Page 144
Story: Star Fated Alpha
‘Sante, for your time and aid in this urgent matter. I’ve identified the players behind the unrest in the Wildlight Expanse,’ Miral began without ceremony. ‘It’s the crats.’
Zane blinked. ‘Thefokk?’
Kainan straightened in his chair, brows knitting, brow arching. ‘They’re back?’
‘They got decimated but not in entirety,’ Miral said. ‘Seems they’re now stirring shit up and making quiet, calculated moves. They’ve embedded themselves in the flotilla bound for Eden II, using its mafia clans as proxies. They’ve been feeding them weapons, crat-gradeHadesandOedipusmissiles, forbidden, catastrophic warheads.’
Zane let out a long breath, low and sharp. ‘Those bastards are like roaches, they just don’t die.’
‘Regardless, they’re weak, what you’re witnessing is an extinction burst,’ Mirage added with a grim shake of her head. ‘When the bosskhannuked them, he went hard, and all fifty-one of their capital ships turned to slag. Also, the noids we infected their tech with? They took them home, and they pulverized them, eating to the core of their exo-planet.’
‘So sad,’ Kainan huffed.
‘How did you do it?’ Miral asked, her synth-brow furrowing with interest. ‘It happened before my awakening.’
‘The Technocracy’s machines use subconscious processors to encode and decode data,’ Zane said in his timbred drawl. ‘We found a flaw in their system, an arbitrary code that, once embedded in a metanoid, spread like wildfire. It forced their bots and AIs to download a virus that mutated endlessly, corrupting their systems until they failed or self-destructed.’
‘It was an extermination,’ Mirage confirmed. ‘The noids burrowed into their root script, ate through every systemic layer from fleet servers to planetary cores. Half their tech tree got eviscerated before they even realized it. From what I can gather, only a dozen vessels, light-class Corvettes and gunships, survived.’
Zane nodded. ‘It was brutal. However, it sounds like those who prevailed now seek vengeance.’
‘They’ve been licking wounds ever since,’ Mirage said, flicking a hand. ‘But instead of regrouping for open war, they’re playing dirty. Sowing chaos through smaller players, letting others carry the fire. It’s smart.’
‘And cowardly,’ Kainan snapped. ‘So what’s their endgame?’
‘I might hazard a guess at revenge,’ Miral said. ‘They’re stirring up threats, and funding enemies of the Sable Group.’
‘They want us destabilized,’ Mirage added. ‘It’s an infiltration strategy, to inject their evil into a huge flotilla of millions about to land in Pegasi. To use these mafia clans by arming them with advanced weapons to attack us, so they don’t have to lift a finger in a proxy war of their making. After they probably wish to swoop in and gather the spoils.’
Zane let out a growl. ‘Backdoor rats.’
Kainan leaned forward, his utterance hoarse with steely menace. ‘Wasn’t it an old world prime minister who said that even a cornered rat is dangerous? We can’t underestimate the crats’ desperation. We have to flush it all out now.’
A beat of silence passed.
Kainan’s tone shifted, decisive, and rasped. ‘Mirage, send the Protocol Veritas-7 update to Miral. Full schematics. Weapons intel. Upgrade her network interface and combat shell. Include the recalibrated noids, we’ll use their mistake against them again.’
He raised a chin to Signet’s AI. ‘Which means that Miral, you’ll need to get into the fray, to protect Signet, the flotilla, and by extension, us all.’
‘Of course,’ Miral intoned.
‘Uploading now,’ Mirage said, fingers flicking across her holo console.
Above the command node, golden-red glyphs flared to life, cascading toward Miral.
She closed her eyes as the stream downloaded into her synaptic matrix.
Her breath hitched as her networked frame absorbed complete schematics, countermeasures, advanced defensive runes, new weapon and ship blueprints, and multi-environment combat overlays.
When she opened her eyes again, they glinted with a harder, darker hue. ‘Sante,’ she murmured. ‘I’m now afokkin’ war goddess.’
Zane grinned. ‘Stomp on these last remaining crat skulls so hard they won’t dare scamper out again.’
Kainan raised his chin in agreement. ‘Make it final.’
Miral gave a tight smile. I’ll do my best,Khan.’
The holo faded away, and the group on Eden II disappeared from view.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210