USD: Next Day

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire

Alex had put the Tears through a hard burn back to the orbital so they could oversee the unloading operations. While the freighters were armed and the GAIs capable enough of running them, they had still thought that having them approach the colonist’s fortifications was too much risk.

Especially with how much negative news was being pushed in the media on them. Thankfully, the people on Nucrateri station and outer population weren’t quite as tapped into the outright propaganda channels the people on the planet were subjected to.

It wasn’t like there was an enormous crowd of people on the station clamoring for the rations, but the fear that the military would try to slip a special operation team onto one of the freighters and try to seize it was very valid in Alex’s mind.

The hard burn had cost them a lot of propellant, though.

Which became a problem as she tried to negotiate with the Governor.

“Governor Tyler, I would not have had to hard burn back to the planet if you had just accepted the food in the first place. The very least you can do is allow our shuttles to ferry back the fuel we need to top off as they deliver the food to the Elevator.”

“It was your choice to make such a maneuver, Captain. There was no need for you and your ship to return at such speed. The freighters could have unloaded without you.”

“I think the need for Tears to provide security is well demonstrated by the negative sentiment that your government has been throwing our way. Oh, and all the guns you have pointed at us.”

“You have over a dozen large caliber artillery pieces pointed at Dedia Prime. Scans have shown they are emitting specific radiation indexes that indicate they are nuclear in nature. You’re pointing nuclear weaponry at a civilian population.”

Alex leaned back in her chair, her eyebrow twitching. “We’ve been over this already. Are we really going to go over this blame game again? I would rather go clean the sludge filters myself and it would be more productive.”

“The propellant is needed for other government operations. We can’t spare it for you.”

She felt anger building up like it usually did when she had spoken to anyone from the colony as of late. Sitting back up straight, she tried to maintain her composure by keeping her voice level.

“That’s bullshit. You have a literal elevator to the surface. You have, literally, an A-Grav pipe that lets you pipe as much propellant as needed from the production facility on the ground. You can literally stick your straw in the ocean and spew the world’s water content out into space without making a blip on Prime’s power network!”

“The propellant is not free to produce. You can’t just stick ocean water in your ship unless Federation thrusters are much more adaptable than I believe.”

She probably could figure out how to make the Shrike run on seawater. Nameless definitely could. She didn’t feel the need to correct the Governor on that.

“Neither is food. We produced or purchased it at our own expense to bring to you and give away for free. I can take the Tears back to Nucrateri Station and refuel. You don’t have the option to grow your own food. I will take it with me this time and then YOU can figure out how to get it transferred back. The people that starve between now and when you figure that out will be on your head, not mine.”

The Governor let out a breath. “Very well, Ms. Alex. We will allow shuttles to unload the food and provide you with propellant. At no time will your ships be allowed to approach the elevator or new construction, however.”

USD: Later that day

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire, Elis’s Room

Speaking with the Governor had put Alex in a bad mood. She had spent hours assisting Nameless in figuring out a safe method for allowing the manned Dedian shuttles onto the freighters safely.

It had involved stuffing them full of angry combat robots that were ready to shoot up the Dedians if they did any funny business.

The bots were ‘angry’ because Alex had painted them. She had started with teeth and open mouths and worked her way up to red stripes and monster murals. By the end, she was just painting anything she thought might look scary on their chassis while Nameless had completed the organizing, production, and transfers to the two ships.

Feeling a bit better, Alex was walking down the corridor when she noticed that Elis’s door was open. Elis was nowhere to be seen.

Suspecting a trap, Alex poked her head into the room and looked around. She didn’t spot anything except one of the end tables was missing.

What did come to mind, however, sent her sneaking inside. Hyper aware for anything that might have looked out of place, she went snooping on impulse. She got about halfway into the room when Elis’s voice erupted behind her.

“What are you doing?”

Alex dived behind Elis’s desk before poking her head out. Realizing how silly she looked, she came out after a second. “Umm. Looking for evidence.”

Elis raised an eyebrow. “Evidence of what?”

“Romance.”

Elis continued to give her the look.

Alex swallowed. “I saw you kiss Daniel.”

“So, you went snooping in my room?”

“I… Uhm. That wasn’t planned. I just saw the door open and thought about it.”

“Didn’t we talk about the privacy thing before?”

Alex felt bad and nodded, looking down at the floor. “Sorry. I made a mistake.”

Elis let out a sigh and came over and gave her a hug.

“It’s ok. I forgive you. Now why don’t you tell me what you meant by you were looking for ‘Romance’ in my room.”

They sat down on the edge of Elis’s bed and Alex thought for a moment, “I wasn’t really thinking… Uhm. I saw the two of you when Daniel left. He kissed you! And you let him!”

“So, you saw that.” Elis murmured.

“Plus… you turned off the sensors in your room for an entire night! Nameless was bothering me for hours, asking me for permission to send repair bots.”

A look of surprise passed over Elis’s face before a little color entered her cheeks. “Shit, I didn’t think it would care about that. I just unplugged them. They weren’t damaged.”

Alex thought about it for a moment. “Did you have sex with him?”

Elis spluttered, but Alex looked at her expectantly while waiting for an answer.

Finally, Elis sighed, “Sometimes I forget how young you are about some things… Let me try to remember how my mother explained this to me.”

The conversation lasted for several hours, only interrupted by dinner. Alex felt like she had a much better grasp on a lot of things that she had only had vague notions about before.

USD: The next day

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire, CIC

Alex was watching the small blips that showed the shuttles moving between the freighters and the Elevator were moving their cargos back and forth. It was a boring job, and she found her mind wandering.

Not for the first time, she found herself wishing they had made more progress. One thing that had not resulted in any success so far was H32’s communication with the Rexxor Queen.

Oh, things were still developing on the ground the same as they had been with the NAI and the nest continuing to develop and work in conjuncture, but it was still without a real dialogue.

[Informative: H3233L has sent a request.]

Alex tilted her head questioningly. “Ok?”

It wasn’t normal that the subcores sent requests. Actually, Alex realized that outside of normal operational needs, this was the first time A31 or H32 had asked for something.

“What is it?”

[Informative: H3233L requests that the next computronics module be allocated to it so it can produce an Avatar.]

“Uhm. It’s worked hard, so I don’t see a problem with it. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with the next one anyway, other than maybe increase nanite production and control.”

[Notice: Allocating more computronics to more computronics production would increase effective build out speed.]

“Hmm. It’s a question of it paying dividends later if we increased production speeds.”

She thought about it for a moment. “I think we will go with giving the module to H32 this time. Actually, can’t we just send the specific stuff it needs and it can finish the production of the module with its own nanites?”

[Notice: Allocating the production to H3233L will require it to slow its other operations.]

“I think that’s fine. It’s already building really fast, and this way we can produce more computronics. It’s what we had A31 do, anyway.”

[Affirmative: Scheduling resource transfer for next orbit-ground shuttle flight.]

“Maybe the new Avatar will help it communicate with the Queen.”

Alex sure hoped so, anyway. They really needed a breakthrough on that front. It wouldn’t just help SR, but the colonists as well. The thought that if she could get permission for them to stay, it would make the colonists a lot less adversarial and lighten whatever sanctions the Octanis Accord violations held.

USD: The next day

Location: SMS Grazhdanin, en route Nu Crateris via Jump Lane

Lavigne followed behind two Corpo guards, leading the new maintenance team of fifty men down through the ship’s guts to the environmental subsection. A smell of organic rot pervaded the entire area, and their captors had donned gas masks to dampen the smell.

It was bad enough that he doubted that measure even worked, bringing the inside of his elbow up to his nose.

Behind him, one of the NCOs spoke.

“Wait any longer and I doubt we even could fix it.”

Lavigne looked over his shoulder to look at the man, reading his name tag.

“Petty Officer Morrison, can you take ten men and get the sludge filters clear?”

The NCO winced. “That’s a nasty job, Sir.”

Lavigne nodded, “Important, though. Even if we fix the rest of it, nothing will clear up as long as those are gunked.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Morrison turned and grabbed a few men and began rounding them up.

One guard turned and stopped the party, glaring at Lavigne. “What’re you doing?”

“We can’t fix things if we stay in one big group. We have to split up.”

The other guard looked hesitant. “Not enough of us to watch them all.”

“Not sure what you expected? I picked out the most reliable men, but the Captain wanted us to fix things and keep the ship operational, so that’s what I’m doing.”

That seemed to mollify them.

Before Morrison’s group left, Lavigne took him aside so the guards couldn’t overhear him.

“Morrison, I need you to install this override tap on EG-32’s main line to LS.” Lavigne pulled out a small device and put it in the NCO’s hand.

“Sir. That’s on the outside of the LS subsection.”

“Yes, but it’s close enough to the sludge filter area, just two bulks over.”

“Not sure we can make it there, and the goons probably shoot us if they see us out of the section.”

“I’m not sure how, but we need this.”

The older man took the override tap and stuffed it in a pocket. “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

As the group continued through the section, Lavigne continued to split up the group into smaller subsections as needed.

USD: The next day

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire, Elis’s Room

Elis had woken up in the middle of the night, needing to pee. That need warred with the warm lump that was nestled on top of her arm and letting out funny little snores.

She reached over to gently stroke one of Alex’s long locks of hair out from in front of her face and behind an ear. The younger girl let out a protesting noise as Elis shifted away slightly. Alex ended up holding onto her tighter.

When Alex had shown up to her room earlier and told her she wanted to sleep with her, Elis had been shocked. At least until she realized Alex meant actual sleeping, not anything else. Elis told herself she should have seen it coming. Alex loved to cuddle every chance she could get.

Elis had accepted her as a younger sister, without fully taking the time to contemplate it. She didn’t regret it. They had come from two widely different places, and Alex was still learning as she went. Elis realized she was, too. For a while, they had only each other to rely on, but she hoped that would continue to change.

One thing was for sure, Alex was the only family she had left.

Just as Elis was about to finish her escape to the restroom, a klaxon sounded, blaring alarm.

|GENERAL QUARTERS|

|THIS IS NOT A DRILL|

|ACTION STATIONS|

[Informative: A fleet has been detected entering the system at the 92 Pegasi jump point. Initial Analysis reports: 1 Grazhdanin class, 1 Battleship-unknown, 6 cruisers-unknown, and 16 smaller warships.]