Chapter 148

My first trip on the Fateweaver was smooth through subspace. Too smooth. The low thrum the Void Phoenix’s FTL systems used to resonate on the bridge through the hull was comforting in a way and the perfect background noise to a long voyage. I was in command of a real warship. It was probably the strongest warship in human-controlled space.

We had just under one hundred captains and first officers in the Bradbury navy. Julie, had formulated dozens of certs for captains to complete. There were three branches of the certs, combat, emergency procedures, and environmental obstacles. I scored in the top five percent for the latter two and barely in the top twenty-five percent for combat. My over-analysis of situations and lack of ‘gut instinct’ was why.

Our top performer in every category was Desdemona Rouse. And it was not just because she had helped Julie design the training programs. She was really that good. I still held reservations about the Diamond Agent in our midst, but her focus was on the coming threat to humanity—the Malevolent, as the Sylvan called them. She was doing everything in her power to bend our efforts to get as strong as possible to fight them. Giving us Brotherhood technology, raiding Brotherhood caches, training our Navy up to the standards of the Brotherhood, and commanding the defense fleet of the Bradbury system.

After she had her children, I think I started to trust her more. Edmond and Julie had put in a lot of safeguards against her, but even then, I knew she could subvert our efforts with ease; but her value to establishing a strong Navy was too much to be ignored. Edmond also seeded her crews with many loyal men and women. The one thing that scared me about Desdemona was she practiced her power of the mind ability she inherited from Sylvan’s genes. She did it in private, but I received reports from Julie—and she was getting stronger.

One of the modules for training the captains highlighted all the mistakes I made when I brought the Void Phoenix back into the Bradbury system. Coming in too far into the gravity well. Not having the maintenance on the FTL drives completed, not having a full crew complement, and my navigation errors in trying to draw off the Brotherhood ships…. It was a long list, and I ran the scenario myself more than three dozen times and found the death of Nero could have been prevented in many ways. That weighed heavily on me, but I never talked with anyone about it.

My new ship and crew were professional. We kept the uniforms we designed for the Void Phoenix for the entire Navy. Francis was a good first officer as well. I had almost nothing to do on the voyage in subspace. I walked the Fateweaver every morning, starting with the forward observation room below the bridge. The cruiser was 529 meters in length, twice the length of the Void Phoenix. It had ten times the volume as well. That was a lot of space, especially considering how efficient many of the shipboard systems were.

The forward observation was the crew’s R&R room; we had four VIP cabins directly off it. It was the only luxury passenger accommodations area of the ship. It was quarantined for security purposes. The massive forward viewport was entrancing, and I think the Squirrel had taken the idea from the Void Phoenix.

I toured engineering and practiced with the Marines in the fitness room. The painting that had once graced the Void Phoenix training room was also here. Our ship only had one-third the possible complement of Marines, so the space was extremely large. Fitness training was a hobby of mine, and I loved the feeling of exhaustion and focus it required. I was ranked in the middle of the pack in our fifty-two Marines on board, but I had to remember these were the best our forces had.

From there, I did my thirty-minute VR training under Julian. This was the same for everyone, as procedures were constantly being updated. Then, I went to an hour-long staff meeting with my department heads. They knew I hated these meetings, so they were usually able to keep them under twenty minutes.

Then, I was on the bridge for a nine-hour shift in my captain’s chair. I used my terminals to review engineering progress and review crew evals. My life felt almost mundane.

I was excited when we finally reached the Concordia Prime system. I was to negotiate with Admiral LaRoche about a possible alliance. The growth in the Bradbury system had been fast, but we still needed bodies for our ships—smart and skilled labor.

The screens flared to life, and the young Tirani at sensors announced the plot of all the vessels in the system. Over three hundred and counting as our sensors extended further into the system. Two Brotherhood spy ships were located immediately, but we chose to ignore them for now. This was the seat of the second most powerful human faction after the Brotherhood controlled core worlds.

It took them two hours to send two battleships and five frigates on an intercept course as their sensors did not detect us for a good hour after our arrival. We were that far out of the system. I had appeared on the edge of the system, outside of range. We had sent our own spy drones and knew this area had no tactical value, so it would not be patrolled.

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I ordered an intercept course with the fleet coming to greet us. We were obviously an alien ship to them with our curved hull. We had our stealth systems all turned off and were trying to be as open as possible. I was not sure why the Bradbury Council had selected me for the mission. Well, I did know. I was human, and they wanted Deven Wellspring to be the face of our Single Star System Nation.

Not that I was any longer in charge of much beyond the research and engineering of new spacecraft and bots.

Our speed was much slower than our capability, and we sent out hails as being friendly and on a diplomatic mission. I wanted to get closer to reduce the lag time between transmissions before starting a dialogue.

When we were within comfortable communication range for them, I opened comms with our prerecorded message of being open to a formal mutual defense pact. After the message was sent, I waited for them to digest it and reply. We had postponed any dialogue requests until now.

We started our deceleration as well to appear less threatening. The message I got back was not what I expected—or I should say who I expected.

Samantha Kirov, Amos’ mother, and my old captain from back in my time in the Union Navy. She was wearing an admiral’s uniform, much older, and I was at a loss for words. Lazarus had told me she was dead. She was just as shocked to see me on the other end of the communication. I gathered myself first, smiled, and asked how Samantha was doing.

Her tongue was caught for the longest moment before she responded. Her stern admiral face softened markedly, and she asked about the Void Phoenix. It was still the most wanted ship in the part of space. I smiled and told her the Void Phoenix was retired. I could see her itching to ask about Amos, so I volunteered and told her Amos was well and thriving. Relief flooded her face at the news, and she remembered she was dealing with an intruder in her space.

Samantha asked my ship to come to a full stop and be inspected if I wanted to proceed further in the system. I declined, of course, and was happy to negotiate from our position. I could tell Samantha was warring with herself. She was uncomfortable in her chair. Eventually, she asked to come aboard the Fateweaver and instantly had to tell her first officer off-screen that it was fine.

I told her she could come aboard and bring one person with her, and we could have discussions in my conference room on the Fateweaver. Samantha arrived with an unarmed grizzled Marine in our shuttle bay. Her shuttle landed between our assault shuttles. We had already scanned her shuttle in-depth; all she had on board was small arms.

I met her in the shuttle bay with two Marines in badger armor. I had my best political smile on. The first thing she said was I did not look like I had aged a day since we were last in contact. She apologized for leaving Amos in my care, but at the time, she felt it was the best thing for him.

We started our walk with the three Marines behind us. She told me of how she had been sold off as a sex slave by Lazarus and how she escaped from the Sahppireans. Then she started her our Privateer group hunting pirates. Sixteen years ago, she joined Admiral LaRoche and never looked back. She was now responsible for the second defense fleet.

I think she wanted to hear about my travels, but I just said I found my way and settled down on a planet. We reached the conference room and sat. She had been wide-eyed at the ship as we had traveled. Instead of talking about myself, I focused on her son. I told her about how he grew up—how smart he was, how well he was doing, his array of friends, and his connection to Celeste.

Then I broke the big news to her. I had Lazarus in custody, in prison on an asteroid. She nearly fell out of her chair. A lot of emotions flashed in her eyes, hate and anger being at the forefront. I offered to have him transferred to her so she could handle him. The hope and eagerness in her eyes for vengeance was there. We had not even discussed our mutual defense pact yet.

Samantha’s PerCom buzzed. It was an alert from Admiral LaRoche. There was an attack by the quadrupeds in the Delani System. He wanted Samantha’s fleet to handle it the response and evacuation. The Delani System was ten days of subspace travel for them—so the attack started ten days ago. She confirmed with the Admiral and stood. She would hand over negotiations to someone else but would like to see Lazarus transferred.

I smiled and asked if these were the same species that had tried to eradicate the Squirrel, called the Sydron. She nodded, and I told her we would assist her in the attack. Samantha did not think my one cruiser could help. The quadrupeds usually attacked with multiple capital ships and were not very forgiving. I told her after the battle we could negotiate our mutual defense pact.

After Samantha left the shuttle bay, I ordered the two Brotherhood spy ships boarded and disabled by my Marines. The assault shuttles made short of gaining entry in the two stealthed corvettes. We left both hulks floating in space for Admiral LaRoche. When our assault shuttles landed, I had us enter subspace. We were in the gravity well for most ships, but not us. I wanted to show some of our abilities to entice Admiral LaRoche and show him the threats lurking in the shadows. He had plenty of Brotherhood prisoners to question now.

The trip for us would be twenty-six hours to the Delani system. I expected to encounter resistance. I alerted the crew we were going into battle against a foe they knew well—the Sydron. The Squirrel on board were eager for their own vengeance.

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