“Against this target? What were they thinking?” The Captain asked, completely shocked.
“That the fleet is expendable,” the Admiral replied.
“Sir, forgive my ignorance, but is this one ship really such a threat?” Ashlyn asked, confused as to why her two senior officers were talking as if this target was somehow a threat to the whole fleet.
“Tell me commander, how’s your military history?” The Admiral asked out of the blue.
“Reasonably good, depending on how far back you wish to go. Any particular event Sir?” Ashlyn asked.
“The Second Fleet Massacre,” the Admiral said.
“According to the records of the day, almost the entirety of the Second Fleet was decimated by an unknown enemy approximately 94 years ago. One destroyer and three frigates managed to survive the encounter, albeit all having sustained severe damage. All other details are classified above my clearance level sir,” Ashlyn reported.
“That is the official story. But all high ranking members of the military and congress know there was nothing unknown about the enemy. It was that ship,” the Admiral said as he pointed at the Zenith.
“Sir, with all due respect, that was almost 100 years ago. Our military technology has progressed considerably in that time. And when it comes to fleet engagements the First Forward Fleet is the best there is,” Ashlyn said.
“There are two problems with your rationale. The first is that the enemy has also had almost 100 years to upgrade their capabilities, so their current strength is a complete unknown. And the second is that you seem to be assuming our fleet was lost in combat with an enemy fleet, and that’s not the case. It was lost to just one of those monsters,” the Admiral explained.
Ashlyn was dumbstruck by the revelation, her mind refusing to believe that it could be possible for a single ship to cause so much damage.
The target before her certainly looked like an imposing beast. But to survive such a battle it would need more than extreme fire-power, it would also need to be nimble enough to avoid the return fire from the fleet or to have sufficient armour to soak up the damage. But the target did not seem to be particularly manoeuvrable, and it had a number of easily exploitable structural weaknesses.
Ashlyn was still analysing the situation when her ear piece communicator alerted her to the most recent development in the area.
“Captain, the recovery ship is back on board. They report that the escape pod contained a single passenger, it…” Ashlyn paused as she processed what she was hearing. “…it appears to be the S.I.S operative sir.”
“Appears to be?” The Admiral asked.
“The recovery crew had to run his genetic profile through the computer to confirm his identity. The operative seems to have a severe case of amnesia. He is apparently incapable of remembering any details from before he woke up, shortly before the escape pod was launched. He reported seeing an unknown male and a child before being ejected,” Ashlyn said.
“Seems the S.I.S operation was a complete and utter failure.” The Captain grinned. Clearly in no way disappointed with the news.
“Yes, tragic. Now we do things the military way. Captain!” The Admiral said.
“Sir!” The Captain replied expectantly.
“We’ve waited long enough. Inform the fleet, it’s time for us to clear the trash out of this system!” The Admiral said with satisfaction as he looked at the holographic display showing the Zenith.
The word went out to all the captains of the First Forward Fleet, and the formation readied for war; with every ship in the group hoping to have a shot at taking out the butchers of the Second Fleet.
The fleet was ready and the defence platform was charged to capacity as it entered firing range and started targeting the enemy.
Everything was almost ready when…
“Sir! We’re picking up the target on passive sensors, it is no longer masking its presence,” Ashlyn reported. “We are also picking up a strange energy build-up, it may be preparing to attack.”
The Captain started issuing orders, “All ships, go to active scanning! Weapon officers: load all forward rails with Burst suppression rounds and start carpeting the area as soon as we have a firing solution. Navigation: move the fleet forward but for God’s sake stay out of the firing solution of the Defender. We’ll be the laughing stock of the galaxy if any of our ships get taken out by our own defence platform.”
The main engines of all the ships in the fleet flared up simultaneously, the ships picking up speed in perfect unison as they lit up the space around them.
Back in the Zenith, Kade and Jude had exited the virtual environment and were currently standing in the bridge, looking around at all of the empty control stations in the expansive room.
“How can you control anything with these workstations? There are no displays and barely any controls on these things,” Jude asked.
“Reminds me of the Icarus when we first got it. It took us a month to install all of the necessary instrumentation to allow us to control it properly,” Kade added as she looked around the room.
“The controls are in here,” Drake said, pointing to his head as he sat in the captain’s chair, which was elevated by a few steps, allowing him a good view over all the workstations on the bridge. “The Cores are more than just memory backups. They allow us to control our technology, communicate effortlessly and can heal almost any injury. Not that I’d recommend trying out that last part.” Drake smiled and then focused on his workstation.
“Have you decided yet?” Zen asked the sisters.
“Yes!” Jude said enthusiastically.
“You’re sure this is safe?” Kade asked.
“That all depends on your definition of ‘safe’ now doesn’t it?” Zen smiled. “But of all the existing variants, these are the safest.”
“Very well, we accept!” Kade said, causing Jude and Zen to nearly jump for joy.
Kade and Jude stretched out their hands with open palms and waited, rather impatiently in Jude’s case.
Zen was holding two silvery spheres above their palms, and then placed them gently in their hands.
Both sisters felt a tingling sensation in the palms of their hands, and watched in surprise as they saw what had appeared to be a solid object seemingly melt into their bodies like ice on a hot summer’s day.
The process was quick and painless, and soon after Kade started hearing Toby’s voice, as well as Static’s. The previously silent bridge now filled with familiar voices as they talked about what was happening outside.
“They’re making their move, we are being actively scanned by all the ships in the fleet as well as the solar system monitoring grid,” Toby reported.
“What?” Kade asked, a bit woozy as the Core’s Nano particles settled into her nervous system and began interfacing with her brain.
Static said cheerfully, “Welcome to the Shadows!”
“This is so freaking cool! It’s like being connected to my system breakers without my visor… but 1000 times better. Just look at all the information that was around us all this time,” Jude said enthusiastically, looking at all the augmented reality overlays in the room.
Kade smiled as she looked around the room. Her Core was allowing her to see information streaming on ‘holographic’ displays that she simply couldn’t see before.
It had seemed strange that the Zenith was still using basic interface consoles since holographic interfaces had been the norm for millennia now, but now it all made sense. The Cores implanted in the crew members allowed them to see and interact with their technology without the need for power hungry projection systems. The interfaces and information displays had been around her all this time, she just couldn’t see them.
Kade moved slowly, getting closer to one of the two workstations in front of Drake, looking over the multitude of controls which weren’t there before.
“Have a seat,” Drake suggested, and the two sisters happily complied; their minds becoming flooded with information
from the workstations as soon as they sat down on the chairs.
“This is unreal,” Kade said as she manipulated the holographic interface. Smiling as she handled the interface like she had been doing it for years. “How come I know what all of this stuff means?” She asked, clearly surprised at her new found technical aptitude for handling Shadow technology.
“Alpha Cores, the ones you two have, come pre-loaded with basic information about our technology, making it easy for your mind to quickly grasp the necessary concepts. Alphas aren’t quite as versatile or powerful as the other Cores. They’re the first step, putting minimum strain on your bodies as they test to see if you are fully compatible with the technology,” Zen explained as she stood between their workstations.
“There’s more than one type?” Jude asked.
“There are five base Core types. Alpha is the basic introduction model, then there’s Beta, Gamma and Omega. For reference, Toby’s Core was a Beta; Drake’s is an Omega, the most advanced form.”
“That’s four, what’s the fifth?” Kade asked.
“The Zero Core, but that one’s a bit more complicated to explain,” Zen said.
“Ah… OK. One more question. You said the Core would test our bodies, what happens if we fail the test?” Kade asked somewhat concerned.
Jude said emphatically, “Don’t even joke about it!”
“I wouldn’t worry about incompatibility; it is very rare for that to happen. But in such an event the Alpha Core uninstalls itself and exits the body,” Zen explained, putting Kade’s mind at ease.
“Would you look at that!” Drake said as a gigantic screen appeared in front of them, showing the inbound fleet in all of its glory. “I could almost call it beautiful… if they weren’t coming to kill us that is,” Drake commented.
“Not the word I would use to describe the triple effed. Personally I’d go with ‘terrifying’,” Kade said.
“If you forget that each of those twinkling streams of light are death dealing machines of destruction, the light pattern they make is quite beautiful. Like a star burst,” Drake said staring at the display.
“Sure… can we leave now?” Kade asked, concerned that the fleet was about to enter firing range.
“Good question.” Drake said emphatically, “Toby! You might want to start hurrying up at some point!”
“Final systems check complete. Vortex drive charged. Course set for planet Calder,” Toby reported.
“Calder?” Kade asked, and almost immediately her display started showing her the planet’s vital statistics. It was the colony established by the survivors of the Shadow purge that had been carried out by the Solarian Union all those years ago.
The Zenith’s hull began to vibrate ever so slightly as the ship’s Vortex drive started to engage, the surrounding space seemingly becoming charged with energy emanating from the ship. But just as the Zenith was about to leave the system, artillery shells from the rapidly approaching fleet began detonating around the ship one after another in an endless barrage.
The Tragedy
“We’re taking fire?” Drake asked somewhat confused at the readings he was seeing on his interface.
“Checking…” Jude said confidently as she manipulated her interface like a seasoned veteran. Tapping into her new found abilities to do in seconds what would have previously taken her hours to accomplish. Sifting through the vast amounts of sensor telemetry in order to determine what was happening outside. “Confirmed! The Regent is performing long range artillery strikes on this area,” Jude reported.
“I’m reading a rapid energy build-up around the Zenith. Is that normal?” Kade asked.
“Not really, at least not like this,” Drake said as he looked over the sensor readings.
“Whatever they are shooting at us is dispersing massive amounts of particulate matter around the ship. Basic sensor efficiency has dropped 10% since the bombardment began,” Jude reported as she continued her analysis of the sensor information.
Drake said with a pensive look, “They’re trying to blind us? No… there’s something else going on here.”
“From these readings I would guess it is intended to disrupt Burst drives. A normal ship would not be able to Burst out of the area under these conditions. It is strange however…” Static said.
“What is?” Drake asked.
“Think about it. The Zenith is inside the Sol dead zone. Burst drives are pretty much useless in here. It seems a bit redundant to try and suppress a ship’s Burst drive under these conditions,” Static said.
“They’re probably just playing it safe. I doubt they want a repeat of last time,” Drake said.
“Yes, that could be it. But still… I’m worried about the energy build-up around the Zenith. Intentional or not, whatever they’re dispersing in this area could have some nasty side effects if we engage the Vortex drive.”
Kade said somewhat concerned, “Define ‘nasty’.”
“Hard to tell, I’ve never come across this stuff before, and the nature of the Vortex drive makes it difficult to predict what could happen. The thing doesn’t exactly play by normal rules,” Static said.
“Can we still Vortex out or not?” Drake asked.
Static said with a worried tone, “In theory, Yes.”
Drake wasn’t at all happy with the situation.
Not only was the ship in imminent danger from the imitation Goliath platform, but he also had no way of knowing just what could happen if he were to engage the Vortex drive in order to leave the system.
He was still considering his options when he noticed the terrified expression on Jude’s face.
Elsewhere…
The Defender platform had finished its alignment: the nearly one kilometre long magnetic focusing barrel, used to compress and direct the particle beam, was now pointed directly at the Zenith.
Electricity was arcing violently between the two horizontal barrel segments, signalling that the discharge was about to begin, and that something in the solar system was about to end.
The power levels spiked and the platform fired its compressed particle beam into space. Ejecting the plasma stream at near light speed as it simultaneously activated all of its station keeping engines in order to try and maintain its orbit. But even with all of its engines working at full power the platform was still gradually being pushed out of position by the sheer strength of the discharge from the particle cannon.
The beam contained enough potential energy to destroy a small moon, and its aim was true.
On board the Regent, the bridge crew observed their screens in anticipation of the killing blow, as they saw the energy beam from the Defence platform hit the target dead centre. The plan had worked flawlessly, they had cut off the enemy’s ability to retreat and then hit it with overwhelming force.
The energy beam was intense and unforgiving. And nothing was being spared its destructive power as it completely engulfed everything in its path.
The Zenith had completely vanished from the fleet’s sensors as the 10 kilometre wide plasma beam introduced even the smallest particle in its path to the compressed raw power of a star.
The onslaught was approaching the two minute mark and there was enough stored energy to sustain a beam for almost three minutes of continuous firing.
The platform had exceeded all expectations, but the continuous strain from trying to maintain its relative position was starting to overwhelm the station keeping engines. And one by one they started to shut down, causing the platform to lose the lock on its target as it started to drift, the discharging yellow beam cutting a path of destruction through space.
The crew of the Regent watched in horror as all of the safeguards failed to trigger. They had lost control of the platform; they could not shut it down.
The beam was inching ever closer to the asteroid mining outpost the fleet had been using as a base of operations, the Captain’s face going pale as he was informed that the beam would hit the base before the platform’s particle chamber
was depleted.
The Admiral knew that there was nothing he could do to stop what was about to happen, the fleet was too far inside the dead zone to try and Burst to the platform’s location, and even if they did, there was no way to disable the platform in time. The only thing he could do now was preside over the massacre which was about to unfold in front of his very eyes.
He had been warned by the construction crews overseeing the platform’s development that the installation was not yet ready for active duty, that there were still too many unknowns with the system to try a test firing again, let alone a full discharge.
He had deemed it an ‘acceptable’ risk since all of the previous tests had demonstrated the installation’s almost unlimited destructive potential. And now he was seeing all of that potential sweeping across the solar system and atomising anything unfortunate enough to find itself in its path.
If there had ever been a bad moment for the passage of time to come to a crawl, this would be it, with the crew of every ship in the fleet watching in agony as the beam got closer to the mining outpost.
The gigantic particle beam cutting through the solar system had hardly gone unnoticed, and every single ship capable of space flight was rushing to clear out of the path of destruction.
The mining outpost’s harvester ships were scrambling to try and get away from the asteroid field, which was being vaporised by the plasma stream. But the only place they could run to was the nearby station, which would offer little protection in the face of such overwhelming power.
Every Burst capable ship in the station’s vicinity was rabbiting out of the area. And the residents of the mining outpost unlucky enough to be near a window watched in shock, seeing that their lives and the lives of their families were about to come to an end.
The beam was inching ever closer to the outpost as it swept mercilessly though space, leaving little more than a few melted rock fragments in its wake: all that remained of the larger asteroids after exposure to a few seconds of the beam’s immense power.
Shadow Core - The Legacy Page 21