Chương 107: Nova Wars - Chapter 92

Everything you know is wrong, "Weird" Alfred, Bard, Troubadour, Spanker of Witches. The spears hit the next batch of ships, the battlescreens destroying half of the miles long splinters before giving out and allowing miles more to slam into the battlesteel armor of the spherical ships. The spears punched deep into the ship, often clear through. The Mar-gite at the end of the spears let go, falling down onto the ship.

They spun as they fell, that bluish energy surrounding their arms, and they arced out to land in discrete clusters. Admiral (Lower Decks) of the Iron Shelvant watched as more ships were hit, keeping one eye on the bogey coming closer. The holotank had helpfully labeled it "Spaceship - Duh" but kept a watch on it. The sphere of probes around the ship were transmitting very little data, but what the probes were transmitting was backed by all of the other probes.

As he watched, battlescreens began winking out in sections around the initial impact point.

"They're going for the battlescreen projectors," Shelvant said. He clenched his toes in frustration.

"Dammit, there goes The Iron Will and The Will and Power of the People." Something about the oncoming bogey caught his eye. The visual was showing it changing. The liquid chrome look was getting grainier, dulling. He raised an eye tuft, then a realization hit him. He turned to the DCC officer.

"Use the datalink network. Order a full triple power-cycle of the datalinks!" he snapped.

"But, sir..." the DCC officer started.

"NOW!" Shelvant yelled. The ship looked like it was made of lead grains. His datalink made a quick musical tone as it powered down. There was a white flash that filled the bridge. The holotank flickered and came back to life.

"HURR-DEE-HURR, I'M STILL STUPID!" floated in the hologram. Shelvant breathed a sigh of relief.

"Screens down, we're defenseless," the DCC officer said. The teardrop shot forward and the holotank view swiveled to follow it. It hit near Deck 42-exterior-4, looking like it had collapsed into a large puddle on the surface of the ship. I hope the Marines are ready, Shelvant thought to himself. They're about to learn today. The holotank pinged and he turned his attention to it. There was a massive construct approaching, the wide open end huge and coming straight at the ship.

, Great, we're going to get eaten twice, Shelvant shook his head. Another ping and a window opened up. One of the ships that had been hit hard by the spear was being wrapped up by millions of Mar-gite. The massive construct approaching the Undisputable Might of Space suddenly vomited up a wad of Mar-gite the holotank reported was twenty miles wide. The construct changed heading slightly and vomited four more times, each time changing heading right after ejecting the wad of Mar-gite.

A glance at the holotank window showed that the ships that were now pulling away from the stellar mass had several Mar-gite constructs following them. Something told Shelvant that what had just happened to the logistics and command force was going to happen to the combat detachments. They're going to dissolve and eat the ships out from around us, he thought. He clenched his toes again in frustration. Where was this tactic during the Mar-gite Wars? What the hell is that flash?

And I've never seen those silver ships before. His datalink pinged and gave back the data that there was only 15% corruption of onboard software and the corrupted software was under replacement from the firmware. His datalink reported neural link damage as well as volatile memory damage.

"Reconnect the datalink network. Get the Marines to where the bogey hit. Prepare for non-Mar-gite boarders," Shelvant said. He shook his hands out, trying to bleed off the stress, grinding his teeth.

"Aye, sir," the DCC officer said.

"Any word or proof of life from the Captain or the Admiral?" Shelvant asked.

"Negative, sir," the Communication's Officer stated. Doctrine was firm and tested. Operational Procedures were clear.

"Log that I'm taking command until the Captain or the Admiral is brought into the network or otherwise makes themselves known to be alive and capable of assuming command," Shelvant said.

"Aye, sir," he turned to his board, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then spoke.

"All hands, all hands, Admiral Shelvant has assumed command. Repeat. Admiral Shelvant has assumed command." Shelvant clenched his toes again, feeling that his toeclaws had sliced through the padding built into the insole and was now scraping on the endosteel insert in the toe of his boots. The wad of Mar-gite was drawing closer as he watched. He could hear, faintly, a whisper which he knew what the DCC officer rebuilding the datalink network.

"Get a datalink or cybernetics specialist up here from medical, at their earliest convenience," Shelvant said.

"Aye, sir," Communications said.

"Marine datalinks are refusing datalink networking," the DCC officer said.

"Codes are garbled."

"Try to correct," Shelvant stared at the holotank.

"Try your datalink security header with their onboard armor commo system," he suggested. Of the hundred and twenty ships of the logistics and command section, twenty-two were being targeted by the wads of millions of Mar-gite. The names had popped up and Shelvant opened up windows to see which they were. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Command, fabrication. None of the troops transports. One of the medical ships. Two logistics vessels.

The rest were being hammered by those massive spears. What are you doing? Shelvant wondered. He no longer viewed the Mar-gite was just mindless weapons that only screamed and charged. He knew now that somehow those silver ships had filled them with some kind of dark purpose that was now being aimed straight at what was left of the fleet. The wad was only two hundred thousand kilometers out when it suddenly unfolded into a large irregular oval. Now he recognized the tactic.

The Mar-gite would envelop the ship so they could dissolve it around the crew and kill/eat everything on board.

"Inform the crew to brace for impact," he ordered. He reached out and touched the icon on the holotank. The heavy blast shutters closed over the Show Bridge windows.

"All hands, all hands, brace for impact," came over his datalink. It was screechy, somewhat warbling across several tones, but at least he heard it. The Show Bridge Sergeant at Arms went over to the weapons locker on the bulkhead and opened it. He withdrew the pistol belts with the pistols and moved across the bridge, handing them out. The ship trembled slightly when the Mar-gite enveloped it.

"Marines report fighting. Unidentified enemy," the Commo Officer said. Shelvant glanced at the Security Officer.

"Shifting an image to the main holotank,' the Security Officer stated. The window opened up and Shelvant stared. It had a short conical body, the wide end glowing red and full of sharp teeth. It had multiple segmented metal tentacles off of the body that terminated in blades, calipers, graspers, and short tentacle 'fingers'. It was firing blasts from two of the tentacles, it spun to avoid damage, or brought the tentacles in close and spun to try to mitigate the damage.

The others were close to the same, just a blue light and a green light instead of red. Others had a rounded head/body, with easily a dozen writhing mechanical tentacles. Eight larger red eyes, six smaller green ones, across the forward part of the head. From the body extended out eight to ten thick appendages, with three thick blades at the end of each tentacle. It was obviously armored, heavy plating, with multiple joints on the appendages, with green lights above and below the joint and on each side.

The onboard frangible rounds weren't doing as much as standard battlefield rounds would, but the Marines still kept up the fire.

"Sir, it looks like, from a map of the contact and damage, that they're heading for environmental," the Security Officer said. The map of the Undisputable Might of Space showed the invaders making a least time course for the environment systems and control, ripping through bulkheads if they had to. There was a slight warble in his datalink and he heard one of the Marine Gunnery Sergeants snapping out orders to get the big nifty-fifties and madame three-eighteen into the fight, steel jacketed ball rounds.

He opened his mouth to ask what the hell they needed something with those names for, but a glance at the Security Officer showed him listening to his datalink and nodding. Shelvant turned away from the Security Officer to stare into the tank as his datalink autoswitched channels.

"Commo," Shelvant said.

"Sir?"

"Give the order," he said. He paused for a moment.

"Fight the ship."

"Aye, sir!" the Commo Officer put his hand to his temple.

"All hands, all hands, Admiral Shelvant's orders," there was a slight pause.

"FIGHT THE SHIP!" Shelvant accepted the pistol belt and took a moment to put it on, then draw the magac pistol. He let it synch to his hand, then checked the telltales. He loaded an ambloc into it, then reholstered it. The reports from the external probes were getting fuzzy as another Mar-gite wad spread out, heading for the Undisputable Might of Space.

"Brace for impact," he said softly. It didn't fit. The Mar-gite on the hull should have eaten through by now. What were they doing? The ship trembled slightly. According to the holotank, the enemy was nearly to environmental. The Marines were reporting no Mar-gite.

"Sir, damage to the external engine housings is rising. External engine component damage is increasing," DCC stated.

"Understood," Shelvant nodded. That was about the only thing that made sense. The medic arrived and was waved over to Shelvant.

"Sir?" the medic asked. Shelvant moved over and sat in the chair.

"I want you to take a look at my implant, run a scan of the neural linkages too."

"All right," the medic said. He opened up his toolkit.

"Try to relax, sir." The First Mate (Show Bridge) looked at the Admiral, wondering why now, in the middle of battle, he was having his datalink examined. True, his own hurt, and he had a throbbing migraine, but surely the Admiral could wait until after the battle to have it examined, if they lived? The case came off with a sucking sound. Shelvant watched the progression of the enemy forces. They'd reached the environmental section, even though they were now cut off from their ship.

The Marines were reporting that the ship's hull had a battlescreen covering it, sealing the hole in the Undisputable Might of Space's hull. Shelvant kept clenching his toes, scraping his claws against the endosteel plate in his boots.

"Your admiralty firmware and hardware is fried out," the medic said.

"Looks like serious damage to your additional cryptography and identification and analysis hardware," they checked the hand scanner.

"You've got cerebral tissue damage from the nanofibers going hot, but not too badly. The shot you got earlier is helping with that." The medic put the case back on.

"Did you get your M404 Senior Officer Grade Datalink upgraded?" the medic asked, putting his tools away. Shelvant nodded.

"Three weeks ago. I was approved for beta-test, it's one of the reasons why the Admiral put me on Show Bridge in case my datalink couldn't handle the traffic."

"Looks like some of it melted down. If you have a headache, that's what it's from," the medic said, closing their toolkit.

"If I had the older one, with the heavier molycircs, what would have happened?" Shelvant asked. The medic stood up, getting out an autoinjector.

"The heavier molycircs would have heated up more and the old style nanofibers would have gotten hotter," he gave Admiral Shelvant a shot.

"It would have baked your brain." Shelvant nodded. He knew that most of the higher ranking officers aboard the ship were probably dead.

"Anyone else got a migraine?" the medic asked. Several hands went up.

"I'm on my way." Shelvant did his best to project an aura of calm indifference as he moved over to the holotank. The medic moved to each of the officers whose hands had been up. Shelvant watched as the feed cut out from the probes. There were little damage notifications all over the sphere that represented the ship. The window tallied what was damaged. Communications arrays, point defense arrays, battlescreen projectors, thrusters, engines, sensors. He frowned. But no internal damage.

He opened his mouth to say more when the vents started spewing yellowish vapor.

"SEAL SUITS!" Shelvant barked over the datalink and out loud. Several of the officers as well as the medic suddenly slapped their helmet face shields shut. The medic moved over and passed a wand through the vapor. He looked at the wand.

""High nitrogen, high ammonia, high methane, presence of oxygen. Presence of hydrogen and water vapor."

"It's being pumped through the ship," the DCC Officer said. Shelvant looked at the Science Officer.

"Opinion?"

"No clue. Maybe it's what those creatures breathe? It wouldn't be good for the Mar-gite, not with their silicate bodies," the Science Officer said. Shelvant turned back to the holotank. The boarders were now trying to fight their way back, but the Marines had them surrounded and had time to prepare. Not all of them. There was a contingent that stayed in the primary atmospheric exchanger and environmental systems.

"Get the Marines in there, I want that back under our control," Shelvant said.

"Aye, sir," the Security Officer said. The atmosphere thickened. There was a sudden slow grinding vibration. A strange shimmer in the air. Everyone who moved left a slight afterimage behind them, like a video that was playing one or two extra frames at the same time. The datalinks warbled and sang for a second before clicking through channels. The vibration slowly picked up speed, the grinding feeling smoothing out. In moments it was a steady hum.

"Sir, you're not going to believe this," the Sensor System Officer called out.

"What is it?" Admiral Shelvant asked.

"I'm tossing it to you. This happened on my board right as that grinding picked up speed," the Sensors Officer said. A window opened up in the holotank. The IFF transponders of the other ships in the support fleet were burning silently around the Undisputable Might of Space. One, then another suddenly streaked away, up and out. Then all of them streaked away. Down and in. Admiral Shelvant felt a cold chill fill him.

"They just grabbed us," the XO said softly. Shelvant just nodded.

"How?" the XO asked.

"They must have had enough Mar-gite on our hull," Shelvant said.

"They've never done anything like this," the XO protested.

"They never had silver ships and weird tentacle boarders either," Shelvant said.

"Where do you think they are taking us?" the XO asked.

"Someplace terrible."