318 Cultural exchange 7

"Yeah, I see it. Waiting for IMI to establish a zero delay uplink."

In the middle of evacuating the centaur village, Dax was contacted by Lux warning him of contacts in high orbit coming down to play. 

"What's going on?"

Sensing the sudden change in Dax's attitude, Solaris stopped what she was doing and came over.

"We have contact in high orbit, looks like it's the one that has been deploying scouts and raid teams down to the surface, it has seen us now and is starting to move."

"I see… Are we in trouble?"

Solaris wasn't really surprised at the news that the Emergence was on the move, after all, they were currently behind enemy lines.

"Nah, I just need to take care of them real quick before it becomes a problem."

Dax wasn't really worried about losing his orbital assets, as they were state of the art Lazarus manufactured warships equipped with mana generators which could defend against anything the Emergence could throw at them, it was however very problematic if the Emergence fleet targeted Morax 4 itself and the ongoing evacuation effort.

[IMI HEAVY UPLINK READY, STANDING BY FOR TRAFFIC.]

"About time… Establish uplink."

Standing on a metal platform Dax was surrounded by holograms displaying countless diagrams and raw target data as he ripped off his t shirt to reveal the cybernetic implant which had replaced a large part of his spine as a drone plugged in a cable. 

[UPLINK ESTABLISHED, COMMAND AND CONTROL ARCHITECTURE ESTABLISHED, DIALING LAZARUS SYSTEMS, CONNECTION ESTABLISHED TO LAZARUS AUTONOMOUS TYPE BATTLECRUISER ID: 00009512.]

In a split second Dax's consciousness shifted from the surface of Morax 4 into space as a ship which didn't officially exist came alive.

(Let's see… Ah, there they are.)

At first, Dax had trouble acquiring the Emergence contacts, but once he located them he quickly acted.

(IMI, target. Set up the defensive screen and kill targets #1, 2 and 3 first, prioritize enemy mobility and communications, task HEL with point defence.)

[IMI CONFIRMS, TARGETS ACQUIRED.]

With orders to engage, the autonomous battlecruiser came alive as reaction control thrusters all over its boomerang shaped hull came alive, turning to face a small cluster of Emergence ships which were currently charging it now that they were sure they had been detected.

[PREPARING TO FIRE.

PRIMARY REACTOR ONLINE, MOVING TO WAR OUTPUT, CLOSING NON ESENSIAL POWER RELAYS 

SPINNING UP PRIMARY COOLING SYSTEMS.

PRIMARY MANA FORGE ONLINE, COMMENCING MANA GENERATION.

MANA LEVELS CRITICAL, LOADING SPELL ARCHITECTURE FROM PRIMARY SYSTEMS MAINFRAME:

DESIGNATION, WIDE AREA SUPPRESSION LAZARUS #00019 'ZEUS'.

LOAD SUCCESSFUL, PRIMING EXPERIMENTAL PAYLOAD FROM MAGAZINE #4, CHARGING TO CRITICAL… 

CHARGE COMPLETE.

SYSTEM READY.

FIRING.]

Creating multiple bright white gloving rune formations in front of itself like coils on a gauss rifle, the battlecruiser fired a single, custom made 940 mill railgun canister round. Reaching the first spell formation which was directly in front of it in a split second, the canister round 

violently accelerated each time it passed through one of the spell formations, until it reached high fractions of the speed of light before reaching the final spell formation which finally armed the payload inside. 

-

"What the fuck was that?"

Having felt a massive surge of mana, Ke had looked to the sky above just in time to witness what had appeared to be a massive bolt of lightning spread out across the sky before disappearing.

"Ah, that? It was just our ship in orbit firing at something, Dax is most likely wiping out some Emergence ships before they become a problem."

Answering Ke's question like it wasn't a big deal at all, Solaris left the lamia at a loss for words, but not for the reason she suspected.

(What the hell was that spell? Sure, the scale was massive, but it was so inefficient…)

(IMI, clear up scopes, I can't see shit.)

Having used a prototype weapon system to attack the Emergence forces, Dax suffered the unfortunate side effect of blinding his own sensors as he fired it off, an unforeseen issue Ra would have to address in upcoming modifications.

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, RESETTING ALL SENSORS TO BASELINE AND RECALIBRADING.... CALIBRATION COMPLETE. ALL TARGETS WIPED OUT.]

Luckily the Emergence crafts weren't able to strike back, as the effect of the spell had been greater than expected it had completely wiped out their forces.

(Huh, would you look at that? Ra never disappoints, I guess… IMI, move to standby on level 4 alert, continue scanning for hostile contacts.)

[COMMAND DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, MOVING TO STANDBY, TERMINATING CONNECTION.]

Returning back to the surface of Morax 4, Dax ripped out the cable from his back and stretched as the external quantum communication system he had used shut down.

-

In the end, the investigation of Morax 4 was a success. Not only did the operation field test new equipment and technology which would be crucial in the fight against the Emergence, but Dax and his team even successfully recovered one of the artefacts which were changing Morax 4's surface in addition to evacuating a handful of people from another dimension. But as the last GE-5 heavy transport lifted off to return to orbit, it was unknowingly being closely observed by a single drone. This drone was far more advanced than anything the Emergence or even Lazarus could produce, centuries ahead of anything else one could regard it as lost technology, only this drone wasn't some strange translocated trinket, it was a scout relaying information back to its command centre, reporting that an unknown party had taken one of the 'world engines' it was keeping taps on.

Returning to Galactic Empire space, Dax's unit headed directly to an off the books Lazarus research site where they were personally greeted by the two heads of the operation. 

"Lilly!~"

"Nooo! Get away from me woman!"

"Welcome back."

With the already usual scene of Mu chasing around Lilly to capture her in a vice like hug, Ra chose to completely ignore it as she greeted Dax.

"Thanks, did you get everything I ordered?"

"I did, I even had the drones set up the kitchen just like you like it, you owe me for this."

With a somewhat superior and seeming smug look on her face, Ra handed Dax a tablet with a list of various goods he had ordered through her. Quickly checking the list, Dax found nothing to be missing.

"Thank you for this, Ra, Will the usual payment be sufficient?"

"That'll be plenty yeah, now, introduce me to your new friends."

Finishing up their private matter, Ra turned her attention to the people Dax had brought back with him.

"From the left to right, this is Ke, Goran and Rakan. The three of them are all leaders of their respective communities and were the ones which agreed to the evacuation from Morax 4."

Quickly introducing the village leaders to Ra, Dax turned to them next.

"The one chasing Lilly over there is Mu, and this is Ra. They're both my sisters and are responsible for all the technology you've seen so far. Please come with me, I'll show all of you the way to your temporary residence."

Spending the rest of the day getting the guest settled in and dealing with after action reports to Ra and Mu, Dax found himself mentally drained when he finally returned to his quarters to rest.

"Ah, there you are~"

But his night had only just begun. 

Standing at his door with a beaming smile on her face, Alice greeted Dax who made the unfortunate mistake of paying closer attention to her expression before he answered her.

"Hey, I know you most likely waited here for some time, but can it wa-"

"Nope~ You said I had to wait until we got some time off to skin you alive, that would be now~"

While Alice's mouth was smiling, her eyes were displaying an entirely different emotion.

"... Fine, let's go inside so we don't disturb anyone else."

Finding himself surrounded, Dax gave up any attempt at fleeing while internally blaming himself for not keeping his guard up. Proudly facing his own execution, Dax straightened his back and accepted his fate without any qualms, but it turned out he had walked into a hearing, not an execution.

"So? Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"I do, but could you please m-"

"Nope~ Just go ahead and continue, don't mind me."

Finding himself surrounded on all sides by the girls with Alice sitting in his lap with her back leaning on his chest, Dax took a deep breath before he started explaining his side of 'the incident'. 

"So I initially didn't realize how interested Ke was, if I did I would have let Lux handle establishing first contact. As I said when I did it, I needed to have physical contact with Ke for the translation to work and the only reason she managed to catch my head was because I was preoccupied with the constant bloodlust directed at my back."

"Okay, then what about the kiss?"

Feeling like he passed the first hurdle, Dax breathed an internal sigh of relief as he continued his explanation.

"Right, that… When Ke caught my head I quickly realized I couldn't escape from her, I'm sure she could have crushed my head then and there. As she started kissing me I came to the unfortunate conclusion that the only way out of that situation was through it, I realize that was a poor decision, as decisions made under pressure usually are, but I don't intend to defend it. By kissing someone I betrayed all the trust and good will you girls have placed in me and if you allow me to, I will work had to regain that trust."

Finishing up his explanation and apology, Dax waited in what felt like an eternity as an uncomfortable silence fell over the room.

"... You know we're not really mad, right?"

"Eh?"

With Alice finally breaking the silence after what felt like an eternity, Dax was only even more confused as Lilly and Solaris closed in on him from either side as Alice also turned to face him.

"After calming down, we realized it was unfair to be angry at you for something you had no control over. I personally feel like I've been too hard on you recently, but that's only because we didn't have any time together, that's why I acted out like that, sorry."

Explaining the girl's general sentiment followed by her own personal feelings, Alice quickly hugged Dax to hide her own embarrassment. 

"Everything else aside, I am quite looking forward to how you're going to make this all up to us as you said."

With Lilly taking over for Alice, Dax suddenly got a bad premonition.

"But, that-"

"You wouldn't take those words back after delivering such a moving speech, would you Dax?"

With Solaris also closing in from the other side, Dax realized he had been done in by his own words.

"... I guess I won't. On that note, I've filed for some off time here on this station, I even had Ra ship in a bunch of first class ingredients and high class liquor. While I figure that will be a good start, I'm sure there's more we can figure out as time goes on.

Realizing that he had been neglecting the girls ever since returning to the Galactic Empire, Dax figured he would use the next few weeks of off time to make it up to them.