Chapter 29: Best Laid Plans

"You know Soran, I've heard many crazy things in my life, but this certainly takes the cake," said Andrew. "Are you insane!?"

"Look it's not a plan I like either but it's better than getting blown to kingdom come."

I wasn't convincing anyone in the room. In fact, I've never seen so many people with such dumbfounded expressions in my life. I was glad that Andrew was the one who said something first.

"Dear Cousin, surely you realized that this Haumea woman is a part of the organization that attacked us," Minerva reminded me. "They killed Clarke too."

"I'm well aware of that Minerva," I scoffed. "But this is our chance, to cripple their forces and take out two of their head honchos."

"Three you mean?" Talia spat, crossing her arms. "Haumea is going down too. If she can get in your noggin like that then that puts us all in danger."

"That's right," Claudia acknowledged. "Her being able to communicate through your subconscious makes her more dangerous than Lucian right now."

At this point, I didn't have very many people on my side. As much as I wanted to plead with Satomi or Alice for help on this they didn't look too inclined. For some reason, I was getting the strange vibe that they were a little more pissed about the Haumea thing than anything else.

I tried to think of some way I could convince them to follow through with my plan until Edwin stepped up.

"You all are looking at this in the wrong light," he stated. "If Lucian doesn't know that those three are on their way here now, then that means Haumea is risking life and limb to even get this information to Soran."

"Had she felt inclined, We'd be under siege by more than just those three."

It was an excellent point. Back on Necron Arcadia, even Lucian was against killing any of us. The room grew silent for a few moments until Xain raised his hand.

"You know, out of all of Lucian's generals, I've only worked with Lady Haumea. The rest were too high on their horses to deal with us mercs. At this point, you guys are just being emotional about this."

"Emotional?" Said Minerva, "She attacked our school and was a part of the group of near-do-wells who had our friend slain. I believe we are entitled to feel emotional."

"Enough!" Alice bellowed, "It's not a matter if Haumea can be trusted or not. But it's the matter of what we plan on doing about it."

"Then we should put it to a vote," Claudia suggested. "All those in favor of the Commander's plan are to raise their hand, the naysayers will remain as they are."

As per the rules of group votes, we all closed our eyes. It was a way to dissuade any discussion on changing votes. Claudia started the count from five and when she finished we all got to open our eyes, and boy was it like waking up in a bed of flames.

Edwin, Seraph, Alice, Xain, and I voted for the plan while Satomi, Andrew, Talia, Claudia, and Minerva were against it.

"A tied vote? Seriously?" Andrew gasped, "I actually expected it to be a landslide.

"Ahem," coughed someone in the back of the room. All gazes turned to Claire now, who'd been raising her hand.

"But Claire... These people killed Claire," said Minerva.

"Arjun killed my brother," Claire corrected. "He's coming here to take more lives. If my brother were here, he'd trust Soran without worrying about stupid things."

Although this idea was mine, to begin with, even I wanted to argue with Claire. Yet I remembered how much faith Clarke put in me. He gave his life and his future. He put his faith that we'd be able to see our mission through to the end.

"Dammit girl," Andrew said, trying his best to hide a grin. "You really know how to kick people when they're down. Fine... I guess we're doing this."

"Besides, if that Haumea broad pulls any funny business I'll be happy to bash her face in." Claire cracked her knuckles which weirdly enough made my spine tense up.

With much reluctance, everyone seemed to get on board with the plan. Which now required us to split up once more. Many of the others left to make their preparations for the plan while Claudia and Andrew stayed.

"Commander Soran, As a leader you must know you will be responsible for anything that goes wrong in this plan," Claudia reminded me.

"You don't think I know that?"

"I do," she replied. "I'm just proud that you are willing to take such risks."

I didn't know what to say. It was oddly heartwarming that Claudia would say something of that degree.

Without wasting any more time, I opened a secure line to Uncle Donnell. On the board, a live feed of my Uncle was generated. He seemed to be in the middle of some paperwork in his office.

"Yes, what is it?" He grumbled, taking a sip of tea.

"General, I have some intel on an incoming enemy attack on Neo Arcadia," I said. The statement caused Uncle Donnell to spit his tea everywhere. It was a little funny but laughing at the devil in his face was never a good thing.

"That's a very bold statement you're making," Uncle Donnell coughed. "Send me the intel, I'll have the fleets mobilized as soon as its validity has been ascertained."

"That's the thing General, you can't be too obvious about it."

I explained the situation as best as I could. I half expected Uncle to stop me in the midst of the explanation to scold me on everything wrong with the plan, yet he just listened. Taking in all the information I was able to give thus far. Even after I finished he sat there in silence, as if he'd had the entirety of what I said plastered in front of him on the board.

"You realize by enacting this plan of yours Nephew, that it will not only put the lives of your comrades in danger. But it could jeopardize your standing as Commander of Nova Astra."

I swallowed the lump in my throat before saying, "Yes... I'm well aware of that fact."

Even though it was through a screen he took a few extra seconds to study my features. He then sat up then began typing away on a digitized keyboard. "Very well... I shall begin mobilizing the fleets at once. I will also relay this information to the Prime Minister and will evacuate as many as I can."

"Thank you Uncle... I mean General Stark," I gave him a salute and the feed was cut shortly after.

"I hadn't expected the High General to actually take everything you said in stride," Claudia admitted.

"I was holding my breath for a moment," I said. "Now that we have the support of the Neo Arcadian military, we should be able to begin the plan.

"If you ask me, I kinda feel stupid for not believing in you" chimed Andrew. "If the most serious person I know took you seriously than I've got some work to do as your friend."

Shaking my head, I held up my fist for Andrew. "No worries man, it'd be boring if you went along with every little plan I make."

"You really think this is a little plan," Andrew chuckled as he completed the fist bump.

Leaving Claudia in the briefing room the two of us set off to the Eidolon Hangar. In the coming fight, we'd probably need all the advantages we could get. After Necron Arcadia, Talia tirelessly worked on our Eidolons. During my downtime between training and my duties as Commander, I'd often try to check on her to see how it was going along. But everytime I did she'd kick me out telling me about a surprise. A part of me wondered if it had something to do with that Anti-Eidolon System I accidentally used before.

When we arrived, we found the hangar in complete chaos. There were mechanics everywhere servicing our machines. In the middle of the hangar was Talia herself seemingly barking orders at everyone around her.

"Wake the hell up you sorry ass slugs! We've gotta get these machines mission ready pronto. Move like you've got a gun to your head! I catch even one of you slacking off you're getting bashed over the head with my wrench!"

We took our time floating over to her as we saw how big the wrench she had in her hand was. As she turned to face her, her mood didn't seem to get any better.

"You know, they could send a complaint up to me about the workplace hostility," I said.

"Why would they?" She asked, "They know that your lives are in their hands. If you guys die they're either out of a job or dead themselves."

"I never took you for a pragmatist Talia," teased Andrew. You used to be such a ray of sunshine."

"Well... This war has changed all of us," she said.

It certainly did. Several months ago we were worried about final exams and careers after the academy. Now we were soldiers fighting against a galactic threat that not even the military could handle. I began to wonder how much more we had to adapt to these trying times.

"You sure you're mole is gonna work out So-So?" Talia asked. "She could've just been pulling yer leg this entire time."

It wasn't like I was wondering that myself. Faith in my friends is one thing, but trusting someone I once considered an enemy, was something else entirely.

"All Haumea has to do is show up. If she doesn't then she's still our enemy."

"You don't have to worry about me," said Haumea who appeared right behind me. "I'll be there just as planned."

It was hard not to acknowledge her presence in front of the others. I didn't want to give them the impression that she'd been spying on us this entire time.

"Well then... Have the Ragnarok, Avalon, and Tomoe loaded onto the transport within the hour. We'll be arriving at Prometheus within a couple of hours."

Talia waved her hand, shooing us away. The next stop would be the bridge. When we reached the hangar's exit, Andrew nudged me on the shoulder.

"You good?" he asked

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just kind of nervous is all."

"Come on mate," chuckled Andrew. "Everyone's nervous about this. Does that mean something else is bothering you?"

I couldn't say anything else that hadn't been bothering me. I understood why everyone is against working with Haumea. Yet somewhere deep in my soul, I could see she wasn't trying to play us. Trusting her even means potentially putting my friends in danger again. This was something I couldn't mess up. I had to be in control.

"Damn... Now you've got that doom and gloom look on your face. You can't lie to me now."

"I know as a leader that if something bad happens in this mission there's a lot of hell to pay," I blurted out. "I just don't want anything bad to happen to you guys."

Before the murky feeling of doubt I usually got set in, I got zapped in the back by something making me jolt a let out a little yelp. Turning around I found Andrew holding up a finger gun with a small spark of electricity coming out of it.

"Ow... What was that for?"

"Come on Snow White," Andrew scoffed. "All that swagger you displayed back in the briefing room and you're just gonna throw it out of the window? I'd be careful... Women can smell doubt."

"The hell are you on about?" I asked.

"You know, Satomi and Talia seemed unusually upset about Haumea. It's almost like they weren't fans of the prospect of you having another woman on your mind."

I hated how dense I could sometimes be as it took me a moment to figure out what the hell was Andrew going on about. When I realized I must've turned beet red cause the smugness in Andrew's Cheshire grin was so immense it could rival Lucian's ego.

"It's fine man, I get it. You're young, you haven't ever had a girlfriend before. I'm just proud you're finally becoming a ladies' man."

"Come on dude it's not like that," I tried to explain. "Satomi and I just started being friends months ago and Talia, we've been friends since childhood. Then Haumea... well I've only seen her once... plus she tried to kill me."

"Many love stories were born between enemies," Andrew chuckled, wrapping his arm around my neck as we talked. "Look all I'm saying is that you'll have to confront this eventually."

"What about Minerva then?" I tried to ask, "She still giving you the cold shoulder?"

"Low blow mate... Nice try though, she told me she'd give me a chance if I could hold rein in my dashing charisma."

Although I wanted to find some fault in that, it was honestly a good thing.

"Besides... it hasn't been easy. There are a lot of pretty girls on this ship."

Now he ruined it by saying all of that. Though now that I think about it, I hadn't seen him go after any girls lately. So maybe there was some truth to that.

"So then... How do you do it?" I asked

"Training. The only way to rid oneself of worldly desire is to cleanse with honing your skills and meditation... mostly training."

"Careful, you almost sound like Clarke," I warned.

Our conversation would continue until we reached the shuttle bay. We mainly just reminisced about the times we'd get in trouble thanks to some fight we'd get in or whatever plan I'd concocted. As we arrived we found the bay was lined with dozens of shuttles and the largest one was being loaded with our Eidolons.

"Took you two long enough," said Seraph. "Doing some more sightseeing."

"I certainly hope not," growled Edwin. We have a schedule to keep."

"No, just some bro time," I replied. "We've got a mission to embark on."

She nodded and then pointed to a more miniature transport shuttle that was overshadowed by the larger one.

"That's our ride. It'll take us to Prometheus."

"What of our Eidolons?" Andrew asked.

"They will follow us, but until the trouble starts they'll be on standby in orbit."

"Rodger that," I acknowledged. "You guys ready."

"Do you even have to ask?" Andrew smirked.

"Good... The moment we step into this shuttle... It'll probably be the craziest ride we've been on... Let's get to work."