NOVEL NEXT B1 - Lesson 5: "Do What You Must; Ask Forgiveness Later."
Alpha felt like an idiot.
He ducked beneath another whipping tentacle bursting through the breached hull and jammed one of the nest seeds into a drifting slab of wreckage.
Of course the thing could Fold Skip. He should have guessed from the start — he had slammed into the monster inside the Fold, after all. It hadn't been wasting energy by firing blindly once he retreated into the vault. No, it had been cutting a groove wide enough to anchor a skip.
Its 'laser 'wasn't a weapon; it was a bloody Fold engine! The fact that it also reduced military-grade alloy to glittering vapor was just a convenient evolutionary bonus — a two-for-one special from the cosmic menu of horrors.
Unfortunately, Alpha had never majored in rainbow space calamari studies, which meant setting up his trap required constant bobbing and weaving between ambush tentacles. Surprise tentacles. The worst kind. He had seen the videos. Biologicals were revolting.
The creature clung to the hull like a lamprey, tracking him through methods his sensors couldn't pin down. Every breach birthed a writhing knot of limbs, groping blindly for him. Most found themselves shredded by the TAWP's point-defense fire, but his ammunition hadn't been topped up before the forced sprint from the vault. Each kill drained his reserves further. If his plan worked, though, the glow-wrapped nightmare would stop being a problem soon enough. Then he could focus on salvaging what was left — and dealing with that new surprise his drones had picked up on the other side of the wreck.
That was a problem for future Alpha; it was time to plant some seeds! Of destruction!
Alpha was a farmer, and his crop was death.
Another nest seed vanished into a tangle of broken plating. That made thirty-six in the past hour. He would have preferred more, but every minute wasted gave the creature time to heal. Wounds closed across its body faster than he liked. If he lingered, it would pin him in some corner of the wreckage, and there would be no slipping free. No, he had enough planted. The trap was set, the rat was scurrying, and now all he needed was the cheese.
He only hoped Squidward was still hungry.
At his signal, a drone darted through a nearby gap, narrowly dodging a slashing tentacle. It braked hard, thrusters flaring as it bled speed, until it drifted steady in front of him. Alpha extended a manipulator and produced a small metal orb. He squeezed. The TAWP's claws dented the casing with a brittle crack, splitting its surface until searing light spilled through jagged seams.
Kelvinite.
The strange mineral had been carved from the corpses of dead stars, once cataloged as little more than a radiophobic curiosity. That opinion ended the moment Federation researchers discovered it could be refined into a material unlike anything known — capable of repelling heat, electricity, nearly any kind of energy that touched it.
Even visible light and radiation — x-rays, gamma, even radar — could be bottled inside kelvinite with near-perfect efficiency, losses measured in the tiniest fractions of a decimal. The discovery had detonated across the economy like a supernova, the material's value skyrocketing ten thousand percent overnight. Since then, kelvinite had embedded itself in nearly every industry of the Federation: from perfectly insulated habitation domes, to DEA — directed energy armor — down to stealth hulls that bent scans away as if the ship itself were a ghost.
Their most revolutionary form was the "mirror battery." The design was deceptively simple: trap energy-carrying particles inside a suspension lattice, freeze them in stasis, and let them sit until someone needed them. That made them ideal for medium-scale systems expected to operate without maintenance — scout drones, survey satellites, deep-space buoys. Fusion packs, like the ones feeding his scavenger drones, offered adaptability and easy refueling. But when it came to sheer capacity and longevity? Kelvinite batteries were second to none.
These weapons-grade kelvinite 'cores' were used to power the TAWP's weapon systems, recharging from Alpha's own [Class-V Power Core], itself a top-of-the-line kelvinite battery/generator combo designed to power battleships. His weapons could draw from his power core directly, but it was far more efficient to store 'charges' within several smaller, dedicated batteries. This also made them perfect as the power source for medium-scale DEWs — directed energy weapons — like those found on small fighters or transport vehicles.
Which made what he was about to do feel like ripping out one of his own teeth.
He needed a distraction. Something bright, hot, and irresistible enough to pull the monster's gaze away for just a breath. Giving up one of these cores hurt; it would be weeks, maybe months, before he could rebuild one. But survival had always been about calculated sacrifices. If the beast's hunger outweighed its fury, he'd have his opening. If not… he would have to squeeze the trigger and pray the universe didn't laugh too hard.
The drone's surface shimmered, its nanite skin flowing until a hollow formed in its chassis. Alpha slotted the cracked kelvinite core inside. The orb pulsed with contained fury, light spilling through fractured seams until the cavity snapped shut around it with a mechanical click. A heat haze rippled off the drone's surface as the energy bled outward, painting its plating in a molten orange. It wouldn't last long — whether the core went critical or not, the drone was already being cooked from the inside.
The drone made a beeline through the debris, emerging into open space close to the creature. It seemed the creature had moved right on top of Alpha's position during his brief pause. The drone moved into position, ignored as the creature homed in on its more annoying prey. That was, until the cover holding the cracked battery was pulled back.
The instant it did, the creature's attention snapped to the drone, its entire massive frame shifting as if to stare at the blazing beacon of energy. At least, Alpha assumed it did, as he had yet to find anything on the creature he could have called an 'eye.'
Squidward answered with a spatial roar, not the furious bellow of before but something rawer, hungrier. Tentacles tore free from the surrounding debris, all surging toward the pulsing drone. Alpha whooped in triumph, seized manual control, and sent the nest seeds their command sequence.
The leviathan lunged at the drone with ravenous abandon, its limbs striking with the desperation of a starving man chasing his last scrap of bread. Alpha's processors spiked with urgency. He couldn't afford to give it time to regain strength.
With its ability to Fold Skip, there was no chance of beating the creature at full health. Not without sacrifices he refused to make.
But if the plan worked, he wouldn't need to fight it much longer. All he required was a few more seconds.
An auroric blast ripped through the void, passing close enough to wash static across Alpha's sensors. The drone spun violently, control slipping as the cracked core continued to eat through its systems. Response time lagged, movements grew sluggish, and every thruster adjustment came half a second too late. Tentacles lashed closer and closer until, inevitably, the longest primary limb coiled around the drone and dragged it toward that writhing aurora-maw.
Stolen novel; please report.
Alpha's curse cut off when his seed network pinged all at once. Ready.
Frustration turned to savage glee. Just in time.
What he was about to unleash would've been labeled a war crime on half the civilized worlds in the Federation—gross animal abuse at the very least. Even for him, this probably crossed a line. But survival didn't leave room for moral debates.
"Activate [Bot-flies]," Alpha ordered. "Target marked by beacon AA-33-@11."
The wreck field shuddered. Whole chunks of hull plating rattled as several dozen hidden nests lit up in unison.
The [Bot-fly] drones swarmed to life.
[Bot-fly] drones were Alpha's take on the [Mosquito] drones, small, pineapple-sized drones used to pester and control local wildlife, keeping them away from protected areas. [Mosquitos] were mostly considered harmless, delivering a mild shock via a built-in laser or a capsaicin spray mist for multiple targets. [Mosquitos] were one of the more common drones in the Federation. They were used everywhere, from home gardens to keep out pests — such as nosy neighbors — to private security.
Forward military bases on new worlds even used swarms of thousands to drive back hostile wildlife upset at their new guests. Some planets even used them for crowd control when someone got uppity about some new local law, though this was frowned on by polite society.
Alpha's version, naturally, had a few… adjustments.
It had taken surprisingly little effort to modify the design into an anti-ship weapon. Swarms of drones would be released from carriers, overwhelming the target's point defenses with their huge numbers and small, nimble size. Those that made it through would attach to the target's hulls via clamps and magnetic locks. That was where things took a turn. Instead of harmlessly zapping the target ship with tasers, the [Bot-fly] would release a secondary drone nicknamed a 'wiggler.' These wigglers would burrow into the enemy ship's armor, using the armored [Bot-flies] as cover, then seek and destroy critical ship systems — systems such as power lines, controls, and even life support.
When they were first released, [Bot-fly] drones had been devastatingly effective, and within a year, pirate activity in the testing systems had dropped 95%. With time and exposure, pirate gangs had developed only a few effective counters to the swarms. Things like hidden, redundant systems and false decoys could trick the wigglers, but [Bot-flies] remained an effective weapon in the Federation military, especially against smaller fighters.
Then, someone got the smart idea to try using them against some of the more invasive and dangerous megafauna. The results were… horrific. The wiggler's AI couldn't properly identify 'critical' aspects of a large, terrestrial creature, so they would continuously burrow through the creature's flesh at random until they hit something important. If not enough drones were used at once, this could take a long time.
After that incident, the Federation Senate passed a law banning the use of [Bot-flies] against biological life outside emergency circumstances. Even then, authorization had to go through several layers of approval, including deep bio-scans of the creature to identify critical areas such as heart and brain equivalents. In the 100 years since their creation, such situations had only occurred thrice — each against dangerous, abnormal creatures who threatened untold costs in damage and life.
Unfortunately, Alpha didn't have the time or equipment to do those himself.
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<< Alpha Log – #001 >>
6952 SFY – Third Era, Date Unknown
Due to recent events — and the microscopic odds of anyone rescuing me anytime soon — I, Lieutenant Colonel ALPHA-555-12-4412, designation SEAU-01, of the Third Galactic Federation's Expeditionary Force, 201st Special Operations, 3003rd Vanguard Battalion, am beginning these personal logs. If nothing else, maybe these recordings will one day be recovered and prove I didn't hallucinate the last forty-eight hours.
It has been two days since first contact with the unknown spacefaring cephalopod. Cleanup of the… leftovers remains ongoing. Deployment of the [Bot-flies] went according to simulation parameters; the drones successfully located and targeted critical organs in under three standard minutes.
What didn't go according to plan, however, was the sudden, catastrophic detonation of an unidentified energy source within the creature's body upon its death.
Thankfully, the remains of the Anatidae's munitions bay provided me with enough cover to avoid the blast with minimal damage.
The drones, however, were not so fortunate. Losses sit at approximately eighty-seven percent. That blow alone would have been enough to cripple operations. But the monster's death throes triggered localized spatial quakes, further destabilizing the wreck field and smashing what remained of my operational reserves.
The quakes also collapsed the weapons vault into full lockdown. External access has been severed, and based on current readings, I would need weeks — and a full industrial cutter — to force my way back inside. Not a viable option with my current kit.
As if that wasn't enough, the detonation shoved the wreckage of the Anatidae into accelerated drift. What remains of my dreadnought is now scattering into the void like confetti.
In summary: I am royally screwed.
Under normal circumstances, the prudent move would be to shut down the TAWP, stow my core inside some durable fragment of hull, and pray the general stumbles across me sometime in the next thousand years.
Yet, whether through fate, providence, or sheer blind luck, it seems I have another option available to me. My money is on the latter, but then again, I'm broke.
Attached are stills captured during the engagement. Review them carefully.
…
…
Yes. That's what I said. I have no explanation for it either. An entire star system did not exist in that region of space before the encounter. And yet, there it is. Fully formed. No, I wasn't simply distracted by the glowing laser-squid. You'll also find recovered images of the area before the creature appeared, as a comparison and proof that I'm not making any of this up.
My current working theory is that the creature's parting gift, coupled with the instability of the local space, was enough to create another Fold Break, throwing myself — and what remains of the Anatidae — into a nearby system.
But there are some major holes in that theory. The biggest being that the odds were about the same as leaping out of a plane, hitting the ocean, and smacking into a single shrimp at terminal velocity. Translation: so close to impossible it wasn't worth writing down.
Then there's the fact that Fold travel — of any kind — always leaves its fingerprints. Distinct, measurable distortions. And this? Nothing.
Which leaves me with the only other possibility: that the Fold Break somehow dragged an entire star system to me. Equally absurd.
How does something like that happen? Magic! Or at least that's what I'm going to tell the eggheads, because I have no idea.
How would you even fit an entire star system in the Fold?!
Regardless of how or why, the sudden appearance of this system has opened doors. The TAWP might not have been designed for deep-space operations, but I've managed to twist a few blueprints from the databanks and bend the nanoskin into a set of long-range sensors. Crude, but functional.
Not that the data helps.
The star itself is ordinary enough: a bright, pale-gold main-sequence star, about twenty percent larger than the one humans once called Sirius A. My equipment flagged a handful of anomalies — exotic particle spikes, unusual radiance — but nothing that couldn't be chalked up to solar exotics. Useful even for the plans forming in my processors.
No, the odd thing is the dozen or so celestial bodies orbiting the star. I would question if I hadn't screwed up the design of my equipment, if the surviving drone's long-range telescopes didn't support at least some of what they were telling me.
It will still be some time until I can get close enough to confirm my findings, though.
To that end, I've started repurposing the surviving drones into a makeshift propulsion rig. It's not going to be enough to actually move the several-miles-long fragment of dreadnought hull I'm stranded on any significant distance, but I don't need speed; I just need to be able to steer it. A slow, steady nudge to align the wreck's drift with the course I want. If the simulations hold, it should carry me into the system eventually.
If it works, then both my resource shortage and my general "stranded-in-the-void" problem become a lot more manageable.
If it doesn't? Then I'll do what I've always done best.
Wing it. And pretend that was the plan from the start.