Broken Episode One

  Chapter 2

  “Don’t look now,” Bradley Marshal sniggered to his friend, Mathewson, “It’s Buzz Kill.”

  Mimi ignored him. Mimi was very good at ignoring snide comments, especially from idiots like Marshal. She smoothed the smile back on her face, checked the holo recording device on her wrist, and marched toward him. “Excuse me, do you have time for an interview?”

  Marshal visibly rolled his eyes, his friend cackling at the move.

  Mimi took the opportunity to flick her device to record. As soon as she did, the hovering ball above her left shoulder turned toward Marshal and started to scan him.

  “Hey, I didn’t say you could start recording,” Marshal snapped.

  “Cadet Marshal, this is Mimi Chester for Galactic Source News. What are your views on the current communications blackout in the Carq Cluster?” Mimi forged ahead, always keeping her pretty smile locked on her lips.

  Her father told her success came from a smile. Well, a smile and a heck of a lot of hard work.

  Marshal snorted, blowing a breath of air against his floppy fringe. “Really? I thought you were going to ask me a smart question. Everyone knows the communications blackout is caused by background cosmic radiation. It happens every two to three years, and it’s hardly newsworthy.”

  “What are your opinions about the upcoming Galactic Leaders’ summit? Do you think having all those heads of state on the same planet is a security risk?”

  Marshal now snorted even louder. “Really, Chester? Do you come up with these questions all on your own? Because they are cutting.”

  “Are you worried about the recent increase in Barbarian activity along the Coalition’s eastern border? Do you think it’s an ominous indication of what’s to come?”

  Marshal tipped his head back and laughed, his friend joining in.

  “You are on the news,” Mimi reminded him in a professional tone.

  “No, Mimi, I’m not on the news, because this is never going to be broadcast. It’s illegal to record an interview with an Academy officer without their express written permission.”

  “You’re not an officer.”

  “I’m close enough,” Marshal pointed out threateningly. “Now you either hand over your recording, or we’ll wipe your device, deleting all your other cutting edge journalism,” he said harshly. Pausing for little more than a second, he brought up his watch and typed something into it.

  The recording ball above Mimi’s left shoulder started to spin erratically. “Hey,” she said quickly, “You can’t do that.”

  “Already did,” Marshal laughed, “Now get the hell off Academy grounds before I call security.”

  “These grounds are public.” She latched her hands on her hips. “I have rights you know.”

  “Nope, pretty sure you don’t. You’re nothing more than a lowly buzz kill. And you don’t work for Galactic Source News. Admit it, they’ve never accepted one of your stories, have they?”

  Marshal’s friend laughed harder now.

  If Mimi were the kind of girl to care what they thought, she’d be turning red in the face. Instead, she smiled harder, albeit with an irritated edge. “You can delete my recordings, Marshal, but you can’t silence me.”

  Marshal erupted into laughter. “Listen to her,” he said, “She honestly thinks she’s a journalist, upholding the truth or something. Get it through your head, Chester, you’re a failure. You were kicked out of the Academy, despite your daddy’s influence, and now you’re playing at being a journo.”

  Mimi could ignore most things. She didn’t just have thick skin; the damn stuff was made of diamond. There was one thing, however, she could never forgive.

  “He didn’t help,” she said through bared teeth.

  “What was that?” Marshal crossed his arms.

  “My father never intervened on my behalf. I’d never let him do that.”

  Marshal now laughed lower, and it had a dangerous kind of note to it. “You expect me to believe that? Your father is head of one of the largest corporations in the Milky Way. The only reason you weren’t court-martialed for what you did is because of him. You should be rotting in prison, not waltzing around pretending to work for Galactic Source News.”

  Mimi took hold of herself. Before her anger could boil over, she drew a calm, collected breath.

  She wasn’t going to be derailed by a man like Marshal.

  Instead, she did the one thing she could do and smiled.

  It was her secret weapon. It always unsettled someone if you smiled through their vitriol.

  “You done? The only reason I’m not rotting in prison, Marshal, is because this is the Coalition, and we’re a little more civilized than that. Oh, and a full hearing of the Academy Board found me not guilty. It was an accident, end of story. You may believe my father intervened, but he didn’t. Now, what exactly is your opinion on the recent inclusion of a time travel clause to the standard operating manual of the Academy?”

  Marshal exploded with laughter, but one look at his eyes and it was clear he was starting to get uncomfortable.

  She had that effect on most people. You could hurl a litany of insults Mimi’s way, but she would always pick herself up, dust herself off, and smile.

  “Do you find something funny, Cadet?”

  “Just get out of here, Mimi.” Marshal turned to walk away. “And seriously, where do you get these questions? Time travel clause? What the heck are you talking about?”

  “Reputable sources indicate a recent incident on Remus 12 has caused the Academy Board to write a new clause into the standard operating manual given to all active Coalition Army members. What are your thoughts?”

  “My thoughts are you’re crazy.” With that, Marshal snorted one last time and flicked his friend forward with a wave.

  The two men walked away, exchanging rude jokes at Mimi’s expense as they did.

  Not once did her smile shift.

  In fact, she put more effort into it until her cheeks grew so stiff it was a surprise they didn’t crack.

  Eventually, however, she gave up, turned on her heel, and checked on her recording ball. It was still jerking around erratically. “You okay, Klutzo?”

  Klutzo was her pet name for the recording orb, as the darn thing had been wiped so many times, the constant deletions had affected its navigations. It often flew into the side of buildings, trees, people, or her head.

  Klutzo gave a soft beep. “Feeling sad,” it admitted. “Memory deleted once more.”

  She smiled. “Same here. But that’s why you’ve got to keep smiling, Klutzo.”

  “Can’t smile – no mouth.”

  “Okay, let me do the smiling, then,” Mimi promised as she pushed up on her tiptoes, plucked Klutzo from the air, and hugged him to her chest.

  She nursed him until she made it back to her apartment.

  Once she was inside, she placed him carefully in his cradle and set the computer to rebuild his databases.

  When she was done, she collapsed on the couch. Pressing her eyes closed, she tried not to let Marshal’s words rattle her.

  Mimi hadn’t always been a freelance journalist, or Buzz Kill, as mean-spirited folk like Marshal called it. A few short years ago she’d been an Academy cadet.

  She loved space. She loved exploring. And those things were on tap when you worked for the Academy.

  But her dream had died.

  She pressed her eyes tightly closed now.

  Approximately 2 years and 214 days ago, there’d been an accident. A simulation had gone awry, killing a young cadet – Lilly Williams. A name etched into Mimi’s mind as if it had been burnt onto her brainstem.

  They’d been prepping for a simulated battle mission.

  It had been Mimi’s job to check the equipment was running properly. She’d done her best, but she’d missed a fault. A fault that had cost Lilly her life.

  Everyone blamed Mimi. If she’d been better, if she’d been more careful, she would have picked up that fault, and the
promising Cadet Williams would now be an officer.

  Though initially Mimi had blamed herself, she’d been exonerated by the Academy Board. The fault had been no ordinary mechanical problem. Only an experienced engineer would have been able to find it. Mimi never had a chance.

  She still thought about that day. She still remembered, in perfect detail, watching the training craft explode in a hail of sparks and hot white metal. She still remembered being told by the investigating officers that she’d missed an error in the engine cooling program that had gone on to cause the explosion. And she still remembered, dear god did she still remember the reactions of all her friends and colleagues.

  They’d turned on her. Even Carinthia, who had been Mimi’s best friend at the time. Carinthia, daughter of Admirals Forest and Nok, practically led the witch hunt against Mimi. She told anyone who would listen that Mimi had always been a careless recruit.

  But that was all ancient history, right? Mimi was now a journalist or at least an aspiring one.

  So even though it was hard to push back the memories of that day, she forcibly pressed a smile into her lips. In her experience there was little smiling couldn’t fix.

  She pushed herself up from the couch and once again checked on Klutzo. When she was satisfied he was recharging correctly, she made herself some food and sat down to the important task of keeping astride of the news. She read articles from every single news outlet, no matter how far afield. She took notes, she interacted with holographic visuals, and she tried to squirrel away every fact she learned. Because who knew when the current taxation climate in the Hagar province would come in handy?

  It was when she was trawling through the massive galactic news database that she received a message from her father. As she accepted the call, her computer projected a hologram onto the table before her. It was her father’s always smiling face.

  “What’s news, kid?”

  “Hagar province is now taxing its citizens at 300% of their annual income,” Mimi pointed out.

  “That’s what happens when you pull your tax laws out of a hat,” her father pointed out.

  Citizens of the Hagar province practiced random living. All key decisions in their existence were decided by random number generators. To the Hagars, that made life all the more exciting.

  “What about you, dad? How are you?”

  Her father smiled. It was important to note that Theodore Francis Chester the Third had many kinds of smiles. When her dad’s lips pulled in, it was a veiled threat. When one lip kinked to the left, he was curious. When one lip kinked to the right, he was ignoring you.

  Right now, he had the kind of smile that told Mimi he was planning something.

  Her lips pressed in and her nose crinkled. “Dad, what is it? What are you planning?”

  “What, me? Nothing. I’m just running one of the Milky Way’s largest corporations, as usual.”

  “Nice try. Now tell me, what are you up to?”

  “Well, funny you should mention it, but this morning I had an invigorating game of pulse squash with Yop J’k, head of Galactic News.”

  Though Mimi had been slouching, suddenly she stiffened. “Dad, no,” she said quickly.

  “You haven’t even heard what I’m about to offer.”

  “I told you, you can’t interfere. If I do this, I have to do it on my own.”

  “Nobody ever got anywhere without a helping hand. Show me an Admiral who hasn’t had a mentor. Show me a successful business person who hasn’t struck it lucky. Show me a famous scientist who wasn’t fortunate enough to grow up with the combined knowledge of the Coalition. As the old humans used to say, Mimi, no man is an island, and no achievement is truly down to the individual.”

  “That’s not the saying,” she tried.

  Her father ignored her. “It doesn’t matter. A true businessman knows when to co-opt old and outdated material and modernize it. Now, just listen to me. I have a very interesting offer.”

  She stood suddenly, her chair clattering out from underneath her and striking the smooth floorboards with a thump. “Dad, I have to do this on my own. I can’t keep leaning on you when I need something. I have to be self-sufficient.”

  “You are self-sufficient. I only pay for half of your apartment.”

  “About that, I’ve been thinking of trying to pay my own way. I know it will be hard, but if I am lucky enough to get work,” she began.

  “Listen to me, kid, the only way you are ever going to break into galactic news, is if you have friends. That journalist you’re always idolizing, Poy Verity, do you know how she made it big? She was the daughter of the editor-in-chief.”

  “She made it big because of cutting-edge journalism and her willingness to track down stories, no matter how dangerous.”

  Her father snorted. “I love you, kid, and I always will, but one of these days you’re going to have to wake up to the real galaxy.”

  Mimi’s cheeks started to turn red. She took several steps away from her father, ready to storm off.

  “Now hold on, that came out wrong. Mimi, you’re the smartest most capable kid I have, and I believe you’re capable of anything.”

  “I’m your only child,” she pointed out dryly.

  “A scarce resource is the best resource to have,” he quipped. Then the hologram of his face shifted to the side as his smile almost threatened to drop from his mouth. “But seriously, listen to me. I taught you to always bounce back, and by god, you learned that lesson. But there’s another lesson you need to learn, Mimi, and that is you can’t do everything on your own. And that’s okay. Accepting this job with the galactic news is okay. It doesn’t matter how you get your foot in the door, it’s what you do once you’re there. Now you’ve got the morals and guts to be a great journalist. Better than Verity. But, kid, you’ll never get there alone.”

  “I can’t accept your help, dad,” she said. “I have to do this on my own.”

  “Why? Why don’t you want my help, Mimi? Is it because of those fools at the Academy you once called friends? Is it because you want to prove to them you don’t need me? Well, wake up, kid, because they aren’t doing it on their own. Carinthia has been schooled since she was born on how to become an Academy officer. Her success isn’t due to her will and stamina; she’s just had more opportunities than others. Now maybe she doesn’t realize that, maybe she thinks she got to where she did on her own. But she’s a fool if she thinks that. Nobody gets to where they are on their own.”

  “I… I just need to do this, okay, dad?”

  “You’re not going to give in, are you? Even if I go ahead and set this job up, you’re never going to do it, right?”

  She nodded.

  Her dad closed his eyes and shook his head. “Mimi Chester, you’re a hard one to bargain with. I’m glad you’re not my competition.”

  Biting her lips, she smiled.

  “I’m giving up for now, but not forever. And neither am I going to let you pay for your apartment all on your own. You won’t be able to afford a place so close to the Academy, and we all know that’s where the real stories happen. So call this an investment. I’ll help pay your way as long as you keep trying, kid. I want you to find a story that will blow them all out of the water. That will make your doubters rue the day they thought you, Mimi Chester, were anything but brilliant.”

  Her smile blossomed into a full-blown grin. “Thanks. But really, I think I should start paying my own way with the apartment. I looked into it, and I can get a place out in Australia.”

  “Australia?” Her dad’s voice went up like a kazoo. “That’s on the other side of the world from the Academy’s main campus. Plus, full of snakes, right? And sharks, heaps of sharks.”

  “I can take the super-fast transport to the various Academy campuses whenever I need to. It won’t be that much trouble.”

  “No. Stay where you are. Like I said, call it an investment. I want to see you come up with a story that will rattle this galaxy. Find some secret, uncover some con
spiracy. But keep safe,” her dad warned quickly.

  “What, seriously? You don’t want me to hop a transport into Barbarian space?”

  Her father’s face visibly paled.

  “Relax, I’ve always been a careful person, and I’m not about to stop.”

  “Right. Seriously, though, when I said I want to see you uncover some grand secret, just ensure it’s a safe one. Maybe you can find out what Admiral Forest’s favorite color is, or something.”

  It was her turn to snort. “That isn’t exactly going to earn me journalistic fame.”

  “Right, right. Just be safe, Mimi.”

  “Don’t worry, I will be.”

  “And if you have time, give the GNS a call. I kind of promised Yop that he would have first dibs on any stories you come across.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. So if you do come across something worthy, give him a call.”

  “… Okay,” she conceded, figuring she had to honor her dad’s deal.

  “Alright then, you have a good one. Get to work. Now is there anything you need? How about a new recording ball? I reckon it’s finally time you replace that old piece of junk.”

  “Don’t call him that,” her voice became piercing.

  “It’s a recording ball, Mimi, it’s not alive.”

  “It’s my friend,” she said bluntly.

  Her dad opened his mouth, but whatever he wanted to say quickly died on his lips as he shook his head instead.

  Though Mimi wasn’t a mind reader, she could guess what her dad wanted to point out. It was time for her to get some real friends. So what if everyone at the Academy had turned against her, there were still other sentient beings in this galaxy. It was time to give up the safety net that was Klutzo and find some real people to spend her time with.

  Thankfully her dad held his tongue. She didn’t want to face those facts right now, because despite the fact she always put on a smile, she wasn’t completely over the accident and never would be.

  “Alright then, Mimi Chester, you get back to work. I need to get onto our finance department to tell them to cease all imports to the Hagar province.”

  She smiled. Her dad would already know what was happening on Hagar, as would his finance department. He was clearly trying to make her feel useful. He always did that. And it kept her going. So she offered him another warm smile and ended the recording.

  Though she resisted it, she was kind of excited about what he’d told her. Even though she categorically couldn’t accept a job her father had found for her, just the possibility the galactic service would want first dibs on any proper story she found was a cause for hope. It made her turn around, head over to Klutzo, and grab him up.

  It was time to get back to work.

  …

  Even though Mimi was just a buzz kill, and hadn’t technically sold one of her stories yet, she still had the right to attend any official Academy press event. Sometimes they were crisis updates, and sometimes they were thinly veiled attempts at propaganda. Okay, not propaganda. Mimi knew the Academy did an incredible job of training the forces that kept the Coalition safe. But she had learned a lot of business principles from her dad, and she recognized a great PR machine when she saw one. The Academy’s press wing was just that. When there wasn’t any real news to report, they would fill the wires with back rubs instead. And what were back rubs? A bit of good old-fashioned hero worship.

  The Academy was big on heroes. From the up and coming in the E club, to their favorite captains and admirals, the Academy was never shy about praising its best and brightest.

  And who was its new golden boy?

  Special Commander Joshua Cook.

  Unlike previous heroes, however, Cook wasn’t your classic goody two shoes. The information on his past was sketchy, but by all accounts, he’d taken an unusual route to the Academy. One that included profiteering, smuggling, and being a gun for hire.

  Nobody talked about this, though, and to be fair, the information Mimi had on Joshua wasn’t solid. It was enough, however, to suggest that the man had a past. One that seemed at odds with his label as a hero.

  Well, right now as Mimi made her way into the press wing of the Academy command building, she mulled over those facts. Because this briefing would be about him. Apparently, he’d just returned from some super-secret super-important mission that had saved innumerable Coalition lives. While the Academy couldn’t expand on the exact details of his mission, they weren’t gonna miss another opportunity for some positive PR. They were going to parade him in front of reporters, tell them he was a bona fide hero, and make him pose for photos.

  Despite the fact Mimi didn’t work for a registered news agency, she still knew how these things went down.

  After her conversation with her father, she realized that if she honestly wanted to make something of herself, she wouldn’t be able to stand for the status quo anymore. She wanted to find the story of a lifetime, and she wasn’t going to get it by standing around taking holo footage with the Academy’s new golden boy, even if technically he was a little tarnished.

  As Mimi walked across Academy grounds toward the main building, she ignored the stares. The comments too. She locked her gaze forward, and she smiled.

  She was used to it by now. From Bradley Marshal to Carinthia herself, Mimi had put up with her fair share of vitriol, and then a little more. Even though she kept getting pushed down, she kept getting up too. And she would keep getting up until she was knocked down for good.