Phaethon: the Cattle pens

Outside it slowly began to rain, rivers of crimson slowly began to flow twoards a small brook behind the slaughterhouse turning it into a foaming pink. The price they had paid was tremendous, out of fifty thousand original prisoners only twenty thousand remained. But they had taken the camp.

The Hyperion's detonation had shaken the very earth when she died, but for the humans in the cattle pens, she had one last, even greater gift in the form of a massive electromagnetic pulse. The Ruk's weapons had been hardened against such things of course, and one on a conventional tactical scale would have had no effect, Hyperion's detonation was not on such a small scale. It was the equivalent of more than two Tzar bomba's worth of fusion energy, weapons that themselves were of a such a scale that there was little strategic reason to construct more, indeed it had been argued, that a weapon with such a yield was inefficient or unnecessary, after all why use one gigantic weapon when you can employ multiple smaller, more compact and efficient devices to strike multiple targets? What race would be so willing to throw their resources away for a weapon that's only practical application was as a massive stick to wave?

Thus, weapons and electronic equipment rated for an electromagnetic pulse of up to a megaton were laughably outclassed by the one hundred and fifteen megaton EMP. The Ruk guards were outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded by a vast hoard of angry humans whom they had recently been attempting to eat. Their request for surrender was flatly rejected, and their heads now sat upon pikes made from their own horns.

The human resistance had then claimed their former slaughterhouse as a base of operations and set about planning how to wage a war with no supply lines, external support, almost no proper military training and enemy orbital superiority.

"We can't win with those ships in orbit, as long as they're there we can't take ground, can't establish any non mobile bases-" Hank Cartwright began.

"that never stopped the Taliban did it? back during the old US war on terror we OWNED the sky, totally and completely. They were under some of the same restrictions as we were now." Major Waters shot back.

"And they worked around them yes, but the US at least somewhat tried to avoid civilian casualties... and I mean its not like they were exactly lacking external support." Hank replied.

"Among other problems is getting enough fricking food to keep us all fed, if we don't eat then we're all dead." Mark Young interceded. "We'll figure out how to kill them all later, I say first we figure out the whole food, water, shelter situation yea?"

"We also need to figure out what's going on out there, that nuke fried all our communications equipment... well all of it that the beetles didn't slag first." Major Waters agreed sighing quietly.

"Speaking of moving... well shouldn't we? We're concentrated in a rather tight formation, and I'd prefer to remain un-atomized." A fourth member of the circle, Franklin Pierce asked quietly.

"He's right," Cartwright said nodding in agreement. "We'll split the camp and move out, that way they can't get all of us at once."

"Divide the camp by four? sounds good, that leaves each of us with what, around seven thousand five hundred people... right?" Young said nodding.

"Right... each of us heads in a cardinal direction, north, west, south, and east. We'll be able to keep in touch once we make contact with any local survivors hopefully. Major Waters said before biting her lip. "With a blast that big, Hyperion is probably just gone, and the radiation left behind will be lethal to any of us, so we really should seer clear of that area."

"Suppose I'll head south towards Sundance." Pierce said with a smile. "I know some people there."

"I'll take the east Route, probably swing by Charleston." Cartwright said stroking his beard in thought.

"I'll go west, hit up the mining downs around the Takahashi mountain range." Young said scratching his head.

"That leaves me to go north then... I think I can swing by Eddleton..." the Major said.

Chanthem system: Galatine station

"We can't just leave those colonists down there damn it! We both swore an oath to protect them!" the angry marine major said slamming her fist down on an antique wooden desk.

"I told you already I don't have the assets to spare, that one engagement cost me a third of my fleets operational ships for almost a month!" The Admiral retorted. "We just don't have the resources, hell, forget ships I don't have the MEN for this, I don't have the crews! do you realize that you now have more marines under your command than I have SAILORS at this point?"

The marine Major hung her head. "We can't just leave them... Damn it Jerry, you know we can't."

"Its killing me, too I know, and If I thought it would do a lick of good I'd throw my flagship straight into the fight but unless you know where I can find... more... sailors..." The admiral slowly turned to look at the marine Major appraisingly.

"Jerry... why are you giving me that look...?" Major Pendleton asked nervously.

"Major... your men are all trained in boarding actions right...? I mean its a major part of their jobs..." the admiral said slowly.

"Yes... why?" She asked with a puzzled look on her face.

"And that entails intimate familiarization with the internal workings of naval vessels correct?" The admiral asked getting a gleeful light in his eyes.

"Well erm... yes..." Major Pendleton said, she had a feeling about where this was going.

"Why thank you Major Pendleton... I think you've given me an idea... and a use for those crayon eaters of yours..." Admiral Jerry C Fletcher said grinning viciously, his white teeth contrasting against his dark skin.

Major Pendleton began to have a sinking feeling in her gut, the last time she had seen Admiral Fletcher with that kind of evil look in his eyes it had resulted in the creation of the MK-1 orbital assault pod.

"can't man any of the older ships, that means they'll be on the newer ones, those have inbuilt familiarization protocols... If we were at war I could unlock the shipboard Ai..." The Admiral was slowly getting into his planning phase, Major Pendleton knew better than to disturb him now. She left the briefing room and headed down towards the officers mess... she really needed a drink.

"Gawain?" The Admiral called out to the ceiling after his colleague was gone.

"Yes Admiral Fletcher, how may I be of assistance?" The AI asked.

"How fast can you repair the battle damage on the ships that just came back from Phaeton?" The admiral asked steepling his fingers. "If I did a full military unlock, authorized you to cut them ahead of everything, the whole nine yards. How long would it take to get them back to call it... seventy percent combat effectiveness?"

The Ai paused for a moment and crunched the numbers.

"The Vigil is already almost above this threshold, I could bring her back to eighty percent combat effectiveness within ten hours perhaps if you gave me a full unlock, including exclusive access to the drydocks primary nano forge... the frigates Freeman and Firefly are both about twenty hours in a dry dock each if you just want to bring them up to short term readiness... although long term readiness will suffer since the repairs will be rushed..." the AI said as they ran simulations. Violent will take almost two days, her frame has some major indentations and large quantities of what I would term to be for lack of a better phrase, nerve damage..." The AI continued.

"And Veracity?" The Admiral asked. "What about her?"

"Repairing her up to even just fifty percent combat effectiveness would take over a month." The Ai said shaking their digital head. "for the foreseeable future, she's dead."

"any way I could speed the repairs for Freeman or Firefly?" The admiral asked quickly, "We could use them online faster than that if you can do so.

The AI shook their heads. "even with a full unlock, the damage they sustained was extensive, rushing them any more than I would be doing already is asking for a disaster."

"How fast could we retrain someone already experienced in ship systems into a sailor? nothing fancy, something like damage control, short term maintenance personnel, hell... I don't think I really need to keep cooks aboard..." He said beginning to ramble.

"For minor jobs, if they're already familiar with the systems, retraining could be done relatively quickly, call it two weeks...?" The AI said hesitantly.

"Damn... We don't really have two weeks, I'm already down to skeleton crews..."

"Well, there is another option if your biggest issue is manpower." Gawain said hesitantly.

"and what's that?" The admiral asked looking up from his hands. "what's the silver bullet for this?"

The AI's emerald green avatar smiled and told him, and the Admiral began to stroke his chin in thought.

Chanthem system: TUSS Vigil

Vigil slid elegantly into the docking cradle of the massive nanoforge, slowly firing her deceleration thrusters as the cruiser came to a stop, dozens of internal automated systems controlling the ship with the cold precision only a machine can hope to obtain. The nano forge's massive twin carbon fiber blast doors slammed shut behind the cruiser as lasers swept her hull and a program pulled her damage logs.

Slowly, like a rising tide of oil, the nano machines swarmed the venerable warships hull, coating her hull in a layer of autonomus repair drones that set to work fixing the small things as titanic fusion cutters began to hack off and replace damaged sections of her hull. They had a lot of work to do.

Next to Vigil in a smaller dry dock, Firefly was undergoing a similar treatment as her marred hull was slowly put back together and the modern frigate was restored to her former glory.

Ruk Space

Tajas system: Ruk cruiser Nanbo

Trajas was an expiditionary world of the Ruk Imperium, from worlds such as these fleets were launched in order to scour the stars to find new colonies, new allies, subjects, or other trade goods trade goods. Many plied the trade routes here as Tajas was always in need of many things,ranging from food, to fuel, to arms and other more... exotic wares. Tajas was also a hub for another reason, she was a fortress in her own right, she served as the front line and outermost layer of the Ruk's concentric rings of defense, expected to either crush any excursion into Ruk space or stall them for long enough to prepare a proper war host to defeat their foe on the field of battle. To that end the world boasted dozens of defense platforms and combat satellites, as well as her own fleet of defensive warships.

The Nanbo slipped out of demispace inside of the system with nary a whisper, and quietly hailed the planetary network. After receiving their return transmission Battlemaster Thars Krast nervously wrung his forelimbs before accepting the conference request.

"Greetings battlemaster, and glory to your name." The worldmaster said, opening with the traditional greeting of one of Thars's rank.

"Hail worldmaster, may your prosperity be unending." The Ruk Battlemaster replied back.

"I see in your report you have found a potential colony world, one with multiple stockade species no less, this is to be commended!" The governor said with a twitch of his carapace.

"Yes Worldmaster, they put up quite the battle, but we now control what I belive to be their homeworld." The battlemaster said, a lie, but one that was currently impossible to prove.

"Quite the battle indeed battlemaster, you must have taken a mighty blow indeed to have lost thirty of the Imperiums warships... as old as they were..."

"Indeed Worldmaster, they had a fleet and defense station in orbit." Again technically not untrue, all he was leaving out was when.

"and how many ships were in this grand armada of theirs?" The worldmaster asked, clacking his mandibles together.

"As voidmaster commanded the beginning of the engagement I do not know their initial numbers, however when I took charge there were at least three cruiser class vessels and what showed up on sensors as two dozen frigate or destroyer class." Battlemaster stayed perfectly still, hoping that he would not give anything away.

"and you took command of the fleet from voidmaster because...?" The worldmaster asked looking at the Battlemaster.

"Because he had lost thirty of the Imperiums ships of course worldmaster." Battlemaster would have felt bad about this, but he'd never really cared much for voidmaster, they had always acted like they were better than him... serves his imperius ass right. Battlemaster thought to themselves.

"interesting... well this report does look interesting, I shall read it over, in full, soon battlemaster. for now, enjoy your time back in the Imperium, who knows when you shall return next?" The worldmaster's voice was honed like an edge. He knew, he definitely knew... something anyway battlemaster fervently hoped that he did not know everything.

Worldmaster Thass Brack shook their head at the holo communicator. These young ones always thought that they could trick their elders, it was so pathetic it was almost insulting. Thass Brack had served in the Imperial navy for the first thirty years of his life before he had been made a worldmaster, during his time in the navy he had met many types of Ruk, and this one was not an incompetent, he was certain of that, and neither was his voidmaster... that was shown in the second report that had been transmitted... and the the numbers on that report did not add up, if it was truthful then this looked like an unmitigated military disaster. that one had been signed by the battlemasters underling, his voidmaster... but it made him look even worse... one of the two was lying and he doubted it was the voidmaster... you could trust family after all, even if they were distant cousins.

"What are you hiding hatchling..." The worldmaster wondered aloud to themselves, "what secrets do you keep..."

Joyeuse station: Solace system

Solace was a small recently developed border world on the edge of human space, she had a small naval garrison, but her primary defense was the battle station "Joyeuse", she was cheaper to produce than spacecraft and had dozens of economic benefits as well, varying from acting as a small orbital dockyard to a trade hub, and right now her sensors were screaming that there were unscheduled demispace breaches in the area.

"What in the hell is that...?" asked the stations commander. as he stared at the oncoming armada

"Fuck if I know..." the sensory tech said as trade vessels scattered and fled the system from the oncoming craft "whatever it is though, it sort of matches the general description of what got the Columbus over in Phaethon..."

"Well what the hell are you waiting for then, SHOOT IT!" The Commander ordered.