Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen - Victory Leads to Work
Day took a deep, metaphorical breath. The situation was... more or less in hand, actually.
She was fixing up the worst of her damage, Candle wasn’t in critical condition and her own repair drones were hard at work. The Accord corvettes had fallen into a holding pattern on the edge of the fleet. Dawn wasn’t dead and was slowly turning herself around to come up behind them.
Lullaby and Twilight both seemed fine. They were unhurt by everything that had gone down and were still able to take the fight to the fleet if that was needed.
It was all hanging by a thread, however.
The Accord civilian fleet, as damaged as they were, still technically outgunned them. They certainly outmassed Day and her sisters by quite a bit too.
If they turned all of their point-defence guns on them, there was no amount of dodging that would be enough to avoid all of those intersecting lasers. Some of the ships even had small particle cannon emplacements.
“We have a lot to do,” Dawn sent.
“Straight to business?” Day asked.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Dawn asked over the group’s coms. “I was expecting to die, but if I’m not going to, then I might as well get to work. Now, as I was saying, we have a lot to do. Candle and Day, you both need repairs. I have a few repair drones that’ll be freed up soon, I can send them your way. Is there anything we can do to help you beyond that?”
“I think I’m alright,” Day said.
“I need a few things replaced,” Candle said. “One of my reactors is being weird. I’m tempted to vent it since there’s a brand new one sitting right there.” She tied the relative position of the cruiser they’d downed to her message.
Day scanned the wreck, and it did indeed still have power. One of its reactors was probably still online, at least for the moment. It would either shut down, burn itself out, or break in some other way soon. The most likely option was a simple shut down. The Accord were decent about having failsafes on their equipment.
“That’s a lot of work,” Lullaby said.
“It’s not so bad. I think I might rip off some of the cruiser’s heavier particle cannons while I’m at it. It’ll be a cheap repair, but it might be worth it. I can do proper repairs once I’m back on Ceres.”
“Okay,” Day said. “Let’s get you back into shape as soon as we can. Twilight, Lullaby, Dawn, do you think the three of you can watch over the Accord fleet?”
“I can manage it,” Twilight said. “What are we doing with them, exactly? I figure since they’re surrendering, they might not see the torpedo coming, so to speak.”
“We’re not going to kill them now,” Day said.
There was a small pause before she received support from an unexpected angle. “I agree,” Dawn said. “They’ve already transmitted everything that happened here to the Mars-bound Accord fleet, including their surrender. If we destroy them now, then we’ll never be able to pull off a gambit like this on the other fleet. It’s best to have the enemy expect us to be soft and weak, then we can wipe them all out at once.”
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“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Day said.
“I know,” Dawn replied. “But I’m ignoring that part. Rather, I’m focusing on how much easier it is to win when your enemy surrenders. It wasn’t something I had thought to calculate at first, but plugging in enemy morale into the maths of war really improves combat as a whole.”
Day sighed, but she didn’t want to spend time and energy trying to convince Dawn otherwise. “Alright, fine. We need to secure the ships that have surrendered.”
“I can start disarming them,” Twilight said. “I’ve got the drones to spare.”
“That’s a good idea. Lullaby can be overwatch while you work,” Day suggested.
“If they try anything, I guess I can just blow them up,” Lullaby said.
The plan was relatively simple, and so they just put it to work. Day and Candle approached the cruiser together, and Day let some of her excess drones reach out to help Candle move things around. She discovered some crew still alive in escape pods. The Accord equivalent of an escape pod, at least, which was actually not meant to escape at all, but was instead a small reinforced space with its own life support system that crew could hide in until rescue arrived.
She took some time dislodging the pods and sending them towards the rest of the Accord fleet.
The fleet itself started to consolidate into something more orderly than the mess it had become during their attack. At the centre of the fleet was the large station. It wasn’t just the largest structure, it was also the best equipped for connecting to ships and had several hangars where smaller vessels could fit. Some of the other ships had to be evacuated, having taken too much damage.
Twilight slid through the fleet, silently taking apart their weapons until they were toothless.
Day couldn't help but feel a certain sense of satisfaction as she watched Twilight's drones expertly disable weapon after weapon on the Accord fleet. It was one thing to offer mercy; it was another to make sure that mercy couldn't be taken advantage of. Lullaby floated nearby, her sensors trained on the fleet like a lazy hawk watching over its prey.
Candle, for her part, was making quick work of scavenging the cruiser. Day watched her, a part of her amazed by the ship's quick and efficient adaptability. Even in its battered state, Candle was far from helpless, her remaining functional drones assisting in the work.
"So far, so good," Day transmitted to the group. "Twilight, what's your progress?"
"Nearly done," came the reply. "A few more point-defence systems, and this fleet will be as dangerous as a paperweight."
“Good, good,” Day said. “Maybe soon we can go back home. I don’t think I want to hit that other fleet without resupplying, not when they know we’ll be coming.”
***