So she set the comms so they would not disturb her except in emergencies. She then pulled up the messages she knew Neaysa would already have on her con. All were “All Call” messages that get sent out to everyone. There were few of those until the last few years. Then message after message detailing setbacks in the war. She ignored all that lead up to the last battle. After that, there were only three.
The first one was from the fleet she had been a part of detailing the failure to hold. That had been sent prior to the command to retreat. She knew for a fact that the command ship that had transmitted it had been destroyed soon after sending it. She had been too far away to engineer a rescue of that captain.
The second was from the Emperor himself telling everyone that the final fleet had fallen and that he was taking the Emperor’s Fleet into exile with as many people (Dvane) as he could. Ostensibly to regroup and figure out new tactics. But she knew from the last briefings that this was just a last attempt to preserve the race. As a Roh captain she knew all the places he would likely retreat to; she had to in order to be able to rejoin him. But those were secrets that she could not physically reveal even if she wanted to. She could only pilot there if she were in command of the ship.
The last message was from the planet Racool, the closest planet to the approaching enemy. Easlank warships had just dropped into the system.
She knew there would be more of that last type of message from more systems before they could possibly be ready to leave. The only thing now that would slow the rush of Easlank to consume more systems was the fact that while they had beaten the Dvane, it hadn’t been without a lot of casualties of their own. In fact, technically more casualties than the Dvane had suffered. But that hadn’t changed the outcome. Only slowed them. And they apparently bred fast.
She considered what to do with those last messages. They would likely affect the crew’s morale negatively. But she decided that they had a right to know, and it would hopefully drive them to work harder. She clicked the link to put them on the ship net.
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