“Partially,” I said, nodding at him. “However, there is no chance whatsoever that the goblins do not have a listening post in the system, probably somewhere in the asteroid belts, from which they are tracking everything going on, and likely using psychic means to transmit alarms or alerts back to their bosses.”

“Ah. This is why we’ve been taking such pains to keep things looking so blustery boisterous on the surface?” Duke Rimval asked, his smile hard and eyes glittering.

“Yes!” Briggs affirmed, nodding at the admirals. “There are many eyes on us, and the more we fall into traditional responses and actions to invasions and pressure, the more assured they feel. We’ve got at least six different layers of effects going on, half of them traditional movements, and half of them outside the normal paradigm.”

“The Harmonic Drive and Tachyon Drive tests,” Admiral Ontif nodded slowly. There were no records of the tests or technology anywhere; it was all communicated in Markspace, never verbally or electronically.

Both Admirals had been read in on just how compromised some of humanity’s electronic systems were. Nominally, this was the province of the Mechanists to safeguard against, but when they saw the degree of penetration, and the tools the Mechanists were using, it became plain that the cyborgs were using that infiltration as a way to gauge and control information disseminated to their enemies, only increasing controls and firewalls on their own key systems, and institutionalizing broad system collapses that would stop attempts to seize control.

Naturally such Red Button measures were discovered by the invading coders, and so things didn’t come to that point. They were playing games in cyberspace with one another, and Fleet and Army and all the other forces dependent on such technology were naturally appalled.

The Goldilocks crew had taken all this as a personal affront, and now armed with TL 12 Code and programming tools for the Quanta, and some TL 17 stuff from the Tribute, were starting to reach out and fight back against these intrusions. There were skirmishes going on in Cyberspace, and the Goldilocks cybermancers were now aggressively contesting those intruding in humanity’s systems, and even reaching out to play mind games in theirs... very, VERY carefully. Technorganic computer systems were not toys...

But there were isolated systems that never mixed with the Quanta or the Boole for just this reason, the only information going in by personal Bands hooked through Markspace relays and sifted through the best filters the Tribute had, boosted by psychic divinations. The system in Tribute City, sitting in the heart of the Warp Zone, was probably the single cleanest cyber network in human space!

“We could mount an attack on the goblins at AK97 Proxima, but it’s obvious by the networks that the Kill Rock they are building is nowhere near complete. If we Helldive into it, they’ll detect the Portals opening long before anyone gets into weapon range, and we’ll have a fight on our hands. We would prefer to hit it clean and devastating,” I told them.

“What’s the forecast on the Kill Rock?” The Alias’ scan of the system popped up between us all at Admiral Ontif’s question, zoomed in on the Death Moon.

A Big Kill Rock was one of the weapons of the Goblins, a tactic sort of stolen from the long-fallen Ruk. The Ruk used to carve entire asteroids and small moons into fortress-bases they could slowly move between stars. The Goblins did much the same thing, although cruder, enjoying making big things that could transport massive numbers of them between stars and defy whole fleets.

This one was obviously only a third done, and the amount of traffic and transportation, as well as metal refinement, indicated it would be years before it was completed. Keeping their operations below interstellar sensory levels had somewhat restricted their production.

“At their current rate, and assuming a gradually improving five to ten percent increase in capability per year, we’re looking at 12.3 years or so before the thing is fully operational,” Briggs reported, and the two Admirals visibly relaxed. “A fully operational spacedock and forge world this place is not.”

“But...” I began, and the Map spun up. Twenty different neighboring stars glowed, all within twenty light years, and all having the status of being minor systems with no free-standing life worlds at present. System data, none less than eight hundred years old, flickered up around all of them, along with hasty and refined observational data.

Six of the twenty turned red. The Dukes and Admirals grimaced.

“Each of those systems is above 90% in their chances to be occupied by... something. Goblins are most likely, but there might well be other things.” Five other systems glowed yellow. “Likely, but not as certain. The other systems we simply don’t know.” Questions marks popped up on all of them. “We have to get these systems scouted first.”

There was quick agreement all around. We were already surrounded on all sides!

“That one is black,” noted Admiral Colos, nodding at AK-84, and the six-planet system blew up into old, old detail. The two asteroid belts were unusual.

“The inhabitant of the Hole informed us of the nearest six Crecheworlds of the Tekrons.” Everyone promptly grimaced as the fifth world, a world with five times the mass of Tellus, went black, and grey lights popped up around the system with suggested positions of outposts.

It was fifteen light years away and change. To the Tekrons’ inertial drives, that was less than an hour!

“We can only put up observation stations outside the heliopause and pray,” I said simply at the horrendously unwelcome news. I still didn’t know why our guest in the Hole dared stay here...

Admiral Colos took a deep mental breath, and peered at me. “Do you... have plans in the making for dealing with Tekrons?” he had to ask.

“Yes,” Briggs broke in, to the delight of everyone. “The problem is that Tekrons are vulnerable to very different things than pretty much anyone else, just like dealing with the biovore fleets is very different from anyone using manufactured ships. A ship made for dealing with Tekrons is in effect a very specialized vessel with an attack style and methodology that is extremely subpar against any other opponent. This is especially true when developing Shields using our lower tech grades. The Shields basically have to be overpowered and optimized to the Tekron weaponry defaults, and render them pretty vulnerable to more conventional attacks as a result.”

The Dukes and Admirals groaned despite themselves.

“That being said,” Briggs smiled nastily, “such an optimized ship can be devastating against the Tekrons. We have plans drawn up, and are starting to develop the associated tech and run it through simulations. We can potentially make a vessel capable of knocking out a Tekron Cemetery-class ship.”

That impressed everyone. An entire fleet of Imperial vessels might not be able to do such a thing.

“The real trick is making ammunition that is usable by other vessels against them,” I supplied. “Such ammunition is naturally going to be of little use against any other opponent, but a standard ship of the line can at least carry some in their arsenals, and if working together, take out smaller Tekron ships.”

“That sounds interesting!” Admiral Colos piped up, eyes shining with eagerness to pummel the foe. “Let’s hear about that!”

Briggs broke in as the holos between us shifted with some technical terms and field displays. “Tekron Shields are the most advanced known, and the Necrodermite Plating on their hulls has the staying power of grav-treated hardened Adamantium, the ablative power of a Goblin Fire Hull, the superconductivity of an Elvar crystal hull, and the regenerative capability of a Xenos Mothership.” Everyone sighed at that. “Their power systems are based on the deaths of stars, from what we can tell, so they always have enough juice... it’s a full TL 20 power source, equal to multiple zero-point energy systems, or a dreadnought carrying nothing but power systems.” Everyone winced again.

“The Tekron Shields come in three layers. The first is a Phase Shield, which sends incoming matter and energy into another reality, like dropping rocks into a pond. It costs a lot of power, and so there is a limit to what they can transfer, but it is one hundred percent effective if they have the juice. This is the shield that makes them so damn hard to kill.

“The second layer is a void-shield with greater energy offset than a standard imperial dreadnought. So, you first have to get through a defense that requires the firepower of a fleet to overload the spatial shifting, then pound through an energy-transfer shield stronger than the strongest ship of the line of the Fleet.

“The third layer is the standard deflector shield which stops fast moving matter cold, and which can be easily penetrated only by similarly shielded ammunition.

“Then you get down to the hull, which is basically meters of necroically-reinforced superconducting ablative armor. Punching a hole in the ship after it has dispersed 95% of the impact throughout the entire hull is difficult, to say the least, and then the stuff starts regrowing. What records we found indicate that a new ten-meter hole in a hull can regrow itself in under ten minutes, and might be faster if the ship focuses power on it... which they do, once their shields are down.”

“Ghastly stuff.” Eyes roved over information of energy amounts, battle recordings, analysis, specs, and other details. “And the damn thing goes inertialess and just runs away unless penned in on all sides,” Admiral Colos swore. No man in the Fleet wanted to go up against the Tekrons. It was a death sentence all the way around.

And we hadn’t even gotten to the weapons!

“Getting through the shields requires a combination of Interdiction, psychic shearing, and deflector counter-shielding be placed on the ammunition,” Briggs went on. “I don’t think I have to tell you how expensive such ammunition is, especially if you don’t have a Null Psion gunnery crew who can Sun Shot it. Its casing has to be hardened adamantium, with a payload sheathing of vivic energy powered by a five-hundred-point Capapsitor blowing the way forwards for an anti-proton payload.

“It can only be fired from a rail gun of sufficient size, as if you use a missile the drive system will detonate as soon as it hits the Wraith field of the ship.” The black-green negative lightning system that was part of the Tekrons’ inertialess drive and power system rippled around all their vessels, and played havoc with any kind of electronics that came close to the ship, making runs with starfighters perilous in the extreme.

Yep, nobody liked Tekrons.

“The vivic energy will immediately devour and counter the necroic energy powering the ship, hampering all ablative, superconductive, and regenerative functions. The antimatter payload will naturally eliminate the matter that touches it and convert it to a maximal amount of pure energy, yielding the highest amount of damage in the localized area while the vivus reduces the amount ablated and conducted away.

“If the vivus sheathing hits the power core of the ship, that is an instant kill. However, all scenarios paint that as almost impossible for an initial shot. Each successive shot basically blows the vivus further through the interior of the ship, until it reaches system collapse, hits the core, and blows the vessel and all aboard apart.”

“They won’t phase out?” Duke Parablum asked, interested.

“Not once the vivus is working on them, no. It powers a local Interdiction effect, and will also completely foil their ghost-transfer protocols. Any Tekron splashed by vivus isn’t going to be downloaded anywhere else,” Briggs affirmed. “Vivus consumes the necrus and eliminates the waves and energy signatures as the energy is converted. They are well and truly wiped.”

“That’s why you spread knowledge of it as far as you could...” the Coronal Duke nodded. “When the Tekrons deduce that effect, they are going to try to stomp it out if at all possible.”

“They won’t know until it is used against them, and they will first attempt to make a counter. The key is to spread knowledge of it as far and wide as possible. If they’ve truly been doing galactic purges, this is going to be their worst one ever,” I agreed.

“And if they attempt to flee?” There was basically no way to keep up with a truly inertialess drive.

“Super-tractors. An intertialess ship literally cannot get away from them.” The plans of the upgraded tractor beams spun out before them. The basic tech hadn’t been touched for millennia. “The Tekrons can shear a normal tractor, so it has to be reinforced and upgraded, preferably with psionics. Once they are, they can hold any Tekron ship in place until the Tekrons develop super-shears of their own.”

“Upgraded tractors is something that could be placed on ships of the line,” Admiral Colos pointed out, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Briggs smiled cheerfully. “Standard tractor tech is at TL 10 for ships of the line and hasn’t been changed since before the Empire was founded, because there has been no need. But now we’ve a combat application for it...”