Nova Wars

If you have never dealt with Terrans nothing can prepare you for the experience. - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

Admiral (Upper Decks) of the Warsteel Sharnat checked her implant again. Her Chief of Staff was not answering her comlink or her datalink, despite Sharnat having pinged her several times, the last two with the high priority attachment, over the last hour.

Now she was moving through the corridors of the massive refit and repair ship, heading deeper into it. Her datalink was connected to the ship's computer, which was kind enough to inform Admiral Sharnat that Vice Admiral of the Bronze (Lower Decks) Sheemee was in something called "Aquatic Sports & Therapy" toward the aft end of the massive ship.

She took two lifts and one tram, finally arriving.

It was startling just how huge the Terran ship was.

Her own ship was dwarfed by the Black Sea Rabbit, the Solarian Iron Dominion repair vessel.

It was six superheavy super-colossus hulls arranged long ways, welded to four welded together hulls that were sideways, to form a two level 'W' structure.

Where her ship was modern spherical warfighting theory, where the best coverage for the least dedicated systems, the Solarian ships were all classical long and narrow ships.

Her ship could fit in between two the levels of the W with ease.

She knew this for a fact because three hours ago tugs and tractor beams had moved her damaged ship into place. Into a 'repair slip' on the massive repair ship.

Which was why she was looking for her Chief of Staff. She checked her implant and she saw the timer running down.

Two more hours until her ship began undergoing repairs.

There were two more sets of numbers. One was at 64.87% and rising. That was how close the 'scanning' was to being finished. Exterior was done, the scans were now taking place inside her ship.

The second was 12.5 Hours and it wasn't moving much.

Estimated time for repairs to be completed. Before the interior scans had begun, the time for estimated repair completion had sat stubbornly at just under an hour.

She shook her head.

Finally she reached the door for the "Aquatic Sports & Therapy Bay" and tapped the door control.

She knew it would be tanks of whirlpool baths, maybe a swimming pool or two. All of which acted as additional water storage that could be reclaimed easily for other uses.

Admiral Sharnat took two steps in and stopped.

Yes, there were hot tubs and whirlpool baths. Yes, there were two swimming pools.

As she had expected.

What she didn't expect were large globes of water hanging in mid-air. The smallest at least a hundred meters in diameter, the largest at least five hundred meters in diameter. Inside the globes were beings swimming, throwing what looked like an air bubble at each other, or just floating inside.

She moved over to where her implant insisted her Chief of Staff was at and looked up.

There were humans, dogbois, felines, Hamaroosans, and others inside the huge globe of water. There was some kind of complex game involving throwing a flashing bubble of air to one another and trying to get it through a hoop.

She waved her catching hands when she saw her Chief of Staff. The other Hamaroosan paused for a second and got hit in the back with one of the smaller, faster flashing bubbles, sending her slowly spinning forward.

Sharnat moved off to the side and waited until her Chief of Staff moved to the bottom of the bubble and dropped out into the smaller circular pool, then waded out of that. She stopped at a small table, taking off a mask and using a cloth on the table to wipe it out before setting it down.

Sharnat frowned. Her Chief of Staff had a plastic pauldron on her right catching shoulder and Sharnat could see Vice-Admiral Sheemee's fur was shaved around it for about a half-inch. Sheemee accepted a fluffy towel from a dogboi sitting on a stool next to a table piled high with warm steaming towels, and hustled over to Admiral Sharnat.

"Admiral," Sheemee said. She had a big smile. She turned and waved at the bubble. "That thing is amazing."

"What is on your shoulder?" Sharnat asked.

"Surgical repair regeneration cast," the Vice-Admiral said. "Didn't my staff tell you? I went in for surgery when we were at the medical frigate two days ago."

"No, they didn't," Sharnat said. Sharnat remembered that Sheemee had been involved in a ground car accident roughly fifteen years prior and the nanite repair and rebuilds had never quite taken and cybernetics or surgical implants were not an option.

"They fixed my catching shoulder. Blade and laser surgery," she pointed at the bubble. "I'm cleared for physical therapy, so I was learning how to play Sphere Blitz from the humans," she laughed. "Apparently, the sport is almost as old as the Glassing."

"Impressive," she said. She looked at the globes of water. "That is strange."

"Null-G field with a small graviton attractor point in the middle," Sheemee said. She smiled. "Really simple, once you think about it."

"Ah," Sharnat said. She shook her head. "We have somewhere to be in less than two hours."

"They didn't forward you my medical profile?" Sheemee asked.

Again Sharnat shook her head. "No, they did not."

"I'm on light duty for the next week. I was quarters until this morning," Sheemee said. She gave a smile. "I feel pretty good. What's going on?"

"They'll be starting repairs on the Inescapable Grip in two hours," Sharnat said.

"Let me change," she said. She reached up and tapped her datalink implant. "There, I'm back online. Let me know when and where and I'll be there with the rest of your staff."

Sharnat nodded. "As you were."

Sheemee hurried off toward the locker room.

Sharnat turned and looked up at the massive globes of water. There were beings inside doing slow flips, throwing around the flickering air bubbles. The smaller ones that flickered red were obviously to be thrown at each other, the larger one was supposed to be thrown through the hoop. She watched how fast the humans were at it, comparing to how slow the Hamaroosan players were in the one that Sheemee had left.

She turned to leave the massive bay, shaking her head.

I'm going to have words with Naval and Confederate Intelligence Services.

0-0-0-0-0

"We're completely stalled down! We're slushed out and under heavy attack! We need orbital support, air support, reinforcements, and resupple!" Captain Thriktree yelled into the microphone of the radio his radioman was carrying.

On the other side of the berm made up of wreckage and ruined vehicles, the charred and smoldering looking creatures shrieked and kept charging, bounding forward, ignoring the lasers snapping at them until they took enough hits to collapse into chunks of carbonized flinders that burned away into purple-black smoke.

"You're in the queue, but it'll take at least two hours for support to reach you," the dwonk on the horn said, his voice calm and unbothered.

Of course, he wasn't being shot at by the heavy weapons platforms that kept spawning out of the crashed spaceship only two miles away.

"They've got us pinned, we cannot continue with the mission," Thriktree snapped. "They're going around us to get into the city while keeping us pinned down."

"Perform best as able," the helpful dipshit said.

There was the double beep of the commo line disconnecting.

"Dammit!" Thriktree snapped.

The Hamaroosan Marines, while not as well known thanks to PR as the Telkan Marines, were still tough customers. Power armor and power assist, heavy weapons teams, high speed training and experience.

But the enemy seemed to be limitless in their numbers.

"Hellspace portal!" Lieutenant Calteti yelled out. "Spawn portal!"

Thriktree snarled, looking through the berm by peering through the shotout windows of the groundcar he was huddled behind.

Hellspace portals were opening up and those damn creatures were bounding out of it.

The jamming suddenly increased to the point that Thriktree could taste it across his balls.

"TANK! WE'VE GOT TANKS!" someone else yelled.

Thriktree let out another curse and lifted up his periscope, getting a quick view.

Three larger Hellspace portals were opening up, hovertanks sliding out. The weapons started hammering at the dirt, ferrocrete, and wreckage berm that had been formed by the spacecraft's crash.

Everything went white as the ship cut loose with one of the cannons. The shot went by overhead, and Thriktree knew without looking that the city behind him just lost a few dozen square blocks. The heat bloomed then quickly disappated. The rapid cooling sucked in dust from everywhere, pulling it in a long mushroom cloud.

None of his men's transponders went out.

"Get someone on the horn, we need support," Thriktree snapped, going to hand back the mic.

"Hamaroosan Marine ground element on this channel, please respond," came a growling voice that brought to mind a fierce beast crouched down. "Hamaroosan Marine ground element on this channel, please respond."

"This is Captain Thriktree. Identify yourself," he said, pulling the mic back.

"Please verify landing rings are clear," the voice stated.

Thriktree blinked as an arrow appeared on his HUD. He turned and looked behind him.

There were dozens of small rings, a meter wide at the ground, stacked up and growing progressively wider to a height of ten meters.

He didn't see any of his men or their transponders.

"Landing rings are clear. Please identify yourself," Thriktree demanded.

There was the triple beep of the call being disconnected.

"Dammit, who was that?" Thriktree asked.

"Dunno, sir," his radioman said.

The rings went from green to yellow, the rings pulsing in sequence to give the appearance of moving downward.

"Hamaroosan Marine ground elements, incoming starfall," a voice suddenly stated. The same kind of growl, but a different voice. It had the "Task Force Reaper" icon and went silent as soon as it had spoken.

"Starfall? What?" Thriktree asked.

The tanks were getting closer, navigating the rubble strewn ground. More were exiting the Hellspace portals.

The rings went red.

A main gun round blew a divot from the berm, but none of the transponders went out.

There was a loud crack, like thunder, and the ground shook as something slammed into each of the rings.

As Thriktree watched, the dust cleared as the sides dropped down from the tall elongated hexagon sided black objects that had slammed into the ground.

From inside came nighmares.

Completely black. Eyes a burning green. Three meters tall, a meter wide. Bipedal with only two arms.

And heavily armed.

They immediately started moving toward Thriktree's lines and he tensed.

"Hamaroosan Marine ground elements, please respond," came a growling voice. One of the black robot looking things was highlighted.

Major Squarehead, Ninth Heavy Assault Company, Iron Dominion Assault Marines.

"This is Captain Thriktree," he said.

The Major veered toward Thriktree.

"Your reinforcements have arrived, Confederate," the Major stated.

As he watched, laser and plasma packets fired from the burnt creatures hit a few of the big black robots as they advanced forward, not bothering to take cover, moving in a serrated line slowly but surely advancing forward. Drones were being launched by the big robots, weapons were being deployed, and Thriktree could see the sparkling of battlescreens coming online.

And either exploded in sparks or bounced off, neither of which seemed to have any effect.

Captain Thriktree stared up as the Marine Major stopped and looked down.

"You are being provided assistance."

0-0-0-0-0

Admiral Sharnat left the lift and moved across the bay. She stepped onto the tram and looked around. Already standing at the huge macroplas smart windows were Iron Dominion officers.

She could see her ship in front of her. It was already surrounded by a lattice of gantries and scaffolding.

A blinking icon over one of the Dominion officers showed her who would be debriefing her.

The timer stated it would take sixteen hours to repair her vessel.

Her Chief Engineer had told her that her ship would need nearly six months in drydock.

She stepped up to the huge Terran, coming up to barely above his waist.

"Admiral," the Terran said. "I thought you'd like to see the initial repairs rather than getting reports on them."

"Thank you," she stated.

Looked out the window she could see large drones moving into position. Some over the holes in her ship. Some moving across the vast expanse of thick armor that covered her spherical ship.

The Terran reached out and tapped some controls on the smartwindow.

A large red button appeared on the smartglass.

"When you are ready, Admiral," the Terran stated.

Sharnat felt a little foolish as she reached forward and tapped the button.

Immediately the drones dove in and started working. She watched as beams played over the armor.

It turned to mist and was sucked away by other drones.

"What?" she said, shocked.

"Mass collector beam. Suppresses the electron, turns matter into fog at the atomic level," the Terran said. "Standard engineering tool."

"Why isn't it used as a weapon?" Sharnat asked.

"It's close range. There's two parts, everything between the two beam sets is what turns to fog. Hard to keep both beams on a moving target," the Terran said. "Of course, it is used sometimes."

Thriktree watched as the big robot, no, cyborg swung a glittering fist into the chest of one of the larger burnt monstrocities. There was a crackling sound and large divot exploded out in burning vapors.

"Strip the armor off first, then we get to the internals," the Terran said.

Sharnat stood and watched as in less than an hour the drones had stripped all the armor off of her vessel, exposing the superstructure.

"The damaged sections have been scanned, compared to your engineering blueprints," the Terran said. "The high speed systems print out the parts, run it through nearly two hundred tests, then put the part in place."

She watched as scaffolding seemed to build itself into the damaged sections of her ship.

"Your vessel is small enough we don't need anything larger than a class fifteen creation engine to build your parts," the Terran said.

Robotic systems were moving rapidly into and out of the gaping holes in her denuded vessel.

"Physical repairs should be completed in two or three hours. Then the tests, then main power connection and the rest of the repairs," the Terran said.

Sharnat looked up at the Terran. "The Hamaroosan people thank you."

The Terran nodded. "We are pleased to be able to provide assistance."

This terrible thing unleashed upon our universe the Hamaroosan people will cleave to rather than surrender to entropy, Sharnat thought to herself as she turned her attention back to her ship being repaired.

But a small voice in the back of her mind wouldn't shut up.

And what will they do when the war is over?

That's a problem for future me, she answered.