Judas Unchained

Then the armored humans would reappear from nowhere and wreck them all over again. MorningLightMountain rebuilt each time, incorporating stronger defenses, which took longer to construct. It brought in tens of thousands of additional soldier motiles from its homeworld, all of which had to be fed and supported, stretching its resources on the new twenty-three worlds. The disruption tactics that the humans were employing were extremely irritating. MorningLightMountain didn’t know how to stop them. Back on its homeworld, conflicts had been fought out in the open with both sides trying to inflict maximum damage. This was different. MorningLightMountain knew from human personality animation that they would never stop this guerrilla warfare harassment. Their history was heavy with such actions. Fanatical freedom fighters had successfully defeated conventional armies time and again.

It would only stop when there were no more free humans. MorningLightMountain began to commit more resources toward achieving that task.

The staging post detected superluminal quantum distortion waves sweeping through the star system. Their origin point was a distortion signature that corresponded to a human starship engine, three light-years distant. The starship was already heading away from the staging post.

MorningLightMountain knew what the Commonwealth navy would do now it had discovered the location of the staging post: attack with every weapon it possessed.

Thousands of immotile groups had considered what defense could be used against the kind of relativistic attack the humans had used at Anshun. The complex machinery that would modify its wormhole generators was already under construction. MorningLightMountain prioritized its completion, and began transferring the first components to the staging post. It also began to assemble its new fleet of warships. When the navy starships arrived, weakening the Commonwealth defenses, it would begin its second expansion stage into Commonwealth space, invading a further forty-eight worlds.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Patricia Kantil and Daniel Alster left the Senate Hall together and shared the express to Kerensk. McClain Gilbert was waiting at the gateway station to escort them. The three of them took a navy shuttle over to Babuyan Atoll, a twenty-minute flight.

“Even after all the preparatory work we’ve done, I can’t believe we’ve reached this stage,” Patricia said. “I don’t mind telling you, the President is very anxious about this.”

“We all are,” Mac said. “This could well be the turning point.”

“Does the Admiral think we have enough ships?” Daniel asked.

“He’ll tell you himself,” Mac said. He gestured at the thick windows set into the cabin’s ceiling. “As you can see, we haven’t been slacking.”

Space around the High Angel was getting crowded. There were now three free-flying ports linked back to Kerensk, delivering passengers and small cargo pods to the shuttles that flew them on to the new navy facilities as well as the archipelago’s industrial stations. The nine warship assembly platforms were much larger than the original models used to construct the first generation of scoutships. Each one had five giant malmetal fabrication spheres arranged around a central gateway section that had a wormhole leading back to Kerensk. Hull sections and components were now conveyed directly to the advanced cybernetic systems that would put them together.

A malmetal ball on platform four was open, revealing one of the new Moscow-class warships as it prepared to disengage. The London was a hundred fifty meters long, its rust-red hull a double sphere, with the forward globe smaller than the rear, and seven rapier-blade thermal radiators protruding from its waist. There was no allusion to aerodynamics this time; the Moscow-class was designed purely as a weapons-delivery ship.

“They look imposing,” Patricia said.

“There’s enough weaponry in one of those to destroy every planet in Earth’s solar system, including Jupiter,” Mac told her. “For once, we have the firepower advantage.”

“I hope you’ve got fail-safes to prevent unauthorized launches,” Daniel said.

Mac gave him a funny look. “The Douvoir missiles have tripartite arming codes. Three members of the crew have to authorize a launch.”

“What if a ship is damaged, and you’ve only got two crew left?” Patricia asked.

“Not going to happen,” Mac assured her. “Anything powerful enough to get through the force field which shields a Moscow-class ship will destroy the entire ship.”

“Ah, I see.” Patricia turned back to the massive alien starship that the shuttle was approaching.