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Why?
No, not because I could. Because I could is why I felt confident to try.
No, I did what I did because you did what you did.
Not just to .
But to everyone.
Your argunts are compelling indeed.
Now face the wall. - Dra.Falten Civil War
Commodore Navelu'uee stood on the bridge, staring at the screens. She could sit down into her chair or have it convert into the clamshell but had chosen to stand on the deck like the strange Terrans everyone referred to as "The Immortals" were doing.
Commodore Navelu'uee had to admit, she was unsure why the High Lord Captain allowed beasts to be on the bridge. They were obviously animals, despite being the possession of one of the Immortals. Perhaps their standing as pets of an Immortal made it so that common sense had to be set aside. During her long career she had found many circumstances where common sense or standard operating procedure had to be set aside due to rank or other realities.
Of course, the fact that the Immortals were also the forr disciples to the Digital Omnissiah, a Terran religious figure, could weigh heavily on the decision.
As for herself, Commodore Navelu'uee found she preferred the worship of the ancient savage gods of her hosts. There was no stay away from violence, no submit to the will of others and certainly no forgive for what had been done to her.
fifty years old...
Commodore Navelu'ueeshook herself slightly and looked at the main viewscreen.
The viewscreen was showing the swirling eye-aching colors of Transit Space with a countdown tir hovering just in front of the viewscreen.
Commodore Navelu'uee had found it was the little things that the Terrans did with their technology that made all the difference.
Things like ensure it was easy to read sothing from all angles, make sure that pathways were clearly marked and easy to navigate, that things were concise and easy to understand.
Things that the Dra.Falten Empire didn't bother with.
She moved over next to her seat, putting her hand on the back of it, imitating others. She could see that the Detainee was sitting in a chair, the only one not in an armored vac-suit. She had her legs primly crossed at the knee, one hand resting on her upraised knee, the other holding a Treana'ad smoke-stick.
"Translation to realspace in 5... 4... 3..."
Nav looked around.
Everyone looked calm and she forced the butterflies in her stomach down.
Reality flattened out, paint on glass, before Nav felt herself violently thrown forward and through the glass. She could see herself reflected a thousand thousand tis, each ti a little different from the others. At the far side she was a male digging ditches, closest to her the glass was blank.
Reality re-established itself with a blurring streak.
"CONTACTS! MULTIPLE CONTACTS IN THE TETRA-TONNE RANGE!" one of the Terrans sang out. "MULTIPLE MAR-GITE DRIVE SIGNATURES DETECTED! MANY MANY POINT SOURCES!"
Nav reflexively reached for her implant link to make sure she wasn't in the middle of a sim.
It was gratifying to see a few of the bridgecrew do the sa.
"Red alert. Battle stations. All hands," the High Lord Captain rumbled, his deep voice calm and self-assured. "Shield to maximum, break the geotry, get us so distance, helm. Sensors, get us a sweep on the system as well as ID those hostiles. Navigation, figure out where we are and system geotry."
"Aye-aye, sir!" rang out.
Nav found herself moving to her chair, intending on forming a crash-couch.
The Detainee just smiled a bare toothed smile.
"Pumping out atmosphere," soone said.
Nav glanced twice at the Detainee as she got into her chair and buckled up.
The Terran just sat there, smiling, wearing only a skirt and blouse cut so severe it looked like a military uniform.
Up on the main screen the system ca to light. Two planets in the green zone, one in the amber stellar-mass side, one on the amber side opposite. Two planets in the red zone. Five gas giants and two hypermassive gas gaints with sixty moons total. The planets were scattered around. Two stellar masses, a yellow star orbiting a red star.
"No asteroid belt, cots, or other stellar debris. System has been cleared or resource extracted," a voice said.
"Point sources rising out of the gas giants. Many many point sources. Mar-gite drive signatures detected! Unknown drive signatures detected!" rang out.
Nav grabbed the cord and pulled the plug-in to her hip. She was already plugged into her armor's infojack, so her chain just used the hip-jack instead of the plug for the back of the neck as if she wasn't armored.
"Do you see that?" One of the Terrans, who Nav had been introduced to as "nhit the Singer" AKA "Lieutenant General nhit Chisisi
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