Fleet Battle (2)
Sanada-F, acting fleet commander of the Nemea Fleet, was on the verge of losing his mind.
No Cult citizens lived in this system, JP-22. There were no resources worth the Cult's covetous eyes, no strategic choke point vital to imperial security — nothing here but proximity to Star Union territory that could even be called a threat.
'Then why in the world is an Imperial Carrier here?!'
It wasn't as though combat with the Cult had gone entirely unconsidered. He had finished preparations to defend against psychic attacks before their faster-than-light jump. But never in his wildest projections had he imagined an Imperial Carrier would appear.
'If we fight as things stand, the losses will be catastrophic.'
The Nemea Fleet was one of the Star Union's twelve elite fleets. An force capable of reducing multiple planets to scorched waste had a low probability of losing to a single Imperial Carrier. But the enemy was the enemy, and it was self-evident that victory would come at a ruinous price. An Imperial Carrier, with the planetary-cleansing weapon Cosmic Bolt built into its hull, carried powerful secondary armaments besides. Fight that monster carelessly, and at minimum a quarter of his fleet would be annihilated.
'...Let's try talking first.'
They had to know it too — that winning against a Star Union fleet on their own would be difficult. Judging by how flustered they'd seemed when an elite fleet of a signatory power intruded into their system, they had been the ones to request dialogue first.
"F. Open a channel."
「Confirmed.」
A moment later, a screen rose before Sanada-F's eyes, projected directly from the ship's computer link. A middle-aged Cult officer with massive yak horns stood glaring at him from a lavish combat information center done up in ivory, gold, and jewels.
「I am Eshta, captain of the Condemner of Gormos-03. Cyborg. State your name and affiliation.」
"...Sanada-F, acting fleet commander of the Star Union's Nemea Fleet."
「Nemea, you say? The fifth of the twelve fleets?」
"That is correct."
The Cult officer who had introduced himself as Eshta's eyes went wide. He had apparently assumed it was merely a large fleet; his face said he'd never dreamed an elite fleet would come here.
Sanada-F thought the situation might still be smoothed over with careful words. He was wrong. The surprise on Eshta's face curdled into fury almost instantly.
「The audacity! Those who bear one of the pillars of the Star Union, committing such a vile act!」
"What are you talking about?"
「Do not play the innocent! Do you claim ignorance of the harm your cyborg has inflicted upon our Empire?!」
"Harm? Embarrassing as it is to say, we only just arrived in this system."
「The shamelessness. Shall I show you proof of what your kind has done, so you cannot deny it?」
「New communication record file received and confirmed.」
'Communications?'
He opened the file Eshta had sent, and the recorded transmissions began playing directly into his auditory processors.
What they contained was entirely beyond his comprehension.
'What in the world is this?!'
Sanada-F was thoroughly confused. He replayed the transmission again and again, and still could not make sense of any of it.
'Why would the Population Management Department be here... no, more importantly, what is this "Holy Land"?'
For an instant he wondered whether the Machine Council had withheld information from him in order to purge him, but he quickly shook his head. An efficiency-obsessed Council would never employ a method that inflicted serious losses on the Nemea Fleet, one of the twelve elite fleets.
Nor did Eshta seem to be lying. Even if the Cult Empire possessed hundreds of Imperial Carriers, they were hardly expendable enough to be squandered like this.
In other words, that transmission was a fabrication. And it was highly likely that both he and Eshta were being played like instruments by someone else entirely.
Having organized his thoughts, Sanada-F spoke.
"Look here, Captain Eshta. Has it occurred to you that this transmission might be false?"
「You suggest our own warrior reported falsehoods? Impossible. Koshei used the secure network known only to the warrior caste.」
"Then think, Captain. If we had truly meant to spring a trap on you, would we be sitting here talking like this? We would have seeded Gremlin torpedoes along your approach long before your jump completed."
「......」
It was not an unreasonable point, and Eshta fell silent. Had the Nemea Fleet truly laid an ambush, they would have taken enormous damage the moment they entered this system.
「Then how do you explain the Mackay you sent? We have identified everything — his affiliation, the location of his last confirmed activity.」
"Give me a moment. I will verify that immediately."
At his words, Eshta clicked his tongue but said nothing further. It was clear the other side had no appetite for war either. And if he let this opportunity slip, something truly catastrophic would follow, so he hastily summoned F.
"Search for Mackay's brainwave signature right now. Find his location."
「Confirmed. Scanning.」
"That lunatic cyborg bastard, what the hell did he—"
「Found.」
"Already? Where?"
「Detected near the Jonas Asteroid Ring, JP-22 system.」
"The Jonas Asteroid Ring? That's practically next door!"
F's report sent a chill of foreboding down Sanada-F's spine. None of this was normal. Someone unknown was shoving them both into a trap — of that he was now certain.
'Could it be—?'
"Captain Eshta! Listen to me! This is all a trap—"
He rushed to explain, but the transmission cut off without warning. And it wasn't just the call — the cable linking Sanada-F to the ship's computer went dead as well.
"What is this? F? Answer me!"
「S-szzt, E, EMP detected, szzt, restoration in one minute.」
"An EMP?!"
A minute passed and the connection reestablished itself. The instant Eshta's face reappeared, Sanada-F shouted in a panic.
"Captain! All of this is a misunderstanding! Do not act rashly!"
「......」
But something was wrong.
Eshta wasn't looking at him at all. As if he had forgotten the transmission had been restored, he was staring blankly into empty space with glazed eyes.
'What's gotten into him?'
Eshta's face was so pale that even Sanada-F, a cyborg, was startled. It was the face of a man who had seen something he feared beyond all reason.
At last, Eshta screamed until his voice tore.
「Th-the Three-Headed Demon! All ships, open fire!」
"Wha—"
「Imperial Carrier main gun activating. Dark matter detected.」
"You motherf— all ships, dispers— guagh!"
Sanada-F hurried to shout the dispersal order, but at that very moment the entire ship lurched violently. Along with the impact, F brought up a visual of the enemy vessel that had struck them.
「Psychic power attack detected from the identified vessel.」
"I damn well know that already! All ships, return fire!"
Sanada-F snarled as he stared at the black Cult escort frigate on the screen.
There was no stopping this now. Suppress the enemy as quickly as possible, then report the situation to the Machine Council and decide what to do.
And so the elite forces of the galaxy's two great powers — the Cult Empire and the Star Union — collided head-on at JP-22.
「Big Baby, like this?」
[Zzzu zzuzuzu zzu (You're doing wonderfully)]
「Yay!」
No. 26 was concentrating so hard that I couldn't help myself — I stroked her with an erosion tentacle. She seemed to enjoy the touch, going limp and glowing red all over her body.
[Zzzu (Focus)]
「Ah. Right. Focus. Focus!」
Reading my thought-waves, she pulled herself together and smoothed out the tangled flow of her psychic power.
She was using the Fear of the Deep Sea trait to weave a magnificent illusion. Under No. 26's power, our ship was veiled in a vast hallucination — the image of my Adult form from back when I had consumed psionium and transformed, the very being the Cult called the Three-Headed Demon.
'The Cult is going to have an absolute field day when they see this.'
Just as I'd planned, the Imperial Carrier and the Cult warships that had arrived here were staring at the illusion No. 26 had conjured, too paralyzed to think straight.
'This covers all the ambiguous gaps.'
Among the Cult genetic information I had stored was a single warrior who served aboard an Imperial Carrier — one that Mother of the Sky had hunted back when I was in my second stage of Transcendence. Her voice had proven useful for deceiving other Cult members ever since, and here it was proving its worth yet again.
Contacting them through the emergency line reserved for the warrior caste alone had let me dodge suspicion entirely. Using codes only she would have known, I linked into the emergency channel, mimicked her voice, and staged a false scenario — with the cyborg Mackay under my control playing the role of the Star Union's vile villain.
The result: a great fleet including an Imperial Carrier had come to this system to rescue Koshei, a woman who was already dead.
'Under normal circumstances they'd never have come for just this much.'
Two factors had triggered their overreaction: the word "Holy Land" that I had planted, and the desperate transmission of a survivor who had been utterly devastated while trying to purge the contamination of that Holy Land. And to drive the wedge of their misapprehension in deep, I had asked No. 26 to project a Fear of the Deep Sea illusion of a specified form.
By its nature, the trait manifests the image its victim fears most. Whether a Sea Demon could force an image of her own choosing into the effect was an open question — I'd half expected it to fail. But No. 26 had pulled it off.
'She remembers my form perfectly, so I suppose it wasn't hard for her.'
I have no idea how a girl with no eyes manages to know these things, but she faithfully reproduced my Adult form all the same.
The terror the Cult soldiers already harbored toward me played a crucial role here too. Their dread of the "Three-Headed Demon" that had annihilated an entire mothership squadron was what let the deception succeed.
'The biggest wildcard is still the Star Union.'
The Star Union's cyborg forces included a large number of androids, and their ships were plastered with layer upon layer of psychic countermeasures. Their resistance to Fear of the Deep Sea and psychic attacks of every kind was correspondingly high.
So I had nudged the Cult into battle readiness with their vision of the "Three-Headed Demon," and at the same time fired the first shot at the Star Union fleet — wearing the guise of a Cult escort frigate. Having been attacked by what looked like a Cult warship, they had no choice but to strike back.
'A full diagnostic scan would expose my identity in a heartbeat, though.'
But facing an enemy in open battle, would they really have the leisure for one?
Mistaking my strike for a Cult attack, the Star Union had opened their counteroffensive. The result was the interstellar war now unfolding before my eyes.
'And it isn't over yet.'
The trick I'd prepared with the Star Union as its target was still in reserve — I intended to spring it once the battle reached full boil.
Just then, Mother of the Sky muttered beside me.
"I can't believe this actually works. Unbelievable."
She was watching the unfolding chaos through the reinforced glass I'd made for her, alongside Adhai.
"People are simple creatures, that's all."
"...I've thought this before, but you really are one hell of an actor."
She was looking at me with an expression that said she'd had enough. Fair enough — she'd been on the losing end of my schemes all through the game, so I could roughly guess what was going through her head. What must she have thought, watching me hold the comm unit and mimic Koshei? Her feelings were probably anything but simple.
'Acting, is it.'
Considering my family history, her remark was closer to the truth than she knew. Maybe that was why I'd been so good at deceiving people in the game, too.
'...Enough with the useless thoughts.'
A battle was in progress. Shaking off memories I had no desire to revisit, I turned my attention back to the scene outside.
The Cult warships had arrayed themselves in a rhomboid formation centered on the Imperial Carrier. From the main guns mounted along their hulls, three-pronged rays of violet heat erupted.
Beams of light tore across the void, oxidizing every drifting rock and speck of space debris in their path.
The cyborg fleet, meanwhile, had hardly been idle. From their ships, great and small, clouds of tiny white drones poured forth like a waterfall. The drones maneuvered in perfect discipline and spread themselves in a screen before the vessels — for all the world like a matador flourishing his cape before a charging bull. In this case the color was white rather than red.
Then the violet heat rays collided with the swarm of white drones. Anyone watching would have assumed the drones were about to be blasted to pieces. The outcome was very different.
The drones launched from the Star Union's ships were called APDs — Anti Psychic Drones.
They were constructed from blacksilver, a metal with potent resistance to psychic power, bonded with gallanium alloy that absorbed all manner of energy. They were deployed primarily against enemies who fought with psychic power — the Cult, as now, or beings like the Galagons.
A violet flash erupted in the middle of space, so searingly bright that an ordinary human would have been blinded on the spot. The Star Union's APDs absorbed the colossal impact delivered by part of the Cult's gun barrage.
Why did I say only a part? Because the Cult's attack hadn't finished yet.
The heat rays fired from the Cult's main guns only looked like a single three-pronged salvo; in truth, they had fired three times in rapid succession. A slight time lag separated each incoming ray. The APDs weathered the first wave without difficulty, but they lacked the capacity to fully guard against the follow-ups.
'APDs are vulnerable to staggered attacks, after all.'
Exactly as I had predicted, a portion of the violet beams slipped through the drone screen and bored straight through the cyborg warships. Explosions bloomed one after another along the light's path, and hull after hull broke apart.
Having lost several ships, the Star Union fleet showed not the slightest sign of retreat and launched its counterattack.
Star Union vessels were, in simple terms, rectangular hulls bristling with turrets as sharp and jagged as thorns. Those spike-like guns were no decoration.
Countless turrets sprang to life. Thousands upon thousands of torpedoes, precisely guided by android gunners, hurled themselves toward the Cult fleet.
The Cult ships holding the rhomboid formation pulsed violet all at once. Energy shields bloomed across their bow sections and linked together, merging into one colossal diamond-shaped aegis.
The first wave of torpedoes slammed into the great shield and detonated harmlessly.
The Cult held formation without a single breach. But it was far too early to relax — a portion of the incoming torpedoes suddenly veered, striking the flanks and rear of the Cult line. With blasts of fire, several Cult ships tumbled out of formation, and as their shield rippled, the neighboring vessels scrambled to fill the gaps their broken comrades had left.
Seeing this, the Star Union moved to press its advantage and readied another volley — had the Imperial Carrier not stepped in, the Cult's losses would have grown far worse.
'So it begins.'
Cracks spread across the refined diamond hull of the Imperial Carrier. Sections along its edges split open, and from within them pitch-black turrets emerged.
Eight turrets in all — the secondary armament built into the Imperial Carrier, the Black Cannons. Like the Cosmic Bolt, they were weapons of terrible power fueled by dark matter.
Whether or not the Star Union ships knew the Black Cannons' power, they scattered in a hurry. The Cannons opened fire on the frantically maneuvering vessels.
Unlike the other Cult ships' rays, these weapons released no beam of heat — black spheres tore free of the Black Cannons and hurtled toward the Star Union fleet.
One of the spheres caught a lagging vessel. The instant it touched the hull, the ship warped and distorted, then was dragged wholesale into the sphere itself.
Having devoured an entire warship in a matter of seconds, the sphere pressed onward, swiftly swallowing other vessels as it went.
'Just as expected.'
The Black Cannon was a weapon that generated artificial black holes and hurled them at the enemy.
One hit and it was over — which made it devastatingly effective for shredding an enemy vanguard and sniping flagships.
The trade-offs were a short duration for the black hole rounds and the fact that they could not be guided once fired.
Watching the Imperial Carrier unleash its black hole rounds, the Star Union fleet closed in on the Cult forces while still dispersed. Their intent was obvious: shrink the distance to the Imperial Carrier and force a melee. A sound response — black hole rounds don't distinguish friend from foe.
'Good. Then I suppose I'll go too.'
Once the melee began, there was work that only I could do. See that task safely finished, and I could leave this system with no one hunting me.
Leading my captured Cult escort frigate, I surged forward.
A chaotic fleet battle in the void of space was waiting for me.