With Solenne gone on the extraction mission and Vaeren’s chosen people guiding her, Larkspur Haven entered another stretch of uneasy peace.
Peace was not really the right word for it, because too much was still broken for that, but compared to what the planet had looked like when Aurelian first arrived, the change was obvious, sothing that could not be ignored.
The rain Elowen had prepared had already broken the back of the infection tide, and now the worst of the surface fighting had turned into cleanup, rescue, and the slow work of rebuilding, which is progressing at a slow but steady pace.
The engineering shipgirls were even more efficient than Aurelian had expected, and he had already expected a lot from them.
The damaged battlecruiser hull he had brought back was repaired first, and the one-use battleship blueprint was put into construction right after that, with two engineering shipgirls working together on it while the third handled repairs and yard support, keeping everything running smoothly.
By the ti Solenne had been away for a while, the battlecruiser was already restored, and the new battleship had been completed as well, which added two more mbers to Aurelian’s growing fleet, strengthening it in a way that could be felt.
After that, all three engineering shipgirls began working together on the Crownspire large starport, and only then did Aurelian fully understand just how much difference specialized ships made.
What should have taken a full year on paper had been cut down to a little over two months by their combined work, and though that was still not short, it was much shorter than he had ever thought before.
Once the starport was done, Larkspur Haven would be able to move forward from what it had faced before with a much more hopeful future.
It would have its own major orbital structure, a real backbone for ship production, repair, logistics, and growth.
At that point, the whole system would beco much harder to uproot, no longer sothing that could be easily pushed aside.
Even so, Yelena and the other two girls who ca one after another did not want to sit and wait for all of that to finish.
They ca to Aurelian herself and asked for permission to take the lower-level ships and so of the less battle-tested forces out to seek targets and gain combat experience while the system remained stable, choosing to move rather than wait.
It was a perfectly fair request.
So of the newer ships had not yet fought enough, and no amount of drills could match real action.
Daily practice was useful, but leveling through it was painfully slow, and everyone knew it.
Aurelian thought about it for a while, weighing the risks and benefits, then gave her the task after discussing the routes and limits with Astra, making sure it stayed under control.
The triplets would take the lower-level group and one strong escort hull with her, along with one of the remaining nullfield warp jamrs, and operate in the nearby Kharov frontier, where local forces were thinner and easier prey could still be found.
It was not ant to be a grand campaign, only controlled hunting to sharpen the ships and push their growth without overcommitting and risking exposure to powerful enemies.
That departure left Aurelian’s side quieter for a while, the absence noticeable.
Astra remained at the center of system control as always, steady and precise.
Lysara stayed close as one of the main defensive anchors, holding position where she was needed most.
The restored battlecruiser also remained in-system, adding another heavy combat piece to the orbit around Larkspur Haven, strengthening the line.
She was a proper battlecruiser this ti, not a damaged promise or a blueprint waiting on materials, but a real restored shipgirl, and her base qualities were even a little better than Aurelian had first hoped.
She had been built by one of the old local powers of this region, a line warship of the fallen Vhaloric Directorate’s outer military, and her na was Eirenne.
She had once belonged to a class of thirteen battlecruisers, and she was the twelfth, one of the last of her line.
Like Lysara, she had survived a terrible war, returned for repairs, and then been left behind when the dock that should have restored her lost the ability to finish the work.
In the end, she slept in silence for who knew how long before Aurelian’s people finally brought her back, her ti simply paused.
She rembered more than most.
According to Eirenne, above her own class had been another line of heavier warships built on the sa fra philosophy, a true upper-line capital class that had crossed into a higher category entirely.
If the correct blueprint could ever be found, then it might be possible to elevate her in the sa direction soday, sothing beyond her current form.
Aurelian kept that in mind imdiately, not dismissing it.
He had already tried to push the question through once in private, but the answer had cost more than he could justify spending for now.
He did the math, looked at what remained in his reserve, and let it go for the ti being, setting it aside instead of forcing it.
There were still too many other things demanding those points, too many priorities that ca first.
Even without that future path in hand, Eirenne herself was already useful, and with her standing beside Astra and Lysara, Aurelian finally felt like the defensive side of Larkspur Haven no longer rested on one or two ships alone.
His own level had also climbed steadily by then.
After the succession of battles, rescues, expansions, and archaeological strikes, he had gone well beyond where he had been when he first entered this region, his growth steady.
He was still short of the next major threshold, but not by so much that it felt distant anymore, the gap closing.
The problem was that the higher he climbed, the slower it went. Early gains had co like falling rain. Now each level wanted real work, and more of it than before.
But that did not bother him.
It only ant that the easy part was over.
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