When most of the girls were preparing themselves for already lost battle, Fa'enni representatives decided they will stay in their Navy uniforms.

Even Lurana decided against a dress but Queen very quickly told her to dress up as the woman must present herself and personally took her away.

"Your appearance is a weapon as well." Queen cited one the of pearls of wisdom of Lord Richards.

Thuel, Johan, Riglu, and Serfan were discussing their maneuvers and Ra'volta manifested. His avatar face was similar in appearance to Thuel's but he had cold icy blue eyes which hued and left short blue lines in the air as he moved. Instead of a Fa'enni wing, he had gigantic raven wings or more like the angel wings but with pitch black feathers and was wearing impressive armor of clearly Human origins but finished in the Fa'enni manner. His armor was as black as the hull of the ship with gold and sapphire embroilments.

However, he don't looked gloomy or like a shadow but instead shone like a Fa'enni illuminated by swirls of gold and silver glitter dancing around him. At his side was a black power sword of unknown pattern- a perfect mix of what would Fa'enni create from Human technology and Fa'enni designs, but without any fantastic shapes or over ornamentation. Very elegant, simple in shape, and deadly.

Ra'volta's avatar was a personification mix of Human-Fa'enni styles which perfectly reflected the mighty dreadnought he was crewing.

"We still need more adjustments in the main weapon array." Thuel stated the obvious.

"Yes, my Prince but we need more live-fire tests to fully tune turrets." replayed with equal obvious Riglu. They all laughed.

"Ra'volta tell me how you fell?" asked Johan.

AI replayed after a brief while. "This ship is nothing like any other ships I tried at simulations. I feel much freer in it. We have moved long 1km railguns into turrets. The incorporation of the Fa'enni coil technology into Human coil technology was a huge success. The 250m long cannons have better parameters than standard railgun. In freed space, we could put more reactors which greatly improved critical systems. With 25% more power installed than the Retribution class and 35% more than the Valiant class, this ship can not only outmaneuver them but also will win in any artillery duel. We need adjustments not only in the weapon system Sir. My sensors are working only at 70% nominal and basic deflectors charge only 45%. I can't detect where the problem lay. However, shields are working in 100% nominal."

Serfan nodded but he already was making notes and was noticing the crew about Ra'volta's observations and his ideas where a fault may lay. His family was involved in the project and Serfan dedicated many hours to understanding its systems.

Thuel was curious.

"Ra'volta I never asked you before but how did you get involved in this project?"

"As you know Captain by decree of the Makeana Council and the Makeana Sector Command only the best can crew Dashu'uns. I was a participant in the exam and scored the best. Instead of being allowed to crew Dashu'un I was presented with one more test, much more complicated, and passed it as well. Then I received an invitation to the Ethosh system sent by Admiral Wrath himself. I jumped in the first ship heading there and here I am. I totally didn't expect that. You can say I'm also the exceptional cadet as all of you."

"I thought so when we meet you. So do you expected your first ship to be like this?"

"Never. Dashu'un class is a marvel of engineering but Ra'volta is a few classes better. I can't wait until we finish all the work." All smiled, they are all excited what will happen.

Thuel noticed his father and Admiral Makosso were heading their way. They all stand at attention and saluted the Admiral.

"At ease!" ordered Admiral with a grin. "I like your new toy. Seems like Fa'enni wants very quickly to create their own Navy. However, I told this Prince to your Father and I will repeat to Queen. I'm sad you didn't brought earlier plans for this mean bastard! Just look at him. Isn't he beautiful?"

Thuel smiled and looked through a fake window, a life transmission from outside visual sensors displayed around the entire recreation deck of Dauntless to make it feel like they have an open space void around them.

"On our defense sir we also didn't know it existed before. It's been only one month since Admiral Wrath told us about its existence, sir."

"I wonder what else you are hiding there. But I won't gonna lie. This ship will be a great addition to the Commonwealth Fleet. Also, I had to upset you. We are now upgrading Valiants and Retributions so you will fall between them with your performance specs. Or should you? I don't know if it's his peak performance or not. But your stealth profile is insane. My SIGINT lost you seven times during your approach and not even once made a good lock so you earned victory!"

They were all proud. Party started and Thuel saw his Mother, walking in with Lurna who after applying some care looked stunning.

With them came Anna Starfield to the big surprise of Johan who didn't expect her here. On the right side of his Mother was Luna, she was looking like the living light of the moon.

All men stopped whatever they were doing and even a few braver started walking toward her but she barely noticed anyone. She bowed to the Queen and walked over to Thuel, who offered her his arm. Judging by her wings she was very happy but anxious. She tilted her head toward him and whispered in his ear concerned.

"Thuel why everyone is looking at us?"

He just only then looked around. He was too busy talking with his friends to pay attention to the others around him. What he saw was puzzling. Some guests were visibly baffled, some angry. Johan and Anna came to them and Johan barely holding his laughter told them.

"I advise immediate evacuation, my Lord! Royal Guards are inbound in 10 seconds prepared for a hot landing and evacuation under fire! Run we will hold them but not for long!"

"Haha. Very funny. Do you know how annoying this is?"

"I didn't joked. Too much at least. Royal Guards are really on their way. Check it yourself."

Thuel looked at his friend with disbelief in his eyes but the Royal Guard Dropship from Raven Rock just landed in the main hangar and the Marines were already on their way here.

"What the...?" started Thuel but Anna interrupted him smiling.

"Ok, that's enough Johan! They are bringing a gift from the Ra-Nael Designers Society for Admiral Denis Makosso. It was a big secret and only Queen and King saw what was there."

After just a few minutes four marines came in and the emblem of the Royal Family which was embroidered on the left side of their dress uniforms informed anyone they are members of the Royal Guard Company. Two of them were carrying a quite big box made from Fa'enni plastic.

They stopped near Queen and King and saluted them and Admiral. The Captain of Guards signaled his marines and they prepared the box for opening.

"Grand Admiral. Sir! We were asked by the Fa'enni Designer Society from Ra-Nael to bring you this gift. They all wanted to thank you for your valuable and constructive criticism during your visit and hope to see you again soon Sir. They also hope you find their gift entertaining or at least pleasant."

Admiral Makosso remembered his visit there. He also remembered he yelled at how much some of their projects were overdone and too complicated to work in the field. He looked at the box and found the release button. When he pressed it, the box opened with a silent hiss.

Inside was a magnificent model of the Dashu'un in scale 1:20 and it was suspended in the air on antigrav with a miniature 3d projector that could display any background he only wished for. He checked with a neural interface and gasped in delight. One mental switch model transformed from stealth to combat configuration and could change its virtual course or hung in any position.

"It is magnificent! Thank them so much on my behalf. I will put it on display at an honorable spot."

Marines saluted and at the same time, two sailors entered the room to take this precious gift to safety and other two to show Marines for their party gift packs. Thuel was already thinking about who will be the best to ask for a such model for himself when he heard someone approaching them from the side.

"Excuse me Lord Thuel." Thuel and Luna turned toward the charming Human woman. She was the Commander of Terran Forces during their exercises if he remembers correctly. Thuel and Luna nodded with respect when she continued while curtsied slightly, lifting her dress by the sides.

"Im Cadett Commander Lady Elisabeth Windsor. I would like to welcome you properly in Sol System."

"Thank you, Lady Windsor. I'm most gracious for your welcome. Im Prince Thuel Raven and I looking forward to future classes we will be participating in."

Elisabeth felt the burning gaze of a dozen of girls and women. She didn't cared about them at all but she looked very carefully at the girl who was snuggled to the Prince. She just looked like she was born to be the Princess. She was a bit taller than Elisabeth.

Her majestic warm smile and otherwordly beauty of the Fa'enni were making her simply irresistible. But when she was standing near Prince they looked like fate itself wanted them to be together. Both of them looked absolutely fantastic. She wondered how she could overlooked her before. Fa'enni woman had on her finger a magnificent ring at which sight any known goldsmith would kneel and wept over its form, technique in which it was made, and its breathtaking perfection. She also noticed a delicate silver-like bracelet with a small Fa'enni Royal Family crest medallion.

That could mean she is the Envoy of the Queen herself or a very important person among Fa'enni. However, her implants couldn't find anything about her in databases and all Fa'enni delegation like most present at the party had all their ID hidden. Prince noticed her tasking look and misjudged it as an untold question.

"I'm sorry Lady Elisabeth for the late introduction but I would like to introduce Lady Luna Gina Rosi."

Luna bowed with grace and Elisabeth returned in kind. Elisabeth knew she don't have many chances in this battle. It looked like both women are equal in status. However, Luna beat in beauty any woman around. Even Queen Shanti couldn't match her. But everything in her posture and appearance made Elisabeth liked her. She smiled at her.

"My pleasure Lady Luna."

"Likewise Lady Elisabeth." Her voice was like the pure sound of a harp played by the maestro.

His Parents were joking with Admiral and drifted a bit away from them so Thuel smiled and being one with the highest status proposed. "We can drop all this formal manner since starting tomorrow we will once again be equal students."

She smiled. He was charming but she must focus on not making a fool of herself. She smiled at him. "If you insist Lord. I have plenty of questions and don't know where should I start. And since half of the room has this one question in mind and they bombard my communication implant with it. Then... If I may ask, what is your relationship with Lady Luna?"

Thuel proudly and as always without hesitation responded shattering the hearts of many girls who sighed towards him and boys who planned to ask out Luna. "Luna graciously agreed to be my Fiancee."

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Elisabeth wasn't surprised or even disappointed to her own big surprise. It was only natural they would be together. She truly smiled. "Thank you for this clarification. So after this brief heart-shattering moment, I want to ask you an even more personal question."

Luna and Thuel looked around the room and saw a lot of disappointed expressions. Back at home they almost get used to it but here it was even more noticeable. It took a long time for him to accept the fact that for everyone else he is just walking perfection. It was even harder for Luna who was a very shy person. But when she was with Thuel she could endure that.

"Even more personal? Can't promise I will be able to respond" He smiled nervously.

"Are you Captain of this battleship?" She asked with a big grin pointing at Ra'volta which majestaticly presented itself through a fake window.

"Yes. We are still not ready however with our prototype dreadnought." Thuel replayed with a soft relaxed smile.

"What do you mean? You have destroyed Terra's defenses!"

"Yes but only because we know exactly how it works. And we bet big time you will prepare the system for covert intrusion. Our plan was simple. We dropped in the Kuiper belt a few days ago and in total stealth moved toward Neptune."

"Neptune? That makes no sense! Neptune base would... Oooohhh."

"Indeed. The base would see us but your net was focused on relatively small targets and ignored big fast moving objects. Only this way you could receive max resolution output from the sensors."

"But still outer net should notice you."

"And they saw us. But we were actively jamming their transmission and after we changed course we jumped at a low FTL factor. We couldn't be normally detected so they only could tell you what you already knew that someone is messing around. We are much faster than normal dreadnoughts, only Union Hussars are faster, we are bigger than any known frigate or cruiser so the system couldn't identify us and wasted 0.75s. to conclude Sol is attacked by an unknown race or ship, then it needed 0.25s. to abandon classification and tried to lock system defenses on us. We used this 1 second to simply accelerate on optimal approach vector and cut off engines while our drones sent in the same time we were dropped in system destroyed your active sensors thus making locking near impossible."

"So you just used smoke and mirrors tactics?" she was speechless. Even taking under consideration she was absolutely not prepared for this ship but their tactics had to work. They truly are exceptional students.

"To some extent, you can say so. We also used two new types of drones. Virtu and Vrita type. Lurana, may you explain?"

Elisabeth smiled at Fa'enni girl with black hair with a mysterious blue hue and sky blue eyes with delicate gold glitter dancing within them. It was surreal to see a person with wings, Elisabeth only hoped she doesn't gaze too much. Prince Thuel's or Luna's wings were much bigger and when laying on their backs almost hidden. Her wings on other hand were lightly spread like she was ready to fly away on her blue and yellow wings. She welcomed her with a smile and Lurana bowed her head lightly.

"Virtu and Vrita are drones developed by my Father's team. I was helping with his work as practice for my school project and developped my personal interest in drones and their combat applications. As you know we Fa'enni are incapable of a direct fight. After the War of Salvation we changed... But maybe later about this. We like using many types of drones. While the AIs use them mostly as an extension of their sensors and proximity control systems Fa'enni uses them for indirect battle. You can argue that some types of Commonwealth drones are truly deadly but we improved your designs."

She rose her hand toward the screen at which two small objects rapidly were closing to Dauntless. Elisabeth was enchanted with her voice. She could listen her entire day. There was no looking down on them on others, unlike many humans she dealt with before during her life. Prince was a normal boy her age without any complexes or toxicity she was so used to see in high society. She feared she could never meet other souls like her. But here they stand. Lurana was excited to present her drones and Elisabeth found she can't wait to see them.

"Virtu and Vrita are names from our mythology. They were sister and brother, the benevolent spirits of the wind. They carried winds over the world and Vrita often danced with light gusts during rain. But one day Ra'volta- God of Destruction saw Vrita and he wanted her to dance only for him.

Virtu was often playing with the winds blowing from the sea away from his sister. One day when he returned home and couldn't find his sister, he started looking her across whole world. He learned from someone about his sister's kidnapping and begged the Dashu'un- Bringer of fire to allow him to use his powers to free his sister. Dashu'un agreed and Virtu with his flame left to save his sister."

When she finished this part of the story drones came close enough to be seen. One was slender and elegant clearly a very elaborate sensor drone but armed with a very efficient disruptor lance. Weapon hard to detect when used precisely and with enough power to be used in a fight with the smaller voidcrafts. The smaller drone also had jamming projectors so that's how they were able to cut her sensor net to pieces.

The second one was three times bigger. The size of the manned interceptor was armed with eight disruptor cannons and some energy weapons she never saw before.

"How story of siblings ended?" Elisabeth asked.

"Virtu after a long time finally managed to find Ra'volta's palace and his sister. He wanted to take her away while she was sleeping but the laughter of Ra'volta alerted him. When he was about to strike Ra'volta with Dashu'un fire Vrita woke up and covered Ra'volta with her own body. But Ra'volta saw Virtu and managed to throw him away. His strike missed and Virtu was waiting for the finishing blow but instead, he heard the voice of his sister: 'Why you wanted to hurt him, my brother?' Virtu was surprised and told her: 'I was told that He kidnapped you and closed you in his castle!' He expected Ra'volta's wrath and his own death but instead, the God of Destruction laughed. His sister cuddled up to the scary God and answered her brother with a burst of laughter: 'No my brother. Ra'volta for a long time observed me and I was his pleasure. He asked me if I'll become his bride and I agreed. As long as I will dance for him He will refrain from destroying the world. And look around my brother!' - she showed him her vast and beautiful room full of everything she ever wished for 'this is my palace now!' Virtu kneeled before the God he misjudged and begged for forgiveness but not his own but his sister as he was ready for Ra'volta's punishment. But Vrita changed the heart of the dark God. He only smiled and told him: 'As your punishment, you will stay here for all eternity and You will serve me as my Envoy. Realse flames of Dashu'un and take mine.' Since then Virtu is a servant and Envoy of Ra'volta and Vrita is his wife and only she can stop her husband in his anger."

Elisabeth was absolutely taken by her story. It was so strange to hear a story so familiar as many human stories or myths but from the alien race who evolved so far away from here.

"Fantastic story. And put new light into Dashu'un, Ra'volta, and most probably many other your future creations." Elisabeth looked at the drones and continued. "I guess the smaller one is Vrita- her sensors can confirm if the target is friend or foe and stop the destruction that Ra'volta can bring with his weapons."

Lurna clapped her hands in excitement. "Yes! Yes! I like how you described that Lady Elisabeth! May I use that later for the official description?"

"Oh of course!" She felt like she found a long-lost family. "So the bigger one is Virtu. He carries at least 8 missles and disruptor cannons and some energy weapon? Then he as Envoy of Ra'volta can bring a portion of his master destruction upon those to who he was sent."

"We must find time in the future Lady Elisabeth and I like to take notes of your descriptions. I like them very much." She smiled and nodded still watching Virtu. Lurna smiled and gave mental order to the drone. Elisabeth saw how the energy weapon retract from its cover. The high-speed multibarrel plasma weapon on the turret was ready to shoot in any direction. Hull-mounted heavy disruptors marked their presence when the drone moved before her eyes, she saw also a very familiar universal missile system with an internal rocket pod. She was not sure but her implant confirmed it- this drone had a shield.

"As you can see Virtu is a powerful interceptor. We do not use classic fighter wings like the Lightning Mk.7 or the Grim Ripper Mk. 5 as all other ships in the Navy use. On the Ra'volta we instead use direct link pilot-drone and thanks to that a single pilot can return to action as long as drones are available. We carry 30 deploy-ready Virtus against a typical 15 fighter compliment. Our no-lag range of use is five light hours but we are making progress with the quantum transmitters. However, we believe five light hours radius is more than enough. And as the Prince used to say: if you need to deploy fighters further than 5 LH you already fucked up when you took Dreadnought instead of Carrier. With which I must agree. Besides carrying 30 Vritu, 10 Vrita we also carry 10 Fox Mk. 5. But we are not limited to only carried drones since Ra'volta have a similar drone forge as one you can find on Dashu'un. So as long as we have the materials we can build any drone up to the Pelican transport drone size. And since drones don't need the same maintenance as the manned crafts we can have a smaller crew or bigger Marines garrison."

"That's incredible! And drones can be controlled by AI so you can very quickly gain small craft dominance and screening from the bomber runs. But how you were able to destroy my Retribution?"

"Ra'volta?" asked Serfan. Thuel saw his Mother snuggling to his father's arm and whispering something to his ear.

"Yes, sir! Retribution class or Valliant class is not even a match for me." Admiral Makosso who listened to them with a fascination for a while picked this moment to interrupt: "oh? Just wait when we change weapon systems and reactors in them. I want to hear you then!" he said with a smile.

However, Ra'volta was unfazed.

"Sir with all due respect that changes nothing." He outstretched his hand and his physical body started slowly turning to better show the main cannon array. Tripple barreled mounted on two rotating towers railguns didn't look particularly impressive.

"These are my main battery on rotary towers. Their power output is 25% more powerful than railguns mounted in the Retribution class and 30% more powerful than Valliant's. As you can see I have 6 railguns while Retribution has 4 and Valliant 2. What's more, I can engage at least 2 different targets even during a broadside fight. A situation where Retribution and Valliants depend only on their auxiliary broadside batteries. I admit they beat me in the amount of heavy torpedo tubes which they have respectively 20 and 30 while I have only 10. However, we have installed as proof of concept four heavy missile turrets with internal feeding systems able to shoot in salvos of 6 missiles per system."

Admiral nodded. Heavy missiles were much lighter than capital ship torpedos but were still powerful enough to quickly deal with destroyers or even frigates. This can be a very promising weapon system.

But more importantly...

"Wait. Are telling me these short babies are 25% more powerful than Mjølner Mk. VI Railguns?"

"Affirmative Sir!" Ra'volta was visibly proud.

"Unbelievable. But still, when we update the weaponry it will beat you. We can use the same coils as you have."

"My primary armor is made from hardened plasteel-ceramite alloy sir."

"You made a hull from the same material as the hull of planetoids?"

"Yes sir. Commonwealth dreadnoughts are heavy ships but depended mostly on range fight which proved problematic during the Huluk extermination campaign and was the reason for most losses during the War of Salvation. Dreadnoughts were simply overrun in close-range combat while absolutely dominating at range. The reason was the hull material problem we manage to resolve. I know no one was able to use these high-density ceramite-palsteel alloys in ships smaller than planetoids but using the new type of inertia dampeners did the trick. Also using the same coils as ours in the Retribution and Valiant classes will increase their performance but their output will be still comparable to ours. The test shows that making the barrel longer makes no sense. After 250m there is very little difference in the slug power, yield, or stability. So the 1km long barrels in older constructions are obsolete. Thus we moved railguns to the turrets changing the profile of the entire ship. We are longer than Retribution by a small margin Sir and we are 2590m long. Barely 90m longer than Retribution but our height is visibly lower..."

"Show me it."

"Sir?"

"Ladies and Gentlemen. In a few moments on your right side, the prototype ship Ra'volta will fire its weapons into the practice target heading our way." The voice of Dauntless was heard in the room. Everyone looked at the projection curiously. A big rock most probably from the Kuiper belt was heading right to Dauntless, they are kept in various installations around the Terra exactly for this purpose. To provide a target for cadets or scientists during weapon tests without wasting time to get to the Kuiper belt. Guests saw how one of the Ra'volta turrets started moving and quickly turned toward the target. Thuel officially informed.

"All safety disabled. Ra'volta switch to the battle configuration. Prepare to fire to the practice target and ensure full elimination.....fire!" Everyone in awe was watching how the perfect lines of Dreadnought broken and all previously hidden weapon systems emerged. That monster is packed full to the brim with the most deadly weapon systems Commonwealth has to offer.

When Thuel gave his order to fire a thin blue smudge of ionized railgun slug cover quickly and briefly connected ship and target. It exploded into smaller and bigger pieces showering area. But that target clearly was destroyed. Dauntless was heard only by Admiral, Elisabeth, and Fa'enni representatives while everyone was clapping after the show.

"Indeed its output is 25% more than the Retribution. Also its target acquisition and..."

Dauntless stopped when the Ra'volta's weapons opened fire again. Every single shard of practice target was utterly annihilated by point defense lasers, anti-fighter plasma accelerators, disruptor beams, or still deadly CIWS multibarrel small caliber railguns. Everyone in the room was standing in silence.

No Commonwealth ship ever before was able to do what Ra'volta did.

But Fa'enni's representation had sour faces.

"I'm very sorry sir. We are still trying to adjust our systems." Ra'volta's avatar was looking angry.

"Our target acquisition is still too slow. We probably need better algorithms. While the multi-target matrix and target memory recognition works as intended we are still at 45% of the nominal calculation speed. We underperform grossly." Thuel was checking the data and was visibly frustrated.

"You call this underperformance?!" Gasped Elisabeth. This ship will change all the rules of the battlefield and they think is not yet good?! Admiral was shaken but Thuel responded seriously without noticing how all gathered reacted.

"Yes. Our sensors are only 65% nominal, our target acquisition is at 80% nominal, and our auxiliary systems are at 92% nominal. We are still in the middle of tuning systems of..."

Suddenly Guardian materialized near Admiral and still grinning King Konrad and very content Queen Shanti.

"My Lords! We have a situation. We just received a transmission from Alinti Command. 201st Fleet managed to engage one of the Shadow ships. One of their logistic drones was heading back to the mothership when it was attacked and destroyed by an unknown ship. 201st responded with a successful saturation fire. Remnants of Shadow Ship were collected and one of the 201st Planetoids is retreating directly to Sol with its prey per order of Admiral MacArthur. When they drop their cargo they will head back to continue the search mission. Two planetoids with deployed contingents are currently scanning the incident area for possible Shadow SAR teams or Shadow task force arrival."

Konrad smiled with a very ugly smile.

"I think Admiral the party is over for us."