Erica angrily lit a fresh cigarette and puffed on it strongly, exhaling a cloud of smoke a moment later. A little bit of the tenseness in her body went with it, though she was still plenty stressed enough already. Much to the slight amusement of her team, all of whom looked quite refreshed in comparison. Just a couple days of proper shore leave had done wonders for them while the local logistics corp handled repairing their damaged mechs.
Not her though. The present leader of the Harrison Armory forces smoked furiously, finger tapping against the roll to sprinkle just a bit of ash onto the floor of the orbital facility. It did drift at a lazy pace, but one that at least mimicked gravity good enough to pretend that they were just fighting on a low-pull planet. Which was better than full zero-g.
Fuck space combat. Fire couldn't burn so well in a vacuum.
And she had a wildfire within that yearned to be unleashed. About the only thing that this shitty megacorp job was good for. Well, that and the pay was nice.
Made it easy to buy more alcohol and drugs whenever she could. Alongside the occasional roll in the sheets if she really felt like needing to be reminded of what another body should feel like.
Heh. Maybe that was what was missing when she casually made that offer to shag that noble boytoy. A few rounds to really let off the stress, he looked like he could maybe last that long. But then just as Erica had started to strip, the man just...walked out and told her she could use his office to sleep in while he went to do business. Not even looking back in the slightest as his NHP aide simply sealed the way behind to give her 'privacy.'
Leaving the mech pilot staring at the closed door with her belt half-undone and feeling quite frustrated indeed.
Worst of all was the fact that subsequent attempts to at least loosen up afterwards felt wholly inadequate in the wake of being denied. Cavia wasn't yet established enough to offer the real hard stuff either, so it wasn't like she could go and indulge in those either. Ugh, and after being rejected like that, it wasn't like she could go and...ask him to spend a night with her. She didn't roll like that.
Which left her with only one recourse left to make her feel just a bit better: killing the people who wanted her head. Well, at least she was still popular in that regard.
No promises on if she'd stay that way after her latest refit. First to Draw's printers might be out of order, but the Seventh Expeditionary weren't and she did snag some production chips from the other teams. The ones who perished, specifically.
They wouldn't be needing them anymore, and Harrison Armory would probably not even notice her pocketing a few.
...It still felt wrong though, taking from the dead. Erica's head craned back and she exhaled a cloud of smoke, waiting for that sting to her eyes that never came. It never did, not since she got the replacements for the empty sockets she once had. Once, she might've hated it.
Now, she just wanted to feel it again. Preferably from a certain source.
Until then, she'd have to keep living, fighting, burning. And so too would those who faced her in battle.
An alert was pushed through everybody's comms at the same time, from that NHP adjutant of the fuckboy. "Incoming fleet detected. No IFFs registered. Tagging as potential hostiles."
Erica took that as code to get ready. "Mount up!" she barked and her subordinates instantly obeyed, climbing into their steeds and sealing themselves in the cockpit. She did so as well, taking only a moment to flick the remains of her burned-out cigarette onto the floor.
Then the moment she crashed into the seat of her Genghis, another one was already in her mouth. Just unlit for now.
She'd save it for when the fires started raging again.
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First to drop out of nearlight was the frigate John's Widow and her escorts. Moments later, La Azulfollowed with its own complement too, needing only to adjust slightly to resume formation. A very excellent outcome, in Lieutenant Sieg's opinion.
Lieutenant Aoba thought so too, but kept the praise to a minimum. As she was a hungry wolf on the prowl. "Battle formation assumed in record time. But where's that juicy carrier to hunt?" she growled from her bridge chair. "Where's our prey?"
"It should be here, as this was where emissions matching its wake had been detected." Sieg paused, reading the returns from the sensors officer of John's Widow."There, I have positive identification! It's...in berth?"
"What- No, I see. I have visual!" Even Aoba sounded stunned briefly when the two frigates took in the sight of the orbital dockyard over the world. "...Cavia, right, it's an inhabited system! Did they have a base here?"
There was a tone of nervousness as two capitals surely wouldn't be enough for an assault on a Harrison Armory fortress. But Sieg kept his cool and kept scanning the returns. "No, IFFs are broadcasting otherwise. A local government." The communications officer passed on an alert and he scoffed lightly. "They're demanding that we broadcast our own identification codes now."
The woman rolled her eyes and nodded. The two frigates were soon broadcasting the codes of the Fourteenth Combined Fleet under the former flag of the Half Committee, something that prompted a very unusual connection. Their two bridges soon received an incoming connection request that seemed to originate from the facility in orbit, one that they tepidly accepted without expecting much from.
Then they were surprised when a woman in a very familiar army uniform appeared before on the screens. "This is Major Rowles of the provisional Cavia government. Frigates John's Widow and La Azul,you are military vessels trespassing in our system. We demand an explanation from you, or an immediate withdrawal if you are unwilling to provide."
"Major?" spat Aoba, learning forwards in her seat. "You have quite the gall to talk to somebody with the full authority of Vice Admiral Ibutsu behind them! You're Half Committee, aren't you?! What are you doing here!"
"No, I see. You've gone native,"Sieg coldly realized and linked his fingers together. "Desertion is a crime, Major. You understand that it goes against the code of conduct for the Half Committee."
"I just told you, I'm of the provisional Cavia government now,"she declared, proudly. "So your threats do not scare me. Or our provisional governor Commander Moores, upon whose authority I speak now."
That bit of rank-pulling did have the two naval officers draw up short, trumped by the superiority of a local commander. But they recovered soon enough to demand something. "Let us speak to Commander Moores!"
"He is currently preoccupied and is not available for conversation. So you speak to me as if it were him."
"Fine. That's a Harrison Armory carrier in your drydocks." Aoba leaned forwards. "That's our prey. Hand it over."
"Hand our ship over?" Rowles replied incredulously, making a show of looking to the side like she'd heard something ridiculous. "Check your sensors, it should be returning our own local IFF!"
Aoba sputtered disbelievingly and barked at her sensors officer, who nervously confirmed it to return such a reading. But it definitely was the same ship that they'd been chasing all this while, down to the damages it bore. Though that was admittedly hard to pick up considering how totally the ship was hidden beneath layers of umbilical sections and hanging gantries, firmly anchored to the station.
"So it does, but it remains that we mean to capture it," Sieg firmly told with a furrowed brow. "It is an enemy asset-"
"Are you calling us your enemies now?! Is that a declaration of war from Vice Admiral Ibutsu on Commander Moores?!" demanded Rowles, pushing closer to the screen. "It's ours, we even have a transaction record of the handover!"
"Ah, I see. Major, if you would please excuse us for a moment." Aoba caught the signal from her colleague and swapped to a private channel to speak to Sieg in private. "It looks like Harrison Armory realized that the ship was a liability and dumped it to these locals. Or maybe they abandoned it even and let Cavia salvage it."
"So? This doesn't change anything. We are seizing that carrier."
"On that, I agree with you, but it requires more finesse. More care."
"Bah, let's just deploy our wings! Look, I've got returns about the station's defenses and they're paltry," Aoba triumphantly announced, forwarding the report over to Sieg. "Let's just storm the carrier and capture it like we planned. There can't be many defenses on it anymore."
"No, look. First to Draw- pft, what a fool's name- it's connected quite thoroughly with the dockyard. If we were to just rip it out, we'd cause severe damage to this schedule 4 printer." His voice lowered. "And you know how valuable this would be to Vice Admiral Ibutsu. Imagine, coming back with both a carrier- and word of a working schedule 4 printer too!"
"...Two of them in fact, returns indicate another in orbit around Cavia II." Her fingers tapped against the armrest for a moment in thought before arriving to an idea. "Then let's storm the dockyard then. Have our wings enter under the guise of friendly relations, then move to seize the control center. Then we can force the umbilicals to withdraw and make the carrier exit the berth. No, wait- why not just seize the carrier through the dockyard instead!" Aoba exclaimed, warming up to that idea.
Sieg was a little less enthusiastic, but supported the idea at least. So he handled sweet-talking Rowles into an understanding. "While we trust your word, we would like to conduct a thorough investigation and make sure that the former crew of Harrison Armory are still onboard. We have to take them into custody, see."
"On what basis-"
"On the basis of need-to-know, Major." He stressed the rank and placed his chin on top of his hands, looking like a cat that'd gotten the cream. "You understand that if you refuse, we may start suspecting the local administration of harboring Harrison Armory personnel. 'The enemy' as so tagged by the Vice Admiral.
"And surely you are aware of how far the Half Committee would go to prosecute enemies?" Siege leaned back to present a laid-back attitude now. "You haven't even a fleet," he murmured, suddenly aware and frowning at that sudden realization.
But it seemed like his speech had sufficiently intimidated Rowles as she let out a frustrated sigh. "...Fine. But this dockyard's in rough shape, so if you're coming aboard, dock at berth four. It's the most stable one. Highlighting now."
"The furthest away from the carrier? Now that's even more suspicious," intoned Aoba and seized the opportunity. "We'll be bringing our full wing complement then. You better not resist!"
"Your full- isn't that overkill?!"
"We'll even double it!" cackled the lieutenant and forced the connection closed. She noticed his unamused expression and snorted loudly. "What?"
"She's right, it's overkill. But maybe caution is what is needed." He was wary of the apparently missing Commander Moores, though it was perhaps likely that said man was cowering on the planet below. Letting his subordinate take the heat. "You can take your wing in if you'd like, I'm keeping mine in reserve."
"Pft. You're overthinking things."
"Maybe I am. But move with caution, lieutenant. Navigation, bring us in!"
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I replayed the conversation and listened in with one ear while the other watched the video feed from the orbital facilities. The two frigates fired up their engines and were moving in closer, with La Azul taking the lead and gunning it right for berth four. It seemed that they had taken one look at the others and realized that we hadn't been lying about only one of them being functional.
Heck, the one that First to Drawwas in wasn't even working. Just that it looked like it. All those extensions were purely visual, so it could immediately launch and bolt if things went bad. We wouldn't even mind the damages done to the already-broken station on the way out. But it looked like that precaution had been unneeded.
"Sir. I have completed analysis of the OPFOR and have positive identification regarding their officers. Alongside confirmation that they do not possess a NHP between them," Veronica reported, easing my anxiety slightly. Good.
That'd been a big worry for me, that they possibly had an NHP onboard. But such AIs were, at least in the naval forces of the Half Committee, usually reserved for carrier sized ships and larger unless one happened to have some connections, like my family had done. From what I understood, they were actually fairly uncommon in the SecComm successor, usually more reserved for theater command than individual ships. But legionspace at the same time was also an unfavorable doctrine to the eyes of my old high command, to the point of practical dismissal.
Well, at least I knew then that the Half Committee wasn't some long game with a certain organization if they didn't feature so many constructs. At least that gave Veronica a slight edge when it came to playing about in digital space.
I skimmed through the retrieved officer profiles and hummed. Lieutenants Aoba and Sieg, classmates from the same naval academy. Not noble-born, but at least well-off enough to not start from the very bottom. Described as aggressive, eager, persistent, glory-hungry. So Ibutsu actually had probably picked very suitable candidates for chasing down First to Draw.
Unfortunately, it also meant that they had likely zeroed in on the idea of capturing the carrier to the point of obsession. It was additionally a strong indication that I probably couldn't even talk them out of it, especially with how they talked down to my army counterpart. They likely believed the Vice Admiral to be the winning horse that'd earn them glory and were committed with him, no way would they choose to defect or swap over to my side at all.
Not to mention that they didn't seem like the type of officers I even wanted in my command. By this stetting's standards, they were walking, ticking time-bombs. Especially when I beheld their service record and my expression darkened.
Nasty campaigns, prosecuted with enthusiasm. Veronica then added on an additional note that they had been attacking interstellar shipping, hence necessitating Harrison Armory intervention. Yeah no, they're not subordinates I would wish for. Not when they likely had a bounty on their heads by a very angry megacorp.
I was already very bothered by the one on my head from Union. These two likely probably were racking them up to brag about. Ugh.
"Sir, La Azul is moving to dock. Sensors indicate multiple energy signatures coming online within the hangers, consistent with mech reactors." My NHP paused, receiving information with a slight lag before adding, "They're boarding."
I nodded. All within the plan so far, I have to trust that Rowles and Erica could keep their heads cool until at least most of the enemy wing was inside station, within the artificial gravity. Meanwhile, time for me to make my own preparations too. "Veronica, begin disengaging from our own berth. Captain, you have the helm once we're clear."
My subordinate crisply nodded in his own seat. "Yes sir. Navigation, start plotting now. All hands, make ready for nearlight acceleration in short order."