System Supervillain, Chapter 158

Chapter 158 – Return

(Command Nest, Gel-nak Imperial Navy Ship Claw of the Vengeful Emperor, Thraxl System, Gel-Nak Empire)

Fleet High Commander Urlosk of the Thraxl Defense Fleet cursed his rotten fortunes. At one point, he had been Fleet High Commander of the Imperial Fleet, the fleet that guarded the Emperor himself when he felt the need to travel through the Empire. It was a glorious position, one that would have seen him set to become one of the highest-ranking Leaders in the Empire, perhaps second only to the Royal Line itself! It was also an easy position, since they were not at war with any established powers and no pirate was foolish enough to attack the Imperial Fleet. In another decade, he would have been able to retire with honor to a plantation and enjoy fucking his slaves while others did the actual work.

And then the Emperor had gone and ruined everything by getting himself killed by some jumped up mammal with powers! The only good thing about the whole business with this so-called Rhuk of Earth was that Urlosk could not be blamed for the disaster. Somehow, the Rhuk had come through the portal, without the forces on either side noticing, and made it all the way into the command center with an entire team before they just appeared in the middle of the Planetary Command Center. That was a clear failure on the part of the ground forces and their leaders, but without any ships being present, he could not take any of the blame.

Which wasn’t to say he escaped all of the shame from the incident. Every military Leader Caste in Thraxl shared in the shame of allowing the Emperor to die while they lived. That dishonor meant their career prospects were suddenly a lot dimmer. His retirement was a fading dream at this point. Worse, he couldn’t even return to the home system. The Fleet Supreme Commander had ordered the Imperial Fleet to be merged into the Thraxl Defense Fleet until a new Emperor was decided.

Thankfully, a bit of poison had solved the issue of who would lead the newly expanded Thraxl fleet. Now, all four battleships, twelve cruisers, and twenty destroyers of the combined fleet, along with the carrier he claimed as his flagship, the Claw of the Vengeful Emperor, were under his command. That was the sun-side of things. The shade-side, however, was that now he needed to somehow keep the Gel-nak on those ships fed, Uprising Controls be damned.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. Thraxl Prime might not be classified as an agricultural world, but the normally hot and steamy planet had perfect soil conditions for growing crops, as well as possessing plenty of animals that could be used to supplement the proteins in the rations. Unfortunately, one of the Rhuk’s tricks after killing the Emperor was to unleash a devastating ice age upon the world, using some power that his science officer said was almost certainly a Change Environment ability with the Permanent duration, covering the entire planet. The average temperature on the surface was now below the freezing point of water! What crops or game there was on the planet had long since frozen, and he had seen reports that some of the groups of survivors were resorting to cannibalism to keep fed.

Not that knowing the source of the problem made fixing it any easier. To remove the effect, they would first have to get a device capable of using the Change Environment power at that kind of scale, with enough power to reverse the changes. Then, they would need to get to the center point of the effect, or close enough. Unfortunately, the center point was where the atomic fire that had destroyed the capital city had originated, as well, meaning that the area was highly toxic and would cause equipment to degrade. And, even if they managed to accomplish all of that and reverse the effect, the only change would be that the frozen planet with an almost completely dead ecosystem would become a suitably warm planet with an almost completely dead ecosystem. Recovery, if it ever got to that point, would take decades, maybe centuries.

Of course, there would be no recovery until after a new Emperor completed the Rite of Perfection. And that would not happen until the Empire decided upon a new Emperor and the scientists found a way to rework the Rite so that the genetic infusion could be used upon a new Royal Line. And, all the while, he was stuck here, guarding a dying world, and the hell world colony of Thraxl Secunda, while the fleet’s stores ran ever lower.

An alert shook Urlosk out of his musings. Focusing his eyes on the Worker caste specialist in front of the sensor console, he said, “Well, report. What is it?”

“Fleet High Commander, we have detected the signs of a warp bubble dissipation in the outer system. Not on any of the standard exit points. No transponder data. Sensors are not detecting any ships. Sensor readings match those that the Fang of Truumok brought from the Srusk system.”

Urlosk stiffened. That could only mean one thing. “Very well. Priority message to all ships. Full alert status. Shields up, weapons at the ready. Launch all fighters. The Rhuk of Earth has returned to Thraxl, it seems. This time, we shall welcome him properly, and avenge the shame he put upon us!”

(Bridge, Rhuk, Thraxl System, Gel-nak Empire)

“What do we have, Nemesis?”

Nemesis’s voice came through the speakers with its typical deadpan delivery. “We are detecting thirty-seven warships in system. Composition includes one carrier, four battleships, twelve cruisers, and twenty destroyers. The carrier is launching fighters, two hundred in total. This is consistent with the intelligence given by Administrator Oris about the complement of the Thraxl Defense Fleet and the Imperial Fleet that escorts the Emperor. In addition, I am detecting derelict stations near the gas giants. They appear to be gas miners, but there is no sign of activity.”

“And the planets? What can you tell me?”

“Thraxl Prime appears to be in the middle of an ice age, as predicted. The tropical fauna and flora that thrived on the planet have mostly died off. Some local extremophile species survive nearer the poles, and on mountains, with some evidence that they are expanding their territories now that conditions have changed. According to Administrator Oris’s information, Thraxl Prime should have a population of 7.1 billion individuals, but initial estimates suggest the current population is in the tens of thousands, possibly less. Most remaining population centers have lost power, and it is likely that the lack of food or unfrozen water has produced a die-off effect for the dominant species.

“Thraxl Secunda is a Venus-analogue world, closer to the local primary. Extreme cloud cover makes it difficult to determine local conditions from this distance, but Administrator Oris’s intelligence suggests that the mining colonies there are reasonably self-sufficient. It is likely that there are survivors there.”

“Hmph. I guess we did a better job with Thraxl the first time than we thought.”

“Brother, there are a bunch of angry lizards coming this way. Perhaps wait until they are properly dealt with to admire your work?”

I chuckled at Web Mistress’s gentle rebuke. “Fair enough. Nemesis, I believe it is time to put some of the adjustments we made into practice. Maneuver for a clean shot on the carrier, and let’s see how the spinal cannon does with the new adjustments.”

“Understood. Charging time begun. Time until charge complete: fifty-nine seconds and counting.”

When we started making the adjustments to the Rhuk’s primary weapon, we realized the changes needed to make the main cannon truly effective were more… thorough than we had been expecting, which is part of the reason I didn’t mind waiting so long around Srusk. Nemesis’s initial calculations weren’t wrong, but they were incomplete. Turning the weapon into something that ignored normal defenses meant that the System caused it to not do BODY damage unless you paid extra, which Nemesis had not known until it had started adjusting things.

So, instead of changing things around, we upped the power to the original design. Increasing the charge time to one minute and doing some other minor changes, while increasing the point total for the multipower to 390 active points meant that our main gun had a 13d6 Armor Piercing Ranged Killing Attack with 16 charges. Still took a week to process materials to recover any spent charges, but that was still better than the 10d6-1 it had been before. Better still, while Nemesis was adjusting points, it managed to increase the effect of the structural integrity field to become ‘Hardened’, which meant that we could ignore some of the effects of Armor Piercing or Penetrating weapons. So, we were hitting harder and even harder to hurt than we were in Srusk.

The stealth system kept us hidden while the cannon charged. Once we fired, the cloak would drop, but we could charge an attack while under stealth, which made the big gun even nastier. Unfortunately, the only ‘targeting’ we could do with it was to try and aim center mass. The thing was aimed by moving the entire ship, after all. No way to make precise shots.

That minor disadvantage was mostly cancelled out by the fact that most ships kept most of their important systems towards the center of the ship, where there was more mass to keep someone from accidentally putting holes in your main reactor. Other than the engines, shield generators, and weapon systems, which obviously needed to either be on the hull or have access to it in order to properly function, anything critical to the ship’s survival was located deep in the ship. That meant that firing the big gun at the middle of a ship meant that we were more likely to knock out some of their critical systems, like power or life support, so not being able to specifically target their main weapons wasn’t really a problem.

“Charge complete. Firing.”

Rhuk uses Offensive Shot (-1 OCV, -1 DCV, +4DC Strike)

Rhuk’s attack roll (Carrier), OCV 13: 3d6 = 11 (Hits DCV 13) (Hits)

Spinal Cannon: 14d6+1 = 52 BODY (15 rPD after AP)

Carrier: 3/40 BODY

Nemesis had taken the time to position us above the enemy forces, relative to the system ecliptic. Not directly above, but at enough of an angle that we could shoot over the screen of more heavily armored ships that were between where we’d entered the system and the carrier. Fun thing we’d learned about Gel-nak carriers from the one we captured over Earth was that, because they have to carry around a bunch of fighters, flight crews, and all that, they had less room for armor and offensive weaponry. That lighter build did give them a bit more in the way of agility and defense, but it wasn’t enough to make Nemesis miss its shot.

The result was… instructional. The carrier did not fall to pieces, but it was a close thing. However, I noticed that all thrust stopped immediately. The ship still coasted forward, but it looked like main power was offline. Probably due to the fact that the ‘bullet’ ripped its way out the keel of the ship, taking much of the main reactor with it. No explosion, but the carrier was dead in space.

“Excellent work, Nemesis. I believe we can mark the carrier down as combat killed, even if there is still some of it left hanging together. Select targets, and take us in. There are too many lizards in my sky. Handle it.”

“Understood! Gravity Lance weapons ready. Point Defense armed. Increasing speed to combat maximum, all defenses ready. We’ll be in weapons range in thirty seconds.”

Web Mistress started all of a sudden. Her eyes met mine, and she grinned. “Master, I’m detecting a transmission from the Venus-type world, they’re bouncing it off a couple weather and communication satellites to hide the transmission from the Gel-nak fleet. The Planet Leader of Thraxl Secunda wants to talk.”