Chapter 47

Deep Space

12 Astras from Narval

"So?"

"Well." Elteria took a seat on Sarah's desk. "Good news is that their security systems are nowhere as good as the ones the SLF had on Sepia."

"That's...excellent news, actually. Although it is strange."

Elteria shrugged.

"Not really, when you think about it. We always suspected they used proxies to deliver stuff to Sepia. Just because they're proxies doesn't necessarily mean that they're less well equipped, especially if they were using intergalactic arms smugglers. These people are paranoid."

Sarah winced. She had, after all, seen Runan's security measures.

"Fair enough. And the bad news?"

"Bad news is, those security protocols were made to prevent me from getting the data we want. In Sepia they were too busy about erasing the communication logs to worry about me getting the transmission vectors. At least initially. Here it has been more...challenging."

"Any problems?"

"Not really. I've lost a third of the database and coordinates, give or take, but the security system didn't have the time to hash the data, so I'll be able to restore it eventually."

"Good. Any leads?"

"A few. But I think we should get everyone together for that."

"Agreed."

*****

It only took a minute to get Hector and Turral to her office, with Turral dragging Seria around as usual.

"So, you were saying?" Said Sarah to her AI.

"In short, there were 6 locations that came up again and again in the astronavigation data." Elteria gestured at the desk, and a hologram of the Protectorate appeared. "From the lowest to the highest frequency, we have Alientia, Castar, Solace, Coris, Narval, and this place."

Five stars lit up in red, and a red point appeared in the middle of nowhere.

"My analysis," Continued the AI "is that Alientia is purely for refits and upgrades. We all know the reputation of Alientia's shipyards after all."

Everyone in the office nodded, even Seria. Alientia, and its sector, were famous for their spaceborne industry, a necessity due to the nigh complete lack of habitable worlds in the area. The shipyards of Alientia rivaled those of Arrival in sheer scale and productivity, and the only thing that came close to matching their size was their complete lack of scrupules. The shipyards of Alientia would service anyone who could pay. Pirates, mercenaries, rebels, whoever. That had lead the Dominion to launch a blockade of the whole sector shortly before the beginning of the civil war, which had almost caused the total collapse of the sector's economy...and created a massive famine, with fatalities in the hundreds of millions. There was a reason the entire sector hated the Dominion's guts and had risen in rebellion as soon as the opportunity had presented itself.

"That makes sense." Said Sarah. "They need somewhere discreet to refit the ship. I don't care how well hidden their weapons are, any shipyard would notice them during even a standard overhaul. Plus, given their cause, they must have some supporters in Alientia, both unofficial...and official."

Elteria nodded.

"Agreed. Honestly I'd be shocked if Alientia's government isn't actively helping them in some way or another. In any case, Castar, Solace and Coris are fairly unremarkable backwaters in the same way Narval is. Decent amount of shipping, but effectively beneath everyone's notice. Narval is, well, Narval, which brings me to the most common coordinates in the database." She gestured at the solitary point. "This is, bluntly, in the middle of nowhere. Only a single nearby star, for some definitions of 'nearby', yet...yet the hyperspace coordinates show significant gravitational forces in the area."

"Ah." Sarah leaned back into her seat. "A rogue planet?"

"Or something very much like it, yes. Which would align perfectly with the profile of several Divinium deposits on record, and would explain why it went under the Dominion's radar during the initial sector survey."

"That's good...sort of." Sarah sighed. "That means an easier time jumping in, but also an easier time for them to jump out."

"Actually...that might be an issue. Especially for our Dominion friends."

Sarah blinked.

"How so?"

"Well..." Elteria gestured at the display, which zoomed on the nearest star. "This is the 'nearby' star, I was talking about. B(e)-163."

Sarah viciously cursed under her breath, while the rest just looked at the AI and the captain in confusion.

"Alright, so I'm not necessarily knowledgeable about stars and all that, but I'm not exactly ignorant either, and I didn't recognize that classification. What's the problem?" Said Turral.

"It's a blue hypergiant." Answered Sarah.

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning it's a star above the Eddington limit. A star that emits so much light, so much energy, that its own surface gravity is too low to keep it together." Sarah smiled grimly as her subordinates' expressions became horrified as it dawned on them. "The star is literally blowing itself apart. This place is in the middle of a fucking forming nebula. A radioactive, superheated, nebula."

"Not quite that bad, but...yeah." Completed Elteria. "This planet, or whatever it is, is basically in the middle of a constant solar storm. The entire area is regularly washed with waves of plasma, and don't even get me started on the hard radiation. Which makes it pretty much impossible to jump into safely without at least High Verge sensors or an hyperspace beacon in place."

"And the Dominion forces will have neither, which means they'll need us even more."

"Correct. It also means that missiles are going to have some serious issues there. As a rule, missiles are made to traverse clouds of cooling plasma, from dying ships and counter missile detonations if nothing else, but not spend minutes in them. They won't fail, at least not many of them, but their accuracy is going to get wrecked. As is the ability of their mothership to give course correction and target data in flight."

"Yeah, but we should have some advantages. For one thing everyone else's sensors are going to be hashed to hell. And there's no way they'll have any sort of fixed defenses there. Any surface installation would get cooked, and space stations..."

"Anything without active shields is going to have a very bad day, and I wouldn't even trust our own shields to hold in that kind of environment for a long time. So they are most likely buried within whatever they're mining. That doesn't necessarily make them harmless, but it does limit their options."

"Which is good. Because if we're counting on the Dominion to be our backup, we're going to need every advantage we can get." Sarah looked at Turral. "Speaking of which. Point defence gun 3...?"

"Out of action. Give me a month, or a week in a shipyard and maybe. But field repairs? Hell no. It's going to take us a week at least to even fabricate the core components and pull together the spares from what we have in stock."

"Right, and time is of the essence. Chances are our dear TRF friends don't expect us to have extracted the location of their divinium mine, especially as the transport we attacked wasn't carrying any divinium. But they've proven extremely paranoid so far, and I'd be surprised if they aren't already starting to reinforce security in that system." Sarah sighed. "So I'll get in touch with admiral Soliensky. Squeeze him so hard he'll squeal, but in the end...in the end if we want to actually profit from this, we'll also need to be quick, and not get bogged down in negotiations. Which means not necessarily getting the best price in order to get any price at all."

No one looked especially happy about that, but no one was objecting either.

"Alright. Tell everyone, and I mean everyone, to update their will, and if somebody wants to jump ship...I'll work something out with the Dominion."

Her officers' faces became grim. She rarely made that last offer, especially when heading into battle, and it had rarely been taken anyway. But when she said it, she meant it...and it meant that they were heading into a fight they might not win.

"I'll pass the word around." Said Hector. "But I honestly don't expect any of my marines to take it." He chuckled. "Even if we'll be little more than spectators in this."

"Same here." Turral shook her head. "Engineering will be needed, and none of my boys and girls will leave us hanging. Still, I'll give them the option."

Elteria shrugged.

"I'll tell the rest, but I doubt anyone will take you up on it either."

Sarah turned towards Seria, and the armorer smiled.

"I'm not chickening out either, if that's what you're worried about."

Sarah smiled.

"I wouldn't expect you to. Still, I had to give the option. Alright, I'm going to contact the Dominion. Once I'm done give everyone at least an hour of free time on the galanet. I trust everybody on board to keep their mouths shut about what they're doing, and they'll have some time to get their affairs in order, just in case. Then Elteria, I want you, Connie and Normensk to get together, and try to find a way around our little nebula problems. We'll need some way to get the Dominion ships there safely, and if possible feed them sensor data once we're in combat."

"I'll get right on it!"

"Turral, prepare for some serious damage control. The TRF has been anything but stupid, and permanent solar storm or not they will have something defending that mine. We need to be ready to take them out...and that means we'll probably take some hits. Hector, I trust I don't have to tell you to put your marines under her command?"

"Marines are always in damage control during a battle captain. We'll try not to get underfoot too much."

Turral shook her head.

"Right. I'll brief everyone, and we'll start laying some of the ground work for a full scale battle."

"Excellent. Alright then, dismissed!"

*****

Liberator looked at the report, and sighed, looking up at his aide.

"How much did we lose?"

"The ship had a crew of 30 sir. 20 actual hands, and 10 security personnel. There...there were no escape pods. Not a single survivor. The ship was also completely destroyed."

"Cargo?"

"Parts for various systems, mainly hyperdrive phase arrays and gravitational containment fields for power cores."

"No Divinium?"

"None sir. Refinery 6 had an issue and the shipment was delayed. Since the ship was on a tight schedule, and the next transport had some spare cargo capacity, they decided to depart without it. There was, however, a shipment of battlecruiser phase arrays bound for Excelsior onboard."

Liberator grunted. Excelsior was the TRF's secret shipyard system. Far away from the eyes of the Dominion, it was assembling the fleet that would liberate Thaumor. The fleets of escorts that their proxies were busy building throughout the Protectorate would be his anvil, and the battlecruisers and ships of the walls of Excelsior would be the hammer.

"Not optimal. I want the security at the other logistics hub reinforced, and triple the patrols around Excelsior."

"Sir?"

"They were docked to the ship for too long. We never actually expected anyone to be able to board one of our vessels without warning and virtually unopposed, especially with the self destructs in place. If they got onboard...Its best to assume they know everything."

"That would be..."

"Catastrophic, I know." Liberator blinked. "Reinforce the mines' security as well, just in case. I believe the Quetzalcoatl is on transit nearby, correct?"

"Yes sir, do you want to divert it?"

"Yes. We don't have nearly enough of these ships to waste them as guard dogs, but a few weeks shouldn't hurt. Much."

"Of course sir."

"As for that ship...do we have any data?"

"Not...not much sir. The ship began jamming as soon as it engaged, and dropped into stealth as it left. We did get some partial estimates on the shield but it is hard to tell. Narval fortress command estimates it at frigate sized, maybe even a corvette. Something relatively small, with good shields, and a dimensional interference drive."

"Mmmhhh...High Verge then."

"Almost certainly sir."

Liberator thought for a second of that mercenary gunship, the Eternal Seeker...then dismissed it. Mercenaries wouldn't try to pull something this risky, not when they had the damned Silver Syndicate on their asses, as his preliminary forays had informed him. The most likely culprit was either Dominion intelligence, in which case they were in some seriously deep shit, or pirates after a divinium shipment. The latter wouldn't necessarily be much better, but the pirates would at least keep their mouths shut, at least if they wanted to stay alive.

"Alright. Well, this about all we can do. Have Narval set up an escort schedule. A single corvette or frigate might not make much of a difference, but you never know. Have all divinium shipments be halted for now until we can pull some of our ships for escort duty."

"That...might affect some of our operations sir. Eterna..."

"We have enough stockpiles at the distribution sites to take it for a bit. We can afford some caution."

"Yes sir, of course sir."

"Alright then, dismissed!"

Liberator looked at his aide depart, and leaned back into his seat. He knew things would start going sideways as soon as he set his plan into motion -no plan survives first contact with the enemy after all-, but it was still nerve wracking to see the carefully constructed edifice of lies, deceit and pure brute force he'd turned the TRF into start taking hits. There was a...comfort in staying in the shadows, and not risking the dangers of the light.

But if he wanted to accomplish his objectives, and that of his patrons, the TRF needed to show itself, and that, unfortunately, meant taking risks. He would just have to mitigate them as best as he can, and respond to the crises as they came up.

Still, so far, all according to plan.