Chapter 50
----------
TIME:
11 DAYS LATER
LOCATION:
BETA CHARON
LOW ORBIT OF HEL (FORMERLY BETA CHARON 4)
OUTER PLANETARY SYSTEM
ASTRO DAWN
"Are they ready?"
I look up at the standing form of Mother wearing my annoyance on my shoulders. These assholes showed up with a light cruiser strike group which means one light cruiser and four destroyers. To say I was happy that I decided to engage stealth procedures was an understatement. Though so far they've yet to send a single active sensor ping so that's the only reason I haven't quietly fled.
Well I guess they were fearful this was all a trap, which was annoying. If I wanted them dead I'd just park a few hundred thousand kilometers from their cruiser and launch a quasirelativistic projectile their way. That or harass their vessels until they rightly decided leaving was the best option.
"Yes Lilith, they have just responded to my request to communicate. They agreed and even had the courtesy to lower the power of their communication devices so we should expect no interruptions."
"Grand, so they aren't complete incompetents that signals well for a possible future deal. Tell them I am ready and that I expect them to not turn on anything to try and trace the signal." I sneer as that possible future flashes in my mind, Mother would notice and punish their attempts. She's already likely infested their void ships with rather intricate malware out her healthy sense of mistrust of all things human.
"Communication connecting. please wait a moment... Communication connected with warship O.R.V. Weary Agitator."
"Greetings, I assume this is Vice-Commodore Kaylia Pitt? I was expecting your Riven to show but it was clear that was wishful thinking when your cruiser didn't budge from its spot. So am I correct to think you're in the position to make these decisions? Or should I jump to your cruiser's hiding spot at the edge of the inner keiper belt and talk with someone who can answer my calls in a sufficient manner?" I smirk as I see a dumbfounded and awed expression on the vice commodore's face.
"..."
I squint my eyes as she refuses to speak even after a healthy time to process the information, she was blinking so the connection hadn't failed.
"... Beautiful..."
"Excuse me? I am glad you consider me beautiful but I would appreciate it if you didn't speak that out loud. It's disgusting coming from a hu– a person I just met." I frown at the still awestruck face of Kaylia now sporting a blush I'd rather not see
"And she's a natural... when you visit Renegade's regret would you like to get something to eat together?"
I was barely able to keep my mouth from dropping as I realized she was not going to stop trying to flirt with me. Thankfully she had someone in the same room with her who chose that moment to bring her back to reality.
"Umm ma'am we're supposed to be negotiating not whatever you now think this is."
"Wha– Oh! I am so sorry! My conduct was incredibly unbecoming of my station and I hope you will not hold this against us!"
I scowl as the woman scratches the back of her head face as red as a tomato—though there are many other more traditional ways I could describe her current state, however, this human metaphor is much less likely to cause me to get suddenly hungry.
"I will choose to ignore it but I will not stand further distractions, I came here to negotiate not to get nauseous and retch." I tried to wipe my disgusted expression off my face, a trial I was sure I was only partially successful at.
"I assume you have come here to tell me if you agree or not so let us be quick with this; I have other things I should be working on that are much more important."
The woman—Kaylia—looks at me, her face now clean of any obvious emotions not even a blush remains from her past outburst. She pauses for a moment opening her mouth but closes it, but eventually she speaks, "Yes I do know of the terms that you issued and we agree to them under certain conditions."
"And what would those conditions be? I thought my terms were reasonable but it seems I was mistaken? Now please carry on with this. I want to see what I could have possibly missed in my ultimatum." I raise my eyebrow and keep my voice steady, attempting not to show the annoyance I feel, but my palm was already squeezed into a fist.
"We want your help in certain activities outside the system. As you can probably imagine we are a group of rebels to the Obsidian Reclaimers but we lack the ability to actually do anything to them." I see a look of frustration flash over her face, I imagine it must be humiliating to be a rebel faction and not be able to do anything against the nation you betrayed.
But they had my interest with this new amendment to my ultimatum, 'Maybe I could use this...'
I say, "What are these activities you reference? I hope you aren't asking me to turn traitor to the whole nation just to get your help fighting a deranged cult."
"No, even we understand that would be outrageous. No, we just want your help in exposing the government for what it is, a petty military dictatorship more obsessed with besting their petty interstellar rivals than helping and protecting their people. We also want your help on certain operations like attacking military convoys and stopping them from entering FTL. And ultimately if your future leads to this we want to buy voidship weapons from you." Kaylia finishes delivering her terms and I decide to go quiet and slow my perception of time.
'Raiding military convoys does sounds like a fun side hobby to fuck over and weaken this nation. On the other hand, what would I gain from doing that?'
I decide to state my misgivings, "And why would I join in on these activities what's for me to gain? I am not going to hand out support only to be rewarded with nothing I can profit from. If you want my help you'll need to sweeten the deal for me, for starters I want your fleet to be at my beck and call at a moment's notice. Furthermore the ability to sell anything I want through the rabble you use as chaff, I am certain that if I can sell my goods through them I will stand to profit from these little hand outs."
Her jaw tightens as she doubtlessly understands what I wish to sell through the pirates they call auxiliaries. At the end of the day if I want to truly profit, selling weapons is one avenue, the other is to sell necessities, and the last and often most profitable is to sell things that help people escape. And with a demanding government like the Obsidian Reclaimers there are likely many who want an escape from their traumas. This nation loves giving away nightmares through its ceaseless skirmishes with its rivals, lethal response to protests that go a single step too far, and their endless war against Cascadia and its jungles.
After a while Kaylia finally responds looking visibly frustrated, "We will allow it if it means we will receive your help. Now that is all we wish for if that's all you demand we will agree to this for the foreseeable future."
I smiled pleasantly. I was happy this hadn't turned into another situation where I gave a lot to gain little. I was certain if she knew how much I would make from this deal and what I'll use them for she'd call off these "negotiations." But alas their impotent hatred for this nation blinded them to just how much I stood to gain. I should have Mom work on formulating new drugs that will be a hit with the public no matter their status, and then I'll set the price.
"Then I believe we have a deal. I will leave a data storage device that has the data we collected on all void ships we confirmed to be working with the Burningthorn Princes. I hope this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. Here are the frequencies the container will be emitting in 5 minutes. It's low powered but I am sure your sensors will pick it up."
With that I turned off the holo table and tapped a button on my tablet to have the beacon start beginning to power on. With that our job here was done and I quickly told Mother to pilot us back to Midnight Nostalgia.
----------
TIME:
4 HOURS LATER
(3 MONTHS AND 8 DAYS AFTER RETURNING)
LOCATION:
BETA CHARON
30 AU FROM BETA CHARON
INNER KEIPER BELT
MIDNIGHT NOSTALGIA
I look across the hanger at the mountain of packaged parts, an entire platoon of 40 combat robots, and a small support and quality assurance AI computer bank. This was almost everything I wanted for the beginning stages of construction on the machinery of Cairn Zorv.
"How long will it take to actually install all of this? And how much more needs to be dug out and reinforced before it's completely operational." I ask and quickly receive an answer from Mother. "It will take us a week to store everything and install the portable fusion reactor that will power the robots building it. After that is finished we can leave the rest to the AI. At this moment we are about 10% of the way to completion, but that is including the habitable sections. Excluding habitation and making it liveable we stand at about a third of the way done.
"We still need to dig out rooms for refining the local metals and ores. Then we need to construct the biopolymer farms, but that will require the factory to sustain an atmosphere. After these two are complete will the factory become self-sufficient in its production."
I listen but honestly most of this was over me but thankfully Mom is there for this type of activity. The hanger was quiet as could be but it was nonetheless in a flurry of action. Lifter robots hauled boxes the size of cars to the cargo lift. The quadrupedal combat automatons zipped back and forth while test firing their weapons—though they used laser pointers to test their precision, instead of blanks or other hazardous ammunition for now—all to attempt to locate any issues before we left.
There were also many crates of preprinted parts for our first batch of firearms. They were a downgraded version of my Carth boarding rifle. It would have worse ergonomics but it would still be light weight, durable, and cheap to manufacture. Despite its trade-offs I'd still call it a Class IV weapon thanks to its recoil suppression mechanism and resilient IFF chip that hardwired into the gun making it incredibly difficult to trick.
I was hoping to have 2500 of these weapons in no more than 2 months. They have been given the designation, "Runethari C-01 Boarding Carbine" and delivered to the military council representative at Garnet station for testing. Mother even managed to make most of its parts—besides the IFF chip and recoil mechanism—standard with many other more common Class III firearms we knew of making it a breeze to repair.
I should try and reach out to my new allies to see if they'd be willing to test these out as well. I do have a few already manufactured so it would be nice to hear what they have to report before we begin hunting the prince's leader.
'Eh that's for later. Regardless I should alert the thrall that I will be gone for a week before I forget and cause her to panic.'