As I was reading the message, Nuan was standing by me. I turned to her.
"So... Long story short, I am leaving." I said. "Good job, Nuan. Thank you for giving us another chance to fight back, with our new allies."
"I didn't do anything." said Nuan. "It is the collective effort of our comrades."
"In any case... The Alliance seems to be working incredibly fast. I wouldn't want to keep them waiting."
"It is just the way Alliance prepares for the war. Instead of using the 'Long Grand Plan' method of the Federation, we agreed to use the fast methods. By reducing the time we spend in planning, we can counter the Federation's intelligence activities and leave them with no time to prepare. By the time their spies can gather enough reliable information, the war will already be declared. We will catch them unprepared!" Nuan said. "Or... at least this is what the Alliance believes, even though I am skeptical. But, on the bright side, the Alliance has already completed their war plans and were keeping the armies on alert; despite not expecting an actual war."
"Wish the Republic did the same when we were in the exact same situation." I said.
"Yeah, but there is no point in mourning after our losses." Nuan said. "Anyway, Commander, you need to go... Thank you for everything you have done, and... being a friend."
"U-uh... Well..."
It was an awkward moment.
"Perhaps we will meet again, sometime." I said.
"Preferably in peacetime." Nuan added.
"Goodbye."
"Farewell."
I left the embassy, leaving the security duties to Ling for one last time. A quadcopter took me to the government spaceport in Beijing.
I walked toward the shuttle NurSultan-II, which would take me to the Alliance cruiser Ural. I didn't know much about the ship, or what I would do once I was up there; but I was certainly curious.
The pilot of the shuttle saw me examining the shuttle and came by.
"Comander Kagan, I believe?" he said.
"Yes. And you?"
"Captain Talgat. Shuttle pilot." he introduced himself. The Republic and Alliance military rankings were a bit different, so I was having trouble with understanding what a 'Captain' was.
"When will we take off?" I asked him.
"As soon as you are ready, Commander. Ural is waiting for you." he said.
"You work fast for sure." I said.
"We have been preparing for a war scenario for years, Commander." he said. "We have just been... 'remaining silent', I shall say. This is the moment we will shine."
"Why? Why now?" I asked.
"I don't understand." he said.
"Why did you come to your senses just now, if you pardon my choice of words?" I asked.
"We... Our leaders probably thought that the Federation wouldn't even think of doing something so crazy, like starting a new world war." he said. "Turns out they were mistaken. We are lucky that they have actually admitted their mistakes. I don't know about Mars, but this is rare in Earth politics."
"If you don't mind, I would like to get going, Comman-" I gulped. "Oh, I mean... Captain."
"Sure." he said. "You can just take any seat."
I boarded the shuttle with a few more Alliance Navy officers, and the shuttle lifted off from the landing pad. We blasted into low Earth orbit for an orbital rendezvous with cruiser Ural.
"About one and a half orbits to rendezvous." Talgat announced after the final orbit circularisation and rendezvous correction manuever. Our orbit's azimuth was about 7 degrees, it was almost a precise polar orbit. This meant that I was going to see most of the biomes of planet Earth. Exploring the birthplace of humanity, Terra... Maybe it wouldn't sound that exciting for people who were already living there, but it was truly an amazing feeling for me.
Time passed by as I watched the continents and oceans sliding by on the window. The city lights on the night side of planet Earth was spectacular. You could make out where the city centers and the large transportation hubs were. When we were got back to the day side, I even had the chance to see a small hurricane.
But the most beautiful part was the Auroras. As we were passing by the North Pole, those 'Northern Lights' were illuminating a large circular area with a dominantly green tint. It was so beautiful that it was almost hurting me... I have only seen this beauty now, and there were many people, even on Earth, who had never witnessed this event!
This enjoyable journey only lasted a bit longer than two hours. After that, we were getting close to Ural, and we had to prepare for docking.
As the shuttle approached the cruiser, I had a few chances to see the ship from my window. It was a moderately sized ship, and the only detail I could make out was the armored main engine cluster housing on the back.
NurSultan-II docked with Ural, and I got aboard the ship. The ship's CO and a team of officers were waiting in front of the docking port airlock.
"Welcome aboard Ural, Commander." the CO said.
"Thank you." I replied.
Inside the ship, the labels and texts were all in cyrillic. I couldn't understand most of them without some help from my Vineura; which indicated the texts were all in Russian. Despite Russia wasn't officially a full member of the Alliance, it seemed like things were different in practise.
"I am Colonel Sergey, in command of this vessel." the CO introduced himself. "I think we agree that time is valuable, and we should get going as soon as possible."
"Y-yes, of course." I said. I strangely couldn't find the courage to ask where we were going.
"Oh, and Commander..." Sergey said. "Since you are joining us late, here is our plan of action."
He handed me a paper.
'--==HARD PRINT OUTPUT==--
People's Republic of Mars - Alliance of Asian Nations
[Joint Naval Operations Command]
MJD 217349
Alliance cruiser Ural (departing from LEO) and Republic transport Centaur (departing from a circular solar orbit between Earth and Mars) will rendezvous in the solar orbit defined in the binary data packages sent to both ships. There, cruiser Ural will begin it's electronic warfare operations.
In about five days; Republic ships M Fortran, G Persephone, G Theseus, LC/M Lodos, T Bronze and T Utzok will join the fleet in close formation.
After creating the formation, the fleet will wait for orders from the Alliance Navy Command to move to a high Earth orbit.
--==END OF DOCUMENT==--'