by Will Crudge
Warning indicators of nuclear ordinance detection begin to flicker all over the display, and the attack is underway. I can only pray that Doom’s idea works. Something as silly as a collage of horse penises embedded in Mwargoth-targeting malware may just change human history for all eternity.
Flashes of white light erupt, and the display begins to toggle through a rapid array of filters. All I can do is wait for time dilation to do its thing and then await the images off to appear.
My father arrives with Killjoy, but we all feel the tension as our minds begin to merge so warm-hearted greetings will have to wait. I barely notice that my father’s armor is stained black, and Killjoy’s jowls are as well. He brought Val a fresh change of clothes, but everyone is too focused on their screens to notice a monk getting naked in the middle of the CIC.
General Garcia struts up behind me. I get the sensation that he’s going to show off his male-monkey dominance in front of his national sovereign.
I would be correct, of course…
“I think you’ve caused enough damage to our fleet, Katherine!” He says as he steps closer. My back is facing him, as I stay focused on the battle on display. Shadow and Sheba don’t hesitate.
“Stand down, General,” Shadow says as he smoothly maneuvers all one thousand kilos of panther flesh to block Garcia’s advance. I can’t help but tap into Shadow’s consciousness and allow my mind’s eye to fill in the gaps that my field of vision won’t allow for.
Garcia halts abruptly and swallows his nerves. “Stand aside, Zodiac! You have no authority here!”
What Garcia doesn’t see, is the sleek and deadly Sheba stalk right behind him. She stops once her body is perpendicular to Garcia’ stance. Shadow huffs, and his long black whiskers flare. The massive cat steps forward.
“But… can you eat your own head in one bite?” Shadow licks his lips. Garcia begins to shake and starts craning his neck around to find Val smiling at him.
“Sir, please! Call him off!” Garcia pleads with cracks in his voice. Val just folds his arms and continues to smile. Now Garcia looks back down at the massive cat and realizes that he’s half a meter from the dagger-like fangs.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Shadow says as he lowers his snout, flares his lips, and let’s his pearly white teeth come into view.
“Of course I can’t eat my own head! Wh-what kind of question is that?” Garcia says as he begins to quake with fear.
“Well then… I can eat it for you.” Shadow says with a low growl. I can tell he’s manipulating his voice module to add a slight echo, by which to augment the sinister effect of his animalistic vocalization.
Garcia steps back until he bumps up against Sheba. She cranes her long muscular neck around and looks up at him. Her eyes reflect carnal hunger, and her tongue glides across her lips. I don’t know for sure, but I think Garcia might have soiled himself. I can smell something to that effect via the superior olfactory senses of a predatory animal, but my human brain isn’t wired for that volume of sensory input to be sure.
“By the authority of War Master Katherine, as legally bestowed by Fleet Marshal Darius, I hereby dismiss you from this facility until further notice!” Shadow orders.
“Listen to him, General,” Val says casually. “Even I don’t have the authority to undermine the Fleet Marshal’s delegation…. And Shadow is his official voice in his absence, as it were.”
Garcia scoffs something under his breath and storms out. Good. The first detonations have finally been reconciled by the scanner suite’s processors.
The Mwargoth flagship named, I don’t fucking know, lost its energy shields a split second before the mine impacted. The detonation was devastatingly efficient… Although we have no idea how much damage the giga-ton nuke did on its own account, but we do know that it was enough for the alien ship’s systems to detect catastrophic damage, and its own fail-safe activated. The ship vaporized, as was expected… What was not expected was that the secondary fail-safe energy shields never snapped into an array.
Midas had explained that the secondary shielding was a part of the fail-safe, and its purpose was to contain the massive explosion for the first microseconds of the detonation. That is supposed to minimize the shockwave, and prevent nearby Mwargoth ships from taking any significant damage… But the hack that Doom launched must have been more than horsey dick pics, it would seem.
The massive explosion wasn’t enough to destroy the alien ships in the immediate area, but there was enough energy to overwhelm their shielding. The follow-up attacks of PK’s and tac-nukes from the fighter swarm struck a few microseconds after their shields went down, and their own fail-safe’s triggered in response.
“What am I looking at, Midas?” I ask.
“Your plan executed flawlessly. That is what you’re looking at, Katherine.” The god-like AI replies.
“I meant to say, the ‘sciencey details’ that I can’t wrap my head around, doofus!” Fuck! I just called Midas a ‘doofus’!
He chuckles. “The hack blinded the Mwargoth’s scanners but also disrupted their shielding processors. Their shielding itself isn’t all that more effective than ours, but their dynamic shielding systems can instantly divert energy, so as to maximize their shielding’s effectiveness within microseconds of detecting projectile weapons. The flagship crew must have tried to manually increase their shielding’s power levels but were too blind to see what they were doing. They must have powered it beyond safety levels, and the shielding collapsed right before impact.
The fail-safe activated without the secondary shielding, and the five immediate ships around it were stripped of their shielding. The hack had spread throughout their fleet by then, and their shields were unable to adjust to the incoming threats… in fact, they were totally blind to them.
Six capital ships are completely vaporized, and now our remaining fleet is conducting a full KEPL barrage with the assistance of the remaining Broadsword Squadron. It would seem that the Mwargoths may be seconds away from defeating the hack, but by the time they do, it will be too late.”
Now I begin to scratch my head. There are at least twenty or thirty red blips left, and they’re scattered about in two separate clusters. One cluster of six, off to the right flank of the battlespace, and the other ships are drifting blindly towards the center.
The center cluster is being pounded by KEPL fire and SK’s. One by one, the red blips begin to disappear… but at an incrementally slower pace… Midas is right. The hack is losing its effectiveness, and the secondary shielding seems to be working again.
“Who’s engaging the cluster on the flank?” I ask nervously. Even six Mwargoth ships can do a catastrophic amount of damage once their systems are restored, after all.
“Did somebody ask me a question?” A familiar voice came through the audio net. It’s Throat!
“You crazy bastard! What are you doing?” I spout.
“Ask War Master Jep! This is his crazy idea!” He replies, but no sooner than I do I spit out a single syllable in response, Jep comes online.
“All is well, Katherine. Switching on our IDENT transponders now… The enemy won’t be able to do much about us, even with us squawking.” Jep says.
“Happy hunting boys!” I say jubilantly. I am too overjoyed to care that I referred to an elder War Master as a ‘boy.’
“IDENT’s on screen!” I hear Silvia shout with a tinge of hope in her voice. I’m just glad she found time to clean the grimy black Mwargoth shit off of her.
Seriously… That shit is nasty!
SUPER FIGHTERS
“I’m detecting anomalies in the energy signatures of the enemy ships.” Death, the NAV of the Death-Nail announced on the audio net.
“I’m not picking up anything.” Kindle, the NAV aboard the Blood-Reaper replied.
“He’s an atmospheric variant, Kindle girl!” Doom chimed in. “Energy shields are his thing.”
“Enough cross-talk, my friends!” Jep intervened. “Tell us what y
our assessment is, Death?”
“They must be trying to do a manual shutdown of their shielding and sensor arrays. I’m not detecting any form of broadcast energy between their hulls, so they’re literally flying blind. But not for long.” Death explained.
“So, in short… They’re very close to regaining control of their systems?” Jep asked.
“Yes. That is my assessment.” Death answered with confidence.
“Let’s not hesitate! All NAV’s, combine tactical processing resources and execute the best course of action. I have faith you will see this through!” Jep declared.
Nothing more had to be said. The NAV’s knew what to do from here. Jep relinquished both tactical and flight controls and leaned back in the pilot’s seat. The combined consciousness of the NAV’s began to strengthen. It soon became collectively apparent that more processing capacity would be warranted, so the hull maintenance systems began to do what they’ve rarely ever done… Coordinate between each other.
*****
Raptor asked the other hull maintenance systems. All sent icons of acknowledgment in response. The lack of audible or text response wasn’t any surprise to him. The hulls were never built to interface with anything other than NAV’s or similar entities. As a result, none of them liked to express themselves in any means recognizable to humans. The only hull maintenance system that did was Skull. But Raptor knew that the Skull-Crusher was aboard the Foehammer when it was hit by friendly KEPL fire. Now the LRF’s were out for payback.
Even though it was a ‘friendly-fire’ incident that vanquished their long-time brethren, they collectively blamed the Mwargoth threat as the true culprits. They all had joined the fray to seek their own measure of justice.
“Hey, guys… and gal… What the hell is that on the proximity scan?” Jep asks from beyond the digital realm.
Meanwhile, aboard the space donkey…
“Do you think I should say something to that Jep guy?” Marbles asked Grinder. The big K-9 just flopped around with growls and grumbles. Marbles realized that his voice module was laying in the center console, and the Zodiac could not speak.
“Never mind, big guy!” Marbles said as he looked over to see a half-ton wolfdog trying to fumble around to get situated in the cramped co-pilot’s seat. Marbles reached over and hit a switch. The K-9’s seat began to recline, and a compartment door on the rear panel of the cockpit came open. The seat went relatively flat, and then partially entered the small compartment behind it. The Zodiac was well-pleased and wasted no time to stretch out.
“Unknown craft, identify yourself!” Jimma’s voice came through on the audio net.
“If you would reach out with your magical War Master Powers, then you’d find the presence of your beloved mount sitting next to me!” Marbles said jokingly.
“Marbles? What are you doing out here? And why is my paired mount with you?” Jimma jeered.
“The better question is, why isn’t he with you, don’t you think?” Marbles fired back.
“Because… Fine! Just be careful, and stay clear of the blasts. We’re about to bombard these remaining ships before they come back online. Are we clear?”
“Crystal. Be safe, you guys!” Marbles said with sincerity.
“Same to you.” She replied. The audio feed was cut, and now Marbles had one single mission. Lend the ancient fighters some processing power, and watch the fireworks.
He zoomed into the engagement zone with his optics. He could see the four LRF-90’s in full burn. Their weapons bays were all opened, and he could see that all the usual hardware had been stripped. The cannons, rocket pods, and missile batteries were all replaced by massive SK’s.
He recognized the SK’s instantly and was now excited to see them in action. They behaved like missiles but were built to be extremely tough like the torpedoes of old. They possessed shield disrupting technology in their warheads and would broadcast a signal of inverse waveforms when they were close to striking their target. They were known as Ship Killers because they combined inertial energy with guided missile precision while also using their dense mass to pound deeply into a ship’s hull. The casing was built to withstand an initial impact of any remaining shield energy, and a secondary impact of armored hull plating. Then once it penetrated deep enough into a ship’s hull, the warhead would finally detonate.
The pressurized environment of a ship’s life support systems puts a measurable amount of outward pressure on any ship’s hull. So, the explosive warhead would capitalize on this by incinerating the atmospherics. The shockwave of the detonation, combined with the expansion of gases and other shipboard combustibles, would effectively blow the entire vessel into the next dimension… Or so, Marbles liked to think.
Marbles struggled to maneuver the donkey to maintain optimal distance. He needed the signal to be reliable enough for the sentient digital entities to pull off the miracle. All told, there were only eight SK’s aboard the four fighters. One in each weapons cradle. None were nuclear. It became evident as to the need for immense processing resources. SK’s were deadly… but Mwargoth ships were even more so…
He considered running a few internal sims to calculate the odds of success, but then he thought better of it. Running a sim like that would divert too much processing power from his allies, and he was already running his own cognitive processes at minimal levels.
The fighters dove at an insane velocity and Marbles was fighting to keep up. The space donkey was faster than just about anything out there, but still not close to the LRF’s multi-staged super ion thrusters. He saw the formation split off. Throat-Slasher veered off with Doom-Raptor. Even with all of his advanced optics, the fast-moving fighters appeared as one green, and one blue speck of dust with a massive ion trail behind them.
Flashes of light emerged from the fighters in some kind of precise pre-measured order. Then the mighty LRF’s bugged out, banked hard, and scattered in different directions. Marbles knew that the cards had all been dealt. There was nothing more to do but escape the area at full-burn.
The SK’s would use the relative velocity of the insanely fast LRF’s to boost their own speed. The NAV’s must have had to calculate the precise point by which they could impact at maximum velocity without the SK’s being instantly vaporized by the sheer impact. Closing speeds, relative distances, and fluctuations in final vector adjustments all had to be factored. The mathematics would have been unfathomable without their combined processing power.
But it worked…
The blackness of space was replaced by the light of a thousand suns. Marbles’ had the advantage of the advanced processing power to speed up his concept of time when needed. He took advantage of this as the scene slowed to a virtual crawl.
The six lumbering Mwargoth ships were in various stages of initializing their shielding, as indicated by the energy fluxes that were beginning to pulse from the field emitters along their hull lines. But it would be too little too late.
The first SK strike occurred on the furthest ship away, in relation to the LRF’s release point
. The rocket-propelled torpedo-like weapon emitted its shield disrupting field moments before impact. There was no doubt in Marbles’ mind that it would have proved ineffective had the shielding been in full array, but the volatility of the energy field, while it was beginning to form, was unable to counter the projectile. The ordinance plowed right into the seam between the enemy ship’s forward superstructure, and the top of the main hull.
The previously theoretical weak point was proven to be valid, as the plumes of burning atmosphere cascaded down the edges of it, and then bellowed across the hull from starboard to port. The slight delay of the detonator fuse did its job, and Marbles watched the hull plating of the main hull erupt outward like a flower blooming. The fail-safe was triggered, and the Mwargoth vessel vaporized itself in a brilliant shockwave of light and energy.
The relative distance between the enemies wasn’t enough to cause any noticeable collateral damage to the other five vessels, but the violent release of energy managed to overwhelm the shield initialization of at least three others.
The second strike hit with similar results. Then the third, and fourth. Four enemy ships were relegated to virtual stardust in a matter of seconds.
The fifth ship was the largest one, and Marbles figured it must have been the group’s flagship of sorts. It repelled the SK with ease. Marbles couldn’t tell if the early stages of the shielding array had disrupted it, or if the hull plating was decidedly thicker. Either way, the ship survived the initial strike.
But proximity would be its fatal flaw…
Marbles realized he was free to use more processing bandwidth, and so he immediately began to analyze the SK barrage. It only took a few milliseconds to realize that the SK was meant to fail. Holy shit, that’s genius! He thought to himself.
He surmised that it was merely a means to momentarily overwhelm the scanner array, as it must have been also struggling to fully initialize itself. That meant that the strike would prolong the hack’s blinding effect for a fraction of a second longer. Long enough for the final stage of the strike to come to fruition.
