Precipice of Darkness
Page 25
Even as she was preparing for her assault in the Albany System, all around the periphery of the Pleiades, fleets were jumping into the edges of key Trisilieds systems before simply disappearing.
At least, that was what the enemy would see.
In reality, hundreds of fusion engines were being pulled off Nietzschean hulls and sent through jump gates to target systems. Once there, the engines were guided by onboard NSAIs to split apart into broad fleet formations and ignite.
What it would look like was several fleets moving deep within the Trisilieds Kingdom, probing systems for weaknesses.
It would likely make no sense to the enemy, as probing with a full fleet was foolish, but they would also have to respond to the threat, whether it was logical or not.
Moreover, Corsia was using the engines for actual reconnaissance. Once they made their burns, the engines transitioned into the dark layer on trajectories for a central rendezvous point, where they would send data back to the Albany System via drone through a small jump gate.
None of the probes had come through yet, but they weren’t expected to for at least another few days.
Corsia had considered waiting for the intel to be collected, but she had discussed her plans with Tangel, and the pair had agreed that striking out at Atlas while the enemy was still reacting to the probes was the ideal timing.
Intel from Hand agents in the area indicated that Atlas wouldn’t have more than a few thousand ships protecting it, but even if it had more, Corsia’s main attack force consisted exclusively of stasis shield ships.
“The fleet is in position,” the FCO announced, his statement breaking into Corsia’s reverie.
“Aye, ma’am.”
Hundreds of engines flared around Buffalo as the ships of the ISF Twelfth Fleet began to approach the hundred jump gates assigned to their maneuver. It would take only twenty minutes for the ships to jump into the Atlas system. They would arrive in four battlegroups and take out their key targets before boosting to the edge of the system and then reforming at their rendezvous point.
The Andromeda was at the fore of the first wave, and Corsia felt her anticipation grow as the ship touched the not-space in the center of the ring of ford-svaiter mirrors, and leapt across space.
I’ve always wanted to see the Pleiades up close.
The ship took only a second to traverse the intervening light years, and then they were back in normal space, surrounded by the baleful blue-white light of the Atlas system.
Corsia’s battlegroup’s target was a shipyard built at a lagrange point between the two primary stars. Their calculations were on the nose, and they arrived one light second from their prey.
The main holotank showed a view of the battlespace, with more and more markers appearing as the two thousand ships of her battlegroup continued to arrive in wave after wave.
“All ships reporting stasis shield activation,” the FCO announced a moment later, his voice almost bored.
Corsia nodded with satisfaction as the relativistic missiles exploded against the ISF fleet’s stasis shields, nuclear fireballs becoming rapidly expanding clouds of plasma around the leading ships.
Two thousand Trisilieds ships were spread around the shipyard and ore processing systems target, but most were in parking orbits—only a few hundred moving under their own power.
This will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Flight A, on pattern Gamma-9,” Corsia ordered, even before the battlegroup’s ships all reported in after the wave of RMs.
The FCO relayed the order, while Corsia noted that two of her ships had taken damage from the relativistic missiles. Nothing serious, but their captains had left too many sensor holes open in the stasis bubbles, allowing a pressure wave to form. She made a note to speak with them later, and directed the damaged vessels to the rear of their formations.
Flight A consisted of just over two hundred ships. A mix of cruisers and rail destroyers, bolstered by ten thousand fighters—mostly NSAI drones that did not possess stasis shielding.
They raced toward their target as the shipyard spewed point-defense fire into space. Most of it missed the incoming craft, and the rest was spent burning away ranging rail shots from Corsia’s destroyers.
Then they were within beam range, and the ISF cruisers engaged with the outermost Trisilieds ships, drawing their fire as the rail destroyers continued to unload millions of relativistic pellets at the enemy shipyard and ore processing facilities surrounding it.
Their initial targets were station-keeping and defensive targets. Corsia was all for a swift victory—retribution for the attack on Carthage was on her mind—but she wasn’t going to embark on a wholesale murder of everyone in the shipyard without giving them a chance to reach escape craft.
It took only a few seconds, though they seemed to creep by as the rail destroyer’s barrage streaked toward their targets. Then the pellets hit.
Though the enemy had spewed thousands of point defense rounds and beams at the incoming attack, it wasn’t enough. Explosions bloomed at the targets, wiping out the Trisilieds’ facility’s defensive capability.
Secondary explosions bloomed, and an ore refinery split in half, a reclamation yard spinning away toward a group of ships that were moored together a hundred kilometers away.
Escape pods and small craft began to pour out of the shipyard and its surrounding facilities as Corsia sent out her ultimatum.
“You have twenty minutes to abandon all stations and facilities. Any non-capital ships on outsystem vectors will be spared. All capital ships must cease thrust immediately and wait for new vectors. Feel free to abandon your ships if you wish.”
A few of the enemy cruisers attempted to form a defensive line, but Corsia directed Flight B to destroy them, and seven minutes later, the remaining Trisilieds ships surrendered.
Pinnaces, shuttles, and escape craft continued to pour from the enemy facilities. At twenty minutes, they were still coming, and Corsia extended her deadline by five minutes.
When that mark hit, the enemy escape craft was all far enough away that they’d survive the coming destruction. She ordered Flight A’s cruisers to launch a barrage of rail slugs at the facilities, destroying them utterly.
“This is too easy,” she said quietly. “At this rate, we’ll just march across the Trisilieds and take their capital in a few weeks.”
Corsia glanced at her daughter’s holopresence, giving it a predatory grin. “I don’t believe in jinxes.”
PAYING THE PIPER
STELLAR DATE: 10.03.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Cossack’s Sword, Sullus System
REGION: Midway Cluster, Orion Freedom Alliance Spa
“I want Caldwell’s destroyers on that moon base!” Svetlana called out. “They’re hammering us with their rails. Tell them to shred that damn rock if they have to.”
That order given, Svetlana turned her focus to the world of Ferra. Her battlegroup was bearing down on it, and the orbital defenses were unleashing everything they had at her ships.
The enemy wasn’t breaching the ISF’s stasis shields, but after the long slog through the system, her group’s reactors were running hot, and she wanted to finish off the defenders as quickly as possible.
In hindsight, she considered the wisdom of her strategy.
Another stealth attack would have been more efficient, but that wasn’t the current goal. What she wanted to achieve was the wholesale destruction of every military outpost and defensive platform in the Sullus system.
Granted, I didn’t expect them to have so many.
Despite the fact that the Ori
on Guard maintained little presence in the Perseus Expansion Districts, they seemed to have built up a large number of defensive systems that were secretly tucked inside moons and asteroids.
No sooner did those emplacements fire on Svetlana’s fleet, than her forces counterattacked and took them out, but the never-ending incoming fire was taking its toll on her ships—especially since her non-stasis ships had to remain at the periphery of the system, striking at softer targets or lobbing volleys at fixed targets further insystem.
On top of that, a small collection of local militia ships was harrying the fringes of her formation, making her unwilling to widen her front, lest the defenders attack from another entrenched defensive position they’d not yet revealed.
“Caldwell’s acknowledged,” the FCO announced. “His ETA is twenty-three minutes. He wants to know if he should make a tactical strike or just destroy the moon.”
“Do we read any civilian facilities?”
“Thing was dead until it shot at us,” Scan chimed in.
“Then smash that fucker,” Svetlana growled. “I want to show them that even their best defense is utterly futile.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the FCO replied.
“Admiral Svetlana!” the comm officer said, twisting in his seat to look back at her. “Major Hemry just relayed a message that came in over FDL. A Hand agent in the Machete System has intel on an Orion Guard fleet massing there. Passing composition estimates to you.”
“Excellent,” Svetlana replied as she examined the intel. It was a far richer target than she’d expected to encounter in the PED, but just the sort of strike that would cause the Oggies to pull back from the fronts to defend their own systems.
Time to wrap things up here and move on to greener pastures.
Svetlana reviewed Admiral Sebastian’s position on the far side of the system, a smile forming on her lips as she saw a report come in that he had destroyed a fuel depot in orbit of the seventh planet, and decimated a militia fleet that had attempted to drive him back.
“Get Sebastian to come around to the fifth planet and strike that refinery they have in orbit, then head outsystem,” she directed. “Once Caldwell finishes off that moon, have him pass by the fourth planet and see if anyone takes the bait.”
“And then outsystem as well?” the FCO asked.
“You’ve got it. We’re three hours from firing range on Ferra. We’ll take out our primary targets there and then get gone. No need to linger longer than we have to.”
The FCO nodded and then turned to his tasks.
Svetlana considered sending Caldwell past the innermost planet, but decided against it. Even if there were significant facilities there they’d not detected, it wasn’t worth spending further time in the Sullus System when there were richer targets to be had.
ASSEMBLY OF SENTIENTS
STELLAR DATE: 10.03.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Assembly of Sentients, Lunic Station
REGION: Aldebaran, League of Sentients Space
President Jasper’s opening remarks were succinct and brief—for a politician.
Tangel sat behind him on the elevated platform at the center of the assembly hall, gazing out over the thousand senators, delegates, and aides.
A wide variety of humans and AIs were represented in the throng. Many of the AIs used mobile frames, while still others appeared only as holoprojections of people, beams of light, and a few as animals.
Tanis was surprised to see a dolphin in the third tier, its body clothed in a moisturizing sheath and ensconced atop a four-legged frame.
For a moment she thought of Gerald and wondered how he and his pod had fared in the unrest that came to Sol after she’d left. She often wished a pod of dolphins had come with the Intrepid; she could have used their counsel on a few occasions.
The conical chamber stretched up forty meters on all sides, which meant that the platform at the center had no back. She wondered if some human speakers found it disconcerting to have half the assembly behind them—it wasn’t something that would bother her, but it seemed uncharacteristic for a group that claimed to equality amongst sentients.
As Tangel surveyed the assembly, she sensed a strange energy fluctuation that seemed to cascade through the room. With her transdimensional vision, she saw the walls of reality bend ever so subtly, as though something too large for the assembly chamber to contain had settled within it.
Then the feeling was gone, and everything seemed entirely mundane. She tried to find further evidence of something amiss, but she couldn’t sense anything.
I hope it’s only stress, she thought. I just want to say my bit and get back to my girls.
“Of course you all know the story of the Intrepid by now, and how it came to build a colony in a place called New Canaan, deep within the Transcend,” President Jasper intoned as he wrapped up his speech—she hoped.
Tangel spotted a few brows lowering in the crowd at the mention of both the Intrepid and the Transcend, but most of the assembly kept their expressions carefully neutral.
“Admiral Jessica and her team have been very helpful to LoS worlds over the past two years,” President Jasper continued, “and we owe them much. Now they have asked for something in return: that we join their alliance and stand up to the empires of oppression that surround us. These are regimes that do not support true equality among sentients; some do not even believe in freedom for AIs at all.
“Tangel has always believed in the Phobos Accords, and she has mandated that all members of the Scipio Alliance follow the strictures in its second section, which outlines fair and equitable treatment of all sentients. As you know, our own constitution encompasses much of that material.
“She has come to us today to repeat the plea that Amavia has been making, and to explain why she believes it is best for us, and for all sentients, to join the Scipio Alliance.”
President Jasper paused and turned to face Tangel, a winning smile gracing his lips.
“So please join with me in welcoming Field Marshal Tangel of the Alliance to the League of Sentients Assembly!”
Nearly all the members of the assembly rose, but Tangel noted that nearly half did not clap. Of those, nearly all were members of the opposition party, though she could see that many in Jasper’s own party did not join in the applause, either.
As the applause continued, Tangel rose and walked to the podium, where Jasper clasped her hand before gesturing that the floor was hers.
She nodded in thanks and then paused for a moment, surveying the assembly. The moment she opened her mouth to speak, a voice called out.
“Who are you? Wasn’t Tanis Richards the XO aboard the Intrepid? Who is ‘Tangel’?”
The speaker was a member of Deia’s party. Not a prominent senator, but one that Amavia had flagged as a frequent agitator.
“Thank you for posing the perfect question for me to begin my introduction, Senator Paula. I am Tangel, the result of a merge between Tanis Richards, an L2 human, and the AI, Angela. Like Amavia, I am a voluntary merge, but more than that, I am an ascended being. As such, I am uniquely qualified to speak for a broad swath of humanity and its scions.”
“Ascended?” a voice called out—another member of the opposition party. “Ascended AIs are half the problem!”
Tangel had anticipated that argument, and couldn’t fault the LoS assemblage for concern over her level of cognitive evolution.
“Prove it!” a delegate called out.
“Senators and Delegates,” President Jasper said, rising to his feet. “This assembly is held to a higher standard of behavior than this. Please let Tangel speak uninterrupted.”
The assembly quieted, and Tangel caught the eye of the second dissenter. “I don't disagree that ascended AIs are at the heart of many of our problems. Some of those AIs used to be humans, as well. However, there are ascended AIs who have not caused any harm, while there are unascended humans and AIs who have brought about untold misery. No one seems to have a corner on the ‘war a
nd suffering’ market.”
The statement drew a few weary laughs as Tangel continued.
“Not only that, but ascension comes in many forms, and with different abilities. By and large, most involve perception and manipulation of extradimensional energies. In some cases, ascended beings shuck their mortal coil, and take up primary residence in other dimensions of spacetime.”
“Which are you?” a new voice called out.
“Why thank you for asking,” Tangel replied with a smile and a note of humor in her voice.
A few more laughs sounded from the assembly, but Tangel could see that many were expectant, sitting forward on the edge of their seats. Until just a few years before, ascension had been a myth, something no one spoke of seriously. Now the term was bandied about more and more, but few even knew what it meant—even fewer had seen an ascended being.
“One of the most storied aspects of an ascended being is that they are creatures of light. That is true to an extent.”
Tangel held out her hand, and ribbons of light began to form above her palm. “After enough time, we begin to grow bodies that primarily exist in dimensions you cannot perceive. However, we can use them to interact with the dimensions you primarily occupy. When we do so, you see it as pure light—photons erupting off the surface of our bodies as we move them through this segment of spacetime. I see it as something akin to another arm, one I can use to reach out and pluck apart molecules and atoms, drawing their energy into myself, or using it to build other structures.”
She wove a sphere of energy together, the way she’d been practicing, and then changed the structure of the disparate atoms to form new molecules. Before long, a solid ball of carbon formed in her hand, and she tossed it lightly in her palm.
A few gasps sounded, but there were also snorts of derision.
“I know,” Tangel replied, nodding in the direction of several of the opposition members who wore deep scowls. “This is not impossible to achieve with even moderately advanced nanotech. There is more I’m capable of, but harnessing atomic energy carries with it substantial risks in an unshielded environment such as this. I imagine many of you who possess suitable levels of optical modifications were able to see the exotic energies at play.”