Starship Engineer

During the next few weeks, Edmund kept a close eye on Desdemona as the expedition prepared. He monitored her actions and did not interfere. She remained on task, mostly focused on crewing her three Fateweavers: Excalibur, Indomitable, and Valkyrie. The captain of the Valkyrie was assigned by me, a human captain by the name Nora Planter. The two Leopard-class ships were captained by Garrison Saku and Fiona Agave. Both had served on the Void Phoenix.

Fiona Agave was an interesting person. She had been studying engineering in college and then started a singing career. Suruchi had hired her as entertainment when we were a passenger liner. When we started to be pursued and stopped carrying passengers, she worked on her engineering certs and quickly became a valuable crew member.

She served on the Fateweaver as my bridge engineer officer but had worked hard on her command certifications. She was not in the pool of candidates for being a captain of one of the new Fateweavers but had asked me for a command. After fifteen years with me, I offered her either a Leopard-class command or command of one of the defense cruisers when a captain was promoted to a Fateweaver. It was not favoritism as she was highly qualified, and her combat sims were good—just not good enough for one of our Fateweavers.

She would spend a long time on this assignment under Desdemona's command. She was okay with it. The Leopard-class ships were stealth-oriented, with a single shuttle team for missions. Desdemona helped select her command crew, and Edmund assigned the Intelligence Team and marines.

We did not have enough bodies to go around, and Desdemona wanted her crews to be at 120% capacity for such a long mission. I did not disagree with her request and even extended the extra crew to her support ships. The support ships were just supply ships with minimal weapons and advanced subspace drives. They did not have the sensors but did have the subspace beacon so the fleet admiral would know their position.

It took four months for Desdemona to get her ships ready and crew settled. She had been hard on all her captains in VR training and ran two live exercises in the system as well. My daily reports said that Desdemona focused on preparing and taking many of our stockpiles, maxing out her Fateweavers and transports. I do not know if I made an error in pushing her away. I was just not good at reading people, but Edmund assured me I was doing the right thing. Her influence would wane in the system, but in her expedition fleet, it would soar.

For their part, the Sylvan sent out dozens of message ships to call in as much support for the operation as possible. I was worried they may just organize an attack on Bradbury and take the technology. When they arrived in a transport ship, we turned over Rae'Ver and Lazerath to the Human Federation. Both individuals would be given a public trial and executed. Sha'Lua, another Sylvan who was living on the planet's penal colony in the poles, was transferred to the Sylvan city ship Ponffir. That and seven Sylvan prisoners that we freed from the quadrupeds.

The Sylvan did not seem to hold their people in high regard, but they did provide useful intelligence. In the four months of preparation, three other city ships had agreed to join the operation. More would join when the message reached them. The reason was centered on the advanced subspace technology. I was now locked into providing it to them if they removed the threat of the quadrupeds.

While Desdemona was preparing her invasion fleet, I was working to strengthen the defenses in the Bradbury system. We added deep space sensor buoys to give us a warning up to a light year from our sun. These were unmanned but required maintenance. Leopard VII was given the task to travel to each of the buoys and do the work. Leopard VII was our training ship. So, the crew would do a twelve-week rotation traveling to each of the forty sensor buoys before returning to Stygian Station and being deployed on their actual ship for missions assigned by Edmund.

The other defensive measure I added was 'continued' training centers for the Slipstream fighter pilots. These were five small asteroid bases dotted around the system. We lacked a steady pool of pilots, so these training stations had stripped-down versions of our heavy fighter. They would be used for pilots who failed to meet Zoe's criteria as 'second-chance' training, giving each pilot a year to improve. Each station had room to support forty-nine pilots continuing their training, hoping they improved enough to pilot one of the full Slipstream fighters. Even if only ten percent advanced from these facilities, it would give us another twenty-five pilots a year. If they still failed to meet the standards after a year, the commander would decide if they washed out or were given another year.

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I hated to admit it, but these training centers were deployed for defensive fodder around strategic assets. The lesser Slipstream fighters were cheaper to produce and had no micro-jump drive. In place, they just have more powerful capacitors for their weapons and slightly longer flight operation time.

The third and final defensive measure I added was missiles capable of delivering four black widow bots to targets. This was an expensive proposition, but if we got them on board a battleship, they could cut into the hull and wreak havoc inside. Possibly even destroying an invading ship. The missile had unique mico-jump capability that should be able to get them inside a capital ship's shields, which usually projected over a kilometer from the hull.

I was back doing a lot of administrative work, but I found time for my children, Nova, Venus, and Luca. My daughters had a form of telepathy with each other. As they matured, it would become stronger, and they would be able to use it on others as well. It took time for me to adjust to them, but we found common ground in the Sword and Sorcery game. In the VR environment, their powers were the norm.

I broke out my old barbarian, which they claimed was unfair due to its level. I didn't care and was glad not to be the one behind this time. The game was played on a system-wide network, and it was popular to play in your sleep. The world was extremely lively, with player avatars running everywhere. Luca had chosen to be a barbarian, like his father. The twin girls had chosen to be thieves. They did not want anything to do with game magic, just to be normal. It made our party extremely unbalanced. We still had a lot of fun playing. Maybe they would be interested in the detective scenarios in ancient London, England, when they got older.

My other children were having a rougher time of it. Celeste did not like being confined to the planet. Thankfully, Neon was enjoying university life. He was Doc's son and had genetic modification, giving him extreme intelligence. He had been the brains at the center of Celeste's troublemaking. Now, he was happy to be at the university where people praised his intelligence daily instead of constantly using him.

Amos was doing well in his studies as a botanist. I do not know why he wanted to study alien flora, but he was doing extremely well. He was even growing some of the seeds I had picked up in my travels on the planet. Celeste was on an island in her general studies courses. She was passing—but only barely.

Dartanion was at the Naval Academy. He also had a discipline problem but more as a Dare Devil and not so much as causing trouble to keep his life interesting. He was going for the command track in pilot's school. I already knew from his VR certs with the Slipstream fighters, he would make it. Being in command of his own wing of fighters would be good for him.

Ezra and Emil, the twin Wren boys we rescued, were also taking well to the Marine Academy. They were even thriving, scoring near the top of their class. They were not leadership material yet, according to Abby.

Two months after Desdemona left with the Sylvan city ships, I received a communication from Edmunds spies. I was doing an inspection of our eighth and newest Fateweaver cruiser, the Nero, named after Gabby's father. Luca, Venus, and Nova were with me. The message was marked urgent, so I played it. The Brotherhood was organizing four human space kingdoms into an alliance to attack Admiral LaRoches's Human Federation. The Brotherhood was finally ready to move against us. They were ready to set all humanity on fire to regain control.

Desdemona had depleted us, but I still needed to respond and help them. The spies indicated that not only were the four kingdoms attacking, but evidence indicated that there were Brotherhood fleets moving in secret to assist. Edmund was right. The network of spies was worth the investment. This early warning may save hundreds of thousands of lives. I called a meeting to discuss our deployment.

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