Phobos, Martian Command Post, July 21st, 1000 Solar Era.
Enine, Sullivan, Zheng and Laurent convened around a ringed meeting room, with a central hologram to display any information important to their discussion.
Laurent had escaped with his tail between his legs and survived the EFSF’s ambush at the Euler Station. Initially, he felt relieved, but once that initial shock was over, he reverted to his usual boisterous demeanor.
“Someone on our side must have leaked our plans!” He bellowed furiously at the other three.
“I’m not even entirely informed of your plans,” Enine shrugged, rather tired of Laurent’s deafening voice. It had to be said that he was used to peace and quiet due to living his whole life on a small and isolated asteroid colony. “I wasn’t even informed of you crazy martians chucking asteroids at Earth.”
Thinking that his words might further enrage Laurent, he added, “Don’t misunderstand. Quite a number of the T3ST unit celebrated your actions.”
Enine was greeted by Laurent’s confused look. Well… he certainly was successful in having Laurent cease his outburst.
“We didn’t, though,” Laurent muttered with a blank look.
It was Enine’s turn to be confused. He had staunchly protected Xeight and Bone previously precisely because he assumed that the martians had done worse, in combination with the fact that the soldier Jacobs had initiated the conflict with Xeight.
“Zheng?” Sullivan questioningly looked at the other man.
“Sir.” Zheng replied as he shrugged in indifference. “As discussed, I contacted my old friend who has… black market dealings with the pirates. The pirates agreed to harass the supply channels of the Earth Feds. I never quite expected them to actually lob asteroids at Earth.”
“You sure it’s the pirates?” Sullivan drummed his fingers on the ring marble table, lost in thought.
“The predicted trajectories our systems graphed based on the impact, orbits and gravitational forces all point towards the outer reaches of the belt, an area very much controlled by the pirates.”
“Damned terrans,” scoffed Laurent with derision. “They alienated their largest nations. What happened again? Isn’t that why all those large nations opted to each take control and terraform the Saturn and Jupiter moons? Maybe it’s them?”
Honestly, Zheng was sometimes surprised that this brash counterpart of his had vague recollections of terran history. In recorded history, the smaller nations had used the formation of the Earth Federation to suppress the influence of larger nations on Earth. After a few centuries, they had then needed to unite to limit the growing influence of the Earth Federation.
That was the general gist of it all-- the political games involved were much more extensive. Eventually, the large nations moved a part of their power base to the gas giants’ moons, unwilling to be shackled under the Earth Feds.
“They’re busy terraforming their moons. They only have minor dealings with even the orbital colony powers.”
Enine had yet to say a word. He naturally had even less information on all these parties in the Solar System, compared to martian command.
“No matter.” Sullivan brushed that issue aside. “As Laurent said. There must be a terran informant within our ranks. The attack on Euler Station was only known to me, Zheng, Laurent, the high command of retired admirals and politicians, and the Laurent fleet.”
Enine had only become aware of this failed offensive at the Euler Station today.
“Or Neurorevo,” added Zheng. His statement made the other three men sharply swivel their heads at him.
Zheng shrugged again. “Our ships and nexarms are all neurorevo built. It’s quite possible there’s some sort of system in them that allows neurorevo to spy on us.” He tapped his neuro circlet. “Neurorave is quite literally everywhere.”
All present had always been aware of this risk deep in their hearts. However, Neurorevo surely did not stand staunchly on Earth’s side. Otherwise, if Neurorevo was spying on them, the interplanetary conglomerate would have long informed the Earth Feds years ago, when the martians had secretly begun planning their independence push.
“Well,” An indecipherable expression consumed Sullivan’s face. “The high command has just received an offer from the Kasvallian Group.”
It was Admiral Sullivan’s turn to be struck by three pairs of laser eyes.
“The Kasvallian Group wishes for us to retrieve something akin to a nexarm from Earth. They have promised to compensate us by providing us with alternative systems comparative to Neurorave.”
“Now,” Sullivan met eyes with the other three men one-by-one. “I trust all three of you. But not our underlings. Lest you all have forgotten, the martian fleet was once of the Earth Feds. Although many aligned with the martian view, and we have attempted to clear the ranks… it is not inconceivable for a few terran loyalists to be hiding within our ranks. Vice-admirals. You know what to do.”
“This mission is yours, Grand Elder Enine.”
Laurent might not have favorable feelings towards the T3ST colony. But even he kept his mouth shut, not willing to risk potential terran loyalists exposing this critical mission. In his mind, not being fully reliant on Neurorevo would do them wonders.
The only concern with the T3ST colony was perhaps the Neurorevo engineers. Yet, Neurorevo should not have taken sides. As for the connection between James MacLeod and Jen MacLeod… Jen MacLeod wasn’t even officially with the T3ST unit.
“Grand Elder Enine. Do keep an eye on those Neurorevo engineers. Outbound communications and the like. And obscure the true task of the mission except to a necessary trusted few.”
Enine bowed his head and accepted his task as their meeting concluded.
_________________________________________________________________________
Admiral Sullivan entered another room as holographic images of the martian high command members showed up.
A majority of these silhouettes were men-- many women on Mars often attempted to immigrate to the orbital colonies or even on the rare opportunity, to Earth. Terraforming Mars wasn’t exactly a good life. Those who came and stayed needed to be iron like the planet while fully aware that they could have a much more comfortable life elsewhere.
As a result, the rather unfortunate reality was that the early settlers were mostly men. A rather odd situation then ensued, in which certain women would be willingly shared by multiple men, though the expectation was that said woman would give birth to many children.
Eventually, the artificial womb was developed, exported to Mars, and resolved much of this crisis. Still, when it came to the population, there are more men than women, and this showed in all areas of Mars, especially the military.
“The task is done?” A rare woman in the high command asked.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Yes, Minister Williams,” replied Sullivan. “The T3ST unit has the least risk of exposing the mission. Thus, the Kasvallian task was given to them.”
“Will they be able to handle Earth’s gravity?”
“Yes. When we provided training to the T3ST colony, we ensured they received training under normal gravity. We provided simulations that stimulated their senses such that they have an accurate expectation of what it would feel like to walk on Earth.”
“Well done. We will be much more secure with decreased reliance on Neurorevo. Chancellor?”
“How is Vice-admiral Laurent?” A male silhouette stepped forth. This was Chancellor Boateng, the man who held the head seat of the martian high command.
Chancellor Boateng was not concerned about Laurent’s health. Sullivan knew that the man wanted to know if Laurent was negligent in his command.
“Five deaths. Three from the S-class flagship. Two from the A-class starship. No major injuries. The hulls on these two ships will be repaired in a week.”
“Laurent reported that the terran fleet being prepared there was accelerated to a state of readiness. They were ambushed as information on their attack was leaked, and the EFNSF was already ready to intercept their approach.”
“How much of Laurent’s words are true?” Chancellor Boateng pressed.
“We did examine the mega-particle beam marks on the two ships, and can tell they are different. As you know, the mega-particle beam cannons are not all exactly the same. They are so incredibly high-powered that a miniscule difference, unavoidable between cannons, can be noticed. The enemy did, in fact, have two ships capable of using their mega-particle beam cannons, that much is certain.”
“Yet, he sat in place for close to thirty minutes trading blows with the enemy’s external nexarm devices. Give me your assessment.”
“Vice-admiral Laurent was destroying much of the enemy’s materiel while sustaining little-to-none on the ship.”
“The enemy was clearly stalling him.”
“In retrospect, yes. However, it is understandable that at the time, he may have been confused that an ambush had formed a net around him. He was also unaware that the enemy ships’ readiness progress had been accelerated. It is my belief that this is a failure of our intelligence unit. However, if you all wish to judge Laurent, he has indicated that he will welcome an open inquiry.”
Perhaps some would accuse Sullivan of defending Laurent. In truth, Sullivan simply wasn’t sure who would take over Laurent’s post. It would have to be someone from the Laurent faction. Another factor was that he, himself, had no desire to do battle with overly-flawed intelligence.
The high command began discussing other concerns.
“Will the T3ST unit be able to bypass Earth’s umbrella?”
“The Kasvallian Group has stated that the upgrades have yet to be completed.”
“Can their intelligence be trusted?”
“They have already given us a few of their intelligence tools for us to use when they requested our help to retrieve a unit. Their tools are a generation ahead.”
“Our supply chain?”
Sullivan would have to sit through hours of various discussions of no concern to him. By the end of the day, he was a corpse quivering in his boots with exhaustion.
____________________________________________________________________________
Enine returned to the T3ST colony and ordered the T3ST unit to prepare for departure again. Starship Oneiroi was already resupplied and primed for action, its mega-particle beam cannon fully tested for combat.
“Son. Check the mission plan.” Enine had come to trust Xeight after the success of their last mission. Though Xeight had yet to embrace the T3ST unit’s role, at the very least, he more than gave adequate assistance.
Xeight was rather startled when he examined the mission plan in the chamber of elders on Starship Oneiroi.
“Someone different drafted this up,” was his conclusion.
“Vice-admiral Zheng said it came from his most trusted aide. Khan, I think, is her name. You should have met her.”
“I remember her.” Xeight had a rather distinct memory of the woman who had deescalated that situation with his execution of the martian pilot Jacobs.
He continued examining the plan before him, and had to praise Khan’s design. The plan relied on using an asteroid named ‘AR-gamah’ that had a large loop, traveling way past the Kuiper Belt. This large asteroid would pass relatively close to Earth in a few weeks.
With the recent asteroid strike destroying Warsaw, the terrans were bound to keep a close eye on this passing asteroid.
The T3ST unit would effectively give said asteroid a nudge to send the terran alarm bells ringing, and use that as a distraction to take control of an orbiting buoy and a few of their crew would use that hole to descend onto Earth to retrieve the Kasvallian unit. It was even possible that the EFSF would concentrate much of their defense umbrella against the asteroid, thus creating multiple openings elsewhere.
Whoever descended onto Earth would be quickly returned to space, and the task completed with minimal time and effort. It was but a retrieval mission, prior to the EFSF completing the upgrades to Earth’s umbrella.
It was very much the perfect plan, in Xeight’s eyes. Surely, his father could see that. It was unnecessary for him to provide input.
___________________________________________________________________________
Golden Elysium, Unidentified Space, July 22nd, 1000 Solar Era.
“Another!” Igor Smirnov yelled as a waiter refilled his glass with beer. The ten members of the NSF had come to this luxurious cruise liner that traveled between the planets and orbital colonies, to celebrate their victory but also prepare their next mission.
They would soon have to travel far into the belt in search of the T3ST unit.
“You should practice abstinence…” David Levy muttered to the side. Out of the whole team, he was the most uncomfortable aboard the Golden Elysium. This cruise liner targeted the rich of the Earth and orbital colonies.
The whole ship was effectively a sprinting turtle shell, with layered shells of X-alloy plates and a vast reserve of e-cube blocks to escape with many jumps and take its patrons to safety. It had no weapons, but it would be impossible for any to even dream of capturing the ship. Quite a number of orbital colonies and the interplanetary conglomerates had contributed to building this cruise liner.
The NSF had only gotten the chance to board this cruise liner due to James MacLeod’s connections.
Their A-class starship-- James had chosen to call it Starship Atlas-- was parked alongside and dwarfed by Golden Elysium.
He had agreed to allow many of the onboard patrons the opportunity to visit the hangar and feast their eyes upon the ten celestial nexarms.
“We need these people to take an interest in funding these weapons that defend their interests,” he had explained to the NSF members.
Anyhow, now, the team had entered a karaoke establishment on the cruise liner, and Athena found herself positively enthralled by the polite and graceful Arianna Bellucci’s melodious voice.
“Wow, Ari…” whispered Olivia in praise and wonder. Even the uncomfortable David Levy forgot his disapproval of the very nature of this cruise liner as his eyes glazed over within a dream.
Athena had come to know the members of the team quite well. Olivia Gonzalez had an obsession with fashion trends. Will Kyle, seemingly aggressive but a huge softie, easily seen if you were to discuss family with the man.
Liu Long, a man incredibly blunt and direct with his speech that initially came across as a rather unkind and critical person. Yet, eventually, the members came to appreciate his honesty, as he was always willing to assist with all tasks.
The group discovered that Cliupatra Saad was, in fact, an expert in plant biology and ecology. Athena found herself often captivated by Clio discussing the process of turning the Sahara green.
Cyrus Amiri? A rather quiet individual heavily invested in archaic architecture.
Smirnov himself was what one could call someone who lived solely for the present. He was like a rambunctious child that took joy out of nearly every single moment. He often even made fun of himself as an alcohol connoisseur.
Athena wondered why some members of her team even joined the EFSF. Perhaps, that was something for her to discover in the future. Anyhow, many on the team treated Athena as their little feisty sister, since she was the youngest in the group.
Ari’s singing ended and the group chose to take a break.
James MacLeod’s devices whizzed around, ensuring that their room was secure. The Golden Elysium was designed such that the rich patrons would have privacy whenever they so choose, regardless of the setting.
“Team. We will be leaving the Golden Elysium soon.’ James MacLeod took this opportunity to prepare the NSF.
“Good!” exclaimed David, absolutely tired of being on board the extravagant cruise liner.
“Now, I”m sorry for interrupting the fun, but I need you all to begin your mental prep. Kyle, Liu and Bellucci. You three will be joining the primary terran fleet. Kyle will operate as the lead, but you three are meant to cover and complement each other.”
“As for the other seven of us, we will be searching for the T3ST unit and the T3ST colony. I have visited the place before, and we have eyes around the belt. Now, in order to shield our approach to the belt from unfriendly eyes, we will make use of this asteroid named ‘AR-gamah’. We will give it a small nudge such that the gravitational forces will direct it back into the belt.” James MacLeod grinned, rather satisfied with his design.
“Hah!” Liu was also blunt with his praise. “Ingenious!”
MacLeod humbly shook his head. “I’m sure there are others that would have thought to use a timely wandering asteroid to camouflage their purposes.”