Free Resolution by Ben Winston

to take control of it, or had no idea about it. The Grays had not taken over as many facilities as John would have thought. Of the facilities in or near their space, the Grays knew about most of them, but simply couldn't get to them thanks to the temporal off-set they were stored in.
    John ordered the temporary relocation of an automated repair/building facility to Bethel's Anvil. He planned on using the facility to build the base for that location. Since they were not yet ready to begin building there, he ordered it to return to it's out of phase state until activated.
    He left the rest of the facilities alone for the time being, but made sure that he could access the file if he needed it. He did order the transit points to deny the Grays travel outside of their space. Any ships they had that were not in their area of space were to be returned there as soon as they used a transit point.
    The Grays most likely had hyperdrive technology, but at least the transit points would be closed to them. Perhaps he could ask the Kingdom to share that hyperdrive inhibitor they developed and space a few of them around the Grays planet. But that would isolate any colonies they have. Maybe just allow them transit points for their worlds, but prohibit the use of hyperdrives?
    He would have to work out a way to isolate them until they were no longer a danger to others. But then again, did they even have the right to do that? It could be considered a form of species repression. There had to be an ethical choice here that would also protect other species from them that didn't include the use of several armadas’ of warships. However, that might be the only option available once everything else was considered.
    "Sir, we are docking at the Royal Command Bunker. His majesty's aide has made an appointment for you tomorrow to see the King," Tami said over the comm.
    "Thank you Tami. Shut down and secure the ship, then get some rest. I have a feeling we're all going to need it," John replied.
    "Will do, have a good evening Sir," the pilot replied.
    John let the connection drop and returned to his thoughts on how to contain or restrict the Grays so they did not hurt anyone else. A few minutes later, Chloe got off the lift and sat in his lap, making sure to interrupt him.
    "What are you doing?" John asked.
    "Interrupting you," she said smiling.
    "May I ask why?"
    "Sure, you need to rest as well. The modifications we went through need us to rest in order to finish setting up. What we have been operating on was mostly a hot-patch. You need to take a nap," she explained.
    "Oh, I didn't know that. So what happens if The Center tries to send us an update?" John asked.
    "We have the choice to accept or not. I doubt it would be a good to accept it unless we let them know what was done to us. They can no longer override our controllers and force the update," Chloe explained. "We don't have an 'index code' anymore. The Prometheans removed them. The only override still remaining is your command override and all that does is put the soldier to sleep."
    "So, the Kingdom can't even track us anymore?" John asked.
    "Nope, there might be a time when we have to act against the Kingdom. If that happens, we certainly won't want them to track us," Chloe explained. "Come on, let's go to bed. Tomorrow is soon enough to sort all of this out."
    "Why do I get the impression sleep isn't actually what you have in mind?" John asked coyly.
    ––––––––
    W hile in the latter days of the war, it was clear that the Kingdom was losing, slowly, that hadn't always been the case. In the first few weeks of the war, Tammerain forces crossing the border had been beaten back, in some cases deeply into their own space. A Fleet leader made the mistake of trying to hide from the Kingdom forces by hiding his fleet on the surface of an inhabited planet. The resulting orbital bombardment left the planet in dire ecological straights, but did manage to destroy the enemy fleet.
    The probe