Chapter 164

  I spent just twelve hours preparing before departing for New Seattle. I left three captains in charge of defense of the Bradbury system. Since the Indomitable was the only Fateweaver cruiser, it gave Taariq command of the defense fleet. Edmund told me there were some undertones of the more senior captains being upset with my decision. These were captains who were in command of our fabricated Brotherhood-copied ships. They had more seniority than Taariq and thought that gave them the right to captain our best combat cruiser.

  I called all the captains onto the Fateweaver before leaving. I yelled quite a lot to get my point across, as my AI Julian said it was expected. Then, I assigned captains to the next three Fateweavers in the production queue. Two of them were present, and the third was currently the first officer on Desdemona’s ship. I then explained the shortcomings of the other captains present and what they needed to improve on to be considered in the future to command our best combat ships.

  There were currently only two admirals in our fleet, myself and Desdemona. I had deferred many decisions to Desdemona in fleet command, but now, with her out of the system, I had the headache of making all the decisions. As the Navy grew, it would become a larger and more unwieldy job. I would not budge on our high degree requirements for engineers, Marines, and officers. My experience with the Union Navy taught me placing incompetent people in command would create rot in an organization that could spread. Asher Dyson and his family had taught me that.

  When I left Bradbury, Edmund, and Suruchi were not in charge of domestic operations, including all production, civilian integration, and training. I felt confident it was in good hands. Still, you never knew when the Brotherhood could show up, or any number of other crises could arise.

  We entered subspace, leaving behind a growing system and the emerging Arcadian government. Not leaving a strong Naval commander in charge may come back to haunt me. My concern for the children had reached a fevered anxiety, though. At least my asteroid manufacturing base for the Leopard and Deep Space stations had been moved into deep back. The Squirrel were in charge of finishing it and diverting building materials.

  It would be a fourteen-day trip in subspace to reach New Seattle. New Seattle was part of the core worlds the Brotherhood controlled through puppet governments. It was just on the very periphery. Celeste had been too bold in operating a passenger run to the system. Although it had been twenty years since the Void Phoneix had been sought by half of human space, it was probably not forgotten.

  According to Edmund, through researching archives, the ship design was a very old model, and there were only about two hundred still in service across human space. The hull was the Europa Ambassador Class Passenger Liner, first manufactured 276 years ago. It had a production run of almost five hundred hulls. It was an extremely popular ship for its speed and large passenger capacity for comfort.

  At least the Void Phoenix had been given a significant overhaul, and the hull silhouette had reverted to its original configuration. It no longer held the belly cradle for the Caladrius. Maybe it had remained unnoticed and blended in with still active ships of its make and manufacture. For some reason, I had growing doubts this was the case.

  During the trip, every day was spent running VR sims to extract the Void Phoenix and her crew from the station where they were docked. Celeste would be grounded on an asteroid base until she was thirty after this!

  We had three plans we were prepping for. The first was bribing the officials to release the Wren teenagers, Ezra and Emil. According to Edmund’s intelligence, this was possible because the system’s government was very corrupt. The second and less enviable option was infiltrating the prison network and releasing them ourselves with subterfuge. There were too many things that could go wrong with this. The third was a full-fledged prison break. A ‘smash and grab’ operation, according to Abby.

  The two Wren boys were being held on the planet awaiting trial, which complicated a lot of our plans. I did have the best Marines in the Arcadian Navy. Abby and her Marines were ready to do whatever was needed. Doing the smash-and-grab operation would reveal a lot of our assets to the Brotherhood, like the Badger power amor and our advanced technology. I was also training with the Marines in VR as I planned to go to the station and help liberate the Void Phoenix myself.

  When we entered the New Seattle system, the Leopard I sent us updates immediately. They were holding nine light minutes away and keeping track of everything. I took in the data dump with Francies and Abby. The two Wren boys were being held inside a mountain. A massive prison complex also served as a deep-earth mining operation. The security was fairly tight, and we could only penetrate the dense ore deposits with our gravimetric sensors.

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  The trial for the boys was still six days away, and they had not been sent to the lower mines yet. Most of the forced prison laborers were alien species. There was also a significant population of Wren. A quick review of the New Seattle system showed them to persecute Wren and did not hold favorable relations with aliens.

  Wren were actually humans. They were a species born of splicing human and various species of cat DNA long before it was outlawed. For some reason, humans were fascinated with felines in the past and wanted to be more like them. Their population had exploded, and they had formed enclaves in human space before being ousted from society. I was not sure what level of involvement the Brotherhood had played in the history of the Wren.

  The prisoner was ancient, hundreds of years old, and still producing precious metals from the planet. The Leopard I had a complete role for the prisoners and their supposed crimes. This government was corrupt, as Edmund had indicated before I had left. Six thousand prisoners and nearly six hundred guards. One thousand and eighty-four Wren. Two thousand, three hundred-two aliens, and the rest of the prisoners were humans.

  Julian had quickly sorted all the data and found communications intercepted by the Leopard I. It was as I had thought, and the Brotherhood had been involved. An agent had orchestrated the Wren teens being captured and sent word the Void Phoenix was possibly in port at the local station. Most of our evolved decryption software was working on the Brotherhood messages. It looked like there might be an entire Brotherhood fleet coming to capture the ship.

  I looked at the Void Phoneix; it had been impounded, huge manual clamps had been added to its hull, and explosive charges were attached. They were claiming for the restraints because of potentially dangerous technology on board. And that was true. The ship AI was unbraked, as were Eve and Emma, the two personal bots. Then there were Nova, Venus, and Neon—all genetically engineered children.

  So far, no action had been taken, awaiting the faux trial. But they were clearly waiting for the Brotherhood ships to arrive and take possession of the Void Phoenix. As we dug deeper and deeper, the problems kept mounting. Two Squirrel were being detained on the station from the Void Phoenix. The Void Phoenix’s reactor was cold, as they had been warned if they powered it up, they would be fired upon. There were dozens of tracking devices on the outer hull.

  I spent an hour reviewing the absolute mess Celeste had gotten herself into before opening a secure communication with my daughter. When her image appeared on screen, she did not appear happy to see me. The first words out of her mouth were that this was not her fault. I did not count myself a great parent. I loved my children but had failed to set boundaries. Now, I was reaping the consequences.

  I was calm as I explained the level of intelligence. The fact the Brotherhood was coming had scared her a little, but she remained stoic. They had taken Ezra and Emil to the planet before they had realized it. And step by step, they had gotten themselves cornered into their current predicament.

  Neon appeared on screen and said he had repeatedly voiced his concerns but that Celeste was trusting her gut. Celeste pushed him away from the vid screen, saying he was not helping. I calmed her down and said we only had a few days before the Brotherhood arrived. The only way I saw to get everyone out was a coordinated military action. The system had one inhabited planet, and two military stations. I told Celeste I would send her the plan soon.

  For assets, I had fifty-two Marines on board and four assault shuttles. And nine heavy assault fighters. The Leopard I, also had one assault shuttle with slightly better stealth capability. We did not have much time to plan, but we needed to take complete control of the station where the Void Phoenix was being held. Two assault shuttles would be assigned to that task. Tw assault shuttles would be assigned to the prison complex to free Ezra and Emil. They were on one of the upper levels, so reaching them should not be too difficult. They would bring extra Badger suits for them to wear to get them out safely.

  For a distraction, the stealth shuttle from Leopard I was going to take hostages of the government in the capital city. There was an underground organization that opposed them and used violence to attempt to topple them so they would claim to be them.

  We were also going to use the nine Slipstream fighters to pretend to be an invading fleet. Sending sensor shadows to match the Quadruped ships. They would make a flashy entrance and hopefully distract the small defense fleet in the system.

  I commed Celeste and sent her the details and timeline when everything was prepared. She looked skeptical but was ready to play her part. Twenty-two hours later it started…

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