Whatever it was, it was one hell of an undertaking.
Someone had been able to talk the admiral into letting them get a copy of the plans, and what they had found out was incredible. Frank continued to look at it when he could and had run a few simulations with it already. The ship, if it could even be called a ship, was pure genius.
“How are the modifications looking, Engineering?” Xiao looked to the engineering officer, who looked a little haggard.
“The portal on our bow is complete. We’re ready to use it on demand. Also, we’ve got the teleportation arrays ready to push out the portals when needed,” Engineering said.
“Good! Anything you need, you’ll get it,” Xiao said seriously.
“Yes, sir,” Engineering said.
“Good work there, Simmons. Would have never have thought to use portals that way,” Xiao said.
“Well, I got the idea from Dave. He already came up with the idea of using a portal on our bow to fire at the enemy. With the smaller portals, we can toss them out and increase our fire in any direction,” Frank said.
“Ballsy but I like it.” Xiao laughed and the others in the room smiled. It was rare to see their captain so relaxed, and with the new innovations at their disposal, their confidence when meeting the Jukal had reached new heights.
“Exiting the wormhole in five minutes,” Navigation said.
Frank opened a channel to his weapons officers. “Ready all weapons. Emergence in five minutes.”
Across the ship and the secondary armada, weapons were checked and then readied.
The main armada and the other secondary armada had all gone through their own wormholes, making it so that Pandora Fleet One couldn’t see them or know of their preparations.
“Emergence!” Navigation called out. The ship shook slightly as they exited the wormhole.
Sensor spells were cast out, searching for anything in the area. “We’re clear for one light-minute,” Sensors said. “And we have emergence of the third armada.”
On screen, a massive spell formation appeared that seemed to break through space itself, causing it to distort as a wormhole appeared and it spat out the other secondary Pandora armada.
Moments later, the main armada appeared in all its glory, as if commanding the very star system they found themselves in.
“Waypoint received. Passed to the rest of the secondary armada. Ready to teleport,” Navigation said.
“Teleport us on your go,” Xiao said.
The runic lining across the ships of the main armada shone with power before the ships winked out of existence, with all of them activating their teleportation spell formations at the same time.
Powerful magical ripples emanated from the ships as they reappeared, their Mirrors of Communication informing the secondary and tertiary armadas of their position in real-time and ten minutes before their own sensors would pick them up.
“Teleporting!” Navigation said as the secondary armada followed the main armada, with the tertiary just moments later.
They reappeared just as the main armada once again teleported, crossing the empty system; the other fleets followed.
Runic lines shined with a different light as a new spell formation was activated. A swirling mass of runes appeared in front of the main armada. A ray of light shot out from it as it seemed to punch a hole through space itself, creating a wormhole ahead of the fleet that pushed forward into it and poured in all the power of their flight drives and once again teleported away. For days, the ships of the massive fighting force teleported and used wormholes to cross space, all of them heading right for the Jukal fleet. Until finally, they reached their last wormhole.
The portal bastion hadn’t been completed yet and it would be another week until it was ready. As time had gone on, the people in the fleet had hoped to be able to use the portal bastion, but it was clear that it just wouldn’t be ready in time.
The portal bastion would have been an impressive support; however, they had been prepared since the very beginning to attack the Jukal with just their ships.
Forsyth called for everyone to have a few hours off and rotate watches before they were all back at their stations again and as ready as they could be.
They had also built a portal that would allow the following forces to reach them much faster.
Already it had been activated and two more Pandora fleets that were completed in record time—just in time to join the original fighting force—added themselves to the secondary and tertiary armadas, bringing them up to seventy-seven ships.
“Engage wormhole.” Admiral Forsyth’s words were transmitted to every ship in the fleet and heard by the commanders and allies watching the armada’s progress from across the stars.
The main armada and the two secondary armadas glowed with light as massive spell formations appeared in front of them to shoot out a distorted light that broke through space itself. Spell formations appeared behind the ships; brilliant blue arcane fire lit up the ship’s hulls, ripples of power shaking off it as the armadas surged ahead.
They passed through the wormhole, exiting the system that they were in and entering a new one.
“Full stealth is engaged,” Navigation called out. Missile ports slammed open as warheads were activated and readied to take down all that faced the armada.
The arcane fire that had been surging out of the rear of the ships died down. Instead, other propulsion spell formations appeared. These couldn’t impart as much thrust; however, they were hard to detect. The runic lining of the ships changed colors, becoming black as spell formations appeared on the hulls of the ships. These spell formations were the manifestation of the stealth coding. The spell formations seemed to sink into the ship as they surged forward. The ships seemed to distort as they faded to become sensor ghosts.
It was only with the connected Mirrors of Communication that the ships were able to see one another and know their positions.
The three armadas powered into the system, as stealth ships that had been sent out along the Jukal’s line of advance by the Deq’ual system found that they were now linked to the Pandora fighting force. Unlike the Deq’ual, none of the Pandora fleet ships were made to be scouts. They had the stealth capabilities, but their crews weren’t trained to be scouts and their ships were built to fight, not observe.
“We’ve got the sensor logs from the scouts,” Sensors called out.
Frank looked to his screens. Seeing the distances between the Pandora fighting force and the Jukal fleet, he nodded and started to complete his emergence checklist.
“New orders received. Sending to you, Nav,” Communications said.
“Got it. New waypoints have been laid down. Moving to follow.” With her words, the ship turned on a new angle. The rest of the armada followed the BloodHawk’s actions. Spell formations fluctuated around them, moving their ships before larger spell formations applied thrust to push them forward.
“Weapons are going safe. Taking it down to thirty percent,” Frank said. Seventy percent of the guns were placed on standby, with all defensive weapons remaining online. The missile ports closed, once again hiding the missiles that waited within the hulls of the BloodHawk.
Frank now took a more detailed look of the Jukal fleet. It was impressive, to say the least. There were five different fleets that all moved together, each of them composed of thirty ships. There were destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and carriers throughout the armada.
To most of the races in this part of the galactic neighborhood, they were a powerful and awe-inspiring sight; not so to the people in the human fleet. Instead of feeling fear or apprehension, Frank gritted his teeth together. His lips turned white as they pressed against each other. A terrifying expression covered his face as he looked at the Jukal with hunger.
To him, this would be the first true battle between Emerilia and the Jukal. Before, they were hitting the Jukal ships with numerical advantage, but here the Jukal fleet had nearly three times as many ships as them and t
en times the tonnage. That wasn’t including the drones that lay in their carriers.
Even facing such an imposing enemy, he felt pride as the Pandora fighting force moved forward, unimpeded by the sight of the Jukal in all their might.
All eyes were focused on the Jukal fleet. The room seemed to grow colder as rage flickered behind the eyes of those there, not hiding their killing intent in the slightest. Instead of it weakening, it seemed to grow stronger.
As fast as it descended, the crews of the armada once again focused on their tasks as the seventy-seven ships of the Pandora fighting force silently shot through the empty system, heading straight toward the Jukal.
***
The Pandora fighting force moved through the system slowly, only using the power of their drive spell formations. They didn’t want to use their teleportation spells for fear that the Jukal would detect it and then hammer them with fire as soon as they emerged.
So, they silently and slowly made it across the system on an intercept course with the Jukal, as there were just hours to go until they engaged the Jukal.
The other fleets had all taken over the contested key systems, destroying the Jukal fleets. The Deq’ual ships were hitting more of the Jukal Empire’s key systems, with the arks assisting them.
They dropped into the planet’s atmosphere and unleashed ground forces at the remaining vestiges of the Jukal Empire and dropped off supplies that the people of these planets would need to survive.
The human armadas had cut out a big section out of the empire, causing it to fall into disarray in many facets of its economy as well as society. All of the available Pandora ships were heading out to meet the Jukal fleets now, transitioning through the portal network and were just a day behind the first Pandora fighting force. There were two more Pandora fleets on their way, which would bring all nine of the Pandora fleets up against the Jukal invasion force of over one hundred and fifty.
With the Mirrors of Communication widely dispersed and now being used on many of the Jukal planets, everyone could see the Pandora armada as it moved in on the oblivious Jukal fleet.
The secondary armadas moved far to either side of the main armada, lined up to go through the edges of the Jukal fleet. The main armada was aiming to go in just above the center of the Jukal fleet.
Frank had taken some time to go through the ship to check on his people, look at their preparations, and offer support where needed. He made his way to the hangar bays; instead of shuttles, there were portals. They were lined up in rows, ten in total. These portals were the planetary portals the size of those that could be seen on Emerilia, instead of the ship-sized ones that were mostly based in space.
They were made from soul gem construct seeds. They were bulkier than normal portals as these had a thick covering with heavy runic lining engraved into it. There were a total of forty portals, ten in each of the four hangars that lay on either side of the BloodHawk. The destroyers could only hold five in their hangars and had two hangars; the missile boats only had two hangars but they could also fit five portals in their hangars.
Frank checked them all and listened to the load master as she talked about them and how they were set up, maintenance and all things portal geeks knew.
She had been first mate on a merchant vessel that traveled from Ashal to Markolm, to Heval and Opheir back before the world knew the truth about the Jukal. It hadn’t taken her much time to adapt her skills over to the Pandora ships.
He left her feeling a little better as he made his way to the command deck. There were just a few hours left until they would finally reach the Jukal fleet.
One hour later, Frank was chosen to be the point man for when it finally hit the fan. Thus he was in his seat as the BloodHawk’s fire controller as they neared the Jukal fleet.
They had built up some impressive momentum, and were now in the process of burning it off so that they would get more time in close to the Jukal fleet. Instead of just split seconds, they would get nearly a minute among the Jukal fleet.
They would have to make it count. After they hit the Jukal this time, they would be watching out for sneak attacks in the future.
“Starting to get some odd movements from the Jukal. Looks like they’re using some pretty powerful sensor rigs. Might have picked up something from us,” the sensor officer said.
“Wait for the admiral’s word.” Captain Xiao seemed like a calm pond without a ripple on its surface: everything was expected, and nothing could shake him.
***
A Jukal sensor operator flicked his screen and turned his head to look at it from another angle. “What do you make of that?” he asked his fellow Jukal sensor operator
“Sensor ghost?” the other asked, a bored look on their face.
Crossing long distances in space was a boring exercise. The first sensor operator had just got onto shift, while the second was thinking about their dinner and getting some sleep, the only time when they weren’t incredibly bored and wondering just why he was part of the Jukal fleets. He was supposed to be at home with his concubines, being waited on hand and foot, but his father had told him to become a Jukal officer in order to bring prestige to the family.
The first sensor operator shrugged, understanding the second’s boredom. “Oh, well, I’ll run a sensor check. Gives me something to kill the next few hours.”
“Have fun with it.” The second sensor officer rose from his station. “I stand relieved. Good luck staying awake.”
“I relieve you of your prison,” the first Jukal sensor operator said, inputting commands that heightened the power going to the sensor array to try to get a better picture of the sensor ghosts.
***
Across the Pandora fighting force, all eyes were focused on their screens. They no longer looked like members of the Pandora Initiative: they were predators stalking their prey, moving closer and closer, bringing them in close, ready to lunge at a moment’s notice and tear out their throat.
They had crossed star systems and the void between them, but now they were measuring the few thousand kilometers between them and the Jukal fleet.
They had already crossed through the upper range of their weapons. Now they were headed to their optimum firing distance, where it would only take a matter of minutes for their fire to reach the Jukal.
The glow of the soul gem crystals illuminated their faces as only the slight sound of breathing could be heard. Even that was hushed until it barely left a trace.
A bit closer—come on, just walk right on in, Frank thought, just like most of the other members of the armada. As if they were luring their mortal enemy into danger with fake smiles and cunning.
“Let’s show them just what Emerilians can do! Pandora armadas, open fire!” Admiral Forsyth’s voice cut through all of the ships. Immediately ships flared to life with full power, the people within snapping into action.
“Release portals, missiles away!” Frank barked as he sent a surge of Mana into his command center, activating multiple systems.
In the missile bays, techs watched as the missile doors snapped open and power surged into the runic lines that ran through the acceleration tubes.
The missiles were hurled out into space. Spell formations appeared around them; arcane fire appeared on the spell formations and altered the missiles’ direction. They fanned out from the ships like tridents, pointed right at the Jukal.
Hangar doors slammed open and the hangars depressurized. The rush of air tore the portals out from the hangars and sent them spinning into space.
Load masters watched them as they flew outward, seeing spell formations appear. The bulky covering around the portals was actually a series of thrust spells. The portals spread out and created a circle around the BloodHawk, facing forward as umbilicals of soul gem shot out from the ship to meet up with the portals.
“Asteroid base, this is Pandora Fleet One. I hope you’ve got those ranges set up!” Admiral Forsyth’s voice cut through the barking orders and the ships that were s
huddering as missiles poured out from them.
“Pandora Fleet One, this is asteroid base. Ready when you are,” Dave’s voice replied.
“We have green light for portals. We are linked to asteroid base!” Communications yelled.
“Good on range. Powering them up!” Frank said. Mana poured through his hands, creating a glow through him.
The fusion reactors that lay within the BloodHawk seemed to wake from their slumber as the runic lines connecting them to the rest of the ship shone with a powerful light.
The portals ringed around the BloodHawk glowed with power as the magical coding activated. Runic lines appeared across them as power from the fusion reactors solidified the glowing lights of the portals.
The portals activated and the stars behind them disappeared. The nose of the BloodHawk changed, showing a room glowing with runic lining and what looked like a wall of missile tubes.
The Jukal carriers were now unleashing their drones and most were just launching their first salvo of missiles while trying to get their Mana barrier up.
“Ready to fire!” the weapons crew of the portal range said.
“Fire!” Frank said.
Through the portals, massive spell formations appeared, pointed right at the portal generating power.
Pillars of light ten meters thick shot out from the portals. Others unleashed missiles after missiles; others showed a Nalheim wielding a spear. A spell formation tens of meters large appeared in front of their spear before a truly terrifying Mana stream shot from the portal, forming into a spear with a spell formation around its tip as a beam of disrupting energies carried forth.
Across the three Pandora armadas, the portal ranges unleashed their various spells and attacks. As one range was recharging from a massive spell, the portal would cut the connection and would reconnect to another range, allowing them to unleash spells that might only be used once by an armada.
The first of the missiles started to hit the Jukal.
Few of the Jukal ships were able to get their shields up in time, not that it would help much as sowed among the missiles were the new disruption grand working spells that played havoc with the Jukal Mana barriers, damaging them to such a degree that they were incredibly hard to stabilize and even opening holes all throughout it.
Empire Burning (Emerilia Book 11) Page 10