Book 4: Chapter 193: The Best Plans and Plots

Book 4: Chapter 193: The Best Plans and Plots

USD: Twenty-Four Hours since hostile fleet incursion.

Location: Meltisar, M3 Orbital Works, SRS Iron Horse, Moonlet Construction Black site

The Iron Horses engines hummed softly throughout the bridge as it maneuvered closer to the moonlets surface. It was little more than an oversized asteroid, but care had been taken to reshape the outer shell into something resembling a spheroid. A chaotic jumble of small craft were moored on the wharfs attached to the slowly spinning equator, mostly construction tugs or other industrial flitters.

Regardless of what she had suspected before, there was still plenty of activity occurring on the Navys newest black project. It just hadnt been channeled in the proper direction, and therein lied the misdirection.

The asteroid grew in size as the Iron Horse closed in on the structure, passing the proximity line. A brief challenge flickered red on her HUD, but she transmitted the proper authorization codes to clear the destroyercorvette for docking on one of the few arms large enough to accommodate the refurbished and rebuild federation vessel.

A shuttle would have been slightly faster, but the Iron Horse had been upgraded with its own NAI computronics suite that took up the previous missile bay. That gave it more than enough power that even Her Imperial Haughtiness Tia would have been satisfied with the processing power.

Commander Talbott expertly slotted the ship between two towering cranes to bring the automated airlock clamps into position. During the entire process, Thea measured and analyzed the reports of the construction. The more she read, the more she was sure that she and Big Blue had been right; just how their airhead of a leader had realized the issue when they needed a solution asap was another question.

If they had just been left a few more days, Thea was sure she would have noticed herself and brought it up to Tia. The inkling had been there that something had been off. It was just set back in priority with all the other stuff that had been going on.

It left her feeling robbed of an opportunity.

Maam, weve a good seal. The Marines are waiting for you on the departure deck. Commander Talbott informed her.

Dont try to undock unless I send word. The sentry turrets might not like it, Thea instructed. He gave her a puzzled look before nodding. That was great, because she didnt feel like explaining.

Everything would have been much easier if shed just been allowed to commandeer everything; the moonlet hadnt been built with the standard NAI safety protocols. The base was meant for a high-ranking NAI to be in place to run it. That hadnt been dealt with. The entire elephant in the room of creating more NAIs for posts that needed filling hadnt been addressed at all.

Considering how haggard the princess had looked when Big Blue had left with the first fleet, it seemed that would be rectified whenif they all survived the next few hours and days.

The departure bay was full of a small company of Meltisar combat marines in medium power armor. The equipment was smaller and crude compared to the high-tech stuff that Elis and she had been provided with their own Big Blue branded equipment, but that didnt mean it wasnt up to the job. It was certainly the equivalent, or better than, what the station defenders were equipped with.

Hopefully, it didnt come down to a fight because they didnt need Meltisar personnel shooting at each other in the face of the enemy. But the sabotage to the construction queues and purposefully concealed status of the moonlet put that into question.

As soon as she arrived at the departure bay, Elis gave her a wave and smile that irked for no real reason. They were about to take command of the station from the Admiral in charge, and sanctioned or not, there were a lot of people on board and reasons to believe that they might not be cooperative.

Actually, maybe that was the reason the redhead seemed happy. Are we ready to disembark? Thea asked.

Elis glanced at the lieutenant who looked entirely too fresh to be in charge of a combat unit, and then to a slightly older woman with the nameplate Riley. Both nodded, and Elis gave her a thumbs up. Ready to go, boss.

Im not your boss. Im not even in the military, Thea shot back.

A huge grin appeared on Elis face. Why does my HUD report Deputized Assistant-Admiral, then?

Ask Fleet Admiral Wilkes. Im not even sure thats a real rank. Thea frowned. Okay, claiming that she wasnt in the military might have been a stretch. Technically, Tia and Big Blue were in the military as well, and even if whatever Meltisar regulations or whatever had been bent into pretzels for the sudden addition of NAIsthat didnt mean they werent technically in the military.

But that didnt mean she couldnt deny it and pretend otherwise.

The Lieutenant looked mortified, and then Sergeant Riley spoke up. That is a real rank. Generally used to enact special orders from the admiralty board with temporary broad powers spelled out in their warrant.

Great. Looks like Im in charge of everything here. Lets just hope those station-side agree, Thea replied.

As the airlock gantry clicked into place and the company disembarked, a mild ripple of panic flowed through the waiting sailors on the docks that had stopped to watch. Everyone seemed torn between being rushing back toward the central habitation sector and being too not-busy to care.

The rest of the crew shot her nervous glances. That didnt bother her and was understandable. It wasnt often that the small ship would see a NAI waiting on the bridge, but her VIP passenger berth had felt claustrophobic and isolated.

The feeling of claustrophobia and isolation had only multiplied the longer shed stood her post in Meltisar dealing with Princess Celestia, who had taken control of the system in stride without tripping over her own feet. That in itself hadnt been a problem, but the young NAI named Alex had been worse.

For what it was worth, Veliana had concluded that the girl wasnt lying about her Chi rank. That meant that either Celestia and Alex were working in lockstep far better than anyone could imagine or the Princess had indeed elevated herself to Psi rank somehow.

That was the conclusion that she had come to and put in her report. It was the basis for her reasoning on why they should work together with Meltisar. The Alliance with the Imperium was shaky at best, and while Meltisar had a poor long-term position on the map, they had something that Solaria needed desperately: a much faster route and direct access to Corporate space.

There had been enough time to receive a short brief from the fleet with very scant details due to operational security, while the diplomatic cutter had not been restrained from sending a detailed dispatch and report. That had only been possible because Meltisar had wanted her report to go out, otherwise theyd all likely be cordoned off by dozens of jammers or restricted to a mooring.

She glanced down to the Lieutenant who was starting to sweat even though the atmospheric cycle was keeping the room at its standard comfortable temperature.

Dont worry, Lieutenant. We probably wont all die in this mission, she said with a half-hearted smile.

He looked back at her with a pained expression that he quickly hid behind a neutral faade. Sorry, Maam. Just things look a bitinsane.

Veliana grunted and turned her attention to the ships anemic sensor package. There were eight major fleet blobs that registered as hundreds to thousands of ships, which was terribly inaccurate. Then there were thousands of smaller pockets of civilian ships, military singletons, and defense bases dotting the system.

It was all a terribly blurry picture of the system, but if the cutter had a better sensor package, it wouldnt have ever been permitted to be used as a diplomatic vessel.

In the southwest system quadrant, there was a distinct lack of another fleet that should have been present by now, but the Corpo fleet was conspicuously absent. From the shared information from Meltisar, it wasnt even present in the next system over. She doubted the Ertan fleet would have shown up without their promise to come, and the backstab seemed out of place.

More worryingly, if the Corporate fleet wasnt here, where was it? The only thing she could think of was that it had been deployed to the front lines on the Western Frontier, which would spell disaster for the Solarian units there. Although

Veliana glanced back at the readout on the Solarian fleet and focused the sensor net on it. The screen worked itself without her having to touch any keys or console, which caused a minor panic attack between the crew before they realized she was using her NAI interface to work the system.

It looks like a lot of our ships arent there, Veliana mumbled.

The lieutenant looked at her with confusion. Maam?

Our fleet is too small. Theyve held back a lot of ships. Maybe they already agreed with my reports and plan, she theorized.

Maybe Fleet HQ and Solaria had diverted some of the inner system fleets to 13 Centauri. That it took the Federation 7 jumps to reach the front from the nearest core system compared to the Corpos 3 meant that getting reinforcements to the western frontier was complicated. 13 Centauri wasnt a core system, so sending Inner System ships there was technically a violation, but the situation in Meltisar

Was there going to be another all-out interstellar war like during the Collapse?

A bleep and then beeping tone indicated a transmission had arrived and was waiting to be decoded. The decryption software blinked on the main comm console twice, then turned red. Everyone turned to her, the message being decodable only by a NAI.

A scowl appeared on Velianas face as she accepted the message, then read it.

It was from Chi Ferreta, demanding more information.

Veliana felt a surge of irritation; she had already sent all the pertinent details in her first transmission. Now they were forced to wait even longer for further instructions.

She sighed. Lieutenant, have you ever been on a diplomatic mission like this before?

The young officer shook his head. No, maam. This is my first independent assignment. I was previously stationed on an IS patrol cruiser as the junior nav officer.

Veliana nodded. I see. Well, let me tell you, this sucks. Instructions are to sit here and wait another twelve hours.

He seemed surprised at her candid response but nodded after a second. I couldnt agree more.