Himalaya Star System

Everest

"I cannot believe what you led our navy into!" The man roared at the woman across the desk from him, leaning almost threateningly on the desk. Every line on his face and muscle in his neck spoke of anger... and a lot of it. "I demand a refund!"

"There are no refunds." The woman replied, in a voice that was unnaturally calm. Compared to the burly man across from her, she was a tiny thing, petite, 145cm tall, with long platinum blonde hair that fell neatly to her waist. An ugly dark red scar on the left side of her face, the tip starts right under the eye continued down to the right onto her neck that was striking against her pale skin. She wore a uniform that instantly recognizable across the cosmos. The black with dark metallic blue accented military uniform of the Novu Sol Navy.

Unlike most other uniforms out there, which would usually combine a darker color with a light color for accent, the Novu Sol Navy did not, at least for the base fabrics. It was iconic, you knew if you saw those uniforms you were dealing with professionals.

"You almost got two of our cruisers destroyed! And it killed 176 of my people! You... you can't..." The man was so angry his voice stuttered.

"That is the nature of war, Kepala." The woman's voice was still calm, but crystal blue eyes sharpened on their target. "They are called warships, they are meant to dish out and receive damage."

The Kepala paled a little, but didn't back down. "You should of never attacked such a well defended target, I wanted you to train my people, not murder them!"

The woman sighed and stood. "If I did not bloody them, someone else would have and the only person you would be yelling to is a pirate with a gun to your head." Her voice was still the same, level, calm, almost unnaturally so. "They know how to fight now, and against the most powerful navy in space, all of your ships returned and we even managed to... take... two of the merchants, both loaded with raw materials that will serve you well in repair efforts." She leaned forward a fraction of an inch. "And lets not forget I had a sizeable chunk of my ship taken out by those escorts in an effort to defend your vessels and make sure none of them got away to report about it, so the least you can do is sit down, shut up and say thank you." Her tone had grown cold, eyes narrowed as she looked at him.

"You think you are so powerful Admiral, but you are just one ship, what makes you thin..." The man's bluster was suddenly cut off as the tip of a sword rested under his chin.

The woman held it there, studying his face for a few moments with those cold eyes. "Tell me," She said casually, "did the planet of Everest ever receive copies of the news reports on the Massacre of Centurion-IV?"

"Yes." The man's voice was a bare whisper, not wanting the sharp blade under his chin to cut his throat.

"Do you know what happened to customers that have attempted to stiff me in the past?" She asked.

"Yes." The answer repeated, the color beginning to drain from his face even more.

"Good." The woman gave a warm friendly smile that didn't touch the cold look in her eyes. "Then you know this is a bad idea. When I remove my sword from your throat, you will say 'thank you,' I will nod and leave, the contract will have run its course and you never need to see me here again." She slowly moved the sword away and sheathed it, watching the Kepala take a deep breath, like he had been scared to breathe and slumped back into his chair. She stood there, waiting.

"Thank you Admiral for your services." The Kepala said eventually, not looking her in the eyes.

She nodded, turned and left. As she exited the door to the office she looked at the sentries which were both army soldiers, not her domain of training, they saluted anyways.

"No need for that anymore, the contract is over. I wish you luck." She said, pleased at how they still looked at her with respect. That was normal for most of her clients though.

As she strode out of the government's main offices into the brisk autumn air outside she looked over a city nestled firmly in some large rolling hills, not quite tall enough to be like the mountains looming in the distance. A short walk distant was a secure landing pad with a shuttle, Novu Sol Military-Standard deployment, for VIPs and Flag Officers. Other than the pad being guarded by the natives, there was no one else around the craft.

"Admiral! Wait!"

The woman stopped halfway down the steps and turned. A young man in the native naval uniform rushed up to her and stopped, breathing hard. "Admiral, I'm sorry to hold you up but I needed to..."

"Commander Yakow," She remembered him from training. Smart, fast learner, a bit too aggressive, but would mellow out with age. "What is it? You do realize my contract is done, no need for formalities."

"Admiral, you taught us everything we know, formalities are the least we can do for you." Yakow said as he straightened. "Without you, we never could of grown to what we are today."

"Glad to see you're intelligence isn't lacking." She replied. "Now what is this you need?" She did have to get going, there was no way she was going to trust these people to repair the Ionosphere. And while her ship was stable for travel, it would not be fit for fighting until she could get it to a repair dock she could trust.

Yakow pulled out a small box covered in fine ruby red velvet. He opened it, inside sat on pure white silk was a golden five pointed star, with the craggy peaks of the very mountains that rose in the distance molded into the medal.

"This is your nation's Medal of Courage?" She asked, she had studied the various medals of the nation she had been currently serving, finding it odd that the highest ranking medal was one with a name that was humble. It was a fairly good reflection of their actual culture, but most places went for grander names for the rare, high cost medals of military honor.

"It is Admiral." He said. "We, the other ship captains and I, noticed you have a collection on your persons." He motioned to a small chain at her left side, heavily laden with a mix of military medals from different nations. "And we wish to give you one to add to it, given your service to us."

"You do know," Her voice actually was tinged with humor now, "How I got these right?" She detached the chain from her belt loop, admiring the shine of the golds, silvers and bronzes of her collection.

"You killed their former owners." Yakow said it like it was a normal occurrence. For her it was at least it was. "But given that we actually knew to listen to you and heed your wisdom, there was no need to kill us, so to thank you," He offered the medal to her in a half bow. "This is yours Admiral."

She took the medal, noting the lack of ribbon which she usually cut off anyways. Flipping it over and on it said:

FOR SERVICE TO OUR NATION:

THE ADMIRAL

She carefully opened the chain, threading the medal on in front of the bunch, before she closed and hooked it back onto her belt loop. She glanced back up to see Yakow staring at the medal with pride.

"Why do you look at me like that Commander?" She asked, motioning for him to walk with her, her pace sedate to hear the man out.

"I am proud we hired you. The Generals and Commandants may not be grateful, but we all know the rumors of what happens to nations that take up the training of the actual Novu Sol Navy." He looked disgusted. "They become mere pawns and have to bend over backwards to satisfy them, often at their own expense as a culture. You may charge a high price, but you know your job and do not demand we sacrifice our way of life."

"Why, thank you." She responded as she stopped in front of the ramp to the shuttle, and turned to face him. "Commander," He stood at attention at her change in tone. She looked him over from head to toe, "Out of all the ship COs, why you?"

"I volunteered Ma'am." He answered. "And some of the others were intimidated by you."

"I see great things in your future Commander. You trained well, I only wanted to stab you once I believe." There was no humor in her voice, she was being completely serious. "Your job as a commander may not always be easy, but if you manage to not get yourself killed, one day, when you are old and gray, you can be the Naval Commandant for your nation. In the mean time, stay creative, stay sharp and stay smart."

"Yes Ma'am!" Yakow responded enthusiastically as she snapped off the local version of a salute.

The Admiral returned it with the Novu Sol version as she always did, turned and trotted up the ramp.

She settled into the pilot's seat, checking all the read outs, the sensors to make sure everyone was clear of the engine danger zone, the flight path up to her ship. Everything checked out, so she fed power to the engines and the craft lifted easily from the pad and shot upwards to space. The Admiral always kept a close eye on her read outs in case action was needed. Autopilots could of flown most of the journey, dumb software was smart enough to go from point A to B, but to land neatly and actively look for threats before they became a danger took human eyeballs on the readings.

Perhaps an Artificial Intelligence could of been trusted with the task, but no human in their right mind would use a 'true' AI. Not only were they illegal literally everywhere in human space, but the overarching culture of fear surrounding AIs made it impossible. AIs had been the ones to kill Earth, Venus and Mars, to murder all humans in Old Sol, why would anyone want to repeat that atrocity out here? It was thanks to Novu Sol's efforts in the early days, establishing the Quarantine and Buffer Zones, later installing high tech warning buoys that could squawk warnings of the area in both normal and hyper space into ships approaching the area.

The Admiral made a disgusted noise at her own thoughts. Her former nation did not hold a high opinion in her mind. She knew not to underestimate them, as her latest clash showed her clearly, but they did not hold any respect from her. The feeling was mutual.

But that was just fine with Admiral. It really did not matter what Novu Sol thought, for all their naval power and influence, they still had yet to bring her in. That was just one of many reasons she saw them as weak.

Her eyes traveled up to look out the cockpit's glass. A small shiny dot in the distance was growing in size. It grew from mere dot, to toy, to ship. The sleek and lethal shape of a battlecruiser, sitting quietly in orbit.

As she flew closer, in large lettering on the side was the name Ionosphere, and the designation BC(A)-11 (Battlecruiser, Atmosphere- 11th built) under that. Just behind that was a darkened patch of buckled armor and a hole large enough to see the ruins of passageways and rooms inside as she flew past to inspect it once more.

The Admiral twisted her shuttle around and up to the hangar, passing inside the force field and settling the craft gently on the deck with the ease of long practice. She ran through the list of things to shut down and lock the craft in place, going through the motions in the cockpit, then the engineering station in the shuttle, then exited.

The hangar was completely silent. It had been that way for a while. The Atmosphere-class of ships had naval crews of around 2,500 people, or should have.

The Admiral had disposed of all of them, she ran her ship alone. It meant more work for her, but she didn't mind it. It meant that if something major broke, it was much more stressful to deal with, but she had accepted that responsibility a long time ago as well. This was the life that she'd chosen.

The walk through the passages to the bridge was dead silent, broken only by the sounds of her own footsteps. Entering the bridge to the same silence she walked over to the command seat, ringed with more displays than an average ship of this class, sat down and began the process of readying the ship to leave.

Reactor came fully online, its fuel stores topped off, lighting the engines and thrusters, checking the shield strength and its various generators. Numbers flickered on screens, telling her of damage, energy output, everything a person might need to run a ship.

The Ionosphere came to life under her touch, and The Admiral smiled. She did enjoy this, the slight tremor of the engines as they came to life, the way the readouts flickered and danced to her touch. She entered a course out of orbit, avoided what little traffic there was to Everest, and entered it into the helm.

The Ionosphere leapt gracefully from orbit, twisted about to race out system, its engines flared bright blue with energy as the ship pushed herself away from all those around her.

The Admiral entered another command, the ship didn't slow, rather its engines shifted color from blue to red as it reached a predetermined point, space rippled in front of the ship and suddenly, like a bubble being popped, the ship vanished from the Himalaya System into hyperspace.