⫸ [ TIME: +25 DAYS SINCE THE SKY WAR ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: BASE CAMP ALPHA – ARTILLERY DECK ]
⫸ [ STATUS: INTERCEPT ]
The Earth-Shaker was ugly.
It did not look like a weapon of the future. It looked like a factory smokestack turned sideways.
The barrel was thirty meters long, forged from reinforced Void-Steel and wrapped in cooling coils thick as tree trunks. It sat on a massive rotating platform that had required forty Giants to assemble.
Elian stood on top of the breech mechanism.
His new eyes—glowing white orbs—scanned the horizon.
He didn't see the jungle. He saw electromagnetic waves. He saw the curvature of the planet.
"Status," Elian commanded. His voice vibrated the air.
"LOADED," Grom roared from the loading gantry.
The Giants had just finished ramming the shell into the chamber.
It was a 500kg Depleted Uranium Slug.
It had no explosives inside. It was just a solid dart of the densest metal on the planet, scavenged from the armor of the Archimedes peacekeepers.
"The target is in the South," Disciple Lin said, looking at the radar screen with anxiety. "Two thousand kilometers away. Master Shen says they are burning the capital."
"Too far for a precision shot," Elian said. "The atmospheric drag would deviate the shell by kilometers."
"So we go to them?" Alara asked.
"No," Elian turned to face the southern sky. "We invite them here."
He touched the reactor port on his chest.
"A.R.C., access the Federation communication protocols."
[ Protocols Loaded. ]
[ Warning. Broadcasting on this frequency carries a mandatory death sentence. ]
"Broadcast," Elian ordered. "Signal Code: OMEGA-ZERO. Unsanctioned Artificial Intelligence. Level 5 Contraband."
[ Broadcasting... ]
An invisible pulse shot out from Elian's chest.
It wasn't a radio wave. It was a subspace ping. A digital scream that said: I am here. I am illegal. I am a threat.
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ LOCATION: ORBIT – F.S.S. "PROFIT MARGIN" ]
⫸ [ CLASS: PATROL FRIGATE ]
Captain Verro sat in his command chair, sipping synthetic coffee.
On the screen below, the Southern Capital was burning. It was a boring Tuesday.
"Harvest yield is up 5%," his scanner officer reported. "The fear induced by the orbital strike is ripening the Aether nicely."
"Good," Verro yawned. "Burn the temple district next. The priests usually have high-quality soul density."
Suddenly, the bridge turned red.
A siren screamed. Not a battle alarm. A Law Enforcement alarm.
[ ALERT: OMEGA-LEVEL SIGNAL DETECTED ]
[ SOURCE: EQUATORIAL SECTOR – VOLCANIC ZONE ]
[ TYPE: ROGUE AI / FUSION TECH ]
Verro dropped his coffee.
"Rogue AI? On a backwater cultivation farm?"
"The signal is strong, sir. It's mocking us."
Verro's eyes narrowed.
Harvesting souls was profitable. But hunting Rogue Tech? That carried a promotion bounty.
"Forget the city," Verro ordered. "Helm, set course for the signal. Maximum burn."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: 14:00 AETHELGARD STANDARD TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: BASE CAMP ALPHA ]
⫸ [ STATUS: CONTACT ]
It took them ten minutes.
The sky tore open.
Clouds evaporated as the F.S.S. Profit Margin descended.
It was a sleek, grey shark of a ship, three hundred meters long. Blue ion engines burned with silent power.
It stopped directly over the base, hovering at two thousand meters.
The Giants gripped their Rail-Pikes.
The Deep-Kin hid in the bunkers.
They had fought beasts. They had fought wizards.
They had never fought a Starship.
Elian stood alone on the launch pad.
He activated his Bio-Magnetic Flight.
He floated up.
He didn't stop at the treetops. He kept going.
100 meters.
500 meters.
1000 meters.
He stopped in the air, level with the Frigate's bridge.
He was a speck of grey metal against the massive hull.
A holographic projection appeared in the air between them. A giant face. Captain Verro.
"Identify," Verro demanded. "You are not a native. You are... Cyborg? Federation Tech?"
"I am the Landlord," Elian said. His voice was projected over the ship's own comms frequency by A.R.C. "And you are trespassing."
Verro laughed. "A modified mining android with delusions of grandeur. Do you know who owns this planet, little machine? The Stellar Federation."
"Not anymore," Elian said. "I'm terminating the lease."
Verro sneered. "Target the anomaly. Vaporize it."
◤ THREAT DETECTED ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Weapon: Point-Defense Laser
⬢ Output: 50 Megawatts
⬢ Time to Impact: Instant
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
A turret on the Frigate's hull swiveled.
A beam of green light lashed out.
Elian didn't dodge.
"Shields," he whispered.
He flared his reactor.
The Void-Field expanded around him.
The laser hit the bubble.
HISS.
The air around Elian turned into plasma. The heat was immense. The Void-Field acted as a refractor, bending the light around him.
[ REACTOR TEMP: 120% ]
[ SKIN INTEGRITY: 95% ]
Elian felt the heat. It felt good. It felt like fuel.
He absorbed the residual radiation.
"Is that all?" Elian asked.
Verro's holographic face looked confused. "Impossible. Void-Shielding? On a planetary unit?"
"Targeting solution locked," Elian said to himself.
He wasn't floating there to talk.
He was acting as the Spotter.
A.R.C. was triangulating the exact position of the Frigate relative to the cannon below.
[ Solution Calculated. ]
[ Windage: Adjusted. ]
[ Coriolis Effect: Adjusted. ]
[ The Frigate has rotated its ventral shield to focus on you. ]
[ The keel is exposed. ]
"Grom," Elian transmitted. "Fire."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ LOCATION: THE GROUND ]
Grom stood at the firing lever of the Earth-Shaker.
The massive cannon was aimed almost vertically.
"FOR THE IRON-STAR!"
He pulled the lever.
KA-DOOM.
The sound was not a bang. It was a geological event.
The ground cracked. The shockwave flattened every tree within five hundred meters.
The Earth-Shaker recoiled, sliding back ten meters on its rails despite the dampeners.
From the muzzle, a streak of fire shot upward.
The Depleted Uranium Slug accelerated to Mach 25 in a fraction of a second.
It tore through the atmosphere, leaving a vacuum tunnel of superheated air in its wake.
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ LOCATION: THE SKY ]
Captain Verro saw the flash on the ground.
"Launch detected! Evasive!"
It was too late.
Physics is faster than reflexes.
The slug covered the two kilometers in 0.2 seconds.
It hit the underside of the Profit Margin.
The Void-Shield flickered. It tried to disperse the energy.
But the slug was heavy. It carried too much kinetic mass.
It punched through the shield like a needle through silk.
CRUNCH.
The slug hit the hull.
It didn't explode. It penetrated.
It traveled through the cargo bay. Through the crew quarters. Through the reactor shielding.
It exited the top of the ship, spinning into space.
The ship groaned.
The internal atmosphere vented explosively.
The main reactor, destabilized by the kinetic shock, went critical.
BOOM.
The rear half of the Frigate blew apart.
The front half, dead in the water, began to tilt.
Elian watched it fall.
He floated amidst the debris field. Burning metal rained past him.
He caught a piece of the hull as it fell. It was stamped with the Federation logo.
[ Target Destroyed. ]
[ Scrap Value: High. ]
Elian descended.
He landed on the cannon mount, where the barrel was glowing cherry-red from the friction of the shot.
Grom and the Giants were cheering. They beat their chests.
Elian looked at the smoking wreck crashing into the jungle five miles away.
"Search and Rescue," Elian ordered.
"Rescue?" Alara asked, running up to the platform.
"We need the Flight Data Recorder," Elian said. "I need to know when the rest of the fleet is coming."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: +3 HOURS ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: CRASH SITE ]
⫸ [ STATUS: SALVAGE ]
The wreckage was burning.
The Deep-Kin were already stripping the hull plates.
Elian walked through the twisted metal of the bridge.
He found Captain Verro. Or half of him.
The Captain was pinned under a console, gasping for air. His cybernetics were sparking.
Verro looked up at Elian. His eyes were full of terror.
"You... you shot a Federation ship. The Wardens... they will glass this planet."
Elian knelt.
He plugged his data-spike into Verro's neural port.
"Let them come," Elian said.
He downloaded the Captain's authorization codes. The starcharts. The patrol schedules.
[ Data Acquired. ]
[ The "Harvest Fleet" consists of one Carrier and ten Cruisers. ]
[ Estimated Arrival: 4 Months. ]
Elian stood up.
"Four months," he said.
He looked at the wreckage.
"A.R.C., analyze the ship's engines. Can we reverse engineer the Ion-Drive?"
[ The drive core is intact. ]
[ With the Fabricator, we can scale it down. ]
"Good," Elian said.
He turned to the jungle. The suns were setting, casting long shadows over the broken starship.
"We aren't just building a cannon anymore," Elian decided.
"We are building a fleet."
[END OF CHAPTER 36]