Chapter One Hundred and Two - Incoming
They were preparing for war, and that meant coming up with a suitable plan.
There wasn’t time for any large scale projects anymore, so instead the entire ERF infrastructure turned to the production of munitions, and when that infrastructure was able to casually create entire warships, it was more than capable of creating weapons by the thousands.
Every ship in their fleet now had a pack of logistics drones hovering behind them. Small drones, with powerful enough engines to keep up and as much stealth tech as they could fit into them. Their holds were filled with basic munitions. Projectiles for point-defence guns and additional repair drones and supplies.
Whatever happened, they’d have the bullets for it.
The plan was simple on the surface, but incredibly complex beneath that.
The three FTL ships had started to launch a small fleet of vessels. The speed and haphazard way they were going about it added further proof that these weren’t Accord military ships. The one military FTL craft had launched the vessels it held within a day whereas the rest of the fleet took three full Earth days to deploy their ships.
Still, there were a lot of ships out there.
One hundred and three ships, to be entirely precise. Though some of these vessels were quite small. No bigger than some of their larger drones, and likely designed only to act as shuttles or small utility craft.
The civilian fleet, as far as they could tell, was divided into two broad sections.
The first were the colonisers.
They were in charge of three large, cruiser-sized vessels, as well as a pair of what they identified as orbital stations folded up and packaged for transportation. The two orbital stations were nearly as large around as an Accord carrier.
Dawn’s initial projections painted a picture of two stations, each able to house between two and four thousand organics in great comfort, or twice as many in less impressive conditions. Not a massive number, but still likely enough to kickstart a ful colony.
Day looked over the fleet breakdown that Dawn had created. The small drones they’d sent towards the FTL ships days ago were paying dividends now, with higher resolution images being beamed back, as well as lots of communication from the fleet which the drones relayed back to Ceres for decoding.
2x Orbital Stations
4x Smaller Orbital Stations/Factories/Deposits
3x Cruiser-Tonnage Civilian Ships
8x Frigate Tonnage Industrial Ships (2 Factory, 2 Mining, 4 Salvage)
12x Destroyer Tonnage Industrial Ships (2 Mining, 5 Salvage)
7x Destroyer Tonnage Civilian Ships
17x Corvette Tonnage Industrial Ships (Various)
13x Corvette Tonnage Civilian Ships
31x Small Utility Craft (Various)
The Military vessels added up as well:
1x Cruiser
1x Frigate
2x Destroyer
2x Logistics Ships
6x Corvettes
The fleet had taken a couple of days to organise itself, and it seemed as though it was divided into roughly four groups.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Two of these were heading towards Earth. Another two were slowly starting to head towards Mars. The groups were divided along industrial and civilian lines. It seemed, at least from the way they were organising themselves, that these Accord-related companies weren’t all that friendly to each other.
It was a story that the prisoners agreed with. The competition to come out on top within the Accord was fierce, often more so within different corporate entities than it was within the military.
Technically, all companies operating with the assistance of the Accord belonged to the central government, but there were hints of old clans still operating their own for-profit businesses.
In any case, this was the enemy.
The plan was simple.
They’d kill each and every last one of them.
Day... wasn’t sure she liked it, but there was very little room for negotiations at the moment.
“Are you ready?” Candle asked over a private channel.
Day replied right away. “Yes, I’m ready,” she said.
She was currently circling around Ceres, slowly but surely building up speed and momentum.
She wasn’t the only one, of course. With her was Candle, as well as Twilight and Lullaby. A light cruiser, two corvettes, and a single destroyer. Four against... quite a few more ships than that. But only if things went wrong.
“Last burn, girls,” Twilight said. “Make it a good one!”
They dipped into Ceres’ shadow, and all four of them kicked their engines to full, the thrust less a controlled burn and more like a small explosion that rammed them forwards.
Day’s hull rattled at the impact, and even if the burn only lasted a few long seconds, it had increased her speed tremendously.
It had also damaged her.
She watched from a sensor as one of her attached torpedo pods went hurtling out into the void. A moment later The Weeping of Mothers noticed and slow-launched the torpedo itself, countering its spin with its in-build gyroscope.
She’d probably try to retrieve it. Waste-not-want-not.
Day had a dozen other spots of stress damage across her hull from the burn, but it wasn’t too much, and it was better to discover those now than in a fight. Her drones got to work.
The idea was to give themselves one last big push on the far side of Ceres, using the moon as a shield from the Accord’s sight. Now all they needed were a few corse corrections and they’d be on a ballistic course towards their objective.
In a few months’ time, they’s be popping out of the shadow, a nice surprise for the Accord.
They’d find a lot more surprises on their way, of course.
“Ah, hey, can you hear me now?” Candle asked.
“Yes?” Day replied to the tightbeam. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! My port-side tight beam transmitter got knocked out of whack. Had to roll,” Candle said. “Otherwise... yeah, I’m working on it.”
Day sent an image of her avatar rolling her eyes, but she was glad to hear that Candle was fine.
They received a message from Ceres, from The Weeping of Mothers and Dawn. “Good luck, out there. And give them hell.”
***