Chronicles of Sol: The Fall-Chapter 252 Two Hundred and Ten Diplomatic Mission

July 13th, 008 SDE; Refuge-Drifter Border:

Reynolds stepped onto the bridge and took his seat. He felt he was settling into his new command well enough, of course it helped that he had managed to snag his old XO from the Coto. Commander Taylor was an efficient woman and she'd taken to pulling double duty pretty well.

He turned towards her at Ops, "So what do we have?"

"Friendlies from the look of it. The Stormwolf and three cargo vessels are approaching the border now."

Reynolds nodded, the border was usually pretty quiet, aside from the occasional lost raider ship, action was pretty sparse this side of the border. A fact that gave him plenty of time to relax and get to know his ship. Reynolds actually liked her so far. Sure, she didn't have those pulsar turrets yet, but she was a good ship. The crew had even picked out a name, they'd had a bit of a debate on it, but eventually, they'd picked the name Thunderstorm, which was better than the old designation of Vulcan-Four. Idly, he recalled how they debated giving it the prefix EFS, but they weren't really part of the Earth Fleet. They now sailed under the flag Sol Refuge, which left one to wonder, what prefix was right? With the Enterprise, no one had really thought to change it. The council had talked about it once, back when Williams was still on the council, but they'd been pretty split on it. Nothing had come of it, then the Valorian conflict happened.

Still, it was a good question. Was SRS the right prefix, or did they stick with the old fleet mark tradition and designate the ship SFS, or maybe they would go with SRFS? He made a mental note to bring it up when he got back and they had a council meeting.

"Open hailing frequencies, let's see what our friends want."

Captain Felki appeared on the forward viewer a moment later, and he introduced himself, "I'm Captain Reynolds of the Thunderstorm, I see you've got some ships with you."

She smiled, "Yes, I'm here for some discussions, and to deliver some cargo. Hylix said it was mainly Titanium and Photon warheads."

He blinked, "I thought our order had already been delivered."

Felki nodded, "So it was, but Hylix mentioned how they hadn't been able to fulfill your initial request. He's since purchased additional materials to fill it. I think the gesture was meant to show how serious he is about these discussions."

"It certainly says something."

She shifted in her chair, "Now are we going to just hang here, or..."

"Give me a moment, I'll consult with Enterprise."

The screen shifted as he turned to Commander Taylor, "I've got the Enterprise already, they are apprised of the situation."

"Orders?"

"We've been asked to escort them to Anchorage."

"Put her back on then," said Reynolds with a sigh.

Her face came back on the view, "So what's the verdict?"

"Fall into formation with us, we'll escort you to Anchorage."

Thirteen Days Later; Anchorage:

Felki watched her scanners, as the helmsman fired the deceleration thrusters. It had taken three weeks to get here, give or take a few hours, after leaving the Lodge. Since they'd joined the Refuge group at the border things had been surprisingly quiet. Somehow she'd half expected the Raiders to hit them, but aside from one cruiser contact, she hadn't seen them at all.

Still the quiet was welcome, she had a feeling things were going to get noisy soon enough, so she was going to enjoy moments like this when she could. It had given her some time to consider the Thunderstorm and her little battlegroup. Perhaps not the best term for it, but it felt apt. The Thunderstorm was clearly a corvette, no apparent weapons, but heavily armored. She was accompanied by two shuttles and a squadron of Refuge fighters.

Being with them had given her some time to observe Refuge operations. The shuttles had no apparent weaponry either, but she knew the fighters were heavily armed. Evidently the shuttles were acting as light carriers, at least once during a rotation each fighter would briefly dock with the shuttles before returning to formation.

Felki had to admit that it wasn't a bad use of the shuttles. Fatigue was a major worry on long flights like this, and those fighters were too small to mount a proper bunk. She figured a pilot could sleep in one if they had to, but having a proper bunk would be better for morale. The docking would allow them to rearm in the field, and more importantly, rotate in fresh pilots.

Now that they were approaching Anchorage as the Refuge captain had called it, she was noticing something else. One of her crewmen shifted over, just as Delfi entered the bridge. "Big sis! Are we there yet?"

"Just about, are you looking forward to meeting our friends again?"

She nodded happily, "Yeah Countryman seemed fun! I wanted to be his friend."

"Right, right, you didn't get to talk to him much." She replied before turning back to the crewman. "So what do you make of those satellites?"

"Hard to say first without a penetrating scan, which would be a little rude. Based on the positioning and design? I'd wager they are defense platforms, likely erected to protect the base."

"Right, but where is that? I see sats, but no base."

The crewman highlighted a few spots, "Hard to say, pretty sure it's on this asteroid, but there are several clusters on the surface of it." Then they highlighted a crater, "But this one looks extra suspect, depth readings indicate this crater is unusually deep and there is a lot of construction around it."

"Wait? Are you saying their port is inside the asteroid?"

"Seems that way," replied the crewman.

Delphi, leaning into the console exclaimed, "That's so cool!"

"Incoming hail!"

"Put them through, main viewer."

She turned to the viewer just as Countryman came into view. "It's a pleasure to meet you again Captain Felki."

Blinking twice she took in the background, that wasn't his bridge, "So I don't see the Enterprise. I presume she's in the dock?" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"We are in the middle of a refit alright. Our recent foray into the deep storm was rather productive, aside from an unfortunate encounter with a Hyperspatial Eddy. Not that you came here to talk about that, I heard something about discussions?"

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Felki frowned, "I don't think this is a topic to discuss over an open link. Is there any way we can meet in person?"

"Sure, I'm clearing you to dock, as for your transports? I'll send some cargo shuttles their way, they can start offloading in orbit."

Countryman signed off a moment later. "We are getting docking instructions now."

"Follow them."

Felki moved closer to the helm and watched with a bit of trepidation as they sailed into a crater. Her gaze quickly noted the presence of multiple heavy gun emplacements. The Refuge had definitely made themselves at home here.

The tunnel was long, very long, giving her some time to think. Eventually, she noted what looked like hangers on either side of the tunnel and an energy field dead ahead. Doors beyond that were already sliding open, two sets. The huge doors slowly gave way to reveal the hollow core of the asteroid. Her Stormwolf slowly sailed past the doors and the air skin shield into the dock proper.

Felki noted the hollow was massive, the sides were layered with construction, dockside warehouses and accommodation. Machinery spaces, and walkways, but the center of the space was dominated by a set of massive drydock scaffolds, and there docked in the drydock was the Enterprise. On the ground below, she also noted a set of docking berths and in another drydock scaffold, she noted the presence of a raider transport.

The Stormwolf was directed towards one of the lower docking berths, it seemed designed for a larger vessel but it was the only berth big enough for the Stormwolf. She figured that spot was originally designed for the Enterprise.

They hit the ground with a thunk, and Delfi was off running before she could secure the ship. Felki sighed and hurried after the girl as soon as she could.

On the ground the place looked very different, her gaze turned to look up, catching the dark hull of the Enterprise. The sight of the ship was quite something, it had been impressive before, against the backdrop of the violent storm but there was a majesty to the alien ship that she had not noticed before.

Delfi was nearby, having not gone too far from the ship. The young girl was taking in the sight of the alien dockyard. Felki didn't really blame her, she'd seen a few facilities in the storm before, but this one took the cake. It was quite different and more importantly, she'd noted the radiation levels. The place was partially shielded to the point that she'd only need a mild shot and she'll be fine for a while. Would need some treatment later though.

Footsteps drew her attention to the left and she noted Countryman in his armor approaching. He looked between them, "Are you sure you want to risk exposure? This section isn't fully shielded from the Isanir radiation."

"Delfi just had to see the place and I couldn't leave her alone."

"Well then, this way. I'll get you to a place where we can talk."

What followed was a lovely if rapid tour of the docks. Countryman took her down the walk paths and guided her through the crowds of busy workers towards a lift on the side of the facility. They went up a few levels, and the windows on the lift gave her a good view of the area.

Coming up above the hull of the Enterprise, she noted that a good chunk of her dorsal armor was missing and a module in the center of the ship had been raised above the hull, workers were cutting out a bulkhead at this very minute.

"I know you said you were in the middle of a refit, but um what exactly are you doing?"

"We had a couple of breakthroughs in our research lately. We are conducting a complete refit of our sensor array, but we are also updating the armor around critical sections of the ship."

"I guess that's why you are cutting out a bulkhead. Likely not a bad plan, all things considered."

The lift came to a stop, she followed but he didn't say anything. Following the hall they made a turn, then entered a large room with windows and a conference table set up. A blue skinned woman was working on something. When she saw them she smiled, "Hey, just in time I was about to activate the local area shield."

"Thanks, Vera," said Countryman as Felki took in the other people.

Feeling a little outnumbered, "Meeting the council?"

"I figured what you had to say was meant for all of us," said Countryman as he introduced her to the council.

Delfi seemed to fit right in as she flitted from person to person, but it wasn't long before she was seated at a chair, ready to discuss important matters. A window in front of her showed a wonderful view of the active spacedock. One Delfi seemed to really enjoy, she kept chattering about it.

Countryman noted her gaze, "It's quite the view isn't it?"

"More like different, other factions bury what they can into the rock, but I've never seen something this deep. How long did it take you to tunnel all of this?"

"The main tunnel was dug with our ship's cutting beams, along with the initial chamber. We've since expanded the chamber as our ground side facilities were expanded. Over the last few months we've begun adding capacity to accommodate additional vessels and even built the drydocks."

"The last few months? I'd have thought something like this would have taken longer."

"Oh that's actually slow for us, we were somewhat limited by lack of resources."

"I see. Well anyway, I think we should talk about the main subject.

Captain Reynolds walked into the room, "I'm glad you waited for me, then."

Countryman shifted, "Right, so what did you want to discuss?"

"I don't suppose you've been keeping up with developments in Raider space have you?"

"Well we haven't been there recently. I did mention going to the deep storm, not a quick trip. Just traveling took a few months."

"I see, well the developments I'm talking about are more fairly recent but concerning. The Raiders have significantly increased ship construction and our spies reveal they have signed treaties with two other factions, forming a new triple alliance."

"What factions?"

"According to the report I read, the Dregari and the Folians."

Several frowns appeared on the table. Greyman spoke up, "We had a run with the Dregari at the deep storm, seems they get around."

"You had a run-in?"

"We captured one of their frigates, gained some intel on them." replied Countryman, "They aren't someone to take lightly. Dregari ships have fairly advanced armor and are almost as agile as ours. Also, word of warning, their torpedoes, while somewhat slow, are very deadly, a single direct hit can destroy most ships."

"I guess that's more than we know, we haven't had much contact with the Dregari. Although we've encountered the Folians a couple of times, relations have been a little tense lately though."

"Can't say I'm surprised, their home base so to speak is almost five hundred lightyears away. It would take roughly six months at best speed to reach it."

"Our ships have comparable speeds to yours, and I can't imagine the Dregari being much faster."

"It's possible, we currently travel at 960 times light speed, or the hyperlight equivalent of .8C. In normal space, the Enterprise is theoretically capable of going all the way up to .98C, we just don't bother since there isn't really much point to that, the storm adds some further complications to that."

"True, so if they are willing to risk higher speeds, that would cut a fair amount of time off."

Countryman nodded, "Roughly a month off the trip, which is still a fair journey."

Felki was silent for a moment as she recalled the local disposition of powers, "Right, but they'd be closer to Cooperative space. I take it they are somewhere on the far side of Raider space from here, yes?"

Greyman replied, "So they are."

"Well the Cooperative are mainly out that way, closer to the Deep Storm."

Countryman brought up a display of the storm's ecliptic plane as seen from above with political borders charted out. Felki filled in where the Cooperative and the Folians were located.

"That fills in a few blanks. Now, from what you said we've got a war brewing. I'd like to know how long we have and what your thoughts are on it?"

"A month or two at the most. The Raiders with their new alliances have a weight advantage in heavy ships, they can defeat any of us alone, but we have an economic advantage. A long war would favor our alliance and they know it, that means they will move sooner rather than later. I suspect the Cooperative will bear the brunt of the early attacks as well..."

Soon the council and Felki were well engrossed in a discussion on the brewing war. Countryman briefly wondered if they'd be able to stay out of it, but he didn't think that was a real option. They had no friends among the Raiders and he didn't relish the idea of being surrounded on all sides by enemies. No, they were going to have to deal with the Raiders, the question was how.