Starship Engineer

When Desdemona's ship, the Excalibur, returned to the Bradbury system after nearly fifteen months away, she called for an immediate private meeting with me. Entering my captain's briefing room on the Fateweaver, she was a little shocked by the three city ships, and we spent some time discussing why they were here, before getting to her important information.

She was not angry with me for giving away the technology in return for help defending the system. She did have the same view as Edmund and thought the ultimate goal of the Sylvan would be to be the primary political player in the system eventually. She was anxious to tell me what she had learned from the quadrupeds.

What she had learned was much more important to our survival as a species. She put up a three-dimensional model of the Milky Way galaxy. Twenty-three bright pinpoints on the map were flashing in a circular pattern around the center of our galaxy. I studied the map but did not see anything relevant about the positions.

Desdemona was waiting for me to figure it out. My first guess of the points representing some ancient technology left behind by an ancient race had her frowning. That is exactly what those markers were. At least, that is what was supposed to be there were beacons transmitting a message.

About two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the quadruped race traveled to each beacon and sealed them away so they could no longer transmit their message. Desdemona did not know what the message was, but she was certain it was tied to the Malevolents. Shortly after the quadruped sealed the beacons, the Malevolents ravaged the Milky Way Galaxy and exterminated all space-faring races, according to the quadrupeds. The quadrupeds only escaped because one of their ships crashed onto an uninhabitable world and was overlooked.

So the question was, what were the beacons actually transmitting? Was there a way to prevent the Malevolents from entering our galaxy again and wiping out all races with technology? Should we be establishing colonies where all technology is banned that the Malevolents would leave alone?

I invited the First Citizens of the Sylvan city ships to discuss the matter. Only Bel'fer, Pon'Lan, and Gul'Rul came to the meeting as Desdemona revealed her intelligence and her thoughts. The Sylvan were widely traveled in the galaxy and entered the coordinates. All twenty-three locations were in deep space—empty space. They had not explored any of the twenty-three locations on the galactic map.

Desdemona smirked as she revealed her distant scans of the nearest beacon. A very slight gravimetric signature—about the mass of a single planet: the beacon must be massive. Gul'Rul, the curious young First Citizen, asked why the Malevalents didn't reactivate the beacons two hundred and fifty thousand years ago.

A lot of theories were thrown around. The Sylvan gained their freedom then, so maybe the Malevelant planet ship they sent into a sun was supposed to fix the beacons. Maybe the beacons were actually the Malevolent planet ships themselves, and they were sealed and prevented from activating. Desdemona thought maybe they transmitted on many different frequencies, and maybe the Malevolents thought they were still active. She had some proof, as there was a faint echo in the higher subspace bands from the direction of the nearest beacon.

The final outcome of the meeting was to send someone to one of the beacon sites to see what was there. They were all close to the center of the Milky Way. Even with our best drives, that was still almost a two year journey. Gul'Rul immediately volunteered himself and his own city ship, the Falffir.

It was decided that two of the awakened First Citizens who could send messages across any distance would have to go with him. It was the only way we would receive instant knowledge about what was there. This meant the Falffir would need to have the emitters installed to travel in the higher bands of subspace. It would take three months to fabricate the massive emitters, install them, and manufacture enough fuel for the city ship to get there.

The meeting lasted over two days as we made plans for the expedition. The Arcadian Collective would send two Leopard class ships with the expedition that would be docked inside the city ship. Both corvette ships would have extra personnel in the form of six specialists each to help with the beacon when the city ship arrived. These would be scientists, engineers, and xeno-biologists.

We did not keep the mission secret, and the list of civilian volunteers from all the races in the Bradbury system was immense. The Arcadian University suddenly became a very popular place as that was where we would draw the non-military explorers from. A lot of people had an explorer's heart—nearly five thousand people put in applications.

Edmund was brooding about the collaboration with Sylvan during this entire time. He did not trust the space elves, regardless of their contribution to our endeavors. Rae'Ver had also soured me on the Sylvan, but at this point, we needed allies, and the Sylvan were probably the most powerful force in the Milky Way. We were also making them stronger by giving them technology they did not have.

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With the expedition in motion, I needed to decide what to do with Desdemona. She assumed she would be sent back out to finish the work of ending the quadruped threat. The Sylvan city ships and the two Fateweavers, Indomitable and Valkyrie, were still pushing the quadrupeds back. They would achieve complete victory in about another year. One of these reasons for the successful pressing of the attack was the quadrupeds limited themselves in what level of technology they could use.

Desdemona's theory was that if they stayed below a technology threshold, they would avoid being noticed by the Malevolents. Unfortunately, the quadrupeds were not communicative, and all the intelligence she had gathered was from captured ships.

Desdemona's repeated victories over the quadrupeds had relieved the military pressure they applied to many races in this region's space. Reports were trickling back to me that she was seen as a hero, not just by her fleet but by the Alien Alliance and other species she was freeing from the quadruped aggression. She would secure her hero status if I sent her back to finish the job. Edmund had warned me of this.

I talked to Desdemona privately. I asked her what she thought about our losses and subsequent victory over the advanced Brotherhood Fleet and my attempt to ally ourselves with the Godfather organization.

Desdemona seemed to respond with caution—realizing I was testing her. She thought the Brotherhood made a lot of mistakes, and we got lucky in the defense and the arrival of the Sylvan. I pressed and asked her if she thought we should be seeking to ally with the Godfathers over the Brotherhood. She said she believed the Brotherhood would see the threat of Malevolents and take action. But she stuck to her original position that the Brotherhood would try to do it independently and not involve any other races. She thought this path was doomed to failure.

As for seeking allies with the Godfather organization, she did not think they would be of much help. I did not tell her the alliance was to bring down the Brotherhood. She did not think too highly of the Godfather's capabilities. In her time as a Diamond Agent, they were not a problem and were easily dealt with.

I asked Desdemona what she preferred to do. Return to the quadruped war front or remain in the Bradbury system and help continue preparation for the Malevolents? She agreed to return to fight the quadrupeds. Since the Bradbury system was now well-defended, she asked to take another Fateweaver into her fleet. This would not have been a problem, except we still did not have the trained crews.

I told her she could take the Cosmic Discord, but I did not have any Slipstream pilots for the ship and only two shifts of crew. As the Arcadian Alliance moved away from relying heavily on bots, it increased our organic crew requirements. She looked at the Cosmic Discord on her pad and agreed to take it with Navy Academy trainees she could hand-pick. She would keep it out of combat and just use it as a support ship.

I wanted to say no, as Edmund was right. Young, impressionable crew learning on the job would most certainly be loyal to Desdemona after the campaign concluded. I eventually agreed. The city ship Falffir, and the Fateweavers Excalibur and Cosmic Discord left the Bradbury system with four supply transports a few weeks later.

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General Abby Surgovov never wanted to be a commander—or a captain. She was happy just being a drill sergeant for the Union Marines. She never agreed with Union politics, and the war with the Sappherian Empire broke her loyalty to the Union. She was fortunate enough to befriend Deven Wellspring during his time at the Naval Academy. He rescued her from being a POW and took her on the greatest adventure across the stars.

But now he put her in the captain's seat on the Void Phoenix and sent her on a diplomacy mission to the Godfather organization. The journey across the stretch of human-controlled space had not been easy. They had been discovered by Brotherhood Agents three times and taken moderate damage from station grazer emplacements. That had caused a three-week delay as they repaired in deep space and had to fabricate replacement parts.

During the first half of the voyage, Celeste, Deven's spoiled child, had been difficult. She put the entire crew into Marine Training to correct this and assigned Ezra and Emil, the Wren twins, as squad commanders for the younger crew. The two large pantherkin thrived in leadership and got Celeste under control.

The crew had come together after that during the intense journey. She was glad Zoe had been on board. Zoe should have been in command, not her, but that was in the past. Zoe supported her resolutely, and they managed to get through some tough spots.

After taking weeks longer than expected, they had arrived at the water moon, Aplexia, in a remote system. Jackson Jones, the Godfather agent, had been on the planet for six days, talking to leaders of the organization. There was supposedly a plan in place to oust the Brotherhood from human space by assassinating the entire upper leadership in one swoop.

The shuttle was coming up from the moon, and Abby greeted Jackson Jones and the Godfather leaders on board. They had come to a decision. When she arrived in the shuttle bay, Jackson Jones couldn't hide his grin. It was good news. Operation Purge was going to be activated.

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