Fox nearly called it a floating city, but the term would quickly lose meaning. A flying metropolis greeted their eyes, comprised of thousands of individual vessels storming in nearly every direction around a few gargantuan central structures. Multiple lines of the Patriot battleships, in various stages of construction, were mounted on platforms.
“I WAS wondering where something like this would be constructed. I should have guessed.”
The commander scanned the immense scene unfolding before them. “If they built fifty thousand of these things, I bet this is still only the tip of the iceberg,” Grant said as he rolled back to his feet, instantly feeling the pounding sensation in his head dissipate. “That’s actually not a bad rack.” He remarked and led the way back to the main door to meet their alien host once more.
The eyes of the other men were bright, despite rising only a minute earlier. The engineer had the look about him that he was again ready to badger their guide with questions.
“Where to next?” Grant asked the Emissary.
We’ll be going to the command deck to give you the rest of the indoctrination to the fleet. We have everyone, yes? the Emissary asked, looking among his followers. Follow me.
They took the same lift back down, but this time it stopped only a few floors below. Here, the floors of the landing almost shimmered like marble, stretching outward to a wide control facility. Clusters of stations were spread out around a small core at the center, overlooking a glass wall that would have easily dwarfed a city block.
As they got closer, Fox could tell the floor stopped short of the front screen. It didn’t take much imagination to know multiple similar floors were most likely stacked below this one. Looking out from the deck, he spied the top of the battleship stretch out and hold up two towering deck cannons on each side of the primary gun.
Only a few meters away, Omega was waiting for them. Between his deep blue armor and impressive height, he stood out from the multitude of aliens scattered between the various stations.
Gentlemen, welcome to our home world, the alien stated and pointed toward a small blue orb, far off in the distance ahead of them. Although we now have multitudes of other colonies that have surpassed it in size and stature, it holds a special place of honor for us, mostly for ceremonial purposes. He gazed off with a hint of nostalgia before coming back to task. Far more importantly, however, we have an update on the situation plaguing your Earth. The Cygnan staging areas have been located.
Fox responded first. “What do they have?”
They have constructed small operational bases in three far-flung asteroid fields across a galactic arm from you. They took great precautions to avoid detection but not good enough to evade us.
“That was fast. Yesterday you barely knew where our planet was located,” the commander remarked.
Rightly so, but we have more capabilities than you know.
“How’d you do it?” Scott asked.
We deployed sensor suites to your world as soon as we had a rough position for you. Once there, we detected a few extra-solar sources of radiation which were narrowed to three probable sites along with your various outposts. Once they had vectors, the sensor packages jumped to the Cygnan bases, took passive readings and jumped out again.
Omega looked over to a wide platform behind the command station. The base glowed and three separate images appeared. As the alien had described, they each showed a fragmented asteroid with a tall spire-like landing platform that looked to be a cross between a dock and a skyscraper, each surrounded by docked ships.
Grant scanned across the pictures. Although grainy, the resolution was enough to make out small divisions in the structure and differentiate one ship from another. “There, on the center one,” he pointed. “Half of those are Aquillian ships. The rest look like what chased us off Mars into deep space.”
Fox sighed, staring closer. “How many more times do we have to exterminate those gaddamn things?”
“They can’t have much left unless we missed another system,” Kael added, “I wonder if they’re just being kept as advisors. They’d definitely have more information on us than the rest of the Cygnans.”
The Cygnans are without mercy. If they are keeping your previous enemies at port, it is highly likely to be against their will.
“How would their armaments fare against a Patriot?
Last time we met in battle, one of our battleships was a coterminous match against six to eight of their main cruisers. I count numbers higher than that, but I think your six ships in series could stop them.
“Forty-plus ships at each station. That’ll take some luck.”
Not only that, but remember we must ensure complete destruction of each location. There can be no survivors and no way to trace the attack back to us, lest we hasten your home’s siege.
“Would they really turn and run?” Grant asked.
It’s possible. If they detect an overwhelming force, they might break lock from the start although, it would be far less likely if we were to engage them first.
“What if we sent our ship?”
Omega stared back at the commander. Your ship would likely not survive a direct engagement by itself. Additionally you’d give up a large force advantage in swapping a Patriot for the Flagstaff. I don’t even know if it’d be able to make the journey.
“I understand that, I just want to know if it’s possible. If we brought it in first, got the first shot and ran, could we throw them off enough to keep them from fleeing?”
That much is likely. If you dropped it in range, they’d surely return fire. If you are able to surprise them with the arrival our ships, it is unknown what they would attempt.
“I’m willing to explore this,” Grant declared. “Can you get the Flagstaff and the rest of the crew here?”
Absolutely. They’ve already been sent for.
“How long will they need to get trained up on the Patriots?
Only a few days’ time. Their preexisting affluence along with our accelerated training program will facilitate their rise to proficiency in very short order.
“We need to parse out the crews,” Fox noted. “I’ll have to break up the command staff but perhaps between the two of us and the shift supervisors we can find enough to keep order.”
Grant nodded. “Mr. Ryan,” he pointed at Scott, “we’ll need your expertise to figure out how to jump the Flagstaff this kind of distance.”
“Sure thing.” Scott nodded while his mind raced through the task. He had considered what the scribes had already told him about the Lyrans’ technology development, but it was still at the elementary level. He barely understood their concept of mathematics, much less that of intergalactic travel. From what they had mentioned, their civilizations used some similar properties to navigate space so the Flagstaff might have a chance.
“Where is the closest armory?” Kael asked Omega. “Do you keep anything anymore?”
It’s the next floor down. We have several spread throughout every ship.
“I’d like to get our ground forces at least familiar with your equipment before we commit to this.”
“Good thinking. There’s no telling how long our supplies will hold out,” Fox concurred.
“And I don’t want to risk being S.O.L. on this ship when we get dragged into a firefight.”
7
Kael and Mason broke off from the group first to take a walk through the bridge’s weapons vault. From what the Emissary had described, they had a variety of roughly familiar projectile infantry weapons. Whether they’d be usable by their hands remained to be seen, but Kael was relieved that a species which called themselves pacifists armed up for the occasion.
“It’d probably be safer to see if they could produce ZiG mags,” Mason offered.
Major Kael kept his eyes straight ahead. “Agreed, but I’m not closing the doors on any options. We don’t have nearly enough to cover half a dozen ships on the move like this. If they decide to send landing parties, we’ll have to adjust once enga
ged and set up defenses wherever they hit. We run the risk of getting cut off, but I don’t see another way around it.”
The major stopped, squeezed his eyes shut in a forced blink and stretched his neck to each side.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been having pounding effing headaches all damn day.”
“Will you be alright?”
“I think so. It’s not that bad,” Kael shook it off. “Just annoying. I hope those aliens digging around in our heads didn’t screw mine up.”
“Hope not. Anything else sore from their surgery?”
“Not really after the initial adjustment,” the major reported. “There’s some general discomfort, but I feel stronger than I have in a long while. How about you?” The major blinked hard again and kept moving.
“About the same, sir. I’m glad the joint throbbing dropped off since we got up. That was unbearable.”
Their guide stopped again before a thick vault door. This is the command deck armory. Each level has several that are outfitted identically. They’re spread out to facilitate an adaptive response to boarding.
With a growing hum, the door shifted and slid into the wall to the right. To Mason, it almost looked out of place since he hadn’t seen a similar physical object since leaving their ship. For whatever reason, the armored facility must have been either more secure or somehow preferable to the evaporative obstructions they’d encountered before.
The room resembled a bleached clean warehouse, with polished racks of strange objects. The weapons were in stark contrast to their surroundings; each was matte black with swirls of gray camouflaged etching along their surfaces. Kael picked up one of the longer contraptions, bulky and covered with control panels. “Maybe we should find something that can fit two hands.”
Their guide took a step backward as another crew member approached. This one was clearly taller and wearing thicker armor which was painted with dark swirls to match the weapons.
If that is your objective, you should start over here, the alien advised and gestured with his two right hands to the next rack over.
“You have something we could find familiar?”
Perhaps, the alien stated and removed three smaller, streamlined rifles from the case. These are direct line-of-sight infantry weapons. We aim and operate them with two hands and use the others for reloading and servicing, he explained and handed two of them over before demonstrating the operation with the last.
Kael and Mason mirrored the position, aiming off to the far walls and trying to get a feel for the devices’ construction. They were larger than the standard-issue ZiG but felt far lighter. Without asking further, the major guessed the case was milled from a titanium derivative.
“What does it shoot?”
We have not done any development on projectiles in a very long time; I’m sure you can understand. For the fleet we have loaded up with both solid rounds and an explosive charge that fragments inside of the victim. The alien retrieved two tiny bits of metal from a box on the shelf.
Mason’s first thought was that they were insignificant. Barely two centimeters long and scarcely thicker than a pencil lead; they hardly looked like a threat to a target his size. “That’s it?”
Not what you expected? the armorer dropped them back in their container. They’ll surprise you. The power plant and onboard accelerator can smoothly push them with little recoil to very high speeds. A body shot is incapacitating, if not fatal. A hit on an extremity at the very least necessitates amputation.
Kael continued to look the device over. What appeared to be the main barrel was situated lower than in a ZiG, near the center of his hand, with the power cell and sight raised above. He shouldered it again and stared down the top rail. “I think we could get used to something like this, but I wouldn’t want to give up on something I trust quite yet. Do you have anything bigger we could handle?”
Absolutely. Back here.
Mason and Kael set the rifles aside and followed the alien farther back into the room. “How do the Cygnans fight?”
You mean do they fight as you do? On the ground?
“Yes. We saw them use soldiers to attack our facilities. Is that the norm?”
They’d rather use area-effect weapons and obliterate planets from orbit, but they will use individual soldiers if the situation demands. They keep great numbers onboard their ships as to make a direct assault near suicide. If in a battle in orbit, they will deploy smaller teams to board enemy vessels and either do massive damage or attempt to take them over.
“If they’d rather nuke a ship that would seem inefficient. Why would they try something like that?”
For terror, pure and simple. They are far more advanced yet far simpler than that. The Cygnans are the spawn of pure evil and they know it. They embrace it. They live to be brutal and to see their victims tremble and scatter before them. In our brief opening conflict when we first discovered them, they never surrendered, never retreated, never gave ground and always fought to the last. Capturing one alive was a fool’s errand.
“And yet they broke and left you alone all this time?”
Yes. Very quickly they regrouped and disappeared into deep space. Since our rebirth, we have kept watch on them, but as The Omega told you, we have not raised arms since, lest our damnation.
***
Somehow the aliens had recovered the complete schematic of the Flagstaff. Several hundred meters below the command deck, deep in the body of the Patriot, Scott Ryan looked across a complex set of drawings and models of their ship’s propulsion system. He had seen similar studies before, but not at this scale and definitely not presented in such an overwhelming manner. It also didn’t help that the last ship he had worked on could have fit within the battleship’s fuel cell.
Four other alien engineers were with him, obviously ones who had intently studied his race’s technology since they arrived. The team undoubtedly had their own questions for him, to fill in the blanks more or less, and fired them off as fast as Scott could respond with his own. At some level, it was comforting to be with these creatures that shared the same fascination with the humans that he had of the Lyrans.
He attempted to describe their ship’s processing of interstellar coordinates in simple language that they would be able to translate, only to have them nearly complete his sentences. It was comforting, he decided, that the concept was similar between their species, if not being separated by a few thousand years of development and refinement.
I think this is extremely promising, the lead one told Scott. We’ll need to do some reprogramming to get your system to understand the cross-cluster distance, but if we change out the algorithms and a few sensors, we can probably make it work, especially if we run it through a gate.
Scott circled a half-dozen small sensors around the body of the ship. “These are the packages you’d need to look at. They line the ship up for the jump and make course corrections on the way. Right now they can drift a good fifteen to twenty percent.”
That will be insufficient. We have a few boxes that go into the Patriots we could utilize. At that point it just becomes an interface problem.
Was he really having this discussion? Talking to a creature that looked like it could tear him apart with its hands about how to retrofit its technology onto a Space Corps battleship? It had been quite the excursion already, but now Scott was coming into his own.
He explained all he could about the way the electronics connected together between the radiofrequency and optical lines before focusing again on how the engines drove the ship to a roughly-calculated destination.
“How long have we been here? That you’ve been able to learn about us?” he finally asked.
You mean how long ago did your ship arrive? the lead engineer asked and glanced between the others. Their voices cut in, grating, slow and mechanical, as if they were struggling to express a specific concept of time.
You’d call it approximately fifty-two days.
&nb
sp; The number seemed high, not so much from the amount of work Scott knew was completed but for how urgent he was sure it was for them to get back to the real battle. He zoomed out on the picture of a Patriot battleship and scanned to the main weapon at the nose. “Can you tell me about the cannon?”
The primary weapon of the Patriot class battleship is the Vaporizer cannon. The Vaporizer uses a sophisticated launcher to shoot a hardened projectile bigger than a transport shuttle. It is pinpoint accurate, but due to the relativistic speeds, active course correction is not possible.
“Does that mean the range is only limited by how far you can judge motion?”
Yes. We can track a target across the system without a problem, but if it’s actively moving we can only guess at its future position. Planets and asteroids are easy enough to hit at any range.
“So it’s effective?” Scott said it more as a statement.
Absolutely. We needed a way to apply direct fire at a very long range, with a fraction of the delay and collateral damage as nuclear-effect devices.
8
“I’ve acted on worse ideas,” Grant confirmed, watching the map before him trace a series of routes around a notional battlefield.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Fox gave his fellow commander one more jab as he scanned across the plot once more. “Of course, it’s not like I can think of anything better.”
“There’s no need to be that way. What would Admiral Heddings do differently?” Grant asked, referencing the retired grandfather of interstellar warfare.
Fox considered the question. Although his first instinct was that Grant was attempting to back him into a corner, he went with it. “He wouldn’t think highly of using inexperienced forces against a numerically superior enemy that lives for death in the glory of battle.”
“You wouldn’t trust the abilities of your own men?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. We’re talking about giving our forces a forty-hour crash course in operating an alien-gaddamn-battleship! I don’t doubt their abilities, but I’ve had to sit through meetings and hear complaints about changes to user interfaces during system upgrades.”
MissionSRX: Deep Unknown Page 8