Kick the Sphere 16 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 16

-VB-

As soon as I created a replicator, I put my plans into action. Despite the fact that replicators could not make anything that was not of themselves and thus really limit their uses, a modified software program was enough to ensure that at the very least there was a “stop all process” emergency button should there ever be some sort of freak accident that unleashed the replicators against me.

I doubted that would be an issue, however. The replicator was not the end-all be-all of warfare that I would bring about to the Inner Sphere but merely a stop-gap measure.

Why would I stop myself with replicators when I had the likes of the Aurora-class battlecrusier ready to be made and sent out? Better than that, if I purchased a galaxy-wide remote control skill or technology, then I would be able grand strategy-RTS’ing from the comfort of Dansur, which would be fortified to kingdom come.

Fortifying was actually something I’ve started, by the way, with the pacification campaign of Dansur. I didn’t do any preparation and just casually began it by letting loose the replicator.

I watched from orbit through the scanners onboard and real time feed from the ground from within Rebecca’s Barbary-class missile boat as swarms of replicators ran over the ruins of the old cities and dense mountain forests, scouring for signs and then defanging any and all other human settlements they ran into.

I initially wanted to rid the planet of all human settlements, which meant that I would go on a war of genocide. I thought better of it, though; I was dealing with real people and not just numbers on a screen. Instead, I instructed the replicators to devour any metal tools and weapons and unleashed them to cover the earth.

And cover the earth they did.

In the span of the first hour, the single replicator I had created became a swarm numbering in the hundreds. By the end of the first day, they numbered in the tens of thousands.

By the end of the first month, there were more than a million of them.

Now, I hadn’t developed anything complex to control the swarm yet, so this was closer to watching an idle game than playing an RTS.

It didn’t look like much from orbit. There was no grey tide washing over the continent. However, my sensors told me a different story as it pinged me to the absolutely massive swarm moving across the world, scaring animals and people alike, as they grabbed any exposed metal and made more of themselves.

Some settlements tried to fight back.

They didn’t last long or learned better after watching their neighbors burn.

The only settlements spared this Toyotomi treatment were those villages that had already aligned themselves with me in and around my central region of control.

Speaking of those settlements and villages, many of the younger adults without land of their own started migrating and living around my compound. Of course, it wasn’t simple as me magically creating jobs to make their lives easier. I didn’t have any use for people I couldn’t trust, after all. Every single one of them could be spies for all I knew!

No no no no. I left them to my girls. They knew better than I did how to deal with smaller things. I dealt with bigger things and they patched up the holes that I left behind…

Actually, that sounded like an ass job. Why did they even stay with me?

That train of thought got cut off when I felt a hand on my shoulder lightly shaking me.

“Yes, Rebecca?”

Rebecca, formerly Negev of IWI, gave me an unimpressed half-lidded look. “You had that weird pessimistic look on you.”

“What weird look?”

“The one where you get far away look combined with a slight frown and partial grimace.”

“... Oh. And I get this…?”

“Whenever you aren’t strategizing for victory and letting your mind drag you into the gutter, commander. Or forgetting things like the jumpship that brought the invasion force.”

I winced. “Right,” I mumbled before scratching my head. “Thanks, I guess? I didn’t realize I even had a look for … that kind of line of thought.”

I had been so high on our victory that I forgot to do a proper check on enemy logistics. The jumpship that brought the dropships into the Dansur system ran away rather quickly instead of contacting me, which was understandable after I used antimatter missiles, which would have shown up on their sensors as radioactive explosions, i.e. nukes.

She hummed before sitting fully back into her seat.

“All of the girls and the boys worry about you, you know?”

“The boys?”

“You know Turry and Jarod. They’re the loudest ones. Well, the loudest and most skittish.”

I chuckled. Skittish was the right term for Jarod. The man had become more and more skittish as I grew my purchases and expansions. The construction of the Manufactory the other day nearly sent him running.

Of course, aside from the fact that the girls and I knew that he was not exactly a spy for his home village but a “minder” nonetheless, his mood and attitude closely reflected that of the people around us.

Which meant that people who have aligned themselves with me were afraid of me now. Why wouldn’t they be? In the span of a year, I had gone from a foreign visitor to a silent conqueror yet I did not ask anything of them.

Sure, a naive person might say how my asking nothing of them was a good thing, but life was never so simple. I guessed that everyone was now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for me to start acting like a tyrant with the power of the Manufactory, my T-Dolls, and my spaceships to keep them in line.

I wasn’t into that life.

Tyranny was for people with unstable powerbase. My power base was the Forge and the purchases I’ve made. I don’t need them to do anything for me; I just needed them to not get in my way.

And Jarod, who was still employed, didn’t quite trust me when I told him that a few days ago.

“Well, he’ll come around,” I replied smoothly. “Nothing else for us to do but wait.”

“Yes,” she hummed. “Hopefully, he and the villages will.”

I looked down at the sensor screens and on-ground feeds.

It was actually kind of depressing seeing something like this.

I got up from my seat and left.

“Where are you going?” she asked me, looking over her shoulder and seat.

“Just going to take a nap, Becca,” I yawned. “It’s not like something is going to change just because I’m sleeping.”

“Alright. I’m gonna shake the entire ship to wake you up, though.”

I chuckled. “Sure, sure.”

I went to sleep not too long after that.

---

Nothing significant happened.

The pacification of Dansur, from my perspective, happened silently and without much oversight needed. Even better, the entire campaign took no more than two months to complete from the comfort of my home and saw less than thirty thousand casualties across the entire planet, which was one percent of the expected casualties of a full frontal, conventional war of conquest.

I did not spend that time uselessly by keeping an eye out for the pacification progress only; I spent a lot of time in the Manufactory making new shields and ships that we could use to protect the planet.

The next invader was going to be in for a surprise.

-VB-

???, Aterus, Free Worlds League

“So we found him.”

“Yes, and it seems like he’s been busy, unearthing some nuclear arsenal to put an abrupt end to his trackers.”

“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t end this as quietly as we could.”

“It really is unfortunate.”

“What do you think we should do? Personally, I’m not against sending in some of our Com Guards to put an end to this inventory before his FTL invention becomes too widespread.”

“I am unsure about that. It would expose us and get us little in return.”

“Then … disguise ourselves? It would not be hard.”

“Then alert the closest installation to this Dansur System. I want that inventor buried and gone or in our prison.”

“Understood, Precentor Aterus.”

-VB-

We got a total of two months of silence from the rest of the galaxy before they came knocking on our doors again.

And this time, they sent something more than a measly trio of dropships.

It was also not from the Free Worlds League or a mercenary company hired by them.

“I expected the Capellans to respond first before they did,” I mumbled as I looked at the still images of the “pirates” heading our way.

Rebecca’s newly upgraded Hafrada had caught sight of these when she went on her patrols, and her scanners showed us how much of a farce the red and black painted skulls of “pirates” were. In particular, Hafrada’s scanners noted the near pristine structural integrities of those dropship hulls. If it was one or two dropships, then I would have been dismissive of this finding, but when the scan report showed that all fifteen dropships were like this?

Well.

Memories of the native Alan Marris didn’t know anything about pristine hulls, especially for dropships in pirate’s possession.

The other Alan, though, knew who did and who might use a false flag operation.

“Comstar, you sneaky bastards,” I muttered.

The jumpship that I missed must have reported to someone of authority, who would have used an HPG to send a report to their higher-up. Comstar, who operated almost all HPGs, would have received a copy of the report, and that’s how they would have found me.

They acted fast if they got this many ships together for an assault. They really wanted to wipe me out.

But.

They were in no way prepared for the hell this invasion would become for them. They gave me nearly two months to build up. My replicators alone would have made short work of them.

My entire body shivered.

Janice, who I was hanging out with for the first time in a long time, gave me a look when I stared at the image of the dropship fleet too long.

“Ah, sorry, sorry! No work while relaxing,” I quickly apologized and pushed the image aside.

“Exactly, buster!” my little sister-like friend scolded me with a light blush on her face. She swayed a little from side to side before straightening back up. “You’re supposed to dine and relax~! So relax!”

‘You’re the one relaxing more than I am,’ I thought. All around the two of us, a feast decorated all of the tables, and many of my girls - and boys - sat around drinking and eating to their hearts’ content in the cafeteria. During moments like this, you wouldn’t think that most of us were killers with a dozen kills under our belts.

Or, in my case, thousands of deaths.

Well, they wanted me not to think about depressing shit like that today. We’re celebrating because it’s my birthday and “birthday boy should be happy when he’s got friends over on his birthday!” according to the girls.

… whatever. They were still at least a week’s travel away from hitting Dansur. I had time.