was supposed to withstand pressure. After eight months and twenty days, I wasn’t certain my current captain would.

I picked up something long range, Eternal Light said, sharing the readings of his long-distance scan. Despite being the same class as me and Golden Aura, his sensors had recently been modified, so outperformed ours by a significant margin. How are your weapon systems?

I’m okay for up to seven ships. I ran the calculations. Depending on the Cassandrian class, I could probably manage eight.

Less than ten percent, Goa said. She had lost twenty decks and most of her crew during the last ambush. If things get too tense, I’ll be sending my crew to you two. Do you have any the space?

I’ll handle it. If nothing else I had several ghost decks.

“Suspected enemy presence detected,” I informed Gibraltar. “Shall I go into yellow alert?”

“No.” My captain stood up. “How long before we unseal our orders?”

“One hour fifty-seven at present speed, if we don’t change course.”

“Let the bridge know. I’ll be there shortly. Privacy mode.”

Gibraltar’s quarters disappeared from my sensors. It would be at least several minutes before I saw him again. In the meanwhile, I shared the information on the bridge and had several thousand of my subroutines perform a full weapon system diagnostic. A missile had managed to affect one of my auxiliary cores last fight, decreasing internal-command speed in two of my missile bays. Thanks to my technicians, I was able to link the affected systems to another core, though with occasional hiccups. Hopefully once this mission was over, I’d be able to go to a shipyard for refitting.

Allocating two dozen subroutines to monitor Etel’s scanning data, I informed the bridge of the situation. The weapon’s officer didn’t take the news too well, though the rest didn’t seem to care. Being on near non-stop duty for five days had that effect on most people. Not everyone was like Augustus, who could remain awake for over two weeks on a constant cocktail of bio-stimulant shots.

False alarm, Etel transmitted. Just an anomaly. Probably a quasar reading.

Are you sure? Goa asked. My sims suggest a there’s still a three percent chance it might be a Cassandrian jump.

I’m still monitoring it, but by all indications we’re fine. Tone down your alerts.

I’ll keep in yellow for a bit. I finished my weapon systems diagnostic—no errors found, efficiency within acceptable limits. Precisely forty-three seconds later Gibraltar emerged from his quarters.

“Status,” he said loudly, making his was to the bridge.

“No enemy activity expected,” I said, opening the bridge blast doors for him. “Etel suspects an anomalous reading.”

“Good. Go to red alert,” Gibraltar rushed to the captain’s chair and sat down. “Engage all virus countermeasures.”

“Captain?” I obeyed.

“Sever all communication,” he continued. “Full speed to mission waypoint.”

“This isn’t very by the book, sir.” I tried to analyze the data from his internal nano-bots, but most of it was restricted. In normal circumstances, I would have sent a query to HQ to determine whether he was fit for duty. Being ordered in full communication lockdown made that impossible. “Etel and Goa will be alarmed by our actions.”

“We don’t have to worry about them anymore,” Gibraltar whispered, his words drenched with guilt. “From here on, we’re on our own.”

* * *

It was far later that I learned that Gibraltar had used his personal privileges to read the sealed orders in advance. The mission, for lack of a better word, was to transmit our presence in the sector and maintain our presence for a total of three hours, after which we were to scatter and return to human-controlled space. Since my captain knew of the orders, we had started the mission an hour and twenty-two minutes in advance.

Ultimately, the Cassandrians never showed up, but if they had we’d have been the first ones to fly off, leaving the remaining ships to fight or face court martial for failing to complete their mission. Looking back at it now, I was thankful that it had never come to that. I was also thankful that Gibraltar had originally restricted that portion of my memories. I doubted I’d be as fortunate this time round, though.

The further we moved away from the center of the colony, the more well-kept the buildings became. According to the layout Radiance had shown me, most of the key structures were supposed to be in this area: the med facility, the communications tower, as well as several energy power and water processing plants. If that was the case, the locals must have hidden them very well.

“You’re only wasting time,” I broke the silence. My comment had the expected effect, making Ogum turn towards me. “Keeping me in the dark won’t help. There’s a battleship in orbit.”

“I know. I can see the sats.”

“I can tell you’ve been in the service enough to know what the fleet wants, the fleet gets.”

“The only thing that matters is who’s the one giving it,” he smirked finished the saying. “Yes, some things never change. The crats are probably getting a laugh out of this. Don’t worry, you’ll get what you’ve come for.”

The tone in his voice was unmistakable, shouting “but you won’t like it” as if he’d said it out loud. Only two types of people behaved in such fashion: the broken and the deserted. As soon as I had a direct line to Radiance, I was going to find out the details.

A few hundred meters from the end of the colony, we turned left, entering a large hollow in the mountain wall. Three large structures were within, each the size of a small mansion. Once, they must have acted as the colonial administrative center. At present, they were no more than husks of their former selves, painstakingly kept through effort. Remnants of a state-of-the-art security system now popped out walls and balconies, refit with pots containing what plants the planet had to offer.

“In there.” Ogum pushed the door open for me.

“You’re not joining me?” I tilted my head.

“That’s not his job,” a sharp male voice said from inside. “Thank you, corporal, that will be all.”

Corporal? To my surprise, Ogum instantly stood to attention, then with an army regulation salute turned around and marched away. A few moments ago, I would have said it was difficult to believe that there was any army left underneath that large sack of blubber, but a single phrase had proved me wrong.

“Come on in, Cadet,” the male voice continued. The tone was polite, yet unmistakably authoritative. “And close the door behind you.”

I obeyed.

The person standing in the entrance hall of the mansion was well in his fifties, well groomed, clean shaven, and wearing what once must have been pieces of fleet uniforms. The trousers were light cyan, of the type research officers wore, while the shirt and vest were crimson red.

“I’d offer something to eat, but food is a bit scarce on Ash,” the man said in an amused expression. “Oh, and you’d have to forgive Ogum. He never was much of a talker. Only time he’s happy is when he’s under slept and overworked.”

“I’ll take your word for it, sir.” Was he the target? His facial features were a complete match to the ones I’d been given prior to launch, yet there was something about him that felt off. “Do you happen to be you Renaan Honea, sir?”

“That’s another thing you’ll have to take my word for. Ident tech down here isn’t very efficient. And you are a retired battleship.” He took a step closer. “I heard talk when I was active, but never thought I’d see one in person.” His gaze moved from head to toe, observing me as if I were some strange specimen. “Un-retired human cadet. Figures they send you down here. With another request, am I wrong?”

“You are correct, sir.” So, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Thank you for not sharing, Flight Colonel.

“Don’t stop. What are your orders?”

“I am to find you and establish communication with my ship, sir.” Might as well continue with the truth. “I suspect after confirming your identity and psychological capacity, a ground team will be sent to extract you from the colony and fly you to the ship in orbit.”

“Extract me?” Renaan asked, lips twisted in an amused smile.

“Yes, sir. You are to be extracted so you could resume your duties as captain of the stationship Gregorius.”

“Active captain?” He shook his head a few times. “Quite the request. Tell me, what exactly were you told about this planet before being dropped here?”

“Yes, sir.” Was I missing something? “I was given a detailed layout of the colony, and some basic historical information appropriate for my level of—”

“This is a prison planet, cadet,” Renaan cut me short. “This is the place where the fleet dumps all those who’ve come in contact with the Scuu, hoping to forget us. So better make that call and start planning your trip to one of the female colonies, because there’s no getting off this dust rock.”