FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Consequences of New Weapons 1

For Jehander

By Draconicon

Captain Regis Tiger of the Argo maintained his commanding strut as he walked through the meeting chambers of the Ursalio council. Many of the councilors had already been dismissed, or his walk would have been challenged. Those that remained knew the seriousness of the mission he'd been called for, and either pretended not to see him or contented themselves with a minor glare of judgment before looking away.

The sabertooth tiger ignored them. His mission involved one man, and one man only: Head Councilor Arctus. When one was summoned by the head councilor, status and ritual were secondary, at best.

Rounding the table with his arms tight to his side, the feline stepped onto the balcony adjacent to the council chamber. The polar bear waiting for him turned his head, but not his body, and even that brief glance ended quickly as the head councilor returned his gaze to the city below.

"You're late, Captain," Arctus growled, as he did to everyone. "I would have thought something of this urgency would have called you from your revels a little sooner."

"I made all due speed, Councilor," Regis said. "There's only so quick one can fly through Fafnides space."

"Yes. I'm sure."

"You said that there has been a...development?"

"...Onserion has fallen."

The sabertooth's breath caught in his throat, and he pulled his arms behind his back to stand at attention to distract himself.

Onserion was a planet at the borders of Ursalio space, having allied themselves with the Bear Guardians at the core of the system merely a generation ago. The last time that he had patched into the official broadcasts, it had been fighting a successful defensive war against the Empire of Fafnides. Apparently, their success had been short-lived.

"How long ago?" Regis asked.

"Two weeks."

So a week before he'd gotten the message. The head councilor wouldn't have summoned him just to tell him that a planet that he had only been to once had fallen. There was something deeper than that.

"Are we launching a counterstrike?"

"In a matter of speaking."

"...Sir?"

"There is a weapon-test that I will be attending. Your ship will be carrying it, and me."

"The Argo stands ready," he said automatically, even if it was anything but ready for someone of Councilor Arctus's stature.

Even as he tried to imagine what weapon they could be testing, the head councilor gestured for him to follow. They stepped further out on the balcony, the door sliding shut behind them and cutting them off from the rest of the council. Regis followed, knowing better than to refuse the invitation. A military officer, even one that was provided such freedom as the Bear Guardians allowed their military, dared not disobey a direct order.

Despite that, he wasn't taken in by the various floating vehicles that zipped by in the distance, nor the pillared towers that reached towards the heavens here on the core planets. The ursine architecture was all thick and burly, never slender nor graceful. It always had that feeling of sturdiness to it, that hardness that made everything seem like some version of a great den, no matter how tall it reached to the skies. Many were covered with landing pads, and ships took off in the distance and landed. Some towers were large enough to be mini-cities in and of themselves.

Regis had seen the city many times in his service to the Ursalio council. It didn't hold his attention anymore. What did was the silence of the head councilor, and what that must mean.

The Empire of Fafnides was a reptilian power, the only rival to the federation that had formed under the Bear Guardians of Ursalio, and currently the power that was winning in the war that raged through the stars. The weapons of the lizard empire weren't weapons of light or explosions, nor of metal and battering might, however, but of the mind.

He had seen officers and soldiers alike fall under the hypnotic power of the Fafnides weapons. Whenever Ursalio forces engaged them, whether in space or on a planet's surface, the only way that they could win was to close the distance and start fighting as hard and fiercely as possible. Numbers could turn the tide, but only if they struck fast enough for the Fafnides to be unable to turn their allied forces to the enemy side.

Entire planets - and probably by now, Onserion as well - had fallen to their mental control. If there was a weapon test in the offing, then it meant only one thing. The military researchers had finally managed to find a counter for the Fafnides mental weaponry.

"What I am going to tell you does not leave your lips until after the test," Arctus said. "Do you understand me?"

"I understand."

"Three months ago, a Fafnides scientist defected to our ranks. A very unstable lizard, but...brilliant, I suppose." The bear's lips twisted in a sneer of distaste. "Brilliant enough to earn his own laboratory, and quick enough to provide us with new devices. A new helmet will be distributed to the armed forces next month, containing shielding against Fafnides field devices; we shouldn't have to worry about losing any further infantry to them.

"However, until now, we didn't have anything to protect our men from the larger weapons. The ship-based ones, or their planetary defenses. Not until now."

"That's what we're testing then, sir?"

"Yes. Our intelligence detected a Fafnides ship en-route to Onserion. We're going to intercept it with the Argo and put the device to the test. If it works, then their major advantage is gone."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then I will take care of what needs to be taken care of."

Regis hid a wince, but only just. What would need to be taken care of would be the entire ship of suddenly disloyal soldiers. Despite the free-wheeling, nearly-freelance structure of the Ursalio military, everyone eventually came under the control of the Ursalio council and the head councilor. The bears inevitably called the shots, no matter the progress that was made, and Arctus, quite obviously, wasn't planning on losing anything that might give away Ursalio progress and defensive measures.

That meant that his people would likely be killed if the device didn't work. The sabertooth didn't say anything. Instead, he took a deep breath, then let it out.

"The Argo stands ready," he repeated, the only thing that he could think to say.

"Our engineers are already fitting the weapon to it as we speak," Arctus said, looking out at the city. "It should be finished in four hours. As soon as it is, we depart."

"..."

"Make sure that your men are ready."

"Yes, sir."

That was all that he could say. He waited to see if there was anything else, but no. It was done. He nodded once more, turned on his heel, and walked back through the council chamber. A few heads lifted from their conversations to see him out, but most of them pretended that he wasn't there.

The dual implications of the mission rattled through his head as he followed the corridor back to the elevator. On the one hand, there was a great risk of death for himself and everyone else on the Argo. An untested device finally getting its first field op never filled anyone with good feelings, and considering just how important this was, he couldn't help but feel that he was flying to his grave.

On the other hand, if it worked, then they would finally have something to even the playing field. The Fafnides wouldn't have the ultimate weapon on their side anymore. They wouldn't need overwhelming numbers with each and every fight that they ended up having.

They could finally start turning this war around.

That was how he was going to have to sell it. The men wouldn't be happy, but they'd go along with it. They'd have to; if not for him, then for the threats that Arctus would make. The war had to be won, or they'd all end up under a Fafnides scaled heel.

Two days later, they were in position. The Argo followed the path of a comet trailing four planets out from the local sun, hiding in the debris field that it left in its wake. Nothing would pick them up out here, and nothing would notice that they were there; they'd followed the comet in to avoid that very thing.

However, that didn't make anyone feel better. The bridge was quiet, the mostly feline crew keeping their heads down as they looked at their consoles, as they measured their resources for the umpteenth time, as they counted the buttons and the timing of the engines, as they did everything that they could to not think about what was going to happen in less than an hour. One way or another, things were going to change forever for the crew.

Regis - or Rex, as his crew kept calling him when he stopped by their stations - had long-since stopped trying to calm them down. They had decided to be nervous, and for now, that anxiety was probably working in their favor. It would keep them from missing the ship when it came into the system, and that would keep them from being caught off-guard. He stood at the front window of the bridge, watching the spiraling bodies in the distance. From here, there was only one visible station, and that, in turn, was only visible as a dot in the distance that slowly spiraled around a distant moon, which in turn was a bright disk that went around a gas giant.

He kept his eyes on that, distortions that would signal the Pasir's arrival in-system. They'd arrive well out from the station to avoid the distortions affecting the refueling platforms, and that would be their chance to strike. Anything that might scramble from the station would take too long to reach the Pasir, by which point either the device would work, or they would be blown to bits.

Looking over his shoulder, he took in the head councilor. The polar bear had taken his seat, the loose clothing of the civil world replaced by the tight metal-fabric of the Guardians. Tight steel-blue wrapped around the bear from head to ankle, displaced only by the golden rank markers on the bear's chest. At his belt was a handgun, and in his hand, a detonator.

Their eyes met for a moment, only for Regis to shake his head and look back to the empty space before them.

"Anything on scanners?" he asked the cheetah to his right.

"Nothing yet - wait, something just tripped them."

"Details."

"Incoming energy pulse. Pre-emptive explosive."

"Physical or mental?"

"Mental, sir."

"Are we at sufficient distance?"

"Computer says yes, captain."

"Brace."

A few seconds later, a blue pulse sparked and spread in the distance. It was at least twenty kilometers out, but spread enough to ensure that anything that was within ten kilometers of the entry zone had been hit. If they'd been close enough, at least a portion of his ship would have risked being disabled; the Fafnides loved EMP weapons in addition to their mental manipulations.

"Scanners locked on the Pasir, captain. Moving to the station at half-speed."

"Plot intercept course and engage engines."

"Plotting intercept course now."

He stepped back from the consoles, returning to his command chair. With Arctus occupying it, he had little choice but to stand beside it, instead. The polar bear glanced up at him.

"How long until we're in range?"

"Shouldn't be more than five minutes."

"And they'll detect us when?"

"In three."

It was cutting it a little close. If the Pasir continued their path to the station, then they could drag out the pursuit. If they pushed their engines, they could, potentially, beat the Argo to the refueling station and drag them into a dog-fight that they didn't want.

That was why Arctus was here. The bear had ordered that the ship's signature be modified with a little additional code to it, indicating that a councilor was on the ship. Arctus was bait, something to draw the ship in and prevent it from doing the prudent thing. With the chance to get one of the bear councilors, it was doubtful that any one in the Empire of Fafnides could resist.

They drifted forward at full speed, and the minutes ticked down. One passed, two, three -

"We've been picked up by the Pasir," another officer called out. "They're turning - they've turned to intercept us, coming about completely and charging weapons."

"Just as planned," Arctus said.

That was true, but that didn't mean he was comfortable with it. Regis stared out the main viewing portals, watching as the broad-winged cruiser came about. The Pasir's weapons were embedded on the edges of the wings, towards the front and over the back. One could theoretically get behind and under them and start firing with impunity, but that would require out-maneuvering them. For all that the Pasir was a cruiser class, they had surprising speed and turning capability.

The device was their only real hope, one on one. If it failed, they were doomed.

Despite knowing that the device deep down in the power core was built to infuse all systems in the ship with a counter-charged energy calibrated to the Fafnides mental domination blasts, he was as stiff and worried as the rest of his crew. It only had to go wrong once, and then it would all be over. He stared out the window as the massive ship swooped towards them, pinpricks of light forming at the top and edges of the wings. They were charging up, getting ready to fire.

If this had been a normal fight, he would have ordered all missiles fired. It would have been a slim chance to get them the win - their range was only slightly better than the dominator blasts - but it would have been something. Something to give him hope of keeping his mind. Regis gripped the back of the chair all the harder, his fangs jutting past his lips and digging into the edges of his jaw.

Work, he prayed. Please work.

The blue blasts shot through space at just under lightspeed, slamming into the bridge of the Argo. He braced himself for the sensations that retrieved prisoners had described: lightning shocks, painful cramps through the extremities as all the nerves fired at once, lightheadedness followed by an inability to think, temporary blindness that led to -

But nothing happened. Nothing of the sort afflicted him. Instead of the ship suddenly being taken over by the enemy, it had absorbed the blast with no apparent ill effects.

"Shields, status report."

"Holding strong, no damage. If anything, we're up by 10%, captain."

"Power?"

"Power supply, sir. No drain."

"Device readings?"

"Uh..."

Arctus and Regis turned to the hesitating standard tiger. The dark-furred sabertooth ran to the console on the left side of the bridge, leaning over the tiger's shoulder to see what he was seeing. The results were not what he expected.

The head councilor had said that the device was meant to absorb and dissipate the energy signature of the mental dominators. Well, it had absorbed it, alright, but it hadn't let it loose. If anything, it was channeling it back through all the systems, as planned, and then supercharging certain weapon systems.

He stared at the screen, then back at the Pasir. He looked down, up, down, up...and then smiled.

"Petty Officer Chis."

"Yes, sir," the cougar at the weapons console called back.

"Sending you weapon energy. Fire at will."

Tapping three buttons on the device control console, he sent the absorbed energy right back to the guns. They fired a half-second later, a blue burst that had no business being fired from a ship of Ursalio. The Fafnides didn't even have a chance to get out of the way before the blast hit them amidship, scattering around the ship itself until it was completely consumed in blue sparks.

"Captain." Arctus called from the command chair. "What was that?"

"Something of a miracle, I'd call it. Open a channel," he called to Communications. "I think that we just turned the war around, sir."

"We will see."

The screen faded, replaced by an image of a dazed-looking, green-scaled lizard. His eyes were half-blue, and his mouth seemed fuzzy. He couldn't quite seem to form a word, and he was barely holding onto his command chair.

"What...nnngh...a...nnngh..."

Just as Regis had thought. The device hadn't just absorbed the blast, but managed to store it for firing back. They weren't just protected; they had the ability to turn the enemy's greatest weapon back upon them.

It was a miracle.

"Set course for Ursalio space. Make for the border, with the codes I'm transmitting to you now, and turn yourself in as prisoners," Regis said, running roughshod over the chain of command. "Repeat."

"Course for Ursalio space...make for the border...transmit codes...turn ourselves in..."

"Excellent. Execute. Close channel."

The view of the lizard disappeared, and seconds later, the Pasir disappeared again, fleeing from the system. The bridge of the Argo was silent, not one of the felines aboard daring to speak. Hell, for that matter, he didn't dare speak. It felt like the slightest sound would break the impossible spell of luck.

Yet, the Pasir didn't reappear. They were safe. No, they weren't just safe. They were winning.

Regis turned around, looking at the polar bear in his chair. Arctus smiled at him, nodding as he slowly got to his feet. The detonator in his hand was disarmed, and he gestured to the command chair.

"The bridge is yours, captain."

"Thank you, councilor."

"Set course for the home planets. It's time to inform them of our success."

"Yes, sir," the sabertooth said, turning to the navigation officers. "Set course for the home planets. All speed."

They were going back, and then, they would turn their attention to Onserion. It was time to take the fight to the lizards.

The Argo's results were passed on to the rest of the fleet, and a hurried refitting was managed at the core worlds of the Ursalio federation. Twenty cruisers were outfitted with the new device, and the crews were trained on its operation, though not on its function. Thus far, the Empire of Fafnides hadn't gotten wind of what had happened to the Pasir, and high command didn't want that to change. As far as they were concerned, the Pasir had been attacked and made to retreat, lost in space somewhere. That was as much as the enemy needed to know, and what the crew didn't know, they couldn't accidentally or intentionally spill to someone that didn't need to hear it.

They set off from the core planets to the war-torn border at Onserion. Intelligence had spread rumors of different attacks coming across the border, and according to the briefing from Head Councilor Arctus, there would be limited resistance in orbit around the planet. Provided that everything worked the way it was supposed to, they would be able to turn the battle around, and perhaps even free the planet that day.

The Argo was fitted with a new, secondary device. Supposedly, it was supposed to take the signals of the mental dominators and flip them around, essentially turning them inside-out and upside-down. If it didn't cancel out the commands that the Onserion population had received, then it would at least negate them getting any new orders from the Fafnides for a while. They just needed a sample of the mental dominator energy signature used for the planet.

Regis leaned back in his command chair, looking out the viewing portal. It would be another five minutes until they arrived, and then...well, then they'd see how accurate Ursalio intelligence actually was.

His crew were not nearly as silent as they had been during the previous raid. They had confidence. They felt invincible, and they showed it as they talked about what they would do when the battle was over, how they planned to spend their shore leave, and more. Not one of them sounded like they were afraid of being taken captive or enslaved.

He wished that he could say that he was smarter than that, but even he was infected with that feeling of invulnerability. The greatest weapon of their enemy had been taken from them, and soon, they'd show them just how defenseless the lizards had become. As soon as Onserion was taken, the fleet would split, hitting every planet along the border. Some that were known to be weaker would be taken back, while others would just be left to develop chaos, to make it harder for their reptilian foes to take back what they'd lost. It was a rapid-strike campaign, and it would gain the federation some much-needed ground.

"Thirty seconds," the navigation officer chimed.

"Brace for deceleration," Regis said.

The chatter stopped, everyone waiting for the sudden slow-down. Hands gripped consoles, chairs had their gravity amped up, and everyone waited for the beginning. The timer counted down, and then -

WHOOSH!

The sudden deceleration nearly threw several officers from their chairs. The stars settled and Onserion took form at the edge of their view screens. In addition, so did the ten cruisers belonging to the Empire that were waiting for them.

Normal tactics would have been to scramble fighters immediately, closing the distance before the mental dominators could be charged up and giving the federation forces their best chance to keep from being instantly overtaken. Swarm and destroy had been the old tactics used against the Empire, but today, they were working with something new. Spread and surround, ensuring that there were sufficient gaps for wild shots to go by, but not letting any of the smaller ships leave the cruisers. They weren't protected; the cruisers were.

Whatever worries Regis had of the enemy catching on to the change in tactics disappeared as the enemy started firing. Blue blasts spattered against the fleet, but every Ursalio cruiser kept moving forward, pushing towards the enemy ships. One splat after another played over hull and shields, but nobody stopped, nobody faltered. They just kept moving forward, eventually forming a ball of metal around the enemy fleet.

The Fafnides never knew what hit them. All twenty cruisers fired at once, and the mental dominators were put to full effect against the enemy that had tormented them for so long.

Captain Regis left the new brainwashing to the other officers, directing his scanners to find the greatest concentration of surface to atmosphere batteries on the planet and ordering the officers to feed that data to navigation. He absented himself from the overall task of dealing with the Fafnides cruisers and had navigation take them into a high orbit.

"What do we have from the surface?" he asked his Communications officer.

"Not much. Chatter's been cut; seems like they figured out something went wrong with the orbital force."

"Any calls for help?"

"Nothing getting through the jamming net. All communication satellites are already down."

"Good. Now...how long until they fire on us..."

They circled the planet for nearly an hour before the confirmation beeping of a lock-on grabbed their attention. Any other time, they would have scrambled to get out of the way of whatever battery had managed to track them, but not this time. They needed to get hit to get a reading for the dominator-breaker, as some of the techs had taken to calling it in Regis's presence. He looked at navigation, gestured for them to keep their course, and faced straight ahead through the viewing portal.

"They're firing," the officers monitoring their shields called out.

"Hold course."

The splat, splat, splat that was becoming increasingly familiar hit the undersides of their shields. This time, it was more than just the mental dominator. A streak of EMP must have been added to the blasting, because the Argo started listing to the side. Engineering and Navigation pulled them back on course as Regis shook his head. Someone on the surface was picking up that something was wrong.

"What do we have?"

"Clear reading on the signature. Sending it through the dominator-breaker now," Weapons said.

"How long until we have a solution?"

"Two minutes."

"Shields?"

"We can take maybe three more hits like that. They're ramping up the EMP power in their attacks."

That meant that they knew something was wrong, then. They weren't relying on the mental dominators as exclusively, which meant that they knew that the ship could take it somehow. If the communication satellites hadn't been shot down, that information would have already been beamed out across the Empire of Fafnides, and that would have been the end of the rapid attack strategy.

Another splatter of EMP hit their lower shields, and some of it got through. The ship rocked to the other side, the lights on the bridge dimming for a moment before coming back online.

"I thought you said that we could take three more hits!" Regis shouted.

"I did! That's one. Shields down to 60%."

"Get me a firing solution, someone."

"A third of the way there, sir."

"I need it faster -"

Another splatter of EMP, and this time the engines shut down. They had enough thrust to keep them from falling into the atmosphere, but the shields barely managed to turn back on after the last barrage. Some of the gravity weakened, too, leaving those not tied down floating up before they planted their feet against the deck.

"Weapons, what do we have?"

"Half a solution, sir!"

"That'll have to do. Fire."

"But -"

"Fire!"

"...Firing dominator-breaker on mark. Three, two, one, mark."

The ship rocked, but not from being hit from below this time. The dominator-breaker loosed its payload, and Onserion was enveloped in a new glow. Not blue, but white.

For a minute, then two, all the way to ten, the entire world was wrapped in a white glow. Regis watched, remembering what the scientists had said. After analyzing the particular frequency of the mental dominators being used on the planet, the dominator-breaker would mix with it, disrupting it until it either completely collapsed or was so twisted up that the commands from the Fafnides wouldn't actually get through. The field lasted for ten minutes, and just before it collapsed, he wondered if it had gone wrong.

Then it was gone, and Onserion was there again, the deep blue of the planet occasionally broken up with gray landmasses where the main living areas were. He took a deep breath and let it out.

"Hail the planetary authorities," he muttered.

The screen filled with an image. There was a hazy-eyed badger that was slowly pulling himself together in shot, but just behind him was one of the reptilians. The only reason that Regis didn't have an immediate negative reaction was because the badger didn't seem bothered, and not merely because of some hypnotic trick.

"Hello? Hello, are you - Nnngh - are you receiving me?" the badger asked.

"This is Captain Regis Tiger of the cruiser Argo. We are receiving you. Who is that behind you?"

"Him? That's...nngh...sorry." The badger held his head for a moment, looking like he was fighting off a monster of a headache. "Sorry. There's still some...ugh. There's still some stuff happening...up here."

"Sorry. We're still figuring out the way that the device works," he said, as several officers split from their consoles to start working on repairs. Outside, other ships of the fleet were darting off, following the rest of the plan. "Has their domination been broken?"

"Mostly. There's some - fuck - there's some people still affected, but they were brought in from off-planet. Probably slaves that the Fafnides had had for a while."

"Right. And...him?" he asked, gesturing at the lizard that wobbled back and forth in the background. "Why is he there?"

"That's the old governor. He - god, that hurts - he's been acting funny ever since you did whatever you did from up there. Almost like we used to be."

Almost like they used to be. Well, that was a thing. None of the scientists he'd talked to had mentioned anything about the dominator-breaker having that sort of backlash, but then again, none of them had been studying how it would have affected the Fafnide species. They were more focused on how they were going to break their own people out from under the domination. No shame there, but...

Well, this was going to be a problem. Or, rather, it could be an opportunity.

"Are the streets secured against any remaining Fafnides?" he asked.

"As secure as they're going to be."

"We'll be sending shuttles down to secure the capital. I'm assuming that's where you are."

"Yeah...yeah, we are."

"Maintain your position. We'll be there shortly to take over."

They cut the channel at that point, and he reclined in his chair. So, the old governor had been affected by the blast. Not just losing his domination, but being partially dominated? It was possible, though it might also just be the raw backlash in the first place messing with his mind. They'd see in short order. The shuttles would be heading down with the men first, and then he and the officers would follow. Once everything was secured, messages for reinforcements would be sent back to the homeworlds, and they'd move on to the next stage.

They'd taken the planet back. Now they had to hold it.

The End

Summary: Captain Regis Tiger is given a mission that might just turn the tide of the war against the reptilian Fafnides Empire. However, if it goes wrong, or if there is the slightest miscalculation, everything that they have could come tumbling down. Lives are on the line, including his own.

Tags: No sex, tiger, sabertooth tiger, polar bear, lizard, badger, snake, various species, sci-fi, series, mind control, space, fighting, spaceship, reversal,