Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 69

Two days after we’d arrived at Edena, I got the message that I’d been hoping for. The Shinokage was finished, and had performed well in her initial trials. Now it was time for my flagship to come and be blooded, as my other ships had been.

Plus, the Imperials could use some practice against a target that was at least a little less stealthy than we were. See, we had spent the last two days in practice drills, with the Black Star ships maneuvering, and seeing how close they could get to the Imperial ships without being detected. The answer was far too close for the Imperial captains’ comfort, especially with our fighters.

The Mk II Raptor Stealth Fighters that comprised Ghost Squadron were designed and built by some crazy geniuses we had picked up from Jagloth’s debt slaves, and were made with the same composite hull as the rest of the Black Star fleet, with the same paint job. They had a cloaking device, but size and power constraints meant it only lasted about fifteen minutes at a time, and had a similar recharge time. However, because of how small the ship was, unless you got a flash of the thrusters or engines, then even in ‘normal’ stealth, you would be hard pressed to detect them. The cloak just let them break contact if they needed to, or slip in just close enough to do something truly horrible.

The list of horrible things that could happen was read, quite exhaustively, to me when the captain of the Rage of Shiva called to ‘congratulate’ me in the most forceful tones he could manage when Ghost Leader, Logan Chavez (callsign Parca), managed to park his Raptor on the hull, somehow managing to get through the superdreadnought’s shields, and spacewalked to the airlock before knocking on the outer door, asking if anyone had ordered pizza. Captain Masters may have been steamed, but Parca drank for free that night when he wound up in the bar the local flyboys frequented.

I also had no less than fifty fighter pilots messaging me to see where they could get a Raptor of their own.

Five days after I’d heard from Shinokage, I was pleased to introduce my newest baby to the Empress, who consented to take a tour along with one of her engineering crew and her security chief from Triumphant. As ordered, Captain Inatumal gave the Empress the full honors for ‘visiting foreign head of state’. Now the Captain and her sister joined us in giving a tour of the light cruiser.

The Empress’s chief engineer nodded slightly as we moved through the ship. “I must say, Captain Mollen, you’ve done an impressive job with this ship. By tonnage, she’s a light cruiser, but if the sensor readings we were able to get of her are any indication at all, she’s armed to beat a heavy cruiser, isn’t she?”

I shrugged, and said, “Yes and no. The Shinokage was designed with stealth in mind. The composite we used in the hull and bulkheads is incredibly strong and light, and sheds heat pretty well, but doesn’t have the stopping power of the sheer mass a heavy cruiser or larger warship will have. There’s always a tradeoff between stealth, acceleration, and defense. Anything that is stealthy and fast is not going to be able to have good armor, or physics throws one hell of a hissy fit.”

Captain Inatumal nodded. “With respect, sir, the Shinokage is an ambush predator at heart. We establish shock and awe in the first few moments, and preferably kill or disable the enemy in that time, or we start having increasing difficulties. All things being evil, we can outrun anything bigger than us, and we can outgun the lighter craft, though we’re ill suited for a slugging match between ourselves and heavy cruiser, for instance.”

I looked over to the Inatumal twins, and said, “Now that you’re here, we can see about getting more raiding in. The guns on your ship will make it possible for us to take on more important targets. We may even make another run at Sol, if things work out like I hope.”

The Empress chuckled, and said, “If the Empire had more officers like you and your crews, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Where did you find so many competent people? My sister tells me it was just you and the Raven when the coup started?”

“It was. And I found most of them in the slave markets. The Empire especially wastes a lot of potential talent by saying that any nonhuman in Imperial space is to be automatically enslaved. Much of my recent staff has come from the disaster at Jagloth, where they lost everything to the Legion Virus. It turns out that by actually giving a damn about the wellbeing of my slaves, and not treating them like crap, I can inspire some loyalty, especially when they see what most slaves have to deal with.”

I paused, thinking about whether I wanted to continue, and then said, “If you want to keep this from happening again, I’d say that, with respect, you need to do some major pruning in the upper levels of your military and aristocracy. Anyone in the Usurper’s new cult is going to have to be purged with prejudice. The analysis of the implants we discovered, combined with what my source found about the cult, suggests that some new power has taken control of the Empire.”

The Empress frowned at that. “So we have more to worry about than my idiot brother making a self-serving religion? That he is the head of?”

“I’m afraid so. You know how you can tell members of the cult because they have, certain tattoos and implants, yes? Some of those implants tie directly into the brain, like the ocular implants. The science of it is beyond me, but they are basically stage one of some heavy brainwashing, and it gets worse as the people are ‘initiated’ into the ranks. From what Raven can tell, anyone with three bands or higher has a direct link to the AI whenever they’re in range of an FTL comm. Worse, anyone with five bands or more has a special implant that is supposed to allow them to be ‘saved’ in the event of death and ‘downloaded’ into a new body, essentially copying how Nomads return from death, though in a far nastier way.”

The Imperials look equal parts shocked and outraged at this, but finally the Empress said, “So, my brother sold his soul for Immortality, then?”

“No, he sold that sodden dishrag long ago to the nobles and war hawks in the admiralty for the promise of power. But when someone has no goal but power, they always want more. According to what I’ve heard over the Nomad communication networks, the Usurper went to the surface of Venus after the coup, and it was only after that trip that the cult business began.”

“Venus? What is on Venus except some ruined colonies?”

“A sentient AI that used to be used for tracking hackers and activists. No doubt he wanted it for the war, but the AI offered him bait he couldn’t refuse.”

“Immortality.”

“Indeed. And the fool probably never even stopped to consider that if someone is offering you a deal that is too good to be true, it probably is. If you can’t see the problem with the deal, you aren’t looking hard enough. By now, your brother is as much a slave as any Stepford, though without the collar to warn people what has happened.”

“Can he be saved? I want him sane, and able to die for good when I try and execute him for his treason.”

“I’m sorry, Empress. There’s no way to know for sure, but I would not count on it.”

“Damn it! Just like that bastard to deny me even that! When I—” Alarms began blaring, cutting off what the Empress was about to say. Looking over to Captain Inatumal, I saw her already speaking into her comm. This wasn’t going to be good.

“Master, Imperial warships have entered the system by transition. We’re counting twenty-seven transition events!”

“Sound battle stations across the fleet. You’ll fight the ship, I’ll take the flag deck. Go, I’ll be along presently.” The captain bowed curtly to the Empress, and then turned, heading off towards the bridge, firing off orders into her commlink as she did so. I turned back to the Empress, and said, “Empress, Nimue will show you to your shuttle. I believe Triumphant will be wanting you aboard.”

“Very well. What are your plans for the battle, Captain?”

“That will depend entirely on the disposition of enemy forces, Empress. I’m not keen on letting a mad AI with dreams of godhood get control of the Terran Empire. That outcome is entirely unhealthy for my business interests, and most definitely not in my personal interests. But how much the Black Star fleet can actually do to support you? We’ll see. At the very least, we’ll bloody their noses for you.”

The Empress nodded, back in her role as a military leader. “Very well. May fortune favor us this day.”

“Fortune favors the bold, Captain. And who can be so bold as an Empress walking the deck of a warship in battle, or a rogue staring into the teeth of a superior foe and not flinching? We’ll teach them a lesson or two, I assure you.”

The Empress and her staff turned, and began jogging (one did not run on a warship except in the most dire emergencies) towards the shuttle bay, so she could get back to her ship. I, on the other hand, went to the flag bridge, where Raven was already manipulating the controls on the display screens to give me a tactical overview of the situation.

That tactical overview could be summed up in a simple sentence: We were fucked. Twenty-seven Imperial warships were in the system. The sensor data, courtesy of the long-range probes the Loyalists had put out as an early warning system, began identifying the ships. I’m sure the Navy didn’t know about Raven getting the probe feeds, but I saw no reason to enlighten them before the battle. This looked like the same squadron that had attacked Askao VII. The Bismarck was identified as being in the center of the formation, but it seemed that somewhere along the line, Admiral Scheiner had picked up two battlecruisers, three frigates, five corvettes, a carrier, and what looked like a heavy freighter.

Questions about why someone would bring a freighter to a war zone were answered immediately when an extremely high-power energy spike was registered coming from the freighter. Raven looked over at me, and said, “Captain, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It is like a tar pit trap on steroids. They’ve nullified all hyperspace traffic in this system. No one will be able to launch suicide strikes like they did at Askao, but the fleet can’t close immediately into range to crush the Empress’s forces.”

Damn, it was bad enough that this Scheiner was an evil bastard for blowing up civilians on purpose, but the fact that he was clever enough to figure out a countermeasure before the trick could be used against him a second time? I hated intelligent enemies! “Well, that simplifies things. It is either win or die. I want all captains on screen now. We have a battle to plan.”

All the captains logged onto the tacnet, and I looked at their images on the screen. “By now you all should have seen the situation. Twenty-seven enemy ships, ten of them superdreadnoughts. The Loyalists have forty-five ships, mostly frigates and corvettes, a single carrier with five fighter squadrons, and only four superdreadnoughts. And here we are with six ships ready to cause havoc and mayhem, and a squadron of our own to help fend off the enemy.

“That’s the situation. Now, let’s work the solution.”

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Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):

Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT

Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):

Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi LitRPG):

Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL

Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y