Chapter 281: (The Confederacy) (2/2)
The ship had been underway for almost two hours when it suddenly dropped from hyperspace, alarms wailing.
”What happened?” Nakteti demanded. She opened a channel. ”Engineering, is everyone all right down there?”
'Grav pulse, I think,” Talktek said. Nakteti could hear the high pitched sound of one of the FIDOs talking. ”FIDO Two says it was some kind grav-pulse coming from behind us, probably dumped every ship in hyperspace or jumpspace out and back into realspace for a hundred or two hundred light years.”
”Any damage to the hyperdrive or jumpdrives?” Nakteti said, suddenly anxious.
”No,” Talktek said. ”Still we've gotta discharge the core and run diagnostics before I can say for absolute.”
”All right. Let me know when you're done,” Nakteti said. She looked at her bridge crew. ”Take us down to General Quarters. Get everyone a meal and some rest time,” she looked at Major Carnight. ”Do you know why this might have happened?”
Major Carnight nodded. ”If the enemy seems to be relying on multiple reinforcements, we have ways of disrupting that,” he said.
Nakteti waited a moment, but he didn't elaborate.
Nakteti sighed. ”Well, Major, as my crew and some of my people have been your guests for the last year or so, allow me to extend the hospitality of the Tnvaru people to yourself and the Terran engineers aboard the Sweet.”
”Thank you, Captain,” Major Carnight said.
Nakteti tried to relax.
And not think of her mother and the hundreds of thousands of Tnvaru refugees still on Terra.
On the unmanned communication officer's panel two words kept flashing over and over.
CASE OMAHA
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The Combined Rigel System was, to put a bluntly, an astrophysical mess.
Multiple stellar masses orbiting each other and a localized gravity anomaly, dozens of planets -some of which swapped which stars they orbited every century or so-, gravity sheers, and spacial distortions.
Hyperspace normally allowed ships to penetrate deep into a gravity well with the right angle and computations, coming out only near a planetary gravity well or within too close to a star.
Not Rigel.
Rigel had a 'band' where gravitational stress prevented any ships from travelling jumpspace, hyperspace, or even a few other of the superluminal drive spaces. It extended out from nine days from the combined 'gravity center' of the system in a thick band nearly a light month thick around the Combined Rigel System. Anyone familiar with the Combined Rigellian System knew it was going to take an three or four months of travel just to get in from the Oort Cloud.
The massive gravity shadow of the anomaly meant that only subspace drives could be used within the Combined Rigel System, with a maximum speed of .7C before the anomaly began exerting gravitational pull upon the object in direct proportion to the speed of the object.
The Lanaktallan Corporate Fleet dropped from jumpspace to realspace with a half million ships.
And discovered they were over a light month from the edge of the system.
They immediately tried to jump forward into jumpspace, overrriding their systems.
Which was just a fancy way of committing very obvious suicide.
A third of the ships crushed against empty space like a beer can against a Vodkatrog Cyborg's forehead. Another third were smeared like fine jelly across the thin atomic layers. The other third changed their minds and began moving forward with sublight drives.
Several hours passed and the Unified Military Council Fleet arrived with nearly a million vessels. They too discovered that attempting to get closer with superluminal drive was useless and sullenly began heading into the system with sublight drives.
Two hours later the Executor Fleet dropped. Three hours after that the Combined Fleet dropped.
They all slowly began to cross the gravity band, almost seeming to sulk.
It might take longer than expected, but the Rigellians weren't going anywhere.
On Rigel it was decided that the fleet was Lanaktallan and had come in the name of war.
Anyone could have told the Lanaktallan how protective Rigellian females, those muscular greenish-gray bipedal reptiles, could be about their ducks and ducklings.
They closed The Bag.
The gravitational forces surging across The Band ripped apart the Lanaktallan ships as The Band, that month wide stretch of gravitational force, went crazy.
Then all there was in space was spreading debris and the shadow of The Rigellian Anomaly.
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Ba'ahn Ya'ahrd stared at the screen, all six eyes opened wide and his tendrils curled. TerraSol News Association was reporting that millions of Lanaktallan combat vessels were flooding into the system. That fighting was heavy as the Lanaktallan ships drove deep into the empty space of the Sol System in the hopes of avoiding the majority of the planetary based defenses.
”YOU IDIOTS!” he screamed at the display screen. ”YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOTS! YOU'VE DOOMED BILLIONS TO DEATH HERE AND TRILLIONS TO DIE BACK HOME!”
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Smokey Cone was a world of trees, dusty plains, and a cool red sun.
As well as to twelve billion Treana'ad.
The Treana'ad were considered a silly people in many ways. They enjoyed their ice cream, their smoking, and the males very much enjoyed not having their heads eaten. Over eight thousand years since the end of the War of Terran Aggression had brought such changes to Treana'ad society that anyone from back then would barely recognize it.
They still did not flinch from violence. They were the second most numerous species in Space Force, after the Terrans themselves. They were admirals, ship captains, infantry, robot combat pilots, tankers, even aerospace pilots. Many of them carried names of Terrans that their ancestors had served with during the various wars they faced together. Some even adopted Terran orphans.
When the first Lanaktallan wave dropped in system they did not fear.
They were the Treana'ad People. They had won over a fifth of all engagements against the universe's apex predator. (And they planned on riding that statistic to the heat death of the universe. They had even erected a great warsteel obelisk proclaiming that fact in the space between stars to let everyone who came later know that they, the Treana'ad People, had won over a fifth of their fights against the Terrans) They had even wrested away two planetary systems from the Terrans and held them until they were traded back in the Treaty of Matron Mi'Luki.
When the second wave came in before even a tenth of the first wave had been eliminated, their leaders, wise Hive Queens, had given the order.
Close The Bag.
They would destroy the Lanaktallan by denying them reinforcement. Their 'unending tide' was a strategy that the Treana'ad had relied upon early in their history.
And while war never changes...
...tactics do.
The third and fourth Lanaktallan Waves found themselves entering realspace in the grip of singularities that tore them apart without any notice of their existence.
Inside, Smoky Cone went to war.
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The Mantids were a nervous people. Eight thousand years seems a long time, but when weighed against a history that vanished into the mists of time over a hundred million years ago, it was an eyeblink.
The Mantid people had been free for such a short time. Free from the Speakers, the Warriors, the Queens, their minds and actions their own.
The Lanaktallan First Wave knew they'd force the Mantid to reveal their Speakers and their Warriors. That the Mantid had fought in the same way they had fought a hundred million years ago when the Great Herd had beaten them before.
The First Wave of Mantid Prime held more troopships than any first wave of any of the other attacks.
The Lanaktallan knew they would crush the Mantid, just as they had crushed them before and forced them to flee. The Most Highs couldn't wait to feel Mantid carapaces crush and crackle beneath their hooves. Their minds full of past combats against the Lanaktallans by War Stallions they urged their fleets to drive into the systems.
The Mantid suddenly understood the words of their seers.
They closed The Bag.
The black mantid got their guns and body armor.
The green mantid joined them.
And Space Force, which was comprised of more than just the Mantid, engaged the suddenly cut off enemy.
The Mantid people prized the fact that they were not the Mantid of epochs past.
They had allies. Partners.
Big, hulking, primate partners.
The battle for Mantid Prime was joined.