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Melbourne Station's central office complex was the home of the Government of Natio Octavarium, as well as all logistics and maintenance coordination for the Fourth Octavarium Fleet. Usually the conference rooms were either not in use or were being used as isolated, noise-proof offices (perfect for giving a Bandit a proper dressing down without anyone knowing) but today, the largest of the boardrooms was booked for a productive use.

Around the boardroom table were nine chairs with name placards situated in front of them. Delacroix, Harper, Clemens, and Kane on one side, and Deacon, Illat, Jones, Wilson, and Riley on the other. The center of the table was a large display that showed images of the station, ships docked it, and the space surrounding it. Poking away at the screen while waiting for the others to arrive was Taskmaster Harold Kane, with Lieutenant Florence Clemens sat to his left. The two of them prodded schematics and diagrams, rotating them for views of different components, zooming in on critical section housings to look for key structural points to clone, selecting regions and designs to save as potential design lines for what would result from the Afterimage project.

"Maybe if we use the overall design scheme of the Mark I..." Florence said, bringing up a hull diagram of the original production run of Spyglass Mk I dreadnoughts. "Obviously not quite as hacked together, but the layout is solid."

"I don't think we ever received original construction blueprints for it. That would have involved having blueprints for an Overlord, and the operation to acquire one of those back in the day went over like a lead balloon..."

"Well, we've got partial schematics for a Sarissa, and for the hull of a Spyglass Mk II. It'd be nice to have something somewhere between the two in scale, though."

Eventually, Kane looked up and out the meeting room door. He heard the clattering of people walking down the hallways. They were right on time...

Saronsen grimaces as he realizes he's one of the first to arrive. Distant discussions were one thing, but formal meetings were another. Maybe he should've skipped out. Left an I-O-U on the consoles. It's not like he can't contribute from a distance, the world dulled out by the hum of his servers. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he strolls into the boardroom.

His Fourth Fleet uniform was impeccable, surprisingly, however he himself was somewhat disheveled. A few days behind on the shaving, and his hair looking like he had just rolled out of bed, though the effort was made to smooth it out with some water and his hands. He takes his seat, eyes scanning the display, and then the ranking officers at the table as he waits for the meeting to begin, or for his presence to be acknowledged.

It probably struck people as a bit odd that Victor would not be the first one to arrive. After all, his converted broom closet was just down the hall. But sure enough, that's what happened. As usual, he wore a long, dark grey coat, white shirt, and black pants, and he carried a tablet, apparently the same one he always had. He took a seat in a corner, directly beneath an inactive light.

Just after his arrival, Johnathan Jones and Darren Wilson arrived. Jones wore a black shirt with an Aquila logo on the left side of the chest, and black paints - plain, comfortable, and entirely unimpressive. Most people wouldn't notice anyway. Darren's very visibly artificial right arm was sure to grab attention. And he was even less concerned with how he looked, still wearing a standard set of technician coveralls in standard Aquila maroon. They were clean and relatively tidy, but a suit they were not. They were also missing their right arm, a modification he had made to account for his unique situation. Each took their assigned seats and waited.

After a moment, Jones looked over at Victor and asked, "Just how many of those coats do you have?"

"As many as I need."

Captain John Riley stepped into the conference room. It was a stroke of good luck that the invitation came in while the Dreaded Skies was already on the way to 44 ferrying light arms to Canberra for a Guild contract. He was wearing a freshly pressed uniform similar in cut, though not color, to a Bowex officer's uniform. The uniform was primarily khaki in color and had captains stripes on the shoulder boards, as well as patches on the upper arms, the Octavarium seal on one side and the Dreaded Skies' ship's patch on the other.

He wasn't sure what he had to add at this stage, though he was sure he was here for a good reason. Anticipating a need for the information, he brought his datapad with him, connected directly to his ship's database of trade contacts along with a listing of the commodities they dealt with. The list included contacts acquired through the OMG, as well as his own extensive contacts from his long career. Between the two lists, he was certain he could source just about anything from almost anywhere in Sirius.

He saw his name on a placard in front of a chair, and quietly took his seat.

The sound of stumbling, rushed footfalls echoed just outside the meeting room- faintly at first but steadily getting more audible as the source got closer until they stopped completely; replaced with more controlled - almost feigned - steps. Moments later, Erin Deacon entered the room, futility trying to straighten out her wrinkled white button down shirt with a free hand as she pressed the door aside with the other.


She paused mid-way through rambling, glancing at her communications gauntlet, clearly noticing the time while swiping away a barrage of other notifications.
Seconds later, her attention returned to the room



Without another peep, she nervously found her way to the chair marked with her nameplate, and sat while glancing around at the other attendants in the room. She took a moment to tie back her waist-length black hair - a color that was beginning to fade at the edges and roots to reveal a silvery-white underneath -, and don a pair of reading glasses just as she offered quiet introductions to a few others in attendance.

Harper moved through Melbourne station with purpose, her stride long but not hurried. The ringing of her craft's thrusters still echoed in her ears as she approached the boardroom, deafening the sound of her own footfalls and racing thoughts. Two streaks of grease formed on her flight jacket as she quickly wiped her hands clean of her prior engagements, before throwing a single hand through her hair, and with a steadying deep breath she surreptitiously entered the room. Seeing the many eyes fall on her from the nearly full table she hesitated before stepping in, examining each face and quickly giving out two nods as she approached her chair.

"Kane. Victor."

As if attempting to make up for lost time she quickly and quietly slipped into the last available seat, hardly taking the time to pull it out from the table before sliding into it. With practiced hands she drew her personal data pad from inside her coat, placing it upon the table and giving each attendee a once over before turning her attention over to Kane, awaiting the proper start of the meeting.

Kane looked around the room for a moment before tapping a few square on the screen before him. The door to the conference room hissed as it sealed itself shut, transforming the space into a soundproof faraday cage. Security was often necessary for the meetings that went on in these rooms; loose lips frag ships, and that was the explicit opposite of the purpose of this meeting.

"I wasn't expecting everyone to be early," he joked. He poked at the screen in front of him and brought up a schematic diagram of the late VCS Metropolis. "Most of you remember this ship. The Metropolis was our home for years, and our flagship for longer. Originally a first production run Spyglass-class dreadnought constructed in association with the Lane Hackers and the Hellfire Legion at Fort Leniex, it served as the flagship of the Vagrant Fleet for nearly a decade and fought in several major battles in the recent history of Sirius. When its reactor spun down for the last time, a year and a half ago, it was the last ship of the First Vagrant Fleet to venture forth into that quiet night."

"And with it went not only a symbol of the will and strength of our fleet and our people, but our strongest line of defense. We have no artillery. No safeguard for our citizens. No deterrent. No capital vessel with which to go forward and show to Sirius, here stands Natio Octavarium; we will not again yield."

As Kane paused, Lieutenant Clemens looked at him, as if to silently ask, "are you done?" He looked over at her. "Yes."

"What Taskmaster Kane is saying, is that we have no real warships, and we have conflicts brewing all around us. The Metropolis, rest her hull, was a sluggish, archaic, hacked together dreadnought when she was first built. When she last saw service, she was shedding more rusty chunks of metal than the wreck of Trafalgar. It's time to modernize the fleet. For this, we need both design and implementation."

"Now, I've never designed something quite this large from scratch, so we need a platform to start from. You all have had varying experiences in various parts of the sector, so we need some input on what potential avenues we have. Our largest fleet was composed of the Metropolis, the Sarissa Mk I-class battleship Systematic Chaos, and a trio of Storta-class destroyers. Now, obviously this is a heavily Malta-biased setup, which makes it slightly dangerous to be using it around the Crayterians and the Council. But it's one we have practice with. The only other problem is we would need a lead into getting the Amalfi Union on board. And the parts, of course."

Kane looked down at the table and brought up a partial hull diagram of the Sarissa. It was old, and incomplete, based off of the Chaos that had been lost some six years past, but it was at least better than nothing.

What was not much better than nothing, however, were the other diagrams Kane brought up. "Our forces and our soft targets are within the Barrier and its offshoots, so we need something relatively light. Other potentials include the Crayter Republic's Zephyr-class carrier, the Zoner Aquilon-class carrier -- though neither of those are heavily armed -- and being like every other paramilitary to grace this paradise in the universe by convincing the crew of an Osiris to defect."

He looked up and around the room. "We've got thirty thousand people on a defenseless, paper-thin buttplug full of sky out there. Thoughts?"

Saronsen scans the group slowly, waiting for someone to speak first. While they all took their time choosing their words or just remaining at a loss, the Specialist clears his throat, and speaks up.

"I still have a last generation Hacker gunship tucked away." His eyes dart left to right as he's looked at. "Might not have been the heaviest gunboat in the sector, but it had unparalleled electronic warfare capabilities and was very agile for its size." He glances upwards towards Harold. "I've taken her apart and put her back together so many times I could probably reproduce blueprints for you out of memory. Though I'd rather go and collect it." He quietly clears his throat again as he slouches in his seat once more. "Might serve well as a template, at least. Remove the servers, and you'll have a ton of room for generators, structural bracing, cargo."

Jones thought for a moment, and spoke up. "Not a bad idea, exactly, but scale leaves something to be desired. The Hel platform proved amenable to modification, but someone burned out the power array on ours trying to run oversized EWAR systems through it," he said, glancing at Victor. "Of course, from what I've gathered the Hessians are weirdly protective of the thing. Doesn't make much sense to me, they're not the only ones building them."

Victor narrowed his eyes slightly and shook his head. "It was that or run without those jammers, and if we did that we'd probably all be dead. We can get the Huginn project restored, but none of that really addresses the true problem. We don't have our own drydock. Anything we do now is going to end up with undesirable scrutiny from other parties. For all the fluff and arrogance that goes into Hacker operations, there is one thing they got right - it's best to keep your true capabilities secret, even from your allies. Jones?"

The Aquila director sighed. "Yeah, that's the big problem. Unless the Baffinites have a shipyard hidden away that they'll give us unmonitored access to, we need to get one of our own. This requires considerable additional resources... and a good, concealed location. The third cloud of 37, or the southern expanse of the Brunei cloud here in 44 seem like the best options, unless we can buy Crayter out of the system."

"Yeah that ain't happening," Darren muttered, shaking his head.

"And without a shipyard, our options are limited to slow, laborious external modifications and internal restructuring of existing hulls. We can't build anything of our own," Jones concluded.

She took a moment to pause, glancing around the room before continuing.


Deacon leaned back in her seat, her eyes shifting around the room at everyone present for a moment.