Chapter 818: On The Way

"Did they pay for the second move?" Vesa asked.

"No. That’s why I kept both instructions. Accounts said the first destination was our mistake."

He showed them the original order and the revision. Both had arrived before the public Imperial demand. The revision named a destination as well as a different loading group.

Alex asked him to show that section again.

"These destinations were already attached when you delivered?"

"Yes. The first route was changed, and they wanted the vehicle kits moved to another loading group. We charged for moving them twice."

The revised receipt preserved both destinations.

Vesa placed it beside the new movement notice. The second destination was the system defended by the settlement whose people had sent the warning.

Its vampires had only just agreed to exchange messages with Proxima.

Someone had begun arranging transport toward their region before the Empire publicly claimed to be answering the new vampire authority.

Vesa sent the comparison to Dorian. She kept the worker’s shelter and the pilot’s passenger records out of it.

"What does it prove?" Alex asked her.

"The pilot puts those transports at the port before the awakening. This receipt puts their vehicle kits on a route toward that system before the demand. They didn’t wait for an answer to start preparing."

"Does it tell us who expected this?"

"No."

The records named transport and supply officers. Neither order identified who had selected the target or why.

Alex looked toward the image of the cargo frames again.

Andrew’s private traffic had run alongside the first response while ordinary emergency channels failed. Alex wanted to put this fleet at his door too. But the supply records did not name him, and wanting another reason to catch him would not put his orders there.

"Keep the records," he said. "The officers who signed them can wait. Tell me how close those ships are now."

***

By the time Vesa returned to Dorian, seven and a half hours remained on the original order. He had received a second observation from the border settlement.

A watch crew had seen the leading Imperial ships pass a commercial junction. The crew sent the view from its own observation station, with the time and direction recorded beside it.

The ships were beyond the settlement’s defended approaches. They had not crossed them yet.

They were also much closer than a force leaving a distant Imperial base after the deadline would have been.

Dorian moved the first fleet marker himself.

"They aren’t waiting at their base for the deadline," Dorian said. "Most of the journey is already behind them."

Vesa marked the observed junction and the nearest system whose local vampire groups had openly begun guarding their approaches.

The Imperial ships could reach those approaches within the time left on the original order. She could not promise they would wait until its end before moving farther.

Alucard’s voice came through again.

"That is what I wanted you to check."

Vesa turned from the map and addressed the faint voice.

"Did you expect that particular force?"

"No."

"Then say when you’re asking us to investigate, instead of making it sound as though you’re waiting for us to find what you already know."

Dorian glanced from Vesa to Alex. Alex let her finish.

Alucard remained quiet long enough that Vesa wondered if the weak connection had failed.

"I recognized the scale of a force prepared to hold ground," he said. "I did not know where it had been assembled. I still do not know who arranged the timing."

Vesa kept the observation feed open. The ships were still moving.

Mingyue joined the conversation from Edonia.

"Can the nearest settlements move their wounded before those ships arrive?"

"One has ordinary transports ready," Dorian said. "Another has people scattered between old shelters. Its leader says gathering them all would expose the locations."

"Then don’t tell him to gather them all in one place," she said. "Ask which shelters need movement and which can remain hidden."

The border leader answered through the channel Vesa opened.

"We can cover our inner approaches. We cannot stop that many ships at the junction."

"We’re not asking you to," Alex said.

"You’ll tell the others to come?"

"I’ll tell them what you are facing. They decide what they can send. We need to know where their help can reach you."

The leader looked away to speak with someone beside him.

Until now, he had shared warnings but kept the final approach to his people secret. Vesa understood his hesitation. Once he gave them that route, he could not make them forget it.

At last he turned toward them again.

"I can receive a small force at the outer station. No one follows our transports past it without a guide."

"Send that to Dorian," Alex said. "He will work within it."

Dorian asked the man about the station’s defenses and which ships it could receive. His answers led Dorian to revise the number of fighters he could send without leaving Proxima exposed.

Vesa placed the route the leader had provided beside the warning map. The station could receive help, but its commander would decide when the approach was safe. Dorian began choosing people for a small force while Alex listened to the next settlement’s report.

Alex contacted Selene and told her the border force could arrive before the remaining evacuation work was finished.

"Start with the people who need the longest to move," he said. "Dorian will give you the escort he can spare now."

Then he sent the evidence of staging to the participating group leaders with the current observation attached.

The others needed to know how little time remained, even if he couldn’t yet identify who had arranged the force.

Dorian sent his nearest reserve to the approach protecting Proxima’s receiving road and took those fighters off the reinforcement list. If another formation turned toward the city, they would need more than a request for help to meet it.

Dorian called his commanders to the map. The next decision could no longer wait for the last hour on the Imperial order.