Into the Black

(Black Star Company Advanced Technology Research and Development Center, Star’s Reach)

It had been a month after the Harvester’s destruction, and the X’thari got their chitinous butts kicked well and good. The fragments of the Swarm had dispersed, disappearing from Known Space, for the most part. It was estimated that almost 45% of the Swarm had been destroyed or damaged beyond the point of repair. Oh, there were Hunts going on across Known Space, but these were basically the equivalent of war bands instead of the mighty swarm. Nothing that the locals couldn’t take care of.

The Consortium was very thankful, naturally, since we had gone well above and beyond the scope of our contract. The resources we got from them would do a lot to expanding our position in the galaxy. We also got trade contracts, which gave us a bit of an entrance into the Consortium. The Gauz didn’t put in any shipbuilding contracts, naturally, but I didn’t doubt that they weren’t coming up with ways that they could take what they saw and put their own twist on things. They’d seen how powerful the Black Star ships were.

The Gauz weren’t the only ones impressed with the Black Star Navy’s performance. Two mercenary groups approached us with requests for our Crow-class assault craft, stating that their forces often required an escort in hostile situations, and a few assault craft that could double as air support on the ground would be more effective for their needs than dedicated warships and fighter craft. The real surprise, though, was what came out of the Free Worlds Alliance. We now had orders for twenty-five Assassins and two Reapers, as individual system governments started looking to upgrade their private fleets. The humbling of the Kul’tirans and the subsequent rise of piracy had made several system governments that had been content to leech off them start looking to their own defenses. Even the Imperial and Confederate navies quietly began putting in orders for more ships.

My own forces, however, needed tending to first. While we hadn’t been hit nearly as hard as some of the forces that had been in the thick of the fighting, we hadn’t come away unscathed either, once we entered the main battle to try and drive off the remaining X’thari. The Gunboats and fighters were hit hardest, of course, losing 25% of the fighters and almost 75% of the gunboats. The light, fast craft were good at their jobs, but they were not able to stand up to capitol ship fire. The Assassins and Reapers showed their worth, and the Knights and Wraths had proven that they were a force to be reckoned with, but there wasn’t a ship in the fleet that hadn’t been damaged. The Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi was in bad shape from where she had dived into the fray, rescuing the Consortium superdreadnought Proof of Concept from three X’thari superdreadnoughts after their engines had been disabled by a lucky hit, and they were forced to drop out of formation. First Group’s flagship had several gaping wounds in her hull, and her weapons were nonfunctional at the moment, but she was still in one piece (mostly), and was capable of limping back to the shipyard on her own power.

Now, back in Star’s Reach, I was forced to take off my Admiral hat, and put on my CEO and Governor hats. There were plenty of administrative details that needed to be handled with running a company and a corporate-owned star system, after all, and these things could only be pushed off so long before they became problems in their own right. Some things, however, were beyond mere paperwork. When First Group left Star’s Reach, there had been a sudden rush of people coming to the system and trying to sneak onto the planet to set up their own claims, no doubt figuring that if they could get established before I got back, they’d be able to negotiate something. The forces I had left behind quickly disabused them of that notion, and the number of judicially collared slaves populating Star’s Reach had risen quite a bit.

Some of those slaves were more useful than others. Which is why I was here in the research center that I’d had my people build on top of the Enrichment Center.

Alex Akins, the administrative head of the site, greeted me at the door as I walked into the site. “Ah, sir. It is good to have you here. I must tell you that the scientists are quite pleased with themselves. One of the Nomad slaves that you have researching advanced technology is quite insistent that he has something major to report. He’s setting up in Conference Room 2.”

I nodded as we walked through the facility, while reading the information that Raven tossed up on my HUD about this Nomad. Tesla_coil was a rare Vrok player. The avian species lived primarily in Free Worlds Alliance and Confederate space, but they were originally from a world somewhere in the Ihm Imperium. During the Ihm’s expansion, the Vrok had been forced from their home world, becoming a species of refugees. Their natural talent at ship handling made them some of the best pilots in the galaxy. As researchers, they weren’t the most well-known, but they had quietly been involved in much of the Free Worlds Alliance’s technological improvement through the years.

I stepped into the room, and looked at a Vrok for the first time. He was tall, about 2.5 meters in height, and was as solidly built as an avian creature, built for flight, could be. A black, onyx-colored beak stood out against his blue scaled, yet hawk-like face, and claws of the same color could be seen coming from his hands and feet. He wore coveralls designed to accommodate his wings and stature, seemingly unconcerned with making an appearance by dressing to impress. Though finding clothes that fit over wings that had a solid 3 meter span was not an insignificant challenge, now that I thought about it.

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Tesla_coil was busy studying, reviewing his notes as he chirped and muttered to himself. When I cleared my throat, he looked up, his beady eyes focusing on me. “Ah, yes, you’re the one that owns all of this. I’ve seen your picture on the news. Good, that means you can get me the resources I need to continue my research! Now, I’m going to need—”

I cut him off with an upraised hand. “As you said, I am Mirikon Mollen, owner of pretty much everything here, and you, by the way. Now, before you go giving me a shopping list of what you need for your research, what is it that you’ve found that requires more resources than what you’ve already been allocated? And before you start in on a technical discussion, pretend that you’re talking to someone who only has a very top-level knowledge of what projects are going on, until one of them needs my attention. In fact, don’t pretend. This is your chance to impress me, and get me on board with whatever it is you’re trying to do here. Don’t screw it up, or you’ll be finding yourself researching temporal mechanics of gravity at the event horizon of a black hole by being thrown into it.”

The researcher looked like I’d just told him to eat a lemon, but he kept it together. “Hmph! Fine, if you insist, I’ll try to keep it to a level where even a layman might understand.” He took a breath, and then started in on his spiel. “As you know, energy shields work by creating an energy field which deflects incoming attacks. Gravity shields have been theorized, but the power requirements have always been too high to stabilize without using the FTL engines. However, if the power and transference questions could be solved, then gravity shields have the potential to be far superior in terms of protective value.”

“Yes, that’s been talked about before. I know that the Consortium and the Imperials have been working on that for a while, but they’ve never had any success on those fronts. Are you saying you’ve found something that will provide a breakthrough on this?”

The researcher just waved his hand, dismissively. “No, of course not! The requirements to shield even something as large as an Assassin-class corvette are simply too great given the size involved. However, some of the items retrieved from the ancient sub-facility that you have here have provided some very interesting alternate research modes, once we looked into them.” He motioned to a belt-like device on the table. “This is the first prototype we created.”