There's always the guy who thinks they can out war-crime the humans.
You know, the guys who invented the concept? - Sh'Tomp, Treana'ad Warrior, 5 Years before the Glassing
Mankind is devoid of humanity during war, - Unknown, Second Human Mantid War
Field Corporal Vak-Tel was a Telkan Marine. Not a high ranking one, mind you, but still a Telkan Marine Rifleman trained on power armor, almost every weapon in the Confederacy that could be carried by a single Marine or act as a crew served weapon, and equipment that sometimes was tens of thousands of years out of date.
He had undergone the finest and most grueling training in the Confederacy.
The Telkan Marines were the premier infantry of the Confederate Armed Services.
Which is why he was stuck in a drop pod and slowly waking up. A glance told him his battle-buddy 621 was asleep. He smacked his mouth several times, glancing at the clock even while he used his tongue to grab the drinking tube.
The lemonade had a plastic/rubber aftertaste that was somehow worse than the gummy taste.
Nine hours had passed while he had slept.
He checked the rest of the squad in the drop pod.
Everyone had Zzzz over their icon.
How long is Space Force going to take to get us in range of the planet? he wondered.
"Bogey-Twelve is coming back in and coming back in fast," Tactical Station Three called out. "Six seconds until they reach firing range. They are at the Charlie Ring for our engagement layer."
General Rippentear looked over at Admiral Breastasteel, who just nodded, holding her cigarette in her teeth.
The whole fleet was engaged.
When the Fleet had come into the system, Task Force Hammerfall (Formerly Task Force Great Second Chancfes) had sent the standard "I'm with the Dominion. I am here to discuss terms" to the system, as he was required to by interstellar law and the Laws of Space Warfare.
The system had replied back that they were willing to begin negotiations to surrender to Admiral Breastasteel and her fleet.
When Breastasteel's fleet was almost three-quarters of the way to the only occupied planet ships had exited stealth and opened fire on the Solarian Iron Dominion fleet.
Professionalism rather than luck meant that Dominion standard operating procedures mandated that the shielding be hot and the weapons warmed up just in case it was an ambush.
Terran history was replete with examples of supposedly surrendering enemies suddenly attacking.
The fire did almost no damage before the Solarian Iron Dominion ships were striking back.
For every Ornislarp vessel that was destroyed, two more lost cloak or stealth by firing their weapons.
"Status change. Listing new Tangos as Tango-Sixty-Three," Tactical Five called out.
The lights flickered and Breastasteel glanced at the section of the holotank containing the wireframe for her flagship.
Just some local armor damage. The lights flickering were likely due to battlescreen projector rotation or electronic warfare issues. A glance at the EW stations showed the most activity was in outgoing.
The Ornislarp were losing.
That much was obvious to anyone with even passing knowledge of math, much less space naval tactics.
She shook her head, looking at General Rippentear, who was going over the projection of the solitary inhabited planet in the system, refining what would eventually be the fight to take and hold the planet itself. He'd need to knock out the orbital defenses and the ground defenders so he could land enough troops to take the planet if the Slappers/Noocracy refused to surrender when the orbitals were taken.
Admiral Breastasteel moved toward General Rippentear, noting that he still had the same crews loaded into the drop pods as he had initially put in place.
"We should be within range of troop launch inside of an hour," Breastasteel said.
Rippentear nodded. "I'll wake the drop-troops then," he said.
Breastasteel was just turning when she saw Tactical One jump to her feet.
"STATUS CHANGE! ENEMY SHIPS GOING TO LIGHTSPEED!" Tactical Seven called out.
"EMERGENCY TRANSIT! ALL FLEET ELEMENTS, EMERGENCY TRANSIT TO RALLY POINT CHICAGO! REPEAT! EMERGENCY TRANSIT TO RALLY POINT CHICAGO!" Commander Skryler shouted. "SIX MINUTE POINT OF NO RETURN!"
A countdown timer appeared in mid-air.
Breastasteel didn't argue, instead heading straight for her command couch. Rippentear did the same, husting up.
"What's going on, Tactical?" Breastasteel asked.
"The Slappers just spiked the stellar mass," Commander Skryler answered.
That made Admiral Breastasteel blink.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"We weren't even in range of the planet yet," she protested.
"It was obvious they were losing. The casualties must have crossed some value we didn't know about," Rippentear stated.
"15% of Task Force elements have jumped out," Lieutenant (JG) Shelmak said.
The timer hit five minutes.
"45%," Shelmak said at the four minute mark.
"Jump at two minutes," Breastasteel said. "How long until the FTL particle sleet hits our position?"
"Seven minutes from detonation, so five minutes from now," Skryler answered.
Breastasteel just nodded, looking back at the list of the task force's ships.
"All ships have jumped," Skryler said.
Admiral Breastasteel wasn't in command of the ship. No, that was the Captain's job. Her job was the fleet.
She took a deep breath.
Everything shivered, like jello, then firmed up.
"Transit to hyperspace complete," someone said.
Breastasteel just nodded.
"Nearest ansible system?" she asked.
"Rally Point Chicago. That's the reason I picked it. It has direct real-time communications with Terra," Skryler stated.
Breastasteel just nodded.
She had a bad feeling.
Vak-tel looked up when the tray crashed onto the table. He set down his eating utensil into the mound of noodles, sauce, and meat.
Impton frowned at his own food, shaking his head, making his whiskers swing.
"What?" Vak-tel asked.
"Heard news," Impton snapped.
Vak-tel frowned. "What news?"
Impton looked around. "Not here. Later."
Vak-tel nodded. "I'll get the guys together."
Impton nodded. "Good. Good."
Before Vak-tel could say anything else the older Telkan stood up, leaving his tray behind, and limped from the mess hall, his cybernetic leg hissing like an angry snake.
Private Cipdek looked over at Vak-tel. "What do you think the Old Man's into?" he asked.
"Whatever it is, it put him off his feed," Private First Class Nrexla said.
Lance Corporal Juvretik, the last of Vak-tel's three room-mates, simply looked around. "Notice there isn't very many officers around? We're in the mid-bands and this big assed tub is struggling."
Vak-tel nodded. "You can feel the hyperspace engines straining. There's been a couple of times we've started to pick up harmonics."
"Not here," Cipdek said. He glanced into his palm. "Captain Kemtrelap's turned on two-factor authentication. Luckily, he forgot to change his security questions so I was able to piggy-back into it."
Vak-tel nodded. "We'll finish up, meet in the room."
They powered through their food, then headed back to the Brigade's quarters area. They were almost to the room the four of them shared when 3rd Platoon's Platoon Sergeant, one Gunny Heltok, and the squad leader for Third Squad, Sergeant Letrill, both stepped out of a doorway.
"What are you four up to?" Sergeant Letrill asked.
"We saw that disreputably Expeditionary Force Sergeant lurking around your room," Gunny Heltok said.
Vak-tel heaved a sigh. "We're into something and running blind, Gunny," Vak-tel said.
Gunny Heltok nodded, folding his arms over his chest.
"Impton said he knows something. Last time we ran in blind we couldn't hurt them but they sure as shit could hurt us and it cost us almost a whole platoon when the Nookies hit back," Vak-tel said, reminding the Platoon Sergeant of the last drop.
"You trust him?" Sergeant Letrill looked around. He dropped his voice to whisper. "I've heard those guys are pretty twisted up from spending fifty years on Terra."
"Impton's OK. Yuri's the one that will kick you out to sea," Nrexla said.
"Yuri's a Chernobog," Cipdek provided helpfully.
"Let us know what's going on," Gunny Heltok said. He looked around. "Normal channels are silent and I don't like it. I've been in this Marine's Corps for long enough to know that when command goes silent and you can't find them, something bad is happening or about to happen."
"Roger that, Gunny," Vak-tel said. He motioned. "Let's go."
The others nodded, following Vak-tel as they kept heading toward their quarters.
"Oh, and Corporal," Heltok said suddenly.
Vak-tel stopped and looked at the senior NCO.
"Congratulations on the promotion," Gunny said, then turned and walked away, Sergeant Letrill following.
When they turned the corner Cipdek let out a loud exhale. "Whew, I thought we were cooked."
Vak-tel nodded. "Yeah, but it's almost worst that we weren't."
"Why for?" Juvretik asked.
"No word from the plotters and the spotters? Nothing trickling down? Hell, we haven't even had any online classes or pocket docket training," Vak-tel said.
"You're right. It's been almost four days we've been in hyperspace since that quick two hours we spent before they even unloaded us from the droppods," Juvretik said. "Man, that's not good."
Vak-tel just nodded, slapping his palm over the pad and watching the door whoosh open.
Impton sat on Cipdek's bed, nursing a beer.
Nobody said anything as they filed in. Cipdek leaned against the desk, turning up his palm-hologram projector and getting to work with the context menu. Juvretik sat on Vak-tel's bed next to Nrexla. Vak-tel just sat in the one chair in the room.
Impton handed out the beer.
"Drink. Beer is good," he made a face. "News is not."
Vak-tel nodded. "We've figured that out. What's going on?"
"I can tell you," Cipdek said suddenly, his voice sounding sick.
Impton looked over. "Badaboom."
Cipdek nodded. "Yeah. Badaboom."
"How bad? We lose many ships?" Vak-tel asked.
Impton shook his head. "No. Fleet is fine. Low casualties," he looked around then leaned forward, pitching his voice low.
"Noocracy is nova-sparking. Fleet shows up, even if only twenty/thirty ships of the line, and POP! Hypernova," Impton said. He looked around again.
Cipdek nodded. "We're clear."
"Not only that, but Tomb Worlds. Nookie's are popping Tomb Worlds. Flash! No more stellar mass. Say goodbye to Tomb World, hello to hypernova blast wave," Impton said.
Vak-tel frowned. "Let me guess. They're building a wall."
Impton shrugged. "Maybe yes, maybe no."
"But why the Tomb Worlds? What the hell is out there?" Vak-tel askedc.
Cipdek looked up from his palm. "The Nookies have claimed almost all of them, all the way to past Terra itself. I guess they're showing that if they can't have them, nobody can."
Impton shook his head. "Stellar stabilizers work, stellar mass should stay fine."
Vak-tel sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Whatever happens, it'll probably be stupid."
"Of that, have no doubt," Impton answered.
The Noocracy ships dropped from hyperspace into the stellar system. It was an older one, on the fringes of the Tomb Worlds, more toward the core and spinward.
The Captains and crews had their orders.
Hypernova-spike the stellar mass.
It was their eighth target on a list of nearly twenty. They were part of nearly a hundred discrete groups of ships, all with the same orders.
Spike the Tomb Worlds.
Show the lemurs of the Solarian Iron Dominion that their time had passed, that the Confederacy's time had passed.
It was the Noocracy's time now.
The ships, all twelve of them, moved forward silently, heading for the stellar mass. It was reddish-orange, an older system with three worlds in the Green Zone.
While it was outside of what the Noocracy was claiming, spiking it would still send a valuable message to the Iron Dominion.
The Noocracy would tolerate no resistance, no disrespect, no argument.
The ships, grouped tightly, passed an unseen line.
Space rippled and changed.
The crews had time to stare in shock as the ships appeared on their visible light sensors only. No other system was picking the strange ships up.
They looked like living creatures grown around massive weapons. Nautalis shells over eight barrel C+ cannons. Trilobite shells around superstring compressor cannons.
The Noocracy crews expected a demand for identification, or a questioning interrogation.
They began to get ready the hypernova munitions, working quickly so that the mission could be carried out while the communications section stalled the strange ships.
Instead the strange ships just began firing.
The ships moved in, slowly gathering the debris, before vanishing as they went back into stealth.
The Cult would not allow the Noocracy to destroy their home.
[The Universe Liked That]