The shuttle stood out as the odd duck in the orbital station’s hangar, as it was the only thing that didn’t look hastily put together. My mother always insisted that it had been a necessary expense, otherwise, foreign dignitaries wouldn’t take our arrival seriously. While I agreed with the principle of it, in practice, it hadn’t been worth the cost, for we were seldom invited to any social event. And still ended up a laughing stock.
It took only a minute before Xander walked back into the royal shuttle.
“It’s safe for your entry my Lord.”
“Thanks, Xander, let the others know I appreciate the work you’ve all been doing.”
Xander nodded solemnly. “It is our duty and pleasure my Lord.”
Walking down the shuttle's retractable stairs I soon spotted an army guard. The guard bowed upon seeing me and my entourage of royal guards. It still felt weird having Xander or one of the other royal guards follow me around at every turn. How the hell did Dad or Mom ever get used to this?
“Greetings to you Lord Rafar, General Thalia has been expecting you. Please follow me.” Said the army guard.
“Lead the way.”
As we journeyed through the station I offered a glance through the window. The planet’s surface was barely visible due to the large bands of toxic clouds that radiated out and polluted the atmosphere. Solar power is still an unviable venture on our planet, which means that we have to rely on old and outdated power sources such as power plants. Thereby only adding to the already catastrophic climate conditions. Maybe one day we can fetch some fusion reactor tech for ourselves.
Since I seemed to have a bit more time on hand before I arrived at the general’s office I checked in with the Advancement chip’s data decryption and repair progress.
[Chip Repair progress at 30%]
[Administration System - Function - [COMMUNICATION NETWORK] - FOUND]
[Administration System - Function - [REMOTE CONTROL] - FOUND]
The repair progress has not been as fast as I had hoped, though that might have been due to the lack of sleep I’ve been getting over these past few weeks. Still, I should check out how these new functions work when I’m done chatting with the general.
The army guard stopped in front of the door.
“We have arrived Lord Rafar. ”
I nodded towards the army guard. “Thank you for your service soldier.”
Crossing over the door's threshold the first thing I spotted was the general hunched over her computer screen. I recognized the look of a warrior fighting against an endless sea of documents, only to go back to being drowned by them whenever you thought they were almost done.
“How do you like my gift, my dear General?” I asked sarcastically.
The General looked up at me, and from beneath the shadow of her General’s hat, I saw the beginnings of dark circles forming under her eyes. “I like the new ships, I like the troops, I hate the paperwork. As far as gifts go I can’t complain.” She said with a tired grin as we shook hands.
“You’ve done well to take over the mantel of both your parents during their absence Lord Jason. The things you’ve managed to accomplish in three weeks are quite simply astounding.” She waved over to a window where our newly retrofitted corvettes were practicing against dummy training targets.
I gave her a weak smile. “Thanks, General, sadly it's still not enough to deal with our current threats, so let's stop making pleasantries and get to the heart of the matter. How goes the search for the pirates?”
The General pushed her short white braid over her shoulders, her cybernetic cross-shaped eye seemed to lighten up with a red glow as she faced me. “The pirates have been getting sloppy, we’ve managed to slip under their radar and track down their location without giving ourselves away.” I looked over the data packet she sent me. “So they’ve been using a carrier as their refueling platform. No wonder we couldn’t find them all this time.” The General nodded. “From the basic scans we’ve managed to do the carrier seems to lack a lot of weaponry, however, it makes up for its lack of firepower with its fleet of fighter squadrons spread out over its two hangar decks. We’ve also been able to identify the blueprint of the original ship in our database. The vessel seems to have been an old heavy freight cargo transport in the past before it was modified.”
I leaned back in the office chair. “Do you think you can handle that carrier with the new additions to the navy?” The General though tired radiated an aura of confidence. “I think so, with the three additional multi-gun corvettes you’ve provided we can now provide anti-fighter cover for our two missile frigates to assault the carrier with. Of course, in battle, there is no surefire win, but our chances are looking good.”
“Good, I can’t stress the importance of getting this trade convoy back on track, right now Domestic affairs have been able to feed our citizens due to the rationing we put in effect, but that won’t last us longer than a few months tops.”
“Rest assured my Lord the military will handle it.”
“I hope so General. How long before the operation commences?”
“Will leave in an hour, the station still has two fighter squadrons to protect it.”
“What about some of the orbital weaponry Henry’s salvaged, are those online?”
“Last thing I heard was that some of the gun's calibration systems aren’t compatible with ours. I’m afraid that if you want more specifics, you will have to check in with Henry and the other engineers.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I see. General I pray for the success of you and your men. Make Rafar proud.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
With that, I stood up and left the room to find Henry and the engineers.
[15 minutes later, Rafarian Space Station “Miranda’s Hope” - Engineering bay - Weapons division]
Son of Rattialion! Screamed a familiar voice.
“Hi to you too Henry.” I snickered.
Henry who was too caught up in his own work dropped his tools and turned around in shock, apparently he hadn’t noticed me.
“Oh, it’s just you..”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know, technically speaking you just insulted your planet's ruler.”
“If you want me shot go ahead, it’s preferable to getting this hunk of junk to work.” Quipped Henry, as he gave whatever kind of machinery he worked on a good kick.
I chuckled and shook my head. “Alright friend, what seems to be the problem?”
Henry let out an exaggerated sigh. “It's the targeting system for the turrets we scavenged and fixed up down below. The machine won’t play nice with the station's systems.”
“The General mentioned something like that. I’m assuming it’s not a software problem then?”
“No, we managed to hack a system for that together. The problem is that the internal machinery for each targeting system used by each gun is different, thanks to being from different eras and manufacturers.”
“Alright let’s take a step back first and look at the big picture and go from there. First out of the fifty guns your team has managed to salvage, how many are functioning right now?”
“About thirty of the fifty guns are working properly, it’s the other twenty that’s the problem, their internal workings are too out of date to connect to the station's ammo supply delivery system.”
“And how long has your team been working on getting those twenty online?”
“About a week..”
“Right, in that case, I want you and the team to stop working on trying to integrate these into our stations system, I have a different plan.”
“Which is?”
“Well it was a plan intended for later, but since these guns won’t work with our station any time soon, I think it’s time we made some of our own gun platforms that we can deploy around the station. That way we can have each platform have its own internal system that will work with a subset of the twenty guns we still have left, whilst still adding to the station's overall defense.”
“Mmhh that could work. Alright will get on that right away.”
“Good, now before you go off and lose yourself in work again how about you point me to the asteroid mining division, I’ve got something I need to go over with them.” Henry sent a message to the mining division to let them know I was coming whilst also giving me pointers on how to get there. I said goodbye to Henry and the team and walked off.
When I looked at Xander I saw him smiling.
“And what’s gotten our royal guard captain happy? At this rate, you’ll lose your grumpiness and stern demeanor.” I joked.
“It’s just been a while since I’ve seen you genuinely happy like this my lord. Reminds me of your younger days when you and Henry were playing is all.”
I thought back on my interaction with Henry just now.
“Yeah, that was fun..”
[7 Hours later, Rafarian Space Station “Miranda’s Hope” - Engineering bay - Mining and salvaging division]
I collapsed into the office chair. Today was another productive day. R&D had managed to make a version of the Construction Drone that worked in space by replacing most of the mechanical limbs with small thrusters. It was quite surreal to see hundreds upon hundreds of metal crabs doing construction work in space... But the results spoke for themselves. Thanks to these metal beauties we’ve managed to repair the aging station and made and deployed four brand new defense gun platforms on each vertical and horizontal side of the station. And the work I did with the mining division should see an increase in our asteroid mining operations and construction facilities. Soon we might be able to make brand-new ships ourselves, without having to rely on salvage. However, we still need to figure out how we can make reactor components ourselves before that dream kicks off.
I had yet to hear back from the general, but I didn’t expect a response anyway, space combat could hours if not days to finish. Not that I had or wanted any experience with that. I’m a builder, not a killer.
As I felt my eyes close themselves and sleep to begin taking hold a communication link was sent to me from the station’s communications center.
I grudgingly accepted the invitation. Immediately upon accepting a virtual link was established between my cyberware and the communications center. “Sorry to disturb you your Highness but we’ve picked up a big FTL signature near the edge of our sensors network.” I took a sip of my nearby energy drink as I tried to fight off sleep's embrace. “*Yawn* Is the general back already?” The comms went quiet for a minute. “We’re not sure, the vessel’s power signature outclasses any that our vessels can produce.” I have a bad feeling about this. “I want all our defenses ready to respond?”
“Sir all stations are already prepared and standing by for possible action.”
“Good, keep me updated on the situation I’ll be at the command center in a minute-”
The warning claxon of the station came alive and blared through my conversation with the communications center. “WARNING ENEMY CARRIER DETECTED, STATION PERSONNEL READY AND ARM YOURSELF, PREPARE FOR BATTLESTATIONS, I REPEAT THE ENEMY IS APPROACHING, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Are these the pirates?!? Did the General fail?
I immediately rushed out of my quarters to get to the elevator, Xander and the royal guard were immediately behind me, giving me some sense of comfort and assurance. I immediately invited all of them to join my conversation with communications.
“Communications what is happening, leave no detail out!” I practically barked at them in my panic. “We’ve detected a hostile carrier, they have deployed several fighter squadrons and are heading for the station at top speed!!” Adrenaline surged through my body as I ran, whilst also checking that my custom pistol was still in its holster. “Are these the pirates our scout ship engaged weeks ago? And how many fighters squadrons are heading our way?!”
“We don’t know my Lord, the carrier doesn’t match the data we scanned previously on the pirate carrier. Five squadrons are heading for us! Three fighter and two bomber squadrons.”
“What about our two fighter squadrons? Have they deployed yet?
“They are leaving the station as we speak.”
“Instruct them to take advantage of the new defense platforms we’ve deployed to make up for the lack of numbers, whatever they or the defense network can’t hit we have to make up for with our new station defenses.”
I quickly called up Henry as well. “HENRY! Where the hell are you now!” I could hear Henry sprinting over our coms channel. “I and my team have split up, one half went to make sure that the guns are working properly, the other half is with me going to the hangar bay to see if we can help repair any of our fighters that need repairs.” We will need all the help we can get. “Good thinking Henry. I’m heading to the command center to get a better picture, arm yourself and your team, and stay safe!” we were almost near the elevator. “You too Jason!”
“My lord the carrier is generating a ton of power, it’s-”
A second later the lights flickered out and we were plunged into darkness.