(Flag Bridge, CNV Spear of Tagrun, Interstellar Space)
There was a tension on the flag bridge as Tenth Fleet approached the Line. There was no physical line, of course. It was simply the line past which all contact had been lost by Consortium ships approaching the Coldana System. The line past which the X’thari waited.
Admiral Warhelm was no exception to that air of tension. He had fought in the last X’thari war, as the captain of a destroyer, and knew first-hand how dangerous the X’thari could be. Three formerly habitable worlds in the Free Worlds Alliance were now barren husks, stripped clean of all biomass and their resources stripped down to the bedrock. Each time before, the system had been isolated from the rest of Known Space, and only a single ship had ever escaped the ‘Dead Zone’ once it went up.
That ship was a Terran-built corvette that had gone completely silent, and engaged a ballistic course with the best stealth they could manage, heading ‘up’, away from the ecliptic. The INS Fitzroy spent seven days pretending to be a hole in space, allowing their Transition Drive to trickle charge. For six days, they were forced to listen to the cries of the people trapped on the planet of Hurin’s World. Six days listening to those cries falter, and then fail. On the seventh day, there was silence. On the eighth day, they hit the heliopause, and were able to Transition away.
The Fitzroy brought with it the only survivors of Hurin’s world and the combined Allied Fleet that had tried to hold back the X’thari. Thirty souls, all told, from a fleet of over a hundred ships. Thirty souls, from a system that was home to millions.
But the survivors were not the only bounty the Fitzroy brought with her. For the first time, the Galaxy at large were able to lay witness to the horror of a X’thari Harvester. A massive bioship the size of a small moon, it physically latched on to Hurin’s World, and began to consume it like a living creature. As it ate, it ‘birthed’ new X’thari ships, and the initial drones to crew them.
Still, the Consortium had not spent the intervening years idle. Knowing that the threat of the X’thari could one day return, they had focused a great deal of attention on active detection systems, hoping to destroy the X’thari advantage when it came to stealth attacks, and on defensive systems, to ward off the powerful grav lances the X’thari ships used. That these improvements also helped defend them against other groups, such as the Terran Empire, was a delightful bonus to something that had been a military necessity.
The Tenth Fleet was in formation Red Nine. This was one of the formations they had developed to try and detect stealthed X’thari vessels, with active scanners tuned to find X’thari hulls in particular. In the few tests they had been able to run, the overlapping sensor fields had been very effective in detecting X’thari ships. Whether that would be true in practice, however, was anyone’s guess.
With a practiced ease and nonconcern that flew in the face of his internal concern, Warhelm keyed his console to send a transmission to the entire fleet. An admiral must appear to be the calm at the eye of the storm, after all. “Men and women of the Tenth Fleet, and the Auxiliary Forces of Grathdan Sector, this is Admiral Warhelm. By now, you will have heard rumors of the foe we face. I will confirm some of them now. The X’thari have returned in force to Known Space, and, this time, their first target appears to be the Coldana System.”
“Given the communications blackout with Coldana, the exact number and disposition of our foe remains uncertain. The last time the X’thari used methods like this, it involved no mere True Hunt, but the Swarm itself descending upon Known Space. We must assume that the Swarm has once more returned to Known Space.”
“However, much has changed since the last time the X’thari darkened the skies of Known Space, when the joined forces of civilization united to push back the Swarm. Our ships are stronger, faster, tougher than ever before, and our sensors are primed to seek out and identify X’thari raiders lurking in stealth. Our crews are some of the best trained in the galaxy. Our tactics have evolved to account for the habits and psychology of the enemy.”
“Most importantly, however, is the recent arrival of the Nomads to Known Space, bringing with them new ideas and new capabilities. We now know that the Nomad communications networks cannot be stopped by the technology of the X’thari. Because of this, we know the enemy we face. Because of this, we know that Coldana yet stands. Because of this, we know that any information we can gain while in contact with the swarm will make it back to Fleet High Command, even if all our ships are lost. Because of this, should the worst happen, there will be other forces ready to stand fast and protect the planets at our backs.”
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“I will not lie to you. Not all of us will survive this day. Perhaps none of us will. But there are four hundred and eighty-five MILLION souls on Coldana Prime alone. Fifteenth Fleet, which is stationed at Fleet Base Coldana, contains two hundred thousand souls, including the auxiliaries and support personnel living at the base. They still stand, and are waiting for aid. And Tenth Fleet will do our best to bring it to them. It may be that our best is not enough, and that we will fall and fail, but if that is our fate, then I say we make the bastards bleed for it!”
“We will not abandon the people of Coldana or the Fifteenth Fleet. We are the Consortium Navy, and it is our duty and privilege to be the shield between our people and those who would threaten them. In front of us is an enemy that consumes worlds. Behind us are civilians. Young men and women, children, the elderly and the infirm. They cannot fight this fight, and I would not wish it upon them. So, we will take the fight to the enemy, and ensure that, no matter what happens, the X’thari will always remember Tenth Fleet!”
He took a breath, and barked, in a crisp, clear voice of command, “This is Admiral Warhelm to all ships. All forces are to advance at best speed. No one stops until they reach Coldana! Warhelm, out.” And with that, he cut the channel.
(Free Trader Fucking Bitch, Coldana System)
“It just feels wrong, Captain.”
Captain Chernikova growled at her main gunner (not that a Zvezdnoye Nebo-class freighter, even one configured for smuggling, had much in the way of guns). “Damn it, Tima, do you think I like this any more than you do? But we are the only ship that can possibly get the word out if things go bad, and you know it. That Admiral Fullstout showed me the records of the ship that escaped a situation like this before. The X’thari ships numbered in the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS, Timofey! The last time, they only stopped the Swarm when an entire fleet bought enough time for a dreadnought to make a suicide run on the Harvester when they caught it between systems. They overloaded their reactor right in the Harvester’s mouth. Even then, eighty-three percent of the Harvester remained. Half the X’thari forces dragged the Harvester away, while the other half scattered into Hunts, forcing navies to spend three years hunting them.”
Kharzov Timofey Viktorovich grimaced, and then shook his head. “Still feels wrong, Captain, like we’re running away.” He turned, and headed for the ship’s recreation deck, likely to work some frustration out on the training dummy.
Alevtina sighed to herself. When she had managed to get her hands on the Fucking Bitch, she had been all too happy to recruit an all-Russian crew. But she had to admit that the callous way they were skulking off, hoping that the X’thari didn’t see them until they were outside the Heliopause, and could escape… well, it wore on her sensibilities as well. It was something one might expect of the Chinese, or the Koreans. Even the Americans would be less than pleased at something like this.
But she had to face facts. Her ship was the only one in the system that could possibly escape. If the X’thari did come with one of their Harvesters and the swarm that came with it, then there was nothing that they could do to stop it. The moment a Harvester appeared in this system, the people of Coldana were dead. It was just a matter of the physical world catching up to the reality of the situation.
The Fucking Bitch could not save the people of Coldana. However, the deadliest weapon in any navy’s arsenal was intelligence. Knowing this, the Consortium Navy had upgraded her ship’s sensors to military grade, and placed as many additional sensor systems on the ship as they could manage. In their hold were stacks of computers, containing not just the processing power and storage space to get every last bit of data on the Swarm that they could, but also to hold as much of Coldana’s data networks, including personal messages from every Coldanan who wished to send final letters to kin elsewhere. The Fucking Bitch was effectively the Last Will and Testament of the Coldana System as a whole.
Coldana would die when the Harvester arrived. That was a foregone conclusion. But if Chernikova Alevtina Vitalievna had anything to say about it, they would damn sure be remembered, and their sacrifice would not go to waste.
But, even so, Timofey was right. It just felt wrong, turning tail and running, when you knew that millions were going to die. She sighed, and slipped into the Nomad communication nets. The others needed to know what Coldana had planned.
(Fleet Command Center, Coldana Prime, Coldana System)
Admiral Fullstout had not slept. The idea of doing something so mundane as sleeping when the looming specter of the X’thari was upon them was simply ludicrous. He knew, as well as the rest of his command, that there was nothing that they could do to stop the Swarm if it came to them.
Everyone knew that the situation was hopeless. There wasn’t any force that could reach them in time, and with enough strength, to make the difference. That was the cold, hard truth. But that didn’t mean they weren’t going to fight. The more damage they could do to the swarm, the better the chances the rest of the Consortium would have.
And the Navy wasn’t going to be the only ones fighting. The armories were being opened up, and everyone who could hold a gun was being given one. Everyone knew that there would be no surviving what was to come, but they intended to bleed the Swarm for every centimeter of ground. It would not be enough, but it was all they had. Their one real hope was that the Fucking Bitch managed to get away with the sensor data, so that the Navy could find a way to end this.
Suddenly, alarms began going off in the command center. The invasion alarm was sounding. The X’thari were not even trying to hide, not with the massive numbers that were coming in. Fullstout’s mind boggled at the numbers. One hundred and seventy-two thousand five hundred ships. Just thinking in such numbers was more than he could bear. And then there was the Harvester, in the center of the swarm.
A grim look came over his face. “Set off the tarpits. We’ll slow them down as much as we possibly can. All ships stand ready to fight. Send word to civil defense. Let them know that the Swarm has arrived.”
He paused, and then looked to an aide. “Have the shuttles been prepared?”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Have the pilots man their ships. Operation Firebringer is a go.”