Chapter 103: Paradigm-Break

Sol, Mercury, Fleet Admiral’s office

All in all, things were working. The hostile clusterfuck that was Hellhole had been terraformed via World Item and renamed “Sanctuary,” enough Dromon were willing to be relocated to hopefully prevent the Bastard from using his Capstone by “just” striking the homeworld, and no large-scale hissy fit had been thrown on parts of humanity’s civilians over the similarity between the current relocation and certain crimes against humanity found in Earth’s history.

And just two months after Sol had been attacked, not only did they have thirty monitors out in the Belt, shielding the catapult feeding material into the inner system’s industry, but the first Triumphant-class ships were undergoing space trials, months ahead of schedule due to the outpouring of unexpected support from high-Level civilian engineers.

Battleships that integrated technology from the alien race generally referred to as “the Dysons,” and the automated genocidal warships that had seemed like such a massive issue just a few scant years ago.

More powerful reactors, armor that seemed supernatural in strength even in its baseline, unenchanted form, beam weapons whose efficiency boggled the mind … as humbling as it had been to see humanity’s technological inferiority, there was nothing quite like using a beaten enemy’s machinery to haul oneself further up the proverbial tech tree.

Six brand new juggernauts, representing the best engineering mankind could muster and the indomitable human spirit.

Triumphant herself, as well as the Liu Bei, Horatio Nelson, Yi Sun-sin, Chester Nimitz, and Terra, who was to be the fleet’s new flagship, when all was said and done.

Unfortunately, newly increased technological prowess or not, certain things remained problematic.

Namely, the transport ships for the Dromon relocation. As technologically advanced as those were, they’d never been designed to handle a mostly fluorine atmosphere, and if she got one more complaint, she’d … ahem. There were issues, that was for certain, both of the engineering and cultural variety.

At least they had local help with the latter, in the form of a Dromon known as “Kiretas the All-Knowing,” the [Paragon Scholar], which apparently made him the [System]-acknowledged greatest example of this [Class]-path in the universe.

And if even half the stories about the man were true, about how he’d been born in a stone-age society, yet scratched and clawed himself all the way up to early medieval technology before first contact had even been made … then the title was more than deserved.

All in all …

Alarms blared, interrupting both her thoughts and typing, the keyboard sinking back into her desk as the walls turned into screens and showed her the cause of the ruckus.

If this is another false alert, I swear to Go- … SON OF A BITCH!

The Bastard was back. Everywhere but Sol.

Sigma Draconis, Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, Tau Ceti. All other systems in the Core. Each facing seventy-five ships. Sixty of the battleships they were already familiar with, but the remaining fifteen were something else. Same size, same shape, same general design principles, possibly even a modification of the battleship hulls.

Either their enemy really was having trouble matching the creativity of an entire civilization, or he simply wanted them to think that was the case.

And that was all Hunt saw on her office’s screen before she teleported into the actual command center.

The deck underfoot looked as solid as it was, and the same went for the countless consoles and chairs that surrounded her central dais, set in three circular tiers. The smallest and lowest lay beneath her, the second was on her level, and the third had been elevated above, allowing her to directly see any screen she wanted without having to mirror it to her own console.

Everything else, however, the walls and ceiling, had been replaced by a titanic dome, a screen presently split into four sections, displaying the night sky of four different inhabited worlds, leaving them all staring down all of the enemy’s invasion fleets.

Their encirclement might merely be an illusion created by the way things had been set up, but the sense of dread was very, very real.

And that was when the unfamiliar ships, to a one, vanished behind a wall of new icons, still small but far too large to be missiles. Too slow as well. More like …

“Those would be carriers, then.” Hunt declared flatly, not bothering to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

… no one used parasite craft in modern space warfare; hence, neither did anyone build the ships needed to deploy them.

Instead, you had people strong enough to fight starships on their own, or people specialized to operate in that threat environment, but neither of those needed a dedicated carrier; any ship with a spare cabin would do.

Yet the Bastard had apparently decided to do once again, do something that flew in the face of all design principles … and probably even work.

Suddenly one of the comm techs sat bolt upright, looking slightly shocked.

“Transmission from Neo-Lakonia: they’re getting attacked too, but, and I quote, ‘don’t worry, the only issue we might have is that there aren’t enough assholes for everyone’.”

“How many ships?” Hunt snapped.

“They didn’t say, and they’re not answering.”

Wonderful. The planet full of strength-obsessed Spartan cosplayers would almost certainly fine, not that her forces were in any position to offer aid, but it wouldn’t have killed them to provide a little extra information …

Even so, they were being attacked in five locations, at least. With more ships than the Bastard had proven willing to unleash in a single attack. And, assuming this second attack had been launched as the first wave struck, their enemy’s FTL method could cross the distance it took them three months to surmount in two.

Their enemy was playing games. Too many to tell where one ended and another began, what was truth and what was false … something no nation-state ever would have been able to match, no amount of person-to-person communication would have been able to maintain.

The threat they were facing, however, broke those rules as well. Broke all the rules.

And even with the ships withdrawn to the Core from the various fleet bases, Hunt’s forces were nearly outnumbered in capital ships by this one fleet alone.

The trap they’d been pulling together at Huitzilopochtli with every ship that could be spared would be able to stop this … but that was going to be humanity’s Sunday punch for when they were in a position to finish this.

Leaving them all to face down this fleet, knowing this could have been stopped. That this enemy fleet could have been fed into a barely proverbial meat grinder with a single call. And all it would have cost would have been humanity’s future.

Hunt began to bark orders at that, once again sending out the defense fleets of both Mercury and Venus, finishing it off with one specific order.

“All ships originating from Sol are to stay within five minutes’ travel time of the local catapults.”

It would hamstring the reinforcements on a tactical level, but it would also allow them to be shifted to a new star system within those five minutes. The likelihood of the Bastard having even more ships to throw at them here and now was low, but it was not zero. Too high. Far too high.

And if Sol was attacked, the two planets that had just been exposed were deep enough in the sun’s gravity well that a response could be made before they were in danger.

Well, before Venus was in danger. Mercury still had her, and she’d already proven how nasty things could get.