Starship Engineer - 183 - Bloody Age of Humanity (Patreon)

Chapter 183

I admitted to myself that I had wanted to be one of the explorers to go to and search for one of the ancient inert beacons.  I might have gone if not for my children still being unaccounted for.  They left to the best festivities we could conjure up in the system.  This was, after all, a chance to save all races from the wrath of the Malevolants.

After the expedition to the galaxy’s center left, the remaining Sylvan city ships in the system started to incorporate the advanced subspace technology into their ships.  The fabricators were already set up to produce the emitters, and the fuel conversation just continued.  Edmond thought I had created a monster by giving the space elves the technology so easily.

Edmond thought once the war with the quadrupeds was concluded, all the Sylvan city ships would be able to move across the galaxy unhindered.  They currently required vast fuel reserves to move their city ships into and out of subspace.  The new technology reduced the transition investment in and out of subspace, cutting it nearly in half and allowing the Sylvan to travel much further for much less fuel.

I tried to convince him the exchange was not one-sided.  We had improved our Slipstream fighters markedly, and the newest generation was nearly twice as effective in simulations and had a nineteen percent higher pilot survivability rating.  Edmund had requested a break from operations in the Bradbury system and asked to relocate to an operations station in the Human Federation to monitor and uncover Brotherhood infiltrators.  Edmund had been a key advisor for so long, that losing him left me on an island, but I did not stop him from going.

The only remaining advisor in the system from my time captaining the Void Phoenix was Suruchi.  Suruchi was governing the multitude of races in the system into a collaborative government. She was having trouble with the awakened Sylvan First Citizens as they questioned all her methodologies. Still, she was managing better than anyone could have expected, and she even started a museum.

Her museum was called the Galactic Eye, featured artwork from dozens of races, and was constantly expanding in the desert where it was located. She wanted it to become a tourist attraction, which sounded absurd, but I wished her well and funded fifty exhibits.  Each race was given 5,000 square meters to display their artwork, music, and literature. She even had xeno instructors from the Arcadian College to set up displays for extinct races like the Pryruuk, the massive spider beings that gave us solid-state holographic technology. Each exhibit also had synthetic boats as tour guides in the image of the race.

My own existence was not as exciting. I was the Fleet Admiral, but my efforts felt hollow as I assumed the Void Phoenix had met a terrible fate.  We had no word from the Void Phoenix well past the expected deadline.  I was even sending out every other Leopard-class spy ship to search for them, and Eve’s ship, the Lunar Echo.  So far, no word had returned to us.

With the security of the system ensured by the Sylvan city ships, we begin to engineer a new ship to incorporate the new weapons technology of the Sylvan city ships.  It was one of the things I could focus on to distract me from my losses.

The Fateweaver production was on track, and the Human Federation had sent seven thousand officers and engineers to train on them, half of whom were to become Arcadian citizens. The Human Federation would start getting their own Fateweavers in two years in accordance with our alliance. The crews would be a mix of the Arcadian Collective and the Human Federation.

There was a need for a new ship as well.  Although our Armageddon missiles were powerful, they had limitations.  First, subspace disruption could neutralize them.  Second, the amount of debris created from their use was catastrophic in a system navigation.  We needed a new ship that was powerful and could work well with the Fateweaver, Slipstream fighters and Leopard spy ships.  The project was called Matador.

Matador was a heavy-cruiser concept with two heavy pulse laser cannons that fired a red charge just below the speed of light.  We had debated on developing a battleship, but our bottleneck was being able to crew such a large ship.  The heavy cruiser would need about sixty percent of the crew of a true battleship-class sized ship.  The Matador only had the two long-ranged weapons, and we had scavenged enough of the Brotherhood technology to incorporate their range extension into the design.

The two primary weapons were the offensive power of the ship, but the ship also hosted some of the most impressive layered shields ever seen by humans or Sylvan.  The fact our Matadors could withstand their own powerful weapons was a testament to their advanced shielding.  They also were spotted with turrets for anti-missile and anti-fighter defense.  After much debate, we decided not to include Armageddon missiles on the ships.

Only the Fateweaver cruiser would carry the cataclysmic weapons, which was apropos to its name, dealing a hand of fate.  The Matador also had two flight bays, each with sixteen Slipstream fighters.  These fighters were specked out for defense and not offense, though. The heavy cruiser was designed to be stationary and bombard targets from a distance.

The crew complement was twelve hundred officers, engineers, and technicians, with an additional forty pilots and two-hundred and fifty-six marines. Our production was still focused on the Fateweavers for the next five years, so the weapons platform was still a decade from being cycled into mass production. For now, we were only building one prototype of the Matador for testing. The largest hurdle was the intense energy requirement for cycling the capacitors to fire the weapons.

There were numerous problems with the design process, which made me happy. Dealing with the problems was a distraction I needed. I had set minimal acceptable specifications, and the speed of the heavy cruiser was not nearly where I wanted it. It was a task to balance engines and weapon power.  I had assumed with just two large-scale weapons, we would meet the requirements. The Sylvan and Squirrel engineers were working on the problem.

I woke up like any other morning and was bringing up the summarized fleet reports to review before heading to the ship design lab, when Julie’s hologram interrupted my work. She informed me that Void Phoenix had just relayed a message through the Leopard ships.

I opened the message with some angst. In an engineering accident, there were two crew deaths, one Squirrel and a human tech. Relief flooded me. I scanned the lengthy report for nearly nine months. They had been through a lot of adventures and came through unscathed—relatively.

They had reached the Godfather organization and agreed to help us in the fight with the Brotherhood. The Godfather would start the operation to target the leadership. I compared the date on the message, 42 days old, to when the operation would start. The Godfather was going to assault the Brotherhood in four months. The Void Phoenix and the Lunar Echo were going to participate. I frowned at that. Eve had caught up to them, and they had not been made aware she had stolen the ship.

The Void Phoenix was going to Earth. The heart of the seat of power for the Brotherhood with my children on board. Abby, what were you thinking? Eve’s assignment was one of the ARC research colonies. Eve was to obtain the passcodes from a Godfather agent and secure the colony before they were made aware of the plot.

I studied the report in detail and started preparing my messages for the Human Federation and Edmond.  Edmond would know how to seize on this opportunity. If the Brotherhood collapsed or fractured, it would no longer be a threat. Even if the Godfather organization failed the Brotherhood would be focused on them instead of us. Giving us years or decades to prepare.

It had been the right move to ally with the Godfather Organization, just sending my children had been a mistake. I sent the message for the Void Phoenix to return to the Arcadian Collective as soon as their part in the operation was complete. The message should be relayed by Leopard class ships before it started.

Eve was another issue. I looked at my available ships, Leopard XXI and Leopard XXII were almost complete. I did not have crews for them, though. I would have to deal with Eve once she returned to the Bradbury system.

When the date we started receiving messages from inside human space of assassinations of top officials, aristocrats, and military leaders in droves. Brotherhood agents and assets were taken out in a single coordinated wave. The ripples were felt almost immediately as the human star kingdoms started pointing fingers at one another. Many did not realize the Brotherhood even existed.

One domino fell after another, and war was soon raging across human-controlled space. In just a few months, the space lanes were crowded with ships trying to flee the Bloody Age of Humanity.