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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 4 -
Chapter 21 - Several Months ago…[]
Decisions made by Ghosts of the SLDF's Past[]
SLDF SDS Repair & Refit Outpost #83
L1 Lagrange Point, NP-50 System
Deep Periphery
Two beings sat across from one another at a table, sipping tea, in a lovely postmodern house that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of the nicer neighborhoods on New Kyoto, or even in Tokyo on old Terra.
In truth, there was no house or room. At least, not physically.
The younger-appearing of the two beings, the one wearing the duty uniform of an SLDF Captain, set down her teacup. Of course, “younger” is a relative term when you’re both over 300 years old. “How’s he acclimating, really?”
“He’s doing well,” the second, “older” being in the SLDF Admiral’s uniform replied. “As there was with me, there was some initial difficulty with mapping his nerve paths to the functions of his new hull, but he appears to be adapting even more quickly than I did. I wouldn’t consider him combat-ready yet, but I anticipate he’ll be able to pick up front-line patrol duties within the next six months. And that’s reassuring, given the intelligence we've received from Kolossus. This area of space is becoming far more dangerous.”
The younger being, the core AI of the SLS Sybil Ludington, nodded in agreement. “The Sons of Plunder may have finally bitten off more than they can chew.”
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Human appearance of AI, Sybil Ludington.
“True,” Murakami agreed. “But we’re hardly in a position to do much about it. The plundering pretenders still have a considerable fleet supporting them. Their opposition consists of what the Outworlders have been able to slap together, combined with the descendants of Uncle Aleks’ misguided children, along with the current chuckle nuts holding Terra.”
“That coalition, as a group, has a sizeable fleet to oppose the pretenders though, Admiral.” Sybil disagreed. “If we work with them, we could help augment that. Concords may not be current-spec Aegis class cruisers, but we’re still Aegis class cruisers, plus support DropShips. And they work with several drone WarShips already. Our ATAC systems would be valuable in coordinating targeting data amongst their M-5s.”
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Human and AI persona of Admiral Murakami
Murakami thought carefully, sipping her tea. “We could, sure. We’ve got three Aegis-derivative cruisers, yes, all converted to M-12Cs with ATAC systems. But we’re derivative of the 2372-spec ships – even with our point-defense upgrades, we’re still woefully out of date. And you know how navies are: if you’ve got three ships you’ve got one, because one’s going to be active, one’s going to be undergoing maintenance while the third is conducting training. We’re literally in the same situation: you’ve been patrolling, while I’ve been handling our local construction and training Johnathan, who’s still trying to wrap his mind around being uploaded and stuck in a WarShip that’s better described as ‘historical relic’ than ‘frontline combatant’.”
“Okay, fair point,” Sybil conceded. “So maybe we offer them something less tangible than direct fighting ability right now: production. We’re still able to build M-3s and M-10s, and while we’ve not tried before, we could build more M-12s if we wanted to, especially if they give us a steady stream of supplies to do so. We could also help them convert any other ships to AI-control or AI-assist if they’re inclined to expand out with more AIs. The hybrid Nirasaki-Ulsop Mk 12 cores are a hell of a lot easier to build and maintain in the field than the older Nirasaki cores.”
Murakami nodded. “I know. That’s why I wanted you fitted with them. Mister Finch really came through for us. He was a true believer in the cause.”
“So what should we do? Talk to Thazi?” Sybil asked, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
“Not a fan of the Thazi Confederacy?” Murakami asked, some of the humor of “Noriko the woman” versus “Murakami the Admiral” leaking through.
“No.” Sybil replied readily. “They’re basically in the Federated Suns' pocket, but they’re far from the Suns. Which means they’re mainly there to be used to irritate the Draconis Combine in some fashion. Which also means they’re just another front in the Succession Wars. Individually, their ships add up to little, but they’ve got a surprising number of them for a minor Periphery power in a post-Jihad universe. Thus, I have concerns.”
“I’ve no intention of turning myself over to their control. They are, however, our closest neighbor, and we’ve been operating just outside their backyards since before they were even a nation state. We should at the very least introduce ourselves. Just so they know we’re not the Sons of Plunder in the event we run into them between here and Yard 91. That said, Kolossus is far more up to date on the various players than we are. So I’m going to send Kolossus an HPG message and get Kolossus’ advice on the best party to introduce ourselves to in order to avoid getting shot at, and what Kolossus believes they need most that we can provide.”
“We run the risk of the Sons of Plunder intercepting it.”
“True, so I’m going to very carefully select the set of relays I send it through.”