Ares Armoured Corp, Nascent smuggling operations… It was starting to dawn on Edward that these pirates seemed to be quite far down the rabbit hole of illegal operations.
The Webb’s report was quite the extensive piece collating information from various interrogations, data mines and recoveries along with some recon reports. Each one of them revealing part the developing illicit sectors that were connected to the group they were hunting.
The mercenary group called “Ares Armoured Corp” was particularly worrying and interesting. A mercenary group with their own hideout somewhere, made mainly up of ex-Russian and Chinese troops along with plenty of unstable vets and specialists from other countries, offering up their services under the table to everyone they could. With the pirates acting as one of their supply and intel links. Already reports had been coming in of AK armed soldiers spotted along the borders of the IFC’s holding on Caelypsus, which were suspected as being from them. Though god knows how they managed to sneak them down there… Either way that was another group to look out for.
Hell, it’s perfectly possible that their main base had some decently capable mercenary marines stationed there. That would make the capture of it far harder…
He felt Elliot’s arms wrap around him from behind, his slender face resting on Edward’s shoulder. “Got more things to worry about?”
“Yeah… Just a few more complications piling on…”
“Anything I can help with?
“I don’t think so… It depends if you can give a decent stab at trying to find a pebble drifting in the Atlantic.”
Elliot sighted, his grasp around Edward growing tighter, “I can’t… But I feel so useless here, I’ve got nothing I can do to help anyone, or any job that I need to do…”
He turned, getting out of his chair and embracing Elliot back, “I know it’s a little hard but you’ve got a use here, and one much bigger than just sitting around in here with me. Just… I can’t tell you what it is.”
“As if that’s helpful…” He whimpered.
“I know, just… I fucking hate needing to keep secrets, but I have to here. But trust me, you’ll have a moment where you will be invaluable. But for now, I’ll keep a look out for anything you can be needed for, and I’ll try to be around with you as much as I can, okay?”
He felt Elliot’s head nod on his shoulder, “Alright… But you need to get going now.”
“And I’ll see you at lunch.”
----------------------------------------
“Alex?”
“Yes sir?”
“Where the hell is David!? And several of the others?”
While it wasn’t unusual for the CIC to be a little empty in the morning, today it seemed too empty. With David’s smug expression noticeably missing. It just all felt… Dead.
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing in for a moment, “Now, can you tell me what the hell happened last night?”
Alex sighed, “David got into a drinking competition.”
“With?”
“Uhhh- Harley, Nayla and Osada-“
“Oh, my fucking god he’s dying of liver failure isn’t he!?”
“How on earth can you jump to that!?”
“No one can out drink a Japanese professional! Well… Actually, I think the Irish and Slavs could… But anyway! You watch everything while I’m gone!”
Alex was simply left dumbfounded as the admiral ran out of the CIC, leaving the communications officer alone with a perplexed Elizabeth.
While it wasn’t all that far, it felt like a mile to Edward as he rushed down corridor, beelining straight towards David’s quarters. His hands operating the lock as fast as his arms would allow.
And inside of David’s dark quarters was the man himself, fast asleep and curled up in his sheets, his face that of peace and serenity. An undisrupted happy dream floating through his mind.
All up until his desperate friend started shaking him while screaming for him to, “wake up!”
“W-WHA-! Ah fuck… What time is it? Have I got lectures today!?”
The shaking stopped, soon followed by Edward letting go of him and letting David drop back onto the mattress. “David. We graduated Uni nearly half a decade ago and we’re several billion kilometres away from the nearest one.”
“Oh… Really?” He murmured, his eyes struggling to stay open, “Well shit… How much did I have last night? Or was I in a coma?”
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Edward groaned, “You were not in a coma and I don’t know how many fucking pints you had, that’s what I came here to ask you. As you are not late to a lecture and are instead late to being on duty.”
“That’s worse, isn’t it?”
“You’ve been in the fucking military for several years at this point and please do not tell me that you had enough alcohol to pickle your brain and all of your memory neurons!?”
“I’m not gonna lie mate… I don’t know what went on tonight and I feel like I’m a badger that has been pickled.”
Edward stared at him for a moment, “Who the fuck pickles badgers!?”
“I dunno! Fucking chavs from dingy the wasteland you’re from!? I’m just saying I feel like one!”
The admiral collapsed onto the bed beside his nauseous friend, his face blank, “You know, I can’t argue that there are some real dingy places in the north, but you’re taking it a step too far-“
“Am I?”
He groaned again, “Are you hungover?”
“You’re avoiding the-“
“Are. You. Hungover?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how you haven’t guessed that yet.”
“And so you’re not going to be able to work?”
David rolled his eyes, “Again, what do you think?”
“Alright, alright mate. I’ll give you the day off. But god forbid if this was a day we were expecting to fight on or one where we’d have to be on the lookout.”
“Again mate, the pounding headache is taking hold and my eyes can’t see shit, so maybe leave the disciplinary action for once I’ve got the mental capacity to really register it.”
“Right…”
“Look, in my defence I had to represent the South West against the Japanese and Yankies, and from my foggy mind I think I might have drunk Harley to the ground-”
“Ah fuck… So, you were doing your duty to the South West by incapacitating the security chief, along with half of the rest of the room, by making them so drunk they can’t fucking speak!? Never mind sit u-”
“THAT’S THE ONLY WAY TO REPRESENT THE SOUTH WEST!”
“SORRY, I’M NOT A FUCKING COUNTRY YOKEL WITH TWO O-LEVELS, ONE GCSE AND SEVEN TEETH SPREAD ACROSS THE VILLAGE!”
“Fucking hell…” David groaned, holding his head in his hand, “Also, HOW DARE YOU INSULT THE SOUTH WEST!”
“Its simple revenge for all the times you’ve insulted the north. And anyway, you know it to be true, like I know it to be true that Sheffield forty years ago was the perfect setting for Threads, precisely because it already looked like it had had a nuke dropped on it.”
“It still looks like. I mean, you call that brutalist mess a landmark!?”
“Don’t you dare insult Park Hill Flats, its part of a tragic love story! Besides, I've been to Easton and St Georges in Bristol. And most of Plymouth. And Jesus man, there's nothing left in Cornwall! You think you can talk about bad building styles?"
"Hey man, there's no need to go in that far."
"Then don't insult Park Hill. Bitch. Plus, we have nice pork sandwiches! So, sleep well, and don’t you ever fucking dare give half of the command staff apocalyptic hangovers again."
David groaned, pulling the covers over himself and falling silent, the conversation over.
----------------------------------------
Luckily for Edward, the flag bridge had filled decently, with Elizabeth, Amber, Alex, Newman and Webb all present and accounted for. Good. All the people required to plan the jump…
Welp, it needs to be done, sorry, not sorry David.
“Newman!” He called, as he entered. The navigation officer’s head snapped around as thew admiral did so, their expression like that of a dear suddenly realising it had two seconds between standing in the road peacefully, and experiencing what it was like to go forty miles per hour faster than it had evolved to do sideways.
“Yes sir!” They barked, bolting upright in their chair, after their muscles finally received their brain’s orders.
“Could you get us on a path to the mining colony in system B-10349 and how many jumps do we need to get there?”
They nodded, perhaps a bit to fast than they needed to, “I can do it sir! It’ll take a few hours.”
“Don’t worry, I know that.” He thought for a moment, “Is there a catchier name for the system yet?”
“Uhhh- I’m not quite sure…”
“Well, update me if that ever changes. I feel like I’m going to forget that name any day now and I’m going to embarrass myself.”
“R-Right sir.”
“Now…” Edward muttered, standing right over Newman’s shoulder and console, “What on earth is this system like…”
“Its- Uh- Not on this earth…”
Silence fell on the two of them as Edward could swear they were trembling.
“I’m-“
“Don’t worry about it mate, everyone needs to say that joke at some point and if this was your first time doing that, you can now feel the pride of it.”
“Thanks…”
He clapped their shoulder, “No worries again. So, what do we have here…”
On Newman’s screen was a 2D projection of the system. Inclinations and other orbital data listed by the little dots indicating astral bodies.
There wasn’t anything in the way of habitable bodies it seemed, with none of the dots having the usual notation that indicated one, with only one dwarf planet having the symbol for a friendly colony. Everything else seemed to be asteroids, rocky barren planets in the inner part and gas giants on the outer end. A fairly typical solar system.
Though… On the outer edges was… A barren super earth…
“Newman, I’m guessing you’ve spotted that little weird planet out there…”
“Yeah. Most reports assume it’s a rogue planet that entered this system a couple of thousand years ago.”
“Holy shit…” He muttered, as he felt himself entranced by that tiny dot. That little blot on the screen that represented something light years away that they could go to! A planet that had been adopted by another system after it was thrown out by another, traveling for millions of years and making it to it’s new home many, many light years away from it’s old one. It was a thought that made Edward fill with the child like wonderment and glee mixed with galactic scale melancholy that just made him want to ditch everything that this fleet was supposed to be doing and explore!
But yet, he could not do so. And instead it seemed like even worse may be on the horizon before he could be let loose to actually make expeditions with the expeditionary fleet…
“Sir?”
“Oh- It’s nothing, just a few aspirations I would like to do while I’m still young...”
“Well sir, I’ve got it down as three jumps we need to do to get the safest transit possible and it’ll take us about a day if we push the generator to it’s full power output. But you might need to ask Amber about that!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you at your word at this one and its fine if we’re late due to charging the capacitors. But…” Edward thought for a moment, “Have you got any planets here you find interesting?
Newman turned around, his joy apparent in his eyes, “Glady sir. Astronomy has been a hobby for quite a while for me! So, if you look here at the second body out here, it has quite a high mass, and we believe it may be due to an abnormally large core which is also fairly active it seems for the surveys.”
“Well, I be damned… Is it a bit close to the star to stand on though?”
“Oh, it’s temperature will make you swear quite a fair bit if you stand on it at any place that’s in the sun, but it isn’t tidally locked at least. So, one side hasn’t been superheated like on mercury. That and it is further back, though this star is rather different...”
Edward smiled.
Maybe he’d found another kindred spirit in his love of space…