Chapter Three
General Alexis Alexander
Base Delta
1130 Hours Local
With the arrival of Scrin reinforcements, I first felt terrified, then when the Commander's message got to me, I was reassured that these particular ships were friendly. It was understandable that I'd feel like this. After all, when we first encountered those things, they were trying to wipe the entire human race off the face of the earth. I wrote my E-mail to Natasha and let her know about the situation, then went back to managing my new army. Once the Scrin Drone Tower was over a suitable location, I ordered it to deploy and begin construction of my new Scrin base. As I was pouring my attention into building the base, I had one of my assistants keep an eye on the rest of my base. The Scrin had some pretty complex units, and I found myself admiring their power when I could actually test them out.
When I had access to the Planetary Assault Carrier, I tried to think of all the things I could do with that one unit. It generated Ion storm around its hull, so it could improve all of the Scrin's air power. It could also possibly double as a superweapon… I just needed to know how to accomplish that. Normally, its 'weapon' was several high-speed light attack fighters, smaller then the Stormrider.
Maybe if I could make the Carrier's fighters bigger… I'd risk the instability of the whole damn ship. Obviously, the Scrin made their ships this way for a reason, and their weapons were also made that way for a reason. Despite their bug-like appearance, they were powerful and obviously they worked so until we knew more about the Scrin's technology became more well-understood, modifying it was strictly 'at your own risk'. I was particularly interested in the Rift Generator though. I remembered when that weapon was used against my own troops.
The Rift Generator caused a small black hole to form, and… well, you get the idea. Tanks, buildings and infantry don't tend to last long against a black hole. When it charged up for me to use, I selected my target, an Imperial base on a frozen moon, and activated it. The generator rumbled to life, and started making some weird sounds, and then a ball of energy appeared over the Generator, and then dissipated.
Watching the feed from the probe that was on that moon, I saw the Black Hole begin to form, and before long, most of that imperial base was sucked in to it. The enemy troops were getting sucked in before they could even react. Being well past the Event Horizon of the hole, they never had a chance.
After the black hole imploded on itself, the small, dense ball of matter that the black hole formed fell to the ground, and killed several of the surviving Snowtroopers. I laughed when I saw that. The dense ball of matter that formed wasn't the first time the Rift Generator did that. Einstein later explained the physics of that, and apparently when the black hole dissipated, the matter it sucked up fell to the ground. Apparently, it was a pretty good fuel source as well. The matter was so dense and compacted, that it could provide a lot of power IF you could lift it to where you need it and have a facility that was good enough to process it.
Anyways, after the Black hole did its thing, I teleported my own troops into the area and they quickly mopped up the few surviving defenders. I ordered them however not to destroy any of the base. Seeing as their command centers were still largely intact, if severely damaged from bits of them flying into the black hole, they could still be used to make the construction droids that the Imperials used in making their bases. Deciding to break with the ordinary, instead of sending out an Engineer, I used the Scrin Assimilator unit that worked in much the same way. The unit ran out onto the frozen surface of the moon, and went up to the building. Using the specially adapted bony prongs that made up its head, it punched into the building and before long started to fuse with it.
As the process continued, the Assimilator began to seemingly liquefy itself as it bonded with the building, and eventually, there was nothing left of it, but the two holes where its prongs had pushed through. On my command screen, I saw that the imperial command center was now under my control and the build tab I had on the right-hand side of the screen a new option up on it: Construction Droid.
Selecting that, the droid started building, and before long, it was floating out. Instantly, I activated the Chronosphere and teleported it back to my main base. Once it was there, I ordered it to start making a new Command Center and it complied, moving to a suitable spot and taking the various parts out of itself.
I got on the communications channel with the Commander and said: "Sir, General Alexander here. I've just taken control of an Imperial Command Center and I'm now beginning to build an imperial base. Once I'm done, I'll send Construction Droids to everybody. Out."
I let the Droid take over construction of the Imperial base by setting it to automatically build it. Once the construction yard was finished, it went onto making a barracks and so on. The Command Center I had just built now started making other Construction droids as well, and eventually, my base not only had my own USA Technology, but Scrin and Imperial next to it as well. As promised, I began chronoing out the Construction drones to the various other generals and while I waited for them to also start building, I placed an order for several Super Star Destroyers. They were larger then the Planetary Assault Carriers, but far more numerous. I was doing this because at the time, we only had the one Super Star Destroyer, and without reverse-engineering another one, we would have no idea how it worked. I had realised that it would take a while to build them so I also placed an order for several of the units that the Imperials called All-Terrain Armoured Transports' or AT-ATs. These would probably help General Kwai more then me, but it still never hurt to have something that powerful in your base.
Those were made faster, as was expected, and as they stepped out of their war factories, I couldn't help bout wonder how I could enhance those. While their weapons were already very powerful by themselves, I could maybe add small-scale particle cannons, and maybe even firing ports for the troops inside it. Normally transports were like that: fairly light weaponry, but some had the ability to have their troop's fire outside protecting the transport… wait a minute. If I could make a couple of Buzzer units, they were often seen swarming around Scrin vehicles, forming a defensive barrier around the unit.
Hell, it couldn't hurt to try. I ordered the Scrin barracks to make a bunch of Buzzers, and a few seconds later, they came floating out. The Buzzer was a weird-looking unit. It was essentially a cloud of flying razor blades. They were best used as anti-infantry units, and they were insanely good at it. I ordered the Buzzers to move over to one of the AT-ATs, and they broke up from their normal cloud, and converged over the Walker. After a couple of seconds, the Buzzers formed what seemed to be a defensive barrier, for which almost nothing could pass through, intact. That was a great help, mostly because of the may the weapons were mounted onto the Walker, it became very vulnerable to attacks from the side or rear… or even above. With this, they were pretty well protected now.
After that, I loaded it up with several of the Scrin's tanks and sent it out on a recon mission. It began walking at its slow pace and eventually was attacked by several rouge Imperial troops. Watching the skirmish, I saw the rouge troops open fire with everything they had, but it did little more then scratch the paintwork of the massive walker. The Buzzers were doing an excellent job at minimizing the damage taken to the walker, but that could have been just because of the fact that the rouge troops were Stormtroopers. The walker didn't have much trouble in blasting away the enemy troops, and the few that managed to get close enough to it were crushed like bugs underneath its massive legs.
After the rouge troops were dead, I ordered the walker to continue on to see if it could find the main base. When it found the base, the troops inside it opened fire and were supported by the walker's own superior firepower. As the walker approached the base, the base defences started firing at it, but it did little more then scratch up the Buzzers surrounding it. The base it was attacking never stood a chance, and the troops began fleeing even as the Buzzers were leaving the outside of the walker and slicing the troops apart with the many razor blades they were composed out of.
After it finished its attack, I chronoed it back to my base and smiled. This new Imperial technology might just be worth using after all. It certainly seemed more then powerful enough, and if it became a main-stream part of the Soviet Army, I could see a lot of potential for these units. Checking the time, I suddenly cursed and picked up several files on my way to a General's Conference.
Dammit! I was late again! I had gotten so wrapped up in my work I had completely forgotten about it! Opening the door, I saw that a few of the seats were full, and there were several ones that were empty. I looked around the room, file in hand, and then sat down. The Supreme Commander looked annoyed.
"I'm glad you could finally get here, General Alexander. We're waiting on General Barnes and Kane."
I silently thanked them for being later then I was, and I passed the files I had to everyone in the room. When Kane and Victoria Barnes arrived, I passed the files to them as well, and began.
"I've just tested out one of the Imperials various weapons known as an AT-AT while being backed up using Scrin forces. In short, it went very well. A rouge Imperial base was encountered and destroyed by the combination of superior firepower." I paused, and then continued. "I have also begun the process of building four additional Super Star Destroyers. With luck, they should be finished some time day after tomorrow and then we can begin the reverse-engineering process."
The faces in the room had a varying degree of emotions. Some amusement, some concern, and others downright fear. Not surprising really, a Super Star Destroyer was one big, expensive and frighteningly powerful piece of machinery. If we could mass-produce them… well, the Yeerks wouldn't stand much of a chance after those ships left the atmosphere.