“And of course, all the data has been wiped. Brilliant.”
Edward smacked the desk before letting his face fall into his hands. They had given them far too much time, and the pirates had gone ahead with the most sensible option. Wiping their servers clean. Leaving no trace of the coordinates that the ferry had escaped to.
Which therefore left only one option on how to find the second base. Well two options.
One, be a clever bastard and try to find some way to rat them out.
Or the main, simple option. Just comb every place in the system that might be hiding it. Possibly taking months to do so.
Great.
“We do have a listening post in B-10349 on the mining colony there. It’s been trying to find them already so we may yet have some intel ready.” Webb offered, clearing his throat and looking down at the frustrated admiral.
“And I doubt they will have found anything. We all know this is space and how infinitely large it is. This is millions of times worse than finding a fucking needle in a haystack.” He groaned, “At least you can find the needle with a magnet if it’s a ferrous one…”
“And that is the sort of thinking we will need to do sir. I have already delivered my report to your PC and I’m sure you could requisition something if you need it given our almost flawless success here.”
“Right… Thank you. You’re dismissed.”
Webb simply nodded, picked his files up, and left the bridge, leaving Edward alone with David and Alex. The working day slowly drawing to a close.
“So, we’re just going to be waiting her for a while to get some supplies, then start combing over an entire star system?” David asked, concerned eyes looking at Edward.
“It depends on what’s in the full report here and what command will let me have.” He raised one finger, “I have one smart plan which will give us another shot, if we can use some civvies as bait.”
David huffed, “Sounds like a plan I’d come up with, and not the ever-compassionate Edward Fletcher.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But the only reason I see these buggers getting out of their hideout now is to raid supply ships during a stopover in deep space to take their food and fresh water. If I was them, I wouldn’t be too concerned with building up a criminal empire or getting rich. I’d be trying to not to get blown up by the fuck off massive stealth ship that blew my mates up.”
“Do they know Vanguard did it though? The only people who have seen it are us, a bunch of dead people, and a bunch of prisoners. Plus they are in a different star system, so when the news actually comes out with what has happened they won’t be able to dial in. We still have the element of surprise.”
“That’s if they didn’t see the new report on what Vanguard has been assigned to do. Then they’d know of it.”
David paused for a moment. “Good point.”
“So we need to find a way to slap a tracker onto one of those rare raiding ships or capture some crew members who know where the base is, while also being willing to actually tell us that.”
“And they’re pirates Edward, we give em enough money or offer them some time off their sentence and they should spill it.”
“That’d be optimal, but not guaranteed.”
“But, Edward,” Alex interjected, “Where is the step between cargo ships getting attacked and us boarding the assailants? Civvies don’t have access to hyperspace coms relays, and we mostly use LASER relays ourselves. So, we’d have to be rather close to the potential ambush point which might give us away.”
“A good point Alex, and that’s the reason why I’d be putting a frigate in with them to escort them.”
“And wouldn’t that just ward them off?”
“Hopefully it wouldn’t, and having it completely unguarded when, they know the news is long out that they’re attacking these convoys would seem suspicious. So, having a ship that can use the hyperspace relay network, and that would be a credible escort for a threatened minor shipping route, in the convoy, is that missing step. From there we get the message from it of the attack and use a pre calculated jump point to come in with the fleet. Any sensible commander at that point would then surrender.”
Alex nodded, “That works, and should save some lives if we get there before the pirates star firing… But what if they do?”
“I think we’d just have to pray that the frigate’s point defence weapons could take out the missiles. If they go for them.” David answered.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Edward sighed, “Anyway, it does us no good to think about it right now so how about all of you go off now and I’ll shut everything off, alright?”
“Fine mate…” Sighed David, “But, you’ve got to do one thing for me.”
“And that is?”
“Spend some time with your boyfriend, alright? You’ve been busy for a few days, yeah, but how about now, you go and spend some time with him in your quarters. I’ll keep all the nearby ones empty, as long as you don’t go into the officer’s lounge, alright?”
“Why..?”
“Because I’m going to break the ice with the staff and having the big bad boss come in is bad for that.”
“You could have phrased all of that a tad better but I’m not going to complain. As long as you don’t gossip about… You know…”
“Your lovey dovey twink BF I know!”
He sighed again, “And especially do not say it like that.”
“Alright, alright! To pay you for that I’ll shut everything down and you run off to him now, okay? Capiche?”
----------------------------------------
Luckily David did spot some people in the crowd that were already a little relaxed. Though there were a worrying number that were still trying to imitate boards with their stance.
Alex, Eli Webb, Harley and Elizabeth had already gotten themselves drinks. To no ones’ surprise really, but Osada, Nayla and Erin Newman were clearly not in the party mindset. David had though the Australian would be a bit quicker to the drinks table, but it seemed like they were a little like Amber when they first met. Too nervous to lower their guard.
Wonderful…
“Good afternoon, everyone. I’ve gathered you all here on off hours to share a few drinks. So please, don’t act like the admiral is going to walk in on us in and we’re on duty. He has been sufficiently distracted for one thing. We have a wide range of spirits we can all get smashed on and a set of non-alcoholic beverages for if you want to be “boring” or “healthy” today. You are also free to be as casual as you want as these are off hours. Please remember that in here on off hours you can drops the “sirs” and such, please. And this is all I have to say before I am now going to take my turn to savour this fine bottle of whiskey.”
That seemed to be enough for Erin, who quickly moved towards the dark wood drinks cabinet, quickly finding a bottle of tequila. With that, Nayla and Osada were soon to follow.
“You sure this will all, you know, turn out alright?” Alex asked, sidling up to David’s side.
“Well, I’m sure it will go excellently once I’m a few shots deep into this lovely artisan liquor!”
“I meant more how we will get along with all of them, and how they will get along with each other.”
“Well I’m sure they’ve talked to each other a bit before now, so this should just get em a little closer. For us though…” He sighed, “I think it depends on if they see us as Eddy’s rats or not.”
Alex’s eyes flashed with anxiety for a moment, “Do you think they don’t wanna talk to us then?”
A sly smile spread across David’s face, “Why, are you going to be the next coupl-“
There was no blush on their face, only scorn, “No. Do you just want that to be true so you have another person to make those jokes to?”
“Yes… Ahh, a shame… It would unironically-“
“Stop right there. Or else this friendship we have built up goes down the drain and you’ll be finding all of your private emails forwarded to the admiral.”
“You win this time...”
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“Now, I’m telling you, the lieutenant commander there doesn’t seem half bad. He seems like a nice guy actually!” Erin said. It’d been quite a while since they could hoard an entire bottle of the golden joy and they were damned well making sure they were getting the most out of this opportunity as possible. It was hard to properly be confident without it to be honest to themself.
Beside them was Amber and Eli, the two of them taking a up a corner of the room and the best armchairs at the same time.
Eli laid back a little further, swirling some vermouth in a wine glass. “He is rather relaxed and calm under pressure it seems, along with having an excellent taste in malts, I’ll give him that. But he doesn’t strike me as a man that’s all that stable…”
Amber looked down at their own drink, “I don’t know… He’s a little, uhh, scary? I guess.”
“Oh?” Eli raised their eyebrow, “How so?”
“I don’t know… He just comes off as intimidating. Like he’s looking for perfect discipline and is ready the strike anyone down who doesn’t have that. But then just flips on off hours and with the admiral and Alex to a different person.”
“Right, about the admiral, is he any good?” Erin asked, looking between the two, “What we did there was something anyone could do so it hasn’t told me anything, but does anyone know actually how competent he is?”
“He’s got a Medal of the Commonwealth! He commanded that big flanking attack when all the people in it’s chain of command got killed! He’s got to be good!” Amber piped up, “That and I was on the ship he was commanding when it got hit by a ambush some months back and nothing got damaged in the attack!”
“But what’s that medal even worth!? They gave over fifty of them in the last month! All to whatever old cunt they could find that had done something vaguely heroic that justified fifteen minutes of fame for them! I’d say most of the medals from that time aren’t worth all that much.”
Amber clasped their through a little, still coughing from a drop of her drink breathed in while recoiling from the C word.
Eli however, couldn’t help but chuckle, “Now when I first saw you I wondered when that mouth would start spouting things I’d expect from a aussie. It seems that what they say about Americans and the word cunt are also rather true as well… Say, which part of there are you from?”
“Texas-“ She coughed, finally clearing her throat.
“Ah, that nicely fits too. But and astute observation from you dear- uhh-“
“You can just say friend, if Erin is okay with that.” Alex said, walking up behind the group.
“Uhhh-“ They stuttered, their head whipping around.
“What? I’m friends with the Admiral yet but I’m not telling him about everything I hear. So, uh- May I sit with you all?”
“Oh! Alex! Yeah sure, come here!” Called Amber, her eyes dashing up to meet the communications officer.
“Thank you. Now, I’m not gonna give my two cents on this as I don’t know enough about tactics. However, I’m very ready to give some stories and I’d like to get to know you all.”
“A bit blunt, but, if that’s a fine raspberry gin and tonic I can respect that.” Said Eli.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well then, to good taste and a pleasant night.”
All the while, David couldn’t help but feel a little smug. The first get together he’d planned in a while, and it seemed to be going nicely. But he couldn’t dwell on it for my much longer, as in front of him, Harley, Nayla and Osada stood an array of shots that needed drinking.