3.4.
In the chair before the mahogany desk of the general was the alien leader Eolai. With his slightly sloped forehead and white hair, he appeared almost like an Earthling, but enough of a difference existed that his origins were apparent to anyone who knew about the Yonohoans, He was quiet, examining his fingernails as he waited for General Turnball to speak.
“You want to turn Earth into a fortress,” the general said eventually.
“Yes,” Eolai admitted. “I’m uncertain how else to proceed, to be honest. Placing orbital shield generators and weapon emplacements throughout orbit seems to be the best response. We will have to clear up your orbitals of the many items of space junk, which will require your cooperation of course. But putting proper defensive measures into place will ensure that the tragedy that occurred in Western Europe does not happen again.”
“I can’t approve this on my own. The satellites you’re talking about taking down belong to private companies or the nations themselves, not the ESF. Some of the people involved aren’t going to be happy to have their eyes in the skies taken from them,” Turnball said.
“That is why this is a proposal and nothing more. It would sadden me to see another attack land on this beautiful planet, but I still respect its sovereignty,” Eolai said.
Turnball nodded. “How effective would this be?”
“It would be constructed by us, the Yonohoans. There is nobody better at making weapons and the technology to counter those weapons than us. You saw for yourself the devastating effect that my flagship had when the red lines were crossed and Diego Cruz ordered it to open fire upon the enemy,” Eolai pointed out.
“Yes, I did,” Turnball agreed. He shifted through the papers, then placed them back in their folder and sighed. “Eolai, why is it that you’re helping us?”
“To be honest, at first it was simple curiosity and boredom,” Eolai admitted. “However, I have grown very fond of you Earthlings. Even in your distrust of the Yonohoans, you are just so amusing. While I hoped the events that have come to pass would not happen, I predicted the possibility of the Rosanteans attempting to subjugate you and decided I found the idea unpalatable. So I took steps to try to prevent it.”
“If we had accepted your offer and allowed you to list us as a protectorate of the Yonohoan, the battles with the Rosanteans would have gone much differently, wouldn’t they?” Turnball asked.
“They would have been over in seconds. The Rosanteans would have seen the Yonohoan ships and fled,” Eolai explained. “There would be no open conflict. Just the perpetual tensions that have existed in this galaxy for millennia.”
“Your ships are truly that powerful?”
“There is only one force in the known universe which could counter a fleet of our vessels,” Eolai explained. “And that is a fleet from the Swarms.”
“So, do we need to continue to worry about the Rosanteans, or will they be too busy defending themselves to launch another offensive?” Turnball asked.
“They will almost definitely be back,” Eolai predicted. “You have humiliated them twice. Their investment on taking this world will have increased, not decreased, since they were turned back the second time. However, they will not dare attack while a Yonohoan relief fleet is in the orbitals. Even our ships of mercy are frightful in battle.”
“So what’s the overall plan then? The Yonohoans will take the fight to their empire while we hunker down and wait for it all to be over?” Turnball asked.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“This fight will take decades. Perhaps centuries, General. First I would strongly recommend securing your home system while the Yonohoans relieve the pressure on you by applying pressure to your enemy. Once Earth is safe, then you can worry about the shape of the rest of the war,” Eolai explained.
“Yes, I see your point,” Turnball said. He sighed. “I’ll get my people moving to get the approval we need for this plan of yours. In the aftermath of Western Europe, perhaps we can galvanize enough support for these measures. I don’t know.”
“Very well. I shall await to hear your response, one way or the other.”
Eolai got out of the chair and left. Once he was gone, Turnball returned to the proposal and began reexamining it.
If it were up to him, the Yonohoans would already be building the latticework of shields and weapons that were detailed within. But while he might be one of the key leaders of the ESF, he wasn’t a god, or a king. He needed to run this through the proper channels, and that would take time.
He hoped that they had time. He was worried that they did not, and that Eolai’s optimism about the safety of Earth was misplaced.
~~~~~~
The Tumbaruna Toko was, at it’s heart, a swift attack destroyer. It simply needed to be reminded of that fact, and the peers who piloted it and their Topokan allies swiftly set about the task. They broke off the sections and segments had been welded to the hull to make it look like it was an ancient ruin recovered and repurposed by a primitive people.
They cycled its weapons and gathered matter from a nearby gas giant to make new munitions. They tuned its engines to get rid of the intentional disharmony that they had placed into their drive systems to make it look like they didn’t know what they were doing.
It took two days of constant work, with the peers only stopping for biological necessities.
When it was over, the ship was sleek and deadly looking, the superficial damage that they had caused it for Korjakala literally healing itself as the advanced armors of the hull returned to their natural form.
Once they had completed their work, they did not pause. They knew that the enemy was preparing for an offensive from their people, but they would not be expecting an attack from so far behind their lines. Not yet.
In the shipyards of Ossan Nebit, production was just ramping up to prepare for the upcoming war. Thousands of ships had been requested, and it would take time to fill the order. The foreman of the shipyards was preemptively counting his money from the government when the Toko appeared and opened fired.
The plasma lances raked over his facilities, targeting the most critical of machinery and the stores of parts that were manufactured elsewhere. The Kirata beams struck the residential district, causing no loss of life but destroying all but the most hardened of systems like life support.
The foreman watched in horror as his precious shipyard was dismantled over the course of two hours. He had sent out a request for reinforcements, but the forces of the imperial army were unable to respond for another six hours.
He was staring at the Toko when they finally turned their attention on the administration building. They hit it first with a kirata, wiping the majority of their systems. Then their plasma lance.
The foreman was wiped away into his constituent atoms before he realized what was happening.
The systematic dismantling of the shipyards continued, leaving little but wreckage and ruin behind. When the Imperial reinforcements finally arrived, they found nothing; the Toko was long gone, leaving not even a wake in the hyperatomic plane to follow.