There was still damage in the system from the NMX attack, and still hulks floating in orbit. But Grunder was in charge of this system now, and he was doing things his own way. Many of his ships hid in ambush points in close orbit around the asteroid belts. Others of his ships trawled through the space wreckage, sifting through the destroyed elysian and NMX ships for salvageable components. On the ground efforts were underway to reconstruct the valuable environment, and a single city stood, where many of the captured survivors of the colony were being retrained into NMX Slaves. There the wheat were separated from the chaff, and the wheat became higher 'ranking' pets for Grunder's preferred officers. Grunder was expecting an attack, not SOON, but with the recent attack on the Minyas system it was likely inevitable. He wondered what faction would be the first to try to dethrone him, and what route they would take in an attempt to do so. He stroked one of his pets lovingly as he pondered, watching the reconstruction efforts of the colony that now belonged to him.
--
The loss of the Wasp at Minyas had set back the 4th fleet’s timetable considerably, forcing them to wait nearly two weeks for their combat unit to receive its replacement ship, the NSS Hornet. It would fill the role the wasp had completely, being run entirely by remote with a few junker drones on the bridge to facilitate operations. The C3E class cruiser was backed up by two of the older C2s, the NSS Odessa and NSS Primorsky, now both veterans of the attack on Minyas. They had left their rally point at Minyas some time ago, followed shortly thereafter by their support group consisting of landing craft and long range bombers.
They would arrive at Anakes, .8 AU directly above the third planet with respect to its sun. Powerful FTL sensors would begin scanning the star system, picking out objects as far away as the outer planets with ease. Though they would sweep across the system they would only really pick up ships that were moving around, or had their reactors running. Simple subspace waves were unable to pick out the debris from the other ships.
Just like before, the 4th fleet would make a perfect defold, their systems being carefully monitored by Drei. Upon arrival the ships would remain in a triangle formation with the Hornet closest to the planet and the rest further away. The Hornet would immediately begin combat operations, bulky interdiction mines being shot out from the hull while a massive swarm of combat drones detached from the forward section of the hull to create an expanding defensive donut around the Hornet.
The Hornet would then transmit a message.
“GREETINGS!” The accompanying video would include a single large glowing red ball, part of a junker drone which would retreat from the screen just enough to show an image of a carved pumpkin that someone had painted on the front of the drone. “WOULD YOU PLEASE SURRENDER?”
--
Grunder sighed, broken out of his revelry by the important message. He turned on the viewscrene, his Neko, tessa, on his back. Since he was luxuriating Tessa was the only one currently visible in the screen, and she was quite agitated from the message. Her luxuriant purple hair was standing up like that of a pissed cat, and she was hissing in the back of her throat, ears pressed close against her head. She was wearing a onepiece body outfit that served as a fairly simple armor, and had a rather obvious opening in the bottom. She hissed and spat into the microphone "Go away!" She shouted "You nasty nasty people! Leave us alone! Or I'll go onboard your ship and rip your spleens out through your nose!"
"Impressive threat" a luxurant woman's voice spoke, and James vaulted onto Grunder's back, pushing the neko off. James was wearing some sort of refitted outfit based off of samurai armour, several metal plates running parallel to each other, and a large hat with a very large crescent attached to the forhead. She also had a giant vouledge in her hand, and her arms and legs were clearly cybernetic, as was one of her eyes. Her other eye was a gentle brown, as was her luxurant hair. "Who are you?" she asked firmly "And by what right do you have to enter our system and demand our surrender? For all I can tell, you might just be a fleet of abnormally well organized pirates. Please provide us with some credentials." While she spoke into the microphone other voices could be heard as Grunder's pets debated what to do next. Grunder waited silently and indulgently, reassuring his pets with gentle strokes of his tentacles, and softly whispering to them that everything would be fine, and not to worry. Kasha was, as usual, the most worried. Grunder heaved a sigh, and started to float upwards, disbalancing James as he rose. James fell flat against his back with well trained skill, grabbing ahold of one of the several black belts Grunder wore for this purpose. Grunder's deep voice emerged gently "No. I will not surrender" he said "But, we could perhaps make a deal, or come to an arrangement. There have been many deaths already, why should we cause more unnecessarily? But I warn you, if you do not acept my request for negotiations, I will exterminate you ruthlessly and without remorse."
--
“…I HAVE NO SPLEENS FOR YOU.” The pumpkin faced drone responded apologetically, its glowing red eye looking into the monitor for a few moments before looking up, then off to the side, then disappearing off the corner of the screen.
The image would flicker for a second, and be replaced by a new transmission showing a young looking, slightly pale, woman with brown eyes, black hair, and a muted grey uniform. “Your ships are not to maneuver while conducting this negotiation, are we clear?” She asked as confidently.
--
"You will cease laying those disgusting Interdiction mines into civilian traffic paths." Grunder responded, calmly "And I will order my ships to hold position. Later, at the end of the negotiations, I will hope you will clean up the ones you have already laid down. However I will not require you to clean the already placed ones, just stop dropping them."
--
“Acceptable,” She would reply, “I will send a shuttle over to your ship in 10 minutes.”
The NSS Odessa would be a flurry of activity for the next few moments.
‘Launch Crew: Preparing shuttle…’
‘Communications: Signaling support group to wait at rally point…’
‘manufacturing section: preparing negotiator equipment…’
The support group trailing behind the attack ships would defold prematurely, waiting in deep space for the signal to resume operations while one of the flight decks of the Odessa was cleared of fighters so one of its shuttle craft could be brought up. The 4th fleet had a plan for dealing with the NMX, and trying negotiations were a part of that plan.
--
Grunder motioned quietly to his pets, and they all grabbed ahold "I will send an unarmed craft I captured. I will be onboard that craft. You may or may not be familiar with it, it's a pleasure Yact." He switched channels and broadcast to his fleet to maintain position on low energy mode, for now. To hide, basically, and turn off their engines and shields, to only turn them back on in a small set of conditions. Then he made the way through his flagship, pets in tow, towards the small pleasure yacht he had captured. "Prepare to launch" he ordered. "Prepared" "Launch"
The unarmed craft felt delicate around him, and he was uncertain and nervious. This woman seemed loud, and confrontational, and he was not certain that he would be provided with a fully fair negotiation. Zetsu and Kasha, sensing his distress, both gave him gentle kisses. He petted them gently with his tentacles, relaxing. Then he indulgantly asked his pets "Are you girls ready to show off?" "Yes master!" They responded "Good... do your best, let's impress them" he said with a small twitch of his egging tentacle. He loved his pets.
--
15 minutes later…
The T2 shuttle launched by the NSS Odessa would arrive at its destination, delicately approaching and latching onto an exterior airlock with numerous small bursts of energy from its maneuvering thrusters. Drei would then open up the door on the bottom of the shuttle which was pressed against the airlock of the Yacht, an airtight seal formed by the shuttle’s extensions on the underside keeping the area from depressing as she floated towards her entrance. She would be wearing a standard nepleslian navy uniform, button down blue shirt, blue pants, and no hat, with a blue backpack behind her, its straps crossing over her chest.
--
Grunder stood in the dock, waiting, attended by James the Nepleslian, Kasha, and Tessa. The others were off getting things prepared. Kasha was wearing a very loose silk outfit that was anchored to a golden collar, and a set of golden cuffs. Over her eyes was a black silk blindfold. Her hair was jet black, and she had wrapped herself gently in her luxuriant wings. The other two have already been described James and Kasha both scowled at Drei, looking rather aggressive. Grunder offered a tentacle to shake "Some of my pets are preparing a meal and entertainment for the negations" he said in his remarkably warm voice "May I welcome you abroad the Prodigal Sun?" he asked in a very polite and gentlemanly way.
The luxury vessel was quite luxuriously appointed, it's insides were stark and white, but paintings and rich fabrics hung across the walls. A lush carpet covered the floor "Feel free to remove your boots. I'm told it's more comfortable"
--
“You may,” Drei responded, politely shaking his tentacle with her own hand. Her eyes would quickly dart over the other humanoids in the room, the nepleslian, the blindfolded girl, both seemed happy… which would have to be thought about later. She would kneel down and begin unfastening her boots. “Do you know why we are here?” she asked, quickly getting right to her objectives.
--
"Yes" he says "There's a 90% chance you are here to take this system back for yourselves. A five percent chance you are here to simply assassinate me, and a 5% chance that you are going to ask for my slaves but not the system" he says "I'm afraid in straight terms none of the above are acceptable. I fought a hard battle for this system, and it is mine by right. Furthermore I am already making use of it and rebuilding the infrastructure. And I cannot release the slaves. The pets won't want to leave, and the Slaves are not under my control. There's limits to what I can do before the sub-commanders start plotting against me. Still, tit for tat, if you're willing to make a fair deal I could be persuaded to let you achieve some goals. Resources or volunteers to replace the system and/or slaves as a possible example" The three girls got on his back, and were riding him as he lead Drei into the ship. Drei could smell food. Wondrous food... drifting through the air. it smelled like it had been prepared by some sort of master chef.
--
“I appreciate that you are willing to put all of your cards on the table.” Drei said with a smile, setting her boots aside before returning to standing. “I only have three main goals here, only two of which pertain to you. These are ‘mitigating threats to the Nepleslian Empire’ and ‘protecting nepleslian lives’.” She would follow behind the Mishu in front of her, curiously looking at those that were riding on his back. “The first involves the balance of power between the NMX and the Yamatai government, ensuring that neither gets to a position where they can devote their full resources against Nepleslia. Unfortunately this system is one of three that Nepleslia needs to have a claim on in order to deny galactic westerly expansion rights to Yamatai. In a few years who owns this system will very likely determine the nature of the relationship between Nepleslia, Yamatai, and the NMX. Who is actually operating the system is of little consequence for us so long as we have a flag here so to speak.” Drei would sniff the air, food was an odd scent here, as it wasn’t normally something that the NMX provided to their ‘guests’ during negotiations. Things had certainly ended much less favorably last time she had attempted this. “So if you are willing to negotiate terms, I believe we can reach an agreement which is mutually beneficial for both of us.
