Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 59

"What do you expect us to do about all this?" Webb asked.

"Nothing," Jason said firmly. "Stay the fuck out of this for as long as you can. Keep your heads down, stay off this thing's radar, and keep building up the Gen IV starships in secret as you have been."

"How the hell do you know about— You know what? I don't even want to know. I can't guarantee how the policy makers will react when presented with this, and you know that I can't keep something like this a secret from our leadership."

"Brief 707 on all this, ask for his input, and then take him along when you move it up the chain," Jason suggested, referring to the leader of the battlesynth refugees currently residing on Terranovus. "Earth will listen to him if he explains the risks of you popping your heads up too soon."

"You don't think it's wise to approach Seeladas Dalton directly?"

"She's a politician, and she's been compromised." Jason shrugged as if that explained everything. "If you go to her with this, she'll demand to see your source, which you won't be able to hide, and then you'll also have to admit that your weapons development is far more advanced than you're admitting. She'll sell you out to the Machine to save her own ass…it's in her DNA."

"Alternative solutions?"

"Keep a low profile, keep building the big stick. We're about to kick off an open insurrection, whether Mok knows it or not, and the real fight will begin to displace this threat. The ConFed fleet isn't the all-powerful juggernaut they try to present it as, but it is vast in numbers. Let them burn ships and resources fighting us and when—and only when—they come for Earth, give it to them with both barrels."

"Any chance of you coming back into the fold? We could really use this type of direct intelligence and outside perspective, Jason," Webb said.

"I'm more useful to you out here as an independent source, untainted by the politics of the chain of command," Jason said. "Besides, I'm not much of a joiner anymore."

"You say that but you're the first to sign up for every hopeless cause you come across."

"I said I wasn't a joiner, not that I was heartless. Any chance one of your Scout Fleet crews could make it to the Miressa System as a direct observer? What's Mosler doing right now?"

"Ezra Mosler was killed in action," Webb said somberly. "Scout Team Obsidian is currently standing down while we…restructure it. I'll try to send someone out there to take a peek, though."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jason said. "He seemed like a good guy."

"He was the best."

"This is a nasty business we're in, bud. Just be thankful you lived long enough to become the old man behind the desk."

"Yeah…lucky me," Webb laughed. "I'll get to parsing this data and seeing how I want to feed it up the chain. Don't get yourself killed out there trying to take on the entire ConFed with your one little gunship."

"That's not exactly Plan A, but things never seem to work out in my favor. I'll get a hold of you when it's all over. Take it easy, asshole."

"Later, dickhead." Webb terminated the channel and unclenched his ass from where it had tried to chew through the seat when Jason brought up Scout Team Obsidian. He knew eventually he'd have to come clean and tell his friend he'd put his son in a forward recon unit, but he wanted to enjoy a few more years of living without a shattered pelvis before he did.

"Bennett!" he shouted once the slip-com terminal had closed down completely.

"Sir?" his aide asked, popping his head in the doorway.

"Please send a messenger to the battlesynth settlement and ask 707 if he wouldn't mind advising me on a military matter of some urgency."

"Right away, sir."

"Admiral Didza, reporting as requested."

"One moment, Admiral," the synth on the monitor said. Didza's interest was piqued by the being's presence on Miressa Prime. Despite Khepri being a Pillar World and sharing a special relationship with Miressa, there weren't many synths on the capital world, and almost none actually working within government. Now it seemed that every time he turned around there was one of the artificial beings scurrying about on some official task.

"Admiral Didza." The visage of High Admiral K'Tao appeared on the screen. K'Tao was a pure born Miressan, a member of the native species on this planet that call themselves the Akree. K'Tao was from one of the controlling families on Miressa whose bloodline went back hundreds of generations. He was extremely powerful on the capital planet, which made him a powerful figure within the entire ConFed.

"High Admiral," Didza replied, bowing his head in respect.

"Our intelligence service has been receiving rumors that there could be an attempted attack on Miressa Prime soon," K'Tao said. "We don't give these rumors too much credence, of course, but we need to be ready all the same. Recall all of the Home Defense Force ships back to the inner system and assemble your fleet into a defensive formation."

"What of our tasking for monitoring traffic in the outer system, sir?"

"We will have the Orbital Control Directorate pick up the slack for the time being. You have your orders."

"I will obey at once, High Adm—" Didza stopped as the screen went blank. Apparently, the high admiral had more pressing things to do than wait for Didza to finish his sentence.

"Captain! Issue orders to begin recalling Defense Force ships back to the inner system," he said. "We will rally into a single spread formation in orbit over Taus and await orders from High Command. This is not an exercise, so be quick about it."

The fifth planet in the Miressa System, Taus, was a rocky giant with such high gravity it couldn't be terraformed into a habitable world. It also had a crust devoid of any sizable deposits of rare elements so