Even with the virtual space’s time dilation, the three days passed unbelievably quickly, the worry of the uncertainty of Varstithon’s true allegiance and objective seemingly accelerating time’s rate.
The Federation Courier hadn’t explained everything, either. This wasn’t going to be a simple affair of Varstithon and his ships arriving and us matching pace and continuing on toward Luuxis. One of the more recently liberated planets nearby, one with the kind of extensive facilities that could, at least briefly, accommodate as massive an armada as we were about to become a part of, would play host to a full ceremonial transfer of command.
As big as this promised to be, I still wasn't prepared for the sheer scope of the main force when they arrived. Federation vessel after vessel poured into the system, enough to outnumber our two thousand-ship Liberation Fleets by more than 10 to 1. Even this was only half of what was to be considered the full armada--as I understood it, combined with all the ships that had previously joined us, we would be at roughly 70% of its planned final numbers.
Even the weight of those numbers paled in comparison to the impression Varstithon's flagship gave. According to the parts of Varstithon's speech during the ceremony which touched on the subject, the Federation had begun construction in secret of a new Dreadnaught since the first signs of approaching open war had been noticed. Now, that ship was finally finished, and it was even more impressive than the Voltar. It had been christened the A.O.F.S. Caralain, apparently named after a hero of the Federation's past who had been particularly instrumental to its founding. Like the Firebrand, it was an entirely new design, and it was also the first Dreadnaught the Federation military had fielded in almost a millennium.
It had enough docking bays to deploy ten standard formations—100 ships of varying sizes. Naturally, the Firebrand, Golden Chain, and their elite squadrons were slated to be among them. The Firebrand in particular had always been considered a plum assignment since the only one on it who actually fought the Kinetice was me. Now, the crew, and the other crews of General Karl's personal squad, rejoiced at the prestigious and relatively safe post onboard the Caralain, in blissful ignorance.
I'm going to have to be very, very careful. Now that he's set this up, who knows what "polite directives" he'll be giving me.
Mere hours after the Firebrand was settled in its docking bay, a messenger came to request the imminent presence of both myself and General Karl at a special meeting to discuss the future stages of the mission to liberate all ten Sanctuaries.
For once, I wasn’t given pride of place in the Caralain’s relatively small amphitheater, instead being placed in the third row, behind more Admirals than I’d believed existed, who commanded large portions of the armada. The 2,000 ships of the currently incorporated Liberation Fleets, and future Liberation Fleets, would be considered under Varstithon’s own aegis, and thus his second in command, a tall, hairless, dark-skinned humanoid High Admiral with strange, sunken ears—at least, I assumed they were ears—just above his cheeks, and his face covered in yellow tattoos that, save for their color, reminded me of “tron lines”, would relay overall battlefield orders to us as needed.
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I wondered if that would change once Bruzigan’s fleet joined the mix, but when the meeting got to that point, it turned out that, with the direction we were heading around the circumference of the Area, he and his Sanctuary, the Life Sanctuary, would now be the very last to be liberated.
Most of what followed that were things like how much and which parts of Zones that we would pass through on the way from Luuxis to the next few Sanctuary worlds, first the Mana Sanctuary at Sorousoros, then the planetoid housing the Earth Sanctuary known as Grius. I had to assume the fact that Earth was coming up soon meant that a candidate for restoring that element’s Sanctuary had been found, but no mention was made of who it might be, nor was there any indication that their identity would be divulged any time soon.
A great deal of material covered wasn’t at all relevant to me, but I tried to pay attention and learn things, anyway. Serayne, who had been sitting on my left as she had insisted on coming, had paid attention to only one thing the whole time: staring daggers at Varstithon. Clearly, she wasn’t about to forgive him the scare he’d given me any time soon, not that I was any more inclined to myself. I didn’t think being so obvious was a good idea though, so I’d nudged her a few times near the start to try to get her to stop, to no result.
Now though, she tried to look nonchalant, as once the meeting was concluded and people were beginning to leave, Varstithon called to me to come over for a private word. The problem with that being, of course, that looking nonchalant is something that you automatically fail at if you try to do it.
Remembering Mewi’s words about not going into such situations alone, I gestured for Anna to follow me as I went over to Varstithon. She looked dubious as she did so, but when I asked him if it would be a problem, Varstithon merely shrugged. “It’s not really relevant to her, but it won’t harm anything for her to hear this. It’s about the volunteer to restore the Earth Sanctuary.
They came forward less than a day after the Sanctuaries’ existence was made public, and vastly outperformed all other takers, though those were admittedly few. In accepting the task of restoring the Earth Sanctuary, they also negotiated quite a few benefits for themselves...among those was the chance to fight you.”
I groaned. “Well, if it’s a condition for the Sanctuary, I can hardly refuse can I? In fact, this could even be an opportunity of sorts.
I’ll do my darndest to beat this guy so badly that hopefully, most of his type get the hint and leave me alone.”
“From his credentials and stats, that won’t be easy,” said Varstithon, “but I’m glad you’re taking a rational attitude toward this. Not that you’re actually anywhere near as unreasonable as rumor says...usually.”
“If that will be all, sir,” I said, softly and deadpan.
“So far, the plan is to hold the requested match after the mission to Luuxis. The exact date is still under negotiation. I assume you’ll want to be part of that negotiation going forward.”
“A safe assumption indeed, sir,” I said, trying to practice my facial impression of a block of wood.
“Very well. Dismissed.”
I left the amphitheater, along with Serayne, Karl, Anna, and her own general whose name I didn’t know. Then, on the way back to the hangar, as soon as we were away from the view of anyone except Serayne and Karl, I banged my head against a nearby bulkhead five times.