Starship Engineer

Chapter 142

The Squirrel had been continuing the subspace research during the voyage and in the Bradbury on the asteroid colonies for months. They had been working on weapons as well as improving subspace travel. I had not followed the research as closely as I should have. When my battleship emerged from subspace, the Squirrel communicated and transferred all their theoretical weapons research to the colonies. The Squirrel scientists figured turning a shuttle into a high-speed projectile was the quickest weapon to produce. The shuttle would skip through subspace and emerge at incredible speed. The systems would be fried, and the pilots would be killed instantly.

The only way this would work was with the advanced alien sensors to target the enemy ships. Even though they had made substantial progress in replicating the alien sensors, they still did not have a working model. They needed the sensors on the Void Phoenix to transmit the scanning data to locate the enemy ships. I worked feverishly with Elvis and Elias to try and recalibrate the sensors. They had been knocked out of alignment. I had doubts if it would work, and every modified shuttle we sent would be the death of two Squirrel. They were willing and almost eager to sacrifice themselves after months of torment at the hands of the Brotherhood fleet.

We tested the first shuttle hours later as the enemy approached close to range. The shuttle missed its target by a few dozen kilometers. But the death of the crew was not in vain, as it allowed us to correct the error. The next shuttle took out a frigate. Then we targeted the battleship. The battleship somehow survived the impact, so we switched to the smaller combat vessels, taking them out one at a time. Twenty-seven shuttles and twenty-four hits….costing fifty-four brave Squirrel their lives. A trade they were willing to give. After we cycled through all the ships, we hit the battleship a second time. Then I asked for their surrender. We had five shuttles remaining, and I did not want to waste any more lives.

There were a number of Brotherhood support ships we had not attacked at all. The battleship had taken a beating but was still in fighting condition. They had even managed to get their primary reactor online again. Rae’Ver came on the screen with a blank face. He asked to meet me in person so that he could surrender to a worthy foe. A foe he admired and would even kneel to.

His capitulation was over the top for a Sylvan, and it made me cautious. It was like he was eager to meet me. I agreed to his terms. I just planned for out face to face meeting to be well after we had secured his ships, and he was securely in prison and searched for any possible hidden devices to kill me. Maybe months down the line.

I ordered my two tankers to dump their fuel into the battleship and then travel to Silverstream station to get the Caladrius and resupply. The Void Phoenix was limping toward the nearest asteroid colony. The alien sensors were going to be removed and installed in haste. The Squirrel were already designing self-guided missiles to do what the required shuttles did for us a few hours earlier. Once this weapon was completed, this would be the safest system in the galaxy.

The cleanup was not as smooth as we had hoped. One of the Brotherhood medium transports attempted to run three days later before the crews surrendered the vessel. We destroyed it with another shuttle. It took convincing the Brotherhood crews that we would let them live. Numerous islands could serve as a decent penal colony on the planet. The Squirrel had a theory to realign the planet with multiple satellites, but that was way down our current priority list. We just wanted to secure the prisoners and the remaining Brotherhood ships.

We ended with five hundred and ninety-seven men and women and two space elves, Rae’Ver and Sha’lua. I had not seen Sha’Lua since I purchased the Void Phoenix at Silverstream station. Abby spent time getting temporary life support, and an asteroid set up with the Squirrel, and we put all the prisoners there. We had not been prepared to feed so many, and the salvage operations on the Brotherhood ships was focused on food. I kept putting off my meeting with Rae’Ver.

The Squirrel started hauling the damaged ships to the asteroid furnaces. We were desperate for material to build. During the Brotherhood’s occupation of the system, the Squirrel had been on the brink of breaking. Food, power, life support…all had been strained. Now that their colonies were back in normal space, they were rushing to resupply their needs.

I looked at the reports. When Zoe returned, she was going to be happy to find we now had twenty-seven Warpath Intercepters. I had lost both my Brotherhood assault shuttles in the combat. But I now had dozens of new Brotherhood shuttles to choose from of various configurations. The Void Phoenix had been pulled into dry dock and stripped. The Squirrel were going to rebuild her from the frame out, but I told them not to bother, we had too much to do to bring her back to life. She was not melted down. Instead, she landed on an asteroid and secured for a future remodel once the system was secure. The ship had a mythos around it for the Squirrel.

My new ship was one of Brotherhood medium transports. I had two shuttles on board, my lux shuttle and a Brotherhood assault shuttle. The transport was the nicest of the ships that were still intact. All my possessions were transferred over to it from the Void Phoenix. From the army of engineering bots I once had, only three engineering bots remained. I was also on board by myself, my ship stationed off the largest Squirrel asteroid.

The rest of my crew was focused on completing the battleship conversion into a space station. The Squirrel were helping install the subspace phasing devices on the Union converted battleship to a space station destined for orbit over the planet. The Brotherhood battleship would eventually meet the same fate, except it would serve as a military orbiting station over the planet, while my Union battleship would be for civilians. Kara Briggs and my brother, Silas, were working together on the project. I think they were intimate, and I thought Kara could do better than my rough-neck brother.

It was forty-three days before the Caladrius returned with the transports ladened with fuel. Celeste actually cried when we were reunited as she had figured out I was probably dead. Eve gave me a jarring hug as well. Danielle, my wife, gave me a different kind of hug. It felt like things were working out. Then I had to face Gabby. Her father, Nero, had been killed. Luna’s brother, Finn had also been killed. I tried to say I was sorry to them but instead just had to hold them, and we shed tears as a trio. This strong emotion of grief was something new for me. It was as if a part of me was now missing. When Shinade had been killed, I felt more anger and guilt than grief.

Nero had been with me from the beginning. He had been the life support engineer to start and eventually ran engineering on the Void Phoenix. We had gotten close over the years, and I would have trusted him with my life. We recovered his body and had a service for him. After the service, I was sure Gabby would dissociate herself from me and go her own way. Instead, she insisted on being close to me and my family. Eve informed me that I was the only family she had left, making it much clearer. That was what my crew was to me as well, family.

As the weeks passed, the Squirrel sent out ships to find others of their race. They had spread in this region of space as traders, so they hoped they could find small enclaves to bolster their small population. Their homeworld had been devastated, and the system, briefly saved by the Brotherhood fleet, was now overrun with invaders. The Brotherhood had given the Squirrel time to send thousands more of their race into exile. They just needed to find their way here.

Once I got comfortable on my new ship with my family, I joined the Squirrel cruiser project, dubbed Aegis Lance. They were building a shipyard inside the largest asteroid to produce cruisers. The prototype was maybe six or seven years out if they could obtain the materials for the construction. The cruiser was going to utilize all the technology I had gifted the Squirrel and more.

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It had been eight months since we had defeated the Brotherhood. Large satellites orbited the planet, making an icosahedron network. The moment of truth was upon us. The two space stations were helping with the next step, powering a number of the satellites. The network was powered, and the emitters on the satellites synched. Just like turning on a light switch, the planet below suddenly had a large number of cities and thousands of aliens. The brilliant Squirrel had corrected the phase differential and brought the people out of the shadow subspace. Now it was time to get my people settled on the planet. Suruchi to negotiate with the various alien species on the planet.

I also felt it was about time to make good on my word to meet Rae-Ver face-to-face.

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As the Caldrius left Silverstream station with the alien support tankers, Desdemona watched them on scanners disappear. Lazarus was seated next to her. He asked why they did not attempt to capture the Caladrius, and he knew the ship currently belonged to Deven Wellspring. It had been his pride and joy, and when he saw it docked at the station, he was eager to reclaim it. Samantha had stolen the ship and fled to the embrace of Deven. Lazarus had at least gotten revenge on that bitch. She was either broken or dead by now.

As he voiced his objections for the fifth time, Desdemona used her will to suppress him. Somehow the Sylvan mind power had rubbed off on Desdemona, and Lazarus was irritated at being second in command. Truthfully he was not in charge of anything.

Desdemona had been cautious and installed two tracking devices on the alien transports. She did not put a tracker on the Caladrius because she worried it would have been too obvious. Instead, she had meticulously traced the interactions of the Caladrius crew and knew the two were linked. She patiently explained they would track the shuttles once the cruiser she had purchased was refurbished.