The AL13 light military cruiser rounded the planet, keeping its speed low enough that a full rotation would have taken a little over an hour. Though they were no longer hidden from the light of the local sun, the pilots did not bother to raise the anti-glare screens, for a new shadow now loomed over them.

  A few dozen other ships clustered around them. Most were military, with the AL13 being one of the smallest at only a hundred metres long, but there were some merchant class vessels as well. The smallest was only a metre across, probably belonging to a far smaller species than the humans that operated the military vessels. The largest amongst them was a CF02 battleship – thirteen kilometres long, and half as wide, appearing like a whale amongst a shoal of tiny fish.

  They all flew together in the shadow of the Ring.

  At almost twenty miles from one end to the other, the Ring was one of the smaller installations of its size. Far away in the capital worlds, it was common for Rings to be three times the size. Out here, in the nineteenth galaxy, there was little need for a Ring so big.

  “Proceed to these coordinates,” said a cool voice on the intercom. The pilots steered their cruiser towards the upper right side of the Ring.

  Flying into the middle of a Ring was known to leave inexperienced pilots flailing over their controls. The instruments would become heavy, in a manner that felt as though there were thick sponges placed around them that resisted the more one tried to pull on them. This was the Ring’s special gravitational field, which would hold all of the ships within its radius in the perfect lock until it judged the time was right.

  Upon the bridge of the Ring, General Katherine Graham watched on her screen as thirty-five ships of various sizes took their place within the Ring.

  “How long to launch?” she asked.

  One of her technicians, a cone-headed Azribek named Twosie, answered her. “One hundred and fifty eight seconds, General.”

  “Energy levels?” she asked.

  “Potential energy at expected levels,” Twosie said. “Energy converters ready to launch at expected time. All calculations confirmed.”

  “Very good,” she said. Katherine looked to her right, where six fresh-faced military graduates watched the proceedings with looks of fascination. At their head sat Commander Robert Cooper, his wheelchair locked in place just to the side of her general’s chair.

  “You,” she said, pointing at the young man at the front of the line. “What’s your name, private?”

  “Um…” the boy said. “Tamworth.”

  Commander Copper cleared his throat.

  “Tamworth, General,” Tamworth corrected.

  Katherine nodded. “Let me see how well you remember your education, Private Tamworth. How does this Ring gather energy?”

  Private Tamworth struggled to answer. Another one of the new recruits, a young woman with the scale pattern around her eyes that marked her as a Dentari, spoke. “Permission to speak, General?”

  “Yes, Private…”

  “Luna, General. Rings such as this one are spatially locked to their nearest star, allowing them to remain unaffected by the orbits of the solar systems that they reside in. The gravitational forces of the solar system’s planets are converted into energy, and then saved until the point of launch. The forces given off by multiple planets are large enough to accelerate the ships within to their desired velocity.”

  “Thirty seconds, General,” said Twosie.

  “Very good, Private Luna,” said Katherine. “However, not all of the energy is converted into velocity. Some is converted into the envelope that protects the ships from being destroyed by going multiple times faster than light.”

  “Yes, General,” said Luna. “Apologies, General.”

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  “There’s one more question I have for all of you,” said Katherine. She looked over their youthful faces, and smiled. She could remember what it had been like to receive her first assignment, and to be utterly terrified of everything that she saw. These children looked the same as she had.

  “Have any of you ever seen the launch of a Ring from this close?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she addressed the whole room at once. “Initiate.”

  Outside of the viewing window, the inside of the ring was suddenly awash with bright colours. Reds and blues danced together and made purples, and yellow coaxed them into wrapping around the thirty-five ships. They made a perfect seal around them, and then all at once they were gone. For a few seconds a rainbow was burned through the cosmos, before it faded into the empty blackness of space.

  Katherine heard a few small gasps next to her and turned to the new recruits. “It’s quite fantastic, isn’t it,” she said. “There used to be a legend that if you stared into the Ring just as it discharged, you would see the entire rest of your life stretched out before you all in one place. They said that you would have to make sure that you looked closely so that you could see all the important parts.”

  Commander Copper chuckled. “Old wives’ tales.”

  Katherine cleared her throat. “Thank you, Commander Copper.” She addressed the new recruits again. “I hope I didn’t scare you when I summoned all of you up here without giving a reason. The launch of a Ring is one of the most beautiful things in all the universe. Letting you see it is my way of welcoming the new members of our crew.”

  “Thank you, General,” said Tamworth.

  Although she hadn’t given him permission to speak, Katherine decided against reprimanding the boy. It was only an expression of thanks, after all.

  “You’ll be going about your regular duties for the rest of the day,” she said. “Private Tamworth, Private Luna, you have the privilege of experiencing another one of our welcome traditions,” she said. “Is that acceptable to you, Commander Copper?”

  “Of course, General Graham,” he said, smiling. “The two of you are assigned to be the personal guards of our general for the rest of the day.”

  They both saluted. “Yes, ma’am and sir!”

  Katherine smiled at Robert. Even though he had given the order directly, they had deferred to her first. That was the chain of command, and how it should work, but it satisfied her regardless.

  She stood, and winced for a moment as pain flared in her upper thigh. An old battle wound, but one that remained staunchly persistent to trouble her. She grabbed her cane, and beckoned to the two young soldiers.

  “Come,” she said. “There is much to do.”

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  The Ring was twenty miles across, and a kilometre in thickness at all points. Because this was a military vessel, Katherine had control over the whole thing, though of course she ceded control to captains and officers for control of the military in each of the five segments.

  For the non-military operations of the Ring, each of the five segments had a governor that looked after its affairs. Each was voted democratically by the occupants of that segment, and each operated independently, with her oversight of course.

  In theory the Ring should have been able to run itself, but Katherine couldn’t remember the last time that she had woken and not had more than a dozen messages from the Ring’s bureaucracy about allocating resources, resolving budget issues, or requests to have a meeting to discuss an issue that she was sure they would be able to resolve on their own. It wasn’t exactly like she could ignore the requests – it was her job after all, and despite her complaints she enjoyed doing it – but she got a pang of jealousy every time she approved shore leave or a day off.

  Her first appointment of the day took place in the market of the first segment. Katherine stepped into the elevator, with Tamworth and Luna following her a few feet behind. The doors closed on them.

  The elevator hummed as they started to descend. Katherine knew from experience that this would be a couple of minutes – the elevators received only cursory maintenance, as the engineers had to devote most of their time to the functioning of the Ring itself.

  “Private Tamworth, Private Luna” she said, turning to face her two new subordinates. “You have permission to speak freely unless I tell you otherwise. Is that understood?”

  They shared a confused look with one another. “Yes, General,” said Tamworth.

  Katherine smiled to herself. Right now, they would be wondering if this was some kind of trick – whether she was trying to trick them into breaking a rule, or speaking out of turn. She decided to have a bit more fun with them. “Furthermore, these military titles are so stuffy,” she said. “So, I will just call you Tamworth and Luna, and you may call me Katherine.”

  If her last instruction had caused confusion, this one all but caused panic in the two young soldiers. Calling one’s direct commanding officer by their first name was already against the rules, let alone a general like herself.

  “Yes… General,” Tamworth said. She was sure he had been about to form a K sound, but decided that that there was just no way to be certain. If only she were an expert on reading lips, but alas.

  “Tell me about yourself, Tamworth,” she said. “Where do you come from. The second galaxy, I’d guess?”

  Tamworth’s eyes widened. “Yes, General,” he said. “How did you know?”

  Luna elbowed him. “She’ll have read your file,” she hissed.

  Katherine shook her head. “Your name, Tamworth. It’s the same as a town on Earth. Naming children after locations from Earth is a long-standing tradition in the second galaxy.”

  “Oh,” said Tamworth. “Well, yes, that’s true General. But I wasn’t aware that those kinds of traditions were known out here.”

  “What made you want to join the Empiridium’s army?” Katherine asked.

  Tamworth averted his eyes. “Oh, you know. Stories, General. Legends. The sort of thing that they tell you around the campfire.”

  Luna snorted. Katherine looked at her without moving her head. “Yes, Luna?”

  “Stories,” Luna repeated. “It’s just, I don’t mean to speak out of turn General, but stories about the Empiridium have been around for thousands of years. I just don’t believe that most of them are real – not fully, anyway. Stories change the more they’re told.”

  Katherine nodded. “Very true,” she said. “You shouldn’t blindly trust history. Why did you enlist, Luna?”

  Before Luna could answer, the door to the elevator opened. A pair of data analysts stood outside, clearly having called the lift, but they stepped back when they saw that she was the one inside.

  “We’ll wait for the next one,” one of them said. The doors closed. Katherine turned back to Luna and raised her eyebrow at her in a silent repetition of her question.

  “I grew up in the tenth galaxy,” Luna said. She met Katherine’s gaze and spoke in a steely voice – an impressive thing for a new soldier. “On the planet called Uplis. I assume you know what happened there, General.”

  Katherine nodded. “From what I’ve heard in reports, the surface was razed by anti-Empiridium terrorists. I’m sorry.”

  “I enlisted so that I could protect planets like Uplis.” Luna scowled. “And to punish the animals who burn worlds to make a statement.”

  “That sounds terrible,” said Tamworth. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”

  Some of the tension in Luna’s body seemed to escape, like from a hole in a balloon. “It was a long time ago,” she said.

  A cool chime told Katherine that they had arrived on the market level. She smoothed out her uniform and turned towards the doors.

  “Neither of you are wrong for your reasons to enlist,” she said. “One of you was inspired, the other one was pushed. How well you do here will never be based on why you’re here, but on how you commit yourselves to your duty.”

  The doors opened, and they stepped out into the market.

  Katherine had to admit a small amount of foul play as she walked through the market. It wasn’t strictly legal for her to have private citizens selling their own supplies on a military installation like the Ring. If she was ever court martialled about this, Katherine would argue that everyone who had a permanent residence on the Ring was either military personnel, contracted by the Empiridium for essential services, or the family of one of the above.

  She would argue that, as everyone in this market fell into the third category, they were in a grey position where they weren’t technically private citizens as a significant part of their lives, namely where they lived, was under the control of the Empiridium.

  Them being allowed to operate businesses like this was therefore legal, if only by a specific reading of the law. No-one had ever raised an objection before, and Katherine doubted if there was anyone in the Empiridium who cared enough to enforce such a rule on a random Ring in the nineteenth galaxy.

  The market was quite large, built in a disused hangar. Anyone who filed for a permit could set up a stall and sell whatever they liked, and it was left up to them to get their supplies, as long as they followed regulations.

  Katherine made her way to a low stall. It held a one-sided Twinnie called Up. Twinnies were a unique species in the universe – their bodies were largely humanoid, but each complete body held two minds that operated completely separately from one another, even being able to halve the shared body for a small amount of time. Katherine didn’t know where Down went when Up was running his stall, but she always felt that it would be rude to ask.

  Up looked like a middle-aged man cut in half down the middle. He wore a special cloth garment over his unattached side, and with the remaining half of his face smiled warmly at Katherine.

  “I’m glad that you are in time,” he said, in heavily accented Empiridium standard.

  “I try to be,” she said. “Up, these are two of my new soldiers. I’m having them guard me for the day.”

  “Oh my,” Up laughed. “The two of you had better be careful! People are always trying to kill Katherine!”

  Tamworth’s hand immediately went to his service pistol, and he looked wildly around for threats. Luna narrowed her eyes at Up. “You call the General Katherine?”

  “Oh.” Up’s hand went to his mouth. “Should I not have done? Apologies, General. I have to remember to respect your position.”

  Katherine smiled at him. “Luna, Up and I have a deal worked out. He’s allowed to call me by my first name, and in return…”

  Up reached for a shelf inside his stall. He pulled down a small box of small, brown balls drizzled with a type of source.

  “Lebari!” Katherine said happily. She plucked one from the box and put it in her mouth. It immediately dissolved when it made contact with the inside of her mouth, and she got an explosion of its sweet, slightly milky flavour.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “You’ve outdone yourself, Up.”

  Tamworth leant forwards. “What are those?” he asked.

  “These are Lebari,” said Up. “They’re a delicacy on my planet. We make them out of the milk of the onsti, a creature native to our planet. I’ve been using the access to other ingredients on this Ring to refine my recipe.”

  “I consider it an important part of my job to oversee the development of such a project,” Katherine explained.

  Luna stared at her. “Excuse me, General, but did you bring us down here so that you could eat sweets?”

  “You’re taking speaking freely to heart,” Katherine said. “The answer is no. I came down here so that we could all eat lebari.”

  Tamworth had clearly been waiting for permission, because he all but lunged for the box. He placed the lebari in his mouth and made a low noise of satisfaction. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Decorum,” Katherine reminded him. “You’re on duty, Tamworth.”

  He nodded and forced his face back into a neutral expression. Katherine looked at Luna, who shook her head. “I’m not interested in sweets, General.”

  Katherine shrugged. “If you say so. Up?”

  Up took a lebari from the box and wrapped it carefully in paper. Katherine took it from him and held it out to Luna. “Hold onto it,” she said. “Just in case you change your mind.”

  Luna hesitated, and then took the lebari and tucked it away in a pocket of her uniform. Katherine smiled at Up. “Give my best to Down, won’t you?” she asked. “And to Past and Future.”

  “I certainly will,” said Up.

  Katherine was about to step away when her communicator started to flash blue. She looked at the screen on her wrist, which told her that the call came from Ares Fitz, the governor of the first segment.

  “Governor Fitz,” she said, as she pressed the talk button. “I already have an appointment with you later in this afternoon. Is this so urgent that we cannot discuss it then?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Fitz’s smooth, almost purr-like voice came from the implant in her ear. “One of my technicians just found a body, General. It looks like a murder.”