Coeus?

“One month after the mainframe became self aware the crime rate fell to almost zero percent.”

-The days of quantum computing

***Sol, Aether***

***Gideon***

“They are spreading out. I've already sent the alarm.” Nina's voice interrupts my breakfast with the family.

I grumble while smearing honey over a piece of bread. “Spreading out? Alarm? What are you talking about?”

“The Drazi of course! They arrived!” Nina answers with an excited voice.

“Oh...” The recent months went by like nothing and after a while I stopped worrying about the Drazi. We had no way of knowing when they are due to arrive. During the first few days in my role as an elder I kept worrying myself to death. Mainly for Aether and my family. Had I really done everything in my might to protect them?

But after a while I simply had to stop thinking about it. You can't stay awake and alert for a battle which will take place months in the future. And with each passing day and our progressing preparations I started worrying a little less.

“Can you keep us updated on how everything is developing?” I take a bite from my bread and savour the taste. Why can Sadina cook like a five star chef when Melan is a total cub inside the kitchen? All Melan ever does is eat the food of others, but Sadina can do everything from making excellent meals for dinner to baking this wonderful bread. That doesn't work together with her scientific knowledge at all.

After a while of trying to come to terms with herself she decided that she had to do something or she would turn mad. First she started cooking, then she was meeting Ed regularly. I don't know what's going on between the two of them, but I would be fine with it if they get together. At least it would take a lot of her attention off of me. I think she is trying to build a relationship. But it's weird. I am an adult. We can be friends, but I can't be her son. That door is closed between us.

I would describe our current relationship as neutral. Or at least as being boss and employee. When I heard about her wish to turn an artificial singularity into an energy source I decided to finance her research with my company and gave the reins to Cyla. Too much to do in my current job. Paul was excited at the prospect of joining the operation. One might think that he would be against such a development because his corporation has the biggest share in fusion reactors. But he always was the type to go with the flow of technology.

And Sadina's approach is so simple and clean. Who knows? Maybe our society would have had an energy source which rivals the anti-matter reactors if Sanguin hadn't taken the old Sadina out of the equation.

A three dimensional representation of the solar system flickers into existence. It hovers directly above our kitchen table, so I pay it some attention while eating. The Drazi ships arrived at Sol. They are three light hours outside the system and are fanning out, each one taking its own individual course. I am a governor and an elder on top of it, so there is no way for me to take part in the coming battle. On one side I am glad that I don't have to risk my neck, but on the other I am itching to take the Coeus for a ride.

That brings me to another point. Since the Coeus can be counted as a battleship it was requisitioned by the SDF. War be damned. I understand that every ship counts right now, but the Coeus is still my ship. At least Nina can telecommand it over the quantum net. Or should I say sadly she can command it over the net?

She offered to remote control the newer ships which were equipped with that possibility. Since the battle is unlikely to leave Sol and there isn't a lot of risk for the connection to be interrupted inside the system it is a very reasonable attempt to save lives.

On the other hand it also makes all the two hundred ships which fall under that category possible kamikaze vessels. Not that I doubt that any techno-mage pilot wouldn't choose to use kamikaze tactics if he is driven into a corner. Remote controlling those ships just makes it all the more likely that they wont come back.

“I will build you a new one.” Nina's voice echoes through the kitchen.

“I don't know what you are talking about?” I grumble, but Cyla produces a handkerchief from somewhere and rubs it in my face. Am I crying without my knowledge? Sucks! I hadn't done that in a while. Who knew that I like the Coeus that much?

I sigh and take another bite. “Watching interstellar battles is boring. How long will it take them to reach the inner system?” I let my eyes wander over Melan, Hedeon and Sadina. They are as anxious as me.

“They are currently trying to assess the situation. I think that they will decide on targets within the next few minutes after they gathered enough information. Their next step will be a short range FTL-flight into the inner system and towards their targets. Based on their decision we will deploy the nova weapon, teleporters or dispatch ships.” Nina answers.

Melan looks up and stirs her coffee. “Have you already tried to hack them?”

“Yes, but they are either not communicating or using tight laser beams. I suppose the latter is the case.” Nina answers grimly. “But if they are restricting themselves to such measures it only benefits us. They already are behind us in matters of communication. Once they are spread across the solar system they are practically independent units which we can pick off at our choosing.”

I think about what Nina said and nod. At the speed of light it takes a signal hours to reach from one side of the system to the other. Their left arm won't know what the right one is doing. We don't have that problem which allows us to react much faster to a changing situation.

“I think they partly took the bait.” Nina informs me. “About two hundred ships are taking a formation to approach Earth. Another two hundred are going for Mars while the rest is going for targets of opportunity.”

I almost choke over my coffee and Cyla freezes up. There are a lot of her relatives living on the red planet. “Why are they going for Mars?”

Nina tries to come up with an explanation. “I strongly suspect that they lack information. If all they have are gravitational readings, then they might suspect that Mars could be a planet with a colony and industry. From that far out it will be hard to get a good look with optical instruments alone. Even with gravitational lensing our own sensors would be hard pressed to identify Mars as a dead planet. We will see once they come closer. I also activated the decoys to trick the raiding vessels. If they waste energy to chase shadows we gain important time.”

I scratch my forehead. “No. It's much more likely that the Zeen gave them a little more information than we wished for. How high is the possibility that one of our people gave a hint at the distribution of our population? We have been in contact with the aliens for several months.”

Hedeon sighs. “It is possible. A random comment about home? A thoughtless joke about Earth and Mars? It might not have been intentional, but the Zeen are known as good listeners. Out of a myriad of hints they might have deduced that there are at least two worthwhile targets in Sol. At least population wise.”

I rub my temple. “No matter. It doesn't change the plan.”

During the following hours we watch the entire scene unfolding. I think it is the longest time I have ever spent with my relatives. We talk and follow the situation.

Nina decided to hold back on using our long range teleporters as weapons. Mainly because she wanted to use our ships to pick off as many lone vessels as possible. Ayo's blueprints proved invaluable in that regard. We knew exactly what to expect from the enemy vessels and how much they can take.

And they are able to take a lot! We need a twenty to one superiority to guarantee a victory without having losses of our own. The one aspect which kept our ships alive is the fact that our propulsion is still superior to alien technology. Even if everything on those ships is scaled up by ten it doesn't change the fact that their mastery of gravity can't keep up with ours.

They have machinery to simulate gravity on their ships, but their approach is only able to compensate for up to ten gravities. Everything above that kills the ship's crew, causing them to turn into bloody smears on the deck.

Our ships are easily able to accelerate with over a hundred gravities or more if just a short burst of speed is needed. That gives us the ability to pick off lone enemy ships as we please.

Apparently the Drazi understood that point too and changed tactics on their way into the solar system. By the time they reached the belt they started forming up to stop us from killing off stragglers. In some cases they even risked FTL-flights within the system to escape our ships. Their form of warp-drive is a risky endeavour if you aren't absolutely sure that there is no matter in your flight path. At least fifteen alien ships lost such a bet when they decided that running is better than fighting superior numbers. But that was just a drop in the ocean.

Sadly they also found and destroyed four of our asteroid colonies on their way into the system. We are still trying to conserve our forces, so defending a small colony at all costs could have caused more trouble than it is worth. Luckily we managed to evacuate most of the civilians beforehand. Nina was very strict in organizing evacuation plans for the outer colonies. The individual colonies weren't that big compared to one like Aether, but all four together still amount to a hundred thousand people who lost their homes.

I wince at the thought of what to do with them. Since all this began we are really starting to get into trouble with our living space. First Oibras, then the immigrants from Earth, now those colonies. Maybe we should find a habitable planet which is close to Earth? Or relocate some of the people to Earth? We could use the north - or south - pole if we don't want to mingle with the normals. More than enough space there and the resources were exploited hundreds of years ago.

Finally the fleets which are approaching Earth and Mars are in a tight enough formation to justify the use of the nova-weapons. Nina teleports several of the nodes into their path to enclose each of the two big Drazi formations in their own zone of death.

The people around the table cheer and I can't help myself. I grin. That single strike got us four hundred ships closer to victory.

But while Nina is managing the new deployment of ships I have another thought and request a news  feed from Earth. It takes a few minutes, but then I am rewarded with a reporter who is frantically gesturing at a second sun in the sky above Moscow. It is slowly expanding, but also diminishing at the same time.

“Oh, the representatives from Earth will totally freak out about that!” Melan reaches up to run her fingers through her hair, desperation in her voice.

Yes, she is right. Earth's population isn't really up to events, so Earth's government and its president, Rob, will have a lot of explaining to do. “If you think that they are freaking out right now, then wait until the light from Mars arrives and they get a third, bigger sun though it is farther away.” Nina had to use a little more neutron star explosives on that fleet because their ships were farther away from each other.

But those are just minor problems. “How is it going with the individual ships, Nina?”

“A few made a flyby on Jupiter, but couldn't identify the colony there. It is too well hidden. I've decided to completely ignore them after the first ones didn't detect it. If we don't fight for Jupiter it will encourage the point that there is nothing of importance there. I would rather have them remain ignorant than trying to poke the surface with their lasers.” Nina answers. Then she decides to confess the downside of her strategy. “Sadly the orbital stations around the planet got wiped out, but those were just trans-shipment centres for the colony which is hidden planet-side. Our racial paranoia is playing to our advantage. The stations aren't to be counted as real damage to our economy and can be replaced rather easily.”

Then her expression turns sour. “What's really hurting though is that their raiding strategy is wreaking havoc in the belt. So far they found and destroyed seventy-nine mining operations and caused the loss of one resource node. I could add a hundred other little things. They are shooting at everything that comes too close. I am just glad that even our slowest transports are easily able to outrun them.”

I wince. The resource nodes are big stations and usually very expensive operations with much sensitive equipment. Miners ship valuable asteroids to the station where they are broken down. Usable pieces are sent on a slow trajectory towards the sun where they are caught and further refined by the Forge, our main shipyard.

“Does it look like they have any intentions against the Forge? Or at stealing technology?” I ask.

“For now it doesn't look like it. But my entire strategy at this moment is to avoid using the long range teleporters for as long as possible. Once we have riddled down their numbers I can use our sniping ability to deny them the escape.”

Good. I return my attention to the chaos which is spreading all over the solar system, but at least Nina is able to deny them targets of high value. The fact that the enemy is now reluctant to form big formations is helping a lot at keeping them at bay. The threat of our miniature supernovas is more than enough to stop them from using their biggest advantage.

If they had been able to use their ships in a tighter formation to cover each other while relying on superior shields and firepower we would have had a hard time.

As it is now all they can do is pick targets of opportunity while trying to run from our hunting groups as long as possible. From time to time one of their ships attempts an FTL-flight, but that deep inside the system that's not getting them very far. There is always enough dust and micro asteroids around to stop them after a few light minutes. Then our ships simply perform a teleportation and the chase continues. All Nina is doing right now is to keep the ships away from the planets. There is no way to tell what might happen if one of the Drazi feels like creating a big crater on one of the planets is a bright idea. If such a thing hits Earth it might as well cause a second ice age.

It's only when Nina already started using the long range teleporters as weapons that a very grave and avoidable thing happens! The fight is practically over and suddenly all my hopes are destroyed. The most important dot on the entire tactical 3D representation vanishes! I even gave it a separate colour to have an eye on it!

“What happened!?” I call out. The Coeus is gone! The good, little ship survived so long despite always being used among the first line of attackers. Countless other remote controlled ships perished long before her, but the brave little dot which represented the Coeus kept going!

“I am so sorry!” Nina shrieks! “I think one of the enemy ships got lucky and hit a reactor. I think. It simply exploded!”

I slam my head onto the table. “Not the Coeus! My baby! My spaceship! Why?” Cyla pats my back, but somehow it doesn't help at all.

“If it helps... I think she didn't suffer. It was over in an instant.” Nina tries to comfort me, but it doesn't help. Nothing can make up for this loss.

“I've never seen Gideon getting emotional over something. What's so special about the Coeus?” Sadina asks a little more than baffled.

Melan makes a dismissive gesture. “It's just his private ship. If he really wants to he has enough money to build a whole fleet of them.”

“You don't get it! The Coeus was important! Unique! One of those places filled with memories. It's where Cyla's ass fell into my lap and where I did her for the first time. Where our souls became one over weeks and months! I wanted to use the Coeus to take her on a late honeymoon once all this shit is over. You could very well see it as our hidden honeymoon suite! Losing such an important place is like losing a home.” I try very hard to keep my face from showing any emotions.

“Gideon...” Cyla asks and I turn towards her. “Yes, Dear?”

“Didn't those mind-medics mention that they want to have a second meeting with you? I think it would be good if you at least tried to take their help... they might have a point when they say that you need help.”

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