As expected, the locked-door meetings could not be interrupted when strange things started to happen on the surface. In fact, they weren't even interrupted when the occupancy listings and class sizes were relayed to the planetary military leaders, who diligently started to move troops around and prepare their cadets for their first day of the hybrid training.
It never crossed their minds that none of this had been approved and that it might only be preliminary data sent by the Terraforming Array as a confirmation of the job that it had completed.
That was how Nico had hidden everything. She had made it look like someone had accidentally activated the Arrays when they were saving the design plans, and a fictional low-level functionary on one of the ships was set up to take the fall.
The only thing that made the bureaucrats break up their arguments about how things should be done on the surface was the reception of a message from the surface the next morning informing them that the classes had started.
Classes couldn't have started, as there shouldn't be any academies yet, so they dropped everything to catch up on what was happening on the surface.
[The plan to speed up their training process is in effect. Prepare to learn a lot of new vocabulary words in the casual use of the Koleska language.] Max informed the communications officers of the other ships, who had learned the language from the learning data that Max and Nico had sent back.
The communications channels between the Station and the planet were going insane as everyone tried to understand what had happened. The planetary staff had no idea anything was wrong since they had gotten the Academies they needed and a message from the Terraforming Arrays informing them that they were ready and what their capacities were.
But the bureaucrats on the Station insisted that they hadn't authorized that, though they had clearly authorized the movement and the type of training. They had even set the class schedules for the students so that the group leaders only had to arrange the class sizes and compositions.
So many messages had been passed around between so many people that the actual timeline was nearly impossible to trace, and when the process ground to a halt waiting for a forensic investigation, the Defence Minister suggested that they just drop the whole thing and take it for what it was. A functional military complex that they would have approved anyhow.
That didn't sit well with some of the bureaucrats who saw it as someone usurping their authority to make the decisions on every part of the plan, but it was already in operation, and during a time of war, on what was now a military facility, they didn't have the final say. That right belonged to the Planet's Military Commander and the Minister of Defence, who had decided this was not a problem.
In a way, it was like he had made the decision himself, but after the facilities already existed.
There wasn't much time to complain, though. The next Arisen attack arrived only an hour after classes started, a skirmish-sized battle that seemed more intended to test the might of the new arrivals than anything else, and the six Cruiser-sized spheres vanished before the Koleska defence force could even fully deploy.
[Is that normal?] The Destroyer Commander who was targeted asked curiously after the attackers fled at the first sign they were taking heavy damage.
[Yes and no. They don't usually leave that easily or show up with so little firepower. I think they were just testing your ships to see what they could do, and now they will make another plan as to how to deal with us or if we are even worth the trouble.] Max replied.
[Well, if I get a vote, I'm hoping for the second one. I can sit here and look scary forever.] The Commander laughed.
Nico joined their conversation without warning, and Max realized that she had a plan in mind that he hadn't noticed with everything else going on.
[Can we borrow one of your empty construction bays for a while? I've got the urge to do some upgrades, and I don't have the space to do them in Santa Maria.] She asked.
[That shouldn't be an issue. We have room for the ship to dock in the larger bay, so you can work in the full bay directly from your own cargo hangar. How much time do you need?] He asked.
[I'm not sure yet. It will likely be a couple of weeks, at the least. I've got an idea to make myself a Mecha upgrade, and it's going to take some time to get it all working properly.]
[A new Mecha design from the infamous Nico Tarith? We definitely have the space for that. We can even assign Mecha to cover for you two if there is an attack while you are still working on your chassis.]
That wasn't what Nico had in mind at all. She wanted to make too many changes to keep the existing structure of Shattered Pride, so she intended to make a whole new one, with Warp Capability, a Jump Function, to do short-range portal movements, with a stabilized double-ended portal so that it wouldn't cause issues in the local environment, and an increase in firepower.
Fighting against the Arisen had given her a lot of ideas, but the intervention of the Darklings, or the Knife Ears, as they were known in this area, had given her even more.
She had already sent the message to the Station letting them know that they were moving Santa Maria to the dry dock bay on the Destroyer so that they could do some more extensive work on the Mecha than was possible with the space they had on their own vessel, and received clearance to depart, so only seconds after the conversation was finished, they were underway to the cargo bay of Celia's Love.
Max didn't know who Celia was, but if she loved Destroyer Class Warships, she would get along well with Nico, guaranteed.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶