Awakening of the Shadows [COMPLETE]

Supernova

Eternity

"Are you fucking serious?" Antares called, apparently having overheard the messenger speaking to Vulcan. "Six days? That's not enough to even find direct coordinates to Scipio, and it'd take eight days to fly there on Impulse." All of his points were valid, and that was precisely the problem.

"Do you not know the coordinates to Scipio?" Vulcan asked, looking at Antares confusedly.

"No one does outside of Saladin's inner circle," Antares said. "Trianguli rarely leave Scipio given the fear tactics the Trianguli have used for so long. You know, 'enemies everywhere', 'we keep you safe from the MFS', other lies and bullshit like that." Vulcan took a slow, deep breath.

"What exactly can we do, then?" Vulcan asked. "Without coordinates, we can't directly jump to the Scipio system, meaning we'd have to fly right through the defenses erected around the system's oort cloud. That could take us even longer than eight days."

"To say nothing about the sheer volume of ships that would be lost for such a mission," I said. "There's no way we can stop Saladin from attacking, not without..." My eyes widened, and a plan began to take shape in my head. "Antares, you said there are other Trianguli like you, right? Trianguli who are fighting against Saladin?"

"Yeah," Antares replied. "Why?"

"If your bases are on the border of Trianguli territory, then can't we jump to there? It could shave several days off the trip to Scipio, maybe even enough to get us there!"

"I'd say that's the best chance we would have," Antares said. "Though I would recommend spacing the ships you'd be taking apart, one or two ships per outpost. Just in case Saladin attacks sooner than expected, since the loss of the entire fleet because he caught us off guard would mean instant defeat."

"Makes sense," Vulcan said, nodding thoughtfully. "How many ships are we talking about?"

"All of them," I said. "We won't have a chance against Saladin's fleet otherwise, not if what Antares said about Saladin rebuilding the fleet is true. Plus, if the fleet we send out falls, even if we leave some back here, we'll have learned that Saladin cannot be defeated by our ships. We die either way. If we take everything, at least we can give our system a chance by weakening Saladin." Vulcan's expression turned grave.

"We've never had a darker hour than this," He said finally. "Yes. Let's do it. Ready our fleet."

. . .

I stood within a shuttlecraft, the MFS Royal, staring out the viewport at the Celestial Hangar: the largest of our ship-containing rooms and the room in which the MFS Supernova, our flagship, called home. Built into the side of Prismatic Mountain northwest of the Palace, the Celestial Hangar was an absolutely titanic room, stretching five hundred meters across in total. It had many entry points, but none could be reached without a flying vehicle or a teleporter. It'd been built that way so that, in the event of an attack, the defenders could fight a battle on their turf, with rules of their choosing. It made the Celestial Hangar nearly impossible to breach, and also made sure that the Supernova could refuel and recharge in peace. The Royal would land soon, and it would then be time for me to board the Supernova and prepare for what could be the final mission ever issued by the Multiversal Federation. The only ship that we'd had to leave behind was a Tier I ship aiding the newly-arrived Humans, called the MFS Equinox. Unfortunate, but there was no way around it. If we did somehow best the Trianguli in starcraft combat, it would be horrific to return to our home and find that the Human race was dead.

"Sentinel? We've arrived." The pilot informed me.

"Thank you," I said, smiling.

"You need me to get the door?" The pilot asked.