Chapter 81: Expeditions and Start of Phantom Menace (Part 3)
712 A.R.R, THE SHIPYARDS OF CORELLIA:
The shipyards were more busy than ever. Everyone was quite excited. The Corellians were famous for their wonder lust throughout the galaxy. Alexander had given his Corellians subjects, the responsibility of exploring the deep core and building base camps on the habitable planets. Excitement was palatable in the air. Hundreds of capital ships were being prepared for departure. Each ship was being loaded with all the items needed for the building of base camps and communication towers.
In order to camoflogue this operation, Alexander had the Corellian government buy 500 habitable planets from the P.T.O in bulk. Alexander himself had financed the purchase and also had the chairman of PTO give 5 percent discount on the overall amount. This sparked a competition between various core worlds and mega corporations to buy habitable planets in bulk. The Kuatians alone brought 1,500 habitable planets in bulk. Alexander had in in stroke had managed to gain extra 15,000 habitable planets as a part of his kingdom.
Till now, PTO had sold 30,000 habitable planets and 60,000 inhabitable planets. The whole galaxy was expriencing a massive economy boom right now and even the outer rim had been affected. Alexander had stopped paying attention to the monetary figures when the Intergalactic Banking Clan was completely brought under Alexander's control. All the people working in all the banking institutions of the galaxy were his subjects and all the properties owned by the Banking Clan were conquered by him. Now, Alexander had bases over nearly all the settled planets of the galaxy. Like all the previous contracts, these bulk contracts also stated that the planets would be Alexander's in 50 years. As a result of this mass buying, a great exodus of people left the core worlds; inner and mid rims and also, some people from outer rim also moved to these newly brought planets.
In these two years, Alexander's forces were fully focussed on conquest and had conquered 10,000 planets for his kingdom. Alexander had found that his kingdom's flag along with his forces had to remain on a planet's surface for one month, for that planet to be conquered completely. If the flag is removed after one week, only the crust would be conquered, two weeks for crust and mantle and a whole month for the whole planet. It was also found that the forces had to face relentless assualt of the local life for the first week. Earthquakes and other natural calamities for the second week and; sudden and exteme rise and fall in temperature for the rest of the two weeks along with natural calamities. Thankfully, the camps were made of quantum metal and enchanted fabrics so no extreme difficulty was expreienced during conquest . Most of the native life died till the end of conquest and after the conquest was complete, a rapid healing of the planet occured and all the lost life was restored. This was all pretty beautiful to witness.
Most of the conquered planets didn't have any native life except harmless plants so the conquest was easy till now. A few lives had been lost but the afterlife ensured that they were not lost forever. Alexander had made his criminal subjects the main driving force behind the conquest. Alexander also found that the souls of these people were in different shades of black depending on the crimes committed by them and it took more time for the afterlife to absorb and clean them. So, the good souls are reincarnated first while the bad souls have to wait for few hundred years.
Alexander had conquered these planets so that the population boom in his kingdom, which occurs after every conquest, can be withstood. While, Alexander was busy in conquest of empty planets, the droids released by his scientists had completely mapped out the galaxy. The galaxy had 8.2 million habitable planets which were so scattered that the primitive droids were not able to detect all of them and the Republic never tried to gather more Intel as 3.2 million habitable planets were more than enough.
The Resources Department under Anna ordered full deployment of kingdom's forces to assimilate this planets. The current population of star wars galaxy was estimated to be 8 quintrillion. The experts of the kingdom were sweating buckets at the thought of the massive population boom that would occur when all these beings are brought into the kingdom. All the possible resource planets were marked for conquest as the experts were afraid that the resources of the kingdom would come short and they would not be able to support the new population. It was estimated that it would take 250 years to conquer all the marked planets. Alexander ordered the PTO to step up it's operations and start selling more planets in bulk.
The exploration of deep core was very important as the 58 percent of the resources of the galaxy were concentrated in the deep core. The planets present were all at least 2 times bigger than the size of earth and the most important fact was that the number of planets were decreasing each day as more and more stars got destroyed taking the planets with them. The droids designed by Dr. Anderson had been in production for two years and were exploring the deep core. The droids had performed exceptionally well in the deep core and had helped in exploring all the outer edges of deep core. Around 7,000 habitable planets and 18,000 inhabitable planets with high resource density were found by the HSR droids in their sweep of the outer edges.
The design of a fully powered up HSR inspired the Starship Development Wing of The R&D Department to build starships in shape of various helms. They brought the whole design of HSR from the HSR Development Team at 100 Billion Fortis Credits. The new range of starships being developed were collectively called, ' The Helm Series Megacarriers ' and the only megacarrier they had produced till now was 'THE HERMES' which had shocked the whole kingdom. The carrier looked as a giant version of a fully powered up HSR Droid. The Hermes personified one thing and one thing only, speed. It was capable of moving at a maximum speed of 5 Million light years a day. This was possible because of the three 'Sister Drives' installed on the ship.
As the experiments had shown, there cannot be more than one hyperdrive on a starship, it doesn't matter if the other hyperdrive was connected to the ship or not, the hyperdrive would blast as soon as the ship tries to enter the hyperspace. The scientists had found that each hyperdrive had a unique energy signature and it constantly releases undetectable energy waves which form a shield around the ship, which protects the ship and it's inhabitants from the hyperspace. This energy waves causes any other hyperspace to distablise and explode. The sister drives were an answer to this.
Each sister drive were connected and formed a part of a bigger hyperdrive which drove the Hermes. The drives were enchanted to have the same energy signature so all of them were able to work together. The compartments holding the sister drives were the most guarded parts of the megacarrier. The Hermes was capable of diving itself into 3 parts housing one sister drive each. Actually, THE HERMES was the combined form of three different StarCarriers which all housed a sister drive. The Star Carrier was inspired by the aircraft carrier of earth and were developed to carry kingdom's capital ships from one place to another. As it was not possible to hide the movement of thousands of starships, the scientists of the kingdom developed the Star Carriers to house the Capital Ships for transport.
The Star Carriers were equipped with the best camoflague shields the kingdom had, which enabled the Star Carriers to move undetected to raders and naked eyes in space. Each star carrier was capable of housing 50 Capital Ships but the star carriers forming the part of the Hermes were capable of housing 5,000 capital ships each. Each capital ship was kept inside a isolation shield which completely isolated them from outside. This was done so that the energy signature of the hyperdrive of the carriers don't cause the hyperdrives of capital ships to explode. This was only required at the time of entering and existing the hyperspace.
The Hermes was a giant behemoth of a ship that measured 400 kilometers in height and 75 kilometers in width and 250 kilometers in length. The Megacarrier was made to transport massive amount of troops and ships to war in a speedy and timely manner. The face side of the ship housed the main facilities and weapons of the ship but that doesn't mean that the back and sides of the ship were defenceless.
The back and sides of the ship didn't have anti-matter cannons but they were lined with powerful turboblasters, energy cannons and ion cannons, hidden inside compartments, giving the behemoth a very streamlined body, which was necessary for effective movement and turning. In fact, all the weapons were hidden inside compartments to make the surface of the ship smoother and streamlined. The body was made so streamlined with the help of magic that there was literally no friction if the ship entered the atmosphere. There were powerful anti-matter cannons fitted at the front of the ship, below the 'eyes' of the carrier which when activated looked like little purple openings made for providing air to the warrior wearing the helm. Frankly, it looked quite awesome. The geeks of the kingdom had heart attacks when the megacarrier was first introduced in it's powered up state to the subjects of kingdom.
The eyes of the carrier were in fact massive laser cannons having an diameter of 20 kilometers. The laser fired by the cannon was able to travel 50 million light years before dissipating. The lasers could be fired once an hour and it took 10 minutes of preparation before it could be fired. The scientists had taken note of the way, the various similar superweapons of the galactic empire were destroyed and designed the 'eyelids' which were 15 kilometers thick and made of magically enhanced quantum metal. The cannons were fired as soon as the lids were opened and quickly closed again after firing. The structure of the cannon was such that even if they were destroyed, it would not effect the working of the whole megacarrier.
It took the scientists 5 years to develop the design of Hermes, 200 years to develop the necessary facilities and additional 80 years to produce Hermes. The scientists had not asked Alexander to increase the time frame by so much in his kingdom but had requested
Alexander to copy the method used by the Rakata to build their prison world and star forge. The star forge was upgraded and made to run both on force without the taint of darkside and powerful anti-matter engines. Alexander had copied the process and passed it down to the scientists.
Then, the mad scientists were called in and they used a ritual which demanded the sacrifice of thousands of souls to power itself. The ritual decreased the flow of time in a given area. The ritual was used to slow down the time around a remote star system which required the sacrifice of billions of lives. All the criminals which were given death penalities in the kingdom were put to sleep and used as a means to power the ritual. Around 250 Million beings were sacrificed to build the prison world and the star forge. After that, the ritual was used once again to surround the prison world and star forge, again, 250 Million beings were sacrificed. After all this, another 60 Million death row criminals were utilised in another ritual that was used to construct 6,000 fully equipped and armed capital ships for the Megacarrier. All of this had left a bag taste in Alexander's mouth but he didn't falter. Alexander knew that the galaxy was filled with trillions of beings which deserved deaths so he planned to use them to build more facilities like the one used to bulid the Hermes.
713 A.R.R, THE EXPLORER'S CONTROL ROOM:
The Explorer was the command center of the Corellian capital ships which had left 6 months ago to lead an expedition to the deep core. In order to fool the galaxy, they were going to take a long route before entering the deep core. There was a meeting taking place in the control room.
Iss'ek, the commander of the Corellian expediition fleet, asked in confusion to the woman in front of him, " What do you mean, Imperial Officer Aleena? These are not the coordinates for entering the deep core. This region of galaxy is not visited by anyone and is filled with gas giants which makes the hyperspace travel very difficult."
The blond woman said in a patient voice, " These coordinates are our meet up point with our other fleets. After, everyone is gathered, we will leave for the deep core."
Iss'ek, " How will so many capital ships enter the deep core undetected?"
Aleena smiled a mysterious smile and said, " You will know and after seeing THAT, you will know the true might of our empire."
Iss'ek was confused but did not probe further and ordered the entire expedition fleet to jump to the coordinates. It took them one week to arrive at the coordinates. There was a massive gas giant present near their arrival point. Their systems detected hundreds of capital ships around them and all of them were facing the gas giant.
Aleena spoke up, " Move the fleet to face the gas giant. We were lucky that we arrived at the right time. A delay of one more day would have made us wait for one more week."
Iss'ek asked, " What are we waiting for?"
Aleena smiled and said, " You will see in a few hours later. Prepare to be awed, Commander Iss'ek. You are going to see the current pinnacle of our empire."
Iss'ek was now curious and decided to humor the officer. After a few hours, there was some movement in the atmosphere of the gas giant in front of them, all the personnel on the deck were alerted. Iss'ek turned towards Officer Aleena and saw her literally standing on her toes with a look of excitement, awe and anticipation on her face. Iss'ek was confused at her unusual behaviour and spoke up, " Officer Aleena..."
Aleena turned to glare at Iss'ek and said, " SHUSH YOU!!! Let me enjoy this moment. You should also pay attention to the front, this is once in a lifetime moment." Iss'ek's ears reddened in embarrassment as he heard the stifled laughter of the personnel on the deck and turned to look resolutely outside towards the gas giant. After a few minutes, Iss'ek could see something coming out of the gas giant. First, two massive golden structures came out of the atmosphere at a distance of tens of miles. The only reason no one opened fire, was because all the weapons systems were disarmed on arriving at the coordinates on the orders of Aleena. Then, after a few minutes the whole thing emerged out of the gas giant. It took several minutes for Iss'ek to regain enough of his mental facilities to ask in a shaky voice to the very smug looking Aleena , " W.....W....What's.....th....that?"
Aleena replied, " He is THE HERMES. The current pinnacle of our empire. He is impressive, isn't he?"
It was too much to take in for the expedition commander, Iss'ek and he fainted on the deck.
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