Post by EmperorMyric on Oct 31, 2021 23:36:12 GMT
Shrantello System: Just outside the Little Light
The death spread, and it spread quickly.
The sun had been blotted out, the swarms that ravaged the landscape consumed all before them and the isolated pockets of resistance by the Shran Consortium were like pitiful pebbles against the full might of the ocean. Gunfire rang out as what was left of armoured forces desperately fired into alert and tactically minded forces belonging to the great enemy, swarm units jinked and moved, responding to fire patterns while twisted resemblances to standing weapons screamed overhead in their millions, wiping out resistance as the resources of Shrantello were mined, extracted and used even as the population fought and died.
Shrantello had been a trade partner of the Little Light, small but keen innovators who had mostly stayed neutral between the sometimes-conflicting states of the cluster and yet when the enemy had come there was not much that could be done. Defense lines were already being drawn and fleets mustered, but to protect Shrantello would be pointless, a token gesture which would only result in more ill afforded losses. Kfar Tzvora had taught the defenders that, to attack piecemeal and not strike hard at one key target was to doom an operation entirely, and this time they did not have a fallback zone.
They had already fallen back, the defensive line was being drawn at the Little Light itself, any system lost here would be millions if not billions of dead.
Even as Shrantello died to satiate the hunger of Eclipse Lord Yog Narr it was looking further, beyond into the glittering stars of the cluster. Its imperative had always been to take the region, to claim and consume the resources there. While it had died once there it had been resurrected by Wasting science and Coronan naivety and it was that same naivety that had allowed Yog Narr to slip its bounds after the destruction of Alhergus base. Intelligence had come quickly of the event however and the huge FTL trails of the massive living moon pointed one clear picture.
It was coming to the Little Light.
Now was the time for the defenders to properly draw plans and ready for a repeat of the once huge showdown. Just like last time, this threat threatened the apocalypse.
Ueuxtull System
Ueuxtull had always been a totally neutral freeport.
It had serviced and helped fleets of both sides during the 2nd Ancerious war, and had even assisted the rogue Annointed individual Skalia after her destruction of the Dectrose world of Kaikoma. Nobody was turned away from the beautiful ocean world, its massive orbital shipyard ring visible from every point on the planet below. Even the current arrivals had been welcomed, although there was initial unease and distrust as the huge semi biological vessels of the Wasting docked into Ueuxtulls shipyard ring.
“Welcome to our freeport…?” The official smiled as if asking for the man, or rather things name who exited out of the pulsing orifice in the ship. His highly augmented and almost spiderlike form clicking and twitching as it moved, a gathering of flesh thralls around it unnerved the Ueuxtull welcoming party even more.
”Cabal Conductor Creious. Thank you for your gracious welcome. We will only be staying until we undertake the repairs needed, do not worry we are more than capable of paying our fees” The mans mouth widened in a maniacal grin.
Assidiuous System
“Madame prime minister, are you certain taking any amount of resources away from the war effort is the wisest course of action at this juncture? We could be putting the lives of our own citizens…our own soliders… at risk for a conflict they know nothing about… that has nothing to do with us.”
The Galactic Admiral was forced to reduce the quick cadence of her steps to match pace with the hobbling, ancient prime minister.
“Galactic Admiral, in this galaxy the lives of citizens are always at risk from a hundred different things no matter what you do!” Kroywen snapped. “It’s in carefully balancing the countless risks to them, that’s what I’m trying to do… just so the galaxy sees we’re still in the fight. I’m not asking you to send a full war fleet. Mazungaten knows what happened last time we tried to-”
“-Stick our cocks in the Yog Narr problem?!” The galactic admiral snapped. A War minister shot her an odd look.
“Yes!” She responded. “But don’t make it some empty publicity stunt either… Publicity is a part of it though. Just have someone you can trust up there supporting from the back lines… just so we keep our national identity associated with the united front against this threat. As long as we can convince the galaxy that we’re still a force for good… in spite of our own problems.”
“Prime minister… with all due respect.” The galactic admiral began. “I believe you are putting far more faith in the morality of the unaligned bending to such simple whims than you should. Even a novice tactician could see through the deception. That we are only in it four ourselves, and merely creating an elaborate ruse to try to win them to our side through these military interventions. They will continue to pursue their self interests… and if those self interests say that we are obsolete then they will be our enemies regardless.”
“All political entities pursue their own self interests above those of even their closest allies. I thought you wiser than that, Galactic admiral. The secret to good politics is to ensure that it is in their best interests to keep us around, and are reminded of the reasoning consistently. No civilization can thrive on genuine selflessness. But calculated selflessness… they understand. And though some may be stubborn, beligerrent or short tempered; outside our budget of generosity; the majority will see it for what it is. And if that means more work for us… then so be it.”
GDAN Second Axiom, near Little Light
Lacurna held mixed feelings about the operation. Though the commodore had vastly more experience with what would normally be understood as mystic or psionic phenomenon, they held an eyre of caution. Omniscience class ships… amongst the best the dominion had… had gone dark traveling outside the borders before. Half a warfleet had been destroyed on the proceeding operation. The Galactic Admiral, who had administered the assignment didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic either. Hence, Lacurna held little optimism for the mission’s success.
Upon making the transition back into real space, The commodore’s crew took a few moments to ascertain that the surrounding space was secure before working a holographic display. Summoning tightbeam encrypted tachyonic comms signals towards the locations the allies which had supported them in their previous two relating outings.
TOURMALINE
SCHIST SYSTEM
LITTLE LIGHT
Admiral Buck Impulse had a lot to consider. He'd been working with a minimum of sleep and no breaks. Old habits had seeped back into his bearing as he dealt with the failure of Operation Wirecutter - cleanliness fell by the wayside, he read voraciously, and he obsessed over his target. Yog-Narr filled his mind. He'd killed the beast himself by helping aim their silver bullet, the Worldbreaker, but they never made more of them. Why would they? It was the most unlikely thing - so of course, it happened on his watch, with him right there calling the shots.
Few blamed him for Yog-Narr's reawakening, but a common weakness had needled the Little Light in general and Silverflash most acutely: Corona had gone underestimated, or perhaps it was better said "neglected." Bias against the Third Republic, contempt for its people, and hatred of what they stood for had bred an attitude that time and time again was punished, but impossible to push against. During the Boreal Jihad, the galaxy had left Corona to fight Mirdif until one or the other was gone, and when neither went away they became the rest of Ancerious' problem. Now, the Little Light had let itself believe, however subconsciously, that Corona had executed yet another scheme too wild to work and that they would save the day. It was arrogant but there was a reason bias was hard to shake. Nothing stained as deeply as past experience.
It was this awareness that had forced Buck to try to turn back the clock. He had to stop thinking about Yog-Narr like a Corona problem or like something he'd killed before; he had to think of it like he did during the Jihad. No preconceived notions now, he had to turn the clock back and go back to square one. All his past experience was just reference material. No silver bullets, no guidance tricks. He had a different set of tools to work with, and needed to know what he was working with. He'd broken his silence with a single message to his officers:
"Let's get this started right. Open comms with all craft approaching Tourmaline and request declarations. I need to know what we're working with.
Planning starts here."
He was already reading signals and knew forces were out there. Second Axiom showed up on their sensors and was added to the list. One force had to be the one to do this, not just a bunch of parts.
This time he'd do it all right.
Alpha Zero had watched the planet's rampage. Both over the news of it destroying the stronghold and then making its way in the general direction of little light, and from the drones seeing it days later. It had seen it jam FTL comms, and it knew very well what that meant.
Alphazero was always modifying itself, from when it first gained sentience to now it had almost never reduced in total mass, and never permanently- even discounting the drones that made up the vast majority of it. But even alphazero thought the current current changes were a bit much, even if the extra mass would provide exceptional protection mostly through sheer weight of guns that could destroy projectiles but also sheer mass of armour even discounting the series of “shield” ships bolted to the outside that could be used to intercept projectiles or lasers. But even with all that mass, came all that mass. And given that an Orion drive was the only thing Alphazero could use that could push hard enough, some considerations had to be made. Hence why Alphazero had bought a 10s of meters tall cylinder of armour more advanced than anything Alphazero could produce to stick on the end of its new body. It was the single thickest, most advanced piece of metal the AI had ever owned, and the ship's armour plan was designed around it. When the strongest piece of armour was on the back of the ship you could neglect armour back there, which was great- since it let you put that mass forward and critical components further back into the main mass of the ship.
The main coreship would have to be a little late to the party, last second configuration of the new rail assist coilguns for CIWS and throwing nukes at other ships would require more time than expected, but the ship was still in the local area and would only be a few hours late. Owing to Alphazeros' increasingly nomadic nature. In its stead it would send what forces it had to the coordination point, both to puff itself up and prove to the other people there that it was going to be at the fight in force. Finding its way there no thanks to the gauss dominion tight beam, that sailed through empty space.
Nomads did not exactly have a permanent address.
The fleet exited through Xspace, the 3 dreadnaughts with a lot in common with alphazeros old body leading the way for the rest, somewhat beat up but they were built to manage it, and clear a way though Xspace for the rest of the ships that would be severely damaged by an impact with an asteroid. As the group filed out they waited for the surrounding space to become safe enough for sensors to be brought out of their armoured silos, and what's the point of sending messages if you did not know who you were talking to.
Ueuxtull
Aboard the station with the cliffside scientist was a cargo freighter, and in the same general area to boot. exactly the same as the 10s of thousands of others that traded through the galaxy. No one was quite sure who built the automated machines, and no more than 5 were ever built by the same corporation, but even still they wandered through the galaxy providing cheap shipping, even if the risk of lost cargo was high. It was there to trade cargo, but there was a second, illegal goal. It was one of the many ships that had been keeping tabs on the scientist, just lucky it was the one who was going to take the first swing at the creature.
The idea was to have a brake accident and to squash the scientist like the bug he was. If he was not going to leave the ship the freighter would wait until he left, and then dump a cargo container full of nuclear missiles on his ship once he was far enough away from the station. but , that was way off and still in the planning stages. Alphazero considered sending the station a letter about handing over the man, or at least letting the AI do what it wanted. But they had been neutral in the galaxy spanning war of the past, so why would they stop now?
Schist System.
“That light has turned sour around the Expanse, General Leander. We’ve had to recoup our losses from not only the disaster at Kfar Tzora which put us here but also that mess around Varnel we failed to stop, we had to reorganize the two remaining fleets to get the equivalent of one, it's hardly enough.”
Takeda poured over the spreadsheets and the singular large hologram projected in the darkroom that made up the AI core of the cruiser Blaquehardt, the commanding vessel of the now reformed Keplerite fleet under joint control of Deputy General Takeda and General Leander. They were from the relieving force that arrived after the failure to destroy Yogg Nar, and Leander from the surviving Keplerite forces from the Varnel system that was razed by Alheghurus now reformed to defend their allies.
“Varnel is behind us now. The here and now of an Eclipse Lord bearing is far, far more concerning and important than a singular warlord running amok with no army, barely any ships, and no fuel to run them. We’ll get him in the end. I know it. Speaking of the present, head over our current situation again.”
Leander replied to his subordinate. He sat down on a chair that would not be out of place of a cigar room and picked up a small glass of brown liquid off a wooden table in the otherwise clean room.
“Currently the Blaquehardt and our thirty five strong escort fleet are in the Schist System in the Little Light, orbiting Tourmaline, in conjunction with Admiral Buck’s fleet. The rest of the ships in our fleet are not present, scattered around either waiting to arrive or undergoing restocking so as to not be in one place for a rather…. Tantalizing target for a rapid strike we aren’t ready for.
However, they are to arrive in less than a day to begin combat preparations.”
“That is all General Takeda. This time we will do this right, it was not Wing - Captain Valerius’ fault for failure the first time around, but rather a case of being outmatched by a much superior opponent. By all means one can spear the White Whale, but it take dozens to bring it in for the kill” Leander puts the cup down after taking a sip from it and zooms out the hologram to get a picture of Yogg Narr taken by one of the scout craft before it was shot down.
“Do you believe this to be your White Whale?” Takeda asks while adjusting his suit's oxygen supply.
“No.”
An incoming hail from Admiral Buck ruined the sudden sound of silence between Leander and Takeda. Leander was the one to reply to it as customary.
“Greetings Admiral. This is General Marcel Leander checking into your hail, I will head over via shuttle at your discretion, and the rest of my contingent of the Aespa Ohkryan of Kepler will be arriving within the end of the day. I see the GDAN and AlphaZero have shown up now. Shall we begin?”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Near Yogg Nar.
Trying to stay hidden under the nose of a waking god is not exactly an easy task, nor something that the scout vessels were ever intended to do. Lightly armed, armored, and most importantly unmanned, they were hummingbirds from the Kepler fleets among the dying light to keep watch and an eye over the approaching beast. Their purpose was to keep an eye on Yogg Nar as it tore its way near the golden expanse and towards the Little Light for information and the occasional small skirmish with the flesh drones and standing weapons.
Information was invaluable in these waning days.
Jakar System
Sector Admiral Phrax was, to say the least, concerned. The news of what happened in the Kfar Tzvora system was quite the surprising reveal, and far more of a problem than it was originally supposed to. What was supposed to be a decapitating strike in a coalition to kill an inordinately large dormant superweapon, turned into one of the most violent lessons the Navy high command has had to experience in quite some time, though no one Huron have quite expected Yog Narr to be a living planet, nor did they expect psykers to be in another galaxy. There have been many of the higher Admirals in Phrax's retinue calling for a retreat, calling to withdraw Kuvox's fleet and simply avoid the problem altogether, though in spite of this, the Arch-Governor was only more persistent about continuing their involvement against Yog Narr.
Phrax needed answers, and to do so, he needed to talk to the Arch-Governor.
He now found himself, a small file of paper in hand, walking alongside the Arch-Governor just after what was effectively a board meeting.
"Arch-Governor Straken, are you certain we should remain involved in the conflict against Yog Narr? Our men are risking their lives out there to kill a superweapon we simply don't know how to kill, and for what benefit?"
"Sector Admiral... you and I have talked about this," the Arch-Governor replied, glancing slightly downward at the Sector Admiral beside him with a slight frown. Straken was a tall man, even by the standards of Huron biology, yet thin, almost unnaturally so in some regions. He even managed to look young, somewhere in his mid twenties, yet the signs and scars of extensive cybernetic augmentation ran deep, obscuring his natural age and, to the keen eye, making his height seem exaggerated and fake. This was a man that practically designed his own body for favorable public perception, at least in the Huron's eyes, and outside of ceremonial practices and public diplomatic events, was always seen wearing a black suit and red tie.
"Our involvement in the fight against Yog Narr has more to do than just risking our soldier's lives. There are more empires than our own in this galaxy."
"I am well aware, Arch-Governor, yet the manner which you address this makes more than a few of my admirals, including myself, concerned that you're throwing away our men. You know as well as I do what happened in Kfar Tzvora."
Straken paused for a moment. "In international politics, Sector Admiral, there are times where notoriety is important. We are new to this galaxy, and as such, we need to... tread the waters, shall we say, make ourselves known in the wider galaxy in good light, and learn what this galaxy has in store for us. We very well could retreat, we could withdraw our forces and continue expansion, but what would that do for us in the long run? How would that make us look to the wider galaxy? Would retreating our forces make us look reasonable, or would it make us look weak, or perhaps unwilling to our neighbors and to those who are still involved?"
"So it's a publicity stunt?" Phrax replied in disappointment.
"Not even close!" Straken began. "Yog Narr is very much a national security threat to us. After all, what would happen after it achieves its original goal? It most certainly wouldn't just sit there in space and die, of course not, and it is well close enough to consider a high possibility it may continue its rampage, perhaps in our direction. Furthermore, the Coronans, as mutated and abhorrent as they are, deserve to see their unleashed weapon destroyed. However, it is not just national security, it is also the potential for future alliances. I look around, and I see many chances for obtaining close allies, but if they are to become our allies in the first place, we're going to need to show them we are here, and we do more than just talk; we act, and we can securely provide what we promise, whether it's material or militaristic in nature."
"I... I see," Phrax replied inquisitively, processing what he was told. "I will not say I agree with most of what you have said, but at least it's a better explanation. Other politicians would be quick to disagree with your notion."
"Oh, I'm quite happy with that." Straken said, a small grin forming on his face. "It means I'm doing my job right. I'm not like the other politicians, Phrax, who are more comfortable sitting on their arses, assuming everyone is out to get us, thinking they've seen it all back home. This galaxy is new to us, and as such, should be treated as a new start."
Phrax slowly nodded, stopped walking, and faced towards the Arch-Governor, his hand outstretched with the file. He then spoke up once he noticed the confused look on Straken's face. "The most recent reports from Admiral Kuvox." (edited)
"You could have sent that to my desk remotely." The tall man says with puzzlement, grabbing the file in a smooth and polite manner.
"I needed a reason other than satiating my curiosity to talk, Arch-Governor." Phrax replied, something of a smartass grin plastered onto his face. "Kuvox's fleet is continuing surveillance of Yog-Narr, his main fleet keeping a scattered and fair distance away from the beast while his reconnaissance vessels keep relatively close. If he's still on schedule, his command fleet should be arriving somewhere near the Schist system any moment now."
---
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, somewhere near the Schist System:
"All stations, prepare for breach," Kuvox ordered as his ship neared their destination. Since the failed attempt at destroying Yog-Narr, Kuvox has made it a personal duty to track and research the massive death-dealing superweapon, in a somewhat vain attempt at trying to determine how he could kill it on his own, and in spite of the overall opinion of high command to bring him back. Clearly, he hasn't gotten much further than where he started, in spite of his observations and attempts to understand the creature. All he's truly accomplished thus far has been the recovery of his fleet, and tracking every move the monster made up to this point.
A few moments later, Kuvox's command ship, still the Evictor, breached into realspace, followed by a small escort of ships and a fleet tender, a rather large and bulky vessel, yet necessary for his prolonged operations outside of Huron space.
"All ships, maintain formation, and tend to yourselves. We will be staying here until I give the word." Kuvox ordered, before he turned his attention towards the incoming data streams from his reconnaissance ships and smaller detached forces.
A minute would pass before the hail from Admiral Buck would be detected, yet it would not be responded with an accepted call, at least not yet; instead, a single, focused ping was sent in the direction of the Schist system, more or less containing the information needed at the moment. The same was done towards the Jakar system, only with much heavier encryption. For the moment, Kuvox was slightly too busy to answer the hail properly.
Little Light - Schist System
Blackstone orbited his twin as he herded Mumblestone into the system. Every time the thousand kilometer Rock thought of how he sometimes had to treat his brother like some biosphere creature it tore at his molten core but what could he do about it? Mumble's journey through the bright barrier had irreversibly changed and damaged his sibling in ways that Blackstone had no idea how to fix and with the shear size and power that Mumble stone wielded there was no way he could just be free to wander the bright points in the blackness.
"Let's go feed on those small rocks in there Mumble." Blackstone emanated to his brother while indicating the local asteroid belt. His brother didn't send a affirmation or negation but started moving in the indicated direction any way. Blackstone quickened his orbit and started releasing gravitic pulses to cancel out his brothers influence on the nearby bodies he didn't need his brother picking a fight with a moon that got drawn towards him again.
The two brothers had no idea what they were getting themselves into as they moved further into the system.
Buck was answering hails and assigning a muster near Tourmaline, with UAS Lockhart coordinating orders between arrivals. Signals were being intercepted from Alphazero, and they were soon joined by the Kepler fleet. He'd been sitting at his chair and doing what he did best - juggling comms and managing hails as he bossed ships around. He was at work directing traffic when he got greetings he could work off of. SIGINT officers, onboard AI and sensor intercept crews were busy decrypting comms signals to make sense of the muster, their security as good as eyes-only clearance the way they were going.
He received the Gauss hails and answered in quick order. "Incoming Gauss hullforms, this is Admiral Buck Impulse. Welcome to the Schist System; state fleet composition and condition. I hope you packed heavy." He switched gears as the coreship lit up sensors, purposefully sailing towards Tourmaline.
"Unknown contact - no, wait, that must be the AI ships from earlier. Send a hail acknowledging their approach" As he was watching the coreship, sensor pickets and the first ring of sensors noticing it approaching the system, he was hailed by General Leander. "This is Admiral Impulse; UAS Lockhart acknowledges. You're on time for muster and battleplan. Form up in orbit and stand by."
Right then, he received the ping from the Huron Technocracy forces. "Evictor, Lockhart acknowledges. Follow flight plan and join muster at best speed," he said, sending revised flight plans for getting around the system and approaching Tourmaline. The whole show made him think about his time commanding the legendary Mattock Squadron, and going up from there. Yeah, this was it - most of it, really. Directing traffic and drawing routes, just that if he got it wrong, people died really violently. No pressure.
Then, the signals intercept officers' stations lit up. "Uhhhh...Admiral? You're going to want to see this," a Philopsyche at one of the consoles said, his apprehension clear as his wings and antennae noticeably twitched.
"Bring it up on the main display," Buck said. "We'd better let our friends see it." His command got the whole bridge crew to see a massive 3D holographic display of several planetoids moving in no way relative to Schist's orbital mechanics.
"Planemos, sir?"
Buck rubbed his chin. "Unlikely, not when Ol' Yoggy's a factor. We'd better save our firepower - send a flight of sensor pickets over there and deploy a Deep Striker unit for cover. Confirm identity of unknown massive objects and return. And do it fast."
"Sending the orders, sir."
"Send the message to the rest of the fleet elements - we are investigating unknown massive contacts. Do not engage unless fired upon or Mirdif identity confirmed. We don't want to tip our hand or have blue-on-blue on our hands."
The order went through, and a squadron of Standing Fighters was sent out. As it turned out, Mattock had received the call, and Drei and his crew were off to get more action under their belts.
Little Light: Schist System
Schist would be the battle line, as the numerous forces of the colonials who had tried desperately to destroy Yog Narr and stop Corona turned up so too did numerous of the unaligned. Nearly an additional 300 ships from nations who had seen the resurrection and immediately moved to support. Too many nations knew the damaged caused during the Mirdiff Jihad and the thought of an Eclipse lord once again ravaging the galaxy was enough to kick any government whos people had endured such into overdrive. Nations like the Federated States of Trelit, Commonwealth of Irju and the Tesfan Alliance had all sent forces alongside many others. Each small fleet was given a designation by the Little Light forces and placed in a ad hoc formation awaiting contact and orders.
Still, the sudden titanic gravitic and FTL ripples that cascaded over the system alerted practically every early warning and combat sensor across the area. Klaxons blared from alarms as the huge unknown forms of Mumblestone and Blackstone translated in system. Given the mass approximations and initial scans it seemed very much like the Eclipse Lord himself had appeared to finally strike the battle lines at Schist.
But at the same time the intelligence and watch reports from the line and Kepler drones were reporting Yog Narr still traversing the Shrantello System. The main planet had been stripped clean and the Eclipse lord was now ready to begin its assault. Something had turned up in system with a similar signature, and several of the native unaligned fleets began to accelerate onto attack headings, launching fighters as they did so.
“This is Admiral Xal of the Tesfan Alliance, Yog Narr has arrived, I recommend we begin our attack! From gravitational scans it appears the Eclipse Lord is trying to consume the asteroid fields first; we cannot let it gain more fuel!”
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious watched as the Ueuxtull crews helped to apply metallic patches to the worst of his ships damage. Of course, the ship would regrow itself in time, but the patches would act like plasters to protect the wounds from space travel. It would not be long until his ships are refuelled, and the government here would ask for payment. Most of his fleet’s contingent were in dock in the orbital ring, with a few keeping close who had not expended most of their fuel in the fight against those who had sought to stop the resurrection.
Creious had actually been surprised to hear that Yog Narr had broken the chains that he had installed, but at the same time it was an Eclipse Lord. No doubt the Coronans had broken their new toy almost as soon as they had begun smashing buttons on the control pad. But to know that the lord was now alive and free thrilled Creious. He had resurrected a being who had been feared throughout much of the galaxy, and now it was once again pursuing its original goal. There were no gods in this universe, only those who chose to act like them.
He stayed in the docking segment close to his ship, having set up a small laboratory from which to continue some studies while the ship was repaired.
”What other secrets will you reveal to me oh child of mirdiff?”
Aboard the KAO Blaquehardt.
“Copied Admiral. Rest of the fleet will begin to jump in over the next few minutes.”
Leander replied back over the comms to Buck before forwarding his own orbit order to the CIC. The vessel began to accelerate as it changed orbits and their own work down below was finished.
Within the stark white AI core of the Kepler command cruiser, Leander and his deputy Takeda left behind the physical housing of one of many AI’s spread across the splintered fleet running this entire operation on the Keplerite side of things. They passed through bulkheads and barren corridors, the few humans that they did encounter on their journey up to the CIC were hard at work, mending things along an army of robotic aides and helpers, giving quick salutes before hurrying away into the labyrinthine construct. Sounds of nothingness aside from the occasional clattering of workers permeated the controlled atmosphere.
Kfar Tzora took its toll in lives.
Once the CIC was reached it was a completely different story, an armored nook deep inside the heart of the vessel to keep it away from potential harm from stray shots, nearly a dozen crewmen were present, busily handling communications, maneuvering. And most importantly fleet command acting as a mobile air traffic control station as more kepler squadrons began to jump into the system like miniature constellations on the horizon. Leander reached his own position with a masked sense of unease, yogg narr was unlike anything any of them had fought against besides an attempt to flee. Though the line in the sand had to be drawn, and quickly.
“We are currently estimated for half a day to a day out until it [Yogg Narr] will arrive. Everything heading under schedule?” Leander asked his crew.
“For the most part, yes. Repairs have been going a little slow on a few destroyer squadrons from their last engagement at Kfar Tzora, though they will still be combat ready. With the other forces joining in as we speak, there will be a sizable opposition to that Eclipse Lord.” One of the strategic officers aboard the bridge replied, looking over computer screens of spreadsheets and lists.
“Speaking of Yogg Narr’s location, any recent reports back from the scouting drones?” Takeda chirped up, covering in some details that were not specified.
“No response from two of the six, we lost contact with them and its likely they were shot down. However the other four still report the same, It is still in the Shrantello system as last report--”
The communication officer was cut off from warning alarms from the gravitic sensors going haywire and chaos on the communications lines in conjunction with that. Their sensors showed the same as everyone else… Two planet-sized objects have just entered the Schist system….
“What in the everliving fuck is that.. Is it even Yogg Narr… There’s two of them…… Should we ready the fleet?”
Takeda muttered. He looked over to Leander and the other CIC crew that were snapping out of the sudden shock and into a state of readiness. The worst case scenario was that they were somehow duped. The AI core failed to produce an ID of Yogg Narr for the newly arrived celestial objects, this was not the eclipse lords doing.
“This isn’t it.” Leander frantically opened a line to Admiral Buck and the rest of the fleet.
“That is not Yogg Narr! Do not engage lest you risk killing us all. Admiral Xal stand down, our current monitoring of Yogg Narr says otherwise, while it is a planetary sized object, it is not Yogg Narr. It's still in the Shrantello system.”
---------------
The Kepler starships in the Schist system stopped entering the system from FTL as a hold order was placed on them, the current ones already present or recently arrived began to form up with their weapon systems on stand by but not ready to engage. It was not worth risking an early engagement with something that was not the enemy quite yet. More information was needed. While Buck was sending out his drone squadrons, the sensor array began to actively scan the two objects for a deeper grasp of information.
Buck replied without missing a beat. "Acknowledged; we have recon assets en route to planemo already. No surprises, and if we've got contacts coming that way anyway, we've got extra eyes."
---
Mattock Squadron saddled up, enjoying the unique privilege of being a Deep Striker unit of getting to deploy on assets that were all much stranger beasts than the average launch bus. This time, their Specter Plus Standing Fighters were all using their hands to clamp onto a sharp-nosed strategic recon drone, nothing more than a massive arrowlike sensor blade, rigging for Standing Weapons to hang onto it, and a proportionally large assembly of ECE Drives powered by blue, supermassive K-bodies.
Drei was quiet, an unusual thing for him, and he was itching for a fight. His ears felt tingly, he felt like his fur was prickly, charged with electricity, and he had the look of somebody who hadn't had a wink of sleep, no matter what his squadron saw of him catching it wherever he could to stay alert. He drummed impatiently on his controls as the spy drone was dropped into place on the warp catapult, the other Specters in the squadron going through one final set of checks before launch. Wings twitched, missile doors closed, weapons warmed up - just in case. Mattock Squadron was going to be punted back into the black, and he couldn't wait.
The fleet that the AI had deployed to the system did not react to the admirals screaming. The AI, after its first encounter with yog-yarr had developed a fascination with planet scale spacecraft. of all sorts and to the AI the difference between the two was clear to the thousands of sensors looking in the rocks direction.
The factory ships were attached to the dreadnought. However, they were picking themselves off of it. Shiny new plates, not yet burnt black in a FTL transit. The AI figured it was better to not send itself in first, just in case something horrible happened to the system immediately. And giving it a little extra time to triple check the installation of the new guns, even if most ships it produced never got more then one check. Alphazero had never thought like a human. It was at once extremely impulsive and cold and calculating in the way it carried out the impulses. It had thrown itself at the fleshy god before, and now it had improved itself. And yet still the ai was terse as the factory ships accelerated on their nuclear rockets, getting the coreship up to some relative velocity and flinging it into FTL.
Ueuxtull
The truck maneuvered around the roads of the docking segment, going off of public information on where the scientists ship was, even if it was trying to get a ID on the thing. But as far as the AI could tell it had not yet come out into the open. But then again, the truck was never designed for safety with head on high velocity impacts and if the scientist was spotted inside a door with a road up to it there was a very good chance that an engine block could secure the kill.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, somewhere near the Schist System:
All was quiet on the bridge of the Evictor. Kuvox stood in place, continuing to observe the information streaming from his reconnaissance ships near Yog-Narr, and awaiting a response from Admiral Buck. The bridge crew were otherwise silently occupied with their duties. Both he and his fleet were in no rush, since as far as the Admiral knew, this was little more than a rallying point. A few minutes of examinations of his ships would not hurt.
That was, until the panicked communiques from the Schist system proper were received, though despite the urgency of the messages, all that Kuvox received was confusion. He knew where Yog-Narr was; hell, he was practically looking right at it through the eyes of his recon corvettes. If there was one thing for certain, Yog-Narr wasn't the celestial bodies that apparently suddenly appeared in the Schist system, yet for one reason or another, one question briefly filled his mind: "Are there more versions of Yog-Narr out there, and if so... can it reproduce?" The mere thought simultaneously terrorized and intrigued the Admiral, if only for a moment.
Logic won his mind over, and as such, the moment he got a response from Admiral Buck, he began ordering his fleet again. A holographic map of the Schist system formed in front of him. "All ships, prep fold drives for short-distance travel. We converge here," he said as the flight plans Buck sent were displayed, with a converging point at the edge of the system, right on the path, " and follow this flight plan closely to Tourmaline. You will assume standard fleet cruising formation, and will not deviate."
As he said this, the Evictor's Logic Core, Skorpus, relays the orders to the surrounding fleet. "Skorpus, pass the order to the outlying subfleets, except the recon forces around Yog-Narr. Notify the Lockhart we will arrive shortly according to the flight plan, and to expect a lot of noise."
With the order, the Evictor and its escorting entourage spooled up their fold drives, only this time, there wouldn't be the typical black, shadowy hole with lightning as the fold drives converted to an "in-system" travel mode. Violent sparks of multi-colored lightning arced along the hull of the Evictor, alongside whiffs and short-lived contrails of cloudy darkness spontaneously jumping in and out of reality at random. To an outsider, it would seem strange that a lower-powered "in-system" FTL mode would look more violent and energy-intensive than the higher-powered inter-system mode, yet that was the simple reality of Fold Drives.
A few more moments would pass before the ships jumped, their forms suddenly enveloped in a warped spearhead of lightless energy and a continuous stream of lightning from the rift, a 'wake' of gravitic distortions and the fading remnants of the energies enveloping the ships forming behind them. They were going to make it to the converging point quite quickly, and it most certainly will not be subtle.
Blackstone felt the gravitic wake and knew it was the harbinger of bad news, he knew of very few things that made wakes like that and none of them were ever good. However his twin had no such feeling or seeming need to ask questions like is this a good idea? Or if they should just leave now and find somewhere else to take a break.
The moon of Mumblestone had apparently made up it mind to investigate the anomaly. It’s surface glowed a bright gold as his gravitic crystals powered up and pulled him and his brother along towards the interesting anomaly. The loyal twin not leaving his brother to maraude through the system alone did not resist and kept in orbit of his twin.
Little Light: Schist System
There was immediate confusion in the Unaligned fleet, at the reply communique from Buck and Takeda. Some vessels ceased accelerating and peeled off while others continued the charge until they too had confirmed with the sensor readings from the frontline scouts in Shrantello. At last Admiral Xals ship stopped and began to head back to reform formation.
“It’s a trap it has to be, a diversion of some kind? Perhaps Yog Narr has forces elsewhere and is merely using other planets with drive systems to try cover and keep us on our toes?” Several small escorts continued to move towards the huge forms of Mumblestone and Blackstone, they did not seem to be moving to attack but to get higher resolution scans and more. Already gravitational sensors were going haywire, a planetary mass in the system was making the other orbits unstable, slowly but surely. Yog Narr would likely only make it worse.
There was a short time before Xal was on the communications again. It appeared he had been chosen to be the representing voice of the native contingent’s present.
“It’s moving in system, early scans indicate geologic structures, crystalline formations and a distinctive reaction pattern. It looks nothing like Yog Narr but we have no idea what it is”
---
The reports were clear, Yog Narr had breached the outer limits of the Shrantello system and was appearing to be charging its FTL drives. It did however appear to be waiting, the huge swarms across the system converging on its form like solid tendrils as they returned to their lord ready for the next feast. They did not have long before the Eclipse lord was fully on his way.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
The area around the ships docking region had been made into a veritable research lab while the internal structures of the vessel reformed and regrew for better structural stability. Of course Creious did not want this to disrupt his work and so the labs had been brought and set up on the docking piers, already Creious had found a new biological polymer which had astounding properties in decentralised nervous reactions. It explained why so many of the Eclipse Lords creations could take enormous amounts of damage and yet still respond as any intact form would. It had wonderous applications to his own creations let alone the price it could fetch on the galactic market. The sound of an engine approaching however caused him to glance, the huge truck he initially thought carried more diplomats or dock workers, but it was coming straight for the lab and was only accelerating.
”A pitiful choice of weapon” He muttered. With a hand he directed his thralls to begin running at the machine, while he himself extended his various appendages and frame ready to move out of the way should the worst happen. Already he was mentally alerting his people, the scientists in the lab merely began moving the important segments to likely non crash areas as the thing hurtled forwards, ploughing down the first thralls that were sent to slow it down.
Aboard the KAO Blaquehardt
Sensor reports were flooding back into the Kepler command ship for the readings on the strange astral anomalies that entered the system. They sure were not Yogg Narr or anything directly related to it, save for being planetary in size. Chance was always a possibility, but that chance it was here in the Schist system just as Yogg Narr was preparing to enter was too slim to even be possible. It was here on purpose somehow.
Leander turned his attention to the command terminal and the slowly yet surely changing gravitic sensor reports of the system. The presence of these two objects were changing it, however a safe FTL jump to bring in the rest of the Aespa Ohkryan warships in system, save for a few dozen reserves and logistical craft. With a quick press of a button he terminated the hold order he placed before to try and muster the remains.
“Now the question I have here now is what these planetoids are doing in system…. Get me a communications line with Admiral Buck” Leander said to the AI and his deputies. It took no time at all for a line to be set up and for a reply to be sent out.
“Copied Admiral. Keep us updated on the planetoids.”
“General. Drones from Shrantello are sending back data now… Its pretty urgent.” One of the communications officers relayed up to their commanding officer and quickly garnered a response.
“Well what is it?” Leander replied.
“Yogg Narr has reached the edge of the system and the FTL sensors on the drones are going off the charts… Its preparing to jump, Sir.”
Leander did not choose to reply back to the communications officer and slurred out a flurry of orders to his crew and hopped back on the joint comms to the rest of the allied forces in system. Meanwhile Takeda turned to his own terminal and ordered a small drone based squadron to be broken off from the vessels intending to arrive at the Schist system and selected instead Shrantello. They were intended to intercept and interdict Yogg Narr.
“Attention. This is General Leander, our recon drones are picking up massive FTL signatures from the Shrantello system. Yogg Narr is preparing to jump. I repeat, Yogg Narr is preparing to jump. We are going to try and stall it for as long as possible.”
“Squadron is ready to jump. Single unmanned Triomphant class, two Dark’s, and a Ranger. Should be enough to pop interdiction and buy everyone here a few minutes at least. All it needs is your word” Takeda asked his superior for permission to send these drone craft on a nearly guaranteed one way trip against Yogg Narr.
“Do it”
--------------------------
Four unmanned Aespa Ohkryan vessels jumped into the edge of the Shrantello system, diverted away from the normal fleet arrivals in the Schist system and instead using their jump drives to put them in a more useful scenario. Stopping a god in its tracks. The cruiser craft activated its blanket interdictor on the system to try and stop Yogg Narr from entering the Schist system for just a bit longer. It was not likely that they would last for long, bursts of weapon fire sprouted too and from them along with preemptive evasive maneuvering without concern for pulling hard G’s humans have to endure solely to survive a little longer and buy time for everyone else.
Alpha azero had always made bulky ships optimized for close combat, with large spinal railguns being the only concession for true long range combat. But even then it would be best to fire at close range and ensure that the slow firing, limited ammunition weapons could score hits. And so Alphazero committed to doing something that it very, very rarely considered.
The ships committed to a micro jump, into the general area where the AI guessed that yogg-narr would end up. The ships would receive some damage yes, but with such short distances it was not expected that it would be major. The coreship rerouted to deposit itself in the same area, in the middle of the rest of the ships.
On Ueuxtull the truck hit the first thrall with a crunch, and a few more after that before it hit one with a lot less give in it. Something under the truck snapped, and the truck flipped over, skidding for several meters until it ended up over the legs of a scientist that was far too slow.
While that happened the cargo ship contacted a few local tuggs, and submitted a route out of the docking ring, bringing itself rather close to what was now identified as exactly where Creious was. Along with this plan went a few SIGEC under the table to speed along the undocking.
"We're going where?!" Clash was stopping just short of livid. The refitting and redirection of the Lockhart had pointed her in a different direction, towards the front.
"This is REWACS Tarot," came a clipped, feminine voice on his ear that took him by surprise. "Orders have changed. We're going to be setting up at Shrantello and relocating for interception of Yog-Narr.
Your assignment is to deploy your recon drone, and perform Deep Strike operations against any counter-small craft assets. Expect heavy Standing Weapon resistance."
Clash clenched his teeth and then deflated a bit, thinking about this development. It was revolting, but that was how Yog-Narr operated from the exercises and Admiral Impulse's own accounts - it was on you faster than you believed, always. You had to expect to deal with it when it made the first move.
The Specters now crowded with stacks of drone Standing Fighters for support were now doing just that. More missiles were crammed in the bays. Gone were the auxiliary jamming blades plugged into the secondary systems, and instead there were targeting pods for networked time on target strikes, comms blades and next-generation plasma rails for a bigger punch against the tougher small craft. New coordinates were uploaded and before he knew it, his carrier and others around him were maneuvering and leaping into the black, to get a little closer to the front before charging and firing their warp catapults.
Nearer to Shrantello, the fleets began proper combat maneuvers, firing their thrusters and moving as slashing swarms, then kicked big, choreographed flocks of Standing Weapons into the black. More of them than Clash had ever seen outside of the biggest virtual exercises in the Schist System.
The curtain jerked back, and Mattock Squadron took stage once more.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, at the edge of the Schist System:
Soon after jumping, the Evictor and its fleet arrived at the converging point, surrounded by a rapidly-diminishing gravitic wake. The rest of Kuvox's sub-fleets began to arrive moments after. Such a concentration of FTL signatures would doubtlessly call attention to them, though to the Admiral, this was not a concern.
"All ships accounted for, Admiral," Skorpus declared in an unusually serious and deep tone. In any other situation, this audio glitch may have caused a laugh among the crew on the bridge, but this was no ordinary situation. Yog-Narr was getting close, and despite their previous engagement with the planetary God, they still didn't know quite what to expect.
The now-reunited 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet sped forward along the flight plan, heading directly into the Schist system.
"Admiral, activity in the Shrantello system. Weapons signatures and interdiction has been identified as active. It appears some in this alliance have decided to engage Yog-Narr directly before jump. Should we send a sub-fleet to help?"
"No, we stay the course," Kuvox replied, "they are trying to buy us some time. The more time we have, and the less abominations Yog-Narr has at its disposal, the better."
"And the planetoids? It appears they have been approaching us."
"That will not dissuade me, Skorpus. Do not engage the planetoids."
--
Dagger-class Corvette Rho-Gammon-4, Rho-Gammon Reconnaissance squadron, Shrantello system:
The Logic Core of Rho-Gammon-4 was intrigued. From a distance, it has been one of many reconnaissance vessels to observe Yog-Narr's movements, yet it was always just that, from a distance. Just enough to track movements and FTL signatures, but anything else was blurry, ill-defined, able to be parsed but not worth much of the effort. It floated in the void of space on the farthest edge of the Shrantello system, far enough away from Yog-Narr that its parent star was blindingly more apparent. Now, however, localized communiques within Rho-Gammon made it clear something was happening.
Rho-Gammon-1 has directly ordered all Rho-Gammon vessels to get a closer look at the evolving battle. Within a moments notice of receiving the order, antimatter drives went into full power, and Rho-Gammon-4 headed for a mildly safe orbital trajectory to observe.
Rho-Gammon-4 was intrigued.
Little Light: Schist System
The two planetoids continued to move in system, reacting little to the swarms of ships moving to and fro between the systems planets and setting up into defensive lines. Even as Alpha Zero set up its ships in a position to hit Yog Narr immediately where it would exit FTL the planetoids did not respond. The Unaligned returned to their positions in time, with Admiral Xal annoyed about the whole false alarm, but almost constantly asking whether they posed a threat or not given their presence.
The Unaligned combined fleet or UCF had positioned themselves in a place where they could launch long range projectiles at the Eclipse Lord the moment it FTLed in. Requesting a link with Alpha Zeros ships the moment it arrived a FTL signal would be sent and the UCF fleet would launch almost all its heavy ordnance in one salvo. Numerous ships had additional one shot torpedoes strapped to their hull, many were of all shapes and sizes, the pride and joy however was the four old EPA super impactors originally used by their prestigious H class, recovered from the Beri system by Arcovia and put into use. All four had been rolled out for this battle and would be used without hesitation.
Anything huge which could be thrown at the Eclipse lord even down to fire ships was being used. Several small pockets of old decommissioned UCF ships were filled with explosives and were being kept on standby. Ready to jump in from outside Schist and supplement the long range strikes if needed, alongside six separate capital interceptor squadrons from Irju.
The stage was practically set, but extra time was paramount.
And they were buying it.
Shrantello System: Just outside the Little Light
The Kepler unmanned ships jumped in and immediately deployed interdiction. Within an instant the huge titanic energy reading from the Eclipse lords impossibly large drives capped and could no longer release themselves. Several what looked like volcanic eruptions took place on the being’s surface as excess heat and energy were vented into space. But as the creature could no longer FTL there was a shiver of activity in the swarm.
It was like some vast malevolent focus was being drawn upon the Kepler division. Yog Narr was angry.
Almost at once a large segment of the swarm consisting of standing weapons and vessels broke off and moved at speed to destroy the interdictors, already weapons fire was exchanged as the outriders, mad with inhuman anger were blown apart by pre-emptive railgun and missile barrages. But it wasn’t enough. No longer were these the dumb, decayed and starving weapons of Kfar Tzvora these were energised, directed and very much alive.
Still as the first waves made contact the cavalry arrived. Explosions filled the void between the interdictors and the living swarm, Mattock Squadron and the forces of the Little Light had turned up. They had no chance of winning here, but it didn’t matter. The longer the interdictors stayed alive the more time they had to be ready.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious watched with surprising interest as his thralls threw themselves at the truck, the vehicle ploughing through many of them and turning them into paste as it came at speed. He analysed their deaths out of amusement more than science but the larger thralls proved more of an obstacle and less of a speedbump. When the axel gave way however to one of his more lively medical thralls and the truck flipped rather spectacularly he began to clap, watching as the truck skidded past him and knocked over some flasks on a table.
The drone inside was dragged out by the thralls, the machine already having terminated itself under whatever subroutine it had.
”Bravo for the attempt indeed. It appears we are no longer safe here… Pack everything. We will be leaving shortly” Creious clicked his fingers, his thralls getting to work extremely quickly in packing everything up and putting it aboard his ship.
The cargo ship got “close” to the section where the scientist was, before orienting itself on saltwater nuclear rockets- and sent itself at the section that continued Creious, knowing that if the ship hit there was a better then not chance he would survive- especially if he could survive in vacuum for a while. But the ship had many many nuclear weapons onboard, with intent to use them to ensure its death.
The link with the rest of the ships was accepted, and accepted quickly. Especially since the AI had… experience… with fireships, and was nice and close to guide it in. while that happened the missile stores aboard the coreship were casually thrown out the side of their warehouses. They were outside of the armour belt anyway- so they might as well have some use. Reloading the VLS cells of the fleet could be thought about later. Before almost on a whim the AI decided to bring in the repair ships that had just worked on it- and the few ships that were under maintenance that defended them into the system, closer to the star and behind a few friendly fleets- there was a good chance that being able to recover and patch up ships enough to move would save many lives in the next few days. And having the dreadnought and destroyers around the ship was not a downside just in case something special happened- especially since the dreadnaught could chuck mass driver rounds across the system and rely on the monsters gravity well to hit it.
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
To the sensors of the Deep Strikers heading the first slashing Standing Weapon wave, it looked like the stars had exploded. The swarm was already vectoring towards the interdictors and Silverflash's sensor drones, and Drei was watching the whole battle laid out ahead of him like a buffet. For just a moment he thought that this was what Buck had seen when he was sitting in that chair and wearing that mantle. The only difference was that Buck was aiming a silver bullet towards Yog-Narr, and Drei had no idea if Silverflash had one to spare.
It didn't matter, as he'd just fight anyway.
The Specter Plus Standing Fighters all took spiraling, zig-zagging paths to the front of the battle as they looked for ways around or through pockets of swarm elements. Everywhere he looked there were motion tracks and trajectory predictions crossing his panoramic cockpit screens and HMD displays, and he dropped anything superfluous in his approach to this overwhelming glut of information hitting him from all directions. The basics of Standing Fighter combat were on repeat in his head: don't slow down, don't fly straight for long, and don't just watch when you get tone and launch missiles.
<<This is Clash! All elements, watch your wingmen and don't let any gaps open up! Keep the lights on and drive yourself deeper! Go!>>
Drei gave his orders and immediately demonstrated, scything his way through Yog-Narr's Standing Weapons, the best of the Eclipse Lord's fighting machines fighting the evolutions of its killers, things designed ten or so years on from the fateful day they were needed. He kept accelerating with each burst of thrust, shooting him in odd directions from target to target like a pinball. He vectored towards a flight of fighters coming at him in a merge, and a lock tone filled his tall, pointy ears. He rapidly fluttered through a menu with a hat switch on his right stick, picked his short-range missiles and let a flurry of them loose. Without stopping to see if they would hit, he sharply turned, let a burst of thrust punt him in another direction in a cloud of ECE-brewed plasma more like an explosion, and adjusted for his next target. Enemy Standing Bombers vectored towards an interdictor, and he repeated the steps. He picked his poison, these ones being standoff missiles that had a single launch charge each that shot them more like bullets, and saw them zip off into the distance, hoping they would find their mark and rushing off to find new targets. His Specter Plus rolled and he sharply nosed over as he selected new targets, this time putting the fighter's rifle-like plasma railgun to work as he sighted in a deployment bus just offloading more Standing Bombers. This kind of thing was a Deep Striker's real prey, and he pounced on it ferociously, pointing the gun and letting it rip as lances of white-hot plasma tried to torque the Specter to one side and a muffled sound like tearing canvas filled his cockpit.
Schist.
“Good shot, Mattock. Shard, keep up the pressure out there, get us as much time as possible. Takeda, get the rest of our primary fleet here in Schist, we’re going to get into the shit soon enough”
Leander barked over the communications network as the fighting at long last picked up and the ever precious minutes and moments of biding time began to expand from the small drone contingent filtered back its dividends. Although it seemed to be a verified suicide mission, it was for the greater good of everyone else.
“General fleet order advised. Prepare for contact with the enemy.”
Takeda was quick as work, finalizing the rest of the incoming jump orders and the rest of the Aespha Ohkyran combat forces arrived in the Schist system with the remainder of the allied fleet and began to form up in their squadrons of plenty. Among them however, were a handful of key players, with freshly built Caracavel missile battleships and three of the ever elusive Caracavel railgun ships. The current plan with the Keplerites was to draw in and lure the swarms of Yogg-Narr out and away from the dead shot to the rest of the allied forces, this was relayed across to the other commanders.
Shrantello.
With almost certain death staring the small fleet of a cruiser and three destroyers staring them down the eye, only one minute remained for them to face the eventual light. One minute to buy time with interdiction and keeping the Eclipse Lord from making its escape to the Schist system.
Thirty seconds.
With engines burning at full tilt perpendicular to the swarm and nuclear tipped missiles ringing out of their silos to equally intercept and attack the heart of the incoming swarm of a much more organized force. Point defense and radially mounted railguns rang out in silence against the now white glow of space. This was not the same mindless enemy at Kfar Tzora.
Ten seconds.
The first shots impacted the small Aespa Ohkryan taskforce, shearing off one of the cruiser's four engines and sending it into a spin that the manuevering thrusters began to counter with G forces that would have killed any crew inside. Time was fleeting fast.
Zero.
All hope seemed lost for the one way fleet just until the Mattock squadron arrived to help and clear out the swarm, a tool much better equipped than the nuclear powered drone warships against a far more intelligent enemy. A robotic voice spoke over the communications network, originating from the damaged interdiction cruiser to the Little Lighter’s that had saved them.
“Do not over engage. This is all to buy time for the others.”
With a new found momentary tactical advantage, the task force went on the offensive with the deep-strikers, the ever limited number of available shells and missiles ticking away into the throngs of the swarm to provide cover for what the Mattock could not do.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, within the Schist system:
"Right..." Kuvox stated out-loud, "what are those planetoids doing now?"
"They are entering the system, potentially following us." Skorpus replied in the 'normal' fashion. "Did you want to -slam them into the sun!?!-" Skorpus suddenly and aggressively exclaimed, causing more than a few confused eyebrows from those who heard. "I meant do you know what to do with them?"
"Possibly, yes. Hold orbit here, and point our ships to the outer system. Ready the fleet for torpedo salvos and missile barrages. Do inform Admiral Buck the planetoids are exhibiting strange behavior, and appear to be able to move on their own power."
Only the muffled hum of gravitic maneuvering engines indicated any response to the admiral as the fleet slowed down, and began to orient itself in the vague guess of a direction of what might be the point Yog Narr enters the system from. The message about the planetoids is directly beamed to Buck's ship, in an attempt to prevent widespread confusion and paranoia throughout the rest of the fleet.
--
Dagger-class Corvette Rho-Gammon-4, Rho-Gammon Reconnaissance squadron, Shrantello system:
Rho-Gammon-4 silently maneuvered closer to the battle, and upon a single signal from Rho-Gammon-1, it metaphorically slammed on its gravitic maneuvering engines. Of all of the reconnaissance corvettes of the squadron, Rho-Gammon-4 was the closest, close enough for a normal human to see the pinpricks of light from detonations of distant nuclear warheads unaided. The corvette adjusted itself slightly, and its sensors were shifted to max power, absorbing the information of the battle it can observe from its position and transmitting it back to Kuvox's flagship for further analysis. Rho-Gammon-4's logic core was having a field day, quite thrilled from being so close to an active apocalyptic battle. So long as Yog-Narr didn't notice it, however, it determined it wasn't under much threat.
Little Light: Schist System
With the data linking across the system set up and now hosted the UCF brought in another wave of additional units. 70 more military ships FTLed in system alongside over 120 ramshackle vessels which appeared to be little more than weapon platforms. Some were even pulled by the unaligned ships as they moved to try and hurry them into position, perhaps they would be little more than a speed bump against the Eclipse lord but at this point any additional firepower was frantically needed. They did not have long before Yog Narr would batter through the delaying force and come to the system. Then all hell would break loose.
The two planetoids continued to move in system towards Graben, chasing several asteroids which seemed to be caught in their gravitational pull. Lights flashed across their surface and still they took no offensive action. Still the lights seemed fully organised, like it was actually trying to communicate with those in system.
Shrantello System
As eyes such as those found on Rho-Gammon-4 and the Global Frontline Observer watched, space simply exploded.
Fire from nuclear detonations and plasma fire rippled like blossoming flowers across an endless field. Each one of those detonations spelled the end for multiple biological weapons or even perhaps some of the allied forces units. Either way the sudden spur of losses was holding the swarm back, standing bombers lined up their shots on the Kepler interdictors only to be vapourised by Drei and the pilots of Mattock squadron, dodging and weaving at speed through the incoming rain. Larger vessels of Yog Narr tried to intercept, but were engaged by Kepler railgun and missile fire, their forms being blasted apart even as they launched kinetic darts themselves and plasma fire.
For every enemy wiped out a hundred more took their place as the small delaying force brought time, and the attention of the Eclipse lord was more and more focused on the annoyance. Just as another wave came in the swarm scattered, moving like a shoal of fish displacing themselves to avoid a predator. It created a long and wide corridor all the way to Yog Narr, as one of the huge plasma ejectors on the surface of the Eclipse Lord fired, the miniature sun that it had just fired aiming to wipe out the allied forces in one strike, or at least destroy the interdictors. It appeared Yog Narr wanted no more delays.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious ship was just about done packing up as the suicide vessel came in with a burst of its rockets. Already Ueuxtull traffic control was demanding the ship pull off and two of the vessels were moving in to intercept, but it was simply too late.
Creious main warship fired its guns at the cargo vessel, but it was simply not enough time. Despite the damage done it collided with the Wasting vessel and the orbital ring segment and detonated. Creious died in a split second, his minds angry at such an ignoble fate. The explosion engulfing an entire segment of the docks and destroying them as well as creating a debris cloud that shattered multiple civilian and neutral vessels which had been in the area.
The devastation was massive, and the Ueuxtull authorities were reeling. The nation had been a neutral system even to both the APP and AGA during the war, for someone to strike in such a manner now was truly barbaric. Ships moved in to try and recover and repair what they could as intelligence forces began to analyse practically everything; the nation would not stand for the attacker to get away in cold blood.
The rest of the Wasting ships however withdrew, with their main conductor dead they would have to find leadership in a new member of their clique.
For the people examining what exactly was done on Ueuxtull the answer on who committed the bombing was clear as day, even if motivation would take a little while longer to establish, given that who exactly the target of the bombing was would not be immediately clear due to how widespread and horrible the damage was. As confirmation that Creious was most definitely 100% dead came through the overmind made a transmission to the other fleets prepared to fight yogg-narr and finally started planning out how to avoid the worst of the fallout from this. Planning to use its current actions fighting yogg-narr to shield itself from any retaliation that truly mattered.
“Curious is dead, this will never happen again”
While the message was sent to everyone alphazero really hoped that no one from the unaligned fleet was from Ueuxtull.
SCHIST SYSTEM
"Destroyer and cruiser divisions are ready for jump."
"3rd and 5th Deep Striker Wings are holding. 6th is advancing behind Mattock Squadron."
"1st Wing is asking for new orders. Piton and Hook Squadrons have taken losses!"
"Energy emission levels are spiking at Shrantello. We need a response, sir!"
Buck was drinking in and analyzing a glut of information as he monitored his forces. His eyes darted from readout to readout and his ears flicked this way and that to receive and respond to each piece of information at a time. He responded to each one in kind, barking orders in rapid succession.
"Delay the fast ship jumps! Prepare to receive new insertion corridor coordinates; tell all Deep Striker elements to hold! Recommend the 1st Wing pull Piton and Hook together and stick it out! We can't afford a single hole in our anti-small craft grid!" Then he put two and two together on Yog-Narr's energy output. "All interdiction units are to scatter immediately! Prepare wave of capital swarmers for deployment to reinforce that interdiction net! All carriers prepare for immediate max-G maneuvers, we're redeploying!" Around him, he heard his CIC explode with his crew giving order after order to the rest of the fleet and any allies who needed to reposition. Crews split between relaying commands and buckling up their gear to seal themselves up with their own breathing apparatus and G-force-resistant gear in preparation for sudden, forceful repositioning. As Buck was buckling up his own max-G gear, he caught a Duilleag officer running up to him.
"Sir! Message for you from Tourmaline!" He handed Buck an envelope. "Eyes only, Admiral."
Buck's eyes narrowed as he opened the envelope, unwinding the string binding its flap shut and taking out a message written within. He softly read it to himself and his expression hardened. He had a silver bullet - well, more of a silver shotshell.
Simulations and swarm logic prototyping complete. Serration assets capable of TOT strike on Yog-Narr. We only have one shot at this. Recommend full clearance of launch corridor.
"Thank you. Right on time." He took in a breath and cleared his throat, letting that sink in. The Serration SLAMmers could punch Yog-Narr's lights out if they hit, but it was going to be one hell of an act of choreography. They were hoping that all those shots acting as a pseudo-Worldbreaker would put the monster down. And then there was the question of the other planetoids...
"And someone get SIGINT on the horn to figure out what those other planetoids are doing! I want to make sure those aren't formation lights they're flashing! Let's go, people, let's go!"
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
As soon as the info from the fleet came in, the Deep Strikers and a growing fleet of Standing Fighters fighting desperately for space superiority realized what was about to happen. The Standing Weapons all looked over at Yog-Narr, then immediately set to work trying to get out of its firing range. Clash worked furiously to keep his squadron on task, steering his Specter Plus towards the nearest friendly unit and shouting the whole way.
<<Bug out, bug out! Save whatever interdictors you can and escort them to new positions! You can't shoot down a plasma blast! All elements, go now!>>
Clash then joined other Standing Fighters in diving all over the nearest, lightest interdiction assets and they all fired their main engines to try adding thrust to their own furiously burning thrusters. At first it was the manned fighters, then their support drones substituted for them as they were pulled off their interdictors so the drones could do the much more dangerous job of acting as boosters. They had to get whatever they could to safety, and Yog-Narr could not be allowed to move from its spot. All the raw thrust and speed of a Standing Weapon had multiple applications, and in this moment the aviators of Silverflash were proving it.
Schist System
Blackstone’s surface glittered in the patterned language of his kind as he tried to guide Mumblestone into a high intercept of the upcoming planet, however the mentally compromised twin wanted to explore the planet or something around it for some reason. It’s not that Blackstone was blind to the gravitic disturbances in the system but they were much too small to be of concern to him or his sibling.
“Fast, GO! Find thing, hungry mind.” Mumblestone relayed to his brother in a barely coherent manner. The magnetic volume could be heard across the system as the moon mumbled its desires.
Blackstone replied with a slowly dimming glow or the rock equivalent of a nod. Then Blackstone started singing. In space where no sounds could be heard the dark crystals on the Rocks surface slowly began pulsating in a hypnotic manner. The natural gravitic interference generated by the rapidly working minds of the geological being slowly stopped as Mumblestone drowned its broken mind in the lullaby. With the interdiction broken Blackstone began orbiting faster around his brother and created a bubble of warped space around them speeding them into orbit of the nearby blue and green world.
Shrantello System
The plasma burst ripped across space, immolating allied forces that could not exit its AOE in time. There were not detonations, the ships were simply vapourised outright as it engulfed them. As the interdictors scattered escorted by the forces of the Little Light the swarm pounced, isolated and moving to new locations entire hordes of standing weapons and destroyers engaged, firing bio-organic laser modules, self-guided munitions and more. Hundreds died as Kepler vessels dumped entire magazines of missiles and kinetics into them, each kill racking up to huge numbers. And yet it was not enough. They kept coming.
Ships went down, interdictors went down, and slowly but surely the net holding Yog Narr out of the Little Light got more and more frayed. The data net to the Schist system was bleak, losses were mounting extremely quickly, and it was becoming rapidly apparent that the holding force could not survive for much longer, the Serration assets would have to wait until the creature was fully in system. Not an ideal situation given the swarms would follow but with the delaying force now getting torn apart there wasn’t much more of an option.
“We need to pull the assets out! Everything we lose in Shrantello is one ship we don’t have fighting here. We are as ready as we can be, let the abomination come” The voice of Admiral Xal was clear over the shared communications net. He was right of course; the defensive installations and platforms had been set up and Alpha Zeros fleet was in position for an alpha strike when the Eclipse Lord arrived.
It was a tense decision, but it made sense.
Already scattering to redeploy the interdiction delaying force expended the last of its heavy ammunition in one dense strike. The nuclear fury of the strike forced the swarms back, enough to allow the interdiction vessels that had survived to lower it and make the jump back to Schist and allow the Standing weapon squadrons to withdraw and be picked up for redeployment. Almost immediately as soon as the interdiction fields went down Yog Narr began to once more power up its titanic drive systems, rebuilding the energy it had been forced to vent when the delaying force had pounced. The swarm came in close too, hugging their abominable lord like it was their dear mother, hoping to catch off its huge warp field the myriad of Huron, Little Light and Kepler observation craft watched as it finished powering its drives. This was it; it would finally advance on Schist and recreate the same war that had caused so much devastation all those years before.
But as the drives hit maximum power, the Eclipse lord didn’t jump. At least not immediately.
The analysts and those watching were confused. It wasn’t interdicted, and its drives were powered. Had something gone wrong for the Eclipse lord?
A moment later however the huge gravitic shockwaves of FTL ignition reached out as space bent around the massive eclipse lord. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.
“I… I don’t believe it… All forces, I don’t have the target incoming on sensors…”
It was true, Yog Narr had not FTLed towards the Little Light. Analysts and sensor operators frantically tried to affirm what had happened, so far, it appeared that Schist, and the Little light itself were safe.
“Where the hell could it have gone?” Xal shouted. It didn’t make any sense; the Little Light was always its target. It needed the Ancerium fuel and Kolleronic substances here. Mirdiff had failed in the Hochlands, failed in Corona, failed at the Little Light… Where else was there resources to gain? A sinking feeling manifested itself in Xals stomach.
The Eclipse Lord wasn’t coming to the Little Light, their defence force, everything deployed was for nought.
No, it was going to the one place it could get every resource it could possibly need.
The Golden Expanse.
“May the gods save us” He whispered.
Schist System
The twins warp bubble popped as they approached Graben. The gravity of the moons swiftly canceled out by Blackstone as he herded his brother into a high orbit. Mumblestone didn’t fight his brother as he overlooked most of the solar system. His many senses could be felt across most of the system, which is when the rock knew something was wrong. The massive FTL signature of Yog Narr exiting the nearby system felt both familiar and subtly wrong the broken mind. However to Blackstone he knew that was not one of their siblings and tried to keep Mumble from running after the massive being moving between the stars.
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
There was a great terrible light. Standing Weapons, both drones and the few mad jocks that decided to stuff Clash's orders and get stuck in to the bitter end, were fried immediately, and the gap they left was eagerly filled by the endless hordes of the renewed Yog-Narr. Despite it all, Clash continued to bellow orders. From his point of view, the fight was still going on at full speed. It didn't matter if the plasma blast was drowning out comms in a massive ionized scream, somebody had to be hearing him over other channels.
<<All elements, report! Who the hell do we have left?!>> He was shouting orders to figure it out. <<Flight leaders, recall all assets! Rally on my position! Someone tell me we have some interdictors up!>> As the plasma fireball died down, he realized the hard fact. <<...shit. Mattock Leader to main fleet, Yog-Narr is charging drives, you have targets inbound.>>
Then there was a terrible pause. The fact that there was still a faint hiss on the other end told him the Schist fleet was still there, and the reply he received made his fur stand on end.
SCHIST SYSTEM
"Did I stutter, Mattock Leader?" Admiral Impulse said as he started removing his max-G gear and ordered the rest of his crew to do the same. "Make best speed for RTB rendezvous point, and prepare for a debrief. We're going to need your brain on full burn to figure this one out. You know what's in there, don't you?"
That shut Clash up. That reaction told Buck all he needed to know about how ready anybody in Silverflash was to deal with the Mirdif War restarting, and the last Eclipse Lord apparently having learned from its long time away.
The death spread, and it spread quickly.
The sun had been blotted out, the swarms that ravaged the landscape consumed all before them and the isolated pockets of resistance by the Shran Consortium were like pitiful pebbles against the full might of the ocean. Gunfire rang out as what was left of armoured forces desperately fired into alert and tactically minded forces belonging to the great enemy, swarm units jinked and moved, responding to fire patterns while twisted resemblances to standing weapons screamed overhead in their millions, wiping out resistance as the resources of Shrantello were mined, extracted and used even as the population fought and died.
Shrantello had been a trade partner of the Little Light, small but keen innovators who had mostly stayed neutral between the sometimes-conflicting states of the cluster and yet when the enemy had come there was not much that could be done. Defense lines were already being drawn and fleets mustered, but to protect Shrantello would be pointless, a token gesture which would only result in more ill afforded losses. Kfar Tzvora had taught the defenders that, to attack piecemeal and not strike hard at one key target was to doom an operation entirely, and this time they did not have a fallback zone.
They had already fallen back, the defensive line was being drawn at the Little Light itself, any system lost here would be millions if not billions of dead.
Even as Shrantello died to satiate the hunger of Eclipse Lord Yog Narr it was looking further, beyond into the glittering stars of the cluster. Its imperative had always been to take the region, to claim and consume the resources there. While it had died once there it had been resurrected by Wasting science and Coronan naivety and it was that same naivety that had allowed Yog Narr to slip its bounds after the destruction of Alhergus base. Intelligence had come quickly of the event however and the huge FTL trails of the massive living moon pointed one clear picture.
It was coming to the Little Light.
Now was the time for the defenders to properly draw plans and ready for a repeat of the once huge showdown. Just like last time, this threat threatened the apocalypse.
Ueuxtull System
Ueuxtull had always been a totally neutral freeport.
It had serviced and helped fleets of both sides during the 2nd Ancerious war, and had even assisted the rogue Annointed individual Skalia after her destruction of the Dectrose world of Kaikoma. Nobody was turned away from the beautiful ocean world, its massive orbital shipyard ring visible from every point on the planet below. Even the current arrivals had been welcomed, although there was initial unease and distrust as the huge semi biological vessels of the Wasting docked into Ueuxtulls shipyard ring.
“Welcome to our freeport…?” The official smiled as if asking for the man, or rather things name who exited out of the pulsing orifice in the ship. His highly augmented and almost spiderlike form clicking and twitching as it moved, a gathering of flesh thralls around it unnerved the Ueuxtull welcoming party even more.
”Cabal Conductor Creious. Thank you for your gracious welcome. We will only be staying until we undertake the repairs needed, do not worry we are more than capable of paying our fees” The mans mouth widened in a maniacal grin.
Assidiuous System
“Madame prime minister, are you certain taking any amount of resources away from the war effort is the wisest course of action at this juncture? We could be putting the lives of our own citizens…our own soliders… at risk for a conflict they know nothing about… that has nothing to do with us.”
The Galactic Admiral was forced to reduce the quick cadence of her steps to match pace with the hobbling, ancient prime minister.
“Galactic Admiral, in this galaxy the lives of citizens are always at risk from a hundred different things no matter what you do!” Kroywen snapped. “It’s in carefully balancing the countless risks to them, that’s what I’m trying to do… just so the galaxy sees we’re still in the fight. I’m not asking you to send a full war fleet. Mazungaten knows what happened last time we tried to-”
“-Stick our cocks in the Yog Narr problem?!” The galactic admiral snapped. A War minister shot her an odd look.
“Yes!” She responded. “But don’t make it some empty publicity stunt either… Publicity is a part of it though. Just have someone you can trust up there supporting from the back lines… just so we keep our national identity associated with the united front against this threat. As long as we can convince the galaxy that we’re still a force for good… in spite of our own problems.”
“Prime minister… with all due respect.” The galactic admiral began. “I believe you are putting far more faith in the morality of the unaligned bending to such simple whims than you should. Even a novice tactician could see through the deception. That we are only in it four ourselves, and merely creating an elaborate ruse to try to win them to our side through these military interventions. They will continue to pursue their self interests… and if those self interests say that we are obsolete then they will be our enemies regardless.”
“All political entities pursue their own self interests above those of even their closest allies. I thought you wiser than that, Galactic admiral. The secret to good politics is to ensure that it is in their best interests to keep us around, and are reminded of the reasoning consistently. No civilization can thrive on genuine selflessness. But calculated selflessness… they understand. And though some may be stubborn, beligerrent or short tempered; outside our budget of generosity; the majority will see it for what it is. And if that means more work for us… then so be it.”
GDAN Second Axiom, near Little Light
Lacurna held mixed feelings about the operation. Though the commodore had vastly more experience with what would normally be understood as mystic or psionic phenomenon, they held an eyre of caution. Omniscience class ships… amongst the best the dominion had… had gone dark traveling outside the borders before. Half a warfleet had been destroyed on the proceeding operation. The Galactic Admiral, who had administered the assignment didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic either. Hence, Lacurna held little optimism for the mission’s success.
Upon making the transition back into real space, The commodore’s crew took a few moments to ascertain that the surrounding space was secure before working a holographic display. Summoning tightbeam encrypted tachyonic comms signals towards the locations the allies which had supported them in their previous two relating outings.
TOURMALINE
SCHIST SYSTEM
LITTLE LIGHT
Admiral Buck Impulse had a lot to consider. He'd been working with a minimum of sleep and no breaks. Old habits had seeped back into his bearing as he dealt with the failure of Operation Wirecutter - cleanliness fell by the wayside, he read voraciously, and he obsessed over his target. Yog-Narr filled his mind. He'd killed the beast himself by helping aim their silver bullet, the Worldbreaker, but they never made more of them. Why would they? It was the most unlikely thing - so of course, it happened on his watch, with him right there calling the shots.
Few blamed him for Yog-Narr's reawakening, but a common weakness had needled the Little Light in general and Silverflash most acutely: Corona had gone underestimated, or perhaps it was better said "neglected." Bias against the Third Republic, contempt for its people, and hatred of what they stood for had bred an attitude that time and time again was punished, but impossible to push against. During the Boreal Jihad, the galaxy had left Corona to fight Mirdif until one or the other was gone, and when neither went away they became the rest of Ancerious' problem. Now, the Little Light had let itself believe, however subconsciously, that Corona had executed yet another scheme too wild to work and that they would save the day. It was arrogant but there was a reason bias was hard to shake. Nothing stained as deeply as past experience.
It was this awareness that had forced Buck to try to turn back the clock. He had to stop thinking about Yog-Narr like a Corona problem or like something he'd killed before; he had to think of it like he did during the Jihad. No preconceived notions now, he had to turn the clock back and go back to square one. All his past experience was just reference material. No silver bullets, no guidance tricks. He had a different set of tools to work with, and needed to know what he was working with. He'd broken his silence with a single message to his officers:
"Let's get this started right. Open comms with all craft approaching Tourmaline and request declarations. I need to know what we're working with.
Planning starts here."
He was already reading signals and knew forces were out there. Second Axiom showed up on their sensors and was added to the list. One force had to be the one to do this, not just a bunch of parts.
This time he'd do it all right.
Alpha Zero had watched the planet's rampage. Both over the news of it destroying the stronghold and then making its way in the general direction of little light, and from the drones seeing it days later. It had seen it jam FTL comms, and it knew very well what that meant.
Alphazero was always modifying itself, from when it first gained sentience to now it had almost never reduced in total mass, and never permanently- even discounting the drones that made up the vast majority of it. But even alphazero thought the current current changes were a bit much, even if the extra mass would provide exceptional protection mostly through sheer weight of guns that could destroy projectiles but also sheer mass of armour even discounting the series of “shield” ships bolted to the outside that could be used to intercept projectiles or lasers. But even with all that mass, came all that mass. And given that an Orion drive was the only thing Alphazero could use that could push hard enough, some considerations had to be made. Hence why Alphazero had bought a 10s of meters tall cylinder of armour more advanced than anything Alphazero could produce to stick on the end of its new body. It was the single thickest, most advanced piece of metal the AI had ever owned, and the ship's armour plan was designed around it. When the strongest piece of armour was on the back of the ship you could neglect armour back there, which was great- since it let you put that mass forward and critical components further back into the main mass of the ship.
The main coreship would have to be a little late to the party, last second configuration of the new rail assist coilguns for CIWS and throwing nukes at other ships would require more time than expected, but the ship was still in the local area and would only be a few hours late. Owing to Alphazeros' increasingly nomadic nature. In its stead it would send what forces it had to the coordination point, both to puff itself up and prove to the other people there that it was going to be at the fight in force. Finding its way there no thanks to the gauss dominion tight beam, that sailed through empty space.
Nomads did not exactly have a permanent address.
The fleet exited through Xspace, the 3 dreadnaughts with a lot in common with alphazeros old body leading the way for the rest, somewhat beat up but they were built to manage it, and clear a way though Xspace for the rest of the ships that would be severely damaged by an impact with an asteroid. As the group filed out they waited for the surrounding space to become safe enough for sensors to be brought out of their armoured silos, and what's the point of sending messages if you did not know who you were talking to.
Ueuxtull
Aboard the station with the cliffside scientist was a cargo freighter, and in the same general area to boot. exactly the same as the 10s of thousands of others that traded through the galaxy. No one was quite sure who built the automated machines, and no more than 5 were ever built by the same corporation, but even still they wandered through the galaxy providing cheap shipping, even if the risk of lost cargo was high. It was there to trade cargo, but there was a second, illegal goal. It was one of the many ships that had been keeping tabs on the scientist, just lucky it was the one who was going to take the first swing at the creature.
The idea was to have a brake accident and to squash the scientist like the bug he was. If he was not going to leave the ship the freighter would wait until he left, and then dump a cargo container full of nuclear missiles on his ship once he was far enough away from the station. but , that was way off and still in the planning stages. Alphazero considered sending the station a letter about handing over the man, or at least letting the AI do what it wanted. But they had been neutral in the galaxy spanning war of the past, so why would they stop now?
Schist System.
“That light has turned sour around the Expanse, General Leander. We’ve had to recoup our losses from not only the disaster at Kfar Tzora which put us here but also that mess around Varnel we failed to stop, we had to reorganize the two remaining fleets to get the equivalent of one, it's hardly enough.”
Takeda poured over the spreadsheets and the singular large hologram projected in the darkroom that made up the AI core of the cruiser Blaquehardt, the commanding vessel of the now reformed Keplerite fleet under joint control of Deputy General Takeda and General Leander. They were from the relieving force that arrived after the failure to destroy Yogg Nar, and Leander from the surviving Keplerite forces from the Varnel system that was razed by Alheghurus now reformed to defend their allies.
“Varnel is behind us now. The here and now of an Eclipse Lord bearing is far, far more concerning and important than a singular warlord running amok with no army, barely any ships, and no fuel to run them. We’ll get him in the end. I know it. Speaking of the present, head over our current situation again.”
Leander replied to his subordinate. He sat down on a chair that would not be out of place of a cigar room and picked up a small glass of brown liquid off a wooden table in the otherwise clean room.
“Currently the Blaquehardt and our thirty five strong escort fleet are in the Schist System in the Little Light, orbiting Tourmaline, in conjunction with Admiral Buck’s fleet. The rest of the ships in our fleet are not present, scattered around either waiting to arrive or undergoing restocking so as to not be in one place for a rather…. Tantalizing target for a rapid strike we aren’t ready for.
However, they are to arrive in less than a day to begin combat preparations.”
“That is all General Takeda. This time we will do this right, it was not Wing - Captain Valerius’ fault for failure the first time around, but rather a case of being outmatched by a much superior opponent. By all means one can spear the White Whale, but it take dozens to bring it in for the kill” Leander puts the cup down after taking a sip from it and zooms out the hologram to get a picture of Yogg Narr taken by one of the scout craft before it was shot down.
“Do you believe this to be your White Whale?” Takeda asks while adjusting his suit's oxygen supply.
“No.”
An incoming hail from Admiral Buck ruined the sudden sound of silence between Leander and Takeda. Leander was the one to reply to it as customary.
“Greetings Admiral. This is General Marcel Leander checking into your hail, I will head over via shuttle at your discretion, and the rest of my contingent of the Aespa Ohkryan of Kepler will be arriving within the end of the day. I see the GDAN and AlphaZero have shown up now. Shall we begin?”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Near Yogg Nar.
Trying to stay hidden under the nose of a waking god is not exactly an easy task, nor something that the scout vessels were ever intended to do. Lightly armed, armored, and most importantly unmanned, they were hummingbirds from the Kepler fleets among the dying light to keep watch and an eye over the approaching beast. Their purpose was to keep an eye on Yogg Nar as it tore its way near the golden expanse and towards the Little Light for information and the occasional small skirmish with the flesh drones and standing weapons.
Information was invaluable in these waning days.
Jakar System
Sector Admiral Phrax was, to say the least, concerned. The news of what happened in the Kfar Tzvora system was quite the surprising reveal, and far more of a problem than it was originally supposed to. What was supposed to be a decapitating strike in a coalition to kill an inordinately large dormant superweapon, turned into one of the most violent lessons the Navy high command has had to experience in quite some time, though no one Huron have quite expected Yog Narr to be a living planet, nor did they expect psykers to be in another galaxy. There have been many of the higher Admirals in Phrax's retinue calling for a retreat, calling to withdraw Kuvox's fleet and simply avoid the problem altogether, though in spite of this, the Arch-Governor was only more persistent about continuing their involvement against Yog Narr.
Phrax needed answers, and to do so, he needed to talk to the Arch-Governor.
He now found himself, a small file of paper in hand, walking alongside the Arch-Governor just after what was effectively a board meeting.
"Arch-Governor Straken, are you certain we should remain involved in the conflict against Yog Narr? Our men are risking their lives out there to kill a superweapon we simply don't know how to kill, and for what benefit?"
"Sector Admiral... you and I have talked about this," the Arch-Governor replied, glancing slightly downward at the Sector Admiral beside him with a slight frown. Straken was a tall man, even by the standards of Huron biology, yet thin, almost unnaturally so in some regions. He even managed to look young, somewhere in his mid twenties, yet the signs and scars of extensive cybernetic augmentation ran deep, obscuring his natural age and, to the keen eye, making his height seem exaggerated and fake. This was a man that practically designed his own body for favorable public perception, at least in the Huron's eyes, and outside of ceremonial practices and public diplomatic events, was always seen wearing a black suit and red tie.
"Our involvement in the fight against Yog Narr has more to do than just risking our soldier's lives. There are more empires than our own in this galaxy."
"I am well aware, Arch-Governor, yet the manner which you address this makes more than a few of my admirals, including myself, concerned that you're throwing away our men. You know as well as I do what happened in Kfar Tzvora."
Straken paused for a moment. "In international politics, Sector Admiral, there are times where notoriety is important. We are new to this galaxy, and as such, we need to... tread the waters, shall we say, make ourselves known in the wider galaxy in good light, and learn what this galaxy has in store for us. We very well could retreat, we could withdraw our forces and continue expansion, but what would that do for us in the long run? How would that make us look to the wider galaxy? Would retreating our forces make us look reasonable, or would it make us look weak, or perhaps unwilling to our neighbors and to those who are still involved?"
"So it's a publicity stunt?" Phrax replied in disappointment.
"Not even close!" Straken began. "Yog Narr is very much a national security threat to us. After all, what would happen after it achieves its original goal? It most certainly wouldn't just sit there in space and die, of course not, and it is well close enough to consider a high possibility it may continue its rampage, perhaps in our direction. Furthermore, the Coronans, as mutated and abhorrent as they are, deserve to see their unleashed weapon destroyed. However, it is not just national security, it is also the potential for future alliances. I look around, and I see many chances for obtaining close allies, but if they are to become our allies in the first place, we're going to need to show them we are here, and we do more than just talk; we act, and we can securely provide what we promise, whether it's material or militaristic in nature."
"I... I see," Phrax replied inquisitively, processing what he was told. "I will not say I agree with most of what you have said, but at least it's a better explanation. Other politicians would be quick to disagree with your notion."
"Oh, I'm quite happy with that." Straken said, a small grin forming on his face. "It means I'm doing my job right. I'm not like the other politicians, Phrax, who are more comfortable sitting on their arses, assuming everyone is out to get us, thinking they've seen it all back home. This galaxy is new to us, and as such, should be treated as a new start."
Phrax slowly nodded, stopped walking, and faced towards the Arch-Governor, his hand outstretched with the file. He then spoke up once he noticed the confused look on Straken's face. "The most recent reports from Admiral Kuvox." (edited)
"You could have sent that to my desk remotely." The tall man says with puzzlement, grabbing the file in a smooth and polite manner.
"I needed a reason other than satiating my curiosity to talk, Arch-Governor." Phrax replied, something of a smartass grin plastered onto his face. "Kuvox's fleet is continuing surveillance of Yog-Narr, his main fleet keeping a scattered and fair distance away from the beast while his reconnaissance vessels keep relatively close. If he's still on schedule, his command fleet should be arriving somewhere near the Schist system any moment now."
---
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, somewhere near the Schist System:
"All stations, prepare for breach," Kuvox ordered as his ship neared their destination. Since the failed attempt at destroying Yog-Narr, Kuvox has made it a personal duty to track and research the massive death-dealing superweapon, in a somewhat vain attempt at trying to determine how he could kill it on his own, and in spite of the overall opinion of high command to bring him back. Clearly, he hasn't gotten much further than where he started, in spite of his observations and attempts to understand the creature. All he's truly accomplished thus far has been the recovery of his fleet, and tracking every move the monster made up to this point.
A few moments later, Kuvox's command ship, still the Evictor, breached into realspace, followed by a small escort of ships and a fleet tender, a rather large and bulky vessel, yet necessary for his prolonged operations outside of Huron space.
"All ships, maintain formation, and tend to yourselves. We will be staying here until I give the word." Kuvox ordered, before he turned his attention towards the incoming data streams from his reconnaissance ships and smaller detached forces.
A minute would pass before the hail from Admiral Buck would be detected, yet it would not be responded with an accepted call, at least not yet; instead, a single, focused ping was sent in the direction of the Schist system, more or less containing the information needed at the moment. The same was done towards the Jakar system, only with much heavier encryption. For the moment, Kuvox was slightly too busy to answer the hail properly.
Little Light - Schist System
Blackstone orbited his twin as he herded Mumblestone into the system. Every time the thousand kilometer Rock thought of how he sometimes had to treat his brother like some biosphere creature it tore at his molten core but what could he do about it? Mumble's journey through the bright barrier had irreversibly changed and damaged his sibling in ways that Blackstone had no idea how to fix and with the shear size and power that Mumble stone wielded there was no way he could just be free to wander the bright points in the blackness.
"Let's go feed on those small rocks in there Mumble." Blackstone emanated to his brother while indicating the local asteroid belt. His brother didn't send a affirmation or negation but started moving in the indicated direction any way. Blackstone quickened his orbit and started releasing gravitic pulses to cancel out his brothers influence on the nearby bodies he didn't need his brother picking a fight with a moon that got drawn towards him again.
The two brothers had no idea what they were getting themselves into as they moved further into the system.
Buck was answering hails and assigning a muster near Tourmaline, with UAS Lockhart coordinating orders between arrivals. Signals were being intercepted from Alphazero, and they were soon joined by the Kepler fleet. He'd been sitting at his chair and doing what he did best - juggling comms and managing hails as he bossed ships around. He was at work directing traffic when he got greetings he could work off of. SIGINT officers, onboard AI and sensor intercept crews were busy decrypting comms signals to make sense of the muster, their security as good as eyes-only clearance the way they were going.
He received the Gauss hails and answered in quick order. "Incoming Gauss hullforms, this is Admiral Buck Impulse. Welcome to the Schist System; state fleet composition and condition. I hope you packed heavy." He switched gears as the coreship lit up sensors, purposefully sailing towards Tourmaline.
"Unknown contact - no, wait, that must be the AI ships from earlier. Send a hail acknowledging their approach" As he was watching the coreship, sensor pickets and the first ring of sensors noticing it approaching the system, he was hailed by General Leander. "This is Admiral Impulse; UAS Lockhart acknowledges. You're on time for muster and battleplan. Form up in orbit and stand by."
Right then, he received the ping from the Huron Technocracy forces. "Evictor, Lockhart acknowledges. Follow flight plan and join muster at best speed," he said, sending revised flight plans for getting around the system and approaching Tourmaline. The whole show made him think about his time commanding the legendary Mattock Squadron, and going up from there. Yeah, this was it - most of it, really. Directing traffic and drawing routes, just that if he got it wrong, people died really violently. No pressure.
Then, the signals intercept officers' stations lit up. "Uhhhh...Admiral? You're going to want to see this," a Philopsyche at one of the consoles said, his apprehension clear as his wings and antennae noticeably twitched.
"Bring it up on the main display," Buck said. "We'd better let our friends see it." His command got the whole bridge crew to see a massive 3D holographic display of several planetoids moving in no way relative to Schist's orbital mechanics.
"Planemos, sir?"
Buck rubbed his chin. "Unlikely, not when Ol' Yoggy's a factor. We'd better save our firepower - send a flight of sensor pickets over there and deploy a Deep Striker unit for cover. Confirm identity of unknown massive objects and return. And do it fast."
"Sending the orders, sir."
"Send the message to the rest of the fleet elements - we are investigating unknown massive contacts. Do not engage unless fired upon or Mirdif identity confirmed. We don't want to tip our hand or have blue-on-blue on our hands."
The order went through, and a squadron of Standing Fighters was sent out. As it turned out, Mattock had received the call, and Drei and his crew were off to get more action under their belts.
Little Light: Schist System
Schist would be the battle line, as the numerous forces of the colonials who had tried desperately to destroy Yog Narr and stop Corona turned up so too did numerous of the unaligned. Nearly an additional 300 ships from nations who had seen the resurrection and immediately moved to support. Too many nations knew the damaged caused during the Mirdiff Jihad and the thought of an Eclipse lord once again ravaging the galaxy was enough to kick any government whos people had endured such into overdrive. Nations like the Federated States of Trelit, Commonwealth of Irju and the Tesfan Alliance had all sent forces alongside many others. Each small fleet was given a designation by the Little Light forces and placed in a ad hoc formation awaiting contact and orders.
Still, the sudden titanic gravitic and FTL ripples that cascaded over the system alerted practically every early warning and combat sensor across the area. Klaxons blared from alarms as the huge unknown forms of Mumblestone and Blackstone translated in system. Given the mass approximations and initial scans it seemed very much like the Eclipse Lord himself had appeared to finally strike the battle lines at Schist.
But at the same time the intelligence and watch reports from the line and Kepler drones were reporting Yog Narr still traversing the Shrantello System. The main planet had been stripped clean and the Eclipse lord was now ready to begin its assault. Something had turned up in system with a similar signature, and several of the native unaligned fleets began to accelerate onto attack headings, launching fighters as they did so.
“This is Admiral Xal of the Tesfan Alliance, Yog Narr has arrived, I recommend we begin our attack! From gravitational scans it appears the Eclipse Lord is trying to consume the asteroid fields first; we cannot let it gain more fuel!”
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious watched as the Ueuxtull crews helped to apply metallic patches to the worst of his ships damage. Of course, the ship would regrow itself in time, but the patches would act like plasters to protect the wounds from space travel. It would not be long until his ships are refuelled, and the government here would ask for payment. Most of his fleet’s contingent were in dock in the orbital ring, with a few keeping close who had not expended most of their fuel in the fight against those who had sought to stop the resurrection.
Creious had actually been surprised to hear that Yog Narr had broken the chains that he had installed, but at the same time it was an Eclipse Lord. No doubt the Coronans had broken their new toy almost as soon as they had begun smashing buttons on the control pad. But to know that the lord was now alive and free thrilled Creious. He had resurrected a being who had been feared throughout much of the galaxy, and now it was once again pursuing its original goal. There were no gods in this universe, only those who chose to act like them.
He stayed in the docking segment close to his ship, having set up a small laboratory from which to continue some studies while the ship was repaired.
”What other secrets will you reveal to me oh child of mirdiff?”
Aboard the KAO Blaquehardt.
“Copied Admiral. Rest of the fleet will begin to jump in over the next few minutes.”
Leander replied back over the comms to Buck before forwarding his own orbit order to the CIC. The vessel began to accelerate as it changed orbits and their own work down below was finished.
Within the stark white AI core of the Kepler command cruiser, Leander and his deputy Takeda left behind the physical housing of one of many AI’s spread across the splintered fleet running this entire operation on the Keplerite side of things. They passed through bulkheads and barren corridors, the few humans that they did encounter on their journey up to the CIC were hard at work, mending things along an army of robotic aides and helpers, giving quick salutes before hurrying away into the labyrinthine construct. Sounds of nothingness aside from the occasional clattering of workers permeated the controlled atmosphere.
Kfar Tzora took its toll in lives.
Once the CIC was reached it was a completely different story, an armored nook deep inside the heart of the vessel to keep it away from potential harm from stray shots, nearly a dozen crewmen were present, busily handling communications, maneuvering. And most importantly fleet command acting as a mobile air traffic control station as more kepler squadrons began to jump into the system like miniature constellations on the horizon. Leander reached his own position with a masked sense of unease, yogg narr was unlike anything any of them had fought against besides an attempt to flee. Though the line in the sand had to be drawn, and quickly.
“We are currently estimated for half a day to a day out until it [Yogg Narr] will arrive. Everything heading under schedule?” Leander asked his crew.
“For the most part, yes. Repairs have been going a little slow on a few destroyer squadrons from their last engagement at Kfar Tzora, though they will still be combat ready. With the other forces joining in as we speak, there will be a sizable opposition to that Eclipse Lord.” One of the strategic officers aboard the bridge replied, looking over computer screens of spreadsheets and lists.
“Speaking of Yogg Narr’s location, any recent reports back from the scouting drones?” Takeda chirped up, covering in some details that were not specified.
“No response from two of the six, we lost contact with them and its likely they were shot down. However the other four still report the same, It is still in the Shrantello system as last report--”
The communication officer was cut off from warning alarms from the gravitic sensors going haywire and chaos on the communications lines in conjunction with that. Their sensors showed the same as everyone else… Two planet-sized objects have just entered the Schist system….
“What in the everliving fuck is that.. Is it even Yogg Narr… There’s two of them…… Should we ready the fleet?”
Takeda muttered. He looked over to Leander and the other CIC crew that were snapping out of the sudden shock and into a state of readiness. The worst case scenario was that they were somehow duped. The AI core failed to produce an ID of Yogg Narr for the newly arrived celestial objects, this was not the eclipse lords doing.
“This isn’t it.” Leander frantically opened a line to Admiral Buck and the rest of the fleet.
“That is not Yogg Narr! Do not engage lest you risk killing us all. Admiral Xal stand down, our current monitoring of Yogg Narr says otherwise, while it is a planetary sized object, it is not Yogg Narr. It's still in the Shrantello system.”
---------------
The Kepler starships in the Schist system stopped entering the system from FTL as a hold order was placed on them, the current ones already present or recently arrived began to form up with their weapon systems on stand by but not ready to engage. It was not worth risking an early engagement with something that was not the enemy quite yet. More information was needed. While Buck was sending out his drone squadrons, the sensor array began to actively scan the two objects for a deeper grasp of information.
Buck replied without missing a beat. "Acknowledged; we have recon assets en route to planemo already. No surprises, and if we've got contacts coming that way anyway, we've got extra eyes."
---
Mattock Squadron saddled up, enjoying the unique privilege of being a Deep Striker unit of getting to deploy on assets that were all much stranger beasts than the average launch bus. This time, their Specter Plus Standing Fighters were all using their hands to clamp onto a sharp-nosed strategic recon drone, nothing more than a massive arrowlike sensor blade, rigging for Standing Weapons to hang onto it, and a proportionally large assembly of ECE Drives powered by blue, supermassive K-bodies.
Drei was quiet, an unusual thing for him, and he was itching for a fight. His ears felt tingly, he felt like his fur was prickly, charged with electricity, and he had the look of somebody who hadn't had a wink of sleep, no matter what his squadron saw of him catching it wherever he could to stay alert. He drummed impatiently on his controls as the spy drone was dropped into place on the warp catapult, the other Specters in the squadron going through one final set of checks before launch. Wings twitched, missile doors closed, weapons warmed up - just in case. Mattock Squadron was going to be punted back into the black, and he couldn't wait.
The fleet that the AI had deployed to the system did not react to the admirals screaming. The AI, after its first encounter with yog-yarr had developed a fascination with planet scale spacecraft. of all sorts and to the AI the difference between the two was clear to the thousands of sensors looking in the rocks direction.
The factory ships were attached to the dreadnought. However, they were picking themselves off of it. Shiny new plates, not yet burnt black in a FTL transit. The AI figured it was better to not send itself in first, just in case something horrible happened to the system immediately. And giving it a little extra time to triple check the installation of the new guns, even if most ships it produced never got more then one check. Alphazero had never thought like a human. It was at once extremely impulsive and cold and calculating in the way it carried out the impulses. It had thrown itself at the fleshy god before, and now it had improved itself. And yet still the ai was terse as the factory ships accelerated on their nuclear rockets, getting the coreship up to some relative velocity and flinging it into FTL.
Ueuxtull
The truck maneuvered around the roads of the docking segment, going off of public information on where the scientists ship was, even if it was trying to get a ID on the thing. But as far as the AI could tell it had not yet come out into the open. But then again, the truck was never designed for safety with head on high velocity impacts and if the scientist was spotted inside a door with a road up to it there was a very good chance that an engine block could secure the kill.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, somewhere near the Schist System:
All was quiet on the bridge of the Evictor. Kuvox stood in place, continuing to observe the information streaming from his reconnaissance ships near Yog-Narr, and awaiting a response from Admiral Buck. The bridge crew were otherwise silently occupied with their duties. Both he and his fleet were in no rush, since as far as the Admiral knew, this was little more than a rallying point. A few minutes of examinations of his ships would not hurt.
That was, until the panicked communiques from the Schist system proper were received, though despite the urgency of the messages, all that Kuvox received was confusion. He knew where Yog-Narr was; hell, he was practically looking right at it through the eyes of his recon corvettes. If there was one thing for certain, Yog-Narr wasn't the celestial bodies that apparently suddenly appeared in the Schist system, yet for one reason or another, one question briefly filled his mind: "Are there more versions of Yog-Narr out there, and if so... can it reproduce?" The mere thought simultaneously terrorized and intrigued the Admiral, if only for a moment.
Logic won his mind over, and as such, the moment he got a response from Admiral Buck, he began ordering his fleet again. A holographic map of the Schist system formed in front of him. "All ships, prep fold drives for short-distance travel. We converge here," he said as the flight plans Buck sent were displayed, with a converging point at the edge of the system, right on the path, " and follow this flight plan closely to Tourmaline. You will assume standard fleet cruising formation, and will not deviate."
As he said this, the Evictor's Logic Core, Skorpus, relays the orders to the surrounding fleet. "Skorpus, pass the order to the outlying subfleets, except the recon forces around Yog-Narr. Notify the Lockhart we will arrive shortly according to the flight plan, and to expect a lot of noise."
With the order, the Evictor and its escorting entourage spooled up their fold drives, only this time, there wouldn't be the typical black, shadowy hole with lightning as the fold drives converted to an "in-system" travel mode. Violent sparks of multi-colored lightning arced along the hull of the Evictor, alongside whiffs and short-lived contrails of cloudy darkness spontaneously jumping in and out of reality at random. To an outsider, it would seem strange that a lower-powered "in-system" FTL mode would look more violent and energy-intensive than the higher-powered inter-system mode, yet that was the simple reality of Fold Drives.
A few more moments would pass before the ships jumped, their forms suddenly enveloped in a warped spearhead of lightless energy and a continuous stream of lightning from the rift, a 'wake' of gravitic distortions and the fading remnants of the energies enveloping the ships forming behind them. They were going to make it to the converging point quite quickly, and it most certainly will not be subtle.
Blackstone felt the gravitic wake and knew it was the harbinger of bad news, he knew of very few things that made wakes like that and none of them were ever good. However his twin had no such feeling or seeming need to ask questions like is this a good idea? Or if they should just leave now and find somewhere else to take a break.
The moon of Mumblestone had apparently made up it mind to investigate the anomaly. It’s surface glowed a bright gold as his gravitic crystals powered up and pulled him and his brother along towards the interesting anomaly. The loyal twin not leaving his brother to maraude through the system alone did not resist and kept in orbit of his twin.
Little Light: Schist System
There was immediate confusion in the Unaligned fleet, at the reply communique from Buck and Takeda. Some vessels ceased accelerating and peeled off while others continued the charge until they too had confirmed with the sensor readings from the frontline scouts in Shrantello. At last Admiral Xals ship stopped and began to head back to reform formation.
“It’s a trap it has to be, a diversion of some kind? Perhaps Yog Narr has forces elsewhere and is merely using other planets with drive systems to try cover and keep us on our toes?” Several small escorts continued to move towards the huge forms of Mumblestone and Blackstone, they did not seem to be moving to attack but to get higher resolution scans and more. Already gravitational sensors were going haywire, a planetary mass in the system was making the other orbits unstable, slowly but surely. Yog Narr would likely only make it worse.
There was a short time before Xal was on the communications again. It appeared he had been chosen to be the representing voice of the native contingent’s present.
“It’s moving in system, early scans indicate geologic structures, crystalline formations and a distinctive reaction pattern. It looks nothing like Yog Narr but we have no idea what it is”
---
The reports were clear, Yog Narr had breached the outer limits of the Shrantello system and was appearing to be charging its FTL drives. It did however appear to be waiting, the huge swarms across the system converging on its form like solid tendrils as they returned to their lord ready for the next feast. They did not have long before the Eclipse lord was fully on his way.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
The area around the ships docking region had been made into a veritable research lab while the internal structures of the vessel reformed and regrew for better structural stability. Of course Creious did not want this to disrupt his work and so the labs had been brought and set up on the docking piers, already Creious had found a new biological polymer which had astounding properties in decentralised nervous reactions. It explained why so many of the Eclipse Lords creations could take enormous amounts of damage and yet still respond as any intact form would. It had wonderous applications to his own creations let alone the price it could fetch on the galactic market. The sound of an engine approaching however caused him to glance, the huge truck he initially thought carried more diplomats or dock workers, but it was coming straight for the lab and was only accelerating.
”A pitiful choice of weapon” He muttered. With a hand he directed his thralls to begin running at the machine, while he himself extended his various appendages and frame ready to move out of the way should the worst happen. Already he was mentally alerting his people, the scientists in the lab merely began moving the important segments to likely non crash areas as the thing hurtled forwards, ploughing down the first thralls that were sent to slow it down.
Aboard the KAO Blaquehardt
Sensor reports were flooding back into the Kepler command ship for the readings on the strange astral anomalies that entered the system. They sure were not Yogg Narr or anything directly related to it, save for being planetary in size. Chance was always a possibility, but that chance it was here in the Schist system just as Yogg Narr was preparing to enter was too slim to even be possible. It was here on purpose somehow.
Leander turned his attention to the command terminal and the slowly yet surely changing gravitic sensor reports of the system. The presence of these two objects were changing it, however a safe FTL jump to bring in the rest of the Aespa Ohkryan warships in system, save for a few dozen reserves and logistical craft. With a quick press of a button he terminated the hold order he placed before to try and muster the remains.
“Now the question I have here now is what these planetoids are doing in system…. Get me a communications line with Admiral Buck” Leander said to the AI and his deputies. It took no time at all for a line to be set up and for a reply to be sent out.
“Copied Admiral. Keep us updated on the planetoids.”
“General. Drones from Shrantello are sending back data now… Its pretty urgent.” One of the communications officers relayed up to their commanding officer and quickly garnered a response.
“Well what is it?” Leander replied.
“Yogg Narr has reached the edge of the system and the FTL sensors on the drones are going off the charts… Its preparing to jump, Sir.”
Leander did not choose to reply back to the communications officer and slurred out a flurry of orders to his crew and hopped back on the joint comms to the rest of the allied forces in system. Meanwhile Takeda turned to his own terminal and ordered a small drone based squadron to be broken off from the vessels intending to arrive at the Schist system and selected instead Shrantello. They were intended to intercept and interdict Yogg Narr.
“Attention. This is General Leander, our recon drones are picking up massive FTL signatures from the Shrantello system. Yogg Narr is preparing to jump. I repeat, Yogg Narr is preparing to jump. We are going to try and stall it for as long as possible.”
“Squadron is ready to jump. Single unmanned Triomphant class, two Dark’s, and a Ranger. Should be enough to pop interdiction and buy everyone here a few minutes at least. All it needs is your word” Takeda asked his superior for permission to send these drone craft on a nearly guaranteed one way trip against Yogg Narr.
“Do it”
--------------------------
Four unmanned Aespa Ohkryan vessels jumped into the edge of the Shrantello system, diverted away from the normal fleet arrivals in the Schist system and instead using their jump drives to put them in a more useful scenario. Stopping a god in its tracks. The cruiser craft activated its blanket interdictor on the system to try and stop Yogg Narr from entering the Schist system for just a bit longer. It was not likely that they would last for long, bursts of weapon fire sprouted too and from them along with preemptive evasive maneuvering without concern for pulling hard G’s humans have to endure solely to survive a little longer and buy time for everyone else.
Alpha azero had always made bulky ships optimized for close combat, with large spinal railguns being the only concession for true long range combat. But even then it would be best to fire at close range and ensure that the slow firing, limited ammunition weapons could score hits. And so Alphazero committed to doing something that it very, very rarely considered.
The ships committed to a micro jump, into the general area where the AI guessed that yogg-narr would end up. The ships would receive some damage yes, but with such short distances it was not expected that it would be major. The coreship rerouted to deposit itself in the same area, in the middle of the rest of the ships.
On Ueuxtull the truck hit the first thrall with a crunch, and a few more after that before it hit one with a lot less give in it. Something under the truck snapped, and the truck flipped over, skidding for several meters until it ended up over the legs of a scientist that was far too slow.
While that happened the cargo ship contacted a few local tuggs, and submitted a route out of the docking ring, bringing itself rather close to what was now identified as exactly where Creious was. Along with this plan went a few SIGEC under the table to speed along the undocking.
"We're going where?!" Clash was stopping just short of livid. The refitting and redirection of the Lockhart had pointed her in a different direction, towards the front.
"This is REWACS Tarot," came a clipped, feminine voice on his ear that took him by surprise. "Orders have changed. We're going to be setting up at Shrantello and relocating for interception of Yog-Narr.
Your assignment is to deploy your recon drone, and perform Deep Strike operations against any counter-small craft assets. Expect heavy Standing Weapon resistance."
Clash clenched his teeth and then deflated a bit, thinking about this development. It was revolting, but that was how Yog-Narr operated from the exercises and Admiral Impulse's own accounts - it was on you faster than you believed, always. You had to expect to deal with it when it made the first move.
The Specters now crowded with stacks of drone Standing Fighters for support were now doing just that. More missiles were crammed in the bays. Gone were the auxiliary jamming blades plugged into the secondary systems, and instead there were targeting pods for networked time on target strikes, comms blades and next-generation plasma rails for a bigger punch against the tougher small craft. New coordinates were uploaded and before he knew it, his carrier and others around him were maneuvering and leaping into the black, to get a little closer to the front before charging and firing their warp catapults.
Nearer to Shrantello, the fleets began proper combat maneuvers, firing their thrusters and moving as slashing swarms, then kicked big, choreographed flocks of Standing Weapons into the black. More of them than Clash had ever seen outside of the biggest virtual exercises in the Schist System.
The curtain jerked back, and Mattock Squadron took stage once more.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, at the edge of the Schist System:
Soon after jumping, the Evictor and its fleet arrived at the converging point, surrounded by a rapidly-diminishing gravitic wake. The rest of Kuvox's sub-fleets began to arrive moments after. Such a concentration of FTL signatures would doubtlessly call attention to them, though to the Admiral, this was not a concern.
"All ships accounted for, Admiral," Skorpus declared in an unusually serious and deep tone. In any other situation, this audio glitch may have caused a laugh among the crew on the bridge, but this was no ordinary situation. Yog-Narr was getting close, and despite their previous engagement with the planetary God, they still didn't know quite what to expect.
The now-reunited 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet sped forward along the flight plan, heading directly into the Schist system.
"Admiral, activity in the Shrantello system. Weapons signatures and interdiction has been identified as active. It appears some in this alliance have decided to engage Yog-Narr directly before jump. Should we send a sub-fleet to help?"
"No, we stay the course," Kuvox replied, "they are trying to buy us some time. The more time we have, and the less abominations Yog-Narr has at its disposal, the better."
"And the planetoids? It appears they have been approaching us."
"That will not dissuade me, Skorpus. Do not engage the planetoids."
--
Dagger-class Corvette Rho-Gammon-4, Rho-Gammon Reconnaissance squadron, Shrantello system:
The Logic Core of Rho-Gammon-4 was intrigued. From a distance, it has been one of many reconnaissance vessels to observe Yog-Narr's movements, yet it was always just that, from a distance. Just enough to track movements and FTL signatures, but anything else was blurry, ill-defined, able to be parsed but not worth much of the effort. It floated in the void of space on the farthest edge of the Shrantello system, far enough away from Yog-Narr that its parent star was blindingly more apparent. Now, however, localized communiques within Rho-Gammon made it clear something was happening.
Rho-Gammon-1 has directly ordered all Rho-Gammon vessels to get a closer look at the evolving battle. Within a moments notice of receiving the order, antimatter drives went into full power, and Rho-Gammon-4 headed for a mildly safe orbital trajectory to observe.
Rho-Gammon-4 was intrigued.
Little Light: Schist System
The two planetoids continued to move in system, reacting little to the swarms of ships moving to and fro between the systems planets and setting up into defensive lines. Even as Alpha Zero set up its ships in a position to hit Yog Narr immediately where it would exit FTL the planetoids did not respond. The Unaligned returned to their positions in time, with Admiral Xal annoyed about the whole false alarm, but almost constantly asking whether they posed a threat or not given their presence.
The Unaligned combined fleet or UCF had positioned themselves in a place where they could launch long range projectiles at the Eclipse Lord the moment it FTLed in. Requesting a link with Alpha Zeros ships the moment it arrived a FTL signal would be sent and the UCF fleet would launch almost all its heavy ordnance in one salvo. Numerous ships had additional one shot torpedoes strapped to their hull, many were of all shapes and sizes, the pride and joy however was the four old EPA super impactors originally used by their prestigious H class, recovered from the Beri system by Arcovia and put into use. All four had been rolled out for this battle and would be used without hesitation.
Anything huge which could be thrown at the Eclipse lord even down to fire ships was being used. Several small pockets of old decommissioned UCF ships were filled with explosives and were being kept on standby. Ready to jump in from outside Schist and supplement the long range strikes if needed, alongside six separate capital interceptor squadrons from Irju.
The stage was practically set, but extra time was paramount.
And they were buying it.
Shrantello System: Just outside the Little Light
The Kepler unmanned ships jumped in and immediately deployed interdiction. Within an instant the huge titanic energy reading from the Eclipse lords impossibly large drives capped and could no longer release themselves. Several what looked like volcanic eruptions took place on the being’s surface as excess heat and energy were vented into space. But as the creature could no longer FTL there was a shiver of activity in the swarm.
It was like some vast malevolent focus was being drawn upon the Kepler division. Yog Narr was angry.
Almost at once a large segment of the swarm consisting of standing weapons and vessels broke off and moved at speed to destroy the interdictors, already weapons fire was exchanged as the outriders, mad with inhuman anger were blown apart by pre-emptive railgun and missile barrages. But it wasn’t enough. No longer were these the dumb, decayed and starving weapons of Kfar Tzvora these were energised, directed and very much alive.
Still as the first waves made contact the cavalry arrived. Explosions filled the void between the interdictors and the living swarm, Mattock Squadron and the forces of the Little Light had turned up. They had no chance of winning here, but it didn’t matter. The longer the interdictors stayed alive the more time they had to be ready.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious watched with surprising interest as his thralls threw themselves at the truck, the vehicle ploughing through many of them and turning them into paste as it came at speed. He analysed their deaths out of amusement more than science but the larger thralls proved more of an obstacle and less of a speedbump. When the axel gave way however to one of his more lively medical thralls and the truck flipped rather spectacularly he began to clap, watching as the truck skidded past him and knocked over some flasks on a table.
The drone inside was dragged out by the thralls, the machine already having terminated itself under whatever subroutine it had.
”Bravo for the attempt indeed. It appears we are no longer safe here… Pack everything. We will be leaving shortly” Creious clicked his fingers, his thralls getting to work extremely quickly in packing everything up and putting it aboard his ship.
The cargo ship got “close” to the section where the scientist was, before orienting itself on saltwater nuclear rockets- and sent itself at the section that continued Creious, knowing that if the ship hit there was a better then not chance he would survive- especially if he could survive in vacuum for a while. But the ship had many many nuclear weapons onboard, with intent to use them to ensure its death.
The link with the rest of the ships was accepted, and accepted quickly. Especially since the AI had… experience… with fireships, and was nice and close to guide it in. while that happened the missile stores aboard the coreship were casually thrown out the side of their warehouses. They were outside of the armour belt anyway- so they might as well have some use. Reloading the VLS cells of the fleet could be thought about later. Before almost on a whim the AI decided to bring in the repair ships that had just worked on it- and the few ships that were under maintenance that defended them into the system, closer to the star and behind a few friendly fleets- there was a good chance that being able to recover and patch up ships enough to move would save many lives in the next few days. And having the dreadnought and destroyers around the ship was not a downside just in case something special happened- especially since the dreadnaught could chuck mass driver rounds across the system and rely on the monsters gravity well to hit it.
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
To the sensors of the Deep Strikers heading the first slashing Standing Weapon wave, it looked like the stars had exploded. The swarm was already vectoring towards the interdictors and Silverflash's sensor drones, and Drei was watching the whole battle laid out ahead of him like a buffet. For just a moment he thought that this was what Buck had seen when he was sitting in that chair and wearing that mantle. The only difference was that Buck was aiming a silver bullet towards Yog-Narr, and Drei had no idea if Silverflash had one to spare.
It didn't matter, as he'd just fight anyway.
The Specter Plus Standing Fighters all took spiraling, zig-zagging paths to the front of the battle as they looked for ways around or through pockets of swarm elements. Everywhere he looked there were motion tracks and trajectory predictions crossing his panoramic cockpit screens and HMD displays, and he dropped anything superfluous in his approach to this overwhelming glut of information hitting him from all directions. The basics of Standing Fighter combat were on repeat in his head: don't slow down, don't fly straight for long, and don't just watch when you get tone and launch missiles.
<<This is Clash! All elements, watch your wingmen and don't let any gaps open up! Keep the lights on and drive yourself deeper! Go!>>
Drei gave his orders and immediately demonstrated, scything his way through Yog-Narr's Standing Weapons, the best of the Eclipse Lord's fighting machines fighting the evolutions of its killers, things designed ten or so years on from the fateful day they were needed. He kept accelerating with each burst of thrust, shooting him in odd directions from target to target like a pinball. He vectored towards a flight of fighters coming at him in a merge, and a lock tone filled his tall, pointy ears. He rapidly fluttered through a menu with a hat switch on his right stick, picked his short-range missiles and let a flurry of them loose. Without stopping to see if they would hit, he sharply turned, let a burst of thrust punt him in another direction in a cloud of ECE-brewed plasma more like an explosion, and adjusted for his next target. Enemy Standing Bombers vectored towards an interdictor, and he repeated the steps. He picked his poison, these ones being standoff missiles that had a single launch charge each that shot them more like bullets, and saw them zip off into the distance, hoping they would find their mark and rushing off to find new targets. His Specter Plus rolled and he sharply nosed over as he selected new targets, this time putting the fighter's rifle-like plasma railgun to work as he sighted in a deployment bus just offloading more Standing Bombers. This kind of thing was a Deep Striker's real prey, and he pounced on it ferociously, pointing the gun and letting it rip as lances of white-hot plasma tried to torque the Specter to one side and a muffled sound like tearing canvas filled his cockpit.
Schist.
“Good shot, Mattock. Shard, keep up the pressure out there, get us as much time as possible. Takeda, get the rest of our primary fleet here in Schist, we’re going to get into the shit soon enough”
Leander barked over the communications network as the fighting at long last picked up and the ever precious minutes and moments of biding time began to expand from the small drone contingent filtered back its dividends. Although it seemed to be a verified suicide mission, it was for the greater good of everyone else.
“General fleet order advised. Prepare for contact with the enemy.”
Takeda was quick as work, finalizing the rest of the incoming jump orders and the rest of the Aespha Ohkyran combat forces arrived in the Schist system with the remainder of the allied fleet and began to form up in their squadrons of plenty. Among them however, were a handful of key players, with freshly built Caracavel missile battleships and three of the ever elusive Caracavel railgun ships. The current plan with the Keplerites was to draw in and lure the swarms of Yogg-Narr out and away from the dead shot to the rest of the allied forces, this was relayed across to the other commanders.
Shrantello.
With almost certain death staring the small fleet of a cruiser and three destroyers staring them down the eye, only one minute remained for them to face the eventual light. One minute to buy time with interdiction and keeping the Eclipse Lord from making its escape to the Schist system.
Thirty seconds.
With engines burning at full tilt perpendicular to the swarm and nuclear tipped missiles ringing out of their silos to equally intercept and attack the heart of the incoming swarm of a much more organized force. Point defense and radially mounted railguns rang out in silence against the now white glow of space. This was not the same mindless enemy at Kfar Tzora.
Ten seconds.
The first shots impacted the small Aespa Ohkryan taskforce, shearing off one of the cruiser's four engines and sending it into a spin that the manuevering thrusters began to counter with G forces that would have killed any crew inside. Time was fleeting fast.
Zero.
All hope seemed lost for the one way fleet just until the Mattock squadron arrived to help and clear out the swarm, a tool much better equipped than the nuclear powered drone warships against a far more intelligent enemy. A robotic voice spoke over the communications network, originating from the damaged interdiction cruiser to the Little Lighter’s that had saved them.
“Do not over engage. This is all to buy time for the others.”
With a new found momentary tactical advantage, the task force went on the offensive with the deep-strikers, the ever limited number of available shells and missiles ticking away into the throngs of the swarm to provide cover for what the Mattock could not do.
Reformed 2nd Huron-Ancerious Strike Fleet, within the Schist system:
"Right..." Kuvox stated out-loud, "what are those planetoids doing now?"
"They are entering the system, potentially following us." Skorpus replied in the 'normal' fashion. "Did you want to -slam them into the sun!?!-" Skorpus suddenly and aggressively exclaimed, causing more than a few confused eyebrows from those who heard. "I meant do you know what to do with them?"
"Possibly, yes. Hold orbit here, and point our ships to the outer system. Ready the fleet for torpedo salvos and missile barrages. Do inform Admiral Buck the planetoids are exhibiting strange behavior, and appear to be able to move on their own power."
Only the muffled hum of gravitic maneuvering engines indicated any response to the admiral as the fleet slowed down, and began to orient itself in the vague guess of a direction of what might be the point Yog Narr enters the system from. The message about the planetoids is directly beamed to Buck's ship, in an attempt to prevent widespread confusion and paranoia throughout the rest of the fleet.
--
Dagger-class Corvette Rho-Gammon-4, Rho-Gammon Reconnaissance squadron, Shrantello system:
Rho-Gammon-4 silently maneuvered closer to the battle, and upon a single signal from Rho-Gammon-1, it metaphorically slammed on its gravitic maneuvering engines. Of all of the reconnaissance corvettes of the squadron, Rho-Gammon-4 was the closest, close enough for a normal human to see the pinpricks of light from detonations of distant nuclear warheads unaided. The corvette adjusted itself slightly, and its sensors were shifted to max power, absorbing the information of the battle it can observe from its position and transmitting it back to Kuvox's flagship for further analysis. Rho-Gammon-4's logic core was having a field day, quite thrilled from being so close to an active apocalyptic battle. So long as Yog-Narr didn't notice it, however, it determined it wasn't under much threat.
Little Light: Schist System
With the data linking across the system set up and now hosted the UCF brought in another wave of additional units. 70 more military ships FTLed in system alongside over 120 ramshackle vessels which appeared to be little more than weapon platforms. Some were even pulled by the unaligned ships as they moved to try and hurry them into position, perhaps they would be little more than a speed bump against the Eclipse lord but at this point any additional firepower was frantically needed. They did not have long before Yog Narr would batter through the delaying force and come to the system. Then all hell would break loose.
The two planetoids continued to move in system towards Graben, chasing several asteroids which seemed to be caught in their gravitational pull. Lights flashed across their surface and still they took no offensive action. Still the lights seemed fully organised, like it was actually trying to communicate with those in system.
Shrantello System
As eyes such as those found on Rho-Gammon-4 and the Global Frontline Observer watched, space simply exploded.
Fire from nuclear detonations and plasma fire rippled like blossoming flowers across an endless field. Each one of those detonations spelled the end for multiple biological weapons or even perhaps some of the allied forces units. Either way the sudden spur of losses was holding the swarm back, standing bombers lined up their shots on the Kepler interdictors only to be vapourised by Drei and the pilots of Mattock squadron, dodging and weaving at speed through the incoming rain. Larger vessels of Yog Narr tried to intercept, but were engaged by Kepler railgun and missile fire, their forms being blasted apart even as they launched kinetic darts themselves and plasma fire.
For every enemy wiped out a hundred more took their place as the small delaying force brought time, and the attention of the Eclipse lord was more and more focused on the annoyance. Just as another wave came in the swarm scattered, moving like a shoal of fish displacing themselves to avoid a predator. It created a long and wide corridor all the way to Yog Narr, as one of the huge plasma ejectors on the surface of the Eclipse Lord fired, the miniature sun that it had just fired aiming to wipe out the allied forces in one strike, or at least destroy the interdictors. It appeared Yog Narr wanted no more delays.
Ueuxtull System: Neutral Space
Creious ship was just about done packing up as the suicide vessel came in with a burst of its rockets. Already Ueuxtull traffic control was demanding the ship pull off and two of the vessels were moving in to intercept, but it was simply too late.
Creious main warship fired its guns at the cargo vessel, but it was simply not enough time. Despite the damage done it collided with the Wasting vessel and the orbital ring segment and detonated. Creious died in a split second, his minds angry at such an ignoble fate. The explosion engulfing an entire segment of the docks and destroying them as well as creating a debris cloud that shattered multiple civilian and neutral vessels which had been in the area.
The devastation was massive, and the Ueuxtull authorities were reeling. The nation had been a neutral system even to both the APP and AGA during the war, for someone to strike in such a manner now was truly barbaric. Ships moved in to try and recover and repair what they could as intelligence forces began to analyse practically everything; the nation would not stand for the attacker to get away in cold blood.
The rest of the Wasting ships however withdrew, with their main conductor dead they would have to find leadership in a new member of their clique.
For the people examining what exactly was done on Ueuxtull the answer on who committed the bombing was clear as day, even if motivation would take a little while longer to establish, given that who exactly the target of the bombing was would not be immediately clear due to how widespread and horrible the damage was. As confirmation that Creious was most definitely 100% dead came through the overmind made a transmission to the other fleets prepared to fight yogg-narr and finally started planning out how to avoid the worst of the fallout from this. Planning to use its current actions fighting yogg-narr to shield itself from any retaliation that truly mattered.
“Curious is dead, this will never happen again”
While the message was sent to everyone alphazero really hoped that no one from the unaligned fleet was from Ueuxtull.
SCHIST SYSTEM
"Destroyer and cruiser divisions are ready for jump."
"3rd and 5th Deep Striker Wings are holding. 6th is advancing behind Mattock Squadron."
"1st Wing is asking for new orders. Piton and Hook Squadrons have taken losses!"
"Energy emission levels are spiking at Shrantello. We need a response, sir!"
Buck was drinking in and analyzing a glut of information as he monitored his forces. His eyes darted from readout to readout and his ears flicked this way and that to receive and respond to each piece of information at a time. He responded to each one in kind, barking orders in rapid succession.
"Delay the fast ship jumps! Prepare to receive new insertion corridor coordinates; tell all Deep Striker elements to hold! Recommend the 1st Wing pull Piton and Hook together and stick it out! We can't afford a single hole in our anti-small craft grid!" Then he put two and two together on Yog-Narr's energy output. "All interdiction units are to scatter immediately! Prepare wave of capital swarmers for deployment to reinforce that interdiction net! All carriers prepare for immediate max-G maneuvers, we're redeploying!" Around him, he heard his CIC explode with his crew giving order after order to the rest of the fleet and any allies who needed to reposition. Crews split between relaying commands and buckling up their gear to seal themselves up with their own breathing apparatus and G-force-resistant gear in preparation for sudden, forceful repositioning. As Buck was buckling up his own max-G gear, he caught a Duilleag officer running up to him.
"Sir! Message for you from Tourmaline!" He handed Buck an envelope. "Eyes only, Admiral."
Buck's eyes narrowed as he opened the envelope, unwinding the string binding its flap shut and taking out a message written within. He softly read it to himself and his expression hardened. He had a silver bullet - well, more of a silver shotshell.
Simulations and swarm logic prototyping complete. Serration assets capable of TOT strike on Yog-Narr. We only have one shot at this. Recommend full clearance of launch corridor.
"Thank you. Right on time." He took in a breath and cleared his throat, letting that sink in. The Serration SLAMmers could punch Yog-Narr's lights out if they hit, but it was going to be one hell of an act of choreography. They were hoping that all those shots acting as a pseudo-Worldbreaker would put the monster down. And then there was the question of the other planetoids...
"And someone get SIGINT on the horn to figure out what those other planetoids are doing! I want to make sure those aren't formation lights they're flashing! Let's go, people, let's go!"
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
As soon as the info from the fleet came in, the Deep Strikers and a growing fleet of Standing Fighters fighting desperately for space superiority realized what was about to happen. The Standing Weapons all looked over at Yog-Narr, then immediately set to work trying to get out of its firing range. Clash worked furiously to keep his squadron on task, steering his Specter Plus towards the nearest friendly unit and shouting the whole way.
<<Bug out, bug out! Save whatever interdictors you can and escort them to new positions! You can't shoot down a plasma blast! All elements, go now!>>
Clash then joined other Standing Fighters in diving all over the nearest, lightest interdiction assets and they all fired their main engines to try adding thrust to their own furiously burning thrusters. At first it was the manned fighters, then their support drones substituted for them as they were pulled off their interdictors so the drones could do the much more dangerous job of acting as boosters. They had to get whatever they could to safety, and Yog-Narr could not be allowed to move from its spot. All the raw thrust and speed of a Standing Weapon had multiple applications, and in this moment the aviators of Silverflash were proving it.
Schist System
Blackstone’s surface glittered in the patterned language of his kind as he tried to guide Mumblestone into a high intercept of the upcoming planet, however the mentally compromised twin wanted to explore the planet or something around it for some reason. It’s not that Blackstone was blind to the gravitic disturbances in the system but they were much too small to be of concern to him or his sibling.
“Fast, GO! Find thing, hungry mind.” Mumblestone relayed to his brother in a barely coherent manner. The magnetic volume could be heard across the system as the moon mumbled its desires.
Blackstone replied with a slowly dimming glow or the rock equivalent of a nod. Then Blackstone started singing. In space where no sounds could be heard the dark crystals on the Rocks surface slowly began pulsating in a hypnotic manner. The natural gravitic interference generated by the rapidly working minds of the geological being slowly stopped as Mumblestone drowned its broken mind in the lullaby. With the interdiction broken Blackstone began orbiting faster around his brother and created a bubble of warped space around them speeding them into orbit of the nearby blue and green world.
Shrantello System
The plasma burst ripped across space, immolating allied forces that could not exit its AOE in time. There were not detonations, the ships were simply vapourised outright as it engulfed them. As the interdictors scattered escorted by the forces of the Little Light the swarm pounced, isolated and moving to new locations entire hordes of standing weapons and destroyers engaged, firing bio-organic laser modules, self-guided munitions and more. Hundreds died as Kepler vessels dumped entire magazines of missiles and kinetics into them, each kill racking up to huge numbers. And yet it was not enough. They kept coming.
Ships went down, interdictors went down, and slowly but surely the net holding Yog Narr out of the Little Light got more and more frayed. The data net to the Schist system was bleak, losses were mounting extremely quickly, and it was becoming rapidly apparent that the holding force could not survive for much longer, the Serration assets would have to wait until the creature was fully in system. Not an ideal situation given the swarms would follow but with the delaying force now getting torn apart there wasn’t much more of an option.
“We need to pull the assets out! Everything we lose in Shrantello is one ship we don’t have fighting here. We are as ready as we can be, let the abomination come” The voice of Admiral Xal was clear over the shared communications net. He was right of course; the defensive installations and platforms had been set up and Alpha Zeros fleet was in position for an alpha strike when the Eclipse Lord arrived.
It was a tense decision, but it made sense.
Already scattering to redeploy the interdiction delaying force expended the last of its heavy ammunition in one dense strike. The nuclear fury of the strike forced the swarms back, enough to allow the interdiction vessels that had survived to lower it and make the jump back to Schist and allow the Standing weapon squadrons to withdraw and be picked up for redeployment. Almost immediately as soon as the interdiction fields went down Yog Narr began to once more power up its titanic drive systems, rebuilding the energy it had been forced to vent when the delaying force had pounced. The swarm came in close too, hugging their abominable lord like it was their dear mother, hoping to catch off its huge warp field the myriad of Huron, Little Light and Kepler observation craft watched as it finished powering its drives. This was it; it would finally advance on Schist and recreate the same war that had caused so much devastation all those years before.
But as the drives hit maximum power, the Eclipse lord didn’t jump. At least not immediately.
The analysts and those watching were confused. It wasn’t interdicted, and its drives were powered. Had something gone wrong for the Eclipse lord?
A moment later however the huge gravitic shockwaves of FTL ignition reached out as space bent around the massive eclipse lord. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.
“I… I don’t believe it… All forces, I don’t have the target incoming on sensors…”
It was true, Yog Narr had not FTLed towards the Little Light. Analysts and sensor operators frantically tried to affirm what had happened, so far, it appeared that Schist, and the Little light itself were safe.
“Where the hell could it have gone?” Xal shouted. It didn’t make any sense; the Little Light was always its target. It needed the Ancerium fuel and Kolleronic substances here. Mirdiff had failed in the Hochlands, failed in Corona, failed at the Little Light… Where else was there resources to gain? A sinking feeling manifested itself in Xals stomach.
The Eclipse Lord wasn’t coming to the Little Light, their defence force, everything deployed was for nought.
No, it was going to the one place it could get every resource it could possibly need.
The Golden Expanse.
“May the gods save us” He whispered.
Schist System
The twins warp bubble popped as they approached Graben. The gravity of the moons swiftly canceled out by Blackstone as he herded his brother into a high orbit. Mumblestone didn’t fight his brother as he overlooked most of the solar system. His many senses could be felt across most of the system, which is when the rock knew something was wrong. The massive FTL signature of Yog Narr exiting the nearby system felt both familiar and subtly wrong the broken mind. However to Blackstone he knew that was not one of their siblings and tried to keep Mumble from running after the massive being moving between the stars.
SHRANTELLO SYSTEM
There was a great terrible light. Standing Weapons, both drones and the few mad jocks that decided to stuff Clash's orders and get stuck in to the bitter end, were fried immediately, and the gap they left was eagerly filled by the endless hordes of the renewed Yog-Narr. Despite it all, Clash continued to bellow orders. From his point of view, the fight was still going on at full speed. It didn't matter if the plasma blast was drowning out comms in a massive ionized scream, somebody had to be hearing him over other channels.
<<All elements, report! Who the hell do we have left?!>> He was shouting orders to figure it out. <<Flight leaders, recall all assets! Rally on my position! Someone tell me we have some interdictors up!>> As the plasma fireball died down, he realized the hard fact. <<...shit. Mattock Leader to main fleet, Yog-Narr is charging drives, you have targets inbound.>>
Then there was a terrible pause. The fact that there was still a faint hiss on the other end told him the Schist fleet was still there, and the reply he received made his fur stand on end.
SCHIST SYSTEM
"Did I stutter, Mattock Leader?" Admiral Impulse said as he started removing his max-G gear and ordered the rest of his crew to do the same. "Make best speed for RTB rendezvous point, and prepare for a debrief. We're going to need your brain on full burn to figure this one out. You know what's in there, don't you?"
That shut Clash up. That reaction told Buck all he needed to know about how ready anybody in Silverflash was to deal with the Mirdif War restarting, and the last Eclipse Lord apparently having learned from its long time away.