Aster starred into the mirror and flexed some unseen muscle in her left eye and the world went black and white as she shifted her vision into the realm of infrared. Another shift and she looked into the ultraviolet, which was still a very strange experience for her brain. Ultraviolet let her see everything around her in a way that the human brain wasn’t necessarily built for, objects had new depth and texture, and some things were in an entirely different shade than what she was used too, she could even see the difference between natural light and artificial light. At first either of these would give her a splitting headache as her brain tried to process what it was seeing, but now after several weeks of acclimating it was finally beginning the feel more natural.
She had even begun to notice that her color perception was a lot sharper than before, she could better differentiate subtle shades of red, or see the patches of wall that didn’t get cleaned as regularly. Highland had been very upset to hear that, though there wasn’t much he could do to fix it.
It wasn’t without its down sides though. Something about the increased color sight and higher definition had made looking at screens very hard. Everything looked both grainy and also off color, which made standing on the bridge a very unpleasant experience. She was constantly distracted by the ‘off’ quality all the video feeds had and couldn’t properly focus on the tasks at hand, which could one day prove deadly. Her solution to this was a costly upgrade to the full-sized displays in the helm, replacing the high-definition pixelated screens with a new kind of screen that promised to be the future of entertainment.
New screens that used a thick plane of glass and advanced electrostatic field manipulation allowed for a picture without pixels. Projectors flashed light through the plane of glass and force fields manipulated that light to shape it into a coherent image with life like definition. This not only seemed more natural to Astarte’s new color vison, but also better represented distance and depth, like you were looking out and actual window.
This new technology had been provided by her new business associates at Lockheed, and was just one of the first new technologies they had designed for advanced avionics that they were now adapting for consumer use with Astarte’s help. They were also working with the Hellworlder’s dedicated military contractors to integrate some of their own advancements in shield emitters and stealth technology to better improve the Hellworlders ships. The next generation of destroyers and frigates promised to be a qualitative leap forward, and they were beginning to consider another refit for the existing ships.
But those projects were all several months away from bearing fruit. Right now she was waiting on some final tests of their new reactor before she could finally ship out again and start making money. Her new council man, Jersey, had fed her knowledge of a grand pirate fleet being assembled in Domnall’s name, and of the great hunt he had promised. Apparently just cutting off the slave trade wasn’t enough for Domnall, he wanted to annihilate all those who profited off the Confederacy’s slave trade, and Astarte wanted a piece of that action. Often times killing slavers and raiding sweatshops weren’t worth the effort, she had annihilated Gaw only to make the trade lanes between Sol and other systems safer for her freighters. But now, between the bounty Domnall was offering, and the short position she had taken in a lot of the companies who benefited off the cheap products, now was the perfect time to strike.
But she couldn’t leave until all the repairs were done, so until that came she had busied herself with perfecting her control over her red eye, and working hard to recover the strength she had lost after her fight with Kazlum. Gato had been entirely single minded in training after they landed on Mars, and Astarte had decided to take advantage of that focus to fast track her road to total recovery. And now, several months after the Battle for the Confederacy, she and her ship had nearly recovered from their trying ordeal and were ready to get back out there.
A soft knock at her door snapped her out of her restlessness, “Who is it?” she called back.
“Its Karega, I’ve got some troubling news.” A muffled male voice said in reply.
Astarte smiled “Come on in Kar,” she said as began to walk over to her desk.
The door slid aside, and Karega strolled in with a familiar woman in tow. The woman in question had soft blonde curls, a rounded face, and cunning hazel eyes. She was dressed sharply in a layered petticoats and impractical looking high heels. “Victoria, this is a surprise.” Astarte said as the woman prowled into her office like she owned the space.
Victoria, the young CEO of Martian Drive Yards, who had taken a risk on the hairbrained scheme Aster and Karega had dreamt up. She smiled as she pulled out a chair and sat down “Well, normally I would have sent someone in my stead, but this particular news was something that needed to be delivered in person.” She said all of this with the crisp practiced Victorian accent that had become very fashionable amongst young powerful women on Mars.
“What news?” Astarte asked, Victoria normally relayed business through a courier, never in person unless it was major.
“MDY has recently just received a rather large order” she explained while pulling out a leather file folder “and some of the ships in question bared a striking resemblance to the Astaroth and her sisters”
Aster took the folder and flipped it open to scan its contents, within she saw several schematics for a ship slightly longer than the Astaroth. The ship had a less naval likeinspired design than the Archdevils, and much less room for cargo, but the resemblance in speed, power, and capability was unmistakable. The next set of plans had analogues for the Fiend and Tempter class ships. “Who requested this?” Astarte asked with growing concern.
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“Not sure, the company that requested this was a façade, but Karega thinks you might find the name of the cruiser very illuminating.” Victoria answered.
Astarte flipped back to the cruiser’s plans and read the name at the top, Èriu. “Domnall” she growled.
“That was my thought as well” Karega said in sympathy.
“I still don’t see how you can be so sure” Victoria said.
“Èriu is one of the three goddesses of ancient Ireland, and the one the island is named for.” Astarte explained “And I only know one Irish man who has the funds to pay for this many ships up front. It took us years to grow a fleet of this size.”
“Which means Domnall’s plans goes beyond just becoming king of the pirates and gaining the fabulous wealth that goes with the title. He’s trying to make the Confederacy into something more than just a loose assortment of thugs.” Karega said grimly.
“The question is what though?” Astarte said “I think he might be using this ‘great hunt’ of his to weed out the weak and undisciplined and gain some fleet experience. He spent years building the Terran Ravagers into a well-oiled machine before Greyson took over and ruined everything, now I think Domnall wants a new fleet at his beck and call.” Astarte said, piecing the narrative together out loud.
“Which would give him real credible power no king before him has had since the birth of the confederacy.”
“Well that being said, what’s our next move?” Astarte asked either of them.
Victoria shook her head “We can’t cancel their construction; my shareholders will be very suspicious if I cancel a contract this large.”
“Not to mention our ongoing agreement with Domnall,” Karega said “if we actively try to interfere with him he might call off our arrangement and bare the full might of the Confederacy against us.”
“No, interfering is out of the question” Astarte muttered “but letting him do as he pleases without any sort of check is also out of the question. We might have an unspoken truce, but the moment he decides we are a threat he’ll come for us.” She kept her suspicions about Domnall’s true goals to herself. Domnall could prove to be a very useful ally, but he could become their worst enemy. It would be best to err on the side of caution. “We need to be out there and remind him of our presence.”
“He might see that as a direct threat” Karega countered.
“He might, but he is in a very delicate position with the rest of the confederacy. If he comes after us unprovoked then he’ll lose all his supporters.”
“But the only ships we have at fighting strength right now id the Astaroth and the Cameo, we would put ourselves at risk going out there with only that much fire power.”
Astarte turned to Victoria “Can you speed up the rest of the fleet’s repairs?”
“Depends on how much money you want to throw at us, if you paid us more we could authorize overtime and hire some extra contractors to speed things up.” she pulled out a tablet and tapped on a couple icons “I could also cut out some of the more extraneous repairs like hull warping repairs. Lucifer’s shield breaker had already been repaired, and we’re just waiting on new processing cores for Beelzebub’s CIC, so I can probably shave a few weeks off the repair time.”
Karega put a hand up “Hold on, we need to make sure we’re not just running in headfirst. Do we really need to rush our repairs? Domnall’s crusade is still months away, that gives us some time.”
“That’s why I want to go now Kar, if we can get there before him then could throw a wrench into his plans and prove that we’re back at fighting strength before he gets any ideas about striking while we’re weak.”
“It just seems like we’re going off half cocked here, are you sure your not compensating?” He said while looking her in the eyes.
Aster scowled “Compensating for what?”
“Come on Star, you got your ass handed to you in the last two battles. You lost an eye, nearly got killed by Kazlum, and was bed ridden for three months. And ever since we returned home you’ve been doing a lot of reckless shit to recoup your losses.”
“Reckless, I’ve done nothing but laze around since we got back!”
“Bullshit, you spent half a billion credits on having a replacement eye built as fast as possible, dragged poor Alwen to the roughest city on Earth to get brain surgery in a basement, and have been pushing yourself to regain all the muscle mass you lost in recovery. You haven’t spent one day resting, and now you want to drag our only two functional ships into a direct conflict with the pirate king. It seems to me that your trying to prove something.” He crossed his arms and glared daggers at her. Victoria shuffled nervously on her feet as she was caught in the cross fire of their argument.
She felt hurt for a second as he hit the nail on the head, but a second later she felt her face flush with anger “What do you want from me, you’re the one who brought Domnall’s new ships to my attention, and now you don’t want me to do anything about it?”
“I was hoping you would approach the issue with a level head and figure out what our next moves need to be, not rush into the fray headfirst.”
She glared at him and mustered all the fire in her blood “Karega, you are my lieutenant and I value your opinion, but I am your captain and I have decided that this is the best plan going forward. I expect nothing but your full cooperation, and I expect you to begin arranging all the necessary preparations for getting underway.” She turned to Victoria “please begin streamlining the fleet’s repairs, I will speak with the other captains to arrange for a larger payment.” She then turned her back on them, an obvious dismissal.
She saw through the reflection in the mirror that Karega wanted to say more, but bit his tongue and left the room at a brisk pace, Victoria at his heels.
As soon as her door slid closed Astarte let out a long sigh, and punched the wall hard enough to shake the plaques and pictures she had hung. Why did he have to point all of that out in front of Victoria, if he had done it when they were alone then she would have at least tried to hear him out
~~~*~~~
Karega was fuming as he left Astarte’s cabin, he was practically grinding his teeth by the time he had arrived on the deck of the Astaroth. For all the qualities he admired about Astarte, her stubbornness was not one of them. And if she had one fatal flaw it was how stubbornly she planted her heels in the sand whenever someone tried to point out any of her flaws. Which was absolutely maddening.
He knew where she got it from, he had seen Lucile react in almost the exact same way plenty of times to know that it was something they both shared. Hell, even Astarte knew she got that stubborn streak from her mother, and hated herself for it. She had once told him that she learned a great deal about herself by watching Lucile and trying to be a different person, that her biological mother was the perfect example of what not to be. So why couldn’t she just recognize when she was acting just like her mother.
He had been so lost in his person tirade that he had completely forgotten about Victoria Duke. “Karega, if you need to go back to change her mind then I’m more than capable of finding my way home without an escort.”
He shook his head “She gave me a direct order, there’s nothing I can say that will change her mind.”
She quirked an eyebrow “If you think this plan will lead to a disaster then its your job to make her see that. I staked my whole company behind the insane scheme of yours because your sister asked me to, and there aren’t many things I would do for Cora. But if this goes south then I’ll be completely ruined.”
Karega frowned and reminded himself that Victoria wasn’t just his sister’s long-time lover, but also one of the most influential investors the Hellworld fleet had. He put on his most dazzling smile and reassured her “No, Astarte wouldn’t really put the ship in danger for stubborn pride, she’s a very thorough person and has probably already thought of the consequences. I’m just worried for my friend, she’s been through a lot this last year.”
She considered him for a minute before she gave him a small smile “alright, I’ll trust you on this. I need go speak with my foremen about hiring on some more hands to streamline the repairs, take care of yourself”
“I will, tell Cora I said hi.” He said before turning back to the ship he had staked his entire future on, he had to meet with Highland and begin the exhausting process of getting under way.