NOVEL WEB A4 – Chapter 174 – Plans and Slam
USD: One week After A3123Y left the system
Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia Orbital Fleetworks, MOR-1
Heeler measured the number of resource extraction vessels leaving the fleet works towards Nu Crateris’ gas giant. Each departing vessel was tasked with a specific resource and was specialized in extra-planetary extraction. The moons, ring, and asteroids there would provide ample amounts of material to ferry back to the fleet works, far more than could be lifted into orbit via Dedia’s single space elevator.
A tentacle eye veered away from his command console to appraise the gray swirling clouds of the planet below. Lightning storms and incessant hurricanes had become a constant phenomenon on the surface after increasing global climate catastrophes had assailed the once inhabitable surface.
He had, perhaps, pressed too far with industrialization of the hives on the surface, in a bid for expediency, but the number of ships produced in orbit had begun to meet his estimated requirements for the Nest and Starlight Revolution’s survival.
The asteroid bombardment had, perhaps, been excessive; but he would never admit to such.
He felt his estimates were accurate, but he had no real database of information on the Solarians and Corporate System nations, other than what had been publicly available in Mother’s star-wiki-pedia subscription. Most of it was corporate babble and adware, but the small pieces he had extracted from it were valuable enough to make him certain of two things.
They were vastly outnumbered in systems and planets… and the current factions were splintered and weakened by infighting. Starlight Revolution would have time to prepare for any assault. But not forever.
The enemy would probe first. The small forces that had wandered into the system were just remnants of fleets that had been fighting each other. They barely qualified as a ‘probe’ to him. But they would send stronger warships once his sisters allowed the Solarians to flee to their own nest.
He almost had demanded that they be dealt with forcefully; imprisoned on Dedia or Hades and kept from divulging the information they had acquired… but it was true that Lavigne’s crew had made a difference in the battle with the organics inside the future Fortress Nest.
When pragmatism and honor warred within, he had chosen to follow the later.
It had been what his sisters had wanted. His queen, Szizsielia, had approved, and all rejoiced at their joint decision to follow Abbey’s offer and not renege on their promises to free the Solarian prisoners for their assistance.
But why did the inside of his shell, and his computronics hum with agitation?
There would be great need to hasten their efforts. First, the war inside Hades needed to be won.
Turning his attention to the last information relay from Y-4993-R, Heeler examined the latest battlefield developments. They had decided to name the enemy “Hadenics”, a play on their location and organic makeup. The detailed status screens told him that the stalemate inside the battle moon’s interior would not soon be broken with the current resources deployed.
The rich interior of the moon, full of easily convertible and usable metals and even refined stores of resources, allowed both sides to rapidly build and deploy their forces. The Hadenics had ample volatiles and seemed capable of breeding their endless hordes of creatures; all of which were specially evolved to counter any technological adaptation that Starlight Revolution could muster.
Massive hive structures continued to grow at the same rate as he had built armored production facilities deep underneath the surface. On the tactical map, both sides had filled every hemisphere of the moonlet with growing cysts of military might that continuously spewed forces at one another in an attempt to devour the other.
Heeler’s attention moved to his hive-ships. Each had been built with Hades in mind. Their massive structures rivaled A31 in length and width, the interiors of which had been designed with the natural needs and tendencies of a Rexxor Hive in mind. They were not purposefully built for war in space; their armaments and weaponry were not optimized for such things.
Instead, they were mobile factories; each capable of providing life support and supplies to the Queen who could quickly lay her nestlings and grow them without worry of starvation. It was a melding of technological prowess ingrained in him by his father and machine mind and the natural capabilities and adaptability of his species.
It was this that would turn the tides of war inside of Hades. Where the Hadenics could manipulate organics and repurpose them with their devilish EMF wave technology that was still very far from being understood, armor and technology would shield his brothers from harm.
Where the Hadenics constantly adapted to changes in tactics and technology, the Queens could lay and adapt new children to compensate. If the Hadenic’s usage of mindless zombies was daunting, then they would raise a new generation of Rexxor that was cunning and bred for war instead of mindless hunting of prey animals.
The invasion would be ready. Soon.
There was only one further issue left for him to tackle for the day. He had solved the problem of needing to be in two places at the same time by creating his new sub-core but managing the orbital fleet had become a hindrance to high-level planning and thinking. The requirements for directing the mining fleet had only grown along with its size, and the departure of A31 had caused a noticeable decline in production.
Regardless of the failings of his sisters’ race, they were quite intelligent and skilled at the tasks they were well versed in.
Creating a new sub-core so soon after Y-4993-R would not be ideal… and there was another matter needing solved. If he could deal with both at once, then wouldn’t that please father?
A chime sounded and the visage of a confused human male appeared on Heeler’s display.
“I thought it would be Daniel calling.” The man said.
“Governor John Tyler.” Heeler growled. “How would the humans of Dedia feel about escaping the tunnels of their forced nest, and take up home on an invasion barge?”
The man frowned, clearly unhappily by the phrasing. “You want to use us as invasion soldiers?”
Heeler flicked a tentacle in annoyance. “You will be free to direct your barge where and how you wish. It will not be built to a lesser extent than the ones the Queens are migrating to now. The timetable for restoring Dedia’s climate has elongated to the point where it is easier to create for you a new home.”
The man was silent for several minutes; Heeler turned his attention to management issues until Governor Tyler finally nodded.
“Send me the details. I will bring it up with the council… but I imagine that most people will vote to want to leave.” The governor said.
Heeler growled in satisfaction.
USD: Three days after a friendly sparring session.
Location: Meltisar, Groundside, 62km north of M-Prime
The VTOL dropship Thea had acquired dwarfed the aircars she’d acquired. Its angular shape curved into a wedge, while sleek high powered thrusters allowed six-axis movement in the air. It wasn’t the highest end model, and Elis suspected that she’d picked it up from a surplus military dealer, because there had been spent power cells rolling around in the passenger compartment.
It was more than roomy enough to hold her in her MKIV power armor, while Thea sat across from her. Elis did a check on her suit HUD; they were quickly closing in on the target zone. A map of a fortified compound was set in 3D perspective for her, but she switched it to a 2D layout. It resembled an ancient earth fortress, complete with a motte and bailey, revamped for modern sensibilities and with thick concrete walls.
“Pretty expensive looking layout.” Elis commented.
Thea’s eyes opened before a frown crossed her face. “This far out from the city, the land prices drop fast; only two months out of the year it isn’t a frozen hellhole.”
Elis’ eyes flickered to her suit indicator showing a crisp 4 degrees Celsius. “This is summer?”
“You did notice the mountain range we had to cross?” Thea asked.
“I was taking a nap,” Elis replied.
“If there was ever any question about you having served as a marine, that puts an end to it,” Thea quipped.
Elis didn’t rise to her bait, instead glancing back to another section of her suit HUD that had their primary target’s information. The most recent photo they had was of a man with short green hair and emerald green eyes. A slender profile, but that didn’t mean much when dealing with a NAI avatar. He was an Upsilon, which put him at a higher rank than the star nation envoys Alex was dealing with in orbit.
It was slightly worrying that he was abducting women and killing them, to say the least.
“If he has a fortress, why aren’t we just carpet bombing it? A heavy lance from orbit from a warship could vaporize the entire compound.” Elis asked.
“We need to be sure we take out the target. Taking out just the Avatar won’t be enough. We need to get the ShipCore and there is an underground bunker.” Thea frowned before adding, “Scouting revealed he has hostages.”
“Right. Hostages; cause the first just means you drop a single railgun round from a Big Boi on it after melting everything.” Elis stated. “You have a problem being the ‘good’ guy or something? Why not just lead with that?”
Thea bristled. “When we go in, leave engaging the Avatar to me. I’ll attempt to subvert him first. Celestia wants to interrogate him before we determine what we do with him.”
Elis nodded, remembering a conversation she’d had with Alex a few months earlier, where her sister had struggled with working through just what and how to shape the directives on unfriendly NAIs. Mind-control slavery was not something any of them considered; but in a combat situation or where critical information was available…
They had a responsibility to do everything to protect themselves; and everyone else. It was not something that she had had to think about as a marine grunt in the Federation Navy. Her first advice was to simply determine things on a case-by-case basis, but they had to deal with things on such a scale that it wasn’t exactly easy.
“He likely has some trained security and automated defense drones. We’ll be deploying our own before going in,” Thea announced. “We will be spearheading the infil while the drones deal with any other small combat units.”
“And if things go FUBAR?” Elis asked.
“We have two drop teams of Meltisar Marines in their standard power armor, and an orbital strike… but let’s not do that. Tia made a point of us cleaning up our own ‘NAI’ mess to the military; even if we had nothing to do with making it.” Thea explained.
“You realize I’m not a NAI, right?” Elis pointed out.
“Your sister is one, so that makes you part of the family?” Thea theorized before shrugging and looking out the window. “Deploying scout drones; we’re in Op range.”
“I wish we had an entire team of MKIV Fed Armor marines.” Elis mumbled, turning her attention to the new view ports from their drones. They shot out sideways from the VTOL, detaching from their clamps in droves. A few were larger, and well equipped with high caliber PDC-Ks, while others carried rocket launchers. It was a lot of hardware for what they were expecting, but that was probably for the best.
Their intel wasn’t the best; the ex-Ertan NAI had been blocking their intel gathering via the standard channels effectively. It turned out that distance hampered a lot of Nameless’ and their team’s ability to compromise and infiltrate everything on the SystemNet.
It was a wonder the Meltisar Government was able to function at all, in Elis’ opinion.
The smaller drones shot forward first, centering the compound in their view.
“Activity spotted.” Thea said, but it wasn’t needed, Elis could see for herself the several dozen people milling about. Inside the walls there were several small fields, with what she assumed were winter modified and hardy plants, because there seemed to be a lot of effort being put into growing something.
“Definitely would say there are hostages; a lot more than we planned for. We’re going to need an evac shuttle.” Elis added.
Suddenly, the top of the towers dotting the outer wall had their tops slide open, revealing a dozen large PDC-K turrets. A shrieking alarm went off inside the compound and everyone in the courtyard began to run for cover.
“Those are military grade.” Elis stated. Checking their distance and altitude, she grabbed Thea’s arm, not wasting any time to explain. Before the NAI could protest, Elis continued by smashing the side door open with a heavy kick. A second later, she jumped, dragging Thea into the air behind her.
Falling back first, Elis pulled Thea into a close hug.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Thea screamed at her.
Multiple streams of projectiles skewered the vehicle, red streams of tracers lighting up the sky above them, before the vehicle exploded into a disintegrating cloud of shrapnel.