Most sapients (the ones that were somewhat psychologically similar to humans) utilized combat protocols. Like regular protocols, they provided advice and guidance at any given time, but, specifically, about combat.
Steeger's protocols had done a thorough analysis of what could potentially occur in this operation, including foresight into the enemy's actions. The protocols' breakdown indicated that the Wraiths were containing their mental essence in a digitized format within specific Yimyur Federation ships, relaying their commands from them. In other words, ultimately, the Wraiths would determine the fleet's next move.
But Steeger's protocols also predicted the G'hajupan would still be hesitant over the particulars of this operation. Not necessarily because their combat protocols would disagree with the Wraiths' commands, but because they might perceive the latter as potential psionic rivals down the road. And, therefore, the G'hajupan would likely resist a full military investment until they decided otherwise.
It still felt bizarre to Felik that he was now capable of destroying a species he'd recently had to interact with diplomatically. Would the StarMaster have condoned this operation? He couldn't help thinking of the rumors Landi told him—in the early decades of the Union Omega, Arteyos had allegedly committed xenocides as examples to keep other species in line.
A request from Steeger to psionically link showed up in his feed. Using psionic power sent through nexuses, a psi.link efficiently synced sapients up emotionally and experientially in a non-permanent manner. It was primarily reserved for combat situations.
He accepted. Suddenly, he became subconsciously aware of everything occurring among his teammates. The psi.link pooled their collective knowledge about the battle into his subconscious databanks. There would be no need for sitreps or concerns over whether a certain ship was doing its part.
They understood each other's thoughts along with any automatic relevant data in split-seconds.
For several moments, he felt overwhelmed by the new knowledge available. And naked. The psi.link shared only pertinent details and thoughts, so he kept most of his mental privacy. Still, all eyes were on him, in a sense. The psi.link was a reminder that the other soldiers had expectations of him. His forehead creased from that pressure.
On the positive side, the operation didn't require a lot from him presently. If the situation continued without incident, Felik could let the effectiveness of their perimeter speak for itself. Hundreds of kilometers separated each of the Watchers squadron ships orbiting Wraith. Yet the Nassatar's godweb covered all of them. Felik's ship was parked up approximately 150,000 kilometers from the planet, placing Wraith close to the edge of its godweb's radius.
Presently, no enemy ship could warp in or fly through and survive long enough to do anything meaningful unless its godweb's power matched his ship's. Until the enemy altered its tactics, the blockade was effectively impervious.
There's still a lot you don't know about this universe. His uncle's words echoed in his mind. In warning now just as before. Even after their disagreement, he would've preferred his uncle as the Operational Commander to Steeger.
The psi.link filtered out this sentiment, blocking it from the other linked minds, thankfully.
Instead a link update informed him that Steeger's protocols predicted the enemy wouldn't make their primary assault for at least another fifteen minutes. She was also running her combat script on standby to activate in the case of a sudden attack.
He bided his time by talking to his crew. He at least needed someone to pretend they cared about what he had to say.
At the pond, he crouched down and whisked his fingertips across the water's surface before rising to a stand.
"When I was a kid, there were a lot of anti-alien sims. Sims about evil alien empires attacking the Union Omega. In one of them, this species surrounds a Union Omega system with an unbelievably huge force field. And little by little the force field shrinks and shrinks. And everyone is scrambling for a way to get out." Felik tucked his hands inside his pockets. "Finally, they realize there's nothing they can do. They can't stop the force field. They can't warp outside it. So they accept it. And they enjoy the rest of their lives until it ends. I always thought I would be fighting the alien invasion, not doing the invading."
"Captain, would you like me to run some specialty conversation responses?" Minerva asked. Sophonts—truly conscious artificial intelligence—were perfectly capable of emotions, but professionalism came first. She wanted to stay on task and Felik appreciated that.
"No, no. Listening is fine."
Still snacking on spicy crackers she'd started on before the enemy had appeared, Juliard's avatar examined something on the holodisplay of the battle. Via gestures, she moved a couple ships around as if comparing trajectories or measuring some other specs. Then she threw up her hands. "Yeah, no. This battle isn't going anywhere for the moment. Got anything else you want to confess?"
He shrugged. "I'm sorry you had to see that thing between me and my uncle."
Juliard shuffled over to him. "At least you know that he cares about you."
"My uncle—he never had kids. Never married. Plenty of lovers in his life I'd bet, but, well, anyways, I'm pretty sure he looked at me and the other scions like his kids. Like he owed us protection. I rarely saw him and Arteyos together. Maybe he thought he could make up for whatever happened between them by keeping us safe." Felik didn't know where all of that came from. It felt cathartic to spew words. When you were able to without it sounding like a rant.
"Sometimes, a person needs to believe there's someone out there who wants their help," Juliard said quietly.
"What about you, you ever have kids?"
"Once upon a time. Now..."
Felik put up a consolatory hand. "Hey, it's alright if you don't want to."
"I had a son," she said in a tight voice as if she'd hadn't heard him. "Lost him in the war."
"I'm sorry."
"You never knew him."
He wasn't sure what she meant by that. "What was he like?"
She made a small sound in the back of her throat. "A little like you actually."
"Now I really am sorry." They laughed, and he got the sense that the fog of alienation between them was clearing. Shamefully, it dawned on him that this might be an opportunity to ask her about Arteyos and learn something useful about why he'd died. Instead, he asked a harmless question about his progenitor.
"I heard Arteyos played Meme Wars even as an adult. Is that true?"
"No, that was mostly me."
"You like Meme Wars, too?" Felik said, his face lighting up.
Using a special visual filter on his nexus, Felik registered the power of the enemy ship's godweb. Its atomic aura was consistent with a destroyer-class vessel, coating the bronze disk-shaped ship with the appearance of a miniature star complete with twisting flames and jets of fire.
Atomic auras weren't a physical manifestation, but rather a general means of categorizing a godweb's strength in a memorable manner for the visual-oriented human brain. Anyone who checked the Nassatar's atomic aura would see a supernova-like glow. The godweb itself extended much farther than the aura, though.
Steeger's combat script kicked in. Once again, the enemy ship was dealt with as it entered the Nassatar's godweb range.
The combat script sent commands through Ilder, who, in turn, willed the godweb to lock the bronze-colored ship in place with a gravity bind. Then with the Nassatar's Alcubierre drive, he began forming a wormhole.
Even after the incident at the MARINES base, Felik viewed godwebs through a lens of optimism. Probably because it was his uncle who taught him that godwebs were a game-changing tool of liberation to be revered.
Nostalgically, he could still hear Hayland's words from solar cycles ago, Dark energy and dark matter saturate the universe, and for a long time humans understood almost nothing about either. But alien life did.
His
uncle had explained the facts: a million solar cycles earlier, maybe more, advanced alien races had harnessed dark fluid—dark energy and dark matter—discovering that they allowed for easy and extensive manipulation of gravitational and electromagnetic waves within a certain range.
And he'd explained why the history mattered—in a single tick of the universe's clock, godwebs had largely flipped the script on humanity's military capabilities. If they hadn't quite given humanity the stars, then they allowed humanity to defend the stars.
Interstellar contact meant a species' technology could ascend asymptotically. Or fall asymptotically. Godwebs epitomized this idea.
Sure enough, seeing the Nassatar's godweb dominate the enemy vessels so far had eased a dread Felik hadn't even realized he'd been feeling. His was the latest in a long line of human minds that had found solace in the technology.
Since the formation of the Union Omega, New Terrans had been using reactor cells embedded on the surface of their bodies or ships to release various subatomic particles and smart dust that concentrated the dark fluid in a given area, amplifying its ability to affect gravity and electromagnetic waves.
This combination of dark fluid, subatomic units and smart dust was controllable, utilizing the various interactions and collisions of these particles to produce reactionary effects as tasked.
The higher the quantity and quality of reactor cells, the bigger and better the godweb.
The wormhole finished forming, its destination the surface of a distant star. Through Ilder and the Nassatar's gravity control, the combat script pushed the disk-shaped enemy ship through and closed the wormhole.
The Nassatar II was the only ship in their current squadron capable of swatting away ships with star-level atomic auras so effortlessly. Even Steeger's personal ship didn't outrank the enemy's best in any significant way. But godwebs were like pools of liquid, stronger ones drowning out weaker ones.
Suddenly, Felik heard the same cold voice from his visit to Wraith before the StarMaster had died.
In other words, he'd just killed off an important G'hajupan—one that served as a psionic beacon and leader among them. And there was a good chance the Watchers had removed its mental backup from the karma pylons, meaning it could not revive.
Maybe the Wraith had somehow forced the high oracle to attack or it had chosen to sacrifice itself. Either way, the oracle's death would likely galvanize the G'hajupan and extinguish any hesitancy of a heavy military investment.
Sure enough, a message on Felik's feed informed him that three new vessels had warped in approximately 600,000 kilometers from the Nassatar. One of them was a dreadnought-class ship, its godweb power rivaling his ship's. Which meant that if the enemy attacked in a formation, he could no longer immediately destroy the weaker Yimyur Federation ships.
Their blockade was no longer unbreakable.
At the same time, he registered Steeger's grim annoyance.
Chapter 27
FELIK
Felik felt a rising tide of unease, verging on regret, for demanding to Oberon that they approach the battle with such a high standard of morality. Because satellites of the Saganerio network were now monitoring Wraith space. The Watchers fleet had to either walk the very fine line Felik had set or accept a serious loss in karma. For Oberon that was unacceptable given how it would affect his goal of becoming the new StarMaster.
In the Nassatar's holodisplay, the dreadnought vessel resembled a giant, robotic simian head. Varying shades of metallic dark gray, black, and white streaks carved out an enraged ape expression with fierce wide eyes and bared teeth. The whole "ship" was roughly four hundred feet high and G'hajupan-built, according to sensors.
The two ships on its right and left were of Bloshlwin origin. Similar to gold-plated trilobite shells, five large claws dangling like daggers.
Hands, Felik realized. The two omega-class Bloshlwin ships were supposed to look like the hands of a G'hajupan head vessel. Not that it would alter their battle tactics. It was purely an aesthetic design choice by the G'hajupans.
Frowning, Felik activated the nexus lens to view the ship's atomic aura. His system chimed, and the words
The dreadnought hung outside of the blockade range, practically taunting them with its appearance. The urge to destroy it burned feverishly in many soldiers and resonated through the psi.link. A second later, a sense of irritation at the notion quashed that desire, and everyone remembered that, under the current circumstances, Union Omega regulations forbade a preemptive strike.
Instead, Felik imagined the ape head craft unleashing millions of subatomic particles and smart dust nanites around itself, stimulating the nearby dark matter and dark energy particles. Of course, he couldn't see these microscopic reactions, but he was aware of the process.
Now, his nexus rendered its atomic aura as a supernova, swirling with waves of purple and yellow, churning outward hypnotically. The same as the Nassatar's.
Any ship that entered that field of control with a weaker atomic aura wouldn't be able to control the dark fluid, making its godweb effectively useless. But when ships of an equal atomic aura engaged, that led to a full-on clash to outwit the other's combat scripts.
The success of this operation would depend on their battle tactics now.
Steeger's protocols had anticipated the possibility of the enemy unveiling one or more ships to rival the Nassatar. The response would be to utilize the Nassatar's combat scripts. Earlier, the Watchers network had tried to downplay his obligations in this operation by saying they wouldn't even activate them unless absolutely necessary. Now it was.
Steeger halted her combat scripts, and Ilder started running the Nassatar's combat scripts, hosting them from his core and channeling nonvocalized commands to everyone's core through the psi.link.
With their heap—the collective processing power of the cores in their squadron—they would be able to run their script efficiently. Based on combat protocol estimates, enough for the Nassatar to defeat the rival ship with minimal casualties.
Within ten minutes, the ape head ship established its godweb at full range, the same as the Nassatar's. 300,000 kilometers in diameter.
A notification on Felik's feed warned of a flotilla of hundreds of incoming spacecrafts. The Yimyur Federation ships that had been parked further away in the solar system.
If he pulled up a close-up image, a bubble shield swirled around each, lightning streaking out randomly. It wasn't actually a force field, just the visual indicator of their godwebs' atomic auras.
Within a few minutes, they joined the ape head ship, each positioned thousands of kilometers apart inside its godweb. Under that cloak, the ape head ship granted them control of the surrounding dark fluid. In effect, they received a boost to the strength of their own godwebs, just as the ships in the Nassatar's godweb range did. So long as they stayed within that range, they would retain that power.
In a single formation, the ape head ship and the supporting vessels shot toward the blockade.
Only a couple hundred thousand kilometers separated the godwebs of Nassatar from the dreadnought-class vessel.
Once their opposing godwebs connected, the fast-paced chess match for dominance would begin, assuming neither ship retreated.
Only the most rudimentary combat algorithms lacked adaptive methods. The Nassatar's scripts were top of the line, incorporating the frameworks used in advanced sophonts, without emotional or ethical constraints. They broke the battle into a series of continued choices—a decision tree that spread and spread.
Under the hood, constantly updated military archival data, advanced reasoning and predictive logic, and feedback-response analysis worked in tandem to outwit the enemy's behavior, facilitated by their own combat scripts. Most times, the
Nassatar's scripts would compute a superior choice on the decision tree.
Felik had loaded them with the mission objectives configured by Steeger (the primary objective to maintain the blockade). Every decision the scripts made would be with the ultimate intention of achieving those.
Every passing second made him more and more aware of the shrinking gap between the godwebs of the Nassatar and the ape head ship. 110,000 kilometers one minute. 60,000 kilometers the next.
The godwebs of the Nassatar and the simian head ship met like two invisible and raging oceans. For a few seconds, violent gravitational and electromagnetic distortions rippled across the bridged expanse as they unified in a chaotic rush of dark fluid, subatomic particles, and opposing smart dust grains.
No ships were close enough to take damage, but the waves continued through the newly formed, merged godweb, weaker and weaker. Yet they jarred the compositions of dark fluid, subatomic particles, and smart dust, resetting, and in certain cases relinquishing, the vessels' control of some of the latter.
The result was that no single ship possessed full control over this new, expanded godweb spread. Instead, each of the ships that had access to the prior godwebs could still access the dark energy and dark matter of this one. Except that they could only access a fraction of the dark fluid now.
Since multiple ships were harnessing the local dark fluid, neither side could crush the other in a one-sided fashion. Even as both sides deployed environmental traps—in this case, smart dust packed with reactor cells to manipulate the local gravity—these mechanisms would effectively cancel each other out.
Certain other devices intended to add strain to the enemy, like EMP attacks, simply weren't effective due to vetted countermeasures—EMP shielding built into ships' surfaces. Explosive traps, on the other hand, would prove useful and were being scattered to positions that combat scripts would incorporate as parameters in their plans.
At once, smart dust from the Nassatar's hull collected into grains and its godweb's gravitational manipulation flung them as kinetically charged debris through space at a significant fraction of the speed of light.
The StarMaster's Son Page 21
