The Fleet: Dawn of Darkness (WIP original uni story)
Posted: 2003-05-09 02:18am
Just a little original universe story I've been playing around with as a break from Unity. Feel free to let me know what you think, good or bad.
The Fleet: Dawn of Darkness
An original universe story by Jeremy S.
Prologue - Darkness Falls
Like any story, its best to start at the very beginning.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." ...Well, perhaps that's a bit to far back into the beginning.
Let's fast forward to 2303 AD. Human kind has colonized most of Sol system. With the recently created gravitic sensors, a new planet is calculated to be outside the orbit of Pluto. All the major powers, the United States, the European Union, China, Russia and Japan, begin an excited search for the new world. They have already staked claim to every inhabitable planetary body in the system, and are eager to find a new world to expand to. Estimates due to its gravitational influence place it near Mars in mass. After years of careful measurements in the outer system, a US survey craft finally pins down the location of the tenth planet. Only thing is, when they finally get to the coordinates where the planet should be, there is nothing there. Yet their gravitic sensors are insisting that there is a planet sized mass directly in front of them. Soon vessels from the other powers converge on the anomaly, each probing it with their sensors.
All probes launched into it disappear, all telemetry lost from their systems. A joint venture is started, with all space fairing nations combining their resources in studying the strange phenomena. An AI probe is eventually designed and sent through. At first it is feared that it suffered the same fate as the more fragile and vastly less smart recon drones launched into the anomaly. Then days later, the probe returns with shocking news that will change the course of human history. The anomaly is in fact a doorway to another star system. After another series of probes are sent through to thoroughly map the newly discovered system on the other side of the anomaly, a manned mission is sent through. It discovers that the probes' sensors are indeed telling the truth. An entire system lays bare and open for colonization. And there are preliminary indications that it to has anomalies in its outer system. Humanity joins together like never before in its history to explore and colonize this unexpected treasure trove.
Fast forward to 3558 AD Terran Standard Reckoning. Human kind has continued to expand into the galaxy via the static, wormhole like anomalies. STL drives have improved greatly from the primitive fusion and ion drives that were in use when the warp gates were first discovered. It is during this year that humanity is again changed forever. Till then, only ancient destroyed ruins of a civilization not of our own were encountered. Then the first living alien civilization was encountered through a new warp gate. Their level of technology was similar to our own, but they proved to be violently xenophobic. All peaceful overtures are met with excessive violence. When they launch an attack against the nearby Terran Colony, turning the once lush, tropical world to a glassed, radioactive wasteland with copious amounts of antimatter warheads. We in turn did the same to their colony we initially encountered. We then proceeded through that systems warp gates to see if we could reason with them now that they knew we were just as dangerous to them as they were to us. Again there was no reasoning with them. When they tried to destroy the Terran Expeditionary Task Force Thirteen without even attempting to talk, we did what we had to protect our own. While our tech was similar, we were vastly more populous and industrious. Just the same, it was no cake walk, for we had been lulled by hundreds of years of relative peaceful expansion. We glassed all of their planets save their home world in a hard fought campaign. Even then, they chose not to negotiate. We made a conscious decision not to utterly destroy the Binari. Instead we destroyed all of their ships and infrastructure that could be used to make interstellar ships. We then parked a fleet in orbit of their homeworld to keep an eye on them and ensure they didn't try anything threatening towards us again. While the military budget and R&D efforts had slackened, it underwent a fairly drastic 180 degree turnaround. Armed with the new knowledge that we were truly not alone in the universe and that some of the encountered species could prove hostile, we decided to build and maintain a large standing military. We wouldn't be caught with our pants down like we were in the Terran/Binari War again. We wouldn't throw the first punch, but we would damn well throw the last one and it would be a KO blow.
Fast forward to 4824. Most of the galaxy has been colonized by us and our alien allies. Some of the species we met out in the black were hostile, but by and large they were eager for contact with other species. To our surprise we discovered that we were among the largest and most advanced species in space. Terran industry and technology was in high demand by a plethora of alien species. We took the forefront in galactic politics. The first session of the Galactic council was brought to order, chaired by us but with equal representation to all charter species. Life was good. We and our fellow citizens of the Milky Way wanted for nothing. It was a golden age and we were at the forefront of it. It looked like there was nothing that could ever slow down our incessant advance foreword.
Oh how I wish that was still true.
Fast forward to 5590. The galaxy has been totally colonized. We have developed methods of terraforming planets in seconds. We can even restart dying stars, giving systems new leases on life. Our biosciences have extended human lifespan to many centuries of relative youth. Our alien partners receive similar benefits. Near the Galactic fringe, our exploratory vessels begin encountering new kinds of warp gates. These are well beyond the fringes of star systems and they are truly massive. We began probing them, and we quickly learned that they lead to an entirely different galaxy. Hand in hand with our fellow Milky Wayians, we went out to explore and make peaceful contact with those we could encounter in this new vista.
Fast forward to 5666. First contact with the Demons. They were just as unreasoning in their hate as the Binari had proven so long ago. But they were far more dangerous, for while when we first encountered the Binari we possessed near parity in tech, the Demons were far in advance of us. It had always puzzled xenoarcheologists just why nearly every species encountered had such similar descriptions of what they called Demons in their mythology. Now we knew the horrible truth. They were all so similar because the Demons had conquered our galaxy during our collective prehistory, wiping out all those that could challenge them and ruling the rest. Mankind was scarcely starting the stone age when they came to Terra. Then they inexplicably left this galaxy, we still don't know why, and its doubtful we ever will. But they came back now. Our fleet did its best, but they could do little to hold back the inrushing tide. Link after link in our interconnected chain of star systems fell to their onslaught. We finally held them after they took close to 1/3 of the systems in our galaxy. They bashed their fleets against our defenses but finally ran into thick enough opposition that they couldn't bull through. But they weren't content with sitting in their conquered systems, not by a long shot. Soon a steady trickle of small, finger sized drones began to come through the heavily fortified and guarded warp gates between our systems and the Demon held ones. They were infernally hard to target, but they could only be weapons of some flavor so they were scoured from our space seconds after they transited. Then the beginning of the end happened. Instead of trickles they came through in the millions, then billions then trillions, blotting out the very stars with their passage. There were far too many for PD to hold off. Their crews struggled valiantly, but it was inevitable that some would break through the high energy lattice work of point defense and ship killer beams and missiles.
It was then that we found out just what kind of weapons they were. Most hurtled towards the gravitic spikes of warp gates but some hurtled for the defending systems stars. The stars died in brilliant supernovas, leaving only shattered remnants of their former glory. Only the most important star systems had system wide shields to protect them, and even then the Demon Star Killers sometimes found a way to get through. One by one, the lights of the galaxy flared brightly then went out. Only a few of the hundreds of thousands of stars escaped death. With their deaths, far to many inhabited planets died with them. Planetary shields were strong, but in most cases not powerful enough to fend off a supernova shockwave. And even those that were had to worry about just what survival meant. With insufficient heat from the systems sun, countless trillions froze to death in the growing dark.
The Fleet was relatively helpless. Sure they tried to destroy as many of the Star Killers as possible after each transit, but there were just so many of them, coming in wave after wave that grew in strength after each passing, and mounting drives that could outrun all but CM and Fighter drives. And the aftermath was even worse, for while we could restart the stars, the fleet had been arrayed along the known warp chains to combat further Demon thrusts into our space. They were well out of position to help restart many of the stars, and those civilian ships that possessed the tech were nearly all to fragile to withstand the supernova blasts to begin with. The Milky Way looked like someone had taken large bites out of it. Where it had once been a beautiful bared spiral galaxy, it was now dimmed, nearly invisible, its stars all turned to tiny dim shadows of their former selves.
Just as inexplicably as their first retreat from our galaxy, the Demons pulled back out of our galaxy after seeding it with darkness. The Fleet, little better than horrified bystanders to the Demons destruction of our worlds, was left to pick up the pieces.
It is up to us to bring our shattered home from the darkness to the light, for the Confederation will arise from the ashes of a burned galaxy. Of that I can promise you. We will be the light in the darkness that shall not waver, and we will never give up and never surrender. You have done far worse than destroy our homes and cherished way of life. You have given us an enduring flame, a reason for righteous retribution. We shall never forget, and we WILL exact our revenge.
One – A Race Against Time
The seven and a half foot tall Demon stooped as he strode down the shattered hallway trailing flame. His wings were folded tight against his back, the short wicks of fire that always trailed about a Demon's extremities burning an angry orange/yellow. His eyes were bottomless, night black pits as they scanned through the beam strewn hallway before him. An injured crewman, a Velerr'an, was trapped under a shattered bulkhead that even her armored suit's powerful synthetic muscles and her own nanno augmented strength couldn't budge. Her weapon lay a scant inch from her wildly stretching upper hand. With a mental shove, the Demon pushed the weapon half the distance closer, tormenting the trapped crewman as he approached her. He relished in the delightful sensation of her terror, her helplessness, even her rage, washing over him. His power gun fell down into its sling as he stood over her. A taloned foot stepped down on the Velerr'an's arm stopping its vain yet valiant struggle to reach her weapon. Horrible, hate filled words in an alien tongue came from her mouth, but they could be heard only by herself. The hallway was in vacuume and her screams rebounded around her transparent helmet. The Demon merely smiled a tooth filled, predatory smile. This one had true spirit. She would make an excellent feed.
Flaming psionic claws extended from his left hand, and the Velerr'an's shouts turned to shrieks well into the ultrasonic. The Demon pulled his hands back in preparation to drive the claws through his meals artificial carapace and into its hart. Then he was staggered as a power gun bolt punched through his left shoulder staggering the Demon, rocking him back on his heels. The wound allowed twin gouts of flame to escape, some of the energy life force of the demon escaping, before the wound healed itself within seconds. The now angered Demon turned to his attacker. A lone figure stood in the middle of the hallway, her silver armor gleaming mirror like in the flickering light of the hallway. There was a power gun held firmly in both of her armored hands. She was an Angel of light, the very antithesis of the Demon before her. Her gun birthed another pale gold, almost white bolt, sending it screaming down the hallway in an eye blink. It to punched through the Demon, allowing more of his life force energy to escape. Another bolt, then another, the gun cycling at full auto now, rapidly burning through its available charges. Soon it ran empty, the last of its ammunition gone.
The power armored Terran tried to turn and run, but found she was rooted to the spot, unable to move. She tried with all her might to put her legs into motion, but couldn't. The Demon was totally ablaze, his life force draining away into the vacuume of space. Then his wounds healed, his mottled crimson and ebon skin growing over the power gun wounds, staunching then stopping the flame. Picking himself up off the deck, his eyes filled with flaming hate and he roared in rage, throwing his horned head back and bellowing at the ceiling. He began stalking towards the frozen Human. Towering over her, his now extended, flaming wings filling the hallway, he concentrated hard. The Human lifted off of the deck plating despite her boot's molecular grippers. The Demon’s hand extruded claws, and they punched upward in a rush, intent on feeding on this impudent nothing that would dare attack him. The Human began screaming split seconds before the energy claws rammed home to add her life-force to the Demons...
Admiral Jessica Winton, Galactic Confederation Navy, awoke screaming in her quarters, sitting bolt upright, her youthful body shrouded in a cold sheen of sweat. It took her seconds to realize where she was and even longer to calm down from the terror of the nightmare. Once her rabbit fast heart slowed to a normal rhythm, aided greatly towards that end by the nanites coursing through her body, she looked towards the clock on her bed stand. The display showed 6:43 AM TSR. The comforting sounds of an active ship enshrouded her tortured soul, the almost subliminal rumble of her engines bringing Jessica some semblance of peace. It was almost time for her to be up and about anyway, and she wouldn't be able to get much sleep in the short time she had left anyway. Shedding her sleep ware, she strode across her bedroom towards her bathroom and activated the shower, allowing the pulsing jets of hot water to drain the last remnants of her terror away. Yet they couldn't wash away the pain that had become part of not only her but every serving officer in the Fleet. She sagged against the wall of her shower as her buried, tortured emotions ambushed her. The dead, fellow officers and even more so the trillions of civilians she had sworn to protect yet had been unable to when it really counted, wrung massive sobs from her body. The galaxy was dyeing, pulling civilization down with it and turning its protectors to tortured bystanders. Cradling her head in her hands, her blond hair a wet halo, she wept for the dead.
--- ---
Her brilliant white and silver uniform was put on mechanically. As she dressed, Jessica’s reddened ice blue eyes were clearing, the irritated blood vessels being repaired by the organelle sized machines that were by now as much a part of her as her biological cells. Her uniform now in place and perfect, the CO of Battlegroup 501 walked out of her quarters and into her personal garden. If she didn’t know any better, Jessica would have thought she was on a planet. The gently rolling hills, dew wet grass and large groups of trees were real enough, but the panorama of near dawn sky above her was a forgery, even if it was a near perfect one. Seating her white beret on her head, Jessica made for the main transit shaft adjacent to her quarters.
“Flag Bridge.” She said simply. The shaft’s field gripped her, pulling her out into its middle. Then she accelerated with startling rapidity. Although she felt nothing, she could see the various stops along the transit shaft flash by in an eyeblink. Her crew blinked by as well, coming and going along the shaft as they went about their business with the same detached wrongness that had gripped them since the true horrific scale of the Demon’s destruction had become known. The good natured humor that had infused her people before the war, and even at times during it, was shattered. Jessica didn’t know if it would ever return.
On and on the shaft seemed to stretch, for the Coral Snake was a Superdreadnought, a massive hammer headed diamond among the largest and toughest vessels in the GCN Fleet. Her progress slowed as fast as it had initially sped up, then the massive computer in Coral Snake’s core gently nudged her onto a recessed landing. A single armored door lay before her. After a near instantaneous quadruple check of her implant’s IFF transponder as well as her biological components for a DNA match up, the first door to the Flag Bridge split open with the solid phalanx of similar doors behind it doing like wise. As she made her way down the door lined passage, the ones she had already passed began to close behind her. Jessica couldn’t help but think that she was in the intestine of a giant mechanical beast, despite the fact that she had been through such passages for coming 87 years now. The last armored door opened, revealing the muted buzz of activity beyond. The holoprojector was sending a composite visual feed into the room, filling the large open space above the deck with a star system. The ranks of SDSQ 501.1’s Ships of the Wall, each as massive as a good sized moon, knifed trough the system on their way to their destination, a warp gate on the far side. The smaller profiles of their escort were arrayed with the usual precision expected of a Fleet formation. The diamond dust flecks of recon fighter squadrons swept space like an egg shaped umbrella wrapping around the front of the squadron and her escorts. Beyond them, a rank of recon drones flew through the darkness, their primitive AI’s scanning and relaying their data back to the Coral Snake and her consorts.
Moving at their max rated velocity of 30 PSL, shrouded in the inertia canceling effect of their drive fields, the mammoth Superdreadnoughts and lesser ships of the Battlegroup followed their course. They had transited seven hours ago via the Dauphin/Vega 7 warp gate. Their plotted course would take them up and over the white dwarf star on a least time course to get to their target. The system’s second and last warp gate was almost directly opposite their emergence warp gate, clear on the opposite side of the system. While this wasn’t rare with warp gates, it was irritating to the squadron’s crews, for they were racing against the clock.
“Any new word from T’klakiu?” Jessica asked.
“The latest drone just transited and should be back momentarily after it queries the buoys on the other side and sends our own message off.” Her chief of staff replied in a grim voice. T’klakiu’s planetary shields had saved the world from its stars supernova, but now it was freezing to death in the cold void of space. Nor was the cold it’s only concern. While the world was largely intact, its biosphere had been seriously compromised, both by the lack of a sun powerful enough to warm it at its orbit and by the massive amounts of radiation that leaked through the shield. Close to three quarters of the planet’s people, plants and animals had received lethal doses of radiation with the other quarter little better off. They needed help now, while there was still a chance they could be saved with the proper medical equipment. Their few antirad treatment centers were hopelessly swamped, for it wasn’t often that a planet worried about the damaging effects of hard radiation on a body. That was almost exclusively the realm of the Fleet, which was why the Superdreadnought sized Fleet hospital ship Compassion was nestled in the center of the formation. Fleet doctors treated radiation’s damaging effects as a matter of course, and the massive hospital ship could handily treat an entire planets population.
“ETA till we can get to them?”
“Another five hours to the Vega 7/K’klakiu warp gate, then eight hours till we restart the star. But that will do little to stave off the ecological disaster looming there. From their last report, they need a full terraforming team as well as the medical team we are bringing. And we won’t get there till six hours after the star restarts.”
“Send word up the chain to have a terraforming team sent here ASAP.”
“Aye Sir.”
At her command, a message drone spat from an aft launch tube to bring her request to those in charge. It streaked away from the squadron at a diametrically opposite vector, its drive field boosting it to 96 PSL then cutting out to let it coast to preserve valuable drive time. Message drones were among the fastest things in space thanks to their low mass to drive power ratio, but they paid for it with obscenely low active drive times. It was fortunate that McGregor and its Fleet Base were only a handful of transits away (even more so that it had been spared the fiery death at the hands of a Demon Star Killer), allowing her to use a standard drone. Otherwise she would have had to send one of her corvettes at a much slower velocity and a correspondingly longer response time to her urgent request.
With every second that ticked by, the situation on T’klakiu deteriorated further as it orbited the dead husk of what was once the main sequence Class G star K’klakiu. If something went wrong and K’klakiu couldn’t be restarted, only the Superdreadnoughts had the lift capacity to remove the survivors from harms way.
“Message drone has completed transit back from K’klakiu sir.” Jessica’s chief of staff said. There was something strange about his voice that was wrong. “there… there is no new response from T’klakiu Admiral.” His words were like a punch to her stomach.
“Understood.” She replied softly, with a slight tremor in her voice. The lack of new response could be any number of things, but in her haunted soul, Jessica knew why there was none. Billions more lives that she couldn’t save were heaped upon the rest already residing in her mind’s eye.
--- ---
The wrongness of warp gate transit gripped Jessica and the rest of her crew. For a brief instant, almost immeasurable with even modern instruments, the lead ships of the Battlegroup disappeared from the face of the galaxy. Then the popped back into existence in the Kiu colonized star system of K’klakiu. While warp gate transit wasn’t that bad on biological, it was hard on electronics. Jessica ignored the tingle at the base of her skull and the powerful itching sensation that crossed her skin as her nanites and augments underwent their usual post transit trauma. Ships systems were also scrambled, with sensors, defenses, weapons, even life support failing for a few disoriented seconds. Then everything righted itself, the holodisplay coming online again along with the repeaters clustered around Jessica’s crash couch. The star of K’klakiu, a shadow of its former self, hung behind and a few degrees up from the Coral Snake’s current vector thanks to the unpredictability of gate transit. You rarely emerged the same way twice, even from well known gates.
After clearing the vicinity of the gate so that follow on ships wouldn’t collide, the Coral Snake launched its cargo at the sun. A misshapen lance the size of a cruiser detached itself from its special mooring at the upper front hull and brought its drive field online. Boosting to 90 PSL, it headed insystem for the stellar remnant. There was still no new message from T’klakiu.
Two - Lengthening Shadows
In a very real way, the fate of T’klakiu was a microcosm of what was happening across the galaxy. Most of the Fleet survived the final Demon attack, but most star systems attacked didn’t. Over ¾ of the Galactic population died at the hands of Star Killers. In most cases, the Fleet units that could have evacuated them never had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to them before it was too late. They were just too far away with to little time.
In the face of all the death and destruction, there were a few shining examples of true dedication to duty and honor. Many stars with direct or short warp gate links to major Fleet Bases were rescued from the dark that threatened them, for only major fleet bases possessed the special devices that could restart stars. Fleet medical personnel worked themselves beyond exhaustion in glorious attempts to save as many civilians as they could. Although they could only rescue a relative handful of the systems successfully attacked, their efforts on those they could save was nothing short of a miracle.
Yet there just weren’t enough Stellar Change Devices ready for use after the Demon attack to do more than be a drop in the bucket. Stars exploded, atmospheres were scorched away, surfaces blasted in the very fires of hell itself. The sheer scale of the destruction was virtually unimaginable.
Confederation Stellar Change Devices were similar, if not built with the same malevolent purpose, to Demon Star Killers. Both operated on the premise of changing the very nature of a star, the Confed version shifting a dying star back into its main sequence state, the Demon version shifting a main sequence star into a supernova. But unlike the finger sized Demon versions, Confed SCD’s were the size of cruisers. And unlike the Demon versions, they didn’t mount drives capable of crossing the galaxy. Each had to be hauled to their targets, and only Superdreadnoughts and some marks of tugs had sufficient excess drive strength to shoulder their added mass at the required speeds.
Many people still ask why the Demon’s would scorch the galaxy the way they did. Everyone knows that they feed on the, for lack of a better word, life force of living beings. Wouldn’t killing off so many living creatures deny them a rather large food supply? The answer is yes. It is also no.
While Demons personally feed off of a victim’s life force directly, every death strengthens them to a greater or lesser degree. It is only through personal feeding that a Demon can grow and advance in rank, but it is estimated that a single death can sustain their entire SPECIES for days. The effect seems to have no known limit, meaning that the general life cycle of the universe itself is more than sufficient to allow them to exist indefinitely.
So basically, if they couldn’t directly feed off of us to restore our debt to their food supply, they would alter the situation in their favor by killing as many of us as possible. We are of no real use to them alive except as a future food source when we leave this harsh galaxy.
The real punch to the guts was that our own activities most likely brought the demons upon us earlier than they would have come otherwise. From recently unearthed archeological excavations, the Demon’s come through this area of the universe every so often as a matter of course. But our genetic and mechanical adjustments to our natural life spans created a discrepancy that they were able to detect. Needless to say, they didn’t appreciate our inadvertent alteration to their diet, and came looking to see why they weren’t getting as much from our particular galaxy as they normally did. In all likelihood, the force that pushed us so handily back again and again was only their version of a rapid deployment fleet sent to survey the unexpected situation. While it’s a bone chilling thought that the Demon’s massive fleet was but a mere fraction of what they truly have available, I have an even more marrow freezing one for you. Since that was merely a rapid response force, what’s going to happen when their REAL invasion fleet shows up?
--- ---
Coral Snake’s Flag Bridge was like a tomb as repeated hails to T’klakiu went unanswered. The long, helpless hours dragged by, tormenting a crew already on the edge of sanity. Then like a godsend, the star before the fleet flared up to glorious brilliance, growing back to its original state as per the carefully calculated orders implanted in the SCD’s rudimentary AI. There would be no dying from exposure in the terrible cold of deep space this day. But there were still many victims, it was hoped, to help at T’klakiu. Civilian augments could only do so much for the planets population being ravaged by extreme radiation poisoning. Many would die without help. Many would die even with it, but there was still a chance that they could be saved.
Admiral Winton paced back and forth across the Flag Bridge like a caged Gregorian Sabercat. Time ticked by, each second’s passing like another nail in T’klakiu’s coffin. And there was nothing to do but wait as the ponderous Superdreadnoughts cut through the outer system. Nothing to do but worry and brood over the fate of a world. The first recon drones and fighters had arrived in near enough to T’klakiu to see the extent of the damage. There was a massive continent sized hellfire where the planets shield grid had failed, allowing the full intensity of the supernova though for a brief flicker of time before the rest took over the failed generator’s load. The massive blaze lit up the night side of the world like an angry blight, one that threw up a dark, ugly column of smoke and ash high into the planets stratosphere. Live holocam feeds from the dayside were thrown up on the holotank. The effects of the lethal radiation were readily apparent on the handful of Kiu seen outside. The sheer enormity of the unfolding tragedy hit Jessica like a physical blow. She sagged into her crash chair like a deflating balloon. ‘No, no girl, we can’t go to pieces now’ a part of her thought. ‘We need to hold it together above all else, for if we loose it, these people are sure to join us. You can see that they are on a knife’s edge already. Steady, breathe in, breathe out, let your augments do their job and level out your racing pulse. That’s it. There’s time enough for grieving later, but not now.’ Jessica’s fists balled to white knuckled orbs, but she maintained a level voice through sheer effort of will. Her crew needed her in control, so in control she would remain.
Through the hours of holo transmissions showing the scale of the destruction again and again, from every conceivable point of view, Jessica bore her growing despair in stony silence, never letting her long practiced command mask slip. The mammoth Confed leviathans finally entered mattrans range of T’klakiu after an endless eternity in transit.
“Open a channel to the Compassion.”
“Channel open Ma’am.”
“Admiral Mayborne…” She said, her face a mask but her ice blue eyes brimming with unshedable tears, “…just…just do what you can.” Her voice broke, coming back as a near whisper. The image of Admiral Mayborne, Confed Navy Medical Branch, on Jessica’s personal com screen looked at her for a long second, then slowly nodded. His own eyes glistened from unshed tears, for he knew that there wouldn’t be many to save on T’klakiu despite the fleet’s best efforts.
“We will Ma’am.” He replied softly, with a slight huskiness to his voice.
Jessica nodded then closed the channel. She stood slowly, then turned and near staggered off of the bridge. An honor guard Marine moved to aid her, but she stopped him with a glare. There wasn’t hate in the glare, merely understanding mixed with the same iron will that had served her so well throughout her career. She straightened, squared her uniform with a by now expert tug, then strode off of her bridge like she had done a million times before. But that had been before the war, and before the time of darkness dawned. She didn’t fool anyone. Her command staff had been with her for to long not to notice their boss’s feelings of helplessness mirrored and were greater than their own. The blast doors irised open, allowing her to flee the bridge and the endless parade of horror shown on its holotank.
“Fuck.” The softly spoken word came from Jessica’s immediate deputy and right hand. He didn’t swear at anything in particular, merely at the universe in general. As Commodore Gregor Stephanopoulos swore, his enhanced arm forced his fist into the railing next to his station. The dull clang of augmented fist on super strong alloy resonated around the bridge along with his curse. Everyone started in surprise, for the jovial, decent officer that was Commodore Stephanopoulos had never been heard to swear in normal times. But then these were far from normal times. Gregor got up and strode after his Admiral.
She had already entered the primary transit shaft by the time he made his way past the Flag Bridge blast doors. The massive, brightly lit tunnel stretched so that people on the far side looked like fleas, barely distinguishable as individuals due to the extreme distance. With a quick activation of his implants link to Coral Snake’s central computer network, he keyed for access to the transit system. The request and responding authorization was near instantaneous. “Take me to wherever Admiral Jessica Winton is.”
The shaft gripped him and began threading his passage through the transit arteries that filled the great ship. Fellow officers and enlisted personnel whipped by less than a hands breadth away, gone in an eyeblink as he jetted rapidly towards his destination. It wound up being Jessica’s quarters. He entered his Admiral’s personal domain only after he received permission via his implants from her. There was an artificial storm brewing overhead, the light rain already starting. Gregor told his augments to set up a low grade forcefield around him. The rain that would have gotten him thoroughly wet merely ran off around him as it hit the unseen umbrella like barrier projected over his head. His feet remained dry as a similar forcefield sprouted from them to keep all water away. Following the guide from his implants, he strode out into the personal park of his CO to find her.
He finally found her standing near her lake, staring out at the growing swells and gathering black clouds. She had her fields off and she was rapidly getting soaked in spite of her weatherproof uniform. When he was finally beside her, she reached out and gripped him in a fierce embrace. She clung to him like a dying man clings to a life preserver.
Gregor was startled by her actions, not knowing what else to do he returned her embrace with as much warmth as his own tortured soul could provide. She began to sob uncontrollably into his shoulder. Between the sobs and gasps for breath, he could make out four words repeated over and over again.
“…I…couldn’t… save…them!”
Used to Jessica being firmly in control, of both herself and her situation, Gregor didn’t quite know what to make of the sudden yawning vulnerability of his superior. He finally settled on stroking her wet hair lightly with one hand while the other held her close. His own tears fell silently, mingling with her own. Later, was it minutes or hours he knew not, Jessica’s sobs gradually subsided. Gregor steered her back towards her quarters while he used his forcefields to remove nearly all the rainwater from Jessica’s shrunken, spent form. She moved like an automaton, being totally exhausted emotionally. After guiding her into her bed, he removed her boots and covered her with her bedding. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. There was a look very near peace on her face, something that Gregor hadn’t seen since the Demons had been encountered. He knew that her inner demons would be back to haunt her when she awoke, but for one night at least, she might get a reprieve from them.
“Sleep well Admiral.” Gregor whispered, then turned on his heel and walked out of Jessica’s quarters. He couldn’t begrudge her a night of peace. Even the most cheerful of souls were unable to find much of that nowadays, and if his CO could grasp even an hours worth of it, he would gladly sacrifice anything to give it to her.
--- ---
In the end, the final death toll on T’klakiu was over eight billion souls including those lost with the destroyed deep space infrastructure. But the gallant efforts of Fleet Battlegroup 501 ended up saving more than two billion from certain death. Many were very close to casting off their mortal coils when the Fleet arrived, and the med teams were miracle workers as they slaved away for days to make whole again all those that needed healing.
It is hard to imagine calling the loss of 80% of a systems inhabitants a victory, but that is exactly what Battlegroup 501 had achieved when it succeeded in restarting K’klakiu and delivering Compassion to mattrans range of T’klakiu. T’klakiu wasn’t the only planet savaged by the Demons, not by a long shot, but it was one of the precious handful that were rescued largely intact. Other Fleet Battlegroups sent on frantic, desperate missions met only dead systems and ashed planets. The toll on Fleet personnel was horrendous, pushing some past their breaking point. Suicide, virtually unheard of before the Demon attack, reared its head amongst the ranks. Little did the Fleet know that these dark days were about to get even darker, and from a most unexpected and shocking source.
Three – Possession
Star Marshal VonGraff’s eyes stared at his disheveled reflection in the mirror. The way he looked now was most certainly not how one of the highest ranking members of the Fleet’s chain of command should look. His hair was unkempt, two days worth of growth of coarse stubble sprouted on his age worn face, and there were dark bags of fatigue under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he had been in the fight of his life, for he indeed had been the last two days. And worse the luck, he had lost. A seductively sweet voice whispered into his ear, but he was alone in the small bathroom in his personal quarters.
“No! I wont’ do it!...” He whispered harshly through clenched teeth. The voice spoke again, more commandingly, sending spikes of control through the pathways in Fritz’s brain. In the war of wills that had been won and lost in the Star Marshal’s quarters onboard the Fleet Superdreadnought Trafalgar the sprite had intimately familiarized himself with just where resistance would come from and how to block it. In the mirror, VonGraff’s brown eyes flared with an internal, totally unnatural fire. “No… no…”Fritz’s words trailed off into inaudibleness, his mouth forming them but no sound coming. Then even his mouth stopped its soundless protest. Settling itself more firmly in control, the sprite set about making its tool look presentable to its species. Nanites clipped off the stubble on his face and removed the bags under his bushy, steel gray brows and removed the red tinge from his eyes. With a quick sift through his tool’s memory, the sprite selected a hairstyle favored by the Star Marshal and commanded the nanno machines to sculpt Fritz’s hair into that form. Within seconds, low grade molecular attraction generated by the nanites pulled and tugged the unruly mass of hair into a perfect reproduction of the memory. In a corner of his tool’s brain, the sprite could still feel him straining against the control imposed on his consciousness. It was of no concern to his grip on control, so the sprite kept a wary eye on it but for the most part ignored it. Once his face took on a more healthy pallor and vigor, the sprite commanded his tool to smile.
Fritz VonGraff, Star Marshal of the Basilisk Cluster, strode out of his bathroom like a new man. He quickly slipped into the white with silver piping and bright work uniform of the Fleet. The silver crossed swords on sunburst insignia on his black shoulder boards denoted his rank for all to see, although one would have to have been a fool not to have known the signor ranking officer by his face alone. His relatively short hair had long ago gone the color of fresh steel. Although it could be colored, Fritz had always felt that it was best to age gracefully, and for someone well into his fifth century, had every right to do so.
Now fully clothed, Fritz strode out into his personal office. Through the windows, the external view of a choice point on his flagship’s hull was being shown, the near perfect holograms covering the real life flora and fauna with a disconcertingly realistic portrayal of the ships exterior. The POV was from dead center amidships along the dorsal skin just in front of the docking/sensor pylon. The clean, angular lines of his ship stretched off into the distance farther than he could see. Continent sized, straight edged shadows fell across its brilliant white surface, cast by the quadruple prongs of drive field sails. Parked in station keeping with his flagship were the other Superdreadnoughts of his fleet along with the plethora of lesser vessels.
Fritz’s aide came into the office. There was a look of carefully hidden concern on his face. Even though 67th Fleet’s defense of the Basilisk Cluster had been an unmitigated success, with the defenders stopping all incoming Star Killers, the loss of so many other systems had hit the Star Marshal pretty hard. He had been locked alone in his quarters for two days straight with nothing to eat or drink and accepting no visitors. If it had gone on much longer, the aide would have brought in the doctor.
“Admiral, it’s good to see you up and about.”
“It’s good to be up and about Jack. Sorry about wigging out on you all there for a while.” The sprite made Fritz say.
“Don’t mention it Admiral. I’m sure most of the crew feels like doing the same, and it has only hit your reputation slightly that you showed you’re just as human as the rest of us.”
VonGraff smiled back at his aide. The sprite longed to suck in the unsuspecting humans essence, to feed, to grow, but it resisted those aims. The mission was of paramount importance, and he would grow well indeed if he succeeded here. He hadn’t spent days corked up in a Star Killer missile just to miss out on his best opportunity to grow.
--- ---
Demons come in many forms, and not all of them are the hulking, flame drenched brutes of myth that make up their assault infantry and command arms. There are smaller forms, and one of the smallest is called a sprite. Sprites are the very beginnings of a Demon, seemingly insignificant flickers of flame smaller than a candle’s. In this near embryonic state, they don’t require an outer shell to maintain themselves like their bigger siblings do and thus have all the advantages of being pure energy. They are perfectly capable of moving and surviving on their own without any means of support at all.
Trouble comes from the fact that while they might be the easiest to kill, they are also the hardest to detect. Especially when they take a host…
Fleet Demon Identification Handbook 1-A
Fillips and Van, Ret Totan Six, 5677 AD(TSR)
--- ---
Fritz VonGraff stared at the latest Eyes Only dispatch sent down the warp lanes to his cul-de-sac of stars. It said that Battlegroup 501 was going out for an inspection tour to survey the extent of the damage and report back to Fleet Command. They were scheduled for resupply and R&R layover in the Basilisk Cluster before heading on to Thetis via the Elision/Thetis warp gate. But the sprite saw this as a golden opportunity to spring his task.
“Attention all hands, I have received word in the latest message drone that not all Demon presence is gone. In fact, I have been told that there may be Demon’s in control of Fleet units.” A gasp went up from the Flag Bridge crew as they heard his words. “Now both myself and Fleet Command know that we don’t have any such problem here, which is why they have placed me in charge of the cluster’s government until the crisis elsewhere is past. We are to intern any ships entering our space, and should they resist, disable them if possible, but destroy them if necessary.” There were some sour faces at his orders to fire on fellow Fleet units if need be, so the sprite made him continue. “Now I find shooting at our comrades as much of a bitter pill as the rest of you, but remember, Fleet units will obey the chain of command while possessed units will resist us. If they don’t obey my directions, they are no longer our comrades, they are the enemy. Remember that. VonGraff out.”
--- ---
The Basilisk Cluster is a fairly extensive warp chain, but one that doubles back in on itself creating only one warp link in and out. It has been thoroughly settled by a multitude of species in the Confederation, the major ones among them being Terran, Kiu, Graken, and Valmek’to, and boasts a population of over 125 billion spread across 28 inhabited star systems. It is home to extensive deep space infrastructure, and due to this and its single entrance, it is of great strategic significance to the Confederation. The natural choke point that opens up to the cul-de-sac is one of the best defended points in known space. With only one entrance, all defenses can be concentrated on one single point instead of being spread around scattered warp gates throughout the outer system. With the intense industry of the cluster backing it, the Basilisk/Elision gate is virtually impregnable to any known attack, and because of this, the rest of the Cluster is considered a fall back position should cataclysm befall the rest of the Confederation. How such a cataclysm could come about is currently unknown, for the Galactic Confederation has spread across nearly all the stars in the Milky Way. Surely there cannot be a threat in the handful of stars yet to be explored that could be large enough to harm it…
Astrography of the Galactic Confederation
By James Gunner and T’keli’lik
5634 AD(TSR)
--- ---
Battlegroup 501 scurried through space on a least time course up and over the systems ecliptic. They were currently on the outbound leg of their journey, moving at the fleet maximum speed of .3 c towards the warp gate on the far side of the systems primary. The lighter escorts could easily out speed the considerably bigger Cou’pat class superdreadnoughts, acceleration meaningless thanks to the drive field, but they kept themselves in tight formation with their massive consorts. There were not only destroyers and heavy cruisers filling the ranks of 501’s escort. She also had Battlecruiser sized boomers hiding in the shadowverse. Unlike normal ships, boomers operated in the shadowverse, a set of parallel planes made up of boundless energy. They could operate there thanks to the massive D-gate engines they possessed. The shadowverse worked a lot like the deep space equivalent of terrestrial oceans, allowing ships not only to operate on the surface (normal space) but also below (shadowverse). Even though the D-gate engines cut deeply into a boomers internal volume, they gave it a considerable stealth advantage over normal space only ships. And while operating in the shadowverse, the only weapons they were vulnerable to even if they were detected were other shadowverse ships operating on the same or nearby plane or shadow missiles doing the same.
While the Battlegroup’s Cou’pat’s carried a not insubstantial number of the ten man crewed “Fighters”, it was the Dreadnought sized Fleet Carrier’s Gagarin and Valess’tow that truly thickened 501’s fighter screen. Each of the 300 km long carriers were home to 3000 fighters. While one man fighters were possible, they were only good for taking out other fighters due to their lack of high powered weapons due to size limitations. The small craft that took their place gave a Battlegroup long range striking power, but long ranged strikes who’s power couldn’t compare with a ship of the line in both strength and survivability. They could take out a lone superdreadnought, but they would have to be present in obscene numbers to do so, and superdreadnoughts never travel alone.
It was the fighter’s who had seen the star of this system relight first, and it was they who were even now charging out to scout the warp gate that lead them to the next system on their list. So far, there had been no systems where the destruction was as bad as it had been on T’klakiu, for this warp chain was only sparsely populated thanks to virtually no rocky planets in orbit of their stars to allow geoforming to commence. Some of the links in the chain had no stars at all to begin with, the distances between warp gates populated by nothing more than interstellar dust.
This was a godsend, for many in the Fleet’s Battlegroup 501 couldn’t stand being sent down a heavily populated warp chain as long as this one. Other Battlegroups and even full Fleets had been sent down those to survey the true extent of the destruction, but they only had to go through a handful of systems each. BG – 501 had to go through 20 systems before they arrived at their first rest stop and there was still a further 15 systems to go afterward before they hit the next inhabited system and its fleet base. Word had started to filter thorough the warp gate network of just which stars remained and which needed to be restarted. While the list was daunting, there were a few bright spots. Isolated cul-de-sacs like the Basilisk Cluster had often been able to hold off the Star Killers that had come looking to sow their darkness. As a result, there was still considerable civilian population bases present to allow reconstruction to begin. Shipyards began construction of new military and civilian craft that had been destroyed. People mourned the dead, then shouldered the fresh burden of renewed expansion.
BG – 501 even considered itself lucky, for instead of a cruse through a lightly populated and effected system, they could have been sent to Purgatory, the quasi official nickname of Demon destroyed space in the Milky Way. There the stars still shone, but every rocky planet was reduced to gravel and atoms, likely made so by gravitic warheads. It was only the brief, insanely intense gravitational pull caused by the temporary formation of a super massive black hole that could tear apart a planet, especially one without shields operating. Gravitic warheads were only rarely used in Fleet vs. Fleet engagements, and never used by the Confederation. The former because a ships drive field negated their effectiveness except in shadow missiles and even then only in the most massive ones due to the volume a gravitic warhead placed on internal space over and above the already massive D-gate drives. The latter because a peace loving group of peoples like the Confederation couldn’t conscience their use against anything other than a starship. During the Confederation’s infancy, it had encountered some species that did use them without inhibition or conscience against planets. Those species had been dealt with, removing their threat to the rest of the galaxy one way or another.
It was the Fleet’s responsibility to pave the way for the new, growing wave of colonization, which was why BG – 501 was currently exploring its assigned warp lanes and restarting its stars. Even in relatively worthless systems, the restarted stars were a pledge. The Fleet would lead the way to bring light back to the galaxy.
--- ---
It is truly unfortunate that no one foresaw that not all Demon’s were alike. It is understandable, especially because all those living have only encountered one type, their soldiers, but still unfortunate. Those that were consumed on conquered planets, if they had survived, could have testified to there being considerably more variety in Demon forms. They could have warned us to be on the lookout for them. But they were gone, leaving behind no salvageable record on the shattered worlds the retreating Demon’s left in their wake. Because we had no forewarning, not even the inkling of what Demon’s were capable of, and then no way to prove our suspicions even if we had reason to suspect.
We are the Fleet, the defenders of the light, the guardians of the Galactic Confederation. We had been since our inception, and we still are. No Fleet element had ever been corrupted, none had ever gone rogue. What happened in the Basilisk Cluster in July of 5670 AD TSR could have been avoided if only we had known what to look for. But we didn’t even suspect that we should be looking at all…
The Fleet: Dawn of Darkness
An original universe story by Jeremy S.
Prologue - Darkness Falls
Like any story, its best to start at the very beginning.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." ...Well, perhaps that's a bit to far back into the beginning.
Let's fast forward to 2303 AD. Human kind has colonized most of Sol system. With the recently created gravitic sensors, a new planet is calculated to be outside the orbit of Pluto. All the major powers, the United States, the European Union, China, Russia and Japan, begin an excited search for the new world. They have already staked claim to every inhabitable planetary body in the system, and are eager to find a new world to expand to. Estimates due to its gravitational influence place it near Mars in mass. After years of careful measurements in the outer system, a US survey craft finally pins down the location of the tenth planet. Only thing is, when they finally get to the coordinates where the planet should be, there is nothing there. Yet their gravitic sensors are insisting that there is a planet sized mass directly in front of them. Soon vessels from the other powers converge on the anomaly, each probing it with their sensors.
All probes launched into it disappear, all telemetry lost from their systems. A joint venture is started, with all space fairing nations combining their resources in studying the strange phenomena. An AI probe is eventually designed and sent through. At first it is feared that it suffered the same fate as the more fragile and vastly less smart recon drones launched into the anomaly. Then days later, the probe returns with shocking news that will change the course of human history. The anomaly is in fact a doorway to another star system. After another series of probes are sent through to thoroughly map the newly discovered system on the other side of the anomaly, a manned mission is sent through. It discovers that the probes' sensors are indeed telling the truth. An entire system lays bare and open for colonization. And there are preliminary indications that it to has anomalies in its outer system. Humanity joins together like never before in its history to explore and colonize this unexpected treasure trove.
Fast forward to 3558 AD Terran Standard Reckoning. Human kind has continued to expand into the galaxy via the static, wormhole like anomalies. STL drives have improved greatly from the primitive fusion and ion drives that were in use when the warp gates were first discovered. It is during this year that humanity is again changed forever. Till then, only ancient destroyed ruins of a civilization not of our own were encountered. Then the first living alien civilization was encountered through a new warp gate. Their level of technology was similar to our own, but they proved to be violently xenophobic. All peaceful overtures are met with excessive violence. When they launch an attack against the nearby Terran Colony, turning the once lush, tropical world to a glassed, radioactive wasteland with copious amounts of antimatter warheads. We in turn did the same to their colony we initially encountered. We then proceeded through that systems warp gates to see if we could reason with them now that they knew we were just as dangerous to them as they were to us. Again there was no reasoning with them. When they tried to destroy the Terran Expeditionary Task Force Thirteen without even attempting to talk, we did what we had to protect our own. While our tech was similar, we were vastly more populous and industrious. Just the same, it was no cake walk, for we had been lulled by hundreds of years of relative peaceful expansion. We glassed all of their planets save their home world in a hard fought campaign. Even then, they chose not to negotiate. We made a conscious decision not to utterly destroy the Binari. Instead we destroyed all of their ships and infrastructure that could be used to make interstellar ships. We then parked a fleet in orbit of their homeworld to keep an eye on them and ensure they didn't try anything threatening towards us again. While the military budget and R&D efforts had slackened, it underwent a fairly drastic 180 degree turnaround. Armed with the new knowledge that we were truly not alone in the universe and that some of the encountered species could prove hostile, we decided to build and maintain a large standing military. We wouldn't be caught with our pants down like we were in the Terran/Binari War again. We wouldn't throw the first punch, but we would damn well throw the last one and it would be a KO blow.
Fast forward to 4824. Most of the galaxy has been colonized by us and our alien allies. Some of the species we met out in the black were hostile, but by and large they were eager for contact with other species. To our surprise we discovered that we were among the largest and most advanced species in space. Terran industry and technology was in high demand by a plethora of alien species. We took the forefront in galactic politics. The first session of the Galactic council was brought to order, chaired by us but with equal representation to all charter species. Life was good. We and our fellow citizens of the Milky Way wanted for nothing. It was a golden age and we were at the forefront of it. It looked like there was nothing that could ever slow down our incessant advance foreword.
Oh how I wish that was still true.
Fast forward to 5590. The galaxy has been totally colonized. We have developed methods of terraforming planets in seconds. We can even restart dying stars, giving systems new leases on life. Our biosciences have extended human lifespan to many centuries of relative youth. Our alien partners receive similar benefits. Near the Galactic fringe, our exploratory vessels begin encountering new kinds of warp gates. These are well beyond the fringes of star systems and they are truly massive. We began probing them, and we quickly learned that they lead to an entirely different galaxy. Hand in hand with our fellow Milky Wayians, we went out to explore and make peaceful contact with those we could encounter in this new vista.
Fast forward to 5666. First contact with the Demons. They were just as unreasoning in their hate as the Binari had proven so long ago. But they were far more dangerous, for while when we first encountered the Binari we possessed near parity in tech, the Demons were far in advance of us. It had always puzzled xenoarcheologists just why nearly every species encountered had such similar descriptions of what they called Demons in their mythology. Now we knew the horrible truth. They were all so similar because the Demons had conquered our galaxy during our collective prehistory, wiping out all those that could challenge them and ruling the rest. Mankind was scarcely starting the stone age when they came to Terra. Then they inexplicably left this galaxy, we still don't know why, and its doubtful we ever will. But they came back now. Our fleet did its best, but they could do little to hold back the inrushing tide. Link after link in our interconnected chain of star systems fell to their onslaught. We finally held them after they took close to 1/3 of the systems in our galaxy. They bashed their fleets against our defenses but finally ran into thick enough opposition that they couldn't bull through. But they weren't content with sitting in their conquered systems, not by a long shot. Soon a steady trickle of small, finger sized drones began to come through the heavily fortified and guarded warp gates between our systems and the Demon held ones. They were infernally hard to target, but they could only be weapons of some flavor so they were scoured from our space seconds after they transited. Then the beginning of the end happened. Instead of trickles they came through in the millions, then billions then trillions, blotting out the very stars with their passage. There were far too many for PD to hold off. Their crews struggled valiantly, but it was inevitable that some would break through the high energy lattice work of point defense and ship killer beams and missiles.
It was then that we found out just what kind of weapons they were. Most hurtled towards the gravitic spikes of warp gates but some hurtled for the defending systems stars. The stars died in brilliant supernovas, leaving only shattered remnants of their former glory. Only the most important star systems had system wide shields to protect them, and even then the Demon Star Killers sometimes found a way to get through. One by one, the lights of the galaxy flared brightly then went out. Only a few of the hundreds of thousands of stars escaped death. With their deaths, far to many inhabited planets died with them. Planetary shields were strong, but in most cases not powerful enough to fend off a supernova shockwave. And even those that were had to worry about just what survival meant. With insufficient heat from the systems sun, countless trillions froze to death in the growing dark.
The Fleet was relatively helpless. Sure they tried to destroy as many of the Star Killers as possible after each transit, but there were just so many of them, coming in wave after wave that grew in strength after each passing, and mounting drives that could outrun all but CM and Fighter drives. And the aftermath was even worse, for while we could restart the stars, the fleet had been arrayed along the known warp chains to combat further Demon thrusts into our space. They were well out of position to help restart many of the stars, and those civilian ships that possessed the tech were nearly all to fragile to withstand the supernova blasts to begin with. The Milky Way looked like someone had taken large bites out of it. Where it had once been a beautiful bared spiral galaxy, it was now dimmed, nearly invisible, its stars all turned to tiny dim shadows of their former selves.
Just as inexplicably as their first retreat from our galaxy, the Demons pulled back out of our galaxy after seeding it with darkness. The Fleet, little better than horrified bystanders to the Demons destruction of our worlds, was left to pick up the pieces.
It is up to us to bring our shattered home from the darkness to the light, for the Confederation will arise from the ashes of a burned galaxy. Of that I can promise you. We will be the light in the darkness that shall not waver, and we will never give up and never surrender. You have done far worse than destroy our homes and cherished way of life. You have given us an enduring flame, a reason for righteous retribution. We shall never forget, and we WILL exact our revenge.
One – A Race Against Time
The seven and a half foot tall Demon stooped as he strode down the shattered hallway trailing flame. His wings were folded tight against his back, the short wicks of fire that always trailed about a Demon's extremities burning an angry orange/yellow. His eyes were bottomless, night black pits as they scanned through the beam strewn hallway before him. An injured crewman, a Velerr'an, was trapped under a shattered bulkhead that even her armored suit's powerful synthetic muscles and her own nanno augmented strength couldn't budge. Her weapon lay a scant inch from her wildly stretching upper hand. With a mental shove, the Demon pushed the weapon half the distance closer, tormenting the trapped crewman as he approached her. He relished in the delightful sensation of her terror, her helplessness, even her rage, washing over him. His power gun fell down into its sling as he stood over her. A taloned foot stepped down on the Velerr'an's arm stopping its vain yet valiant struggle to reach her weapon. Horrible, hate filled words in an alien tongue came from her mouth, but they could be heard only by herself. The hallway was in vacuume and her screams rebounded around her transparent helmet. The Demon merely smiled a tooth filled, predatory smile. This one had true spirit. She would make an excellent feed.
Flaming psionic claws extended from his left hand, and the Velerr'an's shouts turned to shrieks well into the ultrasonic. The Demon pulled his hands back in preparation to drive the claws through his meals artificial carapace and into its hart. Then he was staggered as a power gun bolt punched through his left shoulder staggering the Demon, rocking him back on his heels. The wound allowed twin gouts of flame to escape, some of the energy life force of the demon escaping, before the wound healed itself within seconds. The now angered Demon turned to his attacker. A lone figure stood in the middle of the hallway, her silver armor gleaming mirror like in the flickering light of the hallway. There was a power gun held firmly in both of her armored hands. She was an Angel of light, the very antithesis of the Demon before her. Her gun birthed another pale gold, almost white bolt, sending it screaming down the hallway in an eye blink. It to punched through the Demon, allowing more of his life force energy to escape. Another bolt, then another, the gun cycling at full auto now, rapidly burning through its available charges. Soon it ran empty, the last of its ammunition gone.
The power armored Terran tried to turn and run, but found she was rooted to the spot, unable to move. She tried with all her might to put her legs into motion, but couldn't. The Demon was totally ablaze, his life force draining away into the vacuume of space. Then his wounds healed, his mottled crimson and ebon skin growing over the power gun wounds, staunching then stopping the flame. Picking himself up off the deck, his eyes filled with flaming hate and he roared in rage, throwing his horned head back and bellowing at the ceiling. He began stalking towards the frozen Human. Towering over her, his now extended, flaming wings filling the hallway, he concentrated hard. The Human lifted off of the deck plating despite her boot's molecular grippers. The Demon’s hand extruded claws, and they punched upward in a rush, intent on feeding on this impudent nothing that would dare attack him. The Human began screaming split seconds before the energy claws rammed home to add her life-force to the Demons...
Admiral Jessica Winton, Galactic Confederation Navy, awoke screaming in her quarters, sitting bolt upright, her youthful body shrouded in a cold sheen of sweat. It took her seconds to realize where she was and even longer to calm down from the terror of the nightmare. Once her rabbit fast heart slowed to a normal rhythm, aided greatly towards that end by the nanites coursing through her body, she looked towards the clock on her bed stand. The display showed 6:43 AM TSR. The comforting sounds of an active ship enshrouded her tortured soul, the almost subliminal rumble of her engines bringing Jessica some semblance of peace. It was almost time for her to be up and about anyway, and she wouldn't be able to get much sleep in the short time she had left anyway. Shedding her sleep ware, she strode across her bedroom towards her bathroom and activated the shower, allowing the pulsing jets of hot water to drain the last remnants of her terror away. Yet they couldn't wash away the pain that had become part of not only her but every serving officer in the Fleet. She sagged against the wall of her shower as her buried, tortured emotions ambushed her. The dead, fellow officers and even more so the trillions of civilians she had sworn to protect yet had been unable to when it really counted, wrung massive sobs from her body. The galaxy was dyeing, pulling civilization down with it and turning its protectors to tortured bystanders. Cradling her head in her hands, her blond hair a wet halo, she wept for the dead.
--- ---
Her brilliant white and silver uniform was put on mechanically. As she dressed, Jessica’s reddened ice blue eyes were clearing, the irritated blood vessels being repaired by the organelle sized machines that were by now as much a part of her as her biological cells. Her uniform now in place and perfect, the CO of Battlegroup 501 walked out of her quarters and into her personal garden. If she didn’t know any better, Jessica would have thought she was on a planet. The gently rolling hills, dew wet grass and large groups of trees were real enough, but the panorama of near dawn sky above her was a forgery, even if it was a near perfect one. Seating her white beret on her head, Jessica made for the main transit shaft adjacent to her quarters.
“Flag Bridge.” She said simply. The shaft’s field gripped her, pulling her out into its middle. Then she accelerated with startling rapidity. Although she felt nothing, she could see the various stops along the transit shaft flash by in an eyeblink. Her crew blinked by as well, coming and going along the shaft as they went about their business with the same detached wrongness that had gripped them since the true horrific scale of the Demon’s destruction had become known. The good natured humor that had infused her people before the war, and even at times during it, was shattered. Jessica didn’t know if it would ever return.
On and on the shaft seemed to stretch, for the Coral Snake was a Superdreadnought, a massive hammer headed diamond among the largest and toughest vessels in the GCN Fleet. Her progress slowed as fast as it had initially sped up, then the massive computer in Coral Snake’s core gently nudged her onto a recessed landing. A single armored door lay before her. After a near instantaneous quadruple check of her implant’s IFF transponder as well as her biological components for a DNA match up, the first door to the Flag Bridge split open with the solid phalanx of similar doors behind it doing like wise. As she made her way down the door lined passage, the ones she had already passed began to close behind her. Jessica couldn’t help but think that she was in the intestine of a giant mechanical beast, despite the fact that she had been through such passages for coming 87 years now. The last armored door opened, revealing the muted buzz of activity beyond. The holoprojector was sending a composite visual feed into the room, filling the large open space above the deck with a star system. The ranks of SDSQ 501.1’s Ships of the Wall, each as massive as a good sized moon, knifed trough the system on their way to their destination, a warp gate on the far side. The smaller profiles of their escort were arrayed with the usual precision expected of a Fleet formation. The diamond dust flecks of recon fighter squadrons swept space like an egg shaped umbrella wrapping around the front of the squadron and her escorts. Beyond them, a rank of recon drones flew through the darkness, their primitive AI’s scanning and relaying their data back to the Coral Snake and her consorts.
Moving at their max rated velocity of 30 PSL, shrouded in the inertia canceling effect of their drive fields, the mammoth Superdreadnoughts and lesser ships of the Battlegroup followed their course. They had transited seven hours ago via the Dauphin/Vega 7 warp gate. Their plotted course would take them up and over the white dwarf star on a least time course to get to their target. The system’s second and last warp gate was almost directly opposite their emergence warp gate, clear on the opposite side of the system. While this wasn’t rare with warp gates, it was irritating to the squadron’s crews, for they were racing against the clock.
“Any new word from T’klakiu?” Jessica asked.
“The latest drone just transited and should be back momentarily after it queries the buoys on the other side and sends our own message off.” Her chief of staff replied in a grim voice. T’klakiu’s planetary shields had saved the world from its stars supernova, but now it was freezing to death in the cold void of space. Nor was the cold it’s only concern. While the world was largely intact, its biosphere had been seriously compromised, both by the lack of a sun powerful enough to warm it at its orbit and by the massive amounts of radiation that leaked through the shield. Close to three quarters of the planet’s people, plants and animals had received lethal doses of radiation with the other quarter little better off. They needed help now, while there was still a chance they could be saved with the proper medical equipment. Their few antirad treatment centers were hopelessly swamped, for it wasn’t often that a planet worried about the damaging effects of hard radiation on a body. That was almost exclusively the realm of the Fleet, which was why the Superdreadnought sized Fleet hospital ship Compassion was nestled in the center of the formation. Fleet doctors treated radiation’s damaging effects as a matter of course, and the massive hospital ship could handily treat an entire planets population.
“ETA till we can get to them?”
“Another five hours to the Vega 7/K’klakiu warp gate, then eight hours till we restart the star. But that will do little to stave off the ecological disaster looming there. From their last report, they need a full terraforming team as well as the medical team we are bringing. And we won’t get there till six hours after the star restarts.”
“Send word up the chain to have a terraforming team sent here ASAP.”
“Aye Sir.”
At her command, a message drone spat from an aft launch tube to bring her request to those in charge. It streaked away from the squadron at a diametrically opposite vector, its drive field boosting it to 96 PSL then cutting out to let it coast to preserve valuable drive time. Message drones were among the fastest things in space thanks to their low mass to drive power ratio, but they paid for it with obscenely low active drive times. It was fortunate that McGregor and its Fleet Base were only a handful of transits away (even more so that it had been spared the fiery death at the hands of a Demon Star Killer), allowing her to use a standard drone. Otherwise she would have had to send one of her corvettes at a much slower velocity and a correspondingly longer response time to her urgent request.
With every second that ticked by, the situation on T’klakiu deteriorated further as it orbited the dead husk of what was once the main sequence Class G star K’klakiu. If something went wrong and K’klakiu couldn’t be restarted, only the Superdreadnoughts had the lift capacity to remove the survivors from harms way.
“Message drone has completed transit back from K’klakiu sir.” Jessica’s chief of staff said. There was something strange about his voice that was wrong. “there… there is no new response from T’klakiu Admiral.” His words were like a punch to her stomach.
“Understood.” She replied softly, with a slight tremor in her voice. The lack of new response could be any number of things, but in her haunted soul, Jessica knew why there was none. Billions more lives that she couldn’t save were heaped upon the rest already residing in her mind’s eye.
--- ---
The wrongness of warp gate transit gripped Jessica and the rest of her crew. For a brief instant, almost immeasurable with even modern instruments, the lead ships of the Battlegroup disappeared from the face of the galaxy. Then the popped back into existence in the Kiu colonized star system of K’klakiu. While warp gate transit wasn’t that bad on biological, it was hard on electronics. Jessica ignored the tingle at the base of her skull and the powerful itching sensation that crossed her skin as her nanites and augments underwent their usual post transit trauma. Ships systems were also scrambled, with sensors, defenses, weapons, even life support failing for a few disoriented seconds. Then everything righted itself, the holodisplay coming online again along with the repeaters clustered around Jessica’s crash couch. The star of K’klakiu, a shadow of its former self, hung behind and a few degrees up from the Coral Snake’s current vector thanks to the unpredictability of gate transit. You rarely emerged the same way twice, even from well known gates.
After clearing the vicinity of the gate so that follow on ships wouldn’t collide, the Coral Snake launched its cargo at the sun. A misshapen lance the size of a cruiser detached itself from its special mooring at the upper front hull and brought its drive field online. Boosting to 90 PSL, it headed insystem for the stellar remnant. There was still no new message from T’klakiu.
Two - Lengthening Shadows
In a very real way, the fate of T’klakiu was a microcosm of what was happening across the galaxy. Most of the Fleet survived the final Demon attack, but most star systems attacked didn’t. Over ¾ of the Galactic population died at the hands of Star Killers. In most cases, the Fleet units that could have evacuated them never had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to them before it was too late. They were just too far away with to little time.
In the face of all the death and destruction, there were a few shining examples of true dedication to duty and honor. Many stars with direct or short warp gate links to major Fleet Bases were rescued from the dark that threatened them, for only major fleet bases possessed the special devices that could restart stars. Fleet medical personnel worked themselves beyond exhaustion in glorious attempts to save as many civilians as they could. Although they could only rescue a relative handful of the systems successfully attacked, their efforts on those they could save was nothing short of a miracle.
Yet there just weren’t enough Stellar Change Devices ready for use after the Demon attack to do more than be a drop in the bucket. Stars exploded, atmospheres were scorched away, surfaces blasted in the very fires of hell itself. The sheer scale of the destruction was virtually unimaginable.
Confederation Stellar Change Devices were similar, if not built with the same malevolent purpose, to Demon Star Killers. Both operated on the premise of changing the very nature of a star, the Confed version shifting a dying star back into its main sequence state, the Demon version shifting a main sequence star into a supernova. But unlike the finger sized Demon versions, Confed SCD’s were the size of cruisers. And unlike the Demon versions, they didn’t mount drives capable of crossing the galaxy. Each had to be hauled to their targets, and only Superdreadnoughts and some marks of tugs had sufficient excess drive strength to shoulder their added mass at the required speeds.
Many people still ask why the Demon’s would scorch the galaxy the way they did. Everyone knows that they feed on the, for lack of a better word, life force of living beings. Wouldn’t killing off so many living creatures deny them a rather large food supply? The answer is yes. It is also no.
While Demons personally feed off of a victim’s life force directly, every death strengthens them to a greater or lesser degree. It is only through personal feeding that a Demon can grow and advance in rank, but it is estimated that a single death can sustain their entire SPECIES for days. The effect seems to have no known limit, meaning that the general life cycle of the universe itself is more than sufficient to allow them to exist indefinitely.
So basically, if they couldn’t directly feed off of us to restore our debt to their food supply, they would alter the situation in their favor by killing as many of us as possible. We are of no real use to them alive except as a future food source when we leave this harsh galaxy.
The real punch to the guts was that our own activities most likely brought the demons upon us earlier than they would have come otherwise. From recently unearthed archeological excavations, the Demon’s come through this area of the universe every so often as a matter of course. But our genetic and mechanical adjustments to our natural life spans created a discrepancy that they were able to detect. Needless to say, they didn’t appreciate our inadvertent alteration to their diet, and came looking to see why they weren’t getting as much from our particular galaxy as they normally did. In all likelihood, the force that pushed us so handily back again and again was only their version of a rapid deployment fleet sent to survey the unexpected situation. While it’s a bone chilling thought that the Demon’s massive fleet was but a mere fraction of what they truly have available, I have an even more marrow freezing one for you. Since that was merely a rapid response force, what’s going to happen when their REAL invasion fleet shows up?
--- ---
Coral Snake’s Flag Bridge was like a tomb as repeated hails to T’klakiu went unanswered. The long, helpless hours dragged by, tormenting a crew already on the edge of sanity. Then like a godsend, the star before the fleet flared up to glorious brilliance, growing back to its original state as per the carefully calculated orders implanted in the SCD’s rudimentary AI. There would be no dying from exposure in the terrible cold of deep space this day. But there were still many victims, it was hoped, to help at T’klakiu. Civilian augments could only do so much for the planets population being ravaged by extreme radiation poisoning. Many would die without help. Many would die even with it, but there was still a chance that they could be saved.
Admiral Winton paced back and forth across the Flag Bridge like a caged Gregorian Sabercat. Time ticked by, each second’s passing like another nail in T’klakiu’s coffin. And there was nothing to do but wait as the ponderous Superdreadnoughts cut through the outer system. Nothing to do but worry and brood over the fate of a world. The first recon drones and fighters had arrived in near enough to T’klakiu to see the extent of the damage. There was a massive continent sized hellfire where the planets shield grid had failed, allowing the full intensity of the supernova though for a brief flicker of time before the rest took over the failed generator’s load. The massive blaze lit up the night side of the world like an angry blight, one that threw up a dark, ugly column of smoke and ash high into the planets stratosphere. Live holocam feeds from the dayside were thrown up on the holotank. The effects of the lethal radiation were readily apparent on the handful of Kiu seen outside. The sheer enormity of the unfolding tragedy hit Jessica like a physical blow. She sagged into her crash chair like a deflating balloon. ‘No, no girl, we can’t go to pieces now’ a part of her thought. ‘We need to hold it together above all else, for if we loose it, these people are sure to join us. You can see that they are on a knife’s edge already. Steady, breathe in, breathe out, let your augments do their job and level out your racing pulse. That’s it. There’s time enough for grieving later, but not now.’ Jessica’s fists balled to white knuckled orbs, but she maintained a level voice through sheer effort of will. Her crew needed her in control, so in control she would remain.
Through the hours of holo transmissions showing the scale of the destruction again and again, from every conceivable point of view, Jessica bore her growing despair in stony silence, never letting her long practiced command mask slip. The mammoth Confed leviathans finally entered mattrans range of T’klakiu after an endless eternity in transit.
“Open a channel to the Compassion.”
“Channel open Ma’am.”
“Admiral Mayborne…” She said, her face a mask but her ice blue eyes brimming with unshedable tears, “…just…just do what you can.” Her voice broke, coming back as a near whisper. The image of Admiral Mayborne, Confed Navy Medical Branch, on Jessica’s personal com screen looked at her for a long second, then slowly nodded. His own eyes glistened from unshed tears, for he knew that there wouldn’t be many to save on T’klakiu despite the fleet’s best efforts.
“We will Ma’am.” He replied softly, with a slight huskiness to his voice.
Jessica nodded then closed the channel. She stood slowly, then turned and near staggered off of the bridge. An honor guard Marine moved to aid her, but she stopped him with a glare. There wasn’t hate in the glare, merely understanding mixed with the same iron will that had served her so well throughout her career. She straightened, squared her uniform with a by now expert tug, then strode off of her bridge like she had done a million times before. But that had been before the war, and before the time of darkness dawned. She didn’t fool anyone. Her command staff had been with her for to long not to notice their boss’s feelings of helplessness mirrored and were greater than their own. The blast doors irised open, allowing her to flee the bridge and the endless parade of horror shown on its holotank.
“Fuck.” The softly spoken word came from Jessica’s immediate deputy and right hand. He didn’t swear at anything in particular, merely at the universe in general. As Commodore Gregor Stephanopoulos swore, his enhanced arm forced his fist into the railing next to his station. The dull clang of augmented fist on super strong alloy resonated around the bridge along with his curse. Everyone started in surprise, for the jovial, decent officer that was Commodore Stephanopoulos had never been heard to swear in normal times. But then these were far from normal times. Gregor got up and strode after his Admiral.
She had already entered the primary transit shaft by the time he made his way past the Flag Bridge blast doors. The massive, brightly lit tunnel stretched so that people on the far side looked like fleas, barely distinguishable as individuals due to the extreme distance. With a quick activation of his implants link to Coral Snake’s central computer network, he keyed for access to the transit system. The request and responding authorization was near instantaneous. “Take me to wherever Admiral Jessica Winton is.”
The shaft gripped him and began threading his passage through the transit arteries that filled the great ship. Fellow officers and enlisted personnel whipped by less than a hands breadth away, gone in an eyeblink as he jetted rapidly towards his destination. It wound up being Jessica’s quarters. He entered his Admiral’s personal domain only after he received permission via his implants from her. There was an artificial storm brewing overhead, the light rain already starting. Gregor told his augments to set up a low grade forcefield around him. The rain that would have gotten him thoroughly wet merely ran off around him as it hit the unseen umbrella like barrier projected over his head. His feet remained dry as a similar forcefield sprouted from them to keep all water away. Following the guide from his implants, he strode out into the personal park of his CO to find her.
He finally found her standing near her lake, staring out at the growing swells and gathering black clouds. She had her fields off and she was rapidly getting soaked in spite of her weatherproof uniform. When he was finally beside her, she reached out and gripped him in a fierce embrace. She clung to him like a dying man clings to a life preserver.
Gregor was startled by her actions, not knowing what else to do he returned her embrace with as much warmth as his own tortured soul could provide. She began to sob uncontrollably into his shoulder. Between the sobs and gasps for breath, he could make out four words repeated over and over again.
“…I…couldn’t… save…them!”
Used to Jessica being firmly in control, of both herself and her situation, Gregor didn’t quite know what to make of the sudden yawning vulnerability of his superior. He finally settled on stroking her wet hair lightly with one hand while the other held her close. His own tears fell silently, mingling with her own. Later, was it minutes or hours he knew not, Jessica’s sobs gradually subsided. Gregor steered her back towards her quarters while he used his forcefields to remove nearly all the rainwater from Jessica’s shrunken, spent form. She moved like an automaton, being totally exhausted emotionally. After guiding her into her bed, he removed her boots and covered her with her bedding. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. There was a look very near peace on her face, something that Gregor hadn’t seen since the Demons had been encountered. He knew that her inner demons would be back to haunt her when she awoke, but for one night at least, she might get a reprieve from them.
“Sleep well Admiral.” Gregor whispered, then turned on his heel and walked out of Jessica’s quarters. He couldn’t begrudge her a night of peace. Even the most cheerful of souls were unable to find much of that nowadays, and if his CO could grasp even an hours worth of it, he would gladly sacrifice anything to give it to her.
--- ---
In the end, the final death toll on T’klakiu was over eight billion souls including those lost with the destroyed deep space infrastructure. But the gallant efforts of Fleet Battlegroup 501 ended up saving more than two billion from certain death. Many were very close to casting off their mortal coils when the Fleet arrived, and the med teams were miracle workers as they slaved away for days to make whole again all those that needed healing.
It is hard to imagine calling the loss of 80% of a systems inhabitants a victory, but that is exactly what Battlegroup 501 had achieved when it succeeded in restarting K’klakiu and delivering Compassion to mattrans range of T’klakiu. T’klakiu wasn’t the only planet savaged by the Demons, not by a long shot, but it was one of the precious handful that were rescued largely intact. Other Fleet Battlegroups sent on frantic, desperate missions met only dead systems and ashed planets. The toll on Fleet personnel was horrendous, pushing some past their breaking point. Suicide, virtually unheard of before the Demon attack, reared its head amongst the ranks. Little did the Fleet know that these dark days were about to get even darker, and from a most unexpected and shocking source.
Three – Possession
Star Marshal VonGraff’s eyes stared at his disheveled reflection in the mirror. The way he looked now was most certainly not how one of the highest ranking members of the Fleet’s chain of command should look. His hair was unkempt, two days worth of growth of coarse stubble sprouted on his age worn face, and there were dark bags of fatigue under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he had been in the fight of his life, for he indeed had been the last two days. And worse the luck, he had lost. A seductively sweet voice whispered into his ear, but he was alone in the small bathroom in his personal quarters.
“No! I wont’ do it!...” He whispered harshly through clenched teeth. The voice spoke again, more commandingly, sending spikes of control through the pathways in Fritz’s brain. In the war of wills that had been won and lost in the Star Marshal’s quarters onboard the Fleet Superdreadnought Trafalgar the sprite had intimately familiarized himself with just where resistance would come from and how to block it. In the mirror, VonGraff’s brown eyes flared with an internal, totally unnatural fire. “No… no…”Fritz’s words trailed off into inaudibleness, his mouth forming them but no sound coming. Then even his mouth stopped its soundless protest. Settling itself more firmly in control, the sprite set about making its tool look presentable to its species. Nanites clipped off the stubble on his face and removed the bags under his bushy, steel gray brows and removed the red tinge from his eyes. With a quick sift through his tool’s memory, the sprite selected a hairstyle favored by the Star Marshal and commanded the nanno machines to sculpt Fritz’s hair into that form. Within seconds, low grade molecular attraction generated by the nanites pulled and tugged the unruly mass of hair into a perfect reproduction of the memory. In a corner of his tool’s brain, the sprite could still feel him straining against the control imposed on his consciousness. It was of no concern to his grip on control, so the sprite kept a wary eye on it but for the most part ignored it. Once his face took on a more healthy pallor and vigor, the sprite commanded his tool to smile.
Fritz VonGraff, Star Marshal of the Basilisk Cluster, strode out of his bathroom like a new man. He quickly slipped into the white with silver piping and bright work uniform of the Fleet. The silver crossed swords on sunburst insignia on his black shoulder boards denoted his rank for all to see, although one would have to have been a fool not to have known the signor ranking officer by his face alone. His relatively short hair had long ago gone the color of fresh steel. Although it could be colored, Fritz had always felt that it was best to age gracefully, and for someone well into his fifth century, had every right to do so.
Now fully clothed, Fritz strode out into his personal office. Through the windows, the external view of a choice point on his flagship’s hull was being shown, the near perfect holograms covering the real life flora and fauna with a disconcertingly realistic portrayal of the ships exterior. The POV was from dead center amidships along the dorsal skin just in front of the docking/sensor pylon. The clean, angular lines of his ship stretched off into the distance farther than he could see. Continent sized, straight edged shadows fell across its brilliant white surface, cast by the quadruple prongs of drive field sails. Parked in station keeping with his flagship were the other Superdreadnoughts of his fleet along with the plethora of lesser vessels.
Fritz’s aide came into the office. There was a look of carefully hidden concern on his face. Even though 67th Fleet’s defense of the Basilisk Cluster had been an unmitigated success, with the defenders stopping all incoming Star Killers, the loss of so many other systems had hit the Star Marshal pretty hard. He had been locked alone in his quarters for two days straight with nothing to eat or drink and accepting no visitors. If it had gone on much longer, the aide would have brought in the doctor.
“Admiral, it’s good to see you up and about.”
“It’s good to be up and about Jack. Sorry about wigging out on you all there for a while.” The sprite made Fritz say.
“Don’t mention it Admiral. I’m sure most of the crew feels like doing the same, and it has only hit your reputation slightly that you showed you’re just as human as the rest of us.”
VonGraff smiled back at his aide. The sprite longed to suck in the unsuspecting humans essence, to feed, to grow, but it resisted those aims. The mission was of paramount importance, and he would grow well indeed if he succeeded here. He hadn’t spent days corked up in a Star Killer missile just to miss out on his best opportunity to grow.
--- ---
Demons come in many forms, and not all of them are the hulking, flame drenched brutes of myth that make up their assault infantry and command arms. There are smaller forms, and one of the smallest is called a sprite. Sprites are the very beginnings of a Demon, seemingly insignificant flickers of flame smaller than a candle’s. In this near embryonic state, they don’t require an outer shell to maintain themselves like their bigger siblings do and thus have all the advantages of being pure energy. They are perfectly capable of moving and surviving on their own without any means of support at all.
Trouble comes from the fact that while they might be the easiest to kill, they are also the hardest to detect. Especially when they take a host…
Fleet Demon Identification Handbook 1-A
Fillips and Van, Ret Totan Six, 5677 AD(TSR)
--- ---
Fritz VonGraff stared at the latest Eyes Only dispatch sent down the warp lanes to his cul-de-sac of stars. It said that Battlegroup 501 was going out for an inspection tour to survey the extent of the damage and report back to Fleet Command. They were scheduled for resupply and R&R layover in the Basilisk Cluster before heading on to Thetis via the Elision/Thetis warp gate. But the sprite saw this as a golden opportunity to spring his task.
“Attention all hands, I have received word in the latest message drone that not all Demon presence is gone. In fact, I have been told that there may be Demon’s in control of Fleet units.” A gasp went up from the Flag Bridge crew as they heard his words. “Now both myself and Fleet Command know that we don’t have any such problem here, which is why they have placed me in charge of the cluster’s government until the crisis elsewhere is past. We are to intern any ships entering our space, and should they resist, disable them if possible, but destroy them if necessary.” There were some sour faces at his orders to fire on fellow Fleet units if need be, so the sprite made him continue. “Now I find shooting at our comrades as much of a bitter pill as the rest of you, but remember, Fleet units will obey the chain of command while possessed units will resist us. If they don’t obey my directions, they are no longer our comrades, they are the enemy. Remember that. VonGraff out.”
--- ---
The Basilisk Cluster is a fairly extensive warp chain, but one that doubles back in on itself creating only one warp link in and out. It has been thoroughly settled by a multitude of species in the Confederation, the major ones among them being Terran, Kiu, Graken, and Valmek’to, and boasts a population of over 125 billion spread across 28 inhabited star systems. It is home to extensive deep space infrastructure, and due to this and its single entrance, it is of great strategic significance to the Confederation. The natural choke point that opens up to the cul-de-sac is one of the best defended points in known space. With only one entrance, all defenses can be concentrated on one single point instead of being spread around scattered warp gates throughout the outer system. With the intense industry of the cluster backing it, the Basilisk/Elision gate is virtually impregnable to any known attack, and because of this, the rest of the Cluster is considered a fall back position should cataclysm befall the rest of the Confederation. How such a cataclysm could come about is currently unknown, for the Galactic Confederation has spread across nearly all the stars in the Milky Way. Surely there cannot be a threat in the handful of stars yet to be explored that could be large enough to harm it…
Astrography of the Galactic Confederation
By James Gunner and T’keli’lik
5634 AD(TSR)
--- ---
Battlegroup 501 scurried through space on a least time course up and over the systems ecliptic. They were currently on the outbound leg of their journey, moving at the fleet maximum speed of .3 c towards the warp gate on the far side of the systems primary. The lighter escorts could easily out speed the considerably bigger Cou’pat class superdreadnoughts, acceleration meaningless thanks to the drive field, but they kept themselves in tight formation with their massive consorts. There were not only destroyers and heavy cruisers filling the ranks of 501’s escort. She also had Battlecruiser sized boomers hiding in the shadowverse. Unlike normal ships, boomers operated in the shadowverse, a set of parallel planes made up of boundless energy. They could operate there thanks to the massive D-gate engines they possessed. The shadowverse worked a lot like the deep space equivalent of terrestrial oceans, allowing ships not only to operate on the surface (normal space) but also below (shadowverse). Even though the D-gate engines cut deeply into a boomers internal volume, they gave it a considerable stealth advantage over normal space only ships. And while operating in the shadowverse, the only weapons they were vulnerable to even if they were detected were other shadowverse ships operating on the same or nearby plane or shadow missiles doing the same.
While the Battlegroup’s Cou’pat’s carried a not insubstantial number of the ten man crewed “Fighters”, it was the Dreadnought sized Fleet Carrier’s Gagarin and Valess’tow that truly thickened 501’s fighter screen. Each of the 300 km long carriers were home to 3000 fighters. While one man fighters were possible, they were only good for taking out other fighters due to their lack of high powered weapons due to size limitations. The small craft that took their place gave a Battlegroup long range striking power, but long ranged strikes who’s power couldn’t compare with a ship of the line in both strength and survivability. They could take out a lone superdreadnought, but they would have to be present in obscene numbers to do so, and superdreadnoughts never travel alone.
It was the fighter’s who had seen the star of this system relight first, and it was they who were even now charging out to scout the warp gate that lead them to the next system on their list. So far, there had been no systems where the destruction was as bad as it had been on T’klakiu, for this warp chain was only sparsely populated thanks to virtually no rocky planets in orbit of their stars to allow geoforming to commence. Some of the links in the chain had no stars at all to begin with, the distances between warp gates populated by nothing more than interstellar dust.
This was a godsend, for many in the Fleet’s Battlegroup 501 couldn’t stand being sent down a heavily populated warp chain as long as this one. Other Battlegroups and even full Fleets had been sent down those to survey the true extent of the destruction, but they only had to go through a handful of systems each. BG – 501 had to go through 20 systems before they arrived at their first rest stop and there was still a further 15 systems to go afterward before they hit the next inhabited system and its fleet base. Word had started to filter thorough the warp gate network of just which stars remained and which needed to be restarted. While the list was daunting, there were a few bright spots. Isolated cul-de-sacs like the Basilisk Cluster had often been able to hold off the Star Killers that had come looking to sow their darkness. As a result, there was still considerable civilian population bases present to allow reconstruction to begin. Shipyards began construction of new military and civilian craft that had been destroyed. People mourned the dead, then shouldered the fresh burden of renewed expansion.
BG – 501 even considered itself lucky, for instead of a cruse through a lightly populated and effected system, they could have been sent to Purgatory, the quasi official nickname of Demon destroyed space in the Milky Way. There the stars still shone, but every rocky planet was reduced to gravel and atoms, likely made so by gravitic warheads. It was only the brief, insanely intense gravitational pull caused by the temporary formation of a super massive black hole that could tear apart a planet, especially one without shields operating. Gravitic warheads were only rarely used in Fleet vs. Fleet engagements, and never used by the Confederation. The former because a ships drive field negated their effectiveness except in shadow missiles and even then only in the most massive ones due to the volume a gravitic warhead placed on internal space over and above the already massive D-gate drives. The latter because a peace loving group of peoples like the Confederation couldn’t conscience their use against anything other than a starship. During the Confederation’s infancy, it had encountered some species that did use them without inhibition or conscience against planets. Those species had been dealt with, removing their threat to the rest of the galaxy one way or another.
It was the Fleet’s responsibility to pave the way for the new, growing wave of colonization, which was why BG – 501 was currently exploring its assigned warp lanes and restarting its stars. Even in relatively worthless systems, the restarted stars were a pledge. The Fleet would lead the way to bring light back to the galaxy.
--- ---
It is truly unfortunate that no one foresaw that not all Demon’s were alike. It is understandable, especially because all those living have only encountered one type, their soldiers, but still unfortunate. Those that were consumed on conquered planets, if they had survived, could have testified to there being considerably more variety in Demon forms. They could have warned us to be on the lookout for them. But they were gone, leaving behind no salvageable record on the shattered worlds the retreating Demon’s left in their wake. Because we had no forewarning, not even the inkling of what Demon’s were capable of, and then no way to prove our suspicions even if we had reason to suspect.
We are the Fleet, the defenders of the light, the guardians of the Galactic Confederation. We had been since our inception, and we still are. No Fleet element had ever been corrupted, none had ever gone rogue. What happened in the Basilisk Cluster in July of 5670 AD TSR could have been avoided if only we had known what to look for. But we didn’t even suspect that we should be looking at all…
Again, it's only because most systems didn't have fortifications. Plant a few moon sized forts bristleing with weapons on the warp gates and it's pretty damn hard to get something through without obscene firepower or fleet strength. Needless to say, in the systems currently left, the Fleet isn't going to make the same mistake again.
