Star People
Chapter 60
The Trap
Aug 20th, 15 AE…
In far-planetary orbit…
“Well… at least they got 75% of the target through this time.” Reelan commented as she saw the empty hull drift in space. On their third attempt, the exit portal managed to remain coherent enough to allow three-quarters of the target to pass through. There was less damage to the Transmat station as it was able to hold together and withstand the massive power output. This time only half of the massive capacitors blew out.
“I have a question.” Ensign Gatsbu spoke.
“State your mind.” Harken permitted.
“Isn’t it enough to have most of the target pass through?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. We need the entire Ravager off the planet. Leaving a section in subspace to regenerate is just alleviating the symptoms, not curing the disease.”
“We also intend to use this new long-distance teleportation system for other things besides removing our present Planet Ravager problem. It has to be able to transfer objects safely and entirely.” Captain Delan added.
“Ah, I understand.” The Velor helmsman nodded.
“There’s no problem in generating the entry portal.” Reelan stated. “It’s the exit portal that won’t stabilize long enough for the target to pass through.”
“Well, we need to work out the kinks and get this system operational as soon as possible.” Her husband mentioned. “There’s no telling when and where those three pseudo-Ravagers will reappear.”
“Won’t they reappear in the same area where they entered subspace?” His third-in-command asked.
“We can’t be certain.” Mark shook his head. “Once you’re in subspace, you can go practically anywhere.”
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Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface…
“Three… two… one… FIRE!”
The test weapon, dubbed Big Bertha Mark II, let off a huge roar as it discharged its payload. The improved APAP round hit hypersonic speeds as it raced towards the target of reinforced magical iron. The target was again enveloped in the strongest magical barrier the dwarves could come up with. The shell slammed into the barrier and caused a momentary disruption of the psion patterns as the anti-psions were released at the point of impact. The round sped on through and plowed into the magical iron as if it was made of tissue paper. Again the projectile cut through the iron and burrowed into the mound of dirt behind it. It went in so deep, that the dwarves would have to use an excavator mech to dig it out later.
“Well, at least the test gun didn’t blow up this time.” Farena remarked as she, her husband-to-be, and the rest of the engineers assigned to this project, stood in the observation booth.
“Yeah, but the APAP Round is still packing way too much penetration power.” Gerald pointed out. “That’s just massive overkill. If we didn’t have to worry about public safety and collateral damage, we could just use our pulsar guns and rail guns.”
“And I don’t like the idea of this kind of weapon falling into the wrong hands.” Jeremy added. “Can you imagine the havoc it would cause among the magical nations, if a weapon that could nullify their magical defenses becomes available? I’m starting to have second thoughts on this.”
“We’re too far in to stop the project now.” Farena stated. “And we don’t have any better options to fight those pseudo-monsters on the planet’s surface, once they reappear. Even though Free Land can fight them on its own, the other nations don’t have the kind of firepower needed. Once the APAP round is perfected, we’ll need to redesign the gun mechanisms so that countries like Atlans and the Sath will be able to use them.”
“Again, I don’t like the idea of giving such weaponry to the other nations, even though they are allies. We might just start an arms race.”
“This will be an emergency measure only. It’s just like lending the Scrappers. We’ll be certain to monitor all usage and keep the other nations from trying to reverse-engineer our work.”
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Sept 1st, 15 AE…
“Look at her! It put the old Justifier to shame, doesn’t it?” Lenns let off a low whistle as the newest tank was being rolled out.
The Justifier tank that had been based on the M4A3E8 Sherman had been recently removed from frontline service. In its place was a design that had been given to them by Free Land. It was the M48 Patton. The overall shape was basically the same, but the profile was at least a foot lower. The turret was now a hemisphere, and it sported a 90mm gun. It also had a coaxial 7.62mm machine gun. The bow gun had been deleted as it was deemed as unnecessary. This meant that the tank only needed 4 crewmembers; a commander, a gunner, a loader and a driver.
On the top right of the turret was the commander’s cupola which was like a small dome. It sported an M2 machine gun and could be fired within the turret. In the rear of the tank was a powerful, 650 hp engine that could push the tank up to 30 mph. The armor of the tank had been improved from the old Sherman design, and could withstand greater hits. The hull no longer had the Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension or HVSS, but now sported the superior Torsion Bar suspension.
With a bit of tinkering, the Atlans engineers were able to make a few modest improvements to the original design. The turret rotated more smoothly and was a bit faster. They still hadn’t worked out how to fire while on the move, but adding an improved optical gunsight and laser-range finder had increased accuracy. The biggest improvement of all was the fact that the main gun could fire the new APAP round. Using a specialized propellant mixture, composed of magical gem powder and a few advanced chemistry lessons from Free Land, the creators of the new Vindicator tank were able to fire the APAP round with enough muzzle velocity to penetrate a 10-foot block of reinforced, steel alloy at 1,500 yards.
Mass production of the APAP round had been established and each Atlans tank would be allowed to carry up to 10 rounds. The Empire of Sath was also permitted to have a tank and had been given the blueprints for the Mark IV Churchill. Although they didn’t have the industrial infrastructure of the Kingdom of Atlans or Free Land, they had begun learning the core techniques of mass-production and standardization from the Dwarf Nations. And it didn’t take much to convert their auto-industrial plants in war production facilities. Now instead of creating the Volkswagen Beetle, they were now making the Sath’s new armored divisions.
On the other side of the world, the Kingdom of Naran had entered into a kind of uneasy truce with Free Land. After the death of Emperor Shenshirine, Prime Minister Haykin had negotiated with the Prime Directors to allow Naran to have access to the Scrappers again. Since the pseudo-Ravagers now produced inferior Mechanoid copies of the Battle-Mechs, the people of the Vados continent didn’t have a means to combat this new threat. Furthermore, there had been an increase in Behemoth encounters and the people were legitimately in need of some methods of defense. Especially with the Zedan settlement in the former Euracon territory.
With great reluctance and quite a few feelings of misgivings on the entire matter, the Council had decided to loan one squadron of Scrappers to each major city in Naran as well as a few defensive shield generators to ward off Mechanoids and Behemoths. As for the few remaining settlements that still existed after the fall of Euracon, they too would be allowed to have barrier emitters, but only for self-defense. Any attempt to reverse-engineer the devices would have them permanently black-listed from ever using them again. Since they were in such a poor state in terms of protecting themselves, they immediately agreed to all terms.
As the world was being prepared for the eventual return of the former Naran superweapons, the Council of Prime Directors was busy, conferring with the military and finalizing their plan to destroy them.
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Sept 8th, 15 AE…
“I must admit, it’s an ambitious plan.” General Kurdo remarked after going over the main points of the strategy. “I only wish we had this kind of stratagem during the war with the Cryterians.”
‘We didn’t have teleportation technology at the time.” Ben stated as he and his fellow directors also went over the plan to rid themselves of the Pseudo-Planet Ravagers.
“It’s going to take a lot of coordination, organization, timing and most of all… luck.” Anida stated.
“How close are they to perfecting the Transmat systems?” Nerto asked.
“They’re around 92% at this point.” Viska stated. “As much we’d like to say that’s good enough, we can’t afford to let even a sliver of Cryterian technology be overlooked. We’ll just be inviting the same problem later on down the road.”
“The biggest questions are, when will those Pseudo-Ravagers reappear, and will we be ready in time?” Sierg wondered.
Nasaak nodded. “So far, our planetary satellite and drone surveillance systems have shown nothing. However, we don’t know how fast those things can regenerate, and we can only detect them once they exit subspace.”
“So if we were to assume that their regeneration cycles are similar to actual Ravagers…” The Velor Prime Director began while working out the calculations at his console. “… considering the amount of damage they sustained and the output… then I would speculate that we have a month, maybe two before we encounter those would-be Cryterian doomsday weapons. Again, this is just speculation.”
“Better to have some kind of idea than none at all.” Benjamin stated as he turned their attention back to the plan to combat the Fake Planet Ravagers. “According to the engineering divisions, they believe they will be able to get the Transmat station fully operational soon. However, it will only be able to hold together for 3 attempts at long-distance, one way teleportation.”
“So we can’t afford to miss.”Nasaak remarked.
“And what makes it even harder is that we can only make each teleportation jump at certain coordinates. So that means…”
“It means that once the Ravagers appear, then we have to force them to move towards those coordinates.” Anida surmised.
“What’s to stop them from just escaping back into subspace again?” The Dwarf Director asked.
“We did a thorough scan of when they first used that subspace retreat tactic.” Nerto stated. “We believe that if we hit them with enough APAP rounds, it should produce a large field of anti-psions to disrupt their subspace field generators. That should prevent them from escaping back into subspace long enough to force them towards the required coordinates.”
“And once we get them to those coordinates, we’ll use the Transmat Station’s Hyper Gate to transport them all into a specific area of space.” Viska stated.
“And that’s when the rest of the Star Alliance Fleet will get involved.” That Catian General stated. “At this point, the First and Second Planetary Assault Divisions are on standby to blast those Ravagers to atoms.”
“You have… planetary assault divisions?” Sierg asked with awe and a bit of fear.
“During our war with the Cryterians.” Kurdo explained. “They destroyed our worlds, so we returned the favor. We were about to decommission them next year, but then these new threats appeared.”
“I see.”
“Don’t misunderstand us. Even though we have the capability, we have no interest in conquering Isteria.”
“I believe you. After all, if you had wanted to conquer this world, you would have done so a long time ago.”
“Exactly.” Kurdo then turned back to the rest of the Council. “Since we have most of the details in dealing with the Ravagers more or less hammered out, may I ask about that other matter?”
“Yes, we know what you are referring to.” Benjamin nodded to his colleagues. “This is a very delicate issue.”
“I was very surprised when the Council received the message.” Sierg stated. “I wasn’t even expecting such a thing to come from Naran after that… incident.”
“Yes, and due to the serious nature of the message,” Anida interjected, “our response may cause a major upheaval in the continent of Vados.”
“That’s putting it quite mildly.” Nerto remarked. “What was that old Earth saying again? We’re about to drop a very big bomb?”
The Velor and the other Directors went silent as they pondered their next move.
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Meanwhile, in another location…
“So the negotiations are over? We are going to have access to the Scrappers?”
“Yes, Number One. And we may just have an opportunity to look into Free Land’s new Hyper Gate technology as well.”
“So our operatives in GUST were able to make connections?”
“Indeed. That radical group was easy to convince to work with our Dreanat spies in Atlans. They’re so hungry for Free Land technology that they’re not too particular in how they get it.”
“Excellent. The sudden death of Shenshirine was unplanned but this could still work in our favor.”
To be continued…
Author’s Notes
Sorry about the long delay. I had family business that just didn’t give me much time to write. I thank my readers for being patient.
Hey welcome back, it has been aged since your last chapter. There are three points I like to discuss in this chap
1) Why Star Alliance just cannot create fake Crysterian signal to lure the three Pseudo Planet Ravagers out of subspace to a specific location in Isteria or better yet in space? Do the Crysterians signal like Nth metal, which is almost impossible to replicate due it being so super-unique?
2) The over-penetration problem of the APAP rounds. Why can't just they make the APAP rounds into smart APAP rounds with that can adjust it own velocity by outfitting it with sensors? I mean Star Alliance capability is more than enough to create guided artillery shells and smart bullets.
3) Did Naran just realize that their government has been infiltrated by the Dreenat and inform Star Alliance about it? Also, it seems the Dreenats still not learn from their past failure in stealing Star Alliance tech. Aside from the fact they do not have basic concept of hacking, even if they have someone with photographic memory like Lex Luthor, they still cannot reverse-engineering complex interstellar tech.
Since Dreenat and GUST join force now, I think Vexor and Garret's days are very numbered since these two idiots are pretty much out-lived their usefulness now they have people who can give them more resources and means to steal tech
1) Planet Ravagers are driven by their primary programming to destroy all organic life. The Star Alliance have tried distraction tactics before, and they haven't worked.
2) The APAP rounds are to be used by the allies as well as the Star Alliance. Putting in more tech is just begging for the other nation to try and reverse engineer the rounds.
3) The Dreanat have learned and are not following the orders of that idiot Euracon Emperor. And they've learned a few things from GUST, such as the basics in electrical engineering and computers. Currently working on a side-story about GUST.
@AnimeaddictionV Does GUST have contingency plan to eliminate the Dreenats when the time comes? Also do the Dreenats also learn that they have to play the long game if they want to conquer Istaria? The long game means entrusting their goals to their descendants when they cannot see their goal achieved in their lifetime
@Tomrichman GUST is basically a fanatical, extremist political group that represents the more impatient demographic of Atlans. Unlike the more conservative side, GUST feels that Free Land is being condescending and doesn't seem to think that they can handle advanced tech, (which in reality, they're definitely not ready for such). As Mark said, it only takes a misguided few to cause a disaster.
As for the Dreanat, they've been playing the long-game for quite some time. After all, they had infiltrated Naran for centuries.