Chapter 035: Approach

Capital ships are the largest conventional category of star ships out there. Unlike cruisers with their versatility and destroyers with their support, capital ships are a pure manifestation of brute force. They are massive, they have incredibly resistant defense and the heaviest weaponry available on starships.

This is done at the expense of cost-efficiency. Capital ships are incredibly expensive, both in construction and in maintenance. Large crews, massive fuel expenditure and so on require a significant amount of logistic support. They do the large battles and garrison the important worlds - but otherwise, they are rarely moved around.

There are three main types of capital ships. The first one (the light battleships) includes various small and more dedicated classes (like early battleships, pocket battleships and fast battleships) that have tonnage up to about ten million tonnes, up to one kilometer of length, two hundred forty meters of height and four hundred fifty meters of width (with the crew approaching four thousand members).

Then are regular battleships: twenty million tonnes, close to two kilometers of length, two-hundred fifty of height and six hundred of width, with seven to eight thousand crewmembers. The last category is the dreadnoughts (sometimes called superbattleships), with up to thirty-five million tonnes, four kilometres of length, four hundred meters of height and eight hundred of width, crewed by up to fifteen thousand people.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 9, Page 757

***

Tyra-III, 4km away from Echelon Base

19:15 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

“So, it’s time for the really important question.” Ryan interrupted the silence. Christopher didn’t need to use his meta-empathy to understand that the engineer was trying to dismantle the tension. “Five, how did your date end?”

They were proceeding towards the Echelon base in two IFVs, which were a part of a larger convoy. They could see it quite well, together with the desolate landscape full of massive craters left by the bombardment. There were tanks and other vehicles behind and in front of them.

The Seekers’ counterattack had already been repelled a while ago, and they were currently proceeding through the battle site. Remnants of it were still visible. Ryan asked his question right as they were passing by an abandoned Seekers tank. Its sleek, futuristic aesthetics were ruined by a large hole in the side armor, just underneath its turret.

If not for the counterattack, Christopher would feel free to say that their own bombardment was the main source of delays. Going around the messed up ruin of a plain was a massive waste of time.

The fact that something like seventy-five percent of the wrecks they were passing by were from their side was anything but optimistic. Thankfully, they had numerical superiority. And the majority of the casualties were drone-tanks. Then again, they still lost some of the crewmembers, while the opposite force had nothing but drones (though ones run by sophisticated AIs). So they still lost more people.

“Not answering.” Rukh replied briefly. He was in the second IFV - Christopher, Tiriel and Ryan were in the first one, while Nekia, Rukh, Tendrik and Kivanna were in the second one. Tiriel and Kivanna were driving, while Christopher and Rukh were using the implants to operate their vehicles’ main weapons - 45mm MAWs.

Pretty much peashooters against anything from medium tank up, but could make large holes in infantry and light vehicles.

“Come on, don’t be shy. We’re dying of curiosity!” Ryan decided to keep digging - he probably felt safe due to being in another vehicle than the team’s bad wolf. And because Colonel Nowak was something like five kilometres away.

“No.” Rukh refused again.

Christopher decided that either Colonel Nowak punished his insolence so much that the wolfman was now ashamed of speaking about it (or she simply swept the floor with him so badly) or the date actually ended with Rukh’s success. Not enough for a marriage, but enough for Rukh not wanting to tell anyone the spicy details.

He decided to keep his imagination away from that particular field. He really didn’t want to know. He would have distracted himself by imagining something pleasant, but it was still a battlefield. Even if safe for now.

“Seven, do us all a favour and let Five focus on work.” Christopher decided to act as a team leader.

They might have been inside a large infantry fighting vehicle, but future engines were very silent. There were also external microphones connected with the inside, set to filter the sounds of the vehicle itself but to leave the rest as they were. The atmosphere was thin, but the real problem with colonizing the world was its toxicity. It was thick enough for the sounds to spread. So they could easily hear the rumble.

Several missiles were launched in the distance, going straight up. A few blinding flashes of light later they were gone. A suitable background image for Christopher’s first war.

Ground-to-orbit missiles. The Seekers had fired most of them when the fleet got close and started bombarding the approaches to the base. Then some more when the landing started, but these got shot down by the fleet as well. They were still trying, but at this point the attackers had several AA lasers spread in the vicinity, just enough to shoot them down.

A few hundred defenders meant a really small base. The fortress on Vigilance that held transhumans for twenty-two months was built with a similar general design in mind, but had five million defenders - and the ground-to-orbit arsenal that forced the transhuman fleet to keep their distance until the last days of the siege. Ships were small, bases were large - the attackers could overwhelm the defenders long enough to land their forces, but if they stayed up there for too long, they would simply run out of defensive measures much faster than the planet’s defenders would run out of missiles.

The Seekers’ base was on its knees. They didn’t have enough firepower to deter the Echo and its small fleet from staying on the orbit. Keller could just obliterate the entire base from orbit, if he wanted. It was a crime worthy of being blacklisted if the bombed site’s owner belonged to the Confederation and civilians died, but nobody cared about the Seekers. The real issue was the data.

The leading tank stopped. Lith Athalia jumped off it. He had been sitting on the tank’s barrel (a 105mm MAW) for the last one hour - it was incredibly suicidal if the tank fired, but he didn’t seem to care.

The entire convoy came to a halt, one vehicle at the time. Some in the line, others turned at the last moment and stopped to the side of their invisible road.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen.” Christopher did his best to appear calm. “I think we’re going to be on foot from now on.”

***

Tyra-III, 1km away from Echelon Base

22:27 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

The biggest part of the base was a tower. A hundred meters high and thirty meters wide column of reinforced thermoset ceramics, with an array of heavy artillery installed on top of it. When the cannons opened fire, Christopher and his team had a moment of cowardice - even Rukh didn’t complain when the team leader told him to stick his head from the crevice.

It was only a delay. After three minutes of artillery bombardment the drone-tanks and some larger self-propelled guns knocked out the last of the guns, though a dozen vehicles died in that struggle. This cleared the approach, letting them get closer unopposed, at least until the machine guns and snipers opened fire from a number of hidden holes in the construction.

There were smaller constructions scattered around the area, but the majority of the complex was underground. There were also some fortifications scattered around the perimeter, but the Seekers decided to not garrison them, probably once they discovered how many enemies were out there. Instead, they left traps.

Christopher, Ryan and Rukh almost died when one of the traps exploded. They survived because Christopher noticed the somewhat M18 Claymore-like mine quickly enough and expended most of his telekinesis to make the shrapnels fly up in the air instead of shredding them into pieces. Some of the other teams had less luck.

The friendly artillery opened fire, focusing their attention on the tower. Every few seconds another large calibre MAW hit it, tearing a gaping hole in its titanic walls. Some of the holes bled, a sign of many people dying in the hit. With their own artillery dead, the defenders couldn’t keep the self-propelled siege guns from approaching into the range where they could penetrate the tower’s wall.

Athalia picked the perfect moment for the artillery to open fire. It happened merely a few seconds after the attackers entered the machine gun range. Numerous hidden emplacements in the walls of the towers spat fire towards the attackers betraying their position, only to get silenced almost immediately.

It broke the external defences. There were still some surviving snipers firing at the attackers from the tower, and some gunfire from the buildings, but it wasn’t enough to slow the attack down.

After the five longest minutes of his life, Christopher got to one of the entrances, threw out the large shield that had kept him alive during the approach, and entered the base. His team followed him in.

***

Reinhard Heydrich, Command Deck

22:27 24.07.2610 STT

Rear Admiral Gunther Koll

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like a lot of things ever since he abandoned the Kriegsmarine and the Reich’s weakling fuhrer, of course. But right now he was showered with things that made him irritated.

He destroyed the Seekers’ fleet in the system. They fought ferociously, making him suspect that they were hiding something interesting in that world. Of course, it turned out to be the other option. One more frustrating deception, that the Seekers were so adept with.

His soldiers were finishing off the last pockets of resistance in the Seekers’ base when another group arrived in the system. A ragtag bunch of ships, nothing larger than a cruiser. He didn’t need to cross-reference with the data from the captured native vessel to know that it was the Explorers’ Guild.

They should have fled immediately, but instead they hurried towards the third planet, currently on the opposite side of the local sun. He understood immediately when they began deccelerating.

There was another Seekers base in the system, one much more hidden. Or the entire fleet was actually controlled by the Corporation, and this was one more ruse. They were so slippery that it was an option. But if it was the former, then he was sure that he wanted what was in that base.

His fleet departed immediately towards the third world, but unless the Seekers were going to stall the attacks for at least two days, the chances of catching up were looking pretty grim. He was thinking of rushing his battlecruisers forward, but it would be a risky move. If he lost them, then the four powers of the sector could actually become a pain in the ass.

If they pooled their fleets together, then their battlecruisers would give them an advantage over his fleet in any faster engagement, especially the convoy raiding. His battleships would trash through everything they had, but he had to be wary of his logistics. And these could be cut short without the battlecruisers to guard the supply convoys.

“Warlord, I have finished the analysis.” He was observing the display when another source of irritation decided to make its presence known. A humanoid approached him from behind and decided to ruin his day.

There was no actual person in the room, beside himself. It was a liaison from those abominable machines. The majority of the Budapest crew were Mechanists, but the liaison himself was a Virtual.

Of course, the avatar that it manifested under had to be a Variant. A cathuman. The Virtual knew of the Rear Admiral’s opinion on those things - it was identical to the one dominant in the Reich, after all. The only difference between Koll and his former compatriots was the approach to the inhabitants of the Reich, and their stark lack of interest in what the Hakenkreuz wanted when he began building their country.

“It’s Rear Admiral.” Koll replied briefly, and as coldly as possible.

“Excuse me?” The abomination bent its head a bit and squinted its inhuman eyes.

“I am not a warlord.” He was one, according to the customs of the Discord. He had his personal armed forces, including a capital ship. This made him a warlord. Almost strong enough to become part of the Council. But he spat on those customs. This was still the Navy, even if it had only a few ships. And not some barbarian warband. “I am a Rear Admiral. Remember that, or I’ll have your hard drive dropped into the local star.” The Virtual shrugged.

Many other warlords expected others to use non-standard titles while referring to them, so the Virtual was used to that. Using a military rank was relatively tame. Koll knew one that wanted his warriors and slaves to call him a god.

“What did you find?” The Rear Admiral asked after a short silence. He refused to learn its name. He was deeply disgusted by its very existence. It was merely a ‘Virtual’ to him.

“We have data about the forces in the system.” The Virtual answered. “These ships are the entire local detachment of the Guild. Originally held by Rear Admiral Hao Yunqi, recruited into the Seekers’ service more than a decade ago. If the Seekers’ plan whose bits we’ve secured are correct, Hao is dead by now and his fleets in the hands of Captain Alexander Keller.” Koll had never heard about that man.

“Anyone important?” The Rear Admiral asked. A bunch of cruisers couldn’t do a thing to his battleship in a direct battle - but they could cause a lot of pain to his supply route.

“Actually, yes.” Virtual nodded. “He is an expert tactician, with a long list of successes on his account. It seems that when he attacked Rear Admiral Hao, he destroyed a heavy cruiser while capturing one more, two light cruisers and an armed supply ship, despite having only one heavy cruiser.” They had lost one light cruiser somewhere in the meantime, judging from the picture on the display. And gained one heavy cruiser, apparently from the Seekers.

“So, a worthy opponent.” Koll was already looking forward to that. He regretted the fact that the enemy didn’t have more ships. The Rear Admiral would have enjoyed a proper battle. Instead, Keller would probably start a long and irritating play of cat and mouse, while hitting supply convoys.

Moving even the smallest battleship anywhere was a logistical horror unless you had a country behind you. Which made it merely a logistical pain in the ass. There was a reason why Rear Admiral Koll normally left the Heydrich in the Discord when he was departing on raids.

“He is also a descendant of Frederick Keller.” Virtual continued. “Captain Akhrarh SC-17 authorized me to ask you to leave him to us. He is willing to pay handsomely if you catch him alive.”

Rear Admiral Koll resolved to do his utmost for Keller to be killed by the Heydrich. The descendant of one of the heroes of Mankind deserved to be killed by another human. Selling such a person to transhumans for scraps would be crossing a line. Koll didn’t have a lot of these left, so he was going to cherish the remaining ones.

“He seems to be extremely wealthy and knows a lot of important people.” Virtual continued. “If the character file we’ve recovered is correct, he was Colonel Wilhelm Reinhard’s last employer. He is also the Godfather of Princess Róża Dunecki’s favourite nephew. It seems that his ship’s crew rooster also includes Dunecki’s second-in-command.”

“Impressive.” Gunther Koll clapped in his hands, wondering what ‘Godfather’ even meant. Whatever it was, it truly sounded like an increasingly interesting fight. “Anyone else to be wary of?”

“Yes.” Virtual nodded. “It appears that his tactical officer was one of the Hundred Shadows.”

“Hundred Shadows?” To the Rear Admiral, this sounded like one of these incredibly cheesy titles that the Virtuals of Discord were using in their distorted AR worldbuilding.

“Ten years ago, before you joined the Discord, a large coalition of warlords carved their way through one of the currently struggling countries of the Res Publica Christiana.” Virtual said. “The Church leadership decided to retaliate and sent exactly one hundred operatives of the Society for the Eradication of False Beliefs to the Discord. They began a long streak of terrorist attacks and assassinations that lasted for almost two years. Every single warlord that took part in the operation was eliminated. Plus a lot more, often in a rather creative way.”

Rear Admiral Koll decided that after seeing the Virtual’s handiwork, he didn’t want to know what sort of killings it considered ‘creative’. Everything beyond a bullet to the head, a punch to the throat or a whiff of poison gas was a disgusting way of killing, worthy only of disgusting parodies of humans.

“We’ve managed to kill seventy-two of the Hundred, while the rest evacuated from the Discord eventually.” Virtual said. “But not before one of them managed to sneak a nuclear warhead into the emergency meeting of the Council of Woes, eliminating every single one of its sixty-seven members and close to three hundred lesser warlords attending the meeting. The analysis of the data we’ve recovered indicates with ninety-nine point two percent of probability that Keller’s tactical officer is the Shadow responsible for the massacre.”

“That Keller has a surprising penchant for knowing some truly fascinating people.” Koll said, nodding with approval. “This is going to be interesting. Probably interesting enough to use my little secret weapon.” He chuckled, seeing the Virtual’s questioning face. That thing was going to find out in a while.

“The tactical officer alone is worth seven trillion experience points.” Virtual announced. “A similar reward for the NPCs taking part, though in money, slaves and ships. If whatever you want to use has a chance to kill them, I believe that Captain Akhrarh will be most happy to help you in that.”

“Ah yes, I almost forgot how you Virtuals think that this world is just one more videogame setting, just a fairly realistic one.” Koll decided to comment. The very idea was incredibly stupid to him. It served as a good reminder of just how far the Virtuals - and transhumans - diverged into lunacy.

In his opinion, they couldn’t deny reality so much to actually believe in that. After all, destruction of their computer hubs in this particular reality killed them for real, unlike anything that happened to them in the AR. Either their roleplayed to the extreme… or lost their mind at some point. Probably both.

Being reminded of that ruined his day again. He still remembered learning about the Virtual’s culture for the first time. One thousand experience points for a killed civilian, bonus points for kills being sufficiently artistic. Which mostly meant long and painful. There was a reason why the Virtuals of Discord rarely took anyone prisoner.

He could understand points for strong enemies. Especially as the stronger they were, the more points. Everything else was just pointless and hectic sadism. Death camps that freed the Reich’s sector from its subhumans were well organized and brief in their kills. Perfect dichotomy between works of humans and of the transhumans.

He still needed that ship. But having to cooperate with those disgusting things - who were flying around on a carcass of Okonkwo’s ship - was straining his good will to its breaking point. The transhumans of the Budapest (they had their own name, of course, but he ignored that) were going to die before the return to the Discord. There was no other option, not if he wanted to be able to still face his own reflection in the mirror without disgust. And he could start by having them bleed out a little.

“Wilhelm.” He said to his tactical officer through his implant. “Power up the Claws.” If everything was going to work well, he was going to bleed both Keller and his own abominable allies alike.

***

Tyra-III, Echelon Base [Underground]

22:42 24.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher steadied his breath. Rukh stared at him intently through the glass visor. He quickly checked if everyone was in the position. Then he gave a sign.

A minuscule drone deployed by Tendrik fired a stun grenade through another set of doors, blinding most of the enemies while redirecting the attention of those unaffected. Then Rukh opened the sliding door and entered the room, opening fire immediately.

Christopher followed him. Reconnaissance was correct - six of the Endless, three of them now stunned which meant that they could wait a while. Rukh immediately shot one of the remaining Endless. Christopher followed suit. He pulled the trigger and the second of the still attentive enemies fell to the ground.

The third one dived behind the cover, but Rukh threw a grenade at him. The Endless tried to jump away, but Christopher used his telekinesis to nail the clones’ feet to the ground. The soldier shook him off, but not quickly enough to avoid shrapnel from the exploding grenade.

The stunned Endless weren’t stunned enough to stand there and let themselves get shot. They dropped to the ground. Rukh managed to shoot one of them, but the others hid and returned fire.

Christopher dived behind a conveniently placed cargo crate. He heard a sound from behind, so he quickly glanced back, only to see Tiriel hiding behind the same crate.

The rest of the team didn’t make it into the room in time. The door was rather exposed, but it’s not like those left behind didn’t participate. Ryan leaned over from behind the doorframe every now and then, firing at the hiding place of the remaining enemies.

The tactical assistant informed Christopher that Rukh was about to charge, and did so right in the middle of the Cadet’s little hyperventilation. It shook him out of it.

“Five, sit on your ass and wait.” Christopher didn’t have a plan. He had a rough gist of an idea, but it had to work. These two Endless could cause a whole lot of problems if they were given time to figure something out. And there could be reinforcements on the way. “Two, get ready to shoot the one escaping. On my mark.”

Then he focused himself on his tele-empathy, and screamed fear into the nearest of the Endless. It was the closest sensible description of the power that he found. He was far from reaching the level of power that Innocent commanded, but it should be potent enough.

It was. The Endless panicked and started running away, though not entirely in a thoughtless manner. He was using covers.

“Five, suppress the other one!” He shouted to Rukh, before raising from behind the cover and firing at the same enemy. Once the two of them kept that Endless suppressed, Christopher issued another order. “Two, now!”

Tiriel rose from the hideout as well, and pointed her rifle towards the fleeing Endless. She was the team’s sniper, and while she had little to do in close quarters combat, she was still their best shot. And the storage area was large enough for some sniping to occur.

Five seconds later her rifle fired, and the fleeing Endless tripped over and disappeared from his sight.

With only one remaining Endless it took only a short flanking maneuver before the combat was over.

“Clear.” Christopher announced, while Rukh used his pistol to finish the Endless shot by Tiriel. “Stand by.” He switched to external communication. “Sunray, this is Cat One, target eliminated. No survivors. Awaiting orders.”

“I think we are getting slightly better at that.” Tendrik announced in silence. “I mean, these guys were like soldiers, right? And we fought through them.”

“Heads in the clouds, as always.” Tiriel replied. “We had numbers, perfect reconnaissance and total surprise due to the VIP pretty much controlling their own security, and a sorcerer on our side. It would be a tough fight if not for that.” Meta-empathy had many incredibly useful tricks, such as the ability to figure out enemy placement through the walls. Not much more than placement and general state of mind, but it turned out to be a lot.

VIP apparently stood in for a ‘Very Important Priest’. The officers of the ships had the weirdest cryptonyms. Athalia took advantage of being in charge to change his own callsign from Frankenstein to Sunray.

He was also absolutely micromanaging the whole engagement, as he forbade teams from moving without his orders. Then again, this was the third successful ambush of the Recovery Team Eight, and intercepted enemy communication indicated that the Seekers’ command staff (the only truly sapient enemies in that battle) was starting to feel as if they were playing the victims in a slasher movie.

“Cut the chit-chat.” Christopher decided to cut in before they started an argument. “Shouldn’t you be... “ Suddenly the elevator at the end of the hall burst to life. “Spread out!” He shouted, before diving behind the cover.

Seventeen seconds later the elevator stopped on their floor, and the door opened. Christopher immediately understood that it was the end. He recognized a Perfect immediately. He was large, imposing, and terrifying.

Christopher was about to open fire when the Perfect slumped onto the floor, obviously dead. This revealed a petite figure in a light combat suit standing behind it. With two colourful twintails, impossible to not be recognized.

Athalia waved to them. “This is Sunray. Did you miss me, Cat One?” Christopher sighed and stood up from behind his cover. He could hear a lot of rather negative comments on the teams’ internal communication.

“Less than I expected.” He spoke for his team, in the most diplomatic way possible. Innocent walked away from the elevator right after the medic. The priest emanated stoic indignation, probably due to being the one who would have to save Athalia’s from a rain of Cats’ fire tearing apart the death trap of an elevator.

“How cold.” Athalia didn’t seem to mind the general negativity in the room. “You know, I know how to warm you up!”

If the presence of them both was any indication, they were about to head to the package location together. Right into the most unrelenting defense. Christopher cursed his luck.