(Conference Room Two, Blackstone Station, Star’s Reach System)
Conference Room two was a ‘private’ conference room, basically good for groups of no more than twelve. Abaddon had the captains of his ships with him, as well as four guards in full armor. I had Raven with me, along with General Khan, and my core harem. If everyone packed inside, that would be… uncomfortable, especially given the size of some of the guards.
Fortunately, this was a civil meeting. One guard each stood inside, flanking the door, while the others stood guard outside. Other than the guards, inside the room was just Abaddon and his captains on one side, and myself, the General, Raven, Sheara, Sheila, and Carissa on mine. Raven and Carissa were my chief assistants, often working on managing my affairs. Sheila was a princess, and, as such, had a firm grasp on political and diplomatic realities. And Sheara was not just one of the more talented mechanics in the company, but had also started learning more about manufacturing.
I shook Abaddon’s hand to start things off. This was a polite meeting, after all. “Warmaster. My scanner techs couldn’t help but notice that there appears to be some battle damage on your ships. I take it you found something interesting, while you were exploring Chaotic Space?”
The Warmaster grunted as he sat down on his side of the table. “Yes, we were tracking through the Warp, or the Immaterium, or Hellspace, whatever you want to call it, when our sensors detected the shadow of a large population of psychically active creatures. When we emerged from Hellspace, we found a Full Hunt of X’thari ships in orbit of a planet.”
I leaned forward, “Oh, I’m guessing by your tone that this wasn’t just some X’thari hanging out over an unsettled world. Were they attacking some unknown species? Or was this a X’thari world?”
Abaddon chuckled. “Well, it was a X’thari world, and it wasn’t.”
I grinned back at him. “Well, I’m going to need some details, man. Let’s have it.”
Leaning back in his chair, Abaddon smirked. “Well, the Full Hunt reacted the moment we came out of Hellspace, as you’d expect. However, they didn’t react like the X’thari you and I have fought before. That was the first sign that something was off. No tarpit traps, or anything to stop us from maneuvering at FTL speeds.
“Still, they had numbers on us, so I didn’t go jumping into close range, where their grav lances are strongest. However, as the battle started, we quickly found more differences between these X’thari, and the ones we knew. Their ships were faster than normal X’thari, and their grav lances were more powerful, with a longer range.
“However, when our Dragonbreath torpedoes started hitting them, they crumpled like they were made of tissue paper! Their shields and armor may as well have been for show, for all the good they did them. Even the point defense on the corvettes were shredding their battleships’ armor! It was like these X’thari had never even heard of any weapons except grav lances!”
That… that was just crazy. Even if the X’thari were known for only using grav lances as weapons, with the only difference between their fighters and their dreadnoughts being the size and number of lances, the ones we fought at Nuevo Edo and Coldana at least had countermeasures for other weapons, and they were certainly not something that could just be shredded by a corvette’s point defense cannons! I could see why the Warmaster had said that they were X’thari, but not X’thari.
And then it hit me. Looking towards the Warmaster, I said, “We develop weapons to take on the defenses we face, and we develop armor to take on the weapons we face. Going back to Earth, pre-contact, people used guns if they wanted to kill someone. Blades had fallen out of fashion because guns were simple enough that any random idiot could kill someone from across the room. And our armor was designed with the idea of stopping bullets, not blades, because of that.
“But then, we got into the stars, and found the first alien groups, those lithomorphs that used to live in the Wolf 359 system. They were all but impervious to gunfire, because they were made of psychically-reinforced stone, but an energy cutter used for construction carved them like a turkey. That’s why energy blades became a thing, and, with them, defenses against energy weapons.”
Abaddon nodded. “And when we met someone who had a strong mix of energy and physical defense, we invented the chainsword, which was capable of overcoming such things if you put enough strength behind it.”
“Right. Of course, it didn’t hurt that they’re damn cool, either. Anyway. So, if these not-X’thari had somehow never met anyone who wasn’t X’thari, then their weapons and defenses would continue along the line of simply making better, more efficient grav lances and armor specialized in shaking off grav lances.”
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“That is what we figured, as well. Overspecialization, one of the techs said. Basically, they focused so much on X’thari weapons and tactics that they were helpless when faced with someone who didn’t use them. Well, for ship-to-ship combat, at least.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, when we boarded their space stations, we found that the X’thari gravitic weapons were still just as effective at taking on armor. They could put a nasty hole in anything they hit unless it was shielded, and even our personal shields could only take one or two hits. But they were completely unprepared for melee combat against the Chaos Brigade.”
“Wait, hold up. Their stations? X’thari don’t build stations. They’re nomadic, from everything we’ve seen. Did you find an actual X’thari planet?”
“Looked like a colony world, actually. One that had been around for a while, though it is hard to tell with hive species like the X’thari. They had two space stations in orbit, each roughly two kilometers in length. At least four thousand X’thari between the two stations, and who knows how many on the surface below.”
“So, how many are left now?”
“Just the ones on the surface who survived our bombardments of the major population centers. We didn’t have the resources for anything more than a bit of orbital bombardment, so I’m sure that there are plenty of survivors. Maybe if we had more ships, we could have done a glassing, but that’s neither here nor there.”
I nodded slowly. I wasn’t missing the fact that the Chaos Brigade had basically gone to full scale slaughter the moment they saw X’thari. Of course, given everything we knew about the X’thari, one would be hard pressed to find anyone who cared overmuch about that, especially on worlds that had been threatened by a hunt, much less the Harvester and the Swarm.
Still, the idea that there were X’thari out there that weren’t like the rest of their kind brought up new possibilities. These ‘not-X’thari’ sounded like a splinter branch of their race, possibly one that had, for the most part, avoided the total degradation and devolution of their species. That, or they were a heretofore unknown ‘ruling caste’ that sat back while their less evolved portion of their species ravaged the galaxy.
Either scenario didn’t really give me warm, fuzzy feelings towards them. On the one hand, they ran from whatever happened to their race, and stuck their heads in the sand, only caring about saving their own skin. On the other, well, they either didn’t care or were actively supporting their military consuming entire worlds without warning. I wasn’t inclined to pity them, even if the Chaos Brigade happened to stomp them into the ground with their signature brutality.
Looking at the Warmaster, I grinned. “So, I suppose you have some combat data? Let’s see what these bugs are good at, and whether there is anything we can steal for our own use.”
(VIP Room, Starlight Lounge, Blackstone Station, Star’s Reach)
“So, what do you think?”
General Khan set down his drink, and sighed at my question. We’d just finished with the debrief of the Chaos Brigade. Well, not a debrief, since they didn’t actually report to us, but same difference, since we were going over the combat data and getting any information we could about these not-X’thari they had found.
Even in a virtual world, Information was the most dangerous and sought after weapon you could imagine. Starbolts and Greenwave were powerful weapons, but they meant nothing if you didn’t know where to fire them. Not to mention that such powerful weapons needed to be measured against the psychological impact of their use. They could end a war, or cause one to blaze as people united against tyranny. Information was the key to knowing when, where, and how to use the other weapons in your arsenal.
The General sighed, and said, “Which part? The aliens they found, or what they wanted in payment?”
“Both.”
“Well, the aliens definitely sound like either a splinter group or a ruling caste. There aren’t enough physical differences between them and normal X’thari drones to matter, and their ships are built along the same lines. However, they’re hyper-specialized in facing other X’thari. Of course, we could be looking at ‘home guard’ units.”
I nodded slowly. “Units designed to patrol the home front, far behind the lines? If that’s the case, then that planet the Chaos Brigade found would be an island in a wasteland of worlds stripped clean of all life. Or, perhaps, part of an inner sphere of X’thari worlds that they keep what amounts to civilians on, with minimal defenses, all geared towards other X’thari, because who could get to them there, right?”
“Something like that, yeah. And, if the coordinates the Warmaster gave us are correct, that puts them damn near the base of the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy. The closest Gateway we’ve mapped to that point in absolute terms would actually be Star’s Reach, and it is in another arm entirely!”
“Which makes a strike impossible, since we don’t have a fleet of Hellspace-capable warships to take the fight to them. We can’t afford to have any of our groups out of action for long enough to go the slow way, and the yards are still working on getting all the fleets adjusted to the X’thari drives. Probably not room for upgrades to include the Hellspace drives and the shields needed to keep the crews safe in the existing designs, anyways. And the Starhunters can only map the Gateway network so quickly.”
Khan nodded. “Which makes having the Brigade go and do the scouting make sense. I’m even fine with giving their people the new Marine armor and augmentation upgrade packs, so long as we make it that they can’t distribute them freely. But the weapons?”
I took a long sip of my own drink before answering. “Yes, the Chaos Brigade won’t actually have the ability to give out new gear and augmentations to any new recruits they find, so they’ll need to come back to us to get that done, or spend the time and resources on reverse-engineering them. They aren’t idiots, but they don’t exactly have a fully-staffed R&D department.
“So, giving them the upgrades to their fighters is not problematic, since they won’t be able to produce more, I agree. It will cause some impact, sure, but it won’t totally threaten to destabilize the balance of power, and cause a new Nomad faction to rise in prominence, affecting the galactic landscape.”
“Right, but the weapons they wanted, the planet-killers? Those are a nightmare waiting to happen. Even if they never managed to reverse-engineer one, having planet-killers out in the wild makes me nervous as all hell. Especially since the Chaos Brigade is not known for their restraint. If it ever got back to Known Space that they used one, all eyes would be on us, since everyone knows they’ve done business with us.”
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Same reason why we haven’t sold those weapons, even to the other powers. Once sold, they’re out of our control. If they are used, then it can splash back on us, and that isn’t something I want to expose the company to.”
The General finished his drink. “Still, against the X’thari, I can’t really find room for complaint if they’re wanting to do something flashy. But Starbolts and Greenwave are too indiscriminate. And if the X’thari’s technorganic machines survive Greenwave, they might be able to adapt it, and THAT would be a fucking nightmare.”
“Too indiscriminate, huh?”
Khan’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “Uh-oh, I recognize that face. What horrible idea have you cooked up now?”
“Well, let me read you in on one of the experimental programs that the R&D boys have been working on, with the X’thari in mind, if we ever found a homeworld for the bastards. We haven’t had a proper testbed for it, until now, so it has been on the back burner. The project’s name is Asesina, but if we are handing it off to the Chaos Brigade, it is probably better to rename it Nurgle’s Gift…”