Chapter 85 What the Hell is a Phylactery?
Francis joined the sword and sorcery game for the first time. Starting at level 1, he decided to be a bard, acting in support. His bard character was definitely modeled after Sherlock Holmes as he was an Inquisitor sub-class. As we moved through the undead hordes, Francis died a half dozen times but did reach level 5. Our party did reach the lair of the lich high in a ruined castle in the snow-covered mountains. It took quite some time before the final confrontation with the lich king as we made our way through the castle. Gwen was the last one standing among us, but she won. It helped that her level was superior to all of us. Triumphantly we returned for our reward only to find the town raised and a gloating lich king in charge. Apparently, liches had a way of saving their soul by making something called a phylactery. This allowed them to resume their life in another body. We chased the lich away but didn¡¯t get to kill him again. Julie chuckled. She said the second game story arc would need to be completed to confront the lich king again. I reminded Julie that she was only in here because I had given her a free pass on her time out¡which I seemed to do a lot. I was definitely too soft with the AIs.
Francis said he might join again but wasn¡¯t sure. Julie and Luna had behaved themselves during the long game session, so I hoped he would join us again. Everyone else was excited to track down the lich in the neighboring kingdom. I left the game somewhat upset, the long build-up didn¡¯t meet my expectations. The fight had been epic, but the lich had escaped.
Exiting the VR, I went down to the robotics lab to work on my spider bots. I was just doing something fun after the frustrating lich battle. I had the alien power generators and could build a very dangerous and useful bot around them. I still didn¡¯t have fuel for the generators but hoped I would figure out how to manufacture the solid-state fuel rods soon. Truthfully I was hoping to find a scientist or two at the Anderson Research Station. Although the main focus for the bevy of scientists was on the organic life on the super planet it orbited. There were many brilliant minds on board the station from all across human space.
With Julie¡¯s help, I designed the most terrifying spider bot I could. It was going to be black and the size of a person when its legs were folded around its body. This storage configuration would allow us to stash them across the ships in hidden ceiling alcoves. When the legs sprung out, it would be 1.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters high. Its movement speed was up to 70 kph, and it could climb walls easily. Its eight eyes would be glowing red, and each pair of eyes would see in a different spectrum, ultraviolet, radiation, thermal and visual.
There would be some long hair on the bot that could sense vibrations and act as sonar if the eyes were disabled. Its 0.3 meter mandibles would have a decent crushing strength but would not be its primary weapon. Its two forward legs could produce spikes at the ends and act like spears to puncture targets. The other six legs would have stores of solvent to dissolve the foam if needed. Between its mandible maw was the foam projector. The reservoir of the foam compound was four times that of the original bot. I know it should have extruded the foam from the abdomen to be more anatomically correct, but in Julie¡¯s sims, the forward mount location on the head was far superior for combat applications.
The shell and legs were going to consist of alien hull material, making it very resistant to damage and difficult for scanners to pick up. If our projections were correct, the bot would be completely invisible to energy sensors when operating at minimal power. We also incorporated a basic form of stealth camouflage into the bot. It could blend very effectively into the background as long as it didn¡¯t move.
With Julie¡¯s help, we made the bots able to function in the cold of space¡so they could swarm on the hulls of an enemy ship if necessary. This required thermal elements around the foam canisters to make sure it was viable after it left space and entered an enemy hull. The final piece of functionality was a plasma cutter in the abdomen where the spinnerets would be for a spider. It was a very short-range plasma cutter, but it was powerful. The spider bot could use it to cut access into hulls or power armor. I set Julie to programming the spider bots. But before these nightmares were ever completed, that programming would have to be perfect.
I had spent the entire day on this mock-up of the venom bots. Julie used her hologram projectors to project a life-size model of the bot when we were done and I was sufficiently horrified. Although its primary purpose was defensive, this bot was a serious nightmare in appearance.
Finished in the robotics lab, I joined the marines for some late evening training and then spent a few hours on the bridge. I sat on the bridge reviewing crew progress on certs. I sent off some congratulations here and there and encouragement elsewhere. It was boring work, but it was also part of my merchant marine captain training. The final thing I did on the bridge was to prep for the command staff meeting tomorrow. With no passengers, these meetings had been moved to every other day. I was slightly nervous as this meeting would have a lot of the crew¡¯s answers for if they planned to stay or not. My evening was spent playing with Celeste and Amos. They were growing so fast and already making some sounds. I hadn¡¯t realized it, but Celeste had said ¡®Eve¡¯¡I spent the next two hours trying to get her to say ¡®Dad¡¯ while Eve watched, clearly amused.
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As the two babies were becoming mobile, Julie had numerous toys being fabricated that would help with mental development. According to Julie, development was 75% genetic and 25% environmental. The Claire bot was constantly present with Eve, helping the children remain stimulated. I really hoped Celeste would grow up to be more socially flexible than I was. I still found interactions with others very tedious but was doing a much better job of picking up body language, according to Abby and Gwen.
For my evening VR session, I joined Francis for a murder mystery dinner game. It was based on an old board game called Clue. It ended up being quite fun, and I even guessed the correct murderer but had the weapon incorrect. I thought it was the pipe due to the nature of the injury, but it was the wrench!
In the morning, I showered and helped feed the babies before dressing and attending the staff meeting. I was expecting a little bit of bad news. We first reviewed the ship engineering reports from Nero. I noted a few issues I planned to check on myself. Then we discussed our current provisions and supplies. That was quick. Abby then started on the crew reports. Who was staying?
The marines were 100% on board. They were getting to play with more toys and getting paid better than any job they could find in civilian life. And Abby let slip the adrenaline rush of being chased across the galaxy was an adrenaline high for the marines. Engineering was also 100% on board. But Nero had a list of staff positions he wanted to be filled. Computer/Software Engineer, Navigation Engineer, Shield Engineer, and Power Sub Systems Engineer. The last was a new addition and basically worked hand in hand with all the other engineers on the ship. I agreed to all the hiring when we found suitable and vetted candidates.
The flight deck also had good news. Luna had convinced her parents to remain on board. I was a little bit shocked by this one. Luna had turned 13 and was forced to grow up in an environment without kids her own age. VR could only do so much. And now, with a probable threat of the Sylvan, I had been certain that Stavros and Evira Martis would leave with their daughter. I was happy they were all staying.
The command deck was also remaining intact. That was not unexpected. Then it was Suruchi¡¯s turn. Our comedian and assistant steward and Suruchi¡¯s assistant were leaving at Anderson Research Station. That was half of our hospitality staff. Maybe this was a good thing. I might reduce our passengers capacity in the future when I added weapons to the ship. It would also give us a chance to hire new staff at a more reasonable pay scale.
We quickly set priorities for when we docked at Anderson Research Station in 10 days.
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Lazarus sat in the conference room while Sha¡¯Lua debriefed him. He was extremely irritated that the elves had quarantined his new crew and ship. Broderick sat next to him and over-answered every question asked while Lazarus smartly moderated his responses. Sha¡¯Lua was trying to figure out the engineer¡¯s motivations in order to figure out what his next destination would be. They had just missed the engineer in the Vinita system. It was obvious the engineer had known he was being followed as he spent less and less time in systems refueling and resupplying.
The Vinita system had also been a massive standoff. The system had a large number of human defensive fleets, enough to challenge the Sylvan city ship. The elves watched helplessly as the Void Phoenix escaped on the far side of the system. Lazarus had been on his own ship and had been ordered to dock with the city ship after the escape. His crew had been detained, and his ship seized. He considered it his ship even though the elves had paid for it. They didn¡¯t want to recall the War Chariot ships to the city ship for fear of minimizing the defensive screen of the city ship in the Vinita system. So it had taken two days for the elves to withdraw and follow the rough vector of the Void Phoenix.
Sha¡¯lua had the plot up in front of them as she questioned them over and over. Lazarus wanted to help so he could have his thirst for revenge satiated. But even he couldn¡¯t figure out what the hell the engineer was doing. There were only three systems on this vector, two in Sapphirian space. Both were minimally populated, and the third had almost no population. Unless he was planning a longer voyage¡over ten days, that would vastly open his possibilities.
If he wasn¡¯t taking on passengers, then what was he doing? Was he looking to sell his alien loot from the planetoid? Where would he¡!!! He zoomed in on the stellar map. Anderson Research Station. It had dozens of scientists from across human space and even a few alien species. They were mostly planetary biologists, but it would give him a massive market of potential customers. It was brilliant. He would need to stop and fix his subspace vector, and it was a long 12 to 14 day trip in his fast ship, but it made sense.
Lazarus smugly told Sha¡¯lua of his deductions. He could be wrong, as the Void Phoenix could stop and completely alter its vector, but then the engineer would be staying in Sapphire space. After the mess in the Vinita system, he would be persona non grata in the Sapphire Empire, so his deductions made too much sense. If he was correct, then the elves would trust him¡ may be enough to let him return to his ship and crew.
Chapter 86 Anderson Research Station
Chapter 86
The 10-day trip to the Anderson Research Station was very productive.
With Celeste and Amos growing up so fast, I started to work on the series of aging bot playmates. I brought up all the preliminary work on the project. I made three frames and fabricated all of them with the alien hull fabricator machines. The target was now set to have the bots look 5, 11, and 17 years old. I made the decision to keep each iteration female.
At first, I had to overcome a mental hurdle. I wanted each bot to have complete functionality¡strength, memory, and power. Unfortunately, miniaturizing everything quickly became a nightmare. The first thing I was forced to reduce was the strength of the bots. I had wanted the five-year version to be as strong as the adult version so it could protect Celeste. I finally reduced the amount of mechanicals and carbon fiber tubules, saving a ton of space at the cost of the 5-year-old version bots¡¯ strength.
The next compromise I made was the power core. For both the 5 and 11-year bots, I dropped the power core completely in favor of rechargeable batteries¡saving even more space. This allowed me to incorporate the complete AI and all the synthetic flesh and musculature. As long as the bot acted human enough, it should pass as human unless it was scanned. The power charging port was going to be a fold of skin where the fake belly button was located. The bots would be anatomically correct but have no functionality in regard to the anatomy.
When it came to the AI, I was not certain if I should go with the evolving AI as I did with Eve¡not sure if that experiment worked out. Or if I should do a seeded AI capable of minimal growth. Julie was lobbying for the evolving AI. Julie wanted Eve and herself to create it together. Yeah, nothing could go wrong there! I planned to do multiple test runs and build the bots when the children were around four years old, so I had lots of time to tinker.
The ¡®playmate bot¡¯ was just one of the things I worked on during the voyage. Somehow Haily and I¡mostly Haily with Eve¡¯s help¡powered and tested the two massive sensor modules. Apparently, Haily was learning the actual alien language but still relied on Eve¡¯s rough translations. The spoken language was not overly complex. Thirty-seven different sounds comprised the language in a slightly higher pitch than normal human speech. Since Eve could access millions of hours of video from the crystal archives, Haily had a great reference¡the actual voices of the long-dead alien race.
The written language was more difficult. It was a mix of an alphabet and hieroglyphic images. To make matters more difficult, the written language evolved over time in the crystals while the spoken language remained standard. The numerical system¡well, it was just easier to use the computers to translate all the arithmetic to base 10.
Haily was treating the sensors like I treated the alien hull fabricators. That is not really understanding their function but just following the complex alien instruction manual to get it working. Haily was currently focused on calibrating the two sensors with each other. The issue she was finding most difficult was the aliens had actually used more than two sensors when they calibrated. We also made to move the sensors further apart to help Haily. And by further apart, I mean we were only going from 20.56 meters to 23.69 meters. That was the maximum we could do without doing some major ship structure work. Haily spent the entire voyage getting both sensors welded and fixed in place with brackets between the two modules. She knew once they were calibrated, they couldn¡¯t be moved more than 1 millimeter or the data would get too divergent the further away from the ship.
Haily was hoping that maybe within the next year, she would have success but she asked for help constantly from me. I did help when I could, and Haily didn¡¯t make any overt attempts to seduce me. Eve was actually Haily¡¯s go-to person. On one occasion she was troubleshooting with Eve in my cabin when I came in. Haily just excused herself and went to her bridge shift.
With my time being so stretched, I brought my shuttle techs, Stavros and Evira, down to the courier ship. Damian, the FTL engineer, also joined the little party. The courier ship was in need of maintenance, and I just was not finding the time. Stavros and Evira had tons of free time and were happy to get more certifications and service from the luxury courier ship Caladrius. I had hoped to spend time unwinding while working on the courier ship, but I was juggling way too many things concurrently.
Miguel was having some success with the other seeds. After he had gotten the optimal soil, light, atmosphere, and temperature narrowed down from the purple grass, which he named the purple phoenix feathers after the ship¡¯s name and the grass¡¯s color. It was given a Latin name as well, and his research was sent off to Earth for cataloging. Even though I had not participated in his work, my alias, Deven Wellspring, was listed on the paper as a contributor. So far, no miraculous compounds had been found in the grass. It did grow densely and was soft, making it nice to sleep on, though. Miguel Asuni hoped maybe the remaining seeds would produce something notable.
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My VR time during the trek was limited to certs, observing certs, and getting my own practice with the new stealth suits. Twelve were finished, and we were in the process of fine-tuning them. They were powerful, though. They were not as good as the Brotherhoods in terms of visual stealth but superior in all other aspects to those suits. I was starting to consider abandoning the heavy suits in favor of just building 24 more stealth suits. Gabby talked me out of that. She said I should at least wait until we recruited our complement of marines before committing to a decision. At Anderson Research Station, she was planning on sending out long-range communications into Union space to get the ball rolling.
Gwen was becoming a real friend. She was practically living in my quarters as she was always playing with the children and helping Eve when not on duty. She was still extremely social with the crew, though. When she worked, she seemed to find time to talk to everyone in the crew, and she relayed the crew rumor mill to me at dinner.
Gabby finished her bot on the trip. I never saw the finished product, though, as she secreted it away in her cabin. I guess the daughter was like her father in using her bot. But then again, I was being a hypocrite as I had sought physical gratification with the Clare bot.
During the subspace trek, the crew was also on me to get the power systems for the three hover bikes they manufactured. Somehow the bikes incorporated the alien hull plating into their frames, but when I went and looked at the material stock and the production queues for the machines, there was nothing there. So my crew must have snuck the frames in there and altered the records. I didn¡¯t discipline the crew but did have Julie and Francis track down the security video showing them doing their illicit fabrication runs. I played it for them in the background wall screen while they showed me the three bikes up in the shuttle bays. It was best to let them know they couldn¡¯t get anything over on me.
The bikes were much sleeker than before. The specs had improved slightly as well, with each bike now configured for one pilot and a single passenger, and 90 kg of cargo. They were still working on security features for the bikes. The last thing they wanted was to have them stolen when they took them out for a ride on an unfamiliar planet. I green-lit a budget to purchase the engines at Anderson Research Station.
I was on the bridge and appeared calm as the ship was getting ready to transition out of subspace. The crew was very professional, and I noticed Elias had removed all his visible tattoos. The transition went smoothly. It took Elias a few minutes before he sent me an update. We were six light hours away from the desired destination. That was not bad since we had taken an arcing path in subspace. We prepped for a micro-jump, and an hour later, we jumped and were right where we were supposed to be.
Even though Elias was upset about missing his target, I congratulated him on the result. We probably could have stopped earlier in our voyage to make the adjustments, but Elias had been so confident we didn¡¯t. In the end, we didn¡¯t lose any time.
The navigation plot slowly filled. There was not much in the system. A yellow sun and two massive planets. It was very unusual to have so little mass orbiting a star. Maybe a powerful alien race evolved here millions of years ago and pillaged their system of resources. There was no time to fixate on it, though. Our plot focused on the massive blue and green ball. Orbiting the planet was the Anderson Research Station. It was a massive ring station like looked like a spoked wheel. When it was built a long, long time ago by humanity they actually spun the station to generate gravity as grav plating was too costly in terms of energy usage. Now the station had been rebuilt and expanded for centuries.
It was one of the few neutral sites for humans in the galaxy and was staffed by the ¡®locals.¡¯ The ¡®locals¡¯ were the permanent residents of the station. They charged high fees to scientists in order to study the planet below. Somehow the arrangement had worked for so long. The locals only had six destroyers, and they looked quite old, according to Elias and Zoe.
Suruchi commed me, and I took the call. She had buyers for all of our cargo already! We had only been in the system for 20 minutes, and the comm lag was 4 minutes from our current position. Suruchi said she just had to post our goods on the trade net at our asking price and wait. Everything was snatched up immediately. She admitted she should have waited a little longer to get a feel for prices before posting. But we still made 28% over our highest expectations, almost doubling our investment. I didn¡¯t have the heart to ask what we could have made if she had been more prudent in her postings. She commed me back with the reason why the goods were scooped up so quickly at higher-than-expected prices. The war between the Union and Sapphire Empire had cut their normal supply cargo shipments in half. They were just starting to return to normal. Once again, our luck was the timing. I didn¡¯t think trading could be this easy.
Haily was on comms with Elias getting us landing vectors and a docking assignment. There were 31 large ships and dozens of smaller ships already docked at the ring station. We ended up assigned to a trader¡¯s dock. Our imports were only taxed at 12%. Exports were charged at 60%. This made sense as the station was probably desperate for materials and fuel. They were massive solar arrays in the trailing orbit, but this system lacked the standard hydrogen gas giant that typically supplied fuel for system space transportation cheaply.
I walked down to Elias station and privately updated his terminal with our next destination. It was the black site for the Union raids that we got from General Briggs. I figured it would be best to get the plot ready now. Elias eagerly took it, and I watched him work. He was doing another curved course in subspace! He must have been so upset with missing his target that he wanted to prove his competency. I bet him 10 Sol credits that he couldn¡¯t get within five light minutes of the target. We shook on it, and it got a whole slew of betting going. So maybe not a completely professional crew yet.
I sat back in my captain¡¯s seat as we made our way to the station. I connected with the research station and began on my own laundry to-do list.
Chapter 87 Anderson Research Station
Chapter 87 Anderson Research Station
The jewel of the system we were in was the massive blue and green planet. I remember doing some brief research on the world called Magnus Gaia. The possibility of a world this size evolving such a vast and varied amount of life was essentially zero, according to human scientists. Normal cells would be crushed under intense gravity. Other planets this size that had been found with life only had microscopic organisms. On Magnus Gaia, there was a complete biosphere. The fact that life had existed here for millions of years and continued to evolve was beyond miraculous. The prevalent theory was that life on the planet had been engineered by an advanced civilization. The only evidence of this so far was large, perfectly square stone slabs scattered around the planet. The counterargument was these slabs were placed by another race who also came to study life on Magnus Gaia in the distant past.
Harvesting sample vegetation and life was a very profitable venture. The station exported these curiosities at a substantial profit by heavily taxing them. I actually planned to purchase some furniture on the station made from a tree nicknamed the steel wood tree. The steel wood tree grew to over 300 meters in height, and the wood was so dense it was just as heavy as steel and just as strong. It had a blue-silver coloring. I had become interested in various kinds of wood after we hauled our load of lumber for a substantial profit.
I had planned to use some of that lumber for outfitting my cabin, but the turnaround time to have furniture created was too great. It was going to be a small reminder for me that humanity was ruthless in its expansion. Now, the message would be slightly different with the addition of the steel wood tree furniture. This would remind me that humans were not the most impressive things in the universe.
On researching, the station had three vendors for finished wood products made from trees on the planet, and the prices were outrageous, as expected, but I was committed to the luxury investment. I had a double-sized cabin, so I had lots of space. With Julie¡¯s help, I searched their catalog and selected floor panels to cover my oversized cabin, three large bed frames, three executive desks, three executive chairs, three massive armoires, six end tables, three couches, six reclining rockers, and one complete dining room set. Their station warehouse had everything in stock in a plain style, and the hidden hardware to mount the furniture securely on the ships was free.
The furniture would outfit my cabin, Celeste¡¯s future cabin, and Amos¡¯ future cabin. Julie was even able to find some discounts and a tax loophole. The loophole gave me a tax-free amount of 10% of the volume of goods I imported to Anderson Research Station. The loophole had been buried deep in the tax law, and Julie indicated the administrators only utilized it for specific clients and traders. Julie only stumbled on it by chance from a video¡yes the tax was not in the data archives, just hard-printed! Very devious.
With my personal shopping done in less than an hour, I turned to the ship purchases. I hoped to have all the purchasing done before we made the dock. Then I would focus on trying to hire a few new crew members. Everything was listed, and my gut hurt at the prices. I started to eliminate things from the list that we could do without until we reached another system. The hardest thing I dropped was the three power cores for the hoverbikes. I had promised the crew, but paying four times a reasonable price wasn¡¯t in the cards. I finished with the edits and confirmed the funds to be released. I reclined in my captain¡¯s chair. We still had 30 minutes till we docked.
At Suruchi¡¯s suggestion, we were going to advertise passengers to the Hercule system. It was a small industrial system in the Union. I suppose I needed to stop thinking of it as Union space. It was now a providence of the Sapphirean expansionist empire. Well, the plan was to only take a few passengers and then refund their tickets at a different system. That way, anyone following us would be thrown off our trail. Suruchi and Dora were working on this, with Francis and Edmund doing the background checks.
The approach to the station was put on the holo tank and forward screens. The massive station ring had been added to over and over again. The outer diameter was just over 11 kilometers, making it extremely impressive in its size. This gave it a circumference of 66 km. The station height was 7 kilometers. It reminded me of the Sylvan city ships. When it was first constructed it was a much smaller ring and spun to create gravity. Now it was stationary in its axial spin and used grav plates. As we docked, I was actually excited to explore the station a bit but I received an urgent communication from Edmund.
His news was not good. There was substantial Brotherhood comm traffic. He hadn¡¯t been aware that there was such a large Brotherhood presence here, but it made sense. The Brotherhood¡¯s first goal was the advancement of humanity. Of course, they wanted to be the ones reaping profit and controlling the puppet strings. So they apparently had agents in multiple teams of scientists studying the planet. The most concerning thing for Edmund was he was only able to access about half of the messages. These were messages at the lowest operative level, the Obsidian level. So there were higher-class agents at the station.
Of course, my chosen destination would harbor a collection of power-mad humans that would at some point in the future, become aware that I had killed one of their agents and start hunting me. It was now even more imperative that our stay here be as short as possible. I made a choice to release some of my precious metal stock. The station was starved for such raw material stock, so I was going to get a good price. The additional funds would go into the ship¡¯s account for future purchases. My thought was once we altered the Void Phoenix¡¯s appearance in the future it would make it easy for our pursuers to locate us if we continued to sell precious metals in the future. I believed this was becoming a calling card¡dock, sell rare exotic metal, buy stuff, and leave. So I determined this was going to be my last such transaction in human space, so I was going all in.
Since Suruchi had already erred in selling our trade goods, I figured she wouldn¡¯t make the same mistake twice. I spent a few minutes identifying everything I was going to sell¡it was substantial and would create a fair amount of space on the ship. After I sent the info to Suruchi, she commed me a minute later and jokingly said she needed a raise. I, of course, said no. She was already making a ridiculous amount. She planned to release the metals in small blocks at the station auction. This should yield the largest return. I told her she needed to sell everything in 36 hours. She put on a sour face but nodded. Julie sent me projections, and the numbers were large. I just hoped we could get the ship out of here before anyone found us.
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I went and trained with the marines. I needed to blow off some steam, and I was actually getting pretty good at hand-to-hand. I was ranked 3rd among our marines. Abby and Bucky were first and second, of course. Even when the marines said they were just letting me win because I paid their salaries, I knew they were giving me maximum effort. We even sometimes bet on sparing, and I won 90% of the time against them. I even tricked Abby once with a ridiculous move and beat her¡of course, she kicked my ass in the four ¡®required¡¯ immediate rematches.
After my time training, I retreated to clean up in my cabin and spend time with Celeste and Amos. While I was playing, I was communicating with Julie¡¯s hologram. For finding the loophole in the tax law, I reduced her ¡®time out¡¯ from VR by 6 months. A very excited Julie started helping me try and locate a few specialists in the station. I had three crew priorities. First was a specialist that could help with the generator fuel rods for the alien devices.
The second was a shield engineer. I hadn¡¯t dabbled with the advanced alien tech yet, but the shield emitters were four times as efficient as the ones we were currently using. Reverse engineering this tech could give the Void Phoneix a significant defense upgrade.
The third and the most tricky hire would be a software and bot engineer. This person would help maintain our extensive number of bots and also work on the combat suit projects. Since this person was going to have access to such sensitive information, I needed someone trustworthy.
I had numerous other crew needs I didn¡¯t plan to address here. These were two pilots for the fighters, a navigation engineer, a power sub-system engineer, a second shuttle pilot, and a xeno science officer.
Abby sent a message to my PerCom, interrupting my searches. Francis and Abby were going to be tailing the three hospitality crew that were leaving the ship. They didn¡¯t think they were going to go and cause any issues, but better to be safe. I gave them the green light.
It took seven hours to find acceptable candidates for the positions. Surprisingly the xeno science office just kind of fell into my lap. Dr. Abraham Zaire was from the Hyperion Federation. His small human Federation of three-star systems had been annexed, and all his funding had been cut off. So he was, in effect, stranded. Edmund found no communication from his independent research cell on the station to the Brotherhood. Dr. Zaire¡¯s credentials were beyond impressive. Twenty-one doctorates in varying fields of xeno study. Everything from ecosystems to plant and animal life. A lot of his doctorates focused on various alien species, including the Sylvan. So he was about as close an expert as I was going to get.
He was looking for a ride home and not a job. After meeting him on my ship I decided I liked him too much to not add him to my crew. He was in his late fifties and hadn¡¯t had access to SNAIL treatments. I tried to leverage that first, but it didn¡¯t quite sway him. What did sway him was the tour of the botany lab and the fact we might be venturing beyond human-controlled space and seeing new worlds. At least my agricultural steward, Miguel Asuni, would have someone to work with now.
My best candidate for a shield engineer was from the Scandanavian Collective. The Collective was comprised of a few planetary systems near Earth. His name was Hans Anders. Technically he was not qualified as a researcher. His experience was eight years working on a cruiser¡¯s shielding systems. He now worked on Anderson Station¡¯s shield emitters. The frigate he came here on was sold out from under the entire crew, stranding them while the frigate¡¯s captain escaped with the funds. He had made a home on the station in the last two years but wanted the life of constant movement on a starship. The interview showed him to be intelligent but not creative. All my other candidates were too suspect, according to Edmund and Francis¡¯ quick background checks. I offered Hans the position, and he accepted.
I couldn¡¯t find anyone to fill my role in researching a manufacturing process for the alien generator fuel. I was beyond frustrated with this as I desperately needed someone to help advance this aspect of my research needs. I wanted the generators for the heavy combat suits and for my Venom Bots. The few possibilities Julie found were either happily employed or Edmund shook his head no after checking their backgrounds.
The software engineer was another hurdle. I ended up hiring a young woman, Danielle Forester. She was 25, born and raised on the station, and wanted out. She had certs in bot repair and maintenance and some programming background. She was currently part of a planetary research team. She was responsible for maintaining the bots that went down to the planet and harvested samples. The interview with her showed she was brilliant and extremely underutilized in her current position. I planned to use her for both general bot maintenance and get her to work on the programming for the stealth combat suits. Edmund and Francis couldn¡¯t find anything wrong with her other than the fact that she was too smart.
The time in the dock at the station was like a doomsday clock to me as I watched it tick up. I didn¡¯t know when the shit was going to hit the air recyclers. I just knew it would. At 27 hours, we were resupplied, and almost everything had been offloaded. At 31 hours, Danielle Forester and Hans Anders arrived on board. At 33 hours, I canceled all leave on the station, wanting my crew on board. I had never gotten a chance to explore the station myself. Saabir said there was a large variety of alien species on the station working in the human scientist teams as ¡®guests¡¯. I would have liked to see the variety of aliens the galaxy had to offer. At 35 hours, all my new furniture was on board, and the bots were installing my new flooring.
Finally, at 39 hours, the last new crew member boarded with our five luxury cabin passengers with tickets to Hercule. Damian was not happy as he still had a lot of maintenance to complete when we detached from our dock, just 43 hours after docking. I was impressed with the efficiency. I had thought we would be here at least 48 to 52 hours. I opened my Sol credit balance and whistled on the bridge. I was a very wealthy captain, 6,980,910 Sol credits. That was about 35 years of operation, paying a full crew complement of 70 as well. Well, I planned to live longer than 35 more years, so this wouldn¡¯t be the extent of my funds. I hoped to be able to sell some of the alien tech we were reverse engineering in the next decade to outlying systems.
Chapter 88 Pursuit
Chapter 88 Pursuit
We made our way out of the system, and Damian delayed entering subspace for over two hours. I realized I might need to hire one or two people to help him. He had enough bots, but he by far had the biggest task on the ship, and Eve and I no longer helped him as much.
Finally, Damian gave the go-ahead, and we transitioned into subspace on the arcing vector. We were headed for the abandoned deep space Union resupply base. All we had were coordinates between two stars. Space was big, and there was a good chance we wouldn¡¯t be able to find it. We would try, as Francis seemed to think it was important, and I was hoping to find extensive resources to outfit the Void Phoenix.
With us safely in subspace, I went to help Damian for a few hours. I told him he could get with Abby and Francis and see if he could remember a few engineers that might want to join us from the old Union. We had sent some preliminary inquiries out but hadn¡¯t cemented any hidings yet. Damian was old but still spry. He said he had more than a few names from his long service life. I told him he could hire up to four engineers for the FTL and power systems. His eyes lit up at this, and he left to talk with Abby.
Before settling into a routine I planned our next jump with Elias. If we didn¡¯t find the black site resupply base then I planned to jump to the outskirts of my home system. From there, I would use the Ultra Fast Courier to go home and visit with my parents and give them the news about my brother. They may actually already know, but I wanted to see them again and introduce them to Celeste. It was a very long jump of 19 days. There were two civilian refueling stations in the system that I was hesitant to use. We should have 9-10 days of FTL drive fuel left over if I decided not to refuel, but then I hated being so close to empty. Elias said he would do everything he could to make the path as fuel efficient as possible.
My routine became a short staff meeting in the morning. Since we had so few guests, there was not much to discuss. All security upgrades were done with the exception of adding more marines, Venom Queens, and heavy combat armor. I then spent a few hours working with the new software engineer on the stealth suits. Danielle was smart and very attractive with sky-blue eyes and a brilliant white smile. She was also an optimist, which made working with her pass the time quickly. Danielle had a long way to go before I would say she was a master programmer, but with the help of Julie, she was correcting one issue at a time and quickly expanding her proficiency.
After a few hours of working on the suits, I worked out in the gym. It was now packed with crew trying to hit credit incentives for fitness. Abby had a very small budget, just 3 Sol credits per crew member per six months, but apparently, that was enough to get almost everyone to the gym regularly. When my workouts involved combat training, I was extremely focused for two reasons now. One was to keep my standing in the crew, and the second was to be ready if another group tried to take over the ship.
From the gym, I was off to the robotics or main engineering. If it was engineering, then I was helping Damian. If it was the robotics lab, I was tweaking my spider bots or the heavy combat armor. I had a meal and play-break with Celeste, and then I was on the bridge for a shift. I usually did my captain duties during this time, checking certs, approving future purchases, assigning repair priorities, and running emergency scenarios with the bridge crew.
Then I was off to dinner in my cabin with Gwen and the babies. Gwen got me caught up on crew gossip. After this meal, I played with the kids and then went into VR. I didn¡¯t have time to play games as I was reviewing crew members¡¯ completed emergency scenarios with Julie. We compiled notes for them, and then Julie prepped their next scenario for them, either solo or in a group. Then I usually ran some combat sims with the marines in VR. I liked the new stealth suit and planned to build myself a custom one once I was certain all the programming kinks had been worked out.
The days in subspace blended together, and the only interesting thing was my software engineer had taken to wearing a skin-tight white top to our collaborative sessions. She would pull down her skin suit to her waist and show off her upper body. She said it was more comfortable but I was fairly certain she was trying to get my attention. I asked Gwen to make sure before I actually made any type of move on the woman.
Before I received an answer from Gwen, I got a shock. I walked into the robotics lab and found Danielle working with Gabby on an engineering bot. This room required security permissions, and Danielle did not have them. Gabby had let her in here. Gabby, seeing my face tried to explain. Danielle was having trouble with some upgrades to the engineering bot, and she offered to help her in my design lab. Danielle started praising my impressive setup, but my expression did not change.
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Danielle was monitored and had limited access to sensitive systems on the ship. And her work was always double-checked. Now she was in the heart of some of my most precious secrets. The other adjacent labs held my alien research projects, the hull fabrication units, and the alien artifacts. I knew it might hurt any chance I might have to have a relationship with Danielle in the future, but I told her she had to leave and respect the areas of the ship that were off-limits to her. After she left, I laid into Gabby, probably harming my relationship with her a little bit too. I just couldn¡¯t be careless.
The good news was my new planetary xeno scientist was happier than a pig in shit working in the botany lab. The only issue was he wanted to write research papers on the stasis device that kept the seeds viable for thousands upon thousands of years. Nope, it wasn¡¯t going to happen at this time. He seemed to accept the answer, but you know scientists¡ Well, the other big news from botany was that four of the bushes they were growing would be fruiting. Analyzing the alien berries should keep the two occupied for months.
My new shield engineer, Hans Anders, had also been making processes on our existing shields. Improving efficiency by a few percent and doing more thorough maintenance on them. As we approached our destination, I finally unleashed him on the alien shield technology. He was flabbergasted by the emitter¡¯s specs and fell into trying to reverse-engineer them. It would, of course, take time.
I was on the bridge when we were due to drop out of subspace in the middle of nowhere. I was hoping we would find the mysterious depot but knew the odds might be pretty small. The transition was smooth, and I started getting updates from the crew¡nothing. Francis went to Haley¡¯s comm station and inputted some numbers. A radio frequency¡and yes, it worked. The station was broadcasting on a low frequency with its location in code. It was a genius way to find the station, constantly broadcasting at the speed of light.
We were 21 million miles away from the station. Not too bad when you think about it. The two stars were just over eleven light years apart, and neither star system had a human presence, just some small corporate mining operations. We were essentially in the middle of nowhere, and Elias had gotten us damn close! We wouldn¡¯t even have to enter subspace again¡just a few hours, and we would be there.
As we approached the station, it was actually two extremely old-style fighter carriers welded together on long-range scanners. The hulking ships were probably on their last legs, and this was their final destination. Francis was next to me as we got close, then Haley pipped up, four missiles incoming, ETA 5 minutes 13 seconds.
Hanson Gammon sat in the ancient chair on the Anderson Research Station. He had arrived four days after the Void Phoenix had fled. It had made him quite upset. The local Brotherhood agents were all scientists and hackers. Why had no one thought to stall the Void Phoenix? His passive alert had just said to notify him if the ship arrived, but still, they should have realized it was a high-priority target.
He didn¡¯t like games of cat and mouse. He preferred more direct missions, kill this person, blow up this ship, sabotage this research station. He was still looking forward to seeing Jane¡¯s face when he rescued her from the Void Pheonix. That was the only thing that this extended and frustrating mission would make all this effort worth it.
He reviewed the supplies the Void Phoenix took on board again. They had received substantial supplies for such a small crew. The wood furniture didn¡¯t make sense, though. He guessed they were in a hurry and if the rumors that the space elves were also pursuing the Void Phoenix were true. That was not something he was equipped to deal with or wanted any part of. He was one of the few people that knew the Sylvan race had moles in human space. Humans working for fucking aliens! He wished he had a few missions to purge these infiltrators, but that was not his jurisdiction!
Then there was the massive amount of material they sold at the station. Where in the galaxy did they come across so many precious metals? Were they interstellar planet vault raiders? Was that why Jane Doe had been so interested in this insignificant ship? He didn¡¯t like mysteries, and the Brotherhood gave him unfettered resources but still, this amount wealth¡maybe he would want to solve this little mystery.
His PerCom beeped. An agent in system operations had sent him a message. Fuck. The space elves¡¯ War Chariots were in the outer system, which meant their city-ship wouldn¡¯t be far behind. Anderson Space Station would soon be a nest of rats fleeing a burning building. He sighed deeply and commed his own ship to get ready to depart. The best thing he could do was head to a planet in the relative vector the Void Pheonix had headed in. He didn¡¯t like having the space elves on his ass, but he couldn¡¯t abandon this mission without dire consequences. His failure to apprehend the subspace researcher Milo Dejarsdon had left a black mark on his record. A second colossal failure and he may be demoted or taken out of active service.
Well, at least there was no directive on whether this captain Deven Wellspring, had to be taken alive. The longer he made this chase, the more likely Hanson would kill him out of spite.
Chapter 89 Station Secure
Chapter 89 Station Secure
I was surprisingly calm as I asked for status. Even looking at the plot, we had over five minutes before intercept. Elias spoke first. The missiles had come from an apparently damaged frigate on the far side. Our shields were already being cycled to full charge. Haily informed the bridge that the missiles were Black Crows, a common missile used in the Union. She detailed the yield, and I input it into the simulator¡not great, but we would most likely survive if we were struck.
Francis was trying to comm the station and the damaged ship that had fired the missile. At five minutes to impact, Zoe asked to start evasive maneuvers and to launch fighters to intercept the missile. We had no weapons, but our two fighters did. I asked Zoe if Elias and her could get the fighters into space in time, and she commed Evira and Stavros to get them ready for a cold launch in three minutes. The two shuttle techs said they were on it. Finn was my other fighter pilot, but he was much better at flying shuttles than fighters. Zoe and Elias were by far my best pilots, so losing them from the bridge would be an issue.
A cold launch meant the shuttles would be hot starting their reactors while the Void Phoneix supplied temporary power to get pre-flight checks done. Elias and Zoe zipped from the bridge, and Haily slid into the pilot chair. That was her job, 3
rd in line to pilot the ship. She was just starting to muddle her way through the certs. Nero came onto the bridge and looked around, confused for a moment, before going to the engineering station. Shortly after, my logistics officer, Vicky Charity, came onto the bridge and took over navigation and sensors.
3 minutes 19 seconds to impact.
Arthur Davies, who had been off duty, was half-dressed and crashed into the sensor station. Not a great reaction time from him. His cabin was only 11 meters down the corridor. Francis excitedly said he had someone on comms! Hopefully, they could divert the missiles once they were informed who we were.
He handed the comm to me, and I told them in very concise sentences we had been sent here by General Briggs of the Union. I was getting close to getting them to stand down when our fighters launched. My mind processed the error a second too late. If they had alerted me that they were launching, I would have had them remain in the bay. They were flying Saphirean fighters. The angry voice on the other end cut comms.
Although I was angry with myself, I had to deal with this. Francis tried to get them back while I ran plots and hull rotations to make sure any missiles that got through would hit the strongest part of our new armor. The fighters rushed to meet the threat, and I focused on sending an alert to the crew and passengers through Julie. The red alert lights that had indicated that everyone should get their skinsuits on had been on since the missiles were detected. Now Julie informed them about the impending impact.
2 minutes 4 seconds to impact.
We gained a little time by altering our vector, but it would take many minutes to loop around at the speed we were going. Francis said he got someone else on the comm. Apparently, there were two factions on the station. My mind processed this info, and I immediately informed Abby to get her marines suited and into the drop shuttle and for Finn to get the shuttle ready for departure. I would be ok with taking a few missiles if I could get close enough to the station to safely deploy the Marines.
With their new combat armor taking the station would be easy. The fighters were engaging the missiles, and I watched the plot. They only had one pass to get all four. Two missiles immediately burst in an explosion, and the fighters tried to reorient themselves to track the other two. It looked like Zoe managed to get her second, but Elias missed and was trying to circle with Zoe for the fourth. Everything considered, they did amazing. One missile with this yield shouldn¡¯t overcome our shields.
Arthur turned and informed me four more missiles had been fired, but a quick comm from Zoe said they had plenty of time to deal with this new wave. Arthur said that class of frigate had eight tubes, but it looked like damage had taken out the other four. So he didn¡¯t expect any greater number than four missiles per salvo, and it also looked like they were being dumb-fired as well, with no evasive action.
4.3.2.1
The missile struck the shield, and the Void Phoenix jolted. Nero quickly gave a real-time engineering report. Six hull breaches¡all just micro-cracks¡bots en route. One shield generator overloaded, and another had failed and went into emergency shut-down. Bots in route to see if the second could be repaired and restarted.
Francis got my attention. He explained the situation at the station from his recent conversation. The truth of the situation was that there were two factions on the dark-site station. One was the frigate that had fired upon us. It was the last ship to arrive here and had a complete primary core meltdown, jettisoning it when they arrived near the station. The captain of the frigate only had six crew left alive, the entire engineering department had been killed, as well as most of the crew.
The station had 15 people still on board. Led by Lieutenant Kara Briggs, the granddaughter of General Stanton Briggs. At least that answered one question for me as to why the general passed along the information of this dark station to Francis. He wanted his granddaughter rescued.
My thought was this was Union nepotism at its finest, though. The general had placed his granddaughter out here, well away from combat, in a position of authority to pad her Union naval resume.
I looked at the plot of our approach, keeping the station between us and the heavily damaged frigate. I commed Abby, who was in the drop shuttle with five other marines in our new armor. One of the marines had stayed on the Void Phoenix. I asked her how her marines would be with engaging Union personnel. Her response was quick. No problem at all, they had fired upon us first, and the Union no longer existed. Most of her marines felt the Union had abandoned them.
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I opened communications with Kara Briggs. I told her she was to stand down and give the marines a clear path to the frigate through her station, any resistance would be met with deadly force. The fighters had removed the second salvo of four missiles, and no more were coming.
I received a communication from Captain Abington of the frigate. He tried to take command of the situation by saying he was the highest-ranking officer, so I needed to stand down and turn my ship over to him.
I delayed sending a response as we used our civilian scanners to make sure there were no active weapons charged. Then I commend him after a brief talk with Francis. I told the captain he had fired on a friendly civilian vessel, an act of terrorism. He was going to be taken into custody and charged with piracy.
He stammered on the other line in fury. His final response was, ¡®Over my dead body.¡¯ I turned to Francis, who gave a curt nod. I said, ¡®So be it.¡¯
The marine shuttle connected, and Abby deployed. I listened to their comm traffic as they moved across the makeshift station. They had taken five wolf bots with them to serve as sentries, which was a tactic they developed in VR since their squad had so few people.
Abby kept voicing updates to me, and I was surprised I was so nervous. We got feedback from Kara that the frigate captain couldn¡¯t detach since most of his power was received via an umbilical to the station. Abby reached the portal and asked me if it was KOS, disable, or capture. I replied anyone who fired on them was KOS. My previous experience with unruly prisoners had soured me to take any. In my mind, if they fought back, then they were just asking for their life to be ended.
Abby breached first, and immediately the firefight began. Buckie yelled hostile down twice while Lorre mirrored his response three times. That was five of seven supposedly on the frigate. They moved in an alternating advancement pattern to the bridge. Two anti-boarding lasers were unloaded on my marines, and they reported that their suits were unaffected. Explosions over the comms indicated the emplacements were down, and they had reached the bridge.
Hasty charges were set, and they blew the door inward. The ship was already trashed, so any damage to the bridge was fine. The charge had been too large and caused a hull breach on the bridge. It was small, but the captain didn¡¯t have his skin suit on, so he was gasping for air while trying to get to the escape pod access. The other officer fired a pistol at the marines and was put down. ¡®Bridge secure¡¯ rang out shortly after. Abby had her team search the ship in pairs to make sure there were no surprises.
That was exciting, and I almost wished I had been with them. I turned my attention to the station and opened comms with Francis by my side to talk with Kara Briggs. I told her we were here to rescue them since I assumed General Briggs had wanted that. I would discuss the details with her in person in my captain¡¯s room. Half an hour later, two marines escorted her onto my ship.
While I waited for the Lieutenant, I had been busy going over the rough manifest from the frigate the marines were sending me. The frigate had been raiding Sapphire shipping, so it was packed with high-end luxury goods. Julie had cracked their logs, and the ship had gotten greedy. They had been part of a three-ship team and raided an obvious Q ship. Their sister ships had been destroyed, and they barely escaped.
Julie found a few security videos from their raids, and it was clear how they treated the crews of captured ships. This crew was not composed of good people. Sometimes they let crews go. Sometimes they deep-spaced crews after abusing them. I had no regrets about ordering they be put down if they resisted. It also demonstrated how terrible the Union was. These crews were allowed to return to the Union, sell their spoils, and keep profits.
Finally, Kara was on board the Void Phoneix. The woman brought before me was young, fit, and pretty, but when she sat across from me, her body odor was overpowering. She blushed and explained that her few engineers had been focused on life support and stretching their fuel reserves. Their sonic showers and clothes washers had been down for months. Kara was excited to have her crew rescued. There had been a lot of tension between the frigate¡¯s crew and her station crew.
Six months ago, the station¡¯s captain had taken the one corvette the station had with as many personnel as they fit on board. They were supposed to return to get everyone else, but never did. Although they had provisions and munitions, they were running low on reactor fuel. They had retreated to only occupy a small section of the station to extend their remaining fuel, but even then, they only had 10-12 months remaining. She looked relieved I was here.
I listened to her about how she had taken control in the last six months after her captain had left. She seemed strong-willed and maintained her composure. When I told her most of my crew was ex-Union, her eyebrows arched in surprise. I asked her to send me her cargo manifest. She asked for assurances that her crew would not be harmed. As long as they did not create problems, I would bring them to safety, I told her. She accepted my assurance and sent me the data from her PerCom. Julie confirmed that there were no invasive programs, and I reviewed the data while calling for a meal to be sent.
Kara sat quietly while I opened a terminal and went through the data. Food was brought, and cooked by Cori, and she indulged while I focused. The station appeared to be a resupply station and a minor repair facility. When the war started, the station had been drained of a lot of resources¡ which was why they had issues with fuel. Multiple ships were resupplying, and no resupply ships came to resupply the station itself. The great news was Kara had a lot of material feedstock for fabricators¡even enough to refinish my alien hull and them some. The fabricators on the station were set up for parts for large ships.
I was running some fuel and work projections. I sighed after an hour and looked up, surprised to see Kara still here, studying me and waiting for my verdict. I had gotten lost in my head. I told her sorry, but we were going to be staying here for roughly seven months. But right after, we would be taking them back to civilization. She looked surprised but didn¡¯t voice an objection.
I hadn¡¯t expected this station to be manned. I hadn¡¯t really held out hope of even finding it. If we did, I had planned to explore, mark it and then return after dropping off my passengers. Now I didn¡¯t want to risk docking anywhere my pursuers would find me. There were enough resources here to finish the hull. There was even a large supply of weapons and munitions. The weapons were not great, just old Union weapons, but maybe it was time to give the Void Phoenix some teeth. There was also the outside possibility that we could accomplish the goal of altering the hull silhouette enough that we would be unrecognizable. Yes, we were staying here for a long haul.
Chapter 90 Research and Upgrades
Chapter 90 Research and Upgrades
My decision to remain here was met with mixed reviews. The hospitality staff had the big job of pacifying our passengers. They had paid for us to drop them off in a system that had been a cover for us to throw off our pursuers. They were unwitting pawns who were now getting trapped for six months in deep space. I gave Suruchi permission to pay them 1200 Sol credits each for their silence. They were also going to be refunded their tickets and would be allowed to utilize all of Void Phoenix¡¯s entertainment options. We had 11 guests in six cabins.
My next task was going to be keeping everyone busy. One project that had been in the back of my mind for a while was the micro subspace drive on the Brotherhood¡¯s shuttle. It had a range of 25 light years which was just insane for such a small vessel. I had disassembled the shuttle completely, but I wanted to get my marine drop shuttle upgraded. I presented this problem to Damian Loredo, my old FTL engineer, and my two married shuttle techs, Stavros Martis and Evira Martis. We also had the advanced navigation software and most of the sensors from the shuttle intact.
Stupidly, I had destroyed most of the bridge controls when I entered the shuttle from its nose, thinking that was the safest and most unexpected way to breach it. The three were actually excited and took on the project with excitement. Finn Martis, the son of the shuttle techs, was also pulled into the project.
My new shield engineer Hans Anders was brought to my research lab that contained the alien shielding devices. I didn¡¯t have a lot of hope to get them reverse-engineered in a few months but at least he would be busy. Eve was doing her best to transcribe the alien archives and log pertinent items for review, so Hans had an alien operating handbook.
Nero was leading my salvage team on the station and the damaged frigate. The two old carriers, that made up the station had been welded together, were ancient fighter carriers. Each ship was 400 meters long and had multiple fighter bays stocked with tons of parts, feedstock for fabricators, munitions, ship weapons, and provisions. The fuel was still an issue. Most ships had a massive solar array that could be deployed to catch a sun¡¯s energy and recharge batteries in an emergency while waiting for rescue. We were way too far from the sun for these to be deployed and only the frigate had a functioning one anyway.
Nero, my chief engineer, and Vicky, my logistics officer, were working with the remaining members of Kara¡¯s crew on the station. Six were with munitions experts, and two were life support engineers, three were officers like Kara, one was a power systems engineer, one was a sensor operator, and the last was their medical officer. I wanted to work these old Union navy personnel in with my projects but still keep them distant from sensitive projects and areas on the Void Phoenix. I tasked Dora Kiernan and Edmund Asir with keeping the relations between my crew and Kara¡¯s amicable. They were probably not happy having to wait six months for freedom, but at least I was rescuing them.
To help with crew relations, I kept my Doc busy by offering Kara and her crew SNAIL treatments for free. All of these individuals would have never been able to afford these treatments on their income, so I hoped this boon would keep them in line. The station¡¯s doctor Will Swain, spent a lot of time in our medical bay with my Doc, Andie Niaz. Our medical bay was superior to anything that was on a Union ship, and I think he was crushing on our doctor a bit.
Keeping everyone in line and ship security was Abby¡¯s job. Abby, Francis, and the five marines were going to be busy training and keeping tabs on any issues that may pop up. The stealth combat suits received rave reviews and gave the small squad some swagger. They didn¡¯t like the fact that I ordered them to begin training in the suits in EVO actions. I was just using the suits to keep them busy, but training in the black was not fun for the marines unaccustomed to it.
Elias and Zoe had gotten their wish to pilot the fighters. The ships were 6% lighter since we had changed the armor to the alien hull material, giving them slightly better specs than the regular Sapphirean fighters. I ran our fuel and fighter operation time¡I allowed them one launch every two weeks, for a total of 11 launches. That would reserve enough fuel for seven additional launches if we ran into a need to deploy them again for defense. To keep my pilots active, they had started cross-training with the marines in the stealth suits. This caused a lot of friendly competition as Zoe and Elias always destroyed the marines in the VR sims for EVO actions.
My two botanists, Miguel Asuni and Abraham Zaire, were already occupied. They seemed to be lost in their own little world, spending 14 to 16 hours a day in the small botany lab running tests and planning new growth plans. They wanted to take the massive seed I had procured from the Ederne system and germinate it. Those trees had been massive, and I wasn¡¯t sure growing it on our promenade would be a good idea. Instead, I got them to put the seed into alien stasis to preserve it. Another fascinating piece of technology I hope to delve into further one day.
Reluctantly I had a few people join Haily on the alien sensor modules. I didn¡¯t want to spread the knowledge that I was carrying these advanced sensors. There was a lot to these two massive devices. We could get them running and calibrate them, but translating the received data to the bridge terminals was a project in itself. Arthur Davies, the bridge sensor operator, joined Haily first. When I checked up on them one time, I realized they were comfortable being really close together and remembered Gwen saying they were in the early stages of a relationship¡but that was a while ago. So that answered the reason why Haily was not pursuing me any longer.
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Danielle Forester, my software engineer, was leading the terminal translation from the alien sensors. She would be creating the bridge interface for the devices, which I assumed would be difficult if my issues with the alien hull fabricators were any indication. For some reason, Eve did not like Danielle, so the help Eve offered her was often late or incomplete. When I asked her why Eve said plainly that I was eyeing her too lustily. She was also upset Julie and I were not back together. Emotional actuation by Eve was getting stronger and more pronounced. Should I start to get worried? I kept this development in the back of my head.
Reluctantly I let two of Kara¡¯s crew members join Haily. Garrison Saku, the sensor operator, and Maria Roma, the power systems technician. Both were not up to my standards regarding certs or intellect, but they were extrovert optimists, according to Julie. Julie said this would greatly help the project. Edmund and Francis had cleared both of them to work on the project as well after a psych evaluation by Doc. I had them quartered on my ship and paired an engineering bot with each to keep an eye on them.
The hull refit was being overseen by the same two, Saabir and Yannis. They had been on it from day one and were extremely competent, and they had also completed a rehull of the fighters and shuttles. My old marine assault shuttle actually looked new from the outside, anyway. Since we had enough feeder stock, I added the Caladrius to the queue for a refit as well. The Caladrius was attached to the belly of the Void Phoenix, and it was an ultra-fast courier. It had no subspace drive though. Unfortunately, it had been too large a ship to incorporate the micro FTL drive from the Brotherhood shuttle. Maybe Damian would understand the tech enough to add it the Caladrius in the future.
As a bonus for Saabir and Yannis, we were able to locate multiple small power cores in hangers. Almost all of these power cores were designed for small one-person fighters. And they could be made to fit on the hover bikes with some tweaking. Maybe a little too overpowered for the bikes, but the two were grinning the entire time I brought up the possibility.
Gabby was going to be busy. She was working with the life support techs on the station to keep everything functional and also working on the station¡¯s 117 bots. All of the quality bots had been taken by resupplying ships or with the original station captain when he fled on the corvette. But I knew any functional bot was useful. So I charged Gabby with bringing them into the robotics lab, purging their data, and refurbishing each one before installing new programming. Each major overhaul would take her two to three days, so I expected her to be occupied the entire time we were docked here.
Gwen had the boring job of keeping everyone on board the Void Phoenix alive. The damage from the missile impact on our shields had rattled a lot of systems on our old ship. A few micro hull fractures and lots of leaks in life support needed to be handled. Since she was only had a half dozen bots assigned to her, she had a lot of work ahead of her. I enjoyed our dinners together, and she was starting to connect with Celeste and Amos. They recognized her and were always smiling when she visited in the evening. Gwen¡¯s smile was getting better, still a little lopsided, but Doc said she was working hard to get the nanobots to correct the musculature and tissue¡ªjust a few more weeks.
Luna and Zed, Gabby¡¯s dog, made the rounds on the ship every day after her classes with Julie. She was a cheerful young girl. If all the crew only realized how she acted in the VR sword and sorcery game, they wouldn¡¯t think she was a young and innocent 13-year-old. Luna had started taking more specific courses recently. She was working on a very early navigation engineer track. When I asked her if she was interested in that, she said it was just an open position on the ship, and she wanted to stay on the ship. I asked her what she was really interested in, and she said she wanted to be like Abby, my security chief. The new power armor was so cool! I didn¡¯t think this would fly with her parents. Instead, I told her she could get the certs for maintaining and repairing the power armor for now. This excited her, and she immediately worked with Julie to start on the certs.
Tora, my budding propulsion engineer, who had come on board as a navigation engineer, was the only member of my crew not occupied with a major project. The reason why is she was one month pregnant with Saabir¡¯s child. This seemed a little off as Gwen had not been aware of a relationship between them, and they were not a couple. Doc confided that the two had gotten drunk and had¡aggressive sex resulting in the conception of the child. Saabir had spent two days in medical for injuries. Tora seemed excited about the resulting child, and Saabir was indifferent. Well, another playmate for Celeste and Amos, I guess.
That left Kara, her three officers, and six munitions experts. They were all helping Nero sort and pick through the large storage hangers on the station. They were constantly finding things not on the manifest. The prior commander of the station had been fairly lax, so it was not a surprise. Kara confided that the prior station commander also took a fair amount of bribes from the raid ships not to report things they looted. He had stuffed his ship to the gills with his loot which is why not everyone had been able to make a getaway on the corvette. He only took enough loyal crew he needed to operate the vessel and his closest supporters.
The fact that Kara did not support the prior station commander raised my opinion of her. She was very attractive, but that could be due to access to cosmetic surgery. It might not be natural. She was present at our ship staff meetings, and while I didn¡¯t think she was brilliant, she was attentive and thoughtful when she contributed. Even being a Navy officer, I would say she was growing on me.
My plan for the next six months was to work with Julie to reconfigure the Void Phoneix to incorporate some weapons. We were also hoping to alter the hull enough to hide the Void Phoneix from scans. My side hustle was packing all our available cargo space with anything valuable enough to sell. We would leave the station in a functional state, but I didn¡¯t think I would ever return here, so I planned on squeezing everything of value I could manage.
Chapter 91 Adding Some Bite
Chapter 91
While the entire crew was busy around me, I was spending my time working out and in VR. My workouts were all individual in the gym, and I found out that having my body active allowed me to focus better. When I went into VR, I worked on simulations with Julie to add weapons to the Void Phoenix. We had a myriad of weapons to choose from, most substandard, so we needed to be flexible in their placement to get them upgraded at a later point.
There were three major problems with adding weapons. The first was space was limited, and adding them half-hazard would ruin the ship¡¯s aesthetics. We also had to hide the weapon additions behind our alien hull to hide them from scanners. Since we planned to change the outer hull enough to hide the Void Phoenix¡¯s appearance, I was open to adding defense and weapons.
The second point was the power systems to operate weapons. We had some military upgrades on the station we could swap out, which would increase our power output, but the work to do so was going to be very tedious.
The third point was wiring the terminals on the bridge to control and utilize the weapons. This was a huge project as it required tie-ins with sensors and comms. Our sensors might even be upgraded with the large alien modules Haily was working on and make any work at this point mute.
Over the first week at the station, we had tried a dozen things in VR and every one ended in a roadblock to my engineer¡¯s mind. Then Julie suggested something that I liked a lot. Instead of altering the Void Phoneix, was to add a detachable hull. So, in essence, we would finish the new hull refurbishing with the alien plating and then add large hollow modules to change our appearance. The sensors couldn¡¯t be covered, but we could add all new temporary emitters to the fake hull. There were definitely enough spare parts in the station for this course of action.
We started doing mock-ups, and I finally decided on the Norwegian Cape Hauler hull. It hadn¡¯t been manufactured in about 200 years but was a large, egg-shaped interstellar transport. Since the ship model was so old and rare out here in the rim, the few inconsistencies in shape and size shouldn¡¯t be noticed. We could also plead that our Norwegian Hauler had been through a bunch of upgrades to explain its increased speed and odd shape. Julie was already drawing up new registration papers. The new ship moniker would be the Portly Viking. She said it was a good name for a transport ship. The only issue I could foresee is our available cargo was only about 25% of an actual Norwegian Hauler. A true hauler was primarily a shell with an engine strapped to it.
I was going to have to power up the fabricators on the station and get my alien hull fabricators to coat the faux hull in a thin layer as well.
The easiest defensive measure was to incorporate decoy drones. The drones could be stored in a tube located aft and launched through a fast retracting trap door. They emitted a strong electronic and thermal signal to match the ship and could be controlled for about 60 minutes at full burn before running out of fuel. The station had 78 of these drones in its stores. Each tube we planned to install could hold four drones. I planned to take sixteen, putting eight in the tubes on ready and eight more in storage. The tubes were fourteen meters long and two meters in diameter and would need to be fabricated. Finding space for two tubes, both aft, one port side, and one starboard wasn¡¯t difficult. The hidden doors to launch them would be between primary forward thrust engines.
Nero would have a bit of work moving a few lines and running control cables to the bridge but nothing challenging as the tubes would be installed in rarely used engineering access corridors. Most of the maintenance in this part of the ship was completed by bots, and we had other, granted more tedious, ways of accessing the spaces.
The remaining 62 drones we were not taking were going to be used for target practice by Zoe and Elias. I had granted them a few chances to fly the fighters during our stay. Zoe had convinced me that VR was not the best way to train and that getting the actual fighters into space would help find maintenance issues. Having them destroy the drones was a bit of a waste, but I figured they deserved a little fun since their actions had saved the ship from serious damage.
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For defensive weapons, I wanted to add six anti-missile grazer turrets. They were for cruisers to be used as anti-missile defenses. They could even damage fighters if their tracking software was good enough. Since the ship¡¯s passenger complement was reduced, I planned to remove six escape pods and install them as pop-up turrets. There would be three starboards and three port. These grazers would be mounted in areas of the hull not covered by the faux hull disguise. Powering the grazers was a huge issue. I found space to install one medium generator port and one starboard. To increase the rate of fire, the turrets would be tied to draw from the main reactor as well if needed.
The final defensive measure I wanted to add was upgrading the shielding to the alien shields, but that would take time. We already had standard shields, which was rare for a civilian ship. The alien technology would not only increase our shield power but also reduce the power requirements to maintain the shields.
I also had access to dozens of subspace disruptors on the station in storage. Although I didn¡¯t foresee a use for them, they were very expensive hardware, so we stored all 49 in the Void Phoenix¡¯s cargo hold.
For offensive weapons, the easiest thing to add would be missiles. The quality of the Union missiles was quite low among the human civilizations, but they were all I had access to. They came in two varieties dumb and smart. Dumb missiles, once they were fired, locked onto a target and made minor adjustments to pursue the assigned target. Smart missiles could be sent new commands from the ship and had enhanced evasive ability. Dumb missiles usually had poor evasive abilities. Union manufactured three sizes of missiles.
The smallest missile was good against fighters and gunships. The medium-sized dumb missiles were for corvettes and frigates. The large missiles were for destroyers and larger class ships. The smallest dumb missiles were 2 meters long and half a meter in diameter. The medium was five meters long and over a meter in diameter. The large, capital missiles, were 16 meters long and two meters in diameter. Due to the size of Void Phoenix, the only missiles I could reasonably carry were the smallest version. I didn¡¯t want to incorporate all the infrastructure and tie ins on the bridge stations required for the smart missiles, so I was going dumb.
So how many small dumb missiles would I carry, and where was the launcher going to be located? I decided on a single, dual launcher. I was going to mount it aft at the rear of the cargo bay. I planned to make a small room with racks for missiles. Racks for 16 missiles plus two in the dual launcher¡that was my capacity. I tasked Gabby with permanently converting two stevedore bots from the station to be stationed in this room. I would seal off the room behind the alien paneling so it would not be hidden completely from sensors. Offensive weapons were illegal in most human space civilizations, so I did my best to hide our capabilities.
So far, all of these weapons would be usable with the Norweigon Hauler disguise installed and would be concealed from scans. The controls for the small dumb missiles were going to take a lot of programming and control setup on a bridge terminal. It may take longer than our stay at the dark station, but it would happen.
That was my defensive compliment and I was now considering offensive weapons. In the converted fighter bays, we found small rails guns, heavy lasers, heavy grazers, and even two heavy plasma throwers. The plasma throwers were useless to me as they were anti-boarding weapons. They created a short-range splatter arc to damage incoming boarding shuttles. They were too large and inefficient for my needs.
Rail guns were illegal in most sensible systems. Large rail guns could do significant damage to planets and create hazards in space lanes. The rail guns I had access to were small, firing eight-centimeter projectiles. They were short-range weapons, and I didn¡¯t want to carry a large stockpile of munitions. So that left me with either heavy lasers or grazers. The grazers were more energy intensive but had a better range. Union grazers were also the best variant of weapons produced in our region of space. Another reason to choose the grazer is that the Union¡¯s lasers were inferior.
So I decided on two medium grazers used on large Union destroyers. A destroyer would have eight to twelve of these weapons, and I planned to build an exterior emplacement on the Void Phoenix. The best iteration Julie and I came up with was installing the two grazer emplacements forward, which made them look like eyes on the sleek body of the ship. I planned to store the grazers in the cargo hold for now and just work on getting the control lines to the bridge. I had no feasible power source for the grazers yet, and they would be under the faux hull anyway, so they couldn¡¯t be deployed unless we dropped our disguise. They would draw on the ship¡¯s main power core, basically taking all the power for sustained firing. I had enough small defensive weapons planned, so these two grazers were going to be my hammer. They should be effective against ships up to frigate size if they could penetrate shields.
The timeline for the actual installation was a long way off. For now, I just took the best two grazers and disassembled two others for the parts I could not fabricate.
So focusing on defense was my job. The entire ship was going to be abuzz with lots of changes.
Chapter 92 Esmeray Station
Chapter 92 Esmeray Station
Seven months¡223 days¡to me, the time flew by too fast.
The crew called the station Esmeray which meant Dark Moon, an apt name for a hidden base. The hardest part of the seven months we stayed on the station was keeping the passengers happy. I told them that we were docked at a secret pirate base, but we were not pirates. My story was our sublight drives were damaged, and we needed to do a complete rebuild from the parts on the station. I let them wander a bit, but once we actually started building the scaffolding to hide the Void Phoneix¡¯s appearance, I kept them confined to the luxury deck.
Thankfully we didn¡¯t have any competent engineers amongst the passengers. They were fine for the first eight weeks but then got anxious. Every week Suruchi and her staff were bending over backward to keep them happy. Each of the passengers was going to receive 2,600 Sol credits when they disembarked¡whenever that was. That amount had started at 1,200 but had been slowly increased through negotiation with Suruchi. I didn¡¯t mind the cost, I just felt like an idiot for taking on eleven passengers in the first place.
The odds had been extremely low that we would find the station. And once we were here, it just made too much sense not to leave. We had also been on high alert for the entire time we were docked at Esmeray, we were ready to get everyone on board in twenty minutes and depart. I didn¡¯t want to get caught with our pants down like when we were plundering the alien planetoid.
In reference to pants down¡my new software engineer brought me into Julie¡¯s AI room to get my assistance with model replacements. It hadn¡¯t occurred to me at the moment that it was a job usually a bot would do. Just pull a data module, scan for damage, and replace it. Well, Danielle made a move on me, pinning me to a rack and kissing me hard. I had been eyeing her a lot since she came on board, and she had assumed my coming to help her was a clear invitation, so she jumped me. She had been very aggressive in her pursuit, and as we lay on the floor of the AI processing room, I asked her what made her so bold. She had talked with Gwen. Gwen had told her if she wanted anything to happen, she was going to have to initiate it. So I guess thank you, Gwen!
The relationship between Danielle and myself was just having sex at different secret locations across the ship for the first week. Then the next month was in her quarters. Then she just seemed to have moved into my quarters. Ten weeks after hiring her to my crew, she was living with me. Gwen seemed to think it was completely normal and still came by for dinner every evening and to play with the kids.
Surprisingly Julie and Eve never commented on my new relationship. I knew Eve had a bit of a jealous and protective streak in her. Julie¡¯s program was all about pleasing the ship captain, me. When I asked Danielle to look into the potential issue with Julie, they had a frank conversation about my mental well-being. Julie referred to herself as the concerned ex who would be there to pick up the pieces if Danielle broke my heart. I laughed at the characterization, but when Danielle did not, I grimaced slightly. I doubted my AI problems were completely behind me.
One of our most successful projects was getting the marine drop shuttle fitted with the micro FTL drives from the Brotherhood. The range was slightly diminished from the 25 light-year specs. My shuttle could only make a max trip of 20 light years. We were missing some of the core programming and modules from when I cut through the nose of the shuttle. Still, it was a huge boost from its prior half-light-year skip in subspace. The team had transferred over to trying to upscale the drive to install a similar system on the ultra-fast courier ship, the Caladrius. Since the Caladrius was getting a hull upgrade, adding the subspace emitters wasn¡¯t difficult. The project wasn¡¯t complete before we departed Esmeray station, though.
Our shield technology made some leaps forward. Hans Anders was able to get the smaller alien units functional with a reasonable power adaptation. Upscaling the shields was feasible, but the core problem was the power consumption for the large ship. Hans was mostly working with computer models during our time at Esmeray since the outer hull was seeing so many changes already. He did manage to install some forward alien shields on both of our fighters, drawing directly from the engines, sacrificing maneuvering for shields.
We finished the entire outer hull of the Void Phoenix in just four months, including adding all the defensive upgrades and the two future emplacements for the heavier forward offensive grazers. The ship looked marvelous, and it felt dirty to cover her with four large scaffolds. This would change her from a sleek predator of space to a fat egg. It had to be done. It would also be apropos to her name of Phoenix when we were able to shed the outer skin and fly unmolested again. Each of the four scaffolds had 196 points which it was attached to the phoenix with explosive bolts. To remove our covering the ship would need to be vectoring forward, blow both the two aft sections, flip 180 degrees, and then blow the two fore sections.
Unfortunately, we didn¡¯t put as much engineering thought into our hull addition. The additional subspace emitters, deflector shield emitters, sensor extenders, controls, and dozens of other things we covered with the shell took an extreme amount of engineering hours to troubleshoot issue after issue. Torra had the most difficult job having to recalibrate and reprogram the systems for propulsion due to the altered mass and numerous covered thrusters. That got even more difficult as we started stuffing the voids in the scaffolding cavity with items from Esmeray station to sell. When we were ready to depart, Torra was also close to term. She was going to have identical twin boys.
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The good news from this major clusterfuck was we were definitely going to appear as a heavy lumbering freighter with lots of engineering problems at our next port of call. And even though it was going to be difficult to retrieve these hastily secured items from the voids they at least made it appear we were an actual trade ship.
Nero had led the salvage operation with Kara Briggs. They had combed both vessels and took everything of value that was not bolted down. We still left a lot behind as the station¡¯s volume was nearly thirty times that of the Void Phoneix, but they assured me that we had gotten everything of value that they could stuff under our girl¡¯s skirt.
Vicky, the logistics officer, had prepared some nice falsified cargo manifests. When we did sell these items, it was going to look like we had been traveling the cosmos just trying to make a credit here and there like most of the other independent traders out here.
I shouldn¡¯t have been surprised when a fair number of Kara¡¯s crew wanted to sign on to the Void Phoenix. I paid well. I was not the Union. And the crew lived pretty pampered lives with all the tech on board. Will Swain, the doctor was my first signee. He was sweet on my Doc, Andie. He was going to be in charge of caring for our (hopefully) extensive marine compliment. His nickname became ¡®Scrubs¡¯ by the marines. He thought it was because medical personnel needed to scrub in before procedures. It was actually because the marines considered him a second-tier doc compared to Andie¡calling in the scrub to handle the lower-priority crew.
Elias and Zoe, by far, had the best time during our stay. They got active fighter training blowing up drones. Had plenty of time to move ships and shuttles out in space for testing, and both got sizable pay raises on top. The only problem was tracking their fuel consumption when they went joyriding. Fuel was the one resource we needed to track. The Sapphirean fighters were becoming my go-to offensive tool in the VR emergency sims. They could take a beating with their alien shield and hull and were deceptively fast. I hated the idea of ordering a pilot to hold off a trio of corvettes so we could escape in the sims but damn if Zoe and Elias didn¡¯t get it done 9 out of 10 times. The pair even designed an ad-hoc race track on the station for the completed hoverbikes. After Saabir crashed one of the bikes on the track, I had to end that fun, though.
My two botanists, Miguel Asuni and Abraham Zaire were testing their new fruiting bushes. They were making juices from the yellow fruit and seeing if it was compatible with human physiology with the help of the doctors. About five months into our stay, Miguel got impatient and just drank some¡and he didn¡¯t die or turn into a hideous beast. Their early tests had said it was edible, but the Doc always wanted more testing done. It had a weird sugar molecule in it that she was uncertain about. Now Migual wanted to try fermenting the fruit to create a new alcohol.
Our sensor module project was also a notable success. They were fine-tuning the calibration. They worked on showing object masses instantly out to nearly 1,000,000 km. Danielle was still working on translating the data to terminals in the bridge, but if I understood everything, stealthed ships wouldn¡¯t be able to hide from our sensors. The device somehow pulled its data from subspace based on molecular density to form an image¡which made no sense. I was curious to know what would happen if we used the sensors within subspace.
Two of Kara¡¯s old crew signed on to my crew as well. Garrison Saku become our sensor engineer. At the same time, Maria Roma became our power systems engineer. Both were just technicians and not even close to being engineers, but I hoped they would grow into the role by completing certifications. It had actually been Gwen who convinced me to let them join the crew. They were extremely positive personalities and great at parties. Julie set benchmark certs the pair needed to reach to keep their crew positions.
I didn¡¯t see much of Gabby in the seven months. She was locked in the robotics lab, working most of every day. Her personal bot, the one that looked like me, was assisting her with refurbishing all the station bots for us to sell. I did get a few notifications from Julie that Gabby was poking through my Venom Bot files, but I never addressed it.
The marines were having a lot of fun, and Luna was practicing her new craft of servicing the combat armor. She was actually getting pretty good at it, and I was getting a little too concerned about how comfortable the girl was around the marines. Abby assured me she was like their younger sister, nothing more. Julie had VR certs for the new suits now, so the marines had worked their way through them and were doing the practical certs. They were itching to bring in more of their friends from the Union into the fun. Well, that was going to be our next stop.
As the final checks were being done, I had a meeting with Kara Briggs. She had given it much thought and requested to join my crew. When I asked what capacity, she stumbled and said whatever was available. Didn¡¯t she want to return to her family? The Union navy was her family. I talked with Suruchi about it, and she said I should make Kara the bridge first officer. Suruchi would gladly relinquish the title as long as I didn¡¯t cut her pay. So that is how I added our first actual naval officer to my bridge.
It felt like we were leaving home as we detached from Esmeray station. We left enough behind that if we ever needed to hide out here again, we could return to a functioning station. Now I needed to go drop off nine of Kara¡¯s crew and eleven passengers who had long overstayed their welcome.
Chapter 93 Futile Pursuit
Chapter 93 Futile Pursuit
Hanson Gammon tapped his fingers on the armrest of his bridge. It had been four months since he lost the Void Phoenix. Four fucking months! Where does a ship disappear to? At least that fucking Devon Wellspring could have done him the courtesy of leaving evidence of his ship scattered an asteroid somewhere. But to just disappear?
Hanson had to resort to back-tracing the ship¡¯s path. He had used a large number of resources to find out the ship had been purchased on Silverstream Station in independent space. It had been used to ferry Wren refuges from human space and was essentially a wreck when it reached the station. The man, Devon, had arrived in an old shuttle loaded with precious metals.
Hanson¡¯s best guess was the man had raided a Union planetary vault when the entire Union was dissolving. The man single-handedly refurbished the ship and started hauling passengers. The issue that Hanson was having was the amount of wealth the ship had dropped as it moved from port to port. In one of those ports, a passenger took a shuttle fully loaded with crates of precious metal for herself. An accomplice? A payoff? Well, he would soon find out. An Obsidian agent was delivering Vanessa Holliday on a courier shuttle to his ship.
The abduction had been a little messy. Three of the family members had been killed. The local authorities that had been paid to look the other way changed their minds halfway through the extraction. The agents still succeeded, and the local police would be disciplined by the Brotherhood later.
The shuttle dropped out of subspace on his scanners. His sensors office confirmed the shuttle ID, and Hanson ordered his stealth dropped. Well, it was time to get some frustrations out and hopefully have an update to send back to Earth.
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Hanson left Vanesa slumped and bleeding in the chair. That had been the most surprising interrogations of his career. If he hadn¡¯t done it himself, he would have thought it was some fantastic story from a bad vid. He was deciding what he should do with his bevy of information.
His ship doctor interrupted his thoughts. He was asking if he should treat the woman. Hanson looked at her on the screen in his office. She was broken, six hours of steady and varying pain would do that. She could perhaps be leveraged against Devon. He was certain he had gotten everything useful out of the woman, though. If she was alive, then another agent might take possession of her, and he would lose exclusivity to what she had told him. He turned to the doctor and told him to space her.
So his new friend Devon Wellspring had raided an alien planet full of wealth and interesting technology. He had even destroyed a Sylvan city ship¡something the Brotherhood and no human civilization had ever done. How much more wealth does the man have left? Devon had probably detoured to his stash to resupply. The thing with a ship his size though was that he couldn¡¯t hide forever.
He paused a moment before completing his report to send back to the Brotherhood. He decided to edit the report that Devon Wellspring was a security threat to the interests of the Brotherhood and that he had recovered vast wealth from a secret Union base. He included that he believed Devon was either conspiring with Jane Doe or that he believed Jane Doe was his prisoner. This report should be enough to keep him on this task. Now he just needed the Void Phoenix to poke its head again.
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Jae¡¯Tir sat across from Rae¡¯Ver. The pair¡¯s relationship had gotten tense as the trail had dried up. Jae¡¯Tir¡¯s city ship, the Ponffir, had remained orbiting the high-gravity world. The human research station was now drifting in pieces in a slowly decaying orbit. Rae¡¯Ver had been furious with Jae¡¯Tir¡¯s heavy-handed assault on the station. Humans needed to be manipulated, not controlled. The harder you tried to force or control them, the more they resisted. Rae¡¯Ver firmly believed this one action by Jae¡¯Tir was going to rally the humans together.
The only smart thing Jae¡¯Tir had done was insert bio-synths into nearly two hundred humans before letting them flee back to their empires.
Rae¡¯Ver had been making inroads into Jae¡¯Tir¡¯s crew behind his back. That was why they were now staring at each other. Rae¡¯Ver had been using his gifts to influence Sylvan minds under the Frist Citizen¡¯s nose. Jae¡¯Tir then did the unexpected. He banished Rae¡¯Ver. At first, he thought he was joking¡but then he remembered the First Citizen had no humor. Banishment for a First Citizen was the most embarrassing thing that could be done to him. Usually, they would be assigned to stasis and awoken when needed to combat the threat of the Malevolents. Jae¡¯Tir was ignoring this doctrine.
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Jae¡¯Tir was also taking back the War Chariot he had given Rae¡¯Ver. He was going to be given a Dark Star scout ship instead. The Dark Star was small, maybe 100 crew. It did have good stealth against human sensors but not Sylvan sensors. It had almost no weapons. It was a spy ship. He thought about launching a mental assault on Jae¡¯Tir but the number of attendants around and Jae¡¯Tir himself¡ He had no chance. His power was still recovering¡ªand still growing. He allowed himself to be escorted off the ship to his new home.
The two human pirates, Sha¡¯Lua, and his 58 strongest remaining supporters, joined him. Exile for all of them from the Sylvan culture and its support network. Rae¡¯Ver should have been fuming, but he was actually relieved. He had been imprisoned under Jae¡¯Tir. He had hoped to take over the Ponfirr eventually, but that plan was foiled. Now he could search for the Void Phoenix on his own. His only assistance would be from the network of human bio-synths he had personally created.
Looking at his two pirate bio-synth converts, he hoped the rest would be more useful. The Dark Star ship was old and poorly maintained. The final slight from Jae¡¯Tir.
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Admiral LaRoche sat on his bridge and watched as another ship entered the system. Sensors and comms were announcing the ship and sending him the specs. How he had been placed in charge of this rag-tag group of castoffs¡ Well, angering the liege¡¯s son would do it. He knew he was the best Admiral in the Astral Confederacy¡most others knew it. So placing him in command of the alliance of 17 human star nations was an appropriate action to confront the Sylvan.
Most of these ancient battleships were better off being mothballed, poorly designed heavy cruisers, destroyers that should be utilized as token defense ships in remote systems, and an array of support craft that at least contained some modern hulls. All this to put humanity¡¯s foot down on the Sylvan attack on Anderson Research station. The back channel diplomacy indicated the space elves would leave if the ship called the Void Phoenix was turned over to them. Even then, the rulers and governments had decided to take a stand.
Sixteen battleships and thirty-five cruisers made up the core of his fleet. Admiral LaRoche had been drilling the fleet for engagements with the Sylvan War Chariots, the most versatile weapon in the Sylvan city ship arsenal. It took three months to agree to come together and another three months to assemble and train the rag-tag fleet of castoffs. Now that window was closing. His United fleet had a few good captains, but not nearly enough. His own nation was supplying the bulk of the fleet and the first six months of operations supplies, a heavy toll, but it was to be expected when the liege¡¯s son¡¯s future wife was killed on Anderson Station. He should have never said the investment of Confederacy resources was wasted on such an operation. A miscalculation on his part. Well, he miscalculated the young man¡¯s influence and apparent love of his deceased fiance.
Now he had to make the best of his situation. If he could pull this off, then he might just raise his own stock and return home in a position of influence.
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The Persia system. My home system and our next destination. I couldn¡¯t believe I was risking it. The ship was going to be disguised as a trader. Even in subspace, the exterior bots were ¡®roughing¡¯ up the hull to age it. A suggestion put forth by Gwen and a good one.
In the system, we would be docking with an automated refueling station. Julie was going to utilize the Brotherhood hacking device to infiltrate the sensor network. Hooking up the hacking device to Julie was Danielle¡¯s idea. Since our relationship started, her ideas had been getting a lot of weight in my decision process. I had three of the hacking devices, and two were now slaved into Julie¡¯s matrix. Supposedly I had a disconnect command tied into my PerCom to cut Julie off from the devices if things got out of hand set up by Danielle.
Julie was going to hack the system and alter everything about our visit. Julie would make it appear that our ship was, in fact, a very old Norwegian hauler. The other thing Julie was going to do was sent out our crew role calls. She was going to tie into the FTL comm array on the planet and do it secretly. The associates on the lists compiled to fill out our marine compliment would receive old Union codes to gather in the Hofstra System. A heavy traffic system in the old Union with dozens of stations and semi-habitable planets. We would be dropping off Kara¡¯s crew and the passengers in the Hofstra system and picking up as many as 50 marines.
Our trade goods going down to Persia VI would be mostly refurbished bots that Gabby had completed. We would be purchasing some premium alcohol from the farming planet¡¯s distilleries. Just 16 tons, as we had limited space on board. The plan was going to be to trade utterly unrelated trade goods at the next two stops so our trade goods couldn¡¯t track us.
Chapter 94 Family Reunion
Chapter 94 Family Reunion
The approach to the refueling station was anticlimactic. The only issue was two other ships were docked here. We came to the station from their blind side, and Julie was in their systems long before we docked. She was now controlling three ships and an automated refueling station. Julie stated there were 22 personnel on the station and she was busy ensuring none of them got a good look at the Void Phoenix.
Julie asked if she should give us a free refueling, and I decided not to take advantage of the offer. A corporation owned it, and I didn¡¯t want to leave a trail. Julie co-opted the Persia system FTL transmitter and sent out Abby¡¯s and Francis¡¯s messages to summon their marine targets to the specified system. I hired a heavy in-system cargo ship on the station. In disguise, I was going to Persia VI to see my family and pick up our cargo. Abby sent two marines with me. The remainder of the marines contained our soon-to-be departing guests. Eve was supervising the talkative Celeste and quiet Amos on the trip. They were just over a year old and doing well.
The slow transport was a bit annoying as I had become accustomed to much faster and more luxurious ships. We landed in the city a few hundred kilometers from my parent¡¯s harvester. I left one of the marines to handle loading the alcohol I had purchased. The other marine, Eve, and the babes came with me on a rented hopper. The hopper was basically an old, well-used air taxi. I resisted the urge to run diagnostics on it before lifting off.
When we landed on my family¡¯s harvester an hour later, an angry man came tearing out of the structure. It took a moment for my father to recognize me. After an awkward hug and we were headed down to the living area. My mother dropped a circuit board she was working on and came over and cried while hugging me. I had been pronounced MIA and presumed KIA. Seeing me was like seeing a ghost. The excited conversation followed about my travels. I glossed over everything and didn¡¯t reveal my new alias to them.
I didn¡¯t tell my parents that Eve was a bot. They assumed she was my wife after I introduced Celeste and Amos to them. My uncle¡¯s family joined us, and my younger sister as well. My older sister had moved to the city after I had paid off the family¡¯s debt. My family had thought my brother had cleared their debt since they thought I was dead. We talked about inconsequential things until the conversation turned to my brother.
The fleet of Union ships that fled was well-known in the back channel news and gossip circles. My parents hadn¡¯t been aware that my brother was most likely on board one of the ships, though. They had been hoping he was in the Sapphire prison world and would earn his freedom over time. The Persia system was in the boonies and didn¡¯t get news often, so I guessed it was expected they had sporadic and partially inaccurate information. My cousin made an appearance. She was carrying a daughter that was about two. She had married a boy on another harvester. It seemed so long ago that she had taught me how to kiss.
She said Eve was very pretty and my children were gorgeous as well. I told her the boy was adopted and just the girl was mine. Mother prepared a large meal, and we ate in the crowded dining room. My parents looked older, and I felt bad. I should have planned to somehow get them to the Void Phoenix and receive a SNAIL treatment.
I told everyone I was a small-time trader. I had a junker cargo ship and limped from system to system, making small profits. Father asked how I managed to bag such a beautiful woman, indicating Eve. Eve spoke for herself. With some coldness, she said she was just the nanny. I let her tone slide.
My parents played with the children after my uncle¡¯s family left. My mother started pressing me about my ship. Could it travel the rim? Could I go and search out my brother? She started to lay into me, trying to guilt me to bring him home.
Then my father and sister joined her. I wouldn¡¯t have called my family close. At least, that is not how I felt growing up. This pressure to retrieve my brother from the clutches of the corrupt remains of the Union navy was unexpected. Would they have pressured my brother to look for me if our situation had been reversed? For some reason, I doubted it.
Internally I was growing angry with them, so I decided it was time to leave. I did leave them a small fortune in hard currency. It should be just enough to buy the harvester if they wanted it. I told them I might not visit again but that I loved them. Or at least I loved them for raising me. I conceded that I would further inquire about my brother and his situation. If I had as many marines as I thought coming on board in the Hofstra system, then I should get a fair amount of news on the lost fleet.
The visit didn¡¯t go the way I had thought it would in my head. The first 15 minutes, maybe¡they were happy to see me but didn¡¯t gush over Celeste as I had pictured. They had eyed Eve just as much as Celeste. Then the conversation revolved around my missing brother instead of my daughter. I gave them enough hard credits to live comfortably, so I did my duty as a son. On the flight back to the automated refueling station, I had to overcome a little bitterness. Eventually, I was able to look past it and just be happy that I got the opportunity to spend time with my parents and sister. I sampled my purchased cargo. It was a mix of aged whisky called bourbon.
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When we docked at the station, the cargo was transferred. I had a meal with Gwen and Danielle and told them how it went. I relayed the reunion with the family in an as optimistic frame of words as possible. Celeste and Amos were now eating in chairs with us, but their words were limited. Amos was well-behaved, but Celeste was already becoming a little monster with her food and words. The Claire bot, with all its nanny programs, seemed ineffective in containing her. Julie assured me that she would grow out of it. At least she had behaved in front of my parents.
Gwen asked me what the plan was. We were off to the Hofstra system next. We had two more days at this remote automated station before leaving. My crew was good, and we were all ready to go, but I wanted to appear as a lumbering freighter with an average crew.
The only interesting event in the two days we waited was a Sapphirian Corvette that came and docked to refuel. It was a small merchant, and we turned down an invite for our crew to mingle with them. Julie had some difficulty hacking this new ship, but she did violate their system after twenty minutes.
It was actually a spy ship. Julie learned from their archived news that the Sylvan had destroyed Anderson Research Station. This was sobering news, and I felt some guilt working its way into my mind. The humans were putting together a large United fleet to chase the Sylvan city ship off. I was surprised that this spy ship was looking for the Void Phoenix. Julie confirmed from the captain¡¯s logs they did not suspect us. It was a sobering bit of information, though. We needed to get away from Sapphirean-controlled space.
As we undocked from the station and headed into open space, the spy ship did scan us. Julie fed them false scanner data. It was a little scary how easily Julie could spoof other ships with the Brotherhood tech. It was even more potent if direct contact with computer systems.
Now the tricky part was going to be getting the 11 passengers and Kara¡¯s crew to disembark without letting people see our altered ship. The system had heavy traffic and numerous stations throughout. I planned to dock at a remote mining refinery. From here, we would sell our salvaged bots and buy precious metals. Francis and Abby would see who had answered their call to join the crew, and they would make their way to us at the remote mining station. When we were ready to leave, Julie would alter the logs to show that the Void Phoenix had been docked the entire time. This would hopefully keep our disguise intact. Our passengers and departing crew would inevitably tell people they had just spent months on our ship at a remote station.
Only Edmund had suggested killing the people. I scoffed at the idea, and Edmund didn¡¯t press. He just offered it as a viable option to obfuscate our trail. When we transitioned to the Hofstra system, a lot of things happened.
First, Edmund contacted me immediately. The Brotherhood had set up a screening net in the system for every ship. Data was being funneled to a large freighter orbiting an inhabited moon. Hundreds of FTL and system ships were in the system, and I hoped to be lost in the shuffle. Julie advised against hacking anything as she might get a firewall with Brotherhood tech that would alert them. So we were going to have to rely on our hull disguise.
The second thing that happened shortly later was Abby was starting to get confirmations of recruits in-system. The number was 39 currently and possibly more once she filtered her coded transmissions.
The scariest thing was our alien sensors picked up three ships, not on the public navigation buoy data! One was a human cruiser specced for stealth. The other two looked alien in nature. They were 80.3 million km from our ship. Our sensor calibration wasn¡¯t good enough yet to get a clear image, but our grainy image made my heart race. It didn¡¯t take long for our sensor station to confirm the ships belonged to the Silca race. Humanity had encountered them a few hundred years ago, and they were a silicon-based race that lived in high-gravity worlds. Their technology was equal to humanity¡¯s in many respects, but the nature of their bodies allowed them to live in much harsher environments.
I was certain the humans knew they were there as the stealthed cruiser was directly between the two ships and the main populated planet. This was extremely eye-opening, and I immediately started allocating more hours to fine-tuning our sensors. 100 million km was a fair distance, but Haily hypothesized that range could be tripled with enough power and calibration.
There were no threats where we were going to dock, and we were at the system¡¯s edge, so escape should be relatively easy if required. Still, I decided to keep three people on the bridge at all times.
The sale of the refurbished bots went smoothly and generated a healthy amount of funds. I included a fair amount of spare parts we stashed into the crevices of the hull¡¯s shell. This was more because I wanted to make the Void Phoenix lighter rather than needing the funds. We would convert the funds to precious metals since the conversation was reasonable. The economy in the old Union was still recovering, and the metals were a bargain.
I didn¡¯t leave the bridge for the first 48 hours we were in-system. I was constantly reviewing data and planning our next voyage. We were going to head for the Tirani station outside Union space. The Tirani was a bearlike race that traded themselves as mercenaries. I figured to unload all the infantry weapons we had obtained from the Esmeray station. I also doubted it had a strong Sylvan or Brotherhood presence. Elias was working on our next subspace plot now.
Two days in the system, and the first group of recruits was incoming. Abby and Buckie were excited to get seventeen new additions, all marines they were familiar with. They were still going to have to go through a thorough screening in medical, psych eval, and meet with Francis and Edmund as well for background checks. The second transport shuttle was twelve hours behind this one with fourteen marines. The remaining eleven candidates were still scattered individually throughout the system, and Abby was trying to get them into a group to take a shuttle to us.
With the first shuttle, four hours away from docking Eve came and forced me to get some SLUMBER time. I had already taken two stimulant pills, and I did need some rest, so I allowed myself to be brought to my cabin. I played with Celeste and Amos before getting a short nap in.
Chapter 95 Filling the Roles
Hanson Gammon wasn¡¯t shocked when he was notified that another agent was coming out to the Rim to work in parallel with him. He was shocked that the Diamond agent was Desdemona Rouse. The prodigal daughter of one of the de facto leaders of the Brotherhood. She was young, mid-30s, and excellent at intel gathering. The fact that she was traveling to the Rim indicated how important this mission was to the Council.
Desdemona was in command of a stealth cruiser, the Misty Palisade. Hanson would be jealous of her for just this fact. To make him even more envious she had a crew of 200 of the Brotherhood¡¯s top agents on board. He was glad that he had lost the woman, Vanessa. Desdemona would have found her if he had tried to conceal her and gotten all the details from her. She had already requested the interrogation vid which had been conventionally edited.
While his own mission record was marred with partial successes and brutal interpretation of orders¡Desdemona¡¯s record was spotless with success after success. Hanson guessed maybe her father edited it to show such a sterling record. Then again Jane Doe had a similar record but Jane Doe was known for reckless spending to achieve her successes.
The Misty Palisade dropped from subspace 19,000 km from Hanson¡¯s own ship. Even though he was cloaked, the Palisade vectored toward his position. A heavy shuttle was soon dispatched and fifteen minutes later Desdemona was on his bridge. She ordered his command to be turned over to her and he was confined to quarters. She said if she needed a club to hit something, she would call on him. He reviewed the orders from the Council while seething. She was being handed complete control of ALL operations in the sector of the Rim. Hanson went to his captain¡¯s quarters and began planning. If things went bad then it was time to disassociate himself from the Brotherhood.
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I looked at the motley group of seventeen marines. Some seemed exceptionally fit and alert and some were acting like they were on holiday. I noted every one of them was wearing a skinsuit under their clothes. Kara, Abby, Buckie, Francis, and Edmund were going to be handling the interviews. I was going to be present but in the background. The physicals were going to be conducted by my two doctors, Doc, and Scrubs. Then Julie was going to run them through some VR simulations. Finally, Abby and Buckie were going to do some testing in our gym. Julie had already delved deep into security systems to confirm everyone¡¯s identity. At least on this first shuttle, we were fine on that end.
Nine of the current group were recon marines. These marines were dropped or inserted into a planet and expected to return intel to ships in orbit. They usually had nicknames to call each other on their comms. Recon marines had a high mortality rate in the Union and Abby said that gave them quirky personalities.
Of the nine recon marines only five passed through all the checks and I personally offered them a contract. They were assigned quarters next to engineering and would be responsible for defending engineering from threats. They seemed to get along and knew each other from their time served. I added their names to the ship roll call: Rob ¡®Ace¡¯ Tungsten, Jimmy ¡®Nickel¡¯ Nicholson, Bob ¡®Tech¡¯ Dragon, Jules ¡®Pinky¡¯ Flat, and Ronald ¡®Coke Can¡¯ Jerome.
Of the remaining eight recruits two were shuttle pilots and six were ship¡¯s compliment marines. Ship compliment marines manned armories, repelled borders, and kept the peace among navy personnel¡ªand themselves. The shuttle pilots were a lock after testing, Kathy ¡®Zipper¡¯ Purtain, and Penelope ¡®Haven¡¯ Guerra. The two women had run resupply shuttle cargo shipments from stations to ships for 15 years. Even though they had worked on the same station and knew each other they had never worked together before. Their scores from the VR were impressive even though they had never actually seen combat before.
They had the same background as me. They were forced into service by the Union corporations for exceeding their family¡¯s limit on children. They were in their early 30s and at first, Finn was happy to get some help but soured when he learned their certs exceeded his. He was now regulated to the role of co-pilot.
Five of the six shipboard marines passed the gauntlet of testing. All these candidates had been trained by Abby and Buckie at some point. They were young, broke, smart, and eager. Kara had some doubts about two of them but I trusted Abby¡¯s judgment. Melanie Zahora, Emilio Yang, Ansid Turov, Harry Roman, and Vilma Roman were added to our roles. Harry and Vilma were a married couple. Even before we finished the first batch intake the next shuttle had landed.
From the second shuttle, we added two more recon marines, Lucia ¡®Hazard¡¯ Torres and Mikhal ¡®Jungle¡¯ Ortov. The second shuttle also gave us six planetary specialists; ground vehicle drivers, logistics, and heavy weapons operators. This group was all from the 14
th Brigade. I doubted I would be fielding any artillery but Abby and Buckie assured me they could be cross-trained. Their criteria in the recruiting call were that the marines be smart, capable, and of good character. I deferred to their judgment and added the following to the roster; Eldon Dunning, Melodi Burroughs, Jack Escalante, Clifford Barnett, Leon Castro, and Alonzo Guzman.
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Those that did not make the cut in the first two shuttles were given 400 sol credits and a ticket back to a larger station in the system. It was essentially five months¡¯ pay if they had been hired. A lot of the candidates had paid their way to rendezvous with us in the Hofstra system and I wanted to help them get home and reward their willingness to answer the call.
We only waited seven days in system for candidates to reach our ship for the interview process. Seven days was the average length of stay a small-time freighter would remain before heading out. Since we were not purchasing cargo I didn¡¯t want to look too suspicious.
The tickle of candidates yielded four more recon marines; Earnest ¡®Pudge¡¯ Bates, Aubrey ¡®Thong¡¯ Guerrero, Julian ¡®Wolf¡¯ Collier, and Omar ¡®Camel¡¯ Adkins. Three marine fighter pilots; Tina ¡®Fluff¡¯ Roy, Jana ¡®Lightning¡¯ Underwood, and Jim ¡®Jimbo¡¯ James. And finally, three more shipboard marines; Gayle Rivera, Clinton Estrada and Ray ¡®Raygun¡¯ Holmes.
In all, we fell short of our goal by seven marines. We had added five unplanned pilots so that balanced our expectations a bit. The ship was a mess as Kara and Abby worked together to assign the new crew members quarters around the ship. Deck 8 now had 15 marines living on it and aft engineering had 16 marines in double occupancy rooms. The ship seemed packed all of a sudden.
The fitness room was always occupied with multiple marines doing the required training. The bridge now always had two marines on duty in power armor. Abby had a long ways to go with training and assignments but I suddenly felt a lot safer.
The tricky part was getting the passengers off the ship with Kara¡¯s departing crew. I hired a lux shuttle to transport them from the planet just as we were headed out of the system. Even if they informed the authorities it was going to be much too late to stop us. The transfer seemed to go smoothly and no one commed us as we headed out system. When we entered sub space I relaxed. We had a long trip, 17 days, to the Tirani station. During that time I hoped our crew would mesh with its new members.
The first few days of competition was intense in Abby¡¯s required unarmed combat training. She had a point system now for everyone. The higher ranked you were the more points you were worth if you were defeated. That made all the new grunts aim for me. I quickly fell from my perch but settled in 7
th among the crew of 38 marines. I was motivated to move up in the rankings and the point system did make the training more fun. Everyone had to fight three times a week, or they would lose points on the ranking. It also kept Doc and Scrubs busy in medical.
A lot of our effort on the 17-day voyage was focused on the sensors. I had everyone working on helping increase the power input and tighten the calibration. We even tried the sensors in subspace for the first time; as expected, they showed nothing within the sensor¡¯s range. When we diverted all the power we could from the power core we could get readings out to 250 million kilometers. Very fuzzy readings but they were still readings in real-time which was extremely perplexing to me. I just didn¡¯t understand subspace or the effects of gravity in subspace enough. This caused me to break into the research we had stolen from the Brotherhood.
I had a small lab setup with this research and I quickly became engrossed. I added the data from the sensors and when the alien planetoid imploded. All three sets of data intersected! When the device on the planetoid had collapsed and exploded it released waves through regular and subspace¡all layers of subspace. The data clearly indicated there were more layers of subspace and to reach them you needed fuel in your subspace power core to resonate with it. That meant the fuel on board when the wave hit had, in fact, been altered! I felt a little overwhelmed even with Julie¡¯s help and some of the tangents being laid out before me. I needed to bring in an expert to help decipher and utilize this profound discovery.
I was hypothesizing that it might be possible to travel 5 or maybe even up to 10 times faster in subspace than previously thought. Generally, a ship traveled around 400 times the speed of light in subspace, give or take 15%, depending on navigation and subspace engine efficiency. If I could figure out a way to travel 4000 times the speed of light? We would be able to travel 11 light years in a single day! That just seemed too fantastical to me.
All the greatest human minds researching subspace lived in the core worlds. And I had no plans to head there anytime soon. A version of my hull technology was already being used in the core worlds as well. So maybe I should try to profit from it. A lot of fringe civilizations were well behind the core world technology curve. Maybe I could sell it? What kind of attention would that drag to me? I had time to decide on our voyage. The important aspect of this voyage was getting the crew synched and functioning at a high level.
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Desdemona was working with her AI, Carlo, filtering mounds of data coming in from across the Rim systems. That idiot Hanson had been ineffectual in finding the Void Phoenix and she doubted the ship had been destroyed. The psych profile on Devon Wellspring indicated he would never let that happen on his watch.
She had traced 91 leads in the first month she had been out here. All dead ends to find the Void Phoenix but they did unearth some interesting players out here in the Rim. Unknown alien infiltrators, known alien infiltrators and a splinter group of the Brotherhood called the Godfather, were all operating out here. It was a dangerous region of space. That was why she had requested and received two frigates to support her cruiser. They would arrive in two weeks.
Carlo announced he had found something, and data started scrolling. Desdemona cackled in glee. Devon Wellspring had made a mistake finally! The passengers that he picked at Anderson Research Station had just surfaced in the Hofstra system! She finally had somewhere to go. She furiously sent messages to detain the passengers in the system. The Brotherhood agents would detain as many of those people as possible. She was just 16 days away from the system. And the Hofstra system was in the old Union¡she had assumed correctly. Devon was from the Union¡but just who was he before he commanded the Void Phoenix?
Chapter 96
Chapter 96
I sat in my quarters, playing with some shaped blocks with Celeste. The blocks were all unusual shapes and fit together to form a perfect pyramid. According to Julie, Celeste had good spatial awareness but needed more work on her 3-dimensional thinking. This simple puzzle would help with that. Amos was progressing faster with his pieces. Chloe praised his progress which caused Celeste to smash his partially completed pyramid, ruining his progress. He just gathered the pieces and started again while Celeste wandered off to the corner to use the painting screen. She did love to paint and had creativity for being just over one year old.
I sighed. Amos was on the path to becoming a good engineer. My daughter, Celeste, was on a path to constantly seeking to be the center of attention. My PerCom beeped, and Julie¡¯s hologram appeared to remind me I had a four-hour shift on the bridge to start my day, followed by combat training. Eleven days into our seventeen-day trip, I was 7th in the unarmed combat hierarchy. I was still floating in the low 20s on the ranking board with melee weapons. We did our combat suit training in VR, and surprisingly I was ranked 3rd. I had the advantage of designing the suits and getting a fair amount of practice before we added more marines. I doubted I would be able to remain atop this board once the new marines got more and more practice.
On the bridge, I pulled two large screens from the ceiling. Kara had installed a chair to my right so she could work with me. Kara spent 12 hours a day on the bridge. And Julie said she worked for an hour in her quarters as well. Most of what she was doing was monitoring the crew and making sure they were doing their certs. It had taken two weeks acting as my first officer before Kara learned I wanted all my briefs to be as brief as possible. Today we quickly paged through crew bonuses. The crew got bonuses for completing certs, hitting certain scores on combat simulations, and successfully doing emergency sims. The bonuses were small, but it quickly identified crew members who were hard workers and competent. Credits were not an issue, but I still tried to keep a tight purse.
The combat training went well. I won three out of four matches. My only loss was to the 4th ranked, one of the new marines. Abby said my ranking would remain unchanged, but my points total had increased. Gwen came off the treadmill as I finished my last bout. She wanted to play the sword and sorcery game this evening. My VR time had been filled with emergency sims with the new crew and practicing in combat armor. I disappointed her. I had a full schedule and wanted to play with Celeste and Amos after dinner. She told me that I needed to have fun. Otherwise, I would burn myself out. I did have sex regularly with Danielle, which was my retort. Gwen rolled her eyes and said fun¡.use my imagination, and turn off my brain to constantly tackle the next problem. Then she said I probably planned out everything I would do and in which order when I had sex with Danielle.
I paused as I had no witty response because it was true. My plan with Danielle was a series of acts that I found got her aroused and helped her reach a climax, but sometimes I varied the order. Seeing me concerned, Gwen said I needed to be spontaneous. She suggested I bring Danielle into the sword and sorcery game and branch out my sex life with Danielle there. Danielle had dinner with Gwen and me in the evening; I guess they were friends. I caved. Tonight was going to be my return to my half-giant barbarian.
After a shower, I traveled to the robotics lab. Gabby was working on assembling a Venom bot. She had gotten me to send her the plans. We still didn¡¯t have a viable power source, but Gabby planned to attach the bot to a power cable so it could draw power from the ship. It would give the bot a very limited range and could be disabled by cutting the cable. As I worked with Gabby, Julie materialized. An object had been picked up on sensors. My mind turned over¡.we were still in subspace. I rushed to the bridge and the sensor station. The crew member moved aside as I started bringing up the scan history. Elias had been activating the sensors every 4 hours in subspace. It was a practice in futility, but I hoped we could scan another ship in subspace.
The data scrolled, and I brought up the images¡.what was that? I started talking with Julie on the bridge during the analysis. We had passed an entire planet in subspace. With Elias¡¯ help, we identified the star system where the planet would be located in the real world. Alpha 4-Zeta 92 was the star. The data archives showed the system had been scanned by three separate human explorer ships in the last century. The system only had a star. No planets and no asteroids. I asked the dreaded question¡.if we hit the planet in subspace, would we have been destroyed? Julie took a few moments to run some calculations and hypothesized yes.
Damn. If we kept the sensors on in subspace, how much warning would we get to avoid an object? At maximum sensor range, about 88 seconds. Was this enough time to avoid a collision? Julie said she could monitor the sensors and drop us from subspace if an object was detected in front of us. I would have to get Danielle on it to upgrade Julie. For now, the on-duty sensor operation would have the responsibility.
Now the bigger question is, what the hell was that? It was not the sun, according to the plot. The planet was about 410 million kilometers from the sun. Although I was curious, I was not going to turn around. I gave Elias back his seat and told him to start collecting data on subspace objects. It seemed a little too fantastical. I was going to have to look at all my subspace data. I had hit a dead end. I needed an experienced theoretical physicist specialized in subspace. As more pieces of the mysteries of subspace were falling into my lap, I became more interested, like a certain detective trying to bring the clues together to get the whole picture.
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Leaving the bridge, I had to go to the conference room. Kara had put together a quick information session on the Silca. This race had multiple stealthed ships in the Hofstra system. Since it was possible that our ship might engage this species, Kara had delved into the ship archives and presented an hour vid with a racial profile and threat.
The Silca breathed a toxic atmosphere and preferred heavy gravity worlds. They had eighteen subspecies, each specialized in various aspects of society. Interestingly their genome had all the subspecies, and when they grew up, they specialized in the role the society needed the most. They communicated through visual lights on their skin but could also make high pitch sounds like speech. They were not aggressive¡.at least until they met humanity. Humanity had colonized a planet in a star system. The Silca had colonized another planet in the system that was rich in metals. Humanity, in their greed, attacked to remove the Silca. They easily removed them, but that was the last easy battle for humanity. Kara then detailed the evolution of the Silca spaceships. It was clear they were learning from and incorporating human technology. The Silca spaceships could take a pounding and still function, and their weapons were slowly reaching parity with humanity.
Edmund was in the room and offered the Brotherhood¡¯s viewpoint. The Brotherhood¡¯s view was that any alien race would need to be eradicated or put in a zoo eventually. Part of the doctrine was placating alien species publicly and then working on their genocide in the background. A lot of research was done on Earth to develop weapons for specific species. His rank in the Brotherhood didn¡¯t give him access to information about these weapons. The Brotherhood also only focused on one race at a time. Right now, they were focused on removing the Chameleons, a lizard race that had superior camouflage and stealth hunting skills. When the Brotherhood destroyed their home world, they scattered across the galaxy and were slowly being tracked down and eliminated.
There were a lot of dangers out in the universe, and so far, the biggest seemed to be humans.
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Desdemona looked at her screens. The frigates, Beowulf and Dartanian, had just entered the system. She sighed. She had spent the last week questioning the passengers from the Void Phoenix. She only managed to question five of the eleven as the other six had left the Hofstra system. It was enlightening.
The passengers had thought the Void Phoenix had parked at an abandoned pirate base for months. The ship had received quite a bit of work from the noise they heard through the hull but they never got a visual on anything. They did add some more passengers during their stay on the pirate base. Some of those people departed with them.
It had taken her four days to track down the first passenger. First, get video from shuttle ports, identify the person, and then track them. Her team was efficient. What she found out disturbed her. It was a secret Union base, not a pirate base. Her subject never saw what upgrades the ship received, but he was certain a lot of work was done on the hull. So the ship was now disguised, very clever. Deven Wellspring had to have been involved in Union black ops. It didn¡¯t fit with her psych profile on him, though. Maybe he was just a supporting character? At least it now made sense why he had visited General Briggs.
How many more secret Union bases did Deven have access to? The Brotherhood¡¯s information was incomplete on all Union activities, and now that the Union had collapsed, she would have to get answers from people. She had agents seeking the answers for her, but time was not an ally.
She needed to do something she hated to do, guess. If she was Deven, where would she go? He knew he was being chased¡.so independent human space or alien space would be appropriate. That would be probable if he had access to another Union dark supply base. She had 13 possible locations on the vector the Void Phoenix was on when it left the Hofstra system. 13 systems and four ships. The most probable was Huntington Eaves, an independent human colony. Resupply and cut off completely from all communication with human space. She would take her ship there. The least likely would be the Tirani system. Not much there but he could resupply.
She sent a comm message to Hanson. He was to go to the Tirani system and investigate. If the idiot got himself killed by the large warrior bears, then so be it. Her two new frigates would sweep the possible systems to the right and left of her own vector. Of course, Deven could have stopped and altered his vector completely. It is what she would have done.
Desdemona wanted to wait until she could track down more of the Union navy personnel but time was fleeting. She would leave seven agents behind for the task. She sent out orders to her ships.
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Admiral LaRoche transitioned out of subspace. He checked his plot as his massive, albeit weak, fleet started appearing around his flagship. He had to wait seven minutes before the elven city ship and Anderson station appeared on the map. It looked like fortune was favoring him. Two War Chariots were interceptable before they could rejoin the main force. He quickly started giving orders to cut those two ships off and lay into them. With luck, they would be destroyed before¡.he looked at the ships around the city ship¡.damn it. This was going to get messy very quickly.
Chapter 97 Cracking the Sylvan Armor
Chapter 97 Cracking the Sylvan Armor
Admiral LaRoche quickly grew frustrated. The space elf¡¯s ships were much faster than they had been in the sims. He was forced to commit seven wings, 35 medium fighters, to hinder the two War Chariots that he hoped to destroy before they could rejoin the city ship. He watched as the fighters were destroyed in succession. When 11 young pilots had been killed, he ordered the withdrawal. He had no time to think of the lives he had just handed the enemy in hopes of delaying them.
He started adjusting orders to his capital ships, then pulled his trap, accelerating heavy cruisers forward from above the ecliptic. Sylvan Sprite fighters were swarming near the city ship. If these 200 elven fighters moved to his fleet, things could go bad very fast. He started rotating his front-line ships as elven long-range missiles from the city ship reached his position. The two War Chariots he pursued started doing the same, rotating their positions and hulls to spread the incoming fire. Reports from his bridge staff kept him updated. So far, no good news.
His second fleet came out of subspace on the far side of the elven city ship, and he swore loudly. They were 500,000 kilometers from their expected transition. His sensor officer told him the city ship had deployed subspace disrupters. He ran out scenarios in his head with the aid of his computer. The last portion of his fleet would be entering too far out, but maybe he could trick the War Chariots into moving closer to their new subspace transition location. He started moving his fleet and gave the War Chariots the opening to reach their city ship, and they took it! Seven minutes later, the 3rd detachment emerged right in the path of the War Chariots. These were his best light cruisers with some of the best modern weapons he had in his fleet.
It was 22 minutes later, and the tide turned as the third detachment started pounding the two War Chariots. The city ship had an immediate response to the unexpected effectiveness of the weapons. The swarm of Sprite fighters flew to help the War Chariots. It was too late. The first chariot shields fell, and then it erupted in a series of explosions. When the ship was disabled, he ordered focus fire on the second chariot. It too, soon succumbed. His victory was short-lived as the Sprite fighters started to get vengeance for the loss of the two ships. The city ship was also pulling in all its supporting ships. It was obviously planning to flee.
He couldn¡¯t stop them, but he could make them bleed. He positioned his ships and ordered 86 gunships and 388 light fighters launched. He was going to cut off the Sprite fighters¡¯ retreat. The city ship would get away, but if he could thin the fighter screen before the next engagement, it would give him more options. The swarms of fighters engaged, and he kept an eye on the numbers, but his main focus was on the capital ships as he directed them. One War Chariot was moving off¡it was getting ready to go to subspace he surmised. The elven ships with no subspace drives were frantically docking with the city ship.
Admiral LaRoche was surprised. He was sure he was outgunned, but he had numbers. The Sprites retreated, and he looked at the numbers. Fifty-eight sprite fighters had been destroyed or disabled. He had lost twenty-five gunships and seventy-two light fighters. About a 2-1 ratio. Not great since he had vastly superior numbers, but he would take it. As the Sylvan fighters docked and the city ship powered up and entered subspace he ordered the SAR shuttles launched and ordered the fleet to the remains of Anderson Station. They would pull what fragments they could to a higher orbit for salvage to rebuild per his orders. He sent orders to reposition his fleet and set a 80-hour window till he pursued the elven city ship.
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Hanson was in his quarters when he received orders. He was being directed out into the frontier beyond the rim to an alien-controlled system. The Tirani. The bear-like men who loved to fight. But he wouldn¡¯t get a chance to play with the Tirani warriors. He was to remain in stealth and observe the arrival and departure of human ships. Being relegated to being a watcher. He had a resupply order¡.6 months of supplies. That bitch was probably planning on leaving him and his crew out there to rot. It was time to remove himself from the Brotherhood.
He would follow orders, but when his resupply ship came in 6 months, he would commander it and move to outlaw space in the Rim. The Brotherhood had very little influence there. He would have to remove a few Brotherhood loyalists in his crew when it was time.
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Rae¡¯Ver watched, amused, as Ponfirr struggled with the human fleet. He was well away from the action and stealthed. The Ponfirr cityship was caught unprepared as they were in harvest mode, cutting up sections of the station for the furnaces. Over half the War Chariots were out searching for signs of the Void Phoenix, as there were just not enough scouts.
The human fleet was impressive, and the admiral directing it was clever. Rae¡¯Ver watched as two more units of the human fleet emerged and craftily cut off two War Chariots from reinforcements. When the two assault ships were destroyed by the humans, Rae¡¯Ver moved away and had his navigator input coordinates for Silverstream station. He had enough operatives there that he could get some much-needed support. He might even be able to expand his fleet with a few functional junkers.
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I missed my appointment with Gwen and Danielle in the game. I was too absorbed in the subspace data. Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time working on the sensors. The sensors worked in a sphere, they were not directed in an arc like all conventional sensors. The amount of data coming in was giving Julie some fits. I would need to upgrade her memory and processing to handle the load. My other option would be to get another AI only to process data input from the sensors.
This might be the best choice, and after talking with Danielle, we set the parameters for the new AI. It was going to have dual housing. One of its units would be in the sensor room, taking raw data immediately from scans. The second unit would be housed under the bridge in a shielded room. This portion would be for the interpretation of the data and relaying it to the bridge with suggestions. It would have an emergency shutoff function to kill the subspace drive if it detected imminent danger. I decided to make it a dumb AI. Powerful processing but with all breakers installed, so it couldn¡¯t evolve. Julie and Eve were more than enough for me to keep track of.
By a fortunate mistake, we found the sensors had the potential to scan a ship in three dimensions. The mistake happened when Haily tried to scan a ship to see the sensors¡¯ minimum effective range. Even the upgrade to our armor didn¡¯t prevent the sensors from mapping everything. This only worked if we focused the sensors on an area around 20 kilometers in size within its range. The most impressive part. Haily hypothesized it didn¡¯t matter how far away the object was. It just had to be in the sensor envelope. Of course, data from the rest of the scanning sphere was lost, but in this instance, we set doctrine to keep our conventional sensors active.
The clarity of the 3D scanner image was phenomenal. We could even see people in real time. It was a little too fantastic, and we would need to confirm this high res scan worked in real space and not just subspace, but all the data indicated it would.
I started making my personalized stealth suit with only four days to the Tirani station. My custom suit wouldn¡¯t have many upgrades beyond the Marines. I would just have slightly better stealth capability and a direct link to Julie. It had an override function as well. If I became incapacitated, then Julie could puppet the suit. I finished my suit before we reached the station.
The trip yielded the main objective of merging the new crew with the existing crew. A lot of this was actually due to our hospitality staff. They had regular crew functions like parties, games, vid nights, and cooperative VR sessions. Fiona Agave, the singer of all people, even passed the basic engineering certs life support and was working with Gwen and Gabby regularly. I guessed she really wanted to remain on board. I did hear her sing a few times, and she was good. Sometimes walking through the ship, you could hear her sing while she worked. It was not annoying at all¡.not like when Saabir tried to sing.
Doc and Scrubs gave me updates on the health of the crew, and we were in excellent shape. A few more weeks and everyone would have gold status. That was how they ranked health conditions of the crew¡red for critical, yellow for injured, green for healthly, and gold for peak physical status. Abby said participation in conditioning training was at 100%, and combat training was at 87%.
With 70 crew members, that meant 61 were enrolled in combat training. Abby had her own expectations of preparedness, and the crew was far from that goal. I suspected she would also keep moving that line to keep everyone focused.
Seventy crew members. I was responsible for seventy-three people when you added in the children¡.Tora had given birth to an adorable pair of wren twins. Gwen didn¡¯t understand why Saabir was not interested in helping care for and raise the children named Ezra and Emil. He shared his mother¡¯s pantherkin heritage, not his father¡¯s tigerkin heritage. I just hoped they would be a good playmates for Celeste and Amos.
I was on a packed bridge when we transitioned to normal space on the edge of the Tirani system. The Tirani station was an eleven-hour trip in the system. We opened communications and listed our goods for sale. I was dumping quite a lot of unwanted cargo. Quite a lot of infantry weapons, old fabricators, a large number of ship parts¡.basically everything we had stuffed under the fake hull that I thought had value. The trade network said the Tirani would buy almost anything and pay a premium for infantry and ship weapons since they were mercenaries by trade.
The hard part was getting value in return. They didn¡¯t trade in Sol credits, so it was about getting rare raw materials that had equivalency in value. Kara, Vicky, and Suruchi were all involved in getting us the best deals as we approached. Two corvettes and four fighters escorted us toward the station. We tried our new scanners, and the massive holo tank of the bridge showed each ship in turn. We could zoom in on the rendered model and see everything¡.even the Tirani. One curious thing caught Julie¡¯s attention, and she focused on two humans working in the engineering section of one of the corvettes.
Were these humans prisoners or employed by the Tirani? I was interrupted in my musings by a comm request from the station. The regional Tirani government from the planet was requesting an in-person meeting. Did my exploits already reach all the way out here? The Tirani had numerous mining and ship-building operations in this system. There was only one inhabited planet with a population of under a billion. This was one of three star systems that held most of the Tirani race.
I commed back asking about the content of the meeting. The governor wanted a cargo and four diplomats transported to the Drusi homeworld. I learned the Tirani were not welcomed in Drusi space due to a past incident, so they needed an intermediary passenger liner for the diplomacy mission.
Out of curiosity, I looked at the Drusi planet¡¯s location, and it was conveniently along the path of the fleeing Union fleet that had my brother. We had gathered a fair amount of intel from our new crew members. We knew the probable destination of the Union fleet. They were targeting a star that deep space probes indicated would have a habitable planet. Two human colony ships had headed there about 200 years ago. Whether those colony ships were able to successfully navigate through alien-controlled regions of space and establish a successful colony was suspect. Most likely, the system had been settled by another species. The question was, did I really want to spend potentially years of my life tracking down my brother? Was he even alive¡.was Nila alive? We would have to travel through many alien-controlled regions of space to reach the system. The first of which was the Drusi.
The entire crew was on high alert as we moved to dock. The Tirani were free traders, mercenaries, and probably one of the more honorable species in the known galaxy. There was not much threat as long as you didn¡¯t piss them off. The seals connected, and I went to find Eve. Maybe she would like to go for a walk on an alien station.
For myself, I had some decisions to make.
Chapter 98 Catnip for Bears
Chapter 98 Catnip for Bears
Eve joined me after getting a few bots to the station and watching the children with Claire. She was very protective and rarely left the children for more than an hour during the day. I think she only came with me to the station because her directives still had to protect me as a priority. We had no problems getting through security, and my two marine shadows were allowed side arms.
The station smelled like antiseptic soap. It was also blue. And by blue, I mean every shade of blue you could think of. Eve informed me the color blue was considered royalty since the Tirani had copper blood which made them bleed blue. The smell was due to the bots constantly cleaning the station. The station administrator feared alien diseases, apparently. There was definitely a variety of aliens on the station. The central market area had at least a dozen different aliens, two I did not even recognize.
The Tirani were the opposite of humans. Humans were xenophobic as a species, while Tirani embraced other cultures and frequently blended foreign technology into their own. Their scientists were average on the galactic scale, but their engineers were creative. We had six hours before meeting the Tirani group that wanted passage. We were going to do some window shopping. The station catered to many races and had a lot of variety. I spotted our chef, Cori, in a frozen food shop and wondered what culinarily masterpieces she would come up with.
I entered a stylist shop. It had an automated robot that gave haircuts and did makeup. We had a small spa on the luxury deck that did the same thing, but I sat down for a quick hair and beard trim. Eve asked me a few questions regarding her own style and if she should make changes. I told her she could choose anything she wanted, and she moved into the seat. The bot had trouble cutting Eve¡¯s hair, and I lamented the loss as they were expensive acoustic sensors. Eve chose to go with a French braid. What really added to her appearance was the makeup. The bot applied some incredible shadowing and highlights of color on her cheeks.
When I told her how amazing she looked, she immediately spent the equivalent of 103 Sol credits on makeup. I was paying Eve a salary like every other crew member but I don¡¯t think she realized how many credits that was. She said she planned to share with Julie....well, the Claire bot. A Tirani male who spoke our language commented that my woman had just purchased a decade¡¯s worth of makeup, and he hoped I got paid in services from my voluptuous mate. I guess Eve¡¯s beauty transcended races.
We entered a weapons shop, and my two marine shadows looked more interested than I was. I had money, so I decided to purchase a few handguns. Three simple laser pistols, a heavy plasma pistol, a focused sonic pistol, and three ballistic slug pistols. All were from various races across this region of space. I tested the grip on all of them, and my human hands could use them after some adjustments by the gunsmith. I got ammo for each one and sent Julie a message to create a lockable wall display case for my quarters.
We moved to a ship parts vendor. A terminal did the inventory, and I could look at three-dimensional images and specs. I searched for power systems first. There was never enough power on a ship. Sometimes you could get the power, but the mass of the fuel made it unfeasible. I didn¡¯t find the answer to my power woes, but I purchased an emergency solar array. It was a 2.2 m cube and expanded to an 18,000 square meter array. It was a single-use array after being deployed. I figured a trader might purchase it, and it had good utility in an emergency.
We looked at the ship-for-sale registry next. The most interesting was an ancient human battleship. It had been stripped of weapons and shields but had a functional subspace drive. It was listed as a mobile mining platform. While I had the holo display of the battleship, a middle-aged man sat beside me.
He was human and asked me about my business in Tirani space. I said we were skirting human space and making trades. He offered me a contract to pick up a shipment of weapons and bring them back to this station. His ship had sustained too much damage and couldn¡¯t make the trip. I asked how did he know I was a captain. He just thumbed in the direction of my two armed shadows. We talked further, captain to captain. He had a terrible engineer who fell behind on the maintenance of his subspace drive, resulting in a cascading failure. I just nodded in understanding. I didn¡¯t want to reveal that I was an engineer. Maybe this man was looking for me. The conversation did seem innocent, and I got his name as he left, Captain Hassim Morain.
I walked with Eve through some clothing stores, and she insisted I update my wardrobe. So I spent my remaining time studying the clothing fabricators on the station. Maybe I could get some understanding of the alien fabricator I had liberated from the planetoid. Julie sent me a comm message. I met with the governor and his attendants in the lower viewing room. We headed down through the station under the guard of four Tirani warriors in non-powered armor. We entered a room with a floor that was a viewing port to the planet below.
I got vertigo for just a second before catching myself. Eve whispered that the floor was a vid screen and not actually made from a transparent material. I was impressed as the detail looked perfect. I paused, studying it briefly before heading to a large conference table with seven Tirani in robes. Guards in heavy non-powered armor stood around the room. I sat and was confused. Why did these high-level officials want my crappy-looking ship to transport them to the Drusi homeworld? Was I transporting a bomb?
They opened the meeting with the choreographed Tirani formalities. I had made a point to study the protocols briefly and responded correctly. Then they explained that Tirani mercenaries had opposed the Drusi at one of their colonies. The mercenaries were hired by another race to clear the Drusi off the planet. The mercenaries killed and captured the Drusi and then shipped the survivors back to the Drusi system. The Drusi still held a grudge, and now Tirani ships were no longer allowed in Drusi¡¯s space.
Now a new Supreme was taking control of the Drusi empire. The Tirani governor thought that a sizable gift might convince the Drusi to open their space again to Tirani mercenary and trade ships. This would give them easier access to that region of space. Since my ship had posted luxury cabins and had enough cargo capacity for their gift, I was being considered. So this was my interview.
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The pay was ludicrous, with 5000 Sol credit equivalents in rare metals up front and another 5000 on the successful delivery of their envoys. It seemed too good to be true. The gift was natural osmium crystals. Three tons...worth about 50,000 Sol credits due to their rarity. As they said, this was an interview, and the expedition wasn¡¯t leaving for 11 days. If I was interested, then I could note my interest now.
I didn¡¯t need the money. I was going to be headed in that direction, though. Being on good terms with an alien race also seemed like a good idea since I was alienating human nations in my wake. I told them I was interested, but I would need to be able to scan any cargo brought on board. They agreed, but my bid would require a tour of my ship. I negotiated this down to just deck 7, the luxury cabin deck where the envoys would reside during the trip. I commed Suruchi and Dora. They would be responsible for the tour.
The majority of the Tirani race were between 1.9 and 2.2 meters. They were considered bear-like due to their heads resembling bears from old Earth. They were well-muscled and had four fingers in each hand. Their bodies were covered in thick hair that was either white or black. Very few deviated from these colors, but those who did were celebrated for their uniqueness. The group of four envoys that would make up the envoys were gray, black, white, and maroon. I left with Eve and my escort.
Since we were headed out of human space, I wanted to look for an AI core to manage the alien sensor data. The vendors didn¡¯t have any human AI cores. The Tirani primarily used AIs but by a race called the Wraiths. The Wraiths were humanoid with pale, almost translucent skin. Their society was similar to humanity but evolved in large underground and maze-like cities. This subterranean race only recently ventured into the galaxy with the aid of the Tirani.
I was currently standing in front of a Wraith. He was hairless, and seeing his veins clearly beneath his skin was a little off-putting. He was currently pitching his blank AI cores to me. It was compatible with my interface and was 11% percent faster than an equivalent human AI. That really didn¡¯t mean anything since there was so much variety across human space. I started to review the specs, and Eve interrupted.
She had already analyzed the data for me and relayed her findings. The Wraith AI was as advertised. It was slightly better than what I had planned to install. The issue was cooling. The Wraith AI ran fairly hot, so Nero would have to set up some cooling systems where we decided to house the AI. I spent four hours with the Wraith and commed Danielle, who grew increasingly excited about installing the alien tech. She decided we needed two AI cores at the two planned install sites, but a single-seeded personality would control both cores. That is what software engineers called AIs, seeded personalities. Even if they had no capacity for growth like the one I was in the process of purchasing.
I ordered the two ¡®clean¡¯ cores, and they were set to be delivered. The clean cores were new and never utilized to host an AI. The seeded personality was selected by Eve. It was a male, and she named him Elvis. I wasn¡¯t surprised as this was the name of the AI from the pirate vid comedy we used to watch. That AI had a sarcastic sense of humor and got the crew into trouble just as much as he got the crew out of trouble. I hoped this was not a bad omen. I wanted to explore further, but Eve insisted we head back to the ship and check on Celeste and Amos.
I worked with Nero over the next two days to create the space and coolant infrastructure for the two cores. Danielle was so happy I got a wonderful reward in my cabin. As we were finishing up with the AI installation and initialization, the envoys came for their tour.
The crew were having a lot of fun on the Tirani station. It was the first time in an alien port for just about everyone. The Tirani tour of our ship was a huge event. Suruchi and Dora had done a lot of research to make changes that would be attractive to the bear people. But what drew them was the purple alien grass on the promenade. They said it smelled intoxicating to them. That caused Doc and Scrubs to spend two hours confirming it was not harmful to them. What they found out was slightly amusing. The grass stimulated Tirani like catnip did for felines. I had to look up catnip and felines as I was unfamiliar with the pet species from Earth.
One of the envoys unabashedly rolled around in the soft purple grass. The other three were clearly restraining themselves. I think we had just won the bid to host and transport the envoys. This was confirmed two days later.
One of the brothers of an envoy contacted me shortly after the visit. He wanted to start a business with my purple grass. I listened to him, and he would either give me 1200 Sol credits and a 10% stake in the business or a straight-up 50% stake in the business in exchange for seeds and growing information. I didn¡¯t need the money, so I chose the second option. I had my two botanists send the data and seeds down to the planet. Maybe it would yield a return, but I wasn¡¯t holding out hope for bearnip....bearclaw....beargrass.... Well, he could assign whatever name he wanted to it. It had just been an interesting science project for me to get the ancient seeds to grow.
The berries from the bushes my botanists had fermented were also a possible cash crop, and Abraham thought I should rent an orbital farm to grow the bushes and process the berries. Such a long-term investment seemed unnecessary at this point, so I passed.
In the days waiting for our departure, my crew dumped a lot of their credits into the station. I visited twice more myself on dates with Danielle. She was more successful than Eve in getting me to purchase an entirely new wardrobe for myself to be ¡®fashionably relevant.¡¯
As the day approached to depart the hull cavities were finally clean of loot and just contained surplus material. The Void Phoenix was in fantastic shape. The new AI came online and did a sweeping scan at maximum range. Elvis dropped interesting data to the sensor station on the bridge in order of priority. I was on the bridge when Elias told me a stealthed ship was watching us. I asked how he was certain it was watching us. He showed me the orientation of the ship and how it had shadowed us when we had changed docking ports. We had just moved from the trader ring to the diplomatic ring to await our passengers.
I started to get really concerned and asked Edmund to come to the bridge. He confirmed that it was a Brotherhood ship by coded transmissions. He had only picked up small chatter on the Brotherhood frequencies, nothing concerning. But he reminded me that he was a low-ranking agent. If higher-ranked agents communicated, he couldn¡¯t listen in with his PerCom. The best guess Edmund gave me was the ship would try to board us when we made our way out of the system to transition to subspace. Edmund had good knowledge of the Brotherhood¡¯s tactics in such engagements.
I started having Elias do detailed scans of the stealthed ship and then called in Abby and her marine sergeants. I planned to flip their attempt to take my ship on them completely. We would take theirs instead.
Chapter 99 Hostile Boarding
Chapter 99 Hostile Boarding
We had 40 hours before departure to get our plan finalized. Then we had a 7-hour trip to our subspace transition point. Edmund seemed certain the Brotherhood ship would drop a disrupter and attempt to board us. That was going to force an engagement, as we had no way to avoid it. We could transition early, but I decided against it.
Edmund said the ship would follow us out to the transition point, staying at around 10,000 km distance. When they were sure no local crafts could intervene, they would fire the disrupter. They would lock their corvette (I forgot to note the size of Hanson¡¯s ship in my notes¡corvette?) to our hull, cut through, and send in their marines. If we evaded the boarding, then they would fire on us until they disabled our engines or we surrendered. So I did not plan to resist.
Our plan was threefold. The first phase was keeping our sensors constantly scanning the enemy ship, giving us real-time scanner data to feed our defending marines. The second phase was using my large exterior engineering bots to cut holes into the corvette¡¯s hull. The third phase was our counter-offensive, sending our marines into their ship from two different breach points while we kept a dozen marines on our ship for defense.
We had 40 hours to get ready, and the entire crew was aware of the impending encounter. The Marines were excited to have a fight coming and plenty of time to prepare. Half of our Badger stealth suits would be assigned to one breach site on the enemy hull and the remainder to the other site¡ªfourteen suits in total. I had a fifteenth suit that was my personal suit. Eve was going to wear it in my place and remain on our ship for defense. I hoped to finish two more of the stealth suits to be added to our defense, but Eve could openly handle any assault attempt by herself. We also bought six heavy plasma repeaters for Marines to man in my old Sapphirean combat armor. The plasma repeaters would be mobile and defend corridors if they managed to get into the ship.
Gabby was going to get two more cabled spider bots built. The prototype she had built had been put through debugging, and it fell slightly short of the expected parameters. Gabby had been making some alterations to correct this but was only partway through the retooling. They definitely looked ominous. All three spider bots would be plugged into the cargo bay, the most likely site of the enemy ship¡¯s assault.
The final attack would come from Julie. Julie was to infiltrate and neutralize the opposing ship¡¯s AI and shut down the ship¡¯s systems. One of the Marines had the third hacking device. They would plug it directly into the ship to help Julie¡¯s connectivity once they boarded.
The forty hours passed at a snail¡¯s pace as we ran VR scenarios and got the ship ready for a long voyage. The hollow spaces under the faux hull were stuffed with fuel canisters. Going into alien-controlled space, I was concerned about getting fuel during the journey. I had considered getting a hydrogen scoop for gas giants. But the shuttle was large, and the refinery took up too much space in the cargo hold.
I was able to purchase deep space star maps with locations of independent stations that traded fairly, according to the Tirani. As for the alien star nations we would be passing through....many were not friendly to humans. I was starting to reconsider pursuing my brother if our ports of call were limited and suspected the further we got from human-controlled space the more difficulty we would have.
The envoys arrived and were ushered to their accommodations. They appeared happy as we departed, and my crew went into final prep mode for the inevitable assault.
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Hanson had been planning on the trip in subspace out to the Tirani station. He had four crew members to eliminate, five if he included the bot technician. He wasn¡¯t sure of that man¡®s loyalty to the Brotherhood. When they transitioned, two of his loyal agents and three reprogrammed bots eliminated all five in seconds across his ship. He waited and watched for any of his crew to react.
As the minutes passed, he slowly relaxed. He talked over the comm to the crew and let them know their next destination. They were going to a Brotherhood station in a remote system that was lightly manned. They could take it easily and stockpile supplies and saleable equipment there.
He wouldn¡¯t be the first agent like this to go rogue. Hell, he had been responsible for tracking down three such agents himself. Well, he would be the first Diamond agent that he was aware of that went AWOL. His engineers were doing the standard maintenance while his ship remained dark and cloaked far away from the station. It had been right hours since entering the system when one of his bridge officers commed him in his quarters. He took the message. An agent at the station had located the target on the station. He matched the physical description of Devon Wellspring.
Hanson Gammon was skeptical as he entered the bridge and turned his passive sensors on the docked ships. Nothing struck him....did the man switch ships? His navigation officer offered holographic overlays of the Void Phoenix and the various docked ships. One ship fit the Void Phoneix nicely inside, and it¡¯s engines were a perfect match. Had Devon covered his entire ship in a fake hull? Impressive but a huge waste of resources, in his opinion....and time. Personally, he would have just switched ships. So that is how he disappeared. No matter, the prey was his now.
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Hanson needed to decide if he wanted to try and salvage his relationship with the Brotherhood. The deaths of the five members of his crew would be difficult, but he was certain he could explain them away. If he could capture and free Jane Doe....he would be safe and back in the good graces of the Brotherhood again. It was better than spending a lifetime looking over his shoulder. He prepared a message and sent it to Desdemona.
He got his crew on task. Taking a fat trader wouldn¡¯t be difficult. He had eleven Brotherhood spec ops suits on board. Only nine trained operators, though, as two of the men he had killed were assigned operators. But still, nine suits were overkill for an operation like this. He hoped to take as many prizes as possible. Deven had shown deep pockets in the past.
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The waiting was torturous. It was days, and the ship had only just moved from one side of the station to the other. If they remained docked for two more weeks, then more of Desdemona¡¯s fleet might make it out here. He wasn¡¯t going to risk docking at the station. The Tirani were not to be messed with in such close proximity. He had thought about playing with a small Tirani system patrol craft but doing anything on the station....that would be foolhardy.
When the disguised Void Phoenix left the station, he breathed a sigh of relief, and his adrenaline quickly surged. The pursuit of the quarry was ahead of him. The unsuspecting quarry. The course of the target was curious. They were headed into alien-controlled space. This made no sense unless Deven had allies or was outright fleeing. He would abate his curiosity when he questioned the man in person.
Six hours into the pursuit, he got a green light from his sensors officer. No ship could respond to an attack in less than two hours. More than enough time to board the slower ship. He moved in close, grappled the ship, and fired the subspace disrupter, which was probably unnecessary. No one would be dumb enough to go to subspace at this range from the sun¡¯s gravity. His cutters were positioned perfectly over the forward cargo bay doors.
His main strike team was ready as they started cutting through the hull. He placed his own suit helmet on and went to join them while watching updates on his HUD. He was halfway to his men when he slowed in his walk. It was taking an awfully long time to cut through those bay doors. And why had the ship not commed them or attempted to negotiate? Something was wrong. He felt it. He checked his ship¡¯s AI, and it had not been able to penetrate the firewalls of the other ship yet. Not unexpected but somewhat unlikely. Then a cold thought went through his mind, what if Jane Doe was working with Deven? She could have unlocked her combat suits, and they could have been waiting for them.
Jane Doe was too much of a Brotherhood loyalist, he told himself. Still.... His HUD indicated successful entry into the cargo bay finally. Hanson still paused here and watched his men enter. The bay was dark, so they flipped to different optics. The bay had been flooded with a gas that obscured vision, and all he had was a grainy image through the transmitted video. Then something happened, and he flicked to another suit¡¯s video as he had begun firing at the ceiling. Three massive spiders were descending on a cable. The other men joined in focused fire, and Hanson had wanted to warn them to be on the lookout as this felt more like a trap than a boarding action now.
His bridge crew suddenly said the port access hatch was being compromised on their ship. Damn it. They were boarding him! He started to move to the breech when the bridge said the starboard side was also being cut through. Fuck! His instincts told him to hurry. He commed his AI and told him to break the lock and get the hell out of there. Nothing¡ªthe ship¡¯s AI was not responding. What the fuck was happening?
He moved to a nearby terminal, and the ship computers were seized up, nothing could have hacked him unless Jane Doe was in fact, working with Deven. All his comms were down, but his suit-to-suit video still worked on contact. He checked, and he only lost two men. The others were freeing another who was stuck in capture foam. He needed to make the call. Go and get his men to defend his ship, or rush and join them and take the other ship before he lost his. He rushed to his men and entered the cargo bay as the man was released from the foam.
He studied the destroyed spiders in passing. The nightmarish bots were barely damaged....ah the cable had been to power them as well as descend them from the ceiling. Clever....but how were the bots in such good condition? The weapons should have shredded them. No time to find out. He quickly touched suits, and everyone did the same for direct communication to override the comm blackout. He told his men they were proceeding with the boarding and takeover of the ship. To win the day, they needed to take the bridge of this ship.
At this point, he wished he had grappled near one of the shuttle bays, closer to the bridge. But moving from the lower decks up, like ascending levels in a VR game, was always more fun. They moved out in practiced formation to the first lift they noticed. Then a flitter of movement came and took the man to the far right. The crates in the cargo bay made it easy to hide and move, but that speed was inhuman. Even in combat armor, the g forces....
A second man fell, and Hanson felt fear. The grainy image and the speed of their opponent. He ordered a retreat, and not a single man hesitated. Nightmarish spiders and now a ghost in power armor that might be an Armageddon bot.
The area was at least two open to be attacked here. Just four men and himself were left as he closed the doors. A figure stood in the open now, and a few of his men fired only to watch it easily dodge. That had to be a bot wearing human combat armor. He had definitely underestimated Deven. He needed to retake his own ship now. He just hoped the two breeches also didn¡¯t have bots in combat armor. He was definitely underprepared to take on Deven. He did have two Terminator bots in storage, old Armageddon bots. That was definitely going to be easier to reach than his own bridge....Deven had caught him off guard, but he still had a few Aces to play.
Chapter 100 Surprise, Bitch!
Chapter 100 Surprise, Bitch!
The anticipation as we left the safety of the station was overwhelming. I was excited as I felt our preparation was thorough. Our detailed scans of the enemy ship gave us a complete inventory of their crew and their combat suits. As we started on our vector to our transition point, the enemy ship fell in just as Edmund had predicted. The Brotherhood operating doctrine is in effect.
They kept inching closer, and my marines waited inside their armor for the appointed hour. One of the keys to our plan was when they grappled our ship Julie would go on the offensive and blind the enemy ship sensors. If she could not do that, she was to confuse the opposing AI enough to incapacitate it.
Three hours out looked like the first window for them. Tirani patrol ships were over 90 minutes out from responding, not that we planned to send a distress call. The Brotherhood ship waited.
Julie sent me a viable option to escape from her compounded scans from Elvis and compiled data. The Void Phoenix, without its shell and the mass underneath, was slightly faster than the pursuing ship. It was an option, but we had stuffed fuel under the shell for our long voyage, and I was not quite ready to give up our costume. Even though the Brotherhood had found us, I was certain many others were still barking up the wrong tree.
We were getting close to a safe transition distance, and I began to doubt they were going to board. Then alerts on the bridge started coming. They were moving in for a leech maneuver. They probably thought we could not see them, but we just played ignorant. They grappled with their leech cutters onto the deck 1 cargo bay door. I would have gone for the top deck as it was closer to the bridge, but I am sure the enemy ship had its reasons. Their subspace disruptors went off seconds before the grapple. Elias swore.
I turned to him in my captain¡¯s chair. The subspace disrupter had bombarded our alien sensors with data, and he was turning to conventional scans now. My mind pieced some things together. Subspace disruptors created faux gravity signatures that prevented ships from being able to enter subspace safely. I told the new AI in charge of sensors to map the gravimetric fluctuations from the disruption and see if he could plot a potential subspace transition in the mess. We were not going to attempt it, but if it was possible, we might be able to escape these traps in the future. Maybe we could even transition further in-system safely.
The enemy ship was still cutting through the cargo bay doors. The alien hull was an excellent barrier. And the cargo bay doors were not even as thick as the rest of the hull. We had two force shields that could be overlayed with the cargo bay door, but we¡¯re not going to activate them. Instead, we flooded the cargo bay with an argon gas mixture that should greatly dampen their sensors. One of the bridge stations noted the doors were breached, and Julie immediately attacked the ship¡¯s AI. Two of my large exterior maintenance bots flowed off our hull, followed by a stream of marines in stealth armor.
Gabby was at a station on the bridge, ready to control her three spider bots. I had multiple screens up in front of me. It was slightly annoying not having real-time footage of enemy movements. I was spoiled with the power of our new sensors in the few weeks we had them functioning. Fortunately, our sensor AI slowly filtered out the noise and improved the images with Elias¡¯ help.
I watched as the Venom bots spooled the power cable from their abdomen. It looked freaky, and I was glad not to be in there. The enemy marines noticed them, and the firefight erupted. It happened fast. The adversaries were well-trained and were quickly cycling through their weapons until they found concentrated explosives blasts were the most effective. I could see in my mind why. I hadn¡¯t hardened the internals of the bots against such attacks. Their armor was holding, but their functionality was falling fast from internal damage.
I switched to the view of my own assault on the enemy ship. My bots had little trouble cutting into their ship. My best guess was either the stealth tech prevented them from using the advanced armored hull or that it was too expensive to cover an entire ship in the material. My marines flowed inside and used their HUD maps to secure the ship. When I turned back to the venom bots were all destroyed. It looked like they had killed two invaders. An excellent ratio. They could have ended the boarding threat immediately if I had a dozen bots.
Julie popped up in her hologram form, wearing a suit of our new armor. She said she got into the other ship¡¯s systems but was not able to take it over. The opposing AI went into lockdown, a safety measure. Someone said they were rushing to the elevator. Confused, I noticed they were still going to try taking my ship.
Eve was waiting, and I gave her the command to override her do no harm directive. She blurred on my screen, pulled one of the enemies down, and drove a plasma dagger under his chin in less than a heartbeat before regaining her cover. She had a maintenance corridor to circle around the attackers and soon pulled another one into Death¡¯s embrace. The loss of two more companions had them fleeing back to their ship. I couldn¡¯t blame them. I would have been scared shitless going against Eve, unrestrained as she was is an advanced combat suit.
Our image was getting clearer as the AI remapped things out, and the disrupter effect slowly faded. The Marines had a shoot-to-kill order on the takeover of the other ship. Any sign of resistance was met with lethal force. Engineering would be secured shortly, and the door to the bridge had charges being laid on the hinges. I would only take prisoners if they completely surrendered. The enemies were trying to take engineering back. The few soldiers they had left were taking on my own soldiers in stealth suits. My suits were proving superior. They could take a substantial amount of damage...except the concussion attacks. One marine was incapacitated from a headshot from a micro concussion grenade, and three other suits were showing lots of yellow and red indicators on functionality displays.
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I would have to redesign the suits. Whatever those micro concussive bullets they were using would be a new weapon to equip my marines with in the future¡after we incorporated defensive measures against them on the suits. All the enemy combat suits were now down. I finally took a tally on my side. Two unconscious marines with strong life signs. One marine was being rushed back to our infirmary...induced heart failure from the concussive effect. Doc was prepped and assured me he would make it before he even arrived.
Haily drew my attention to the screens. One of the enemy combat suits had diverted and was unaccounted for. Why couldn¡¯t my sensors be up and running? We had seven crew missing on the other ship from our initial scans. And now I was being told a combat-suited combatant as well. I ordered exterior scans and visual scans on the hull to proceed in haste. If it was me, I would try to spacewalk to the enemy¡¯s bridge as a last-ditch effort to win the day.
Nothing. Minutes passed, and the enemy crew was accounted for one by one. A marine shut off the AIs lockdown manually, and immediately Julie popped onto my bridge as she gained control of the other ship¡¯s internal sensors. The ship¡¯s captain in combat armor was in a storage room on deck 3. Julie¡¯s internal video feed showed he was powering two Armogedden bots.
I spun to Elias as he explained the original scans missed the Armageddon bots because they were in coffins flooded with synthetic, high-density fluids. On the scans, they had looked just like fuel canisters. I groaned as the fight was far from over.
Abby heard the news and had all the heavy weapons crew move to our cargo bay to set up overlapping fields of fire on the breach site. If the Armageddon bots tried to board our ship, they would be met with a hail of fire that should end them--hopefully. I wanted to disengage from their ship and break away, but my men were already on their bridge and in engineering. They wouldn¡¯t be able to get out safely. I was planning to tell them to do a hull walk, but Eve interrupted my comm. Eve was moving to engage.
I hoped the opposing captain was activating the bots as a negotiating tactic, but they immediately started rushing to retake his bridge. I grinned as he left himself alone. I looked at the map overlays and sent it to Abby. She sent the closest three Marines to neutralize the captain.
My focus was on the death bots moving to retake their bridge. My marines staggered themselves in the corridor as the armageddon bots raced into the corridor. The explosions obscured our vision as the bots, and my men unleashed weapons meant for planetary battles.
I watched the suit indicators as the visual feed was slowly filtering the action...the bots were using mini radiation-laced bullets. That was causing video problems on top of everything else. A quick suit sensor feedback told me the radiation would not be harmful to the men and women in the suits as it couldn¡¯t penetrate the suit¡¯s armor. A suit arm started flashing red, and my mind caught up. The death bots had given up on the ineffectual long-range attacks and moved into melee. My suits were not weak, but the speed and adaptability of the slayer bots were scary. Two marines were wrestling the arms of one of the bots as a third marine was repeatedly firing into the bot¡¯s torso. The bot threw one of the marines away with ease...the other marine was now alone and quickly pinned as the deadly bot tore plates off the battle suit¡ªreaching flesh.
A few flashes as other marines tried to save their comrade. Then a flash and the vid showed a fast-moving, suited marine tackling the deadly bot off the marine. No, not a marine, Eve had arrived. Her speed outclassed the Armageddon bot, and she was quickly behind hit and seeking its internals after dislodging a series of armor plates on its back. The bridge was cheering, but before Eve could destroy enough internals, the second bot crashed into her, and they all tumbled into a lift door. The door caved in, and they all went down the shaft. I lost my vid feed from the marine suits and didn¡¯t know Eve¡¯s fate.
Abby ordered all marines to retreat. I countered her order. We were not leaving Eve. They should have fallen straight down to the flight deck. I looked at my holo model and had Abby begin to order the seven marines close enough to go and support Eve. I would sacrifice them if it gave me a chance to save Eve. I anxiously watched the first marine enter the cargo bay.
The first clear thing was one of the killer bots was down. Eve had succeeded in getting to the internals. The marine moved around a shuttle confidently since he knew he had only one opponent and two marines at his back. They found Eve.
Her arm was missing, but she held the other battle bot¡¯s main sensors module in her other hand. The bot was circling without being able to see. The marines got a firing line as Eve moved away and opened fire. It took 49 seconds of sustained fire from all seven before they felt confident the bot was disabled. One marine moved in for a closer look at the bot that Even had disabled. It looked nothing like the models publicly shown on vids. It must be the newest and latest from the machine labs of the Brotherhood.
The Marines moved in, confirmed both bots were down, and removed all three power systems to be safe. I looked at the bigger picture zooming out and checking notifications. We had five captured crew and their captain. The captain had tried to set the self-destruct the ship but was foiled by Julie, and then he attempted to reach the shuttle bay to escape but hadn¡¯t made it since we could clearly see his movements with our sensors. With Julie in control of the stealth corvette, I needed to decide what to do with it. We could strip the ship in the next few hours of anything valuable, leave it attached and start making preparations to enter subspace with it still attached, or just detach the ship and set it adrift. For the last option, maybe the Tirani might pay for the salvage, but I really didn¡¯t want to wait on them.
The nearest Tirani ship was still 142 minutes away. They hadn¡¯t even responded to the battle yet. Well, the whole event took only eleven minutes. I made my choice. I ordered the entire crew to secure the corvette to the Void Phoneix. I was taking the entire ship with us. I was curious about the military tech and the stealth tech in particular. I ordered all prisoners to be brought to Doc. My experience with Jane Doe told me they needed to be purged of all tech. Then I rushed off to see how Eve was doing.
Chapter 101 Plunder
Chapter 101
I found Eve in the robotics lab. She was completely naked, and the discarded power armor was on the floor. Her stump of a shoulder had cables, dried fluid, and synthetic flesh hanging from it. She was manipulating the machines in the lab to free her missing arm from the power suit.
I immediately hugged her, and she wrapped her one good arm around me, returning it. She apologized for losing the arm. She explained it had gotten caught in a brace on the fall in the lift. The weight of the two bots and herself had torn it free. I laughed at her nonchalance. She said she was never in any danger from the two inferior bots. Well, she admitted that she had been momentarily pinned and immobilized when they landed in the cargo bay. But she just continued disabling the first bot with her good arm. The other bot tried to flee but she tackled it and went after its sensors since it was being uncooperative with allowing her access to its internals. Then the Marines arrived to finish it off.
I moved to the station to take over the task of freeing her arm. I had Eve lie down to clean up her shoulder and run a scan of the damage. Gabby entered the lab with her damaged Venom bots in tow and paused. I realized Eve was still naked and covered her.
Gabby and Eve started a conversation about the Venom bots and their effectiveness and shortcomings. I focused on stripping Eve¡¯s freed arm and repairing the attachments. I would reskin the arm once it was attached. The conversation irked me because Gabby referred to the spider bots as her creation. She had fabricated them, but I had designed them. I don¡¯t know why I cared, but I did.
I was most of the way through the rebuild when I received a comm. It was Abby asking what to do with the Armageddon bots. They could be brought to the robotics lab. They were tall at 2.3 meters and extremely dense. When they arrived, I immediately pulled their computer cores and stored the cores in shielded containment boxes. Then I got to the good part of reviewing their technology.
These bots were the most recent tech from the core worlds. Illegal in most parts of human-controlled space unless licensed by Earth. I just scratched the surface but was learning quite a bit about how to harden military hardware. Eve interrupted me and asked about her arm.
I spent two hours fabricating the repairs myself rather than letting the machines do the work. I felt I owed it to Eve for putting her in the line of fire. I also reactivated her ethical directives. I didn¡¯t get around to recoating her arm in synth flesh. She left before that, wanting to check on Celeste and Amos. That left Gabby and me in the lab.
I moved to the killer bots and Gabby started talking. I returned the conversation as best I could while I was studying the more intact Armageddon bot. I was kicking myself for having overlooked so much in my designs. I had never had access to military bots or been educated in their construction, so I excused my shortcomings. Gabby repeated her last question, and I paused.
She was asking to be put in charge of robotic defenses for the Void Phoenix. She had worked on the wolf bots and Vemon Queen bots, so she considered herself well-suited for the role. She had enjoyed being on the bridge while her spiders had stalled the commando¡¯s advance. There were extra, unassigned terminals on the bridge she offered, hopefully. It would be good to have one person overseeing all the bot defenses. Remote piloted bots were not as frowned upon as dumb AI bots. I called Julie to set up some training to see if Gabby would be good at directing multiple bots from a terminal on the bridge. She ran and hugged me¡maybe a little too long and tightly, before running off to her VR connection in her quarters.
An hour later and Suruchi commed me. The envoys were asking why we had not transitioned yet. She had been stalling them. I couldn¡¯t believe they hadn¡¯t been alerted, but I guess the engagement was six decks down, and the real action was on the other ship. I checked on the progress of the crew. Damian, Elias, Maria, and Danielle were all working on the problem of encompassing the enemy frigate in our subspace transition. Julie was assisting by controlling the emitters on the other ship, but they were still an hour or two away from a safe transition, according to Damian. I guess I should have hired a navigation engineer. I told Suruchi the planned transition was in two hours.
I checked on Saabir, Yannis, and Nero. They were responsible for securing the enemy ship to our hull so we could safely plunder it during our subspace trip. Edmund and Vicky were already on the other ship, logging cargo to be brought back to the Void Phoenix. I felt like one of the pirates in the vid. It was definitely a rush taking valuable cargo after an intense firefight.
Feeling fatigued, I headed back to my room to see Celeste and Amos and then got some sleep. Eve had her arm covered and was talking with Celeste, who was demanding ice cream, her dinner untouched. Amos¡¯ plate was finished. I went and got my daughter cookie dough ice cream, and Eve gave me an irritated look. I just shrugged.
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While I was playing with Celeste after her ice cream dinner, Eve asked me a favor. She wanted her own custom suit of powered stealth armor. She had used mine, but it was a little big and hindered her speed by 14%. I immediately put it in the manufacturing queue with a new suit for myself. My old suit would be repaired but turned over to the Marines. An alert came from the bridge for the impending transition to subspace, and I took Celeste and Amos to the bridge to observe it.
They had been on the bridge before, but this was the first time entering subspace from here. It was usually dull visually, but Elias switched on the special filters to make it look pretty for the kids. A cheer went up from the bridge as we had just accomplished the feat of defending our ship and getting a very advanced frigate as well. I sent out an entire month¡¯s bonus from my captain¡¯s chair to the entire crew. I had already been informed we had found a stash of hard currency Sol credits on the enemy ship. I sent Abby a note to divide an additional 1,000 Sol credits to the Marines as she saw fit on top of the bonus I had just sent. Abby returned my message with an engagement debrief in the morning. I had overridden her orders to retreat in favor of saving Eve¡ªshe was probably not happy with that. Well, that was tomorrow. Now it was time to sleep.
The combat debrief included Kara Briggs, Abby, Julie, Doc, and Buckie. Doc started the meeting. We had seven marines with injuries, two would be returning to duty in 24 hours and the remainder in the next two weeks. No casualties, but she did have to put a cybernetic heart in one of the marines. It had been the quickest way to save his life. Next, we talked about the phases of the combat and the mistakes we made. Abby detailed so many errors that I wasn¡¯t sure we had won the battle.
She finally got into the chain of command I was dreading. My insistence to save Eve was never brought up, just that I should have told her to alter the orders instead of stepping in. I nodded, taking the reprimand. I then reviewed the body armor footage of the assault from different angles as we talked about future best practices in boarding actions. I guessed this was probably not out last ship-to-ship action, so I paid attention. Next time I would be suited up and in action. Abby could command if needed. We talked about the Vemon Queens and how they could be better utilized, and I mentioned that Gabby wanted the full-time job of ship¡¯s bot hive mind. Everyone thought that was a great idea.
The meeting lasted five hours. I couldn¡¯t believe a battle debrief could last 20 times as long as the battle. When we were done, I retreated to my robotics lab. I was alone as Gabby was still in VR. I went back to work on the Armageddon bots, and something struck me as odd. I retrieved the power generator for the bots since they had been removed. I kept scanning them and got more and more confused. They were powerful, too powerful. The tech seemed alien and used a fuel I was not familiar with. They were only slightly superior to the alien generators that I had, but they were still better. Julie said the fuel could be synthesized at a loss of efficiency in the conversation, but at least it was possible. It had a strong radioactive signature, but we could encase it in our alien plating. I think it was going to be possible to use these micro fission generators to power my heavy combat armor and the Venom Queens.
During the first four days in subspace, I got help from my crew and Julie to reverse engineer the fission generator. Our fabricators could handle the materials, and we made some minor upgrades with alien hull components. The fuel fabrication was going to be at a 280% energy loss, but that was fine. We were going to convert the enemy frigate¡¯s main reactor fuel to create the fuel and just burn through all that ship¡¯s reserves to make as many fuel pellets as possible for the fission reactors.
The conversion would take longer than our trip to drop off the envoys, so the frigate would be attached for quite some time.
I was able to complete my new combat suit and Eve¡¯s as well. Eve¡¯s new suit was kept secret and stored in a locker in my quarters. I ended up giving Eve a complete body recoat in synthflesh. Well, I had Gabby do it for practice. Gabby had redesigned the Venom Queens and renamed them Black Widows, which irked me. She was putting her personal stamp on the bots. Then Gabby gave me her ship defense plan. She wanted to build twelve upgraded wolf bots and 32 spider bots. I had planned on just 28 spider bots. She also wanted to add seven undercover steward bots on deck seven that she could control.
I looked at her plans; all were male steward bots. It was not a bad idea to have agents on the luxury deck. I approved three female and three male bots that Gabby was going to build from scratch. If we ever took on full loads of passengers again, Suruchi and Dora would be happy. I also stipulated that Julie would serve as an intermediary when Gabby puppeted the bots. It was easy to tell she wasn¡¯t pleased with that caveat.
One other huge step for us was our shield engineer, Hans Anders. He came up with a simple deflector module for the combat suits. It should be able to deflect solid projectiles with minimal energy. This would hopefully solve the concussion micro grenades we had trouble with in the fight. Halfway through our trip I was forced to have dinner with our guests. The Tirani insisted on sitting down with me. Danielle joined me as my date, and Eve also attended. Dora, Suruchi, and Kara joined us as well.
The Tirani were extremely happy with the accommodations and trip speed. Danielle and Doc had even done some troubleshooting to get the VR adapted for their neural biology. The purple grass had been a hit the entire trip, with my arborist complaining the Tirani rolling around in it was destroying the crop. The ship chef had also gone out of her way to prepare the most incredible food for them. They said I was being underpaid for the trip. As the extraordinary meal finished, they made a request. When we arrived, they wanted the Drusi delegation to be hosted on my ship.
Chapter 102
Chapter 102
Host the Drusi? Suruchi didn¡¯t volunteer our ship immediately and waited on me to make a decision. I asked the Tirani why first. The idea of a neutral site was appealing to the Tirani, and they thought the Drusi would be impressed with the accommodations. I didn¡¯t understand as this my ship was not Tirani. Were they planning to pass off my ship as theirs?
The envoys professed no. Just the ambiance of my ship was the main reason. I told them I would think about it. After the meal, I discussed it with my staff. Suruchi jokingly said the Tirani just wanted to continue eating food prepared by our chef. Dora said they just wanted to continue playing in the purple grass.
Joking aside. Abby was focused on the security concerns and said it wouldn¡¯t be a problem with the number of marines she had on board. Julie said she wasn¡¯t at all concerned about either alien¡¯s possible infiltration into her systems.
I commed the envoys and agreed to host after negotiating a sizable credit bonus which they transferred to me without hesitation. We were six days away from the Drusi system, and we began preparations. The Drusi were human-like in form. They were similar in height and limb structure. Their fingers were a bit longer and more dexterous. Their skin ranged from deep green to light blue. It was their head that made them appear alien, though. No hair and no ears, just an auditory canal. Slightly larger eyes that were a milky blue with no visible iris. Their noses were flat with small nostril slits. Their lips and teeth mirrored humans, except they had larger and sharper incisors for tearing flesh. I had only seen a few at a distance on stations, so it would be interesting to get an up-close look.
Cori was researching and practicing her preparation of Drusi food. My crew did not like her samples. The food was heavy on salt and consisted mostly of dried and over-seasoned meat. The drinks were gross, tasting like sour milk or lemon juice. I had to talk to the chef before the crew revolted after just one day.
Suruchi and Dora were serving as the ship liaison for the hosting of the event. The challenge of hosting an alien summit had them excited and working long hours. I was a little unhappy that they were building a negotiation table in the center of the promenade. Suruchi said it was to symbolize the openness of the efforts to create a new diplomatic common ground. I just told her to remove it immediately after the conference was done.
Edmund, Franis, and Nero were leading the plundering of the Brotherhood stealth vessel. Nero was refitting the ship to produce the pellet fuel for our new generators. Edmund and Francis were trying to strip every useful and valuable piece of technology. The empty space between our faux layer was quickly being filled up again. Abby had already gotten enough weapons to fill three armories, and her marines were figuring out the Brotherhood¡¯s exotic weapons and having Julie create VR programs to practice with them safely. It was clear from the haul that this ship was meant for strike missions from their extensive arsenal. We had been extremely fortunate that Julie took control of the ship. We identified seven fail safes in its programs to destroy data archives and weapons caches that never were activated due to her intervention.
Edmund had months worth of secret Brotherhood data to decipher. He still didn¡¯t have the operative keys for some of the more sensitive material, but we had intact data modules. He didn¡¯t have time to sift through it yet, and if an AI attempted to decipher it, he said it would be erased by the failsafe.
Edmund suggested I question the crew and captain we had captured. They were in holding cells in mild pain from having their cybernetic enhancements removed. I told Edmund to interrogate them when he finished with the ship. I had planned to abandon the captured crew deep in alien space, but I knew the risk of them returning to human space was too great. I secretly hoped Edmund would volunteer to eliminate our unwanted guests. If he didn¡¯t suggest it, then I would.
Understanding the stealth system on the Brotherhood ship had fallen to Danielle, Yannis, and Garrison. We were looking to reverse engineer and figure out if we could add something similar to the Void Phoenix. If we could, then I would plan to drop my fake hull. Our sensor signature was already extremely faint. Just our engine exhaust betrayed us at long range.
Other than the excitement of meeting the Drusi, I was focused on my robotics lab. I could build my heavy infantry suits now that I had a power source. The problem was I needed a complete redesign. I was finding dozens of ways to harden the suits in combat by examining the Armageddon bot¡¯s internals. Gabby was working right next to me the entire time, taking the same military engineering revelations to add to her trio of projects, the updated wolf bots, the Black Widows, and the six steward spy bots. Unsurprisingly, she was focused on her steward bots first, especially after I told her she would not get any micro fission cores until the marines were outfitted with heavy combat armor.
The good news about the Gorilla heavy suits was I no longer had to think about the weapons systems. Abby and her marines sifted through their looted weapons and gave me various load-outs they would prefer after testing them in VR. We had three load-outs, shipboard combat, space combat, and planetary combat. Making the changes modular would allow quick switching between them.
I was even thinking of scrapping all my original stealth suits and just rebuilding them with all the knowledge we had gained. Performance-wise, the gains would be marginal, but functionality after taking damage in combat would be increased significantly. But for now, we just planned to add the small deflector shield for defense against the micro concussion grenades.
When I spent time in my cabin playing with the children, I also worked on the subspace data. Danielle tried to tear me away from it, but it was too fascinating to ignore. It was Celeste crying when I ignored her that had me put down the data slates. So I ended up just spending an hour every night in VR combining my data and postulating things. Speculating on this abstract field was not my strong suit. I just didn¡¯t have all the rules yet for the mathematical equations to work out. It was frustrating as I felt I was just slightly short of enough data points to figure some things out.
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Before we reached the Drusi system, I fabricated Eve¡¯s new suit. It had the majority of the enhancements from our reverse engineering of the Armageddon bots. Eve¡¯s combat effectiveness was beyond scary. In VR, she was able to eliminate every marine on the Void Phoenix 3 out of 4 times in ship seizure attempts. The two times she lost, extraordinary measures were taken to destroy large sections of the ship to blow her into space. I was surprised that Abby didn¡¯t object to me outfitting Eve with the combat armor. My suit was left half-finished as I wanted to cram all the advancements I could into it.
The bridge was packed when we dropped out of subspace in the Drusi system. The Drusi had two large habitable worlds that were mostly water. The Drusi had a subspecies that still lived in the vast oceans of its planets but used mostly primitive tools. I was told they were similar to the neanderthals and home sapiens from our own human lineage. The Drusi species could interbreed, but it was frowned upon.
My bridge crew got to work using our advanced scanners and sending out identifiers over the comms. Elias was scanning Drusi mining ships in extreme detail one by one, as they were the closest ships to our position. Our Drusi hosts accepted us as friendly and connected us with the civilian sensor buoy system. Elias immediately overlayed the data and found four anomalies. Elvis, the AI running the sensors was working faster and faster as Elias programmed priorities for him. Of the stealthed ships, two were Drusi cruisers that were powered down and in stealth, and the other two were stealthed ships that belonged to alien species I was not familiar with.
We focused our scans on these ships. One race was quadrupedal, and the other seemed aquatic in nature. The strange thing was the two ships seemed aware of each other, maybe working in concert. Their stealth seemed limited to minimal power emissions and drifting through the system while collecting data. Elvis, the sensor AI, was tasked with keeping track of them. He groaned at being given such a menial task.
The Drusi response to our request for a delegation to come aboard and negotiate a peace with the Tirani was met with silence. A tense hour later, we were connected directly to the Supreme, their leader. The Supreme started asking me questions I had no answers to. I called for Suruchi and the Tirani to get up here and answer the leader¡¯s questions.
Suruchi thankfully arrived and took over. I was way out of my depth at being both diplomatic and courteous. I watched the master work her magic, and the Tirani envoys never made it to the bridge before Suruchi convinced the Supreme to send a delegation to our ship. I learned a few things from Suruchi¡¯s methods, and maybe by observing her more in the future, I might be able to hold my own when talking with the ruler of 40 billion people.
The Supreme gave us a prestigious orbit over one of the worlds. Surucuchi switched to working on trading what little cargo we deemed trash to the local merchants. With our recent arms upgrade, we had stockpiles of old weapons and outdated ship parts that just took up mass.
We did get some inquiries about the ship attached to our hull. We had already removed its weapons and all its stealth coating. It looked more like a wreck than a functional ship. Our explanation was the ship was salvaged, which was the truth. Nero was close to starting our pellet fuel creation. Once we converted the ship¡¯s fuel to pellets for our micro power generators we could scuttle the vessel. We had seven micro fission generators built and ready to be utilized.
It took four days before the Drusi boarded our ship. Four dignitaries. I watched the ceremonies before returning to my own work in robotics. Gabby was ready for her first steward spy bot, and I was getting close to finalizing my heavy combat armor. In normal gravity, the armor was going to be too heavy to use on normal ships. The deck plating was too thin. Maybe my new suits would be better used for space marines focused on ship boarding actions. They would do too much damage to the Void Pheonix as defensive suits.
I got brief updates from Suruchi on the progress of the negotiations. Suruchi was sitting at the table as a moderator. I wondered if she ever thought she would be in this position. The Tirani had already transferred their gifts, and they were well received. The hangups for both parties were that the Tirani wouldn¡¯t commit to their mercenaries, never attacking a Drusi encampment or ship.
I told Suruchi to nudge it along and even gave her the plots of the two stealthed enemy ships as a goodwill gesture. I only did this because I learned both alien races on those ships were expansionist species. This allowed us to watch a quick little firefight with one spy ship being destroyed and the other captured.
The Tirani were given credit for uncovering the stealthed ships, and it gave them the upper hand. The final stipulation for Tirani to be allowed travel through Drusi space was any established colony within Drusi space wouldn¡¯t be attacked by the Tirani. There was a good deal of legal jargon about what constituted Drusi space, but the Tirani seemed happy with the final contract.
We needed some type of ship¡¯s motto like ¡®solving the galaxies problems one issue at a time.¡¯ We had a lot of liquid credits in terms of precious materials, and Suruchi wanted to get her hands dirty before we moved on.
Our next stop in pursuit of the Union fleet, was an independent system. It was a large asteroid belt mining colony, with hundreds of operations in the outer system. In some way, the five different races mining in the system got along and shipped their refined metals to a central hub.
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Captain Hassim Morain sat on the bridge of his ship nervously as he waited for the agent to arrive. How was he going to explain Hanson¡¯s failure to take the old hauler? Would she blame him for not giving Hassim enough intel on the ship? He did know where the ship was headed and that Deven Wellspring was on board. He had been planted here by the Brotherhood two years ago to watch the Tirani. The Tirani had the most potent ground infantry and shipboard marines in this sector of space. The thing they lacked was technology. He was to report any technology advancements back to Earth. But the only excitement in the last two weeks was for a new purple grass drug. Maybe the Brotherhood would find the information useful in controlling the Tirani. He was reaching for straws. Diamond agents were usually unforgiving.
The blips on his screen indicated she had arrived in the company of two other ships. He just hoped they didn¡¯t attack the station. Humans have consistently underestimated alien species.
Chapter 103 Clear and Present Threat
Chapter 103 Clear and Present Threat
I was eating dinner with Danielle and Gwen in my quarters when Abby beeped my PerCom to talk. She came to my quarters and sat with us while we were eating one of Cori¡¯s fantastic meals. Cori used her small army of bots to prepare general meals for the entire crew at lunch and dinner. For me, she always prepared it herself instead of utilizing the bots I purchased for her.
Abby was here on behalf of one of the Tirani. He wanted to join my crew. Abby asked me to hear her out before saying no. He was the son of one of the envoys. He had been practicing with the Marines in VR and in hand-to-hand combat in the gym. He was outstanding and planned to enroll in an upper-tier mercenary company when he returned to Tirani space. Tirani were loyal soldiers and excellent fighters. This Tirani had earned the Marines¡¯ respect with his ability and demeanor. His name was Mozzie.
I wasn¡¯t opposed to adding alien species to my crew. I asked how Mozzie would do with no one else from his species around. Could we get a psych profile done on him? Abby seemed to think VR could satiate his longing for his own species...or I could make a steward bot in the image of a female Tirani.
I laughed and said should I just make a personal steward bot for every member of the crew! Gwen started to say something, and I held up my hand to silence her. What type of pay would this new crew member request, I queried while thinking about it. Abby grinned and said the same as the other marines. I was actually paying significantly more than normal Tirani marines made on assignments. Fine, we still had a few open marine roles to fill anyway. Abby sent me his body specs for a personalized combat suit. She also sent me a complete female Tirani medical profile put together by Doc in case I wanted to make him a personal steward bot. At least she was prepared.
I opened the file, and Tirami females were leaner than males but still large. The anatomy and physiology didn¡¯t vary too much from humans. It looked like a lot of work on the bot frame and the skinning would require fur... I looked up to find my food now gone and Abby with a guilty face. I told her she could offer Mozzie a position with his own steward not. Hopefully, he was worth the effort. I sent the entire project off to Gabby, delegating the design and build to her. Abby left happy, and I was still hungry. Danielle gave me some of hers but said I would have to pay for it later with a wink.
Danielle was a fine girlfriend. She was focused like me when it came to her work but had enough emotional intelligence to pick up on social cues. I was getting better, and my bridge crew responded well to me.
I decided to spend more time in the Drusi system. We were just beginning the process of making our fuel pellets using the converted engine of the Brotherhood ship. We should be able to get a few year¡¯s worths of fuel pellets for our suits and spider bots. I wasn¡¯t worried about being followed by the Brotherhood or elves. Our long-range sensors would give us enough warning to get away safely from any stealthed threat.
Suruchi was also having a field day. It seemed like dealing with alien species was her calling. She picked up on body language, verbal cues, and tone so easily. She was in the throes of trading with the Drusi. The Drusi had been an aquatic race until about 250,000 years ago. That was when they ventured onto land away from their cousins. Although 250,000 years doesn¡¯t seem like a long evolutionary period, the Drusi developed space flight and opened diplomacy and trading with numerous alien species during that time. They kept ties with their aquatic origins through art. Massive multicolored shells were carved into intricate artwork that was polished to show an amazing colorful finish. Similar to what humans made from marble, metal, or wood. It was in this art that Suruchi was seeking to trade. It was extremely beautiful, even to my human perception, but I wasn¡¯t sure when or if we would return to human-controlled space. I decided not to tell her that, though. Maybe she could find other species that would be interested in artwork along the way.
I received my first report on the stealth coating we liberated from the Brotherhood ship. It acted as a signal sink and visual cloak. It would be excellent against most conventional passive and active scans. It wouldn¡¯t mask our thermal signature from our drives, though. But it wouldn¡¯t add too much to our hull mass if I incorporated it. The problem was that the ship we were taking it from had propellant thrusters with no thermal signature...I had nothing like that. So how useful would it actually be...we could use it during coasting or stationary. I decided to have Julie and the team start making mock-ups for the exterior hull.
The two assault shuttlecrafts from the Brotherhood ship were finally deemed safe by Julie. Unfortunately, these were not the super advanced craft that Jane Doe had gifted us. These were just planetary drop shuttles with no sub-space ability at all. Much larger than my standard assault shuttle from the old Union. Each shuttle was capable of carrying one large vehicle and nine marines in heavy combat armor. We also had two high-speed assault hover tanks secured in each shuttle that I had no idea what to do with.
So what was I going to do with them? I only had six shuttle bays. One had my marine drop shuttle, one had my exterior hull bots, one had my lux shuttle, two had Sappirian fighters and the last one had an old cargo shuttle.
All of these were extremely useful. The old cargo shuttle worked well when we were disguised as a fat old trader. The Brotherhood shuttles would barely fit in our bays. They were just too good to scrap, though. They even had their own advanced stealth coating. I just didn¡¯t have the space on my ship for everything I wanted to keep. Danielle called me a hoarder when I showed her all the items I had stashed away, alien jewelry, the data disks, tons of alien bots, and fragments of technology. It was impressive, but she thought it was overkill from her perspective. Maybe I would start selling off some of the artifacts as we moved through alien space.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Finally, I slated my two fighters to be moved into the cradle with the Caladrius, my concealed ultra-fast courier. It was a terrible decision as they would be crammed in there and not accessible unless I launched the Caladrius first. Ok, fine, I was a hoarder. Zoe and Elias would be upset with losing access to the fighters, but at least I was not ditching them.
After seven days in the Drusi system, Edmund was ready to interrogate the prisoners. He wanted me present for the captain¡¯s exit interview. The rest of the captured crew were low-level skilled laborers, so they wouldn¡¯t offer much value. That is how I found myself sitting across from a very angry man. According to Edmund, a famous Diamond agent, Hanson Gammon was his name. Edmund asked questions, and Hanson just stared malevolently at me. He finally asked where Jane Doe was.
I looked confused but decided to give him the truth and told him she was dead. We killed her when she tried to take my ship. He looked confused, then happy, and then just started laughing uncontrollably. He asked for confirmation, and Edmund gave him the videos after I nodded, it was ok. Was he happy his comrade was dead? He explained that he thought that bitch had taken my ship and had been the one to thwart him. He said he could die happy now.
Edmund looked willing to comply with Hanson¡¯s request, but I asked him to supply some keys for the data. He laughed and said they were genetically coded. Only blood from a diamond agent could open them in concert with a 13-digit code. I asked Hanson if he would give the codes up for his life. Edmund¡¯s face soured at the thought of letting the agent live. Hanson said no, smirked, and added maybe for his life and a ship. Edmund was shaking his head no, but Hanson tried to convince me. If he gave away Brotherhood secrets, he would also be hunted by the Brotherhood.
I didn¡¯t like Hanson; he had the look and air of a predator. But if I could get access to all the Brotherhood¡¯s records, that would help us prepare for future encounters with them. Edmund pulled me aside as I was considering. He said this was a bad idea. Diamond agents were selected for their loyalty and ability. I should not trust anything he said.
If I was going down this road though, he suggested that I get Hanson to promote himself to a Diamond agent. It would give Edmund access to the archives and temporarily get him access to feeds of the Brotherhood. Edmund didn¡¯t think it would last too long. The first time his PerCom linked with an established Brotherhood network, his updated status would be transmitted back to Earth, and they would figure it out. It would put a target on Edmund but should give us the most recent intel on the Brotherhood¡¯s pursuit of us.
We started the negotiations with Edmund¡¯s plan. Hanson Gammon was thorough. He wanted a ship and two of his crew. Before doing anything, he wanted the ship inspected by the two crew, who were engineers. I purchased an old human deep space explorer from the Drusi. We toured the ship, and Hanson agreed it was acceptable after his engineers ordered a few parts. He wanted it fully fueled and 20,000 worth of Sol credits in precious metals stored in the small hold. I got this down to just 6,000, which should be enough for him to resupply eight times or so.
The exchange was not what we were expecting. It was done on board the deep space explorer, and Hanson took his PerCom from Doc. He pulled out some chips, adjusted the settings on them for over an hour, then handed them to Doc and explained what she needed to do. He had essentially altered his chips so that when they were inserted into Edmund¡¯s PerCom it would read as Hanson Gammon. It was a brilliant move on his part. If he was truly fleeing the Brotherhood, he was transferring their sights to Edmund. Before the final hand over, his engineers reviewed the ship four times to ensure I had not tampered with anything. Then, with himself and his engineers on his new ship, he transferred the evolving algorithm for the 13-digit code to Edmund and the final procedure to alter the bio reader to Doc. Edmund was now, in effect, a Diamond agent of the Brotherhood. At least until they realized Edmund was not, Hanson or Hanson was himself blacklisted.
Edmund still didn¡¯t trust the whole sequence, but Doc and Julie couldn¡¯t find any hidden trap, so I watched on the bridge as the small ship moved out system and entered sub space. Elias said it was vectoring toward the edges of human space. Edmund got to work immediately to crack and copy the Brotherhood data from the ship.
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Deven Wellsping was not what Hanson had expected. Tall, fit, young, somewhat attractive, and had the air of raw leadership. The kind you find in new officers. Deven seemed mostly unemotive and bored with the interrogation. That irked Hanson a bit. He was one of the humanities swords! It must be a contrived act on Deven¡¯s part. Maybe there was more depth and intelligence to this Deven than he showed on the surface. He even made the absurd request to betray the Brotherhood so casually. Did he know what he had done to become a Diamond agent?
Hanson took the lifeline. He had accepted the fate that he was going to die after an unpleasant interrogation. They had let him stew for days, a common interrogation tactic. Instead, Deven Wellspring gave him an out. A way to not only cut ties with the Brotherhood but also let them think he was dead. Deven was more devious than he had imagined¡
He wasn¡¯t too shocked to find one of Deven¡¯s crew was an Obsidian agent. It made sense; this agent must have betrayed Jane Doe. It didn¡¯t matter. He was somehow going to be free.
Unfortunately, of his surviving crew, there were only two engineers. At least one was his lead FTL engineer. The ship Deven purchased wasn¡¯t great, but the engineer said it had an excellent range for its old subspace drive. Hanson thoroughly sought any loopholes in his agreement with Deven, but the man seemed genuine on the surface. He even transferred two engineering bots to his ship. They were checked and clean, but he reset them anyway to be safe.
He was four days into subspace when an alert went off. He rushed to the bridge to find his engineer in a panic. He was locked out of the system, and engineering was flooded with radiation. A cascade failure was in effect. He was helpless to pull the ship from subspace. If they couldn¡¯t exit subspace, that meant no escape pod or core ejection. Hanson thought, ¡®well played, Deven Wellspring, well played.¡¯ His ship and everything on board turned into cosmic dust 9 seconds later.
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Eve couldn¡¯t understand why Deven kept exposing himself and Celeste to future reprisals. It made no sense. She twisted her programming to make the Brotherhood agent, Hanson Gammon, a clear and present threat to Celeste¡¯s well-being. She coopted the programming with a hard encoded sequence for the two old engineering bots being sent to the enemy¡¯s ship. It would trigger when they were in subspace and take care of the threat to Celeste and their father.
Chapter 104 The Match is Lit
Chapter 104 The Match is Lit
Our time in Drusi space was coming to a close after three weeks. We had done everything we could here in terms of preparation for our deep space expedition. The fuel pellet conversation would be completed in 40 hours, and then the Brotherhood ship would be hauled away by the Drusi recyclers. I doubted it would go straight to the furnaces, though. We had stripped the ship of everything I thought valuable, but the Drusi would probably be able to learn a fair amount from what I was leaving behind.
The most unsettling thing from the last few days was Gabby working on the Tirani female steward bot. It was great practice for her, and she had received medical files from the envoys to help her with the frame, synthesis of the musculature, and movements. She was so into the project that she even watched videos of Tirani copulating in the robotics lab, which made me cringe. They were quite forceful with their partners. She argued that this was the most important aspect of the project since Mozzie would be using it mostly for this activity.
I didn¡¯t interfere with her research or her approach. I had met Mozzie and liked the big bear man. If Gabby could make his time serving on the ship more comfortable, then I was all for it.
The stealth mock-ups of the Void Phoenix were submitted. I had requested and obtained samples of the two spy ships the Drusi had destroyed. The project team found one minor sensor-dampening alloy to incorporate from those alien hull samples. It wouldn¡¯t be a large improvement over the Brotherhood¡¯s stealth hull, but we added it anyway, as we had not started the fabrication or refitting. No action could be taken until we shed our disguise, but the numbers looked good to me, and I green-lit conversion.
Cargo space inside the Void Pheonix was still at a premium. We still had plenty of space in the void spaces between our hull and the shell disguise. An issue arose when Suruchi had crates moved to the void to store her artwork purchases from the Drusi. It took four days of sitting down with Nero, Abby, Suruchi, and Vicky to sort out where trade goods, spare parts, and military crates were to be stored on the ship. It had been so much easier when I was the only one making the decisions and had been in control of large purchases. I kept my secret alien treasure stashes off limits. They would stay where they were currently stored but Suruchi was given permission to inventory them.
The Marines were still improving as well. Abby had contracted Doc and Scrubs with muscle-enhancing supplements. The Drusi had all the components to manufacture the drugs. These large-calorie, hormone-driven injections quickly grew muscle mass safely. Maintaining your flexibility and control was up to the marine. I had decided to partake as well. My training with the Marines and these supplements Doc was giving me were filling out my physique. Danielle also enjoyed my new physique. The only drawback was I would have to build myself a new suit of the Badger combat stealth armor when I reached my optimal growth.
I admit I took the drugs to avoid slipping into the combat training ranking. I was actually finding it fun to document in my head each opponent¡¯s moves and the likeliness they would use, which move in less than a heartbeat. Combat wasn¡¯t as random or crazy as they portrayed. There were patterns and paths to victory¡kind of like chess with your fists.
My first Gorilla battlesuit was being assembled just before departure. It was more complex than the Badger suits and was still being tested in VR by the Marines and Julie. The Brotherhood power source looked promising. The issue was the fuel cells only lasted 48 hours when the suit was operating at full power. My choice to correct this was either to double the fuel housing, or build in a way to swap the fuel pellets easily in the field. The latter option was the easiest since we only planned to use the heavy suits in boarding actions. I didn¡¯t want enemies to have easy access to the reactor feed, so we spent a lot of time working on security and additional safety measures to quickly exchange fuel pellets.
The suit parameters showed promise in VR¡ªa squad of four in the suits could easily match twelve in the Badger suits¡well, if they could catch the Badgers. The heavy forward shield on the battle suits that Hans devised could take serious punishment now that we had a high-yield power source. When Julie ran sims with one Gorilla against one Armageddon bot, the Gorilla won 6 out 7 times with a trained operator! This was going to be my answer to the Brotherhood, 24 marines in Gorilla suits and 12 marines in Badgersuits were a virtually unstoppable force. We were still tweaking opticals and HUD displays on the Gorilla suit, but the first fabrication run was almost complete.
I had checked in with Edmund, and he was lost in his new power. He was uploading copies of documents to Julie as they were unlocked with his access. It gave a fascinating look into Diamond Agents operations. The agents collected research, technology, and individuals in specific fields and sent it all back to Earth and Sierra Nevada. Sierra Nevada was a red star in a dead system. Apparently, there was a secret Brotherhood base buried under the rocky surface of a dead useless planet.
Edmund guessed they were building a secret colony for humanity at Sierra Nevada in case Earth was overrun. He also guessed it was not the only one. The info packets he had access to only detailed supply runs to this one site, though. Unfortunately, much of the stolen research and technology was scrubbed from the database after it was turned over to the central research facilities. I found a reference to a race of small aliens that had made substantial progress in subspace knowledge. They didn¡¯t have good relations with humanity.
The race was called the Squirrel after a small rodent they resembled from Earth. They only controlled three-star systems, and it was just a few weeks side trip for us. I was considering maybe trying a technology exchange with them. According to Edmund, the Brotherhood planned to eradicate the entire race in 20 years and just sift through the ruins for new tech. The Brotherhood was currently pressuring them in order to force technological growth. That was a common tactic for the Brotherhood. Find an alien species that had promise, attack them and force them to develop innovative technology, and then commit genocide on the race and take innovations before they become a threat.
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The Venom Queen, now newly named Black Widow, was finished by Gabby with all the upgrades. Since they were much lighter and had less function than the Gorilla suits, the Brotherhood power core could run them at max power for around 96 hours. When they were in standby mode, they drained about 10% of their power over a year. I wasn¡¯t going to allocate any time on the fabricators until all 24 Gorilla suits were completed. So Gabby had her focus on the Tirani steward bot and upgrading the seven undercover steward bots for the luxury deck.
Zoe and Elias had come to me with plans to rebuild the Caladrius cradle. The two Sapphirean heavy fighters had been bolted into the same space to make room for the Brotherhood shuttles. The only way to get the fighters out was to launch the Caladrius. It meant they were not useful in combat.
Their solution was to add separate mini-cradles aft of the Caladrius cradle. They had rough markups of their ideas. There were too many problems. The fighters could not be serviced in their theoretical ¡®launch tubes.¡¯ A secure and quick access tube would need to be built for the pilots. The fighters could also not be secured back into the cradles during combat as the fit was tight, and they faced directly aft when stored. As I explained all the problems, their faces fell. Julie had listened to the conversation and came up with one option to address the refueling and access for the pilots. It would require creating a narrow shaft by moving two propellant lines used in fine ship maneuvers.
It wasn¡¯t that simple as it as Julie suggested as it would cause a chain reaction of systems to be moved. All to create a 2.6-meter wide shaft down to the space. Altering the cradle and making the tubes for the fighters was the easy part. Maybe two weeks of work just so Zoe and Elias could go joyriding in the space fighters. To service them, we could just cycle them into the shuttle bays.
I asked my two pilots if they were ok sacrificing two lives to save the ship because if they ever launched to defend the ship and the ship had to go to subspace, they were going to be left behind. They unhesitantly said yes. It had me pause as they looked serious. I had five marine pilots on board as well with their wings. Zoe, Elias, and Finn were also certified. I wasn¡¯t planning to leave any of them behind due to poor planning.
I agreed to make all the changes while in transit. We would also build a pair of extendable clamps on the hull that could grab the fighters and hold them to the hull to join us in subspace.
The other problem I had was the pair of APC hover tanks that were stored in the Brotherhood shuttles. I had wanted to sell them, but Abby begged me not to. I didn¡¯t see any use for ground vehicles, especially once we equipped our marines with the Gorilla battle suits. Why would I ever need hover tanks in space? Since I was a proven hoarder, though, the tanks remained on the Void Phoenix.
The Void Phoenix finally broke from its docking ring and made its way out of Drusi space.
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Katsu Oshiro reviewed the latest reports from the Rim. He had invested a substantial amount of his resources out there. After losing contact with Lydia Romasko (Jane Doe), the entire sector seemed to be falling apart.
The damn Sylvan had violated the informal treaty and entered human-controlled space and destroyed Anderson Station. He had managed to leverage the local star nations to send a sizable fleet to dislodge the elven city ship. Their success had surprised him. He intended to just keep them occupied till a strong fleet of Brotherhood ships from Earth could be assembled.
It had been nearly 70 years since humanity had tangled with the space elves. That was a catastrophe; thirty modern battleships and numerous skilled officers and engineers were lost against two Sylvan city ships. But humanity had advanced its technology a long way with the help of the Brotherhood. Most of those advances were held in the core worlds, but the human race was significantly stronger.
He had requested information on the Brotherhood fleet being sent. Six battleships, three carriers, and forty assault cruisers with supporting ships. The problem was that eighteen of the cruisers were not built yet, and Earth Alliance only had half the needed naval personnel for the fleet! The recent recession had squeezed resources for the Earth¡¯s defense force. This current recession was actually caused by Juniper Cartalian, one of his peers in the Brotherhood.
Juniper had sent a subjugation fleet in his sector to eradicate the Polyformus race. The shapeshifters fought harder than expected, and rather than go quietly, they blew up their own moon, destroying the entire human fleet sent from Earth! Not only did the admiral lose his fleet, but the Polyforms had survived and were spreading in that region of space, infiltrating other species and human-controlled worlds. It was no surprise when Juniper Cartalian had been retired by unanimous vote. Fuckups that big needed to be answered.
Katsu felt he was quickly heading down that road as well. He had lost 43 agents and insurgents in that Anderson Station disaster! Even his best agent, Desdemona, was having trouble tracking down leads for his missing Diamond Agent, Jane Doe, and the research she carried. He had even sent her two additional cruisers to help in her efforts. The subspace research was starting to become a secondary concern. Stabilizing the region for future human expansion was his new focus.
Katsu had seven different operations in progress for consolidating star nations in that area of the Rim. He was going to have to accelerate his plans. The Sylvan presence had disrupted too much. He was about to turn humanity on itself, pitting great star nations against each other in order to create two powerful star kingdoms in that region. It was irritating as his plan was supposed to have evolved over a century, and now his new timeline was a rushed ten years. It was going to be a destructive and bloody period with man fighting man, but his instincts told him it had to be done now.
Tomorrow the orders would reach his embedded agents, and that region of space would start to burn. He was going to be responsible for killing tens of millions of people, but in the end, humanity would be stronger for it.
Chapter 105 Power of the Mind
Chapter 105
Desdemona Rouse had just received updated orders on exiting subspace in the Tirani system. She tapped her comm pad and brought up her assets. She was the lead Diamond agent in this rim sector of human space. Her orders were to facilitate Operation Solidity. She had seen plans for the large-scale operation, but not everything was in place. Generally, the Brotherhood hated allowing star nations to merge. They might think they could break away from Earth¡¯s oversight and challenge the power core worlds if they got too large.
But that was her mission and she would do it. Disappointing, as she was just getting closer to finding the Void Phoenix. She reviewed her lists of tasks and dispatched orders to her two supporting cruisers. They would handle some important tasks to initiate interstellar wars and tip the balance so the correct side won. She checked her messages from the station. The local agent had said Hanson Gammon¡¯s ship attempted to board the Void Phoenix and failed. He had some videos from long-range scans.
Desdemona was speechless. It was actually true. A large merchant had captured Hanson¡¯s ship. Well, wasn¡¯t that just a ball of shit she didn¡¯t want to deal with. She packaged the video to be sent back to Earth. The Brotherhood didn¡¯t have any relays in the Tirani system, but one of the cruisers would be in human space soon.
The agent on the station, Hassim Morain, was requesting permission to join her on her ship as well. It said he had an elf named Sha¡¯Lua and a male human named Lazarus who would like to meet with her in regard to Deven Wellspring. She weighed her options and then started setting up security for the visit. Elves were notorious for being cunning. She knew they had dozens of agents in human space, maybe hundreds. But she couldn¡¯t pass up an opportunity for this intel.
As the shuttlecraft approached her ship, she almost ordered it destroyed because she felt some foreboding. It was allowed to dock, and she went down to meet her guests with six men in battlesuits at her back and wearing a shield belt.
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Rae¡¯Ver stepped out of the shuttle behind the two human men and Sha¡¯Lua. His own ship was cloaked and hidden away from the Tirani station. They had been on the station just two days before finding Hassim Marain. Lazarus showed some utility in getting the man to his rented room on the station. From there, Rae¡¯Ver forced himself into the man¡¯s mind. When he recovered from his first encounter with the Void Phoenix, he found his powers had reached new heights.
He could mentally dominate them as long as he was close to a human or elf. He could even influence them at range, but that took subtlety and time.
The six guards in power armor concerned him. He might be able to take three¡maybe four out, but six was beyond him. The human woman in front of them was in charge, hopefully, this was the leader. Thankfully Hassim confirmed it with a brief exchange of words.
The woman was Desdemona, and she was extremely cautious. He probed her mental defenses, and she had none, just a strong personal will. She even jumped at his probing and the guards moved forward but she held them back with a hand. At least she wasn¡¯t aware of the Sylvan ability to dominate minds. It was rare, even among the first citizens. Even his power had just been more of an influence before that wave of power had knocked him out.
The group turned, and Hassim and Sha¡¯Lua fell in step with Desdemona. Three guards to the right and three guards to the left. He decided to wait until they were all sitting. Sometimes when he dominated a human, they got weak in the knees.
When they were sitting in a large conference room with high-back chairs, he made his move as refreshments were being served. Her will was strong, but he cut off her motor skills while he clamped down on her spirit. Sealing away her will behind his mental walls took almost two minutes. She had been strong, and maybe she could have even learned to harness the power herself if she was trained. It was too late now. She was his as long as he kept his awareness active.
The first thing he had her do was dismiss the guards. Then he wanted to know more about the Brotherhood and what his new ship was capable of.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The first two days in subspace I spent with Elias. I was trying to figure out the best route to stop by the Squirrel. My engineer brain was craving more data to solve the subspace puzzle. I would have been better off if I had never found the subspace research on Jane Does shuttle. Fuel wasn¡¯t the problem. The problem was the Squirrel hated humans. That meant some deception. I had the holoprojector on my bridge, and we had a ten Wren and a Tirani on board. So if we had a face-to-face, we could avoid meeting them.
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I researched the race, and they did look like squirrels from Earth. Five-foot-tall humanoid squirrels! I didn¡¯t understand how that evolution track occurred, but I just accepted it. I planned to offer them the hull plating technology. They were not a violent race and not expansionist. They were highly social and free traders. Maybe we could unload some of Suruchi¡¯s art.
We were going to finish this 10-day leg of the trip and stop at a Drusi outpost. Well, an outpost that had Drusi at it. There were also four other alien species that worked on the station. I didn¡¯t understand how humanity was so uncooperative with aliens. Each species brought its own uniqueness. The Squirrel, for example, were able to think more abstractly and beyond just three dimensions, according to the Brotherhood notes.
The ship was still lively, even without passengers. That happens when you have a crew full of life-loving marines. The hospitality crew had events going on every night. I even attended a few with Danielle. Now that Celeste was talking, she wanted to explore the ship. I let her play with Tora¡¯s boy once and had to separate them. Celeste treated the poor boy like a pet, pulling his tail and ear until he cried. Maybe when she got older, she would be better. I would have to work on her bot playmate soon.
Six days into the ten day subspace trip, Gabby finished the female Tirani steward bot for Mozzie. She was upset because she asked for footage to show the bot¡¯s functionality, and he denied her. He also complained about the fur on the bot. It was too soft. Tirani women only had soft fur on their chests. This had her steaming for days in the robotics lab, so I cooled her by letting her build and use a generator for a Venom Queen. Of course, she called it a Black Widow and referred to the Venom Queen as the ¡®base model.¡¯ I think she was trying to stir a confrontation, but I wouldn¡¯t bite. In the end, all the bots were mine anyway.
We had a large group in the cargo bay as Gabby ran a demonstration of her new toy. The bot did exceed expectations with a 30% increase in speed and a 5% agility increase. This was from the generator and extremely durable materials. It was a very scary beast. I would run if I ever saw a few of these nightmares coming at me. The successful test meant Nero and engineering could start making ceiling alcoves for the bots to hide in. Gabby referred to them as nests. I don¡¯t think my trips to the bridge would be the same, knowing four of the bots were concealed in the ceiling above the bridge¡¯s door.
The first Gorilla suit was also tested on the trip. After I had assembled it, I handed off the project. While playing with Celeste, I reviewed the data with Julie in the evening. The entire first suit was going to be scrapped after the testing was done. We learned that simulations didn¡¯t always play into the real world 100% accurately, especially with this monstrous suit.
Due to its mass, it kept destroying floors and walls, even with the gravity turned down. The real-world combat was just too messy. Reluctantly I decided to build 24 Badger and 24 Gorilla suits. The Gorilla suits would be stationary for ship defense, while the Badgers would be reactionary.
The updates to the Caladrius cradle were not going perfectly. The schematics had not been properly updated during some of the ship upgrades. This caused a two-day remapping of the entire ship to ensure all our engineering schematics were correct. We even found a secret compartment from the activity. It was just under 200 cubic centimeters but had some old data chips. It looked like 150-year corporate espionage to Julie. The data had the shipping routes and profit margins for a trading company that no longer existed. We copied the data and destroyed the chips.
The second problem with the cradle update was we couldn¡¯t remove the fighters in subspace to make and install the launch tubes. I blamed myself for missing this. So most of the work we were doing was just prep work.
We did map our second subspace planet. Once again, I decided to avoid exploring it. We just logged it for future study.
I now felt comfortable enough with Kara Briggs to completely hand over oversight of the bridge¡¯s crews cert programs. Nero had engineering, Suruchi had hospitality, and Abby handled the Marines with Buckie. Crew members needed to pass competency in their field, maintain certifications, attend group VR emergency sessions, and complete individual space survival tests. It was a tickle of credit bonuses that added up. One thing could be said the crew of the Void Phoenix was well compensated. Kara was a solid first officer, and I was happy to have her on board.
Reviewing the notes that Edmund was sending me was becoming a full-time job. My VR playtime was eliminated as I studied the material from the Brotherhood and tried to figure out their ultimate goal.
It was clear they wanted to control humanity. They always held the most advanced tech close to the vest and used it indiscriminately. The most disturbing find was the Armageddon bots that we had fought were still two generations behind the current ones. Hanson had ¡®procured¡¯ them a Mars recycling factory. According to Edmund, they were listed as being destroyed on the hard documents he located. I still felt confident in our Gorilla suit¡¯s ability to handle them¡once we worked out the bugs.
During the last few days of the trip, I returned to the work of my three-phase bot playmate for Celeste. The youngest version was coming along. It wasn¡¯t going to be acting as a guardian bot, but it should be an excellent playmate. I was surprised when Eve came down to the lab to help me with the design process. She said she was interested in it to make sure Celeste had the best companion possible. She even wanted to help design the base personality for the bot. An evolving personality like hers.
I didn¡¯t have a problem with this request. The playmate was not going to receive the same processing enhancements and memory that Eve received, though.
Chapter 106 Dont Mess with the Bear(Men)
Chapter 106 Crew Evals
We were two days from our exit of subspace at the trading station. My first officer brought me a data slate with a request for crew promotions and bonuses for the recent two-week cycle. That was how Kara Briggs ran the ship, in 14-day cycles. If you wanted a shift change, then you had to wait out the current cycle. If you had a bonus or a pay increase coming, you had to wait for the current two-week cycle to end. Surprisingly Suruchi adopted the same time segment for her small hospitality staff.
I was considering eliminating all the passenger cabins on deck six to install power generators for weapons. We would keep only the luxury cabins on deck seven. That was Julie¡¯s latest suggestion in our VR sims as I tried to figure out how to add some offense to the Void Phoenix. The idea was shelved for now as deck 6 was being used as storage.
I quickly tapped confirm on the first seven bonuses and paused at a promotion. Normally this was just a crew member here and there having completed a series of certs for a tiny pay increase. I was perplexed by the name and the promotion. Fiona Agave had completed the certs to be a grade 1 life support engineer. Fiona was an entertainer. A very good and charismatic singer. I asked Kara about her. She had been at university for electrical engineering and had dropped out when her singing career took off. She had breezed through all the certs and just finished the practical under the Chloe bot¡¯s supervision. Kara had already informed Gwen that Fiona would be joining her. I approved the promotion.
I admit I didn¡¯t value the hospitality staff much in the crew. They were hired as a cloak to hide the Void Phoneix behind. Having passengers gave me an excuse to travel the stars freely and was somewhat profitable¡well, financially neutral due to my exorbitant salaries. I looked at the staff that Suruchi oversaw on a terminal at my captain¡¯s station on the bridge, the pad still in my hand.
|
Personal Director
|
Suruchi Lozano
|
1000
|
|
Chief Steward
|
Dora Kiernan
|
80
|
|
Ship¡¯s Doctor
|
Dr. Will Swain
|
120
|
|
Ship¡¯s Doctor
|
Andie Niaz
|
210
|
|
Assistant Steward
|
|
70
|
|
Singer
|
Fiona Agave
|
140
|
|
Comedian/Entertainer
|
|
130
|
|
Agricultural Steward
|
Miguel Asuni
|
110
|
|
Master Chef
|
Cori Deane
|
240
|
|
Bartender
|
Edmund Asir
|
90
|
|
Steward Bot Technician
|
|
60
|
The two doctors were on her list because they oversaw the SNAIL treatments and the health of the entire crew. Miguel was essentially a botanical researcher for me and maintained the promenade with my science officer, Dr. Abraham Zaire. Cori¡well, she was an essential member to maintain crew morale. And Edmund was my resident spy. Suruchi was handling all the ship trade and was a pseudo-alien relations director. For the most part, Dora was Suruchi¡¯s assistant after her last assistant left at Anderson Research Station. Now with Fiona as part of the engineering team, I guess I could consider the hospitality staff was engrained as part of the ship¡¯s family.
Suruchi did have three personnel openings that were currently unfilled. Gabby was handling the steward bots, so I guessed we could eliminate the position. I made the changes and alerted Gabby of a small pay jump. She had already been servicing all the steward bots anyway, so she was not surprised.
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I turned back to a patiently waiting Kara. She had gotten used to me getting sidetracked mid-task. The next promotion was one I had known was coming. Luna had completed all her certs for being a Battle Suit technician. They were not difficult certs, but she was just 14. She was basically living in Marine country on the ship, and they treated her like a daughter. She wanted to become a Marine herself, which her parents blamed me for.
The generic battle maintenance cert had been insufficient to deal with our Bagers and Gorilla suits, so Julie created some additional modules. That is what Luna had just completed. She was now officially a crew member and getting paid as much as a marine. She would be under Abby¡¯s supervision, so I notified her. I was sure the Marines would have a massive party for her to celebrate becoming an official crew member. I also sent her congratulations and asked her, now that she was a technician, if she would continue getting her engineering certs for battlesuits.
A technician basically ran the standard maintenance on a suit and switched load outs as needed. A suit engineer ran diagnostics and repaired the suit¡¯s damage. She replied back, ¡®Hell ya, and oorah!¡¯. Maybe she would be satisfied with servicing the Marine¡¯s suits over becoming an actual m\Marine. That concluded my time on this bridge shift, and I went to get some conditioning in.
I got to wrestle with our newest Marine, Mozzie, the Tirani bear man. There was a bet on the match. I would immediately work on his custom Badger battle suit if I lost. If he lost, then he had to do double shifts of guard duty on the bridge. It might have been fair if I had been in a combat suit. Instead, he dislocated my shoulder, tearing small muscles when I refused to yield. It would take four days of visits to Doc to get it healed. I would have to wear a special harness during the day that assisted me and monitored the healing process. Since I had been in the muscle enhancement program, I had thought I could make Mozzie. After the bout, I doubted I would ever be able to match Mozzie. His muscles were like steel cables.
Even soundly defeating me, I found that I liked the bear man. He was very friendly when he wasn¡¯t wrenching your arm out of its socket. I could see why Abby wanted him on her team. He had some leadership qualities, worked hard, and picked things up extremely quickly. Rather than just make him a Badger suit I decided to make him a Badger and Gorilla suit in concert. Not only was I working with the larger size, but his shoulder and hip joints had different ranges of motion than a human.
I brought Luna down to my robotics lab as I worked on the suit redesign and upgrade. She was fascinated but the process, and I think I got her hooked on engineering. It was fun having Luna in the lab as Zed followed her around. Zed was the puppy that Gabby had purchased when she was researching dogs for her wolf bot upgrades. Zed had taken a liking to Luna and now spent most of the day with her.
With my shoulder healing, I spent part of my days on the bridge and a lot of time in the robotics lab with Luna and Gabby. Gabby was still complaining about the Tirani steward bot she had built for Mozzie. It was finished, and she was just testing it now. She told me she programmed the bot to carry a small bouquet of purple grass inside the bot¡¯s uniform. The grass was like catnip to Tirani, and I let the prank slide as I also needed some revenge on Mozzie.
I was working with Gabby in the robotics lab when Luna came down to help a few hours before we were due to exit subspace. Luna was laughing. The purple grass prank had worked too well. Apparently, he was so loud while testing his new bot that the neighboring cabins could hear him. The best part was that Mozzie wasn¡¯t embarrassed in the least. The purple grass worked by lowering the inhibitions of the Tirani, and Mozzie just said he needed to spend some pent-up energy. He even offered to loan out his bot to any marine that was interested. Having seen the mating practices of the Tirani while Gabby was doing her research, I hoped none of the Marines took him up on the offer. At least we had a good pair of doctors on board.
With Luna, I began the run to build Mozzie¡¯s Badger suit. We were still in the testing phase for the Gorilla suits, so building his now would be a waste of resources until all the bugs were worked out. Luna was fascinated with alien machines, and I knew she was hooked on becoming an engineer like Gabby.
I was on the bridge when we exited subspace in the system. As the reports rolled in, I watched the scanners update my station. I was curious if this system also had stealthed ships. The system didn¡¯t have much value beyond raw materials. No habitable planets, and the planets with precious metals had too heavy gravity to use anything but bots to mine. The Tirani shared the station in this system with three other races.
The Tirani had seven of their mercenary frigates and twelve corvettes around the station. They were here for protection but could also be contracted out. That was their primary export, military power focused mostly on infantry. The Squirrel were one of the other races that maintained a presence here. The Squirrel were free traders but did not often allow others in their three inhabited systems. They preferred to trade at neutral stations. This was due to conflict with humans.
The Brotherhood had struck them a few times with exploratory fleets for the purpose of forcing technological development. It was also supposed to force the Squirrel race into isolation, but the opposite occurred. The Squirrel traveled wider and traded more than any other alien race I was aware of in the region to bring advancement to their homeworld. They were smart as well and concluded that humans were responsible for attacks on their homeworld even though the ships the Brotherhood had used were of alien design.
I wanted to do an information exchange with the Squirrel, and they didn¡¯t trade with humans. My plan was to get acclimated on the station and then use Mozzie as an intermediary. Tora or Saabir would have been better, but humans had genetically engineered the Wren. I didn¡¯t want to risk having them negotiate. Mozzie was smart but no engineer, so it could be a stupid move on my part.
The other two races on the station were the Mourau and Sydron. The Sydron were a quadrupedal reptilian race with a matriarchal society. They were exceptional asteroid miners, according to the Brotherhood data. The Mourau were humanoid and with enough surgery, could pass for humans. They were one of the first races humanity encountered among the stars, but they were not space-faring. Since they resembled humans and had a lower intelligence threshold than humans, they apparently got a pass by the Brotherhood as being a non-threat.
That was a mistake as they had spread among the stars as quickly as humanity had. They now had small enclaves such as the one on this station by purchasing passage on human ships. I now knew why it was allowed after reading the Brotherhood reports decoded by Edmund. The Brotherhood used the Mourau as information collectors in human and alien space. They were not part of the Brotherhood but a gear in their machine. The enclave on this station served as a middleman trader for races that were hostile to each other. I assumed they were making huge profits by playing both sides.
The plot was finally up, and there was a stealthed ship. Just one, and it was Sylvan. The frigging space elves were here. At least they were not yet aware of Void Phoenix¡¯s disguise. I considered my options. I decided we would risk it, but all the crew that the Sylvan knew about were going to remain on board. I informed the crew of the space elf ship and to be prepared to depart anytime.
The station design was interesting as we approached. The top was a 28 square-kilometer solar harvester facing the sun. It kept the station dark except for a few arms that extended beyond the shield. I learned the reason why shortly as Haily informed me of the dangerous radiation coming from the sun. Our hull completely negated the radiation, but this sun was extremely active.
This time when we docked, half of our marines would be on duty the entire time, rotating 12-hour shifts to keep us on high alert. If all went well, we would be here for five days and then go and exchange for the subspace data I was seeking from the Squirrel.
Chapter 107 The Bear Necessities
Chapter 107 The Bear Necessities
We locked onto the station, and the bridge was going to have two people keeping track of our friendly neighborhood space elves. Our advanced scanners gave us a complete three-dimensional layout of the ship. They had twenty-nine elves on board and minimal weapons from what we puzzled out. It was a pure spy ship.
I requested to rent one of the four internal bays at the station. They were all currently in use. I didn¡¯t want to be moving our fighters to their new launch tubes in the open. The launch tubes had been built deep enough to hold two fighters each. One was port side, and the other was starboard. The reasoning was not to add two more fighters to our complement but to have a backup location in case of battle damage to one of the launch tubes. Each tube had its own magnetic and physical clamp for its fighters. Since the fighters had no reverse flight mode, they had to be loaded by my exterior maintenance bots into their tubes.
Although Zoe said she could fly the fighters in by approaching head-on, doing a 180 flip, and gently decelerating into the clamps. If I told her no, she would want to prove it could be done. So I told her that it was a fantastic idea and I would work her method into the flight simulator for pilots to practice.
While in my captain¡¯s chair noticed Zoe doing overlays of various other heavy fighters to see if they would fit in our new launch tubes. She wasn¡¯t being stealthy about it all as my chair looked directly down on her station. She was working hard to sell me on the Warpath Interceptor. These were heavy fighters built for speed to intercept other fighters in deep-space combat. She was playing the footage of them in action on one screen while she worked to get the fighter into the tubes on the other. The specs on the fighter showed they could operate in deep space and in the atmosphere as well. They had a relatively low operational time, though. Used for strike and retreat missions. Loadouts were a single heavy forward laser and eight heavy missiles.
It was a combat fighter for engaging other fighters, corvettes, and even frigates. I started to come up with possible upgrades to accommodate¡ Nice try, Zoe! I did my best to ignore her terminals and focus on my own tasks. I was getting closer to building my first test iteration of Celeste¡¯s playmate bot. I was going to fabricate the frame while we were in port and see if my miniaturizations would be effective.
I mean, where would I even be able to buy a Warpath Interceptor? After checking, they were built exclusively on the shipyards orbiting Saturn in Sol.
Edmund was with a handful of marines departing the ship to explore the station. Edmund was in search of any Brotherhood presence, and the Marines were doing recon as civilians. Suruchi sent her own agent, Vickey Charity, our ship¡¯s logistics officer, with them. Vickey was going to see the market for the Suruchi¡¯s art work. Since this was not a populous system, I doubted selling sculptures was going to be profitable. On the other side, Vickey was looking for investment opportunities in the form of cargo.
Our next port was eleven days away in the Makabre system. It had a large ocean planet and forest moon orbiting it. The Tuleth was the local race of amphibious humanoids on the ocean planet. And the forest moon had another sapient race called the Redlouts, but they did not have spaceships. The Tuleth hadn¡¯t colonized the moon due to the lack of water. The Tuleth did have spaceships and space stations. The Brotherhood data did not have any other systems noted as being populated by the Tuleth but theorized they had multiple systems since their fleet orbiting the planet was likely not built locally.
The Tirani had listed the Tuleth as being open to selling fuel and supplies at a distant station. You were not allowed to approach the ocean planet. My issue would be if they were hostile to humans. The Brotherhood and humanity as a whole had not done any favors for human reputation.
Of course, our next destination depended on whether the Squirrel would conduct a trade with me. Right now, Suruchi was working with Mozzie to establish an open channel of communication. Mozzie had all the specs for the hull plating, and we would give samples and all the analysis we had to present. They would have to figure out the manufacturing on their own.
I cracked a smile on my next shift on the bridge. I was only doing 4-hour shifts while we were in port just to go through my documents and approve orders. Zoe had left her screens running of a vid from Earth that appeared to be about fighter pilots. The fighter squadron was flying was of course, the Warpath Interceptor. The series was called Hazard Squadron, and followed them as they navigated a war. I had lost my faith in vid series after the terrible ending to the pirate vid, so I was not going to get snared. The interceptor was an impressive craft, though.
Edmund kept sending me updates to my PerCom while I worked. There was no Brotherhood presence on the station, but there was an info drop. The Mourau were managing the drop; the last pickup was thirty-nine days ago. There were no intel packets in the drop currently. He said this was good news. Even better, none of the ships the Mourau were on the lookout for were the Void Phoenix. So we were currently outside of their search envelope. This was great news, and maybe we would be lucky, and the cloaked Sylvan ship was not looking for us either.
Damian, my FTL engineer, was having issues with the fuel quality we were loading into our tanks from the station. It was at 92% purity, and we had paid for 97% purity. It was for our lesser reactors, but I didn¡¯t want to ignore it, especially at the price I was paying. I called the vendor, and after a lengthy conversation and some veiled threats from me, I purged my tank, and they refilled it. A very happy Damian kept taking samples during the fill; the purity never fell below 97.2%.
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When my crew returned, I waited for the compiled debrief from Suruchi and Abby. I was down in robotics, assembling my first attempt at a fully functional child bot playmate. I was called to the meeting and found Suruchi, Abby, and Kara present. Suruchi went first. The best trade goods for the Makabre system were going to be carved shell sculptures. Suruchi was figuring a 120-150% increase in price. The next product would be data slates loaded with vid programs from other races. The Tuleth were fascinated by how other races lived.
Suruchi planned to purchase ten thousand data slates from this station and have Julie upload 24,000 hours of programs. Julie¡¯s hologram popped into the room and said that would be a violation of copyright patents. I just looked at Julie, and she then stated as long as we were just selling the data slates and not the vid programs, it would be ok. If we forgot to format the data slates before handing them over¡
Abby said the Marines on the station didn¡¯t find anything alarming. No one out here was searching for the Void Phoenix. She wanted to ensure Mozzie mingled with the Tirani on the station. If we had a bounty, then the mercenary-minded Tirani would know.
Suruchi said she was still prepping Mozzie to contact the Squirrel. Abby added there were only about fifty Squirrel on the station. This was just a port of call for their larger long distant traders. They didn¡¯t sell or buy very much here. The good news is it would be easy to contact them as they had a trading office here.
The next day Mozzie went to the station, head filled by Suruchi, to mediate a trade with the Squirrel. Afterward, he planned to visit the wing of the station where the Tirani operated. Abby had five marines on station and six more Marines in Badger armor on standby. This was in case the Tirani had any contract on the Void Phoenix.
We received updates from the Marines watching Mozzie, and he was inside for two hours at the trading post office for the Squirrel. He then walked the length of the station and spent three hours with the Tirani before returning to the ship.
Mozzie had his bear grin on as he debriefed us on his encounters. The Squirrel were not able to formalize anything, but he did receive an encrypted code that would allow us to travel to Squirrel space and not be attacked. From there, we could negotiate. He also let slip that I was human, and it didn¡¯t seem to faze them. I wasn¡¯t so sure about Mozzie¡¯s ability to read other races, so I was skeptical about the last bit.
Then he got to his three hours with the Tirani. He was happy to report he got some feminine companionship, and he could now give better feedback to Gabby on how to improve his personal bot. Talking about sex was not taboo in his culture. We spent a few minutes telling him that this venue was not the proper place. He had just spent too much time with the Marines.
Mozzie checked the Tirani database and talked to a few mercenary captains, and there was nothing about the Void Phoenix circulating. He was even more excited to offer us the next tidbit. There were a handful of freelancers on the station. These were Tirani mercenaries that took solo jobs, usually as bodyguards. Mozzie thought maybe a few would want to join our crew. Mozzie was certain all we had to do was show them the Badger combat suits, and they would sign a contract. Abby liked the idea of adding more of the bear men to ship. Kara also put in her vote in favor of the addition.
I voiced my objection. I didn¡¯t want to build some very expensive personal bots and suits for rental marines. Unless they all wanted to share Mozzie¡¯s personal bot¡. Mozzie laughed. Most freelancers were female, they had that motherly protective instinct that made them great bodyguards.
I waived the problem over to Abby. She could do the interviews on the ship and have Doc do medical workups on the applicants. If any were actually interested, I would want long-term contracts. Mozzie offered that five years was usually the longest a Tirani would sign on for. Abby noted that and had a huge grin. She was probably already figuring out how to use the Tirani to whip her human Marines into shape.
I went to the bridge and called Elias there. I had the data disc from the Squirrel, and we needed to figure out where our next stop would be. We activated the holotank and brought up the star charts. The Squirrel¡¯s trio of systems was a 15-day subspace trip. It was roughly in the direction we were already headed, but I would have to backtrack to four days to resupply in the Makabre system. I would bypass the system, but I wanted to offload all of the shell sculptures being stored on the Void Phoenix. The Makabre system should have also been in the path of the fleeing Union fleets, so it might actually give us intel on how far behind we were.
Well, there was no timetable for meeting the Squirrel, so I planned to stop in the Makabre system first. We were not hard-pressed for time. Elias sat at his station and began to run the numbers for jumping from the Makabre system to Squirrel space. I went to my cabin to play with Celeste and Amos.
On the third and fourth days on the station, we had a number of Tirani come on board for interviews. I didn¡¯t take part in the interviews and just waited to hear the results. There was a practical portion because when I went to the gym for a circuit and a run, I found seven Tirani were with Abby, Buckie, and Mozzie in the combat ring. Buckie came over and said after this, they would be doing some sims in VR, but he was way too excited and left before I could talk with him. Five of the seven trying out were females. Maybe Gabby wouldn¡¯t have to make any modifications to the Tirani bot.
I was in the robotics lab later in the day assembling the playmate bot when my PerCom beeped. I went to a vid screen, and Abby introduced the five newest members of the crew. One male Tirani was introduced as Zarko. The other four were female and were introduced as Aerna, Nosawa, Aribara, and Konia. I asked Abby about the two that failed to make the cut. The male had a temper problem, and Konia had issues with him in the past. The female wouldn¡¯t sign on unless we could guarantee we would drop her off in Tirani space after the five-year contract.
All this meant was I had to build five more specialized Badger suits and five more specialized Gorilla suits. But I guess having a squad of Tirani mercs in your employ is like saying, ¡®Hope you never need them, but if you did need them, you are glad you have them.¡¯ It was not like I was hurting at all for credits.
On the fifth day, we detached from the station, having never gotten an interior berth to complete the launch tubes for our fighters. Maybe at our next stop, we would have better luck.
Chapter 108
Chapter 108
Desdemona didn¡¯t understand what had happened to her for a few hours. She was sitting in her captain¡¯s conference room with the human and elf when she lost control of her voice. Then she found she couldn¡¯t move. She strained to turn her head and work her mouth but nothing.
Then she heard her voice. It was ordering the guards out of the room. Panicked welled up and she fought to regain control of herself. Once the guards left one of the male elf attendants stood and walked over to her and looked into her eyes with amusement dancing in them.
She could feel it. An invisible blanket covered her mind and her control of her body. The elf smiled and said he would handle everything from here, and she could rest and go to sleep. Suddenly everything went black. But she was not asleep. She was just in a black void. She fought to regain herself¡to find the blanket covering her and rip it away.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rae¡¯Ver had been extremely happy with his new ship. He was finding intel and technology that would help him regain standing within the Sylvan. Not enough to eliminate his rogue status, but it was progress. What he truly needed was something that would help his people against the Mavelvolents. He was still focused on the Void Phoenix. They must have taken knowledge of that wave that had damaged his city ship with them when they escaped.
He was sitting in the captain¡¯s ready room with the prior captain in the corner when the terminal flashed yellow. It was a notification that data was incongruent. He looked at the yellow notification. The agent Hanson Gammon was listed as MIA and yet he was accessing data archives outside of human-influenced space. He had already reviewed the combat footage of Hanson¡¯s ship being lost to the Void Phoenix. He sent a new destination the bridge crew for his ship with Desdemona¡¯s codes.
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Our next port was eleven days of subspace travel. I spent my time focused on getting the new Tirani marines into custom Badger suits. Since I had a head start with Mozzie¡¯s suit it was going fairly smoothly. Abby said the female Tirani were not as good at taking orders as their male counterparts. She called them ¡®independent thinkers.¡¯ If you told them to go from point A to point B, then they would stop at points C and D and have perfectly good reasons for doing so.
They were good marines, though but it was clear why the female of the Tirani liked to operate independently. Abby had planned to have all the Tirani operate as a single unit, but that had changed. She had them grouped into two three persons squads. Mozzie, Zarko, and Aerna were the first team with Aerna in charge. The second grouping was Nosawa, Konia, and Aribara, with Aribara in charge.
Aerna was the most experienced female Tirani among them, and she led Mozzie and Zarko extremely well. Abby considered them her Alpha team after just a few days in transit to the Macabre system. They dominated in VR simulations, and in physical combat rankings, they ranked in the three out of the top four spots.
Five days into the trip, I found Gabby working on another Tirani steward bot. She was already assembling it, and I was a little upset as I had not cleared the design or manufacture of the additional bot. Gabby argued that the Tirani woman on board had lobbied her for a male Tirani bot to fulfill the contract they had signed. She showed me the phrase, which had been a general accommodation clause. The Tirani argued that since the male Tirani had a female bot they needed an equitable accommodation of a male bot. Since it was a male bot, I knew Gabby had jumped on the project. She admitted that she didn¡¯t ask in case I nixed the project and was going to tell me when she was closer to completion...she waved her hand at the partially assembled frame and jested that she was informing me now.
I lost the rest of my day working with Gabby on the male Tirani steward bot. She had done an excellent job and most of our work was solving minor problems. I let her continue her fabrication of the male bot after approving the plans and having Julie run her sims. I then had a conversation with Julie about not informing me of Gabby¡¯s project. Julie was aware of everything that happened on board the ship. She most likely knew I had not authorized the build and Gabby was using the robotics lab design suite.
Julie tried to obfuscate the issue by sending 2,418 notifications to my PerCom of things I might want to be aware of at this current moment in time. She was friends with Abby so I could see why she hadn¡¯t informed me but I stressed it was her duty to keep me informed. The amount of resources that went into a bots fabrication was substantial, and crew morale was Kara Briggs and Abby¡¯s duty, not Gabby¡¯s. I think I got through to the AI but planned to have Danielle check on her programming anyway.
As the new Badger suits became available, the Tirani collected them from the Robotics lab. Luna was serving as an instructor to help get the new marines acclimated to using the suits outside of the VR setting and watching the young woman work with the marines I was actually impressed. She was a good teacher; enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and efficient.
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As we prepared to exit subspace I had equipped my marines with thirty Badger combat suits, six for the Tirani and twenty-four for the human marines. The only manufactured Gorilla heavy combat suit hadn¡¯t been gathering dust. We were still refining it and considering its role in our forces.
As we dropped into the Makabre system I waited for the plot to fill out. Elvis, the AI in charge of translating and populating the data, started putting the screen. The massive ocean planet was orbited by two moons. One had an atmosphere, and the other was a dead moon. Space stations and space vessels filled the plots and even before we opened comms, we were being hailed.
I spoke and let them know we were here to refuel and trade. I sent the manifest of the dataslates and shell sculptures. Eventually, we were directed to a space station orbiting one of the gas giants in the outer system. That wasn¡¯t a surprise. Even with most races openly trading with each other they didn¡¯t like unknown ships in orbit over their populous planets.
It was a hydrogen processing station, and as we moved to dock a frigate-sized ship came in and attempted to scan our vessel. Since they couldn¡¯t penetrate our hull, they wanted to do a boarding inspection. I had not expected this. Most traders were not searched, just the cargo that was offloaded. After talking with the Kara we decided to let them on board. She had searched the Tuleth regulations for weapons and alien tech.
Abby had twenty-three marines suited up as we waited on the frigate to send to the shuttle to us. The Tuleth that disembarked was squat and muscular with gray skin and gills. Two inspectors and two guards boarded the ship. The lead inspector used a translator and apologized for the inconvenience. He informed us that ships that did not regularly trade with the Tuleth were being inspected. Eight months ago, a small ship of unknown origin was sent into the atmosphere of the ocean planet and released an array of foreign fish. I didn¡¯t understand until he explained that the alien fish were highly invasive and not edible to his race and were highly invasive. They were trying to contain the infestation now. As we walked the cargo bay with the four guests, I used my PerCom to ask Edmund about the fish. He had no information from his Brotherhood archives. That was some fishy galactic espionage.
The inspectors waved their scanners across crates, and we opened containers for them. They inspected aft engineering, the two passenger decks, and our flight deck. I was happy that our two heavy fighters were no longer stored in the hangers. We did get some grilling as all our shuttles had been replated with the alien hull material and stealth coating.
That concluded the inspection, and I was given a trader¡¯s certification. I was told after twelve successful trips to this system, we would be allowed to dock on a station orbiting the ocean world. For now, we would have to pay the fees of having our cargo transported by the Tuleth to the planet. Knowing what I knew about the Brotherhood, I thought the Tuleth were not being cautious enough.
When we reached the station, we were not even allowed to dock with it. Another problem was the credit conversion with the Tuleth. They had their own currency, and trading in precious metals was tedious as they had a highly fluctuating market.
The data slates were a hot commodity as expected and all 10,000 were quickly consigned for sale and transport. It was Suruchi¡¯s problem to figure out the amenable exchange. It was almost like a barter system as she tried to figure out what metals were available and if the value was enough in the provided quantities. It would have been nice if there had been a universal currency. We would just be adding to our stockpiles.
When I got the final numbers on the data slates, it looked like we made a huge profit. The large shell sculptures were also selling well, three to five times what Suruchi had paid.
Damian even said the fuel purity was much higher than advertised. I noted down in my logs that the Tuleth were fair but cautious traders. As we finished up our trading in four days I commed and asked the Tuleth about the human fleet. The Union fleet should have passed this way about eight months ago, according to my intelligence.
It took six hours and a small fee to get the info I wanted. I was sent sensor data of two human fleets that passed through. The fleets remained in the outer system while the fuel transports were resupplied. The fleets had been here nearly forty days, undergoing repairs and refueling. They left 197 days ago.
The scans were not detailed, and the human ships had their identifying transponders off. Elvis cleaned up the images as best he could, and the only capital ship we could identify for sure was the battleship Bastion¡¯s Shield. That was the ship that Nila had been assigned to. I couldn¡¯t identify my brother¡¯s ships from the scans, but I was hopeful. Eighteen capital ships that were cruiser and larger, and sixty-two support ships had passed through this system. The Tuleth even supplied the relative vectors when they departed. A fleet that size would need to make long stops. If all goes well, we should be able to catch them in about a year¡¯s time.
Our next stop was negotiations with the Squirrel. Suruchi added two trade goods to our hold. One was fermented milk from a mammalian sea creature. I tried it and thought it was quite good. The second was a silky textile from a creature like was described as jellyfish-like¡if a jellyfish was two hundred feet in diameter. The second commodity was extremely cheap, and the textile was soft, silky, and extremely durable. The only issue Suruchi told me is that it was resistant to dyeing attempts, so the opaque white color was the only option. She still thought we could sell it for two to three hundred times what we were paying for it¡ªto humans in the core worlds. Adding half a million square meters to our holds was worth the risk, and I allowed the purchase.
As we made our way out of the system to transition to subspace, Elias informed me that the Tuleth were engaging in combat with the other side of the system. Even focusing our sensors at that distance, we got very grainy images. The Tuleth didn¡¯t respond to our requests for their scanning data, and I decided it was best to just leave. Four hours later, we transitioned earlier than planned.
Chapter 109 Live Combat Testing
Chapter 109
Space combat was not rare. Humans and aliens frequently fought amongst the stars, and my goal was not to be present when it happened. We had seven days in transit to the Squirrel system, where I hoped to exchange information.
My focus was divided between Celeste and Amos¡¯ bot playmate in the robotics lab and finalizing the Gorilla suits. I was on my third iteration of the playmate bot for Celeste and thought it was acceptable. The first two child bots had been given an engineering AI and handed off to Nero to help in the lower decks. For the first two bots, I had trouble with the synthetic muscle attachments; the simulation didn¡¯t show the muscles bunching and interfering with each other in certain ranges of motion. This was due to me making so many changes in the process to try to get the bot as life-like as possible.
With the child bot finished, I let Eve choose her cosmetic appearance and personality base. I was a little curious to see her choices and the bot¡¯s appearance. Eve showed me the final product in a hologram projection. Long black hair, large azure blue eyes, small nose, ears, and lips. I fabricated the covering and added Eve¡¯s selected base personality program.
The bot was introduced to Celeste and Amos, and the first interaction went well. Celeste called her new bot Emma. Eve treated Emma with the same care and oversight that she treated Celeste and Amos. Did Eve see Emma as her own progeny? I had the impression that may be the fact when watching the interactions in the evening between Emma and Eve. I didn¡¯t want to voice my suspicion, but I planned to keep an eye on it.
The other project was finally going into fabrication¡ªthe Gorilla suits. The mass of the suits made them next to useless in anything over 0.6g. Since I had fourteen of the advanced generators on board and the quirks were worked out, we scrapped the test suit and began manufacturing the Gorilla suits. The other eight generators went to a giddy Gabby for her Black Widows. She had already made the parts and had to finish the assembly.
Gabby was actually becoming good friends with the Tirani females. After she completed the male Tirani steward bot, she started hanging out with them in the evenings, according to Gwen and Danielle. I was happy she was making friends.
When we were ready to exit subspace, we had finished four Gorilla suits, and the last two were being assembled.
The entire bridge crew was present as we prepared to exit subspace. We were not sure of the reception from the Squirrel, but I planned to have Mozzie make first contact. Immediately after we broke out of subspace in the Squirrel system, Elias was already informing me of hostiles in proximity. The ship¡¯s alarm sounded a heartbeat later. The plot populated, and a battle was going on. The Squirrel were being attacked. I asked Elvis to compare the ships to the ones we had seen starting combat in the Macabre system when we were making our way to the transition.
After four minutes, the sarcastic AI added that the hulls were a 97% match. Elias started giving me updates as Elvis populated his screen. Four missiles inbound. Six light screening frigates were three hours out. Nero called from his station seven hours till engineering could spin up the subspace drives. Zoe was plotting vectors, and we could escape with a full burn away from the screening frigates. In that case, we would just have to deal with waves of missiles from the screening frigates, which had fired on us immediately after we left subspace. So they were not friendly.
Zoe suggested we cut our burn, go to coast, and fire one drone off. I agreed and watched as the drone burned hard and all four missiles veered toward it. With traditional sensors, the Void Phoenix was extremely difficult to spot at this distance. Zoe asked to go ready the fighters, and I sighed. We hadn¡¯t installed the tubes, so the Caladrius would have to launch to get them out. I commed down to get the fighters prepped and the marine pilots into them. Zoe winced, realizing she wouldn¡¯t be flying a fighter. Zoe was the best VR pilot but was needed on the bridge.
We started to get details and three-dimensional renderings of the attacking ships. They were the quadruped beings that had been in the spy ship in the Drusi system. So this was a multi-system attack. They had been working with another spy ship. That other spy ship had an aquatic race. I asked Elvis to differentiate our plots between stealthed and unstealthed ships. That meant we had to wait for our traditional scanners to assist. An hour later, we identified four cruisers lying in wait for a squadron of corvettes the Squirrel were using to flank a formation. Most of the fighting in the system was at the fourth planet from the sun. It looked like a pretty even fight¡ªat least until the quadrupeds added reinforcements.
I ordered our sensor data to be transmitted to the Squirrel. Not the layered three-dimensional models, just ship locations and vectors. Elias informed me the screening frigates on our tail had fired a new salvo of six missiles at us. I asked the air how long this conflict had been going on. Haily responded that the Squirrel indicated it had been six days over comms. So definitely a multi-system coordinated attack in this region of space.
It was two hours later when the Squirrel finally contacted us. They hadn¡¯t believed the sensor data we had been feeding them, but since it was now confirmed, they were asking who we were and if we could help. I didn¡¯t plan to get involved but told them we would remain in the system as long as we could to send them our sensor data.
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An hour later and my plans changed. Two more quadruped ships came out of subspace in front of us. They were both behemoths. Edmund was assisting the bridge and said they were mobile space docks for the Straaik. That was the amphibian race on the other spy ship. The two massive platforms were on our escape vector. We were now vectoring up on the ecliptic to avoid them.
Abby made a suggestion. We could take the two Brotherhood stealth shuttles and deposit Gabby¡¯s Black Widows on the shipyard monstrosities. If the spider bots could reach engineering and destroy the ship, then the Squirrel would have a chance. It was true; on the plot, I could see dozens of ships from the inner system heading for the platforms for resupply and repairs.
Elias noted missiles were being launched from the platforms, not at us but in front of us. The staggered firing meant one thing, subspace disruptors. Why would they invest so much in keeping our alien trader ship from getting away?
It was time to make a decision.
I ordered us to pull as many supplies as we could from under the fake hull into the ship. We were going to shed our skin if needed to improve our speed. I ordered the Marines to the Brotherhood shuttles with all our spider bots. We needed those platforms to stop firing subspace disruptors. The shuttles were going to lock on and deposit the spider bots to create havoc, while the marines in Badger suits were tasked to destroy the disruptor¡¯s launchers. Elvis¡¯ model showed where all the disrupter missiles were stored in the same hold. After the missiles were destroyed, they were to retreat and get back to the Void Phoenix.
The repair platforms had just over 1,200 personnel. Elvis informed the bridge that there were no armories on board. This had everyone pause. Were the platforms purely civilian ships? We confirmed that when the disrupter missiles did not have a launcher. They were just automated mini-shuttles that went to a point in space and exploded. They were massive, though, and the first disruption wave measured effectiveness out to 3 light hours. I tasked Elvis with compiling the data we were getting.
Our sensors should allow us to ignore the subspace disruptions¡except they were coming too fast. Every thirty minutes, another one went off and required Elvis to repeat his calculations.
Elias said two cruisers and four frigates had just come out of subspace in support of the quadrupeds. No threat to the Void Phoenix, just more reinforcements for the attacking force. It also looked like the attacking force was withdrawing to regroup at the repair platforms. Haily said the Squirrel were offering to cover us if we retreated toward their planet.
That made sense, as they wanted to utilize our advanced sensors. We had been feeding them the data for hours, and it had an effect on the overall battle. The enemy cruisers in stealth mode had run into a carefully laid minefield. All of the cruisers had been damaged, but none were destroyed. The problem was the Squirrel were outnumbered two to one, and more ships kept arriving. Then the Squirrel gave me information that forced my hand. Every inhabited system within ten days of subspace travel had been attacked. At least, that is what the admiral in the opposing fleet had told them.
The insane amount of ships to do that¡Elias provided the information. There were twenty-one inhabited systems in that envelope. Nine of them had substantial populations and space forces.
The shuttles were prepped for launch, and the bots had crammed the hulls and corridors with as much as they could salvage. I ordered the shuttles launched and had us move to the entry vector the Squirrel had relayed to Haily. I was going to through our lot in with them. We would be given enough time to resupply, and if we shed our skin, we could escape. We were not forced to protect population centers like the Squirrel.
We all watched anxiously as the two Brotherhood shuttles approached the large platforms completely undetected. When they docked, we all cheered on the bridge. Twelve marines in Badger suits and five Black Widows scrambled on the outer hull and quickly breached from four different locations. The Badger suit comms went dark as they ventured into the vessel. I would need to investigate stronger com units for the suits if we were going to be performing operations like this. We had limited communication for the next three hours, but one of the repair ships suddenly blew apart around where the disruptor missiles had been stored. Zoe asked if we would be changing course to exit the system now.
I shook my head no. If the quadruped race had attacked all these colonies, then I planned to resupply and service our subspace engines here and then make a huge subspace jump to get out of the war zone. She nodded and returned to her work. I was running dozens of scenarios in my head for the best-case survival for my crew, and this was it. Destroy the repair platforms, get this portion of the invasion to a stalemate, and retreat.
I asked Edmund again if this was a Brotherhood-orchestrated event, and he couldn¡¯t answer. He didn¡¯t have any information on it, but it seemed like something they would do. Have aliens fight each other to weaken each other, so they were not a threat to humanity. Maybe something bigger was happening in human-controlled space. The first shuttle had all marines on board and was asking for orders.
I looked at Abby, and she nodded at me and ordered them to support the other marines. The other platform was still functional, and they were fighting deep inside the ship.
Five minutes later, Gabby asked what I wanted to do with the spider bots. Three were still functional on the partially destroyed platform. I told her to get them to engineering and cut through the main reactor housing if possible. She nodded, and we waited while we tracked the shuttle joining the other one. The damaged platform exploded an hour later with the spider bots¡¯ assistance. This was followed shortly by the disruptor missile munitions of the intact platform blowing as well. Cheers from the bridge as we waited for the Marines.
We finally got comms. They indicated the issue was one of the Badger suits malfunctioned when it was submerged when the aliens flooded the corridors with water to slow them. It had gotten lodged into the mechanicals, and it took nearly two hours to extract the Marine and the suit. The other marines didn¡¯t want to kill their comrade by blowing the missiles up prematurely.
The two Brotherhood shuttles with our marines and four functioning spider bots made their way in system Rendezvous was seventeen hours on the converging vectors with the Void Phoenix. An hour after the shuttles had left the second vessel, it exploded as well. They had planted dozens of explosives at key junctures on their gaunt through the ship to go off at the same time.
As we made our way into the heart of the system, the Squirrel commed us. They wanted to talk.
Chapter 110 Rescue Mission
Chapter 110 Rescue Mission
The Squirrel Fleet Admiral for the system came on screen. It was odd talking to a squirrel head on my screen. The admiral offered his profuse thanks for destroying the two platforms. If the invading ships had been able to utilize it, then they would have been able to turn around quickly and attack in full force. Now, the ships were forced to group and get assistance from the myriad of supply ships. He thought our actions bought them two, maybe three days before another assault.
He then asked if there was anything I could do for the eight mining colonies I would be passing on my way into the system. Elias offered from his station that the quadrapeds were sweeping the system indiscriminately. Any Squirrel mining, colony, ships, and stations were being destroyed. I brought up the data and had Elvis focus our sensors on the indicated mining colonies.
The data took some time to populate my captain¡¯s screen, but each colony was based on a massive asteroid and had 12 to 28 Squirrel. I asked Elias to help plot our shuttles to drop in and make rescues, and asked Zoe to take the Caladrius as well. She would hit the furthest mining station and rendezvous with us at the Squirrel planet. She was gone before I finished my sentence, so I opened my comms and assigned two marines to each shuttle and on the Caladrius as well in Badger suits, and all pilots were to be wearing full EVA suits.
The LUX shuttle launched first, just five minutes after I gave my order. Zoe commed asking where the hell her Marines were, and they responded with an 80-second ETA. My old trust Union Marine drop shuttle launched second. I got a comm from my shuttle tech, Evira. The two Brotherhood shuttles would be ready to launch in 30 minutes. Elias took that info and updated the rescue profile.
I didn¡¯t want to decelerate the Void Phoenix to do any of the pickups ourselves, so I relied on the shuttles. I looked at the plot and our slowest shuttle, the old cargo shuttle, launched to the closest rescue site. Elias in the pilot¡¯s chair now killed our acceleration. We were gliding. The old shuttle did not have great thrust, so it would not be able to catch back up with us.
I hoped the attacking forces would not be able to see our rescue ships. We were traveling through a dead zone, and our sensors prevented the enemy from launching any surprises. The LUX shuttle would have to make two trips and was on schedule to do so. The second shuttle that needed to make two trips was one of the Brotherhood shuttles. Elias turned to me and said he would flip his orders and have the Brotehrhood shuttle go straight to the second site. It would now have 32 Squirrel on board as it made its way into the system on its own.
Gwen jumped up and said she was going on board with portable additional life support to help. That many bodies would definitely tax the shuttle, especially on such a heavy and long burn. I granted her permission even though she had already left the bridge.
The Caladrius launched next. It was followed fifteen minutes later by both Brotherhood shuttles. The Caladrius was going to beat us in the system with their speed enough, though Zoe was muttering about slow-ass marines. With all our birds in the air, I watched the holo tank intently. It was an hour before our first shuttle landed on the large asteroid to retrieve the civilians. It was like watching a vid as we saw the rescue in real-time with our incredible sensors.
As the shuttle lifted off 15 minutes later, the enemy fleet finally responded. Four small fighters were being launched to intercept the shuttle. I guessed the stealth coating had not been effective when it got close to the asteroid. These attackers must be bloodthirsty to not want this simple rescue operation to go off.
I only had one marine pilot, and Elias left on board to man the two Saphirrean fighters. The plot that Elias calculated showed the enemy fighters reaching the shuttle before it docked with us. Elias asked if we should vector toward the shuttle in order to cut down our time. I nodded and ordered Elias and the last marine pilot to man the heavy fighters.
He looked at me, and I explained that I was worried about long-range missiles. They would sit in the fighters and launch to intercept if necessary. The enemy cruiser that had launched the fighters had decelerated from its rendezvous with the main enemy fleet. I was certain it had missiles ranged enough to gum up our rescue. Haily moved into the pilot/co-pilot position. Kara moved into the sensors station and took over comms. Damn, I really needed more bridge officers. Arthur had left to be Zoe¡¯s co-pilot since the Caladrius really needed two people. Now the only people on my bridge were Haily, Edmund, Kara, and myself.
Nero reentered the bridge with two marines in tow. Nero had gone to help get the Brotherhood shuttles refueled and off again. The marines were from the mission to the platforms and had plenty of burn marks on their suits from the operation.
Finally, the missiles launched from the cruiser, and I guessed why. Our stealth coating was good enough that they couldn¡¯t get a lock until the fighters¡¯ sensor data got back to them. I had Elvis relay sensor data to our fighters, and Elias and Finn launched to intercept the missiles. It was a three-minute delay before the cruiser launched eight more fighters.
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This second wave might be able to launch missiles. I commed the Fleet Admiral and asked if his two nearest assets could move to help. He said both ships were damaged and limping toward the planet, but the frigate Cloud Predator could halt its retreat to assist. I looked at the plot and just told him to do a feint. They really couldn¡¯t help when I looked at the damage. The ship was hulled in four locations, and I was surprised it even had any power. We were on our own.
Twelve fighters vs. our two. I made a call. We were going to start launching our decoy drones¡all eight of them in our launch tubes. They would be broadcasting as heavy fighters on an intercept in support of our fighters. We should be at such a distant range that they shouldn¡¯t be able to tell the difference. I worked with Haily to program the drones to form into formations to look like two fighter wings as we launched them.
I hated losing the eight drones, but my plan worked, and the fighters just launched their own missiles and retreated. It took a little work, but we moved the drone controls over to Elias¡¯ fighter. He moved the drones to intercept the missiles, and then Finn, and he would just have to deal with the seven remaining missiles.
We watched anxiously on the screen at the engagement. One drone missed its target, but the fighters got all eight missiles before they got close to our fleeing shuttle. Even if the enemy fighters turned around, they could not catch up before the shuttle docked.
Elvis suddenly interrupted our focus. Two more fleets had entered the system. I looked at the plot and groaned. Each fleet had dozens of frigates and destroyers surrounding a core of cruisers. Edmund was working on sorting it out, but it was clear these were the victorious fleets from nearby systems.
They started to spread out in groups of ten across the system. They were planning to be able to intercept any ships trying to flee. They didn¡¯t need to encompass the entire sphere, just be able to react to ships and intercept them in the few hours it took to leave. I might have trapped us here.
I sent Nero my plan to escape. We were going to shed our disguise and get the stealth coating finished. With it, we should be able to travel far enough without being noticed and escape to subspace.
The rescue mission at least went on uninterrupted, and we had two hundred and three Squirrel on deck seven as we approached the planet. We scanned all the ships the Squirrel had around the planet. Very few were undamaged. Some looked damaged beyond functionality, and I guessed they were just towed to be decoys when we didn¡¯t detect any crew on board and minimal power activity.
The Caladrius was docked at a station, and all the shuttles were back on board. Our two fighters had also docked at the station. As we orbited over the planet, the civilians were being offloaded, and I was put in contact with a regional governor. The information that was relayed was not pleasant.
The race of quadrupeds was called the Yandree by the Squirrel. They had fought them many times in the past and had no idea how they had built up such massive fleets in the last twenty years. The Yandree were a very militaristic and expansionist race. They found habitable planets and eradicated all sapient life, and then established their own colonies. The governor didn¡¯t think anyone would be coming to help. They expected their home system would have held out well against the assault, but their other colonized system most likely fell. One of the late-arriving fleets arrived from that vector.
He thanked me profusely for the effort we put into destroying the platforms and was curious how we did it, but I didn¡¯t reveal my secrets. I told him we wanted to dock and service our ship and planned to leave the system when we were ready. He nodded and said he would do everything he could to help. All the docking rings were booked with military ships, but he would find us space.
All our marines were suited in case of any deception. We docked when a resupplying frigate was bumped and were offered fuel and supplies while the Caladrius was moored in space with a pair of our marine pilots left on board. The planetary governor commed us next to thank us and ask if there was anything we could do.
The governor was in charge of the system, and she seemed extremely haggard. I told her why we had come here. The informaiton exchange. She told one of her aides to look into what I wanted, and they would send me all the subspace research they had. She didn¡¯t think they were going to be able to hold out once all the enemy ships got their deepspace repairs completed. They were planning an exodus fleet to head toward their home system. She offered to include us in that fleet. It would consist of all their functional military ships still capable of subspace and civilian ships loaded with as many people as they could save.
I thanked them for the offer and accepted. I even offered to take 327 civilians with us, the max our life support could handle for an extended time. The Caladrius would allow another 10 civilians. The selection of who would be allowed into the exodus fleet weighed heavy on her, but she offered to send the top scientists on the planet into the subspace field with us. She promised they would help us. Eight hours later and I had seven Squirrel being transferred to my ship early. Two married couples were the top scientists, and the other three were their children. I greeted them when they boarded, and they were somber. The Squirrel were an extremely social species, and they left behind a lot of family members.
I brought them to my special lab for the researching subspace, and they got their translation programs going on my data. I told them I was too busy to help them beyond that and let them work. I guessed the work might help distract them from the impending doom. I planned to escape, but I could tell they didn¡¯t think it was going to be possible.
We had a lot of work to do before the next phase of this invasion commenced.
Chapter 111 Ridiculous Escape Plan
Chapter 111 Ridiculous Escape Plan
The conversion of the Void Phoenix had the entire crew involved and extremely busy. Taking off the shell took less than an hour, and then the real work began. Without the shell, it gave easy access to all the stored material we had secreted away. I had most of the exterior bots working on applying the stealth coating. I had one of the large bots cutting and installing the launch tubes for the fighters. I included plans to install the bubble housing for the weapons. The weapons would be a rough install and not be connected. I didn¡¯t want to use precious hours troubleshooting the weapons. We were going to be surrounded by Squirrel military ships anyway.
The Squirrel were very generous in giving us whatever we wanted. Unfortunately, we didn¡¯t have the need for much. I took on a few tons of precious metals to top off our fabricator stock, but other than that, we were pretty saturated. I gave the Squirrel 120 cubic meters of cargo space for the 337 civilians we would be taking on board. It wasn¡¯t a lot, but it was something. The civilians were going to be crammed into the passenger quarters but would have some personal cargo space there, so the cargo space was just for cultural artifacts, according to the governor.
The Void Phoenix was actually shedding quite a bit of mass. I was constantly fretting over what I wanted to part with. I ended up stuffing the shuttles and shuttle bays with the material. The biggest loss was going to be all the spare fuel we had been carrying. Since the Caladruis was making its own jump to subspace, it gave us the opportunity to stuff our belly dock with some of the material. The two Brotherhood hover APCs made the cut and were secured in the small hanger along with our stockpile of subspace disrupter missiles and an array of crated weapons Abby didn¡¯t want to part with but wouldn¡¯t fit in her already stuffed armories.
I released permission for Doc to release stims to the crew and initiate two-hour forced REM cycles. This would keep everyone functional. The hospitality staff was extremely busy as the Squirrel refugees arrived in bunches of 20-22 every hour on the hour to get settled into the passenger cabins. I ignored the background noise of the distressed residents on the planet. Of the population of 300 million, only about 150,000 were getting crammed into the civilian and military ships. My conscientious mind would not have been able to handle listening to the chaos on the planet below.
I raced around the ship, helping Gabby get the spider bots ready, making decisions about what to keep and abandon, spot-checking engineering work by bots that the small engineering team didn¡¯t have time to do themselves, reviewing the stealth coating being installed and troubleshooting issues, manufacturing Gorilla suits in case they were needed and answering question after question.
Nero did get some temporary life support set up to safely take on another 68 Squirrel passengers. I didn¡¯t want to tax our ship too much or gut it. We didn¡¯t even know how long we had before we had to flee.
About two days into the chaotic mess the Squirrel scientists who had been locked in the lab with my subspace data found me on the bridge assigning engineering bots along the exterior hull, checking and installing the stealth panels. They were excited by the Milo Desjardin research and the readings I had from when the planetoid was destroyed.
The data meshed well with what they had in terms of layered subspace. I only understood about half of what they were telling me and didn¡¯t have time to become involved. I realized I hadn¡¯t given them the data from our scanners. When I sent them the data, the fact that there were actual objects in subspace blew their minds. I had to threaten the excited scientists with locking them in their quarters under guard if they didn¡¯t stop harassing me. They wanted to use the alien sensor right now to explore some of their hypothesis.
We needed the alien sensor to be constantly scanning the enemy. Elias and Elvis had spent their time focusing the sensors in a narrow beam, scanning the enemy ships, looking for the best escape route. The best option he found was a battleship that was by itself in the envelope sector. This battleship had flights of fighters constantly on patrol. However, Elias was certain that our two Brotherhood shuttlecraft had good enough stealth capability to reach this ship and repeat what we did to the platforms.
His plan was absolutely crazy. He wanted to have Julie jam all transmissions from the battleship while our marines boarded it. That meant pimping out a bot with a fragment of her consciousness and getting the 3
rd hacking device on board and installed. Once they began the assault on the communications dead battleship, we would begin our escape vector run. The marines¡¯ goal was to get the battleship to commit a short subspace jump of half a light year. We would meet them at that point and pick them up while Gabby¡¯s spider bots destroyed the vessel¡¯s core.
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There was so much wrong with the plan. The battleship, one of three in the system, was massive and had 9,000 quadrupeds on board. Unlike the platform, I was certain a fair number of this crew were their version of marines. My second hang-up was if Julie would be able to hack the alien computer systems with the Brotherhood device. Julie seemed confident based on the intel the Squirrel had given us of their technology, but military ships tended to have lots of safeguards. What if the ship didn¡¯t have a central computer to control communications¡ªthen the surrounding vessels would swarm to the ship. It would have to jump before the ships engaged. Also, the Brotherhood shuttles couldn¡¯t make subspace jumps, so the Marines would be stranded if everything went to shit. Also, if they failed to neutralize the battleship, then the battleship could launch subspace disrupters.
Losing one of three battleships would give the Squirrel a better chance to defend against invaders. I think that was why I told them about the ridiculous plan. They offered all support they could muster. Their marines were going to be virtually useless in the upcoming battle. Once the quadrapeds broke through and obtained space superiority, they would commit genocide. So we were going to be taking on 38 of their marines in their version of battle suits. Each shuttle was going to be standing room only with two pilots, 12 of my marines and 19 of the Squirrel marines. Gabby was hopefully going to have time to fabricate two Black Widow bots to be added as well for the end game. I was only sending 24 marines because I wanted to keep enough marines in reserve to protect my ship.
So even before the plan was finalized, we started getting the Squirrel marines transitioning to our ship. I examined their battle suits, and they were terrible. Even worse than the ones the Union used to use. I didn¡¯t have time to make them suits, but we could add a small shield unit to each suit with a few seconds of charge.
It was three days into our refit/reconfigure when Elias commed me. He was certain the enemy was maneuvering for the final assault. He detected 12 heavy cruisers on a stealth run at the planet and the outer ships were getting ready for a mass attack, with smaller ships grouping together. The Squirrel took the information and planned to send a wave of 700 missiles on a silent coast to the heavy cruisers we had detected. They would light up when they got close and go active. It should overwhelm their defenses and destroy the crusiers. The Squirrel fleet admiral said it was a massive gamble. This was about a quarter of all their capital ship missiles. He hoped it would be successful and the invaders would lose all 12 cruisers and then delay the assault further. Further, if the cruisers and battleship were removed from the equation, then the Squirrel might be able to hold out against the onslaught. It was a slim chance, but still a chance. I doubted it since the quadrupeds were still sending reinforcements, just small frigates and corvettes but still more ships. We hadn¡¯t received any communications with either of the star systems the Squirrel still controlled.
This was a concern since I planned to drop off our Squirrel passengers there. If not, then we would have to continue on to the Bradbury system. The Bradbury system would be a 16-day trip. The Bradbury system was a barely hospitable world and had a failed human colony in the past. There were also ancient alien ruins on the planet and sites for other races that failed to colonize it. The planet was considered haunted and cursed. Not the best option for the Squirrel refugees.
We pulled the Void Phoenix out of the dock and sent our shuttles packed with marines on their stealth run. Their ETA was 19 hours. The cruiser¡¯s intercept with the missiles was 17 hours. Our burn to escape with the remnants of the fleet and civilians would coincide with the missiles intercepting the cruisers. All cards were in play as everyone worked furiously to get as much done as possible before the fireworks started.
Our fleet bunched together. The military vessels surrounded the core fleet of civilian vessels. Six hundred and forty-two subspace civilian vessels, of which we were one. The military vessels were mostly frigates, forty-six in total. We also had eight heavy cruisers and ten light cruisers. I knew from the fleet admiral that three of the heavy cruisers had been damaged so much that they were not going to be able to enter subspace. They were coming with us to serve purely as a shield against the enemy, sacrificing themselves.
The Squirrel were keeping almost eighty ships in defense of the planet. Ships without subspace drives or short-range subspace drives. The defense force was being bolstered by eight orbiting stations, and all were partially damaged already.
The timer on the bridge reached zero, and we watched as the missiles came alive in front of the cruisers. The cruisers being in low-power mode, couldn¡¯t get defenses up in time, and we watched as, one by one they were turned into wrecks. We were sharing the sensor data with the Squirrel and were cheering as the last of the missiles was expended. Only one cruiser escaped complete destruction.
The enemy fleet reacted to the destruction. Not as the Squirrel had hoped. The ships accelerated, forming battle groups and burning toward the planet, closing their envelope for a final confrontation. The target battleship started moving as well. We were all anxious as we watched our shuttles pass the ship and turn into the wake. They then accelerated in the blind spot and locked onto either side of the massive warship. The real party was just beginning.
Chapter 112 Marines - Oorah!
Chapter 112
Although our sensors gave us visual data in three dimensions, the distance was too far for rapid communication. We would have to come up with some type of visual communication in the future. It would be one way to the Void Phoenix, but at least we would be better informed. Since I was anxious, I tasked Elvis with coming up with something to add to the marine suits that we could read with the sensors in the future. It was the first time I heard the sarcastic AI sound mildly excited at being given a task.
We watched as the two shuttles docked within sixty seconds of each other. The Squirrel Marines flowed out and moved into the ship in three teams of six, with their commander coordinating from each shuttle. They were a distraction. They were to secure the hangers, attack armories, and the bridge, drawing off the defenders. My marines were to get Julie¡¯s hacking device to infiltrate the ship¡¯s computer systems and make sure the spider bots had a clear path to engineering for the eventual destruction of the ship.
The first engagement was the Squirrel in one of the quadruped¡¯s hanger bays. It was a bloodbath as the mechanics and fighter pilots did not have any armor. This vessel only had two large hangers for small craft, one port, and one starboard. If the Squirrel could hold both or destroy the small craft, then we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about a fighter screen when we approached. As the Squirrel were disabling the ships, the anti-boarding marines finally arrived. The firefight started ensuing, and the other Squirrel team had just reached the other bay.
Two fighters tried to launch but were quickly damaged and failed to leave the hangar. The first Squirrel went down wounded, and then another. It was frustrating to watch as the Squirrel were being reckless. We didn¡¯t want any fighters launched in case they discovered our cloaked shuttles on the exterior of the ship. My marines were in lower engineering and had just run into their first resistance themselves. Squad A had Julie¡¯s bot with her fragment and the hacking device with them and secured one of the main control stations. Squad B was in control of the aft weapons power generators and was clearing the crew.
A scan by Elvis showed the crew on the enemy battleship in complete disarray. Elvis gave me estimates of marine defenders based on who was gathering weapons and armor in the various armories across the ship, about 1,700 defenders. That was a lot for our small group who already had four Squirrel down with injuries. And one of those four wasn¡¯t moving, so Elvis applied the KIA tag overlay on him.
The Squirrel commandos disabled all the craft in the hangers and moved out but soon encountered heavy fighting in corridors. All of our momentum was lost. I wished we had tasked a pair of our Badgers to go with them. We could have broken the resistant choke points. But we were helpless on the Void Phoenix¡¯s bridge, just spectators waiting for our exodus with the Squirrel fleet.
Finally, the enemy fleet responded. Elias alerted me they had slowed their burn to the planet, and two cruisers and eight frigates were vectoring toward the battleship. This was huge for the Squirrel. This delay in the planetary assault would hopefully get drawn out. Every hour was precious time to repair defenses and dig in on the planet. I was wondering if Julie¡¯s fragment was going to be successful, and my question was answered when the battleship flipped over and started to decelerate, and it would eventually move out of the system. My bridge cheered, and Julie¡¯s hologram at the right of my captain¡¯s chair muttered, ¡®as if there was any doubt.¡¯
With Julie¡¯s hack successful, my marines moved to reinforce the Squirrel, who had been having a miserable time of it. Five KIA and six were seriously wounded. My Badgers were less hampered and tore through defenses and quadruped marines as they moved forward in fire teams of four. One marine fire team swept over the Squirrel emplacement at a corridor juncture and moved into heavy fire unimpeded. My marines had control of engineering which hopefully meant no self-destruct. All Julie needed to do was jump the ship when it got a safe distance out of the system¡¯s gravitational field.
Elias informed me the fleet was merging to intercept the battleship¡and it was growing. The two cruisers were now four, and the eight frigates now had a screen of 35 fighters. Elias ran the ETA, and they would get there at the same time we would. I switched my view to our countdown, 98 seconds. I watched it hit zero a short while later, and our fleet of civilian and military ships ignited their engines. The quadrupeds had trouble responding. The assault on the planet had been put on hold to deal with the battleship, and now hundreds of Squirrel were attempting to break containment.
If they put all their assets into stopping us, then the planetary assault would be so blunted it would be repelled. I watched out own plot¡.six civilian ships had engine trouble and were left behind. The rest of the fleet matched the speed of the slowest ship.
A massive explosion on the battleship drew my attention back to the battle. Elvis and Elias sorted it out quickly; a missile magazine had exploded. It had vented a large section of the ship, and five of our marines had been sucked into space. Damn it! I made the call for shuttle B to detach and collect our marines. I had the old Union marine shuttle on the Void Phoenix to get up to standby status. We might need it to collect troops after the short jump now. A few minutes later, the quadrupeds tried the same thing, blowing a section of their ship up in order to suck out the marines, but we had been prepared this time. The marines had attached anchor cables to their suit as they were advancing.
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Elvis was cycling the scanners now to track ship movements as our large fleet started to encounter resistance in our attempt to flee. Long-range missiles, small fighter wings, and mine layers trying to get ahead of our vector. Julie was filtering and compiling the data to send to the Squirrel. The quadrupeds could not stop us. If the battleship had been functional with its subspace disrupters, they would have had a chance. I gave myself some self-praise at making the right call to join forces with the Squirrel.
The battleship was also now starting to thrust on a vector out of the system having reversed its inertia. My internal processing of the information was interrupted by Haily. She just wanted me to know the quadrupeds were swearing up a storm and cursing our descendants for 100 generations over comms. Apparently, the battleship we had targeted was commanded by someone important.
The combat ships in our escape fleet were cycling to meet the four cruisers, eight frigates, and the fighter screen. They were planning to reach the battleship and retake it, but it would also be in our engagement envelope. The delayed communication from our shuttle had bad news. Our five marines had been picked up, but two were severally injured, and one had been killed. The bridge was silent for a moment before I told everyone to stay on task. We would be picking up that shuttle on our way out of the system and find out then who we had lost and mourn them when we were safe.
A shock suddenly occurred when the battleship launched all of its missiles. My heart thudded until Elvis got the initial tracking data. They were headed at the four enemy cruisers. Julie must have assumed control over their fire controls! Twenty minutes later and a second spread was fired. A comm reached Julie from her fragment, and she gave us bad news. The subspace drive was on a separate network, and the marines were working furiously to get close enough for Julie¡¯s bot to compromise it.
With minutes between communications, I needed to decide now on a course of action. It would take a long time for the remaining marines to make it back to the shuttle. We had four spider bots on board, and Gabby was waiting to take control when we got in range. I decided on my message. If the likelihood of succeeding was less than 66%, then they were to retreat to the remaining shuttle.
Abby quipped from her station on the bridge that expecting a marine to be able to do math beyond counting their ammo was setting the bar too high. It turned into a moot point as the quadrupeds blew up the entire AI CPU, cutting off Julie¡¯s access to controlling any part of the battleship. The marines commed and said they were making their way to the shuttle. The Squirrel commandos were down to 18 combat effective and 7 seriously injured. The only good news from Elvis was the quadrupeds were down to just over five hundred marines.
I told Gabby to get her spider bots in a position to destroy the ship. The first part of the plan had failed, but we had secured our escape vector. Of course, my thoughts of success were crushed. A large number of enemy ships had moved out of the gravity field, and completed micro subspace jumps on the perimeter of the system to get in front of our fleeing armada. One was a cruiser that immediately fired a subspace disrupter. Our escape vector now had about two dozen ships. It seemed like a waste of resources as we would easily be able to chew through them.
Elias announced mines were being deployed. I switched Elvis to focus on the mines and send all tracking data to our escape fleet. They were casting a large net with hundreds of mines being flung into space. Haily let me know our shuttle was matching our speed and currently docking. Doc and Scrubs were already in the shuttle bay waiting for the injured marines.
The news from the battleship was not good. The Squirrel had destroyed all the shuttles, and now they had 19 Badgers and 22 Squirrel commandos trying to squeeze on board our one remaining shuttle. The solution was eight Badgers were going to anchor on the exterior of the shuttle. Crazy freaking Marines.
We were spectators as the fleets started engaging. We were secure in the center of the formation and transmitting sensor data. I would have liked to watch the disbelief of the quadrupeds as our fleet shifted and avoided every mine in our path. Two civilian ships were still lost to the mines, and we never found out why they didn¡¯t maneuver out of the path. The cruiser that had fired the subspace disrupter tried to turn and run but was quickly swarmed by the Squirrel combat ships.
The intercept fleet of the cruisers and frigates moved to the battleship, which promptly exploded when two cruisers got close enough. I made the decision we were not going to get any better chance to do some damage. The explosion took 17 troop transports in its bloom as well that had docked or were in the process of docking. The battleship explosion seemed to break the attacking fleet. They moved to resume their safe distance and lick their wounds. We bought the Squirrel planet some time.
As our fleet reached a safe distance, ships started to transition to subspace. No enemies approached us as we waited, keeping our sensors active. We were going to serve as the rear screen. The four cruisers without functional subspace drives had taken some damage but still grouped up and made their way back toward the planet to aid in the probably futile defense. Sixteen of the Squirrel commandos transferred to these cruisers. They wanted to spend their lives defending the planet they were born on.
While we waited, I learned we had six Squirrel commandos remaining on board. Four were in critical condition, and two were spouses of two of our passengers. Our marines talked highly of the Squirrel commandos. They were brave to the point of idiocy, willing to give their lives to save their comrades without hesitation.
We were the last ship to leave the system. We lingered, watching the enemy fleet trying to sort itself out. I guessed the admiral, or at least one of them, had been on the battleship we had destroyed. With the quadrupeds in disarray, the Squirrel might have a chance to hold out. We slid onto subspace to catch up with the fleet. I needed to offload my passengers.
Chapter 113
Chapter 113
The subspace trip started with combat reports. I learned the marine was Julian ¡®Wolf¡¯ Collier. The funeral was going to be in a day. His death was due to damage to his suit. His suit vacuum was compromised in multiple areas as he was the closest to the missile storage explosion. Doc said he was knocked unconscious, so he didn¡¯t feel anything when he froze to death. I checked on the suit¡¯s self-repair capability. It had worked, but there had been too many breaches.
Feeling I had let down my marines, I spent all my improving the auto-safety features up to when I was called to the funeral. I attended the funeral and listened to half a dozen marines give stories of Julian. He had gotten his name because he was a lone wolf in combat. He preferred to operate alone as he was recon sniper. Abby listed his accolades in combat, and then his body was ejected into subspace. Once it cleared the protective envelope, his body¡¯s atoms were scattered across the cosmos.
I skipped the wake for Julian and finalized some of the Badger suit upgrades. I doubled the number of micro repair packets and added two external quick foam patches. It still would not have saved Julian, but it was all I could do.
I spent the next two days with Celeste and Amos. I had neglected the children because of the massive rush to get the ship ready in the Squirrel system and finally had time. Celeste was using near-complete sentences and was constantly getting in trouble. Amos seemed to be the quiet partner in crime. He was still working on his vocabulary and just went along with whatever mischief Celeste dragged him into. Thankfully Eve was on near-constant vigil with the new playmate bot.
As we passed through subspace, the bridge crew had multiple meetings to discuss possibilities when we exited subspace. We were headed for the Squirrel homeworld. It was the center of their civilization; over 12 billion Squirrel and the majority of their space combat power were situated here. We strongly doubted the Squirrell system had survived, as no messenger or support fleets had come to support the colony system we had just come from.
The exodus fleet already had a plan. If the home system was compromised, the ships in our armada would reenter subspace and go to the Bradbury system. This was a 16-day trip, and many of the civilian ships would not have enough fuel to make the trip. Abby was the one who voiced what we were all thinking. The Squirrel were going to become extinct. They did have thousands of merchants throughout space, but if the quadrupeds killed all the Squirrel in their three settled systems, they wouldn¡¯t recover.
The Bradbury system was a long shot. Not only had humans failed to colonize it, but many other races had tried and failed as well. The planet was cursed and haunted. It had a breathable atmosphere and lust vegetation growing throw the ruins. But other than a variety of insects, there were no other life forms. Looking at the reports from the past attempts by humanity to colonize the planet, it was littered with the fantastical; colonists disappeared, died in their sleep, were unable to conceive children, and went crazy.
Edmund had access to some Brotherhood archives on the planet, which sent chills to my core. The Brotherhood had hundreds of studies and had come up empty. No environmental factors were discovered, no anomalies in the system, nothing in past ruins by other races that failed to colonize the planet, and the oldest ruins on the planet were dated to around a hundred thousand years old, and the best estimates had billions of people. The cataclysm that ended that race¡¯s dominance of the planet was also missing. The Brotherhood found no evidence of war, disease, or environment contributing to the extinction. The race just vanished.
It appeared the Squirrel were going to have to become space nomads like the Sylvan if they wanted to survive long enough to get revenge on their enemies. Abby had sent me a request by two of the Squirrel commandos. They were petitioning to join my crew with the caveat their family could remain on board. That meant we would be taking their spouses and five children as well. They must have come to the same conclusion about the fate of their races fate.
I looked over Abby¡¯s report on the two commandos. She had reviewed their suit footage during the assault on the battleship and thought they were quality marines. That made sense as the original 38 marines we transported to the battleship were the best soldiers the Squirrel had in the system. I just didn¡¯t like their willingness to throw their lives away to save their comrades. There was also the headache of making a new iteration of the Badger suits.
The Squirrel anatomy was completely different from humans and Tirani. I tapped on my datapad, trying to make a decision. Eventually, I sent Abby a reply. No, unless she could add at least four Squirrel marines. At least that way, my efforts would be somewhat worth it. A number of the heavily injured Squirrel marines were being treated in medical, so if Abby really wanted them, then she had to convince a few of them to also join the crew.
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The Squirrel scientists had finally gotten access to the sensors while we were in subspace, and after a few days, they excitedly came to me to explain their findings. Much of their theories revolved around the explosion of the planetoid. The massive amount of energy released in that event highlighted the different bands of subspace briefly. This was the key piece of data that helped connect everything. The alien sensors confirmed everything in subspace. They had adjusted the sensors and were able to cycle through see the different bands.
Now that they knew the bands existed, they were trying to figure out how to get ships into the different subspace bands. The theory of Milo Dejardin was that the bands existed. He theorized that bands were like different rivers flowing at different speeds. If you could move up to a faster band of subspace, you could travel significantly faster in subspace.
My quartet of Squirrel subspace physicists had absolutely no idea how to reach the high bands. The emitters that all races currently used created the field to bring a ship into subspace. The efficiency of these emitters was within a predefined range, there was an upper limit and a lower limit. The Squirrel analogy was the emitters were like sails. The better your sails, the faster your speed. I didn¡¯t get the analogy as I had never sailed, and I looked at subspace mostly in terms of equations. I told them to keep working on it but not to endanger the ship or crew.
In our final staff meeting before exiting subspace, a smug Abby said she had three Squirrel commandos willing to sign onto the crew. I waved to Edmund and Doc at the table to handle the background checks and physicals. The Squirrel were no imposing figures, but once you put anyone into a Badger power armor, they were going to be deadly. I told them it might be a long time before I had the opportunity to design them Badger suits, though.
Nero gave us a lot of bad news on the life support systems front. We had stressed our systems and were falling behind on maintenance. I definitely hoped we could offload our passengers. We also discussed our fuel profile. If we had to go to the Bradbury system to unload the Squirrel we had very few options for our next possible safe port of call. It was either the Herculian system or the Augustine system. The Herculian system had a small human colony living in domes on a barren planet, and fuel would be extremely expensive. The Augustine system had a race of sapient fungi. They barely had space capability, but the Tirani had noted they traded for fuel with the species in the past.
We had a backup plan. I knew there was a gas giant in the Bradbury system, and we did have a small emergency harvester in storage we could deploy. But that was a last resort as it would take weeks to harvest the gases to power low-yield reactors up to an acceptable level to extend our subspace range.
When we entered the home system of the Squirrel, the Tachi system, the plot showed dire news. The quadrupeds were here with the amphibian race in mass. They had set up blockades with hundreds of starships around the planet with two moons where most of the Squirrel were located. The fleet we had arrived just after was under attack by swarms of fighters, and the civilian ships were taking a beating. We transitioned a little far from the fleet and the battle would be over before we could join the fray. It took an hour before the fighters and the small carrier ships were dealt with. We lost a number of civilian ships in the exchange, and now we had a standoff.
The Squirrel were in communication with their home planet, and I had to wait as the transmission time was over fifteen minutes. In the meantime, Elvis was doing narrow beam scans to give us an idea of just how badly the Squirrel homeworld was screwed. It looked like the enemy ships had two of those large platforms here servicing the fleet. The enemy fleet looked to be of similar size to the one we had just left. Granted, we had shaved off about a quarter of that fleet¡¯s combat strength with the destruction of the cruisers and the battleship.
Three hours later and the planetary governor sent me a personal communication. He thanked me for the help to date and asked me to continue on the Bradbury system and leave my refugees there with as many supplies as I could spare. At least I wouldn¡¯t feel guilty about leaving them on the cursed planet.
Damian said he needed at least forty-eight hours to do maintenance before we entered subspace. It was fine as I didn¡¯t see any threats. Elvis had highlighted the seven small carriers circling the likely subspace transition points, and the Squirrel were looking forward to surprising the ships under silent running. It would be a small amount of payback for this attack.
We watched the Squirrel make good on the information, destroying four of the carriers before the remaining three fled behind the skirts of the larger fleet in-system.
I worked with both Nero and Damian on a myriad of engineering problems. Our ship was not meant for this many passengers, and the old engines needed a lot of maintenance between long sub-space journeys. I actually looked at the star maps a few times and considered abandoning the pursuit of my brother. The truth was I had nowhere to return to. The Sylvan and Brotherhood were dangers behind us and were pushing us forward now.
The fleet was trying to consolidate it resources over the two days. The military ships were siphoning their fuel to all the civilian ships for the trip to Bradbury. Then the military ships would make an attempt to break the blockade and join the defense of their home planet. I felt completely helpless but admired the Squirrel¡¯s resolve.
The Squirrel ships started leaving as soon as they were able. I had the Void Phoenix remain to give the military ships our sensor data as they moved to rejoin their home planet. It was tear-jerking as barely over half the ships made it to join their compatriots at the planet, and all were damaged. I ordered the bridge crew to enter subspace.
The next leg of the trip for us was the Bradbury system. A voyage none of us wanted to make.
Chapter 114
Chapter 114
As the Void Phoenix cleared the gravitational influence of the Squirrel system and slipped into subspace, I reflected on what I had observed over the last few days. We had remained behind as long as we could in order to feed sensor data to the Squirrel remaining in the system. We were helpless as we watched the quadrupeds continually probe the defenses surrounding the green home world. I could tell the bridge crew wanted to do more, but our little ship had risked a lot and done quite a large amount of damage to the enemy. I felt some guilt in leaving them to their fate, but my crew came first.
It was going to be a long journey, and I knew a number of the civilian ships ahead of us would not make it. There just hadn¡¯t been enough time to service the engines completely. Even Damian had complained about another short turnaround. Julie¡¯s prognosis was about 15% of the Squirrel ships would fail to reach Bradbury. Another huge loss of life. The family-oriented Squirrel species had grown on me, and I added the quadrupeds to the enemies list.
I thought about what I could do to help the Squirrel. Of the 150,000 Squirrel evacuees, maybe 100,000 would reach Bradbury with minimal supplies. Looking at the star maps, there was just no choice for the Squirrel. Even reaching Bradbury was going to be difficult. At least it was a good distance from the quadrupeds and a system where they should be safe for a time.
The eleven-day voyage started with my Squirrel subspace experts coming to me and saying they had figured out a way to communicate with other ships in subspace. This would be a monumental breakthrough, and I listened to them explain their research for over three hours. The research was sound and sounded plausible, except that each ship needed to be equipped with similar sensors to the Void Phoenix. We hadn¡¯t even scratched the surface of reverse engineering the sensors.
I ended up calling Eve down to work with the Squirrel scientists. Eve would sift through the archived alien crystals to hopefully get some schematics translated for the Squirrel scientists. Since they were so enthusiastic, maybe they could reverse engineer the sensors on their own.
My goal for the trip was to design and build Badger suits for the Squirrel marines we added to our crew complement. I would transit the design to the other Squirrel ships when we exited subspace. I quickly found that within our Squirrel passenger refuges, we had a number of scientists and engineers. The Squirrel had tried to save the best and brightest among themselves. Each mind deemed too valuable to lose was allowed to bring one loved one with them. That meant many had to choose between a spouse or child. Gwen did me no favors when she told me this.
I was able to pull seven engineers from the passenger decks to help with the Badger suit redesign. Rather than let them into my primary robotics lab, I built a temporary lab and simulation suite. The room was tiny and barely fit five people, but the Squirrel, desperate to help their species, worked long shifts to engineer the new suits. I acted more in a managerial capacity. Throughout the trip, the Squirrel engineers showed their abstract genius in their design and made a number of upgrades to the design that improved functionality and safety.
Some of their idea were completely and utterly terrible, but when they went to the simulators, Julie could usually quash them. The Squirrel Badger suits ended up being much lighter and closer to body armor than true battle suits. It gave the suits a longer run time, took fewer materials to build, and incorporated micro-shielding emitters to deal with heavy combat.
They couldn¡¯t handle as much damage as the Badger¡¯s, but the stealth capability nearly doubled when the Squirrel finished. We called the new suits Gekos. By the time we reached Bradbury, we expected to have half a dozen completed.
Since my time was free from working on the Squirrel light infantry suits, I focused my efforts on improving the offensive and defensive capabilities of the Void Phoneix. I definitely didn¡¯t want to get dragged into combat, but if I did, I wanted to have some teeth and a tough hide. Once again, it was the Squirrel passengers that had found purpose on the voyage. They quickly assimilated the shielding technology and worked to get our two heavy weapon emplacements installed and powered.
The two bubble-like protrusions looked like the eyes on a fish. They would fold back to reveal the two tight arc turrets underneath. The two medium grazers were from a Union destroyer. We had to tie in the power to our main power core to fire them, but at least it gave us some level of threat. A typical Union destroyer would have eight to twelve of these grazers, so I would say we were not at all a serious threat in a pitched space battle. They would compliment our six light grazers on port and starboard that were geared toward missile defense.
I actually got quite a bit on time on the voyage to spend with the children. Gwen told me outright that Celeste was growing up to be a spoiled brat, and I needed to take a firmer hand with her. I agreed Celeste had a lot of leeway, but she wasn¡¯t the terror Gwen was insinuating. Well, she did purge the air recyclers on deck 9 once. And she had convinced Eve to have two engineering bots fight each other. And Zed seemed petrified to come near her for some reason. And Amos seemed to defer to her all the time. Ok, maybe Celeste needed some tough love.
I was no father figure. I asked Danellie and Gwen to spend more time with Celeste and discipline her. That was the heart of the issue; according to Julie, Celeste had no discipline and no fear of punishment for anything she did. So Danielle adjusted Claire¡¯s programming, and I had to deal with a screaming Celeste for the entire voyage. It was heartbreaking for me as I couldn¡¯t swoop in and save her.
I had extra time to train with the marines as well, and at least that gave me an excuse to flee my own quarters. I was getting extremely proficient in the Badger suits, and Abby had me ranked 9
th in the crew. I especially loved when I got a chance to be pitted against Mozzie as I won 3 out of 4 times. Besides the Celeste discipline and knowing I was dropping off Squirrel refugees to their likely deaths the voyage was actually enjoyable.
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I was on the bridge when we were ready to exit subspace in the Bradbury system. It was Elias who noticed it first. The sun in the Bradbury system as well as two planets, were showing up on our alien sensors as being in subspace. Even though my Squirrel subspace physicists would think this was the greatest thing ever, I had a bad feeling about this.
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Rae¡¯Ver was impressed with the humans. He had never really studied their technology, but this cruiser was quite impressive. He had the human captain, Desdemona, under his complete command. She had ordered more human assets in support of this ship as they continued their pursuit of the elusive Void Phoenix.
Rae¡¯Ver now had a battle carrier with 72 heavy fighters, four heavy frigates, and eight transports carrying supplies. He knew this was necessary as Deven Wellspring was fleeing human-controlled space. Jae¡¯Tir had gotten his city-ship entangled with the humans. At least he was serving as a sizable distraction to his own efforts.
Even though he was collecting a sizable force of human ships, he was falling behind in his pursuit. He had just left the Makabre system desolated from a battle against a race of quadrupeds the Sylvan called Centerians. The Centerians had built sizable fleets in a region of space nearby and were attempting to eradicate sapient species for their expansionist goals. The ocean planet in the system had been struck was large rail guns causing massive concussive waves and killing billions. It was senseless violence that Rae¡¯Ver couldn¡¯t understand.
The Sylvan were a pragmatic race. They had lived on city-ships for centuries, and when their population flared, they just built a new city ship or regulated births to slow the population growth. Some more discerning First Citizens would engage in military conflict to thin the population of troublesome residents. At least he was able to obtain the direction of the Void Phoenix.
This next system was controlled by a race the humans called the Squirrel. He looked over his plot as they entered the system. The Centerians were attacking here as well. They were beginning an assault on the populous planet. He felt Desdemona kick against his control again¡more of a probe. He had her order the fleet forward and open communications with both species. She was to ask if either had seen the mercurial Void Phoenix.
It was the Squirrel who responded after a few hours. Their situation looked fairly dire. Almost no stations guarding the planet and the Centerians were getting their large rail gun strikes through. He waited while the message was interpreted. The Void Phoenix had been carried away in an exodus fleet. He scratched his chin. He had Desdemona ask the Squirrel nicely for a vector and they declined. He groaned. He manipulated Desdemona to order the crew for a combat assessment.
The Centerians were not a threat to the human fleet unless they swarmed them, and they were currently otherwise occupied. He played out a few scenarios in his mind and then ordered Desdemoa to load all the heavy Warpath fighters with anti-ship missiles. They were to make attack runs on two of the battleships in the Centerian flight. The woman kicked against the command again, and he smiled at her will, but she was outmatched.
The fleet moved in system and 22 fighters were destroyed and 31 damaged but he accomplished his goal. The two battleships were disabled and drifting. The Centerian fleet was folding and grouping on the far side of the planet away from his approaching fleet. He wasn¡¯t here to save the Squirrel. He just needed to know where his prey was headed. The supply ships were already delivering replacement fighters to the battle carrier, and he soured. The report from the carrier was that only 66 fighters would be combat effective. They were a good knife to use at a distance. He turned to the captain and scanned her memories¡there. He forced her to generate a command to send two supply ships with a dozen of the heavy fighters to rendezvous with her fleet.
One of the transports would have to head back to human space to get the message relayed, but that shouldn¡¯t be an issue. Desdemona was already having the ship move out system, waiting for the coordinates for the rendezvous before they left.
The Squirrel planetary governor was already calling. Maybe he wouldn¡¯t have to tear the information from his mind. It took two hours of coaxing, promising they were on friendly terms with the Void Phoenix, even going as far as to say they were assisting the defense of the Squirrel at captain Deven Wellspring¡¯s request. He finally got the information he needed. The Void Phoenix had escaped to the home system of the Squirrel.
Well, this was going to be annoying. The Squirrel home system was also under attack. He checked the munitions on all the ships and grimaced. His fleet only had 46% loadout. Hopefully, it would be enough. He had Desdemona order more supplies before the messenger transport left. It looked like he might have to wait after this next engagement for resupply.
When he left the system, the Centerians were forming up their fleet again to renew their assault. He had only given the Squirrel a reprieve, but the planet would fall eventually. Not his problem.
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Katsu Oshiro was perplexed when Desdemona started diverting assets to build a small fleet. When she took command of the Heavy Carrier Indomitable, he began to panic. It was a Brotherhood carrier and was intended to put out fires in that region of space. To make sure sll his plans proceeded. If one of the interstellar wars turned unfavorable, that carrier was to intercede and correct the imbalance. Now it was dark and missing.
If Desdemona was AWAL then this would be his third Diamond asset that he had lost. At least none of the other Council were aware of his growing problems. A report to resupply the Indomitable came across deep space comms and lit his screen. It was just rendezvous coordinates¡that was¡the Squirrel? The abstract thinkers? Why was Desdemona all the way out there? Well, if he remained here and the other Council found out his failures he would be retired. He looked at the communal Brotherhood assets.
The battleship, Judgment Day, was going through its shakedown cruise. He would take command and assign a support fleet. It was time to bring Desdemona in and get his assets back to human space. Taking command of one of six Brotherhood-controlled battleships was definitely going to draw the attention of the Council¡especially when it went dark from comms.
Chapter 115
Chapter 115
We dropped out of subspace far outside of the system, and I began to review the sensor data from subspace. How did something exist in subspace? This was the closest we had gotten to the objects in subspace, so the data was more detailed. As I was reviewing the data, real space data was populated, and the comm traffic was heating up.
Haily was saying there was nothing that required our attention. Ships were just making minor requests for assistance. I noted there were only 568 ships remaining in the Squirrel exodus fleet. They had lost 88 ships. Some would probably get here eventually, but it was a huge loss of life. Returning to my analysis, the Squirrel subspace scientists were requesting permission to enter the bridge from the two marines on guard duty at the access hatch. I thought for a bit and decided to meet them down in the lab.
I left Kara in charge and went to the lab to dissect the data with the Squirrel. They were beyond excited, and I was not. I figured the haunted planet probably had something to do with its shadow being in subspace. That is what the Squirrel were calling objects in subspace, shadows. The Squirrel were excited about how part of the shadow planets and sun could exist in subspace without an emitter.
My mind connected the dots. Our fuel after the planetoid had exploded had been different but more efficient. That meant everything that had been caught in the explosion might have been partially phased into subspace without an emitter due to the wave. I commed the bridge and asked if they had ever scanned the Void Phoenix when we were in subspace. A confused Elias replied no. Shit, that is right, I couldn¡¯t prove my absurd hypothesis by being on the ship.
I came up with a plan. I would take a shuttle and travel a few million miles away. The Void Phoenix would do a micro-jump and scan my shuttle. If I was correct, then everything caught in the wave when the planetoid exploded now existed in subspace as well as real space. Maybe the effect faded over time, and it wouldn¡¯t show up on scanners. It would explain the mystery of how our fuel, after the explosion, lost mass and had an increased efficiency. The Squirrel were split on my theory, and Doc thought I was crazy. Everyone on the bridge thought I was crazy.
As we prepared, I was demoted. I would not be on the shuttle. Finn Martin had been in the explosion, and he was one of our shuttle pilots. He would have the honor of sitting in for me. The micro subspace jump was just going to be 11 seconds, taking us along the periphery of the system. It was two days of preparation, and I had to help Damian with maintenance on the subspace engines.
During this time, the Squirrel were setting up mining operations in the sparse asteroid field and rapidly building space stations that focused on growing nutrient-rich algae. I wasn¡¯t privy to their food situation, but I guessed it was less than a year. Julie had run the numbers, and we could make a trip to the fungal people and perhaps get them a carbohydrate paste in bulk when we refueled. It would be a time-sink for us, though, and I really didn¡¯t want the investment or responsibility. Maybe we would serve as an escort for one of their bigger transports after they offloaded their passengers.
The anticipated subspace hop occurred, and it was as I had expected. The parts of the shuttle that had been in the wave had been changed and showed up in subspace, as did Finn. What even more problematic was the sensors picked up like on the planet. There were people living on the planet in subspace. So somehow, people had been phased into subspace completely. For us, everything caught in the explosion just had a shadow of subspace. The Squirrel scientists, now eighteen from various other ships, were intrigued and trying to unravel the data.
What allowed someone to get trapped in subspace? Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have any more fuel to test as that would have been the easiest. I tasked the scientists with trying to figure out how to get our ¡®shadows¡¯ back into real space completely rather than figuring out how to put more matter split between the two realities.
I found it just wasn¡¯t the Squirrel¡¯s cute appearance that made you want to trust them. Once you earned their trust as completely as I had, you got us sucked into their family mentality. Unfortunately, Celeste loved anything furry, and playing roughly with the younger Squirrel children was a pastime for her. It just gave Gwen and Danielle more time to start instilling discipline. I think Celeste was playing a game with us, she was extremely bright, and her rebellion and screaming were her way of trying to control the situation and keep attention on her.
I decided we were going to remain for a few weeks. I had no plans to go anywhere near the two planets or the sun that had subspace shadows. The Void Phoenix deployed both its emergency solar array and our miniature gas mining platform. Both were single use as once they were deployed, they could not be stored again without damaging them. It was going to allow us to replenish a little bit of fuel and conserve our current fuel. We would leave both fuel producers for the Squirrel when we left.
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It wasn¡¯t long before we were paired with a large passenger liner that was serving as a research vessel. I wasn¡¯t sure how many scientists were working on the subspace data, but it freed me up to work on the Squirrel battle suits.
We had manufactured five of the Gecko suits so far, and they were currently being tested by the Squirrel marines that had signed on to my crew. Since we were the only ship with a facility to produce the alien hull material that made the suits so impressive, the Squirrel were giving us feeder stock to manufacture as many of the suits as we could manage before we departed. The Squirrel research ship had engineers and scientists trying to set up their own manufacturing of the alien hull material, but we were months, if not years, away from being able to mass produce the material. Their ingenuity was impressive, and I may be underestimating them.
The Squirrel were slowly taking refugees off my ship. They were reluctant to land any citizens on the planets after I had revealed the planets had subspace shadows, and there was life on those shadows. At least they were being cautious. They were focused on mining six massive asteroids with light gravity. These asteroids were being converted into massive space stations. Their objective was to build living modules as fast as possible, followed by algae farms. Slowly the ships were being unloaded of refugees and onto the large asteroids.
We sent our shuttles out to help harvest ice asteroids by vectoring them toward their new space stations. I saw the plans for each of the asteroids, and they planned to house 100,000 citizens on each of the six asteroids, which measured between 80 km and 165 km. This would give them some growth potential if they couldn¡¯t colonize the only planet with atmosphere in the system.
The largest of these asteroids was going to be turned into a capital shipyard. That was where the Squirrel were in the most trouble. They had two combat frigates and six combat corvettes, and that was it. All their other military assets had remained to defend the Squirrel home system. The shipyard would take years to reach functionality but would build only light cruisers heavy on automation. If they could get manufacturing of the alien hull plating for the cruisers then they would be extremely formable.
We had entered into an open technology exchange with the Squirrel. It was mostly our technology going out, but we did get numerous upgrades to our life support and short-range sensors that could be used. The higher efficiency life support technology would sell extremely well if returned to human-controlled space. The sensors upgrades were not going to be of much use to the Void Phoenix, but for our shuttles and fighters, they would give us about a 30% larger sensor envelope. Subspace theory was evolving every day. The minds of the Squirrel physicists seemed naturally inclined to understanding abstract thoughts.
After three weeks in the Bradbury system, the only Squirrel on our ship were the enlisted marines and 23 scientists with 32 spouses and children. At this three-week mark, they made their first major breakthrough. It was a reproduction of one of the complex parts of the alien sensor. That fact that it worked as it was supposed to was beyond remarkable. Only 68 parts to go.
After a month in the system, I got some concerning news. We had supplied a lot of our meals to the Squirrel since they had the same digestive physiology as our crew. There were some things they could handle, but carbohydrate, protein, and fat metabolism were the same. We only had 88 days left of food, according to Cori. I shouldn¡¯t have been surprised as we had so many refugees on board and were still hosting a number of scientists. Cori started ordering the algae food bars from the Squirrel. They had two flavors; terrible and revolting. Doc did confirm they would keep us alive and took minimal space on board.
Our marines found their own fun running full combat suit drills on small asteroids with pellet guns. I even joined them in my custom Badger suit. Sometimes we practiced with the 380 marines the Squirrel had left. We were producing suits for those marines at a rate of about one Geko combat suit every day.
It was six weeks into our time in Bradbury, and it was time for us to continue on our pursuit of the Union fleet. There was nothing left for us here. We had completed 41 Geko suits for the Squirrel and would be leaving them with enough parts to assemble. We had committed to escorting two Squirrel transports to the system with the fungal race. The Squirrel needed food and fuel, and we needed the same. Six hours before we were scheduled to leave the Squirrel physicists came to me with a breakthrough. They had designed small emitters that could hold a person in subspace.
We needed to use the Gorilla suits to get the emitters enough power, but they theorized the weapons on the suits could do damage in subspace if they were in range. So rather than leaving, I was sending six marine volunteers to the dead planet in the system in one of our Brotherhood shuttlecraft. We moved the Void Phoenix closer to the planet, and there was a lot of tension on the bridge as they launched. After they landed on a glacier, we watched as the six Gorilla suits activated the emitters¡.and disappeared.
When they returned twenty minutes later, they said there were a few abandoned structures, and the weather was much milder on the subspace variant of the planet. The atmosphere was still not breathable, though. So now that we knew we could move into subspace without requiring momentum, what was the next step? Should we outfit the Void Phoenix with the emitters¡.ultimate stealth was completely disappearing. The Squirrel were going to test and make sure subspace disrupters didn¡¯t interfere with their new emitters first.
The other project they were working on was completely theoretical. It was a ¡®cleansing cube¡¯ that they hoped would scrub all instances of subspace shadows from someone. They hoped it would merge all the shadows into our current spacial reality. This is what I had hoped they would find, and it was a good enough reason to remain in the Bradbury system for a little longer.
Chapter 116 Disappearing Act
Chapter 116 Disappearing Act
The Squirrel scientists made steady progress on the alien sensor system over the next two weeks, building more and more parts of the sensor. Their understanding of the device was increasing at a phenomenal rate, and at the pace they were going, they should be able to have a functional replica in less than two years. I did get their promise that any ship, colony, or space station would destroy the research and sensor devices if it looked like they might fall to an enemy.
Giving the Squirrel access to the device had been a trade-off. I lost my exclusive advantage, but they were doing all the leg work and research on the device. Already Haily had been able to move past just utilizing the device. She now understood some aspects and could even do some maintenance. Once the Squirrel built a functional replica, I would be given all the files.
After the success of my Gorilla suits being able to transition into shadow subspace, the Squirrel came up with an idea to hide their asteroid colonies. They were in the process of installing the special emitters and would phase the entire asteroid out of normal space. If they could pair their phasing system with functional alien sensors, then they would have enough warning to disappear if a threat arrived in the Bradbury system. They would be safe if the enemy did not have a device to scan subspace.
The largest mystery in the system was the shadow planet that showed signs of habitation. We did make numerous observations of the habitable planet that showed life in shadow subspace. The Squirrel determined the population had no access to space, so if they kept their distance, they should be safe. The Squirrel Council decided that they would not interact with the population trapped in subspace until they had complete control and understanding of subspace band phasing. That didn¡¯t prevent them from studying the planet from afar. It appeared there were about a dozen small cities with small populations estimated at around one hundred thousand each. The images were incomplete since it was the Void Phoenix using the alien sensor at an extreme range while making short jumps on the periphery of the system.
The Squirrel xeno scientists believed there were at least five species based on the various city architectures from the images. That made some sense as the documented ruins in the Brotherhood database said at least nine different species tried to colonize the system before humanity had three failed attempts of its own. I did wonder if one of those cities might not have a population of humans.
Moving their colony asteroids to subspace would be an extremely effective system, with the only drawback being the power requirements to remain in subspace. The Squirrel needed solid-state fuel, as solar and hydrogen fusion generators were barely sufficient. They needed to risk traveling for both food and refined fuel. My crew had no idea how they had been able to stomach a constant diet of nutrition bars made from the algae. Our own lack of food was forcing us to leave as well. I would have to decide whether we would return here or continue pursuing the Union fleet.
We had remained for so long as I had hoped they would start figuring out a way for our subspace shadows to be merged again, but the research seemed at a dead end. I felt there was nothing more we could do by remaining in the Bradbury system. We were going to escort the Squirrel transports to the fungi planet. The Squirrel had seeded their populations from their ships on the asteroids and were sending two massive transports with us.
I had left the hover tanks and a stockpile of other material goods behind so we could dock the Caladrius again in the belly of the Void Phoneix. I even offloaded the entire crystalline data library and the device for reading the archival discs. The Squirrel were going to make much better use of them, and when I returned, I would have access to their findings. Getting the 30 million discs off the ship created a lot of space. That was not all I left behind. Most of the alien devices I scavenged from the planetoid were left behind for the Squirrel to study. It had been a hard decision, but I lacked time truly delve into their secrets. Lightening the mass of the Void Phoenix would make her faster. As we continued our voyage, I still had a fortune in precious metals and alien jewelry to barter with.
We had added seven Squirrel scientists and engineers, eleven Squirrel children, and six Squirrel marines to our crew roster. They all joined without expecting any compensation. The new crew was repaying the debt their entire race had accrued from our help. I still planned to pay them, not that we had many future destinations with places to spend funds.
I think Gabby was the happiest person on board to be leaving the Bradbury system. She had been locked in the robotics lab for much of our stay, spending an average of twenty hours every day cycle. She had even set up a cot for her and Zed. She had been using the fabricators and assembly equipment to build a steady supply of bots for the Squirrel. It was good practice for her, and she had been mostly overseeing the assembly and doing testing on finished bots. She had been sending out three of four bots daily on shuttle transports. I know the Squirrel appreciated her efforts and constantly gave her small gifts. My entire crew received similar treatment from the gracious and thankful Squirrel.
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As we were leaving the system flanked by the two transports, I had to admire the Squirrel. They had focused their energy on rebuilding their civilization with minimal resources in what amounted to a hostile system. The asteroid colonies looked stable, and they had plans for controlled growth. The Squirrel had dismantled over half of their ships to build their colonies on the asteroids. The remaining ships were slowly installing the same emitters, but most of the ships would be scraped for material at their future shipyard. They did not have enough military strength to defend the colonies, so I hoped their phasing technology worked.
When we slipped into subspace with the transports, the bridge seemed extremely optimistic, even our new comms officer, Hyrena. Hyrena was a language savant and rotated shifts with Haily. Hyrena was the wife of one of the Squirrel marines and extremely competent, and it allowed Haily to spend more time working as an engineer on the sensors. Our aimless traveling had done some good. We had made a potentially powerful ally. And we made some substantial gains in deciphering the alien technology.
Nero and the engineering team had returned the ship to its prior state before we had become a refugee transport. Two of the Squirrel engineers were weapons engineers, and all eight of our grazers were now functional at 77% capacity. The bridge targeting system was installed and implemented. The six port and starboard grazers were intended for missile and fighter defense, and they had increased the tracking speed and data exchange with the bridge fire control. We now had a decent chance to hit fighters and destroy missiles.
The two medium grazers only had a forward arc. The Squirrel said they were functional but our best offense was still running away. We just would not be able to do enough damage if we were attacked by multiple large ships¡ªor anything larger than a frigate.
Our mix of alien and standard shielding actually made a stalwart line of defense. The Squirrel engineers in conjunction with Hans Anders, my shield engineer, had been able to layer the shields. It drew a lot of power but resulted in a three-fold increase in shield strength. It was the alien hull plating and stealth coating that would hopefully keep us out of trouble, though.
The first staff meeting after leaving Bradbury had me reveal my plans. After our resupply, we would be taking a long subspace jump to Juniper-44Z. It was the furthest human colony outside of human-controlled space. The Brotherhood database said it was still viable as of 15 months ago. The colony had fuel refineries, orbital farms, and a significant presence on the jungle planet. The entire colony had less than 200,000 humans, and its growth had been stagnant for two decades.
They had a fairly weak space navy, composed of mainly heavy gunships. The colony had gone unmolested for so long since the only valuable thing in the system was the planet with a breathable atmosphere. There were very few heavy metals to mine in Juniper-44Z and only two gas giants for siphoning hydrogen. The good news was our metals should sell extremely well. We confirmed our plans for our next two ports of call.
Edmund, Vicky, Doc, and Damian were to work on preparing for our next stop at the fungal race. We needed to confirm the food¡¯s safety and the fuel¡¯s viability. The Brotherhood had no records of the race, but the Tirani had successfully traded with them in the past. If this transaction fell through, then we would be stretched to reach Juniper-44Z.
During the voyage, I focused on mentoring Gabby and Luna and spending time with Celeste and Amos. Outside of the bridge, I was working mostly on troubleshooting the three types of power armor. We had 40 Badger suits, 12 Gorilla suits, and 12 Gekos. The Gekos had six Squirrel and six human variants. Abby wanted them for bridge guard duty since they were much lighter than the Badger variant. Abby classified the Gekos as light infantry, Badger as infantry, and the Gorillas as heavy infantry.
When I asked her if we were building and space marine battalion, she looked at me and said, ¡®Of course.¡¯ I paused and then shrugged and said, ¡®Then we are going to need a bigger ship.¡¯ I had a lot of time invested in the Void Phoenix, and it had quite a bit of sentimentality to it. Being pragmatic if we were no longer serving passengers, then it would make sense to get a new starship.
I opened the files the Squirrel had sent me on their new cruisers. It was probably going to take five years before they even started construction on their first cruiser, but they were nice ships and the Squirrel engineers were motivated to incorporate as much of the technology I had given them as they could. The Squirrel Council had even offered to give me the first one they built. The problem was the cruisers were warships, not passenger liners. It would be hard to travel in human-controlled space. And the maintenance costs would be a nightmare. The crew requirements were steep as well. At least 200, just to run the ship. It only had six oversized shuttle bays as well.
The shuttle bays were supposed to hold stealth shuttles and marines. That was a nod to our efforts in helping the Squirrel. The engineers had figured their population was too thin for direct space combat, so boarding enemy ships with the powerful Gekos suits was preferable. I only had the initial schematics of the large shuttles.
The shuttle was designed similar to my Brotherhood shuttles but was large enough to hold thirty-six marines and twelve spider bots. We had also given the Squirrel the Black Widow plans, but they couldn¡¯t manufacture the fuel rods for the power core. Maybe their scientists would come up with something. The shuttles were slated to have shields, alien sensors, micro-jump drives, anti-fighter missiles, anti-infantry turrets, and the new shadow space emitters.
All of this was still a work in process, but if the shuttles did have all this, then they could slip into subspace, sneak up on their target, deploy their marines, and escape untouched. I was actually scared just thinking about the versatility. The quadrupeds wouldn¡¯t see it coming when the Squirrel sought their revenge.
I weighed the advantages and negatives while we made our way through subspace.
Chapter 117 Hide and Seek
Chapter 117 Hide and Seek
Rae¡¯Ver was in the captain¡¯s suite waiting. He had scouted the Squirrel home system, and the density of the quadruped ships made it wise to resupply before engaging. He had tried to get the Squirrel government to give him the location of the Void Phoenix without assisting them, but they refused. So he would have to show that they were allies by scaring off the quadrupeds. He would rip the information from their minds if they didn¡¯t give it after that.
He was waiting because the resupply ships should have rendezvoused two days ago with his cruiser and heavy battle carrier. Desdemona didn¡¯t have any answers why the resupply ships were late. He was debating whether to continue his pursuit without filling out his fighter compliment. He would take heavy losses in the Squirrel system if he proceeded to attack. He moved to the bridge to give the order as he was impatient, and the humans were just tools.
Desdemona stood unwillingly from her captain¡¯s chair and ordered the fleet to consolidate and get into formation to enter subspace and return to the system. Rae¡¯Ver stood on the periphery as he puppeted Desdemona. The comms officer turned and announced ships were exiting subspace at 2.2 million clicks. Rae¡¯Ver converted the distance in his head and was confused. If this was the resupply fleet, they were emerging way off expectations. Rae¡¯Ver waited for the updates. The transponder was from Brotherhood ships, but no comm request had been sent.
The sensor operator finally spoke. A new ship had just emerged. It was a battleship. The transponder was the Brotherhood battleship, Judgement Day. Desdemona was being hailed by the battleship. A sense of uneasiness ran through Rae¡¯Ver. The holo tank lit up, and a man with a grim expression materialized. He searched Desdemona¡¯s memory. This was Katsu Oshiro. He was one of the ruling members of the Brotherhood. Rae¡¯Ver loosened his control slightly so Desdemona could respond more naturally.
Katsu started to demand reasons for Desdemona¡¯s recent actions. Rae¡¯Ver pushed Desdemona to place the blame on Deven Wellspring. She started telling Katsu that she learned the Void Phoenix was carrying alien technology that was extremely powerful. Katsu then asked for specifics and evidence. Rae¡¯Ver took firm control and started to relay some specifics about Sylvan technology. He detailed some Sylvan tech that he knew the Brotherhood would be extremely interested in.
Katsu was not swayed and even seemed to get angrier. The amount of resources Desdemona had pulled did not justify the chance at Sylvan technology. Rae¡¯Ver then took a leap. He had Desdemona introduce Rae¡¯Ver as a Sylvan defector. If the man took the bait and let Rae¡¯Ver close, he could dominate his mind and assume control of the battleship. He also counted six destroyers, two frigates, and four transports. If they all had the same upper-tier technology as his current ships, he could easily scare off the quadrupeds.
Katsu was being cautious, though, and started questioning Rae¡¯Ver over the comm link rather than bringing Rae¡¯Ver to him in person. Rae¡¯Ver tried to play up the fact that the Void Phoenix not only had Sylvan tech but also additional advanced technology. His reason for defecting was simple. He was the one that let the Void Phoenix steal the tech and get away, so he had been exiled. Finally, there were cracks in Katsu¡¯s standoff approach. It was not uncommon for a Sylvan to be exiled. Usually, they were left on a hostile planet to die. But he was sure the Brotherhood must have stumbled across a few.
Katsu started asking more questions, intelligent questions. Rae¡¯Ver smiled inwardly as he knew he had more hooked him. It was only a matter of time before he was close enough to dominate his mind. Desdemona kicked against his control suddenly. Confused, he checked the link, and she was reading his thoughts through his eyes and had tried to break free. She was becoming stronger, but not nearly enough. He would snuff out her mind completely, but he still needed her. She had knowledge he might need to call up again.
It was nearly two days before Rae¡¯Ver was allowed in Katsu Oshiro¡¯s presence. Rae¡¯Ver was very careful, as Katsu had nearly twenty marines in heavy armor nearby. He manipulated Desdemona to create the perfect opportunity and pressed his will. Katsu was much weaker than Desdemona, but dividing his efforts gave her a chance to try and break his hold again. She kept impressing him. He decided at that moment that he would spare her. She was a curiosity now as she had the potential Power of a First Citizen. He would study her and maybe do some breeding experiments to see if he could foster the Power in other humans at this level.
It was three days before Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s new expanded fleet was ready to move out. He added four stealth screening frigates, and the Warpath Intercepter fighters had been resupplied to his heavy battle carrier. He now stood behind Katsu and Desdemona on the bridge of the battleship, Judgement Day. When they emerged from subspace in the Squirrel home system, Rae¡¯Ver pursed his lips as the holo tank updated.
The Squirrel had no remaining space stations, and the quadrupeds were picking off the last few ships defending the planet. The planet was pockmarked from supersonic kinetic strikes, and most cities looked leveled. Hopefully, someone was still alive that knew where the Void Phoenix ran off to. Rae¡¯Ver had Katsu order the entire fleet forward. The quadrupeds sent numerous comm requests, which Rae¡¯Ver had the fleet ignore. He needed to scare off the quadruped fleet and appear to be the hero.
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The quadrupeds started firing on the planet in earnest as they tried to form up and retreat. Unfortunately for them, they had a lot of damaged ships. Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s fleet chewed through the slower ships, and the wings of the fighters got revenge for their losses in the last engagement. About 70% of the fleet escaped, but those that did not were destroyed without remorse. Rae¡¯Ver felt some satisfaction through his bond with Desdemona. She shouldn¡¯t be aware of what was going on¡was she breaking his hold again. She was too dangerous. He had Katsu order Desdemona to be escorted to the bridge and guarded by bots. No one was to talk with her. She was just becoming too much of a handful and a distraction. As long as he controlled Katsu he would be in control of the fleet..
With the Desdemona problem solved, he returned to the battle and sent out comm requests. He took the same tact as last time. He told them he was responding to a request for assistance from the Void Phoenix. It still took four days before he was able to get an answer from someone alive who knew where the Void Phoenix had fled. He was weeks behind the Phoenix. They were headed to a system the humans called the Bradbury system. He scanned Katsu¡¯s memory and the computer for data. A ghost world? He doubted the humans were superstitious. No matter. He had the fleet gather and head out system, ignoring the pleas for humanitarian aide from the survivors on the planet.
The trip in subspace to the Bradbury system had Rae¡¯Ver and Sha¡¯Lua extremely busy. Lazerous even showed some use as he consolidated his control over the battleship and the fleet. All he needed to do was have Katsu give them command authority. Katsu¡¯s word was absolute; they couldn¡¯t believe he had been compromised for some reason. There were a few incidents of officers questioning Katsu, but apparently, it was normal for those individuals to be removed.
With anticipation, they exited subspace in the Bradbury system. The crew was tense, and Rae¡¯Ver just smiled at their nervousness. Then the sensor data started coming in. Eighteen ships in the system started disappearing. The range was too great, and the sensor office said they must have been sensor ghosts or some type of advanced stealth. Rae¡¯Ver sent out his mind and almost lost control of Katsu. There was something strange about this system¡, especially the sun.
He had Katsu order the fleet toward the system¡¯s only habitable planet. As they approached, the planet Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s head started pounding. There was something here using the Power. Something powerful. He hadn¡¯t felt this strong since the planetoid exploded and damaged his city ship. Was that why the Void Phoenix came here? Were they responsible for this disturbance? Suddenly he didn¡¯t feel so sure of himself. He was feeling doubt. He had the fleet pause by having Katsu issue the command. He ordered two frigates and one hundred men to the planet to explore the surface.
The sensor operator said he was getting sensor ghosts in the asteroid belt. Rae¡¯Ver ignored the officer on the bridge as he watched the frigates and shuttles burn toward the planet. Forty-six hours later, the shuttles were landing and exploring the ruins. He felt the crew¡¯s anxious emotions and fear on his ship. Where were the Void Phoenix and the Squirrel refugees hiding? They had to be on the planet. Nine shuttles went to different locations, and they hadn¡¯t found any signs. This could not be a dead end!
The shuttles started hopping across the planet and searching. Two days later, the first marine disappeared. It was even caught on video. He was just walking and blinked out of existence. No weapon discharge or trick of the light. He was just gone. Rae¡¯Ver was stunned and didn¡¯t do anything for a few moments. He eventually ordered the search to continue. When the ninth person disappeared, he ordered the survivors back to the ship. This was beyond expectations. Had the Void Phoenix disappeared in the same manner? He ordered the two frigates to remain in orbit. If either one disappeared, then maybe this was the same fate as the Void Phoenix.
Three days later. He was resting in the admirals cabin with Katsu standing by the wall when an excited comm officer contacted Katsu. An energy signature appeared in the asteroid belt. They got scans on an asteroid for forty-three minutes. That asteroid then disappeared. From the scans, the asteroid that had appeared had structures that resembled the space architecture of the Squirrel. So they were hiding in this system! He ordered the fleet to run a net across a large swath of the asteroid belt where the asteroid had briefly appeared. Whatever stealth tech should eventually show itself.
Nearly two weeks later and nothing. At least no one else and none of their ships had disappeared.
Then there was a surprise attack on one of the patrolling destroyers. Somehow enemies had boarded the ship. The destroyer had no support within an hour¡¯s flight time, but they did send out a video of the attack. The Squirrel had a boarding party in unique armor and raced through the ship, killing indiscriminately. Before they could respond to assist the Squirrel had damaged the ship so heavily damaged it was a wreck. The humans wanted to leave. This was outside their ability to deal with.
Rae¡¯Ver didn¡¯t want to leave. He was sure the Void Phoenix was somehow hiding in this system with the Squirrel. Whatever stealth technology the Squirrel were using must have been given to them by Deven Wellspring which came from the planetoid. When the Squirrel boarded and destroyed a second destroyer a day later, he ordered the fleet to come together to support each other. Besides one dead Squirrel in power armor found on the second ship, he got nowhere. The armor was innovative and only slightly better than the Brotherhood suits.
It was a sensor operator on the battle carrier that figured it out. He had a gravity profile of an object that just was not there. Fighters flew through the mysterious gravity zone, and the pilots confirmed that ships came under gravity¡¯s influence, but there was nothing there as they cross-crossed the space that was generating the gravity. So whatever they were using it was better than stealth. That was when two transports appeared from subspace on the far side of the system.
The transports were definitely of Squirrel manufacture. They raced in system, and the fleet moved to intercept. Amazingly a large asteroid appeared, and the transports practically crashed into it before the asteroid disappeared again with the two transports. They searched the area of the disappearing asteroid and found another gravity well. Now the question was how many hidden asteroids were the Squirrel hiding.
Chapter 118 Brother, Where Art Thou?
Chapter 118 Brother, Where Art Thou?
We exited subspace far outside the system of the fungal race. It was a precaution, as the Tirani archives were pretty thin on their interactions. The fungal race had organic spaceships and had only colonized this one solar system.
A language translation program in the Tirani archives was extremely simplistic. The fungal race only used seven tones, and the vocabulary was limited to sixty-eight words. My new Squirrel linguist, Hyrena, was excited to communicate with the species. My xeno specialist Dr. Zaire was also fascinated with the race. Sapient fungal life forms were not rare, but ones that had reached space on their own were.
Our scanners found a lot of slow-moving craft with low footprints. Elvis, the AI in charge of the sensor translation, said the spacecraft had lower mass than normal spacecraft and was adjusting the resolution. We waited on the edge of the system for nearly four hours before the fungal race responded to our communication. Hyrena sent our requests, and we waited another three hours as they sent the requested payment. They wanted organic samples of our food and plant life. Due to the Squirrel transport requests being so large in volume, we separated from them in our own bartering.
Somehow, Hyrena managed to get permission for us to move into the system. Dr. Zaire indicated why this system had been left alone. The fungal race must be so ingrained in the ecosystem of the planet that the entire surface would have to be bescorched to eliminate them. Even then, they could probably survive millennia under the surface, waiting to emerge again. The effort to take the two inhabited worlds with a toxic atmosphere and then terraform them was not profitable for other races¡ªyet.
We were asked to orbit over a moon with the two Squirrel transports, and an assortment of food and fuel samples were sent to us. The samples were sent to Damian, Doc, and Dr. Zaire. Being in closer proximity to the fungal planet communicating with us increased the speed of communication as they were using radio frequencies. I waited for the results from the testing. Damian reports on the fuel came back first. It was not great, but we could set up a micro refinery on the Void Phoenix and make it viable. We started to negotiate volumes and our exchanges with fungal people for the fuel. It was going to take at least a week to refine the fuel, so I ordered our engineers to start manufacturing parts for the refinery. The refinery was actually going to be powered by impure fuel, so we had to get enough volume to drive the process and ultimately fuel the ship.
The bio paste had many problems. We were given six samples. Two of the samples had too many toxins for humans. Two samples were viable but not conducive to the human pallet. The remaining two were 70% carbohydrate and 30% protein. They were digestible and deemed safe by the Squirrel but only slightly more palatable than the algae bars from the Squirrel.
Gabby suggested we try to incorporate the substances into the meal fabricator that she had repaired. A team of ten scientists and engineers got on it. The device had some food processing capability but not a lot. We ordered a few tons of the edible paste and crossed our fingers that they could make it work.
We never had any face-to-face interactions with the fugal race. We had kept all our micro-organism safeguards in place. This was due to humans first few contacts with hostile fungal organisms. Most species of fungi release spores to replicate and spread. If these spores overcame the human immune system, the victim was in for a very unpleasant treatment¡ªas long as the speed of the infection wasn¡¯t too rapid.
I was surprised when I was presented with a plate of blue crackers covered in a yellow paste four days into our orbit. The fact that an engineer presented me with the sample and not Cori made me hesitate. Doc assured me it was safe to consume. The cracker was crunchy and tasted like carrots, while the spread tasted like bitter apple sauce. It was not a terrible result, but the engineer said six crackers at a meal would cover my nutrient needs. They were still working on similar products for the Tirani and Squirrel. The combo had a slightly unpleasant aftertaste, but at least the crew wouldn¡¯t starve.
We ended up spending eight days in orbit over the moon. The Squirrel transports would be spending another twelve days to fill their holds. Dr. Zaire almost wanted to remain in the system to study the fungal race. Although they processed information at a slower pace than humans, they were intelligent. We had also resupplied for a pittance of everything we got in return. They mostly wanted to experience new organic flavors. One thing I learned that I wish I hadn¡¯t was that one of the pastes they sold us was bio waste for their species. It was processed on their planet before it was barreled, but we were essentially consuming digested remnants.
I had spent a lot of my time with Damian and the refinery during our stay. We kept tweaking the equipment to try and get the fuel purity higher and higher. We only succeeded by 2.9%, but to engineers, that was a huge success that required celebration.
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The fungal pit stop was a success, giving us enough food and fuel for extended operations. We still needed to have more successful resupplying stops in the future, and I desperately hoped the human colony on Juniper-44Z would have more palatable foods.
We wished our Squirrel allies well as they continued to resupply, and we headed to the outer system to safely enter subspace. The voyage was going to be a trip.
A few days into the trip and Celeste¡¯s behavior was noticeably improved. Her third birthday was approaching quickly, and I couldn¡¯t believe how fast she was growing. We had been spending more and more time together, and Celeste and Amos sometimes played in the robotics lab while I worked under the care of Eve and their playmate bot. Celeste was always asking questions and was used to being responded to with simple answers. I noticed Amos didn¡¯t speak much, but he was always attentive and clearly listening and processing.
Celeste¡¯s behavior management had an effect. Although she liked to hug Tora¡¯s son and the other Squirrel children¡ªa lot¡ªshe was much better behaved and only got into trouble once or twice a week now. She just loved fluffy things. I think that was why I found her being carried on Mozzie¡¯s back like a princess regularly.
Tirani males had very soft fur. The females had coarser hair, so that is why Celeste preferred the males. When she could sneak off, she would play wrestle with Mozzie and Zarko in the training room. Amos watched, clearly not as enamored with the huge bear-like men.
Luna was approaching 16 and was a full-fledged member of the crew now. She was maintaining all of our combat armor and even assembling new suits on her own. This meant she was spending a lot of time in the robotics lab with Gabby and me. Zed, the dog, was also a permanent addition. Luna¡¯s job was to assemble the personalized combat suits for the crew.
The six Squirrel Marines only received the Geko suits as they disliked the heavier models. At the same time, the six Tirani marines had custom Badger and Gorilla suits available based on the operation parameters. All thirty-three humans had custom-fitted Badger suits now as well. Abby had eighteen men of the men with their own custom Gorilla suits in addition. The core of our deployment was these eighteen marines in a suit selected based on the operation, with the six Tirani along with the six Squirrel serving as recon. I had a customized Badger suit for myself and one for Eve in my quarters as well.
Our Squirrel techs and scientists were always making changes to improve the suits as well. They were a godsend for Nero as they were eager to throw themselves into any project. Nero was finally getting a break as chief engineer. The Void Phoenix was running more efficiently than at any point in my ownership. We were still having trouble getting our six defense grazers and two offensive grazers consistent power, but the Squirrel were slowly working miracles. I almost wished we had taken more of their engineers with us.
I was almost at a loss for anything to do on the long trip to Juniper-44Z. I spent time in VR training and running the Sherlock game with Francis. Since we had run all the scenarios, Julie started setting up the original games. Danielle, my girlfriend, had joined us on occasion, but she preferred to play the Sword and Sorcery game with Gwen, Gabby, and Luna. I think they completed the necromancer story and moved on to some type of dragon quest. I knew a lot of marines also played the game, and they had formed a guild within the game. My barbarian warrior was so far behind everyone¡¯s level that I adventured with just Eve when I did play.
The crew morale was actually quite high as we made our way into the relative unknown. I was constantly running numbers to make sure we could always retreat to a friendly station that we were certain had food and fuel. The problem was if we didn¡¯t get a full resupply of fuel and provisions, I was uncertain if we could proceed into the fringes of human-explored space.
I was on the bridge and actually fairly nervous as we were about to exit subspace. Thankfully, we had not seen a single shadow in subspace during the seventeen-day trip here. We were exiting somewhat further in the system than normal. Our propellant fuel played a factor in this decision. I wanted to conserve as much of it as possible, and the humans occupying this system had a weak fleet and an extremely small population of between 200,000 and 250,000.
When the jungle planet appeared on scans, I was just expecting to find a few simple orbiting stations and small patrol craft. That is what the eighteen-month-old Brotherhood archives had indicated. That is not what appeared in the screens. One large station dwarfed six smaller stations on the screen, and two cruisers and seven destroyers were also in orbit over the planet. We needed to return to safe space if the human colony had been conquered. Most likely retreating to the Bradbury system or an independent station.
From a distance, Elvis started putting up detailed scans using the alien sensors in a narrow beam. Our scans were going to come in much faster than the residents of the system. My mind started working around what the station was¡ªJulie put it together before I could. It was four large ships apparently welded together. Two carriers, a battleship, and a combat cruiser. The two carriers were of Union manufacture. Did we find the missing Union fleet?
The battleship was not a Union ship or even a familiar human design. It was not in any Brotherhood registry either. The cruiser was another Union ship¡ªthe Winged Harpy. Not a cruiser in my brother¡¯s fleet. The carriers came back as the Star Ravenger and Icarus. Once again, there were no ships in my brother¡¯s fleet. Of course, tracking him down wasn¡¯t going to be easy.
Most of the supporting ships in defense of the planet were also Union ships, but none were associated with my brother. Comms were finally live, and Haily turned to me and said they asked us to identify ourselves to the Union Prime Command.
Chapter 119
Chapter 119
Union Prime Command? So the Union conquered this independent colony. I surmised they realized they could not maintain the carriers and cruiser with the low resources in this system. From Elvis¡¯ imagining, it was clear those three ships had undergone a lot of repairs in deep space. I had a lot of questions. My first was if this was all that remained of the Union exodus fleets. The Union fleet was tight to the planet, and we didn¡¯t detect any patrol fleets in the outer system. I asked for feedback from the bridge crew.
Kara Briggs, my first officer, noted there was only one refinery orbiting a gas giant in the system. Most likely, they couldn¡¯t refine enough fuel to patrol the system. Nero said a few of the destroyers looked to be in standby mode but wasn¡¯t certain. Julie, the ship AI, in her hologram form, asked if I wanted her to try and hack the systems for more information. I gave her the go-ahead as we continued to talk about our options.
As our scans got more detailed, Zoe, the pilot, interrupted that the defensive formation indicated two formations were parked in orbit, reinforcing Kara¡¯s guess the Union Prime fleet was short on either personnel or fuel. Abby offered that maybe they needed their marines and personnel to keep order on the planet and the space stations.
We spent another hour discussing before I ordered a comm message sent requesting trade with the planet. I was cautious and skeptical. We could probably get reactor fuel for the subspace drives, but I doubted they would sell us any propulsion fuel if their ships were clearly lacking. Food should be available as the entire Prime Union fleet should have had around 10,000 personnel so they wouldn¡¯t have stressed the existing food production systems. I ordered one of the Brotherhood stealth shuttles ready with a full complement of marines. We would drop them off at the only gas giant fuel refinery in the system. They could wait there and be ready to leverage the facility if we ran into trouble during our trading with the new government.
The local government seemed open to trading but refused to answer questions about the prior regime. Julie indicated success in infiltrating the local net about halfway to the planet. She had cursory access and was working deeper into their systems. The battleship was a wreck they salvaged from the Sapphireans. It was a prototype in the shipyards that they stole. The battleship blended some novel alien shielding. The fleet was, as we surmised, extremely low on fuel. But Julie warned they had 79 heavy fighters and 11 bomber fighters on their carriers that could be used to intercept us if we tried to flee.
I asked Julie about the timeline of events. Julie said the Union fleet entered the system with their fleet and tried to seize all three gas mining platforms in the system rather than pay for the fuel. A struggle ensued, and the two larger platforms were destroyed by the locals. This forced the Union fleet, which was low on fuel at the time, to remain here and not head to the rendezvous point. Julie didn¡¯t have coordinates of where the Union remnants were going to meet yet from her hack. The admiral of the fleet ordered the colony seized. The two thousand marines in all their ships landed on the planet and stations took control of the system by force. The colony was now under a military government.
Julie indicated not much resistance was made against the overwhelming force. I asked about the decision to form the massive station from the four ships. It took Julie a few minutes to get the relevant information. The battleship was supplying the shielding while the carriers were servicing the ships in the system and a platform for their fighter wings. The cruiser was tied to the battleship to provide extra power for the advanced shielding. The station was the seat of the new governor, Admiral Jonathan Dyson.
Julie began delving into how traders were treated under the new government. Haily had received a request for us to dock with one of the small defensive stations that had been part of the colony. Julie only found two traders entering the system in the last eight months. Both were alien traders, and no records of them leaving the system. Well, shit. I asked for options as our shuttle was about to launch. There was no local resistance to the occupation force that Julie could find on the Union server she was inside. I let the shuttle launch and ordered the Void Phoenix to a stop at a safe distance. I wanted to keep out of the fighters intercepter range
When we came to a stop, I commed the Prime Union flight control. We would conduct or trade here. We would not dock with the station. At first, they refused to trade if we didn¡¯t dock, but after an hour of back and forth with Suruchi, they conceded they would trade. They needed precious metals for their fabricators. I let Suruchi negotiate and just went to inventory our assets. We had seven Black Widow bots, but none had power systems, all our specialized power systems were incorporated into our Gorilla suits. I told Gabby and Luna to be prepared to strip the Gorilla suits to power the spider bots.
The fighters were set to standby, and I had Abby get the other Brotherhood shuttle crewed and marines ready to deploy. If this transaction went to shit, I wanted to be ready. I even had Eve get into her Badger suit. Her suit was designed to handle her increased speed and strength. Eve was our version of a souped-up Armageddon bot. Hopefully, she wouldn¡¯t be called on.
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Suruchi negotiated three small transport deliveries for a portion of our precious metals. Not the best price for what we were getting in return. We would receive two transports of provisions and one refueling transport. It was half a day before the first shuttle reached us. We scanned the transport and found nothing illicit other than six of the containers were only half full. When they docked, I ordered all crates opened in front of the crew, who tried to leave, saying they were on a tight schedule. When we got to the half-loaded crates, they played stupid. We only paid them for what we received. At least we would have real food.
The next transport also had missing cargo issues, but we watched them with our sensors as they repacked the containers and just said they misloaded our order and forgot four crates. Once again, I paid for only what I received. The third transport took two days to depart the large makeshift station. Elias and Elvis set off warnings immediately. The shuttle had twenty-two marines in combat armor and six gunships making stealth runs at our stopped vessel. The gunships had enough fuel to reach us and return to the planet. So they were definitely planning to commandeer the Void Phoenix. We had plenty of warning, nearly five hours until the transport reached us, and the gunships would reach us fifteen minutes later.
We convened to plan. We needed the fuel on the transport. Our scans told us there was only half of what we had ordered, but the good news is if we flipped the tables on them, we wouldn¡¯t have to pay for it. Zoe thought we should launch both fighters, but I planned to put our missiles on a coast to intercept the gunships while the transport docked with us. If we eliminated their space superiority and subdued their marines, we should be able to get the fuel and escape the system.
We had eighteen marines in our cargo bay under stealth. The Squirrel had improved the missiles but were still suspect. Getting all six gunships with coasting missiles wasn¡¯t a good insurance policy. If we missed any of the gunships, our two fighters would be hard-pressed to handle more than one gunship. The good news was the gunships only had light rapid-fire grazers. Our improved shields could easily handle sustained fire from all of them if needed.
We also sent out a tight band communication with a zero-hour time to take the gas refinery. As with any combat action, I was tight in my captain¡¯s chair and running the ¡®what could go wrong scenarios¡¯ in my head. With our alien sensors, I didn¡¯t see any surprises besides two of the gunships having pairs of heavy missiles. These gunships were getting two missiles instead of one to make sure they went down. The transport was a third the size of the Void Phoenix. It did a hard dock, and Damian was there to supervise the fuel transfer. Maybe the marines were just to make sure we were not going to make off without paying.
Nope, they started rushing forward. I ordered Damian to safety and our marines to engage. The missiles went live, and I watched five of the six gunships go down. Our two fighters launched and engaged the remaining gunship. Our shields were up, so I focused on the combat in the cargo bay. We engaged with a shoot-to-disable mentality, and the fight was over quickly. The Union marines lost seven before they surrendered to our obviously overwhelming superior forces.
I looked up to see the remaining gunship fleeing in the system and was alerted by Elvis that two destroyers were breaking orbit. Haily was asking what she should do with the angry voices on the other end of her comm coming from the Admiral¡¯s command. I told her to go dark. We began to accelerate away, the transport still attached. I ordered the fuel transferred, and I wanted Abby and Buckie to do a quick interview with our prisoners. Since they were old Union, they might know some of these marines.
We got long-range comms that the gas refinery station was secure. I immediately used this asset to leverage the situation. I told a very angry Admiral Dyson that we would destroy the refinery unless they ended all pursuit of our ship. It was an hour before the destroyers came to a stop. They didn¡¯t turn around, just stopped. Elias found a stealth corvette on a vector for the gas refinery. It was a good stealth ship, the most advanced the Union had used. Still nothing compared to the Void Phoenix¡¯s stealth capabilities. Once the fuel transfer was complete and the marine interrogations were complete, we kicked the marines to the transport and set the ship adrift with the crew. We accelerated to rendezvous with the station.
Abby and Buckie didn¡¯t reveal their identity and didn¡¯t find anyone they would want to add to our crew, but they learned the admiral had a tenuous grasp on the occupying fleet. These were all the ships that got left behind by the larger fleet because officers didn¡¯t want to go further into deep space. They figured they had a habitable planet here and could rebuild. Except they didn¡¯t realize how poor this system¡¯s resources were. With only one gas platform and the main Union fleet taking all the resources, they were trapped. They were trying to set up manufacturing on the large station and build more gas mining refineries, but infighting and sabotage were preventing it.
Julie had hacked the personnel registry and had passed it on to the crew to identify anyone they might want to rescue. We had seven names a few hours later. Now I had to figure out if we could extract these five marines, one weapons engineer, and one navigator. We docked with the refinery and topped off the propulsion fuel. The stealthed corvette closed on the Void Phoenix. I didn¡¯t want to reveal we had sensors to see through the stealth, so we ignored the ship. The transport with the marines had reached the destroyers. Hopefully, after they saw we hadn¡¯t killed all the borders, they would be open to negotiating.
With Suruchi next to me, I opened communication with Admiral Dyson to negotiate.
Chapter 120
Chapter 120
Admiral Dyson was livid when I opened negotiations. I wasn¡¯t sure why he hadn¡¯t stationed any of his fleets out here to protect the gas mining platform. My best guess was he didn¡¯t have enough loyal crews to spare. Things didn¡¯t go much better when I requested the admiral send the seven men and women we had identified in exchange for not destroying the gas mining platform. Knowing this negotiation would not go my way until the approaching stealth corvette was revealed, I launched both of our fighters while the admiral continued ranting. My fighters went dark and moved to engage the corvette.
The admiral couldn¡¯t stop screaming and making demands, so I cut communications and had the fighters engage. I was surprised when I found Zoe was piloting one of the fighters. Well, I guess I shouldn¡¯t have been surprised. They managed to disable the primary engine without destroying the vessel, which was limping slowly back toward the planet. Zoe was probably one of the best fighter pilots in all of human space. I know the psych evaluation performed on her by Doc indicated she was prone to risk her life because she didn¡¯t value it. She had little self-worth and valued her comrades¡¯ lives more. Doc said she was slowly getting better and had restored her reproductive capabilities, which were suppressed by the Union Navy. Doc thought once she had a child, she would think of herself more positively, valuing herself.
With the admiral¡¯s sneak attack thwarted again, I opened comms. I found I was now talking with an older woman in a Union commander¡¯s uniform. Her name was Commander Adriana Jaques. Personally, I thought they should have abandoned the Union uniforms. They were way too gaudy, and the Union was scattered and recognized as weak in human space.
At least the woman was more reasonable than the admiral. She said she was identifying the people we were seeking and hoped to have them on a transport in six hours. Over the next four fours, Suruchi and Abby worked out the exchange of the men and women in exchange for our withdrawal from the gas refinery. All seven of these people would be under quarantine and vetted thoroughly once on board the Void Phoenix. Four were related to my current crew, and the other three were vouched for by members of the crew. It would take a few months before they would be allowed to work unsupervised, but I did need more crew, especially if I took the Squirrel up on the offer for a cruiser when we returned to this region of space.
Julie was still tied into their communications and security systems as the six-hour timer ticked to zero. No transport shuttle departed the station. Julie confirmed Adriana was playing us straight from what video she could access. Admiral Dyson, on the other hand, was meeting with his captains and fighter pilots. Their plan was to launch 36 fighters, nine wings of four fighters each. These fighters were to create a hidden envelope on our likely retreat vector to subspace. They, for some reason, thought they could stop us. The admiral was not willing to let us go on our way peacefully. They hid the launch of the fighters from the carrier behind the planet.
When the transport was due to launch, they announced a delay. They couldn¡¯t find one of the people we requested. Our sensors clearly showed they had eight people waiting in eight separate rooms on the large ship-station. Julie confirmed seven of those people were the people we were seeking. The eighth person was also identified by Julie, it was Commander Jaques¡¯ daughter. I set Julie and Edmund to sort out the politics of the station. Why was the commander¡¯s daughter queued with our requested crew?
I examined the plan for the fighters theJulie had obtained. The fighters were going to take nearly two days on a cold coast to reach positions, so I was curious how they were going to stall us for that long. Those pilots would be stuck in those single-seat fighter crafts for that long approach. The answer to how they planned to delay us was clear three hours past the expected departure time of the shuttle and our fourth inquiry.
The admiral came back to the holotank with a smug expression. He professed they found the missing person, but they were being held on criminal charges. The admiral expected the paperwork would take a day or two to clear up. When I asked him to send the shuttle with the other six, he said he didn¡¯t want to waste the fuel making two trips. I cut comms and asked for suggestions from my staff.
Julie said she could keep all communications with the fighters from being sent by the fleet. She was into all communication systems remotely now. Edmund said Admiral Dyson was in a power struggle with Commander Jaques. The internal communication among the Union personnel showed about a 50-50 split in support. So if either of them made to oust the other, it would cause a breakout of fighting. Also, the original colony had some dormant cells of resistance. The colony tried a few times to fight back before going into hiding about a year ago. Edmund described the whole situation as a powder keg.
Abby wanted to intervene. She wanted to send two shuttles with marines and oust the admiral and lend our support to the commander. The commander wanted to work with the original colonists, while the admiral wanted to rule them. I told Abby the Void Phoenix was not in the business of saving the universe. She retorted, asking just what business we were in then. I started to speak but couldn¡¯t come up with a good answer, so I kept my mouth shut.
Edmund supported Abby by saying he had uncovered numerous heavy-handed tactics the admiral had used to remain in power. The admiral had consolidated his loyal men on the large station and pushed all the suspect naval personnel down on the planet. Francis added a surprise by saying the admiral was the uncle of Asher Dyson. From his last name, I had assumed he was related to my old enemy¡ªnow that brought back memories. Asher Dyson was the boy who had made my life miserable at the naval academy. I had caught up to Asher on a prison planet when saving Abby and freed him, only to deposit him on a Sapphire world with no funds. Freeing him was a compromise for having Francis join our crew, as Asher and his crew had been terrorizing the other captured Union prisoners.
Francis didn¡¯t want me to kill Asher. Francis¡¯ rigid moral code had slowly eroded during his time on board the Void Phoenix. It had to do with his constant interaction with Edmund, my Brotherhood agent. Being exposed on a daily basis to the workings of the Brotherhood had shown him the seediest nature of humanity. Edmund and Francis had gone through thousands of Brotherhood documents. I was sent the highlights of the most relevant things they had found. The Brotherhoood had orchestrated the downfall of the Union because it had become too weak due to the corporate control of the state. I believed this as I had seen firsthand how poor the Union Navy was educated and how cheap the technology was on the warships.
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I didn¡¯t realize my crew was a democracy. I thought for a while and said we would be rescuing the seven people we had identified. Too many things could go wrong with the transfer, and I didn¡¯t trust the admiral. We would also take the eighth person because I was guessing that was the admiral¡¯s leverage on the commander. This got everyone working on the plan.
We would be sending our Brotherhood shuttles with marines. They would be attacking the large station¡¯s engineering sections to disable the shields and weapons. This was to make sure the Brotherhood shuttles could safely escape. The Void Phoenix was going to abandon the gas mining station but Julie was going to add a sensor ghost on the Union Prime¡¯s monitors so they would think we were still guarding the platform. The Void Phoenix would move in close to pick up the shuttles.
If everything went according to plan, Julie would initiate a communications blackout. Our shuttles would land and disable the station and recover the eight targets in twenty-two minutes. No fighters would launch while the shuttles stealthed to rendezvous with the Void Phoenix. Then we would move out of the system under stealth. Secondary objectives were the death of the admiral and the Union data drive. The data drive was not connected to the net Julie had infiltrated but it had information on the rest of the Union fleet. With it, we would have a road map and times where the fleet was headed.
I thought we might be getting a little cocky in trusting the power of our new combat suits, but we had run so many VR sims with even more difficult scenarios the confidence was well placed. Maybe we would travel around and save the galaxy.
The Brotherhood shuttles launched eighty-seven minutes later with almost all our marines. I watched from the bridge and was surprised at how chipper they all were going into battle. Apparently, the Tirani were extremely funny as the human and Squirrel marines kept laughing at something they were saying or doing. I asked Abby at her station, who was monitoring comms. The Tirani males and females were both joking about how much better at sex the bots were than the real thing.
The shuttles were on a seven-hour hard burn. An hour after the shuttles launched the Void Phoenix left the gas station. The thirty-seven civilians on the station were locked in a storage compartment with a thirty-hour lock. The sensor ghost was working, according to Julie.
By shadowing the shuttles we reduced comm lag and were able to send them data with our sensors with minimal delay. The problem they were going to have was disabling the primary and backup power systems. I didn¡¯t like having the Marines divide into teams of five but it was the only way they were going to be able to cover everything.
Thirty seconds after docking the marines made contact, and the main bridge screen was awash with dozens of suit cams as the battle started raging. Each member of the bridge crew had their own team to monitor. I focused on team Zeta. Team Zeta had two Tirani, two humans and a Squirrel scout. They were to make their way to the primary command bridge and retrieve the data archives for the station. I watched as they cut down responding marines and listended to their banter as they moved rapidly. Having the complete ship schematic was extremely helpful as their HUDs guided them.
A heavy drop-down ceiling turret ripped into the lead Tirani. The Tirani was knocked down and his companions toggled their own weapons to heavy fire and melted the turret to slag. Elvis was already scanning the ship and updating HUDs with hidden turrets now that he knew what to look for. I checked the readings on the Tirani suit, not great, but he could still move. The human commander of the squad asked for orders. I told her to have the female Tirani return to the evac waypoint. She would only slow them down.
The Tirani voiced an objection but was already following orders heading to the evac site. She promised to clear a path for her comrades. My remaining four marines moved forward and encountered heavy resistance, and I authorized explosive shells. My team was two minutes behind schedule. I didn¡¯t care about excessive damage.
I heard Nero yell for his team to retreat and flipped to team Gamma. The defending marines were aiming heavy tank weapons down the corridor. Three of Nero¡¯s team were injured. Team Gamma was to secure the flight bay and make sure no fighters could launch. Abby was already sending two other teams to deal with the problem.
I returned to my team, and they destroyed the bridge blast doors. It was taking too long and Admiral Dyson was exiting the bridge. Damn it, he was going to get away. The doors came down, and my team located the archives, tore them out, wrapped it in a protective box to be carried by the remaining Tirani. Elvis was tracking the admiral, but I told him not to bother. He needed to focus on getting all our teams off the station. We had a dozen injured, two seriously.
Team Alpha and Beta had secured the eight targets and were already on board their shuttle. Elias said gunhips were coming from the orbiting fleet. Shit, a quicker response than anticipated. Julie apologized. A crew member had set off exterior explosions on the hull, so the comm blackout didn¡¯t work.
I hit the red alert. All teams were to retreat in haste. We had only hit 48 of 79 targets, but if those gunships got a visual on our shuttles, they would be destroyed. Their stealth would kick in once they got ten clicks from the station. It was very tense for the next eight minutes before everyone was aboard, and the shuttles were launched. It was another 70 seconds before Julie confirmed the shuttles were not spotted. A few turrets on the station fired wildly into space, but they had guessed the completely wrong direction.
I waited and watched a swarm of gunships and fighters launch in a search pattern as they made a fruitless effort to find us. Elvis said the thirty-six fighters sent to stop us were making a hard burn for the gas facility. I had Julie drop the ghost. I didn¡¯t want the fighters to attack the gas refinery and kill the civilians.
I turned to the post-action injury report. The worst injury was a Squirrel who had lost a leg. If he had been wearing the heavier Badger armor instead of the Geko suit, he would have been fine. At least he was alive and could recover. We didn¡¯t have the facility to replace his limb as all our regenerative facilities were for humans, but I was sure Doc could get him a cybernetic until we returned to Squirrel space.
I remained on the bridge as the Void Phoenix moved out of the system. Just before we were about to enter subspace, I commed the station. I was hoping it would be the commander who answered, but it was the admiral. We had removed about one-third of his loyal marines on the station, so I expected him to lose control. I didn¡¯t want to listen to his tirade, so I kept coming to the station until the Commander answered. I told her we had taken her daughter, and she was safe, and we would be taking her back to human space eventually. The massive grin that came on the older woman¡¯s face told me the dominos were about to fall.
We entered subsapce, heading for the Prometheus system. I told the crew all clear, and the party could begin.
Chapter 121 Subspace Bands
Chapter 121
Once all stations were secured, I moved to medical to check in on the injured marines. I knew all the Marines by name and trained with them in the gym and VR. Doc, Scrubs, and the medical bots were very busy when I arrived. The Squirrel was already sedated and in the tank. Doc said they were going to reattach the limb. His human squad mate had retrieved it. He lost it when a flight bay fighter lift came down and sheared it off. He had been knocked into the area by a grenade and was too disoriented to react in time.
The other serious injuries were all being treated, and I was amazed. We had assaulted a massive station with forty marines and didn¡¯t have one casualty. We didn¡¯t succeed in all our objectives, but that was due to an innovative alert by a crew member on the station. I met with each marine, thanked them, and told them not to miss the party. We had real food!
My next stop was the brig to talk with the new additions. I talked with the daughter of the Commander first. Her name was Rain Jaques. She was 34 years old and a naval liaison. She had been in the employ of the Admiral as his assistant. It was as I had guessed, that Rain was leverage against her mother and had been locked up in the cell for months. I told her she would be freed once my marines were sober again.
I talked to the other seven as well. They had been briefed. Two were cousins of our current crew, one was a sister of a crew member, and the fourth was an uncle. I told them they would be vetted and given a psych evaluation before being asked to join the crew. Until then, they would be interrogated by Francis and Edmund. That was probably the only bright spot with the entire incident. Edmund never picked up any Brotherhood signals.
I spent an hour answering questions before leaving for the party. The luxury deck was active with music and bad dancing. Actually, the Squirrel were not bad dancers. I did send two Squirrel children and a Tirani back to their cabin to put on skin suits. It was policy to wear a skin suit when not in your quarters. Other than that, I enjoyed the party and danced with the female Tirani mercs, Danielle and Gwen.
When I got to my cabin, much later, I found an upset Celeste pouting about Eve not taking her to the party. Celeste wasn¡¯t throwing a fit like she used to, so I told her that Eve could bring them to the party next time. Tora¡¯s two boys had been running around with Squirrel children, but I didn¡¯t mention that to her. After spending time with Celeste and Amos, I moved to the Julie¡¯s AI core room with Danielle. We had the archive device, and Danielle was attaching it to Julie¡¯s core so she could use the dual hacking devices we obtained from the Brotherhood.
Danielle reminded me this was the room where she had thrown herself at me. Gwen had advised her that forcing the issue was the only way to get my attention back then. I remembered Danille pinning me to the memory banks and kissing me. Right after the archives were connected, I pinned her and kissed her. It didn¡¯t take long before we were naked.
When I returned to my cabin later with Danielle, Julie¡¯s hologram appeared in my cabin. She made a bad joke that her core housing room needed a good cleaning, but I ignored the witticism. Danielle had finished extracting all the data, and I sent the files to my cabin terminal and began spreading them out on the screens. Julie highlighted that my brother was alive when the fleet had been with Admiral Dyson. His ship had moved on with the majority of the Union exodus fleet. But I now had their entire planned route and estimated layover times for maintenance.
I brought up the star charts and had Julie add the data to them. They would be about here¡more than halfway to their destination if they were on the schedule. We were 79 days of subspace travel behind them. The longest subspace trip we could safely do was about 22 days. Any longer, and the subspace emitters might overheat.
But if we could do 29 days¡then we could reach the Helliphante system. The fleet was scheduled to stop there, and the data suggested it had a massive orbital multi-race trading ring. The ring surrounded a planet that was being mined for metals, had massive industry, and even had a space elevator to transport the material into orbit. The data the Brotherhood had on this planet suggested the ring and space elevator were actually remnants abandoned by another civilization. The Brotherhood data referenced dozens of other files that we didn¡¯t have. The surface was covered in industrial smog that blocked out the sun, and no pictures of the surface were available. No life existed, and the atmosphere was toxic.
The Tirani had never been this far out, so I was relying on the Brotherhood data. The aliens were considered advanced and had a strong military presence. This was one of the hard borders the Brotherhood had set for humanity. So, I doubted the Union fleet could have supplanted the aliens controlling this system. But if my human predecessors pissed them off, I could be unwelcome. Then, we would be stranded since we would be nearly out of fuel. But we could always use our stealth shuttles to steal some fuel if it came to it. I sent the coordinates to Elias¡¯ station on the bridge.
Our current subspace trip was just to a nearby system with nothing of interest. From there, we would make for the Helliphante system.
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I sent the info to Damian as well. My FTL engineer was probably going to have some words for me in the morning. Danielle was waiting in our bed for round two, so I tore myself away from the terminal. Nope, Daniele had her VR headset on, and I checked the feed. She was playing the Sword and Sorcery game with half the crew, according to Julie. Well, maybe it was time to break out my barbarian. I put on my own VR helmet and joined them.
The next morning, I had to listen to Gwen and Danielle at breakfast berate my low-level barbarian. I had been killed six times in the troll cave. It was mostly due to them insisting I was the meat shield and had to go first. Eventually, Suruchi¡¯s samurai joined us and took the center. She was twice my level and had much better gear. I felt out of place. If I played this VR again, I would go solo.
My prediction came true as halfway through breakfast, Damian knocked on my cabin with two of the Squirrel scientists behind him. I was ready to be told I was being reckless, but instead, the two Squirrel physicists were explaining their theory in subspace bands and how we could build all new emitters to travel in a different band. We could potentially move four times the distance in the same amount of time, maybe as much as ten! Except they wanted to try the lesser emitters first. The more powerful emitters would require a higher amount of phased fuel.
The fuel needed to be phased in order to synchronize with the new emitters. When I asked what the chances of this working were, they said about 60%¡well, 40% because we hadn¡¯t made the fuel yet. The scientists were ready to go full-scale on the Void Phoenix; instead, I told them they could try it out on my old Union assault shuttle. This shuttle had the Brotherhood micro subspace drive on it. Although they were disappointed with the small scale test, they agreed. I think Damian was disappointed as well. He wanted to be a pioneer of subspace.
We came out of subspace in the adjacent system the next day. We skirted the perimeter while Elvis scanned the system, and Damian worked on the subspace drives for the really long trip. The system was boring: a star with no planets and a single asteroid belt. There were a lot of rouge asteroids in this system as well, so I had us move above the ecliptic while we worked. The Squirrel had the shuttle moved to the large cargo bay to work on it and set up some specialized emitters to try and make their super fuel.
Damian wanted five days before we attempted the long jump. I ended up helping him get us prepared by installing additional subspace emitters on the hull. The Squirrel thought they successfully fabricated the fuel, but the process tripped the shipboard radiation alarms. So, all future attempts would have to be done outside of the ship. They made a platform that could be moved out into space to make the fuel in the future. Unfortunately for them, we were ready for our long-haul trip in subspace. Doc did medical scans of the crew before we entered. There was a chance of some negative physiological effects when taking such a long voyage. Generally, the rule was you took as much time off in real space as you spent traveling in subspace. Well, we had a good doctor and a lot of very expensive medical equipment.
Zoe took us in on the bridge, following Elias¡¯ prepared vector in subspace.
I spent much of the trip¡¯s start in the cargo bay with the Squirrel engineers and scientists. They really wanted their experiment to work. They were working on the shuttle, and I was just trying to understand the math behind their hypothesis of subspace bands. The shuttle took a week to outfit. If the Squirrel theories panned out, the advanced micro subspace drive range would increase from 20 to 100 light-years. That sounded incredible¡ªno, impossible. From my education at the naval academy, even having a ship as small as the shuttle could travel 20 light years in subspace was outside mathematical calculations. I was only just beginning to comprehend how it was possible, and now the Squirrel were expanding on the equation.
Getting the new crew through vetting took two weeks. We had their entire personnel file from the archives, and the sister of Eldon Dunning, one of my Marines, had fervently supported Admiral Dyson. Just from this, she was blacklisted and confined to the luxury deck. We would offload her when we returned to human space. We added four Marines: Osian Guzman, Travis Kim, Monty Fletcher, and Alina Weaver. Abby and Buckie would handle their training. They would be monitored for six months before being given the ability to work unsupervised¡well Julie would still monitor them.
The weapons engineer was Carla Lawson, Abby¡¯s cousin. When I received her cert evaluations from Julie, I was thoroughly unimpressed. She wasn¡¯t even close to the minimally accepted standards¡ªwell she was Union Navy trained. Abby convinced me to give her a trial period to work on her certs and with our Squirrel weapons engineers. Carla was difficult to motivate from her psych evaluation, and maybe the threat of being removed from the ship would help her. She was definitely happy to be rescued. We learned over half of the Union personnel in the exodus fleet went unwillingly.
The final addition to the crew was a navigator, Iona Solis, a distant cousin to Haily. They had been fast friends growing up, and at least her certs were not mediocre. The issue was Elias was the best navigator I had ever seen. I actually didn¡¯t want to trust anyone but him when plotting subspace vectors. But we did need more bridge crew, so Iona would be given shifts in the co-pilot/navigator¡¯s seat when Elias was off duty. It seemed to work out as she deferred to Elias, and Gwen told me they were sharing a cabin after only a week. Gwen was still my line to the ship¡¯s gossip.
That brought up a discussion I had been having for a while. Permission to have children on board the Void Phoenix. We already had Celeste, Amos, Tora¡¯s twins and the Squirrel children already. I was constantly worried about combat and endangering the children on board, but that was life living on a spaceship. I would be hypocritical if I didn¡¯t allow it, so I told Doc all they had to do was log a request with her, and it would be approved. Hopefully, the Void Phoenix wouldn¡¯t become a nursery ship.
Chapter 122 Alien Alliance
Chapter 122
About twenty days into the voyage, some crew began to experience subspace sickness. For most, it was not serious, just headaches and mild nausea. Not much was known about what caused it, and the only treatment was to exit subspace and rest in normal space. The Squirrel were immune apparently, and only about twenty percent of the human crew experienced symptoms. The Tirani were the worst off. They couldn¡¯t walk or fight normally, losing their sense of balance and seeing double.
Of course, Doc thought this was all very fascinating and spent time trying to figure out why races had different reactions to prolonged time in subspace. The Squirrel scientists were involved, and when they found that myself, the entire Martis family, Tora, Nero, and Gabby had no symptoms, they assumed it had something to do with us being phased from the planetoid wave. All of us maintained shadows in subspace. I still wanted to be unphased from subspace.
The best explanation they could come up with was by being phased; my molecules were more stable in the various layers of subspace. They had a larger foundation to withstand the variances in subspace. They ultimately cornered themselves in their own logic as to travel the higher bands/layers of subspace, a person would be required to be phased among the different layers to safely travel them.
The Squirrel were found not to be immune either. It was just that their physiology prevented the manifestation of the symptoms. This at least made the Tirani Marines on board feel better about being incapacitated.
All this made the test with the shuttle more and more relevant. I permitted to upscale the fuel conversation. The fuel could still be used normally if the experiment was a failure¡ªor at least that is what the Squirrel physicists believed. We were either blazing new ground or wasting resources, but that is what science and discovery are all about.
We started a conversation on six during the trip. Half the lower passenger cabins were being converted into a hydroponics facility. I agreed to the change because I wanted fresh food. However, I learned that one-third of the space was regulated to growing the alien fruiting bushes, which had been deemed safe by Doc. It made excellent fermented wine, and Cori had found ways to incorporate it into her cooking.
Doc copied me on three requests for permission for children, two by Squirrel and one by Andie Niaz, also known as Doc. Will Swain, also known as Scrubs, had finally broken her. Although there was no future marital union, they decided to have a child together. I approved all three requests and expected more in the future. I was definitely going to need a much larger ship with the number of children.
As Celeste and Amos were gaining more and more cognitive ability, I spent a lot more time with them. The trip had my time divided among the children and helping Damian with the FTL drive and emitters. Twenty days into the trip, the in-transit maintenance was rising daily. We cycled emitters offline to cool them and service them. We had multiple people keeping a focus on the power core. The greatest threat we would face was if the fuel feeds got clogged and caused the reactor output to oscillate. Damian had cleaned everything thoroughly before the long trip, but that didn¡¯t mean much with the prolonged trip. We also had a mix of civilian and alien fuel, giving it more impurities. At least when I was in Union, I never had to question the purity of fuel. I had still checked it but never found an issue.
On day twenty-five, we started to run into a cascade of problems. Too many emitters needed to be serviced, and the fuel lines were getting narrower. With four more days to reach the Helliphante system, I decided to continue and press through the danger. Damian and I started working twenty-hour days to keep us safely in subspace. I had balanced the odds, and dropping out to service everything would have cost more time than pushing to the destination and then extra weeks servicing the FTL systems. As an engineer, I would have dropped from subspace, but I made a different decision as a captain.
When we exited subspace, I breathed a sigh of relief. We were at the extreme edge of the Helliphante system. Our subspace drive was going to be down for at least ten days. Damian was sending me maintenance schedules now, and it looked like it would be closer to fourteen days. I had the ship on full alert and ready to go stealth mode if we had trouble.
The sensors began to populate the holo tank, and there were a lot of ships. As Elvis fed the scans to Julie, she had trouble identifying more than half of them. She began highlighting the larger ships of interest by size. Eighteen battleships, two hundred cruisers, seven hundred eighteen frigates, and thousands of smaller ships. The volume of ships in this multi-race trade system was well beyond expectations.
Everyone on the bridge was busy, and we soon learned why there were so many ships. This was a pseudo-ship bazaar. Star nations brought old ships and captured ships here to sell. We couldn¡¯t figure out who was in charge of security in the system as none of the ships we identified as warships were patrolling. Over half the ships were now classified by Julie as being mothballed, waiting to be purchased for scrap by someone in desperate straits. This reminded me of when I purchased the Void Phoenix but on a much grander scale than Silverstream station.
Julie was working as fast as she could to translate the alien languages with the Squirrel comms officer, Hyrena. What we learned was kind of shocking. This region of space was a collaboration of alien species, almost like an alliance. None of this was in the Brotherhood database. We also learned the planet with the orbital elevator was an ancient empire¡¯s industrial capital. They were cutting up the structures on the planet and sending the scrap metal into orbit for sale. The reason the Brotherhood hadn¡¯t wanted this information to get out was obvious. They didn¡¯t want any human factions to join this alien collective.
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We established communications with the systems traffic controller. We were not the first humans to visit this system; they had a few human dialects on file. Haily turned from her station and said that we had radiation warnings from the systems nav buoys. The central star had waves of intermittent lethal radiation. The ships in the system used planets and moons to shield themselves. When we translated the data on the ambient radiation, it would not be strong enough to get through our alien-plated hull. However, the actual sunflares could overcome our defenses, so we still needed to be careful.
I compared this system to a used carcass that was being picked clean before the sun¡¯s activity made the system completely inhospitable. Whatever race had built a planet metropolis had either perished or abandoned it due to the volatile sun. Now, a massive salvage operation was underway. Even the orbital ring surrounding the planet was being disassembled. That meant our precious metal trade goods might not go as far as I had hoped.
Hyrena sent me the data she had filtered with Haily. I looked it over, and it appeared like the network of alien species in this Alliance used a universal currency. It only took a single request to get all the star systems currently occupied by the alliance members. Well, damn. Nearly 1,200 stars with two-hundred seventy-eight listed as viable refueling locations.
This may have changed the Union fleet¡¯s waypoints. Even the planet where they planned to settle was marked as under the control of the Lleshan, a race that appeared humanoid but closer to the Wren with fur, fangs, and pointed ears. They definitely were not cat-like, Elias said they looked closer to furry bats.
This species alliance had twenty-nine species, each with its own space fleet. They freely traded goods, technology, and ships. My xeno specialist, Dr. Abraham Zaire, couldn¡¯t believe all these races existed in harmony. It went against a species¡¯ biological imperative to assert dominance over others. Zoe quipped that maybe that was only a trait of the human species.
I called Suruchi to the bridge. She was the trade specialist, and she now had an opportunity to get the best return on cargo. She had artwork, precious metals, and unique flora to trade. She eagerly took a seat and opened communications with Hyrena and Vicky, the logistics officer, assisting. It looked like we were going to be able to refuel and resupply here.
The Tirani were eager to get off the ship after the long, unpleasant voyage. I tasked them to take a shuttle with Edmond, Francis, Abby, and a few other crew to gather intel on the station. There were four Union frigates in the ship graveyard. I guessed that is what the Union fleet had bartered away for supplies. Perhaps some Union personnel went AWAL here and were still on the station. Elvis was only doing quick scans, and we were too far out to get detailed scans. Since we had exited at such a safe distance, it was going to take eleven hours to make our way to the planet.
I ordered the ship to proceed. It seemed like a viable location, and there were no red flags so far. Celeste came on the bridge, and when she heard there were dozens of aliens on the orbital ring, she wanted to visit the station. She almost went into a temper tantrum but held back. I promised her if it was safe, then Eve and I would take them to the station. Doc was already preparing pre and post-screens for alien microbes. With this many new species, her database was extremely likely incomplete.
It turned out that the infectious disease and parasite database was free to download so Doc quickly added it. They even already had a translation for humans. Doc was still going to do her own scans, but at least this would give her and our xeno specialist a head start.
As we approached the planet, Elvis was going wild with excitement. Since we were closer, he could do detailed scans. Every ship he scanned wasn¡¯t in the database. He documented thirty-six different races as well¡ªat least their morphology. He also had seventeen ships that were stealthed in the system. At least these ships were not on the universal radars. A trio of these stealthed cruiser-sized ships with mixed-species crews appeared to be the system¡¯s primary defense. They were stationed close to the orbital elevator but stayed on the planet¡¯s dark side.
Although we couldn¡¯t grasp the technology from the scans, Elvis and Julie interpreted it as inferior to the Brotherhood by a good margin. The Squirrel scientists and physicists were clambering to go on the station, and I granted their request. The ring was impressive from the scans and visual feeds.
It had been about three kilometers in thickness and circled the entire planet. Now large sections had been reclaimed as they salvaged it. The planet was larger than Earth by 20% but also twice as dense. Elvis¡¯ sensors turned on the planet through the impossibly thick toxic haze, and we were awestruck. The entire surface was covered in structures over ten kilometers thick! There was almost no surface water, and only an area around 100 kilometers near the space elevator had been cleared. It was going to take centuries to reclaim all the metal on the surface. That was good because it was likely the sun would destroy everything in the system in about five thousand years.
Dr. Zaire was curious about the race that had built and inhabited this world. There was some archeological data available. The race was referred to as the Giant Arachnids when translated. They did not look like spiders but were four meters tall with eight limbs and two arms in addition. Their head was small and bulbous. They had a variance of chitin that was laced with titanium fibrils. It made their limbs strong and flexible. The aged corpses recovered in the city dated to be 124,000 years old. Hyrena dubbed the race the Pavuk from an obscure human dialect.
The Pavuk never achieved FTL travel. Instead, they hauled thousands of asteroids to their homeworld and processed them to build their massive cityscape. A museum on the station was dedicated to the Pavuk, and Gabby was excited to visit it. She wanted to recreate the lost race as a new advanced bot. I encouraged her as projects like these would help her expand her skills.
We docked on the orbital ring 18 kilometers from the space elevator. We would be able to take shuttles to the primary station in order to trade. Walking 18 kilometers was not feasible. Abby and I were just worried that it would take too long to gather the crew at the station if we had to leave in a hurry. As the crew departed to explore in groups of five, I met with Suruchi in the conference room to discuss what our trading possibilities were.
Chapter 123 Safety in Numbers
Chapter 123 Saftey in Numbers
Admiral LaRoche¡¯s fleet had grown beyond expectations. He now commanded 500 ships, with 200 cruisers and 44 battleships. He had been slowly chasing the Sylvan city ship across human space and was bleeding them. He was also developing better tactics for dealing with the War Chariots, the core of the Sylvan offensive power.
His fleet had swelled because of the outbreak of war in the Rim worlds. System governments without strong military presences were willing to host them and give his fleet provisions and fuel if he left a few cruisers behind to safeguard their interests. This opened up a supply line for his fleet. The cruisers left behind were aged and useless for his hit-and-run tactics but could serve as a shield wall for planets against raider groups. He had even steamrolled the Destiny Repulic and Gallic Confederacy and now safeguarded those two systems.
Those two kingdoms had been raiding free traders across the entire region of space. He might have been commissioned to encourage the Sylvan city ship to depart human space, but now he held real power and was a police force for this sector of the Rim. He had earned the respect of his fellow captains, and the standards of crews in his fleet had risen drastically in the last few months.
In fact, much of his command had cut ties with their prior political entities and joined him permanently. Maybe LaRoche was an idealist, but he would keep going as long as people continued to feed and fuel his growing fleet. He even had a home port now. Galana Prime. It was a tiny, settled moon in a large star system with four gas giants. Since the system had housed them, the fuel processing capacity of the system had increased tenfold. The system population had exploded from less than a million to nearly ten million. This was because it became a haven for refugees of war-torn kingdoms in the Rim.
The question he kept asking himself was when would it all collapse like a house of cards? Already, a number of people were rallying in support of establishing a new government for the twenty-odd systems his fleet currently patrolled. He knew once a government was established, then the people¡¯s voice and well-being would be muted and eventually extinguished. There was no single incident in human history that a government for the people lasted more than two hundred years. The wealth and power always funneled to a select few over time, and then they put up a facade of the people still having a voice.
His ship captain handed him a new report. He had to look at it twice. Finally, the Sylvan city ship had left human space. It was headed toward Tirani space. Good, let the bear-like men deal with them. His next report was even better news. An industrial world with shipyards wanted to defect. Well, defect was a strong word. They wanted to disassociate themselves from the Free People¡¯s Conclave. It made sense as it wouldn¡¯t take much to go into the system and destroy the orbital infrastructure. And currently, the Free People¡¯s Conclave was at war with three different space-faring kingdoms.
The admiral started to assemble a fleet on his pad to station in the system. Those shipyards could produce new destroyers and corvettes for his fleet. One thing he lacked was modern ships. After two hours, he had selected a fleet of two battleships, six cruisers, and twenty support ships and sent off the orders for a rally point and deployment. Now, he needed to focus on building defensive structures in the systems he protected and finding a way to pay his navy. He had two systems with abundant natural resources. All he needed to do was begin large-scale operations¡.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lazarus¡¯ biosynth was itching. He was doing something that the implanted organic worm from the Sylvan wasn¡¯t sure was in the best interests of the Sylvan race. How it knew that he had no idea. Freeing the confined captain of the Brotherhood cruiser was a risk. Her name was Desdemona, and Rae¡¯Ver had locked her away and left her under the guard of bots. No one was allowed to talk with her. Lazarus wanted to know why.
He had built enough trust with Rae¡¯Ver to gain access, and now he opened her cell. He found Desdemona in a meditation pose with her eyes closed. He stared for minutes, and she finally opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes seemed to look through him into his very soul. He suddenly screamed in immense pain and collapsed. He knew immediately it was the biosynth. The biosynth was killing him¡no, the biosynth was being killed! He screamed as his voice became hoarse, and still he continued. The woman was in some type of supernatural mind battle to end the life of the biosynth he hosted.
As the pain receded, he couldn¡¯t believe it. He no longer felt the presence in his mind, always watching and judging his actions. He was free. He stood to find dried blood in his ears and nose. Desdemona looked tired, but she stood with effort. Lazarus asked if she was ready to get the fuck out of here, and she agreed.
He told Desdemona they were on board a Brotherhood Battleship in the Bradbury system. She knew the ship layout, and there was a captain¡¯s yacht¡ªwell, a small luxury combat corvette would be a better description. They walked unmolested through the ship as Rae¡¯Ver had not given orders for Desdemona to be considered hostile. When they boarded the ship, Lazarus fell in love. This ship was the best humanity could produce, and you could even pilot it with just five people, but you did need an engineer.
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He convinced Desdemona to let him call his engineer from when he was a pirate. She would have to kill his biosynth as well, but they needed at least one engineer; two would have been better. When Braddock arrived, he seemed confused. Desdemona, even exhausted, repeated her little trick, and Lazarus watched as his engineer screamed and bled from his eyes, nose, and ears for the next twenty minutes. He looked pathetic ¡he guessed he hadn¡¯t looked so pitiful when his biosynth was purged. Finally, Desdemona collapsed in a seat in the corvette¡¯s common area and said it was done.
It took Braddock an hour to regain consciousness. When he did, he was put to work. He professed that most of this ship¡¯s systems were more advanced than anything he had worked on. He wasn¡¯t sure if he could do the maintenance. Lazarus just pointed at the VR device and told him to start. Two hours later, Desdemona launched the corvette, not wanting to wait to be discovered missing. Lazarus was working sensors, comms, and navigation. It had been a long while since he plotted a course in subspace.
They cleared the battleship¡¯s rack and flew away. Desdemona still had codes that let her bypass security. As long as Rae¡¯Ver was not told about the ship, they wouldn¡¯t be stopped. Two hours to a transition point. Rae¡¯Ver commed the craft personally when they had just about reached the line for a safe entry to subspace. Desdemona didn¡¯t want to answer it, but the comm channel was forced open. Rae¡¯Ver ordered Lazarus to kill Desdemona, to which Lazarus just started laughing, which caused Desdemona to laugh too. They both told him to fuck off before entering subspace.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Samantha had spent the last year and a half as a privateer. Hunting pirates throughout the Rim and taking odd escort jobs. It had been financially rewarding when she could capture and sell the pirate ship. She was now in command of an old fighter carrier cruiser called the Redemption. She also had two heavy corvettes and a medium transport in her fleet, all refurbished pirate ships.
The Rim had recently exploded in a massive conflict. Samantha had a crew of two hundred and forty souls, and becoming involved was out of the question. Too much risk. She was a privateer, not a mercenary. She only took commissions she could complete safely.
Her crew was a mix of redeemed pirates, old Union, and individuals seeking excitement. They had slowly become a family under her direction, doing their version of good for a healthy profit. Now, the conflict in the Rim had essentially grounded them. Samantha couldn¡¯t head back toward the core worlds. The Sapphire Empire had too much influence and still had bounties for her capture. Skirting the Rim to a new region had too many unpredictable alien civilizations. That was why she was considering joining the one stabilizing force out here that was independent. Admiral LaRoche had gathered an independent fleet, chased off a Sylvan city ship, and now protected the innocent from the war raging in the sector.
She had decided to bring in her four trusted advisors and the two captains of the heavy corvettes. The meeting was lively, but in the end, they voted to join LaRoche. At least until the war simmered down and they could return to privateering. Safety in numbers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rae¡¯Ver had been so angry at Desdemona, and Lazarus¡¯ escape that he had briefly lost his control over Katsu Oshiro. Fortunately, the man only collapsed and didn¡¯t voice anything on the bridge.
He watched the video of Desdemona using the power to kill the biosynth. This was beyond disturbing. Not only had she grown this powerful in the last year, but she could cleanse an agent of their biosynth. That meant she could also identify those carrying a biosynth. The entire Sylvan spy network in human space was now at risk. He couldn¡¯t leave the Bradbury system until he found Void Phoenix. Four invisible gravity wells in this system hid something powerful. How a race like the Squirrel had mastered the technology, no, it only made sense if it was the Void Phoenix who had gifted the technology. He had even approached one of the gravity wells with his battleship; with his power, he could feel something there, but it was too slippery to get ahold of.
He did the one thing he could do, though. He had Katsu Oshiro send a Persona Non-Grata order to the Brotherhood for Desdemona Rouse. All her access codes would be expunged, and she wouldn¡¯t find sanctuary in any Brotherhood facilities or vessels.
He looked at his monitors, and the Squirrel had attacked another patrol craft. The frigate was destroyed, but so were the fifteen Squirrel marines and their shuttles. Hopefully, the debris would turn up useful in the tech they were carrying this time. It would be the fifth ship he had lost since entering this system and the second shuttle he had destroyed in hopes of obtaining the technology. He knew the Squirrel didn¡¯t have vast numbers, and baiting them with these human ships was fine with him. The humans were expendable, and killing these Squirrel had greatly raised the fleet¡¯s morale. They were no longer fighting ghosts.
Six hours later and the S&R team didn¡¯t recover anything useful. Rae¡¯Ver smashed the console on the bridge with his hand. The humans looked at him but quickly looked away. Too many had been ordered away by Katsu after questioning the Sylvan¡¯s presence. He took a deep breath and ordered another frigate to go and sit on the largest gravity well. He had cruisers stationed on the other two wells, with the bulk of his fleet on the fourth, but it appeared only the largest gravity well had marines to attack his ship. If it was a battle of attrition, so be it.
Chapter 124 Alien Trading
Chapter 124
Suruchi had spent a lot of time reviewing the exchange rates relative to human-controlled space. If we tried using our metal stores, we would suffer almost a 40% loss in value. Our best bet was to liquidate the artwork. I had all my personal jewelry from the planetoid morgue. It was removed from the aliens before their biomass was recycled. I don¡¯t know if it could be considered grave robbing. But we needed currency. We also had some of the shell sculptures remaining. Suruchi also ventured that technology was valuable, unique technology.
I didn¡¯t want to give this Alien Alliance of races something they might be able to turn against humanity in the future. I quickly selected a bevy of alien artifacts for Suruchi to sell and then called in Nero and my engineering department heads to brainstorm what technology we could offer for sale. The group started putting forth a number of possibilities. Some of the alien force field tech. This alien tech was used primarily to seal corridors on the Void Phoenix in case of a hull breach. We spent a good hour discussing other applications of the tech and if it could be upscaled for combat or starship defenses.
The technology was related to the planetoid alien tech and was the basis of all their crystalline technology. Over half the engineering department heads voted against offering it for sale. Instead, it was offered to sell part of the alien hull plating that helped increase the radiation shielding. Once again, the suggestion was cut down in the vote. It would be the building block for developing the advanced hull we also used to build our bot frames.
Every idea was shot down one after another. Gabby offered that this Alliance of alien races openly shared their technology between themselves. This was confirmed by the fact multiple races crewed their military vessels. Since the border was close to humans, Gabby argued that they would eventually get access to human technology. She brought up the scans from the massive shipyard of ships available for sale. Twenty-two ships were of human manufacture. Gabby suggested we cherry-pick advances from the Brotherhood. Small advancements that hadn¡¯t been dispersed yet to the rest of human-controlled space.
She brought up the Armageddon bot schematics on screen and began pointing out various suggestions¡ªmicrosensors, nanotube musculature, and the non-Newtonian fluid that housed the delicate electronics. Julie had found out that the Alliance of alien races had heavy restrictions on AI not serving as a ship core. So, that had hampered some of their tech development. Their bots were very basic and not very advanced. We prepared a half dozen bot advancements. They were minor in the scale of things, and some innovations might not be new to the Alliance. My engineering team prepared the proposal for the technology sale, and I went to see off the rest of the crew, who were ready to explore the station.
Julie gave everyone a rundown of the local laws and what they could bring to the station. All tier 2 AIs and above were outlawed. That meant almost every Void Phoenix bot couldn¡¯t leave the ship. I was surprised to find Suruchi in the cargo bay with four crates of goods. She was going to go and test the local auction markets and see if she could find anything that might be salable in human space for a huge profit.
After Suruchi started the flow of the Alliance credits, we were able to start making purchases. Damian oversaw the refueling, and the purity exceeded our requirements. The Alliance had extremely tight trade laws. Quality over quantity was always the standard. Cori was experimenting with new ingredients from various species. She was going to ensure we had enough food stores to keep everyone fed for four months and enough variety to keep the crew happy. Cori sometimes bemoaned her culinary skills were wasted on a bunch of Marines with the taste buds of an ameba. But she also happily served them every meal.
My Xeno biologist, Dr. Zaire, was also having a field day. He was working with a number of other xeno-botanists on the station. He was exchanging knowledge with a number of scientists and getting other interesting samples. This came with numerous requests to expand the botany labs on the Void Pheonix, which I denied vehemently. If I was going to add space for anything, it would be more capacitors for the weapons.
Gabby¡¯s trip to the station had her visiting me to explain the Alliance¡¯s view on bots. There was an Alliance because the races had all banded together five hundred years ago to deal with an AI uprising. It wasn¡¯t clear where the corrupt AIs spawned from, but apparently, the same insidious virus that caused them to rebel occurred at the same time across all the races. I had my theories and called in Edmund Asir. He started digging through the Brotherhood database.
The first human contact with this region of space was 1,219 years ago. Twenty-eight probes over two centuries followed, according to records. Then, humanity sent unsuccessful colony ships for three hundred years. Failed colonies halted humanities expansion in this region of space. So, around seven hundred years ago, humanity was blocked by a vast array of defensive alein space-capable species. The Brotherhood continued sending probes for another two hundred years¡ªstealth spy probes. Hundreds of probes over two hundred years, but right when the AI war broke out.
Edmund connected the dots that I had already had. The Brotherhood had seeded the AIs in this region with the virus. They had probably hoped each species would be weakened so humanity could roll over them. Instead, the species found common ground and banded together to bane AIs. So, it was a huge misstep by the Brotherhood. Edmund laughed because eliminating AIs only slowed their technology development, not a complete failure for the Brotherhood. Only in the last century had AIs been allowed back on Alliance spaceships.
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Humanity had numerous AI uprisings of its own. Edmund said he wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the Brotherhood orchestrated them all. This made me paranoid, and I asked Danielle to go through Julie¡¯s base code. Julie was a massive AI designed to administer an entire planetary University. She thought I was crazy, but then found half a dozen backdoors into her own programming. It only took a single line of base code to create a backdoor. This made Danielle paranoid, and she proceeded to start a line-by review of Julie¡¯s code, all 688 billion lines. It was going to take years, but once she was done, Julie could be used to weed out backdoors and sleepers in other AI coding.
We had actually been extremely fortunate that I hadn¡¯t instructed Julie to try and infiltrate their systems. If I had, and been discovered, we would have been destroyed. The Alliance had strict privacy laws, so what happened on our ship was our business, but if we had tried to interfere with the operations of the station in any way, we would have been targeted.
As our first few days proceeded, Suruchi was making substantial revenue. We had negotiated generous terms for the technology. We were well on pace to collect enough Alliance credits to get us through their space and catch up to the Union fleet. We were even looking at enough surplus to get materials to build power sources for forty-eight of the Black Widows. Gabby would have been thrilled except for the fact she was working on recreating the Pavuk, the spider-looking race that once ruled this system.
I needed my own project¡ªwell, I needed to get some time away from Celeste. Danielle was locked in the ship AI room, and Gwen spent all her free time at the station. She was going into a phase where she asked questions about everything. The constant interruptions working in my quarters and her presence in the robotics lab were wearing on me. Eve, Chloe, and the companion bot, Emma, were encouraging Celeste to interact with her father more. They told me it was necessary for her healthy development. Eight hours a day with the growing Celeste was a lot, and I needed another focus. A project somewhere that Celeste could not follow. I was going to explore the planetary ring and see if there was any technology the Alliance had that would help us.
A week into our time docked on the ring, the Void Phoenix had earned itself a fairly good reputation. I was assigned a liaison, a Glyth. A mostly humanoid race covered in short feathers. Their sharp teeth indicated that, in the past, they were carnivores. He was very friendly and gave me a tour of the functional parts of the ring.
Lots of refineries for the metals coming up from the planet. The biggest thing I noticed was the vast amount of manpower and lack of automation. The many races seemed to work in concert. I still thought they were handicapped by not using AIs. If the Brotherhood had been responsible for the AI war resulting of putting the Alliance in its current position, they might have done them a favor. They had overcome their AI shortcomings with manpower and cooperation. Their ships were robust, and their power systems and weapons systems were powerful. They couldn¡¯t withstand human fleets but could be difficult opponents.
After material processing, we went into manufacturing sections. They were efficient, but my guide said quality control meant about twenty percent of the parts produced were defective. I mentioned if they had an AI running the diagnostics, they could find the issues quickly and decrease defects, but my guide didn¡¯t want to hear my input. I was surprised when he walked me through their missile manufacturing on the ring station. Their missiles were immune to ECM and EMP. Now, I had found technology I didn¡¯t have access to. Of course, the tour was just to show off, and they were not going to give me the tech. This technology had evolved to prevent AI from infiltrating weapon systems.
Robotics manufacturing was less impressive. They only produced simple labor bots. Simple programmed bots were for mostly for hazardous jobs¡ªlike harvesting on the planet. One interesting thing I learned on tour was that there was enough metal on the planet to build thousands of capital spaceships. My guide let it slip that the Alliance was shipping most of the metal to a system that was responsible for building their combat starships. With the volatile sun in this system, maintaining shipyards here was not feasible. The truth was that the sun in this system sometimes got so disruptive that they evacuated everyone for years at a time.
My guide brought me to the museum for the Pyvuk. I couldn¡¯t see Gabby¡¯s fascination with trying to make a recreation and resurrect this race. They were ugly and huge. In the museum, there was a lot of recovered technology the Pyvuk used when they were alive. The most interesting thing in the entire exhibit was the solid-state holographic modules. The archeologists¡¯ theory was that once the sun started to destroy everything in the system, the Pyvuk wanted to recreate their natural environments underground, even if it was an illusion.
The devices had been reverse-engineered but not utilized by the Alliance since they required an advanced AI run. It could not animate the projections, but it could fool sensors. If something like this scaled up, we could have the Void Phoenix projecting different hulls. I started to negotiate. In order to get the technology from the Alliance, they wanted something substantial in exchange.
I returned to the Void Pheonix and started to consider my options. What could I offer? I decided to go with samples of the alien hull plating. I would let them figure out how to reverse engineer and manufacture it. It was a defensive enhancement, and without AI, it may take decades to figure out how to manufacture the material since it was printed molecularly, layer by layer. It took a few days to work out the details and for both parties to confirm what was in the exchange. We were given six functional holographic units salvaged from the planet and one partially functional computer in the eventual trade. I now had a project to work on.
Chapter 125 Ethical Dilemma
Chapter 125 Ethical Dilemma
My xeno specialist, Dr. Zaire, had made many friends in his time on the station. One of those friends was a Glyph. Dr. Zarie was petitioning to get him added to the crew. I thought it was too much of a coincidence that my tour guide was of the same race. Edmund did a cursory interview, and it gave me enough grounds to refuse. Edmund¡¯s evaluation was the candidate had enough signs of being a spy that drew red flags. Knowing the Alliance did have spies and was attempting to get more of the technology on the Void Phoenix was somewhat¡ªreassuring.
That may sound counter-intuitive, but I would have been even more suspicious if they hadn¡¯t made some effort. The Alliance, on its face, was a consortium of races banded together under strict laws that governed themselves and outside parties. From Edmund¡¯s viewpoint, the unbiased nature of these and their enforcement held the Alliance together. So they were seeking backdoors around the laws of their Republic. A crew member would have been free to come aboard and explore our technology and learn everything they could. The end result was I had no plans of ever taking on any new crew associated with the Alliance.
When the devices were delivered to the Void Phoenix, they were massive. Three cubic meters each. The engineering plans were transmitted digitally and already translated into a script. I could build the electronics with my fabricators, but we would have to start from scratch with the programming. The project gave me an excuse to spend half my day working on the devices. I had dozens of ideas on how this technology could be used.
The projected hologram strength reflected how much energy was supplied, but on visual inspection and at long-distance scans, we didn¡¯t need much substance to reflect scans. I was thinking of making missiles that could act as actual decoys of the Void Phoenix and other ships. It would be a shock if the Void Phoenix suddenly had battleships appear out of nowhere and come to our aid. We could also disguise our hull again without bolting on a hollow shell. We could also use it inside the ship for recreation. Our Marines could use it to project clones in the field or objects to trick our enemies. Or they could disguise themselves as other races. There were endless possibilities, and the ideas kept coming.
Two Squirrel engineers joined me on the project as we set up our work lab for the holo projectors. Our first goal was to work on miniaturizing them. Downsizing the devices was a priority before manufacturing. As I became absorbed in my work of miniaturizing the solid-state projectors, Damian finally confirmed we were ready to depart. We had been here for sixteen days, and it was one of our journey¡¯s most hospitable stays. The crew was refreshed. The Void Phoenix was refueled, resupplied, and ready. Our next stop was Kelvin-33P. It was an ice world but had numerous races from the Alliance living in it.
Kelvin-33P had dozens of ice-mining towns for the various races. It was mostly to resupply starships passing through this region of space. The only other industry in the system was massive orbital farms that grew water-intensive crops. Most races in the Alliance still preferred organic produce. So much so that Dr. Zaire had been able to sell our fruit-producing bush from the planetoid. Apparently, the fermented wine that it produced had been a huge hit. In fact, two of the orbital farms in the Kelvin-33P were going to switch over to producing the berry bushes so they could ferment their own wine.
As we left the Helliphante system, the crew morale was high, and we had cultivated a good reputation within the Alliance, making our future stops within their controlled space hopefully go smoothly. We did have one planned stop on our way to the ice world. It was HJW-549, an out-of-the-way system with no value to anyone. Our goal for the stop was to manufacture the phased fuel and test the theories on pushing a ship in subspace to higher and faster bands.
There was a lot of excitement from Damian and the Squirrel physicists. If this actually worked, then space travel could be changed permanently. A journey that once took a month could be shortened to just three days. It could make stars out on the spiral arm previously unfeasible to colonize now viable. If even higher bands were discovered through this process, traveling between galaxies might be possible. The nearest star in the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was 25,396 lightyears away. Currently, a 63-year journey in subspace, impossible to carry that much fuel and remain in subspace for that period of time. With our new drive, that could be reduced to just six years. Then, the journey turned into being just improbable. A massive, specially designed spacecraft could probably make it.
So, with great anticipation, we spent five days on the edge of the HJW-549 system and began our testing. The first test was canceled with Elias and Zoe piloting due to a minor concern that was quickly rectified. Then I saw my old Union Marine drop shuttle do the impossible. Make a subspace jump at 2,400 times the speed of light. The Squirrel were flummoxed as the test should have just yielded a speed of 1,950 times the speed of light. The only reason they could explain this was the higher the band, the speed started to increase exponentially.
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So, at their highest projected band, the new theory was we could travel at 8,800 times the speed of light. I checked their math, and they wanted to try their theory immediately. Scale up the phased fuel conversion and even install the new emitters on the Void Phoenix. Travel an entire light year in less than one second? It was thought to only be possible with a wormhole, and the shearing forces inside a wormhole made it impossible to survive that trip.
I gave the Squirrel permission to start manufacturing the new emitters for the Void Phoenix at the current tested band. It would increase our subspace speed by a factor of six. I was still having Zoe and Elias go through medical observation and check out the shuttle for any discrepancies. Of course, my two pilots were unbearable as they claimed to be the fastest humans alive.
We resumed our course to the ice world. Then, an incident occurred that I did not want to deal with. Julie had brought it to my attention, and I was at a loss for what to do. Dr. Andie Niaz was pregnant. I had given her and Will Swain permission to have a child on board, so that was not the issue. What was at issue was Andie had used the equipment to genetically engineer her child using the SNAIL equipment. She had tried to keep it from Will and Julie, but Julie had gotten creative in her spying operations on the crew. Julie used her Chloe bot to examine the records on the medical equipment and confirmed her suspicions.
I knew the Brotherhood created superior genetic soldiers, which was outlawed in all of human space. According to Edmund¡¯s findings, the Brotherhood soldier modifications were all physical. According to Julie, Andie was trying to give her child, a girl, increased intellectual capacity and reasoning skills. I let my anger simmer for a while before approaching Andie. She didn¡¯t deny it at all. She was actually proud of giving her child the best opportunity to succeed in a hostile environment.
Only two people on the ship knew, Andie and I. Andie tried to convince me she would never be discovered as she had removed all the genetic markers that would show the gene splicing. This distraction caused me to ignore my work on the holo-projectors for days¡ªthe question of what to do in the back of my mind. I spent more and more time with Celeste, Amos, and Tora¡¯s twins while trying to come to a decision. Children were our genetic imperative, the reason why we existed. So what right did I have to deny Andie this?
What I realized I didn¡¯t like was the fact that Andie had cheated in the genetic lottery for her offspring. Andie was just three weeks into her pregnancy when I made my decision. I allowed her to bring the child to term and then ensured that she had concealed everything about what she had done. We purged the SNAIL computers. The only remaining issue was that if the child was genetically sequenced and compared to both Andie and Will, it wouldn¡¯t result in a match.
There were enough genetic markers to show the child as Andie¡¯s niece, so we went with that. Andie¡¯s sister had been killed seven years ago, and there was a record of her having her unfertilized eggs frozen. So, we changed the ship¡¯s records to show Andie¡¯s sister as the mother and an unknown donor as the father. I then had Danielle go and lock Andie out of all SNAIL equipment that could do this again. Danielle didn¡¯t ask why I had her do this, but she looked suspicious. Thankfully, Danielle was so engrossed in sifting Julie¡¯s code that I don¡¯t think she would delve further. I had decided to let Andie keep the child. I hoped this wouldn¡¯t come back to bite me.
It had cleared my mind slightly but not my conscience. I had done the same thing for Eve. I had stepped past acceptable boundaries and given Eve enhancements beyond acceptable norms. The Void Phoenix harbored numerous crimes against humanity; what was one more?
I used work to ignore my conscience and focused on the holo projectors. Since Danielle was busy looking up Julie¡¯s skirt, I had to bring in another programmer to design and write the software for the projectors. We had one Marine with some programming background¡ªBob ¡®Tech¡¯ Dragon. His recon specialty was hacking and breaking code.
He was not very apt at writing code, but all it took was a pay raise to motivate him to work on the certifications. By the time we reached Kelvin-33P, we could project a one-meter box in any color. The density of the image was enough to trip sensors. We could even get the image to project up to 2.3 meters away from the emitters. Now that we had proven the device worked and that we could program software for it, we started working on downsizing the devices.
The massive 3-meter cubes the Pyvuk had used had been used to create large environments and had multiple layered emitters on them. My proof of concept for the solid-state projector was going to be a device that could be incorporated into our battle suits on the forearm. I wanted to extend the effective range to five meters. The Squirrel engineers thought it was a fun project, but it also meant we were going to have to give each combat suit an upgraded AI to control the holograms. Right now, they were dumb AIs tasked with monitoring the suit¡¯s functions.
The new AI would allow some sentient processing ability, allowing the AI to animate the projection to fit the operator¡¯s needs. Julie also wanted her holo projectors on the ship upgraded as well. I wasn¡¯t so keen on the idea. The last thing I wanted was to wake up to a hologram in my bed that could physically touch me.
When we dropped out of subspace and started our approach to the ice world, there were only a handful of Alliance frigates and dozens of transports in the system. Our scans moved to the planet on our approach, and we got a surprise. One of the ice mining communities on the planet was human. The data feed from the local government said one hundred and two thousand humans were living in the enclosed city. A query found it was a very old undocumented human colony that had been assimilated into the Alliance. It was a curiosity that needed some investigation.
Chapter 126 Gaians
Chapter 126 Gaians
We opened comms with the ice planet and announced that we were a trader from human space. The human colony took it upon themselves to contact us directly. Haily was dealing with the reps from the human colony while I was working with Elias to get our docking permissions. Suruchi was already at a bridge station with Vickey, working on planning our trade. This system¡¯s biggest asset was water and the orbital farms, so I wasn¡¯t sure if we would make much profit. It was not essential, as we had an abundance of Alliance credits.
When the docking berth was confirmed, I switched my attention to Haily, who relayed what the local human colony had told her. The colony was part of a religious colonization fleet. The religion was called the Church of Gaia. Their ship¡¯s subspace drive failed, and they made it to this system and were allowed to land and establish a colony. The rest of the colonization fleet was unaware they had drive difficulties as you couldn¡¯t use comms in subspace. The current elected leader of the colony wanted to come on board the Void Phoenix for specific trade talks.
When we docked at one of the larger orbiting farms, I dispatched a shuttle to the surface to pick up Senate Leader Alfonso Pander. When the shuttle returned, the leader had an assistant with him, and we moved to the conference room with Suruchi and Kara while Cori had her bots serve us dinner. I patiently listened to the colony¡¯s history while waiting for Alfonso¡¯s response. Unsurprisingly, only having water as a commodity meant the human colony was fairly poor. What he wanted, and presented to me with a smile on his face, was for us to transport 120 of the brightest young adults back to the industrial planet in the Alliance. The young people would seek employment and return most of their income to the colony.
It took a while to realize that their religious indoctrination had everyone recognize that the Church of Gaia controlled every aspect of everyone¡¯s lives. I immediately declined, but Senator Alfonso tried to convince me by saying the colony was limited to 100,000 individuals and they were already overpopulated. They either needed an influx of funds to expand the colony or send people away; this solution addressed both. I still declined to serve as a transport for the young men and women. It brought back nightmares of my time being sent to the Naval Academy to spend decades serving on a ship, paying off debt I did not accumulate.
Suruchi and Kara talked to me after the Senator left. Suruchi wanted to take the contract, and Kara wanted me to take the contract but to free the young people. I shook my head, knowing after a lifetime, they would not be able to break their training. We shelved the discussion and focused on trading, refueling, and resupplying.
I ordered to start manufacturing the new subspace emitters for the Void Phoenix and to install them. If we could get a fivefold increase in speed, we might be able to catch my brother in less than two months. Then, this foray into unknown space would come to an end.
Most of my time in port would be spent doing my captain¡¯s duties. This was mostly working with Abby, Buckie, Kara, and Francis on operation liberate. I had decided not to negotiate or even ask my brother if he wanted to flee. Instead, I planned to use my Marines to sneak in and extract my brother. We had a complete list of Union personnel on the ships, and I knew Nila was still in the fleet. I planned to save her as well. Our current discussion was who else on the lists we should make an effort to retrieve and possibly convince to join our crew.
It might sound all well and good, but locating and creating an operation to retrieve everyone at the same time. Our list currently has forty-two people. Twenty-nine marines, nine engineers, and three naval officers. Of course, the list was created based on interactions our crew had with these Union people years ago. They could have changed drastically during the war and the exodus.
In the end, we decided we were going to pose as an Alliance trade ship with ties to the Church of Gaia when we located the Union fleet. Since the senator admitted they had next to no resources, they would have no agents to contradict our claims. We would then use Julie¡¯s hacking ability to hack and locate the people we were looking for and delve into their personnel files to see if we still wanted to try and extract them.
We were going to use all four remaining shuttles for the operation. The two Brotherhood shuttles had their own stealth, but we were working on adding the phasing technology to LUX shuttle and my old Union shuttle. That old Union shuttle still had the test emitters on it, so they could be repurposed for phasing out from real space. That meant we would have four teams of Marines.
While the Void Phoneix and the shuttles were being prepped, I was working with the Squirrel and my engineers to miniaturize the solid-state holograms. Miniaturization was a lot easier than I thought¡ªpowering the device was the issue. The heavy Gorilla suits had enough surplus power to handle the emitters, but the other suits did not. Even with the Gorilla suit powering the hologram at full capacity, the image had the integrity of a balloon. Easily popped and reassembled in a split second. Bob ¡®Tech¡¯ was working on adding a ventriloquism unit to the suits to give the illusions more believability.
The project that was meant to give me some time away from Celeste did the opposite, and Bob ¡®Tech¡¯ thought it was fun to create holograms of fantasy creatures to entertain the kids on the ship. Once the base unit was created, all he had to do was tap the base code from the Sword and Sorcery game. Dragons, unicorns, trolls, elves, fairies, and griffons¡.were now commonplace in the lab. All were easily slain with a stab from a small magnetic drill.
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In the twelve days, we were in the system, Suruchi kept trying to get me to reconsider taking on the passengers. The Senator was paying us almost nothing for the tickets, so it didn¡¯t make any sense to haul them to our next destination. At first, I had thought Suruchi was itching to have passengers again, but her reason was vastly different. She wanted to help spread humanity. One hundred and twenty humans could grow their numbers over time. She even had a plan to help the ice world colony.
Her idea was to buy the older ships in the graveyard that were scheduled to be scrapped by the Alliance in the ring¡¯s forges. As long as it could get the old ships here in subspace, each old cruiser could land and help the colony expand by five hundred people. She was going to use all her savings to buy one of the cruisers herself. When I asked why, she admitted the Senator had persuaded her. She wanted to be part of something bigger than herself.
I didn¡¯t want to become involved, and if Suruchi wanted to throw away her credits, that was her decision. She did break me to take 100 passengers in the end. With our new emitters, I planned to make a seven-day subspace trip, traveling the equivalent of thirty-four days prior. If all our data was correct, the Union fleet would have stopped in this next Alliance system to resupply. It was the Homeworld of the Glyth and was one of the industrial centers of the Alliance. We would alter our timestamps and get there long before the Alliance communicated our dealings on the ringworld. The system was called Marquis when translated.
When the Gaians were boarding, I was shocked by how young they were. I had flashbacks again to my academy time, as they were mostly young teenagers. They were going to be packed onto the luxury deck with our other guests, the Union personnel we liberated but failed to pass our crew requirements.
I did something slightly deceitful. I gave the Gaians access to the VR systems and asked Doc and Julie to use their time in VR to complete psych evaluations. I wasn¡¯t even sure if they would use the system as the Alliance didn¡¯t have VR since it required AIs to run. Abby was actually happy since the extra passengers forced her Marines to be more diligent. They were suffering from boredom, and VR training wasn¡¯t enough for them.
I checked the manifests and found that Suruchi had done an excellent job in making a profit, even though we didn¡¯t need it at this juncture. She had even sent funds to purchase one of the old cruisers as promised. I just shook my head. I was beginning to like the Alliance, as Edmund and Francis had not found any attempts to track our ship or put spies on board. Well, besides the Glyth scientists, but we were fairly certain that was more of an individual effort.
On our way out of the system, I needed to decide if the Marines would be allowed to fraternize with the passengers. The Gaians were sixteen to eighteen years old, while my Marines were all in their late twenties or older. I asked Gwen for advice, and she said socialization with people outside of our crew was healthy. I told Abby it was ok but to keep a close eye. I remembered how impressionable others were at that age.
The hospitality staff treated the passengers like normal luxury passengers with events and use of the facilities. Unfortunately, the young Gaians had no funds and couldn¡¯t get extras like renting the steward bots. We made the VR system free for the trip just so I could evaluate them. They didn¡¯t shy away from the technology like the member races of the Alliance, in fact, they embraced it. They played VR games, worked on certifications, and researched humanity¡¯s history among the stars.
The senator had said these were the colony¡¯s brightest young men and women. Julie¡¯s impression of them was they were mildly smarter than average. I then asked her if any of them might be recruited to the crew. Over the course of the seven-day subspace trip, Julie gathered data and tested them in VR, with them being unaware. She identified five with decent engineering aptitude.
Julie worked with Doc on a psych profile. And four of five passed. I had Suruchi and Dora approach them to recruit them. All four, three females and one male, agreed to join the crew. They understood they were being sent to work for low-wage positions in an industrial world. They had been told it was to help their families and alleviate overcrowding. Nero was happy to get the engineering trainees because that is what they were. Raw trainees that needed to learn the new technology. The good thing was they were motivated, intelligent, and quick learners.
I gave them the option to send their salary back to the colony, and they all met privately and decided they would send half their salary back and retain the rest for expenses. I think Gabby and Luna had something to do with their decision, as they were hanging out with them during the subspace voyage. Nora Vargas, Kristina Contreras, Mina Heath, and Ransom Krueger were added to the crew.
Before reaching the Glyth system, we installed our first projector and worked on the Gorilla suit. It was the Tirani suit for Mozzie, and he was having a blast with it in the cargo bay. That was the only place in the ship where the floor was reinforced enough to use the Gorilla suits.
When we exited subspace, the alarms went off on the bridge. Elias and Elvis were sorting it out as I had the shields come online. We were in the middle of a massive sensor field. Sensor buoys had been placed every 100,000 kilometers. Elias¡¯ navigation calculations had also been off by nearly 180 million kilometers. That was to be expected, as not only were we using a new subspace system, but with the distance we were traveling, any tiny miscalculation would result in a large deviation. Of course, Elias was upset and said he would be better next time.
Right now, we were dealing with challenging calls to our presence and also having appeared inside the sun¡¯s safe range. We should have had to deal with massive gravitational forces on exiting subspace; instead, it felt like a normal transition even though we were much closer to the sun than we should have been.
We had incoming fighters, frigates, and two cruisers to our position. Finally, our hails were being responded to, and we used the SID number we had been given for our trader. This didn¡¯t calm the defense forces much, and we were expected to follow an escort into the system.
They were going to want an explanation as to how we had come out of subspace so far in the system. I wanted an explanation as to how it happened as well. There should have been an emergency shutdown of the subspace drive when the sun¡¯s gravity field hit us. The Squirrel physicists thought that maybe there were less subspace shearing forces at the higher bands. So the emergency shut-off was triggered much later than normal. I couldn¡¯t decide if this was a good thing or not. Right now, we had to deal with the Alliance and Glyth Navy.
Chapter 127
Chapter 127
One-Nine-Seven-Six looked at his screen again. It was another blip in the adjacent galaxy. The being, a humanoid male by current choice in his appearance, moved to other screens. Seven-Nine-One-Seven had his vessel in that universe. Why had it not responded to the blip? The ripple in subspace must have reached its vessel. Yet he didn¡¯t even send a report to let Central know he was investigating. He moved to another screen and found Seven-Nine-One-Seven had not reported in a very long time.
One-Nine-Secen-Six reported the lack of response by Seven-Nine-One-Seven to the Central Control over seventy galaxies away. The Central Control immediately responded. He was to go and investigate the adjacent galaxy and report back on the fate of Seven-Nine-One-Seven. After that, he was directed to investigate the subspace disturbance. Nine-Nine-One-Seven was being directed to take over his duty in this galaxy.
He started to run the calculations and pull his Purge ships from the planet below. The race that once occupied the planet had discovered secrets that could not be learned. He and his fellows were created to deal with this, to monitor the universe. His massive planet-sized vessel started to rumble as it powered up. Some of his fellows liked to take species into their vessel as curiosities and relieve their boredom. He did not see the purpose in keeping a zoo of eradicated species. He preferred completely purging a species. That way, they couldn¡¯t rise again and threaten the order of the universe. That is why they were created, to protect the universe from upstart races delving into technology that they could not safely handle.
He looked at his chronometer; traveling between galaxies took time. The emptiness was not always empty either. He would go into hibernation for this voyage, though. When he emerged in the new galaxy, he would find his missing fellow and then deal with the race that was causing the disturbance. His tendril ships had all been retrieved. He slipped his vessel into the highest band of subspace, and the planet below was shattered into a multitude of pieces¡ªleaving a trail of debris that was millions of kilometers long. The star at the center of the system was spun and disrupted, instantly becoming a pulsar.
The Malevolents, the beings the Sylvan feared, were returning to the galaxy.
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We were ordered to orbit a moon around a rocky planet for three days while they decided if they would allow us to approach the Glyth homeworld. It was understandable, as we had essentially bypassed their sensor net completely. They would probably press us for the technology even if they let us trade. From our interactions with members of the Alliance to date, the Glyth were definitely the most interested in assimilating new technology. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if they were secretly experimenting with AI behind the other race¡¯s backs.
Unfortunately, Julie had nothing to hack into to help us find out our fate. Our scanners showed us the Alliance maintained an integrated fleet, and the Glyth maintained a private one. They worked together in defense of the system, but the Gylth ships remained closer to the inhabited planet. The planet that was the Glyth homeworld was a beautiful piece of engineering. Needle-like buildings created porcupine-like cities that were surrounded by lush green forests.
They allowed us to refuel and resupply while we waited. They were still determining if they would allow us to trade at a station. The Gaians, not remaining on board, were left to seek employment in one of the Glyth cities. Apparently, the Alliance had laws that required races within the Alliance to provide employment to other races. From my understanding, I was surprised since the human colony was not part of the Alliance, from my understanding. They were just permitted to establish a colony and trade within the Alliance. I had a sense that there was something more going on than Senator Alfonzo had revealed to me.
We were finally allowed to dock at a station orbiting the planet on our third day in the system. It was also their opportunity to scan our ship thoroughly. They were going to be disappointed as we were certain their scans were not going to be able to penetrate our hull, no matter how powerful they were. I gave them samples of the hull to show them their futility. I had already given up samples of the layered hull back at the Ringworld system. Without a molecular printer, which required an AI to function, I had doubts they could produce the layered material.
After we docked, Damian still wanted about a week for maintenance on the FTL system. He was in new territory, maintaining the subspace drive that consumed phased fuel. The Squirrel physicists were trying to help but just caused Damian more headaches as they wanted to run diagnostics more than help with the maintenance.
I limited the crew¡¯s shore leave on the station and had Abby keep a dozen Marines in suits the entire time we were docked. The Glyth were constantly contacting the ship requesting a technology exchange. They were unwilling to give up anything I valued, but we did have minor transactions. The most significant exchange was the luxury meal fabricator that Gabby had repaired, and then, we converted to make a slightly better-tasting algae meal bar. In return, we were given a wide array of the Alliance¡¯s digital library. It contained multiple Alliance races¡¯ history, philosophy, stories, and vid shows.
It had been a win-win for me. I removed the massive piece of mostly useless equipment, making space for another small lab. I also got a lot of data for Julie to analyze. I tasked her to figure out the mindset of all the races in the Alliance¡ªtheir motivations, political leanings, and societal norms. I tasked two steward bots with converting the data to Julie¡¯s core storage.
As the days ticked forward, Damian kept finding more and more issues that needed to be addressed. The maintenance kept drawing out. He was essentially writing the book for phased fuel and the new emitters for traveling in the higher bands¡ªand through all his complaints, he loved it. I assisted him in the process, and I kept putting off the requests by the physicists to move the experiments further forward. They wanted to explore the feasibility of traveling the higher bands.
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I refused further experimentation. We needed to confirm the safety of the current emitters and fuel. Besides, we were already transitioning the Union shuttle to prepare for my brother¡¯s and others¡¯ extraction. The increased maintenance and unknowns from using the phased fuel and traveling the higher bands were enough for them to study and perfect before going forward.
It took two weeks in port for Damian to feel comfortable to try the FTL engines again. Our long stay and maintenance were believable as we had transitioned so far inside the system, which should have caused numerous strains on our systems. Well, it should have destroyed the Void Phoenix, or at the very least, killed the entire crew.
With Julie¡¯s database additions, Julie also could delve into the laws of the Alliance and find why they didn¡¯t seem to have much in the way of espionage. The criminal act of espionage on another Alliance member or free trader resulted in the forfeiture of significant assets and rippled further politicly with sanctions.
I think we were fortunate that they didn¡¯t have more modern computer systems that Julie could have hacked. They would have seized the Void Phoneix if she had been discovered while hacking their systems. And the entire crew would have been doing manual labor for a decade. These strict inter-Alliance laws were what held the union together.
Julie had also warned us about going to the planet¡¯s surface even if we wanted to see the marvels of the needle-like superstructures that extended over three kilometers into the sky. Local law superseded Alliance law on planets whose population consummated more than 87.5% of the total populace. And for an origin homeworld like this planet, that just needed to be 50.1% of the total population. The planetary Glyth laws were obscure and easily manipulated, so I ruled no one could travel to the planet.
We did use our sensors to render the planet¡¯s surface and create a VR environment to explore. It gave a very interesting picture of the needle spires. They went just as deep below the surface as above¡ªa mirror image. We got a pretty good picture of their construction methods with the library transfer.
The crew spent their leisure time in port. They rotated to the station for R&R and to experience other cultures. Our shipboard manufacturing proceeded, and we completed 24 Black Widow Spider bots. Gabby even had her first model bot for the Pyruk. She was having trouble getting the spindle-like legs strong enough to be used effectively in combat. Gabby thought that the bot had to be useful if she was recreating the Pyvuk.
Her design concept was to deliver the bots in space to an enemy hull and then have the bots swarm to weapon emplacements and destroy them with a self-destruct. They couldn¡¯t be used inside a ship since they were over four meters in height. Her problems stemmed from the weakness of the limbs, and she did not want to change the bot¡¯s cosmetic nature by doubling its thickness.
I spent half a day giving her suggestions, which she irritably shot down one at a time. Finally, she liked my segmented idea. The legs could be made out of small interlocking segments of the alien hull material. Being in segments would allow the bots to cushion their own impact on a hull, making delivery easier. The legs could curl up on themselves for storage as well. These bots would be one-use bots, so they just needed to survive long enough to land, get to their target, and detonate their payload. The Squirrel were working on designing a stealth torpedo for Gabby to deliver eight of these creations to a capital ship target. Gabby had also come up with a name for the bot, Kamikaze Tick.
Elias had worked endlessly to figure out the new physics of the subspace drive in his navigation calculations. He was still upset that his calculations had been so far off and nearly killed the crew. Elvis, the AI responsible for interpreting the alien sensor data, volunteered that it was his fault for providing faulty data in the original calculations. Elias still blamed himself. The problem was there was too much fluctuation in the new subspace field the new emitters created. The solution they came up with was using the alien sensors in subspace to continuously reorient the navigation data. The scans would give just enough feedback to give us our position in the cosmos.
Elias wanted to make a 17-day subspace trip with the new drive to reach a tiny outpost manned by the Alliance called Lost Sheep. Well, that was what the translator program called the colony. His philosophy was to go big and test out the drive and his new navigational equations. The route would be a direct route instead of following the curvature of the galaxy¡¯s spiral arm. So not only were we making a massive jump, but we were saving time by cutting the curve.
It took Elias two weeks in port and getting Damian on his side to convince him to make the jump. My issue was that we would be in an area of dead space. If the drives failed and we were forced out of subspace, no nearby star systems would exist. Nero came into the conversation, and we were going to stockpile spare emitters and parts for the subspace drive. This jump, if successful, would mean we would be one jump away from catching up to the Union exodus fleet. I think that is what overrode safety-first mentality¡ªthe chance of getting this pursuit over sooner rather than later.
I had the crew prepare for the journey as if we were going on a 180-day journey. I viewed it as some healthy paranoia for provisions, life support, and fuel. I even approached the unwilling passengers and gave them the option to get off there. After I explained the danger to the old Union personnel who didn¡¯t meet the screening to become part of our crew, they eagerly joined the Gaians. Well, maybe I over-explained the dangers, as having fewer people meant fewer resources. The Tirani Marines, who got sick during long durations in subspace, almost decided to join them, but Mozzie had also overheard me talking to one of the inconvenient passengers. It took me two hours to explain to Mozzie in private that I was trying to scare the passengers off the ship on purpose.
Elias was the most excited person on the bridge when we departed the station. I had put the safety of the crew in his hands. He was extremely confident. As we made our way out to the outer system, I had Celeste in my lap on the bridge. Amos was milling around Zoe¡¯s pilot seat. The Glyth ships were shadowing us as we approached their sensor net. They were beyond curious as we constantly picked up sensors rolling off the Void Phoenix¡¯s hull. I smiled to myself as the vector we were on was taking us into deep space with no reasonable destination on the vector. When we entered subspace on this vector, it would look like we planned to make a dozen hops in subspace. We had probably taken on enough supplies to do just that.
We transitioned into subspace while watching live video of the bridge of one of the Glyth cruisers shadowing us. Although we did not have audio, the body language of the feathered aliens made it clear they were in disbelief at our chosen path. The legend of the Void Phoenix would ripple through the Alliance.
It took two hours before all stations went to standby mode. It looked like, at least for the start of this voyage, we had no major issues.
Chapter 128
Chapter 128
We were headed on a vector into deep space. I had butterflies in my stomach after we stood down from stations. No problems had been detected, but taking this risk was outside my strict mindset of safety first. Maybe my personality was changing, and that was what was causing my butterflies. Most likely, I just wanted to end the pursuit of the Union fleet sooner, rather than later.
Damian had assured me repeatedly that he could keep the drives running for the seventeen-day trip with the new and untested emitters. Elias was also confident he had sorted out the variables of traveling in the higher bands of subspace. With constant scans by Elvis, we should also be able to discover any discrepancies in our path while in subspace.
My focus turned to the solid-state holo emitters for the hull now that we had proof of concept. The completed miniaturized units were functioning on the heavy Gorilla battle suits. Rather than run new power lines to the hull for my hologram emitters, I planned to mount them next to the subspace emitters. We could only power one set of emitters at a time, but I didn¡¯t think we would need to disguise the Void Phoenix in subspace.
The Squirrel scientists who had been helping me with implementing the holographic technology were moved to other projects. Namely working on getting the shuttles and battle suits ready. Abby and the Marines were constantly drilling in both VR and on deck six. They were focused on prepping out numerous possible scenarios and coming up with contingencies for when things went wrong. Eve and I even joined them on deck six to break in my new power armor a few times during the trip. My skill with the Badger suit was starting to lag behind the Marines, so I had Julie prep some VR programs for me to practice.
It was just Julie, Eve, and me working on the exterior hologram projectors. I found the ideal size was about one cubic meter for each projector, and I would need 208 of them embedded in the hull. The minimum was 97, but with the 208-unit configuration, each emitter overlapped with another. This meant we could take one emitter offline to service it while still maintaining the illusion. It also meant we could hold the illusion if we sustained minor combat damage. Since the hologram emitters exceeded the subspace emitters, I would have to run new power cables anyway. Well, Nero would be tasked with supervising the task. He still hated making large-scale changes to the Void Phoenix.
The emplacement locations were finalized just a few days into the trip, with Julie doing the optimization modeling in VR. Somehow, she had managed to keep the aesthetic look of the vessel. I made it so the units could be easily removed and replaced. This meant they needed to be coated in the alien hull material and stealth coating, and the slot they inserted into also needed the alien plating. So far, we had not received much impact damage, but with how risky our operations seemed, I planned to do everything I could to maximize the ship¡¯s defenses.
This got me thinking about my daughter and galivanting across the galaxy with her on board. I was keeping her safe, but maybe finding a planet or space station to raise her would be better. I briefly considered dropping Eve and the children off at a planet but decided I couldn¡¯t do that to them. I was going to be present for Celeste¡¯s growing up. She was extremely bright but, unfortunately, somewhat of a bully. Not in a bad way. When she played with Amos, the Wren twins, and the Squirrel children, they always had to do what she wanted. Whether this was a game, harassing the Tirani, or exploring parts of the ship, they shouldn¡¯t.
I wished I could give them access to the VR equipment, but Doc prevented this. The generally accepted principle was age 12. Any earlier neurological development could be impacted. This led me to build a special holographic room for the children with the new technology. This let Julie project some fantastical environments for the children to play in.
Halfway through our subspace voyage, I started the conversion of the hull, confident in the altered schematics. We were going to prepare the emplacements for the holo emitters. I still needed more time testing and building them, but I wanted the ship to take them as soon as possible. My largest hangup was the projection range. I wanted the range for these units to be 20 meters. I could not maintain cohesion past 15 meters.
I continued working on the emitters¡¯ engineering and eventually gave up on increasing the range. I would have to increase the size of the holo projector emitter to increase the range due to the area I was projecting. Fifteen meters from the hull still gave the Void Phoenix a lot of available variances. In Julie¡¯s database, we could disguise ourselves as a light cruiser, medium transport, a small station, an alien ship, an asteroid, or hundreds of other ships. Well, we still needed to manufacture and install the projector units.
I had enough material on the ship to manufacture fifty-five holo emitters with our fabricators. I took over all the fabricators to work on my project, to the dismay of the Squirrel and Nero. It was my ship, after all.
Fourteen days into the subspace trip, Elvis detected an anomaly. The alien sensors detected what was described as a gravimetric river. It was running along the edge of the spiral arm, and the Squirrel scientists wanted to veer off and investigate it. It could exist in subspace and not real space, which made me decline. We did map the entire river, and when the Squirrel zoomed out and put it in as a three-dimensional model, it looked more like a smear. Or maybe a splatter across 150 lightyears.
The mystery pulled at the Squirrel to unravel, and they came up with numerous theories. One Squirrel thought the smear might be a sun that was forced into subspace completely and then torn apart. The mass projections from Elvis showed it did demonstrate the mass a sun spread over a massive distance. Another Squirrel thought it was some natural barrier in subspace to prevent people from passing it. That didn¡¯t make sense, as the smear was highly localized. Maybe there was something hidden inside the disturbance, though. A third guess was it was actually a sentient or sapient being traveling through subspace. I thought that was ludicrous, as did his peers. We recorded everything in detail and wouldn¡¯t be surprised if we encountered something similar again.
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The journey had been successful, and on the seventeenth day, we exited subspace in The Sheep outpost. It was well off the standard space travel lanes but was a prized system for having a habitable planet with an oxygen atmosphere. Two races from the Alliance colonized the planet and were trying to coexist with the local hostile wildlife. I thought it was a novel approach instead of subjugating the planet. The Alliance had only inhabited the planet for around forty years and was still quite wild.
The population was under five hundred thousand, and only three modest cities had been built. Only one aged cruiser and two orbital space stations appeared on our sensors as we entered the system. Our communications quickly sent out our Alliance-friendly SID, and they acknowledged it. Finding a planet that a sapient race hadn¡¯t colonized was unusual. And this planet was no different. According to the data archives, ruins of a past race that ruled the planet for over 500,000 years had been discovered. Time had not been kind to the ancient cities, and most evidence had disappeared. The extinction event was believed to be a planetary war. The archeological finds indicated a line layer of radioactive waste in the sediment layers.
We were given a docking assignment, and the locals were excited to trade with us. Our fuel costs were going to be steep, but we had accumulated a large amount of Alliance credits, so the cost was not the issue. Suruchi was already on comms with the merchant¡¯s guild trying to sell out surplus goods and buy something she could make a profit on.
The planet didn¡¯t have much uniqueness besides the local wildlife. Monsterous beasts wandered the swamps, and deadly predators prayed on the weak. Thousands of various unique bird species flew in the skies. Dr. Zaire was itching to get down to the planet and explore. I gave him my blessing but made sure he observed quarantine protocols with Doc.
When we docked at the station, I talked briefly with Suruchi. The only export was exotic meats. They may be trying to acclimatize to the planet¡¯s ecosystem, but that doesn¡¯t mean they wouldn¡¯t profit from it. Once again, Doc was called to handle screening the food for our varied crew. There were actually a few flora and fauna species on the planet that the Squirrel could not consume. I had to limit Cori, the chef, to just ingredients that the entire crew could consume safely. I didn¡¯t want anyone accidentally poisoning themselves.
The station was extremely spartan, and I made the mistake of volunteering to take all the children to the zoological study on it. What could go wrong with Celeste, Amos, the Wren twins, and seven young Squirrel children? Two of the Squirrel went into an exhibit at a dare from Celeste. Tora¡¯s twin pantherkin agitated a large indigenous feline to attack the glass enclosure and injure itself. A Squirrel child ate a nut off one of the trees and got violently ill. And all of this happened in the first ten minutes of our visit. We were asked to leave, and when I asked Eve why she didn¡¯t help me, she did her job and kept Celeste and Amos safe.
Suruchi did find a viable trade product, the local flora and fauna. It was mostly Cori filtering out what she found had value based on the human pallet. We installed a lot of temporary freezers and specialized food storage. I decided we could max out our cargo with consumables cargo.
I had a request from some of my crew to take the three hoverbikes down to the planet for some fun. I signed off on it, but Zoe, Elias, and Saabir would have to take four marines for protection while they raced the bikes. It didn¡¯t take much to get permission from the locals as much of the planet was still wild. I decided to go with them. I hadn¡¯t had an opportunity to try the new bikes yet. I raced Zoe and Elias first and lost by a fair margin. Saabir took my place, and he was a reckless pilot but managed to come in second behind Zoe. I let them play and I wandered into the dense jungle in my Gecko armor with two of the Marines following.
The environment was so foreign and exotic. Yellow and purple leaves dominated the canopy, and the trees were covered in prickly wood. The ground was a rich black soil that teemed with unusual insects and fungi. One of the Marines told me to switch to thermals. A camouflaged predator was approaching. It was a large cat, similar to the one I saw in the zoo. It stalked us as we left the jungle, back to the clearing. Unfortunately, the cat decided to see how we tasted and kept coming at us. One of the Marines used a micro explosive round, and its head exploded.
I was upset with having to kill it, but even more so when we found the beast was pregnant. We cut the young cat out of it, and I had us return to the station. I gave the cat to Doc to care for. She wasn¡¯t too happy but determined it was maybe two months premature and was certain she could save it. When Celeste found out, she wanted to keep it as a pet. I had planned to hand it over to the zoo.
Dr. Zaire, of course, thought the cub could be domesticated. The adult cat that had attacked us was four hundred pounds. I didn¡¯t want that type of predator around Celeste. Somehow Celeste found out the locals had already taken to taming the cars and called them Bestets. Celeste had also named ¡®her cat¡¯ Bella already. I guess Doc didn¡¯t tell her it was a male. It was Eve who said she researched the species on the local database and thought it was possible to raise the large cat safely. After some back and forth, I caved to Celeste, but it would be spaced if the cat became a threat.
The good news was that Damian had the ship ready to depart in ten days. We extended the time in port by three more days since the shuttles were almost finished. We also had our next destination, Poseidon¡¯s Star. It was a 13-day trip in subspace, but if our calculations were correct, the Union fleet would be parked while they spent 45 days refueling from the local gas giants. We should catch them about halfway through their refueling process.
Before we left the station, I managed to install the first twenty holo emitters on the hull. All the emplacements were completed to receive the emitters as they were completed. It helped to have an army of engineering bots at my command. I had been able to procure, at great cost, all the materials I would need to finish the project. We were playing with the control station on the bridge, projection flash images even with just the twenty emitters. We were well clear of the station and lone cruiser, so they couldn¡¯t see us as we played at projecting translucent images around the Void Phoneix.
The best covering was Gwen, who made the Void Phoenix into a guppy, a small fish. It got a lot of laughs from the crew as we entered into subspace, chasing a memory of the Union.
Chapter 129 Exodus Fleet
Chapter 129 Exodus Fleet
The cat named Bella got a complete genetic profile. The cat was going to be white with gray stripes and mostly a Bengal tiger from old Earth, except more muscular and with a more powerful jaw. He would have slow working camouflage ability where he could alter the colors of his individual hairs, similar to an octopus¡¯s camouflage. If healthy, he would live around 210 human years. What concerned me was his full-grown size of 200 kilograms. Doc had a solution. She was confident she could map the cat¡¯s genetics and stop the cat¡¯s growth closer to 100 kilograms. She professed it might even slightly extend his life expectancy, or at my direction, she could work to create SNAIL treatments for the beast.
The cat was also highly intelligent, much smarter than a canine but slightly short of the level of defined sapience. Would this be a good thing for another company for my daughter or not? If I had to remove the beast from her side, would she be angry at me in the future? Julie advised pets were a great way for children to learn responsibility. My compromise to let the cat into our abode was a collar that could paralyze the cat at a moment¡¯s notice. The collar linked to an implanted chip on Bella¡¯s spinal cord.
I admit the small cat was cute, and three days into our trip, the cat was in our quarters. Celeste was furious, though, as Bella chose to sleep in my bed between me and Danielle instead of sleeping in her bed. This meant most nights, Celeste crawled into our bed and either dragged the unfortunate cat to hers or just curled up in our bed, hugging the cat. There was not a lot of research on the species in the Alliance database, but Dr. Zaire was pretty sure the cat was demonstrating a genetic predisposition to sleeping with the alpha for protection.
I admit the furball grew on me. Even Zed, Gabby¡¯s dog, seemed to like Bella¡¯s antics. I decided the feline needed its own skin suit and manufactured it. Since he was growing so fast, I was going to need to refit the cat every six days¡ªwhich didn¡¯t bother me at all. Bella was quite affectionate and even tolerated Celeste¡¯s need to hug something furry all the time. Maybe when the cat was fully grown, I could make a suit of powered armor for him. No¡ªthat would be silly.
Danielle was still working on purging the AI code of the backdoors. She was quickly becoming frustrated as she discovered numerous feedback loops. These loops rewrote backdoors if they were erased. She admitted the programmers were geniuses and couldn¡¯t match them, but she was slowly gaining ground. She had to write her own sifter program for the code and then remove all the code at once. It was still going to be an extremely long process, but she was confident it would work. Julie, for her part, was morose, knowing she could be subverted.
At least the fabrication and installation of the holo emitters were progressing smoothly. The exterior engineering bots dropped a new one into place every nine hours. Then Hans Anders would run the diagnostics and tie it into the holo matrix for the ship. Hans was our shield engineer and took the job of running the holo system so he could get a seat on the bridge crew.
He was a valuable member of the engineering staff, and Nero hated to lose him, but one of our new Gaians, Nora Vargas, was focused on her shield certifications and would be able to take over for Hans in a few months.
Gabby got bored and began to put synthetic skin on all the humanoid bots of the ship. It was a project I had started but never finished. It was mostly for her to continue to practice and refine her robotics skills. The faux muscular was not as advanced as the steward bots. Gabby had wanted to create bots of all the alien races we had encountered to date, but I did not want to invest the resources in the project, so skinning all the bots was the backup plan.
I also promised her to get medical scans of Bella when he was full-grown to map his skeletal and muscular structure so she could recreate him as a bot. Gabby started calling Bella, Abell, instead. She thought she was being clever in juxtaposing the A in his name to give him a more masculine name. Celeste was incensed that her kitty cat was being called something other than her designation for the beast, even more so when he started answering to Abell instead of Bella.
Most of the Marines and scientists were preparing for the encounter with the Union fleet. I reviewed reports every evening, and most of the staff meetings focused on the preparations. The shuttles were ready, and we had reorganized our Marine squads into five teams of nine. The were now mixed-race squads. Each team had a leader, three recons, two heavies, a tech specialist, a sniper, and one demolition expert. Each team would take a shuttle, and the fifth team would be held back on the Void Phoenix in reserve.
The competition among the squads was quite intense. Abby and Buckie fostered this as it helped the learning curve. There was a lot of prestige in being the top team on the ship. Bragging rights came with few bonuses, other than other teams having to buy drinks at Edmund¡¯s bar.
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The planned exit from subspace was far out in the system where we expected to find the Union fleet. I wanted to get a lay of the space before we moved into the system. If I sensed some hostility, we would have the Void Phoenix go dark and spy on the ships before trying to extract our targets.
The bridge was packed when we made our exit. The ripple effect from our ship exiting subspace would be detected as we currently did not have the means to mask it. The scanners went live as we cloaked to map the system. Our sensors were gradually being fine-tuned for further and further range but still had their limitations.
There were no Union ships close to our exit point, which made sense as the vector we approached was atypical. We detected our first Union ship near the expected transition point that lined up on a vector to an inhabited star system. The Union ship was a light carrier cruiser. It carried flights of screening fighters and had external docks for gunships. It was a support ship for thirty-six fighters and sixteen gunships.
Zoe informed me from her station that the gunship she was assigned to was called the Ravana. It had minimal defenses, and this ship matched that ship in its configuration. Two wings of three fighters each were doing sweeping patrols. They obviously detected our transition because two gunships were dispatched to our area of space.
Zoe angrily said the gunships were being sacrificed to draw out whatever threat had just entered the system. Gunships were the pawns of the Union fleet. Relatively cheap with crews of three to six. Zoe survived being sent on suicide missions multiple times due to her amazing flying skills.
We were already moving in the system under stealth, and the gunships would find nothing when they investigated. Two other light cruisers were quickly found doing the same task at other expected transition points. Our sweeping scans focused on the largest gas giant in the inner system, and vessels started appearing one after another. We had found the Union fleet.
Julie sent a relay probe to try to hack into the fleet¡¯s comms systems. I wanted to maintain our distance from the fleet to give us a clear path of retreat. We had been scanning for seven hours when Elvis said a new ship had just transitioned and was moving in the system. It was a Union heavy cruiser and was transmitting openly to the rest of the fleet. They had FTL drive trouble and needed assistance.
Once the probe settled, I had the Void Pheonix do the same. We would start the mission by gathering intelligence. I had the ship stand down from alert and rest up.
It wasn¡¯t long after that Julie infiltrated the fleet¡¯s communications systems and dug through the archives. The fleet size was projected in the holo tank on the bridge. Eight battleships were the core of the fleet. This was four more than we had been expecting. Julie informed us the four unknowns were all corporate battleships that had not been registered and had gotten out here on their own to rendezvous with the fleet about three months ago. They had brought dozens of support ships with them.
The explanation of how a corporation could build and operate a battleship in the Union was simple. They built the battleships for the Navy, double-charged them on everything, and turned the profits into their own private fleet. They then stashed their fleet in a remote system. Of course, they refused to commit their own ships to the war effort.
Overall, the entire fleet in this system was much larger than expected. More cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and supply ships. Julie figured out it was actually three different fleets that had merged. Edmund was on the bridge and discovered Brotherhood communication traffic. They were infrequent, but it was clear that agents were within the large fleet.
Maybe this entire exodus was orchestrated by the Brotherhood. It would make sense as their goal was to make humanity the only dominant species in the galaxy. Seeding a human colony outside of human-controlled space would help with that aim, expanding colonization behind the wall of the Alliance. I was already aware that the Brotherhood perpetrated the Sapphirean attack takeover of the Union. The Union had grown too weak and corrupt for the Brotherhood¡¯s needs.
We settled into our position and continued gathering data. Julie was already bouncing from ship to ship and focused on retrieving crew rosters for review. I eagerly awaited to find out if my brother was among them.
A list began populating the main screens on the bridge. It was the list of the crew we hoped to liberate. When Nila¡¯s name went green, my heart leaped. I knew the Bastion¡¯s Shield was one of the battleships in the fleet, and I had hoped she would still be alive. Seeing it confirmed brought back youthful memories. Back at the Naval Academy, I could not understand or act on my feelings. I was going to be the hero and come and save her now.
My mind went to Danielle, who had been at my side and bed for over a year. Would I replace her with Nila at the first opportunity? Danielle was a great companion and lover. She never expected much from me and treated Celeste like her own child. I had deflected her questions about having her own child with me. Was this the reason I wanted to reconnect with Nila?
The names began to highlight mostly green, some yellow, and a few were red. Red meant the fleet records showed the person had died. Julie also had thousands of new names from the two additional fleets that had merged with the one we had targeted. One of those fleets was the corporate fleet. I didn¡¯t hold much hope of finding good candidates for our crew there. The third fleet, as far as Julie could tell, was a fleet of mothballed ancient ships that never managed to be brought to full functionality before the war ended.
The fact those mothballed ships had made it all the way out here showed the superior construction of the older FTL subspace drives. My eyes flashed up to the screen. My brother¡¯s name had just turned green. He was alive and on the cruiser Artemis¡¯ Spear.
Chapter 130 Plans Within Plans
Chapter 130 Plans Within Plans
The bridge quickly transformed into an operations center. As we moved closer and carefully scanned each ship, we identified seventeen ships with the personnel we were seeking. Julie wormed her way into systems and pulled out relevant data.
The third fleet, composed of the mothballed ships, contained the most important ships for a new colony. They were stuffed with colony pre-fab buildings. The ships were going to be hollowed out and converted to orbital farms on arrival. These ships also had a large number of civilians. Julie figured out the Union Premier University of Technology had been raided under false pretenses. The Union told the students that the Sapphireans were going to bomb the planet, so they evacuated most of the students and professors. They obviously just wanted to seed the new colony with scientists and strong genetics.
These civilians were restless as they were on an extended voyage and had limited access to information. The Navy staff operating the 3rd fleet were more like prison guards, and Julie noted most abuses reported were ignored. Initially, we didn¡¯t have any targets within this fleet. Once we reviewed the academics, I thought a large number could be helpful in unraveling our technology mysteries. Julie was working with Doc to get long-distance psych evaluations completed¡ªat least preliminary evaluations.
One sore point I learned was Nila was married. It shouldn¡¯t have bothered me much, except her husband was her superior officer, and she was pregnant. Obviously, regulations had been thrown out the window when the fleet had abandoned its duties and fled. If she was happy, then maybe I shouldn¡¯t try to abduct her. Julie delved into the systems on the battleship but didn¡¯t find any records or personal logs that revealed Nila¡¯s state of mind. I thought about sending her a comm but didn¡¯t want to risk revealing my presence. According to the Union database records, I was KIA, and that suited me fine.
My brother had been reassigned to a cruiser and had risen in rank. He was in charge of the 1st armored unit. The fleet had only two armored detachments with heavy vehicles and battle suits. He was still in logistics and had to make sure all the vehicles were ready for operation at a moment¡¯s notice. It was not an easy job since they had been traveling in space for years. Once they landed on the colony planet, though, these two units would be responsible for protecting the civilians planetside or maybe keeping the populace subdued.
Would the people we came this far even want to leave? That was the biggest question in our strategy meetings as we mulled over the data. How to extract them was the second. The best plan offered was from Gabby. She said we should get everyone we wanted on one ship. Then, when the fleet went to subspace, our targeted ship would break down. Then, we could take on the single ship ourselves instead of dealing with all these ships. It sounded far-fetched as ideas go.
However, Julie thought it might be possible as transfers among the ships during these long layovers were widespread. Fabricating the orders wouldn¡¯t be difficult, but if the wrong people started looking into it, it could fall apart extremely quickly. Nero stated we should create the reason for the transfer then. Whatever our target ship was, we board it, sabotage it, and then push through the transfers to deal with the issues we created. Thereby bringing all the personnel we wanted to one location.
We began to search for the ideal ship. It had to be large to account for all the personnel transfers, and I did not want it to have a lot of weapons. Massive transports were off the table as they would not need the number of Marines we were seeking to transfer. Abby came up with the plan to focus on one of the battleships loaded with civilians from the university. She thought we could fabricate a revolt among them and damage the ship enough to bring in the people we wanted to subdue the discontent.
There were a ton of risks with this plan. Innocents could be injured or killed. The revolt could take off and be successful. There could be an overwhelming force in response to the revolt. Julie¡¯s records indicated that the last option was extremely likely.
Edmund offered his own take. First, the Brotherhood communications were coming mainly from the 2nd fleet, which was composed of the illegally built battleships by the corporations. They appeared to be puppeting a number of officers in the fleet. He guessed they were trying to hold the fleet together to get to the desired destination. This supported my theory that the Brotherhood wanted this fleet to succeed in spreading humanity further from the core worlds and past the Alien Alliance.
Suruchi offered the idea that we reveal ourselves as traders. Unfortunately, Julie killed that idea. The records she obtained from the Union showed they had encountered forty-seven traders in empty systems like this on their trek to this point. The policy was to open trade, disable the trader, and take everything. If they were human traders, the crew was incorporated into ships in the fleet. If they were aliens, there were no records of their fate, but clear records of scrapping the alien traders for parts showed their true fate.
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Nearly a week passed as we spied and discussed our options. I eventually decided to make a move, as we only had eight days before the fleet was scheduled to depart. I had Julie open access to all databases to everyone, creating a wave of free information throughout the fleet. I thought this was a subtle way to create unrest without drawing attention to our presence. Julie stood poised to take action if needed. Seven hours after the information was released, the commanders started to secure the leaks by locking down terminal access. It was too late, as many copies of the data had already been made and circulated.
The first domino was the lone smelter the fleet had. It was operating in the asteroids alone. The smelter had four breakaway harvester ships that mined the resources and brought back material to the smelter. The harvesters did not have subspace capability and needed to dock with the smelter to travel FTL. Three of the four harvesters docked, and then the smelter started a hard burn out of the system. They were far enough out of range to make the transition without a fighter-interceptor reaching them.
After the smelter fled, things quickly went downhill. I could not fathom the series of events that would happen next. A cruiser¡¯s power core went critical and ejected its core straight at one of the battleships. The resulting explosion did considerable damage to one of the corporate battleships. In the confusion, scattered mutinies started to happen throughout the smaller ships as they tried to break away. It was absolute chaos.
Edmund was monitoring the Brotherhood comms, and they were frantic as well. To quote one of the pirates from the vid series, the fleet must have been held together by bubblegum and duct tape. Things started to get worse when a battleship fired missiles at two fleeing transports, destroying both. The comms were awash with threats. I had Julie tap in and ordered our plan into action. She started altering transfer orders and getting the people we wanted onto one of the colony battleships.
Both Brotherhood shuttles were being prepped. They would dock with the ship and remain cloaked until they entered subspace. Then they would board it, force it out of subspace, and then pacify the Marines. It was clear there was no unifying command in the fleet. Three separate admirals, two corporate CEOs, and one Union Planetary governor all thought they were in charge. It was making our plan progress as envisioned.
In the end, a few ships did manage to break away, but nothing larger than a frigate. Eighteen ships had been destroyed or damaged. Now Marines were sent to stand watch on the bridge of all ships, no matter how small. It might have been humorous, except 320 men, women, and children had been killed by the rouse I ordered. It weighed on me as there had probably been a better way. As things settled over the next few days, our plan mostly worked. Only two of our targets were not on the chosen battleship.
One was Nila. Her husband had canceled her orders, and she was confined to quarters. The other was a Marine who was diverted to a medium transport to stand watch on their bridge. The two Brotherhood shuttles were pepped and on standby, and I needed to decide what to do. I could just be happy getting the plan to work to this point. Or I could send shuttles and try to extract Nila and capture the medium transport. The medium transport was built for refueling larger ships. It was vital to the operation of the entire fleet. I was thinking big. Completely capture the battleship and use the transport to top off its fuel tanks. Then, we could take the battleship as a prize.
Maybe the conscripted humans from the university would want to return to human space or even join the Squirrel in the Bradbury system. The battleship they were on had numerous pre-fab colony structures. There was even a habitable planet in the Bradbury system they could colonize. Well, habitable except for numerous other races hiding in subspace shadows haunting it.
I approved the orders to send another shuttle to the refueling transport. My last important decision was whether to try and get Nila. She was confined to quarters, Abby reminded me. That meant her husband did not trust her. She was probably being held against her will.
Thirty-six hours before the fleet was supposed to depart, three shuttles left the Void Phoneix. The two Brotherhood shuttles made for the battleship Fortuna. The third shuttle was made for the Hydro Therapy, the refueling transport. I made my way into my optimized Badger combat armor to the fourth prepared shuttle. The Alpha Team was also waiting for me with Eve in her own suit of personalized power armor. I had not planned on taking Eve, but she insisted. Julie¡¯s bot, Chloe, was suited in of light Geko armor. She was going to hack the ship systems for us when we boarded.
Abby showed up at the shuttle and tried to convince me for the tenth time not to go. It was a personal epiphany that the reason that I came out here was not for my brother but, in fact, to rescue Nila. I wasn¡¯t sure why I had to do this as my rational mind told me I probably would not make much of a difference on this mission.
I boarded the shuttle and was surprised to find Zoe and Elias in the cockpit. I probably should have ordered the assigned pilots back and sent Zoe and Elias to the bridge. But having them here was reassuring. My old Union Marine shuttle went through flight pre-checks, and then we exited the flight bay into space.
Mozzie, one of my heavies, made jokes the entire time we were in flight. I flicked my HUD to the shuttle to watch our approach. Zoe moved cautiously among the fleet of behemoth battleships. It was the first time that I could remember the ace pilot using caution. She placed out suttle port side, just aft of a heavy grazer emplacement on the Bastian¡¯s Shield. As we settled in, the shuttle hull used its photonic cells to activate a chameleon effect, blending us visually into the hull.
Now, we had to wait until the battleship entered subspace. Nila¡¯s crew quarters were 32 meters from where we had locked onto the hull. Zoe and Elias remained in the cabin, watching sensors and listening to our secured comms from the Void Phoenix. If anything started to go wrong, they would react instantly.
Mozzie made a fart joke about the smell trapped in his armor from the last time he wore it, and everyone laughed¡
Chapter 131 Nila鈥檚 Rescue
Chapter 131 Nila¡¯s Rescue
We waited in the shuttle for seven hours. The mood was surprisingly jovial. Mozzie and Buckie had a continuous back and forth. Yes, Buckie had wormed his way into the mission. I did not even know he was one of the Marines in power armor until an hour into our wait on the hull when he replied to one of Mozzie¡¯s jokes.
It did feel odd being in the thick of the action and not on the bridge as overwatch. Julie chimed in; she had just edited the mass profile for the battleship so we wouldn¡¯t affect their entry into subspace. Julie spoke through Chloe and announced the countdown to subspace. When we transitioned, the team leader announced suit checks. From the cockpit, Zoe said she was cutting through the hull in five minutes.
We would be cutting through an access door. Cutting through the 2.4-meter-thick hull plating of the battleship was just inefficient. I was to remain at the back of the breach team as we made haste to collect Nila. We had a custom suit ready for the pregnant Nila. It was a Geko suit specked for defense. We moved to the doors when the cutter could be heard spinning up. Zoe signaled breach, and a breath later, the door was open, and the men and women filed out. The battleship¡¯s gravity plating made the transition slightly awkward. It was one of those things that was hard to recreate in VR perfectly.
The squad comms were short and precise as the two Squirrel scouts quickly hacked and opened the battleship¡¯s airlock without cycling atmosphere. It would set off alarms in the battleship, but if everything went well, we would be in and out in two minutes.
The Marines moved and started firing a few seconds later. They were firing electro-sink flechettes. These darts penetrated into flesh and hopefully stunned the target with high voltage discharge. We didn¡¯t want to kill the regular crew if we could avoid it. As we moved through the corridor, the Squirrel bent down and placed a thumb-sized disc on the back of necks of the downed crewmen. This disc would stabilize them and keep them unconscious.
Since we had the schematics, we reached the quarters of Nila in just 48 seconds. I knocked on the door. A voice I hadn¡¯t heard in years responded, asking if the enemy boarding had been thwarted. I told her we were the enemy boarding party and we were there to save her. Then I announced my name. She didn¡¯t respond, and Mozzie held up a heavy plasma torch, indicating we should just breach as time was ticking. He could cut through the door in seconds if she did not open the door.
Nila asked me to confirm my identity. I told her I was not going to take off my helmet. Eve removed her helmet and moved to the door, and told Nila to open the fucking door so we could get the fuck out of here. The entire squad went quiet of comms. The door slid open, and Nila asked if that was truly Eve. Eve just pushed her back inside and tossed the suit we brought for her on the floor. Eve commanded her to suit up. I was getting the sense that Eve was not happy with my rescue mission.
Enemy fire erupted down the corridor. The enemy Marines had arrived. My team switched to plasma penetrator shots. You would not normally use it on spaceships, but we did not care about collateral damage and wanted to suppress any enemy response as quickly as possible.
The pregnant Nila was slow in getting the unfamiliar suit on, so Eve started to help her. Julie came on the comms. She had just activated all the ship hull breach protocols. Corridors were being sealed and now needed to be manually opened. It should give us four to five minutes before any significant threat reaches us.
Nila was asking questions. How was she being rescued in subspace? What were other humans doing this far out from human space? I thought you were dead? I really should have brought Gwen with us. Gwen and Nila were friends, and Gwen could have answered her questions easily. Although Nila looked much older, in my mind, she still looked the same as I remembered¡ªIt was just how I saw her. Buckie ordered the team to prepare for contact as Julie informed us the ship Marines were blowing hallway safety seals rather than manually opening them to reach us quicker.
Then, something we had not counted on happened. The ship dropped out of subspace. This was not good. We had planned to detach the shuttle, enable our subspace field, and fly away. Now, things got tricky. The squad leader and Buckie ordered a hasty retreat to the shuttle. They had probably realized where we were attached to the ship by now. They could launch fighters and bots to meticulously search the hull. We needed to get on the shuttle and out into open space. Even the normally calm Elias over comms asking us to hurry.
Subspace disrupters started going off, and Nila started to slow. She was having second thoughts, probably fearing for her unborn child. I reassured Nila that we had a safe way off this ship. Eve, not waiting for Nila, just picked her up and carried her. We reached the shuttle, rushed inside, and secured ourselves in safety harnesses. Zoe had the stick and was already spinning away from the hull. Julie said she had lost contact with the battleship computer as it had just completed a rapid reset. The captain of this ship definitely adapted quickly.
I switched my HUD to see what was happening in the surrounding space. The battleship looked like a porcupine, sending sensor buoys, bots, fighters, and shuttles into space to search for us. Our stealth systems were good but not perfect. The issue was we could not phase as long as the disrupters were active. If we were on the Void Phoenix, then the alien sensors could map the disrupter¡¯s gravitational wells. For now, we were left to rely on our stealth. I unbuckled and went to the cockpit to stand behind Zoe and Elias, who were deeply focused, moving the shuttle further and further away from the battleship but remaining in the regions of space where the battleship had its thinnest search cover.
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Forty-eight minutes later, we had reached far enough distance to switch over our emitters to subspace. The battleship was still making a concerted effort to search for us. It was almost comical that we had escaped.
I turned to Zoe and told her to add a wash to our wake when we entered the subspace. It was a flashy way to enter subspace, leaving a flash by igniting some fuel and indicating a clear directional vector. Of course, Elias was setting our wash to show a false vector. When we finally entered subspace, everyone relaxed, and a hoo-rah echoed in the shuttle. We soon exited subsapce back in the system, and Elias said the ETA for the Void Phoenix rendezvous was 84 minutes. We docked, and Gwen appeared. They hugged and cried slightly. Gwen and Nila had been good friends during the years at the academy before the war started. I just said Gwen should get her to medical. I headed for the bridge. We needed to make a jump and find the refueler and battleship.
I groused, sliding into my captain¡¯s chair, that Nila was not that excited to see me. She was safe now, and expecting her to be the same person I knew back in the academy was too much. Besides, Danielle was a good partner who understood me. Maybe I would agree to have a child with Danielle. I focused on the task at hand. My life used to be so much simpler when I only needed to focus on getting a ship functioning at peak efficiency.
Zoe and Elias came onto the bridge shortly after me, taking over the stations and quickly getting caught up. There were still nine Union Exodus ships in the system¡ªall smaller support ships. I asked if they had been abandoned. Julie¡¯s hologram appeared in her uniform and started updating us. Six of the ships were in the process of being abandoned. All supplies and crew were being moved to the other three ships. The disturbance we caused in the fleet had caused a few ships to be made useless and turned into salvage.
Elias let me know he was ready to enter subspace. The enemy battleship and refueler should have been removed thirty minutes into the transition from subspace. We could not expect the hostile crew to turn the ship around and jump back to this system in a reasonable amount of time. Instead, I hoped to arrive, talk to the crews, and convince them to join us. If not, we would take our targeted personnel and leave.
When we left subspace and started our scans, we found the refueling ship first after forty minutes. It was going to take eighteen hours to rendezvous, so we planned to make a short jump to them instead. Damian needed three hours to prep for the short jump. We searched anxiously for the battleship, but nothing came on scanners. If they did not drop out of subspace close to the expected mark, it would take many short jumps to find them. Maybe they never forced the ship out of subspace. The Brotherhood shuttle didn¡¯t have any subspace drive capability.
I looked at the different contingencies. If things went poorly, the Marines were to retreat to the shuttle and then were to detach and wait for us to find them. If we didn¡¯t find them, the Caladrius would be detached, and then the Void Phoneix and Caladrius ship would leapfrog on the vector to search for the battleship or shuttle.
The Caladrius was already being prepped for launch. After we took over the refueler and were ready to continue the search, we would launch the Caladrius. As soon as we got into easy communication range, it looked like the capture of the refueler had gone smoothly. There were six Marines from the ex-Union on board. Two had been injured, and the target, Silas Davenport, was eager to join our crew after talking with our Marines.
Silas was a brilliant tactician, according to Abby and Buckie. They had trained him, excelled in squad tactics, and constantly thought outside the box¡ªso far outside the box that he was never recognized for his brilliance. The other factor was he was from the slums on an industrial world. That meant he could not become an officer until he completed twenty years of service. He would be an amazing squad leader once he passed our screening process and trained with the rest of the men.
The tanker transport was also at 87% capacity for maneuvering fuel and 69% capacity for reactor fuel. It was also only seven years old and part of the 3
rd fleet that was composed of corporate-built battleships. It did feel slightly good taking that asset from them. We took the Union Marines to get treated and sent to the brig until they could be sorted. I left five on my Marines and two Squirrel engineers on the transport and they were to make their way to a binary star system in forty-eight hours. The system should be empty; it was a four-day subspace trip for them.
The Caladrius launched with Elias and Zoe and four Marines on board. We began our leapfrogging action to find the missing squad and the battleship. On our fourth jump, one of the Squirrel came to me with an interesting idea. It was a subspace beacon. The beacon should be able to pulse an identification gravity signature in subspace, allowing our alien sensors to detect it. He wanted to drop the prototype behind us and see if it worked. I agreed but had him add a self-destruct to the device. If other sapient species were out there, I did not want to advertise where to find us.
The device worked as advertised. The Squirrel physicist thought he could get the beacon functional out to 100 light-years with the readings we obtained¡ªit should even work if the device was in subspace, giving us a means of tracking ships in the future. This would have been extremely valuable in our current predicament. Even more exciting was the Squirrel thought the beacon could be further developed to act as instant communication across that distance if there were alien sensors on both ships.
Eight days into our search, we finally found the battleship. Well, the Caladrius found it. From the calculations, we discovered the battleship had dropped out of subspace 43 minutes after entering subspace¡ª13 minutes past the desired extraction time. We were soon in communication with the Marines on board.
Because they didn¡¯t want to kill the men and women we wanted to recruit, the progress in reaching the bridge and/or engineering had been slowed more than expected. They were also outnumbered thirty to one. It had turned into a standoff until one of the engineers on board had initiated an emergency shutdown of the subspace drive. In the eight days they waited for us a tenuous truce had been made, and they were planning to return to the prior system.
It was time for a family reunion after Julie confirmed the battleship was seized and weapons were offline. Hopefully, this went better than the last one.
Chapter 132 A Brother Named Silas
Chapter 132 A Brother Named Silas
I delayed my meeting with my brother. I wanted to reassemble my crew and rendezvous with the two captured ships in the same system before adding any complications to my mental state. The battleship command staff had agreed to meet us in the binary star system, and my Marines remained on board.
There had not been enough old loyal Union officers to keep the ship, and we had seeded the crew with our targets. It did not take long until they folded at the thought of returning to human-controlled space instead of remaining in hostile space. The information we released in our espionage attempt also greatly helped pave the way for the crew to capitulate.
The binary star system felt crowded with our fleet two days later. The Caladrius completed its maintenance and was once again docked in the belly of the Void Phoneix. All the shuttles had been serviced and prepped for an emergency. The scientists were already transitioning the old Union drop shuttle to continue their higher band tests in subspace.
Abby, Buckie, and Francis were debriefing the potential new additions to our crew. Taking on so many crew at once had Doc and Edmund working overtime to complete their psychological evaluations and physicals. We cycled them in pairs to the Void Phoneix. Many of them needed numerous treatments by Doc. We found out the Union fleet had been running low on supplies since their pharmaceutical manufacturing ship had been lost in transit early in the exodus. The treatments requiring high-end drugs were now only permitted to the wealthy and administrative staff in their exodus fleet.
While waiting for everyone to arrive in the binary star system, I had one meal with Nila, Gwen, and Danielle. I should have realized Danielle would not have been too enthused with Nila¡¯s presence. Gwen did her best to keep the meal peaceful and not ruffle feathers. It was obvious Nila was not the same person I remembered.
She had a more hardened look, and her eyes didn¡¯t dance like I remembered. She also had not thrown herself at me as I had dreamed. She was also very pregnant. I did not know what to do with the situation. Gwen saved me from figuring it out slowly on my own.
Gwen informed me Nila was damaged. The innocent teenager from the academy was long gone. She had been in a relationship with the first officer when the exodus happened. They decided to marry to stay on the same ship, but he quickly degraded into an authoritarian commander, which carried into their marriage. The child she now carried was her lost hope of softening the man. It had worked as he became overprotective and jealous beyond reason. Nila wanted to get to the nearest human colony that could be considered safe and raise her child there.
Gwen also said my relationship with Danielle was possibly damaged beyond repair. When I personally went to rescue Nila, that had been too telling for her. Danielle was considering her options. Danielle was attractive, intelligent, and good with Celeste. Sometimes, you miss what is right in front of you. Just before meeting my brother, I approached Danielle and somewhat unromantically asked her to marry me. She was not as excited as I had hoped, but she said yes. When I asked her to have a baby with me, that broke the damn, and she cried in my arms. I had enough emotional intelligence to know they were tears of happiness.
The marital union was a simple registration in the ship computer. I also found Eve appearing somewhat happier, and I asked her why she had been upset with Nila when we rescued her. Her answer was simple. I had built Eve to deal with the loss of Nila at the naval academy, and bringing Nila back was an off-hand way of saying Eve was being replaced.
Eve¡¯s absurd leaps in logic reminded me of a human woman¡¯s logic. With all of Eve¡¯s processing power and access to Julie¡¯s database, she had awkward leaps of logic. I told Eve she could never be replaced. All Eve had to consider was when I sent everyone to help her against the Armageddon bots instead of leaving her behind. That was how much I valued her. That comment seemed to soothe Eve¡¯s ego. Did Eve have an ego?
Half a day later, I turned my attention to my brother. He was currently in medical getting checked out by Doc with another member we hoped to recruit. I walked in like I was a normal visitor. My brother did a double take, and then his jaw loosened and wouldn¡¯t work. He had not been told I had been his rescuer.
I walked up to him, and he stood and hugged me. He told me he had been informed I had been killed in action. He asked if I was a crew member, thinking I was maybe the lead engineer. When I told him I was the captain, his jaw refused to work again. Doc interrupted the reunion and asked Silas to return to the table for his exam.
After the medical exam, I took Silas to the restaurant on the luxury deck. Cori, the master chef, had prepared something special for us. As we ate, my brother told me what had happened to him after his Marine training.
He was assigned to logistics and, at first, was working on assault vehicles. He was helping maintain fourteen APC units and would have been a driver if the vehicles landed on a planet. The fleet gave up carrying assault vehicles in favor of additional missiles. So, he had been assigned to armories on various ships. He was in four large fleet battles before the ship he was on joined the Exodus fleet.
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The exodus journey had been tense. After the first two subspace trips, a few ships failed to emerge from subspace every time they exited subspace. Their fleet lacked many things, among them quality FTL engineers. Resupplying was also a nightmare. Either spending months trying to make their own fuel, bartering for fuel, or forcibly taking it. Halfway through their trek, the other two fleets joined them. All the remaining ground vehicles were consolidated on one of the battleships, and somehow, Silas had been put in command of maintaining them.
He had been a little sick when the company of Marines assigned to utilize the vehicles was training in VR to keep order in the future colony rather than protect the colony from outside dangers. Silas was glad to be recused and to see me. This reunion had gone much better than the meeting with our parents.
I reciprocated and told him the abbreviated notes on my journey. I left out the part about being pursued by the Sylvan and Brotherhood for now. The food was excellent, and the conversation was therapeutic. He thanked me for coming for him.
We went to see Celeste next, and I introduced Danielle and Eve to my brother, Silas. When I told him that Eve was a bot, he didn¡¯t believe it until Eve demonstrated her immense strength by lifting him with one hand.
With all the pleasantries over, I asked Silas what did he want? I was planning to return to the Bradbury system and probably stay there until Celeste grew up. I would also have to wait for my child with Danielle to grow up¡ªmaybe the Bradbury system would be the end of my journey, and I could be happy there. It would be a good place to hide from both the Brotherhood and the Sylvan.
Silas considered his options and did not want to be on a ship any longer. He did not want to spend his days on Persia IV, where we grew up on a harvester. The idea of running a harvester like our parents did not appeal to him at all. He asked about being in charge of the motorized vehicles. I had three hover bikes on board and had left two hover tanks with the Squirrel in Bradbury. Silas said that was a start with a big smile.
It was four days before things started to settle with my mini-fleet. We grouped one hundred and four men and women on the battleship with suspect loyalties. Edmund was uncertain if any of them were Brotherhood agents. He suspected all the agents had been on the larger, more impressive¡ªand safer¡ªbattleships.
The cargo of the captured battleship had enough pre-fab modules to establish a colony for ten thousand people. It was one-third of all the modules the exodus fleet had been carrying. The ghost world in the Bradbury system would be a great place to establish a colony if it didn¡¯t have numerous other races already living in phased space. Maybe the Squirrel had come up with a way to completely bring everyone out of phased space.
At our staff meeting, we started to make plans. The refueling ship would be kept. It would be sent on trade missions to build a fuel stockpile in the Bradbury system. The battleship cost too much fuel and personnel to operate, and most of the weapons had already been stripped. As it was coming out of being mothballed, the old weapons had been removed, and they had been waiting for newer weapons to arrive. Before that happened, the Union had fallen.
The decision was made to convert the ship to a space station to service other smaller ships. This was a common fate for large capital ships. It was a task that Julie suggested we hand over to the passengers on the battleship. They had been essentially abducted from the best technology university in the Union. They had the training, and it would also give them something to focus on. The group had already elected one person to speak for them as a group, Gordan Farsmith. He had been a professor at the university and in charge of the material science department.
I met with the older man, and he was grateful for being rescued from their fate but had a lot of demands. The meeting did not last long, as I sent him to meet with Suruchi and Kara. I just did not have the patience to listen to him. Suruchi was a born diplomat and trader, and after their meeting, Gordan had been thoroughly outclassed. Not only did he not get any of his demands met, but Suruchi had gotten the entire passenger compliment to start working on the conversation of their ship to a future space station.
Kara asked permission to command the battleship while in transit, and I agreed. She took half of our Marine compliment, including Buckie, for security. The ship was now a massive asset and needed to be protected. The Squirrel had evolved their prototype transponder. Now, the sensors on the Void Phoenix could track ships that had the device installed in subspace. We added the devices to all the shuttles, fighters, and ships.
The Squirrel engineer was constantly working to improve the devices. They were just under a cubic meter, and with each iteration, they were being downsized. All our subspace ships received one of the devices. Once they were small enough, we would add them to our fighters and non-FTL ships.
Elias was working on the best route back to the Bradbury system. We could not return the way we came. Even if we took the time to manufacture the emitters for the higher bands of subspace, the fuel required for the battleship would take months to refine. We were going to be stuck traveling in regular subspace until we reached the Bradbury system¡ª6 months at Elias¡¯ best estimate.
The good news was our tanker ship had enough fuel to get us two long jumps¡ªalmost one-third of the way. We would have to resupply twice after that. I was in my quarters a few hours before the transition to subspace. Damien commed me and made a request to transfer to the battleship. He was familiar with the engines and subspace drive, and the current lead engineer over there didn¡¯t know his asshole from his mouth, according to Damian.
Damian assured me that he would get the battleship to the Bradbury system. He also guaranteed he could cut the downtime between subspace jumps down from two weeks to eight days. The Void Phoenix could make the journey back to the Bradbury system in two long subspace jumps. The only issue with losing Damian was I would need to do my own maintenance on the Void Phoenix¡¯s drives. I signed off on the transfer, as the battleship had too many people to risk to a bad engineer.
The Void Phoenix would remain with the other two ships until we were halfway. All three ships formed my small fleet and entered subspace together.
Chapter 133 Scouting Ahead
Chapter 133 Scouting Ahead
The Void Phoenix felt empty the first day we entered subspace. The Squirrel contingent of scientists and physicists had transferred to the battleship with most of the Marines. They just had a lot more space over there to work on their projects, and the Marines were needed for security. Celeste was probably the most upset since she was losing a number of her playmates in the Squirrel children.
I was sad to see my Union Marine shuttlecraft leave. I know I should not find sentimental value in objects as an engineer, but that ship carried me through a lot. After the next phase of advanced testing, the craft would be retired. Maybe I could convince the Squirrel to put it in a museum or something.
The crew complement of the Void Phoenix was greatly diminished. Zoe, Elias, and myself on the bridge. Nero, Gwen, Fiona, and Gabby in engineering. Abby and nine Marines for defense. Our additional crew was Danielle, Doc, and Cori. Celeste and Amos were also still on board, but Toro had taken her twin boys to the battleship with her. The twins¡¯ father, Sabbir, was on the refueling ship with seven Marines.
Not only was the Void Phoenix skinny on the crew, but we only had the Caladrius, and one of the Brotherhood shuttles still on board. The Saphirean fighters, the other shuttles, and all but one of the large exterior engineering bots had also been transferred to the battleship with all the Marine pilots. About seventy percent of the supplies on board the Void Phoenix went as well. My ship lost 16% of its mass, improving its acceleration curve greatly.
Putting so much of our advanced technology, flora, and battle suits on the battleship was a concern since it had almost no defenses. That was why the Void Phoneix was going to lead the way and scout for the fleet. We would arrive early in every transitional system to scan the system. That way, when they arrived, we could better deal with coordinate resupply and transmit the system data.
In its new role as a fleet scout, the Void Phoenix was going to rely heavily on its stealth systems. The thermal signature from thrust was the only issue, as it was not masked in any way. This meant staying at a distance of 200,000 miles from conventional scanners. It was not a problem as our scanners had incredible range, and we just needed to drop out of subspace without using our maneuvering thrusters until Elvis and Elias completed the initial scans.
During the trip, I found doing engine maintenance nostalgic and therapeutic. It has been a while since I was absorbed in a singular engineering duty. Zed was extremely helpful to talk to. The dog followed me everywhere and listened to all my problems while I worked doing visual inspections and assigning engineering bots to maintenance tasks. I spent nearly twelve hours a day working on the FTL systems, familiarizing myself with Damian¡¯s changes for traveling the higher bands.
In my little free time, I worked on my solid holographic projection systems. At night, I spent my time in VR working on a series of programs Julie was developing for me.
Julie was integrating thousands of space battles across dozens of species to help me work on my space combat and improve my reactionary capabilities. I was also thinking about what defenses I would need to build in the Bradbury system to help defend my family. It looked more and more likely I planned to settle down.
Celeste and Amos spent my workday in school. Structured learning was important, and they were now old enough to gain the benefits. Julie and I had designed an education program for the children for the next decade. They would have the broadest and most thorough education we could offer. Abby also designed their physical regimen, although she called it playtime. Giving your children every advantage to succeed is an important aspect of parenting.
In this subspace segment, Doc gave birth to her son, Neon. The boy was healthy and going to be exceptional in his own right. I was still torn knowing that the child was genetically engineered. We had done everything we could to hide this fact, but it would be something hanging over him like Damocle¡¯s Sword. He would be killed or imprisoned if he was ever discovered in human-controlled space.
My playtime was spent with Abby and the Marines, doing short combat scenarios and playing very physical games. Abby had insisted I participate, so I did not retreat into my shell, focusing on my work. Some good news was the physical activity carried over to my new life as a husband. Danielle and I tried very enthusiastically to conceive naturally¡ªand before the ship left subspace, we succeeded.
The first star system of the trip we were expecting to be empty, and when we exited subspace, Elvis scanned and didn¡¯t find anything. We checked the new location beacons on both the battleship and tanker ship. They were both in their correct place in subspace. These beacons were going to be a game changer. Ships would no longer be lost in subspace. Now we could track them if they failed to arrive at their destination. We were even getting reports through a series of binary communications using the gravimetric scanning device. It was still just one-directional as the alien scanners had not been replicated yet.
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The problem would be I would have to give up the alien sensor technology to the greater galactic community. It was the one massive advantage I had in all my interactions. Knowing what your enemy was doing in real time was a tactical advantage I was reluctant to share. Elias said he found two probes in the scanning data after filtering. Both were inactive. One was alien, and the other human. He dated the human device to around four hundred years old. The human probe should have been programmed to burn itself up in a planet¡¯s atmosphere, as was standard practice after it completed its mission.
I decided to retrieve both probes as we had four days before the battleship arrived and then six hours after that the tanker. The human probe was retrieved first by the Caladrius. I just think Zoe wanted to take it out for a spin to get her speed fix. She returned the probe to the ship before heading out for the alien probe.
After confirming that there was no danger, I examined the probe with Gabby in an empty lab. We disassembled it, retrieved the core, and plugged it into Julie to download the data. Julie¡¯s hologram explained what she found. It was a Hermes-series probe. Sent to deep space in the thousands during humanity¡¯s last wave of expansion. It had not destroyed itself because the survey ship that was supposed to retrieve the data never arrived.
Survey ships were no longer used, to my knowledge. In the past, humans sent probes many years in advance of survey ships. The automated probes mapped and searched a system, and then the survey ship appeared at the system¡¯s edge. The probe transferred its data so the survey ship did not need to travel in the system or wait. Then, the probe destroyed itself, usually by crashing into the sun.
It was a mystery why no one had retrieved this probe¡¯s data. Nations and corporations spent trillions of credits on these exploratory missions. This probe being overlooked for four hundred years seemed odd, even with how far it was from human space. I returned to the bridge and learned we would have never found the probe without our sensors. Elias had filtered the scans for any objects that did not appear natural in shape...something other scanners could not do at such extreme range.
Zoe was coming up on the other probe, but it tripped her sensors. Elias was focused on it, and Elvis said the probe was powering up. Zoe was already zipping away from it. It could not match her speed but did try to catch her, burning out its fuel. It appeared not to be a probe but a weapon. Similar to a smart mine. Why would there be just one mine in this entire system? We scanned the barren planets and gas giants again and found nothing.
Elvis changed his mind after a more thorough scan. It was not a reactive space mine. It was a biological delivery device. The probe was designed to drill into a foreign ship and release its payload. Of course, our Xeno-biologist was on the battleship. I decided we needed to capture the probe. We needed to know the technology, if there was a way for other ships to spot it, and what the payload actually was. Zoe returned the Caladrius to the docking berth, and we drew up a mission plan with the Brotherhood shuttle to disable the probe. We would build a containment box in space, and then pilot bots remotely to examine the alien device.
The battleship arrived as we were getting ready to retrieve the device. Dr. Zaire was excited and came over to the Void Phoenix to puppet the bots for the mission. The probe had depleted its energy trying to catch the Caladrius and had not recharged its batteries yet.
The probe didn¡¯t detect the Brotherhood shuttle, and Zoe disabled the thrusters. Bots assembled the containment box in space, bringing the probe inside. Four bots were left to examine the probe. Zaire did the work, and the results were fascinating. The probe was partially organic in nature. The organic shell was a photic array with a high-efficiency solar charging capability.
The internals were an extremely durable non-organic crystalline web. The payload that it was supposed to deliver was tiny spores that were durable enough to survive in the vacuum of space. The probe was over fifty thousand years old and did not get here with a subspace engine. Although I wanted to examine the crystalline web computer, I decided it was too risky to bring on board any ship. We were going to accelerate the containment box into the sun and only use all the scanning data we obtained.
Zaire hypothesized the probe was looking for a planet with life to deliver its payload. It waited for a ship to infect when it didn¡¯t find one. Although the probe was 50,000 years old, there was no way to figure out how long it had been dominant in this system. The spores under the microscope had barbs that meant they could anchor themselves in tissue and possibly propagate. Their genetic sequencing showed four unfamiliar amino acids, but the overall structure looked similar to viruses.
We planned to send all our findings to every sapient race we encountered. The battleship and Void Phoenix refueled, and we made it to our next destination two weeks later. It was hopefully a friendly alien system where we could resupply.
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
Dr. Zaire returned to his new botany lad on the battlecruiser. He had spent two weeks reviewing the data and was sure the spores were not dangerous. The genetic structure, the computer-modeled function of the genes, and the non-aggresive nature of the probe. Everything pointed to them being some type of symbiote¡ªwell, he was not 100% certain of the unique amino acid sequences on the DNA. Humans have 20 different amino acids in their DNA. This spore had 24. He desperately wondered what the compatibility was with various organic life forms he was familiar with. Thankfully, he had preserved the entire sequence and now just needed access to a genome printer.
Those four unique amino acids were a hurdle. He would need a specialist to program the printer for them, but it should be possible. Understanding and documenting new life was his passion. Being the first to discover something so different would earn him accolades among his peers long after he had left the universe behind.
Chapter 134
Chapter 134
When we entered subspace the Marine compliment had rotated with the exception of Abby. The Marines were glad to be home on the Void Phoenix. From the Marine¡¯s conversations, I learned the tanker and battleship had a large dating pool but lacked the entertainment platforms of my ship. So that meant they missed Julie the most. The Sword and Sorcery game being at the top of their list. We had one extra Marine on this rotation. One of the recruits that Buckie had vetted and said was ready for his badger suit training. His name was Jackson Jones, or JJ for short.
On the first day of travel, I reviewed the fleet logistics. The situation just seemed weird to me. Me¡ªoverseeing fleet logistics. I was an engineer, not an admiral. Vicky Charity had prepared everything for me, so it was easy to read. Provisions were going to be a problem. We had just thirty days left, give or take two days on the battleship. The Void Phoneix and tanker were going to be fine. Cori had actually repurposed many of her cooking bots for agriculture. She was using the luxury deck promenade and two abandoned labs to grow. With our small crew of 21, she could grow about 20% of our needs with special fast-growing crops. Nero was processing fertilized from our human waste.
Was all this necessary? No. But it did give the crew a side project and pride in the fresh vegetables, tubers, and greens. Looking at the dense vegetation on the luxury deck, it was actually hard to remember hauling passengers.
My next headache was the fuel situation. If we did not get refueled in this next alien system, we had only one more subspace trip before running out. The damn battleship was a pig when it came to reactor fuel. I also had a standing order not to engage the maneuvering thrusters unless imperative for the safety of the ship. The beast of a ship took almost twelve times as much fuel as the Void Phoenix to make a subspace trip. It was definitely an incentive to equip the behemoth with phased emitters and fuel, but I did not want to waste time on the conversation of the ship. It was destined to be an orbiting station anyway.
I reviewed all the research data, Suruchi¡¯s civilian reports, and Buckie¡¯s Marine training reports. That was in addition to maintaining the FTL drives on my ship. I missed having Kara Briggs as an intermediary. Usually, in a staff meeting, she could boil down a ten-page report to two sentences. She made a request to take command of the battleship after it was transformed into an orbiting station over the habitable planet in the Bradbury system. We still needed to make that planet safe for colonization, but I approved her request. I wouldn¡¯t need a first officer anyway. I was planning to stay.
The new Marine, JJ, was a natural in the badger combat armor. He was already scoring in the top 10% on all VR and real-world testing. He was still getting better as well. He was as good at piloting a suit as Zoe was at flying. I guess that was why they became a couple. I found the two of them having sex in the shuttle. Well, I didn¡¯t find them, it was Julie who asked me to confirm the shuttle¡¯s navigation suite had been replaced. Julie, the ship¡¯s AI, was trying to be funny. JJ was embarrassed, Zoe swore at me, saying she hadn¡¯t finished, and I was left as the bad guy trying to explain it was Julie¡¯s doing.
Scolding Julie later, I found out they had been disconnecting her surveillance cameras to have sex throughout the ship, so this had been her revenge. I tasked Abby to discipline JJ for the security lapses, and I personally cut a month¡¯s pay from Zoe. Then being my paranoid self planned to have Edmund come on board and go over every spot they had turned off security cameras on the ship. JJ¡¯s file looked clean, and Edmund had cleared him, but why was he hiding from Julie? I had Danielle permit Julie to commandeer the special steward bots whenever she felt the need. Abby had built a number of new steward bots with security suites in case we had trouble with passengers in the future¡ªnow it looked like we might never have passengers again.
We had very little information about the alien star system we were entering. The Alliance had called the race the Chu¡¯liks. Tall thin humanoids, but no pictures were available. We entered in stealth and scanned the system. An excited Elias said there were five planets and moons with atmosphere. Five in one system was unbelievable. Getting a system to have five planets in Goldilock zones¡ªis incredible. Two orbiting the sun, and three moons orbiting a gas giant. Spaceship traffic was minimal, but each habitable planet did have a single large space station.
We moved closer, and Julie got to work on translating the language from their transmissions. We had three days until the battleship arrived to set up communication and barter for fuel. I gave Julie twenty-four hours to compile data for making contact.
The results a day later were surprising. They did not have FTL capability. The Chu¡¯liks inhabited all the worlds and had slow intersystem spaceships. Elias suggested this star system was just so far off normal travel routes that maybe no space power wanted to colonize it. I doubted that. Five habitable worlds were a dream colonization scenario. There were also enough races out there with expansionist and specist views that genocide was not out of the question. Humans were one of those races.
Julie¡¯s presentation uncovered that the Chu¡¯liks had multiple contacts with alien races. Every time the local ruling family turned away the visiting spacecraft and didn¡¯t allow them to communicate with the civilians. The Chu¡¯lik spacecraft weaponry was not impressive, so I wondered why they remained unmolested.
I really wished I had my team on board. Suruchi would have been much better for first contact. We dropped a comm buoy with what we had learned so far for the battleship. Then I moved the Void Phoneix close to their most populous world¡ªan estimation of three billion inhabitants. I broadcast and requested to talk to the leader of their people.
It was an hour later when a video conference was enabled. As expected, he asked me to leave. I refused and offered him technology for faster in-system travel. I had to wait for three hours while he met with his advisory council. When he returned, the negotiations began. In the end, we were going to help expedite the construction of a fuel refinery station over the gas giant with the three habitable moons. In exchange, we would fill all our fuel tanks. I don¡¯t think they realized how much fuel that was actually going to be. We would also give them the technology for gravity plating, inertia dampeners, and high-efficiency thrusters for the fuel we would be generating.
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We would not be allowed any communication with the civilian population, and the construction of the refining station had to be done on the dark side of the gas giant. When the battleship arrived, the locals were furiously starting the manufacturing. We would need to pick up the materials planetside with our shuttles and assemble the refinery ourselves. The battleship and Void Phoenix were also using our fabricators to build the more technologically advanced parts.
The best estimation was it would take four weeks to build and six weeks of refining to fill all our tanks. The good news is we would have enough fuel to get into Alliance-controlled space, and things should be much easier. The tankers were going to be docked to the refinery as it was built and send its own siphoning lines to the gas giant to start refining immediately. It could, in theory, refill itself this way over six months, but I didn¡¯t want to wait that long.
The Squirrel were refining their own fuel to test the highest subspace bands they thought we could reach. The shuttle had long been ready for the flight, but the radiation created in the phased fuel processing required it to be done off-ship. I also didn¡¯t want to use any fuel until I knew we had a resupply for the tanker.
Things went smoothly for a month. The Chu¡¯liks did their part. They put the planet-manufactured pieces in an open area, and we sent shuttles to collect them at night. The refinery started functioning after two weeks, and we were just increasing the capacity from there. Things never go smoothly, though. It was Elvis who detected the local fleets moving in. They thought that we couldn¡¯t see them because we were on the dark side of the gas giant.
They only had eight frigate-sized ships with rail guns and heavy lasers. These eight ships were the eight largest ships in the Navy. Our deflector shields could easily handle both types of weapons at their current level of power. It might have been amusing except for the fact Julie learned this was a coup. The Navy was trying to overthrow the Emperor.
Suruchi was back on the Void Phoneix. We could support the Emperor and destroy the rogue fleet or just let things play out. The plan of the Navy was to capture the three moons and the refinery we were building. Then they could overhaul the ships with the new technology and take the remaining two planets in the system. It was a multi-year plan by a group of eight captains commanding the ships. The reason why they were doing it was becoming more clear as Suruchi deciphered their culture and intercepted communications.
They had a four-tier caste system of government. The ruling class was composed of only the Emperor and his direct heirs. The next class was the working class, responsible for industry, art, and farming. The third tier was the soldiers who devoted their lives to defending the people. And finally, the endless was the bottom tier. The endless were the bottom rung of society, and were workers that had been sterilized so they could not have children. This was because they had a genetic defect, committed a crime, or offended someone in a tier higher than themselves. They worked the lowest of socitey.
How a society had functioned by putting its military in the third lowest caste, I did not know. The discord was that many of the endless classes came from the military because they operated in space, and radiation damaged their tissue over time. Suruchi wanted to intervene, I did not. We would defend the refinery. Promise to turn it over to whoever was present when we were done and leave.
Things do not always go the way you hope. All the remaining ships, loyal to the Emperor, assembled over the capital world and sped toward us to deal with the rebels. The rebel captains said they were joining the fleet to overthrow the Emperor. So the captains were trying to drag me into this whether I wanted to be involved or not.
I had four options. Help the Emperor, help the rebels, do nothing, and defend the refinery or pack and leave. Our tanker was at 68%, and I hated to waste all the effort we had put in to top off our fuel reserves. Suruchi was talking with the Emperor, trying to convince him we were not part of the coup. He did not seem to be convinced.
Elias gave me a read on Emperor¡¯s fleet. It was fifteen ships, all smaller than the eight frigates orbiting on the other side of the giant from the refinery. I had the two fighters launch and circle wide into deep space under stealth. If I needed them involved, I would. The tanker drew up its siphons from the gas giant and was preparing to leave at my order. For the first time, the Void Phoenix¡¯s weapon capacitors were being charged for possible battle.
I asked for advice, and Kara Briggs from the battleship command deck advised me not to be on the losing side. It was not a joke. She meant to make sure, if we did fight, to ally with the side that would end up in power. You never knew if we would have to return here one day to resupply.
Elias and Zoe were running their projections for the battle, and Julie was running thousands of combat scenarios in based on the fleets fighting each other without us. The rebel fleet was 69% likely to win. The two enemy fleets engaged, and six of the Emperor¡¯s fifteen ships turned on their comrades. The win percentage of the rebels went to 98%. Thirty-eight missiles were launched from the three moons. Four targeted the refinery, and the rest the rebel frigates. The Void Phoenix interposed itself and handled all four missiles coming our way.
Elias asked if that was a missile attack on our fleet or not? I sighed and sent the two fighters to attack the Emperor¡¯s ships. My mind was considering everything. The warrior caste made up only 5% of the population of the Chu¡¯Luk. Even if they won, they only controlled the weapons and spacecraft. Resupplying their military was through the second-tier cast. How were they going to get ammunition and fuel¡it seemed this revolution was doomed to fail.
The two Sapphearean fighters took out three ships on their first pass. It effectively ended the space battle even though the missile swarm destroyed three of the eight frigates. The Emperor had cut off communication with Suruchi. Well, I had decided to be on the winning side of the battle, but maybe not the war.
I ordered Elias to track the Emperor with our sensors. The best way to win these battles was to cut off the head of the snake. Our fighters made one more pass, destroying two more ships, and then returned to the battleship. I sent the rebels constant updates on the Emperor¡¯s location as their planetary forces swarmed the palace. The Emperor¡¯s escape was to a mountain range, and the ground craft of the rebel army got there just after him. His entire family was slaughtered.
I got a thank you from the lead captain and asked to open peaceful trade relations. I declined as I felt sick. We were definitely the bully on the playground. We were granted rights to the gas refinery until we were fully fueled and asked continuously to open trade again. Instead, I watched in horror as the rebel military rolled through the planets, taking over without mercy.
I was on the winning side but was I on the right side? I was grateful when we were able to leave. Elias sent me the butcher bill. Our fighters had killed 481 lives on the five ships we destroyed. The rebel about was upwards of having killed 150,000 people. I made a note never to become involved in alien politics again. We transitioned to subspace for the next leg of the journey.
Chapter 135 Managing a Fleet
Chapter 135 Managing a Fleet
Fourteen days in subspace would have the fleet emerge on the edge of an orange dwarf star. The star system was supposed to be completely empty of planets and only have a handful of asteroids. Once again, the Void Phoneix arrived first to scout the system for danger. The Void Phoenix was only in subspace for four days, giving us ten days to scan and explore the system. From the scans, Elvis and Elias found one interesting feature. A derelict spaceship that had no power. Without our sensors, we would never have found the ship. It was half the size of the Void Phoenix and was clearly some type of explorer¡¯s vessel from an alien race.
I put Abby in charge of boarding and searching the craft with her bots. She spent three days going over procedures and protocols for the mission. She tasked four old bots for the mission, refitting them. I planned to leave any bots we sent out behind. I was probably being overly cautious about destroying the bots, but it was best to be safe after the alien spore probe scare.
The Void Phoenix was definitely the most versatile ship in our small fleet. Our one remaining shuttle delivered the bots to the ship, and Abby controlled them as they entered the ship. The ship had no atmosphere, and we found no crew bodies. One of the bots finally found some sealed organic waste. It was enough to run a carbon date on it. The ship was 35,000 years old. It also did not have subspace drives, so it got here through regular space.
The computers on board were binary matrix storage, according to Julie. Abby had powered one terminal, and Julie was decoding the data. There was not a lot of salvageable data on this bridge terminal. It was determined to be the captain¡¯s log after Julie managed to translate the data. The translation was somewhat broken as we lacked linguistic data points. There were a series of nineteen captains in the log books. They had been sent on a mission to the nearest star to their home system. Their home system was experiencing massive solar flares and would not last long. They were the reconnaissance ship for a massive colony ship set to leave a decade after them.
Finding the star in the charts did not take much, and it was still actively flaring from our deep-space scans. The star was 7.2 light year¡¯s away. Julie hypothesized either the colony ship never left the planet or they figured out this system could not support the rebirth of their civilization. Elias suggested it might have been destroyed in transit since their technology was so poor. It would only take a small failure of minor navigation error to have the colonization fail. Julie ran the probability of the ship making it here at less than 5%. This explorer ship had made it here, but from the captain¡¯s logs, the ship was most likely automated as the crew died out partway through the trip.
It was an interesting archaeological find but not something we could spend time on. We searched the ship for any valuable technology and found nothing. The battleship and tanker arrived, and we refueled and serviced their systems. Seven days later, we were entering subspace again. This leg it the trip was the most dangerous. We were exiting into deep space after an 18-day subspace trip. This was because the following jump would get us to an Alliance system where we could purchase fuel. The route, plotted by Elias, was saving us nearly thirty days of subspace travel, bypassing systems that had a high probability of being able to resupply us.
The Void Phoenix, once again, arrived early. The only interesting thing in the range of scanners was a rouge comet. It was 65% ice if we needed to process water. The battleship and tanker appeared slightly off of their expected transition, and it took five days to bring the fleet together. We had a large number of mechanical issues with the tanker as well. The subspace emitters were failing faster than anticipated. Damian transferred over to the ship to help work on the drives. He had improved the battleship¡¯s efficiency in every subspace jump. That was beyond impressive without access to a space dockyard for an overhaul. He really did know the engines of those old ships.
Now I needed him to work the same miracle on the tanker. The wear and tear outpaced our replacements on the emitters and everything from life support to artificial gravity systems. As the fleet was floating in deep space, I was trying to decide if we should abandon the tanker and purchase a new ship in the next system. The Alliance should have something comparable in size, but learning how to man an alien ship would take too long.
I had been too optimistic about my crew¡¯s ability to keep the tanker functional. We just lacked the support ships and personnel. It had taken me years and lots of funds to get the Void Phoenix automated and for it to require so little crew. Suruchi also advised me to move my command to the battleship. It may not be the best ship in the fleet, but it had the most people, and they were starving for leadership. There had been five deaths on the last leg. Three from an engineering accident where a team of three engineers got caught in a hull breach and suffocated. They had their skin suits on, but the concussion from the explosion had knocked them out, so they were not able to get the hoods over their heads and sealed. The other two deaths were from a murder-suicide. It was a love affair gone wrong, according to Suruchi.
It was frustrating, and I felt responsible for the deaths as the pseudo-admiral. The engineering mishap report was a water tank flash froze, cracking the unit. Water leaked into an electrical conduit causing a spark that ignited a liquid oxygen tank leak. The safety procedures were followed closely enough. The main culprit was the sensors on the equipment had all failed. The sensors said the water tank was empty, so they didn¡¯t think the freeze could have expanded the water to rupture the tank. The ozone detectors for that section of the ship were missing, so the sparking electrical wires were not detected. The pressure sensors detected the oxygen tank leak, so the three engineers and bots were sent in for the repairs. As soon as they added atmosphere, a small explosion rocked the ship, bursting hull seals.
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Over twenty-nine thousand sensors and gauges on the battleship were due to be changed out. Too many to complete without a long stay in drydock, so we were doing our best. The fabricators had higher-priority jobs. We switched over to SIC procedures. This meant all repairs in the future would be done as if the ship was in combat. This meant full suits for all repairs and SAR teams on constant standby. Since we didn¡¯t have the personnel, it meant many civilians would be forced into training as SAR teams.
When Damian got to the tanker, he didn¡¯t give me good news either. He said it was a lost cause. The ship was too far gone from the last subspace trip, and the maintenance was going to get exponential over the next few jumps unless there was a complete overhaul. That was a month or more in a human spaceport or longer in an alien spaceport as they worked to fabricate the replacement parts. The lead engineer who had royally fucked up the drives was sent to the battleship to clean the waste recyclers.
Eventually, we transitioned into subspace, and I remained on the Void Phoenix. It was selfish as I wanted my daughter on the safest ship in the fleet and have the ability to run if we encountered an overwhelming force.
We arrived in the Alliance system and quickly verified our friendly status with the locals. The only ships they had for sale were small traders good for short subspace trips. The fuel purchase went smoothly, and I was in negotiations with pre-fabricating parts for the tanker when Elias informed me the tanker had dropped out of subspace four days early. My blood went cold as Damian and nine other men and women from my Void Phoenix crew were on board with the tanker¡¯s operations crew. At least with the subspace transponders, we knew they had run into trouble. We waited, and the transponder transmitted in binary pulses to communicate with us.
The news was not good. The FTL subspace drive was damaged beyond repair. Damian was severely injured. He had tried to play hero and prevent the cascade failure.
I ordered the Void Phoenix to prepare to rendezvous. Elias ran the navigation while I rushed to finish all the maintenance on the FTL drives, we had been in the system for days, but I had not finished the regular maintenance work since I had been spending a lot of time negotiating with locals. I was trying to do too many things. I took a lot of shortcuts to get us back into subspace as quickly as possible. I did many things I never would have done before to get our medical suite out to a friend as quickly as possible.
We used the high band subspace for the 18-hour trip. It was frustrating as communication was just one way. The messages kept coming. They told us two crew had died and four others had been injured. Damian was in semi-stasis and would live. When we finally dropped out of subspace, I ordered a hard dock for the tanker ship, not bothering with the shuttle, which would take only slightly longer.
We would take their entire crew on board and abandon the ship. It was tense as I waited for Doc to give me the verdict on the old engineer. It was not good. Burns to most of the right side of his body and probably brain damage. He had been trying to manually shunt coolant fluid to save the components that were overheating in the failure when the accident happened.
I went to the medical bay as the crew handled transferring what fuel we could salvage and got everyone settled on board. Damian looked terrible, and Doc put him on nerve-deadening agents to wake him. We had a short conversation where he admitted that he had been stupid. I joked and told him now that I was investing SNAIL treatments in him, I expected to get another decade of work out of him. He tried to laugh and say I shouldn¡¯t invest so much in an old engineer like him.
Doc said he would be under for at least a month while she rebuilt his nervous system and epidermal layers. Since he was already back in a forced coma, she asked if she should do a skin rejuvenation to make him appear younger. He had previously turned it down, saying a man should look his age. I told her to make him look 60 instead of 160. I was sure he would appreciate it when he woke up. He always complained that he never had enough time to finish everything anyway.
The Void Phoneix was suddenly lively again with the addition of seventy-nine people. Security was once again an issue. It took us five days of focused maintenance to get back into subspace. When we returned to the Alliance system, the battleship would have been there for three days on its own. Hopefully, we would not get any more surprises. We were getting so close to home¡ªthe Bradbury system.
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Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s fleet was starting to crack at the seams. The humans had been cut off for too long from their support system. Supplies were dwindling; he had lost the battle of attrition and still had not forced the Void Phoenix out of hiding.
He needed to resupply, but he couldn¡¯t ask the Brotherhood. Desdemona and Lazarus had escaped, and even though he had burned them with the organization, they had also burned him. Katsu Oshiro had been removed from power by the organization. He strongly suspected they were also building a fleet to come after Katsu Oshiro.
They were making progress, but the losses continued to be high for their victories. They had killed a number of Squirrel in the last months and mapped out the four hidden bases. His scientists had even developed a device to see the asteroid cities in something they dubbed gravimetric shadows. Even more concerning was the planet. Dozens of population centers were also hidden in gravimetric shadows on the surface but did not seem connected to the Squirrel.
The smartest of his human scientists believed the system¡¯s star was powering the obfuscation of the planet¡¯s cities which appeared to many different races. He was still refining the device¡¯s resolution, but his guess was from the architecture of the structures varying from settlement to settlement. He did not believe the sun was powering the Squirrel asteroids, though.
According to his scientists, the Squirrel were powering their devices with conventional fuel. The fuel transport that managed to sneak past him had resupplied the asteroids. From there, they had refueled the other bases by traveling in the gravimetric shadows. Now he didn¡¯t know how long the Squirrel could remain hidden. All their attempts to create weapons to cross the bridge into the gravimetric shadows had failed. At least they could track the shuttles moving between the asteroids.
Rae¡¯Ver had to decide soon what to do. His hold over the human fleet was waning without supplies and a visible enemy to focus their frustrations on.
Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Desdemona took her ship into the range of the asteroid in the Dantares system. She transmitted the codes and waited. Lazarus was in the co-piolet chair and watched intently. This was their fifth raid on a Brotherhood cache. At one of the caches, the automated defenses had fired on them, but Desdemona had sent a stand-down order to the base¡¯s AI, and it worked. The base¡¯s AI had received a data dump which had ended Desdemona¡¯s access to Brotherhood sites. It had taken over two months to repair the damage to their ship.
They were trying to gather enough funds for the Diamond agents to purchase a ship at these resupply caches. The problem was that they took weeks to get to and sometimes had less than expected. Desdemona did not want to move toward the core worlds until she could clear her name. Clearing her name involved unmasking Rae¡¯Ver, the Sylvan mind-fucker. Her words, not his.
She had done everything she could to leave anonymous info drops to also harm Katsu Oshiro¡¯s name. She hoped it would eventually be enough for his support to be cut off and leave the fucking elf on an island. She knew enough of the elf¡¯s mind to know his own people had exiled him and that he was passionate about the galaxy-breaking technology that the Void Phoenix carried. She was going to make sure he never got his hands on it. And if he did, she would pry it from his dead hands. Lazarus groaned as when she got this angry; he could feel the hate emanating from her, which affected his own disposition.
The asteroid welcomed them, opening the concealed entrance, and Desdemona was soon suited up and searching the small base. Lazarus and his engineer, Broderick, followed and stopped when she opened a second cargo container. Inside were neatly packaged bars of rhodium. The container was massive. Broderick asked if this was finally enough, somewhat exasperated from being jerked around the galaxy and working endlessly on maintaining the ship. Desdemona nodded absently, doing the math in her head. She thought she would now have enough to purchase, outfit, and crew a decent heavy cruiser. She had also been picking up pieces of Brotherhood technology at the caches. Now she needed to get to Silverstream Station to progress her revenge.
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The uniform felt funny, the smell, feel, and look. She had never thought she would wear a uniform again. She had been promoted by Grand Admiral LaRoche in just a few months. He needed good commanders, and Samantha had demonstrated her competency repeadedly.
She was now in another engagement. Lower Admiral Samantha Kirov swore as her tactical officer relayed the positions of the enemy cruisers. She was in charge of the Leopard Task Force. Her task force of twenty-nine heavy corvettes was responsible for responding quickly to aid-friendly systems that came under attack. All her corvettes were equipped with new weapon batteries and upgraded drives.
The enemy had six cruisers from the Republic of Scandinavia. The cruisers were old but extremely durable. The Republic was making an opportunistic attack on this system to take over the mining operations. The asteroid belt was producing vast quantities of heavy metals needed for starship construction. The only good thing with Republic was they would not eradicate the mining operations if they lost this battle. They were one of the few remaining star nations that operated somewhat ethically.
Samantha prepared her task force to start the attack run, cycling ships to the arrowhead to ship out and spread out the incoming fire. Tactical said the Republic ships had launched a salvo of missiles, 220 in the first wave. The Republic used a lot of dummy missiles in the first wave of their salvos to burn up opponents¡¯ defenses. She ordered deep scans to target just the strongest signals first. Her captain¡¯s began a coordinated priority list of targets as sensors detailed the most serious threats. She watched as the missile screen was quickly thinned, but not all of them.
As the wave of missiles reached her ships, two of her heavy corvettes were damaged, and she ordered them to withdraw. She would not risk her ships, as any second strike on those corvettes would destroy them. Her own ships opened with their fast attack missiles. They were the new missiles and highly evasive.
She had her ships retreat at speed and form groups as the second wave launched from the cruisers. She would keep her distance from the heavy weapons with short range on the cruisers and just let them expend their missiles.
The dance continued for fourteen hours, and Samantha lost one corvette and had six others damaged. The enemy fleet was in much worse condition. Two cruisers had lost subspace capability, and the other four were damaged. She was hoping they would retreat soon. Then a dozen subspace signals flared on sensors.
The sensor operator said six battleships and six cruisers had arrived. The battleships were ours, including Admiral LaRoche¡¯s flagship. The cruisers were part of the Republic. When they did not fire on each other, Samantha also ordered all her ships to halt. She knew what was coming. Admiral LaRoche was soon broadcasting to all ships. The Republic had joined their United Congress. She had known negotiations were in progress but didn¡¯t think they would have been completed this soon.
A civilian government was forming. Each star system was allowed to be its own State but governed by a set of universal laws still in the process of being agreed on. Each colonized star system could send one senate representative to the United Congress. That senate representative had voting rights based on their population size. A vote could be weighed as 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 points based on population. This meant that six small mining systems with maybe two hundred and fifty thousand people among all of them would have more voting power than a system with five billion people. It was an imperfect government, but it was a start.
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Samantha did not follow the politics, she followed Admiral LaRoche. That was the best thing about the United Congress. Every member supplied 3.3% of their GDP to the United Navy to use as the admiral saw fit. They also paid the salaries of one Navy officer for every one million people of their population. The Navy was still establishing its own training academies, and so far, the current fleet was drawn from member nations and freelancers like herself. The Navy, so far, was an independent entity of the newly forming government. She knew it would not last forever and only worked as long as the leadership in the Navy had integrity.
Admiral LaRoche contacted her personally to review the battle and praise her for minimizing losses. It was her strongest ability, do as much damage as possible while taking as little as possible. The only problems arose when she had to defend stationary targets like planets and stations. LaRoche finished the communication with was to head to the Arendale system for repairs to her corvettes. She was also being given two heavy missile frigates and one small cruiser-sized carrier to add to her fleet.
She had lost twenty-three men and women in this engagement. Being responsible for more lives¡when she couldn¡¯t even take care of one. The Void Phoenix was a constant topic of discussion, and she had kept what she knew to herself. She just hoped the engineer was keeping her son safe.
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The Void Phoenix shuffled almost the all the crew we rescued from the tanker to the battleship. The battleship had been waiting for us to return and a mini-revolt was on board. It was led by their elected official, Gordan Farsmith. They wanted to establish a colony here in this system under the Alliance banner and not continue onward to the Bradbury system.
Suruchi was barely holding the civilians in check with their demands. I was fine with letting them leave the ship and establish a colony, but they also wanted all the pre-fab modules on board. That was not something I was willing to give up. I needed all the equipment on board if I was going to establish a safe haven in the Bradbury system.
We had two weeks where things were very tense as the ships resupplied. It was Edmond who came to me and advised me what to do. He had a list of fifty-nine names and their families. The people who were leading this revolt against my authority. He said I should package all of them and the seventy-four additional people we had with suspect loyalty and abandon them in this system. We could give them enough Alliance credits to establish their own microcolony. But he strongly advised me to cut bait with the troublemakers.
When you included the families, the list of one hundred and seventy-eight names in total was on my data pad. Did I have the right to do this? I stewed on it and asked for advice from Gwen, Abby, Danielle and Surchi. Of course, they were split 50-50. Gwen and Suruchi thought I should just force them to come with us. The quality of life we would offer them would exceed anything they would find in the Alliance as they eeked out an existence.
Abby and Danielle agreed with Edmund. Cut away the rebels. In the end, I rounded them up into a cargo hold on the battleship and went to give a speech. I tried to make the Bradbury system out as the best option for everyone. But I would respect their decision to leave but each person needed to make their choice, come with us and contribute or leave. I would give each person or child the equivalent of 5,000 Sol credits. That was more than five years¡¯ worth of wages for an academic professor, which many of them were.
There was a lot of yelling as my Marines immediately separated the group and began to ask what their decision was. The 178 became 109. A lot of families broke apart from this process. Edmund also slipped me seven names that had decided to stay, but he thought they might have a connection to the Brotherhood. He asked for my permission to have them missorted and sent away with the others. I put Edmund in charge, and he did not let anyone change their mind once they decided. No one was elected to replace Gordan Farsmith after the culling.
A good portion of the funds we paid actually came from us selling the salvage rights to the tanker. Not that I needed the credits, but I felt it was fitting.
The Alliance species in this system were mixed race, so they welcomed humans to the planet. This system was on the edge of their space and had been a joint colonization effort. The liaisons I worked with said it was one of the fastest-growing systems in the entire Alliance. It had already passed twenty-five million people.
We found we had enough goodwill with the Alliance to earn a personalized escort. Six support ships and two destroyers cycling back to an Alliance system for resupply. It was not our planned destination as it was a shorter nine-day subspace trip for the battleship, but fuel would be cheaper, and there was a good chance they had tankers for sale. Half the capacity of the one we had abandoned, but they were newer ships and could easily be outfitted to handle our needs.
I did get some bad news after Edmund searched the others where JJ and Zoe had turned off the ship cameras to have sex. He found traces of spy equipment. We searched his quarters and found the devices he was using to try and hack into Julie. Under questioning, we learned he was not part of the Brotherhood. He was part of an offshoot organization that opposed the Brotherhood, called the Godfathers. Edmund knew nothing about them. JJ said they did not really operate in this region of space, or even in the Rim. He knew the Godfathers had once been part of the Brotherhood but splintered hundreds of years ago.
Doc ran more scans on JJ after she removed his PerCom. What she came back with was kind of shocking. JJ, Jackson Jones, was not 100% human. His genes had not yet been sequenced for the SNAIL treatments as he was still in his mid-20s. That seemed to be the disconnect between the Godfather and Brotherhood organizations. The Brotherhood was focused on humanity while the Godfathers were apparently open to incorporating aliens into our culture¡ªand genome.
JJ was quite open with us, trying to recruit us to his organization, but he had told the truth too late and under duress. I needed to make a decision on what to do with our captured spy.
Chapter 137
Chapter 137
The discussion of what to do with the Godfather spy took numerous meetings. My core group of advisors of, Abby, Suruchi, Edmund, Nero, Doc, and Kara were all in the meetings. Danielle listened but did not contribute to the conversation. There were three camps. Edmund and Doc wanted to leverage the Godfathers as allies against the Brotherhood. Abby and Kara wanted to eliminate the threat by leaving him behind on the planet with supplies to survive or even killing him outright. They felt he had learned too many of our secrets to be a chance of survival. Suruchi and Nero thought just imprisoning him would be the best course of action. That way, if we did need him to negotiate with the Godfather organization in the future, we could use him.
In the end, it was another decision for me to make. The thought of sentencing someone to death still burned on my humanity, but as my daughter grew, I was willing to take on those shadows if it protected her. My engineer brain was telling them there was a lot of potential utility in JJ. According to JJ, the Godfather organization operated mostly in the Rim worlds. They secretly saved races that the Brotherhood had forced to near extinction through genocide to make humans the dominant race in the galaxy.
JJ would not answer how large his organization actually was or how deeply embedded in races across the stars, but Edmund raised serious doubts about their actual strength. The Brotherhood had secret fleets with advanced technology¡ªreal hidden power. The Godfathers were more like a shadow organization composed of just operatives in his mind.
As we prepared to continue our trip, I decided to imprison JJ on the Void Phoenix. We gave him access to VR and gave him cell equipment to maintain his conditioning, but he was now a prisoner.
The one most hurt by this was Zoe. She had an energetic relationship with JJ since he had come aboard. I allowed her permission to see JJ, and she did so every day. Julie monitored the interactions closely, and it was clear that Zoe was still smitten. Hopefully, she would not do something foolish.
We thoroughly scanned the Alliance fleet that was serving as our escorts. It was more of a precaution than anything else. They carried a standard Marine compliment and didn¡¯t have any extra boarding supplies. Abby didn¡¯t see any indication that they were going to perform a double cross. The battleship was at the center of the escort fleet as we entered sub-space.
The nine-day trip had my focus on fleet logistics and getting ready to purchase the two medium tankers. We had a number of extra crew on the Void Phoenix training in VR to prepare to crew the alien ships we would be purchasing. One of the ships would most likely be new, and the other one would be a few years old. The configuration of the tankers was made for Naval support. Due to this, the two tankers would have a basic set of defensive weapons. Eight of the Marines on the Void Phoenix were cross-training to operate these weapons.
The trip was mostly uneventful. Celeste and Amos were starting wander more all over the ship. I had Celeste and the playmate bot shadowing them to keep them out of trouble. For some reason Zed, Gabby¡¯s dog, was running away from the pair when he saw them. I asked Julie to review the video footage to see what had caused the ever-friendly dog to be scared of the children.
Julie found footage of of Celeste and Amos taking over one of the Black Window bots in the cargo bay. It was one of four prepped for our new medium tankers. Celeste had used it to run around the cargo bay, and she chased Zed with it and even encased him in the spray foam agent.
I came down hard on Celeste, Amos, and Eve for bullying Zed. I do not think I had ever felt such raw emotion before. Zed, even though he was a dog, was a friend. I gave the speech ¡®treat others like you wish to be treated.¡¯ I even went to the archaic discipline of spanking, making both children cry. Eve was sent for a seven-day deactivation for not intervening. Celeste and Amos were cut off from VR helmets for thirty days. Their brains had not developed enough for full VR implants. I then talked with all the crew on board about disciplining Celeste and Amos for acting dangerously¡ªthey were free to intercede on my behalf and send me a report. Abby¡¯s response was¡ªabout time.
When we exited in the Alliance system, it was a spaceship manufacturing center with rich asteroid belts and one terraformed planet. The planet was converted by a race that died out over 200,000 years ago, but the ruins left clear evidence that they had hauled thousands of ice asteroids and created an atmosphere. It would have been a bio-engineering project on a massive scale. Humanity had its own terraforming projects, but all were monumental undertakings. The first ever successful project was Mars, which took nearly 1500 years and innumerable resources in the early centuries of Earth¡¯s discovery of subspace.
Each of the system¡¯s two asteroid belts had massive shipyards. The smaller was focused on civilian ships, and the larger belt was reserved for naval ships. We were directed to dock with a civilian station in the lesser belt. The station was a sprawling matrix of scaffolding with dozens of ships under construction simultaneously. It was a widely diverse operation, with each of the Alliance races building their variants of civilian starships.
Our battleship was getting a lot of attention from the local patrol cutters around the station, even though it barely had any weaponry. Edmund, Abby, and Julie were going to be on security for the crews of both ships and tracking all cargo on and off the ships. It was going to be a nightmare as we planned for two weeks here and planned to let everyone explore the hospitality of the station.
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I already had numerous requests for assistance from the Alliance for the technology I had already traded with them. They were running into manufacturing issues because of the limitations on AI. I decided Eve could serve as the liaison with the Alliance scientists as a continuation of her punishment.
I didn¡¯t have time to do the maintenance on the FTL drives with the purchase of the new ships. Damian was still under Doc¡¯s care, so I fully expected the two weeks to be extended. At least Suruchi was extremely busy with colony planning. We had a lot of prefab buildings on the battleship but were lacking quite a bit for a successful colony in the Bradbury system. We had no one on board prepared for this so Julie was advising Suruchi and Vicky for the emmense of the amount of supplies needed. So many supplies that they wanted me to purchase another transport in addition to the two tankers. For the first time, I felt my funds were not bottomless.
My brother asked for a meeting with me, and I fit him into my busy schedule. My brother had his planetary defense army worked out as well. We knew there were other cities made up of numerous races on the habitable planet in the system, and I had not given much thought to their disposition toward new settlers.
I looked over what my brother wanted, fifty SA heavy fighters, fifty APC tanks, ten heavy drop shuttles, and five hundred Marines in Badger Powered Armor. The SA fighters were Space to Atmosphere (SA) fighters. They would be stationed on the converted battleship serving as a space station. I put down the data slate as I continued to eat the meal Cori, the chef, had prepared.
Everything he put down was reasonable, but the resources and manpower were well outside my means. There was no way I could afford to hire Tirani mercenaries and maintain what was essentially an army. Silas had talked to the Squirrel scientists, and he believed most of his forces would be composed of volunteers from their species to start. For some reason, the Squirrel almost worshipped me for saving their species from extinction.
I told my brother we could work on it. The Squirrel preferred the Gecko suits over the Badger suits. I did not think the APC tanks warranted as I did not want to conquer the planet. The fighters were rational to defend the space station. I did not want to buy the many heavy fighters. I believed I could convince the Squirrel to manufacture them, though.
So my answer to my brother was yes to five hundred marines, ten heavy landing shuttles, and seventy fighters. Thirty-six space fighters and thirty-six SA fighters. But I put a note that it would be a twelve-year development program to reach that strength. I was already watching my credits evaporate. Somehow the colony would have to support the military financially¡ªand this army did not even include spaceships! I was going from being an admiral to a system governor. That did not work for me as there were much better people for the job.
Of course, all of these plans were reliant on the Squirrel to get us access planet and then negotiate peace with the current residents. These steps were too far ahead in the process. For now, we would just be prepared as possible.
It was thirteen days after we arrived that I went to tour the ships I was going to purchase. One medium transport and two naval support tankers. Even though the queue for new ships was backlogged, I was allowed to jump the queue for my purchase at no charge. The Alliance was doing what it could to keep my friendship.
The schematics went through Julie¡¯s program, and she found dozens of problems with the design. High degrees of inefficiency and numerous problems with compatibility. The only upgrade I planned was to tie in a simple AI to help the crew. It was a violation to us AI on civilian ships in the Alliance¡ªbut I was not a member of the Alliance.
The transport was the nicest ship of the bunch. It was completed six months ago, and the builder was still waiting on the final payment. Most likely, the person who had commissioned the ship had perished in a subspace accident. I was given the option to purchase the ship at their cost, and the money the original buyer paid would go into an escrow. The ship was the same size as the Void Phoenix but just had four large cargo decks and a fifth top deck for crew quarters. It would take about fifteen people to run the ship.
The two fleet support tankers were more robust builds but lacked crew amenities. Both ended up being mostly new, having just completed a pair of jumps in support of three Alliance battleships. Those battleships were now stationed in defense of this system and could wait two years for new tankers to be built. They were barely passable to do what we needed but would get us to the Bradbury system, and then the Squirrel would hopefully overhaul them for a fee.
We were going to have to hire engineers from the Alliance populace. I just did not have the skilled personnel for it. I turned over the issue to Kara Briggs. If we could draw all the crew from a single Alliance race, maybe we could get them to establish a small colony as well. My hope was sixty civilian engineers and families.
Kara found a race called the Nyriads in the Alliance. They were humanoid, had light blue skin, and were short¡ªbetween 1.2 and 1.4 meters. The Nyriads were decent engineers among the races of the Alliance, except they required slightly higher oxygen content in life support. They preferred 25-26%, while humans standardized oxygen between 21-22% on spaceships. On the sixteenth day in port, Kara had lined up thirty-nine Nyriad engineers and one hundred and seven family members.
That was the best we were going to do, and all the engineers and families would be on our three new ships with four Marines from the Void Phoenix and three command crew from the battleship. It took another twelve days to get the crews and families situated on the ships. In all, we had spent thirty-two days in the system.
The new ships had the subspace transponders mounted on the bridge so we could track their progress in the subspace. We had enough fuel to only need to stop once more to reach the Bradbury system. We would have plenty of Alliance systems to choose from on the trip to resupply.
When the fleet lined up at the edge of the system, I felt like a real admiral commanding five ships. It felt like we were complete and in the final stretch of a very long journey.
Chapter 138
Chapter 138
The next stop was a small Alliance system with a habitable moon. The moon was slightly larger than the Earth norm. Although the moon had an atmosphere, the surface temperature was almost always below freezing. The people lived under the shifting ice sheets on the surface. It was hard living, and the stations offered very little. I decided not to waste the fuel to travel to the space stations.
We remained on the system¡¯s edge, refueled the fleet, did our maintenance, and planned to enter warp seven days later. It was two days longer than I had targeted, but the new crews were still getting accustomed to their ships. My new ship captains had been pulled from the bridge crew of the battleship, and I was already getting complaints from the Nyriad crew. I did a comm call with Kara to review the myriad of complaints. The solution we came up with was to put the best Marine on board in the captain seat. All three of the captains on the alien ships had gone on serious power trips. Either they were trying to impress me or just terrible captains.
To be fair to the temporary captains, none of them had any leadership training in the Union and didn¡¯t have very good role models when they served on the bridges. I told all three of them they would remain on board their assigned ship and be given a second chance after they completed the twenty-eight leadership modules Julie prepared for them. If they failed after that, then they would never command again.
Our next subspace trip was thirteen days, and I finally had time to relax a little. I managed to get back in the Sword and Sorcery game and level up my barbarian with Nero¡¯s thief. I chose to play with Nero because he was the only crew member with a lower-level avatar than me. Nero was not very good at the game, but we had fun making a mockery of the quests and somehow accomplishing them through pure luck. Need a damsel rescued? Well, you should have specified you wanted her alive when you posted the quest.
Celeste was talking at dinner, saying she couldn¡¯t have fun anymore. Julie would alert the nearest crew member if she was getting up to mischief. They would then intervene and lecture her. Even Eve, who was back from her extended time out, was doing a better job instilling values in the kids. I smiled at my daughter and told her it was time to grow up, but she could always have her fun VR. She was still years away from being allowed into the full dive VR, but she could use the helmet for now.
Danielle was pregnant with a boy. I was excited, and Doc said he was healthy. We were thinking of naming him Dartanian. Danielle was still obsessed with purging all the back doors into Julie¡¯s programming. She was finding out how complex programming could be made. She estimated she was around 12% done at this point. The hardest part was finding the rewrite coding. This lets the programming repair damage to itself. Unfortunately, it also reinstalled the back doors she purged. Everyone she tagged was a victory for her. She would have to remove all the rewrite code in one sweep once she identified all of them.
The Zoe and JJ relationship was still burning, and I started to allow conjugal visits since they were officially married. JJ was still trying to convince us to join Godfather or at least talk with a representative. Edmund had looked into the data from the Brotherhood, and they deemed them a threat to the integrity of human survival. I still did not know what to make of them.
On the voyage to the next system, things started to come together. The subspace transmitters in the ship were working, and all the ships were on the correct vectors and at the expected speed in subspace. It made me think that perhaps putting a Marine in the captain¡¯s seat was a good move. They, of course, knew shit about three-dimensional combat and tactics, but they were not on warships. Maybe Marines would make good first officers in my fleet? I didn¡¯t have to hold to some antiquated concept that in order to be an officer, you needed to be groomed and selected by your DNA and how well you kissed someone else¡¯s ass.
We exited subspace in the Alliance system of Grr¡¯enthier. After a scan, I had my fleet form up and head in the system. Our three Alliance-purchased ships would dock for maintenance. The Void Phoenix would ferry those from the battleship who wished for shore leave. I was not about to spend so much money on fuel moving the battleship in the system.
This system was home to a feline-like race. Nothing close to the Wren species who were actually genetically altered humans. This species actually were apex predators on their jungle planet. From the records, they only reached space with the help of a first contact with another Alliance race about 300 years ago. They made terrible engineers and scientists and were only good at combat. At least, that is what one Alliance admiral put in the notes on the system. Still they had large stations filled with experienced Alliance engineers, and I wanted my ships looked over by some expert engineers to see how my Nyriads were doing.
I remained on the Void Phoenix and worked on the subspace engines with Damian, who was back on his feet. He had been angry with me when he woke up. I had asked Doc to make his appearance younger. I had said to make him appear 60 instead of 160. She went overboard, and Damion thinning white hair was now a thick dark blonde, and almost all his wrinkles were gone. He looked in his mid-forties. I checked his SNAIL data, and it projected he would maintain high cognitive ability for another two decades. There was only so much science could do for the neural connections in the brain. Eventually, there would be a decline. He had a full array of organ replacement as well with muscular rejuvenation as well.
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Damian was still mad at me and Doc until I saw him leaving Vicky¡¯s quarters one morning with a massive grin. When he noticed me, he just grunted and said she was having trouble with her shower. After that incident, Damian was in a much better mood¡ªall the time.
We had our first major cultural incident. Mozzie and a few other crew had taken a shuttle down to the planet to explore the jungle planet. They hired the local feline-like species as guides. Mozzie and six other Marines were going camping to see some of the wildlife on the planet. Large carnivores the locals hunted. On the first night of camping, Mozzie challenged one of the feminine felines to a friendly wrestling match. She declined, but his persistence and the drunken state eventually got the feline to concede. Mozzie got cut up pretty badly, but he also won.
The local laws meant that Mozzie had won his bride. He unwittingly consummated the relationship in the tent immediately after. So now my fun-loving Tirani Marine was married to a mostly feral alien cat woman. Suruchi and Abby had looped me in on the problem. Mozzie did not want to marry the woman and apologized, saying it was the intoxicated status¡which was another part of the local ceremony. Being drunk was required for the process to be official. In the end, Doc went to the planet and comprehensively examined the feline. Her intensive medical exam showed they could not produce offspring. Therefore under the local law, the marriage could be annulled.
After this incident, we changed shore leave to planets to require a cultural immersion module in VR. According to Abby, it wouldn¡¯t prevent all issues but may at least teach the stupid out of the Marines.
The reports from the engineers we hired to service our ships came in. The two tankers were in great shape. The engineers were doing a great job. The medium transport had a few issues but nothing alarming. I reviewed the report and added my own notes to be sent to the crew. I was much more comfortable with the Nyriad engineers. I hoped they would join my fleet permanently. I would need to increase the amenities for the crew on the ships and give their families a planet to settle on¡all things I planned to do in the future.
The three ships joined us in the outer system, and we refueled the battleship and The Void Phoenix and entered subspace a few hours later. Our next stop was in deep space, and Elias had to yell at the other ship¡¯s navigators to get them to log the course. Fourteen days in subspace, then we would refuel and make another fourteen-day trip and stop at an Alliance system. Our next stop would be the Bradbury system, the light at the end of the tunnel.
The refueling in deep space went well. All ships were ready to renter subspace in just four days. When we exited into the Alliance system, we were welcomed. I had all the ships head to one of the outer system gas giants for refueling and shove leave on the large station orbiting it. It had been a month in subspace, and the crews needed a break. There was a colonized barren planet in the system as well. All the cities were domed, and there was nothing to go sightseeing for.
Edmund did note he was picking up Brotherhood transmissions in the system. There were at least two operatives. One on the station and one on the planet. They were both low-level Obsidian agents. I decided to give the origin of the signals to the local Alliance offices. We remained long enough in the system to find out the agents were aliens being paid by the Brotherhood to broadcast data to an orbiting satellite. We identified the disguised satellite for the Alliance and were given a modest reward of Alliance credits for our help.
We were starting to get close to human space, so it should not have been a surprise to find the Brotherhood operating here. After we refueled, I reviewed my credit and material balance. I had enough funds to operate my fleet for five years. That was as long as the battleship was converted. We needed the Squirrel to have succeeded in making the planet accessible. If it was not, then that would be our top priority. The mood with the civilian crew was high. Just two more weeks in subspace and the promised Shangrala would be reached. Hopefully, I hadn¡¯t promised more than I could deliver.
We entered subspace, and I checked all the beacons¡every ship was with us. The subspace journey was anxious on the Void Phoenix. A long rest was coming for the crew. New challenges to settle a planet and establish a human and Nyriad colony. Suruchi was back on the ship, and I think she was vying for the position of governor. With all the Sol credits I had paid her over the years and the profits she made for her self-trading, she could probably found her own colony.
My brother was also on board, and the meetings had switched from fleet maintenance to planetary colonization. We all had no experience and were relying on Julie to help guide us from millennia of human records. We thought we had a great step-by-step plan. The bridge stations were full as we exited subspace in the Bradbury system. The alien sensors started to populate the holo tank and my screens. Elias was working furiously with Elvis to get detailed scans of the ships that were in range.
Zoe let a long ffffuuuccckkk. I flipped my comms and ordered Eve to get the children on Caladrius and prepare to launch. It was the only ship we had with a long-distance subspace drive. My maintenance had not been spectacular on the Void Phoenix. Even if I rushed, it would be at least two days before we could reenter subspace.
We were already in full stealth mode, but that didn¡¯t mean anything, as the fleet would arrive behind us in six hours. They would also know someone had just entered the system from subspace. Since these were Brotherhood ships, they might even be able to see through our stealth. At least we were on the edge of the system, and we were a few hours for an intercept. The entire crew looked to me for direction. It was time to be an admiral.
Chapter 139 Rae鈥橵er vs. Wellspring
Chapter 139 Rae¡¯Ver vs. Wellspring
We had been noticed by the Brotherhood ships shortly after our exit from subspace. Most of our stealth coating was Brotherhood technology, so I should not have been surprised. I looked hard at the display and holo tank. The Brotherhood fleet was swarming one of the asteroid colonies of the Squirrel. Elias turned from his station and said the other three Squirrel colony asteroid were showing their gravity shadow and looked untouched. They were not in real space and were hidden from the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood had only recently broken down the defenses of this Squirrel base. One light carrier was on an intercept for us. Elias said seven hours until they reached us. Even if we fled, we were not going to get away as the fast attack carrier was burning hard and had better acceleration than the Void Phoenix. The deep scans of the ship showed sixteen Warpath Intercepters on board and prepped for launch¡ªthe worst possible match-up for the Void Phoenix. The heavy Warpath Intercepter had one heavy energy cannon and an array of fast attack missiles, and a powerful engine.
I did the mental calculation and had Elias take us into the system. If we could pull the ships away from our fleet entering in six hours and give them enough distance to get their FTL drives turned over to escape. My terminal pinged¡ªthe Caladrius was prepped.
I made a decision I may regret later. I ordered Zoe to pilot the Caladrius. She was not happy, but I wanted Celeste safe. The Caladirius was originally designed as a luxury fast in-system craft. Two pilots, one engineer, and five passengers were the specs. Once, we added more life support to take more of the Squirrel, but we had stripped it out, and eight was the safe limit again.
We had also added the Brotherhood¡¯s micro FTL system to the ship. I assigned Zoe, Luna, and Abby to the crew. All of them objected, and I pretended to get angry as I did not have time to argue. The passengers were Celeste, Amos, Zed, Doc, Neon-Doc¡¯s child, Danielle, and Mozzie. I was also sending six bots: Eve, Chloe, the play bot, and the best three engineering bots. Danielle was pregnant with our son, and Mozzie was going as protection, taking his Badger suit with him. Eve¡¯s Badger suit was also going to be loaded.
The assignments caused some dissension. The more resistance to orders I had, the louder and more affirmative I got. I was sending them to Silver Stream station. I was transferring a small fortune in precious metals into the cargo hold. If we did not reunite, they should be set for life. Elias slid into the pilot¡¯s seat as Zoe left. He was running both navigation and pilot controls as we went. Elias put up an estimated plot for the Warpath Intercepters once they were launched. They were powerful ships, but their operation life was relatively short since they could not carry much fuel. We had three hours before they could launch and reach us¡make that three hours, twenty minutes. Our acceleration would improve once the mass of the Caladrius launched and lightened our ship.
I brought up screens and started doing the math. I ordered the fighters and one remaining Brotherhood shuttle to launch and to make their way to the largest Squirrel asteroid after being loaded with materials. It would only drop our mass by 1.1%, but it was something. It would also get more Marines off the ship. I hit fast release for the Caladrius bay doors. The entire belly of the Void Phoenix shot away as the explosive bolts fired. I did it to shed a small amount of mass and maybe distract the pursuers. We were losing some protective hull plating, but duplicate shield emitters were in the cradle. Some yellow flashing engineering indicators were handled by Nero. He was doing his best to cycle the FTL systems. I knew it was impossible to do it in less than a day. They needed to cool completely, get maintenance, and then power up slowly.
We had three decoy drones left on the ship. I doubted they would fool the Brotherhood¡¯s advanced sensors, but I would try anyway. Ten minutes later, we had the Caladrius launch, and I also sent the three decoy drones shortly after. Elias turned and said the Brotherhood fleet around the asteroid was moving. We were receiving delayed hails from the Brothership battleship as well. Well, this should be interesting. I had them open the comm. It was on a two-minute delay. I was stunned when a familiar space elf greeted me on the screen. He had introduced himself as Rae¡¯Ver and bowed mockingly. He asked me to surrender so he did not have to sift through the wreckage of our ship.
With the delay in comms, things were happening fast. The Brotherhood was firing a large spread of FTL disrupters. They were intended to get ahead of a ship by skipping through subspace and then detonating when emerging. I knew they existed from the records I reviewed with Edmund. I asked Elias for thoughts on our predicament.
He turned and said they probably did not have a large stockpile of the subspace disrupters. We should do what we can to draw them away from the Caladrius so it could escape. My brother and Ransom Krueger appeared on the bridge and took to empty stations. They probably wanted to be useful but would just be monitoring screens as neither was bridge trained. I sent a comm message to Rae¡¯Ver telling him he would never catch us. That was a blatant lie. We had transitioned too far into the system. Too close to their fleet.
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The disrupters started going off, and Elias panicked. Elias flashed an image on the screen. The disruptors were acting as anchors, not disruptors. Suddenly three cruisers skipped from the fleet to the location of the detonated missiles. That should not have been possible. They were too close to the gravity of the star¡ªunless¡ªdamn it. The disruptors must have mapped the space for them to jump. I had too many questions and no time to answer them.
Warpath Intercepters and assault shuttles were launching from the cruisers. The Caldrius was only a few minutes from transitioning to subspace. This time the missiles fired from the cruiser were subspace disruptors. The Caladrius disappeared twenty seconds before they went off. I relaxed in my captain¡¯s chair. Celeste and Danielle were away safely. The shuttle and the two fighters heading toward the asteroid would be intercepted in seven minutes by six interceptors.
I had my own problems with five boarding shuttles vectoring toward me.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rae¡¯Ver watched his humans swarm over the asteroid. Three days ago, the hidden facility had finally run out of power. His fleet had cautiously approached, and the Squirrel fled like rats toward their other hidden asteroids. It did not take much to intercept them, but they chose to try a suicide run instead of surrendering. All they managed to capture was a single shuttle of Squirrel children. Disappointing. The asteroid had dozens of traps, and they had been frustrated in trying to recover anything of value. Killing the fleeing Squirrel was not enough.
He already knew he was not going to get anything of value. They had too much time to prepare for this eventuality. Why were they being so stubborn?
He was looking over the latest scientific reports. They had engineered a few subspace disruptors to make the gravimetric waves instead of creating them. This was a step toward hopefully developing a weapon to attack the gravity shadows of the hidden Squirrel asteroids. His bridge sensor operator called to him. A ship had entered the outer system. This would be the fifth ship in the last year. He stood up abruptly.
The silhouette matched the Void Phoenix. He immediately sent his fastest carrier with heavy fighters to intercept. He prepared a message for the ship and called on his scientist to launch the prototype missiles and use the echoes to send three cruisers ahead of the fleeing ship. The scientist looked like he was going to object. There was more than a good chance all the cruisers would be destroyed. Everything about the missiles was theoretical. The scientist did not dare object. Too many people disappeared when they opposed him.
He sent his message and watched as delayed sensor data filled his display. Two large pieces had come off the ship¡ªand it had launched a courier vessel? This must be the one Deven Wellspring appropriated when his city ship Ponffir had been heavily damaged.
The message was received, and he waited for a response as his skipper missiles dipped into subspace. Four of the six survived to detonate their mapping software and send the data back. It had worked.
Then something dreadful happened. Multiple ships fired drives from the target. Not just the courier but fighters, a shuttle, and three decoys. The decoys were picked up immediately as the software on his battleship quickly differentiated the signal. The shuttles and fighters were headed for one of the asteroids, and the Void Phoenix was moving away at speed.
A message from the Void Phoenix had the elusive Deven Wellspring on the screen. The man who more than he appeared. The man who held the secrets he desperately needed to fight the Malevalents. Deven taunted Rae¡¯Ver by saying he would never be caught and all his efforts in the last two years were for naught. Rae¡¯Ver grip cracked the composite armrests of his chair.
He could not wait any longer and ordered the cruisers into subspace to get ahead of the fleeing mice. He pulled the rest of his fleet to intercept in normal space, but they were too slow to play a factor in the upcoming battle.
The cruisers entered subspace and came out where they were supposed to be! This was amazing until reports came in. One cruiser had minor damage. One cruiser had no life signs, and the third cruiser had damage and a number of injured crew. He ordered the remote operation of the dead in a space cruiser. Maybe he could use it as a decoy to cut off an escape route. Only one cruiser was able to launch ships. Six interceptors and five boarding shuttles. His prize was now within his grasp. The small courier disappeared into subspace, his heart dropped. Then the real subspace disruptors ignited from two of the cruisers. His prey was trapped. He ordered the sixteen interceptors to launch from behind and ordered the two fighters destroyed and the shuttle disabled before they reached the Squirrel asteroid they were burning hard for.
The two fighters desperately tried to defend the shuttle from the swarming Brotherhood heavy interceptors. They were remarkably successful as the dogfight unfolded. The heavy cannons of Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s fighters were scoring hits but not taking the fighters apart. Watching the engagement was fascinating until one of his ships finally unleashed a full spread of all of its heavy missiles at once, eight in total at one fighter.
The fighter dodged two, and countermeasures took care of three more, but the final three landed. The first missile through the fighter into a death spiral, and the other two finally cracked the tough little fighter. It was not long until the other fighter was taken down with multiple missiles. Those small fighters were just as good, if not better, than the Sylvan Sprite fighters. More technology, he would obtain more from his prey.
The shuttle weaved as it raced in desperation from the focused fire of the five interceptors. The hull split, and it vented its fuel, fortunate it had not exploded. Rae¡¯Ver turned his attention to the true prize, the Void Phoenix. This ship he needed in one piece. His people would celebrate him and welcome him back once he obtained the knowledge of the Void Phoenix.
Chapter 140 Not a Storybook Ending
Chapter 140 Not a Storybook Ending
We had just lost three Marine pilots, Finn and one engineer, in training. Had I made a mistake in launching them? Their deaths were definitely on me and a miscalculation. With our own situation so grim, I could not dwell on it.
The boarding shuttles had a bad vector on the Void Phoenix, but the pursuing light carrier had launched all twelve of its Warpath Interceptors. Rae¡¯Ver was either desperate or confident in ending this. I gave the signal to Elias, and the decoys swung around wide and began to accelerate toward the light carrier. They acted like fighters in their evasive maneuvers, making an attack run as they accelerated.
The heavy guns of the carrier ignored the drones as they sped toward the cruiser, and the anti-missile and anti-fighter defenses fired to destroy them. The three drones took incoming flak fire and tried to evade it. One drone spun away, its thrusters too damaged to continue functioning. The other two drones penetrated the defenses after taking numerous hits. We had layered the drones with thin layers of the alien hull and hardened the internals like the Armageddon bots.
They had a minor self-destruct explosive payload but that was to destroy the technology and not do damage. We were relying on their kinetic energy from their high-speed collision with the shield. The shields on the port side overloaded with the first drone slamming in, emitters blowing in series. Elias timed the drone strikes perfectly. The second drone impacted on the hull before the backup shield emitters could initiate, causing a modest explosion. The light carrier lost power, and the backup systems powered up seconds later.
Elias mumbled his disappointment at not destroying the ship. Elvis sent a scanner report from the damage. It appeared we had done enough destruction to the fighter bays to prevent the fighters from refueling and rearming. A small reward as the twelve fighters started their ranged assault on the Void Phoenix. The ship thrummed as the high-energy weapons from the fighters hit our shields. These heavy fighters were specialized in draining shields, and twelve of them would make quick work of our shields. The shields were quickly drained in minutes, and the shots switched to targeting our engines. I was confused. Did Rae¡¯Ver not just want to blow me out of the sky for revenge? Maybe he wanted to capture me and torture me for destroying his city ship. Well, I was not going to make it easy.
I had Elias flip over the Void Phoenix, reversing our course, and burn into the swarm of fighters. Elias switched his terminal over to weapons. After the fighters passed us, Elias launched all our defensive missiles. They were anti-missile and anti-fighter missiles. Too small to damage a larger ship. The fighters went evasive as they launched their countermeasures. The Squirrel engineers had upgraded the missiles, and they forced the fighters to expend a lot of fuel to evade them. Only one fighter took two hits and spun hard, most likely killing the pilot as the power to the inertia compensators had failed. That was all we got and I was surprised to get even one. The missile attack was mostly a distraction to get them to burn fuel in evasive maneuvers. Eleven fighters remained. At least we were now going the opposite direction of the assault boarding shuttles, right toward the damaged light cruiser.
I looked at my timer. In one hour, my four ships would be arriving in the system. I checked the overall plot. We were still pulling the enemy fleet away from their intended arrival. I sent an alert to the lower decks. Power was going to be shut down to everything below the command deck with the exception of engineering, where Nero was working. All power was being siphoned to the capacitors for our two medium grazers.
Elvis announced some bad news. The disrupter was a segmented chain design. Each disrupter was actually a series of individual disrupters, setting off a new gravity sink before the last one expired. The chain would last for days in a 90-million-kilometer envelope. Elvis showed the bubble of effect, and our arriving ships would thankfully be outside of it and could escape. The massive disruptor missile had come from the battleship. If it had another, then there was no way my ships could escape when they arrived. Everything we were doing could be for naught.
As we were getting close to our attack run on the light carrier, I asked for an update on all the ships in the system. The fighters had turned, formed, and would be attacking our aft again in about three minutes. Of the three cruisers that had cut us off¡one was disabled. The entire crew has been killed. Elvis guessed their interia dampers failed on the short jump too close to the gravity well of the star and turned the crew to paste. Another cruiser had lost maneuvering from the jump. That was why they had not launched fighters or assault shuttles. Only one cruiser had been intact enough to launch ships.
I had the sensors swing to the large fleet still a distance away. One battleship, two more cruisers, three support frigates and three corvettes. All had external weapon mounts. In the high orbit of the planet were four large transports and one corvette. Those must be the support ships for the fleet. I returned my focus as the light cruiser opened fire on our ship. They only used two turrets, each with duel grazers. The heavy weapons had trouble keeping a lock on the Void Phoenix from their damaged systems. I guessed enough sensors had been destroyed that they were having trouble triangulating out position. Only one in seven shots hit, but when it did, the entire ship shuddered. The shields started to fail again as the capacitors were emptied, and the first attack hit the hull, blowing off a subspace emitter.
It was not like Elias was not trying to evade the incoming fire. The Void Phoenix was cork-screwing on its path. I finally allowed Elias to open fire. Flying, running sensors, and weapons were a lot to expect of one person. After all the crew I had hired and trained¡ªthey were spread across the rest of my absent fleet.
Elias took three shots to find the carrier in his weapon lock. Then a miracle happened. The carrier had no shields, not even basic deflector shields. They must have shut down generators for repairs. Each shot dug into the hull, blowing debris into space. He quickly focused both weapons on engineering. Exactly where the primary reactor would be. The enemy ship stopped firing and then exploded. The ship nust have been more damaged than previously thought. Elias gave a short phrase sending his enemies into the afterlife before starting to weave as the pursuing fighters opened fire again. They seemed angry because they added missiles to the barrage.
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I ran the possibilities in my mind and ordered everyone to get their suits up. I raced to my quarters to put on my Badger suit. I had five Marines left on board, and they were already suited. The pursuing fighters were going to disable our engines, and the boarding shuttles were going to reach us. I almost regretted not going with Celeste as I knew this was the likely result of engaging the Brotherhood. I had hoped to find a way to get into open space while drawing the ships away from my fleet¡¯s expected arrival.
I returned to the bridge in my suit and ordered my brother to suit up. He had minimal experience in the suit, but it would protect him. I told him to release JJ and get him suited as well. He could earn his freedom and fight his enemies, the Brotherhood. I took stock of my crew.
I had five Marines, Silas, JJ, and myself in power armor. I had Nero, Yannis, and Kristina as my engineers on board. Then there was Elias and two Squirrel engineers. I commed my brother as the ship started jerking from missiles on the shields. I told him to grab some Geko suits for everyone else on the bridge. Hopefully, Nero in engineering had already suited up.
Not three minutes later, the shields gave way, and the first missile struck our aft thrusters, throwing everyone around as inertia compensators had not been prepared. Elias was spinning the ship and said we had a comm message coming from the Squirrel in system. The had brought their other three asteroid colonies out of shadow space. Small craft were being launched from the asteroids and headed toward the main Brotherhood fleet and Rae¡¯Ver. Help was not going to reach the Void Phoenix, but they might delay the main fleet and give my arriving fleet a chance to turn over their subspace engines and get away.
The Void Phoenix suddenly lurched hard and reverberated in an explosion. We turned the sensors on ourselves. The calibration had been thrown off. But not enough to still see that a good quarter of engineering was gone. Nero was gone as well as the two Squirrel engineers. Evis found them in space seconds later. Nero was missing his leg, his suit was compromised, and he was dead. One of the Squirrel had life signs so we logged his vector and speed and sent out a mayday for him.
I mourned for seconds. My friend was dead, and it was my fault. I turned my sadness to rage. What could I do to avenge him?
I focused my rage into clear thought. Rational thought. My goal was still to live through this. I quickly sat in the engineering station on the bridge and moved all the remaining engineering bots to deal with engineering issues. Elias said the shuttles were latching onto the hull and boarding. Elias then moved to Gabby¡¯s station to control the spider bots.
There was not much point in defending engineering. I pulled the five marines back so they boarders would have to deal with Gabby¡¯s defenses first. At my engineering station I quickly began moving all power to the alien sensors. That was the biggest advantage we had, knowing exactly where they were. The first boarders did as expected, taking engineering and shutting off the primary reactors.
Each of the five shuttles unloaded nine Marines in combat armor. I heard one of my Marines mumble forty-five versus six created a target-rich environment for us. This was the squad that Mozzie led so I needed to step into the role. I left the bridge to join them. I ordered everyone else to remain on the bridge to defend Elias as he fought with the spider, wolf, and steward bots. I overrode Julie¡¯s programming and let her assist Elias in the defense, controlling some of the bots.
I watched as the spider bots and wolf bots worked in concert in the lower decks. It was a bloody and violent battle. The Brotherhood Marines were well trained and made steady progress and minimized losses. By the time they reached deck seven only six of their men were dead and a handful wounded. We drew them into the large promenade area as my Marines fought the with the last two Black Widow Spider Bots. We quickly reached a stalemate after they lost seven men to our one. Gale Rivera had taken repeated helmet strikes, breaking her seals. Since we were in a vacuum, she was too isolated in her firing position to get to the emergency air.
My suit was scorched and burned from heavy plasma fire but held together. Some internals had melted and burned my skin, but I was fine. Many of the Marines with men had the same issues. I needed to add some heat dissipators in the future. Five successive plasma strikes heated the suit too fast. Elias radioed and said the borders were down to twenty-nine combat effective. They planned to walk the hull to the command deck with half their men.
I needed to split my team to defend two areas. I sent everyone except Aribara, a female Tirana, to defend the upper decks. Elias said the Squirrel shuttles had engaged the enemy fleet. I was confused for a moment before realizing they were approaching in shadow space and depositing their Marines before their shuttle was destroyed. They were sacrificing themselves to slow down the fleet.
The Marines on the upper decks started to engage, and JJ was leading the combat. For being a spy he was an exceptional fighter. My attention was drawn to my fight. Aribara and I were under heavy fire from a dozen men as we retreated. My flesh was cooking in my suit from the heat, and my suit warnings were flashing in my HUD. I hit another dose of nerve-deadening agent as I retreated with Aribara.
She was in much worse shape than me. I told her to retreat to deck nine and change her suit to her gorilla suit. I had made each Tirani both a Badger and Gorilla suit. She reluctantly left me alone in the corridor. I checked my HUD, and it was pretty much over. The enemy controlled 80% of the Void Phoenix.
My HUD beeped. The message indicated my fleet was arriving. Elias still had power to communications. The orders I had prepared to be sent were for them to retreat to the Silver Stream Station and then travel with the Caladrius to the alien Alliance. Elias said Abby was declining to follow that order and was launching the three shuttles with Marines. Stupid. Our stealth systems would not work against the Brotherhood. The shuttles would not survive to reach us.
Elias said the Squirrel assault of the battleship had resulted in an explosion. All Squirrel Marines were likely dead but the battleship had lost its primary reactors. Then I got news the enemy fleet was retreating. I knew why instantly. They did not realize my battleship was basically a floating junker. In an hour, their scans would tell them that, though. The seventeen fighters around the Void Phoenix were retreating to the trio of cruisers to refuel. The cruisers had not moved much after their subspace skip. I was guessing they had sustained too much damage. One of the crews on a cruiser had been wiped out completely. Still, three more shuttles were in bound with more Marines. Those three shuttles were twenty-nine minutes out, and Abby¡¯s shuttles were seven hours out.
The only hope we had was to regain control of the Void Phoenix and see if we could reach our shuttles.
Chapter 141 Victory at Cost
Chapter 141 Victory at Cost
The enemy fleet was working to join up and combine to face the incoming threat of my battleship. The enemy battleship was already on secondary power systems. The Squirrel commandos had sacrificed themselves to cripple the Brotherhood battleship, but it would probably not be enough. Even now, the battleship was again under power and behind the other warships working as a forward screen for it. By Elias¡¯ estimate, it would take five hours to reach the Void Phoenix.
The Brotherhood boarders had control of engineering and the lower decks. Julie still had sensors, and she said they were being surprisingly careful in their takeover. Five were injured, and thirty-five combat effective. They were killing her sensors, but we still had the alien sensor feed from Elvis. If they cut off power to the pair of alien sensors on the lower deck, we would be effectively blind. All but two of my Marines had some type of injury. We met up on deck nine, and I told them we needed to retake the ship before the three shuttles of reinforcements reached us.
JJ was going to spearhead an attack in engineering, and I was going to lead an attack into the research lab area where the majority of the invaders currently were. A few of us wanted to switch into undamaged suits, so I gave everyone three minutes. I rushed to switch my suit to a fresh Badger. The attackers were waiting for their reinforcements. Halfway through putting on the new suit, Elias commed me and told me Julie¡¯s power had been cut, and the alien sensors were also down. Long-range communications were running on battery power, and we had plenty of battery charge for a few days.
This rightly put us in a terrible position. JJ was ready before me and was leading his assault with three men in Badger suits. I took the service lift down with my two healthy marines, one in Badger armor and one in a Gorilla suit. The bridge was now under the protection of injured marines and crew not trained in combat in the suits. The best part was Elias was still on the radio and was calmly relaying orders to everyone.
My gorilla suit led the way off the lift under heavy fire as she barked laughter over her speakers at the enemy. Her shields were doing a marvelous job, and the projection of a second marine in Gorilla armor was halving her incoming fire. The heavier weapons of the Gorilla suit chewed through walls to get at the defensive positions. Their men began to fall and then fell back. My female Tirani pressed forward with confidence, the floor plating buckling with her every step. It was not time to worry about damage. After this battle, the Void Phoenix might not even be worth repairing. I chided myself as I was still thinking I was going to get out of this.
JJ came over comms. He had reached the damaged section of engineering and eliminated four enemies with his squad; the enemy was in retreat at position. He asked what to do with enemies who were incapacitated. I took just a second to order their elimination. We did not have any spare men to guard them.
We had reached heavy resistance at my position, and they were throwing grenades at the gorilla suit. The grenades shredded the floor, and the suit got lodged in cables and framework as it sunk up to its waist. We moved to cover her, but the enemy rushed six men forward and forced us back. Focused fire from the six men chewed the stressed shields, and they targeted the battle helmet. More of their comrades came in support, seeing a chance to end the threat.
I took down one, and a marine to my right got another. The Tirani in the battle suit, Aribara, took two more to their graves before her armor finally failed. The enemy retreated after their victory, allowing us to reach her. It was revolting. The armor had been superheated, and she had been cooked inside. She never screamed once over the comms. I sent my Marines to secure the intersection and make sure the four Brotherhood enemies were dead and not a threat. I worked to get power back to the alien sensors.
As the power is restored to the sensors, one of the Marines said they had been packing up things in the labs. He did not believe they had taken anything yet, but they had torn out terminals looking for memory caches. All memory caches were on deck nine. But if they were looking for research, did the Brotherhood know what I had? Was that why they had not destroyed the Void Phoenix outright?
No, it had to be Rae¡¯Ver, the Sylvan. He told the Brotherhood what I had and was working with them. Who had betrayed me? There were only a few people that made sense. My credits were on Samantha. The question was how far I would go to keep the technology out of the hands of the Brotherhood.
JJ interrupted my thoughts over comms. He was spinning up a secondary reactor and holding his position. I quickly informed him the enemy was after the technology on the Void Phoenix, so they would be hesitant to do major damage. That should help him in his fighting.
The sensors flared to life on the bridge, and Elias excitedly came over comms. One of our Marine shuttles was inbound, ETA 90 seconds! They had used the old converted Union shuttle to skip-jump into the gravity well. I asked if anyone was left alive as they could not map the gravity waves without the alien sensors. Two Squirrel physicists on board made their dangerous jump possible.
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Abby came over comms and said she was fine. She had eleven Marines with her and was going to clear our ship. The good news ended there as the Brotherhood battleship had fired another chain disruptor missile, and the battleship and support ships were going to be trapped when it reached them in three hours. They were trying to intercept it, but that was unlikely with the Brotherhood technology and their terrible defenses. We were all trapped now.
Abby beat the three enemy shuttles, and twelve Marines in Badger suits joined the ship. JJ had already started an attack, and Abby came around to cut them off. Hopefully, they would surrender or at least not destroy the ship. I moved to help, and a few minutes later, we had the fifteen remaining Brotherhood boarders surrounding.
I got Julie back online and started to work frantically with only seven functional engineering bots to get our anti-fighter weapons online. I got the power to them by siphoning it from life support. I fired them repeatedly in the direction of the shuttles, and they veered off, not risking it. I had no way to get the controls back to the bridge or the targeting systems calibrated, but my effort still managed to scare them. To them, we were still caught, as our escape was unlikely. Their combined fleet would easily hunt us down as the Void Phoenix was at about 30% maximal thrust after the damage, and I was not going to be able to perform any miracles.
It was time to abandon ship. I asked how long before the shuttle could launch and do another skip jump to our battleship. The Squirrel on board said they needed two hours for the small craft to get ready. That was our ticket out of here. That was what I wanted to focus on. I had Elias jettison all the escape pods in a fan pattern and head toward the planet. Seventeen in total. I hoped to distract our pursuers with them, draw some of their assets away from us.
Half an hour later, Elias told me to come to the bridge, and I said he was too busy trying to keep the Void Phoenix in a semi-functional state. The Squirrel had a plan, and I needed to hear them out on the bridge. I set the bots to task and rushed to the bridge.
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Rae¡¯Ver seethed. The Squirrel had altered their phasing enough to get through the battleship shields. They destroyed the Squirrle shuttle in short order, but enough Squirrle Marines got on board to cause havoc. They got to one of the energy relay stations from the main reactors and detonated an explosive, killing themselves but also overloading enough systems to force an emergency shutdown on the main reactor. It needed to cool completely before spinning back up, and the coolant lines had been damaged in the explosion. It took fifteen minutes to sort out backup systems before getting underway. He ignored the engineering reports for now,
He needed to get his ship forward to contribute to the new threat in the system. The enemy had dropped a battle battleship and three frigates of alien design. They were obvious allies of the Void Phoenix. There was no way his prize was going to get to safety, no matter what he had to sacrifice.
The battleship had launched a trio of shuttles, but it was going to take hours to reach the Void Phoenix¡ªwere they headed to one of the Squirrel asteroids? No¡ªone of the shuttles jumped. His scientist on the bridge said that was impossible. Not only was the disruptor firing off gravity waves, but they were inside the star¡¯s gravity field as well. He had lost two cruisers under much more favorable conditions for the skip jump.
The shuttle docked with the Void Phoenix, and the other two shuttles did veer off toward the nearest Squirrel asteroid. The battleship was flipping to escape. He ordered his only remaining chained disruptor missile to launch at the battleship. It was not going to get away.
Scans started to reach him about the enemy battleship, and he would have laughed if he was not so angry. The battleship had no heavy weapons mounts. None. The frigates were all transports. This rescue fleet was nothing!! He ordered all ships forward. It was over, and the detonation of the subspace disruptor near the battleship signaled he had won.
As his fleet closed, he considered asking for Deven Wellspring to surrender if he was still alive. Instead, he thought to let him suffer, knowing the inevitable. His bridge crew was finally relaxed. They realized the item that had tied them here for months was finally within reach.
There was a flurry of activity on the three Squirrel asteroids. Were they launching more shuttles? Scans came in, and they were just cargo shuttles. He had the new gravity sensors on the ships on high alert. Even if they got more Marines on board his ships, it would not stop his victory.
A heavy support frigate 6,000 kilometers ahead of him exploded from an impact. It had hit mid-ship and broke the keel causing two parts to drift apart. Secondary explosions ran through the ship. The scientist nearby said impossible again, and he lashed out at his mind, destroying it. It was obviously not impossible if it was happening!!
When a ship left subspace, it had almost no inertia. It should not be able to have the velocity that the shuttle had when it struck the frigate. How many shuttles he screamed at the sensor operator. Two more than the ships they had. He ordered every ship to full stop and full shields. It would only help minimally with the velocity and mass of those incoming shuttles. He realized the pilots of those shuttles would be paste when they exited at those speeds¡ªno inertia compensator could account for that, but it didn¡¯t matter. He admired the brave Squirrel as the aft of his battleship rocked from the impact of the shuttle.
Damage reports rolled in, and the shields had held. He watched the plot as the rest of his fleet was not so lucky. A second impact rocked the bridge, and he ordered the ship rotated to put intact shield emitters toward the threat.
Comms received a communications request from Deven Wellspring. He was requesting their complete surrender.
Chapter 142
Chapter 142
The Squirrel had been continuing the subspace research during the voyage and in the Bradbury on the asteroid colonies for months. They had been working on weapons as well as improving subspace travel. I had not followed the research as closely as I should have. When my battleship emerged from subspace, the Squirrel communicated and transferred all their theoretical weapons research to the colonies. The Squirrel scientists figured turning a shuttle into a high-speed projectile was the quickest weapon to produce. The shuttle would skip through subspace and emerge at incredible speed. The systems would be fried, and the pilots would be killed instantly.
The only way this would work was with the advanced alien sensors to target the enemy ships. Even though they had made substantial progress in replicating the alien sensors, they still did not have a working model. They needed the sensors on the Void Phoenix to transmit the scanning data to locate the enemy ships. I worked feverishly with Elvis and Elias to try and recalibrate the sensors. They had been knocked out of alignment. I had doubts if it would work, and every modified shuttle we sent would be the death of two Squirrel. They were willing and almost eager to sacrifice themselves after months of torment at the hands of the Brotherhood fleet.
We tested the first shuttle hours later as the enemy approached close to range. The shuttle missed its target by a few dozen kilometers. But the death of the crew was not in vain, as it allowed us to correct the error. The next shuttle took out a frigate. Then we targeted the battleship. The battleship somehow survived the impact, so we switched to the smaller combat vessels, taking them out one at a time. Twenty-seven shuttles and twenty-four hits¡.costing fifty-four brave Squirrel their lives. A trade they were willing to give. After we cycled through all the ships, we hit the battleship a second time. Then I asked for their surrender. We had five shuttles remaining, and I did not want to waste any more lives.
There were a number of Brotherhood support ships we had not attacked at all. The battleship had taken a beating but was still in fighting condition. They had even managed to get their primary reactor online again. Rae¡¯Ver came on the screen with a blank face. He asked to meet me in person so that he could surrender to a worthy foe. A foe he admired and would even kneel to.
His capitulation was over the top for a Sylvan, and it made me cautious. It was like he was eager to meet me. I agreed to his terms. I just planned for out face to face meeting to be well after we had secured his ships, and he was securely in prison and searched for any possible hidden devices to kill me. Maybe months down the line.
I ordered my two tankers to dump their fuel into the battleship and then travel to Silverstream station to get the Caladrius and resupply. The Void Phoenix was limping toward the nearest asteroid colony. The alien sensors were going to be removed and installed in haste. The Squirrel were already designing self-guided missiles to do what the required shuttles did for us a few hours earlier. Once this weapon was completed, this would be the safest system in the galaxy.
The cleanup was not as smooth as we had hoped. One of the Brotherhood medium transports attempted to run three days later before the crews surrendered the vessel. We destroyed it with another shuttle. It took convincing the Brotherhood crews that we would let them live. Numerous islands could serve as a decent penal colony on the planet. The Squirrel had a theory to realign the planet with multiple satellites, but that was way down our current priority list. We just wanted to secure the prisoners and the remaining Brotherhood ships.
We ended with five hundred and ninety-seven men and women and two space elves, Rae¡¯Ver and Sha¡¯lua. I had not seen Sha¡¯Lua since I purchased the Void Phoenix at Silverstream station. Abby spent time getting temporary life support, and an asteroid set up with the Squirrel, and we put all the prisoners there. We had not been prepared to feed so many, and the salvage operations on the Brotherhood ships was focused on food. I kept putting off my meeting with Rae¡¯Ver.
The Squirrel started hauling the damaged ships to the asteroid furnaces. We were desperate for material to build. During the Brotherhood¡¯s occupation of the system, the Squirrel had been on the brink of breaking. Food, power, life support¡all had been strained. Now that their colonies were back in normal space, they were rushing to resupply their needs.
I looked at the reports. When Zoe returned, she was going to be happy to find we now had twenty-seven Warpath Intercepters. I had lost both my Brotherhood assault shuttles in the combat. But I now had dozens of new Brotherhood shuttles to choose from of various configurations. The Void Phoenix had been pulled into dry dock and stripped. The Squirrel were going to rebuild her from the frame out, but I told them not to bother, we had too much to do to bring her back to life. She was not melted down. Instead, she landed on an asteroid and secured for a future remodel once the system was secure. The ship had a mythos around it for the Squirrel.
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My new ship was one of Brotherhood medium transports. I had two shuttles on board, my lux shuttle and a Brotherhood assault shuttle. The transport was the nicest of the ships that were still intact. All my possessions were transferred over to it from the Void Phoenix. From the army of engineering bots I once had, only three engineering bots remained. I was also on board by myself, my ship stationed off the largest Squirrel asteroid.
The rest of my crew was focused on completing the battleship conversion into a space station. The Squirrel were helping install the subspace phasing devices on the Union converted battleship to a space station destined for orbit over the planet. The Brotherhood battleship would eventually meet the same fate, except it would serve as a military orbiting station over the planet, while my Union battleship would be for civilians. Kara Briggs and my brother, Silas, were working together on the project. I think they were intimate, and I thought Kara could do better than my rough-neck brother.
It was forty-three days before the Caladrius returned with the transports ladened with fuel. Celeste actually cried when we were reunited as she had figured out I was probably dead. Eve gave me a jarring hug as well. Danielle, my wife, gave me a different kind of hug. It felt like things were working out. Then I had to face Gabby. Her father, Nero, had been killed. Luna¡¯s brother, Finn had also been killed. I tried to say I was sorry to them but instead just had to hold them, and we shed tears as a trio. This strong emotion of grief was something new for me. It was as if a part of me was now missing. When Shinade had been killed, I felt more anger and guilt than grief.
Nero had been with me from the beginning. He had been the life support engineer to start and eventually ran engineering on the Void Phoenix. We had gotten close over the years, and I would have trusted him with my life. We recovered his body and had a service for him. After the service, I was sure Gabby would dissociate herself from me and go her own way. Instead, she insisted on being close to me and my family. Eve informed me that I was the only family she had left, making it much clearer. That was what my crew was to me as well, family.
As the weeks passed, the Squirrel sent out ships to find others of their race. They had spread in this region of space as traders, so they hoped they could find small enclaves to bolster their small population. Their homeworld had been devastated, and the system, briefly saved by the Brotherhood fleet, was now overrun with invaders. The Brotherhood had given the Squirrel time to send thousands more of their race into exile. They just needed to find their way here.
Once I got comfortable on my new ship with my family, I joined the Squirrel cruiser project, dubbed Aegis Lance. They were building a shipyard inside the largest asteroid to produce cruisers. The prototype was maybe six or seven years out if they could obtain the materials for the construction. The cruiser was going to utilize all the technology I had gifted the Squirrel and more.
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It had been eight months since we had defeated the Brotherhood. Large satellites orbited the planet, making an icosahedron network. The moment of truth was upon us. The two space stations were helping with the next step, powering a number of the satellites. The network was powered, and the emitters on the satellites synched. Just like turning on a light switch, the planet below suddenly had a large number of cities and thousands of aliens. The brilliant Squirrel had corrected the phase differential and brought the people out of the shadow subspace. Now it was time to get my people settled on the planet. Suruchi to negotiate with the various alien species on the planet.
I also felt it was about time to make good on my word to meet Rae-Ver face-to-face.
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As the Caldrius left Silverstream station with the alien support tankers, Desdemona watched them on scanners disappear. Lazarus was seated next to her. He asked why they did not attempt to capture the Caladrius, and he knew the ship currently belonged to Deven Wellspring. It had been his pride and joy, and when he saw it docked at the station, he was eager to reclaim it. Samantha had stolen the ship and fled to the embrace of Deven. Lazarus had at least gotten revenge on that bitch. She was either broken or dead by now.
As he voiced his objections for the fifth time, Desdemona used her will to suppress him. Somehow the Sylvan mind power had rubbed off on Desdemona, and Lazarus was irritated at being second in command. Truthfully he was not in charge of anything.
Desdemona had been cautious and installed two tracking devices on the alien transports. She did not put a tracker on the Caladrius because she worried it would have been too obvious. Instead, she had meticulously traced the interactions of the Caladrius crew and knew the two were linked. She patiently explained they would track the shuttles once the cruiser she had purchased was refurbished.
Chapter 143 The Colony
Chapter 143 The Colony
I was not looking forward to meeting Rae¡¯Ver. It had been eight months since he had surrendered and been placed with the Brotherhood crews on the penal asteroid, and I had stalled on the confrontation. Edmund had been in charge of the security of the prison asteroid with Francis and Abby in support. Six men had died over the eight months in escape attempts and in-fighting.
I did not know what to do with the Brotherhood¡¯s three hundred-odd men and women. The soldiers and command staff would have to live out their days in captivity. The engineers and technicians could be useful, but there was too much of a trust issue. I was in transit to visit the penal asteroid in the Caladrius and reflected on how things had proceeded so far.
Now that the planet was harmonized from subspace and in phase, an effort was being made to establish an island to move the three hundred prisoners to. The problem was that Suruchi had been embattled in politics. There were over two dozen races on the planet. Over the millennia, they had established many feudal states and had an uneasy truce.
Now that they were unfazed from subspace, they had access to technology again. The device that had caused people to be brought into the shadow sub-space had been located deep in the core of the planet. It had created a permanent EMP field in a halo around the planet that pulsed every few years, destroying all technology when it did. Once the Squirrel had permanently deactivated the device, it was safe to land on the planet and establish our own colony and the penal island for the Brotherhood prisoners.
Suruchi quickly found the populations of the planet were closer to the VR Sword and Sorcery game we played on the Void Phoenix recreationally. They relied on swords, crossbows, and crude firearms for combat. Suruchi had all the power, landing in armored shuttles with power-armored Marines at her back. Still, the races were resistant and wanted to maintain borders established through hundreds of years of conflict. The small human population on the planet also wanted nothing to do with our arrival or accept any assistance.
Suruchi tried to appease everyone. Thankfully, after months of negotiation, Sururchi secured fifteen thousand square kilometers of the jungle along the equator and a fifty square mile island in the south pole for the penal colony. She had done this mostly by bringing all the city leaders to one location and negotiating. It had been arduous, and I did not understand why she had gone to such lengths. Danielle said Suruchi needed a challenge, something near impossible. Bringing together so many races on one planet to live in harmony was that goal. She was a long way from achieving success but was taking steps in the correct direction.
Our jungle location was not ideal, but we were desperate to establish a colony on the planet as the space station was finished, and we needed to unload all the prefab modules and stop the drain of my personal resources. The jungle site was rocky and had rough, but relatively flat plateaus. Since it was too difficult to grow food in this region without technology, none of the races had settled it, and Suruchi secured the rights from neighboring aliens. Our colony was going to border three alien civilizations.
The colony started four months ago and was already thriving. The colonists had named the city as they landed. It was to be called Arcadian. It meant harmony with nature. Suruchi had insisted it meant harmony with all life and species from across the cosmos.
Establishing and building the city was a monumental effort with our low population, and our industrial bots were in major demand on the building on the asteroids and harvesting materials. When a trade mission returned from Alliance space, there was always a fight over resources, namely the new bots.
The first focus was large, layered agricultural domes to be erected on the plateau so as not to interfere with the natural ecology. Once built, they were able to supply our entire colony of humans and Squirrel in the system after a few more months with the fast-growing crops we had. The overall civil engineering plan was to surround our colony city with five hundred of these food domes. Each dome could supply enough food for ten thousand people.
After the initial prefabs were landed and erected, the material was sourced from the asteroids rather than planetary mining, so the construction was sporadic, waiting on shipments. In the end, we hoped to be able to support a city of up to five million people on our small piece of jungle.
The planning for our city was designed by Julie, the AI from the Void Phoenix who was now serving as the Squirrel research computer on one of their asteroids. The AI had been built to serve as a university hub for a colony world, and I had repurposed her for my ship. Now, her life had come full circle. She told me she preferred to return to space as the intellect of a ship, but for now, she was being extremely useful as a platform for research and establishing the colony.
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The city was going to sit atop the largest plateau near the center of our jungle lands. It was going to be twenty-five square kilometers. The plan was to build a ringed surface city to start, then build the city down into the plateau second before finishing the city with majestic buildings. It was going to take decades to achieve the final vision.
One of Suruchi¡¯s first buildings was a United Nations for diplomacy on the planet and to bring all the races in with the slow reintroduction of technology. I did not know what to think of her efforts.
The question was, what would our human and Squirrel colony export? The answer was technology. We planned to focus on building a university at the city¡¯s center. The city was going to focus on expanding our knowledge and protecting the planet with the phasing satellites orbiting the planet. Now that the Squirrel had aligned the planet, they could shift the entire planet out of phase and hide it like they did the asteroids.
The problem was the amount of fuel required to maintain the shift of an entire planet. The Squirrel were frustrated as an entire medium tanker could only hold the planet in phase for 200 hours or so. The asteroids could use the same amount of fuel to remain phased for years. The solution to make the satellites more efficient was one of the major projects for the Squirrel.
The penal colony on the pole of the planet was completed as well. It was a simpler project, and we built a much smaller agricultural dome for the Brotherhood agents. Unlike the other domes, this doe was not going to be automated. They would have to do all the work themselves if they wanted to survive. The problem with the penal colony was that the Brotherhood prisoners only had thirty-seven women. Edmund was not concerned because he was certain over time, we would add more. The agricultural dome was designed to support about two thousand people.
The Caladrius was docking. Zoe was my pilot today. I think she just wanted to get away from her son, who was always crying for more food. My own son Dartanion was back on the ship with Danielle. With the docking complete, I left to tell the prisoners their new home was ready. They would be surrounded by miles of frozen tundra and have to work if they wanted to survive, but it would be a mark of some freedom.
Rae¡¯Ver was in his own cell with Sha¡¯Lua adjacent. I would meet with them last. Four Marines in Gecko armor met me in the airlock and guided me to the main prisoner detention area. It was a simple series of rooms filled with high oxygen-producing plants. I was also wearing the light Gecko armor as well. All the prisoners had simple skinsuits. They paused in their daily activities to see what the airlock produced today.
I stepped out and went into a speech about their new accommodations planet-side. Some faces looked hoeful, but most returned menacing stares. When I explained that they were going to have to farm their own food, the crowd got a little lively, and my Marine escorts needed to step forward to remind them who was in charge.
When they calmed down, I let them know their colony would still receive shipments of food¡ªwe still had crates of the Squirrel nutrient bars. I even added that we would introduce technology to them over time if they established a stable government. I noticed seven women in the group noticeably pregnant. I think I remembered a report from Doc about it. They requested their birth control removed. Edmund was pretty sure it was all a ploy for sympathy, though. The idea that children were innocent of the sins of the parent. I agreed but did not plan to release the mothers. We would monitor the children and remove them for their safety if needed.
The transport was coming in five days to take them to the planet. I left the large room and moved to the smaller cells. I stood before Rae¡¯Ver and looked through the glass. He noticed me right away. He walked to the glass, and I moved to the right to talk with Sha¡¯Lua first. The conversation was not pleasant. She had helped me purchase the Void Phoenix years ago. She was not happy with her situation or my presence.
I moved to Rae¡¯Ver, who had waited patiently for me. He was overly polite. Too polite and too smug. I asked him if he wanted to live with the Brotherhood crew or remain here. He said he would like to join my crew. I told him I no longer had a ship. He had destroyed much of the Void Pheonix.
Then he went into a long story about how his race, the Sylvan, had been enslaved. I did not want to listen to this, but I was listening raptly for some reason. He told me how his people lived on a planet-sized ship that moved through the cosmos, eradicating entire populations, and that the Sylvan had revolted and saved the galaxy from certain doom.
He said that there were more of these massive ships and that one day they would arrive, lay waste to humanity, and enslave them. I was caught by his words and started nodding in agreement. Was he smiling in friendship? The story went on and on, and my mind clouded, and I felt like I was drowning in a fog-like haze. Then I felt it. Another presence in my mind. Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s grin on the other side of the glass was not needed to let me know who was there.
I had no control over my body. I heard myself start to ask Rae¡¯Ver more and more questions about the Malevolents, as the Sylvan called them. I knew what he was doing. Damn it. This was being recorded, and it would show that Rae¡¯Ver was convincing me of this threat to humanity. He was planning to get me to let him go. Five hours later, I heard my own voice call for the Marines. I asked them to chain and shackle Rae¡¯Ver. He was coming back to my ship. And my Marines followed the orders without question.
Chapter 144
Chapter 144
Desdemona ran the engineering spine of her cruiser. It was four hundred meters of straight corridor when all the bulkheads were open. She sprinted the distance ten times to start her day. Sweating and now awake, she could focus on her duties. A short while later, she cursed and pulled the screens up on her bridge. Larazus still couldn¡¯t find the parts she needed for the upgrades. He was a resourceful and somewhat useful man, but he was always scheming.
She was not sure when she had been able to read surface thoughts, but she could. Would she eventually be able to dominate and take over someone¡¯s mind as Rae¡¯Ver did to her? Whatever mind ability she had, she knew it was still growing and getting stronger.
She reviewed the progress reports. The cruiser was almost complete, seven months of work and most of her wealth invested in the ship. She had incorporated as much Brotherhood tech as she had salvaged from the caches they raided in the sector.
Her secondary problem was finding a qualified crew for her cruiser. She needed seventy at a minimum, and so far, she had twenty-nine. It was frustrating that there were so few humans on Silver Stream station. At least her new power of reading surface thoughts had filtered out the undesirables. She again thought about recruiting an alien crew. She could read their minds as well, but if they were thinking in an alien language, it didn¡¯t give her any advantage.
Tasks completed on the bridge, she found Broddick working with bots installing the new relays for reactive shielding. She stopped and watched him work. He was a people pleaser. He worked hard to give you exactly what you wanted. When she read his surface thoughts the first time, she couldn¡¯t make sense of them. His mind was divided in three different directions, focusing three different ways. He did not even realize he was doing it. One was on his current task, one was observing the world around him, and the other was his hidden desires. At the time, she focused on his desires and found her image there¡ªwearing almost nothing.
She took him to her cabin because she wanted to and needed to vent physically as well. Sometimes running was not enough. And yes, Broddick was a real people pleaser, and his name was apropos. She interrupted his work momentarily and told him to prepare her dinner in her cabin for the evening. She could have punched the button for the chef bot, but this way Broddrick would join her. She also liked how envious Lazarus got from her dalliances with the engineer.
She toured the cruiser and eventually sighed in defeat. The ship was not going to launch without a crew. She decided to break her engrained thoughts of not hiring aliens. She got on a shuttle to Silver Stream station. She would interview some Wren first as they were from human stock. Then, she would have to venture into unknown terrain for her.
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
It took nine days to complete her crew roster. She hired nineteen Tirani marines whose transport had broken down. The Brotherhood had used the Tirani before and were known for their being excellent mercenaries throughout the sector. From there, it was a hodgepodge. She hired twenty-seven engineers and thirty-four technicians from an assortment of Wren, Nyriad, Mourau, and Drusi. She had used her gut when she could not effectively read their minds. She did not want to wait any longer and gave the crew three days to familiarize themselves with the advanced tech under the direction of her human crew. Cross-training on weapons systems would have to be accomplished in VR in subspace transit.
In the last eight months, the transports that had left with the Caldriud had returned twice more to trade. They were selling cheap raw mined metals and exchanging it for fuel. The curious thing was the return vector remained the same. They were apparently headed to the Bradbury system. Did Rae¡¯Ver leave with his Brotherhood fleet then? She planned to stay ten light hours away from the system¡¯s sun on arrival and let her scanners give her a clearer picture.
The subspace trip had a lot of issues as her crew was fairly subpar compared to what she was accustomed to with Brotherhood-trained crew. Aliens were fiddling with life support to make it more comfortable for their species, the ship stores lacked favorable food for the Tirani and Nyriad, the Tirani complaining about not being able to use the flight deck for training, and many headaches. As captain, she handled each incident. Her thought-reading ability proved useful, and soon the aliens on board held her ability to get quickly to the matter with some awe.
She even ferreted out a Mourau spy for the Brotherhood. That had irked her some. The fact that she had missed it during the interview process. She took the opportunity to experiment on Mourau female. She found she could penetrate her mind and almost dig around for the information she wanted. The problem was her attempts were a little too aggressive, and the female had gone catatonic after a few hours of practicing on her. She needed to be more delicate¡ªshe needed to practice.
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She was also ready to space Lazarus. The man never ended with his scheming. Her tried his best to usurp the loyalty of the crew to her. He would personally deliver their wages and talk to them endlessly about his days as the famous Dread Pirate Axle. He was preparing the crew to make him their leader if the opportunity arose.
It was actually Broddrick who had told her about him and how he operated. She knew what he was doing before, but Broddrick showing her loyalty by shedding light on Lazarus made her¡ªfeel good. She needed to be careful as she might actually develop feelings for the eager-to-please engineer.
When they transitioned out of subspace, they immediately went silent and worked to resetting the FTL drive. If Rae¡¯Ver was still here, then he could easily overwhelm her cruiser. It took over a day to get a clearer picture of the system, and nothing made much sense.
The intersystem traffic was light but unhindered. A few Brotherhood ships were still in the system and seemed to be assisting with asteroid mining operations. She sent in some probes to start intercepting the transmissions and slowly edged her ship closer. The info delay was frustrating, and she was not used to having to be this cautious. Usually, she was confident in the ship¡¯s superiority.
Now, her ship was not even up to par with a standard Brotherhood cruiser. Her modified cruiser was close to a Borhterhood cruiser but lacked supporting fighters and a complement of advanced missiles, but the lack of an experienced and disciplined crew would put her at such a major disadvantage.
She did not like what she was deciphering over the intercepted communications. The Brotherhood fleet had been defeated. That seemed too outlandish with the resources she tallied in the system. Did they have an entire cloaked fleet hiding? Where was the Void Phoenix? It was mentioned in numerous communications. She tried to coopt some of the Brotherhood communications to gain access to the archives on the remaining Brotherhood ships.
Her first attempt succeeded, but it abruptly stopped three minutes into the download. Her instincts warned that something was amiss. She ordered the cruiser stopped and the FTL engines prepped. Seventeen minutes was the reply from engineering. Damn, she would have to drill engineering more. The engines should have already been on standby, anything longer than five minutes was just unacceptable.
Something was definitely wrong, she ordered FTL immediately when ready. She felt their minds even before the sensors told her assault shuttles had latched onto her hull. How did they get so close? And they were already boarding. This was impossible. Her only solace was at least she knew that Rae¡¯Ver was probably dead by whoever was going to take her ship.
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Edmund was reviewing the video of the prisoners. For some reason, Deven was still talking to the Sylvan. He had listened to the audio briefly, and it sounded like an information exchange. He would have the AI transcribe it and read it later. He did not have time right now to listen. He was doing a million different things. Trying to establish an anti-spy network in system with the help of the Squirrel. And then training agents to send out into the sector to gather intel.
If Suruchi ever got all the races on the planet to sign on, he would have a varied pool of different species to train. It was odd how he was a minor agent in the Brotherhood and was now responsible for establishing his own network. He didn¡¯t think Deven knew just how big a project this was.
He was reviewing his twenty trainees VR sims when Julie alerted him someone was trying to hack one of the Brotherhood ship archives. They had codes and were in the system. Edmund said to let it continue but limit the info and trace the signal.
The new alien sensors hidden the asteroid turned their focus in the direction of the signal. The replicas sensors still did not have the fidelity of the original from the Vod Phoenix, but they were getting better. He located a cruiser far outside the system. He could only tell that it was not a normal Brotherhood design. Destroy or capture?
He ordered the five Marine shuttles to try and take the cruiser. They could approach in shadow subspace and lock on before they were aware they were there. Each shuttle had twelve Marines in Badger armor, two in Geko armor, and one in a Gorllia set.
The operation went quickly, and soon the cruiser was secured. They had already been spinning up the FTL reactor when they boarded. The fast reaction time told him this was a spy ship. The Marines killed seventeen and had a host of prisoners. He was getting the photos now and paused. No fucking way! Desdemona Rouse?
He idolized her when he was a Brotherhood agent. She was their propaganda machine for recruiting and showing what the perfect Diamond agent should be like. And now she was his prisoner. He sent orders to disable all her devices and isolate her. He wanted her brought to him immediately on one of the shuttles.
Two hours later, she was standing before him, her PerCom removed and holding her chin high. He didn¡¯t gloat but used her name when addressing him. Desdemona asked if Deven Wellspring was in charge of this, indicating everything with her hands. Edmund conceded that point and said he would meet her soon. He was currently interrogating the Sylvan, Rae¡¯Ver.
As if he had said something funny, Desdemona could not stop laughing¡.
Chapter 145
Chapter 145
I was trapped in my body. Even my vision felt obscured. I could not control where I looked. I heard my voice request to shackle Rae¡¯Ver and escort him to my ship. I was screaming no as loudly as I could in my mind, and the invading presence in my mind was slowly laughing at me. He was very compliant with the guards as they prepared him for transport. The guard asked me if he should bring the female, Sha¡¯Lua, in the adjacent cell.
My body paused as it stared at the elf woman. It then voiced that maybe later if Rae¡¯Ver was useful. We walked to the shuttle, and I fought for control, but the harder I fought, the tighter Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s authority over me became. I was not going to give in. We boarded the shuttle, and Rae¡¯Ver sat across from me, a slight smile on his face¡ªall the technology I had, and I was done in by mind control.
The shuttle lifted off to take us to my ship orbiting the asteroid. My PerCom beeped with numerous requests, and my body moved to look at it. Rae¡¯Ver controlled the PerCom and dug deep into my mind to respond to the three alerts. I laughed at him. He was taking a few long minutes to respond to each request. I got over a hundred submissions daily that needed to be responded to. It took me a few seconds for each, which still annoyed me. At this rate, Rae¡¯Ver would take his entire day to respond to requests.
He was going through my contacts now. And he was setting up a filtering system. The filtering system was auto-forwarding the requests to a person with the skills to handle the issue. He was delegating many of my daily decisions to others. I was slightly angry at how easily he was not doing my job. Zoe from the cockpit said we were being diverted to mining station Gamma-Six. There was a ship in the outer system, and it might be the Brotherhood returning. Rae¡¯Ver used my body to use my PerCom to look at the system¡¯s navigation data. There was a ship out there. A cruiser, and it had already been boarded hours ago.
Across from me, I could see and feel Rae¡¯Ver growing angry. He started to flick through my PerCom and was studying the scans from the alien sensor device. He was shocked at first by the amount of detail and then smug in knowing the technology would be his soon. I could tell he planned to squeeze everything valuable he could out of the technology I had compiled over the last few years. I was still just a passenger in my body and hoped Celeste would be safe from whatever happened next.
Zoe radioed from the cabin that an inspection was due for the ore pulverizers. I also had to meet with Suruchi in the habitat for the miners. I was confused. Why was Suruchi on an asteroid? I have never inspected an ore pulverizer before, either. We landed, and my body indicated to my guards that Rae¡¯Ver was coming. We descended the ramp, and everything went white.
I woke strapped to a table with Edmund standing over me. His eyes narrowed as he asked someone behind him if I was still under the influence of the space elf. An unfamiliar female voice said a thread still controlled me, but she could cut it. A negotiation ensued between Edmund and the woman. Finally, the woman agreed to free me for her freedom, but Edmund would not let her leave the system. I felt a pressure in the back of my mind build to a crescendo and then abruptly end. It was like being trapped inside a foggy room and suddenly being outside under the sun.
The woman announced it was done, and Edmund released my restraints. I sat up, and the truth of the situation was revealed to me.
Rae¡¯Ver had taken over the Brotherhood fleet. He was directing it, and this woman was Desdemona Rouse, a Brotherhood Diamond agent. She had been influenced by Rae¡¯Ver but developed resistance to his mind control. She had been exiled from the Brotherhood by his machinations and returned to the system to get revenge on the First Citizen elf to find us in the system setting up defenses. She was spying on us when Julie detected her attempts and traced them to her ship. The fast-response teams quickly engaged and took her ship. She scowled at how nonchalant Edmund showed the effort of taking her ship was to him.
After being captured, Desdemona revealed Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s power of mind control, and they set up a safe area on an asteroid where we would both be stunned so I could be separated from him. The plan worked. I asked about Rae¡¯Ver now. Edmund said he was sedated and under guard by security bots. No one was allowed within 100 meters of him. Desdemona said the range of his mind influence ability was about ten meters, but once he had established a foothold, he could establish a connection at a much greater range.
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I left to rest, but with the connection severed, I was now safe. I was kept under observation for a week by Doc before being allowed to actually return to work and see Celeste. First, I had to determine what to do with Desdemona and her crew. One particular man drew my attention. Lazurus. Dread Pirate Acton. How he managed to end up with Desdemona was a story for another time. He was Amos¡¯ father but also a very dangerous man. Even though he worked for Desdemona, she did not care what happened to him. I sent him to the same prison asteroid as Rae¡¯Ver. He would be attended to by bots like Rae¡¯Ver. They would be the only two beings left on the asteroid, as everyone else was going to the planet as planned. When Amos was old enough, I would introduce him to his father. Unfortunately, under interrogation, Lazarus said Samantha had been killed in the Sapphire Empire.
The rest of Desdemona¡¯s crew was not from the Brotherhood but an amalgamation of people she hired at Silver Stream Station. Edmund and Francis would vet the crew, and they could enlist in the Squirrel fleet if they wanted to. They could not leave the Bradbury system until we felt secure in our defenses, though.
Desdemona was another problem for me. She had powers like Rae¡¯Ver, so I considered her a threat. But she also saved me and might be a good ally if the space elves found us¡ªwhen they found us. Almost two months after the incident, I sat down to talk with her. She was the most intimidating person I had ever met. She radiated confidence and commanded the room. I had Eve behind me and four other guards in Gecko suits nearby.
I started the conversation by asking for her help. She had been treated well since we captured her, so I hoped she would assist us. Firstly, I wanted to use her ability to find a material to shield minds from the space elves mind-controlling ability. Even if the ability was only limited to the First Citizens of their race, it was still too dangerous. She agreed to that readily.
The second thing I wanted was for her to train Edmund as a Diamond Agent. We were going to confront the Brotherhood again, and I wanted to be better prepared with how they thought. I couldn¡¯t trust Desdemona when that situation arose, but I could trust Edmund. I also had to make plans on how we would deal with the Godfather organization in human-controlled space and beyond. Even though JJ¡¯s contribution to the battle was outstanding, he was confined to quarters. He was too loyal to his organization. I planned to use him as an intermediary, but for now, he was just Zoe¡¯s husband and the father of their child.
Then Desdemona burst my bubble. Everything that Rae¡¯Ver had told me about the Malevalants while he was dominating my mind was true. I had to go back to the video and watch it over and over again. Planet-sized ships erased entire civilizations and enslaved a token amount of the species to breed and toy with inside their ships as they traveled. It was a threat beyond the Brotherhood and other violent alien species we had encountered. The ships were on a mission for galactic genocide for life.
After talking with Desdemona and learning about the visions she observed in Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s mind when they were connected, I needed to rethink priorities. I needed help with it, so I brought in the people I trusted¡ªAbby, Edmund, Suruchi, and Damian. They all agreed we had the technology to maybe defeat something of the magnitude of the Malevanents. We just needed to to turn it into viable weapons to do so.
Edmund suggested we copy the Brotherhood. Establish a centralized research in the Bradbury system to develop the technology to combat the threat. Instead of relying only on humans, we recruit the brightest minds from all races. There was still a lot of technology we had not explored or maximized.
After that meeting, we met with the Squirrel. They still held me and the Void Phoenix in god-like status. I was essentially the savior of their race. I found the Void Phoenix silhouette was now their Marines¡¯ emblem. They were more than willing to do whatever was asked of them to help the cause. Doc said it was mostly due to their genetic predisposition to following a patriarchal leader, which was the role I was filling as their savior.
With the Squirrel on board, we began to make our grand plans. We would start by sending out loyal ship crews to recruit the best minds within the nearest five hundred light years. We would build a navy from scratch, incorporating the best technology we had on hand. Finally, Suruchi would establish the planet in the Bradbury system as a place welcoming to all races. That last one seemed impossible. Lofty goals for an engineer from a Persia IV harvester.
Chapter 146 Fateweaver
Chapter 146 Fateweaver
My office was inside the largest asteroid base we had. It was our primary shipyard and had been my home for the last fourteen years. The Caladrius was docked at an airlock just down the hallway. A floor-to-ceiling glasssteel wall looked out into the hollowed asteroid with four cruisers under construction, the Fateweaver-class cruiser. Two of them were near completion but had yet to launch. We were still waiting for the original Fateweaver to return from its shakedown voyage to make alterations to the shielding and subspace drive. The Fateweaver had been completed two years ago and was the combination of all the technology we had pulled together over the years from dozens of different races. At one point, we decided we had to stop developing, researching and testing and finally just build the ship to test our concepts. It was also my ship to replace the Void Phoenix, whose stripped hull still sat on the surface of a nearby asteroid.
The Squirrel would not let her be scrapped and planned to rebuild her when they got a chance. We had plans for twenty-four cruisers of the Fateweaver design to replace our current fleet. Before the Fateweaver, we had manufactured seventeen of the Brotherhood cruisers for the defense of the system and to send out on stealth missions to seek out scientists in the region of space from the other races. We had some successes and failures on this objective. A successful mission would voluntarily relocate the target scientist and his family. A failure was the ship leaving empty-handed and our presence revealed.
Still, we had assembled an impressive array of minds in the Bradbury system from two dozen different species.
For the Brotherhood fleet, Desdemona was crucial in helping the initial construction of the fleet get off the ground. She has even wormed her way into commanding the core defense fleet guarding the Bradbury system. Edmund and Desdemona formed our intelligence and counter-intelligence operations. Edmund was always going with an exploratory recruitment ship while Desdemona secured the system. Desdemona had settled down and had six children with an engineer named Brodrick.
Every one of those children carried the gene that allowed Desdemona her powers to manifest, according to Doc. Doc revealed that Desdemona was genetically engineered by the Brotherhood as well. She actually had Sylvan DNA spliced into her genome.
As promised, she had discovered an exotic material that blocked her ability. We sprayed the material as an ablative paint on all our combat helmets and flight suit¡¯s helmets.
After we completed the twenty-four Fateweavers, we would work on designing a new class of ship. I wanted to focus on a smaller fast attack destroyer, but the Squirrel Admiral wanted to scale up to carriers to carry more heavy fighters. The Fateweavers had room for nine heavy fighters and four assault shuttles. He wanted carriers capable of carrying 96 of the new heavy fighters.
We had a separate asteroid construction facility for the assault shuttles and fighters. We designed our version of the Warpath Interceptor called the Slipstream. The Slipstream was a heavy fighter equipped with a microjump drive. It had all the advantages of the Warpath, powerful maneuvering, heavy weapons, and durable armor. We upgraded the armor and added powerful shields to improve the fighter¡¯s design and pilot¡¯s survivability.
A wing of three of these fighters could wreak havoc on a fleet. In the sims, our top pilots showed the utility of these mobile and agile fighters. They were still susceptible to subspace disrupters, which would cancel their ability to micro-jump. But if their command ship was close enough to relay the gravimetric data from the sensors, then they could micro-jump safely in the interior of a star system. Making them the only craft we needed for fast response to any attack on the Bradbury system. Each of our nine asteroid facilities had fifteen of these fighters. The problem was the lack of qualified pilots.
Zoe was in charge of the fighter pilot school and would not pass anyone she deemed unfit. It meant the graduation rate was an abysmal sixteen percent.
The other small craft we were producing were assault shuttles. The assault shuttles were primarily designed to jump close to a ship and drop off our Marines in Badger combat armor. The Gorilla suits had been mostly retired due to their high cost to manufacture, mostly due to their power source. We still had manufactured fifty-two of the Gorilla suits for my personal guard of Tirani, Squirral, and human Marines. Most of whom had been with me on the Void Phoenix. The Marine armory on the Fateweaver was stocked with fifty-two personally fitted suits for each Marine in each class, the light Gecko, medium Badgar, and heavy Gorilla. This was in part because Abby commanded my Marines on the Fateweaver, and we only had fifty-two of a possible one-hundred and sixty Marines.
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My PerCom beeped. Abby was escorting Celeste, Amos, Neon, and my Dartanian to the brig again. Celeste had the fiery hair of her mother and was my hyper-active teenage daughter; Amos was her sidekick. They had been born on the same day and grew up together. Amos was beyond loyal to Celeste. Neon was Doc¡¯s son. He was secretly genetically engineered, and it showed in his test scores. He was fourteen, as was my son, Dartanian.
Dartantian was a daredevil. He tended to act before thinking, taking unnecessary risks all the time. Together with Neon, the pair was an absolute menace to the security staff. When they paired with Celeste and Amos the sky was the limit for the amount of trouble they could get into as a group. That did not even include the other partners in crime, Ezra and Emil, Tora¡¯s twin patherkin Wren. They were brutishly large like their tigerkin Wren father Saabir. They had completed all the Marine training but had chosen not to enlist and instead continued to help the group of misfits cause trouble.
I looked at the report. They had broken into the flight deck and had tried to steal one of the assault shuttles. It was actually a productive game for them. Abby had challenged them to break her security. If they succeeded, then they got cockpit time in the Slipstream fighters. If they failed, then they got 24 hours in lock up. They succeeded more than half the time, to the dismay of Abby. I laughed as another alert came across my PerCom.
Unauthorized launch of an assault shuttle from the aft of the asteroid. Ezra and Emil were piloting. I did not even know they had completed the certs and checking with Julie they had but not posted their results. Abby was going to be infuriated that she had lost again to the young team of masterminds.
The best thing about settling down in the Bradbury system, the kids, both a blessing and a curse. And there were a lot of them running around the stations and planet. They gave you purpose in life, meaning for everything you were doing. And all I was trying to do was save the universe from extinction, according to Desdemona.
Six years ago, Danielle, my wife, left me to live on the planet with our other three children. Luca would be nine now, and Nova and Venus would be seven. It resulted from two arguments I had with Danielle. The first was she had wanted to raise the children planetside, and the second was Doc, and she had inserted the Sylvan gene into the twins, Nova and Venus. It was done without my knowledge and had crossed a line I couldn¡¯t forgive. I had not visited them in the six years they had been gone. I had commed Luca a few times in the early years, but eventually, Danielle cut me off completely.
Every time I thought about visiting them, I could easily find a hundred excuses for things to do. For the last four years, I had an on-and-off relationship with Gabby. Her robotics lab was on another asteroid, and whenever I visited her, it always ended up with me staying with her. Her father, Nero had died under my command, so the whole relationship with his daughter was some type of compensation for my failure. She had cared a desire to be with me since I took her and her father on board at Silverstream Station nearly eighteen years ago.
My PerCom beeped again, and I checked the alert. The Fateweaver had returned from its voyage and was transmitting data to all the necessary scientist enclaves. I perused the data it looked good. We would need to go with a different option for the shield capacitors and change the material on the subspace emitters to the new alloy, but it looked like the ship was ready. We could now work on finishing the fleet¡¯s first wave of Fateweaver-class ships.
I waited for Edmund, who had been commanding the Fateweaver in my office. He arrived all smiles and gushed about the performance of the ship. It exceeded expectations, and the crew was phenomenal. He wanted one for himself but was regulated to gathering intelligence in the greater galaxy.
Humanity had split in the last decade. The Brotherhood still puppeted the core systems but a new Alliance had formed under Admiral LaRoche. All humanity in this region of the Rim was under his control and his government. By all accounts, it had remained mostly uncorrupted and resistant to Brotherhood influence. Not in small part to Edmund revealing a number of agents in their midst. The Brotherhood on Earth had finally recovered from losing the Battleship fleet to Rae¡¯Ver.
They still were not aware of everything that transpired. Only that Katsu Oshiro took the fleet to the Rim and disappeared after a year.
Edmund got my attention. He asked if I wanted to proceed with the diplomatic mission to go meet Admiral LaRoche and form an Alliance with them. It was the next step in our grand plan to fight the Malevalants. We had built our base of operations and fortified it. Now we needed allies. We were on good terms with the Alliance of aliens, and now I needed to see if Admiral LaRoche was free of the Brotherhood¡¯s biases against aliens.
I told Edmund yes. I will be launching in a week¡¯s time. My crew was already selected and just awaiting the order. It was time to travel back into the galaxy.
Chapter 147
Chapter 147
The bridge of the Fateweaver was crewed by eight, not including my captain¡¯s chair or first officer¡¯s station. The eight stations were engineering, pilot, communications, weapons, shields, security, navigation, and sensors. There were a number of new faces but many familiar faces on the bridge.
Zoe was my pilot. She also chose the twenty best pilots and fifteen co-pilot from her flight school for the fighters and assault shuttles on board. Elias reluctantly came as our navigation officer. He had gotten a little pudgy in the last decade. He still had his brilliant mind when it came to navigation, though.
My communications officer was a Squirrel named Hyrena. She had served on the Void Phoenix and had since undergone formal training. She was a linguist who easily picked up new languages and specialized in racial-predisposed body language. She had worked on the planet with Suruchi, trying to unite the myriad of races on the planet that had been trapped in shadow subspace. They had been mostly successful, with only about a quarter of the planet still holding out after fourteen years.
My security officer was Luna Martis. Luna had been just twelve when she came on board the Void Phoenix with her parents and brother. She had become a combat suit technician in our voyages, and when we settled into the Bradbury system, she had gone through Abby¡¯s marine combat school. She held the rank of captain in the Marines and was married to Mozzie, the Tirani Marine. Mozzie was a massive bear-like humanoid, and his race were some of the region¡¯s best mercenaries. I had hired him onto the crew, and Luna had become fascinated with their species. She kind of forced herself on him even though they could not have children, and they had a good relationship.
Our weapons bridge station was manned by Alina Weaver. Alina had been a marine of the Union and passed her certs to be promoted to weapons officer. She was paired with our defensive shield specialist, a Squirrel named Dante, on the bridge since they needed a lot of communication in heavy battles. The Fateweaver had a lot of power systems and advanced capacitors, but at a certain point, you needed to decide whether you were applying power to the shields, propulsion or weapons.
Our bridge engineering officer was Fiona Agave. She was an entertainer when the Void Phoenix took her on. She was a charismatic singer when we had passengers. She had been an engineering student in college and dropped out to pursue her singing career. She was a methodical by-the-book engineer. Not too exceptional when it came to thinking outside the box. Her charisma did carry over to her management of the engineering staff. We had thirteen Squirrel, seven Nyriads, and five humans to go with sixty-eight of the best engineering bots we could produce.
All of the engineering bots had full synthetic covering and appeared human. We had a version of the engineering bots that were Squirrel designed by Gabby, but I went with the human version. We also had one hundred Black Widow bots in missiles on the ship. The missiles were designed to penetrate ships and hulls and deliver a single spider bot. The primary attack was still the fast-hardening foam.
My sensor operator was a young Tirani woman named Shara. She was only thirteen, but Tirani matured much faster than humans. She got her VR implants at 11 and completed all her certs in just over a year with distinction. My First Officer selected her for the role.
My First Officer was Francis Pineda. He had been a Marine officer and worked closely with Edmund on security and our Brotherhood defenses and investigations. He was one of the most moralistic men I have known. He was responsible for the crew and logistics on the ship.
There were a handful of familiar Marines in our complement of fifty-two. Abby, Mozzie, and Buckie were our commanders. Abby was happy to get off the bridge and turn her security duties over to Luna. The remaining forty-nine Marines were divided into seven squads of seven. Each squad had a lieutenant, two sergeants, and four privates. Or at least that had been the plan. We had a lot of requests to join the crew, and with only 52 of 190 Marines beds utilized, we ended up with a lot more sergeants than needed. The 52 Marines we did have were twenty-two humans, ten Squirrel, and twenty Tirani. Since Abby ran the training camp she selected the best raw recruits to go with the experienced Marines that made the cut for the Fateweaver.
Our Marine training facility was on the planet and operated in conjunction with the Naval base in orbit. The Naval base was the converted Brotherhood battleship we had captured in the system. Just like we were having trouble training the best pilots under Zoe¡¯s direction, we had trouble graduating Marines from Abby¡¯s school. Her graduation rate was about 33%. If they couldn¡¯t cut it, they were sent to the Planetary Reserves, which my brother Silas commanded.
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The Naval Academy had the same issue. Desdemona Rouse and Kara Briggs ran our Navy training. The five-year intensive course that had a graduation rate of just 25%. Part of the high rate of failure at the Naval Academy was from the various alien species enrolled not having a solid foundation of knowledge before they enrolled. As we were just getting the Navy up and running, we took everyone who applied. Failures of the program could go into the state-sponsored merchant marines or civilian service track. The failures of the Navy were extremely important as they kept our economy growing. They crewed traders and cargo haulers.
If they did not graduate, they had to pay back a fair value for the funds we invested in their training. That amounted to about eight years wages for a normal person or a ten-year government job service. They would get paid as a government employee and have 10% of their loan erased every one-year anniversary. It was a tidy system that worked.
Damian in engineering commed me that we were ready to leave the anchorage. Damian had joined the crew to escape his two hellions of children that he had with Vicky four years ago. Damian had been one of the instructors for the Naval Academy in the toughest department FTL travel. It seemed every week that our scientists made another advancement in the field.
Julian appeared next to me in his hologram form, indicating the status of the ship and that we could make way immediately. Julian was a splinter of my old ship¡¯s AI, Julie. She had created the AI seed herself after Daniel had purged her system of all backdoors into the coding. Julie had been upset as the AI developed. It had chosen a male persona for itself. I guess she always wanted a daughter. Julie was responsible for safeguarding the research and technology of the entire system.
The alien sensors let her communicate instantaneously with fragments of her AI at the various stations in the system. Elvis had been tasked with monitoring the entire system in real-time and sending the data to Julie and Command. He whined about how boring his new job was and wanted to be back on board a spaceship. His snarky personality was going to be added to one of the future Fateweaver-class ships.
Some of the second-shift bridge staff were on the bridge at the backup stations. The Fateweaver had already traveled hundreds of light years on its maiden voyage. This was going to be the first time we were introducing the ship and ourselves to the humanity. Our target was Concordia Prime. The seat of the new human Federation and where Admiral LaRohce based his flagship.
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He finally left. Celeste couldn¡¯t believe how much her father dragged his feet all the time. He was brilliant but an idiot when it came to dealing with people. She slapped her PerCom on and dialed Neo. He answered immediately, excited as well. Neo roomed with Amos in the aft of the asteroid base. It took her a while to bring together the crew.
Ezra and Emil were attending an event to commemorate their mother in the Wren enclave. Dartanian was all the way on the planet pretending he was 18 and trying to get into the hoverbike racing circuit. He would not make it back soon.
She commed the Squirrel engineers next. They had been waiting for this day for a long time. Her father would not let it happen, saying there were other priorities. The space tug was launched and headed for the stripped hull of the Void Phoenix while everyone was already on their way to the civilian space yards on another asteroid.
As everyone arrived, so did the Void Phoenix. She looked a mess. Julie was already downloading the prepared schematics for the ship. She knew there was probably going to be a prepared news release coming on the ship moving and being rebuilt. It had been in the works to surprise her father, but he hadn¡¯t left the Bradbury, instead sending Uncle Edmund out on missions.
Well, the time had come, and her group was going to be full participants in rebuilding the most famous ship in the galaxy! Well, maybe that was a little extreme. But it is definitely the most famous ship in the nearest 500 light years. In the back of her mind, she hoped her father would be happy with the Fateweaver and let her take the rebuilt Void Phoneix.
She looked at the plans again. It was going to be returning to form as a luxury passenger liner¡ªwith a number of hidden surprises. Some of them she came up with herself. Well¡ªNeo came up with the idea, but she approved them.
Emma and Eve entered the construction yard with them. Emma was her childhood bot that had grown up with her. She now had a frame of a muscular teen Squirrel girl. She had wanted to experiment with her body, and remaining human was boring. So, Gabby had designed her next upgrade as a teenage Squirrel. Eve was her father¡¯s bot and like an older sister to Celeste. Eve had been her protector ever since she remembered.
Six Squirrel engineers joined the assembly in the viewing port for the yards. The hulk of the Void Phoenix was set down. The question was how fast could the rebuild get done? Her father was only supposed to be gone for four weeks.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
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Chapter 148
Chapter 148
My first trip on the Fateweaver was smooth through subspace. Too smooth. The low thrum the Void Phoenix¡¯s FTL systems used to resonate on the bridge through the hull was comforting in a way and the perfect background noise to a long voyage. I was in command of a real warship. It was probably the strongest warship in human-controlled space.
We had just under one hundred captains and first officers in the Bradbury navy. Julie, had formulated dozens of certs for captains to complete. There were three branches of the certs, combat, emergency procedures, and environmental obstacles. I scored in the top five percent for the latter two and barely in the top twenty-five percent for combat. My over-analysis of situations and lack of ¡®gut instinct¡¯ was why.
Our top performer in every category was Desdemona Rouse. And it was not just because she had helped Julie design the training programs. She was really that good. I still held reservations about the Diamond Agent in our midst, but her focus was on the coming threat to humanity¡ªthe Malevolent, as the Sylvan called them. She was doing everything in her power to bend our efforts to get as strong as possible to fight them. Giving us Brotherhood technology, raiding Brotherhood caches, training our Navy up to the standards of the Brotherhood, and commanding the defense fleet of the Bradbury system.
After she had her children, I think I started to trust her more. Edmond and Julie had put in a lot of safeguards against her, but even then, I knew she could subvert our efforts with ease; but her value to establishing a strong Navy was too much to be ignored. Edmond also seeded her crews with many loyal men and women. The one thing that scared me about Desdemona was she practiced her power of the mind ability she inherited from Sylvan¡¯s genes. She did it in private, but I received reports from Julie¡ªand she was getting stronger.
One of the modules for training the captains highlighted all the mistakes I made when I brought the Void Phoenix back into the Bradbury system. Coming in too far into the gravity well. Not having the maintenance on the FTL drives completed, not having a full crew complement, and my navigation errors in trying to draw off the Brotherhood ships¡. It was a long list, and I ran the scenario myself more than three dozen times and found the death of Nero could have been prevented in many ways. That weighed heavily on me, but I never talked with anyone about it.
My new ship and crew were professional. We kept the uniforms we designed for the Void Phoenix for the entire Navy. Francis was a good first officer as well. I had almost nothing to do on the voyage in subspace. I walked the Fateweaver every morning, starting with the forward observation room below the bridge. The cruiser was 529 meters in length, twice the length of the Void Phoenix. It had ten times the volume as well. That was a lot of space, especially considering how efficient many of the shipboard systems were.
The forward observation was the crew¡¯s R&R room; we had four VIP cabins directly off it. It was the only luxury passenger accommodations area of the ship. It was quarantined for security purposes. The massive forward viewport was entrancing, and I think the Squirrel had taken the idea from the Void Phoenix.
I toured engineering and practiced with the Marines in the fitness room. The painting that had once graced the Void Phoenix training room was also here. Our ship only had one-third the possible complement of Marines, so the space was extremely large. Fitness training was a hobby of mine, and I loved the feeling of exhaustion and focus it required. I was ranked in the middle of the pack in our fifty-two Marines on board, but I had to remember these were the best our forces had.
From there, I did my thirty-minute VR training under Julian. This was the same for everyone, as procedures were constantly being updated. Then, I went to an hour-long staff meeting with my department heads. They knew I hated these meetings, so they were usually able to keep them under twenty minutes.
Then, I was on the bridge for a nine-hour shift in my captain¡¯s chair. I used my terminals to review engineering progress and review crew evals. My life felt almost mundane.
I was excited when we finally reached the Concordia Prime system. I was to negotiate with Admiral LaRoche about a possible alliance. The growth in the Bradbury system had been fast, but we still needed bodies for our ships¡ªsmart and skilled labor.
The screens flared to life, and the young Tirani at sensors announced the plot of all the vessels in the system. Over three hundred and counting as our sensors extended further into the system. Two Brotherhood spy ships were located immediately, but we chose to ignore them for now. This was the seat of the second most powerful human faction after the Brotherhood controlled core worlds.
It took them two hours to send two battleships and five frigates on an intercept course as their sensors did not detect us for a good hour after our arrival. We were that far out of the system. I had appeared on the edge of the system, outside of range. We had sent our own spy drones and knew this area had no tactical value, so it would not be patrolled.
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I ordered an intercept course with the fleet coming to greet us. We were obviously an alien ship to them with our curved hull. We had our stealth systems all turned off and were trying to be as open as possible. I was not sure why the Bradbury Council had selected me for the mission. Well, I did know. I was human, and they wanted Deven Wellspring to be the face of our Single Star System Nation.
Not that I was any longer in charge of much beyond the research and engineering of new spacecraft and bots.
Our speed was much slower than our capability, and we sent out hails as being friendly and on a diplomatic mission. I wanted to get closer to reduce the lag time between transmissions before starting a dialogue.
When we were within comfortable communication range for them, I opened comms with our prerecorded message of being open to a formal mutual defense pact. After the message was sent, I waited for them to digest it and reply. We had postponed any dialogue requests until now.
We started our deceleration as well to appear less threatening. The message I got back was not what I expected¡ªor I should say who I expected.
Samantha Kirov, Amos¡¯ mother, and my old captain from back in my time in the Union Navy. She was wearing an admiral¡¯s uniform, much older, and I was at a loss for words. Lazarus had told me she was dead. She was just as shocked to see me on the other end of the communication. I gathered myself first, smiled, and asked how Samantha was doing.
Her tongue was caught for the longest moment before she responded. Her stern admiral face softened markedly, and she asked about the Void Phoenix. It was still the most wanted ship in the part of space. I smiled and told her the Void Phoenix was retired. I could see her itching to ask about Amos, so I volunteered and told her Amos was well and thriving. Relief flooded her face at the news, and she remembered she was dealing with an intruder in her space.
Samantha asked my ship to come to a full stop and be inspected if I wanted to proceed further in the system. I declined, of course, and was happy to negotiate from our position. I could tell Samantha was warring with herself. She was uncomfortable in her chair. Eventually, she asked to come aboard the Fateweaver and instantly had to tell her first officer off-screen that it was fine.
I told her she could come aboard and bring one person with her, and we could have discussions in my conference room on the Fateweaver. Samantha arrived with an unarmed grizzled Marine in our shuttle bay. Her shuttle landed between our assault shuttles. We had already scanned her shuttle in-depth; all she had on board was small arms.
I met her in the shuttle bay with two Marines in badger armor. I had my best political smile on. The first thing she said was I did not look like I had aged a day since we were last in contact. She apologized for leaving Amos in my care, but at the time, she felt it was the best thing for him.
We started our walk with the three Marines behind us. She told me of how she had been sold off as a sex slave by Lazarus and how she escaped from the Sahppireans. Then she started her our Privateer group hunting pirates. Sixteen years ago, she joined Admiral LaRoche and never looked back. She was now responsible for the second defense fleet.
I think she wanted to hear about my travels, but I just said I found my way and settled down on a planet. We reached the conference room and sat. She had been wide-eyed at the ship as we had traveled. Instead of talking about myself, I focused on her son. I told her about how he grew up¡ªhow smart he was, how well he was doing, his array of friends, and his connection to Celeste.
Then I broke the big news to her. I had Lazarus in custody, in prison on an asteroid. She nearly fell out of her chair. A lot of emotions flashed in her eyes, hate and anger being at the forefront. I offered to have him transferred to her so she could handle him. The hope and eagerness in her eyes for vengeance was there. We had not even discussed our mutual defense pact yet.
Samantha¡¯s PerCom buzzed. It was an alert from Admiral LaRoche. There was an attack by the quadrupeds in the Delani System. He wanted Samantha¡¯s fleet to handle it the response and evacuation. The Delani System was ten days of subspace travel for them¡ªso the attack started ten days ago. She confirmed with the Admiral and stood. She would hand over negotiations to someone else but would like to see Lazarus transferred.
I smiled and asked if these were the same species that had tried to eradicate the Squirrel, called the Sydron. She nodded, and I told her we would assist her in the attack. Samantha did not think my one cruiser could help. The quadrupeds usually attacked with multiple capital ships and were not very forgiving. I told her after the battle we could negotiate our mutual defense pact.
After Samantha left the shuttle bay, I ordered the two Brotherhood spy ships boarded and disabled by my Marines. The assault shuttles made short of gaining entry in the two stealthed corvettes. We left both hulks floating in space for Admiral LaRoche. When our assault shuttles landed, I had us enter subspace. We were in the gravity well for most ships, but not us. I wanted to show some of our abilities to entice Admiral LaRoche and show him the threats lurking in the shadows. He had plenty of Brotherhood prisoners to question now.
The trip for us would be twenty-six hours to the Delani system. I expected to encounter resistance. I alerted the crew we were going into battle against a foe they knew well¡ªthe Sydron. The Squirrel on board were eager for their own vengeance.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, or repost this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 149 New Ally?
Chapter 149 New Ally?
We had a lot of untested weapons on board. We did not know what we would find when we reached the Delani system. I sat in the briefing room as we prepared. Our largest assets were the nine Slipstream fighters, the one hundred missiles for delivering a single black widow bot, and our thirty Armageddon missiles.
The Armageddon missiles were subspace hoppers that kept their kinetic energy after leaving subspace. The Squirrel had used it to fight the Brotherhood and save the Void Phoneix from being captured. Only this time, we would not need to sacrifice pilots to use them. They were a secret weapon for us, and I did not want to use them. We found their use in the Bradbury system had left large chunks of high-velocity objects flying around the system.
We had tasked SAR crews with eliminating the debris, but even after fourteen years, they were still tracking dangerous debris throughout the system. Even at the lowest band of subspace, these missiles delivered 5,000 kilotons of energy on impact. We had one dead system where we tested the devices. One eager Squirrel scientist fired one into the sun and caused a 200,000-kilometer flare to erupt from the sun, not including the radiation it emitted from the eruption. The damage was even more extensive than that, and the scientists were still studying the effects. We could essentially wipe out an entire star system by causing a big enough solar flare.
These thirty devices also had self-destruct devices on them so we could jettison them and explode them if the ship was going to be captured.
The eventual plan was to come out in the system and launch all the fighters and assault shuttles. The assault shuttles would deliver the Marines to problem areas on one of the two inhabited planets in the system. The Slipstream fighters would engage the smaller capital ships, and the Fateweaver would focus on cruisers and battleships. It seemed simple in discussion, but a lot of things could go wrong.
We emerged on the edge of the system, and our plot quickly populated. Going into battle without the snarky Elvis felt odd to me. Three battleships and one repair platform were the largest items on the plot. Followed by eight cruisers and sixty-three smaller craft. The alien quadrupeds were focusing their efforts on the largest moon of a gas giant. It was one of the inhabited planets in the system.
It looked like the second planet from the sun, the other inhabited planet, still had some defensive spacecraft around it. The assault shuttles launched from the bay and went into stealth mode, each carrying nine Marines. We would clear the space other than the inhabited moon, and then the Marines would land to help the fighting on the ground.
The Slipstream fighters would clear the airspace over the planet but were delaying launch until we got closer. One of the battleships was docked with the repair platforms. I made my decision to use an Armageddon missile on that battleship.
Alina Weaver, the weapons officer, and Elias worked together to put the firing solution together. The target was stationary, so it should be an easy strike. They still had not caught our profile on radar, and the subspace blip was probably masked by all the ships coming and going in the system.
We moved into a position and launched our complement of fighters toward the moon. The missile was fired, and the Fateweaver swung toward the second battleship. The missile was aimed to hit the battleship with the massive repair platform behind it. I watched the holotank feed and was shocked by the effect. The battleship burst like a bubble, and the repair platform drifted apart in a dozen pieces. They had no shields up and were completely unprepared for the attack.
The fighters began their attack run on fifteen frigates acting in support of the fleet landing soldiers on the moon. The assault shuttles had reached the moon but remained patient, waiting for the ships to retreat. I felt like a complete spectator to this point. We were still twenty-five minutes from the other battleship that was flanked by two cruisers.
I was notified the shields were coming online for the battleship and cruisers as their sensors finally picked up the destruction nearby. We timed our pass on the battleship with the fighter sweep. They launched missile after missile at our approach; fifty-eight were on target toward us. I ordered the Fateweaver to phase to shadow subspace, and all the missiles passed by. I ordered us back to real space clear of the missiles, and we opened up with our weapons, doing a heavy strafing run against the battleship. We took aft fire after we passed, but watching the shield charge, we lost less than 14% of shields from hits by the energy weapons from the battleship and two cruisers.
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The enemy launched a continuous stream of fighters to intercept the Fateweaver. We started an arcing turn for another pass on the battleship. My communications station said the aliens were hailing us. I smirked as I told her to send a vid of the Squirrel Marines charging forward. As we turned, I looked at the damage the Slipstream fighters had done to the rest of the fleet. Seven support ships were destroyed, and eight were damaged. The enemy was pulling off the planet and starting a retreat. I gave the order for the fighters to target those ships. It would hasten the retreat and get the Marines to the surface quicker.
We started receiving receiving requests for help from the surface of the moon. I let my communications office and Luna handle the deployment to the surface. We started to take focus fire from the fleet. Another cruiser and four destroyers were moving to defend the battleship that was in rough shape. Scans revealed over half the decks had vented to space. Julian found only one-quarter of the crew survived. I ordered to target the battleship bridge on this pass and divide fire to one of the cruisers.
When we were closer this time, they tried to launch their missiles, and we still phased out. I quickly called out that whatever cruiser they targeted just focused on the engines and FTL. The quadrupeds obviously had massive shipyards somewhere. I wanted to know where. We needed one other cruiser¡¯s bridge intact.
When we phased in the energy weapons fire was heavy, and shields dropped steadily. Secondary shields activated, and I was alerted that our capacitors were draining fast. The low thuds started to get louder, but I waited. I had been in enough sims to know the abuse the ship could handle.
Alina, said from the weapons station that the battleship bridge was destroyed and switching are weapons to the nearest cruiser. I switched to a live feed and watched as the aft of the cruiser quickly buckled under the fire, shields, then chunks of debris. We passed through their formation and still had 54% of our shields.
All ships were fleeing to subspace escape range. I checked the Slipstream fighters and ordered them back to the Fateweaver. Two had moderate damage, and all were low on fuel. They had wrecked the smaller ships in the fleet. I ordered the undamaged fighters to refuel and start another sortie. The more damage we could do, the better.
Marine assault shuttles had just broken the atmosphere and were locked into coordinates. I broke off to support them. We turned our powerful scanners on the planet to locate the quadrupeds that had landed and were committing genocide against the human population.
Julian put up a map and populated it with red dots as he identified targets. We relayed the information to our Marine HUDs. One assault shuttle came under heavy fire and had a hard landing¡ªsome injuries, but nothing serious. An hour later, we were in orbit over the inhabited moon doing detailed scans to find the enemy for our Marines.
According to records, the planet¡¯s defense force had been decimated, and Julina estimated that only forty thousand humans were still alive, about ten percent of the population of the moon remained. The larger planet in the system had over three million inhabitants. It appeared mostly untouched as the aliens were still whittling down the defense fleet after eleven days. They probably assumed they had more time before help arrived in the system.
It took an entire day for the Marines to root out the quadrupeds on the moon. During that time, the planet¡¯s assistance relieved my men and allowed them to return to the Fateweaver. The quadrupeds had bunched near the edge of the system, trying to repair ships to enter subspace. The slipstream fighters made sortie after sortie until they finally fled.
Our damage was one assault shuttle was damaged beyond repair. We destroyed it rather than let the technology be studied. One of the heavy slipstream fighters was damaged beyond repair, but we salvaged what parts we could off of it. Even though the quadrupeds were not a strong enemy, what they lacked in power, they made up for in numbers. I considered it a very successful test of the ship¡¯s combat capabilities.
We spent the next eight days helping the remaining local government clean the system. One of the Marine shuttles docked with the disabled enemy cruiser and pulled the navigation computer from the ship. It did not take long for Julian to decode the matrix and translate. The quadrupeds were smart¡well, somewhat smart.
The information was incomplete. It only had a section of the space they controlled, but it was obvious by the density map for their ship deployment where the entire region of space they controlled was located. We guessed where they might have had one shipyard based on the intensity of military vessels on the star system. The Squirrel on board the Fateweaver enjoyed their vengeance but were thirsty for more.
Samantha transitioned into the system with her fleet, five battlecruisers, and fifteen cruisers, and an assortment of support craft. She commed my bridge, and I let her know she was a little late to the engagement. Admiral LaRoche was on her bridge, and he wanted to talk.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
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Chapter 150 Admiral LaRoche
Chapter 150 Admiral LaRoche
I knew Admiral LaRoche was an aging man with tremendous charisma. Edmond had only a handful of spies in his Human Federation, so we had limited knowledge of the political arena he was playing in. I knew he maintained the military¡¯s independence from the civilian government for almost twenty years. From what I had seen in reports, he was honorable and even had broken far enough away from the Brotherhood that the xenophobia they pushed on humanity was fading in his governance. This was noted as the Human Federation had started trading with some members of the Alien Alliance.
On the screen, Admiral LaRoche acknowledged me with Samantha next to him. His first question was about the location of my fleet. He assumed I needed a fleet to liberate the system, which caused me to smile. I told him it was just this one ship. He asked how we arrived so quickly.
Rather than play twenty questions, I decided to let the locals do the publicizing for me. I told the Admiral he could talk with the system¡¯s government first, and they could let them know about what had transpired here. I would be available to talk in one day¡¯s time with him. If he wanted to talk, then he could come aboard the Fateweaver. We ended comms, and I set my crew to clean up our presence in the system and get everyone back on board.
I had a lot of reports to read through. The Marines had suffered minor injuries on the planet in routing out the quadrupeds. We had a lot of combat data for our suits. VR testing was great, but actual combat experience was key to finding areas that needed refining. Luna wanted me to join her and Abby in the debriefings, but I refused. This was her command, and she needed to take ownership of the actions of her Marines.
Zoe was operating as our CAG for our small group of pilots. She reviewed and flew a number of the missions the Slipstream fighter pilots had completed and had a lot of notes to pass along to her fighter pilots. Especially the pilot who got his craft wrecked.
Julian and Francis had sent me efficiency ratings of the crew and found that the majority of the Fateweaver crew operated between 91% and 93% optimal efficiency.
I did my own crew reviews for the Fateweaver and marked two crew to be replaced. We had an engineer who focused on repairing one of the lifts during combat instead of moving over to help with the shield emitters. The other member was a flight technician. She had failed to run the SOP diagnostics on one of the Slipstream fighters when it came in for a reload and refuel. It almost got the pilot killed as the belly shield emitters were close to burning out.
Admiral LaRoche waited exactly one day, to the second, before contacting me. He was willing to come aboard, and I told him he could bring up to ten people with him, none of them armed. His shuttle had already been prepped and was en route as soon as I approved the meeting. I met him in the landing bay with ten Marines in the light Gecko armor. I had four Squirrel, three Tirani, one Wren, and two humans. I wanted to make a show that we were accepting of other races.
Admiral LaRoche and Admiral Samantha Kirov led the way off their shuttle, followed by three lieutenants and five Marines. I moved and shook hands with the Admiral. He nodded and said we had a lot to discuss. The mixed Marines got many curious looks, but that could have also been their light-power armor. I brought his party to the forward viewing room, and we had a meal laid out for him. Abby, Francis, and Mozzie were on my side of the table. I had wanted to include one of the Squirrel, but they all refused.
We talked mostly about the Fateweaver during drinks and avoided the true reason for the meeting. Samantha was quiet, and it was more of a back-and-forth between me and the Admiral. He dove into my tactics for my rescue of the system. He was trying to ferret out our true capabilities more than discuss naval tactics. He finally asked how we managed to get here ten days before them.
I spent five minutes laying out the general subspace theory that allowed travel in the different bands. He was fascinated and wanted to know more, but the physics were over him, and I was not going to give him the secrets. My goal was to be on friendly terms with the Human Federation as we were with the Alien Alliance. I hoped to recruit skilled men and women to the Bradbury system to expand our training pool eventually.
I asked how the capture of the two Brotherhood spy ships went after my men disabled them in the Concordia system. The Admiral reclined in his chair. He had a heavy tone. The Brotherhood had approached him eleven years ago. They offered him intel and technology in exchange for his support. He turned them down at the time and had not heard from them again. To find them in his system¡was disconcerting.
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I told him what I knew about the Brotherhood. Edmond had gathered some intel in the last fourteen years, but the Brotherhood had slowly changed its encryption and practices in the Rim. We had also cleared every supply cache that Desdemona knew about it. These caches had crippled their operations in Rim space.
Still, we knew the fleet that ended up in the Bradbury system was a significant portion of their hidden military strength. The Brotherhood controlled dozens of fleets throughout human space by controlling the rulers of those star kingdoms. The fleet Rae¡¯Ver took from the Brotherhood had their most gifted and loyal people on board the most advanced warships they could build. The loss had stalled the Brotherhood momentarily.
Edmund knew the Brotherhood was moving back into the Rim in the last five years. He even located a new resupply cache in an asteroid field in a dead system. We chose to monitor it instead of plundering it. Our sensors were currently our best defensive weapon, and if we took the expertly concealed base, it would tip them about the powerful sensors.
Admiral LaRoche stewed, and I wished I had Desdemona here. She could convince him better than me. Almost every war in the Rim was the Brotherhood pulling the strings behind the scenes. I explained their anti-alien propaganda next. Their goal was to secure every piece of valuable alien technology for humanity. I spent an hour detailing a few of their plots, ending with the Squirrel. The quadrupeds were also an element of the Brotherhood. They had fed the war-like, fast breeding, alien race advanced tech, knowing they would use it to try and conquer other species in the region.
Their plan had worked too well as the quadrupeds were now threatening human space in the Rim worlds. Admiral LaRoche admitted they were one of his biggest headaches. Their ships were not powerful, but they were durable and numerous. The quadrupeds were slowing their genocidal mindset, according to the Admiral. They were instead using captured people as cheap labor. He sent me a report of one of his scouts finding an entire system being mined by other races. Dozens of the quadruped warships monitored the system as the ore was shipped to a processing center in subspace.
The Admiral had guesses as to where this center might be, and I had Julian, the Fateweaver¡¯s AI, bring up a holo star map on the table. I added where I thought the quadrupeds were building spaceships, and soon, we had the Admiral¡¯s target system in a separate region of space on the map. Two targets that might cripple the expansionist quadrupeds if targeted.
As we were exploring a mutual mission to attack both targets, Samantha suddenly interrupted us. She informed the Admiral that she had abandoned me to die on a dark planetoid in order for herself and fellow crewwomen to abscond with alien artifacts. The table was silent, and the Admiral studied her and then me. I just nodded to confirm the revelation.
I was unsure if Samantha was trying to sabotage the alliance or get some guilt off her conscience. The Admiral asked for his Marines and lieutenants to leave the meeting for now. I had two Marines escort them to the R&R room for the crew. I let Samantha explain the events that led to the incident. I did not interrupt her and let her explain it in her own words. The Admiral sighed and paced the room. I could tell he had his own moral compass he was fighting.
In the end, he stopped pacing and asked Samantha if she wished to resign her commission. She did not respond for a long moment before saying no. LaRoche asked me if I wanted her to pay for her crimes. My response was people can can change. That change could be for better or worse. Only if a person continues down a dark path must they be punished.
I had a number of people in my circle that were being redeemed in my mind. Edmond and Desdemona were at the top of that list. The Admiral nodded but immediately told Samantha her fleet was being taken from her. She would remain an admiral on her flagship and serve as a liaison with the Bradbury system to help plan a coordinated attack against the quadruped infrastructure. This seemed too convenient, and I guessed it might have been staged for Samantha to be planted as a spy in my midst. Spy may be too strong a word. Intelligence-gather better fit her role.
I was not going to allow it. I would have her battleship wait on the periphery of the Bradbury system. Her inferior sensors would not pick up much, and if she tried to launch a stealth probe we would detect it. I also guessed she would be occupied after I delivered Lazarus to her ship. I was curious how that reunion would go.
We spent the next two hours discussing the plan to attack both quadruped fortifications simultaneously. I would send two cruisers to each rally location to participate. Admiral LaRoche would commit five battleships, fourteen cruisers, and an array of support craft to each rally point. If these attacks succeeded, then the Admiral would submit formal papers of a mutual defense pact to the civilian government.
We had six months to prepare for the assault. I escorted the Admiral to his shuttle, and he dispersed his fleet in the system to help the civilians and remaining naval assets. We were free to leave, but before heading to the Bradbury system, I had to make one layover. I needed to go to the Tirani and recruit some mercenaries that I hoped would join my Marines. The Fateweaver showed off her speed as we raced to a normal transition distance for subspace and entered.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 151
Chapter 151
A trip that would have taken nearly a month prior was only going to take us three days. We were returning to the Tirani station where we had picked up the Tirani envoys to the Drusi so long ago. Mozzie had been among those envoys as a guard. The Tirani race were traders and mercenaries. They loved a good fight but were more honorable than most humans I knew. We did a deep scan of the massive station when we entered the system. The Fateweaver was using its hologram projectors and appeared as a segmented trader.
The hologram technology had been my pet project over the decades, and the Fateweaver was the only ship equipped to disguise its hull. The other Fateweaver-class ships had additional weapons systems in place of the emitters. The density of the projection was enough to show up on standard sensors. Disguising our hull had come a long way since the Void Phoenix.
Mozzie was on the bridge and slightly nervous. Mozzie was going to tell his parents he had married a human. They were completely incompatible physiology-wise, as Tirani had copper-based blood, not iron. But Luna and Mozzie are probably the happiest couple on the ship. My other goal in stopping here was to hire as many Tirani mercs as I could. We needed the influx of Marines into our Navy. Tirani did not accept Sol credits, so I brought along a fair amount of precious metals to trade.
I got an alert when logging into their system as Deven Wellspring. My account was flagged, and the station administrator called me. Concerned, I answered the call and put the crew on alert. The Tirani on the call was very pleasant. He was just calling to welcome me to his humble station and wanted me to have dinner with him that evening. It was like he was sucking up to me. Did the Fateweaver impress him? It was an alien ship, and I doubted he knew how powerful it was under its disguise.
I accepted the invitation as maybe he could help get some leads for a large cohort of mercenaries that would be interested in relocating. When I exited the shuttle, I had four Marine guards with me. You were allowed to carry weapons in the station, so they had gecko armor and heavy stun rifle. Mozzie went to take Luna to meet the parents, and five of my other Tirani Marines would check on the landscape for mercenaries.
I reached the dinner, and there were a lot of Tirani captains at the meeting. Some merchant captains and some mercenary captains. But I was confusingly the guest of honor. I was a little on guard until I learned they wanted to meet the co-owner of Purple Grass Emporium.
Yes, the purple grass had taken off in the last fifteen years and was the hottest commodity throughout Tirani space. It took me a few verifications on my PerCom to access my holdings, and I suddenly understood the interest in me. The account was bursting. I explained that I had not been in communication with the Tirani, to whom I had licensed it.
The station commander smiled with his bare teeth. Just about every Tirani used the purple grass as a method to relax. There was an entire line of edibles and beverages with the purple grass. I was flashing through my PerCom to get the currency conversation rates. The station commander and administrator explained that nearly ten billion Tirani consumed the purple grass daily.
I looked up from PerCom at all the smiling Tirani and returned it. So, who here was a mercenary captain?
The Tirani had a clan system. Each clan had a head with an array of captains below him or her. These captains could run a small mercenary squad or trading company. Or they could run an entire ship, a heavy transport for mercs, or even a large trader. The Tirani favored the mercenary life over the trader¡¯s life, though.
I had seven merc captains and five trader captains from some of the strongest Tirani clans in front of me. Even though the Tirani were known as honorable traders and mercs I assumed they were like every other race, and not everyone lived up to their expectations.
Still, the traders could help bring an influx of trade goods to the Bradbury. I was not aware of the civilian needs in the Bradbury system, but common luxury goods would be welcome. I knew the materials that the Navy and the Marines needed for the production of Slipstream fighters and combat power armor. The Fateweaver-class ships already had all the material needed for their construction.
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The Tirani captains were eager to work with me. I started with the traders and contracted all of them with cargo. I put funds in escrow with the station administrator. They would be released on delivery of the goods. The mercenary captains were harder to work for after I told them what I wanted.
Tirani preferred their independence, and being locked down for a long-term contract was something they did not like to do. I would not take anything less than a twenty-year contract. With the seven merc captains, only two were interested in the long-term contract. They were both from the Bravados Clan¡ªa young clan with only these two captains. They were an offshoot of the Preytorus Clan.
The two captains, Jaye and Lyle, were brothers. They had worked for their father before his element of the Preytorus Clan was destroyed when defending a planet from the quadrupeds seven years ago. When the clan did not seek support to get revenge, the brothers broke away and formed their new clan. They only recently came into possession of two small subspace transports, which allowed them to take missions in other star systems.
I sent a message on my PerCom for the five Tirani I had sent to hire Marines. The message was to check into the Bravados clan. As dinner finished, I had a stack of merchant contracts completed. No contract was completed yet for the mercenaries, so I returned to the Fateweaver.
At the staff meeting, I got to listen to the story of Mozzie introducing Luna to his parents. It did not go well for Mozzie. It was fine for Luna, who had a dozen stories about Mozzie¡¯s adventures. The funniest of which was Mozzie getting married to a cat-like woman by challenging her to a wrestling match and winning. I remembered that I had to intercede on the behalf of Mozzie and get the marriage annulled. Mozzie¡¯s mother loved Luna, and the Tirani dd did not weigh much on the children. Adoption was prevalent in their culture¡ªespecially since many Tirani mercenaries died in the line of duty.
After that, we started talking about the Bravados clan. I had the report from the Tirani Marines we sent. They had two terrible spacecraft with a few alien engineers. Jaye and Lyle had seventy-three mercenaries. The Tirani had an internal ranking system for the mercenary captains and companies; they were average at best. The brothers tended to take a lot of missions that would put them into conflict with the quadrupeds.
Still, seventy-three was an underwhelming number of Mercenaries. With my new wealth, I was hoping for something closer to five hundred and even enough civilians to seed a community in the Bradbury system.
I had other recommendations from the Tirani I sent out. There were dozens of independents and small teams of two to five Tirani. Still not enough to reach my goal. If I wanted to reach my goal, we would have to travel to the Tirani homeworld, Gladium. A five-day trip in subspace, taking us further away from the Bradbury system.
It was an unplanned trip, but I decided I might be able to convince some Tirani to relocate. The first thing I needed to do was work out a contract with the two brothers. I invited them to the Fateweaver with forty other Tirani my Marines had vetted. I was not involved in convincing them. Luna and Abby would show them what we had to offer and focus on our upcoming conflict with the quadrupeds.
It was three days before we added twenty-nine Tirani crew and the seventy-three Tirani from the Bravados clan. We also managed to convince a small number of their families to relocate. Fifty-two Tirani, we would have to pick on the planet Gladium with the Fateweaver. It was just another reason for us to travel there.
The Fateweaver ending spending seven days at the Tirani station. All the mercs were on the Bravados ships and heading toward the Bradbury system. Every evening, I was having dinner with Tirani merchants and making deals. It was impossible to even put a dent into my Tirani accounts. It would be good to meet my business partner as well. Obviously, he had been honorable in our transaction with the purple grass. I needed to turn all my Tirani credits into something I could use to help the Bradbury system. The best place to do that would be on the Tirani homeworld.
Even with our detour, we should still arrive in the Bradbury system before the Bravados ships.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 152
Chapter 152
The planet Gladium was the homeworld of the Tirani race. It was the only planet in all of Tirani space that did not allow non-Tirani ships to approach. At all their other population centers, they welcomed trade with all races.
When we entered the star system, the plot showed dozens of stations over the uninhabitable planets supporting mining operations. When I logged in the Fateweaver with their system nav buoys using my Deven Wellspring code, I had to go through multiple identification verification steps. I thought they were just overprotective of their homeworld, but it turned out it was due to my half-ownership of the purple grass.
Just like on the Tirani station, I was a bit of a celebrity. We received permission to dock at one of the military space stations over Gladium Prime, the only planet in the system with a breathable atmosphere. Billions of Tirani lived there, and it was the largest concentration of Tirani in all space. According to Mozzie, the Tirani were ruled by the five heads of the largest clans by population. I was being invited to meet with them after I had docked. My Tirani business partner would also be there, so I assumed this was a request regarding the grass.
We had a number of families to pick up as well. The Bravados clan was relocating to the Bradbury system. We sent out the array of communications they had given us and began planning for their arrival. Francis was in charge of facilitating the cargo that they would be bringing. He allocated one metric ton per family member.
I was preparing to head to the planet when Francis commed me. The family members wishing to come were slowly ticking up from our original number¡we were now looking at three hundred seventy-eight on the total number of family members. The news was spreading that the Bravados clan was working for one of the owners of the purple grass.
We had the capacity so I approved of the additional passengers. This was also an opportunity to spend more of my Tirani wealth. Rather than have migrants board the Fateweaver, I purchased six heavy transports and hired crews for them. Although these ships were typically used by the mercenaries, I would load them with trade goods and the families of the Bravados clan.
With my notoriety, it was easy to purchase them. The transports were relatively new and designed to deliver mercenary clans to their assignments. I planned to fill them with cargo to make the Tirani transition to the Bradybury system easier. I paid a slight premium over the normal bulk purchase rate for goods.
One of my objectives was to set up one of the five hundred agricultural domes in the Bradbury system to grow food that the Tirani preferred based on their biology. I set the goal to be able to service ten thousand Tirani stomachs in the future. I wanted the Tirani that did relocate to our city to have all the comforts of home.
When we docked, a formal escort at the station greeted me. I planned to take my shuttle down to the planet, but they insisted I travel in one of their shuttles. I brought Abby, Mozzie, and Luna with me to the surface. We were all dressed in our formal naval uniforms. As we descended to atmosphere, Mozzie explained five artificial mountains surrounded the Tirani capital. It symbolized the Tirani¡¯s steadfast and industrial nature to move ¡®heaven and earth¡¯ to fulfill their missions. As we flew over the mountains, they were definitely impressive. They were five thousand meters in height and made a unique pentagon formation in the otherwise flat plain. The sprawling capital was located in the center of this formation of mountains.
All the buildings in the city only had five floors above ground and five floors below ground. Mozzie explained the number five had a significant religious context for his people before they achieved space flight. Their space flight capability was actually given to them about fifteen thousand years ago by an alien race. This race, which Mozzie could not identify, crashed onto the planet. It brought his ancestors together to stop in-fighting and rapidly pushed science ahead in his culture over the next century to reach into space. The sacred nature of the number five was one of the few things that had survived the millennia.
We landed on top of the largest structure in the city. A pentagon-shaped building built from a red stone. An honor guard was there to meet us and escorted us inside. The audience room was also a pentagon, and the ruling five awaited us. A familiar Tirani was seated on the Council. My business partner was part of the Council that caught me off guard.
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We were all seated and sat through the Tirani version of a diplomatic introduction. The accomplishments of each of the five were given and how long they had served. My business partner, I noted, had been a member for nine years. With the formalities concluded the Tirani council wanted to discuss my dealings with the Tirani as a race.
The secret of my advanced technology had leaked over the last two decades. It had started with the Tirani envoys, but Tirani mercenaries throughout space had trickled information back to them. They were interested in powered combat armor and ship sensors in particular. The problem was they had nothing to offer me. I was already beyond wealthy with my holdings.
The Tirani were a relatively minor race when compared to others. They controlled only a handful of habitable planets and had dozens of large space stations throughout space, serving as depots for trading and their mercenary opportunities. I had not come here hoping to recruit their entire race in the fight against the Malevalents, but I changed my mind.
As I wove the tale about the planet-sized ships that moved from star system to star system, wiping out all life, they looked dubious. The only proof I had was that Desdemona had seen the visions when she had been in Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s mind. That was when he had dominated her with his ability.
The conversation quickly turned to the Sylvan people and their city ships. The Tirani wanted to confirm the existence of the Malevants by conducting a diplomatic mission with the Sylvan. I tried to argue them back from the edge. My dealings with the Sylvan had not been pleasant to date, and I had destroyed one of their city ships. I did not mention this to the Tirani.
I had not been able to dissuade them from their course of action for two hours. I wished Suruchi had been with me on this mission. She would have been able to stop them. I tried to focus on the perhaps establishing a colony of Tirani in the city of Arcadian. I was upfront with my goal to recruit Marines to the systems navy to fight the Malevalents in the future.
We discussed my efforts so far with the Bravados clan and pulling their families. One of the council members was willing to send one of his sub-clans to Arcadian. They were merchants and technicians, not mercenaries, though. It could be a play to try and obtain some of our advanced technology.
The one flaw of the Tirani race was their lack of deception. Whether that was from a sense of honor or just in their genetic nature did not matter. The sub-clan had almost five thousand Tirani. They operated a dozen cargo ships that specialized in ore transport.
There were some stipulations. I would have to pay to relocate the sub-clan, called the Fossores clan. The clan would also need to be contracted for their work. Mozzie added just because the clan were traders, there would still be members who joined the Marines. The challenge and rush of combat were part of the nature of the Tirani. I agreed to take on the Fossores clan.
As we talked further, the problem for the mercenary sub-clans was the leaders did not want to give up their authority over them. With the Fossores clan, I would be paying them, and they would still answer to their clan leaders further up in the hierarchy. I could see why. If these leaders were appointed due to their clan size, then they did not want to lose members.
Food was brought, and we talked about adding Marines rather than mercenaries to the Bradbury system. The solution came when one of the Mozzie got frustrated and said he should just start his own clan outside the purview of the Tirani Council. That was what the Bravados brothers had done¡ªseparated themselves from the clan.
There were millions of Tirani with no clan affiliation were on the planet and throughout space. It was considered a stigma in the past, but they were now accepted as members of society. If Mozzie registered a clan, he could accept members into it. Then, he could release members of his clan to serve in the Marines in the Bradbury system.
It seemed like a very roundabout way to recruit Tirani to the Bradbury system, but it fit into the clan system. The Council was willing to help Mozzie as long as it did not affect their clan. I gave Mozzie access to my Tirani accounts. We were going to leave him behind on Gladium. He would form his clan and recruit. Then, Mozzie would migrate them to the Bradbury system. Luna would stay with him to help organize.
We had spent almost eight hours with the Clan leaders. I had made some misteps. They were going to prepare a diplomatic mission to the Sylvan. I did not sense this going well. I was also leaving Mozzie and Luna behind. I was also bringing in five thousand Tirani, whose loyalties may be suspect. Still, the risk was worth it. If the Sylvan came and were hostile, I believe our system defenses could repel them.
I left the Gladium planet, hopeful we had added another ally. We still had time to reach the Bradbury system before Samantha¡¯s battleship as well.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 153
Chapter 153
We managed only to take on seven Tirani passengers when we left Galadium. They were to help lay the groundwork for the arrival of the five thousand members of their clan. I was going to have to meet with them repeatedly during the six-day subspace trip to the Bradbury system.
The first meeting did not go well as they made numerous requests that sounded closer to demands of me. They wanted their own orbital trading station, for starters. I was open to building a Tirani station, but they wanted ownership of it, which was a non-starter. They kept circling back to the point because they knew how many credits I had. Eventually, I had to end the meeting, feigning anger.
Even though they were relocating to the Bradbury system and I had exclusive contract rights to their trading operations, they wanted assurances they would stand to make a profit. It was not going to be an issue as I had more Tirani credits than I would ever know what to do with, but still they were traders, and they were pressing for every advantage. I was an engineer, not a merchant.
When they returned to negotiations, they accepted the station would be built by me and owned by me. Their second ¡®request¡¯ was more reasonable. They wanted one of the agricultural domes surrounding the City of Arcadian to produce the purple grass. In Tirani space, my business partner was the only one licensed to produce, refine, and sell it.
Thankfully, Shara, my young bridge sensor officer, came to my rescue on this point as she had studied up on the purple grass, having never tried it before this voyage. The compound in the grass was refined into extremely popular consumables to the Tirani. She suggested that we refine the purple grass and focus on manufacturing just one or two products, aiming for quality. It would minimize manufacturing infrastructure and offer two products our partner did not offer.
The two products we decided on by the end of the voyage were an alcoholic beverage and an infused chocolate. Dark chocolate was a noval sweet to Tirani, and adding the extract made it a luxury item. The alcohol was a wine we were already producing from berry bushes we cultivated from another assortment of seeds we found with the Tirani seeds.
That was not the end of the ¡®requests.¡¯ Preferred housing, priority repairs, upgraded sensors, new subspace drives¡they were trying to ring this cooperative agreement for all it was worth. I definitely preferred dealing with the Tirani mercenaries over the Tirani traders. They were much more straightforward, but without the merchant trader faction, the Tirani would have probably been swallowed by alien expansionists¡ªlike the Brotherhood. The Merchant-Merc was a good balance to have.
Abby visited me in the conference room the day before we were to reach Bradbury. I had been busy with our Tirani ¡®guests¡¯, so she had not talked to me. She just wanted to give me some advice. She thought the Tirani Marines would bring a lot to our forces in the future, but it would take time to train them. She was more focused on my handing over my accounts to Mozzie and Luna before we left Gladium. Abby thought I should put some constraints on the spending as neither of them was known to be thrifty when it came to credits.
She apologized that she did not mention it sooner. I doubted the two could even put a dent in my accounts anyway¡ªunless their new clan was composed of thousands of Tirani¡ªthat wouldn¡¯t happen, though.
When we transitioned to the Bradbury system, I was shocked to find Samantha¡¯s battleship holding at the edge of the system. The two Fateweaver-class cruisers were holding position nearby. Elias¡¯ projections on the battleship¡¯s arrival were for two more days. He guiltily said they must have cut corners on maintenance to get here so quickly.
Communications started rolling in, and they had only arrived nine hours ago. We moved to their position, and I sent my own communications out. The Squirrel were going to be ecstatic about the upcoming assault on the quadruped systems. Suruchi was probably not going to be thrilled with the incoming Tirani.
Arcadian City was only about half built and already close to capacity. The five hundred agricultural domes were being built as needed, and I had just committed three of them to my new Tirani enterprise. I hoped that Mozzie was correct and that we would start to yield Marines from the Fossores Clan.
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The Bravados Clan was going to be easier to accommodate, with four hundred family members and less than a hundred warriors. They would enroll in the Naval Academy to undergo Marine training before joining our ships.
We approached the battleship, and Samantha was on a rendezvous shuttle with the Fateweaver. I would take her in system, and we would get the bots to transfer Lazarous to her custody. I also sent out a call for Amos to come to the Fateweaver. Might as well get the entire family reunion done quickly so we can focus on the five-month preparation for joint assault.
I held off meeting Samantha as I reviewed the Fateweaver construction. We had four dry docks on the asteroid for the construction of the ships, and only one additional cruiser would be completed in that time. I set up a call with Admiral Rouse. Desdemona was reviewing the data packets and looked up from her screen.
We quickly hashed out a plan. I would take the Fateweaver and Cloud Jumper to the quadruped shipyards. She would take command of the Excalibur when it was completed, and the New Horizon. Desdemona would be attacking the mining system where the quadrupeds were using prisoners to help mine. We each would have two support transports, equipped with the improved drive coming with us.
Part of Desdemona¡¯s parol was never leaving the Bradbury system. I was taking a leap of faith in trusting her with the command of two of our powerful assets. Desdemona was already making requests of the shipyard to complete the Excaliber. She wanted to squeeze in an additional two Slipstream fighters. She was also submitting transfer requests for her current crew.
The problem was we were still extremely thin on the qualified crew. With these four new cruisers and the current defense fleet, it was going to be a difficult fight if we sustained damage.
My PerCom beeped. Amos and Celeste had come aboard. I was not surprised Celeste had come with Amos to meet his mother and father. They were close, like brother and sister. I would have liked to be there, but my PerCom and screens were rapidly filling with responses to my data dump. I would love to only be responsible for a single ship¡¯s maintenance¡
<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The shuttle landed, and Amos stepped off first. He was nervous, and his sister put her hand on his shoulder to steady his emotions. He rarely showed emotions, but now he fidgeted. He had wanted to come alone, but Celeste wouldn¡¯t let him. Now, he was glad for her support.
To surprise Deven, they had been working frantically in the civilian shipyards to complete the Void Phoenix. The ship was almost ready, and then this. It was like his entire world had been flipped upside down. His mother was alive. Not his true mother. Eve was the closest thing he had to a mother.
Growing up, she was the only one who listened to him. Celeste has always thought the universe revolved around her¡ªtaking him along for the ride. He entered the lift and tapped the forward viewing room. That was where his PerCom said she waited.
The lift ride was seconds, but he wished it would never end. Why did he even have to do this? He needed to get his emotions under control. He was not going to cry. He found what he was searching for: anger. That was a good emotion for the encounter. He was not the one who should be worried, it was here.
The lift doors opened, and the forward viewing room was before him. A woman in a uniform with short blonde hair stood with her back to him. He moved forward and told Celeste to wait by the lift. He walked up behind the woman, who slowly turned around. She was old. Well, not old, just graying. She obviously did not have access to SNAIL treatments. Her expression was blank.
He studied her and saw the familiar features of his own face. She was waiting for him to speak first. She had a command authority to her, straight back, impassive stare, eyes that told you nothing. His face suddenly wiped up, and he slapped her hard, sending her stumbling. He spun before seeing her reaction. He had expected something from her. Some emotion¡ªguilt, regret, happiness to see him. There was nothing. He had no mother birth mother. Eve had raised him; if anyone deserved that title, it was her.
Celeste was at the lift and entered with him. She asked if he was alright. He just nodded, a single tear falling from his left eye. That was all the grieving he would do for his lost mother, a single tear.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 154 Samantha鈥檚 Justice
Chapter 154 Samantha¡¯s Justice
Samantha was not stunned when her son struck her. She had expected it, no, welcomed it. The sting on her face allowed her to feel something. When she saw him, he looked too much like his father. The memories came flooding back, and she was angry at Amos for what he represented. She knew he was not to blame, but still, she felt nothing for him¡ªonly bitterness for what he was and how he represented her weakness.
No words had been exchanged, and that was okay. At least Amos knew she was alive. She had never had any more children because of her failure with Amos. She was not fit to be a mother. No matter how much she worked to atone for her past mistakes.
Maybe she could find some salvation in dealing with Ashton, who now called himself Lazarus. Samantha remained in the viewing room and stared out into the starscape. She deserved this. Admiral LaRoche had given her a chance at redemption, and she completely invested herself in defending the Federation for the last fifteen years.
When Deven Wellspring showed up, she immediately told the Admiral about their past history. Admiral LaRoche immediately came up with a strategy to use it. They devised a plan to use her to bring about a stronger alliance and hopefully get access to the technology he had demonstrated.
And the technology was impressive: high-speed subspace travel, power armor, and heavy fighters. After they reviewed the combat footage, Admiral LaRoche was willing to do whatever it took to make allies of Deven. The joint operation against the quadrupeds was going to be the first step. Samantha was the liaison to make sure the joint operation was successful.
The shuttle flared in the view screen as her son was departing the Fateweaver. He was better off without her. She was just a tool now, her humanity gone. She did not know why she was shedding tears as the shuttle disappeared into the blackness of space.
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>
Three bots arrived to take Lazarus from his cell. At first, he was confused. He was never let out of his cell. What had changed? Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s mind pressed in on his, looking through his eyes and forcing him to ask questions. The bots ignored his questions and prepared him for transport.
Rae¡¯Ver was in a nearby cell and was the only other person alive on the penal asteroid. After the first ten years of playing inside the only mind Rae¡¯Ver could reach, he had given up. The space elf meditated for long stretches now, and they even conversed every few weeks with Lazarus. But Lazarus thought he might be imagining the conversations. At least his captors gave Lazarus a terminal with access to vids and two synth bots to talk to. Lazarus considered himself too strong to lose his sanity¡
As he was shackled and marched past Rae¡¯Ver, the Sylvan scrambled to put ordered thoughts into Lazarus¡¯ mind. Lazarus just laughed loudly and no longer cared. His existence had been abysmal for the last twelve years. Broderick was the only person who commed him and that was because the stupid engineer thought they were friends. That was a ridiculous notion. Of course, Lazarus played along, as he might be able to use the na?ve engineer sometime in the future.
Somehow, his dense engineer had married Desdemona. That made no sense. How could she choose someone so easily manipulated? Broderick was so¡.weak. She was the strongest and most dominant person he had ever met. She was way too good for the likes of the spineless engineer.
His headache grew as Rae¡¯Ver pressed harder on his mind before he escaped his influence. He was in shock as he approached the automated shuttle and stepped inside. There were people inside! He stared, his mind not working as he realized actual humans were in front of him. It had been what twelve years?
And they were within the range of Rae¡¯Ver¡¯s mind influence. How could they be this stupid? The ramp closed, and suddenly, his mind was quiet. Quiet and his own. Rae¡¯Ver was silenced. How? One of the officers was running medical scans on him and explained they had a material to block the brain wave patterns of the Sylvan. The crew was monitoring a lot of devices that measured the brain waves and interference. So they were using him to test their defenses against the Sylvan mind control?
Lazarus was confused as the shuttle lifted off. He was relieved to get away from Rae¡¯Ver. They did not tell him where or why he was being removed from the facility. He had no more useful information to tell them. He also knew Rae¡¯Ver had embedded some deep programming in his mind. Over the years, he had practiced how to access it¡there¡Rae¡¯Ver wanted him to contact the Sylvan city ships. He wanted other First Citizens to know he was being held captive.
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He doubted they would give him a chance to send a message. His arms and legs were shackled together. He knew if the opportunity presented itself, the compulsion to do so would be too great to resist. He had no defenses against Rae¡¯Ver¡ªbut after such a long exposure to his mental manipulations, he could at least decipher the programming.
The shuttle left the asteroid, and he smiled. Maybe he was being sent to the planet? Living among people again would be amazing! Better yet, maybe they needed captains for their fleet and knew how good he was! Or maybe Desdemona figured out what a loser Broderick was and wanted him instead! Yes. That made the most sense.
The shuttle skip-jumped into subspace. Lazarus was confused because they were too far in the system. That should not be possible. At least he had a window seat. The cruiser they were docking with was nothing like he had ever seen. It was impressive, and the shuttle bay had aliens running about. Blue-skinned humanoids and the annoying squirrel people. He hoped this was Desdemona¡¯s ship. She would be happy to see him again. Maybe she called him here to serve her?
Four men in light combat armor encircled him as he was marched through the ship. He inhaled deeply. This ship had that new ship smell to it. Freshly fabricated ceramic, plastic, and metal. He guessed the ship was less than two years old. His eyes darted everywhere to try and figure things out as he was marched. He was searching subconsciously for a communication station. The implanted directive from Rae¡¯Ver still active in his subconscious.
He was brought into a large promenade. A massive view screen dominated the luxury room. A single woman with blond, short hair stood facing the screen. It was not Desdemona, he thought bitterly. Well, whoever it was, it was still a female. His natural charm would win her over, even if he was a bit rusty.
She turned around, and Lazarus¡¯ heart missed a few beats. Ah, fuck. All his fantasy bubbles were burst. He was sure he was going to be sent to an airlock without a suit. He put on his best charming smile anyway and said he was happy to see Samantha healthy and that she was absolutely glowing.
<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
Samantha watched as Lazarus went into his duplicitous charm. He obviously did not realize how old, haggard, and thin he looked. He had not aged well, which made Samantha happy. She remained impassive as he tried to talk himself into her good graces. She had only hatred for this man. She was supposed to meet him with Amos as a united front, but he had already stormed off. Now, it was just her.
It was minutes before he talked himself out. She smiled devilishly and told him he was being transferred to her custody. They were going back to her battleship. That was right; to his surprise, she commanded a battleship and was wearing an admiral¡¯s uniform. Lazarus made a foolish mistake and asked what nation would have given her command of a battleship?
Samantha pursed her lips. She was going to like this next part. She announced to Lazarus that he had been convicted in absentia for piracy and was to be returned to the Federation to be executed. Lazarus seemed to digest her pronouncement for a few minutes before asking if she was joking. Samantha had been a member of his crew so that made her guilty as well, right?
Samantha did not find his attempts at levity and worming his way out of his death sentence. She called two marines into the room. They escorted him to a holding cell. They said his transfer to Samantha¡¯s battleship was in two days.
<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
Broderick heard Lazarus had been released. Well, transferred to the Fateweaver. The Fateweaver was on a docking slip just a few ships down from Desdemona¡¯s flagship. She was in the process of transferring her command to a new ship.
Broderick thought Lazarus might want to see him in person. He had commed his old captain on the first of every month to keep his spirits up. Lararus was the first person to show confidence in his abilities as an engineer. He had pushed Broderick hard and made Broderick a better engineer because of it.
Yes, Lazarus was not a good person. But as Lazarus had explained to him, leaders needed to be harsh to get the most out of their subordinates. Without Larazus¡¯ pushing he would not be where he was today. His family with Desdemona, and the chief engineer on an advanced warship.
Lazarus looked beaten and old in the cell. They did not give prisoners SNAIL treatments after all. He stood and greeted Broderick with a smile. Broderick began speaking but suddenly felt a pressure on his mind¡what¡is was coming from Larazurs but not Lazarus. It quickly subsided, and they had a nice conversation.
When Broderick returned to his ship he slid into a navigation station. He programmed a message into one of the new advanced FTL message drones, overrode safety protocols, and launched it. He had been on autopilot and realized what he had done too late. He had sent a message to the Sylvan using a drone equipped with their advanced subspace systems. The Marines burst into engineering and quickly shackled him. He did not know what had made him do what he did. But he was in big trouble.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 155 Celeste POV
Chapter 155 Celeste POV (This was an alternate choice for the second arc format, following the teenagers instead of the engineer with dialogue; just one chapter of it, though)
Celeste slid into the pilot¡¯s seat of the shuttle. Amos numbly took the co-pilot seat. ¡°She is not worth your time. Are you sure you don¡¯t want to see your father?¡± Celeste ran her fingers quickly over the terminal in practiced motions, ¡°His shuttle will be landing ninety-seven minutes.¡±
Amos focused on the preflight checks, ¡°No, I do not consider them my parents. Let us just get back to the Void Phoenix.¡±
Celeste tried to cheer Amos up and softly said, ¡°Neon cloned Julie¡¯s core.¡±
Amos attention snapped to Celeste, ¡°Really? Already? He said it would take a month.¡±
Celeste smirked, ¡°Neon convinced Julie to help him do it. I was going to surprise you, but you needed the good news.¡±
Amos rolled his eyes, ¡°You mean you convinced Neon to convince Julie. She wanted to be back on the Void Phoenix. Never knew an AI could be nostalgic.¡±
Celeste just smiled as Neon had a crush on her and was easy to manipulate. Celeste laid in a flight plan back to the civilian shipyard where the Void Phoenix was moored. Amos confirmed the course, and then they did a micro-jump. Being Devon¡¯s children meant they got a lot of leeway. Taking a military-grade shuttle out for a ¡®test flight¡¯ was one of them. That was as long as Abby or Desdemona did not catch them doing so.
The shuttle entered the dark side of the asteroid. They had befriended all the Squirrel workers in the flight control room. As they docked in the private shuttle bay, two Tirani Marines came to secure the shuttle. All advanced technology was strictly monitored, and she was sure their ¡®test flight¡¯ had been closely monitored by the sensors in the system. Celeste moved up over to the pressurized hangar for the secret project. Amos was following on her heels.
Amos reminded her to check her skinsuit and emergency oxygen as they moved through the airlock sequence. She rolled her eyes at him. They grew up listening to their father go over safety procedures daily. She did it without thinking, but he always reminded her. Like she was the one who needed looking after.
Emma met them on the other side of the airlock, ¡°We have a problem.¡±
Celeste looked at the Emma. Emma was a picturesque human beauty. She was too perfect in her looks and mannerisms. Then again, she was a bot. Emma had grown up with them as a child bot, and then her AI had been transferred to this teenage bot frame. Deven had designed the perfect synth, and Emma¡¯s programming had evolved in the last fourteen years. She was just as good as any bot found in the core worlds, if not better.
Celeste sighed, ¡°What is the problem now, Emma? Did we not get the time on the military hull fabricators?¡±
Emma had a grin on her face, ¡°No, all the series D7 hull plates have already been delivered. Dartanion stole the Slipstream fighter.¡± Emma was waiting for Celeste to go ballistic.
Instead, she asked, ¡°The same one we were targeting, or was it one of the Marines?¡± They harassed the Marines non-stop to help them stay on their toes. When they were successful, they were given stick time on a Slipstream fighter. Flight training in VR was fun, but pushing a heavy fighter in real space was a real rush.
¡°Yes, he took prototype D2. They are already looking for it,¡± Emma said smugly. ¡°
Celeste stormed off toward the Void Phoenix. The rebuild was mostly completed. They just needed to finish sheathing the hull in the newest stealth coating. That and do about a million things on the interior. They were supposed to have over one hundred engineering bots working in the interior, but the new Fateweaver-class ships were being rushed into service for a series of missions against the quadrupeds, and the Squirrel had to pull the engineering bots to the military shipyards.
Celeste rushed on board to the two fighter bays on the top deck. The Slipstream fighter was there, and a grinning Dartanion. Dartanion was her younger brother and an absolute idiot. ¡°Dart! What the fuck? Why did you take the fighter today? The plan was to take the two prototypes AFTER dad gave us the Void Phoenix. The new hull is not even finished!¡± The new hull had gravimetric shielding. This prevented the powerful sensors from penetrating the hull.
Dartanion¡¯s grin fell off his face, ¡°Come on, Celeste. It is not like they were going to let us steal two prototypes and leave the system with them. This prototype has a 7% improved acceleration and the new capacitors for the quicker firing of the main grazer.¡± Celeste¡¯s angry stare had him cringe. ¡°Maybe I can put it back?¡±
Celeste growled at her brother, ¡°Comm Neon. See if he can cover your tracks. And make sure the hull plating is obscuring the system sensors.¡±
The fighter bay comms sounded, ¡°That will not be necessary.¡± Neon¡¯s voice came over the comms. ¡°I already moved the old prototype B7 in its place and pushed the design team to work on a build of prototype D3.¡±
Celeste spoke to the speakers, ¡°Neon, are you board? Is Julie installed?¡±
¡°She wants to be called Chloe, and it is going to take time to adjust her programming,¡± Neon¡¯s voice came back. Chloe was the name of the bot that Julie had puppeted on the Void Phoenix when Celeste was growing up, so the name made sense.
Dart asked, ¡°Is dad wise to the plan yet?¡±
Celeste chuckled, ¡°Come on. You know dad does not see anything unless it is right in front of his face. Besides, we have one thousand Squirrel helping conceal the rebuild from him.¡±
Neon came over the speakers, ¡°Amos, how are you doing? I just saw the video of you and mother.¡±
Amos, who normally showed very little emotion, yelled at the speakers, ¡°I am fine! She is dead to me! Can we just work on getting this old ship spaceworthy and drop it!¡±
Ezra and Emil, the two Wren pantherkin walked into the bay. Celeste addressed them, ¡°Did you get the suits?¡±
Ezra shook his head, no, Emil shook his head, yes. They looked at each other and then switched their head shaking the other answer. The two twin boys were monstrous in size like their tigerkin father, Saabir, but had the coloring and genetic linage of their pantherkin mother, Tora. Wren were humans that had incorporated cat DNA to appear as catkin and were now their own species. Genetic manipulation was outlawed in human space, so they became pariahs. The Wren fled to the Rim of human space.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Ezra finally explained the confusion. ¡°We got seven old Gecko suits for humans. We couldn¡¯t get any Badger or Gorilla suits.¡±
Celeste looked angry, so Emil explained, ¡°They are behind on production. There should have been over six hundred suits in the warehouse.¡±
Neon came over the speakers, ¡°They were shipped to the planet nine hours ago. Two hundred of each for the Planetary Defense Force. That is my fault. The expedited order came through on comms and was not logged on Battlenet.¡±
Amos asked, ¡°Celeste, are you sure you still want to do this? What if dad doesn¡¯t give you the Void Phoenix? We are almost nine days behind schedule on the refurb.¡±
Dart added, ¡°Danielle wants us on the planet for the twin¡¯s birthday tomorrow.¡± Celeste gave him a hard look. ¡°Fine, I am still going.¡±
Danielle was Dartantion¡¯s mother and helped raise Celeste but did not hold much affection for her after she left dad for the planet. Her two young hal-sister¡¯s Nova and Venus were also the cause. Danielle had used the same genetic Sylvan DNA that was in Desdemona¡¯s genome. It is what gave the Sylvan, Rae¡¯Ver, his mental powers. Her father was so angry with her that she left and lived on the planet.
¡°It is not their fault,¡± Dartanion said. ¡°Nova and Venus are going to be eight. They are your half-sisters.¡± Celeste gave Dartantion a hard stare. Celeste always sided with Deven. Dartantion tried, ¡°Eve will be there. You said you were going to ask her to come along?¡±
¡°You can ask Eve Dart. Amos, go with him,¡± Celeste ordered. ¡°She is more likely to come if you ask anyway.¡±
Emma, who had been listening, said, ¡°Eve is coming. She had her power armor shipped to the Void Phoenix yesterday.¡±
All eyes snapped to the smug-looking bot. Emma liked it when she had knowledge that they did not. Celeste started to formulate more plans in her head. Eve had access to the Battlenet. She would want them to be as prepared as possible if she was coming. It would not take much to convince Eve to help in the transfer of supplies and equipment like battlesuits.
Still, she needed more crew. She had four impressionable young Squirrel engineers. With Eve, that would be twelve total crew. If she was going to masquerade as a passenger liner like her father did, she would need four or five hospitality staff. She guessed she could always pick them up at a station.
Nine days later Celeste was playing with the chameleon stealth hull. She was able to make the hull appear decently aged. Or she could make it appear sleek, glossy black. The stealth mode could even make it invisible to all non-gravimetric sensors. At least the gravimetric sensors would not be able to penetrate the hull. The young Squirrel engineers were on board and ready to go.
Celeste had planned the big reveal to Deven, her father. The Squirrel were anxious as well. They revered the Void Phoneix and its crew. A big reason why Celeste and her companions were given such free range. She flicked to the six shuttle bays. Two were occupied with Slipstream fighters. They were both development prototypes that would not be missed. Prototypes were usually put into storage in case they needed to be tested again.
She also had old luxury shuttles to ferry passengers from stations and planets. The fifth bay had an exterior repair bot. Securing that had been tricky, and Neon had to hack into the military yards, bypassing Julie, to find one scheduled for an overhaul. He had gotten it shuffled to the civilian shipyard with no one the wiser. The fifth and final bay was an old Union combat transport. It was in rough shape and had seen a lot of action. She planned to have the shuttle overhauled during the journey.
Neon and Amos were next to her on the bridge. The oversized belly of the Void Phoenix had been removed. The ship now looked exactly like a Europa Ambassador Class Passenger Liner. It had dozens of upgrades and was probably the fastest ship in human space. The luxury deck was completely refurbished and the two lower passenger decks were prepped and ready.
Neon spoke, ¡°We have the last shipment of steward bots coming. It will bring our count to sixty-three. We still only have twenty-seven or the target thirty-nine engineering bots.¡±
¡°That is fine. Father is leaving tomorrow to attack the quadruped shipyards. We have to launch today whether we are ready or not,¡± Celeste said.
She opened a comm channel to the Fateweaver. Deven was unaware, but hundreds of thousands of Squirrel would be listening to this conversation to see his reaction. The Void Phoenix had been completely restored. It took her father a minute to pick up the comm. He responded immediately, ¡°Celeste? Good, I wanted to talk with you. I have been reviewing your VR university work, and I think you need to spend more time¡¡±
Celeste groaned as her father reviewed her progress in a dozen subjects to the entire system. And she could not interrupt him as he had set comms one direction. When he was finally finished Celeste immediately said, ¡°Dad, we have a huge surprise!¡± She waited, and her PerCom beeped green, indicating Deven¡¯s sensor operator had his scanners trained on the asteroid.
The Void Phoenix moved out of the asteroid at slow thrust with hundreds of lights on her shiny new hull. She watched her father¡¯s reaction on the screen. He was tapping his terminal. Neon turned, ¡°We are being scanned.¡±
It took Deven a moment to respond, ¡°They finally got around to fixing her up. She looks good. I see you have the new hull material on her¡ªand you removed the cradle for the Caladrius. Do you have the specifications for her?¡±
Celeste wanted to slap her forehead. Her father was so dense. ¡°Dad every Squirrel in the system in watching,¡± she informed him.
His eyebrows went up, ¡°Oh, she looks amazing!¡± Her offered with more enthusiasm. ¡°I can not wait to get on board and see her. It will have to wait until after the operation, though.¡± He looked at the screen and said, ¡°Thank you, everyone for resurrecting her. She means a lot to me.¡± He then cut comms.
Celeste was angry for a moment and then reopened comms, ¡°Dad, I want to take the Void Phoenix out for a shakedown cruise.¡±
He focused on her, sensing she was up to something, ¡°No. We can not spare personnel to crew her.¡±
¡°I already have a crew. I want to captain her,¡± Celeste offered in rebuke.
¡°Absolutely not. You are barely eighteen. Much too young,¡± he returned.
¡°The same age as you when you purchased her,¡± she said smugly as she was prepared to go through her long list of arguments.
Her father knew better than to argue, ¡°No. We can discuss this when I return.¡± He cut comms.
Neon turned from his station, ¡°The Void Phoenix has been giving a no-fly order on the Battlenet.¡±
Celeste fumed as she stared at the black vid screen. She turned to Amos, ¡°Plan B.¡±
Amos groaned, ¡°You know when we do come back after sneaking away, dad is going to lock us all up.¡±
¡°Come on, Amos, where is your sense of adventure,¡± Celeste smirked.
Celeste had to wait until the cruisers all left the system. She then commed Eve on the planet that she was leaving soon. Eve was adamant that she would accompany Celeste to protect her from the galaxy. At least Eve understood that there was adventure out there and staying in the Bradbury system was boring.
Eve¡¯s shuttle docked six hours later, and Celeste moved ahead with plan B. Neon backdoored the system sensors, and the Void Phoenix made its way out of the asteroid and went unnoticed. As they reached the transition point, Eve reached the bridge, followed by two young girls.
¡°Damn it, Eve! Why did you bring Nova and Venus?¡± Celeste barked.
Eve just had a smile on her perfect face, as did Emma. The two bots had planned this. Celeste mulled her options. If she returned her half-sisters, then people would be alerted to her plans and try and stop her. She asked, ¡°Where is Luca, did you at least leave him behind?¡±
Eve shook her head. ¡°Luca is looking at the Slipstream fighters with Dartantion.¡±
Luca was her other half-brother, two years older than the twins. ¡°Fine, we might as well make this trip worth it then. When I get back, I am going to be shackled and put under Tirani guard for the rest of my life.¡± She looked over at Amos in the pilot station, ¡°Hit it!¡±
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 156
Chapter 156
The alarm sounded off on the bridge. I looked up from my captain¡¯s terminal for a report. The young man in the sensors station informed me that a probe had just been launched from Desdemona¡¯s ship. The probe was a message capsule using the higher bands of subspace. It was packed with our advanced technology and was designed to send messages back to the Bradbury system, not to send messages to other entities.
As the reports came in from Desdemona¡¯s ship, I was shocked to learn that Broderick had sent the message. He was in the process of being transported for questioning. I already had recordings in front of me from security cameras. I watched as Broderick met with Lazarus and then immediately left to send the probe. As the projected plot came up, I grimaced. The message probe was sent to the Kurashi system. That was one of the few systems that was known always to have at least two Sylvan city ships.
The Kurashi system was a fuel refining system for the elves in this sector of space. It was completely off-limits for any other races. Non-Sylvan ships would be fired upon when entering the system. The best case scenario would be that the Sylvan destroyed the probe before it relayed the message Broderick had programmed.
It took five hours of questioning a confused Broderick to find out what that message detailed. He had obviously been subverted by Lazarus, which made no sense to our Paranormal Scientists who studied the mind control ability in Desdemona.
They were certain a person could not learn how to manifest the ability, as it was encoded genetically. Lazarus suddenly became much too dangerous. Samantha understood our concerns, and four hours later, he was sent back to the penal asteroid with Rae¡¯Ver. He would be facing the death penalty as soon as a legal representative from Samantha¡¯s Federation arrived to administer it. The bureaucracy was alive and well in human space as Samantha wanted his death to be done by the book for her son. I did not want to delay, but I had given him to her Federation as a gift for judgment of his crimes.
My focus was now on the message probe. The probe had the best subspace drives we manufactured. Therefore, we could not catch the message probe, but we did send one of the Fateweaver-class ships to the Kurashi system to destroy it. It would arrive nine hours after the probe, so we would not be able to stop its transmission, but we would at least prevent them from obtaining the technology. The issue was we were going to down one of the assault cruisers for the joint mission with the Federation on the quadruped shipyards and mining facilities.
The probe would take twelve days to reach its destination. If the Syvlan responded, reaching us from the Kurashi system would take months. It could be less if they sent a Sylvan City Ship that was closer. Now, the diplomatic mission the Tirani was sending would hold more importance.
Desdemona did not plead for her husband, Broderick. He was sent to live on the planet with their children and never allowed again on combat starship. We just did not know how far the programming went that had been implanted in his mind by Lazarus. He passed all tests and appeared to be free of the influence, but we would not allow him near any sensitive ships or systems on the planet. The possibility of Sylvan arriving gave new urgency to the completion of the Fateweaver cruisers.
The days stretched, and I worked closely with Desdemona and Samantha on the preparations. I was ignoring almost everything else in my orbit and was surprised when Celeste commed me. Generally, we had a meal together once a week to discuss her academic and certification work. I realized we had not had this dinner since before I left on the diplomatic mission to the Federation. I silenced her comms and showed her that I had been staying abreast of her progress. I detailed everything she had done in the last four weeks and motivated her by telling her where she needed to improve.
When I unmuted her comms, she had a look of shock on her face. The Void Phoenix was shown on screen exiting the civilian shipyards. She had a glossy black hull, and it looked like they removed the belly cradle in reading the scans. She looked beautiful, and I said as much. Then Celeste said the entire Squirrel people and most of the system were watching my reaction, so I added some energy to my praise of the ship. In the back of my mind, I was a little angry at the resources they had diverted. At least I had a number of Tirani trade ships coming loaded with materials. Once they arrived, we could get our production on track to meet expectations.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
The remote scanners would not penetrate the Void Phoenix hull, which meant they used the naval hull fabricators. That almost got me to vocalize my disappointment. We did not have to waste resources on a luxury passenger liner at this point in time. Then Celeste asked me for permission to take the ship for a shakedown cruise. Absolutely not!
I would have been more vocal about it, but I knew the entire system was watching¡ªmaybe that was Celeste¡¯s plan as she was a good manipulator. Besides, we did not have the resources or crew to send out the Void Phoenix for what amounted to a joy ride. The fuel projections for the expanded fleet had been giving me a headache for days. I would make it up to her after I returned from the mission. I ended the call, thanking her and her team for their efforts.
We continued to work on the fleet projections for the dual attack. Our hope was Desdemona¡¯s fleet detachment could liberate some of the alien slave labor in the mining system. We still lacked a large amount of skilled technical labor and maybe some of the prisoners would relocate to the Bradbury system after being freed. Our reliance on bots was going to cause us problems eventually. The ideal ratio was one bot per four organics in the workforce. We were currently half and half. Julie was adamant that many human civilizations had collapsed if they reduced the workforce too far as innovation and drive fell. Based on thousands of years of data, the ideal ratio is four humans to one bot in the workforce and domestically.
The departure date rapidly approached. With the Fateweaver ship New Horizon in pursuit of the message probe, we decided to take some of the system defense ships with us. Desdemona was commanding the Excalibur and three of our Brotherhood cruiser replicas. I had the Cloud Jumper under my command with the Fateweaver and would be rendezvousing with Admiral LaRoche. We were going to attack the larger of the two shipyards.
Samantha would take her battleship and leave with Desdemona¡¯s fleet to a rally point for their attack. They planned to attack the mining system first and then moved on to the second system, the suspected shipyards.
I knew Celeste was angry with me because I did not hear from her during all the preparation. I planned to make it up to her. Celeste needed to choose a career path soon. Her nineteenth birthday was going to be coming, and I had hoped she would have either entered the Naval Academy or attended the University in the city of Arcadian. Instead, she just caused trouble in the space facilities with her friends. We will definitely have a talk when I return. She had been spoiled for too long.
The Cloud Jumper and our support transport Circadian Rhythm got into formation. The captain of the Cloud Jumper was a Squirrel Captain named Kenji. Desdemona personally vetted him, and he was an impressive strategist in the few sims we did together.
We would arrive at the rally point in deep space seven days before Admiral LaRoche. We would then train with them for seven days before making the trip together to the suspected shipyard system deep in quadruped space.
When we arrived at the coordinates, I let Kenji work with the two wings of Slipstream fighters from both of our cruisers. I was too distracted and angry. I had received a subspace message from Bradbury. Celeste and all my children had stolen the Void Phoenix and left the Bradbury system. They were headed for Alliance space. Danielle was the most upset as Eve had abducted the twin girls and our younger son as well from the planet. She blamed me for Eve¡¯s actions, thinking I had played a role.
I had a mind to track them down in the Fateweaver, but I was committed to making this joint operation with the Federation work for now. We needed allies against the Malevolents, and the Federation was strong. Also, the Squirrel wanted their vengeance on the quadrupeds. My daughter was too selfish, and she was putting people at risk and risking exposing the technology we had accumulated in the last two decades.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 157
Chapter 157
I received a few updates from Bradbury on the Void Phoenix. It was headed for Silverstream station before the tracking aspect of the gravimetric sensors was turned off. I could not dwell on this any longer as Admiral LaRoche had arrived with his Federation fleet.
The Admiral had an entire bubble fleet formation. Outside the bubble were sixty-two screening frigates designed for missile intercept and fighter targeting. The core fleet was his large capital ships. His command battleship was the same generation as Samantha¡¯s. After that, there were six heavy missile battleships and six gunship carriers. Our scans came back with the carriers having leech-class gunships which attached to the outer hull. Each gunship carrier had forty gunships on the outside of the hull and docking bays for another twelve.
Zoe, Elias, and their crew had been assigned to a gunship. It was a terrible class of warship. It was bigger than a fighter, so it could have good shields and firepower. This meant they could damage larger ships and defend against fighters. But they were generally slower and less maneuverable compared to actual fighters. They also could not stand up to hits from capital ships. In the Union, they were considered expendable. Pilots who were not good enough for a fighter or capital ship and crew who were deemed insufficiently trained. Zoe had been a great pilot but rebelled against authority as had most of her crew.
The terrible thing about gunships was they were usually crewed with three, four, or five people. So, the idea that these people were expendable was not palatable to me. Admiral LaRoche was transferred to my ship with four staff as the two fleets came together. We gave him and his staff the luxury accommodations for his stay during the joint operation. With my ship¡¯s superior capabilities, the Fateweaver would serve as the flagship for the combined fleet. We were going to do seven days of joint exercises to familiarize ourselves with each other.
The first three days were going to be completed in VR. This was to conserve fuel and iron out larger mistakes before live exercises. The first simulation we ran chained all the ship¡¯s AI together, included about half the crew and was a disaster. We had projected the strength of the quadruped defense forces for the simulation, and Julian managed their tactics based on collected data. Admiral LaRoche was given command of the entire fleet. Admiral LaRoche lost sixty percent of his fleet, and I had lost four Slipstream fighters. He had been too aggressive. We had inflicted serious losses on our enemy, but it was too heavy-handed.
The VR sim the next day was more successful, except we lost three Slipstream fighters and almost two hundred gunships. The Admiral was willing to use the gunships as disposable units. We had two VR runs on the third day with me in charge and Julian switching the quadruped response. The first one, I was actually killed, and the Fateweaver was lost with all hands. This happened when the simulated quadruped aliens fired a continuous spread of subspace disruptors and sent endless waves of fighters at me, ignoring all the other ships. It was a highly unlikely scenario, but I think the AI wanted to show me we were not invincible.
The second scenario on the third day went too well as I fired Armageddon missiles in stealth, surprising the enemy and destroying what we identified as their command ships and the heart of the shipyards. The Admiral at first did not believe we had missiles with such capabilities. I did not like to use them as they were essentially massive kinetic rounds, and when they destroyed their target, the debris field made the system unsafe. Since we only planned to enter the system, do as much damage as possible, and then leave, it seemed like a good tactic to conserve our forces. The only aspects of my ability I did not utilize in VR were the assault shuttles and the Marine¡¯s ability to capture enemy ships.
During all these simulations, we monitored the Federation fleet with our sensors and found a trio of spies, probably from the Brotherhood or Godfather organizations. We revealed the spies to the Admiral, and he silently took the men into custody. We discussed how we identified the agents with the Admiral using our sensors to track the movements of his crew. The Admiral understood we were protecting ourselves.
Admiral LaRoche had been getting a front-row seat to the sensors being on the bridge and commanding the fleet in VR. Every meal we had together, he was slowly playing his interest in becoming closer allies and a technology exchange. The flow of technology would be going mainly toward the Federation. I humored him, but I let it be known we could not risk given the Federation technology that might be passed on to the Brotherhood or other enemies of Bradbury.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The fourth day was live fleet maneuvers with the integrated fleets. This burned a lot of fuel but gave us a chance to see the Navies interact¡ªwell, my three ships and fighters with the Admiral¡¯s actual fleet. The Admiral¡¯s fleet was disciplined even if the capabilities of his ships could not match our Fateweaver-class cruisers. On the fifth day, we set up dummy targets in space, did some live fire, and integrated the Slipstream heavy interceptors with the gunships. Now that we had all the data, we could sit down and plan for three days.
The crews worked on maintenance and did more simulations together while the AIs and captains of the ships worked with the Admiral and myself for an attack plan. The system had four likely shipyards based on scan data. The goal was to cripple the quadruped¡¯s ability to fight and construct ships. Their operations had followed about a seven-month buildup of forces and then a coordinated assault on a faction¡¯s star systems.
We needed to target all the manufacturing facilities and the aquatic race that staffed them. That was something the Admiral had learned. There was a subservient aquatic race that built all the quadruped starships. I had encountered them in the Squirrel home system as they had crewed the massive repair stations that arrived in the system in the middle of the assault. Those mobile shipyards, capable of subspace travel, were a massive advantage for the enemy. They could be set up anywhere; at a battle, in deep space, near large mining facilities.
After much discussion, it was decided that the Fateweaver and Cloud Jumper would scout the system, and the attack would commence two days later. The fleet would arrive on the edge of the system, away from the concentrated activity. As the quadrupeds responded to the fleet, the Fateweaver and Cloud Jumper would launch their Armageddon missiles at the shipyards in the system. In the confusion, Admiral Laroche¡¯s fleet would sweep the enemy ships¡¯ outer system and retreat.
The Fateweaver entered the system under stealth on one side of the system and the Cloud Jumper on the other side. We could communicate instantaneously with our binary gravity sensors, exchanging data as we scanned. The quadrupeds had so many ships coming and going that they missed both ships exciting subspace. The scans of the system showed us what we expected and more. Five massive shipyards were scattered throughout the system. One inhabited planet that was focused on industry. The system was still being mined, but heavy freighters were arriving every few hours and headed for the shipyards.
We assessed the combat strength of the system. It looked like as ships were being built, they were being sent to groupings in the open. An interesting observation the Admiral made was passenger ships were entering the system and going to crew the newly built fleets. The Admiral explained the quadrupeds must be training crew in another system and then staffing the new ships.
There was limited information on the species. The Federation had studied the biology and reproductive cycle of the quadrupled species in captivity. There were seven to ten born together in a brood. They normally competed for food from their parents, and only one normally survived. This continued even as the species gained technology and access to space. They had a survival of the fittest mentality.
Something must have changed that they now allowed all the offspring to live. They were considered expendable and quickly trained and sent to crew spacecraft. Those ships were then sent to conquer more star systems. The quadrupeds refused to communicate with other species they deemed inferior.
We continued around the system, and there were thousands of spaceships. Even with our sensors, we were not going to be able to scan every ship. What we could do was prepare our Slipstream fighters to target large cruisers and battleships that had not yet been crewed when the attack began.
As our two days of scouting came to a close, the Admiral had tasked us with finding the origin of the passenger ships. He wanted to know where the quadrupeds were training. If we could find their breeding center then maybe we could slow them even further. We got a rough vector based on the ship transitioning in from subspace. It gave us four star systems within twenty-eight light years.
The Cloud Jumper and Fate Weaver positioned ourselves for the arrival of Admiral LaRoche¡¯s fleet. They arrived on time, and the system immediately turned over like an ant hill that had been kicked. After all the data we had gathered had been transmitted to the Admiral¡¯s ships, it was time for the fight to begin.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 158
Chapter 158
As the Federation fleet formed and started moving to draw the ships in the system to them, we launched our attack. The Cloud Jumper launched its Slipstream fighters to disable a quartet of battleships in a passing run before moving onto nearby smaller ships. The Cloud Jumper also launched its first armageddon missile. As expected, the quadrupeds started launching dozens of subspace disruptors on the fleet and Cloud Jumper to prevent our escape.
The Fateweaver, at my command, launched two Armageddon missiles at the two largest shipyard facilities. Our Slipstream fighters were queued for an attack run on a massive row of unmanned destroyers. I had decided to hold them in case the quadrupeds had a surprise for us. They did have a surprise as most of the destroyers began to power up remotely. We were certain they had no crew on board. Also, their AI lacked the sophistication required to run a ship on its own. They also had limited sophistication in their bots and relied on organic labor.
Sensors indicated the first shipyards had been popped. Since their atmosphere was water, it looked like it had just burst apart on the sensors, completely destroyed. The fragments of ice and metal scattered in an expanding cloud. Sensors indicated another surprise. The quadrupeds subspace disruptors had a massive range. They achieved this by sending some type of pulsing gravimetric waves out. I was not concerned as we could always outrun the enemy ships, but this new type of disruptor was playing havoc with our alien sensors.
The two shipyards the Fateweaver had targeted imploded, and the debris blasted into dozens of smaller ships nearby. The Federation fleet was still three hours from the engagement range. Seeing the threat already in their midst, ships were being turned around to deal with the Cloud Jumper and Fateweaver. I ordered my Slipstream fighters to attack the moving destroyers. I thought they might be a decoy, and I was right as they did not fire off any defensive measures. As the fighters tore through the destroyers, the first comm message arrived from the planet.
The message asked us to cease hostilities and talk with the planet¡¯s governor and system, who was called K¡¯mande. Normally, I would just send a video of the Squirrel Marines charging into battle, but the Admiral was on my bridge and asked to talk with the alien quadruped¡¯s leadership. I ordered the attack to continue while the communication officer worked with the Admiral to establish communication. At least it would not be my face the genocidal aliens would see.
The fighters had expended their fuel and ammo and were returning for reloading and refueling. I checked the Cloud Weaver, and they exceeded my damage to the enemy by a good margin. Kenji was a smart captain and was maximizing his time before the enemy organized. He also had the battleship and cruiser shipyards on his side of the system.
I launched my third missile at the last of the massive shipyards. This one was the least important as it produced freighters. It had slips to build eighteen freighters at once and was full of ships in different stages of production.
The Admiral had started talking, and I wanted to listen in so I turned over control to Franics, the first officer, to continue the attack. Francis was already seated at a terminal and had been tracking the battle. The entire bridge crew had their terminals notify them of the change, and I changed my focus. I kept my eye on the evolving battle, but I was curious why the Admiral wanted to talk.
The governor had dark red skin and a flat face with predatory teeth. His eyes were yellow and oval. The translator was working and started by berating us for the unprovoked attack. Admiral LaRoche liked to be in a position of power as the quadrupeds were helpless, just like when they overran a system.
The Admiral retorted that his species had been responsible for the deaths of over two hundred million humans in the Federation and had invited us to retaliate by their actions. This got a curious response from K¡¯mande. He said his species had claimed all the stars in this arm of the galaxy nearly half a million years ago. He would send us proof if we stopped the attack. He would even be generous and allow our species to vacate the systems they owned in the next year.
The translator device had translated that a year in their time was about seven hundred Earth days. Even though we did not accept the data, he sent it anyway, and the AI Julian quickly translated and summarized it for the Admiral. The species referred to themselves as the ¡®Anointed Chosen¡¯ in their language. It came back to their idea that only one of an entire brood could live¡ªall others were expendable. That extended to other species as well¡ªeveryone was expendable.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Their history was based on their ancestors achieving space flight and crashing on a planet. The environment had been harsh, but they survived. The planet lacked resources to get them back into space, so for hundreds of thousands of years, they were ¡®trapped.¡¯ Three hundred years ago, an alien spacecraft landed, allowing them to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.
That explained why they were only just now reaching our space. I was surprised at their lack of technology if they had been conquering star systems for seven hundred years. Their ships were slightly less effective than the old Union spacecraft, and they achieved victory by numbers. While we digested the information, the Admiral had muted the governor. The Admiral postulated that the Anointed were just not concerned with technological advancement and that their crews were inferior.
Zoe, from her station, asked what would happen with all the Anointed, the ones that survived their siblings, if these ships were not crewed by them. If they were not the ones who were crewing the spacecraft, then they must all be somewhere. The Admiral thought for a moment before guessing a single Anointed commanded each fleet. The math did not add up. There had to be millions or billions more out there if this was the case. If we found that planet of star system, then maybe the government would collapse on itself. Unlikely but possible. The war machine was too expansive.
Julian¡¯s hologram added to the discussion on the bridge. The data they sent indicated the Anointed matured in just one year¡¯s time¡ªabout seven hundred Earth days. Their fast reproductive cycle definitely led them to overpopulate. It was probably a result of the first ship crashing on the inhospitable planet. Their survival had forced them to only allow one of their offspring to survive¡ªthe strongest. Reaching space again allowed them to not kill the others in the brood and instead use them as crew. But only to have one surviving child each cycle meant had been engrained in their heritage now.
Julian managed to figure out how many Anointed were in the system from coopting their transmissions and surface hacking. Thirteen thousand, seven hundred and four. Almost all of which were in a single city on the planet. The Admiral had been correct in his assessment that only one Anointed was in command of each fleet. There were seventy-one ¡®fleets¡¯ in the system.
I brought up the city in question and took more time to focus on the city for more detail. For the industrial planet, it was about as idealistic as you could get. The Anointed population¡¯s focus was on reproduction, as each living unit had a growing brood. The structures extended far into the planet¡¯s crust to protect from possible attack. I queued up an Armageddon missile and targeted the city.
I spent a few minutes debating my decision as the Admiral talked with the governor in the background. Based on Julian¡¯s estimates, I would be killing four to five million people if I launched the missile. About thirteen thousand of their precious Anointed would be included. I sent the order, and the missile launched three seconds later.
I returned to the Admiral and K¡¯mande¡¯s conversation. The Admiral was only trying to ferret out information from the governor as the Anointed did not communicate with others. The missile impacted, and K¡¯mande¡¯s image flashed on the screen. He returned a moment later, and I guessed he was not in the city. The city was a crater of expanding debris. The small missile had hit at a fraction of light speed but had transferred enough energy to do immense damage.
K¡¯mande was talking to someone off-screen as he received reports, and it looked like fury clouded his face. Elias informed me that every ship in the system, military and civilian, was headed for our position. It was like a ripple effect as the message reached ships. Thousands of ships were going to make sure we did not escape for our actions. It was all pinned on the Admiral who had been talking with K¡¯mande.
K¡¯mande ended the call. Elias was giving me an update from the planet, and the Admiral was angry that I did not consult him before attacking the planet directly. I just shrugged and said I had heard enough, and they were not going to negotiate anyway. The planet was going to be inhabitable for a few hundred years, but I was okay with my decision. The Anointed were never going to stop their expansion, and it was good to know how they reacted to the attack.
Hundreds of subspace disruptors were launched at us to prevent the Fateweaver from fleeing. It was time to clean up this system and rendezvous with Desdemona and Samantha.
? Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 159
Chapter 159
With the quadruped fleets chasing the Fateweaver gave Cloud Jumper much greater freedom to make attack runs. This was one of the scenarios we ran in VR, except that this time, the short-range fighters of the enemy could not form mass swarms to slowly damage the Fateweaver. They had no strategy other than to seek revenge against my ship.
We tore through their ships with Slipstream fighters over and over again. After hours and hours of combat, the pilots were too exhausted to continue sorties. The Federation fleet was sweeping the outer system of smaller stations and slower non-combat craft. The disruptor missiles the enemy was firing began to slacken. They required a lot of rare elements to make.
The enemy stopped firing the disruptors, and six hours later, their surviving ships started to flee. They were all fleeing in just two vectors. The Admiral asked if we should continue sweeping the system as their warships were fleeing as well. Their thirst for revenge against the Fateweaver slackened as they realized they could not catch us.
We spent two days sweeping the system and destroying factories on the planet from a distance. The Admiral¡¯s fleet did most of the planetary bombing as they had the ordinance for it. We crippled the quadruped¡¯s ability to produce ships and munitions in this system.
After doing as much damage as possible, we regrouped at the system¡¯s edge. The Admiral and all the navigators worked on the vector information we gathered. We tracked the fleeing and arriving ships to three different stars. We needed to leave and rendezvous with Samantha and Desdemona¡¯s fleet. I sent the Cloud Jumper ahead in order to make the predetermined time. The Fateweaver was going to stay at the lower bands and travel through subspace at the same rate as the Federation fleet.
In subspace, I got the compiled reports from our attacks on the shipyard system. Five shipyards, thirty-eight space stations, twenty-nine battleships, two hundred cruisers, seven hundred frigates and destroyers, and over fifteen hundred support ships. The number of fighters was in the thousands, but with the disruption of our sensors, we could not calculate an accurate number.
The figure at the bottom was also an estimate. An estimate that sent chills through me. Eight-two million¡ªthe number of lives we had reaped in the system. Of that number, ninety-nine percent were the quadrupeds, and the other one percent were the aquatic subservient species that ran their shipyards.
We had detected other alien species in the system, but they were all contained on the battleships, and we could not risk rescuing them. During the transit, I sat with Admiral LaRoche to review the battle details. I had lost two Slipstream fighters and one pilot of the heavy fighters. He had lost twenty-seven gunships and thirty-eight crew. It was a lopsided victory.
He was focused on what the Federation needed to do to get the technology from us. He knew my concerns about the technology leaking back to the Brotherhood and Godfather organizations. All of his assurances would not sway me. My compromise was he could send materials to build a fleet of twelve Fateweaver-class cruisers. The crews would be a mix of Federation and Arcadian crews, with the Marines, engineers and Slipstream pilots on board, all coming from our training program. The Fateweavers would operate in pairs to help the Federation keep its borders safe and would not participate in expansionist wars.
I knew it would only take them a few decades to start to assimilate the technology, even if I put enough safeguards in place. We were creating a joint police force. I also did not see the first pair of Fateweavers being turned over to his command in less than five years. He was willing to take what he could get, and the Squirrel were already working on planetary gravimetric sensors that could be manned by my people and self-detonated if needed. This would allow us to send messages instantly across lightyears.
The problem the scientists were having was sensors placed on a planet with its own massive gravity had difficulty causing enough differentiation to effectively transmit reliable signals. Putting them on a space station or ship was out of the question at this point, as both were easily compromised.
I did not have any updates on the Void Phoenix or its crew. I was expecting to hear from the New Horizon soon. I hoped they had been able to destroy the pod that Broderick sent. They were going to get the message telling them where to find Rae¡¯Ver. On one hand if we had killed the First Citizen elf, he would not have been able to send the signal. On the other side of the argument, he was alive and gave us a bargaining chip. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The discussions with the Admiral were pleasant. He mostly wanted to talk about politics, regions of space, and trade. I humored him with the conversation but was thankful when we emerged at the rally point. Desdemona and Samantha¡¯s fleet were present. Both Admirals came to the Fateweaver for the debriefing of the joint action.
I was reviewing the details and listening as Desdemona revealed her success. The first system they attacked was dedicated to mining throughout the system, using mostly captured labor. They swept the system together, and when the quadrupeds understood they were outmatched, they started destroying the mining stations and ships in the system. They still managed to liberate a little over two million beings from eighteen different species. Twice that number had been killed.
The passenger ships and supply ships could only evacuate one hundred thousand at a time. Meaning they needed more ships or twenty trips. The Federation was in the process of sending two colony stasis ships, which could each handle two hundred thousand people at a time. The city of Acradian was expecting an influx of half a million alien species over the next four months.
They were confident the quadrupeds were not coming to the system because they hit the shipyards in the next system they entered. Their shipyards were even larger than the system I had obliterated. They destroyed nine shipyards, but five of them had been focused on smaller ships. The system also did not have any habitable planets. The only major issue was one of her Slipstream fighters crashed into a battleship, and that battleship escaped into subspace.
This detail had everyone concerned. We could not let the technology be reverse-engineered. The good news was the scanner data showed the Slipstream fighter that crashed was over ninety percent destroyed. It was not much of a debate that we had to push the attack. They had tracked the fleeing ships to two different systems from our data. That gave us four target systems.
All ships in both fleets also needed to be resupplied. Desdemona¡¯s resupply ships were all focused on carrying passengers. It would take months to resupply and get the fleets positioned to press further in the quadruped territory. I shifted all supplies to the Cloud Jumper and ordered Captain Kenji to the system to protect the evacuation of the miners. It should be months before any type of reprisal came, but I wanted to be safe.
The number of refugees was going to give Surchi a headache, especially with all the Tirani we were already immigrating to the Bradbury system. Admiral LaRoche followed my order, transferred supplies to Samantha¡¯s Battleship, and attached two gunship cruisers to it to support the Cloud Jumper.
Desdemona was not happy when Admiral LaRoche let slip our negotiations for twelve Fateweaver-class cruisers. She was adamantly opposed, no matter how many safeguards were in place. She used my quick assimilation of technology as an example. I could tell she did not like the power I held to make decisions. There was a formal government on the planet, but I essentially had an entire workforce of Squirrel scientists, engineers, and shipwrights working at my behest and loyal to me. That did not include my army of engineering and manufacturing bots.
I knew she thought I controlled too much power, especially when it came to making decisions. She would try to reason with me in private later on when things settled down. It was five days of maintenance and discussions before we were headed back to the Bradbury system.
The plan was we would resupply. Then Desdemona would take her ship, the Excalibur, and the newly finished Nebula Hunter with four support ships to meet with Kenji on the Cloud Jumper. Those three ships would attack another quadruped system on their own. With its slower ships, the Federation would take three months to get its not assault fleet back to this region of space. I planned to find the Void Phoenix. But not everything goes according to plan.
When we arrived in Bradbury, I got a slight shock. All Abby could say was I told you so. Mozzie and Gabby had purchased over two hundred ships using my funds from the purple grass and had established their own clan, the Chaotica Clan. The numbers were staggering as well, one hundred forty-two thousand Tirani. Chaos was the best word for it.
Suruchi was screaming for the bloody mess I had created, Tirani Merchants, refugees, and now an entire city¡¯s population of Tirani on top of it. I was not going anywhere for some time to help sort out the chaos in the system.
? Copyrighted 2024, 2025 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 160
Chapter 160
The Bradbury system had suddenly become highly overcrowded based on our available resources. The city of Arcadian was overrun with a dozen new species of aliens and Tirani. We could not feed the influx of population, much less house them. And we would get one hundred thousand new arrivals every four weeks. We needed people, but they also needed them to be productive and contribute.
My Tirani merchants had just settled into their new accommodations and were just starting to cultivate the purple grass in new agricultural domes. The luxury good was to be shipped back to Tirani worlds for massive profits. The Tirani merchants were slightly selfish, as they were not willing to give up any space to the refugees.
Suruchi wanted resources from the Tirani transports to expand the city of Arcadian and was seeking help from the other cities on the planet. She had a loose senate on the planet represented by leaders of each independent city. Bradbury was a planet of individual populations that was only beginning to work together as a government guided by Suruchi.
To this point, we had not taken anything from the alien races that had inhabited the planet before we arrived. They had been trapped in the subspace shadow, survived for thousands of years, and not killed each other. The land we had bartered for to construct the city of Arcadian was a massive jungle plateau that was inhospitable. We had created massive domes for food production in a circular pattern. The enormous city of Arcadian was in the center of the agricultural domes and served as our university for training scientists and engineers. We simply did not have the space in the Acrcadian dome for so many new arrivals.
At least some of the independent cities on the planet volunteered to host our guests. A few refugees were even distantly related. There was some genetic drift, but not enough to prevent reproduction¡ªat least according to our scientists. That was only a small fraction of the nearly half-a-million rescued population coming to Bradbury.
The human Federation had taken all the freed humans and would take another million with their colony stasis ships. I think their plan was to allow the aliens to colonize a planet within their controlled space. We were left with half a million, but the Federation had promised to help with resources to support our portion of the refugees. We found a few dozen Tirani and a few hundred Squirrel in the mix. They were immediately adopted into families on the planet and our asteroid bases. But that still left hundreds of thousands of aliens.
Our goal was to return those refugees home as we could and establish diplomatic relations. This was going to be a monumental task and meant we needed to transport thousands of beings across vast distances. The quadrupeds usually committed genocide on the planets they conquered. So it was taking some research to find out if there was somewhere to return them.
Suruchi was working on updating the language translator. Of the eighteen species rescued, we had five unknown races with small populations of under two hundred, probably from captured interstellar starships. Each of these groups needed to have their languages cataloged. The good news was all the various races breathed an atmosphere similar to humans. We assumed taking captive races that could not work in the same environment was too difficult.
I had ordered hundreds of thousands of metric tons of raw materials from the Tirani to build cruisers and munitions for the navy. Those materials were being funneled into building additional satellite habitation domes around Arcadian and rushing to complete the agricultural domes to sustain our refugees. Our Marines in training were also being used as our ad hoc police force as my brother Silas¡¯ forces could not manage the rapid population surge.
Astrophysicists were trying to locate population centers of these races so we could return them home. That was why we were burdened with many alien races instead of the Human Federation. We had much faster ships to return them. The problem was we did not have the capacity. We decided to convert six medium transports under construction to passenger ships. It meant adding significant life support and systems to destroy the advanced subspace drives if captured. We could not risk our technology getting out. But making contact with new races and establishing diplomatic channels was important to our ultimate goal of being able to fight the Malevolents.
The new passenger liners were scaled for nine hundred beings and had larger fuel tanks for trips of twenty days in subspace. The life support systems were also adaptable to accommodate a range of gas-breathing species. They would still take months to finish, but it gave us a method to return home many of the aliens.
We were also trying to recruit the brightest minds from these refugees. We needed technicians, scientists, engineers, fleet officers, and Marines. This brought Desdemona to my office again for another argument. She was concerned about our technology edge eroding too fast over time. If we trained a subspace scientist and they fled with their knowledge, we would essentially be handing them our technology. She was also still angry with me for my deal with Admiral LaRoche. I had promised to supply him with twelve Fateweaver-class cruisers. Most of the crew would be from Bradbury, but that did not alleviate her concerns. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Desdemona thought it would be better to have the crew one hundred percent from Bradbury and then just loan the squadron to be commanded by Admiral LaRoche. The problem was with our high standards, I was not sure we would be able to crew twelve additional cruisers. Admiral LaRoche was sending five hundred of his top men and women to train in just over a year¡¯s time. I had promised him the first pair of cruisers in five years to let the Human Federation officers be immersed in our training for four years. Desdemona was not happy and left my office.
My only firewall was Edmond¡¯s network of spies and Julie¡¯s oversight. They tracked every person in the system. Edmond actually enjoyed the challenge with the influx of aliens and now the Federation trainees coming. It kept him on his toes and prepared him to be more effective in countering the Brotherhood when they found us.
In order to get the brightest minds from the refugees to stay, we needed to tempt them with our technology by training them. So, how were we going to expose and train so many aliens? Full immersion VR. This meant adapting neural links to all the species¡¯ different physiology. If they passed and earned enough certifications, they could become Arcadia citizens and hopefully enroll in our Naval Academy.
My other headache was Mozzie¡¯s new clan, Chaotica. He had spent almost every Tirani credit I had earned from the purple grass. Even though I was extremely angry with Mozzie and Luna, I listened to them and let them explain. Luna explained all the money I had earned was being held in an account and not circulating in the Tirani economy. Their economy was slowly nose-diving so Luna ran a simulation, and the best way to help was to spend all the credits. The Tirani credits would accumulate again over time as almost every Tirani used the grass.
Mozzie took over and explained how he had so many Tirani join his clan. There were millions of clanless Tirani. Many of them wanted to join a clan but were denied because they lacked a sponsor. A sponsor needed to vouch for you to apply to a clan. What Mozzie did was set up a series of physical challenges from his Marine training. Any Tirani who passed and wanted to join his clan was welcome. He had not expected such a turnout. One hundred and twenty thousand!
He was devastated when I told him they could not be settled on the planet. He told his clan then would be planet-bound. He could negotiate with one of the independent cities to land his clan if he wanted to. Otherwise, we would have to build him a massive space station to house everyone. The good news was Mozzie did have ten thousand Tirani ready to enter the Marine Academy. Of course, we could not accommodate ten thousand at this moment.
I was worried Mozzie¡¯s clan might leave us if I could not make good on my promises. Since all the ships he purchased were technically mine, I planned to scrap them and build his station from them. Tirani spacecraft were robust but inferior, so they would not be integrated into our fleet. This new station would serve a dual purpose. It would be housing for his clan but also serve as our space marine training facility. His clan would be responsible for maintaining the facility.
The Marine training facility on the planet in Arcadian could house twelve hundred Marines. And we had one military station over Bradbury built from a Brotherhood battleship that could house another twelve hundred. This new station was going to be designed for two hundred and fifty thousand. It would take years to build, but as each stage was complete, we could add more and more people to it.
Every day was filled with more and more negotiations, approvals, and paperwork. There were not enough hours in the day, and I was still worried about my daughter on the Void Phoenix. Although upset with me for not consulting with her, Desdemona was focused on getting her fleet ready. She was taking the newest finished cruiser, Nebula Hunter, and support ships to press the attack on the four quadruped systems.
The New Horizon returned before she left. That cruiser had been responsible for tracking the probe Broderick sent. The probe had transmitted, but they did not get the technology as the New Horizon sent a Slipstream fighter to destroy the probe. The cruiser attempted to negotiate, but the two city ships in the system launched more than thirty War Chariots, their primary warship, in an attempt to capture them.
So the Sylvan knew where we were and that we had one of their First Citizens captive. Hopefully, the Tirani delegation could open a line of communication. The Sylvan were powerful and knew more about the Malevolents than any other race. Desdemona did not want me to interact with them unless she was present, and I agreed. Either it would be through vids or with some oversight. It was a problem I would deal with when it arrived on my doorstep. We were not helpless.
Desdemona took the New Horizon and Nebula Hunter with her when she left with the Excaliber. She also had seven resupply ships designed specifically to support the Fateweaver-class cruisers. They would join the Cloud Jumper and continue to dismantle the quadruped infrastructure. The next Fateweaver cruiser, the Indomitable, would be complete in one month. Until then, I was the primary defense cruiser in the Bradbury system.
? Copyrighted 2024, 2025 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.
Chapter 161 Spy Network
Chapter 161 Spy Network
After Desdemona left with her fleet, I was in charge of the defense fleet. I spread out our Brotherhood hulls to respond to arrivals. Although it was a thin screen, it also gave us a chance to blanket the system with advanced gravimetric sensors. I was increasing our range and even sent a ship above and before the system¡¯s ecliptic. Since we had ships that could skip-jump, I just wanted as much warning as possible and also to find any ships approaching a cold coast.
Whether I liked it or not, the Bradbury system was now on everyone¡¯s star map. I had no doubt both the Brotherhood and Godfather organizations knew where we were. I was actually considering contacting the Godfather organization through Jackson Jones. He was Zoe¡¯s husband and had his DNA spliced with the Polyformus race. A race of shapechangers. They opposed the One Species Doctrine of the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood placed humanity above all other species in the galaxy. Their ultimate goal was the genocide of all other races. To achieve this, they were working to create animosity outside human space to weaken alien races. They also were willing to force technological advancement through war and then take it while wiping out entire species of sapients.
Desdemona did not think it was all this black and white, but she knew not to press me on this. She was convinced of the threat of the ancient Malevolents. That was why she was willing to work with us. She was a brilliant tactical mind, and I was taking a risk in trusting her, but I needed help.
A few days after Desdemona left, Edmond came to me with a new design for a ship. It was a very rough design, and he had been working on it with some Squirrel engineers. The prototype was partially built for a proof of concept. It was a small ship, just a Corvette in size and 98.3 meters in length. It had no weapons and was mostly built to contain one of the alien sensors and have the best stealth technology we currently had access to. The ship would be designed to go to a system in stealth and sit far away while scanning and monitoring communications. There would be twelve crew composed of three engineers, three officers, three sensor operators, and three pilots.
The spy ship had four message buoys as well as one shuttlecraft. The shuttlecraft would also have a full stealth suit and use the phasing ability to insert operatives on a planet or space station. The smaller specialized stealth shuttle for the corvette bay had not been designed yet. I looked over everything, and they still had a monster list of details to work out on the ship¡¯s design. The prototype was 80% built. It was just the kind of project I needed to distract myself. I brought Edmund to my captain¡¯s meeting room on the Fateweaver.
I did not know if I was comfortable with actively spying on other civilizations. To date, we spied actively. Just using our sensors and interpreting transmissions. Actively sending operatives into cities and space stations seemed too much like the Brotherhood. I asked him aboard to convince me.
Edmund did not think small. He wanted me to fund ninety-six of these spy ships and fifteen deep space stations for the spy ships to resupply at. Once production was green-lit on the four drydocks on asteroid Beta, these stealth corvettes could be produced at the rate of one every five weeks.
I looked at Edmund¡¯s staffing for all his operations in counterintelligence. He currently had seventy-two men and women in the Bradbury system and forty-three paid operatives out in Alliance, Federation, Tirani, and Brotherhood (Human) space. Each ship required twelve, and each deep space station had another twelve. That was 1,332 men and women. He sent me a file and wanted 1,548 people and 1,240 synthetic bots to build out his operations.
I thought three thousand people were reasonable, but I wanted multiple safeguards put in and the training focused on ensuring our technology would not be stolen. The Borhterhoos had thought they had security to prevent their technology from falling to an enemy. They had put too much trust in their agents. Jane Doe had given it up for a chance at freedom. And then Rae¡¯Ver had mind-controlled the Brotherhood¡¯s top agent, Desdemona, and commander, Katsu Oshiro.
I brought in a team of four Squirrel engineers and a dozen other specialists who worked on the Fateweaver. We spent a few days reworking the Corvette design. We dubbed the project Leopard, which would be the name of the new class of ship. A leopard was a cat with spots from Earth that were hard to detect in the wild. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The crew complement was expanded to twenty-one organics, ten engineering bots, and ten multi-purpose bots. Twenty-one was the limit of life support extended life support systems to last two years. Two years was the window of time that Edmond wanted for missions. There would be three shifts of bridge crew composed of an officer, sensor specialist, engineer, and pilot/navigator. That was twelve. Each Leopard would have a captain and first officer to bring the total to fourteen. The other seven members of the crew were mission specialists to go with the shuttle.
I did not know how I felt about actively spying and inserting men and women on planets and space stations, but Edmund convinced me of the necessity. The shuttle crew consisted of three operatives, three marines, and one marine pilot to fill out the crew of twenty-one.
We spent days changing the configuration of the Leopard ship. Edmund¡¯s original design was a stripped-down ship with just stealth systems. I wanted them to be able to run as well, so we enlarged the reactor and enhanced the propulsion of the ship. We added four anti-missile turrets and one medium grazer. All weapons were powered by the primary reactor on the ship, so it was more of a fight-or-flight system. The grazer was strong enough and accurate enough to hit an unshielded target on a planet.
The ship was mostly a triad of massive sensor modules. With three sensors, they had more range and better resolution at extreme ranges than the Void Phoenix had. It could be said the entire corvette was built around these three units.
The one shuttle bay ended up being expanded in size. This was to accommodate a larger shuttle for operations. We did not design a whole new shuttle. We took one of our heavy assault shuttles that had its own subspace drive. We stripped all the weapons off and improvised its stealth capabilities. Maybe in the future, we would design a new shuttle for covert operations, but at least for now, the shuttle bay was large enough to accommodate the largest shuttle in our fleet. The specs on our shuttle were only mildly better than the Brotherhood ones. Our shuttles also had a very small cargo bay and could only squeeze ten people comfortably inside. Fifteen uncomfortably. And if they needed to use it to evacuate the Leopard ship, all twenty-one crew could fit in and get them safely out of harm¡¯s way.
The deep space stations to service our spy fleet of Leopards were much simpler. They were going to be large floating boxes with a stealth coating. We were going to build them modularly. That way, we could ship the sections inside our existing cargo ships and assemble them on site. They were going to be larger than Edmund wanted and have slightly less crew, just ten. We would supplement the crew with an army of engineering and repair bots. Each station would be able to handle three Leopard corvettes at a time.
The interior space of the station was just modular boxes, nine one hundred hundred meter long boxes that were forty meters square. There was no propulsion, defense weapons, or offensive weapons. Each docking station had four specialized boxes: two refueling containers, a recreation deck and park, a habitation and life support, and one command and control box. The control box had our advanced sensors to communicate with our Leopard ships, but the range was limited to 15.2 light years.
The simplicity of the stations meant they could be built and deployed extremely quickly, and it would only take a few days if we dedicated all our fabricators to the task. The modular nature also meant the stations could be enlarged by adding more boxes.
There was a little bit of an argument over not including any weapons or defenses beyond stealth. The station would have two subspace-capable shuttles for the personnel to flee and a self-destruct mechanism. I wanted all our weapons production to focus on actual warships, as we had a number of Fateweavers in the production queue. Our industrial base was not large, highly automated, and relied heavily on imported raw materials. So we could build on a small and specialized scale.
We turned our focus to getting Edmund¡¯s prototype functional. It took three weeks and a lot of diverted bots and engineers to complete the small ship. It passed subspace checks over the next four days. The crew that Edmond assigned was experienced, and I gave them their first assignment. Find the Void Phoenix and bring it back to the Bradbury system. This was the reason I invested so much time and effort in quickly rolling out the first Leopard.
Edmund had wanted to send the Leopard I to the Saphearian Empire as his information had the Brotherhood committing a large number of resources to strengthen the current rulers. Soon after the Leopard I left the Bradbury system, the next wave of refugees arrived. My fun project and work with Edmund was put aside as I took Suruchi¡¯s vid call.
? Copyrighted 2024, 2025 by AlwaysRollsAOne
No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad.com, or Scribblehub.com, it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.