Chapter 39: Strategic Reconnaissance Bureau

John walked closer and rubbed his eyes to make sure he saw correctly before turning around and looking at him with wide eyes.

"So you're telling me, you're building this out there." John spoke before pointing to the shipyard below them.

Adrian gave a smug grin before speaking "Indeed we are, when they launch, our ships will rattle the entire navy to its core." He spoke with confidence and without a shred of doubt.

Mathaus was still examining the blueprints and  soon turned around having realised something "No wonder you could not get materials, that ship must have been eating them up."

"Even with improved building and forging methods, there just was not enough that we could get legally, after all, military ships can only be built after government orders. It's thanks to you that we can finish our production faster, Mathaus." Adrian spoke earnestly.

"You're not worried the government will find out?" John asked, the scale of such a project would easily be picked up.

"Ahh, that's not an issue, the shipyard is safe from satellites and orbital scanners, and we've also taken precautions on the legal side too." Adrian answered John.

"Even so, once you launch, every sensor from here to 10 systems away will pick it up the moment it leaves orbit." John asked.

"Don't worry about that, we have a solution for that, however, it still is under wraps." Adrian answered.

"You haven't mentioned the crew compliment yet Adrian?" Mathaus spoke.

"Yes, that was one of our major discussion points, our client had given us more detail on the other project, matter of fact this one was based on the other because of how detailed they were with the design. Either way, we brought down the compliment to around 1500 for the main crew and about 500 extra, either crew or soldiers." Adrian discussed the ship details.

"So you're planning for a mostly autonomous system I believe." Mathaus asked.

"That's our plan for the future as well, our plan is for a ship like this to be able to fight a fleet 3-4x its size and be able to defend against one 6-8x bigger.

I know it sounds like a wonder weapon or a test vehicle but believe me, in the future, prioritising a giant fleet with weak armaments or a small fleet with powerful armaments will not be enough. We have to have the best of both and Hyperion will lead this charge for the years to come." Adrian finished speaking.

"Now then, let's go check out the ships shall we." Adrian spoke before leading the two out of his office."

Di-Rotta System 2 Jumps away from Celis Station:

Jake was currently making his way back to Iona Prime and was passing through the Di-Rotta System, an empty System with almost no valuable materials nor celestial bodies worth building a formal station yet.

"It seems the GOE rushed through to Celis then if they left this system empty." Jake spoke to the atlas.

(Well there are a few ships and a small research station present, it will probably be developed when Celis station is fully functional or just before.) The Atlas answered.

Suddenly a shockwave flew through the ship, the ship violently shaking before the ship went offline.

Jake was worried as he spoke, "What the hell Atlas, did a star blow up or are we under attack?"

(The sensors picked up nothing, it cannot be an orbital body explosion or the ship would have been in half. There was also an EMP blast as well, we're lucky the ship has counters or we'd have to do a hard reset, just wait a couple of seconds and the charge should stabilise.) The Atlas informed Jake.

20 seconds later, the ship came back online and Jake sighed in relief as none of the components were damaged.

(Check if there's anyone else affected by the blast or not.)

Jake turned on his comms and spoke "This is the Celestial Mariner, I repeat this is the Celestial Mariner, we just felt a shockwave and we're hit with an EMP blast soon after, if there are any other vessels in the Area, please respond."

Jake broadcasted the message for a few minutes before receiving an incoming transmission "Celestial Mariner, this is Nautilus Station orbiting Di-Rotta II over." A woman's voice was heard.

"Nautilus Station, this is the Celestial Mariner, we read you loud and clear, do you have any idea what happened?" Jake asked.

"No, as you said we felt a shockwave before an EMP blast fried most of our systems, which is why we had to replace the Comms power supply, the electricals on our ship are gone, how the hell are you still functioning?" The woman asked.

"Ships got a counter." Jake spoke.

The voice went quiet before the woman spoke again in a professional tone "Understood, we've tracked the location of the source to somewhere on the surface of Di-Rotta IV. Unfortunately, we are unable to track any further movements.

We have dispatched a beam to the Garris system, but it will take some time for reinforcements to arrive so we will maintain radio silence until otherwise, over and out." The communication ended.

'What the hell was that?' Jake asked as he wondered what had happened.

(So that's why there are no Larger stations.)

'What?'

(It was an SRB spy base. The Nautilus Station is just a front.) The Atlas explained.

"Wait SRB as in the Strategic Reconnaissance Bureau?"

(The very same.)

The Strategic Reconnaissance Bureau or the SRB was officially founded alongside the GOE. However, their first official mission took place before their formation.

The mission was a joint operation between the security agencies and special forces of most of the major nations to bring down a Thraxian supply ship.

They had managed to jam the communications and isolate the supply vessel which was then hijacked by special forces while still in the air and was brought down after a firefight with the alien occupants.

The success of this mission which led to the subsequent invention of the warp drive was an important event and the reason for humanity's victory.

Thus, the SRB was formed as an intelligence service as well as becoming its own branch in the military.

The SRB, reporting directly to the GOE, operates with the primary objective of vigilantly monitoring external threats. In the event of potential alien invasions or external interference in internal affairs, the SRB stands poised to gather crucial intelligence. While it maintains a secondary function of monitoring and surveilling activities within GOE territory, this internal scrutiny is of lesser priority compared to its core mission of safeguarding against external dangers.

"But why would they let us know then? They should know we're just a transport vessel and they would have been tracking us ever since we left Celis."

(I believe we just got lucky.) The atlas responded.

"Lucky?"

(Yes, well that and timing, first of all, we're delivering medicine and food to an under-construction station with valuable strategic importance, second the EMP counter, only military, SRB and certain government ships run them.

Third, the right place at the right time, one of the SRB's downsides is that they have a lot of missions and tasks that are never revealed to even the internal sections of the SRB, all communication of missions is made directly to central command, with central command delegating other agents or stations to cater around a certain situation so they don't get involved.

This has both its advantages and disadvantages which is why the station made a mistake. Since all orders come in the moment it is needed all stations and agents are on standby 24/7 so in essence, the station must have mistaken us for a SRB ship on a mission, which is why it informed us of their current situation and in essence will remove our presence in official documents.)

"Well, we got lucky." Jake spoke.

(Extremely lucky, now let's head to the Di-Rotta IV.) The Atlas spoke.

"Wait what?" Jake was confused as he expected The Atlas to tell them to get out as fast as possible.

(You heard me, the station will not track our movements and we have some time till the reinforcements arrive and we can completely avoid them by taking another Hyperlane out.) The Atlas answered Jake.

"You sure about this, we're in a transporter, even though we can defend ourselves, I don't want to jinx our luck so far." Jake spoke with some worry.

(Trust me Jake, my intuitions as your Atlas tell me we need to go to it, after all our primary objective is to find the ChronoScribe.) The Atlas reminded Jake.

"Fine, let's go then." Jake agreed to the Atlas' request.

Jake turned his ship and set the destination for Di-Rotta IV. They reached the rocky planet which subtly reminded Jake of a larger Naru and waited for the system scans.

"Nothing ordinary on the surface, you think it was just an explosion, I don't see any debris or damage to the surface." Jake spoke.

Just then a tiny blue flash caught Jake's eye, the scanners also picking up an electrical reading.

(Looks like we found it. Take us in.) The Atlas spoke, happy its intuitions were correct.

Jake sighed before accelerating towards the planet "Aye, aye Captain."