Ashwood was not pouting. He was a grown, battle-scared man, and those did not pout. No, he was carefully evaluating his chances of requisitioning the dreadnought and coming to unfavourable conclusions.

Apparently, Admiral Renard did not trust him. How hurtful.

The Colonel was currently being escorted by six armoured soldiers through the dreadnought alongside Jane, his now-official second-in-command. It had been a few days since the Bastion sent down shuttles to pick them up. Much to the Colonel’s consternation, they had been deposited on Pleione, the half-destroyed and nearly depopulated cruiser still in orbit around Eigos. This somewhat predictable move by the Admiral pretty much destroyed the Colonel’s dreams of theft. On the plus side, it made hiding the pretty recognizable Soma Aspis armour a breeze.

The situation on Pleione had been tense, though likely a lot less than if the vast majority of Pleione’s soldiers had not died down on Eigos. As it was, his men basically had free reign over most of the ship, though Captain Black was careful to maintain some semblance of control. Not like it really mattered, with Pleione as damaged as it was.

After that, they had been left to ‘rest’ for a few days.

Finally, the Admiral had called for him to fulfil his end of the bargain and provide his ‘expertise’.

Which is how Ashwood found himself escorted through one of Bastion’s sterile corridors alongside Jane.

They passed a couple more corridors in silence, before finally arriving to a conference room. The Admiral awaited them inside along with some of his officers and more soldiers.

As Ashwood and Jane entered, their escort fanned out behind them, covering the entrance.

The Colonel did his best to appear unconcerned and moved towards the clustered officers. Jane was as effortlessly impassive as ever.

“Ah, Colonel Ashwood. I’m Admiral Renard, next to me is my second-in-command, Colonel Navarro and Lieutenant Ivanova, a promising young officer. The last two are Captains Chen and Grimsson. It is good to finally meet you,” The grey-haired man Ashwood recognized as Admiral Renard spoke, offering his hand. He was tall and unhealthily thin, giving him a gaunt appearance. This was somewhat offset by his sharp face and fierce eyes, along with an immaculate black uniform. Navarro and Ivanova stood to his right and left respectively, with Chen next to Navarro and Grimsson next to Ivanova.

Ashwood felt a flash of annoyance as he realized he’d have to deal with another person who’d be quite literally looking down at him. He resisted casting a jealous glance at Jane, who matched the Admiral’s height easily.

“The pleasure is mine, Admiral,” Ashwood responded politely, shaking his hand.

The two men stared at each other for a few seconds.

Lieutenant Ivanova, a short woman with red hair, shuffled awkwardly.

Finally, the Admiral broke the silence, “I think it would be best if we dispensed with pretences. We are both supposed to retrieve the weapon for the Republic, yet, if the reports from the surviving Captains are accurate, then we are presented with another problem altogether."

“And what would that be?” Ashwood asked, mildly curious about the Admiral’s reasoning.

“Eigos, of course, Colonel.”

Ashwood inclined his head in acceptance. If the metaphorical bullet had not almost certainly already been fired, his agreement would even be sincere.

The natives and their Custodian were an enigma, one with a possibly disastrous answer. Still, Athena wished for war with Eigos and it would be a lie to say that Ashwood did not agree. While letting sleeping dragons lie might be beneficial in the short term, they’d wake up eventually. Better to seize the initiative and slay the beast while it is unaware.

“I assume you have questions?” Ashwood asked.

The skeletal admiral nodded, “To say that the reports we’ve received are confusing would be an understatement.”

Ashwood hmmed, “I suppose our friends in orbit wouldn’t have seen much. So, what would you like to know?”

The Admiral rolled his eyes, “Everything. Start with what you know of the weapon.”

Ashwood chuckled, “That will be quite quick then. I don’t really know anything about it.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Admiral Renard frowned, “You must have at least seen something.”

The Colonel nodded, “Yes, I can tell you how things looked like and their aftermath, certainly. However, I’ve no idea about the how.”

“That is better than nothing,” Renard motioned with his hand for him to continue.

“Very well then,” Ashwood acquiesced, before explaining what he had seen during his encounters with the Eigosian weapon.

By the end of his recollection, most of the officers in the room were frowning.

“That… That almost sounds like magic,” The red-headed Lieutenant commented.

This elicited even more frowns, with even Ashwood joining in.

Mainly because the woman was right. It did sound like magic.

“Now, now, let’s not jump to conclusions, Ivanova. We no longer live in mud huts, there is no need to attribute the unknown to magic. I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Colonel Navarro, rebuked. He was a man of average height, with black hair, brown eyes and wore the black uniform of the navy.

“You know what they say about advanced technology and magic,” Ashwood added.

“Magic or not, it doesn’t really matter for now,” Renard spoke loudly to silence the room before continuing, “The natives have already shown us just what they think of our people. By all accounts, they lack proper technology. Whether their power comes from a hidden weapon system or something more esoteric, they clearly lack the means to use it en masse. For now.”

The room descended into silence as those present thought about the Admiral’s words.

“We could always just throw a few asteroids and nukes at the problem,” Lieutenant Jane said, breaking the silence with her monotone voice.

Both Navarro and Ivanova turned to look at her, their faces sporting incredulous expressions.

Ashwood just sighed. He had gotten a fairly good grasp on the Lieutenant’s personality, so he was fairly sure that Jane wasn’t actually serious.

“That’s, we can’t do that…” Ivanova began, but the Admiral silenced her with a gesture before glaring around the room, mainly at Jane.

“It is an option. An option of last resort, to be exact. While the Eigosian ideology may seem fairly benign in isolation, it is inherently imperialistic and effectively at that. Should they figure out interstellar travel, a… crusade, of sorts would likely follow eventually. I do not think I need to explain how disastrous such a thing would be, especially should they manage to maintain their hegemony over the weapon.”

Ashwood wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but it certainly sounded convincing. He wouldn’t call what was essentially an authoritarian theocracy benign either though. Eigosians might be pretty decentralized and missing the nationalism, but the rest fit pretty well.

Ivanova looked a lot more unhappy with the Admiral’s words, but she kept silent.

“Such drastic measures are not worth discussing now, however,” Admiral Renard added, before pointedly looking at Ashwood again.

“For now we have two objectives: To bring the so-called Custodian to justice for her atrocities and to study and seize the weapon. As it just so happens, the Custodian is the key to both of them.”

Ashwood shook his head, before interrupting the Admiral, “That’s not a good thing. In fact, I’d argue the very opposite.”

“Oh, perhaps you missed a few things in your prior retelling?” Navarro commented.

Ashwood frowned at his fellow Colonel. He thought he had been pretty clear.

“Until we understand how she is doing what she is doing, a direct attack will be far too reckless. Maybe she’ll run out of batteries before shooting down the whole task force, maybe she won’t.”

The resulting silence was rather awkward, as the officers present were forced to recall that yes, the primitives had actually outright destroyed one battlecruiser and crippled another in a single attack.

“They couldn’t possibly do that. Could they?” Ivanova asked.

Renard responded, voice thoughtful, “I doubt it. Magic or not, the Custodian is clearly important to the system in some way, with her own skill being a likely weak link. You never saw her do more than two things at once, did you, Ashwood?”

He gave it some thought, before shaking his head in the negative.

“While we can not discount fail-safes, this does provide a potential avenue of attack,” Navarro said.

Ashwood held his tongue, silently hoping to be very far away from such an avenue.

“It is a possibility, still, Colonel Ashwood has a point. A head-on attack would be risky and from what I understand it isn’t a risk we need to shoulder. Do you concur, Ashwood?”

He mulled the question over for a few seconds before responding, “I would not say that everyone down there is happy with the status-quo and the Custodian’s leadership, no. In general, the further away from the centre of the Church's power, the less fanatic the populace seemed.”

Ashwood paused for a moment, “Still, I’m not sure if there are many who would actually be willing to go against the Custodian, especially after her recent performance. But finding out shouldn’t be too risky and there are a few likely candidates I can think of. ”

It seemed that all that time he had spent flying around the various Eigosian kingdoms wasn’t going to be a complete waste. He only hoped that it wouldn’t be him who’d be sent to negotiate. He’d already had quite enough of spoiled aristocrats for the rest of his life the first time.

Ashwood doubted he’d be that lucky.

Hopefully such a mission would at least keep him far away from the Custodian.