A
Alex Hart
188604, The Queen's Slave, shortly after Alex's return.
Alex waited impatiently outside the Queen's slave, Uso's personal starship, to meet with his adoptive mother. He had returned to the planet a matter of hours earlier, the recent economic collapse having derailed his plans to search for a long lost friend.
Giving in to his impatience, he used his mindware to send Uso a voice message, telling her to hurry up.
It would take a while, an uncharacteristic lack of movement in Uso's actions as she eventually opened up the outer ramp to let Alex in. The adoptive mother waiting just inside the ship, leaning against the wall.
"Hey,"
... it wasn't exactly the warmest of greetings.
Alex was also acting uncharacteristically. He seemed to be in a rather bad mood. "Uso, what the hell is going on?"
Uso straghtened up a bit, no time to waste being a downer, "I mean, HEY ALEX! How's it going! Haven't seen you around in a while after you up and left." Uso said, making her way down the ramp to put an arm around him and lead him back into the ship, "Pretty much everything is going off all at the same time, I take it you're in some new trouble too?"
Alex responded. "Well, I was in the middle of searching for a old friend from my days in the Psychopomp super solder program. One who seems to be still controlled by them, but then this came up and I had to drop everything."
"Hmm." Uso said, considering what to do next. "I wish I had an easy answer for you this time... lets get up to the main display...."
The pair would make their way to the main room of the Queen's slave, the large display table in the center showing all kinds of information, ships, planets, stock prices... a little bit of everything.
"The Elysians kicked over a hornet's nest, so we've got a group of NMX ships out west... Between the colonies they are smashing out there and the ships from the Elysian's allies attack fleet that are stranded or damaged.... well, there is a lot of work there to do. Locally we're having some economic troubles. Not sure if its really S6's latest IIS purchase or if its SAINT doing SAINT stuff... but either way we're looking some local unrest and Howard Station hasn't really been responding...."
"What Elysians?" Alex asked. "As far as I know, Elysia is a part of Yamatai."
"Well, they got another group of them out here trying to start up their own Elysia," Uso explained, "Same ones who had been interfearing with that corp that put a mind-control chip in your head... sorta... more of a pain in our ass than outright enemies but still... then we've got what... Yamatai is poking around now. PsychoPomp is also... well its a thing."
Alex sighed, partially joking, but also to alleviate some stress."I leave for a month or three.."
"Oh come on, you love showing up and playing hero," Uso teased, "I'm pretty happy you're showing up here to help."
"In this situation I don't really have a choice but to play hero." Alex said while shrugging. "It's not exactly easy to do or very enjoyable."
"Come ooooon...." Uso laughed, "... you enjoy it. There is plenty of stuff to do around here, people that need saving... there will be time for PsychoPomp too... just not right now."
Alex looked earnestly at Uso. "Do you really think I enjoy putting everyone else's needs before myself? This isn't some sort of game, I don't do it for fun. I do it because someone has to."
"No one has to. Justice isn't a thing for everyone you know... you can't save everyone... etc...etc... You know that cowboy work you do doesn't pay the bills... which is what all this is for." Uso said.
Alex let Uso's insult to his way of thinking slide, and continued. "So everything's gone to shit. What do we do now?"
Between Ragnarok, Skyguard, S-6, and SAINT I think we have the ground situation under control but we're at our limit. Vier's drones are busy trying to slow the NMX advance... but ultimately we can't do anything about that yet...
... unless you're holding a space fleet on you somewhere?"
Uso gave Alex a look for a moment, before moving on,
"We need time for our people to resolve things here before we can make any further moves. That means basically just hoping PP or the NMX, or Elysians, or Yamatai don't make a move against us.
But there are things that need to be done. There are colonies out west that are being wiped out by the NMX. We can visit the ones that have already been wiped out and try to see if anyone is left. There are the ships that were damaged in the earlier battle. Some may still be usable. There's also PP. We've... " Uso sighed,
"Ok, look, anytime someone gives away a big secret they say, 'Hey, don't tell anyone else,' and then they say the secret and then the secret inevitably gets out. You're supposed to just not say secrets.... so don't tell anyone ok? Not your own people, not people you can trust, no one.
Now.
We've got an attack ready against PP. We're going to need to throw a lot of money at it, and hit a lot of their facilities at the same time. If we go early though it might fail entirely... not getting them all in one swoop means some will skitter away and come back."
"Well, the Skyguard fleet has 27 cruisers. What happened to Section 6 by the way, they were only supposed to be a research branch of the skyguard."
"Ha, it is a start... S6 has kinda, outgrown just being a research group. Jack has ambitions." Uso replied.
"That sounds like a bit of a risk to keep funding."
"Which means we need to use those ships to make some bank. We're going to blow up a small planet out here, scoop out the good bits, and start selling it on the market... Course if you've got ideas for bringing in money I'm willing to hear it.... making ST technology avalible to everyone for example."
"By the way, what on earth did Jack buy that caused a whole planetary economy to collapse?"
"Two carriers through the IIS," Uso replied, "though its not so much what be bought but how he bought it if you want to follow the FSC's line on things."
"It doesn't really matter who fucked up, only that we unfuck it as soon as possible." Alex said, his voice dripping with exasperation.
"If we help out the colony at B7R, I think we could use it to give us a buffer between the Mishuu and our space." He proposed.
"Yeah, I haven't really been paying attention to them... they probably aren't in a good way right now. If you want to get the shored up it will help out a lot. Vier is already over there and as far as getting ahold of some new firepower...." Uso said, racking her brain, "Well, we aren't exactly overflowing with options. I have some people in mind that could help but they aren't cheap and we're cutting it close on budgets as it is. Your ship by itself isn't going to be enough."
"What about the whole Skyguard fleet? I'm told that we got some ships returned to us when Section 6 split off."
"28 ships vs hundreds of NMX megamishhu?" Uso asked, "You'll be a speedbump to the Mishhu with just that... there is the salvage left over from the last major battle, you could maybe scrape something together with that. There are also mecinary units and arms runners... but we'd need money for that."
"How many ships do they have in or near the B7R system?" Alex asked, hand on his chin.
"I.... uh, don't have that information," Uso admited, a hand going to the back of her head, "The FSC might know, they have some ships there I think? Vier should have some ground assets as well to handle the Rixxikor that are on the planet... you may need to send scouts on your own."
"The Light Year Array should be able to show us this information, do you have it hooked up to the ship?"
"It's more of a scientific tool... but I suppose we can give it a shot.... " Uso would head to the controls on the table, keying in a few commands to bring up her connection to Vier, the whole process didn't take that long.
"Looks like, maybe about a dozen large ships? Unknown number of smaller craft... They seem to be hanging out around the outskirts of the system though."
Alex traced a few lines that headed down to the planet. "I think if a small group of transport ships carrying skyguard ground troops and variable tanks came in on the oposite side of the system, the Mishuu wouldn't have time to react. The problem then lies in keeping them from noticing the ground troops and attackign them from orbit."
He traced a few trajectories coming from outside the system, each representing a small group of skyguard cruisers. "If I break the skyguard into several groups of ships and have each group fight a long range skirmish, just long enough to draw the attention of the Mishuu and then jump out of the system, that these groups could hold the Mishuu's attention long enough to allow the troops to unload and the transports to leave."
"Seems like a sound plan, but be careful when you're outside of the star system's FTL exclusion zone. There isn't anything stopping them from jumping right into the middle of your ships, or their reinforcements jumping into the fight if they have any....
OH! We have a bunch of anti-ship missiles just sitting in storage containers out in the starport... you could take some of those with you."
"Good thinking." Alex responded, "And as for staying outside the FTL exclusion zone, should that happen, the ships can jump to FTL as long as they keep their drives charged."
"Then keep those drives charged. You're welcome to help yourself to any gear we have out on the starport... and raid all you can from your skyguard stocks for this.... and Alex...
... its good to have you back,"
Alex gave Uso a quick but sincere hug, before sitting down and beginning to take stock of the assets at his disposal.
Alex waited impatiently outside the Queen's slave, Uso's personal starship, to meet with his adoptive mother. He had returned to the planet a matter of hours earlier, the recent economic collapse having derailed his plans to search for a long lost friend.
Giving in to his impatience, he used his mindware to send Uso a voice message, telling her to hurry up.
It would take a while, an uncharacteristic lack of movement in Uso's actions as she eventually opened up the outer ramp to let Alex in. The adoptive mother waiting just inside the ship, leaning against the wall.
"Hey,"
... it wasn't exactly the warmest of greetings.
Alex was also acting uncharacteristically. He seemed to be in a rather bad mood. "Uso, what the hell is going on?"
Uso straghtened up a bit, no time to waste being a downer, "I mean, HEY ALEX! How's it going! Haven't seen you around in a while after you up and left." Uso said, making her way down the ramp to put an arm around him and lead him back into the ship, "Pretty much everything is going off all at the same time, I take it you're in some new trouble too?"
Alex responded. "Well, I was in the middle of searching for a old friend from my days in the Psychopomp super solder program. One who seems to be still controlled by them, but then this came up and I had to drop everything."
"Hmm." Uso said, considering what to do next. "I wish I had an easy answer for you this time... lets get up to the main display...."
The pair would make their way to the main room of the Queen's slave, the large display table in the center showing all kinds of information, ships, planets, stock prices... a little bit of everything.
"The Elysians kicked over a hornet's nest, so we've got a group of NMX ships out west... Between the colonies they are smashing out there and the ships from the Elysian's allies attack fleet that are stranded or damaged.... well, there is a lot of work there to do. Locally we're having some economic troubles. Not sure if its really S6's latest IIS purchase or if its SAINT doing SAINT stuff... but either way we're looking some local unrest and Howard Station hasn't really been responding...."
"What Elysians?" Alex asked. "As far as I know, Elysia is a part of Yamatai."
"Well, they got another group of them out here trying to start up their own Elysia," Uso explained, "Same ones who had been interfearing with that corp that put a mind-control chip in your head... sorta... more of a pain in our ass than outright enemies but still... then we've got what... Yamatai is poking around now. PsychoPomp is also... well its a thing."
Alex sighed, partially joking, but also to alleviate some stress."I leave for a month or three.."
"Oh come on, you love showing up and playing hero," Uso teased, "I'm pretty happy you're showing up here to help."
"In this situation I don't really have a choice but to play hero." Alex said while shrugging. "It's not exactly easy to do or very enjoyable."
"Come ooooon...." Uso laughed, "... you enjoy it. There is plenty of stuff to do around here, people that need saving... there will be time for PsychoPomp too... just not right now."
Alex looked earnestly at Uso. "Do you really think I enjoy putting everyone else's needs before myself? This isn't some sort of game, I don't do it for fun. I do it because someone has to."
"No one has to. Justice isn't a thing for everyone you know... you can't save everyone... etc...etc... You know that cowboy work you do doesn't pay the bills... which is what all this is for." Uso said.
Alex let Uso's insult to his way of thinking slide, and continued. "So everything's gone to shit. What do we do now?"
Between Ragnarok, Skyguard, S-6, and SAINT I think we have the ground situation under control but we're at our limit. Vier's drones are busy trying to slow the NMX advance... but ultimately we can't do anything about that yet...
... unless you're holding a space fleet on you somewhere?"
Uso gave Alex a look for a moment, before moving on,
"We need time for our people to resolve things here before we can make any further moves. That means basically just hoping PP or the NMX, or Elysians, or Yamatai don't make a move against us.
But there are things that need to be done. There are colonies out west that are being wiped out by the NMX. We can visit the ones that have already been wiped out and try to see if anyone is left. There are the ships that were damaged in the earlier battle. Some may still be usable. There's also PP. We've... " Uso sighed,
"Ok, look, anytime someone gives away a big secret they say, 'Hey, don't tell anyone else,' and then they say the secret and then the secret inevitably gets out. You're supposed to just not say secrets.... so don't tell anyone ok? Not your own people, not people you can trust, no one.
Now.
We've got an attack ready against PP. We're going to need to throw a lot of money at it, and hit a lot of their facilities at the same time. If we go early though it might fail entirely... not getting them all in one swoop means some will skitter away and come back."
"Well, the Skyguard fleet has 27 cruisers. What happened to Section 6 by the way, they were only supposed to be a research branch of the skyguard."
"Ha, it is a start... S6 has kinda, outgrown just being a research group. Jack has ambitions." Uso replied.
"That sounds like a bit of a risk to keep funding."
"Which means we need to use those ships to make some bank. We're going to blow up a small planet out here, scoop out the good bits, and start selling it on the market... Course if you've got ideas for bringing in money I'm willing to hear it.... making ST technology avalible to everyone for example."
"By the way, what on earth did Jack buy that caused a whole planetary economy to collapse?"
"Two carriers through the IIS," Uso replied, "though its not so much what be bought but how he bought it if you want to follow the FSC's line on things."
"It doesn't really matter who fucked up, only that we unfuck it as soon as possible." Alex said, his voice dripping with exasperation.
"If we help out the colony at B7R, I think we could use it to give us a buffer between the Mishuu and our space." He proposed.
"Yeah, I haven't really been paying attention to them... they probably aren't in a good way right now. If you want to get the shored up it will help out a lot. Vier is already over there and as far as getting ahold of some new firepower...." Uso said, racking her brain, "Well, we aren't exactly overflowing with options. I have some people in mind that could help but they aren't cheap and we're cutting it close on budgets as it is. Your ship by itself isn't going to be enough."
"What about the whole Skyguard fleet? I'm told that we got some ships returned to us when Section 6 split off."
"28 ships vs hundreds of NMX megamishhu?" Uso asked, "You'll be a speedbump to the Mishhu with just that... there is the salvage left over from the last major battle, you could maybe scrape something together with that. There are also mecinary units and arms runners... but we'd need money for that."
"How many ships do they have in or near the B7R system?" Alex asked, hand on his chin.
"I.... uh, don't have that information," Uso admited, a hand going to the back of her head, "The FSC might know, they have some ships there I think? Vier should have some ground assets as well to handle the Rixxikor that are on the planet... you may need to send scouts on your own."
"The Light Year Array should be able to show us this information, do you have it hooked up to the ship?"
"It's more of a scientific tool... but I suppose we can give it a shot.... " Uso would head to the controls on the table, keying in a few commands to bring up her connection to Vier, the whole process didn't take that long.
"Looks like, maybe about a dozen large ships? Unknown number of smaller craft... They seem to be hanging out around the outskirts of the system though."
Alex traced a few lines that headed down to the planet. "I think if a small group of transport ships carrying skyguard ground troops and variable tanks came in on the oposite side of the system, the Mishuu wouldn't have time to react. The problem then lies in keeping them from noticing the ground troops and attackign them from orbit."
He traced a few trajectories coming from outside the system, each representing a small group of skyguard cruisers. "If I break the skyguard into several groups of ships and have each group fight a long range skirmish, just long enough to draw the attention of the Mishuu and then jump out of the system, that these groups could hold the Mishuu's attention long enough to allow the troops to unload and the transports to leave."
"Seems like a sound plan, but be careful when you're outside of the star system's FTL exclusion zone. There isn't anything stopping them from jumping right into the middle of your ships, or their reinforcements jumping into the fight if they have any....
OH! We have a bunch of anti-ship missiles just sitting in storage containers out in the starport... you could take some of those with you."
"Good thinking." Alex responded, "And as for staying outside the FTL exclusion zone, should that happen, the ships can jump to FTL as long as they keep their drives charged."
"Then keep those drives charged. You're welcome to help yourself to any gear we have out on the starport... and raid all you can from your skyguard stocks for this.... and Alex...
... its good to have you back,"
Alex gave Uso a quick but sincere hug, before sitting down and beginning to take stock of the assets at his disposal.