...Remedial Vengeance for Marines is an excellent jumping on point for the Retrograde Cycle. It takes place 5 years after the events in Parts 1-3 of the Cycle, beginning a new story built on the unsure foundation put down in those initial volumes.
For your consideration, here is Chapter 1:
Chapter 1 – On Patrol at the 115 Limit, the edge of Neptune’s gravitational influence
Colonel Calandra “Callie” Harrison was on a field trip. Stated in a more official manner,
she was leading the latest in a series of regular inspection tours. Her ride on this tour was the
BPOE Lise Meitner, accompanied by a supporting task force of ships. The task force had orders
to remain on station along this new frontier for at least the next year. Prior to those orders, a small
number of BPOE task forces had rotated through patrol duty along the 115 Limit.
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Explorers had originally been mandated with the
safety of space travel between human worlds. This mandate had grown as humanity became a
proper multi-planetary species. After the incident at Neptune, the BPOE, along with the resurgent
Coalition of Human Worlds Marine Corps, had the defense of human worlds from alien threats
added to their mandate.
The irony was not lost on officers like Colonel Harrison. She had been ready to oversee a
reduction in force of her organization. The last vestiges of organized piracy had been quelled in
the not too distant past; leaving no warring factions, no pirates – just humanity. There had been
no need to maintain a standing fighting force – or a fleet of armed vessels, from the BPOE’s
perspective. The Marines had already been mostly re-organized as a relief and Search and Rescue
force before the Neptune Incident. The discovery of aliens living in our system had changed all of
that.
New and freshly refit BPOE ships now patrolled the 115 Limit, the boundary of Neptune’s
gravitational influence and treaty-mandated MRCD sphere of control. Colonel Harrison was the
commander of the Marine force in charge of the stations that would sit along the limit with a string
of sensor buoys between them. This would create a fortified border known as the Alien Restriction
Cordon, or ARC. This cordon would ensure that both sides adhered to the treaty signed in the
aftermath of the Neptune Incident. Harrison currently operated from a temporary installation on
the largest moon in orbit of Uranus. Miranda Forward Operating Base would be the ARC
commander’s headquarters until the planned permanent HQ station could be brought online at the
heart of the ARC.
Depending on the alignment of the two planets, travel from Miranda FOB to the ARC could
take up to a week. Given this distance, Harrison made it Standard Procedure for her to travel out
to the ARC to inspect progress on a regular cadence. Once a month she would make the trip out
and spend three days inspecting a portion of the construction. This trip she had been lucky enough
to have the Lise Meitner as her ride.
The Lise Meitner was somewhat coincidentally the ship Colonel Harrison had directed the
rescue of from the momentarily hostile MRCD five years ago. The ship’s refit had been completed
three years ago, made necessary by the extensive damage suffered from the incident.
The captain of the Lise Meitner during that fateful mission had since been promoted to
commodore. Commodore Celia Grey had chosen to keep her flag aboard the ship she had fought
so hard to save, and as the Lise Meitner was already undergoing repairs and a refit it had been a
simple matter to install flag quarters.
As for the aliens, they called themselves [Magenta]:[Ripple]:[Cyan]:[Dots] in their
language. That language used chromatophores on their skin to convey color, texture, and patterns.
They also produced chemical compounds that they released into their native aquatic environment
for nuance or emphasis. While technologically similar to humanity, their communications theory
and technology was more advanced. Once they had learned about verbal communication, they
quickly built a translation technology that prevented a full-scale war.
The particular grouping of [Magenta]:[Ripple]:[Cyan]:[Dots] loosely translated into
English as “The Beings Who Think”. In an effort to respect and represent their form of
communication, their name in official human documentation used the transliteration of their name
for themselves, rather than the loose translation. As that transliteration was a mouthful, they had
become commonly known by humanity as the ‘M R C D.’
Colonel Harrison’s immediate destination on this field trip was the Control Deck of the
Lise Meitner. It was the first day of her tour and she had not had a proper opportunity to catch up
with the commodore, as the two women had become good friends after the incident. As such,
Harrison smiled when she stepped onto the Control Deck and observed Commodore Grey studying
a console at one of the aft stations.
The colonel crossed along the curve at the aft of the Control Deck. She stopped next to
Grey, who stood next to the junior officer operating the Tracking Console. Harrison was about to
ask the commodore if she was available for lunch when she clocked the BPOE officer’s expression.
She was, in a word, interested. And if Celia Grey found something interesting, Harrison knew she
would as well.
“Something interesting, commodore?” Harrison inquired professionally.
Grey lifted her eyes from the holographic Tracking display to meet the colonel’s gaze. “I
believe so. Looks like there’s another ship trying to run the Limit,” she replied, gesturing at the
three-dimensional image.
“Are we too far out to get an affirmative ID? What about sensor buoys?” Harrison asked.
“Not at all. We should be able to get a clear transponder signal, even if it’s a relay from
one of the drones out there acting in lieu of the sensor buoys that have yet to come online,” Grey
said, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. Grey was a problem-solver and did not take
well to mysteries that refused her efforts to unravel them. Especially when there was technology
not doing its job.
Harrison considered the tableau before her, parsing what Grey had initially said. “I take it,
even though this is the first I am hearing of it, that this is not the first encounter you’ve had with a
ship running dark across the Limit and,” she paused to look at the display again, her eyebrows
raising. “And wow, running faster than any civilian ship should be able to,” she observed.
“Indeed. Apologies, colonel. I was hoping to have something more than vague logs and
LIDAR shadows before filing an official report. We have no idea what they’re doing, but this is
the third runner we’ve spotted since we reached local space,” Grey replied.
Technically, Grey outranked her friend, but as Colonel Harrison had command of the entire
ARC, everyone below Admiral or General deferred to her when in her area of oversight.
“I appreciate your instincts, commodore. It’s not like I could’ve done anything different
from my office on Miranda,” Harrison acknowledged as she shared the briefest of smiles.
“Still, I will share what we have and would appreciate your perspective on the matter,”
Grey said evenly. “Though the good news is that we’re collecting a lot of new data with this one.
I don’t think they were planning on us being this close, whoever they are. We’ll have the raw data
for you in a few hours, and a full analysis for your review in a week?”
Harrison nodded her acknowledgment as her focus was now locked on the Tracking
Console. She knew the commodore was better than her word. Any further discussion on the matter
would be much better served not on the Control Deck of her ship.
As though reading the colonel’s mind, Grey cleared her throat and said, “Dinner in my
quarters this evening?”
The meal had served its purpose. Both women, now sated, had retired to the seating area
within the confines of Celia’s spacious quarters with a special cocktail in hand.
Grey took a sip from her glass. A look of satisfaction spread across her face. “I could’ve
laid in a store of the ingredients and mixed these fresh, but Xing Pe has a secret ingredient he
refuses to share. It forces me to request he make a batch whenever we’re passing your base.”
“This batch,” Celia said, holding out her glass for emphasis,” is left over from the last
patrol circuit we completed.”
Callie took an appraising sip from her own. “Huh. Tastes like it was just constructed.”
“Another point in Xing Pe’s favor. It holds together even after six months,” Celia noted.
Callie used the conversational pause to conduct a visual tour of the quarters. “I just realized
I’ve never been in these quarters before. Your office, my office, the Officer’s Club, my quarters
on Miranda, but never here. Weird.”
“It’s been a busy few years. Frankly, as much as this is home, after a cruise it’s nice to get
outside these bulkheads. Even if it’s just while we’re making a port call at Miranda,” Celia
explained.
“Fair enough, and I understand. My regular tours of the ARC have very likely kept me
sane these last few years. The change of scenery is definitely nice, if predictably BPOE-chic,”
Callie agreed.
“And speaking of nice,” she added, gesturing around the space with her glass.
“Yeah, I argued for just keeping my quarters as they were when I was captain. Protocol, it
seems, insists that a commodore have more room on her flagship than a lowly captain does on her
ship,” Celia said with an overly dramatic sigh.
“Sure. Protocol,” Callie fired back with emphasis on the second word.
When Celia caught Callie’s expression, they shared a laugh. After several seconds it settled
into a beat of comfortable silence.
Callie cleared her throat. “So what’s going on with these ships running the Limit? I know
you’re still pulling the data together for your official report, but I know you and you must already
have at least two theories.”
Celia nodded. “Well, like I said; that ship earlier today was the third confirmed runner
we’ve logged since we reached local space, and the first two were right at the edge of our effective
tracking range. There may have been others in the past, or some logged by other ships when they
were on station.
“I’ve reached out to the last two ships to patrol the ARC but haven’t heard anything back
as of yet. In the meantime, I’ve had my computers working to refine what they could from the
sensing data of the incursions we did log. Today’s runner was much closer than the others. Those
data points should make a huge difference.”
Callie raised an eyebrow. “But no theories on what they’re up to yet? Are they all crossing
at the same place, maybe exploiting a gap in our net that we haven’t had a chance to fill in yet?”
Celia shook her head. “Different points of incursion each time. And like I said just at the
edge of our ability to track them before today. Almost as if they’re only so concerned about being
caught. Frankly it’s beginning to feel like they’re taunting us.”
“No shit. Well, it’s – whatever they’re doing – going to be harder to pull off soon enough.
Another shipment of drones is due in a few weeks,” Callie shared.
“Good,” Celia acknowledged. “Because Commodore Rice’s task force is due on station
out here about the same time frame.”
“Relief so soon into your patrol cruise?” Callie inquired.
“Nah, we’re going to run a series of war games. A little demonstration to make sure the
MRCD know we aren’t just sitting on our hands on the other side of the Limit.”
“But won’t that concentrate patrol ships in one area?” Callie inquired.
Celia shrugged and sipped her cocktail. “You know the admiralty. Half a good idea that
works out well enough most of the time. At least we’ll have some more drones to cover some of
those gaps.”
Callie’s eye roll said more than words could. “Which is why they put a colonel and a
commodore in charge out here instead of posting a general and or admiral. Not only do we
remember what we should be doing, sitting out here would get in the way of their golf.”
That sparked another round of chuckles.
“Speaking of relief,” Celia said, her tone shifting, “We’ll have you back to Miranda in a
few days. Are you taking any leave? Making any travel plans to Callisto, perhaps?”
It took Callie a moment to process what her friend was really asking her. When she worked
it out, she drained her glass and held it out for a refill. She waited until her recharged beverage
was back in hand before responding. “Yeah, I made it a standing order that I’d be out the day of
and the day after every year. Though honestly, I forgot it was coming up. And no, I have no travel
plans. I haven’t been back to Callisto in what, five years now? That stuff isn’t going anywhere.”
It was Celia’s turn to raise her eyebrows.
Callie waved her free hand. “It’s not like that. It’s not me purposefully forcing it down or
trying to ignore it. Like I said, it’s been five years now. Maybe acceptance is finally settling in?”
Celia replied with another appraising look.
“No, really Celia, I mean it. Losing Beckett doesn’t sting like it used to. I mean, see?
We’re talking about it – about him – and I’m not crying or breaking anything. Not even a little.
Nor would I; break anything, that is,” Callie replied, looking around Celia’s quarters again. “I
wouldn’t want to make a mess out of your immaculately appointed quarters. And to reiterate, my
own quarters – apartment, that is – back in Odintown will still be there whenever I do make my
way down system. I’ll figure it out then.”
Callie smiled with only a hint of cheekiness to emphasize her sincerity.
Celia looked at her for a long moment before replying. “Okay. I believe you. But I’ll turn
this whole task force around and head back to Miranda if you need me to once the day is here,”
she said with her whole heart.
“You are a true friend, Celia Grey,” Callie stated.
“I’m the best,” Celia agreed, her smile entirely cheeky.
Ready for the rest of the story?
