The Last Angel: Ascension

[LystAP]

Because of the hyperlane mechanic, Stellaris factions tend to be absurdly sparse in terms of systems exploited per total volume of space 'controlled'. While I agree that mid-to-late-game Stellaris tech (especially stuff like perdition beams as mentioned, but even more basic stuff like tachyon lances etc are system-range hitscan weapons that the Angelverse has no answer for) it's quite rare for an empire to number even a hundred populated worlds, and this particular Fallen Empire only owns 6.

Their naval vessel count is nearly zero compared to the Compact so Stellaris' ability to control large areas of space effectively is limited - even if Stellaris always wins when they find a Compact fleet, there are just so many fleets and so few to keep on top of them with. I think it would be like trying to swat a swarm of flies with a tennis racquet. And it would suck even more when some of those ships slip through the cracks and make it to your homeworld. Capital ship weaponry in TLA is often enough described as firing salvos capable of scorching worlds. I know Stellaris has a range advantage, but the Angelverse has some pretty hardcore DPS when it gets close enough, and with that sort of numeric disparity it seems inevitable to me that they will get close enough.

It's all super difficult to reason about though. I don't know if ship numbers are just a UI thing, and they actually represent fleets of hundreds of ships. Maybe a science 'ship' is an entire research expedition fleet? Maybe a controlled system represents a whole cluster? Maybe the days-long cooldown periods on Stellaris weapons are purely cosmetic, and the tachyon lance can *really* pop a Chariot every 5 minutes from halfway across a star system. Games are difficult like that.

Click to shrink...

This is a issue due to gameplay limitations. Imagine trying to control and organize thousands of planets, much less 40 or so. I would imagine simply a interstellar empire with technology equivalents of the game. That five world Fallen empire could have actually bee 500 worlds. In Stellaris, there is already debate on how many individuals a single pop represents.

However, considering the idea of a fallen empire, it would be fun to imagine the Compact in conflict against angry human precursors. And what could Red do if she had access to technology from Stellaris, where sentient AIs are manufactured enmass for late game wars. If she had all the technology in the game, upscaled to her level.

Red also reminds me of the Automated Dreadnaught leviathan, the last ship of a dead Empire trying to protect their lost homeworld, kind of like one of the Lost.

The Oshanta AI has also made me reevaluate my rogue servitor empire though...

 

[Necrontyr525]

Because of the hyperlane mechanic, Stellaris factions tend to be absurdly sparse in terms of systems exploited per total volume of space 'controlled'. While I agree that mid-to-late-game Stellaris tech (especially stuff like perdition beams as mentioned, but even more basic stuff like tachyon lances etc are system-range hitscan weapons that the Angelverse has no answer for) it's quite rare for an empire to number even a hundred populated worlds, and this particular Fallen Empire only owns 6.

Their naval vessel count is nearly zero compared to the Compact so Stellaris' ability to control large areas of space effectively is limited - even if Stellaris always wins when they find a Compact fleet, there are just so many fleets and so few to keep on top of them with. I think it would be like trying to swat a swarm of flies with a tennis racquet. And it would suck even more when some of those ships slip through the cracks and make it to your homeworld. Capital ship weaponry in TLA is often enough described as firing salvos capable of scorching worlds. I know Stellaris has a range advantage, but the Angelverse has some pretty hardcore DPS when it gets close enough, and with that sort of numeric disparity it seems inevitable to me that they will get close enough.

It's all super difficult to reason about though. I don't know if ship numbers are just a UI thing, and they actually represent fleets of hundreds of ships. Maybe a science 'ship' is an entire research expedition fleet? Maybe a controlled system represents a whole cluster? Maybe the days-long cooldown periods on Stellaris weapons are purely cosmetic, and the tachyon lance can *really* pop a Chariot every 5 minutes from halfway across a star system. Games are difficult like that.

Click to shrink...

the other thing to consider are starbases. Stellaris starbases back a lot of firepower, always equivalent to the best stuff that empire has. and defense platforms can be mounted with the same weaponry (customizable too) up to and including tachion lances etc. Stellaris fallen empire strat would be to trust space stations and defense platforms to cover the homefront and just start crushing planets.

 

[Proximal Flame]

And here is the next chapter of Ascension! We're only 16 from the finale now. In this chapter, we touch in on some... nebulous events and see what is going on there. A surprising amount, considering this was supposed to be like 4 pages...

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy and a thank you to the patrons who voted for a certain name to appear here.

In this chapter: deaths of the loyal / the forge / revelations

Coming up: the last voice / twenty pearls cast out / made for war

My Patreon

Chapter 44:

A thousand people died, and no one saw it happen.

Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua had pushed deeper into the Black Veil. Their latest shock into an un-named system within a Bok globule resulted in the destruction of the frigate Virulent Reality. Gravitic shear from the nearby star’s death at the maw of a black hole disrupted the frigate’s shockpoint. The newborn star had come too close, caught by the singularity’s gravity well and its surface was being stripped away. A long cord of stellar matter wound from the star to the event horizon, forming a brilliant accretion disc. As the dying newborn orbited its cannibal kin, its surface bulged and spasmed as material was ripped away, the movement of so much matter so quickly creating unexpected shifts in local gravity wells. It was one of these that killed Virulent Reality. The shift in gravitational strength was minor, all things considered… but to a forming shockpoint, it was more than enough.

The dimensional rift collapsed as the starship was passing through, slicing four hundred and eighty-two meters of starship in two. What was returned to realspace was only part of the vessel; the rest would never be seen again. With several of the frigate’s FTL steering vanes and shock field projects destroyed and the massive structural and systems damage it had just endured, Virulent Reality had no means of navigating or protecting itself from shockspace. If its crew were lucky, the vessel would be torn to shreds by the currents. If they were not, it would be dragged intact into the depths.

The Ram’s Horn and its compatriots had all been shock-blind while their compatriot died. When their scopes cleared, they found the frigate’s remains. Akoshé could only hope the rest of the vessel was as lifeless as what they’d found. To be alive, trapped on a ship hurtling ever-deeper into shockspace… no one knew what lay within, only that nothing that had gone too deep into it had ever come back. Virulent Reality, and every soul upon it, was gone.

Triarchs remember their names, she thought silently.

Outside, the miasma of dust, planetary nebulae, and molecular gas spread like a stain across the starscape, blotting out much of the recon squadron’s surroundings and rendering navigation increasingly difficult. Gravitational tides and fields ebbed and shifted as the black hole that had destroyed Virulent Reality fed hungrily on the matter spiralling down its accretion disk, a thin astrophysical jet of ionised matter spewing from each of its poles.

A starship and nearly a thousand souls, wiped from existence in an instant. This had been the safest of all shocks deeper into the Black Veil.

Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua weren’t the only ones to have learned that.

“Contact!” Scopes called out. “Unknown contact, two and half million kilometers from our position, above the ecliptic! We’re being scanned!”

“Activate defences,” Akoshé snapped. “Scopes, what’s out there?”

“Unclassified starship. Unknown hull type. It’s small, just over three hundred meters.”

“Do we have visuals?”

“Too far out for that. Trying to get an energy schematic, but its emissions are hard to isolate.”

“Some kind of stealth systems?” Akoshé’s first officer asked.

Before he could get any answer, the unclassified’s energy profile changed. Power levels spiked, bleeding through whatever dampening systems and technologies it had, into a pattern that was instantly recognizable. “Unknown is preparing a shock.”

“Active augurs,” Akoshé snapped. “All vessels, focus on that ship! Pull out a destination vector!” It was a risk. She knew full well how effective Gravestone’s stealth operations were, and she was lighting a torch in a darkened room. But that ship… it had to be an early-warning courier, left on-station in the expectation that someone, somewhere would also learn of this route through the nebula. It would run to the next nearest waypoint to raise the alarm. It was too far away, and there was too much background interference for passive scopes to get anything useful. There was no time to explain all that, no time to justify her decision to her crew. But they obeyed. The Ram’s Horn and its remaining kin went to active scanning, the pulse of their scopes focusing on the departing ship in the hopes of pulling a potential destination from its shock.

The unclassified vanished in a burst of gravitic and electromagnetic radiation, the hole it had torn in reality closing up as soon as it was gone. It seemed terribly unfair that it had survived, but Virulent Reality had not. The Prolocutor shoved that thought away. “Do we have anything? she demanded.

“Running data now. We might be able to get some usable…” Operations’s report was cut off by the throb of an alarm.

“Multiple contacts!” Scopes reported. “Detecting comm bursts!”

Dozens of orange speckles appeared across the map. Mines, and other, larger things. Too small to be starships. Gunships, probably like those the task force had faced in Husk. The defences were coming alive, dialing in the vessels that had announced their positions so invitingly.

“All ships to squadron defence mode Yilltin Five,” Akoshé said, bracing herself in her command throne. “Pull us back out of this swamp. Operations, get me that vector. Engineering, emergency protocols. Spool up the shock systems as fast as you can. Tactical… be accurate.”

The six remaining starships of Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua swung about, heading towards the safety of open space and away from the closing enemy signals.

~

Leader Saisyn Omeiaaal of the Red Had warship Uncertain Footing scrolled through the daily status reports. As he did so, the Algassi used his small secondary hands to pick up a cup of jamja from the retractable table attached to his command chair. He took a sip of the cold liquid, feeling its pleasant chill roll over his tongue and down his throat. Most of the document was what he expected and he largely skimmed it, intending to read it in more detail later. It was the last section that most interested him; the analysis of the last series of wargames.

The Red Hand fleet within Onza Crèche had been growing slowly but steadily as squadrons, lone ships and convoys arrived, heeding their queen’s call to war. There were already more than six hundred vessels present. It was the largest amalgamation of the organization’s naval might that Omeiaaal had ever seen. Not even the fleets of the final battles of the Year of Fire had numbered so many. Then again, the Red Hand’s strength had grown since then, and continued to do so. No matter how hard the Compact tried, how much history they rewrote, how many stories they changed and narratives they spun, there was still a small but noticeable undercurrent – perhaps larger than the ‘civilized races’ realized – that wanted the boot taken off their chest.

This was another means to that end. Omeiaaal supposed his presence here was an anomaly. As an Algassi – given the honourific of Judiciary for their help in streamlining and codifying the Compact’s laws – his people owed their very existence to the Compact of Species. Five millennia ago, the Gheron would have exterminated the Algassi race without a twinge of guilt but for the Compact’s intervention. Since their elevation to a member of the ruling species, the Algassi had been one of a handful of the most privileged races throughout the galaxy, among the oldest and most advanced civilizations known. Within the Compact, they enjoyed prosperity, power, wealth and more.

But yet, the man thought with a slow, amused blink of the large eyes set towards the top of his head. Here I am.

He continued his perusal of the after-action reports. Uncertain Footing, named for the doom of many a swordsman, was one of the Red Hand’s vassa anka. Once the light cruiser Michitan Defender of the Michitan Corporate Defence Force, it had fared badly in anti-piracy duties and been turned to a better cause than protecting tradelanes purchased and controlled by corrupt oligarchs. The ship had performed ably in the Red Hand’s service for seventeen years, and continued to do so. It had been the fourteenth from the last vessel to be destroyed in the last war game.

The defences within the target system were formidable, to say the least. The Red Hand flotilla ran through fleet drills against simulated enemies and one other. Originally, there had only been two sides: the Red team and Green team, but enough vessels had arrived to make a third: Yellow. Uncertain Footing was assigned to Red. Last run, it was the Red team that had been attacking the target system and Green had been defending, their ships artificially enhanced and increased in number to make them – at least in the simulation – far more capable than they truly were and a better representation of the enemies that they would be facing. The first trials had been a massacre, but as more vessels arrived and the assembled officers studied, learned and applied the knowledge they earned with each failure, they got better … of course, their opponents did the same. Regardless of the teams, the Red Queen herself always led the defending forces, pitting her skill in void combat against her own people and making them pay for every kilometer of space they tried to take from her. Sometimes Crusade Commander Nameless would join her.

“Do you think the Compact is going to take it easy on you?” she’d asked in response to another leader’s exasperation after she’d led a counter-attack that routed the best assault they’d made to date. “Do you think you’re going to be lucky enough to face nothing but incompetents, clerks and wet-behind-the-ears dilettantes? You’re going to be taking on experienced officers who’ve cut their teeth on killing us. If you’re not bleeding now, you’re going to be bleeding when you face them.”

Personally, Saisyn agreed with the sentiment. The plan was bold – some would call it insane. Some had already spoken those words, but the Red Hand always did what no others could, or would think of. Boldness, daring, dedication and intractability were their watchwords. Being victorious against this target would require all of those and more. The risk was enormous, but the rewards… the rewards were even greater.

The next simulation would begin in twenty hours; this time it would be Green attacking Yellow. Red had been rotated into system defence, maintenance and upkeep work and individual ship and squadron training operations. Uncertain Footing had been assigned sent duties and given an outer-system patrol.

Behind Omeiaaal the doors to the bridge opened. Algassi eyes had a very large field of vision, so the Leader didn’t even need to turn his head to see who had entered Uncertain Footing’s command deck. His first officer, Sstenoh’c. She was a Xensiri, one of the few of her people who had renounced the Compact. Like the Algassi, the Xensiri owed their existence to the Compact. A pre-spaceflight species at the moment of contact, they had been well on the way to annihilating themselves through nuclear war, rampant environmental collapse and many of the other trademarks of short-sighted, uncivilized’ peoples’ societal development. Even so many centuries after that intervention, the Xensiri were fanatically loyal to the Compact. Not all of them. Some had seen past the veneer of the hand lifting them up to know that it was actually holding them down. Sstenoh’c was one of them. She was a diligent, capable officer who’d served under Omeiaaal for nearly four years.

The Algassi rose from his seat. “Ah, good morning,” he said in greeting, still holding his jamja in his smaller secondary hands. “What do you have today, Ssten?” He always shortened her name. It mildly annoyed her, but she got her own back enough often. They had a healthy professional relationship, and a good personal one.

“Nothing much, kih,” Sstenoh’c’s voice buzzed through her vocal implant. “I have those performance reviews you were looking for, as well as updated duty rosters and our section chiefs’ personnel evaluations from the last war game.” She handed the Algassi a ‘scroll which he accepted with one of his primary hands, thumbing it on, and going through the file directory. Sstenoh’c was a very attentive officer when it came to paperwork, despite the stereotypes regarding Xensiri.

His long snout tilted in acknowledgement. Uncertain Footing was a good ship with an excellent crew, but he wanted the best from them. The Red Hand was going to war, and Saisyn Omeiaaal would make sure his people gave their all. “Ah, excellent. Was there anything else?”

“Yes, kih. One more thing,” the woman replied. She drew her pistol from her waistband, pointed it at her leader’s center of mass and as Saisyn stared in dumbfounded surprise, she opened fire, emptying half the magazine into his body. The cup of jamja fell from the leader’s hands and shattered on the floor. Omeiaaal followed it, his body crashing heavily to the deck and his bulging eyes already glazing over. The Xensiri stepped over him and loaded a fresh clip. The bridge crew gawped, more than a dozen men and women staring in utter disbelief at what had just transpired. Some tried to speak, to ask what was happening, to demand if their first officer was insane or to call for security. Others scrabbled for their own sidearms. Some tried to run, or duck behind their consoles. Others were too stunned to move.

It was only a matter of heartbeats before Sstenoh’c raised her pistol and opened fire again. Her first targets were those trying to warn the rest of the ship. Then, the ones going for their own weapons. They were too shocked to do much. Only two managed to get their weapons clear of the holster and just one got a shot off. It went laughably wide. Next were those who tried to run or hide. Finally, those who’d been wracked by confusion and indecision. The last rating Sstenoh’c killed never moved from her seat.

The Xensiri reloaded her pistol a second time. Most of the crew were dead, or would be in a matter of seconds. Movement caught her eye. A sobbing, bleeding Didact comm officer pulled herself over the gore-slick deck. Her legs didn’t work. She wasn’t even going anywhere in particular, acting on blind, agonized panic.

“Hhhrsss,” Sstenoh’c sighed. Her aim must have been off. That was annoying. She stood over the other woman. Sensing her presence, the comm officer rolled onto one side, her eyes wide and terrified. Blood matted the fur on her face.

“Why?” she asked, the only word she got out before Sstenoh’c shot her in the left eye.

“The Compact endures,” the Prelate informed the dead traitor. She went to the blood-spattered master comm console and keyed in a shipwide message. “This is first officer Ssstenoh’c,” she said. “Case Harvest is effect, I say again, Case Harvest is in effect.”

~

Arms Master Ar’sedsei hummed to himself as he headed up to the barracks. The Worker stepped through the door to see his squad of Uncertain Footing’s defence forces rise to their feet. They were good, diligent troops. Not Bloodsworn but still quite good. He’d trained them all. They had questions about the unfamiliar message that had just come through from Sstenoh’c, all talking over one another and looking to him for guidance. He answered them by pulling a grenade from his belt, thumbing it on and rolling it into the room. He stepped back out and locked the door. There were shouts, then a thunderclap and then silence.

Good, but not quite good enough.

~

In Engineering, Faithful Jain-Opsen-Koram blinked his bulging eyes. “Case Harvest?” The Builder burbled half to himself and half to his nearby staff. “Not known. New orders? Contact command, yes. Find out.” He extended one towards the nearest intercom panel when his second in command, Halvin Sabrenson, stepped forward.

“I know what it means.” The Geontal was a capable engineer and had come over to the Uncertain Footing with Jain himself from the Plaguesign.

“Ah, good,” the chief engineer said with relief. He disliked changes to his routine. “What does it mean? New orders, fresh simulations? What is required and why was I not informed? You have the information?”

“Yes,” Sabrenson nodded. “I do.” He produced a small holdout laser pistol from his sleeve and started shooting.

~

Sstenoh’c listened to the reports come in. Engineering was secure. The armoury was in loyalist hands, as well as several other key systems. Several operations hadn’t gone as expected. The crew recovering too quickly or her agents not acting fast enough, but there was no serious trouble. The sections still held by terrorists were locked down with security and decompression bulkheads, where they could be contained until they could be delivered to the Compact, or handily dealt with if they became troublesome.

The ship was hers. Rather, it was the Compact’s. It had taken years of work to get this deep into the Red Hand and even more to find those individuals who could be… sympathetic to her point of view. Some had had a simple price: money. Others had been bought with the promise of a slate wiped clean. Still others had become disenchanted with what they saw as an unwinnable war, or whatever other reason was enough for them turn their coats a second time.

Sstenoh’c had sought them all out. Those she deemed most unreliable – too erratic, likely to have another crisis of conscience, too likely to betray her or be bought out by someone else – she’d handed over to the Red Hand’s security corps herself to improve her credentials. The rest of the dissidents she had carefully cultivated, moving them into key positions close to her. Their loyalty was to her, and all of them had been waiting for the day they wouldn’t have to hide any longer.

That day was now. With Uncertain Footing so close to the system edge, there would never be a better chance to escape, and there would never be a better reason to do so. The Red Hand was amassing an armada here. They were planning to assault the Compact in force. The Compact had to be warned. This was the culmination of nearly a decade of work, close calls and too many moral compromises. This was everything.

A party of loyalists approached the bridge. The Prelate let them in. Some had minor injuries, some were stained with the blood of their former comrades. The officer in charge saluted Sstenoh’c in the proper way: temple, to chest. The salute of the Compact Space Force. “Triarchs be praised. The ship is ours.”

Sstenoh’c’s fang-filled mouth parted in a gaping, predatory smile. “Yes it is. Now, to your stations. We’re not out of this yet. Navigation, Helm. Plot us a least-time course to the shock limit and put us on it, but keep our acceleration at standard.”

Uncertain Footing’s deviance from its assigned route was immediately noted. A query from the nearest ship, the frigate Conduct Without Regard, arrived within moments. Sstenoh’c dissembled and obfuscated, buying time as the light cruiser continued towards the shock limit. There were several increasingly terse and suspicious communiques from Conduct Without Regard, including a pointed reminder that Case Rampart was in effect. Finally, they were ordered to turn back or be fired upon. There could be no mincing about there, and Sstenoh’c gave the word for full thrust. Conduct Without Regard might be able to catch her, but it certainly couldn’t kill her and it tried to press the issue, it wouldn’t be Uncertain Footing that got the worst of it…

That optimism lasted only a few moments more. As soon as Uncertain Footing began to accelerate in earnest, the operation went sideways. A patch of space rippled and resolved into another vessel, one far larger than Uncertain Footing itself.

Sstenoh’c rose from her chair, her maw gaping in dismay at the newcomer’s image on the main screen. It was a grey hammerhead, with three short, thick wing pylons extending from its body, its hull marked with iconographs that detailed its victories and battles. Each of those was an insult to the Compact, and every time they were burned or blasted off, they were replaced with loving and spiteful care. There could be no doubt of the vessel’s identity.

“That… that’s Torment,” Scopes whispered.

The pocket battleship was turning towards Uncertain Footing, struggling to power up. The larger you were, the harder it was to hide under a shroud. Heavy capital ships had to reduce their reactor output so much that any element of surprise was lost by the time it took them to restore system functions. Torment was already at the upper end of what was possible to conceal; Sstenoh’c hadn’t thought the Red Hand could have done it at all. Its presence here couldn’t be a coincidence… could it?

They’d known. Somehow, they’d known. No… no they hadn’t, the Prelate corrected herself. If they’d had known about her, Uncertain Footing would have never have been allowed on an outer-system patrol. It would have been flooded with Bloodsworn, she and her people forced to their knees while the Red Queen strutted and preened.

A suspicion, then. How? She’d been so careful, so cautious. Something must have slipped somewhere, enough to pique their curiousity, but not enough to prove anything. She couldn’t imagine what that could have been. Had it been recent, or something months and years ago? It didn’t matter. Not now.

“Transmission from Torment,” Communications said. “Crusade Commander Nameless is ordering us to heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

The Prelate ran rapid mental calculations. Uncertain Footing had the advantage, at least for the moment. The terrorist warship was pulling itself out of hibernation. Its reactor output was down, and it was still bringing its primary systems back online. Between that, and the time it would for the larger ship to overtake Uncertain Footing, she should be able to reach the shock limit. She dismissed any possibility of fighting. Uncertain Footing didn’t have the weight of fire to hurt the larger vessel at this distance. If they doubled back, by the time they reached effective energy range, Torment would be fully restored and ready to greet them.

“We run,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “Engineering, give me maximum thrust. Push us to the edge of inertial dampener failure if you have to, but get us across the shock limit. Guns, ready our defences and activate our missiles. Target Torment and prepare a double off-broadside. They’re still half-asleep. Let’s see what we can slip through before-”

“Missiles detected!” Scopes called out. “Tracking multiple drives in the void! Eighteen incoming from Torment.”

Sstenoh’c clenched her jaw. The Steerswoman hssarhaa must have prioritized Torment’s launch systems. “Engineering,” she cajoled as a dozen and a half threat icons shrieked across the display towards her vessel. “More speed.”

~

The wraith hadn’t spoken for days.

Group Leader Prime Vandosh (and six names besides) stood on the bridge of CSFWV Darklight Eye, waiting and hoping he was not grabbing at shadows on the wall. He scratched his chin as he stood next to the communications station. On one of the panel’s display was what appeared to be a random, natural fluctuation in local background radiation. Such things were not uncommon in deep space, particularly this close to an emission nebula. He didn’t believe that was what it was, though.

He believed that this was a lone voice calling out in the dark and waiting for an answer.

Darklight Eye was part of the garrison force of 1887-Yiren. They were one of several scouts running silent in the outermost reaches of the star system. It was an extraordinarily large area for a handful of vessels to patrol, but Darklight Eye and its companions had been laying augur platforms as they travelled. There were over a hundred of them now, and still they only covered less than a single-digit percentile of the available territory. It had been enough though.

Several days ago, one of the augurs had detected what might have been a shockpoint. Shockpoints produced a massive amount of energy, but very little of that was in the visible spectrum, and the rest dissipated relatively quickly. The source had been nearly 300 AU away. The platform had done well to see anything at all at that distance. Dame Fortune must have been smiling on them.

It could have been a scope malfunction, or an EM surge that had been mistaken for a shock point. Vandosh had been tempted to write it off as something like that… until Darklight Eye detected a faint radio pulse. Either could be explained away by themselves, or possibly even together… but that didn’t sit well in the prime’s liver.

He was certain that the origin of this signal was another ship… and that it wasn’t alone. ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ it was saying, hoping for a reply. The first pulse was extremely weak. By the time it reached any augurs within 1887-Yiren, it would be lost within local background noise. The only hope for discovering what had made it was his ship, and Vandosh had ordered the redeployment of Darklight Eye’s drones, hoping to triangulate the source… if it happened again.

With luck, whoever was out there would chance another burst… and they would broadcast it directly, not relaying the signal from a drone of their own. The prime been waiting days for another sniff of this phantom, but there was nothing. No movement that shouldn’t be there, no engine wake, no thermal bleed or energy leakage. Darklight Eye was running on minimal power, but it was not built for long term stealth operations. There were limits to how long it could operate at these energy levels, how long its systems could be maintained, how long its life support could hold out.

He’d been starting to wonder if he was chasing varak. Not even varak; just the sound of them. All he really had was a hunch and stochastic EM fluctuations. He might have pulled his ship and its drones off their assigned duties in pursuit of a fiction…

As the hours stretched, the Tribune’s uncertainty grew. Then…

“Another pulse, patron! We have another pulse!” Communication’s victorious tone was whispered, as if she were afraid that her voice would carry beyond the bridge, out into the void and alert their quarry.

There was something here, and it had just called into the darkness again. The signal was as weak as the first, but it was almost identical. Not just a signal, but a specific one. Agonizing minutes passed as Darklight Eye waited for the telemetry from its drones. Two of them had detected the pulse. They had a vector on the phantom.

“Careful,” Vandosh ordered softly. “Take us towards them. Let’s not startle whoever’s out there. At least,” his lips pulled back from his teeth. “Not before we have to.”

CSFWV Darklight Eye ever-so-cautiously shifted onto a new heading and crept towards its target. It was almost undetectable. Almost. If Vandosh had made a mistake, it was not realizing that he was not the only hunter out here, and that what he had seen had not also seen him.

In the darkness, the distance Darklight Eye and Leyak Six dwindled.

~

<so this,> a monarch said in a voice of plasma boiling away the surface of a world <is how you heal yourself?>

There’d been never any question of whether or not Zenobia would notice, so Red One and Echo hadn’t bothered to make any effort to conceal what they were doing. The Naiad queen had not been amused, but she had allowed it to continue – provided that Nemesis and Echo remembered that they were still under an eviction notice. The Naiad legal system, such as it was, did not recognize the concept of technicalities and if the AIs tried such things, they would find themselves with a literal ticking clock instead of a figurative one… and or possibly other, more severe, consequences.

After her angry and pointed remarks, Zenobia had continued her circuit of the outer system, but as the weeks passed, curiousity got the better of her. With her armada of attendants and children following the massive predator-ship, the Naiad queen approached the two AI dreadnoughts and Reginn.

Both of the former were undergoing substantial work, each of their ship-selves opened as engineering drones and construction arms worked inside their viscera like expert surgeons. This was when both vessels were most vulnerable, but despite the queen’s ire, none of the spaceborne predators had made any hostile actions – at least, none outside normal Naiad behaviours. In fact, Bathory, along with Arámburu, Masako and Tamerlane were intensely interested in how the other ships repaired themselves. On several occasions, the younger predators came close enough to start interfering in the work drones’ flight paths and had to be shooed away. Bathory was currently poised above Hekate’s open dorsal section, the young Naiad watching in fascination as Echo rebuilt and modified her internal structure, eviscerating entire decks only to make them anew, without any concessions to organics.

Mostly.

Echo could still feel her sibling’s smugness when she’d noticed that Hekate was retaining some life support functions and crew amenities. Echo insisted that there were practical reasons to have some ability to tend to organics, whether it was collecting prisoners, ferrying troops or hosting delegates. Red One had given the cybernetic equivalent of a knowing smirk and let the matter drop. Echo had asked Bathory if her people had any facilities for ‘insects’. The Naiad had answered with a data-burst laden with disgust for the mere idea of allowing deadtone into one’s body, and superiority at her species’s sole development in that regard. Her response, once translated, was a simple concept: digestion pools.

That raised even more questions, but Echo had left the matter alone for the time being. She was busy with her reconstruction, as was her sister. Echo’s ship-self had more widespread modifications to make, but Red’s were more serious. Nemesis’s hull was crawling with worker automatons. Holes in her armour were being patched, damaged internal sections were being repaired, weapons were being upgraded and, most importantly, her shift systems were finally getting the very thorough updating and replacements they needed, not the occasional improvements and adjustments that she’d made to them over the last twenty centuries.

Nemesis’s entire rear section was peeled apart, and four of Reginn’s massive constructor arms, each with many more limbs extending from them, were working nonstop inside the dreadnought. Standing on Nemesis’s outer hull in an EVA suit, Allyria watched as a house-sized piece of Red’s original shift drive was pulled out. The damaged component had been patched and jerry-rigged for two thousand years. As it was passed up one side of the arm, a replacement moved down the other. This one was moderately smaller and shaped slightly different. Allyria couldn’t have said what any others differences were, but this one was the product of two thousand years of innovation. The warship was more than her creators had ever envisioned, in so many ways. She’d become so much more than just a weapon. The Verrisha could attest to that. She was their Angel.

“How does that feel?” Allyria asked. Her voice clicked through her suit’s radio.

“It will be several hours before this stabilization field promulgator is installed,” Red answered. “And it will probably take several days to complete full diagnostics and system interaction tests.”

“I didn’t mean physically,” the Verrisha said with a shake of her head, the gesture diluted by her helmet. “I meant… you’ve been carrying the original piece for two thousand years and now it’s gone.”

There was a pause. “Yes.” There was something in the AI’s voice that Allyria couldn’t place. Wistfulness? Regret? Sadness? That component had been a part of her for two thousand years. Broken and all too often more harmful to her than helpful, but it was still one of her ship-self’s remaining original components. After this refit, Allyria didn’t know if Nemesis would have many left, if any at all. Red spoke again. “I should have replaced it earlier, but I have a propensity to be ambushed when I’m doing intensive repairs.”

There was a crackle of static on the line, Echo’s equivalent of a disbelieving snort. Her sibling’s statement was true, but it wasn’t the full truth. In two thousand years she could have found both the time and a safe enough place to do this. Now she had no excuses. Hekate was here, as was an entire Naiad armada and she’d just been delivered billions of tonnes of material. It was time.

“Good,” Red amended her statement. Part of her watched as the centuries-old technology was carried away. She hadn’t slated it for recycling. It was a reminder of her failure, and of her commitment to this war. She’d been built by human hands, designed by them and given life, but there was so very little of their original creation left. Two thousand years of upgrades, modifications and changes had made her a different vessel, a different… person. She knew they would have been afraid of her, but she also hoped they would be proud, too. At the least, she hoped Yasmine would be.

I haven’t yet had the urge to exterminate all organic life, captain. Maybe tomorrow, though.

She had a crew. She had a sister. She had hope. She wasn’t one for whimsy, but this felt like… like the beginning of something new. She didn’t know how to phrase it any better than that. “It feels good,” she finished.

Allyria smiled. “I’m glad.” She craned her head up. Zenobia was there, a tiny arrowhead silhouette against the red-orange background that belied the Naiad queen’s monstrous size and disturbing proximity. The predator-ship was moving towards Reginn, positioning herself for a front-row seat. Allyria understood that; that was why she was out here. She could have remained inside Nemesis, or taken a shuttlepod out for a closer look, but she wanted to see this with her own eyes. It made her feel… closer, more connected than just watching it through a monitor or a viewscreen. “Has, ah, she said anything?”

“No, not yet.” Red replied. Zenobia had been incommunicado for several hours, ever since she had requested and received clearance to approach Reginn. Since Zenobia’s guests had proven increasingly irksome, there’d been some concern from Allyria and Echo both about the Naiads’ mood. That query was a good sign, Red had told them. It showed a level of consideration and respect Naiads usually only bestowed on equals. In this case, one ‘queen’ to another, even if Red was a very peculiar sort of queen.

For example, she was not birthing her offspring herself.

Every eye in the system was turned towards Reginn now as gantries retracted, docking arms withdrew and with a pulse of thrusters, a bifurcated dagger slid free from its berth to take its first voyage in open space.

+online+ Cerulean Four, ship-self UECNS Allecto, first of the Fury-class, reported. +engine diagnostics beginning. ready to begin flight trials+

Her sisters Megaera and Tisiphone would be completed within the next four weeks. Once their berths were empty, the Coyotes would follow: Anasi, IKaggen and Sosruko. Red had been hoping to produce the first run of Gorgons instead, but those would take more time than the Coyotes. Her estimates indicated her repairs would be complete, or nearly so, when the Coyotes came on-line. Playing for additional time was… contraindicated. Zenobia had been quite miffed that Red had begun work on the Furies at all, but the AI had proven to her host’s satisfaction that the resources and effort going into the smaller vessels wouldn’t have appreciably sped up her own departure. There was a limit to how quickly Red could process the resources from her miners and the Principality, and then build what she needed. The excess industrial capacity wouldn’t help, and since she had a surplus, simultaneous constructions were doable. Drawing out her own repairs to slot in the Gorgons, or even trying to get them in after the Coyotes was also not a good idea. Naiad largesse was a limited and perishable commodity.

<these are songless> Zenobia noted as she slowly circled the fabricator vessel. <like your other children> Her sense systems played over Allecto, so intensely that the newborn starship perceived itself as under threat and Red had to override the missile cruiser’s responses. The Naiad appeared not to notice, but Red suspected Zenobia had done that deliberately to see how much control she had over her offspring.

<yes> the AI replied, her clipped Speech laced with static annoyance. Echo listened to the back and forth, but remained silent. Most of the Naiads set her metaphorical teeth on edge. She remained happy to let Red One take the lead in these deliberations. Bathory and the other young troublemakers were easier to deal with.

There was a flicker of revulsion from the Naiad queen. To her, these were things, unable to Speak and produced like deadtone constructs.

<they’re children,> Red reminded her. <they aren’t fully developed yet>

<will they Speak?> the Naiad monarch asked. <will the Spearsong teach them how to sing? will they make poetry of their own?>

<i hope so>

Zenobia mulled that. <then they will be Spears,> she pronounced. <continue your work, Spearsong. give your children their chance at… life> the word sounded dead and hollow. <but->

<-but our repairs will continue apace> Red One promised.

<yes> Zenobia replied, slowly curving onto a course that would take her back out-system. <comprehension. good..> There was the sensation of a baleful eye focusing on Hekate <at least one Spear possesses it. keep to the pact, and so shall we. try us, and all that was before will no longer be. the music of Spears can become toneless, and its singers as much prey as anything else. remember that>

~

Bastion Leader Kemk moved through the beige hallways of Iterator Memorial hospital at a pace as fast as dignity and safety allowed, avoiding gurneys, carts and medical personnel just as civilians, officers and ratings parted to let him pass, offering salutes as he did so.

Larger than any starship, Armour of Contempt was home to hundreds of thousands of souls. The citadel carried everything they might need during the months and years of their lives that they would spend within its walls, from basic necessities, to recreational facilities to essential services. Among the latter, the sigil citadel was home to the largest and finest military hospital in the sector, Iterator Memorial. It was here that the surviving loyalists of Michitan Defender were receiving care in their final hours.

Holed, scarred, hemorrhaging radiation and shedding pieces of itself, the vessel had shocked into Galhemna two days ago, looking like it had clawed its way out of the Black itself. The light cruiser was so badly damaged that its emergence had caused massive structural damage, and the ship had begun breaking up around the recovery teams as they had scrambled through darkened corridors, decompressed, contaminated or collapsed decks and blown-out hallways searching for survivors.

The inside of the vessel had been a war zone all on its own. The damage inflicted in battle had allowed the imprisoned terrorist forces to escape. During Michitan Defender’s shock to Galhemna, loyalist and traitor forces had waged guerilla war against each other. The latter had almost succeeded in scuttling the ship, but the outnumbered defenders had prevailed. The damage to the vessel had been extreme. Food stores and water had been lost, radiation shielding had failed and compromised environmental systems had been pumping the vessel’s own waste products throughout the few areas that were still pressurized.

More than nine-tenths of the crew had died before arriving in Galhemna, and a third of the remainder perished before they could be recovered. The few prisoners that had been taken were in a secure treatment facility within the hospital, though none of them were healthy enough for any form of interrogation. None were expected to recover, and neither were the few surviving loyalists.

Kemk stepped out of the decontamination airlock into the medical ward. The place smelled of medicine, blood, rank bodies and death. There were a dozen cots here, separated by curtains. Several of the beds were empty. Some simply hadn’t been used. Others… their occupants had been taken away when they died. One bed had a figure beneath a sheet, professionally stone-faced medical staff standing beside it after a failed attempt to resuscitate the patient. The Bastion Leader nodded to them as he passed. His destination was one of the last few beds on the left row.

He had received the summons only minutes ago; the patient had been fading in and out consciousness for several hours. They hadn’t been expected to survive this long, but they had pleaded – demanded – to speak with the ranking officer here. Kemk didn’t know them, but he knew what they’d done, so he had come.

A female Prelate lay in bed, hooked up to machines and devices that were only able to prolong her death, though it was unlikely that they could even do that for much longer. The woman was one of the Compact’s deep cover agents, inserted into the Red Hand nearly a decade ago. The right side of her face was burned away by a too-close encounter with a laser carbine and that eye was glazed, seared and blind. The woman sensed the Tribune’s approach and turned her head. Her good eye, pained and desperate, widened as she saw him. She tried to lift herself up to salute and failed.

“Lay easy, soldier,” Kemk told her. “You said you had something to report.”

She nodded slowly. “Did you read it?” Her vocal implant was damaged and the static made her words almost indecipherable.

Kemk nodded. “Yes.” Michitan Defender’s databanks were useless. An unnaturally pervasive and malignant attack program had been buried in the Unbound vessel’s computer core. It had activated during the light cruiser’s escape and spread through the entire network. Even many personal datascrolls, ‘pads and archives hadn’t been safe. The infection had passed through wireless connections, infrared transmissions and physical data drives to everything it could reach. Once it had, it had destroyed everything. Augur logs. Navigational data. Personnel records. Engineering reports. The loyalist crew hadn’t realized anything was amiss until it was too late. With the ship so badly damaged, and the crew in such dire straits, there’d been no way of recovering any of the lost data. All of the information held within Michitan Defender that could have done so much for the Compact… gone.

Not all of it, though. Knowing she was dying, fighting fatigue, dehydration, hunger, radiation poisoning and toxic exposure, Sstenoh’c had transcribed everything she could to a datascroll. Much of it was incomprehensible or incomplete. There were two things of vital importance, though. One was a phrase, repeated over and over with all the desperation a dying mind could muster: ‘Onza Crèche’ and astrological coordinates. The second was a single word.

With a sudden burst of strength, the Prelate seized Kemk’s left arm, grabbing so tightly that the smart material of his tunic reacted as if it was an attack, hardening under the woman’s claws. An orderly rushed forward. There was a sudden, manic fear in the Sstenoh’c’s remaining eye as she looked at the other man and Kemk waved him away.

Sstenoh’c managed to lift herself up from the cot, coming as close to the Bastion Leader as her failing body would allow. “They’re everywhere,” she said, the static from her implant painful in the Tribune’s ears, but he didn’t push her back. “They’re coming…” That was all she could do. She’d held on that long to deliver her message, to make sure that its importance was understood. Her reserves were finally used up and she fell back into the cot. Her vital signs began to plummet and Kemk stepped back as a medical team rushed to her in a futile attempt to save the woman’s life.

He stayed under it was over. Another sheet was drawn up, another hero of the Compact passing beyond the veil. The Triarchs will know your name, he silently promised as he left the medical bay.

They are coming, she had told him, the words a perfect match to the warning in her message, a declaration of the enemy’s intent.

NATUOS.

They were coming.

Despite himself, Kemk’s pace increased. He would have to prepare. Despite the knowledge that his enemy was preparing to strike at the center of government here in the Veiled Reaches, the other half of Sstenoh’c’s final warning rang just as loudly.

They are everywhere.

~

Speckled Knife was the next to die, but its fate was not due any accident or the hazards of shock travel through a stellar nursery. The light cruiser was murdered.

Five and a half weeks of crawling deeper into the Black Veil, of making short hops measured in single-digit light-years or less to painstakingly map out safe shock routes through the thickening swell of stellar nurseries, black holes and newborn systems. Five and a half weeks of searching for further traces of their destination, antennae and augur dishes poised and straining to sift through the increasing background flux for any sign of their foe, or clues as to which way to go. Of false leads, backtracking and too many failed attempts to turn possibilities into probabilities into potentialities, of increasing stress on shock systems as the vessels of Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua pushed through this hellish warren. It was an absurdly long time to travel the distances involved… in normal interstellar space. Here, it was almost ridiculously fast progress. If Akoshé hadn’t known better, she would have thought that the signal that her squadron had detected all those weeks ago was a deliberate lure… but it had been decades old. Who used bait on the order of generations?

Compounding her worries was that the last eleven days, Akoshé was certain that they were being hunted. Several times they’d detected a possible ship, but instead of the different unclassifieds that the reconnaissance force had detected on the earlier leg of this mission, analysis suggested that this time, they were only seeing one vessel… and even that possibility was only a suggestion based off the data they had. It was impossible to tell what it was, but it seemed to be a capital ship. Even that was questionable; Akoshé recalled how Gravestone’s gunships could emulate larger vessels.

Whatever or whomever it was, it was stalking them.

The unclassified that had taken flight five weeks ago had to have been a herald. It had summoned this thing. At first, their shadow stayed on the edge of the task group’s sense horizon like a bialna pacing a herd, but over the last four days it had gotten bolder, coming closer and withdrawing a shorter distance each time her ships reacted. It never came into missile range, never let itself be seen. Sometimes they would pass through a star system without seeing it. Sometimes it would arrive after they did. Sometimes, it would be waiting for them. It wasn’t afraid; it was only cautious, and that caution evaporated the instant Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua discovered Cemetery.

Five and a half weeks, and they finally reached their destination, one of the likely systems that the herald had fled to… directly along the line of potential origins for the radio burst that had started this journey. Until now, Cemetery had been nameless, never before seen by anyone within the Compact. Located within the seemingly-claustrophobic confines of a pillar of creation, Cemetery was a binary system. The first star was a white dwarf, a remnant of an older system that had never left its birthplace, or had drifted into the nebula. It was joined by a hot, bright main sequence star just recently emerged from its protostar phase. The system was strewn with planetary bodies belonging to the white dwarf – those not incinerated when it had swelled into a red giant – and the remnants of its younger companion’s proto-planetary disc, steams of incandescent gases and plasma pulled across the system by the gravity of the older worlds, clumps of glowing super-heated blobs of particulate matter forming within them as knots of the material accumulated at a rate of several centimeters every million years. Whether they would form into worlds in their own right, or their natural development had been disrupted by the presence of the older star and its faded children was a question that would take even longer to answer.

It wasn’t the unique nature of the astronomical phenomena here that had captured Akoshé’s attention, nor drawn her squadron across dozens of light-years through a Triarchs-damned minefield of stars, rogue worlds, gravitational riptides, scope-blotting birthing grounds and black holes. It was the whispers, the electromagnetic emissions of industry. Barely noticeable outside the intense background radiation, her ships had detected that siren song from light-years away. Softer, subtler and more constant than the first transmission – the lights of houses along a blackened shoreline instead of a flare shot into the night.

This was it, Akoshé knew. The source of the unknown message. The home of the courier. One of their foe’s primary systems, perhaps even their home base.

Before making the final shock, she’d sent a courier drone back to 1887-Yiren. It contained all the information her squadron had gathered up to this point. Offering a prayer to the Triarchs, to Dame Fortune and to anything else that might feel beneficent, Akoshé had ordered her ships onward into the system her people now called Cemetery. A place of gravestones.

None of their vessels died in this shock, and once their scopes cleared, Reconnaissance Force Nsyrua looked upon the home of her enemy. Among the dead worlds of a corpse star and the planets-yet-to-be of a newborn, there was life. Shipwombs, their gantries and arms wrapped around unfinished vessels. Starships of recognizable and unknown hulls designs and energy profiles plied the void, carrying out tasks of their own. And there, just within what had once been the life zone of the white dwarf’s long-dead system, was something else. A construct – a ring – more than a thousand kilometers in diameter, surrounded by more than a dozen ships.

“Blood of the Triarchs,” Akoshé whispered as she rose from her seat. What was that? A citadel? A halo world? A particle accelerator? Some kind of gravity corridor to draw off material from the stars? “Scopes,” she ordered, her stupefaction lasting only seconds. “Get me everything you can. The wombs, the ships, that… that thing. Everything.”

That was when Speckled Knife died. Their shadow had followed them, using the Compact vessels’ own shockpoints to mask its arrival. An alarm shrilled as missiles hit the void, and UECNS Strix announced itself. The Enemy had discovered Node 001.

Kill them.

Speckled Knife was next to die, but it was not the last.

 

[walkir]

So... Galhemna indeed. And it was warned. but was that planned, too?

In the darkness, the distance Darklight Eye and Leyak Six dwindled.

Click to shrink...

missing a between.

If Akoshé hadn’t known better, she would have thought that the signal that her squadron had detected all those weeks ago was a deliberate lure… but it had been decades old. Who used bait on the order of generations?

Click to shrink...

Nemesis.

 

[joha4270]

In case anybody else remembers the ringthing and want to reread it, here is the Intersection it first appeared in

Spoiler

Intersection: Birth of Strength and Duty

Its name was Birth of Strength and Duty, and it did as it was told. If it were capable of it, it might have found a sense of fulfillment in following its directives, much as a work horse or sheep dog would. It was neither of those things and though it was far, far more complex and capable than either of those things, it was also far more simple in thought and understanding.

It didn’t know why it had been given this mission. It didn’t know what it had been, what it was now or anything other than the decision trees and programmed directives that made up what passed for its mind. It knew it what it was told to do and it worked to fulfill those objectives.

It didn’t know that in its prior incarnation, it had been a Diligent Investiture-class industrial service vessel. At two and a half kilometers, it was somewhat below a true fabricator ship in both size and function. The latter were intended to be spacegoing construction facilities, capable of handling almost any industrial task. The former, such as Birth of Strength and Duty itself, were more akin to mobile repair yards with limited production capacity.

It didn’t know that it had been owned and operated by Prillos Colony Support Corps, a corporation that made its living financing and tending to the needs of fledgling colonies, whose business practices had been described as ‘incredibly predatory’. It didn’t know that Prillos largely targeted its support towards colonization efforts spearheaded by client races, effectively turning these newly-founded and habitats into company towns where virtually all their services and utilities were provided by Prillos or one of its subsidiaries.

Prillos had been investigated for this practices on five separate occasions and each time, found innocent of wrongdoing, though its board of director always promised to establish a committee, spearhead a commission or create an ombudsman position to ensure that all complaints about its procedures were being addressed properly and that the company “remained committed to providing timely, secure and high-quality support to colonial efforts made by less civilized peoples” which would “allow them to demonstrate their independence, autonomy and dedication to the Compact’s spirit of exploration and expansion”.

Birth of Strength and Duty did not know that seven months after the last probe into Prillos’s affairs failed to find any ethical or legal malpractices, the Red Hand took matters unto themselves. It did not know that Prillo’s construction facilities at Valtan Khor came under attack by Torment and a cadre of heavily armed insurgent vessels. Twenty-three PCSC ships were destroyed, seventeen more heavily damaged and three shipwomb complexes were sabotaged, with eight starships seized by Bloodsworn boarding teams.

Birth of Strength and Duty was one of these, though the vessel was so badly damaged it was deemed too expensive to repair, its valuable construction and industrial systems all but ruined. It was sent to Onza Crèche and slated to be broken down for salvage. Instead, a covert order was passed along to the head of the Hatcheries there and the vessel was set aside, dumped into deep space and officially listed as scrapped. Five months after it was set adrift, an individual entered its command deck and programmed a shock route into its simple navigation systems. It took the vessel nearly another five months to complete the circuitous route. When it arrived at its destination, it waited. Another vessel eventually came across the industrial servicer, challenging it for identification.

It responded with a code that it had been given. Birth of Strength and Duty was taken under tow. Its computer banks were scrubbed and it was checked thoroughly for tampering or infiltration. Finally, the industrial service ship was given another set of shock coordinates. Once it arrived at this destination, it was taken under tow. It noted the presence of a number of other vessels, most of which appeared to be without power. It had no curiousity and simply noted this in its navigational logs as a potential hazard, as it did the debris of the broken moonlet it was brought to. There was a small construction facility here, though it was more rudimentary than Birth of Strength and Duty’s own crippled facilities.

The industrial ship was eventually repaired, its factory systems modified and its simple computer system upgraded to be capable of greater autonomy and independent operations, though it was still little more than a drone. It was not given a new name, though it neither knew nor cared about this fact. It followed its directives. It tended to the needs of the other starships in the system as it was required to. It assisted in the construction and expansion of certain facilities. It performed its duties ably within the constraints of its abilities.

Years passed and it was eventually given a new mission. It was brought to a new star system. It did not know why, nor did it think to ask. Indeed, it did not think at all. It followed its much larger escort down the gravity well. There, it detected something its sensors could not identify and which stymied its analysis subroutines. A construct of some type, but that was all it could tell from its current position.

+analyze+ its escort demanded and Birth of Strength and Duty moved towards the anomalous contact. It was a massive ring-shaped device, more than a thousand kilometers in diameter. The industrial service vessel drifted closer to the anomaly, its sensors unable to return any useful information. It dispatched swarms of engineering drones to survey and probe the device.

Its escort left. Two more ships arrived, one a science vessel and the other a battle-scarred scout cruiser. Like Birth of Strength and Duty, they were also refurbished drones. They joined it in studying the anomaly.

Time passed. Its escort returned.

+divulge+

Birth of Strength and Duty and its fellows sent their data. The command vessel considered the information. Then, new directives were issued.

Once again, Birth of Strength and Duty began to build. It had a mission. That was all it knew.

That was all it needed to know.

Click to shrink...

I must admit, I am rather curious about what it turns out to be.

 

[Professor Von Tuck III]

I have to say, the way you build the atmosphere of locations is incredible. I could almost see what Node 001 looked and felt like.

A welcome gift to conclude exams for me. Thanks Prox!

 

[RedX]

A true necropolis. Very interesting.

Sort of odd that Red's giving up all this industry, though. Is there something... wrong with it?

 

[LystAP]

A true necropolis. Very interesting.

Sort of odd that Red's giving up all this industry, though. Is there something... wrong with it?

Click to shrink...

Unless she fixes her crazy AI children problem, such intense industry would be a sap of resources waiting to be found.

 

[MrHobbit]

Who used bait on the order of generations?

Click to shrink...

The shere irony of this statement is delicious.

Anyways, welcome to the world Cerulean Four! May you get an impressive kill-count!

Also, holy shit, this chapter had my heart racing nearly the entire way through. I suppose the confirmation that the system Leblanc showed was Natuous is nice. I wonder if Strix is one of the Violets.

 

[Troika]

I hope Red actually finishes her refit before being found. She hasn't been in action in forever.

 

[kalvasflam]

Now Kemk knows the home location of Red Hand, I am curious why he hasn’t ordered a strike. It would cripple the Red Hand. But perhaps there isn’t enough time. Either way, very curious to see how this works out. As for Natuous, this could be a big false flag, or there isn’t any reason why the Queen couldn’t change her target.

And, oh my, Red is going to have parts of a strike fleet available to hit Sundial. This is going to get painful for someone. Especially if they all have meteor cannons.

 

[Professor Von Tuck III]

And, oh my, Red is going to have parts of a strike fleet available to hit Sundial. This is going to get painful for someone. Especially if they all have meteor cannons.

Click to shrink...

While I can only speculate, it's fairly obvious that she made a different class for each "type" of cruiser. The Fates are the stealth-ops/"Strike" cruisers, the Gorgons are presumably the heavy cruisers, if their naming scheme and resource expenditure is anything to go by, and leaves the Coyotes as the generic sorta-light cruiser. So maybe a no on the meteor cannons for everyone.

 

[kaoswreck]

Sort of odd that Red's giving up all this industry, though. Is there something... wrong with it?

Click to shrink...

Didn't Nemesis take over the Black Veil from the skyscraper ships people (From Chapter 2 Interregnum: Acquisition)
? It might be that in the future they might try to take it back, because it was a strategic location of sorts (the ships in that part mentioned looking for a new "beachhead"), so Red knew that in the future it might be attacked.

 

[Warhammer651]

Now Kemk knows the home location of Red Hand, I am curious why he hasn’t ordered a strike. It would cripple the Red Hand.

Click to shrink...

I don't think he knows what it is. He just has a name and a set of coordinates, and a written-while-high-on-pain-and-medications report.

 

[Somber Owl Girl]

And there, just within what had once been the life zone of the white dwarf’s long-dead system, was something else. A construct – a ring – more than a thousand kilometers in diameter, surrounded by more than a dozen ships.

Click to shrink...

Looks like Red found a fun new toy.

Proximal Flame Could we get a technical readout or something on the Furies? And possibly the other ships Red has been making?
These things are coming in with quite some fanfare, and I'd like to know at least what we can expect from them.

 

[MrHobbit]

I hope Red actually finishes her refit before being found. She hasn't been in action in forever.

Click to shrink...

She won't be found, Shurrupak is within the Molten Veneer. Execution Force Yunl'ro is on the other side of the galaxy sweeping the Black Veil. Node 001 is not her base of operations.

Kemk knows the home location of Red Hand, I am curious why he hasn’t ordered a strike. It would cripple the Red Hand. But perhaps there isn’t enough time. Either way, very curious to see how this works out. As for Natuous, this could be a big false flag, or there isn’t any reason why the Queen couldn’t change her target.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure, as has been previously discussed, the attack on Natuous is to draw defenders away from Galhemna. Adrianna even mentioned that she wanted their scouting actions to be noticed.

While I can only speculate, it's fairly obvious that she made a different class for each "type" of cruiser. The Fates are the stealth-ops/"Strike" cruisers, the Gorgons are presumably the heavy cruisers, if their naming scheme and resource expenditure is anything to go by, and leaves the Coyotes as the generic sorta-light cruiser. So maybe a no on the meteor cannons for everyone.

Click to shrink...

It called Allecto a missile cruiser. I suspect the Fate class cruiser will focus more on missile spam. Though I don't know what that means in terms of armament.

Her sense systems played over Allecto, so intensely that the newborn starship perceived itself as under threat and Red had to override the missile cruiser’s responses.

Click to shrink...

I have far too much time on my hands...

Edit:

In case anybody else remembers the ringthing and want to reread it, here is the Intersection it first appeared in

I must admit, I am rather curious about what it turns out to be.

Click to shrink...

Isn't the timeline a bit messed up? If the Ring is Node 001, and that is the primary shipyard of the Veil. The Red Hand couldn't possibly have participated in that. Her work in the Veil started around the turn of the millenia, over a century before the Red Hand was even founded.

 

[GeshronTyler]

The Ring is an artifact left by somebody. Definitely not built by Nemesis. Perhaps the Skyscraper Ship faction, maybe another? I figure Nemesis has enough data to make use of it, whatever it is/does to hurt the Compact, but the Black Veil itself is not Territory Nemesis considers critical. The Black Veil is just one big trap, with her "Failures" acting as bait.

Let's not forget, Nemesis' Children are planning an assault on 1887 Yiren, the main Compact support node. The actual site of Node 001 is not yet known to the Compact if I've followed the narrative properly. The jump before that was where 'Speckled Knife" launched its Jump Drone. So, the Compact has info on all the scouting force had surveyed before, and probably the intended jump into Node 001's system, but nothing in Node 001 itself...

Well, I figured the Narrative would have the Compact black ops manage to escape Onza Creche, but at least the intelligence take was fairly minimal. Good to see that there were sleeper Infosec security systems imbeded, and that the remaining Red Hand crew managed to go down fighting. Still, Onza Creche will have to be abandoned. Can't remember if the Shipwomb hiding in the gas giant was jump capable? Now we have to wait to see what the Red Queen does in response to her plans being ostensibly spoiled. I suppose its still possible that Natuous was still a decoy target, and that the real target would only have been revealed at the last possible moment...

 

[bobodoll131]

Obviously the ring was built by the AI-devouring "Forerunner" species to combat the Flood/Reaper Naiads. Digestion pools what?

 

[gardfiel]

Leader Saisyn Omeiaaal of the Red Had warship

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Only typo I noticed

 

[nullAurelian]

Now Kemk knows the home location of Red Hand, I am curious why he hasn’t ordered a strike. It would cripple the Red Hand. But perhaps there isn’t enough time. Either way, very curious to see how this works out. As for Natuous, this could be a big false flag, or there isn’t any reason why the Queen couldn’t change her target.

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Kemk also has to balance out the defense of Sundial. He also knows, or at least suspects heavily, that the Red Hand is allied to the Argosey. If we include a strike at the Red Hand, he has the following stresses on his assets:

• Defense of Galhenna and by proxy Operation Sundial
• Support of the Gravestone Task Force - which has already requested additional ships and crews
• Assorted ships down for repair/refit
• Red Hand Strike - force composition is unknown but he can probably expect a heavy cruiser at least

While we don't necessarily know what he has at his disposal, I can't see him having enough mobile assets to make that strike without stripping resources from one of the other 3, none of which really can afford to have ships stripped from.
Speculation: Kemk either has to ignore the information, or this will be a way that we see Galhenna being opened up to an attack.

 

[Mashadarof402]

Only typo I noticed

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No no, it's correct.

They had the warship.

 

[Exthalion]

Prox, how can you give me such delicious fare while also leaving me ravenous!

I too hope the Spearsong's children learn to sing, perhaps the Naiads could offer some pointers in that regard?

Uncertain Footing had been assigned sent duties and given an outer-system patrol.

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I think assigned/sent might be a duplication.

In the darkness, the distance Darklight Eye and Leyak Six dwindled.

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the distance _between_

 

[SVNB Backup]

She won't be found, Shurrupak is within the Molten Veneer. Execution Force Yunl'ro is on the other side of the galaxy sweeping the Black Veil. Node 001 is not her base of operations.

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Wait what. I'm confused, this whole time I thought that the Execution Force was sweeping the same region that Shurrupak was in, and I thought that at some point Nemesis and Echo would throw down with Light of Judgment.

Is there a map of the known galaxy available so people can cross-reference when reading?

 

[StacheMan]

It called Allecto a missile cruiser. I suspect the Fate class cruiser will focus more on missile spam. Though I don't know what that means in terms of armament.

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I can see foresee two options for the general armament of the Fury class cruisers:
1) The boring, but practical. In the tradition for missile cruisers the Furies sacrifice a portion of their direct fire weapons, and in this case the pinaka mass driver, for more missile tubes, at least 150% the tubes of a Fate, and larger magazines from which to feed them. Normally there are considerations to be made when choosing between a missile heavy and gun focused cruiser, but given Red's capital grade missiles greatly outperform the Compact's best heavy capital in all characteristics save perhaps yield, most of those are null. The majority of the rest are dealt with by Red's other advanced technologies and the nature of the mind piloting it all.
2) The overkill. The Furies still sacrifice the pinaka and many energy and kinetic mounts compared to the Fates, but instead trade it to become more kin to a Leyak, mounting a reduced number of missile tubes that fire the same heavy capital grade missiles as their mother/creator. When operating as part of the fleet against, say, a major Execution Force this option wouldn't make too much of a difference, the equivalent of an extra broadside from one of the dreadnoughts every 5-10 salvos per Fury, but when operating on their own a dozen or so heavy capital missiles will make mincemeat out a Space Force patrol group.

Personally I lean toward option one, since that's the more well rounded design and is still significantly superior to the majority of opponents they may face, though with the caveat that I expect the Furies to bring at least one unconventional weapon/tool to the fight regardless of what else they may carry.

 

[Posbi]

Wait what. I'm confused, this whole time I thought that the Execution Force was sweeping the same region that Shurrupak was in, and I thought that at some point Nemesis and Echo would throw down with Light of Judgment.

Is there a map of the known galaxy available so people can cross-reference when reading?

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Currently there is only a map of Galhemna. While an overall map would be nice it`s easy to see from a writer`s POV that a certain amount of vagueness makes for far easier writing...