Space Odyssey: Spectre

"This has probably been the most tiring thing I have done in… ever." Jace grumbled out as the Persephone's Garden moved to dock in the large gravity shield station they were building. He was currently talking to Salem over a long distance. She was in the daemon held territories, liberating the last remnants of them. Almost all of the daemons had been kicked out, there were only a few strongholds left. But the reason she was dealing with daemons and not mortella was because they were running short on commanders since most of the glory hounds were sent to the kitinol front.

Leaving Salem to command not just the defense on the mortella front but to also retake the daemon held territories. While up in the 'northern' part of the galaxy or rather the Oda Empire, Rogue Metal Legion, and Crystoph Federation former territories they were finishing up. There was nothing left to do in that area aside from waiting for the warlords of Oda to settle down, which would take many more years, and for the Rogue Metal Legion and Federation to establish their own governors and temporary governments.

Although the complete liberation did lead to the discovery of the Gateway and Gateway Station that the dark elves and nano plague had activated. MILD was able to keep it quiet for now but it will not be long before politicians learn of its existence and start getting ideas. Although that would not be Jace's problem, that was Salem and the rest of their problem.

"That is because you did something you do not enjoy." Salem pointed out with a scoff. "How long has it been since you did something you did not enjoy doing? The academy? I remember we used to do these command level simulations."

"Yeah, but that is something I could do in the background while making designs and coming up with other ideas in my head." Jace sighed as he leaned back in his chair. He could feel the gravity changing as they connected to the base. "But with this political talk I always have to keep my head on a swivel and be careful of what I say. It does not let my mind stray with so much pressure."

"Heh." Salem chuckled quietly for a moment. "That reminds me, what is the status on the device?"

"Another year at least. But you will be happy to know we have an active Gateway Station and are operating the Gateway in our territory now." Jace answered but left out the fact that they had already sent the prisoners home. While the siren's colony planet had almost been retaken. There was only a single city that the Grail had a hold of. But it would not be long before it was completely liberated.

"I do not get it, what does that mean?" Salem asked in surprise.

"It means that we have an early warning system." Jace told her and could hear the sound of the skeleton crew as they prepared to depart. "The Gateway Stations can detect activity for a good distance between galaxies. So everything from stray asteroids, space anomalies, to anomalous signatures that look like warping can appear."

"Do we know how the foreign galactic governments got to our galaxy so quickly?" Salem asked in surprise.

"They didn't have to. It has been almost three years since the anomaly that was hiding us disappeared. Almost everyone including most former nations in our own galaxy have a method to travel to other galaxies." Jace explained, "It is called the long term Warp burn. Ask any engineer and they know about it. It requires plenty of preparation and anyone trained at a military academy knows how to do it."

"Why did you not attempt it?" Salem asked in suspicion.

"Because it would have taken four years to travel home if I had. My method was much quicker." He explained as he moved forward. He started to move the call to an earpiece instead of an external device. "Anyways the point is that, we investigated all of them and found a few efficiencies we can adopt to make warp engines and drives better. But that is about it."

Salem hummed in understanding. "The daemons are pulling back to save on resources. It sounds like they are spreading themselves thin. Not to mention the mortella, if my intel is right then they are doing the same. Seems like both of them are having difficulties on another front."

"Good, then my plan is working." Jace chuckled as he moved to an airlock where he could see the connector to the station. "Although I am surprised it is working so well."

"Plan?" Salem asked.

"Yes, the milky way galaxy is a boiling pot of several different flavors of people. But with so much external pressure they have basically united to wage war on the external factors that have been attacking them recently. They just needed a little push for some of them to rise up and for the figure in the background to gain some power of their own." Jace explained, he did not want to mention too much over the communication.

"Well, either way." Salem decided to drop it and continue when she understood his responses were vague on purpose. "We are looking at the ending to this war against external forces, but now the politicians are worried about your image."

"My image?" Jace chuckled. "What did I do?"

"You returned and almost immediately wiped out foreign invaders, while both the mortella and daemons are retreating. While it looks like most of the dark elves and even the nano plague ran away in terror. Basically, you are the story from legends to young kids. While the adults see your distaste for politics in a time of war as an appealing feature." Salem explained to him, sounding more exasperated than annoyed but clearly annoyed nonetheless. "Then there is the return of religion, I do not know if you are aware but Valkyrie's new religious order is already spreading beyond Cerberus. Hell, there is a newly built church in my own base station."

"Huh," Jace hummed as the door opened and he began to walk through the corridor and past some mechanics who were going to start their assessment of the ship. It was still a prototype, so they likely wanted to collect data and assess it as soon as possible. "Well… there is nothing I can do about that. Not to mention it sounds like the handiwork of a certain group. She is already starting her campaign to hide information."

"Indeed. But I have a feeling this time will be a bit different." Salem pointed out. While Jace walked through a few more clean corridors before arriving at a larger open space where he could see work was being done. Construction of the gravitation devices had already started. The only reason it was taking so long was because they were massive and they had to limit the amount of people who had access to the full schematics so some people were working on limited information.

"Oh really? What makes you think it will be so different?" Jace asked with a scoff.

"Because there is also publicity being spread on behalf of MILD and the director as well. She already has a well known nickname as the Queen Wolf of Woltar." Salem explained with a chuckle but then got serious. "Which reminds me, the Xenar are on the run. Apparently your new friends Eduta and Victor are hunting them? I could hear their psychic screams from systems away."

"Hmm…" Jace nodded. "Yeah, I sent Victor with a team to hunt them down. All of which is composed of people with mental barriers or experience with psychic beings. Eduta volunteered to lead them to the hostile Xenar; apparently there is a hidden colony of pacifist Xenar as well."

"That is going to be a headache to deal with. Do we know where it is?" Salem asked with a grumble.

"Yeah, but it is not going to be a headache. It is in a pocket dimension near an anomaly between two systems in Cerberus territory." Jace informed her. "I will reach out later but I am handling it for now."

"Okay, if you say so. But why were there hostile Xenar in the first place?" Salem asked.

"Because they were banished." Jace answered honestly. "I said they were pacifists didn't I?" He waited a moment before continuing with an explanation. "They do not believe in execution so Xenar that commit crimes are held until they have enough to occupy a shuttle and are launched away from the planet, banished. Basically we have been fighting against a bunch of criminals who committed crimes ranging from murder to theft."

"I see. Well, then good luck on building that thing. I will try to remove the hostile forces in the time table you have indicated." Salem informed him with a grunt of annoyance. "Now I have to go. Apparently some politician is getting uppity about the way we are retaking a planet."

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