by Angel Bright
This is only part of the function of our matrix because it includes other tasks, such as the size and shape of our body and organs and the likeness and similarity of our parent species or the mother plant. To start this recovery program, energy is needed in an easily absorbable form with the oscillations inherent in the consuming organ. These oscillations can be measured and used to activate and accelerate the healing process. When the two ends of the fractures have the same frequencies, the energy connection between them is the first one to be restored. Providing extra energy speeds up the healing process, which is the growth of modified cell fibers on both sides of the affected place. However, the mechanism for ending the healing process is not established because it cannot continue after the disappearance of the cause to provoke this process. And, in fact, this growth of transformed cells on an enlarged scale isn’t a growth of a missing organ to the size of the matrix of the missing organ. This ability is inherent in every living creature and is regulated by our ephemeral matrix—a limiting and regulating organ.
We underwent training with my student mages at Moon University because they had the inborn ability to feel the balance of frequencies of the body and its organs and to determine the frequencies and the amount of energy needed to feed the problematic place.
If we had time in the future, we would expand the research. But for now, I knew with precision how to heal myself from severe damage. I began to pour the right energy into the broken places, and I suddenly had the idea how to make my bones much stronger and more flexible. Why had I waited until now?
I ordered the Earth cruisers to gather all surviving Horners in a cargo ship without engines and the destroyed black ships to be dragged to a place suitable for teleportation and waiting for orders.
I teleported Fearless in orbit around the planet Corba and concentrated on myself. I had to stay far from any place known to the Gods until I was able to defend myself again. I needed time to recover and reconstruct my skeleton.
26 Downstream
The holographic screens showed a lot activity in the space around Corba: round transport ships, tugs and pushers, shuttles carrying people and cargoes, and repair docks covered with the mandatory lights. Signal-flashing multicolored lights marked the locations of the slow-moving space stations and large planetary objects and warehouses, as well as the clusters of demolished warships. The management of all this chaos was possible only with the efforts of powerful and sophisticated computer clusters. All moving transport vehicles were under strict military control established on the planet and external control located along the periphery of the planetary system.
After Fearless arrived in the control orbit, an intensive exchange of information began. I was astonished to learn that armadas of large warships, owned by the Kerrani Federation, had left their battle posts in other star systems and were on their way to their home star.
I withdrew and deployed the growing military fleet under our command along that same periphery and placed it in several tactically advantageous combat positions. Precise mobilization plans were made to evacuate our managers, financiers, engineers, and specialists for whom muster and assembly points for rapid evacuation were identified and announced.
Our preparations did not go unnoticed by the population and the governments of the planet, especially when we withdrew all our staff from the planet to the orbital complexes.
In the early days of our appearance on the planet, there were clashes and mutual hostility and threats, but time and the joint work of the two races had erased them to a degree of cooperation. Now there was an atmosphere of expectation, suspicion, and mistrust hanging above the two groups. With the withdrawal of the Earth groups, the planet became quiet, and the cities and streets were deserted. They expected the punishment they were afraid of—an erasure. This rule was a law in their invasions of other star systems. Nothing would be left after them.
We completed the finishing touches on the big and small ships and withdrew all that was out to army battle posts. The newly built ships were with the standard local armaments and were among the first I teleported to the solar system for the retrofitting and mounting of Earth armaments, stealth systems, and additional energy reactions necessary for our powerful Scorpion-1NM. Fortunately, Nolen was a natural and talented organizer, and our withdrawal ended without any problems. With the arrival of the federation’s first warships, we began to gather our forces from the weakly protected sector of the planetary system of the Kerrani Federation. We began to disassemble our battle platforms and take off our protective weapons from the asteroid under the jealous eyes of the federal warships.
After the evacuation, we began checking for something overlooked. At that moment of last preparations for departure, we received a signal request for a visit of a delegation of the highest-level politicians from Corba. For this reception, we prepared a large hall in one of the restored military starships formerly owned by Corba. It was a challenge for us but offered familiar surroundings for them—a bitter pill for the ex-owners to swallow.
When the two sides were accommodated, the commander of the battle group of our starships, Admiral Prega, went in. He was authorized to accept the requests of the high-level delegation.
I was watching the meeting on the main holographic screen of the Fearless minifrigate. All deck fighters armed with Scorpion-1NMs were with pilots onboard in a high-level alert directly under the command of the chief command point located on the class B aircraft carrier, Gallvers. Even a few of the masked observation devices were activated and left in the planetary system for remote observation. All the big ships were given a command for a chaotic motion with intersecting courses around the stationary ship, where we listened to the delegation’s claims.
The delegation leader, who introduced himself as a Procurator, Sai Ga Agar, handed his representative papers to Admiral Prega and requested an audience with the supreme commander of the Earth squadron. This was denied under the pretext of urgent action in the Earth Federation. Requests from the Esteemed Delegation would be recorded and forwarded to the Earth Government, which was solely responsible for negotiating all matters. Procurator Agar was diplomatically placed in his role as a petitioner. He was experienced in diplomacy and immediately handed Admiral Prego a small disk with a message to the supreme Procurator of the Earth Federation, encrypted with a separate code written on a single disk with a single action. It revealed the shocking possibility of intent to negotiate and reach a military alliance between the Solar Federation and the Kerrani Federation as quickly as possible because of the intensification of relations between the Kerrani Federation and the Imperial Bronstraih. The Kerrani Federation’s battle fleet, numbering 1,223 warships, had left the Empire Allied Fleet and was assembling to protect the independence of their home federation, Kerrani. In the event of reaching alliance agreements with the Solar Federation, the same number of agreements would be reached with the Vega Federation, the Gebro Federation, and the Kostroni Federation, with a total military strength of more than one-third of the Imperial Navy.
It was an incredible offer.
There were no claims for losses sustained, possibly in view of counterclaims from Earth and the allied planet Prima Davos.
Amazing possibilities surfaced to obtain information on the composition and boundaries of the empire, the rules of obtaining orders, the interventions of the overlords, and the likelihood of finding their location, as well as an opportunity to bring them into the light by forcing them to act at least to preserve the status quo. I was also getting the opportunity to learn the status of these federations in the ranks of the empire and the scale of their betrayal.
But I did not know which side to take. All my future allies had already sworn allegiance at least once, and at least once they had overlooked their oaths and loyalty after the shaking of the empire’s central authority. It was possible that this way of organization—the empire, good or bad—was a way to bring order into this criminal bunch. I had nothing different to offer, and everything w
ould come back in the old, tried way with new players. There would be one hundred years of progress and a millennium of collapse again. I had to learn more about both sides: similarities and differences, aspirations, internal and external conflicts, and subversive millennial society trends. I needed to decide whom I was with and how to keep the order and protect civilizations from chaos.
I had unexpectedly given the beginning of this chaos with the struggle for survival of Earth.
The total defeat of four powerful, numerous, armed-to-the-teeth fleets that came in contact with a small-scale Earth squad designed for defense had given a deadly blow to the foundations of the empire. The empire’s most powerful partners had felt the imminent danger of losing their first ranks and made a turn to the emerging pretender with great chances of success.
They were withdrawing their numerous squadrons to preserve their weight in the emerging New Empire. The stronger union leader always occupied stronger command positions and gained significant initial advantages compared to the smaller and weaker ones, who were forced to play the roles of allies and regular workers in imperial force structures. They did the dirty work without knowing the true goals of the overlords. Their orders were always to send the fleets of the weaker ones to the opposite ends of the empire, with the idea of the weak ones being placed away from any claims—sort of annoying mercenaries without the right to vote and to be demonstratively punished with erasing as a lesson for others. That way, the strong federations became stronger and participated in governing, sometimes with a decisive vote.
These powerful federations were now offering me the tempting but deceptive morsel of their mighty fleets to use them but not to control them. This ostensible cooperation was equal to a threat.
I ordered Admiral Prega to send documents and records labeled “Very Urgent” to the government of the Earth Federation for making a prompt decision.
Time came to the fore.
Why this rush?
The empire’s forces were fragmented and demoralized. Fleets were being clustered and probably combined because the Kerrani Federation did not have such economic power even for the maintenance of such a fleet. So, the clustering of great forces and the speed of us making a decision were interrelated.
It was an obvious coercion. The warning message was, “Decide now when you are trapped in the empty and unprotected sector, and do it fast, because fleet maintenance is unbearable without the Imperial Treasury.”
We continued disassembly and freight operations in reverse order, unloading and installing the Scorpion-2 and mounting the sets of capacitors. We unloaded two orbital platforms on the surface of the asteroid. The chaotic motion of heavy ships allowed us to slowly scatter into a tactical formation with battle platforms in the gaps. We had trained for a situation like this but not in such a hopeless proportion of forces. We had twenty-three battleships, and eighteen were aircraft carriers. Eight of the carriers did not have their full complement of fighters. We had run out of time. All the heavy fighters, fifty on each of the other ten aircraft carriers, were equipped with the powerful Scorpion-2MK in a super-secret orbital plant with Earth specialists. I had teleported that plant first to an orbit around Titan, the satellite of Saturn. Still, we had some technological advantages, and they did not know about the stealth effect that we had developed lately or the imitation of ten times more heavy cruisers through the crystal campaign. If we could release all our fighters by the beginning of the battle, each of our warships and fighters would face 3.75 ships. On the other hand, it would be very important which fleet attacked first.
Who would lose first their arguments for the rankings in the New or Old Empire? Everyone knew the rules of the imperial game and strove to stay with more cards on the table. The entirety of this battle fleet would collapse after the first destroyed ships, and the faster the number of destroyed ships climbed, the sooner their conviction would disappear that they were doing something right and meaningful. That’s why their big number of battle units did not scare me. Almost all the group consisted of extras, not to mention cold-blooded murderers of billions of sapient beings, too.
I canceled the breakthrough and the escape and ordered another combat formation by my signal. According to our initial defensive plan, the formation was in the shape of a concave mirror with all fighters in the center. Whatever the offensive front, the attackers would gather in the center, and a wall of their own broken ships would grow before their eyes. Wrecks of warships, which in their minds were powerful, would be brought before them, and their only option would be to move forward among the devastation. Some would survive, and others would not. The avalanche would pass but would not return. It would be scattered in the cosmic emptiness and would bring with it the memory of the defeat.
But they also had their own plans. The time of their patience was ending. Our observation established the forming of eight battle groups and the release of a large number of fighters, which were staying close to their groupings. Three of the most numerous groups remained on the second line, as I had guessed. I switched to their common telecommunication channel on all screens.
“Go away! You will be losers in any case. If you win, you will have fewer ships to negotiate, and you will be even more insignificant. And if I win, what you would expect, considering you fought against me? I will reject you, and you will pay for raising a weapon against me. And my reliable friends will be those behind you who will remain strong and may even hit you back. Those who want to remain neutral should pull their battle fleets out of the Corba planetary system. The rest will be destroyed. I have commanded. Emperor Rhem!”
Minutes later, a total bustle and exchange of information on the ship channels happened. The chaos continued for hours until someone started taking control of this tense situation. The three big groups of battleships situated as a second echelon behind the battle lines of the federations’ alliance started spreading and encircling the five less numerous allies arranged into groups and allowed them to move only forward. A not-so-large squadron of large and powerful star cruisers separated from the central and most numerous group in the second echelon. It started moving forward to get in front of the navy of the rest of their allies and to take over the leadership of the attack against the center of our loose defense. The wait was over for them.
The pressure of waiting for a decision from the commander who had the right to make it changed to exhilaration from the risky attack. The ships were moving ahead against us, line after line. Our small numbers and the stealth systems—which helped make our fighters, orbital batteries, and the asteroid hard to find—created the impression of an easy victory against a wannabe provincial adversary who had proved to be groundlessly arrogant after the show of good will for negotiations. I myself started doubting my decision to show resilience against a huge imperial fleet and preferred a small skirmish rather than catastrophic defensive battles among the planets of the solar system against the same numerous enemy.
I had to start active action before we got to the shooting of the fighters in the center of our defense. In each of them sat a live Earth pilot alone against the rising tide of battleships.
I teleported Fearless far ahead of the center of our defense with all onboard lights illuminated and gave a warning blaster volley from all portside gun turrets to above the battle line of the enemy. The sensitive sensors of each battleship were capable of detecting blaster volleys and showing the beams’ trajectories. I launched four of Fearless’s combat-ready fighters and arranged them at close distances, with the possibility of quick return. On its own power, Fearless began withdrawing to move into the range of the asteroid-based Scorpion-1MK. The leading squadron of the Kerrani Federation Navy was aware of the capabilities of the Fearless minifrigate and remained in a compact group approaching us at a constant speed.
We reached the position selected for us, and Fearless slowly decreased its speed and stopped. We once again moved into our group formation, with a small navy ship with two pairs of tactical guards to the sid
es—a harmless patrol.
A report came from the asteroid.
“Position One ready!”
“To Position One,” Admiral Prega said. “You have an opening for two volleys with the main caliber. The target is marked on your screen. Dragons One, Two, and Three, take the targets shown on your screen. To all, fire at my command.”
Five lights lit up on the main screen in the Fearless command room, showing that the asteroid and the four fighters had received the order. At that moment, the cumulative light mine that had been left as a final warning in front of the bow of the closest cruiser lit up. The sharp bow of the attacking ship was bathed in red light.
It was a sinister omen.
In the tense silence, the decreasing figures of the distance between the opposing ships were moving on the screen. I was sensing the impulses when the maneuvering engines would turn on and create uneven lateral sliding along the hull of Fearless.
Tactical maneuvers complicated the aiming of the enemy’s heavy gun turrets at the essential sectors of the small battleship. The airtight bulkheads dividing the internal corridors and workrooms into autonomous sectors fell into their places. The space suits of the operative officers would automatically lock into the back of their chairs in the event of explosive depressurization of their sector. Fearless had never received a direct beam hit on its hull. I trusted our protective fields, but I was also sending ahead a protective shield to reflect the first attack. For the first time, we were waiting to be shot at so we could hit the attacker.