Chương 57: Nova Wars Chapter 51

Captain N'Skrek stared at the holotank, then at the viewscreens against the far bulkhead, then the screen arranged around his Captain's Chair. From one, to the other, then the last, then back to the first. No matter how long he silently stared, the data didn't change. There were hundreds of Space Force vessels in the system. The shipyards around the gas giant had hundreds in orbit waiting for their turn in the docks. There hundreds of ships damaged and needing repair.

Some were being cleared of Mar-gite on the hull, he could see the tiny flashes of weaponry being used. The com-channels had dedicated channels to shipboard clearing operations. We're losing, went through his head for the hundredth time as he stared at the ships. One, at the edge of the system, silently exploded. It had been listed as "All Hands Lost" and on automatic systems. Rather than board the ship, they'd chosen to destroy it. He already had his orders.

Bring the Gray Lady in, attend briefings to fill in the Admiralty on the situation he had retreated from, then wait for his orders. Captain N'Skrek knew he could sum up the briefing in three words.

"We. Are. Losing." Another ship exploded on the holotank. He turned away, heading for his Ready Room. He had holoconference calls to attend.

Captain N'Skrek had chosen to attend the briefing in person, rather than via hologram. While normally it was only for Task Force Command Staffs, the Grey Lady's class made it so he received and invitation to the briefing. Personally, N'Skrek believed that it was entirely automated and accidental, but he wanted to be there in person.

He sat in the back, Vice-Admiral Breakheader next to him, making sure that the briefing was being transmitted back to back to the Grey Lady so that both Captain N'Skrek and Vice-Admiral Breakheader's staffs could watch in realtime as well as record it for later discussion. The first thing N'Skrek noticed was that there were a lot of Terrans present. True, even two was a lot the last forty-thousand years, but over half of the beings present were Terrans, all waiting patiently.

He could smell the anticipation rolling off of the Terrans, just as it did from the Vice-Admiral, and lit a cigarette to help banish the pheromones. All too soon Four Star Admiral Kwarskwak took the stage, a clicker in one hand. The room fell silent. N'Skrek watched as the Admiral brought up the star systems that were part of the "Mar-gite Defensive Line" and detailed them. We lost those six systems ago, N'Skrek thought to himself.

He watched as she went through the ships that had been stationed there, tallying up the ones he knew were lost. Almost all of them. Then came the next defensive line. And the next. And the next. Each time, it was detailed how the Mar-gite had transferred 'in force' into the system, engaging Space Force elements, landing on the planet, as well as just absorbing solar energy and 'warping' back out.

The briefing even detailed how roughly 20% of the Mar-gite clusters 'went dark' and coasted out of the system at a leisurely. 25-. 65C. All of them heading for another star system. Reinforcements that would arrive years or decades after the ones making warp for those systems. Three times the group took a break before just detailing the situation as it stood came to an end. Then a break for the night. The next day, more briefings. Ship types available, what the newest 'line in the sand' consisted of.

Two hundred sixteen stellar systems. The lead Mar-gite elements were expected to warp into the systems at roughly the same time. Ninety-six hours. The briefing paused on that. Captain N'Skrek found himself pacing in his quarters, walking around the hologram, staring at it, trying desperately to figure out a way to fight back, to stop them dead. Something. Anything. His door chimed and he just waved one bladearm at it, staring at the holotank. He still couldn't find anything that could help.

"Captain," Vice-Admiral Breakheader's voice was a rumble that projected power, authority, and competence.

"Admiral," N'Skrek said. He tapped the star that was the beginning of it. According to fast message torpedo, there were still Petraconstructs coming in, nearly a dozen a day, all of them warping out to systems the Mar-gite had already overrun. The Admiral moved up next to him, putting his hands behind his back and clasping them. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Hell of a thing, isn't it?" the Admiral said.

"I keep thinking, where did they all come from?" N'Skrek said.

"The rest of that galactic arm," Breakheader said.

"The Gray Ships were fighting there, trying to hold them back, but I have a feeling that the infection is far worse than we think it is." N'Skrek turned and frowned.

"How so?"

"May I?" Breakheader motioned at the holotank.

"Of course," N'Skrek moved back. Breakheader expanded the view to show the entire Milky Way galaxy. He tapped the two antispinward arms.

"What if this one," he tapped the one beyond the nearest, "Is where they are coming from? We know that the Grey Fleet and TerraSol took the fight to them in this one," he tapped the nearest anti-spinward.

"But what if, after the Terran Xenocide Event, the Grey Fleet was only able to put up a holding action?" N'Skrek nodded. It made sense.

"But," the Admiral said. He made a slight sound of frustration.

"What I've been trying to get Command to understand, is a simple thing." He tapped three spots between the galactic arms. The only three dots between the Cygnus-Orion Spur and the Sagittarius Arm.

"These were supposed to be heavily defended."

"I was here," N'Skrek tapped the one closest to the Cygnus Orion Arm.

"We had no warning. They came through by the scores. Giga and Petra Class Clusters."

"So what happened here and here?" the Admiral asked. He drew a slight crescent.

"More importantly, what happened to the Mar-gite Defensive Line?"

"The what?" N'Skrek asked. The Admiral reached toward the room controls.

"May I?" N'Skrek nodded. The Admiral typed in commands then stepped back.

"We'll need to use a SCIF. It's still classified data." N'Skrek checked. There was a sensitive compartmented information facility only a short walk away. He reserved it and the Admiral requested data be moved to it by only document numbers. The whole way, N'Skrek was thinking. Why hadn't there been any warning? Was it those liquid looking chrome teardrop ships? Did the defensive forces get shut down before they could even launch a disaster torpedo? Once in the SCIF, N'Skrek and the Admiral moved up to the holotank.

The Admiral brought the holotank online and they both waited for the data to decrypt. N'Skrek just stared as the Admiral went over it. Facilities that created a small artificial star inside, then directed the entire energy output in a faster than light coherent energy beam, normally used to novaspike stars. There should have been almost fifty of them.

"Those could put a hurting on the Petra and Giga and Tera Clusters," the Admiral said.

"So why weren't they used?"

"Because forty-thousand years went by, it was a classified Terran project, and things got confused somewhere?" N'Skrek guessed. The Admiral nodded.

"That was my thought too." N'Skrek lit a cigarette, staring at the tank. He tapped the icons for the three 'gateway' stellar systems.

"Something has been bothering me," he said.

"What?" the Admiral set down the can of fizzystim he was drinking.

"The angle of approach that the Mar-gite came in here," N'Skrek said, tapping the closest star. He loaded up the sensor packages and set the eVI to work.

"They all came in on the same vector."

"All right, you have my attention," the Admiral said.

"Damn, most of the data was lost with those ships," N'Skrek said.

"Another thing," the Admiral said.

"Why we wait for the VI to run records check and do the analysis, there is something we have to ask."

"Which is?"

"Why didn't the autodestruct charges go off on the gateways? As soon as the Mar-gite took the systems, as soon as certain mechanisms stopped broadcasting, the stars should have been novaspiked from charges laid down a long time ago," the Admiral said. N'Skrek frowned.

"Really?" The Admiral nodded.

"Really."

"I'll be right back," N'Skrek said. He moved across the hallway and rang a com-number.

"Temporal Ranging Section," was the answer, followed by the person's rank and name, ending with "How can I help you, sir or ma'am, both or neither?"

"I need a scan of two stellar systems. Status of the stellar mass within the last two weeks," he said. He gave the designation numbers of the two gateway stars.

"Send it to SCIF 89-034A23."

"On it. Give us thirty minutes," the voice said.

"It won't be detailed, just status of the stellar mass."

"Thank you," N'Skrek said. He terminated the call and walked back. The Admiral was looking at data in one of the secondary holotanks. They stood there silently for nearly ten minutes till the holotank beeped that the VI had finished its analysis. N'Skrek brought up the data. The stellar mass, the direction of the next gateway star, then the vector the Mar-gite had come in on.

"You were right," the Admiral said. The Mar-gite had been warping in the system at nearly sixteen degrees orbital plane, nineteen degrees polar plane off from the vector they would have entered on if they had left the middle gateway star.

"They didn't come from Gateway-Two," N'Skrek said. He shook his head.

"How did this get missed?"

"Things are confused," Breakheader said. He tapped a few keys.

"Put your authorization on it, that way you're credited in case someone wants to look over your data or has questions." N'Skrek did so.

"There's nothing out there," N'Skrek said, staring at the gulf between the stars. What had been there had been wiped away over forty-thousand years ago, during the First Mar-gite War.

"That we can see," Breakheader said. He put his hands behind his back.

"We know that the Mar-gite use solar radiation to 'charge up' so to speak, in order to make a warp jump. We don't know how its done, or the exact mechanics behind it, but we know that they are limited in range and that larger ones can't go further," Breakheader moved over and got his fizzystim, taking a drink off of it.

"What if they can't just as far? What if they are slower? What if their maximum range is shorter than two hundred light years."

"What if there's something out there the Mar-gite are using to charge that isn't a stellar mass?" N'Skrek asked.

"It'll be small. Low mass, hard to detect via gravity disturbances. Nothing near it that would 'wobble', so to speak. Galactic luminosity speaking, it'll be dark comparitively, and too small to occlude stars," Breakheader said.

"That's why the Grey Fleet broke contact and retreated."

"They were being cut off," N'Skrek mused.

"Probably already being pushed back, but they found out they were being cut off. Maybe the Death Blossom has a maximum range? We don't know anything about that mode of travel either." Breakheader nodded.

"We know the max distance of a standard cluster or Mega-Cluster. If the size of logarithmic, then perhaps the range drops the same?"

"Or, and bear with me, what if they have a longer range because they start out even bigger and consume the excess Mar-gite to make the jump?" N'Skrek said.

"Maybe they can make the same speed and distance as a Cluster because they can devour what they need to?"

"A logical assumption, but let's not get wedded to it," the Admiral said.

"It might be nothing more than sour ice cream and poor smokes," N'Skrek agreed.

"Still, it'll give us a base to work with. Maybe we can convince Confederate Space Force to send a scouting mission in that direction." Breakheader nodded.

"We'll put it through channels."

N'Skrek stared at the holotank in the middle of the bridge. The bridge crew was largely Terran, the formerly empty consoles all manned. There was an air of determination, quite competence, and an almost eagerness to get on with it.

"The problem with coming up with an idea is it's often taken as volunteering," Admiral Breakheader said from where he was standing next to N'Skrek.

"We're a Super-Colossus Stellar System Siege Rampart Unit, a defensive unit," N'Skrek protested, for the millionth time. Vice-Admiral Breakheader just chucked.

"My people have a saying about the best defense."

"Yes?" N'Skrek held up his hand.

"Just a moment."

"Ready to engage light speed," the navigator said.

"Engage," N'Skrek said. The ship seemed to ripple slightly as it jumped to hyperspace. There was a thrumming, like vast engines getting up to speed, then a change in frequency and pitch as if great gears were shifting. He knew it was the massive ship moving up in the hyperspace bands further than a ship of its size had any right reaching.

"Max speed, Captain," the navigator said.

"Integrity fields are holding."

"Understood. Set to General Quarters," N'Skrek said. He then issued the commands to ensure that the ship prepared to face whatever they found when they exited hyperspace in four days. Afterwards, he turned to the Vice-Admiral.

"You were saying about a saying?" he asked. The Vice-Admiral smiled.

"Terran have a saying about the best defense."

"Which is?" N'Skrek said. The smile got wider.

"A good offense."