Kilometres away from Manhattan, 50K above Pittsburgh, stood the 24th naval battlegroup, once under the command of admiral Alban. There, the immense Eagle Prime battleship, the heavily modified Liberty dreadnaught, rested along with its escort, it's immense 75m diameter antena dish rotating cmoothly searching for intruder.
the LNS Eagle Prime was about the largest dreadnaught ever seen. Originally a Constellation class like the Citadelle de Quebec, it's engine was first upgraded to fit in it's self propelled hyperdrive. Followed by that, a number of gatling ion turrets, efficient at fighter craft interception. After a few years of hardwork, the cloaking device dome was succesfully installed on the vessel, with a few technical difficulties, but generally working good. The ship was indeed a testbed for every liberty technologies, and made very rare appearance, and very few knew of its existence. Even as of now, two experimental rail guns were being installed on the hull, as well as a Gauss canon system that would sacrifice a bit of the hangar space.
However, today was the immense radar unit installed on board that would serve to something.
When the newly appointed admiral of the EP noticed what was on radar, he immediately called Liberty defence fleet One.
"Sir. It's incredible... but we are decting a slowly fading away electronical signature, very disctinctive of an order war ships. I can see it begin in Alaska, heading for I dont know where. It has at least one minute delay upon the real position of the ship."
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"Captain Lavoie, you are requested on the bridge immediately!!" the intercom announced.
The officers on the communication room cursed as they rushed back toward the bridge.
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Isabelle was still as unemotional ever since her reaction to menace. She seemed a completely different person, having lost all humane features.
"I have already proposed my offers. You may believe unfounded lies from the Order. Or you may trust the security the Liberty navy is offering within it's own homeworld. Since admiral Mira doesn't want to make the effort to cooperate with me, I'm afraid I have no other choice."
She also felt the other woman's body getting ready for combat, and she did just as same, tapping in a subtle way a part of her arm plate, effectively activating the armour which made no notice whatsoever it was now indeed active.
Thorn sighed, standing up to his full height and unholstering his gun. "I'm sorry ladies, but you arent making this easy on me. The longer you stall trying to have your own way, the worse this situation gets. Dekker..."
"Sir?"
"Take the general back to her ship. General, I will meet with you shortly, dont do anything rash."
Dekker stood up and motioned for the woman to proceed back to the docking bay, his rifle at the ready. Thorn turned back to the order agent.
As the door closed behind the General and Dekker, a gunshot echoed through the station. A smile spread across the general's lips, thinking she had made some kind of victory here.
"Well, you two certainly pissed the captain off, he doesnt usually shoot people..." Dekker stammered, before turning back to the general and prodding her in the back with his rifle, "Come on, cap said he'd meet you in the docking bay, lets go."
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Back in the bar, Thorn holstered his smoking pistol. The data disk the two had so fiercly fought over lay shattered in a thousand peices on the table. The agent looked up at him with satisfaction, "I didnt honestly think you'd choose my side." She said.
"I havent chosen anyone's side," barked thorn, turning hurredly to his remaining cremember, "Jace, I need you to get an identical disk, and copy a bunch of lane hacker crap onto it. Cargo routes, whatever, it needs to look convincing. Throw in some schematics on liberty ships, that should do it."
"Yes sir!" Jace launched to work, typing away furiously on his datapad. "should only take a minute or two."
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General Isabelle stood silent, waiting patiently at her ship for Thorn to show up. Within minutes the door heading from the bar opened with a whoosh, the captain and his other crewmember walking through at a swift pace.
"Listen general, I only chose your side because I cant afford to have liberty hunting down my ship. It wont be long before the order tries to hunt me down as well, and I expect you to hold good on your word. Keep them off my back. Here's your disk, I hope whatever data is on that thing was worth this mess."
Thorn shoved the data disk into her hand, "I dont like killing people general, the living are better for business than the dead, but my hand was forced today. Now get off this station."
Thorn turned back towards the bar after the general had boarded her ship once again.
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"Alright lass," Thorn said, as he entered the bar with it's sole, cloaked occupant sitting quietly where she had been since the start of the meeting, "You need to wait here, until rochester's scanners show the all clear. Then I want you off this station, and out of liberty space. Dont let them catch you, or I'm a dead man."