Novu Sol Star System

Novu Sol

Genesis City

Admiral Julia Vales was a busy woman. Being the head of Novu Sol's navy was no easy feat, wearing the stellar burst was a heavy burden and she would have it no other way. She'd worked hard to get here, there was no better way for her to serve her nation than being one of the top Admirals that ran the show. Sometimes she did miss having an actual ship or fleet to command, but so was the sacrifice of rank. One could not stay a captain forever and by serving her navy in this manner she got to watch an entire navy's worth of officers thrive.

She smiled at the young man sitting at a desk outside her office. Her personal yeoman, he kept her on track and always seemed to know what she needed. "What's on the schedule for today Zander?"

"Your biggest commitment is a meeting with the rest of High Command at 1400. We had some files come in for review from the Buffer Zone and I believe that yesterday you told me you wanted to be reminded to..." He squinted down at a note on his desk, "Check with the Logistical Office about the shortages they reported about a week ago."

Vales snorted. "Of all the things to run short on, you'd think they'd learn to check their decimal points when ordering things."

"Ah but surely you remember the plight of trying to get Logistics to cough up what you want Admiral." Zander grinned. "How much fun it was to fill those forms."

"I still get night terrors to this day of trying to get those extra parts for my heavy cruiser command when they absolutely would not cough them up for my engineers." She chuckled. "Thanks Zander."

She walked past him into her office, then paused when she saw his hand press the accept call button on his screen. She watched as he began his usual spiel and then stayed unnaturally silent for a long period of time. Vales leaned on the frame of her door, Zander began to take a furious note then shot up and turned to obviously tell her in person about the call. He stopped short as he saw her still standing there.

"Uh Ma'am..." he seemed a bit stunned. "We have a training request."

Vales quirked an eyebrow. That was unusual. It had been a while since anyone had taken the Novu Sol's navy up on their long-standing promise to train warships in proper space warfare and pirate protection measures. She knew a good portion of the reasons why people didn't is that they were hiring that traitor Desson, but another part was that there weren't very many nations left that had the ships to request the training and not just straight up ask for regular patrols.

"Who is it? Did they already pass screening?" She asked.

"Yes, or else we wouldn't have gotten the call." Zander made a motion to his ear piece. "The Ambassador of the TriStar Systems is on the line, it's just so unusual to get the requests I thought I better warn you face to face."

She nodded and gave a warm smile to Zander. "Thank you, transfer it over and I'll speak with her." She closed the door to her office, sank into the comfortable chair, and took a deep breath, using the moment to gather her thoughts.

The TriStar Systems was a set of three relatively close star systems each with a habitable world in its third orbit and a notable gas giant with an expansive moon system. Almost mirrors of each other, the odd trio of stars had long shared close relationships with each other and merged to form a tiny nation that despite its small number of systems, did well by itself by trading materials, goods and the occasional service. They never boasted a huge naval presence, some patrol craft in the actual star systems, some destroyers and obsolete frigates to police the merchants. They never needed a large force due to their proximity to the Stellar Democracy.

She wondered what caused this change of heart. She hoped it was just them wanting some extra punch to their minimal navy rather than a disaster.

Vales accepted the call once she felt she was ready to talk to the ambassador. The face of the ambassador appeared, her dark eyes seeming troubled. Not a good sign. "Hello Ambassador Surya, my secretary told me you were approved for our naval training program?"

Ambassador Surya gave a nod. "Yes Admiral Vales, I was told to contact you once the approval from screening came through."

"Ambassador, why did you apply for our program?" Vales asked as she pulled up data on what they knew about the TriStar Systems. "Says here last we knew you had 20 patrol craft, 5 destroyers and 3 frigates. Considering your nation is on the outskirts of our borders, that should be more than enough to protect your worlds."

Vales looked back at the ambassador and saw a bit of panic on the other woman's face. "You aren't going to withdraw..."

"No! Of course not." Vales quickly cut off the worried woman's train of thought, "I was just wondering why you feel you need it."

Surya took a deep breath, stealing her nerves. "Around nine months ago we noticed an uptick in attacks against our shipping outside our space. We changed our habits and began to tag along with your convoys, which helped a little. Then one of our patrol craft went missing, then a frigate, then two of our destroyers. No debris, no distress calls. They went silent."

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Vales felt her stomach knot. She did not like where this was going. "Did you find anything?"

"They reappeared, least the hyper capable ones did. They were damaged and limping back into orbit and when they got there they opened fired on the orbital defenses. Caught completely by surprise they destroyed a good chunk of the station and killed a lot of the people in it. They demanded our planet's surrender and only the rest of that system's patrol craft and all the other destroyers flocking to our rescue saved us from ceding the planet to these pirates. Having lost those ships, and the damage done to our other ships, we need Novu Sol's help and honestly it's protection while we build more ships. We have our first cruiser under construction right now, and we are looking into buying some more destroyers from Novu Sol." Surya looked down, "The TriStar System needs your help."

"And we can provide it." Vales said with a soft smile. "Ambassador, it's why we have the program to begin with. So smaller nations can learn to fight and protect their planets. Your losses sounded horrific, but your nation is doing the right thing by coming to us for help. My navy would be more than glad to help protect your people while you build up your forces." She paused for a moment to let Surya digest that. She wasn't going to mention that they could have gone with the lunatic Desson and gone broke if they hired her, but it was better to not acknowledge that little black spot on their reputation. "In fact if you give me a few days, let me get in contact with the Vanquish yards to see about starting on a set of destroyers for you. I cannot promise anything but if I talk to the Treasurer and the President, I might be able to get them subsidized for your nation."

"Really?!" Surya sounded both ecstatic and shocked. "That is far beyond what I imagined this program would offer. I was under the impression that it was more of just a study program."

"Oh no, of course not." Vales tapped a note into her console. "You are a interstellar neighbor of ours and the TriStar Systems had never been an enemy so why wouldn't we want to help you?" She sighed, looking a bit troubled as her mind raced over all she would have to do. "Right now they just went after your nation, which is fairly underwhelming in the firepower department. But who's to say that the next target won't be one of our worlds? We may have the most powerful navy, but we cannot be everywhere at once. Sometimes pirates get through the cracks we cannot cover, which is why having powerful allies is so important."

"Thank you Admiral! I cannot thank you enough." Surya was practically gushing and Vales couldn't help a small chuckle.

"I haven't even done anything real yet Ambassador! Please, let me show some results before giving me the first place trophy."

Surya gave a snort of laughter herself. "It still means a lot to me, and to my nation. We were afraid after the attack, afraid for our children, our trade, our homes."

Vales nodded, serious once again. "I understand wanting to make sure your home is safe from those that might threaten it. It's why we build militaries in the first place. When does your next dispatch to home go out?"

"In about...." Surya checked something out of view of her com screen, "Six hours. Why?"

"I have an information packet and proposal I want to send to your Prime Minister. Mostly normal information about what will happen and how we will go about it, but in order to give you a vast and experienced pool of people, I want to propose that your military send some naval officers to serve on our ships and some of ours on yours. A cultural exchange sort of arrangement, but a good way to immerse less experienced personnel with people who have been doing their job for years."

"That sounds wonderful!" Surya practically beamed. "I doubt it will be a problem, it sounds like a good idea and The Prime Minister will love it. I just know it."

"Then it's settled." Vales tapped a command on her screen. "I sent you the proposal and the information, I will get the ball rolling on the rest of what I need to make this happen as soon as possible. If I have any hiccups, may I call you Ambassador?"

"Yes of course Admiral." The Ambassador gave a sort of half bow to the screen. "Thank you once again, it means so much to me... to us."

"It's not a problem Ambassador." Vales gave a respectful nod to her and said, "Have a good rest of your day," before she ended the call.

Vales sat back, rubbing her chin in thought. They were a bit more desperate then she'd expected, but the Ambassador might just be the excitable sort. A person unable to keep her emotions in check when it came to negative experiences. Not the best Ambassador to have but then again, did the TriStar Systems ever expect for a pirate band to be brazen enough to attack them with their own ships?

That was worrisome, but in the end a small problem for a navy as large as the one she controlled. Vales wouldn't want to risk isolating any smaller destroyers just in case but small ships being on isolated missions was fairly rare, and she could probably work with her people to make sure to step up security patrols and protocols for the more remote planets her ships were stationed at. She wondered who the bright spark was behind the pirate band that did it. It was clever, but Desson was one person and would not have allowed herself to be defeated, so her probable involvement was slim.

She brought up a star map, dimmed the lights in her office and traced a speckle of stars that was at this viewing angle slightly above and to the general 'right' of Novu Sol. Hornrasier's Confederacy, the interstellar equivalent of a pit of snakes as always highlighted a dull mustard yellow as an indication of dangerous, but not actively warring, space. A nation with such a weak central government it couldn't keep its own planets under control half the time, often subject to corrupt power plays by tin pot dictators and breakaway movements that rarely stuck. It was a common place for pirates to come from because it was such a hellhole that if a corrupt politician siphoned off a few armed ships and gave the crews orders to do something, there's was a good chance no one could trace it unless the politician was dumb enough to not cover their tracks. Of course some people were always bound to be bastards, which is why anyone had a military in the first place, and who knows, maybe some random person got tired and decided to go attack the TriStar Systems because they thought they could actually succeed.

Vales brought the lights back up, leaving the star chart to float there in the air as she entered a command to call her various advisors and staff. Time to get this ball rolling.