Eyeball was disappointed as they approached the dock. Phase one of the plan hadn't just gone off without a hitch; there hadn't even been a video call. He frowned. "They... no calls. No interrogations. Nothing. They just asked for damage assessments and projections and assigned us a berth. Just... alright. Well. I suppose we just switch to Republic gear and get to work. Everybody have their assignments?"
Sorbaxen chuckled, as she carefully started fitting the helmet on; she had to wear a binding on the spikes, which seemed to painfully stretch the skin, to fit a Republic-style helmet. "Remember. The Republic's number one requirement for promotion is good genetics. I've been murdering republic scum for decades now, and I can promise you that while they have some excellent commanders... they also have quite a few idiots. Besides..."
She gestured at the image of the station on the screen. "They have a fleet of thousands. Nobody in their right mind would do anything here unless they had an equally large fleet. I'm interested to see how well that Ascension flotilla does."
Eyeball chuckled. "I'm actually interested to see that myself, but.... You worry about your part. There's fifty separate ventilation systems here, and the controllers can cover them all much faster if someone helps them on the inside."
He turned to the station; and felt the mild vibration, barely even a shift of weight, as the vessel connected to the docking clamps; and all the connections for power, air, and water started to form with much more audible hissing and clanking noises. Right now, controllers would be crawling through the air vents and pipes, and Ascension would be hacking anything that could be.... and, of course, launching an assault on those parts of the fleet that were far enough from gravity wells for hyperdrive-equipped devices to reach.
As the pirates pretended to be good, dutiful Republic troops, heading to the medical bay for a checkup after a major collision with their ship under their captain's orders... Eyeball watched the scopes. Right now, he seemed to be picking things up roughly ten seconds out; and he was, essentially, just going to be typing whatever symbols he saw on his display; he couldn't give Ascension the coordinates of thousands of ships at once, but Ascension had created a simple program that created a 10-digit code based on the optimal firing pattern; which the machines could feed into their launch platforms and give the best possible chance for their hyperdrive-equipped munitions when they arrived.
The munitions were something that Svetlana had built after a few hours of angry design work back on the Gaze of Wrath; a hyperdrive built to last exactly two transitions, with chemical strips built-in that would, even if it were a dud, melt it into unrecognizable slag. And attached to this hyperdrive? A cluster of Warp-capable missiles, minimal payloads, mostly just metal rods that would accelerate up to FTL speeds and then slam into a target.
She wouldn't be here to see her new toys go off for the first time; hopefully Ascension would give her a good rRUFFAanalysis of them.
It was a bit absurd... but while the pirates, and a few modified Ascension drones, went through distributing controllers... his job was just to wait; and either when someone got caught, or the controllers had all been released and the pirates were on the way back, signal the ships; and a drone would hop into hyperspace with a code Eyeball had typed in... and if it all worked as planned, both the six Ascension destroyers and their hyper-MIRV payloads would transition into the system almost instantly.
He watched the board absently. Getting caught was always a risk, even with an AI working security; the Republic just didn't trust automated systems, and these were Yogg, not Marrick, though it wasn't obvious while they wore helmets; and he would be surprised if they were even allowed in the navy as anything other than janitors.
He was looking forward to seeing the fireworks, when it all kicked off.
***
Ascension studied the layout of the target fleet; split into a variety of small formations scattered around the system, as well as a few large ones. The objective with this mission was two-fold; destroy as many enemy ships as possible, of course, while seeding the area with controllers that would slip in where possible; as well as to create quite a bit of noise and jamming so that the 'Revenge' could launch some of its own payload of hundreds of thousands of controllers without being spotted.
It would also be a handy test of the capability of the new weapons systems.
It received the signal. A specific code, ten digits; 157AD813Z0. One of billions of combinations that could be typed in a couple seconds, and tell him where the enemy fleet would be eight seconds from when the button was pressed.
When it was received, a third of a second had passed. Ascension had 7.65 seconds to plot trajectories for dozens of Hyper-MIRV devices as well as the missiles it was about to launch. Priorities were assigned; it knew the default positions from the sensors of the four ships in the outer system, still in realspace; pirates pretending to be locals.
Everything was ready, with 4.2 seconds to spare. Missile bays open. Engines primed. MIRVs in position. Everything was timed perfectly. Reality folded, twisted, as Ascension shifted back into the real world, the strange dullness of hyperspace vanishing, replaced by.... death.
A Hyper-MIRV device appeared amidst a cluster of 142 Republic ships, most of them relatively small. It looked like nothing more than a fat blob of eggs, bulbous missile tips pointed out in every direction from the central mass of a hyper-drive. Even as it emerged into realspace, its drive had already started to melt down; and by the time the 84 Warp and 44 normal missiles had all started to accelerate towards their targets, a chain reaction had converted the bits of molten metal and polymer into a detonation; a high-energy pulse that would wreak havoc on sensors and create a navigational hazard of small, fast-moving shards.
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All but seventeen of the Warp missiles struck particulate debris before impact; which didn't matter in the slightest. 84 targets had been chosen by them; and all 84 were struck either by the missile itself, or a cloud of missile fragments moving so quickly it blasted directly through the target ship.
The normal missiles had a bit poorer of a showing; while the Republic had no notice before the arrival, some of their targets had shields up, or point defenses ready by the time they arrived; and as a result, most of them either did only some damage after striking shields, or were deflected entirely.
Still; the Hyper-MIRV was a massive success. Out of the 142 targets in its area of effect, it had a projectile for 128 of them; and had scored just under a hundred kills. Ships were on fire, breaking apart. Marrick and other descendent races were dying by the thousands. All of their largest, strongest formations were broken apart.
Ascension could detect the pirates, still pretending to be Republic ships, offering to join the largest surviving formation, to provide mutual fire support... as it totaled the survivors.
Six hundred and twelve surviving vessels. Over a hundred of which were docked at the station and likely already had controllers on-board. If they cut some corners, some of the ships at the manufacturing facility could be brought online for an emergency launch; but the Revenge had taken advantage of the chaos to slip a few packets of Controllers in that direction; likely that facility would be swarming with Pale Ones as well in the near future.
The largest formation surviving had a mix of intact and damaged ships almost two hundred strong; the pirates would be joining that formation soon, and likely striking it from within. Ascension would help with that when the time came, but first...
It studied the other ships. Counted the survivors. And the missile bays opened. Every single enemy ship outside of that large formation received exactly as many missiles as Ascension believed it would take to overwhelm its point defenses, plus five. Undoubtedly there would be a few survivors, especially if one ship died to save another; but with them all launched, Ascension followed up with a few bursts from railguns at ships that seemed likely to be unable to dodge... and then dropped back into hyperspace. Whatever response the enemy had, whatever it would try to do to its six ships, would find nothing but empty space.
***
Seriche looked up at the ventilation duct, frowning. That.... what was that noise? Were there vermin inside the ducts again? They'd put in cleaners that should kill anything organic years ago. Perhaps the sweeper drones were defective?
He sighed, shaking his head, and glanced at one of the guards. "You. Get maintenance. I want the sweeper drones checked out. Don't know how I'm even supposed to think, with all that noise."
The guard nodded, saluted, and pressed a hand to his helmet; clearly calling someone.. when Seriche heard a shout; and turned back to face the display. Enemy ships had appeared; but only six of them. Unusual designs; nothing he'd seen from the local swarmlings. Before he could even issue a command, the screens lit up with casualty reports, explosions, sensor readings.... the system had turned into chaos.
And... the six ships were nowhere to be seen. Some sort of new stealth tech? No.... it had to be the 'Hyperdrives' from that report on the Rogue. Which meant... the Rogue was here. He stared at the screen for a moment.
The Rogue was from some sort of faraway place. Ludicrously advanced technology. There was a rumor that he had obliterated a gas giant just to protect some band of tier-4 monsters... which fleet intelligence labeled as 'Destruction definite, method uncertain.
He'd just lost over a thousand ships. He didn't have as many active ships left as he'd just lost. This.. was hopeless. He closed his eyes for a moment... and nodded to himself. They would handle this... but not today. Today, he needed to preserve as many people as he could, and get out. Make sure the enemy didn't secure the shipyards.
He held down a button for a system-wide communication. "This is Command. Commence evasive action, pickup any lifeboats, and withdraw. Heveiri station, you are ordered to withdraw any personnel you can within the next six minutes, and evacuate as well, setting all complete reactors to go critical before you depart." He released the button. Now to evacuate himself, and anyone who could fit, on the ships here. That new arrival might be damaged, but right now it was one more place to flee in; clearly it could travel.
"Organize the evacuation. Order everyone to head for the nearest..." Seriche felt a horrific pain. As if he'd been shot, or stabbed, in the back. Some of his people were staring at him, even as he felt the pain grow worse; he could feel his bones creak, and for a few seconds he started to scream... before he lost control of his vocal chords. As he saw a dull red cylinder with numerous wiry tendrils leap through the air and latch onto one of his people, he felt his own arm reach up, and depress two buttons; switching the console from a system-wide broadcast to a targeted one... and then open a channel to Heveiri station.
He could hear a voice. He wasn't speaking, but it... sounded like him. "This is Command. Belay that order, Heveiri. The enemy appears to have left the system for now. Prepare for evacuations, but don't destroy anything important unless they come back in force. Stay alert. We'll be evacuating this station and sending forces your way shortly." He released the button.
He strained. Struggled. Seriche couldn't move a muscle; all he could feel was a terrible, burning, pain... and he could see why. Not for himself; he was stuck, staring at the screen, fully upright. But he could see some of his people... a thick red cylinder attached to their back, right at the base of the neck.
He'd heard of experimental control devices that could do this. He knew they had implants that could cause pain in some of the prisoners. But this... he was a puppet!
When a figure wearing sleek black armor and a chrome helmet stepped out onto the bridge, he would've screamed, if he could. The Yogg wearing a Republic captain's uniform; an utter impossibility; who followed him wasn't nearly as big a concern. The Rogue. Not just in the system, but in the room. He...
The figure turned to focus on him. A digitized voice emerged. "Good decision-making. Fast reactions. Frankly, with the intel you had, you did the best you could. Its a shame you're a genocidal nutjob, or I'd offer you a job. Do you know anything worth keeping you alive? Ascension, let him talk."
The control over his head and throat stopped. His arms and legs were still rigidly at attention as he turned to face the figure. He was a Marrick. There was only one possible answer to this question. "Prepare yourself. The founders will come for you... are probably already coming for you... but we won't need them. We didn't get where we are by being fools. Somewhere, thousands of light-years from here, those hyperdrives of yours are being copied. Do your best with every advantage you have... because we will take them for our own, and we will crush you. It's only a matter of time."
A soft digitized laugh. "I couldn't say I like you... but I can respect that. Enjoy whatever afterlife awaits you, monster."
A simple, ancient firearm started to raise; before it was abruptly lowered. There was a gesture of a strange, red limb that seemed more liquid than solid... and it all went black.