[MFR] Chapter 43 - Massilia

Note :

Some people apparently had trouble differentiating between the stories despite the tags (which patreon is constantly crap with), so I will try to have the acronym for the stories in brackets in the title (because the full name would be too long and make the titles gigantic). I make NO PROMISES on how consistent I'll be with this but I'll try my best.

Also for those of you not on discord, I did a quick poll about the later half of this chapter, because I was afraid it was just too much of a lore dump. People were fine with it staying in, so here it is.

Chapter 43

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Crash Site

"Welcome home. Again. How was your outing?" Said Cia as Sapphiria entered the crash site.

"Fascinating, to say the least." The AI came to a halt as she saw the mass of metal, sparks and construction bots in the middle of the room. "Smelter coming along?"

"Right on schedule. Collecting the rails took less long than planned. The network is...extensive, and rather dense."

"Interesting. I've gathered some data for our plans in the future." She gestured, and the maps she'd scanned appeared in the air.

"Is this not a little early for these kind of plans?"

"Three steps ahead, Cia. Always keep the bigger picture in mind. It's how we won against the Theocracy. We weren't planning for the next battle, or the next year, but the next century." Sapphiria sighed. "But yes, current projects must always take precedence. Which right now means the snowpiercer. How are we coming along?"

"The design seems tentatively viable, at least in the simulations, but many things still require hammering."

"When doesn't it?" Sapphiria sighed, before stretching. "Alright, let's get to it. We should also make some plans for containing the Bane. If they're considerate enough to put themselves in a corner for us, it would be churlish not to take advantage of that most generous gift."

"That will require resources from other projects."

"It always does. Defense or industry, what you need versus what you will for the future..." Sapphiria shrugged. "At least it's not an absolute emergency. We gutted them and even if they get a ton of troops from some reinforcements, I'm sure they'll maneuver a lot more carefully from now on anyway." She blinked. "We're still producing ammo, right?"

"And stockpiling it, yes. That includes the ammunition for the primitive carbines."

"Good. Let's set some of the capacity aside for mines. They probably won't walk into an ambush again, but there's nothing better to stop an infantry wave attack than a minefield backed with machineguns." Even for the Federation. Harsh lessons taught by the battle of Mishtar. Well, technically the engagement on Mishtar-Three but it overshadowed all the other engagements in the system, by a long shot. "Besides, for the most part we want to stop them from sending out those undead strike teams again. Let the squishies gather resources they desperately need in peace, and avoid more deaths."

"Understood."

"Alright. Enough talk, let's get to work. Let me see that smelter."

*****

"Alright, we're almost done." Said Sapphiria, as she looked at the smelter, whose final components were being put into place. "Thank the stars for those fume condensation systems."

"Affirmative. They seem...very adapted to this particular situation." Cia's avatar was holding a tablet and a pen, tapping away on it like some foreman from a distant mining colony.

Sapphiria chuckled.

"That's probably because they are. You can't always just vent toxic fumes out on colonies. So, you make a system to get rid of them in a closed circuit."

"It will still produce waste."

"Push comes to shove, we can throw it in the refinery. And really..." She kicked the nearby pile of spare materials, which granted, had considerably diminished since they'd gotten the metaconcrete plant online, but was still sizeable. "We already have waste to deal with."

Cia opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.

"Alright." Sapphiria pulled up more schematics. "Now, let's get started on that new fabricator. Nothing fancy, but we-"

"Ma'am."

The AI blinked.

"Yes?"

"May I recommend a rest period?"

"A rest...Cia, I'm an AI, I don't sleep. I don't rest."

"Yes you do. Federation guidelines require rest periods for AIs in field and base deployment. You have taken alarmingly few of them as of late, and while that was acceptable during a dire emergency, things have slowed down to a level where I believe they should be taken."

"Cia, I'm fine."

The look the simulacrum gave her was all the answer she needed.

There was a brief, but intense staring match...until Sapphiria sighed and closed her eyes.

"Fine. I'll take some time. Until the smelter is finished, alright?"

"Excellent. I will handle things while you take your rest." Said the simulacrum in a studiously neutral tone.

Magnanimous in victory, as always.

"I'll go read a bit. Call me if anything comes up."

"Of course."

Sapphiria sighed again. She had a feeling the simulacrum would only disturb her if the entire crash site was about to collapse. But, well...honestly some leisure time didn't sound so bad.

*****

Sapphiria stretched, before settling back down.

She'd looked over the endless texts in her library core, and ended up on the historical archives. Not because there were technical documents there she needed, but because honestly she needed a bit of inspiration. Reading about the Federation's, and thus her family's, history always soothed her. And quite honestly, she probably needed that soothing.

Cia was right, it had been just one thing after another since she'd arrived. The Bane, the squishies...from protecting them to those sunset eyes...

She needed some time to recenter herself. So she'd perused the archives. The Unification War, the Contact Campaign with the Theocracy, the burning of Ivarak, the stand at Lyvarone...

In the end she'd focused on something familiar. Something she could almost quote the after action report by sheer memory.

The battle of Massilia had been one of the greatest military engagement in history, and was part of the ten great battles everyone at the academy had to learn about.

It was also widely considered to have been the tipping point in the war with the Theocracy. Several decades into the war, the Federation had managed to drive the front into a stalemate. both sides had fully mobilized their forces and were ready to engage, but neither was willing to make the first move. Constant raids, back and forth, cruisers blasting each other to bits all along the front but the carrier groups and the giant armadas just stayed there.

Finally, Massilia. A Federation cruiser squadron got caught in an ambush by a theocracy battlegroup. Both sides clashed, and managed to retreat in good order despite heavy damage. But not retreat into hyperspace.

Most of the ships on either side were rendered incapable of going FTL, and neither was willing to leave so many behind, especially not at the mercy of the other group who would be sure to pounce on them. So the two flotillas called for backup.

Reinforcements start pouring in. Every wave from one side prompts more desperate calls from the other, and more reinforcements. Slowly the entire front begins to narrow as both sides pull forces to both reinforce Massilia and the nearby systems.

Massilia itself is hell. Constant running battles between skirmishers, nuclear detonations lighting up the planets at every hour.

Then her aunt made what some say is the most important decision of the campaign.

She sends a fleet carrier in.

At the time, these things were the lynchpin of the Federation Navy. Humanity didn't have the massive forward naval bases and shipyards yet, they were still under construction. The carriers were the only reason they could even hold this area and the Theocracy knew it.

It was a trap, of course. And recovered archives showed that the other side had guessed so. But they weren't operating under pure military pragmatism over there. No on ever did. Their holy war dragging into a stalemate was starting to become a problem. Political divisions were flaring back up, the coalition of claimants from the still unresolved succession crisis at the start of the war was threatening to implode. They had to make a move.

And so they did.

To their credit, they weren't completely insane. A single fleet carrier did not warrant sending out their whole armada, so they opted for a reinforced dreadnought squadron. That was still eight of the largest capital ships ever built at the time, but it was a far cry from the gigantic force waiting behind them.

Those eight ships crashed into Massilia like a bulldozer in a coffee shop.

Unfortunately for them, the Federation had three advantages:

The ability to technologically innovate, unlike their more or less stagnant nation.

The incredibly fast iteration time of AIs.

And last but not the least, her aunt, the single most vicious military officer to ever serve humanity.

Those eight dreadnoughts only realized something was wrong when the planet the fleet carrier was orbiting exploded.

It wasn't a subtle tactic, nor a complicated procedure. Drill holes, drop nukes, detonate them to create giant underground reservoirs. Britain had once planned to do the same to create a massive facility for natural gas storage, back during the old old days of the Cold War.

Then she pumped those tanks full of helium three, and turned them into fusion bombs.

Fusion bombs the size of cities.

It cracked the planet like an eggshell, turning its crust into a giant shotgun blast.

The dreadnoughts closed in their formation, and moved in to evade. They couldn't dodge -or blast- everything on their trajectories, but they were dreadnoughts, kilometers long monsters that could eat nukes for breakfast.

They found out too late her aunt had planted stealth torpedo launchers, fresh from the Lunar industrial arrays, in the upper levels of the crust.

Upper levels that were now barreling towards the dreadnoughts at interplanetary speeds.

The most intact dreadnought that made it through had roughly six percent of its mass remaining, mostly due to its forward armored hammerhead somehow surviving the onslaught.

The rest simply ceased to exist.

There was a pause. For several days, the Theocracy simply refused to send its ships to harass the Federation.

Everyone knew what was going to happen. The Federation had a remarkably good idea of what made the Theocracy tick. After decades of war, interrogations, invasions and even the occasional bit of traitoring by Theocracy rebels, it had to.

The Theocracy's armada arrived first.

The Federation followed six hours later.

And at that moment the Theocracy realized that their dreadnoughts were, indeed, among the largest ships ever built to date.

But they no longer were the largest.

Her aunt lead the charge from the Twilightstar, the first ship of its class. Though 'ship' was a bit of a misnommer.

At that size 'combat moon' was a more appropriate moniker. Airah called them 'devourers'.

The battle that followed killed half a billion humans in less that three hours. They didn't even know the fatalities on the other side. Best estimate was somewhere close to thirty billion. When one had a galactic empire, one could throw a ridiculous amount of bodies at a problem. And ships operated solely by squishies took a lot of manpower to run.

The Theocracy broke. Its entire doctrine rested upon closing to laser range and using its superior energy weapons to slice Federation capital ships to ribbon.

The Twilightstar had more armor plating than the entire enemy escort force combined and it was covered in railguns. The distant descendants of kind that were once built in Planetary Defense Centers to shoot down battleships, and sizeable enough that their projectiles were larger than most corvettes.

The Theocracy dragged the Federation to laser range.

Her aunt dragged them to railgun range.

Both sides were courting a fight to the finish and equalized velocities. It was a brutal, pummeling battle at knife fighting range.

It came down to the simple fact that the Federation had the Twilightstar to hold the line and draw fire. The Theocracy didn't.

Thirty eight percent of the Theocracy's armada made it back out of that meatgrinder. The Federation wasn't much better, with around forty-three percent of the ships still nominally combat effective, but it held the system. That meant the ability to salvage ships and bring them back online. And with AIs that could be done very quickly indeed.

From then on, it was one, long grueling march to the galactic core and total victory.

She wondered if she'd get a Massilia. Would she even know the tipping point when she saw it? Woulkd she sense the odds finally going in her favour?

...Would she even be able to look herself in the mirror, if so many squishies died on her watch? Let alone under her orders?

She sighed, and sat up.

She should stop feeling sorry for herself. Yes, half a billion squishies had died, but how many had been saved by their heroic sacrifice?

Perhaps...perhaps that was the lesson there. The lesson her aunt had to learn the hard way at the Second Battle of Alpha Centauri.

She'd have to think about it more.

She stretched her android as she received a ping from Cia.

Huh. The smelter was complete. Time had flown far faster than she'd expected. And she felt a lot better now.

Maybe she did need those rest periods after all.

She opened a communication link to the simulacrum.

"Is it online?"

"Affirmative." Answered the not quite AI. "Ready for testing."

Sapphiria rubbed her hands, smiling.

"Excellent. let's make some lava!"