This was the other ability I had gotten from the space dragon, the ability to traverse between normal space and subspace. For a few brief moments, I was surrounded by a myriad of black and purple energies, each of which felt like they were bombarding me from all sides, kept at bay only by the shielding ability of that same dragon. I moved forward less than half a kilometer before using the ability again, reappearing in normal space.
When I re-emerged, I was actually behind the New Human Empire ships, having gone a bit too far in my estimations. Still, I was fairly close, closer than any of the Judgement ships that were buzzing around as distractions. And what would you do if an enemy just appeared behind you at the start of a battle? Naturally, one of the turrets flew to aim at me, but this time I was more prepared.
Flying forward, I shielded my figure with my large wings, since I did not need them for flight in space. I filled them with my Mana Leech ability, and attuned myself to the light element. By temporarily sacrificing all of my other affinities, even if I didn’t reach 100%, I should have at least 95%. Knowing that, I should be able to resist a pure light attack like this without difficulty.
Sure enough, I felt a blast of heat on my wings a few moments later. Although it was still painful, it was not to a degree that I was in danger of a quick death. If I had to estimate, I could likely handle a blast from two turrets like this, using my regeneration power to sustain me. If I tried to tank three, I would die before the blast ended. Any more would be an instant defeat.
After five seconds of sustained laser fire, the heat from my wings faded away. Two small holes had been burnt through, but it was not significant enough damage for me to waste one of my full heals. Instead, I cast a standard healing spell on myself while continuing to fly closer to the assault ship.
I could see the rain of weapons fire surrounding the two ships, causing the hexagonal shields to go into overdrive to protect both ships. This is where the other weakness of those shields becomes apparent, as quick attacks such as railgun rounds tend to arrive before the shield finishes forming. However, that only made them targets for the assault turrets. Aside from the one trained on me, and one other that came to assist it, the rest were targeting the Qu’Lopti Judgement Warriors.
Thankfully, the specialty of those mechs happened to be melee, rather than ranged. That meant that their movement abilities were high enough to avoid a lock by simply flying around in random patterns, only occasionally firing a shot. Sadly, their railgun fire did not do much damage to either ship, despite being able to pass through the shield before it forms.
Soon, just before I was at the assault ship, the two layered turrets fired at me. Well, more accurately, the one in the back fired into the other one, which somehow amplified its power to attack me. I still chose to block in the same manner as I had before, though this time I tapped into the power of the black hole within my grove to aid me in absorbing the lasers.
Unlike before, I barely felt the heat from the lasers, as much of the energy was absorbed before it could reach me. I also did not have to continue for the entire five seconds, because I flew through the turrets. Yes, through them. They were in front of me, and it was quicker than going around. Thankfully, there was that great big hole in the center of each turret that they fired from. I felt an uncomfortable energy wash over me, before I was on the other side.
Now, there was nothing standing between me and the silver metal of the enemy ship. Now… Let’s go punch an elephant. I clenched my fist, cancelling out my attunement and drawing on the mana from my grove. My fist gave off a faint shine as I filled it with metal mana, then slammed it against the hull of the ship.
Unsurprisingly, my fist was not more powerful than a railgun blast from one of the Judgement Warriors. However, I did not despair quite yet. Instead, I reached out my mana senses and began constructing a second body, this one made almost entirely of metal mana. Compared to my combat form, this body was roughly three times as large, looking like a silver angel.
When I had this second body punch, there was a visible dent on the surface, and sparks flying everywhere. Seeing that, I couldn’t help but grin, having the silver angel’s fist turn into a long blade to strike again. However, before it could make contact, I found myself floating just outside the airlock of the Ariadne again, my connection with the construct severed. What happened? I asked in my head as I turned to look at the battle.
In the distance, I saw the warp gate flickering on and off, as if it had been short-circuited. More importantly, one of the metal rings wrapping around the white hole of the assault ship had been shattered. The white field of energy at its center trembled, convulsing for several seconds before a second field of energy spread out to encompass the ship. A blinding white light erupted from the center of the ship, like a small sun, and when it faded away there was not a single trace of the assault ship remaining.
“We were dealing the finishing blow, so had to pull the ant back home.” Celeste said in a teasing voice. “Looks like we have a solid plan for dealing with this setup. As long as they don’t focus on one of our larger ships with three or more turrets, we can defeat a single pair. Shall we up the difficulty, then?”
I nodded, and we all appeared in the same vacant lobby space as before. “This time, let’s make it two assault ships, with a single shield ship.” One of the Qu’Lopti officers suggested, I believe the one in charge of the Executioner. “We already have trouble with a single shield ship unless we spread out our attacks to make them use up more energy, but it’s manageable. A second shield ship would take a lot longer to get used to than a second turret ship.”
The Deus Ex captains nodded, one of them speaking up. “This is acceptable.”
With that, we went in to run another scenario. This time… it was a crushing defeat. It wasn’t simply that they doubled the number of targets that could be attacked. I didn’t dare to try to go out on my own again, because one ship was constantly committed to full attacks on a single target while the second chased the moving targets with its turrets.
After the first ten seconds, we lost the Ariadne. Then, every thirty seconds, another ship was destroyed. In the end, although the Qu’Lopti mechs managed to destroy the shield ship, there wasn’t enough backup for them to take out the assault ships. They could only wait to be killed.
How are we going to deal with that?
Chapter 26: Prelude to Battle
For the next three days, we were almost constantly in training simulations. It took us fifteen attempts before we were able to take out a pair of assault ships guarded by a single shield ship. Next was one assault ship guarded by two shield ships, another pain. For that fight, I had to actually get into the midst of it myself and let Celeste go back to commanding. On the bright side, we learned that if I burn a couple of stars for their energy, I can blast through one of the assault ships. Sadly, handling that much power also ripped my body to shreds, but it was a work in progress.
After that, we did two pairs of enemy ships, followed by various circumstances where the planet would be able to help them, or a nearby starbase. Though, the starbase was a conceptual design that Celeste and the Deus Ex captains created based on the white hole technologies the New Human Empire seemed to be employing.
Anyways, by the end of the three days, we were confident that we had plans to win against up to four of their ships in any configuration. Any more and we’d likely suffer heavy losses. One the fourth day, the final Deus Ex ship managed to catch up with us.
For now, I was sharing the tactical information with the relevant crew members, that way we would be prepared to act at a moment’s notice. Of course, I doubted the strategies were foolproof, and knew that the enemy would eventually adapt to them. Right now, I was relying on the hopes that we knew more about their fleets than they did about ours.
Sadly, no amount of simulations could prepare me for what was on this planet we were heading to. Malthan was being completely unhelpful in that regard, which was understandable. I mean, he off
ered me a quest to investigate. Why would he do that, and then just tell me the answer?
Sharon, sitting with me and the senior officers in charge of the Ariadne, looked at me strangely as I was briefing them on the strategies. “John…?”
“Yes? Is there a problem with the plan?” I asked, looking curiously to her.
“Yes, yes there is. Why is it that every plan you have mentioned so far with at least four enemy ships requires you detonating your body to take one out?” Okay… that is a very good question, and an even better concern for a wife to have for her husband!
“Well… we don’t exactly have the firepower to take on a fourth ship with just what we have. And, since I’m the only one able to bring out so much explosive power, it makes sense for me to do it. I mean, it’s not like I’ll be going in my main body or anything, and we actually have extra clones this time.”
Sharon gave me a questioning look, as if she still didn’t think that was a good enough explanation. It’s the best I have, though! If we had more powerful ships, then this would be easy to solve! Sharon turned to look at Celeste. “Is there any way we can bounce their attacks back at them? I mean, their laser weapons should be more than enough to break through those shields. Especially if they are stacked a few times.”
Celeste helplessly shook her head. “We tried reconfiguring our shields to various wavelengths. We found what should be the optimum setting to deflect the damage from their attacks, but it won’t let us send it back at them. For that, we would need a special device, either opening a portal to have their attack redirected, or create a giant mirror in space. Problem is, the laser is too powerful, so any mirror, whether magical or technological, would be blasted apart. As for the portal, that would need some work.”
Sharon glanced at me at the mention of portals, and I had to shake my head as well. “With how much energy those lasers contain, I don’t think I’d last half a second redirecting them without my brain turning to mush.”
She let out a resigned sigh, nodding her head in acceptance. “Fine, but I still don’t like that plan.”
I chuckled slightly. “If you can come up with something that does not require me to become a living bomb, please, I beg of you to tell us. You have no idea how uncomfortable that is.” She cracked a small smile at that, so I guessed my joke got through.
“Huh…” She suddenly lifted her head up. “What if you tried to use your black hole to absorb the energy from their white hole? From what you said the last time that you absorbed a lot of energy, your grove got closer to evolving. Would a white hole be able to give it that extra push?”
I felt a cold sweat pour down my back as I considered that. “Please spare me from that. I want to destroy one ship, not the solar system. You saw how intense the absorption process was when I upgraded earlier. I can only imagine that upgrading to the universe stage would be thousands of times worse. Remember, we still need that planet in one piece.”
Sharon opened her mouth, as if preparing to speak, but realized she had nothing to counter that with. “Okay, point. Still kind of want you to hurry up and evolve it, though. My grove finished getting pulled through to your black hole last night.” She crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks to pout, and I could only blink in surprise. I hadn’t noticed when her grove was affected by the black hole.
It was still nearly four months until my own grove was fully pulled in, but maybe with hers lacking the gravity element, it was easier to grab. “Sorry… I didn’t know. Well, we’ll save that tactic for a ‘plan B’ if we need it in the future when we aren’t trying to keep the surroundings intact.”
She nodded slightly at that. Honestly, I was still wondering what would happen with her grove when mine went to the next stage. Malthan wouldn’t tell me anything about it, except that she wouldn’t be hurt, which was at least reassuring to know.
After the meeting was over, people went back to their respective posts. We were still nearly a week out from the battle, so it’s not like it had been an emergency meeting. If we had spent all ten days in the simulations just to figure out the various combinations that could be defending one planet, we’d be in way more trouble.
As I got back to my room, I discovered that the door was already open. Inside, Tokemi was laying on my bed, on her stomach with her legs kicking back and forth while she read a book. Once she saw I had entered the room, she set the book down and smiled at me. “Hey dad! How’d the meeting go?”
Okay, so I was surprised to find her waiting for me in my room. Glancing back at the door that was still open, I cast my mana senses out towards it. Yup, frozen. Tokemi must have been pretty irritated if she froze the door open with time mana, and left it that way. I shook my head with a bitter smile as I walked towards her. “It went alright, I guess. I take it you wanted to see me?”
She made a large nodding motion with her head. “Yeah! I hardly ever get to see you since we left Qu’Lesh!” She laid down flat on the bed, arms and legs sprawled out. “So, tonight I’m making sure that changes!”
I blinked, confused by her meaning. “And you’re going to do that by….?”
“Yahtzee!” Tokemi held up her hands, and an old game box suddenly appeared in them. Furrowing her brows, the box quickly returned to mint condition. “Mom said I shouldn’t bother you too much the last few days, because you were busy with stuff, but she said you’re all done with that now!”
Tokemi had a happy smile on her face as she said that, so I couldn’t exactly turn her away. “Okay, okay. We’ve got some time now.” I sat down on the bed as Tokemi fished out the cups and dice, flipping the box over to use as a playing mat. “Neat trick with the door, by the way.” I nodded back towards the door, which was still stuck open.
Tokemi blinked, as if only just realizing that she had done that. “Oh, sorry. Wanted to make sure you knew I was in here.” She giggled lightly. A moment later, I heard the door to the room closing, evidently her power no longer affecting it.
“Ah… How good is your time control power now?” I asked curiously.
“Got my affinity up to 92% last week!” She declared proudly. I chuckled, remembering that my own hadn’t even hit 60% yet. Then again, she had a very big advantage when it came to this affinity.
“That so? How big of an area are you able to cover with it?” Time was a weird element to work with. From my practices, it generally did not matter what was in the field you affected, time influences everything equally. That’s also why it took so much work to increase the area I could affect with my time powers.
“Hmm… I never really tested.” She shrugged. “I can make time stop, or go way faster, though!” She grinned, tossing two dice into the air. The first one froze soon after it left her hand, but the other went up and back down faster than I could blink. “I think I’m getting the hang of rewinding, too… That one’s hard, though.”
Suddenly, I felt like she was half here to show off, and the thought made me laugh. Regardless, that power she displayed was certainly one with a terrifying potential. If she could really ‘stop’ time for a wide area, then the New Human Empire’s attacks would never even reach us. But, that would be asking her to cover kilometers with that power. If she had a full 100% affinity, she might be able to do that, but anything less made me doubtful.
Though, this opened up a new idea for how I could handle the fights. I hadn’t tried using my time control during the simulations, partly because I didn’t have enough practice with it for Celeste to properly simulate it.
In a somewhat better mood, I spent the next several hours playing games with Tokemi, who was only too happy to have the attention. I was still determined not to let her fight, but at least I knew that she had the power to protect herself if need be. Hell, she probably has more raw fighting power with her time control than almost anyone on this ship.
For the next several days, I began practicing my own ability to control time mana. With it being the only ‘absolute’ power I had, I knew that I needed far more training with
it. Unfortunately, Tokemi is the only other person in the entire ship that practices this element, and she isn’t even that well informed about it. What could you expect, she’s not even ten years old yet. In my opinion, being as strong and smart as she is at this age is already monstrous.
On the tenth day, I found myself on the bridge, already plugged into a clone body. All of the senior officers from the briefing a week ago were at their stations, preparing for the inevitable fight. Celeste was standing next to me, ready to fill in in the event that a worst case scenario appeared and I had to leave the ship.
“Everyone, we are less than five minutes away from the New Human Empire’s AB7 base. Everyone should have been briefed on the various strategies to deal with this encounter. I don’t want anyone running off on their own. This one fight could change everything--”
“Captain.” The scanning officer interrupted me, which gave me a bad feeling.
“Yes?”
“They appear to have an FTL jammer in the subspace around their world. We’ll have to drop out a short distance earlier than expected.” Nothing like a bucket of ice cold water to spill over my plans. Without the ability to jump to subspace and back, my plan for self-detonation did not have much merit.
“Slight change of plans. We’re dropping out in thirty seconds. Everyone set your shields to the indicated frequencies to minimize damage.” We might be able to destroy their FTL jammer, but doing so would open us up to an ambush with them knowing exactly where we’d drop out. It seemed a better idea to save what little surprise we could.
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