Empire Burning (Emerilia Book 11)

by Michael Chatfield

  It took two minutes before the massive portal bastion transitioned through the portal that had been made for it in the space around the asteroid base and the portal that was being dragged by the BloodHawk.

  Frank looked at it with astonishment as an explosion struck the BloodHawk’s Mana barrier, making it shudder and bringing him back to his senses.

  The portal bastion glowed with powerful light. Waves of Mana emanated from its surface as one of the onos on its surface flashed with light. An event horizon appeared. Just moments before a spell formation tore through the event horizon, arcane fire tore outward.

  The bastion started to let out even more powerful waves of power as it surged ahead. More onos activated; from them, energy pillars shot outward, creating a spell formation that blossomed around the portal bastion.

  More onos opened across the bastion. Hundreds of missiles shot outward from the bastion before turning and heading through the fleet to strike the Jukal.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Xiao yelled.

  “All ships, increased speed to flank! Give them all we’ve got!” Forsyth yelled.

  The bastion moved into position within the middle of the fleet, all of the ships around it, supporting it and being supported by it. They and the Jukal raced toward one another. The Jukal didn’t have many weapons that could face forward. However, they had missiles and drones that rushed through the void, fighting the barrage that the Pandora fleet had unleashed.

  Ships presented their sides and unleashed a blinding broadside. The bastion took on the attacks with ease, shrugging them off and doling out as much firepower as two Pandora fleets all by itself.

  The onos never stopped being active but inside, the portals changed what they were connected to. The missile spread changed to spell formations. With the rest of the fleet, some five hundred Nalheim avatars appeared, standing in formation before unleashing their devastating attack. Compared to their last attack with the Nalheim, there was little comparison in the sheer scale of power.

  A wave of destruction poured out from the Nalheim. As they faded away, other portals were activated in seamless transitions. Beams shot into the void; dragons formed from pure Mana, as large as a battleship. Their roars couldn’t be heard but as they looked at the Jukal, their eyes turned red and they shot in their direction. Each of their attacks was enough to shake a continent, let alone a single ship. But here in space against the Jukal, they needed multiple attacks to break down the shields of the Jukal.

  Shadow forms of blood reevers and orcs were summoned. They charged under the dragons, rushing through the Jukal ships. The reevers and their riders attacked with all they had. The ships fought back, shooting the creations and causing the magic holding them together to dissipate.

  Orbs shot out from portals and from the onos around the bastion. These orbs were similar to Dave’s.

  They were covered in runes as spell formations appeared around them. They fired out Mana bolts that ravaged the Jukal. A destroyer couldn’t take the fire anymore as its hull was holed and the ship’s engines started to have difficulty. It drifted off, with the power of the ship dimming before being cut off.

  The forces crashed together, broadsides being used by both sides. The orbs flashed with light as they created a secondary Mana barrier around the Pandora ships. Orbs would fail from fire, but other orbs moved to take over the load as destruction caused the void to rumble.

  The bastion was a wealth of fire. It unleashed barrages of cannon fire and powerful spell formations. Anything that wasn’t facing the Jukal unleashed conjured beasts and missiles.

  “Activate teleportation missiles!” Communications said.

  Frank input a command. A number of missiles that had passed around the Jukal fleet now activated their grand working warhead. Instead of having a destructive spell imprinted on the grand working, they created shimmering and unstable event horizons around the Jukal.

  “Bastion has link!” the communications officer said.

  Teleport pads of the bastion connected to the portals that hadn’t been activated were now active as the portals unleashed missiles, crossing the short space between the portal and teleport pad, before shooting out of the shimmering points around the Jukal fleet.

  Fire was now coming at the Jukal from every direction.

  They crossed deeper into the Jukal formations. Orbs failed and Mana barriers weakened, forcing the Pandora ships to teleport away to safety. The bastion looked over the battlefields as if some omnipotent god. As its shield weakened, it would activate a new portal; a new beam of energy surged outward, to fuel the Mana barrier before the first deactivated and the portal inside the bastion connected to another portal in Gunboat Isle.

  The bastion was not impervious but the two times its barrier did fail, a half-dozen onos were destroyed on the surface. They started growing back just moments after they were struck, a new Mana barrier in place. It took some time for them to recover and there was a crater on the bastion’s surface, but otherwise the onos opened and unleashed destruction on the Jukal once more.

  With enough fire, the bastion would fail, but at that time the Jukal weren’t coordinated enough to bring all their weapons to bear on the bastion when there were so many other Pandora ships around them.

  ***

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Dave yelled as his hands moved over the different consoles around him.

  Malsour laughed as the rest of the bastion’s crew passed information, their actions hurried but precise.

  Captain Eswald stood above it all, with her words directing the entire bastion. She looked to Dave and Malsour with shock. The power that they were pulling out of the bastion was unlike anything she knew it was possible of doing.

  They made it seem easy as they adjusted power flows, called up new weapon systems and implemented them seamlessly. By themselves, they were operating fifty percent of the bastion with ease.

  “Gravity missiles!” Dave yelled into a Mirror of Communication connected to Gunboat Isle.

  Missiles poured from six portals. The missiles turned into what looked like a spear formation. The lead and side missiles took hits or blew themselves up to stop the Jukal’s incoming fire.

  They raced into the Jukal fleet, headed straight for a carrier. The missiles looked as if they were almost sentient as they spun off, hitting drones, and rushed through openings.

  The carrier that had been out of the fighting now lit up with its own defense systems. Even the few light cannons that were mounted on its hull targeted the missiles, destroying tens of them.

  It wasn’t enough to stop them all, not even close.

  The lead missile’s grand working warheads were activated. Power shot through the spell imprint; spell formations appeared around the head of the missiles and from it, powerful beams of light shot out, rocking the carrier’s shield. The ship was punctured in places. A few other beams made it through, hitting the hull of the carrier that left deep gouges in its armor.

  More missiles followed, exploding against the shield and making it more unstable.

  A mere half-dozen grand working missiles were revealed that were nearly twice the length of a normal missile.

  They made it through the shield and split up. One raced straight ahead. A spell formation appeared around it, a black and swirling spell formation that distorted space itself.

  The spell formation activated. Powerful gravitational ripples shot out, creating a singularity that tore at the Jukal carrier. Its armor was pulled apart and shredded, compressing down more and more as it raced toward the singularity.

  The other missiles started to activate their spell formation. Two of them were shot down, but it mattered little.

  The converging gravitational waves pulled at one another, creating a gravitational tempest along the side of the carrier. It was as if it were a ship in the midst of a magical storm back on Emerilia.

  Its hull was torn to pieces and the ship was being bent, forces pulling it apart piece by p
iece. Finally, the carrier’s structure couldn’t take it. The armor broke and twisted; the structural supports and popped struts within the ship gave way as the ship was pulled and compressed by the gravitational forces of the missiles.

  It had only taken seconds from the missiles being launched to the carrier starting to collapse, explosions shaking it from the inside.

  “Taste my gravity!” Dave hollered, punching his fist into the air. Snakes made of missiles shot out from the portals within the bastion to the teleport pads that connected to the unstable teleport points around the Jukal fleet.

  “Drop the needles,” Malsour said.

  “Now we’re talking.” Dave laughed.

  Eswald looked at them with alarm.

  “Gunboat Isle, release needle,” Dave said.

  “Yes, sir,” a dwarf manning a tunnel different from the others said.

  In his area, there was no gravity, and the tunnels held three portals. Between the first and second portal in the tunnel he was manning, a massive metal spike was held out over the second portal. The first and second portals were activated, as was the magical coding in the runic lines that ran through the tunnel.

  In the air between the first and second portal, gravitational spell formations appeared, becoming more and more substantial.

  “Needle away!” the dwarf said.

  The needle dropped toward the second portal. As it entered the second portal, it emerged from the first portal. When it exited the gravitational spell, formations increased its speed as it continued the cycle, becoming faster and faster in a matter of seconds.

  “Up to speed!” the dwarf called.

  “Ono ninety-five,” Dave called out as he took command of a portal. Its connected teleport pad and ono ninety-five went silent.

  “Connecting,” Dave said. The third portal in the tunnel, behind portal two, and a portal on the bastion shone with power as they connected. The teleport pad and ono were left open.

  “Ready!” Dave said.

  “Needle on its way!” the dwarf yelled.

  The needle dropped out of the first portal. It closed behind the needle. The second portal collapsed as well as the needle shot through the empty space inside it and toward the active third portal.

  It shot through the third portal, emerging in the bastion, through the teleport pad and out of the ono at speeds that only Dave and Malsour could detect.

  “Test is good. Let’s get those moving!” Dave said.

  In the section of Gunboat Isle that the dwarf had been in, other weapons techs stood at identical tunnels. One by one, just seconds apart, the needles dropped through the first two portals, reaching an incredible speed that would make planets shake and tear air to shreds.

  Dave was watching the first needle as it shot out from the bastion. The world seemed to slow as he focused on the needles. Malsour and Eswald also looked at the needle to see what it would do.

  A close in defense system of a Jukal ship spun up and rounds spread out to hit it.

  Several of the rounds found the needle but with the kinetic energy of the needle, it exploded into fast-moving shrapnel, turning from a simple needle into dozens of much smaller and faster needles.

  It tore through the space between vessels. The shrapnel hit the shields of the ship. The shields had already been damaged and there was nothing that it could do as they were fully destroyed and the shrapnel tore through and hit the ship.

  The destroyer was rocked sideways as numerous holes appeared in its hull. Some were as big as a fist, others as large as a bus.

  Moments later, another needle was shooting out of a portal. But now there were five following it, just seconds after the first.

  A Jukal battleship didn’t have time to react, only watch as the first needle hit the bow of his ship, piercing through its incredibly heavy armor. The ship reeled backward, the forces of deceleration heavily wounding those inside of the ship.

  More rounds came in, one right after another. The beleaguered ship couldn’t do anything as the rounds smashed through the opening in its bow or hit its sides. As the needles’ momentum was stopped, they shattered, their shrapnel tearing through the ship. Explosions tore through the battleship, shredding everything inside. Much slower pieces of the needle came out of its sides and rear; the engines sputtered and then died as the battleship was dead in the water.

  “Needles are good. Give them to the battleships. With their forward portals, they’ll be much better at hitting the Jukal and if the AI help them out, they might be able to get them in a broadside,” Malsour said.

  “I like your thinking, Mister Malsour,” Dave said, repeating the orders to Jeeves, who alerted the fire controllers of the battleships and updated their software.

  Needles started to shoot out from the bow portals on the battleships, tearing through the Jukal in front of them.

  “Ten seconds until we’re out of the Jukal fleet,” the sensors officer for the bastion said.

  “Well, let’s make it count!” Captain Eswald said.

  Dave looked to his screens. He winced as one of the destroyers tried to activate its teleportation spell, only to be bombarded by multiple Jukal. The destroyer came apart in an explosion of debris.

  Here and there, Pandora ships were teleporting away, while Jukal ships lost their shields. There was no way to take in the destruction of it all. The sights of grand working shells and warheads ignited into spell formations that shook the void, the shimmering teleport points where missiles shot out from. Interceptor modules cast spells to break the coding of the laser cannons and shot out thousands of rounds to try to stop the oncoming Jukal missiles that erupted with the power of fusion explosives, battering shields and melting hulls.

  Dave lost himself in the fight, the constant rumbling of weapons fire from within the bastion.

  As they were in the command center, around them the portals were flickering on and off, connecting to other portals, calling in different weapons fire, or Mana barrier projectors. The teleport pads also winked in and out, connecting to the teleport points as well as the onos.

  Light from missile arcane engines or the glowing grand working shells, and the spell formations that were projected outside the hull of the bastion: all of it illuminated the command center resting in the middle of it all.

  The crews of the Pandora fleet fought with all they had, knowing that they would not get a chance like this again. Next time, the Jukal would be wary of the bastion and they would be on the lookout for the Pandora ships in all directions.

  Drones shot through the Pandora fleet as summoned avatars fought them. The ripples of power coming off from their battle made it seem as if the gods themselves were locked in battle, looking down upon mere mortals.

  The ships illuminated with fire as broadsides tore into Jukal and Pandoran ships. Shields and barriers failed; armor was rent, melted and torn away.

  Destruction filled the sky of that barren system. In the blood-red sunlight of the main star, two empires clashed.

  People yelled and they cried; corridors exploded and people were torn apart. People patched up the ship, others operated their systems, and others waded into those damaged areas. Filled with the power of their stats, they hauled the wounded and the dying through portals back to Ice City before charging back into their ships to get more wounded, to stay in the fight.

  The bastion’s shields failed along another section. Alarms rang out as missiles closed in on the massive sphere. The Jukal saw the bastion as something that could not live in the same star system as them. Drones unloaded their missiles into the bastion. Explosions rippled over its surface as the drone’s light cannons cut deep grooves in the compressed armor of the bastion. Missiles came in, exploding and shaking the bastion, breaking down more of its Mana barriers and covering it in flames.

  “Come on, baby!” Dave poured power into the soul gem constructs. To him, with his Soul Smithing art, it was as if he were wearing the ship, the soul gem an extension of himself as he called on it to get the
onos back in working order.

  “Focus everything on offense! We can take it!” Eswald barked to her people.

  The bastion weathered the storm. Missiles exploded around her as laser cannons from the Jukal ships carved their enmity into her surface.

  None of the portals opened to reveal interceptors; none of them paused in their firing as they continued to unleash attacks on the Jukal. As they were now passing through the center of the Jukal formation, all of their actions up to this point of time had happened in minutes. With all the moving parts, it felt like an eternity but also a fleeting moment.

  Wreathed in plumes of destruction, lit up with the explosions of grand workings and warheads, covering the skies in spell formations: they might not have the history of the Jukal fleet, but they were no less fierce.

  The bastion continued on, a juggernaut of space and all within its range, unafraid of its wounds or the possibility of death and being destroyed. It shuddered and shook, its Mana barriers all gone. The portals that had been sustaining the Mana barrier now linked to Gunboat Isle with weapons fire pouring from its portals.

  Dragons appeared from onos, all of them appearing around the bastion. Their bodies shook with their roars as they circled the bastion, solidifying and then shooting ahead with unimaginable power.

  The Jukal ships that were covered in flashing lights of missiles leaving their tubes and laser cannons hammering the Pandora fleet now turned to face these dragons. Their battle shook the void and the heavens.

  They cleared a path for the fleet as they shot through. Everything had happened in mere moments, but for those who had high Intelligence, they were able to see all that was going on. They had pushed themselves to their limits, and past, doing all they could to put the Jukal in a bad position and help the Pandora fleet.

  The fleets left one another, still firing as they went.

  “Full defensive mode. Get your ships in fighting order and flip the fleet!” Admiral Forsyth barked. The bastion’s onos that were spewing arcane fire closed, turning into more weapon ports as on the opposite side of the bastion, arcane fire shot out, fighting against the momentum it had built up. The rest of the Pandora fleet flipped over so their engines were facing the way they were going. The spell formations for the arcane fire flared with light.