Existential Threat: Chapter 5 Part 4 of 4 (Patreon)

She interlaced her fingers and rested her arms on the table. “The Federation is in a vulnerable position right now, largely isolated from the other factions. Their policies and positioning makes it hard for them to take a step back. I can see the Independents are training ground forces, that the Coalition is doing the same. Ships are spending more time at shipyards. They have bots and they’re adapting what they have to use them. Ground and space force.” She held up a hand. “I don’t care either way, though it puts you in the unenviable position of being their primary target. They have fleets and people to fight them. Among all of this they must have their own factories at this point. Locked or unlocked.” She took in a breath.

“Wars don’t start with a bang, they start with a sudden lurch, like getting kicked off a cliff into the water. Your brain has no time to understand what’s going on, and then you’re in over your head and you’re trying to claw your way out.” She looked at them both. “I hope you’re ready for what might come if the Federation goes to war. With governments, like children or those in arguments, declarations can be made that they are unable, or unwilling to back down from to save face.”

Brad looked at Stuart who bobbed his head.

“If the Federation comes looking for a fight, we’ll give them one. Though we will not stop at half measures, we’ll make sure that the Federation will never be able to fight us again. We’re done with half measures,” Brad said.

Wei Li measured him with her eyes. “They say it is a terrible thing when a peacemaker goes to war.”

His screen went off with a special alarm, he grabbed it and played the message before the first shrill had ended.

“Report.”

“One of our Freighters was stolen, requesting an emergency meeting with you, Stuart, Adeline and Minnie,” Dana said.

Brad scanned those in the room. “Agreed, sending you an invitation.” He closed the chat and sent out the invites. “Someone just stole one of our freighters, the Iron Admiral is joining us,” Brad said to the question he felt in Stuart’s eyes as he worked.

Dana’s avatar materialized at the end of the table.

“Administrators,” She bowed her head to them and looked at the legal counsel.

“Anything you say is under client-lawyer confidentiality,” Wei Li waved.

Dana quirked an eyebrow at Brad and Stuart.

“Go on,” Brad said as Adeline appeared off to the side, she wore a freighter crew-member’s coveralls, her brown hair short and rolled up into a bun, she didn’t wear jewlery, there was a natural strength to her features, only light makeup of a woman that cared more about getting the job done than what she looked like.

Brad nodded to her, they’d become close friends working together and with their children already friends it made things easier.

She gave him a short nod and watched the screen Dana threw information on.

“Large freighter Lima-nineteen was stolen from us just a few minutes.” A freighter passed through a wormhole before disappearing, changing to the video of someone working on their screen connected to a hypernet node. “Someone from Set Shipping Solutions hacked the hypernet node, blocked us and jumped the signal hijacking the ship from us.”

The man disconnected from the hypernet node, looked around and left.

“Wait,” Adeline frowned. “Back that up to when he looks over.”

Dana backed it up and watched Adeline who stepped forward till she was right up against the wall-screen. She didn’t even notice Minnie’s diminutive and cartoonified avatar appear, wearing a mechanic outfit with oversized coveralls and googgles holding back wild hair.

Adeline moved the video back and forth, studying the man’s coveralls, she stopped, taking in a breath, looking at the floor and letting it out.

“I’m pretty sure that’s Victor Ramirez.”

“Why do I know that name?” Wei Li said.

“He is the only survivor from the Rukian Co-op attack. We didn’t even know if he was alive.” Adeline studied the frozen image and moved off to the side as it started looping again.

“Are you sure?” Dana asked.

“Pretty, he’s scrubbed off the markings on his coveralls, but the markings are still there if you look for them, he left a few of them on. He is also wearing the same chain, not many spacers wear chains. He’s cut his hair.

“What was on the freighter?” Brad asked.

“It’s just scrap,” Adeline said. “No components or finished gear.”

Minnie let out a hiss of a breath, Dana’s face tightened.

Scrap vessel, why would anyone want that? They-shit. Brad ran a hand over his head, feeling cold.

“What am I missing?” Li Wei asked.

“Scrap is pretty useless for most people, but for those that have a factory, Adeline, what was the breakdown of materials?” Minnie asked.

Adeline opened an interface and threw it out to her.

“Cobalt, Ehyar, Electrium-motherfucker.” Minnie looked up at the screen her expression frozen.

“Electrium?” Charlie asked.

“It is used to make reactors, high grade mining attachments and nuclear weapons, high yield large nuclear missiles, the biggest payload we have.”

“If they have a factory,” Brad looked between his advisors.

“Depends if they have one when we sent out the flash update to wipe all blueprints from them or not. I’m betting they do if they’re jacking a large freighter worth of scrap,” Minnie bit her lower lip.

“We need to know if Set Shipping Solutions has anything to do with this and we need to track down the freighter, we weren’t able to get a clear sensor reading of the wormhole they went through to star-chart it,” Dana said.

“We need to tell the Federation,” Wei Li muttered.

“Hrmm?” Brad turned back to her.

“Get out ahead of this, push out that someone with a grievance with the Federation is stealing our gear. Bring up the attack on the Rukian station again, push how people are rising up against them and they’re attacking others in the crosshairs. It will also work to discredit any actions they make of unity.”

“Do it,” Stuart said.

“That’s not out biggest issue,” Dana gathered their attention and gestured at the looping video. “This was taken over four months ago. He’s been planning this for four months. It is very visible. I think that he already has a plan in place and he’s got to a point that he doesn’t mind the extra attention.”

“The Rukian Co-op was a family co-op they came from the Kapteyn system, we can reach out with our contacts,” Olivia looked up from her screen.

“Coordinate with Fin, he’s got a good head for figuring out the complicated stuff. I think we make the announcement we are going to host all OBE people within our borders. Anything else?” Brad looked around the room.

“Ships without a hypernet node should only travel in systems where they are connected with one of our hypernet nodes. Clearly other nets can be corrupted,” Dana said.

Brad nodded, realizing that the sleepiness from before had evaporated, the bone deep fatigue was there, but it’d have to wait.

***

Victor Ramirez held the brace straight with his magnetized hand, his boots planted firmly to the hull as the repair tool flickered blue lights as he dragged it over the base of the system, finishing of connected it to the ship.

He checked his work.

“Yori, just finished up mount two, how it looking on your side?”

“Just running the test Commander.”

He sighed, he’d tried to dissuade them from using the moniker, but it had stuck.

Four grueling months, he’d slept little and eaten less.

“Everything is showing green, looks all good from here. Am I good to test movement?”

Ramirez clomped back from the worksite. He deactivated his boots and pushed off, using the bot’s jets to jump down the ship’s hull. He magnetized again, turning back to face the railgun he’d installed.

“Alright I’m clear.”

The hull rumbled under his feet as the turret aimed all the way up and down, then spun its full rotation.

“Bearings are all goo-I got a wormhole emergence!”

Ramirez looked up past the railgun and the destroyer that hung in the darkness, flashes of blue light from repair tools adding weapon systems stopping.

“Anyone looking for a missing Freighter?” A man’s voice filled the general channel. Cheers and yells rose up to cut off all sense of real communication.

Ramirez turned his eyes on the distant sun and keyed his channel to Yori.

“Get the updated routes, three hours we take the fight to the Federation. This time they’ll pay the butchers bill for their actions.”

“Yes Commander!”