Chapter 98: One Last Level

All that had separated him from his next [Skill] had been one singular Level, and considering just what Derek would have available to choose from, that was an important step to take before setting out.

And he’d managed to get himself a secured summoning space on Olympus Mons, by pure virtue of no one else who had access to it needing to level anymore.

He’d also settled on which monster to fight a while ago, mostly to test himself.

The Prowling Disaster was Tier 7, summoned at Levels ranging from 70 to 85, and vicious as all get out. It was also found in the feline summoning category and combined the nastiest abilities of most animalistic cats to exist in nature, increased a thousandfold in power.

Claws that could not be blocked by armor anyone of a comparable Level should be able to reasonably get their hands on, a bite that could crush effectively anything the beast could get its jaws around, absurd speed, near-immunity to extreme temperatures, and to top it all off, a damaging roar fine-tuned to fuck with human physiology in particular.

It also looked like a car-sized, spotted, incredibly fluffy tiger that had absolutely no business looking as cute as it did … not that that impression lasted more than a second once it had exposed its fangs. And then its [Aura] rent his asunder, every piece of it that came within two meters of the creature simply ceasing to be.

Powerful, but about as short-distanced as [Aura] got, and if everything went according to plan, Derek would never wind up close enough to be in melee range.

… Things never went fully according to plan.

The Prowling Disaster merely hissed in his general direction, but when the sound struck his chest, Derek felt like the creature had reached inside his chest cavity and smacked the organs within.

Not hard enough to actually injure him, but by the time he’d recovered, by the time his focus was off the direct “strike” at his internals, the monster was already in his face.

Derek hurled himself back, space warping to carry him further, yet it was not enough.

His personal [Energy Screen] split like cheap silk beneath the creature’s claws, his skin offering even less resistance as the monster slashed his arm to ribbons … and that was all it could reach before his leap carried him clear.

Blood spattered across the cat’s face, hissing loudly even as the monster reared back with a yowl.

Derek allowed himself a brief flash of triumph as he realized that the Disaster had fallen victim to one of the pre-set transformations in [Aspect Integration], namely the “any blood spilled that’ll land on my enemy and only my enemy will be that of a hydra.”

[Lifesurge] fed from his bloodline to erase his wounds even as he threw an [Anima Bolt] at the creature’s face.

It ducked, the motion transforming into another leap straight for his throat.

[Spatial Detonation] blew the air between them, the monster tumbling sideways, yet … it was less a tumble, more of an acrobatic redirect without any place to launch from as it ran to his side, Derek’s head snapping to the side so quickly he could feel his muscles scream in protest …

Once again, space twisted, the distance between him and the monster flashing open while the world before him compressed, every stride taking him ten times further for a second before he stopped, turned, and prepared proper defenses.

A forest of stone spikes erupted from the ground while the gravity everywhere within ten meters tripled.

There. Let it come at him now …

The feline menace launched itself forward, claws extending further than he’d ever expected them to be able to go, not running but simply yanking itself onward, only the very tips of its claws touching the ground as the monster seemed to dance along the tops of the spikes.

… Fuck.

Once again, Derek found himself reacting just barely too slowly, starting to move a hair too late to do anything, even throwing himself to the ground wou- … the gravity field.

He threw himself flat, letting the magic pull him down below the creature’s lunge, space warping to create a space between the spikes to faceplant into.

The void in his [Aura] whooshed past overhead as the monster missed.

He rolled onto his back, thrusting out both hands as he triggered all the spells he’d anchored there with [Aspect Integration] so long ago.

The paint he’d been using to hide the orange crystal that had replaced his fingernails exploded away as he unleashed all ten of his emergency measures, instantly hurling fire, force and lightning at the monster’s retreating rear end.

Speed-focused as it was, the Prowling Disaster was still more than capable of surviving the impact of a bunch of low-level spells. Unfortunate. Yet they’d still been chosen precisely because they were good at opening distance, at knocking an enemy away.

For a couple of seconds, the monster was off-balance. Long enough for him to slam an [Animal Bolt] into its back leg, instantly causing the flesh to start rotting and melting away …

Derek had cost the creature maybe ten cubic centimeters of flesh, total, but tearing that out of a major muscle group would theoretically hamstring the monster.

It was moving a little slower, a little less gracefully, but it still shot forward, claws on a direct line for his throat.

He jumped back, grasping the air and hauling himself further.

Once again, the creature shot past, leaping at the last possible second and coming far too close, a swipe laying open his calf.

Hissing in pain and annoyance, Derek hopped to the side as another [Lifesurge] fuelled by his bloodline erased his injury.

And the damn monster was once again moving, not charging at him but circling … still at top speed. Showing absolutely no sign of slowing, let alone stopping.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on why he thought so, but he was utterly convinced it was trying to figure out a good place to leap at him from.

Another [Anima Bolt] flashed forth, missing by mere inches as the creature twisted aside with contemptuous ease, not even bothering to appear smug as it “sauntered” forth. So he threw another one, which was likewise evaded.

He tried to link the next one with a twist in gravity, trying to send his opponent stumbling off balance just as the attack would land … nope, that didn’t work either.

Even injured, at this range, seemingly the creature could dodge his attacks. And his mana was falling precipitously.

There came a point where keeping that ace up your sleeve was no longer worth it … and this seemed to be it.

[Cosmic Event: Pulsar Sweep].

It was not clever, it was not creative, it was not complex.

In a word, it was a straightforward conversion of mana to damage, creating a hammer of radiation to beat his opponent over the head with. And with [Cosmic Event] at Level 7, that was seven thousand mana’s worth of hard radiation, an attack of near-guaranteed lethality even upon being spread out so widely that even this monster couldn’t get out of the targeted area in time.

The monster managed a single step, hair already burned off entirely, flesh beginning to slough off in ways Derek wished he hadn’t seen … and then it keeled over.

But no kill notification.

Derek stared at it for a long moment. There was no real excuse for his inaction, no plans being made, furious calculations whirring around his mind; he simply could not believe what he was seeing.

How the fuck was it still … nope, there was that “ding.” The fact that it had taken as long to arrive was nevertheless disturbing, but in the end, the [Skill] had worked.

Alright, now I just need a thousand more applications to cover every possible application.

The battle for Sol had inspired him to create a third version, named “The Big Crunch,” but sadly, that one was the very definition of situational.

And that was when he remembered that his latest Aspect had given him a ranged attack that was literally light speed.

Urgh.

That was the problem with having as big a toolbox as he did. In the heat of combat, there was rarely enough time to search for the perfect tool, so he wound up just grabbing whatever lay close to hand.

It hadn’t truly bitten him in the ass yet, but that little “yet” was doing an outrageous amount of the heavy lifting there.

So, just to recap, the damn thing is too fast for most spells at range, and too agile for me to try anything at closer range. Plus, it can apparently walk over shockwaves, based on how it ignored [Spatial Detonation].

Damnit.

That’s going to be an issue …

Use [Aspect Integration] to magic myself up some wings, then start carpet-bombing the whole area?

… Tried that, ran out of mana.

[Aspect Integration] to get dragon breath, use that? Maybe.

Or …

Derek found himself cursing softly. The right, the correct, the smart choice here would be to find something else to beat up for XP. The Prowling Disaster was too hard a counter for his abilities, and he wasn’t here to train himself.

But. But. But the fucker was still within his capability to beat, however barely. And he was just not in a position to let that go. He could, but was not able to.

“For someone who considers his mind to be his greatest asset, you sure are a dumbass, aren’t you?” he muttered. “One more try; this’ll either work or the [System] will tell me I’ve done it with the preparations and steal my XP.”

He spent the next half hour enchanting the ground around the summoning circle with [Spatial Detonations], with the trigger point set as a monster actually manifesting, making sure to leave enough space to make sure the creature wouldn’t take any actual damage.

Because that would render all this pointless.

No, all he needed was to reduce the ground to gravel and throw up some dust.

Derek quickly finished up his preparations, recharged his emergency spells, and completed the summoning, yet kept it inactive until his mana had returned, then triggered the summoning circle.

And the world vanished in a crescendo of thunder and plumes of dust before he could get even a glimpse at the latest avoidable issue in his life.

He still couldn’t touch the creature with his [Aura], but tracking the void it left behind was simplicity itself as he opened his mouth, transformed his throat into that of a Void Dragon, and breathed.

A plume of violet flame erupted forth, entropy, spatial tears, and just a hint of pure fire blasting through the cloud of dust, its ignition barely even a noticeable event amidst the utter chaos he’d just unleashed until, several seconds later, he and the monster were left staring at each other across a fire-blasted, partially molten landscape.

Derek whipped out Voidheart, mashing the trigger the very instant he’d drawn a bead on the monster, a ray of energy erupting from the revolver’s muzzle even as he drew upon [Phantom Limb] to manifest half a dozen eldritch tentacle arms around him … and then he began to fire [Anima Bolts] from each of those.

In theory, the monster would have dodged the revolver shot by leaping into the air to avoid the searing-hot ground, then been nailed by at least some of the energy bolts he was throwing its way.

In practice … the cat hadn’t cared one iota about the temperature of the surrounding ground, and seemingly not realized that molten stone wasn’t just hot; it was also liquid. And absolutely no amount of feline grace could have prevented it from utterly wiping out the instant its feet touched the ground.

Airborne or groundbound, either way, the plan had “worked,” and the monster was peppered with attacks until the mana ran out, though as bad as the creature looked, the ground around it was looking worse …

Yeah, I need to work on my aim. [Phantom Limb] is great for casting more spells, but apparently, I’m still shit at landing those shots.

Derek raised Voidheart to his eyes, carefully lining up his shot, and pulled the trigger twice, the weapon barely twitching as the spells left its barrel.

Shoot. It shouldn’t have moved at all, considering the spells had no recoil. Apparently, he’d pulled the trigger too hard.

That moment of inaction might have cost him under other circumstances, but the monster had already been torn apart by the direct impact of both spells. After all, each chamber of his revolver contained an attack powered by the entirety of his mana pool, the equivalent of more than half the pool [Cosmic Event] drew from.

All in all, that had gone well. Self-created spells, mass-firing of attacks, enchantments … all of that had combined to make this particular fight quite easy, even if he was highly unlikely to be able to pull it off on the fly.

But all in all, things were really coming together with his build.

Apparently, he’d also managed to get one of his [Skills] to a threshold.

Shapeshifter’s Acrobatics (legendary, Level 10)

Muscle memory translates easily between forms.

…

This Skill will now also help work around spatial distortion.

Perfect.

And now, hopefully, the third time would be the charm. Perhaps he might even get the chance to cast one particular spell to try it out in combat for the first time …

Once again, the summoning was conducted, and Derek waited until he was done regenerating his mana. Then he legged it, creating space between him and the summoning circle until sheer distance triggered it automatically, a flashing warning message appearing before his eyes informing him of that fact a couple of seconds before the creature’s roar struck his back.

He stumbled to a stop, tumbling several steps further than he’d intended in order to fully catch himself before spinning to face the creature, which had already crossed nearly half the intervening distance.

That was when Derek cast his latest spatial spell.

[Spatial Cavitation] was an attack spell based on spatial magic that had existed for decades, but had not been classified as such. Because for your average magic user, by the time they were capable of casting it quickly enough to have the intended effect, they’d also be tough enough that it wouldn’t really do much of anything.

For him, however, with a [Skill] that supercharged his spatial magic to a degree that beggared belief … it was still something of a toy compared to [Spatial Detonation], a firecracker next to a stick of dynamite, but it was a disruptive toy.

And it really was quite simple, an effect that could be created even through technique alone, though that would be even harder, and beyond his present capabilities.

Warp space in an atmosphere or underwater, expanding a bubble so quickly that the surrounding medium did not have the time to fill it gradually, creating an incredibly short-lived vacuum that would promptly collapse in a single moment as it was filled in a far more sudden and forceful way.

The resultant thunderclap made Derek stumble a little, and he sincerely regretted not transforming his ears into a less sensitive form when he did that, but the monster had been far closer to the atmospheric implosion and stumbled.

Unfortunately, it was still the same damn cat; it’d never stay staggered for long, perhaps not even long enough for [Anima Bolt] to cross the intervening distance with how far he’d run …

The atmosphere boiled as [Heavy Laser Pulse] flashed from his palm, smashing into the monster’s face so quickly that the activation and impact seemed to have happened simultaneously.

What was left behind was an utter ruin, one eye burned from its socket, the other milky-white where it wasn’t charred, thoroughly blinded, fur either scorched away into nothing or still actively on fire … and beneath all that, the cat was very much alive, a fact that was proven doubly by the roar of pain that made Derek stagger even at his current distance … and then the creature’s head snapped over to his location, ruined eyeball and empty eye socket glaring at him.

Fucker heard me, he realized.

So he jumped, the creature leaping straight for his throat a mere instant before he’d moved, its claws missing his feet by inches …

Voidheart all but leaped into his hand the instant he grasped into the empty space beneath his jacket, the revolver forged from impossibility itself answering his call with an eagerness that bordered on the frightening as he drew a bead on the creature down below.

And then he pulled the trigger.

What roared out of the revolver’s barrel only barely resembled the simple [Flame Lance] he’d loaded it with.

A twisting ray of aquamarine fire burst forth and slashed across the Disaster’s side, flesh charring, and something else happening as unnatural sparks seemed to dig through the monster’s flesh, its howls of agony carrying a pain so horrific that Derek could feel it echo in his own flesh.

Even for a monster, that had been a few steps too far, but there was nothing to do about that now.

He pulled the trigger again. This chamber had held [Frost Prism]. A movement-restricting spell straight out of the dictionary … originally.

Instead, the cat was shorn in twain, a good third of the creature being left behind, suspended in midair, frozen in space and/or time, while the rest of the cat continued onwards, trailing innards.

Derek started to laugh, then did his best to choke off the sound as the creature’s head snapped back up to him, jaws already opening. Crud.

Triggering [Aspect Integration], he shifted himself into a new form that looked exactly like his old one, but with the resonant frequency of every piece of his body changed, leaving the blast of sound to “merely” hit him with the force of a slow-moving car. Uncomfortable, but nowhere near as debilitating as having it vibrate with his ribcage and organs had been.

He reversed the change a moment later, and fired once more.

The [Magic Missile] in this chamber burst forth looking more or less normal, cleanly striking the monster’s head. It dropped, and the [System] dinged to confirm the kill.

Derek stared down at the gun in his hand with new eyes. Yeah, this was one hell of a weapon, but he probably needed to define its parameters even more precisely. At least in terms of direction.

The effects of the spell might change by the gun’s effects, but as long as he was able to predict where said effects would go, and inform any allies on the battlefield of that, things would be fine … and what [Frost Prism] had turned into could have certainly ended badly if he hadn’t been as clear of the area as he had been.

It really had been cool, though. And pushed him over the threshold for Level 74, netting him twenty Stat points to throw into Magic Regeneration and his fifth [Skill] point.

He looked over the [Skill] list for [Cosmic Magus] once again.

Cosmic Magus

Central Skills

Cosmic Awareness (obtained)

Cosmic Event (obtained)

Skills

Gravitic Domain

Stellar Body

Starforge

Ineffable Touch

Unreality

Grimoire of the Cosmos

Dance Across the Universe

Hardened Mind

Big Bang

Aeon Soul

Spatial Tear

Universal Stride

…

All of them were good.

But some he could somewhat approximate through spells, [Aspect Integration], or [Skill Fusion], which thankfully cut down the overall number a little.

And in the end, there were two he wanted most immediately.

[Dance Across the Universe] boosted inter-system travel, which was incredibly simple but invaluable, especially considering what they’d no doubt soon be ordered to do.

But it wouldn’t help them fight. That was what [Universal Stride] was for, a true-blue warp-[Skill]. [Flash Forward] was great for tactical mobility, truly, but it was only really good for getting out of an enemy’s energy weapon range or, in the case of humanity’s current bogeyman, past macron clouds.

Skipping across entire light-minutes when stuck in a star’s zone of interference wasn’t exactly not a tactical-scale ability, but it was certainly a more macro effect than both his [Flash Forward] and Atticus’ [Void Shift].

He really wanted that kind of capability.

But. But. Even with their present limits, escaping weapons range or entering energy range without having to run a gauntlet was what they really needed, and they had that. In the grand scheme of things, larger warps were “just” another kind of timesaver. A tactical-scale timesaver, not the same as [Dance Across the Universe], still kinda sorta similar if you squinted …

Damn. He’d made his choice, hadn’t he?

Dance Across the Universe (legendary)

Irrespective of how fast you can go, it’s never fast enough. There’ll always be something you arrive later for, something all human history proves. And most of that happened while humanity was confined to the surface of a single planet. They’re still figuring out how bad this’ll get in the infinite expanse of the universe …

No, this Skill will not fix the problem. That would take a god, and even then, there is a wide gulf between “a god can do it” and “a god is willing to put in the effort to make that happen.”

This Skill will, however, do a respectable job of mitigating the issue.

Dance Across the Universe will help with all travels (not available for combat use) larger than a single star system in scale, granting supernatural acceleration to any method for traveling at a constant speed, and increasing the acceleration when it is already present.

Scuttlebut claimed that Isaac also had something like that, and that it had eventually evolved to grant him his portals. But Derek had gotten it on its own merits.

Assuming he’d read that right, it let him reach [Alcubierre Bubble’s] top speed more quickly, then start accelerating on top of that, once his travel’s velocity became “constant.”

There were others like it, Derek knew that for certain … because those [Skills] were legendary in ways that went beyond [System] classification.

Anywho, now that that was done, it was time to hop back aboard his ship and wait to get told when and where to head to get briefed beyond “somewhere near Mercury, some time next week.”

Or maybe go patrol the belt, stress-test the repairs, and maybe help

***

The “solution” to the asteroid belt that had held much of Sol’s off-planet industry had been pretty simple in theory, but was looking to be a titanic issue in execution.

Take one of Venus’ catapults, move it into the Belt, absolutely cover it in defenses, and then use it to launch ore freighters into the inner system, in a trailing orbit behind the transformed hellhole that was the second planet from the Sun, where a new industry was being built.

It was cumbersome, messy, inefficient … and about as immune to the kind of strike that had wrecked the original industry as it could possibly be.

Speaking of “wreck,” the only thing which could have made what they were currently doing any more depressing was if the bodies hadn’t already been taken away for burial. The fact that there were enough people with the [Skills] to mass-collect human corpses to do that was more than a little horrifying if one thought about why that was. Yet it had been, not a “boon,” per se, but certainly an improvement over the situation as it could have been.

The wreckage of a century of civilian construction tended to do that.

And yet, even with all the damage, all the death, all the destruction … there were people still there. A lot of people. Mostly salvage crews under the watch of navy ships, but people nevertheless.

There might not be enough ships left in the solar system to put cover every potential avenue of attack with capital ships; Mercury’s artillery cruisers had both survived the battle to a one and proven to be able to make even Cessid battleships flinch. And, assuming the civilian ships being escorted were ready for it, that flinch might be long enough to get away.

Unless the Cessid vessel engaged its dampening field, trapping the civilians … and leaving itself unable to escape a salvo of missiles none of the ships who’d attacked Sol had been able to block.

Yet, terrifyingly enough, considering the enemy they were facing, coannihilation might be a winning strategy … and then Derek caught sight of something new on the scanners. It had been there the entire time, but not exactly highlighted in any way against the hive of activity that surrounded them as people were either gathering their things to leg it, or, for some inexplicable reason, moving in.

“What the hell is that going to be when it’s finished?” Derek exclaimed, all but transfixed on the thing being formed from asteroid, barely two light minutes from the Dragonfly’s starboard bow. Someone was hollowing it out, melting and reshaping the surface, and overall seemingly turning it into something roughly resembling the superstructure of a battleship … but it was far too large for that, and the materials used were just what the asteroid was made of, too weak for modern warships.

“In-system monitor,” Mimi replied, not even bothering to glance up from her tablet. “No FTL capability because the enchantment to expand the [Alcubierre Bubble] would be a pain, but by the end, it’ll have a battleship’s firepower and durability at a tenth of the cost and construction time.”

“And twenty times the size,” Derek noted. Monitors weren’t ever going to be able to replace battleships, but they were also one hell of a stopgap measure. “I …”

The comms console dinged in concert with his phone, announcing that they were expected on a specific orbital station around Mercury for briefings, an hour from now. Aka way too soon for them to arrive unless they charged towards the inner system like a bat out of hell and used one of Mars’ catapults as a shortcut. Seriously, how hard would it have been to send that message early enough that people wouldn’t have to flat-out sprint to make it?

***

The man standing next to the briefing room’s screen was about as nondescript as a human being could possibly be. In fact, Derek got the distinct feeling that he wouldn’t be able to so much as remember whether his hair was brown or blonde if he wasn’t looking at him.

As for the room itself, it was effectively a small-scale lecture hall, a semi-circle of tiered seating, all built in the “standard” military style, blank metal and bare basics, with chairs for a hundred or so people, all of them occupied by people in similar garb to Derek. Suitable for wearing on a spaceship, with pockets for essential tools, emergency beacons, nothing liable to snag on equipment, neither inside nor outside the ship.

“I’m Mr. Voyager.” The man began, without even so much as a “good afternoon.”

“I’m from Navy intelligence, but that is all you need to know. And what we are discussing here is [Classified].”

Great, we got a drama queen. Derek rolled his eyes internally. Probabyl too capable to fire or discipline.

The classification was necessary, as far as he could tell based on what he’d already learned, and depending on “Mr. Voyager’s” actual position, so was the obfuscation … but would it have killed the man to simply come up with a complete fake identity? Or at least a fake rank?

But no, he had to make it clear he was “Mr. Super Mysterious Bigshot.”

“This is a Cessid. They’re the ones who attacked us,” Voyager announced, tapping the screen, which showed a distinctly alien creature.

Oh, sure, it was roughly humanoid: two arms, two legs, hands that, while having a three-fingered arrangement resembling the claws in arcade games, certainly looked more than capable of tool manipulation, but they were certainly disturbing.

Alabaster skin, teeth that resembled those of a shark, eyes that glittered like opals, black scales tracing down the backs of each limb and the spine from the base of the creature’s skull, claws that apparently looked like they’d been dipped in blood as a matter of course … had someone designed these things to horrify humans?

But Voyager was still talking.

“They are also, for all practical intents and purposes, extinct.”

The intelligence officer paused, letting the shocked mutters fill the void that was left behind.

“What we are fighting is the individual who murdered them all and unlocked the single strongest hivemind [Class] to ever exist in the aftermath. The current version of the species is heavily modified, making them significantly more dangerous than their stats would indicate.

“For reasons unknown, that individual has decided to wage war against humanity, using technology to functionally negate the comparative weakness of each individual body.

“We have reason to believe that the minimum sustainable threshold for this hive lies at around seventy percent at the lowest, ninety-five percent at the highest, and the hive will most likely be spread out across a sufficient number of planets to prevent the loss of a single one from killing the whole. However, the kind of modern industry required to build the battleships we know the hive to wield cannot be similarly dispersed. That is going to be our target, what you are going to be looking for.”

Which made it sound like the enemy would be ramming a similar mass of warships into Sol’s defenses, in whatever interval it took to replace them. Or, if the enemy had built up a sufficient stockpile, the interval of recreating the bodies lost in the attack.

But if they were looking at a hivemind, and they had bodies of the creator, wouldn’t that make scrying the location of the rest a piece of cake?

The viewscreen switched at that point, displaying the starmap of an area Derek failed to immediately recognize, though part of that might be down to a massive splotch of orange in its center that he sincerely hoped wasn’t the result of something the enemy had done.

An effectively infinite number of warm bodies to throw into the teeth of humanity’s defenses was enough of an issue. The ability to manipulate stars would be a titanic issue.

“Unfortunately, the enemy is aware of the existence of scrying spells and has managed to blanket an entire area of space with an enchantment designed to block most magical means of tracking and remote viewing. The exact nature of the effect is presently unknown, but it is clearly some manner of cloak supported by highly distributed infrastructure. An area that cannot be scried is readily apparent now that we are looking for it, but that does not grant us knowledge of what it looks like on the inside.

“That is where you come in. Your task will be to scout the cloaked zone, identify targets, be they concentrations of industry or resource deposits, and call in the navy to burn said targets to the ground.

“However, you are not to engage directly. Not without explicit orders or direct approval from your navy supervisor, outside of self-defense.”

That was reasonable, but also a bit depressing, Derek had to admit. He’d been looking forward to blowing up some asshole aliens. However, there was one big issue that had been growing larger and larger in his mind …

“Do we know for certain they’re actually hiding in that area? That that’s not an empty shell of a red herring?” he called out into the silence that followed.

He wasn’t conceited enough to believe he was the only one capable of thinking of that possibility … but enough ridiculous bullshit had happened over the course of human history that there was a non-zero chance whoever else had thought of it had not mentioned it to anyone else.

And an area five hundred light-years across held something like two hundred thousand stars. Those would be a pain to search even if there were enemies to be found within. If there weren’t, there really wouldn’t be any way to know until they were almost done.

In a moment of honesty quite out of character for his profession of choice, the spook shook his head.

“No.” A severely unprofessional grin spread across the intel officer’s face. “But we do know that somewhere in there is the infrastructure required to create the effect, just waiting for you fine sailors of the stellar seas to scan, to plunder, to destroy.

“Now, let no one say that the Navy sent you off unprepared; Admiral Park’s people have prepared some toys for you …”

On one hand, more tools in their arsenal were always great, as long as said tools were of sufficient quality.

On the other hand … yet another retrofit. Yay.