Chapter Ninety-Seven - Three Inbound

The trip to Ceres was going to take months, and the fact that none of them dared to use their louder, more capable forms of thrust to speed up only meant that the voyage was going to be longer than ever.

Still, it wasn’t a complete loss. Time spent in transit was time where they could continue to spy on their enemy and plan for the future.

The three FTL ships crawled towards Sol at a slow, sluggish pace, with no attempts to move quietly or mask their communications between themselves. That meant that they were picking up some chatter.

Not much, of course. The distance did degrate signals to near illegibility, and the inner planets weren’t in the transmission cone to begin with, but with the ships seemingly not caring, they could still pick up partial transmissions, snatches of code, and machine communications between the ships themselves.

It painted a confusing picture, but any information was good information.

The Weeping of Mothers had sent out a number of stealthed drones rushing towards the edge of the system, with Dawn providing them with the best small-scale sensors she could. Together, the drones captured more detailed images and were able to intercept more of the invader’s communications, though it would be a long time before they were close enough for truly detailed passive scans.

In the meantime, Day and her sisters looked over what they had.

They started by labelling the ships as FTL-A, FTL-B, and FTL-C.

FTL-A was the largest of the three, about the same size as a full Accord FTL patrol ship, the sort that could deliver entire destroyer squadrons into their system. FTL-A seemed older that the other three, a fact which they grew more certain of as they gained a more precise image of the ship. Its hull had clearly been modified several times, with discoloured plating suggesting either damaged sections being repaired, or some large scale retrofits.

The thrusters also seemed louder.

That was a fact that Nova was quick to point out once she received copies of their scans. She compared the thruster’s signatures to those of Accord ships from the last couple of decades and was able to match those signatures to some of the earliest Accord ships to show up in the Sol system. Ships which had seemed a little slower than their counterparts, with worse communication suites and weaker armaments.

They’d noticed that before, but had dismissed it as the Accord simply keeping some older vessels on hand while switching out the rest of their fleet’s composition as they went.

After all, with organic crews and long distances between where the Accord were attacking and their home base, it only made sense that they’d be slower to renew and remodel their ships.

In any case, FTL-A had older technology. It was comparable to some of the oldest scavenger ships.

Day wanted to speculate on it, but held back for now.

FTL-B and FTL-C were smaller, about the same size as the To Infinity... and Beyond that they’d taken from those scavengers a few years ago already. That still meant that they were massive vehicles, easily over a kilometre long and large enough to fold a small fleet each, but in comparison to other FTL ships the ERF had seen in the past, they were smaller.

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FTL-B had a much more advanced communication suite compared to the other two, and what seemed like a much smaller hangar area compared to most FTL ships they’d seen so far.

They didn’t know why, or what that meant yet, but it was more fodder for speculation.

FLT-C was the smallest of the three ships, and the most worrisome. It was an Accord craft. There was no doubt about it. On arriving, the ship started to travel to meet the others, then it discorged a small fleet.

A destroyer, a logistics ship, three corvettes. A standard Accord patrol fleet.

The smaller size of the ships made it hard to identify them, but they still picked up drive signatures that suggested they were, if not brand new, then not too old.

Once better images started to come in, they were able to make out some simple armaments on the FTL-C as well. Mostly point defence emplacements, but also a few light particle cannons.

“Alright,” Day said. They were coming close enough to Ceres that communication was possible, though there was still a several-minute long delay between sending and receiving. “So, I think we can speculate on what we’re seeing here.”

“It’s not a patrol fleet,” Twilight said.

“I agree,” The Weeping of Mothers eventually replied. “I’ve seen a number of those, and this is something else. The technology suggests that they’re from the Accord, however, which means we’re dealing with enemies.”

“Scavengers, then?” Dawn asked. “Maybe officially recognized ones. Coming here to grab what they can from the system before leaving?”

“That’d be nice, but I bet it’s somehow worse,” Candle said. “Maybe a colonisation effort? Earth’s radioactivity won’t be dangerously high for organics forever. It’s been long enough that the half-life of some of the more dangerous emitters are coming to an end. If the Accord wanted to start taking the world over, now would be about the earliest time they could start. Plus they’d need to clear out the debris from around Earth in any case, which would take a few more years.”

That was.. Possible.

“So, do we wait to find out what they’re here for before we react, or do we start planning now?” Day asked. “If the only warships they have are the four they’ve deployed, then we technically outnumber them. And we have the home field advantage, as well as surprise on our side.”

It took a while for her sisters and The Weeping of Mothers to digest all of that and reply.

“Let’s see what they’re here for. Then we deal with them. And if we judge that we can’t, then we push the retrofit of our own FTL ship hard and prepare to leave. In the meantime, this might be our last chance to build new ships to face off against this new threat. We shouldn’t waste the opportunity.”

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