Chapter 8: The Fifth Soldier, Morgan POV (Patreon)

Chapter 8

The Fifth Soldier.

Morgan POV

“That’s weird,” Tee suddenly announced. “Someone just destroyed the Horde fleet that was attacking Sector 3.”

The Crucible continued to fire on the kraken to keep it at bay as I raised an eyebrow. These days, if a fleet was destroyed, Tee knew who destroyed it.

“What’s the chatter saying?”

“There isn’t any. The local Horde population have no clue what happened.”

“What’s the context?”

“Yesterday, the now-destroyed fleet managed to manoeuvre around our fleet and successfully reach the system's second transit gate before them. With more firepower and ships, they easily trapped our fleet in the system. They were waiting for their reinforcements to catch up and destroy our fleet when they were destroyed by something they couldn’t see.”

“Does our fleet know what happened?”

“No, their sensors detected nothing near the transit gate. They’re under the assumption that they're being jammed and are preparing for a surprise attack.”

“So, someone took out a fleet for us.”

“My guess is the new guy wasn’t lying when he said he was leaving to destroy the invaded.”

I whistled. That was an absurd amount of destructive power. “Nicholas Thistlebush just turned into a serious player if that’s true. Can you contact him to confirm?”

“No. His ship is too advanced for the local communications systems. I tried to contact him before he left, and even though the local chatter was going crazy about a naval ship that had appeared at an alien dig sight, and I knew exactly where he was and had highjacked the entire planet's communication network, it didn’t matter, I couldn’t punch through his systems to talk to him. Out in the vastness of space, there’s no chance of me finding him, let alone being able to talk.”

“Do our people have any ships in the area?”

“None that can reach the transit ring in time. His ship traversed three systems in only a few hours, which is slower than The Three-Man Army but faster than everyone else.”

Before I took the conversation any further, I glanced at the Crucible’s systems.

Without the particle cannon, I couldn’t risk getting creative, so my plan for the rest of the Cycle was to maintain the damage we had already done to the kraken. Its injuries seemed to dictate how close it would come to the station, so I wanted to keep it close enough to stop it from healing but far enough away that it couldn’t harm us in return.

It was a stalemate, but a stalemate was better than The Crucible's destruction. It gave me time to plan. So, despite the cost in resource points, the missile and weapons fabricators were producing missiles and ammunition at full speed. Despite this expenditure, production was only slightly faster than our rate of fire, so we were recovering ammunition stores, but we were doing it far too slowly.

I’d already explained to Tee that I didn’t need the extra ammunition to counter a frontal assault from the kraken. What I was afraid of was multiple false frontal assaults. Attacks which only injured the kraken and caused it to pull back to recover. I was almost certain the beast healed faster than the station recovered ammunition, so if it did that a few times, it would deplete our stores. Eventually, one of those charges would become uncontested by weapons fire, and that would be the end of the Crucible.

We were in a bad situation but weren’t entirely without hope. I could spend the rest of my path points to improve production, but I didn’t want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary. I was hoping I could do something with them or my class points to get me out of this mess.

I needed more time to think.

The station’s system looked fine, and the kraken was in the right range zone to safely continue the conversation. “What if it’s not him? Could it be that Simple Mike guy that’s taken over Sector 3?”

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. Simple Mike’s consolidating his position and upgrading his fleet. He’s preparing for something big but hasn’t had the time to deploy yet.”

“Send a message to those that are gathering on the planets to pass on a message to Nicholas for us.”

“Already done,” Tee said.

“Is there anything else I need to be worried about?”

“More governments are requesting Nicolas’s identification over the loss of Sector 3’s wealth. They’re quite upset. Do you want me to keep playing dumb? It’s been a few hours, so they aren’t buying it.”

“Tell them that the information has been found to be sensitive and that a report will be delivered Earthside.”

“Message sent.”

“Have you finished scanning the beast?”

“Yes, but you won’t be happy with the results. Even at full power, our scanners can’t penetrate its flesh. Everything we know is based on visual observations.”

“And those observations tell us what?”

“They tell us it’s a giant space monster with twenty-four tentacles, twelve large and twelve small. It has the ability to regenerate and seems to feel pain. It can fly through space like an octopus swims through water, and it will likely tear the station apart if it ever gets up the courage to commit to attack.”

“So, we learned nothing we don’t already know.”

“You sound surprised.”