NOW, WHAT DO WE DO?

We are seated face to face in my cabin. We now need to establish our plan to create a strong power base. Alyn surveyed these planets for six months before we arrived here. She collected a lot of meaningful information, we can certainly learn a lot about these three planets. We'll need basic information about natural resources distribution, especially iron and rare metals. As well as the distribution of population, borders, social structure, ... We need a freaking lot of intelligence data if we want to find a safe place to build a base on the surface. Fortunately, she deployed many spy devices. While I was thinking about our next step, Sylviane opened her mouth.

"Now, what do we do? Do we even have enough food to eat, or we'll need to beg the native in the streets?" she anxiously asks.

"According to my latest inventory, we have enough food for both of you, at least for 3 months. We lost a lot of our assets six months ago, nevertheless, we have still some pre-assembled parts of equipment and building. Coupled with all-purpose drones, I can establish a basic supply chain system for metals. All the basic materials are available on Thetis d, the moon of the inhabited planet. I can't produce high-tech weapons and robots, but I can replicate basic mechanical workers and standard imperial weaponry such as laser guns, combat knives, and combat suits. I just need time, approximately 3 months for basic infrastructures. We can find fuel on the gaseous planet, it is readily available," explained Alyn in a concise way we can understand.

"You should prioritize upgrading your computing capacity and the reactor defenses. If we lose the Pulsar for whatever reason, such as a comet or even native weapons, we'll be stuck in a dead-end," I added.

"They dispose of a weapon that can destroy the Pulsar? We should have brought an entire fleet!" Sylviane exclaimed with her mouth wide open. Of course, she could not expect it if she doesn't have the data to look at.

"Alyn, send the data to Sylviane's terminal and show the ore deposits with the hologram system of the deck, please."

"Right away."

The middle of my desk opened, and a projector appeared. It was activated by Alyn and soon, we were able to see a 3d representation of the three planets we are interested in.

I turned my head to Sylviane, who has her eyes wide open while looking at Alyn's data. After two minutes, she felt my gaze and began speaking.

"I didn't quite trust you when you said that she was a top-notch AI, however seeing is believing. She processed these data perfectly, you would need 5 people and one week to utilize these data without her help."

"It took me only 30 minutes, so do you understand my superior capacities now?"

"Alyn, don't bully her too much. Even I wouldn't trust it if I didn't see it before" I telepathically said to Alyn.

"She insults you if she doesn't trust what you say, Drake!"

"She's still a greenhorn, let her time to grow, hahaha. I thank you for your concern, but go easy on her."

"I'm sorry for not believing you before."

"I didn't take it personally," I assured her. "Now you need to familiarize yourself with the data about the countries, enmities between them, existing borders, current context, ... I need you to discover the weak spots where we can strike. Most of the countries practice slavery, and they are all at the Iron Age. You must review such information and give me pieces of advice and an overview of the planetary situation on a political level."

"I will give you my suggestions once I read something interesting, Governor. This is a lot of data! Alyn, how did you collect so much information?"

"I used the reconnaissance drones. I sent them to villages and big cities, then I target locations with a lot of people such as taverns, bars, official buildings, churches, ... I set the drone in a low hovering flight with their optical camouflage activated. When I'm in range, I launch a spying device the same size as a thumb in the gaps of the building. The device records everything that happens, and the drone collects the data each week." The AI's voice sounded smug when she explained her tactic.

"Marvelous, you're a genius!" Sylviane clasped her hands.

"Hehe, of course, I am."

"Don't compliment her too much, or she might become complacent. Let's see if you can help me find how they name their planet because I don't want to call them Thetis b, c, and d until the end of our mission."

An excited Sylviane instantly shouted at me.

"Sir, I already find how they name it! They call the gaseous planet Aqua because the vivid blue color spots make them think of a big colorful ocean. Their planet is called Lonaose, this is a religious name appearing in all their local dialects, but I didn't find the meaning of it. The last one is Moon, this is an equivalent in our language." She was looking at me with a praise-me expression, but her look quickly changed when Alyn corrected her.

"Lonaose is the main goddess of their religious pantheon, the goddess of life. She represents their planet's soul, thus the place where they are born and where they will die," Alyn chided on the side.

"Thank you a lot, you both. You were swift Sylviane, keep it up! Alyn thank you for the detail." I tried to appease the two girls before this escalate too much. A smile appeared on Sylviane's face, and Alyn sent me a smiley in my mind. I didn't even know it was possible, she innovated during these 15 years.

"I recommend using the Pulsar as a space station, more specifically, a citadel. Furthermore, it can serve as a transit station for resources too. We are already orbiting Lonaose, so we can just reinforce the armor and construct a better spaceport. A refinery should be useful too for providing the shipyard and the onboard factories with enough alloys," Alyn gave her idea to us.

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"But... We will not be able to go back if we use the Pulsar as a stationary base. We should at least know what happened to the Empire. The Conglomerate may have sparred some people." Sylviane's head was hanging down.

I got up and touched her shoulder. "Maybe, but our mission is the priority, whatever happened back home, we must stay here."

"The former is not incompatible with the latter. My amendments to the Pulsar are not set in stone, we can revert it after we have succeeded," Alyn took the time to cheer Sylviane up.

Sylviane calmed down and smiled. "I'm sorry, I spoke too hastily. My feelings got the better of myself."

She was smiling, however, you could see a hint of sadness in her eyes. I regained my chair.

"If we convert the Pulsar into a citadel, can it resist a psychic beam? We better be on the safe side."

"They should not be able to even reach the Pulsar's orbit, but even if they can, the Pulsar's going to be safe. A combination of armors and shields is enough, I'll make this citadel stronger than the Capital's defense system. This is going to be useful if the Conglomerate ever attacks us."

"I don't know if they can, but don't forget that this mysterious energy seems similar to psychic energy. If they learned how to make a combined psychic attack, they would be able to touch the Pulsar. No matter how far we are, we are still orbiting around Lonaose. So, how much time do you need to reinforce the Pulsar? I don't need it strong enough to take down a Conglomerate's fleet, it must first and foremost resist an attack coming from the surface."

"I can make it happen in one month after building the basic infrastructures and stable supply chains. I will improve my data center, processors, and means of communication in parallel since it will be the most secure place in the sector. The faster I compute, the more drones and buildings I can control. Aside from that, I recommend using native people to work for us, if I can relocate a part of the production on the planet, it will greatly improve the pace of our economy and my alterations."

At this time, Sylviane, who was still reading through the report, interrupted. "Alyn had a brilliant idea, it would provide us a first-hand experience with the native. I'll be able to formulate better methods for creating our sovereign state. In addition, their civilizations are all in the Middle Ages state. I'm pretty sure there are lots of outcasts and people left out of the picture. Besides, there are a lot of slaves and the nobility, as well as the aristocracy, are monopolizing all the resources, letting only the bare minimum for living to the common people. If we offer them a life with the same comfort as our citizens back in the Empire, they will likely help us. We can offer them a real house, hot meals, security, and rights. They will probably help us because we'll treat them as people, not as livestock. We also spotted a sort of third-party organization that must be monitored, this is a sort of mercenary group. They name themselves the Adventurer Guild, and they are present on the whole continent."

"Okay, so we can add this to our to-do list. We'll visit this Adventurer Guild ourselves, I'm sure we can make a few connections with important people as mercenaries. Maybe we could learn some more information and create a reliable identity if we work for the Adventurer Guild. Before that, we need to see where we can land while Alyn is establishing her factories on Moon. We can't just sit back and let her do all the work. There are two continents on Lonaose, but only one is inhabited by people. We can see a lot of villages without big cities in the south. Maybe we could go there first."

"Governor, these are little villages, so they're probably living in tribal communities. We can see bigger cities in certain areas but not as big as the ones in the north, with a different, almost chaotic structure. They are probably different species from those in the north."

"Well, let's open the biometric data. Wait, Alyn, are you sure about the species on this planet? Did you send me one of your holonovel with the data?"

"Holonovel? Do you read holonovel? Me too!" I'm pretty sure Sylviane missed the point here.

"Yes, Drake, there are no errors. There are beastmen in a humanoid form that bears various beast-like traits, some with high energy level signature resembling psychics. I even filmed some of them if you want to see them by yourself. There are also a dwarf and elf kingdoms, but the mainland is too cramped for all of them. There are border wars between the human kingdoms. The elves are seemingly neutral, I can't detect armed conflicts with their neighboring kingdoms. The dwarves were exiled by the human to the extreme west of the continent in the last six months. I was able to record some battles but I couldn't get too close by fear of the psychics discovering my drones. The war stopped one month before our arrival and the dwarves are nowadays trading with some beastmen tribes for their survival. They are in the process of building new cities. Yet, this is only a question of time before they are all enslaved by humans. On the other side, the humans are sending hunter parties to enslave strong or beautiful beastmen tribes and elves. I believe I don't need to explain why."

"Their countries don't have a monitoring organization to limit the greed of some wealthy and powerful people. The leaders close their eyes to the misuse of authority too. The same old story everywhere we go." I sighed.

"Are we going to side with humanity, Governor? If possible, I recommend integrating dwarfs in our mechanical plants. The documents show that they produce good quality alloys. Furthermore, some species have already integrated into the Empire without any problem."

"Alyn is right, we'll use the same methods just slightly modified for each species. We should do something about the bellicose human kingdoms, they are abusing their power. We need more data, so I recommend a mission on the surface, Governor. We need to assess the situation and I think that beginning by a beastmen tribe near the remnant of the Dwarf Kingdom will be helpful for us a lot, and we could maybe find our first allies."

"Okay but we need to act carefully, we don't have the resources to help all of them. Not right now. In any case, we can't enslave them because they are not like us. The species with whom we can negotiate will become imperial citizens, not our slaves. We are not the Conglomerate. We'll conduct a first contact operation. Alyn will act as our liaison agent using our terminals for communication," I turned my head to Sylviane. "You can come with me, yet you must obey my orders even if they are unreasonable for you. This is my only requirement. You know how to use a laser gun, right?" I asked with an intimidating gaze.

"Yes sir, I'll conduct myself as an exemplary soldier." She seemed nervous, nonetheless, I could sense her determination.

"Governor Drake, you should refrain from using your psychic powers as long as we don't know if their power is different from the Empire's Psy Corp. There could be people sensing you using your abilities, moreover, you should act sneakily if you use them. I detected weird crystals that possess the energy we research. It seems to be universally used as money for most people. I don't know how to detect them for the moment. I still have found three deposits of these crystals, I don't know if there are more. Two are situated in the human kingdoms and one in the elf kingdom. I limited myself to monitoring tasks during the last six months so I would like you to bring me samples of these crystals for research purposes."

"Retrieving samples of these crystals is now one of our primary targets. We just need a place where we can land, and we'll begin our first mission on the surface. Sylviane did you find one?"

"I think I found the most suitable location Governor Drake, look at this!" she recommended, showing me her terminal. Shoving her hand in my face.