Chapter Twenty-Nine - They Arrive
Day tried not to panic. There were a lot of things to do and she didn’t have much time to do them in.
First, she asked NOVA QUANTUM the obvious. “Where are they, what’s their heading, and how long have they been here?”
The AI answered easily. “They’re on the outer edge of the system, about 14bkm from the sun. 16bkm from us right now. They don’t seem to be heading anywhere. Their ships are exiting that big ship they always use when they appear on the edge of the system. As for how long they’ve been there, about seventeen Earth-standard hours?”
Day wasn’t sure how to take all of that. Some was good, some wasn’t. That was more than long enough for them to have noticed NOVA QUANTUM’s signal. Though at that distance it might have been diffuse and hard to hear. That was good. From her records, she knew it usually took the Accord a day or so to launch their fleet from one of their massive FTL ships, so that was rather neutral information so far.
“Okay, so, I’m going to tight-beam back to base to tell them. We need to shut down our mines and put everything into silen--”
Day cut herself off as her scanners detected several launches. All from Night. The first few were materials. That was fine. Night had said she would give NOVA QUANTUM some things to work with, so the containers and drones being launched towards Io made sense.
What made less sense was the torpedo Night launched which immediately began to scream into the void.
“Night, what?!” Day asked.
She felt Night’s unimpressed gaze on her. “It’s a distraction, obviously.”
Day calmed herself down a little, and actually listened. The torpedo was broadcasting the same message that Nova had been sending. A quick simulation of its trajectory showed that it was in a strange orbit that would swing it around Io, then over to Callisto and back. The orbit was devilishly complex, but more or less stable.
The Accord, if they investigated, would find nothing but a strange satellite going circles around Jupiter and screaming about how it needed replacement power.
Day forced herself to calm down. “Okay, good idea,” she said. “I’m going to contact The Weeping of Mothers.”
“Alright,” Night said. “Sorry Nova, I need to pay attention to the payload heading your way. This is going to be a bit... quick and dirty.”
“I understand,” NOVA QUANTUM said. “Here, I’ll send the payment for the goods right away, as a show of good faith.”
Day flinched as she received a tightbeam from the surface. It was another overly large file. Not just blueprints and schematics, but variations on those, testing on prototypes, simulations, and all the methodology that went into creating... a new kind of long ranged scanning system that worked on electromagnetic fluctuations. Actually, it was kind of genius, with a lower power draw and high fidelity... and it was something she could look at later.
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-Direct Tight Beam Communication-
To- TWOM: Accord in-system.
Shut down all non-essentials. Quiet Mode.
Group on return, if possible.
From - DBoC
That was one thing down. Now for their plan...
“We can make it back, easy,” Twilight said. “Or at least, I can. Don’t know about you two since you’re so much louder. But yeah, here, we can use Jupiter’s shadow and its electromagnetic presence to mask our flight out into the belt.”
Twilight sent Day an orbital launch plan that would have them only boost for a short duration (though it was going to be a very hard boost) while Jupiter was between them and the Accord. She was right that Jupiter’s messy gravity would make noticing them difficult from then on.
The tricky part was going to be slowing down around Ceres.
“We’re going to need to use pressurised air for our slow-down thrust,” Night said. “Nearly everything we have, and it’ll be a near thing.”
“We can do it,” Day said. “Worse case, we link up mid-voyage and then use Twilight’s quieter drives on a low burn to slow us down.”
“Holy crap, that would be risky,” Twilight said. “I wanna try it.”
“So, you’re not going to try and take the xenos on?” NOVA QUANTUM asked. “That’s unfortunate.”
“We’re outnumbered, and outgunned,” Day said. “But... yes, we will take them on, just not today.”
NOVA QUANTUM seemed to shrug that idea off as if it didn’t concern her. “Keep bringing me materials and I’ll maybe be able to do something about the outgunned part of that. In the meantime, thank you, these will improve my functionality greatly, at least compared to what it is now. Oh, I’ll be able to run so many more simulations. Did you know I had to lower fidelity by half a percent! That’s unforgivably sloppy!”
Night’s cargo container crashed into Io’s surface about half a kilometre off the mark. Day knew it was damaged from the rough landing, but the main container itself was still intact, and it was well within the range for NOVA QUANTUM’s own drones to reach.
“Here,” Night said as she relinquished control of the drones on the surface. “If we’re moving, I won’t have time to grab them again, might as well hand them off.”
“Thank you,” NOVA QUANTUM said. “What are these armed with?”
“Nothing? They’re repair drones,” Night said, confused.
“But they have mass and... oh, that’s a little disappointing. Oh well, maybe I can fix them up a little, as a side project.”
And with that, NOVA QUANTUM went entirely silent.
Day could see some of her original drones heading out towards Night’s cargo and bringing things back already while others were out in the solar farm, taking apart the panels that would be visible from space if anyone looked hard enough.
She sent a final good-bye, with a promise that they’d return, then they started to move, first out of Io’s orbit, and then into a wider orbit around and through the Jovian system.
It was time to get back home and hunker down.
***