After Taera’s remarks about HER ship, I did some digging and discovered a number of important facts.
Taera had been one of the original crew of an imperial intelligence vessel right after the end of the empire, at the same time that the technomancers were finally defeated by the remains of the empire before the Unified planets were formed.
That vessel had made an emergency dive through a steel-tier hulk greater rift, which resulted in the acquisition of the tech 7 Crow as a rift reward. I couldn’t uncover why such a tiny vessel was forced to make such a suicidal attempt, the details were either lost to history or carefully covered up.
Three very LONG generations of Timurs, which implied very high rank, had since captained the Crow. But one fact always remained… Taera had been the XO since the ship was first commissioned as a reward vessel.
Taers, since the time of the old empire, were considered neutral sovereign citizens. They had unrestricted travel and trade rights without taxes, but could not work directly for a government agency, become commissioned officers, own land on any Unified Planet, own a starship larger than a corvette, or possess military-grade armaments.
It looked, to my uneducated eye at least, that the ‘legal’ ownership and captaincy of the Crow, in the eyes of the UFP, was the Timur family. In a very real way, the rift reward ship, in the eyes of the System, was probably Taera’s property. I knew Captain Timur was on board, I had met her, but I bet that she was a figurehead and an authority front for Taera’s control of the ship.
I had to admire the way it worked. She was able to run the ship like a family, With the young(ish) Captain as the ultimate authority figure, while still keeping it ready and able to run mil-spec and rifts.
I knew fleet admiral Timur turned politician, the original, 600 year old delver, was a real woman. The Crow’s rewards kept the Timur family wealthy and fairly powerful, but I hadn’t seen the woman I’d met as captain since we left drydock, the crew was used to receiving all of their orders via trace or relayed through Taera, and I had no idea if the woman was even actually onboard with her reclusive reputation. She could have been a young Timur family scion, or she could have been a paid actor stuck in a captain’s uniform whose only job was to make a few military-sounding terse remarks and shake hands with newly onboarded officers.
It was not a particularly deep deceit, since most of the records were public domain, but who would check? It implied that Fleet probably knew and accepted the fiction for some reason. Fleet intelligence stuck its finger in an enormous amount of pies and was nearly as well-informed as it was sneaky.
There was almost no chance that fleet intelligence didn’t already know about Gabrielle’s affinities and my own problems and connection to her. Fleet and the church were deeply in bed together, and yet… we were being allowed to operate undisturbed. On Taera’s ship. What was the connection? Had the whole situation been an intelligence setup from the very beginning, the moment I was called in by an old friend to help train a promising recruit, her transfer to the Crow as a ‘favor’, and my own transfer to a privately contracted warship?
My paladin ‘sense deceit’ was telling me that Taera was a deeply honorable and yet deeply secretive individual. I could only assume that she was giving me a clue that there was a lot more than chance involved with this cruise, and she was offering me a trail of breadcrumbs to lead me to my own conclusion.
A conclusion I was intent on chasing. Obviously, allowing her to fully bond right now, or even use her remote forces to boost my life magic, was a bad idea for infection reasons, but it was a ridiculously powerful potential ability. I was brought on board as a stabilizing influence, potential bond, and trainer. Was helping her learn to use her forces remotely a good way to go?
She had mentioned that her new copper-tier class was a force sage… technically, she could probably train herself to use almost any trait that could reasonably fit into her personal affinities. Forces were only supposed to work for energy-based affinities, but certain traits, such as regeneration for physical affinity, were tied to energy usage as much as they were body aspects. I doubted she could ‘learn’ something like chromatophores, but regeneration or reflex boost might not be out of the question, since they could also be attached to life essence manipulation or temporal.
I sent Gabrielle a quick delayed trace letting her know that I’d had an inspiration and apologizing for my surprise exit, and let her know I’d see her after tomorrow’s assembly for delve debrief and training.
This would have to be handled with some care.
***
“Captain Timur sends her apologies. She approved the field awards, but the sudden influx of resources has her burning the midnight oil for mid-copper tier resource trade links and possible action, and due to your skillful and more importantly SAFE handling of the Kalisti rift, Your raid needs to be congratulated for it’s rapid and efficient actions.”
I was looking for it, and there it was. Gabrielle was looking slightly confused. I was betting that no one ever told her that resources collected from higher-stage rifts and systems were much more valuable than those collected from a lower essence world. The chemistry was the same, but iron mined from a copper stage rift had nearly twice the metallic essence as that gained from a tin-level rift, even if they were both chemically FE.
That’s why Taera’d been willing to send a low to mid-copper and tin raid group into a mid-copper rift. Some of the Troopers may have been high tin, but their issue low-tech armor and weapons, from ship stores, were made of orichalcum-level resources. The few serious injuries that had been quickly patched up during the raid had been from inexperience or strikes that went around the armor, not gear failures… I’d inspected the gear after the raid, and almost none of it required more than routine maintenance.
Most of those with technology affinity grew up with a solid foundation in physical science, and after spending some time fighting and gaining resources from higher-tier rifts, still had a hard time grasping the effects of essence density on supposedly ‘normal’ materials. The idea that lead bullets formed from an iron rift had better armor penetration, ballistics, and impact potential than depleted uranium rounds gathered from a base-tier world tended to just blow their minds, but the scientific principles were sound and thoroughly researched… It’s simply that most common education didn’t call attention to it.
It often bugged those who understood physical sciences that higher-tier systems and conflicts seemed to ignore traditional physical laws in many cases, and it didn’t help that schools like Gabrielle’s drone pilot training focused on basic quality materials. Void beasts were certainly terrifying, some of them were the size of planets, but the void was universally base tier, as were the materials that the fleet used to create their ships. That class five planet killer might have been a terrifying adversary capable of consuming worlds, but a solid team of orichalcum-stage heroes still had a good chance of defeating it despite its size and power.
The problem, of course, was that delving and gaining stages were both incredibly difficult and incredibly dangerous. The vast majority of the human race simply completed their child class, gained a common or basic class while still in uncultivated wood ranks, and plateaued there, spending their lives happily gaining levels and shifting around low-tier classes without ever noticing that they didn’t gain the cultivation advancement to even break into the tin stage.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Each rank within a stage was literally an order of magnitude smaller than the one before it, as people hit insurmountable bottlenecks or natural limits of their abilities, and the sheer increase in the danger of gaining advancement in higher-tiered areas tended to kill or scare off most people eventually.
The secrets of the Crow’s success were that not only was it a tech 7 steel-tiered ship, but Taera carefully recruited those that had higher-tier potential. I doubted that even the most blandly oblivious trooper, like Dirk, would fail to reach at least steel one stage eventually, provided he lived that long. Maybe not silver, that was a hell of a leap that required you to find your guiding principle, but definitely Iron.
That was probably another facet of Gabrielle’s confusion. The simulations used base-tier enemies as their yardstick, especially since they tried to accurately simulate most void beasts. Petty officer third class Reynard had somehow advanced to tin tier in training, and her Sargasso drone fleets, despite using base tier materials, were empowered by her own abilities… another reason she’d managed to break the Kobayashi training scenario.
Now that she was copper tier, she could probably break the Kobayashi easily with no ‘cheats’. To get a decent simulation, she’d have to get one crafted by at least a copper-tier software engineer, featuring enemies that took advantage of their own higher stages. Fortunately for her, the Crow had some on board that I was eager to break out and have her try her hand at. VR training was a valuable tool in the Crow’s arsenal, and I intended to use to it keep MY people alive and progressing as best possible.
After praising the 25 raiders present and the slightly larger support staff also present, about 70 people gathered on the mess decks, and Taera was offering individual commendations. It was not really an award ceremony, since she was simply calling out names and letting people know their awards, and it was all done in undress blacks without any special speakers or anything, but each trooper that had their name called for exceptional actions was beaming with pride anyway… a bigger ceremony would probably be held once our cruise docked with a fleet station.
“Private First Class Dirk Steel?” she said, and a snicker went through the group at his obviously self-designed name. Getting an official name change was not terribly difficult or expensive prior to government service, and lots of commons did it before they chose to enter the military. The fact that his chosen pseudonym sounded like a bad secret agent or porn star was highly amusing, and considering that he WAS still technically a member of the fleet, it would be ridiculously difficult to change it if he ever outgrew it.
“You are now officially a holder of the Baker’s Dozen Purple Heart Award for gaining your thirteenth serious injury in the line of duty and gained your seventh honorable action star. For the third time, you have been officially promoted to Lance Corporal. Please try not to lose it again, if you make Bronze as a private, it could make the Crow look… inconsistent.”
“Corpsman Casparov? Congratulations. Due to your quick thinking, exemplary fulfillment of your duty as a combat corpsman, and obvious leadership potential, you have gained your first honorable action star, as well as being frocked to petty officer second class. Your frocking has been recorded by the fleet. Make sure you get your prerequisite testing completed as soon as possible so we can make your new rank official.”
She proceeded to go through several more troopers. Because of the incredible success of the raid, every single active raider received an honorable action star.
It was a minor boost, but was a good-looking ribbon for a young up-and-comer’s dress uniform, letting everyone know that they had seen and participated in real combat, especially since the sunburst was upgraded with a new tiny ray of whatever metal you were advanced for every group of 3 awards. I honestly stopped wearing mine, because after 60 or so honorable action awards with rays starting from Copper, the thing started looking positively gaudy.
“Third Class Petty Officer Gabrielle Roisin Reynard. The Crow is not a sports team, but I am pretty sure if it was, you and First Class Petty Officer Dienne-Lar would probably have won the MVP awards for this raid. You obviously gained your first honorable action star. In addition, unlike some people…” she mock-glared at Dienne, “You also performed your droner pilot duties in addition to personally participating in close-quarters combat with the enemy in order to help relieve your fellow raiders through all three raid grounds.”
The whole group gave a quick cheer, causing Gabrielle to blush fiercely before Taera shushed the raid and continued. “Your novel and incredibly rapid use of available resources to help keep your team alive and healthy, as well as your willingness to personally fight and back up petty officer Casparov in the performance of her duties as a corpsman, at great personal risk, sets an example of exactly the kind of courage, responsibility, leadership, and skill that the Crow is renowned for.”
“As a result, after a bare few weeks onboard, the captain has decided to frock you to second class. Since, somehow, you found the time to already complete your rating’s prerequisites successfully, Fleet has approved the promotion and waived the time-in-rate requirements. Congratulations on that, as well as your personal advancement to copper one. Good job, sailor.”
“In addition, The Crow has officially awarded you the Valor third rank award, one of the highest awards that the Valkyries and Captain Timur are permitted to award without review. The Valor second rank has been submitted to the fleet for approval, with the results pending, and in addition, your personal awards have been expanded to a full share of the Kalisti rift’s recovered resources.”
The actual raid team was grinning and trying to pat her on the back or arm, but some of the support crew, whose crew share was technically impacted by the award, were muttering darkly before Dirk, of all people, noticed and started shouting.
“Hey! Dumbasses!”
Oddly, the muttering and congratulations subsided, and even Taera was paying attention from between Murphy and me at the front of the mess.
“Look! I get it. She looks like a holostar pinup and is probably in half the crew’s spank bank by now, but look, she’s a total drone geek, and might as well be a dwarf!”
One of the dwarven female engineers at the back guffawed and then muttered “She’s in my Jane brain now, anyway.”
Dirk coughed, “Yeah, anyway! You know damned well what a drone geek’s gonna do with a full share. She’s probably gonna have a good meal, buy a pretty dress, and then blow all the rest on droner toys that will make the NEXT raid safer and even more productive. So if you got a problem with her getting a full share, you can take it up with ME on the training decks and we can straighten a few things out!” he yelled, curling up his fists.
I coughed loudly and decided that Dirk’s surprising show of leadership deserved backup. He had a problem with authority and a serious problem knowing when to keep his mouth shut, but his insight was sound, and I could see him being a wildly successful party leader someday. It helped that his affinities, all three of which were body… Physical, ranged, and focus, were the absolute pinnacle for a melee combatant or anchor.
“For those of you who might complain, Dirk’s unexpected outburst is NOT insubordination, even though in the future he might wish to restrict his use of the term ‘dumbasses’ in public speaking. To put a finer point on it, I agree completely with Lance Corporal Steel’s assessment, and to those who feel they can successfully challenge his judgment in this case, I would be happy to discuss it more in-depth in the Grav Gym at two point five gees. I am certain we can come to some sort of agreement without sending it up the chain of command.”
I saw Dirk’s current romantic contact, Lindsay, slap him on the back hard and laugh, muttering, “Good job, Manboobs.” I had no idea what that was about, but I also noticed that Gabrielle seemed to have vanished.