Chapter 60

Everyone standing around Abi had seen her grow in size before, but only a few had seen her actually change her shape. She had looked the same as she did the day we bonded, but she just grew in size, making very few changes. Oya had some ideas for some improvements, so they spent the better part of the previous day working together to come up with a better design.

The design they came up with was one with a narrow forward section that flared out towards the rear. Unlike the current design which had a gradual slope from front to back, the new one would have a pretty consistent height for the first part of the ship. At that point, it would begin sloping up again before flattening out.

The result of the new design meant that the ship would be a little bit narrower, but about twenty percent longer. Some of that added space would be used to add two new weapon types to the ship; mass drivers and missiles. The mass drivers were in a cluster of four located at the front of the ship, while the missile tubes were in two clusters of four, located at the mid point of the ventral hull. The two of them would likely be the bread and butter Abi used to destroy ships, after the energy weapons did their job.

There would be a combined sixty-four pulse cannons and particle beams cannons located around the ship, both to provide point defense and to allow sustained fire if the mass drivers couldn’t be brought to bear. Of those sixty-four, thirty-four of them would be huge turreted pulse cannons while the remaining thirty would be turreted particle beam cannons, with eighteen mounted dorsally and twelve mounted ventrally.

They were able to get by with so few cannons for point defense, as each turret had eight barrels a piece. It would allow for larger areas of space to be blanketed with fire, increasing the chance of destroying incoming missiles or enemy fighters. In those situations where point defense wasn’t needed, the rate of fire and sheer amount of energy being fired would be able to quickly bring down enemy shields.

With the changes, the cargo bay was widened out considerably and would now span from the port side of the ship to the starboard, and could double as a landing bay. If the design was kept going forward, it would allow fighters to be rapidly deployed or recalled, with the ship acting almost like a carrier. As it was, it would hold all three of the Grasshoppers, as well as Oya’s shuttle for the trip back to Veria.

Even with the changes that were happening, the overall area for the crew and passengers to live hadn’t gotten smaller; it had done the opposite. There was about fifteen percent more space, allowing a full-sized gym, pool and additional quarters to be added. Though it wouldn’t be needed imminently, the mess was also expanded by about fifty percent, allowing it to hold several hundred hungry people at once.

When she was done growing and changing shape, her hull was just as smooth as it had been, though she finally changed the color to an extremely dark black that absorbed light. Once she was up in space, it would make it incredibly hard to see her with the naked eye. At least while the engines were inactive.

Her increased size necessitated additional thrusters being added to the rear of the ship, with four more being added to bring the total up to ten. They were formed into an irregular hexagon, with two rows of four thrusters, and then one on either end. Though only four more were added, the total thrust Abi would be able to generate more than doubled.

Someone seeing Abi for the first time would probably guess that she was a passenger ship at first, as there was no sign of any weapons whatsoever. All of the sixty-four turreted weapons were hidden beneath the hull, as were the four mass drivers and the eight missile tubes. If we were under attack or were going on the offensive, portions of the hull over the entire ship would simply disappear, revealing the weapons underneath. The turrets would need to be deployed, but as soon as they were locked in place, they would be ready to fire.

The moment Abi stopped moving, a huge chunk of information was downloaded into my brain. It wasn’t painful like it had been when she downloaded everything I needed to know about piloting a ship, but it was a little dizzying. It passed quickly, and I once again knew everything about the ship. There were now fifty-eight decks, but only forty of those ran the length of the ship. The remaining eighteen were smaller, but included the observation deck, gym, pool and entertainment parts of the ship, among others.

The bridge was now on the thirtieth deck, situated more towards the rear than the forward of the ship. It’s size did change slightly, growing enough to add five additional stations. They would be unused for now, but once people were trained on her systems, Abi would have a full bridge crew to help her out.

“It looks like it was a good idea to clear more of the forest,” Ben said. “What’s she at now? It’s gotta be over two kilometers.”

I nodded. “Two thousand six meters, a little over four hundred meters wide, and two hundred seventy meters high.”

“So how many decks are there now? There were twenty-five or twenty-six beforehand, right?”

“Yup. There are fifty-eight now, but only forty of those run the length of the ship. The other eighteen are on the tower, as they’re calling it,” I said, gesturing to the highest part of the ship. “The bridge is going to be ten decks below the base of the tower, since it is technically the deepest and most protected part of the ship.”

“She definitely looks a lot better now than she did, but where are all the guns?” Mason asked.

I smiled and looked upwards while sending to Abi. A confirmation later and a number of sections of hull disappeared, allowing everyone to get their first look at the updated weaponry. Tich was largely responsible for it, as he worked with Abi and Oya to find the best places to mount them all.

With a regular manufactured ship, there were a number of hardpoints where weapons could be mounted. They allowed for the ability to swap out weapons with some time in a drydock, but weapons could only be mounted on those hardpoints. If you wanted to put weapons in another spot, the ship would need to spend even more time in drydock as part of the hull was cut up to make space.

Abi didn’t have that issue whatsoever. If we wanted to mount a weapon somewhere, everyone just had to evacuate the ship and she could put one there in short order. It would require some modification to make room to store them and run power to them, but that didn’t take more than a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the size and type of the weapons.

“Holy shit!”

I saw Tich nodding in approval.

“The turrets you see with eight barrels are pulse cannons; basically massively upgraded versions of the pulse rifles we’ve been using. They’ll be used primarily for point defense, but they’ll also be very good at bringing down enemy shields, just from the amount of energy being fired.”

“The longer barreled ones in three clusters of four are the twelve particle beam cannons. There are another three clusters of six on the dorsal hull as well, and their main job will be able to knock out shields. I think they can each sustain a beam for about five seconds before needing to cool for eight before they can be fired again, so they’ll have some pretty good uptime during an engagement.”

“You can’t see them, but at the front there are four mass drivers. They’re pretty damn big, with each being two hundred meters long. Abi is in the process of making crystalline rounds housing an iron core which will be the primary projectile fired out of it. She’ll also be making some solid depleted uranium penetrators as soon as we get to Veria and we can acquire several tons of the stuff.

“And lastly, two clusters of four missile tubes are also up on the dorsal hull. We’ll also need to procure supplies so she can make the missiles, but there is probably going to be a wide variety of those as well. I’m talking nuclear, ionic, laser delivery missiles and maybe some missiles that will bore into armor before detonating. She’s got a ton of firepower now, though not all of it will be able to be used right away.”

“Power issues, right?” Ben asked. “There is only going to be like a couple hundred people onboard for the trip back to Earth.”

“Yeah, it’s going to require a full crew to keep everything powered. We would have enough people to keep the shields up if we got in trouble, but we wouldn’t be able to fire back with anything but missiles. Once Abi grows another half dozen times then she’ll probably replace the pulse cannons with gauss cannons which consume a miniscule amount of power. That will pave the way for more particle beam cannons to be added, or other stuff like plasma cannons or the energy weapon equivalent of a mass driver.”

“Well at least I’ll know that my daughter will be well protected,” Xigios said as the two of them walked up.

“Well not as safe as we were on the way here, but safe enough. I’m not sure how much you heard, but there won’t be enough personnel onboard to keep the shields up and fight back. If something weird happens like we get interdicted, then we’ll be relying on the shields and her speed to get out of there.”

“I’m sure it will be fine. Abi is the fastest ship in this galaxy so she can probably make a couple of jumps to throw people off before finally setting course back to Earth. It wouldn’t add more than a day to the trip, if that.”

I nodded. “Do you both have everything? We’ll be loading up momentarily. Speaking of that...”

[Abi, can you lower the ramps so we can get this show on the road?]

[Certainly.]

“Esriro’s like every woman, she’s got four or five suitcases full of clothes ready, since this will be a vacation for her, of sorts. Me? I travel light.”

“Well, the ramps are coming down, as you can see, so you can head aboard and find your rooms. The information should have been sent to your phones. I believe you’re both on deck thirty-one.”

“That we are. I spent a few minutes looking over the layout, and I think I’ve got an idea of where everything is. If not, I’ll just look at the map that was given.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you aboard.”

The two of them turned and headed towards the closest of the five ramps that had been lowered to allow access. That many weren’t needed with so few people boarding the ship, but they would be very useful for rapid embarking and disembarking for one of Abi’s growths later on down the road.

There were a few additional things being loaded onto the ship, including a bunch of slaughtered quillbeasts and forty that were still living. The living ones would be going to Veria, where they would be split up after a lengthy quarantine process. Half of those would be a new addition to the menagerie, while the remainder would be going to the Warvyn ranch. Oya enjoyed the taste, so in a few years time she would be able to have fresh quillbeast whenever she wished.

The Black dragons and dragonkin were indispensable for quickly loading stuff onto the ship. Once the quillbeasts were tranquilized and loaded into shipping containers, the stasis field built into the containers was activated and then they were moved onto the ship. The slaughtered quillbeasts were much easier to load. All that needed to be done was have one hand on a ramp and another hand touching a quillbeast and it would be put into Abi’s dimensional storage. It could either remain there, or it could be removed and placed into the large walk-in freezer attached to the galley.

It only took an hour or so to get everything loaded, but we needed to wait for Oya to finish her meeting with the dragon council. The original plan was to have her stay behind for about two weeks while she worked on starship designs for the dragons, but she was a woman possessed over the previous two days. Her mech had performed better than she was hoping, so she wanted to get back and start producing more.

She and the dragon council had met multiple times, but they left the designing to Oya. They had a few requests, like a large room that they could use to stretch their wings, and somewhere safe where they could store their eggs, should any dragons lay eggs while offworld. The galley and mess would also be a bit oversized, but it needed to be with the amount of food the dragons ate.

The dragons had no problem staying in their human forms as long as they had a place to stretch their wings, so Oya went with a design that would be quick to build and would be sufficient for their purposes. The design looked similar to how Abi looked now, but rather than the tower-like section, there was a large bulbous area in its place. It also wasn’t a particularly large ship, being a battlecruiser about seven hundred meters long.

The small size meant that it could be built relatively quickly, but it wouldn’t be able to hold more than a few hundred dragons and dragonkin. That wasn’t a bad thing, however, as there were only around eighty thousand dragons and dragonkin, with perhaps ninety percent of those being adults. The mobile shipyards were capable of producing ships many kilometers long, but the dragons would only be able to man a small handful of ships.

As soon as they agreed to the proposal, Thomas ordered his mining company to move into the system and set up operations to strip the asteroid fields and resource-rich planets clean. It would still take them a week or so to arrive, but there was more than enough material brought along to at least get started on the first two ships. Assuming there weren’t any delays, the first two battlecruisers would be ready in a little over three months time.

They finished up in short order and we all filed onto the ship as soon as the council members bid each other farewell. Half of them were coming along with us to Veria and then back to Earth, while the other half were staying put to build a new civilization. Of the eight, Selalea, Bonakr, Linvalma and Savarnei would be returning to Earth, with Bonanem, Olmith, Pharomna and Shaemu remaining on Yrranth and Zokryth.

Even though there would be tens of thousands of light years separating the two groups, they would be able to enjoy instantaneous secure communication, thanks to Abi. With it, they would be able to vote on any issues that might come up, but otherwise just keep in touch with each other and report on their progress.

Tich met back up with me on our way to the bridge. “The dragons aren’t with you?”

I shook my head. “Nah. They headed up to the observatory figuring they would get a good view from there. Oya ended up joining them. So how long is it going to take to get to Veria from here?”

“About thirty-two hours, Abi will be able to give you a more exact time. We may need to take a few detours if there are patrols between us and the Pygmaean border, but Abi’s sensors are vastly superior, so she’ll see a fleet of ships long before they see her.”

“Why didn’t we have to detour for patrols on the way into Scyftan space?”

“Pygmaean space also borders Confederation space, so the Scyftan navy puts more manpower watching that border. There are patrols and beacons along the side we came from, but it is a much less traveled section of space, and they’re focused on the Confederation. Naval leadership isn’t worried about them sneaking around and attacking us from behind, because they would have to cut through too many species’ borders to do so.”

“I remember seeing a starmap where the Confederation was pretty much surrounded on all sides. I’m assuming that none of those are friends with them?”

“Hardly. A few thousand years ago, the Confederation was only a fraction of the size it is now. They expanded outward conquering everything in their path, until the majority of species around them formed an alliance to combat them. Their combined navy is about two times bigger than the Confederation’s navy, if not as advanced, but those navies are only continuing to grow.”

“Those hostile nations have also put the Confederation on a clock, of sorts. They’re hemmed in, so they’re stuck buying resources from other species or mining everything they can from their own space. That’s why they’ve abandoned attacking any of the other species around them, except us. Your father and his father before him were well liked, so they’re betting that none of the other species will come to Dhir’s aid. If they can conquer Scyftan space then they’ll have all our resources. They’ll also have access to the rest of the galaxy for the first time in centuries. I’m betting that they will make a move within the next few months. They’re probably already planning it since news that you’re alive has very likely reached them by now.”

“Do you think they’ll succeed?” I asked as the door slid open and we entered the bridge.

“Not a chance. The Indomitables will be on high alert while they’re sniffing out The Storm Bringers, and they’ll be ready to move if anything comes up. Over a thousand cloaked ships will be more than enough to stop the assault, especially with all of the upgrades the older ships are getting.”

“Sorry to interrupt you, but we are ready to depart.”

“Take us out, Abi,” Tich said.

“Actually, set course for the nearest asteroid field outside of this system that won’t take us too far out of the way.”

“Done,” she replied as she lifted off the surface of Yrranth.

Tich looked at me questioningly.

“It’s been over a month and I’ve never seen Abi fire her weapons. Now that they’ve been upgraded quite a bit, I want to check them out. I figured an asteroid field would be the best bet, but don’t want to reduce the amount of resources available for the dragons, even if it was by a small amount,” I answered. “How long will it take to get there, Abi?”

“Twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds.”

“You’ve spent some time in Battlestate, haven’t you?” Tich asked. “Surely you’ve fired weapons inside of the game.”

“Sure, but I hardly think that is a good comparison. Our ships only had a small amount of weapons and they weren’t particularly powerful. You never took a new ship out for a spin when you were in the navy?”

“Once or twice,” he admitted. “They’re all the same, really. In all my years around ships, there hasn’t been anything new, just scaled up and more powerful versions of stuff we already have. I think the closest anyone has come to creating something new is when a group of scientists in the Confederation started messing with antimatter, trying to use it to power ships and make bombs. What do you know about antimatter?”

“Not a thing. If Ben were here he’d probably be telling you all about it.”

“The entire universe is almost entirely made up of matter, and any antimatter that is created is usually annihilated as soon as it forms. Whenever antimatter and matter meet, they destroy themselves, releasing an incredible amount of energy. Depending on the amount of antimatter, the energy they release can be tiny and inconsequential or they can make a nuclear explosion look like a firecracker.”

“The problem with antimatter is containing it so it doesn’t explode. If you were able to do that, then a single gram of antimatter would release one hundred eighty trillion joules of energy when that containment ended. That’s about twenty percent more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. Now imagine using five kilograms of antimatter. That explosion would be over three and a half times more powerful than Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear device ever detonated on Earth.”

“While explosives aren’t very effective in space, antimatter bombs or even nuclear bombs would still get the job done. They wouldn’t create a destructive shockwave like they do in an atmosphere, but the heat would still be enough to melt the hull, and the radiation enough to kill the entire crew. I bet that a bomb using ten kilograms of antimatter would have no problem killing everyone aboard this ship if it were detonated close to the hull.”

“So what happened to the group of scientists?” I asked.

“They vaporized the moon that their base was built on. Judging by the recorded explosion, they had to have had several hundred kilograms of antimatter stored there. How the containment failed is anyone’s guess, but any further research was quickly banned in Confederation space. I have no doubt that they’re continuing the research in secret, and sooner or later they’ll find a way to create a safe containment system. The day that happens is the day when they’ll become a much bigger threat than they are currently.”

“Other species have to be working on it as well, right? If everyone has the ability to deploy antimatter bombs, then everyone will be on even footing.”