Admiral Norrington watched quietly as his two contemporaries bickered.

  Why are they not taking this seriously…?

  After a few minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “We have eleven years…” he snapped. “We’d need triple that to get any sensible defense to Gliese 667C. That means we need to evacuate that system, and-”

  “Admiral Norrington, need I remind you that Gliese 667C is part of The Unity Pact, and thus my responsibility,” Cezar Relinin snapped.

  The lights of The Astra Concord admiral’s office space caused his bald brown head to gleam as if polished while his brilliant blue eyes glistened like gems in his dark face. Norrington didn’t doubt they were the reason why the women didn’t leave the older admiral alone even at age sixty-five. Atleast, that was if the intel he had on the man was all correct, which was debatable.

  Norrington remained calm as he stared back into the blue eyes, deciding not to take the bait.

  Lizabeth Warren had no such scruples as she sniffed.

  “Norrington is right, you old fool. You need to evacuate that Gliese 667C, and we need to rendezvous near Lalande 21185,” Admiral Elizabeth Warren of The Unity Pact said, leaning back and crossing her arms beneath her imposing bosom.

  Both her arms and chest stretched the black suit she wore in ways that left little to the imagination and showed exactly how far the genetic manipulation of her family had taken her.

  “Why don’t you two look after your own solar systems,” Cezar said, his eyes narrowing. “Two of my fleets are en route and will be there in time.

  “Have you read the intel we have sent your way?” Norrington asked.

  “Intel, you call that? None of our readings show anything like what yours suggest,” Cezar said, sniffing in disdain. “And we are far closer than you are.”

  “We have detected the exact same information,” Elizabeth said. “Are you suggesting your scanners are better than ours?”

  Cezar looked like he’d bitten a lemon, which is not odd as The Unity Pact’s long-distance scanners were unarguably the best of the three largest powers.

  “This meeting is done,” he snapped, and instantly, his image vanished from the shared virtual space.

  Norrington let out a weary sigh, turning to Elizabeth.

  “He thinks he will win and thus gain the first new alien tech for himself,” he said.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

  “Those idiots should have replaced him a decade ago,” she said, her previous anger fading. “What are you going to do?”

  Norrington knew she was using her usual blunt way of fishing for information, hoping to get some information to make her own decision easier, and in any normal case, he’d have given her nothing. This, however, was far from a normal way.

  “High command has spoken to Earth. Their council has decided to pull back the four Homeworld Fleets to the Proxima Centauri shipslinger,” he said. He knew that Elizabeth hadn’t heard this yet, as The Igniz Commonwealth was the only one of the three large powers that had any kind of good relations with The Homeworld. Seeing as their headquarters was the only one left in the Sol System, it made sense.

  Elizabeth leaned back, her eyes flickering around in a clear way as if she were using her H.U.D.

  “They are preparing to destroy the Shipslinger,” he said. It wasn’t a question, and from her distaste, Norrington knew she had her own worries about that.

  “So, I presume you are recalling all your fleets to assist them?”

  Norrington nodded, even though it was a lie. He was only sending two fleets there. The fourth fleet, the only one he had left now that the Third Fleet was gone, would be handling Operation Diaspora. But he’d die before he told Elizabeth that.

  “I’ll talk with the others, but I don’t think they will agree to evacuating… Besides, where would we even go? There’s not enough space in the Sol System for all of us,” Elizabeth said.

  Norrington didn’t say anything, waiting to hear if she had anything else to share.

  “It’s not possible to do it with just our eight combined fleets?” she asked. “Our own simulations, even going for the worst possible outcome, show there’s an eight percent chance we would be able to win.”

  “No,” Norrington said. “Our simulations show a less than fifty percent chance of victory.”

  That was a lie, of course. Simulations based on only three fleets and without their strongest one showed a ten percent chance of victory.

  Worse, that was based on nothing but scans that showed a rough composite of the incoming ship’s material, its size, and its estimated propulsion. Who knew what kind of weapons the creators of the Shipslingers had?

  No. He’d not even have agreed, even if he had all his four fleets ready and able.

  He was happy to hear that Elizabeth hadn’t gotten wind of the destruction of their third fleet. Right now, it meant that the Unity Pact was the only one of the three major powers that had its four fleets, and although he didn’t expect them to do anything foolish, it was best not to take any chances.

  “Ten years after the first of those ships arrive, the other one will arrive,” Elizabeth said. “Assuming we don’t lose from the one incoming if we lose too many ships, we will not be able to resist the next one or those that follow.”

  Which is why we aren’t going to stick around, Norrington thought.

  “Elizabeth, my suggestion is that you bring as many people back to Sol or bring them to one of your larger systems and blow the Shipslinger.”

  The other admiral looked at him quietly, probably wondering if he was being sincere or trying to manipulate her. Norrington didn’t care. He knew they weren’t the only ones with contingency plans, though he wondered what the others would say if they heard what the Igniz researchers had managed.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  We will probably never find out, he thought.

  They continued chatting for a few more moments, but with the reason for their meeting failed, it quickly petered off.

  As Norrington exited the conversation and leaned back in his old chair, he saw Malcolm had been trying to contact him for over an hour. He connected to his lead scientist, who was standing in front of a cluttered desk.

  “Finally done, Admiral?”

  “Give me some good news, Malcolm,” Norrington said.

  “Sure,” Malcolm said, and the old man pulled up a screen that showed a massive ship hovering in the shadow of a moon. Thousands of tiny ships were moving to and from it while the fourth fleet hung against the backdrop of the star.

  “We have finally managed to work out the central greenroom, and the second rounds of tests are looking far better than our best estimates. The Diaspora will be ready to leave in four years.”

  Admiral Norringon let out a relieved sigh.

  “That is good news,” he said, smiling at his old friend. “I’m going to inform high command.”

  Malcolm waved at him, but he was already scribbling complex calculations on a large virtual screen.

  Norrington closed the connection, readying himself for the gruesome task of talking sense into high command.

  ---

  A little over two weeks after he’d returned from the Tealclaw, Garrick woke feeling better than he had for as long as he could remember. There was no initial wave of pain, no annoying slime in his throat that he’d had for a week.

  He kept his eyes closed, wondering if he’d missed the beep that signaled Crux damping his pain receptors. After a few seconds of enjoying the sensation of sleeping without his suit on, he stretched and opened his eyes.

  His body moved smoothly, but the old click in his left shoulder was surprisingly absent.

  “Good morning, Captain. I have four updates for you,” Crux said.

  “Is one to tell me the healing of my body progressed another step?” Garrick asked as he pushed himself up from Shuttle Seven’s pilot seat.

  “Correct, Captain. The ligaments and muscles in your back are closing into the optimum your bones can currently handle, and you should be able to stress them as much as required.”

  Garrick called up the small figure in his H.U.D. that represented his physical self. It was based on his status before the explosion and was almost completely green. Only a few parts of his neck were a lighter yellow than the rest.

  “What is with my neck?” he asked, frowning as he rubbed it and feeling nothing amiss.

  “That would be the second update. One of the changes the initial process started was to enlarge your neck’s blood vessels and musculature by ten percent to leave enough room for a larger amount of tendrils. I have halted the process for now so you can decide how to proceed.”

  Garrick thought about that as he moved around the room to the temporary pressure suit, slipping inside. As the suit clamped shut, he heard a few beeps before his H.U.D. told him his daily exercise was commencing, plus a countdown.

  A moment later, pressure on his back made it feel like he was lying on his stomach, pushed down by gravity, and he raised the suit’s arms in a pushup stand. Seen from the side, it looked ridiculous as he began pushing himself up, feeling his heart rate increase. It was only a temporary way to keep his body in shape, but it would prevent them from getting a list of potential problems until they could create enough force for true simulated gravity.

  “What would the potential risks of this be?” he asked, wondering when his mindset had changed so radically that he’d accept modifying his body with the help of an LLM. It was something that kept him up before sleep, but he’d yet to figure out why.

  “None, Captain. It will instead prevent future risk of your neck being unable to move smoothly due to the extra space needed.”

  Garrick began breathing slightly heavier as he frowned.

  “Those tendrils are so thin. How does this even pose a problem?”

  A package of information with images began playing in his H.U.D., showing him a list of hereditary problems he’d never known he had.

  “So… in essence, my neck is just too thin?” he asked, flipping through the information as he began doing squat-like exercises.

  “Correct.”

  Garrick glanced at the light green of his neck and hesitated. If he did this, it was another step on a sliding slope he felt he was already moving down. He hesitated, then sighed.

  “Fine, finish the procedure. Also, do a scan for any other… hereditary problems and let me know what comes up,” Garrick said. “What were the last two updates?”

  “Nurse Yuri Suzuki has asked your presence to discuss project Takeover. She and Engineer Macdewil have gone through all subsequent tests and feel confident in the next step.”

  About time! Garrick thought as he felt a smile crop up.

  They had postponed any large-scale exploration of the other vessels out of fear of the system-AI infecting implants. With only Garrick being hopefully safe from that, they had instead begun preparations for creating a space station out of the materials they were Scavenging from The Sibilis. The problem was that they really needed more material, undamaged systems, undamaged hull plates, functioning reactors, and, most importantly, shuttles.

  Shuttle three was barely functional, and to truly speed things up and prepare for exploring the location and creating the scaffolding, they would need at least three shuttles. Five would be better.

  “Good, tell them I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he said. “And the final one?”

  “Officer Hilbert Excelsar’s brain has been fully repaired by his implant. Nurse Yuri Suzuki wants to start Project Takeover today.”

  Garrick didn’t react, dully squatting out another hundred reps as he thought about Hilbert.

  The man was still dead by all definitions of the word, and whatever the infected implant had done had whittled away his body to no more than a husk of his former massive, burly self. His four limbs had been fully eaten away, likely to generate the power needed to keep fixing the brain, which was still showing no signs of activity.

  Just picturing what had become of him made Garrick shiver, knowing he had a similar implant in his own head. The only reason he’d been spared the same or worse was because The Tealclaw had managed to prevent it.

  “Any indication why there is no cellular breakdown in the brain?” he asked.

  “Yes, Captain. The implant has created a small device in the brainstem that is pulling organic matter from the rest of the body through the tendrils that stretch throughout Officer Excelsar’s body. It is moving these organic cells through the blood vessels of the brain,” Crux said calmly. “Both the original blood vessels as well as the additional tendrils it has created are somewhat similar to the ones used to heal your brain.”

  Thanks for reminding me, Garrick thought.

  He pushed himself up and began going through a set of strikes, wishing he had a dummy to take out his anger on.

  Ten minutes later, he finished and unstripped to stand inside the tiny oval pressurized-air shower. It was one of six that Macdewil had managed to repair, and as he stepped in, he closed his eyes. There was a soft beeping countdown, then a layer of foam was sprayed across his body. Cold and tingly, Garrick focused fully on the sensation. Having the ability to sleep in the shuttle every few days was one of the few advantages of being a captain, and with it came a private sanitation unit.

  The thick foam popped and fizzled for a bit when a second countdown of soft beeps played out. Warm, almost scalding hot air blew across his body, first from the back, blowing the foam against the front wall where it was quickly sucked away, then from the front, and after that in a circular pattern from all around. Garrick used his hands to keep him from being pushed against the walls.

  It lasted for two minutes, a whole minute longer than normal, courtesy of Macdewil, and Garrick enjoyed every second of it.

  When it finally stopped, he felt clean and healthy. The room was hot, almost like one of the saunas back in his quarters in Igniz City, and he wished there was time and energy for him to enjoy it for a little longer. Then the door popped open, letting in the colder air of the shuttle.

  Garrick pushed himself out, floating into the shuttle.

  Another five minutes later, he put on his suit -having already cleaned the inside- and popped on his helmet.

  “Alright, tell group Three the shuttle is free,” he said.

  “They are already hovering before the entrance, Captain,” Crux said. “Officer Macdewil had warned them that you would be heading out around now.”

  Garrick grinned as he entered the small airlock. A few moments later, the room was depressurized, after which the outer door shuddered and opened up.

  Let’s hope things play out well, he thought.