“That is the nice thing about space ports being out of the way I suppose, and no staff on site, all automated. No collateral in casualties.”

As they finally reach the Bridge the princess wonders to herself, how exactly they managed to discover all these things, and what the hell is a floppy???.

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As the elevator reaches the bridge and the group disembarks Frank immediately starts talking

“Ghost, give me an update on Floppy, Luna, possible comm. between any ground forces, a status report on those ships, and finally Yessi’s training progress in the simulators.”

“Well, The packet has been received but it will take the 3 of us Ai’s a solid 2 days at the minimum to finish getting her set up and her Kernel replaced. We’ll have to wait for Luna to run the floppy, comm.‘s between opposing air and ground forces are screwed. Bryan used his head for once, the nukes residual radiation fried all comm.‘s in this area outside of old time-y radio wave communication. Ships are as shown on hologram, 2 large fleets on standby to assault us as soon as we leave the atmosphere. 2 fleets on standby to intercept outside help, seemingly targeting the 3rd moon. 2 more outside of engagement range patrolling the system. All fleets are composed of 2 Athena’s, 3 Zeus, 5 Poseidon’s, and numerous cruisers. We will also have to deal with orbital defenses in orbit around the planet.”

“Ok, that is pretty decent firepower for a small back water system the smugglers must’ve been paying well. Continue Ghost.”

“Aye Skip, Yessi has fully adjusted to our ships configurations, and is practically a god at field strategy, and with great fluidity. She is one hell of a fast learner. Also Seph found the problem with the drives and we got it fixed, it wasn’t as simple as we thought, we got more anti matter and dark matter for the ship before we were attacked. Parts that were produced and it will work till we make our way to a base with real manufacturing abilities.”

“Good, she is now fully enabled to wing commander. Give her control over all 3 flight groups, and the Mech group. Wolfe, Scarr, Suit up, Mechs with your squads and be ready to launch once we leave orbit. Wolfe, close patrol patterns around ship, no more than 5 Kilims’ unless ordered by our new wing commander. Scarr interference, attack in tandem with Yessi’s wings attempt to take out their Athena’s early, will make it easier for us to handle if we don’t have to worry about counter fighter attacks or calls for support.”

The princess speaks up “Wouldn’t they be able to tell when you take them down?”

Bryan responds “Simple we have counter measures that throw off all electron and quantum based communications the only thing that will work is radio waves, and that will take time to transmit, once we go into battle they will be practically blind deaf and dumb. We wont. So we will disable their fleets and leave.”

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“Oh, ok I guess that makes sense thank you for enlightening me.” the princess replies giving a small bow, “If you would kindly excuse me I think I shall return to my quarters, our escapade on the planet has left me quite drained.”

“Aighty then see ya later princess.” Frank says as the rest of the crew acknowledges her leaving and then goes back to planning.

“Bryan,” Frank says “you are in charge of comm.‘s falsifying some outgoing info and waiting to see if they hail us with their surrender.”

“Roger”

“Piloting will be switched to Virtual Intelligence controlled with voice commands by myself. Solomon, activate and manage all shields and fields along with the activating the plasma generators now. Ghost you get to run the; Main Turrets, and Rocket pods. Scarlet you will run the Small rail guns, and the Torpedo bays. Seph and Azieruth lead your crews to run the Plasma Cannons, and Laser interceptors. Maxx, get some reclamation ships ready and on standby to bring in pilots and wreckage, mean while Doc go ahead and get the Regeneration pods ready for injured. As soon as the pods are set we lift off, places everyone.”

As the people separate to fulfill their roles. Bryan receives a message on the Comm.’s “Yo, Frank its Beerman, I am putting him on.”

“Aighty. Bryan.”

“Frank, its Beerman, Good news and bad news. Bad first; all those ships along with a handful of motley pirate cruisers are coming after you. Claiming you violated Haven, and they ain’t listening to me or the Dons saying otherwise. Now for the good, You have a contact from one of the societies hanging around the 3rd moon they are going to be giving support and contacting you once you break free, give them about two hours to gather their forces and then come out all guns blazing. How Copy. Over.”

“Solid copy Beerman, wil-co.” Frank says as they shut the comm. link, “Bryan put me on speaker.”

“Aye Aye Cap’n crunch.”

“Piss off, Crew this is your skipper, change of plans. We now have 2 hours to prep before combat. Take this time to utilize, grab a bite, a SMALL nip to drink, and suit up properly. We are going to do this, and we are going to do this shit right, Over and out.”

As Frank turns to take a seat Bryan mouths off to him

“A small drink, we are all Friggin giants with extreme metabolic rates, define small.”

To which he got the international symbol of love, a single bird.

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Back on Naraku 2 in the N.I.D.F. HQ

Control room

“Status report Mr. Halsey”

“Yes Commandant, Most communications with the surface are cut off, including the ones to EMS and rescue. But from what we can tell with the Orbital defenses scanners their ship has been powered up for the past hour, they seem to be waiting for something.”

“What about the 3rd moon, Cartagena?”

“More forces are gathering, seemingly from not only our system but also from Es-cu-Al it is a sizeable fleet at this point multiple Zeus’s and Poseidon’s numerous smaller crafts as well.”

“Re route the 5th Fleet to come from the rear of Cartagena just in case things get out of hand, have the 6th fleet continue to monitor the middle especially the 13th and 15th planets in case they decided to get frisky.”

“Roger sir transmitting encrypted data. Packet delivery confirmed, the admirals sent confirmation and are moving to obey. Eta on the 5th will be 1 hour sir.”

“Good job Halsey go get yourself some tea, things are going to get messy.”