⫸ [ TIME: +58 DAYS SINCE THE SKY WAR ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: GEO-STATIONARY ORBIT – THE JUNKYARD ]
⫸ [ STATUS: FLEET CONSOLIDATION ]
The victory was silent.
Five ships hung in the void above Aethelgard.
The Nemesis (the flagship).
The Liberator (under repair).
And the three new prizes: Vigilant, Bravery, and Dauntless.
They looked impressive from a distance—a formation of grey steel daggers dominating the high ground.
But inside, they were dead.
Elian floated through the bridge of the Vigilant.
It was dark. The air scrubbers were running on minimum power to save fuel. Bodies of Federation crewmen had been dragged into the cargo hold, wrapped in plastic sheets.
"It is a ghost town," Alara said. Her voice echoed in the empty command deck. She checked a monitor that was flickering with static. "Dad, we have five warships. We have enough pilots for... half of one."
Elian drifted to the captain's chair. He plugged his neural spike into the console.
"We don't need pilots," Elian synthesized. "We need processing power."
"A.R.C., report on the Slave-Link."
[ Analysis Complete. ]
[ I can override the navigational computers of all four Destroyers. ]
[ However, signal latency is a factor. If I try to fly them in complex combat maneuvers, they will drift. ]
[ Conclusion: We cannot use them as dogfighters. ]
"Then we use them as turrets," Elian decided. "Slave their maneuvering thrusters to the Nemesis. Where I move, they move. A single formation. A phalanx."
He looked at the viewscreen.
The three captured ships were drifting slightly out of alignment.
"Grom," Elian radioed.
"COMMANDER."
"Gut them," Elian ordered.
"GUT THEM?"
"Strip the life support," Elian listed. "Strip the crew quarters. Strip the galleys, the gravity plating, the atmosphere generators. We don't need air on those ships. We need to reduce mass to increase delta-V."
Alara looked horrified. "You're turning them into drones?"
"I'm turning them into Zombies," Elian corrected. "Cold, airless, and heavily armed."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: 14:00 SHIP TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: THE BRIG – F.S.S. LIBERATOR ]
⫸ [ STATUS: RECRUITMENT ]
The brig was crowded.
Thirty men and women in orange engineering jumpsuits sat on the floor. They were the surviving technicians from the Vigilant engine room.
They looked tired, bruised, and terrified.
The door hissed open.
Elian stepped in.
He was in his Tier 3 Form. Grey metal skin, glowing reactor chest, eyes of white fire. He didn't look human. He looked like the terminator of their nightmares.
The prisoners huddled back.
One man stood up. He was older, balding, with grease stains on his face.
"I am Chief Engineer Sol," he stammered, trying to maintain dignity. "According to the Geneva-Stellar Convention, officers are entitled to—"
"You aren't officers," Elian interrupted. His voice was a flat, metallic drone. "You are pirates."
"Pirates?" Sol bristled. "We are the Federation Navy! We bring order!"
"You harvest sentient beings for batteries," Elian said. "That is not order. That is predation."
Elian walked to the force field separating them.
"I have a problem, Chief Sol. I have four Ion-Drives that need recalibration. And my current staff consists of Giants who think a wrench is a hammer."
Sol crossed his arms. "You expect us to help you fight our own fleet? I'd rather rot."
"Physics lesson number fifteen," Elian said. "Calories."
He tapped the force field.
"The Liberator is currently venting atmosphere to save power. The food synthesizers are offline. I have enough protein paste to feed my crew. I do not have enough for guests."
The engineers exchanged nervous glances.
"However," Elian continued. "I have a surplus of work. If you work, you earn credits. If you earn credits, you buy food. Pure capitalism. The Federation loves capitalism, doesn't it?"
Sol stared at him. "You're enslaving us."
"I'm employing you," Elian corrected. "With very high stakes."
He unlocked the field.
"The Bravery has a cracked coolant seal on Deck 3. Fix it by 1800 hours, or nobody eats dinner."
Elian turned and walked away.
Behind him, he heard Sol shouting orders.
"Alright, grab the kits! Move! I'm not starving for this tin can!"
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: 16:30 SHIP TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: THE NEMESIS – WAR ROOM ]
⫸ [ STATUS: THREAT ASSESSMENT ]
The hologram of the Federation Carrier—the World-Eater—floated in the center of the table.
It was a monstrosity.
Two kilometers long. Shaped like a massive tuning fork.
The center was hollow, housing a Planetary Harvester Beam.
It carried 100 Strike Fighters.
It had shielding rated for Terrawatts of energy.
"We ran the simulation a thousand times," Disciple Lin said, her voice hopeless.
[ Simulation Result: Defeat. ]
[ Scenario 1 (Direct Assault): Fleet destruction in 4 minutes. ]
[ Scenario 2 (Guerrilla Tactics): Fleet destruction in 12 minutes. ]
[ The Carrier's shields regenerate faster than our Railguns can damage them. ]
Grom smashed his fist onto the table.
"WE HAVE FIVE SHIPS! WE HAVE TITANS! WE ARE IRON!"
"Iron melts," Elian said softly, staring at the hologram.
"The problem is the shield," Alara analyzed. "It's a multi-phasic Void Barrier. It disperses kinetic energy across the entire hull. Unless we hit it with something that overwhelms the entire grid at once, it just bounces off."
"We need a bigger gun," Grom suggested.
"We don't have time to build a bigger gun," Lin said. "They are here in 80 days."
Elian looked at the five ships in his formation.
He looked at the wiring diagram of the Bravery.
He looked at his own chest reactor.
"We don't need to build a gun," Elian said slowly. "We are the gun."
He zoomed in on the formation.
"A.R.C., what if we link the reactors?"
[ Clarify. ]
"The four Destroyers. We arrange them in a square formation. We wire their main power conduits together. We channel the output of all four fusion cores into a single focal point."
[ You want to create a Siege Array. ]
[ Connecting four ships physically would require massive structural bracing. ]
[ And you would need a lens to focus that much energy. ]
"We have a lens," Elian said. "The Earth-Shaker barrel. We mount it on the Nemesis. The Nemesis sits in the center of the square."
"We turn the fleet into a single, massive flying Railgun," Elian concluded. "Five reactors driving one shell."
"The recoil..." Alara gasped. "Dad, the recoil will tear the ships apart."
"Not if we weld them together with Void-Steel girders," Elian said. "We turn the fleet into a station. A mobile fortress."
"It's madness," Lin said. "But... the math works. The energy output would be capable of cracking a moon."
"Start the retrofit," Elian ordered. "We are building the Giga-Structure."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: 20:00 SHIP TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: CARGO BAY – F.S.S. BRAVERY ]
⫸ [ STATUS: DISCOVERY ]
Elian was overseeing the stripping of the Bravery.
Giants were ripping out the bunks.
Deep-Kin were cutting the air ducts.
"Commander!" A Deep-Kin scout waved from the lower cargo hold. "You need to see this."
Elian floated down.
The lower hold was sealed with bio-hazard tape.
Elian cut the seal with his plasma hand.
The doors slid open.
It wasn't ammo. It wasn't fuel.
It was tanks.
Glass stasis tanks, hundreds of them, lined up in rows.
Inside the tanks were... things.
Distorted, flesh-crafted monstrosities.
Humans fused with machinery.
Beasts fused with electronics.
They were floating in green nutrient fluid. Dormant.
◤ SCAN COMPLETE ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Subject: Bio-Thrall (Type: Chimera)
⬢ Origin: Aethelgard (Southern Kingdom)
⬢ Status: Failed Experiments
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"They aren't just harvesting souls," Elian whispered. "They are harvesting genetic material. They are trying to create soldiers."
He walked down the row.
He stopped at a tank labeled [ SUBJECT 449 - AETHER COMPATIBLE ].
Inside was a young woman. She had wires drilled into her skull. Her skin was grey—not like Elian's metal, but like necrosis.
"They are trying to replicate what I am," Elian realized. "They are trying to mix Tech and Cultivation. But they are doing it with blunt force."
Alara walked in behind him. She gasped, covering her mouth.
"These are people..."
"They were people," Elian said cold fury rising in his reactor. "Now they are parts."
He put his hand on the glass.
"A.R.C., download the research data. I want to know exactly what they learned."
[ Downloading... ]
[ Data confirms: The Federation is afraid. ]
[ They have failed to create a stable "Techno-Cultivator" hybrid. The subjects always go insane or explode. ]
[ You are the only success. ]
Elian turned away from the tanks.
"Burn it," Elian ordered.
"Dad?"
"Eject the tanks into the sun," Elian said. "We don't keep trophies."
He walked out of the bay.
The plan had changed.
He wasn't just going to destroy the Carrier to save the planet.
He was going to destroy it because it was a factory of horrors.
"Grom," Elian radioed. "Double the shifts. I want the Hex-Link operational in 60 days."
"IT WILL BE DONE."
Elian floated back to the Nemesis.
The fleet was dead.
But he was about to give it a heartbeat of pure rage.
[END OF CHAPTER 41]