Laura Reiss Fleets Master walked to her office at a brisk pace, she was alerted the moment Tomas approved of the Fleets requests. That was an hour ago while she was still sleeping, she immediately sent for a meeting of top Fleet officers, then quickly showered and dressed. Then after having a quick meal she proceeded to the meeting room. The Fleet headquarters for now were on the station orbiting Sanctuary, it was named Olympia after a great deal of consideration, there were some who wanted to name it Cloud station after the station that was blown up by Concordis back in Sol, but Seo-yun shut it down. Tomas was already weighed down too much by what happened. Following their arrival here, Tomas had retreated behind his desk, his people didn’t see him for the past four years, all he did was answer requests that came to him. That didn’t make him a bad ruler, a leader needed to address his peoples wishes. But he was not the Tomas that they all followed here. The Tomas of then had hundreds of plans or schemes for the future, he acted, and now he only reacted. The only ones that he saw were Seo-yun, Elias, Nadia and Laura, and then when they tried to bring him out of his depressed state their conversations deteriorated into screaming matches. Laura took his approval for the Fleet a good sign, perhaps he was starting to come out of his shell.
Laura arrived and entered the meeting room. She met with four people that ran the Fleet, Edith Leets Headmaster of the Fleet Academy, Oswald Mein Commander of Fleets, Daria Veisi Head builder for the Fleet and Nigel Smith Head quartermaster for the Fleet. She greeted them and sat at the head of the table.
“You must all be wondering why I called you so early in the morning. Well, Tomas has approved of our requests for the fleet.” Laura said.
Grins immediately showed on their faces.
“That’s great!” Edith said.
“Did he approve of all our requests?” Daria asked.
“Yes, he approved those requests as well.”
“Great, then I have your permission to begin construction?” Daria asked.
“Yes. We will start by building twenty ships that will become the home fleet, and another twenty next year that will be the first fleet. Our 8 old warships will be a part of the home fleet, but they won’t really match up to the new ones, we will upgrade them as much as we can.”
“Why next year?” Daria asked.
“Well, we could build them now, but that would mean using resources that are being allocated to other projects. Our mining operations can’t meet the demand for that many ships.”
Daria frowned, “Didn’t we produce much more than we needed in these past years? Shouldn’t there be enough?”
“We did, but most of those reserves will be spent to build the first twenty ships, not to mention that we will need to borrow fabricators that are being used for other things. At least until we get our own. And while our mining operations are sufficient to meet most of our demands, they didn’t take into account the vast amounts going to the fleet.” Laura said.
“What about the Academy?” Edith asked.
“We don’t need to rush there, all the classes had already finished their schooling, we will need to wait until the next generations grows up, but we will start with laying down the ground works on Thanatos, as the materials became available.”
“And my defense stations?” Oswald asked.
“You can build two, one in the orbit of Thanatos, and one in the orbit of Sanctuary. Over the course of the next two years.” Laura said.
“Two won’t be enough to give us complete coverage over the planet.” Oswald noted.
“I know, but that’s all that Tomas was prepared to allow at this time. Don’t worry, he will change his mind in time.”
“I hope he does before something finds us here.” Oswald added.
“No one has found this system in more than seven thousand years, I doubt that they will now.” Laura said.
“I hope you are right.” Oswald said.
“Anything new from Traveler and Voyager?” Laura asked.
“Nothing. And Voyager visited the system where according to the Union databases should be a civilization, and they only found only a barren rock. I worry that they might run into something they can’t handle.”
Voyager and Traveler were two explorer class ships that Laura managed to convince Tomas to build, they were much more advanced than any ship they built up to date, with better hyperdrives allowing them to travel at up to 15 times the speed of light, they were armed lightly with advanced weapons. Their job was to explore their new neighborhood, and make contact with any other race they encounter. They knew that there was other life out there from the Union databases, though their charts for this region of space were sparse, the Union only passed through, not bothering to explore.
“They could have done that to themselves Oswald, remember that we almost destroyed ourselves back on Earth. And as for Voyager and Traveler, they just barely moved out of the 10 light-years radius around Sanctuary.” Laura said.
“I know. It’s just, that knowing there are civilizations out there that have been in space since before we learned to write… It scares me Laura, we have only 8 warships, and they won’t stand a chance against them. We need to start putting the technologies we recovered from the Union ship and those we developed into our ships. And the fact that Tomas is hesitating, well, it makes us worry even more.” Oswald said shamefacedly.
“Don’t you worry about Tomas, he will come around. All of us needed time to adjust to this new world.” Laura said. She hoped she was right, they needed their leader back.
Chapter Four
November 2169 – Resistance base
Mathias ran down the training course, it became his routine in the past three months. He would spend his mornings training, then his afternoons learning about operating human technology and fighting. He was one of those chosen to operate Star Gazer. He was in charge of the weapons board. The weapons that the ship had appeared amazing to Mathias, but Asumy told him that they were nothing compared to Ra’a’zani, so they weren’t going to use the ship in combat, not yet at least. They have been trying to acquire some Ra’a’zani weapons to put on the ship, but getting anything like that was difficult. Ra’a’zani might not watch humans all that much, but all the technology they didn’t want humans touching was keyed to their genetic makeup. And they were still trying to figure out a way around it.
In the meantime Mathias was getting himself educated on human technology. Since he became a slave, he had only used Ra’a’zani tech, and before that the highest form of tech he used was a handgun. Now he learned about everything that human hands managed to build. And he was amazed at what they had, and then angry at the way they fought against themselves and how they lost everything. If they were united before the Ra’a’zani came, perhaps Earth wouldn’t have been enslaved.
In his spare time he was studying human history, and the more he read, the more he saw what kind of people they truly were. Thefts, betrayals, murder, war. All those things made him ashamed of his ancestors. They had spent more time trying to kill each other than trying to help one another. He could see why Olympus left them behind. Even now, when all of humanity was enslaved by an alien race, they still betrayed one another, selling their own kind to their alien overlords, and all for a few more breadcrumbs. Mathias promised himself that he would not rest until humanity was once more free.