Chapter One Hundred and Two - Not Just That

"Are we certain it's not just a normal commercial fleet?" Aurora asked as she leaned forwards to stare at the pilot's condole.

Pixie was sitting a little hunched, mostly to avoid bumping into Aurora who was definitely encroaching in her space. "That depends. Do you trust me?" she asked.

Aurora only paused for a moment before replying. "You're an expert in this field, and a friend besides. I'd be foolish not to trust you."

"Oh... well, in that case, yes. I'm certain that this fleet isn't just a commercial one." Pixie pointed to the monitor before her. "See here, the fleet is centred around three cargo haulers, which is fine. But it has four escort ships. A frigate and three patrol destroyers."

"That's a lot of ships for three haulers," Twenty-Six said.

"Exactly," Pixie replied. "Even high-value escort missions usually only have ships at a... at most one-to-two ratio between defensive vessels and escorted ships. So there's something weird about this one. Are we sure it's not part of that Earth Alliance fleet?"

The last was directed to Pepper. At the moment, the MINT operative was standing almost at attention in the centre of the bridge. She wasn't the only one here, of course. Everyone was currently crowding into the bridge, turning it into a somewhat tight little space.

Pepper nodded. "Martian Intelligence is certain that the fleet originates from Jupiter. It's a commercial fleet linked to the Thebe Corporation."

"All of them?" Aurora asked.

"All the vessels there, yes," Pepper said. She looked at a datapad, as if to confirm what she'd just said. "The haulers have been in the company's service for nine, seven, and two years respectively. The frigate for twelve, and the three destroyers for seven and four years. Two of them are newer. They were all used on several escort missions across the solar system, but mostly they've travelled within the Jovian system itself as part of anti-piracy task forces."

"Oh, Thebe Corp," Pixie said.

"You know about them?" Aurora said. "I recall that they're relatively rich, but mostly apolitical."

Pixie made a cute little humming noise. "Yeah. I've never worked for them. They don't hire that many bounty hunters. Mostly have their own security fleet and all. Working for them is a nice gig, though. Good pay, you get to use recent tech, and the company has nice housing. That's the rep in the bounty hunter circles, at least. But they're also often up to some shady stuff."

"What kind of shady?" Twenty-Six asked.

"I don't know, exactly," Pixie said. "Just rumours. I think Thebe Corp might have done work with some pirates a few times? But that's nothing confirmed? Pepper might know better."

Pepper glanced up, then back down. "I... will need to ask for another update from MINT. I don't have too much information on Thebe Corporation, but I can confirm that they're one of the stronger corporate entities around Jupiter. They sell a lot of raw material resources back to Mars."

Ivil decided to clear her throat. "That's all very interesting, but why would some nobody corporate ships be locking their guns on us?"

"Locking their--" Pixie began.

The room turned red and a small but persistent alarm started to sound from several of the stations as a weapons lock was finally detected.

At the moment, the Sappho was hurtling towards Uranus with the Silent Sentinel Washer at the Gates coming up behind her. The Jovian fleet had yet to catch up, and were still in a disorganized formation several million kilometres behind.

They were currently approaching the midpoint of their journey, where they would have to turn and burn to start slowing down to make their approach to Uranus.

Ivil scoured her attention ahead, past the Thebe Corporation fleet and out further. The Earth Alliance fleet seemed to have sensed that the gig was up. Either that was the approaching number of warships, or someone had let something slip. In any case, their fleet of disguised warships and more mundane ships of war were forming up around Caliban, one of the more distant and irregular moons of Uranus.

The Uranians had noticed, obviously, and had formed their own fleet. From what Ivil could tell at this distance, it wasn't much to look at. A dozen anti-piracy ships. Perhaps some volunteer civilian vessels. They were forming up alongside Oberon, one of the largest moons around the planet.

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Ivil was snapped back to the moment--not that she'd truly been so distracted--as Sonic Spectre sat down with poise before the bridge's weapons control console. "The target-lock is done at maximum distance," she said. "We're only barely within weapons range for some light-based weaponry."

"The Sappho has deflectors," Twenty-Six said eagerly. "We don't need to worry about those. Not unless they're rocking something real big."

"We'll be fine," Ivil replied.

Twenty-Six blinked, looked at her, considered it, then shrugged. "Okay!"

"What in the world are they thinking?" Aurora asked. "We're... technically a diplomatic vessel. Is the Thebe Corporation siding with the Earth Alliance in any upcoming conflict?"

"That would make the most sense," Pixie said. "They're pretty rich. If they pick that side and the Jovian government folds to the Earth Alliance, then they'll be able to race to the top, yeah?"

"Only, the Emperor of Jupiter wouldn't allow such betrayal so close to his home," Ivil replied. She wouldn't put it past a corporation to commit suicide by Emperor, but that felt extremely foolhardy.

"So... what's the plan, boss?" Pixie asked. "We need to start our turn-and-burn soon, which means aiming our ass their way. With the speed they're moving at, we're going to be intercepted in about twenty-four, maybe thirty hours." Pixie tapped a few buttons and configured some data on a plotter. "Yeah. We'll be within knife fighting range pretty close to the Earth Alliance fleet out there. This had to have been planned."

The persistent alarm went off as Sonic Spectre touched something, though there were still some screens warning them that they were currently locked onto.

"This seems like an ill-fated idea," Sonic Spectre said. "With the Silent Sentinel Washer at the Gates so near any conflict would be disastrous for such a small force."

Ivil hummed. That was true. Unless that small Thebe Corporation fleet was hiding something? Even then, this felt very poorly calculated.

"I've seen similar things before," she said.

That had some attention turning her way. "Truly?" Aurora asked.

Ivil nodded slowly. "Small gnats trying to take me on, or trying to destroy the vessel I was onboard with far too little firepower and without any actual hope of succeeding. Sometimes it's a single person in a stolen freighter, other times it's a small patrol force taking on a Star Dreadnought. It never ends well."

"Why would someone do that?" Twenty-Six asked.

"Emotions," Aurora said. "Sometimes you can let those get the best of you, and you fail to open your eyes to the actual severity of the threat ahead."

"Yeah, there's also desperation," Pixie said. "That's one of the factors that makes fighting pirates so dangerous. Sometimes things will go bad for them, and they won't have anything left to lose and everything to gain. So they'll throw themselves at you with nothing but a prayer and lots of guts. Sometimes it's even worked out."

The girls continued to discuss possibilities, and time slowly moved onwards. A ping to the Tech Maid ship following them confirmed that it hadn't been locked onto, but it had noticed their lock-on and the ship had declared battle stations in support.

The disarrayed Jovian fleet behind them was still too much of a disorganized mess to bother being worth contacting, so they didn't.

The tension on the bridge leaked away over the course of the next couple of hours. There was a break for a nice dinner that Sonic Spectre and Aurora whipped up, and then some members laid down for a quick nap.

Ivil remained vigilant. She was well used to being under threat, even if it had been ages since a threat was actually threatening. She wouldn't allow her guard to go down.

Then, some six hours after the initial lock-on, just as they were starting to spin the Sappho around to begin her slow-down burn, the comms lit up.

They were close enough now to the Thebe fleet for direct communications, and they were being put to good use.

The girls gathered once more, and Aurora was elected as spokeswoman.

She opened the comms, revealing a slightly grainy image of a woman in a crisp corporate uniform glaring out at them. "Ah, good, you're here," she said. "I am Bleue Herring. You have insulted me and declared yourself my adversary. Prepare to die."

There was silence on the bridge for a few long moments. It was Twenty-Six who broke it.

"Who?"

***

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