When Andrew returned a few hours after he departed, the ladies, were no longer as flustered as they were before, and the situation onboard the station more or less returned to normal.
-So what's the big secret in the AI system?
Nairin asked, as soon as he entered the command center.
-That's still a secret, but I think that sooner or later you will all learn it.
He answered with a grin.
This only made the ladies more curious.
-Why won't you just tell us now?
Lan asked.
-Because I promised not to.
Now, what's the situation, and did the factions on the other side make any moves?
He asked, trying to change the subject.
-Arien and Runir, returned to their fleets, Kirna is still in the tank and will remain there for at least two days.
As for the territory, everyone is expanding their resource-gathering capabilities as fast as they can.
The other factions didn't make any moves as of now and the station on the other side is being built as we speak.
We will also have more ships soon as another batch is nearing completion along with the third destroyer, and the ships brought from the Milky Way are also getting repaired.
Aelita gave him a quick rundown.
-What about the invasion fleets?
The human asked.
-They are sitting tight, and do not seem to want to move, at least the ones that occupy any system as for the rest they simply turned into pirates, but they have a hard time raiding anyone since everyone who survived till now is powerful enough to take them out or atleast force them to retreat.
Lan said, displaying the sensor data on the main screen.
-Good, let's hope they will stay like that for the next two or three days.
Andrew said, surprising them all.
-What do you mean?
Nairin asked.
-I want them gone from this sector of space, and in the next two or three days we will have the means to eliminate them.
-Does it have anything to do with the new ships being built?
She asked curious about the new vessels.
-Yes, I designed them specifically to reduce any potential casualties on our side.
-I was wondering why they didn't seem to have any crew or were designed as drones.
The young engineer said.
Unfortunately, the preparations to take on the invasion fleets, left in their sector of space took longer than three days, as the simulations revealed that to achieve a total victory over the largest group, which Andrew designated as their first target, they would need a lot more ships.
The preparations took nine days in total, at which time, the fleet grew immensely.
Now they had 4 destroyers, 32 heavy frigates, 65 frigates, and 80 corvettes supported by 60 drone frigates and a hundred drone corvettes.
The drone ships were a bit weaker than their standard counterparts, but they were easy to build and much cheaper, making mass production possible, and the best part was that even if they lost some of them, they could be quickly replaced and there would be no casualties.
Arien, Runir and Giarna, who was recently also promoted to fleet commander, loved the idea and came up with a good way to use their new ships.
Additionally, the ten cargo ships were also completed and were already transporting resources from the other stations to the shipyard.
During these nine days, the station in the Alpha Pictoris system was also completed and fully operational, with enough defenses to be categorized as a fortress.
The neighboring factions strangely didn't make any moves.
They didn't even try to make contact, which was a bit strange, however with the station in place along with the satellites and fighters, Andrew was almost certain that he could hold the system against their forces if they decided to attack.
The AI system station was also expanded and armed to the teeth, which made a lot of sense considering that it was the only system in the territory with a habitable planet which was now being mapped out by scout drones, whose main objective was to look for any potentially dangerous fauna or flora, while at the same time they were searching for resources.
However, the most important development for Andrew was the arrival of the scouting team in his former home.
Thanks to that he was able to download the contents of his computer and even scan the only photo of his mother he had left, as the rest of them were destroyed by his demonic step siblings.
The moment he received a scan of this photo, he had tears in his eyes, not because of sadness, but because of happiness since he thought that he would never see her face again.
However, this visit to his former house also unveiled a lot of things he had no idea about.
The droids found a journal that belonged to Agnes.
His step-sister wrote in it a lot of things she never thought anyone would see, and it explained a lot about her hatred for him.
To make a long story short, his siblings hated him and made his life a living hell, because their grandfather, decided to make Andrew his direct successor once he finished university, leaving them with nothing.
However, as much as she hated him, she had no clue that he was being poisoned and even wrote that it surprised her that despite all the abuse and the diet that could starve someone to death he not only didn't lose weight but even managed to gain some.
Andrew had no reason not to believe in what she wrote as she most likely never intended to show this to anyone.
His brother's rooms were also searched and the contents of their computers were downloaded, but there was nothing there that even hinted that they knew he was being drugged.
Even after checking their emails and chat history, he could only find some of them that were connected to them beating him up or destroying his stuff.
With that, he decided to see what his father and stepmother were up to, though he didn't suspect his stepmother to be involved as she was the only one who ever protected him in that house.
That's where he was shocked as it was precisely his stepmother who was involved in poisoning him.
What's more, he also learned that his step-siblings were not even blood-related to him since neither of them was even a child of his father, instead, they were all children of her lover, who coincidentally was also a doctor and a pharmacist.
It turned out that Andrew's arrival threw a wrench in their plan to make their children inherit the Sparrow family's assets.
To say that Andrew was surprised would be an understatement, however, this also removed the last thing that made him hesitate about killing his step-siblings if he ever found them.
They were not his family, they were strangers, and the only one he thought was protecting him ever so slightly, turned out to be a whore who wanted to kill him.
Now he was beyond pissed and he had every intention to even the score with this bunch of basterds if he ever got the chance.
The only thing that didn't surprise him was that his father had no idea about anything and he never even cared for Andrew, as he was more invested in his work than anything else.
It took Andrew almost a whole day to get over the discoveries he had made, but once he did, he felt liberated, knowing that they had nothing to do with him.
Now he was waiting for the team to arrive at Alex's house to try and find out what her family was planning to do with his friend.
He remembered that she told him they might be planning something and her intuition was usually spot on, so now that he had a chance he wanted to discover what was going on.
Actually the scouts could have arrived at her house a long time ago, but he first wanted to get all the data he could from his house, and the library that was on the way to Alexandra's home.
However, scanning the books took time, even if he only wanted the ones about medicine, engineering, weapons, and any other useful subjects.
Now however, the droids were almost done, but Andrew had to focus on the task at hand since they were about to launch an attack on the biggest fleet of the invasion forces left in their sensor range.
The fleet consisted of more than fifty ships with three destroyers at its disposal, which made it a force to be reckoned with, however, Andrew was about to unleash more than two hundred ships on them to take them out once and for all.
-Runir, how are the preparations going?
He asked over the comms.
-All three fleets are ready and waiting on your orders.
The fleet commander responded.
-Lan are there any changes in the vicinity of the target?
-No, nothing changed and there are no additional ships in the vicinity.
Lanarine said.
-Begin the operation, and happy hunting.
He said and a moment later all three fleets departed.