System Supervillain, Chapter 161

Chapter 161 – Bullying

Another cruiser and four destroyers had been knocked out by the time I finished speaking with the King and the rest of the Brits. The rest of the ships were trying their best to destroy the Rhuk, but that was easier said than done. Put simply, their ships were built for fighting the wrong type of war.

It wasn’t their fault, really. It was the inherent flaw in any organized military. Planners may try to think about the future, but there is a lot of inertia against changing what has been proven to work in the past. This means that a military starts off fighting with the weapons and tactics of the last war, which might not be the right picks for this war.

Their weapons were all made with the ‘Armor Piercing’ advantage. Against most ships, that would have been plenty. Shield systems and weapons both craved power. Especially when you worked to make them as powerful as possible. That meant most ships needed to balance offense and defense.

Looking at the Gel-nak battleships, they had 30 Defense naturally, but could add the Force Field from the shields to add another 25. Even with Armor Piercing, this would be enough to protect them from their own guns, but at the cost of 7 END from their ship reactors every two seconds. They could fire two shots from each of their eight main turrets in that same span, but each shot from each turret cost 8 END from the same reserves.

Those reserves were not bottomless. They had a maximum of 350 END, but only recovered at a rate of 40 END every ‘post phase 12’, unless the ship decided to rest in place. Firing only half their guns at full speed, while keeping their shields up, the battleship’s reserve would be drained by phase 10 each combat turn, leaving them vulnerable. That was an unacceptable state of affairs for a warship, naturally.

Again, this wasn’t a design flaw on their part, but the limits of their engineering. They were a fiercely hierarchical civilization that did not encourage free-thinking, but rather obedience. As expected of a race that literally changed their genetics to enforce conformity. The effects of this on their technology was that what worked was reinforced, kept, and built up, but never actually improved upon. They had basically been using the same technology for the last three thousand years, and hadn’t needed to change because they always caught any rivals before they could match their level of development, and the other major powers in the sector were similarly… sedate.

The Rhuk, on the other hand, was the product of reverse-engineering and innovation. The Mechanics had looked at Gel-nak systems, analyzed them, and then applied human ingenuity and super-science to perfecting them. The armor wasn’t as thick, and the reactor and shields weren’t quite as powerful as the battleship’s, but the reactor recharged faster, the shields didn’t drain the reserve, and the structural integrity field bolstered the Defense to a base of 40, with another 20 from the Shields. Thirty points of the base Defense had the Hardened advantage, which countered Armor Piercing. With the shields up, an enemy needed to do more than 45 BODY damage to his ship with Armor Piercing attacks to even do more than scratch the paint.

If they had more weapons with the Penetrating advantage, like their fighters, then they would have had a chance. They might even have been too tough for me to fight directly, forcing me to engage in shadow games, and spend time separating them from each other, so that I could hunt them at my leisure. But they were too hidebound by regulations and their own genetic programming to even consider that in the middle of a campaign. Especially with the Empire tearing itself apart in a civil war.

That meant that the space battles were only ever going to end one way. Well, unless one of the Leaders decided to grow a brain, and try to surrender the moment we showed up. But from what I’d seen of the Empire, you did not get to a high rank without a great deal of pride and ambition. Those types did not submit easily, or at all, if they could help it. They would always try to fight. And, once the fighting started, their subordinates would not back down, even if their leader died.

Maybe, after a few more systems, as the news spread and doubt grew, leaders would start to question, start to consider other options. Especially if things played out on Thraxl Secunda like he hoped. The King might have made his decision based on practicality, but it opened a potential release valve. Gave some of the lizards hope of a way out. Kept them from getting desperate. A wounded, cornered animal was always the most dangerous one, after all.

Another battleship died, its reactor exploding as gravity lances tore through its hull. Each attack by the lances (redesigned to have both Armor Piercing and Penetrating) ensured that at least 3 damage with each strike, and four of them could line up on a target at once. Not enough to take out even one of the little destroyers in a single blow, but the more BODY damage a vehicle took, the more systems were knocked offline. Things like shields, or engines, or navigation.

And when the Rhuk got to close range? The Point Defense opened up. Four cannons, each strike doing 8 damage from penetrating, but with the Autofire ability, each one put out five shots in an attack. The gravity lances were stand off weapons, but the point defense were killers. Nemesis already had plans on how to rebuild the gravity lances on a similar design, but that needed some time in a shipyard. There were limits to how much you could alter things in the field, after all.

Two more destroyers knocked out of the fight. One’s engines dead, the other on a dead stick trajectory towards the sun. ETA ten hours, so their engineers ought to have time to find a way to stop, if not gain full navigational control. Meant we would have to swing around and finish that one off, later, but they weren’t our problem, for now. I did set a note in the interface to ensure Nemesis kept a sensor lock on it, just in case.

I sent a message to Planet Leader Druxl, explaining the King’s requirements, and his offer. Five years of loyal service as the governor (essentially the same role as Planet Leader), and he’d either be taken on permanently, or free to go anywhere in the newly-expanded United Kingdom. Failure to be a good and honest leader would result in a more permanent sort of retirement.

Naturally, Druxl was not entirely content with the idea of what a forcible ‘retirement’ entailed, nor was he pleased with the requirement to train the King’s people about the world’s operations (including the processing of Systemite), since that removed one of his major bargaining chips, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew that this was the best (and only) offer he was going to get, and the alternative was that I wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

With that in mind, he agreed. As if there was ever going to be any doubt. The only reason anyone would turn down that offer was if they were too prideful or too stupid to see the benefits. And someone like that would have never reached out to me like he had in the first place.

Another cruiser had met its end, and the blast from its reactor going critical took out one of the remaining battleships. At this point, the whole thing was really just bullying, but we couldn’t just let them go. After all, the more reports they got from people who managed to escape, the more likely it was that someone important enough to matter would find a way to change things. It was the same as deliberately turning your back on a hired thug while infiltrating a building. That was just begging for the universe to find a way to absolutely ruin your day.

No, it was best if these ships were either destroyed, or someone managed to grow enough of a brain to surrender. There was always the option of teleporting over to one or two of the ships, and capturing it, like I’d done to the fleet at Earth, but unless the commanders were entirely too stupid to breathe without assistance, they would have done whatever they could to disable the Uprising Controls. And going into a situation like that, without having some serious aces in the hole? When the Gel-nak had hand-held weapons that absolutely could hurt me, if they were lucky enough to hit me? Not a good plan. They only needed to get lucky once in order to cause me serious trouble, and the law of large numbers said that they were definitely going to get lucky eventually.

It was important to remember that, despite all the impressive victories to my name, I was nowhere near the strongest member of Devastation when it came to straight-up combat. In fact, most of the former Squadron Supreme members could probably take me out, if we were fighting fair. The reason I won so much was because I didn’t fight fair. I didn’t give people a chance. I did what I had to in order to ensure a win, because I was well aware of the fact that I wasn’t the strongest.

There were some in the villain community that thought mercy was a weakness. Those idiots tended to end up with kill orders on them eventually. Mercy was the privilege of the strong. Only the truly strong could afford to be merciful. For all Indomitable’s other failures, his total immunity to most kinds of damage before the System had made it so that he could afford to be merciful, when he chose. Before I’d conquered and renamed her, Stolen Victory had been the same. Great strength allowed one to do things that would be suicide to anyone weaker.

Three more destroyers dead. The middle one’s reactor blew, taking out the other two in chain reactions. Nemesis was playing with its food, now. Web Mistress and I kept watch over the tactical plot, sending recommendations to it. Recommendations, never orders. It was not mine to order about, and I respected the honest way the AI acted around me and mine. Honestly, the gruff, detached style was more enjoyable than most of what I usually had to suffer through when dealing with people who weren’t my slaves.

More than just appreciating the AI’s style, I appreciated the fact that it was willing to talk back to me, or even just tell me no. With a reputation like I had (and it was a well-earned reputation, if I say so myself), there were very few people who were both willing and capable of talking back to me, or denying me anything I wanted. While getting what I wanted was indeed satisfying, it was also dangerous. If no one was willing to tell me no, then I would never know if I was making a horrible mistake until it was too late. Far too many supervillains had their careers cut short that way. I had no intention of adding my name to that list, so I placed a high value on people who could and would tell me no, so long as they weren’t insulting about it.

Another battleship down. This one crashing into what used to be a city on Thraxl Prime. Might be survivors for that one. Something to let the Brits know when the portal was set up. Didn’t want them getting surprised. And maybe they would want to ‘welcome’ them. Might be work for the Knave and his lads.

“Keep up the good work, Nemesis.”