The scanner tech saw the vessel appear suddenly, and called out the alert. Two fighter squadrons in the area aimed their sensors in the general direction, and their blood chilled as they saw the sight. A black starship, looking like a spider from the pits of the darkest nightmares, with its legs spread out to ensnare them appeared suddenly, and more than one pilot gasped in shock. But orders were given and obeyed, and two squadrons of fighters moved in to intercept, with the Skipray blastboats close behind, and the Violence following after.
*
The black ship noticed the forces heading towards it, and chuckled. 'A three course meal, ready and served.' It activated its main weapon, and began locking onto the first set of fighters.
*
"Break and attack," came over the tactical channel, and the two squadrons of fighters suddenly rolled hard, shifting their vectors to prevent easy shots from claiming them. The Violence had detected the power surge near the front, and the fighters had figured it to be a weapon of some kind. Spiraling hard, they came up with the vessel in front of them, and opened fire.
*
It watched the fighters suddenly change directions, and it tried to follow both groups, but they were too far apart, so it chose the group on the left to destroy. Aiming at the lead vessel, it began maneuvering as well, trying to throw off any targeting the small fighters had. Although it could handle any weapon, there was no need to get hurt any more than desired. It locked in a firing series to hit every enemy fighter with its beam, and executed it.
*
Squadron leader Verhel watched as the black ship suddenly twisted and dodged, and she fired. But its maneuvers were too much too soon, and barely one tenth of her shots hit, and only four of the spines along one side were blown off. Then her screen went white, and she couldn't see anything.
From the Skipray blastboats, they saw the vessel turn quickly, and fire some sort of beam weapon at the six fighters. They expected to see six explosions, and were a bit surprised when there were none. They then looked at the alien ship, and saw that all the spines along one side were blown off, and half the spines on the other side were similarly missing. Calling up a scan of one of the TIE fighters, they noticed a ragged scar along the cockpit window, which showed what would have been a dead Imperial pilot if the window hadn't been so tough.
*
PAIN! PAIN! AGONY! The fighters had hurt it, and it was bleeding from over a dozen wounds on its sides. It was finally able to handle the pain, and looked at its opponents. 'No, this can't be! Those were only fighters! My weapon should have destroyed all of them! My weapon can destroy ships with a single blast, and these things are still moving? Wait, those fighters were attacked by me, what about the other group?' Too late, it looked at its scanners, and saw the other group of fighters coming in, their weapons already firing. Panicking, it fired its fighter ball, hoping those expendable vessels would be able to distract these dangerous fighters long enough for it to escape. It needed several seconds to slide back to safety, and hopefully these vessels would concentrate on the fighters long enough to do so.
*
"What the-" came over the fighter tactical net as a spiky sphere suddenly shot from the alien vessel. But that reaction came after the pilots of the second squadron had already fired their weapons, and explosions of biological material were forced upwards from the alien ship as the fighter turbolasers found their mark. When high-temperature plasma met living matter, the water within it was flash heated to steam, causing explosions that ripped into the vessel. The vessel was not destroyed outright by the blasts, as the superheated plasma was vented outwards by the exploding body mass.
Breaking off from the dying vessel, the fighters raced after the sphere, when suddenly it seemed to explode, separating into dozens of smaller shapes, each of which began maneuvering to attack. There were a total of twelve Imperial TIE fighters in the fight, versus forty black shapes that began to attack them. The Imperials were outnumbered by better than three to one, but they attacked anyway. After the first couple of volleys though, it became apparent that the alien vessels were unable to do more than cause a minor scorch mark to the TIE fighters, while the TIEs were obliterating every fighter they fired upon. It was over in less than a minute, with the last alien fighter trying to flee with two TIE fighters on its tail. It didn't get very far.
Turning back to the alien mothership, the fighters began to dodge and weave around it, ready to get the killing blow in.
*
The alien ship looked at the fight in horror. The fighters, even the ones it had damaged with its beam were far superior to its own, and they had come after it as well. Its engines to escape back into hyperspace were badly damaged, and rapid healing could only work so fast. But what was that second group of vessels doing?
*
The Skipray blastboats heard the orders and changed their weapon selection. Up until then, they had asked for the finishing blow, and the TIE fighters had granted it to them. But now, the Captain wanted to take that ship fairly intact, and they were ordered to use their ion cannons to immobilize it for study. With the ion cannons selected, they began to fire at the vessel using carefully metered bursts. They wanted to fire enough to shut down its power systems, but not enough to leave it an electrocuted husk. They would fire, check their sensors, then fire again, being very careful.
*
Agony. Despair. The blasts hitting it were being conducted into the ship's CPU, where the human there writhed from the blasts. Without the human to control it, the ship's reactor was spiraling out of control, and the ion blasts were removing what few biological safeties were present. After three more volleys, the safeties were gone, and the power system exploded.
*
The Skipray gunners watched as the vessel suddenly exploded. They had been careful with their shots, and didn't see how the vessel could have exploded like that. Their pilot broke the silence, "Well gentlemen, it looks like the ship's main power plant blew. What say we round up any pieces, and take them back for study?" Seeing nothing else that could be done, the blastboats began the after-battle salvage, trying to bring in anything that might shed a clue on the identity or capabilities of their opponent.
*
After several of the pieces had been brought aboard, the technicians called over the medics, and asked them to take a look. Seeing the biological structures, the medics and technicians presented their initial report to the Captains later that day. When the evidence was presented and shown to be living material, the Captains ordered a copy to be saved for the next transmission to the Empire. In the meantime, the World Devastator continued its lonely path, consuming the metals beneath it to get the materials needed to repair the Eclipse. It had transferred to the fourth planet, as there were a couple veins of rare earths running close to the surface that it needed.
*
After a couple of days later, enough material had been gathered to close up the outside of the Eclipse, allowing various spaces to be repressurized, and repairs to those sections to be made in easier conditions. The fighters had been continuing their patrols, and had reported no new alien contacts during that time, and only a couple of freighters had been seen passing through. With the possibility of increased contact, probe droids had been dropped in the path the previous freighter had been seen to use, and they had downloaded some interesting information. One, was that although there was a central meeting place for all the races, called Babylon 5, it was not an actual government facility. Two, was word about various races that were at war with each other, providing opportunity for the Imperials to subtly influence one side or another.
The most surprising fact of all, was that there were beings similar to humans in this galaxy! Although it had been determined roughly from the freighter they had seen earlier, the final confirmation was the radio chatter that had occurred between the two vessels. It had been analyzed carefully, and translators were already being programmed to translate English to Imperial Basic, and vice versa.
Fortunately, a new system had been found with nobody home, and there was a decently habitable planet (by Imperial standards), a large asteroid belt, a couple of gas giants with various organic compounds in them, several rocky worlds that could be consumed, and various other odds and ends that made solar systems such interesting places for astronomers.
The small fleet proceeded there, ready to continue expanding their fleet. The hyperjump took less than a couple minutes, and the vessels began settling into their routines. The Hunger began gathering up materials to copy itself, while the Agatrix, Eager Fire, and the Violence began conducting fighter patrols. The Verentor began launching its blastboats to use triangulation to start surveying the nearby solar systems, and placing their location on a star map that was being filled in slowly but steadily. The second World Devastator was built in eight days, but finding the crew for it was stretching their resources, as the Eclipse battleship had relied mainly on automation to reduce the crew load; with the number of people killed, that left even more jobs on board the ship requiring people to do them. The Imperial Forces were running out of people to do jobs, and with the number of droid programs and bodies available in the World Devastator's memory, it was only a matter of time before ships with 90% droid crews were popping up. The Captains didn't like to admit it, but they would soon be forced to make contact with the local races, simply to get the people they needed to man their ships.
On the good side, the Skipray blastboats were doing an excellent job surveying the local systems. They would jump to either end of the local system, and scan local space for stars. After they had finished, they would transmit their data to the Survey Cruiser, and go to new locations. While they were recording the stellar patterns of more stars, the Survey Cruiser's computer would be number crunching, comparing the emissions of the stars to triangulate their locations. As soon as the Blastboats had completed another set of surveys, they would be given coordinates for a nearby system, and they would go to it, attempting to get a more exact fix on its location. The map of known space, for the Imperials, was being expanded very quickly.
On board the second World Devastator, the Selvas, another discussion was beginning to go on. Captain Velholm had recognized the need for quality pilots, and the way current TIE fighters had no hyperdrive engines or shields was a major factor. He wanted to start converting all of the on-board standard TIEs, A-9 Vigilance, and TIE Interceptors into TIE Defenders, as they had onboard shields and hyperdrive. With shields, they would be able to easily survive hits from the local parasite weapons, and with hyperdrive, if there were too many parasites, the fighters could leave easily. This way, if any more of those mile long, black, spidery parasites came around, a fighter patrol would be able to deal with them easily.
In the meantime, it would be necessary for the Selvas to delay its self-replication until the new fighters were built. At 6 squadrons of Defenders and variants per Star Destroyer, plus the fighters for the Modular Cruiser, that was a total of 240 fighters that would have to be built, so it would only delay the self-replication by a couple days. The key delay would be redesigning the recon fighters, the A-9 Vigilance fighters, and the TIE bombers to have the hyperdrive and shields working properly. For the basic fighters squadrons though, that was only 13 squadrons, and they would be delivered that afternoon. After those were completed construction, the technicians assured him they would have the kinks worked out of the recon fighters, the A-9s, and the bombers and they would be delivered tomorrow. After that redesign, they would add shields and hyperdrive to the droid fighters and bombers that were a World Devastator's standard complement, and those would be completed the day after. In total, he was looking at around three days to refit and build all of his fighters with shields and hyperdrive, and not compromise their capabilities. In short, it was a normal request and turnaround for Imperial technicians.
After the fighters were delivered, the pilots began training in their new use. The blind spot on the Defender was something that would have to be gotten used to, but the shields made their lifespan much greater than before. In addition, some pilots were experimenting using the hyperdrives to do rapid maneuvers. A pilot on one side of a formation would make a pair of microjumps, and would be on the other side of the furball, and opening fire on someone who was definitely not expecting it. Soon furballs began to almost disappear, as fighters would jump in, strike, and jump back out to let their shields and weapons recharge. Of course, the other side would be jumping in as well, trying to take advantage of their momentary vulnerability.
Soon though, information began to come in. A couple of Skiprays had found colonies of larger powers, and were steadily working their way in, but at low power. They were staying well clear of the jump gate nearby, as there was a ship heading from it. There was very little surface to space traffic, in fact there was almost no traffic whatsoever. The usual numbers of ships that were around even a minor world of the Empire were nonexistent, and it appeared as though there was only a single landing strip for ground to space shuttles, not even a decent starport. A few hundred square miles of land were given over to agriculture, and a small town was in the middle of it. There was a small hydroelectric power plant on a river nearby, and a small communications station near the landing field, obviously for coordinating the landing and launching of the planetary shuttles. Even better, from the Skipray's point of view, was that when the freighter arrived, they could observe the landing, and loading/unloading process for future reference.
The freighter finally arrived, and they watched as a pair of primitive fusion powered shuttles came up and exchanged supplies. Even with the low technology available, the cargo transfer was efficient, and the freighter took onboard another load of food supplies, while the shuttles loaded up more spare parts and engineering equipment. The shuttles used atmospheric reentry to slow down, and landed in short order. The Skipray crew was amazed at the sequence of events. First, the freighter had not even tried to land, which would be expected for something that small. Second, the shuttles used orbital intersection to rendezvous with the freighter, not a simple launch and direct interception. Finally, was the way the shuttles had used aero braking to slow down, where an Imperial shuttle would simply head down, and land.
When that data arrived back at the Eclipse, where the Imperial forces were being coordinated from, there was a lot of speculation over what was going on. There was evidence of high technology, judging from the parasites and the obvious defenses and weaponry needed to fight them off; yet there was the extremely low technology shown by the freighter scans and the shuttle flights. Assuming no other data available, the Imperial would proceed under the assumption that the freighters and shuttles were an anomaly, and the technology needed to fend off or destroy the parasite was the local standard.
To get the proper information though, they needed to observe a fight between two or more empires, with top of the line warships dueling. There were reports of various races being aggressive with each other, so it would be necessary to deploy probes to their borders, to watch them carefully. Because of the nature of hyperspace fights, simply watching the space between the two empires would not be enough, they would have to drop off probes at the actual planets, and maintain a single Star Destroyer on rapid alert, ready to go to the planet as soon as a fight was possible.
Once the third World Devastator was built, it began working on another important item. The planet below could be colonized using Imperial technology, and it was time to do so. Specialized colony buildings were built using materials gathered from the asteroid belt, and droids to construct the buildings were launched to the planet. Barracks, landing centers, repair shops, living quarters, communication centers, defensive shields, and ground based weapons were among the first items to be installed, with the rest of the colony's items to be coming later. Most of the items there were designed around keeping the personnel there fairly comfortable, but the defensive shields and ground-based turbolasers were a standard component of a modern Imperial colony.
Ever since the ill-fated Trade Federation attack against a literally defenseless planet, every planet had clamored for its own shields and ground-based weapons. After the decimation of Camaas, where a single ship had killed every inhabitant and so damaged the planet that it was easier to spend at least 40 years terraforming another planet, the original shields around each planet had been upgraded to last several weeks against bombardment. Of course, that arms race had to be countered by a vessel with a weapon capable of penetrating the newer defensive shields, which had called for the Death Star, and its variants. The Emperor had also slapped down a law prohibiting the establishment of heavier shields, and many of the races had agreed to it quickly. First, many of the current shields required enough materials and maintenance as to make it effectively impossible to upgrade it further, and second was that the Empire would haul the cost of building a nastier Death Star off onto the taxpayers. The final reason was that after the New Empire was established, the Death Star was built, but put into mothballs around Coruscant. If someone tried to demothball it, the number of ships needed to do so would be obvious, even in Coruscant's traffic, that everyone would notice. Also, if someone wanted to get a shield that could withstand the Death Star, everyone else would want to know why, and demand a full investigation by the Emperor and his forces, in addition to their own 'agents'.
Since people wanted to enjoy peace, they didn't want to have to deal with the increased taxes a new war would cost, unless it could be proved that it was necessary. With the amount of doubt and suspicion on Emperor Solo, getting that proof would be very difficult. But he was slowly bringing the people around to the idea of a stable, centralized government as being necessary, so public opinion was slowly leaning towards him. It also helped that he encouraged a slight case of paranoia between the members, so the individual members of the Senate were beginning to trust him more than each other.
With the defenses set up, the new Imperial colony could be assured of safety in case any of the parasites attacked. If anything else tried to attack, the time a shield would buy would allow the Imperial warships to return and engage the intruder. As far as the rest of the base, once the living quarters were in, people could come down here to rest, stretch out, and recuperate before getting back on board the ships. If the Imperials were able to get enough people on their side, the selected people would eventually form the core of a new fleet that would be used to conquer this new galaxy.
Slowly, as the days went by, the map of their local space was added to. Three different races were identified, besides the human colony that had been watched by the Skipray earlier. The Centauri seemed to be rattling their sabers at everyone on their border for now, while the Drazi and Brakiri seemed to be staying out of the way. There were reports of other races, but so far none of their worlds had been sighted yet. Probes were stationed near Centauri, Drazi, and Brakiri worlds, in the hopes of actually observing their weapons practice. The station known as Babylon 5 had also been recorded, and its position was getting firmer with every new world detected. Since many ships would broadcast where they were going, the Imperial vessels were able to track down the number of worlds where ships were going to or from the place. When worlds said they only had a single jump to get there, those worlds were obviously closer than the ones that said they needed two or more jumps. A gradual sphere was being formed of worlds that were only one jump away, and patrols were already being dispatched towards the stars in the center of that sphere. It was only a matter of time before they found it.
*
Draal stirred as something caught his attention. Normally, as the new caretaker of the Great Machine buried inside Epsilon 3, he had lots of items that demanded his attention, but at times, he was able to simply look into space, and enjoy the view. He had been watching a certain section of space recently, and had watched the Shadow cruiser as it had attacked the new fighters. He had expected to see the fighters get vaporized by the cruiser, but had been a bit surprised by the results. Probing further through the machine, he tried to see within the vessels, but stopped when the machine sensed another presence there. He tried to get away, but he felt the presence seem to brush against him, and look him over. The presence seemed satisfied with what it found, and released him. He was still near the ships though, and felt the presence seem to be hovering over his shoulder, watching him as he watched the ships.
Backing off a bit, he saw another vessel, similar to the others, but box-shaped, roughly one mile long, half a mile tall, and a quarter mile wide. A fairly impressive vessel, even to a Minbari, but what grabbed his attention immediately was what appeared to be a beam of light beneath it. Zooming his attention in closer, he saw that the beam was actually composed of smaller pieces of rock from the planet below. When the machine projected the sheer tonnage of the material being dragged up each second, he nearly gasped.
But a voice talked to him immediately, "You seek information about us, we seek information about you and here. If you return here, we will want to trade."
Suddenly, he found himself back in the main control room of the machine, disconnected from its neural interface. Sending his mind back into the machine, he tried to compare the vessels seen with any known vessels. The Narn were initially proposed as a possible match for the triangular ships, but there was too much difference to be acceptable. The humans were proposed as the owner of the brick-shaped ship sucking up the planet, but the structural bracing the ship possessed, not to mention the beam, were well beyond their technology to produce.
So it had to be someone else, but who?
*
Teleso stirred as she came out of the trance. She had sensed the presence probing near the Imperial fleet, and had managed to contact it almost immediately. The mind was non-human, but she had trained to contact many types of alien minds, and it was a trivial effort to adapt herself. The presence behind it though, seemed to be a machine of some kind. Immediately recognizing the potential of a machine allowing someone to scan across the galaxy, she told him of the trade offer, and the return that would signal he had accepted it. Returning him to the machine, she had gotten a rough glimpse of the system where it was located, and of the station in orbit above the planet.
*
Elsewhere:
The threats along the Centauri border continued. The Centauri were rattling their sabers at everyone, and the other races were fighting each other as well. For freighters traveling through there, it was a delicate balance of trying not to offend anyone, while also not make it look like they favored anyone. For Imperial probe droids, there was data everywhere they turned. They watched ships, cataloging weapon emissions, and destructive effects upon their targets. They cataloged armor emission spectra, defensive equipment, maneuverability, and internal arrangements of ships, and sent the reports back almost daily. Above all, they recorded the arrival times and exits of different ships, trying to determine top speeds, cruising speeds, and if they stopped at anywhere between the sightings. If they did, probe droids were allocated to nearby stars, trying to spot them.
Planets belonging to different races were watched, and shipyard locations, sizes, repair rates, current projects, and statuses were recorded and sent back. Planetary productions for those systems were estimated, based on observed data, and were compared. Within another week, Imperial forces had a good idea of local strengths of various member of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Compilations of different races' ships were made, and the tactical computers of the ships and fighters were updated.
At the end of each week, the Captains were given a review of the latest ships, with any updates of new information discovered about older vessels. Comparisons were made between each ship and Imperial vessels, and the information was soon emerging into a pattern; the parasites were actually far above the other races in technology, instead of being a minor threat. Even more astounding, some of the races appeared to be cooperating with them. A plan was proposed, to discretely aid those races that were fighting against the parasites, and to destroy parasite warships wherever they were detected.
At one of the meetings, it was decided to build vessels that appeared similar to those of other races on the outside, but packed Imperial technology on the inside. Various designs were proposed, and all had their advantages and flaws. A warship would obviously be fired upon by one side, and questioned by the other, while freighters didn't have as much internal volume for weapons, shields, engines, and anything else that was wanted. It would be necessary to make some trade-offs, but that could be done easily.
The important thing though, was to start building vessels that looked like locals, in order to start the espionage operations. Even more critical was to find and set up local contacts, in order to get a better feel for the region. The only possible source so far had been the human colony discovered so far, and it was decided to construct a freighter similar to the one seem earlier, and use that to make First Contact. Since the colony was primarily an agricultural colony, it was decided to include various technological items that would assist in farming. With the smaller size of components that were possible due to Imperial technology, various espionage droid systems were included as well. The droid packages were designed to observe what was going on, and report whenever an Imperial officer with the appropriate reception package was nearby. Probe droids would also be sent out, in order to make the machinery that was the correct shape. After all, if the local humans used two-wheeled tractors, and the Imperials wanted to sell anti-gravity droid-guided farm control machines, it might look a little odd.
*
The probe droids were on the way, and the orders had been transmitted to the third World Devastator. Its machinery went to work, and the sections of the freighter were turned out. Since the cargo modules along the sides were all the same shape, and the main body was little more than a series of welded tubes, it was easy to get the first mold set up, and them stamp out the parts needed. Assembling took about the same time, and the new freighter was ready in two days. On the outside, it looked like a normal human freighter, but the inside was far different. The Nuclear torch drive had been replaced by an ion drive and hypermatter reactor, with space to spare. Into that extra space though, had been added a hyperdrive configured to act as either a jump engine or standard hyperdrive, a shield generator, two small turbolaser cannons, a probe droid, and some imperial hand weaponry. The computers and sensors had been similarly upgraded, and the whole thing was capable of performing data retrievals from espionage droids and holding their data. The outer hull had also been made of the same material as the freighter seen, but inside the hull was a full inch of heavy armor. As a result, if anyone tried to attack that freighter, they would be in for the fight of their lives.
The crew was selected based on past experience, and seniority. The highest ranking member was a commander, who had previously worked as a merchant before joining the military, and had been very good spotting cost overruns in military procurement budgets. The others were all quiet people, and the engineers selected had a passion for ancient technology, and could far more easily identify what was the local technology level. The final member was a single trooper, who would lead boarding assaults. Everyone was cross-trained, allowing anyone to take over someone else's job. The commander could double as an engineer or as a medic, although the robodoc on board would help in medical, one of the engineers was also a trooper, and the last engineer could also work with trade negotiations.
The freighter was launched on its mission, and the World Devastators returned to their lonely dance, devouring the planet below to continue their growth.
*
Sarah sighed again, this time in boredom. She had managed to go without strangling Captain Brant on the rest of the trip, but only because he was sober. That in itself was surprising, but so was the way he had stopped singing. All of his time now seemed devoted to finding that metal octopus, like some Captain Ahab of old. At the last stop, he had gone around to the other Captains, telling them of what he saw, and asking them if they had seen anything like it. The others had started referring to him as Captain Ahab or Captain Octopus after a while, and he had given up. Fortunately, for her, she could sleep quietly again, and her bridge watch would pass quietly as well. Looking at the time again, she saw five more hours before they would enter the jump gate.
*
The raider leader looked at his display. He had hoped to find a freighter in this area, and here was not one, but two freighters coming into range. It even looked like the second freighter was far enough back that he could deal with the first, and then snap up the second. Telling his wingmen to standby, he ordered their carrier to jump into the system, and release them. The carrier would hang around until the freighters were damaged enough, then close in to pick up any useful cargo. If things got messy, or if a fighter patrol was encountered, the carrier had enough firepower and armor to handle them.
In the meantime, "Form up within the first one's blind spot, then attack."
*
The first clue Sarah had was the blast that went off directly over the engineering section. Looking at her sensors, she saw over two dozen small craft sweeping out of the blind spot caused by the engine's exhaust. 'Raiders!' Turning on the emergency channel, she broadcast, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Freighter Barenica is under attack by hostile forces. Anyone in range please respond! Freighter Barenica to attacking vessels, we are unarmed and defenseless. We surrender, we surrender!" But another blast on the hull answered her pleas, as the raiders knew that if they took survivors, they would have to feed them.
*
The black ship noticed the forces heading towards it, and chuckled. 'A three course meal, ready and served.' It activated its main weapon, and began locking onto the first set of fighters.
*
"Break and attack," came over the tactical channel, and the two squadrons of fighters suddenly rolled hard, shifting their vectors to prevent easy shots from claiming them. The Violence had detected the power surge near the front, and the fighters had figured it to be a weapon of some kind. Spiraling hard, they came up with the vessel in front of them, and opened fire.
*
It watched the fighters suddenly change directions, and it tried to follow both groups, but they were too far apart, so it chose the group on the left to destroy. Aiming at the lead vessel, it began maneuvering as well, trying to throw off any targeting the small fighters had. Although it could handle any weapon, there was no need to get hurt any more than desired. It locked in a firing series to hit every enemy fighter with its beam, and executed it.
*
Squadron leader Verhel watched as the black ship suddenly twisted and dodged, and she fired. But its maneuvers were too much too soon, and barely one tenth of her shots hit, and only four of the spines along one side were blown off. Then her screen went white, and she couldn't see anything.
From the Skipray blastboats, they saw the vessel turn quickly, and fire some sort of beam weapon at the six fighters. They expected to see six explosions, and were a bit surprised when there were none. They then looked at the alien ship, and saw that all the spines along one side were blown off, and half the spines on the other side were similarly missing. Calling up a scan of one of the TIE fighters, they noticed a ragged scar along the cockpit window, which showed what would have been a dead Imperial pilot if the window hadn't been so tough.
*
PAIN! PAIN! AGONY! The fighters had hurt it, and it was bleeding from over a dozen wounds on its sides. It was finally able to handle the pain, and looked at its opponents. 'No, this can't be! Those were only fighters! My weapon should have destroyed all of them! My weapon can destroy ships with a single blast, and these things are still moving? Wait, those fighters were attacked by me, what about the other group?' Too late, it looked at its scanners, and saw the other group of fighters coming in, their weapons already firing. Panicking, it fired its fighter ball, hoping those expendable vessels would be able to distract these dangerous fighters long enough for it to escape. It needed several seconds to slide back to safety, and hopefully these vessels would concentrate on the fighters long enough to do so.
*
"What the-" came over the fighter tactical net as a spiky sphere suddenly shot from the alien vessel. But that reaction came after the pilots of the second squadron had already fired their weapons, and explosions of biological material were forced upwards from the alien ship as the fighter turbolasers found their mark. When high-temperature plasma met living matter, the water within it was flash heated to steam, causing explosions that ripped into the vessel. The vessel was not destroyed outright by the blasts, as the superheated plasma was vented outwards by the exploding body mass.
Breaking off from the dying vessel, the fighters raced after the sphere, when suddenly it seemed to explode, separating into dozens of smaller shapes, each of which began maneuvering to attack. There were a total of twelve Imperial TIE fighters in the fight, versus forty black shapes that began to attack them. The Imperials were outnumbered by better than three to one, but they attacked anyway. After the first couple of volleys though, it became apparent that the alien vessels were unable to do more than cause a minor scorch mark to the TIE fighters, while the TIEs were obliterating every fighter they fired upon. It was over in less than a minute, with the last alien fighter trying to flee with two TIE fighters on its tail. It didn't get very far.
Turning back to the alien mothership, the fighters began to dodge and weave around it, ready to get the killing blow in.
*
The alien ship looked at the fight in horror. The fighters, even the ones it had damaged with its beam were far superior to its own, and they had come after it as well. Its engines to escape back into hyperspace were badly damaged, and rapid healing could only work so fast. But what was that second group of vessels doing?
*
The Skipray blastboats heard the orders and changed their weapon selection. Up until then, they had asked for the finishing blow, and the TIE fighters had granted it to them. But now, the Captain wanted to take that ship fairly intact, and they were ordered to use their ion cannons to immobilize it for study. With the ion cannons selected, they began to fire at the vessel using carefully metered bursts. They wanted to fire enough to shut down its power systems, but not enough to leave it an electrocuted husk. They would fire, check their sensors, then fire again, being very careful.
*
Agony. Despair. The blasts hitting it were being conducted into the ship's CPU, where the human there writhed from the blasts. Without the human to control it, the ship's reactor was spiraling out of control, and the ion blasts were removing what few biological safeties were present. After three more volleys, the safeties were gone, and the power system exploded.
*
The Skipray gunners watched as the vessel suddenly exploded. They had been careful with their shots, and didn't see how the vessel could have exploded like that. Their pilot broke the silence, "Well gentlemen, it looks like the ship's main power plant blew. What say we round up any pieces, and take them back for study?" Seeing nothing else that could be done, the blastboats began the after-battle salvage, trying to bring in anything that might shed a clue on the identity or capabilities of their opponent.
*
After several of the pieces had been brought aboard, the technicians called over the medics, and asked them to take a look. Seeing the biological structures, the medics and technicians presented their initial report to the Captains later that day. When the evidence was presented and shown to be living material, the Captains ordered a copy to be saved for the next transmission to the Empire. In the meantime, the World Devastator continued its lonely path, consuming the metals beneath it to get the materials needed to repair the Eclipse. It had transferred to the fourth planet, as there were a couple veins of rare earths running close to the surface that it needed.
*
After a couple of days later, enough material had been gathered to close up the outside of the Eclipse, allowing various spaces to be repressurized, and repairs to those sections to be made in easier conditions. The fighters had been continuing their patrols, and had reported no new alien contacts during that time, and only a couple of freighters had been seen passing through. With the possibility of increased contact, probe droids had been dropped in the path the previous freighter had been seen to use, and they had downloaded some interesting information. One, was that although there was a central meeting place for all the races, called Babylon 5, it was not an actual government facility. Two, was word about various races that were at war with each other, providing opportunity for the Imperials to subtly influence one side or another.
The most surprising fact of all, was that there were beings similar to humans in this galaxy! Although it had been determined roughly from the freighter they had seen earlier, the final confirmation was the radio chatter that had occurred between the two vessels. It had been analyzed carefully, and translators were already being programmed to translate English to Imperial Basic, and vice versa.
Fortunately, a new system had been found with nobody home, and there was a decently habitable planet (by Imperial standards), a large asteroid belt, a couple of gas giants with various organic compounds in them, several rocky worlds that could be consumed, and various other odds and ends that made solar systems such interesting places for astronomers.
The small fleet proceeded there, ready to continue expanding their fleet. The hyperjump took less than a couple minutes, and the vessels began settling into their routines. The Hunger began gathering up materials to copy itself, while the Agatrix, Eager Fire, and the Violence began conducting fighter patrols. The Verentor began launching its blastboats to use triangulation to start surveying the nearby solar systems, and placing their location on a star map that was being filled in slowly but steadily. The second World Devastator was built in eight days, but finding the crew for it was stretching their resources, as the Eclipse battleship had relied mainly on automation to reduce the crew load; with the number of people killed, that left even more jobs on board the ship requiring people to do them. The Imperial Forces were running out of people to do jobs, and with the number of droid programs and bodies available in the World Devastator's memory, it was only a matter of time before ships with 90% droid crews were popping up. The Captains didn't like to admit it, but they would soon be forced to make contact with the local races, simply to get the people they needed to man their ships.
On the good side, the Skipray blastboats were doing an excellent job surveying the local systems. They would jump to either end of the local system, and scan local space for stars. After they had finished, they would transmit their data to the Survey Cruiser, and go to new locations. While they were recording the stellar patterns of more stars, the Survey Cruiser's computer would be number crunching, comparing the emissions of the stars to triangulate their locations. As soon as the Blastboats had completed another set of surveys, they would be given coordinates for a nearby system, and they would go to it, attempting to get a more exact fix on its location. The map of known space, for the Imperials, was being expanded very quickly.
On board the second World Devastator, the Selvas, another discussion was beginning to go on. Captain Velholm had recognized the need for quality pilots, and the way current TIE fighters had no hyperdrive engines or shields was a major factor. He wanted to start converting all of the on-board standard TIEs, A-9 Vigilance, and TIE Interceptors into TIE Defenders, as they had onboard shields and hyperdrive. With shields, they would be able to easily survive hits from the local parasite weapons, and with hyperdrive, if there were too many parasites, the fighters could leave easily. This way, if any more of those mile long, black, spidery parasites came around, a fighter patrol would be able to deal with them easily.
In the meantime, it would be necessary for the Selvas to delay its self-replication until the new fighters were built. At 6 squadrons of Defenders and variants per Star Destroyer, plus the fighters for the Modular Cruiser, that was a total of 240 fighters that would have to be built, so it would only delay the self-replication by a couple days. The key delay would be redesigning the recon fighters, the A-9 Vigilance fighters, and the TIE bombers to have the hyperdrive and shields working properly. For the basic fighters squadrons though, that was only 13 squadrons, and they would be delivered that afternoon. After those were completed construction, the technicians assured him they would have the kinks worked out of the recon fighters, the A-9s, and the bombers and they would be delivered tomorrow. After that redesign, they would add shields and hyperdrive to the droid fighters and bombers that were a World Devastator's standard complement, and those would be completed the day after. In total, he was looking at around three days to refit and build all of his fighters with shields and hyperdrive, and not compromise their capabilities. In short, it was a normal request and turnaround for Imperial technicians.
After the fighters were delivered, the pilots began training in their new use. The blind spot on the Defender was something that would have to be gotten used to, but the shields made their lifespan much greater than before. In addition, some pilots were experimenting using the hyperdrives to do rapid maneuvers. A pilot on one side of a formation would make a pair of microjumps, and would be on the other side of the furball, and opening fire on someone who was definitely not expecting it. Soon furballs began to almost disappear, as fighters would jump in, strike, and jump back out to let their shields and weapons recharge. Of course, the other side would be jumping in as well, trying to take advantage of their momentary vulnerability.
Soon though, information began to come in. A couple of Skiprays had found colonies of larger powers, and were steadily working their way in, but at low power. They were staying well clear of the jump gate nearby, as there was a ship heading from it. There was very little surface to space traffic, in fact there was almost no traffic whatsoever. The usual numbers of ships that were around even a minor world of the Empire were nonexistent, and it appeared as though there was only a single landing strip for ground to space shuttles, not even a decent starport. A few hundred square miles of land were given over to agriculture, and a small town was in the middle of it. There was a small hydroelectric power plant on a river nearby, and a small communications station near the landing field, obviously for coordinating the landing and launching of the planetary shuttles. Even better, from the Skipray's point of view, was that when the freighter arrived, they could observe the landing, and loading/unloading process for future reference.
The freighter finally arrived, and they watched as a pair of primitive fusion powered shuttles came up and exchanged supplies. Even with the low technology available, the cargo transfer was efficient, and the freighter took onboard another load of food supplies, while the shuttles loaded up more spare parts and engineering equipment. The shuttles used atmospheric reentry to slow down, and landed in short order. The Skipray crew was amazed at the sequence of events. First, the freighter had not even tried to land, which would be expected for something that small. Second, the shuttles used orbital intersection to rendezvous with the freighter, not a simple launch and direct interception. Finally, was the way the shuttles had used aero braking to slow down, where an Imperial shuttle would simply head down, and land.
When that data arrived back at the Eclipse, where the Imperial forces were being coordinated from, there was a lot of speculation over what was going on. There was evidence of high technology, judging from the parasites and the obvious defenses and weaponry needed to fight them off; yet there was the extremely low technology shown by the freighter scans and the shuttle flights. Assuming no other data available, the Imperial would proceed under the assumption that the freighters and shuttles were an anomaly, and the technology needed to fend off or destroy the parasite was the local standard.
To get the proper information though, they needed to observe a fight between two or more empires, with top of the line warships dueling. There were reports of various races being aggressive with each other, so it would be necessary to deploy probes to their borders, to watch them carefully. Because of the nature of hyperspace fights, simply watching the space between the two empires would not be enough, they would have to drop off probes at the actual planets, and maintain a single Star Destroyer on rapid alert, ready to go to the planet as soon as a fight was possible.
Once the third World Devastator was built, it began working on another important item. The planet below could be colonized using Imperial technology, and it was time to do so. Specialized colony buildings were built using materials gathered from the asteroid belt, and droids to construct the buildings were launched to the planet. Barracks, landing centers, repair shops, living quarters, communication centers, defensive shields, and ground based weapons were among the first items to be installed, with the rest of the colony's items to be coming later. Most of the items there were designed around keeping the personnel there fairly comfortable, but the defensive shields and ground-based turbolasers were a standard component of a modern Imperial colony.
Ever since the ill-fated Trade Federation attack against a literally defenseless planet, every planet had clamored for its own shields and ground-based weapons. After the decimation of Camaas, where a single ship had killed every inhabitant and so damaged the planet that it was easier to spend at least 40 years terraforming another planet, the original shields around each planet had been upgraded to last several weeks against bombardment. Of course, that arms race had to be countered by a vessel with a weapon capable of penetrating the newer defensive shields, which had called for the Death Star, and its variants. The Emperor had also slapped down a law prohibiting the establishment of heavier shields, and many of the races had agreed to it quickly. First, many of the current shields required enough materials and maintenance as to make it effectively impossible to upgrade it further, and second was that the Empire would haul the cost of building a nastier Death Star off onto the taxpayers. The final reason was that after the New Empire was established, the Death Star was built, but put into mothballs around Coruscant. If someone tried to demothball it, the number of ships needed to do so would be obvious, even in Coruscant's traffic, that everyone would notice. Also, if someone wanted to get a shield that could withstand the Death Star, everyone else would want to know why, and demand a full investigation by the Emperor and his forces, in addition to their own 'agents'.
Since people wanted to enjoy peace, they didn't want to have to deal with the increased taxes a new war would cost, unless it could be proved that it was necessary. With the amount of doubt and suspicion on Emperor Solo, getting that proof would be very difficult. But he was slowly bringing the people around to the idea of a stable, centralized government as being necessary, so public opinion was slowly leaning towards him. It also helped that he encouraged a slight case of paranoia between the members, so the individual members of the Senate were beginning to trust him more than each other.
With the defenses set up, the new Imperial colony could be assured of safety in case any of the parasites attacked. If anything else tried to attack, the time a shield would buy would allow the Imperial warships to return and engage the intruder. As far as the rest of the base, once the living quarters were in, people could come down here to rest, stretch out, and recuperate before getting back on board the ships. If the Imperials were able to get enough people on their side, the selected people would eventually form the core of a new fleet that would be used to conquer this new galaxy.
Slowly, as the days went by, the map of their local space was added to. Three different races were identified, besides the human colony that had been watched by the Skipray earlier. The Centauri seemed to be rattling their sabers at everyone on their border for now, while the Drazi and Brakiri seemed to be staying out of the way. There were reports of other races, but so far none of their worlds had been sighted yet. Probes were stationed near Centauri, Drazi, and Brakiri worlds, in the hopes of actually observing their weapons practice. The station known as Babylon 5 had also been recorded, and its position was getting firmer with every new world detected. Since many ships would broadcast where they were going, the Imperial vessels were able to track down the number of worlds where ships were going to or from the place. When worlds said they only had a single jump to get there, those worlds were obviously closer than the ones that said they needed two or more jumps. A gradual sphere was being formed of worlds that were only one jump away, and patrols were already being dispatched towards the stars in the center of that sphere. It was only a matter of time before they found it.
*
Draal stirred as something caught his attention. Normally, as the new caretaker of the Great Machine buried inside Epsilon 3, he had lots of items that demanded his attention, but at times, he was able to simply look into space, and enjoy the view. He had been watching a certain section of space recently, and had watched the Shadow cruiser as it had attacked the new fighters. He had expected to see the fighters get vaporized by the cruiser, but had been a bit surprised by the results. Probing further through the machine, he tried to see within the vessels, but stopped when the machine sensed another presence there. He tried to get away, but he felt the presence seem to brush against him, and look him over. The presence seemed satisfied with what it found, and released him. He was still near the ships though, and felt the presence seem to be hovering over his shoulder, watching him as he watched the ships.
Backing off a bit, he saw another vessel, similar to the others, but box-shaped, roughly one mile long, half a mile tall, and a quarter mile wide. A fairly impressive vessel, even to a Minbari, but what grabbed his attention immediately was what appeared to be a beam of light beneath it. Zooming his attention in closer, he saw that the beam was actually composed of smaller pieces of rock from the planet below. When the machine projected the sheer tonnage of the material being dragged up each second, he nearly gasped.
But a voice talked to him immediately, "You seek information about us, we seek information about you and here. If you return here, we will want to trade."
Suddenly, he found himself back in the main control room of the machine, disconnected from its neural interface. Sending his mind back into the machine, he tried to compare the vessels seen with any known vessels. The Narn were initially proposed as a possible match for the triangular ships, but there was too much difference to be acceptable. The humans were proposed as the owner of the brick-shaped ship sucking up the planet, but the structural bracing the ship possessed, not to mention the beam, were well beyond their technology to produce.
So it had to be someone else, but who?
*
Teleso stirred as she came out of the trance. She had sensed the presence probing near the Imperial fleet, and had managed to contact it almost immediately. The mind was non-human, but she had trained to contact many types of alien minds, and it was a trivial effort to adapt herself. The presence behind it though, seemed to be a machine of some kind. Immediately recognizing the potential of a machine allowing someone to scan across the galaxy, she told him of the trade offer, and the return that would signal he had accepted it. Returning him to the machine, she had gotten a rough glimpse of the system where it was located, and of the station in orbit above the planet.
*
Elsewhere:
The threats along the Centauri border continued. The Centauri were rattling their sabers at everyone, and the other races were fighting each other as well. For freighters traveling through there, it was a delicate balance of trying not to offend anyone, while also not make it look like they favored anyone. For Imperial probe droids, there was data everywhere they turned. They watched ships, cataloging weapon emissions, and destructive effects upon their targets. They cataloged armor emission spectra, defensive equipment, maneuverability, and internal arrangements of ships, and sent the reports back almost daily. Above all, they recorded the arrival times and exits of different ships, trying to determine top speeds, cruising speeds, and if they stopped at anywhere between the sightings. If they did, probe droids were allocated to nearby stars, trying to spot them.
Planets belonging to different races were watched, and shipyard locations, sizes, repair rates, current projects, and statuses were recorded and sent back. Planetary productions for those systems were estimated, based on observed data, and were compared. Within another week, Imperial forces had a good idea of local strengths of various member of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Compilations of different races' ships were made, and the tactical computers of the ships and fighters were updated.
At the end of each week, the Captains were given a review of the latest ships, with any updates of new information discovered about older vessels. Comparisons were made between each ship and Imperial vessels, and the information was soon emerging into a pattern; the parasites were actually far above the other races in technology, instead of being a minor threat. Even more astounding, some of the races appeared to be cooperating with them. A plan was proposed, to discretely aid those races that were fighting against the parasites, and to destroy parasite warships wherever they were detected.
At one of the meetings, it was decided to build vessels that appeared similar to those of other races on the outside, but packed Imperial technology on the inside. Various designs were proposed, and all had their advantages and flaws. A warship would obviously be fired upon by one side, and questioned by the other, while freighters didn't have as much internal volume for weapons, shields, engines, and anything else that was wanted. It would be necessary to make some trade-offs, but that could be done easily.
The important thing though, was to start building vessels that looked like locals, in order to start the espionage operations. Even more critical was to find and set up local contacts, in order to get a better feel for the region. The only possible source so far had been the human colony discovered so far, and it was decided to construct a freighter similar to the one seem earlier, and use that to make First Contact. Since the colony was primarily an agricultural colony, it was decided to include various technological items that would assist in farming. With the smaller size of components that were possible due to Imperial technology, various espionage droid systems were included as well. The droid packages were designed to observe what was going on, and report whenever an Imperial officer with the appropriate reception package was nearby. Probe droids would also be sent out, in order to make the machinery that was the correct shape. After all, if the local humans used two-wheeled tractors, and the Imperials wanted to sell anti-gravity droid-guided farm control machines, it might look a little odd.
*
The probe droids were on the way, and the orders had been transmitted to the third World Devastator. Its machinery went to work, and the sections of the freighter were turned out. Since the cargo modules along the sides were all the same shape, and the main body was little more than a series of welded tubes, it was easy to get the first mold set up, and them stamp out the parts needed. Assembling took about the same time, and the new freighter was ready in two days. On the outside, it looked like a normal human freighter, but the inside was far different. The Nuclear torch drive had been replaced by an ion drive and hypermatter reactor, with space to spare. Into that extra space though, had been added a hyperdrive configured to act as either a jump engine or standard hyperdrive, a shield generator, two small turbolaser cannons, a probe droid, and some imperial hand weaponry. The computers and sensors had been similarly upgraded, and the whole thing was capable of performing data retrievals from espionage droids and holding their data. The outer hull had also been made of the same material as the freighter seen, but inside the hull was a full inch of heavy armor. As a result, if anyone tried to attack that freighter, they would be in for the fight of their lives.
The crew was selected based on past experience, and seniority. The highest ranking member was a commander, who had previously worked as a merchant before joining the military, and had been very good spotting cost overruns in military procurement budgets. The others were all quiet people, and the engineers selected had a passion for ancient technology, and could far more easily identify what was the local technology level. The final member was a single trooper, who would lead boarding assaults. Everyone was cross-trained, allowing anyone to take over someone else's job. The commander could double as an engineer or as a medic, although the robodoc on board would help in medical, one of the engineers was also a trooper, and the last engineer could also work with trade negotiations.
The freighter was launched on its mission, and the World Devastators returned to their lonely dance, devouring the planet below to continue their growth.
*
Sarah sighed again, this time in boredom. She had managed to go without strangling Captain Brant on the rest of the trip, but only because he was sober. That in itself was surprising, but so was the way he had stopped singing. All of his time now seemed devoted to finding that metal octopus, like some Captain Ahab of old. At the last stop, he had gone around to the other Captains, telling them of what he saw, and asking them if they had seen anything like it. The others had started referring to him as Captain Ahab or Captain Octopus after a while, and he had given up. Fortunately, for her, she could sleep quietly again, and her bridge watch would pass quietly as well. Looking at the time again, she saw five more hours before they would enter the jump gate.
*
The raider leader looked at his display. He had hoped to find a freighter in this area, and here was not one, but two freighters coming into range. It even looked like the second freighter was far enough back that he could deal with the first, and then snap up the second. Telling his wingmen to standby, he ordered their carrier to jump into the system, and release them. The carrier would hang around until the freighters were damaged enough, then close in to pick up any useful cargo. If things got messy, or if a fighter patrol was encountered, the carrier had enough firepower and armor to handle them.
In the meantime, "Form up within the first one's blind spot, then attack."
*
The first clue Sarah had was the blast that went off directly over the engineering section. Looking at her sensors, she saw over two dozen small craft sweeping out of the blind spot caused by the engine's exhaust. 'Raiders!' Turning on the emergency channel, she broadcast, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Freighter Barenica is under attack by hostile forces. Anyone in range please respond! Freighter Barenica to attacking vessels, we are unarmed and defenseless. We surrender, we surrender!" But another blast on the hull answered her pleas, as the raiders knew that if they took survivors, they would have to feed them.