Quoted By:
[i:lit]“I know what these are,” said the captain. “I know what these are for.”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]He slides his fingers across the unpainted surface of a warhead, feeling latent decay heat trickle through his cold fingers. It occupies a slot in a radiation-shielded cell. Six slots per cell. Six cells per block. Thirty blocks in your central armory.[/i:lit]
[i:lit]“How many?”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]“One thousand and eighty.”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]“How many have you used before I arrived? Since you were active?”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]“None, captain. The SOLSTICE has never been forced to utilize our contingency weapons.”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]He sighs. “But if a suppression campaign failed…would you?”[/i:lit]
[i:lit]“Of course we would.”[/i:lit]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At a casual glance, your crew look human. Upon closer inspection, a careful observer might notice small differences – eyeshine behind the pupils, recessed plug-ports, and a certain flatness in affect. A sense of emptiness, your captain had called it: an implicit knowledge that their flesh is merely a temporary vessel for shared memories.
The same principle applies in combat. It is challenging to tell ancillaries apart from their human templates when combat is slow, and engagements follow the unhurried pace of orbital mechanics. But the task becomes dramatically easier once battlespace is compressed. When encounters are decided by millisecond-intervals, your crew act without fear or regret – freed of that final layer of hesitation that hinders even the bravest human pilots.
<…Requesting cover…>
<…that carrier’s DONE…>
Your fighters are interspersed within the enemy fleet now, intending to leverage their reflexive advantages as much as possible. An enemy gunship quartet blazes kinetic fire when it encounters an incoming interceptor squadron, only to be decimated several seconds later when they overshoot their intended targets. A frigate jockeying for a good firing solution suffers a similar fate – disabled by a tight railgun barrage before being struck by a weave of missiles. Warheads designed to crack capital-class armor leave few remnants when pitted against a lighter target.
After the SOLSTICE disables the second carrier with follow-up railgun shot, you start to notice gaps in cohesion. Half of the remaining fleet presses forward, but the remaining carrier pulls an emergency turn as soon as it finishes launching a brace of wide-winged bombers.
The bombers boost towards the planet on a suicidally steep trajectory. The carrier follows, ventral launch cells flaring open in sequence.
+++…code seven nine. Primary contingency authorized…+++
