Chapter Sixty-Nine - A Nice Time for Silence
Day packed in the last of the AI cores. She was hovering close to her sisters, and they were trading cargo back and forth between them while trying to optimise the loadouts they had to carry.
They had to balance things out since their haul was surprisingly decent. Not counting the Brief Candle’s own core, they had gathered twelve AI cores from thirty ships investigated. Some were clearly damaged, but others seemed intact.
They wanted to make sure they stayed that way, even after the trip back to Ceres.
“We’re not going to use those French drives, are we?” Twilight asked.
“We could. We’re close to Mars, so there’s plenty of particulates in this area of space to give us a boost,” Day said.
“Yeah, but we’re waiting for the Accord now. They’ll be here sometime in the next six months, almost guaranteed. We don’t need to be blasting our position for everyone to see.”
That was a fair point. Day considered it for a moment, then admitted to herself that it wasn’t a bad idea. “Alright, we boost with hydrogen, then we do our turn and burn early, maybe with Ion thrust on the way back?”
“That’s better,” Twilight said. “We can fiddle with these AI cores while we’re on the way back, right?”
“Right,” Day said.
As they started to boost out of the system, Day noticed a single repair drone zipping their way. It slowed down at the last moment and slid into one of Twilight’s open drone bays. Curious, Day followed its trajectory back. It had come from the orbit of a demolished Accord destroyer.
She turned her scans towards the ship. Had Twilight just been poking at it for fun? Then she noticed the graffiti painted on the side of the ship in Accord standard. “Clan Ato Sucks Asteroids!”
Day sighed. “Twilight,” she said.
“What?” the stealth corvette asked. “Look, they’ll probably think it’s either the scavengers, or some other Accord faction. This is psychological warfare, making them fight between each other.”
“It’s juvenile and silly,” Day said. But she wasn’t going to tell Twilight to stop. It might have been a petty form of revenge, but it was revenge nonetheless. There was a small chance that it would give away that they were in the system, but there were so many other things that might reveal their position first that this felt like an acceptable risk.
Besides, there was a small chance that it would spark a fight between this Clan Ato and some of the other clans in the Accord. From what they’d discovered, the Accord type B aliens were exceptionally prideful, especially when it came to the honour and glory of their clans.
Day and her sisters started to burn towards home, doing so as quietly as they could while also moving quickly.
This time, the Accord were going to show up and find a system just a little more ready to take them on.
Day didn’t pretend that they were ready to take on an entire patrol fleet yet. They’d likely be outmassed and out numbered yet again, but this time the Sol system was more hostile than it had been, and the next time... well, by then the Accord might discover that the tables had turned.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
She received a signal from Dawn over near Ceres just before doing her turn-and-burn to slip into the asteroid belt at a respectable speed. “Hello, Day, Twilight and Lullaby, we’re moving the To Infinity... and Beyond out of the system now. Do any of you want to volunteer to escort it? The goal is to bring the ship close to the outer edge of the system within the next couple of months, then shut it down entirely and let it run cold. There are a number of repair drones within it that will continue to work on its structure and can keep you supplied for the duration of this operation. Also, we’ve brought the ship’s weapons back online, just in case. They’re not exactly impressive, but when taking into account the ship’s bulk, it’s likely able to withstand some punishment.”
“She talks a lot,” Lullaby said after reading the message.
“I’ll go,” Twilight said. “It’s my capture, and I don’t mind waiting things out on the edge of the system.
They did a little reshuffling, Twilight letting go of her cargo of AI cores and Day intercepting them mid-flight with a few drones before pulling them back into her small drone bay. “Good luck,” Day said.
“Don’t die!” Lullaby added.
Twilight spun around then fired her thrusters to the side, changing her trajectory so that she’d loop around Ceres once then shoot out to meet the To Infinity... and Beyond on its course towards the outer edge of the system.
Day fired a query to Dawn, asking her for an update on Night and the multiple scavenger ships in orbit around Jupiter.
“Night’s been working on hiding her Io base. It’ll no longer be functional soon, so we can expect a drop in material gain. We’ll likely shut down our mines too, just in case. Night has brought several of the captured ships down to the surface and has covered them up. Two are remaining in orbit with drone controllers. If the Accord comes to investigate, they’ll run away while spewing insults back at the Accord. As a sort of obvious distraction. They’re equipped with nuclear weapons that are meant to ‘misfire’ if the Accord comes too close.”
That was... a very Night solution to things. Day was just glad to see her sister taking the time to hide herself away.
Day noticed several such changes around Ceres as she approached. The ERF shipyards on the dwarf planet’s surface was covered up, the number of installations in orbit slowly decreased, and with every passing hour, Ceres became quieter and less noticeable.
By the time Day and Lullaby arrived in Ceres’ orbit, there was little to tell anyone that there was a base under the planetoid’s surface.
“Welcome home,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “It’s nice to see you again. I hear that you’ve gotten us some cores to work with?”
***