306 Convergence 3

"Roger!"

Although it was hard to miss the skywards pointing planetary defence railgun they were nearing, Lux still made it clear to Lia that those were what they were after, and that she shouldn't accidentally damage it. With the area clearing of large buildings, Mare also returned to street level and the 3 Hellwalkers were quickly able to clear the area with the help of the supporting Hornet's.

"So what do you even plan on doing with that gun?"

"This."

Turning to the railgun, Lux placed a hand on its fire control system at its base as blackmatter nanomachines started pouring out from her hand.

"IMI master, initiate domination."

[IMI MASTER, DOMINATION ACTIVE… TAKEOVER SUCCESSFUL, UNIT SLAVED. FIRE CONTROL SYSTEM TAKEOVER COMPLETE, AWAITING TASKING.]

Using IMI and a heavy dose of blackmatter which quickly reprogrammed the railgun turret, Lux bloomed a full on shit eating grin as she raised a finger into the air, then slowly lowered it down until it pointed at the mysterious wormhole in the distance which was still pouring out Emergence forces, with the railgun following her movements.

"Ain't this kind of weapon made to shoot targets in high orbit?"

Seeing what Lux was planning on doing, Lia started getting nervous. Sure, the cloud rippers were railguns, but with their truly massive capacitors and 60 metre long barrels, using them to shoot at a target which was practically at point blank range was inadvisable, bordering on straight up insane, and that was not even considering their ammunition which contained antimatter charges.

"They are yeah, but these kinds of rules are meant to be broken~ IMI, target."

[TARGET ACQUIRED.]

"Use zero point delay armour piercing antimatter ballistic capped ammunition, set the fuse to minimal separation... Fire at will."

[FIRING.]

"Again, saturation fire."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, DEPLETING STORED MONITION, NOW FIRING.]

No sooner than the cloud ripper had reloaded and recharged its capacitors did Lux give a new order to fire, and continue firing until the gun had used all its stored ammunition.

While Lux had absolutely decimated the majority of the Emergence forces on the other side of the portal, the core problem still remained, the portal itself still remained, but Mu and Ra had had a few hours to look at it now and that was more than enough time to come up with a countermeasure.

[I've sent the data package over, please confirm it.]

"Yeah, I see it alright, loading it into the strike package right now."

Having left the front lines after depleting the cloud ripper's ammunition, Lux was currently reconfiguring a next generation fusion torpedo according to Mu's directions. The torpedo's fusion warhead had been removed, and in its stead was an entirely new kind of payload, a miniaturized gravity generator.

[Okay, the numbers I'm seeing on this side are also looking good, that should do it.]

"Affirmative, am I in the clear?"

[You're good, send it.]

"Order confirmed, handing over controls to IMI, IMI is cleared hot."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, DEPLOYING STRIKE PACKAGE.]

Sitting on a maintenance work table, the fusion torpedo easily launched using its powerful attitude control system quickly flew towards its designated target, its internal guidance system and sensor package running complex calculations as the gravity generator in the centre of the torpedo came alive.

[IMI REPORTS: TRACKING TARGET 5 BY 5, SCRIPT READY, COMPOUND COMMAND READY.]

Flying over the now mostly destroyed city, the lone torpedo quickly attracted the attention of the city's survivors, this wasn't a defensive operation, but a strike back against the Emergence who had intentionally attacked the civilian population. 

[SPLASH: 2 SECONDS, ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE. SINGULARITY IDENTIFIED, COMMENCING COMPOUND COMMAND, GENERATING GRAVITATIONAL COUNTERPULSE: PULSING.]

As the torpedo reached its target and 'detonated', cheers erupted from the ruins of Cyprex all while space violently distorted around the gravitational anomaly which forced the portal it had created to close.

After the portal closed and the local spacetime in that area once more normalized, some kind of large sphere fell from the sky where the portal had been.

-

The blitz attack on Cyprex prime sent shock waves throughout the entirety of the Galactic Empire, but it also served to steer public opinion towards the utter and complete annihilation of the Emergence. The public explanation for the Emergence's ability to suddenly strike so deep inside the Galactic Empire was blamed on a Lazarus prototype faster than light system which had been secretly developed in Iron race space and lost doing the war, but the reality was radically different from that narrative. The artefact which had enabled the Emergence to establish a stable gateway across spacetime recovered at the site was another piece of lost technology, the second of such artefacts recovered from the Emergence in a matter of weeks. 

It was clear that something, or someone, was supplying the Emergence with lost technology, for reasons unknown.

Then there was the issue of the creature which had been guarding the Emergence drones analysing the newly installed mana generator and interface onboard the battleship Integrity after the remains were shipped to Lazarus an autopsy revealed the creature to be of extra dimensional origin.

All these strange events surrounding the Emergence were left without any logical answers for almost a month, it was clear that the lost technology and strange creatures discovered had appeared sometime between current day and the advent of the Iron race containment war, there's simply no way such things wouldn't have been discovered if that wasn't the case. But if these artefacts and creatures had suddenly appeared after that particular area of space had fallen to the Emergence and the creature autopsied was of extra dimensional origin, then there only was one logical explanation as to why: Major cross dimensional travel had, or was currently taking place inside Emergence space, again, for unknown reasons.

The following months after the attack on Cyprex prime, detections of extreme gravitational waves would come to confirm that, traced back in time over the vast distance those waves had travelled at light speed, an area of space and a time period were identified. 

About two hundred years ago inside a timeframe of a single year, a series of cross dimensional jumps happened just outside the dark systems which had been the capital area of the Iron race, from the intensity of those gravitational waves alone it was clear this wasn't 'just' a series of cross dimensional jumps, it was closer to a dimensional convergence, the merger of two different planes of existence.