->P] Sorry about that, Tessa. I’m not even sure if you’re interested in actually serving in the Navy instead of what we had previously arranged.[<-
->T] I certainly wasn’t expecting it, but I’m considering it as a way to establish in the minds of our citizens that I am separate from you. Captain Royce seems a good person, and should do well in the police keeping environment that we are heading toward. If we are exposed to another combat action with similar armament, we will have difficulty.[<-
->P] We should have a few months before that becomes an imminent threat. I will have to find a way to fund the changes we need to make to defend Earth in the meantime. Part of that plan has both of us cranking out runes and buying another monitoring network.[<-
->T]You should talk to Katie about that. She may have distanced herself from government, but she’s still unparalleled and Magitec integration in the Empire.[<-
Ugh, I’m definitely going to put that conversation off until later. Thinking of thinks I’ve been putting off. I should check my messages after I check in on Francesca and my kid.
->P] Hey honey, how has your trip to Summer Station been?[<-
->Z] Auntie Jenna is teaching me to fight! [<-
->P] I bet you pressured her the minute after I dropped you off. You know the rules though, you need to be tier 1 or mid Novice in a weapon skill to even think about fighting with naked blades or with wild animals. [<-
->Z] Momma! How will I help with the war if I don’t fight things!?[<-
Oh, Andromeda, my adorable little experiment is so bloodthirsty. ->P] Remember to spend time on your Aether training too baby. I should be back in a few days [<-
->Z] Boo. You’re always so busy. [<-
Crap. There’s no way to respond to that. I miss her too, bit how long can I let this threat linger? You know what? This thing with Galilei and the Herrat shouldn’t take that long, and I gave the Herrat Home world 72hrs to evacuate, I might have time? Who am I kidding, I just jinxed myself.
/Alaris, is there anything else with the fleet I should be apprised of?/
\Many things could use your attention, however, some items could be handled by their ship captains instead of the Empress. Setting new expectations to handle issues at a lower level would be helpful for future progress.\
/Did you just accuse me of being a helicopter Empress?/
\If the math checks . . .\
/Ugh, you’re as bad as Tessa. Just, let me know what the way forward is with Titania. If there’s some kind of Magitech procedure to fix or improve her state, please don’t hesitate to bring it forward./
\I will be searching the Matrix and querying Miss O’Connell for solutions that are best or her.\
/Thanks, Alaris. You don’t happen to have time for some life advice?/
\I am ill equipped to offer you advice, Admiral. I will be transitioning security protocols unless you have anything further?\
I click a negative response and brood. I did this to myself, honestly. Alienated Katie, by entertaining her proclivities for myself. Mel is a black hole of comms and emotions for the same reason. Jenna took a step back because she felt like a tug of war rope between Katie and me, and my ex-wife’s former girlfriend is my healthiest “bestie” relationship outside of a sentient merger of the Matrix’s AI and my personality. I kinda miss the flirty bodyguard that asked me to assign her a frontier sheriff position.
“Admiral, Acting Ship Leader Bashir here, The Herrati War Council has sacked the sub-leader that talked with you and would like to begin negotiations. They are insisting that a representative from each ship be present.”
They’re going to blow up a ship with us on it. “Bashir, please convey that we would be delighted to have such a conversation with all appropriate diplomatic curtesy.”
I task one of my Parallel minds to pinpoint the location of the transmission with Alaris’ help. They reply that it could take several hours, so I don’t focus on it. Instead, I teleport to the Aggression and take a few stumbling steps toward Bashir.
“Admiral, I would hate to risk retaliation by not informing you that the Council will likely try to sabotage our efforts for a resolution.”
“Don’t worry, acting Ship Leader, I will hold our agreement if your leadership decides to forego the benefits of diplomacy.” Then again, if they can blow up the ship remotely I won’t be able to save anyone aboard.
/Aggression, is there any way to have this conversation on my shuttle while making it seem like We’re aboard?/
\With the life-support systems having an integral monitoring system, it will likely be more difficult than we have time for, however, it would be trivial to spoof the logged location of each person if they are still within the ship.\
“Bashir, if anyone has an in-tact ballistic breaching vessel, I need it to collect the ‘representatives’, someone who looks imposing but isn’t actually in charge, and bring them aboard our shuttle bay. You may attend or send a representative if you wish.”
“I’ll be present, I think,” she volunteers as she furiously types on her control sphere.
“In the mean time, I’m going to break some shit. Have Agressor contact me when they arrive.” She nods and pings my comms. Huh, apparently that’s universal.
/Aggressor, please show me the locations of long-range communications arrays aboard all Herrat vessels./
\I should warn you, if at least one ship in the fleet does not receive the ping from Council Control, mutiny protocol will be enabled on the entire fleet.\
/Does Aggressor have extra locations due to being the acting flag ship?/
\Yes, an override transponder with both long and short-range capability is unique in the fleet sent to Astoria’s systems.\
/Then we have a plan, Aggressor, we have a plan./ A feral smile slides ups my jagged teeth.
***
“W-War Leader Fazula, It’s an honor for you entertain this conference. T-this is the Empress of the Astorian Empire.” The poor Herrat communicator cum Ship Leader stutters.
“Ship Leader Bashir says that you Insisted on meeting all of us at the same time, War Leader. Here we are. Now, can we discuss a cessation of Hostilities?”
“Indeed.” He breaths deeply and paws at his leonine beard. “Bring me Astoria’s head and you’ll be promoted to the recently vacated Sub-Leader of the Frontier position that recently opened.”
I look up and around at the four cats that surround the chair, noticing their nervous glances between me and the projection of Fazula. “Well, if we’re going to be nasty Fuz-man, my shields are more capable than anything they were allowed to bring to this meeting.” I let my predatory grin shine as I turn my head back to the projection. “Every time I have dealt with your race in good faith, duplicitous back-stabbing has greeted me at every turn. Your diplomatic envoy attempted to assassinate me, while you had already launched your little slaving fleet before confirming anything from that meeting.
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“The more I think about it, The Herrati can simply not be trusted to deal in good faith, or honorably. As I have personally suffered and so have my people for your treachery, I declare a vengeance on your home world.”
The War leader laughs, at length. “We had no intention of ending this conflict prematurely, but a vengeance on a whole planet? That’s preposterous!”
“Hmm, you may have a point. I amend my vengeance to 90% of the current residents, in case some of you are actually intelligent.” He roars with laughter again.
/Alaris, have you traced the signal?/
\Yes, Admiral, it is quite far away, but the coordinates and star maps are being uploaded to your tech prosthesis.\
As one of my parallel minds scans the information, I want to transposition to his location and murder the proud asshole. However, I don’t want to alert them to my enhanced teleportation capabilities before they have no chance to escape. This has escalated from a war to an extermination, and my preferred method is fire.
I immediately teleport the boarding vessel into space, using a significant portion of my available Aether, and wait for the inevitable explosions to follow. A machine space explodes with a hull breach, spewing gas and parts into space.
“Admiral, the life support systems have been terminated. Isolation of other systems has been mostly successful. Manual Navigation and Propulsion required.”
“All Available Herrat craft, report to evac portals on the Aggressor. Crew of the Aggressor, don emergency depressurization equipment and standby for rescue slash re-assignment.” I say through the ship’s intercom.
“Admiral, while we don’t wear much in the way of armor or protective clothing aboard our own vessels, our jewelry is equipped to provide habitat shields for up to 15 minutes. We also have compartments that we can manually regulate. The massive breach through the ship will likely prevent some from reaching safety, so I will direct the rescues there?”
“I leave the fleet in your care, Leader Bashir. I warn against moving shuttles outside of the immediate area of the fleet. The other fleet’s leaders are a bit jumpy right now.”
“What’s to stop us from killing you like the War Leader said?” Mutineer Bob, or whatever cat name he has, asks.
“First, the War Leader just tried to murder all of you and two . . .” I put my hand on his shoulder and grin in his face, “I’m dangerous.” I grin widely before teleporting him into space in front of the view screen. “If any of you think you are good enough to keep me from touching you in this boarding vessel, have at it.” Jokes on them, I don’t need to even touch them.
Bashir doesn’t even look up from her tablet, while the two other Leaders look between me and the panicking Herrat flailing in space and back away.
“Are you going to bring him back in Admiral?” Bashir asks.
“Nope. But I won’t stop any of you that want to. Out of curiosity, what was his preference for the aftermath?”
“Ship, even if non-warp capable.”
“Oof, that’s a choice. But at least he doesn’t want to be in charge of a new colony. How about you Bashir?”
She smirks at me. “I will reserve my statement until I collate the personnel survey. Leader’s whim.”
“Hah, you’re already getting the hang of it. I’m going back to the Bridge, or whatever you call it to arrange some things.” I blip back to the bridge of the Aggressor and ask them to bring up system statuses.
The ship still has main power and their aether converter is still in tact, though offline, as the conduits I cut and the hole I put through the middle eliminated the loads connected to the device so it shut down.
/Alaris, can I get a math check? Will my portable Warp array be able to transport a cruiser? My math says I can, but just barely./
\Your wireless power relays are the limiting factors. Charging each rune will work, but the Synch and Balance power transmitters are not sturdy enough to support the load for more than a few seconds.\
/Ah, warping is no problem, warping precisely where I want to go is iffy. Better plan for a Mercy-orbit distance just in case. Thanks Alaris./
\Of course. Unless you need us to stick around, Captain Royce wishes to return to a Custom’s orbit and change out personnel and provisions.\
/Thanks for checking, but yes, you are cleared to work toward your next mission. Commodore Casey is not authorized to commandeer a shuttle for personal use./
She transmits her little electronic laugh before signing off. Alright, time to set up the drone runes on the nose of the ship and arrange rudimentary propulsion. Worse come, I can carve out some vortex runes and reconnect the aether converter via the wireless Magitech relays that Katie builds or me. Access to goods at a moments notice is a keen perk of being Empress.
Hours later, Galilei finally arrives and the old fabrication bay is prepared to receive those with a colony preference. I was worried that the few hundred they would need to start a colony wouldn’t sign up, but four fifths of the remaining Herrat liked the idea better than drifting through space forever.
I let the remaining folks pick a ship that wasn’t the Agressor or the Vengeance, which left them two choices.
“What some of us want a separate ship from that asshole?” I snort at the large young cat with a chip on his shoulder. Don’t blame him though, the guy I spaced is leading the ship sentence crew.
/Agressor, what’s the minimum crew for the ships remaining?/
\Can be done with the right twelve people, but thirty is briefed in emergency contingencies.\
“Do those number equal thirty or more?” He looks around at various Herrat and shares a few nods. “Okay, you guys can have the other ship then.”
“What?!” and “That was an option?” can be heard from other people on Asshole’s side of the fence. I can’t help but chuckle at that.
“Alright, Leader Bashir, Rear Admiral Jessup, please arrange transferring stores from the other Herrat ships, and the Galilei to the two remaining Herrat ships. Jessup, keep enough for a week so we can fill you up to a multi-week transit to the Kepler system.”
“Kepler? I did want to see that system. Will you be able to meet us when we get there?”
“Yes, Jessup. I’ll even bring my wallet.” He beams at that and starts chatting orders into his mic.
By the time the stores have been transferred, I’ve disabled and removed their jury rigged warp systems and transferred control to the leaders of each group to their respective ships.
“Okay gents, you have food, Matrix access extends this farther than you can travel from here in a lifetime, so you should be set.”
“I checked the interface and the loadout with Affliction, and there are no loaded charts for this sector, nor do we have shuttles to go planetside if we do find a habitable one.”
“Correct. I said from the get go that no one gets atmosphere to space transition capable vehicles. The closest marked space according to the Matrix is the Astorian Empire one hundred light years away. I’ll not give further concessions to my enemies.”
“Empress, are we also your enemies?” Bashir asks.
“Hmm, good question.” Jessup stops talking and looks over to me as well. “More like prisoners of war. What that means to me is that you will be under the Empire’s care but left to manage yourselves. After 100 years, or a petition through the Council of Governors to become citizens via a two thirds majority, whichever is sooner, you will have all rights afforded to you as a citizen of the Empire; and all travel, trade, and industry restrictions will be lifted. That being said, you will be entitled to daily sustenance and shelter while under my care, with limited Exchange access.”
“That is better treatment than I expected. I will not thank you for he position you are putting us in, but your mercy and support is appreciated.” I nod at the sentiment I can appreciate. “We will see you when we arrive at our new home then.” She says, before turning back toward the waiting shuttle back toward Galilei.
“Do we get the same stipulations for citizenship?”
“No. If by chance you make it to my Empire’s space, I may reconsider calling you enemies. In the meantime, if you ever fire on one of my ships again, I will disassemble you all, piece by piece, so that I may literally make my next throne from the corpses of my enemies.” I snarl. “And because you insist on asking ungracious questions. You can find your own way back to your ship.
I blip back to Aggressor and initiate my portable warp array. As the array nears 100% I force them to sync and balance just before the warp opens and it quickly covers the ship as I can see one of the runes flare as it burns out. The ship is dumped out of the hole in space and I quickly check that the whole ship made it. We did, but now it seems we are on a collision course with Mercy.
“Aggressor, what’s our delta with the moon?”
“Forty meters per second, fifteen degree angle of impact.”
“Okay, well that would not ruin this ship completely. Is your mainframe impact hardened?”
“Yes, all of my data is solid-state”
“Great! Then I don’t have to use the liquid gasses to explode the engines off the ship in a fiery mass exchange in order to slow the ship down.”
“Somehow, I doubt you’re that reckless.”
“I used antimatter explosions to propel the Galilei five thousand lightyears in one go.”
“The likelihood of your surviving that is staggeringly small. Yet here you are, crashing me into a moon.”
“Aggressively Parking. It is my moon after all. Anyway, good luck. My shipyard chief will be along to check on you in a few days. I have to do the same thing to Vengeance soon.”
I blip to my shuttle and blip with it outside and scream in delight as I punch the acceleration gage to 20, barely noticing a quake in my Aether flow. Take that people with bodies that pump fully corporeal fluids. It does make my eyes and head ache, however as the fluids in those places shift.
In a few hours I find myself leaping out of the fighter that I parked less aggressively at Summer Station, anxious to see my baby Zia.