- Location
- Paris, France
Is that a coincidence that it was posted on page 69 ?
(I'm out, far far away
)
Faith in Superior Firepower [Planetary Annihilation Multicross SI]
- Thread starter Faith
- Start date
Is that a coincidence that it was posted on page 69 ?
(I'm out, far far away
)
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
Couldn't you just move the Relay a bit and park it inside the system's star so it becomes unusable?
If I Recall Correctly (an I may not be), the very same "quantum locking" that makes the damn things so hard to kill that you need to sling asteroids at them, is allso the thing keeping them in position.
You'd have to turn that off in order to move the relay.
It's easier to wipe it out.
You'd have to turn that off in order to move the relay.
It's easier to wipe it out.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Except we've seen that they can be moved(in the case of the Mu Relay). Of course, that was a supernova, which kinda blows... pretty much everything else out of the water.
Recall that Faith/Hope are currently de facto at war with the Batarian Hegemony. Nobody's going to blink an eye at them hitting another Hegemony planet. Except maybe to note that oh, wow, that corp is actually rather scarier than we'd thought.
Blackhole1
(Verified Spatial Anomaly)
But is that really what you want? Supporting freedom fighters and helping them liberate an important strategic world is one thing, but taking a planet for yourself is something else. The planet in question has little to no strategic value to anyone, regardless of which side of the conflict they are on. If the Faith foundation takes the planet anyway, people are going to ask why. Specifically, people like the STG, Alliance intelligence, and the Shadow Broker; i.e. exactly the kind of people who would take one look at the Faith Foundation's background and see through all the bullshit. This, in turn, leads back to Fusou as she's the only one (as far as everyone knows) with the kind of bullshit supertech needed to pull something like this off.
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
What makes you think this isn't part of the plan?
The more bullshit Fusou's juggling:
a - the less bullshit Faith has to juggle
b - the less likely Fusou's going to have a chance to overtly act against them (not that she would, but IC-SemiParanoia)
Blackhole1
(Verified Spatial Anomaly)
c - the more likely something goes horrifically wrong as three (or maybe four, depending on when Tiktau shows up) near-omnipotent AI's with relatively limited political experience rock the boat too much and end up tearing the political landscape to pieces with no idea how to fix it anymore. Considering that Fusou only knows how to do gunboat diplomacy and Faith/Hope have the political acumen of a drunken Bloodthirster (not that I'm any better, mind you), one would think that you might prefer to keep your head down a little. You know, before you accidentally tear the entire house of cards that is the Citadel Council apart.
@TikiTau should be showing up in a few years from the current point in the fic.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
In Gamma's defense, 'y'all fix this stuff yerself and don't make me come over there' works pretty well for political reform in his experience!
...Course, he's been dealing with Koprulu Terrans (Who are ornery folk by nature, so that works for 'em...), Khalai Protoss (Who tend to get along with each other more-or-less pretty well, thanks to that communal mind link thing), Nerazim Protoss (who are a bunch of independent space nomads anyhoo, so it doesn't really matter), and Purifier Protoss (Who have a network that mimics the Khala and an inclination to like Gamma's Legion).
Sooooo, his political experience is pretty biased!
Still hilariously amused that of the three active Commanders in this cluster kerfluffle, the only one that isn't using a humanoid interface avatar is the one with the lowest profile.
I mean, Fusou is playing the Advanced Elder Race Card and the Virtue Twins are playing the Mysterious Human Offshoot card. Gamma's the low profile one!
Edit: There are no errors...there is only AMNESIA DUST! And Zuul.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, the guy with the Nerazim ambassador is Mr. 'low-key' :lol
Alayne
The Reader
- Location
- Home of the Vikings
Think you mixed those two up.I mean, Faith is playing the Advanced Elder Race Card and the Virtue Twins are playing the Mysterious Human Offshoot card. Gamma's the low profile one!
Fusou is playing Elder race. Not Faith
Well, he's the NEZARIM ambassador, not Gamma's. Important distinction, really.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
They won't see through it. I might lose track of things when too much stuff happens at once, but when I perform a task -without restrictions, I am nothing if not methodical about it. Seriously, there will be graves and bodies available if foreign intelligence starts digging.
Not like Fusou's much better in the paranoia category. After all she's sitting on an army of a couple hundred septillion units.
And that's not even scratching the surface of her anti-galaxy and anti-universe weapons.
Hey, I'll have you know that Fusou can handle negotiations just fine. After all, she negotiated the creation of the allied faction in the Halo without bullying anyone.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*cough*
High Charity. The entire battle over Reach. All her Forerunner tech.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
First impressions are important, and bullying implies that I was trying to get a deliberate reaction through either the threat or the act of violence. The coalition talks were simply by invitation.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's like pointing a giant gun at everyone's face, then putting it behind your back and saying "So who wants peace"?
The implied threat is definitely still there.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
Maybe it was, it wasn't a conscious act of intimidation at least.
Blackhole1
(Verified Spatial Anomaly)
In some ways, that's even worse. A political figure (which Fusou is, no matter how you look at it) that doesn't realize (or at least, not on time) she's scaring the pants off of people probably won't be able to manipulate public opinion well enough to keep the people from turning against her, should she decide to take a more active role in galactic affairs. If Faith and Hope push things too far, and the Council ends up blaming Fusou, it could lead to serious problems. Maybe not for Fusou herself, but certainly for the Alliance.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
What they going to do, bleed on them? You go after the SA in any seriously threatening manner and Fusou will kick your shit so far in that you'll be eating last night's dinner for breakfast.
Blackhole1
(Verified Spatial Anomaly)
Or they could impose trade tariffs and tighter immigration or travel laws, forcing the Alliance to become culturally isolated from the rest of the galaxy (even more so than it is already). They could tie up colonization requests in endless court battles that drag on for decades or refuse to make any concessions on trade agreements. Yes, the Council can't hurt the Alliance, but they can make their lives miserable. Yes, the Council has nothing the Alliance really needs, but plenty of things they want, even if it's just exotic foods or works of art.
Fusou's aggressively isolationist stance might be something she wants, but is it something the Alliance wants? Does the Alliance want to become a super-powered North Korea, feared and isolated from the rest of the galaxy, or worse, become an expy of the Imperium of Man, xenophobic despots who solve all their problems through force and treats all other races like vermin?
The Systems Alliance is not the UNSC. They never had to worry about large-scale insurrections or fighting a horrifying war with their very survival at stake. Maybe...maybe they just want to be friends with the other races (albeit on their own terms) and prevent these wars before they even begin. Maybe Fusou's brand of mothering/diplomacy, no matter how well-intentioned, is actually hurting the Alliance's interests.
That would actually be an interesting source of conflict in the story: Hackett trying to convince Fusou to maybe stop treating the Alliance like a bunch of children. Sure, they appreciate all she's done for them, but eventually she's just going to have to let them spread their wings and leave the nest. Not to mention an interesting conflict with Faith/Hope's more optimistic/naive views of the universe.
CrackedCosmonaut
I am not angry.
- Location
- East
The enemy is going to come through there.
Set a trap.
Set a trap.
Mandabar
Waifu of choice is Rem. Give that girl some hugs!
- Location
- Florida, USA [Yes. Florida *FacePalm*]
Mannnn, you guys are really playing that up. I love it! I also love how it really seems that you and Hope are different people with different tastes.
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96 - Armada
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
96 - Armada
Our little scouting mission complete, the two of us returned the Keyes to the Kerak system, bringing it to a stop in Miranda's orbit.
"Man," Hope muttered, shaking her head. "We really need to rename that star. 'Kerak' just isn't doing it for me."
I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Ah well."
---
Rather than teleport down to the surface - although it would have been shockingly easy, - the two of us simply inhabited two new NeoAvatars, already in the general vicinity of the Judak Nurr's planning centre.
They had, apparently, finished up their plans for the liberation of Lorek - the information we'd provided had been the final piece they needed, solid locations of the major Hegemony locales. Apparently, the few militant cells left on the planet had been building up their strength again, working carefully to avoid detection, and were ready to hit the streets and incite rebellion once the Judak Nurr arrived in force.
The Judak Nurr themselves had already made note of potential landing sites, sketched up lists of force dispositions and available resources, and established amongst their military members a new and rigourous training regime.
They'd also left a note on my desk, or rather, on one of the desks in the conference hall, asking very nicely if we could step up the production of our shield harnesses and Tesla weapons to meet their demand, with an addendum that Jarruk wished to speak with us in regards to 'his' new fleet.
As to the first… well, now we had Fusou's new tech to play with, the two of us decided to go all out and bring out some full suits of armour on the Judak Nurr's behalf, with multi-layer energy shields, lightweight jump jets - ones that, thanks to Covenant engineering, didn't even need Eezo cores to supplement them, - and internal rebreather systems. Not to mention the dynamic temperature control system, ultra-comfortable impact foam, and built-in VI to control the slew of extra features. It was everything a soldier could ever want.
I assume.
I don't know. I've never been much of a goddamn soldier.
Either way, it was certainly better than the Judak Nurr's current uniform, which appeared to be 'whatever vaguely protective clothes you can get your hands on, and a Faith Foundation shield harness for good measure'.
Hope excused herself to see to that little project, leaving me the task of seeking out the Judak Nurr's senior military advisor. It took less than a second for me to locate him through the sensor network I'd spread across the planet - he was at Michael Bay, enjoying a quick lunch with a group of soldiers who had, until recently, been responsible for testing out our new heavy weapons on the debris of tanks we'd taken from the Kurapp Valley factory.
The random jumble of geometric shapes that made up my 'main' avatar shimmered into being above the tabletop a few inches from Jarruk's plate. He flinched and drew his plate slightly closer towards him before relaxing.
"Greetings. You wished to speak with me?"
He nodded wordlessly, taking a moment to swallow his last bite of food. "Yes, actually. I've been meaning to ask about the shipyard capacity you possess. The ships we got from Logasiri… they're older models. Still capable in combat, but given your known capabilities…" he trailed off.
The geometric jumble bobbed. "Ah, I see. Well, whilst some of our equipment - our Phase Drives, and the Slipspace drives the Systems Alliance provided us, mainly - may prove difficult to incorporate into a ship… well, we should be able to manage additional shielding systems and advanced weaponry. And I suppose we could go over the interior as well, but that depends on how long you want the process to take."
Jarruk leaned back in his seat, all four eyes squinting. "You'd be willing to do that?"
"As it is, I have several orbital fabrication units just kind of hanging around, doing nothing. I may as well assign them to upgrade your ships for you. Replace your GARDIAN arrays with CLAWs, fine tuning the Mass Driver… given enough time, we could even completely retrofit life support and sanitation, make everything a bit more sustainable."
And by 'a bit', I of course mean 'infinitely'.
"Hm." Jarruk looked down at his plate, slowly scooping another spoonful of… something into his mouth. "Krilak and I were discussing recently the way we've been presenting ourselves. Up until now we've been acting like militants, where we want to give the impression that we're our own government, no different to the Hegemony in terms of status and authority. Going around in drab greys and blacks… fighting this guerilla war… it's not very good for public image."
"Ah. You want a nice, bright colour for your flags, so you look like a proper government, not a bunch of terrorists squatting in caves."
Jarruk mused over that for a few moments before tilting his head, conceding the point. "Yes, I suppose. Something like that. If, in the process of retrofitting the captured Hegemony ships, you could find the time to repaint them, it would be appreciated. At the rate we're working, we expect to be ready in about three weeks - is that sufficient time for your retrofits?"
I idly added 'paint' to the list of improvements to make to the Batarian ships. "Three weeks is time enough, thank you. Any particular colours, or shall I just throw down some white and green?"
Jarruk shook his head. "No, I had something else in mind."
---
Retrofitting the Judak Nurr's - or rather, the New Batarian Republic's, - fleet was a relatively simple task, all things considered. I swapped out the reactor and life support for my own equivalents, added a Fabricator to the sanitation systems, reinforced the frame and armour with a few Elysion and Federation alloys, generally spruced things up, and, finally, bolted a Phase FTL Drive into the engineering bay.
A few quick tests in the still unnervingly empty Dis system revealed one very useful feature of the Phase FTL Drives - being that it removed the ship using it from reality in such a way that got rid of pesky limitations like 'inertia' and 'the lightspeed barrier', the only factor that influenced a ship's speed was the ability to accelerate.
And since Mass Effect cores could make ships lighter by abusing dark energy, one could increase the effective power of their engines, by forcing them to push less weight. Which allowed one to accelerate faster.
Which meant one could accelerate to higher speeds faster. And at that point, the only concern was decelerating before you massively overshot the target. Usually, by doing a 180 spin.
Basically, my already ludicrous FTL speeds just got a fuckton faster. Hope suggested attempting to combine Eezo and Phase FTL with Slipspace to make some kind of hybrid hyperfast mode, but I vetoed that - just giving the NBR Phase Drives would give them a huge advantage. They didn't need the extra speed that may have resulted, and neither did we, at present.
Besides, it meant we'd have something to play around with next time the NBR had to take a break from besieging planets to rest, recover, and plan their next moves.
Also, it opened the way for the NBR to trade with the Systems Alliance for Slipspace tech, which, if they played their cards right, could go a long way to improving relations between the two factions.
The rivalry between Humans and Batarians that had been present in canon was basically non-existent here, so there wasn't much to make up for, but more friends could never really be a bad thing.
Once the ship's retrofits were complete, I had the fabricators go over the reinforced armour panels with the hyper-advanced Progenitor equivalent of paint. The once-green panels became a lightish grey, smaller sections painted either vibrant yellow or shining bronze. Apparently the colours were a reference to the common artistic portrayal of the Pillars of Strength, and had deep religious meaning, but I didn't really bother asking for an explanation.
Krillak and Jarruk were happy with it, and that was pretty much good enough for me.
---
A little under a month later, the New Batarian Republic was finally ready to move on Lorek. There were a number of reasons for the delay - the sudden changes to their equipment loadouts, being forced to familiarise themselves with the workings of military warships (helped along by a handful of our new Halsey-Pattern AI), and having to redraw plans to take said new equipment and fleets into account.
That was, admittedly, almost entirely our fault, but it didn't make time pass any faster.
Six Batarian frigates and three cruisers hung in orbit, preparing for their first tastes of combat with their new and drastically improved systems. Alongside them were six more cruisers - ours, this time, the Faith Foundation's First Fleet in its entirety. Each of the vessels contained its own detachment of ground forces, dropships, and armoured vehicles, but they formed only a small part of the invasion force itself.
Bringing up the rear was a flight of twelve Voyagers, carrying a force totalling thirteen thousand Batarian soldiers and almost twice that many Avatar droids. That was the bulk of the army.
As a rule of thumb, the high ground wins, and orbit is pretty much the highest ground there is. Ground forces were beyond useless if the enemy held orbit - but they were necessary for pacifying cities, routing defenders from fortifications without levelling nearby terrain, and, most importantly, for cleaning up the messes that occasionally resulted from fuck-huge orbital slugfests.
Luckily for me, Hope was the one responsible for dealing with that particular mess. I, on the other hand, had, by virtue of coin toss, assigned myself the task of liberating Aratoht, all on my own like a grown-up.
Well, more realistically, Hope and I had rationalized that eventually we'd run into a place where conquering a planet was necessary, and, well, better we had some experience.
And thus the Second Fleet, another five Rowans and a Juniper, had joined Hope's little armada in Miranda's orbit, their own course set for the not-too-distant Viper Nebula.
Well, Hope said with a sigh. Good luck, I guess. Try not to die.
I sent the impression of me rolling my eyes. I'm pretty sure the Batarians don't have anything even remotely dangerous to us. Let alone on Aratoht. At this point, I'm fairly certain they have absolutely no idea how much of an asset the Alpha Relay is.
Yeah, that's fair. Well, looks like the NBR are ready to roll out, so I guess I'm off. Catch you in a while!
Moving as one entity, Hope's fleet shot away from Miranda, engines flaring for the briefest of moments before they slipped into the space beyond reality. Moments later, the Batarian vessels followed, their own Phase Drives engaging and dragging them out of reality.
For a second, I simply stared at the space where the fleet had once lingered from the bridge of the Jackson Whalebrook.
And then, with a shrug, I turned to my dashboard and hit the big blue button.
Our little scouting mission complete, the two of us returned the Keyes to the Kerak system, bringing it to a stop in Miranda's orbit.
"Man," Hope muttered, shaking her head. "We really need to rename that star. 'Kerak' just isn't doing it for me."
I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Ah well."
---
Rather than teleport down to the surface - although it would have been shockingly easy, - the two of us simply inhabited two new NeoAvatars, already in the general vicinity of the Judak Nurr's planning centre.
They had, apparently, finished up their plans for the liberation of Lorek - the information we'd provided had been the final piece they needed, solid locations of the major Hegemony locales. Apparently, the few militant cells left on the planet had been building up their strength again, working carefully to avoid detection, and were ready to hit the streets and incite rebellion once the Judak Nurr arrived in force.
The Judak Nurr themselves had already made note of potential landing sites, sketched up lists of force dispositions and available resources, and established amongst their military members a new and rigourous training regime.
They'd also left a note on my desk, or rather, on one of the desks in the conference hall, asking very nicely if we could step up the production of our shield harnesses and Tesla weapons to meet their demand, with an addendum that Jarruk wished to speak with us in regards to 'his' new fleet.
As to the first… well, now we had Fusou's new tech to play with, the two of us decided to go all out and bring out some full suits of armour on the Judak Nurr's behalf, with multi-layer energy shields, lightweight jump jets - ones that, thanks to Covenant engineering, didn't even need Eezo cores to supplement them, - and internal rebreather systems. Not to mention the dynamic temperature control system, ultra-comfortable impact foam, and built-in VI to control the slew of extra features. It was everything a soldier could ever want.
I assume.
I don't know. I've never been much of a goddamn soldier.
Either way, it was certainly better than the Judak Nurr's current uniform, which appeared to be 'whatever vaguely protective clothes you can get your hands on, and a Faith Foundation shield harness for good measure'.
Hope excused herself to see to that little project, leaving me the task of seeking out the Judak Nurr's senior military advisor. It took less than a second for me to locate him through the sensor network I'd spread across the planet - he was at Michael Bay, enjoying a quick lunch with a group of soldiers who had, until recently, been responsible for testing out our new heavy weapons on the debris of tanks we'd taken from the Kurapp Valley factory.
The random jumble of geometric shapes that made up my 'main' avatar shimmered into being above the tabletop a few inches from Jarruk's plate. He flinched and drew his plate slightly closer towards him before relaxing.
"Greetings. You wished to speak with me?"
He nodded wordlessly, taking a moment to swallow his last bite of food. "Yes, actually. I've been meaning to ask about the shipyard capacity you possess. The ships we got from Logasiri… they're older models. Still capable in combat, but given your known capabilities…" he trailed off.
The geometric jumble bobbed. "Ah, I see. Well, whilst some of our equipment - our Phase Drives, and the Slipspace drives the Systems Alliance provided us, mainly - may prove difficult to incorporate into a ship… well, we should be able to manage additional shielding systems and advanced weaponry. And I suppose we could go over the interior as well, but that depends on how long you want the process to take."
Jarruk leaned back in his seat, all four eyes squinting. "You'd be willing to do that?"
"As it is, I have several orbital fabrication units just kind of hanging around, doing nothing. I may as well assign them to upgrade your ships for you. Replace your GARDIAN arrays with CLAWs, fine tuning the Mass Driver… given enough time, we could even completely retrofit life support and sanitation, make everything a bit more sustainable."
And by 'a bit', I of course mean 'infinitely'.
"Hm." Jarruk looked down at his plate, slowly scooping another spoonful of… something into his mouth. "Krilak and I were discussing recently the way we've been presenting ourselves. Up until now we've been acting like militants, where we want to give the impression that we're our own government, no different to the Hegemony in terms of status and authority. Going around in drab greys and blacks… fighting this guerilla war… it's not very good for public image."
"Ah. You want a nice, bright colour for your flags, so you look like a proper government, not a bunch of terrorists squatting in caves."
Jarruk mused over that for a few moments before tilting his head, conceding the point. "Yes, I suppose. Something like that. If, in the process of retrofitting the captured Hegemony ships, you could find the time to repaint them, it would be appreciated. At the rate we're working, we expect to be ready in about three weeks - is that sufficient time for your retrofits?"
I idly added 'paint' to the list of improvements to make to the Batarian ships. "Three weeks is time enough, thank you. Any particular colours, or shall I just throw down some white and green?"
Jarruk shook his head. "No, I had something else in mind."
---
Retrofitting the Judak Nurr's - or rather, the New Batarian Republic's, - fleet was a relatively simple task, all things considered. I swapped out the reactor and life support for my own equivalents, added a Fabricator to the sanitation systems, reinforced the frame and armour with a few Elysion and Federation alloys, generally spruced things up, and, finally, bolted a Phase FTL Drive into the engineering bay.
A few quick tests in the still unnervingly empty Dis system revealed one very useful feature of the Phase FTL Drives - being that it removed the ship using it from reality in such a way that got rid of pesky limitations like 'inertia' and 'the lightspeed barrier', the only factor that influenced a ship's speed was the ability to accelerate.
And since Mass Effect cores could make ships lighter by abusing dark energy, one could increase the effective power of their engines, by forcing them to push less weight. Which allowed one to accelerate faster.
Which meant one could accelerate to higher speeds faster. And at that point, the only concern was decelerating before you massively overshot the target. Usually, by doing a 180 spin.
Basically, my already ludicrous FTL speeds just got a fuckton faster. Hope suggested attempting to combine Eezo and Phase FTL with Slipspace to make some kind of hybrid hyperfast mode, but I vetoed that - just giving the NBR Phase Drives would give them a huge advantage. They didn't need the extra speed that may have resulted, and neither did we, at present.
Besides, it meant we'd have something to play around with next time the NBR had to take a break from besieging planets to rest, recover, and plan their next moves.
Also, it opened the way for the NBR to trade with the Systems Alliance for Slipspace tech, which, if they played their cards right, could go a long way to improving relations between the two factions.
The rivalry between Humans and Batarians that had been present in canon was basically non-existent here, so there wasn't much to make up for, but more friends could never really be a bad thing.
Once the ship's retrofits were complete, I had the fabricators go over the reinforced armour panels with the hyper-advanced Progenitor equivalent of paint. The once-green panels became a lightish grey, smaller sections painted either vibrant yellow or shining bronze. Apparently the colours were a reference to the common artistic portrayal of the Pillars of Strength, and had deep religious meaning, but I didn't really bother asking for an explanation.
Krillak and Jarruk were happy with it, and that was pretty much good enough for me.
---
A little under a month later, the New Batarian Republic was finally ready to move on Lorek. There were a number of reasons for the delay - the sudden changes to their equipment loadouts, being forced to familiarise themselves with the workings of military warships (helped along by a handful of our new Halsey-Pattern AI), and having to redraw plans to take said new equipment and fleets into account.
That was, admittedly, almost entirely our fault, but it didn't make time pass any faster.
Six Batarian frigates and three cruisers hung in orbit, preparing for their first tastes of combat with their new and drastically improved systems. Alongside them were six more cruisers - ours, this time, the Faith Foundation's First Fleet in its entirety. Each of the vessels contained its own detachment of ground forces, dropships, and armoured vehicles, but they formed only a small part of the invasion force itself.
Bringing up the rear was a flight of twelve Voyagers, carrying a force totalling thirteen thousand Batarian soldiers and almost twice that many Avatar droids. That was the bulk of the army.
As a rule of thumb, the high ground wins, and orbit is pretty much the highest ground there is. Ground forces were beyond useless if the enemy held orbit - but they were necessary for pacifying cities, routing defenders from fortifications without levelling nearby terrain, and, most importantly, for cleaning up the messes that occasionally resulted from fuck-huge orbital slugfests.
Luckily for me, Hope was the one responsible for dealing with that particular mess. I, on the other hand, had, by virtue of coin toss, assigned myself the task of liberating Aratoht, all on my own like a grown-up.
Well, more realistically, Hope and I had rationalized that eventually we'd run into a place where conquering a planet was necessary, and, well, better we had some experience.
And thus the Second Fleet, another five Rowans and a Juniper, had joined Hope's little armada in Miranda's orbit, their own course set for the not-too-distant Viper Nebula.
Well, Hope said with a sigh. Good luck, I guess. Try not to die.
I sent the impression of me rolling my eyes. I'm pretty sure the Batarians don't have anything even remotely dangerous to us. Let alone on Aratoht. At this point, I'm fairly certain they have absolutely no idea how much of an asset the Alpha Relay is.
Yeah, that's fair. Well, looks like the NBR are ready to roll out, so I guess I'm off. Catch you in a while!
Moving as one entity, Hope's fleet shot away from Miranda, engines flaring for the briefest of moments before they slipped into the space beyond reality. Moments later, the Batarian vessels followed, their own Phase Drives engaging and dragging them out of reality.
For a second, I simply stared at the space where the fleet had once lingered from the bridge of the Jackson Whalebrook.
And then, with a shrug, I turned to my dashboard and hit the big blue button.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What heresy is this?
How could you dare make your big button anything other than red?