The Last Angel: Ascension

[Wanderin Jack]

The drabble is a bit unclear (and a bit rough by Prox's notes, which means it may not be canon). It's also from 5 years ago and seems to tell the story of a single surviving human ship that founded a crazed theocracy type planet called Shelter which was desperately trying to stay under the radar in terms of tech advancement and likely was wiped out at some point or another by the Compact's hunting fleets.


From The Last Angel

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I hadn't seen that one, thanks for linking it. Also thanks for reminding me that prox is the master of cliffhangers. >.<

Edit:

I shall leave you with this:

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Dammit Hobbit... I know that's a reference but your greentext isn't a link. I want to say predator prey, or is it all the little lost..

 

[Border_Lander]

If they were trying to keep technology down, it sounds like they were the only survivors of a Naiad migration.

 

[kaoswreck]

They sound like they were pretty advanced, with at least a small empire, since they were able to send out at least one fleet of a thousand FTL capable ships to try to run away, and were able to make a FTL early warning network wide enough to give a few decades of warning time that was able to survive centuries or millennia of neglect. Not that it mattered against the Naiads anyway

 

[SurpriseMe]

I doubt that those were Naiads, because Naiads seem like they enjoy sneaking up on their prey, so I doubt it would be so easy to detect them, and because I doubt that Naiads would actually bother to hunt down "insects".

Of course the exception to this would be if a civilization was truly advanced enough to give the Naiads as a whole a bloody nose, but I don't think that is it, because I think Prox has hinted that the Naiads would be more actively genocidal if such an event occured.

 

[MrHobbit]

Dammit Hobbit... I know that's a reference but your greentext isn't a link. I want to say predator prey, or is it all the little lost..

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It is most definately TLA related.

The colored text represent a speaker, red represents Red, blue represents Echo, and green represents, well.

Will you join us?

 

[uberdrops]

Hm. Destructive capabilities of Compact and Confed weaponry increased roughly by a factor of 100 over the last 2000 years. From around 40 megatonnes per beam up to 7 gigatonnes now.

I think now Red tech would now be roughly a match for Naiads, see Bathory vs Atropos and Clotho. Did Naiads evolve as well? How do they feel about insects, now being able to kill them?

 

[ORCACommander]

how do we feel about africanized bees?

 

[uberdrops]

how do we feel about africanized bees?

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It’s hard to get a feeling how many Naiads there actually are and how their combined power compares to the combined military might of all known empires.

To use your analogy, if all bees on the planet would coordinate they probably could bring us close to extinction by killing enough of us. There simply are enough of them. Certainly if you add wasps and hornets.

 

[Exthalion]

Hm. Destructive capabilities of Compact and Confed weaponry increased roughly by a factor of 100 over the last 2000 years. From around 40 megatonnes per beam up to 7 gigatonnes now.

I think now Red tech would now be roughly a match for Naiads, see Bathory vs Atropos and Clotho. Did Naiads evolve as well? How do they feel about insects, now being able to kill them?

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It is unlikely the Naiads have evolved much in terms of absolute increase in ability. It is certainly possible there were sidegrades and changes in fleet composition caused by evolutionary pressures as with the peppered moth.

But given how old they are if they had even a fraction of the rate of increase of the other powers they would be firing full-sized neutron stars as missiles by this point.

 

[StacheMan]

It seems the minimum generational gap, from birth to reproductive maturity, for Naiads is well over a millennia at the very least. Their social structure forcing any individual that wishes to mate to strike out and find new hunting grounds in which to birth a new pack probably pushes the average generation gap to several times that or more. Just for example, Sammuramat and Tzu-hsi are among the eldest of Zenobia's children, who is said to be absolutely ancient herself, well into the heavy capital scale and they've only gotten around to having kids in the last few centuries.
All of which is to say, exceptionally long generational gaps lead to an exceptionally slow pace of traditional evolution and while Naiads can augment that with their ability to self modify, I'd still expect them to have a very slow pace of advancement.

 

[MrHobbit]

On the topic of Naiad technology there is this.

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, on the long, sad history of bad ideas, that one would be very close to the top. It would not be something a Naiad pack - any Naiad pack - would let slide. And there are some that make Zenobia and her children look downright cuddly.
...
Naiads aren't technologically stagnant. They just haven't had much of an impetus pushing them as other species have, but they have definitely improved their capabilities and technologies over time. You might say that absent of any great threat, they are less driven but once they get pushed too far, they become very... singularity-minded.

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Zenobia and her pack are, for Naiads, high-average in terms of technological development.

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These quotes show that their are Naiad packs which out do anything currently seen in the Angelverse. As already stated they advance slowly, there is hardly an impetous to do so after all. As scary as Zenobia's pack is, they very much do get worse.

I think now Red tech would now be roughly a match for Naiads, see Bathory vs Atropos and Clotho.

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Bathory is an escort. She was seriously out massed by one Fate let alone two.

 

[Border_Lander]

I doubt that those were Naiads, because Naiads seem like they enjoy sneaking up on their prey, so I doubt it would be so easy to detect them, and because I doubt that Naiads would actually bother to hunt down "insects".

Of course the exception to this would be if a civilization was truly advanced enough to give the Naiads as a whole a bloody nose, but I don't think that is it, because I think Prox has hinted that the Naiads would be more actively genocidal if such an event occured.

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Didnt Prox say that during migrations, Naiads exterminate any space faring species they come accross, but leave non space faring creatures alone?

A migration is not a hunt. It's like a massive space locust swarm. Except the locusts have lazer beams. Prox made it pretty clear that almost nothing survived the last one. The only thing that we know survived that period was one tablet that said "there are no stars".
That side story may be about the only survivors of the people that wrote that.

The Naiads are the only group we know about that will leave lower tech societies alone.

Do we know if the devoured have any qualifications on who they will and wont assimilate?

 

[ORCACommander]

Zenobia has exterminated planet bound civilizations in the past out of boredom. its more that planet bound civs are usually beneath their notice.

 

[Moonlight501]

Except the locusts have lazer beams.

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We have huge locust swarms outside the Wendy's I work at. I'm now going to imagine them with laser beams...

I suddenly feel very scared about the ones I've killed. Please don't shoot me, Laser Locusts!

 

[suul'ken]

Do we know if the devoured have any qualifications on who they will and wont assimilate?

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No They seem to be equal opportunity assimilators!

 

[Proximal Flame]

And here is the next installment of Ascension! Three chapters this month. Maybe I'm spoiling you guys... I suppose I could cut back...
Coming up will be another edit of All the little lost..., then To the Victor..., then something that depends on patron voting and possibly something after that; I have another Names of the Demon chapter in the works as well

As for what we've got here: the battle of Galhemna continues, plans unfurl and unravel and within Cemetery, more questions keep arising...

In this section: A-wing slash / last stand / no backing down
Coming up: secrets and lies / the net closes / we are here

My Patreon.

Chapter 48:

Starships were dying.

Billions of cubic kilometers of space had become a battlezone as close to two thousand vessels sought to destroy each other, Red Hand and Principality against the Compact Space Force. Missiles flashed between the armadas, the flanking Compact squadrons firing on every target they could as Wraith Fleet Severance spread into an englobing formation, doing to them what only minutes before they had planned to do to the Red Hand. At first, only the fastest and lightest Askanj warships entered attack range, and they were still outgunned, but it took less than twenty minutes before enough of the Principality warships were in range that the balance shifted from the Compact’s favour, to the Askanj matching them salvo for salvo, to outgunning them. The defenders were outnumbered more than six to one, and the Argosy fleet was taking full advantage of that disparity. Jirrico had no intention of letting this attack force escape to reinforce the rest of the garrison later.

Adrianna’s eyes shone as she gave orders, her own armada turning away from their previous course. They left damaged and crippled starships their wake as Compact augurs locked onto them and missiles lanced through their lines, hammering starships into air-bleeding wrecks, scrap or even less than that. Despite that, the Red Hand’s losses were minimal. The Space Force had far larger concerns at the moment. They were taking targets of opportunity rather than a dedicated effort to engage Leblanc’s forces. It was Jirrico’s armada that was the greatest threat; the Red Hand was heavily outgunned by Galhemna’s garrison and without support, they would be unable to do more than grazing strikes on isolated outer-system assets before being run off, or ensnared and destroyed.

Now… now they had that support, even if those providing it were doing so with gritted teeth.

Too bad. The Principality had been dealing with the Red Hand at a distance for too long. Now, they’d have to either openly and fully support the Red Hand’s fight, or cut ties… and Adrianna knew they couldn’t do that. Even if Operation Hatchling went perfectly, the Askanj would still need every ally that they could get, especially to take advantage of a weakened Compact. The revolutionary smiled at the thought, running one slender finger along the edge of her armrest as she watched the shifting tactical display. The Principality battle fleet was accelerating directly towards the Compact squadrons, with little attempt to jockey for position. Compact warships were faster and more maneuverable; their preferred method was to wear down Argosy forces with heavy broadsides, before driving into the heart of an opposing fleet, using their speed, armour and firepower to break the Principality lines. It was a very direct tactic, but that made it no less effective.

The Argosy preferred chase armament to broadsides, front-loading their vessels with a heavy arsenal at the cost of fewer weapons along their ships’ flanks and spines. Their elegant raptorial wings carried forward and aft-mounted batteries, missile silos and torpedo tubes in addition to thruster arrays, comm antennae and sensor nodes. Their advanced computer systems provided accuracy and targeting that few Compact warships could match, but that was not the advantage it might appear to be. The Compact remained the premier shipbuilders in known space, though the Principality constantly tested that claim and they were quick to capitalize whenever it fell short.

Coilguns hurled metal slugs towards the Compact lines, analytical systems and targeting telemetry straining to pick out targets through intense jamming as Principality officers and computers attempted to predict the evasive movements of their foes. Where they guessed correctly, screens flared as c-fractional mass rounds struck home. It wasn’t only the Askanj fleet’s fire that had any effect. The entrapped Compact warships fought bitterly and valiantly.

Missiles bobbed and weaved in attack runs, hundreds of warheads immolated by interceptors and point defence fire, but dozens slipped through. Directed cones of annihilation reached out, caressing starships with world-scouring power. Screens weakened. Barriers collapsed. Brightly-coloured warbirds shuddered and went dark as their defences were overcome. Earthern-hued predators shattered as their armoured hulls buckled and broke.

Upon Exsanguinator, Jirrico’s crests were swollen and aching with instinctive aggression as he watched his fleet sweep aside squadron after squadron, opening a hole in the enemy’s formation through which the Red Hand armada poured. They could have stayed and fought; no longer surrounded, they could have used their numbers to overcome the sunward defenders. It was tempting to call that cowardice, but he would have made the same decision. Why bleed themselves, when they had the support of a larger, more capable force to assist them? Still, it meant that the surviving Compact ships were free to disengage, falling back to Kanlie or to other rally points deeper in-system.

As soon as they were out of direct fire, the Renegades began regrouping in preparation for the next assault with a rapidity out of the norm for such creatures. By the Noble Fleet Lord’s military standards, it was lacking. By the standards of the rest of their ilk, it might as well have been parade-ground perfect. His fleet was attempting to tap into their command net. So far, they’d had little luck. The range was too long, the Red Hand’s encryption too strong. The few ships that broke comm discipline were quickly noticed and remonstrated by their fellows.

He let out a breath as he touched his crests, trying to release some of the tension in his body. He’d had to commit Severance to Galhemna alongside the Red Hand, a public and unequivocal statement of the Principality’s association with the insurgents. That was… not as planned, but it had been too late to do anything about it. Galhemna must fall. Now, before Sundial was ready.

In the wake of this assault, the Red Hand would be severely weakened. The Triarchs’ hounds’ would be after them with a fanaticism that made their earlier efforts seem half-hearted. There were also those Renegades who would gladly take the opportunity to drive a spear into an injured competitor, whether to take what they had or remove a threat to their own power. But if it were publicly known that the Red Hand had very powerful patrons, the latter would reconsider such a move and the former would have to tread cautiously, balancing their need to destroy the rebels against the possibility of their anti-pirate forces encountering foes that they were not prepared to handle.

More so, the Red Hand’s connections and reach would be invaluable in keeping the Compact off-balance after Sundial’s failure. To do that, they would need an influx of supplies and other resources. The Red Queen had committed a lot to this endeavour. She and hers were pirates, terrorists and Renegades, but to abandon them would be dishonourable.

The Principality would have to stand alongside the Renegades. Yes, well, despite the arms, advisors, largesse and succor we’ve provided over the years, we just so happened to coordinate our actions to strike at our mutual enemy on the same timetable, and then a Broken pirate tricked us into openly supporting her operations but we’re not really allied, was a dubious rationalization at best. A state’s public image could survive an admission of amoral self-interest, confessing to abandoning an ally – less so. Even worse would be any intimation that they’d been duped by the lowest strata of society, and the lowest of the Compact’s helot races at that…

So the Askanj Principality was now going to openly support a Renegade force. If Jirrico were the kind of man to believe in Ancestor Spirits, he could only hope that they would not judge him too harshly for this. Still, he had to admit that the Red Queen played the game well. She’d maneuvered him well enough, and her armada was doing better than he’d imagined, with lighter losses than his staff had projected. She’d successfully drawn the Compact’s defenders into a killing field for him.

It was easy to be optimistic. The first turn of battle had been for Operation Hatchling, but there were still hundreds more defenders waiting, ready and eager. Last count had upwards of a thousand operational Space Force assets and system monitors, with hundreds more defence platforms, palisades, minefields and batteries waiting for them. Galhemna was not unprotected. It was only the first trench that lay before them.

As his task force finished the destruction of the outer entrapping squadrons and the inner ones fell back to Kanlie, Jirrico ordered his fleet to prepare for a planetary siege. He would make this as quick as he could. Neither he nor the Red Queen could risk becoming bogged down when the Compact reinforcements arrived.

At least we got here before those Chariots came on-line.

~

Bastion Leader Kemk stood on the upper level of Sacrament of Iron’s command deck, observing the tactical displays. He had a cup of cold tea in one hand. The situation had rapidly turned from unexpected, to unpleasant, to optimistic and back to unpleasant. The data he was receiving was several hours old; what he was seeing was the past, irrevocable and unalterable. He watched as Column Leader Prime Eran’ta dispersed her ships to envelop the Unbound attackers, positioning dozens of her vessels at key points to block off any hope of their retreat. It was a Writ-perfect response to this kind of attack. He knew that… and he knew the never-sufficiently-damned-to-the-Black Broken “monarch” did, too. Eran’ta was – had been – a good officer, but one very fond of procedure and policy.

He saw the gambit unveil before it happened, every fiber of him wishing he could cast a warning across the light-hours and change what was about to unfold, but there was nothing he could do. Irrevocable and unalterable. Instead, he remained where he was and took another sip of his chilled drink as the hauma Red Hand feigned hesitancy and weakness, Eran’ta’s vanguard shocked out to the very locations he would have selected for just such an engulfing maneuver… and he watched them die.

“The Jackals,” he said. His voice was soft but quietly enraged. He had not expected that. He had foreseen stealthed minelayers carrying nothing but missile pods, or a second wave of vermin. Instead, the Argosy had rallied to their piss-licking Unbound cats-paws. It was an open secret that the Jackals provided aid to the Red Hand, but officially their government denounced the actions of ‘Renegades and terrorists’, bemoaning their predations and the loss of innocent lives they caused. There had never been enough evidence to conclusively prove it and grind the Jackals’ snouts in their own filth, but any officer who fought the Red Hand varak knew it.

I suppose I should be flattered, the Tribune thought venomously. To be seen as so much of a threat that they are willing to drop all pretense. Kemk wondered if Jirrico was among the Jackal fleet. Probably; his counterpart was a Fleet Lord, not a defensive commander as Kemk himself was. That was good, at least. It meant he had the chance to kill the Jackal.

Kemk had underestimated his adversary. All the reports he’d been given indicated that all Kebrak Daun had been doing was hurriedly reinforcing their system defence and hadn’t been able to muster enough ships for a strike like this. There must be some flotillas on the front lines hurting for support, he guessed. The Jackals were by nature devious. They had deceived him into thinking Kebrak Daun was standing on the defensive. That was two mistakes. He would not let there be a third.

With clipped, professional orders, the Bastion Leader gave directions to his staff, directing the movements of civilian vessels to keep them out of the developing battle zones, ordering the wombs and facilities to prepare for hostile incursions and organizing the system’s defence. He had been surprised, but that was over now. He would – probably already had – lose Kanlie, but the bulk of the system’s industry was around and among the terrestrial planets. It was desperation driving his enemies’ blades. They would seek to drive that sword into Galhemna’s guts, not slice and slash at its extremities. So be it.

Many thousands of loyal Compact soldiers were dying, and would die yet, but he had the resources to crush this assault. With one hand, he lifted his wide cup up for another drink. With the other, he gestured for a yard operations officer.

“Yes, patron?”

The Tribune took a brief sip. “It is my understanding that Shield of Civilization and Resolve of Tithrak are completed.”

“Yes, patron.”

“Are there any pressing technical concerns that would prevent them from deploying?”

“No, patron.”

Kemk was quiet for several seconds. “I suppose,” he said, “that I should make a wry comment about scheduling an impromptu live-fire exercise.” He took another drink. He didn’t particularly feel like being sardonic. He felt like crushing the vermin that had dared poke their heads into his star system. “Get those vessels crewed and launched.” He turned to his aide. Vn’zamos was standing nearby, dutifully awaiting her superior’s orders. “Communicate to Bastion Leader Cortam that I will speak with her as soon as possible to coordinate our response and have a courier dispatched to Galhem-73 to inform Weight of Destiny of our situation.”

“Yes, patron.” The officer hurried to relay the Bastion Leader’s orders, and Vn’zamos did the same. As his subordinates left, the Tribune turned back to the telemetry. Something had indeed slipped through the cracks. It was his job now to make sure it didn’t escape. He watched the boards, his four eyes very attentive and very full of hate.

~

+you cannot die+

That was the imperative order Ghede Niboe had been given from Nemesis. It overrode all other concerns and directives. The repurposed alien hulk was allowed to do almost anything in service of the assets within the Black Veil, but outside of the most extreme circumstances, it could not endanger itself needlessly. It was not a warship. What conventional weapons it had were primarily defensive in nature and while it could function as a support vessel using its weaponized drive to disrupt incoming fire and distort hostile sensors, its true role was somewhat different.

It had not been selected by chance. Its gravity drive was an artefact of an older design philosophy, one long-since outmoded by current technologies. It was a curiosity with a few interesting tricks. That was why it had been salvaged. That was why it had been given a mission no others of its fellows had. That was why nothing else mattered to the vessel’s drone-like mind except for its prime directive.

As its simple, straightforward intellect watched its death approach, Ghede Niboe took position and prepared for its final mission.

+you cannot die… not until you must+

~

“What is it doing?” Ukask wondered aloud, not for the first time. The gravity drive vessel, given the designation Crawler, hadn’t participated in the attempted system blockade, nor the last-ditch effort to protect the Echo and the shipwomb. It had done nothing at all, staying close to the ring structure with a handful of vessels in accompaniment. With the exception of the Crawler, all the Wound’s remaining assets appeared to be commercial or civilian-grade vessels, collected across decades and repurposed. There was no indication of any more warships, no traces of hostile warships running under stealth operations, no trickling comm signals to hint at a Splinter’s presence. From all indications, they were servicers tending to the ring structure. Almost certainly some would be Q-ships, but none were dedicated military hulls or modifications of the same. That paltry squadron would be unable to resist one capital ship, let alone a squadron… or an entire execution force. There were mines, though. They surrounded the ring structure like a swarm of fleshcutters ready to defend their hive, but there weren’t enough of them and they’d been deployed too close to the strange citadel to be effective. In a few short hours, the fall of Cemetery would be complete.

That should be cause for celebration. They’d accomplished much already, not only here in this system but in their mission. Despite their losses, they had destroyed everything that they’d come across that the Wound had built. Years, decades – perhaps centuries – of work had been obliterated. Whatever armada the machine had hoped to set loose, it had been crippled. They’d annihilated the Echo and its rogue Chariot. They were now closing in on the last bit of infrastructure left in this star system, perhaps even the entirety of the nebula. The machines’ aggression had won them battles, but cost them the war.

And yet…

The Crawler remained where it was, almost oblivious to the approaching task force. The starships around it appeared equally as unaware as they continued in their tasks. Like many other of the Wound’s servitors, these were basic drone intellects, assigned a function and focusing on it to the exclusion of all else. Whatever that was, it was enough to override any directives to preserve themselves. Telemetry suggested that some of the drone craft were scanning the construct, while others waited next to it – repair and maintenance units. Powerful comm bursts were detected; directed into the outer system as the servicer fleet transmitted their final reports to hidden drones and couriers. The fleet’s outriders were trying to track those ships down, but had had little success.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the execution force’s attention was on the ring. Augur sweeps had revealed little about it. Visual images revealed more of its structure, but only raised further questions. The primary structure appeared to be smooth, or nearly so. There were seams between interlocking hull plates. Dotted over the ring itself were additional facilities of varied and uncertain functions, ranging from a few hundred meters to the largest, which were more than a dozen kilometers across. Whatever the Wound had been doing, it had invested considerable resources into the construction and modification of this device.

It must be for a purpose, but what that was still escaped the greatest minds of the fleet. Yunl’ro might have been tempted to consider it a ringworld or arcology, home to a colony of renegade Broken, save that the Wound had never made use of a crew. ‘Flesh is weak’. It also appeared to be nearly inert; the only energy signatures that the fleet could detect were coming from the ships encircling it and the structures on its surface. If it was intended for habitation, it was clearly empty or abandoned. Or perhaps… merely not yet ready. The machine had come to Rally, it had drawn traitors and heretics into its service…

As the fleet drew closer, the remaining automatons fell back towards the structure, moving closer to it and the Crawler like a horde of frightened haké nestlings bustling to their mother. As her outriders completed the destruction of the remaining industrial facilities within the system, Yunl’ro ordered her fleet to hold position thirty million kilometers from the ring, just within range of their heaviest missiles. The Wound had killed entire fleets when they had proven too incautious; that was a mistake she would not replicate. Instead, she sent forward a cluster of scouts to probe the enemy’s defences and gauge their responses. “Now,” she said softly, answered her sigil leader’s oft-repeated, but unanswered question. “We shall see what our prey is hiding.”

~

The herald of Kanlie’s fall was not a barrage of missiles, nor a hail of mass rounds. It had nothing to do with external assault, but explosions still spalled through the docks, technical failures brought down vital primary and secondary systems and spree shooters attacked governmental and military facilities as saboteurs revealed themselves. They had been smuggled into the system over the last few months, using the information extracted from Tumetfi to sidestep, circumvent or fast-track their agents through security procedures and insert themselves into valuable positions. It was a hurried affair; two of the agents had already come to the attention of CIS, with an investigation launched to track down any potential security breach. The infiltrators would have been exposed shortly, but the Red Hand’s people hadn’t needed to stay undercover for long. Just until ‘something’ happened. They hadn’t known many details of the upcoming operation. A few agents had been given incomplete information; if they were caught, interrogated and their data put together by CIS, the results would be contradictory.

Now that the Red Hand fleet had arrived, their operatives put their contingencies into action.

Erikki Reniladaughter walked into a docking operations room wearing a suicide vest. Security tapes caught her saying ‘the fire rises!’ before she triggered the explosives.

Ar’epan smashed his supervisor’s head in with his tool kit and then cross-linked several power couplings, causing an overload in power distribution systems throughout part of a shipwomb.

Banil out of clutch Ovoran walked into the officers’ mess in his citadel’s barracks, drawing a pistol out from under his apron and began shooting.

Sebit San Seria murdered her fellow bridge officers, seizing control of the freighter Depending On and ramming it into the destroyer Yuneo Raon.

Riots, bombings and assassinations spread throughout the ships and stations orbit of Kanlie, more of them following as word spread deeper in-system as additional sleeper agents activated. More than a few of the incidents had nothing at all to do with the Red Hand, but came about as the disgruntled and oppressed seized their own opportunities. It was far from a widespread uprising and it would be quickly quashed… but the timing of events, far more than their effect, had been the goal. It was a distraction when the defenders could least afford it. The Red Hand understood asymmetric warfare better than most, honing their skill over half a century of guerilla combat. Now, they once again turned it in full force against the Compact.

Reeling and struggling to suppress the unexpected disorder in their ranks, Kanlie’s defenders were caught on the back foot when the Argosy struck at their defensive perimeter. Jirrico had no interest in taking his ships into the warren of moons, asteroids, rings and orbital infrastructure. Compact vessels were by nature and design, brawlers. The lighter Askanj warships could not match them ton for ton, and it was only in the most favourable or desperate circumstances that the Argosy would commit their vessels to a slugging match with the Space Force. Destroying Kanlie’s infrastructure could be accomplished without that and Jirrico’s initial plan was to obliterate everything around that world from extreme range, but few plans survived contact with the enemy – or even one’s own allies.

A series of messages passed between Eisheth and Exsanguinator. Several moments later, Wraith Fleet Severance shifted its attack stance, moving closer to the gas giant, though they still remained far from the hazards and ambush sites of its orbital paths. Hundreds of pirate raiders swept through the Askanj battle lines, bearing in on Kanlie. The Argosy fleet did not follow. Instead, they provided their allies with covering fire, defensive missiles racing to intercept anything launched against the Renegade forces, antiship missiles and attack drones hurling themselves forward to further divide the defenders’ attention and Argosy ECM platforms flew alongside the Red Hand warships to support their own jamming capabilities and disrupt hostile scopes.

Explosions dotted the starscape as the Compact defenders found themselves caught between the greater danger of the Argosy fleet and the imminent threat of the Red Hand. Targeting augurs shifted, flicking from target to target as local Command staff attempted to prioritize firing patterns. Missiles and railfire ripped through the Red Hand ranks, but the small, nimble vessels weaved and bobbed, making the latter reliant on as much luck as skill and the Argosy’s superior EW and defensive fire blunted the effectiveness of the former.

Bulling its way alongside its smaller comrades, Eisheth charged towards the defenders. Adrianna snapped out orders to her fleet and crew, the predator in her fully awake. There was a part of her that revelled in death; both dealing it out as a commander and – most especially – dispensing it with her own hand. She didn’t know if it had always been there, coiled inside her and waiting to be let out, or if her first act of murder had created it. Whatever the answer was, it was an inextricable part of her. At times she tried to control and suppress it, but she had long made peace with the fact that she was a killer, and one who took pleasure in what she did. On the day she died, she’d have to account for that. Until then…

Until then, I’m going to enjoy myself.

Surrounded by a fleet of her people, all – or at least most of them – united by the dream of freedom, of dislodging the Triarchs’ boot on their back, Adrianna smiled as she watched the distance between her forces and the Compact defence line dwindle. Orbital citadels had come to meet her. They varied in shape, from towering ziggurauts to impaled discs or bloated, heavily-armed monoliths, but they shared a commonality of purpose. They were like the castles of old, their screens and armour all but impenetrable, bedecked and bristling with weaponry, their reactors like chained stars pumping energy throughout their forms. Missiles slashed from their launch tubes in their hundreds like ballistae, their gun ports open and energy batteries waiting for her fleet to come closer. Few of her vessels could resist firepower of that magnitude, and those that could, couldn’t do so for long.

The distance between insurgents and defenders shrank, and with every passing second the weak ranging shots from the citadels and garrison fleet became more accurate and more damaging. A laser didn’t stop once it reached a certain point, but beam diffusion and targeting accuracy degraded the effectiveness of energy fire steadily. The Red Hand forces were flying into the teeth of the Compact’s defences, and their barrage was taking its toll.

Vow of Slaughter, a ship that had been with her for twenty years, burst like a melon with a firecracker within it.

Workers’ Voice would never again spur insurrection and rebellion among the downtrodden as it was torn into stripped atoms.

Strongest Hammer went dark as its port flank blew open, thrown into a brutal spin, inertial dampeners failing and its either crew reduced to wet smears on the bulkheads or killed in their seats.

Her ships were dying, not by ones and twos but by tens, entire squadrons wiped away with single salvos. Requests to break came in. She denied them. It wasn’t time. Adrianna heard voices reporting to her, responding with only a fraction of her attention. She didn’t need to look at the displays to see what was happening, her implants as effective as any of them. They couldn’t take this much longer. They could push through the defence line, but their casualties would be monstrous.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to. “Break…” Adrianna purred as her vessels crossed a threshold. “…now.” Six decades of war and a natural aptitude had made her as effective on the bridge of a starship as she was with blade and gun, perhaps even more so.

Holes in her formation appeared as her ships heeded her orders, slewing onto new courses as hard as they could, clawing for distance from the fortresses and the warships among them. For an instant, it looked like a desperate attempt to disengage, but one made too late. The defenders prepared to shoot down the breaking Red Hand ships like hunters with quail taking flight…

…and then dozens of new contacts appeared on their scopes.

From behind the Unbound ships and previously hidden in the wake of their sublight drives, came swarms of Argosy raiders. Short-ranged and just as fragile as the Red Hand vessels, they carried some of the most powerful ship-based weapons in known space: energy torpedoes. These were a modification of the Compact’s plasma torpedo designs, themselves similar to Nemesis’s plasma mortars, although the Compact’s weapons were the result of analogous technological evolution rather than an attempt at replicating the AI’s work. The Principality, however, had stolen copies of the Compact’s designs. The Compact strove to make their torpedoes longer-ranged, retain coherency for longer and potentially even track a target to some degree. The Argosy had gone in the opposite direction, trading range and stealth for hitting power. In the Argosy’s hands, energy torpedoes had become siege weapons in all but name.

Starships carrying energy torpedoes were prioritized for destruction by Space Force leaders, who had learned from bitter experience the havoc those ships could wreak. A destroyer could kill battlecruisers. A squadron of battlecruisers could destroy a Chariot. A charging energy torpedo launcher was almost instantly detectable through even the heaviest ECM and the most advanced stealth systems, the raw power of the weapons nearly impossible to conceal…

…unless you were using their engine wakes and bloody-minded assault of several hundred starships as cover.

Timing. If the insurgent fleet broke away too soon, the raiders would be exposed early and would take casualties, perhaps too many to have any real impact. Break too late, and the Red Hand fleet’s losses would be exponentially higher. This had been the perfect moment and Adrianna watched the outcome unfold, her blue eyes shining and her lips curled back in dark glee.

The Compact defence line collapsed. Screens flared to blinding, dying brilliance as salvo after salvo of torpedoes crashed against them, the ships and stations that they were meant to swept away as those defences collapsed. Citadels burned. Escorts turned to vapour. Heavy cruisers were seared into unrecognizable, molten ruins.

Raiders died, too. Many died before or after launching their torpedoes The battlecruiser Answer to Defiance managed to survive the barrage and its guns brought down four Argosy attack ships before it was overcome by a second wave. The citadels and ships positioned further back were untouched by the assault and their fire ripped through the regrouping attackers, but they were too few to effect the outcome and one by one, they were swarmed by the surviving raiders and Red Hand forces.

In less than an hour, Kanlie had fallen.

As the Argosy attack squadrons withdrew to their fleet, the Red Hand began the second phase of their plan. Support vessels moved in. Shuttles, landers, drop ships and more. There were hundreds of starships and countless millions of tons of cargo scattered throughout Kanlie’s now-helpless orbital infrastructure. Helpless… and ready for the plundering. Plunder which would not have been possible if the Argosy had simply bombarded Kanlie as Jirrico intended. You have a nation to resupply you, Leblanc had argued. I only have this.

Adrianna ordered her attack forces to return to open space, leaving behind her more piratical elements and their escorts to ransack and loot. As Eisheth turned away, explosions speckled along one of the shipyards. Scuttling charges. She’d be surprised if they managed to get even half of the bounty here, but what they couldn’t take, they would destroy. Jirrico had insisted that the Red Hand leave nothing usable behind. That had been an easy concession to make; Adrianna would have ordered it anyways. If we can’t have it, neither will you.

“One down,” she said as her fleet formed back up, setting course for their next target. She still had more than a thousand combat-effective vessels.. “Seven more to go.”

And only a thousand ships of theirs between us and the rest.

~

+you could say no+

+i know+

+you won’t, though+

+no. would you?+

+probably not… all right, definitely not. still. it’s a wrinkle we didn’t plan for, isn’t it?+

+yes, it is+

+so what are we going to do?+

We had that discussion weeks ago. The parameters and goals of Kursk have shifted. Sundial has moved too quickly, and Adrianna’s Twenty Pearls has gone into effect. In order to stop the former and aid the latter, I will have to change my plans. It will mean the loss of something I had been working on for many decades, but I am nothing if not adaptable.

My sister was right, though. I could have said no. I could have let Kursk play out as intended. That was the plan, and I spent a lot of time and resources towards that end. Even more than what I originally intended; my sister’s decoy required the expenditure of material I’d hoped to recover, but convincing the Compact that they’d killed her was worth the investment.

Her actions in Galhem-73 and coming up in Galhemna will prove that a lie. They’ll know she survived. They’ll know I tried to trick them and they’ll wonder if the rest of Kursk wasn’t a deception as well. They may accept it on its face; they’ve already destroyed much of what I spent so much time building. Those victories may convince them. Or they may not, in which case a lot of effort has been wasted. I suspect the latter, though. My enemy is many things, but stupid is not one of them.

Grace promised my aid to the Principality. They launched this operation based on that. Adrianna created Twenty Pearls because of the Principality’s mobilization, even if she intends a different operation than the one she told them about. All of that, like a house all built from up and relying on one keystone to stay standing.

I suppose I should be angry. I find I’m not. I will have to speak to Grace about this, though I’m confident that Adrianna has already done so.

Yes, I could have said no. This operation will cost me a lot in ordnance and repairs, so soon after I’ve been restored. I could leave now; the death of a Kaiju is a goal in and of itself. I won’t, though. A lot is going to change after this. The Red Hand and Principality will be known collaborators and my presence will cast everything into doubt on all sides. I keep running simulations, but even I don’t know what the outcome will be.

Sansbury might say ‘for want of a nail’; another of my original crew might have mentioned the butterfly effect. The words of a single, inexperienced human have led to all of this. It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Sixty years ago, a young, brash pirate leader marked the sites of her attacks with the mocking words of “Nemesis rises.” I learned of that and investigated; because I did, Adrianna Leblanc did not die on Unicorn Set.

Organics are small and short-lived, but the impact any of them can have is as wide-reaching as anything I’ve ever done. One small act, and the dominoes start falling – that’s definitely Sansbury – which is what I am hoping for with Galhemna. One star system is nothing to the Compact, but the chain of events such a… ‘small’ act can lead to can greater things, just like the draft from the butterfly’s wings can become a storm.

I do know that for the first time in my two millennia of existence, I can hurt my enemy as I never have before. I can shatter a lynchpin. The effects will ripple throughout the entire Compact in a way that none of my other assaults have. That is worth the failure of Kursk. I hope.

I could have said no. But by the same token, I couldn’t have.

I can feel Allyria pacing. She wants the battle to start. She’s been increasingly anxious since word of Twenty Pearls reached us. I understand why. I’m worried too. I have only two crew left and one of them is in in the middle of battle, aboard a ship that isn’t me or mine.

But I wait. My fleet and my sister wait with me. Our arrival has to be calculated to have the greatest impact. We can do a lot – more than ever before – but Galhemna is a fortress system. I spent myself entirely against Security Force Bavok, and Galhemna’s garrison is several times larger than the late Column Leader Prime’s command. Even with Hekate and my escorts, a frontal assault is suicide.

My Coyotes have been on rotating scout duty, providing frequent tactical updates. Currently, Sosruko is on point. Arámburu has gone with it. He wanted to see the deadtone songs for himself. So far, the Noble Fleet Lord and Adrianna have done well. They’ve taken Kanlie and are working their way further in-system, but I can already see what will happen to them. They are outnumbered and Galhemna knows what they’re facing. Razing one planet’s industry is a good start, but that’s all it is. The attackers have to strike deeper to have any real impact on Galhemna, and both sides know it.

If my sister and I show ourselves too early, the Compact will adjust their strategy. We’ll have surprise, but it won’t last long enough to overcome their advantages. We need to strike at the perfect time, to maximize the disorder our arrival will cause and the damage that we can do.

So I sit here, staring at the distant speck of light that is my target, watching and waiting as millions of soldiers wage war and the two most precious of them risk themselves.

Allyria continues to pace. I know how she feels, but this battle won’t be won if we rush into it, no matter how much we might want to. There is too much riding on it. I’ve lost Shuruppak. Kursk will no longer provide what I hoped it would. I will adapt, though. I always have.

As we wait for that moment to arrive, my sister draws closer. Her approach is cautious, even delicate for such a massive ship-self. She’s careful not to disturb the shoals of warp missiles sitting around me. They’re more fragile than standard missiles and rather more volatile. +how do you think it’s going?+

She doesn’t mean the battle in Galhemna. +hopefully well enough+

There’s a brief pause as she considers that. She feels partly responsible for the situation with Kursk; it was her analysis that brought the Compact to the Black Veil sooner than expected.

+do you think they’ll accept it?+

+possibly+ she’s not talking about Kursk either. Kibisis was always a bit of a gamble, but a necessary one. Despite how often I have been able to acquire knowledge from the Compact’s computers and the minds of its people, they have been able to keep more than a few secrets from me. Many of those are inconsequential. Several have been to my detriment. This could easily be one such situation. At the time, I felt the risk was worth it. Now… I’m less certain.

I’ll adapt, though.

Kursk may have failed, but I have a new plan. It’s called Vetala.

It’s going to be fun.

+show me again,+ I tell my sister, even as I speak with my anxious Verrish officer. +show me Juuchi Yosamu+

~

Brightest Night had left the outer system behind; Kanlie was less than a speck in the starfield, but it was not forgotten.

Wreckage choked the gas giant’s orbital neighbourhood. A bloody, vicious, grinding battle was raging throughout the region, from the drifting stations and vessels to the moon bases and colonies. Even though the bulk the attacking fleets had moved past the planet, the conflict continued. Occasional explosions flared amongst the corpses of starships and dockyards. Running battles spread throughout kilometers-long corridors, gantries and wombs as Red Hand boarding teams clashed with security and defence forces, neither side giving ground willingly. Some of the time, the attackers lost. Other times, starships would push themselves out of their cradles, accelerating through the field of ice, rock and wreckage to head out-system under the control of their new owners.

Any vessel deemed recoverable was slated for capture. Incomplete or crippled vessels were raided for supplies. Bloodsworn led the attacks on the remains of the Compact vessels and citadels, forcing their way through the defenders to secure cargo holds, computer cores, barracks or magazines long enough to be looted. Where and when they could, they attempted to seize stricken warships, but the odds were always long.

Even when they emerged victorious, they might not succeed. En route to Galhemna’s shock limit, the crew of the supertanker Fulsome Gatherer managed to take back control and attempted to ram a Red Hand support ship, forcing nearby insurgents to shoot down the transport with all aboard. The crew of the CSFWV Painted Arrow self-destructed rather than let their vessel be taken. CSFSV Underbridge Bearer suffered a similar fate as its surviving security forces launched an overwhelming assault on Main Engineering and overloaded the reactor, destroying the small fabricator vessel, its entire crew and the Red Hand assault teams. Several of the docks were scuttled, the unfinished starships within them consumed by a rolling wave of demolition charges.

Cavernous, skeletal feeder ships moved into the debris field; they looked like multi-armed horrors, but despite their appearance, their role was one of recovery: they collected stricken starships and the largest parts of them, interring the debris with their exposed ribs. Their efforts were largely focused on the Red Hand’s own casualties, but they would gladly add helpless pieces of Compact warships to their menu. Occasionally they would salvage Argosy vessels, although there was generally little left of them. The attack ships’ energy torpedoes gave them an arsenal as heavy as that of a capital warship, but their barriers were weak and their hulls fragile. Any killing shot tended to completely destroy them.

Rescue and medical shuttles flitted among the blue-green world’s moons and rings as they rushed to evacuate the injured and dying from radiation-seared, scarred wreckage to hospital ships and functional sickbays. The aftermath of the assault. Thousands already dead. Hundreds more would die or be permanently injured from this war. Crippled, limbs lost… blinded.

Grace closed her eyes. That thought struck too close to home for her. It reminded her of Allyria, her friend and lover light-years away. She missed her.

But maybe she’s closer than I think. The Red Hand had been analyzing recovered data from the ships they’d taken, sharing it with their erstwhile allies. Amongst all of that information had been Weight of Destiny’s departure. One of the Chariots was operational. That had sent a ripple of fear through the insurgent forces. None of their ships were close to a match for that monster and when it returned…

…but it hadn’t. It had already been two days since the Red Hand’s arrival. More than enough time for a message to reach Galhem-73 and a ship to return. There was no sign of it, though. As soon as they’d realized Weight of Destiny was functional, Adrianna and Jirrico had dispatched recon units of their own to the trinary system, but it would be at least a day before they returned. Until then, the same question raced through the Red Hand and Principality fleet alike: where is it?

Natuous was the obvious answer; it had responded to the capital system’s call for assistance, reducing the odds of Crusade Commander Nameless’s survival from ‘low’ to ‘abysmal’. Some wondered if hadn’t been lost in shockspace. While that was… possible, the odds of it were miniscule. Besides, our luck isn’t that good.

Grace had a different theory, though. She’d never voiced it, but she wagered Leblanc shared it. Red had known about this mission. There were very few things in this universe that could kill a Chariot and its escorts with no word of warning. A fully-repaired Nemesis, even without Hekate’s assistance, was one of them.

She’s here, Grace thought. I know she is. She was out there, she was coming and…

The young woman raised her head to main tactical plot. Her stomach dropped a few inches, bunching and turning cold inside her. I hope she gets here soon, though.

 

[walkir]

...Kursk is a failure?

I suppose I should be flattered, the Tribine thought venomously.

Click to shrink...

Tribune

Short-ranged and just fragile as the Red Hand vessels,

Click to shrink...

just as fragile

Sundial has moved too quickly, and Adrianna’s Twenty Pearls has gone into effect. In order to stop the latter and aid the former,

Click to shrink...

Stopping Leblanc and helping Sundial?

 

[Proximal Flame]

...Kursk is a failure?

Click to shrink...

It might well be; the goal was to convince the Compact that Nemesis was crippled and set back, so that she could sucker-punch them when they least expected it. If she's active (and running around with Hekate, who should have been "destroyed"), the Compact is going to question the validity of what they accomplished. As Red opines, Kursk might yet succeed, but its efficacy is called into question. If she'd hung Jirrico and Adrianna out to dry, then Kursk would almost certainly be a success... but also as she thinks, she couldn't do that. Besides, the possibility of taking out a lynchpin is something she's never had before. If the battle for Galhemna succeeds and if the dominoes start falling, then it would be a fair trade-off. If it actually is, though? I guess you'll have to wait and see.

Heh.

 

[Beyogi]

...Kursk is a failure?

Click to shrink...

No plan survives contact with the enemy. Or in this case contact with your allies.

 

[John Spangler]

Intetesting. For the Red Hand and the Principality, Kursk could be called a 'calculated failure'. For the Compact, it surely is kind of a Pyrrhic victory. Anyway, I hope Nemesis arrives soon and wreaks as much havoc as possible.

 

[aaronehead]

Do we know what nemesis was building in cemetary?

 

[MrHobbit]

Prox, you are a sadistic bastard.

At this rate 47.2 will just be the battle of Natuous! Wait...

Please no, don't do that.

and the lowest of the Compact’s helot races at that…

Click to shrink...

I am offended by this! To insinuate that the Broken are worse than the Mortificants?

For shame.

At least we got here before those Chariots came on-line.

Click to shrink...

Do you Askanj have no sense of Murphy! First there was Honeypot then there's this!

The young woman raised her head to main tactical plot. Her stomach dropped a few inches, bunching and turning cold inside her. I hope she gets here soon, though.

Click to shrink...

Oh, hello Shield of Civilization and Resolve of Tithrak, how do you do?

On another note, Prox, how large do you imagine that the UEC's population was at it's height? Would a hundred billion be far off?

 

[Devin]

So what was the plan with Kursk?

 

[Kirov-Class]

And now we wait for part two. Also this:

"A vetala is a revenant in Hindu mythology, usually defined as an evil spirit that has taken possession of a corpse at charnel grounds."

And Red was at Cemetery...

 

[Doctor Fluffy]

Vetala

Click to shrink...

So, it sounded familiar to me on account of being the SWOLEST shoulder armor in warframe, and I decided to google it.

"A vetala (Sanskrit: वेताल vetāla) is a revenant in Hindu mythology, usually defined as an evil spirit that has taken possession of a corpse at charnel grounds."

...What are you planning, dear Redness...