Chapter 218: Show of Force

Chapter 218: Show of Force

Laura Uzbeck - Astro Forge

“What do you mean, you guys are delayed? It’s your job to smooth things over with your station’s harbormaster. How can you let it deteriorate to the point where it can cause a delay?” Laura admonished the man on the other end of the call.

“Ma’am...that’s not easy to do with the amount of funds we’re—”

“If it was easy to do, then we wouldn’t be paying you so well. Just get it done, no complaining.”

“Yes, of course, ma’am.”

Seeing her men comply, Laura turned off the call. She massaged her eyes as she contemplated how to report to her superiors. While she was in charge of the Aegis branch of her company, she still had to regularly check in with her boss.

As if the person heavily weighing on her could read her mind, she received a call from them at this exact moment. The ringtone blared out in a high-pitched horn, distinguishing it from any other caller.

“Yes, Mr. Bulrich, how may I be of service?”

“Laura, don’t play me for a fool. When do you plan on reporting to me about this recent attack on your office?”

“Sir, I was just about to—”

“Just about to do it? Well, you would’ve still been ten minutes too late. The Axion family head himself questioned me about the situation. I could only assure him we had it under control, so it better be!”

“Of course. The attack is already over, and all our vital assets are accounted for.”

“Good. And you better keep me updated as you find the perpetrators!”

With the call cut off, Laura shook her head as she breathed deeply to relax. She then made various calls out to different departments, urging them to hurry up with their investigations. Whether her efforts made a difference, she never knew, but she did get a report the next day.

All clues pointed at a newcomer to Aegis that neither she nor her intel department had ever heard of. This resulted in a few extra days of investigation to get to the bottom of things.

What? It’s one of those annoying calls from last week? Laura thought to herself.

She barely remembered the conversation she had with this new CEO, but it was too late for her to regret it. She would’ve never guessed some upstart had the galls to attack her company in the first place.

After her investigators had put together a detailed profile of their assailants, she finally called a branch meeting.

Half a dozen people swiftly assembled in the meeting room, each respectfully bowing to Laura before taking their seats.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming so promptly. Today, we must decide on a course of action in response to the attack we suffered the other day.”

“That’s right,” a stout man slammed his fist on the desk in agreement. “They completely trashed my security room. Half our budget for the quarter is gone, just like that.”

He then glanced over at Laura with puppy eyes before continuing.

“Branch director, speaking of budget, do you think—”

“You’re dreaming if you think we have any funds for your department after your failures. Neither I nor anyone from the Axion family would approve of such a ludicrous idea.”

At Laura’s words, everyone in the room looked away. Their looks all said, “Of course you wouldn’t. You and the owners are always too cheap to approve any additional funding.”

With no one saying a word for some time, Laura cleared her throat to get them back on track.

“Ahem, let us proceed. I want retaliation plans against this Halls Corporation that dares attack us.”

“Ma’am,” an older woman cut in. “Should we not wait until we’ve finished the thorough background check? The preliminary report only includes their brief history and immediate allies. We haven’t even found out why they wanted to rescue this Perry person yet. I doubt they would be involved in some petty theft ring.”

“All we need to know is that they have malicious intentions against us. We can find out the details later.”

“Very well,” Laura seethed. “If it’s war you want, then war you’ll have.”

“Relax, now. I wouldn’t do something so boorish as to declare hostilities like this. Keep watching.”

The screen panned back to the ship’s direction again. Contrary to their expectation, what they saw wasn’t a wreckage or a crippled vessel. The ship was fully operational, accelerating away at full burn with no issues.

Instead, an asteroid in the background now had a giant hole in it. The edges of the hole were still burning hot with molten slag.

Seeing this, Laura sent a discreet message through their encrypted channel to her men.

*Hail that vessel immediately and verify the footage.*

While a few people at her table visibly brought their attention elsewhere, most of them still watched the screen carefully.

They saw their ship growing larger as the camera drew closer to it. It made the message they would shortly receive from their ship’s captain more chilling.

It was a message that confirmed the authenticity of the attack, but it also noted it came out of nowhere. They also said they were burning as fast as they could, as they couldn’t detect the threats.

However, Laura could now clearly see how close the ship was to the camera. It was close enough to send a boarding party. It made her grimace as she watched their ship severely outmatched. It may not have been a warship, but it should’ve still at least been able to detect a ship at such proximity and moving at such high speeds.

She quickly sent out a warning to the captain, but as if the cameraman could read her mind, it began pulling away and refocused its lens on the captain and the young man from before.

“So, I heard companies like yours are entirely reliant on these ships to do business. What do you think would happen if a few started missing from time to time? Or to be more precise, every day or so?”

While Laura had the urge to scream out profanities at the young man, she barely managed to hold it in. If what he said manifested in reality, she wouldn’t meet a good end within the first week. Her company would lay the blame on her, and she wouldn’t be able to resist.

Laura was too disposable. Talent wasn’t required if the company only wanted to maintain the status quo. It made finding replacements very easy.

“...What do you want? If you have such capabilities, I don’t see how a company of our size could interest you.”

Hearing her words, the young man beamed. It was a smile that Laura thought made him so punchable that she almost hit the screen.

“Why, cooperation, of course. We may have started off on the wrong foot, but I would like to try again, amiably this time. What do you say?”

Right on cue, a file was sent to their systems. Laura nodded to the technician off to the side, permitting them to pull it up. It only took a split second for all the business-savvy individuals in the room to see it was a proposal plan.

It included nonaggression agreements and long-term business deals.

“This... we’ll have to get back to you in a few days,” Laura muttered. “I can’t make all these decisions alone. I need to consult my superiors.”

“Two days. It’s all you’ll have. We’ll stay in touch.”

With that, the hijacked call finally ended as abruptly as it had happened. It was like a signal to open the floodgates in her meeting room as chatter erupted all at once.

“What was our intel department doing?! Those were obviously some type of highly charged energy weapons. These guys are backed by people we can’t afford to cross!”

“More like that young gentleman is an offspring from some large corporation. Who had so few brain cells that they decided to antagonize a powerful scion of some big company?”

“There’s no point in finding blame now! We have to quickly mend our relationship at once! Someone go find a befitting gift.”

Amongst all this chaos, only Laura stood there silently. She allowed her men to let out everything they had been holding in, but even after half an hour, there was no end in sight.

“Enough!” she finally yelled as she slammed her hand on the table. “We have to consult with the higher-ups first. Just be prepared to carry out all those little favor-currying schemes you were spewing.”

The meeting was then adjourned, as they all rushed to make arrangements. Some planned to jump ship from Astro Forge, while others plotted how to benefit themselves with the upcoming dynamics.

They were so hyper-focused on the next step that none took a closer look at what had happened anymore. Not to the brute force hacking, nor the size of the enemy fleet. They all believed their decision-makers would accept the proposal.