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Chapter 6: Connection

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Navi decided to send 100 Cargo Drones to Agrissa with each filled with 25 of the latest version of the Ground Combat Drones designed by Audacious.

The primary task of the Ground Combat Drones was to secure food stores. Navi was afraid that pirates would contaminate the food out of spite on their way off the planet and Audacious didn’t have enough nutrient supplies to support over a hundred thousand people. Driven by his emotions he intimidated the FSA into running away and thus taken responsibility for a lot of people.

Audacious is capable of synthesizing nutrients provided it has the ingredients. Navi’s plan was to take the former slaves to Terra in the hope that they could somehow gain some semblance of normality.

While Audacious made its final approach he could finally take a proper look at the vegetation on Agrissa and analyze its nutrient value. Agrissa doesn’t have an atmosphere suitable for human habitation but the indigenous life-forms are perfectly adapted to the environment. Navi would not even try to grow these plants on Audacious what he was looking for was their usability as ingredients for nutrient packs.

Navi decided that once everything was secure on Agrissa he would locate the seeds and start up the Agricultural centres on Audacious. However the probes were telling him that there were very few Chickens, Sheep, Cattle and pigs left on Agrissa; this was far from the thousands he had left behind. Nevertheless Navi instructed the Combat Drones to secure the animals for extraction; there was barely enough to start production but Navi felt certain that with a little cloning it would be fine until he can get more genetic variation.

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When Navi took a look at the slaves his heart sank and he was overcome by a wave of sadness.

The FSA Pirates had been working these poor people to death on plantations cultivating ingredients for some exotic recreational drug some of the major aliens races seem to enjoy.

What made things worse is that the analysis of the gruel the slaves were being fed indicated that when one the slaves died they were chopped up, mixed in, cooked and fed to the rest of the Slaves.

The slaves were wearing tattered cloths and a majority was covered in scares likely caused by whips. A few of the more attractive women and girls looked like they had it better than everyone else and Navi thought they were likely the sex slaves. Since Navi couldn’t determine if they served as sex slaves willingly or not he decided he wouldn’t taking any of these women who lived a vastly better life while the rest of their people suffered the cruellest tyranny. Navi considered such people too dangerous to risk bringing them aboard and that went double for any of the former gangsters.

Navi felt that there was no semblance of humanity left in the FSA Pirates and his sadness boiled over into rage.

Navi’s seething rage needed an outlet.

Navi : " Audacious; arm RailGuns 4 through 7; high velocity kinetic kill vehicles!"

Audacious : " Captain; if you wish to kill the pirates it would be more prudent to do so after the safety of the former slaves has been assured. The might be a hidden nuclear failsafe device."

Navi : " Ah? Sorry Audacious."

Audacious : " Apologies are unnecessary; I exist to fulfil your wishes."

Navi : " Then After?"

Audacious : " It would be better to take action after your rendezvous with Captain Barnes. But an ideal outcome is to attack if and when the FSA ships return."

Navi : " Damn it I want to shoot at something!"

Audacious : " Then I suggest the larger asteroids that have a metal core; the high velocity kinetic kill vehicles should be perfect for recovering the metal cores."

Navi : " I guess it will do."

Navi had found something to let out his frustrations.

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Audacious found the target asteroids with diameter ranging from 211km to 370km that had become slightly spherical thanks to the heavier metal cores.

Navi fired the guided high velocity kinetic kill vehicles in quick succession at targets more than 100,000,000km away and then waited the 27 hours or so the guided RailGuns rounds would take to reach their targets.

Having to wait that long left Navi a little dispirited but getting a chance to fire the RailGuns made him a little happy.

Navi hoped that the RailGuns firing put the Fear of God in the likely watching Pirates.

Navi’s attention now shifted back to the slaves as he sent in another 1,100 empty cargo drones to start loading people and supplies. Audacious had recommended that the slaves be removed in case there was some fail safe device, but the supplies had to be first since Audacious didn’t have extra HyperSleep pods outside the Sealed inner Core where Navi and the Sim are located. Navi wasn’t going to risk anyone coming into the inner core and possibly putting his life in danger. Navi couldn’t simply build new HyperSleep pods because he lacked the extremely rare minerals necessary to build the pods.

That meant that the people being transported to Terra would be conscious the 10 years or so it would take to reach Terra. A normal ship could reach Terra in 9 years since Agrissa was already closer to Terra than the home systems but Audacious is a slower Factory ship and as such couldn’t achieve the speeds without consuming an unreasonable amount of energy. Added to that is the fact that Navi had promised people a Colonial Class StarCruiser.

The Colonial Class StarCruiser would be 11km in length, 1.1km in diameter, armoured with 150m thick high grade Oriculcum Steel and armed with 2 of the 5km shaft hull-mounted Heavy ElectroLaser Turrets, 2 of the 5km shaft hull-mounted Heavy RailGuns and 250 hull-mounted Standard Multidirectional ElectroLasers. It would be powered by 2 Helium Fusion Reactors and operated by 2 Class 7 Sims.

On Audacious the Heavy ElectroLaser Turrets and the Heavy RailGuns are buried into the superstructure and only the Lasers and Standard Multidirectional ElectroLasers are hull-mounted. However since the Colonial Class StarCruiser is meant to be a permanent home for people internal space is precious and that is also why the Oriculcum Steel was chosen for the Hull Armour.

Now both Navi and Audacious had to pour over star charts looking for Oriculcum deposits picked up by the Explorer Class StarCruisers that had mapped the Star systems that mark the route to Terra and if they find Oriculcum the journey to Terra would likely take another 4 years since Oriculcum isn’t exactly easy to mine and process.

As expected all the easily accessible Oriculcum deposits had already been mined and the only options available were planets with such corrosive environments that it would take bots made out of Oriculcum to mine the needed Oriculcum. The only way for Navi to mine these planets was to create a new Corvette Size mining Drone made of the Black High Density Thermoelectric Crystals.

Normally it’s not necessary for drones to have Fusion Reactors but extreme shielding would be necessary to mine the selected Gas Giants. And so Navi instructed Audacious to design the Mining Drone and utilize the vast minerals collected to begin construction. By Navi’s estimation 7 mining drones would be optimal; this despite Audacious recommending 5 mining drones. Navi wasn’t claiming to be smarter than Audacious he was just naturally cautious and paranoid.

Navi then set about creating some living space for the former slaves. Audacious was never meant to accommodate people and has no living space for anyone other than Navi. Audacious recommended using the Agricultural centre to house the newly liberated but Navi decided to use the Rear Drone storage Facility near Drone Hanger 7 because he already planned to put Captain Barnes’s ship in Drone Hanger 7 along with anyone else that showed up with a ship.

Audacious got to work printing habitats that would be adequate for humans in the 1cubic kilometre Drone storage Facility. Audacious would install waist disposal systems, food dispensers, sleeping cubicles and other life support systems the humans would need. The area was restricted but Navi wanted it that way and Audacious would comply with Navi’s wishes. The larger Drone Hanger 7 would provide a place for the people to move around should it be necessary but they would have access to nowhere else.

By Navi’s estimation people from his net group should start arriving in 3 weeks. He had given them the Jump Gate access codes so their entry into the Agrissa system should not be a problem.

To activate a Jump Gate a signal is sent to the Gate by a ship with the authorised neural access codes and a Jump Point or two-way traversable wormhole will open joining normal space and Hyperspace. The Jump Gate signal can be sent prom Hyperspace provided there’s a Hyperspace Communications Relay within range. Military and other large Ships usually carry their own communications module so have no need for a Hyperspace Communications Relay.

Audacious was now sending over humanoid drones to administer medical care to the worried and frightened former slaves. To them the guards were suddenly running away and massive Black Robots had arrived. And the pervasive feeling was that they would be swiftly executed. Many had already resigned themselves to death and hoped for death as a final relief from the horror of their enslavement. Navi hadn’t said anything to the slaves just in case the FSA Pirates had covert listening devices.

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Once Audacious determined that some of the native vegetation had sufficient chemical compounds to be used as nutrient synthesizer ingredients Navi deployed collectors to harvest as much of the vegetation as possible. No doubt the FSA guards watching the thousands of drones being deployed from Audacious would be awestruck by the capabilities of the ship that had essentially taken what they believed to be their property without firing a single shot.

The FSA had been behaving like demented brutes towards other humans for hundreds of years and were unlikely to stop, but now they thought they would need to be careful of this unheard of Avalon Federation because a nation with a fleet of Audacious type ships and holding utopian values would be an existential threat to the FSA.

The FSA had been largely left alone by the Aliens that attacked most of humanity and now their populations could be said to be comparable, but if this mysterious Avalon Joined the fray things could turn out very bad for the FSA. The Guards had already sent messages to their ships and no doubt it had been relayed to the FSA Home System Valhalla. The guards knew that given the aversion to slavery a deal with Avalon was unlikely but it was up to Valhalla to come up with a strategy.

For hundreds of years Valhalla had been making side deals with UEN based corporations, and even after the fall of Earth the deals with the Corporations which now operated from the Human Republic Continued. The FSA had gained access to the latest technology from the clandestine deals and as such had made more technological progress in the past 20 years than in the previous 100 years. If things had continued for a little while longer the FSA would have surpassed the Human Republic and swallowed it up.

However now that the Human Republic was packing up and heading to Terra the FSA would have to stand on its own. That brought the very real possibility that the reptilians would turn their attention towards the FSA. Call it a stroke of luck but the massive Audacious in front of the guards may end up being the thing that saves the FSA. If the FSA could somehow have the Wocuk Reptilians find out about the existence of a powerful Human Civilization they would pull back and re-evaluate their position.

Even the Wocuk wouldn’t start a fight with a potentially dangerous enemy. The other FSA option was to have the Avalon Federation make contact with the either Terra or the Human Republic, and given the bleeding heart ethos of Avalon they are likely to share their military technology with them to help humanity defend itself; that would mean the FSA would also gain that tech through backdoor channels.

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Soon enough the weeks passed and Captain Andrew Barnes of the Barnesville and its crew of 47 showed up.

They went into mild panic upon seeing the Audacious but a hail from Audacious calmed their nerves.

Navi : " This is Captain Navi of the Avalon Federation Ship Audacious hailing Barnesville!"

Capt-Barnes : " Navi? I just About shit my pants man! What the Fuck?"

Navi : " The Coms link is secure but I’d rather not risk it. Stand by for transit vectors! We’ll talk more freely once you’re docked aboard Audacious."

Capt-Barnes : " Understood"

Navi : " Audacious out."

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It took some time for the Barnesville to reach Audacious and in that time 4 other ships showed up; bringing the total number of people joining Navi’s mission to form a space based Human Federation to 452.

Captain Andrew Barnes was now talking to a holographic projection of Navi aboard the Docked Barnesville.

Capt-Barnes : " Now that we’re here will you tell me what’s going on? And why can’t we have a face to face?"

Navi : " There won’t be a face to face because we’re basically strangers, and trust has to be earned. As for the other matter as you’ve probably noticed all the people near Hanger 7 by now; I had to rescue them from FSA enslavement. To avoid casualties I pretended to be a Naval Captain from the unknown Avalon Federation in order to intimidate the FSA Guards into running."

Capt-Barnes : " And they Ran?"

Navi : " Have you seen my Audacious?"

Capt-Barnes : " I see"

Navi : " Yeah. But then it occurred to me that we’ll need a name, and since I had already used Avalon Federation I decided to go with it. I think it’s better if potential enemies think that we belong to a larger and powerful Federation."

Capt-Barnes : " I see; good thinking. What do you want me to do?"

Navi : " I’ve set you-up on the top floor of the residential facility. Don’t wary about personal security these guys were slaves for decades so they’re very meek, but in case something happens my drones maintain order so your crew should be fine. Have your crew set up on the top floor."

Capt-Barnes : " Then what?"

Navi : " I’m busy re-supplying and it’ll go on for at least a month. Once that’s done I’ll head out to meet the other ships and bring them aboard at which point we can head-out."

Capt-Barnes : " Destination?"

Navi : " The Windsor System; 207 LightYears from here."

Capt-Barnes : " Why?"

Navi : " The second of the 4 local Gas giants has sizable Oriculcum Deposits; enough to build 150 Colonial Class StarCruisers."

Capt-Barnes : " You’re seriously going to give us such a valuable ship?"

Navi : " I’m gonna give you control of the ship, but the Avalon Federation retains ownership."

Capt-Barnes : " That sounds more believable."

Navi : " Either way it will be yours for all intensive purposes."

Navi’s plan had begun.

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