and as is usual for my weird ramblings, i wrote a story after thinking about this too much.
In over a hundred systems and a thousand worlds, the Coalition reigns. Under a thousand different skies, and in millions of cities, the Eternal Flag flies. It’s an empire larger than any in galactic history, and it’s a superpower that may never come again. A civilization built on the greatest magitech ever seen, powered by great globes of mana and flickering energy cores. A civilization made up of a thousand sentient species.
The crew of the Growing Flame and their support ships are here to make it a thousand and one. It’s a small little planet with a primitive, backwards species. Sol Three.
“No sign of civilization,” the Oracle hums from her post. “The fleet’s ready to descend.”
“Hold on,” the Navigator says, tapping at her moving painting. The colors swirl and reform again and again, the magically-imbued pigments responding to her touch. “Didn’t we see cities on the initial sweep? Population’s suspiciously high for a no-magic civ, too.”
“The scans are never wrong,” says the Oracle. “The attenuator picked up zero signs of residual magical energy.”
“Let the fleet descend,” says the Executor. “The Fifth Expeditionary fleet will be here in three cycles, and I’ll be damned if I let them take this planet before we do. I’m one away from promotion.”
Despite the Navigator’s protests, the Pilots nod, and they tap at a multitude of buttons and dials. The tightly-sealed copper and glass ship descends into the planet’s atmosphere, magitech engines spewing mana as they descend.
“Careful with the output,” the Oracle says. “Planet’s a total mana dead zone. No ambient magic. We won’t be able to use the reclaimers for fuel, so we’ll have to run on stored energy.”
Alongside the Flame, a dozen ships descend into the atmosphere of Sol Three. Each is a glittering specimen of the Coalition’s finest - magitech cannons, engines that can pull three g’s of acceleration with a top speed of hundreds of units per hour, warp engines for inter-system jumps. Each one’s bristling with armor and weaponry, ready to blast any fledgling species into submission.
Despite his professionalism, the Executor can’t help but grin. A fierce sort of fury runs through his blood every time a new upstart species is battered into submission - it’s addictive. He settles his gaze on one of their sister ships, the Steady Cadence.
…He has a good view as a glowing streak shoots through the air, and an AIM-120 AMRAAM beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile blows that wannabe steampunk ship right out of the sky. The engines explode, and stored mana evaporates a quarter of the craft as it breaches containment. The Steady Cadence goes into freefall, trailing blue aetheric smoke. It impacts the planet’s surface with a crash.
The Executor is too shocked to even react for a few precious seconds. Another ship goes down in a gout of flame.
“STATUS REPORT!” He bellows, his voice cracking as he does. “WHAT THE HELLS JUST HAPPENED?!”
“Projectile weapon of some kind,” the Oracle screams, the Painting at her post swirling so rapidly it’s become a whirlpool of color and light. “Nothing on the sensor sweeps.”
The pilots have taken it upon themselves to engage evasive maneuvers without being ordered, and it’s only because of this that the crew of the Growing Flame survives the next few seconds. A glowing streak blows past the ship and detonates, rocking the craft - but it doesn’t hit the engines, and the Flame stays afloat.
Around them, the remaining ten ships do the same. The magic engines whirr as they’re pushed to their limits - the ships dance up, down, and spin in literal physics-defying maneuvers. A few ships are hit, but many of the glowing streaks detonate without crippling a craft.
“EVADE,” The Executor shouts, far too late. He runs a hand over his fur, smoothing it down in an attempt to regain his composure. “Open fire!”
“On what, sir?” The Conflict head asks.
“Find whatever’s firing those smoke trails, and destroy it! In fact-” He growls. “Blow away anything that’s moving and isn’t flying a friendly flag. We’re going to burn this world.”
The Conflict head nods, and a runner’s sent to relay orders to the weapons crews manning the cannons in the bowels of the ship.
An AIM-120 AMRAAM BVRAAM missile is a masterful piece of engineering. It’s designed with a seven inch diameter, uses active transmit-receive radar guidance, and is a total fire-and-forget missile.
But it’s still constrained by the laws of physics. The reality-warping engines of the Fourth Coalition Expeditionary fleet are not.
This fact keeps the fleet in the air. For now.
“LOAD CANNONS!” The runner shouts, and in the bowels of the Flame and her sister ships, a dozen high-yield magitech cannons are loaded with glowing mana-shot.
A Sol 3 craft comes into view - some kind of angular, shimmering beast. It’s definitely not copper. It sweeps past the ship, too fast to be tracked with the naked eye.
“Targeting online,” the Conflict-sub-head shouts from her post. “Fire at will.”
The remains of the Coalition fleet spit over a hundred glowing blue cannonballs at the rapidly disappearing Sol craft. Each one is capable of leveling a small building with a direct hit.
None of them have a direct hit, though.
A shockwave sweeps across the sky with an earsplitting boom as the Sol craft’s engines flare orange-white-red, rather than the pale blue of a magical engine, and the ship disappears as surely as if it had teleported. The sound doesn’t even hit the Coalition fleet until the craft’s already long gone.
The next pass doesn’t come. The craft never comes back within visual range. Instead, a barrage of missiles and gunfire from outside visual range pick off ship after ship.
“No… no engine lock,” the Oracle says, her face pale. It’s dawned on the crew that they’re going to die here.
“We need to get a message to the Fifth Expeditionary Fleet,” the Executor says, his voice low. He understands his duty, even if his rivalry is strong. “We need to warn them. Take us out of atmosphere.”
“And the other ships, sir?”
“We need- we need a way to get away. They can buy us time. These Sol pilots might take the distraction.”
The Oracle nods, and closes her eyes as she telepathically transmits the command to the other ships. They, too, know their duties.
The Growing Flame gets away.
A dozen Coalition ships burn on the surface of Sol Three.
On the surface, two men sit in a room that doesn’t technically exist, discussing an event that technically never happened.
“Do we know where they came from? The Russians? The Chinese?”
“No idea, sir. The technology seems… primitive.”
“They dodged Sparrow missiles, Jack.”
“Yes, but - there’s something weird about that. We’ve looked at their engines. They shouldn’t have functioned at all.”
“You’re telling me they came in with broken engines?”
“No, sir - I mean they shouldn’t have worked at all according to the laws of physics. The designs wouldn’t physically lift a ship off the ground.”
The two men stand in silence for a few moments.
One of the men raises his hand, and turns it over. He snaps his fingers.
And a tiny bolt of lightning arcs between them.
In a darkened facility, the recovered wreckages of a dozen Coalition ships sit, bleeding full tanks of magic into the air of a world that previously had none.
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