Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) by Glynn Stewart (best e book reader TXT) 📕

“The Category Three-X ships look more like regular warships,” the Pibo said. “But a top-end Category Three bioform is already larger than a Laian war-dreadnought. So, my conservative estimate is that a C-Four-X unit is going to carry a minimum of two thousand missile launchers.”

Morgan nodded, throwing the three smallest categories up in the hologram to replace the Category Five. The One-Xs were…well, from her team’s analysis, they’d made for decent destroyers, but they were still almost irrelevant in the clash of titans she was facing. The Two-Xs were bigger, but still smaller than even the cruisers the blockade would bring to the fight.

The Three-Xs were real warships, ranging in size from as small as the Laian attack cruisers and Thunderstorms of the blockade fleet to as large as the Laian war-dreadnoughts. Ton for ton, they were projecting that the X versions of the bioforms would be more lightly armed and defended than their technological equivalents, but they were just plain bigger.

They’d detected two thousand Category Fours, each more powerful than any ship present in the blocking fleet. The breakout force had brought at least a dozen Category Fours to go with their single Category Five.

“Do we have a winnable exercise to present the fleet?” Morgan asked. “I want them to recognize how dangerous an X-Category bioform is going to be. We need the worst-case-scenario models in the exercises—but we also need to present a scenario the blockading fleet can win. At least at first, anyway.”

“We’ve got something,” Rogers promised. “I’m not sure how winnable it will be, and I’m not sure it’s realistic at all, but we’ve got a scenario based around them bringing a fleet of Category Twos and Threes, refitted to the X standard with shields, missiles and hyperdrives.

“I suspect we’re underestimating how large a force they’ll bring,” the young redheaded officer admitted, “but it will give everyone a starting point.”

“That’s all we can do without more data,” Morgan admitted. “We need people to realize how bad this can be, but we also need to set the scenarios to allow us to find ways we can win.”

She looked at the hologram that had been showing the simulated Category Five-X and shook her head.

“Assuming we can win,” she half-whispered.

Chapter Fifteen

The Squadron Lord’s staff was silent when Morgan completed her briefing. She wasn’t sure if the silence was good or bad—though the only bad silence would be them disbelieving her.

“What level of upgrades do you expect them to deploy in short order?” Tan!Stalla finally asked.

“That’s probably our only good news,” Morgan said. “Using Builder of Tomorrows, they can update any of the Category Three or smaller bioforms with grafted Laian technology, but a single mobile yard can only do so much work so quickly.

“They are also limited by the resources available to them. I would guess that we are probably looking at between two and four Category Three bioforms equipped with shields and missile launchers every five cycles,” she told them.

“We do not have the data to estimate around when they will have a biotech version of any of these systems or how quickly they will be able to integrate biotech systems into their existing units,” she continued. “If it turns out that they can only integrate shields and missiles into newly born bioforms, then we will continue to have a large advantage, as only the smallest units should be able to match our range.”

“And if they can remap the flesh of their existing bioforms?” Prott asked.

“It depends on what the process looks like, but in that case, we are probably fucked,” Morgan said bluntly. “Potentially, we could see a full revamp of all of the Infinite bioforms to an equivalent of our Class X categorization within a long-cycle.

“At that point, containment may well be impossible.”

The room was silent again.

“We have time,” Tan!Stalla reminded everyone. “We will distribute this analysis as widely as we can,” she noted. “And request reinforcements from all possible allies. The Kanzi, for example, should be able to spare a fleet or two from their civil war now.”

“Their civil war has been over for five long-cycles,” Ashmore muttered, the operations officer sounding disgruntled. “They’ve just been dragging it out for politics.”

“And if we disagreed with the reforms the High Priestess was implementing, the Imperium might draw more offense at that,” Tan!Stalla agreed. “But I will take anyone who can lend me a twenty-megaton superbattleship with hyperfold cannons right now.”

The Kanzi Theocracy hadn’t cheated nearly as well as the Imperium over the last thirty years of tech development. Most of their focus recently, Morgan knew, had been on using their civil war as an excuse to dissolve their age-old institution of enslaving every non-Kanzi biped they encountered.

Morgan didn’t know where that reform was going to end, but she was a lot more willing to talk to the Kanzi fighting for that reform than the people fighting against it.

And as Tan!Stalla had noted, the Imperium had traded hyperfold cannons to the Kanzi as part of the deal that had seen them fight the Taljzi together. The Kanzi fleet would be worth committing to this fight.

“The Wendira and Laians both have friends among the Core Powers they can call on as well, I hope,” Prott said. “I was always surprised we were the only people involved in this fight.”

“That’s because any Core Power signing a deal with one of the pair explicitly excludes fighting the other half of the pair,” Ashmore told the chief of staff. “Nobody else was dumb enough to get involved in the galaxy’s oldest grudge match.”

“Which meant no one else was in a place to talk them down from it,” Tan!Stalla countered. “We have them talking to each other, and that is worth a lot. Hopefully, Staff Captain Casimir’s analysis will help bring a fina—”

Every communicator in the room chimed at once, cutting the Squadron Lord off as she stared down at the device. A deadly new silence filled the room, and