The nanofibers had a “stealthy” property to them, and since they were programmable, it was decided to coat the exterior of the warships in a thin layer of the stuff. When the stealth was inactive, the ship would have the same profile on other ships sensors as it would otherwise. But when the nanofibers were activated, they would fool even active sensors, unless the enemy knew just where to look. Not enough of it was added to the exterior to reinforce it, as they still had to be judicious with the difficult to manufacture the material.
Nanofibers were also incorporated into the new unmanned fighters, piloted only by AI, allowing these machines to take significantly more damage than otherwise and still fight or return to the ship, improving losses due to attrition. It didn’t hurt that the exterior would be coated with the stuff as well, making them harder to detect.
Another application was the ACUs. This improvement allowed them to be hardened and somewhat self-repairable. Marine armor was also reinforced with it as well, along with their Powered Armor Units or PAUs. During battles in a vacuum, minor damage to a suit could mean a quick death. While most of these were self-sealing to a degree, the nanofibers improved this substantially. Additionally, it had laser-resistant properties, as such adding a thin coat to the exterior of the armor made sense.
But Jackie’s favorite application was the military uniform. Already, the new uniforms doubled as a vac-suit, except the helmet, which still needed to be donned manually by the individual. Nanofibers were used to construct almost the entire outfit. It meant everyone was wearing a version of light armor that offered decent protection in case of decompression or light weapons fire. She felt good knowing the average soldier had greatly improved protection just by simply wearing their uniform.
“This would have come in handy during the Battle of Wellington,” Jackie reflected aloud.
“Indeed, it would have saved many lives,” Rice said.
The captain gave them a tour of engineering, medical, the bridge, and the CIC.
“I know one of your concerns was how the CIC was employed, High Queen.”
Being from the Westerly Federation, Jackie was used to the lazy attitudes in the fleet regarding the need for a backup bridge. She considered it a dangerous position as a warship could be struck anytime and anywhere, and to disable the ship merely by taking out one room labeled “bridge” seemed to denote a bad strategy.
“Oh, do tell, Captain,” she answered.
“In the Reslorian navy, the use of the CIC was always considered of paramount importance. Indeed, in all the simulations we’ve trained on, it was standard practice to have the XO and an alternate bridge staff there during a Condition One situation.”
Condition One always meant combat operations were imminent.
“That is good to hear. I would not want any of our good captains to lose their ships over preventable situations, thereby aiding the enemy.”
At the end of the tour, a dinner was prepared in the captain’s mess.
“Captain, I am truly impressed with your ship!” Jackie said.
“Thank you! We hoped you would be pleased.”
“Having served on the WFS Nemesis, I will say this ship puts her to shame. Also, having been on the HMS Bojovník, and being familiar with its specs, this would give the dreadnought a serious run for its money.”
“Let us hope that scenario would never play out!” the captain quipped with a laugh.
Chapter 4
The Verulamium System, Reslorian Space
Planet Avalon
Pari, what is so different about the ACUs for the Queen’s Guard?
<>
Don’t get smart with me. They’re not exactly the same, there’s that dark red shoulder panel. But stop evading! What is it that is different about them?
<>
Okay, consider me surprised. Now out with it.
<
Okay, they can add and subtract, but what does that mean?
<
Pari! I don’t want sentient robots created to be disposable killing machines!
<
She sighed. She knew he had her.
<
You mean like develop a friendship or something?
<
And how is this desirable for my guard?
<
What? That’s crazy! That can’t be true!
<
If they’re so grand, why didn’t you augment more of the crew with them?
<
I’ll be truthful; they scare me.
<
##
It was calm that night, as Jackie surveyed the area surrounding their hideout. She had her husband, her children and the servants of the Askirti household well hidden in a building one block northeast of her position while she had “errands” to run.
Her Askirti gifts allowed her to skulk around with far less likely hood of detection. As she could actively emit anti-sound, she could move about without fear the enemy would hear her. Matched with her unique ability to absorb visible light for a few seconds at a time, she could move around almost with impunity.
She needed to retrieve some information that could help the resistance, but first, she had to cross Orlando’s killing fields. There was no way around it, crawling through the fields of the dead. Some laying there were killed for sport, others for convenience, the rest were just ordered to be “made dead.” Not wanting to waste energy charges on their carbines, the enemy used their field knives to slit the throats of thousands just a few days prior. Jackie wanted to throw up at the sites and the smells, the stench of death, which was exceptionally pungent here.
As she made it to the other side of the fields under cover of night, she saw objects in the trees. Looking closer at one nearby, she realized in horror at what she was seeing.
Children, they hung them by their necks…there are thousands of them!
They were not here a few days ago, but now trees of all sizes were filled with sometimes dozens of children per tree.
Immediately, she vomited. She thought she had seen everything at this point, but each trip found some new atrocity.
The list of horrors never seemed to cease. There was a large ravine close by which contained the dead and the dying. It seemed to gratify the enemy to mortally wound these, not granting them a quick death. Many thousands were laying here and the groaning was heart-breaking.
The scene changed very quickly as the atrocities seemed to be occurring in more places than she first thought. Suddenly she had an awareness she was on Copus Prime, watching the wholesale slaughter of thousands of unarmed civilians, murdered for the pleasure of the few. They were being mowed down with heavy weapons while the enemy soldiers appeared drunk, laughing and howling at the fun they were having.
Now she was in Wellington, as schoolyards full of children were bombed with incendiary devices, cooking them to death on the playground. She could feel the heat from the bombs, and the screams of the children were
deafening.
The scene then changed to Avalon, to her new home in the countryside. The open pastures near her home host now to many thousands of crosses with people nailed to them, some crying out for mercy, others crying out for death.
##
Rick woke out of a dead sleep as he heard the most blood-curdling scream coming from across the hallway. He grabbed his gun and ran out of his suite as fast as he could. He heard the cry again as a shrieking sound and it was coming from Jackie’s room.
Oh God, no! He thought, assuming they were under attack.
He wasted no time rushing into her room to find her drenched in sweat and her eyes were panic ridden. He had never seen her so scared. He went over to her to comfort her, but she jumped off the bed and started nervously opening drawers looking for something.
“I need to make it stop! I need to make it stop!” she screamed at him.
“Jackie!” Rick said.
She was shaking so hard as she kept pulling the room apart looking for her drugs.
“Help me! I’ve got to find it! I have to make it stop!” she said in an outright panic.
“Look at me!” Rick shouted.
He ran over to her side, her eyes were wild and completely terrified. In a move he knew was dangerous, he took his hand and slapped her across the face. Not with his full strength, but definitely enough to get her attention.
Despite her small size, under a meter and a half, her physical strength was immense, thanks to the Askirti gift she possessed. Her eyes drew to him in anger and she hit him in the center of his chest, knocking him off his feet. In an instant, her eyes began glowing bright green, along with her veins across her skin. Her hair started flowing unnaturally, and a white fire began flowing over her as she stepped towards him. Her gift was in full swing, and no known power could stop her.
The nanites infused in her body by the ancient Homem structure she had visited on Wellington had given her an incomprehensible power limited only by the amount of power in the Sevinc nodes underneath the planetary crust, ancient energy platforms that she could draw upon and decimate entire battle fleets. And Rick was alone with her and just succeeded in pissing her off.
He stood back up, “Jackie, listen to me. Hear me. You are not yourself, come back to me.”
He then heard the sound of many voices coming from everywhere at once.
“You would strike me!”
“Jackie! It’s me! It’s me, Rick! Look at me!”
After only a moment, a look of shock and recognition went across her face, the fire went away, and the rest of her appearance returned to normal. She turned away from him in shame and began sobbing.
“It’s okay,” he said, walking over to her. He took her in his arms, and she fell into him. He picked her up, and walked over to the couch and sat there with her on his lap.
“Talk to me,” he gently said.
Once she could gather herself, she murmured, “I saw Orlando. Sometimes it’s all I can dream of. The drugs, they help me not to dream. Pari has been working with me on reducing the frequency of the dreams so I won’t need the drugs, and it’s working. Tonight, it didn’t.”
Looking into his eyes, she very sorrowfully said: “Rick, I promise you I haven’t touched the stuff since we left Loyola Sentra.”
“I know,” he answered. “I believe you.”
“And I’m so sorry for almost…you know…” she said while looking away, referencing the demonstration of power, all the while feeling as deeply ashamed as she possibly could.
“But you didn’t,” he said slowly, and quietly. In his heart, he knew his life was hers, and would always be so. He just hoped she would not be the one to end it.
On his lap was a woman who could pull the flesh off his body as easily as blinking her eyes. But that was not what he saw looking at her. He saw a broken woman, someone he loved and for whom he would do anything.
“While I’ve had bad dreams since coming here, they have been infrequent, and not as intense as in the past. But just now,” she trailed off, looking away again with a look of anguish on her face, her voice shaking. “Just now, I was back there. Henry and the children needed me. The dead and dying were everywhere. But it wasn’t just there.” She was looking down now as if trying to figure out how to say what happened next.
“It was everywhere,” she finally said, meeting his eyes. “It was on Copus, Wellington, and here. I don’t think it was a dream, Rick, I believe it was a vision of things to come. No place is truly safe.”
“Then we will make it safe, and stand up and fight. I do not take what you saw as an absolute,” Rick gently said, “I take it as a warning. It is a possible future, one we will not allow to happen.” He just held her in his arms, stroking her hair until she finally went back to sleep.
##
A month later, Jackie and Rick returned to orbit in her brand-new personal shuttle. She let her objections be known, thought the luxury was wasted on her. She was so used to military transport, but this, this was a spa that pretended to be a shuttle.
“Call it your pinnace,” Rick said with a smirk.
That would be closer to the truth, as it was not just a mere shuttle, but had FTL capabilities and could summon the Gate to move from system to system if need be. And it was hers.
Once in orbit, they spotted the ship they were on before, the battleship ARNS Hehewuti, an impressive ship by any measure. Three of her sister ships were also there, all Warrior-class battleships with all their escorts.
In the center of the formation was what they came here to see: one recently delivered Judgement-class dreadnought, the ARNS Hania. This massive beast was six kilometers long and modernized in every way. Like the battleships, this was based on an old Westerly hull design and was much smaller than a modern dreadnought. But with the technology upgrades, it would outclass them all. Despite predating the second dynasty wars, the Hania could now take on and defeat any known warship in a head-to-head contest of wills.
The fleet was a partial fleet, not even half of what the Commonwealth had promised, not that she was complaining, as these were all state of the art, a new state of the art, and contained most all of the advancements developed in conjunction with Pari.
The Commonwealth and the Reslorians were working feverishly to update all their ships, and to expand their respective navies. The full complement of Jackie’s ships were not yet due for delivery, that would be another few months away. Thus far, the schedule proved accurate. With this task force, she could again start pursuing pirates, where ever they might be found.
Once she had her entire first fleet, she could go head to head with the likes of the Zikars, though she hoped it would never come to that.
Docking on the Hania took her breath away. The hangar was so expansive, and filled to the gills with the new Bolzen fighters, first in their class. These were flown by AI’s and were much smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than anything a human could fly in. They resembled black triangles, having enough aerodynamics to fly in the atmosphere if need be.
For now, this ship would be her flagship, her symbol of power, and a mighty one it was.
Past the color guard were the people who she was most anxious to meet.
“High Queen, welcome on board!”
Though Jackie was the leader of the new coalition, she also knew she needed someone to lead her fleets besides her. She would still be directly involved, but getting Alice Reynolds to come out of retirement had been a huge win for her.
“Thank you, Commodore Reynolds and Captain Papadopoulos. It is a pleasure to meet the two of you face to face instead of yet another virtual conference! And you two know Colonel Amori?” Jackie gestured towards Rick.
“Hello, Colonel, welcome on board!” Captain Papadopoulos said.
“Thank you!”
John Papadopoulos was also retired Reslorian navy personal, having come out of retirement to serve in the Askirti Royal Navy. With the anti-aging treatments available to all military personnel, neithe
r John nor Alice looked over thirty years old, though Jackie knew from their files they were both over eighty. Alice was a tall brunette with olive skin while John had black hair, muscular build, and light brown skin.
Touring the Hania was much the same as touring the Hehewuti, only grander. It still amazed Jackie to see the quality of workmanship that went into the refit. Everything looked, felt, and performed as brand-new. The biggest difference was a presence of a hangar, and what lay within: the newest, deadliest fighters anywhere. The AI-powered Bolzen fighters were so different than anything anyone used, and these were about to be the standard for the Commonwealth and Resloria.
They sat on small, movable racks that were five high and five across in a diagonal fashion. Using racks allowed these to be mounted to the new catapult system in less than a minute for an imminent launch. With all the many catapults, launching the entire complement of two thousand fighters took just ten minutes, an astounding number being as it still took almost twenty minutes for a battlecarrier such as the WFS Nemesis to launch less than two hundred fighters. This ship was a game changer.
##
They all ate in the captain’s mess; the food was buffet style delicacies from across Reslorian space.
“An excellent meal, my compliments to the chef,” Jackie said.
“I will be sure to let him know you approve. He is an old friend of mine, having come out of retirement because I begged him,” John Papadopoulos said with a grin.
“If I may be so bold, why did you come out of retirement?” she asked.
“Same reason as Alice here. We’ve known each other and been friends for many years. By the way, she rebukes me for using ranked titles while in private.”
“Ha, and the same applies here, I must insist. None of this ‘High Queen’ stuff, the name’s Jackie!” she replied to two wide-eyed officers. Rick just laughed.
When thinking of Jackie, most people still had images in their heads of the video from the Battle of Wellington, and the utter destruction this one woman had wrought.
Rumors of Wars: The Askirti Chronicles - Book 2 Page 4