USD: Twenty-Four Hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar, M3 Orbital Works, SRS Iron Horse, Moonlet Construction Black site

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The Iron Horse’s engines hummed softly throughout the bridge as it maneuvered closer to the moonlet’s surface. It was little more than an oversized asteroid, but care had been taken to reshape the outer shell into something resembling a spheroid. A chaotic jumble of small craft were moored on the wharfs attached to the slowly spinning equator, mostly construction tugs or other industrial flitters.

Regardless of what she had suspected before, there was still plenty of activity occurring on the Navy’s newest black project. It just hadn’t been channeled in the proper direction, and therein lied the misdirection.

The asteroid grew in size as the Iron Horse closed in on the structure, passing the proximity line. A brief challenge flickered red on her HUD, but she transmitted the proper authorization codes to clear the destroyer—corvette for docking on one of the few arms large enough to accommodate the refurbished and rebuild federation vessel.

A shuttle would have been slightly faster, but the Iron Horse had been upgraded with its own NAI computronics suite that took up the previous missile bay. That gave it more than enough power that even Her Imperial Haughtiness Tia would have been satisfied with the processing power.

Commander Talbott expertly slotted the ship between two towering cranes to bring the automated airlock clamps into position. During the entire process, Thea measured and analyzed the reports of the construction. The more she read, the more she was sure that she and Big Blue had been right; just how their airhead of a leader had realized the issue when they needed a solution asap was another question.

If they had just been left a few more days, Thea was sure she would have noticed herself and brought it up to Tia. The inkling had been there that something had been off. It was just set back in priority with all the other stuff that had been going on.

It left her feeling robbed of an opportunity.

“Ma’am, we’ve a good seal. The Marines are waiting for you on the departure deck.” Commander Talbott informed her.

“Don’t try to undock unless I send word. The sentry turrets might not like it,” Thea instructed. He gave her a puzzled look before nodding. That was great, because she didn’t feel like explaining.

Everything would have been much easier if she’d just been allowed to commandeer everything; the moonlet hadn’t been built with the standard NAI safety protocols. The base was meant for a high-ranking NAI to be in place to run it. That hadn’t been dealt with. The entire elephant in the room of creating more NAIs for posts that needed filling hadn’t been addressed at all.

Considering how haggard the princess had looked when Big Blue had left with the first fleet, it seemed that would be rectified when…if they all survived the next few hours and days.

The departure bay was full of a small company of Meltisar combat marines in medium power armor. The equipment was smaller and crude compared to the high-tech stuff that Elis and she had been provided with their own Big Blue branded equipment, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t up to the job. It was certainly the equivalent, or better than, what the station defenders were equipped with.

Hopefully, it didn’t come down to a fight because they didn’t need Meltisar personnel shooting at each other in the face of the enemy. But the sabotage to the construction queues and purposefully concealed status of the moonlet put that into question.

As soon as she arrived at the departure bay, Elis gave her a wave and smile that irked for no real reason. They were about to take command of the station from the Admiral in charge, and sanctioned or not, there were a lot of people on board and reasons to believe that they might not be cooperative.

Actually, maybe that was the reason the redhead seemed happy. “Are we ready to disembark?” Thea asked.

Elis glanced at the lieutenant who looked entirely too fresh to be in charge of a combat unit, and then to a slightly older woman with the nameplate ‘Riley.’ Both nodded, and Elis gave her a thumbs up. “Ready to go, boss.”

“I’m not your boss. I’m not even in the military,” Thea shot back.

A huge grin appeared on Elis’ face. “Why does my HUD report ‘Deputized Assistant-Admiral’, then?”

“Ask Fleet Admiral Wilkes. I’m not even sure that’s a real rank.” Thea frowned. Okay, claiming that she wasn’t in the military might have been a stretch. Technically, Tia and Big Blue were in the military as well, and even if whatever Meltisar regulations or whatever had been bent into pretzels for the sudden addition of NAIs…that didn’t mean they weren’t technically in the military.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t deny it and pretend otherwise.

The Lieutenant looked mortified, and then Sergeant Riley spoke up. “That is a real rank. Generally used to enact special orders from the admiralty board with temporary broad powers spelled out in their warrant.”

“Great. Looks like I’m in charge of everything here. Let’s just hope those station-side agree,” Thea replied.

As the airlock gantry clicked into place and the company disembarked, a mild ripple of panic flowed through the waiting sailors on the docks that had stopped to watch. Everyone seemed torn between being rushing back toward the central habitation sector and being too ‘not-busy’ to care.

Thea’s HUD highlighted their path, and the entire shore party followed her down the long arm toward the central CIC. Halfway to the central nexus, a counterparty of hastily formed marines blocked their path sans combat armor. The commanding officer at the front didn’t look happy.

The officer held up a hand. “Halt. Who authorized your party to come ashore in full combat gear? I didn’t hear anything about this.

Thea wondered if they’d let anyone on board in full combat gear. Although the Iron Horse did have a fully cleared Meltisar Navy ID, so she guessed that gave them the benefit of the doubt. Still, if it came to a shoot out, the station defenders were totally screwed, and not just because she was a NAI.

“I authorized it. We are headed to the CIC to relieve the Admiral,” Thea answered. A little grin appeared on her face at the man’s confusion and slight panic.

“What? Who are you—”

“Deputized Assistant-Admiral Thea, apparently.” She pulled out the datapad slate that she’d been given and thumbed the play button before handing it to him. The volume was set loud enough that everyone nearby was close enough to hear.

Fleet Admiral Wilkes’ face appeared with a stern expression as he delivered the formal message. “Assistant-Admiral Thea, you are hereby deputized to take command of Meltisar Base-361-BS5 immediately upon your arrival. You are to take any and all necessary measures to ensure the completion of the moonlet project, as well as secure the safety of Meltisar and its people. This order is effective immediately, and you have our full support in carrying out your duties.”

Thea smiled at the officer. “As you can see, I have the authority to be here. Now, please page Admiral… whoever to please meet me in the CIC so he can hand off command.”

Technically, he shouldn’t have listened to her even when his own scanner beeped and presented a green confirmation of the authenticity of the orders. Technically, he should have messaged back to his commander, who would then contact the Admiral, get permission for him to let her through, and a bunch of proper military procedures to do with transfer of military command of the base.

Thea was happy to find the commander decided to become as frictionless as possible and nodded.

“We’ll be disembarking all non-essential personnel shortly, so if you could get prepared for that to come down from above, you’d probably get it done faster.” Thea hinted.

The officer nodded slightly, then stepped aside, opening up the path. Thea made her way through it and her escort followed her. Word managed to spread rapidly. The glances and whispered words of crewmen sharpened as they made their way across the station. Uncertainty, confusion, and fear spread like wildfire.

It was almost enough for her to wonder if they’d all forgotten there were tens of thousands of hostile enemy ships in the system looking to turn their home into a crisp. But, then again, the realities of war probably hadn’t really hit them yet.

They hadn’t ever really experienced major loss…or severe overbearing control lording over them.

They made it to command without further hinderance, and she waved for the party to wait outside. Elis raised an eyebrow but nodded.

Thea went in alone. The Admiral stood at the center of the room, flanked by his senior officers. The atmosphere was tense, and it was clear he had been informed of her approach and wasn’t happy about it.

“I understand you’re here to relieve me of duty,” he said coldly, his eyes locked on Thea’s.

“That’s correct,” she replied without hesitation. “I’ve been authorized by Fleet Admiral Wilkes to take command of this station and bring it operational within the next twenty-four hours.”

A frown appeared on the man’s face. “That’s impossible.”

“I have the orders right here,” Thea countered.

“You can’t make the station operational. There’s at least six more months of work to be done.”

A sly smile appeared on Thea’s face. “I took control of the station as soon as we docked. There are none of the standard NAI interlocks installed, and I’ve already gotten started.”

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USD: Twenty-Four Hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar, MOR-1, Solarian Diplomatic Cutter

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The small diplomatic cutter’s bridge was quiet enough that the atmospheric recyclers were the loudest thing to penetrate the tension. Veliana stood behind the nervous naval lieutenant’s command seat, waiting intently for a reply from the Solarian fleet. The time lag involved meant that it took hours to send a message and receive a reply, and the window for the next message to arrive was approaching rapidly.

The rest of the crew shot her nervous glances. That didn’t bother her and was understandable. It wasn’t often that the small ship would see a NAI waiting on the bridge, but her VIP passenger berth had felt claustrophobic… and isolated.

The feeling of claustrophobia and isolation had only multiplied the longer she’d stood her post in Meltisar dealing with Princess Celestia, who had taken control of the system in stride without tripping over her own feet. That in itself hadn’t been a problem, but the young NAI named Alex had been worse.

For what it was worth, Veliana had concluded that the girl wasn’t lying about her Chi rank. That meant that either Celestia and Alex were working in lockstep far better than anyone could imagine or… the Princess had indeed elevated herself to Psi rank somehow.

That was the conclusion that she had come to and put in her report. It was the basis for her reasoning on why they should work together with Meltisar. The Alliance with the Imperium was shaky at best, and while Meltisar had a poor long-term position on the map, they had something that Solaria needed desperately: a much faster route and direct access to Corporate space.

There had been enough time to receive a short brief from the fleet with very scant details due to operational security, while the diplomatic cutter had not been restrained from sending a detailed dispatch and report. That had only been possible because Meltisar had wanted her report to go out, otherwise they’d all likely be cordoned off by dozens of jammers or restricted to a mooring.

She glanced down to the Lieutenant who was starting to sweat even though the atmospheric cycle was keeping the room at its standard comfortable temperature.

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. We probably won’t all die in this mission,” she said with a half-hearted smile.

He looked back at her with a pained expression that he quickly hid behind a neutral façade. “Sorry, Ma’am. Just things look a bit…insane.”

Veliana grunted and turned her attention to the ship’s anemic sensor package. There were eight major fleet blobs that registered as ‘hundreds to thousands’ of ships, which was terribly inaccurate. Then there were thousands of smaller pockets of civilian ships, military singletons, and defense bases dotting the system.

It was all a terribly blurry picture of the system, but if the cutter had a better sensor package, it wouldn’t have ever been permitted to be used as a diplomatic vessel.

In the southwest system quadrant, there was a distinct lack of another fleet that should have been present by now, but the Corpo fleet was conspicuously absent. From the shared information from Meltisar, it wasn’t even present in the next system over. She doubted the Ertan fleet would have shown up without their promise to come, and the backstab seemed out of place.

More worryingly, if the Corporate fleet wasn’t here, where was it? The only thing she could think of was that it had been deployed to the front lines on the Western Frontier, which would spell disaster for the Solarian units there. Although…

Veliana glanced back at the readout on the Solarian fleet and focused the sensor net on it. The screen worked itself without her having to touch any keys or console, which caused a minor panic attack between the crew before they realized she was using her NAI interface to work the system.

“It looks like a lot of our ships aren’t there,” Veliana mumbled.

The lieutenant looked at her with confusion. “Ma’am?”

“Our fleet is too small. They’ve held back a lot of ships. Maybe they already agreed with my reports and plan,” she theorized.

Maybe Fleet HQ and Solaria had diverted some of the inner system fleets to 13 Centauri. That it took the Federation 7 jumps to reach the front from the nearest core system compared to the Corpo’s 3 meant that getting reinforcements to the western frontier was complicated. 13 Centauri wasn’t a core system, so sending Inner System ships there was technically a violation, but the situation in Meltisar…

Was there going to be another all-out interstellar war like during the Collapse?

A bleep and then beeping tone indicated a transmission had arrived and was waiting to be decoded. The decryption software blinked on the main comm console twice, then turned red. Everyone turned to her, the message being decodable only by a NAI.

A scowl appeared on Veliana’s face as she accepted the message, then read it.

It was from Chi Ferreta, demanding more information.

Veliana felt a surge of irritation; she had already sent all the pertinent details in her first transmission. Now they were forced to wait even longer for further instructions.

She sighed. “Lieutenant, have you ever been on a diplomatic mission like this before?”

The young officer shook his head. “No, ma’am. This is my first independent assignment. I was previously stationed on an IS patrol cruiser as the junior nav officer.”

Veliana nodded. “I see. Well, let me tell you, this sucks. Instructions are to sit here and wait another twelve hours.”

He seemed surprised at her candid response but nodded after a second. “I couldn’t agree more.”

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Next time...  Chapter 194 – Line Battle (Part One)

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