Chapter Ninety-Eight - Thunderous Symphony of Love

The arrival to Ceres happened exactly as they’d planned. Day, along with Twilight and Candle, all spun around and burned hard while in the dwarf planet’s shadow. If they stayed close enough to it, they could burn for longer, and use its weak gravity to change their flight characteristics.

After that, it was all about creating a loop around the dwarf planet and burning again to slow down more and more.

It was a long, tedious process, but one that didn’t take too much effort.

Which was probably for the best, as Day had a few other things to focus on at the moment. Notably, what was happening on Io.

There was a sudden and fierce debate amongst the EFR about what the new ship should be. Was she a ‘sister’ to the others, or a ‘niece’ on account of being, somewhat, the daughter of one of their sisters.

Their family tree was... complex, especially for a family that only had seven members (eight if they counted Nova as a sort of sister-in-law). Still, in the end, the debate was settled with a vote. The new ship would be a niece to everyone else. The Weeping of Mothers who had mostly abstained, accepted the role of ‘grandmother’ from Twilight with a roll of her avatar’s eyes.

Day watched from afar as her niece was released from her berth on Io. She made a conscious effort not to make any comparison to watching any sort of... birth. That was too gross and too organic for her liking.

The heavy destroyer shifted out of its moorings and slowly rose up and away from Io’s surface with the assistance of a number of tugs clamped onto its side.

The design language of the heavy destroyer was quite unlike anything in the ERF. She had a rounder profile. Shorter than Lullaby, the only other destroyer in their little fleet, but thicker and taller, which was normal, all things considered. The ship was armoured.

Not the way Day herself was armoured, with armoured plating that was several inches thick, and an interior filled with overlapping bulkheads. No, this new ship had to weigh twice as much as even Lullaby. She was covered in armour that was three or four times thicker than normal, with a reinforced superstructure designed to keep all of that armour in place.

That also meant that her thrust was lacking. It was bigger and more potent than, for example, Lullaby’s, but her thrust to mass ratio was way off.

The ship’s armaments were impressive, but still a little anaemic compared to what she could have been armed with if she wasn’t so heavily focused on being the space-bound equivalent of a tank.

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Day imagined that Nova and Night had both done the math, however. And to be fair, the Accord’s laser systems wouldn’t be able to do much against extremely thick armour, not without a lot of time spent trying to burn into it.

Particle cannons would also be less effective against sufficiently heavy plating. So the new ship would be a massive threat to smaller Accord ships.

Against anything like a cruiser, though, and that armour would take a beating.

Day set her worries for her niece aside. The transmission was a few hours old, but still, she was excited to see the nes ship’s first words.

An avatar appeared superimposed over the readout and live transmission of the launch. A young blonde woman, with a hint of Night in her features and Nova’s pale hair, but wearing thick armour instead of the usual spacesuit. “ERF, Io Class Heavy Destroyer, Thunderous Symphony of Love, ready to take a beating.”

Day wasn’t sure what to think of that introduction, but Candle’s laughter certainly gave away her opinion. She sent a message before Candle could joke too much. “Hello, Symphony! Welcome to the family.”

It took a moment for the reply to come back, but Day had nothing but time. “Thank you, Aunt Day,” Symphony said. “My mothers told me a lot about you. I look forward to working with you.”

Day didn’t squeal about being called Aunt Day, because she was a proper AI with a firm control over her emotions.

She had plenty of work nearby to distract her, however. And that work started with a message to Dawn. “Hey,” she started.

“Hello?” Dawn replied. “Can I help you with anything?”

“You might be able to, yeah,” Day said. “Have you interrogated the prisoners about the fleet that just showed up?”

“I... didn’t. Do you think they’ll have relevant information?” Dawn asked.

“It doesn’t cost us anything to ask,” Day said. “And if they do happen to know something, it might be more than what we have now.” The fleet was still far enough away that they didn’t have a perfect picture of the ships, and the stealthed drones they’d sent were a long ways away from the incoming ships. Even then, scans and images wouldn’t tell the full story.

“Alright,” Dawn said. “It’s not like I’m doing very much with my time in any case. And I can do it while sorting through the incoming scans. It’s not exactly processor intensive.”

“Thank you,” Day said. “Do you mind if I sit in on the interviews?”

“The appropriate terminology is interrogation, I think. But yes, you may.”

***