Ravens of Eternity

355 The Drums of War, Pt NeutroDrive Prime, Vaar’torin System, Great House de Jardin

The First Feathers walked into the cruiser’s cargo bay along with Minister Mathilde, a few of her aides, and many ship engineers. They walked through and inspected every millimeter of it and made sure that everything was up-to-spec.

Behind them were clusters of citizens of the Corvus Republic, who were coming in to move themselves from the Raven’s Refuge into their new cruiser.

“You’re all absolutely sure this is the ship you want?” Mathilde asked. “That Federation cruiser was worth a great deal more than this.”

“It’s perfect, Minister,” Claire answered her. “Of the three cruisers available, this one has the best city deck. Plenty of room for us to expand into. Best of all’s that park in the center of it all. We couldn’t stop the citizens from moving in if we wanted to.”

“And her armor mounts are extremely heavy,” added Xylo. “If we’ve got a leftover balance, then we oughta use it to get S-ranked armor plating on them. That’ll keep everyone safe.”

Mathilde nodded to one of her aides, who immediately took notes. The girl took aside one of the engineers following them, and began to issue the order to switch out their defenses.

“I’ll make sure that NeutroDrive installs their best plating,” Mathilde replied. “What about crews? Best you’ve got now is a skeleton. I could lend you some people...”

“I will help with this,” chimed in Raijin. She floated up next to Mathilde, and sent some of her data straight to Mathilde’s datapad.

.....

“After controlling the Federation cruiser by myself, briefly, I have developed an idea for an Automation Engine,” she continued. “It will be able to assist any crew, and multiply their efforts. My team and I are already building the alpha version.”

Mathilde’s eyes went wide, then said, “tell me more.”

As they chatted, Freya tugged at Lucifer, and drew hir away from the rest.

“C’mon,” she whispered in hir ear. “Let’s go exploring.”

Lucifer quickly agreed. The two slunk off while no-one was looking, and went off to check out their new cruiser on their own terms. And as they walked through it, the ship’s many design elements and control features and systems inputs appeared on their DIs.

–

UNNAMED

Class: Luxury Cruiser

Role: Republic Flagship

Bridge Officer: Admiral Lyn “Aurora” Dolerren

Armament

Broadside Turrets: 60x [M3], 20x [M2]

Topside Emplacements: 20x [M3], 10x [M2]

Topside Fighter Hangar Bay [60/60]

Topside Mecha Hangar Bay [60/60]

Bottom Emplacements: 10x [M3], 10x [M2]

Bottom Drone Bay [120/120]

Bottom Corvette Docking Bay [3/4]

–

The two hopped onto a large gravlift with a number of Republic civilians, most of whom were carrying their belongings with them. A few were accompanying load-lifting antigrav drones, which were holding paneling for their housing.

As the gravity lift rose up towards the City Deck, one of the people went up to Freya and Lucifer.

“Thank you for letting my family join the Corvus Republic,” he told them earnestly. “What happened on Tarsus was... it... we lost so much. I had no idea what to do, where to go...”

Freya smiled at him kindly, and nodded.

His information came up on her DI, just like it did with everyone else in the Republic. Their data was available for everyone else to see. Or at least, whatever they wanted to share publicly.

“Jan... Did I pronounce that right?” she asked. He nodded, then shook his head.

“A bit more like Yhan,” he replied.

“I see. But yes, you’re welcome, Yhan. It’s the least that we could do. Honestly, here in the Republic, most of us have had something taken away from us, violently. Figured the best thing for us to do was to look out for everyone else just like us.”

“Since so much was taken from everyone,” Lucifer added, “we also thought it was best to give everyone as much freedom as possible. I think it’s the only way to really recover from that much... trauma. Problem is, of course, we get shot at in exchange.”

Jan was taken aback, but quickly nodded in understanding.

He and his family were all rescued under fire themselves. While the combat fleet fought, they were directed onto the ships by armored personnel at the same time. Back then, he didn’t know who they were and assumed they were soldiers.

It never occurred to him that they were simply civilians. Just like him. The thought shook him.

Freya put a hand on his shoulder, which steadied him.

“Don’t worry about getting shot at,” she said happily. “You’ll be behind some of the best armor plating in the Hegemony. Plus you never have to get in the line of fire – that’s my job.”

Jan nodded again, as though he was trying to understand. Eventually, he replied.

“What if I wanna help?” he asked.

“Best not,” Lucifer answered. “Not in your condition, anyway. You’d just get in the way.”

“That’s... don’t listen to that,” Freya rebutted. “Luci likes to bite a bit. But if you’re serious about helping, I’d say talk to the Corvus Republic Civil Defense. They’re the rescue squad, and could always use more help.”

Jan thanked them again before he rejoined his family. Though the gravlift came to a stop long before he got there.

Everyone quickly hopped off and went out to the City Deck, which was currently vast and wide open. The entire space was awe-inspiring, and the sheer size of it made everyone feel incredibly small.

They had actually come up via one of the central gravity lifts, which were close to the City Deck’s massive central park. And off to their side were various buildings that were being printed up by large manufacturing drones hovering in the air.

The few buildings that were mostly printed out were being installed with various panels and electronic systems. A few engineers and mechanics helped slide them into place, then locked them down with their tools.

Numerous civilians headed towards what appeared to be a block of apartments, presumably to take residence in them. Despite what they had just gone through, they were rather relieved to have a place to live.

Some rejoiced the fact that they were alive at all.

Lucifer gazed across the park, which was lush with trees and grass. There even appeared to be some wildlife.

“I can see why you voted Yes on this cruiser,” ze told Freya. “You’ve got some kind of paradise fetish.”

“What can I say – we’ve got plenty of guns, but not enough green,” she replied.

The two of them walked forward, away from the apartments and towards the vast park. The smell of nature hit their noses as they crossed over into it, and both their bodies relaxed instinctively. Despite the tensions they had gone through during this cycle, being in the sheer presence of such earthliness lightened them considerably.

“Alright,” Lucifer sighed. “I get what you mean. This is nice... Makes me feel a little bit guilty that I snapped at that guy.”

“Only a little bit?”

“Tiny bit, yeah.”

Freya chuckled, then hooked her arm around Lucifer’s and drew them both closer together. Hir slowly-growing empathy, little as it was, was one of her favorite things in life.

“I’ve long since realized that it’s an important part of us,” Freya said soon after. “All this greenery, I mean. The further we get away from it, the harder it is to stay good to each other.”

“What, as long as it surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds us together?” Luci grinned.

Freya rolled her eyes at the lame joke, but chuckled nonetheless. Then she walked up to a tree, then put her hand on it.

“Yeah, why not?” she replied. “But it doesn’t have to be some mystical space magic. It’s just genetics. Think of it like air. We breathe out what this tree needs to live. And it breathes out what we need. It’s like that, encoded deep down on every level.”

She exhaled deeply, then continued on their walk across the park.

The thought of quintillions of people separated from their natural world filled her. She imagined it was something like a kind of trauma, but one that existed on a generational scale, and could be measured across centuries.

The thought crossed her mind that maybe that’s why the Drogar seemed so aggressive – they were far removed from nature, and the only places that had them at all were prisons.

It was the same with the Federation. The Earth was practically barren, and had been covered in buildings. Every time she visited, she found people to be generally more miserable than the people in her old Earth.

“Hey, check this out,” said Lucifer.

Hir words broke her out of her reverie, and when she looked up realized that they were no longer in the park. They had crossed out to the other side, where a number of entertainment venues were being put together.

A few were already close to completion, and were on the verge of opening. In one of them, a number of people had already gone inside and started unloading whatever goods they had with them.

“The first open business on this ship is a bar,” Lucifer continued. “How thoroughly amusing. Let’s join these dour bastards and get our drink on.”

Inside, the barkeep was putting away a number of his bottles into the shelves and cubby holes along the wall behind. He stopped, curious to see who was coming into his bar, and instantly recognized Freya.

“Heyyy fellas! Look who’s come to see us!” he cried out. “Your name – Freya, was it? Been so damn long...”

“You remembered,” she replied with a smile.

She glanced over across the bar, and saw all the same people she did back then, from the first time she went to Tarsus. Most of them, anyway. Freya opened her mouth to ask where the rest was, and how they were doing, then realized it was probably a better idea not to.

“Still mixing your special?” she asked instead.

The barkeep’s eyes lit up with joy at the mention of his special cocktail.

“Yeah, hells yeah,” he replied. “I’ve been tweaking it, too. Making it richer, more potent.”

“That doesn’t sound necessary,” Freya muttered. “The potency part, at least. I remember it was quite a lot to deal with back then...”

“Times change is all I can say. And our drinks gotta change along with it.”

.....

The others murmured in agreement with the barkeep.

Freya noted they all looked down and depressed. A bit exhausted, even. Though she certainly understood why, given what they’d all lost and gone through.

“So anyway,” continued the bartender. “How come you’re on this ship? You get rescued by this Corvus Republic, too?”

“Something like that,” she replied with a sly grin. “Anyway, we’re here to grab a drink, escape our woes. Got a new recipe you might wanna share?”

The bartender scratched his chin in thought.

“I got one, sure,” he replied. “Not sure it’s something you could handle. It’s a bit frigid, a bit spicy. Hits twice as hard as my special mix.”

“Twice?” gasped Freya. “Yeah, mayb-”

“This we gotta try,” Lucifer interjected. “Look, this war’s looking to be long. Long enough that times like this are gonna become a rarity. So I’m not passing up on any fun that crosses my path. And neither should any of us.”