The flag bridge was all but silent, and not for a lack of people. The lights had switched to crimson red in preparation for combat, illuminating dozens of sailors and officers hunched over consoles and holotables with absolute focus.

“Time to dash, fifteen seconds.” Commander Michael Smith reported.

James didn’t need reminding: his eyes hadn’t left the holographic battlescreen for minutes. At the center of his focus were seven red-tinted ship signatures on an intercept course with the planet Polaris. Four warships and three ‘troop transports’ , their drive cones turned towards the planet as they deccelerated.

Steadily approaching them were over sixty green-tinted arrows. Missiles, yet not quite. Instead of racing to meet their targets, dodging and weaving and lighting up their prey with active sensors, they flew through the void with their drives ‘cold’.

“Ten seconds.”

The missiles were poised to activate at any moment. A single sub-millisecond pulse of encyrpted orders received via wisker-laser would turn the ‘space debris’ into advanced ship-killing implements.

Their target was passing through an imaginary sphere measuring some fifty thousand kilometers, inside of which the enemy’s counter-missiles would prove all but ineffective even with automated fire-control systems capable of detecting and firing at a threat in less than a second.

“Orders away. Five seconds.”

Automated systems sent the last order those missiles would ever read before accomplishing the goal they were built for.

The missiles wouldn’t receive it immediately, but the travel time of the attack order had been accounted. Even the greenest lieutenant in the youngest navy knew to account for the speed of light during communications between any two objects in space.

Whether that was a patrol boat and an illicit mining vessel, or a two hundred and fifty kiloton battlecruiser and its missiles.

“Missiles gone bulldog, confirmed.” Smith’s voice remained cold and unfeeling, even as hundreds of tons of missile sprinted towards their targets

The enemy’s automated systems responded almost immediately; a missile’s drive plume was visible on infrared scanners from light seconds away. Though James couldn’t see the enemy ships, he could imagine crews and automated systems scrambling to defend against the ambush. Laser clustersemptied their power banks, point defense cannons unleashed storms of kinetic penetrators and counter-missiles would stream out of launchers in a futile attempt to defend the convoy’s core.

The battlescreen shifted as sensor data streamed in from the carnage light seconds away. Two of the ‘troop transports’ were broadcasting as ‘destroyed’ alongside one of the enemy’s frigates, while the flagship —ANS Whitefang— had been ‘hit’ in its propulsion systems and had cut its acceleration by two thirds.

“Good hits on all targets.” Smith noted.

“We still have live targets. Have the squadron go to full acceleration and set electronic warfare systems to ship defense. Let’s not get too haughty.”

The battle was all but won, but they still had a single ‘troop transport’ to eliminate and the enemy’s firepower remained significant. It would be some until the opposing force’s alerted defense systems could be pummeled into dust by missile and kinetic volleys.

+++

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a gathering of such size, hmm?” Katrina mused as she looked ‘out’ towards the view-screen, holding a glass of polarii wine.

“A bit more than a year, yes.” James agreed, cutting into a juicy ribeye steak with gusto.

The pair of them sat alone, their table noticeably separated from the rest. The restaurant, one of the first businesses jointly owned by akritan and polarii citizens, was filled with high-ranking officers, business executives and intellectuals from both polities that used the latest event to socialize with each other.

“Hungry much, are we?” She chuckled with a look of amazement as the half-kilo steak vanished in minutes.

“I’m always hungry after success, and this was a big one. For the both of us, and our people.” He replied, discretely gesturing to the tables shared by officers of the akritan and polarii navies, as well as the marine corps and army.

And what a success it had been.

The Akritan Dynasty had been at war for a decade; the unexpected peace could quickly dull an edge honed over half a generation of constant battle, and ‘the future’ looked no more peaceful than the Imperium they’d been exiled from a year ago.

Constant exercises, including the this very last one, had kept the tens of thousands of men and women of the akritan navy —as well as its defense industries— from forgetting the hard-fought lessons of war.

As for the Polarii State, the recent exercises has served as the biggest operation since the founding of its navy some four months ago with the delivery of two Reliance-class patrol boats from Kim Industries’ mobile shipyard.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

While its ratings, officers and marines had received thorough training by akritan servicemen, never before had entire crews and ships of the nascent navy fought together. Though I Squadron, as its first unit, had served a minor role, the realistic exercise enviroment had pointed out a number of unpolished areas and kinks that needed to be hammered out.

“It’s about to be a bigger one for your industry.” Katrina smiled, sliding a tablet over to his side of the table.

James put down his cutlery and picked it up with some measure of curiosity; it didn’t take long for his suspicions to be confirmed.

“Two more ships?”

Katrina shrugged. “The simple act of not needing to back down in the face of predatory merchants and ask for a fair price has done wonders for the economy. And with our nascent industrial base absorbing less people than the mining sector…the military will be a good employer. The state budget can support it; it’s going to take a lot more to dent the surplus we’ve gained in the last year.”

It didn’t take a math genius to work the numbers, and it certainly didn’t take a politician to realize that unemployment was a bad thing for society. Each patrol boat needed one hundred and fifty sailors and a third as many marines while in space. While docked, maintenance required skilled workers by the hundred as well as spare parts that had to be built somewhere.

And while a lot of the technical knowledge was still in akritan hands, the dynasty could hardly spare the manpower to repair another nation’s warships.

“The Ministry of Defense has run the numbers. Each patrol boat will employ two hundred servicemen and as many civilian contractors -polarii citizens-. That’s point-two percent of the population, per ship. And the state is paying good money for both servicemen and contractors.”

“You want to build them in Polaris orbit?” James noted as he read through the proposal. “I’m not against the transfer of technology and industrial know-how, but it’s going to cut into the profits of my ship-builders. Those boats might be cheap compared to a cruiser, but they are still worth thirty million marks a piece. You know that’s going to put a dent in my economy.”

“But I also know you want to put those shipyards to better use.” Katrina countered. “And I’m sure Kim Industries would rather work on a new batch of destroyers rather than a couple of system-locked patrol boats. They are worth…what, half a billion marks a piece?”

“Fair enough.” James shrugged, sliding the tablet back to her. “You’ll have to send some negotiators to Kim Industries, officially, to change the current terms of the agreement. I believe they’ll agree, though they will want a cut of whatever new company you’re planning to set up.”

“That’s quite alright, Your Grace.” Katrina smirked, picking up her wine glass once more. “A toast, to our continued friendship.”

“To friendship.”

+++

For a leader, there is no greater feeling than watching something being built. Be it a mayor overlooking a newly constructed bridge across a river or an emperor witnessing the assembly of an orbital ring, the feeling was one and the same.

It was that same feeling that filled James’ veins as he stepped into the crisp evening air of Domusec and took a deep breath. The planet’s climate was cold, but not too cold for human habitation. Sensor data showed Cradle Valley experienced highs of twenty degrees C in the summer and lows of minus five in the winter, with a mean temperature of twelve.

For most of the colonists, who hailed from the moon of Jask, the mere ability to breath fresh air and move at standard gravity without needing air recyclers and grav plating was luxury enough. A little cold would hardly deter such a hardy, loyal folk.

“Marvelous.” He whispered, taking in the sights around the military spaceport some distance away from Cradleton.

In only eleven months, the air of Cradle Valley had gone from just four percent oxygen to twenty-two point five. In another two weeks, the electrolysis plant’s job would be complete and it would be broken up and transferred to other isolated areas.

Of course, artificial means weren’t the only ways oxygen content was increasing. The few oceans that were liquid had been seeded with enhanced cyanobacteria and iron oxide, while a select few areas had seen the introduction of bacteria and hardy plant species. Cradle Valley had, of course, been one of them. The enormous valley was slowly turning green with the help of hardy grasses, moss and the relevant bacteria.

“Welcome to Domusec, Your Grace!” Alfonso Grey, they chief of terraforming operations, shouted through the rumbling of the shuttle’s atmospheric engines.

The two men quickly approached each other, with the chief bowing lightly. “I hope your trip was smooth.”

“It was.” James nodded. “We’re lucky to have skilled pilots.”

“I agree, though not for the reason you may think.” Chief Grey replied, gesturing to a waiting convoy of wheeled vehicles. Simple but hardy and running on hydrocarbons synthesized from the excess hydrogen of the hydrolysis plant, the four-by-fours had become the workhorse of the nascent colony.

The gathering quickly got into the convoy, which sped away towards the city.

“Do tell.”

“Terraforming is about collecting data just as much as acting on it. Some of the most important data in our collection, renewed every week, is that of major storms. Your chief of staff has been kind enough to loan several pilots experienced with atmospheric flight under rough conditions to form a surveillance team.”

‘So that’s where those marine pilots went…’ James realized, nodding along. “So how is it going? The terraforming, of course.”

“Smoothly.” Grey replied with a satisfied smile. “We’re preparing sites outside the valley for hydrolysis plants, which thanks to our experience with Plant One will be cheaper, more efficient and require less manpower to operate. As for the organic side, we’re conducting weekly flights -once again thanks to those pilots from the marine corps- seeding the seas and lands with bacteria that can survive in the harsh conditions and pave the way for more complex organisms.”

“I see you’re already a step ahead inside the valley’s bounds.” James noted, gazing outside the window to the patches of grass and shrubbery.

“But of course. We’ve introduced several species of grass, shrubs, moss as well as the insects that depend on them.”

“Insects? So we’ve reached the level of fauna?” James asked in amazement, only to realize he sounded excited about the presence of bugs. The thought brought an unexpected smile to his lips.

“It is a big milestone.” Grey said. “We’re introducing a variety of arthropods such as ants, spiders and grasshoppers, as well as bees and dragonflies.”

At the mention of locusts, James frowned. “And how will they be controlled, Chief? I do hope you have a plan to prevent entire swarms from growing and consuming all the grass.”

“Rest assured, Your Grace, we have poured a not-insignificant number of our expertise into the matter; there was a plan in place before we even got to cultivating the first eggs in orbit.” The veteran terraformist chuckled. “Grasshoppers will actually serve as a primary feeding source for the first avian and terrestrial animals we will be introducing, such as blue jays, and turtles.”

“I see…keep me apprised of any developments on a weekly basis.”

The conversation continued for quite some time, the two men discussing plans within plans as to developing their new home.