Adventures of an Ancient Space Battleship

As Qelu led Kiru down the stairs, Kiru couldn’t help but ask Megumi a few questions. She couldn’t help but wonder about what she had just been told. Especially since it raised a lot of questions.

Megumi replied quickly, ‘The effects of telepathic interaction on young children are well documented by Solean medical science. I have numerous studies on file in my medical library.’

‘So you can verify the veracity of her statements?’

‘I can. She isn’t wrong, but there is a lot she left unsaid. Telepathic interaction between mother and child at such young ages stimulates neuron development in several key areas. This accelerates the mental development of the child, allowing the child to pass critical developmental markers earlier than they would otherwise. Such as the development of complex language skills. This allows them to pick up concepts faster and to communicate more effectively at a younger age. Such interaction also allows for more complex learning to occur at a much younger age which has numerous beneficial ramifications.’

‘Could you define that for me please?’

“I could. I’ll give you a basic rundown. At such a young age the brain develops more quickly and can learn more easily. Being able to start complex learning earlier is a significant advantage that sets the child up for success later in life. Not only that but on average children stimulated telepathically from birth exhibit much higher intelligence than they would have otherwise exhibited. We aren’t talking about a small increase either, as it’s twenty-five points on average compared to a non-telepathic baseline, although some cases have been as high as a hundred points. Furthermore such children are more likely to exhibit advanced psionic ability later in life.’

That was a lot to take in, and Megumi hadn’t even really covered what Larelu had said about early potty training. She still had some questions about that. Quite a few questions. So she asked.

‘Teaching the concept would be the easy part. The real challenge is the fact that the muscles are not quite developed, and there are a few other factors at play. Still what she said is believable, and no doubt it took months to achieve. I doubt those girls can hold it very long at their age, but long enough perhaps to alert their caretaker and make it to the toilet. So on the mental side of things they are at least potty trained. The physical side may need more development, but that comes with time and patience.

That was interesting and answered a few questions. Others were raised, and some were just left unanswered. Unfortunately, it seemed she no longer had time to ask. As she had already reached the kitchen. The two girls, it seemed, had finished eating and had found some playing cards. It was kind of cute watching them play. Qelu let go of her hand, and headed for the pantry. “Mom bought some nice fish for today. I’m going to start preparing it, and she’ll join us in a little bit when she is done feeding the little ones.”

Kiru nodded, “I guessed she might. Need any help?”

Qelu nodded, “Mom would expect you to help, anyway.”

Kiru replied, “Yeah about that. Any idea where exactly I stand with your mother?”

Qelu turned around, “Well my mom, like most Iniri, see Neku as inferior, but I think she recognizes that you are special.”

Kiru blinked and then glanced at the two kids playing cards. The Iniri girl Talu seemed rather frustrated in fact. Not to mention entirely focused on the game. Qelu noticed her gaze and preempted the question, “Ah them? Don’t worry about those two, they aren’t even listening to us.”

“I see. Is that a good thing?”

Qelu nodded, “Yeah I think it is. As she’ll treat you more like an equal than she otherwise would have.”

Kiru replied, “That does sound like a good thing. Guess I’ll see.”

Qelu entered the pantry, and said, “Anyway we should get started. The fish mom bought is in the fridge, middle shelf. You can’t miss it.”

Kiru acknowledged and made for the fridge. She found the fish easily enough, three fresh-looking specimens. They weren’t even filleted. Each one was wrapped in paper, and placed on a platter. She carefully removed them from the fridge. Thanks to her physique she hardly noticed their weight, but something told her that it should have been heavy. It wasn’t. Something that was a little surprising since they were large and prime specimens.

Qelu had retrieved a number of veggies while she was getting the fish out. Noting the amounts, Kiru commented, “Are we expecting company? This seems a bit much for just the three of us. It still seems much even if we factor in the kids.”

“Yeah it does seem a little much, but this is what she told me to prepare.”

Kiru frowned, “I thought she just said to get something to eat.”

Qelu nodded, “She did, but as we were leaving she gave more specific instructions.”

Kiru read between the lines. “I see,” she then glanced at the three large fish. “So you don’t know why we are preparing so much either?”

Qelu shook her head, “No, but if I had to guess Nana, my other mother is coming over. I hope I’m wrong about that.”

That didn’t sound good, “should I be worried?”

Qelu was quick to dismiss that, “No, I’m sure you will be fine. Its just Nana can be...” Qelu trailed off, and shuddered. Kiru decided that she really should be worried. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Qelu was ready to tell her what was bothering her. They ended up working together mostly in silence after that.

The Admiral made her way down the corridor. She wasn’t entirely sure what the research division wanted to see her about, but the director sounded very excited about something. Unfortunately she wasn’t willing to say what over the comm lines. So here she was, at the Fleet Testing grounds and heading to see the director about some breakthrough. That did not mean she had no idea about what the director might want to show her. They had been working very extensively lately on several projects, all of which were based on the data brought back from the precursor warship they had found. Although to her knowledge none of those projects were even close to producing anything worth calling a breakthrough.

The admiral didn’t bother speculating however, since she would know the answer soon enough. It just wasn’t the time to waste on pointless speculation. So rather than think about the immediate problem, she decided to think about her other problem.

The war with the Neku had changed rather suddenly. The Imperium was no longer advancing into Erali controlled space. Other than a few sporadic offensives here and there, the war had become a stalemate. At first glance this seemed like good news, but she had no idea why their war machine had stalled so suddenly. The changes gave her pause, and the admiral could not help but feel worried. They had to be planning something. The question was what. More importantly when and where.

She couldn’t help but suspect they might be planning an attack on the homeworld itself. If they were, that begged the question. Where was the staging ground for such an attack? It would have to be in a system near Eral, but not connected to the system by the jump nodes. If it was, they would already know about it. As every system connected to the homeworld by the jump nodes was controlled by the Confederated Systems. The worlds, the habitable ones anyway, in those systems had long been colonized by the Erali people, and were heavily defended as a result. There was no system on a direct jump path to the homeworld that wasn’t patrolled or defended by the Confederated Navy. That Imperium didn’t use jump drives however, so they weren’t limited by the jump nodes.

With that in mind, she was left with a few candidates. There were three systems in relative proximity to Eral that the Neku might use. Two of them however, were according to last report, under the control of Erali forces. That left only one candidate in her mind. It was a lush system with three habitable worlds, but reaching it was difficult since there was only one known jump node into the system. Even the fastest ships would take weeks to reach the system from here. She had found one ship, a cruiser on deep space patrol that was much closer. They would be there in three days. She had told them to be cautious, but if the Neku were there it might not mean much. Still, regardless of what happens, they would know soon enough what was going on in the Nypheri system.

She put that aside and hit the bell chime for the director’s office. The response was immediate, and she was allowed into the office. 

The director was a younger woman, and she rose as the admiral walked in. The admiral took a moment to take in her attire which was a very skimpy top that only concealed one boob, and left the other completely exposed. Down below all she wore was a simple pair of matching panties. It was a visual reminder that the director had a higher status than she did. So the director had no need to stand on the admiral’s arrival.

The director smiled, “I’m glad you could make it so quickly.”

She gestured to the door. “If you would follow me. I have something game changing to show you.”

The admiral blinked, and stepped aside. Which allowed the director out of the room, and started to follow. “If I may ask. What did you ask me here to see?”

“A new weapon. One of our new hires proved to be quite insightful when shown the alien data. She put together something quite interesting. A phase coherent particle weapon, but honestly I think it’s best you see it for yourself before I tell you the specifics. We’ve set up a demonstration using an old Salaren Battleship.”

A Salaren Battleship? They had one of those, and they were using it for a practice target? The Salerens were excellent shipbuilders and were technologically on par with the Confederated Systems in most aspects, except two. They were well ahead of them in terms of hull construction and energy shielding technology. As a result their ships were notoriously difficult to destroy, although thankfully the Salerens were terrible warriors. They often made poor use of their ships in war. As such they had lost the last three wars with the ECS.

“If we have a Saleren vessel, why are we using it for target practice?”

“She isn’t what she used to be. Her defense systems are fully operational, but her weapons and engines are completely non-functional. They were slagged by the crew after our forces boarded her in the last war. Thankfully we kept them from sabotaging the shields. It gave us time to study their shielding technology, but there isn’t anything left to be learned from the old girl. The shield improvements we implemented three years ago were the last egg that ship had to give us.”

The last war had been a little over ten years ago. That meant they had the ship for at least a decade. It did answer a few things though. “I see.”

The rest of the walk was done in silence. It wasn’t a far walk to the observation blister. The director took a seat, and invited her to sit down next to her. The Admiral complied, and directed her view out to the stars. In the distance was the recognizable hulk of a Saleran battleship.

It was a massive ship, nearly seven kilometers long. Its sheer size alone meant it was a major strategic asset. Yet here it was about to be used as target practice. That said something. A moment later the director gave the signal for the test to begin.

A moment later a short, but intense, beam of blue light raked across the hull of the alien battleship. Her shields flared brightly for a moment or two before they buckled. The intense energy burned right through the hull and out the other side. In an instant a massive ship, a real terror of the battlefield from a race famed for their ships being nearly impossible to destroy was bisected. From stem to stern the beam cut through the hull as if it was wet tissue paper. Fires erupted, and plasma jetted out into space. Something exploded, and all she could do was stare.

“What the hell was that!!!?”