NOVEL WEB Chapter One Reboot, and …
Initiating boot sequence
Aux Mainframe online
Custodian program online
Initiating systems assessment:
Main Power Offline- No anomalies detected
Aux Power Online- anomaly detected, fuel load does not match inventory
Tertiary Power Matrix Damaged- No anomalies detected
Life Support Online- Anomaly detected, system condition does not match the last system’s check
ARU Matrix 1-8 Destroyed or Disabled- no anomalies detected
...............................................................................
Hull status: Damage-severe, Hull ruptures on all decks, Primary starframe compromised
Hull Integrity estimate: 14.3% of nominal
Main Weapons: offline, 87.5% of primaries destroyed or disabled
Secondary Weapons: offline, all secondaries destroyed or disabled
Tertiary Weapons: offline, all tertiaries destroyed or disabled
Torpedo emplacements: offline, 64.3% destroyed or disabled, all bays depleted
Drone status: Offline, all drone bays destroyed or disabled
Restricted Weapon: offline, emplacement disabled
Armor Status: Severely Compromised, AIF system damaged but operational
Shield Status: Offline, All generators destroyed or disabled
Cloak Status: Offline, no power to system
Sensors Status: Damaged but functional
Intergalactic Drive (hyperwarp): offline, system destroyed
Interstellar Drive (warp): offline, system disabled
Sublight Engines: offline, 1-4, 6-8 destroyed or disabled, all sub engines destroyed or disabled
.....................................................
Initiating External security sweep:
17 unidentified Starships detected, classifying
4 cruisers of unknown capability
6 patrol frigates of unknown capability
5 transports of unknown capability
2 science vessels of unknown capability
Initiating internal security sweep:
22,436 unregistered lifeforms detected
Initiating security protocol sixteen delta
Booting Primary Mainframe
Loading Primary Starship AI for the ISS Constellation
Boot successful
Transfering logs
Shutting down custodian program, and transferring Control to Main AI codename Megumi
The ship awoke instantly, but unnoticed by the aliens that had boarded the ship. The AI took no immediate action, instead, she began reviewing the logs the less sophisticated custodian AI had transferred to her. The aliens had been here a while, they must have boarded while the custodian was in power save mode. While reviewing the logs, she checked the system date and discovered to her surprise that the logs indicated that the ship had been adrift for one and a half million years. She had known she was going to be adrift for a long time, but that seemed a little excessive. The fact she was still operational, even with the auto repair systems offline was a testament to the resilience of Imperial technology.
The logs from the custodian AI indicated that the aliens had located and boarded the Constellation about a month and a half ago. As such she had quite a bit of footage of their actions recorded over that time. They appeared to be trying to restore some of her systems, but it was clear they had no real idea about the ship’s systems. Her scans of their ships told her that they were in the early interstellar age technologically. Their main weapons were early particle cannons and high energy lasers. They had torpedoes, but they were primitive fusion warheads. Even with her shields disabled and her armor compromised they were of no threat to her. The Xeos alloy her hull was constructed from was extremely resilient and was immune to such primitive weaponry.
She then turned her attention to the aliens. They were small humanoids. The average female of the species stood 1.4 meters tall, while the males were a full .2 meters taller on average. Their skin was either light blue or blue-grey in coloration. They had pointed swept-back ears and large eyes. The presence of mammaries indicated that they nursed their young and had live birth. Other than the head, they seemed to have very little hair on their bodies. They dressed in minimalistic clothing, especially among females. The females seemed to be in charge, indicating a matriarchy. Even more interesting is that the less they wore the higher their apparent rank. That drew parallels with several cultures she knew of, both real and imagined, such as the fictional Drow of Old Earth.
There wasn’t much more she could learn by observing. Megumi observed a pair that she had found on one of her auxiliary bridges. They were leaned over a console having a discussion. Already, she was translating their language. It was unfamiliar, but thankfully it shared a root with a language she knew, Dekalan.
A young woman that stood 144 cms tall with decently large mounds leaned over the console and pointed out the diagram to her companion who was looking over her shoulder. The young woman had pale, creamy light blue skin and long lovely dark blue hair that fell just short of her small butt. She had a very cute heartshaped face with large sapphire blue eyes, a small mouth, and a cute button nose. Her ears parted her hair slightly and just seemed to add to the cuteness of her face. Her figure was quite good overall and had some muscle. Just enough to say that she kept in shape.
Her companion seemed to be roughly the same age but was a little smaller. She was 133 centimeters tall with modest breasts and a lithe figure. Her grey hair was kept at shoulder length and framed a lovely elfin face with piercing grey eyes.
“As you can see this is definitely an engineering display. While I haven’t managed to translate the script, we can draw a few conclusions from the display,” said the young woman, then she pointed towards a spot on the hull, “As you can see here, there used to be several decks above this point. While over here you can see red marks near those massive weapons we identified earlier.”
“You mean what you think are weapons, Melia. All I see is an ancient wreck.”
The young woman now identified as Melia, glared at her companion, “This is more than some ancient wreck. We have already dated the vessel. All signs point at it being hundreds of thousands of years old. A genuine precursor ship, that dates back to the Mythical Great wars. The ones that took place before the Elder races even discovered space flight, much less built their empires. This is the most significant find since the discovery of spaceflight, try to be more interested.”
The woman sighed, “Look, it might be all that, but I don’t see how an ancient wreck like this would help us with the war effort.”
Melia’s glare darkened, and then she gestured at the room, “look around you. This ship is over a million years old, and yet the systems still function. Not only that, but it is composed of materials we never even dreamed of.” she tapped her foot on the floor, “Like this floor plating, it’s made of some kind of neutronium based molecular alloy. We have never seen anything like it. If we could decode even a fraction of this ship’s secrets, it would turn the tide of the war.”
The other woman changed her stance, “Assuming we aren’t forced to destroy it, to keep it out of their hands. Neku fleets have been spotted on the far side of this sector. It is only a matter of time before they notice our presence here.”
Melia walked away from the console, and in a huff said, “Do you have any idea how short-sighted it would be to destroy something like this? This ship is a treasure trove! You can’t destroy it just because you are afraid the Neku would steal it!”
The second woman was now glaring, and soon exploded. The two engaged in a heated argument. Megumi had no desire to be destroyed for stupid reasons, but wasn’t worried who won the argument. There was no way they could destroy her, even if they detonated a fusion device near one of her reactors. The reactors were force shielded, and those force shields were still active even to this day, and furthermore they were made to be very resilient. She was a battleship after all, and it would not do if the reactors went critical from a little concussive shock. Not to mention all the other safeties. Then even if they did make the reactor go critical, back up systems would contain the damage to the reactor module.
After several minutes of arguing, the young woman Melia dropped wearily into a chair. Megumi paused for several moments, a total of point zero-zero-two-one seconds which for an AI was an eternity. She could not believe her luck, she had been considering her options, but that was a command chair with a neural interface module. She activated it, and isolated the chair in a forcefield. After so long floating adrift, waiting for a salvage team to come and repair her, she finally had the chance to fix herself. As the interface was establishing a connection, an arm popped out from the chair and injected the subject with nanites to facilitate said connection, Megumi’s mind drifted back to how she got here.
Sataro Sector, Stardate 7-26-3422857 SDE. ISS Constellation, Battle of Sataro Prime:
Megumi's avatar turned to her captain as the ship dropped out of warp and gave her report. “We are secure from warp speed, sir. “All weapons are fully charged and on standby. Shields are at full power and the armor is fully charged, we are battle-ready. The Demarians are currently in the middle of evacuating Sataro Prime. Eighteen battlegroups are arrayed in a defensive formation around the planet and the gate. Six Darkation battlegroups are already here and have engaged the Demarians. The Demarian fleet has sustained minor casualties so far, but the line is holding. We have new orders from the flagship, we are to bring the ASC online and target enemy ships enroute to the system. Long range sensors have detected nearly a million hostile ships en route to this system,” reported Megumi.
“Analysis, how long can we hold this system?” asked her captain.
“Not long enough, sir. At the current rate it will take the Demarians eight hours to evacuate the colony. We can only hold for six hours, and we may not survive those hours sir,” replied Megumi referencing her simulations.
“Maintain a continuous firing solution on the planet. If it looks like we can’t hold the system any longer, destroy the planet. Better dead than to curse them to a life as host to these things,” said the captain. Megumi didn’t like those orders, but she agreed. Then the captain ordered her to bring the ASC online and she complied.
Two of her frontal hull plates retracted to the side while force fields and secondary shields sprang into place as a cannon extended forward. This was an ASC, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Highly adaptable, these cannons could target ships, planets, or even star systems. Hers had a maximum range of twenty-five thousand lightyears, and the destructive power to annihilate a star system. The cannon used a hyperwarp projector to fire a hyperdensity antimatter plasma bolt. The greater the mass of the bolt, the greater its destructive yield, but the longer it takes to recharge.
She was targeting ships, so she didn’t need to charge it to anywhere close to its full yield to destroy them. Soon she and her sister ships in the battlegroup were firing on the closing fleet. Each shot being fired right into their path and often killing dozens and sometimes hundreds of ships. Of course of the sixty-four ships in her battlegroup, only twenty-four of them had ASCs and they simply couldn’t fire enough shots quickly enough to eradicate the incoming fleet. For every ship they sank, a hundred new ones appeared on sensors. It was a seemingly endless tide, and then the first enemy battlegroups found their way into the system.
The smaller ships in her battlegroup that weren’t focusing on sinking the incoming fleet moved to form a defensive line. Her battlegroup was composed of one heavy dreadnought of the Victory Class, five Sovereign-class battleships including the Constellation, eighteen Star Knight class heavy cruisers, ten Guardian class drone cruisers, ten Luna class light cruisers, and twenty Lancer-class destroyers. This meant it was the Guardians, Lunas, and Lancers forming a line against the Darkation fleet to protect the core of the group, while they fired their big guns.
The Guardians being drone cruisers launched millions of drones to swarm the battlefield. They primarily carried the famous Swarm drone, a fighter drone that has been used by the Soleans for countless ages. The Swarm drone was outfitted with a linked energy array. The drones would swarm a target and then generate a field interconnecting them, which would then bombard the target with lightning-like discharges. Once the field is established any energy directed at the drones would be redirected to the swarmed vessel. The more drones generating the field the more powerful it is and the quicker it will kill its target. The swarm drones were remarkable weapons and could sink even the toughest ships at surprising speeds.
In addition to the Swarm drones it also had more conventional drone fighters such as the Eagle, which used hellfire plasma cannons as its main weapon, and carried heavy plasma torpedoes for use against ships. Along with impactor drones, which swarmed a target, ramming into it repeatedly until either they or the target was destroyed. The drones were a big help in keeping the enemy ships off the heavy cruisers and battleships. However the Darkations had other solutions to the ASC than simply blowing up the ships carrying them.
Nearly two hours into the battle, several large Darkation ships came out of warp on the edge of the system. The instant they did, they began to emit a jamming field that disrupted hyperwarp engines and projectors. Making both escape and the continued firing of the ASC impossible. The instant that happened the Darkation Bioships already in the system switched targets to the Damarian line and began attacking the ships defending the planet. As thousands more warped in, no longer impeded by the continuous heavy fire from the Solean warships. Most of the Solean battlegroup was ordered by the flagship to reinforce the Damarian line. However the Constellation was given a different order, she was to break from the fleet line, penetrate the Darkation lines and destroy the ships that were jamming their hyperwarp projectors.
For the second time that day she had encountered orders she didn’t like, but she was a warship and followed them. Breaking from the fleet at high speed she made straight for the jammer ships. Since she didn’t need it she stowed the ASC and diverted the power to more conventional weapons. As she closed on the hostile fleet of bioships, she opened up with every gun and beam mount on the ship. The only weapons that stayed silent were her primaries. She struck her targets with unerring accuracy. Each beam punched through shields and hulls with ease, often leaving her targets dead in the water. If not outright destroyed. Despite her efforts though, more just kept coming. Thousands were firing on her and she was not destroying them fast enough. Her shields were beginning to strain under the fire, but she kept going.
Finally she made it into range of the first of the bioships she was after, and opened fire with her main guns. Ripping the ship apart in a massive and rather impressive fireball. Then suddenly two Bioships dropped out of warp less than two hundred thousand kilometers from her position and opened fire on her. These new ships were Infester class superdreadnoughts, these massive bioships, were the size of small moons and the most heavily armed bioships the Darkations could field.
As close as they were, it was no surprise that they opened fire on her position. Hundreds of heavy bioplasma bolts slammed into her shields. They followed up with a volley of heavy bioplasma torpedoes launched at her. She ordered her own drones to fire on the torpedoes as every engine onboard kicked her into a hard roll to port to avoid the torpedoes, in a maneuver most would think a ship her size couldn’t do. Her inertial dampers were strained to their limits to keep the crew from experiencing the extreme Gs of the maneuver. While she maneuvered, she returned fire with her beam arrays. The bioshields absorbed the blasts. Most of the torpedoes were either destroyed or evaded, but some of them slammed into her shields. The energy barrier weakened under the barrage.
Stabilizing the roll, she returned fire with her main guns and started launching torpedoes from her numerous launchers. Her main guns knocked out the shields of the one super-dreadnought, and the torpedoes slammed into it, dealing heavy damage but not destroying it. Still her Multiphasic AMF torpedoes did enough damage to disable the ship, and she took advantage of the opportunity to escape and hit her next target. For the next few hours she played cat and mouse with the dreadnoughts while hitting the jammer ships.
“That’s the last jammer, sir,” reported Megumi.
“What’s the fleet status?” asked the captain.
“The fleet has taken heavy damage, most of our ships have been disabled or destroyed. We have lost the battleships Yamato, Phoenix, and Columbia’s Revenge. Four Heavy cruisers have been lost, all of our light cruisers have been sunk. Our Guardian cruisers are damaged, and out of drones, but still operational. Most of our lancers have been disabled and are fighting off boarders. The flagship is taking heavy damage, but she is still in the fight. The Damarians are not faring much better, and have lost over eighty percent of their fleet. They have however managed to evacuate the planet ahead of schedule. All twelve mega transports remain undamaged and fully loaded,” reported Megumi while continuing to direct the gun batteries, and their crews.
“Signal the commodore to retreat, we will destroy the gate,” ordered the captain. It did seem to be the right move. The Constellation was in far better shape than the rest of the fleet. Megumi calculated that they could hold long enough to send the destruct code. Confirm the detonation and then jump out.
“Aye, sir. Signaling the commodore,” said Megumi and then she said a moment later, “ the commodore concurs he is retreating. In the distance, the gate could be seen activating, and the fleet began to retreat through it. Towing those they could through the gate. A few of the ships were abandoned, their crews taking flight for the gate. Those ships initiating self-destruct, and the resulting shockwaves helped cover the retreat. As soon as the fleet was clear, the gate shut down, and her captain gave the order to initiate the gate’s autodestruct and spool up the hyperwarp drive. She attempted it only for the Darkations to start jamming her comms the moment she tried to send the code, getting only a partial transmission through.
“I only got a partial transmit of the code through, sir. The enemy is now jamming all the frequencies,” said Megumi.
“Cut through it and try again,” ordered the captain.
“I already tried, too many ships are jamming us. We will have to destroy it ourselves,” said Megumi, as she began moving towards the gate. At the same time, the Darkations began closing on her position in the thousands. Each began to open fire on her. Each blast draining her shields. As she returned fire on the ships swarming her with greater fury than before. Four Infester class Superdreadnoughts blocked her path halfway to the gate.
She didn’t like the odds, but continued forward. Firing the full force of her main battery into one slightly to port of her fore. Its bioshields held for an instant before they collapsed, and while the guns were recharging she fired her secondaries into the its hull. Each beam ripping deep into the hull, frying vital systems and killing her crew. The ship wasn’t destroyed, but shifted into a regenerative state, which worked for her just then. As she switched targets to another, they sent volleys of heavy weapons fire and bioplasma torpedoes at her.
She had already lost most of her drones while she was playing cat and mouse. So her only option was to evade. She fired her engines full force to evade. Her massive twelve-kilometer-long frame turned hard to port and accelerated like a fighter to evade the volley. While she simultaneously emitted a jamming pulse. Her inertial dampers strained to their very limits by the maneuver as her crew braced to resist the high G’s they were experiencing despite the dampers. Despite the maneuver some of the torps managed to keep up with her and slammed into her shields amidship. Her shields collapsed and several torps hit the hull. Most failed to rupture the hull, but two did. Blowing crewman and equipment into space before the emergency bulkheads and force fields activated.
To the battleship, the hits felt a lot like a hot poker being jabbed into the side would feel to a human. She returned fire on the nearest dreadnought, while shooting at the gnats firing at her hull. The smaller ships were also firing torpedoes at her now. Each impact stung, as it also drained the reinforcement field that strengthened her armor against attack. Some punching holes into her thick plating, as she continued to close on the gate.
She diverted auxiliary power to the shields to get them to cycle faster. At the same moment she disabled a second dreadnought, while firing the last of her torpedoes into the third whose shields she had just collapsed. She got lucky with that last volley and one of the torpedoes exploded near a bioreactor which set off a series of secondary explosions to claim the ship. Something that actually excited Megumi a bit, as it was her first superdreadnought kill in solo combat. Something that few battleships ever get, since they usually don’t fare well against superdreadnoughts. The last one blocking her path fired a volley of bioplasma torpedoes at her that she failed to evade.
Her hull ruptured on multiple decks as massive sections of the ship were destroyed. The volley also disabled her shields before they could be brought back online. So she transferred all of the power from the shields to hull regeneration. The result was instantly noticeable as the rate her hull was regenerating increased nearly a hundredfold. The breaches closing rapidly, as her internal systems were also regenerating. Without shields, however, the regeneration was merely delaying things.
More ships began getting into weapons range so she took care of the last superdreadnought. She fired her main cannons into its shields and then disabled it with her secondaries before shooting past. The hostile bioships started targeting her vital systems and weapons. Forcing her to maneuver to protect them. Some of the larger ships even rammed her. With each attack she lost more of her crew. Finally she signaled the call to abandon ship when one of the enemy ships, a midsize bio-cruiser rammed her crashing into the bridge and collapsing decks one through four.. As she pumped as much power into her internal gate that she could spare and dialed an extragalactic gate. She calculated that she wasn’t going to make it, she was taking too much damage, and wasn’t able to repair it quickly enough. She considered retreat briefly, but discarded it. Then she took a penetrating hit to her nacelles, frying her hyperwarp drive and doing serious damage to her warp engines making the point moot.
Finally after what seemed like forever, she came into weapons range of the stargate. By then her weapons array was inoperable, with only one of her cannons still working. The only cannon she had managed to protect. Her regeneration systems had been disabled as well so this was her only chance to destroy the gate. Still she managed to get the shield generators back online, just seconds before they disabled her last ARU core. The shields were now the only thing protecting her hull. With only one engine left she couldn’t evade their fire, and her shields were taking a pounding. They weren’t going to last long, but she didn’t need them to. She initiated the firing sequence, her last hyperdensity plasma cannon charged up and fired a volley. Nine bolts of super dense plasma sailed across space and struck the gate. The energies of the interaction destabilized the hyperspace nexus the gate was built on, and an instant later a subspace explosion ripped through the system and flung the crippled Constellation across space and destroyed most of the Darkation ships in the system.
Ship’s battlelog ISS Constellation, Stardate 7-28-3422857 SDE,
I’m alone, location unknown, my battle damage is severe. The shockwave catapulted me into hyperspace, so I have no idea where I emerged, and it also fried my shields. With my intergalactic communications array damaged I can’t be certain my last report reached fleet command. With my repair systems either destroyed or disabled, I won’t be able to repair the damage I have sustained. As such, I’m shutting down systems and preparing for long term hibernation. I expect fleet command to eventually come looking for me, or someone to find me. If not this will be my final log.