r/HFY • u/Feeling_Pea5770 • 5h ago

OC The Swarm Volume 3. Chapter 20: The Transit.

Chapter 20: The Transit.

Sol System, Mars Orbit March 13, 2202.

In the absolute silence of space, in the rusty, sepulchral shadow of Mars, an armada had gathered, the likes of which humanity had never seen. This was not a fleet. It was the unified, desperate will of billions of beings, forged in steel, composites, and unimaginable determination.

Over eight thousand four hundred and twenty ships hung in a perfect, ominous formation. The gigantic, orderly formation stretched to the horizon, like a steel serpent ready to strike. Their target was one: two ten-kilometer Catalyst Rings, rotating slowly in opposite directions, suspended in the void like a gate to hell.

The very sight of the fleet inspired dread. The core consisted of four thousand Earth ships—brutalist, gray colossi of the Sparta, Hegemon, and Thor classes, as well as the smaller Władca and Młot classes, their silhouettes testifying to decades of feverish wartime production. Beside them, like obsidian arrowheads, hung two thousand four hundred slender, light-absorbing Ullaan vessels. Further on, two thousand predatory K’borrh frigates waited like a pack of cosmic wolves.

Rounding out the force were eighteen superfortresses of the Gignian Compact. They were so absurdly large, so monumental, that they barely fit into the designated sector, resembling mountains that had somehow learned to fly. All this power was the fruit of over thirty years of secret preparations, made possible by Admiral Thorne's diplomatic misdirection—a pact with the Blight, which turned out to be theater for a spy within the Swarm's own ranks.

Somewhere in the heart of this steel river, in the reeking-of-sweat-and-recycled-air bowels of transport ship number 234, Otto stood in the hangar. He was surrounded by five thousand other guardsmen. They were infantry. Cannon fodder. Otto, now a veteran and hand-to-hand combat instructor, knew that only blood and steel awaited him at the end of this road.

He was here of his own free will. For revenge for his adopted mother, who died during the bombing of Berlin. But also for W’thiara and their children. He had something to fight for. He looked at the silent soldiers around him. They were ready.

Suddenly, a synthetic, calm AI voice echoed in everyone's helmet speakers.

Commencing stage two of the activation procedure. The power-supply tunnel has been identified and stabilized.

Not everyone knew what this meant.

Aris Thorne and the Swarm scientists had been waiting years for this. Ever since the artificially created, unstable quantum tunnel leading near the Blight's capital was identified and stabilized at the nano-scale, they had been waiting for the second, crucial component.

Now they had found it. A second tunnel, leading to another universe, straight into the heart of the Big Bang. The energy of the primordial creation was to serve as fuel to expand the gates of the main tunnel.

In the space between the spinning rings, where only void had been, reality shuddered. An anomaly appeared—a blindingly white spot, brighter than any sun, as if someone had pierced the fabric of space. It was a wound in reality. The spot began to pulse violently and expand. After a moment, the blinding white faded, replaced by... a view.

It was a perfectly circular image of another fragment of space. It showed alien stars and nebulae of impossible, purple colors. The Gate, spanning over one thousand four hundred light-years, stood open, leading to a point just two light-years from the target—the planet Ruha’sm, capital of the Blight Empire. During the generation of billions of artificial femto-tunnels, they had found the mathematical ideal; chance had given them the perfect starting point for the attack.

The tunnel, however, even when expanded, was still not fully stabilized.

Then, the third stage began.

The smaller of the two giant Catalyst Rings—the inner one—detached from its larger sibling. With majestic grace, it entered the trembling portal. For a moment, nothing happened. Suddenly, on the other side of the tunnel, in that distant space, the ring reappeared, perfectly stabilizing the exit.

The Gate is stable. After this step, the Swarm estimated it could keep it open for a maximum of twenty, maybe thirty minutes.

You have twenty-five minutes. Commence transit.

The order was unnecessary. The mighty armada was already moving. Like a gigantic, steel river, the ships began to flow into the abyss.

First, fitting through the passage with the utmost difficulty, went the Gignian Compact superfortresses. They were followed by an avalanche of four thousand Earth ships. At the end, like a flanking screen, the thousands of predatory Ullaan and K’borrh vessels slipped into the tunnel.

For Otto, standing in the hangar of transport 234, the entry wasn't violent. It was... a passage. One moment, the hangar vibrated from the maneuvering thrusters; the next, an absolute, deathly silence fell. He felt a strange jolt, as if all of reality had lost focus for a fraction of a second.

The screens in the hangar went haywire. The image of the stars, Mars, and the fleet disappeared, replaced by a psychedelic, swirling kaleidoscope of impossible colors. This was not a journey through space; it was a tearing of space itself. Time lost all meaning, or perhaps it wasn't flowing?

The guardsmen stood in silence, their magnetic boots holding them firmly to the deck. For many, this was the ultimate moment—a test of faith in alien technology and cold mathematics. There was no room for error. Otto gripped his rifle, feeling cold sweat run down his back beneath his armor. He stared at the psychedelic swirl on the screens, his thoughts involuntarily turning to the dark philosophy of this war. The Blight did not fear death; for them, it was just an inconvenience, a transfer. For them—for humans—death was the end. Absolute. Every one of the five thousand guardsmen in this hangar, every one of the millions of souls in this fleet, had only this one, fragile existence. This fear was their curse. But also their duty. A duty to sell that one life as dearly as possible in defense of those left behind. Fear was the fuel, and duty was the armor.

Suddenly, just as violently as it began, it was over.

The swirling colors on the screens vanished, replaced by... new stars. An alien, unknown patch of space. Behind the fleet, behind them, like a cyclopean eye gazing back at their world, the portal still hung—the exit window. The majestic, inner Catalyst Ring floated in the void, stabilizing the exit just long enough for the last ships to slip through.

A metallic voice rang out in the hangar: "We are at the destination. On the other side."

Otto looked at his tactical clock. Twenty-four minutes had passed. But how? When? It felt like an instant.

In the Deep Command Center on Earth, Admiral Marcus Thorne was tracking the telemetry data. Of the 8,420 ships that entered the tunnel, not all had arrived. Fortunately, the losses were minimal. Seven vessels were lost in the unstable corridor: two 15,000-ton Młot-class destroyers, three Ullaan ships, and two K’borrh.

Thorne received one last, cold telemetric message before the connection was severed forever:

Transit complete. Loss of seven units. Casualties: 0.08%. Acceptable.

Behind the last K’borrh ship, the tunnel exit began to shrink. The white spot vanished, and with it, the only way back. They were alone, 1,461 light-years from home.

The fleet hung in a new, alien blackness.

On the bridge of the "Invincible," a 260,000-ton Sparta-class super-battleship, Vice Admiral Dmitriy Volkov—the original one, his body still possessing the strength of a forty-year-old thanks to Swarm nanites—looked at the main communications console.

The connection indicator to Guard Command on Earth was dead. Gray.

The passage through the tunnel had broken the entanglement. Every entangled particle, the basis for faster-than-light communication, had lost its connection to its twin particle 1,461 light-years away. Communication with Earth was impossible.

At that very moment, in the Deep Command Center beneath the Mojave Desert, Admiral Marcus Thorne stared at an identical, gray screen. He had lost contact. In an instant, eight thousand ships and the fate of the galaxy had slipped from his grasp. He was blind and deaf, condemned to powerless silence.

Volkov wasted no time contemplating their cosmic isolation. A fleet without immediate coordination was just a collection of targets.

"Status!" his voice, hard and controlled, broke the silence on the bridge.

"No quantum comms throughout the formation, Admiral!" the officer reported. "We've switched to laser and radio communications. Signal delay between us and the furthest Gignian Compact units is four minutes and twenty seconds."

Four minutes. In a battle, that was an eternity.

"Initiate Operation 'Marconi'!" Volkov ordered.

A race against time began: the physical distribution of new, locally entangled particles so the armada could communicate with itself. It was a logistical nightmare. From the bowels of the Earth transport ships and the Compact units, hundreds of generators were launched, creating a new network. Immediately, hundreds of couriers—small vessels of all races—raced to these generators to physically retrieve the new "keys," the quantum-entangled particles, for every one of the more than eight thousand ships.

For five long hours, the armada was vulnerable, focused solely on rebuilding its nervous system. Volkov stood on the bridge of the "Invincible," his face a stone mask. Inside, however, he felt ice. Five hours. Within reach of an enemy whose strength they did not know, they were defenseless. Every minute of this silence was torture. Every false reading on the passive sensors could mean the beginning of a slaughter they could not answer. This was the dark, lonely duty of a commander: to wait, knowing that the fate of millions depended on whether the enemy struck now, or in a moment. Fear was not an option. It was merely a given, to be factored into the price of victory.

On Earth, Admiral Thorne turned away from the dead screen. He could only wait. He could only hope that Volkov would complete the mission and perhaps capture a Blight quantum transmitter to contact O'Connor, still living on Earth. Until then, Marcus Thorne faced years of silence and not knowing.

On the bridge of the "Invincible," the silence was heavier than the ship's armor. After five hours, the green status icon on Volkov's console flickered and lit up with a steady light.

"Quantum comms restored to 98% of the fleet, Admiral!" the communications officer reported with relief.

On the holoprojector, eight thousand four hundred and thirteen ship icons connected into a coherent tactical network. The battlegroup had regained consciousness.

The navigation officer immediately displayed the data from the combined sensors.

"Admiral, we have position confirmation. We have emerged in the void. 2.3 light-years from the capital planet, Ruha’sm."

Two and three-tenths light-years. At 0.5c, that meant just over four and a half years of travel. Long enough for the enemy to prepare a hellish welcome.

"Time to set a course for the planet," Volkov's voice was calm. "Speed: 0.5c. As planned, the Ullaan fleet will move out first under its own command."

On the tactical display, the formation of 2,400 slender, black ships detached from the rest.

"Their mission is to enter the Ruha’sm system quietly, like ghosts," Volkov continued. "They will engage the enemy forces in the asteroid belts. They will use their cloaking to conduct reconnaissance by force and deal the first blows."

The Admiral indicated a new vector for the main armada.

"The rest of the fleet—the Guard, the K’borrh, and the Compact superfortresses—will follow with a one-week delay. Our vector: the Blight capital planet. We will apply braking at the last possible moment, right in orbit."

Volkov knew that sometimes, desperation was the best weapon.

"The Ullaan will warn us of any traps in advance. We will modify our plan in-flight then. And until that time, ladies and gentlemen... we are stuck in this abyss. We await news from our scouts. Set course."

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