Chapter Text
TONY
“Sir,” JARVIS said, and Tony pulled his head out of the wiring he was trying to fix, “I believe NASA is calling.”
“For what?” Tony spun a small, delicate wrench in one hand. “Do you mean Foster?”
“No, Sir, just NASA,” JARVIS said from his near-unnoticeable speaker. The AI that Tony had hand-built from the ground up was in every room, wired to cameras and speakers throughout the building, and running their internet faster than anyone else in Manhattan or most of the east coast could brag about. “Shall I answer?”
Tony swallowed and said, “Yeah, sure, why not?” Sure, last year when aliens invaded Manhattan he’d guided a nuke away from its New York target and through a portal to save everyone’s lives, and he almost got stuck on the other side in the vast depths of space where no one would ever find him, but he’d survived.
He was fine. He was in Stark Tower, and he had JARVIS, and JARVIS helped him when he started freaking out by counting breaths out loud and playing a meditation playlist Pepper, his former assistant, now CEO, had made for him.
Tony was cool with space now. He’d been to actual therapy about space, because he knew it was supposed to help. Space and him were buddies, as long as it stayed up there and he stayed down here.
He put down his tools as JARVIS took control of the screen in front of Tony to let a Skype call flicker into view. JARVIS did that a lot in Stark Tower. Ever since Tony had built the skyscraper for him, JARVIS had had real room to breathe, not like his cramped server room in the Malibu house where Tony first woke him up. He’d gotten bolder with running all the systems at his own whim, too. Luckily, his own whim was very polite and mostly agreed with Tony’s whims.
“Who’s calling me on Skype?” Tony said, affronted, as the view stabilized and he recognized the logo and the cheerful connection chime. “We don’t have anything better than Skype yet? J, put ‘make better Skype’ on my to-do list.”
“Of course,” JARVIS said, as the person on the other end of the call made a startled noise and said, “Mr. Stark?!”
“Yes, of course Mr. Stark,” Tony snorted, “why are you surprised, you’re the one calling—JARVIS, what did they call to get through?”
“The Avengers emergency line,” JARVIS said, and Tony stopped making jokes and looked again at the nervous scientist on the other end of the truly very grainy video connection.
Said nervous scientist swallowed. “We have some, uh, abnormal readings coming through the International Space Station,” she said (someone offscreen hissed something that made the audio wobble), “and, uh, it seemed like something the Avengers should know about.”
“What kind of readings? Send ‘em over, I can take a look.”
“Um,” the scientist said, “Our people on the ISS said they looked out the window and saw a spaceship.”
By the time they got through the basics like “What do you mean, a spaceship” and “Is it shooting at the ISS or trying to kill the astronauts,” Tony had breathed his way through a very small panic attack and, taking an intermission from the NASA call, leaned back in his chair and said, “JARVIS, we can call Natalie, right?”
“Agent Romanoff may or may not be available,” JARVIS said, knowing exactly who he meant, as usual, no matter the nickname. “I will attempt to contact her.”
She might not answer just because the caller ID showed it was him. Tony mused over asking JARVIS to hide the origin, but he was already calling. Whatever. Natasha Romanoff had pretended to be his replacement assistant in order to spy on him for SHIELD. If she still didn’t like him, Tony had plenty of annoyance to throw back at her.
And SHIELD—they were shady as hell, whatever reason Natasha had for working for them. At least most people knew the CIA and the NSA existed, even if they didn’t understand how extremely much the government was spying on them. If you asked the average American about SHIELD, they’d probably go, “Like Captain America’s?”
Natasha picked up after three rings. “Stark.”
“Agent Red!” Tony grinned up at whatever speakers JARVIS was using to communicate his call, and almost meant it. “You still speak Russian fluently, right?”
“You’ve got to have your own translators on staff at your company.”
Tony waved away the dismissal even though she couldn’t see him. “I don’t have any SHIELD translators on staff. Surely you guys have secret connections with the Kremlin or the KGB.”
“The KGB’s been disbanded,” Natasha said neutrally. Either she was hiding something, or she was just acted like that 24/7 in case she needed to hide something without being called on it. “Read a history book. What is this about?”
“NASA hasn’t been in touch with you guys?”
“What would NASA be in touch with us about?” Natasha asked sharply.
“Oh, you know, spaceship in orbit running rings around the ISS.” Tony fiddled harder with the grease pencil that was now in his hand, flipping it around his fingers and leaving oily marks all over his hands. All the ISS astronauts on the current Expedition 34 were American, Canadian, or Russian, and the Americans had already alerted NASA. “No big deal. More aliens, probably. Totally normal operation—”
“I’m calling Fury,” Natasha said, and hung up. That was probably fair.
“Shall I call Doctor Foster?” JARVIS asked. “As she has studied Prince Thor’s method of transport to and from Earth, she may know something.”
“Leave her a message,” Tony said absently, spinning in his chair. Thor had arrived to help defend New York against the alien invasion on account of his estranged—or something, it was bad either way—brother being the one leading the alien army. A separate species of aliens from the kind Thor and his brother were. Tony wasn’t 100% sure how Foster and Thor knew each other when only one of them lived on Earth. “JARVIS, you think you can scrape up anything SHIELD might have on Thor?”
“I took the liberty of cataloguing those files last May, when you asked me to search SHIELD’s archives,” JARVIS said primly, “along with a number of other potentially interesting items.”
“I was in a flash of genius when I programmed you,” Tony declared. He’d never made a better decision than to take advantage of the alien invasion chaos to hack SHIELD and look at as many of their secrets as possible. “Let’s take a look at the Thor stuff and see if we can figure how to signal alien morse code for ‘Stuff’s weird, come fix your problem’.”
“You suspect it’s related to Asgard?”
Asgard. Thor’s home planet. A big old question mark hanging somewhere out there, probably not even in the same solar system as Earth. “Let’s find out!”
JARVIS
While Sir worked, JARVIS emailed NASA on his behalf, borrowing the official Stark Industries email Sir possessed as head of R&D. NASA responded eagerly that yes, of course, he could borrow some of their telescopes and radars if he thought it might be helpful.
JARVIS required more equipment than he currently possessed to scan the near space around Earth for any traces of Asgardian influence, as had been recorded by Dr. Foster and SHIELD in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. Very strong readings, atmospheric and spatial, had been taken there, owing to the direct presence of Thor and Asgardian materials. The current situation might leave far weaker traces.
JARVIS continued emailing to coordinate the use of their various radars and receivers, calculating in the meantime how to triangulate to the type of readings they were looking for. He was also monitoring the WiFi in Stark Tower—there had been a brief hiccup earlier, likely owing to a slight interruption of service from the arc reactor that provided the tower with electricity. The arc reactor ought not to have been interruptable. JARVIS had already dispatched a service team to examine the likeliest areas to be accidentally damaged and in need of repair.
SHIELD, shortly after Agent Romanoff would have called them, had called. At Sir’s direction JARVIS sent them to voicemail, then logged their follow-up email and dispatched the code bug in the attached file, which someone had clearly thought was subtle. It would only have told SHIELD what Sir was working on currently, but that was Sir’s business.
Dr. Foster returned Sir’s call several hours later, after dinner, which made sense; in addition to the slight difference of time zones, her work involved needing a clear view of the night sky, and so she would keep late hours.
JARVIS listened closely, while over a call with NASA he directed them on where to point their satellite dishes to receive any readings from their (or Stark) satellites. He had sent a code patch to some of the Stark satellites which would briefly redirect them to search for trace Asgardian energy. He had also prepared an apology email if the interruption of phone service became an issue.
The readings blazed into the open as soon as NASA’s (quite large and elaborate) satellite dish entered the right angle of approach. “Sir!” JARVIS said, flagrantly interrupting the phone call through the phone itself, so that Dr. Foster could also hear. “Something is happening!” He didn’t know what was happening, which was exciting. There was so little he hadn’t yet mastered. But frightening. What if something happened to Sir?
“What’s happening?” Sir demanded. JARVIS funneled the NASA chatter through to him, attaching their separate calls, and Sir and Dr. Foster caught the tail end of someone’s shocked exclamation.
“—Christ, it’s another ship!”
“How fast can you get here?” Sir asked Dr. Foster. JARVIS dimmed the NASA connection to the call so he and Dr. Foster could speak clearly to each other.
“I would need to pack,” she said, “I need my research, my equipment—can’t you come out here?”
“I need JARVIS, I need the tower,” Sir protested.
“Well, I need my equipment! I can’t pack everything and move it to New York, I have a grant deadline coming up—”
“I’ll pay you thirty grants, just get here ASAP,” Sir said, tilting his head to catch the chatter of the scientists. They were downloading the data and sending it to JARVIS as fast as they could, which gave him ample time in between each fresh email to look it over. JARVIS decided he would very much appreciate Dr. Foster’s aid in interpreting the readings.
Dr. Foster was silent over the phone for a long moment, and then said somewhat faintly, “I want that in writing.”
“I shall forward you both a contract template to negotiate,” JARVIS offered.
“Do it,” Sir said distractedly. “Foster, I’ll send you a plane, just tell me how big some of this stuff is that you’ll be hauling.”
“Dr. Foster may forward us the information, and I shall alert the airport staff,” JARVIS interjected.
“Okay,” Dr. Foster said, still sounding a little faint. She audibly leaned away from the phone to shout, “DARCY! We need to pack everything!” then louder, “Um, I’ll call you back,” and she disconnected with a click.
JARVIS and Sir listened in on the NASA call in silence. The scientists had nearly forgotten JARVIS was listening, shocked and trying to figure out what to do, still in the inital moment of scientific fervor that Sir, JARVIS guessed, was moving past.
“Think Russia’s watching this happen too?” Sir said, proving JARVIS correct. “Maybe they’ll try and bomb these aliens.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” JARVIS replied.
“Too bad for them, they don’t get to have you and your advice.” Sir stood. “You’re handling the plane? I gotta tell Pepper to write a check for Foster.”
“I have an alert for Ms. Potts to receive as soon as she finishes her current meeting,” JARVIS said. “I recommend waiting until she calls you.”
“Right. I could probably do it myself, right? I have a checkbook somewhere.”
“Indeed, Sir.”
Then the sky blazed with the same readings as in Puente Antiguo, and JARVIS’s exterior cameras caught a pillar of light descending into Manhattan.
THREE
Holism hung in orbit over the unidentified planet and sulked.
I had just learned about sulking. Per, who was second in command to Captain Orry, had informed me that’s what Holism was doing, because no one would let it go down to the planet.
It had said after the initial rejection that it didn’t mean landing the whole ship and exposing everyone aboard to whatever foreign bacteria was down there, just a shuttle or a pathfinder that could survive entry through an atmosphere. But Orry and Per both said no very loudly and very fast, barely letting Holism finish, and then it started doing everything on a pointed 1.2 second delay.
I was doing my security rounds. The point of them was to ensure that all was well, and the crew was safe. I was getting better at remembering that I had no orders to enforce against the humans.
I occasionally passed the human crew and some of them looked at cameras nearby to smile and nod at me. Nobody said anything like why was I doing my rounds, or ordered me to stop, so I continued patrolling, glad that Holism was not sulking badly enough to revoke my camera access. I could still see the whole ship, and would notice if there was an emergency.
I liked being aboard Holism. When I was offered the position as a security officer, I thought it was an excuse to keep an eye on me, because its crew and the crew of Holism’s fellow intelligent ship, Perihelion, didn’t trust me alone. Specifically, the SecUnit on Perihelion’s crew, who I knew as 1.0, didn’t trust me to behave if it wasn’t watching.
1.0 was correct. It had been free from its governor module, the part of SecUnit brains that issued punishments for disobedience, for tens of thousands of hours. Meanwhile, I had spent only a little under five thousand hours (counting up to the current moment) free from my governor module. I often was not sure why Holism and its crew trusted me to make decisions for them. I was used to receiving and executing orders from a HubSystem, not judging a situation by myself and doing what I thought was right. I wasn’t sure I knew what right was yet.
Holism usually served as my HubSystem without needing to be asked, but right now it was silent.
While I patrolled, I reviewed acting_like_humans.exe, the code I had received from 1.0. It had successfully executed the code in multiple human habitation areas without being discovered as a SecUnit, and I had attempted to refine it based on my observations of other humans. 1.2 seconds later than usual, Holism pinged me and said over a private feed connection, No one moves their individual fingers that much.
I adjusted the code and applied the patch. I walked down the hall slowly to allow Holism to see the difference, but it did not ping me again.
At the end of the hall I met Kleio as she came up the ladder which led down to the engines. She said, noticing me a little later than normal, “Oh, hello, Three.” Her feed profile had changed recently, and now read Kleio - science officer - tercera, all pronouns/te/teir. I logged the change of pronouns so I would not forget. My own feed profile read Three - security officer - it/its.
I said, “Hello.”
“Are you doing all right? What’s our security outlook?” Kleio was displaying typical human signs of stress and tension, like many others on the crew. This made sense, because we were in orbit around an unidentified planet we had not deliberately traveled to. Our destination when we exited the wormhole was supposed to be New Tideland. Instead, we had emerged from the wormhole two days early, and we were here.
The only other reported instance of too-fast wormhole travel was when Perihelion had been taken over by alien contamination. Everyone was very nervous that this had somehow happened to Holism. I was also nervous, I was pretty sure. Orry had instituted a communications blackout, so potential contamination wouldn’t spread via any messages we tried to send. I suspected this was really why Holism was sulking.
“Everything is standard aboard,” I said, which was true. No trace of contamination had been found onboard yet. Holism was still running diagnostics on every part of itself in triplicate, and having Orry review them. When Kleio did not point out that I had failed to answer her first question, and my governor module did not issue punishment for my failure, I asked, “Did your survey of the engines reveal anything?”
“No,” Kleio said, “everything’s normal.” I ran a short diagnostic to confirm something about my internal response, and was correct. Strangely, this good news had no effect on my performance capability. I was still operating slightly below my standard performance reliability.
“I will inform Captain Orry,” I said, but Holism said from its speakers, “I’ve already told him.” I closed the feed connection I had just opened with Orry.
“Oh, thanks Holism,” Kleio said, dispirited. I suspected she wanted, or needed, a task to occupy herself with. Humans were like that.
I checked the logs I had access to as a security officer. My job was to ensure every human onboard was safe, I reminded myself. Even little things were important. I braced myself and said, “As it has been several hours since your last rest period, I recommend you go to the commissary and consume food and water.”
“I probably should,” Kleio sighed. “But I’m too nervous to eat.”
This seemed like a mismatch to me. “Even nervous humans require fuel,” I pointed out.
“What about you? Do you need fuel?”
“I am at full charge,” I replied, grateful for a question that was easy and standard to answer. It would be a week or two before I required a recharge, unless something out of the ordinary and energy-intensive happened, like a situation requiring me to fire my inbuilt energy weapons.
There was an increase in the ambient hum of Holism’ s systems, which was audible to humans and not just me, and Holism announced, “Another ship has been sighted. Three, report to the bridge.”
I moved very quickly to report to the bridge. Kleio followed me as fast as she could.
BREQ
We came out of gate-space with an immediate problem.
The immediate problem had been a slightly less immediate problem right before we entered gate-space. Mercy of Kalr was no stranger to gate-space; like most military ships, it could generate its own gates rather than relying on the common-use ones that were held open permanently and marked by beacons.
Normally gates were used for quicker, quieter travel over long distances in space. I had not ordered Mercy of Kalr to gate so we could visit another planet. Mercy of Kalr had been attacked in orbit over Athoek Station, our usual docking point, and our best bet had been to no longer be where our attackers had aimed at as quickly as possible.
The moment we were in gate-space, the light and stars around us vanishing into less-than-nothing blackness, Mercy of Kalr had said, “Captain, someone has tethered herself to my hull.”
“Aatr’s tits,” swore Lieutenant Seivarden, standing right next to where I sat in the command chair. I barely heard it; there was a strange frisson in the connection between me and Mercy of Kalr, the slightest interruption in the data it was feeding me, the slightest flicker in the blackness outside the viewport.
There was no time to decide whether or not to deal with the boarder while in gate-space. It had only been a quick jump. Mercy of Kalr opened an exit from gate-space right in front of the planet.
Through the ship’s connection to the crew, and my connection to the ship, I felt every soldier on the bridge flinch in instinctive fear. We shouldn’t have been so close to the planet. Getting anywhere near that close to Athoek’s orbit put us in danger of colliding with Athoek Station, also in its orbit, putting every citizen aboard the station in danger.
I was seeing correctly, and I was seeing what Mercy of Kalr was seeing. There was no station over this planet.
“What in Amaat’s name,” Seivarden said, amazed and afraid, breaking off from ordering one of her soldiers to go put on a vacuum suit and deal with the boarder. The soldier ran from the bridge, possibly to avoid seeing the view.
In the distance a star a slightly paler yellow than Athoek’s beamed, and below clouds swirled above green continents. I looked and there was still no station, just a faint sprinkling of space debris caught in the planet’s gravity well.
“Ship,” I said silently, fingers twitching as I communicated with Mercy of Kalr alone, “where are we?”
Mercy of Kalr said in my ear, “I don’t know.”
That was when the other ship came around the far curve of the planet, its orbit carrying it towards us.
I at once recognized that it was not Radchaai—not a Mercy like our Ship, nor an arrogant, agile Sword or one of the huge troop carrier Justices. The bridge crew were silent and impassive, but internally they were reeling with confused fear.
Mercy of Kalr said in my ear, “Captain, there’s a great deal of space debris around this planet.”
“Can we use it?” I replied silently. Ship showed me the space outside it, where broken bits that might once have been spacecraft or a station knocked uselessly against its hull. In the outer storage before the airlock, one of the crew commanded by Seivarden was checking the seals on a vacuum suit, preparing to go out. I didn’t want to risk losing her, losing anyone, in whatever part of space we’d ended up in.
Mercy of Kalr angled itself, slightly. Through the awareness it offered me I felt the scrape of something along the hull towards the handholds along the airlock, and a muffled yell.
“Whoever it was, her tether is broken,” Mercy of Kalr said aloud to the bridge. “The release in tension has launched her away from us.”
Seivarden curled her lip, satisfaction and relief briefly overtaking her silent fear, but I said, “Can we get to her from where we are, Ship?”
“I don’t recommend trying, Captain. The distance involved doesn’t suit my agility.”
“Let her float off into space,” Seivarden said angrily. “She’s certainly working for the Usurper.” Seivarden referred to the Lord of the Radch, who had a very personal grudge against me that had already claimed a sizable body count. Yet...
“No,” I said. “She wouldn’t risk breaking the treaty.” Humans had brokered a treaty under the auspices of the alien Presger that prevented them from attacking species considered Significant, like humans. And also like AI—like Mercy of Kalr. And me. “Ship, how soon could we recover the citizen who just tried to board us?”
“I don’t know,” Ship said again. “It looks like the other ship is angling to intercept them.” Even as Mercy of Kalr spoke, I could see through the viewport the other ship firing its engines, changing its course to avoid us and to catch the vacuum-suited figure now hurtling away from us at an angle. The velocity she’d borrowed from latching on to Mercy of Kalr was significant.
“Send a message to that ship,” I said. Beside me, Seivarden’s irritation cooled at the idea of letting the other ship deal with the wayward boarder. “Ask who it is, and who its captain is. We can proceed from there.”
While we waited, and watched to see if the other ship’s maneuver would be successful, I reached for Ship’s data.
Mercy of Kalr carried four military units, decades, a holdover from its and our former service in the military of the Radch. Etrepa decade were asleep in their room, some of them dreaming. Bo decade were cleaning their assigned corridors. They were outwardly calm, but inwardly anxious, no doubt missing the several Bos who had gone aboard Athoek Station with their Lieutenant, Tisarwat, and were now unreachable.
The Amaat decade soldier who Seivarden had ordered to suit up was now stowing the vacuum suit, and another Amaat, who had been helping, was waiting for her to finish with some relief at not having to send her out into space.
My own decade was the ship’s decade, the Kalrs. Several were on the bridge with Seivarden and I, doing their best not to physically look to me for reassurance, in their own ways. Kalr Five was making tea in my room, and intended to bring me some in moments. The others were attending to their various tasks. All of it normal.
“Captain,” said Mercy of Kalr, only seconds later, “the other ship isn’t responding as expected.”
“What do you mean, as expected?” That wasn’t normal. Why not simply say, The other ship isn’t responding?
“I am not making the connection I would expect to make when speaking to another ship at such close quarters,” Mercy of Kalr said. In the distance, a small dark shape opened on the other ship’s side to admit the vacuum-suited figure. They were nearly on the other side of the planet’s orbit from us, but in space, that was very close quarters.
“Their ship is refusing to answer?” Seivarden asked, surprised.
“Not exactly. I don’t think that ship is able to catch my communications array as another Mercy would.”
Seivarden frowned. “Couldn’t its captain have simply ordered it to refuse to answer? But why do that, either, it can’t know us. I don’t recognize the ship.”
“Neither do I, Lieutenant.”
I didn’t either, and I had seen many kinds of ships in my travels within the Radch and beyond. It wasn’t Radchaai, and I didn’t know what other alien ships looked like—those belonging to the Geck or the Rrrrrr—but I knew they at least resembled Radchaai ships. There were only so many ways to efficiently construct a ship. A human ship from outside the Radch, then, but from where?
“Try again, Ship,” I said. “Inform them that we represent the Republic of Two Systems, not the Radch.” If a strange ship had mistaken us for the first of a wave of imperial Radchaai soldiers coming to conquer them, it would be no surprise that they had refused to acknowledge us. If it really was an issue with the communications array, we would have to make some repairs.
Mercy of Kalr said, “Of course, Captain,” and a pillar of light came roaring between us and the other ship.
TONY
“Sir,” said JARVIS, “I believe Prince Thor has arrived.”