Eleven

Horde World

Location Unknown

18 September 2017

Rongar's shuttle exited hyperspace on its final leg of the journey to the current seat of the Horde Empire. It had been moved several times in the last two thousand years, the last several moves taking place as a result of the Val-kyrie finding its location and laying waste to much of the surface facilities and structures.

The current location was so secret that all navigational data of its exact location was a closely guarded secret. To get there, one had to travel a network of waypoints – beacons and the occasion supply station for refueling smaller craft - in order to get to the home world. However, at the edge of each leg, the last set of course coordinates were purged from the navigational system by the automated system before the next leg was loaded. Multiple ways into the network. Multiple ways out. Only the Home Fleet had complete maps of the network, and those warships never left the home system. When a warship was rotated out, all files of the network were purged, and the vessel jumped out like any other vessel using the jump system.

General Rongar rarely got back to Horde World anymore. There was nothing here that interested him -until now. The only way to find out more about that unlisted base was to come here and look in the archives. If he struck out there, he could always seek an audience with Horde Prime himself and demand an answer.

Yes. Right. And Horde Prime could have me executed on the spot for my impertinence. Rongar snorted.

During the trip, he had received a brief message from Cobra. Text-only with an attached image of some type of robot head he had never seen before; even Sagan was stumped as to what it could be. The bounty hunter indicated he was heading for the Val-kyrie home world in search of more information. Rongar doubted he would meet with success. Then again, Rongar had yet to reveal his knowledge about the unlisted Horde installation. Until he knew more about it, he trusted no one with that information. General Femora knew enough to keep quiet about it, even if she had no idea of the base's significance.

Sitting in the co-pilot's seat, Rongar returned his attention to outside the viewport. There was not much to see yet, but he knew of the formidable defenses that ringed the system. There were only half a dozen entry points along the ecliptic. Massive fortresses spanned the expanse in a deadly ring of satellites backed by a squadron of warships arrayed to watch over specific sectors. Roving patrols covered the areas above and below the ecliptic in an unlikely event that someone found their way into the system. Early-warning sensors scanned for hyperspace disturbances caused by starships jumping into the system within the defense ring. Anyone stupid enough to do that would be met with the unbelievable firepower roaming the system. Each of the outer four planets were defended against attacks on the facilities that fueled the system's industry.

And then there was Horde World.

After an identity check, Rongar's shuttle was allowed to pass through the gauntlet of massive fortresses into the inner system. The course did not take the shuttle anywhere near the industry planets. Only the first planet, located in the habitable zone, lay along the flight path. That planet was the most heavily defended of all. No fortresses had been set near the planet. Instead, artificial rings circled the planet at different angles. Only one – at the equator – serviced the industry complexes both mounted in the ring and on the planet. The other four contained powerful defensive platforms that traversed the rings so that their main weapons could be positioned to fire in any direction. The platforms were backed up by a massive array of planetary defenses capable of hitting anything in high orbit, and more elements of the Home Fleet.

Only someone suicidal would dare assault the system.

Or the Val-kyrie.

Sagan followed the assigned approach vector towards the massive dome that was the seat of power on Horde World. Horde Prime's palace, for lack of a better description. Rongar thought it looked more like a mushroom, with the lower structure tapering beneath the dome. The flight path took the shuttle toward the rings of landing platforms encircling the stem. There were four such rings, all were bustling with nonstop activity. Shuttles, transports, military vehicles; all were coming and going at all hours of the day.

Sagan set the shuttle down in the assigned landing space and shut down the drive systems. Servitor robots appeared to conduct postflight inspections and servicing.

"They could have at least sent an honor guard," Sagan commented, observing that no one had shown up to greet them.

"This isn't an official visit," Rongar pointed out. He detested all the pomp and circumstance, despite his rank calling for it.

The pair passed through each checkpoint, each more stringent than the last, on their way to the archives buried in depths beneath Horde Prime's castle. No recording devices were allowed inside, meaning Sagan had to leave his data pad behind, outside the chamber. Fortunately, both had committed the spatial coordinates to memory, so there would be no problems there. Researching the images Cobra had sent would be another matter.

Rongar and Sagan passed through the armored doors and stepped into the massive archives chamber. At five stories high and covering the equivalent of three city blocks, it was not the largest chamber on the planet, but for the amount of knowledge stored here, nothing else, save the rumored library in Castle Grayskull, came close; no one knew how extensive a library the Val-kyrie might possess.

The floor was a maze of walls containing storage cores. The surrounding levels contained smaller versions of the cores, interspersed with computer locations for people to sit and sift through the sea of knowledge. In the center of the ground floor the pair found a long line of stations for direct access, with twelve double stations to choose from. Instead of sitting opposite one another, Rongar and Sagan took seats side-by-side to compare notes as they searched for the identity of the lost Horde base and attempted to identify the machine Cobra recovered the head from.

Sitting down, the men keyed in their access codes, bringing the terminals to life. Rongar's knowledge of Horde bases and history would serve him in identifying the base. He input the spatial coordinates for the solar system where his recon probe had been lost. No results. As far as the database was concerned there was no solar system at the indicated coordinates. Rongar didn't really expect anything different. Many of the records – both Horde and Val-kyrie – had been lost toward the end of the Great War.

Salvagers were plying the uninhabited regions out along the rim where lost outposts had been located during the war. Other installations had been discovered in various locations both within and without the borders of Horde space. Most had been looted when the forces abandoned the bases. Most were nothing but useless rusting wreckage. Others had some worthwhile salvage. The rare ones were unspoiled installations that no one had gotten around to removing all valuable equipment from. While the tech in those bases was woefully obsolete, it was still a step up for people needing to upgrade from their current tech. Even weaponry a thousand years out of date could still be deadly when used by pirates, criminal organizations and lesser advanced civilizations looking for an advantage against their adversaries.

The technology in the robot head did appear to be out of date, but it may have been upgraded. Just like the old Horde designs that so effectively eliminated a Horde destroyer. What other sites lay out there, forgotten, waiting to be rediscovered?

Sagan leaned over. "Any luck on the location identification?"

Rongar shook his head. "It appears to have been purged from the database. No matter which way I come at it, there is nothing to find. How is your research into the head going?"

"I went as far back as what the Val-kyrie call the Great War. Found a few similarities, but nothing exact. You mentioned old Horde designs potentially modified." Sagan tapped several controls on the panel.

Rongar perked up. "You found something." It was a statement, not a question. He leaned over far enough to get a good look at the angled screen.

The specs Sagan pulled up were for the torpedo bomber that would have been put into service if the war had not ended when it did. With no other enemy capable of challenging the Horde besides the Val-kyrie, the design never left the testing stage. Rongar noted the few hull differences between the schematic on the screen and the images transmitted from the destroyer. Most of the upgrading appeared to have been made internal.

All Horde craft, whether they were fighters, bombers or modified for specific missions, all had one thing in common. All required a pilot and copilot. The response times from the attack on the destroyer were above those for current trooper robots. There had been experiments at increasing the intelligence of the troopers just enough to make them deadlier in battle. Some involved a learning intelligence. For each battle the machine survived, it got just a little bit smarter. The downside was for the potential of the machine to grow smart enough to wonder why it should continue to serve its masters.

After a major incident involving a rather large-scale rebellion, the positronic brains still in use after the war finally ended were replaced with less sophisticated brains and a template that could be loaded for whatever tasks the robot was to perform.

What he was looking at were a series of specs on designs long outdated. Yet someone had the resources to refurbish those designs and make them deadly. Sometimes outdated weapons can be more deadly than modern ones on the grounds that as technology improves, it sometimes becomes vulnerable to the low-tech options. Hence the dead destroyer.

Somewhere out there was an unknown facility with the capabilities of the shipyard currently building the new Hoscar. Even if it were a single Horde facility, there would not need to be major alterations done to accommodate a warship the size and shape of an old battlestar. It was more likely a shipyard or similar facility, capable of making major repairs and upgrades.

There was nothing listed in the area of the planet Rongar had sent the destroyer to investigate. If there was such a ghost facility out there somewhere, it would have been discovered by now. Salvage companies and corporations were always hunting for star systems rich in resources to exploit. Technology to upgrade. So-called lost tech from the war. Anything to give a company/corporation an edge on the competition. Some of these were owned by the crime families, and they always had an ear out for rumors of new sources of tech and materials.

There was one other possibility. The most cost-effective way of building starships was to have yards in orbit of a planet or sitting in open space within the system – as with the massive facility in the Argolus system – complete with everything needed to take raw materials and make it into required products. But there were a few instances of facilities, massive complexes, really, buried beneath the planet's surface. Out along the rim, not far away from the planet the locals called Earth, there was such a facility, the first large-scale factory Horde Prime had ordered constructed. The base was still in service, but it had been relegated to research and development. Replacement equipment was still produced and supplied to any fleet resources assigned to that sector of the galaxy. Something even on the scale of that facility could go undetected, especially if the entrance were skillfully hidden and hard to locate if you didn't know what to look for.

Something else bothered Rongar. The tactics used against the destroyer were vaguely familiar to him, but he could not think of where he might have seen those tactics before. Also, the way in which the transfer points were being invaded and destroyed had a certain pattern to it. Commanders always developed their own style when drawing up and implementing a plan. While the playbook spelled out how to create tactical plans, they were generic, needing to be further developed based on the situation in which they were employed and the strengths of the commander employing them.

Rongar's style was born of studying the tactics of past admirals, generals and others who had drafted some truly innovative strategies. He came up with his own spin on many of those and adapted them to serve his needs. Not every campaign was a success, of course. But he did learn from those failures, modified or threw out what did not work so well, and further refined what did. Overly complex plans absolutely did not work. Even when coordinating assaults, keeping things as simple as possible was a must.

One person it could be said Rongar came close to idolizing was General Alton. That man made genius tactics look routine. Alton also had a rep for maximum casualties; not something Rongar admired, but the guts it took to run some of his operations was. Though the general really did try to avoid unnecessary carnage of non-combatants; after all, you cannot rule a galaxy when everyone is dead. Rongar's main takeaway from General Alton's career was his penchant for getting the maximum usage out of minimal assets wherever possible. Even some of the bigger battles were sometimes won using less resources than the enemy. Then again, the brains of the troopers had more sophisticated programming back then than now.

The attack on Destroyer 11734 had some of the hallmarks of an Alton operation. But that was not possible. He died before the war ended. The only records of his exploits were in the possession of the Horde and the Val-kyrie. So, who was out there? It could not be the general. He was long dead. Someone who had studied the late general's tactics like Rongar? Maybe someone discovered a strategic computer loaded with Alton's tactics and battle data. That would certainly account for some of the precision in the documented attacks. But there was another element involved that could not be accounted for by computer control alone.

That meant that there was someone out there who could command forces as well as Rongar and a few other select few admirals and generals in Horde Prime's armies. And that could mean real trouble if the conservative estimate of the enemy forces proved lower than projected.

Deadly trouble.

Origin Point

Unit Six Sixty-six reviewed the data from the action in and near Transfer Station 437. The tactical revisions worked as planned. It now had the variables needed to adapt to almost any contingency in future actions against noncombat targets. The military aspects had been stored in the base computer database; database modules recovered from the wreckage of the Horde destroyer provided a more up to date picture of current galactic events. Everything went as expected.

Except for losing two battlecruisers to the crushing gravity of the gas giant in the system.

"It appears that the disciples of Kragor are more resourceful than anticipated. Losing two battlecruisers is not an issue. More where those came from. The tactics, however, were very inventive. Took a chance of not getting out of the gravity well with the trap play."

"Replacements are already being brought online," the base AI announced. "The other capital ships have been refurbished. Servitor robots are finishing the trial cruise now. That will give you four capital warships plus several dozen smaller starships."

"Troop levels?"

"Two thousand are currently online. Another three thousand will be available within two days. There are more than enough servitor robots to crew the starships and handle any other tasks required."

Re-activating the human-sized servitor robots had been the first step. They had been used in the past to work controls, crew warships and perform any other duty the larger Shadowdemon machines could not do. The demons had been designed for one purpose. War. Commanders were programmed to run missions, while the other demons and servitors carried out those orders.

All the parameters had been met so far. Time to advance to the next level.

Six Sixty-six fed the data for the next operation into the base computer. "This is the next operation. Activate the required troops and servitors. They are to deploy as soon as they are ready."

"Affirmative," the AI answered.

Orders went out. Robots were activated, prepping the force of Shadowdemons for the coming action. Hopefully, one or more of Kragor's disciples will appear. More data was needed of their capabilities. A lot of technology had been incorporated into those six suits. Technology that would still be state-of-the-art even a thousand years later.

If the experiment to create AIs in the suits had in fact succeeded, the best way to evaluate their skills would be to fight them. There had been a rumor that the technology to map and transfer memory engrams had been perfected just before Kragor and his followers had enshrined the battlesuits. That the six humans had transferred copies of their knowledge, experience and just enough traces of personalities to be a catalyst for the machines to develop personalities of their own.

Scenarios suggested that if the suits did in fact evolve into becoming sentient, and the inheritors of Kragor's legacy found a way to fight in conjunction with the machines, they would be very formidable enemies, indeed. The Etherium alloy armor would not make them invulnerable – the weak point would still be the fragile operators inside – but they would been extremely hard to kill.

When this operation was complete, Unit Six Sixty-six would have to set up a place to engage the Guardians in battle to see what they were really made of.

The AI reviewed the list of a dozen targets. Four stood out as being the most likely to draw out one or more of the Guardians and their new operators. If the plan was successful, they would soon get real-time data on what the operators could do with the battlesuits.

The Fright Zone, Etheria.

Snake Mountain.

Palace Eternia.

Castle Grayskull.

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