Chapter Ninety-Six - A Surprise

They were still putting the finishing touches on Aphrodites station when Day got an urgent message from Ceres. It was from The Weeping of Mothers and while the message’s scope was extremely narrow to avoid outside detection, it had been sent at nearly full strength.

Basically, it was less a polite call and more a wailing scream of a warning.

It took Day a thousandth of a second to decode it all.

What she received were several sets of data from sensors on the edge of the system, all located within a single quadrant of the solar system which was nonetheless a massive area on the inner-galaxy facing side of the Sol system.

Ships had dropped out of FTL and were now sitting far out into the edge of the system, much further than the usual Accord ship usually came

“Ah, well, shit,” Candle said.

“Wait,” Day replied even as she sent out orders for her drones to start heading back and for the traps and systems they’d left in Mars’ orbit to start preparing for the worse. “Let me look into this a little deeper.”

Accord FTL ships that popped out of FTL had a few telltale signs that they’d showed up, but they were, for the most part, somewhat quiet. There’d be a big burst of static on their arrival, but after that, they tended to go passive until they deployed the fleet within them.

These three signatures were much louder. They were too far for The Weeping of Mothers to really get a good picture of them, but they could guess at their sizes, and that brought up a second concern for Day.

“I’m not sure if these are Accord ships,” she said.

“You sure about that?” Candle asked. The light cruiser was shifting around, positioning herself next to the station with her fore pointing inwards towards Ceres.

“Nah, Day’s right,” Twilight said. “Or somewhat right. Look at how loud they’re being after entry, and at how messy their signals are. They sound a lot more like those scavengers we caught than the Accord military. The FTL looks similar, though.”

Day agreed after a bit more analysis. “We might be dealing with more scavengers.”

Candle hadn’t been around, exactly, when Sol had first been visited by scavengers, so she wouldn’t be able to remember personally, but she had Day’s and the other’s memories and readings to rely on. “Three scavenger ships, all popping in at once is strange though, right? And they’ve arrived only a year or so before the Accord military shows up for a patrol. That can’t be normal. If they are scavengers, they’ll be caught with their pants down when the patrol shows up.”

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“I can think of a few reasons,” Day said. “But I’m not sure we have enough evidence to really make any conclusive guesses. So let’s assume the worst.”

“And what’s that?” Candle asked.

“That this is a large Accord invasion force that is entirely aware of our presence in-system and they’re here to kill us all specifically and are equipped to deal with all of our countermeasures,” Day said.

“Well, that would suck,” Twilight said. “Pretty sure I could skirt around Accord warships but not if they’re actively searching for me. The rest of you are a lot louder, so you’re really screwed. But hey, if I ever create a third ERF I’ll be sure to name a few ships after you guys in remembrance.”

Day poked Twilight for being a pain. “Thanks. I appreciate how much you care. Now, where are we going?”

“Ceres seems like the obvious choice,” Candle said. “We head over, reload, then prepare for whatever comes at us.”

Day agreed, though she did weigh her other options. Staying around Mars’ orbit was entirely possible too. There was space to hide here, and with the station, they’d have something able to reprovision them.

Then there was Jupiter, and more specifically, Io. Night's hull wasn’t exactly combat capable, but they had a heavy destroyer that was supposed to be done soon. The entire system had mines and sensors and traps all throughout it, and would be able to take on a disproportionate tonnage of enemies if they weren’t cautious.

But Ceres was home, and at the moment, all it had to defend itself was Lullaby and--assuming she had returned--Dawn. The Weeping of Mothers would otherwise be in a precarious position.

Ceres also had their only FTL ship. “Twilight, how ready was that ship we captured?” Day asked.

“Couple of years of work left for it to be completely ready, not to mention lots of testing,” Twilight said. “But in a pinch? I think we could have it ready to go in a few months. It won’t be pretty, though.”

A few months... they might have that much time to work with, actually. These new interlopers had shown up far outside the edge of the system, almost close enough to the sun’s magnetosphere to consider them as being outside of the solar system at all. At that range it would take a long time for the average spaceship to make it into the inner systems. Even on a full burn, it might take an Accord ship several months to reach them.

“Ceres,” Day decided. “Ceres first, then maybe Jupiter. The Weeping of Mothers will have a better idea of what’s going on by the time we make it there.”

“But let’s not move too noisily,” Twilight said. “I’d like to keep that element of surprise if we have it at all.”

***