The Admiral and the Assistant

Admiral Stonefist stood on the bridge of the ISS Swordheart, hands clasped behind his back, watching the battle unfold.

This new information-- the location of the reactor-- was a powerful bit of data. But they had no way of making very effective use of it. It was still buried deeply in the boneship, dozens of miles deep; far deeper than they'd managed to penetrate so far.

If only they had some way to dig deeper into that ship.

He watched the thin remnant of the Ninth Fleet beating against the boneship. Fury and explosions blasted away at the struts, scattering them across the sector.

Grimthorn relaxed a little. With their weapon destroyed, the Feeders couldn't shoot back. Furthermore, even if they could, they'd wait until their scarab ships returned. The pattern was well established.

Admiral Stonefist frowned. The scarabs weren't coming back, though. That was unusual. The Feeders were trying a new tactic. Perhaps they intended to fully clean the surface of the planet, allowing the Ninth Fleet to attack them fruitlessly.

His teeth clenched. He glanced at Kinnit, who was busy at the weapons console. He hoped she was too busy to notice what the feeders were doing.

"Lieutenant Renning," he said. "Get our fighters out. I want a blockade between the planet and that ship. Let's knock down as many of those scarabs as we can."

"Yes, sir."

Grimthorn hoped they could knock a few out, but he'd seen how much the heavy ground defense blasters in Techterra had struggled to knock them down. The light blasters of the fighters were going to have a hard time. But if they could whittle down their numbers...

"Priority comms from Captain Cohrmere, Admiral!" Lieutenant Renning cried.

Admiral Stonefist tapped his console, bringing up the face of Captain Cohrmere.

"Captain?"

"Admiral, we're losing ships."

"How so? I've seen no reports of destroyed ships."

"They're not exploding, Admiral. The enemy has a new weapon, I think."

Grimthorn stiffened.

"What do you mean?"

"They're not destroying our ships. I think it's dropping them into jumpspace."

Grimthorn paled. Ejected into a random point in jumpspace, they'd have no way to ever get back to realspace. They'd be trapped there forever. Again.

And Grimthorn doubted the Cryptographers would create another Aberrant for him.

"Reset," he said hoarsely. "Pull them back out."

Captain Cohrmere looked away.

"We... can't, Admiral. They're not destroyed. They're not in danger. Everything is... as it should be."

"Do it anyway!"

Captain Cohrmere fixed Admiral Stonefist with his milky, otherworldly gaze.

"That's not how it works, Admiral. We can only undo... what must not be."

"At least roll back so we can see where the weapon is!"

"I'm sorry, Admiral, I cannot."

Admiral Stonefist swore. The Wraithfleet made up the bulk of the firepower of what remained of the Ninth Fleet.

"Then what can you do?" he barked.

Captain Cohrmere held up a hand.

"I can only undo what must not be."

Admiral Stonefist ground his teeth and disconnected comms with a vicious jab of his finger.

"Lieutenant Renning, I want every possible scan on the surface of that ship. All information to the infographers. The Feeders have a new weapon. Find it!"

"Yes, sir!" Renning busied himself at his terminal.

Grimthorn snarled. They had to hurt the boneship enough to draw the scarabs back from the planet.

He had to save the Kobolds.

Herin writhed in his egg and tapped at the controls with his many deft arms. He burbled with glee and activated the weapon again.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Zoop!" he said as another ship of the Wraithfleet was dropped into jumpspace. "Zoop! Maybe I should have spent some time playing video games when I was still Terran."

It was shockingly easy. Line up the focusing lenses on one of the attacking ships, push the button, and "Zoop!" it was gone. Then move the lenses and wait for the next attack.

The only annoying aspect of the weapon was the amount of time it took to charge. Herin had to wait a few minutes between each usage in order for the weapon to build up enough energy to punch another momentary hole in the space-time continuum.

The Ninth Fleet-- what was left of it-- was still hammering fruitlessly at the surface of the boneship.

"Your turn is coming," Herin cooed. "Be patient. I'll get to you all."

He wriggled with delight. He knew they'd probably have to deal with Imperial attacks for quite some time. The Navy had clearly set up some kind of detection mechanism. But with enough food, the Ash-Tongues could simply wait that process out. The Imperials would never be able to do enough damage to hit anything critical, and the ship's regrowth would quickly repair the bone struts.

Even a planet as thinly populated as Takkar would let them hide long enough to heal any amount of damage the Imperial Navy could manage to inflict. Even if they had another one of those moon cannons out there somewhere.

The Imperium was already dead. They just didn't realize it yet.

And soon the scarabs would be returning, loaded with the energy of Takkar. To the anguish of his nemesis, he hoped.

Herin only wished he could watch the faces of Admiral Stonefist and his Kobold wife as he slurped down the soul energy of her homeworld.

Herin's arms swept in sinuous waves. The more he transformed into a Feeder, the more hungrier he grew.

The scarabs ships descended into the clear blue skies over Takkar. Wind chased through the trillions of trees on the planet, and the merry lakes winked sunlight up at the invaders. The ships formed up into their hexagonal pattern, spanning hundreds of miles

They began crawling through the skies scanning for the sentience that the Feeders so desperately craved.

Another Wraithfleet ship blinked out of existence. Admiral Stonefist slammed his fist into his console.

"Find that weapon!" he shouted.

"They keep moving it!" Lieutenant Renning cried. "The infographers can't find a pattern!"

"Tell them to try harder!" Grimthorn barked. "We've lost ten ships already! That's ten more ships than we have to spare!"

"Comms from Captain Cohrmere, Admiral!"

Admiral Stonefist brought up the comms on his console.

"What?" he barked.

"Admiral, we can't sustain this," Captain Cohrmere said.

"I know!"

"I had a thought, sir. If the Wraithfleet could form a cuneus formation..."

Captain Cohrmere explained his plan. Admiral Stonefist's face grew darker by the word.

Herin lovingly stroked the controls that lined the inside of his egg. His eyes gleamed dully in the light of his display. No longer inside his lengthened face, his eyes protruded on stalks, taking in a true 360-degree view of his surroundings. He could watch every part of the display at once, and he liked everything he saw.

It wouldn't be long until the Navy had to flee. Or they could stay, and be destroyed utterly.

It was all so perfect.

Once the scarabs got back with the food, he was going to get everything he wanted.

One of his controls flared red. His eyes retracted slightly in alarm. He cautiously opened his mind to the rest of the Feeders.

"Where is the food?" The strident voice rattled his head. "Where is the food?"

"The scarabs are getting it," Herin replied smoothly. He didn't understand why they were getting so demanding. He was hungry, too, after all.

"The scarabs are not finding the food!" The intensity swelled as more Feeders spoke in unison. "There's no food!" More and more Feeders piled into the conversation. "NO FOOD."

"The scarabs are getting it!" Herin cried.

"THEY AREN'T FINDING THE FOOD."

Alarmed, Herin scrabbled up the data from the scarabs.

They were all showing empty. No targets on scan.

"HERIN THERE'S NO FOOD."

"They're there!" he cried. "There's a whole planet full of Kobolds down there! You're doing something wrong!"

"NO FOOD!"

"Maybe they went in their caves! Make them scan deeper!"

The comms dissolved in a scrambled mess of voices. Some voices cried out in despair, others cursed Herin, and others screamed that the scarabs' beams could penetrate a mile of solid rock and THERE WAS NO FOOD.

Herin began screaming back in a panic. The Feeders began to squeal in a frenzy of blame and accusations.

A sudden sound silenced him. He quailed. The other Feeder's voices continued railing, but on the outside, on the surface of his egg, Herin Kasra could hear a metallic tapping.

Flander peered out through the scanners of Unit 24601 as it traversed the boneship, mapping it out. Endless struts whipped past as Unit 24601 shot through, following energy fluctuations. It had already found three feeding stations. They'd been destroyed in a fury, just like the first one.

The flow of energy through the bone struts was smooth and even unless something was sipping from them. Tiny variations in the flow hinted at directions to follow, and since there were no mineral deposits to be found, Unit 24601 had to keep mapping, keep finding interesting constructs.

Flander rode along, rattling at the cages of his programming. He could only watch as Unit 24601 followed its original directives as best it could. Flander was simply an irrelevant side-process in the eyes of Unit 24601. He tried to get instructions into the decision matrix, but he was grossly outclassed by the processor power of Unit 24601.

All Flander needed was a moment, a fingernail's width of leverage to jam the loop back in place, to take back control. He had to find that moment, otherwise he'd end up abandoned in this bizarre ship forever, alone.

Flander wailed and probed and tried to escape, carried along by Unit 24601 on its senseless mission.

Unit 24601's sensors lit up. It had come across a promising drain of energy in one of the struts. It paused, analyzing the flow. This was a heavier drain than anything it had come across before. Unit 24601 slowed. It followed the unsteady flow, clambering around struts, moving faster and faster in its rush to map another point of interest.

Unit 24601 slowed again as it neared the source. Nestled in among three supporting struts was a large, golden egg.

Its purpose was unclear. A quick scan didn't reveal anything obvious. Unit 24601 reached out and tapped the surface. A thick, thudding sound vibrated back through the thin air. It sounded as though it were filled with thick fluid.

Unit 24601, and Flander along with, puzzled at the device. Unit 24601 crawled around the outside of it. It wasn't hot enough to be a computer, it wasn't producing energy or sending data anywhere. It certainly wasn't processing any minerals, but it was sucking up far too much energy to simply be storage.

Unit 24601 tapped again, with no different result. It decided to deep-scan the egg.

Almost immediately, the result came back.

Terran DNA.

Finally, someone to protect.