Chapter 39
"What could that little girl possibly have that could affect the future so wildly? I mean I get that you're saying she's a genius, but what good could that do in this situation?"
I look at the masked face of my Mother who has taken the chance to appear on the holo-table. Her mask right now was outwardly serene like usual but I could see the features of the face that it was an act. She usually used these masks as ways to express her emotions; considering her avatar had all the expressions of a stoic brick. I feel a moment of wistfulness as I remember the times I had with her android shell; it was the complete opposite of this avatar.
"Remember the contract you had given the Vrits for the treatment of Aria?" I nodded my head. It was rather obvious I'd remember I had a perfect memory. "Well inside it you said you would handle her education. I think it's quite obvious you'd give her an education befitting someone actually serving as a subordinate."
"Obviously where are you going with this?"
"If we have Mr. Vrit ask his rather influential little sister for help, and dangle the promise of relieving Aria from her employment obligations after her education is over with, it will almost guarantee a favorable ruling at the Orenthia trial."
"Why would we do that? It would almost certainly reveal your existence to her?! And what's to say she would even follow through with it?! I would suspect education isn't exactly a big promise; and before you say anything I absolutely will not be revealing your existence via an unsecure method that is a messenger ship!"
"Calm down, we don't have to reveal my presence by message at all. We just need Mr. Vrit to ask his sister for a visit, saying that it's important. From what I have managed to guess I believe their relationship isn't anything negative. I am unsure why Mr. Vrit is out all the way in the frontier, but I speculate it involves Aria's condition. So, I would suggest that you ask Mr. Vrit for help from his sister. Tell him we won't be likely to complete treatment by the time the trial is to begin. And that if he asks for his sister you'll release Aria from her other obligations after she is educated to precursor standard."
I turn my head to stare at Mother's avatar, her hands are clasped and she's bent over. I look to the side and finally mutter an agreement.
"Fine I'll ask, but let's prepare for a negative response nonetheless."
"Thank you Lilith, and that would indeed be wise."
I nod my head groaning as I grab my tablet. The idea of asking for help from a human makes my guts churn like a blender, but I'd do it if Mother is so certain it will succeed. I'd let go of my feelings about the savages just this once, but if it fails I'll have to find a way to deal with Aria. If her aunt is truly powerful enough to almost guarantee a jury nullification ruling against a court of vested interests. I'd hate to think what she'd do if her family was being held by an outlaw. She would almost certainly have to respond and I doubt it would be small; this would affect her reputation if she failed.
'Ahhh what the fuck why did I pick up such a troublesome little brat.' While lamenting my unfortunate luck I send an alert to Liza to grab some blood for me. I really need to find some way to relax during our trip to Beta Charon, or I'll run out of liza's delicious blood before long.
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TIME:
5.7 DAYS LATER
LOCATION:
BETA CHARON
ZZ-4 EGRESS POINT
ASTRO DAWN
I stood up quickly, staring in surprise at the holo-table suddenly turning on while I was sitting on the couch. We are currently awaiting a response from the listening post.
"Did the onboard sensors find something bad that quickly, we just got here!?"
There is a brief silence as Mom doubtlessly checks the sensors for anything particularly obvious. The bad thing about the tachyon sensors is that they are rather slow to process readings; no matter how much processing you dedicate to the sensors though they are always a few seconds behind reality even if you're within spitting distance, all because of that insufferable law of causality. I just hope we don't have to deal with strike craft today...
Moms avatar suddenly shifts as a blurry outline of 2 small void ships appear beside her."Yes, I can make out only a pair of human type light cruiser sized void ships within 5 AU of our location. I suspect they are watching the egress point for visitors. They also appear to be ex-merchantment vessels so despite their size expect minimal combat capabilities."
I nod my head as I think about the possibility of taking on the two ships. "What is their readiness for FTL drive? I would like to make sure they can't flee the moment we show up. I would like to use this as an opportunity to test the combat abilities of the local vermin, so make sure to grab proof of their termination for the Freelance guild."
My Mother nods her head, the ship's outlines vanishing as she returns to standing center stage. She doesn't speak for a moment but eventually her monotonous voice returns, "They are currently trying to remain as quiet as possible, I put their FTL readiness at ~10%. How long it will take them to reach the sufficient velocity for the FTL drive to begin is unknown; it will likely take far longer than it would for us."
"That's great, can you alert the thralls that we will soon be entering combat? And begin accelerating to 100m/s please, do not use the antimatter booster." Excited at the prospect of easy combat I rapid-fire orders while running to leave the shared living space. "I will do as you ordered Lilith. Now, don't get too excited, we still have a few minutes before we reach the necessary velocity."
Despite hearing my Mother's words I still rushed straight towards the CIC. Rushing down the stairs I barely avoided knocking over Liza, but I was in a good mood so I ignored her lack of awareness; though it didn't stop me from smirking at the terrified squeak I heard after passing her.
When I reached the CIC's door I barely managed to stop myself from overshooting it.
Looking at my MID I pumped my fist in elation at beating my personal best. Originally this exercise was meant to time Liza and now Adalyn to make sure they didn't do anything unnecessary while going to where they were ordered. I've just recently—as in during the almost week-long journey to Beta Charon—started using it as a way to test my knowledge of the interior of the Astro Dawn, and my control over my physical abilities.
After celebrating for a moment and catching my breath I finally opened the door. Walking in I headed for my command chair but froze noticing it was not rising.
"Uhm Mother, is there something wrong with the chair?"
My mother's response was prompt, thankfully her voice sounded like it came from everywhere yet it refused to echo, "No, there is nothing wrong I just thought it would be wise to switch to the tactical configuration. Do you wish for me to switch back to the skirmish configuration?"
I shook my head walking up to a large rectangular red holo-table. Hovering just above its broad glowing surface was a map of our surroundings within 0.25 AU of the vessel. I could see our location marked in red and the enemy's location marked in orange. Soon we started to rapidly close on the enemy vessels as our FTL drive shot us towards them at what would be superluminal speeds.
After five minutes and a few seconds of travel the map helpfully zoomed in with a quick prompt of my MID; now shrinking to a perfect square 5,000 kilometers on all sides. On the free space to my right I found various details; like how our relative velocity is about 5 km/s thanks to the FTL drive.
Exiting at a different desired velocity is a wonderfully useful feature of FTL drives. Apparently humans have managed to replicate this, but unless you use an advanced FTL drive it isn't accurate. The margin of error only grows with the bigger difference in velocity you wish to exit compared to when you initially entered FTL. Mom was just blatantly cheating with her ridiculous computational abilities and a cutting edge class V FTL drive.
If we can strain their shields enough we might be able to forbid them from entering FTL. It will be easy with class V weapons but there is one tiny detail, particle emitters of the rating we use are just too strong against plasma shields; they'll just punch a hole through them rather than actually strain them. I would also prefer to not loudly proclaim their defeat with a flash of blinding high energy particles.
"Mother, do you have any ideas on quietly removing these vermin?" I ask and just as the words leave my mouth I almost face palm from my idiotic question. Thankfully mother doesn't reply, likely realizing I just remembered these guys are watching the entrance and exit to this system; if they're led by someone with half a neuron in their head there will be check-ins every now and again.
"Sigh I am such a god damn moron when I’m excited. Okay lets refocus I want to remove this filth, but I have no idea where their vitals are. Mom, have you managed to infiltrate their systems?" I look up even though I know there is nobody else in the CIC, but muscle memory from my training proves dominant. "Yes, the vessels are old merchant ships with extensive modifications. As such I cannot guarantee a location; the onboard visual and audio sensors and their locational data seem to have been turned off, so I only have control over comms."
'Great those damn pirates just had to have enough good sense to not have anything that can record or spy on them.'
"Whoever is leading these criminals clearly appreciates the dangers of EWAR. This is actually a pretty cunning way to deal with the problem without having to scrap together a half decent security system. I have a lot of data and no way to actually make use of it."
I groan as Mother's answer turns into praise for these rats. Eventually we enter the effective range of our low output particle emitters and despite that the Pirates make no sign of noticing our approach. Looking over I see that we are not under any stealth procedures. I then remember mom describing these as old merchant vessels and then realize their sensors must not be able to sense us. That puts them at the standard for class 2 I would reckon.
"Since we can't know for certain the location of their reactor or FTL drive I say we lower the power rating on the particle emitter; that will let us fire at them longer regardless and hopefully stop them from entering FTL. And while they strain the shield a few emitters poke holes in the ships. However I think we should keep quiet for now and not attack. Hopefully we can sneak past them and destroy their thrusters as our first action." I issue some orders though I realize that basing a plan off hope never usually goes well for those involved. "If they spot us before we can get clear targets on their thrusters we will open fire with 24 particle emitters on low output and 6 on high output, an even split between the pair. What do you think Mom?"
"Those will work I believe. Do you want me to alert you when combat begins?"
"No I'll stay here, I'd hate to miss the show; it's not like 15 minutes of standing will bore me, most of the engagements I was trained on would take hours."
So I sat staring at the hologram of the nearest objects we could sense. We drifted silently closer to the unassuming inanimate lumps of metal. Finally we came within 250 kilometers, something changed and the ships slowly shifted to turn towards us. High powered but ultimately inferior sensor pings were sent out but were smothered by the advanced hull of Astro Dawn.
'Looks like they noticed us somehow, they would've done well to retreat.' I smile it was finally time to slit their throats, and announce the proper owner of the system has returned to reclaim what was always hers.