Chapter 11: No Return

"I'm Matilda Holt and this is Topix Today!"

Matilda wore a garish gown that glowed under the studio lights. Iridescent? Colors rippled across the fabric. There were no sides, and Matilda's smooth legs were playing peek-a-boo with the hem of her gown below the knees but above the ankles. The front plunged, teasing with views of her cleavage and a crystal pendant between her breasts. Bangles and a gold band around her left bicep, gold sandals with wings on the heels, red hair piled high and bound in a golden cord with a sparkly sprinkle across her cheeks—Matilda was noticeable on video and overwhelming in person.

The crowd cheered and stomped and clapped and howled. Matilda curtsied. When the applause died down, Matilda announce that she was responding to requests from thousands to interview a mystery.

"And here she is, from the dreadful HoChaRa Star Empire, the navigator and special security officer of the Cosmic Armada Intruder Futile Endeavor: Nolan Gruber!"

As I emerged from the green room I reflected that in the six languages of Paxlyn Domain the default gender was female. Males were in the minority, less than one in a thousand. The male gender and the neuter gender were not absent, just rarely applied. All children, regardless of plumbing between their legs, were referred to as "she" and as "girls." Even the few boys. In HoChaRa there were seven or eight genders.

I smiled and waved to the audience as I had been coached. My own costume was mostly make-up that made it easy for the cameras to pick me up. My tattoos on my shoulders and the backs of my hands—that was all I wore. My hair had been styled in a "page boy," whatever that is. For the record, my hair was brown. Unless you were close enough and looked at my crotch you might not notice that I was a boy. Primary sexual characteristics are not all that noticeable in the young and my unisex haircut did make me look feminine. Looking at myself in a mirror or on a video display, my little boy package just wasn't obvious. Calling me "she" was appropriate enough.

"Nolan, what's a special security officer do?" Matilda asked.

"Miz Holt--"

"Call me Matilda!"

"Yes, mum. A special security officer prevents a star ship, its data base and its crew from falling into hostile hands."

"You didn't do a very good job of that, did you?" Matilda smirked.

"Worse, mum," I admitted. "I failed miserably. The crew was questioned and we told all. The data aboard the Futile Gesture is compromised. The ship itself has been disassembled—it will take a lot of work to make the ship space worthy again. If HoChaRa ever gets their hands on me again, they will torture me to death slowly and in public as an example. The crew can't go home again, either—we're all traitors now."

"Were you aware that you were infected with a virus?"

"No, mum," I grimaced, "but it is proof that HoChaRa didn't intend for us to come back. I was feeling ill but the medical officer told me that nothing was wrong. The diagnostic computer was programmed to ignore the virus. That was one of three attacks on Paxlyn Domain that I know about."

"One was your Cosmic Intruder and its 256 nuclear warheads in our space," Matilda said, "and then there was the virus. What was the third?"

"You're off by 16 warheads," I corrected, "and two demolition charges. Each bus carried 16 warheads with a range of 500 kilometers and the warheads were 50 kilotons each. The bus had a range of 500,000 kilometers and its drive system could generate a 1.5 kiloton explosion. The bus had both surface bombardment and anti-ship capabilities. Two portable demolition charges of 5 kilotons each were in the armory. But our mission orders gave us two missions only: surveil this system, and if we received an extraction call we were to rescue the agent or agents in this system."

"You weren't attacking us?" Matilda asked.

"We did intrude but we were ordered to get basic information over a period of several weeks and if we didn't hear from agents already present on Paxlyn Domain, we were to leave unnoticed and bring our information back to HoChaRa Cosmic Armada," I held up a finger. "The presence of agents on Paxlyn Domain was the first attack. The virus carried was a second. A rescue operation that never happened didn't count. As for the virus, someone told Paxlyn Domain that we were in system and how to track us."