Kick the Sphere 39 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 39

-VB-

3 years later…

Andrew Davion stared out of the layered plexiglass window to gaze upon the nearly finishing hull of the first warship that the Federated Suns had built since before the Second Succession War. 

This ship, built with the help of the desperate ComStar, was a reintroduction of the Davion-class destroyer to the Inner Sphere. 

Who knew that ComStar had been hiding this kind of knowledge? 

But it was a knowledge that came with conditions and caveat. The Federated Suns must help contain the xeno threats to Capellan and League space. It was in the vested interest of the Federated Suns to do so. 

And so the parts and talent needed to recreate warships arrived not just to him but to other Successor States as well. 

This ship in front of him was just the first of many warships being built across the Federated Suns, but instead of using them against the Draconis Combine, he needed to put it to use against the xeno threat.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. 

“God, what a time to be alive,” he muttered to himself. 

It was the Inner Sphere’s First Contact scenario, and it worked out in his favor. The Capellan Confederation had been crippled. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the Capellans were no longer the fifth Great House but just another Periphery state that happened to be within the Inner Sphere. If the Mariks and he wanted to, then they could crush the Capellans now.

But the problem was the xenos. 

They had numbers, power, and biotechnology that allowed for non-standard FTL.

Biologically powered wormhole!

The Federated Suns couldn’t afford to have its warships in Capellan space if these “zerg” swarm happened to attack them. If that happened, then the Federated Suns would lose out all of its rimward territory just like the Capellans did. 

So it was a stand-off that was soon to -.

“My Prince!” 

He sharply looked to his left and saw a major running towards him with a paper in hand. His guards quickly moved to intercept but he raised his hand and they backed off. 

“What is it, major?”

“The swarm is on the move, My Prince! They have flooded into the rimward periphery!”

-VB-

The Zerg Swarm restarted their expansion.

But instead of expanding into the neighboring Successor States, they came for the Periphery.

Like a tidal wave, they swept into the independent systems and the Aurigan Coalition. 

Tamati Arano II could not allow his people to be swallowed up but at the same time he was nowhere near powerful enough to oppose the Swarm.

So he did the only thing he could.

Diplomacy. 

He stood in front of a swarm of zergs as they ravaged across the land… and held up a white flag. 

His entire body trembled while he stood with that flag in hand and wearing the full regalia of his office of the High Lord of the Aurigan Coalition. 

He knew what he was doing was foolish. His wife said so. His brother-in-law said so. His daughter said so. His advisors said so. The people said so.

But he couldn’t do nothing and just allow the Coalition to disappear under a tide of flesh.

So he stood with the flag… and knew that his life was up to the master behind the swarm.

He was not blind to the changes within the Inner Sphere. Everyone heard about the Zerg Swarm. How they appeared out of nowhere within the Free Worlds League along with the enigmatic Spiders, the metallic artificial intelligence that liked to take on a spider-like form the most for its foot soldiers. He saw the Capellans lose almost all of Sian Commonality to the Swarm. 

He knew back then that he and the coalition was in danger, and tried to change its fate.

He tried to get loans to build factories. Tried to get ComStar to release any and all information they might in the libraries of Terra. Tried to ally with the Taurians, Canopians, and the Davions.

He tried to hire mercenaries. 

He poured his house’s wealth into defenses. 

The first week of the invasion showed him how needless all of that work had been. 

Fjaldr fell in one day. Weldry lasted two.

Zangul, Enkra, Bringdam, and Ichlangis fell yesterday. 

And now, the zerg’s vanguard swarm had reached Coromodir and laid siege to it. 

No, a siege implied parity in strength. What the zerg was doing was keeping his people busy while they roamed the countryside, devouring all life and creating their nests. Not just a siege but a full blown colonization. 

So he stood with a flag in hand… hoping that the master behind the swarm noticed him.

That there was a chance diplomacy was possible.

Because resistance was futile. 

He waited and waited as the swarm closed in on his position … and then slowed down … and then came to a stop less than one Locust’s stride away. 

His legs shook terribly. Oh God, they were almost bounding from side to side. 

And then one of the many myriad of creatures stepped forward. 

As it got closer, Tamati felt his insides churn and drop.

This creature… it had the face of a woman. Twisted, warped, and changed to fit the rest of its kind but it looked like a woman.

It even had boobs! No nipples, though.

“Speak, human.”

“I-I-I-I-.”

… Oh God. He got his chance and he was just stuttering. The Aurigan Coalition was going to fall because he couldn’t get more than one word out. 

He stooped himself, swallowed, took a deep shuddering breath in, and let it out slowly. 

“I-I-I-!”

GODDAMNIT.

The creature looked at him with pity. 

He didn’t want pity!

He gulped. “I-I-I speak o-o-on behalf of the A-A-Aurigan Coalition,” he stuttered out. “I-I-I would like to n-negotiate with t-t-t-t-the master of the S-S-S-Swarm…!” 

All of the creatures in front of him bristled.

Venomous drool dripped from their maws and sizzled on the ground. Their blade-like claws twitched and shook. Their many eyes narrowed. Their maw… They maw tightened like the tightening jaws of a scorned woman.

And then there was a blink of light.

All of the zergs froze as one and then looked up.

He looked up, too, and saw with his wide eyes a beacon of light with a distinct shape.

It was a neo light sign or a reflected lights of a floodlight against the backdrop of the clouds. 

It was a floating golden light in the middle of the sky no more than a hundred meters above his head. 

And then -.

The sign flared before a man appeared from within it. 

Draped in slowly fading golden light, the man drifted down with barely fluttering winds before landing softly on the grass right in between Tamati and the Zerg. 

The man stood taller than Tamati by a good head. He was bound in muscles but not so much like a grotesquely packed body builder. He had slightly handsome face but not one that would stand out in the crowd. Yet, the golden light accentuated all of his features to make him look like a divine. And all of that was wrapped up in a loose haori and harem pants that were engraved with flowing geometrical lines that glimmered with power. 

“Speak,” the man demanded.

Tamati’s eyes widened.

This was the master of the Zerg. 

Tamati gulped. “W-Why have you attacked us …?” he asked. “We have done nothing to you!”

The figure tilted his head and there was a long pause before he spoke. “I’ve thought long and hard about that very question,” he began. “Why do I do what I do? I realized that I acted as I wished for what I believed was a step on my path to a ‘good life.’”

Oh God, he was going off on a monologue like a Saturday cartoon villain. 

“But then I realized that so many other people out there cannot take the same steps because they were bogged down by callous ambitions and megalmania of others. Look upon your own coalition and its neighbors. There is so much space out there but you all struggle here in the Periphery and the Inner Sphere. I decided … that perhaps a Second Star League is necessary but not one made by agreements of Great Houses but the hand of a single god to enforce just rule.”

Oh God, this guy’s a megalomaniac! 

“So what say you? Will you struggle to the bitter but inevitable end or will you surrender your people and spare those who would have died in vain?”

Was there a choice? 

Tamati lowered his flag … and went down to his knees. 

-VB-

Before Ian Davion could even fathom what he would do, he got a second report. 

The second xeno force, the “Replicators” restarted their conquest of the Free Worlds League. 

And Atreus had fallen.