Chapter 140: The Paper Tiger, the Prime Minister, and the Snek

"All hands stand by for re-entry to normal space," T'sunk'al said nonchalantly. Considering the risks of this jump, that was quite the accomplishment (or further proof of his insanity).

"I don't know about 'normal'," Sheila scoffed as she strapped herself in.

"Hey, be nice!" Jessie drawled as she hopped into her station on the bridge.

"Jessie," Sheila faux-snarled, "I fucking warned you about that!"

"Sorry, ma'am!" Jessie bubbled as she strapped in.

A few moments later, T’sunk’al announced, “Re-entry in 3… 2… 1… Jump!"

The entire ship lurched rearward sharply, throwing everyone forward in their seats.

"Well, that was suboptimal," T'sunk'al said as he rapidly pulled up status displays and initiated diagnostics, "Could have gone worse, though."

"An actual rough jump?" Sheila smirked, "Are you slipping?"

"Considering what he just did," Gloria chuckled, "We're lucky we got here at all. Do you have any idea how hard a jump that was? The navcomp had a fit!"

"Yeah," Bunny said happily, "I had to shut it up. 'We're gonna die! We're gonna diiiiiiie!'," she laughed. "What a drama queen."

"Did it actually..." Sheila asked.

"Of course not!" Bunny snickered, "It's just a stupid machine. Everybody knows we are incapable of that sort of shit."

"Surrre you are," Sheila chuckled.

"Now that is remarkable..." T'sunk'al said as he looked at the main screen.

On it was a gigantic ice asteroid…

That had been lovingly carved into a giant human head. Its noble visage looked over the void like a guardian angel, its rugged meaty features a beatific image of all that was noble about mankind.

"Now that's an idol," Sheloran said in awe.

"Behold!" Jessie beamed, "The Great Trump, the largest sculpture in the Republic, perhaps anywhere! One of the wonders of the modern galaxy… or it would be if anyone actually had the balls to come out here… Pretty cool, huh?"

"Well, it is made of ice," T'sunk'al said in a completely flat, deadpan voice. Only a slight ripple of his remaining eyestalks indicated humor.

"There's a whole city in there!" Jessie exclaimed. "The Trump Freedom Port is awesome! They have museums, shops, rides..."

"Rides?" Sheloran asked.

"It's a fucking theme park," Sheila snickered, "It's an inbred creationist version of Luna World."

"It's better than Luna World!" Jessie chirped. "Way better! Can we go? Can we?"

"Let's get the Reaper offloaded and the Tiger hidden," Sheila replied, "after that, I won't stop you from hopping a ship… like I could actually stop you anyway."

"Yay!" Jessie shouted.

"Inbound vessel," a strangely accented voice said in very good Terran, "Goddamn! Y'all came in hawt. Stand by for… Well, I'll be! You guys are popular, ain'tcha?"

"Jes' a littl' bit," Jessie called out. "You ain't 'fraid of us droppin' by, are ya?"

"Hell naw!" the voice replied, "We ain't afraid of sheet! You want a berth?"

"Nah," Jessie called out, "We got someplace to go already!"

"Where ya headed?"

"Bannon," Jessie chirped. "Y'all have their current location and vector?"

"Sheet," the voice replied, "Y'all goin' way out in tha 'bergs, ain'tcha? Ain't nobody is gonna find ya out dere."

"Dat's kinda da plan," Jessie chirped. "Actually, we ain't even going to Bannon. We're actually going—"

Jessie fell silent as a fortunately empty coffee mug hit her chair inches from her head.

"We're goin' to Bannon! Yep! Bannon! That's where we're goin'!"

"(laughter) Well, enjoy 'Bannon' den. Stand by for transmission."

***

Roughly a light year away, Admiral Pierce walked into a conference room.

"You said that we found them?" the Prime Minister asked.

"We did," he said. "Roughly thirty minutes ago, the Paper Tiger jumped into the Sol system… technically… They re-entered normal space one thousand kilometers from The Great Trump.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," the Prime Minister grumbled. "How did they get past our blockade? You were supposed to have that handled!"

"Oh, our blockade is fine," the admiral chuckled, "They skipped it."

"Skipped it?"

"Our sources say that the flare they threw indicated a lot of energy, far more than a system jump. They actually jumped from quite some distance away, quite some distance."

"They hit MAGA space from outside the system?!?" another admiral spluttered." How?!? Do… do we have a leak?"

"A leak?" the Prime Minister asked, her eyebrows raised.

"It's classified to the point it has been left out of your briefings," Admiral Pierce said calmly, "but we have been working on… options… as far as hyperspace capacities are concerned. Even so, our best ships would be hard-pressed to hit that target from as far out as they did."

"If you knew it was possible," the Prime Minister demanded, "Then why weren't contingencies in place?"

"Because it is only possible for a rare few vessels," the admiral replied, "and it requires a dedicated monolith, something that the Paper Tiger is obviously not in possession of. Besides, considering the range of the jump, we would have had to blockade dozens of star systems, if not more. The only way we could have stopped this is to have a presence at the Great Trump itself..."

The admiral smirked.

"If you would like, I will send a task force immediately. I'm sure we could still catch them."

The Prime Minister glowered at him.

"Don't be a smartass," she snapped. "Ugh… So..."

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

"So those assholes have ultimate mobility on top of an advanced combat craft, and Lord only knows how many nukes… Perfect..."

"And don't forget the frog," the woman in the green blazer added "helpfully", earning her quite the look.

"Do you think she is somehow behind their enhanced hyperspace capacity?"

"Actually," Admiral Pierce said, "No."

He clicked a small control in his hand, and an image of T'sunk'al's scarred face appeared.

"This is a Z'uush named T'sunk'al and now part of their crew," the admiral said. "He is a hero of the Z'uush insurgency and their top astrogator. In fact, it is said that he void-jumped to avoid Federation blockades on a regular basis in only a hastily converted ore carrier."

"That's impossible! A naval captain interjected.

"Until a few minutes ago," Admiral Pierce replied, "I would have agreed with you. However, the jump they just made was a void jump in all but name. Also, one of the wilder theories concerning their piracy of The White Star was that it jumped into the void while they processed the 'kill' and only returned to normal space when they were ready to make good their escape. This was, of course, disregarded at the time, but..."

The admiral shrugged.

"It would explain a LOT. All of our projections concerning the Paper Tiger have been based on the nominal jump range of what we think is its current configuration. If they have a way of extending that range, then there is no surprise that we have never been able to catch them. We've been searching a building when we should have been searching a whole continent."

"Oh fuck me," the Prime Minister groaned. "Let's assume, for now, that they can void jump. How does that change things?"

"It means we have the same chance of catching the Paper Tiger as we do shooting down Lieutenant Samuels," Admiral Pierce chuckled. "Ma'am, they simply have us outclassed. Advanced ships, advanced techniques, advanced weapons..."

He shook his head.

"We're trying to catch a shrike with biplanes out there."

"We have them flat-footed!" a woman wearing a grey suit exclaimed, "Let's just jump in there and get them!"

Everyone looked at her like she just dropped her pants and took a shit on the floor.

"Exactly who the fuck are you?" the Prime Minister snarled, "You know what, I don't even want to know. Get out."

"Prime Minister?!?"

"You are either woefully stupid or impossibly ignorant," she snapped, "Either way, you don't need to be here sucking up my oxygen. Leave. Now."

Several people looked at each other in confusion.

"Prime minister," Glenn Maxwell, the head of Republic Intelligence, said with a slightly goofy grin as he stood up, "Perhaps it would be worth a few moments to enlighten the children concerning our lovely friends out in the Oort cloud?"

"Make it quick," the Prime Minister sighed, "just so nobody decides this is the perfect moment to show some initiative and really put us in the shit."

"Thank you," Glenn said as he chuckled pleasantly, "The group known as the MAGAs is one of the oldest and largest of the Kuiper clans. Even we have no idea how numerous they are. They are also in possession of a large trove of Old-Earth weapons, especially artillery pieces, most of which they constructed themselves. "Just jumping in there would be surprisingly messy. We could do it, of course, but those guns are the least of our problems."

Glenn blinked. What was he saying again? Oh, that's right.

"The MAGAs were already established out in the void as other Kuipers arrived. When they had problems, the MAGAs were likely the ones who came to their aid. In fact, MAGA 'Void Angels' still patrol a lot of the cold dark and are often the ones who respond to distress calls. Just about everyone out there holds them in very high regard and owes them more than a few favors. They also are one of the primary food producers for the outer solar system, and their region of space is considered 'civilization' for a lot of those tribes. They are also a cultural and religious power. We piss off the MAGAs, and we piss off every single Christian Kuiper in the system."

He paused and tried to collect his thoughts again. Maybe he needed more sleep?

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"Not only that, but the MAGAs have very close ties with the Caliphate, the other dominant force in the Oort cloud. We hit MAGA, and the Caliphate will view it as an attack on an ally and a direct threat to their sovereignty. We piss off the Caliphate, and we then piss off every single Muslim in the cold dark… Do you see where I'm going here? If we go after them in MAGA space, we risk losing everything from Neptune on out, possibly triggering a nasty insurgency, and there is even a more distressing possibility."

He coughed. He knew there was something worse. What was it? Oh, that's right!

"A lot of MAGA stations are mobile. We believe that a lot of them are even hyperspace capable. Same goes for a lot of Kuipers. If we start shit, we risk triggering a mass migration of those groups out into the galaxy at large. Consider the cold dark as a… a 'cyst'… It's perfectly safe as long as we don't go poking at it. We fuck up and poke it, and we risk releasing a human 'infection' into not only our territory but into the galaxy at large. It could cause yet another human population in the galaxy, and we have enough trouble with the Porkies and the Weebs as it is. The only thing keeping a lot of them in place is an inherent mistrust of hyperspace that is prevalent in their culture. We push them out of their comfort zone enough that they get over it, and we risk a diaspora of some of the most radical cultures that humanity has ever produced… a very well-armed diaspora. We don't publicly discuss this save at the highest levels, the level that should be in this room, but it is a very serious concern. Another thing we do not mention is exactly how numerous those people are. We honestly have no firm count, but the real numbers are much, much higher than we let on. Remember, most of them were NOT depopulated by the Sol Wars."

Glen put his hand on the woman's shoulder.

"There aren't thousands of Kuipers. There are millions. Like it or not, the Paper Tiger is safe until they leave MAGA space… and they will just jump out of the system when they leave. It's why we were putting forth so much effort to keep them from getting there in the first place. It's literally one of the only places we can't touch, and it's right here in our own system."

Glenn laughed a hearty laugh.

"It's really funny if you think about it."

He continued to laugh to the point that everyone started looking at him strangely.

"Okay, Glenn, that's enough," the Prime Minister said. "So, just in case anyone was not aware, any action while they are in MAGA space is not possible. The only thing we can do is use what few agents we have to collect intelligence, and that is it. I don't even want a covert op. One stray round hits one MAGA, and there will be hell to pay. We leave those… people… alone, and they leave us alone. That's how everyone wants it, and that's how it's going to be. We have enough shit to deal with."

She looked at Glenn, who was just standing there, slightly dazed, with that goofy grin that was becoming his new trademark.

"Glenn, you can sit down now."

"Oh, right," Glenn Maxwell said as he seemed to return to reality. "Sorry."

He sat back down. He was really tired. Maybe he could take a nap, and nobody would notice? He liked naps.

"We know that Samuels's ship took significant damage," the Prime Minister said. "I can only assume that they will try to repair it. It is one of the only reasons to risk a return to Sol. That jump couldn't have been without risk. Have we located Janustec?"

"Unfortunately, no," Glenn Maxwell said. "Um… Jenni?"

The same woman who had made the rather unfortunate suggestion rose.

"As of now, Janustec is still at large," she replied, "We do not have hard confirmation of any specific location, but we did intercept a series of coded messages using advanced cyphers and distributed routing through the darknet. We only recently could fully decrypt them, but it is confirmed that they were an exchange between Esmeralda Martinez and Caleb Gustav, one of her more… dubious contractors. While we could decrypt the messages, tracing the routing has not been possible."

She smiled triumphantly.

"However, careful analysis of, for lack of a better word, 'noise' in the packets strongly implies a Martian origin, which would make perfect sense."

"And another place we have trouble moving," the Prime Minister scowled. "Goddamn Martin... I fucking knew it!"

"If he has given them shelter," the woman said, "then we could invade, take the whole planet, do a house-to-house search, and still not find them. There are simply too many tunnels and mines under the surface. The Samuels could put them in an old chamber somewhere, and we'll never find them."

"So they got away, too," the Prime Minister scowled. "And once again, they didn't even need to leave the system."

She sighed.

"So what was Esmeralda talking about?"

"She was concerned about the fate of a xeno named Jeruzz," the woman replied. "They were someone that she hired on the day of their escape to maintain the illusion that they were not fleeing. It bought them the time they needed to disappear. She seemed to be genuinely concerned about the guy. Anyway, she was informed that he was okay. Strangely enough, Mr. Gustav was quite put out about her treatment of the xeno, a male Keth."

"Maybe there is more to this than there appears," the Prime Minister mused. "What do we know about this Jeruzz character."

"Not a whole lot," the woman replied, "The Keth are a Federation species of little significance, and the conditions there are such that some try to leave and seek better conditions elsewhere even though they aren't terribly well equipped for it. We have a small population of them fairly evenly distributed across the planet. While social, the ones who leave tend to be solitary for some reason, with one notable exception."

She paused to chuckle.

"An entire family of Keth has settled in Southern Italy, where they have opened a restaurant," she said, trying not to laugh.

"And this is amusing?"

"A holographic image of a review site appeared."

I had to wait over an hour before the only server in the entire establishment finally brought me a glass of water of dubious cleanliness and tried to take my order without me ever being given a menu. A fire broke out in the kitchen while my meal was being prepared, causing smoke to fill the dining area. Despite the flames, my meal was still cold when it was finally served, and they got my order wrong. When I complained, the server said, and I quote, "Just try it. It's really good, I promise." When I then complained that it was cold, the server SHOVED THEIR TONGUE INTO MY FOOD and agreed with me. She took the plate back to the kitchen, where I swear it was just microwaved or something because when it came back, her tongue prints were still visible in my entree! About this time, some sort of screaming match broke out in the kitchen, and my server rushed away before I could recover from the shock.

By this time, I was starving and started nibbling on the parts of my meal that she hadn't french-kissed, and… it was delicious! It was so good that I forgot that she had tongued my food until after I had consumed that portion… so I guess I just made out with a space snake…

My meal was further interrupted by the same server, now covered with soot and some sort of grease that I suspect was not food related, when she handed me a jar of olives and asked if I could open it for her… Just in time for what I suspect was another fire...

10/10! Five stars! You just HAVE to go here! They are so nice! I have returned several times, and… this was about as smoothly as a meal service ever went, so don't go if you are in a hurry or if you are set on any particular dish, but everything is great, so who cares!

Attached were images of flames, fleeing, screaming snakes, confused staff eating food off people's plates, and other assorted chaos.

"Oh my God," the Prime Minister laughed.

"They have review after review, just like this one," the agent replied. "Surprisingly, they are a very popular establishment with the locals who recommend just ordering 'a meal' and eating whatever comes out. The common theme is that they truly suck at running a restaurant but are so nice that people can't help but like them… and the food is actually quite good. They seem to have become the local mascots, and everyone just loves them and their restaurant."

"And there is a whole planet of these?" the Prime Minister asked, "And they haven't gone extinct? I'm not buying it. Nothing is that… that. This Jeruzz is likely much more capable and much more involved than he appears. One of these dingbats successfully concealing the movements of an entire organization? I have to call bullshit. Bring him in and make him talk."

The agent winced.

"What?" the Prime Minister said, "Why can't we do that?"

"Well..." the agent said reluctantly, "It turns out that Mr. Gustav was not the only one of the Janustec contractors who felt bad for the snake. After he was questioned and released by Interpol, he was given a job by Gavin Richardson."

"Richardson..." the Prime Minister said, "Why does that name sound familiar."

"They are a family of weaponsmiths hailing from The First Nations," the agent replied.

"Doreen!" the Prime Minister exclaimed, "That old gunrunner..."

"She is Gavin Richardson's grandmother," the agent replied, "and they are both part of the Cherokee Nation…"

The agent coughed.

"While Jeruzz's actual job performance was… amazingly bad… everybody liked him so much they got him actual Cherokee citizenship… And as you know, they are very protective of their people."

"Well, go and pay a polite visit to this Jeruzz and nicely chat with him and see what you can find out," the Prime Minister said as she facepalmed. "You guys can do that, can't you? Interrogate someone without strapping them to a chair?"

"Yes, Prime Minister."

"Great. Do that then," the Prime Minister said. "and put eyes on him. Find out everywhere he goes, everything he does, and everyone he speaks to. What else do we know about him? Is he unusual as far as these Keth go?"

"As a matter of fact," the agent replied, "he is. Initial reports indicate some very unusual behavior relative to his species. Among other things, he can win a one-on-one fight, unarmed, against a golden eagle and come out of it mostly unscathed. That is an achievement for even a human. He ate it, by the way. He also… get this… he also has a human girlfriend."

"Say what now?"

"A very happy one at that," the agent replied. "Apparently, he 'really tickles her fancy' if you know what I mean."

"What do we know about her?"

"There really isn't much to know," the agent shrugged, "She is one of 'the lost children', a high-school dropout, and nominally a Gia. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Jeruzz could do much better. We've run her numbers every way they can be run, and she is exactly what she appears to be, a pot-smoking dropout who pretends to be an artist."

"Nothing wrong with the herb, dear," the Prime Minister replied. "Put eyes on her as well. Not many people are that singularly unremarkable."

"She is already being monitored," the agent replied, "at this time, we feel that actual human intelligence is not required. We do have a team on the Keth, though."

"Well, I'm not one to micro-manage," the Prime Minister said, causing most of the senior members of that room to look at her in surprise and Glenn Maxwell to burst out laughing. "I shall leave it to your agency," the Prime Minister said, ignoring Glenn and the others.

***

Halfway across the globe, Jeruzz was happily slithering alongside Syd. They turned a lot of heads at first, but it didn't take long for Jeruzz to become just another member of the neighborhood.

He was funny looking, but he was just so darn nice!

Not that far away, a delivery van was innocently parked on the street.

"Just kill me!" a human woman groaned. "If I hear one more conversation about what kind of apples they are going to buy, I am going to fucking lose it!"

"At least they've stopped talking about Harold Potmaker," the Kalesha sitting next to her replied, "I'm actually starting to have an opinion about what house Jeruzz should be sorted into!"

They both laughed.

"And now they're window shopping again," the human groaned. "Just fucking buy the dress already! Jesus!"

"She does have a point about the color, though," the Kalesha replied. "I'm not sure it goes with her hair either."

"Are you listening to yourself right now?" the human replied.

"I'm just saying," the Kalesha replied, "She needs to change her highlights to really pull that look off, and that would throw the rest of her wardrobe into chaos."

"I'm starting to think they are on to us," the human said after a few moments, "They know we are watching them, and this is all some sick psyops bullshit to break us. We are being waterboarded with banality!"

She looked at the screens.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" the human shouted, "Just let him buy your goddamn coffee! He made more than I did this week! Fuck!"

"Hey," the Kalesha replied, "She has her pride, and she doesn't want Jeruzz to think she is just using him for his wallet."

"There is no way Jeruzz would think that!" the human replied. "He adores her, God knows why, and his mind doesn't think that way. He's just too trusting for his own good."

"Why wouldn't he be?" the Kalesha replied, "In his little universe, people do treat him fairly and are actually nice. It's like he just keeps… falling backwards into money, pussy, and good people. I would really hate him… if I could."

"And now they are cuddling again," the human said with annoyance and just a touch of wistful longing.

Why couldn't she get a great guy like that?

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