281 281 Homecoming
With the atmosphere stabilized between the vessel and the station, the doors slowly slid open, revealing a large group of people waiting for them behind the secondary airlock doors.
Max and Nico both jumped down to the main level of the cargo bay, skipping the stairs entirely, but heading for different people in the crowd.
“Brother Dave, it is good to see you again.” Max greeted the wheelchair-bound veteran the moment the airlock doors opened.
“It is good to be seen. There are a lot of things that we need to talk about, but probably not here in the hallway. I do believe that the Reavers have a lot of stuff that they want to start loading on this oversized tin can. Where did you even find this thing?” Dave asked.
“You know, just floating about in space, with a pair of friendly Pirate ships guarding it for us. Real kind sorts, they even left us their ships when they went home.” Max laughed, stepping behind Dave to push his wheelchair onto the Terminus.
Nico was talking to her family as he led his old friend into the ship. They didn’t have any fancy spare rooms decorated, but they had a lot of materials to make basic things for guests, so it shouldn’t be a problem to make a room for Dave near the other passengers.
Of course, Nico’s family might have something to help them out with that as well, but he would find out what they wanted once he was sure that Dave was somewhere safe and secure.
Inquisitor Ming would also have a lot of questions for him, so that was where Max headed, to the meeting room where they strategized their actions for the next few weeks as the Tapani fleet arrived and the Klem began to make planetfall.
“You got here just in time. A few more days and I wouldn’t have been able to even bribe my way off that rock. Things have gone insane down there. The slums have risen up in rebellion against the Bureaucracy, accusing them of being traitors to Kepler. There are foreigners everywhere, and everything of value has been moved off-world. There aren’t even school books in most of the classrooms anymore. Well, not that there really were, to begin with in our neighborhood, but you know what I mean.
Then last week, they shut down all civilian data net communication, and killed cell phone service, as an emergency measure to quell the riots, they said.
Rumors are that it was your friend Nico’s family that was stirring up the commoners against the foreigners, but they have too much power for the government to go directly against them, or at least they did until the Tapani military arrived in orbit.
I think they’re planning to leave Kepler Terminus, and have the Imperial Fleet do a planetary Censure. They even sent the Cadets away yesterday on one of their vessels. Just like you, a so-called field trip, but with less than twelve hours notice to clear out every student and training Mecha from the entire academy.” Dave ranted.
Those were some pretty serious accusations, but if they moved the entire population of the academy off the world, it made a lot of sense for them to be true. It would also explain the intense propaganda that they were seeing on the news, and the lack of other communications from the planet, when normally at least a few ground-based trading companies would attempt to contact a Colony Ship spotted in the vicinity, looking for a deal on whatever they were carrying.
“Alright, here we are. This is Inquisitor General Ming. He is in charge of unfucking situations for us.” Max explained, making Dave chuckle.
“Boy, I know better than anyone, a good Inquisitor can do a lot of things, but they can’t fix this one.”
The door opened from the inside as Inquisitor Ming welcomed them in, then smiled at Dave. “I didn’t think I would see you again. How was your retirement posting?”
That took Max by surprise, Dave was an infantry soldier, how would he know a General from the Inquisition?
“Pretty cushy. I got one single alert the entire time, and he lived down the hall from me already. I believe you know Samantha Max?” Dave asked.
“It’s Keres Max now. He changed it the moment he got off-world. But yes, you could say that we are acquainted. I will let you get back to retirement soon enough, but we can count this as both the second and third commendation in your file. Now, tell me everything that you know, and don’t leave anything out.” The Inquisitor demanded.
Reading their thoughts, Max got a basic outline of how they met. Dave’s unit had been sent to some long-forgotten hellhole to dig out a forbidden chemical weapon, and the Inquisitor had been attached to their unit, posing as a Colonel replacing one that had been killed in action.
Once the mission was over, Dave was given one Commendation, which he used to take early retirement, but on their trip back the ship was attacked by scavengers, and Dave lost his legs. Since he was an infantryman, a Corporal, and retiring, he didn’t meet the requirements to get augmentation, so they dumped him at home with a wheelchair and a lousy pension and called it a day.
But Dave wasn’t going to give up that easily, so he volunteered for planetary service with the Intelligence Agency. They would give him three missions to complete, and he would be eligible for Partial Conversion, which would both extend his life and let him walk again, better than new.
Overseeing Max as a child was his first mission, something that he had managed to hide from Max, who had thought the paternal overseer was just Dave being Dave.
To an extent it was, that was just how Dave was once he met the young Max, and his job didn’t stop him from his little side projects, though the hacking and other activities might have prevented him from getting more missions afterward.