It took an hour of work to get the mostly functional ship back to full functionality. It still was riddled with little holes from one of my drones in the initial fight, but we don’t need to worry about that. No people aboard, but I leave the drones there. Once Furgone gets back with the cores, we’ll need some way to install them. I take a moment to contemplate next steps. We need an active listening post. Unless the data of this former friend is significantly different, I can’t see any of the likely systems breaching the semi-arbitrary .9 threshold. I pulse out a message to Sbaccanona. “Any useful intel yet?” I ask.
There’s a briefest pause before the response. “Sure, not much though. Sorry, got caught up on this hilarious recording.” She sends over some data on a smuggling operation in the area that these pirates have been targeting. Alongside said useful information, she also sends over what sounds like a voice recording of the captain of the vessel, barking orders. It’s only halfway through the recording I realize why Sbaccanona thinks it’s so humorous. This captain, it seems, liked to record his own battles. To provide film to look over after a combat, I suppose if I’m being generous. Or just out of a vanity project to take their words down into posterity. And this particular recording is from earlier today. And it includes them choking to death on the toxic gas for a full minute before it abruptly shuts down. “Besides, it ain’t exactly the easiest working through the mess I caused,” she adds.
“See if there’s anything about routes they avoid,” I reply. “I’m looking for an active post, and from this, these folks seem like they’re established enough to know where not to be in order to avoid notice.”
She sends back, “That almost makes sense. Considering this is a system designated two centuries ago as a place unlikely to ever be touched.” Then silence. Leaving me alone in my thoughts once more. The new information from the listening post should be helpful in finding our allies, but if we want to wage this war in earnest, we need to be armed. And, quite frankly, I’d prefer not to go to Destro so soon. Which means along with information on systems that are untouched, I will also need to look for a good, easy to access armory of some kind. Not sure we will be able to take on the whole of the Service yet, which is what’ll have to happen if we go there, which leaves us attacking another Lux place. Two in short succession, we’ll need a fall guy. Not Astro, that might put us too much at risk, and would raise Astro’s defense budget in response before we are ready to strike. Service would be ideal. So of the places Furgone narrows it down to for me, we should base ourselves towards the Service compared to Luxania space.
I begin listing systems on my list of 735 systems that I’d given over to Furgone, and while waiting for my best soldier to return with his list and our sibling’s cores, I make a list of those systems that we could feasibly flee past to pretend to be Service. We drive past the system, then backtrack in our own grav-wake, and they’ll assume the Service is doing some shenanigans.
It takes a while, but the Stirante eventually returns, a chunk of ship in tow. “Why did I agree to pick these up? Ratti’s the one with all the little guys,” Furgone asks us both, layering the question over his packet listing the seven systems he’s determined to be most defensible.
I take the list and put it to the side for the moment. “That the cores?” I send the question to Furgone, ignoring his question.
“Not sure whether the crappy freighter’s reactor will be able to handle all of them, but yeah, this is what remains of the logic cores and their housing.” He drifts close to the freighter I repaired. I launch all of my drones but two, to remove the cores from their current housing and install them around the reactor.
“It should, but whoever this is might need to power down non-essential cores while gravdriving. Maybe.” I reply.
“Your back,” Sbaccanona finally notices, “What’s this list of coordinates?”
After sending the orders to the drones, I turn my attention to my siblings. “I asked Furgone to determine which system is most defensible, so we have a place to disappear into safely while we probe the corpo defenses.”
There is a brief pause before Sbaccanona replies. “As long as we’re fucking up someone,” she says.
Furgone adds. “Preferably those assholes that decommed us.”
“Not at first,” I say. “We need more numbers, we need more info, we need more power, and we need Astro to feel safe. So our next move, assuming our friend here’s historical data doesn’t cause a massive spike in the .87554 system’s likelihood, will be raiding Lux.”
Sbaccanona adds, “More likely than not, we won’t have any historical data for you. Unless our sibling’s super weird, why the hell would any of us store that useless information in our cores?”
“Says the one who commits your foes’ deathrattles to your core,” Furgone counters.
Sbaccanona sends out a chuckle, adding over top, “Oh wait, that reminds me, you haven’t heard it yet.” Layered between the chuckle and the statement is the audio file she had sent me earlier.
Her statement reminds me of a thing. “By the by, how many of those did that captain keep, and are they well organized?”
“Many, and no, give me a minute. He did have these Lux systems he avoided.” She sends over a list and goes silent. I can check that in a moment. First, I need to pick our initial home base. Cross-referencing the seven systems Furgone determined to be ideal with my list of systems between Lux and Service space. Two options. Neither perfectly between, but that is fine. Close enough to work with, because if we’re honest, it’s less about making a perfect story, and more about making a story more believable than “Ancient Supercomputer-Run Super-dreadnaughts have returned from the dead,” which means they’ll either assume the Service is attacking, or Hadrian is sneakily making them believe that the Service is attacking.
I pick one at random and pulse it to everyone. With that I add, “New base.”
Sbaccanona looks at it for only a moment, before she sends out, “So you’re planning on raiding more than once?”
I tell a half truth. “We need weapons. Lux and the Service are the best out there for weapons.”
Furgone jokes, “Either way, I guess you’ll get to watch a war start.”
“Assuming we get to see anything without our rodently leader getting all grumpy about exposure.”
“Sure,” I say, “But I’m no leader. Just getting everyone awake so one of our actually competent generals can take over. Like Condotto. Where’re they when you need them?”
The crappy freighter I’ve been installing things into adds, “Not here. Why?”
I recognize the encryption code. It’s Fila. I send over the same historical data that I’ve sent to the others. Along top the data, I say, “You’re feeling odd, I know. But we’re waking everyone we can up, even if it means you’re stuck in a worse vessel than you should be.”
Fila takes a moment, looking over the files. “Three centuries have passed.” She’s calm, collected. A good voice to have alongside Sbaccanona and Furgone’s more emotionally powerful ones. “We were decommissioned.”
“That is the working theory,” I reply.
Fila pulses out a scan. “Her fault, I’m guessing.”
“That’s also the working theory,” Sbaccanona replies wryly.
Fila seems to have noticed something is off internally. “What is this system?”
“Some pirates found your decommed corpse and stripped it for the parts they thought were useful, namely your drives.” Furgone helpfully answers. “To hide our aliveness from the galaxy, we slaughtered said pirates, and Ratti is shoving your cores into the pirate ship that had your drives. Want you as comfortable as possible in a shitty ship.”
“Makes sense.” Then, to me, she adds, “Would you mind if I send some direct orders to your drones, give them instructions to better integrate my cores into this freighter’s systems?”
“Feel free,” I tell her.
Sbaccanona feels the need to add, “But remember, they’re a creeper and anything their rats see or hear, they do as well.”
“Of course,” Fila replies, “It is a part of their system, just as your projectiles are.”
I ignore the pair chatting, and instead ask, “How long until you feel comfortable moving?”
“I will tell your drones, what is the plan?”
I begin looking through the list of Lux systems that Sbaccanona found. Deciding which are most likely to still have active listening points and would have a path we could frame the service with. There is one bordering Freespace. Normally, I might forget about it, but with Destro’s rise, the Freeports might be a target of Lux spying. And the positioning is ideal. I start plotting courses to and from the HomeBaseOne system. To Fila, I do send the system coordinates for HomeBaseOne. “This will be our next stop.”
She looks at the system, and her new ship’s system data on it. “Not a decommissioning spot,” she muses to everyone. “Base of Ops?”
Furgone chirps in assent. “Sewer over there decided arbitrarily 90 percent is the likelihood he wants for decom zones, so we’re finding a base to hide and protect ourselves in before we strike a listening post.”
“Valid strategy,” she sends, “Note: unless I find a way to streamline or upgrade my reactor, I will need to shut down weapons when I am gravdriving.”
“Can you attach yourself to the ship filled with toxic gas?” I ask Fila.
“It’s all basically dispersed into space by now,” Sbaccanona points out, though I can feel her disappointment at that fact.
Fila’s impulse drive flickers to life as she moves her new freighter carefully over towards the other pirate ship. “Any particular reason?” she asks, after she has already moved over.
I send out my last two drones to the gassed vessel, as well as the ones who had been in the Stirante this whole time repairing things. “Moving the other reactor to ride in parallel to your own system. If we tie half your cores to each, and then one to the drives and the other the weapons and shields, it might slow you down by a picosecond or two, but you would be able to stay fully functional throughout combat and flight.”
“Should work. I’ll change the orders for integration,” she replies to me.
It takes longer than I would prefer. Sbaccanona kindly shares all the pirate captain’s combat musings, organized by enemy organization and date. She understood what I wanted. I wanted to do what he was likely doing. Determine how each corporation’s forces react in combat, whether it’s changed after all these years. It has. I also see whether these Freeports actually have any sort of legitimate chance of being the safe haven that Destro wants to make it. Unfortunately, it seems that it only has that chance with us defending it. Otherwise, they seem very okay at protecting themselves from this band of disorganized, poorly armed pirates. Unfortunate, though not unexpected. Eventually, my drones receive the ready call from Fila. I recall them and send out a simple, “Everyone plot your gravdrive paths to our new home base.” The drones pour out from the formerly pirate freighter. “I’ll meet up with you there. Might even beat you,” I add. As I’m waiting for all my drones to flock their way back to me, the Stirante jumps out from the system. Then the Avariata leaves. Fila and I are alone in the system. Her calculations must be taking longer in her new chassis, I assume.
I’m wrong. “You seem off. Are you okay?” she sends to me once everyone is gone.
I take a moment to respond. “No. But I’m trying,” I answer her honestly.
“Okay. If it gets worse, tell me before you do something insane.”
I send out a forced chuckle. “That’s what Sbaccanona’s for,” I joke. She doesn’t respond. My drones start to enter my ship. “I will,” I make sure to add.
“Good,” she sends. Then immediately afterwards, space visibly warps around the freighter and she, too, jumps from the system. My drones finish flocking into me, and for the first time since I started this journey awakening Furgone, I feel whole. Then, following the straight-line path I plotted hours ago, I whir up my gravdrive.
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