Ravens of Eternity

215 The Patriarch Falls, Pt Planet FXP-04, Copernicus System, Federal Outer Systems

A whole fleet of ships flashed in at the beacon high above Federal eXperimental Planet number four. Two of them were heavy cargo cruisers, and their company’s logo was painted in bright colors along the side.

All around them was their hired protection, frigates and fighters and corvettes and mecha.

The convoy’s captain – the one inside the lead cargo cruiser – hailed the Naval ships that sat a thousand meters above them. Up there was a cruiser with a three-destroyer escort. Two wings of fighters also flew around and patrolled.

Their thick armor was complemented by their massive guns.

“Federation Security,” he told them, “this is Convoy Zeta-Phi-Niner-Four, seeking permission to enter the orbital station above Foxtrot-Xray-Papa-Zero-Four, over.”

“Received, Zeta-Phi-Niner-Four,” replied a security officer. “Please stand by.”

While they waited for approval, various fighter-sized drones descended down from the Naval fleet and scanned the cruisers within the convoy. They went through ship after ship and scanned everything they could see.

After almost a minute, the security officer came back on the convoy captain’s comms display.

.....

“Authorization verified,” he said. “You may now approach the station.”

The cargo convoy took no time in complying, and headed straight towards the orbital base. It was only 20 kilometers away, and took less than five minutes to reach. It too was heavily defended.

Not only was the base littered with defensive turrets on various points along its surface, but another Naval security fleet floated nearby and watched over everything.

Their presence felt overwhelming, if not foreboding.

While the cargo cruisers attached themselves to the station via collared docking bridges, the security teams were ordered to land in a number of hangars assigned to each of them.

The Spirit of Amelia, Mr Jurassic, and their four mecha carefully parked themselves inside one of the hangars and powered down. They all hopped out, went into the station, met up with the convoy captain, and got paid for their work.

Then, they went off to get some RnR while they had station engineers work on their ships. Amelia especially. There, the Ravens made sure to have them install the best armor they had access to.

Though it was B-ranked armor, it was sort of at the bottom of the rank. Regardless, it was better than nothing.

While they waited for their repairs to complete, the Seven (plus two) ended up in a private booth inside one of the station’s many bars.

It was a completely circular room, whose walls were screens that wrapped all around. Up on the screen was the planet below, a blue-grey rocky planet with an incredibly thin atmosphere, but breathable. Dotted sparsely along it were various compounds that were just barely visible from space.

In the very center was a low circular table where their food and drinks sat, and the seating was one large circular couch that wrapped around it. Because they were right up on the screens themselves, it seemed like if they leaned back too far they would have fallen out the planet below.

Locke spread a greenish nutrient paste all along a flat stick of meat that he held, then chewed on the combination. He seemed to enjoy it greatly.

In fact, they all seemed to enjoy their moment of RnR. Except for Max.

“You all look pretty relaxed, which, hey, I’m all about,” he said, “but as the resident Hegemony fugitive, this whole place makes me nervous as hell.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Claire. “They’ve got the same security procedures as the Core Systems, but more lax. Otherwise, they would’ve found you by now, right?”

“It is because he is not on our manifest,” said Miko. “And I have tools in place to hide his presence. We wouldn’t be smugglers if we couldn’t hide our cargo.”

“Y-you can do that?”

“Did you just call me cargo?” asked Max, to which Miko nodded in confirmation.

“Alright, fine, whatever,” he continued. “But why does this system have such a high sec rating? It looks like a planet made of salt down there – I doubt it’s got anything of strategic importance to you Feds.”

“I’ve got a better question,” said Eva. “If the Prophets are hiding on Federal land, why haven’t they been discovered?”

That question led to a miserable silence as they all pondered all that was implied. Different theories floated through their minds, though they felt they were too grim to share. No-one wanted to believe that the Federation actively sponsored the Prophets, and so avoided saying a thing.

In the end only Max was brazen enough to talk.

“Hmph. Figures,” he said. “Only the Feds would be brazen enough to fund and hide a galactic terrorist group.”

“That would make sense if they were positioned in Hegemony territory,” countered Xylo. “Why entrench your own guerilla teams in your own space? I don’t think the Federation’s behind them at all.”

“I know you’re not familiar with us much,” added Locke, “but the Prophets have killed a whole lot of people. Hundreds of thousands of them. Almost a million, probably. And most of them were Fed servicemembers. In no way would the Navy hide them, no. Hell no.”

“Who says the grunts know what their officers are up to?” argued Max.

He plopped backwards into the couch, and huffed. He was irritated at how clear the corruption was to him, yet was practically invisible to others. And what he said rattled a few of them, Xylo and Locke especially. Their faces were visibly pained as his words sunk into them.

Xylo had seen numerous superiors take advantage of the soldiers under them, all for influence, or for their egos. It was all the same to her, and why she was so eager to leave service.

Locke was the same, except he saw that same pattern everywhere he looked. People above who trampled on the people below. For money, for fame, for secrets, for power, for themselves.

It was difficult for either of them to deny.

“And you’re wrong,” Max continued. “I know the Feds well, thanks to my own Dad. Because he’s the type in the Hegemony who would do exactly this thing. Build a gods-damned secret army just to fuck with his neighbors. And if he could think to do it, then so could any Fed in existence.”

“Alright, I concede you that,” said Locke. “But we still haven’t determined why. If that’s true, why would the Federation build a secret, crazy army designed to antagonize it? To fight against it? Did the Federation think they didn’t have enough enemies, so they decided to make themselves one?”

“Uh, for power, of course.

Max’s voice was filled with disdain. From what he knew of the Federation was that it was a government that could be bought. To him, the existence of the Prophets was proof enough.

Someone bought themselves a bunch of terrorists. At least, it was true to him.

“This is pointless,” interjected Eva. “And it’s all conjecture. We won’t know anything if we sit here thinking about why. We’ve gotta put together a plan to see if he’s even on here. Then we figure out how to remove him without anyone noticing. Agreed?”

The others quickly nodded in approval and patched up any sourness between themselves.

~

The planet’s surface was covered in multiple sheets of silicate crystals. And though most of it was tinted with sheens of blue and gold, there were patches where it instead appeared to be a variety of hues including purples and greens.

Or perhaps, it was all a trick of the light as it reflected off the crystalline substructures of the ground.

And the silicate crystals were far from the only elements present – there were all sorts of geologic materials, such as regular granite and various raw ores. And all along its surface were multiple geological sites of wonder, from rocky mountains to crystalline caverns, to sheer canyons made of raw iron.

Eva wondered how such a mineral-rich planet was spared being completely drilled out. She felt it was human nature to consume absolutely everything within reach. This implied that this planet had more value as it was, somehow.

Like before, they all flew high up, roughly 15 km above the surface. The Spirit of Amelia scanned the surface far ahead of them, in search of anything out of the ordinary.

Despite the high security rating of the entire system, much of its data was still relatively unprotected. Miko hacked into the station’s databanks before they left, and integrated some of its information into their own.

They had the location of every township on the planet, along with their basic data. Almost all of them were scientific research facilities. Half belonged to the Federation themselves, while the other half were a mix of corporations and similar private entities. A few were meant to be public-facing organizations, but their facilities were the smallest of all them.

Not that any were large to begin with, Miko estimated that the largest one housed a couple hundred people. According to the data, the entire planet only held a population of a few thousand, not including the sizeable garrison.

And they received supplies from outside the system itself, via convoys like the one they arrived in.

It was secured like a Core System, but operated like a Colonial System.

“I’m picking up faint signals,” said Claire. “Here...”

She pin-pointed a location on their navigational map and shared it with everyone. It was deep inside of a large mountain range.

“Signal’s kinda fuzzy, too,” she continued. “And the location definitely doesn’t match up with any of the research facilities on record.”

“What’s the elevation?” asked Xylo.

“Umm, about 9k up? Give or take a couple hundred meters.”

“Alright, let’s climb up to 25k and try to do a deep scan from above,” said Eva. “Maybe we’ll be able to see something from there.”

Their little fleet quickly climbed up higher, then hovered in place above the mountains. Amelia performed multiple scans at it, and shared everything it found with everyone else.

Miko pored over the data on her screens and tried to make sense of everything she was seeing.

“Most of it is shielded,” she said. “Similar to the settlement with the bunker underneath.”

“Similar to us hiding cargo,” added Claire.

“I can just make out a hidden compound underneath,” Miko continued. “Many large structures inside, but I cannot tell what their purpose is. This one is an energy reactor, maybe? This one maybe a communications array?”

“Can’t we just bombard the mountain?” asked T-Rex. “I mean, I know you’re all gonna say no, but I just wanted to put it out there. As an option.”

“Would be nice,” said Eva, “but I don’t think wiping out the Prophets are gonna be that easy, do you? And besides, we need to see what the hell he’s been up to down there.”

“I am spotting multiple entrances,” said Miko. “One large hangar on the side of the mountain itself.”

“Wait, hold on,” said Max. “Lemme get this straight – they’ve got a hangar in the mountain? How’d they get past Fed security?”

“Oh great, more of your spiel about the Federation being evil and whatnot,” groaned Locke.

“No no, hear me out. I’m with you that the regular grunts and whatnot would shoot the hell out of these people. I mean, on sight. The second they port in, Navy’s gonna be all over them. So how do they get to the planet, much less down to the surface?”

“He’s got a point,” said Amal. “Maybe they’ve got their own beacon maybe? Is that possible? Like some sort of private one? Think we could find it?”

“It would have to be far,” said Xylo. “And out of the way, so no-one could accidentally find it.”

“Or perhaps,” said Miko, “they are shielding themselves from detection, and passing themselves off as regular humans.”

“Not that it matters anyway,” said Eva. “What we need to do is get inside, right? You said there’s a hangar, so do we just blow through that? Then what? We’ve got no idea what’s inside.”

“True,” said T-Rex. “I don’t think it’d be smart if we charged in without knowing a damn thing. Raijin, you said there were multiple entrances, right? Any we could use?”

“Hai,” she replied. “There are many. However, all are only accessible by foot.”

.....