Rachel raged in her country estate. Over the last month her world had been turned upside down. The treasury secretary, upon universal votes from the internet as a whole overturned the entire Committee save Professor Montague and General Paxton, the only two who voted against warning the Nal’Shiar. That betrayal hurt the most, Paxton had been her loyal soldier for nearly a billion years, to think he went behind her back on this!
A window with an old fashioned telephone appeared before her as she stalked back and forth, she pressed the floating icon and a not so savory character appeared before her. “Well Damian, what have you found?”
The roguish man before her did not blink before responding, “The Professor, Simon and Nora all three have left their registered systems, and destroyed anything of value as they left. General Paxton is located deep within the Nexus at Kaitaan, a military instillation that would take a million ships to break into. The rest of the FC crew were unaware of Nora and Simons plans. All of your targets have gone to ground and left no trace as to where.”
Rachel stopped pacing and turned back to the screen, “With the amount of coin I’m paying you I expect you to give me some results, you mean they’ve all just vanished? How is that possible?”
Damian shrugged, “These were some of the brightest minds in the universe, they’ve had millennia to prepare for something like this. But I do have something, a spy within the Terran guard gave me a bit of information.”
Rachel brought a cruel smile to her face, “And what did this spy tell you?”
Damian smiled back, but no humor showed on his face, “The coordinates to the rendezvous point for the rescue fleet.”
Rachel received a tight-band message containing the coordinates. “Very good Damian, now be a good boy and reach out to those nefarious friends of yours. Tell them to name their price in coin, and I will pay it for the head of that gods damn Empress.”
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Nora stood in the Imperial garden, it looked like a rock garden in ancient Japan. The Empress dismissed her assistants and made her way over to the small pond with what appeared to be similar to Koi, but purple and with two tails. The Empress looked down to the Koi, “We’ve transported our seed and genetic banks aboard a liberty ship, Adam states he can rebuild them with just the genetic code. It’s good to know not everything will be lost.”
Nora nodded, “How about the transport of your civilian population?”
The Empress sighed as she put her hands on the wooden railing around the pond, “Not as well as I’d like. Don’t get me wrong, Adam is doing a phenomenal job aiding our automated processes, but we’re just not building ships fast enough.”
Nora looked back to the pond, “The first liberty ships have been at the rendezvous point for two weeks now with thousands more in route, we’re doing all we can at the moment. We still have three more weeks until the Jennifer fleet arrives.”
The Empress turned around and put her back to the railing and looked up at the blue sky. “Twenty one more days give or take, and during that time the royal shipyards can produce maybe a thousand liberty ships a day with Adams help. We won’t even get a billion off world before they arrive. The colonial shipyards are far less advanced, they’re making less than a dozen a day.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Nora sighed at this, “How is the population handling it?”
Issan laughed, but with no mirth behind it, “One colony is in open rebellion, a few cities on Enub had to be put under marshal law. People are scared, and there isn’t a goddess damn thing I can do about it. I will go down in history as the Empress who lost our home world.”
Nora looked over to the Empress, “Now is not the time to worry about legacy. Now is the time to save who we can and then plan for the future.”
The Empress shrugged, “How can I plan for the future if I don’t even know where we are going to go.”
Nora turned and a new figure walked into the garden. This surprised the Empress, this was someone she had never met but somehow was in her garden. “Empress Issan’Shiar III, I would like to introduce you to Adam.”
The Empress held back internal shock, “It is an honor to meet you Adam, I have heard much about you, and thank you for handling construction after Simon took over your fleets.”
Adam bowed with one hand to his chest before the Empress, “I am fortunate that Nora brought the probe to the palace where she could build me a body to inhabit here. I come today to show you where your people will settle.
He opened his palm and a hologram of a world floated above it. It was similar to Enub, but the landmasses were different. “This world was built inside Midean as a twin to ancient Earth, it was never seeded with life, mainly because I gave up on the project and spent the last eon living a more simple life, but now it has a use. Once your seed and genetic banks reach the rescue fleet I will have them transmit their genetic content and I will seed this world with it.”
The hologram zoomed in to a smaller continent and by the coast it showed what looked to be the Imperial Palace in which they now stood. It was surrounded by a sprawling city that spread most of the way up the coastline. “This will be New Aer’Silar, the new capital of the Nal’Shiar home world.”
The Empress looked up to Adam, “You can do this? Prepare a new world for us?”
Adam closed his hand and the hologram disappeared, “I have already done this, I need only the samples to finish the world to meet your needs.”
The Empress looked to Adam with teary eyes, “You would do all this for me? For my people, asking nothing in return?”
Adam nodded, “The continuation of the Jennifers is my fault, all of this is my fault, I wasn’t vigilant enough in their destruction. I will pay my penance for my failure by doing everything in my power to end this new threat, and protect your people.”
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Nigel hummed happily, now that the Committee had been overturned and Professor Montague now resided over it from an unknown location he was free to come and go between Enub and anywhere else he chose. Today he walked the model guilds version of the Unwavering Message. It was quite good, he tapped his cane as he walked through the corridors and noted the pitch was just right.
He had made up his mind, he would build a modern version of the Unwavering Message, a retro-modern version in fact, one with all the modern conveniences ships had today. He wondered if he reached out to Simon if he could give him the plates for how to make Warsteel. It was worth a try anyways. He disconnected from the body the model guild left aboard the vessel for visitors and appeared in his study.
He noticed for the first time he had a message, but the sender was blank, as was the email address. There was no subject line either, which was impossible, this must be a scam email that somehow was clever enough to get through his filters. He attempted to delete it but it would not go in the trash can.
He then scanned it with every virus and trojan scanner he could find and it revealed nothing. As a last resort he put it in a sandbox completely separate and air-gapped from his system and opened it with a drone and viewed it from an external camera. It was a bit much, but go big or go home, right?
The message contents stated only coordinates, followed by the letter “M” in a flourish. Nigel sat back in his chair and smiled, “Ah Professor, what are you getting me into now? Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be interesting.”