Space Odyssey: Spectre

"Why?"

The enemy commander moved slightly and seemed to remember he was restrained. "That is what the General ordered. There is a letter in my coat pocket that I am supposed to hand to the enemy commander upon my capture."

Jace raised an eyebrow under his helmet and opened the man’s coat and pulled out a letter. "Did he explain why he gave those orders to you?"

"Yes," The man nodded and glanced at Jace’s side where the siren woman was. "He is a fan of history, especially military history. When we arrived in this galaxy that is where we started gathering information first on this galaxy’s military. He quickly realized that the Cerberus Unit would likely stretch out and bring most of the nearby systems under its jurisdiction. As such he kept aware of the movements of the spacecraft in orbit and realized an attack would happen soon."

"Then why not warn his fellow occupiers and attempt resistance." Jace asked and realized almost immediately what the answer was.

"The same reason we have treated the areas we have been occupying with the utmost care so not even a hair is out of place." The prisoner bowed his head. "The general realized that we as a nation and military are completely out of our depth when going against Commander Jace and the Cerberus Unit. As such he only desires to get his soldiers back home safely at this point."

Well this might end up being a different sort of headache. But it would seem this mysterious General was commendable for realizing they had no chance of success and instead chose to surrender. But as much as these are their prisoners, they cannot keep them.

So instead Jace turned to the siren women as he opened the letter. "I believe it would be best if you decided on what to do with him. You and your people will have to keep them prisoner and guard them while the Muddied Salamanders and I are away."

The siren seemed to contemplate that and Jace looked at Adrian. "We are going, we have less of a timetable now. We will secure the two villages to the right going along the coastline."

"Yes, commander." Adrian bowed and then whistled and made hand motions for his unit to follow. While the angry Siren’s closed in the now nervous prisoners.

"I will try to keep them alive, but there is no telling what my people will do." The siren woman declared as they walked away. Jace only hummed in reply as he moved away and started reading the letter.

[I address you on behalf of the Democracy of the Canarus Galaxy and the military that came from the galaxy mentioned before. I assume this letter will get to Commander Jace at some point. My comrades and I were sent to this galaxy under the belief that you needed assistance in establishing a galactic government. The nation of the New Hexarian Republic had reached out to us. But upon our arrival we realized that it had fallen along with most other nations. Absorbed into your new galactic nation. We started researching this galaxy while attempting to reach out to said galactic nation. But other galactic nations that had sent ships as well had arrived ahead of us and already set a precedent.

We heard about several outer colonies and came to assist them. Only managing to safeguard them from the other nations. Eventually we realized it would only be a short time before the Cerberus Unit came and routed us and all other nations. So we would retreat before each attack so we could safely surrender the citizens of your galaxy. But unfortunately we were unable to do the same for this planet.

We have been trying our best to protect the citizens of our territory. But it is clear from my research that you have returned and if we do not surrender, then there is a good chance all of the soldiers under my command will die. I have attached maps and as much information I can to this letter.

In addition if you send me a landing signal on this radio frequency: 103.32. Then send ships to my territories to detain my soldiers. They will surrender their weapons. All I ask is that we are returned to our galaxy. I do not know if our space craft or fleet is still intact but if it is, we can just head back the same way we came. If you can get me in contact with our fleet I will be able to get them to surrender.

General Lin Hacksaw.]

He looked on the next page and found a wealth of information. Including detailed maps of each continent on separate pages. It included the locations of villages, bunkers, and even cities that they knew about. Even going out of the way to color code the nations corresponding to each occupied zone.

There were also the weaknesses of the other occupying nations. The conditions of the sirens in other occupied areas. Even a few ways to turn a few of the occupying nations against each other.

Jace looked up from the notes as the airship hovered in front of him. It had been several minutes since he had started looking over the contents of the envelope and the Muddied Salamanders had already climbed in and taken off. They were just waiting on him.

He jumped in. "Which one do you want? The lake area or the walled-in area?" Jace asked as he double checked and confirmed neither were occupied by the Democracy of Canarus Galaxy.

"Lake area, we will do a fly over of the walled hill village and drop you off." Adrian answered. "I assume you wanted to take it alone?"

"I do." Jace nodded as he folded up the letter and moved over to U who was piloting the airship. "I assume you are staying on the airship. Keep this on you for now." He then turned to Adrian. "After you secure the lake village, contact the waiting spacecraft and tell them to start their landing. Sending drop pods to both the hill village and the swamp village in order to secure them for landing ships."

"I will do that." Adrian nodded. "Were the contents of the letter relevant?"

"Somewhat. Free fire is permitted when it comes to almost all of the occupiers. Including the villages you and I are going to." Jace answered as the airship began to fly at a steady pace through the air. It was not a fast moving vehicle at least with how low they were flying.

"But not that group we just left at the swamp village?"

"Apparently their commanding officer wants to surrender fully but cannot because he is worried about the Siren’s safety. But I need Commander Vana to check something before we accept his ’offer’ of full surrender." Jace explained as he moved to one of the doors of the airship as the back door closed. "He did detail the living conditions in other occupied territories and most of them are treating the sirens like animals rather than people with rights."

"Hence the free fire and executions." Adrian hummed in understanding. "Hand over everything to the Sirens again?"

"Yes, make sure they know you are allies once you free them. I believe Cinder actually knows how to speak the old dialect they use. So have her translate for you." Jace instructed.

"Sir," Adrian saluted. "Why do I have to call in for the drop?"

"Because I will secure my village first. You will be the last one to secure one." Jace answered as he pulled on a lever and opened the side door. "So you have to call it in once you are done."

"We could call it in now and that way everything will be secure by the time they land." Adrian suggested after a moment as loud wind whipped through the cabin of the airship.

Jace hummed as they passed over the lake village. "We could, this area is a peninsula and we have already secured a portion of it. A landing party will secure the other two villages regardless. Very well."

"This is Commander Jace to the Watchdog Fleet." Watchdog Fleet was the name of the fleet currently in orbit around the planet. Most of them were landing craft instead of ships designed for ship to ship combat.

"Go ahead Commander Jace." A voice answered.

"Began landing. Send drop pods toward the first two coordinates I just sent. Then send additional landing craft to all three locations I sent. The first is already secure and the second two will be secure by the time you land." Jace ordered as he leaned out the side of the airship and prepared to jump out.

"Understood Commander Jace. Anything else?"

"Yeah," Jace jumped out as they passed over the walled-in hill village. "Have the fleet commander on standby. Send a message to Vana as well that I will need to talk to her once this peninsula is secured."