Chapter 165: Asking The Destiny System Another Question

The return from the ruin field didn’t give Aurelian much time to rest.

By the time he made it back to the Crownward March, everything was already waiting for him again, just like before, but it felt different this time, as he did not think about whether he needed to go bring the broken ships and fix them or not.

But that is just one of his worries, as the route through Mournveil still wasn’t fully confirmed; the strike into Kharov space still had to come first.

The remaining Thornwake cruisers will be left with Meridian to fix.

But while he was thinking about the cruisers, his mind couldn’t help but wander towards what he needed for this trip.

It needed speed, supply, and enough flexibility that one weak part wouldn’t slow everything down once they were already deep inside enemy territory.

Lysara and Rhoswen’s propulsion upgrades had already solved part of that problem, and Solenne could keep up on her own without needing adjustments. Astra would stay behind at Haven, which was the right call.

That left Neris.

For something like this, a supply shipgirl wasn’t just support. She was the difference between a clean operation and something that slowly turned into a problem halfway through, as small things stacked up.

Ammunition conversion, supply management, endurance over distance, all of it became more important the farther he moved from Haven.

The problem wasn’t her usefulness.

It was her speed.

Her current engine setup worked well enough for normal operations, but it wasn’t fast enough for what he wanted.

If the March was going to move through Mournveil, strike deep, and get back out before the Kharov could respond properly, then every part of the fleet needed to keep up.

If one piece lagged behind, it would slow everything down.

And that wasn’t something he was willing to accept.

So once the first round of reports was done and the command room finally quieted down for a moment, Aurelian left without saying much, walked back to his private quarters, shut the door, and brought up the Destiny System on his own.

He didn’t rush into it.

He didn’t just throw a question at it and hope for something useful.

He took a moment to think first.

Then he asked.

Carefully.

What he wanted was simple on the surface but specific enough to matter. The location of the nearest blue-grade or higher engine artifact that could be obtained in a reasonable amount of time.

The cost came back high enough to make him pause.

Not impossible.

Not something he couldn’t reach.

But high enough that it told him right away this wasn’t going to be simple.

Aurelian leaned back slightly, looking at the number again, letting it settle in his mind.

That was the thing about the Destiny System.

It didn’t lie.

But it didn’t make anything easy either.

The cost alone was enough to tell him that whatever waited at the location wouldn’t just be sitting there, ready to be picked up without effort. If it had been that simple, the cost wouldn’t have been this high.

Still, he accepted it.

The information was worth it.

The display shifted, marking a route over a nearby region.

Only two and a half light-years away.

That caught his attention immediately.

It was close.

Closer than the ruin field.

Closer than some of the outer areas, he had already started thinking of it as future territory.

The location sat inside another dead system, built around a star that had already burned out, with the remains of something much older still scattered across it.

The system filled in more details as he focused on it.

A ring structure.

A broken habitat zone.

Wrecked ships.

And danger.

The danger came from an autonomous defense fleet that was still active, still moving through the system even after everything else had died.

According to the information, the fleet was built around Tier III combat capability and numbered just over a hundred ships.

Not small.

But not overwhelming either.

Not for him.

Especially not if the condition described by the system was accurate.

A dead star changed things.

Without a living star feeding energy into the system over time, anything that had survived this long would be running on limits somewhere, even if it still had enough strength left to destroy anything careless enough to wander in unprepared.

Aurelian studied the route marker for a while longer, letting the details settle into place, then closed the Destiny System.

This wasn’t something that needed to involve everyone. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

It needed to be handled cleanly.

Quietly.

And quickly.

There was no reason to pull the entire March into something like this, and there was definitely no reason to explain how he had found the location so precisely.

He never did that, and none of his shipgirls ever asked. That was simply how things worked.

So the next person he called was Rhoswen.

She arrived quickly, which didn’t surprise him. She always moved fast when there was even a chance of something interesting happening, and the look on her face when she stepped in made it clear she was already expecting something better than waiting around.

"You found something," she said.

Aurelian looked at her. "Yes."

That was enough.

Her mood improved right away.

"What kind?"

"Short mission," he said. "Fast strike. Dead system. Old defense fleet. Possible salvage."

Rhoswen was slightly surprised, but she didn’t mind going out on another trip.

"That already sounds better than doing nothing."

"It also sounds like something I want handled quietly," he said. "So I’m saying that now before you start imagining it as something bigger than it is."

Her grin didn’t fade. "I can be quiet."

Aurelian just sighed and shook his head, but didn’t comment on what she said.

After that, he called Neris.

Unlike Rhoswen, she looked like she had been pulled out of the middle of a nap or something close to one, which for her was usually the same thing anyway.

"You called?" she asked softly.

Aurelian nodded and brought up the system map, showing her the location without showing the Destiny System itself.

"I may have found something that can solve your engine problem," he said. "It’s close enough that we can move on it quickly."

That got her attention more than anything else had so far.

"For me?"