Chapter 279 279 Briefing
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Chapter 279 279 Briefing
For most of the crew, the flight to Kepler Terminus was going to be a relaxing one, with very little to do but check their Mecha and make sure that everything was at one hundred percent combat readiness.
For Max and Nico, it was a very different story. They were currently in a meeting with the Generals, where Inquisitor Ming had requested a full update and debriefing on everything that the two of them had learned from their interactions with the suspected rebel elements and independent nations that they had met so far along their journey.
That was a lot of information to fill him in on, and the Inquisitor wanted clarification of every single line and detail of the reports that Max had made, making sure that he didn't miss any clue or a bit of nuance to their interactions that could be vital to the Empire later on.
It was clear right away that the planet they had gone to trade off their Crystal Nanotubes was in on the rebellion, but it was also clear that they didn't know they were going to be a sacrificial scapegoat for the rebels and the Tapani to make themselves look good in the eyes of the Civilians.
There was also the question of what exactly was going on with the authorities on Kepler Terminus. Max knew how many ships should be in and out of the planet on a daily basis, he liked to watch them out of Dave's window as he was growing up. The number should be less than ten a day, but over the course of the last twenty-four hours, their sensors had detected over sixty vessels just leaving the system.
Kepler Terminus produced mostly Mecha Pilots, and elite ones at that, there was no reason that they should be sending sixty ships a day out of the system unless someone somewhere had been stockpiling materials for just this occasion.
As they relayed every bit of information that they had and built a data grid to attempt to link them all together so that they could see the big picture, Max began to think about the day that they left. General Tennant had been in a hurry, and Max had detected thoughts about an Inquisitor coming to take his Phalanx Class Mecha, to turn it over to a Bureaucracy-friendly family.
At the time it had seemed like a personal attack because he knew the reputation that the General had, as well as the fact that he refused to replace his copilot. Now, it seemed like the earliest stages of the Bureaucrat's attempts to disarm the Empire and give themselves the upper hand.
"General, since we are headed back to Kepler Terminus, I should warn you before we arrive. The Inquisition on the planet is compromised." Max informed General Ming, then began the long story of how they had been chased off the planet and everything that had happened before and after they met General Tennant, as he learned it with his mind-reading skills.
"That's worse than I thought. One Inquisitor turned might not seem like much, but it is very, very hard to turn an Inquisitor, and until he is detected, he could cause untold amounts of damage to the Loyalist elements.
Worse still, if one is turned, we can't rely on the others, and I can't openly access the Inquisition documents available on the planet, as the rest of the Inquisition could potentially see my activity. It will be like going in blind unless we can identify and eliminate the corrupted elements and the ones who turned them in advance." The General sighed.
"There are still the Tarith Family assets to work with, as we know that they aren't part of the rebellion. They might not be completely loyal, but at least we know that they are not actively working with the Rebellion." General Yaakov suggested.
"That remains to be seen. We will know for sure once we arrive at the station and see what their assets in orbit have to say to us, thinking that we are an allied Reaver group." Inquisitor Ming declared.
He had a point, with a rebellion, you couldn't rely on old alliances or friendship to get you by. Brother would turn on brother, neighbors against each other, and only ideology would stand as a common denominator.
"It's only one more day, and with me there, they will tell you absolutely anything that they know. Or, they will tell me, and I will tell you, but the same thing really. The big question is, what exactly is going on with the Kepler Terminus star system? There are way too many ships, all outbound. If I didn't know any better I would say that they are trying to evacuate the planet without ordering an evacuation.
If that is the case, the rebellion might be using the planet as a staging ground for their future plans, and they are moving the civilians away so that they aren't accused of war crimes and ganged up on by their neighbors. The Tapani are in a rather precarious position, despite their military power. If the systems around them turn on them, they would be eaten alive, without the manpower to both fight a war and defend their northern borders against the Klem." Nico told the group.
That was close to what everyone else was thinking, but it could also be that they are stripping the system bare of assets and then planning to leave the civilians to die when the Kepler Empire retaliates against them, using the small system's legendary name as the source of the initial System as their own propaganda point.
In the end, it would all boil down to exactly how ruthless the Tapani and the Rebels were willing to be with a civilian population to get their way, and Max had already seen firsthand that they didn't hesitate to destroy Capital cities without warning to defeat the Loyalists.
That was information that they all had already, and most of them had seen it in person, on the ground.
Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 280 280 Mama I'm Coming Home
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Chapter 280 280 Mama I'm Coming Home
The entire trip went the same way, going over and over details, looking for anything that they had missed. Max and Nico, working together, managed to get a few details of the shipments leaving the system, but they were so obviously false that not even an idiot would believe that they had originated from Kepler Terminus.
That wasn't really unexpected though, so once they got closer, Max started tuning into the local news stations, looking for new propaganda and other things that didn't add up with how he remembered things on Kepler Terminus.
What was told to the general population was usually the most telling of indicators that something was wrong on a planet, from an outside perspective. It didn't matter if they were saying everything was perfect, a new leader was amazing, or that the economy was being rebuilt in record time with an eye toward the future.
From the outside looking in, when those messages changed and didn't match the reality, something was wrong, and the stronger the media manipulation to make something seem like it was good or bad, the larger the problem had gotten. Unfortunately for those on the planet, their information was controlled, so they would never know that they were being lied to.
What Max found was that there was a huge scare on the Kepler Terminus news channels. A large volcanic system had become active, and the fallout was going to make it impossible to live on the surface of the planet for decades to come.
It was clearly false news, The Colony Ship had the technology to monitor the tectonic, seismic, and volcanic activity of any planet in its sensor range, and the only volcano that had detonated lately had been artificially triggered by an orbital weapon.
But the news made it clear that they were evacuating everyone who could afford to leave the planet, in preparation for something very large.
"General, if you don't mind I would like to contact someone on the planet, a Hacker I grew up with. He should have a great deal more information than is publicly available, and for personal reasons, it would be good to see him off-world when things get ugly.
"Do it. We need all the information that we can get before things blow up here. I definitely do not want to be here when that happens. Sorry about your homeworld, but I get the feeling that it is about to meet an orbital bombardment that will make the destruction of Noctis Seven look like an afternoon picnic." General Yaakov replied.
Max wasn't quite sure what he meant, but looking at the General's thoughts showed a pattern of ship movements that Max had missed. The Tapani fleet was sending a large number of orbital strike cruisers this way, with their hulls disguised to make them look more like Kepler ships.
That was enough to cement the rebel's plan in Max's mind, and he updated General Ming instantly, giving him all the details that he could, before sending an encrypted message to the planet, telling Dave to get to the main Cargo Station in orbit and meet with the Tarith Family there, then wait for more instructions.
They had used this code before, mostly to avoid police raids, and it was one that Dave wouldn't question.
Whether the crippled old veteran could actually get himself a ride to orbit was another question, but it was the best that Max could do without risking tipping anyone off about what was really going on, or who Dave was supposed to be meeting.
Even if the Tapani read this message, it would look like a Reaver sending for an informant to find out about something on the planet, and that was perfectly normal activity, not something that they would be highly alarmed with when the planet was sending dozens of ships a day away.
The level of activity was bound to alert someone, and the fact that it had would only confirm to the Tapani that things were going according to the plan. First, the Reavers would find out, then they would profiteer, and then finally the Empire would show up. It was the way of the Galaxy during almost every tragedy.
[Cargo Station, Cargo Station, this is the Colony Ship Terminus, home to the Terminus Trading Company, requesting a docking assignment at the outer spur, due to the size of our vessel.] Admiral Drake informed the Station, broadcasting it to the ship so everyone could get ready.
[Colony Ship Terminus, we have been expecting you. Proceed to Echo Seven Terminal and make yourself secure for atmosphere-stabilized loading.] The Station responded.
That mean that whatever they were expecting was either living or very sensitive, so Max suspected that the Family was using their allied Reavers to get their people to safety.
[DudeBro to Youngling, I am all out of smokes, can you meet me at the store?]
The cryptic message was sent directly to Terminus, making Max laugh. Of all the ways that Dave could have chosen to tell him that he had made it to the Cargo Station, that had to be the greatest one that he could have chosen.
But since Dave was in orbit, and the Tarith Family had arranged for them to pick up something that needed a stable atmosphere, Max had high hopes that they could get the people they cared about off the planet before things got really ugly.
Echo Seven terminal wasn't the largest of them on the station, but it was run by the Reavers, and large enough for their purposes, not hindering the Admiral from docking against it with a gentle thud, and then the hissing of magnetic locks engaging from both sides before the seals were engaged.
The maintenance teams had put a lot of effort into making sure that the doors sealed properly over the last few days, and the smooth hiss as a formerly unused door engaged perfectly the first time was music to their ears.
[Terminus securely docked, prepare for atmospheric balancing.]
Chapter 281 281 Homecoming
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Chapter 281 281 Homecoming
With the atmosphere stabilized between the vessel and the station, the doors slowly slid open, revealing a large group of people waiting for them behind the secondary airlock doors.
Max and Nico both jumped down to the main level of the cargo bay, skipping the stairs entirely, but heading for different people in the crowd.
"Brother Dave, it is good to see you again." Max greeted the wheelchair-bound veteran the moment the airlock doors opened.
"It is good to be seen. There are a lot of things that we need to talk about, but probably not here in the hallway. I do believe that the Reavers have a lot of stuff that they want to start loading on this oversized tin can. Where did you even find this thing?" Dave asked.
"You know, just floating about in space, with a pair of friendly Pirate ships guarding it for us. Real kind sorts, they even left us their ships when they went home." Max laughed, stepping behind Dave to push his wheelchair onto the Terminus.
Nico was talking to her family as he led his old friend into the ship. They didn't have any fancy spare rooms decorated, but they had a lot of materials to make basic things for guests, so it shouldn't be a problem to make a room for Dave near the other passengers.
Of course, Nico's family might have something to help them out with that as well, but he would find out what they wanted once he was sure that Dave was somewhere safe and secure.
Inquisitor Ming would also have a lot of questions for him, so that was where Max headed, to the meeting room where they strategized their actions for the next few weeks as the Tapani fleet arrived and the Klem began to make planetfall.
"You got here just in time. A few more days and I wouldn't have been able to even bribe my way off that rock. Things have gone insane down there. The slums have risen up in rebellion against the Bureaucracy, accusing them of being traitors to Kepler. There are foreigners everywhere, and everything of value has been moved off-world. There aren't even school books in most of the classrooms anymore. Well, not that there really were, to begin with in our neighborhood, but you know what I mean.
Then last week, they shut down all civilian data net communication, and killed cell phone service, as an emergency measure to quell the riots, they said.
Rumors are that it was your friend Nico's family that was stirring up the commoners against the foreigners, but they have too much power for the government to go directly against them, or at least they did until the Tapani military arrived in orbit.
I think they're planning to leave Kepler Terminus, and have the Imperial Fleet do a planetary Censure. They even sent the Cadets away yesterday on one of their vessels. Just like you, a so-called field trip, but with less than twelve hours notice to clear out every student and training Mecha from the entire academy." Dave ranted.
Those were some pretty serious accusations, but if they moved the entire population of the academy off the world, it made a lot of sense for them to be true. It would also explain the intense propaganda that they were seeing on the news, and the lack of other communications from the planet, when normally at least a few ground-based trading companies would attempt to contact a Colony Ship spotted in the vicinity, looking for a deal on whatever they were carrying.
"Alright, here we are. This is Inquisitor General Ming. He is in charge of unfucking situations for us." Max explained, making Dave chuckle.
"Boy, I know better than anyone, a good Inquisitor can do a lot of things, but they can't fix this one."
The door opened from the inside as Inquisitor Ming welcomed them in, then smiled at Dave. "I didn't think I would see you again. How was your retirement posting?"
That took Max by surprise, Dave was an infantry soldier, how would he know a General from the Inquisition?
"Pretty cushy. I got one single alert the entire time, and he lived down the hall from me already. I believe you know Samantha Max?" Dave asked.
"It's Keres Max now. He changed it the moment he got off-world. But yes, you could say that we are acquainted. I will let you get back to retirement soon enough, but we can count this as both the second and third commendation in your file. Now, tell me everything that you know, and don't leave anything out." The Inquisitor demanded.
Reading their thoughts, Max got a basic outline of how they met. Dave's unit had been sent to some long-forgotten hellhole to dig out a forbidden chemical weapon, and the Inquisitor had been attached to their unit, posing as a Colonel replacing one that had been killed in action.
Once the mission was over, Dave was given one Commendation, which he used to take early retirement, but on their trip back the ship was attacked by scavengers, and Dave lost his legs. Since he was an infantryman, a Corporal, and retiring, he didn't meet the requirements to get augmentation, so they dumped him at home with a wheelchair and a lousy pension and called it a day.
But Dave wasn't going to give up that easily, so he volunteered for planetary service with the Intelligence Agency. They would give him three missions to complete, and he would be eligible for Partial Conversion, which would both extend his life and let him walk again, better than new.
Overseeing Max as a child was his first mission, something that he had managed to hide from Max, who had thought the paternal overseer was just Dave being Dave.
To an extent it was, that was just how Dave was once he met the young Max, and his job didn't stop him from his little side projects, though the hacking and other activities might have prevented him from getting more missions afterward.
Chapter 282 282 Homecoming Pt2
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Chapter 282 282 Homecoming Pt2
The detailed situation was just as bad as the overview that Dave had given Max on the way in, and just before they finished, Nico, her Mom, and two other men dressed as Reavers came into the meeting room.
"Mom, dad, and the Reavers of the Tarith meet Colonel Max and Inquisitor General Ming. Gentlemen, we have some minor details that should likely be shared with you." Nico announced as soon as they entered.
Nico's mom found it was easier not to speak, so she handed them all a data tablet with an overview of their combat plans, detailed data of the betrayal of both planetary and Sector Governance as well as a log of all materials moved in and out of the Kepler Terminus system over the last year.
"This is as much as we could do. Until we had enough proof, we couldn't call in the Reavers, and now that the Tapani are here, it would be too big of a loss for us to do it, so we are asking you, as Tarith Reavers in service to the Kepler Empire, to take us to safety on Kepler 142." She announced proudly.
When he first met her over the holidays, she seemed like the normal momly mom of a large family, but seeing her now, he could understand where Nico got most of her personality from.
The bloodthirsty was certainly from her past life, but her assertiveness, her sense of humor even in the direst of circumstances, and the very unexpected domestic nature were all inherited from her mom.
"Is something amusing, young Max?" The matriarch asked, staring Max down without effort.
"I was just thinking how your daughter resembles you so much it's uncanny. Not just in looks, but her entire personality." Max laughed.
"Oh, do elaborate? What did she do that reminds you of me?"
Nico's Dad and the two Reavers were intensely interested in what Max might say now, so he decided to add a few more details than the shortest version of the story.
"Has she told you about our firepower?" Max asked, and the family members nodded.
"Good, that saves time. Well one day, we were in the middle of a Klem invasion. We had just finished fighting off the initial wave, and I had passed out on the bunk for a few hours of sleep when I was woken up by the smell of Bacon.
Nico had pulled apart ration packs to make me a proper breakfast wearing nothing but an apron, then thirty seconds later, she was ready to take over the artillery while I ate breakfast."
That was a bit of a stretch on how things actually happened that day, but there was a naked apron breakfast, that much was true.
"Oh, now isn't that sweet? When should we plan the wedding for? Spring on Kepler 142 was always nice when I went to visit." Her mom laughed, clearly meaning a week from now when they arrived with everything that the family had managed to sneak off the planet before they were found out as the cause of the riots against the rebels.
"After our first tour is finished. I am still using my System Functions to adapt this mechanical body." Nico informed her mom in a very serious voice.
"Speaking of family, I do apologize about yours, it was a rather unfortunate incident." The Matriarch informed him.
"I hadn't gotten to that bit of news yet. Best it comes from you." Dave informed her.
"Your biological parents were executed by the pro-Kepler Militias as traitors. The rebel intelligence forces were offering narcotics and alcohol for information about potential subversives in the neighborhood. They were seen going in and were hit by a car on their way home." Mary Tarith informed him.
"Somehow that is both depressing and entirely predictable. They always believed what they saw on the television, and they wouldn't have hesitated to turn in half the neighborhood for drugs, even if it wasn't true." Max sighed.
"Dave was more parent to you than they were anyhow, and he's here, so I don't count it as much of a loss." Nico shrugged, her callous attitude pulling Max away from depression.
"Thanks a lot," Max replied in his most sarcastic tone, but Nico only winked at him.
"How much do you have coming aboard?" Max asked, thinking ahead to how much space they would need to make in order to fully load the shipment.
"If you can clear six cargo bays the size of the one we arrived in, that should about do it." Mary Tarith informed him happily.
Six bays the size of the one they entered was over two hundred meters long, an enormous amount of storage space. But as a colony ship, they had it available.
"Including or not including quarters for your personnel?" Max asked.
"Plus quarters for ten thousand. Though a number of them are security staff that we pulled from various businesses, so they can be housed in the same bays as their equipment. They're soldiers, they should be used to it." Mary replied with a smile.
She had a point, even aboard the Dutchman, the entire Regiment shared cargo bays with their Mecha. They had made it into a very comfortable living arrangement after a little while, so as long as there were raw materials, there was no reason that the Tarith family guards would suffer.
"Alright, we can work with that. Six bays in a block, on the far side of the ship, so if anyone does come looking to see what we are doing, they will see a lot of friendly faces, just Reavers being Reavers, and a bit of cargo." General Yaakov announced, walking in at the end of the meeting.
"They briefed me down in the cargo docks, so I have a detailed listing of what we need to move aboard, now bring me up to speed on what happened here." The General asked, and Max made a hasty retreat, pushing Dave so that they wouldn't have to sit through that explanation for the third time.
"Hey, I hate to ask this, but security on the ground was a bit tight. Do you have any smokes?" Dave asked as they rolled down the hall.
"Yeah, we've got smokes. I'll stop in and grab you some from the First Battalion Supply bays. You will love these new Mecha we've got." Max laughed, glad that Dave was still the same as always.
Chapter 283 283 Upgrading Lunch
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Once Max had rolled Dave all the way to the aft of the ship where his unit was stationed, he had a pretty decent idea of what had happened in the old neighborhood since he left. The Police presence picked up, the drugs and violence got worse and worse, and the factories nearby were repurposed from general goods to high tech which none of the workers from the slums were qualified to make, so a lot of people lost their jobs, making things even worse.
"What about the twins, and the other ones that my mother was scheduled to have?" Max asked.
"They lost them all, just after you left. The Planetary Inquisition was at the clinic in the neighborhood when she came to give birth, and I suspect they were looking for you, now that I know you had already left the planet. But what they found was your mother, all strung out on drugs, and they called Child Services to take the kids away.
But she was so high that she didn't understand who they were looking for and insisted that she never had a son, only one older daughter who had cruelly abandoned her to a life of poverty.
They assumed that she was mentally deficient, and coupled with the drugs, Child Services determined that it was for the best if they just took all the children away from her.
I have no idea where they went, but we never saw them again, so I think that they put them into a placement in a better neighborhood, not into the foster system. You know how popular kids younger than toddlers are among parents looking to adopt." Dave explained.
"Well, at least they weren't left at the house to starve to death when one day nobody came home for them. If it wasn't for you, that might have happened to me long before they stopped showing up for good.
But I would like to know where they are now, with everything going wrong on the planet. Nico is a better hacker than either of us could hope to be, her Innate Talent lets her control technology with her mind, and she can just straight bypass security measures instead of trying to crack passwords and decode encryptions. I will ask her to look into it here in a minute." Max told his friend, then paused before opening the Mecha hangar door.
"I hope that you're ready for this old man. These aren't the Mecha of your Generation." Max teased, then pushed the button to open the blast doors.
"By the Emperor, your force has four Phalanx Class Mecha, and they're all artillery pattern? No wonder you had the guts to actually stay and face a Klem invasion." Dave muttered, making Max laugh.
"My Battalion has four Phalanx Class Mecha. There are twenty of them aboard the ship right now, all identical. Then there are the new pattern Crusaders. You would love these Fast Attack Pattern ones. Infernus Pattern the troops have started calling them, thanks to the Fusion Flamer on their arm.
These things can melt rock to liquid and burn even the toughest of bugs to ash." Max bragged.
"Keep talking them up like that and I'm going to need an alone moment. But let's go see these Mecha up close." Dave joked, rolling himself forward down the ramp, picking up speed as he went.
Now that he was aboard their ship, and they had the technology, Max thought he should check the Tarith Family passengers for an augmentic doctor. They could patch Dave up as good as new and he would be ready to walk off the ship by the time they reached Kepler 142.
"Commander, who might this old infantryman be?" One of the techs called, as Dave rolled up to the leg of Enduring Rage and began stroking it with the sort of affection only someone whose life has been saved by Mecha could know.
"This is my childhood friend and caretaker, Dave. Take good care of him for me, would you? I need to grab him a pack of smokes from the supply." Max called back.
"Don't bother, I have a fresh pack on me. The troops didn't hold back with the requests, so we have a year's supply of smokes in the cold storage." The tech replied.
"That should keep them fresh. Have you had any luck with the programming for those material recombiners that the Terminus came with? The ones that made the food paste crap?" Max asked.
"Well, kind of? It's a work in progress since Nico has been too busy to translate everything for us, but we have the basics down, and now it makes Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese sandwiches, but the bread in the sandwiches tastes pretty basic." The Tech explained.
"Better than ration biscuits?" Dave asked.
"Not many things aren't better than Ration Biscuits. But it's still a pretty basic meal." The tech shrugged.
"I could live on Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese. I am also a fairly skilled programmer, why don't you let me see what you're up to?" Dave asked.
Max nodded his permission to give access to the isolated unit that they had pulled out of storage for the tests, fearing that modifying one of the linked ones mounted in the ship might destroy them all if they made a mistake during the process. And they had made mistakes, more than a few, some of which might actually be a new variety of bioweapon.
Dave tapped away happily at the screen for a while, shocking the technicians, who had spent almost the entire time just learning the alien language before beginning to work.
"How are you doing that?" The tech asked as Dave worked.
"I don't need to read their language, I can read your coding language and go from there. The major problem is that whoever created this isn't a cook. They inserted the final product for the bread, but not the ingredients and process, which the machine was looking for, so it is estimating the missing steps, see the error codes that came up. I can't see what they mean, but they only occur in the bread, since the rest of the meal is simply combining and heating to temperature.
Try it now, and I think that you should have a nice bread layer, with a crispy crust, like the sourdough I made at home.
The tech activated the machine, and the meal came out the same as always, but with a small change, the sandwich now had a crust to it, and a distinct smell of toast, not the bland nothingness that it had before. The Tech placed a piece under the sensor suite beside the device and hummed happily as he read the outcome.
"It looks safe to eat. We have been using a Cyborg to taste test everything since they can stop their stomach from digesting anything and therefore won't get poisoned, even if we fed them a stone." The tech explained, but Dave went straight for the sandwich and dunked it in the soup.
"Yep, definitely edible. I lived on Military rations for almost a decade, no simple synthetic sandwich is going to hurt this stomach."
Chapter 284 284 Loading
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Chapter 284 284 Loading
The process of loading everything that the Tarith family was bringing on board was a long one, as expected of a shipment large enough to fill multiple standard freighters. At a Kilometer long, the Kepler Bulk Freighters were considered large by any nation's standards, except for a few in the far north of the Galaxy for whom intergalactic expansion was their primary objective.
To those select few, even the Colony ship Terminus was considered too small to be adequately sized for their purposes.
They had moved most of the items listed as valuables, personal effects, and furniture aboard, and had started on the civilian populations, moving them into the upper decks of the central part of the Terminus, where they could be safely monitored by the crew, and out of the way of the loading efforts in the middle decks.
Now, they were starting to load the so-called industrial equipment, better described as the family's agricultural machinery and mecha stockpiles.
Nico was watching it all come in from an upper observation deck, where she was seated beside her mother, who was carefully tracking every item that entered the ship and checking it off her tablet of family inventory.
"With all this, and a Colony Ship, why don't you head somewhere new? There are still a large number of planets that haven't been settled and are outside of any nation's zone. In fact, the Tarith Reavers even already have a dubious claim to the Planet Rae 5.
After the battle against the Klem, we dug an underground base and left it behind in case a Kepler Loyalist force needed shelter, or a Rebel force came by for verification that there was indeed a Reaver presence on the planet, in case they began to suspect that they had been hoodwinked.
Going to an inhabited planet, with lots of resources and a Mecha force of your own would let the family begin to rebuild their own new Kepler 142. A planet under the Family's rule, where they could control things well enough to prevent the corruption that has rotted away the Kepler Bureaucracy." Nico suggested.
"That is an outstanding idea, but going there directly might just bring our enemies to us." Mary Tarith pointed out.
"Enemies of the Kepler Empire, leaving Kepler Territory and disappearing after a raid on a Reaver outpost? They would be a laughingstock of every nation in the vicinity if it didn't work out flawlessly for them, and it would give the Reavers a new safe planet to work from. I know a number of them have been lost to political alliances turning neutral ports."
"How is the terraforming? Is the planet habitable?" Mary asked.
"It is. Perhaps I should get the Generals and the Admiral here before we go any further. I know they're expecting a trip to Kepler 142, but I'm also fairly sure they wouldn't mind taking a small detour if it involved a plan to lure the Rebels out of hiding." Nico suggested.
"Fine, bring them here, but not until we finish loading. I am going to try to get a few final items up from the planet since our plans might be changing. I will let you know in a few minutes if everything is alright." Mary informed her daughter with a pat on the head.
Nico wasn't officially privy to family secrets or the exact contents of the shipment, but that was no hindrance to her with her Innate Talent, so she had a very clear view of what the Tarith Family had brought with them, and what they could try to bring up from the planet.
Or at least, she thought she did, until her mother started requisitioning items from the Kepler Terminus Settlement museum. The remaining relics of colonization were there, including terraforming equipment, large-scale building printers, and many more items that would only ever be needed on a lightly inhabited planet, where city-scale construction projects were ongoing.
The Museum Curator seemed happy that someone was interested in preserving their relics since they had been fearing the worst, in the form of the planet's destruction, so he was happy to commission the flight himself, with no links to the Tarith Family other than the destination aboard this space station.
It would take almost an hour to get a ship and get it into orbit, due to the traffic volumes at the moment, but they would still be loading at that point in time.
The large volume of shipments was beginning to get noticed by the station's crew though, so things might not be smooth forever. The Planetary Government ran the station, and most of them had joined the rebellion against the Empire, meaning that when they started asking questions it would be time to leave, even if they didn't have quite everything that they had hoped for.
It was better to leave without a few luxuries than to be trapped at a station with an incoming hostile military fleet out for your destruction, especially when your ship wasn't the fastest thing in the fleet.
If they could make a clean getaway, they could take the Colony ship through a nebula or other high-interference area, throwing off all attempts to track them. But that would take at least a day or two without being positively located and followed, more time than they were likely to have.
The other option was to move to the border and try to get a signal to the Imperial Inquisition, outing the Rebel fleet, and turning the area into a huge shooting gallery, with the surviving forces being left entirely up to luck.
Obviously, that was not the preferred option.
"Alright, the shipment from the Museum is on its way up, and the Station staff have been bribed to look the other way until after we are gone. Now, bring in the Generals, and we can start working on a plan to get to an uninhabited system and possibly have a fleet meet us there." Mary Tarith announced with a smile much more bright than the situation seemed to call for.
Chapter 285 285 Welcoming Committee
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By the time the museum pieces had arrived at the station, everything else had been loaded, including over a thousand civilians as part of the Tarith Family retinue.
How they got that many people off the planet without anyone noticing was a mystery to Max, who was still back toward the aft of the ship with Dave, while the old veteran smoked and told war stories to every technician willing to listen. He had been a bit lonely since Max left, taking all the noise and activity of a preteen boy with him.
Nico and Major Miller were watching the door, with a squad of mixed Mecha from the Fifth Battalion stationed on the other side of the internal doors, in case there was trouble with the station.
A line of large transport dollies came into view, with a young man in a suede jacket riding in the lead cart along with a member of the station staff. The man was waving happily, clearly not in the loop on the fact that this was actually a clandestine departure.
"Terminus Trading Company? That's you right? I have all the museum pieces that we could get in the relic Lander here with me and ready to be loaded." The young curator explained.
"Straight into the bay gentlemen, we will take them off the station dollies and sort them afterward. This is our last shipment before departure." Nico explained.
"That's fine by us." The driver called back, then slowly pulled the line of roller dollies loaded with machinery into the Colony Ship.
Once they were inside, the line stopped, but nobody moved, as they usually would, to release the locks on the machinery so that the loading bay cranes could remove them.
"Say, what's the price for a one-way trip out of here?" The driver asked with a conspiratorial smile.
"For how many?" Nico replied in her artificial business tone, doing her best to hide her eagerness to help a few more civilians leave before things got really bad.
"Thirty-five, including the curator. I know it's short notice, but I would appreciate it if you would give us a lift." The driver replied.
"Fine, close the station doors and secure the airlock. We will be ready to depart in three minutes." Nico announced.
The whole bay turned to organized chaos, as the staff activated the remote locking procedure for the station doors, then set the atmosphere in the containment zone to purge after one minute, so that the docking clamps would automatically release without the need for a manual override that would alert the station's senior officers that something unusual was happening.
The Ship's doors closed, and exactly one minute later, the lights at the door went green, indicating that they were free of their securement and ready to depart the station.
[Colony Ship Terminus to Station Command, requesting a clear lane for translation to faster than light.] The Admiral requested when he saw the ship was free of the station. He moved them just far enough away that the locks couldn't engage again and waited for the reply with his hands on the command terminal.
[Colony Ship Terminus, follow the route provided out of the star system before translation, this is a no Warp zone. It was a pleasure doing business with you.] Station Command replied, sending through a set of coordinates that would send them in an entirely different direction than any of the other ships leaving the system.
"Admiral to Mary Tarith. Can you check this route? It looks suspicious to me." The Admiral requested, forwarding it to the terminal in the Loading Bay observation room.
"No, that route is approved, it is the standard route for Reavers to leave the station so that they don't show up among the general cargo traffic. Station Command is still among the Loyalists." Mary replied, before going back into her tablet's logs to double-check their supply load records.
The bulky Colony Ship began to make its way out of the system just as the first Tapani attack cruisers arrived in the system, following the standard trade routes. Max saw that Nico was recording everything and that there were no fewer than twenty other officers also watching the surveillance sensors on the Colony Ship, so he hoped that nothing important would be missed in tomorrow's briefing.
They didn't go straight to the station though, they stopped a freighter and boarded it at the edge of the system before Terminus left sensor range, baffling most of the officers, and causing General Yaakov to add it as a point for the next strategic meeting.
"I think I know what Tapani is after here. Kepler Terminus was the origin of the System. The AI is very particular, and won't transfer itself to people it doesn't recognize as friendly to itself, including most non-Kepler descendants born in the Empire. I think that they're after the source to try to modify it for their own use, to spread the System outside of Kepler." Nico informed the Command staff.
That could be a nightmare for the Empire, but there wasn't anything that they could do about it right now, the Tapani Military was more than capable of dealing with one Colony Ship, and if they turned back, there was no way that the Terminus could outrun them to even attempt a flanking maneuver to pick off the most vulnerable.
"I will send it to Imperial Command right away. I know there is a fleet already dispatched to the sector." General Ming replied almost instantly, followed by a message from the Admiral.
"We are not alone on this route. Five vessels of unknown origin at a stop ahead, blockade formation. Should we hail them or attempt to pass by?" The Admiral asked.
Mary Tarith tapped a few times at her data tablet, then responded to the Admiral before anyone else could.
"They aren't responding to Reaver security codes. They're not one of ours."
That was good enough for the Admiral. He altered course to give them a wide berth without entirely leaving the lane he was assigned to and prepared to engage the Warp Drive.
Chapter 286 286 Too Demanding
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The Admiral smoothly shifted the Colony Ship to faster-than-light travel, while setting the alert for all units to stand by in preparation to be attacked.
All the Pilots that were previously off duty were running for their Mecha as the Colony Ship passed by the blockade without being challenged. But that wouldn't last long, all of the ships that were waiting in the channel turned to follow them, not overtaking, but following closely behind them as the much larger vessel glided through space.
[We have alerted the Reaver fleet to a Pirate threat. The ships following us still aren't answering any of our attempts at contact.] Nico reported to the Command Staff as she jogged to the rear of the ship to join Max inside Enduring Rage.
[The nearest response is two Destroyer Class Reaver vessels, seven hours away. They are incoming at maximum speed, but it is up to us to hold out that long.] Mary Tarith reported.
[The energy weapons of the Super Heavy Units should be capable of bringing down the shielding of the ships behind us. No guarantees about casualty rates until we can confirm their firepower.] General Yaakov reported, having just finished analyzing the enemy shielding.
[One vessel per Battalion should be possible for us. I recommend targeting by Battalion, starting from the Port side with the First Battalion.] Max recommended.
As they were strategizing, an energy pulse streaked across their bow, exploding in space in front of them and destabilizing their warp field for a moment, but not enough to drop them back to slower-than-light travel.
Finally, the enemy ships were taking action, and Max noticed that they had just crossed the border, officially out of Kepler Terminus System space. That must have been what they were waiting for, the chance to attack without being targeted by automated defenses or incoming Kepler Fleet ships, who wouldn't care about a fight between Reavers and Pirates.
[Reaver Vessel Terminus, stop your engines and prepare to be boarded. Sector Command has issued a bounty for the War Criminals aboard your ship.] The central ship behind them reported.
"Great, they're bounty hunters and morons at that. We should ask them which war criminals they mean, just to piss them off." Nico joked.
[Terminus to the following fleet, we have looked in the cargo hold twice but found no War Criminals, kindly bugger off before we are forced to take defensive actions.] Admiral Drake replied.
[First Battalion, that means get ready to deploy. Prepare the Cargo hold for emergency deployment, restraining tethers on all units.] Max ordered, and the Technicians hurried to check all the tethers before exiting the bay with all loose objects that could be ejected by accident if the bay was opened.
A full volley of fire met the rear shields of Terminus, but the Colony Ship was no slouch in the defense department, and the barrier held strong.
[Dropping from warp speed. Dead stop incoming, all Mecha prepare to deploy] Admiral Drake announced.
The ship gently shuddered as it translated back to regular speed and the reverse thrusters almost made the enemy ships overtake them before they could compensate for the faster-than-average translation of Terminus' engines.
[They're right on us. Deploy Now.] General Yaakov ordered, and the full Regiment raced for the exits.
With the tethers on, most of them wouldn't go far from the ship, but the Infernus Pattern Fast Attack Mecha disengaged theirs to close the few hundred meters to the enemy vessels, priming their Disruptors for an attack on the enemy bridge.
An interstellar ship was extremely well radiation shielded, so it likely wouldn't punch through to injure the crew inside, but with the outer hull damaged the ships would be in trouble when the energy shields went down.
The Super Heavy Mecha focused fire on the bridges of all five ships, depleting their shields in an instant, and then the fast attack Mecha went to work, damaging the outer hull.
[Armor plating depleted.] Max's Fast Attack Team reported.
[Mass Drivers, full output, aim for the breach in the hull. Let's give them a taste of Kepler High Explosives.] Max ordered, not slowing the attacks from the arm-mounted energy weapons before sending shells from the Thunder Guns into the ships.
The substructure proved more resilient than expected, and most of the explosions vented into space and didn't breach the hull, but a few managed to, and the ship on the far Port side that Max was engaging turned to break away from the Colony ship.
[Target the Engines, these Bounty Hunters are not leaving here today.] Max ordered, changing his target.
The Warp Drives were a vulnerable spot on any ship, and therefore heavily shielded, but ship-to-ship combat typically didn't see the level of instant firepower that four Super Heavy Mecha could deploy, and the barrier behind the bounty hunters vessel began to flicker and pulse before a single Ion Bombard round made its way through and the warp drive went dark.
[Port vessel disabled, switch target to the others.] Max ordered, turning his fire on the ship that Second Battalion was targeting. They had put all shields to the rear, attempting to save their engines, but that left the rest of the ship undefended, and the First Battalion targeted everything they could, from airlock doors to the existing breach near the bridge of the ship.
With a flash of light, the vessel went to warp, but the stream of fire and venting atmosphere left in its wake would be easy for anyone to follow, and a bad sign for their chances of survival. Warp Travel was stressful on the hull of the ships, and they had to be specifically designed to mitigate the forces. If there was too much damage, the warp field could break the structure apart and leave them floating in space in multiple pieces.
Fifth Battalion also managed to disable their target, but the third and fourth did not, leaving two more trails through space, marking the departure of a damaged vessel.
[Everyone back inside. Whoever sent those bounty hunters after us is bound to have a plan B.] General Yaakov ordered, marking the end of the fight.
The bounty hunters could deal with the Reavers if they were still here when the reinforcements arrived. Though even if they tried to flee, they would have a lot to answer for, as the Reavers took an attack on any of them as a personal affront, not just Reavers that were part of their own fleet.
Chapter 287 287 Into The Void
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Chapter 287 287 Into The Void
When Terminus translate back to warp speed, the Admiral turned them away from the Kepler borders and further into the Empire, where they would have a higher probability of coming across a military patrol, and not the revenge of whoever sent the bounty hunters after them.
They didn't even know which of them was being accused of War Crimes yet, though it might just be the entire Command Staff on the ship, depending on how the determination was made and who made it.
Certainly, there were a few scholarly sorts who would argue that the Disruptor and the Fusion Flamer were both impermissible as weapons of war, no matter how effective they were.
[No pursuing vessels detected, clearing the border areas now.] The Admiral reported to the ship a few hours later, letting them breathe a sigh of relief.
Terminus hadn't taken much damage from the Bounty Hunters' return fire, but any damage was more than they would prefer since they didn't fully understand the ship's construction and they didn't have a full design schematic, only a structural layout.
That was the downside to being on an alien Colony Ship, they didn't really know much about its construction, and how it was intended to be properly repaired, or even if it was. More than a few cultures over the Millennia had sent out Colony ships on a one-way mission, intending for them to be dismantled at the end of the journey and not survive any longer than that.
Of course, that had proven to be a mistake in most cases, as damages in transit often left that variety of ships too mangled to fully terraform and Colonize a planet once they arrived, leading to harsh lives or even the loss of the Colonists.
The shields of the Mecha had held up well against the small defensive Lasers of the enemy ships though, well enough that most units didn't even think to destroy them. Max certainly hadn't and he didn't have any of the Mecha suffer breached shields either, though that could be due to the effectiveness of the first spot that they chose to target.
General Yaakov had gathered all the Command Officers in his room, as well as Mary Tarith and the Reaver named Jeff who was formerly in charge of the operations on Kepler Terminus Station.
"Rae 5 appears to be our best bet. We will have to cross through rebel territory and close to what I am calling the Tapani Occupation, but that should help draw them to us. Major Nico here has generously offered to assist in increasing the Colony Ship's shield output since it wasn't designed for war, and the Imperial Inquisition has been in contact with General Ming." General Yaakov reported, before deferring to the other General.
"The Inquisition forces have identified seventeen rebel planets in the area, including Kepler Terminus, which is currently in a state of civil war. In response, a battle fleet of seventy-two heavy Transports, plus Cruisers, Destroyers, and Cutter escorts has been dispatched to arrive within forty-eight hours.
Their only request is that we attempt to draw Tapani's attention. If we can prevent them from going all in on the defense of the Rebel Planets, the fleet believes that they can take them with minimal losses, then turn the space-based assets on the invaders and drive them out.
As you know, Tapani isn't large enough of a nation to deal with that sort of fight and may choose not to engage at all, if they are given time to think before they have to engage."
The General made good sense, but trying to pull an entire small nation's fleet away from the front lines with just one Colony ship was an impossible task. They likely couldn't even draw enough away for the fleet to take back Kepler Terminus without a major fight.
"What do you propose that we do?" Max asked.
"I know it might sound a little crazy, but I want to use the Colony ship for its intended purpose, to terraform Rae 5, and then send out an open channel message that the System is now a free port, Reaver controlled and open to all Reaver business." General Ming insisted.
"You want to create an independent nation on an uninhabited planet and make people believe that it is a threat? It's close to Tapani, but I can't see that working." Max pointed out.
"Only, it won't be uninhabited, will it? We have city-scale construction equipment aboard Terminus, we can build entire empty cities on the planet to draw the enemy's attention, and scatter what few people we have through them as defenders. The message should draw a few Reaver fleets who are short a home base to us, and anyone who answers will be ready for a fight.
The Kepler Fleet has many contacts among the Reavers, and they pay well, so I have hopes that our plan will work. I am also trying to get a portion of the Kepler Fleet to join us there to stop the Tapani counterattack." General Ming replied.
"And after this fight? What do we get out of all this risk? This is my Family we're putting on the line for your plan." Mary Tarith pointed out.
"Rae 5. When the battle is over, you get to keep the planet, though I suspect you will be sharing it with a number of other Reaver forces. You can organize them how you like, and we need multiple cities built on the planet for this plan to work, so there should be enough space to go around." General Ming replied with a smile, matched by Mary Tarith.
"A free planet for the defense of the free planet? That's not a terrible deal. Put that in writing, with the Emperor's mark on it and you've got a deal, I will have the fleet call as many as they can." Mary Tarith agreed.
Max just shook his head at the insanity. The Reavers were a wild and free bunch, the only use they would have for a planet was to relax and party after a hard mission, and to make repairs. If Reaver fleets controlled an entire planet, even the Death Winds Territory, known for its Mercenaries and danger might be impressed at the level of debauchery.
Chapter 288 288 Big Plans
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The process to get an official agreement from the Emperor, at least when General Ming was asking, was a surprisingly short one. Within an hour, they had an official deed, granting Rae 5 to the Tarith Reavers to do what they wanted in exchange for their assistance in dealing with the Rebels' alliance with the Tapani.
Mary Tarith used that as leverage to get a lot of other Reavers on board with the deal, promising them the use of cities that Terminus would construct, and for some of the larger groups, rights to put a Space Station in orbit around the planet for their own personal use.
It was like heaven to the Reavers.
Now, all they had to do was make sure that Tapani High Command noticed the wave of Reavers heading for the uninhabited buffer system, and didn't notice that some of them were in fact Kepler Military Vessels.
For the Reavers, their ships were precious and hard-earned, nearly impossible to replace. For the Kepler Fleet, ships were just another line item, so the intention was to have Kepler forces deal with most of the orbital fleet, and the Reavers deal with anything that directly threatened their control of the planet since their presence was officially only to distract the enemies of the Emperor.
The response was much larger than anyone could have anticipated. Over the next six hours, they received responses from over fifty Reaver fleets looking for a cut of the deal, and Four Death Wind Mercenary Companies looking for use of repair and cross-dock facilities to move their goods from ship to ship.
All of that could be built and agreed to without issues, they would just need to borrow a small asteroid from the field in the outskirts of the Star System so that they would have the raw materials to create a Space Station large enough.
Rae 5's habitable planet didn't have a proper moon of its own to control its motion, so putting an especially large space station in orbit would actually be for the benefit of the planet's habitability. It would help stabilize the rotation and the tides, as well as provide a brutal final line of defense.
Mary Tarith had big plans for her new home, and to Max, it looked like she wanted to live in a fortress world.
"Are you planning on fighting something bigger than Tapani afterward?" He asked, looking at the plans for a series of highly armed defensive stations around the system.
"Not particularly. We agreed that everyone would have their own space in the system, we didn't say that they would all be in orbit of the same planet. If we space them out around all of the mid-zone planets, we can give everyone more space to work in privacy, out of the direct line of sight of their competition. That will make them a bit happier than all being crowded around one planet, and we can provide an open trading port for general purposes." Mary Tarith said proudly.
"What Mother means is that the defensive weapons on those moon-sized space stations would blow any approaching fleet out of the system, and the scatter of the planets means that there would be no safe angle to approach from 99 years out of one hundred." Nico translated.
It was a bit hardcore, but who was he to argue? The Reavers kept trade in the Galaxy moving, and if they were going to get their very own star system to use as a distribution hub, here in the southwestern quadrant of the Galaxy, they could do what they wanted with it.
Where they would find the manpower to actually do all that was the question. Terminus had great terraforming tools aboard it now, but they were museum pieces, and not intended for use in space.
[Terminus Trading Company, do you mind if we convoy with you?] A signal came through to them, alerting the Admiral.
It wasn't a Reaver code, but a Kepler Civilian one that anyone could be using.
"Nico, we need a patch through the last contact. I want to know who is sending us messages and if they are legit." Admiral Drake messaged directly to Nico's communicator.
"I'm on it, give me a few minutes to message back," Nico replied, preparing to establish a connection to the approaching vessel.
She was only working for a few seconds before she stopped and sent a positive reception message.
[Terminus Trading Company to Civilian merchant vessel Monarch, I see we all have the same destination in mind, please do join our convoy. You will be pleasantly surprised with what we have prepared at the destination.]
The message wasn't encoded, encrypted, or even sent in pulses to try to keep it from being detected, like two unconcerned merchants casually chatting about public business on the public airwaves.
That could only mean that it was exactly the opposite of that, and soon after Nico sent the radio information of the lead ship that had contacted them. It was a Kepler Destroyer, three times the size of Terminus, with an armament that could annihilate a small nation's entire fleet in an instant.
But it wasn't alone, it was traveling with three Mecha Carriers and eighteen Battle Cruisers in a formation designed to confuse enemy sensors and make their fleet look like close to fifty much smaller vessels.
So, Terminus led the way to the Rae 5 system, with the Military in tow, laughing and joking like old friends over the airwaves and talking about the profits that were to be made once this deal is done.
They didn't specifically mention Rae 5, but they were headed straight there. Any idiot could follow their route, and they were hoping that a certain group of idiots would try.
[Admiral Drake to all units, we have detected hostile signatures incoming. After we translate into the Rae 5 system, we will have four hours before their arrival to make our presence look legitimate.]
That wasn't much time, but if they could get the Military to tow some asteroids into orbit and place smaller vessels near them, to appear to be Reaver work vessels while hiding the fleet itself inside the disruptive atmosphere of the Gas Giant planet, they should be able to make this ambush work.
Chapter 289 289 Tweedle Dee
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They weren't alone when they reached Rae 5 though, there were already over a hundred Reaver vessels in the System, some of which were pulling asteroids and other large ore deposits with them in preparation for the construction of a massive scale industrial complex.
The sight seemed to amuse Nico more than anyone else, but that might only be because she had hacked into the military transmission encoding and knew what their response was to this sight.
There was no way that they weren't panicking about the fact that literally hundreds of Reaver ships were in the system preparing it to become a major industrial producer. For one, the Nations relied on the Reavers to be their transport vessels between each other, despite many of them officially denying it. For two, nobody in the military knew what exactly it was that they were planning to produce.
Did they steal the design schematics to build something incredible? Were they going to be making a play as Industrial Mecha producers, since it was well known that most of their defense forces were built from them? Or could it be something much more sinister? Not knowing was not fun for the Kepler Fleet, even if they were allies at this point.
[Welcome to Rae 5 everyone, home of the Reavers. We have a few hours before we have unwanted guests, so please prepare your defenses in the meantime, and we will hold a proper meeting on the surface of the habitable planet afterward. Thank you all for your assistance in this matter.] Nico broadcasted to the ships in the system, confirming that they hadn't been conned.
The Kepler Fleet dropped a handful of random Asteroids, as if they had been in tow and abandoned, then hid in the largest planet's perpetual storms, waiting for their guests to arrive.
Mary Tarith was already making an inventory of who had put what where inside the system so that she could alter the plans to respect the spots that they had already claimed. So far nobody had claimed the space around the main habitable planet, recognizing it as the territory of the Tarith Reavers, who were still en route, as they stopped to pick up something that they deemed important along the way.
Just under an hour later, the first of the Tarith Reavers arrived, immediately dropped onto the main planet in the system, and began deploying construction machines in various spots. They had stopped to acquire a number of low-cost building constructors that could build a high rise in a single day. Left alone, they could build an entire metropolis in a year or two, which was still well within the timeline of most of the Reaver troupes, who expected to take years to finish constructing their orbital bases before they planned to start making real inroads into populating the planet with their members and allies.
The amount of firepower in this one system was mind-boggling to most of the observers, but Max's System enhanced mind was already working on the odds for a space battle.
"They know that someone aboard this ship is a Kepler Officer, or they wouldn't have sent Bounty Hunters to apprehend us. Has there been any word on the ones we left disabled?" Max asked Nico, who was the unofficial comms officer of the ship at the moment.
"Nothing yet, they were gone when the Reavers passed by, so it is suspected that their friends came back for them. No sign of a destroyed vessel in the area, so they weren't disposed of." Nico replied while scanning through communications.
"I will be happier when I know what they know," Max told her, knowing she could take a hint.
He had a lot to do today, making sure the Battalion was ready for Combat. In space, the distance didn't matter as much, and the Ion Bombard Arrays would fire energy bursts that were stable for thousands of kilometers. In practice, that still wasn't far, but it made them a deadly defensive weapon when they locked themselves to the hull of a ship.
It was a common practice among Reavers to use their Mecha as additional ship weapons, sending out Heavy Mecha to fight alongside their vessel to increase their odds against any sort of hostile threat.
All of the Tapani ships should know that already and have some sort of plan for it, and that was where the Kepler Fleet came into play. Before the invaders could wipe out the Reavers, they were supposed to intervene and wipe them out.
[Incoming Fleet has spotted us. Not like we were hiding anyhow. They have increased speed and should be translating from warp speeds in under thirty minutes.] Nico reported to the arrayed Reavers.
[This is our spot, nobody else's. If a sad little nation like Tapani thinks that they can take it from us, they are going to have an enlightening day.] One of the Reaver Captains replied, bringing a round of raucous laughter to the radio.
The Tapani could obviously hear them and decrypt their signals, so they would know that the fleet was ready for them. That made Max curious about what exactly they had brought with them to deal with the colonization of Rae 5.
Like the Kepler Fleet, their pattern was designed to cause interference and make it hard to decipher their numbers, but it was a very large fleet, over fifty vessels for sure. Under normal circumstances, that would be a close fight against the reavers, unless they brought something unexpected with them.
But with the Kepler ships in wait, it would be a giant mess.
[Terminus Trading Company to all Reaver Vessels, I have an incoming modification for you that I believe you will enjoy. If you can implement it before our unwanted guests arrive, I'm sure they will enjoy it as well.] Max thought that was a taunt to the Tapani at first until he saw that Nico really had sent something to the Reaver fleet.
"Nico, what did you just do?" He asked over his wrist communicator, not being close enough to read her mind.
"Just a minor change to the anti-ship Ion Weapons. Remember how the Disruptors basically passed through the Bounty Hunters' shielding without resistance? Tapani Ships use the same sort of shield generator. If this works as well as the System says that it will, we should blow a wonderful collection of holes in their ships." Nico replied happily.