by Ivan Kal
“Pull us back, we don’t want to get overwhelmed. Get the drones in front with the Sovereigns,” Johanna ordered. She needed to allow her ships to recover, even if that meant sacrificing the drones.
Her ships were getting pummeled. One of the Shara Daim Sovereigns was leaking atmosphere and many of the ships in her force had suffered some damage. There was just too much enemy fire. By the calculations of the ship’s AIs, they had taken out almost two hundred thousand of their ships, but had lost almost an equal amount spread across the fleets of various nations. There were even two fleets that had gotten completely wiped out.
The Suvri defending the planet had managed to somehow hold the enemy force. Johanna didn’t know how long that could last. They had lost half of their defensive platforms and the black ships had even taken a few shots at the planet. The planetary shield held—it would take a lot more to bring it down—but it made them all nervous anyway.
Then Johanna saw a large task force of black ships separate from the formation somewhere on the top of the sphere and turn toward Johanna’s forces. “Damn,” she whispered. There were almost one hundred thousand ships in that “task force.” There was no way that they could hold back both them and the forces they were already engaged with.
She looked for a way out, but she saw none. Any attempt at a retreat would only let them get to her faster…unless she tried to scatter the force, which had its own risks. Still, she had no choice.
“All ships, prepare for emergency skim,” Johanna started, but then her sensor officer yelled out.
“Fleet Master, look!”
Johanna frowned, but focused on the holo only to see the new enemy task force suddenly get hit hard. Something had decimated their numbers. The holo updated as new signatures appeared out of nowhere.
“Those are Suvri ships,” Johanna said, grinning—I knew that they had another fleet in system. Johanna was fairly impressed that they had waited to use that fleet until now, when it would have the most effect. The Suvri were good—very good. It seemed that all of the stories that she had heard about the core powers were true. The Tar’ferat were holding their own as well; they had been decimating the top of the enemy formation since the beginning, with very few losses.
In a matter of moments, the Suvri had just destroyed almost half of the task force sent against Johanna’s forces.
“We are getting a com request from the Suvri flagship,” com officer reported.
“Put it through,” Johanna said.
“This is Fleet Commander Jikao of the Suvri Defense Fleet.”
“Thank you for the assist, Fleet Commander,” Johanna said.
“There is no need for gratitude. We are fighting the same enemy. I was hoping that you would be willing to bring your force closer to mine so that together we may strike. Your impressive vessels would add much to the flow of battle.”
“Of course, Fleet Commander, we are on our way.” Johanna cut the comm and turned to her crew. “Chart a course for a short-range skim jump for the fleet.” The forces that had been pressuring her had now switched focus to the newly arrived Suvri. It seemed that they went after the biggest threat, which now gave Johanna room to breathe and regroup her forces.
Joining the Suvri formation would help them a lot; the Sovereigns were powerful, but they could be overwhelmed. With the Suvri’s numbers, they would have more room to fight.
As soon as her forces had changed their orientation, she gave the order for them to enter the skim.
* * *
“Yes!” Vorash pumped his upper arms in the air as the Suvri stealth force came to aid of their forces.
“That was very—” Vaana spoke.
“—well done,” Kane finished.
“It was,” the Old Scar sent. “It gave us some room. It doesn’t change much, however.”
Tomas remained quiet. It was obvious from the feelings that seeped through the Old Scar’s words that he wanted to be up there fighting.
“If only those cowards had joined in the battle, we would’ve had a better chance,” Vorash said.
Tomas quietly agreed. There were still about a third of the fleets stationed away from the battle watching, including three of the more powerful core powers: the Josanti League, Tuete, and Benos. Tomas would love nothing more than to shoot their commanders in their heads. Vorash was right—they were cowards.
“We are losing,” Vaana said.
“The Suvri protecting the planet will not survive for much longer, ” Kane said.
“The enemy is planning something there.” Vaana pointed at the center of the enemy formation. Tomas could see many ships moving around but he couldn’t see what the two former Dai Sha had seen.
“You are correct, they are preparing for a push for the planet.”
“You want to say that they haven’t been pushing until now?” Vorash asked incredulously, voicing Tomas’s sentiments exactly.
“They’ve been testing. And… If my reasoning is correct, they were also gathering information.”
“Ah,” Kane and Vaana said at the same time.
“That make much more sense—” Vaana started.
“—we did not see it before,” Kane finished, looking at the Old Scar, and then the twins bowed their heads at the Krashinar in respect.
“See what?” Vorash asked, sounding lost.
“These black ships had been testing the forces here, gathering information on their capabilities.”
“Damn,” Tomas said. “So what, now they are going to start fighting seriously?”
“It would—” Kane said.
“—seem so,” Vaana finished.
* * *
In the span of five minutes, the battle had changed completely. One moment Johanna and the Suvri had been hammering the enemy ships, and in the next they were running for their lives.
The black ships had been losing thousands of ships under the fire of the Rimward Alliance and the Suvri fleet, and then, as if the devastation up until now had been just a warm up, everything changed. The enemy ships moved from deep within the sphere formation to the forefront and they struck, focusing their fire unlike anything that they had done before. They hammered the Sovereign Kali, bringing its shields down and then proceeding to systematically break the ship apart. The Sovereign had survived for a while, fighting even as it was dying, destroying hundreds of the enemy ships in the process—but in the end, it wasn’t enough. The rest of Johanna’s forces were too occupied trying to survive to help. The massive ship died with holes in its body, becoming nothing but a slow spinning piece of debris. The first Sovereign that the Empire had ever lost, and not the last they would this day.
More and more ships started dying. The Krashinar had lost a quarter of their forces in a span of ten minutes. The Erasi had taken the most losses, with half of their Devastators falling under the onslaught. The Shara Daim had yet to lose a Sovereign, but they had paid the price in dreadnoughts and battleships. The Empire had lost many as well, more than the Shara Daim, and Johanna knew that they wouldn’t survive for much longer.
They had done a lot of damage to the enemy forces, had destroyed at least three hundred thousand of their ships, but the fleets that were fighting had lost just as much. Overall they had been trading ship for ship, and at that rate they would run out of ships long before the enemy. With each destroyed friendly ship, their defenses weakened, and yet the enemy’s effectiveness did not diminish in the same fashion.
The black ships had ravaged the Suvri forces defending the planet, had destroyed all of their defensive platforms, and were now focusing on the planetary shield—and that would not last long under such an onslaught. Johanna could do nothing to change the course of the battle, she knew that. The only thing that she could do was to run away, and in doing so leave her Emperor on the planet to die.
And her duty would not allow her to do that.
A comm request came through from the Suvri commander, and Johanna answered.
“The defenses at the planet are
failing. We cannot let them get through the shield,” Fleet Commander Jikao said.
“We don’t have enough room to maneuver,” Johanna said slowly as she watched her ships burn.
“Perhaps if your large ships provide cover, we might manage it.”
Johanna knew what the Suvri was asking, and her first instinct was to decline—but she knew that there was no other way. If they were to die, she would delay the enemy as much as possible.
“Make sure that your forces are ready. We won’t get a second chance at this.” Johanna closed the comms and used her interface to send out messages. She would ask the commanders of those ships herself.
She ordered four of her remaining Sovereigns to move forward and stem the tide of oncoming ships for as much as possible. She was sacrificing them; she knew that, they knew that. Still, they accepted her orders, and as the Sovereigns died to give her that room, she gave out new orders.
“All ships, plot a micro jump to the planet. We are not letting them through that shield.”
Her crew followed her orders, but she could see the somber expressions on their faces. They knew that it was a futile thing.
A moment later her entire force skimmed into high orbit above the planet, followed close behind by the remains of the Suvri’s forces. They came out of the skim in a field of debris, and several of her ships collided with pieces of platforms.
Johanna’s and the Suvri commander’s forces hit hard at the enemy ships, pushing them from the planet long enough to get into position to defend. The ships seemed focused on single point on the shield, just over the summit grounds, so thankfully they did not need to defend the entire planet.
Another of her Sovereigns died as the black ships focused all of their fire on it, to the point of ignoring other ships. This resulted in the black ships losing far more in trade, but they didn’t care. They still outnumbered them.
Her fleets were losing, and ten more of her dreadnoughts exploded. The situation was hopeless—they were now stuck against the planet with no way to escape.
Then her sensor officer yelled out.
“Fleet Master, new arrivals from hyperspace!”
Johanna turned her eyes to the holo and saw the new arrivals, and their familiar signatures.
“Finally,” Johanna whispered, sighing in relief.
The Nomad Fleet had arrived.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Year 713 of the Empire — Suvri territory — Summit system
Anessa sat in the command chair on board the Bastion in the Nomad Fleet command center. The Bastion was a World-ship, or the Empire’s version of one at least, and while it had weapons, they were not on the same scale as what a Titan had. Even so, the Bastion was the flagship in battle, the command hub for every other ship in the Fleet.
As soon as the Nomad Fleet dropped out of hyperspace, her eyes looked at the updating holo as they got the most up-to-date data from the other Rimward Alliance ships in the system. Her mind was looking over the same via the command interface. As soon as she got a good picture of the state of the system, she started sending out orders.
“Assume attack formations 4-21,” Anessa ordered as she felt the now familiar feeling of anticipation before a battle. She had always loved commanding ships—and now she would command the most advanced fleet ever built. Adrian was the Nomad Fleet’s Warmaster, but Anessa was its Battle Commander. Adrian had moved away from commanding large fleet battles in the last years, focusing instead on other things in his pursuit of overcoming his limits. Anessa had continued training for fleet battles, and now was likely better at commanding than he was.
The situation in the system was dire. The black ships outnumbered the friendly ships which were engaged in battle, and she could see that the friendly forces were losing. There were too many enemy ships for them to hold out. Her own battle fleet was thirty thousand strong, not much compared to the number of enemy ships, but a third of that were Titans and the rest were nanoships. She was sure that they were about to give the enemy a real surprise.
As soon as all of her ships reported back, she took a deep breath and, with one last glance at the holo, gave the order. “Begin the attack.”
Almost immediately the warships of the Nomad Fleet, already grouped in one hundred smaller formations, each with one hundred Titans and their nanoship escorts, spread out and entered the skim. They arrived within the enemy’s formation and started unleashing walls of fire against the enemy ships. Every Titan held more firepower than a Sovereign, and with one hundred of them in one formation it was nearly impossible for any force to overwhelm them. She sent one formation to aid every friendly fleet that was still fighting, and ten formations to the planet to help defend it. The rest she had sent out all around the giant sphere that was the enemy formation.
Anessa remained back with two formations and Adrian’s Moirai guarding the Bastion and the Hephaestus mobile stations. She was not a commander that tended to micromanage unless necessary, and seeing the destruction that the first wave of her attacks had wrought, she leaned back and opened a channel to Adrian. She knew that it was only a matter of time until the enemy recovered from this attack and struck back—and she had an idea.
“Yes, Anessa?” Adrian answered.
“I have an idea, but it will require revealing a few of our secrets,” Anessa said.
“Oh? I am listening,” Adrian said cheerfully.
She told him, and Adrian took a moment to respond.
“I don’t think that even the Nomad Fleet can take out all of these ships without losses. We can hurt them badly, but numerical advantage is always dangerous,” Adrian said. “But, yes, you are right. With that we will have the upper hand.”
Anessa nodded and quickly sent out orders to begin preparing. “And what about you? Will you take her into battle?”
“Not yet. I want time to see how the black ships fight, and then we will go in. I don’t want to reveal her true nature until we find the Enlightened, nor do I want to give Vas forewarning.”
“He is in combat with Ryaana. I doubt that he will have the time to watch,” Anessa said.
“As much as I hate to admit it, we don’t know all that they can do yet. I do not want to risk him noticing something that I would rather keep as a secret weapon.”
“As you wish,” Anessa said and closed the channel, turning her focus to the Hephaestus mobile stations that were reorienting for skim.
As soon as they did, she ordered her formation to skim. A moment later, they appeared in the orbit of the system’s sun. The Hephaestuses moved closer, their shields burning brightly as they dropped closer to the star, and a visible change in their smooth spherical shapes appeared as small conduits of energy dropped deep into the star, and the nanites started rearranging themselves. A long spire extended from their hulls with a nozzle at the end, and bright blue light started glowing all around the base of the spire.
Anessa waited patiently with her formation standing guard above the three stations. There were no enemy ships anywhere close, but that did not mean that they should be any less vigilant.
Then, fifteen minutes later, the crews of the Hephaestuses reported that they were ready.
Anessa designated intended targets, focusing on enemies that were currently threatening to overwhelm the friendly forces. “Fire,” she ordered.
Three beams of intense blue energy lashed out of the three mobile stations: matter-disintegration beams which were a step up from those previously used by the Star-guard stations in the Empire. The beams were smaller, but with greater range and power. The three beams of faster-than-light energy lashed out across the system and in an instant disintegrated thousands of enemy ships.
The Hephaestuses didn’t have enough power on their own to fire such weapons, and in fact no ship in the Empire’s fleets had—their MD weapons were far weaker—but the Hephaestuses could tap into the power of a star and charge their capacitors to fire. Two minutes later, another salvo of beams lashed out, and more enemy ships died.
<
br /> * * *
Johanna rejoiced as the Nomad Fleet joined the fight, and as soon as they had a task force of one thousand Titan-class warships and their escorts drop out of skim near her force, they began destroying the black ships, giving her people much-needed room to breathe. Johanna used the command interface to quickly send out orders and reorganize her forces into one wall formation, and then she begun the counterattack.
She noticed that the enemy ships’ fire seemed to have lost their effectiveness… She remembered a few talks with Gotu where he told her that the nanoships had the most advanced and experimental electronic warfare suits.
Suddenly the tide of the battle had turned, and Johanna could see the change all over the battlefield.
* * *
“That…” Vorash whispered. “I knew that he had built a powerful fleet, but that it…”
“Father doesn’t—” Kane started.
“—do anything halfway,” Vaana finished.
“Can we win now?” Tomas asked, as they saw the three station-sized vessels fire again from across the system.
Vorash crossed his upper arms. “Perhaps. They are turning the tide across the formations, but we are still too outnumbered. It is close.”
“A few of the other fleets are joining the battle,” the Old Scar said.
Tomas turned his eyes to the holo and saw a few of the fleet that had stepped out of the way move toward the enemy formation. They were still holding to extreme range, only sending s-missiles at the enemy, but at least they were helping. But there were still too many not fighting—two hundred and fifty thousand warships were just standing there and watching. If they had fought from the start, if some hadn’t run away, Tomas was sure that this situation would’ve looked very different.
He looked again to the secondary holo set up next to the one watching the battle. His staff had no connection to their fleets, but they had estimates of their losses—and the numbers were not good at all. Almost half of the force that the Rimward Alliance had brought had been destroyed. Ten thousand warships, hundreds of thousands of people.