Into the Black

Chapter 299 – Cavalry

(Fleet Command Cluster, IAS Shield of Faith, outside the Anomaly, the Godsrealm)

High Warleader Urzo Hakzex gaped as she looked at the screen of her command cluster, as it showed the massive vessel that was approaching them. Indeed, ‘massive’ was an understatement of cataclysmic proportions. At nineteen kilometers long, with a shape reminiscent of an arrowhead or dagger, it massed over one hundred times the mass of her largest ships! And, was that a city-sized superstructure on top of it?

Her aide was no less shocked than she was. “High Warleader, the vessel’s shields are stronger than anything I’ve seen before. Sensors are reading weapons emplacements in the thousands! And I don’t think it has even hit maximum acceleration, yet!”

Another aide spoke up, “Ship design is not of any known model, but construction methods indicate that it is of Black Star origin. Unknown class or designation. Unknown weapons systems.”

Hakzex cursed her luck. Of all the times for Black Star to reveal some new cursed abomination to thwart the will of the Imperatrix, it had to be on her watch! Still, there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Not now.

“Tactical, give me something I can use!”

The tactical officer pouring over the data looked up. With a grim face, she said, “That ship is capable of tearing through the Armada single-handedly, Admiral. But it appears geared more for ship-to-ship combat than fighter defense. If we launched bombers, they may be able to take down the shield generators.”

“What is the status of our squadrons?”

“The pilots are ready, and the ships are armed. However, the fighters and bombers do not have the Godsrealm shields. The pilots will be exposed to the energies of the Godsrealm and the messengers of the Gods. It is unknown whether any of them will survive to launch their payloads.”

That was unfortunate. The pilots were capable servants of the Imperatrix. However, they were far from irreplaceable, and the little ships were the best chance they had for keeping that massive ship from routing the armada. It was not a decision to take lightly.

“Estimated casualties?”

“Fifty percent.”

“Estimated success rate for disabling the vessel’s shield generators, if we engage in a full strike?”

“Sixty-four percent.”

“Estimated chances of the Armadas’ success against the vessel with its shields raised, within effective weapons range?”

“Thirty-three percent.”

“And if the Black Stars emerge while we’re fighting it?”

“Five percent, but with near-total casualties.”

Hakzex nodded, once, making her decision. “All ships, launch all fighters, all bombers. Have them focus on the new arrival. Until the shields go down, have our ships remain out of weapons range of that thing, and focus on the projected exit points for when the Black Star Fleet emerges.”

“By your will, High Warleader.”

(Main Bridge, BSN Hades, outside the Thraki Bubble, Hellspace)

Captain Nesterin Zyllen leaned forward in his command chair as he saw swarms of fighters appear on the point defense. Some immediately failed, either exploding or going ‘dead stick’, but the rest continued on course, uncaring. “Looks like you were right, XO. They don’t want to pick a fight with anyone bigger than they are.”

Commander Vestele Aenorin, his XO, grinned back at him with that knowing smirk of hers. “Of course, Captain. They are bullies. They can’t ignore us completely, because we’re too big, and coming straight for us, but they can try and harry us and use fighters to try and pierce our defenses, without risking their bigger ships. That is the logical move. And in realspace, it might even have been effective, especially with us being on a skeleton crew at the moment.”

“Yes, I’m not entirely comfortable with the level of automation on the ship currently, especially in damage control. Bots and automated systems can only do so much, after all. Still, needs must when the devil is at the wheel.”

“It could be worse, sir. The rest of the fleet was modified to survive in Hellspace. This ship was made specifically for Hellspace. The shields, especially the Hellspace shields, are orders of magnitude stronger than the ones on the enemy fleet.”

“True.” He shook his head, refocused on the scanners. “Looks like they’re expecting the Fleet to break out any time now.”

“Looks like, sir.”

Zyllen turned to the lone Nomad on the bridge. She was not a member of the Black Star Navy, or even the Black Star Company, not officially. Technically, she was the property of the Black Star Company’s CEO and Owner. Right now, she was their best chance on getting through to the Admiral, and making some kind of unified attack plan.

“Anything, yet?”

Bennie Owen, former thug turned slave and prostitute, now a member of a rock band that was on tour in Star’s Reach, just shook her head. “Not yet, Captain. Time doesn’t flow the same in Hellspace. Makes it hard to have a conversation.”

Zyllen nodded. Hellspace was funny like that. In practice, it appeared that time could move slower or faster than normal, seemingly on a whim. But there were no theoretical limits to this, meaning that it was technically possible to enter Hellspace, and then exit before you even left. That was unlikely, of course, but it was still possible.

Even instantaneous communications outside of all known technological systems could only do so much when you were literally experiencing time at different rates. It was hard to communicate when the other side was either speaking so slowly that saying ‘hello’ took an hour or more. Or if you had to slow down their words because they were speaking so quickly that they dictated an entire treatise in under a second. And if time was too far out of synch, they might not even realize that anyone was speaking to them in the first place!

Like now. He couldn’t see the Thraki Bubble, as people were calling it, on his scans, but the Ihm clearly knew where it was, as they focused their ships to intercept those exiting the bubble. He had no way of knowing the time dilation between inside and outside the bubble, though, which was annoying. And those fighters were getting closer.

“Point defense online, go to automatic. All enemies marked as hostile. Prioritize missile defense. Have the Valkyries standing by.”

He didn’t have his Marine detachment yet, but the crews for the six Valkyrie-Variant Crow Assault Shuttles, as they were officially called, were on board and ready. Each of the three pairs in the half-squadron were armed and ready to fight. Of course, sending them against the four hundred fighters currently inbound would just be sending them to their deaths, needlessly.

As the point defense weapons started firing, he considered the plot. He hoped that the enemy would be stupid enough to allow him to get within range of his ship’s main weapons. The research and development teams would love to get some actual testing done on the new weapon designed precisely for fighting in Hellspace.

Actually, the main weapon was one of the largest engineering hurdles in the whole business of making the Hades. The standard massive railgun approach was good, but there were definite limits to the design, especially when time screwed with things, making shots wildly inaccurate past point-blank range. Sure, the same principles applied to energy weapons that went the speed of light, but that just extended the effective range.

Fortunately, the Lost Tech facility called the Enrichment Center on Star’s Reach was a treasure trove of ancient secrets. According to the researchers, there were technical schematics for things modern sapients hadn’t even come up with words for, much less put into practice. Unfortunately, that also meant that actually using the concepts was problematic, usually due to power concerns or manufacturing difficulties.

The Portals that featured in some of the Enrichment Center’s initial testing were a key example of this. The Enrichment Center had a portal generator that was, literally, man-portable, and ran on a power source they still hadn’t been able to figure out the science behind, to say nothing of replicating them. The smallest portal generator they’d been able to make independently was the size of a room, and required a dedicated reactor to use.

For obvious reasons, the Marines had decided not to disburse portal guns to the troops.

However, there had been mention of a weapon that could be used in Hellspace. A capitol ship weapon, naturally. Once they found out about it, the lab coats and researchers had gone on the hunt like wolves chasing down a deer. It had taken some doing, but they’d managed to build one prototype, now resting along the length of the Hades’s spine, where the massive, oversized railguns would be on any other ship in the fleet.

He’d seen the test fire, and it was, in a word, glorious to behold. Oh, in realspace, it was utterly ineffective, except as a light show to scare fools and trick sensors, but, as an actual weapon? It was trash. Once you put it in Hellspace, though, the weapon became a terror, on the same order as the Starbolts were.

Captain Zyllen couldn’t wait to see how the Ihm responded to it.

“Sir, I’m in!” Zyllen’s eyes snapped to the nomad, and grinned. That changed everything. “Excellent. Let the Admiral know that the Cavalry is here. Actually, send him this—"

(Nomad Chat, Thraki System)

Parca: Well, looks like they’re still out there, and still waiting for us.

M.Mollen: Yeah, Nyna and the other Assassin captains didn’t think they’d been spotted, but they definitely noticed that they were not as stealthy as they should have been, and there were definitely ships watching.

MajorTom: So, trap?

M.Mollen: Trap.

Guardian: We going?

M.Mollen: Yep.

Hullu_Kapteeni: But remember where you said it was a trap?

M.Mollen: If it is a trap, we’re already caught in it.

HaveGunsWillTravel: Well, we won’t last too long against those armadas.

M.Mollen: We’ll last longer than we will against a planet-ship. And we might just take a few of them with us!

Parca: So, what’s the plan? Because we still don’t have Hellspace shields on the fighters. The Crows for the Marines have some shielding, and so do the gunboats, but that’s not going to stand up in a fight.

M.Mollen: Well, the plan is to have the superdreadnoughts out front, leading the way. They have the toughest shields, and a lot of firepower. We punch through whatever is in front of us, and don’t stop, no matter what. Stay together, don’t get bogged down, and try to stay alive.

Guardian: This is your plan? It would need a miracle!

Hullu_Kapteeni: I am not one for second-guessing, yes? But this sounds like a really bad plan. Especially if our scouts were seen, and they enemy is moving to intercept us.

M.Mollen: We don’t have much choice. The radiation inside the bubble is building, even though the bubble isn’t expanding, which is a problem. We’re going to need to activate shields anyway in the next hour or two, or start suffering soulsheering across the fleet.

MajorTom: Besides, according to the reports, the time dilation is almost 1:1 on the ‘Eye’ side of the bubble, and closer to 1:100 on the other side. That means the armada on the other side will take more time to intercept if we dive at the Eye side, and make for the rift.

M.Mollen: I know it is risky, but what else do we have?

Bennie has entered the chat.

Parca: Wait. What?

Bennie: Hey guys, did you miss me?

M.Mollen: Sure, Bennie. We all missed you. Does you being here mean what I think it means?

Bennie: I was told to give you this message from Captain Zyllen: Aiming for heaven though serving in hell/Victory is ours their forces will fall

Hullu_Kapteeni: OK, who has been letting the good captain listen to Sabaton?

Parca: *whistles innocently*

HaveGunsWillTravel: Oh, Parcaaaa, what did you do?

Parca: Well, I may have had a bit of a ‘cultural exchange’ with some of the lovely, unattached ladies across the fleet, and we may or may not have shared our personal entertainment libraries.

HaveGunsWillTravel: Pilots. You’re all the same.

Guardian: My god, you’re as bad as Master is!

Parca: No, what you mean is that the Boss is an honorary pilot, despite the fact that the only ship he’s flown is a freighter.

M.Mollen: Anyways, Bennie. I assume that the Hades is on station?

Bennie: Closing hard on the bubble. Captain says to wait a second before breaking out. He’s about to ring their bells.

M.Mollen: Is he using the new weapon?

Bennie: Um, well…

M.Mollen: Oh no, he isn’t planning what I think he’s planning, is he?

Bennie: Uh, maybe?

M.Mollen: Well, fuck. Everyone, tell your people to dial up the psychic shields as high as they’ll go. This is gonna get bumpy.