UGT: Unknown; seconds after the destruction of the Grand Admiral's flagship
Location: Unknown yellow dwarf system; near the third planet
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[ The enemy flagship was sucessfully destroyed and the remains of the enemy fleetare in the process of capitulating. Only some of the Frigates and the Corvettes continue to flee. One Corvette managed to latch on to a hyperlane and leva the system. What are your orders? ]
"Shoot everything down that still tries to flee. It's bad enough that one ship managed to slip through. How many ships capitulated to us?", I asked Fen.
[ List of enemy spaceships that capitulated (Second Human Federation ship sizes used): ]
[ 1x Battlecruiser ]
[ 1x Cruiser ]
[ 3x Destroyer ]
[ 3x Frigates ]
[ Total ship count: 8 ships) ]
"That's actually not bad. What remained of the Federation fleet?", I continued.
[ Federation forces fleet composition (Second Human Federation ship sizes used): ]
[ 2x Battlecruiser ]
[ 3x Cruiser ]
[ 1x Destroyer ]
[ 3x Frigates ]
[ Total ship count: 9 ships ]
"We'll have to play it all high and mighty, but we can nearly double the Federation fleet's strength by gifting these ships to them. That's very good and will give me a small bargaining ship as well.", I mused to myself.
[ Admiral Thorrison is pinging us via the encrypted channel we have made available to him. Interested in having a litte talk with him? ]
I sighed. "Honestly, no. But I don't have much choice in that matter. Put him on the screen, same security measures as last time. We don't need the extra step with the First Federation insignia, though. It's time to negotiate some things, I guess." I said, taking on a bored expression and slouching myself into the Captain's chair. The Admiral had to think that the situation hadn't disturbed me in the least.
[ Admiral Thorrison will be able to see you... now! ]
At the same time Fen told me that, a screen showing Admiral Thorrison opened up in front of me as well. Seeing how he opened his mouth to talk, I instantly spoke over him. "A funny little bout, don't you think, Admiral? I certainly had a good laugh, seeing how primitive the technology of our old nemesis has become. Overrunning their puny little Association seems by now to be a much easier task, I must say."
Exactly like last time, the Admiral didn't show any emotional reaction to my statement. "It certainly wasn't much more than a nuisance to you, your crew and your ship. But would it have been the same, had the enemy real Battleships with him?", he asked. I only mockingly snorted. "Yes. They could have thrown an entire fleet at me, I wouldn't have cared. The Association fleets? They are mere insects below my boot. It takes more than one fleet to stop my rampage should I decide to order one. But that leads me to another problem. I see that you are sending your own ships towards the capitulated units of the Association. What do you think you're doing?"
"Securing additional units for my fleet and taking prisoners, of course.", the Admiral answered with a straight face. Promptly I stilled. "And who allowed you to take over me spoils of war, Admiral?", I asked calm and quitely. Which only served to make me look more threatening in the Admiral's eyes.
"From everything I've observed up till now, your ship is definitly a warship. That means the ammount of people you have on board is strongly limited. If we add in your way more advanced technology and automatisation, I'm relatively certain that the biggest Association ship you could take over, without reducing the combat strength of your own ship, is a single cruiser that would still lack manpower and whose technology would be way more primitive than your own. I don't see you gaining anything from taking over another ship, Captain Lunaris. Meanwhile, I have the needed manpower and expertise to operate all those ships, which would be much more useful to both of us, as our interests are aligned.", the Admiral said.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I gave a soft humming sound from me. "For someone, who is as unimaginative as his starnation is lacking in technology and understanding, you for sure assume a lot of things. Wrong things, migh I add. But in your absolutely boring and self-righteous monologue, there was a single compelling argument hidden. The technology of these ships is so outdated, the Human Federation would simply scrap them. I have no need for such trash. Therefore you can have the scraps, I don't need them. What I need are starmaps, how your little war with the Association is going and the current political climate of the glaxy. And you will source both for me. That's what I want in exchange for the spoils of battle.", I said.
Admiral Thorrison didn't bat an eye at the request. "Agreed. I'll see to it personally, that the data package will be put together and send to your CN as soon as possible. Now, how do you plan to go on from this point?", the Admiral asked. I only shrugged. "I think, I'll help with your little crusade against the Association for a bit. Maybe a carve out a few systems of my own in the peace deal. Bring the first Federation back on the map and rebuild. Whatever you may think, we are no allies and we won't be."
The Admiral only nodded. "But for the moment, that puts us on the same side. That's enough for me. Everything else, you'll have to work out with the president himself, I believe. But I'm not a man of words, but of war. For me, integrating the FSF Aurora into the fleet is of much higher importance. How much are you willing to tell us?", he asked.
"First of all, there will be no integration of the FSF Aurora. This ship is mine, and it will remain mine. Furthermore, even if you technically outrank me, I will not be a simple pawn for you to use. I will be the one giving orders. You can either support them or not, but if you want to work together, you better follow my orders, not the other way around. Also, I have no reason to tell you anything. You wills use it against me anyway. But Im feeling generous, so Im willing to answer three questions of yours. Obviously, there are some questions I won't anwer anyway. Ask."
Admiral Thorrison for once showed a emotional reaction, sighing slightly. "Very well. We will do it as you say. My three questions are the following ones: What are these beams of, for us, unidentifiable energy you used against the Association fleet? How much antimatter do you store, and are you able to supply us with some? Why is your ship spherical? The spaceships of the First Human Federation werde always cubes. Spherical spaceships are the legendary type of ships only the Aetherian Empire ever achieved."
I only nodded to myself slightly. These questions were acceptable. "The beams you saw were so-calles desintegration beams, or desintegrators for short. They, essentially, split apart molecules, thereby destroying most physical materials effortlessly. Unfortunately, they are less powerful against shields, not to talk about hypershields, where normal laser beams are significantly more powerful. But small breaks in a shield are theoretically enough for a desintegration beam to do massive damage. Unfortunately, it's impossible for the FSF Aurora to create antimatter in large quantities. Our current reserves are big enough to keept the ship going for a few years or around two dozen space battles, but we cannot give up any antimatter. As I said, the FSF Aurora, as a warship, doesn't generate any larger quantities for usage. The FSF Aurora is an experimential spaceship and one of the most modern the First Human Federation had. As far as I'm informed, it was one of our very last tries to still grasp for the remains of aetherian technology, before time claims them. The sucess of the project, unfortunately, was rather small.", I answered. Most of that, Fen had told me just now.
"The requested package should be reaching you any moment.", Admiral Thorrison suddenly said.
[ Yeah, the package is here. Give me a few seconds to look through it, in case they don't play fair. But it seems okay, overall. ]
"You'll have to give us some time to look through it all. Therefore, we will get back to you in a few hours. Use the time to do whatever you have to. Don't disturb us.", I said to the Admiral. I had spoken with him long enough.
"I would like to invite you to a tactics meeting tomorrow at my flagship tomorrow at-", the Admiral started saying, only to be interrupted by me. "Not interested. Cut the connection.", only for the screen to vanish instantly.
[ The connection was cut. I'm surpressing the pleas of Admiral Thorrison to reconnect. I guess you want to sleep a bit bbefore dealing with this mess? ]
"Yes, Fen, that was the plan. Your support is appreciated. I'll go sleep, please wake me up in six hours. Than we will go through all the data you send me. And than, we can speak to Admiral Thorrison again.", I said, before I made myself comfortable once more in the Captain's chair. "Good night, Fen."
[Good night, May. ]
Than, I drifted off to sleep.