Chapter 3

  With Seventh’s help, Dalex deployed his massive fleet. Mostly, this consisted of voice commands and watching more blue dots advance across the realm map, but some of it showed out the windows, which were really just {scrying tablets} looking into the void and toward the ark’s hull.

  Some of the vessels the E7 carried were stored in aerodromes within the hull, but the largest of them, the dreadnaughts, were connected by mechanical locks to the exterior of the E7. When the locks disengaged, they rolled off the side of the ark, jets of air thrusting in different directions until they oriented themselves in the direction of the approaching enemy armada. The frigates and destroyers poured out of the ark to join the dreadnaughts in a tight formation, and then every vessel in the fleet, including the E7 activated {astral engines} and suddenly the formation was traveling at the speed of light.

  Most of the vessels disappeared, small but fast course corrections taking them far enough away the human eye couldn’t perceive them. They left behind glistening trails of pink and blue dust. None were crewed by sentient creatures, human or otherwise. He and Seventh were the only living beings in the fleet, and he wasn’t really sure about Seventh yet.

  The battle moved exclusively to the map, and while Dalex had played his fair share of strategy games, real time had never been his strong suit. Those games generally required a mouse, and that was hard to make work in a hospital bed.

  “I will handle precise management of the fleet,” Seventh said, “but I require your assistance with strategic decision making.”

  “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to resurrect a dead naval officer and bring them out here?” Dalex asked. “I mean, I’m grateful for the opportunity, don’t get me wrong, but I think there are also a lot of dead astronauts who know this kind of thing better.”

  “No human understands interstellar war,” Seventh said. “You are as ill-prepared as anyone.”

  “Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.”

  For the moment, his fleet moved toward the enemy {far realmers} in one compact blob. That didn’t seem like a smart move, so he suggested Seventh break them into three formations, each with one of the big dreadnoughts and a bunch of the smaller vessels.

  “{Inventory},” he said, and then selected one of the dreadnaughts to see what kind of heat it was packing. “{Skills}.”

  This time, the information didn’t startle him quite as much. It seemed like the standard complement for a sci-fi battleship. And he assumed “Mt” and “kt” were megaton and kiloton in amounts that didn’t strike Dalex as absurd.

  “What does ‘star-class yield’ mean?” he asked.

  “It means the weapon is capable of destroying or significantly destabilizing a star,” Seventh explained, “regardless of sequence type.”

  So much for reasonable amounts of firepower. “And ‘planet-class’ blows up a planet?”

  Seventh only nodded.

  “Are we really going to use these spells?”

  Dalex looked back at the map and the seven worlds marked as habitable. There might be living creatures on them. Was this battlefield about to consume an entire realm? He didn’t want to turn into some pre-industrial civilization’s incarnation of death, if there was anything alive left to fear him when the shooting stopped.

  “None of these weapons are meant to be deployed against a celestial body,” Seventh said. “At least, not under these circumstances. Any destabilization in the Gaia BH1 system will do irreparable harm to its benefine deposits. The unknown faction likely believes the same. However, fusion disruptors and the payloads of anti-ship torpedoes are effective at destroying enemy vehicles. The battle should cover mostly empty space. I do not anticipate any harm will come to any inhabitants of the seven Earth-like planets. However, they will see the battle.”

  So, living beings did live on those worlds. For the first time, Dalex suspected he might have jumped on board with these {far realmers} a little too quickly. Risks to himself were acceptable. He had already died once, after all. But he didn’t like the idea of putting other lives at risk. Seventh seemed awfully blasé about the effects of the battle, and Dalex’s Benefactors didn’t sound like the kind of group that cared much about the little guy if they reaped their mineral rewards.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “That being said,” Seventh continued, pointing at a new red dot moving rapidly away from the battle zone toward the habitable worlds, “the unknown faction does seem to have deployed some kind of craft toward the planets.”

  “We can’t let them do that,” Dalex said. “Right?”

  If his own {far realmers} didn’t necessarily have the best interest of this realm in mind, the noncommunicative, actively hostile faction had to be worse.

  Seventh pursed her lips. “I would like to stop it, but we have no weapons that could destroy it before it reaches the outermost planet. It does not seem like a combat craft. Most likely the unknown faction sent a probe for closer inspection.”

  Dalex understood. Worry about the rogue dot later. Deal with the enemy armada now. He focused his attention on the center of the map, between the realm’s star and the massive {gravity vortex}. It would still be a while before his fleet made contact with the enemy’s, but he began to see how the battle would play out. Each blue and red dot representing a friendly or enemy vessel was accompanied by a faded circle showing at what point their skills would be in range to potentially cause damage. Seventh knew that range for a surety about their own vessels. It was more of a guess for the enemy.

  Seventh took the remaining time to instruct him on what each skill did and at what time it made most sense to activate them. Dalex did his best to absorb the information and put it into his battle plan, such as it was.

  The map and its extreme detail were a gift from the gods. Apparently, while vessels and skill projectiles could not move faster than light in the slow field generated by each fleet, {far sight} allowed constant faster than light updates on every object in the realm. Seventh called it [superluminal particle detection and ranging] or [spadar], and Dalex came very close to letting that one sci-fi techno term slip into his new vernacular. Superluminal was a cool word.

  Five minutes before skill range, the dreadnaught closest to the enemy vanished off the map. Dalex rubbed his eyes, but the dot didn’t come back.

  “Dreadnaught destroyed,” Seven announced.

  “Did they blow it up?” Dalex asked, panic building in his stomach.

  “It appears so. Entering evasive maneuvers.”

  A {scrying tablet} fixed to one of the frigates near the dreadnaught’s former position captured a brilliant flash and then disappeared, the frigate swerving at light speed to avoid the invisible incoming enemy skills. The enemy’s range was farther than Seventh had predicted.

  Dalex’s first instincts told him to run; recall his fleet and try something else. Maybe he could just run away. But he also knew someone had to be the first to lose a chess piece, and he had always been the most likely candidate. Losing one of three dreadnaughts right away hurt, but his other pieces were in motion, still ready to fight.

  Then skill range circles started to overlap with enemy and friendly vessels and all hell broke loose. A lot of map dots suddenly disappeared. More {scrying tablets} monitoring the action flashed with light. Frigates and destroyers zoomed around the space at unimaginable speeds, covering hundreds of thousands of kilometers in a second. They shot at each other at what looked like point blank range on the map, but which were vast distances in the inter-astral void.

  Dalex tried to think of something to do, but his mind didn’t work that fast. Seventh handled all the tactical maneuvering and skill casting. Watching her manage light speed combat across the table, he formed a new respect for her. She wasn’t a {golem}. She was an {angelic construct}.

  And then it was over. The enemy vessels retreated out of range, leaving Dalex’s own to pursue.

  “What happened?” Dalex asked. “We didn’t win, did we?”

  “No, we did not,” Seventh said.

  Dalex analyzed the map again. A lot of dots were missing. The enemy’s numbers were reduced, but not to the same extent as Dalex’s own.

  “The unknown faction has a max velocity advantage,” Seventh said.

  “I thought nothing could go faster than the speed of light right now.”

  “There is some variation in that rule, and their engines are slightly more powerful. Our armaments are moderately superior, but the enemy’s speed reduces my accuracy.”

  “What do you think we should do?” Dalex asked.

  “I cannot make that kind of strategic decision. It is up to you.”

  Right. Strategy. The purview of the human.

  “However,” Seventh continued, “I can inform you that I believe the next engagement will be more favorable. Now that I know their max velocity, I will not be taken by surprise in the same way.”

  Dalex watched the two sets of dots chase each other up the map toward the main force of the enemy. He saw two options: Keep attacking or retreat, and he had always been an optimist. So far, only metal and machines had been lost. According to Seventh, the enemy vessels were most likely under the control of a {construct} like herself.

  “Keep attacking,” Dalex said. “Bring reinforcements from the other groups.”

  After a few more minutes of running, the enemy vessels turned around and re-engaged Dalex’s fleet. True to her word, Seventh wiped out more enemy dots this time. Dalex caught a brief glimpse of the [particle beam] in action—he hadn’t come up with a name for that skill yet—as a friendly frigate chased a distant enemy vessel in a zigzag through the void. The frigate emitted a constant beam of light towards its target. At the barest contact, the enemy vessel detonated in what Dalex imagined was an explosion many times the size of a typical nuclear event.

  How much power was 0.05 megatons per second? When Dalex asked the question aloud, Seventh informed him that it amounted to roughly two Hiroshima-like nuclear blasts every second. He had to whistle. These people played for keeps.

  Despite earning more kills, Dalex’s fleet still lost far more pieces off the board than they eliminated. They repeated the same process two more times, constantly losing vessels to push the enemy back. Another dreadnaught disappeared in the brief sun of a {solaris nocturne}.

  “I now believe the chances are high we will lose this battle,” Seventh announced. “Their forces outnumber ours two to one. At this point, protocols allow me to suggest a strategic decision. Retreat is recommended.”

  Dalex would have agreed with her, but he had been noticing a pattern. The enemy forces always retreated linearly from the direction of Seventh’s attack. The {far realmer’s} largest vessel, their equivalent to the E7, always adjusted itself to hide behind the screen of its own forces. If the pattern continued, Dalex and Seventh could dictate where their enemy moved. And, more interestingly, it didn’t seem like the enemy took into account their surroundings whenever they performed this little maneuver.

  Dalex walked around the map and pointed at the enemy formation from a new angle. “Can you attack in this direction?”

  “I can,” Seventh said, “but I do not predict a more favorable outcome. Such an angle of attack will require lengthier maneuvers. Our ships will be exposed, and I will have a more difficult time targeting the enemy.”

  “Humor me for one more thrust,” Dalex said. “If it doesn’t go like I think, we’ll retreat.”

  Seventh stared at him for a moment. At this point, he felt confident that she didn’t have to follow his orders if she didn’t want to. He considered his presence to be more advisory than anything else.

  “Very well,” she finally said, and moved the fleet forward again, this time approaching from the angle Dalex requested.

  The next attack went much as she had expected. They lost more vessels and destroyed fewer enemy vessels than the previous attack. But the {far realmers} also did exactly what Dalex thought they would do, retreating directly away from Seventh’s angle of attack. Their flagship adjusted on the same path.

  When Seventh turned to look at him, likely anticipating a retreat order, Dalex gave her a thumbs up and said, “One more time. Trust me. This is going to work.”

  She adopted a skeptical frown, but she still went through with his request. She attacked again. This time, the casualties were even on both sides. When the engagement ended, the enemy retreated the same as before.

  Not looking away from the map, she asked, “Their maximum velocity changed. What is different?”

  “Have you noticed where they’re going?” Dalex asked. “It seems like they sure haven’t.”

  She stared at the map for several seconds and then her eyes lit up. It was the first major expression he had seen on her face.

  “The black hole,” she said. “They’re getting pulled into its gravity well.”

  Dalex nodded. “For some reason, they don’t seem to be accounting for the {gravity vortex}.”