The end of the battle didn’t mean that everyone was willing to go peacefully. Some of the Kepler officers were still communicating with each other, trying to organize a counter-attack, to escape the ambush, and the Tapani certainly hadn’t given up.

[275 degrees, plus 15 degrees elevation, Tapani Cruiser’s engines just completed a successful prestart check cycle.] Nico reported, parsing thousands of lines of sensor data a second with her Innate Talent.

Max sent a single blast from the Ion Bombard Array at the vessel in question, then laughed as a Technician exited an airlock to throw a wrench across the expanse of space at his Mecha.

The feeling was understandable but still amusing.

Sporadically, the Reavers continued to fire on the Tapani vessels, until they gave in to demands and moved their crew into the escape pods.

There was one empty transport vessel in their fleet, and the Reavers intended to load the escape pods in it and send the entire Tapani fleet home. While keeping their vessels and Mecha of course.

[You lot really have no pity for the Tapani do you? They’re going to be in trouble without those ships.] The Kepler Destroyer’s Admiral asked over the joint comms channel.

[We are eminently reasonable businessmen, Admiral. For the low and reasonable price of eighty percent of retail, we are willing to sell the Tapani a variety of used vehicles and Mecha to supplement their army in their time of need.] Nico responded, making all the Reavers laugh.

Eighty percent of the retail price of their entire attack force? Even Kepler would struggle to afford to buy that many ships all at once, much less a small nation like Tapani.

Their only saving grace was that they didn’t pull anything from the front lines which faced the Klem borders for this mission.

[As long as you’re not truly disrupting the balance, I don’t see any reason that the Emperor wouldn’t continue to uphold the deal he made with your leadership.] The Inquisition Admiral agreed.

[Now, Rebels, prepare to be boarded for questioning by the Imperial Inquisition.] He added, on the Kepler Military channels.

That was the cue for the resistant Rebel leaders to make their run for it, and hundreds of Ion Blasts from Inquisition ships and the Regiment’s Mecha streaked through the system again, disabling a number of the engines.

[I’m sorry that you feel that way. As per the terms of our agreement, the disabled vessels remain in the Rae 5 System as defense vessels as payment for the Reavers’ assistance. Tapani Vessel status is between the Reavers and Tapani.] The Admiral informed them as a large number of shuttles streaked out from his Destroyer to the Rebels who continued to fight back.

The deal was for the vessels, not the people on them.

Many nations, not counting Tapani, would be upset about this battle, but Nico had high hopes that with the backing of Kepler, they would recognize Rae 5 as a single-system interstellar travel capable nation and not want to fight about it.

Max was getting bored with just sitting around by the time the Inquisition forces departed the disabled Kepler vessels seven hours later. The cutters left much more slowly than they arrived, compensating for the tightly packed mass of human bodies they had taken aboard, and a single lander fired from each vessel into the nearby star, cleaning up the rest of the Inquisitors’ work.

“All Functional Rebel vessels, form into a tight column, pattern Beta Seven and prepare to be escorted back to Kepler Space. There will be questions once we arrive, so think carefully about your answers.” The Inquisitor ordered, training the main guns of his Destroyer on the hapless ships of the Rebel fleet.

There were still a lot more rebels to deal with, planets full of them in fact, but without orbital support, now that they had sent so many people to apprehend the supposed War Criminals aboard Terminus, they were in a bad spot against the incoming Loyalist fleet.

“Nico, I don’t suppose that Drone Controller works on those ships, does it? Or do we need to fix them first?” Max asked.

“They all have enough capability to at least land on the planet intact if that’s what you prefer. They’re not going much further than that before they’re repaired though.” Nico shrugged.

[Generals, Admiral, we have the capability to set an autopilot on the Kepler ships to land them on the planet, if that’s the preferred choice.] Max called for verification.

[Do it. After that, we have an important staff meeting to hold. The Inquisition had some interesting information for me.] Inquisitor General Ming answered, as the highest ranking officer aboard.

[Reavers, do not shoot at the Kepler ships when they start moving, we are remotely piloting them to the planet for repairs and assessment.] Nico informed the forces in the system.

[You hear that Tapani Scum? Get in the damned escape pods and we will send you home alive.] One of the Reavers laughed.historical

That seemed to be the end of the resistance, and pod after pod fired, only to be collected and loaded into the cargo vessel.

Once the Reavers were satisfied that nobody else would surrender, they sent their armed forces onto the Tapani vessels to clear out everyone who remained behind and claim the vessels for their various Companies.

There were hundreds of things to do all at once, but the Reavers made short work of delegating the decisions. Construction machines were sent to the planet to create cities, a moon-sized asteroid was brought into orbit around the primary planet of the system, and work had begun on turning it into a giant, militarized space station, all by the end of the day.

“This is insane. First Battalion, head back inside. I want a full report on your Mecha and battle statistics within twelve hours, so get some rest first. I have a briefing to go to.” Max ordered.

Whatever the Inquisition had to tell them was bound to be interesting, to say the least.