Just like last week, we’ve got another part of the ongoing installments of the original Convergence story, part nine to be exact.
My sections are in bold, his are in italic. You know the drill by now, if you’ve read the previous entries in this series. Notes will follow, as usual.
6.4.3. 17:60
We now had the necessary adjustments made to the weapons. Specialty weapons for this particular purpose would be online in a matter of hours. There was no time to lose. We already knew of the structural weakness, but that was not convenient enough a flaw, as we had to get on-site to manage it. But now we had a positive weakness that could penetrate their shields.
We had found a paper detailing a part required for the shields to function. Our own developments had followed a similar path from the earlier shields we had left behind when we left, but they had, again, taken a different route somewhere down the development path. We had toyed with such designs, but passed them off as too unstable to function. They had apparently worked around this problem, where we had taken a different idea and developed them into our current shields.
But in bypassing the instability, they had opened up a new problem. The shields could be prompted back into imminent overload by special firing at strategic points in the dome. Calculating carefully, we could easily cause their domes to collapse, and the shield generators to explode with a highly potent radioactive blast. Also, we had come up with a method that would weaken the shield far more than regular straightforward blasts.
The shields allowed varieties of non-concentrated light to pass through it, such as sunlight. By beginning at a level below the threshold level, then increasing to above it, back and forth, we could use the strobe effect to greatly weaken their shields to the point where our blasts would have regular effect.
As a side note, we could blanket the entire shield area in concentrated light, causing the area to black out, and allow no external light sources to enter, which would have the bonus ability of completely destroying their huge solar generator plants, which provided power to ninety percent of their functions, including many military ones. And of course, if they weren’t shielded, we could just destroy them the good old way.
In less than an hour, Operation Prometheus would begin, stealing their fire, as the legend went, and shutting down their power generators. And soon, we would begin Operation Strobe, and obliterate their shields for good.
-Holdar Supremacy report
6.4.3. 17:62
The shield was being adjusted. The weakness would hopefully be fixed before the Supremacy got to one of our buildings. We had put up another shield that didn’t have the same weakness. They would have to get new weapons. By then, the shields would be fixed. No new weapons would be able to get through this. The sooner the better. I was one of the only people in the field that knew the workings of a shield. We started only 3 minutes ago. We had made some progress. The hard part would be to fix the main flaw. We would have to turn it down to 3% capacity. So we did. When the outer shield was up, we would get the shield done within the hour. The Supremacy would be unable to do anything about it.
-Major Morvagim
6.4.3. 17:64
There was a scurry of activity to every shielded building in the Kassis planet. They carried large crates, presumably with new She’esh components. Obviously they were switching to more conventional shields. That was fine with us. We knew how to take them down too. They must have discovered our access of the database, and realized we might have discovered the weakness.
Oh, well. It was far too late. For them. We were finally pulling in a fairly large percentage of the fleet, about five hundred ships. All of them heavy fire, with newly reprogrammed laser fire. All of them were under heavy escort, which their fighter squadrons could not hope to reduce below working standards without getting their entire fleet demolished. We had already begun the draining of their power generators. Satellite systems were now sending down huge beams of light, and the shields, true to design, were now blotting out all incoming light.
With a war on, their energy reserves could not last more than a few days without rationing, which would put a severe crimp in their operations. The huge lasers were turned down enough to avoid major power drain on our part, but still had plenty of firepower to destroy the panels if the shields ever dropped. Any second now, the fleet would begin its first run, and even if they accomplished nothing more than causing their shields to eat up more power, it was worth it. And we expected to cause far more damage than that. The first strike would begin in approximately one minute. And counting…
A.C. Telyon
6.4.3. 17:65
The Supremacy was starting an attack run. They were fools. They were wrong to think they could drain our shields. They could never hope to drain them. We could switch the power sources every time they were almost out of power, if the shields weren’t done by then. We were almost done with the shields. Any moment now, the signal would hopefully come and they would turn off the outer shield, and see how the main shield holds. A green light came on the communicator.
“That’s the signal. Turn off the outer shield on my command!”
You had to have precise timing to pull this off. The outer shield had to be turned off before the main shield could be turned on. And to prevent the Supremacy from hitting us while the shields were off… that required exact timing.
There appeared to be a certain order that they attacked in. One ship would fire 50 laser bursts, then pull away, while another ship took it’s place. It had to be done when the ships were switching places. Exactly 2 seconds to switch shields. The laser fire stopped.
“Now!”
The outer shield turned off, and the main shield turned on. Just as the next ship started firing. That is talent. That’s why I am such a good pilot. The shield would only hold for days under this pressure, but power sources were replaceable. It was a spectacular sight, the lasers against the shield. If we lived through this war, I would remember that sight.
-Major Morvagim
6.4.3. 17:65
They had switched off their newly exploited shields, only to be replaced with regular shields, just as our pilots were getting in their first trial runs. Oh, well. We had plenty of experience with regular shields. No one can become as proficient as we are at war and not know how to deplete them. They must be very smug right now, I thought. Let’s wipe those grins off their arrogant faces.
I was commanding the Lhornaya, a ship loaded with heavy implements and bombs. Perfect for draining shields. I started sending down the Lattice missiles. These were much larger, much more competent versions of the smaller Nimbi missiles. These weighed well over a ton each. The Lattices used nuclear power, in comparison to most other energy weapons. More unstable, a bit shorter explosion time, but energy that was hard to counter. We also had various compounds to help stabilize, increase, and prolong its force. These would send out the pressuring strands with a light that made the Nimbi look dimmer than a low wattage bulb. In addition, they had Miniature Angelflames, known as Holy Torches, mounted around the body, and when the shield dropped, they would slam into whatever the shield used to be protecting.
I, along with several of my fellow pilots proceeded to drop several Lattices. I looked down, through the transparent floor in the bombing bay, and watched the missile slide away, disappearing from sight miles away, towards the giant shield protecting the weapons production factory that made all their military grade lasers. Then it struck. Flashing across like a reflection in a pond, the vivid green began straining, with the streams of draining energy moving across the shield like lightning, moving slowly, sliding around, then snapping into another randomly determined pattern. The greenish shields glowed brighter, fringing into gold at the contact point. Then two more struck. The shield began to lose opacity, and I could see the fountains of light where the shield’s broadcasters were sending it up. Then the whole thing collapsed in a shower of sparks.
Similar developments were occurring at a few other locations across the globe, and we would soon be taking others down. The Torches suddenly lit up, illuminating the distant landscape with fiery light, only to give way to actual fire as they struck. Buildings were coming down. Our mission was accomplished here. We would move to the next location. Time for the ground crews to mop up. In fact, as we headed to our next target, I could see the immensely powerful Colossus Tanks and Behemoth Land ships moving in, trailing thousands of soldiers behind them, even now beginning to sweep into the enemy occupations.
-Boldaer Qhinil, Captain, H.S. Lhornaya
[Notes] First section: The shield weakness arose from a “conversation” between me and Josh over his so-callled “invincible” shield. I asked if it let light in, and he said, yes, but it blocks out dangerous levels of light. Thus, by beaming down concentrated light towards their solar farms, it will block out their power.Also, I made another reference to Earth culture, in Prometheus. I need to stop doing that, they’re not from earth…
Second section: Blah blah blah we’re invincible blah blah blah for some reason a pilot with the rank of major is one of the only people who knows about our shield technology blah blah blah.
Third section: I told him his people would obviously use some sort of environmentally stable energy source, and aside from wind and solar, he could not think of a single other one, so he was forced to lose his solar plants. I specifically didn’t tell him about thermal energy from the planet core, though, heh heh heh. Energy, baby, it’s the currency and ammo for the war of the future.
Fourth section: “They were fools. They were wrong to think they could drain our shields. They could never hope to drain them. We could switch the power sources every time they were almost out of power.” No you can’t no you can’t no you can’t! My plan is foolproof! “The outer shield turned off, and the main shield turned on. Just as the next ship started firing. That is talent. That’s why I am such a good pilot.” Because you can push buttons on time?
Fifth section: I included a fifth section because I wanted to wrap up this whole stupid “War of the Shields” thing. Anyway, we’re now getting into the full-scale invasion, and things get pretty dumb…
