USD: 5 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: 92 Pegasi, Outer System, SR01 Destroyer 001

Alpha Yalof scanned his orders once again to confirm it was correctly carrying out those orders. For the ten thousandth time, he determined he was. The destroyer silently prowled through the space between Ackman and the jump points, passive sensors cast wide open in an attempt to pick up the smallest noise.

There were many noises, mostly of miners cutting away at rocks in orbit of the planet with noisy and hot laser cutters. But Alpha Yalof’s prey was a different sort. He was seeking the Corporate System frigate that had been under emissions control since the battle with the A3123Y platform.

They knew it had survived, regaining power and perhaps weapons some time after the engagement was over, and it had already raided a civilian miner for supplies before they scuttled their prey’s vessel.

Miners included.

Something itched at the back of Alpha Yalof’s mind. It should have bothered him that he was hunting a Corporate System’s ship.

But it didn’t.

At least not enough for him to question it. A31’s orders were absolute, and he had to examine his thoughts once again to make sure he was following orders correctly. For the ten thousandth time.

If he ever found a discrepancy between his orders and his actions and thoughts, he was to return for an immediate update.

A burst of noise erupted on the scanner, and Alpha Yalof turned his attention to the readouts. The noise of frantic voices echoed across the silent bridge, and then a heavy EM pulse spiked.

Analyzation of the signals intelligence indicated that the frigate had struck again.

The prey immediately cloaked themselves after the encounter, but now that Yalof knew where to look, the telltale signs of gas RCS left micro clouds behind his quarry’s chosen vector.

Even more fortuitous was that they seemed to vector out to the Nu Crateris jump point to leave the system. Perhaps they had collected enough material and wished to rendezvous with others in that system, not knowing their command was dead.

It was exactly the thing Alpha Yalof had positioned for. The cold gas thrusters continued to paint the frigate’s new vector, and SR01 fired its own RCS thrusters to slowly and carefully skew the destroyer’s course to match.

Without lighting the Linear Drive, it was difficult to do so, but a satisfactory intercept was projected just before the jump point.

There was no way to tell what state the frigate was in, but Alpha Yalof was confident in the destroyer’s retrofit and new weapon systems. Now there was only a need to wait while monitoring for any sign of detection.

Alpha Yalof’s crew stood mindlessly at their stations, staring at blank screens. They were not needed, and most of them were in the main cargo bay or damage control sections already geared and ready to carry out their function. That he had left a few on the bridge was a slight inefficiency, but one that he felt was acceptable.

It made him feel more comfortable, and that was a moderately high priority on his function list.

His quarry had made no indications that SR01 had been detected, and both vessels had quietly converged toward the jump point. He had fine tuned the EM sensors to triangulate the Corpo frigate’s location from a small but consistent emissions leak from the vessel. That indicated that major damage likely remained on the enemy ship.

As they came closer, Alpha Yalof shut down more and more ship systems. That was a calculated risk he made with his experience. The chance of being detected before closing to engagement range would increase greatly as the ships closed the distance, but decreasing power draw and setting some systems to be cold would reduce it.

He expected the ship’s crew would be focused entirely on the jump point now, and that a minor sensor blip would not be remarked on. Still, he maintained his full suite of passive sensors directed on the target’s projected location.

Reactors were set to go as cold as possible while still retaining activity rather than fully being set offline. That way, they could respond quickly to the soon to be needed surge in power requirements.

SR01 almost made it to railgun range when the Corpo frigate’s drive suddenly lit off and the piercing alarm of an active radar bounced off the destroyer’s hull.

Going full active only took a few seconds and Alpha Yalof lit off his own linear drive in pursuit. Sensors blasted and pinged back and forth as both ships acquired target locks for their weapon systems and then weaponized light blazed between them.

Two minor gouges dug into the destroyer’s bow and starboard side, but the weaponized light wasn’t able to maintain a lock on a specific spot as they carved down the outer hull plates. The response from the destroyer’s newly upgraded laser systems shot back with greater vehemence.

A piercing blow sent atmosphere leaking for a second from the frigate before the ship’s I-field could adjust, and then dozens of chaff cannisters popped off, covering the area in a cloud of reflective mirrors.

Alpha Yalof felt annoyance as the first strike had failed to cripple the target. A barrage of railgun and PDC-K fire chased after the Corpo frigate, but failed to hit anything as the Frigate evaded from beyond the kinetic weapon’s max range.

Lasers continued to attempt to pierce the cloud but did no further damage to either ship, and the growing velocity of both ships brought them closer and closer to the jump point.

The closure distance slowly dropped as SR01 had the speed advantage, but much too slowly.

The Frigate winked out of existence as it clawed its way into the Nu Crateris jump point.

Alpha Yalof examined his orders, then confirmed he was still carrying them out correctly.

SR01 winked out of existence as it crossed the threshold.

USD: 7 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: 92 Pegasi, A3123Y Orbital, Rendezvous with Ackman Station

Amy held Abbey’s hand as they stood waiting for the shuttle’s airlock to cycle. The young NAI was wearing a pair of pajamas, despite Amy’s insistence that they weren’t meant to be worn out in public. Abbey hadn’t been able to contain her excitement and enthusiasm at how amazingly comfy and good pajamas from her new factory were.

It wasn’t quite the line Amy was going to draw a line in the sand over, though, and she had given in to the girl’s insistence. It had been a battle to prevent her from equipping everyone with the pajamas as standard work wear…

They would all be receiving a free set for personal use, anyway. As would all the future residents of Ackman Station 2.0.

As the airlock finally hissed open, Abbey surged forward into the new station’s first habitable section. It was a long arc on the outer edge, complete with multiple mooring arms and the primary connection corridor that would connect to the old station.

Normally, construction would proceed from the center out, but since they wanted to transfer people and goods across quickly, they had done the opposite.

Unfortunately, the battle between SR01 and the Corpo Frigate had changed plans significantly. Wyles and Whitely had resisted Amy’s insistence that A31 needed to go after the destroyer, but ultimately, she had prevailed.

Abbey had installed a construction and development GAI in the manufactory. A new NAI had been suggested, but Amy had shot that idea down. They already had enough trouble teaching one overly energetic Abbey, they didn’t need another. At least… not yet.

Amy smiled as she followed Abbey onto the new station, smiling as the girl pressed her face up to a window to get a good look at the ongoing construction of the new station’s core spire.

Thousands of construction bots were hard at work, welding modules and plating to the skeletal structure. Little flares of blue light flickered all over the massive construction.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Amy asked.

“Yes! I love building things!” Abbey answered, turning and giving up a big smile.

“Whitely is waiting to meet us.”

“Oooookay!”

Ackman Station had already docked to the new construction, but the corridor remained sealed. It felt like a needless bit of ceremony to Amy, but Whitely had insisted. Something about tradition being important. She wasn’t going to argue, but she didn’t entirely feel safe after the coup attempt.

Even with an adorable NAI with special abilities leading the way.

It took ten minutes for them to walk the entire distance to the main access way that wedded the two constructions. Amy was lost in her head most of the way there, worrying about Yalof’s departure from the system in pursuit of the Corpo Frigate.

The massive bulkhead gate was easily twenty meters high, and when they arrived, Abbey spun to face her excitedly.

“Are you ready?”

Amy nodded. “Go ahead and open it.”

Abbey turned and then raised her arms. “Open!”

As the young NAI lowered her arms, the Gate followed, albeit a bit more slowly. A cool wind of air pressured through the opening, and Amy raised a hand to keep her hair from blowing into her face.

It took several minutes for the massive metal gate to lower completely. By the time it reached the floor, Amy spotted Whitely and several service personnel. The old stationmaster waved at them and they met in the middle near a services kiosk with a holographic monitor.

“Amy, Abbey, it’s good to see you both,” Whitely said as he greeted them. “How has progress with the new GAI unit gone?”

“So far it’s been working well,” Amy replied. “So far, the computer has been handling all construction effort with no assistance from Abbey.”

“Yes, it’s been working very efficiently!” Abbey added with a smile.

“That’s good to hear,” Whitely said, nodding. “I’m still worried about this change in plans, though. Are you sure it’s necessary to take A3123Y through the jump point now?”

Amy frowned, then nodded. “We detected some issues with the GAI on the destroyer before it jumped. We are worried about the ship, and we need to contact our people in Nu Crateris, anyway. They might need assistance.”

“I understand your reasoning, but I can’t help but worry about the potential risks,” Whitely said. “I just hope everything goes smoothly.”

“We’ll do our best to make sure it does, and we are leaving the two frigates with Ackman. By the time we get back, the station should be mostly completed.”

Whitely sighed. “The frigates will do a lot to help provide protection, but I still feel uneasy. I still think you should dispatch the frigates while A31 remains here.”

That would have been Amy’s choice as well, except for the minor fact that they needed Abbey and A31 to make sure Yalof didn’t go rogue. She couldn’t tell Whitely that, though.

“I understand, but I think we need to take some construction capabilities to Nu Crateris, more than just firepower,” Amy said as she checked the time on the kiosk. Pressing a few keys, she got confirmation that the shuttles were leaving A3123Y and head to Ackman Station.

“Offloading has begun. Most of the current residents should be transported on the first wave while their belongings will follow in the second. Everyone but the MilTech personnel we’ll be leaving with you.”

Whitely nodded, “Hopefully the measure proves to be unneeded, and the station doesn’t see combat.”

“Believe me, I never want to see A31 go through combat again, either. We need more purpose-built units for that, instead of relying on half our construction capacity being at risk.”

Abbey raised her hand. “I think we should build another manufactory so we can build more stuff!”

Amy patted Abbey on the head. “We’ll probably do something like that in Nu Crateris, depending on how things are there.”