By the time we had all three ships captured, and the station secured, it was late afternoon. My captains returned to their ships looking satisfied with themselves.
The pilots were also back on their ships now, sitting down because most of them were too tired to stand, and drinking heavily, while telling tall tales of the one that didn’t get away, as only pilots can. The original three platoons were still on the station, and now out of their combat suits, but looking like stims were the only thing holding them up. The rest of their three battalions were spread out through the station, double checking there were no live dinosaurs left anywhere.
The ships were already gone. Once secured, they’d been cut loose from the station, and the three assault frigates had towed them over to a rift I’d opened to Haven. Once they’d delivered their loads and returned, they docked to the station themselves, after which I’d closed the rift.
Someone somewhere was going to be dissecting dinosaur all night, and I for one was quite happy to miss that. The shipyard people on the other hand would be spending all night checking dinosaur tech. Which for me, was probably worse. Maybe not. Tech didn’t smell. Well, not the way a carcass did.
The station was a wreck internally in a lot of places where the fighting had devolved into heavy weapons at long range, and even had a few holes in its external hull from errant meson pulses. I’d sealed those as soon as they happened, but there’d been some civilian deaths from explosive decompression.
The civvies though seemed to be in high spirits now, were thanking every marine they came across, while already cleaning up.
The dino bodies disappeared very rapidly, and somewhat suspiciously, we were invited for barbeque once the eating areas of the station were ready to serve again. Blood and guts were quickly removed, and I suspected the Trixone were going to be dining well for a while as they walked their dirt in their own part of the station, which some of our marines and pilots had fought through. Rats and other large creatures hacked the dino bodies into manageable pieces, and whatever meat processing facilities were on board were presumably immediately busy.
I must admit, I had no hankering to taste dinosaur. But as the squadron commander and the one who’d talked to the station the most, I guessed there was no way I’d be saying no to the barbeque invitation.
The red flower Trixone enquired as to our meal cycle, and what we preferred to eat and didn’t, and dinner time was set. I couldn’t tell them how many would turn up, as a lot of the pilots probably wouldn’t be rising from their lounge chairs now for anything short of an emergency trip to the fresher, or heading for bed.
The food available on the station seemed to be very varied, which was probably indicative of the different species who lived there, and who they traded with. The rats apparently ate almost anything, and I made it quite clear to the plant we’d not be eating anything rodent like, but we did normally enjoy a thick steak. That didn’t rule out rodent steak of course, and I wasn’t sure how we’d tell.
Discussing plants to eat with a plant was nothing short of bizarre, but apparently they had no inhibitions about using other plants for fertilizer, and so nothing was off the menu. We agreed they should provide any options they wished, and we’d see what we liked.
Red also asked about the opportunity to sample our food, and I told them I’d organize something for the following day. I remembered then we had Ralnor food on board as well, but said nothing about it. We could mix it in with ours and see if they liked it or not. You never knew. If they loved Ralnor food, they might just stop making war on them and start trading instead. Or it might just intensify the war as they decided to take their food, or enslave them to continue providing it. Only one way to find that out.
I sent the food request to David Tollin, asking if someone could organize take out, perhaps using a hastily fitted out support cruiser cargo deck as a food hall. We could invite those interested in sampling our food into where we could control things, and perhaps also have some diplomats on hand to see if anyone was interested in talking. It would mean having some rooms with soil floors, but the makers of fertilizer could also display their wares this way for the plants to sample.
By the time I’d finished talking, either live or to vids, and Tamsin had sent off the dinner invitations, I was summoned to my own conference room.
General Smith was at the head of the table, with identical twins sitting either side of her, a tall blonde woman next to one of them, and BA next to the other. The twins were both wearing eagles on their shoulders, while the blonde wore oak leaves.
BA waved me next to her, and when Eagle came in a moment later, he immediately headed to the chair next to the blonde. Belatedly, I paid attention to the popups my PC was showing me. The twin on the general’s right was Amanda Peck, the other one was Aleesha Peck, and the blonde was Alison Vogane.
The three of them looked surprised to see three stripes on Eagle’s shoulders, which presumably meant his demotion wasn’t a widely known thing outside of pilot circles, yet. Needless to say, he had to explain it before anything else. In spite of looking exhausted, he looked really happy, and that must have helped them accept the change. It was obvious General Smith had known, and she was their next target for not having told them. This was a very close group. That much was obvious. They used first names all the time, even with a junior officer they didn’t know listening in.
The general took charge of the meeting, and we covered the basics of both the space, station, and ship battles between us. Amanda and BA freely admitted they’d underestimated the Rawtenuga, partly because of no data on them, and mainly because they’d not had a decent ground enemy since the Darkness War. They were too used to soft targets now, and suddenly coming up against a hard target had taken too long to adjust to.
The need for a meson based sidearm came up quickly, and if it should be an actual gun, or just replacing the stunners on the suits. They decided to ask for both to be developed.
It made me wonder what the official Imperium line was in relation to the Rawtenuga. Were we just helping out here, or were we going to fight a proper war? But that was a question it was not my place to ask. The answer would probably arrive with new guns, and updated combat suits, along with orders to stay here. I’d just have to wait.
Eagle said he was happy with the performance of his pilots, but if this was going to be something they did again, they needed a lot more assault course training in the suits. Most of their suits had been damaged enough to need replacing. Some had been breached, and we now knew our belt suits could protect against dinosaur teeth, but no-one wanted to go against them without the extra layer of actual armour.
One thing I knew was coming, was enough spare combat suits to equip us for doing the same job on our own if we needed to. But the discussion reinforced we were going to need more than just pilots for this kind of action. Those decisions were above all of our pay grades though.
With dinner time approaching, the general ended the meeting, but the twins stopped me from leaving as I was rising.
“Who’s the short firebrand in the strange short long-nosed combat suit?” asked Amanda.
“Might be Woof, or his AI. Why?”
“He seemed to revel in the destruction.”
“That would be Woof. Never make a big hole if you can make an even bigger one. You ought to know what Lufaflufs are like.”