Memory transcription subject: Chief Hunter Isif, Arxur Rebellion Command
Date [standardized human time]: March 10, 2137
Twenty-thousand foes remained active in the system; I wasn’t sure how the Terrans planned to gain the Duerten Shield’s compliance with their plans. If the local remnants, figuring at about half of the invading force’s tally, surged toward the Kolshians, it would make our support much more effective. Their motivation for aggressive action was obvious, with Kalqua rocked by antimatter bombs. Planetary defenses were long since gone, and our rescue operation was the only reason their last remaining forces hadn’t been cut down by overwhelming opposition. The Yotul’s particle beams gave us a chance, especially since they lacked the recharging requirements of plasma weaponry. Enemy drones had invested their focus on the Technocracy’s pesky vessels, giving the Duerten some breathing room.
Most of humanity’s drone aid had perished in the initial engagement, protecting life and limb over unbreathing, unfeeling metal. I was pleased that the Duerten hadn’t turned their guns on us or the UN, but I suppose even they weren’t foolish enough to invite extinction. It was easy to claim that it was better not to exist than to “bow to a predator’s whims”, when that ultimatum wasn’t staring an herbivore in the face. Self-preservation was an instinct that transcended all classes of lifeforms. With the Malti, Drezjin, and other Federation subsidiaries driven out by us, there was hope of keeping some of Kalqua’s infrastructure intact. I winced, thinking what percentage of the populace lived in the cities that had already been hit.
Per my documents, the last census data suggests a population of about six and a half billion, including foreigners on work visas or diplomatic stays. It’s a smaller number than the amount of people on Earth, largely due to the constant casualties brought on by this endless war.
It was important to take inventory of exactly what was transpiring around my command ship. Through the near-microscopic dots Kaisal had highlighted, I could glimpse human nanodrones on the fly. The Duerten Shield seemed to lack a strategy with their remaining ships, with every unit operating out of independent desperation. The Yotul were being hounded by any drone that could burn toward them, and could only fend off so many guns-blazing foes, even with exemplary flying. It was obvious where our plasma support was best spent. If humanity’s manned ships had taken on automatons in prior engagements, there was no reason Arxur crews couldn’t hold our own too. It would reflect poorly on my abilities as a commander if we couldn’t drive the Kolshians out in one fell swoop.
“Focus plasma on targets who are in pursuit of the Yotul. Save our missiles for any Kolshians who come for us,” I ordered.
Kaisal narrowed his eyes. “Understood, sir. I’ve forwarded a handful of possible targets that are almost in range of our weapons.”
Lisa looked up from her spot beside Bondarenko. “Sir, if I may, I’ve been informed that the Duerten have been persuaded to charge the enemy.”
“All our ducks are in a row. It happens right now, all at once. We’ll be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them!” Oleksiy declared, with a chipper grin.
“Everything but the kitchen sink?” The idiom didn’t compute with me, and I figured I could attempt to utilize human levity to build “rapport” with my crew. If I was going to bring Arxur back to our old ways, and I couldn’t learn from Vysith, it would behoove me to replicate the Terrans’ bedside manner. “That saying does not make sense. Why would we be throwing a faucet tool in a space battle? Is this a remark on using anything as a weapon?”
“Well, not that we wouldn’t; you know, there were secret programs to use cats as acoustic listening devices! This saying was popularized during our second world war, or so I hear. Anything usable went to the war efforts, so I guess it took off then.”
“I regret ever asking to learn more about your inane rationale. Let me know if the United Nations has anything useful to impart, rather than using confusing excerpts about household appliances.”
“Uh, yes sir. It is about to get serious, for sure. You could say we’re about to go out of the frying pan, into the fire.”
“You think it’s funny to use this idiom after I warned you, yes? You’re lucky your government would not tolerate me breaking your ankles like I did Kaisal’s.”
The Arxur grunt winced, drawing his tail closer. “Do not remind me…sir. Given that humans must char their food, and their culture, like ours, revolves around meat-eating, it computes that kitchenware is a priceless contributor to their daily lives. I can see why the Duerten would be relegated to the kitchen sink; as incompetent herbivores without a shred of common sense, I do not expect their charge to be useful or deliver on its promised effects.”
“A bunch of inadequate resources together may be enough, is that not correct? The Terrans must have completed a similar assessment in their stratagems. We are to save the herbivores and do our part, lest we look to be bumbling idiots like the Duerten.”
“Understood. I’m on it.”
Our weapons station was attempting to lock onto a Kolshian drone, utilizing the data that Kaisal had forwarded. Several captains in the rebel fleet were coordinating their fire, cultivating synchronicity to deal massive damage once we drew within range. The Yotul were clever enough to keep just ahead of the enemy pursuers, and to slowly loop toward us on an indirect path; they were routing the Federation fleet toward us, which would make it easier to get a crack at our targets. Power was diverted away from non-essential systems aboard my command vessel, ensuring that our initial volley was sizzling with intensity. The dazzling flashes of thousands of plasma beams, fired off in unison, was an impressive display of control.
The robots could dodge through some of the plasma, calculating the munitions’ intended course and abruptly twirling out of the way. However, that meant they had to ease up on their pursuit of the Technocracy vessels; the Yotul were ready to bombard them with particle beams, as quickly as their weaponry would allow. The Duerten had also diverted most of their remaining ships into a formation advance, and were using “everything but the kitchen sink”: that is, they were using whatever weapons they had left over from the prolonged engagement. Kaisal had ordered our weapons station to hold their fire, and only now granted the permission to annihilate a target. With the Kolshians being pressed on all sides, our chosen target was paying no mind to any rebel fleet follow-up.
I see the point of bringing the Duerten Shield forward. On their own, they pack very little claw strength, but with the drones ignoring them in favor of greater threats, they can choose their marks unimpeded.
The slim number of remaining Terran drones had drifted away from the Yotul’s side, as we stepped into the fold. Humanity’s computer-piloted fleet mobilized beside the Duerten Shield, protecting their remnants in the scarce cases they were fired upon. My best guess was that the UN didn’t want the Duerten to start sustaining heavy losses, and crumble with their already frazzled nerves. The brazen charge wouldn’t hold if they started dropping like prey. I waited with impatience for our plasma railguns to recharge, wanting to pin down the Kolshians before they could craft an evasion strategy.
The Terran nanodrones I’d spotted on the sensors earlier zipped toward any Kolshian drones who had resumed their pursuit of the Yotul; I could see that a few dozen Technocracy ships had been on the receiving end of missile barrages, from debris scattered in the void. The microscopic human automatons pounced on the enemy’s lack of shielding, and I watched one swarm ram itself into a foe’s thrusters. While it wasn’t as decisive as a reactor strike, it was enough to immobilize the drone. A Duerten Shield vessel moseyed in to mop it up, as even those foolish avians could take down a paralyzed target.
“Kaisal, how many more drones do you expect we need to kill before their algorithms recognize they’ve lost?” I asked.
Lisa shifted on her feet. “If I may interject, I think it’s not so simple. The shadow fleet has the kind of numbers that losses aren’t their concern. Should the algorithms assess that the battle is lost, I imagine they’ll shift their focus to taking out as many souls on Kalqua as possible before going down. This has always been about teaching the Duerten a lesson.”
“Their aim was to engineer the complete eradication of the species that defied them, so I cannot argue against your conclusion. My question to the runt—to Kaisal, stands. What’s the number where it’s decided that all is lost?”
The scrawny Arxur lashed his tail. “In my estimation, we have already crossed that threshold, sir. Between the Yotul, us, and the Duerten Shield scoring kills, I count 6500 fallen enemies. If there’s anything the calamari wanted to try, they have to make that push while they still have numbers.”
I squinted at the viewport, assessing where a push might come from. Several shadow fleet drones had ramped up the pressure on Technocracy vessels, despite understanding it left them vulnerable to the three species covering the Yotul. Another contingent was feinting toward the Duerten homeworld, knowing full well that the Terrans would ram automatons into their foes if needed, to stop them from drawing close enough. The final break-off group I spotted was waltzing into our crosshairs, right into the waiting missiles that we’d conserved to avoid such a head-on assault. Between all of those ostensible last-ditch efforts, there was a small number of hostiles that were unaccounted for.
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With the Duerten closing in on the Kolshians from the planet’s direction, the Terrans functioning as a middle man, and us backing up the Yotul on headings from the system’s outer bounds, that left a single avenue of possibility. The only path to slip away was to blaze off horizontally, while locking the other engagements into a limited area. It was difficult to detect which direction they would’ve chosen, with the craft having escaped visual range; debris, course data, and a slew of active weapons were drowning out sensor leads in a sea of information. Rather than allowing the Kolshians to dilute our senses, we needed to filter out the irrelevant matters.
I hurried over to the sensors station to preside over the full array, and moved Kaisal out of the way without explanation. Despite grasping that it would leave us blind to a target lock, I switched off all data correlating to in-flight weapons. My next subset to subtract was anything less than half of a ship length, even though that would entail manual spotting to avoid flying into debris or friendly nanodrones. It still remained difficult to parse a particular group of renegades from their buddies, so I resorted to removing all vessels which had been marked as friendly. It was less than ideal to not know our partners’ vectors, on top of not viewing their weapons’ trajectories. However, if my theory was correct, we had little time to mitigate the shadow fleet’s plan to double the casualties on Kalqua.
I pointed with a claw to faint energy readings. “Peel back. See these readings here? The shadow fleet snuck some ships off that way, to bomb Kalqua. Send our fastest craft after them!”
“I’ll send word to the United Nations,” Lisa chimed in. “They’ll be responsible for filling in the Duerten Shield, who I’m sure have been so pleasant to work with.”
Oleksiy narrowed his eyes. “I’ll tell the Yotul, though I don’t imagine they have a hope of intercepting ships that are closer to us. We have to stop the squids! Each drone probably only has one antimatter bomb aboard, but if there’s a few hundred ships that’s—”
“We do learn arithmetic on Wriss, contrary to common beliefs. That would induce more city hits than they’ve already racked up in the sum of the battle. Over a billion more dead. Unlike Kalsim’s fools, the Kolshians have been strategic enough to take out key military strongholds and seats of government across Kalqua already, so now, it’ll be pure population.”
“The Duerten will have a fraction of their former power. As is, they may lose the deciding stake in their Shield alliance,” Lisa postulated. “That might be for the best, except that they’re a driving force in hating the Federation. Plus, their manufacturing capacity is second-to-none in their little group.”
“We cannot afford to lose virtually all of their major urban centers, yes? The fastest ships in the rebel fleet have already received a communique to pursue this vector, but we will trail behind to supervise. Divert all power to propulsion.”
Kaisal squinted. “With respect, sir, we cannot hope to catch them in a ship of our size. I do not know that our speediest vessels can catch them.”
“I did not specify thrusters. Lisa, your job is to get us in touch with the Duerten Shield, through the UN. Charge our warp drive through the standard, stationary protocol, and coordinate a fraction of a second for us to warp to their intended destination. My hope is that we are in-and-out, before the Kolshians notice the opportunity. Get a small enough number of our other warships to jump at the same time, but not enough that the drones notice we’re prepping for warp and become wise to it.”
Peacekeeper Reynolds ducked her head. “I’m on it, sir. I’ll coordinate with navigations.”
“Pardon my audacity for asking questions, domineering Chief Hunter, but if we’re catching up through FTL, why are you sending the speediest ships after them at sublight velocities?” the Arxur runt spoke up.
“It’s a mere diversion, Kaisal, so that they think we’re going after them in that hopeless fashion.” I paced back to the captain’s station, allowing him to resume full control over the sensors hub. “What do the prey accuse us of so often? It’s a ruse.”
The gravity disturbances of the FTL disruptors were preventing warp travel now; if the Kolshians realized that they’d have an opportunity to slip into subspace, that would allow them to poke their units directly through to orbital range. It was quintessential that they wouldn’t have the slightest clue of our intentions, and that the field was reasserted as soon as it was opened. This might mean we’d be thrown back into realspace the hard way, but despite the unpleasant variables, this was the only hope of catching the Kalqua-bound bomb-toters. It was a necessary gambit for the continuance of the Duerten as a galactic power.
This entire rescue mission was a pointless waste of resources if this doesn’t succeed, beyond the senseless loss of life that would mirror an Arxur raid. I hoped to never see a planet come to that again, so this must work.
As we stalled in position, protected at the far reaches of the rebel fleet, I watched the warp drive uncoil suitably to chart a path. If I had time to process what was unfolding, I might’ve even been nervous, despite my immense battle experience. However, it was over before I realized it had started; my command ship lurched into subspace, before our violent expulsion as the disruptors went back up near instantaneously. In that sliver of time which was imperceptible to any lifeform, we’d punched our ticket ahead of the shadow fleet’s path. Our warship could stand in the path of the incoming, bomb-bearing foes.
The havoc the FTL disruptors wreaked on our biology wasn’t something that could be trained away. The sudden transition confounded the senses: the skin wrapped around my brain felt too tight, my ears bore the sensation of being turned inside out as deafening bells rang within, my body temperature was climbing like I was under a sun-lamp, and my eyes were projecting psychedelic patterns onto everything I saw. An unspeakable level of vertigo made it difficult to think, let alone direct my equally-dazed soldiers to battle stations. The humans had turned flushed shades of red, and were on the floor struggling to coordinate movements. A growl rumbled in my throat, as I leaned against my station with the full force of my weight.
“Divert power…back to weapons,” I huffed. “MOVE!”
A weapons technician slumped against the buttons, managing to move a paw that weighed a ton to the needed buttons. He collapsed with exhaustion after completing the sequence, and I swiveled my slowly-normalizing vision back to Kaisal. The Arxur runt was on his knees; judging by the concerned look in his eyes, he couldn’t read the overlay. I tried to consult my own, but the dots all bled together through the blur. My eyelids squeezed shut in merciful darkness for a few seconds, and I sucked in measured breaths. My gaze snapped back open with renewed focus, allowing me to gauge the situation.
The Kolshian drones were mere seconds from arriving, so I hoped that my crew could shake off the FTL disruptors' effects in the next few moments. To my surprise, there were a small handful of Terran drones and Duerten Shield vessels that had made the jump with us, forsaking their counterparts for the good of Kalqua. At least the friendly automatons couldn’t be shaken by the transitional effects on biologics. The rebels on my bridge got their tails back into motion, and tended to the now-ready plasma railgun. We had to throw everything we had at the shadow fleet.
I straightened with pride, despite how much that segue had taken out of me. “Arxur are the finest warriors in the galaxy. We stop them here. We stop the Federation here!”
Confident growls echoed across the bridge, as my followers tapped into their strength reserves. The Duerten Shield still looked a bit listless, so their fire might be a bit behind our initial volley. Kaisal zoomed in on a Kolshian drone, and with startling efficiency, our plasma weapon fired. Two other rebel friendlies targeted the same vessel from different angles, making evasion improbable. The automaton fired off a desperate stream of missiles before it was blasted into oblivion; Terran robots deployed a stream of interceptors to neutralize that parting gift.
I didn’t wait for the light of the reactor explosion to die down, before ordering weapons to unleash the missiles that we’d been preserving to save our own hides. The meandering Duerten Shield caught on enough to dump every missile they had at the oncoming enemies, since that was an easy task to complete. Terran drones forged ahead of us, cruising along vectors that put them on collision courses. Despite the contentious resistance, the Federation were getting close to orbital range of Kalqua. The fractional contingent of craft we warped here had to put a swift end to the few hundred shadow fleet bogeys.
“I never thought I’d be fighting side-by-side with leaf-licking apes and the Duerten Shield,” I muttered to myself, before bellowing orders at a pitch where my crew could hear. “However fast is the quickest you can get that plasma gun online, I want it done faster! Throw ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ at them; if we have it in stock, use it.”
Zhao will definitely have to afford us some maintenance and restocking after this escapade. Our resources are limited, and now depleted.
Our interceptors were repurposed to be hurled at the drones, hoping that anything that landed would hinder their approach. The Duerten Shield had finally brought their plasma guns alive, and were spitting off beams in defense of Kalqua. The shadow fleet dispensed shield-breaking missiles of their own across our joint line, before returning another round of plasma, tailored toward the Duerten ships. I saw that, with the small number of ships we had in their way, our enemy intended to push through our weakest link. Three craft might fall, but one making it through would lend consolation to them.
There had been a negligible number of Terran drones to protect the Duerten from their folly, and the Arxur rebel fleet was otherwise occupied with targets of our own. After running the mental math in my head, it was clear to me that we couldn’t stop every planetbound vessel alone; we had to handle what was in front of us. Due to the efforts I’d led, my forces were cutting down two hundred-odd ships that would’ve ravaged the planet. It spared Kalqua the majority of the damage, but despite our heroic victory approaching certainty, it wasn’t possible here to save the Homogeneity from a few final losses.
The Duerten Shield failed to hold their defensive line, and the Kolshian drones broke through the final stretch to orbital range above the inhabited world. The Duerten pivoted in desperation, with a few desperate enough to save their loved ones that they mimicked the actions of the Terran drones—ramming into the bombers. Though most hostiles became easy pickings, due to taking no actions to protect themselves, about five dozen enemies made it through to their destination. Plasma beams and missiles struck true against the genocidal metal hunks, but it was too late. The Shield tossed kinetics at the antimatter payloads, hoping against hope to strike the fast-moving warheads, yet knowing it wouldn’t work.
In rote silence, my claws switched onto the comms channel, to hear the Yotul declaring they were cleaning up the last remaining Kolshian hostiles back at the warp point. A dark part of my soul almost admired how the shadow fleet sacrificed thousands in a losing battle to increase their casualty count. Our intervention had saved the Duerten from total extinction, and it was an effort that would garner respect from the United Nations. It remained to be seen how this would affect relations between the Homogeneity and the Sapient Coalition, but it might even open the birds’ minds to cordial relations. However, as sixty-plus antimatter bombs delved into Kalqua’s atmosphere, I couldn’t feel any sense of triumph. Today was another bleak mark on the Federation’s bloodstained history in this galaxy.