11

Laying the keel

48 days after the lunar battle

Davidson and Miradima stood on the bridge of the Kl'Deesius, now completely repaired from its' combat around the moon. As Fleet Commander, her choice of ship can be anything she wants, but Davidson knew her well at this point, and knew she had a fondness for this frigate they both stood on. Now that she had the resources of Fleet Command, if she chose this as her flag ship, she was empowered by Tau Cetian regulations to make any number of changes to improve the ship. No doubt she would.

For now, they were aboard the ship, headed toward Earth to witness the first stage of the terraforming process that would restore Earth's ecosystem. That was not the only reason for returning to Earth. While the bioformers were doing their job, a fleet of corvette-sized maintenance drones were building the dry-dock facility in geostationary orbit of Earth. It was a very high orbit, not one intended to be practical for reaching from the surface, but by the time the planet was ready for habitation again, this ship will have been completed and deployed. By the time people were ready to start building additional ships and ship production was ready to start ramping up, the technology to allow easy transfers from surface to orbit would be in place, and an infrastructure would be ready on both the Earth and the moon.

Davidson and Miradima were here to see these two projects get underway. Their first destination was low Earth orbit to monitor the deployment of the terraforming pods and drones to start cleaning the atmosphere. These pods launched from the massive orbiting vessel, all on a slowly-decaying orbit, whereupon they breach the atmosphere and break apart, releasing clusters of short-lived bio-organisms that consume ionizing radioactive materials. They settle on the surface of the planet and begin consuming any radioactive materials they come across, digesting radioactive materials and excreting harmless inorganic compounds resembling stable isotopes that would occur during natural radioactive decay, all while tunneling under the surface through any soil, sand, ice or snow, and even sinking through water. They expired after a short time, doing so by releasing a high intensity heat blast that burns their bodies to ashes. All that is left is a mixture of inert particles that cause no harm to any organisms that come across them, and the land that they occupied.

Released alongside these pods were seedling pods designed to re-seed the planet surface. It had taken weeks to obtain enough samples of what little plant-life remained on Earth to grow sufficient seedlings that this process could begin, and the limits were enough that the native seedlings had to be supplemented with Tau Cetian equivalents.

While Earth would once again have an ecosystem, it would never again have an Earth ecosystem like there was before the wars that killed off their old one. The surviving populace from the surface might not notice the difference in the various strains of grasses and trees, plants and other flora, but Davidson's crew would recognize the difference between the green grass and the Tau Cetian aquamarine variety, or the difference between red roses and Tau Cetian indigo thornflowers, the most similar variety that they could source. Only the venerable Oak was among the few surviving species of plantlife from Earth that was being reseeded, along with an extremely limited variety of pine, palm and fir trees, along with the dandelion plant, one of the few surviving non-tree plant species. Corals were gone, as were almost all marine species of life, now having to be replaced with certain Tau Cetian varieties of marine ecology that would maintain the ocean ecosystem in their stead. Avian species were all but extinct, with only the regular housefly and horsefly surviving, and since they were considered pests, they were not recovered for re-seeding. Arachnids of various stripes were recovered where they were found, and a species of scorpion was recovered. Despite what was recovered, major gaps existed, all of which were plugged from Tau Cetian varieties.

The implications of this ecosystem situation would have to be dealt with at another time, but dealt with they would be, because human beings would need to adapt, albeit in subtle but noticeable ways.

In addition to this, anything that would be considered harmful to the ecosystem's restoration, from radioactive deposits left on the surface in broken reactors or vessels in the oceans, to leaked bioweapon contaminants, was being removed. The bioweapon elements were being treated with bio-containment teams armed with a primitive nanobomb dispersal agent designed to target the chemical compounds themselves and then detonate, breaking apart the compounds into harmless elements. The technological remnants were being collected, catalogued, and data on their composition and construction was stored for human analysis down the line.

Following the quick overview of the progress of Earth's restoration project, Davidson and Mira then took the Kl'Deesius to the assembly scaffold currently sitting in the Lagrange point between Earth and the Moon. There, the first of Earth's own fleet of ships was being built. It was barely half the size of the Kl'Deesius, would only be able to maintain a crew of thirty at most, and of the technologies available from the Tau Cetians, only the gravitic field manipulation sciences utilised by the FTL technology had been implemented. As a consequence, while the ship had FTL capability and the ability to manipulate the internal gravitational fields that it could generate, everything else on the ship was devised from Earth's own technological development at the time the Tau Cetians returned with Captain Greenfield's mission crew. Thankfully, the ISS Tau Ceti included an extensive database consisting of an overview of Earth's history, at-the-time current governmental structures, and an extensive database of all the technologies that had been implemented in the construction of the ISS Tau Ceti herself. The medical knowledge that had been incorporated into the database had already been copied and traded with the Tau Cetians in exchange for FTL technology, and a backup of the Tau Ceti data storage had been retrieved from surviving sections of the Habitat Module.

All other Earth technology would have to be pieced together from the scraps that were left on Earth. This made the catalog process taking place on the surface all the more important for human technological development, and already some of the combat drones Davidson had commanded against the enemy Possessor invaders had been reverse-engineered and their weapons technology cloned. Powerful laser banks would line the dorsal and ventral sections of the new ship from the bow to aft sections. Ballistic weapons would need to make up the heavy hitting capability of the vessel until more powerful weapons could be developed. The Tau Cetian plasma cannons were currently out of their reach.

However, that did not mean that the first of the Alliance ships built by Earth was a weakling that served only as a token vessel. On the offensive, the Alliance Starship, designated with the moniker Sol, was to be equipped with said laser banks, as well as four high-velocity rail-guns capable of firing 50mm tungsten slugs, four missile launchers at the front and another two at the rear. Defensively, the laser banks could function as interceptors for missile weapons, detonating any incoming payload early by overheating the warhead casings. Additionally, the hull was to be made out of composite armor plating, the first time a spacecraft had ever been built to such specifications in Earth's history. Even the ISS specifications, which called for protection against particulates colliding with the hull at close to quarter-light-speed, didn't have hull plating this toughened.

Over time, the specifications for future A.S. fleet ships would incorporate new technologies and alterations to their design specs. Larger ships were planned, but those would have to wait for more resources to open up from planned mining ops in the Asteroid Belts and the Moon. Those projects would rely upon the construction of the first full-time orbital assemblies around the Moon, with fabrication plants on the lunar surface which had yet to be built.

So far, only the A.S. Sol was being built for the new Alliance, and this was being handled by the Tau Cetians until the first of Earth's people could be trained to operate their own equipment. This was the earliest stage of construction, with barely a superstructure already in place. It looked like a skeleton for the most part, with only the FTL powerplant in place and two out of four Ion engines projecting out of the rear of the ship. Construction had yet to start on any other interior elements.

Davidson received an overview alongside Mira, and both assured the commanders overseeing the projects of their understanding, before deciding to resume their journey. The next stop was planned to enter lunar orbit to oversee the construction of the first assembly structure in lower lunar orbit before visiting the surface to oversee the fabrication plants that would be sited near newly-discovered ore and fuel deposits on the surface.

Unfortunately, a priority communication signal was received aboard the Kl'Deesius, changing their priorities.

"Fleet-Commander, we have an emergency priority transmission from Fleet Command," the communications Sub-Commander reported to Miradima.

"Let's hear it," she ordered.

"Fleet Command to Fleet Commander," the message begun. "Priority Home One. Contact Fleet Intelligence with immediate effect on receipt of this message. Dissident factions among the human populace have staged a coup-"

Miradima wasted no time. "End message. Contact Fleet Intelligence, priority one secure channel."

Everyone waited impatiently, even though in reality the connection took a few seconds to establish.

"Fleet Intelligence," the voice reported. To Davidson's ears, it sounded rather androgynous.

"Fleet Commander Miradima," Mira replied. "A coup?"

"Yes, Fleet Commander. Dissident factions on the surface of Midinia have struck against our security forces and have acquired weapons. They are holding several of their own people hostage on the surface. They have presented a list of demands."

Davidson could see Miradima's anger at this situation in her slightly reddened face and the whitening of her knuckles as she squeezed her hands into fists. "Who do they have?"

"Reports indicate that they have everyone from the Envoy mission as well as several key figures from the survivors."

"Stand by," Mira told the Fleet Intelligence operative, waited for the channel to be muted, and let out a string of oaths in her native language. Davidson was as furious as she was. The Envoy mission, as the Tau Cetians referred to it, was the designation for the journey that the ISS Tau Ceti undertook to the Tau Cetian home-world. This meant that Stephen, Helen and John had been captured and were being held hostage by these thugs. Miradima had calmed herself enough to continue doing her job. "Set a course for home, red-line single-jump. Put me back on."

"Yes Commander," the communications Sub Commander responded, and the channel to Fleet Intelligence was restored.

"We are on our way back now. Was there anything else?"

"Yes, their list of demands is relatively short, but they finished off with the following message: Any attempt to attack us, any delay in getting what we want, and any attempt to negotiate with us, will be met with lethal force against our captives. Traitors to humanity do not deserve any quarter. You have three hours to meet our demands."