Heavens of Glory

2.6

          As a servant of the 5H fleet, the Tremerti didn’t see much action, and what little it did see was almost entirely against small pirate gangs. And with such a new ship, there were no upgrades to be installed, no old damages to be repaired. Orion spent most of his duty shifts just running checks and drills. He spent a lot of his off-duty time running the latter as well, for that matter.
         The Tremerti was an easily maneuverable warship. The eighteen turrets functioned easily together to take out the fighters, and the primary cannon could take out most lower-class ships without too much problem. Laser turret three was a small three-man affair. It sported six guns fired in tandem that could hold any weapon up to the Orion-class heavy lasers. Orion’s two subordinates never failed to point out the irony of this.
         “Stie, reload guns three and four. Rich, lock on target 2.” Orion watched his screen as the drones with small letters printed over them zipped around. Target 1, the more easily hit drone, exploded as a shell from the nearby turret 6 struck. The second target, almost out of range, became peppered by a rain of lasers from the four loaded guns. The ammo count on the other two shot up, and Orion reactivated them. The six poles, guided by the steady hands of Rich, slid into line with the drone…

         The stars glowed in the pale darkness. A small Union corvette unlatched from the metal structure, vibrating the ship with metallic jars.
         “We’re away, My Prince.”
         A lone head nodded, having barely heard the comment. Twin eyes focused intently on the three-dimensional radar screen and the twenty ships now hovering in it. A small hand twitched, and the view changed. The hand flicked into the display, running parallel to the friendly-marked Great Wall. A finger pointed to an empty spot.
         “Here’s our target.”
         The attendant at the helm looked briefly at his leader’s hand in the display, then turned back to his controls.
         “As you wish, My Prince.”
         The conglomerate of ships disappeared from view

         Once they were in delta space, Orion stood up. The bridge had been re-moded; new chairs now rested behind each of the consoles, and most of the controls had been changed to the more normal Alliancic system. The room still appeared alien, though. The layout was abnormal. Orion had requested that the helm not be changed, though. He grown to like it, in short time he had flown the Tournia. Orion’s eyes met the one familiar face in the room.
         “Tell the crew to meet up in the conference hall.”
         “As you wish, My Prince.”
         “Cut it out with the ‘My Prince’ crap, Sel. We’re not tonorions.”
         Sel nodded, but Orion feared that the gag wasn’t even close to over.
         “Oye, can’t I ever get respect out of my crew,” he murmured to himself as he exited. He heard Sel say, chuckling, "you wouldn't know what do with it."
         The crew quarters had been torn apart and rebuilt with the standard omni-species setup. All except for his own. One of the cargo bays in the front of the ship had been rebuilt into his private room. The place reeked of single-minded command. Orion had given the place to his Second, Briol, and taken the commander’s quarters as his own. The other cargo bays had been emptied of their tonorion shipment, the contents shipped off to Toan for study and utilization. The first bay had been restocked with run-of-the-mill Alliance emergency supplies: extra ration packs, spare weapons and the rest. The other bay had been revamped as a shuttlebay. A solitary transport fighter, surrounded by an array of support equipment, waited to ferry its passengers through the stars.
         The conference room, as best as anyone could tell, had originally been a conference room. Computer screens surrounded the floor on three sides, and a massive window with a HUD covered the fourth. Orion stepped around the fresh chairs and began bringing up files on every wall as the room grew ripe with its fourteen other Bonscouts.
         Orion turned to the sitting mass when he finished populating the walls.
         “You all know me, no doubt, much as I know you. A file on a logger, a birth date, a date of enlistment, a series of applauses and infractions. You salute me as I pass, and I respond in kind. We are now no more than a group of strangers. This, I hope, will soon change, but that is not a change I can force upon you.
         “Our current mission I have delayed in telling you until we were gone for fear of being monitored. Should any news of this reach the Union… let’s just hope it doesn’t.”
         Orion swung his gloved left hand around and a picture flew from the far side of the room and took preeminence behind the Rear Admiral.
         “Freeman Dyson. A human from the fifth century YE. He developed the concept of the Dyson sphere, a hypothetical artificial mass that completely encloses a sun at a range of around two hundred inisecs.” Orion brough forth a diagram of the giant structure. “The inside of this sphere would be lined with photoelectric cells to capture nearly 100% of the sun’s energy. The sphere could be set spinning around two poles, creating pseudo-gravity along the equator that would hold in water and air. Two holes at either of the poles could be used to enter and exit, as well as a series of airlocks closer to the inhabitable area.” Orion dismissed the file with a wave.
         “It was deemed impossible to build such a thing, for it would require over ten times the mass in metal of a primary sequence star.
         “We found one.” Orion brought up another picture. It showed a still of a window looking out at space. “It was found purely by mistake. A scientist was analyzing the movement of the stars by taking pictures in identical spots to where pictures had been taken a century before. This first picture was taken ninety years ago.” Orion swung his left hand. “And this one was taken a week ago.” Orion overlaid the two images. Every star seemed shifted slightly to the right.
         Orion pointed with his right hand. “There. This star, unlike all the others, isn’t in the second photograph.” He waited for a response.
         “Isn’t it possible it went supernova and collapsed to a Black Hole?”
         “No. We examined the records over the past century. There was no such occurrence in the nearby area. Either the star disappeared altogether…” several snorts followed this “… or something is hiding it.”
         “But nothing can hide an entire star.”
         “Apparently something can.”
         “Isn’t it possible there was a RSB?”
         “We examined multiple pictures taken recently, and found the star in none of them. Unless you like to suggest that random space-bound bodies blocked it in a dozen separate instances, it’s safe to assume that the star as been actually and fully enclosed.
         “We have determined that the star is approximately three thousand parsecs from where this picture was taken. About two and a half thousand from where we started.”
         “So then this thing was completed just over ten thousand years ago?”
         “Correct. Ten thousand years ago, some culture, a Type II culture, successfully built a Dyson Sphere. Back when feilons weren’t even sentient, back when montes were still grazing herd animals, and when humans were still bashing together rocks, some culture mastered the energy contained within an entire star. Never before have we encountered a Type II culture, or anything close to it. The Alliance itself created enough energy each day to power a hundred stars, but never have we actually harnessed a star itself.”
         “Sir, what about the Ancients?”
         “I’ll remind you, lieutenant commander, that the scythers never actually encountered the Ancients. They found the Phoenixes, the Rendicti, as relics, derelict for half a millennium. They may have been a Type II, or even a Type III, culture, but they died out before our time.”
         “What about the Takers? Weren’t they a Type II culture?”
         “Now you are confusion history with myth. The Takers are a nice scytherian story to explain their flight, nothing more.” Orion began shuffling pictures around on the screens again. “Once we get to this sphere, we are to investigate it and search for any signs of sentient life. If we find any, we are to make contact after reporting back to the fleet. We will find our way inside the sphere and investigate it.
         “We will arrive at the Sphere in two days. Dismissed.”

         *           *           *

         The jury walked in, accompanied by the three judges, and surrounded by a flood of press held back by a dam of police. The pack took their places in the courtroom. Tournia let out a long, sorrowful sigh. The trial had not gone well at all.
         “Tournia Sakaguchi, this court finds you guilty of all charges. You now face a penalty of fifteen years in jail, with two hundred days credit time served. For a fine of fifty thousand marks, you may wave two of these years.”
         “I’ll pay the fine.”
         “Very well. You will be transferred to a penal ship. Are there any objections? Then the Court hereby declares this case to be shut. Courtroom is dismissed.”
         Tournia’s lawyer leaned over to her. “Where are you planning on coming up with fifty thousand marks?”
         She shrugged. “My fiancé’s account on Frist. It has over two million marks in it.” She gave a slight smile, the first she had given in months. “He was saving up to buy a ship of his own.”
         The lawyer tensed his tail in disgust. “The things people do with money these days.” He shut off his computer and left the room. Tournia followed soon, once the jury had departed.

         *           *           *

         Orion idles in the conference room, resting in a chair before a floating holographic screen. The Tournia and the rest of the fleet were well on their way to the unpredicted sphere. The Rear Admiral found himself laborless in the newly outfitted ship. In boredom, he began playing with the Union database, recently equipped with a Standard Galactic interface.
         “Search for Orion Terone.”
         The computer blurped the response, “No entries.”
         “Search for Toan.”
         A massive file appeared on the screen. Orion skimmed the first couple of lines, then dismissed it.
         “Search for Frist.”
         Another file, this one only a few words and designations, appeared. Orion glanced down the column, seeing the planet’s alien classifications. He grew rapidly bored and dismissed this file too.
         On a whim, he prompted, “Search for Tournia Sakaguchi.” Seeing the absurdity of the last prompt, he began to prep the database to search for the Tournia’s original Union designation. A file appeared on the screen before he could continue. A lengthy file. Orion’s draw dropped.
         “Tournia Sakaguchi. Human civilian of the Alliance Faction. Monitors on the Phoenician systems revealed her recent travel to those stars in search of scientific knowledge, bringing her and her importance into our scope.
         “Through reconnaissance to the Alliancic databases, we have determined that she was born…”
         Orion scrolled rapidly down.
         “…which brings us to her discursion. We believe that while she was searching through the Phoenician libraries for information on Epsilon Space and the means to the necessary energy to get there, she came across the plans for the supernova device. Immediately upon discovery of this information, she was expelled from Phoenician space. Because the Galactic Congress has delegated the sole plans for the supernova device to the peaceful Phoenicians, Tournia Sakaguchi is the only non-Phoenician who is aware to its production. To insure this information does not fall to the militant Alliance, we have dispatched a squad to capture her on the planet Frist and return her to friendly space. Hopefully this detention will not cause the subject harm, for the information she carries is of the utmost importance. However, the team has been authorized to use any necessary means to keep the information from the enemy.”
         Orion stood up as his eyes flicked past the last lines. His thoughts were wild. There was no way she could have protected herself against a tonorion task force.
         The commander sprinted to the door in a frenzy of worry. He turned to head up to the bridge, but his way was blocked. Seedo, who had been aboard the Icho not ten minutes before, stood in his way.
         Orion gazed at the apparition in confusion.
         “You’re not here! Now move!”
         He tried to push his friend out of the way, but his hand merely passed through the lenothias, followed by his body. Seedo turned to look at the officer sprawled on the floor.
         “Orion, what is it?”
         Orion continued with his confused glare. “What are you?”
         “A hologram, Orion. Some of the officers on our ships are experimenting with inter-ship holograms. Apparently the Tournia has emitters everywhere.”
         “Seedo, Tournia’s in danger!”
         “What?” The hologram’s head turned. “There is nothing on my scanners.”
         “No! The real Tournia. The Union’s captured her.”
         “Don’t be stupid, sir. Why would the Union give a frip’s ass about her?”
         “She knows the plans for the supernova device. We have to help her!”
         “Orion, listen to me. If the Union has captured Tournia, we wouldn’t stand a pea’s chance in a sun of finding her. Space is too large! And if the Union hasn’t, then she’s fine. We have a mission, Orion. We can’t abandon the Bonscouts.”
         “I can’t abandon my fiancée. I at least have to know what’s happened. I at least have to know if she is lost. Yiza, Seedo. I haven’t even seen her in half a year.”
         “Orion, look. I don’t know how she knows what she does, but I’m sure she’s being protected. Whatever’s happened, she’s safe.”
         Orion glared fiercely at the lizard’s eyes. “You better be right. She better not be behind foreign bars.”
         The holograms back gave a shiver of dismissal.
         “Anyway, Orion, there is a reason for this transmission. We’re about to arrive at the sphere.”
         Orion nodded, his face expressionless, his mind far away.
         “Sir, everything will be fine. Tournia’s smart. I’m sure she wouldn’t let herself be captured. And if she really does know what you think she does, the Alliance will protect her at all costs. But you, Orion, have a job to do. You are on a mission for the Alliance. Now act the part. You are the commander of these men, sir. Command them!”
         The human nodded again. “You’re right, I suppose. I’ll be on the bridge.”
         Orion headed there. He found that the hologram of Seedo followed him with an eerie glide.
         “How long until re-emergence?”
         Seedo glanced somewhere out of view. “We came out ten seconds ago.”
         “Do we have a visual?”
         “Negative, sir.”
         “Check the scanners. Make sure we’re in the right place.”
         “There is nothing on short-range scanners, and we’ve already determined that long-range scanners don’t work.”
         “Alright. Get ready to go back to hyperspace. We have to find the sphere.”
         “Orion, we have found it.”
         By now he was on the bridge. The hologram still stood just to his right. The helm officer saluted and stood up to allow Orion to take his place.
         “Seedo, you just said that there was nothing on short-range scanners. If we’d found it, it would be sending detectable black-body emissions.”
         “Look at the negative, not the positive. Tell you comm officer to put the sphere on screen.”
         Orion nodded to a lenothias. “Put it up.”
         The front half of the room changed colors and showed a starfield. With a massive circle cut out of it.
         “Okay, so we’ve found it. Why can’t we detect it, then?”
         Marit, the tactical officer spoke up. “Dyson spheres are designed to conserve all energy. It’s possible they have complete-absorption shields.”
         “In which case, we wouldn’t be able to see it if it were a millisec from our bow. Sel, launch twenty probes. Set five in a ring one hundred marsecs in front of the ship. Send the others out in a line at intervals of two hundred marsecs. Have the rest of the fleet stay behind us. Full forward thrusters.”
         “Aye, My Prince.”
         “Give me a radar display of everything within two inisecs.”
         “Aye.”
         Orion watched the bright probes take place before the ship on the screen. “Stop acceleration in fifty seconds. Launch one of our worst missiles straight ahead.”
         The massive fire streaked out from beneath the Tournia’s bow. It burned past the foremost probe and continued onwards. Orion watched it’s progress on the radar.
         “Send a second.”
         The second missile flew off from the ship. The first one suddenly disappeared off the radar. The explosion was strangely muffled. A few seconds later, the second missile did the same.
         “Alright. locate the nearest edge of the sphere from the impacts. Then extrapolate the rest of it from the blackened region of space.”
         Marit began working on her console. In a few seconds the object was placed on the radar, which had been zoomed out to view it. It appeared as a flat wall in the limited view.
         “Project it onto the front screen as well.”
         “Aye.” A massive green sphere appeared.
         “Set the sphere as the speed standard. What’s our distance?”
         “Two hundred thirty-eight inisices.”
         “Alright. Send the telemetry to the other ships. I’m resuming acceleration.”
         Orion reached his hands into the helm and threw the Tournia’s thrusters to full. The corvette slowly sped ahead of the other slower ships. The probes lighting the path struggled to keep up.
         “One hundred fifty inisecs, sir. Velocity is eight SCUs relative to the speed standard.”
         “Alright. Decelerating.”
         The black spot had now expanded to cover the entire field of vision. Other than the retinue of probes, the screen appeared pitch black.
         “Five inisecs. Velocity is .001 SCUs.”
         “Sel, active scanners. Marit, look for any signs of motion. Try to locate the equator and rate of spin.”
         “Active scanners are ineffective. All emitted tachyons are absorbed.”
         “Do you have anything, Marit?”
         “A large mass, roughly square from this point of view, appeared on the horizon, then disappeared again. That’s all I can tell.”
         “Launch another twenty probes. Distribute all except for the five at our bow around the sphere. Use their data to follow the path of that bulge.”
         Marit nodded. “Probes will be in place in thirty minutes.”
         “Sel, is it safe to assume that the sphere would have an automated defense mechanism.”
         “Actually, since the shields absorbed or deflected all of the energy from those two missiles, the sphere probably wouldn’t need a defense mechanism. And if it did have one, anything that we could throw against it wouldn’t come close to triggering it.”
         “Good. In that case, launch an EMP missile.”
         “Aye, My Prince. Missile away. Impact in thirty seconds.”
         “Prepare scanners.”
         The projectile exploded on the shielding system. For a tenth of a second, a dark red structure became visible in the blackness, then the shields covered it up again.
         “Scans show that the outer surface is composed of a metal composite. Lead, iron, silicon, and lanthanum all appeared. Trace amounts of germanium were present, along with elements with atomic numbers over three hundred.”
         “Were they stable?”
         “Apparently. Scans determined the rotational velocity to be close to one radian every twelve hours, with an error up to a factor of twenty. The nearest side was traveling to the left.”
         “Can’t really use the velocity if the error is that great, but at least we know the direction now. I guess we’ll just wait for the probes to be in place. Marit, how much time is left?”
         “Twenty minutes.”

         Orion looked rather perturbed, in a joking sort of way, when it took twenty-two minutes for the status report to come: “Alright sir, Probes are in place. Interpreting redouts.”
         A small hologram of the sphere appeared in the middle of the room, gently rotating. Twenty large cubic bulges sprung out from the structure, surrounding the equator.
         “We are here.” The tiniest speck appeared next to it.
         “Send the data to the other ships, then set a course through Delta Space for the nearest pole.” A nod was followed by a quick flash on the screen. In only a few seconds, the Tournia was back in normal space around a different part of the sphere.
         “It looks the same.”
         Orion nodded in agreement. “You better be right.” He wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Marit or himself. “Move in, engines at twenty percent.”
         The black emptiness expanded slowly. “Overlay the holographic image on the Sphere in green. Add a distance readout.”
         The screen was adjusted accordingly, with a rather shocking result of the sphere’s distance.
         “Zoom the view back in to real. It won’t help us if ten grasecs looks like ten thousand.”
         “Aye sir.”
         “Twenty seconds until impact. Should we slow down?”
         “Maintain course.”
         “Ten seconds, sir.”
         “Calibrate shields for an EMP.”
         “Aye, sir.”
         “Prep an EMP on a different frequency than the last one and fire from the foremost launcher.”
         The missile shot out from the Tournia’s bow with impeccable timing, just before the collision with the sphere. The EMP exploded, and the ship slipped neatly through the gap in the shields. All stars disappeared, and the red metal appeared before them, stretching away on all horizons less than a grasec forward.
         “Experiencing massive gravitational pull, sir.”
         “Full reverse. Come to a stop.”
         Orion gazed at the mammoth metal, and the looming hole directly before them.
         “There’s our entrance. Take us in, then see if you can find a control center to lower the shields.”
         “No need, sir. The Kirkirth has activated a variable EMP beam. It’s holding a gap in the shield and the other ships are following us through.”
         Orion nodded. That was the problem of commanding captains, not commanders: too much initiative. He just wished he had known the Kirkirath had an EMP beam before wasting a missile. “Bring us through, nonetheless. We’ll land on the sun-side.” The Tournia glided through the entrance. The surprisingly brilliant sun burst into existence, rising from the wall as the ship floated by.
         “A blue giant, sir,” Sel remarked, unnecessarily.
         The dark red structure slid past, layering into a black mesh. The small fleet glided up through the layers of dark structures, heading straight towards the star. Massive pulls and ramps, giants of a lost age, stood a silent sentinel as they guarded the entrance to this new world.
         “What is that?” Sel drew his attention to a section of the wall. Scars tore through weak metal; burn marks covered the derelict surface.
         “Prep teams from each ship. Full battle gear. Bring the ships in to land at that opening- the undamaged one.”
         The metallic orifice gently enclosed the ships, and they came to rest with magnetized feet, massive boluses on the smooth surface.
         “Alright, unload. I want three people to stay at each ship. Sel, walk with me to the airlock. Tell me everything that you’ve been able to discern about this thing.”
         “Well, whoever built it has overcome many of the classical issues present in a Dyson Sphere. It’s spinning, first of all, at overt two hundred grasecs per second along the equator. Not only does this help to maintain structural integrity against the gravity from the sun, but it also creates a useful band around the equator with simulated gravity where atmosphere will collect and allow life on the inner surface. My guess is that the rest of the sphere is covered in photoreceptors.
         “The metal of the outermost surface has a density of over 5000 acqs. Scans suggest an omega-bonded lattice of Ur37C21Uuo86.”
         “Uuonium? Stable in the structure?”
         Sel nodded. “Apparently. It creates a metal capable of withstanding approximately 98 by ten to the three-hundredth stads. More pressure than could viably be applied by just about anything.”
         “Anything else?” The pair had arrived at the airlock, where the rest of the crew, except for the three left on the bridge, was waiting. Orion began strapping on his air-tight battle armor.
         “The scanners can’t pick up anything more.”
         “Very well. Get ready.” Orion finished strapping on the fourth and final piece of the armor, then opened up a weapons locker. He moved immediately past the command laser-pistols captains usually used, and hefted a much heavier pulse rifle. He wanted to be well-armed.
         “Why the battle gear, Orion?”
         “You saw those burns. Anything strong enough to be a viable threat to the sphere builders is certainly a threat to us. I’m not risking an encounter with a hostile species unprepared.”
         Orion activated the armor and headgear. The four pieces began unfolding, wrapping and extending themselves over his legs, arms, torso, and finally head. The visor snapped down into place last, after, the helmet had fully deployed from the small bundle on his back, and sealed him off from the environment.
         “Been a while since I’ve done ground tactics,” he muttered within the air-tight suit, then turned on the comm. “Move out!” The Bonscout team marched into the large airlock and waited while it depressurized.
         The other ships had already unloaded their crews; over six hundred Bonscouts now stood in neat ranks in the dark chamber between the colossi. The crew from the Tournia quickly marched up to their places as the others silently saluted. Orion returned the gesture, then summoned the other captains to him over the comm. He preferred the closeness of conference despite the near-unlimited range of the armor communication system.
         “Sir, scans suggest that this is indeed a hangar, capable of supporting an atmosphere.”
         “There is no air, though.”
         “The primary doors have been blown off, making de-evacuation impossible. We will have to find the entrance to the primary complex to find air.”
         Orion looked up to the ceiling, five grasecs towards the sphere’s outside.
         “Is it reasonable to assume that this room is oriented the same as the rest of the sphere, and that the rest of the sphere is oriented with inwards as ‘up’?”
         “Aye, sir.”
         “Then wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that,” Orion pointed straight up, “that surface is the floor and where the door is.”
         “Aye, sir.” The captain sighed. “Shall we move the ships over there?”
         “No, we’ll save the fuel. Let’s see how well the troops remember null-g training.”
         Orion pushed a button on his wrist armor, and he felt the magnetic feet depolarize. He quickly grabbed onto a nearby officer, who happened to be Seedo. “Make sure everyone has propulsion in their armor.” He released the lenothias and pushed off the floor with all his might. He twisted around a bit until he stopped rotating, contorting his body against the armor in practiced agility until he had the right orientation, then activated the thrusters. Small engines jumped out from his wrists and heels and activated with a clench of each appendage. Moving his hands until he had achieved a straight course, he expertly shot through the vacuum. Glancing briefly down, he saw the ranks of Bonscouts below take to the open space, filling the emptiness with small scattered bodies.
         Watching the opposing metal rush forward with expert eyes, Orion cut three thrusters just before he was halfway across, using the last one to turn. This done, he cut the fourth thruster too and waited for the wall to be close enough to slow down.
         He landed amid the clutter bolted to the floor, absorbing the impact in his knees. Activating the magnets on his boots, he stood up and turned on his wrist-light. Bonscouts began landing all around him, reforming their ranks as they did.
         “Don’t bother regrouping. Spread out to the walls and search for an exit. Teams of four at all times.”
         Seedo landed next to Orion. “Which way, boss?”
         Orion pointed in a random direction. He motioned for two nearby armored figures to follow.
         It took half an hour of combing through the labyrinth of machinery to reach the nearest wall, another ten minutes before a team reported the discovery of a door, and twenty more to assemble the troops around the entrance.
         “You four, stay here and guard the door. Check in with the ships every thirty minutes. Everyone else, move in! Search for anything that could be a computer or control room.”
         The army headed into the giant passage, weapons bared, eight at a time. The six hundred quickly filtered into the corridor. After the first fifty had entered, Orion, with Seedo in tandem, stepped in.

         *           *           *

         “Admiral Suigle, three hundred tachyon bursts, Union signatures detected!”
         “All ships, prepare for battle! Captain, target the nearest enemy ship and scan it’s shields and hull.”
         “Scans are in, sir. Type twelve dot twelve defenses. Elbulgar design.”
         “Fire three hydrogen missiles, and pursue enemies.”
         “Missiles away.” A short pause followed. “Minimal damage to enemy ship.”
         “What?”
         The elbulgar fleet was in view now. The three hundred ships plowed down on the task force. The slew of weapons that the Alliance ships launched destroyed only a small handful of the Union vessels. As the enemy’s small weapons came within range of the Alliance they began returning fire. The defending fleet was cut to shreds. In a matter of seconds, it was obliterated from hundreds to scores.
         “Shit! What are they armed with!? Bring all weapons to bear on the nearest vessel and fire. This makes no sense. Our missiles should easily slag twelve-dot-twelve defense.”
         The fighters were launched now from the few remaining ships. They harassed the larger Elbulgar ships, pecking at them with pitiful lasers. The Corkoruth let loose a massive stream of energy and missiles, firing from hundreds of turrets and cannons. The Elbulgar vessel withstood the rain of fire for seconds before succumbing as a cloud of slag. The flagship turned to target other ships, and found itself completely surrounded, all its allies isolated. Turrets, controlled by frantic Bonscouts, whirled in circles, firing loads of laser fire into the enemy fleet. The primary cannon of the mammoth ship began glowing as it readied an all-powerful burst. A streak of energy lashed angrily out at the aliens, barely managing to destroy a single ship.
         “Captain, activate Radiance. All energy diverted.”
         “Sir, we need your duel authorization for that command. Are you sure?”
         Suigle nodded once, then pulled his Fleet tags off his neck. He inserted each into a slot on the primary command console. The ship’s captain did the same at his station.
         Power began flowing through gigantic encased vacuums, concentrating on a single point. The hull of the ship began glowing as more and more energy collected on the metal armor. The flagship’s greatest weapon glowed over every square inch of the vessel.
         “Radiance prepped, sir. Firing. May our sacrifice not be in vain.”
         In a glorious display of light, the glowing ship exploded in a vast shockwave. The well-built Corkoruth shattered into a million pieces, and a sphere of energy blew outwards, tearing the elbulgars to shreds. Most of the enemy ships jumped to hyperspace before the wave from the kamikaze vessel pounded them.

         Shapes glided silently through the darkness. A Union fleet, enraged by the recent Alliance attacks on their space, spread stealthily inwards. A series of flashes, and the elbulgars met the tonorions. Together, the two species sped into the Alliance, bringing a virus into their space.
         Another group of flashes, and the entire fleet disappeared. Ten thousand ships went to hyperspace.

         The destruction of Task Force 382 and the 18A fleet was the beginning of a long series of battles. Unfortunately, the Alliance fleet patrolling the Great Wall was destroyed so quickly that the AFC wasn’t even aware of the engagement until days later, after the sacking of Quirk.
         Still a colony planet, Quirk was lucky to have any fleet at all. The world had constructed and launched a couple dozen orbiting defense satellites, but the Alliance had not yet bothered to install a military base on the planet. The twenty-two fleet vessels currently stationed at the planet, all outdated models, were being refueled and repaired. The planet, the third nearest Alliance world to the Great Wall, barely had time to cry. Barely.
On the eleventh day of the first outermonth of the third innermonth of the year 954 YE, a broadband message was detected by a beta-space satellite orbiting Toan.

         “Emergency! Emergency! This is the Governor Reak of the colony world Quirk! A massive Union fleet has been detected converging on our world. Immediate help is required! I repeat, immediate help is required! At least ten thousand Union vessels are entering our space. Please, we are unarmed. We require immediate assistance from any Alliance ships in the area. Please respond! They are almost in firing range!”

         An innocent automatic sorting protocol, designed to reduce the number of unwanted messages, deemed the transmission to be fake due to the lack of an authentication code. The recording was stored in a long-term storage bin, where it was not found for another week and a half.

         Less than a parsec from the planet Heral, located fifty parsecs from the Great Wall, a small merchant frigate stumbled across the fleet in the Heral Nebula. Making an immediate jump to hyperspace, it escaped to the local planet while the Union fleet was refueling with the nebulous hydrogen particles. For two days, the pilot of the frigate fought layers upon layers of bureaucrats in an attempt to alert the local governor of the newly-named citizen planet. After two days, the pilot gave up in the attempt to contact the governor and went to the media.
The front page of every news agency on the Worldnet the next day showed sensor logs and pictures taken by the frigate of the fleet. Nearly an innermonth since the invasion began, the Alliance at last became aware of the Union presence.
Heral fell next day.