Chapter 525: Resurgence (2/2)
If the ship were reduced to a cylinder, it would be 5,900 miles wide and 300 miles thick. The ship's volume is 8,197,755,873 cubic miles. Two point three times the volume of the largest orbital body, which is two point five million miles closer than the ship. The ship is large enough to be affecting the time, the mass exerting a gravitational pull upon the planet.
I cannot allow it to get closer or, in a worse case scenario, impact that planet. It would be a continent slamming into the planet. A continent made of advanced hyperalloys.
We confer as my support drones move silently up and down the massive nCv Battery, using welding lasers to jam and damage the massive aiming gears as well as disabling the magnetic acceleration coils wrapping the barrel. Another set of drones is slowly disabling an array of missile launchers nearly a hundred miles wide and three miles deep.
The scale of this battle is vast, but I have experienced such vastness during my assault upon the planetary repair and refit facility.
The problem is threefold: The sheer size is going to make it difficult to reach the chambers of the Queens, which we determined is a hundred miles under the hive cone in nearly the exact center. Once the queens are eliminated there is no guarantee that the remaining Mantid are going to side with the Confederacy. Indeed, they may continue to prosecute the planetary assault or even attempt a suicidal ramming attack. Finally, the existence of a dozen High Speakers being tracked onboard the ship by the Mantid computer net means that even with the loss the queens the High Speakers could hold the hive mind together.
My options are limited.
I lament, at one point, that we have no infantry support. Infantry would be optimum to invade the hive ship and strike for the queen while we provide a diversion that could not be ignored by attacking everyone on the surface we can reach.
The guns are designed to strike out at foes, not protect the surface.
That makes Nekonya go silent for a long while. She accessed the databanks and finds the data she is looking for.
It makes me quail back in revulsion.
After the Glassing Terra, after the fall of the Imperium, there was the Age of Warlords. A brief time in history, but one marked by brutality as 'Doomsday Weapons' that had been employed in the Mantid War, the Clone War, Legion's War, the Imperium Conflict, and the Martial Order Crusade had returned to human held worlds and decided that their might put them in the right.
What she is examining is from that time.
Part of me wonders why I even possess that type of data.
I am aghast at the fact that a normal Terran Descent Human Commander would not have been able to unlock and decrypt the data, but by virtue of being a Kentai Commander, her authorization is more than sufficient to unlock such a horror.
There are Twelve High Speakers. They are marked with targeting numbers. The Sniffbois inside the system are ordered to track those speakers. There are twelve queens and an Overqueen, all labeled with targeting numbers.
Twenty-five targets. Over half of which were in the same location.
Our intrusion into their computer systems have given us extensive maps of the interior of the hiveship. There is no route large enough for me to enter the ship. I would be forced to use my main gun to carve a corridor through the ship, as I had been forced to do on the Precursor Autonomous War Machine repair and refit planet. Our estimations show it would take two and a half hours to carve such a channel even if I went to rapid fire on my main gun, which would give the Mantid a chance to counter-attack or even destroy the planet, much less move the Queens.
Nekonya's suggestion, while repulsive to me, would take longer, but I compute it has a solid 80% chance of success.
We both consider the implications of what we are about to do. The last time these infantry troops had been used, several of them had 'gone rogue' if one did not look at their programming and orders. They were biologicals, yes, but vat-grown for specific tasks and pushed the limit of then TDH genetics.
But we cannot deliberate too long, every minute that passes the battle on the surface of the planet rages.
While the plan would work, we consider the aftermath and decide that using the MD-GEIST protocols would ultimately prove too dangerous. Regretfully, we decide we must come up with another answer that a super-tanks armed with Hellbores and commanded by a Kentai Commander can accomplish.
I rotate and check my stealth systems, preparing to move out.
Right before I engage my treads a ship streaks into existence as it exits warp speed.
I immediately halt all preparation for movement and orient a single directional antenna, compressing the data we have gained so far and sending it over the tightly focused unidirectional multi-phasic frequency hopping communication's beam.
My scanners report the ship's IFF, but its signature is nothing like the ship listed in my registry. However, the war has been going on for years now and the fact the ship may have been refit is a 63.6312% possibility.
I hail the Dakota.
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”Shields up! Get me those scans!” Jeff Pikark called out to his crew. The bridge was full of smoke, the carpeting scorched, several consoles and work stations blackened and scorched. The crew was clad in armored vac-suits more in line with Confederate Space Force than Starfleet bridge uniforms. The battle against a hive ship only hours behind them, an actual combat in jumpspace so close behind them that debris from the shattered Mantid ship in the Heavy Cruiser class was still exiting warp/jumpspace around his ship. ”Status against the boarders!”
”Shields up, reconfiguring and rehashing algorithm,” Worf barked. ”Bringing primary phasic shielding to seventy percent with a nanosecond trigger.”
”Security reports the last of the holdouts have just surrendered. Jumpshock and Warpshock took out the last remaining Speaker,” Uhuru said, her voice calm and level.
”We're on the money! That's another hive ship! I knew it was there, I knew it!” Chekov called out, slapping his console with a grin. His faceshield on his vac-suit was cracked, but he could still read his status boards. ”It's a big one, sir. Almost as big as the first one we encountered. I'm detecting orbit to ground missile launches and dropship signatures.”
”Get us an angle!” Pikark barked. He tabbed his thumb against one of the control panels. ”Engineering, status on the Pike Shot?”
”Loaded and ready. She's only good for one, maybe two shots. The main compression chamber is showing micro-fractures already, one of the recoil clamps is cracked, and a primary buffer spring is showing fatigue,” someone said. The man playing the position of Scotty had been killed when the remainder of a Mantid strike team had managed to reach engineering.
They hadn't taken it, but casualties had included the Chief Engineer.
”Do what you can,” Pikark ordered. ”It's a big one.”
”Sir, transmission on the Dinochrome Brigade Channel. ID checks out as Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL, listed as lost in combat Stardate 8531.42. ID headers and security checks come back positive,” Uhuru called out.
”Where is he?” Pikark asked.
”Putting it onscreen now,” Uhuru said.
The big viewscreen, cracked and warped, flickered on, the engineers having already done their best to repair it even though there were many more systems that needed fixed.
A wireframe of the massive Hiveship appeared, rotated, then focused down on a point a little over a hundred miles from the massive hive structure.
”Bet that's a story of how he got there,” Pikark said, grinning and shaking his head.
”Call sign Attila is currently running with a Kentai Commander,” Uhuru said. ”He is in need of infantry and orbital support.”
”Tell him he'll have it,” Pikark said. He tabbed a button. ”Get the Marines locked and ready. It looks like a boarding action in support of a BOLO on that hiveship.”
”Roger, sir,” Yar snapped. She turned to the gathered Marines, who were reloading their ammunition supplies. Gone were the phaser rifles, all of them were carrying Confederate Army magac rifles. ”Suit up for boarding action, we're taking the fight to the Hiveship and its queen!”
There was a slight pressure, the feeling of the air being pushed by a massive tidal wave touching one's cheek before the water lifted out of the ocean to plot everything array.
Everyone aboard the Dakota tasted blue as the phasic inhibitor slammed to 85% and the additional systems locked down.
Pikark could feel the snarl of hatred from the massive Hiveship.
”You think we can't hurt you,” Pikark said.
”Captain, readings show this is the one we hit at New Terra two months ago,” Chekov called out.
”Getting an angle,” Sulu called out.
”Pike Shot Cannon ready, sir,” Worf said. He could taste the bitter tang of venom as his body reacted to psychic assault with leakage from his vestigial venom glands.
”She knows we're here,” Pikark said. ”Open fire, phaser banks, photon torpedoes, and trans-phasic torpedoes!”
As the massive Dakota maneuvered for a clear shot it went to rapid fire, the phaser beam taking nearly three seconds to cross the massive distance, even as it outraced the torpedoes. The engine arrays of the vast hiveship suddenly lit up and it began pulling away from the planet.
”Get us behind her, Mister Sulu,” Pikark said. He reached out and rubbed his left arm, which still tingled from the last fight where the Hivequeen had attempted to spike everyone's blood pressure as a last desperate attempt to fight off the Dakota.
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Nemta was looking up at the night sky when he saw it.
The huge hiveship had ignited its engines. Over a hundred of them turning into one massive burning bar.
It started to move. Not in the stately orbit of the last three weeks.
It was moving away from the planet.
Again, he wished he had an aerospace fighter.
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Yrklik could not feel anything from the Overqueen or any of the others. He was completely entranced by listening to the little servitors. The other warriors were clustered around the servitors that had served them for years in silence.
Now their little voices were raised in song.
Yrklik saw the engines of the Great Vessel come on, saw that it was pulling away from the planet.
Good riddance, bitch.