High School Fleet Command (Original Fiction)

[Kara Valmeyjar]

High School Fleet Command

By Alexander Raines​

Dedications
First of all, I must thank @Trent01 for his blessing for this project, as my idea for the story concept came from his game "High Schooler by Day, Fleet Command by Night." He is a wonderfully creative person and I encourage you to check out his game threads.

Secondly, I'd like to thank my family for putting up with the eccentricities and hair pulling moments of having a writer in the household.

Third, and last, I'd like to dedicate this story to my grandfather and my mother. The former for giving me his no-nonsense attitude towards everything, and the latter for giving me the opportunity to work on this story without interruption as well as raising me and introducing me to books at a young age. In particular, this book is for her than even myself.

This story is already complete and new chapters will be released on every first and third week of the month. For more information please check my Patreon.

Fair warning to readers, this story was self-edited and has not been gone over by a professional editor. It is also this author's first effort at writing and completing a work of original fiction. I ask for patience with errors and invite helpful feedback so I can do better next time.

Enjoy!

***

Chapter 1 - Fleet Command Online​

Noelle Hawkins rubbed her eyes in a vain attempt to purge the fatigue from her brain. The sleepiness and lack of an ability to care was sadly not attributed to a crazy party or a night of hard studying. In fact she'd managed to force herself to sleep at a reasonable hour for once and had gotten up at a reasonable time as a result. Sadly, it did not affect the haze that settled over her in the early morning English class.

Today it was particularly thick as it was today that her class would be getting their test results back. Long experience told her that her classmates were either nervous wrecks sweating their skins off despite the frigid arctic climate the classroom was currently being maintained at (Noelle rechecked the buttons on her flannel sweater to be sure that no warm air was escaping from a slight opening) or looking eerily calm and relaxed as they waited to see the butcher's bill.

The teacher took her time going around the class. She was as much a morning person as her students, so the exchange of paper stacks was quiet enough that the ambient noise was the thrum of traffic on the nearby freeway and the hissing of joy or humiliating defeat from her fellow classmates.

For her part, Noelle was neither the nervous wreck nor the confident test all star. She merely sat in her uncomfortable molded plastic chair while a ball of chained lightning ratted around her rib cage.

Despite the uncomfortable feeling of the chair and her nervous energy manifesting itself, Noelle was otherwise serene for the most part. She had long ago rationalized away the so-called "butterflies in the belly" as being her subconscious manifesting itself. Her higher brain functions knew that the time to act on such instincts to tweak and rework were long passed. Everything that she could have done was done, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the teacher to reach her so that she could if her last week's studying had paid off.

A thin stack of paper abruptly dropped on her desk. Only three sheets thick, both sides covered in Size 16 Times New Roman text with one and one-half spacing between paragraphs detailing the purchase of the Louisiana territory from the French First Republic to the United States in 1803 with citations from three credible sources (one text book, one internet, and one historical scholarly journal).

The entire ensemble had required about four days to compile sources, write up, edit, submit to a peer student for proofreading, then prepare for final review by the class teacher. A large, red "B-" was written on the blank right side of the page parallel to the name/date/class/teacher quartet that all college essays required.

Noelle could feel the stress bleeding from her body. The ball of lightning fizzled out and her nerves calmed themselves. Another test had been passed with reasonable success. It wasn't the big wonderful A Plus or even a shining B or B Plus, but it was still a B. B meant that she had done above average and her parents would be satisfied with the result enough to leave her alone for now. Now all she had to do was survive the rest of the school day.

The rest of the day's activities consisted of sitting through morning classes and PT, then lunch. Lunch today was serviceable as food for normal people. Maybe it was a holiday that one of the kitchen staff or faculty enjoyed celebrating, so had upgraded the food from Meal Rejected by Ethiopians (a smile cracked on Noelle's face at how shocked Mom got when Grandpa first cracked that particular joke) to the stuff they served in federal prisons.

Noelle was in her usual spot near the middle of the room, where most people tended to avoid because it was dead-center lined up with the door, and there was more than one teacher or faculty member who enjoyed peeking in through the plexi-glass windows to see what mischief their student body was up to. If they peeked in, all they'd see would be a bored looked teenage girl with messy dark hair staring with blanked eyes into her phone screen.

Sometimes there were advantages to being the quiet, unassuming one in a school full of strutting peacocks.

Noelle grimaced and bit down a groan of annoyance. She'd just ran out of her current online story(abandoned by author, presumed damned forever) and the rest were still waiting for the authors to finish their latest posts. News was particularly boring and vapid today, with some starlet paying a parking ticket at her local DMV being the day's highlight so far. Her debate and pic sharing forums were quite this time of day, so there was no new interesting threads to follow. She was about to just slide her phone back into her pocket and concentrate on eating when an alert popped up from one of her game Apps.

"Greetings, Fleet Admiral! You've been selected to help Black Star Studios play-test our next space battle tactical simulator title. Black Stars Rising: The New Worlds is shaping up to be our best title to date with a revolutionary AI that makes our NPCs even more lifelike than before, with an entire library of responses of that will make every conversation unique! Combined with new, innovative controls and battle mechanics and integration with VR that will make you feel like you're a part of the action! Besides multiplayer support, we intend to deliver the fantastic single player story of heroism and bravery that made Black Stars Rising the titan of gaming it's been for the last two decades!

While our plan is to have multiple story campaigns to play through, our commitment to quality storytelling has meant that only one story campaign has been completed by now. Four hundred years after the fall of the Concordance of Stars and Species, the galaxy has descended into barbarism with only a handful of civilized systems remaining. Take command of the ragtag Alliance Fleet as they defend these few remaining beacons of civilizations against hordes of techno-barbarians, pirate kings, and enigmatic alien threats that have arisen from the dark corners of the galaxy. Only you can lead them out of the new Galactic Dark Age and rebuild the Concordance of Stars and Species!"

And like that, Noelle's dreary spirits were sky high and beyond to the stars. She immediately accepted the offer and all through the rest of the day she had a wide, toothy, cheeky grin on her freckled face. After so long of waiting, her prayers had finally been answered (as well as the prayers of thousands of other space combat sim nerds out there)! And she'd been chosen to be a beta tester!

The elation of this much coveted position was a beam of light in her life not experienced since she had finished the year-old money saving and earning program she'd set for herself that had allowed her to upgrade her computer to process modern games with flawless, even seamless precision. She barely remembered going through the humdrum of her afternoon classes and the trip home. Her mind was filled with potential tactics and speculation at what kind of warships this Alliance Fleet had at its disposal, which were likely to be smaller warships and a heavy fighter focus if the devs were going to go with the standards tropes and cliches that they always seemed to make exciting and new.

As was typical for her family, she was first home. Velma, her younger sister by two years, was likely at a friend's house. Her mom and dad wouldn't be home for another few hours still. This suited her just fine normally. Today especially so. No distractions or causes for interruptions. She occupied herself doing some quick chores while the game was downloaded and installed, but the moment it was done she was in her chair and zooming into the campaign just as fast as she could click and her computer could load.

***
The command crew of the Alliance Navy battle cruiser Heart of Winter gathered around the diminutive object that had been the cause of so much heartache and loss. It was about four feet tall and one foot across and looked like some kind of super high tech barrel covered in glowing and blinking lights whose purposes were lost to time. Universal connection ports had been exposed and a pair of techs stood standby to connect power to the object and allow it to interface. All that remained was the word of their captain.

Captain Hieronymus Natalie Belmont looked down at the AI core with eyes that seemed semi-sunken into his skull from fatigue and not enough sleep, but otherwise betrayed no emotion. His poker face was perfect or close enough that the watch officers were trading looks between him and the core.

A lieutenant, Joseph McKenzie, finally spoke up, saying in a quiet voice, "Sir, the Core… Are you sure we should do this?"

Belmont gave a noncommittal shrug, replying, "What other choice do we have?"

"There has to be something else we haven't checked over yet," the young officer insisted. "These Meta AI were extremely dangerous even in the Concordance's hay day. If we plugged it in it could take over the ship and-"

"That's enough, lieutenant," Captain Belmont growled. Despair and thinking went arm in arm with situations like this. The officer was just voicing what they all were feeling, and he was feeding their paranoia with his stalling. If even half the rumors about what Warminds could do were true then they could very well be awakening a mad war god that would destroy them just as surely as the haywire auto-drones and techno-barbarians crouching closer and closer to homeworld would.

Or they'd be awakening the savior they needed, who only needed to be paid in enemies to fight to be otherwise mollified or at least content to not turn on the Alliance. There was only one way to find out.

"Plug it in, specialists," he ordered, and the techs began pumping power from the Winter's plasma-fusion reactor core. The blinking lights took on new patterns and colors as it presumably left emergency stasis mode. There was a faint humming of power as machinery warmed up and stretched their metaphorical muscles of composite materials and liquid-crystal circuitry. The humming reached its fevered pitch then calmed down to a dull buzzing. When no other changes were apparent, Belmont spoke.

"Hello? Warmind, can you hear me?" he asked.

[Affirmative], a melodious, gender neutral electronic voice replied. [Who are you?]

"I am Captain Belmont of the Alliance of Free Worlds. We are a coalition of asteroid habitats, drift stations, and colony worlds that survived the fall of the Concordance of Stars and Species. We may be the last piece of real civilization left in the galaxy. Our neighbors have descended into barbarism and lost any sense of civilized society. We're outnumbered and surrounded on all sides. We need someone to turn the tide and help us not just survive, but give us a real chance to become more than just another group of survivors. You're our last chance for that. Will you help us?"

[Affirmative. I will require access to all tactical and strategic information regarding your nation's defenses, military industry, and enemy intelligence.]

Belmont was actually surprised that it agreed. So much so that it showed on his face briefly. He recovered quickly and nodded at the other specialist, who plugged the AI into the Winter's computer database. Belmont said, "Thank you. What do we call you?"

****
Noelle stopped slouching in her chair and assumed a serious, hunched over position over her keyboard. Up till now it'd all been cutscenes and scripted dialogue, and very good dialogue and cutscenes for that matter, and now she was finally being prompted to put the RP into this RPG.

She pondered her username for this game. She was half tempted to put in a joke name or some kind of memery to see if she could break the game's dialogue system. After all she was a beta tester and a beta's job was to break the game in every conceivable way. However there were probably enough testers doing that and this game was doing its best to put its best foot forward.

So for this round she'd play it straight and start messing around later. After a quick pondering she decided on her name and entered it.

The game then prompted her to choose a flagship from the three available options: an old battleship, a mid-weight carrier, and a stealth cruiser. Of the three only the carrier was actually up for selection with the rest being greyed out. Noelle creased her brow and scribbled down some notes for later feedback on a pad of scratch paper and continued the game, waiting for cutscene land to be over. Except there was no cutscene. The game was waiting on her to talk. After scrambling to make sure her microphone was connected and turned on, she spoke.

****
The AI abruptly spoke after being silent for several moments too long.

[Call me Surtr. I have examined your database and I have located a suitable flagship for saving your nation. A Pegasus-class Command Carrier is located at the Skoll System megafactory. We-]

"Hold on," Belmont interrupted. "The Skoll System? That place is filled with auto-drone ships that attack everything. We already tried getting the carrier out of there once. Nothing made it out."

[You have me now. I have the necessary codes to disable the drone defenses and retrieve the carrier. Please contact fleet command for a battalion-strength marine contingent and engineers to get the carrier operation within a few moments.]

Belmont tried to not grind his molars. He didn't have problems taking instruction from superiors. You didn't get to command one of the four battle cruisers in the Alliance Fleet by being hot headed and stubborn, but he didn't like how it just seemed to assume command.

Call it too many nights spend reaching cheap military techno-thrillers about AI overlords using organic sapients as slave labor or wetware computers. Call it a well trained sense of paranoid thinking reinforced by life events. Either way, it was in command at the end of the day. Assuming it could deliver, anyway.

"You heard the commander!" he barked. "Get on the horn with FleetCom and get those gears turning!"

****
Noelle eased back into her chair and sipped at her now cold coffee. She wondered how much of that encounter was scripted and felt a pang of regret at not trying to actually test the limits of the system, but she felt engaged with the plot so far. A bit generic, sure, but you don't need innovative high concept pieces of master artwork all the time. At its best Black Stars Rising was the kind of campy, cheesy fun that made it and its peers, namely Star Wars and Wing Commander, such fun to play with.

She finished off her coffee as the NPCs returned to their stations and the game presumably transitioned to loading screen mode. Said loading screen was some kind of "master control room" view with multiple windows showing the Heart of Winter in wire frames with compartments outlined and important looking graphs and monitors fluctuating up and down in a steady rhythm.

Several of the windows showed the crew going about their duties on the bridge, in engineering, and some other generic locations about the ship. There was no indicator of loading progress, which was more than a little irksome. In fact it was down right frustrating. Interest faded to annoyed boredom and she started pixel hunting for something to click on.

She soon found it in the form of the Codex, which contained the side stories and flavor text for places, peoples, and factions of the game. Currently only two were open for viewing: one for the Heart of Winter and one for Captain Belmont.

The Heart of Winter was the fourth vessel of the Elemental-class Battle Cruisers. The Elementals were supposed to be the pride of the Alliance Fleet with their most advanced technologies and brightest and best crew available. Besides Winter there was the Sword of Spring, the Summer Maiden, and the Autumn Songstress. Currently the Summer Maiden was laid up in dry dock awaiting repairs after a viscous fight with raiders from the Black Hole Gang, the Sword of Spring was serving as flagship for the Home Fleet, and Autumn Songstress was serving with a fleet group called Task Force Valkyrie on a classified mission.

Captain Belmont stood out as a NPC of import to Noelle, and not just because he had a very impressive and long first name. He was born from the old blood of the Alliance but didn't let that stop him from entering the naval academy on the homeworld and graduating with top marks, rising to a position of prominence in the fleet as a sort of unofficial commodore or lesser admiral, since he regularly lead task forces out into the fray but hasn't as of yet received a flag rank above Captain yet. So to Noelle that translated as Belmont going to be the stable pillar of the NPC cast who would play the straight man to whatever quirky characters come up or player shenanigans. It definitely helped that Belmont looked and sounded like Liam Neeson, which totally didn't make Noelle's heart flutter a bit and she completely did not spend a few extra moments thoroughly inspecting his face and uniform.

With the bios for ship and captain thoroughly read and the concept art used as page covers committed to memory, Noelle was left to wait for the game to finish taking its sweet time and get to the good stuff already. She glanced at the clock and frowned deeply and harshly.

There was about an hour left until mom and dad got home, and they never ever ever let their children come home to an empty house if they could help it. It particularly grated on them that Noelle had started getting home early and one of the sources of their well meaning pestering about after school programs. She was about to Alt-F4 and start again when Captain Belmont announced their arrival.

The Heart of Winter arrived in the Skoll System alongside the megacarrier SS Windgate, which had been refitted into a marine transport. They were at the edge of the outer system and their sensors could only get a minimal reading of what was in the system. Intense radiation, millions of megatons of debris, and good old fashioned haze makers (essentially super powerful ECM that justified the near knife-fight ranged that BSR ships fought at most of the time and validated fighter scout tactics) made it impossible to see with absolute clarity outside of a few score of kilometers. In the Goldilocks zone was a planet that probably at one point had been life bearing and held a colony that serviced the megafactory, but was now reduced to a cratered nuclear wasteland with radiation so intense it actually glowed.

The outer planets held their prize. In orbit of the main gas giant, a super Jupiter-type with swirling emerald and purple clouds, was the megafactory. The megafactory was essentially a massive shipyard and fleet supply depot almost entirely run by AI with some organic overseers to make sure everything went well with the synthetic peons. These provided the main source of supply and reinforcement for the Concordance's Sovereign Guard during the old days, and as such it was a highly sought after prize by many warlords of the Fall and the new Dark Age. The defenses had been worn down over and over again over the centuries to the point that one primitive battle cruiser could probably steal the last ship in its berth out from under the nose of the synthetic sentinels.

Immediately Noelle saw the auto-gun platforms that protected the facility in what had probably been a net of overlapping fire pits of focused plasma beam cannons and stationary flak barges that made it utterly impregnable. Today they were barely a dozen left, but there was enough firepower to make even a Concordance capital ship think twice. Thankfully being a Concordance-era AI admiral/general/military commander meant that she had the codes to disable them, which took the form of a quick mini-game that was extremely easy.

Too extremely easy, Noelle remarked to herself, and immediately paid for it as three blips appeared on her screen. Those blips became two very scary looking heavy cruisers with big plasma cannons made for killing unsupported capital ships and isolated escort ships and a light carrier with three squadrons of fighters emerged from a till now hidden support hangar to engage her. The NPCs were suitably panicked over this, and she noted that the reactions were well acted and voiced, and a wolf's grin grew on her face. This was going to be fun. She cracked her knuckles and rolled her head to loosen her neck muscles in manner that would probably look very bad ass if life were a TV show and went about her bloody work.

****
The Surtr AI burst into motion seemingly the exact moment that the drone warships emerged. Orders flashed across every screen and to the cramped hangar deck of the Heart.

[All squadrons launch! Reactivating auto-gun platforms!]

"What?!" Belmont spat. "Are you crazy? They'll rip us apart!"

[Correct. If they target us.]

As if on cue the platforms suddenly powered up and their weapons went hot. Targeting computers found their target and fired. A half dozen plasma beams struck the lead heavy cruiser and quickly overloaded its shields. The superheated and accelerated plasma streams cut through the carbon composite nanoweave armor of the cruiser like a blow torch through foil wrap. There was barely any cruiser left as its main reactor destabilized and turned into a miniature star. The gun turrets had enough time to recharge and cripple the second cruiser before its guns, along with the light carrier's fighters and its own close-in defense guns, managed to destroy them all.

The AI gave new instructions to the nav officer that showed off Winter's broadside to the enemy fighter squadrons. Belmont felt a bead of sweat form on his brow as he eyed the torpedo bombers approaching. A whole squadron armed with antimatter warheads that would turn his battle cruiser into stellar dust with only a few missiles needed. Two squadrons of interceptors flew vanguard for the assault. They would keep Heart's own fighters tied up so the rest could close in for the best possible chance for a killing blow, and because they were drone ships they wouldn't care how many they lost so long as the Heart of Winter was destroyed.

[CAG, all wings move in and engage but prepare for a hasty retreat. Captain, I require full fire control permissions.]

Belmont snapped, "Do it, Mister Mackenzie!"

If giving over something as important as that over to the complete control of an AI made him more uneasy it was impossible to tell over the impending torpedo run.

"Uh, roger control," the CAG replied with uncertainty readily apparent. "Alpha and Beta Squadrons moving to engage."

Belmont watched with quiet attentiveness as his attack fighters and interceptors charged into the guns of the drone strikecraft.

"Closing range. Tone lock. Fox Two! Fox Two! Guns! Guns! Guns!"

A score of missiles shot out from the racks under the stubby wings of the fighters. The drones reacted immediately with chaff, E-haze makers, and even using their guns to shoot down the missile attack. Half struck home, wiping out a chunk of the drones as the Winter's air wing entered gun range. A short, viscous dogfight ensued. Despite the missile attack softening up an attack fighter was no match for a dedicated interceptor, and with his own interceptors outnumbered two to one by competent AI pilots it was only a matter of time. Belmont could practically feel his teeth grind into stumps as a quarter of his irreplaceable pilots were turned into chunks of flash frozen meat by the superior drone fighters before Surtr gave the order to fall back. The drones mindlessly followed the retreating fighters with the bombers not far behind.

[Helm, kill all thrust and bring our broadsides to bear relative to the enemy. CAG, break formation and follow these flight paths. Prepare for anti-air warfare in three... two.... one! Full power!]

"God I hate this!" a pilot screamed as she weaved her fighter through a thick haze of flak bursts that left her bird and the squadrons untouched while obliterating a full third of the drone interceptors. The survivors broke formation and scattered, only to find more flak bursts waiting and shredding more survivors. Barely half in total survived to break off the attack and retreated to their carrier with bombers in tow.

[Alpha and Beta Odds, take out those remaining interceptors. Evens, take out the bombers. Captain Belmont, you are free to destroy that carrier at your leisure.]

Belmont grunted an affirmative, grudgingly impressed by Surtr's skill and just a little eager to prove he wasn't irrelevant. He "Helm, full combat speed! Bring us in gun range of that flying flattop. Guns, lock on the main batteries and blow it out of the sky before it can launch more fighters."

The Heart of Winter spun around on her powerful RCS thruster and lit off her main drives again towards the retreating drone carrier. The Elemental-class was made for slashing attacks with their main focus on a maximum firepower alpha strike. The carrier faced down four heavy gun turrets with three 20cm bore ion beam cannons. Belmont showed no mercy. With a roaring command twelve high powered spears of accelerated ions shattered the carrier's shields like a glass bubble struck by a sledge hammer and simply obliterated the last drone ship in a fantastic display of overkill.

The War Mind sounded insufferably smug as it announced, [Captain Belmont, please tell Windgate they are free to arrive and begin salvage operations.]

****
Noelle resumed her arrogant, self-satisfied slouch as the megafreighter-turned-assault carrier docked with the megafactory and deposited its marine payload into it. Like a dragon snoring contentedly on its hoard of loot she watched the surviving fighters, which was almost all of them, dock with the Winter to rearm while the battle cruiser orbited the station. She made a mental note to mention all of the blasted waiting she had to sit through.

[Well, that was disgustingly easy.] she said to pass the time and further test the system. [I don't think I was even necessary for this. Why didn't your Alliance admirals try attacking this facility before hand?]

"What makes you think we didn't?" Belmont replied more than a little tersely. "We tried scouting out the system when we first heard of the carrier and we lost the scouts. We tried a force recon, and lost a battleship and four cruisers. The only reason we're trying again is because we have you and we're running out of options."

Noelle didn't reply after that. It made sense that the Last Best Hope for Civilization would seek out goodies on their own but fail in such a way that justified her being The Chosen One. Her gaming and narrative instincts told her there was another shoe drop incoming.

Her well tuned ears heard the sound of the front door of the house opening and her mom calling her to come down and help unload. Groaning at the interruption she tapped the ESC key to pause the game and went down to fulfill familial duties. A few minutes later was was done with mundane reality and ready to get back to being an ancient AI general in the post-apocalyptic galaxy. She put her headset back on and tapped ESC again, and found that the game hadn't paused at all. In fact things had happened while she was away.

"What the actual frak?!" she growled.

****
As the exchange of words with Surtr ended Belmont did find himself questioning the Alliance's lack of action regarding the command carrier. Even if there wasn't a stealth ship there, the megafactory itself would've been a major asset for the struggling fleet. Definitely worth sending a proper task force after. Maybe more than one. It was Concordance of Stars and Species tech in near pristine condition. Yes it was Concordance Member World Militia tech, which was second or even third generation behind the Sovereign Guard, but it was a clear step above what the Alliance was capable of putting out.

"Captain," the sensor watch called out. "We've got something coming out of the haze. Looks like something big too! Getting more drone contact. Holy hell, that's a big battleship!"

Belmont brought up his repeater display for the sensors. Sure enough, coming out of the EM interference, was a drone battleship bigger than the Heaven's Grasp herself on a direct course for the megafactory.

[Accessing war book. Enemy drone ship confirmed as a Pele-class Battle Cruiser. It is armed with a Vesuvius-pattern spinal beam cannon with light secondary beam cannons and plasma pulse turrets. It appears we've found out what happened to your force recon.]

"You don't say," Belmont grunted. "Recommendations, Surtr?."

The AI was silent.

"Surtr?"

Still nothing. Now Belmont was sweating in earnest.

"... What the hell? Surtr!" He yelled. "AI, respond damn it!"

"Captain, that mega battle cruiser is closing the range fast! She's getting ready to fire!"

"Hellfire," Belmont spat under his breath, then started giving orders. "CAG, get everyone off the flight deck and in the air! Disable that battle cruiser anyway you can! Tactical, I want haze makers at max and this battle cruiser jinking like a fighter!"

Acknowledgements were given. The Heart of Winter shook with worrying intensity as her reactors were pushed to 120%. The tactical map became a lot fuzzier and navigation hazards became harder to track, but at least the haze makers were making it harder for the drone to zero in on them. Belmont could also still see his fighters flying toward the drone battle cruiser, very likely on their last ride.

"Tone lock! All planes, Fox Two! Fox two!"

More missiles fired off from the two squadrons peppered the battle cruiser's shields. Most got through the point-defense zone thanks to the relatively light flak guns for a warship that size, but it wasn't enough.

"Gah! No joy! Those shields are thick!"

"Keep going, Boomer!" Belmont yelled. "Winter says her shields dropped some. Concentrate on the main gun!"

"Copy! All planes, we're for the main gun! Keep fast and loose! Focus your fire!"

"Enemy firing!" someone yelled. "Brace for impact!"

Belmont gripped the arm wrists of his chair and prepared for oblivion, his last thoughts cursing himself for trusting his ship to a goddamn robot.

The Heart of Winter shook violently as the Vesuvius Cannon fired. Bridge crew were tossed about like ragdolls in their chairs, held in place only by their battle harnesses. Belmont screamed an explicit as he felt his ribs crack under the strain. The sound of his beloved Winter screaming in pain filled his ears and he wondered if he had died and gone to hell, forever trapped in his command chair to listen to his ship die for an eternity. Eventually the Heart stopped shaking everyone was able to recovery.

"Status?" Belmont croaked, hissing through his teeth as his chest flared with pain.

"We're still alive, captain," the Ops officer reported. "That beam got a glancing hit on our port side. Shield are overwhelmed and down all over. Emitters are going to need to be completely replaced. Main guns are offline. Sensors, offline. FTL Comms, offline."

"Do we have engines? What about radio?"

"Uh... Yes, sir!"

"Get me the fighter wing, now!"

[Fighter squads have been destroyed, Captain. But they took out the BC's main gun and the enemy is retreating. The carrier has been successfully launched and asking our status. I've informed them that we require assistance and am currently coordinating for a joint-fold jump.]

Belmont roared, "You son of a bitch! Where the hell were you?"

[Boosting the haze makers. It required all of my processing power at the time.]

"We almost died you son of a bitch! Don't ever go cold turkey on me again or I'll kick your bucket into the nearest black hole."

[Captain, I cannot be expected to be everywhere and do anything. Even the Concordance of Stars and Species relied on organic crew to compensate for these instances. If I had not devoted my entire processing power to jamming the enemy drone ship, we would be dead. If you need me to make every decision for you, I suggest the CSC unconditionally surrender to the most merciful warlord you know of. I also suggest that we leave before the drone ship reactivate its engines or another drone arrives.]

Belmont gave a quiet growl and jerked his head at the helm. "Is the hyperdrive and nav computer still online?"

"Aye aye, sir. Locked and tied with the carrier. Ready to go on your mark."

"Then get us home. I'll be in my cabin writing up the AAR for the admiralty."

***
"What the hell is going on?"

Nobody answered Noelle as the game went into the status display loading screen from hell. As part of the post-mission stats she had the option to watch the replay, which she did. She skipped to the part where she thought she'd "paused" and saw that "AFK - AI CONTROL" appears in the right hand corner of the screen in big red letters. She watched as Belmont sent the air wing to their death to let the Heart of Winter and the carrier escape, the last pilot screaming "Valhalla I come for you!" as she rams her fighter into the engine section, guns blazing and remaining missiles firing.

Noelle picked up her Death Star stress ball and squeezed it for all it was worth. She could practically feel the fury bleeding through her headset as Belmont yelled at "her," leaving her conflicted. On the one hand, she was amazingly pissed off that the game came without a pause function for single player. On the other hand, the NPC AI is fantastic! At the very least she didn't have to worry about losing a mission because her parents dragged you away from the game. Belmont himself is definitely a keeper. She made a note to give kudos to the devs for making such a complex library of NPC reactions.

Still she wanted to replay the mission with her present all the way and went to the menu. She found that there was a save button but no load button. A cold ball of arctic ice formed in her gut as she felt genuine worry for the game if something as basic as reloading a checkpoint was absent. She wrote down her thoughts on the matter, then circled and underlined them several times with the intent to make them equally clear in her beta test findings email later on.

Exiting the Replay screen, She watched the Heart of Winter and the command carrier limp into the Alliance of Free Worlds home system. Epic orchestral music with dev credits begins playing as the camera pans around the various orbital facilities and warships patrolling the system, panning around the before a orbital factory-shipyard complex. It was big enough to presumably be the main shipyard for the fleet, but it was nowhere near the size of the megafactory. The focus returned to a close-up of her fragged flotilla limping towards the station.

A squadron of fighters flitted about her ships as NPC comms traffic played. Eventually the camera returned to the Winter's bridge. On the main view screen (because there's always a viewscreen) she and Belmont were greeted by Grand Admiral of the Fleet Harrison Gray. He regrets not being able to greet you when he awoke, but his duties required him elsewhere and thanked Noelle for her efforts in helping secure the future of the Alliance and all free peoples of the sector.

Moving on to other business, Admiral Gray said that he was troubled by the fact that these supposedly "broken down drones" have access to hardware that can obliterate a whole cruiser division with battleship support. Especially so near the home system.

After that Noelle was able to talk again and spend the next half-hour playing QA with the Grand Admiral, who in keeping with precedence has a fantastic library of responses and expressions (and she was pretty sure he was voiced by Lance Henriksen). Unfortunately the Admiral has bad news to give, saying that he'll only have a handful of ships free to assign to her personal battlegroup, and he was going to have to put her to work immediately.

The Alliance has a lot of problems that an AI of her caliber could fix. The Alliance was thinly spread all over the sector. Just having to patch up the Heart of Winter and checking out the carrier was going to take up a lot of logistics time and resources that can't be readily spared. The only good news was that everything was more or less intact inside.

To Noell that translated as a lot of number crunching and other logistics work that needs to be done while her tiny fleet was fixed up and prepared for the next op. Good news about that though is that she got a prompt giving her a special code for the Black Stars smart phone app that will let her do all that stuff via "fun minigames!" on her phone.

With the tutorial mission and exposition fests about strategic mode mechanics and drop hook were dropped Noelle finally logged of. She was getting pretty hungry and during her QA session dad and Velma had returned. Mom would have dinner done by now anyway. Noelle had a goody, happy smile on her face as she stretched out her body in the molten gold red glow of the setting sun. This was going to be a fun winter semester.

****
+ACSN Office of Naval Intelligence Mainframe+
>Requesting access to Internal Security Database.
>Provide identification.
>ID Tag: Starbird, Authentication: ****************
>Processing…… Accepted!
>Accessing Security Feed from 15/09/9091-10494059
>Playing….

+Office of Grand Admiral Harrison Grey. GADM is at his desk. Captain H. Belmont has just entered and takes a seat.+

GADM Grey: Hieronymus, welcome. How's the chest?

CPT. Belmont: Still feel like I got kicked by a loader drone on a bad day, sir, but otherwise I'm fine.

GADM Grey: Good. I can't afford to keep you off the frontlines any longer. The Strategic Defense Committee wants your Go or No-Go for the War Mind Project.

CPT Belmont: Didn't I already give them my brain to pick over?

GADM Grey: Yes and normally that'd be it, but that's how the Navy does it. The politicians still need their scapegoat, and that's you it seems.

+Belmont mutters several profanities.+

CPT Belmont: Really? Fine. I say that the War Mind Project gets my go.

GADM Grey: Alright. I'll pass that on to the Committee. I'll make sure they don't throw you to the wolves.

CPT Belmont: I believe that is your job, right? Gotta be a reason why you're stuck here when we need you out there.

GADM Grey: Correct, and I'm not sparing the wounded this time. Two days ago we received word from our spies; the Ragnastar is fast approaching completion. Seven hours ago, We've lost contact with an outpost on the Devil's Road. Merri's got the fleet on high alert and I'm getting the reserves mobilized. I'm also going to be forwarding some mission packets to the Meta AI later today. I want you to look over each of them and get the Winter ready for anything.

CPT Belmont: May I assume my standing orders are still in effect?

GADM Grey: They are.

CPt Belmont: Right. Let's hope that we don't need those crews down the line.

+CPT Belmont rises to stand+

CPT Belmont: Mother of the Cosmos, Harry. Does anyone ever sleep around this galaxy?

GADM Grey: Only the dead, Hieronymus. Now, off with you.

>End Play-Back
>Play Again? Y/N…

 

[AXCN]

This is.. AMAZING. We can't wait for more!

 

[NatashaGMT]

More please...

 

[Dorsey]

I hope this is the story of an AI realizing it's an AI and not the story of a game realizing it's a game.

 

[NatashaGMT]

I hope this is the story of an AI realizing it's an AI and not the story of a game realizing it's a game.

Click to shrink...

Does it have to be either? I am sure there are lots of other possible plot lines that would cover what we have read so far. I think it is too soon in the story to start guessing where things are going.

 

[Skychan]

I'm looking forward to her realizing there are no loading times and that instead she's dealing with a real place, and then realizing that when she turns on the AI she's actually turning OFF their AI

 

[beleester]

Couple of options:
1. It really is exactly as it seems, just a game that happens to have no pause button because Muh Realism. Probably too boring to be the right answer.
2. Last Starfighter scenario - Noelle is a normal human, with a hotline to a real space fleet. Requires explanations for why they would keep the Warmind's nature a secret from the crew, and why they think a high schooler can be a better admiral than an actual admiral. Could be the Ender's Game justification, where they think only someone who's detached from the real battle would have the ruthlessness needed to win the war.
3. Noelle is an AI, commanding real ships. As a point in its favor, Noelle never appears to break character when commanding, so either she can't do it or the game "translates" her words into game-world terms on the fly. As a point against, why would you design an AI that periodically drops out to do "real world" things if the real world doesn't exist?
4. Noelle is a normal human, the NPCs are very smart AIs. Would explain why her true nature is hidden from the crew, but not why the game can't be paused.

My theory: The "War Mind" is a recording of a 21st-century person's brain, plus some hacked-together interfaces to make it work as a military commander. This gets you both a justification for Noelle's actions - she really is a 21st century human at heart, not a purpose-built military AI - and a justification for why the crew thinks she's a legendary combat AI.

Side note: We never get any description of Noelle actually playing the game, which is curious. Is it only voice commands, or does she have RTS-style direct control? Is she looking at a screen or wearing VR goggles? (The game's description says "VR integration", but the way she easily drops out of the game suggests a regular screen). Does she actually know the necessary military jargon to say things like "Alpha and Beta Odds, take out those remaining interceptors" or was that the game's translation of "click on fighters, split squadron, click on interceptors"?

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Thank you for your feedback. I'm very excited to show you all the rest of the book. I'm thinking of going to twice a week releases since the book is only 20 chapters long and thinking about it now I don't see a reason to really hold back. Plus I always love reading you guys' comments about it! No joke, it really makes my day!

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 2: Pieces on the Board​

Noelle was visibly distracted at dinner. She had a new flagship, and a ship always needed a name. History, folklore, and modern fantasy media told her that names held great power. To give something a name is to give it that power. To ascend it beyond status beyond a mere asset and into something of worth. Even if it was just a series of ones and zeros at the end of the day that would be replaced with a new and better series of ones and zeros, she was sufficiently invested that this was worthy of careful thought.

The first thing that came to mind was to name the carrier after a real person, probably one related to real life spaceflight. Calling it the Armstrong was overdone to death, afterlife, and utter oblivion. She could call it the Vostok after the Soviet Vostok 1 spacecraft but it lacked the kind of power that the name was supposed to invoke. Damn western-based education. Though Yuri Gagarin was something to consider. She could name it after Buzz Aldrin or Elon Musk, but those seemed more appropriate for science ships or exploration vessels. The Pegasus command carrier was a warship first, second, third, and fourth.


So that left the heroes and famous warships. Gods too, though that was something that she never really liked. Possibly because those always tended to die. Like naming your ship Invincible or the Titanic. Though there was something wonderfully delicious about tempting fate like that. After all, she was the protagonist and her ship was the hero ship. Unless it got cutscened to death it wasn't going to go down in the game's plot.


Or at least she hoped so. It'd suck to go through all that effort just to lose her fancy new command carrier so soon after getting it.


Maybe she should just go for the obvious and name it the Enterprise.


Noelle suddenly felt a presence and looked up from her dinner. Mom and dad were looking at her, and so was Velma. Velma was Noelle's younger sister by two years and a snot nosed little brat on top of it. She was the freaking golden child of the family because she got perfect grades and knew how to use her evil charms to wrap teachers, friends, and parents around her finger.

She also kept stealing Noelle's shirts out of the wash "by accident" on a regular basis and there wasn't the chance to do the same unless Noelle felt like risking being called in to the principal's office for indecent attire choices at school.

Noelle rewound the last thirty seconds of conversation and found she'd been asked what she was planning to do after graduation.


"Dunno yet," she replied as she forked another pile of pasta into her mouth.


"Well," her mom said by way of preamble and Noelle braced for contact, "the community college is having a preparatory class for near graduates coming out of highschool. It's in the late afternoon so it wouldn't interfere with your classes!"


Her father said, "I heard that there's some openings on the swim team for a new swimmer. Bet you'd be like a barracuda if you set your mind to it!"


He finished it with a wink and Noelle felt her inner demon stir to life. They were talking about after school programs. Because parents seemed unable to cope with the idea that someone might just want to go home and remain in precious solitude for a few hours after spending half the day in an overcrowded classroom with sixty other puberty demons.

This was sadly more common than it should. Puberty had been kind to her (after the hormones calmed down and Aunt Floe stopped being an indecisive bitch), though the genetic lottery seemed a bit schizo when putting her together. Attached to a brain and a personality that loved mental challenges and strategy and craved solitude in a body more fit for a valley girl cheerleader. It doesn't help that she'd managed to keep her body is kept fit and tanned by all of the camping trips, hikes, and other "family nature excursions" her parents dragged her along. They kept joking about having to beat the boys off with a stick, but honestly she would trade her looks for some blessed solitude.

Later that evening as she lay in bed reading a book grabbed at random from her shelf did two and two connect. School was almost over. Winter break was about to start soon. Her last semester before she left for college was next year. Or went to find a job. Noelle felt a cold ball of ice form in the pit of her stomach.


"Shit," she muttered. Her brain was utterly awake now and turning with thoughts about how she was going to balance her time schedule while keeping her parents off her back. A nasty headache was starting to come on. Noelle didn't feel like going downstairs to get some ibuprofen or aspirin. What she needed was a distraction.


Noelle got up and turned on her PC. She was honestly surprised she didn't shrink into the size of an ant when the monstrous leviathan's fans roared and wake up the rest of the house. She doubted the world has changed very much in the past few hours, so she fired off a strongly worded and detailed report of her experiences thus far to the developers. Once that was done she started exploring the game world beyond the tutorial, occasional dotting down notes as thoughts came to her.


Noelle was more bleary eyed and glaring with a harder edge at lunch the next day when a pale skinned, red haired goddess in a cheerleader uniform slid on to the bench across from her.

"Go away Lexi," Noelle growled.


Alexis Quill was blessed. Her mind and body were one and she radiated like a star wherever she went, and not just because she was the daughter of a swedish immigrant and a genuine irish ginger. When puberty hit it was like the atomic bomb of hormones. Tall, beautiful, and perfect in every way down to the little dimples that formed whenever her lips curled even slightly upward. Large, expressive brown eyes and long, lush red hair the color of bright copper made her the Bambi of the school and wherever she went. What made matters worse was how so tooth rotting innocent and humble about it. For example: she still hung out with the goblin she'd adopted as friend during elementary school.


"Everything okay, Ellie?" Alexis asked, eyes batting their long lashes at her friend. It made Noelle frown harder and stare more intently at the notepad and the pencil scribbles on it. "Did you forget to take your medicine today?"


"No," Noelle grumbled. "Just didn't sleep well last night."


Alexis seemed mollified by that. With a nod she focused on the rapid moving strokes of lead on dead tree.


"Is that your fanfic?" Alexis asked.


"No!" Noelle blared defensively, ceasing her strokes and folding the pencil from between her index and middle finger into a gripping fist. She dropped the pencil on the page next to the ring spine, closed it, and tossed the notebook into her backpack. Her mostly uneaten lunch was pushed back into her immediate field of view and she resumed eating. She tended to have a lot of space to use. Her resting bitch face did a good job of giving off warning signals to everyone. Everyone except Princess Lexi.


Alexis smiled and said in between forkfuls of french fries and chicken tenders (even her freaking table manners were so regal and proper! With finger food even!), "Well, if it was I think it's great that you're working on your hobby. With all of the graduation craziness in the air I was worried you were neglecting it."


Noelle gave a non-commital grunt. "Just another semester. Difference is that in college they won't be treating us like brain drained idiots."


Alexis perked up and asked, "Oh! So you're going for a degree? In what?"

"Tell you when I figure that out."

Lexi nodded and said, "Okay. I don't really know what I'm doing either. Marine biology seems like a lot of fun but I don't want to put all my eggs in that basket just yet. I was thinking of just going for my basket weaving degree and then look at the playing field for what's available versus what is worthwhile in the long term."

"So not going to go for a cheerleading career or something?" Noelle asked with a bitter pointed barb. "Brad is going for college football from what I hear. Not going to follow him?"

Alexis shook her head, making her burnished copper locks flying like a goddamn conditioner commercial. "Nah. I don't want to go into student debt just to go to a four year college with him. Not in this economy and not with this congress."

"Hard to tell that from where I'm sitting."


There was definitely something a little too much in that remark. Lexi's angel face crumpled up into a frown and asked, "What does that mean?"


"Means that I noticed that the boy's bathroom next to the locker room suddenly had a Closed: Do Not Open sign next to it the same time as lunch yesterday, and I didn't see you or Brad anywhere in here."

Alexis' face took on a dark look and looked like she was going to go full Galadriel on Noelle before it lessened into a mere offended frown. Alexis didn't say anything and just concentrated on her food. Noelle obliged her and did the same. Minutes passed and the guilty monster reared its ugly head in Noelle's head. She'd let her mouth run wild and stuck her foot firmly in it. Again.


Noelle said in a weary, defeated voice, "Sorry."


"It's fine," Lexi said in that tone said that she wasn't forgiven but not condemned just yet. "Just remember to take your meds next time before you leave the house. Put them in your bag if you have to."


Noelle didn't overtly react but her posture was one of obvious acceptance of guilt. Not wanting silence to hold lease and also wanting to change the subject, she said, "You two seem pretty serious."


"Justin wants it to be," Lexi replied with a lighter voice that was serious but no longer the angry kind. Using Brad's first name was a good way to show repentance most of the time. "I keep thinking he's going to ask me to marry him after graduation and I don't know how to deal with that. I just don't feel the same way."


"So break up?" Noelle ventured, if only out of necessity as the listener/sounding board of the conversation.


"No," Lexi said, shaking her head. "I don't want to get that serious with him, but I don't want to do that with him. I just don't know."


"You think he's gonna run off with someone else in a few years or play around?" Noelle asked, again in the role of someone who asked the questions that the other speaker wanted to be asked.

"No." Alexis declared with certainty. She smiled again as she said, "I think he'd give me his all and I think that's amazing for someone like him, but he's in love with me and I don't know if I can love him back like he wants. Like he deserves."


Noelle picked at her food in silent understanding. She waited to see if there was anything else that Lexi wanted to say before mentioning, "So I got invited to be part of the closed beta for the new Black Stars game."


The worldly and carefully controlled air that had settled over Alexis got blown away like the morning fog blasted away by the intense beams of the summer sun. Suddenly she shifted back into the eternally excited cheerleader that made her such a heartthrob. "You did!? Oh my god you lucky bitch!"

Noelle smiled. There was a few things that she and Lexi shared as hobbies. Video games was one of them; though Lexi's preference was for more traditional RPGs and hack and slash types. She did appreciate good strategy games, though, and Black Stars games tended to be those exceptions.

"Yeah I know right?" Noelle said. "It popped over the app yesterday at lunch. Spent most of last night messing around with stuff. Really putting the emphasis on tactical gameplay instead of mobs of fleets like most of them."

"Hope it's better than the Proxima Uprising."

They shared a moment of mourning for what could have been and pity for the game that almost killed the franchise and did kill the genre.


"Seems that way," Noelle assured her. "Looks like it's based off of the Bad Ending. So space apocalypse stuff happens. Lots of explosions and Space Mad Max rejects running around with some robot weapons in need of a thumping."


"Neat. You one of them?"


"Nah. I'm the Last Best Hope for Mankind. Trademark."

Lexi gave a bit of her musical giggle that made all boys and some girls suddenly smile sheepishly when they heard it. "So can I see it or is it super top secret?"

"Yeah that's the funny thing. It just asked me if I wanted to join and that was it. No NDA email or needing to do some confirmation bullshit on the forum or company site. If it wasn't for the fact it came over the app and I got a download link, plus the whole game part, I'd think this was a scam or something."


"Ooh mysterious!" Lexi cooed. "Gonna stream it and rake in those Twitch millions?"

"Pfft screw that," Noelle snorted. "I ain't selling out like that, girl. They'd yank my cord so fast I'd get whiplash. Besides that was probably an oversight. I'll get that email any day now."


"So until then can I play around with it?"


"Sure!"


The bell rung at that point, ending the conversation. Noelle was still exhausted and had several more classes to suffer through, but she had dimples of her own showing when she went into her next class.


***
Belmont suppressed a particularly bitter swear as he settled into his desk chair. The pain in his chest flared anew as he bent in a way it disproved of, which was pretty much every way. While the Coalition had made great strides to recover from the technological apocalypse, medical technology had yet to rediscover the Concordance's magic healing beams or nanomachines that could make broken bones remade and harder than durasteel. As a result, Belmont was still stuck popping pain killers and ordered to bed whenever Winter's doctor found him out of his cabin, which was often. In his years of experience, Belmont found that the yard dogs' productivity was suspiciously inversely proportional to how much time he spent resting. As a result, he'd spent most of the last week breaking in the new crewmen.

The Heart of Winter had lost almost seven percent of her crew during the battle with the drone battle cruiser, including a lot of her veteran gunnery crews and DC teams. Most of their replacements were raw recruits from the Home Fleet. A few drafted straight from the merchant fleet and would need extra babying. In addition, most of the Winter's repairs were jerry-rigged patchworks that were the trademark of the Crucible. Electrical systems from a megafreighter. Fire control computers and turrets ripped out of the derelict Summer Maiden. Attack fighter wing made up from the survivors of a dozen different squadrons.

Just another day in the Alliance Fleet.

Belmont checked his wrist chronometer and saw it was time for another session of Better Living Through Chemistry. Tossing back a horse pill packed with the best pain killers and healing agents available to a navy captain (which is to say, one step above the rotgut Chief Henley was brewing in the #3 Beam Cannon Turret) and swallowing it down with a cold cup of day old recaff, Belmont brought up the morning reports on his desk computer. Other than the deployment orders it was the usual fair. Reports from the department heads. Supply requisition forms. A letter from home. The last he immediately sent to the recycle. He had enough problems as it is.

His comms bracelet beeped.

"Belmont. Go."

"Captain, the new captain of the Sentinel is making house calls."

"Right. Give me a moment."

Belmont took a deep breath to energize the flow of oxygen and picked the sleep from his eyes. He tossed on his jacket and button it up to hide his voxbox implant and the crisscrossing scars marking his throat. He was about to tell the officer to connect the line by name, when he realized that he didn't know the command carrier's new skipper. With a gesture he brought up the new officer's prof-

Suddenly the world when hazy and Belmont thought he was about to pass out. Everything seemed to go quadruple and wavering with things getting fuzzier every moment. Fumbling for his breast pocket he pulled out a tiny hypospray and pressed it to his gut. Slowly, ever so slowly, things started to focus again. This time Belmont did swear aloud and swore hard. He'd forgotten his injection and almost died. Again. He tossed the empty hypo into the wastebasket and set his dilated eyes on four different personnel profiles as they coalesced into one.

Belmont finished the rest of the day-old recaff and rubbed his eyes as the medicine did its work.

Too close that time. Can't die now. Too busy.

Not wanting to seem rude or worse, Belmont fixed bleary eyes on the now single profile and started skimming through the most recent entries. The new commander was Alphonso Huxson. He was the former captain of the Summer Maiden and saw her through a lot of rough patches. After the Summer Maiden got messed up in an ambush, Captain Huxson had been reassigned as captain of the cruiser Vigilance, and racked up a respectable list of confirmed kills among the nickel corvette raiders and pirate motherships as they tried to find gaps in the Devil's Road. At one point he ended up being part of the ill-fated Operation Spitfire and somehow managed to survive it with his ship intact.

"Uh, still there, sir?"

Hell. Taking too long.

"Alright, Sparks. Patch him in."

A vid window display opened, showing the dog-faced mug of Alphonso Huxson.

"Good morning, captain! Welcome to the task force."

"Thank you, captain," Huxson replied, voice a low rumble by nature but still respectful. "Am I calling at a bad time? You seem unwell."

"No. You just caught me after another double shift. Was about to take a power nap before we shipped out for Skoll."

Huxson just nodded. If he suspected anything he didn't show it. "Looking forward to it. It's nice to be back in the saddle again."

"How's it feel to be an honorary stick jock? I haven't had a chance to check out the Sentinel yet."

"A lot roomier than you'd think. Those Concordance fly boys really liked their creature comforts. Beds are like something out of those high price resorts in Traverse City. Hell, there's an actual coffee maker in the officer's mess with beans from the Vega Sector."

Belmont gave a low whistle. "You'll be sure to invite me over for coffee one day, right? I could use something that isn't processed recaff."

"Assuming those civilians from XenoCen don't steal it first. Damn eggheads are infesting my ship, picking and prodding at everything they can get their hands on. I've had to post marines at all of the vital areas during drills just to keep them from breaking anything. It doesn't help that they keep getting in the way of the yard dogs, either."

The smugly satisfied smile of the cat that ate the canary grew on Huxson's lips. "I've already got three complaints lodged against me by XenoCen's chief nerd here. Says I've been most uncooperative and disruptive to his team's efforts, rude and unprofessional to staff, and other things to that order."

"Damn. Did you piss in his breakfast flakes or something?"

"I wouldn't let him try picking apart the VI CAG sub-systems. Dumbass doesn't seem to get that this is a military vessel first that's due to ship out ASAP. Not his personal pet project. If he breaks the main computer core, then we've got an oversized fighter bus. Not a command carrier."

[I think you left out the part where you dressed down his chief engineer like a drill sergeant for trying to set up a workshop in one of the empty compartments. As I recall, the elder gentleman was in tears by the end and needed a change in jumpsuit.]

Both captains suddenly went ramrod stiff as a second window popped open with Sutr's avatar looking at them from the bridge.

"Sir, I didn't know you were on the line," Huxson stated. "And that engineer was setting up in a compartment right next to the secondary life support controls. That's a potential security risk if there ever was, and he didn't inform anyone but his own team he was doing it. Like I said, this is a military ship. If he thinks he can flaunt the rules just because he's a civilian, he's got another thing coming. That 'dressing down' was a slap on the hand compared to what I could have done."

[Captain, I understand your deposition but the Center for Xenological Research is currently our best chance at getting better carriers in circulation. The strategic and tactical advantages would be enormous.]

"I understand that, sir, but if the Navy wanted to reverse engineer Sentinel for a real carrier fleet they should have sent it to DeVee or the Foundry. I don't think Admiral Grey appointed me to this post to play baby-sitter."

[I appointed you for your tactical aggression and ability to fight. In the meantime, you will give the civilian contractors from XenoCen your full cooperation. Have I made myself clear, captain?]

"Crystal, sir."

[Good. We will be moving out shortly. You will prepare a tactical briefing for the task force once we are underway. Captain Belmont, I look forward to seeing you back in action soon.]

With that the War Mind's window closed. Huxson's face was beat red and his eyes were smoldering coals, but he spoke in a voice that belied his anger. "I'll leave you to your rest, Captain. Again, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure was mine, Captain. Good hunting."

As the last vid window collapsed Belmont finally let the tension bleed from his muscles. Having a meta-AI as a commanding officer continued to prove disconcerting. For the first time in a long while, Belmont felt vulnerable and restless in his own warship.

***


+AFN Office of Naval Intelligence Mainframe+
>Requesting access to Internal Security Database.
>Provide identification.
>ID Tag: Starbird, Authentication: ****************
>Processing…… Accepted!
>Accessing Security Feed from 22/19/9091-14101439
>Playing….

+Office of Fleet Admiral Harold Grayson. The Admiral is sitting at his desk. He stands as a lanky man wearing a Ministry of Science jumpsuit. Security AI successfully identified man as Doctor Isaac Cunningham, head of Synthetic Insights Division Alpha.+

FADM Grayson: Doctor Cunningham. Thank you for coming. I know it's a long way to FleetCom from [AUDIO CENSORED FOR 3 SECONDS], but this is a very important matter that only you can help me with.

+DR Cunningham makes a dismissive gesture.+

DR Cunningham: It's fine, Admiral. If it's alright I'd like to skip to business.

+FADM Grayson nods and reseats herself. Dr. Cunningham takes a seat opposite the Admiral. Biometrics and observed body language show the doctor is nervous, possibly stressed.+

FADM Grayson: I have about twenty minutes before I have a strategic meeting so that works for me. Now. Tell me about everything you know about meta-AI.

+DR Cunningham nods.+

DR Cunningham: Well, I supposed I should start from the basics. As you're no doubt aware all advanced star nations make heavy use of AI in some capacity in practically all aspects of life. Most of these are simple VI programs that carry out-.

FADM Grayson: Doctor, I spent five years as Chief of BuTech. I know all about conventional AI capabilities and the higher function models. If we could please skip to the chase?

+DR Cunningham's biometrics indicate increase in blood pressure, likely annoyance at interruption. Body language gives minimal indication.+

DR Cunningham: Very well. Meta-AI were the Concordance of Stars and Species's answer to the upper limits of conventional AI technology. Even the most advanced Quantum-based AI could only act as a coordinators. Very good coordinators, mind. Many us in Alpha suspect there were very few non-synthetic members of the Starfleet and government. However they lacked advanced thinking and the decision making capabilities of their organic creators, and uploaded minds were incapable of handling the massive stressed placed on it. To put it frankly, there was no way to make that final leap to connect Machine to Man, as the media likes to put it.

FADM Grayson: But they found a way around that.

DR Cunningham: They did. According to what we found [AUDIO CENSORED FOR 13 SECONDS], the Concordance decided to revisit an old concept: Hyperspace Computing.

+FADM Grayson's brow creases.+

FADM Grayson: Really? In BuTech we always considered that a pipe dream. A fantasy conjured up by writers and taken seriously only by idiots and the ignorant.

DR Cunningham: We thought the same. It seems the Concordance has one upped conventional thinking once again, and left us to play catchup. We're still trying to figure out the exact numbers, we can confirm that the Concordance of Stars and Species used a new kind of software writing to create an artificial intelligence based in hyperspace, and used its theoretically limitless power and space to bypass the laws that prevent such an entity from existing in realspace.

FADM Grayson: So this Surtr AI isn't actually in that cannister we yanked out of the wreck but in hyperspace?

DR Cunningham: More-or-less, sir. We suspect that the module on the Sentinel isn't actually an AI core but a type of FTL relay that allows a meta-AI to see into and interact with computer interfaces in our reality. However based on the incident during the Indomitable retrieval, it's also possible that it acts as a physical vessel and the entity we call Surtr 'moves' between the real world and hyperspace at will when it wishes to directly interact with the computers on the carrier.

FADM Grayson: So how come we haven't detected any tachyon streams coming from the core?

DR Cunningham: I don't know. The current working hypothesis is that meta-AI and their transmitters use something other than tachyons to send communications through hyperspace, but what exactly is impossible to tell right now.


+FADM Grayson leans back in his chair, facial muscles contracting in indication of deep pondering.+

FADM Grayson: That's incredible. If we could figure that out we wouldn't have to worry about OPSEC with our FTL communications ever again. Thank you, Doctor. This has been most enlightening. I have one other question before you leave, however.

+DR Cunningham nods.+

FADM Grayson: From what I can tell, the meta-AI were heavily involved in the fall of the Concordance of Stars and Species and the technological dark age galactic civilization suffered as a result. I was hoping you could shed some light on how that could happen?

DR Cunningham: Well ma'am, as I said, Meta-AI are free of the limits placed on conventional AI. It made them excellent fleet commanders and leaders, and it also allowed them to develop true sapience in a way not even Quantum AI are capable of. As a byproduct, personality quirks began to manifest, usually related to their duties. Based on our observations of recorded conversation and thought-patterns of Surtr, we've hypothesized that Meta-AI assigned to command battle fleets and armies became obsessed with death and killing in the most effective manner, and also gained a sense of independence. It's entirely possible this independent spirit lead to resentment by some meta-AI commanding Starfleet ships, which lead to a civil war and the fall of the Concordance of Stars and Species. It's also possible that a sort-of death cult came into existence and its meta-AI members tried to wipe out their creators and all life in the universe.

FADM Grayson: I see. That leads to some interesting questions about Surtr and why he's helping us. I have one more question, and it'll be a quick one. Am I correct in assuming it is impossible to kill Surtr should the situation ever become necessary?

DR Cunningham: Partially. It's true that as a hyperspace-based entity we can't terminate a meta-AI. However we can sever its connection to reality. The transmitter itself is a highly advanced piece of material, but it can be damaged. A moderately powerful plasma explosion would vaporize it and several all connections between the AI and any computers it was interfacing with.

+FADM Grayson nods+

FADM Grayson: Thank you, Doctor. You've been most helpful. I hope your trip back to [AUDIO CENSORED FOR 3 SECONDS] is pleasant.

DR Cunningham: You're welcome, sir. I hope I've helped you reach some peace of mind over this Surtr matter.

>Recording ended. Replay? (Y/N)

 

[Happerry]

DR Cunningham: You're welcome, sir. I hope I've helped you reach some peace of mind over this Ghoul Engine matter.

Click to shrink...

So was this on purpose, or was it a copy paste error from the quest version that had the Ghoul Engine? Honestly this whole cutscene meeting thing seems mostly just copy pasted from that, and while it made sense when the player was calling itself the Ghoul Engine, it makes a lot less sense with a less... deathy name.

 

[AE1]

So was this on purpose, or was it a copy paste error from the quest version that had the Ghoul Engine? Honestly this whole cutscene meeting thing seems mostly just copy pasted from that, and while it made sense when the player was calling itself the Ghoul Engine, it makes a lot less sense with a less... deathy name.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I think this section could have been reworked a little bit, but while Surtr is definitely less overtly "deathy" as you say, I'm not sure it's any less ominous to the people that have to deal with her/it. If these people have the same knowledge of current Earth mythology, for a people that have already been through effectively the end of the world with the Concordance fell, having the "saviour" of your people be a Meta-AI that may have been involved in the original downfall of the Concordance call itself Surtr with all the Ragnarok connotations that come with that would likely be pretty concerning. If they don't have that mythological connection, it might have been nice to see this conversation be a little more optimistic regarding Meta-AI only to have them discover the mythological background to the name later on and have that become a bit of an "oh shit, what have we unleashed?" moment for them.

Anyway! I remember reading the original quest and thinking/hoping that the main character actual was an AI. Not sure how it will go in this story and without going back to the original to look for quotes I'll just highlight this one little bit here in addition to the above.

If even half the rumors about what Warminds could do were true then they could very well be awakening a mad war god that would destroy them just as surely as the haywire auto-drones and techno-barbarians crouching closer and closer to homeworld would.

Or they'd be awakening the savior they needed, who only needed to be paid in enemies to fight to be otherwise mollified or at least content to not turn on the Alliance. There was only one way to find out.

Click to shrink...

Why would you create an AI that periodically drops out of contact? You wouldn't. It's a side effect of the reverse matrix simulation that the AI is contained in. The it sitting in hyperspace the Concordance didn't have any way to fully kill them off after their downfall so they altered the AI's perception of the world to keep it contained. Unfortunately someone wasn't aware of all this, so when Belmont came knocking the simulation did it's best to compensate without breaking the illusion.

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 3: Chasing Wolves
Noelle set up Alexis on her computer before crashing in bed for a few hours. In the grand scheme of nerd protectionism of their beloved computers she wasn't exactly whispering "My Precious," but she did spend a good seven minutes crucifying the game for its sins of not having urban luxuries like a load/save function or separate campaign runs to which Alexis nodded and waited out for her friend to point out the "skirmish/training" mode so she could use it without messing with the apparently paper thin and solid as water campaign. The sun was casting a golden haze into the room when she emerged with bleary and bloodshot eyes.

"Hey, sleeping beauty," Alexis said without looking over her shoulder. "Your mom is ordering pizza. You okay with sausage and anchovies?"

"I'll survive," Noelle muttered as she sat up on the side of her bed. "What are you eating?"

"Pizza with sausage and anchovies."

"I thought you had to go paleo-vegan to apply for cheer squad."


Lexi snorted in a most unlady-like fashion but was too focused on her game to give any snarky retorts. Noelle forced herself out of bed and shambled over to the computer desk, yanking out bucket she used as a trash bin and occasional extra chair. She focused and forced her eyes to focus on the battle underway.

While Lexi might look like Bambi the Love Goddess she was aggressive when it got to anything involving strategy and competition, and she was also very aggressive in her methods. Noelle liked being the one behind the lines moving the pieces. Lexi was the berserker cutting into the enemy frontlines with a giant battle axe while frothing like a rabid dog.

Lexi had a division of battleships flanked by a mixed force of cruisers and destroyers charging through the defending enemy AI in a station siege scenario. It was about as complex as the name implied: one side tried their best to blow up an orbital fortress station and the other protected it. Noelle noted that Lexi has eschewed any fighter cover and was relying on overwhelming firepower to keep any strikecraft from deep sixing her heavy warships while the destroyers and cruisers were supposed to keep wolf packs of frigates from doing the same with her battleships.


Lexi had paroosed the skirmish mode once the previous night to see if she could get any idea of what she was facing. The answer was a resounding no. Everything in the selection menu was just Alliance ships, including her new flagship, and the small variety of auto-drones and raider craft that the mook enemies possessed. In this round the computer had selected Alliance ships and was using a fleet of cruisers and carriers as a core with a moderate amount of escort craft. As usually Lexi was bulling through on a B-line for the space fort with all the grace and poise of a monster truck. The AI was using hit and fade tactics to weather down the enemy fleet.


Noelle only had to watch for a few seconds to see who was going to win. The battleship core was protected and going to make it, but the AI wasn't aiming for the battleships. The battle space around them was filled with fighters as the AI focused down the shields with mass firepower. The small and lightly defended destroyers were picked off one by one with the battleship's impressive point defense array unable to more than fumble their shots at extreme range. Lexi's larger cruisers were overwhelmed by the AI's escorts, destroying them even as they themselves were destroyed by the heavy battleship artillery.


Eventually the only ships left were battleships, carriers, and the fort. What was left of the enemy fighter force, which was considerable but mostly toothless now that their bombers were mostly gone and armaments spent, were retreating to their carriers which themselves were retreating from the deadly beam cannonade of the battleships.


Lexi's battleships began orbiting as they and the fort traded fire. The station had powerful shields and the weaponry to match the battleships, but said weaponry were spread out over its surface to allow for full coverage along every axis and avenue of approach. The battleships were made to fight in a moving line of battle in grand space opera tradition of some frankenstein combination of Jutland and the Pacific War with some variation. The variation in this case being the fact that battleships looked like almonds that had superfiring turrets on the bottom too as well as secondary beam cannons on ball mounts along the side.

Noelle took her eyes off the screen and glanced at Lexi. Lexi was like a wolf closing in for the kill. Her eyes were wide and wound like a spring pressed between the clamps of an industrial vice. She could smell the blood on the earth and wanted to finish this now. She was so focused on watching the shield bar drop that she had completely forgotten about the carriers.


The carriers that were finally done reloading and refuelling their fighters. With only a few bombers left the bulk of the remaining fighter force consisted of strike fighters and interceptors they weren't exactly a menace by themselves. Strike fighters and interceptors did not carry enough ordinance to break down the energy shield bulwark of battleships and the combined bombers had enough high yield fusion warheads to take down the shield of only one of the four battleships.


Alexis suppressed screaming an explicit and slammed her feet into the soft carpeting as the fort used its own battleship cannons to break the shields of her capital ships so the fighters could finish pluck off the hard points while it brought down the shields on the next battleship. In the end Alexis won the scenario with the big bad battle station going up in a very wonderfully detailed explosion complete with large chunks of debris flying off. The last chunk crashed into her second to last battleship, leaving her with only one battered and crippled hulk of a capital ship to eek out a victory instead of a mutual kill.


"Shut up," Alexis growled.


"What?" Noelle asked, drawing out the vowel. "I wasn'-"

"Yes you were," Lexi accused her. "Just shut up and take over so you can prove me how terrible I am, Sun Tzu."


Noelle blinked and looked utterly innocent as Lexi left the command chair vacant and for her. She offered, "Or we could hit the next story mission. When did mom order the pizza?"


"About twenty minutes ago?" Alexis said, making it somewhere between a statement and a question as she searched her memory. "Maybe thirty minutes?"


Noelle just nodded as she retook her proper place of power and smiled conspiratorially. "Sounds like we've got enough time to do the next story mission."

She almost left it off there, then said, "And we can say we're studying if its not."


"See," Alexis declared approvingly, "this is why I'm the face and you're the brains of our organisation."

****
If there was a heaven in this galaxy, it was the Sentinel's galley and its king was Vega Coffee Company beans. Belmont held his mug close to his nose and felt the rest of his body grow cold as the rising warmth of his brew embraced his nose. The rich and thick aroma of what the galley computer had dubbed Italian Roast tickled his nostrils as it flowed into his circulator system like a fog of wonderful, caffeinated might. He could already feel his throat constricting and glowing with the lava-like feel of heartburn.

Hieronymus Natalie Belmont couldn't have cared less if he tried, and he most certainly did not wish to. This was coffee! Real, genuine coffee! No synthesized ingredients. No caffeine flavor injectors. This was the real thing. The beans had been grown in real fields with wild water and nourished with true sunlight. It was a spot of true, luxurious civilization in a civilization that was geared to maximum production efficiency in the name of survival. Every space of arable land was given over to the growing of grains, fruits, and vegetables. Every factory was dedicated to the production of parts needed to keep the nation rolling and the war machine fuelled. In all of that there was little room for luxuries like coffee.

Belmont raised the mug to his lips and supped lightly from the black joy. His tongue burned only slightly and did not stop him from sipping long enough to drain half a mouthful of coffee and swallow it.


"Sweet golden goodness," Belmont sighed in almost religious tones. "This is the good stuff."


The eternal frown of Captain Alphonso Huxson's twitched upwards a hair's breadth for a moment.


"I'll see if I can smuggle out a bag for you. Got a machine in your office that can take a coffee module?"

"Of course! We're not completely savage," Belmont snorted. He tched at Huxson in gently mocking scorn. "Only out of the fleet a month and you already look down on your peers."


Huxson's face actually broke into a smile that was gone as soon as it arrived as the War Mind's avatar appeared in one of the empty chairs. What appeared to be sitting was a human who was on fire. He was massive in both height and girth with broad shoulders and massive paws for hands. His skin was blacked and charred as if he had been the center of a fire, and where veins would have bulged there were only the flying sparks and baleful, hot glow of embers. His beard and hair were long and looked like the blackened branches of a bush with the ends still simmering.


He was dressed in archaic armor that Belmont guessed was considered traditional for whatever pre-spaceflight human culture had spawned him, and like him it was charred and fire scorched. Resting on the table was an appropriate helmet and across his lap was a longsword that was sheathed in a scabbard, also of charred leather that shouldn't be so intact, and where the blade managed to peak through at the hilt could be seen a light that was like the heart of a fire.


Belmont had tried looking up the name Surtr after the meeting with Huxson. There was not much information to be had. Ancient human cultures had been the bottom of the totem pole of important information according to the people who had colonized the Alliance's planets in the Concordance's days, and when the survivors of the information apocalypse were trying to scrape together what knowledge they could from the battered computers that survived the fighting they cared even less. All that Belmont could find was the fact that Surtr was closely associated with demons, world destroying fire, and the violent end of all things.


[The admiral and his guest have come aboard. They will be here shortly.]


Belmont and Huxson sat up straighter in their chairs and Belmont even started looking over his uniform for any flecks of pastry or stain of coffee that managed to sneak their way on to his uniform. There was none but he was keeping away that his chest was wrinkled slightly and swore at himself for trusting the damned laundromat robots for do his folding for him. Nothing to do for it now.


Admiral Grayson and his guest arrived without preamble other than all, including the AI's avatar, rose to standing. Grayson waved them down with a negligent hand. He seated himself a little too quickly and suddenly Huxson and Belmont could notice the slight, weighted way he walked. The Grandfather of the Navy was entering his eighty-eighth year of active service and was well over one hundred standard years old. Such was not exactly atypical. Just because the Concordance fell didn't mean that all of the generations of life extension drugs and minor genetic alternments to ease and slow the aging process just disappeared. That more than any title or mountain of wealth told of the heritage Grayson had as one of the descendants of a Concordance of Stars and Species citizen, but there was only so much genetic heritage could do to counter the kind of stresses that a body carries when its controlling mind decides to lift mountains and dredge oceans on a daily basis.


"Gentlemen," Grayson said by way of preamble, putting his cap in front of him on the table. "Is that coffee I smell?"


"Yes, sir," Huxson said and passed a mug and thermos to him. Grayson didn't take the kind of ritualistic joy that Belmont had with his first sip, but he did enjoy it.

"Thank you, Captain. I'll have to bribe your steward for a few cups worth for my private stores," Grayson joked, to which the officers gave polite laughter. "Allow me to introduce Commodore Gabriel Singh. His flotilla has spent the last few months patrolling the systems along the Devil's Road and dealing with the pirates there. He will be handling the mission briefing."


Commodore Singh rose to stand. He was six foot and change with the kind of build you'd expect of a marine who spent his training on a high gravity world. His skin was a deep and rich brown with a bald head. Intricately detailed tribal markings covered his face that were barely visible against his skin. When he spoke it was with a rich basso baritone that was accented with the inflections of someone from outside the worlds of the Alliance. "Thank you, Admiral. Gentlemen, if you would turn your attention to the display."


***
"Oh my god, did they really put in a scottish black maori?" Alexis gasped. "Isn't that, like, PC overload?"

"Only if they made him gay," Noelle retorted. "Now shut up. It's getting interesting."


***
A hologram depicting a relatively small region of space, two sectors sitting side by side and each a cube covering fifty lightyears of space, were shown. One was the Heliopolis Epsilon Sub-Sector that the Alliance called home. The other was the Heliopolis Gamma Sub-Sector and home to the wild stars that used to be part of the Concordance's border provinces.


"Gentlemen," Commodore Singh said by preamble, "This information is top secret, need to know: Meaning that no one else needs to until Fleet Command decides otherwise. I'm sure you're all aware of the communications problems we're experiencing with the outposts covering the Devil's Road. The truth is that Starbase Vermillion has been destroyed by unknown forces. Vice Admiral Shaw and the Second Fleet were immediately mobilized to engage a potential invasion from the Wild Stars, but none came. Scouting of the starbase's wreckage reveals that whoever went through the trouble of blowing up one of our battle bases also went to the trouble of removing the black box."


[So whoever destroyed your base also didn't want to be seen.]


Singh nodded. "Correct. Based on this and other events going on in the wild stars of Gamma, we can only assume that the Warlord of Gamma is on the move for conquest. I turn this briefing over to Admiral Grayson."

The grey old statue of a man looked around at the gathered officers and said, "Gentlemen, I'm not sure how much any of you know so I'll assume you've all been good boys and haven't been listening to the gossip mongers."


***
"Did he just assume our gender!?" Lexi declared with mocking outrage, and was promptly elbowed in the ribs


***
"Since late last year, Signals Intelligence has been picking up traffic about something called the Ragnarstar Project. Resources have been diverted from all departments and projects for this. We can only assume its some kind of weapon or ship, and with the destruction of Vermillion we can't wait for more intelligence anymore. As of One Hundred Thirteen Hours this morning, the Alliance is at war. Strike Group Sentinel will be our first attack."


The Admiral gestured at the hologram and the view shifted to a moon of modest size with a large base built into its face.


"This is Myrmidon Base. It is a staging ground and command post for the raiders trying to slip past our early warning systems and the ideal place to stage any gathering of warships for an invasion. Sentinel and her escorts will remove the warships protecting the base and allow a marine strike force to board the station and loot any information from its computer banks. The asteroid base is fairly deep into their territory that defenses are expected to be light. We've also never attacked this far into their territory, so response is expected to be sluggish.

"What kind of resistance are we expecting?" Belmont asked.


"It is a command base so expect gun-sats, fighters, and warships. Figure a quartet of missile frigates, a sniper destroyer, and a Katana-class Escort Carrier."

"What? Where did they get that?!" Belmont demanded.


Grayson was the picture of calm as he replied. "It is our educated opinion this carrier used to be the CNS Dagger Dancer, officially missing, presumed destroyed in the aftermath of Operation Spitfire. It appears the enemy captured her and have put her to use as a command ship."

That statement actually managed to get an emotional reaction from Captain Huxson. Faint creases formed in his brow as he declared, "We should retake her if possible. I knew her skipper. He wouldn't want to see his Dancer debased like this."

"Nobody is happy to see our hardware in the enemy's hands, Captain. However the marine forces we've brought along are for assaulting the command post and retrieving the data. Any diversion is a liability."

Huxson has the look of a man trying to keep a raging bull from going rabid with his bare hands. To his credit he succeeded and merely glowered with eyes like black, smouldering coals.

"Are there any questions?" Grayson asked.


[Actu-]


Everyone shot looks at the statturing AI, who merely sat there as if nothing was wrong.

***
"What the hell, Lexi?!" Noelle swore angrily as she cut the mic.


Lexi looked sheepishly at her lap and pouted that pout that could bend steel into knots. "Sorry. I just want to know who the warlord is."


Noelle felt her anger and outrage bleed from her. As a young pre-teen who had once been forced to get her gaming experience from cousins who had played the originals while she watched on but had been unable to partake in due to her age and position as guest in their household, leaving her to grasp and pinch at stories. She had once completely misinterpreted the story of Halo when she'd watched her oldest cousin play Halo 2 on his PS2 in the long ago and misty days of the early aughts. She could not hold Lexi's curiosity against her.


She reactivated the mic and spoke into it.


****
[Who is the Warlord? I don't recall seeing him or her in my examinations of your databases.]

Grayson found that extremely curious but let it passed. Maybe it was just trying to get the organic brains of its sailors rolling on the topic in hopes that some inspiration would strike. He replied, "The Warlord of Heliopolis Gamma is the man who managed to pick up the pieces of the ol Concordance and unite the many bitter factions who made up the Gamma Sub-Sector.


"He is extremely brutal and capable and extremely charismatic when he wants to. He's gotten half a dozen autocratic republics, bandit kingdoms, and other breeds of despots to work together for a common goal. He's unified their fleets and armies into one military and been moving heaven and hell to get the standard of living among his peoples risen above qualor and peasant poverty. If it wasn't for the fact that he wants to loot and conquer us we could probably call eachother allies."


[Hero of another story. A fable that never gets old.]


Grayson nodded cautiously. "Yes, War Mind."


[Then let us get underway.]

Grayson nodded again, this time more readily. "I'm assigning the cruiser Defiant under the command of Captain Tanya Soloviev to your command for this mission. She's a more than capable officer and her ship is one of our best. Take good care of them and bring back everyone alive."

***
"Girls, it's time for dinner!" Mrs. Hawkins called up.


"Damn it!" Noelle swore. "And it was just getting good!"


Lexi winked and stood up, brushing the wrinkles off her cheerleading uniform. She said, "I'll get the food, you wait for me."

"You are a lifesaver," Noelle beamed and busied herself selecting the loadouts for her respectable strike force. Sentinel was loaded up with attack fighters to take advantage of the ramshackle nature of the barbarian warships and the Heart of Winter got Interceptors. The Defiant was capable of carrying fighters so she got torpedo bombers. Noelle glanced over the heavy cruiser's weapons package and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

The cruiser had no beam cannons and only an undersized battery of PPCs and point defense railguns to protect her. The offensive weaponry consisted of a single "semi-spinal" rail cannon meant to snipe escorts and inflict precision damage on larger cruisers and battleships. Maybe even hunt carriers if she could get in range. For escorts was a squadron of beam frigates that were meant to serve as additional firepower and an escort destroyer that was devoted completely to point defenses that could cover most of the fleet.


Noelle pointed all of this out and a few other details to Alexis when she got back with two plates piled high with steaming slices of pizza, covered in melting cheese and greasy pepperoni.


"Neat!" Lexi said indulgently. "So what does that mean?"


"It means that while it's doing the carrier/battleship cliche they're doing a lot of work to give the smaller ships a purpose besides die for the big boys! And look at this!" She excitedly pointed at the Order of Battle and at the small escorts. "These ships have their own captains and listed crew experience. I can even check out their crew manifests and ship history! They're all unique! So they're adding in the biggest elements of a tactical fleet game with the big fleet clashes of an armada game! That's a hell of a gamble!"


Alexis nodded politely. Honestly she just gamed for gaming's sake. As long as the gaming was fun she didn't care much about the mechanics. However she also knew that Noelle rarely broke out of her shell and talking about video games was one of the things that melted her emo heart. Lexi loved to hear the swell in her voice's pitch and energy and the light that danced in her hazel eyes. The way her cheeks regained color and how lovely her smile was. When she smiled Noelle was a very pretty girl who was missing her true calling as a model or cheerleader.


Lexi of course said none of this aloud. The poor dear was terribly self conscious about her sexuality and orientation. Even joking about it would send her back into her shell. So Lexi merely smiled and listened and ate her pizza as the next mission of the campaign started.

 

[finbikkifin]

"Man, making really good AI is hard."

"Why don't we just summon one?"

"Great idea! I'll get the candles and blood sacrifices, you have the third fleet form a summoning circle with their hyperdrives!"

 

[Skychan]

Here we go some more great fun. I'm looking forward to seeing even more of the discoveries that the pair can make about the world. How everything in it has been detailed. I wonder if they will realize that negotiation and diplomacy are equally valid options. Particularly in this situation where the 'game' is setting up another empire as a reasonable ally option vs a greater threat.

Also fun would be if they can find out more about their own history in the world. What they did in previous games...

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 4: Ragnarok and Roll
The combined ships of Task Force Sentinel exited hyperspace in perfect formation. At the outer edges were the beam frigates with their modest sensor packages expanding the RADAR, LIDAR and other detection devices to a further effective range. The battle cruiser Heart of Winter rode at the head, waiting for the opportunity to go forth and strike. The Defiant sailed just behind and to the left of Winter next to the point defense destroyer Palisade in preparation to destroy any threat to the fleet before they could become a threat. Finally at the center was the Alliance carrier Sentinel herself with the marine assault ship tucked safely into her bosom.

The strike force was an interesting display of shapes and design philosophies. The frigates were simple, blocky shapes that were like flat squares with two single barrel beam cannon turrets built on top and bottom. The Palisade was an arrow head design with every inch covered in powerful sensors and rapid fire assault cannons. The Heart of Winter and the Defiant were both shark-like in their construction all sharp angles and weaponry pointed forward for maximum attack and damage dealing.

Then there was the Sentinel herself. The Federation-era carrier was build in a time where there was more opportunity to experiment with different designs. Alliance carriers were simple designs made to be long, flat rectangles that launched and received their carriers on the sides and on the long topside respectively. The Sentinel was a cylinder with thin spires of sensor and comm towers poking out of the front. A handful of advanced particle blasters sat in strategic positions along the hull to allow for a respectively powerful fusilade to deter any enemy ship short of a battle cruiser or battleship, or God forbid a dreadnought, from attacking her. The fore and mid thirds of the ship were devoted to carrier operations with a sophisticated and nearly foolproof automated tractor beam system meant to allow for fast recovery, rearmament and refuelling, and launch.

Nobody could mistake the Sentinel for anything other than the Alliance's pet command carrier. So when the guard force saw her arrival they skedaddled.

***
Lexi pouted and Noelle creased her brow in much and unexaggerated agitation. There was nothing worse than an enemy that refused to fight even if it was more realistic for a situation like this and for an enemy noted as being smarter than the average pirate. It was still a bitch to not be able to deal with them and at least chase them off. She jotted down some notes and resumed her fleet commanding.

***
"Damned cowards!" the marine colonel leading the battalion growled.

[They'll be back and with greater numbers. Let's get this over with quick.]

Belmont and Huxson were both very sure they heard annoyance in the War Mind's voice as they started giving orders. The fleet held off from attacking directly. Instead the attack fighters and bombers went to comb out the gun-sats and the Defiant used her semi-spinal cannon to snipe out the more troublesome gun platforms and the anti-fighters gun-sats. The sniper frigates merely remained waiting with the rest of the fleet. With the rest of the crew keeping an eye on the war mind's actions. There weren't any verbal orders. It just updated the targeting computers and planted new waypoints for the fighters and for Defiant's railgun. Eventually the last of the gun-sats and the few weapon emplacements were destroyed. Even the base's sensors and communications gear were destroyed.

The marine transport blazed close to the main hangar for receiving cargo and personnel. A small yield nuclear torpedo blew the blast doors into smithereens and the assault shuttles landed broke off from the limpet mounts like a swarm of baby spiders leaving their mother for food to be sucked out of the body of some captive fly.

Belmont blinked at how dark that thought was and checked his wrist watch. He saw it was about time for his next injection and popped a hypo into his neck. An icy slush filled his veins and he managed to not shake as his brain started to hurt and eyes ache. With death staved off for another seventeen hours he refocused on observing the battle space.

***
"Did you see that?!"

"Hm?" Noelle grunted, annoyed that her attentions had been torn from micro-ing her fighters into resupply slots.

"Belmont!" Lexi said, pointing at his profile tucked into the top right corner of the screen. "He just popped a stim or something! Did you see anyone else do that?"

Noelle shook her head, more than a little annoyed now than ever. "Probably just an idle animation."

"Can you ask him what he just did?"

"Why? He's just an NPC."

Lexi gave her a flat look. "Ellie, this is supposed to be a next gen, cutting edge RPG with all sorts of new interactions to make this as real and lifelike as possible. One of your officers just popped some pills on the bridge during a combat situation. You're a military nut. Would that be allowed anywhere else?"

Noelle gave a huff but saw the point. She pressed the mic button and asked,

***
[Captain Belmont, do you have some kind of medical condition that is not noted in your record]

Belmont was startled and gave a cautious glance about to see if he'd been noticed or the War Mind heard. The answer was no to both. Seemed that the AI had activated a privacy screening field to give them some seclusion on the tight and crowded bridge.

"No, sir," Belmont answered quietly. As good as the privacy screen was, if you talked too loudly or too quickly you could overwork it and be heard. "I have a condition incurred during a mission relatively recently. The admiralty and the medical corps are aware of it. I require medication every seventeen hours or so to keep it from impairing me. I assure you that it is not transmittable and if it was I would not be here."

[There is no mention of it in your profile. Can you explain this?]

"It was a top secret mission, sir. Only Admiral Grayson knows about it. I am usually more covet about my injections but I will not leave my bridge during a combat mission just to protect some pride. If anyone asks I have a weakened immune system due to growing up in an asteroid hab in the Bastet System."

Warmind Surtr said nothing else on the subject.

***
Noelle saw that all was well after Lexi's curiosity was sated and her fleet taken care of for now she took a large bite of pizza and munched down. She gave a paroozal and saw that she could watch the marines charge into the base from the opening she made. She zoomed in and watched the tiny armored figures in their cut down pulse rifles charging into the wide, cavern-like hangar as the Colonel yelled, 'C'mon you apes! You wanna live forever?"

"Does every marine have to say that?" Lexi complained as she downed a few gulps of coke and burped.

"Guild rules," Noelle replied as-a-matter-of-factly, matching Lexi's burp with a belch that'd make any trucker cry in proud smiles. "Gotta have it in there or no space marines. No exceptions."

"Bugger," Lexi mused. "So, which one are you gonna ship with?"

Noelle's cheeks turned bright pink. "Wha-what?!"

"You know, shipping!" Lexi beamed. "You're gonna end up writing fanfiction for this eventually. Who are you gonna ship with the pretty young ensign fresh from the academy? The one with doe eyes and woefully inept yet peppy and hopeful?"

"You've been spending too much time on the wrong forums," Noelle groused and beat down the memories of a self-insert mary sue in the arms of one grizzled fleet carrier captain during the bitter climax of the Frontier Wars between the Concordance and an alien cyborg conglomerate. She gave a silent prayer of thanks to Odin, Thor, Athena, and all the gods for the distraction when the game beeped and the enemy returned with reinforcements.

***
Two squadrons of scrapped together missile frigates left hyperspace in a near perfect screening formation with two light cruisers following behind them on either side of two carriers. One was the Dagger Dancer. The other was an odd looking ship. The front half was a narrow shovel-headed design that looked like someone had taken two shovel heads and welded them together with four beam cannons facing forward in fixed position and a respectable array of pulse cannons to make up for the narrow arc of the main battery. The back half was a traditional rectangular design that could hold about half as many fighters as the Sentinel, but that was still plenty of fight. There were no weapons on that back end and she looked mean and fast. It hailed them.

"Attention invading ships," came the clipped voice of a woman with the harsh accent of someone who grew up in a wasteland of a homeworld and learned how to defend herself at an early age. "This system is under the protection of the Union of Worlds and you have attacked a restricted military installation. Withdraw and leave at once, or suffer the consequences."

Belmont read the IFF as being the UNS Sleipnir but her class was unknown to the war book. It looked too well put together and in too good condition to be a salvaged Concordance wreck or a slapped together home job.

"Oh hell," he growled. "They've found their own Concordance warship."

[Correct. A Sleipnir-class Assault Carrier is what we're dealing with. Think a battle cruiser like the Winter but carries the fighters of an escort carrier.]

"Well we're fracked," the destroyer skipper chimed in.

"Hush it, captain!" Captain Soloviev snapped. She was a very pale woman and her red hair was even more red in contrast. It fell in unruly and loose ringlets about her face despite the harsh bun she had it in. She said to the War Mind, "Sir, let me loose and I'll blow the thing out of space!"

[Thank you, Captain, but target the Dancer immediately and fire when you're ready.]

Orders came to every ship in the strike force at once. All fighters were launched but held close to their motherships. The Heart of Winter broke formation and blazed for a good angle to engage the attack carrier. The Defiant and the escorts formed into a solid wedge of steel and composite facing the enemy torpedo frigates. Sentinel remained back and turned all of her available power to boosting her Command & Control systems to max.

Battle was joined immediately. Torpedoes shot out on gusts of compressed gas and lit off their fusion torch thrusters towards the Alliance formation. Sleipnir went to engage the Heart of Winter before the battle cruiser could cause any damage. Dancer hung back and coordinated her fighters for maximum effectiveness. Two squadrons, one of interceptors and one of plasma cannon-equipped bombers, launched from her and another two from the Sleipnir.

The Alliance and their ships did not give them an inch. The Palisade fired off burst after burst of high explosive flechette rounds at the incoming torpedoes and shot them all down easily, then the next wave and the third. Of course they weren't expected to hit. They were covering fire for the bombers and interceptors. Even as Sentinel's four squadrons intercepted the enemy fighters closed range and engaged. Two out of the six destroyers went up in flames and exploded as plasma bolts fired en mass overwhelmed their weaks shields and put so many holes in their hulls it was a miracle that they stayed intact at all and didnt just break apart instead of exploding.

The destroyer, frigates, and the Defiant closed in bravely and as soon as the range finders hit that magic number they opened fire. The dozen missile frigates, naked without shields and any weapon other than impotent missiles they tried to at least ram their enemies. They partially succeeded as one frigate crippled its enemy counterpart with point blank torpedoes, but the beam cannons cut them down two at a time. The Defiant charged her railgun and fired. It wasn't spectacularly powerful by itself and Defiant was a one off prototype of a class that fell through due to lack of versatility. However she was still a cap ship hunter, and her railgun held the firepower of a battleship's forward battery. The Dagger Dancer lost her shields in the first strike. The second blew off her forward sections and sent her spinning when she was caught trying to turn. A third tungsten-depleted uranium shell reduced her to a cloud of scraps.

All assets were sent up to aid the Winter, which was floundering. Belmont and the Sleipnr's captain jockeyed for position trying to find the best angle to perform the killing slash. Both were lightly protected and not made for a fair fight, so they leveraged their fighter advantages. That was a losing proposition for the Elemental-class battle cruiser. Her single squadron of interceptors could not hold off the enemy interceptors and the attack fighters. The shields of Winter were overwhelmed in sections and her thinly armored hull was pockmarked with hits from the relatively weak, even for fightercraft mounted plasma cannons of the attack fighters.

Belmont clenched his teeth and felt a molar chip as something went pop and sparked across the weapons console, giving the young lieutenant there a nasty electrical burn that the bridge medics were already scrambling to treat. With a snarl he ordered, "Pull back! Get us out of here!"

At the same time the War Mind ordered [Heart of Winter jump!]

Not needing to wait and lacking someone to keep the gun crews leashed, Belmont ordered the power shunted to FTL and the bleeding battle cruiser jumped into hyperspace. Her interceptors were already dead and were wiped out before she even left. The Sleipnir angled her nose to attack the Sentinel and burned thrusters for her. The Sentinel raised her shields to maximum and even overcharged them.

"Brace for impact!" Huxson yelled over the intercom as the Sleipnir made her first pass. Nuclear torpedoes and focused plasma beams ripped into the carrier's deflector shields and they held firmly. Some bleed through radiation from the nukes killed some of her sensitive sensors and forced the hangars closed, but she otherwise managed to survive.

The Sleipnir's captain could have gone for another pass and crippled or even killed the Sentinel, but couldn't do it without flying into the jaws of the rest of the task force. So she did the next best thing. She cut forward thrust to glide past the base on inertia and turned her nose to it. Plasma beams cut the assault transport into molten wreckage and another batch of nuclear torpedoes fired off. The nukes were too fast and too far to be intercepted, and they were aimed at the base.

[Colonel! Transmit data now!]

"Trying!" the marine CO screamed back. "Okay! Data Link established! Make it cou-"

The nukes hit home and the asteroid broke apart as munitions and power plant were touched off. The Sleipnir jumped to hyperspace after confirming the kill.

***
"screwing son of a bitch mother!" Noelle swore, throwing her headphones on her keyboard. The overpriced "gamer gear" held together for the most part. She breathed hard for a few seconds and cooled her jets.

At her side Lexi said, "Well that was shitty. Reload?"

"Can't," Noelle growled through gritted teeth.

Lexi nodded, then blinked. "Wait what? screw's up with that?"

"I know right?"

Noelle glowered at her screen as the game went into the mission after-action report. Lexi said, hoping to calm her down, "That was a good move with the Winter. I would have sent the Sentinel after the battle cruiser to help her out."

"That would have worked probably," Noelle replied, now sounding calmer as she went into Sun Tzu mode. "Problem is that it puts my big lumbering carrier into slash range, and that assault carrier would have eaten me for lunch. Don't want to see what happens when I get a game over from dying. Ya feel me?"

Lexi nodded and ate her pizza. Noelle did the same in quiet, careful thought.

 

[beleester]

Found a bunch of spelling errors in this one:

A handful of advanced particle blasters sat in strategic positions along the hull to allow for a respectively powerful fusilade

Click to shrink...

Should be "respectably"

She gave a paroozal and saw that she could watch the marines charge into the base from the opening she made.

Click to shrink...

Should be "perusal."

Two squadrons of scrapped together missile frigates

Click to shrink...

Should be "scraped-together." You might also consider "two scraped-together squadrons of missile frigates" because it's presumably the squadron that's been scraped together rather than the frigates themselves.

The front half was a narrow shovel-headed design that looked like someone had taken two shovel heads and welded them together

Click to shrink...

This phrasing is a bit redundant.

Two out of the six destroyers went up in flames and exploded as plasma bolts fired en mass overwhelmed their weaks shields and put so many holes in their hulls it was a miracle that they stayed intact at all and didnt just break apart instead of exploding.

Click to shrink...

Run-on sentence. Also, two spelling errors.

her thinly armored hull was pockmarked with hits from the relatively weak, even for fightercraft mounted plasma cannons of the attack fighters.

Click to shrink...

This is kind of hard to parse and very wordy for an aside. You might want something like "...pockmarked with weak hits from the plasma cannons of the attack fighters." Or split it into two sentences - "...pockmarked with hits from the plasma cannons of the attack fighters. They were weak, even for fightercraft, but they added up."

That's most of the obvious errors, I think. I still enjoyed the chapter, especially the little "Do you wanna live forever?" joke.

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 5: Awoken
Noelle was on the treadmill running at ten miles an hour with music blasting in her ears when Mrs. Hawkins entered her field of view and waved to get her attention.

Noelle slowed down to zero and forced herself to stand upright unsupported while in view of someone, much to the aching and complaining of her muscles. She popped her headphones out and asked, "Whassup?"

Honey," Mrs. Hawkin began, which raised every warning alarm in Noelle's brain and set her defenses to Double Red Alert. Nothing good ever came of mother saying Honey, "would you mind chaperoning Velma and her friends at the mall?"

Okay not so bad but still annoying. Noelle replied, "She's fifteen and her friends are all older. Why does she need a chaperone?"

"Because it makes mom happy," Mrs. Hawkins replied. Noelle tiched in annoyance. Going for the low blow, mommy was. Mom was also going for bribery as she put a thin pile of bills into Noelle's hand: five twenties.

"This is for lunch and gas," Mrs. Hawkins said, leaving the last bit unsaid. Anything left over was hers, and didn't count as allowance. Noelle tiched again. Against a quintet of Andrew Jacksons was hard to argue with. Especially since the family van was almost full and her sister's friends would want to grab something fast and tasty. So three of those presidents were hers for sure.

"Can I shower and change first?" Noelle asked.

Mrs. Hawkin nodded and her smile became much more self-satisfied. "Oh course! They're at Cindy Mallone's house right now. Be there in an hour."

Noelle nodded and hopped off the treadmill and wiped down her face on reflex alone. It was a way to spend an afternoon and she was still smarting after the mission's massive fail two nights ago. After her shower and drying off she tossed on a pair of shorts and tank top with a flannel shirt for when she cooled off. She was at the Mallone house by the fifty-two minute mark and was at the town mall soon enough. It was a modestly sized mall for a modest town like hers. It was two stories tall and modestly packed for a sunday late afternoon.

Noelle followed Velma and her four other friends through the mall's upper stories where the interesting girl stores were. Noelle soon realized why her bribe has been so thick when their conversations were filled with nothing but boys, boys, clothes, accessories for clothes, and more talk about boys.

Sweet lord did they talk about boys. Endless talk about boys. Which boy was cutest. Which boy was looking the best in the school jersey. Outfits to attract a boy's attention. If it wasn't for the fact that she was being paid three month's of allowance for this Noelle would probably have performed a viking funeral with the van by now. Her relief came when they went into a Best Buy to check out some new phone accessories, which pretty much made up of seeing which gaudily bejeweled pink case fit their paper thin phones better.

Noelle, perfectly happy with her battered but uncracked three year old smart phone and not caring if her phone was fashionable looking or matched her drab outfit, took advantage of this to grab a new USB cord to replace the one that got eaten by the family dog and to check out Fleet Week Magazine. Fleet Week was one of the few remaining gaming magazines that focused on space sims, RTSs, RPGs, and generally anything that pertained to sci-fi set in space. It started as a marketing gimmick when the space RTS craze started that grew into a very profitable property in its own right.

Inside were articles about upcoming games and tournaments, all written from an "in-universe" perspective, plus a few select pieces of micro-fiction that were either silly fluff for the lore nerds to crawl over and what amounts to fans writing their own amateur AARs of recent battles that were "epic." In the intervening years since the heyday of BSR and its rival titles, the quality and interest in the magazine has died down with tournaments taking a more prominent roll, but she found herself still drawn to it. It was also owned partly by Black Star Studios, who would no doubt be advertising their new game by now.

A glance over showed that other than an update on the ongoing lawsuit of Chris Roberts' Cloud Imperium vs Crytek and some teasing about the ongoing development of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident 2. There was nothing to be seen about Black Stars Rising other than the latest tournament was coming to several towns across the state for the national championships to decide who would get to contend for the international tournament in Glasgow. She filed that away as she shot through the last few pages for the battle reports for anything interesting. There was none.

She folded up the book and put it away. She looked about to see if the girls has wandered off, and found that there was a boy standing next to her with his head buried in own copy of Fleet Week. Noelle froze and tried not to be seen that she had seen. She failed and the boy looked at him. He has a bronzed, dark skin tone that reminded Noelle of an ancient greek olympian with a built to match. His hair was set into cornrows and his muddy green eyes seem to sparkle in intelligent gleams.

"Oh, uh," he said, clearly as startled as she was. "Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you."

"It's fine!" Noelle answered quickly. She felt her cheeks blushing in embarrassment at not sensing his presence and getting caught staring at a stranger.

He paused a moment, either waiting for her to say something else or to do something. When she didn't and didn't he grew a bashful smile that made little dimples appear in his face.

"I'm Joseph," he said. "Friends call me Joe."

"Nice to meet you, Joseph," Noelle said without thinking. "Noelle."

"Like a christmas carol?"

"Yeah. Mom and Dad were feeling poetic since I was born in December."

She left out that it was on Christmas day itself. Those admittances together tended to make people suspicious and or make them laugh. She didn't feel like being laughed or grinned at today.

"I'm new around here," he said. "Moved in last week and unpacked the last box today."

Noelle made a connection and asked in genuine surprise, "You're starting so late in semester aren't you?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Gonna be a pain to catch up but papa and mama know that I can deal with it. Smarter than the average bear is I!"

Joseph puffed out his chest and beamed his best winning smile, which was pretty darn winning even for someone as world weary and cynical as Noelle. She couldn't help but break a smile and give a little giggle that lasted for a full seven seconds, which made him smile even wider.

"I, uh, got to go!" Noelle said a little too quickly even for her tastes. "Babysitting my sister and her friends. Gotta go make sure that they don't run off while I'm distracted."

Joseph chuckled. "I hear ya, sister. Glad to distract you for a few minutes. Hope to see you around!"

Noelle nodded in agreement and rushed off. She found them near the store entrance waiting for her.

"Well, he was cute!" Velma purred, stretching out the vowel into cuuute. "What was his name?"

"Nunya," Noelle replied.

"Nunya?" Velma's sixteen year old friend asked.

"None ya business!" Noelle snapped. "Let's get going."

Little miss Training Bra turned up her nose in disgruntled indifference, to which Velma smiled and lead off the pack to wherever it was they wanted to go next. Said location was the local taco hutt for late lunch/dinner. Noelle ended up having to spend fully half of her bounty to satisfy the little goblins but she was a little too distracted with a fuzzy brain that refused to be feather dusted away.


***
"Lieutenant Daniels. Please report to Flight Deck Beta-Seven for shuttle departure." the electronic female voice announced over the intercom.

Despite his rush, Second Lieutenant Mars Daniels stopped in place and threw the quarter full plastic bottle at the nearest loudspeaker. A foul concoction of hydrating electrolytes and other "natural nutrients" with medical sounding jargon that the navy pawned off as fruit juice to the enlisted and pilots and focused splashed over the corner of the Unity Prime Transfer Point.

"I heard you the first time you robot drone!" he screamed at it. It continued to blare in regardless.

"Lieutenant Daniels. Please report to Flight Deck Beta-Seven for shuttle departure. Shuttle will depart in five minutes in accordance with the Navy Personnel Transportation Mandate."

"Shit." That shuttle was the last one going to the Libertine from this Transfer Point. If he missed that, he could kiss his wings goodbye till the Ancients came back. He broke into a dead sprint to the closest elevator, which was rapidly closing.

"Hold that frakking door!"

One of the two navy officers inside the lift took note of his plight and held the door open. Despite this, Daniels did not slow down until he blew past both officers and slammed shoulder first into the wall with an audible bash. As he waited for the tingling in his arm to die down the door slid closed.

"Flight Deck Be-" he began to say, out of breath and slump against the wall. He was cut off by the ever helpful intercom voice announced their destination of Flight Deck Beta-Seven: Transfer station for departures to the Libertine.

"T-thanks friends," Daniels breathed. He reset his posture to a proper stuff spine and flashed his patented Fighter Corps Smile. "You've done a great service today."

"I would hope so, Lieutenant... Daniels?" Captain Alphonso Huxson said dryly. "Your piloting skills must be better than your punctuality. Otherwise I might start wondering what you hot shots do besides hit on my female crew."

Beneath his passive, stony exterior, Belmont smiled as the cocksure pilot started to wilt under Belmont's gaze.

"S-sirs!" Daniels stuttered, snapping to salute them. "I apologize for my lateness. There was trouble securing a transport from the surface and-"

Huxson cut him off with a vertical swipe of his hand through the air. "Lieutenant, I don't care for your excuses. Save them for Commander Wallcroft." He added on, almost as an afterthought, "You may stand at ease."

Daniels dropped the salute but remained tense. In his experience, if there was one thing worse than pissing off your new CO was pissing off your new CO's CO. These two were the textbook definition, considering they were the war council of the Meta AI Warmind that had captured the attention of the service and the civilian populace. Eventually curiosity won out and he asked.

"Sirs, may I ask you a question?"

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Belmont returned.

"Sir, is it true we're shipping out to join Aegis?" Daniels ventured.

Belmont and Huxson shared a look, then the former turned to the pilot again, replying with a simple, "It's not."

That made Daniels' face perk up like a kid who just found out he was going to the holo arcade for his birthday. "So, we're going to join Privateer?"

Now Huxson spoke. "Looking to earn yourself a reputation for the bar hall war stories, Lieutenant?"

Daniels' face flushed a little. "Well, sir. When you're part of the Aerospace Defense Forces for most of your first mandatory first tour of duty, you get bored watching freighters lumber along to the Foundry."

"What do you pilot, son?"

"Bomber, sir. An old Mark 2 Veronica with the rest of the 191st Squadron. Spent most of my time playing system escort and EWAC jockey. This will be my first serious action."

"Well, all I can say is good luck, Lieutenant," Huxson replied as the lift doors hissed open. The two captains immediately stepped out and B-lined for the officers only section, where fast couriers took flag captains and vital supplies straight to their ships. Daniels made a blitz for the Libertines' shuttle. He took his licks as his squad mates teased him about missing the boat, too wrapped up in thought over his encounter with the captains and wondering how he was going to weasel out of repainting the Libertine's hull with only his toothbrush.

***
The orbital space around Bastet Prime, the capital planet of the Alliance and the home of its defense forces, was packed with warships. Ninety percent of the whole of the Alliance Navy had been summoned here for a grand counter attack that would drive a sword into the guts of the Warlord of Heliopolis Gamma and remind him that the Alliance of Free and Independent Planets is not to be trifled with. Squadrons of destroyers and frigates were arranged in parade formation around the mighty hulls of battleships and carriers. The more humble heavy and light cruisers stood at the corners with the escort carriers and the battle cruiser. At the center of all this was Mjolnir Squadron: the much regaled premier fighting force of the Alliance Navy that contained the only battleship division on the books and the only super heavy capital ship group left intact.

The Alliance once had plans for their fleet. Grand and great plans. Plans that would have seen many battleships and armoured cruisers that would have been the mailed striking fist of the Fleet. Supporting this fist would be the slender stiletto of battle cruisers that would keep the enemy off guard while the escort-type warships and fighters launched from the carriers would peck and stab until the battleships smashed the enemy into pulp.

Those were dreams of better days. Much, much better days. Days before Harold Grayson became Space Marshal. Before another Space Marshal made the mistake of attacking an enemy on his home ground and created a funeral pyre for himself and for a third of the fleet of the then Navy, creating the birth of his successor as a then Vice Admiral Grayson, bleeding from terrible internal damage and from a collapsed lung, forced the ragged remains of Operation Spitfire to retreat in orderly fashion back to home.

It was that nightmarish visage of the battle cruiser Maiden of Summer breaking apart under the stresses of combat and the plasma blasts of raider corvettes that awoke Grayson in a cold sweat. He was in his quarters aboard the battleship Heaven's Grasp, which were spacious and warm. The warmth was his own design. Arthritis was clutching deep in his bones and standard policy was to keep warship temperatures at a cool twenty-four degrees centigrade. Most of his crew were also young men and women who did too much work to subject them to the oppressive heats he prefered. So he did as much of his work as he could in his stateroom and enjoyed the desert heat that made his bones feel young again.

For the first time in a long time he lowered the temperature so that he wasn't dripping in his own sweat. He eased out of bed and used the life support controls built into his night stand, which itself was bolted to the deck plating. Throwing on a robe he managed to make it to his work desk and bring up the latest information about the combined armada. He browsed through the data without much aim then realized he was putting off something important. Something important to him at least.

He breathed deeply and took a bottle of chilled iced tea out from his personal stash. Being the space marshal in this day and age had some perks. One of them was the fact that he was able to get his hands on some of the fruits that were considered an expensive luxury in an age where vitamin pills and mass produced cloned meat and hydroponic vegetables made devoting land to tradition agriculture redundant or even criminally negligent.

He sliced up a thin strip of real, fresh lemon and dropped it into a drinking bulb and chased it down with tea. The black gold felt so deliciously cool on his tongue and throat that he momentarily went insane and committed to the course of action he considered it his duty to address.

The outgoing call rang for several seconds before the quasi-demonic visage of the Warmind Surtr showed itself.

[Yes, Marshal?]

"War Mind," he said conversationally. "Or should I call you Surtr?"

[Either are applicable to me. Use whichever monogram you wish.]

Grayson nodded. "I just wanted to see how you were adjusting to this new reality. I imagine that going to sleep in the middle of chaos and waking up in the ashes of the old world would be disconcerting even for an AI."

[Your worry is appreciated but not needed. Empires have fallen and risen more often than stars have died. The Concordance would have fallen eventually. I am merely happy to help build this new one for your Alliance instead of merely tearing them down.]

That didn't sound good. "Did you destroy a lot of empires?"

[Yes. I've destroyed dozens. I've helped blow away enemies of the Concordance and other civilizations for generations now. Hundreds of years of warfare and destruction all for fun.]

"Fun?" Grayson asked harshly. "Destroying lives and homes is fun?"

[Oh no. The destruction of the defenses and defenders are. I'm sure you'd understand. This little aspect is true regardless of my personal opinions on it. I am a War Mind. My duties and sole reason to exist is to kill and destroy. I break fleets and I destroy empires. It is something I excel at. I think that my actions during the Fall of the Concordance did a lot more to cause it than most simply because I was so good at killing. I killed hundreds of other AI and brilliant fleet admirals who were trying to do the same to me. In the end only I survived, and now I'm here to help you rebuild! This will be a very fun experiment.]

Grayson felt his cold sweat coming back. His thoughts immediately went to the failsafe device planted next to the War Mind's beacon. There was a plasma bomb of respectable yield that would destroy the beacon if need be and a secondary one attached to an obscure part of the Sentinel's reactor that would destroy it if the worst happened.

"Have you ever started a war for fun?"

***
Noelle froze in place. That question disturbed her on multiple levels. The most important part that rattled her because that question was delivered with too much heart and soul for a canned NPC response. Did that voice actor really deliver his response so wholeheartedly that it could shake the marrow of her bones and make her spine chill like ice? If so he was probably telepathic and clairvoyant to boot. There was no way he could give such a powerful act against nothing, and like that so much just broke through her mind like a burst dam releasing thousands upon thousands of gallons of water into the valley of possibilities.

Her hand found her phone and she was already dialling.

"Hello! Black Star Studios Customer Support. How can I help you?" A cheerful woman's voice asked.

Noelle barely registered that her voice was american, which was an oddity but not a terrible one. She said, "Yes, hello. I'm Noelle Hawkins. Gamertag Two-Seven-Two-Three-One-Sierra-Victor. I'm one of the beta testers for your new game and I wanted to talk to the devs about your new game."

"I'm sorry ma'am but we're not currently running any betas for developing games. Perhaps you have the wrong number?"

Noelle checked her phone again and cross referenced to the website. "No this is the right number. Black Stars, right?"

"Correct, ma'am. This is Black Stars Studios. I'm sorry but we aren't developing any new games right now. All of our focus is on keeping our current games."

"I see," Noelle said numbly. "Thank you for your time."

The woman cheerfully bid her a good day and hung up, leaving Noelle to her thoughts. She reached for the next possible outlet. She shot off an Email demanding to know what the silly joke was. She received a notification on the App. It read in bright green letters…

Greeting Starfighter! You've been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada!

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Noelle swore. More words appeared under it.

No I am not, Noelle. You've been chosen to help protect the Alliance of Free Planets because of your unique talents and some other-

"No! screw you! I am not Ender Wiggins and I am not falling for this prank!"

This is not a prank. Let me show you.

The power for the whole house suddenly died. Noelle ran for the window and saw it was out for the whole block. The only source of light was the phone and the desktop, the latter of which still had power. Noelle looked down at her phone.

You have been chosen to protect this Alliance of Free Worlds from its enemies. No this is not your future in the immediate or distant. It is, however, important to your world. Do your best and everything will turn out just fine. I'll be here to help you if you ever need it.

Tata for now,

Odette G. <3

The power abruptly came back on and Noelle was left alone with her thoughts and a Space Marshal waiting for an answer from a hyper intelligent War Mind AI that would win the war for it.

Noelle sat herself down at her desk and put her headset back on.

***
[No I haven't. I have personally never killed for fun. That would be in direct violation of my personal morals and it would be in violation of my purpose. I am here to fight wars and finish them in the most cost efficient manner possible in both lives, material, and time. Yes I have sometimes sacrificed men and women for my strategies to work but I never spent lives needlessly. Does that answer your question, Marshal?]

Grayson had been worried when the AI had gone silent and was in the middle of contacting the Sentinel to see what was up when Surtr abruptly spoke again, and its words surprised him. The flagrantly laissez-faire attitude had been replaced with one of such absolute seriousness so suddenly! Well okay for a given definition of suddenly. Still it was heartening to hear and Grayson hoped that this lengthy pause and change was a result of the AI checked itself for truth.

"Yes, Surtr," Grayson replied, hoping he sounded gracious and happy. "What do you think of this current plan?"

Another moment's pause.

[If what I've heard of this Ragnarstar project is real, and it is damned little considering all of the information I yanked out of those computers, then this is probably your best bet to save the worlds of the Alliance. I can only make assumptions of what will result, and it ranges from complete and utter destruction to complete and total success with no threat ever to face us again. More information is needed.]

"Of course," Grayson said, pretty sure he could hear some agitation in its voice. "It's gratifying to know you feel like that. It's not a very nice play to be on top of the totem pole, eh? Especially with the gods shitting on us from above."

Surtr gave a loud and hard laugh that lasted for a full minute with some change. [Yes! Yes it does! Good night, Space Marshal.]

"Good night, Surtr," Grayson replied. He returned to sleep with a content smile on his face and his confidence boosted. On the other side of creation Noelle snuck down stairs and stole one of her daddy's beers. She needed a drink. No, she needed several! What else did you do when you found out that you were the galactic savior to a whole empire?

She woke up the next morning with her first hangover and her mom telling her she was about to miss the bus!

 

[Spectrum]

Joseph puffed out his chest and beamed his best winning smile, which was pretty darn winning even for someone as world weary and cynical as Noelle. She couldn't help but break a smile and give a little giggle that lasted for a full seven seconds, which made him smile even wider.

"I, uh, got to go!" Noelle said a little too quickly even for her tastes. "Babysitting my sister and her friends. Gotta go make sure that they don't run off while I'm distracted."

Click to shrink...

No Noelle, stay on the Lexi path! ;P

No I am not, Noelle. You've been chosen to help protect the Alliance of Free Planets because of your unique talents and some other-

"No! screw you! I am not Ender Wiggins and I am not falling for this prank!"

This is not a prank. Let me show you.

The power for the whole house suddenly died. Noelle ran for the window and saw it was out for the whole block. The only source of light was the phone and the desktop, the latter of which still had power. Noelle looked down at her phone.

You have been chosen to protect this Alliance of Free Worlds from its enemies. No this is not your future in the immediate or distant. It is, however, important to your world. Do your best and everything will turn out just fine. I'll be here to help you if you ever need it.

Tata for now,

Odette G. <3

The power abruptly came back on and Noelle was left alone with her thoughts and a Space Marshal waiting for an answer from a hyper intelligent War Mind AI that would win the war for it.

Click to shrink...

Well, that's a bit earlier than expected for some kind of reveal. Still not sure if I believe quantum entanglement vs deep dive AI simulation, though, since there's real way to answer that.

No clue who Odette is.

 

[finbikkifin]

No clue who Odette is.

Click to shrink...

Of course not. G., Odette is being very subtle and concealing their identity.

 

[Skychan]

Well ouch... this is going to shake their faith in the all mighty war mind a bit. It will be amusing to see how she responds if her orders are likely to be questioned, and if/when/how she discovers that orders are interpreted by various NPC's differently based on who gets them! Also no attempt to negotiate? Bad war mind, BAD!

Oh and then for the most recent chapter I suspect that Nunya is also a war mind... perhaps for a certain group we've just been introduced to in fact. Which is just all to the good. Also, I totally want her to see him again and greet him as Nunya.

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 6: The War Mind Pt. 1
Operation Retribution was wet nursed by the propaganda department in its aspect of names. Its name was given to it because it was meant to inspire righteous anger and righteous purpose in the populace when it was revealed why the Alliance Fleet was marshalling in the home system and why leave for a hundred thousand officers and enlisted had been thrown to the wind. Make something heroic out of something scary. The name of the various attack forces followed suit.

There was Task Force Aegis which would be lead by some rear admiral who was competent enough to not hurt himself if left alone for five minutes and would lead the large Home Squadron of green crewed warships and the walking wounded of the fleet's register.

There was Task Force Warhammer lead by Space Marshal Grayson which comprised of the most veteran fighting force and all of the battleships and the only other battle cruiser still part of the attacking forces. It also was the first time that the Grandfather of the Fleet would be taking the field himself, which was a good and quick way to show how serious the Alliance was about this retributive stroke against the evil and war mongering aggressors of the Warlord of Gamma.

Finally there was Task Force Privateer lead by Vice Admiral Meredith Shaw. Of all the three this one was probably the most competent fighting force simply because its focused nature that required the most veteran ships. It was also the smallest task force with barely a score of ships present.

Meredith Shaw was an extraordinarily short woman. She looked like she was a hair shy of five feet tall. She had a very severe mouth and a mop of blonde hair that was going steely grey. She decided that she did not like the Surtr AI immediately when she saw its avatar. That quasi-demonic look reminded her too much of the death cults that had sprung up since the fall of civilization and held power on too many worlds for too long.The Alliance's history had its own versions of those and other apocalypse prophets who tried to use the suffering of others to take power.

Grayson could have been one of them after Spitfire fizzled out in humiliating defeat. After all he had the perfect angle for it. He was a self made man who had achieved a herculean status by rising to the rank of Vice Admiral and had saved the Alliance fleet from complete destruction after the politically appointed Space Marshal frakked up so badly that the entire upper echelons of government had to resign to keep the whole Alliance from breaking apart.

Yet he hadn't, and had done his best to fix those problems. He had done his best to keep the Alliance alive until a new Operation Spitfire could be undertaken. A real op with proper planning and logistical support to make it happen. That had taken nearly three and a half years of work to pull off, but now it was here. If the operation ended today they had pretty much deballed, defanged, and otherwise yanked the fight out of the barbarians.

Thinking of taking over their territory was an impossibility with the Alliance's currently overstretched fleets keeping the many supply posts harvesting the ruins of the Concordance's wildlands that was the regions just beyond the frontier. There was also the Concordance's frontiers to think about and all of the dark threats that lurked in the sectors ravaged by nanological weapons and the mighty war fleets that could break worlds by accident in the crossfire.

Or at least that was what could have happened. If you believed all the stories of the old worlds you could believe that the Concordance could have gone back in time to save themselves from the apocalypse but didnt for some god only knew reason.

Though that didn't mean that there weren't any threats out there that could crush the Alliance flat by accident.

Swallowing her disgust, Shaw began the briefing to the gaggle of twenty-odd ship captains who were present either physically or holographically. "Ladies and gentlemen, and artificial individuals, welcome to Battle Group Privateer. We are currently in the Omron Dust Cloud. This will be our base of operations for the next few days while we run roughshod over the Warlord of Gamma and his pirate dogs!"

A moderately positive response of claps and cheers replied her. Shaw continued. "Currently, the Grand Admiral and Warhammer are riding down the Devil's Road, smashing every raider outpost and nickel boat they find. While the barbarians are running around with their tails on fire, we will chop off the head and make sure they can never threaten the homeland ever again! To that effect, allow me to introduce our esteemed comrade in arms from the Office of Naval Intelligence, Commander Anton Shelby."

Commander Shelby seemed a stereotypical spook. Short and gaunt with a hook nose set below a pair of beady eyes that are constantly scanning the room and the holo-avatars. Really, all he needed was a black trench coat and a pair of dull shades to complete the look.

"Thank you, Vice Admiral," he replied. "Captains and commanders, we have a rare opportunity to inflict potentially fatal damage on to the enemy's capacity to make war against us. My colleagues in the field have assembled a list of targets that we must destroy before we are forced to withdraw."

The holo projectors built into the table activate, displaying a disturbingly organized hodge podge of asteroid forts, yard scaffolds, and the occasional gun sat. "These are the Forges of Rockrun, property of the Rockrunner Clan. For all intents and purposes, this is their industrial. Individual clans build their own nickel corvettes, but the Forges are where their motherships, cruisers, and the actually dangerous corvettes are built. Destroy this, and we remove their ability to replace otherwise irreplaceable capital ships. Defenses consist of a few manned gun satellites and some light beam cannon emplacements on the asteroid forts, but otherwise lightly defended. All of their mobile assets are currently trying to repulse Warhammer. This should be an easy victory with minimal effort."

Admiral Shaw glanced at Surtr's avatar. "Sounds like we've got our work cut out for us, War Mind."

[Indeed, Admiral. I do not think we will be able to strike all these targets before the Warlord sends a kill force after us. I predict we will be able to carry out two simultaneous strikes assuming we split our forces and prioritize targets sparingly.]

"I see, if that's the case I say we focus ourselves on destroying shipyards. One of your senior captains should be able to reconnoiter the Ragnar System."

"I'm always up for the chance to stretch my legs," Belmont opined. "Though I'd like to take some of the destroyers with me before I jump into an enemy black site."

Admiral Shaw regarded Baylet with an approving glance, then turned to Surtr. "Your opinion, War Mind?"


[I have already run several simulations on how to proceed, and I believe that this situation calls for a decisive mission. I will take my fleet along with your squadron and reconnoiter the Ragnar System, leaving Belmont and the rest to attack the Forges. Decapitation of their ability to replenish losses and the discovery of their big dark secret will be much more useful to pacify future warlords than spreading spy sats around their worlds.]

Belmont rubbed his throat through his duty uniform's collar. "A whole task force, sir? I'll be up front and say my experience is just with my own ship. I've never had command a task force, before."

[I have the utmost confidence in your ability to perform, Captain. Commanding a task force is the same as commanding your own ship; just a few more variables to account for. I know you'll do us proud.]

Belmont's hands fell from his throat and he stood up a bit straighter. "Aye aye, skipper. I won't let you down."

"Alright. That accounts for your forces, and what about mine?" Admiral Shaw asks.

"Vice-Admiral, the freighters still need protection and help setting up their listening drones," Commander Shelby protested. "Perhaps you could help them?"

"They'll have to make do by themselves, Commander. Right now I'm more concerned with keeping the battle force alive than gathering intel. You'll have to go on without us."

Shelby seems enough a spook to not show his annoying, merely replying, "As you command, Vice Admiral."

Shaw looks at the assembled captains. "If there's nothing else, let's get to work, people."

***
Belmont once again fought down the urge to rub his throat as command of the Privateer Task Force was officially transferred to his flag. The Surtr AI sent a few extra words of encouragement, then the Sentinel jumped out of the nebula. A slight, learned gesture brought the task force's status feeds to his console.

Fuel status, system status, fighter status, and a half dozen other status reports dominated his display with color coded status effects on silhouettes of his ships indicated their shields and hull integrity, and that was just his ships. A different gesture would bring up the same type of display but for enemy ships, though more orientating gauging threat potential. So much to take in at a moment, process, then make snap decisions in the blink of an eye.

The veteran ship captain tried to shake off the sudden dread that'd been building in his core since Surtr announced it's plan, trying to rationalize it away as pre-battle jitters. It wasn't like humans never ever commanded battle fleets on their own before the Federation was kind enough to introduce the galaxy to Meta-AI War Minds, but there was a reason why the Concordance had ruled the known galaxy for two millennium after the end of the ancient wars. Well, allegedly anyway.

The usually talkative Surtr always went quiet when the Concordance was brought up. Still, their AI technology was what won them their throne back in the day, and the Alliance were hoping that Surtr would do the same for them. What place was there for a human commanders when AI generals won wars?

That last melancholy thought finally triggered Belmont's anti-whining attitude and he broke out of this self-feeding spiral. Suppressing a curse, he glanced over the bridge as if he was taking in the status of his bridge officers. Everything seemed in order, both on the Heart of Winter and her new consorts. Only thing they were waiting on now was the Go signal.

"Helm, lock in coordinates for the Rukkrun Forges. All ships go to combat stations and prepare for a hard arrival."

As Belmont's flotilla jumped out, Vice Admiral Meredith Shaw turned to her comms officer. "Lieutenant, send a message to Admiral Grayson. Message Start: 'Mission underway. Lucy's in the Attic. Mom's on triple shift.' Message end. Let me know the moment he replies."

The watch officer affirmed. Shaw didn't have to wait long for a reply.

Roger. BGWH heavily engaged. Pa working triple shift. Aunt Amy hiding. Best Luck.

 

[Skychan]

Talk more Surtr talk more! Stress test that conversational programming! I'm sure you will be able to find the limits of it's conversation trees some time.

 

[Kara Valmeyjar]

Chapter 7: The War Mind Pt. 2

Skipping a lot of the time sync by "speeding up your perception," Noelle's fleet arrived at the mysterious Ragnar System's mysterious space station of mystery. As the maps and plots updated she was able to start making out more details. It seems that Ragnar Station is a massive shipyard of alien origin. Bigger than the biggest yards the Alliance could ever build. Yet its industry seems focused around three large dock slips. In one of the slips is your old friend the Sleipnir. In second are two cruisers that have had the odd luck of falling (more like slipping) between battle cruiser and heavy cruiser weight, leaning towards the former. In the last is what can only be described as an dreadnought five times bigger than the Alliance's Garuda battleship and packed to the brim with railgun cannons, torpedo tubes, and row after row of plasma cannon batteries.

"Surtr, what is that thing?" Huxson asks.

[That, captain, is an Iron Warden-class Assault Dreadnought.]

Huxson only nods. "And those super cruisers?"

[Likely Firebrand-class Beam Cruisers. Long ranged support ships armed with super long ranged, spinal plasma beam cannon meant to snipe escorts from afar.]

Huxson nods again. "So, what does that mean tactically?"

[It means the Warlord now has a hard counter to your material and training superiority, meaning that the balance of power has now heavily shifted to their favor.]

"Assuming those ships are operational. Sensors, can we tell what condition they're in?"

"They look in good shape, skipper. That dreadnought has a fair amount of patchwork on her armor but I'm not detecting any structural weakness or reactor fluctuations that would indicate an instability. Though the ship is in low power mode so it's hard to make an accurate call."

The Sentinel's nominally quiet XO spoke up. "Captain, War Mind, I recommend we pull back to the staging ground and report our findings immediately. The admiralty needs to know about this as soon as possible."

"I'm inclined to agree, Surtr," Huxson added. "This throws our entire strategy out the garbage shoot. We need to regroup and rethink our plan of action."

[Not so fast, Captain. I believe we have a rare opportunity to take these pieces out of the game before they can be played. With luck, Admiral Shaw will be waiting for our signal for reinforcements. Perhaps we could even call in Belmont as well. The more guns the merrier the slaughter.]

"That assault dreadnought has more guns than Battle Group Warhammer. If it's fully operational, the Navy will lose a lot of ships and crews that we can't readily replace."


***
"Admiral, I've got an ansible burst incoming from the Sentinel," the comms watch officer reported. "Message reads as follows: 'Ragnar scouted. Lvl 4 Threat found. Back up ASAP.' We have coordinates for a precision jump into the system."

"Helm, prep for fold jump to Ragnar!" Shaw spat out, turning on her fleetwide comms. "All ships, prepare for immediate fold jump to Ragnar! Level Four Threat found. Repeat, Level Zero Threat found. Prepare for hard landing upon arrival!"

Acknowledgements fills the fleet comms and jump drives were spun up as fast as possible.

Level Four Threat? What the hell did you find, War Mind? Shaw asked herself. She suspected that she wasn't going to like the answer.

The four ships of Vice Admiral Shaw's personal squadron jumped into the Ragnar System, fully expecting to find a battle underway. Admiral Shaw's flagship, a Garuda-class battleship, stood at the centerpiece of the formation with her battleship-grade beam cannons tracking and at the ready. Locked into her hind quarters were Privateer's two Katana-class Escort carriers, which launched their combined fighter wing of one interceptor squad, one attack fighter squad, and two bomber squads. Taking up the rear was Privateer's sole Lancer-class Medium Cruiser, the unloved stepchild of the navy and usually relegated to babysitting the carriers.

Despite the jarring clash of experience and training of their crews and primitive simplicity of their designs, they were a solid fighting force with a veteran admiral leading them. A force to be reckoned with for all but the largest and most determined barbarian forces.

In spite of these facts, Vice Admiral Meredith Shaw felt a bolt of cold fear shoot through her spine as she beheld the titanic alien shipyard on her scopes and the dreadnought nestled into one of the three massive dock slips.

[Admiral Shaw, please target the enemy station with all possible speed and power before the enemy ships can launch.]

"Yeah. Don't have to tell me twice," Shaw grunted. "All ships, fire on that station. Guns, spin up the mass driver and blow that station into bits!"

The Sentinel and her escorts were already moving to engage as Shaw's group sped up to combat speed. With only minimal defenses on the massive station, consisting of a few scattered defensive plasma cannons and flak turrets, the near-full might of the Privateer battle group was brought to bear. The Sentinel, Inferno, and the Lancer cruiser brought their full might to bear as their beam cannons, cutting through hull like a plasma torch through glass. The bombers release rippled waves of torpedoes that create fierce blossoms of fire wherever they strike.

[Scanning.... Station integrity dropped by 34%. Significant damage to external docks and signs of internal fires. Station is responding with automatic systems. Automated distress signal sounding. Detecting partial loss of artificial gravity. Detecting crash starts on all enemy ships.]

"So we caught em napping," Shaw summarized. "Not bad but I'm not doing cartwheels. I have a rock spinning on the mass driver. You got a specific spot for me to chuck it?"

[I have located the primary power core for the shipyard. A mass driver strike at the following coordinates will destroy it and send the station into the atmosphere.]

"Copy. Guns, you got it? Then fire!"

The Inferno jolted as her light mass driver, specially added for this mission, fired a solid slug of tungsten at the station. The bolt struck the shipyard true. Power readings dropped like a stone across the construct across the board. Artificial gravity cut out completely and cascade failures were lighting up the boards. To add insult to grievous injury, the station was now drifting towards the planet playing host, parts of it breaking up as G-forces exerted themselves. Shaw allowed a savage, satisfied grin mark her face as the dock holding the Firebrand super cruisers twisted in on itself, crushing the escort killers like a pair of grapes caught in a vice. Her mood was soured as the Sleipnir blew out of her dock with the yard clamps and airlock umbilical tubes still attached. He folded out as soon as he cleaned the gravity well, depriving Shaw of a third kill and surviving to give the Warlord another flagship for the coming battles.

Despite its lumbering size, the assault dreadnought still had an array of powerful thrusts that light off like God's own torch. Shaw didn't need a Meta-AI to tell her it would escape the yard's fiery fate, but that didn't stop the War Mind from telling her it anyway.

[Plan of action, Vice Admiral?]

"Retreat," she stated with as much blunt force as her mass driver. "We can't scratch that thing's armor and there are a hundred nickel corvettes barreling down on us as we speak. All ships, lock in coordinates for the rendezvous point. Comms, send an emergency recall pulse over the ansible to all deployed fleet assets. We're going to need to rethink our strategy to deal with the titan."

 

[Skychan]

Well, a 50% surprise kill isn't bad. And at least they know they are truly and massively outgunned. Now maybe there can be some friendly talking? Come on, negotiation within the game... You can DO IT!

 

[Skychan]

Hmm, I thought I had already replied, but it doesn't seem to be here so...

Maybe now you will consider stepping outside the boundaries of a fleet battle game and go into full immersion? You know... dialogue,negotiation, maybe try to deescalate things with the group who has a giant supership that could take your whole fleet. Possibly find out if they have a war-mind working on their side too!