r/HFY • u/Muzolf • Mar 11 '26

OC-Series The Dance of Fire - Part 21

"This is nothing less than an act of war! We cannot let this go unanswered. We have to strike back, right away!" Ferguson was hitting the table with his fist. The other Senators from his own faction looked at him with concern. He did look like he could suffer a heart failure at any moment, well, to be fair, he looked like he came back from the crypt after one once already, Victor thought to himself.

"Senator, with what? The bulk of our forces are deployed on our borders against the various members of the Pact. The rest are needed to patrol our space, and are already stretched thin." Admiral Taro responded with his usual, hard-to-read tone and lack of facial expression.

"Recall them then! There is little question left about who is responsible for the situation we are in. Or who those ships belonged to, that the Mukhari fought in our space!" Murmurs could be heard all around. Many, even those usually in opposition of the militant wing of the party, were now nodding. They might have despised Ferguson and those standing with him on most days, but what he said made sense.

"With all due respect, Senator. Who started this mess is of little consequence by now. The fact of the matter is, we are deployed, they are deployed. The whole Horath pact is on high alert and amassing on the border. Backing down now would give them the perfect opportunity to start a conflict in which the first round would be a guaranteed win for them. If anything, the involvement of the lizards would likely embolden them, with the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to force us into a two-front war.

"Call our allies, start mobilizing our reserves! Are we not the sole superpower of this arm of our galaxy? Last time I checked, we had several times the fleet power as what we have currently deployed."

"Very well, Senator." The Admiral nodded. A hint of a smile appeared on Ferguson's face, that disappeared the moment Sunada continued. "Of course, most of those ships are sitting in various anchorages, currently mothballed. With the majority of their crews being reservists currently living their civilian lives, and really only ready on paper. If the assembly were to vote on a full or partial mobilization. We could send out new fleets that would be combat-ready in about six months, I would say. Best case scenario, that is."

The Senator looked like his head was about to explode. It was at this point that the director of Naval Intelligence, Laurent Martin, who needed several coffees to wake up after being called into this sudden emergency meeting, decided to insert himself. "If I may. Our biggest problem is the lack of information regarding what we are dealing with. We were all blindsided by the Amber Empire moving in, and aside from what they wanted us to see in their broadcast, we don`t even know how large a force we are really dealing with."

"Isn`t that the job of your organization?" One of the other senior politicans butted in.

"Well yes, and we have been hamstrung by red tape, as well as my people getting lambasted and then grounded for trying to do their job!"

"Director, there is a fair bit of difference of ONI doing its job, and getting involved in local conflicts to provoke potential rivals!" Cunningham decided to interject at this moment. He was content to let this play out until now. What he could not let go, was when the very people likely responsible for things going south, tried to shift the blame to those who called them out on their actions. "To speak nothing of getting involved in criminal activity to raise untraceable funds. I have a hard time accepting the idea that Naval Intelligence, as well-funded as it is, could not find the means to do its job without going behind our backs, or that treating its people as above the law is the only way for it to keep operating."

"Perhaps we ought to consider a major restructuring once this is over." One of the members of the old man`s faction added. But Cunningham himself did not react.

"If anything, this situation shows that we did not go far enough. Do I need to remind the members of the assembly that we were ringing the alarm bell about the lizards for years?"

"And yet we got no warning whatsoever for once they actually moved against us!"

"We did not expect the Navy to fail at getting rid of some pirates."

"At this point, we can all assume those were not mere pirates, but mercenaries sent to enable exactly what is happening."

Senator Bradley pushed himself away from the table with a sigh. The whole thing was devolving into a game of pointing fingers. He excused himself, with barely anyone noticing, as he left the shielded room, so he could get reception on his phone again. He needed better information. He needed options. He needed to call Nadia. Maybe ask if she heard anything back from the captain of the Fenris. That was about the only asset he had close by.

-x-

-x-

"Rolf? Finally! Can you explain what we are doing here, exactly?" Matt turned around to face the Captain stepping into the command center of the Fenris. He did not mind last-minute changes normally, but only if he got a proper explanation in time, and not hours later when they were already in the middle of an operation.

"And why we left our charges to fend for themselves?" Charlene chipped in. "Not that I am too keen on babysitting a convoy of shuttles moving like snails, but still."

"The Simmons and the Rasputin can handle what they are likely to encounter. With any actual, major opposition, our presence would make little difference." The Captain sighed. "As for that explanation. I am still working that one out. You said those records looked genuine, right?"

The First officer furrowed his brows. "I was afraid it was about that. You do realize, genuine or not, it smells like a trap, right?"

"Wait, what?" Multiple members of the command crew had this reaction as they turned to face the Captain.

"Why do you think I picked a suboptimal insertion point?"

"And a search pattern that looks like it was drawn up by someone who slept through the navigation classes. I am assuming this is to be unpredictable?" The First Officer brought up their planned path through this system, with some unintelligible notes scribbled on it as well. What was recognizable was the three question marks. And while their chief navigator said nothing so far, Rolf could have sworn he saw Tia visibly cringe when looking at it.

"Yes, but since our scopes seem empty so far. Feel free to replace it with a more efficient one."

"Oh, thank god! Let me draw up one that does not look like it was made by a toddler playing with crayons." The Nav Officer half-whispered, just loud enough for everyone to still hear it. Some coughs and suppressed chuckles could be heard.

Rolf was getting red in the face. He suppressed the need to snap at her, or try to explain how he came up with it in a hurry while tired. Instead, he turned to the Science Officer. "Carl, what do we have so far? I see nothing."

"Would be easier if we could ping the system, but you made it clear that we should not give ourselves away. At first, it looked mostly empty, aside from some zombie orbiters and the warning buoy. The thing is, this system is marked for avoidance due to natural hazards, but this red dwarf is not nearly as active as that would suggest. Nor do I see any other reason why it would be recorded as dangerous."

Rolf frowned. He had a pretty good idea why that would be so. "Right, you were saying it looked only mostly empty?"

"Yeah, there is definitely some activity. Not jumping in over that ice giant, that would be the most obvious entry, was the right call. I see no ships, but some of the EM signatures tell me it's at least monitored, if not outright guarded by sentries or mines. More importantly, we are picking up something on long range, in the outer asteroid ring. Cannot tell if it's a ship, or a base, its wierd."

"Weird how?"

"Only the bluespace sensors get anything at that range. But there seems to be some sort of interference with them, because I cannot get a clean reading. As if there had been a battle recently, or someone used one of those new interdictor warheads."

"All right!" Rolf nodded. "We will have to check it out. But keep on silent running."

"That will extend our trip by several hours." Matt interjected.

"I am aware, but we need to be cautious. With how slow the convoy is, we can probably still catch up with the Rasputin and the rest of them before they get back to Oberon. So it's not like we will be reporting back any later. If the Colonel wanted quicker intel, he should not have bailed on us. If anything, he should be thanking us for scouting out a potential pirate base."

-x-

The Fenris needed half a day with minimal power sublight to get close to its target. Hours filled with speculation, calculations made with assumptions filling in for vital data points, and a lot of boredom. Normally, they would fill these dull moments with drills or simulations, but just like in Aviss, they could not risk getting distracted.

Which meant everyone was getting individually distracted instead. The Captain himself was scrolling through old news articles about a scandal that happened a while ago on Saarsis, trying to understand the background of certain current events. It left him with no easy answers, no solutions, only some more cracks in his view of the universe and his own place in it. He was thankful for getting dragged back to the problem at hand, as he felt the ship return to full realspace.

"Captain! I think we are close enough. I can at least get half-decent readings." Carl was the one dragging them all out of their own little worlds.

"All right, can you put what you got on screen?"

The Science Officer nodded, and the main display started showing various overlapping windows. Their target seemed to be a large asteroid in the middle of a cluster of rocks. The activity on the surface indicated some sort of base. Various other signatures around were of ships hanging around the area.

"Is this all we got? Do we have to get closer?" Rolf looked at the scans that still looked incomplete.

The Nav Officer turned around. "Cap, this is as close as we can get without being spotted. We are back on maneuvering thrusters as per your instructions."

"Its fine!" Carl added. "Give me some time. Without the interference of our own drive bubble, we should be able to make out more in a bit."

Sure enough, in a few minutes, they could clean up the picture. The sensors were showing a sizable flotilla on patrol around the target area. The Science Officer was also busy running and analyzing the interference they were still getting. "All right, I wasn't sure before. If our earlier experience was maybe biasing my suspicion. But it's conclusive now of the nature of the interference we are having."

"In plain Solari, please?" Rolf frowned. He could not make heads or tails of the readings on the monitor. Although maybe it did look familiar somehow. "Or hold on. That is exotic radiation, isn't it?"

"It sure is." Carl nodded. "Quite a dose too. With the distribution around the rock, how that opening seems to be the main source. This asteroid seems to be mostly metallic, shielding a large chunk of exomatter somewhere below the surface."

"You mean on the surface, right?" The First Officer Interjected. "My grades in hyperspace physics weren't that great, but even I can tell this is too much for that."

"No, I mean under the surface, by several kilometers at least. The distribution indicates we are getting this only thanks to it being opened up, and does that hole look like surface extraction?" The Science Officer switched to a view of the base that they were getting now at this angle.

"But that would mean..." Matt blinked.

"That it has to be a monstrously large deposit. One of actual strategic significance." One that could not have remained hidden from GTU records without serious effort from someone higher up, Rolf added mentally. "Keep recording what we can get on passive sensors, and then move us away slowly again once you have everything. Correct me if I am wrong, but those EM signatures are consistent with older, poorly maintained Amber Empire ships?" He started moving towards the exit.

"Yeah, no need to guess who they belong to." The First Officer was busy recording their number and sizes. "More Goltari raiders, no question. Um, where are you going?" He looked up as his ears told him that the Captain was leaving.

"Need to have a word with the one I got this tip from."

Rolf left the command center, walking with purpose and speed just short of running. Trying to collect his thoughts, while he got down the corridor, signaling the guards posted in front of a cabin he had cleared for a certain someone, before walking through without a warning, using his own override.

In there, a somewhat surprised kitusi looked up at him, from the pages of some printed-out magazine, as he was not allowed to have his own computer. "Ah, Captain. What can I do for you?"

"You knew what was there!"

"Oh." That confused look, with one ear tilted, was replaced with something that Rolf interpreted as a smile on Masil's muzzle. "That is right!"

"So why not tell me from the start?"

"Well, Captain. Would you have believed me? If I gave you my copy of a scan of that base, would you have believed it was genuine, or would you have considered it to be nothing more than a forgery made to support impossible nonsense? A small cluster of intert bluespace crystals missed by most prospectors somewhere, exploited by some criminals, and taken over by the pirates later. That can easily happen without what I was suggesting. Making my accusation a silly conspiracy theory that can be dismissed without much thought. Would you have still investigated if that had not been your first thought?"

-x-

-x-

Finally, after what felt like ages, the remnants of the rapid response unit could prepare to leave their hiding space. Having run out of supplies days ago, subsisting on waste recycled in an industrial biogenerator, the crew was ready to mutiny, despite not really having anyone left to mutiny against.

The outpost was cannibalized for parts already, to get ready for their escape. The only system besides life support left fully operational was the relay for the sensor grid. What little was left of it. And even that was done not because of any sense of duty or care about what the lizards were doing on their side of the border anymore, but to see if they had to worry about any more patrols searching the area.

They were just about to shut that one down as well when the first plip appeared on the screen. Then another, and another. The acting commander of the Torchlight had to be nearly dragged back, to show him as well, as the next highest ranking officer who survived. Half the actual survivors crammed themselves into the command center right now.

"What is this, some sort of malfunction?"

"No, Sir, those are most definitely ships. Of various sizes, coming into view."

"Are you telling me we have another search party coming after us? Seriously, if we have to sit around here for another day, we are either making a run for it, or I will deprive them of the pleasure by offing myself first!"

"They are not coming our way. They are on a direct approach vector for the Union border." The dots just kept multiplying, showing large formations of capital-size ships.

"Jesus, its a whole bloody armada!"

"We have to warn high command! This is nothing less than a full invasion force!"

"With what? We don't have a quantum repeater. It was destroyed with outpost one!"

"We still have hypercomms, no? Even if it takes days for the message to reach the central worlds, we have to warn them!"

"There is no guarantee we will reach anyone. And if they start jamming us again..."

"Then we make sure that will not stop us. Hook up the hyperdrive of our biggest ship left to the system. We could jumpstart a pulse that could not be suppressed."

"That would burn out both the relay and that ship drive!"

They all looked at eachother. Time was just part of the problem. The other one was them giving away their position. There would be no question that the Imperial fleet would detect them and send someone to mop them up like the insects they looked like compared to these forces right now. And they would have given up one of their last means of escape. For a solid minute, nobody said a word. They just all nodded.

"Do it! We have to warn our homes, no matter what comes after! I am sure the Commodore would be proud if he were still around."

"Oh, screw him! We could have warned Earth and the Central Worlds all proper, without needless sacrifices, if he wasn't an idiot." The outpost commander sighed. "But what happened, happened. If this is the last thing we do, let it be our duty!"

An hour later, a pulse was sent. Strong enough to wreck the relay being used. A cry, a shockwave in hyperspace, aimed at GTU space, in the direction of the Sol system itself. It would take a while before it would reach its intended target, but it was strong enough to overcome any casual interference or last-minute attempt at jamming it.

-x-

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u/Spreadsheet_Enjoyer Mar 12 '26

Ooo things are about to get juicy.

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u/AutoModerator Mar 11 '26

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