Authors: Max Feinstein
“Launch!” Styker transmitted and initiated his preplanned sequence. Within seconds
four Kiba and a pair of much larger Brimstone missiles dropped away from the Dragonfire and accelerated rapidly towards the alien communications ship.
The other six
Knight fighters conducted similar launches, some of which featured magpulse missiles within the mix. In total almost fifty missiles raced in against the large warship. While the Kibas flew straight towards it the Brimstones began to corkscrew through space, making erratic course corrections in order to throw off the enemy targeting systems. This proved an instant necessity as the alien ships switched their defensive fire to engage the new, more imminent, threat. At the same time Knight Squadron separated into flights of two and one of three while disengaging from the attack run.
Watching the progress of his attack, Styker saw a number of his missiles detonate prematurely after being struck by incoming beams.
He would have liked to have launched the ordinance at a closer distance, but even so over half of the missiles still managed to slip through the defenses. The Kibas and magpulse missiles impacted first, doing almost no damage to the communications ship itself due to their anti-fighter type warheads. Styker wasn’t expecting anything different from them as he watched the crimson shields flare up around the rear portside of the large ship from multiple impacts. These, however, were followed soon after by much larger detonations from the Brimstone ASMs hitting their marks.
The first of these large missiles exploded against the enemy’s powerful shields, weakening them substantially in those areas. Exploiting this weakened state eight of the ASMs tore through the defenses and slammed into the smooth black armor plating of the ship.
The resulting internal explosions proved much more intense than Styker could have guessed. His sensor systems blacked out for a second as they lost both enemy targets within the intense backwash of radiation, heat, and debris.
As soon as this disturbance subsided the sensors began to assess the aftermath of the attack, displaying the data right inside Styker’s visual field.
It was quickly evident to the commander that the enemy ship had survived the assault, though it seemed heavily damaged at its rear. More than half of the rear quarter had been vaporized or severed from the ship by the blast and blown into space. Rotating the Dragonfire around to face the alien vessel Styker could see its slanted thruster banks had been rendered inoperable or at least offline for the moment. Fires that raged after the detonations were starting to get suffocated by space entering the ship’s compartments.
Its escort
started to turn as well, possibly taking responsibility for allowing Knight Squadron to execute such an attack. In increased anger the smaller ship began to unleash what seemed like its entire weapons complement at the squadron. Beams and this time even missiles fired from the alien vessel and raced out towards each of the seven Federation Naval fighters. At the same time the mental bombardment intensified as well, piercing into all of their minds like knives. Styker tried to fight it as best he could while barrel rolling out of the way of an orange laser beam.
“I’m hit! Going EV!” Commander Telwin heard Sparky in Knight Six shout in pain just before his Dragonfire shattered into pieces.
More warnings appeared on his HUD as other members of his squadron took damage as well. His ravaged thoughts turned to despair as he saw the Knights being completely wiped out in his mind. The pain coursing throughout his body was almost too much to handle. Just when he was about to lose consciousness, however, everything changed. Through half closed eyes Styker managed to catch only a glimpse of something streaking through black space towards the larger of the alien warships. It looked just like a meteor flying through a planet’s atmosphere. This ‘meteor’ intersected with that very ship and he observed in pure painful glee as it exploded from within. The whole vessel simply appeared to fragment from within before a massive blast detonated from it and filled the surrounding space with blinding light. His sensors began to register other large detonations further ahead in the vicinity of the
Regal
CBG. Even visually he could see bright flashes of light appear out of nowhere in the dark surroundings as he maneuvered his fighter, before fading.
The explosion battered against the escort floating off its starboard flank, causing them to flare out.
This extreme force of energy and kinetics overwhelmed its defenses and allowed large severed sections of alien communications and electronic warfare ship to slam into it, causing even further damage. Its crew did not have to struggle in their repairs for long as the entire warship disintegrated a second later from multiple high-explosive impacts. Originating from its rear the multiple detonations quickly spread to envelope its entirety before causing the powerplant deep inside the ship to become unstable.
Through this cloud of fire and vaporized material shot out nine
dart shaped Cyclone interceptors. One of these trailed a slim tail of swirling whitish smoke as the interceptors conducted a victory roll through space. They quickly leveled out and accelerated at tremendous speed past Knight Squadron towards the still closing alien Stingray fighters many kilometers back. It was then that Styker finally realized that all of the pain inside him had ceased. For the first time in a while his mind was completely clear and his own, free of foreign intrusion.
“Still have to keep bailing you out, huh, Raven?” Styker heard Tiari’s playful voice call out to him through the TacLink connection. He could almost feel her smirking.
“It’s the least you can do after all those favors you owe me,” Styker smiles and slumped back into his pilot’s seat, thoroughly drenched and close to exhaustion, “plus we were just about to take care of that little guy ourselves.”
“Ha! Just keep telling yourself that, while the Hydras clean up your mess,” Commander Okawa laugh
ed, implying the enemy Stingrays that had been left behind.
“Well we might as well help you with the Stingrays, I wouldn’t want them to destroy another of our precious Cyclones,” he replied back and started to regroup the squadron, sending out orders to form up for another engagement.
“What Stingrays?” Tiari said in a moment of slight confusion, “oh…I see what you mean. Isn’t that something! They do sort of look of like the AF-85s.”
“Finally see it huh? Took me a while as well Taurus.
Just save some for us please.”
“No promises Raven, you better hurry,” she added just as one of the alien fighters disappeared into a fireball.
THOUSANDS
of kilometers away, in a completely different grid sector, Admiral Achyuta Singh gazed forth with wide open brown eyes as a red and violet beam extended out from the alien cruiser and hammered hard into his beloved carrier. As the shields resisted in a deep sapphire color Achyuta saw in the distance other capital ships from his group receive similar treatments. Through a pain induced aura he observed his own shields collapse in slow motion and the enemy weapon stretch out further to strike the
Regal
herself.
The whole carrier violently rocked underneath him as the beam sliced into it, punching through the armor plating and the bottom of the bow.
Achyuta gripped his seat harder as the whole ship tilted down slightly from the force of the impact. Once more the superstructure groaned in protest against the pressure being transmitted through it. Multiple alarms began to call out for attention in response to the increasing damage and entire forward areas on the Ship Diagnostic Display changed into a bright red color to indicate extreme damage. What the admiral could not know at that second was that dozens of his crew were instantly incinerated at that very moment as the exposed interior atmosphere caught fire from the intense heat of the weapon. In seconds the reddish beam started to dig its way into the carrier, pushing towards the rear in what seemed like an effort to cut the whole ship in half.
Unable to speak through the pain Achyuta
tried hard to focus his thoughts into a single command order. He knew that Regela was still constantly monitoring his mental processes through the Cognitive Neural Implant he had received a little over one year ago. It had taken him a good while to adjust to the implant, but it was at this moment that he felt truly glad to have it. Regela instantly detected the visual elements in his mind and translated them into actual maneuvers. Within seconds the lateral thrusters engaged and the carrier began to shift its position. At the same time the whole ship tilted to the starboard side in an effort to break contact from the enemy weapon. The quick movement overpowered the beam’s ability to keep cutting through the carrier, causing it to slice into the top decks instead of piercing deeper inside.
The beam shut off as soon as it broke contact with the
Regal
as the carrier maneuvered away. It was also at this time that a large detonation off to the side of the display caught Achyuta’s attention. He turned his head in that direction just as Regela warned, “contact with
Sirius
lost. Link disabled.”
In the distance the admiral watched with a sad heart as the Cosmos class destroyer began to fracture into roughly torn and burning segments.
The large escort vessel had been struck with another powerful alien beam weapon, which had ripped it to shreds after igniting a number of its munitions storage magazines. Before the fires even died within the wreckage another series of explosions blossomed out as Trident and Ranger Squadrons completed another attack run on the remaining alien flanking frigate. While the ship was not destroyed, it was damaged sufficiently enough to take it out of the fight for the time being.
“
Captain Hinnamen, have all available ships target enemy cruiser Hotel Ten,” Admiral Singh commanded with resolution in his voice as he stood himself up. His mind cleared a bit further as he kept looking ahead at the massive bulbous alien ship floating in front of his own. He could also see dozens of much smaller fighter crafts darting in and out of his field of vision from all over the battlefield. Every now and then one of these specks would morph into a ball of vivid fire as one side or the other scored fatal hits. His squadrons were outnumbers and fighting under harsh mental conditions, but still managing to inflict serious casualties on the enemy. The battle group’s surviving Odin corvettes and Redemption frigates helped soften up the opposing squadrons whenever possible as well.
Captain Nickolas Hinnamen replied almost instantly with a, “right away sir!” and set to work on relaying the orders.
With the help of Regela fleet-wide connections the targeting data disseminated throughout without delay even as the carrier rocked once more from enemy laser fire. The
Regal
herself, wounded further, responded with another barrage of her own. Particle beams and plasma bolt rounds shot out from still functional batteries and impacted against the alien cruiser’s crimson shields. Along with these mounted weapons system dozens of anti-ship missiles also began to join the fight, coming in from different angles. To Admiral Singh the amount of weapons fire seemed much less than we remembered previously. In the seconds following more beams and plasma bolts hammered into the enemy’s defenses from the other escorting vessels, their fire shifting targets from the new orders. The enemy vessel’s shield flared from multiple sides under the heavy bombardment, but seemed to hold steady as the energy sphere at the cruiser’s bow started to glow brighter again.
“Contact, contact, new
extreme velocity signatures,” Regela spoke out through the overhead speakers, “tracking seventeen ASM sized objects.”
“Alien?” Achyuta quickly inquired and took another step forward.
“Negative,” Captain Hinnamen answered even before Regela could, “drive signatures come back as unknown, but Federation in origin.”
“
She’s firing again!” one of the bridge stations announced, the crewman finally recovering from his traumatic experience, and pointed out towards the enemy cruiser.
He hardly had time to get the warning out when the entire deck heaved
upward and threatened to throw everyone off balance. This time the heavy beam impacted the starboard side of the carrier in the vicinity of the hanger bay. There were hardly any shields to even slow the weapon down before it struck the hull and burned its way inside. Bright warning indicators instantly started popping up all over the tactical displays throughout the bridge as the beam worked its way into the
Regal
. Admiral Singh’s maneuver to get away from the first shot had actually placed the ship in a more vulnerable position by exposing its hind quarters. Now that same beam was working its way through the vessel and towards the large dark matter reactor that powered it. The effect of this action would be catastrophic, Achyuta knew and dreadful thoughts once again started to swell inside him.
These thoughts were not yet finalized into actions when another warship’s bulk rose up to fill the entire forward display screen.
Admiral Singh watched through flickering overhead lights as the battered Ridge class frigate
Maridok
accelerated from its former position into the violet-red energy beam hammering into the
Regal
. There was nothing Achyuta could do, no order he could give to save the committed warrior before its hull transected with the beam. Escape pods instantly could be seen jettisoning from all over the U shaped ship in all directions before the entire vessel tore itself apart in a large explosion.