Ravens of Eternity

375 Blood on the Line, Pt Unregistered Orbital Station, Unnamed Planet, Unlisted System, Great House de Jardin

The Fleet of the Corvus Republic was docked at a massive Omega-Tau designated orbital station high above a stormy and chaotic gas planet below. The planet itself swirled violently as bright red arcs of lightning flashed deep inside.

Despite the planet’s destructive nature, the fleet and the station were far enough away that they suffered no damage at all.

Though it was still rather nerve-wracking to work that close to a violent gas giant.

Outside, countless drones flew between the ships of the Republic and repaired everything possible. Some of the ships had their powerful armor plating lifted off, and their structure was fixed or reinforced directly.

Other drones also flew into any open munitions bays and loaded them with freshly printed shells and sabot rounds and rockets and missiles.

There were other manned vessels out here as well, all of whom manually scanned each of the ships and their parts as well. And if they came across anything amiss, such as leaks, their repair crews went out and fixed them right there.

Inside the ships and the station, the citizens of the Republic were incredibly busy. They were stocking up on raw materials and other supplies, and loaded up their cargo bays nearly to the brim. After all, their missions often required them to work far from supply lines, and so being topped up was always beneficial.

More than that, the Republic enjoyed being self-sufficient for long periods of time. The less they needed to dock for supplies, the more they could be effective out in the greater galaxy.

.....

But they didn’t just top up, of course. The many teams had their gear updated or repaired. It was best if they kept current with the best tools and personal armor and electronics and toys. The Civil Defense Force and the medics were especially keen on keeping their equipment up-to-date.

Having the best rescue equipment only made them more effective out in the field.

The military commandos and squadron pilots also found time to better tune their equipment. Their mechanics and engineers also helped them further optimize their power armor, fighters, mecha, and weapons. As well as repair and rearm them, of course.

Basically, the fleet was gearing up and getting ready to deploy on yet another mission, another fight.

While they did so, the First Feathers sat in session deep inside the still-unnamed cruiser.

They had settled into a stately meeting hall located on the city deck itself. It sat at the head of central park, among a handful of other administrative buildings.

The interior of the hall itself was reminiscent of The Nest back on the Ravens’ Refuge, and was circular in nature. But instead of a decorative wall that surrounded them, it was one vast, curved window that looked out to the city deck around them.

In the center of the hall was a large circular table that was hollowed out in the middle, which was where a holoprojector displayed all kinds of data.

The First Feathers themselves were seated at that circular table, all around. And their numbers had grown to over two dozen, with each one having a purview over a section of the fleet.

There was Claire, of course, acting as the fleet’s Operations Officer. And she pretty much ran everything. She was joined by Garovsky the Economic Advisor, Melyna the Legal Advisor, Vivank the Labor Advisor, and Sveranya the Growth Advisor.

Raijin was named the Chief Technologist, and she was joined by numerous others as well. Daerven the Chief Engineer, Ennalise the Chief Datacoder, and Theral the Chief Mechanic.

Azrael headed up the health division on the Fleet as the Physical Health Director. She was joined by Dellarran the Mental Health Director and Payalos the Emotional Health Director.

The rest of the civilians in the First Feathers were rounded off by Kureshi and Mahislan, both Majors in the Corvus Republic Civil Defense Force.

But the fleet of course had its military side as well. That side was pretty much led by Aurora, as the fleet’s Admiral. Next in line were Shintarra and Nehara, both Rear Admirals.

Lucifer came in next on the pecking order, though ze had full authority during any combat maneuvers. Otherwise, hir command was roughly equal to the Rear Admirals.

After hir were Jax and Harwood, both frigate captains.

And after them were Freya, Xylo, Kali, and Tyretha, all of whom were Squadron and Commando Leaders.

Amarok came in at the tail end. Although the wolves were split among the military and civilian halves, she still represented all of them. At least, as best she could.

Plus the others gave her the title of ‘Thunder Wolf’, which delighted her to no end.

Oddly, even though the military side of the room had disparate ranks, when they acted as First Feathers their power structure was relatively flat. Or, in other words, those at the bottom had equal weight as those at the top. At least, not during military operations.

“Since half of us are coming to the end of our first term in office,” said Freya, “I want to propose condensing the four Squadron Leader seats into a single Unit Leader seat.”

“Wouldn’t that kinda diminish our voices though?” asked Xylo.

“I think we’d still get representation,” Kali added. “And we could give the seats to others on the ship – ones whose voices still need to be heard.”

“I agree,” said Captain Jax. “Like the merchants and traders serving on the Fiddler. They definitely have some things to say.”

“I know some of the cargo jockeys on the Nautilus want more of a say, too,” added Captain Harwood. “They definitely want a bit of a break from all the fighting, honestly. It’s taken a bit of a toll on them – they’re not hardened fighters like some of us, and can’t really handle the constant pressure all the time.”

“More civilian representation would be good for the fleet,” said Dellarran. “And I can confirm that I’m seeing an uptick in mental care, across the board. Everyone on the fleet is feeling the pressure of war on them.”

“The fighting is becoming too heavy for us, yes,” Payalos said with a nod. “Some have become overburdened by it, and find it difficult to continue their duties. We need more rest overall – even now. Instead of rushing out to the next fight, we should ease ourselves.”

“We can’t simply stop what we’re doing though,” Melyna countered. “We’re in the middle of a war that threatens the Republic, and the Hegemony as a whole.”

“Exactly,” added Lucifer. “Stopping, or even slowing our pace means reducing the amount of intelligence that the Hegemony needs to win this damned war. Every bit we provide greatly helps the effort.”

“Do they though?” asked Nehara. “Seems to me that no matter how good our intel is, the Hegemony keeps losing battles. Entire Houses are losing their territories.”

“This is true,” Raijin interjected. “However they are still catching up in terms of technology. Our contributions are certainly shifting defenses in general. It will simply take time for them to fully adjust.”

“If you think about it, we gave the Hegemony plans for shielded circuits near the beginning of the war,” Daerven added. “And it’s only in the past few cycles that they’ve started to actually update their fleets. They just need time to process our intel.”

“By then, the Drogar will have likely improved their capabilities as well,” said Garovsky. “Economically, technologically, militarily... The trifecta. Which makes it all the more important that we press our advantage instead of hanging back.”

“That’s not to say we can’t take a slower pace,” said Sveranya. “But it requires that we grow the fleet substantially. That way we can keep pace without killing ourselves in the process.”

“But we could close the gap even faster if we both grew and become more agile,” argued Kureshi. “If we take on more burdens, we could potentially affect the war more positively. And the sooner it ends, the faster we can all rest.”

“We’re relatively hardy as a people,” added Vivank. “Statistically speaking, we are among the most physically, mentally, and emotionally capable people in the Hegemony. Even if we’re only a few thousand in number.”

There were murmurs from half of the First Feathers. Both sides of the argument certainly nipped at them – they had all presented great reasons for doubling their war efforts, or backing away from them.

“Just because we can weather more pain than the rest of the galaxy doesn’t mean we should,” said Azrael. “We’ve all got limits, and we shouldn’t push ourselves to those limits. We need to remember where most of us came from – places of hardship and trauma. Running headlong into more of it won’t do us good. Not in the long run.”

“This is exactly my point,” Freya chimed in. “We reduce the military seats and increase civilian seats. We need more voices in here to give us more perspective on things. I might be a person who likes to push limits, but not everyone is like that.

“In fact, to that point, I want to hold a vote on Prometheus. We’ve been working on building it up the past few weeks, but after our last incident, I think we oughta put it on hold.”

There were a few gasps from around the room. Everyone there knew how passionate Freya had been for the development of Prometheus. She was practically its champion.

But now she was calling for it to end.

“Just because I freaked out once doesn’t mean we need to stop,” Lucifer argued. “Yeah, I had a terrible reaction. But it wasn’t because of Prometheus itself, alright? It was those Drogar systems – those partially biological ones.

“I... I just wasn’t ready to experience it, and I got lost in myself. It allowed Godeater to attack me, weaken me. And I want the opportunity to build my resistance up against it.”

“You don’t need more practice,” Freya countered. “What we need to do is look deeper into Prometheus and see if we can reduce Godeater’s touch.”

“Stop coddling me. I’m not some kind of weakling that can’t handle Godeater. If you can do it, I can, too.”

“I’m not saying you’re weak. At all. You’re one of the most mentally and emotionally and physically stable people in the fleet. But if that’s what happens when you enter a Promethean Merge, then what would that do to pilots who aren’t half as wilful as you are?”

Lucifer was taken aback by Freya’s words. Ze was so focused on hir own experiences that ze didn’t really think too much about Prometheus, down the line.

“Look, you’re not the only one with deep-seated issues, alright?” Freya continued, her voice softer than a few moments before. “Like Azrael said, lots of us have plenty, on so many levels. We can’t expose our pilots to that, not unless we’ve got the tech pinned.

“The problem isn’t the Drogar parts, or at least, they’re only part of it. Godeater’s the real issue – if it wasn’t for that, you might’ve freaked out or lost control or even crashed. But you wouldn’t have gone dark.”

Lucifer scrunched up hir face defensively.

“You’re clearly being too emotional about this,” ze said. “I understand that you care about me, and don’t want to see me suffer. And you don’t want to see anyone in the Republic suffer similarly. But you need to remove the emotion from this equation. Logically, we could use Prometheus to sincerely turn the tide against the Drogar. We could literally use their weapons against them.”

“And what’s wrong about being emotional?” Freya countered. “We’re all creatures of logic and reason. And also emotion and instinct. We can’t shut one out over the other, and we need to process it all from every angle.

“Yeah, I care a whole lot. And yeah, I completely agree that we could absolutely wreck the Empire using Prometheus. But I don’t believe it’s worth killing ourselves to do it. Nothing’s worth that.”

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