Chapter Forty-Six - A Good Omen
Day shut down her more fuel-efficient ion drives and burned with her chemical drive. It was brighter, sure, but it was also electronically quieter. She twisted around, placing the cold hull of the Karambit between her and the location where the FTL signal had originated from, and that was about all she could do for stealth at the moment.
Soon enough they had the bulk of Ceres between themselves and the point where the FTL signature had come from, and Day burned as hard as she could to slow down and slip into Ceres’ inner orbit.
The restraints she’d used to hang onto the Karambit weren’t designed for such a hard deceleration, but even if a few of them strained dangerously, they didn’t snap. Some things within the corvette did though, and Day found herself wincing in sympathy as she noted more internal damage being added to the rest.
Finally, they got into a nice, calm orbit and Day burned some of her compressed manoeuvring thrusters to slow down a little bit more and lower herself closer to the dwarf planet’s surface.
Drones flew up from the surface to meet her and Twilight by the dozens. Tugs drones to grab onto the Karambit, repair drones to replace those they’d lost, and a few larger cargo drones carrying fresh munitions, fuel, and more.
“Hello,” Day sent to The Weeping of Mothers “What’s the situation?”
She was invited into a simulation, and she accepted it right away.
It disgorged her into a large war room alongside Twilight. There was a hovering representation of a slice of the Sol system in its middle. The Weeping of Mothers was standing across from then, on the other side of the projection. “Hello,” she said. “I’m sorry to cut past all of the greetings and such, but I think you’ll want to see what we’re facing.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said. “The Accord show up early?”
“Perhaps, but as we get a better image, I’m started to doubt it,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “They FTL signature came from here.” She gestured and an expanding blue circle appeared on the edge of the system. “We’re actually closer to it here than Night is over in Jupiter’s orbit. I’ve sent her a warning, of course, and I’ve shut down all of our mines for the moment.”
Day nodded along. Normal precautions to take. “So, if you doubt it’s the Accord, then what are we dealing with?”
“Someone noisier and sloppier,” The Weeping of Mothers said.
The projection zoomed in on the FTL presence. The distance between them and the ships was calculated in billions of kilometres, and they didn’t dare use active scans. Still, The Weeping of Mothers had an entire planet to turn into a large passive antenna, and she clearly had plenty of nodes spread out near the surface to capture sensor data.
It painted a fuzzy image of what was going on.
“The FTL ship is a design we haven’t seen before. It’s a lot louder and seems less efficient than what the Accord is using. There was a wave of radiation on its arrival,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “It’s also smaller. The average Accord FTL vessel is twelve kilometres long. This vessel is three, and doesn’t have quite the same shape.”
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The ship in question was a lot boxier, with several protrusions around its length. It had engine pods dotted across its surface and several large cargo-openings on its sides.
“It’s been disgorging ships, the same way the Accord does, only it’s being slower about it. We still don’t have an idea of how many vessels we’re dealing with, but... look at this one.”
The Weeping of Mothers zoomed in on one of the craft. It was an Accord destroyer, Day would have recognized it no matter the angle... and apparently no matter the modifications.
“That’s weird,” Twilight said.
The destroyer had a good quarter of its hull opened up on one side, exposing what looked like open cargobays, drone hangars, and several mechanical systems mounted on long, folded arms.
“The guns are missing,” Twilight pointed out. And she was right, the destroyer’s main armaments were simply gone. It still had its point defence lasers though, and there was no way to know if it still had its missile launchers, not with the fuzzy quality of the image.
“It’s a retrofitted Accord destroyer. An... older model? Look at the size of the drive there, at the back, it’s way larger than the destroyers we’re used to seeing. The array at the top’s different too, and none of the destroyers we have on file have that big bulbous thing around their manoeuvring thrusters, but it looks like an intentional design, not an addition.”
“That’s what I was suspecting,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “We might very well be dealing with a non-Accord fleet using Accord technology. Even the FTL ship might be an older Accord version.”
More ships were deploying even as they watched, then the cargo bay doors shut, and they had a good idea of what they were facing.
Four corvette-sized ships. Two retrofitted destroyers. Two frigate-sized vessels that seemed like cargo haulers, and four Accord logistics ships. Twelve vessels in all, all lingering around their FTL ship on slight drifts while shuttles flitted between them.
“Well then,” Day said, a little relieved. This was maybe something they could handle. “What do we do about this?”
With only two warships?” The Weeping of Mothers asked. “Why, we’ll have to be clever about it, but I suspect we can come out of this situation with a lot more than we came in with. I want that FTL ship.”
“Gonna be tricky to take,” Twilight warned.
“Let me deal with that,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “I’ve begun mass production of shark-stealth drones, additional torpedoes, mines and fresh munitions. I think this is a challenge that we might be able to win.”
Day nodded while her mind started to spin up plans.
Given a little time, they could have another shipster ready to join them in the fight. The Karambit wasn’t so broken that it couldn’t be made ready. And with a number of stealth drones, some decent planning, and the element of surprise... yes, this might be something they could win.
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