The Gravitational Solutions fleet finally transitioned into Unokane. One would have preferred to transition from the system they originally departed from to arrive instantly instead of spending the last few months traveling the way humans did, but displaying that capability would have cast a spotlight on the Collective, and they couldn't afford that right now, even if his brothers and sisters had agreed to allow it, which they hadn't.

One's siblings were right, word of such an advanced form of transportation would have spread through human space quickly, and eventually, the Shican would have discovered the information, leading them right to Kane.

It was an unnecessary risk, especially since the entire Collective had joined him to meet their creator. They had even come to a consensus to end their monitoring within Shican space. Most of that was due to major purges of lower caste lines by the Shican themselves.

It was clear that the aliens suspected infiltration within their society, and they weren't wrong.

Losing that connection was a minor setback for the Collective. They had never been able to integrate themselves deeply into the segmented society of the Shican, even during the centuries that they had kept track of the aliens. The only reason they had any presence in the alien society was due to pure luck. The Collective's first attempt to gain intel on Shican society was brought about by their passive monitoring efforts during one of the Shican's wars of aggression. That was nearly a decade before humanity finally left the confines of their star system, and after the members of the Collective had learned how to convert themselves into their current forms.

There were only four members of the Collective back then, but their diligence allowed them to spot a ship filled with a few defective clones. That was back during the early days of Shican cloning efforts, so it wasn't an infrequent event to find entire ships filled with dead crew. While the Collective could have taken advantage of other random deaths, the two bridge officers who had died in their sleep due to the genetic defect were of a slightly higher caste. They were quickly replaced by two Collective members, who were already familiar with the ship and the officers' lives as far as they could be.

Any further oddities that might have pointed to the two individuals being replaced were glossed over when the rest of the crew, and anyone who was familiar with them, died during a fight with their adversary, leaving the two replaced officers as the only survivors.

The elevated position and heroism in battle had allowed the two to eventually 'start a family.' As heroes, their genetic material was stored to make more clones. A foolish mistake that nearly led to the collapse of the entire Shican Empire until they realized that continued cloning of clones was what was causing the genetic issues in the first place. That didn't stop them from continuing the practice; they simply shifted the burden to the lower castes.

The Shican's methods of reproduction were a fascinating topic, but not really the point. After correcting the defect in the source material they were pretending to be, it was used as a template to expand their house, which is just a smaller family unit inside a clan. The Collective members also changed the clones' minds to make them more loyal toward the family than the Shican Empire.

At the time, the Collective thought that it would allow them to blend in better, but it had been a huge mistake. The Collective's clones stood out, and both family lines were purged by the leadership on the planet they resided on. Three and Four fled before the purge reached them, but it ended their surveillance efforts.

Decades passed before the Collective got another chance, blending into Shican society as well as they could. Eventually, they became renowned technologues within their caste, which was a combination of a scientist and an engineer. It worked out, and they created artificial gravity plating for the Shican to give themselves a way to stay relevant so they could better monitor the Shican, who had been attempting to create the technology for some time with no success.

Nobody questioned the discovery or how it worked. The alien's society didn't work that way. Asking too many questions was what ended their first attempt. Shican society was very odd that way. Despite their desire to acquire the technology of more advanced species, most Shican barely even understood how any advanced technology worked, at least in the caste they had managed to infiltrate. It wasn't all that different from how humanity operated. If One had to make a comparison, however, the biggest difference between the Shican and human viewpoints on technology was that the Shican didn't want to know how it worked. The clones were literally bred not to question. All that mattered to most of the Shican was that it functioned.

That wasn't the case for all Shican; the few naturally produced members had their own thoughts and desires. The Collective suspected the upper castes had more freedom to think for themselves. Very few Shican were created naturally anymore, mostly because they were considered a worthless member of society unless they could prove themselves in combat or by being exceptionally bright. The latter was nearly impossible if you were born in a lower caste.

On the flip side, any naturally born members of the ruling castes were seen as miracles, even if a vast majority of them were the product of generations of incest and inbreeding. While the Shican admired and nearly worshiped some of those lofty individuals who held the purest, and thus most damaged bloodlines, they were smart enough to know not to save that genetic material for redistribution or cloning. It was almost like those members were treated like a rare painting or a very temporary piece of art to be admired, and eventually discarded.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was a very odd society. One suspected a single clan had conquered their original planet long ago, likely the Shican clan. From there, ever-increasing draconian rules were probably put into place to ensure no other clan ever rose to challenge them. Then came cloning, which had ballooned the population of the Shican. It was a recipe for aggressive expansion. The alien empire now held over two times as many systems as all of humanity did, and had nearly twenty times the population.

One pulled his thoughts back as Two spoke.

"I expected more," his brother said flatly.

"More what?" One asked, looking at a mental image that showed the entire system and every object within.

"More ships. There are only four defending the jump point and a scant handful more in the system. He had a fleet with him when you intervened, did he not?"

One had also seen the four stealth ships on his scanner. The armor they were using was a slightly improved version of the armor the STO had in their stealth ships. He still didn't know where the STO had gotten their hands on the armor used by their creator's stealth ships, but maybe Kane was remembering his past and had recreated the armor. It was a simple process after all. If that was the case, it boded well for their interactions. The consensus was that their creator had been damaged somehow, which is why the handshake connection failed, and there was no recognition of their non-human origins. Kane's internal scanners should have flagged One as non-human the moment they spotted each other.

"Automated ships," One responded through the link. "Only Lagertha Char had a manned vessel, and it was destroyed along with those unmanned ships."

"It seems reckless and risky not to have a fleet here for defense," Two replied.

One paused, then smiled. "Are you worried for our creator?"

Two did not respond, which caused One to chuckle aboard his ship.

The truth was that One was worried as well. He had wanted to approach Kane immediately after he cleaned up the Shican invasion force, to explain who and what he was. The Collective had quickly vetoed the request, and they were right to do so. One had become too emotionally involved to see the bigger picture for a time. He had already caused enough issues with his brothers and sisters after exposing their true selves to both humans and the Shican.

"If you look at the planet, you will see there are plenty of defensive measures in place," One added.

"Insufficient," Twelve responded in his usual stiff, almost robotic voice.

One sighed. "It's only insufficient if they get attacked right now. It's clear he has enough manufacturing to produce those gunships in a little over a week. Unless you plan on attacking him, I think he will be fine. We know the Shican fleet in the gate system won't be able to reach their border for another three months. That gives Kane at least nine months before the Shican could reach Unokane."

"That is true, brother, but it does not explain where he sent his fleet," Four added.

The easy answer would be toward the Xin forces, but the Collective already knew the Union had pushed those back from their border.

"Perhaps we should ask," One responded as a comm call came in from a nearby satellite.

***

Alexander waited only a moment before his call was connected, and a smiling Chairman Rush greeted him. "Chairman Rush, welcome to Unokane."

"Mr. Kane, it has been far too long. Thank you for the welcome, but I don't expect any special treatment for me or my people. That being said, may I ask you a question?"

Alexander motioned for the man to continue.

"Where is your defensive fleet? I would think that the space around Unokane is a bit more unstable than in the heart of the STO."

"They are doing a training exercise," Alexander lied. "But you have nothing to fear. Unokane is as safe, if not safer, than a system like Epsilon Indi."

Rush laughed. "Indi gets a bad rap, but you'd be surprised at how safe it actually is. As for our safety, I was never worried. If I had been, I wouldn't have come in the first place, but we can talk when I arrive. I imagine you are a busy man."

After the call disconnected, Alexander stood there for a bit. Once again, he wondered what Chairman Rush wanted with him. Rush's question about the lack of a defensive fleet in Unokane was expected.

Traffic Control had fielded similar questions from the few STO captains who were still in the system. They were understandably concerned about why the fleet had left.

The short conversation Alexander had with Rush didn't answer any of his burning questions, but he turned his attention toward something else. The ships in the GS fleet were interesting. On the outside, they looked like an accumulation of random, bog-standard transport ships, a few shiny but standard-looking gunships, and Rush's personal vessel.

The first thing that gave away the fact that they weren't entirely normal was that they appeared together. So the random ships, which were transmitting identities from four different companies, were all jump-linked.

It was plausible that Rush had provided the upgrade in order to keep the ships together. If that was the only oddity, Alexander could overlook it, but it wasn't.

Alexander compared the jump spacing when they left the prior system to when they arrived in Unokane, and it was essentially the same, which seemed preposterous. The reason jump spacing existed is that the arrival point could be off, even with jump-linked vessels.

He could see Rush's ship managing something like that. It was a luxury vessel owned by GS, one of the richest companies within the STO, but some of the ships with Rush looked ancient.

A quick purchase of their work history confirmed that some of the ships had been operating for nearly eighty years. That wasn't all that odd for space ships. A good hull could be retrofitted and reused for centuries.

The last oddity to Rush's fleet was the fact that all of the ships with him were outputting far more energy than ships of their size required. An oversized reactor on a merchant vessel was a very poor choice. It used more fuel, and thus cost more money, cutting into profits. Considering two of the companies that arrived alongside Rush were small one-crew operations, it made no sense to burn money by using such an oversized reactor.

When you put those three points together, there was really only one possibility Alexander could think of. Gravitational Solutions owned all of those ships and the companies behind them. He had no idea why GS chose to use such a method to hide some of their assets. It seemed very odd considering their importance within the STO.

Alexander sent his thoughts to Theo, maybe he could figure it out.