Srrket was a singular Imperial Admiral; beautiful with her golden carapace, with so many decorative studs of various colors she shone like a rainbow in the water; and had led the Capital Fleet for centuries; unlike some admirals, she had declined to take the sort of centuries-long vacations some of the others had between duty shifts, for the simple expedient that...she already lived exactly the life she wanted. In theory, she could take a few thousand years vacation now without a problem.
The Spear of Harrus, named after the old, pre-Capital name of the Imperial homeworld, was a massive warship, surrounded by an array of intricate spiral-patterned shield networks, over ten kilometers long. Most of its service was automated; only its command and weapons positions were routinely crewed, and thus the crew quarters aboard were massive, luxurious. There was no spending months or years in uncomfortable dryness; she could spend her entire duty shift submerged, and even visit the best markets on the Capital to buy whatever she wanted on leave. Her quarters were both enormous.... and opulently appointed.
She had ceiling coverings arranged in a delicate, beautiful tapestry, her entire room constantly cycled nutrient-rich, clean, water through; most of the time, she could practically forget this was a job. Nobody would dare attack the Capital; there were hundreds of thousands of warships here! No other species could produce this kind of fleet, and it was only even managed here by constantly cycling the smaller sub-fleets out to hundreds of other worlds.
Except. Well. Now, she was actually active. The warning seemed implausible; some alien soft-shell who was a smaller, weaker version of the Emperor, flying in on a tiny ship, posing a threat to the Capital? Every fleet nearby was being recalled; the ones currently planned to cycle down for maintenance, the ones headed out to patrol; the Spear would be at the head of a fleet of millions of vessels, something which hadn't happened in hundreds of thousands of years.
Commanding a fleet like that was a logistical nightmare; fortunately... she had capable underlings... and was good at her job, or she would never have acquired this luxurious position. Every single civilian vessel was commandeered to carry fuel, ammunition, and replacement parts to get the enormous fleet up and running; and any non-vital occupants dumped on the nearest station. With skilled administrators and sophisticated AI, she ensured that every ship would have the fuel and emergency needs met so that it could remain on-station until this battle was resolved.
The unknown ship had a projected most likely path; but only reasonable odds, not absolute; after all, it could easily bypass the system, turn around, and come in from another angle if it wanted to arrive a few hours later from an unexpected direction. She formed up her existing fleet into a series of clusters; each made of hundreds of ships; around the outer edges of the system, spaced far enough apart that they provided coverage of every possible incoming angle. The enemy would be detected by one of them the moment it emerged into realspace.
These scout clusters would then converge on the Capital from every direction; to meet a fleet currently arranged in a roughly hexagonal pattern; her own fleet anchored by its heavy battleships, the two other fleets that were supposed to be here forming three points, with the newcomers and those that were supposed to be undergoing maintenance sandwiched in between. The scouts would make sure there was no trickery; that some decoy or illusion didn't draw them off; and the massed fleet would converge on the enemy; firing off enough missiles to destroy a hundred worlds, a thousand worlds, and then resorting to primary weapons that, in theory, could injure or at least stun the Emperor himself, when fired in the sort of volume the Imperials would be bringing to bear.
There had been simulations run about the subject. A target made of pure neutronium, as the Emperor seemed to be from skin to brain, would need extremely dense projectiles launched at equally extreme speeds. Which... her own ship was capable of doing, as were every other Battleship in the system. A single shot from this ship's main gun would merely irritate him. A thousand, from a thousand such ships? With luck, and proper aim, they could reach the brain.
Of course, those simulations were then deleted. No-one spoke of their existence. But... it was known, among the fleet admirals, that defeating the Emperor -might- be possible with their fleet; and a secretive cabal was slowly working on turning that into a certainty, over the course of millennia.
***
"Sir! We've got over a hundred ships behind us, outside our entry, heading in-system. They seem to be avoiding us... but they already know we're here." RC looked up from her console at the captain. There had been a certain amount of hope they could come in from above the ecliptic, spend a few minutes well outside the system observing the situation, then jump in as close as possible.... but no. Jamming fields of some sort would kick them out of hyperspace at a full light-hour from the capital; and they would need to come in even further out, or they would be jumping right into the middle of... millions of starships, moving to place the enormous swarm between the Jeanne and the planet.
They were going to need to hop to a couple of light-hours out, and then charge in; giving that swarm plenty of time to intercept.
Moreau inhaled deeply. "Threat assessments?"
RC tapped her screen for a moment. "...Too many, sir. There are thousands with main guns that could damage even pseudo-neutronium armor like ours. The missiles might as well be raindrops as far as we care, but the guns... This is actually a higher fleet count than projected. I estimate over two million starships, and millions more smaller vessels, fighters, shuttles, that sort, all in one giant swarm."
"...Any of the ones with those big guns outside the swarm?"
"...Not a one. There's thousands of smaller, lighter, scout ships, and some of them are watching us pretty closely. But all the big guns are ready to meet us."
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The captain tapped on his own controls for a moment. "Spike, are you go for launch?"
A soft hiss of static. ~I swear to god, if this is Eyeball's way of getting me killed off, I'm going to haunt the bastard. I didn't sign up to play human cannonball! But... yes. I'm go for launch.~
Eyeball's own voice came on a few moment's later. ~It was the Engineer's idea. Just land on the planet and we'll retrieve you after the ritual. Try not to wipe out the planet prematurely... but don't get yourself killed. We might need you after this, and you're the only one on the crew with a spouse to go home to.~
Rex blinked from his own station, glancing up. "...Is that true?"
Captain Moreau sighed, and nodded slowly as he tapped out a few commands. The screen showed the Jeanne powering up, preparing to jump once more; a much shorter hop, that would bring her inside the Capital system proper. "It's one of the reasons he contacted us... remnants... of the French navy. He seemed sure some of us would get back, but not himself, so he picked folks who were single... with the exception of Spike, who was just too important for the job. After all, if he wasn't expecting to get back, who knew how many of us might die."
The captain inhaled deeply. "Take us in. All hands, weapons hot. We'll hold off on launching fighters and gunships til we land."
***
The fleet was watching the steady approach of the tiny vessel; sensors confirming everything Avris station had sent. Incredible mass for its size. Vast energy generation for its size. Whatever it was, however it was built, it was the equivalent of a few of the Spears in power, and dozens of the Spear in terms of mass, all compressed into something barely bigger than a corvette.
As Srrket studied formations, making sure they all had good fields of fire, no big concerns about using each other as a backstop, she reviewed the orders. As the enemy approached, they'd open fire with everything; missiles, railguns, plasma, lasers; and as soon as they ran out of missiles, the civilian ships would attempt ramming attacks, then the lighter ships would do the same; and if it actually reached the line, even the Spear of Harrus, and Srrket herself, would expend themselves as projectiles in the defense of the Capital.
She looked around her bridge; in all the years she'd run this ship, she rarely spent much time here, despite the comfortable hot-water bath that served as a captain's chair. Every one of her crew were golden-carapaced warriors; most of them as ornate as herself. None had expected this ship to see war.
As she studied them, she let out a happy purr. Maybe they hadn't expected it; but they were ready to die for their fellows. Should they pass on, their genetic profiles would be elevated, and many more hatchlings born of their line.
Suddenly, the ship appeared, just over a light hour and a half away, and accelerating like mad; impossibly fast for such a heavy ship. She grimaced. They needed to take that thing apart and figure out how it was built; especially how they made that armor. A Battleship-scale vessel armored like that, well.
She raised one hand, her numerous tendrils sweeping out to touch a series of keys.
A handful of ships; at least, on the scale of the millions involved; would pull back into a ring formation, prepared to charge in from behind in the unlikely event the enemy survived to pass through the fleet; and then, outside that, all of the numerous scouts along the edges of the system, and the defense fleets of the other planets, would all arrive afterwards in clumps of a few thousand here or there.
And of course, to fulfill one last order, passed down from the Emperor himself; if the enemy broke through the fleet, and looked as if they could land... any surviving bombardment vessels were to wipe out the planet, to keep the creature aboard from consuming it.
***
The sled was... mildly uncomfortable. Spike's exit vehicle would kill anyone who wasn't insanely durable; launching a tiny metal craft through a magnetic rail into space as if he were an unusually fat railgun projectile, it also had absolutely no room to move, and was just a tiny metal coffin with piles of thrusters and fuel tanks. The thrusters came in two packs; one that would give him control on approach, and the other to help slow his landing; the first set would literally be crushed into oblivion by his power, while the second should be inside his area of effect.
RC had speculated that if he could time it just right, he could pull a slingshot move, and actually meet the Jeanne on her way down; and had aimed for that. But warned him that calculating his trajectory after he had turned the fleet into past would be... difficult.
Outside, he could see one of the engineers holding up her hand; he couldn't recall her name, but she seemed to fit the pattern; a pretty, freckled redhead with long curls; was there a single even average girl on the team? Regardless, she was counting down, and he nodded as she held up five fingers. Four.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then studied the display.
He needed to time this properly. As soon as he maxed out his density, he would be pulling in everything nearby; including the Jeanne. There was a countdown timer on the display; currently in red; showing how long he could do it without risking damage to the ship.
A sudden surge. One moment, he could see the inside of the bay. The next.... the void. The countdown timer started to rise; he chuckled softly in amusement. The longer he waited, the longer he had. Unless he waited -too- long, in which case, well. Best not wait too long.
***
"Admiral. The enemy has fired... a single projectile. Sub-light. It's..." The golden-hued technician looked up at Srrket. "It's just a standard, low-velocity, railgun slug. Mostly reads off as carbon and iron.
Srrket chittered with amusement... but then stopped. She tapped a few buttons.
As the Admiral of the Capital fleet, she had a higher security clearance than most; and she more than most truly understood what the message about Cronos's death meant. But... one common tactic that the Titan, the sole being the Emperor himself was afraid of, was listed as using when invaders from outside threatened... was to take relatively mundane projectiles, toss them, and dramatically increase their size and mass en route... until they became a black hole, tearing their way through whatever enemy was in their way, and anything that might happen to be behind them.
This... if that projectile did that, it was on a perfect course to eradicate both the fleet, and the Capital itself... But if she spread out the fleet to avoid it, it would risk the ship reaching the Capital, were she wrong. And if she were right.... She contacted the relay. "This is admiral Srrket. Hopefully, I'm just being paranoid. But. If the projectile launched at our fleet suddenly turns into a black hole and consumes me... send out a warning. Make sure the Emperor, and the rest of the fleet know... that Cronos is alive. And hunting. Save the message, and prepare it to send, if that happens."
She studied her formation; and quietly sent messages out, ordering a few of the sub-fleets of smaller, faster vessels to break off and approach the target from behind. She turned, staring at the tiny projectile. Willing it to just stay tiny. To pass harmlessly by her fleet, and burn up in the atmosphere. Maybe it was just a warning shot from a hopelessly optimistic enemy.