"LUNAR: Tales From Crystal Tokyo"
LUNAR:
Tales From Crystal Tokyo
By
Daryll Pung
Episode
3-18: Making History, Making War
Rated:
R
Nimitz
Dockyard, In high Lunar orbit, Sol system, 13 July 2740
The
SLS Yorktown
The
doors at the back of the bridge hissed open, and Ross, the Yorktown’s
AI, spoke up. “Commanding
officers of the SLS Yorktown, on the
bridge,” the feminine voice reported.
The
frenzied activity ceased as the bridge crew, as one, straightened up to
attention and turned around, and Sorcerer Derrelli led Wizard Duke, Wizard Orien,
and Sailor Cygni out of the lift car. The
doors hissed shut behind them, and Derrelli took a look around, nodding.
“At ease, people. And for
the record, Ross, wasn’t it? We’ll
only stand on formality when it’s required.
Otherwise it just gets in the way.”
“As
you wish, captain,” replied the AI coolly.
“Or would you prefer a different form of address, seeing as you dislike
formality so?”
Derrelli
shook his head as Duke smirked. “Now,
now, Ross. No need to get an
attitude. Captain will do.” He rolled his eyes, and said in an aside to Duke, “I swear,
Neo was a hell of a lot easier to get along with.”
“I
am not Neo,” retorted the AI.
“He may have done some very notable things, but you will never see me hacking another computer. How…
rude.”
Duke
snorted. “Even if it was an enemy?”
Derrelli
cut off the discussion with a wave of his hand.
“Not now; we can indulge it such debates later.
We have a lot of work to do. Duke,
get familiar with the rest of the department heads; I’d like a meeting in,
say, an hour, to touch base and see where we are.
Orien, Hoshi… You have your own departments to meet and get a hold of
things. Let’s not lose sight of
what awaits us out there; I want those upgrades dealt with first thing, and
we’ll need to come up with some tactics while we’re at it, depending on
Sailor Neptune’s plans.”
Three
nods answered those statements, and Derrelli grimaced.
“Meanwhile, I believe there’s already paperwork awaiting me in my
ready room… might as well discover both simultaneously.
Why we still call it paperwork when it’s all on computer, I’ll never
know…” He grinned and turned to
the rest of the bridge crew. ‘Well,
people, in case you haven’t guessed already, we’re in for an interesting
time together. Let’s do our best,
because everything we care about depends on it.
I wish there was more time for us all to get to know each other properly,
but there isn’t; so we’ll just have to do that as we work together. Though I’ve only been aboard a short time, I’m already
impressed with this ship and her crew; and I feel quite sure we’ll all do one
hell of a job living up to the historic traditions of this ship’s name.
That is a challenge I pose to all of you… and to myself.
Let’s get it done. Carry
on.”
Edge
of the Sol system, 23 July 2740
At the limits
of the wounded heart of the Golden Millennium, a formation of starships drew
together, comprised of some two dozen, mostly cruisers, but with a handful of
light cruisers and destroyers as well, and a single battleship, the SLS Prometheus,
in the center of the group. A cloud
of fighters issued from them, and assumed proper wing formations, precise and
deadly. They came to a halt, as if
waiting for something.
They did not have long to wait.
A few minutes after the formation drew to a stop, the first flash, this
of blue, appeared, and the Holy Droylian Empire battleship Fid’rechel
dropped out of faster-than-light travel; the spindly-looking ship drew near the
gathered RSN starships and slowed to a stop.
Moments later, another flash of red light resolved into the highly
polished, spherical shape of the Zerm battleship Treseey.
It slowed equidistant to the Fid’rechel,
forming the third point of a square with the HDE battlewagon and the RSN
formation.
Another two minutes passed before a final flash erupted, this one green,
and condensed into the ominous shape of the Dark Kingdom battleship Wraith. Noting the
positions of the other ships, it quickly assumed the slot left open for it, and
slowed to a stop.
For
a few moments, nothing happened.
The
SLS Prometheus
A
pair of thoughtful, expressive brown eyes examined the tactical plot on screen
four of the Prometheus’ bridge.
The owner of those eyes glanced about; her long, reddish-brown, silky
locks fell to halfway down her back, with curled bangs and tendrils framing her
pretty face; her lightly-tanned skin, tall, trim, athletic figure, and lovely
legs belied the detail that she was, in fact, highly intelligent and unorthodox;
and she fit her fuku rather well. Her
fuku was different from the Senshi
“norm”; it consisted of a strapless, red satin corset, edged by small black
lace; she had no sailor collar. Her
shoulders and arms were bare, down to the platinum bracers on her lower arms,
coupled with fingerless black gloves. A black satin bow sat in the proper spot on her chest; the
center was a platinum circular medallion with a fiery five-point star in the
center. Her skirt was black satin,
with a platinum metallic border; her shins sported another pair of platinum
bracers, down to her red high heels. A
smaller, platinum bow was at the small of her back.
Three pairs of earrings adorned her ears- ruby studs, small platinum
stars, and dangling platinum-bound ruby prisms. A black satin choker with a platinum rendition of the fiery
star completed the ensemble; her fiery-star symbol glowed fiercely red on her
forehead.
“Well,”
Sailor Xocotl said finally. “This
is certainly different.”
Her
first officer, another Senshi, exotically beautiful, slender, and unconsciously
graceful, straightened up; she’d been stooped over, monitoring the situation
at the ops console. She
had a smooth chocolate complexion and short purple hair, curled slightly at the
ends, with curly bangs. Her unusual
eyes, currently violet, with faint swirls of green, focused on the telemetry
scrolling down screen five. Her
outfit was also different from the average fuku; it was more of a low-cut black
vest on the upper section, with a metallic purple ribbon and a copper medallion
of her symbol (a scythe superimposed over a stylized 'P') occupying the spot
where the top button would be, had there been any buttons; a metallic purple
skirt with a thin copper-braid belt hung from her hips; a small portion of her
midriff was exposed. Sailor
Persephone had a choker, metallic purple, again with a small copper medallion
bearing her symbol on the front; her ears occupied by amethyst studs.
She didn’t have a tiara; instead, she wore a thin copper circlet with a
dangling medallion, dead center over her forehead, again bearing her symbol.
Her wrists bore wide, round-studded copper bracelets, connected to her
black gloves. Her legs were bare
down to the knee-high, metallic purple, heeled boots she wore.
“Sure
it is wise to keep them waiting, ma’am?” Sailor Persephone said slowly,
quietly; despite being human, her demeanor was almost Vulcan in bearing.
Sailor
Xocotl snorted. “You’re right,
of course. Time to get this party
started. Diplomat T’mal, I
believe this is your show, so…”
“Thank
you, Commodore,” nodded the Vulcan diplomat.
“Lieutenant Petrovich, please open hailing frequencies and display
replies on screens one through three, respectively.”
“Open,
sir,” came a quick reply, in a clipped Russian accent, from the rather
gorgeous and snobbish blue-eyed blonde female stationed at comm.
“Full audio and visual; getting replies.”
As
the screens blinked on, T’mal, Harrison Shuley, and Moira Benson recognized
the captains from the Polaris summit; this time, however, there were only a few
diplomats with each… as they’d been informed.
Knowing that this was more of a war and research summit, the diplomats’
roles were reduced to making sure things stayed cooperative and somewhat
friendly.
T’mal
nodded at them all. “Greetings
again from the Golden Millennium, captains, fellow diplomats; and it is our
great pleasure to welcome you to the Sol system, the recent events
notwithstanding.”
“The
Holy Droylian Empire is glad to be here,” Bishop
Commander Keligh Dreh’chen replied first.
“Asss
isss the Zerm Alliance,” put in Permecht Amisere Newelsed.
“And
the Dark Kingdom,” finished Lord Hirogex.
T’mal
gave them all another nod. “At
this time, I would like to introduce to you the commanding officer of the Prometheus battle group, with her given rank as Commodore, Sailor
Xocotl; and her first officer, Sailor Persephone.”
Hirogex
blinked. “Would that be the same
Sailor Persephone who once captured our insectoid bio-soldiers, the Slashers,
alive, and allowed you to discern a weakness?”
Sailor
Xocotl allowed herself a slight smile. “She
is one and the same, captain. You
have good intel to know that… anyway. Is
that a problem?”
“Not
at all,” Hirogex waved it off. “Such…
talent can actually prove quite
helpful in our current circumstances.”
“Indeed,”
Sailor Xocotl replied. She glanced
at all three screens, and continued. “Now,
if I may get right to the point, we’ll form up on your ships and escort you
right to a direct orbit of Luna. You’ll
have undoubtedly noted that, in keeping with the nature of this mission, our
offensive and defensive systems are merely on standby; if you’ll completely
deactivate yours, we shall do the same, and all shall stay that way… pending
another invader dropping into our midst, of course, whereupon you may feel free
to defend yourselves. We don’t
regard that as too likely, at the moment, but you never know.”
“A
perfectly acceptable sssuggessstion, commodore,” nodded Amisere.
“I recommend on the count of three…”
Moments
later, every ship deactivated all remaining weaponry and shielding.
Sailor
Xocotl’s smile widened as the sensor reports came in, and she turned back to
the screens. “Excellent,
captains. Now, I do hope that, in
addition to your best tacticians, you’ve also brought along some of your best
scientists, because boy, do we have a treat
for all of you.”
“How
so?” inquired Keligh.
“Well,
we’ve been busy tearing into the captured supercruisers, in the midst of our
recovery efforts, with everyone that we can spare… or that is incapable of
intense labor, in some cases; and this has resulted in a bonanza of new
information.” Sailor Xocotl
chuckled. “Actually, all of what
we have discovered is merely scratching the surface.
The point is, amongst the numerous upgrades for our systems, Sailor
Mercury, the Skunk Works, and the volunteer force have discovered quite a few
principles that can be applied to your systems as well… most notably, your
weapons. I mean, after all, you did
help us capture the first supercruiser… and we appreciate all the assistance
you’ve been willing to render after Sol was attacked.
The long and short of it is, we’re allies, and if we get substance out
of the war bounty, why shouldn’t you?”
There was a long pause as the others assimilated this information. Finally, Hirogex spoke up. “What sort of improvements are we talking about?”
“Well, I’ll leave
it to my science officer to give you the gory details, but in general terms,
ways to refine and collate particles in lasers and tunneling beams to make them
a lot more potent, plus ways to similarly condense the potential of the
disruptors. We can help refine the
EFA; we can help to double the power of the Starburst Crusher missiles; we have
some data on how to refine and even direct and focus the Matrix.”
She paused. “And possibly
a way to improve the Negatorpedo to where just one may take out a supercruiser;
though the rest of us’ll probably still be needed to provide you the firing
opportunities so you can shoot those bad boys.
Interested?”
Another
moment of silence passed before Keligh
responded. “You, Sailor Xocotl,
had better believe that we’re
interested!”
Affirmatives
quickly followed from the other captains.
“Well,
then,” Sailor Xocotl said. “Shall
we make history, gentlemen?”
In
high Lunar orbit, Sol system, 23 July 2740
Yorktown
Shuttle-07
“So what do you think this is about?” Duke asked, idly eyeing the
controls. First Officer or not, he
was gonna be damned if he let his skills just die away… so when word came that
the four of them were required back on Luna, Duke volunteered to pilot the
shuttle. He made a minor course
correction, and then verified the status of his navigation shielding for
planetary entry.
Before Sailor Cygni could say anything, Derrelli spoke up.
“I’m guessing, them.” He
pointed. Clearly visible through
the main viewscreen of the shuttle was a small RSN battle group… and three
distinctly non-RSN vessels.
From behind them, Orien leaned forward.
“Is it the same trio from the Polaris summit?”
Sailor Cygni stretched. “Yes,”
she confirmed, setting down the microcomp she’d been perusing. “Zoom in if you like, but it was decided that since those
ships and us had already worked well together, they’d be the same ones to
represent their respective peoples at this second summit.”
“Hence the call for us to drop everything, huh?” grinned Derrelli. “Since we are familiar with them?”
Sailor Cygni nodded. “Sailor
Ryujin’s been summoned, too. Just
a formality, really, I would think; the diplomats of course know their opposite
numbers, but the command crews of those ships know us, so…”
“Gotcha,” nodded Duke. He
smirked. “That would explain why Hood’s Shuttle Three just pulled up in the flight path behind us.
ETA ten minutes, in case anyone cares.”
“I’m gonna be timing that very closely,” chuckled Derrelli.
“Let’s see how precise you really are... you know, do you just talk
the talk, or can you walk the walk?”
“No faith, I tell ya,” grumbled Duke good-naturedly.
“See what I have to put up with?”
The two shuttles dived into Luna’s outer atmosphere, faint red glows
already surrounding them from the entry sequence.
Crystal
Palace in Crystal Tokyo, Planet Luna, 23 July 2740
Primary
Briefing Room
“-And from looking at Sailor Mercury and her team’s initial data, our
science types say we can begin deploying the enhanced weapons in about one
month; field upgrades for our fleet can be completed in four,” reported Keligh. “Our high command has told me to relay to you that we will
gladly join an offensive at that time.”
“That is good news,” nodded Sailor Neptune.
“So, about three and a half months for our Zerm friends, four for the
Droylians… Lord Hirogex?”
“Sooner than all of you, actually,” he smiled.
“Our scientists are very excited and already hard at work; and one
advantage to our technology is that it is much easier to update than all of
yours. The hard part is the EFA;
but our entire fleet can be battle ready in just over two months... and the
council has approved our participation in your battle plan, subject to review of
the actual plan, of course.”
Sailor Neptune gave him a half-smile of her own.
“Perfectly understandable; and I was going to do that anyway so that
everyone can give suggestions to refine the final plans.
With all of our best strategists and tacticians working on it, we should
have the bare bones of a good plan within a day or so; and we’ll flesh it out
from there.”
“Will we have four months?” asked Gyari, the Wraith’s head
tactical officer.
“Good question,” shrugged Sailor Cygni.
“The short answer is, we just don’t know.
But we will know the second they try something.
Every Senshi or Sorcerer that was in a command role of a scout ship has
been reassigned to combatant vessels; and those scout ships, all as we speak
being equipped with cloaking devices and the other field upgrades, are being
reassigned to watch that enemy fleet of supercruisers just as fast as the work
is finished. There are already some
two dozen scattered through space near the galactic edge, and more will be
spread on the approaches as the scouts become available. With your respective governments’ permission, some will be
assigned inside your borders on the approaches there as well; that way, we have
a detailed early warning net, reliable communications relay system, and even a
means to track the bastards should they make another move… all invisibly.
There has been no indication whatsoever that these things can penetrate
our cloaking devices. As a matter of fact, their disdain for external energy fields
may very well prove to be their undoing…”
“Sssailor Cygni?” said Amisere.
“You have an idea?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Oh,
yeah. Sailor Mercury, what would
the effect on a supercruiser be if a concentrated, upgraded Matrix effect struck
their lightning weapon systems? And
what would happen if the new Starburst Crusher missiles- which, if I am not
mistaken, when a salvo of six detonate simultaneously, creates a massive
particle flux akin to getting too close to a nova, albeit much shorter-lived-
impacted on their torpedo launchers? And
we’ve been busy refining the new Banshee torpedo… is it capable of exploding
their engine core with a direct hit; by that, I mean placing it directly
within the reaction in the core?”
A rather relaxed Sailor Mercury looked thoughtful for a moment- several
days of enforced sleep had done wonders for her- and she smiled, and bent down
to her computer.
After
several quiet moments, with looks exchanged amongst the allies, Gyari spoke up.
“Okay, what the hell is the Banshee torpedo?”
Orien hesitated, glanced around, saw no direct disagreement, and then
shrugged. “You’ll find out
sooner or later, so what the hell. It’s
a shielded torpedo capable of phasing itself out of this universe, traveling to
its target unimpeded in any way, and phasing back in before detonating.
One of the wonders we’ve picked up from these bastards.
Only problem is availability; they’re hard to manufacture and numbers
are gonna be extremely limited, so we’ll have to use them kinda judiciously
against the supercruisers.”
“To use a human imprecation, I’ll be damned,” whispered
Hirogex as the implications sunk in. “Shields
don’t stop it? Nor point
defense?”
“Correct. We haven’t
even come up with a counter ourselves,” Sailor Cygni said, her eyes locked on
Sailor Mercury, who’d been joined by Sailor Vulcan, both now hard at work
figuring and computing. “And we
usually like to have a counter to our own weapons available before we deploy
them. We have some ideas, but nothing really beyond that yet.
Still, desperate times…”
“Desssperate measssuresss,” affirmed Kentais, the Treseey’s
tactical officer. He cocked his
head. “Wait a minute…”
“That means you’ve already figured counters to the tech given to us,
doesn’t it?” asked Denthlagh, tactical officer from the Fid’rechel.
“Not really,” Sailor Ryujin spoke up.
“Most of the counters remain the same; it’s the power levels that
have changed.”
“Makes sense,” nodded Hirogex. “Your
own blasters are more powerful now as well, correct?”
“Among other things,” confirmed Orien.
“Some you’ll see when we engage the supercruisers; others won’t be
ready until ships can actually be properly refitted, a task taking a few years. ‘Course, it’s the same story for all of you; you’re
doing field upgrades where you can, but achieving full potential from all this
is going to take a while.”
“And Their Highnesses have already decreed that we’ll continue to
share advancements as we uncover them,” Derrelli put in.
“So it’s not like we’re keeping the stuff for ourselves. It’s just a matter of applying what we can to the tech we
know best. I’m actually wondering
if it wouldn’t be a good idea, once this is all over, to truly make the treaty
binding by inviting some of your people here to Sol permanently.
You, after all, know your technology better than we, and can find ways to
improve it better. Just an idea.”
“An idea I, for one, find agreeable,” Keligh said thoughtfully.
“We will certainly have to consider that,” agreed Hirogex.
“Yesss,”
Amisere added.
Sailor
Mercury looked up, her smile widening. “The
answer to all your queries, Sailor Cygni, is sheer and utter destructive chaos
on all counts. The enhanced Matrix
forces the stored energy of the lightning weapon systems to have to go
somewhere… so it does. It goes
back where it came from; and all those weapons are interconnected at the most
basic level, namely at the source of their power.
So that backlash is in their engine core; this will ultimately result in
the destruction of the ship when the power grids, main propulsion grids, and all
the myriad relays self-destruct. Next,
the interaction between the six-point upgraded Starburst detonation and their
torpedoes… creates a unique subspace detonation.
Normally, this would be a very dangerous effect, but because of the auric
torpedo properties… it expands in a massive sphere to a predictable, set
range; so long as our ships keep their distance, only the supercruiser will be
affected… and the front half utterly consumed, reducing the ship to a wreck
and, with an extremely high degree of probability, causing the rest of the ship
to ignite just from the shock of the explosive loss. And finally, the Banshee torpedo’s shields should hold long
enough for it to phase back in completely, and properly engage its detonation
sequence… which means the torpedo causes a massive explosion directly in the
engine core; it’ll be like jump-starting a small star.”
“So…”
breathed Duke.
“So
all four of our races now each possesses a weapon that can take out a
supercruiser in one, precisely targeted impact,” Denthlagh stated with utter
finality, a rather nasty grin on his face as he played with the ramifications of
that in his mind.
“How
to best apply this?” asked Gyari quietly.
All fell silent, considering.
Sailor
Cygni finally broke that silence. “Bee
swarm.”
“Excussse
me?” wondered Kentais.
She
smiled, and leaned over the table, even as all the other humans present began
nodding in agreement; Derrelli was already grinning wickedly.
She called up an archived vid on the main screen.
“Bees are a type of insect native to Earth. They live in hives, collect pollen from flowering plants, and
often make honey… and when threatened, an entire hive will empty and do
this.” As the vid played, she
continued her narrative. “Now,
sometimes the sheer weight of number of stings could bring down a person; but
most often a human would die because they were allergic to the stings of the
bee, and could not get treatment in time; such people could die from just one
sting.” She paused.
“The point is, we already know how to sting the supercruisers;
we now know how to deliver that one sting.
So what else can we apply here? Well,
it is extremely difficult, as you can see, to take any constructive action when
you are suffering attacks from the many adversaries.”
She slowly began to pace. “By
last count, they have precisely one hundred and ninety six ships remaining. Now, assuming that we get the time we want- which we may,
simply because they’ll want to analyze just how we continue to be able to
defeat them- we’ll be able to field a combined total of one thousand, four
hundred, and thirty-two combatants. And
even if they do send more in, we’ll simply have to put up a united front,
which should deter them, or make it, at the least, easier to beat them…
though, I daresay, we should utilize ships that haven’t been upgraded if that
happens, so that we keep an ace in the hole, so to speak, difficult as that may
make the battles.”
“Agreed,”
Hirogex nodded, as did the rest of the room, caught up in her thinking.
“Okay.
Well, it then seems to me best to make sense to run a very mobile fight;
ships take a few shots at one target, swerve off, recharge, and engage a totally
different target, seemingly with no rhyme, or no reason.
In reality, each class of ship will have a specific system or subsystem
they’ll target just to keep them busy… and a directed movement pattern
assigned per, oh, I don’t know, group of five or so ships of each class?
We can refine that. In
addition, we then assign groups to specifically escort the small groups with the
killer stings- say one of each of our ships in the center of each, with
the specific targets assigned to them, and they also trade off, taking advantage
of everyone else’s cover fire to dart in and deliver that crucial strike,”
Sailor Cygni mused.
“The
initial approach could be the hardest part,” frowned Sailor Persephone.
“Oh,
I don’t know about that,” smirked Derrelli.
“We
all simply approach in formation,” Gyari said, waving at where the vid had
finished playing, “like the bees did initially; except in our case it’ll be
more like a staggered wall… and when in range, we simply all unleash a
non-targeted barrage, straight ahead, of weaponry.”
“Plowing
the road,” agreed Sailor Xocotl.
“Right,”
said Sailor Mercury. “Neither
of their weapons will be able to penetrate that wall of ordinance.
The lightning will be attracted to the heavy torpedoes; and their
torpedoes would be detonated by all that excess energy flying around, so that
they cannot fire them until its relatively clear.”
“And
we can do it more than once if we need to,” commented Keligh.
“You
know, I think this’ll work,” smiled Sailor Neptune.
“I really do. Why don’t
we take a short break… and then we’ll start fleshing out the details,
including plans to have a few ships standing by to create combined intercept
fleets in case they’re needed.”
“Sounds
like a plan,” commented Denthlagh. “You
know, by the time we’re finished with these idiots, they’re not gonna know
which way is up, much less what the hell just hit them.”
“Poetic
justice,” Hirogex said in a tone that was flat, yet oddly satisfied at the
same time. “After all, that’s how this all started.”
“Nuke ‘em if you got ‘em,” whispered Derrelli.
“Or, as I recall, you humans like to say, ‘Fire in the hole’,”
grinned Gyari.