"Commander, all drives in the current formation are synchronised to you, we're all ready to go."
Getting the go-ahead from his subordinate, Commander Simmons took an extra second to look back at the planet he and 3 generations of his family had spent defending.
(To think I would be breaking the vow I made to my grandfather on his deathbed…)
Simmons saw defending the crown planet of the Solar Empire as his life's mission, but now after only 104 years at his post, he felt like he was abandoning it.
"... Nothing to do, I guess… Initiate countdown and signal fleet-wide alert, prepare to jump."
"Wilco, preparing to jump, fleet-wide beacon is lit."
Using a secure communications channel, commander Simons' flagship had control of every single faster-than-light drive within the flotilla which would be evacuating from the former Crown world of the Solar Empire in just a few minutes. Thanks to the effort of River and Jessica's numerous pathfinder missions, an initial secure route had been found and the flotilla was about to take the first 200 light-year leg of that journey.
"10 seconds to jump, fleet-wide alert issued! All ships ready and committing!"
From the surface of the former crown world of the Solar Empire, the two-thirds of the population looked up at what were supposed to be their protectors abandoning them to their fate with no supplies and no weapons. Although who were allowed to leave and who were left behind had been decided through a random lottery, needless to say, those who were left behind were bitter, and the fact that the Solar Royal guard had made sure every single person left behind was issued with medication to take their own life made things bleak.
"3.. 2.. 1.. We've transitioned to FTL, current ETA is 23 hours."
"Right, you're dismissed, sailor."
Responding to his XO with a cold attitude, Simons turned away and did his best to remain calm.
"Sir?"
"Give me a minute."
"Sir, take all the time you need."
The reason every single ship in the evacuation flotilla could jump over a hundred light years, including Mike and River's Wyrm which couldn't jump more than 50 light-years without running out of fuel was because of the flagship Crown Mercy. Crown Mercy, the pearl of the Royal Solar navy was equipped with a specialised faster than light drive which would ease the travel for ships within a few kilometres range of it, by synchronising the drives, ships travelling along with the Crown Mercy had their fuel efficiency increased tenfold, but if any ship that was piggybacking on the Crown Mercy's drifted out of its range, they would fall out of hyperspace travel and return to normal space.
Therefore travelling long distances under the umbrella of a capital ship was exhausting, requiring constant course corrections and surveillance. This headache-inducing micromanaging was made somewhat easier by letting the Crown Mercy's countless drone pilots remote control and monitor and manage multiple ships at the same time.
After getting underway with the rest of the flotilla, River and Jessica finally had time to report what had happened doing their pathfinder 1 mission to the Solar navy royal guard expert in the Eden Theocracy.
"So they ambushed you like that... How good is your piloting Jessica?"
"... I know the basics, that's about it. What do you think they were doing Mike?"
Getting an inkling of what was going on, Jessica's face hardened as Mike shot a quick glance at commander Simmons and the other admirals in the conference call.
"They were likely trying to capture you guys, as they didn't use their railguns until just before you broke out… But the broad formation and amount of ships that never fired on you I'm pretty sure they were trying to analyse at least River's flight and avoidance behaviour, while River is the better pilot, if we face the same unit again Jessica at the stick will radically increase your chances of survival."
"Wait, so the Eden theocracy can predict something as complex as a pilot's movement in the middle of fighting?"
Interjecting in the middle of Mike's explanation, commander Simmons made Mike pivot to explaining more about the Eden theocracy itself.
"Yeah, they can do that with no issue, communicating through their witch space FTL system they can talk to their god, with enough offerings to their god it is willing to do just about anything."
"That 'god' is the Eden theocracy's subnetwork right?"
Not a religious person by any means, commander Simons didn't really pay attention when Mike went over Eden's belief system for the first time.
"If you can call a self-aware true intelligence a 'subnet' then yeah… If there's anything you would think 'this is too much of a hassle' or 'there's simply too much data here', then the Eden theocracy can process it in a matter of hours."
With enough data and processing power, everything is possible, even something as complex as predicting the exact manoeuvres of a known pilot in a stressful environment.
(It might be a good idea to have the helmsman of the flotilla switch out regularly, but then again I'm not the commander of this mission and if Simons hasn't picked up on this yet then this mission is doomed anyway.)
Mike's job wasn't to command or make decisions, but to advise.
And if the commanding officer didn't want or care about his advice that just meant less work for Mike.
"... I see, is that why you wanted to capture an Inquisitor? To gain access to that data processing power?"
"No not really, as having an open connection to Witch space would just be an open invitation for Eden to find us. I would want an inquisitor or even a priest because of their biological enhancements and their know-how. I might know the things I know, but there's a chance they have different insides which could save us valuable time and resources."
While the advantage of a faster travel time was clear, the fewer resources they had to pilfer from the Eden theocracy, the harder it would be for the Eden forces to track them.
"I see… Then I might have another job for you, Mike."
"Sir, you can't be serious! There's nothing but risk involved!"
From one of the admirals' protests, what Simmons was asking Mike for was pretty obvious, so Simmons didn't even bother specifying.
"What would you need?"
Taking a moment to think, Mike caught himself thinking in terms of Interstellar online, not the reality he had found himself in.
(If I didn't have to worry about dying and leaving River and Jessica behind I would just need a rifle and 6 UGV's…)
"... That's hard to say without knowing the size of the installation, but for an installation inside a larger civilian station then transport, redundant transport, overwatch and a small ground team consisting of myself and about 10 UGV's armed with low and medium calibre weaponry."
"You want to go personally?"
"Yeah, how else would you even interface with the prison's system to locate HVT's? And even assuming you could find them by searching blindly there's no way you would be able to subdue them without incapacitating them? Assuming there's an inquisitor present the only way to get them to follow along would be to convince them."
Thinking through numerous different scenarios in his head, commander Simmons took a moment to pull up some data on his personal terminal before coming to a conclusion.
"Okay then Mike, we're going to take a closer look at the site in question, but without making any kind of definitive choice yet."
Wrapping up the meeting there, Mike leaned back in the chair of his personal office as his XO made himself known after remaining silent for the entire meeting.
"Sir, are you really going in person?"
"Of course, I am Jack, if anything, raiding a station or surface installation is far closer to my normal kind of workload compared to commanding a cruiser like this."
-
Elsewhere in the universe, a certain prisoner was serving out another day of his infinite sentence. The crime he was serving time for was severe, so severe in fact that it was a wonder that he was still alive, although staying alive was more of a punishment than any kind of execution at this point. The prisoner's cell wasn't charitable in the slightest, although not to the level River and Mike had to endure, the prisoner's hands were tired in heavy chains and the cell was tiny and without any kind of features except for the drain in one of the corners which served as both the toilet and sole ventilation of the cell while the door was a one of the half metre wide walls which could recess to make room for the robot arm that fed the prisoner, along with taking blood from the prisoner and hosing him down with a high-pressure water hose that also served as the only source of hydration the prisoner had seen in years. Although there was no way to tell how much time had passed in this hellhole of a prison, the warden made sure to use the interface to report that to the prisoner every single day, in addition to using the robot arm to beat him while his hands were tied.
(Morning again huh…)
Still, being in the same place for years meant the prisoner was starting to pick up on even the smallest of stimuli, the subtle vibration he felt through his feet could only mean that the day shift had just arrived and were currently unloading their cargo while running the engines to permit a fast takeoff in case of emergency. Although the landing zone was about a kilometre away and multiple stories above the prisoner, he could easily tell the time of day just from the patrol craft and drones landing to refuel and the normal comings and goings of the staff that was in charge of his daily torture.
If he really strained his ears, the prisoner could hear even more than just thrusters blasting on the tarmac ready for takeoff, like the unannounced craft that just landed in addition to the shift change.
(Huh?... That's rare, I wonder what my visitor wants to tell me this time.)
As the only prisoner currently occupying the installation, the prisoner quickly assumed he had guests, if they were here to talk with the warden instead they would have called for him to come to them, or simply arrived along with the shift change. The numerous footsteps towards his cell further confirmed the prisoner's hunch that someone was here to see him, along with the robot arm which activated outside its scheduled time frame to hose him down and put some pants on him.
(Pants? What a luxury… In that case, it must be Mya, she's still sentimental it seems.)
After dressing the prisoner, the robot arm returned to its recess in the ceiling, and instead of closing again, the blast door opened fully as the prisoner had expected. Outside the prison cell was a 200-metre-long tunnel, 3 by 3 metres without any kind of features except for the blast door leading further outside and the pair of heavy machine gun turrets at the end constantly pointing at the prisoner's head.
(Ah, Alvin and Grese, my two old friends. How are you two? I see Alvin is still the only one getting proper maintenance, they really should treat you better Grese, your gimbal is still continuing to corrode. It might only make you slower by a split second, but that's all I would ever need given the chance.)
Reminiscing with his two 'old friends' he only saw once every few years, the prisoner also picked up the sounds of orders and protest to said orders from somewhere behind the blast door, it seemed like it truly was extraordinary times.
(What the fuck is all this about? And I was just about to sleep too.)
Complaining to nobody but himself, the prisoner started smirking beneath the mask that his robot maid slotted into to pump him full of 'nutrient' as the blast doors finally opened and his visitor arrived.
"How have you been Dan? I see they're still treating you the same as ever."
Walking with brisk steps, inquisitor Mya seemed to be in as bad a mood as ever, as she reached halfway down the tunnel the blast doors closed behind her and when she finally reached the prisoner she ripped off his mask and pulled out the plastic hose that made sure the 'nutrient' made its way all the way down his throat.
"I'm here on behalf of the cardinals, they're willing to annul your sentence and you can come with me right now if you agree to certain terms."
"It is lovely to see you Mya, you're still as hot as ever but have you finally lost your mind?"
"I'm serious Dan, this is for real."
Seeing how Mya ignored the sexual harassment outright, Dan figured she was actually serious, something that only made him more confused.
"Wait what? Why? It's not as if I'm guilty of anything in the first place."
"Don't start on that crap again Dan, you disobeyed orders issued by our lord above, you're lucky I don't-"
"Skin me alive, yeah yeah, cut the shit already. I disobeyed orders from those corrupt cardinals, our great lord above didn't give a shit one way or the other, as the end result was the same. What are you even here for Mya? You know I won't dance to the cardinal's tune ever again, so what's changed? Are there some rebels even you of all people can't deal with?"
Putting on a difficult expression, Mya trough through how much she could talk about, but the fact she didn't start beating Dan for his act of blasphemy spoke of how much he was currently needed.
"... There's been a boon, and the gates are also starting to open. It would be great to have you by my side as we subjugate a new galaxy."
"No thanks."
Flinching at Dan's instant refusal, Mya revealed just how desperate she was by asking him to reconsider.
"I said I wanted you by my side-"
"I said no Mya, give up. The only way I'm leaving this place is by my own power, or when my soul rejoins the great lord above. Now get on with your slaughter without me, you're disturbing my nap time:"
"... Fine, you're free to spend the rest of your miserable life here then."
"That's my plan, isn't that why you got me locked up here in the first place?"