Chapter 817: Delivery

"How long would it take that force to assemble?"

Alucard’s voice came faintly through the artifact. Three hours had passed since the Imperial acknowledgment. Mingyue was back with Luna, and Alex had asked Vesa to let the old Progenitor hear the order. He had remained silent through most of it.

Now he had a question about the movement notice Dorian had received.

Alex enlarged the list of military groups attached to the warning.

"I don’t know how many ships each designation represents."

"Neither do I," Alucard said. "Ask someone who has seen them."

Dorian stood beside the map, still wearing the impatient expression he had worn at the failed meeting. Several marks showed places whose people had answered Vesa’s request to share warnings. Most of the space between them remained empty.

"They sent ships quickly before," he said. "The first fleet was on us before we had finished with Thepes."

"That was a Tier-One emergency response," Vesa said. "These designations don’t appear in the response record. Fast travel alone doesn’t tell us when this different force was prepared."

She placed the old response record beside the new notice.

The emergency ships had arrived at Proxima, fought and withdrawn with their damaged units. The formations on the new notice included different designations and transports assigned to carry personnel and equipment into occupied territory.

"They are calling this an inspection," Alex said.

Dorian looked at the transport entries.

"They brought enough people to stay."

Alucard’s voice weakened for a moment, then returned.

"Find where those people were before your answer was requested."

Vesa closed the unnecessary displays. She had learned to dislike questions that sounded simple only because no one had tried answering them yet.

The notice came from an awakened group watching an ordinary commercial route beyond its settlement. It gave the time at which civilian traffic would be diverted, the approach ships were forbidden to use, and the Imperial formation responsible.

She contacted the sender and asked whether anyone had seen the ships or supplied the place where they were gathering.

Then she contacted the pilot who had brought the first transport to their receiving ground.

He answered from his own vessel.

"If you’re asking me to carry fighters, I need to know how many before you put them at my ramp."

"I’m asking about the last port you used."

His expression changed.

"Which part?"

"Did you see these designations?"

Vesa sent the notice. The pilot read it twice.

"I was told to clear a berth for one of them."

"When?"

"Before I heard your call."

Alex moved closer to her display.

"Do you still have the port’s message?"

"I have the whole argument. They charged me for the berth after telling me I couldn’t keep it."

He turned toward someone offscreen and asked for the navigation record. Vesa could hear the other person objecting that their passengers were still ashore.

"They’re safe," the pilot answered. "This is about the ships that pushed us out."

***

Vesa met him at the receiving ground with Alex. Dorian remained with the warning map and the groups still answering it.

The pilot had opened the disputed berth record on a screen inside his cargo compartment. It showed his arrival, the cancellation of his unloading slot and a requisition directing him away from the military-controlled section.

The requisition named the same transport group listed on the new movement notice.

Vesa checked the time against the records of the awakening.

Earlier.

She asked for the notice in its original form, including the reply the pilot had sent. He showed her the complaint and the fee charged when he refused to leave without confirmation that another berth was available.

"This proves they had that group there," she said. "It doesn’t tell us why."

"Look at what they were unloading," the pilot said.

He opened an image from his approach record.

Large cargo frames filled the military side of the port. Rows of vehicles waited below them, while personnel moved between a transport and a storage building with temporary security barriers across its entrances.

Alex studied the image.

"Could have been a regular transfer."

"Could have," the pilot said. "It still cost me half a hold of spoiled supplies when they made us wait."

He sounded more concerned with his spoiled supplies than with making the images serve their argument. Vesa preferred that to a witness trying to tell them what he thought they wanted to hear.

She copied the visible transport markings and compared them with the port message. Two matched. The remaining ones were too far away to read.

The pilot closed the image before she could move to the next entry.

"Will you put my route out with it?"

"No," Alex said. "We need to know when the force moved. We don’t need everyone knowing where your passengers were hiding."

"The port can identify my complaint."

"Yes."

The pilot looked toward the ramp. One of his attendants was waiting there with a message from the ward.

"If the Empire takes your receiving station, they’ll know I gave this to you."

Vesa did not tell him it was safe. The records were his, and sharing them had already become more than a dispute over a berth.

"We can keep your identity out of what we send to the other groups," she said. "I can’t guarantee the port won’t recognize the record."

He called the attendant inside and read the ward message. A passenger who had arrived unable to stand had managed to sit up with help. Another wanted to know when they could return to the ship.

The pilot looked back at the canceled berth on his screen.

"Keep the original with your people. Send the warning without my passengers’ names."

Vesa agreed. He reopened the record and let her finish.

A message reached her from the distant settlement before they left the cargo compartment.

Its leader had found a former depot worker whose employer supplied ground-vehicle kits to the same route. He still had an unpaid delivery acknowledgment. He would show it, but did not want the shelter where he now lived identified.

Vesa opened a private call through the connection they had already supplied.

The worker appeared with a cracked tablet resting on his knees.

"They told us these were reserve stores," he said. "We weren’t allowed near the ships."

"What did you deliver?" Alex asked.

"Ground-vehicle kits. The order was changed after we unloaded them. We had to move the lot again."

He opened the delivery acknowledgment. The transport group matched the pilot’s requisition, and the port’s receipt seal matched the one on the disputed berth notice.