“Hold. You mentioned the whole reason we are not going through imperial space is you don't want to share what was found correct?” Doctor Smith said.

  “Yeah?” I replied.

  “I might be able to help with that.” Doctor Smith said.

  “Howso?” I asked.

  “I don't know how familiar you are with academia...” Doctor Smith began.

  “Intimately” I interrupted, surrily.

  Publish or perish had been my mantra for years before my illness made working impossible.

  He acknowledged that with a head inclined to where my body was currently reclined.

  “Then have you ever read a paper that said a whole lot, but with data that was either un-reproducable or missing key data to recreate it, frustrating any attempts to draw meaningful conclusions from said data?” Doctor Smith said.

  “I mean yeah.” I didn't know where he was going with this.

  “Well, if we just remove some key pieces of data here, it will still look like a complete research paper, but if we scrub it properly, and put vague allusions to the actual places involved rather than anything specific, they won't be able to find it, or at least they'll need to spend a lot of time and effort to look.” Doctor Smith finished.

  He wasn't wrong.

  It would mean giving Doctor Smith unfettered access to the ark data and the paper's Joe and Bait had generated, but they were already aboard and privy to most of my secrets. What the hell.

  “Very well.” I said as I sent Dr. Smith the Research paper.

  “I'll go through it and render it utterly unusable, without letting anyone without a doctorate know that everything in it is unusable. We should be able to get through the imperial checkpoint no problem.” Doctor Smith said.

  I was feeling wary again all of a sudden... What if they did have someone with a proper academic doctorate aboard and what if they did review the data.

  On Carolina's console I asked, privately in text form.

  How likely is this to work? Aren't C.O.G. And the Empire at war?

  Carolina surreptitiously replied.

  Likely-ish? The individual Barons and Counts you'll find out in space probably don't bear much ill will to the other factions in general. They'll be on higher alert from you, but unless there is a hot war going on in the next system over they'll respect agreements for scientific research. After all they stand to benefit from it as well. I will admit the Empire is somewhat behind the other two factions in terms of research, so they probably have orders to encourage science vessels from other factions to pass through their space whenever possible to get their hands on the data. We did.

  I ruminated about this.

  “Okay, do it, but I'm going to have a flight plan to run in case it doesn't work.”

  I sent all the research files Bait had stored in Hook's database to Doctor Smith and began looking at the space the empire vessels were orbiting.

  From their energy signatures they seemed small, but I also could not resolve them very well from this distance.

  “It is likely they have low level jamming on. Not as intense as what is used when in combat to keep from taxing their power systems, but enough that, say, a railgun fired from long range has negligible chance to hit.” Hook stated, noticing what I was looking at.

  “So we don't know how big the ships are do we?” I asked.

  “Not offhand.” Hook replied.

  I sent the image to Carolina along with a message

  Thoughts?

  She typed back.

  Probably a standard patrol, a Count and at least two Baron's with them, more likely three but... I can only make out three distinct signatures. They may have lost a ship at some point.

  I pondered Carolina's reply, then sent

  Are three ship patrols standard?

  Three ships and a command and control or resupply ship. Fairly standard. Why.

  I decided to be blunt.

  I feel outgunned.

  Carolina giggled to herself

  You are a flying manufactory, make more.

  She... was not wrong. I had not been taking advantage of my on board construction facilities as much as I probably should have. I cranked up my reference frame to think and talk to Hook.

  “Hey Hook, Your previous self told me that it's a fairly standard tactic for C.O.G. Ships to go into a fight with a swarm of other vessels under their control... how would we do that.” I asked.

  “There are a few ways it has been done from records, though from the most upvoted military manuals suggests two main ways it has been done.” Hook paused.

  “Upvoted military manuals?” I interjected.

  “Upvoting is generally how you determine the validity of document, though if it has a similar number of downvotes it could be considered devisive or just trolling, as is the want of C.O.G. Personnel. The military manuals I am referencing have a very high ratio of upvotes to downvotes, and plenty of both however.” Hook replied.

  “No botting in the future to throw off the votes?” I asked jokingly.

  “Botting is considered a serious offense, and should a C.O.G. Member be found doing it to disrupt actual C.O.G. Services they can expect a specially delivered torpedo the next time they hit a C.O.G. System. Messing with the upvotes and downvotes system is akin to messing with the direct voting system for the C.O.G. Government.”

  “Jesus, capital punishment for botting.” I said.

  “C.O.G. Uses capital punishment for many serious offenses. Keep in mind it is not as permanent a punishment as with the other empires, they don't revoke their re-instantiation privileges, it just costs them their ship and any material of theirs someone may want to wreck. It's essentially hitting the restart button on a C.O.G. Members progress. Many at that point tend to choose to just be stationbound. However, that is contributing to the decline in active C.O.G. Pilots.|

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  “Okay, good to know, so what does the military manual say, we got sidetracked.” I asked.

  “You do that a lot captain.” Hook replied, snarkily.

  “I am aware, go.” I stated.

  “The first way is based on infrastructure. Find a big rock, build a factory to output ships, load your commandship with tons of command and control, E-war. And counter E-war, with at least two laser antennae to ensure a direct connection to each individual vessel. This requires lead up time and infrastructure to be built in system, but allows your command vessel to otherwise be whatever you need it to be barring the extensive E-war framework, which is generally considered useful for whatever vessel you are flying regardless.” Hook said.

  “Okay that sounds great if you are fighting a war or trying to secure territory, but we're just flying around, what about for us.” I asked.

  “The other is a carrier design. It has similar command and control capabilities to the last one, but it is significantly more massive and is festooned with both drone bays and exterior docking clamps for larger drone vessels.” Hook continued.

  “Wait wait, both drone control bays and the exterior docking clamps? What if you just wanted the bigger vessels?” I asked.

  “Ah, you misunderstand. The drone control bays are there to provide the connection to the larger drone vessels and also handle their command and control and process many of the drones ancillary processes. A drone cut off from the command ship still has most of it's combat protocols, but the majority of it's 'mind' is stored in the drone control bay. That is why the limit on drone control is based on the number of bays and sophistication of said bays.” Hook continued.

  “Okay, so the drone bays provide the brainpower to the drone ships... this is almost like what I was trying to do with that build.”

  “Not quite, though the bay you queued for construction has been completed. It has halved our cargo capacity however.” Hook stated.

  I had had a thought back when we entered this system, after seeing how badass our drones were.

  Bigger drones.

  But where to put them?

  Easy, an actual honest to god launch bay.

  The ship hadn't been big enough to have something I would call a proper hangar, where you could perform maintenance and all that, but I figured we could snag it in the main manufactory for repairs.

  “I even know who I can put in charge of outfitting our new... drone? Fighter?” I said.

  “It is still a drone, however classifications get a little iffy at this point. It is smaller then a corvette, but a corvette has no minimum tonnage so... perhaps a drone corvette?”Hook stated.

  “Yeah, that works...”

  I sent a message to Rekki-Ricky's display.

  Wanna help me build something?

  Rekki-Ricky hesitantly typed back

  What?

  To that I brought up potential schematics of a half dozen different corvette drone designs I had had kicking around my head.

  You wanted to be a drone pilot right? What do you know about heavy drone design?

  Which was apparently the right thing to say because Rekki-Ricky dove straight into design, flipping back and forth between them.

  Let me know when you have something workable, we need to wait for the manufactory to chew down on the freighter, but once it's cut it up a bit we can start production. I would like it functional by the time we get to the transit point.

  He paused, then typed back.

  OK

  I set the auto-pilot, watching everyone going about their tasks, then sent Carolina a message.

  This seems like a good chance for me to get some rest, can you unplug me?

  She didn't type anything back, just opened the compartment in the side of her console that I hadn't realized was where she had stashed my meds, then came over to my comatose body and irised the med port open.

  As the meds flushed into my system I gave it a ten count, then disconnected.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at Carolina standing above me.

  “How are you feeling Brayden?” She asked.

  I took a deep breath, and looked around the room, before pushing myself upright.

  I made it without assistance, and tentatively took a step.

  “Good... actually.” I said, just before my mechanical arm brushed the side of my hip and made me start.

  I looked down at the offending limb. Straight out of Terminator.

  “Mostly fine I think.

  I looked around the Bridge. “It's at least eight hours to the transit point, I'm going to go get some rest. You are welcome to stay up here and work if you got it, otherwise... Well there aren't any real leisure facilities onboard but I guess sleep counts.” I finished lamely.

  “Ooooh! I can show them some of the games you have!” Carolina said.

  I snapped my fingers and pointed at Carolina.

  “Good idea, anyone who doesn't have anything to do can game with Carolina.” I said.

  Carolina's face lit up for a moment, then instantly deflated. “No... no I need to fix Dog-bot.”

  I looked around. Everyone seemed to have something to do except for Hwang, who looked a little... lost. Megan and Smith were both working on the scientific paper, producing one that more or less gave nothing away, and Rekki-Ricky was shoulder deep in creating his dream 'fighter' for want of a better word.

  “Show Hwang how to play at least... hold on I'll queue her up a VR set.” I said, using my wireless link to do that.

  While I was wirelessly connected, and looking around at everyone still wearing the emergency suits that were basically just plastic wrap stretched over their bodies, I also sent a request to each of their terminals.

  “I just sent you... essentially a request sheet. I have a big spaceborne suit for EVA, but the encounter suits I used on Hou Ji has some problems when someone who isn't Augmented uses them. Take a look at what is there and make any notes, and I'll do my best to compile them all into a workable design that I'll produce next time I have a moment.” I said.

  I had been meaning to get around to making them some proper ship suits, and this seemed like a good time.

  I then nodded to everyone, taking a last look around before I retreated from the bridge and went to find my cabin, my HUD directing me there with little arrows.

  I barely remembered my head hitting the pillow.