Colonel Ashwood sat in one of the grounded shuttles present in the makeshift Terran camp, brooding. His only company was one of the pilots moonlighting as a communications officer, his entire job being to stare at an empty screen, waiting for a message. The rest of his people were mostly treating the entire thing like a vacation, since they could do nothing against either the Custodian or another orbital attack. They still posted sentries and maintained basic discipline, but there wasn’t a real point to anything else.

Ashwood still felt like he got scammed. It had been a few days since he traded for the remains of Phaedra, nonetheless, he did not have much to do except think. His thoughts often circled back to the topic. In exchange for tutelage in the English language, he had received a couple of marble tiles fused together by once-liquid metal. Presumably Unit number nine, Phaedra.

Not that he could tell. Whatever self-destruct mechanism the unit possessed presumably went off without a hitch. Or the Custodian just gave him a bunch of garbage. He had no way to know.

That was the real source of his annoyance. Knowing English would surely prove a great boon for the Eigosians, while he did not know whether he even accomplished his mission. What’s more, he had had no real choice but to accept it and further rely on the Custodian’s word.

While he knew that Athena desired a conflict with Eigos and likely accounted for the effects of this trade in her calculations, helping a more-or-less current, not to mention an extremely barbaric, enemy of the Republic did not sit well with him at all.

‘Part of the job I guess,’ he thought, sighing.

The uncertainty of his own future was not helping his mood any either. Especially since he had nothing to do but sit and wait. The two damaged and decidedly hostile cruisers up in orbit were silent and the colony ships were nowhere to be seen, leaving Ashwood and his men stranded.

Hopefully, the cruisers' silence was due to a lack of air. That’d be something. Not much, but something.

His pleasant daydreams were suddenly interrupted by an audible alert coming from the pilot’s console. The pilot, a man named Yang, was quick to wave him over.

Ashwood stood up with not a small amount of trepidation, various possibilities running through his head. Hopefully, it would be good news.

The pilot was quick to vacate his seat, letting Ashwood take his place and use his credentials to decrypt the message.

Once done, he had to blink at the office of origin, ’DREADNAUGHT BASTION, CAPITAL SHIP OF TASK FORCE ERINYES, UNITED NAVY OF THE TERRAN REPUBLIC’

Dreadnaughts were extremely sparse, mostly due to their impracticality. Not that they were ineffective in their roles, but they could only be in one place while many lesser ships could be made for the same price.

He didn’t really know what to think about that sort of firepower coming here.

The message itself was perplexing. Essentially, the author wished to brush Song killing many of his men under the rug explaining it away as a ‘tragic miscommunication’ during a ‘training exercise’ while highlighting the danger and barbarity of the locals and asking him to board the Bastion as, of all things, an expert on the locals.

The message was signed by Admiral Renard, a man rather known for his cautious attitude when it came to AIs, while it also had one of Athena’s codes, Jade Tau Semystra, tucked neatly way in the post scriptum.

The code simply meant that the message it was attached to was trustworthy in content, though not in authorship.

Ashwood didn’t understand at all.

He had expected that any enemy reinforcements might try to trick him away from the Custodian’s protective presence, but Athena’s code made that rather unlikely.

Ashwood could only see two possibilities. Either the message was genuine and the Admiral really wished to join forces, or he had somehow captured one of Athena’s operatives and got the code out of him. The latter option was incredibly unlikely since the code was one of the ones directly individualised for him, meaning that the only one who knew its meaning was Athena. If the Admiral acquired it through dishonest means he would be actively disincentivised from sending it along, since he would not know its contents and from his perspective that’d be exactly what Athena would want.

Which meant that the entire thing was likely genuine. That, he didn’t understand.

After all, his previous instruction had been extremely clear. The civil war should have by all accounts already started, yet one of the enemy’s leaders both knew of the schism yet genuinely wished to cooperate?

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The Colonel groaned, eliciting a curious glance from the pilot.

“Officer Yang, please check whether Lieutenant Jane has returned and send her here if she has,” Ashwood ordered.

The pilot saluted and jogged off, understanding that any news from beyond the planet was bound to be very serious.

Ashwood rubbed his temples.

‘Why does everything have to be so complicated?’

Considering the matter some more, he thought it likely that Athena was playing some sort of a game. She wanted a conflict with Eigos. More importantly, the Admiral thought that she’d help in a conflict with Eigos and apparently trusted her enough to trust Ashwood after he almost got offed by their side after a civil war became much more than just a possibility.

It made absolutely no sense.

Before Ashwood could start banging his head on the shuttle’s metallic walls, he was interrupted by a knock. Immediately after, the shuttle’s door opened, letting Jane enter. Ashwood rotated the chair towards the door in the back of the shuttle, craning his neck at the taller woman. She wore her full Soma Aspis armour, the helmet covering her face completely.

“You asked for me, Colonel?” She spoke.

“Yes, we’ve received a message from a new arrival. Task force Erinyes, led by Admiral Renard.”

“They with us?”

“Fuck if I know,” Ashwood gestured towards the monitor, “Here, tell me what you think.”

Jane walked over and peered over his shoulder.

She finished reading in a few seconds, much more quickly than him.

She peered at him, “What’s the code?”

“The message is trustworthy while the author isn’t.”

“What’s the problem then?”

Ashwood frowned at the armoured woman, “This guy should be preparing another nuke, instead he is trying to recruit us with you-know-whose blessings?”

Jane stared at him. The helmet made it hard to tell, but Ashwood very much felt like she was staring at him like he was an idiot.

“You think our dear old Admiral was actually the one to put the magic words in?” She said with considerable amusement.

“Ahhh,” he blinked in realization, “That does make much more sense.”

“Still, I would not have expected an olive branch at this juncture,” she added.

Ashwood tapped his fingers on the console, “They might have left before anything serious happened.” Outpacing the news was more or less the norm when it came to space travel.

Jane hummed in thought.

If that was the case, then the Admiral likely thought that any hostilities so far were contained to the Eigosian star system, giving him a chance to control the narrative, if not sweep everything under the rug. Perhaps he was even naive enough to think that the war might be completely deferred, though that’d be quite unlikely.

He sighed again, “So we accept.”

“Won’t they just bag us once they realize what is happening back home?”

“Well, obviously they’ll try.”

They looked at each other again. As the highest-ranked officer around, Ashwood did not really have to consult anyone, but he’d be a fool not to make use of Jane. While there weren’t really any significant enhancements even Athena could provide, the cyborg did have perfect memory and was highly educated. Some would think it a waste, but Athena was a big proponent of the ‘philosopher-soldier’ concept, at least when it came to those of actual importance.

When it came to the Soma Aspis, the concept was a lot more practical than it’d seem. After all, there was a lot you could cram into your head with implant-assisted learning and perfect memory.

“There is not anything left for us on the surface,” Jane broke the silence.

Ashwood nodded. They had no way to contend with the Custodian and their primitive infrastructure made it surprisingly hard to spy on their communications. No way to hack a letter. This left them with approximately nothing to do.

“But even if the Admiral does not realise how much the situation has devolved, he would have to be a complete fool to treat us with anything but the utmost suspicion.” Jane continued.

“True. Yet he’ll come for the Custodian’s secrets regardless. He’d be a complete fool not to take care of us at that time too,” Ashwood threw back.

Jane tilted her head, playing the devil’s advocate, “What if the Eigosians win?”

“They possess a single planet and no spacecraft. No amount of advanced technology will help them.”

Not that he completely believed there even was technology behind the Eigosians might.

‘How did the quote go, no magic is distinguishable from too advanced technology, or something like that,’ Ashwood thought, butchering the phrase.

“I agree, but surrendering just doesn’t feel right,” Jane said.

“Who said anything about surrendering?” Ashwood smirked, “You never wanted your own dreadnought?”