After a few days of speaking with Adam about the state of the fleet and their system, Jason found himself considering their next course of action. He would need to call a meeting eventually, but it didn't hurt to get his reasoning worked out in order to convince his friends. Because, quite frankly, what he wanted to do was leave. He wanted nothing to do with running an entire planetary system, particularly one on the cusp of entering an entirely new political landscape, the scope of which was virtually unimaginable. He, They, were game designers. The only exception was Rebekkah, and even she had begun to show signs of cracking under the pressure.

He had to admit that she did a fantastic job of hiding it, but he had always been the quiet one, the one content to sit in silence, and as a result the others occasionally forgot he was there and dropped their guard. Going unnoticed from time to time never bothered him, particularly in the times where stress was high, as it allowed him to try and address the issues. Not that he was perfect, far from it in fact. Oftentimes there wasn't anything he could do about whatever was bothering his friends, and it did nothing for him if he was the one about to crack.

He realized he had gotten sidetracked. He pulled up a blank screen and began listing pros and cons. "Alright, so, for pros we can put down 'no longer personally responsible for the welfare of the human race,' and 'get to explore the galaxy.' for cons, I guess the 'welfare' one could go there too, since we won't know for certain that whoever gets left in charge will have humanity's best interest at heart. Let's see, what else?

"Honestly, Adam more or less mitigates the vast majority of the cons, and the major reasons we couldn't leave the system are moot at this point. We've repelled the Gnarlath for now, and shouldn't have any trouble continuing to do so for the time being, and that is all the reason the Confederacy needs to contact us officially, so delaying that encounter further is impossible now. I… honestly can't think of a good reason to not go off on our own to explore."

He drummed his fingers on the desk as he struggled to find an argument against leaving. Ultimately though, he just kept coming up blank. There was absolutely nothing that he could think of that would require their physical presence. With FTL com links they could take care of anything that needed their direct attention, and it wouldn't take much time or effort to establish a truly secure link for sensitive issues.

That sent him on a tangent for a while as he began designing one on the spot. It was beautiful in its simplicity. A quantum link with a high data throughput housed in airtight, soundproofed, and sealed rooms at each end. The only connection between the chambers and the outside was an indicator light and a buzzer that would go off when a connection was made. Any data transmissions would need to be placed on a portable drive and connected directly to the computer controlling the com link, and then downloaded onto another portable drive at the receiving end.

His reasoning was also simple. Insofar as they knew, a quantum link was impossible to intercept. Which made the only weak points in the system the computers at either end and the people using the link. It was admittedly unlikely that anyone would manage to hack a system established and frequently used by sentient AIs, but better safe than sorry in his opinion. Of course, if he were trying to listen in on a conversation happening on highly secured systems with failsafes and nigh-uncrackable encryption he would probably just find a way to plant a listening device.

Right after that thought crossed his mind he went back through and stuck signal disruptors and sensors all through the walls that would alert the occupants and the bridge if they detected any such devices through a dedicated, unbroken link that was also covered in tamper sensitive equipment. Essentially, the only way to plant a device that could listen to sensitive conversations in the room was to disable the detectors on the line to the bridge, spoof the line since a disconnection would also trigger an alert, then disable the sensors and disruptors in the room itself, and finally plant the device all without being detected.

Was it overkill? Absolutely. Would he have one installed on the Raziel and Mars? Also absolutely. "Adam, we need to build one of these here on Mars, I'll let you pick the location." He flicked the rough blueprint and his list of requirements for it outwards to indicate which file he was talking about. "Establish a link to Lisa, please." A chime indicated the connection had been made. "Lisa, I need you to convert one of the conference rooms near the bridge to a secure com room matching these specifications, preferably on the same deck."

"I'll get right on it Jason, is there anything else you need?" Lisa asked cautiously.

Her tentative tone reminded him of the little project she had hidden from them and he sighed. "I need you to call a meeting with the others for tomorrow or the next day if you could. Other than that, I don't need anything for now."

*****

The moment reports started coming in in regards to these 'Humans' Ssslargh wanted to be the one to meet them. The mix of caution, curiosity, and intelligence they demonstrated was intriguing, and every new report only increased his interest. He initially wrote them off when Spartack fell, as their caution had led to the unfortunate situation where they met the Gnarlath's criteria for attack but not the Confederation's criteria for first contact. There was simply no way to get an exception passed in time to get a defensive fleet into their system, and it had been shocking to learn that they rebuffed the Gnarlath with kinetic weaponry of all things.

With such an impressive level of ingenuity, grit, and willingness to defend themselves he didn't just want them to be a part of the Confederation and their war effort, he needed them. Too many of the older species in the Confederacy had lost their edge, assuming they ever had one to begin with, and either didn't understand the threat they faced or felt it wasn't an immediate enough threat for them to bother with. Even the thought of the ridiculous pacifist notions they threw at him at every opportunity made him grind his teeth in aggravation.

"Bloody slortbagged fools, wanting to put off fighting until the bloody Gnarlath are on their bloody doorstep." He growled, his claws digging into the armrests on his chair as he spoke.

"Yes, Senator?" One of the soldiers near him asked.

"Nothing, just thinking out loud. How much longer before we reach the Terran system?"

"Not long, sir. I can ask the bridge if you require a specific timeframe."

"No, let them do their job, I'm as prepared as I can be, just getting impatient." He couldn't wait until his term was finished and he could go back to being a general. It was easy to respect his fellow soldiers. Men and women willing to risk life and limb to defend their nation from an implacable foe were his kind of people. Not politicians that weigh every little expense against millions of lives.

Politicians had even been behind the fall of Spartack. Some hairbrained genius of a bureaucrat opted to save some taxpayer money and make himself look good for the upcoming election by skimping on the FTL sensor buoys, under the foolish belief that the Gnarlath wouldn't use warp drive to enter the system. Just because warp travel will take significantly longer to reach your destination compared to slipstream or subspace didn't mean it wasn't still a viable mode of transportation.

The result of that idiocy had been painful. A small flotilla of Gnarlath ships had managed to slip through the gaps in the sensor coverage, and got deep enough that it was virtually impossible to intercept them before they reached the populated planet. Still, they tried. The ships guarding the closest lagrange points all rushed to stop them, only to have fleets of Gnarlath ships enter the system through the slipstream and subspace points shortly after they left position.

Normally, such an attack would be rebuffed with minimal real threat to the system. They would lose ships, perhaps a station if the attack was truly fierce, but not the entire system. In fact, that was precisely what happened at the defensive positions further out, those that were incapable of intercepting the invaders no matter how hard they pushed their ships maintained their positions and successfully defended against the Gnarlath that entered there.

Unfortunately, the points that had ships leave to defend the planet were crushed, and the Gnarlath were able to collect enough ships in one place to crush any of the scattered Confederate defensive fleets. That was all it had taken. One moronic paper-pushing bean-counter had doomed millions of people and dozens of warships in an effort to make himself look good.

A shudder ran through the ship, indicating that they had transitioned back to real space, and the screens in his office automatically displayed the tactical data as it came in. "Impressive." He muttered when he saw the array of ships guarding the transition point. Most of them were sleek and angular, presenting a slim profile from most angles, which deviated considerably from Confederate style warships. Theirs were built for head-to-head brawling with weapons stacked heavily towards the front with the thickest armor they could manage, while the human ships seemed built for speed and maneuverability.

It made sense, knowing that they used kinetic weaponry and needed to get into relatively close quarters to be effective, but he questioned their ability to absorb damage long enough to get into range in any fight not held at a slipstream or subspace transition point. That very issue was the precise reason their ancestors had switched exclusively to beam weaponry after all, the massive range advantage in any fight involving distances of a quarter light-second or more rendered kinetics virtually obsolete.

"Still," he scratched at his chin as he considered the data they had received regarding the Human's confrontation with the Gnarlath, "our armor has been fine-tuned to resist beam weaponry just like the Gnarlath armor has, and these kinetic weapons punched through with ease. Perhaps it would be prudent to look into developing similar weapons and armor that can resist them."

"Senator, we have an incoming com from the Human ships."

"Put it through." Ssslargh straightened in his seat as a screen flickered on and an odd-looking hairless ape in a military looking uniform filled it.

"Welcome to Sol." The alien said cheerfully. "My name is Franklin, and I'm the commanding officer at this transition point. What can I do for you?"

Ssslargh studied the creature for a moment before he responded. "I have to admit, this is not the reception I expected. With this many ships, why have you not attempted to leave your system yet?"

The jovial expression and friendly demeanor melted away, and the alien's reply was in an icy tone. "Because we have no intention of being pawns in someone else's war. If we have to fight we will do it on our own terms."

The alien likely suspected that Ssslargh would be offended at the barely concealed accusation in the response, and most other diplomats would be. Ssslargh wasn't most diplomats though, he was a general that had been fighting this war for a very long time. To find a capable, intelligent species that had that kind of fire in their bellies made him smile. "I think we will get along splendidly."