"They are firing on the bait cargo ship."
As soon as Mei said it, I pressed the button to launch a torpedo towards the closest enemy ship. The torpedo left the silo with a loud clanking noise, and appeared on our sensors shortly afterwards. It reoriented itself using the tiny thrusters on it's tip, then activated it's main engine and started accelerating to intercept the target vessel.
"Torpedo away!" I said. "Engineering!"
"We are on it sir! Reloading!"
I still had 3 more anti-ship torpedoes in the silos. I launched two more of them, but kept a single one in the bay for safety measures. If an enemy vessel came a bit too close for comfort, I would use it to quickly destroy it without relying on close-in weapon systems.
"All torpedoes hit, 100% accuracy." Mei said. "Good shooting."
"I just press the launch button, computers do the rest." I said. "But thank you anyway."
Mei then started rotating the ship rapidly.
"They destroyed the bait ship. They will try to get closer to attack us. I will try to maintain distance, and also keep them away from the rest of our fleet." she said.
"Good thinking. Engineering!"
"Almost ready to launch sir, just a second..." George answered.
This asymmetric battle continued the very same way until we destroyed the entire enemy fleet. Indeed, some passenger liners with guns strapped on were no match for an actual warship.
I was, however, surprised by the fact that the entire Order fleet, even though they could see that they were going to lose, kept attacking until the end.
"Not even a scratch." Mei said. "They could insult us through comms and even that would do more damage."
"I find it unsettling." I said. "How can someone be so... ignorant? Is that even the right word for this?"
"Conta- Multiple new contacts!" Mei suddenly turned to her console. "Closing in fast, at 450 kilometers distance to our port side."
"Identification?"
"They... They are Alliance and Federation Navy ships... Some of them even our Republic ships!"
"What in the-" I was baffled. "This must be a trick."
"They are... It is not a trick, the telescopes have visual contact." Mei said. "They are hailing us."
"On speakers."
Speakers made a short beep tune before the comms channel was established.
"Identify yourself." the voice ordered us.
"Identify?" I turned to Mei. "Do they not know who we are?"
"Maybe this is not The Order." said Mei. "Maybe it is the Imperium."
"This is warship Lodos III of the New Republic. Identify yourself." I answered.
"This is Tachibana." he said. "My fleet is at your service, Commander Kagan. Nice to hear your voice. I see that the residents of this dwarf planet has been troubling you a little."
"No, not at all." I said. "It is just the government that-"
"Oh, I see."
"Tachibana, can you come over here? I have things to discuss." I said.
"Sure thing, old friend, sure thing." he said. "Already on my way."
Mei held my arm.
"I don't know what you think about this, but I hate how he does that." she said. "Not to say that I'm unhappy about him being alive..."
"I think I'm used to it already." I replied. "You simply don't kill this guy. He gets missing and eventually comes back at the time you least expect him to appear."
Tachibana's shuttle docked to our ship after several minutes. We greeted him as soon as he stepped aboard.
"Good to see you are still alive."
"Same to you." he said. "You wanted to talk about something?"
"Straight to the point, huh..." Mei murmured. "After all that time making us think you died, and coming back at our most desperate times to help us out... You don't even take your time-"
Mei started crying and ran away. I wanted to follow her, but the urgency of the situation stopped me.
"Yeah, well." I spoke. "First of all, how?"
"How what?" he asked.
"How did you manage to save so many battleships and command them here without being noticed?"
"Without being noticed? Oh, I was noticed on my way... by you. But that was on purpose, we've detected you from really far away. A warship does redirect a lot of attention."
"That doesn't count." I said. "It is a miracle you somehow made it out of the Inner Solar System alive. That place is crawling with hostile robot fleets."
"As soon as we lost Ceres, I knew that it was likely for humankind to lose the whole war. I got in contact with some ship captains, one of them picked me up from my shuttle, and all of those who agreed with me formed a small fleet. Turns out we were right, humankind was going to lose the war."
"Did the Federation or Alliance high command know about this operation of yours?" I asked.
"No, of course not. We would be court-martialled." he said.
"Just as I thought, the usual rebel Rear Admiral Tachibana..." I sighed.
"No longer 'Rear Admiral', mind you." he said.
"Anyway, whatever." I said. "Now let's get to the immediate problem."
"Which is?"
"The dwarf planet we are orbiting right now, Makemake."
"What about it?"
"The government, which calls itself The Core Council, of the Order of Salvation, has captured one of the most important people for our plan to take back Earth."
"So you do have a plan to take Earth back." Tachibana said.
"Sort of." I said. "Anyway, they are not giving this individual back to us."
"Who exactly are 'they', and how do they exactly work?" asked Tachibana.
"It is... somewhat like an oligarchy, somewhat it's own thing." I said. "Definitely not democratic and a bit cruel at times, although... I can't really blame them for their motives right away. I believe they have some sort of a plan to save humanity as well, but they prefer not to cooperate and just do everything their own ways."
"What do you plan to do to get that important person of yours back?"
"That's what I was going to ask you about. Do you have any good plans?"
"Apart from breaking into the jail cells?" he asked. "Well, what do we have to threaten them apart from missiles?"
"Civil unrest, maybe even an uprising."