Elle pulled off her ski mask and threw it across her bed. She stood staring out the window as Mars got farther and farther away. Then she pulled her uniform off and slipped on a comfortable cotton non-designer dress—she never got to wear normal clothes anymore. Maybe some of that would change now that she would be out of the system and away from the deathly reach of the American CIA assassins. Maybe for a while she could rest and think. There was still much work to be done, but she wasn't going to think about that just now. Instead, she was going to walk around in her bare feet for a few minutes, pour herself a stiff drink, and put her feet up and think about how she was going to burn forever in Hell for what she had done. But burning in Hell would be a small price to pay for what she had accomplished today.
Elle listened to the MNN interview with her old acquaintance and was proud of the Marine turned politician for what he had done with the situation he had been thrust into. He had been caught up in the revolution, but then again she hoped all of America would be. But Major Moore, of course that was now Senator Moore, had not taken the day lying in a hole and sniveling like a typical politician. Moore fought. He fought to protect his family and the things that were dear to him. Ahmi had always liked those qualities in the Marine when she had kept him in her camp. And he was smart too. Now he was using the momentum of this day to change his status from a political nobody to an American hero. Everybody liked a hero. Moore might just be useful someday after all. Elle was happy about that.
'All hands, this is the captain. Prepare for hyperspace in thirty seconds.' The bosun's pipe and the intercom startled her and annoyed her a bit as it cut into the interview. She would have to get a replay of all of it once they dropped out of hyperspace in a month.
Elle stretched her body left and right and twisted her chin from shoulder to shoulder listening to the creaking and popping in her neck and back as she looked at Mars, where she had been born, where she had grown up, where she had raised her first kitty, where she had fallen in and out of love for the first time, where she had gone to college and become a software developer, where she had started her software company that had become a multi- billion-dollar corporation, where she had had children, where she had run for mayor of Little Tharsis for the first time, and where she had learned to kill. Mars was a part of her very being and now it would be gone to her for a long time.
'Meow.'
'Ah, Socks. Now come here,' Elle called to her AIK. The artificial cat nuzzled up to her shins and purred. Unless it was analyzed with QM sensors or it was torn apart and examined, it was indiscernible from a real kitty cat. Elle picked up the AIK and gently stroked the robotic pet's fur.
The planet jumped way off into space and vanished as a single point as the whirlpool of converging purples and blues opened up around the ship. The ship jumped through the hyperspace opening into the conduit and normal space was behind them. It would be a month when they dropped out of hyperspace a light-year away in the Oort Cloud before they saw normal space. Then a few minutes after that she would lead the ships through the quantum membrane teleportation portal there and the Free People of America would see their new home on the largest moon of the gas-giant fourth planet from the star Tau Ceti. Had her spies within America not discovered the QMT above-top-secret research program and brought the details of it to her the day would not have been possible. There was no way that that many of the Free People could escape the system at once and to go beyond the reach of the Americans. To her knowledge the American scientists had not figured out how to use the technology yet. Hers had. With hyperspace, Tau Ceti was a year's travel from Sol, but with QMT it was a few seconds. This allowed her people a year at least to prepare for any retaliation.
'Raow.' Socks looked up at her.
'It's good to see you too, kitty. Your brothers and sisters did very well for Mommy today.' Elle caressed her pet and then set it down. Her kittens were perfect unsuspecting electronic warfare transceivers that nobody had ever suspected were wandering through the cities of the United States of America collecting computer signatures and jamming and downloading viruses—sleeper viruses—across the Sol System. 'Good kitties.' She allowed herself to grin only for a short time. As successful as the Exodus had been it was still horrendous and terrible and made her question it all, but her resolve couldn't waver now.
Elle poured herself a drink and sat back in her recliner, letting her feet up. She spun the recliner around to face the window. The general's quarters were the largest on the ship and furnished with a small living area and a four- post king-sized bed looking out the full transparent exterior wall of the room. Elle could close the blinds and curtains if she needed to but she never did. She liked keeping the lighting low in her quarters so she could see the wonders of the universe outside her. She loved the beautiful swirling blues and violets and flashes of dim white light created by the hyperspace conduit. The beauty took her mind off the horrible things that she had done to humanity. She was almost drifting off to sleep when her door buzzer sounded.
'I said I didn't want to be disturbed.'
'It's your old friend,' the male voice replied through the door intercom.
'How are you, Madam . . . ' the man paused until the soundproof door was closed and then finished, '. . . President?'
'Oh stow it, Scotty, and have a drink.' Elle rubbed at her eyes.
'Don't mind if I do.' Scotty poured himself a drink and then sat on the loveseat next to the recliner. 'I have something for you.' He handed her a gift wrapped in birthday paper.
'You remembered my birthday?' Elle smiled at her longtime friend and cohort.
'Hell, millions of people remember your birthday, ma'am,' he said.
'Scotty, stop with the 'ma'am' shit. We're alone in here,' she said as she unwrapped the gift. Elle tore at the red and white paper and ribbon like a kid.
'Old habits . . . new habits, I just can't help it sometimes.' He took a long draw from the scotch he'd just poured himself. 'Damn, I needed that.'
'How about that?' Elle held up the gift so that the light from the hyperspace tube would reflect on it better, giving her a better view of it.
'Two of the most idealistic and naive fools to ever shit between two shoes, wouldn't you say?' Scotty grinned, sighed, and took another drink.
