“Thank you very much for your efforts.” A tall, scaled humanoid spoke to me after we docked. This was Kal’thorm, the lead representative for the drakes in the alliance. He, naturally, was one of the people that had been abducted in the New Human Empire’s plot. Like many of the others, he stopped to thank me as he disembarked from the ship. I gave him a polite nod, not wanting to take too much of either his or my time. If I stopped to have a full conversation with each and every diplomat we brought back, I’d be here for days. Politicians are not known for being short spoken on any world. Thankfully, he was the last one to leave the ship, so I was able to find a nearby bench to sit down on, lean back, and relax. Celeste, how is the progress for the Deus Ex figuring out that warp device? I sent a mental message, not really feeling the energy to talk anymore after seeing everyone off. “Give me just a minute, and I’ll get their report.” The reply came back fairly quickly, and I only had to wait a short while before she continued. “They are having some difficulties, as it involves new science that they haven’t even touched yet. Subspace is a pretty new concept for them, and this goes a step beyond that. You could consider it sub-subspace, I guess? Strictly following the blueprints, they think they can have a prototype ready within a week. But, if they do that without first understanding the science behind it, they won’t know what to do if something goes wrong.” Okay… no rush, then. Let’s not try to end up in the void between galaxies, or worse in the middle of a black hole. Though, this is somewhat good news. If the combined minds of the Deus Ex still haven’t solved the problem, then I doubt the New Human Empire would be any closer. “Agreed. So, what’s the plan from here, Captain?” She asked in a serious tone, her voice bouncing around in my skull a bit as I thought it over. Well, we have some targets to go after now. And, there is always the chance that they could pull up their roots by the time we get there if we delayed. Was hoping that the Deus Ex would be finished with their prototype of the new device so that we could accelerate things, but that does not look like it will be possible. Instead, I want to see if we can get some much-needed upgrades for the Ariadne before we set out. Although we had survived our last few encounters with the New Human Empire, that was when they did not know where we were going to be attacking. There was at least the remote possibility that they had a ‘contingency list’ of planets that each person has been to, so that they could fortify the defenses around those bases if that person was compromised. If we were to get into a big fight with more than three or four ships, our losses would not be small. I also want to see if we can get any support from the other races, now that their representatives are back where they should be. “Sounds fair. What kind of upgrades do you want for the Ariadne? You could probably just do most of them through the system, right?” I had almost forgotten about the existence of the ship upgrade menu. Mostly because we were having trouble coming up with new designs for systems to improve. We could go with ‘theoretical’ technology, but that would lead to the same problems of not understanding if something broke down. Something that can counter what the New Human Empire has been throwing at us. They don’t seem to use physical weapons like missiles or cannons, so we can create specialized laser defenses. As for those shields… I’m not sure what kind of weapon we could create to counter that. “Hmm… They take a moment to deploy after detecting an incoming attack, so a small bit of the first barrage always gets through. But, that’s not really enough to launch a decisive attack. The only way would be to have an antimatter cannon. Sadly, the production of antimatter requires too many resources to create actual artillery shells out of it. Even the Qu’Lopti that made the positron cannon can only make beams of positrons. As for antiprotons and antineutrons, and the ability to fuse them into the molecules we want, that’s beyond us.” What about a different approach? Instead of destroying the ship in that first strike, we destroy the crew? Something like an airborne toxin that would quickly spread? It’s not exactly the most humane course of action, using biological weapons. But, given the scenario, it was our best choice. Either way, we are killing the crew, it’s just a matter of how we do so and how many of our own people have to die in the process. “I… can see if any of our allies can come up with something. Maybe the elves or the kleptids will be able to help out there. But, it will take time, so we’ll have to stay here for a bit if we want to rely on them for that.” I furrowed my brows, wanting to ask how long we’d need to stay here. But of course, there was no way that Celeste could know the answer to that before she even asked if they were able to do it. Alright. Tell the crew that we’re going to stay for a while. They can have shore leave if they want. Finally, I got up, wanting to head to another part of the station. I had promised Sharon and Yin that we would meet up after the delegates had all been sent away. Had it not been for my complete and utter lack of energy, I would already be there. To my surprise, they were not alone when I found them. Sitting next to the two of them at a small restaurant built into the station, a petite woman with platinum hair and red eyes was chatting happily. It took me a moment to recognize her, because she was not wearing the flashy dress, and instead wore a tight fitting, brown dress. “There he is. Hey, John!” Thalia waved at me from beside the two girls, drawing their attention to me. I waved back, a bit surprised at this new side of Thalia. It’s not that I haven’t heard her sound excited about things over the system calls, but I had never quite seen it in person. At least, not to the degree that she would drop the her ‘queen’ demeanor. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.” “Oh? Is that a problem?” She asked curiously, glancing to the two girls. “Were you hoping for a date or something?” Well, kind of, yes. “It’s alright. So, what brings you to this corner of the orbit?” Thalia looked around a moment more, before sulking into her chair. “Aunt Maeve said we were going to meet here, and I saw your friends were already here when I arrived. Don’t suppose you know where she is?” That’s weird… I was fairly sure that Maeve was the first to disembark after we arrived at the station. Celeste, can you run a quick scan to find the location of the High Queen? I really don’t want her to have gotten kidnapped right after we got here. A reply came less than a minute later. “Found her. Don’t worry, she’s fine. She’s heading your way now, it just looks like she had to make a stop first.” Her voice sounded more relaxed than it had when we were talking about our plans for the future, so I assumed it wasn’t anything bad. “Celeste says she is on her way.” I reassured Thalia, who let out a long sigh of relief. Apparently, she had the same worries that I had. “So, excited to get her back?” Thalia gave a small nod. “That easy to tell?” She gave her oddly green drink a sip before continuing. “Even though there has been a Maeve here all along, it doesn’t feel like it was our Aunt Maeve. At the time, things seemed normal, so we couldn’t tell. But now that we know, it feels like we haven’t seen her in months. We want to make sure that she has a pleasant welcome back.” And the queenly demeanor has returned. Guess Thalia really was worried about Maeve getting kidnapped while she wasn’t looking. “Well, at least it’s all sorted out now. And, it looks like we are going to be staying here for a little while.” Sharon and Yin quickly turned to look at me when I said that, questioning expressions on their faces. As such, I explained before they started fighting over who should ask first. “We aren’t ready to handle the bigger encounters with the New Human Empire, so we need to stay for a bit to get everything we need. I already went over the details of what we need with Celeste, but until everything is caught up we are on shore leave.” “What? But, we are just starting to pick up momentum! We can’t sit back and do nothing now.” Sharon protests, looking disappointed that we weren’t going to be going out and blowing up more bases. “We’ve only fought small parties so far. The only time we actually fought with their assault ships, we lost one of our own. If we hit a world where they are expecting us, our entire fleet could get wiped out. We need defenses that can actually resist their attacks, and weapons that can actually hurt them.” It looked like she wanted to argue more after that, but she lowered her head in defeat. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of us giving them an easy win. But, if we follow up with our attack right now to try to catch them before they can prepare, we’ll only be throwing ourselves against an iron wall. Remember that they have the warp gates to move between their own worlds.” Sharon nodded her head slightly, while Yin reached over to pat her shoulder. “We’ll get them.” She said quietly, drawing a smile from the other girl. “Okay.” Sharon finally agreed. “But, we shouldn’t be here long enough for you grove to finish evolving. That’s still a couple months away, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “I saw what happened the last time your grove had a growth spurt, so we can’t be anywhere near an inhabited planet when it decides that it is time to wake up.” “I completely agree. Besides, two months is much longer than I had any plans of waiting. I’m not eager to continue this war, but I do want to end it, even if a day sooner. Leaving an enemy of that size out there just doesn’t sit well with me. Especially now that we know that they are being backed by an actual god.” “What’s this about gods?” A voice came from behind me, and I turned to find Maeve standing there. In her arms was a stuffed animal, looking like a giant rabbit with… sabertooth tiger fangs? Evil rabbit, very evil rabbit. The stuffed animal was half as big as she was, so she was hugging it to her chest as she carried it along. “Wanted to stop and pick up a present first.” Maeve stepped past me, moving over towards Thalia, whose cheeks were starting to redden more with every step the High Queen took. When she arrived in front of her, Maeve set the rabbit toy down in front of Thalia, and then bowed deeply at the waist. “Thalia… I’m sorry. For everything my double did, for leaving you alone so long to handle things alone, and for costing you your life-saving treasures.” Thalia rapidly looked left and right, as if to assess how many people were witnessing her embarrassing moment. “P-please stop. Get up. You apologized already over the calls. Really, there’s no need to go this far, we understand. And we never really liked that dress anyways.” Nevertheless, she did slowly reach down and pick up the rabbit toy, hugging it to her chest. “We are just glad that you are back. Everything else… it was not your choice.” As if it would hide her from the world, she buried her head in the neck of the evil rabbit plushie. Maeve looked up at the sight, her eyes watering. However, a small smile appeared on her face, and she stepped forward to embrace Thalia in a tight hug. “I’m back.” Thalia choked out a cry of her own, nodding her head against the toy. “Welcome back.” I felt a soft smile appear on my lips as I watched the reunion between the two queens. At least something seemed to be going well in the world.