The Wolves Ch. 020

As Xigios watched her read over the list, he saw her eyes turn hard, as well as her expression. "What's wrong?"

"At this rate we may have to destroy more than one or two ships," she answered in a very angry tone. She slid the tablet over to her father. "Take a look."

As he read it over, he had only one word to say: "Fuck."

The Moon

Spectre Moon Base

August 14, 2019

17:41 EDT

Everyone was sitting around a table discussing recent events. Having an extra eleven hundred ships would be very nice, but it would also make coordinating things harder. Coordinating five groups of one hundred twenty ships is a lot easier than nearly three times that amount, especially when they're two separate navies.

"How many traitors do you think Abi will find?"

"A lot more than Xigios Drych is probably expecting her to find, though that is to be expected when he is running a mercenary company with over two million employees," Tich answered.

"Really? They have that many people on those ships?"

"Yup," Tich replied with a nod. "That's less than two thousand men and women per ship, which is close to the average. Smaller ships have less, but battleships, dreadnoughts and carriers all have a lot more than two thousand people to keep everything running smoothly. I'll use an American naval vessel as an example. Nimitz class aircraft carriers have around six thousand crew members on board a comparatively tiny vessel, compared to the aircraft carriers currently enroute to Earth. Each one is just over three kilometers long, and will require twenty-two thousand men and women to effectively man each ship. We're able to get away with so few thanks to automation. A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is nine times smaller, and requires over a quarter of the manpower."

"Well, as much as I would like to discuss this some more, we've kept Selalea waiting for far too long. Now that Abi is making a pit stop in Pygmaean space, we need to make sure everything is on schedule," my mom said.

"You don't need me for that, so I'm going to make sure everything is set for Xigios' arrival at the Warvyn shipyards. I'll have to pull a lot of strings to get those ships refitted in time," Thomas explained.

"We appreciate it, Thomas," my mom replied, leaving the room and leading everyone to the adjoining room.

"Ah, I thought you had forgotten about me," Selalea said with a smile. She was reclined on a couch reading the tablet, but sat up as we filed into the room.

"We apologise for keeping you waiting. There was some significant news from Scyftan space, and as a result, we can't miss the window on August 24."

"Can I ask what the news was?"

My mom nodded. "We were contacted by a Scyftan man who leads a mercenary company. He was on his way to Earth, but found out that there are six hundred ships already on their way here. His ships are much, much slower, and he wouldn't make it here in time, so he contacted us. It seems he wants to form an alliance."

"I see. Well, I was reading over everything on this," she said, holding up the tablet. "I am confident we can get everything loaded in time to meet the window, though one thing isn't very clear. How are the shipping containers going to get to where they need to go? There are many egg chambers scattered all over the world."

"Ah, that's where Purple and Black dragons come in," Gabriel answered. "We have a large warehousing facility in Toronto. Tomorrow, all six hundred shipping containers will be transported to that facility via portals, and from there, they can be transported wherever you need them to go. I assume Purple dragons will be able to open portals to anywhere on the planet from Toronto?"

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"Perfect. Once the eggs are loaded into shipping containers, they can be transported back to the facility to await transfer over to Abi when she is done with her growth cycle."

"How will the shipping containers be transferred from that facility to Abi, if she is up here?"

"There happens to be a very large airfield right next to the facility. Abi will land there, and all the eggs will be transferred over."

"That works for me. We may not transfer eggs to the warehouse early, as we would prefer to not have them all in once place for very long. All of them being on one ship is already unnerving for a lot of my kind. We will transfer any food and other things we may want to take with us early, though."

"That is perfectly fine," my mom said. "If our kind produced eggs, we wouldn't want them all in one place, either.

The meeting looked like it was going to drag on for a while and since I wasn't needed, I excused myself. Logistics is incredibly boring, and I'd leave that to my sisters since they seemed to enjoy it. I made my way back down to the base under the Rocky Mountains and looked for my friends. I checked their rooms first, and when I didn't find them, I checked the cafeteria. I found them pretty quickly, and saw them sitting with my sisters and someone totally unexpected.

I went through the lineup gathering some food and grabbing something to drink, and headed over to the table.

"Hey guys," I greeted, sitting in the only vacant spot, which happened to be beside Tessa.

"Hey, what happened, Jonathan? One second you were walking next to me and the next you went poof. All Abi said was that you were needed elsewhere."

"Tessa's father received a message from someone back in Scyftan space, so they needed me to go up there and make a decision."

"Oh? I haven't heard anything about that," Tessa said.

I filled them in on what happened while I ate dinner, which didn't seem to slow any of them down from eating, either. Everyone, even Tessa was eating as if they were starving. When I got to the part about the eleven hundred ships, Mason and Ben were excited about the prospect of seeing so many ships, while everyone else seemed indifferent about it.

"So what do you guys think about going into the dungeon tomorrow, instead of waiting until Saturday? I know we said we'd wait until then, but I'm getting incredibly bored. I didn't get any ability that I need to level, outside of Precognition which can be leveled up sitting on a couch. Hopefully it will be less boring when we finally start some training."

My sisters and Tessa started giggling while my friends had smiles on their faces.

"What?" I asked.

"We thought you wouldn't ask," Anja replied. "We were just talking about that before you arrived. All of us were going nuts practicing the same thing over and over for the past few days. It would be good to get back into the dungeon to break up the monotony.

"So we're decided then? Back to the dungeon in the morning?"

"Hell yeah!" Mason exclaimed. "We should be able to get there a lot faster too. You said that the armor in our room has Mana Crystals or whatever incorporated into them, right? I think if I channel mana into mine, then I can make it all the way there without having to wait for mana to regen halfway. That would save us like a half hour of time, if we were driving there instead."

"Good point, I hadn't thought about that. So are you guys going to stay here tonight, or go back home?

"The latter for Sonja and myself," Anja answered. "We'll wait until after our parents chat with yours on Friday or Saturday. Until then, we'll be staying at home since teleportation makes it so easy."

"Ditto," Mason replied.

"Same for me as well," Ben said.

The nine of us made our way to the lobby when we were finished eating and spent the next few hours getting to know one another. My sisters hadn't spent a lot of time talking with my friends, and everyone had only met Tessa recently. She told us what it was like growing up the past eighteen years while traveling between galaxies with her parents. She too, had been in stasis for over fourteen hundred years, while her parents waited for mine to wake me out of stasis.

Before long my friends and sisters went to sleep and it was just Tessa and myself sitting there chatting. We lost track of time, and didn't notice that there were fewer and fewer people in the lobby. Eventually, my mom and dad made their way down and spotted us.

"So what are you two up to?" my mom asked.

"Just chatting. My friends went home and my sisters went to sleep a while ago. It seems like we lost track of time."

"Well, you should be heading to bed if you want to be at the dungeon nice and early in the morning. It's nearly midnight.

"Really?" I asked.

My dad nodded pointing behind me. "Take a look."

I looked where he was pointing and saw the clock. It was 23:48 EDT. "Oh, shit, I forgot about Vixa," he said before turning to Tessa, "So make sure to scan a dragon between now and Friday. Your parents or mine should be able to help you with that."

"We certainly can. Why don't you meet us for breakfast in the morning, Tessa," my mom offered. "Selalea and her son will be there, so you will be able to scan a dragon then."

"Sure," Tessa replied.

"Perfect. Well, I've got to say good night to Vixa and then go to sleep." I gently picked up Tessa's hand and kissed the back of it, and then lowering it back down and letting go. "I'll see you either tomorrow morning or for our date on Friday. It was very nice chatting with you tonight."

"Good night, Jonathan. I had fun as well."

I nodded and teleported to the elevator leading down to the enclosures.