Chapter 7486  Possible Arche Duplicity

"Interesting."

Calabast had given the gathered people a slightly better understanding of the alien star region.

The three highlighted star systems were hardly the only sites of importance. The intelligence director merely decided that it was best to mention them first so that the Saint Commander and others could incorporate them into their subsequent planning.

As far as Ves was concerned, all three destinations may be worth a visit, but only if they managed to scout them out in advance.

It was the height of stupidity to enter these special star systems blindly!

Fortunately, the Saint Commander harbored the same thoughts.

She was responsible for leading the combined fleet and making sure that as many soldiers survived the journey as possible.

Casella could not afford to make careless decisions without respecting all of the possible risks and dangers that they might encounter.

"Do we have enough scout vessels on hand to explore these additional sites?"

"No." Calabast shook her head. "Neither our direct assets or third-party scouting vessels are numerous and capable enough to reach all of these star systems and inform us what is taking place while remaining in absolute stealth. It does not help that they are all placed fairly out of the way. We will have to choose to divert scout ships that are already tasked to explore other important locations. All of this will take time. Unless you want to take a chance and go in blind, you must decide fairly soon if you wish to visit any of the three aforementioned star systems during the ongoing campaign."

"..."

Casella could not make an immediate decision based on what little information that Calabast provided.

Ves turned to Andrea Vos. "Can you and your fellow seers gather information about Hypeh-Tekas, Eerlie and Luuh Gamma with your esoteric methods."

The Farseer expected to receive this request. "That is partially what we are here for. We will do our best to scry these star systems, but the distances are so vast that the reliability and veracity of our results may be low. Hyphen-Tekas is the closest, which means we may even be able to uncover secrets that the scouting vessels have overlooked. Luuh Gamma is located so many light-years away that our scrying results will only yield the most superficial signs, much of it will be so garbled with noise that it will be a headache to interpret it all. The latter may also be shielded from scrying due to a special reason, which is all of the religious activity that is taking place over there. Strong faith can repel our attempts."

"Damn. Does that hold even if we move closer over the course of our campaign?"

"Possibly." The female formation master said after a moment. "This is not exact science, and there are too many unknown variables in play. Our lack of experience combined with our superficial frameworks makes it difficult to obtain reliable results even when we operate under more favorable conditions. As much as I believe in my craft, you should never put absolute trust in our work. You should regard us as a supplementary source of information that is more exotic in nature. Our information should always be used to verify intelligence gathered from other sources or vice versa. That is the most prudent way to utilize our output."

That was a very wise rule in general regardless of the nature of the information source.

Even if the Farseer truly lived up to her title and eventually managed to grow into a galaxy-renowned formation master, people should never treat her word alone as gospel!

"Please inform us once you have obtained the initial batch of results, formation master." The Saint Commander said in a commanding tone. "We may ask you to repeat your scryings on these locations multiple times in the next weeks. The shifts in time and place may change enough variables to bring something important to your attention."

"Will do, commander."

Casella Ingvar turned her attention to another woman. "Before we move on from this subject, I want to ask one more question to you, Calabast. How easy did your data specialists manage to retrieve and decrypt the intelligence on the three star systems that you introduced? Do you think that there is anything suspicious about how your attention has been drawn to these supposedly important sites?"

Calabast actually chuckled. "Hehehe. I already guessed that this particular detail would not escape your attention. You are correct to harbor suspicions. I have considered the very same idea from the start. My conclusion? It is very probable that the archeship captain or one of his senior officers have seeded the databases of their archeship with pertinent intelligence on potential strike targets for the express purpose of directing us towards them. If this is indeed the case, we cannot prove it, because it is not obvious that they have enacted this scheme. I can only state that the possibility exists."

That sounded both troublesome and concerning.

Now that Ves thought about it, the arche may have chosen to pull off an incredibly elaborate scheme to fool the Larkinsons into destroying those places of importance!

He could think of many possible reasons why the arche wanted to set back the plans of their ostensive alien allies by using the humans as their borrowed knife.

After all, it was no secret that the arche still did not like the other major alien races so much.

They were very reluctant bedfellows. The only glue that truly held them together was that they all considered themselves as indigenous to the Red Ocean. They did not really have any other compelling reason to form a united front.

Ves had witnessed this kind of scheming and backstabbing numerous times throughout his career.

He found it very distasteful to witness allies tripping each other up. No wonder the other races always regarded them with caution.

His opinion on the arche had dimmed if the suspicion truly turned out to be true.

Casella frowned in thought as she entertained the idea whether the arche had schemed to use their formidable forces as their cudgel.

"This is problematic. Any intelligence gained from the archecruiser is questionable."

"Perhaps, but that is no reason to dismiss the information entirely." Calabast retorted. "The intelligence obtained from this source has given us important clues about potential objectives that are of interest to us. Whether they are accurate or not is not important. It ultimately does not matter whether the arche wish to collude with us or lead us into a trap. We know where to send our scout vessels now. If they are able to relay observations that match the stolen intelligence, then that is good. If not, then the most we have wasted are opportunities to scout other locations."

She made a good point.

The arche may be scheming to take advantage of red humanity, but so long as the latter benefited from the results, there was not much reason to complain.

Ves recalled his conversation with the archecruiser captain. The contradictions he sensed from the failed god made a lot more sense in this light.

Even if it was not possible for the two races to join forces with each other, that did not necessarily mean that collusion was impossible.

This incident could be treated as a trial. If the arche proved to be 'trustworthy', then it could open the door for subsequent cooperation.

Though Ves did not know how far this could go and whether the arche would still be eager to collude if red humanity ever gained the upper hand, for now both sides had much to gain from a secret accord.

After the meeting, Ves briefly sought out his wife in order to sound out her thoughts.

When he paid a visit to her design lab, she looked upset for not having been able to stay on the archecruiser.

"Do you regret having to say goodbye to the archecruiser so soon? You could have chosen to return to human space under RF escort, you know."

His wife let out a sigh. "I know, but I stand by my previous words when it comes to being a Larkinson. I will not change my plans just because I came across an unusual find so soon in this campaign. Besides, you need supervision. I refuse to move too far away from you. We will face our enemies together, for better or worse."

"I am proud to hear that, honey. By the way, what sort of improvements can I expect now that you have collected a large amount of data and insights from the captured archecruiser?"

Her eyes metaphorically lit up like the Amaranto at full power! "There is so much novelty that I cannot even begin to summarize the gains with you! Much of that is because we have come into contact with so many advanced applications of archetech that we have yet to decipher what half of them can even do. Many blocks of archemetal that we found on that ship have exhibited a functional density that is twice or maybe even thrice as large as the archemetal found on the much more common archefrigates. Do you understand what this means? The arche never tried their best when it came to producing their scout ships. They only put in a genuine effort to stretch their archetech to their limits when building their larger ship classes! Now that we have obtained a large amount of samples of these applications, we should eventually be able to approach the same level of mastery!"

"So does that mean we can free up more capacity in our future archemechs?"

"Yes! We can condense more functions in a smaller volume of archemetal. This should allow us to add more features into a single mech frame than what is typically possible, or strengthen its existing functions far beyond normal levels! If we can combine these gains with my ongoing progress to perfectly combine archetech with superdimensional tech, then it will be possible for us to reach a density rate that vastly exceeds the scope of known and existing forms of archetech! It will no longer be impossible for us to design a machine that performs like a juggernaut but comes with a form factor that is no larger than a typical mech!"

Though the idea sounded exciting, Ves knew that it wouldn't be that quick or easy to reach this destination.

"I suppose the examination of the crippled archeshell mech can facilitate your efforts."

Gloriana nodded again. "That is correct, though I admit that I may need to rely on a large amount of expertise from the RA and RC. Although the archeshell mech does not incorporate any superdimensional matter, its intermediate form contains spatial expressions that exceeds the boundaries of contemporary phasewater technology. You probably understand this more than myself, but a single 'failed' lesser phase lord is a research specimen that is more valuable to us than a hundred 'successful' lesser phase lords."

"That is true." Ves agreed. "I have yet to spend much time on processing my own insights on the archeshell mech, but it is extremely fascinating to obtain such a detailed glimpse on the state of a body that has gotten stuck in a transition between a mortal and a phase lord. I can already tell you that whatever the RC gains from this examination will doubtlessly help to increase the success rate of producing human phase lords going forward." They talked a bit more before Ves brought up the recent speculation surrounding the arche. He wanted to hear her take on the situation.

Gloriana crossed her arms in thought.

"If you want to hear my honest opinion, I do not entirely believe in the notion that the arche has spun an elaborate scheme. That suggests a degree of awareness and foresight that exceeds the normal boundaries of leadership previously demonstrated by the leaders of this race. They only paid immensely to get us to fall for their supposed scheme. An archecruiser is as important as a battleship to the RF. Having just one of them fall into the hands of red humanity is a disaster to their entire race. I find it difficult to imagine that there is any possible way to make up for such an immense strategic loss."

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