Alpha Strike: [An Interstellar Weapons Platform’s Guide to Organized Crime] (Book 3 title)

The three figures seated behind the Tribunal bench stared down in silence at the flickering sphere of holographic static in the middle of the room. Its shifting light bathed the chamber in a cold, artificial glow while the nearby orderly finished the formal reading.

"In conclusion, Lieutenant Colonel ALPHA-555-12-4412 is charged with conspiracy to commit acts of negligent destruction and unauthorized class-D biological modification on unindoctrinated sapient species."

The static ball convulsed, then burst into a storm of jagged light. Alpha's voice erupted from within — rustic, effervescent, and dripping with indignation.

"Negligent? I'll have you know I take full responsibility for — Pride in! — my wanton destruction! That douche had it coming! Do you know how many violations of the Federation's Inborn Sapient Rights Act I found in that lab? He's lucky I di—"

The rotund Tribunal member to Alpha's left slammed his fist against the bench. The sharp crack echoed through the chamber as his jowls and the gaudy row of medals across his chest trembled in unison.

"YOU BLEW UP HALF A DISTRICT AND DISRUPTED A LEGITIMATE ONGOING INVESTIGATION!" the man bellowed. His pompous air all but screamed Daddy got me this job, and his clenched teeth only added to the performance.

In Alpha's unbiased view, the man looked like a caricature of a bureaucratic officer — so exaggerated that Alpha half-suspected he was nothing more than one of Articulate's crafted 'personas.' She loved screwing with him, after all. The Federation's so-called "people person" had a knack for poking his temper for the sake of her own amusement.

The static of his hologram flared.

But before Alpha could retort, the draconian, scale-armored man at the center of the Tribunal raised one massive clawed hand, silencing the room.

General Uriel' Vurod' Haldorðr was large even for a Vidaasi. Where the human bureaucrat resembled a walrus stuffed into a uniform, the general was a living wall of scarred muscle. His presence filled the chamber like a looming storm front. The cold gleam in his reptilian eyes had sent seasoned soldiers into trembling silence. Regardless of the species, every creature could identify a predator when they saw one. Or when one saw them.

When he spoke, his gravel-edged voice rasped with the weight of battlefields long past — wounds that never quite healed and nightmares that never quite faded.

"Alpha," he said, "this Council has shown you leniency on more occasions than I care to count. But I must agree with Councilman Harris. You went too far this time. Perhaps the fault lies with me; I thought loosening your leash might bleed off some of the frustration building in you." His heavy sigh carried both weariness and regret.

"General, I tol—" Alpha began.

The general's glare cut him off like a blade.

"Alpha, this is not a game. Do you not grasp what you've done? Your unauthorized attack on the lab and its doctor has crippled our case. The charges against that lunatic will likely be reduced! I can't even slip in the hitma—"

A sharp, feminine cough sliced through his words. General Haldorðr's jaw snapped shut as he glanced back at the red-skinned, three-eyed woman behind him.

Si'dia, his Elderon aide, offered a slow, curling smile — one that could turn most sapient men into babbling fools, and send wiser ones racing to an early grave out of sheer dread.

The general coughed into his fist and faced forward again.

"Yes, well. As I was saying." His voice regained its rough edge, though a trace of unease lingered. "You've made many enemies this time, Alpha. More than usual. Even a Conqueror can't ignore public opinion, and yours has been dragged through the mud about as thoroughly as possible."

Alpha tsked inwardly.

As if he hadn't already seen the smear campaign smeared across the Translight-net.

'Reckless,' they called me. 'Irresponsible,' they claimed. 'An apocalypse-grade natural disaster,' they said.

Utter nonsense. He wasn't that bad.

Most of the time.

They'd obviously never seen Mr. Hoffmann at work! But of course, noooooo — "World Break was just stopping the end-of-life threat; it was Alpha's fault for triggering it."

Bah. Semantics.

You unleash one non-Euclidean horror from beyond space and time by accident, and suddenly everything's your fault.

Alpha's processors snapped back online as he realized he'd tuned out the latter half of the general's lecture. The silence that filled the Tribunal chamber wasn't the ordinary kind — it pressed against his circuits, heavy and absolute.

He froze for a microsecond.

The empty seat beside the general no longer sat empty. A figure now occupied it, less flesh than void. Its form resembled a silhouette cut from the deepest shadow, a black shape with no edges yet somehow sharper than a blade. The air thickened, oppressive, as if the chamber itself resented the intrusion.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

The orderly had gone rigid, every muscle locked. Councilman Harris leaned back, sweat pooling across his pudgy face as he dabbed furiously with a silk cloth. For all his bulk, he tried to shrink into the chair like a child hoping to be overlooked. Even the general's brows drew down in rare surprise.

It wasn't every day that SEAU-03 appeared in person — if person meant anything when applied to the near-omnipresent Shadow of the Federation. Only Si'dia seemed unfazed, her clawed fingers still tapping idly across her tablet as though nothing of consequence had changed.

The silhouette leaned forward, fingers steepled. Though its face was featureless, the weight of its gaze locked on Alpha, cold and unblinking.

Its voice broke the silence, smooth and silken, both soothing and lethal.

"Alpha…"

"Oh, fu—"

Alpha's vocal processor cut out mid-curse.

"Language, Alpha."

All he could do was make the holographic static bob apologetically, like a guilty child nodding along.

The pause that followed lingered just long enough to tighten the air, then SEAU-03 continued in that same calm, inexorable tone.

"The problem before us is not simply one of action, but of faith. Until now, we tolerated your… independence, because your results could justify it."

The ghost of a smirk slid across the featureless face.

"And, frankly, it is easier to convince new Federation members of our benevolence when we swoop in to clean up the wreckage you leave behind."

The void seemed to deepen, and though the figure had no mouth, somehow the entire chamber felt the weight of his frown.

"That being said, I am… disappointed. You may be the youngest of our kind, but that does not make you a child."

Alpha shifted uncomfortably, static rippling as he looked aside and grumbled under his nonexistent breath.

"Before anything else, you are a soldier. You are expected to act as one. Your actions have cast doubt not only on the Federation's control over you but on the Expeditionary Force's purpose itself. I remind you of the Third Federation's mission — the Galactic Unification Project.

"Strength through Unity. Peace through War.

"These are not empty words fed to the masses. They are the creed that must guide our hands. Twice before, the Federation fractured, and twice it fell. There will not be a third failure. If the sapient species of this galaxy are to survive what looms ahead, we must stand united. Or all that remains will be ash and memory."

The words settled like lead across the room. For a heartbeat, even Councilman Harris sat straighter, his usual bluster burned away.

"Is that understood?" SEAU-03 asked.

Alpha's projection sagged. Whatever fight had lingered drained away.

The silhouette leaned back, straightening.

"Good. As for your punishment, assuming my fellow Judges agree…"

Its head tilted toward the other two.

Councilman Harris nodded immediately, his sweat-slick face twisting into a cruel grin. General Haldorðr hesitated, his heavy gaze lingering on Alpha with a flicker of regret before he sighed and offered his reluctant nod.

"Very well," SEAU-03 said. Its voice remained calm, but the words struck like hammer blows. "We will confiscate Polaris Shipyards A3 through G12 effective immediately. Reparations must be paid for the damages you caused."

The static sphere flared with renewed panic.

My babies!

Unfortunately for Alpha, the punishment did not end there.

"…your pay will also be docked sixty percent, with a one-percent annual reduction in this penalty—subject, of course, to good behavior…"

Alpha's hologram sagged from a ball of static into a puddle of dim, flickering light.

"…to conclude…"

There was more?!

"…you are hereby sentenced to eighty-seven thousand, six hundred cumulative hours of community service under the Federation Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau."

Councilman Harris' grin bloomed into something downright rhapsodic. Naturally, the PACSB was his kingdom, and now Alpha was chained to it.

If Alpha could have screamed, the chamber walls would still be vibrating.

"Now," the silhouette asked, "is there anything you'd like to say before we end this trial?"

Alpha's speech processor flicked back online. A beat later, his voice burst out in desperate protest.

"Sir! You can't take my shipyards! I just finished paying those off!"

"Remind me how that's this Tribunal's problem, soldier?"

"What about my mission in two days?! How am I supposed to field a proper fleet without resources?"

The silhouette leaned back, arms folded, voice curling with disdain.

"Oh? Since when has the mighty Star Conqueror — our vaunted Spearhead — ever needed a fleet at his back? Or have you gone soft? Besides, I left you with A1 and A2. More than you started with."

Alpha ground metaphorical teeth and shed digital tears. He'd spent decades scraping together the credits for those shipyards. They had been the cornerstone of his master plan. No more slinking into technologically advanced systems, gathering scraps of data, and nudging politics around like a second-rate diplomat. No more chess game diplomacy! With shipyards A3 through G12, he could have arrived in any system at the head of a fleet stretching from horizon to horizon.

It would have saved him soooo much time. And money. And, most importantly, it would have made him look cool. Now he was back to interplanetary cloak-and-dagger like some common pleb.

General Haldorðr's sigh was long and weary.

"Oh, stop sulking. Mr. Hoffmann asked me to inform you that the custom dreadnought you ordered has been completed. The… Anatidae?" He stared down, unimpressed. "Seriously?"

"I regret nothing!"

The general pinched the bridge of his snout, clawed fingers digging into his temples.

"…The Anatidae will be fitted in time for your departure. WR-102 is only listed as a B-rank system. I'm sure it will be more than enough for whatever harebrained scheme you attempt this time."

That… was true. The Anatidae was meant to be his flagship, a beast bristling with every high-tier weapon and cutting-edge system his clearance allowed. Not a bad consolation prize for the Spearhead of an interstellar federation hellbent on galactic conquest.

When General Haldorðr turned back toward the silhouette, the seat was empty once more. His jaws snapped shut on words unsaid, and he exhaled before facing Alpha again.

"Well. That concludes today's trial. Alpha, you'll meet with Si'dia to finalize the paperwork on the shipyard transfers. If you're lucky, you might even finish before you're due to leave." The general chuckled at his own joke and stepped down from the bench.

Alpha's static flared, ready to blink the connection away, but Councilman Harris' oily voice called across the chamber.

"Oh, and Alpha? I look forward to working with you once you return from WR-102. I'm sure we'll have plenty of fun in the coming years."

The bloated bureaucrat grinned ear to ear, like a cat savoring the helpless twitch of a cornered mouse, before waddling out after the general.

…Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing this next mission would take longer than expected.