January 28, 2106 (military calendar)Iv'Lux(transted) 1, 1(Tukyarid calendar)Spero UER Behemoth While I would have rather had the Edge of Discovery complete its mission without incident this kills two birds. The drive has been shown to work even on a damaged ship and now we have a personal reason to attack these spiders.
I gnce down at an antique watch on my wrist. I have a briefing with General Rex soon. But first I need Sif to clear some things up.
“So they disregarded all the data we slipped them and invented a completely new form of FTL” I ask her. She nods “You were right to put them on it. From having Ayre test it skims just above the old iteration”
I raise an eyebrow as she continues “So far as much as she tried to break through it was impossible with this drive we had legion help to speed up the tests. The speed should be able to be improved but is satisfactory at the moment”
There is a long pause. Not long by normal standards but when you can live entire lifetimes in a breath really any pause is a long one. “The one worrying part is the manual adjustments that are sometimes required. We were able to automate it but it’s not feasible with current technology”
I nod then ask a harder question “What are your war predictions” A faint smile tugs at her lips “Why not ask war herself” I chuckle “Oh I will but you’ve been fighting wars longer than her”
Bliss has trouble predicting entire wars before they start but once they do start you’d think she came from the future with how precise she can be.
“Hmm let’s see, technology is even-ish, they certainly have way more bodies to throw at us. No knowledge of where their pnets are. It’ll be a slugfest and as with all things it’ll come down to training, logistics, and tactics”
The triangle of our military without one it completely colpses. Without tactics, no amount of bullets will win you a war Simirly tactics mean nothing without men competent enough to perform the maneuvers.
I sigh “you're probably right… unfortunately. Though I didn’t expect a magic bullet either” I switch gears “Alright how are the sentinels” While publicly a part of the republic no one really knows what they do most assume a special hit squad that is only slightly correct.
“I’m doing the usual, Bear is at the orphanages, Varian should be embedded in Misriah, Ace is finding me a bck dwarf, Fey is in the Sol Oort Cloud watching our visitors, Sherman is checking on something in R’lyeh, Berk is on ice and you know were Kel is the rest are busy elsewhere”
I nod not bothering to try and get her to tell me where they all are. I honestly don’t care if they are on a secret project or just a vacation because they earned the tter.
“Will the retrofitting be completed on schedule I'd prefer to keep the initiative” Sif nods “The 104th and their requested additions are right on schedule and the new ‘siege ships’ will also be complete so they can deploy in full force”
I was hoping for a longer reprieve from war so we could rebuild our popution and be on better footing all around but the universe won’t wait for us to be ready it’s up to us to turn a shit situation into a good one.
KheksOnboard the onagerThese humans are more terrifying than I initially imagined. I was conversing with one of the men assigned to my safety while he was maintaining his armor.
During this, I discovered it weighed more than him and provided him with a lot more than just protection from projectiles.
I asked for him to eborate but he refused saying ‘I’m not sure what we’re allowed to tell you at the moment’ which once he expined what he meant I agreed with the decision.
They have weaponized knowledge. My spices even when we did fight amongst hives never used knowledge as a weapon.
Another thing I noticed while talking to this human is there seemed to be some kind of pain he carried with him. I don’t think it’s recent but I’m trying to gauge the emotions of another species.
I’m thinking about asking him and should he become offended I can just state I’m ignorant of human emotion. Before I can his leader and another walk in.
“Jed enjoying our guest's company I see” Griffin excimed. Their arrival draws my attention to what I feel is a more important question. I click my mandibles “Excuse me but I’d like to inquire about your metallic limbs”
The humans all seem taken aback. Griffin after a few moments lifts and drops his shoulders “Uh sure what exactly is your question” I tilt my head side to side as I think of what exactly I’m asking.
“Why do some of you have them while others don’t” The first human I was talking with Jed snorts before Griffin sits somewhere and begins to expin.
“That’s both easy and hard to expin so I’ll start easy. Some of us have metal limbs because we lost the original one while fighting so we repced them”
“As for the hard expnation rabbit are you fine telling him what happened to you” The one called rabbit also lifts and drops his shoulders then speaks “It was our first combat deployment into another country. We were a strike team sent to find and capture this country’s leader”
“Along the way, a tank broke through a wall and crushed my legs. Griffin had to cut them off before more damage was done by the tank while wraith and Brick secured the tank”
I gnce at his strange-looking leg’s trying to picture one of those gigantic metallic hulks on top and grinding his legs and it makes me shudder.
Griffin clears his throat “Mine wasn’t much better. It was a few years ter and we were called in to stop an invasion which we did with just our squad but the invading forces took offense to that”
“They then unched their entire nuclear arsenal at our ally whom we defended and one nded near us. I shielded the leader but a piece of shrapnel I think it was a car door or something of that size came out of the sky and ripped through tearing off my arm”
I stare at them absolutely dumbfounded. My people's medical care I feel is quite advanced. I mean we can perform slightly invasive surgeries. That said I couldn’t fathom surviving through either of those situations.
Having seen the others on this ship I know it’s more common than I’d feel comfortable with. These metallic limbs speak of a brutal and violent history.
“Alright enough about us, you said you were the only one with weapons training so let’s go train” Griffin states. They led me to the armory where I found racks of weapons ammo and other gear along with what they call firing nes.
KlicksTukyarI scamper through the dark damp and cramped abandoned maintenance tunnels taking random turns to lose any would-be pursuers.
After several hours in the tunnels, I emerge in a cavern. It’s nothing grand just enough space for some storage, some cramped sleeping space, and the hive queen.
With few exceptions, all of our weapons are guarding her. Even me who leaves to check on radio broadcasts can’t use one.
I head straight for the queen, one who was raised in secret to guide our resistance. My fellows part before me because they can sense that I have important news today.
The queen named Bellum, her choice after reading through the data I retrieved on the humans prior to its destruction. Her chosen name is just the first of many oddities about her.
I stop in front of the queen and wait twitching slightly in anticipation. “Klicks your back what news do you bring,” Queen Bellum asks.
I straightened up “I was able to intercept some messages. In these messages, an unidentified vessel appears in a frontier system and was supposedly destroyed”
“Having found the recording of the event I believe the ship was not destroyed but used an unknown means to leave the system entirely”
The queen clicks her mandibles in thought then asks “What do you make of the whole event” I ruffle my wings “I believe it may have been the humans. The message I sent would have been received by Officer Kheks recently so either he succeeded in making contact or was destroyed and the humans are investigating his ship and its origin”
The queen bobs her head “I see then we shall prepare for their arrival and assist however we can. Let the hives know that our waiting is about to come to an end”
ColeBridge of the Onager I think this is the tenth time I’m reviewing the Edge of Discovery’s bck box. Trying to glean any information I can from the ships in the footage and the damage done to the ship.
It looks like kinetic weapons and magnetically unched missiles. I send the tter to the office of Naval Intelligence to mess around with.
Faster missiles are always better when traveling thousands of miles to the target. Once the clip I need ends I turn off my monitor and pinch my nose.
We fought with less information before and won. All we can do is pray to the mad general's gods and hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
My comm beeps and it seems Tanya wants to finally pn the invasion. I stand up and make sure my uniform is perfect and leave for the bridge.
There I find her colonels and the strange insect alien along with Tanya herself. On the tables screen, I recognize the scans from the discovery.
Scans of the somewhat habitable pnet to be specific. “Cole hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” she says as I walk over.
I shake my head “Not at all. I see you started without me what have we come up with so far” she points to several locations on the pnet.
“These are believed to be major popution centers” she points to several others “and here possibly spaceports. I’d like to avoid shelling the cities from orbit but I want these ports intact”
I nod “Need is more like it will dramatically increase the amount of resources we can drop to you” She nods “Exactly so here’s the rough pn. You get us orbital supremacy over one, we drop the 104th and secure it then the liquidators and devil dogs follow us and you make sure we have a ride home with a sprinkle of orbital strikes as we need them”
I smile “You save all the hard jobs for us don’t you” She rolls her eyes “While I’m not pnning on an easy fight it’ll probably be the easiest we’ll get because we won’t get the element of surprise after this”
I nod “They might suspect there is another species around now but I doubt they know much else besides that”
Fifteen frigates eight destroyers five cruisers two battleships and the onager are all that compose the fleet. The liquidators will be on the Moscow and the devil dogs will be on the roadhouse.
Each will have three dedicated frigates and a cruiser. The devil dog’s squadron names are interesting having the roadhouse for the siege ship, the cruiser is buc-ees. The frigates are Bass Pro, phalcius, and the Hound. Typically American. one decent name the rest are absurd.
The liquidator's squadron has a little more sense. The Moscow is their siege ship. Their cruiser is the Pripyat. Their frigates are the Baba Yaga, the Rex, and the osowiec.
Overall an impressive force. One with the ability to easily operate flexibly. Along with the peculiar names the devil dogs have requested white accents to their ships and the liquidators red. It actually looks really nice. It also provides a visual for each part of the fleet.
Looking at the map of both the system and the pnet I see the usual hiding spots for ships. We’ll try to avoid those. My biggest concern is having a hostile fleet engage us while in the pnet's gravitational field.
It’ll be like fighting with our backs to the wall and dramatically reduce our mobility. The worst case is while we are undergoing nding operations.
I look at Tanya “Once all troops are loaded we can do final checks and engage our drives to the system. You can do any fine tuning you want on your side in route”
She nods and our meeting is finished.
About a week ter the fleet and all sun squadrons have run final checks and as one our Shaw-Fujikawa engines linked to the onagers computers spool up and in a fsh, the fleet has left sol and is slipping between dimensions.