Whisper of a Springtime Dream pulled herself away from her monitor.
The images had been playing over and over for the last few hours. Video from the command quarters of the downed Battleship, included in the final data dump from the now-dead servers. The last moments of Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers, as he dueled with the human battlelord.
A duel which had, inevitably, ended in tragedy.
She’d gone over each moment with a fine-toothed comb. Had Blossoming made a mistake, anywhere? Could he have done something differently - changed the outcome?
Try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything. Which led to a very unpleasant conclusion.
The Humans were - simply put - better fighters than the Xeranai.
Battleships had been reserved for the Xeranai for centuries. The Xeranai battleships represented the pinnacle of interstellar military engineering, each a force that could lay waste to planets; and the Xeranai, naturally, were the only ones suitable to command them. Other species had clamoured for their own battleships for a long, long time - an argument that was put to rest simply by pointing out that a Xeranai warship had never been beaten outside of a Test of Inclusion.
Now one had.
And the consequences were going to reverberate throughout the Hierarchy.
She collected her thoughts. Time for the call; she couldn’t afford to let her enemies see her weakened.
The screen lit up with the smirking face of Hope Floats Upon Troubled Waters.
<Hope>: Doctor.
<Whisper>: Doctor. Is our guest expected soon?
<Hope>: He has indicated that he will join shortly. In the meantime, my condolences for your loss. Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers will be remembered as a true patriot and a worthy contributor to the Great Struggle.
You weren’t so complimentary when you were trying to get him expelled from the Academy, thought Whisper of a Springtime Dream, but she kept that thought to herself. The bad blood between the two had been legendary - and Hope Floats Upon Troubled Waters was unlikely to pass up an opportunity to tarnish his rival’s memory.
<Whisper>: Thank you for your condolences.
A second image flickered into existence - the one she’d been dreading.
The Archon’s body glowed with an inner white light, its surface smooth and featureless, even as its lower half tapered into a single foot. Two limbs stretched out from its body - limbs which resembled a Sarnak’s arm, with fingers to match.
The form was, as much else, a deception. Archons had long since mastered the power of modifying their shape and size to match their opponents. Add to that near-invulnerability to most weapons, strength to shatter mountains with a single blow, and precognitive capabilities that worked reliably enough to predict the movements of their enemies in battle, and it was no wonder that they ruled the Hierarchy.
The Xeranai had never been able to tell two Archons apart - they seemed to take great pleasure in hiding their exact identities, so you never knew if you were talking to a junior acolyte or to the Archon Exemplar himself. Usually, she waited for the Archon to introduce themselves.
This being proved no exception.
<Archon>: I am Tertius Vesparius of the Third Circle.
<Hope>: Greetings, honoured Archon.
<Whisper>: Greetings, honoured Archon.
<Vesparius>: I have reviewed the recordings of the action on Earth. The Circles of the Archon Collective would like to know what happened.
<Whisper>: We are still conducting our investigations.
<Vesparius>: You may do so, but some preliminary questions are in order. May I?
<Whisper>: Of course.
<Vesparius>: Can you explain why the Siege Fleet commander chose to take a battleship into the atmosphere? It is not their optimal environment.
<Whisper>: It was planned. We needed a swift response to the human breach of security, in keeping with our commitment to the Gellatoids.
<Vesparius>: The Gellatoids. What was the commitment exactly?
<Whisper>: Beg pardon, I thought it was known. The Gellatoid Primary Adjunct expressed - through his officials - that human disclosure of the Gellatoid presence on Earth to the public would be an unforgivable insult, and appropriate chastisement should follow.
<Vesparius>: The Gellatoid should not be dictating terms to a member of the Mind. They are but of the Spine.
<Whisper>: Be that as it may, the Tertiary Adjunct was very clear. The Siege Fleet commander and I agreed, along with Bloodsword of the Puppetmasters, that such a breach needed direct action.
<Hope>: If I may, honoured Archon - did we need to forward deploy a battleship?
<Whisper>: The direct action agreed upon, Doctor, was to exterminate the city where the information breach happened. As you know, we cannot do that with mere Strikefighter contingents, nor does the use of a nuclear weapon guarantee success. We needed to deploy troops on the ground, and have them carry out the extermination. Only the tread of an army’s boots can truly hold ground.
<Vesparius>: That is true. Continue, Doctor.
<Whisper>: The Clanlord of the Guthnar, Daemoras, volunteered to lead the Guthnar army in such a mission. A full two million Guthnar - virtually every last space-rated soldier in their ranks - were shuttled to the Siege Fleet in preparation for the operation. To get them through the shield, though, would require thousands of smaller landers - or one large ship.
<Vesparius>: And the breaches created by a bombardment don’t hold for long.
<Whisper>: Hence, the need for a ship. One capable of carrying over two million soldiers, and strong enough to get close to the target location without being damaged. The Siege Fleet’s command flagship was the best choice.
<Vesparius>: The choice was logical enough. Can you explain what happened?
<Whisper>: Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers received the news that the Gellatoids had been exposed in a city called Tanisport. In accordance with the previously agreed plan, he ordered a breach in the shield and took his battleship into the atmosphere. They reached the target city and commenced bombardment.
<Vesparius>: All was well up to that point?
<Whisper>: Yes, all variances were within predictions. The humans were running around like headless Woxlakaduc. Then one of their enhanced warriors managed to knock out the battleship’s shield’s with a gamma-ray beam.
<Vesparius>: In a single shot?
<Whisper>: One shot and the shields were down. Our most powerful beams would take hundreds of shots to knock down a battleship’s shields; this battlelord did it in a single blow.
<Vesparius>: Did they fire again?
<Whisper>: No. It may be that they ran out of energy for their weapon, whatever it was. Normally, the shields would have recharged, but the next moment they were hit with a gravity surge.
<Vesparius>: Shields normally block focused gravity weapons.
<Whisper>: I mentioned the timing. According to our data, the gravity surge hit in the fraction of a second between the shields being knocked down and the shield arrays rebooting. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but… the ship’s AIs were focusing on rebooting the shield arrays, and power was being diverted from the inertial compensators to make up the difference.
<Vesparius>: So, what happened?
<Whisper>: It took a few seconds for the AIs to understand what was happening, at which point they reversed the power flow. However - the gravity spike raised the weight of the ship a thousand-fold.
<Vesparius>: The antigravity didn’t kick in?
<Whisper>: There was no time. The different subsystem AIs were caught in a battle of conflicting priorities and couldn’t allocate power to inertial compensators, antigrav and shields simultaneously. The battleship hit the ground less than a second later. Fortunately, the inertial compensators activated - partially - just before the hit, or everyone would have turned to paste.
<Vesparius>: What happened next?
<Whisper>: Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers reported that about five per cent of the troops were killed on impact - mostly the ones in the front of the ship, which crumpled when it hit the ground.
<Vesparius>: That left about one point nine million Raptors and other allied troops.
<Whisper>: Yes, but the situation was chaotic. The troops were a disorganized mess - their landing bays were wrecked, half the equipment was shattered, and most were badly shaken up. Plus, the ship was on fire, so they had to evacuate.
<Whisper>: The Raptor Clanlord and the other senior leaders managed to get the soldiers calmed down and ordered them to disembark. Leave behind non-essentials, get set up and ready for a siege, and wait for evacuation. There were a lot more battleships, and a second one being called in wasn’t unthinkable.
<Vesparius>: And the troops obeyed?
<Whisper>: Absolutely. They began to disembark in good order. Then, well, the humans attacked.
<Vesparius>: But with those many troops it shouldn’t have been a problem.
<Whisper>: If all the troops were in position, maybe. As things were, the humans hit the Raptor forces while they were still getting off the ship. Scout patrols and light infantry ran headlong into the human battlelords. They had an assault mech with them, too.
<Vesparius>: An assault mech? I saw pictures. That thing was tiny.
<Whisper>: It was still a mech. You know what happens to infantry when a mech gets loose.
<Vesparius>: I have an idea.
<Whisper>: They wiped out the advance parties and wreaked havoc on the initial staging areas. One of their battlelords has - had - flame control; it was burning the Raptors to a crisp. The Clanlord and his scions led a counterattack, to try to stop them.
<Vesparius>: They failed, as I recall.
<Whisper>: They stopped one of the battlelords - I think it was the weakest one. The one in the mech killed them.
<Vesparius>: And what happened after that?
<Whisper>: The soldiers saw their clanlord and scion taken apart in seconds. They panicked. Bloodsword tried to regain control, but, well…
<Vesparius>: Even a Puppetmaster can’t mind-control half a million soldiers at a time.
<Whisper>: The humans kept hitting our troops. When the Grizzeloid brought out their heavy tanks, the humans blasted those apart too. Then they deployed nearly a thousand infantry of their own - in powered armour.
<Vesparius>: They had a thousand armoured battlesuits?
<Whisper>: A thousand heavy, and another five thousand light combat suits. They tore through the flank of our troops. The survivors panicked and scattered, got cut down by more conventional units. And there was that damned fire-spreader.
<Whisper>: At which point Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers deployed his Walking Fortress.
<Vesparius>: This was a Xeranai mech?
<Whisper>: More than a simple mech. It was a prototype Continental Assault Warmech - the most powerful ground fighting unit we are able to produce. To build a unique Warmech is a requirement for any Doctorate Second Class. This one was.. Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers’ finest battle project, with every possible tool that he could build into it. In addition, he assigned a pilot to it with the ability to dodge enemy fire… one of the Clanlord’s offspring.
<Vesparius>: So why did he fail?
<Whisper>: He succeeded - partially. The Fortress managed to destroy the Mech and eliminate the fire-spreader battlelord. However, the mech-riding battlelord escaped.
<Whisper>: Subsequently, he penetrated the Xeranai battleship and … found Looks Gently Upon Blossoming Flowers.
<Vesparius>: The mech-riding battlelord killed a Xeranai of the Second Class?
<Whisper>: Unfortunately, yes.
<Vesparius>: Do we know if he is likely to become the Exemplar?
<Whisper>: … It is a theory.
<Hope>: Supported by more and more information each day.
<Vesparius>: And then the humans … seized a Xeranai battleship.
<Whisper>: The wreck of one, yes.
<Vesparius>: Did you not try to bombard them from space? Obliterate all traces of the fallen ship?
<Whisper>: We… could not. To bombard, we would have had to punch a hole right above where this city stands. Our ships would have been exposed to ground-to-space fire.
<Vesparius>: You couldn’t stop a few missiles?
<Whisper>: The weapon that took down the battleship in the first place might have been recharging for another shot. Our shipmasters were reluctant to place themselves in the position of a sitting Toxlakaduc.
<Vesparius>: Their logic is not in question, their courage may be. Covering fire might have given the Raptors on the ground a chance.
<Hope>: Surely the worth of a battleship is more than that of a few Raptors.
<Vesparius>: I am not sure you understand the impact of this battle, Doctor. Have you heard the news from the Raptor homeworld?
<Whisper>: I’m afraid not. Has something happened?
<Vesparius>: Perhaps. Clan Guthnar was the most powerful of all Raptor clans, and highly placed amongst the Council of Clans; first in service to the Hierarchy. They were trusted to hold a sacred relic - I think it is called the Delta Star Blade - which was revered amongst all Raptors. Now their Clanlord and all of his scions are gone, along with most of their finest soldiers, the succession is in chaos, and their relic is lost. Do you understand the implications?
<Whisper>: Surely they would not do anything untoward.
<Vesparius>: There is no clear line of succession for the Clanlord. All the viable heirs died in this battle. There is some conflict about who commands their loyalty.
<Vesparius>: Less than five thousand space-rated Guthnar remain; they will need a generation, at least, to rebuild their military to project force across the stars. Whether we should invest resources in this … it is a question to be debated.
<Whisper>: The Guthnar are a valuable asset in the Great Struggle. Should we not take steps to ensure they remain able to support us?
<Vesparius>: They must first support themselves. The Hierarchy has no place for those who cannot stand their ground. Eventually, the Guthnar will stabilize their position - or another clan will. When that happens, the Raptors may once more be of use to the Hierarchy.
<Whisper>: I beg your pardon - surely the other clans are not affected?
<Vesparius>: Few other clans had as many space-qualified soldiers as the Raptors, and it seems they too are calling back their best. There are … concerns …. about the other Clans interfering in Raptor politics. Some skirmishes have been reported.
<Whisper>: Skirmishes between Raptors over the succession?
<Vesparius>: Skirmishes between Raptor clans over who should succeed to the throne of the Guthnar. It matters little. They will sort themselves out eventually, and then we shall see if they still deserve their position among the Spine - or if they have degraded themselves to the level of the Bones. You are aware their position hangs by a thread, of course.
<Whisper>: Naturally. But the erosion of a species’ position is not necessarily an asset to the Great Struggle.
<Vesparius>: The rise and fall of species across the Hierarchy is a regrettable, but unavoidable, fact. We shall see. In the meantime, the Sarnak and Gryzelloid shall have to make up for the bulk of ground troops when it comes to the siege of the human homeworld.
<Whisper>: Then the siege shall continue? The Council of Doctorates shall appoint a new commander for the Fleet.
<Vesparius>: Perhaps you should wait awhile. The Exemplar has heard news of the fall of a Xeranai to a human - and has upgraded their assessment accordingly.
<Whisper>: But every indicator shows they are in early Norming.
<Vesparius>: One might argue their battlefield performance is more appropriate to late Performing.
<Whisper>: That is impossible. They are not even unified yet!
<Vesparius>: You would dispute the Exemplar’s assessment?
<Whisper>: Of course not. It is… merely that the scientific evidence for an assessment of Performing is thin on the ground…
<Vesparius>: The Exemplar believes otherwise. Nevertheless, his assessment is mid Performing, soon to move to late. Accordingly, the timetables for bringing Earth to a state of Conforming are being advanced. You may inform the Council of Doctorates accordingly, Doctor… and we shall look forward to how we advance accordingly.