While the USSR's information space seethed with rage, and experts analyzed the pirate leader's memory second by second, the Coordination Council decided what retribution would be. That it would be and would be large-scale, was not even discussed.
"Dmitry Sergeevich, on behalf of the Council, I welcome you to the post of chief coordinator," said Yakov Darvinov, solemnly and pompously, as all Primates do. "In the current circumstances, you are the hope of our communist course in the fight against capitalists."
Overwhelmed with emotion, he struck his chest with his fist.
Sechenov was embarrassed by such expressiveness, replying: "It is an honor for me, but I am not the best candidate. You, Comrade Darvinov, with your experience…"
"My experience is nothing compared to your skill. It is only thanks to you that we still exist," interrupted the gorilla-coordinator. "The Council accepted your resignation twenty years ago, but now the Fatherland needs you again!"
"Alright," the "Wizard" agreed briefly, glancing at the avatars of those gathered. "Then let's not delay. We act according to the ninth variant."
Silence hung in the virtual space. Even Motherland's avatar trembled.
"I didn't expect that from a 'peacemaker.' The eighth variant is more humane," noted the chairman.
"Now is not the time for pity," Sechenov retorted coldly. "Who to pity? We could choose the sixth variant, but the galaxy would only raise its club in response. There is no point in total slaughter – we would only entertain the puppeteers. Now we have a choice of what to pay for victory. Let it be rapists, slave owners, and murderers – along with their patrons. We have no friends there, nor will we ever have them, no matter how much they smile in our faces! But at the same time, we can use their nature to gain allies, separating the wheat from the chaff. The Hegemony will become not only a lesson that anyone who dares to take a Soviet citizen captive will know our wrath, but also a prologue to the fall of the capitalist system of the entire galaxy!"
The Council of Coordinators erupted in applause.
"Voting has begun," Motherland stated. "Voting has ended. The decision is positive."
"We have a lot of work to do, comrades!" exclaimed the Wizard. "We must prepare our first move, playing it by the notes of our score, not being violins in the background for aliens. After the start, we have only a week to implement it. The galaxy will simply not respond to our actions earlier, and we must try to ensure that for the Hegemony, their response no longer matters…"
A small, only ten-centimeter-long device, covered in special coatings and cloaked by holographic fields, flew up to the relay. It remained invisible to the operators who, contrary to the common opinion of the Hegemony as a collection of careless and incompetent beings, were diligently monitoring the space around the strategically important object. And the observers worked not out of fear, but out of conscience, reinforced by hefty credits.
The machine attached itself to the surface of the ancient device, blending with its hull. Now it could only be detected by touch.
Obeying the will of the collective consciousness, so that the touch would not be registered by the enemy's sensitive equipment, the mechanical saboteur connected to the information network of the "civilized" galaxy, into which invisible, curious tendrils of artificial beings immediately rushed.
They were not interested in military secrets or corporate mysteries. Not a single protected database was touched. It simply wasn't necessary. Possessing colossal computing power, the elusive researchers began to study everything, uploading analytical departments.
Sentient beings were sentient. They loved to eat, wanted to sleep, got sick, desired entertainment, and died. Among the general background, the Batarians stood out with their boasting and desire to assert themselves. Therefore, their social networks were no less abundant in posts than those of the Asari. And among the trash, pornography, and perversions, there were grains of invaluable information. And in the heap of pornography of various kinds, there were sometimes treasures of data.
A fleeting glimpse of a screen in one of the photos, documents on a table, or even who was sitting at the table during a group photo could tell much more than the most thorough interrogation. A treasure for any intelligence agency, simply lying unguarded. Compromising material, secret data, locations of squadrons and ships – all of this needed only to be taken!
But the mission of the mechanical saboteurs, who were merely processing data streams, did not end there. At the right moment, he and dozens of his brethren would strike a blow that would be more terrifying than hundreds of megatons…
The policeman sighed mournfully, recording the testimony of a prostitute. He was not interested in questioning the witness, but only in the upcoming hassle with the investigation. A single glance was enough to understand: the general, appointed by the clans for a fortune to command the garrison, had died on his own, without outside help.
The old Batarian had seen this dozens of times. Another "golden boy" in the heat of passion, usually with a whore, would swallow his own tongue. Most often, these idiots didn't even notice how they died, being completely high. This case only differed in location: not a shabby dive, but a respectable salon. And an ordinary Batarian wouldn't have been able to afford this whore. If he had found the money, he wouldn't have been of noble lineage.
They even tried to help the deceased. Medics were on duty here specifically so that if a rich gentleman felt unwell, they could immediately pick him up. But fate decided to take its victim in a big way.
"It's even a pity. The soldiers loved him. Arrogant, like all those... but he knew his limits. It's just one of those things. Look, among the old farts, another plague is spreading. Old age conquers even credits. You can't bribe it. It gets ridiculous. One choked to death on his own saliva in the police department! So much red tape with documents... it was a nightmare."
The policeman didn't know yet that after this call, he wouldn't have a moment's peace.
An invisible shadow had already spilled a special compound on the polished marble step of the villa. All that remained was to wait for the owner of the factories and starships to step on it, and with a natural crack, split his skull open. Then it would be necessary to overdose the heir to ensure that the remaining relatives could calmly figure out who was the fattest toad in this swamp...
The quartermaster tore at the stubble on his face. "They bought the position again for some oligarch's son from a noble family, with a lineage going back to the castes... That's it. Collapse! Shit!!! And not some Asari nut, but a fat, sagging Krogan one! What am I supposed to feed the soldier rabble?! Ore that was delivered by mistake?! They'll rip my belly open and bury me faster!!!" – the quartermaster, cursing aloud in four languages at once, pondered, hearing the discontented voices of the privates.
They had already been locked in the barracks for a week so that the personnel of the unit wouldn't simply raid the nearest villas and farms. The soldiers wanted to eat! The ration, cut to the bone, could only fill an empty stomach for a short time. And no one could do anything about it!
Here the ore ship was late, there the barge loaded with food didn't arrive, here a passenger liner occupied the relay for a long time – that was it! All logistics had stopped. Individually, it might not have seemed serious, but together – it was like the anal plug of the Migrant Fleet! The relay network was overloaded to the brim.
And this could have been fixed, but business had its say, simply demanding bribes to prioritize its cargo. From that moment on, complete confusion began. Who, where, what... It didn't matter. Credits were paid – so it was done!
The information had even reached the Hegemon's palace, but not the ruler himself. He was too busy in the bedroom. According to rumors, one morning he woke up not with a "little misunderstanding" in his groin, but with a "thrasher eager for battle" that stood up like a pole, turning the blanket into a tent.
The council of the most respected also had no time for the problems of ordinary quartermasters. They were trying to redistribute zones of influence, while simultaneously preventing others from snatching their own, native territories. The death of the head of one of the respected clans had significantly shifted the focus, which caused movements with the help of credit lubrication in the field. This had happened before and on a much larger scale, but in itself, it was simply unpleasant for those on the ground.
But the main problem was that hungry soldiers were beneficial to everyone now. Want to buy loyalty for free? Make things worse, and then return them to how they were! The complaints of the logisticians were simply ignored, waiting for the opportunity to reap dividends from the hungry army units.
To be fair, not all units were starving. Those who were lucky with their commander and officers had reserves, but even they were not limitless.
Chaos reigned in the Hegemony. Not that it was unexpected, but all the analysts of civilized space agreed that it would "explode" only in a couple of years. The current ruler was too weak as a personality, unlike his grandfather, so it was only a matter of time before another group decided to oust the leaders.
The stock quotes of Citadel space reacted to this with only a small decline, which marked a new rise, compensating for the fall of some industries and companies. Corporations were eager to skim the cream, because in a couple of months the Batarians would calm down, and the dividends would be gone. Therefore, it was necessary to invest here and now.
Meanwhile, the month allocated for preparatory work for the USSR's response had come to an end. Six fleets took up starting positions. "Argentum" was preparing to detonate all planted bombs – both physical and informational – releasing compromising material into the public domain. The Coordination Council held its hand on the switch that was supposed to plunge the enemy into the abyss of despair.
"We're starting," commanded Comrade Sechenov, giving a mental order, setting the plan in motion.
One of the components of victory over the enemy is the collapse of its logistics. Without communication between the army and the rear, the front can crumble under the slightest pressure.
The obvious solution was to sabotage the relay network belonging to the Hegemony, but the military minds of the Union acted creatively, making the situation many times worse. Instead of simply disabling the ancient devices, which could have been easily done, the USSR's sabotage robots simply turned flights through the once reliable network into a variant of "Russian roulette," but instead of one bullet, there was only one empty chamber in the cylinder.
Everything was carried out with banal simplicity. To make a jump, a ship transmitted its mass to the relay, so that the latter could calculate the correct parameters for creating a corridor. The sabotage equipment intercepted this signal and sent an arbitrary value to the relay nine times out of ten.
Some were lucky and simply emerged in empty space instead of their destination, while others ended their journey in the corona of a star or inside a planet. The "Sector Prize" on the drum was left to create hope for a favorable outcome, which only threatened to increase the destruction.
Along with blocking the route system, the Union shut down all communication, cutting off the Hegemony's systems from each other.
Only after this did the USSR fleets launch a coordinated strike on the enemy's ship bases, attacking most of the most combat-ready formations simultaneously, to deprive the enemy army of any coherent response...
Ersbat is the industrial heart of the Hegemony in the Valur system, the main production power of the Kite's Nest nebula.
Here they forged ships for war and trade: raiders, corvettes, frigates – the dream of privateers and gentlemen of fortune.
The system lured traders: Ersbat's factories, Azamir's helium, Vana's uranium and magnesium. You could sell food and leave with ore or technology.
It was here that the fleets of retribution delivered their first blow. The moment was chosen perfectly: the relay was clogged with a merchant caravan carrying uranium to the Republic of Azari. The escort ships were docked, patrolling for show.
No one expected an attack. The departure of another merchant ship coincided with a warning about the incorrect operation of the relay network, after which silence fell in the intersystem ether. And then the connection broke.
As if at the signal of an invisible conductor, the shipyards flared up. Explosions, like the blows of a giant hammer, paralyzed the docks. Alarm sirens wailed – too late. The defense ships rushed to the launch positions, but most never left the berths...
The Batarians didn't have time to do anything else. Emerging from warp bubbles, the USSR fleet immediately attacked the lone ships.
The deathly white hulls of the artillery platforms opened like a cross, shedding armored panels like petals of a hellish flower. The next moment, the space in front of them exploded with the flashes of launch engines – dozens of torpedoes, bursting from the launch shafts, enveloped the ships in a poisonous fog of carbon dioxide exhaust. The heaviest projectiles, activating their warp engines, disappeared into the distortion of space – only to materialize a moment later directly in front of the enemy hulls.
Kinetic shields surrendered first, unable to withstand the barrage. The "Wolf Pack" dug into the armor – thermonuclear charges tore the raiders' hulls apart, turning them into burning paper lanterns. Corvettes writhed under the hail of blows, losing gun turrets, bridges, engine compartments. But the "Seeders" did not stop.
Like demonic organs of war, their planetary-class guns turned – now their muzzles looked at the orbital stations. Powerful volleys struck the satellites, crushing docks and hangars, while the torpedo tubes reloaded for a new strike.
Cruisers entered the system. They slipped above and below the artillery platforms like shadows, launching squadrons of assault ships. Accelerating with afterburners, they rushed towards the shipyards, whose air defense systems had already been suppressed by the first strike. The fighters eagerly finished off the surviving ships, burning out engines, blinding sensors, clearing the path for the next wave – boarding cutters. In their holds, skaven languished. They yearned for battle, for their element – tight corridors, to drench every inch of steel passages with the blood of the homeland's enemies.
When the USSR's battleships and full-fledged aircraft carriers entered the system, any coherent resistance ceased to exist. The shortened guns of the "Motherland's Hammer," mounted on the Union's battleships, or the mass raid of aviation were not something that damaged ships could withstand. Accompanied by support corvettes, they became a force that was ultimate in itself.
The nimble raiders and frigates of the USSR, like a school of piranhas, rushed to finish off the survivors. They cut engines with lasers, shot off guns. Those who tried to flee to the gas giant, hoping to hide in its radio interference and escape through a gravitational maneuver, were torn to shreds.
As soon as the space forces' resistance was suppressed and the shipyards were captured, transport ships under the escort of destroyers jumped into the system. Giant ships entered Ersbat's atmosphere, unleashing a hail of landing pods and streams of assault shuttles. Some of them went to Vana to storm the mines. The landing force had one goal – to capture and extract the slaves that the Hegemony held here in great numbers, using them instead of expensive and capricious machines...
Things did not go smoothly everywhere for the retribution fleets. In the Kairavamori system, the Union's armed forces encountered fierce resistance. The blackness of space filled with volleys, explosions, and it seemed that the crunch of steel bulkheads and the screams of dying crews, not fading for light-minutes, echoed in the vacuum.
The pirates and the Hegemony's government fleet, who had been engaged in a sluggish battle in orbit around Uvan Oke, forgot about the convoy of barges, whose holds were bursting with containers of omni-gel, and in a unified surge, threw themselves at the unknown fleet. In an instant, for the Batarians, plunder and credits ceased to matter – for their land was in danger.
The first strike of the Eighth Fleet was terrible. A hail of torpedoes pierced the outdated pirate vessels like a comet stream through a nebula. Laser and artillery guns tore entire sections from the hulls. Wedge-shaped cruisers fell apart.
A wave of fear swept through the Hegemony's pennants. The enemy was like ghosts – as if all the cursed and lost ships of the galaxy had gathered in one place, craving the blood and flesh of the living. The black sails and coating of the USSR ships made them practically invisible against the backdrop of space, while holographic fields blurred their already indistinct outlines, turning them into intangible phantoms.
But hot blood boiled. Pride turned fear into rage. The shock of the first blow passed with the influx of hormones and excitement. Without agreeing, the two Batarian fleets diverged to strike the flanks of the advancing Union formations.
The battle turned into a melee. Formations became mixed. A dogfight ensued. Artillery duels gave way to the glare of point-blank volleys and the heat of boarding actions.
The situation did not change even with the entry of battleships and aircraft carriers into the system. The assault ships had to act cautiously to avoid stray fire. But the shaky balance of chaos was broken.
The Batarians were losing ships, paying a terrible price, but the vessels bearing the bright red star also sustained damage. In the neat formation, explosions flared up here and there. Hits penetrated the shields. Projectiles gnawed into the armor, leaving craters and increasingly reaching the bleeding interior, depressurizing compartments and destroying weapons. Ships and sentient beings died, causing black waves of pain in the "Collective."
The scales froze in a shaky balance. The Union ships pressed with all their might, but the Hegemony's vessels stood under the blows and fiercely fought back. A little more – and the attacking impulse of the Eighth Fleet would have been exhausted. The enemy was furious, and there were many times more of them...
"Close ranks!" – a mental order from the admiral resounded, which sobered and suppressed bewilderment and confusion, returning the crews to their work. "This is not a drill, and certainly not a parade! No twos will be given here!" – the commander's words were a stinging slap. Dripping with contempt, they forced the crews to return to reality, casting aside the bravado of battle.
Burning with determination and righteous anger, the USSR ships acted as a single organism. Retreating, covered by the defensive fire of artillery platforms and battleships, the Soviet pilots closed ranks. A monolithic wall moved towards the enemy.
The bravado and sweetness of the first enemy blood faded into the background. For the sailors and officers of the Union, this was their first battle. Despite their training and unity, adrenaline had its effect. Therefore, the first damaged ships were intoxicating, but now came sobriety.
The "Collective" was filled with green glints of will, which bound the rage, turning it from a bright hot flame into a burning, cold blue liquid of calculation, which now washed over the minds of all the military. The Motherland itself came to the aid of its defenders. The world, already frozen for the cosmonauts like frost-covered water, became even more like viscous amber.
And so, already superior in training and skill, despite experience and a thousand-year school, the crews leaped beyond themselves in an instant, finding an almost invisible path.
There was no more boasting. The fleet became THE Fleet. The next coordinated salvo from all guns made space itself tremble under the might of the USSR war machine. The vanguard of the Batarian ships simply ceased to exist, disappearing in explosions.
Ships broke in half, lost pieces of their structure, leaked air like wounded whales bleeding, no longer able to oppose anything to the tactics of the war mechanism, which operated outside the rules.
Now, raiders and frigates under the Red Banner entered the enemy flanks, under the cover of assault ships, paving the way for destroyers. A bulldog grip closed around the neck of the Hegemony's troops.
The pirates faltered first, unable to withstand the coordinated beating from all sides. Nimble ships began to fall out of formation, trying to escape the battle.
Salvo! Hundreds of man-made stars lit up space. Union cruisers moved slowly, launching deadly warp torpedoes.
Platforms and battleships, no longer constrained by friendly targets, opened fire from all guns again. Entangled in carbon dioxide fog, hundreds of torpedoes broke from the guides, leaving trails of poisonous-green plasma behind them, furiously burning their engines, rushing towards their targets. Heavy artillery guns and laser emitters spewed forth fiery retribution.
The unified resistance of the Hegemony finally crumbled. Each ship became its own. Many still furiously charged at the monolithic wall of the USSR formation, but more and more fled, creating even greater chaos. Many, unable to control their ships, collided, causing two vessels to disappear in a flash of reactor detonation.
The "Seeders" retreated behind the battleships, having exhausted their ammunition. Cruisers emerged forward again, under the cover of nimble corvettes, which reinforced their air defense. Plasma and short-range laser cannons spoke again. Heavy cruisers, enveloped in blue parasitic radiation, activated gravestructors, whose power distorted space itself with gravity, literally turning enemy ships inside out.
An invisible tsunami tore through the super-strong alloys, crushing the hulls to a crunch, spreading in a cone for a hundred kilometers ahead. The ram of the Eighth Fleet's spear struck the capitalist chain beast right in the heart. Although the gravitational weapon worked for only a few tens of seconds, it was painfully voracious, but it was all over.
This was no longer a battle, but a methodical execution of a sentence. The USSR ships worked like parts of a giant mechanism, ruthless and precise.