by Aer-ki Jyr
And in order to truly clip its wings Morgan’s fleet needed to damage all six. That would take more time than they had, so physically blocking off its jumplines was the only viable option available to her.
To that end more and more ships began clustering behind the ‘thorn’ and chewing into the pylon, now blasting out internal components as the armor over the target area was completely obliterated. They could see the firing aperture rotating around trying to get them into its sights, but the battlemap system all the Star Force ships were using had a clearly tagged no-go zone around its firing arc that all the pilots were holding their ships to with a decent margin to spare.
As the blue plasma cascaded into the armor breach like coalescing blue raindrops there was a sudden backwash of red as the containment chamber in the weapon was breached. The plume radiated out through the breach and the firing aperture as it melted through the weaker components and was shaped by the intact armor. The plume impacted several of the destroyers and frigates nearest the pylon, washing over their shields and sucking the energy out of them with the sudden overload. The red plasma soaked into the Adamantium armor, vaporizing the outer inches before dissipating into the surrounding space as it quickly cooled.
The hulls on the affected ships glowed fiery green for a moment before the Herculium upgrade cooled back down to its normal faint green…now visible since the Star Force grey paint had been burnt off. Even before the glow faded the ships began moving forward, shooting past the now dead weapon and drawing fire from other smaller plasma cannons. The larger destroyers and cruisers moved into engage them while the smaller frigates and corvettes shot ahead down the length of the command ship and took up position in front of it as the long warship continued to accelerate perpendicular to the planet with its port side now facing back towards the jumpships that were still scattering in an attempt to escape the tiny warships trying to block their path.
A flashing light appeared on the edge of the hologram, indicating weaponsfire on the Red Ranger. Morgan zoomed back out from the Nestafar command ship and in on the four Star Force warships as a scattering of Nestafar cruisers and destroyers began assaulting the extremely large warships. Their shields were weaker than she would have liked, given the sheer size of the ship they had to cover, but the weapons batteries returning fire should be enough to hold off the small number of attackers so long as they were coming in piecemeal.
Like the Nestafar command ship, the newer version Star Force warships had super-sized weapon systems onboard, two in fact…one covering the top of the ship and the other the bottom. Both were capital ship-sized plasma streamers in lieu of cleansing beams, for which the ship didn’t have the power for when its shields were running at maximum deployment.
One of the plasma streamers on the Red Ranger fired off a compressed, long range beam that lost a bit of cohesion and spread out from its 2 meter-wide departure width to 15 meters by the time it hit one of the Nestafar destroyers. Like the Kvash versions it continually sucked the strength out of the target’s shields until it breached them and burned into the hull…then the capacitor drained and the beam abated, leaving the enemy ship crippled.
The super weapon began rebuilding its plasma charge, unable to fire again for 34 seconds. While it recharged the conventional plasma orb launching cannons exchanged fire with the three Nestafar ships harassing it as a fourth came in from afar and began throwing its weaponsfire at the warship’s shields, which for all intents and purposes were a delaying mechanism rather than an effective defense.
Morgan didn’t know if they’d kill them before they did hull damage or not, but the Captain had the defensive effort under control and the other 3 warships seemed to be in a similar situation so she turned her attention back to the command ship and adjusted the hologram…finding the ship and her fleet having moved off a considerable distance, nearly an eighth of the way around the planet.
“No you don’t,” she said, ordering a pair of her ships pacing the command ship to disengage and move up into higher orbit to act as relays for the control signal that was allowing the pilots onboard the Red Ranger to fly the drone ships. If the Nestafar got them out of line of sight that multi-tiered signal would cut out and the ships would revert to computer control, executing previous assignments or, if none had been logged, simply stop fighting and drift through orbit until communication was regained.
By using the ascending ships as relays they could extend the range around the curve of Sri’ka, though the lag was beginning to mount already. Given that their target was a huge, slow jumpship it wasn’t an issue, but had they been manually targeting incoming fighters or missiles it would start to become problematic, which is why they had backup automated targeting systems onboard each of the ships that could handle such things if instructed to do so.
Speaking of fighters, she saw that a group of Nestafar ‘vipers’ had broken off from the ongoing engagement and were rapidly approaching the command ship while the Calavari had sent a handful of Valeries in pursuit while the rest of them were busy killing the Nestafar with a better than 4 to 1 ratio. Morgan did a circle search on the map and the computer counted 39 vipers, which she knew could be a hazard if they still had their missiles onboard, but in general they wouldn’t be more than a nuisance if/when they were able to catch up. The command ship was screaming along now, and with their tiny gravity drives the fighters were having a hard time eating up the distance.
The computer tagged their ETA at another 8 minutes, though that number was fluctuating with every adjustment the command ship made in its course. It wasn’t regarding the Star Force ships as serious obstacles and was nudging them aside to get pointed the direction it wanted. The smaller ships had to back off or risk a collision but they didn’t move off the jumplines, just retreated along them to prevent a massive acceleration of the jumpship and stall for time while…
Just then the command ship lurched and 9 of her drone ship icons winked out. The rest moved rapidly to counter the sudden burst of acceleration, falling behind momentarily then losing all contact as the ship executed a microjump using the planet’s gravity well to launch itself sideways off into space.
“What the hell?” Morgan said, blinking in confusion for a moment before she pulled up a sensor replay to see what had just happened. Upon closer inspection it showed the jumpship ramming the ships in between in a very low powered jump to get clear before making its full escape jump.
Three of her ships shredded on impact with the debris being knocked clear in explosive fashion…but the other six actually imbedded in the hull of the ship. They completely disappeared inside the command ship, doing untold amounts of damage, leaving Morgan surprised that the ship could still jump at all after that.
“Son of a bitch,” she said, ordering her fleet to turn around and head back home, not only to deal with the three Nestafar jumpships that hadn’t managed to escape yet, but also to assist the Kvash battleship that was now in serious trouble. They wouldn’t arrive for quite some time, but every second counted and she needed to get them underway as soon as possible.
When she finished she took half a step back from the podium and clenched her fists…then forced herself to relax and blew out a long, slow breath.
“Ok, focus. That ship is seriously screwed up now. We can hunt it down later. First things first,” she said, switching back to warship mode and seeing several spots in the Red Ranger’s shield that were almost breached…along with the debris from three of the Nestafar warships nearby. Two more were still engaging, but it looked like they were going to be able to deal with them without reinforcement.
The Kvash, however, were another story entirely.
3
A hefty salvo of Nestafar missiles launched from one of their battleships and flew in towards the Kvash, swinging around several closer destroyers and cruisers until they reached the narrow clear zone immediately around the tri-sphere ship. There they encountered none of the ‘blips’ as before, for all the anti-air devices had already been e
xpended during the fighting, though there was a growing debris field around the huge battleship that was accomplishing much the same thing, which was probably also why the Kvash were no longer maneuvering…they didn’t want to rack up any collisions on the already damaged hull.
Only patches of shield remained covering the ship, under which intact weapons batteries continued to fire. The rest had already been picked to death by the Nestafar along with the ample number of Kvash shield emitters. With those damaged there were certain segments of the ship that could no longer regenerate shields, while others could be covered if the existing shields were realigned. Those currently were exposed because those matrixes had either been disrupted or refocused to cover existing hull structures with an extra layer of protection.
The battleship was in a world of hurt, but the Kvash were wisely keeping select parts of its offense active and they continued to burn down ship after ship from the considerably shrinking fleet surrounding them, knowing well how their massive ship could soak up damage and still remain in the fight.
Most of the incoming missiles didn’t target one of the shielded sections of the ship…rather they hammered an area of the hull on the forward starboard sphere that was already showing an armor breach. The little glowy fireflies zipped down into the hull wound and expanded it, swarming into the growing explosion until they blasted out a huge chunk of the ship that twisted around with considerable list as it drifted away towards a nearby destroyer that had to reposition quickly to avoid a collision.
With the now obvious opening on the Kvash battleship, dozens of ships began redeploying to target that area, throwing a mass of red plasma orbs into the unprotected inner portions of the ship, exploding sensitive components and eventually cutting power for the entire sphere…which subsequently dropped what remaining shield segments it had left operational and exposed the weaponry beneath them as the batteries fell silent, making them easy pickings.
As bad as the damage looked the ship wasn’t out of the fight…only a third of it was. The other two spheres had their own independent power sources, so they fought on while the Nestafar swung around and decided to pound the already dead section, ironically giving shield generators on the other two spheres time to partially regenerate new matrixes over portions of the hull that had already been exposed.
One of the Kvash plasma streamers on the port sphere was still functional and protected beneath a shield segment that had to strategically lower around the battery every time it fired, else the plasma would catch on the ship’s own shield. Due to the genius of the Kvash shield design the hole in the matrix was extremely tiny and didn’t offer much of a vulnerability, but at the moment six Nestafar warships were pouring plasma down on that exact location. As the battleship’s maroon streamer leapt up and dug into one of the cruisers a bit of the enemy’s plasma snuck back through the hole and splashed the emitter, as had been occurring for several rounds now.
Most of the plasma was pushed back out along with the Kvash stream, but the little tidbits that crept around the sides finally added up and with one last salvo it burned through and knocked a hole in the battery’s aperture, causing the Kvash plasma stream to fan out laterally, losing cohesion and taking the bite out of the weapon, though the shieldless cruiser was still taking a hit strong enough to cut deep into its hull.
Worse though, was the fact that the spraying effect was hitting the underside of the battleship’s shields, draining their energy away at an alarming rate…enough to make the gunners cease fire for fear of breaching the shield entirely. That took the only remaining heavy weapon on the port sphere out of commission, leaving the rear and mostly untouched sphere as the ship’s primary offensive option.
Knowing this, the Kvash began using what engine power they still had to rotate the ship around on its central axis, bringing the rear sphere slowly into firing position on the remaining Nestafar ships. Before that could happen, though, some of the closer ones began moving around the perimeter of the ship to stay in the dead zone…then the rest wisely broke off, zigzagging their way out of the debris field and making micro-jumps away from the battlefield, with the rest of the ships that had been incoming veering off course as well.
A few minutes later the first of Morgan’s ships decelerated into weapons range on the Kvash battleship that had been left for dead amidst the results of the conflict…literally hundreds of Nestafar hulks were floating about, some of which were still partially active, having played possum during the fighting to keep from getting completely obliterated. The Kvash apparently saw them on sensors as well, because as the block-like Star Force warships arrived the intact sphere on the battleship was targeting the debris and burning up the damaged Nestafar ships left behind.
The trailblazer watched from the command nexus as she took stock of the damage to her fleet, displayed on a side hologram with rows of ships marked in various colors. Out of 293 in total, 9 were totally missing, with another 5 showing no data at all but with a blue sparkly icon in the center that indicated their telemetry system was down but their location had been tagged through other means. Pulling up visual feeds on those locations she confirmed heavy damage to all five, but the hulls were largely intact and therefore salvageable.
Then there were 56 ships, ranging from corvettes up to cruisers, that were showing total red, meaning weapon systems, propulsion, life support, etc were all non-operational. The telemetry system had an independent power supply that allowed at least limited control over the ships even if they suffered extreme damage and these had, though Morgan knew from experience that part of the damage was probably due to power loss rather than destruction. Either way they weren’t combat or flight capable, meaning they’d also have to be retrieved.
Another 23 ships showed partial damage, but were still flight worthy. Most of those had headed off with the remainder of the fleet towards the Kvash, but a few were already limping their way back to the warships. The rest of the fleet, including all the heavy cruisers, were mostly untouched, with a few showing tiny bits of hull damaged or depleted shields leaving her with a significant fighting force, part of which was already corralling the 3 Nestafar jumpships…but staring them down would only work for so long.
They had to be disabled, either from outside or within, and Morgan didn’t have the troops onboard her warships to handle a boarding action. Nor did she have the capability to handle prisoners. The 4 warships were naval vessels, optimized for space combat and little else. The bulk of her infantry and mechs were sitting on cargo jumpships in a system far from here, so she was going to have to rely on the Alliance for help dealing with the Nestafar jumpships…and the sooner the better.
Before that, though, she needed to assist the Kvash in any way she could. Their plan hadn’t gone as expected, though they had come out of it with a major victory…but at a cost, to both her fleet and the battleship, of which the Kvash only had 3 in system. She was about to open a channel to the ship when a comm prompt pulsed in front of her like a tiny glowing star. Morgan accepted the transmission and an image of a Calavari General appeared over her podium in the command nexus.
“My data indicates you’ve retaken control of orbit. Can you confirm?”
“The battle is over and their ships are fleeing, if you want to call that control. We’ve taken significant losses and the Kvash warship is badly damaged…we also lost the Nestafar command ship, though most of its weaponry is slag now.”
The Calavari’s large head nodded respectfully. “Our sensors show three enemy jumpships still in orbit. What’s their status?”
“Semi-contained. The command ship blew through several of my ships to make their escape and I wouldn’t put it past these either.”
“What are your plans for them?”
“Other than shooting them up there’s not much we can do on our own, and there’s no way I’m wasting the ordinance it would take to completely destroy them. Not to mention the people onboard.”
“You wish them captured and repurposed for the Allianc
e?”
“I don’t see why not. If you can spare the troops?”
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but would you consider a trade?”
Morgan frowned ever so slightly. “What?”
“Some of your smaller ships are capable of in-atmosphere maneuvers, I believe, if our intelligence is correct. There are a number of surface targets that could use a naval touch. If you can take them out I can repurpose 10,600 soldiers to pacifying the jumpships, now that you’ve cleared the air for our transports.”
“What kind of targets? Most of my ships have orbital bombardment capability.”
“That we know, but these targets require precision attacks within a few kilometers. Our fighters can handle most of their ground troops, but some of their larger assets require more numbers than we have available.”
“Get me a target list and I’ll probably say yes.”
The hologram’s full body image clapped both sets of arms together, fists into palms. “I shall prepare the list and begin readying our transports. I will also confer with the Kvash to see what infantry they can spare.”
“I can give you a few skirmisher teams for the hot spots. Do you have any people that have ever been onboard one of their jumpships?”
“I doubt it, but I will inquire. I assume your people haven’t either?”
“No, the Nestafar are new to us. They could have all kinds of surprises waiting for us, especially if they’re taking cues from their new best friends. We’ve taken down a Cajdital jumpship before and it took a lot of manpower…I have no idea how they compare to the Nestafar.”
The Calavari’s hairless facial ridges raised slightly. “You’ve taken one of their jumpships?”
“With help from the Hycre, yes. We were forced to kill the crew because they wouldn’t surrender. I’m guessing that the Nestafar will, or some of them anyway, if we put enough pressure on them. We need a relocation program set up prior to the assault to shuttle the prisoners down to a secure facility on the surface. Have anything we can use?”