Starship Engineer

With the Brotherhood moving, we needed to help our allies. The Human Federation was still young and had just invested a lot of resources in resettling the prisoners we freed from the quadrupeds. I was sitting with my military advisory board, eleven men and women, around the conference table on the Fateweaver that was in dry dock on an asteroid. I asked Edmund for a read on the Brotherhood strategy.

Edmund started with the four space empires that were banding together to attack. He brought up the star map and highlighted them in red. There were about 1800 star systems with just over two hundred habitable planets between them. They had a vast array of resources. The Sappherian Empire was the strongest among the four. The other three were mostly committing support craft and ground forces. It looked like the plan was to take back systems forcefully and occupy the planets with superior ground forces.

The Human Federation has annexed a lot of systems willingly over the last twenty years. Sometimes entire Kingdoms. Now, its size challenged the status quo for the outer rim systems of human space to be weaker than the core governments. Edmund also believed the counter-intelligence we had given the Federation for Brotherhood agents had played a role. The Brotherhood's control was slipping as a number of their agents had been discovered and eliminated.

Admiral LaRoche's Human Federation was focused on Naval Power. They had a weak planetary ground force as they let planets govern themselves and collected taxes to support the fleet to defend the systems. Edmund warned if the enemy landed enough troops on planets, it would be a difficult process to remove them. He brought up the Fraciscon Armored Transport as an example. The massive transport could drop twenty thousand Marines and heavy equipment in less than fifteen minutes and then support them from orbit.

Silas, my brother and our planetary commander of the Marines, noted we were in no position to participate in any type of ground campaign or support the Federation in this manner. With Desdemona leaving, we couldn't even supply enough crew or Marines to our starships. We were two years from saturation at our current training and ship production rate. This was even with the Tirani going through training at capacity. There was a question of upscaling, but the massive training space station was being completed slowly.

Due to current shortages, many ships were operated with just two shifts. We even had an entire fleet detachment with just a single available crew shift. These ships were in standby mode and powered down. I wondered if Desdemona had known about the impending Brotherhood attack. But that thought seemed ridiculous. Edmund would have known if they had contacted her.

I had four captains of the Fateweavers in the meeting. Kenji of the Cloud Jumper noted that our Fateweavers and Slipstream fighters were designed as attack platforms. If we tried to use them to defend planets, then we would be at a huge disadvantage. So much so, that we would take heavy losses. The other Fateweaver captains at the table agreed. So, we would not be sending our ships to defend any star systems.

The conversation switched to attacking the secretive Brotherhood element supporting the attacks. We did not have much information on this new Brotherhood fleet or its capabilities. Edmund just knew it existed and would work from deep space to make sure the Human Federation was toppled. That meant eliminating Admiral LaRoche's Naval power.

Edmond brought up the maps of the Human Federation, and they had three-star systems of strength. Two were their capital shipyards, where the majority of their cruisers and battleships were manufactured. The third was their smaller ship production of scout ships, screening ships, and supply ships. We all agreed the Brotherhood would strike one of these locations to cripple the Human Federation for a drawn-out war. That was how they thought—in terms of years, not battles.

As a group, we decided to deploy deep space monitoring stations built by Stygian Station. The prefab stations were designed to support the Leopard-class spy ships, but we would position one at each important system. Kenji would command a detactment of our fleet to respond to the Brotherhood fleet when it attacked.

His fleet would be composed of the Fateweavers Nebula Hunter and Aurora Borealis. We would include four Leopard-class ships when they became available. He would also take most of the remaining supply ships to remain close to respond rapidly.

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This would leave me with the Fateweaver in the Bradbury system with an under-crewed Nebula Hunter Fateweaver-class. The Nero was also almost complete, but we did not have any crew for the ship. Once again, our system defense was going to be very thin. It took a month for Kenji to organize his fleet and depart for the first of the deployed deep space stations, twenty days travel from the Bradbury system.

We kept sending out resources to Kenji as they became available to bring him up to strength. The first engagement of the Human Federation and the Sappherian Alliance occurred on the border. Admiral LaRoche lost the engagement but inflicted heavy losses on the invading fleet. News of the battle showed that Samantha had represented herself well.

Admiral LaRoche was not happy we were not coming to assist. He understood our object in this fight was to engage the Brotherhood fleet moving in secret but he was going to lose many star systems since he was so outnumbered. Edmund and I knew if we engaged with our limited resources, the Brotherhood would become aware of our capabilities. The Admiral was on his on to blunt the attack.

Battles raged along the Human Federation and Sappherian Alliance borders for the next two months. The only thing we provided was ship movement intelligence gathered with our Leopard-class spy ships. This was enough to tip the scales in favor of the Human Federation. Edmund and I were growing nervous as the Brotherhood fleet had not appeared yet in the war.

Our production had increased, and the next two Fateweavers were completed, the Nero and Sunheart. Crews were not available for either, and they were sitting in space with only a cadre of Marines on board. They were a small portion of the eventual complement of Marines for these ships but more to protect the valuable assets until a crew graduated.

Four months into the war, the Brotherhood fleet was finally located. The fleet was found in deep space by our sensor stations around the Bradbury system. They were massing and preparing for an assault. The sensor images were fuzzy at the distance but showed a massive fleet, at least thirty battleships and cruisers, and hundreds of smaller ships.

Edmund joked that at least we knew where they were now—on our doorstep.

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Rae'Ver and Lazarus were on a Human Federation transport. Rae'Ver was in an insulated box, and Lazarus was chained and guarded in a regular cell. At least Lazarus did not have to worry about Rae'Ver invading his mind. It had been three weeks in transit, all to be put on display for a public trial and executed. A show of the young Federation's ability to administer justice. Rae'Ver, for his part, was quiet in his unique prison. His own people had disowned him and given him away as a pawn to gain the knowledge he had been fighting for so long. He stewed in his rage.

On the other hand, Lazarus was bemoaning his unfair fate to his guard in an attempt to gain sympathy. He was actually just happy to have someone to talk to and listen to his rants. He was actually looking forward to ending his caged captivity and being executed. He had given up on his life. At least he had a son out there. Maybe his son would make better use of his time in this universe.

The pilot commed the cell's guards, saying they were transitioning into the Corvalus system. Their final destination. The ship's hum of subspace faded, and the lights flashed, signaling transition. They were in normal space. The transport suddenly shuddered. They were under attack at the edge of the system. Neither Rae'Ver nor Lazarus was wearing skin suits. If the ship was hulled, it would be their end.

The ship shook again, and alarms came to life. The guards started to get fidgety as the combat raged out of their sight. The thing with space combat, Lazarus mused to himself, it was a waiting game. Long periods of chase and then short moments of action. It was an hour later when the alarms indicated the ship had boarded. Lazarus was guessing the fucking space elves were rescuing their First Citizen. Rae'Ver was smug and seemed to think so as well.

They were both surprised when human Marines in heavy combat armor burst and eliminated his guards in a quick firefight. The Marine commander quickly scanned Lazarus to confirm his identity. They scanned Rae'Ver as well. The Marines broke Lazarus' restraints and dragged him away. The commander waited on orders regarding Rae'Ver, who they did not expect to be here. After some back and forth, they planted charges on his cage and left with just Lazarus. As their shuttle departed the transport, the charges detonated, killing Rae'Ver's body. He had not stirred during the entire incident.

A few hours later, Lazarus was hauled on a battleship before an Admiral and two men in civilian clothes. One of the civilians spoke, welcoming Lazarus to the Brotherhood battleship, Unhindered. They had some questions about a certain engineer and the Bradbury system.

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