Chapter 6: The Allies Meet

“Yesterday will forever be beyond our reach, but tomorrow will always be there for us to catch and grasp with both hands. Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. “

– Lyndon B. Johnson

Large secure conference room deep beneath the surface of Porquenta, directly below Notre Dame:

“Friends and allies,” said Brecht Chatzke, “I welcome all of you to this meeting and I have made available the latest version of the proposed agenda on the pad in front of you. We have placed pads in front of you that Porquenta has designed for your physiology. Touch the top button and a hologram will present the agenda and the program for the day.”

“I would propose first that we permit Gen. Grommet Rickel, from Empire intelligence, to present the intelligence findings from the combined group who have been assembling information from the captured enemy, the analysis of the weapons of the enemy, the effectiveness of weapons and shields with respect to each of our fleets and also the information that we have gleaned from previous encounters. Intelligence teams as you know have been working around the clock to provide us updated information. Once we have this information, we can look at the proposed agenda and consider its relevance. If anyone would like to say anything at this stage, please indicate, otherwise I will invite Gen. Rickel to speak,” said Ouma Chatzke solemnly.

She looked around the room and then indicated towards Gen. Rickel. “Gen. Rickel can you please address the gathering and present your findings.”

“Honored Emperors and Empresses, kings and queens, leaders, ministers, our single Warlord and Lord, allies and friends,” he said formally but smiled at Jason.

“I would like to begin by asking Gen. Pardue to share the information that was gleaned during a major encounter when our enemies fought each other close to Earth and were overcome by some of Lord Kargo’s fleet, and a fleet from the Collective. I will then proceed to give you the information on the performance of the respective fleets, their weapons, shields and armor during the recent battle. I will then hand over to Adm. First-Class Osgood Grunwald who will complete the analysis by providing us with the detailed information obtained from the ships and from interrogations.

“The first pass analysis of the first encounter was made by Gen. Megadeth Pardue, head of Collective Fleet intelligence who was on the scene. The first enemy was well known and was the Coven a traditional and ancient enemy of the Collective and infiltrators into the Empire and to The Mob. She found little new in the technology on the ships but discovered a long history of conflict between them and a second race consisting of mollusks we now know are ‘The People of Dhoom’.

“General Pardue please present your findings,” requested Rickel.

“Thank you General Rickel, allies and friends,” said Pardue.

“The warriors in Golden Armor or Golden Warriors turned out to be a mollusk like species from a similar galaxy to that of the Collective, adjacent to our galaxy, and are known as the creatures of Dhoom. They evolved on slightly lower gravity aquatic planets than those to which we are accustomed. They are an aquatic species, and wear armor or environmental suits as their bodies are very fragile. Most of the planets they conquered have species that live on the surface. Their suits are powered as their muscles are poorly adapted to walk on land. They use their front four tentacles for manipulation and their rear four tentacles for the control of ambulation, but most of the work of surface movement is undertaken by the suit AI. They steer but do not do much active movement as water movement and land movement are so different for them. On their ship they sleep in small tanks, but most of the day is spent in their suits as it is less practical to use fluid filled ships.

“We were able to penetrate their ship AIs and also battle AIs and found that they are making major attempts to change their physiologies to live more easily on land. They have a research station on Earth and we think in oceans within the Empires. They have been sending out scout ships for a million years exploring other galaxies. They encountered the Collective on one occasion when they had a fleet moving to what they thought was a suitable planet on our side of the galaxy and were slaughtered. We have found ancient archived accounts of that battle. They attempted again on the Coven side of the galaxy and were similarly rebuffed. The Coven sent several fleets to try and find them with little success in a very large galaxy. More recently the Coven successfully managed to track one of the Dhoom fleets returning to their home galaxy.

“The intercepted Dhoom fleet near Earth was intending to land an army to enter the ocean on Earth. They intended to take over Earth as soon as they possibly could. They wanted to have Earth as an insurance policy a long way away from their galaxy in case they were attacked by the Coven. They worked hard to improve their knowledge and weapons since their first encounters with the Coven so that they could defend themselves and then later as it is their intention to eradicate the Coven. They saw the Collective had advanced even further and they were strenuously trying to stay out of their way.

“They have been working with the Slug/Jellyfish group known as Grork, for some time. The basis of that relationship is not yet clear, but they very recently acquired new weaponry and shields and built the moon sized ship that we captured at Beeliar. With help from their allies, Dhoom has taken over a large proportion of their own galaxy and have eradicated or subjugated many species. They also intended to invade the Empire and were weakening the Empire for some time, using the priests to poison the Empire. They were horrified to discover the Coven also had their eye on the Empire.

“The Dhoom Golden Warriors believed that they could deal with the Coven on even terms after the technology infusion. In previous battles the Coven had badly beaten them. They caught up and began surpassing the Coven, thanks to the help of the Grork Slug/Jellyfishes. They were ready to make their move against the Empire, but they were seriously considering eliminating the Coven first, since they did not want to split their forces. They decided to create their insurance policy on Earth first, as they continued to build an increasingly substantial fleet and then hit the Coven where it hurt the most, after that they wanted to continue to the Empire unhindered. The size of their fleet was revealed as part of the interrogation and was very challenging. I have provided a breakdown for you as part of the report sent to you. The weapons analysts were also concerned the Dhoom had made substantial technology improvements in a relatively short period of time and a number of their weapons were formidable. The IT specialists are in the process of extracting information from the computer systems but are not yet ready to report their findings.

“The Coven interrogations are similarly very interesting. They managed to attach a broadcasting tracking device to one of the scouts of Dhoom. They were hoping that the scout would lead them to the location of Dhoom. They sent a large fleet to chase after it hoping to launch a pre-emptive strike. Instead it led them to the fleet with which the Dhoom scout rendezvoused near Earth. The Coven had not yet explored Jason’s galaxy and the solar system, nor had they communicated their location to the Coven. They commenced battle with each side blocking the communication of the other and then our arriving fleets added their own cyber warfare communication blocks. Later we attempted to facilitate conflict between the two enemies but they formed an alliance to attack Charassa,” said Gen. Pardue.

Gen. Rickel took over the briefing, “Teams of specialized intelligence operatives from the Jumo Empire, the Empire and the Collective have been analyzing the data from the fleets and combing the ships of both enemy fleets and their AI systems for information and education systems.

“I will now move on to the analysis of the battle above Charassa and then Adm. Grunwald will discuss the ground and sea engagements and discuss the current state of interrogation and data analysis findings. This will be brief as our intention is to provide more information when we meet again to get into the serious planning for this war.

“Serendipitously one week prior to the attack on Charassa, Porquenta sent two heavily armed shipbuilding asteroids to provide secure shipbuilding facilities and add to the defensive capacity of Charassa. They each had sixteen of his new cannons, which he calls the Cannon of Doom. I will talk about the role of these weapons later as they made a significant difference to the outcome of the conflict. He had also sent two new kinds of devices to interfere with the known function of the propulsion systems of both the Coven and the Dhoom. He calls this weapon The Suppressor. The one closer to the planet was much more advanced and able to adapt to enemy attempts to escape. We will refer to it as Suppressor type II

“The Suppressor type I was highly effective in stopping both fleets, however the people of Dhoom must’ve been able to retune their propulsion systems and continued forward. They then jumped reasonably close to the planet to debark assault craft. The size of the invasion force was estimated to be in the order of forty-million troops. We cut the numbers down before they hit the ground. They landed troops and equipment with gunships and had a system of transporting millions of troops in small containers that carried forty at a time with light equipment, much as we do. They ejected decoys that attracted missiles and fire while offering some protection to their landing forces. They also attacked the old shipbuilding asteroid, the moon and the defensive platforms and later the asteroids made by Porquenta, which we suspect they had not planned on encountering.

“The Porquenta cannon and missiles did very significant damage to the Dhoom ships. The effective weapons were those on the fleet of Archduke Jason Kargo, only surpassed by the fleet of Lynas Parayekt, the Una, and the Warriors of the Apocalypse and Orcs. The weapons of the younger civilizations those of Emperors Cassius and Felix were less effective as were the weapons of the Collective. Both the Coven and the Dhoom ships and shields were optimized to attack and defend against known Collective Weapons and shields both in space and on the land. I will now hand over to Adm. Osgood Grunwald,” finished Rickel.

Adm. Grunwald started his briefing, “The city defenses were disappointingly ill-equipped to deal with the attacks of the warriors of Dhoom. There was, however, one significant exception and that was the city of Nobatia where, it is my understanding, the defenses were designed by Jason Kargo and the equipment for the defenses was partly supplied by Porquenta.

“The most effective ground troops were those of Queen Lynas Parayekt, followed by the Marduk Orcs along with the Mech warriors, new generation AI Marines, and the shock troop Boars and Hounds with and even without marines of the young Warlord, Jason Kargo. His frigate, landing assault craft with their very superior firepower made a critical difference.