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Dark Lord Substitute

Chapter 15

By Draconicon

They had three months, and they had already spent one of them. Three months in which to get this done before the rest of the Allied Systems mobilized and started carrying out their 'destiny' of sending the Dark Lord of the Void to the grave and bringing back their vaunted peace and prosperity that came from their 'freedom.' If anyone else had been given that sort of ultimatum, he was reasonably sure that they would have spent the remainder of their days living it up on some backwater planet somewhere, using the power of the Indomitable to take over random people and run a slave trade that put them at the top of a harem. It would have been a tempting diversion for him, as well.

Instead, Bertram had put his people to work, and they were pushing ever further into the core planets of the Deep Den. Four outlying systems had already been taken, and they were following the Spiral Path - the warp routes that circled around the 'capital' of the Deep Den - towards its inevitable center.

Their forces had just secured orbital superiority over Kaso, the last inhabited planet between them and the capital, Erden, when their streak of good luck finally ran out. Bertram had just ordered all Indoctrination satellites released and was in the process of redirecting the fleet to the nearest jump point, when all scanners went red. The Dark Lord turned in place, his helmet changing his voice to a tone far less panicked than he was.

" Someone, tell me what is going on."

Sometimes, the voice was useful, he supposed. One of the technicians in the sunken space on the bridge turned his head up.

"Massive fleet entering the system, sir. Looks like reinforcements from Erden."

" Hmmph."

"They're already firing. Missiles launched and closing fast."

" Hailing?"

"None, sir."

" Brace for impact."

It was, perhaps, the stupidest command that could have been given. Of all the things that he could have ordered, from shields to evasive maneuvers to screening fighter craft to start taking advantage of the loose formation that they were already in, he had given the order to just...brace. He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and knew that there was no time to call it back.

The missiles slammed into the sides of the fleet, several capital ships at the front taking the brunt of it and falling out of what little formation they had, while the rest were able to take minor hits or had taken the initiative to evade the worst of it. Several missiles got through and slammed into the side of his pyramidal craft, too little to do more than send a rumble up the side, but several klaxons went off regardless.

" Report," he said, his helmet keeping his voice from sounding embarrassed, afraid, or anything, really.

"Several points of damage to the engines. The explosions didn't damage the hull, but they did freeze several systems shut."

That...fit the type of weaponry that the Allied Systems used, he realized. They used weapons that stuck things together, that kept things from breaking apart. The missiles wouldn't fit that mold if they were used to blow things apart. They would -

" They're trying to slow us down," he said. " Increase speed. Launch fighter-craft. New Indoctrinated first."

"Yes, sir!"

Bertram turned to face the holo-display of the fleet. Four capital ships at the front of the fleet were coming together to form a wedge, the ships at the left and right turned so that their belly weapons faced outwards and their vulnerable command structures pointed inwards. The one at the front was all but flinging itself in the same direction, all batteries firing into the oncoming second wave of missiles. Explosions burst like miniature stars in space as the various rockets were blown to bits.

Fighters screamed past the capital ships, darting between the debris fields and slamming into the enemy fighters. The shatter-points of static and broken communication channels started to fill the command chamber.

Bertram stared straight ahead, trying to see what he could command, what he might do to keep the battle in their favor. They had the numbers to power through this, but that obviously wasn't what the Deep Den cared about. They didn't come here to blow him out of the sky, or to save the planet below. They had to know that they couldn't win.

So they were playing for time. They wanted to reduce his fleet, shatter the engines on enough of his ships to keep him from just pushing through and taking the capital planet. They'd already taken out some of the new ships he'd taken from them, and they were launching another wave of fighters and missiles.

" Tardak."

"Yes, Dark Lord?" the badger asked, a new hologram popping up at the ram's side.

" Suggestions."

"Withdraw."

" That will leave the Indoctrination satellites vulnerable."

"Yes, but it also draws the enemy fleet away from the jump point. Rally around the planet, retreat in orbit and swing around to face them on the other side."

It was a doable plan, though he didn't like the idea of pulling that kind of retreat. Yet...

" Do it."

The badger nodded, his face disappearing from beside the map. He felt the Indomitable turn, the massive ship moving with the rest of the fleet to slide into orbit around Kaso. They fell into the upper atmosphere, riding alongside the planet's satellites. Their working ships served as bait, and the Deep Den ships chased after them, following them, chasing them away from the vulnerable satellites in the upper atmosphere.

The fleet feigned a retreat, making as if to jump from the planet to the next warp point as they left the range of the Deep Den scanners. The disabled ships left on the other side were captured, but Bertram didn't know if they were destroyed. By the time that the enemy fleet had reached them, they had already passed around the far side of the planet.

Now, it was a gamble. If the enemy fleet chased them rather than taking out the satellites that they left behind, they would be in the shit. The enemy fleet didn't have to destroy them to win. They just had to take out the engines. If that happened, then the fleet was limited to, at best, orbital pathways. They couldn't slingshot back into deep space, and they would be in hostile atmosphere, vulnerable to surface fire if the planet got their power grid back online.

He hoped that Tardak was right about this.

"Two minutes til full orbit, sir," the tech called.

The ram nodded, standing with his arms folded behind his back. The suit hid every bit of panic he felt at that moment, and for the first time, he felt grateful for the stoic persona that it offered him. There were no worries about breaking down for the public to see, no concerns that the rank and file would see him as someone less than their Dark Lord.

"One minute."

" Deep Den Indoctrinated to the front rank," he said. " Let them see their former friends, first."

"Yes, sir."

The coordination of the fleet shifted. Several ships that had been captured moved to the front lines. Some chat came up from the lower levels, something about the Dark Lord looking out for them, or something of that nature. He supposed that was what it looked like, that he was willing to sacrifice the new pawns and slaves to keep those that had sworn to him from the start safe.

Perhaps he was. But he also believed that it might slow the reaction time of the enemy fleet, particularly those that were only just seeing someone coming up behind them. Their initial reaction would be confusion. Seeing their own ship, something that wasn't Dark Lord military, would add to that.

It would likely only be a few seconds of confusion, but they needed every second they could get to make sure that they got in range before another wave of missiles came their way.

"Come around the planet now, sir."

The scanners came back online, showing the enemy fleet ahead. Half of the Indoctrination satellites had already been destroyed, and the rest were being targeted. He gritted his teeth. If they'd only arrived a few hours later, then he would have been ready for them. The booster signals for the Indomitable's signal would have been in place -

But they would know that by now. He'd used the same strategy at every planet. They were ready for him to pull the same trick, and had counted on him not being ready for them just yet. They'd probably waited to launch this attack to coincide with his probable victory.

So much for an alliance. They sacrificed a planet to have a shot at me when I wasn't ready for it...

Still, none of them had turned to face him or his fleet just yet. They were focused on shutting down the Indoctrination satellites, firing blue blasts at the various satellites in orbit. Another couple went down, leaving no more than three still orbiting Kaso.

And then, his fleet was in range. The Indoctrinated at the front only needed the order to fire.

And he gave it to them.

If the Deep Den weaponry had been made to freeze ships in place and disable them, then the weaponry of the Dark Lord had been made to utterly obliterate the enemy, to scatter them to the four winds and never come together again. The first scatter-shot of metal and light blew out the superstructure of the nearest ship, blasting it in half and sending each chunk rocketing away at high speed.

The explosion rocked the other fleet, sending them scattering. The fighter-craft at the front of his fleet were already in pursuit, chasing down the missile frigates, following the enemy fighters to keep them from following their screening duties.

"Sir. Shall we offer them the chance to surrender?" a tech asked.

" No." He gritted his teeth inside the helmet. He wanted to, but this...this was on script. He was not allowed, in this case. " No. There will be no survivors."

The end of the battle marked the bloodiest moment in the military campaign to date. Until the Second Battle of Kaso, there had been less than a hundred casualties per conflict. They had managed to keep deaths down, Indoctrination high, and the enemy had seldom been willing to fight for long.

This time, however...

Bertram groaned as he joined his 'council' in one of the chambers on the lower half of the Indomitable.[/b] Mark and Zelda Twist, Admiral Tardak, King Soledad, and Lazir were waiting for him, and he felt Data gathering itself together in his head. The ram pulled his helmet off, letting it dissipate as he entered the room. The door closed behind them, leaving them in a black-walled chamber with no windows, no apparent source of light, and just glossy black walls. He looked around the group, shaking his head.

"That...did not go well," he said.

"...No, it did not," the admiral agreed.

"If we'd just taken the place with the usual programming -"

"Enough, Zelda." Bertram shook his head at the hyena's complaints, rubbing his forehead. "If we'd done that, then we would have been halfway there, and our satellites would have been blown to pieces regardless. And then they would have come right after us, catching us in a pincer maneuver between the Erden ground forces and their defense fleet on the rebound."

"You think it would have been that easy for them? Besides, it's your fault that we lost anything at all. Brace for impact. For the love of fuck..."

It had been a stupid order, and they all knew it. But that had been a moment of stupidity, and now, it was done. Bertram glanced past her at her brother, who was wincing and looking anywhere but at his sister. He couldn't blame Mark; Zelda had become more and more unstable, more and more willing to lay the blame at his feet whenever something was even tentatively his fault.

It had started when he had promoted several officers of the Deep Den past the hyenas that had come with her and Mark at the start of things. No, it had come when he had equalized Tardak with them, giving the admiral full command over the space forces they had. The Twists were still in charge of the ground forces, but space command defaulted to the badger.

She hadn't liked that, and she hadn't been shy about telling him. Ever since, she had placed every minute failure of the fleet at his feet, and spent most of her time among this little council pointing out how much of a mistake listening to the Dark Lord actually was.

She fails to realize how much it is annoying them, though. Mark had come to him and apologized for his sister more than a dozen times, and even King Soledad had come within spitting distance of telling the hyena to shut up during their meetings. The only thing that kept him from doing it was Bertram's order. As far as he was concerned, she could dig herself into a deeper and deeper hole. Eventually, she would do something unforgivable, and then there would be none that would speak up for her.

Shaking his head, he looked up.

"Data. How many did we lose?"

"Total casualties: 1,584 injured, 185 dead."

There was a wince all around. That would mostly be the crews of the capital ships that had taken the brunt of the attack. Two had been rescued, but the third had plummeted down to Kaso, shattering in the planet's ocean. If there were any survivors, none had been able to get a message out, and there was no way for them to get through to the planet below, not with so few Indoctrination satellites.

"Make a list of the fallen. I want to peruse it later," he said, rubbing his head as he tried to think forward. "In the meantime, we have other problems."

"Your lack of Indoctrination satellites," the mouse king said, shaking his head. "Either you replace the ones you have here with the ones you had reserved for Erden, or you leave this place unbroken."

"Stored our inventory in your implants, did you?" Bertram asked.

"Someone has to."

Someone that wasn't just the AI, or the computers in the ships, or...The ram stopped that line of thought. Soledad had proven useful as both a quartermaster and as a negotiator when Lazir was busy. There was no point in questioning why he did things. He just did them, and he did them well.

But he was right about the problem. With most of the satellites that they'd positioned in orbit destroyed, and their spares shot down when the Black Book did a nosedive to the oceans below, they had just enough left to Indoctrinate a single planet. And if they left their satellites here, that meant that they would have to take Erden in a ground battle, a conflict that didn't entirely favor them.

"Opinions?" Bertram asked.

"I think that we don't have many options," Mark muttered, the male hyena sighing. "I mean, we have the satellites. We have the ships, the men, the weapons...but we don't have time. If we can't do this quickly, we can't do it at all."

"You're not saying anything we don't all know, Mark," Zelda growled. "If we'd just -"

"Oh, listen to the lady, speaking of might-have-beens and should-have-dones."

The fox's drawl pulled all eyes to the diplomat of the council. Lazir had been languidly leaning back against the wall, the mostly-naked fox mostly posing and displaying himself, as he had taken to doing over the last month. Long black lines ran down his face, make-up that he had bought to emulate the lines of the Dark Lord's helmet. Bertram thought it looked gaudy, but the fox seemed to enjoy it, just as much as he seemed to enjoy wearing little more than what looked like an armored speedo.

His words, however, drew Zelda upright, leaving her growling and stomping across the room to him. She grabbed him by the throat, baring her teeth.

"Did you say something to me, slave?"

"To you? Oh, no, I was talking to everyone else, to save them the draining issue of listening to you. My, but you do go on."

"You dare to talk to an officer like that? You're nothing but -"

"A council member. Like you. Now, take your hand off my throat."

"Like hell."

"Zelda. Release him."

The hyena gritted her teeth at the ram's order, but her hand steadily loosened until it was forced to fall to her side. The fact that she was Indoctrinated, no more and no less than the fox she was threatening, was made as obvious as anyone could have liked. She twisted her head to the side, and Bertram wondered if she was crying.

It was a question for another time. Shaking his head, he gestured at the fox. Lazir nodded.

"We can't focus on what was. We must focus on what is. If speed is the issue, then there is no choice but to move forward with a full assault." Lazir held up his hand as Mark opened his mouth, the same with Tardak. "I know. You have both explained the difficulties of a ground assault, but we have two things that we need to remember right now. First, that Indoctrination is slow. We have left the satellites behind to do the job for us, because we can't stay to do it ourselves, remember? So, placing a ring of satellites around Erden will only lead us to the same problem. We will still have to wait. And we cannot afford to wait. Not with more of the Allied Systems just waiting to come crashing down."

That was all true. Bertram had been concerned about that problem, too, but he had shelved it while they were still hopping from planet to planet on the way to Erden to begin with. Now that they were on the doorstep of the enemy capital, there was no more putting it off. He sighed.

"And the second thing?" he asked.

"We have already dealt with the enemy's Home Fleet," Lazir said, pointing over his shoulder. "That must have been them; we've already taken or destroyed all their other fleets. Their atmosphere will be all but undefended; provided that we do this properly, our ground forces will be able to strike with direct support from our orbital force."

Bertram blinked. If that was right - he turned to Tardak, the badger already nodding in confirmation. And as he looked up again -

"All long-range scans and interrogations with former members of the Deep Den confirm that the ship IDs recorded in battle belong to the Deep Den Home Fleet," Data said. "At most, a handful of fighter squadrons remain."

That changed...a lot. It still didn't make things easy, considering that his forces had landing craft, ground vehicles, and space power, but nothing in the way of atmospheric air combat capability. The shuttles landing would be at risk from the moment they broke atmosphere, and their fightercraft wouldn't be able to fly down and give support. Anything offered by way of support would be of overwhelming power, meaning that it would be difficult to target anything in the big cities.

Erden's military, on the other hand, would be fighting a defensive battle, able to shoot into the skies indiscriminately, not having to worry about hitting their own fleet. More to the point, their atmospheric air support would more or less reign supreme, allowing them to dictate the flow of the fight more than they should.

If we fight in the cities, chasing down their leaders, then we can't use orbital support, while they'll still have access to some of their low-tier air support. If we fight out in the open, then they'll be able to use all of their aircraft, while our orbital support is only partially useful...

It wasn't ideal, but it was better than trying to sneak their ground forces in while the enemy orbital defense was still completely online. The only thing that they would have to worry about was surface-to-space fire coming from within the cities; orbital counterattacks would be difficult to aim precisely enough to avoid civilian casualties at that point, and they'd lost enough men in this last fight to want to lose more.

Particularly when I'm trying to be better than that...

The damn script. If he'd just had the chance to order something sanely, rather than having to order everyone to fight once they had been offended...

After all, most of the fatalities had been in the capital ship, but not all of them, and the vast majority of injuries had come from the pilots sweeping in to try and attack the bigger craft in vengeance. He had failed them.

"...It is decided, then. We'll go for a ground assault. Mark, Zelda, you'll lead the ground attack while Tardak will keep an eye on everything in orbit."

Zelda smirked, starting to open her mouth -

"And I will come along on the ground."

All eyes turned to face him, and he could feel the silence in his head that marked Data's utter astonishment, as well. He felt rather accomplished at surprising an artificial intelligence like that.

"I might as well do what I can on the battlefield, as well as in space. I'm almost unkillable with the armor; it might as well go to good use."

"...I think that's a great idea," Zelda said.

Everyone's eyes went from him to her, and he could see the same thought on every face, too. With all her disruption, there was only one reason that she'd want someone that she had been criticizing like she had him on the ground with her, and it wasn't a good one.

Time to see if you can be professional or not, Zelda...this will be your last chance...

The End

Summary: A short battle doesn't go entirely well for the soldiers of the Dark Lord, though it is somewhat recovered by the end. Plans for a partial endgame are discussed.

Tags: No sex, armor, sci-fi, battle, war, patreon, ram, hyena, various species,