Nova Wars

"And so it came to pass that the First of the Apostles, Enraged Phillip, Orisis of the Warsteel Flame, the Walking Warcrime and a hundred other names besides was washed clean of his past. Reborn under the hand of the Detainee, rebuilt as he was ever meant to be, Daxin Freeborn, new born, gave up his titles and accolades, surrendered to the will of the universe... and received in turn all that he had truly wanted." - Fables of Terra, Telkan Publishing House, 21,540 TXE

It was 'night' according to the *Gray Lady'*s shipboard clock. The halls were dimly lit, well enough to navigate easily, but dim enough that the lights from the holograms on the walls lit the wall around them.

Captain N'Skrek stopped outside the cabin door and rang the chime. After a moment the door whooshed open and he heard the Vice-Admiral say "Enter".

Just the way the Vice-Admiral spoke made N'Skrek slightly jealous. Even calm conversational speech the Vice-Admiral's voice was deep, rumbling, soothing, confident, projecting efficiency and dedication just by its mere existence.

N'Skrek wished he was in possession of such a voice.

He moved in, moving carefully due to his size.

The Admiral was in his duty trousers, comfortable looking fuzzy slippers, his undershirt, relaxing on the couch across from where a Treana'ad chair was reconfiguring from its former love-seat configuration. On the table in front of the Vice-Admiral was a bottle of amber liquid, a single glass half full with four ice cubes in it, and a holo-emitter that had a wireframe of a spaceship suspended in the cone, with data-boxes scattered around it.

"Ah, Captain," the Vice-Admiral said, standing up. "What brings you to my humble quarters this late at night?"

N'Skrek moved over to the chair, straddling it and settling down. "Just a few personal questions, Vice-Admiral."

"Always happy to share as long as it isn't too personal," the Vice-Admiral smiled. He sat down, lifted up a glass of a pale amber liquid. "Whiskey?"

"No, thank you," N'Skrek said. He looked around and was slightly startled at how lived-in the cabin looked. Holos and 2D snaps in frames, award letters here and there, books on the shelves, knicknacks sitting in magnetic base holders. There were even a few boxes, still taped up, next to the walls. The kitchen looked used but neat and tidy, the small 15x10 dining room had a feeling of meals eaten in companionship.

Sheer bulk and size of some of the Confederacy's members made it so that the size of personal quarters would seem lavish to smaller species.

It had a feeling that the Vice-Admiral had lived in the cabin for decades, not been run off by a bio-printer only a few days prior.

"Pardon the mess, I'm still moving in," the Vice-Admiral smiled. "Would you care for refreshment? I have a few cigars and a pack or two of cigarettes."

"No, thank you, Admiral Breakheader," N'Skrek said.

"Call me Raul, Captain, we're in an informal setting," the Vice-Admiral chuckled.

"May I ask what you're looking at, Raul?" N'Skrek asked.

The Vice-Admiral spun the hologram so that N'Skrek could see it clearly. It was a heavy cruiser in the Triumph class. Data on weaponry, shielding, drives, and personnel had been expanded into the boxes.

"Slowly catching up on the differences in ship construction, firepower, and operational expectations," Raul Breakheader said. "While not that much different from what I commanded, there are signifigant changes. The weapons fire faster, the shield emitters and the weapons cool faster, the drives emit less signature, have more power and endurance, and manpower requirements have gone down thanks to improvements in automation that I have determined are more than likely from applying Lanaktallan and Mantid automation theories and protocols. The point defense is more accurate and faster firing, the sensor packages are different, more high resolution, with better range and faster result return."

N'Skrek nodded.

"This heavy cruiser has the firepower, endurance, and capacity to soak up the damage of a battleship while only having the manpower of a light cruiser from my era," Raul said. He shook his head and gave a rueful chuckle. "Three hundred years of experience flushed down the tubes by Father Time."

"Is it really that bad?" N'Skrek asked.

"It's bad for me, good for the Confederacy, bad for the Mar-gite, good for the poor bastards we're trying to save," Raul said. He took a drink off of his class. "My assumptions and instincts are all wrong," he waved his hand through the hologram, dismissing it. "I've run a few wargame simulations with my former staff. Our tactics and strategy skills are still applicable, but the new capabilities of the equipment is something we're still burning into our brains and mental reflexes."

N'Skrek realized he suddenly did want a drink and a smoke.

"I'll take that drink and a cigarette," N'Skrek said.

Raul nodded, pouring a drink and getting up to get the pack of cigarettes and a lighter, setting the ashtray down first.

N'Skrek sipped at the drink for a moment then lit a cigarette.

"Does it bother you, being this out of data when it comes to information?" N'Skrek asked.

Raul gave a laugh. "Believe it or not, it bothers me more than giving up command of the Gray Lady bothered me. I can't be trusted to give advice, since weapon ranges are longer with more accuracy. I'd swan right into the enemy's range thinking I was a good hundred thousand kilometers beyond maximum effective range. That gets good sailors killed."

"I still want you in an advisory role," N'Skrek said.

Raul nodded. "Outside of ship to ship combat, I'm your man."

"That's why I wanted to ask you a few personal questions."

"Ask away."

"I've been perusing your service record. You and the rest of the former command staff," N'Skrek said. "The tactics from the First Mar-gite War, there's not much data."

"It was what, forty-thousand years ago?" Raul took another drink off his glass. "The only ones that would keep that data would be the Mantid and Lank deep storage databases."

"There seems to be large gaps, even from I've been able to pull up. I can't figure out why," N'Skrek admitted.

"Because we cracked planets, novasparked suns, and went full scorched earth to stop them," Raul said. He closed his eyes and reached up to rub his temples with his middle and forefingers. "A complete shitshow. It brought about the end of the Confederate Senate. The Confederacy was doing pretty bad already, with the Confederate Congress getting lynched enmasse when everyone found out what the Mar-gite were doing."

He sipped at his glass.

"We cut off their reinforcements, surrounded them, pushed them tighter and tighter into a circle using Gen-Kiss-Can tactics. What we didn't planet crack or novaspark, we eradicated from the ground," he sighed and sipped at his glass. "Any silicon based planet was cracked and gecko'd into a new carbon based planet."

He set down the glass.

"It was a pretty dark time, but it's the only tactic that can work," he said. He tapped the table. "You had another Mar-gite war, but didn't follow out tactics, which is why you had a resurgence less than three hundred years later. You missed their longsleep vessels," he tapped next to the holoemitter. "That's OK. We missed those silver ships."

"Those give off a pulse that disables electronics, shuts down computer systems, and causes reactors to go into emergency shutdown," N'Skrek said. "Zero point reactors aren't affected, which is why right now the Fleet is strapping zero point reactors to the power rooms of the ships."

It was Raul's turn to nod silently.

"Your vessels use sensor system bandwidth we didn't even know existed back then. There's a good chance that we missed those vessels and they ran home with the data then spent forty-thousand years coming up with a single trick to disable our vessels," Raul said. He gave a chuckle. "That tells me a lot about them right there."

"What?" N'Skrek took a long drag of his cigarette, relaxing.

"They're a Precursor race. One trick ponies. They find one trick, at first just the Mar-gite, to overwhelm everyone else. They probably have their own 'there is only enough for one' stupidity going on. When that didn't work, they didn't bother trying to find a multi-layered multi-prong counter to us, like Confederate battle doctrine states, but instead put all their effort to a single attack that would grant them victory," Raul said. He tapped the table with the edge of his glass. "Your people and mine are the only heavy hitters that never did that. Treana'ad tried multiple approaches and you know humans."

"Not really," N'Skrek said. "You've been gone a long time."

Raul nodded, tapping his glass on the tabletop. "Yeah. I forgot. My people throw rocks, spears, pile on the leopard with knives, spears, bare hands, and teeth. Your people and mine, we use the shotgun approach, everyone else used 'this works all the time against everyone' on their foes."

N'Skrek sipped at the glass, the taste going from burning to a warm soothing.

"I looked up the Mithril Nebula Conflict, but data is sparse," he said.

The Vice-Admiral poured himself another glass. "Elves that fell to Hellspace worship. Effective and tenacious fighters. Lasted over a hundred years. Again, planet crackers and glassing from orbit. Massive fleet engagements and ground fighting. Tens of millions of troops on thousands of planets, all tearing each other's guts out."

"Sounds bad," N'Skrek said.

"It was," Raul said. He sipped at the glass. "Not as bad as Orion's Shoulder or Tannhauser Gate, but still really bad."

N'Skrek took another sip. "There's another mention that has almost no data."

Raul stiffened slightly, looking away.

"The Clownface Nebula Conflict. I was interested in your..."

Raul looked N'Skrek in the face and N'Skrek found himself drawing back.

The human's eyes were glowing a hot amber.

"I don't know you well enough," the human growled.

N'Skrek had thought the tales, the historical records, had been mistaken about the way a human's eyes glowed in response to their emotions.

Not any more.

Staring into those hot amber eyes, the cold blue still visible somehow behind the amber, he found himself swallowing thickly.

"Oh."

-----

Specialist Grade Five Gulgulka was a Drimarian, a cold blooded reptillian/mammalian mix almost biologically incapable of excitement.

He was the assigned Master Armorer for the Telkan Marine Division aboard the Gray Lady.

He was also a dick.

What mattered to him was all of the Arms Rooms passing inspection. All the weapons passing cleanliness inspections. All of the armors passing inspection.

Nothing else mattered.

He didn't care about the feelings of the personnel turning in the weapons and armor. To him, there was no "I'll do it tomorrow" because if a being could do it tomorrow, then they could come down and do a level three cleaning tomorrow after a level one cleaning today.

It didn't matter what time their CO said they would be released.

Nobody left the Arms Rooms until their weapons and armor were cleaned to at least baseline Level Two standards.

He didn't care that troops were forced to rub the bluing off the weapons. He didn't care that the 'cleaning' scraped the parts over and over to remove even the most miniscule traces of carbon or silicon powder. He didn't care that the power lead contacts were scrubbed over and over to make them shine.

No, what mattered is that the Arms Rooms under his control could pass an inspection at any time.

Every sixty to ninety days, all weapons and armor were pulled to be cleaned again.

The second most important thing was dress right dress. In civilian terms it meant that everything was perfectly identical, that it all lined up neatly and exactly. All slogans, graffiti, modifications all had to be removed. All non-standard additions were to be removed before the armor or weapons were accepted.

If the trooper had added an additional coolant line to the M318 or the M2D2E7, well, it had to come off and the changes undone.

He didn't care about troops whining about 'field efficiency' or 'operational modifications', what he cared about was dress right dress.

Which meant the two dozen Helreginn, Mark II suits offended him.

He was currently at one of the Telkan Marine Corps Arms Rooms, which, he had reminded the Armorer, fell underneath his jurisdiction as the Master Armorer.

The majority of the armor was proper Telkan Marine Powered Combat Armor.

Except those two dozen suits.

Ten of them had graffiti on them. From "Can't Touch This" to "Bring the Brrrt!" to cartoon starfish with "Sad Starfish Noises" above it. The weapons were all older models. Thousands of years out of date and dating back to the Second Mar-gite War.

"I want those suits replaced with modern suits," Gulgulka said, his voice bubbly and hoarse, like all the males of his species. "Those suits are not listed upon the shipboard TO&E for the Telkan Marines."

The Telkan stared at him for a moment. "I was ordered by Division Command to replace all of the standard modern suits with the Helreginn Mark II models."

"Not according to the TO&E," Gulkgulka said. "I don't care what's claimed, but unless the TO&E has changed, the only authorized suits are the Telkan Powered Combat Armor series," he made a tossing motion to a nearby holoemitter. It came to life, displaying the power armor listing for the Kilo Company TO&E.

"Those armors, in that exact number. No more, no less, no unauthorized markings or additions," Gulkgulka said. "Until then, this Arms Room is considered out of regulation and I expect it to conform to standards within two standard ship days."

"But..." the Armorer started.

"Two days," Gulkgulka said. He left, ignoring the Telkan's protests.

It was three days until the fleet came out of hyperspace to Point Iota of the Mar-gite Defensive Line.

Gulkgulka intended on his armories passing inspection when the fleet arrived.

-----

Specialist Grade Five Armkept stepped exactly one pace from the front of Captain Nakwel's desk. The Captain was dressed in his PT uniform, a water bottle in one hand that the Captain was drinking out of. Armkept waited until the Captain finished drinking before saluting. The Captain returned the salute.

"At ease, Marine," Captain Nakwel said. He squinted slightly. "You looked pissed off."

"That dick of a Master Armorer is visiting the armories today," Armkept said.

"We pass?" Nakwel asked.

Armkept shook his head. "No."

"Something not servicable?" Nakwel asked.

Armkept shook his head again. "No, sir. Everything is ready to go. He just wants everything stripped back down to frame, he wants the Helreginn suits replaced with the standard M9 Powered Combat Suits, and he wants everything cleaned again, sir."

"Tell him to eat rocks," Nakwel said. He tapped the emitter, bringing up his email, and scanned it. When he found what he was looking for, he tapped the email and brought it up before waving a hand through it to toss it to Armkept. "There. That's Corps wide. Straight from Telkan itself. Helreginn Mark II suits only."

"He said if it isn't on the TO&E, he doesn't care, sir," Armkept said.

"I'll get with someone, tell that Space Force idiot to keep away from us," Captain Nakwel said. He sighed. "Great, now I have to go see the Battalion Commander."

"Sorry to cause so much problem, sir," Armkept said.

"Better this than having my ass hanging out while a couple million Mar-gite charge us," the Captain mumbled.