(A Virtual Room in NERV HQ)
“Damn, I’m going to need a cigarette after that battle.”
Morgan looked over to Isaac, who had just leaned back in his
chair as they finished watching the battle from the perspective of those aboard
the Shinokage. “Virtual cigs don’t
cause cancer, but if you get one of the nasty-smelling ones, I’m going to be
pissed.”
“Fine, fine. Anyways, it looks like our boy’s out of action
for a little while, at least. His forces have been beat up pretty badly.”
“Yeah, what do you think he’s going to do while he
rebuilds?”
“At a guess? He’s going to consider some way to take on the
big suckers without relying on surprise attacks. If you look at his stuff back
at Dimiya, they already have a couple new ship types going up for their
Marines. Probably so they can split those two companies up if they need to, and
deploy them at different places.”
“Yeah, I was looking at that. The marine troop ship is
obvious, basically a Black Star redesign of the Thunderfury, but what is that little thing? It looks like a
miniature Starlight Raven, but
there’s no way that thing could be a freighter.”
“Not sure. Listed crew compliment is seven, and there’s just
barely room for that many berths. There’s some cargo space, but it is mostly
dedicated to ‘Task-Specific Load’. Not sure about that. What I do know is that
these things are fast, stealthy, and armed to the teeth. They’re almost like a
cross between those ‘Raptor’ fighters and the Raven-class freighters.”
“Wonder what he’s planning on doing with them?”
Isaac shrugged. “Probably nothing good, at least as far as
his enemies are concerned, but beyond that, who knows? I’m more curious about
what he’s going to be doing while his fleet is being fixed up.”
“Won’t he be overseeing the repairs, and probably sleeping
with half the planet?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll get around to the ladies, but overseeing
the repairs doesn’t really appear to be his kind of thing.”
“Hey boss, what about that big carrier his Marines
captured?”
Isaac slapped his forehead as he nodded to the tech that
spoke up. “Damn, I’d forgotten. That was the big new thing for the X’thari. They’ve
never done carriers before, so the carrier and its fighters were all new. It
was something they started working on after the last set of wars, when some of
the Alliance pilots really made them pay for not having fighter screens during
a couple key battles.”
Morgan frowned. “So what kind of tech will that give him
access to?”
“Well, there’s the X’thari technorganic stuff. No clue how
he might fit that into his current designs, since some of it really doesn’t
work well with traditional tech. You’ve got some cool weapons for fighters, but
the way it looks they’d probably have to trade any missile/torpedo abilities
for the weapons, due to size. So that’d make any fighters he modified from
X’thari designed pure short-range threats, since they’d need to be within the
beam range. The X’thari sublight drives are more efficient and slightly faster,
but cause a deformation in shields which is why the battle wasn’t a lot
costlier for him. Probably could fix that, but it’d take R&D time for sure.
Their Anchor drives are known, but now he has access to one, so he could
probably make copies. Problem is that doing this will draw the wrath of any
X’thari ship that detects it, which would be a problem.”
“And what of the X’thari? Are there going to be more hunts?”
“Eventually, sure. But with he utter spanking they got in
this fight, there’s no way they do more than sending scouts and setting up
Sentinels to report in and watch the system. The system is too ‘heavy’ for them
right now, and they know it. Of course, that means they’ll try and make raids,
both to get new tech, and to try and draw off defenders. So I expect the other
major powers will be getting ‘guests’ before long for small hit and run raids,
targeting shipping.”
Morgan nodded. “Good. So it will quiet down for a bit,
though players and NPCs traveling between stars or at the edge of systems are
more likely to run into X’thari raiders, making them a more visible threat from
now on. That’ll be a good way of helping to spin this for the rest of the
player base. Speaking of spin, have we found where Deus and his minions set up
shop?”
“Yeah, we have several systems that they’ve established
‘respawning dungeons’ in. Some are on populated planets, or used to be
populated stations. Some are in places that used to be uninhabited.”
“Can we pick one of the ones in a populated area that isn’t
too close to the Empire or Confederacy to leak the location of? Let the players
know that there’s more in the works than just what our guy is up to?”
“Ah, the old shiny keys to distract the baby trick? Yeah,
there’s one just inside Ihm space where a ‘crash landing’ happened. That’ll
give people in the Imperium a feeling like we haven’t forgotten them. I’ll run
it by the game AI, but I think we can work that with just a minor tweak, having
a couple NPCs go out to investigate the site. It is pretty far from the nearest
city, so ‘salvage rights’ could work as a motivation for the NPCs to get out
there, maybe on behalf of whoever is important in the area.”
“Excellent. That’ll be great. So when can you get it done?”
Isaac considered for a moment, and then said, “If you want
it quick, dirty, and obvious that we brute forced it? Now. If you want it done
right, so that people who know what to look for can see a subtle GM push,
without actively stepping in to control anyone’s characters, then I’d say a
week or so for the first reports to get to the characters on that planet. No
clue how fast it’ll spread after that, but it should be quick once a Nomad
hears of it, since they’ve been begging for dungeons for months now, IRL.”
“I want this done right. No sense botching it, like with the
Deus stuff.”
“Fine, I’ll get with he AI and my guys, and we’ll have a
plan to run by you before the end of the day. Sound good?”
“Great.”
“Excellent. So, where do you want to go to dinner tonight? I
think I’m in the mood for a bit of splurging after watching that battle. Some
kick ass footage there.”
“Oh you!”
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Be sure to read my published works!
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Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
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City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
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Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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