Eighteen
Old Alliance Installation
Location Unknown
21 September 2017
Cillian hurried through the corridors heading for the main conference chamber. Activity at the base slowly increased as more sleeper ships were recovered, the people re-animated. Once settled either on the base or in the few activated capital ships, tech crews were given enough time to get acclimated to the age in which they awakened, then off to the sleeper fleet to help recover whatever ships they could. Some that failed the survive the ages were cannibalized for anything salvageable. The dead were left sealed in their sleep capsules. What remained of their ship was taken in tow toward the local star where it was cut loose once the dead hulk reached a velocity and trajectory guaranteed to end in a fiery demise. A fitting tribute to those who willingly took the risk of never waking up again a thousand years ago when the Empress took the remains of her civilization into exile.
Yet, there was another segment of her empire out there that had taken the long route through the ages by settling on an uncharted planet on the far side of Val-kyrie space. After decades of struggle, the colony began to thrive, the population multiply. The founders used the Val-kyrie model initially to build up their fledgling society. As the population grew, they branched out from a strictly military environment to a broadened one with all the elements one would find in other civilizations. Even the Val-kyrie had had to adapt.
There still was not a safe way to bypass the sector controlled by the warrior women. Once a relatively safe route was established, the Empress could really begin to rebuild her empire. Until then, all they could do was continue to work with the resources available and rebuild as best they could.
With all the newly awakened people now populating the base, Cillian had to dodge and weave her way through the corridors where a few months ago hardly anyone roamed about. A trip that took minutes to travel from the command center to conference room sometimes took two the tree times as long depending upon the time of day.
At last, she arrived at the chamber, tapped the control panel set on the wall to left of the door, and strode through just as the doors had barely parted wide enough to admit her. The room was currently set to lower illumination settings since Lord Malkor and the Empress were already involved in viewing the video files sent by Commander Axelrod's spies scattered around the known galaxy.
Reports of attacks had been filtering in for over a day. Cilian carried the latest batch on two data crystals. She had only caught fleeting images as the files downloaded and transferred to crystal, but what Cillian did see frightened her.
Lord Malkor sat in the center seat on the far side of the long conference table, while the Empress occupied the seat at the far end instead of perching on her throne centered on the far wall. Sitting on the throne made it harder to effectively see the wall screen opposite Lord Malkor. The screen darkened, just as Cillian entered carrying the latest dispatches from Commander Axelrod.
"Good timing," Malkor rumbled, snatching the crystal from the reader slot in front of him.
Cillian walked around the end of the table, handing the pair of crystals over to him. "Commander Axelrod indicated these are of particular interest."
"Have you seen any data?" Malkor asked, accepting the crystals.
"Only flashes. One appears to have been taken on Etheria. I think the other was taken on Eternia, but I won't swear to that."
Malkor nodded. Selecting a crystal at random, he popped it into the reader and tapped the activation button next to the port. A moment later, the wall screen lit up with recordings taken by the commander's spies. Flashes of Castles Brightmoon and Mystacor confirmed these were taken on Etheria. As interesting as it was to see the Val-kyrie engineers working to rebuild Castle Brightmoon, it really held little interest to Malkor and the Empress.
A jump cut to the Fright Zone had the trio riveted.
Although it had been several weeks since Hordak's planetary cannon had been destroyed, oily black smoke still billowed up through the devastated remains of the base from fires still burning deep underground. The view switched to a mass of machines marching in formation just beyond the cannon's ravaged base. Several more cuts drew closer to the formation of robots. Even from the initial image, they could see the machines were not any of the three trooper designs currently in use.
A fourth jump had Lord Malkor nearly coming out of his chair. Images of a nemesis from long ago scrolled across the screen. Servators flanked larger black machines armed with powerful energy cannons in place of the left forearm.
"Is this confirmed?" Malkor hissed, unusually subdued.
After shaking off her stunned feelings, Cillian answered, "Yes. The commander confirmed those are indeed the same Servator design we fought during the war. The big black machines, however, do not match any surviving records he possesses." Cillian reviewed her notes to make sure she did not miss anything.
The Empress spoke up. "They remind me of Shadowdemons."
Malkor frowned. "There were rumors of a possible upgrade, but none ever appeared."
The videos rolled on. Initial presumption was Hordak replacing his Mark III trooper with these older, more venerable designs. The presumption vanished in an instant when the leading black machines fired upon the troopers sent out to intercept them with devastating accuracy. Servators extended blasters from one or both forearms and shot at the targets their weaker firepower was capable of eliminating.
Data scrolled down in a side window detailing sensor scans of the machines. Some of the readings were suspect, pointing to the use of passive scans. Greater accuracy could have been achieved with active scanning, but that would also have revealed the person's presence. Still, the data did give an idea of the nature of the attacking machines and probable makeup in materials.
Lord Malkor manipulated the touch controls in the table's surface, separating out the attached data to study it more closely. While not a scientist or technician, Malkor did have general knowledge of the statistics for the machines the Empress' forces fought against during the war. After a few moments, he determined the stats were virtually identical. Not a good sign.
Malkor next compared the data on the larger machines with the known stats of the shadowdemon units from a thousand years ago. All the points scaled out higher on the machines currently attacking the Fright Zone. Frowning, Malkor killed the comparison display. The only sure way to know would be to recover an intact brain from a machine and analyze it. He was pretty sure that would not happen.
The battle eventually wound down, with Hordak prevailing through the use of ballistic weaponry and a timely withdrawal of the attacking force. The withdrawal answered one of Malkor's many questions: The machines acquired enough data on the state of Hordak's defensive capabilities to trigger the program ordering the withdrawal of all remaining forces from the battlefield.
Lord and Empress shared silent concerned looks while Cillian switched crystals.
"Commander Axelrod said this footage would be more interesting," Cillian said, queueing up the recordings.
The footage began with the columns of machines marching in front of Castle Grayskull. Malkor noticed the strategically placed pieces of armor plate along the tree line and further out past the castle. The arrangement looked random to the untrained eye. To a tactician, however, the placement of those pieces was anything but. Commander Axelrod had informed them of the first battle outside the castle against a superior Horde attack force. No known explosion could have landed the pieces in their present position.
The trio watched dispassionately as the jawbridge was pulled down. So far, there was nothing to get excited about; the power on display by the big machines was noteworthy, but not excessive. The way into the castle was quickly opened -with only one obstruction. A colorfully dressed woman barred the way. Frail flesh would not stand up to the Servators, much less their big brothers.
"Who is that?" Malkor asked no one in particular.
"A successor to Veena. While the woman wearing the mantle changes every so often, she is referred to as the Sorceress. The style of clothes has subtle changes with each new person taking over," Cillian supplied, referencing the data sent from the commander. "Her magical powers are reported to be powerful, if unremarkable. She is strongest in the castle."
That would certainly explain the display unfolding as the Sorceress lifted two machines, slammed them together, and shot them back through the throng waiting to cross the jawbridge. What got Malkor unconsciously leaning forward in his seat was her lifting a second pair, crushing them into mangled balls of metal and firing them off at angles into the mass beyond the moat. Malkor did the quick math in his head. With the units knocked off into the bottomless moat, eight of the big machines were taken out in matter of seconds.
"Impressive," the lord commented, letting his approval show. He watched her change outfits and don the power armor they were passably familiar with, due to the covert mission two of his agents had undertaken to the Val-kyrie home world.
Watching her cut down one Servator after another using a staff with twin offset bird caps ratcheted up his assessment of this woman's skills several notches. Dealing with the enemy that got in behind her was especially creative. Until the inevitable happened. The Sorceress reset with her staff reduced to the size of a battleax in her right hand, an energy shield projected from her left arm and readied herself for the next wave. A cannon blast launched from the galley off to her left exploded just short of its target, the blast wave flinging her backward into the castle.
Wincing, Cillian commented, "That was disturbingly familiar." Her comment referenced the inevitability of the machines to overwhelm their defense line no matter how powerful or well-placed in past battles. That was the power of Horde Prime's machine armies: strength in numbers.
All three gasped when the spidery – thing – launched itself from the nose of the skull face, touching down briefly on each stone arch before leaping into the face of a towering black machine. There were still unexplored places in the galaxy where something like that might exist, but Malkor doubted that based on the intelligence, scant as it was, gathered on Val-kyre.
Malkor commented that the chaotic look of the assault was actually a coordinated strike looking for the vulnerable points; his assessment bore fruit a minute later. He had little doubt the machine army faced two Guardians, though he was at a loss to explain why they used the power armor suits instead of the battlesuits. Rumors of one of them having the ability to transform were confirmed when the creature transformed into a man in black and silver power armor. He released a barrage of rockets that exploded a storm of solid metal shafts into a group of Servators, cutting them down where they stood.
Malkor nodded his approval. Whomever these people were, they employed inferior low-tech weaponry to a greater effect against the superior robot forces than Hordak did. Where Hordak was slow to adapt, these people did not let technical inferiority get in the way of overcoming the enemy. As soon as the man rolled over the edge into the moat, small arms fire erupted from behind the armor plates, punctuated by the occasional rocket or missile; Malkor was not sure which.
Shock rippled through the room when two familiar disk weapons soared from the skull's mouth, slicing through the armor of two big machines as if it were paper. Another enemy fell on one weapon's return trip. Guardian Falcon stepped from the castle's darkened interior, reached out and snagged the lethal weapons out of the air.
Confirmed one Guardian.
Second confirmation blasted across the screen not long after. Two big machines, leaning over the edge of the moat to see what had become of the enemy that rolled into it, were suddenly blasted by a powerful beam of plasma that melted a good chunk out of them, followed by the Unnamed Battlesuit finally making its appearance.
Technical details of the capabilities for each suit indicated a fair latitude in making adjustments in armament based each suit's intended purpose. Missiles released from the integrated launcher in the shield had a greater effect on the big machines, though it still took help from the unseen forces in the forest to take one down, but the effect of the storm of metal shafts was absolutely devastating when directed at a Servator.
That wasn't the last shock. After ensuring a team of two women and a man made it across the battlefield and into the castle, following in the wake of over forty Servators that charged inside earlier, the operator of the winged suit suddenly launched himself into the air – and transformed into the suit of power armor seen earlier. Malkor stared open-mouthed as the armored man transformed again just prior to landing on the ridge above Grayskull's left eye. The spidery creature disappeared inside; presumably to assist the Sorceress in defending the castle from the intruders.
Quickly tapping commands into the control pad in front of him, Malkor froze the image and backed it up to just prior to the winged suit's transformation. He ran the footage through frame by frame studying the transformation. Unfortunately, there was not much to see. The suit turned white with energy radiation, turned into the smaller form in a flash. No matter how much Malkor ran the images through, there just was not much to see.
"How is that possible?" Cillian asked.
Malkor shook his head. "That was never in the design specs. It may have something to do with the evolution of the onboard AI coupled with the operator -the technology may have had some unforeseen developments."
Cillian consulted her data pad. "Kragor's rebellion ensured the destruction of the core scientific team when he and his companions stole the six suits." She paused, looking through pages of information.
"I thought the factory explosion killed everyone involved in the project," Malkor commented, frowning.
"All the primary scientists and engineers were killed in the blast," Cillian confirmed. "However, many of the people involved in developing the various technologies built into the suits were not targeted. Probably because they did not have the extensive knowledge of the final team."
"Please tell me some of them survived."
Cillian nodded. "In fact, the man who might be of the most help has just been transferred to the base. There is no information on others yet."
"Send this file to him for his analysis as soon as he is settled. I want his thoughts on this no matter how outlandish they might be," Malkor ordered.
Cillian nodded and made the transfer.
Malkor resumed the recording.
For many minutes, nothing happened. Suddenly, the jawbridge closed up. The troops in the forest emerged and swarmed to a ravine east of the castle. The agent making the recording never moved closer to the action, but that turned out to be a good thing when the energy shield went up over the castle. Two crystalline octahedrons formed, one over each tower.
The Empress gasped, "Are those-"
"Dreadnaught energy projectors," Malkor hissed.
On the screen, a beam of energy laced out to the landscape further to the east, striking a target unseen to the viewer. Several more beams shot, a sustained blast stabbed out and dragged across the landscape. Whoever was in control of the weapons knew their business. Each shot struck with precision and little wasted energy. Both octahedrons swiveled to address a formation of aerial units attempting to soar away, only to be shot out of the sky in short order. A few jerking movements brought another formation of craft west of the castle into view. Just in time to capture the projectors easily annihilating them. The screen darkened moments later.
"Transforming battlesuits. Dreadnaught weaponry installed in an ancient castle. What are we dealing with here?" the Empress mused.
"I doubt those weapons are a recent addition to the castle. Grayskull and Eternia were not a factor during the war. I'm not even sure we had a base there." Malkor shot Cillian a glance. She nodded and started a record search. "The more likely answer is someone salvaged equipment from an abandoned wreck."
"If that's true, then there may be an opportunity. Tell me: if you were going to install such tech into the castle, what would you take?" the Empress directed at Malkor.
He thought about that for a few moments before answering. "Only a dreadnaught could mount such projectors because of the power cost. A dreadnaught had the reserves for a complete weapons array of those things. So, an abandoned wreck would be the only source. The control systems from the bridge unit would be the likely tech. Maybe the projector control systems from two mounts, if necessary. I would search for a dreadnaught containing a flag bridge. Not only would it have the control systems for the weapons, but a full range of tech for command and control. That castle could conceivably become a command base."
"That means we could send a comm signal," the Empress suggested.
"A warning?"
The Empress nodded. "Commander Axelrod's spies have been sending in reports of attacks all over the regions outside Horde and Val-kyrie-controlled space. He has also sent unconfirmed reports of several recent attacks on Horde task forces. It may be that this situation would force enemies to become temporary allies. If your guess about Operation Demigod is accurate, they will need even the scant information we possess."
"Possible, but they would never accept a data transmission from an unknown party," Malkor said.
"I suggest Shiva," Cillian spoke up. Despite her yearning to get back on the front lines, she reluctantly made the logical suggestion. "She actually fought briefly with the winged one they call War Wing. If the message proposed a meeting at the edge of the forest outside the castle, they may just agree."
"For a common goal?" the Empress asked.
"Curiosity. The operator of that suit fought one of us but doesn't know who we are. Remember Shiva reported the man stated he felt as though he should know of us," Malkor reminded her. "That means Kragor's memory transfer was successful. It also means information about us was suppressed or removed. I would guess removed as no one expected us to survive the ages."
"Very well. Suggest the meeting to Shiva. If she agrees, prepare a data crystal, and compose a message. In this, we are all greed. This Shadowdemon must be stopped. Since we do not have the strength to do it, we will just have to hope these Guardians, Val-kyrie and the Horde do."
Cillian departed to make the preparations and contact Shiva.
Malkor leaned back, elbows planted on the armrests, hands steepled. "Well, Kragor, my old friend," he said to the spirit of his long dead comrade. "It appears your experiment succeeded in ways even you could never have envisioned. You always said a handful of people could change the world. From what I have witnessed of just two of them, it looks like your six disciples may be capable of changing the galaxy. Well, done."
Task Force 72
A fleet composed of one battleship, two escort carriers, eight cruisers, and a screening force of a dozen destroyers dropped out of hyperspace outside the uninhabited star system where Task Force 97 went radio silent. After missing their past two check-ins, Task Force 73 was diverted from its patrol route to investigate. Sometimes a task force would go out of contact to investigate on anomaly, possible pirate activity, signs of life previously undiscovered. Some of these occasions required dropping off the grid, perform the sweep, and report in afterward. Normally, High Command would wait for the task force to report in, but with attacks becoming more frequent, command could not take the chance that the silence of Task Force 97 was not due to the mysterious new enemy force.
Thus, Captain Ecestous received his orders and proceeded to the target system. He watched his fleet deploy in standard globe formation with his battleship and escort carriers in the center. There were sizeable gaps in the defense because of the size of the globe. It was a necessary sacrifice if he needed to get the fighters and bombers into space quickly.
A warning tone of objects exiting hyperspace nearby drew his attention to a smaller monitor. He was not worried about this alert. The incoming ships approached from the same general direction his own fleet had traveled. It should be the wing of fast attack craft sent out to reinforce his task force.
Right on time, the monitor refreshed to show a dozen icons sweeping out to flank his formation. The commander of the wing reported in and moved his ships into position.
Ecestous watched his fleet cross the outer boundary of the system, cross the orbit of an icy rock that could not support life without the use of domes or underground facilities. The fleet kept its distance from the gas planet next in line. He could not afford being pinned against a gravity well with nowhere to run.
As usual, the navigator picked his course well. The only obstacles would be the asteroid belt between the inner two planets and the outer three, but as in most solar systems, the chunks of rock had spread well apart over time and would pose little threat. It was what might be lurking among that innocuous debris from the system's formation that worried him.
Commander Gant looked up from his console. "Nothing on sensors. No power emissions. Drive fields. Disaster beacons. Nothing."
"Wreckage?" Ecestous inquired. He knew that would be unlikely if the ships had ben vaporized. Wrecked hulks, on the other hand, and their wreckage fields would not have dispersed enough to be undetectable. The problem would be in knowing where to look.
"Still scanning," Gant reported. "So far, nothing."
The task force continued at an angle into the system. All sensors probed the vacuum searching for their lost comrades. Several hours passed with nothing to show for it. Even if the ships of Task Force 97 were completely destroyed, there should have been escape pods. While the bulk of a starship's crew were comprised of robots from troopers to service droids, organic beings still governed them. Beings that may not have had time to abandon ship.
Commander Gant left his station to talk privately with the captain. "Sir, we may have something. There is an anomalous reading just past the inner edge of the asteroid belt. At first, it appeared to be a glitch in the sensors."
"But?" the captain prodded, willing the man to get to the point.
In answer, Gant tapped a button on the tactical display. An image appeared in the holographic field above the table surface. "We caught it by chance when part of it occluded the system's primary. Now, we can only make out a vague shape by the stars being blocked by its bulk."
Captain Ecestous stared at the image, eyes taking in the scant details available. There was something out there, all right. He checked the sensor beams sent in that direction. Strange. They were not being absorbed, or deflected, so much as they simply registered empty void. A scattering field? Possibly. Whatever cloaked that vessel, it also hid any power emanations the mystery ship might normally broadcast.
At a command sent through his comm panel, the captain sent a pair of fast attack ships toward that location. While the warship sped toward the location, the captain ordered all his ships to throttle back their drives and use maneuvering thrusters to orient themselves to that spot in space. Inertia carried the warship formation on in the direction of travel, their weapons trained on the suspect spot in space.
A feeling of unease crept up Ecestous' spine. He had no reasonable explanation for it except that whatever was hiding out there, he was sure it was not friendly.
A report from the attack ships finally arrived. They had flown close enough to identify several wrecks. One appeared to be that of a battleship. The remains of Task Force 97 had just been located. A huge, darkly painted shape blocked out the stars and still could not be identified on sensors.
The tactical panel suddenly lit up with tiny bright flashes onlapping the glowing icons of the attack ships. In moments, the pulsing icons flashed out and did not return. Captain Ecestous instantly barked out orders bringing his fleet to battle stations.
Alarm klaxons blared throughout all the spaces of every warship. Robots and organic crew dashed for the alert stations. Robot crew stomped across hangar bays to board their fighters and bombers. Weapons systems energized, missiles and torpedoes were armed. Within two minutes, the fleet that had quietly moved to standby alert reported fully battle-ready.
Just in time.
Six shapes blasted through the deceptively large voids in the asteroid field, boring straight for Task Force 72. Sensors quickly recorded their type and power signatures. At the same time tentative identifications of vessels beyond the asteroid field arrived posthumously from the destroyed attack ships. The group bearing down on Ecestous' command were identified as four destroyers, backing up two cruisers. He stared at the readings, scarcely daring to believe the information filtering in.
What approached in the open was coded in the war book as old Horde warship designs, dating back to the Great War. Except all the mothballed ships from that age had been scrapped over the centuries. There was no known ghost fleet in existence where these ships could have originated from. And there were the power signatures and intensity levels to consider, readings that did not match the historical record. Whoever they were, they had access to a ghost fleet and technology unknown to either the Horde or the Valkyrie.
The other recordings troubled Ecestous to the point of terrifying him. He queried the computer to extrapolate a shape for the two huge vessels still floating in the inner system. What he got back was still indistinct.
"Computer, speculate of probable ship design," the captain ordered the computer.
The response was almost immediate. "Unable to comply. A more detailed scan is required," the soulless, flat male voice of the battleship's computer replied.
"Speculate," Ecestous commanded.
The pregnant pause grew so long the captain feared the computer would refuse the order. Finally, the machine rendered its verdict. "Unknown vessels exhibit lines most closely resembling warship design used by the Val-kyrie in the last war. Probably sixty-seven percent match to hull design Mark V battlestar."
Ecestous felt is stomach plunge to his feet, slamming to, and through, the deck plates. While a thousand years out of date, such a warship would still be formidable. His fleet could probably defeat one of those monsters. Two? Not so much.
"Enemy ships still on approach," Commander Gant reported. "No answer to our challenge."
Ecestous grunted an acknowledgement. He glanced at the clock showing time to intercept. "Get the fighters and bombers launched. Standard spread. Do not shrink the globe. It'll just make it easier for them to hit us. Open fire the moment they cross into max effective range using capital missiles concentrated on those cruisers. Let the destroyers and attack ships engage their destroyers." Captain Ecestous touched a button on his command panel, launching a swarm of message drones containing all available data compiled so far. His hope was that one would make it to a point far enough outside the system to fire off a subspace burst to the closest Horde base.
Gant acknowledged the orders and began passing them along to the fleet.
The battleship vibrated when the doomsday numbers reached zero. Massive capital missiles roared from horizontal launch tubes in the bow. Automated systems reloaded and launched a second salvo of six missiles. At a preset distance from the ship, internal guidance computers took over, homing in off the guide beams from the launching vessel, and locked onto the target. Once the onboard computers fixed the target, they would continue on even if the guide beam from the mother vessel was lost. This system prevented the weapons from locking onto the nearest target, which could be the launching vessel, or any one of the others in the fleet.
Powerful plasma/energy beams stabbed the darkness ahead of the approaching cruisers. The missiles had spread out to lessen the chance of premature detonation taking out others in the salvo. Even so, three blinding white flares light the night. Enemy fire increased, but the weapons had reached the final leg of their flight and kicked their drives up to near overload. Distance to target plus the ramped-up speed ensured that even with more accurate targeting systems, the enemy still fell prey to the limits of technology.
Speed defeated the limits in a mount's ability to traverse and line up on target. Targeting systems had an upper limit to being able to lock on an incoming target. All the capital missiles had to do was get close enough to ignite the overdrive and a kill was all but guaranteed.
Cruiser number one died in a fiery eruption from nine missiles converging on it. Airless vacuum quickly snuffed out the fires as combustible materials burned up and atmosphere dissipated. It took a little more effort, but cruiser number two met a similar demise.
The final tally from the first engagement was four enemy destroyers and two cruisers destroyed at the cost of two of the fleet's destroyers totally destroyed, one destroyer damaged but reparable, and one cruiser damaged, but still fully combat capable.
Having survived his first engagement with the enemy, Captain Ecestous' nerves began to settle a bit. His fleet reoriented itself to point their bows in the direction of travel in preparation to jump back into hyperspace. Only a fighter screen remained in space while the surviving bombers rearmed. Just in case.
Long minutes stretched into just over an hour with no reaction from the other vessels they still could not accurately pinpoint. Captain Ecestous began to think the remaining ships would not pursue because of the asteroid field separating the warship formations. Micro jump within a solar system was possible, but it required extremely precise calculations by the nav computer. Most sane captains avoided making them. Some of the more unpredictable ones, mainly a few notable Val-kyrie battlestar commanders, were bold – or crazy – enough to try it. And they had crews brave enough to go along for the ride.
Before the captain could order the jump into hyperspace once the way was clear of hazards, warning klaxons blared. Something exited hyperspace directly ahead. A second alert brought attention to another object behind the task force. Although it was hard to see with the naked eye, visual detectors clearly saw the lines of a warship hull no one had seen for almost a thousand years.
Captain Ecestous found himself staring down the menacing shape of a Mark V battlestar slowing turning to face the onrushing Horde warships. No obvious gun barrels were visible like on the Mark XX, but that did not mean this ship was lightly armed. Rearward visuals displayed an identical ship turning to shoot them from the vulnerable six o'clock position.
They were not escaping the system. If the setup had not been a trap, it certainly turned out to be one in the enemy's favor. In a display of superior navigational skills, both capital ships executed precision micro jumps the dropped them into perfect firing position to annihilate the Horde fleet in a deadly crossfire.
Enemy fighters began appearing on sensors even as the Horde scrambled their own Batmeks to battle. Several Horde designs centuries out of date, but upgraded for the present, launched from the landing bays, arced around, and boosted toward their prey.
Horde captains were not certain which way to defend. The fleet commander did show surprising tactical awareness, however, when the fleet rotated, as one unit, on an angle to use forward velocity without killing it altogether and ignited their main drives. The commander's hope was to dive under the old battlestar in front of them and take shots at the vulnerable belly. Against a Mark XX warship, such a move would be suicidal because of the displacement of weapons all over the surface of the modern vessels. Against these old warships, they would have had success -but Unit Six Sixty-Six had planned for such maneuvers, based on intelligence gleaned from previous attacks. Granted, the information of Val-kyrie battle tactics was derived from the Horde starships and small outposts attacked thus far, but the resulting tactics and counters the unit had developed were sound.
The fight lasted longer than expected as the fleet commander's tactics worked to keep his ships alive, and even generate the hope of one actually escaping destruction. It was not to be. The end result was the same as all the engagements against Horde forces thus far. In the battle, the loss of fighters had been the highest yet, eighteen, but they still overwhelmed the Horde's forces. Capital Ship Three took several direct hits, but the reinforced armor plates simply shrugged off the assault from Horde capital missiles and energy weapons. The warship had new gouges and scars, but nothing close to penetration.
Silently, the predators recovered their fighters, reoriented to a new heading out-system and jumped into hyperspace once they cleared the system's ecliptic.
Origin Point
Dreams of a life spent as another being flashed through the partly organic brain like snapshots in history. Battles fought. Friends long gone. Enemies vanquished. All marched across his consciousness like some bizarre parade. At no time did he see himself, so he had no idea if these memories were his, or simply files stored in the machine database. It was the same thing every time he shut down, except that he had no memory of the previous occurrences.
Suddenly, the machine awoke and the cold precision of an artificial mind regained dominance.
Information flooded the machine mind. Updates on the series of attacks carried out in the next stage of the Unit's plan to dominate the galaxy. The assault against Hordak's Fright Zone went about as expected. Hordak quickly adapted to the situation, breaking out long unused ballistic weaponry to combat the invading force of combat machines. No transports had been left to pick up any survivors because the attack was only meant to test Hordak's defenses, making the machine force expendable.
The assaults on Eternia, however, yielded more interesting results. King Hiss relied on magic and brute force to turn back the assault for sent to Palace Eternia. They were withdrawn to the waiting transports after achieving the goal of testing the power of the Snakemen.
Snake Mountain turned out to be an interesting strike. Initially, the results aligned with predictions. Skeletor's robot troopers were no match for the Servators, much less the demons. The troops made a slow, ponderous march through the corridors and chambers up toward the throne room situated way up in the snake's head. The goal was within reach when an unforeseen development occurred. Where energy weapons were predominantly used against Unit Six Sixty-six's assault force, there had been the occasion ballistic attack with inferior and ineffective technology.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, human soldiers appeared from the snake head brandishing archaic weapons spitting explosive rounds. One, a female, fired arrows at Servators. The tide of battle quickly turned, forcing the onsite commander to order a withdrawal. This change in tactics and weapons needed to be analyzed, but the initial data proved the model that Skeletor was not any more of a threat than King Hiss.
That left Castle Grayskull and its guardian.
Here, the situation defied easy explanation.
Detritus from a previous battle near the castle still littered the landscape. Nothing moved as the formation of battle machines lay siege to the castle. No opposition materialized while the drones and demons set up to pull the jawbridge down. Expected shots ringing out to cut the cables linked to the grapples snagged on the bridge crossbar did not come.
Four demon units strained pulling the cables, their strength pushed to the limit dragging the jawbridge down; but drag it down they did. The Sorceress barred their way into the castle. What transpired next was a total surprise to Unit Six Sixty-six.
As events unfolded, a subsection of the Shadowdemon's brain accessed the intelligence of a long dead Horde general to analyze the footage. Everything had been relayed through the dropships to the stealth transport out beyond planetary orbit as it accumulated. This had the advantage of acquiring the most intelligence with the least risk of losing potentially valuable data. Unfortunately, every single servitor, Shadowdemon and dropship sent to Eternia was lost.
The installation computer broke the long silence to prompt the unit into revealing its thoughts. "What is your evaluation of the overall attack plan?"
Unit Six Sixty-six responded immediately. "It is clear that Skeletor and Hordak are not a threat. King Hiss will not be a challenge as his interests have always laid elsewhere. Eliminating the Snakemen will not be difficult."
"And your analysis of these two Guardians?"
"The emulation program of General Alton's knowledge and experience suggests the Sorceress operates Falcon. While we observed the Unnamed Battlesuit transform its size, there is no observation of the Sorceress converting her power armor into the Falcon battlesuit. It is reasonable to assume that Falcon also has this capability. We should presume that all six have this capability. However, the operators are still letting the suits do all the work. Kragor's disciples can use the suits, but clearly have no idea how to use them in conjunction with the onboard AI."
"Now that it has been confirmed that the battlesuits have been recovered, what is the next step?" the base AI asked.
"While the weaponry used by their allies is archaic, it is effective. It can therefore be presumed that they have the technology to analyze the memory cores of the Servators and Shadowdemons captured intact. Eventually they will discover the location of an ancient battlefield. The location where General Alton fought his last battle."
After a pause, the AI asked, "And the significance of that would be?"
"I will be waiting for them."
"You are certain these Guardians will go there?"
"I am."
"Then you will need your new body. It is ready for your installation."
"Proceed," Unit Six Sixty-Six commanded.
Darkness slowly closed in on the Shadowdemon as links to the base systems shut down. The real-time transfer of the unit's braincase lasted only minutes, but that was an eternity to something existing in nanoseconds.
New systems came online. Awareness expanded to encompass a new body extremely small compared to the Origin Point base -a new body design was more powerful than the original. At fourteen feet, the size and power would equal the known data on the Guardian battlesuits – the data from a thousand years ago. Associated scans transmitted along with the surveillance footage would give the base AI information to adjust the systems and power of the unit's new body in an effort to equal or pass any upgrades the Val-kyrie might have made. Initial evaluation confirmed the Etherium alloy had been upgraded with a much more durable and stable formula.
Shadows of red and black formed the surrounding environment of the maintenance hangar. Rows of Shadowdemons in the final stages of assembly stood in columns. Robotic arms darted about each unit the conveyor moved forward into position. Durability scans searched for defects while diagnostic scans checked programming integrity. Six Sixty-Six scanned everything in seconds. All visual and acuity systems normal. Power distribution system nominal. Weapons were currently deactivated and unloaded. Additional weapons were available for external mounting.
Six Sixty-Six remotely released the clamps holding its new body in position. Tentatively, it took its first steps, stumbling and weaving, but growing steady with each step. By the time the unit had taken twenty steps, all links between body and braincase functioned at peak efficiency.
In a crevasse buried deep within the machine, another entity rejoiced at the prospect of battle.
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