Fortunately, the fact that the fleet was openly broadcasting its IFF signatures was a pretty good indication that they weren't hostile.
Unfortunately, that did very little for my stress when Captain Feng reported what exactly type of capital ship we were staring broadside at. A Farragut-class Starfield Carrier by the name of First to Draw, a formidable frontline carrier that could project significant presence across the battlefield while also being able to square up and take hits itself in a pinch. It was a very respectable and versatile platform, an excellent choice for independent command outside regular operations zones for Harrison Armory.
It was also heavily damaged, which definitely worried me the worst.
At least it wasn't belching smoke as it glided past Half-Measure and its escorts, more akin to a limping soldier returning to friendly lines than the proud, almost indomitable megacorp it embodied. It didn't escape Feng's notice how First to Draw's own contingent of smaller attaches also seemed sparse, less so than what was ordinarily expected for a capital ship of that size to be covered by. Thought that role could arguably be helped covered by the wings it ought to be fielding.
Yet there weren't any.
Yep, there it was. My cortisol levels just spiked. Because I just know that a heaping pile of shit just got dropped in my lap, and I was going to have to be the responsible one to clean it up too.
Ughhhhh. Couldn't they have waited a few more weeks for congress to assemble? Screw it, I'll make this my real 'gift' to the next administration, especially once I figured out what Harrison Armory was here for and bent them over the barrel for it.
Though, crudely speaking, it looked like somebody had instead bent Erica over the table and fucked her. Just not in a way that was either enjoyable, pleasurable, or wanted. Or maybe even fun, come to think about it.
She smoked her cigarette with a sort of quiet desperation, like a blindfolded soldier at the firing post- minus any cover to conceal the heavy bags under her eyes. "Commander Moores. Didn't think I'd be back here so soon."
"Neither did I," I plainly replied, interlocking my fingers together. My mind searched for an...appropriate way to point out her raggedness. "You seem exhausted. Come to make a quick visit at Cavia, get in a bit of shore leave?"
The asset protection team leader let out a hoarse laugh. "Yeah, no. I look like shit, don't I?"
Well, I tried. "You've definitely seen better days. If it isn't too intrusive, might I learn what has plagued you as of late? You seemed quite pleased when we had last spoke, with word of your bonus wired to your accounts."
"Yeah, and then we got offered triple that to keep in the sector."
I blinked and stared at the megacorp employee. "That's...an absurd rate."
"It is, but because we also happened to have been one of the only security teams to have accomplished our mission," she spat, grinding her teeth against the lit stick. "Lots of others either kicked it or chickened out at the last moment. Course, that means their contracts gets terminated by corporate idiots who cite it as a cost-saving measure, then shovel the job of reestablishing the lost sourcing to me!"
Youch. Downsizing 'inadequate' personnel and consolidating duties to the remaining workers. Yep, that's typical megacorp shenanigans. But even then, divisions usually cared about themselves. "Whatever happened to the executive running this region of space? Wouldn't they obviously veto all those dismissals first?"
"Yeah, if only they hadn't suddenly into something that would fill a soup can. First to Draw used to be their ship but a surprise engagement and a panicked emergency nearlight ejection without making sure everybody was secured first. The suit was unfortunately one of them and wasn't wearing a hardsuit either, so well. They're just a red smear now."
...So that was why the moment we even got a whiff of possible hostilities, every officer regardless of rank donned their hardsuits, even on the bridge. Because all those fancy uniforms and medals didn't mean anything come sudden acceleration or maneuver. Stars forbid a lucky round strikes through the armored shutters and breaches atmo as well. "So your chain of command is currently all in flux?"
"Call it what it is: Fucked. And now I've gotta play ball with corporate assholes who don't know how shit the situation is here!" She angrily pulled out her cigarette and made to stub it out, only to pause. "You don't have an ashtray here?'
"I don't smoke, though some of my subordinates do. Veronica?"
"I'll contact one of them to make a delivery to your office, sir."
The conversation very notably paused while we waited for a slightly harried-looking junior officer to 'volunteer' the ashtray from their own desk. Erica refused to speak another word until she had another light in her mouth, puffing furiously to try and get as much nicotine in her system. I did notice her normally steady hand trembled as she did so, indicating this was perhaps more than just a casual addiction.
Perhaps a coping mechanism? Because given the state of things, she likely lost more than a few colleagues who might've been friends due to this mess.
Still, her eyes remained steady despite everything. Those glowing amber eyes that promised she'd go down fighting if need be. Which was the request she made to me now, or rather demanded of me. "You need to help me."
I quirked my eyebrow up. "We have to?"
"Our fleet was being hunted by remnants of Half Committee. Take responsibility."
I ignored her petulant demand and frowned. Hm. While I guess that Erica's situation was just a little sympathetic, blatantly moving against former comrades-in-arms was that step in which there was no turning back. We'd be officially rebels against the Half Committee, or that's what most would likely immediately assume.
Ah, but hold on. What if, perhaps, we were the ones who were fighting rebellious elements instead? I mean, we could still be considered rebels to some, just fighting other rebels too. A sort of free for all between the remaining command elements of this front, winner gets a free chicken dinner before the Lancer takes them down!
Ahem.
Okay, returning to the serious subject at hand, there was something I did want to make clear to the woman. "The fact that the Seventh Expeditionary was once part of the Half Committee isn't enough for us to get involved," I laid out, looking at her in the eyes. "You still have yet to tell me why we shouldn't just offer you to them instead. Not that we would obviously, we'd even give you what we could spare in exchange for manna. But why should my people give their lives for Harrison Armory then?"
Her teeth chomped down on her smoke at my logic and Erica visibly bit back a curse, realizing that I wasn't just going to blindly rescue a maiden in need. Even with with a giant mech. "Fuck, do you really have to twist the knife here?" she snapped. "What, going to demand there be a reason for you to profit off this too? As if I haven't enough leeches in suits to deal with already!"
"My apologies, I hadn't meant for it to come off that way. But I'm also pointing out that you could also just perhaps refuse to fight as well." I held up an immediate placating hand. "Not that I'm suggesting cowardice, mind you. But there's a reason why some fights are simply just not taken. Why some bargains just cannot be struck.
"Surely, no amount of money is worth your life, regardless of how much Harrison Armory is willing to pay out the nose."
Erica exhaled and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes briefly. Almost like they were hiding from me. "I can't. I...need to stay with this damn company, to the very end if need be. There's something I have to do. And so long as I'm around to lead the others, they'll fight too- because they trust me above everything."
...Sounds like there's a story there that I'm not yet privy to. Or entitled to learning about, given how my relationship with Erica was hardly so developed. But the way she said it had a sense of determination to it, indicating her willingness to keep to this path no matter how hard it might be.
I suppose in that way, I really could understand. Would the soldiers I commanded to spend their lives feel the same way however? I needed something more to sell them a reason on why we fired on our former colors. "Tell me about what you face. Are we talking an entire battlegroup? A task force? Is it an established polity?"
She frowned and tapped at her cigarette, thinking. "If you want, I could have what technicians we still got left send over the recordings from First to Draw to be more specific. From what I recall though, what we'd been fighting was some sort of carrier group."
"A carrier group...doesn't bode well for us."
"Well, that'd been the first encounter and skirmish with them and their flagship. After we ate shit, we pulled back but they sent a couple frigates to chase us down. They've been hounding us relentlessly since."
Now my other eyebrow raised the join the other. "Two frigates? Is that really it?"
"Fuck off! They're both still capital ships aren't they?!"
"Yes, but you have a carrier," I stressed, almost wanting to glance out the window and see if I could catch sight of that massive vessel in orbit. "You surely would have enough to at least beat them off or make them reconsider chasing so hard. Even just inflicting some losses surely would make them back off. But you're limping way badly, to the point where if all that damage had been from that first engagement, then you would have already surely been caught and destroyed. Meaning that this is cumulative damage from multiple failed engagements.
"So what's the real story here?"
The mech pilot squeezed her lit cigarette so hard that it bent and ripped, forcing her to light up another one. The third in this meeting so far, and maybe not even the last as she puffed angrily. "...Fine. Fine, I'll admit it! I'm totally out of my depth when it comes to space combat, and so too is my team! Happy now?!" she growled with a slight flush to her cheeks, embarrassed by the admission.
That...wait. Hold on. "First to Drawonly has your mech squads as its wings?"
"Yep."
"Did you lose them all?" I sputtered, almost ready to deliver a dressing-down on what a colossal fuck-up that was. "How?!"
Her next words stopped my growing outrage. "We never had them. Higher-ups just sent us the ship, then told us to staff it ourselves with our mechs. It did come with the necessary chassis mounts for it, but I want whatever they're smoking if they think our asset protection teams could just retrain into marine wings."
Suddenly, everything fell better into place. The reason why their mothership had been beaten so fiercely despite still having at least one wing to fight with was because the pursuers likely just had to outmaneuver Erica's forces. Harrison Armory was coming in with fists of steel that could crush anything it hit, but just could never do so with how the Half Committee likely danced around them. Because they weren't a corporation that fought on a profit margin; they were a professional army with a state.
And if they destroyed or incapacitated First to Draw to the point where the struggling converted wings couldn't even land or refit on it anymore, then well. They won, simple as, without ever needing to risk themselves in an actual fight.
Or perhaps they were glory-hungry and imagined how sweet capturing the carrier would be. I mean, it was a fairly significant force multiplier if added to any force. Also capturing all the mechs that had nowhere else to land or go. So that made sense.
At the same time though, suddenly I also had a practical reason to worry about however this affair resolved. Because if a remnant of the Half Committee got their hands on that carrier, then things suddenly could get very dire for us. We were already definitely outnumbered with our lone frigate; should that pursuing force decide to take us on as a side activity, then we'd be screwed. Even if they didn't have an accompanying invasion force, just taking out our own naval capabilities would make any future invasion of Cavia so much easier.
Which would then likely ruin all my plans to avoid being hunted by a Lancer team from Union.
That pretty much settled it. The logic also gave me a convenient excuse to sell to my subordinates. They would likely come to the same conclusion that it's better to team-up now with Harrison Armory and keep that damaged carrier out of potentially hostile hands instead of hedging a bet that it wouldn't turn on them in kind.
Still though, even if this was Erica's personal appeal to me, I still wanted at least some sort of compensation from the megacorp itself. Maybe it'd be a bit like trying to squeeze blood from a stone, but I had to at least try. There were some ideas at least to explore. "So if we scratch your back this time," I began, seeing Erica stiffen at the mention of possible aid, "How will you scratch our back in time? More so than just friendly relationships, of course."
She thought about it some, then made a suggestion. "I've heard that you've been having some trouble with an insurgency. Maybe we could help?"
"It's currently very well-handled, but I appreciate the offer. I'd like something bigger, if you can."
"Commander, I'm just the captain of an asset protection team. I only just got tasked with leading a company of mechs! I don't exactly have many corporate cards to play."
"But there surely is something you can at least push to the higher-ups." One last nudge, then I'd give up. "Just at least something that I could entice my people into working with you for."
Erica sighed, then visibly considered what else there was. "Those schedule 4 printers in orbit, they're non-functional right?" I noticed that she was almost like fighting herself to make the offer, which made sense given what she next proposed. "Harrison Armory actually lost control of some dockyards in the sector lately due to all this chaos and aggression.
"Help me out, and I'll put in my very best word that if we can't directly retake those lost printers, we may as well make sure they end up in friendly hands. If you know what I'm saying."
Expanding to another world...was definitely out of the cards for the moment. But if we could even just raid and loot the necessary missing parts that we couldn't make locally to restore the orbital manufacturing facilities, then that was huge. Something that would be absolutely worth the risk of possibly alienating the chance of support from aggressive remnants of the Half Committee.
Because we could build our own support then, with blackjack and hookers. Well, only if the latter was also trained in naval operations.
"Alright then!" I declared, causing the woman's eyes to widen. "That'll do. Schedule 4 printers are certainly valuable enough to warrant lending you help- but I think it's also important we just help because it's the right thing to do. Ah, but if you could keep that a little secret between us."
"I…" She worked her jaw for a moment before nodding. "Sure. It's the least I could do. Commander, thank you so much."
"Don't mention it. Since we're not picking any incoming signatures just yet, it's probably safe to assume we've some time to at least plan and prepare at least before your pursuers catch up." Assuming they would continue the hunt, but the lure of a wounded carrier to capture was something that would have my own command salivating. I didn't expect the sharks to break off once they'd smelled the blood in the water. "Leave it to us to figure that out though, because it looks like you really need a break yourself.
"Try and find a way to unwind, let off a bit of that pent-up stress. Enjoy what little amenities we can offer, alright?"
Erica's face for some reason turned bright red at that. Maybe it was getting a little hot in the building as she started to take off her jacket, so I instructed Veronica to turn down the heater for her if she wanted to just collapse and nap. I couldn't imagine how many sleepless nights she'd gone through, so I'd excuse and pretend to forget that impropriety at least.
She could have the office anyway as I arranged for a general staff assembly meeting onboard Half-Measure with my officers to begin our defensive planning. Time for us to do what we do best, I suppose.