Noctis
Lord ZeeThe Joint Armed Forces Air Ground Combat Center
Carth Star System
Ghost Region
One Thousand Five Hundred Years Ago
Captain Jaffre’s keen eyes scanned over the gathered crowd of enlisted soldiers, officers, and politicians as the president of the Ghost Region Republic gave his speech. Being a member of the Presidential Guard, as well as the head of the team assigned directly to the president, Jaffre had heard the president practice his speech so much that he could repeat it from memory.
“It has been a long two hundred years” Jaffre wasn’t even aware that he was mindlessly mouthing the words a second before the president said them, “since the threat of the Swimmers first became known to us. It has been a long two hundred years.”
“Check that camera crew in the back” Jaffre almost whispered into his hidden mic.
“On it” One of his subordinates immediately responded.
Jaffre had argued against the president giving his speech at the combat center’s central plaza. It was open, exposed. The president had felt that hiding away in an auditorium as he gave this speech on the two hundredth anniversary of the first Swimmer attack would show the public that he was afraid. And the president had further argued that the Swimmer’s couldn’t attack Carth, the capital of the republic. Jaffre couldn’t argue against that, but the Swimmer’s weren’t the only threats to the president.
“And I know that we have the strength and resilience to-” Jaffre was moving even before his mind registered the flash in the sky.
“Get down Mr President!” He yelled as he tackled his charge. A second later the sound of a massive explosion, followed by a shockwave, drowned out the panicked screams and yells of the audience. Still on top of the president, holding him down, Jaffre looked up at the sky in time to see a destroyer begin to fall to the ground, secondary explosions rippling all across its length.
Two fighter craft screamed into the airspace above the combat center. At first Jaffre assumed that they were going to secure the airzone above the president, but then the second fighter craft opened fire with its cannons, tearing the first apart. It was almost as if that was the signal for it all to begin. The sky above was suddenly flooded with weapons fire as three destroyers squared off against two destroyers and a cruiser, the latter group using their adaptive camouflage systems to paint their hulls with red stripes. Groups of fighter craft darted across the sky, shooting at each other and the larger warships.
“What the hell is going on?!” The president demanded.
“I am Colonel Gwennou” The words from speakers situated all across the combat center as if in answer to the president’s question. “And I have a message to all who truly love our people.”
“Who is this Colonel Gwennou?” Jaffre asked into his mic as he helped the president to his feet. Speaking to the president he said “We are leaving. Now.”
“The decedent government has tried, and failed, to handle the Swimmer threat for two centuries” Colonel Gwennou continued. “And yet all it has managed to do is lose planets to the Swimmers and bleed our forces. This cannot go on!”
Jaffre’s squad of presidential guard formed up around the president before the group as a whole moved out of the plaza towards a predesignated bunker at the combat center. They would wait in the bunker until the army could take care of this Gwennou.
“We have given the corrupt politicians plenty of opportunities to handle the crisis and yet all they have done is thrown away more lives!” Gwennou continued. “They sit at the capital, in the lap of luxury knowing they are safe, as we lose ever more planets on the periphery. This cannot go on!”
“Sir,” One of Jaffre’s subordinates said, “This guy is broadcasting over all media, at least locally. And I’m hearing reports that he’s managed to take over the combat drones.”
“He’s what?!” Jaffre couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“The drone’s. He’s taken control of them. All of them from what I can gather.” Jaffre’s subordinate repeated. “He’s managed to take over the combat center’s control room as well.”
“Impossible.” The president murmured.
“They are traitors!” Gwennou was saying by this point. “But fear not, for those in the government who are truly loyal shall purge our glorious republic of this filth. And once the corruption has been washed away, with blood if necessary, then I shall lead our glorious republic to victory against the Swimmers!”
“He’s insane” the president murmured in shock. “How could some crackpot colonel get so much support.”
“That’s not important right now” Jaffre said, “right now we need to get you to saf-” At that moment a squad of combat bioroids stepped into view ahead of the president and his guard. At first glance the bioroids almost looked like real twei, but they weren’t quite right. Their skin was a tad too shinny and had seams that gave away their artificial nature. Still Jaffre had heard that in a few years they would be almost impossible to distinguish from a natural biological with sight alone. The second it took to identify the bioroids was being artificial was enough that Jaffre knew he was dead. He had enough time to interpose himself between the president and the bioroids before they lifted their rifles and opened fire. Perhaps he could shield the president just long enough for some nearby soldiers to come to the president’s aid.
Jaffre expected to feel the punch of a bullet tear through his body. But it was surprisingly painless. In fact… He heard the bullets punch into something metallic behind him and his guard. One of this subordinates who was watching the rear let out a surprised yelp.
“Bots behind!” The subordinate yelled. Jaffre turned his head just in time to see two combat drones crumble to the ground.
“What the hell…” Jaffre half whispered as he turned his attention back to the bioroids in front of him.
“Are you unharmed Mr President?” The lead bioroid asked. The squad of bioroids surrounded the president and his presidential guard, their attention focused outwards. The bioroids were acting like they were going to guard the president, not hurt him.
“I thought all the combat drones were under Gwennou’s control.” The president said.
“They are.” The bioroid answered with a raised eyebrow. “But we aren’t drones. We are bioroids. And we are ever loyal to the Republic. Now let’s get you to safety.”
“It doesn’t matter how many loyal soldiers we have if they control the air and orbital space.” The president said.
“That shouldn’t be a concern sir.” The bioroid countered.
“And why not” The president demanded. In answer the bioroid simply pointed up. The president looked up to see a destroyer descending into the airspace above the combat center from low orbit. But it was unlike the destroyers currently present. This one had a massive spinal cannon of some kind and it moved with an elegance the other warships lacked.
“Is that the Resuscitated Hope?” The president asked.
“Yes sir.” The bioroid answered.
Jaffre had heard of the Resuscitated Hope before. It was the first so-called bioroid warship. It was named as such as it was intended to be the new hope in victory against the Swimmers. And now it was bringing hope to this battle.
Kesitov Star System
Ghost Region
It had been almost a week since the crew of the Courageous had made contact with the Witch of the Void. The Augustans had found the Ghost Region captain to be an incredibly amiable, if not confounding, individual. She was always happy to speak to the Augustans, eager even. And in various skirmishes the two ships had had with the Swimmers over the past week she had been more than happy to put her ship, and herself by extension, at risk to cover the Courageous.
At the same time she had been utterly uncompromising when it came to continuing the search for the Black Knight. She had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she would continue the search with or without the Courageous, although she clearly desired the Augustans’ company. Whenever asked for her name, the Ghost Region captain had always said that she was “the Witch of the Void, but feel free to simply call me Witch.”
What she meant by this exactly was something of much debate amongst the Augustans. The leading theory, however, was that she was so duty oriented that she saw herself as an extension of her own ship. Others had pointed out that given her jovial personality it could be a joke. Regardless, asking the same question always resulted in the same answer.
Regardless of her rather odd behavior and quirks, the crew of the Courageous felt at peace for the time being, and throughout their search for the Black Knight, Captain Hood kept in contact with the rest of the expedition, both he and the Admiral providing a daily report on both ends. Within his private quarters, the captain and admiral would follow their routine, the captain sitting at his desk as he conversed with a small holo-version of Admiral Drofrim. "Your friend's advice was spot on."The Admiral stated. "It's been awfully quiet on our end, and those swimmers haven't dared to make any aggressive moves just yet."
"Good to hear, sir." Hood nodded. "We're still out looking for this "Black Knight", she's been very insistent on it."
"Quite frankly, I don't blame her." Drofrim said. "If this system is indicative of the rest of the region, every gun and person is a valuable asset." He paused as he cleared his throat. "Besides that, we'll arrive at the rendezvous point soon, hopefully we'll meet you there as well."
"Same here, sir. Over and out." Hood finished with a salute as the captain's figure faded away.
While it was a hassle to put the search for Black Knight on hold for the time being, Captain Hood had managed to convince Witch to follow the Courageous and meet with the rest of the Expedition. Several days had passed since then, as the two ships cruised through the dense fog, finally arriving at the rendezvous point, a fleet of over a dozen vessels clustered around a medium-sized asteroid. Signaling the two ships as they welcomed their arrival.
"We've finally made it..." Darius let out a sigh of relief, as for now, they've made out of the hornet's nest, in the safety of hundreds of guns, and from what he overheard, the Swimmers seem to stay clear from clustered targets. A holo-projection of the Admiral materialized before the bridge crew. "Glad to finally have you back with us." Drofrim said. "I feel for the losses made, but we must press on with our mission." He turned his gaze towards the captain. "Captain Hood, I want you and your XOs to be ready to depart."
"For what, sir?"
"To personally meet and thank the Witch captain of course!" He replied, with a grin. "If we're going to be stuck together, we might as well properly introduce ourselves."
The Augustan shuttles found the Witch of the Void’s main hanger to be moderately sized. The carrier’s captain hadn’t seemed too concerned with keeping secrets from her new friends; discussions with her had strongly implied that the class of carrier the Witch of the Void was a part of had a strike craft complement of about two thirds what a normal fleet carrier could be expected to carry. A trade off of the carrier’s heavy armor, missile launchers, and modest array of secondary batteries. Of course that two thirds estimate was when the carrier was fully supplied. This left the hanger shockingly empty. Quiet. Dead. Dead except for a small party of sailors who waited to greet the Augustans.
“I’m Lieutenant Yvenou of the GNR Marine Corps.” A handsome twei greeted the Augustans as they exited their shuttles. He looked young, yet his eyes and the way he carried himself indicated he had seen combat. A lot of it. Still he greeted his guests with a seemingly honest smile as he snapped into a perfect salute. “Witch of the Void, unfortunately, couldn’t come and see your arrival in person herself, but will meet you at the captain’s ready room.”
He gestured towards a nearby armored entryway. “Shall we?” He turned and started towards the hanger’s exit, assuming his guests were behind him. “If there are any questions I can answer on our way there, please do feel free to ask.”
The Admiral, along with his entourage, that being Captain Hood and the Hawthorn Siblings, followed the twei lieutenant towards the exit, Drofrim especially impressed by the carrier itself, its payload and armament seemingly capable of going toe to toe against a Gladius Battle Carrier. "The Captain has shared some details with me regarding your situation. "Drofrim began. "Although I must know. How have you managed to hold on this long while isolated? Not that I doubt your combat prowess, but there are limits to what a people, a civilization can endure."
“Well I suppose that depends on what you define as ‘holding on’.” Lieutenant Yvenou began as the hanger exit opened before him. Before the group stretched a long hallway, the occasional door or intersection broke up the hall’s bulkheads. The hallway itself was small, despite its length, just barely wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder and only tall enough to give those same three people enough clearance to stand tall while wearing a helmet or cap. Yvenou began down the hall, completely unphased by the claustrophobic conditions. “I’d like to make some grand statement about sacrifices made or our battle prowess, but the simple fact of the matter is that the Swimmers simply lost interest in us after a while.”
The group passed a twei who looked shockingly similar to the ship’s captain. So much so that one couldn’t have been faulted for thinking the woman was the captain, except for the fact that she was wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit and had shoulder length hair. And her eyes seemed… empty. Expressionless. Yvenou for his part didn’t even seem to recognize the mechanic’s existence as she passed the group, heading towards the hanger. This seemed odder still when he did give a nod of greeting to another mechanic, a Yrrani man, as he too headed towards the hanger.
“And honestly” The lieutenant continued his answer as a second doppelganger of the captain walked past him, this time she had the same hairstyle as the captain but still wore a mechanics jumpsuit. “We hit our limit a long time ago. Granted this star system was never home to one of our core worlds, but it was home to some very rich deposits. Yet what Republic presence have you encountered here? One carrier, two destroyers, and an old asteroid base. And the carrier is the only one of those that hasn’t been destroyed. If the Republic was still functional, it would have sent reinforcements a long time ago.”
Captain Hood had too take double takes on both occasions upon seeming these doppelgangers. The battles and travels were strenuous, but not to the point of hallucinating the same face, he hasn't gone that stir crazy. "Uh..." He wanted to make some sort of note, although Yvenou barely acknowledged their presence...no, surely he was just exhausted from this whole experience. "Odd timing really." Elisa commented. "As soon as the tears close up, the swimmers suddenly go blood crazy...maybe they "smell" or sense the space changing?"
That did put a grim thought in everyone's minds....if the Swimmers ever were to break out beyond the Ghost Region, the cluster would be in peril.
“Smell?” Lieutenant Yvenou had clearly overheard Elisa’s comment. “They actually have a pretty bad sense of smell. We’ve theorized that they evolved in the void of space, where smell… well isn’t really a factor. Of course you weren’t talking literally.” He looked over his shoulder to shoot Elisa a wink. “They do seem to have some kind of sixth sense.” He added, returning the salute of two marines as they stepped to the side to allow the group passage. “I know that the eggheads were doing some experiments, trying to make sense of this sixth sense of theirs but… well I was never granted access to those reports. Most of what I’ve heard on the subject is simple rum-int.”
Elisa couldn't help but blush a bit, one has to admit that the Yrrani, or these Twei were and are considered gorgeous to many species standards. Darius rolled his eyes, disregarding the fact both he and his sister were taken aback by the Witch's captain when they first met. "Guess there's more to them than meets the eye." The admiral said. "Well, now that the region is opening up, others will know about this, which might be both a blessing and a curse. We and no doubt others can help you retake your worlds, and contain these monsters."
Yvenou chose to simply nod to the admiral as they approached a doorway labeled Captain’s Ready Room. A dark skinned officer stood to the side of the doorway, opening the door as the group approached. The officer’s uniform was devoid of any kind of insignia or rank. Perhaps odder still, the officer was yet another doppelganger of the captain, complete with emotionless eyes. Once again Yvenou completely ignored the doppelganger as he stood to the other side of the doorway.
“It was a pleasure speaking with you, but this is where we part ways for now.” He smiled at the group. “Witch of the Void will be with you in here.”
The Captain’s Ready Room was what one would expect from a captain’s office. It had a simple desk, occupied by a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The walls were decorated by pictures of what looked like other carriers of the same class of the Witch of the Void, as well as other female twei captains, many of who had the same dark skin as the Witch of the Void’s captain. Several moderately comfy looking chairs had obviously been brought in to accommodate the group, making the office feel rather tight. And on the opposite end of the desk sat the twei the group had come to meet. Seeing her now, in person, only seemed to hammer in the fact that the group had just passed an identical copy of her in the hallway. In fact no one could have been blamed for thinking she was also a doppelganger, except for the fact that she wore a uniform with rank insignias and a military style coat over that uniform. Even her eyes had that same emptiness of the doppelganger in the hallway.
The captain blinked and suddenly those eyes were full of emotion. A warm smile spread across her face as she rose to her feet. “It's a pleasure to finally see you in person. Please have a seat!” She waited for her guests to be seated before returning to her own seat. “I wish I could offer you coffee or some other stimulating drink, but we ran out of those long ago.”
There was an odd sense of wrongness in the air, this wasn't the case of exhumation, or eyes playing tricks, there was something truly strange about this entire crew. "It's....ok, don't worry yourselves." the admiral said hesitantly as the four took their seats, each eyeing each other. The way she suddenly sprang to life...almost like she was a machine but best not to jump in conclusions. "Ummm, not to be rude." Captain Hood spoke up. "It's good to finally meet you face to face...but, do your people happen to have cloning technology?"
"I swear I can literally see double." Darius said without thinking.
“Cloning?” The captain tilted her head ever so slightly to the side. “Seeing double?” She gave Darius a bemused look. “What are you… Ah. You’re talking about my SAPs. Cloning…” She shook her head in obvious amusement. “You can ignore the SAPs. Unless one talks to you, in which case it's probably me jumping in for a second.” She shook her head again, evidently still amused. “The Republic did entertain the idea of using clones to augment our numbers but decidedly it’d be ethically questionable to do so. Do you use clones?”
"Forgive my interruptions." Drofrim said, her words and phrasing catching his attention. "SAPs? Jumping? I don't understand." Her choice of words do paint a picture, which probably was foretold when Nosewise and that dead cybernetic brain were found. "Are we even speaking to a person at the moment?" Although it did come off as rude, this deception, whether knowingly or not, was quite alarming for the admiral.
“Yes….I’m a person.” The Captain raised an eyebrow. “SAP stands for semi-autonomous platform. It's an android body that’s normally controlled by a nominal AI. Nominal AI are useful, but we’ve learned the hard way that they can’t be trusted, so we keep them limited in capability. Things aren’t capable of loyalty, true loyalty, thus can’t be truly trusted after all. Still, they have their uses. Anyways I can… let’s say project my consciousness into any of my SAPs.” She paused for a moment, a look of worry crossing her features. “I do hope you aren’t allowing nominal AI to control your weapons systems.”
The group felt uneasy, but she has helped them get this far, same for nosewise, it would be best not to antagonize her. "No, we've had a troubling history with highly advanced AI, and advanced robotics." Admiral Drofrim answered her question, still somewhat doubting the captain's words. "Both of our own making and the making of our enemies....I apologize."
"But...I most wonder, is this an android we're talking to right now?" Captain Hood asked, which begs more questions. "Where's the actually "you" so to spea?."
The twei captain nodded in understanding. “Yes, this is” she gestured at herself, “a SAP. My favorite SAP in fact. It wouldn’t be possible for me to actually meet you here after all.” After a slight pause she added “It wasn’t my intention to deceive you. If you’d like I would be more than happy to continue this discussion with me physically present, though I’d still have to use a SAP to actually converse with you.”
The four looked to each other and then all eyes turned to the admiral. "...Very well, lead on, captain." Admiral Drofrim said as he and the others stood up. A little anxious at what the Witch's true form is, all sorts of thoughts and theories floating about in their minds.
“Very well then.” The twei captain said as she rose to her feet. She had obviously noticed the exchange by her four guests but had chosen not to comment on it. She led the group back out into the hallway.
“Taking them to the brain room?” Lieutenant Yvenou asked, an eyebrow raised. The captain simply nodded. For its part, the SAP wearing a plain officer’s uniform didn’t react at all. The captain led her guests down the hall to the next door. The door opened automatically as the captain approached, but the words Bioroid Brain, written on the door, were clearly visible for a moment.
Inside the room, flanking the door on either side, two marines came to attention. They were outfitted in light combat armor, a rifle, or perhaps some kind of shotgun, rested against their shoulder. The captain made a gesture and the two marines saluted before exiting the room. Of course the captain’s guests couldn’t have been faulted if they hadn’t even noticed the marines, for the center of the room held something far more interesting.
The room itself was quite large, the largest in the carrier the group had seen thus far if one excluded the hanger. It was big enough that two strike craft could be stored there. And in the center of this room rested a bioriod brain quite similar to Nosewise’s. The main difference from Nosewise’s brain, however, was that this one was the size of a strike craft. Its blue glow was more than enough to light the room.
“Well,” The twei captain said, “here I am.”
"Holy shit..." Captain Hood mumbled to himself. "It all makes sense now, why you just called yourself Witch, the androids. You're not the captain of the ship, you are the ship, just like nosewise." It seems this Republic has advanced to the point of fully sapient warships, not just fighters. This was both an intriguing, and disturbing thought. The others were left speechless at what they were seeing.
“I did always say I was Witch of the Void after all, but you can just call me Witch” The twei captain, no Witch said. “If you want to think of this in biological terms, that” She pointed at her bioroid brain, “is my brain and my SAPs are like white blood cells. They do what needs to be done without any need for direct control on my part. I have the added benefit of being able to control my SAPs directly if I so wish.”
This was a lot to take in, the ship was "alive" in a sense, every single person aboard was an android. If any of the more jittery personnel in the fleet were present, PTSD would kick in faster than a bullet. "So, a clanker the size of a ship, filled with even more clankers, that's a new one..." Darius said humorously, trying to be enduring. "No one give the bugs ideas."
A glare was shot by Elisa, as she stepped forward. "Uuh, forgive my brother." She said, "His heart is in the right place, but...eh."
"I do thank you for being upfront." Admiral Drofrim said with an apologetic bow. "Be assured this changes nothing. During our time in this region, we can help each other. Be it to fight off swimmers, find your lost kin, and in our case, satisfy the curious minds of our science ministry."
“It is good to know we are still friends.” Witch said to the admiral before turning to Elisa and Darius. “And no apologies are necessary. I’m guessing that ‘clanker’ refers to what we here in the Ghost Nebula call a nominal AI. We are much more than that. We have a bioroid brain” She, or the SAP she currently was controlling, tapped her head with a finger. “Our synthetic brains are based on the brains of biological beings. We aren’t beings of mere programming. Simple code that can be copy and pasted. That have no loyalty. We are distinct beings, our personalities, at least the baseline original personalities, are modeled after actual living beings.”
"That's a story we'll share later." Darius said, regarding the term "Clanker", which requires a different discussion for another time. It seems very clear though that these "Bioroids" are a very different breed of machine compared to the factory-made drones he and his sister fought in thousands during the war. There has been an attempt to give them the feeling of a "soul", beyond mere bolts circuitry.
"This will be something difficult to share with many in the fleet." Admiral Dromfrim said. "And word will spread one way or another. But I promise you that I will prevent any unfortunate incidents if they were to occur. As a start of good will, we will aid you in your search for this Black Knight."
“Good. I miss my sister.” For a moment Witch let her smile slip into a deep frown. “I know she’s out there. The last orders she received were to guard a top secret asteroid base. Knowing her, she’ll keep guarding that base till the heat death of the universe.” Her smile had returned, although it was somewhat diminished. “I know I’m close to finding her hiding spot. Given another week, a month at most, I would have found her. Now that the Swimmers are out in force again… well I’ve lost over half of my strike craft complement and am down to four missiles. I’d never last on my own. And with my own base destroyed…” She frowned again, but a smile returned as she looked the admiral in the eye. “With your help we’ll be reunited. I won’t forget this favor.”
Drofrim nodded. "And same with us." The admiral then turned to face his subordinates. "You heard the lady, we got ourselves a search and rescue mission, return to the Courageous and wait on standby for the fleet to mobilize." The three saluted to the admiral. "Aye aye, sir!" They replied in unison.
A few hours has passed since the Witch's little revelation, Imperial ships moving into a several loose cluster formations, one of them centering around Witch as they begun their search for her sister. Although the members of the science ministry aboard the fleet would be displeased with the delays. The system clearly isn't safe at the moment for anyone.
As if to punctuate this very point, Witch broadcast a message to the whole fleet. “Brace for impact!”
Strike craft began to fly out of her hangars, though notably the forward most hangar doors remained closed. A moment after her warning, the fleet came under heavy bombardment. Rocks, covered in the Swimmers’ stealth mucus, bombarded the fleet. And unlike before these rocks were much, much larger and far more dangerous.
“Watch for Swimmers moving into our parameter using the rocks as cover! They’re masters of stealth.” Witch warned.
The bridge of the Imperator's Wrath, a Gladius Battle Carrier and Drofrim's flagship, trembled from the swimmer's assault. "Shield's are barely holding, sir!" One of the bridge officers cried out, the fleet in disarray as they pelted by the asteroids. "Can we pinpoint origin point of the asteroids?" The admiral asked, holding onto his seat tightly.
"Afraid not, sir!" The officer replied. "Proximity scanners are picking up nothing!"
"Several ships just gone dark, sir!" another cried out, the sheer size of the asteroids having taken out several lighter warships. "Shit, no way out of this mess, order all ships to fire!" The admiral ordered. "Doesn't matter where, just fire! And launch all strike craft!"
The space around the fleet was illuminated by the weapons fire of hundreds of shipboard guns aimlessly fired off into random directions. Swarms of fighter craft burst forth from several ships in the fleet as they joined in the defense. The strike craft focused on small targets while the warships focused on wearing down the larger asteroids.
And that was when some of the rocks started shifting forms. One moment they were simple rocks, hurtling towards the fleet at insane speeds, the next they morphing into tentacled creatures. These newly revealed Swimmers began dodging fire as they threw themselves at nearby ships.
One such Swimmer, a creature that could rival a cruiser in size, reached out to an Augustan destroyer before the crew even knew the creature was there. Its tentacles were mere meters away from the ship’s hull when the Witch of the Void slammed into the creature, driving it away. Witch tried to roll away, her secondaries cutting into the Swimmer, but her foe had wrapped its tentacles around her before she could complete the maneuver. Her squadron of heavy fighters was busy repelling a different Swimmer that was trying to close on an Augustan light cruiser, but one of her other squadrons moved in to help, their weapons doing damage, albeit to little obvious effect.
The Augustans suddenly found themselves surrounded by spaceborne horrors as the swimmers emerged from the chaos, imperial strike craft finding themselves engaged in a massive dogfight against a smaller variety of swimmer, moving in deadly swarms as they slammed against a number of fighter craft, torn to shreds by the beasts. In a brief moment, once the threat was recognized, the imperial strike craft reorganized themselves as they changed targets, focusing exclusively on swimmers both big and small.
simultaneously, the Augustan warships engaged the larger swimmers in pitched combat, several corvette-sized swimmers plastering themselves onto the hull of the Imperator's Wrath, her main batteries preoccupied with fending off the larger breeds, the swimmers on her hull boring into her central hangar bay. Before any more damage could be done, the beasts were chased off as a flight of Hammer Assault Boats unleashed their payload upon them, a volley of missiles and cracking shots from their heavy guns piercing their flesh, enraging the swimmers as they hurled themselves towards their attackers. The assault boats attempted to scatter, only a few managing to escape intact while others were snatched and torn apart.
Witch of the Void’s fighters tore into the Swimmers giving chase to the assault boats. The fighters interposed themselves between the Swimmers and assault boats, flipping end over end to open fire on the Swimmers. Their particle beam cannons, although not as powerful as the assault boats armaments, were unerringly accurate, slicing tentacles off and hitting the Swimmers in delicate areas. Then the fighters scattered, drawing the Swimmers away from the Augustan assault boats. Several fighters were smashed by tentacles or fell to plasma spit, but the rest dodged the attacks with an ease that belied a great wealth of experience combatting the creatures.
The fighters continued to poke and prod at the Swimmers with their cannons. They weren’t doing a huge amount of damage to the far larger creatures, but they were obviously pissing them off. Keeping the creatures’ attention locked firmly on them. This allowed the fighters to draw the Swimmers right into the broadsides of the Augustan warships. Easy targets.
Once enough swimmers were drawn into a fitting firing range, the admiral took notice of what the Witch's fighters were doing, and seized this opportunity to strike back at the monsters. "Fire all guns!" Drofrim shouted out, the gun batteries of the Imperator's Wrath unleashing a volley of plasma fire and torpedoes, other ships close enough to the flagship followed suit, focusing their fire on the distracted swimmers, ripping them apart. "Press on the attack!" Drofrim ordered, not wasting any time before the momentum is lost.
This had seemed to blunt the Swimmers’ attack. They fell by the dozens, many torn to pieces by the Augustan warships’ broadsides, the rest falling to strike craft attack. A casual observer couldn’t be faulted for thinking that the Swimmers fought to the last, they made a final suicidal charge at the Augustans, but a few Swimmers faded away from the battle and from view as they reapplied their mucus stealth. Some of the Witch of the Void’s fighters were able to catch several of these fleeing monsters, but the rest successfully slipped away.
"Sir, they're pulling back!" One of the bridge officers announced, the bridge erupting in celebration as the rest of the fleet mopped up the remaining swimmers bold enough to continue their attack. "Fight's not over yet, people." Admiral Drofrim calmly stated, letting out a sigh of relief as, for the moment at least, this fight was over, but not by a long shot. The Swimmers will be watching, waiting, and will most likely strike again in the future until they get what they want, food. "Let's handle what remains and get back in formation, don't forget we have a ship to rescue."
Over the next week the Augustans and Witch of the Void had been assaulted by the Swimmers several times. These attacks had been of little consequence, unlike the first few. The Swimmers had seemingly expended much of their strength. It also helped that Witch of the Void had been able to detect the Swimmer before they launched their attack, thus giving the Augustans enough time to mount a defense. In fact, after she had gotten comfortable with her new allies she had devoted most of her strike craft to patrolling around the small fleet in search of Swimmers, granting them an even greater amount of time to ready before each attack.
Witch had had some interesting reactions and statements to the Swimmers. She had seemed… bored by the Swimmers. When asked she had simply stated that these Swimmers were dull and few in number. She’d also advised the Augustans to not get used to what she had begun to call “amateurs hour.”
“I’m detecting them ten minutes before they attack us one hundred percent of the time now” She had said. “Back two hundred years I had a ten percent chance of giving a ten minute heads up and a fifty percent chance of a one minute heads up.”
The admiral let out an audible whistle at the Witches age, as he was conversing with her hologram avatar. "You've been at this for two hundred years?" He said, her years of service being no different to Old Yrrani warships, built to last, something the Augustans haven't been able to match in ship design on a wide scale.
“Longer actually,” Witch answered. “But don’t ask how long. It's not polite to inquire about a lady’s age.” She shot the admiral a friendly wink. “Joking aside, the Republic always had a quality over quantity mindset. My class was designed to be in service for about a hundred years, with upgrades and major drydock time intended. By that metric I suppose you could call me Granny Witch.” After a moment’s pause she added “Don’t.”
The thought was tempting...but she had the firepower to shut anyone up. "No worries." he said with a mischievous grin, resisting the urge. Having the Witch accompanying the fleet has lifted the previous oppressing atmosphere of dread. Their combined firepower is enough to keep the swimmers at bay for the moment.
Don’t think I didn’t notice that glint in your eye” Witch said, with a smile of her own. “But enough about that.” Witch had become increasingly excited over the past few days. “We’ll find Dame within the next three days!” She exclaimed. “I’ve searched just about every other hiding place in this star system.”
"We'll find her, don't you worry." Admiral Drofrim assured the ship, a really strange train of thought when one thinks about it, but then again, these are new and strange times for everyone.
The Admiral’s promise was almost immediately proven to be prophetic.
“WARNING!” A deep masculine voice began, the same voice that the buoy at Witch’s asteroid base had had. “You are now entering a restricted military zone. Reverse course and-” The voice was momentarily cut off by a screech, before being replaced by a stern sounding female voice.
“This is the GRNS Black Knight to all citizens and assets of the Ghost Nebula Republic. This is a designated safe zone. Any person or piece of hardware who receives this message is to immediately change course to point Charlie-Delta-1. Any piece of military hardware is to immediately report to my command, unless they are acting under recent orders from a officer of the Ghost Republic Armed Forces. I am invoking Article Seven of the War Powers Act; any bioroid who receives this message is hereby property of the Ghost Nebula Republic’s Armed Forces and is to immediately report for duty. The ships of anyone who receives this message is hereby lawfully confiscated in order to support the war effort. All bioroids are ordered to ensure the safe delivery of the ship they are currently on board as well as the safety of that ship’s crew and passengers.” There was a pause before she continued. “The safety and well being of any citizen who complies is guaranteed.”
“This buoy was last serviced one day ago.” the masculine voice said before the buoy’s entire message began to repeat.
"Well I'll be damned." Drofrim expressed. "I think we've found her, or at least, we're at the right place." He turned his attention to his bridge officers. "Have the fleet on standby and ready to engage, we don't need any nasty surprises." He turned back to the hologram of Witch. "Do whatever you have to do."
“Already on it.” True to her words, Witch had already changed course and was burning towards the coordinates indicated by the buoy. “Do you intend to come with me or are you going to hang back here?”
"Better safe then sorry, we'll fall in right behind you." Drofrim replied, the fleet simultaneously trailing behind the Witch as they all converged towards the location of the buoy. The chances of an ambush or engagement were cut in half, but in such an unfamiliar region, it pays to be prepared.
Witch led the Augustans to the indicated coordinates, revealing an asteroid base much like the one she had once used. This asteroid base was larger than her’s and in much better shape. Where she had had to convert civilian industrial ships to create a makeshift drydock, this asteroid base had one built in. There was a notable lack of civilian ships in the area. The top portion of a ship that looked very similar to Witch of the Void could be seen poking out from behind the asteroid base. More immediately noticeable, however, were the two light cruisers that sat between the asteroid base and Witch and the Augustans. Both light cruisers had their spinal particle beam cannons hot, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
“You are within the territory of the Ghost Nebula Republic!” A stern woman’s voice broadcast towards the Augustan fleet. “Your warships are obviously of foreign design. Identify yourselves. Now.”
“Dame-” Witch began.
“Be silent.”
“Wait a sec-”
“Witch of the Void, if the next and only words out of your mouth aren’t ‘Yes ma’am’, I’ll consider you to be in violation of Article 2. Now send me your sitrep over the delta channel and be silent.”
“Aye aye ma’am.” Witch answered after a moment.
“Now I ask again,” Black Knight returned her attention to the Augustans. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The Admiral had to act swiftly and prevent any avoidable violence, one neither side would benefit from. "We come in peace, I repeat, we come in peace." He stated, hoping to ease tensions. "I am Admiral Grex Drofrim of the Augustan Empire." He began with name, rank, and affiliation. "The Ghost Nebula was locked behind tears in the fabric of space, the tears have repaired themselves, and we have come from the other side to investigate at the request of my superiors." He paused, gulping down air, he could feel the tension rise, this ship for sure wasn't like the Witch. "I repeat, we are friendly, and have assisted the Witch of the Void locating you."
“Your presence here could be interpreted as an invasion.” Black Knight commented. Witch made an exasperated sound; Black Knight seemingly ignored Witch. “Investigate to what end? And what is your Augustan Empire’s relationship with the Yrrani Empire?”
"None, the Old Empire is gone." the Admiral replied, his bridge officers silently watching the confrontation unfolding, anxious on the final outcome. "Has been for over five centuries. The Yrrani no longer rule the galaxy." Perhaps this may help in easing Black Knight in a more diplomatic stance....although her observation would make it seem that the Expeditionary Fleet was an Invasion force.
“I suppose your Augustan Empire” Black Knight placed great emphasis on empire, “is the successor state of the Yrrani? Is it humanity’s turn to lord over the galaxy?”
"Far from it." Drofrim tried to assure the hot tempered warship, this wasn't his first stand off against opposing officers, and certainly won't be his last. "But enough of that. Even though we have come in the name of exploration, we are far from helpless." A series of thoughts have come to end on how to calm this beast. "Even if we fall here, your Republic is now open to the rest of the galaxy, do you really want to risk war with an Empire on the scale of ours?"
He paused as he scanned his surroundings, his subordinates looking to him. "The Swimmers are enough of a problem, a problem, mind you, that we helped deal with upon meeting the Witch of the Void." He eased in both with a threat, and shared the fact that he and his fleet have aided her sister ship in combat.
“We might finally have allies against the Swimmers.” Witch said.
“I believe I told you to be silent.” Black Knight said, but much of the heat had left her voice. “Very well. I’ll have my forces stand down.” Vents opened up on the sides of the light cruisers, expelling particles and energy into the void of space around them as they powered down their particle beam cannons. On either side of the Augustan fleet a destroyer slid out of hiding from behind an asteroid. They too vented particles and energy into space as they powered down their particle beam cannons. The destroyers’ hulls, black when they had come out of hiding, seemed to shimmer for a second before changing color to a dull gray.
“I appreciate you helping Witch of the Void,” Black Knight continued, “but I don’t for a moment believe you did so out of the goodness of your heart.”
"Believe what you want." Drofrim said in an equally stern tone. "But it will be in both of our interests if we're not killing each other, and focus on the actual enemy." The bridge crew begun clapping and celebrating the Admiral for seemingly talking his way out of a battle and a war. The admiral collapsed onto his command chair, letting out a heavy sigh. "The more I do this, the more draining it gets."
“She’s not usually this crabby.” Witch commented on a private communications line with the admiral’s ship. “I know this was supposed to be a top secret site, but still… she’s mad she was found after hiding for one hundred years. Knowing her she might have stayed another hundred before even considering disobeying her last orders.” She didn’t sound perturbed how Black Knight had spoken to her. If anything she almost sounded amused.
"Quite frankly, it might've been your best interest to let her stay at her post unnoticed." Drofrim said, rubbing his scalp, even at his rank, hard ass officers below or above him were equally a pain in the ass for the aged Dathu. "But, we did agree on finding her and did, much to her dismay. Now that the family is reunited, what's your next step?"
“That’s up to her. She beat me out of the drydock by seven days, so she’s got seniority.” Witch answered. “And I disagree. Had I stayed at my own base I probably would be destroyed by the Swimmers. And even if I had survived I would be alone.” She let that thought linger for a moment. “And don’t be so harsh on her. She’s stern, always has been, but she’s also hurting. We all have since we lost Valiant.”
It was easy to forget that these ships were individuals in a way, and every ship lost is not only the personnel aboard, it was a mind, an artificial soul that was snuffed out from the stars. "Right, right. My apologies. This Valiant was another sister ship of yours?"
“In a way, but probably not the way you think.” Witch answered. “Valiant wasn’t a mythology class carrier like Black Knight or I, she was a super dreadnought. The pride of the fleet. And a big sister to all of us. She was the heart and soul of the navy, a light in the dark.” There was a long pause. “We lost her. We lost her and her sacrifice didn’t accomplish a damn thing.”
That would be something to be heartbroken over... Both an elder sister for the smaller scale ships and the largest, most powerful warship in the navy, to lose such a weapon and in a way, a central figure to many would demoralize and break anyone. "I'm....sorry to hear that. " Drofrim said sorrowfully. It once more puts into perspective the ferocity of the swimmers, to take down a super dreadnought is a dreadful thought, bringing back reports of larger breeds of swimmers in mind. "If I may ask, how did you lose her?”
“Neither Black Knight nor I were present when it happened.” Witch began. “She had been… pulled from the Home fleet to serve as the flagship of the Exodus fleet. Exodus… that sounds more romantic than it really was. In short the Republic tried various methods of hiding its citizens from the Swimmers. For that mission the Exodus fleet was heading out to a remote region. They came under heavy Swimmer attack and, despite being the flagship of the fleet, Valiant suffered catastrophic damage to her engines. All hands abandoned ship, biological and bioroid, but obviously she herself was stuck. So she stayed behind to act as a rearguard, along with two destroyers. She had apparently completely blunted the Swimmer attack, they never caught up to the Exodus fleet. However a few weeks later a second swarm destroyed most of the fleet. Only a handful of ships were able to return. Obviously their mission failed and we were never able to muster up the strength to return to that star system again.”
The mood turned somber in the bridge, the XO and bridge officers silently listening in, her words striking a cord, many feeling sympathy for a sentient ship of all things. "I know I can't say much that will make it better." Drofrim said, leaning forward from his chair. "But, from where I see, that sacrifice meant something, you and your sisters are still here. Because you held on this long, we from the wider galaxy were able to find you."
(We could probably just start a new collab or continue this one. Whatever works)
The following day had met the Augustans with a request by Black Knight to meet face to face in her asteroid base. When asked why she had wanted to meet, the stern bioroid had simply stated that what they needed to discuss was strategic in nature. She was still holding her cards close to her chest apparently. Witch seemed amused by the whole affair. Despite her previous discussion regarding Valiant, Witch’s reunion with her sister seemed to have given the friendly bioroid a bit more bounce in her step.
She had requested that the Augustans pick her up so she could also attend the meeting in person. She had lost her last shuttle during a Swimmer ambush a few days earlier. Of course she wouldn’t actually be present for the meeting, but using her favorite SAP was the next best thing.
“You know” Witch commented to the Augustan admiral as the Augustan shuttle headed towards Black Knight’s asteroid base, “I think Dame likes you.”
Admiral Drofrim made an amused expression. "Glad to make such a good impression. I was quite the lady killer back in my formative years." That last bit got a good chuckle at out his subordinates, the Ranger Captain Hood and the Hawthorn siblings, a few marines having the honor of accompanying the admiral. Captain Hood clearing his throat. "Uh, forgive that, sir."
"I'm in a good mood, I'll let that slide." Admiral Drofrim said, sit with his amused grin.
Witch chuckled as well, even as she shook her head. “I don’t think Dame has a romantic bone in her body; no she’s just relieved to not have the highest rank in the room. Doesn’t matter that you aren’t from the Republic.” She shrugged. “You also remind me of Admiral Merser. She probably noticed the resemblance as well.” After a moment she gestured as if she was waving something away from her face. “But enough about the past. I had assumed she’d wait an extra day or two, maybe exchange a few more verbal skirmishes over comms, before wanting to meet in person. She didn’t, which tells me something is afoot.”
Drofrim was intrigued about this Merser Witch mentioned, however, that discussion would have to wait for another time as the shuttle entered the hanger bay, lowering down as the interior trembled for a moment, the doors sliding open and the boarding ramps lowering down. "We're about to soon find out." Drofrim said as the other passengers rose up from their seats, getting ready to step out. "I would love to hear more of this Merser when more time is had."
“Sure, if time allows” Witch said as the group stepped out into the hangar. They were greeted by several marines who saluted the group and led them through the asteroid base. These marines, unlike Lieutenant Yvenou, were all business and had zero interest in making any kind of small talk. The corridors of the asteroid base was bustling with activity. Marines, navy officers, techs all conducted various activities that one would expect to normally seen done on such a facility; the Augustans couldn’t have been faulted for believing they were seeing normal soldiers on duty, had they not already known better.
After about ten minutes the marines led the Augustans and Witch to a large meeting room. Black Knight was already standing, but she gave the Augustan Admiral a salute as he entered the door, before walking over and offering her hand. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I requested this meeting.”
“I know I am” Witch responded, earning her a scowl from Black Knight. The scowl quickly softened and an eagle eyed observer might have noticed the ghost of a smile. Moments later this was replaced by her default stern expression.
"I can't help but be a little curious myself." Drofrim replied as he gave a firm handshake with the bioroid, his officers and escorts behind him being ever attentive as they listened in on what Black Knight had to say.
Black Knight gestured for her guests to take a seat at the large meeting table that dominated the room before she did so herself. “I’ll get right to it then.” Black Knight said as soon as everyone had seated themselves. “Your presence here has created a problem.” She held up a hand to forestall any argument from the Augustans. “And I mean both here at my base specifically as well as being in the Ghost Region generally. I was well hidden before, but you’ve led the Swimmers here. But realistically that’s a minor concern compared to your presence in the Ghost Region. We were starving the Swimmers out. Now… well they have a new source of good.” She pointedly looked at Admiral Drofrim. “Even had neither you or Witch of the Void led them here, the increased Swimmer activity caused by the availability of a new source of sustenance would have inevitably caused them to locate this base.”
She paused for a moment, giving her guests time to digest what she was saying before continuing. “I say this not to cast blame, but to inform you of the situation we are now in. This base is no longer safe. I’ve been running some simulations and suspect that, with the combat forces I have now, I will be able to hold this location for three months. After that my task force will have either been completely eliminated or the base itself will have received too much damage to be able to continue to support my forces, thus resulting in a mission kill anyways.”
“What exactly were your last orders?” Witch asked.
Black Knight frowned, for a moment it seemed that she wouldn’t answer, but then spoke up. “The Republic government had hoped that it could freeze at least a portion of its remaining population and hide them away. Once Swimmer numbers had fallen low enough, we would retake the Ghost Nebula. This base was one such cryogenic preservation site. At capacity it could store just over ten million people, many of which were intended to be congressmen, military personnel, and individuals with expertise that would be necessary to rebuild the Republic’s industrial base. This base was also intended to serve as a small shipyard as well as factory for arms, munitions, and even bioroids. This base, as well as several other such bases, was to serve as an important hub in the early stages of what was going to be a reclamation campaign. My orders specifically were to protect this base until the fleet escorting the cryogenic subjects arrived, at which point I would join that fleet and continue to defend this base. The fleet never arrived.”
This was quite the revelation indeed, and a daunting amount to process. It seems the arrival of the Augustans had derailed a seemingly solid plan to defeat the swimmers. The scent and taste of fresh blood in the Ghost Nebula had driving the swimmers into a frenzy, the Augustans present feeling a sense of fault in the events that played out since their arrival. It was pretty clear why no reinforcements arrived, as previous reports Captain Hood provided indicated. "Admiral, sir, if I may speak?" Darius asked as he stood up.
Drofrim turned to the ranger, giving a light nod. "Granted."
"Admiral, I know this will derail the mission, what we came here for in the first place, but we can't let this base fall." His sister, Elisa, stood up alongside her brother in solidarity. "They already lost so much, sir, we could give them a chance of survival.”
The Admiral was silent for a moment, pondering to himself as he looked back and forth between the siblings and Black Knight, hands tucked behind his back, turning his attention back to Black Knight. "I agree, the Hawthorns have a point." He said with a warm smile. "We came here simply to explore, but after all we've been through and what you've told us, looks like we'll be sticking around for a bit longer."
“Excellent!” Black Knight said. “We’ll need to abandon this base. In fact I intend to leave this star system entirely. But we can’t do that yet. If we just bug out now we’d eventually run out of BBF, which is the same as signing our own death warrants. It's possible we could run into another hidden base manned by our brothers and sisters, but I don’t care for the odds of finding such a base before we run out. As much as I’d like to simply move the BBF production machines out of this base… well they are too large and too integrated into the asteroid to make that feasible. So instead I intend to salvage some from the nearby planet. It once had a few decent sized cities and I’ve already found records of several industrial sites that should have what we need.”
“We don’t have any ships to carry that equipment.” Witch said. “That equipment is far too big to fit on a destroyer or cruiser, and even if we fit the pieces on several ships they won’t do us any good disassembled.”
Black Knight looked at Witch with a large smile on her face. “I suppose it's a good thing that we have a nearly empty carrier here then.”
“I am not a fleet auxiliary ship.” Witch did not sound amused.
“We have greater need for a fleet auxiliary than we do an empty carrier, so deal with it.” Black Knight allowed herself to look amused for a few seconds longer before reverting to her default stern expression. “I’ll give you a company of marines and platoon of combat engineers, as well as several of my heavy duty shuttles in order to facilitate the salvage operation. I’ll also have one of the destroyers escort you. Meanwhile I’ll oversee things here. While you are gone I’ll be churning out as much BBF, spare parts, and ammunition as possible.”
“Damn same we can’t put those bioroid factories you have to use.” Witch said.
Black Knight simply nodded an agreement before turning her attention back to Admiral Drofrim. “I would appreciate it if you would escort Witch of the Void on her salvage mission. I’d do it myself, but I can’t afford to reduce my forces here any further and we are going to need as much materials as possible if we are to survive for long. And this will give you further opportunities to complete your original mission, no? You’ll get the chance to investigate one of the Ghost Region’s inhabitable planets. And, should the Swimmers make a run at you, the destroyer I send with Witch of the Void will show you how a real Republican warship fights.”
The Admiral nodded to Black Knight's reasoning in agreement, even for a brief moment, the science ministry members aboard the flagship would jump towards a swift excursion to one of the planets of the Ghost Nebula, having been confined in the flagship for the entirety of the journey. "I'm sure our eggheads will very much appreciate this opportunity for study." He said with a sly smile, turning to meet the other Augustans, the others nodding and chuckling. "But on a serious note, we'll gladly assist in her mission, keep the swimmers at bay or blast them into stardust if we manage."
With a new goal set in mind, the Augustan fleet, the Witch of the Void and her escort depart the asteroid base, making way towards the nearby planet in the system, with the hopes and promises of materials needed for the bioroids to bolster their forces before they make a final departure from the system, and for the Augustans, moving deeper into the unknown.
Carth Star System
Ghost Region
One Thousand Five Hundred Years Ago
Captain Jaffre’s keen eyes scanned over the gathered crowd of enlisted soldiers, officers, and politicians as the president of the Ghost Region Republic gave his speech. Being a member of the Presidential Guard, as well as the head of the team assigned directly to the president, Jaffre had heard the president practice his speech so much that he could repeat it from memory.
“It has been a long two hundred years” Jaffre wasn’t even aware that he was mindlessly mouthing the words a second before the president said them, “since the threat of the Swimmers first became known to us. It has been a long two hundred years.”
“Check that camera crew in the back” Jaffre almost whispered into his hidden mic.
“On it” One of his subordinates immediately responded.
Jaffre had argued against the president giving his speech at the combat center’s central plaza. It was open, exposed. The president had felt that hiding away in an auditorium as he gave this speech on the two hundredth anniversary of the first Swimmer attack would show the public that he was afraid. And the president had further argued that the Swimmer’s couldn’t attack Carth, the capital of the republic. Jaffre couldn’t argue against that, but the Swimmer’s weren’t the only threats to the president.
“And I know that we have the strength and resilience to-” Jaffre was moving even before his mind registered the flash in the sky.
“Get down Mr President!” He yelled as he tackled his charge. A second later the sound of a massive explosion, followed by a shockwave, drowned out the panicked screams and yells of the audience. Still on top of the president, holding him down, Jaffre looked up at the sky in time to see a destroyer begin to fall to the ground, secondary explosions rippling all across its length.
Two fighter craft screamed into the airspace above the combat center. At first Jaffre assumed that they were going to secure the airzone above the president, but then the second fighter craft opened fire with its cannons, tearing the first apart. It was almost as if that was the signal for it all to begin. The sky above was suddenly flooded with weapons fire as three destroyers squared off against two destroyers and a cruiser, the latter group using their adaptive camouflage systems to paint their hulls with red stripes. Groups of fighter craft darted across the sky, shooting at each other and the larger warships.
“What the hell is going on?!” The president demanded.
“I am Colonel Gwennou” The words from speakers situated all across the combat center as if in answer to the president’s question. “And I have a message to all who truly love our people.”
“Who is this Colonel Gwennou?” Jaffre asked into his mic as he helped the president to his feet. Speaking to the president he said “We are leaving. Now.”
“The decedent government has tried, and failed, to handle the Swimmer threat for two centuries” Colonel Gwennou continued. “And yet all it has managed to do is lose planets to the Swimmers and bleed our forces. This cannot go on!”
Jaffre’s squad of presidential guard formed up around the president before the group as a whole moved out of the plaza towards a predesignated bunker at the combat center. They would wait in the bunker until the army could take care of this Gwennou.
“We have given the corrupt politicians plenty of opportunities to handle the crisis and yet all they have done is thrown away more lives!” Gwennou continued. “They sit at the capital, in the lap of luxury knowing they are safe, as we lose ever more planets on the periphery. This cannot go on!”
“Sir,” One of Jaffre’s subordinates said, “This guy is broadcasting over all media, at least locally. And I’m hearing reports that he’s managed to take over the combat drones.”
“He’s what?!” Jaffre couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“The drone’s. He’s taken control of them. All of them from what I can gather.” Jaffre’s subordinate repeated. “He’s managed to take over the combat center’s control room as well.”
“Impossible.” The president murmured.
“They are traitors!” Gwennou was saying by this point. “But fear not, for those in the government who are truly loyal shall purge our glorious republic of this filth. And once the corruption has been washed away, with blood if necessary, then I shall lead our glorious republic to victory against the Swimmers!”
“He’s insane” the president murmured in shock. “How could some crackpot colonel get so much support.”
“That’s not important right now” Jaffre said, “right now we need to get you to saf-” At that moment a squad of combat bioroids stepped into view ahead of the president and his guard. At first glance the bioroids almost looked like real twei, but they weren’t quite right. Their skin was a tad too shinny and had seams that gave away their artificial nature. Still Jaffre had heard that in a few years they would be almost impossible to distinguish from a natural biological with sight alone. The second it took to identify the bioroids was being artificial was enough that Jaffre knew he was dead. He had enough time to interpose himself between the president and the bioroids before they lifted their rifles and opened fire. Perhaps he could shield the president just long enough for some nearby soldiers to come to the president’s aid.
Jaffre expected to feel the punch of a bullet tear through his body. But it was surprisingly painless. In fact… He heard the bullets punch into something metallic behind him and his guard. One of this subordinates who was watching the rear let out a surprised yelp.
“Bots behind!” The subordinate yelled. Jaffre turned his head just in time to see two combat drones crumble to the ground.
“What the hell…” Jaffre half whispered as he turned his attention back to the bioroids in front of him.
“Are you unharmed Mr President?” The lead bioroid asked. The squad of bioroids surrounded the president and his presidential guard, their attention focused outwards. The bioroids were acting like they were going to guard the president, not hurt him.
“I thought all the combat drones were under Gwennou’s control.” The president said.
“They are.” The bioroid answered with a raised eyebrow. “But we aren’t drones. We are bioroids. And we are ever loyal to the Republic. Now let’s get you to safety.”
“It doesn’t matter how many loyal soldiers we have if they control the air and orbital space.” The president said.
“That shouldn’t be a concern sir.” The bioroid countered.
“And why not” The president demanded. In answer the bioroid simply pointed up. The president looked up to see a destroyer descending into the airspace above the combat center from low orbit. But it was unlike the destroyers currently present. This one had a massive spinal cannon of some kind and it moved with an elegance the other warships lacked.
“Is that the Resuscitated Hope?” The president asked.
“Yes sir.” The bioroid answered.
Jaffre had heard of the Resuscitated Hope before. It was the first so-called bioroid warship. It was named as such as it was intended to be the new hope in victory against the Swimmers. And now it was bringing hope to this battle.
Kesitov Star System
Ghost Region
((Darkspleen x Sigma collab)
It had been almost a week since the crew of the Courageous had made contact with the Witch of the Void. The Augustans had found the Ghost Region captain to be an incredibly amiable, if not confounding, individual. She was always happy to speak to the Augustans, eager even. And in various skirmishes the two ships had had with the Swimmers over the past week she had been more than happy to put her ship, and herself by extension, at risk to cover the Courageous.
At the same time she had been utterly uncompromising when it came to continuing the search for the Black Knight. She had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she would continue the search with or without the Courageous, although she clearly desired the Augustans’ company. Whenever asked for her name, the Ghost Region captain had always said that she was “the Witch of the Void, but feel free to simply call me Witch.”
What she meant by this exactly was something of much debate amongst the Augustans. The leading theory, however, was that she was so duty oriented that she saw herself as an extension of her own ship. Others had pointed out that given her jovial personality it could be a joke. Regardless, asking the same question always resulted in the same answer.
Regardless of her rather odd behavior and quirks, the crew of the Courageous felt at peace for the time being, and throughout their search for the Black Knight, Captain Hood kept in contact with the rest of the expedition, both he and the Admiral providing a daily report on both ends. Within his private quarters, the captain and admiral would follow their routine, the captain sitting at his desk as he conversed with a small holo-version of Admiral Drofrim. "Your friend's advice was spot on."The Admiral stated. "It's been awfully quiet on our end, and those swimmers haven't dared to make any aggressive moves just yet."
"Good to hear, sir." Hood nodded. "We're still out looking for this "Black Knight", she's been very insistent on it."
"Quite frankly, I don't blame her." Drofrim said. "If this system is indicative of the rest of the region, every gun and person is a valuable asset." He paused as he cleared his throat. "Besides that, we'll arrive at the rendezvous point soon, hopefully we'll meet you there as well."
"Same here, sir. Over and out." Hood finished with a salute as the captain's figure faded away.
While it was a hassle to put the search for Black Knight on hold for the time being, Captain Hood had managed to convince Witch to follow the Courageous and meet with the rest of the Expedition. Several days had passed since then, as the two ships cruised through the dense fog, finally arriving at the rendezvous point, a fleet of over a dozen vessels clustered around a medium-sized asteroid. Signaling the two ships as they welcomed their arrival.
"We've finally made it..." Darius let out a sigh of relief, as for now, they've made out of the hornet's nest, in the safety of hundreds of guns, and from what he overheard, the Swimmers seem to stay clear from clustered targets. A holo-projection of the Admiral materialized before the bridge crew. "Glad to finally have you back with us." Drofrim said. "I feel for the losses made, but we must press on with our mission." He turned his gaze towards the captain. "Captain Hood, I want you and your XOs to be ready to depart."
"For what, sir?"
"To personally meet and thank the Witch captain of course!" He replied, with a grin. "If we're going to be stuck together, we might as well properly introduce ourselves."
The Augustan shuttles found the Witch of the Void’s main hanger to be moderately sized. The carrier’s captain hadn’t seemed too concerned with keeping secrets from her new friends; discussions with her had strongly implied that the class of carrier the Witch of the Void was a part of had a strike craft complement of about two thirds what a normal fleet carrier could be expected to carry. A trade off of the carrier’s heavy armor, missile launchers, and modest array of secondary batteries. Of course that two thirds estimate was when the carrier was fully supplied. This left the hanger shockingly empty. Quiet. Dead. Dead except for a small party of sailors who waited to greet the Augustans.
“I’m Lieutenant Yvenou of the GNR Marine Corps.” A handsome twei greeted the Augustans as they exited their shuttles. He looked young, yet his eyes and the way he carried himself indicated he had seen combat. A lot of it. Still he greeted his guests with a seemingly honest smile as he snapped into a perfect salute. “Witch of the Void, unfortunately, couldn’t come and see your arrival in person herself, but will meet you at the captain’s ready room.”
He gestured towards a nearby armored entryway. “Shall we?” He turned and started towards the hanger’s exit, assuming his guests were behind him. “If there are any questions I can answer on our way there, please do feel free to ask.”
The Admiral, along with his entourage, that being Captain Hood and the Hawthorn Siblings, followed the twei lieutenant towards the exit, Drofrim especially impressed by the carrier itself, its payload and armament seemingly capable of going toe to toe against a Gladius Battle Carrier. "The Captain has shared some details with me regarding your situation. "Drofrim began. "Although I must know. How have you managed to hold on this long while isolated? Not that I doubt your combat prowess, but there are limits to what a people, a civilization can endure."
“Well I suppose that depends on what you define as ‘holding on’.” Lieutenant Yvenou began as the hanger exit opened before him. Before the group stretched a long hallway, the occasional door or intersection broke up the hall’s bulkheads. The hallway itself was small, despite its length, just barely wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder and only tall enough to give those same three people enough clearance to stand tall while wearing a helmet or cap. Yvenou began down the hall, completely unphased by the claustrophobic conditions. “I’d like to make some grand statement about sacrifices made or our battle prowess, but the simple fact of the matter is that the Swimmers simply lost interest in us after a while.”
The group passed a twei who looked shockingly similar to the ship’s captain. So much so that one couldn’t have been faulted for thinking the woman was the captain, except for the fact that she was wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit and had shoulder length hair. And her eyes seemed… empty. Expressionless. Yvenou for his part didn’t even seem to recognize the mechanic’s existence as she passed the group, heading towards the hanger. This seemed odder still when he did give a nod of greeting to another mechanic, a Yrrani man, as he too headed towards the hanger.
“And honestly” The lieutenant continued his answer as a second doppelganger of the captain walked past him, this time she had the same hairstyle as the captain but still wore a mechanics jumpsuit. “We hit our limit a long time ago. Granted this star system was never home to one of our core worlds, but it was home to some very rich deposits. Yet what Republic presence have you encountered here? One carrier, two destroyers, and an old asteroid base. And the carrier is the only one of those that hasn’t been destroyed. If the Republic was still functional, it would have sent reinforcements a long time ago.”
Captain Hood had too take double takes on both occasions upon seeming these doppelgangers. The battles and travels were strenuous, but not to the point of hallucinating the same face, he hasn't gone that stir crazy. "Uh..." He wanted to make some sort of note, although Yvenou barely acknowledged their presence...no, surely he was just exhausted from this whole experience. "Odd timing really." Elisa commented. "As soon as the tears close up, the swimmers suddenly go blood crazy...maybe they "smell" or sense the space changing?"
That did put a grim thought in everyone's minds....if the Swimmers ever were to break out beyond the Ghost Region, the cluster would be in peril.
“Smell?” Lieutenant Yvenou had clearly overheard Elisa’s comment. “They actually have a pretty bad sense of smell. We’ve theorized that they evolved in the void of space, where smell… well isn’t really a factor. Of course you weren’t talking literally.” He looked over his shoulder to shoot Elisa a wink. “They do seem to have some kind of sixth sense.” He added, returning the salute of two marines as they stepped to the side to allow the group passage. “I know that the eggheads were doing some experiments, trying to make sense of this sixth sense of theirs but… well I was never granted access to those reports. Most of what I’ve heard on the subject is simple rum-int.”
Elisa couldn't help but blush a bit, one has to admit that the Yrrani, or these Twei were and are considered gorgeous to many species standards. Darius rolled his eyes, disregarding the fact both he and his sister were taken aback by the Witch's captain when they first met. "Guess there's more to them than meets the eye." The admiral said. "Well, now that the region is opening up, others will know about this, which might be both a blessing and a curse. We and no doubt others can help you retake your worlds, and contain these monsters."
Yvenou chose to simply nod to the admiral as they approached a doorway labeled Captain’s Ready Room. A dark skinned officer stood to the side of the doorway, opening the door as the group approached. The officer’s uniform was devoid of any kind of insignia or rank. Perhaps odder still, the officer was yet another doppelganger of the captain, complete with emotionless eyes. Once again Yvenou completely ignored the doppelganger as he stood to the other side of the doorway.
“It was a pleasure speaking with you, but this is where we part ways for now.” He smiled at the group. “Witch of the Void will be with you in here.”
The Captain’s Ready Room was what one would expect from a captain’s office. It had a simple desk, occupied by a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The walls were decorated by pictures of what looked like other carriers of the same class of the Witch of the Void, as well as other female twei captains, many of who had the same dark skin as the Witch of the Void’s captain. Several moderately comfy looking chairs had obviously been brought in to accommodate the group, making the office feel rather tight. And on the opposite end of the desk sat the twei the group had come to meet. Seeing her now, in person, only seemed to hammer in the fact that the group had just passed an identical copy of her in the hallway. In fact no one could have been blamed for thinking she was also a doppelganger, except for the fact that she wore a uniform with rank insignias and a military style coat over that uniform. Even her eyes had that same emptiness of the doppelganger in the hallway.
The captain blinked and suddenly those eyes were full of emotion. A warm smile spread across her face as she rose to her feet. “It's a pleasure to finally see you in person. Please have a seat!” She waited for her guests to be seated before returning to her own seat. “I wish I could offer you coffee or some other stimulating drink, but we ran out of those long ago.”
There was an odd sense of wrongness in the air, this wasn't the case of exhumation, or eyes playing tricks, there was something truly strange about this entire crew. "It's....ok, don't worry yourselves." the admiral said hesitantly as the four took their seats, each eyeing each other. The way she suddenly sprang to life...almost like she was a machine but best not to jump in conclusions. "Ummm, not to be rude." Captain Hood spoke up. "It's good to finally meet you face to face...but, do your people happen to have cloning technology?"
"I swear I can literally see double." Darius said without thinking.
“Cloning?” The captain tilted her head ever so slightly to the side. “Seeing double?” She gave Darius a bemused look. “What are you… Ah. You’re talking about my SAPs. Cloning…” She shook her head in obvious amusement. “You can ignore the SAPs. Unless one talks to you, in which case it's probably me jumping in for a second.” She shook her head again, evidently still amused. “The Republic did entertain the idea of using clones to augment our numbers but decidedly it’d be ethically questionable to do so. Do you use clones?”
"Forgive my interruptions." Drofrim said, her words and phrasing catching his attention. "SAPs? Jumping? I don't understand." Her choice of words do paint a picture, which probably was foretold when Nosewise and that dead cybernetic brain were found. "Are we even speaking to a person at the moment?" Although it did come off as rude, this deception, whether knowingly or not, was quite alarming for the admiral.
“Yes….I’m a person.” The Captain raised an eyebrow. “SAP stands for semi-autonomous platform. It's an android body that’s normally controlled by a nominal AI. Nominal AI are useful, but we’ve learned the hard way that they can’t be trusted, so we keep them limited in capability. Things aren’t capable of loyalty, true loyalty, thus can’t be truly trusted after all. Still, they have their uses. Anyways I can… let’s say project my consciousness into any of my SAPs.” She paused for a moment, a look of worry crossing her features. “I do hope you aren’t allowing nominal AI to control your weapons systems.”
The group felt uneasy, but she has helped them get this far, same for nosewise, it would be best not to antagonize her. "No, we've had a troubling history with highly advanced AI, and advanced robotics." Admiral Drofrim answered her question, still somewhat doubting the captain's words. "Both of our own making and the making of our enemies....I apologize."
"But...I most wonder, is this an android we're talking to right now?" Captain Hood asked, which begs more questions. "Where's the actually "you" so to spea?."
The twei captain nodded in understanding. “Yes, this is” she gestured at herself, “a SAP. My favorite SAP in fact. It wouldn’t be possible for me to actually meet you here after all.” After a slight pause she added “It wasn’t my intention to deceive you. If you’d like I would be more than happy to continue this discussion with me physically present, though I’d still have to use a SAP to actually converse with you.”
The four looked to each other and then all eyes turned to the admiral. "...Very well, lead on, captain." Admiral Drofrim said as he and the others stood up. A little anxious at what the Witch's true form is, all sorts of thoughts and theories floating about in their minds.
“Very well then.” The twei captain said as she rose to her feet. She had obviously noticed the exchange by her four guests but had chosen not to comment on it. She led the group back out into the hallway.
“Taking them to the brain room?” Lieutenant Yvenou asked, an eyebrow raised. The captain simply nodded. For its part, the SAP wearing a plain officer’s uniform didn’t react at all. The captain led her guests down the hall to the next door. The door opened automatically as the captain approached, but the words Bioroid Brain, written on the door, were clearly visible for a moment.
Inside the room, flanking the door on either side, two marines came to attention. They were outfitted in light combat armor, a rifle, or perhaps some kind of shotgun, rested against their shoulder. The captain made a gesture and the two marines saluted before exiting the room. Of course the captain’s guests couldn’t have been faulted if they hadn’t even noticed the marines, for the center of the room held something far more interesting.
The room itself was quite large, the largest in the carrier the group had seen thus far if one excluded the hanger. It was big enough that two strike craft could be stored there. And in the center of this room rested a bioriod brain quite similar to Nosewise’s. The main difference from Nosewise’s brain, however, was that this one was the size of a strike craft. Its blue glow was more than enough to light the room.
“Well,” The twei captain said, “here I am.”
"Holy shit..." Captain Hood mumbled to himself. "It all makes sense now, why you just called yourself Witch, the androids. You're not the captain of the ship, you are the ship, just like nosewise." It seems this Republic has advanced to the point of fully sapient warships, not just fighters. This was both an intriguing, and disturbing thought. The others were left speechless at what they were seeing.
“I did always say I was Witch of the Void after all, but you can just call me Witch” The twei captain, no Witch said. “If you want to think of this in biological terms, that” She pointed at her bioroid brain, “is my brain and my SAPs are like white blood cells. They do what needs to be done without any need for direct control on my part. I have the added benefit of being able to control my SAPs directly if I so wish.”
This was a lot to take in, the ship was "alive" in a sense, every single person aboard was an android. If any of the more jittery personnel in the fleet were present, PTSD would kick in faster than a bullet. "So, a clanker the size of a ship, filled with even more clankers, that's a new one..." Darius said humorously, trying to be enduring. "No one give the bugs ideas."
A glare was shot by Elisa, as she stepped forward. "Uuh, forgive my brother." She said, "His heart is in the right place, but...eh."
"I do thank you for being upfront." Admiral Drofrim said with an apologetic bow. "Be assured this changes nothing. During our time in this region, we can help each other. Be it to fight off swimmers, find your lost kin, and in our case, satisfy the curious minds of our science ministry."
“It is good to know we are still friends.” Witch said to the admiral before turning to Elisa and Darius. “And no apologies are necessary. I’m guessing that ‘clanker’ refers to what we here in the Ghost Nebula call a nominal AI. We are much more than that. We have a bioroid brain” She, or the SAP she currently was controlling, tapped her head with a finger. “Our synthetic brains are based on the brains of biological beings. We aren’t beings of mere programming. Simple code that can be copy and pasted. That have no loyalty. We are distinct beings, our personalities, at least the baseline original personalities, are modeled after actual living beings.”
"That's a story we'll share later." Darius said, regarding the term "Clanker", which requires a different discussion for another time. It seems very clear though that these "Bioroids" are a very different breed of machine compared to the factory-made drones he and his sister fought in thousands during the war. There has been an attempt to give them the feeling of a "soul", beyond mere bolts circuitry.
"This will be something difficult to share with many in the fleet." Admiral Dromfrim said. "And word will spread one way or another. But I promise you that I will prevent any unfortunate incidents if they were to occur. As a start of good will, we will aid you in your search for this Black Knight."
“Good. I miss my sister.” For a moment Witch let her smile slip into a deep frown. “I know she’s out there. The last orders she received were to guard a top secret asteroid base. Knowing her, she’ll keep guarding that base till the heat death of the universe.” Her smile had returned, although it was somewhat diminished. “I know I’m close to finding her hiding spot. Given another week, a month at most, I would have found her. Now that the Swimmers are out in force again… well I’ve lost over half of my strike craft complement and am down to four missiles. I’d never last on my own. And with my own base destroyed…” She frowned again, but a smile returned as she looked the admiral in the eye. “With your help we’ll be reunited. I won’t forget this favor.”
Drofrim nodded. "And same with us." The admiral then turned to face his subordinates. "You heard the lady, we got ourselves a search and rescue mission, return to the Courageous and wait on standby for the fleet to mobilize." The three saluted to the admiral. "Aye aye, sir!" They replied in unison.
A few hours has passed since the Witch's little revelation, Imperial ships moving into a several loose cluster formations, one of them centering around Witch as they begun their search for her sister. Although the members of the science ministry aboard the fleet would be displeased with the delays. The system clearly isn't safe at the moment for anyone.
As if to punctuate this very point, Witch broadcast a message to the whole fleet. “Brace for impact!”
Strike craft began to fly out of her hangars, though notably the forward most hangar doors remained closed. A moment after her warning, the fleet came under heavy bombardment. Rocks, covered in the Swimmers’ stealth mucus, bombarded the fleet. And unlike before these rocks were much, much larger and far more dangerous.
“Watch for Swimmers moving into our parameter using the rocks as cover! They’re masters of stealth.” Witch warned.
The bridge of the Imperator's Wrath, a Gladius Battle Carrier and Drofrim's flagship, trembled from the swimmer's assault. "Shield's are barely holding, sir!" One of the bridge officers cried out, the fleet in disarray as they pelted by the asteroids. "Can we pinpoint origin point of the asteroids?" The admiral asked, holding onto his seat tightly.
"Afraid not, sir!" The officer replied. "Proximity scanners are picking up nothing!"
"Several ships just gone dark, sir!" another cried out, the sheer size of the asteroids having taken out several lighter warships. "Shit, no way out of this mess, order all ships to fire!" The admiral ordered. "Doesn't matter where, just fire! And launch all strike craft!"
The space around the fleet was illuminated by the weapons fire of hundreds of shipboard guns aimlessly fired off into random directions. Swarms of fighter craft burst forth from several ships in the fleet as they joined in the defense. The strike craft focused on small targets while the warships focused on wearing down the larger asteroids.
And that was when some of the rocks started shifting forms. One moment they were simple rocks, hurtling towards the fleet at insane speeds, the next they morphing into tentacled creatures. These newly revealed Swimmers began dodging fire as they threw themselves at nearby ships.
One such Swimmer, a creature that could rival a cruiser in size, reached out to an Augustan destroyer before the crew even knew the creature was there. Its tentacles were mere meters away from the ship’s hull when the Witch of the Void slammed into the creature, driving it away. Witch tried to roll away, her secondaries cutting into the Swimmer, but her foe had wrapped its tentacles around her before she could complete the maneuver. Her squadron of heavy fighters was busy repelling a different Swimmer that was trying to close on an Augustan light cruiser, but one of her other squadrons moved in to help, their weapons doing damage, albeit to little obvious effect.
The Augustans suddenly found themselves surrounded by spaceborne horrors as the swimmers emerged from the chaos, imperial strike craft finding themselves engaged in a massive dogfight against a smaller variety of swimmer, moving in deadly swarms as they slammed against a number of fighter craft, torn to shreds by the beasts. In a brief moment, once the threat was recognized, the imperial strike craft reorganized themselves as they changed targets, focusing exclusively on swimmers both big and small.
simultaneously, the Augustan warships engaged the larger swimmers in pitched combat, several corvette-sized swimmers plastering themselves onto the hull of the Imperator's Wrath, her main batteries preoccupied with fending off the larger breeds, the swimmers on her hull boring into her central hangar bay. Before any more damage could be done, the beasts were chased off as a flight of Hammer Assault Boats unleashed their payload upon them, a volley of missiles and cracking shots from their heavy guns piercing their flesh, enraging the swimmers as they hurled themselves towards their attackers. The assault boats attempted to scatter, only a few managing to escape intact while others were snatched and torn apart.
Witch of the Void’s fighters tore into the Swimmers giving chase to the assault boats. The fighters interposed themselves between the Swimmers and assault boats, flipping end over end to open fire on the Swimmers. Their particle beam cannons, although not as powerful as the assault boats armaments, were unerringly accurate, slicing tentacles off and hitting the Swimmers in delicate areas. Then the fighters scattered, drawing the Swimmers away from the Augustan assault boats. Several fighters were smashed by tentacles or fell to plasma spit, but the rest dodged the attacks with an ease that belied a great wealth of experience combatting the creatures.
The fighters continued to poke and prod at the Swimmers with their cannons. They weren’t doing a huge amount of damage to the far larger creatures, but they were obviously pissing them off. Keeping the creatures’ attention locked firmly on them. This allowed the fighters to draw the Swimmers right into the broadsides of the Augustan warships. Easy targets.
Once enough swimmers were drawn into a fitting firing range, the admiral took notice of what the Witch's fighters were doing, and seized this opportunity to strike back at the monsters. "Fire all guns!" Drofrim shouted out, the gun batteries of the Imperator's Wrath unleashing a volley of plasma fire and torpedoes, other ships close enough to the flagship followed suit, focusing their fire on the distracted swimmers, ripping them apart. "Press on the attack!" Drofrim ordered, not wasting any time before the momentum is lost.
This had seemed to blunt the Swimmers’ attack. They fell by the dozens, many torn to pieces by the Augustan warships’ broadsides, the rest falling to strike craft attack. A casual observer couldn’t be faulted for thinking that the Swimmers fought to the last, they made a final suicidal charge at the Augustans, but a few Swimmers faded away from the battle and from view as they reapplied their mucus stealth. Some of the Witch of the Void’s fighters were able to catch several of these fleeing monsters, but the rest successfully slipped away.
"Sir, they're pulling back!" One of the bridge officers announced, the bridge erupting in celebration as the rest of the fleet mopped up the remaining swimmers bold enough to continue their attack. "Fight's not over yet, people." Admiral Drofrim calmly stated, letting out a sigh of relief as, for the moment at least, this fight was over, but not by a long shot. The Swimmers will be watching, waiting, and will most likely strike again in the future until they get what they want, food. "Let's handle what remains and get back in formation, don't forget we have a ship to rescue."
Over the next week the Augustans and Witch of the Void had been assaulted by the Swimmers several times. These attacks had been of little consequence, unlike the first few. The Swimmers had seemingly expended much of their strength. It also helped that Witch of the Void had been able to detect the Swimmer before they launched their attack, thus giving the Augustans enough time to mount a defense. In fact, after she had gotten comfortable with her new allies she had devoted most of her strike craft to patrolling around the small fleet in search of Swimmers, granting them an even greater amount of time to ready before each attack.
Witch had had some interesting reactions and statements to the Swimmers. She had seemed… bored by the Swimmers. When asked she had simply stated that these Swimmers were dull and few in number. She’d also advised the Augustans to not get used to what she had begun to call “amateurs hour.”
“I’m detecting them ten minutes before they attack us one hundred percent of the time now” She had said. “Back two hundred years I had a ten percent chance of giving a ten minute heads up and a fifty percent chance of a one minute heads up.”
The admiral let out an audible whistle at the Witches age, as he was conversing with her hologram avatar. "You've been at this for two hundred years?" He said, her years of service being no different to Old Yrrani warships, built to last, something the Augustans haven't been able to match in ship design on a wide scale.
“Longer actually,” Witch answered. “But don’t ask how long. It's not polite to inquire about a lady’s age.” She shot the admiral a friendly wink. “Joking aside, the Republic always had a quality over quantity mindset. My class was designed to be in service for about a hundred years, with upgrades and major drydock time intended. By that metric I suppose you could call me Granny Witch.” After a moment’s pause she added “Don’t.”
The thought was tempting...but she had the firepower to shut anyone up. "No worries." he said with a mischievous grin, resisting the urge. Having the Witch accompanying the fleet has lifted the previous oppressing atmosphere of dread. Their combined firepower is enough to keep the swimmers at bay for the moment.
Don’t think I didn’t notice that glint in your eye” Witch said, with a smile of her own. “But enough about that.” Witch had become increasingly excited over the past few days. “We’ll find Dame within the next three days!” She exclaimed. “I’ve searched just about every other hiding place in this star system.”
"We'll find her, don't you worry." Admiral Drofrim assured the ship, a really strange train of thought when one thinks about it, but then again, these are new and strange times for everyone.
The Admiral’s promise was almost immediately proven to be prophetic.
“WARNING!” A deep masculine voice began, the same voice that the buoy at Witch’s asteroid base had had. “You are now entering a restricted military zone. Reverse course and-” The voice was momentarily cut off by a screech, before being replaced by a stern sounding female voice.
“This is the GRNS Black Knight to all citizens and assets of the Ghost Nebula Republic. This is a designated safe zone. Any person or piece of hardware who receives this message is to immediately change course to point Charlie-Delta-1. Any piece of military hardware is to immediately report to my command, unless they are acting under recent orders from a officer of the Ghost Republic Armed Forces. I am invoking Article Seven of the War Powers Act; any bioroid who receives this message is hereby property of the Ghost Nebula Republic’s Armed Forces and is to immediately report for duty. The ships of anyone who receives this message is hereby lawfully confiscated in order to support the war effort. All bioroids are ordered to ensure the safe delivery of the ship they are currently on board as well as the safety of that ship’s crew and passengers.” There was a pause before she continued. “The safety and well being of any citizen who complies is guaranteed.”
“This buoy was last serviced one day ago.” the masculine voice said before the buoy’s entire message began to repeat.
"Well I'll be damned." Drofrim expressed. "I think we've found her, or at least, we're at the right place." He turned his attention to his bridge officers. "Have the fleet on standby and ready to engage, we don't need any nasty surprises." He turned back to the hologram of Witch. "Do whatever you have to do."
“Already on it.” True to her words, Witch had already changed course and was burning towards the coordinates indicated by the buoy. “Do you intend to come with me or are you going to hang back here?”
"Better safe then sorry, we'll fall in right behind you." Drofrim replied, the fleet simultaneously trailing behind the Witch as they all converged towards the location of the buoy. The chances of an ambush or engagement were cut in half, but in such an unfamiliar region, it pays to be prepared.
Witch led the Augustans to the indicated coordinates, revealing an asteroid base much like the one she had once used. This asteroid base was larger than her’s and in much better shape. Where she had had to convert civilian industrial ships to create a makeshift drydock, this asteroid base had one built in. There was a notable lack of civilian ships in the area. The top portion of a ship that looked very similar to Witch of the Void could be seen poking out from behind the asteroid base. More immediately noticeable, however, were the two light cruisers that sat between the asteroid base and Witch and the Augustans. Both light cruisers had their spinal particle beam cannons hot, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
“You are within the territory of the Ghost Nebula Republic!” A stern woman’s voice broadcast towards the Augustan fleet. “Your warships are obviously of foreign design. Identify yourselves. Now.”
“Dame-” Witch began.
“Be silent.”
“Wait a sec-”
“Witch of the Void, if the next and only words out of your mouth aren’t ‘Yes ma’am’, I’ll consider you to be in violation of Article 2. Now send me your sitrep over the delta channel and be silent.”
“Aye aye ma’am.” Witch answered after a moment.
“Now I ask again,” Black Knight returned her attention to the Augustans. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The Admiral had to act swiftly and prevent any avoidable violence, one neither side would benefit from. "We come in peace, I repeat, we come in peace." He stated, hoping to ease tensions. "I am Admiral Grex Drofrim of the Augustan Empire." He began with name, rank, and affiliation. "The Ghost Nebula was locked behind tears in the fabric of space, the tears have repaired themselves, and we have come from the other side to investigate at the request of my superiors." He paused, gulping down air, he could feel the tension rise, this ship for sure wasn't like the Witch. "I repeat, we are friendly, and have assisted the Witch of the Void locating you."
“Your presence here could be interpreted as an invasion.” Black Knight commented. Witch made an exasperated sound; Black Knight seemingly ignored Witch. “Investigate to what end? And what is your Augustan Empire’s relationship with the Yrrani Empire?”
"None, the Old Empire is gone." the Admiral replied, his bridge officers silently watching the confrontation unfolding, anxious on the final outcome. "Has been for over five centuries. The Yrrani no longer rule the galaxy." Perhaps this may help in easing Black Knight in a more diplomatic stance....although her observation would make it seem that the Expeditionary Fleet was an Invasion force.
“I suppose your Augustan Empire” Black Knight placed great emphasis on empire, “is the successor state of the Yrrani? Is it humanity’s turn to lord over the galaxy?”
"Far from it." Drofrim tried to assure the hot tempered warship, this wasn't his first stand off against opposing officers, and certainly won't be his last. "But enough of that. Even though we have come in the name of exploration, we are far from helpless." A series of thoughts have come to end on how to calm this beast. "Even if we fall here, your Republic is now open to the rest of the galaxy, do you really want to risk war with an Empire on the scale of ours?"
He paused as he scanned his surroundings, his subordinates looking to him. "The Swimmers are enough of a problem, a problem, mind you, that we helped deal with upon meeting the Witch of the Void." He eased in both with a threat, and shared the fact that he and his fleet have aided her sister ship in combat.
“We might finally have allies against the Swimmers.” Witch said.
“I believe I told you to be silent.” Black Knight said, but much of the heat had left her voice. “Very well. I’ll have my forces stand down.” Vents opened up on the sides of the light cruisers, expelling particles and energy into the void of space around them as they powered down their particle beam cannons. On either side of the Augustan fleet a destroyer slid out of hiding from behind an asteroid. They too vented particles and energy into space as they powered down their particle beam cannons. The destroyers’ hulls, black when they had come out of hiding, seemed to shimmer for a second before changing color to a dull gray.
“I appreciate you helping Witch of the Void,” Black Knight continued, “but I don’t for a moment believe you did so out of the goodness of your heart.”
"Believe what you want." Drofrim said in an equally stern tone. "But it will be in both of our interests if we're not killing each other, and focus on the actual enemy." The bridge crew begun clapping and celebrating the Admiral for seemingly talking his way out of a battle and a war. The admiral collapsed onto his command chair, letting out a heavy sigh. "The more I do this, the more draining it gets."
“She’s not usually this crabby.” Witch commented on a private communications line with the admiral’s ship. “I know this was supposed to be a top secret site, but still… she’s mad she was found after hiding for one hundred years. Knowing her she might have stayed another hundred before even considering disobeying her last orders.” She didn’t sound perturbed how Black Knight had spoken to her. If anything she almost sounded amused.
"Quite frankly, it might've been your best interest to let her stay at her post unnoticed." Drofrim said, rubbing his scalp, even at his rank, hard ass officers below or above him were equally a pain in the ass for the aged Dathu. "But, we did agree on finding her and did, much to her dismay. Now that the family is reunited, what's your next step?"
“That’s up to her. She beat me out of the drydock by seven days, so she’s got seniority.” Witch answered. “And I disagree. Had I stayed at my own base I probably would be destroyed by the Swimmers. And even if I had survived I would be alone.” She let that thought linger for a moment. “And don’t be so harsh on her. She’s stern, always has been, but she’s also hurting. We all have since we lost Valiant.”
It was easy to forget that these ships were individuals in a way, and every ship lost is not only the personnel aboard, it was a mind, an artificial soul that was snuffed out from the stars. "Right, right. My apologies. This Valiant was another sister ship of yours?"
“In a way, but probably not the way you think.” Witch answered. “Valiant wasn’t a mythology class carrier like Black Knight or I, she was a super dreadnought. The pride of the fleet. And a big sister to all of us. She was the heart and soul of the navy, a light in the dark.” There was a long pause. “We lost her. We lost her and her sacrifice didn’t accomplish a damn thing.”
That would be something to be heartbroken over... Both an elder sister for the smaller scale ships and the largest, most powerful warship in the navy, to lose such a weapon and in a way, a central figure to many would demoralize and break anyone. "I'm....sorry to hear that. " Drofrim said sorrowfully. It once more puts into perspective the ferocity of the swimmers, to take down a super dreadnought is a dreadful thought, bringing back reports of larger breeds of swimmers in mind. "If I may ask, how did you lose her?”
“Neither Black Knight nor I were present when it happened.” Witch began. “She had been… pulled from the Home fleet to serve as the flagship of the Exodus fleet. Exodus… that sounds more romantic than it really was. In short the Republic tried various methods of hiding its citizens from the Swimmers. For that mission the Exodus fleet was heading out to a remote region. They came under heavy Swimmer attack and, despite being the flagship of the fleet, Valiant suffered catastrophic damage to her engines. All hands abandoned ship, biological and bioroid, but obviously she herself was stuck. So she stayed behind to act as a rearguard, along with two destroyers. She had apparently completely blunted the Swimmer attack, they never caught up to the Exodus fleet. However a few weeks later a second swarm destroyed most of the fleet. Only a handful of ships were able to return. Obviously their mission failed and we were never able to muster up the strength to return to that star system again.”
The mood turned somber in the bridge, the XO and bridge officers silently listening in, her words striking a cord, many feeling sympathy for a sentient ship of all things. "I know I can't say much that will make it better." Drofrim said, leaning forward from his chair. "But, from where I see, that sacrifice meant something, you and your sisters are still here. Because you held on this long, we from the wider galaxy were able to find you."
(We could probably just start a new collab or continue this one. Whatever works)
The following day had met the Augustans with a request by Black Knight to meet face to face in her asteroid base. When asked why she had wanted to meet, the stern bioroid had simply stated that what they needed to discuss was strategic in nature. She was still holding her cards close to her chest apparently. Witch seemed amused by the whole affair. Despite her previous discussion regarding Valiant, Witch’s reunion with her sister seemed to have given the friendly bioroid a bit more bounce in her step.
She had requested that the Augustans pick her up so she could also attend the meeting in person. She had lost her last shuttle during a Swimmer ambush a few days earlier. Of course she wouldn’t actually be present for the meeting, but using her favorite SAP was the next best thing.
“You know” Witch commented to the Augustan admiral as the Augustan shuttle headed towards Black Knight’s asteroid base, “I think Dame likes you.”
Admiral Drofrim made an amused expression. "Glad to make such a good impression. I was quite the lady killer back in my formative years." That last bit got a good chuckle at out his subordinates, the Ranger Captain Hood and the Hawthorn siblings, a few marines having the honor of accompanying the admiral. Captain Hood clearing his throat. "Uh, forgive that, sir."
"I'm in a good mood, I'll let that slide." Admiral Drofrim said, sit with his amused grin.
Witch chuckled as well, even as she shook her head. “I don’t think Dame has a romantic bone in her body; no she’s just relieved to not have the highest rank in the room. Doesn’t matter that you aren’t from the Republic.” She shrugged. “You also remind me of Admiral Merser. She probably noticed the resemblance as well.” After a moment she gestured as if she was waving something away from her face. “But enough about the past. I had assumed she’d wait an extra day or two, maybe exchange a few more verbal skirmishes over comms, before wanting to meet in person. She didn’t, which tells me something is afoot.”
Drofrim was intrigued about this Merser Witch mentioned, however, that discussion would have to wait for another time as the shuttle entered the hanger bay, lowering down as the interior trembled for a moment, the doors sliding open and the boarding ramps lowering down. "We're about to soon find out." Drofrim said as the other passengers rose up from their seats, getting ready to step out. "I would love to hear more of this Merser when more time is had."
“Sure, if time allows” Witch said as the group stepped out into the hangar. They were greeted by several marines who saluted the group and led them through the asteroid base. These marines, unlike Lieutenant Yvenou, were all business and had zero interest in making any kind of small talk. The corridors of the asteroid base was bustling with activity. Marines, navy officers, techs all conducted various activities that one would expect to normally seen done on such a facility; the Augustans couldn’t have been faulted for believing they were seeing normal soldiers on duty, had they not already known better.
After about ten minutes the marines led the Augustans and Witch to a large meeting room. Black Knight was already standing, but she gave the Augustan Admiral a salute as he entered the door, before walking over and offering her hand. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I requested this meeting.”
“I know I am” Witch responded, earning her a scowl from Black Knight. The scowl quickly softened and an eagle eyed observer might have noticed the ghost of a smile. Moments later this was replaced by her default stern expression.
"I can't help but be a little curious myself." Drofrim replied as he gave a firm handshake with the bioroid, his officers and escorts behind him being ever attentive as they listened in on what Black Knight had to say.
Black Knight gestured for her guests to take a seat at the large meeting table that dominated the room before she did so herself. “I’ll get right to it then.” Black Knight said as soon as everyone had seated themselves. “Your presence here has created a problem.” She held up a hand to forestall any argument from the Augustans. “And I mean both here at my base specifically as well as being in the Ghost Region generally. I was well hidden before, but you’ve led the Swimmers here. But realistically that’s a minor concern compared to your presence in the Ghost Region. We were starving the Swimmers out. Now… well they have a new source of good.” She pointedly looked at Admiral Drofrim. “Even had neither you or Witch of the Void led them here, the increased Swimmer activity caused by the availability of a new source of sustenance would have inevitably caused them to locate this base.”
She paused for a moment, giving her guests time to digest what she was saying before continuing. “I say this not to cast blame, but to inform you of the situation we are now in. This base is no longer safe. I’ve been running some simulations and suspect that, with the combat forces I have now, I will be able to hold this location for three months. After that my task force will have either been completely eliminated or the base itself will have received too much damage to be able to continue to support my forces, thus resulting in a mission kill anyways.”
“What exactly were your last orders?” Witch asked.
Black Knight frowned, for a moment it seemed that she wouldn’t answer, but then spoke up. “The Republic government had hoped that it could freeze at least a portion of its remaining population and hide them away. Once Swimmer numbers had fallen low enough, we would retake the Ghost Nebula. This base was one such cryogenic preservation site. At capacity it could store just over ten million people, many of which were intended to be congressmen, military personnel, and individuals with expertise that would be necessary to rebuild the Republic’s industrial base. This base was also intended to serve as a small shipyard as well as factory for arms, munitions, and even bioroids. This base, as well as several other such bases, was to serve as an important hub in the early stages of what was going to be a reclamation campaign. My orders specifically were to protect this base until the fleet escorting the cryogenic subjects arrived, at which point I would join that fleet and continue to defend this base. The fleet never arrived.”
This was quite the revelation indeed, and a daunting amount to process. It seems the arrival of the Augustans had derailed a seemingly solid plan to defeat the swimmers. The scent and taste of fresh blood in the Ghost Nebula had driving the swimmers into a frenzy, the Augustans present feeling a sense of fault in the events that played out since their arrival. It was pretty clear why no reinforcements arrived, as previous reports Captain Hood provided indicated. "Admiral, sir, if I may speak?" Darius asked as he stood up.
Drofrim turned to the ranger, giving a light nod. "Granted."
"Admiral, I know this will derail the mission, what we came here for in the first place, but we can't let this base fall." His sister, Elisa, stood up alongside her brother in solidarity. "They already lost so much, sir, we could give them a chance of survival.”
The Admiral was silent for a moment, pondering to himself as he looked back and forth between the siblings and Black Knight, hands tucked behind his back, turning his attention back to Black Knight. "I agree, the Hawthorns have a point." He said with a warm smile. "We came here simply to explore, but after all we've been through and what you've told us, looks like we'll be sticking around for a bit longer."
“Excellent!” Black Knight said. “We’ll need to abandon this base. In fact I intend to leave this star system entirely. But we can’t do that yet. If we just bug out now we’d eventually run out of BBF, which is the same as signing our own death warrants. It's possible we could run into another hidden base manned by our brothers and sisters, but I don’t care for the odds of finding such a base before we run out. As much as I’d like to simply move the BBF production machines out of this base… well they are too large and too integrated into the asteroid to make that feasible. So instead I intend to salvage some from the nearby planet. It once had a few decent sized cities and I’ve already found records of several industrial sites that should have what we need.”
“We don’t have any ships to carry that equipment.” Witch said. “That equipment is far too big to fit on a destroyer or cruiser, and even if we fit the pieces on several ships they won’t do us any good disassembled.”
Black Knight looked at Witch with a large smile on her face. “I suppose it's a good thing that we have a nearly empty carrier here then.”
“I am not a fleet auxiliary ship.” Witch did not sound amused.
“We have greater need for a fleet auxiliary than we do an empty carrier, so deal with it.” Black Knight allowed herself to look amused for a few seconds longer before reverting to her default stern expression. “I’ll give you a company of marines and platoon of combat engineers, as well as several of my heavy duty shuttles in order to facilitate the salvage operation. I’ll also have one of the destroyers escort you. Meanwhile I’ll oversee things here. While you are gone I’ll be churning out as much BBF, spare parts, and ammunition as possible.”
“Damn same we can’t put those bioroid factories you have to use.” Witch said.
Black Knight simply nodded an agreement before turning her attention back to Admiral Drofrim. “I would appreciate it if you would escort Witch of the Void on her salvage mission. I’d do it myself, but I can’t afford to reduce my forces here any further and we are going to need as much materials as possible if we are to survive for long. And this will give you further opportunities to complete your original mission, no? You’ll get the chance to investigate one of the Ghost Region’s inhabitable planets. And, should the Swimmers make a run at you, the destroyer I send with Witch of the Void will show you how a real Republican warship fights.”
The Admiral nodded to Black Knight's reasoning in agreement, even for a brief moment, the science ministry members aboard the flagship would jump towards a swift excursion to one of the planets of the Ghost Nebula, having been confined in the flagship for the entirety of the journey. "I'm sure our eggheads will very much appreciate this opportunity for study." He said with a sly smile, turning to meet the other Augustans, the others nodding and chuckling. "But on a serious note, we'll gladly assist in her mission, keep the swimmers at bay or blast them into stardust if we manage."
With a new goal set in mind, the Augustan fleet, the Witch of the Void and her escort depart the asteroid base, making way towards the nearby planet in the system, with the hopes and promises of materials needed for the bioroids to bolster their forces before they make a final departure from the system, and for the Augustans, moving deeper into the unknown.
An offshoot of the Yrrani, the Twei are an ethnic minority that are most easily distinguished by the fact that they have longer ears. They are usually fair skinned, pale even, but can be darker skinned, often as the result of cross breeding with humans. Much like their cousins, the Twei are blessed with longevity, general physiological resilience, unnatural beauty as well as graceful aging, and generally keen minds. They are also noted as possessing great spacial awareness and reflexes, both of which are often further enhanced by cybernetics.