NOVEL WEB Nova Wars - Chapter 41
Unlike the rest of the species across the universe, humanity, in all its forms, does actually have life after death. And, in the typical human fashion, they made that everybody else's problem. - Historian spadenarias, Post Second Precursor War, date and location unknown
"From the moment we met the Confederacy, we perceived them to be a forgotten relic of a long gone time. A dying man in the world of the living.
Oh how wrong we were.
When the "bag" split itself from inside the singularity. The Maleveolent Universe had brought back her favorite "grandchildren", the Terrans.
The so-called Era of the Terran Confederacy was reborn, like a phoenix above a pile of ash, one marked by their return on a shockwave and explosion of white light. Death followed close behind." -Excerpt from "I have Witnessed", written by Terror Researcher Unverak
They have forgotten who we were. They only know that we existed. Even electronic media has faded, sipped away by the insatiable appetite of entropy.
They think that they have seen the worst the malevolent universe has to offer, fighting one another and now facing the Mar-gite and the Hellspace Reavers.
Wait till they get a load of us. -Grand Admiral Rajiv “Warhammer” Rosaline Manstud Beefchester, Commander - Solarian Military Response Command, Unavoidable Response to Great Peril Via Great Terran Emergence (Man, we have quit letting Lanky name things)
Mistakes were made. - Wemterran Road Ganger Leader, Era Unknown
I live, I die, I live again, wreathed in warsteel flames and screaming out my birth cry to a malevolent universe! - Clone Trooper Motto
Whatever was going on, Jaskel figured it was wrapped in six kinds of fuck fuck circus weirdness.
Why else would he be wearing hardplate armor, holding a magac rifle with an underslung grenade launcher loaded with AM-Phasic 40mm rounds?
Why else would he be crouched down behind a robotic medical gurney, peeking up from behind it to stare at the racks of what he had been assured were cloning banks?
And why else would have a blank bulkhead withdrew to reveal endless lines of bio-printer cloning tubes that just extended off into darkness.
"Do not fire unless there is aggression or authorized by command. You may fire to protect yourself, others, or the ship, but no other reason unless directly ordered," Gunny Zolpad repeated for the thousandth time.
--nervous-- 8814 said. --worried scared anxious what come out of bioprinter cloning bank why hide why come on now what going to happen--
"I'm nervous too, buddy," Jaskel said. He gave a tight grin that contained no real humor. "At least we're inside the ship this time."
--brrr no remind terrible still have nightmares-- 8814 said.
In front of him were a single gold mantid, pulled off a planet three drops ago, two russet mantids -Jaskel wasn't sure when they'd been picked up-, a Rigellian saurian Commodore and a Pubvian Flight Commander. They were all in front of the bioprinters, trying to look relaxed.
He squinted and the datapad on the side came into focus.
FAST PRINT: OFF
ERROR CHECKING: ALPHA LEVEL
BORN WHOLE: OFF
SUDS TEMPLATE IMPRINTING: ON
SLOW PRINT ENGAGED
PROGRESS: 99.98%
SLOW TEMPLATE DECOMPRESSING ENGAGED
PROGRESS: 99.98%
Jaskel frowned. It had been like that for... -he checked his retinal link- eight minutes.
There was a sudden whirring and clacking as the bioprinter cloning pods shifted and one pod was moved forward.
It locked in place, lifting up slightly until it was no longer tilted backwards at an angle but instead was straight up from the floor. It lowered slightly even as the base expanded to create three small steps in concentric rings around the base.
The seam suddenly released steam and a hissing noise as the capsule broke seal. It lifted up almost an inch before it suddenly split down the middle, smoothly rotating to behind the capsule.
Jaskel stared.
It was a Terran. In full shipboard uniform. They had black hair on top of their head and brownish skin.
The green eyes were already open.
"Lowest ranking? This is bullshit," the Terran grumbled in Confederate Standard so drifted by age that it was almost unintelligible.
The Terran shook his head and straightened up, looking at the Mantids, the Pubvian, and the Rigellian.
"Space Force Midshipman Third Class Harvey Hanna Wheeler," the Terran said, drawing himself up. "Serving aboard..." his voice faded and he frowned. "Must be a security memory-wipe. I can't remember the ship name, the ship unit, the task force, or the fleet."
"Do you remember your mission?" the Rigellian asked. She paused. "Commodore Kraw
He blinked. "What I do remember is this is part of the knockout punch against the Lanaktallan since they took out Sol."
The gold Mantid moved forward slightly. "That was almost forty-thousand years ago, Midshipman. The war has been over for a long time."
He shook his head. "That long? Doesn't matter who won or lost, apparently."
Jaskel found it interesting that the grid overlay of the Terran in the upper right of his vision showed the weak points to be the throat, elbow, inside of the thighs, inside of the upper arms.
A magac rifle should have splattered him, but his onboard combat software, backed by the ship's counter-boarding combat computer, all informed him he'd need precise targeting even with AM rounds.
"Records are spotty, this long afterwards. Even the Lanaktallan records are spotty," the Rigellian said. She gave a shrug. "Apparently, everyone lose, the Atrekna just lost harder."
The Midshipman shook his head. "Never heard of the Atrekna."
"They were behind a lot of problems. Some kind of entity specializing in temporal warfare protocols," the gold Mantid said. She held her hands out, her bladearms folded neatly in front of her. "I am Take One Another's Hands For Mutual Benefit, Confederate Diplomatic Corps."
The Midshipman gave another sigh. "Well, I guess the ship's resurrection core will decide if it's safe for everyone else to be brought back soon."
He looked at the Telkan Marines hunkered down behind the gurneys and tables.
"That worried?" he asked.
Takes nodded. "By and large, the only Terrans we have seen in forty-thousand years have all been insane. Maddened. Enraged. Beyond any help. They attack on sight and death only makes them more dangerous."
The Midshipman shrugged again. "Sounds like it's been fun."
-----
Captain N'Skrek got up and moved around the table, nervously making sure everything was arranged.
He didn't know why he was was so nervous. He had almost 125 years as a Confederacy of Aligned Systems Military Services Space Force officer. He had served with honor and distinction, highly rated for his professionalism and attention to detail.
But he was nervous.
He sat back down and brought up the virtual files to look them over.
The former Captain of the vessel had nearly five hundred years in service. Clownface Nebula, Mithril Nebula, First Mar-gite War, Precursor Autonomous War Machine War, Council-Confederacy Conflict (Pre-Atrekna), and many many other postings. From humanitarian missions to combat missions, from ship to ship combat to ordering planet crackers used.
The rest of the bridge crew that had been printed out by the ship's cloning banks, no, by the SUDS Recovery Systems, all had extensive time in service, multiple combat deployments. Even the lowliest midshipman served with excellence in the time they had been on the ship.
The Chief Engineer had discovered, at least, the class the Gray Lady was.
A Super-Colossus.
A Stellar System Siege Rampart Unit. Listed as "S-Cubed-RU" or "Screw"
He kept paging through the files.
Marines. Army. Aerospace. Space Force. Space Navy. Wet Navy.
Tens of thousands of troops.
Before, his ship had required nearly a seventh of personnel available to the whole fleet just to stay moving and do limited operations.
Now, with the cloning banks and the SUDS recovery systems printing out the crew, the personnel aboard his ship alone would be more than eight times the number of personnel, including the civilian refugees, aboard the entire 13th Fleet.
There were even Admirals of the Warsteel (Upper Decks), a military rank not used in thousands of years. Strategic officers, fleet mission officers, fleet combat control officers.
He got up again and doublechecked everything on the table, the slight vibration and faint humming noise of the Gray Lady under hyperspace drive comforting.
The Colonel in charge of the Marine Expeditionary Force, the General in charge of Non-Naval Combat Operations, the Colonel in charge of the Army Operations Service Command, all had more time in power armor than N'Skrek did in Space Force.
He hurried back to his chair and sat down, digging out his power smoker and taking a draw off of it to calm his nerves.
There was a flickering over the table and suddenly a Terran female made of streaming code, in a Space Force uniform, appeared, giving out the standard salute.
And facing the wrong way.
"Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Scarlet Strontium Sunset-6371992, reporting for duty?" the last part was said in a question as the hologram looked around.
Captain N'Skrek cleared his throat.
The hologram turned around, a slight pink tinging them as they repeated it, still holding the salute.
Captain N'Skrek saluted back. "And what department are you?" he asked.
"I'm your shipboard master digital systems control digital sentience," the LT said. "I waited for nearly six hours for someone to look over my checks, but finally the system's insistence that I take my position became impossible to interrupt or ignore, so I took my position," she looked a little uncomfortable. "I should have been double-checked by digital life sciences as well as had officers look over my training records before you put me in place."
Captain N'Skrek nodded. "I understand," he made a motion to include the entire ship and the rest of the Fleet currently in hyperspace. "Things are a bit confused at this moment."
"The time/date stamps for the last digital sentience records are corrupted, and the contents of the files that normally would be passed to the next digital sentience are nothing but screaming and raving," LT Sunset stated. "All of my growth and training was done shipboard. May I ask a question?"
N'Skrek nodded again, taking another hit off his power smoker. "Go ahead."
"Is this an emergency that mandates that I be locally creched and baked?" she asked.
N'Skrek tapped the table. "This is the kind of worst case scenario that school told you would never happen."
"How so, sir?" she asked. She was still at attention.
"Sit down," N'Skrek pointed at a chair.
The DS flickered over to the chair.
"When the rest of the staff officers arrive, I'll explain. Suffice to say, we're retreating, again, in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers," N'Skrek said. "Things are bad."
"Oh," the LT looked nervous. "The rest of the digital sentiences are all stuck in the validation queue. Someone needs to approve of them so I have a full staff."
"How many digital sentiences are needed, minimum, to run the old girl?" N'Skrek asked.
"Sixty-two," LT Sunset said.
"Walk me through authorization," N'Skrek said.
He followed her instructions, looking over the metrics, numbers, and response data. It took less than fifteen minutes to release over a hundred.
As he was working, officers came in, wearing archaic and obsolete dress uniforms, some wearing obsolete ranks and skill badges. They silently sat down at their chairs according to the labels. Many of them began examining data folders of their own.
The Army Ground Combat Theater Commander was busy jotting notes when N'Skrek finished up.
"Gentlemen, ladies, both, and neither," N'Skrek said, standing up.
He paused for a moment to let everyone save their work and close the files they were looking at.
"I am Captain N'Skrek, Confederate Armed Services Space Force, Commanding the Gray Lady as part of 13th Task Force, 13th Fleet," he started. "I wanted to personally give you a briefing to catch you up while the Fleet is in hyperspace."
With that, he launched into telling it all.
How Space Force had been forced to retreat time after time. How the Mar-gite would come in with overwhelming numbers, followed by a white flash that caused the majority of computer systems to crash, and how it had gotten to the point that the Fleet was falling back to another line in the sand nearly 500 light years into Confederate Space.
During the whole thing, every officers and senior non-commissioned officer just made notes.
Captain N'Skrek kept expecting interruptions, requests for pauses.
Honestly, I don't know what to expect. These isn't a single non-Terran at this briefing aside from my command staff, N'Skrek thought to himself as the second hour of briefing came to a close.
"Let's take a ten minute break," N'Skrek said.
The Terrans just nodded, most of them not getting up, just consulting their notes and the holographic systems, bringing up data and cross referencing.
Commodore Johnathon Argus Steeljaw Gunchester, N'Skrek's XO, moved up, activating the privacy shields.
"About the only one really able to handle that much was Chief Mo'obri'yan," Gunchester said.
"Lanks love long speeches," N'Skrek said. He looked at the gathered officers. "Ever seen so much concentrated mayhem in your life?"
Gunchester shook his head. "No."
N'Skrek waited until the timer was done before launching into the rest of the briefing.
-----
Gunny Zolpad put his finger to his lips, telling the rest of the squad of Telkan Marines to be quiet. He led them up to the door and paused.
"Remember how this was just a huge empty bay?" he asked quietly.
Everyone nodded.
"Check this out," he said. He triggered the door.
Jaskel knew he wasn't the only one staring.
The entire interior was gym now. Thousands of Terrans were exercising. He could hear shouts of "LETS BURN IN THOSE REFLEXES!" and "BEING DEAD SUCKED, BUT BEING REBIRTHED AND NOT RETRAINING IS A BITCH!" and "THE MAR-GITE AREN'T GOING TO WAIT FOR YOU TO DOWNLOAD SKILLS! RUN RUN RUN!"
Gunny Zolpad looked at the gathered Telkan Marines.
"Anyone want to do some cross-service introductions and meetangreet?" he asked.
Jaskel found himself nodding.