Chapter 16: A Well-Prepared Ship

January 21^st, 2279

In the physical realm, Basil ordered his largely functional ship to end the comms blackout they had kept until things were somewhat organized. The crew was now allowed to contact their people, but under strict orders to say they were aboard the SFRV Nautilus, which was a real research vessel that had long outlived his usefulness but was still flown around on autopilot by CO, cartographing the inner sectors for the 11^th time for this exact reason. Many of their agents simply said they were scanning rocks, a topic so dull that few people had follow-up questions, apart from geologists – who were forbidden to be contacted under this guise, as they quickly overwhelmed even well-prepared agents with their weirdly specific questions about the composition of said rocks.

It had taken Basil a few hours, but he finally had Ton on a secure line.

The connection went to static, Ton’s many reroutes of the conversation adding one layer of interference each. The scan Ton had sent detailed part of a beam interruptor, specifically where the weapon stored the final charge before releasing it. It had been manhandled and badly cut out of the larger device, but it was still interesting in the sense that it was high-tech – way above the standard the rest of the ship had been. Basil brought in Feterni, who hadn’t even heard about the whole incident, much to Basil’s surprise, but Feterni was known to avoid gossip, even if it concerned actual events, not people. Feterni explained to him that such a part did indeed make sense, as the small reactors of the Type-255 skipper would struggle to both have the engines supplied and keep the weapons at an acceptable level, so whoever did the modification used the best known capacitor crystal, which was usually only available to the fleet, CO, and a few of the most advanced races who had originally shared this technology, among them the Horons. Feterni was able to rule out the Catanians, his own Horons, the Axxi, the Fellians, and the Sii – simply because they used a slightly tighter crystalline structure to improve the lifespan of the part. Which pointed them right back at the fleet and CO. It wasn’t a huge surprise, CO had often used mercenaries for operations they didn’t want to be seen to be involved in, but handing them advanced tech was usually not the case.

There wasn’t really that much Basil could do with the new information, it just confirmed his earlier suspicion that the skipper attack had been part of a series of attempts to prevent the Rubicon from launching, and the fact that deadly force had been used twice after the first warning – and him rejecting the deal – just reinforced how serious it was. The goal of the whole thing was rather murky. Sure, the Rubicon caused friction between RND, the legacy of XD, the oversight committee and the Senate, but that was nothing new, to his knowledge, such things had never escalated into violence. It was clear to him that something had drastically changed, the forces pulling in different directions within the League were now pulling harder, and he’d stumbled into a small part of the web. Basil was now aware that he had to move very carefully, especially when dealing with the brass. He decided to give Petumbio a call. He was again listening to Nufo asteroid rap for a while, now moving his lips to the insulting lyrics he didn’t understand, then Petumbio appeared on screen, having a huge cup of something, likely the liquid food Dorions preferred, originally having been a species that subsisted on consuming large amounts of bacteria, which explained their wide mouths and tongues and happy wives.

- Captain Basil, how’s the shakedown cruise?

- Almost ready to enter service, Sir.

- Glad to hear it. Anything you needed?

- Just wanted to ask you about two things.

- Go ahead, then.

- How did RND react to the fact that we had left hours and hours before they were even close to Kappa?

Petumbio was licking his lips, Basil was unsure if he was savoring the moment or the invisible bacteria left on his lips who had just lost hundreds of billions of comrades.

- Ah, they were deeply disappointed the order came in too late. We scanned half the sector for you when our systems came back online after the power surge. It turns out the damage wasn’t as bad, but as the commanding officer of a station housing one hundred thousand souls, you can’t take any risks.

- Good to hear, Sir.

- They were also less than enthused to see that you had taken half of the remaining XD inventory. Seems like they have no units of some tech to study now.

- A true shame.

- Don’t celebrate before the moons meet, captain. Admiral Vandermeer told me he’d request your ship for some field tests, soon. But then again, he’s the highest-ranking human in the whole League, you might do well to work with him.