Okay, here, after way too long, is my next chapter. I only hope that I've done a good enough job with it to make it worth your while and your time. I can't go into all the details, but suffice to say my life's been crazy lately, with work, juggling my jobs, and dealing with a rather annoying appeal. So thank you to you all for your patience, and for taking the time and effort to read my story.
So, without further ado, here's chapter eight of Ratchet and Clank: Legacy.
Chapter Eight: Bound for the Stars
Angela Cross arose from her bed with a groan. She put her feet over the side and looked around, blinking a few times to try to bring her room back into focus. Her eyes fell on the lancer pistol on her nightstand, and then to her living area. Sartanus Arden sat in one of the chairs, his hands crossed over his stomach as he stared straight ahead. It was somewhat strange to see him out of his environmental or clean suit, Angela thought, as his violet eyes turned towards her. The slit-like pupils that were common among the Skirathi people were momentarily covered as he blinked a couple of times. The older man got up to his feet and walked over towards her.
"Morning, Angela," he said, concern written over his orange colored features. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I feel like hell, and I'm still paranoid that that… thing… might have done something to my head," she said, shaking her head back and forth, her long, unbound hair fluttering about her face. She brought her hands up in front of her face, before rubbing them back through her hair. "Do I look as bad as I feel?" she asked.
"You look like you haven't slept decently in days, but I'd say that's typical of someone that, well, hasn't actually had a good sleep in the past few days." Arden said with a shrug.
"Thanks for staying, just so you know," the Lombax said, looking over at him.
"It's no trouble," Arden said with a wave of his right hand. "That's what friends do, right? Help each other?"
"Yeah… they do," she whispered. Her thoughts drifted to Ratchet for a moment. How were he and Clank doing on Arcadia? "All the same, I'm glad that you did it. Have they found any sign of it?"
"A few footprints across the top of the some of the buildings, but nothing beyond that," Arden said with a shake of his head.
"It had a teleporter, probably got away using that." Angela muttered as she rubbed her eyes again. The softness of her bed seemed to be calling out to her, asking her to return to what peace she could find in her slumber. She ignored it. She could sleep on the trip to the spaceports, or once they had everything loaded up on the main freighter. Speaking of, she probably needed to get out of the bed anyway; it probably needed to be loaded up.
"Possibly," Arden said with a nod of his head. "Are you sure that it was something that might have come out of the ruins?"
"I've got some suspicions, but nothing concrete, Sartanus," she said as she stretched and headed over towards her walk in closet. "It looked somewhat like the alien we found. But there were differences," she said as she stepped inside and began to change into a set of blue pants and a black shirt, the only thing she hadn't packed up yet. "It was taller, for one thing, had more fingers for another, and it didn't have a tail."
"Hmm, evidence of multiple species within the same organization?" Arden mused, and thin shook his head. "Regardless, we've had patrols going constantly since then, and drones armed with infrared sensors monitoring the camp. If it tries to get back in here, we'll find it."
"Thanks… I…" She shivered again. The knowledge that something had intruded into her mind, breached the one place that she considered to be something of a sanctuary. She shook her head. It had happened, there was nothing she could do about it now. She'd talk with Ratchet and Clank when she got a chance, see if they could offer any help or advice. She contemplated contacting them about this, but decided to leave it until they met in person. She didn't need him worrying about her and getting distracted, or worse, dropping his rescue efforts on Arcadia to come see her.
Maybe she could see one of the therapists that Megacorp kept on hand, too? Angela suddenly found herself grateful that she got a free medical plan as part of her re-signing package.
"If you need to talk, I'm here," Arden said, placing a hand on her shoulder as he looked up at the much taller Lombax. "In the meantime, let's get you packed up, shall we?"
"Sounds like a plan," Angel muttered, as she walked over towards the few remaining items she hadn't packed up.
It didn't take any more than fifteen minutes to get the last of her things packed and to get suited back up. The transports that they were going to be using were climate controlled, but the environmental suits for the wasteland areas weren't that uncomfortable, and the paranoia that she'd built up over recent events had made Angela want to keep such things close at hand. The last thing that she did was strap her lancer into holster and check the bottom of her last suitcase. She looked up at Arden as she did so. He had his back turned, instructing some of the drones on how to carry the things out of the prefab. Good. She opened it up and pretended to make one final check of the contents. In reality, she ran her hand along a nearly invisible seam on the inside of the case. Still there, she thought to herself. That was good.
She zipped the suitcase up and slung it up over her shoulder. Then she grabbed her filtration helmet and put it on. "All ready to go," she said.
"Right, then let's get this show on the road," Arden said.
Lear watched from the rooftops as the excavation team continued to pack up and make ready to leave. Another drone buzzed overhead and he was silently grateful for the newest advancements that the Type-28-Infiltraitor model offered over the traditional power armors. Older armors always left an infrared signature of sorts, due to the need to radiate excess heat away from the operators to avoid them being cooked alive by the fusion cells that powered the suits (though there had always been ways to minimize that, such as directing the heat out through the boots and the like). The T-28(I) was the first of its kind, a model that sported a Void Crystal small enough to actually be man-portable. The crystal was more than just a power source; it was a conduit to the Void itself, drawing energy from it, but also acting as a channel back to it. It was there that his suit dumped its heat. When combined with the other systems that monitored the ambient environmental temperature, it allowed him to perfectly match the temperature of the environment around him. As such, there literally wasn't an infrared signature to leave.
Some of the transports had already left, rocketing away to the west. He made his way towards one of the last ones, his eyes darting about as he tried to search for something. He'd seen the drones standing guard by the door of the structure that he'd entered last night. If he'd still had a stomach, he suspected it would be turning. He hung his head for a moment and shook it. He'd taken a risk, and it'd blown up in his face catastrophically. He blinked a couple of times, wondering what he should do, how he should proceed. He was tempted to chuckle bitterly as he found himself longing for his "normal" element. At least there, he'd have some semblance of an idea what to do. In those situations there were enemies, there were allies, and there were those who struggled to remain neutral. They were usually easy to pick out and define, and he could plot a course of action from there.
Here… here it was different, he was in an entirely different region of space, potentially an entirely different region of the universe, and he had no idea how many of his brothers and sisters in arms could be lost out there as well. In his moment of desperation, there was no denying that he'd made a very poor first impression with the locals. The repercussions could be immense, especially if these individuals belonged to a massive organization that happened to run into some surviving Imperial forces. He owed it to them all to try to make amends.
A subroutine in the back of his partially mechanized brain wondered sardonically about how worked up he was getting over this. A career body count that exceeded four digits, not a problem; mess up a first contact and probe a civilian's mind, and suddenly he was beside himself. Was this something that normal people had to deal with, he wondered distantly? Then he shook his head and refocused. The drones were moving away from the doors now, and he could see that there were more emerging, carrying suitcases and other baggage. Lear then watched two aliens emerge and quickly ran a bio scan on them. It was them alright. He started to follow along behind them, tracking them from the rooftops as they headed towards one of the transports.
The ship was a large affair for an atmospheric transport, easily seventy meters long and rather boxy looking, he could see that the interior was lined with seats and cargo storage facilities above and below the main passenger area. The Revenant watched them board the transport and quickly teleported into the main cargo area. It was packed tight with personal luggage and some digging equipment, along with what appeared to be some type of hover skimmer. A bit cramped, but nothing unmanageable, he thought, as he managed to clamber on top of one of the packing crates. A few minutes later, the transport's engines rumbled to life and the craft picked up into the air.
It was about an hour after the departure that Angela was woken from another fitful nap by Arden nudging her awake. She blinked a few times and then shook her head. She looked out the window of the C-137 transport that they were in and noticed that the sky had changed from an unending blue to a rainbow of purples, oranges, and reds. They were at Argus-IV's termination zone. Despite the disappointments and incidents of the past few days, she still found a smile coming to her face as she stared at the breathtaking scenery of the spaceport of Midon.
Buildings and docking platforms stretched up into the sky, kilometers above the ground. Here and there, she could also see the colossal spires of orbital elevators that stretched up to some of the older space stations. She placed a hand against the window and her eyes grew wide as she stared around at it. Scores of millions called this starport home; and here the group would board a transport that was bound for Ichar-III and then Yeedil. The Lombax found herself wishing that she had the time to go about and explore the place, maybe see if there were any machines that she could pick up and tinker with, turn into side projects to keep herself occupied. However, she knew that wasn't going to happen. They'd be on the transport within the hour, at Ichar-III within two. There might be some downtime there, while they got the convoy organized and the cargo redistributed in keeping with the proper security protocols. But for now, she'd have to content herself with gazing around at this beautiful city one final time. Gods only knew when she would find herself back on Argus-IV. There was the distinct possibility that nothing more would be learned about the facility here, after all, and it was possible that she might never return.
A pity that life was so short that one could not explore every place this galaxy had to offer, Angela found herself musing. She let out a sigh and then leaned back in her seat as the C-137 started to enter its landing phase, its main engines powering down while the maneuvering thrusters were given an extra boost to line the transport up with the landing pad.
Angela barely felt the impact of the landing, and she hastily undid her safety restraints and grabbed her bag. The other members of the excavation and security team began to make their way off the transport, and she got in line behind Arden, slowly shuffling forward until she was out the doors and onto the landing pad. It was an open-air one, about a hundred meters off the ground, held up by a combination of suspension cables and metal struts. A large metal guardrail, about chest height, wrapped around the exterior of the platform and a couple of covered tunnels led them into the starport proper.
"Okay, everyone, you know the drill, stick together, no wandering off, we need to get our stuff secured and stowed ASAP," Arden said, turning around and walking backwards up towards the front of the group.
Angela nodded her head and said nothing. The Lombax couldn't help but look back over her shoulder though, the fur on the back of her neck once again standing up. Her eyes narrowed and her gaze darted about, as though she suspected that she might see an armored figure skulking about the shadows once again. There was nothing there, but that nagging feeling remained with her.
She turned around and walked forward into the terminal, out of Midon's perpetual twilight.
Twenty minutes of walking, and a five minute stint on a mag-lev tram later, Angela found herself walking up another terminal, her bag still over her shoulder, though the lancer pistol and its holster were now missing from her hip. Her carry-on, though, had gotten through the scanners just fine, just as it always had. Even in these relatively "wild" regions of the Bogon galaxy, there were still rules and regulations about what could and could not be brought onboard a freighter. Megacorp's security personnel and the combat drones would be disarmed and their weapons kept under tight locks in the cargo holds. Fortunately, the craft that they were taking did have some armed crewmembers, just in case someone did decide to do something stupid and attempt a takeover.
The Lombax got a partial look at the ship they were boarding through one of the transparisteel windows that riddled the terminal. The Arcturus was a standard Helios class bulk freighter, about seven hundred and fifty meters long and half as wide and tall, and resembling nothing so much as a gigantic rectangular box that someone had bolted some engines onto. She was jostled a bit as she walked up the terminal, both by her fellow Megacorp employees and by dozens of other passengers that were accompanying them on this trip, usually poorer families that were looking for a cheap way off a particular rock to try and find a new start on another planet. They were people that couldn't afford better than the Spartan accommodations that a Helios class could manage. They got a cheap ride; the crew got a little extra money.
She walked through a second set of scanners as she entered the ship and showed her room assignment to one of the crew standing nearby. Correction, she thought as she looked at the man and noticed his ranking pips, the Captain himself. She didn't recognize his species, but he had a reptilian build, with feather-like protrusions coming out of his scales, and he wore a rebreathing device that was covered in a small amount of condensation. Captain S. Enblanc was written on his uniform.
She held up her assignment card to him and the man blinked, two sets of eyelids running over iridescent purple eyes. "Twenty-Fourth deck, cabin 'I'," he said, gesturing to a corridor that headed off to the left. "Just head down that way, and the signs will guide you from there." He said, before a machine next to him spat out a keycard.
"Thanks," she said, taking the card and stowing it in her pocket.
"Not a problem, ma'am, get your baggage stored and we'll be on our way shortly," he said with a nod of his head.
She started forward and as she turned the corner, heard footsteps behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Doctor Arden coming up behind her.
"Gave us the same room, I guess?" she said as he walked up next to her.
"So it would appear. Though, frankly, I'd be surprised if it was only the two of us. I don't think the passenger cabins are quite small enough for that." The Skirathi said quietly with a shrug of his shoulders.
Angela frowned. True enough. They'd probably be packed into a room like sardines with a half dozen others. Still, it would only be a few hours until they were at Ichar-III, and only a few days from there until they reached Yeedil. She could manage it. At least she'd have a chance to get some of the dust and grit out of her fur. She'd have to try and find a time when the communal showers were mostly empty though, she thought with a frown.
She let out a breath as she and Arden walked alongside each other in silence, reaching a stairwell and climbing a few flights, winding their way down the maze-like corridors. Eventually they reached the cabin, designated "24-I" and swiped the security card that she'd been given. The lock blinked blue for a moment, and then the door hissed open. The lights turned on automatically as she entered, and she frowned as she looked around at the interior of the room. About ten meters square, with triple stacked bunks taking up most of it. All in all, there looked to be room for about a dozen people in here.
She walked over towards a bunk close to the door and clambered up to the top one, pushing her bag into the cubby that was built into the wall. Her knees sank through the thin padding covering the bunk's bottom, and she could feel the hard metal pressing back against her kneecaps. She shook her head. There were worse places to sleep. When Tachyon's forces had first come after her, she remembered the days spent wandering around, lost and alone on Grelbin's frozen wilderness, clad in nothing but an environmental suit and a precious few belongings that she'd been able to get out of her home before it had been burned to ashes by the Emperor's troops.
Memories flashed in front of the Lombax's eyes, memories of her bribing her way onto freighters or simply stowing away, trying to get lost among the bustle of civilization and doing whatever she could to cover her tracks. Distantly, she wondered what she might have been forced to do if Apogee had never found her. She shuddered for a moment, and shook those thoughts from her head. She had enough to worry about now without dredging up bad memories from her past.
Arden grabbed another bunk, more towards the back, choosing one on the bottom and stowing away his carry-on as well.
"You looking forward to getting back to headquarters?" he asked her a minute or two later.
"Not particularly, no." Angela shook her head as she leaned back against the cot, staring up at the ceiling that was maybe half a meter above her head. "I suspect that the Board's going to have awkward questions for all of us, and after that? I can't shake the feeling that the only thing I've got waiting for me is a dead-end assignment cleaning up after others mistakes in the bio-labs."
"I really doubt it will come to that," Arden said, turning on his side and looking over at her. His aged, wrinkled face broke out into a grin. "If anything, it's traditional for the sacrificial kerian to be the head of the venture, yours truly in this case," he gestured to himself and chuckled.
"You sound rather blasé about the whole matter," Angela said, raising an eyebrow.
"My contract includes a rather generous severance package," the Skirathi said with a smirk. "I'm past the point where I could live comfortably for the rest of my life. I just like my work." He let out a sigh and rolled over onto his back. "Suppose that's one thing we should be grateful for. At least we have employment that we both happen to like."
"True enough, I suppose," Angela muttered. "Guess it could be worse."
Lear crawled along the top of some exposed piping in the ceiling of the freighter, looking around at the constant stream of aliens below him. The ceiling was too low to the floor in this part to risk using his grav-boots, and so he was forced to crawl, upside down, along the corridor, having stored the SLAG ammo pack behind a grating in a supply closet down in the bowels of the craft. He pulled up another quick active scan of the region, the walls and ceilings becoming transparent as he tried to orient himself. Bridge seemed to be up at the front of the craft, and relatively lightly staffed for the moment. Once the ship got spaceborne, that was bound to change. He needed to get their quickly if he was going to get some semblance of an idea of where in hell he was at the moment.
Of course, that's all dependent on the system's nav-computer actually being compatible with one of mine, he thought sardonically. Who knew, though? Perhaps after everything that had gone wrong over the past few days, he'd finally get something to go right.
The flood of aliens beneath him faded to a trickle and then finally disappeared as he judged the distances between him and the bridge. He saw an opening and took it, teleporting about a hundred and fifty meters further down the length of the ship and about five floors higher. Relatively straight shot from this point onwards, he thought to himself as he started to crawl again. In the back of his mind, the Revenant couldn't help but wonder what would happen if this all went wrong, if he were to be caught in the act. Fighting was out of the question in this situation. He'd have nowhere he could flee to, and he had no idea how to pilot a craft like this; to say nothing of the awkwardness of the fact that there were clearly noncombatants on board this ship.
Surrender then? A shiver worked its way down his spines as he thought about that. Capture was the one thing that his kind were trained to avoid at all costs. The equipment he carried was to be safeguarded at all costs. Any chance that it might fall into enemy hands had to eliminated. But were these people truly enemies? Granted, he'd fraked up royally earlier, but that didn't necessarily make him a hostile element to them just yet. He shook his head. He had to find a way to get past the damnable language barrier.
He grimaced as he awkwardly slithered through the top of an open bulkhead, reaching through and grabbing the piping there, pulling himself along as he let his torso and back slip through the door, and then curled back up. Just a little bit farther, he told himself, just a little bit farther.
It took a couple more minutes of crawling for him to reach the door that led to the bridge. He scanned it again, just to be sure. About twenty meters square, lots of control consoles obscuring line of sight, two people in it. He nodded to himself and then checked the charge level on his teleporter. It was back at a full charge, good enough to get him in and out quickly. He engaged it one more time, popping into a corner of the bridge away from the two occupants. Hunched down and with his cloaks still engaged, he started to carefully move around the room. He inspected the consoles carefully, looking over the screens and displays. Some were standard viewing screens, others were holographic in nature, and he distantly wondered how old this ship was. There were some craft in the Empire that were multi-generational investments, handed down from family member to family member and continually upgraded as time progressed. Was this something akin to that?
He kept a constant eye on his motion tracker and other scanners as well. The two up in the front seemed to be running through a preflight checklist of some sort, and he hoped that it would keep them occupied while he did what he needed to do. Matters were complicated by the fact that he was unable to read the consoles. Still, some of them had pictorial displays, so he was able to take a good guess at what some of the readouts were regarding. There was also a distinct probability that this ship had been more or less "idiot proofed" as the saying went, designed to be so simple to operate that a child could do it.
It took him the better part of fifteen minutes to scope out each console before he arrived at the one that he thought was a list of navigational data and star charts. He looked back over his shoulder, instinctively double-checking that the two aliens monitoring the ship weren't looking his way. Then he searched the console for a contact port. He reached down into his webbing, pulling out an armor plated, slab-like object. Lear popped it open and grabbed a handful of cables that had varying endpoints. He finally located a port that looked as though it might be compatible with one of his own, and pushed it in. Now he just had to hope that it wasn't actually a power socket or something like that.
He got lucky, and it was actually a data connection port. Further, it turned out that these computers did use binary coding. He let out a sigh of relief and then sliced into the mainframe. It was easy enough to yank the data that he needed from that point, and he hastily pulled out the data storage device as the automated systems in his slicing board checked and rechecked the data for viruses. The Class-VI A.I. onboard confirmed that the information was clean, and then he shuffled back over to the corner. A moment later, he was gone, down in one of the lower regions of the ship's bow. Once he confirmed that he was alone, he pulled the portable computer out and started to look over the data.
His heart sank as he looked the information over. It was as he'd feared: no planets, galactic features, nebulae, or anything else that matched known Imperial navigational data. He could literally be halfway across the universe from his home. He resisted the urge to slam his fist against the wall in frustration. Someone might hear the reverberations and a fist-shaped dent or hole in the wall would likely raise more than a few eyebrows.
Nothing to do but wait for the right time to make contact, Lear thought to himself. He'd just have to keep his eyes peeled for when that time came.
Speaking of keeping his eyes peeled, the Revenant reached down to one of the tubes hanging off of his lower back. He pulled it loose from the clamps that held it, and untwisted the cap. Inside were dozens of tiny, insect sized remote scanning drones. A command from his armor brought them online, and they buzzed out of the tube, scattering through the cargo hold. They slipped into ventilation shafts far too small for anyone to fit through and began to work their way through the ship. The "Wasps" as they were called, would give him a chance to remotely observe these aliens as they went about their business, and hopefully get some idea of how best to approach them. He might even get lucky and pick up a word or two while he was at it, or some hint at a dominant culture.
Admiral Sasha Phyornix sat in the main chair of her ready room, onboard the flagship of the Galactic Federation. The Cazar tapped her fingers together and stared at the holographic readouts in front of her, as well as the other seats around the ready room, which were "filled" by translucent blue figures. Her father was among them, as were several other important members of the Solonia government. Others were from much less local areas, such as Commodore Salvania Delacroix. The woman had her helmet off, revealing her Mar-Sarian heritage. Scales covered a long, oval shaped face, and a quartet of spines rose up from her head. The Commodore seemed ill at ease, Sasha thought to herself, constantly looking about, her hands fidgeting against the armrests of her chair back on the Isador. "Sitting" next to her was Prime Minister Rajesh. He was a Skiritari, and the head of the Arcadian government. Even through the holographic display, Sasha swore she could see the dark circles under the orange-skinned humanoid's eyes.
"I'm glad that everyone could be here today," she spoke up, placing her hands down by her sides as she leaned forward slightly, gazing back and forth across the assembled crowd that was before her. "I trust that you all read the briefs, and know about the incident that occurred yesterday on the planet of Arcadia?"
There was a series of nods and she looked towards the data readouts again. "It is clear that we are potentially facing a very dangerous situation here. Probes that have visited several of the space-side tears have discovered evidence of high intensity radiation consistent with warp-jumping ships. We have reason to suspect that there are a great many more of these alien craft running around." Sasha clasped her hands in front of her face. "I am given to understand that the surviving Mar-Sarian and other Valaria fleets have begun extensive reconnaissance of the surrounding systems?"
"That is correct," Delacroix spoke up, bringing a couple of fingers up to her forehead. "Nothing so far, but we're doing multi-spectrum scans, subsector by subsector, and we're searching for any evidence that there may be cloaked ships around." She said.
"I feel obliged to ask a question or two," another one of the Cazars spoke up, a male by the name of Marison Tiret, better known as the Solonian Minister of Defense. "I've read the reports and the briefing, Commodore, but you were actually there. Is there anything that you can tell us, based on your own firsthand knowledge, that could be of use here?"
"I suppose that would rather depend on the question you ask," the Commodore said. "What are you wanting to know?"
"Well, obviously, these alien ships are not invincible, but was there anything about them that you noticed? Anything that seemed particularly effective against them?"
The Commodore was quiet for a moment, and her holographic image tapped a finger against her armrest. "Not as of yet, no. The shields and hull-armor of these craft are robust and durable, but not impregnable, as you saw. You just… you just have to keep hitting them, and you cannot let up."
"It is clear that we are going to have to come up with some new tactics and strategies, though," Sasha mused, rubbing her chin as she looked at an image from a replay of the battle. "The weapons aren't terribly advanced, compared to singularity missiles, lancer-batteries, and disruptor beams, but with missiles as large as the ones they were using… and with their immense range advantage." She leaned back in her chair for a moment, her brow furrowed. "It's clear that we're going to have to come up with some way to nullify that."
"It might also be a good idea to see about upgrading the targeting protocols and processing capabilities of your automated point defense systems and your ECM jamming suites," Delacroix said. "Even arranged for maximum efficiency, our fleets were unable to completely nullify the swarms they were throwing at us."
"I agree," President Phyornix spoke for the first time. "And it's all well and good… but there is the slightly more pressing matter about what we should do regarding that." He gestured to the massive alien flagship. "From what I read, I'm not sure if there's any ship in our fleet that could stand up to something like that."
"There isn't, Mr. President," Sasha said, shaking her head. No matter how many times she said it, it always felt awkward calling her father that. "But with something like that… we won't be throwing ships at it piecemeal. That is something you engage with multiple task forces, entire fleets would be dedicated to attacking a ship like that." She gestured to an image of it that the Mar-Sarian sensors had managed to capture, and zoomed in on a pair of jagged disfigurations on the aft portside. "We can see here that its armor isn't invulnerable, or its shields. This ship was in a battle with something, and whatever it was hurt it, badly. I'd wager if we do fight it again and manage to crack the shields, that's probably where we need to aim our weapons. Even discounting the compromised armor, I'd wager there's something important in that region that whoever engaged it was trying to get at."
"Sound a strategy as any," the Defense Minister muttered. Then he turned to the President. "Are we planning to have our ships join in and help out?"
The President chewed on his lip for a moment and then sighed. "That's going to be a tough sell, I'm afraid. I've drawn up requisitions and requests for the Senate, but it's not going to be easy to get them to agree. I'm worried that a fair number of them are going to see this as a Bogonian problem, and they're going to think that we shouldn't be risking a good portion of our fleet with something that doesn't affect us directly." He paused for a moment. "I think that our war with the Tyrranoids has left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. There are some planets still rebuilding from the damage they inflicted, to say nothing of what Nefarious did."
"That tune will change if these ships show up on Solona's doorstep," Rajesh said, his eyes narrowing as he spoke for the first time. "You need only look at what happened to our world to see what will happen if that day arrives!" he slammed his fist against the table that was on his end of the link, causing the hologram to wobble and distort momentarily.
President Azariah Phyornix held up a hand in a placating gesture. "I agree, Prime Minister, I agree. I'm going to try and get you the support that you and the rest of the Valaria Cluster need, I just want you to know that it's going to be difficult, and I don't know how long it will take before I can get them to see reason."
"You could try reminding them that there are a number of mutual defense treaties signed," Sasha said, unable to keep a smirk off her face. "Granted, I think there are some of them who won't really care." Her ears twitched as she remembered something. "How are the Bogonian mega corporations reacting to this news?"
"We're still debating how best to give them the full extent of the information," Rajesh said, leaning forward and running his hands through his short, spiky hair. "We have no doubt by now that most of them know what has happened, but we don't know if they understand the full extent. It is a… delicate… situation."
"What do you mean?" the President asked.
"We're not so blessed as to be united like your people, Mr. President, or like our neighbors in Polaris," Rajesh said, looking up from where he sat. "The mega-corporations have a tremendous amount of power and influence, but they're like warring kingdoms most of the time. Constantly engaged in economic warfare, making cutthroat bargains and temporary alliances are their stock and trade in most cases. There are concerns that some of them might attempt to use this incident to their advantage."
"Are you seriously discussing the possibility that some of them might see the aliens as a tool to be used against their business rivals?" Sasha cocked an eyebrow.
"Sounds short-sighted and suicidal, doesn't it?" Delacroix spoke up, chuckling bitterly. "But they've done crazier things in the past. Look at that protopet mess."
Sasha remained quiet, but she frowned. Technically, that was Captain Qwark at work, she thought to herself. She tapped her fingers together once more, trying to think of how best to convince the Solonian people that this was the right thing to do. They'd have to be subtle, careful to avoid a backlash. Start small, that would be the trick, she thought. Then a flash of inspiration came to the young woman. She snapped her fingers and looked around at the others. "Megacorp going to be having the final field tests for their Mark VI's soon, right? For the contract to replace the Galactic Ranger forces?"
"Yes," her father said, looking over at her.
"Why not try and send over a couple of task forces under the auspices that they're going to observe the performance tests of the drones? Sort of a ceremonial show of force?" the Admiral asked. "It's not much, but it could be a good way to 'smuggle' a couple of fleets over there."
"Not a bad idea," Rajesh mused as he rubbed his chin. "We're going to need more than a couple of fleets before this is all over with, I suspect, but it's a start."
Sasha Phyornix smiled to herself. One minor step forward. Now they just had to hope that there weren't any more complications until they could get a proper handle on things.
In a remote region of the Bogon galaxy, known as the Omega Sector, a fleet of eight ships darted through the cosmos. Sleek and dagger-like, bristling with weapon mounts, they were nearly invisible against the blackness of space, save for the blue glow of their engines. Within the largest ship, an armored figure looked back and forth at the computer displays among her control console. She nodded her head and then glanced over to one of her subordinates, a four armed individual dressed in a black, form-fitting armor suit. "Are all forces in the area accounted for?"
"They are, Admiral. We're ready to begin sector sweeps as soon as you are ready."
"Then make it so. Empress willing, we'll find our brothers and sisters before the enemy does."
Alright, everyone, I do hope that this chapter was worth the wait, and that you all enjoyed it. Nervous as always, I suppose, about how good of a job I'm doing here, so any feedback or constructive criticism is especially appreciated. Hopefully it won't take me quite so long to upload the next chapter, and until next time, everyone, I hope you all stay safe and take care. Thank you so much for your time.