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Captain Dowson glared angrily at the screen. The Olympus ship had managed to destroy all of the missiles he sent at Bismarck, something that he believed was impossible just a few minutes ago. And to add to it that they launched ten missiles at his ship that he had no way of stopping. He wondered what the designers of this ship thought when they came up with it. Sure, they gave them thick armor, but no other defensive capability. He would have to have a talk with his superiors about that when he returned home. But for now he had a job to do.

“Target Olympus ship. Fire all missiles.” Dawson said calmly. Let’s see how they will deal with a full load of missiles.

* * *

The Viking’s missile pods opened and four hundred missiles left the ship on an intercept course towards the Olympus ship. Two minutes later the missiles that the Olympus ship fired reached the Viking, five missiles hit them spread out across the ship doing minor damage to the hull, and destroying the ships communication relay. The other five missiles struck the back of the ship, three missiles hit and damaged the drives, one failed to detonate, but the fifth one struck and penetrated inside the hull, the explosion ignited the ships fuel tank, and a moment later the Viking exploded in a blinding flash that lasted only a second as fire consumed all the air inside the ship. Captain Dowson didn’t live long enough to see all his four hundred missiles struck down by Athena’s railguns.

Chapter Twenty-four

“The Concordis ambassador came clean, they told us the truth, or rather a version of the truth.” Tomas said. He was still in the meeting room that was now converted to a command room, Elias, Seo-yun, Laura and Nadia were all still there as well. It has been two hours since the Concordis ship surrendered to Ship Master Farkas, and Athena was currently escorting the ship to the Moon, Ship Master Farkas has put two security teams on the ship to make sure that nothing happens, but for now they were cooperating. Concordis leadership on the other hand was trying to shift the blame. They blamed their Minister of Defense, as the man who arranged for everything. Tomas managed to keep his cool, even though he was burning up inside. He still hadn’t made any demands of Concordis, he didn’t even contact them, it was them who initiated every conversation. Tomas knew that his lack of response was what scared them the most.

Other countries from Earth had also learned of what happened. Their reactions varied, the League was condemning Concordis action, while the Coalition condemned Olympus for having armed ships in space.

“It doesn’t matter.” Tomas said.

“What doesn’t matter?” Seo-yun asked. Everyone in the room was shocked, they had just lost three hundred people.

“This.” Tomas said gesturing around the room. “Them, us, everything. They will never change. And I can’t do this anymore.” Tomas said tiredly.

“Tomas, it’s going to be alright.” Elias said.

“No, it’s not.” Tomas closed his eyes. No one spoke for a few minutes. Laura quietly instructed the staff members to leave the room, leaving only Tomas and his closest friends in the room.

“Tomas.” Laura started.

“I want you to call for a meeting. I want all the leaders of Earth to attend, we can hold it at Sedna.” Tomas said interrupting her, he said a bit unsurely.

The others looked at each other.

“A meeting? Tomas are you sure? Is that the right move?” Nadia asked.

“Hmm, yes, I have something to tell them all. But first I need to do something… I need to speak with Olympus. With every member of Olympus. I need to ask them something, and then we will see about the conference. Can you arrange that for me?” Tomas asked Nadia. She started to respond but thought better of it and just nodded firmly and said yes.

“Good, good. Seo-yun.” He said, turning his attention to her. “You said that you recovered charts, that the Alien ship made, scans of systems it visited on its journey?”

“Uhm, yes we have them.” She responded slowly.

“Good, I want you to do something for me.” Tomas said, conviction creeping back into his voice.

* * *

Three months later

Concordis President Lucas Von Holt sat in a comfortable chair in a large conference room in Sedna, The room was filled with leaders of every government in the world and their staff. Olympus limited them to four per party, and everyone agreed grudgingly, Tomas Klein and Olympus remained silent since the incident that took place three months ago. There was no retaliation, no prosecution, nothing, at least nothing on the political scene. On the other hand, every country from Earth that had the capability noticed an increase in Olympus activity. They have brought more ships to the Moon, more than anyone knew they had. At least five more warships were also confirmed orbiting the Moon, they started pulling people from their colony on the Moon, and dismantling the colony facilities and the station they had in orbit, and not just that, there was increase traffic from Sedna. There were no more people living here, only a bare minimum staff, everyone was sent out towards Mars. They knew that Olympus had facilities there, and apparently they were big enough to sustain their entire population. The scariest part was that no one knew the reason. Most believed that they were preparing for war.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the door opening. Tomas Klein entered the room, he was alone, and he made his way towards the speaking platform without a single glance at the people gathered here, when he reached the platform he looked around the room at all those gathered there. He spent a few minutes in silence, the other leaders and their advisors were discussing quietly among themselves. Russian president stood up and addressed Klein.

“Are we going to start this discussion or not? Why have you invited us here?” He asked, his voice was heard loudly and clearly through the speakers hidden throughout the room.

The others voiced their agreement, though not so loudly.

Tomas Klein looked around the room one more time before finally turning his gaze to the Russian ambassador.

“I did not invite you here to discuss things, you are all here only as listeners, I will talk and you will listen.” He said.

Tomas took a deep breath, and suddenly a text file appeared above every table in the room, and then he started talking.

“These are written confessions, one by Captain Reginald Smith of Concordis navy ship Bismarck, the other one is from Major Denis Taylor of Concordis army forces. These confirm that they were given orders by their superiors to execute a plan that resulted in the destruction of Cloud station, and deaths of three hundred Olympus citizens.” Tomas turned to the Concordis party and President Von Holt felt his mouth go dry. “The plan was for them to acquire data about Olympus technology. I have been keeping Olympus technology from your hands, and you all held it against us, even though you would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed, although, you would have done it for a different reason.” He looked around the room. “You resorted to violence and murder in order to obtain it. You did all that, when all you saw was technology that was barley a few years ahead of yours. And the sad thing is, that if you pooled your resources, if you set aside your differences, you would have been able to catch up to that technology in a few years at most. What you saw was only what we showed you, our technology is at least fifty years ahead of anything you have, and some even more. I never intended on keeping our advances from you, all I ever wanted was for humanity to become what I knew it could be. All you had to do, was learn to work together in peace, to care about your people and not your wallets. The moment you did that, I would have given you everything. But your actions have convinced me that you will not change any time soon, we went through a devastating war and still you couldn’t see that if we continue on this path we will doom our entire race. My people and I have reached a decision, we will not wait for you anymore, we will not watch as you kill each other nor will we allow you to kill us. We are removing ourselves from the equation. Olympus will leave the Solar system, we will start a new life on another planet, far away from you and your stupidity.” At that the room erupted. President Von Holt stared at Tomas Klein, he expected many things, but never this. Concordis has been preparing for war as the worst case option, they knew that there would be a response from Olympus. That is what they would do. And yet, leaving the Solar system? He knew that Olympus technology was better, but by that much? Perhaps if what Tomas was saying was the truth they could do it, and there was no reason for him to be lying about this. And then he realized what Olympus leaving would mean.