New orders

Dustin glanced up when the door to his bunk slid open and a rather timid looking Jaisyl stepped out, followed by a far less concerned looking Yaerwen. It wasn’t entirely unusual - Jaisyl was trying to explore her feelings for the others in the harem, and Dustin had been more than happy to offer up his room to them last night when the princess had rather shyly asked if she they could have some privacy without having to walk all the way back to her quarters. Of course, not everyone was as tactful as he had been; at the women’s entrance, Rye glanced up and grinned. “Have fun last night, princess?”

While the Tho’unn blushed furiously before taking one of the few free seats left around the ready-room table, Dustin returned his attention to the group in front of him. It’d been several days since he’d set Rye, Defia and Bleu on researching and experimenting with the Fractal mass; after the first worrying night they’d thankfully returned to a more measured approach to their work and were all now present along with the others.

This particular morning he’d asked everyone to gather because they’d received a communication from Earth, an update to their orders that he wanted to run through with all his lovers - and Yril’k - before mentioning it to their guests, given the two spies and the Durathisian agent were all still aboard. As the last two women settled down and grabbed snacks from the assortment Naera had set out for breakfast, he tapped his tablet and brought up a rendering of a planet on the projector in the middle of the table.

“Alright, everyone. We’ve finally had a useful update from back home.” Dustin paused to let the projection and his words get the attention of his lovers and for Meli and Trea’k to finish settling their offspring in the hovering cots. Once everyone was focused, he gestured towards the image gently spinning in front of them. “This is our first chance to try and chip away at the Durathisian hegemony on this part of space. We’ve not got a lot of details yet - I’ll send what I have over to everyone’s tablets in a second so we can review it, but basically the folks living on this planet sided with the Durathisians at first but have rapidly changed their minds… largely once they found out they had to pay a tithe to their new overlords.”

Tapping his tablet, Dustin sent the data (at least what little he’d been given) across to the assembled women. “Take ten, have a look through, then we’ll go over what the plan is as far as Star Command are concerned. There’s more detail in Sola’s database on the world from before the war, but the packet has the most up to date info… such as it is.”

“There’s not a lot of data here, Dusty,” Sammie remarked after the group had gotten a chance to read through everything. “Are we even sure they want to break with the Durathisians? Most of this is just notes on projected changes based on pre-council collapse data on their world.”

Dustin shrugged. “Don’t blame me, blame EarthGov. I’m just as in the dark about all of this as you all are. So… given we’ve been ordered to go and do our best, suggestions, thoughts?”

The assembled women glanced at one another before Meli spoke first. “Based on what we have, arrival in the system should be easy enough; they have a fair amount of out-of-system trade. That said, if there’s any Durathisian presence there when we arrive, Sola will stand out quite badly, husband. Are we prepared to fight if we need to?”

Yril’k answered before Dustin could. “Weapons systems’k are capable if it is a small’k ship, but if we run into’k a fleet, we will’k have issues.” The Vex’ess warrior drummed her fingers on the table before she continued, “I do not’k think it is advisable’k to use the weave’k torpedoes in their system’k. We cannot guarantee’k information security’k with multiple traders’k present.”

Taking a moment to stand and refresh his drink from the automat, Dustin turned back to the table. “So we’re limited to the big gun if they’ve got Fractal-mass equipped ships. But I doubt we’ll run into those - Defia, you said you think the production rate on Fractal material would be limited?”

Red eyes glowed slightly as the rogue Fractal looked up from her tablet. “Statement. That is correct. Based on the samples we have obtained, while they can produce raw mass that can be integrated with concrete to strengthen construction quite easily, I do not believe the same would be true for ship construction. Explanation. The vessels that attacked Sol had self-repairing hulls, which requires mass to maintain a functional awareness of the shape needed to reform. Since no evidence has been given that they had a Fractal intelligence on board to direct the matter, they would need to program the mass to function in this way. This is, we hypothesize based on available data, a significantly slower process than simply just mixing material into concrete or a metal alloy.”

“Which means we’re going to take a leap of faith that they’ll only be deploying it on their main fleets or on specific mission critical craft for the time being. We don’t know how many other production labs they have beyond the one we hit, but Star Command is working on the basis that they don’t have many. So in theory, we should be fine with the regular weaponry; Sola is rather excessively armed for a non-warship.” Dustin sighed as he sank back into his seat, “either way, we should be fine. If we run into a fleet… well, we’ll be able to tell as soon as we drop in, then we turn around and hop out - if they detect us and follow, we hit them with torpedoes as soon as they arrive in whatever dead system we’re running to. If it’s one ship, we can knock it out quickly and make contact with the locals. And if there’s nothing, then we can park up somewhere safe and spend a little more time on diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy shouldn’t be that hard either way,” Emely’s voice emerged from somewhere in her nest. “The locals are pretty friendly in general, or at least they were prior to the collapse of the council. I can’t imagine from the info about how they’ve been treated since that they’d be any less likely to want to talk to us, especially given that they’ve unofficially reached out to Earth for aid.”

Dustin frowned. “Reached out? I didn’t see any mention of that in the data packet?”

An arm emerged from the nest holding a tablet. “Look, it was in one of the collection of message documents towards the end of the batch. Two separate trading groups dropped off messages with Tho’unn intelligence stating they’d been approached about the possibility of shipping datachips into our space. Nothing came of it, but given the situation and the evidence we have, the logical conclusion is that they want to make contact.”

“So we can assume we’ll get a fairly friendly reception as long as we don’t run into the Durathisians.” Rye kicked her feet up onto the table. “Which means ya gotta figure out how to make friends with the locals, Dusty. Did we really need a full meeting for this? Ya know me and Bleu got a lot on at the moment.”

“We do have a lot on, but I can understand why Dustin called us all together. We’ve been busy with Defia and our ongoing work, true, however I assume he’ll probably want my assistance when it comes to going planetside.” Bleu glanced around the table. “You and Emely are out for obvious reasons, Rye. Meli and Trea’k should stay here because of the children. Yril’k will need to remain behind in the event we need to deploy the weapons due to Durathisians showing up unannounced. Defia will be busy continuing her work on the Fractal chambers. That just leaves me, Aricia, Yaerwen, Jaisyl and Naera for Dustin to pick from to accompany him. Of the five of us, medical skills are the most likely to be needed in hostile situations.”

Jaisyl glanced up at the mention of her name, her earlier embarrassment having faded. “Me? Do you think having one of his wives along would be helpful Bleu? I didn’t see anything in the cultural information that suggested they put any real emphasis on matrimony…” she trailed off as she realized several of the assembled gathering were staring at her. “What?”

Naera sighed, and handed the Tho’unn a biscuit. “Jaisyl, while we’re all really glad you’re not being stuck up any more… you are a princess. Sure, on some worlds taking one of us that’s more than just informally together with Dustin has enough impact to make it a consideration… but in this case, we’re trying to make diplomatic ties with a new world. Having a reason to get to talk to the higher ups is useful, and visiting monarchy would certainly work on a lot of planets.”

Dustin nodded. “What Naera said. Based on what we know of the locals, they’re big on ceremonies which royalty are great for, so Jaisyl’s in. Bleu I want on hand in the event that they ask us to do any kind of task that needs medical assistance. And… I think Yaerwen for the third. Naera, you can handle resupply with the traders while we deal with the local situation, if that’s alright?”

The shortstack shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dusty. I mean, I’m happy to do it, but I don’t think we should be trading for food and supplies with people in what is still technically Durathisian space. It opens up way too many risks of contamination; we don’t know who the traders are or their loyalties, or if the enemy have any standing orders regarding Sol ships.”

“That’s a fair point. Alright, in that case we’ll just handle things as quickly as possible then make a break back towards Sol space for our rendezvous to drop off the Durathisian rebel and resupply. Also…” Dustin paused, glancing at Emely’s nest “…I’d like to be in space that is at least nominally controlled by the new council in a month or so, just to be on the safe side. I don’t mind my fourth child being born away from Sol, but I do object to them being born while I’ve got to be on the bridge because we’re actively in combat.”