Make the enemy see what you want, so they expend their strength against shadows and imagination, - Noocracy Military Saying
"You may blame me all you wish," Captain Reltetak said, shaking her head. "You were shadowing us without letting us know who you were. You entered sensor and weapon distance and engaged in a least time course at us. You followed us aggressively. You were the aggressor right up until I started firing in what is obviously a case of self-defense."
The Digital Sentience snarled. "If you hadn't have..."
"What? Responded to an act of covert aggression? Perhaps you should have identified yourself through a proper manner, which are even available to active stealth ships engaged in active missions, we would not have fired upon your vessel," Captain Reltetak stated coldly. "A simple set of course changes or heading changes, which, I might remind you, we performed, would have avoided my decision to fire upon you."
"We did! You did not perform any..."
"Furthermore, I did not make my decision to fire upon you lightly. While the Noocracy is well known to be refurbishing and modernizing your people's vessels from the Terran Extinction Event, there was still the chance that it could be a Solarian Iron Dominion vessel, so I ensured I pulled you to a suitable location that our duel would hopefully result in a SID vessel striking the colors where a Noocracy vessel will go down with all hands, as is their standard operating procedure," Captain Reltetak stated, brushing the red stripe across the top of her head with one hand, letting the claws dig in nicely, all the while putting forth a distant and cold yet engaged attitude.
"We..."
"If, and I stress, if you had engaged in properly diplomacy, with proper decorum, instead of coming screaming aboard my vessel, all of this would have been explained," Captain Reltetak said.
"Ma'am," L(SG) Mik
"Yes?" Captain Reltetak turned slightly to stare at the sensor officer. The Solarian Digital Sentience looked angry, but then their eyes opened wide.
"I just detected another hit upon the Solarian vessel," the L(SG) said.
"Better late then never, I guess," the DS said sarcastically. They held out their hand and pulled a data table out of thin air, even as they put a hand to their ear. "Captain, I'm looking at their ammunition production and consumption right now."
Captain Reltetak leaned back in the Captain's chair, watching the Digital Sentience. On one hand, she was fascinated watching it. They hadn't been seen in forty-thousand years, having died en-masse during the Terran Xenocide Event. On the other hand, she needed to keep a close eye on a boarder that could rip the whole ship apart in seconds if not countered properly. On the gripping hands, the digital sentience was a line of communication to the Solarian Iron Dominion ship and Captain.
The Digital Sentience frowned. "Captain, I'm looking at what templates they manufactured and I'm detecting a bad discrepancy in the data," he stated.
Captain Reltetak checked the ammo usage. Exactly what she had permitted.
"Captain, I'm looking at it. They fired less than a third of what was fired upon us," the Digital Sentience said.
That got Reltetak's attention. She looked at the Digital Sentience and then her own helmsman, then at her security officer.
"Isolation, now," Reltetak snapped.
The security officer pressed their thumb against an icon that had been flashing since they were boarded.
The Digital Sentience flashed three times and suddenly went down on their knees, cuffs appearing around their wrists, a mask appearing over their face. A collar around their neck was attached to the chain around their waist. Their ankles were cuffed with a bar to prevent them from getting their feet too close together. The chain ran from the ankle bar to the waist chain, from the middle of the wrist chain to the waist chain. Bars slammed down around the Digital Sentience.
"Go to full stealth, deep evasive. Give us four point two seconds of red drive then crash-dive deep," Captain Reltetak snapped. "NOW!"
The Digital Sentience looked confused as the lights snapped off, everyone's armor went to full vacuum mode, and the atmosphere started being pumped out. There was a high pitched tone through the ship as the red-drives were activated.
There was a bright flash outside the ship's hull that somehow bled all the way through the hull.
Everything went red
Not different shades of red.
Just red.
red
There was no other color
just red
Everything suddenly snapped back. The hull shuddered, a deep groaning noise like metal under pressure sounded out in the suits even though there wasn't any atmosphere aboard the ship. The ship 'felt' like it was slowly tilting forward more and more.
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Chief How'wa'ard motioned to four of the midshipmen. He motioned at them to get out of their seats and stand up. The Chief tapped their harnesses and the midshipmen stood up. He pointed at where they could stand and for them to lock their boots once they had stood in the right place.
Captain Reltetak smiled. She remembered when one of the Chiefs had done this with her during her first crash dive during her midshipman cruise.
There was the groaning of metal over stress as the angle increased, a slight shuddering in the frame.
"Sickbay reports three red-dive casualties. All Tier-Two, non-life threatening," Captain Reltetak heard over her suit's speaker.
She just nodded.
The Digital Sentience struggled for a moment, which just resulted in them being bent over backwards slightly with their arms pulled straight out from their body.
"Fighting makes it worse," her security officer warned. "That system is rated to hold a fully enraged Digital Sentience from the Shade Night Event, it will hold you without system stress."
The Digital Sentience struggled again, then stopped.
The ship was diving hard, the midshipmen's faceplates nearly touching the floor.
The ship began to slowly level out.
The reports kept coming in. Minor damage to the ship. Some injuries, nobody life threatening or limb threatening. Munitions unloaded and awaiting reclamation.
After an hour of silent running, Captain Reltetak had the silent running taken down a step.
Air was pumped back into the ship, the lights went to dim red.
"Well?" Captain Reltetak asked, looking over at her Akltak officer.
"Signature was consistent with a Wraith class stealth ship exploding," L(SG) Mik
Captain Reltetak slowly looked up, tensing her neck and then relaxing the muscles. She reached up and combed through her red fur stripe.
"Did they make us?" she asked.
"I believe so. The flash right before we entered red-space was consistent with Noocracy subspace weaponry," L(SG) Mik
Captain Reltetak nodded. "Clever. Make us fight each other while they hammer on us, hidden and laughing at us the whole time," she said. She looked at the Digital Sentience, still chained in the holotank. "I couldn't be sure you weren't from a Noocracy vessel."
The Digital Sentience just glared.
Captain Reltetak leaned back in her chair. "Pit us against each other," she kept herself from running her hand over her head and instead flicked her ears. "How many vessels do you think they had?"
"Two, at least. I'm willing to bet they had more, as many as eight. Keep rotating the ones being used as a stalking horse, keep the others on our firing angles popping rounds through," L(SG) Mik
"Run us in stealth where we can get firing solutions on the graveyard they're busy looting," Captain Reltetak stated. She looked at the Digital Sentience. "It's obvious to me what your mission was, but I'm afraid it isn't going to happen. I will not ask what function the missile pod launch we detected was supposed to perform, but we have a chance here and now to carry out what part of your mission should have been."
The Digital Sentience still glared at her.
But she didn't care.
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"Look at the size of that fleet," one of the Midshipmen whispered.
Captain Reltetak nodded.
The holotank was full of ships.
Yes, they were forty-thousand years old, but they were ships of the line, combat ships, all the same.
Almost zero Confederacy ships.
Terran.
Terran to the bone.
Some of the ships weren't even in her databases and her databases were loaded with the most comprehensive databases of Terran Extinction Event Era ship types, known ships, and other information.
Yet there was twenty-two different ship types, fourteen different hull types, that were not in her databases.
Thankfully, only two super-colossus vessels, both of them parasite craft haulers.
It didn't change the fact that it was the largest fleet of Terran ships that Captain Reltetak had ever heard of.
One hundred thirty eight thousand six hundred fifty two ships above the heavy destroyer range. Over two hundred thousand if heavy destroyers and under were counted.
All in what appeared to be pristine condition.
All just sitting in a parking orbit, all heavily stealthed by tethered buoys.
"Options, Guns?" Captain Reltetak asked.
Chief Gunnery Officer Max Ikriktak shook his triangular head. "I'm not sure we even can produce the ammo without running to the nearest gas-giant and refilling our tanks a dozen times."
"Estimated time before that refit scaffolding around Supermassive Gas Giant Banjo Kablooey is finished?" Captain Reltetak asked.
"Sixteen standard days. At the most. They're already stress testing some of the berths and looks like they're preparing their tugs," Guns said.
It burned her tail that they might have to leave it all behind intact. That in the time it took the Solarian Iron Dominion and the Confederacy out here with big guns the Noocracy would have hundreds or possibly thousands of the ships refit and combat ready.
She stood up and started pacing back and forth, her tail tapping her lower back as she stared at the holotank where the ship breakdowns were flowing back and forth.
"They're making preparations to move the two Gwillick class carriers into the scaffolding. It's obvious those are their two priority vessels," Commander Largyle stated from his position at the science and technology analysis console.
Captain Reltetak just nodded, still pacing.
"Once they get those two operational, Captain, it will require a significant investment in firepower to dislodge anything the Noocracy wishes to do," Commander Shre'dya'ar stated from the tactical console, the Lanaktallan's voice deep and serious. "They each carry fifteen thousand parasite class each. It appears their warsteel mark-one armor is intact, and we must operate under the belief that the creation engine and nanoforges are able to be rekindled."
More nods as she slowly walked around the holotank.
Finally she stopped and stared at the bridge crew.
They had gone over the data a dozen times, inviting suggestions through the officers and even the senior NCO's.
There was nothing that anyone could come up with that could somehow take out the Terran vessels.
There was a tap from one of the holotanks.
Captain Reltetak turned to look at the Digital Sentience, one Commodore Twisting Python, who was sitting in a chair in a cell.
"You have input?" Reltetak asked.
"Yes," the Digital Sentience said. It gave a smile.
A smile full of teeth.
Too many teeth.
It made Reltetak's hackles raise up.
"But you won't like it," Python said. The smile got wider.
"What?" Reltetak asked.
"Let's just say," the DS said, his teeth glittering. "It's one size fits all."
"What?" Reltektak asked again. "Don't play games. What do you propose?"
The Terran was right.
Reltetak didn't like it.
But the Terran was right.
And damn it, Reltetak could tell from the grin he knew he was right as he finished his proposal.
"It's the only way to be sure."