Chapter 378

378 Pulled to the Front, Pt Rhylen Terra, Vencal System, Major House Felrahn

The space above Rhylen Terra was akin to a graveyard. Littered all around the wrecked orbital station were the carcasses of numerous warfare vessels, from carriers on down. Everything was torn or blasted or ripped apart, and hung in the dead of space.

It almost seemed like a vast asteroid field, if those asteroids were made of jagged titanium plating and structure.

Floating amidst the detritus were warped sheets of shredded armor plating, destroyed modules, and frozen corpses. Some spun in place slowly, as though they were in an eternal last dance, frozen in the moment of their untimely destruction.

Hidden among the wrecks, tucked neatly behind the vast shell of what used to be a Felrahn cruiser, was Maetel’s Lament.

It floated serenely in space and did its absolute best to appear to be one of the many dead ships around it.

Not that it had any problems in doing so. The corvette was running on minimal power, and with no crew. The only person aboard was Raijin, who was captaining the ship. Though she relied mostly on her automation engine to see things through.

And because the ship didn’t have any active weapon systems, or artificial gravity, or even life support, it could run on incredibly low power indeed. In fact, it was running so optimally that its heat and energy signatures were more abysmal than the wreckages that surrounded it.

It was, for all intents and purposes, invisible.

.....

Raijin hovered in the very center of the small cockpit, which no longer housed the usual seats and terminals and control decks. Since it was mostly autonomous, there was absolutely no need for human interface devices.

There weren’t even any screens.

All that existed now was a slightly elevated disc which Raijin used to directly control the ship itself. It was her own wireless connection port, and the only way anyone could even access the ship’s systems.

At least, if that person was also a swarm of nanites.

She opened up the comms module and sent a report to the main fleet somewhere incredibly far away.

“It appears that the Imperial navy has reinforced the space above Rhylen Terra,” she began. “Their numbers are triple the initial invasion force. Among the nine capital ships, three are carriers, and six are battleships.

“I am also seeing 45 cruisers, 90 destroyers, and 240 frigates on sensors. Rounding off the fleet are 1200 fighters, mecha, and drones.”

“Well, that should be a lovely engagement,” the Star Dragon replied over comms. Though his face wasn’t projected on any screen anywhere, he was recreated through Raijin’s own internal enhanced user interface.

Or, one could say, she hallucinated it. Sorta.

“We only have eight capital ships to their nine,” the Star Dragon continued. “And they definitely have more battleships than we do.”

“Though we do have more of everything else, from the cruisers on down,” Lucifer added. “I mean, we’ve got twice as many fighters, mecha, and drones. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“That might be true, but what are their puny little guns gonna do against Imperial cap ship armor?” asked Eris. “If hundreds of them can’t crack it, then the numbers aren’t really a bonus, is it?”

“That’s only true if they attacked from the outside,” Lucifer countered. “Those carriers have massive open hangar bays. And those battleships actually have armor plating that recedes and opens up. In both cases, they’re ripe to be razed or boarded. Or both.”

“We need to hit them on every level if we’re going to win this,” said the Star Dragon. “I might be in charge of this fleet, but I’m relying on everyone to do their absolute best. This isn’t going to be an easy fight, not in the slightest.

“I’m especially relying on the both of you to help me manage the fleet itself. A capital group of eight is... unwieldy at best.”

“I’m good as long as I’m the only one who gives my fleet direct orders,” Eris replied.

“Understood and acknowledged. As long as you also respect general fleet orders.”

“I can agree to that. For this engagement alone, of course. Future ones will need further negotiations.”

“Good to hear. How about you, Corvus Republic? Do you have any command requirements?”

“Tactical autonomy is all I need,” Lucifer replied. “Otherwise, I always defer to command’s strategy.”

“Excellent,” said the Star Dragon. “Then I hope you won’t mind if I assign a fleet to you.”

“I... what?”

“Their command codes are being uploaded to your tactical center now.”

Before Lucifer could say anything, a vast amount of ship data flooded hir tacmap’s display. The fleet of the Corvus Republic was, for this engagement, handed command of a flotilla of various combat ships and fleets.

They were like them, numerous independent operators that won more than they lost. Some had large ships, most had small ones. But in the end, they formed up into a fleet roughly half the size of the Star Dragon’s, and almost equal the size of the Temple of Discord’s.

While ze quickly reordered and reorganized the fleet, the Star Dragon opened up his comms and reached out to every ship on the fleet. All of the various ship captains and commanders, all of the officers and crewmembers. Even the civilians of the Corvus Republic saw him speak.

“Erinyes fleet!” he began. Though his tone felt somewhat weary, even despondent, it was still strong and wilful underneath. The strength and authority of the Star Dragon was so potent, even Eris got a little bit caught up in it.

“I know none of you want to be here, doing a fool’s errand for a dying monarch. I know I don’t. We all have much more important things to attend to – such as our actual portions of the war. Us being here is a setback to the war effort itself, a truly bitter irony.

“But no matter how much we might lament it, or hate it, there’s nothing we can do. The Grand Parliament, along with the popular Hegemony vote placed us here. And so we must see it through. It is our duty to serve the People, even if those asking aren’t those we want to serve in the first place.

“Or even if they don’t deserve it.

“We cannot allow ourselves to think of this engagement as acquiescing to overindulged powers, no matter how true it is. We have to see this as a means to save as many Felrahni people as possible. We must see this as an act to save Hegemony lives. Just because their leadership has failed them does not mean that we cannot protect them in their stead.

“Our fight will be long. And it will be tough. And it will be bloody. We will lose much. But it will be to save the People. We fight this fight for them, not their dilapidated leadership.

“Everyone, to their stations. Prepare for war.”

The Star Dragon then closed his comms line with the rest of the fleet, then turned back towards Raijin.

“You may commence the attack,” he said.

Raijin nodded, then responded with, “Please stand by.”

And within a fraction of a second, she entered her Machine Trance. Not that she needed to further increase her control of her corvette – she already had that. Rather, it was because she now needed the ability to spread her consciousness across a network.

Outside, one of the Maetel’s Lament’s drone bays opened up, and launched one of the dozens of hawk drones inside. Raijin took direct control of the drone, and flew it slowly through the vast debris field.

Though its signals were even lower than her corvette, she simply didn’t want to take any chances of getting discovered, even if they were miniscule.

She carefully piloted it past numerous shards of torn armor, and through the carcass of a massive battleship, all the way to one edge of the field itself. There, she positioned the drone as close as she possibly could at the planetary teleport beacon a few kilometers away, while still being in the field.

Then, once it locked into the various systems and modules inside the beacon, she fired a trio of needle bolts into it. They had just enough kinetic energy to punch through the beacon’s flimsy outer casing and simple armor.

And each one embedded themselves mere nanometers outside of three specific physical circuits – navigational, operational, and networking. All three released their nanites at the same time, which invaded the circuits themselves.

They physically replaced portions of command chipsets and translation bridges and logic headers. From there, they injected Raijin’s various engines straight into the codesets.

The first thing they did during their takeover was cut off all outgoing network communications.

Doing so immediately stopped the beacon’s internal security systems from sending out alerts regarding being compromised. Or rather, it didn’t stop the alerts from being created – they simply weren’t being sent out.

Confident that her initial attack went completely unnoticed, Raijin entered the port beacon directly by hopping to her injected nanites.

From there, she attacked the systems of the port beacon itself.

And the codeset was absolutely fascinating to her. There was a layer of human-designed code, which appeared to be city-like in structure. But patched over it was drogar-designed code, which was ocean-like in structure.

Combined, it appeared to her like some kind of digital Atlantis – a paradise city buried under tons of water.

While the city worked as normal, so too did the ocean above. Their citizens interfaced with each other, exchanged greetings and information and commands, then split off to continue their duties.

Despite the awe she felt, Raijin quickly got to work. Thanks to her experience breaking into both Hegemony and Imperial systems, she had zero problems breaking into this one. It was made all the easier by the superior integration between the two codesets.

Like before, she spoofed administration accounts on both sides, then re-entered the system through those high-security logins. And it was from there that she rewrote portions of the code, and reassigned full control to her.

She whitelisted every ship in the Erinyes fleet from entering into the system, then blacklisted absolutely everything else. It ensured that no-one could get into the system. At least, not through this particular port beacon.

At the same time, her engines mimicked the beacon’s overall behavior, and completely maintained the disguise.

And not a single Imperial ship was the wiser.

Once she was done, she pulled out of her Machine Trance, and reopened comms to the command ships.

“Rhylen Terra’s port beacon is ours,” she said.