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A3 - Chapter 75 – Wake Up Call

USD: 21 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt, A3123Y Orbital

Amy threw her shirt angrily at the wall as she undressed to prepare for a shower. The stupid council had wasted two hours of her time arguing over which one of them should be the new future Captain of the refurbished Destroyer sitting moored to the station.

Nevermind that Abbey would allow no one other than combat bots to crew the thing; something Amy whole-heartedly su...

A3 - 74 - Heaven's Fire

Note: A new scene has been added. POV: Thraker. Second scene in chapter.

USD: Nine days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: Nu Crateris, Eastern Continent, CSS Tremissis

The hum of stressed power systems vibrated through Heeler’s carapace as the defensive emplacements swept across the incoming horde of enemy nestlings. Long lines of fire left massive smoke clouds that billowed into the sky as the tall prairie grass burned and the nestlings were incinerated.

A3 - 73 - Reboot

USD: Nine days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, IND Iron Horse

Alex sat in the corner of the medbay, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stared at her sister Elis as she lay in a coma. Another day had passed with no sign of improvement.

Locked away in an escape pod for over a day before being rescued, Alex had been forced to tend to Elis’s nearly fatal injury on her own. The advanced medkit had saved her life, but not before she had suffered extreme s...

A2 - Chapter 72 – Epilogue

USD: Some time after the Battle of Dedia IV

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, A3123-Y Station

Amy raised her welding helmet so she could wipe the sweat on her forehead as she completed the repair to the floor panel. A miner from one of the independent ships that had made the station its home waved to her from across the corridor.

She smiled and waved back.

After the battle, dozens of the mining vessels had arrived to help the wrecked station. The sin...

A2 - Chapter 71 – And All the King’s Men (Finale)

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Decaying Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

The Tears suffered another strike to the bow from the cruiser’s railgun, punching through it at an angle. Ship integrity was becoming a concern as huge chunks of debris floated around the inner hull, smashing into things as the ship shifted. The main linear drive system had been shattered by another railgun strike, leaving the ship on gas RCS only.

The on...

Chapter 70 – And All the King’s Men (Part 5)

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

Elis had remained quiet and clamped in her seat during the entire engagement. Eyes closed, she hummed to herself as lines of fire were punched through the ship and parts of it were turned into debris.

A railgun round had punched through from the floor and through the ceiling, passing through without stopping and filling the space with a thin cloud of heated plasma. ...

Chapter 69 – And All the King’s Men (Part 4)

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, PF-131, SMS Grazhdanin

Once weapons had filtered through the massed Solarians across the ship, the horrendous casualty rate dropped to something less horrific. They were still getting a raw deal.

The Corpos had trained marines in power armor and the sailors only had their uniforms, but it was better than the human waves that had been bleeding and dying for the precious time they had ...

Chapter 68 – And All the King’s Men (Part 3)

USD: Shortly before entering orbit above Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, CBC CSS Tremissis

Commodore Brigit’s grip tightened on his seat until his knuckles turned white. Glaring at the tactical screen, the plucky FedTech corvette had changed course and was moving back to the space elevator’s asteroid anchor. Debris and molten metal and carbon floated in a cloud around the space, heavy enough to degrade their sensor returns on the area.

He had...

A2 - Chapter 67 – And All the King’s Men (Part 2)

USD: Minutes after entering missile range

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, CBC CSS Tremissis, breaking maneuver

PF-131 burned hard in a breaking maneuver in order to ensure orbital capture above the colony. Once they had reduced the few defenses, they would be free to take a geostationary orbit and enact a thorough surface bombardment.

Those small defenses had turned out to be annoyingly persistent in their capability to destroy the incoming kinetic bombardme...

A2 - Chapter 66 – And All the King’s Men (Part 1)

Hello dear patrons, you might have noticed no chapter yesterday. I needed extra time to prepare a new outline for the ending of A2. It proved to be a bit longer than I had first envisioned.

One other thing, we might be going back to a chapter every other day a little early. I have been feeling a bit stretched as we neared the end of the month, and it just felt a lot better to have the extra day to rest and think about things.

I am really pleased to say that I was able to blow the ...

A2 - Chapter 65 – Before the Storm

USD: A Day later

Location: Nu Crateris, 92 Pegasi jump point, Tears of Fire

Alex tapped the arm of her seat and bit her lip.

“We will have the support of the ground-based point defenses. The lasers can reach orbit. The platforms the colonists have built also have close range defenses and should be capable of avoiding long range kinetic strikes.”

Thraker shook his head, a grim look on his face.

“Captain, we’ve been over this already. I ha...

A2 - Chapter 64 – Annihilation Order

USD: During the battle at jump point

Location: CBC CSS Tremissis

TF-141’s tenders were still picking over the debris and recovering what they could from the destroyed station. The few inhabitants that had managed to survive in escape pods had been rounded up and deposited on the Grazhdanin. All had been summarily found guilty of crimes and locked up pending resettlement on a penal world where they would eventually work off the cost of their crimes and begin a n...

Chapter 63 – Jump point battle

USD: A few hours later

Location: Nu Crateris, IND Iron Horse, maneuvering to engage PF 141 Picket Group

The bridge of the Iron Horse was quiet as the clock slowly ticked down. A muted order or adjustment by an officer monitoring his console was the only break in the ship’s thrum as Thraker watched the tactical plot.

The Tears had settled in a close formation almost directly astern of his ship. It was slightly offset, so its lasers would have a clear line ...

A2 - Chapter 62 – Purge Protocol

USD: The Next Day

Location: Nu Crateris, SMS Grazhdanin, Bridge

Lavigne sat quietly on the bridge, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He had no desire to speak or interact with the Corpo personnel on Captain Walker’s bridge. The only time he spoke was to coordinate the multiple repair gangs that had been organized and worked on the ship’s critical systems that needed maintenance.

By necessity, his plan required secrecy. It was highly unlike...

A2 - Chapter 61 – Byte

USD: Short time later

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt, SRS A3123-Y

Amy watched as Abbey brought the Frigates and Destroyer into laser range. The ships had desperately tried to burn back to their heavier siblings. Then they had dived sunward a short time later, even more madly, but it had been far too late. The haphazard movements only doomed the ships to a relatively slow pass by the station.

As the distance narrowed, the lighter ships bega...

A2 - Chapter 60 – And

USD: Around the same time

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV, Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire

Alex had set up the life support systems on the freighters, despite not knowing whether or not she was going to use them. The resource cost wasn’t that heavy, and she had enough to do so with what they had on hand. More concerningly, H32 did not want to leave the planet.

Nameless had suggested that she could force it to obey, but forcing anyone to do anything aga...

A2 - Chapter 59 – Resist

USD: A short time later

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia Geostationary Orbit, Tears of Fire, CIC

The information of the Corporate Fleet’s arrival spread through the system, which reacted much like a kicked anthill. System traffic was much more diverse and denser than in 92 Pegasi. Independent operators scuttled for cover as system relays blared the number and size of the Corporate ships that had arrived.

Military fleets did not come to places like Nu Crateris...

A2 - Chapter 58 – Table set

Lore Interlude – Starlight Revolution Freighter MK1

| Starlight Revolution Freighter MK1|

|Class: Armed Merchantman|

|First Production Year: GSD 76|

|Categorization: Civilian|

|Sub-Cat: Interstellar Cargo|

|Hull Length (Bow to Stern): 241m|

|Hull Beam: 84m|

|EST Effective Operation Duration 24 months|

||Armament||

|6x Single 32mm Point Defense Cannons, AP rounds |

|6x Double 8cm Point Defense...

Chapter 57 – Collison Course

USD: The next day

Location: Nu Crateris, Tears of Fire, en route to Hades

Alex felt strange about having a new person on the ship.

She had thought about isolating Daniel in a box while they carried him along with the supplies needed to build the new orbital to Hades.

For about point five seconds.

She still remembered her conversation with Nameless about putting her in a box, and she wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.

It had required a ...

A2 - Chapter 56 – Outer Ops

USD: The next day

Location: Nu Crateris, Tears of Fire, en route to Nucrateri Station

Elis pressed pause on the recording that Alex had made after listening to it for a second time. “It’s good enough, I think.”

“But will it even get to people?”

[Informative: Although our military access keys have been revoked, civilian communication networks allow for multiple paths of ingress.]

Elis blew a tuft of hair off her face. �...

A2 - Chapter 55 – Deep Truths and Fears

USD: The next day, after coming into Real-time Comm range

Location: Nu Crateris, Tears of Fire, En route Dedia IV

Alex had directed Nameless to burn harder than needed to slow their trajectory to Dedia IV. They’d arrive a bit slower, but due to the tense situation, that seemed prudent. It gave time for H32 and Nameless to share telemetry and analysis data more thoroughly, as well as allow for the Tears to do a more detailed scan with its advanced sensor suite.<...

A2 - Chapter 54 – Cold War

USD: One week later

Location: Nu Crateris, Starlight Revolution Convoy, Tears of Fire, en route Dedia IV

Alex glared at the skillet that was slightly smoking, before turning the heat on the electric stove from maximum to high. “Elisss, can’t you do it?”

“No. Your turn to cook. If it’s inedible, we’ll go hungry.”

Biting her lip, Alex moved the pan off the heat completely to let it cool a little. On her plate was a round black form of what was supposed to b...

A2 - Chapter 53 – Movements

Feeling a bit tired today after taking my dad to see his doctors. Hopefully I didn't butcher the chapter too badly today. Please let me know if there are any glaring issues!

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USD: A few days later

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Station, Portmaster Office

Portmaster Whitely frowned as he read another traffic report. The station’s sensor network was not quite as advanced as an inner system station’s, but it was still equivalent...