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Post by CanisDirus on Mar 21, 2021 19:45:27 GMT
Rubikon System: APP Staging ground, Capitol Space
Rubikon had a long history. Originally it was a slave holding system, strip mined some time ago for resources during the 1st Ancerious war and was slowly built up into a proper civilized system. After Inara came to power Rubikon had a huge boost in income and resource allocation and eventually became Capitols primary shipyards alongside a staging ground of the Old Dark Triumvirate between Capitol, Shadowblade and the Shadowguard. Now Rubikon was a fortress, boasting Capitols largest shipyard, large R&D projects in the huge orbitals over the inhabited world and the staging ground of multiple APP forces nothing was taken to chance. Orbital defences silently floated on their orbital paths to intersect key routes in system bathed in the yellow light from the systems middle aged sun, the shipyards themselves a colossal sprawling spider web of constructs in orbit around Rubikon proper the inhabited world while APP fleets hung in orbit being resupplied behind the glowing form of the systems hot giant.
Rubikon was like a well-oiled machine, constantly moving and with little in the way of non-regulated traffic. That was until the sensor systems lit up with incoming contacts.
“What the hell is all this racket?”
“Sir we have huge inbound! Im detecting over 9000 contacts and several large ones!” The sensor operator called out, the bridge of the _Exalted_ a High Emperor class of the new Mk.3 fleet. Fleet Captain Agamo’s eye twitched at the mention of such a huge fleet.
“Are you absolutely sure!” He shouted in reply bringing up the sensor readings himself, the alarms of the entire fleet were going off and signals corroborating the detection came in from not just the systems long range sensors and platforms but also the other APP fleets in system. This was not a joke. This was a full on invasion. His grip on the command chair tightened as he took a second to collect his thoughts.
“Battle stations! Condition one all ships in system regroup on designated location, bring weapons and defences online I want all attack craft launched and this system on full lock down!” He shouted in reply. The various vessels that belonged to Capitol in system numbered around 1000 ships spread out in multiple small patrol forces across the system, they now immediately broke courses and made their way back to Agamo’s position above Rubikon itself. All over the system defense platforms powered weapons, civilians were sent into shelters, defences were locked down and troops put on full readiness. This was it. The allies were finally making their move.
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The orders streamed in on the command display, the multi-tiered edifice that was the bridge of the _Warrior_ a Haephestus class super dreadnought was awash with activity thanks to the incoming targets. The small Triarch fleet of merely 146 vessels hung in close formation around the systems hot giant, transferring supplies and personal between ships and the various resupply stations in orbit. The shuttles and supply transference had been immediately cancelled, and the fleet was being called to full readiness. Tasume scowled at the data inflows, this was serious, and immediately a call to arms to other Triarch fleets was being compiled and sent they needed more forces here.
As the Triarch fleet broke high anchor and readied its weapons its course was plotted to rendezvous with the Capitol fleet in orbit over Rubikon. Tasume sighed the loss of this system was all but assured from the initial info broker returns but he would do his best to prove those initial predictions wrong.
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Exemplar Yutrine closed the eyes of another crewmember, commending his soul to Eos as he passed away. That was when the alert alarms started blaring. The inside of the Eosian ship was undamaged, and yet the 5 vessels of her small fleet had suffered heavy losses from whatever calamity had befallen the Bridge of Worlds and the coming of Eos. Each ship only had a fraction of its crew complements but Yutrine felt a deep hatred inside her.
These allied heretics had overseen the destruction of the bridge, they must have somehow disrupted the ceremony. Rushing to the bridge she signalled all vessels to full readiness with the crew they had left. Powering kinetic wave weapons Yutrine would avenge her people in any way she could.
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Space however, shuddered. Like the fabric of reality was about to completely burst its banks and let whatever lay beyond flood into realspace. There was a moment of stillness then the first of the monumental allied fleet broke FTL. Fleet Captain Volkus felt the sudden jerk of realspace translation the entire bridge and sensors exploding with activity as realtime updates streamed enemy positions to the Union fleet. 1700 vessels tore free from slipspace, the largest of any Union fleet fielded so far even in defense of Mirach itself. The blue arrowhead forms of nearly every type of Union vessel formed up into a defensive arrowhead formation as continuous FTL spikes signalled the rest of the AGA forces translating in system as well.
Volkus was proud, this was it. This was where they struck back.
“All ships form up in designated attack formations, target priorities are being sent fleet wide, carry out orders and do not rely upon further updates.” That was the only order given. The Union fleet had pre made its orders and knew that fighting against the APP would likely lead to coms systems being compromised and a heavy ECM environment. Volkus stood up looking at the large holoprojection of the entire solar system complete with the realtime positions of all forces, the icons of the AGA fleet now popping into life.
“Now we make our strike, remember we are the decoy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight. Let’s burn Rubikon to the ground” Volkus growled “For Mirach! For Asuras! For the Union!” There was a roar in reply from the fleet as they acknowledged lighting their drives as they advanced.
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The arrival of the Eramons was hot on the heels of the Union 650 vessels also pulling themselves back into real space as they powered down their FTL drives and received total updates of the fleet layouts, enemies and solar system readouts. Forming up on the Unions right flank the Eramon fleet was dominated by the gigantic form of the Helios class Titan 65km of dark grey and weaponry surrounded by a shoal of the Eramon vessels, also in their dark grey as they pierced the void. Communications were doubled checked and orders kept to schedule as they advanced.
The battle of Rubikon had begun.
Aboard the bridge of a cruiser, a lone figure stood in darkness. He turned a faintly-glowing data chip over and over again in his hand, in sync with the faint glow that pulsed away from him along the cables connected to his neck. The battle of Histrion had been a tuning point in several ways; none of which he was willing to elaborate on for the umpteenth time again in his head, no matter how little time it would truly take. As he closed his eyes and brought the chip to his lip, a thin band of red light surrounded him on a previously-invisible wall of black, reflective material. He needn't see it; his interface directly transferred the notification of hostile forces entering the system, and a command sent from him flushed the room alight.
The wall became translucent, then clear, as blue holograms flooded the inside and out, situated between Stillute and his bridge crew. A lounge-angled chair unfolded itself from the floor, the cables in Stillute's neck leading into the corresponding location on the chair. He peered directly ahead, where a holographic symbol consisting of a sword-crossed shield blinked slowly. Stillute let himself fall into the seat, silently responding to the wordless confirmation that the symbol inquired, and similarly ordering his forces into action. He held no great passion for the events that had unfolded, or would unfold. At least, not for the time being. No flaunted words, no great speeches, no dance of tongue to rally the troops. All was already provided for, and all could be provided for. All he needed was a godless faith in the abilities of those above, below, and beside him.
Collapsing into the seat, the blue-tinted lights went red, and battle stations enacted themselves. Weapons charged, shields reduced power output, and stealth systems engaged. Now to follow the choreography.
Admiral Benedikt Kustov was a hard man, a veteran of the last great space battles of the Terran-Restevian War and as a result a dangerous opponent. At his fingertips was the largest Restevian naval front yet assembled in Ancerious, the newest weapons of the RSC at his disposal. His objective was simple, and so he would drive his fleet onwards until they completed it.
Today, APP forces would burn. To their soldiers, there would be no mercy. To their ships, nothing but hell and metal. The time for honor was past. Miriach, Asuras, Ural, every world lost in this conflict... Today, they all would be avenged.
1700 Restevian warships tore from FTL like revenants driven forth from hell, the seething mass finishing their transition to realspace with the titanic superweapon Soul of Vengeance.
Aboard the command ship RNV Ternak, Admiral Kustov stood surrounded by holoscreens scrolling with readiness reports from the fleet, scans of Rubikon from the forward picket and status reports. He took it all in with calm detachment, though within he looked on the APP fleets scrambling with pure hatred.
"Battle stations, all units. General quarters." he ordered calmly.
"Battle stations aye," came the reply, and the klaxon began to roar.
"Weapons status?" he asked.
"Green, comrade admiral."
"Shields up, all vessels."
"Shields up, aye!"
"Signal all carriers, launch strike screen."
"Aye aye, comrade admiral."
"Battleships forward, cruisers to flank."
"Heavies all forward, aye!"
The admiral looked over his bridge, and cracked his neck before looking at the distant APP fleets upon his screens. Ants at this distance, but no less a threat. He clicked the open channel comm to all fleets, and cleared his throat.
"Comrades." he said. "Remember why we are here. Remember the terror, horror and insanity which brought us to this point. Remember those you fight for, comrades. May the Gods be with us all today. Admiral Kutzov out."
He looked straight ahead once more, and crossed his arms.
"Signal all ships ahead full, and signal Admiral Volkus." he ordered. "We are engaging the enemy."
"Whether we believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost..."
"Or shower blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his family in our prayers..."
"Or follow the Eightfold Path of Lord Buddha in the name of Nirvana..."
"Or burn incense for our ancestors past..."
"May the cosmic powers that be guide us to victory over our enemies, as we stand together as one. Brothers and sisters, let us allocate a minute of silence for us to offer our own prayers as we head into battle," the priests, imams, monks and other kinds of religious officials prayed as one, their message broadcasted throughout the whole fleet-wide communications network.
Fleet Admiral Razael Karkas quickly mumbled short prayers to his Lord in heaven and focused on the holographic interfaces brought up in front of him, displaying the visual layout of the 940 ship-strong fleet he commanded for this mission. The Anti-Capitol Taskforce, or ACFOR for short, was amalgamated from a mishmash of different fleets. It was effectively a coalition of two Frontier Guard armadas (each had 300 ships) and four MIRA Flotillas (each had 80 ships).
"Fleet Admiral Yunon, your Eastern Frontier Guard will command Flotilla Indigo and Flotilla Juliet and form Battle Group 1. I will take the Northern Frontier Guard and command Flotilla Alpha and Flotilla Charlie to form Battle Group Two. We will join up with the AGA fleet and provide cover for their flanks. Standard battle tactics; Scattered Fireteam layout, Multi-Angle Gun formation until ordered otherwise," Razael relayed to the entire ACFOR. Each fleet will be leave as much distance between themselves as they can to mitigate AOE weaponry. In an three-dimensional 'X' formation, they would then be able to cover maximum angles of forward fire.
Standard combat procedures followed as the IRS ships made their way to regroup with the AGA fleet. Sensor Frigates deployed drones to recon the surrounding area and scan the whereabouts of the APP fleets. Carriers sent out half of their fighter and bomber complement, accompanied by several networks of Gun Drones which are essentially unmanned fighter craft equipped with spinal kinetic, laser or plasma weapons. All ships activated their shield panels, their dark green Lunamite Composite plating now glowing red.
"All callsigns, this is Fleet Admiral Razael. In a few moments we will be participating in the largest engagement ever in our history. The APP is fearsome, possessing both the numbers and strength of the Capitol, and the highly advanced technologies of the EPA and other affiliated member-states. This is how it will play out; the EPA will jam our systems, break us up and Capitol will swoop in for the kill. And there is no certain guarantee that our newest cyber-defence programs is up to the task," Razael gave his pessimistic speech.
"...But we are certainly prepared for whatever we will face. We have strong allies who got our backs. And we got some awesome firepower to give for this operation. God help the APP, because we are going to flood this system with a hail of thermonuclear rounds, lasers and plasma beams and nothing, not EPA hacking subprograms nor Capitol battleships, will save them from that! You got your orders and you rehearsed for this moment in battle school! So, lets win this for our families back home! Majulah Singapura! Onward for Singapore!"
Oon, captain of the T-4 Cruiser ‘Slippery Weasel,’ was enjoying an article describing the twenty most unfortunate accidents to occur in the Immortal Empire. Number one was obviously going to be ‘The Moons’ Rebellion.’ It always was, but he was curious to see what events the author considered including in her list. A flashing red icon drew his attention. Pressing it replaced the article with several tactical displays showing him the AGA invading forces. Oon took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. A casual wave of his hand through the tactical readouts set his small fleet in a defensive maneuver that would focus on protecting the manufacturing ship. As the ships under his command executed the basic maneuver he opened a secure channel with Rubikon command in the system. It took a moment before the multilayer encryption was in place.
“Rubikon Command, this is Captain Oon of the Immortal Empire. I don’t have the ships to help you lot outright, but if you want I can try to get a warfleet or something out here to help.”
"This is Rubikon Command if the Immortal Empire wishes to help defend this system we will gladly accept. Defend yourselves for now and the projects. Command out" Came the swift and also hectic reply.
The captain cut the channel, he had all he needed and didn’t need to distract them with pointless formalities. A quick message to Prime Admiral ‘Havoc’ and Oon relaxed back in his command throne. He had to finish that article before the invaders could reach engagement range.
Inquisitor Vilrik stood at the bridge of an Antares class battlecruiser, arms tucked behind his back and eyes fixed forward, motionless. Connections on his boots sent the telepathic commands of his to the assembled Inquisition fleet. It was, by comparison to the glory days of the Inquisition, but a small strike fleet of ships numbering no more than 255. Most vessels operated solely on AI control, with a backup skeleton crew on standby if ECM proved harrowing. The sheer lack of vessels and personnel under his command disturbed Vilrik more than the daunting task ahead.
As they drew closer to interdiction range, half the ships in the fleet with most of its heavy firepower maneuvered away from the rest: the Rigel class dreadnoughts, Eridanus class battleships, 30 Messier class destroyers, and half of the Ceres class support ships began a flanking maneuver, skirting just outside of interdiction range as they circled around the edges of the system. The remaining lighter vessels, save the battlecruisers, freely continued into the system, synchronizing their gravimetric sensors to quickly measure enemy positions and ping the data to the heavy flank as they moved into position. Most Inquisition vessels hung behind the Union fleet, forming a defensive flank around the other arriving allies.
"You have your targets and orders, Twin," Vilrik messaged along with the transmitted data. "Search and destroy."
No reply came back from the Rigel class, but their signatures would be easily spotted besides as power output increased across all ships. Even as their drive cores pushed their limits for thrust alone, more and more power was being diverted to the main guns on all ships, readying to strike.
With very little to nothing in the way of early warning or fancy lights, a fleet of 960 Nuclean warships simply arrived. Their hulls were not the familiar chrome shapes that the APP was used to seeing however, instead these newer vessels sported a shiny dark blue color, which seemed somewhat transparent liked extremely polished stone or colored glass while at the same time being metallic. The Ecumene navy had allocated four armadas: three of which composed of the Generation 2 warships, accompanied by one of Generation 3s.
Overseeing the operations of the nearly one thousand Nuclean vessels was one of the newest warships, a Composer-class supercruiser with the name Order's Conductor, from which issued the orders of the overall Fleetmaster. "All vessels ready systems and activate fleet interdiction. Prioritize enemy vessels first then move to orbital defenses and constructs per plan"
As the various ships responded to instructions, stabilization field generators within their hulls booted up, invisibly stabilizing space and making it impossible for FTL phenomena to exist around them. At the same time, shields were raised to full and weapons prepared to strike.
The last jump between navigation points was always the longest for a crew and its command because that last jump was the one that lead to the certainty of your situation. If you were expecting combat then usually this was when everyone was the most nervous because there was no turning back. If it was a leap into the unknown, the grim reality that it was impossible to prepare for what was on the other side of a brief jaunt into faster-than-light travel. Regardless of the reason for the travel there were always dangers of varied shapes sizes and levels of lethality. This was the understood reality of galactic travel and anyone who dismissed the risks often paid a high cost. The RDNS Solai was the flagship of the Dominion force and at its helm Captain Nthanda had decided to reduce the fleets risks to a certain degree; while he knew the entirety of the forces at his disposal would not arrive in time for the beginning of hostilities at Rubikon, he had arranged for them to rally at a set point to help the action near the crucible. As a secondary precaution, there was a gap in the transit of his forces present, half his available corvettes and most of his frigates along with his warring class destroyers made the FTL jump first to the planned coordinates, when they arrived they would signal a clearance for the rest. Thankfully this action would only take a few seconds to complete as the individual crews of the fleet were well versed in the standard issue Dominion tactic. Within a minute of the initial arrival the rest of the Dominion forces jumped into system and the fleet’s formation was shifted to a dynamic formation which would allow for the best possible offensive and defensive options against the enemy’s present. As Captain Nthanda peered into the holographic display in the middle of the command information center aboard the RDNS Solai, The Dominion’s small deployment was dwarfed by a number of allied forces present and then there was the enemy, with each sensor sweep more of them appeared. Undoubtedly, he knew the other senior officers of his force were seeing the same and waiting for the first directive, he let the gravity of the situation sink in and then on a closed Dominion fleet-wide encrypted channel he issued the first orders.
“This is Captain Nthanda, all hands to action stations, be prepared for imminent contact with the enemy, all units are to operate under the protocols of code white.”
Within five minutes of the arrivals, before the information was even made available to the public, the top leadership of E Pluribus Axioma and the Rangvald Cartel within Rubikon had been hastily brought to their luxurious personal shuttles and SSTOs, getting a head-start on the overwhelming waves upon waves of civilian and engineering ships that would from then on flee the besieged planet in a panicked exodus. When the press attempted to leave the workplaces and join the vast evacuations that were taking place they were met by Capitol militia and forced right back to work, switching their regular schedules for a government-run program of evacuations and calming propaganda. Nevertheless, emergency services in every city were overwhelmed. Augmented by legions of automated drones, Capitol paramilitary forces imposed the law and precariously managed to keep the evacuations from turning into a global riot.
Every private vehicle was remotely overriden and comandeered by government AIs with threats of arrest by the paramilitary by anyone who refused. In order to avoid clogging major transportation hubs with millions of evacuees, the movement of every car, aircraft and train on the planet was deferred to vast swarm AIs that moved almost like a fluid through the highways and aerial lanes of Rubikon. Communication was gradually throttled by the Capitol government as it began activating state-ordered trojans and backdoors in every computer and household device with a processor in it, submitting their combined computing power as well as that of military and scientific supercomputers to the vast controlling AIs of the EPA Electronic Forces. Mandate after mandate rained down from the government to the population in order to keep control affecting the lives of millions, but in the war room of the planetary defense complex these vast operations were carried out with the mundaneness of the early pawn movements in a chess game. Although EPA personnel were present, the fortress was saturated with Capitol iconography. At its heart were true believers, generals and politicians that fully embodied the ideological spirit of Capitol without question. "The crazies". To Inara these had always been the most dangerous, at least oligarchs and kleptocrats could be kept in check with bribes and promotions, instead these elites would only be satisfied by enacting Capitol statist and eugenicist extremism to its fullest beyond any pragmatic considerations. Rubikon had served as Inara's corral for these radical believers too powerful to get rid of; a planet that greatly contributed to the war effort but where they were unlikely to gain too much influence with frontline forces. This calculation had greatly backfired.
"How wise of Her Majesty Empress Inara, she foresaw it all, she foresaw it would be us who would guide Capitol to greatness." Lord General Helmut Arcon said. The inside of the operations room was the size of a colosseum and arranged much in the same manner as one, with rows upon rows of operators carrying out their orders. In the center of the colosseum's arena there was a large open acropolis-like structure that housed the top brass in lustrous greco-roman marble. Despite that it made the surgery he was undergoing more painful, he raised his hands in the Sign of the State. "Praise the Bringer of Law, herald of the Great State."
"Praise the bringer of Law, Inara." The others replied in a chorus. "Hail the Great State."
Every monitor and hologram was projected in invisible infrared wavelenghts visible only to their operators so the characteristic glow of military command screens was nowhere to be seen. Instead the colosseum was lit by large bronze torches that gave the place an eerie orange ambiance. In between the rows and rows of combat stations there were hooded monks clad in ceremonial garb and holding books of Capitol legislation. The acropolis was practically full of them, but the central table at its center was adorned by an even stranger creature, tall living statues cloned from Inara, completely static because of their fused skeletons and clad in greek robes, holding bronze swords, balances, bolts of lightning, tablets of law and genetic transcripts. Small underdevelopped brains inside these creatures served only to experience religious ecstasy upon reading of the Capitol Constitution, with artificially supressed short-term memory to keep the illumination at its peak. The battle flags of every unit in the planet both Capitol and EPA hung from the ceilings, but the enormous flag that draped the entire Acropolis was Capitol's.
"Gaze at it, brothers." Arcon said. With a wave of his finger, the banking system of the world was put on hold and all currency redistributed between citizens. With a movement of his wrist, police departments were ordered to seize all industrial property for the duration of the emergency. With a tap of his finger, vouchers began getting distributed to organize stranded evacuees into work brigades. With another of his countless subtle gestures, water treatment facilities were ordered to begin dilluting calming agents in the planet's plumbing. "This is how it was always meant to be. Perfect clockwork, coordinated, crystalline, pure. With a sense of purpose."
Arcon was clad in greek robes bearing Capitol colors, sitting on a marble throne. The upper of his muscular, genetically designed body was bare, showing the medals he had grafted onto his skin. Two robots, one on each side, continued nano-grafting every single law of Capitol into his skeleton by cutting deep incisions through his skin and flesh and etching the text with a laser. They were currently working on the back of his ribcage, leaving him hunched over on his seat. The rest of his staff were dressed more normaly in comparison, with excessively ornate ceremonial uniforms covered in medals.
"Early warning systems have around 9000 targets confirmed hostile. Target identification is conducting a spectrographic analysis."
"There is no hope, brothers, they are doomed from the start." Arcon said, his extremely bony, borderline deformed face getting more expressive. "Have trust in the tools the Great State gave us. There is no need for faith, brothers, the Great State trascends any need for faith! You have no need to close your eyes and hope that it exists and watches over you, it is visible, in plain sight, brothers!" His incisions bled from gesturing but the adrenaline muted the pain completely. "It is everywhere around you! You live by it, you breathe it, you live in it and today you make use of it, brothers! The way it was meant to since our very first ancestor was enlightened by the spirit of law and brought an end to the age of animalism: to crush the barbarian! To not only purge the barbarian but to extricate the disorder he stands for in every facet of reality until there is only the Great State and its law!"
Moreso than its army or navy, Capitol's planetary defense forces had been a complete non-factor in the previous wars, failing to eliminate any large-scale incursion or tip the scales of a battle. Arcon's vision was the diametric opposite, and to this end he had leveraged the enormous industrial base of Rubikon to fortify the system. He had navigated through the often-conflicting interests of E Pluribus Axioma, Triarch Industries and the Rangvald cartel to fit the worlds he held command of with as sophisticated a defense system as resources would allow. The biggest and most complex of its components was the vast network of electronic warfare systems at his disposal to protect the planet. Early warning radars built into the sides of mountains illuminated the location of the FTL entries while passive sensors on ships, satellites, aircraft, land installations and naval craft listened to every frequency for sign of either sensors or comms activity and recorded each signal in vast military databanks. The lenghty speeches by the Restevian and IRS commanders of the opposing fleet were quickly picked up and sent off to cryptographic analysis to get a head-start in breaking their encryption. Neutrino observatories deep underground or in orbit gazed at the enemy fleet, gauging their energy signatures and type by how much energy they were producing and optical sensors of every type were pointed at the enemy fleet.
In the time it would take for Rubikon's defenses to fully mobilize, Arcon and his EPA enablers set up a powerful blanket of electronic warfare over the battlefield to deny the enemy the information they were themselves acquiring. The excess radars and gravimetric sensors that were for the time not needed for scanning were instead tasked with generating a veritable flood of false targets around the planet. To further hamper any attempt at acquiring firing resolutions, large scale installations located on the surface of the planet began sequentially jamming any frequency detected as being in use by the enemy sensors and orbiting canisters of optical chaff were broken up in extreme high orbit to block optical, infrared and thermal sensors. The jammers planetside were supported by a fleet of specialized electronic warfare submarines which took turns in surfacing and relocating to make the electronic countermeasures even more unpredictable. The order was given out to every vessel in the Capitol and EPA surface fleets to sail out as soon as ready at emergency speed and head out into the ocean, spreading out as far as possible instead of forming up in fleets and combat groups.
The remainder of the Capitol planetary defense force commenced its combat preparations, raising the barrels of skyscraper-sized mass drivers from the cratered surfaces of asteroids or airless moons, directed by gigantic sensor arrays operating in passive mode and using the intense jamming that the defenses of Rubikon were emitting as an electromagnetic floodlight. As they did not need to use their own active sensors, this allowed the ground installations to blend in with air-delivered radar decoys and missile-launching satellites or hardkill interceptors to blend in with the millions of satellites that orbited Rubikon.
"Brotherhood of the Great State, our destiny awaits." Arcon said, satisfied.
Like a gouge in space, the outdated Auraxii ships arrived in system space. Some bore light battle scars, but remained wholly untouched by the rigors of combat. The shapes and sizes reminiscent of sharks or other predatory sea creatures as they began passive sensor sweeps in the area. There was no communication outgoing, simple the APP IFF pings echoing through the blackness of space.
They were a vanguard for the rest of the fleet, 500 ships under the Battle cruiser Avarpe and it's flotilla. They understood that their allies needed their help, and admiral Tuschon was eager to prove Auraxii loyalty.
The empty void of space starts to flare up with multiple FLT of the Allies fleet onto one of the Capitol's planet that yields one of their main shipyard, Rubikon. Among the Allies fleet is the D.N.A. Assaults Fleet their energy shields to full power, all the ships weapons from CIWs to Dobion Laser turrets to Hyper Railgun Cannons armed and ready for an massive battle.
Captain Xa'vil Dar'vail is aboard her newly repaired Nightblade class Battleship dubbed, Darklace, looking over the Allies fleet from the command bridge, she along with a very few other D.N.A. ships have been equipped with an new shielding proved by their ally the Union of Worlds, while there weren't enough of the shielding tech to equipped all the assault fleet with it, just only enough for the heavy hitters of the assault to be equipped with it, namely 2 of the 10 Megaldon class Dreadnoughts and 3 each of the two class battleships, the Darklace is one of them to receive the few made MTP shield which is under lapped by the Dark Energy shield.
She touch her left robotic arm which she lost during an skirmish with the APP forces to protect D.N.A. convoy en route to Union planet of Mirach Prime, while she thanks her friend for helping her and the convoy was successfully to making to the planet it was a bittersweet victory as lives were lost on her ship and she wanted avenged them but forced to retreat as they intersect an transmissions of more possible enemy reinforcements. She's lucky to be selected to join the AGA attacking fleet and will have her vengeance on the Capitol-pigs.
"All crew to battlestation! Ready for an battle on your hands!! It's time to show these APP the fear in their eyes, our battlecry on their souls, and the fury of the Dragon Nations Alliance!!!!" She yelled her battle speech to her crewmen while broadcast to her fellow D.N.A. ships, all the fleet yelled out "Krongrah", the ancient battlecry of the Draconight shared among the military personal of D.N.A.
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Post by CanisDirus on Mar 21, 2021 19:56:37 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
As Volkus watched the sensor returns fill with targets from a slew of ECM projected from the system he scowled while he expected such it did annoy him. While the Union fleet had picked out many of the static installations upon arrival in the system and had a good idea of where they are as they couldnt move the enemy fleets however benefitted greatly from this jamming. But he had seen EPA fight before and as the Union fleet now split up into four spread out defensive box shaped formations each roughly around 450 vessels each the Unions plan had called for this scenario and across the Union vessels and Eramon as well missile launchers clanked into position loading specific missiles for barrage.
"Sounding barrage fire" Volkus ordered to his own small fleet segment the others doing so either just before or after unleashing several volleys of thousands of missiles towards the most clustered areas of the system. These missiles were normally relegated to fighting swarms of missiles and attack craft but the bomb pumped laser warheads now had a different role, acting like spotters exploding into hundreds of laser beams each aimed at a singular target real or false. The attack giving a very real idea to the allied fleets which targets were false and which were real although this was by no means perfect and they would not be able to identify all the targets it was definately better than flying blind.
Across the Union fleets that now moved towards Rubikon main attack craft that had not been already launched were now launched, forming up into their own attack squadrons independant of the fleets, the occasional weapons platform was destroyed as the attack craft swarmed those close enough or were destroyed by Union firepower. Their main target was the primary system world and the APP main fleet.
--
The Eramon fleet having also fired its own sounding barrage kept pace with the Union fleet keeping its flank secure with two seperate smaller fleets both spaced out from one another but both giving the Helios class protection against long range barrages. The primary weapon systems of the Dreadnought class itself began charging up, huge energy diverted from its main drives into its forward weapon arrays ready to wipe out entire swathes of APP vessels when the time came for the proper engagement.
"Union barrage tested the waters. Bringing up 'real' targets on the navmap with firing coordinates. Your orders?"
"Disperse the Hunter Teams. They are to flank those defence platforms and clear them out with long-range fire. The rest of us are to keep pace with the Union and the other Allied fleets." Razael ordered.
Immediately, 10 Temujin-class Destroyers, 5 Cobra-class Hunter-Killer Frigates, 4 Viper-class Torpedo Frigates and a Python-class Sensor Frigate separated from Razael's 460-ship strong Battle Group and divided into two squadrons. The Main Hunter Squadron would consist of 5 Destroyers, 3 HK Frigates, 2 Torpedo Frigates and a Sensor-Frigates while the other Hunter Overwatch squadron took the remainder of the ships. Both Squadrons then scouted ahead, probed the flanks of the APP defence platforms in Rubikon II's orbit and found cover behind whatever space debris and gas clouds they could find. Yunon's Battle Group also did the same, launching out similar Hunter Squadrons to flank the platforms.
"Hunter Teams in position."
"Copy. Hunter Teams fire when you are ready."
Volleys of pinpoint accurate lasers, hyper-energised particle beams, nuclear missiles, anti-ship fusion torpedos and thermonuclear rounds were delivered to the APP defence platforms.
"Union have found the needles in the haystack, now is our part alongside with IRS" An mid-age male Wolvenanes ranked admiral in an Megalodon class Dreadnought he said, and order two Hunter teams to support the IRS's Hunter team with clearing out the real defense platforms.
20 Hade class Destroyers, 10 Chimaera and Thespian class Frigates, have joined the IRS Hunter Squadrons to help to take out the platforms while the main fleet moves alongside with the Allies.
Once the IRS have open fired onto the platform, the D.N.A. does the same with volleys of Laser, Plasma rounds, hyper-electromagnetic projectiles, and AP Havoc missiles.
"So it begins" Said the admiral
Vilrik maneuvered his fleet in time with the Unions', battle data of the initial barrages pouring in to help narrow down the correct number of targets. With the combination of tactical analysis, available data of APP stations and ship maneuvers, and plain deductive reasoning, Vilrik and his co-commanders narrowed the number of false contacts by 70%. The assembled battlecruisers, cruisers, and frigates fired their primary weapons, hundreds of kinetic rounds of varying sizes being flung forward at relativistic speeds as the ships pulled into a three-lined Vic formation behind the main Union fleet. The destroyers meanwhile put much more space between themselves and the allies, their liquid mass accelerator cannons sending streams of molten material in elongating strings to cover many of the possible targets at once. The destroyers were not left alone however, as the support ships followed closely behind and the battlecruisers began launching small squadrons of interceptors to advance alongside them.
The flanking dreadnoughts and battleships finally broke FTL above the system, near between a large cluster of defense platforms and Rubikon III. The combined total missile launchers unleashed their armed payload before countermeasures could detonate them far too close, sending a missile barrage numbering in the dozens of thousands at the most prominent and threatening clusters of defenses that threatened the allied fleets. The missiles themselves were smaller variants than those usually fired by capital ships in order to maximize the number of targets hit, and 75% of said missiles were preprogrammed to splinter into smaller warheads prior to impact.
Meanwhile, systems across all flanking ships could almost be heard churning as power was quickly diverted from the drive cores to the primary weapon systems, bringing them beyond their safe levels as the dreadnoughts, battleships, and destroyers released the entirety of their first barrage at the assumed main APP fleet staging near the hot giant nearby Rubikon Prime. This was one of the few larger contacts that could be confirmed a non-decoy, but there was little time for second guessing as it was anyway. The barrage consisted of a variety of munitions, primarily a few hundred kinetic plutonium rods set to reach critical mass at or near the point of impact. Arcing ahead of them were dozens Ouroboros cannon particle waves, their kilometer wide forms paving through all matter of space debris in the way. Following closely behind the torrent of metal and energy were the Fafnir constructs, massive particle stream constructs with their own degree of intelligence. These beings were poised to follow the barrage, an innate hunger commanding them to devour the next nearest source of mass and energy that drew near. Two of the ten constructs deviated their course, however, choosing instead to aim at the nearing hot giant and enact out a different plan...
The RSC's orders going into Rubikon had been very clear, and with the psionic comm network of the Annointed providing comms even through the EPA jamming, the Restevian battlefleets went to war.
The hellish, seething mass of warships made for Rubikon II, their targeting computers heavily inhibited by jamming and false-flag signatures but all the same the fleet targeted the multitude of defense stations in their gunsights. Clouds of snubcraft launched from the carriers converged into squadrons ahead and 'above' the formation, the Restevians beginning ripple-fire from the massively spread-out formation upon their targets.
First the light ships in the first squadrons began firing their spinals and secondary batteries spitting fire and steel in heavy waves towards the defense stations. Then came the medium destroyers and cruisers, and then the heavies as the Restevians began to fire as one in near-unison. The fleet continued on towards Rubikon II at a steady pace, sending out wave after wave of slugs and heavy shells. Missiles joined the barrage, but without their targeting computers working at full capacity they could not unleash the missile swarms that had been the bane of many a foe.
Aboard Order's Conductor, Fleetmaster Serran watched the data summaries flowing in, drawn from the sounding barrages of both the Union and Erramon fleets, as well as the psi-scans of the Annointed and other allies. All came together to form a beautiful picture of targets after filters had been applied to all of the sensor contacts. She touched the control surfaces of her terminal, passing out orders like one would move pieces in a chess game. The fleet responded accordingly, as the secondary vessels within the fleet fired several barrages of particle beamer and plasma torpedo fire at the closest defense stations in a massive display of blue light, while the main vessels including the battleships and supercruisers held their fire, waiting to unleash it on the APP fleet itself. At the same time, the carriers within the fleet began to launch all 1.2 million of their fighters into space like bees from a disturbed hive. As they were released, they formed up into flights and then wings.
It wasn’t long after the dominion’s forces had arrived and maneuvered into initial attack positions that the wide spectrum jamming and false signatures started messing with the ability of the dominion to determine which enemy targets were a legitimate threat. To make matters worse the jamming was making long range communications with other allied forces difficult to say the least, there was no way to verify targets except by using DPCA which meant the other vessels would have to be using it too. The obvious problem with this was that Captain Nthanda had no idea if they did or not, it wasn’t discussed on the voyage in and wasn’t covered in the battle planning. Just like how he was short seventy-seven vessels of the original intended force committed to this action he was determined to improvise. In the holographic representation of the theater of battle before him he was sure that most of the thousands of signatures before him were false simply due to the logic that the pre-emergence sensors used by the dominion detected a far smaller number and yet somehow that number increased many times indicating a majority were in fact false. Even with this in mind the Dominion force of 67 vessels stuck to DPCA communications to make interception of operations messages impossible. The specific orders given by the union were very clear though no one expected the fleet would need to go dark on communications at this stage of the battle. As the dominion fleet began to maneuver the Union and the Eramon forces made their move and as they did Captain Nthanda watched through the holographic representation of the theater of battle. The barrage as seen eliminated a great number of false signatures but as with any such sounding barrage the effectiveness was not a hundred percent, but it was useful enough.
“I want all ships to pivot into a Saroyan formation, shift attack axis horizontal by fifteen degrees…” Captain Nthanda paused just for a few seconds which was long enough for the elements of the fleet to shift position and turn the requested amount to port. The crews had been well trained in the maneuver already and thus the move was virtually flawless in execution. The Dominion ships now held a formation that allowed every one of their vessels to fire on targets in all direction minimal hindrance, but really the purpose of the formation was to let the bigger capital ships fire freely with their primary engagement weapons with no risk of friendly fire. “All core ships with the range activate your RAOA systems for your engagement armament and, confirm when activated.” Even though more than half the fleet lacked sufficient range to attack the target area every single vessel activated it’s armament in preparation for contact with the enemy. Through hidden hatches and gun wells submerged in smooth seemingly weaponless hulls dozens of primary weapons systems emerged. Turrets rose and locked into position casting aside any notion that the Dominion came unarmed. Confirmations rolled in from the fleet with the most important being from the four mercer class destroyers, Three Gloucester Class Cruisers, the four Somerset class cruisers and the fleet’s two Neosho class carriers, all were ready to fire. Captain Nthanda gestured within the control apparatus of the holographic representation of the battle at hand and indicated the area he wished to bombard at range; with just a few commands he indicated the attack to be a skipping bombardment. In simple terms, the longest ranged vessels would bombard individual confirmed targets until they were destroyed then move onto the next effectively blowing a hole in the enemy line of defenses or at the least beginning one that he hoped the rest of the allies could further exploit. ”All core vessels Fire upon the first target!” At captain Nthanda’s order the core vessels of the fleet all unleashed a barrage of coherent energy beams across the void of space aimed at a singular target bracketing it and hopefully destroying it, if not another salvo was fired on the same target with repeating fire until the target ceased operations. After that the next target received the same treatment and then the next and others after it breaking through was crucial to the effort and this initial stage of combat though hopefully the rest of the AGA forces would pick up on what was being attempted and follow the Dominions uncannily precise targeting.
he Annointed warped in a miniscule number of vessels, each AGA fleet was tasked a pair of ten kilometer corvettes, white and gold hulls resplendent among the darkness of space, blue trails of ions pulling free from their mighty engine banks.
Only those among the RSC and DNA fleets lent their firepower to the storm of munitions and energy directed towards the enemy, the TSS Earnings revenge lines up its four massive ten kilometer spinal railguns with Rubikon II's star base, easily differentiated from the fakes by the Annointed sensors as only the true star base showed any returns on the telepathic sensors.
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Fire engulfed the orbital lanes of Rubikon II the planets immediate vicinity now turning into a churning roiling conflagration between the APP defences and AGA attack fleet. Defence platforms were torn apart by overwhelming fire, the sheer volume of such slashing their numbers by a huge amount despite their superior defensive capabilities compared to regular starships, some attempted to dodge using their manuvering thrusters but it was simply not enough. Those that survived fired repeatedly, Railguns, Thermonuclear missile barrages and Tachyon Arrows targeted screening ships of the RSC, DNA and IRS as they engaged the orbital defences aiming to wipe away the allied fleet defensive screen ready for the APP main fleet. The huge form of the Capitol starbase however was still very much intact, with most of its supporting platforms destroyed the massive weapons payload of the 30km across station now fired too disgorging hundreds of attack craft which immediately began intercepting RSC and other allied attack craft to drive them out of attack runs on other defensive platforms.
However it was not just the orbitals that engaged. Large long range surface to orbital missile tubes on the planet now roared into life, sand and dirt blown across entire sections of dessert as huge waves of missiles were launched, climbing into orbit and forming up into large volleys against allies. They targeted heavier vessels, each missile co designed by EPA and Capitol with their own decoy units and CIWS.
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Agamo watched as the allies now sank their teeth deep into Rubikon IIs defences as the bulk of their fleet now continued to Rubikon prime itself and the main APP fleet. The entire holographic in front of him was clogged with vessels, most of which were civilian vessels desperately now trying to escape the system with it now drowned in interdiction that would be a hard task. He both lamented and praised the fact that most of his fleet was scattered patrolling the system and now relayed orders to the Capitol forces. The main Capitol force consisted of 621 vessels the rest were located at various points and were heading to rendezvous. Agamo cancelled the order, instructing the smaller patrol fleets to peel off and circle round, he wished to use them to destroy or slow down the various smaller allied fleets seeking to worm their way around the systems outskirts, new interception lines and courses springing to life across his holoscreen.
"Move out, place us in optimal defence formation, and within the envelope of the planetary defences. We may be outnumbered but we can increase our force projection exponentially if we are clever. Prepare Tachyon Arrow barrage, long range dispersion fire target main allied fleet engaging Rubikon II defences... Fire!" The Capitol fleet seemed to pivot all at the same time, keeping their momentum the vessels turned to fire their spinal or turreted TAs in a large dispersed barrage, the ships then re correcting their course. While inaccurate the barrage was intended to damage stray ships and keep the allies concentrated on multiple fronts, he wouldn’t let them have time to rethink or readjust.
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Tasume kept the Triarch fleet in close proximity to the Capitol fleet, the transmission for help had already been sent now it was just containment and delaying. The Triarch fleet had launched its attack craft, the waves of Defender and Attackers now moved away from the Triarch fleet, activating their stealth systems as they slipped into invisibility to carry out their orders. The Triarch vessels themselves did not activate active stealth, keeping their passive systems online and overcharging their defraction shields to cover the Capitol main fleet and some of the Rubikon prime orbital stations in the hope to mitigate some sort of long range fire. The Hephaestus class itself that Tasume commanded also now turned its relativistic railguns to target the allied fleet, loading cluster shells the hyper kinetic projectiles were volley fired, aiming to smash some of the smaller vessel squadrons outriding for the allied fleet. Tasume smiled, she would cause as much damage as possible.
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"The heathens now advance on out last bastion of faith! While we are but few we will fight with the spirit of many in Eos name! I ask each and every one of you to do your expected duty, and to die to the last in order to honour the loss of our fellows. The heathens will never be allowed to win here! Keep FTL systems charged, take position in the Capitol fleet and ensure our holy weapons are ready. There will be no survivors, every vessel kill will be assured with overwhelming retribution!" Exemplar Yutrine shouted from the podium on the Eosian Corona class Dreadnought, the gigantic 30km vessel hanging surrounded by its 4 smaller attendant heavy cruisers in the middle of the Capitol and Triarch fleet. Eosian attack craft, those who’s pilots still lived now launched from the vessels as Kinetic wave weaponry was charged to readiness, the Eosians would ensure the allies paid dearly with blood this day.
Directed by the vast network of underground bunkers and command deepsites in Rubikon Prime, the defensive forces of the entire system coordinated their counterattack. The initial strike of the AGA fleet hit the large concentrations of defensive installations like a sledgehammer, causing the immediate loss of over a third of space stations designated by the Union sounding volley. Civilian vessels leaving the system began detonating in a rapidly expanding area for the destruction of so many space stations created an almost invisible cloud of shrapnel that tore through unarmored hulls with ease. Capitol planetary defense fighters were quickly vectored away from interceptions to sweep the hyervelocity debris and keep them from getting closer to the worlds, leaving Capitol navy fighter wings significantly outnumbered when they began to tangle with the opposing squadrons of RSC fighter craft. The fighters sweeping debris could only handle relatively small portion of the millions of tons of wreckage currently flying in the system, and so traffic controllers in Rubikon quickly closed off the vast majority of space to civilian vessels. In order to avoid a second strike of such magnitude, the electronic warfare forces quickly shuffled all their false targets to blend the confirmed ships instead of going for a static formation of targets, dynamically creating, merging and dividing them to confuse the attackers.
An evacuation corridor was set up for civilian and merchant ships fortunate enough to have readied themselves in time to depart the besieged system. This huge corridor connected Rubikon I, Rubikon II and Rubikon IV and provided relatively safe passage for civilian ships away from the approaching AGA forces and provided them with cover by the fleets and the electronic forces. A great deal of commotion took over the central command bunker where Arcon and the rest of the Brotherhood of the Great State hid in when their traffic controllers announced that the fleet of E Pluribus Axioma, an immense combined unit by the name of the 'Operational Maneuver Group', was also beginning to evacuate its modern and expensive ships through the corridor Capitol had helped clear for civilian traffic. The staff in the bunker were witness to Arcon flying into a rage and demanding top priority channels with the EPA supreme command. Upon being contacted, the lieutenants of Nrzqzr were quick to inform Arcon that their fleet was breaking out to be relieved by reinforcements. "You are the Operational Maneuver Group, you are the reinforcements" was Arcon's immediate reply.
It was unrealistic to believe that E Pluribus Axioma could even assemble an unit large enough to relieve the Operational Maneuver Group. The taskforce of battleships and cruisers had been continuously propagandized as the single most powerful spacefighting taskforce in the galaxy by EPA themselves, so them suddenly acting as if they were just the stand-in for another unit wasn't believed for a moment by Arcon. At least in relation to EPA itself the Operational Maneuver Group was indeed the most capable single unit in their entire space force, with many supercapital ships and the most modern destroyer squadrons in service, it was an unit created to absorb the production of top-level warships that would otherwise be distributed to units influenced by the Sibling Eater. It was the damocles sword hanging over every EPA commander who thought about using EPA's resources to further their own gain; any attempt at insurrection would be quickly ended by the more modern and more heavily armed ships of the Operational Maneuver Group. It was to grow to a size large enough to be able to rein in the Sibling Eater himself just with its mere existence, a deterrent fleet that answered to the twins directly. Yet even that dwarfed into insignificance when battleship Z1 was assigned to it. The same performance gap existed between Z1 and every other ship of the Operationam Maneuver Group as the OMG itself had over the older ships used by other EPA commanders. Z1 was made the flagship of the Operational Maneuver Group following the merger of a smaller unit, the Limousine World's escort flotilla. With the Limousine World destroyed by Restevian forces there was little purpose to that unit and so it was merged into the Operational Maneuver Group, ironically to once again encounter the same enemmies albeit in a less advantageous position. The escort flotilla had brought with them the incomplete Z1, which had been hastily jury-rigged into functioning by the shipyards around Rubikon Prime. While only a bare shell of its intended form, Z1 served perhaps a more critical role than the rest of the OMG combined: its quantum metaphasic crystal and the enormous ammounts of computing power that could be harnessed from within put control of the infamous E Pluribus Axioma firmly in the control of the twins. It was the physical yoke with which the twins sought to ensure their everlasting domination of the blockchain and, with it, of the money supply of countless thousands of worlds. To commit such assets to the defense of common industrial targets, especially while trapped by deadly shrapnel and without getting the ships up to speed, was unthinkable for the EPA admiralty. They resisted Arcon's orders and stalled as much as they could while accelerating away from the frontline, causing chaos in the evacuation lines due to their intensely radioactive, unshielded battleships.
Arcon knew that twisting their arms would take time. For now, things would have to be handled differently. Vanta black screens went up to shield the hundreds of staff around the acropolis from mental contamination when Arcon summoned an Axiomatic communications device. He asked the enormous rotating black monoliths on the other side for their assistance and they complied. The nine blinkers assigned to the defense of Rubikon, idly floating in the lagrange points between Rubikon Prime and its moon, came to life. Unlike their newer generation brethren, they did not immediately try to gain speed and conduct maneuver warfare. Instead they held their positions around the planet and extended their enormous, petal-like antennae to their maximum settings in order to absorb a surge of energy coming from microwave power transmitting units in the surface of Rubikon. Energy was redirected away from evacuated industrial centers and business sectors and beamed up by parabolic antennae, the intensity of these beams was of enough size that huge convection updrafts began forming under the blinkers on the surface of Rubikon. The blinkers themselves channeled this energy and sizzled with power, long electric arcs travelled over their antennae and their particle fountains worked overtime to keep the ships from becoming gigantic lightning rods. Channeling far more energy than their internal powerplants could generate by themselves, the blinkers charged their scalar arrays.
"It is a great pleasure to coordinate maneuvers with you, esteemed Lord General." One of the blinkers said. "By all means, let's make this a most memorable event to our dear enemmies, they have travelled from quite far away. Our most revered 14th Blinker Division and my dearest Histrionica have informed they are en route to reinforce us, they will join any Capitol fleet they find along the way. Shifting Mirrors smiles upon us all." For a moment Arcon couldn't reply, as his brain was still trying to find which synapses controlled his face after interfacing with the communications device. He'd gotten used to it, however, and carried on fairly professionally. The next step of his defense was carried out by lone Triarch crews stationed in asteroids and the pockmarked surface of Rubikon's small moon, numbering a few hundred despite overseeing enormous installations that resembled more cities than defensive positions. From each of these was raised a triple-barreled Gatling cannon of gigantic proportion, requiring a huge counterweight to be hoisted given their sheer mass. Surrounded by fields of oil and cooling tanks, the anti-orbital mass drivers were fed from railway-mounted ammunition belts that went on for several kilometers onto the quarries that had been used as raw materials to make the shells. While they posessed their own mobile radars on the surface, the defensive guns kept them hidden and instead used data from Rubikon headquarters for targeting and training their hexagonal barrels onto the Restevian, DNA and IRS fleets.
Unlike the EPA Operational Maneuver Group, the land and maritime forces stationed in Rubikon prime had very much to lose from their planet being attacked and so were much less reluctant to fight than their spaceborne peers. They threw their weight behind the massing volley of missiles, launching from orbital, land and submarine silos just as the missiles launched from Rubikon IV passed by Rubikon prime. Whichever unit, defensive station and silo the volley flew by added their own missiles to the ever-growing swarm that evolved from a simple communications network into an aggressive gestalt AI fed targeting information by ground stations and ships alike. When the volley passed by Rubikon II and went on to dash across the no man's land between APP and AGA fleets, Arcon gave the command to surface all ECM submarines simultaneously and transmit at full power. The generation of false targets was briefly interrupted in order to focus all output power into barrage-jamming until the missiles hit. Expecting the enemy to do the same to try and throw off the missiles' targeting system or break their datalinks with ground stations, the Triarch anti-orbital guns began erupting into torrents of continuous fire. The shells were not aimed at any of the enemy ships, rather they were to be used as a sort of daisy chain to keep the missiles connected to the ground stations through short-line comms relays thanks to their short-range pencil beams. Nevertheless, they were fused to detonate when the missiles reached their terminal state to shower the whole area with shrapnel, clearing decoys and fighters. The starbase around Rubikon II opened fire, focusing solely on the DNA fleet in order to blow a huge, asymmetric hole in the forward lines of the incoming AGA fleet for Capitol fleets and spacecraft to exploit.
The last part of the plan was however executed by the orbiting blinkers once they'd gathered the prodigious ammounts of charge required: they fired their scalar weapons in unison in the same direction as the missiles. Traveling at lightspeed, the scalar wave quickly overtook the missiles, but the firings were timed so that the wave never got much lead before beginning to interfere into an enormous wall of energy meant to clear the path of any intercepting missiles or munitions.
The Separatist Union had been licking its wounds inflicted from the Third April Fools War with its failed invasion of the IRS territories in Ancerious. Nonetheless, the failure did not hamper morale; the very fact that they sent a proud nation into disarray was enough to lift the spirits of a nearly-destroyed people.
Elite Separatist crews had been sent to Rubikon to train and test out new shipments of Triach-supplied ships. Veterans of the First and Second April Fools Wars would command a special taskforce consisting of 200 of these remarkably advanced ships, most of which were slightly modified with Separatist laser and plasma weaponry replacing some of the original Heavy Mass Drivers.
"The IRS is here; always ever marching bravely towards death. Well then, let's give them the honour," Admiral Uzajhan chuckled.
"All ships onward to Rubikon II. We must defend those shipyards and prevent the AGA from breaking through."
The Auraxii had never seen a deployment of this scale before. Fleetmaster Rihn was in awe. His eyes darted across the screens in front of him. The Auraxii had fought pirates before sure, but never a battlegroup on battlegroup action. In quick succession he order the 45 carriers that were brought along to deploy their fighter and bomber craft. The Light cruisers and corvettes were to take the flanks and prepare for harassment strikes while the heavy hitters angled their bow Railguns, courtesy of Capitol, toward the mass of the enemy fleet.
In theory, Rihn figured, this would ensure the enemy would take damage from not only his flotilla but from the main APP fleets as well. For his own security however, he had gunships deployed along the picket lines to assist the smaller craft in watching for encroaching hostile. His final action was to deploy anti-missile drone swarms to keep the larger vessels safe from long range strikes. Stillute began to sigh as he watched the interlinked AI of his fleet calculate and finalize the impact sites of the incredibly large volley racing for the craft under him and Capitol alike, tied to the staging platforms. A wordless command once again rang out, ordering Shadowblade craft to cut short all safety procedures and make way for an area safe from the impacts; fuel, coolant, and umbilical hallway lines were all severed alike in the interest of saving the ships for the engagement, those that safely became independent immediately firing rapid barrages of gauss-accelerated nuclear shells at the AGA sub-formations that seemed to be focused around point defense duties. While a total fifty-four ships, those being three cruisers, two destroyers, and numerous corvettes, were lost to a number of mechanical errs that arose from cutting off the safety procedures, ranging from meltdown of coolant and torch superstructures to complete detonation of the drive systems, the vast majority of Stillute's craft were able to complete the maneuver and accelerate downwards on the solar plane. He finished sighing. He now watched in real time as numerous small constructs, such as tugs and shuttles and even EVA engineers, were vaporized by the particle waves that went so far as to scathe the surface of the platforms before they were smashed by the incoming nuclear-kinetic rounds. He bothered not to watch as the constructs swept their way through the area.
He now refocused his efforts. Not risking exposing himself at the risk of the constructs behind him, his fleet began volley-firing cold-launch missiles. They were currently in stealth, but were set after several thousand kilometers to open the rear arc of their coverage in order to allow guidance-by-laserline for the final approaches. Half of the three hundred missiles were intended for the core heavy-hitters of the AGA fleet as their point-defense screen dealt with the low-velocity nuclear shells, the other half racing for the RSC craft on the offensive line.
The Justicar contingent had suffered similar to the Oligarchy fleet. While they had not been at the staging grounds their fleet had primarily been restocking on ammo around Rubikon prime at the various shipyards. When the AGA had jumped in system the fleet had instantly gone to battlestations, cutting fuel lines and ceasing ammunition stocking as they raised reactors and weapons to full power. Just like Shadowblade they had lost several ships to rapid fuel line disruption and those destroyed had been simply left for the systems defense and recovery teams to deal with.
Igniting their main drives the Justicar force split in two in a very strange manuver, the 238 Destroyers now branched off, going to flank speed to assist the Seperatist Union in their counter attack on the allied fleets currently engaging Rubikon II, meanwhile the 49 Carriers kept formation with the main APP fleet around Rubikon prime, launching their tens of thousands of attack craft into the void and sending them out beyond the defense stations as a picket line to protect against any incoming munitions especially missiles or bomber formations carrying long range missiles.
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Post by CanisDirus on Mar 21, 2021 20:00:46 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Fleet Admiral Razael gripped the silver rosary in his right palm, murmuring Catholic litanies as his steel eyes focused on the incoming data chunks. 15 Hammer-class Cruisers, 10 Tactical Frigates and 5 Destroyers were destroyed in the APP's counter-strike. Another 2 Sovereign Battleships, 5 Cruisers and 3 Carriers were heavily damaged and were little more than static gun bunkers floating about in space.
"Sir, tachyometric sensors detected 200 Separatist ships heading for the orbital platforms and another 238 plus more ships that matches with Justicar signatures. Along with multiple fighter craft screens and incoming missiles."
"Break formation, engage in evasive maneuvers and switch to Formation II," Razael replied, still fiddling with the rosary in his hand.
Upon Razael's command, the remaining 420 ships under his command now scattered in a frenzy, engaging full thrusters ahead and aggressively zig-zagging and oscillating upwards and downwards towards the remaining orbital platforms and the incoming enemy ships. From lumbering in a fixed formation as if they were oceanic vessels, they were now sidewinding and sliding through three dimensional space like fighter jets in aerial combat.
Razael's Dreadnoughts, Battlecarriers and other heavy hitters still hung back, this time in a spread out arrowhead formation turning to face the Separatist and Justicar fleet. The thousands of thousands of Gun Drones formed a protective defence at the front, shooting down incoming missiles with spinal-mounted laser cannons and kinetic railguns while space fighters protected the flanks and the underbelly of the arrowhead fleet. Razael's arrowhead heavy hitter fleet now charged up their weapons; unleashing their hyperparticle accelerators, anti-ship lasers and photon cannons onto the approaching enemy fleet.
The other ships formed up into mobile fireteams, usually comprising of a handful of cruisers and frigates. The Temjuin-class Destroyers continued to lead the Hunter Teams into providing long-range sniping support at the remaining orbital platforms. The mobile fireteams struck at them hard and fast, strafing past and circling around them while unloading their thermonuclear railguns and fusion missiles, scrambling about in erratic fashion to shake off the enemy's targeting systems.
With the details of the sounding barrage and the information inputted from the Annointed psionic scans the picture of the battlefield now played out in much greater clarity than the mess it had been before. The Union fleet kept up at flank speed, in its four distinct fleet layouts in anti nuclear formation they would take no chances in this battle to get destroyed by huge AOE weapons. Enemy or Friendly.
Warnings blared as the Capitol initial barrage of Tachyon Arrows came in targetting frontal screening vessels, primarily escorts and cruisers. In response the Union raised its group shield, creating a unified wall blocking the incoming fire. It twisted and glowed bright as the FTL rounds impacted at immense speeds, without the interdiction and the prescence of so many ships the shield would of simply collapsed. Volkus eyed the battlefield like an eagle, with continious AI streams and processing of data the Union, Eramons and Nucleans would hit the main defense line around Rubikon Prime in a little over 10 minutes. Already a picket line of Justicar attack craft waited, denying any chance of a long range missile barrage but they had other weapons to use in their arsenal. Having long since been charging the Unions Hyperfrequency lasers were now brought to bear on the fleet around Rubikon Prime. Targetting capital ships of the APP fleet and also defense platforms in orbits where their debris would then destroy more the Union opened fire prioritising critical locations on vessels as the beams lanced out to their targets.
Volkus also watched the Scalar and Missile barrage from the EPA fleet combine with the various missile batteries across the system heading for the AGA group attacking Rubikon II. He grimaced, they couldnt do much to help their allies, flak barrage would take too long and would be ineffective against the Scalar and counter missiles of their own would only hit the straggling missiles of the swarm. Directing counter missiles to be launched away any destroyed would be better than none. Firestorm squadrons were also directed to intercept those waves of missiles close by seeking to join up with the main attack hoping to deny the APP several more smaller waves against their allies. Finally the Union fleet began to create its signature flak wall firing millions of fragmentation mass driver rounds out in front of the fleet to stop any missile or attack craft attacks from the APP fleet the Union Chakram class battlecruisers also began smashing the asteroids they had brought in tow and spreading out the particulates in front, just behind the flak screen but in front of the group shield giving them a three layer defense against incoming attacks. Volkus hoped it would be enough.
--
The Eramon fleet kept up their advance also adopting an anti nuclear formation their fleet began to power their long range particle cannons for use against the heavier APP vessels orbiting Rubikon Prime. However it was their Leviathan class the huge vessel at the core of their fleet that began to open fire first. While at this range the shots would not be so effective against the APP fleet the Leviathan instead targetted the orbital defenses that could be seen as well as the large form of the starbase in orbit. Firing thousands of its dual pulsar cannons, Ion cannons, Gravit cannons and all 12 of its Energy Torpedoes the void was filled with a whole barrage of incoming designed to knock out as many of the defenses as possible before the two fleets clashed.
It was the waiting that made it bad, the initial AGA bombardment’s report saw the destruction of countless defense platforms which to the naked eye were only marked by brief flashes of light on holographic displays that were not magnified to show the actual destruction. While this made the AGA’s intent clear it also signaled the enemy’s strongest response and for the vessels of the Dominion they retained formation expecting to be struck at any second as they prepared to fire upon the designated targets a second time with extreme long-range weaponry. The very idea where you could see your enemy, understand what you were killing was a luxury in space combat as most battles happened at ranges far beyond the perception of the naked eye anyway. It dehumanized the process and made the return fire which came with no actual warning cold and seemingly ruthless. The vessels of the Dominion were fortunate as enemy counter fire seemed to focus on the center of the AGA formation leaving the Dominion ships ignored and untouched. This was a strange sort of reprieve as destructive energies were unleased against the heart of the AGA formation and seeming against singular major targets in the line. Even with this fact the longest ranged point defense emplacements aboard the Dominion vessels activated to assist allied vessels that were within range and pick off whatever stray missiles, torpedoes and drones that happened to come too close. Within seconds of this the Dominion fired its second battery of fire with the available extreme long-range weapons at hand even as point defense chattered away. This battle was clearly one of attrition, and it seemed the enemy had an absolute focus on attrition of the most numerous aspects of the fleet. Captain Nthanda saw the strategy for what it was, as it was both wise and yet had a potential to fail due to its narrow focus. He considered just for a moment what the enemy’s potential maneuvers would be given the situation and how best to potentially counter or at least mitigate given his position and his force’s limited numbers. This was ultimately just a game of chess with three dimensions after all, and there were only so many moves the enemy could make. But he wasn't' the only one on the bridge of the Solai taking in the events as they unfurled. Off to his left a few representatives of the Davian empire had arrived with the additional ships used in this combat action. The high command had approved the presence of a small number of VIP's for observation sake. After all, it might help win the Davians over to the AGA side if they saw what really was at stake.
"SCALAR WAVE, COMRADE ADMIRAL!" came a panicked cry. "Coming in right ahead of a massive wave of missiles, bearing seven-three-niner, mark two-five!" "Hold CIWS until the scalar has passed us, then open fire with all guns." "Copy that!"
The heavy spinal guns of the Restevian warships continued to thunder and pound, their turrets and missiles arrays blooming fire and ejecting waste gas and sabot casings into space in twirling clouds as they fired. Nuclear and plasma missiles erupted from their silos in unending waves, their drive flares bright as stars as they were launched and then maneuvered, coming around and shooting towards the Capitol defenses.
The fighters in the sky and tangling with the APP snubcraft twirled and spun in tight loops and courses, launching missile after missile whenever they had a chance to do so and filling the sky with cannon rounds. Many died, their ships shot to pieces by the enemy as they were killed by shrapnel, burned to death, were directly hit or suffocated from lost oxygen. They were lonely, savage ways to die in the thunderous forges of war, but each and every pilot, no matter the race, knew what was at stake today. And above the mass of chaos and dogfighting, one pilot stood out. Ace Vasili Lebechev had been recalled from the KI to serve in the assault fleet, and with the kills of three EPA warships to his name he looked forward to adding more to his list. So he orbited high 'above' the battle with three wingmen, watching and waiting for his chance.
The Capitol defense stations, presented with a mass of Restevian hulls and guns, could not miss, and they didn't. Frigates and destroyers began to go down in the dozens, their hulls torn away from the punishing TA strikes and incoming missiles. Cruisers were damaged, and the shields of many warships flickered and strained as they struggled to tank the incoming strikes. CIWS and PD flared and spat at the incoming fire, clawing missiles out of the sky as rapidly as possible as they came in, though nothing could be done against the TAs bar maneuver and pray they did not pen the shields. And still, the fleet kept up the fire as they steadily advanced.
And then the scalar hit. For those few ships who their shields were down, the attack was devastating, and their systems could not handle the sudden shock of the wave as it hit them. Systems went down, hulls were scarred and charred as they were struck, the men and women within of all the RSC's myriad peoples died screaming. The sight was unnerving and the screams over the Annointed comms a hit to morale as the wounded ships and hundreds of fighters were swept from the sky uncaringly and totally without mercy. But there was still the missiles coming in behind them, and when Admiral Kutzov snarled the order for all PD and CIWS to target the incoming missiles and fire, they did precisely that.
Chainguns, lasers, sandcasters, every close-in defense tool the RSC had was suddenly unloading into the mass of enemy missiles, clawing them from the sky en masse and slamming forth waves rounds and beams to intercept any more missiles or torpedoes coming at them. However, even more ships were badly struck, and many more were disabled by the missiles that the PD missed.
And through it all the RSC continued to fire with vengeance in their hearts and cold fury guiding their hands. By the Gods, Capitol would pay today!
The Inquisition fleet shifted and dispersed behind the Union's fleets as the initial barrages came to bear upon them. While it seemed most aggression was expectedly focused on the main AGA attack bloc, Vilrik left little to chance. "Haleys, Abells, flank the flak wall and pick off whatever tries to circle around. All others, target confirmed surface targets. Rain hell."
AIs and organic minds alike traced the trajectory of the various missiles that had come from Rubikon II, and after a moment of ruling out false contacts, a hail of kinetic rods from the varying-sized made way for the surface. The smaller shots from the frigates and cruisers reached .45c, along with destroyers immediately pushing their weapons to the limits in terms of both velocity and fire rate in an effort to overload any kind of orbital shielding that undoubtedly would be up. The larger capital ships meanwhile fired larger kinetic rounds, albeit at a reduced velocity in exchange for a faster firing rate. All ships, almost in unison, began arming their missile pods for launch, awaiting the enemies' next move before firing.
The dreadnoughts and battleships meanwhile, having drained much stored power in the initial barrage, and having received little retaliation from said attack, made their way towards the hot giant, letting their weapons cool and rearm. 10 AIs across the dreadnoughts offered themselves to the priming chambers of the Fafnir launchers, their minds and souls slowly transferred into what would be new constructs to be fired into enemy ships. The constructs already launched at the station quickly began to dissipate and die, releasing their collective energies in a particle storm upon the staging area. Only three of the constructs remained: one that managed to stubbornly persist on the staging area with its form slowly degrading, and the two initially aimed at the hot giant, their forms steadily growing as the entered to atmosphere.
Fleetmaster Serran watched on her terminal as the incoming tachyon arrow fire arrived, slamming into the ships within her fleet, causing large amounts of damage to the shielding of some vessels and outright destroying others. She looked at the readouts, noting that most of the damage had been taken by the screening vessels as by design, which had moved to intercept as best they could in order to protect the capital ships. So the surviving vessels pressed on, targeting the incoming nuclear-kinetic shells launched by Shadowblade with their phased array hulls, zapping the majority of the rounds before they could present a problem, while the remainder were destroyed by the swarms of fighters massing around the warships. Now it was their turn to reply, and they did so: beginning somewhat forward of the prow of the Generation 3 supercruisers and battleships, space folded perpendicular to the direction of travel, creating a sort of steep shear of space-time, which was then extruded forward like an invisible beam, lancing out towards the heaviest vessels within the enemy fleet that stood in their way, ready to rip and tear material standing in their way as the structure was compressed and stretched. At the same time, the offensive matterconverter arrays of the fleet targeted the blinkers in orbit around Rubikon Prime, aiming disintegrate the molecular bonds holding the hulls together, and converting some of the mass into energy. And with all of this, the particle beamer and plasma torpedo fire accompanied, aimed towards the enemy fleet.
D.N.A. small flanking fleet took a heavy blow alongside IRS and RSC small fleet from the missile barrage with 13 Destroyers destroyed, more the half of the Frigates destroyed with the rest being floating static gun or too heavily damage to fight only defend themselves.
"Sir, incoming fire from Capitol starbase!!" Said one of the Wolvenane's comm-officers.
"Fire Scatter missiles to intercept their missiles and get too close use the CIWs before they get too close, and tell all ships to watch for the starbases the Tachyon Arrow fire power, they pack a deadly punch, only mine and a few other ships with the new shielding, provided by our Union ally can handle their fire power, once their barrage is done return fire with everything you got!" Order the Admiral.
The D.N.A. fleet fired Scatter Missiles towards the enemy missiles, the Scatter missile produced six smaller from the sides to intercept more missiles, once the enemy missiles have reduced to less then half or few, the CIWs swept up the stragglers or allow the missile to hit the energy shields. The biggest challenge was the Tachyon Arrow weaponry as the barrage one KO'ed the smaller D.N.A. ships while the bigger ships gets either destroyed or heavily damaged, only a few ships equipped with MTP shields are unaffected by the TA barrage. Once the barrage is finished the D.N.A. retaliated with barrages of Advanced Capital Railgun fire power, Plasma Gun fire, Laser Gun fire, Missiles barrage off Scatter missile, AP Havoc missiles and Plasma Starburst missiles, and some mixture of different ship-grade weapons of all types.
The three frigates accompanying the RSC, D.N.A and IRS all flared to full combat charge as the enormous psi batteries lining the ships inside flare to life, pushing out into the vast depths of space with enormous cones of telekinetic energy the arrow shaped vessels batter a hole in the incoming scalar wave, the distribution of the scalar energy making it far more susceptible to the far more concentrated bursts of psi energy, with a mighty shudder all three ships loose a single enormous one kilometre missile delivery vehicle mag clamps powering down to release the herculean structures, with a burst of gravitic power the delivery vehicles roar forward taking advantage of the newly formed gaps to pass through the wave unharmed, like flowers blooming in the rising sun the enormous carriers shed their outer hulls to reveal racks of waiting casaba howitzers, the nuclear devices linking with the delivery vehicles on board sensors t produce a far more accurate picture of the situation as 1500 missiles pull free and streak towards the incoming missile barrage, spears of nuclear plasma flashing in the dark well out of the stand off range of most conventional counter measures
Raztae sat with one arm crossed to his opposite side, the other lying on his hip, as he watched over the command information center of the Syphoner-class carrier that he had declared his command ship. While the layout was similar to smaller ships, with AI cores mounted ahead of the room, the rearmost pair being observable during non-combat situations through multi-layered viewports, and a multitude of vastly different command seats for the myriad of positions, it was easily three times as large as the ones you could find on a cruiser. "Exiting into Rubikon in T-minus thirty seconds, rear admiral Raztae," called out the head plotter, his message conveyed through a headset. Raztae stood, stretched, and discarded the herbal stick he'd been chewing on. The same general process also applied to most of the personnel on the ship, as they wouldn't get much time to stretch out once they got in and the orders started streaming out. After this, anyone with a static position sat and jacked into their seats, plugs connecting into their necks as they leaned back. They followed the individual until they had to move or get up. A screen activated both within Raztaes' mind as well as in front of him, tracking the numerous ships under his command. Gunners sat on chairs with connected flex-screens, traversing to merely transverse their view, a number of touch controls permitting view outside of the screens' mobility arc. Sensor personnel merely monitored two screens each, one committed to physical readings and the other to energy, that displayed at a customizable perspective. Damage control officers watched simple top, side, isometric, and turntable views of their respective ship. By far the most numerous, however, were the communications officers, who had to track transmissions of data with the assistance of the AI cores, and as such had the most jacks; from the very base of the skull down to the bottom of their shoulder blades. Streams of code were isolated into windows of their own on their quad screens, their enhanced eyes keeping up as the incredibly fast stream of data passed through the ship, the AI cores processing it at hundreds of times his speed, nevermind that of the non-specialized personnel on the ship.
"Exiting in T-minus five seconds, three light-seconds behind current AGA line," called out the plotter again. While the time to them was tangible, they were more or less instantaneously travelling in realspace. Their arrival was denoted by the mere appearance of their craft in previously-empty space, accompanied by an incredibly bright EM flash that was magnified by the greater tear on the breach that was brought about by the sheer number of ships making the transition.
"This is rear admiral Raztae," was called out on secure laserlines to AGA craft as the imperial fleet jumped in, "Carnaithian fleet moving to support operations," said Raztae as nine hundred and fifty capital ships, already coalesced into set maneuver groups, continued the acceleration burn started pre-jump; Heavier craft, such as cruisers, battleships, lighthouse-class fleet support craft, and carriers, spread out into the edge of a sphere that, if drawn, was centered around Rubikon. The ahead group, consisting of destroyers, corvettes, and frigates, supported by battlecruisers, was of a similar formation, though it focused on its efforts on clearing Rubikon IIs orbit of hostile presence. Augmenting all of this were BZ-class craft, with five blinkerzwillen supporting the "heavy" force, and fifty scalar-carrying destroyers supporting the ahead force. Fighting separately were fifteen blinkerzerstoren, which had broken off to burn into the emptiness behind the AGA fleet, detaching thirty blinkerhunds, two each, which tagged along with their mothers.
All of these ships began vector variance maneuvers, firing thrusters along their hulls to change their movement arcs along all axes in order to make themselves more difficult to hit, as well as deploying solaris globules in order to serve as additional protection. Communications were handled by the fleet support ships, those being the lighthouse-class and the point-defense frigates, respectfully, with the blinkerzwillen creating EM false contacts through subtle heating of space using single pairs of scalar arrays on lowest power possible, similar to the output of engines of their compatriots, supported by gravitic anomalies created by their vast banks. five hundred of these were created to support the heavy fleet. The fleet support ships generated false radar signatures for the ships as well as flickering laserlines containing disruptive worms towards the APP and taking up the role of communication centers, closing off all laserline receivers in the direction of the APP as well as enacting a per-basis security protocol. Carriers began unleashing wings of snubcraft, hundreds of the wings accelerating post-magnetic launch. Battleships fired several volleys of shells, the first of which was off-axis to the APP fleets, not aimed at much of anything, as the further volleys were aimed like normally towards hostile positions. As a multi-layered scalar wave fired by twenty of the scalar-carrying destroyers arced out to intercept the missiles fired from the planetary surfaces, the rest of the fleet opened up; three-shot streams from cruiser spinal guns mixed with battleship guns as EMACCS fire was flung towards the fleets around Rubikon. The ahead force chucked lower-energy fire at the closer stations of Rubikon II, augmented by the battleship-level chin guns of the destroyers and the primary batteries of the battlecruisers as CIWS fire was spewed into magnetic nets in order to be moved about as needed. The blinkerzerstoren and their hunds took no real action, instead building up speed while the fleet at large engaged in combat right out of the gate despite the presence of axiomatic blinkers.
Multiple alarm klaxons echoed across the Capitol fleet as the Carnaithian fleet jumped in system, Agamo frowned as he took in the situation, and even more enemy forces were now going to engage them. Clearly judging by the incoming fire from the allied fleet the Ceasefire order on the Carnaithians was out of the window. Shutting off the klaxons and tracking the incoming fire Agamo knew it would be the energy weapons that would do the most damage.
The EMACC rounds fired at the main APP fleet around Rubikon prime were swiftly intercepted mostly by the huge fleets of attack craft that prowled in formation both Justicar and Capitol in origin as missiles flared intercepting rounds on course, those that did get through were shot down by point the defence systems of the Triarch vessels that covered the APP formation bright glaring flashes of light erupting from the interceptions criss crossed space as the rounds were stopped. But there was no such defence against the Hyperfrequency lasers and the Nucleans new weapons. Agamo braced as the first wave of Hyperfrequency laser fire impacted, defence platforms exploded as the beams simply bypassed shields and armour to detonate inside critical ammunition stores or launcher arrays. A cluster of Trident class battleships were also destroyed as their reactors were hit and the resulting containment breaches tore them apart. Capitol vessels exploded around him as did several Triarch vessels. One of the High Emperor class dreadnoughts also detonated as the Nuclean barrage also hit home the guidance given by the Annointed had helped greatly but even with the guidance many beams simply missed their targets doing no effect.
However it was the fire from the Leviathan which did the most damage, orbital defence platforms were torn apart by the massed firepower and while most of it was inaccurate thanks to the huge jamming the Annointed guidance and the sheer volume of fire hit home knocking out platforms as the main AGA forces targeted the APP fleet.
Agamo was quick to respond, he had one more barrage of long range fire before the fleets properly entered engagement envelopes. Inputting targeting information for the Nuclean and Union fleets he concentrated all the fleets Tachyon Arrows in one huge barrage, the rounds near instantly firing in response Agamo also ordered a massive barrage of missiles, while he didn’t expect them to do much with the Unions flak shield and group shield he did hope it would at least keep them focused on taking the fire. Launchers across both the fleet and the various Hades missile platforms ripple fired entire barrages of thermonuclear missiles as well as the Mk.3 ships of the fleet firing multiple Tachyon Torpedoes. All speeding towards the Union, Nuclean and Eramon forces. All other weapons were readied in response to the rapidly closing lines and the attack craft out front acting as screens were ordered back, they wouldn’t be needlessly sacrificed.
--
Tasume felt her ship rock as the Hephaestus class took a direct hit from a Hyperfrequency laser, exploding inside one of the hangar areas and causing superficial damage she straightened her captain’s hat and grimaced.
"What’s the situation on company reinforcements?" She asked out loud.
"55th fleet is on route, arrival time in approximately 23 minutes!" Came the response. Tasume nodded they would defend this world but even with the defence grid and the jamming they were hopelessly outnumbered especially with the Carnaith fleet turning up only now. She just had to do her job and hold.
"Fine! Fire main battery at the Eramon super dreadnought, all ships target it with combined Proton cannon fire. Launch full barrage of missiles at the Eramon fleet let’s try to use Capitols barrage to hide our own missiles, we need to whittle down their numbers!" Once again the main battery of the Hephaestus sang true launching relativistic colossal railgun rounds towards the Eramon Leviathan class this time, ruby red beams also leapt out from the various ships that could fire, the rest targeting the incoming Carnaith EMACC rounds with their PD. In addition thousands of missiles were cold fired from launchers, each one activating its stealth field as they then burned towards the Eramon fleet, using the cover of the Capitol barrage and their own stealth fields to significantly lessen the interception by the AGA fleet.
--
The various small fleets of the Capitol forces had not been idle, most had tried to form up and then move to reinforce Rubikon Prime along with Agamos primary fleet, however multiple were not using their speed and agility to move around the ‘flanks’ of the allied fleet, their aim was to perform hit and run attacks, using missiles and TAs to strike where able. However two of the larger patrol fleets now moved to intercept the Annolidians both forces comprised of multiple destroyers, escorts a handful of cruisers and a single Trident class. The fleets came in at great speed and steep angles, launching barrages of missiles and firing their TAs before they made hard burns to angle away from the enemy and bring them out of firing range.
"10 Forge-class and another 20 Smithy-class ships have been destroyed. The rest are either unharmed or only experienced minimal damage." the interface read out.
The Separatist Union Admiral nodded silently and quickly contemplated his next move.
"Squads Three, Six and Seven. Detach from the fleet and conduct hit-and-run attacks on the IRS fleet. Use the debris to your advantage."
On Uzajhan's orders, 30 ships broke away from the fleet and accelerated at full speed towards Rubikon II. The Separatist Union squadrons attacked the IRS forces mired in the debris of the APP defence platforms from all angles possibles, unloading volley after volley of plasma beams, lasers and plasma missiles before turning away at sharp angles and pulling back for another run. The six Vulkan-class carriers that accompanied the 30 ships at the same time let loose some 300 remote-piloted drone fighter bombers and a 100 more Julka Autoframes to press the attack on the IRS fleet.
Using a blend of Triach stealth systems and Separatist local jamming, the Julka mechs infiltrated through the debris undetected by normal IRS sensors and planted thruster packs onto the burnt-out hulls of the APP defence platforms still large enough to cause some major damage. After they were done, the thruster packs activated and hijacked the trajectory of the station wreckage, wrestling them away from Rubikon II's gravitational field and propelling them towards the IRS ships with the full intent of ramming them. At the same time, the Julkas armed with railrifles and long-range laser cannons began sniping away at AGA fighters, drones and smaller corvette-sized ships near Rubikon II.
Meanwhile the other 140 ships left with the main fleet continued their path towards Rubikon II, spreading out to cover the distance between Rubikon I and Rubikon II. They continued firing their plasma, laser and other kinetic weapons this time focusing on the DNA and RSC formations.
The Immortal Empire manufacturing ship, unimaginatively named ‘Manufacturing Ship XX78J90-117-KI,’ burned its engines so that it would eventually find itself with the planet Rubicon between it and the advancing AGA fleet. The small fleet had been spared any attention from the AGA, but Oon would rather avoid any unnecessary risks, especially considering the ship’s precious cargo.
Two incoming transmissions, the first heavily encrypted and the second what initially appears to be a key to decrypt the first but was in truth a trap that would attempt create a viral attack based on the system reading it should anyone attempt to. While not the most impressive cyberattack, it would still prove an unpleasant surprise.
The message itself was for Captain Oon and stated that he was to begin gathering information on the AGA combined fleet and isolating priority targets for destruction once reinforcements arrived. Which should be fairly shortly.
The widespread destruction amongst the orbital defensive platforms of Capitol that orbited Rubikon II began to escalate out of control. Not only was there an immense ammount of fire still being directed at them but the stations that succumbed and exploded became a danger in on themselves: thousands of tons of heavy reinforced armor was turned into deadly shrapnel by the impacting weapons. For every piece of shrapnel that the laser brooms of the remaining stations managed to clear a thousand took its place whenever the wrecks struck one another or impacted civilian shipyards and satellites. Soon enough the storm of shrapnel had spread beyond the massive formation of Capitol defensive stations and into both civilian stations, emergency vessels and evacuating ships. The satellites and orbital control stations that were helping the evacuation along started getting hit by micrometeoroids and small bits of shrapnel which became progressively larger and more intense until the defensive lasers of the civilian stations broke as well. The resulting cascade became exponential in a few hours. As soon as the evacuation control stations were hit and destroyed by shrapnel, panic spread like wildfire amongst the evacuees. Every civilian ship in orbit made a run for it in any possible direction, even flying directly towards the AGA fleet if it meant getting away from the planet before it was completely envelopped by shrapnel. The chaotic nature of the evacuation made the storm much worse as evacuating vessels started getting hit themselves by shrapnel or colliding into one another in their hurried attempts to evacuate Rubikon II.
A full-blown disaster was unfolding in Rubikon II and there was little that the central command could do but watch. Sensor, ECM and communications satellites used to keep close tabs on the situation were wiped out. Arcon and the rest of the Brotherhood of the Great State found their information channels gradually getting throttled by the loss of so much equipment; the EPA forces in Rubikon I had their sustained barrages of cruise missiles interrupted. Only one bulwark remained: Capitol's starbase around Rubikon II was strong enough to withstand the storm with its shields. Several other defensive stations as well as thousands of civilian ships sat on the starbase's shadow in order to avoid the shrapnel, finding it safer to stay behind the starbase than trying to evacuate. The image of the starbase acting as a shield for so many civilian ships was, naturally, greatly pleasing to Arcon.
"I want every camera on that." He ordered, unable to move due to the monolithic command and control device now intersecting his skull like a phased crystal. "Show the whole galaxy the defiant spirit of Capitol!"
"Defenses are starting to break down around Rubikon II, planetary defense requests a change of orders." Another general informed, thick cables injecting terabytes of data in his brain.
"Very well." Arcon replied. "Send the word out at maximum strategic priority, I want all forces in Rubikon to halt engagement of long-range targets and prepare to defend against orbital bombardment. Mobilize work brigades to transfer electrical generation equipment and engineering out of the cities. Tell every surface combat unit to spread out as far as possible and assume antinuclear positions. Wait for them to either begin clearing the debris field or bypass Rubikon II for further updates. Begin switching Rubikon Prime's fire away from the IRS and Restevian fleets and switch it to holding off our own front."
While the storm of shrapnel had destroyed Rubikon II's defenses, it also bought the forces in the planet some time to carry out Arcon's orders. Knowing that the AGA fleet would soon break through the last long-range defenses, he ordered the hundreds of millions into his command to begin preparing for the incoming fight. The most obvious targets for any orbiting warships would be the planet's population centers. A full breakdown of social order had taken place as soon as it began becoming impossible to escape via shuttle, with citizens rioting for any means or hope of evacuation that was possible. It was well beyond Arcon's ability to control, he ordered a large-scale pullback of the armed forces from the positions where they had been coordinating the evacuation from, leaving the citizens to their fate. Highways all over the surface had become clogged with miles of traffic jams travelling into the cities but now the work brigades had been ordered to travel out. The army was ordered to ram every obstacle out of the way with tanks to ensure them a path was cleared. Units already in the barren outback of Rubikon II began entrenching and building networks of isolated tunnels, makeshift airfields, camouflaged firebases and firing positions for the army. The goal was simple: to descentralize defenses as much as possible before what was quite possibly going to be a brutal fight.
The joy that commanding entire continents' worth of people with a mere thought brought Arcon was suddenly cut short by the latest stream of reports coming back from the fleets. The significant losses and general lack of momentum weren't what affected him, if anything he was further galvanized by the fierce fighting that the capitol fleets were doing despite being more spread out than their AGA counterparts. But seeing EPA's Operational Maneuver Group make a run for it and get as far away from the battlefield as it could made him fly into a rage and make several unsuccesful attempts at contacting them. The ships of EPA flew away from the battlefield at full burn, taking their superweapon with them surrounded by a thick screen of YW-class corvettes. Nrzqzr and the admiralty had finally decided that Rubikon was not worth risking their most sophisticated unit and their powerful superweapon over.
Stillute felt the slowing of his own thoughts as the computer he was linked to turned to processing target data for the missiles that his ships had launched not long ago. In the time that the slow-moving missiles had taken to approach the AGA forces, he had moved his own ships into a spread-out half-plate, dented away from the AGA fleet. Smaller ships engaged full stealth, creeping somewhat closer to the AGA forces; the fan-like formation lent itself to preventing mass damage in the case of discovery.
The short moment that Stillute had before transmission began was filled with the euphoric speeding up of time as the processing of the AI cores refocused, only to slow down even slower than before so that the weapons officers could most accurately guide the missiles. The blossoming explosions of nuclear shells detonated against the shields of AGA craft that had been foolish enough to ignore them, energy washing over the shields as the explosions died out from the lack of fuel. Those ships whose shields failed were shaken like infants, particulates of armor coming off in sheets as monolithic plating bent out of its own limits within the kilometer-wide detonation radii. The silent virtual flowers filled his sight as he felt the thoughts of the crew below him, all as stalks in the battle space grew away from the missiles to their rooting ships and vice versa. As they planted themselves, receiving and sending target data, the feeling of having dozens of bodies filled Stillute, his view shifting into a composite, kaleidoscope-like image of point-of-view renderings from all missiles and their corresponding command ships. Each transposed layer of his sight detailed the movements of a different pack; one hundred and fifty crept slowly to the giants of the AGA fleet as an identical group moved to intercept the Restavian vanguard. A final wordless command, and they leapt out of their bushes.
The reactor-warheads of the missiles activated, keeping their forward arcs concealed as they fired fusion torches to send them screaming into the blackness between themselves and the AGA forces, dancing in erratic pathways as they drained their own explosive force. The collage of nuclear flame danced in Stillutes' eyes in a way that many terrans would never understand, weaving through itself and each other in a convoluted ballet towards their targets. Half of each group detonated, sending molten metal forth to spear the fire directing-sensors on their prey and their escort as their compatriots screamed ever closer to their final destination, their exact location only discernable from the radiation that expanded past their sheath coverage once they passed the escorts, but this was often too late. Multi-faceted nuclear howitzers fired at point-blank range, combining an amplified form of the nuclear shells with a shotgun-like spread, impaling their prey like fishing spears. Stillute, still all this time, bounced forward, almost drugged, as he was torn away.
"Again."
"And through his sheer untainted will did Eos cast his brothers down and wipe their sins from creation!" Yutrine called out those few bridge crew who were still alive and manning their stations cried out in return.
"Exemplar I have found a break in enemy interdiction!" The women called out with fiery passion. The crew looked to Yutrine, a smile creeping across the Exemplars face.
"And so Eos delivers, this will surely be our end, but the creator will lift us up and grant us his eternal glory! Helm jump!" Yutrine cried out, her beautiful yet hauntingly aggressive manner almost eager to jump to her death. With 5 flashes of light the Eosian vessels dissapeared from the APP line, messages of confusion coming from the Capitol line in return.
With 5 more flashes the Eosian small fleet leapt almost totally on top the rearguard elements of the RSC fleet, the huge white and gold forms of the Eosian ships instantly turning a fiery yellow as they unleashed their kinetic waves, directed wave cannons and point wave guns at point blank range into the vessels within their vicinity, the huge form of the Corona class dreadnought that Yutrine commanded firing non stop. Eosian attack craft were launched, at least those that still had pilots, the bombers setting about making near suicidal attack runs on the RSC vessels, the fighters aiming to keep defense fire off the bombers. This was Eosian tactics at its finest, and it would be their final charge, they knew that and yet they relished it.
--
The Justicar fleet continued on its burn towards Rubikon II, observing from afar as the AGA main force closed into medium range of the APP defense line around Rubikon Prime. With the AGAs main defense focused front the Justicar small fleet immediately began launching a missile volley of their own, directed towards the closest flank of the AGA main fleet, which was the Eramons relative to the Justicar position. Strange Anchor shaped missiles blasted from launcher arrays and formed up into concentric waves as they sped towards the Eramon flank.
The bulk of the fleet however consisting of Aggressor class destroyers fanned out, the incoming readings from Rubikon II showed massive wreckage around the planet from orbital debris, this dented their plan. The Justicars aimed to drop their ground forces that the fleet carried before breaking off and then harassing the AGA. The fleet continued on as Justicar commanders weighed their choices, the Seperatist Union was also alongside them, and they could drop their forces in between breaks in the debris before using the planets own gravity well to slingshot round and engage the AGA fleet. Determining this was the optimal plan the Jusitcar fleet continued full burn, now approaching on the opposite side of Rubikon II to the AGA attack fleet.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 14:54:08 GMT
,Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Within the bridge/CIC hybrid that was the command center of Order's Conductor, the large screen display of the battle populated with various notifications, displaying the range to Rubikon Prime as well as the enemy fleet that lay between them and the planet itself. Above Serran's terminal, her holographic screens displayed the results from the allied fire, and warnings of incoming enemy fire with projected trajectories towards the Nuclean fleet, as well as the civilian ships heading straight for them. The Fleetmaster's hands danced, touching the holographic screens in front of her, as well as giving verbal orders to her subordinants, both bridge crew and within the fleet, directing the lesser warships that formed the fleets screening elements to deal with the incoming Capitol missiles. The escorts in question kept their main plasma torpedo and particle beamer fire directed towards the enemy fleet, however their phased arrays and particle bolt batteries were directed towards countering the incoming threat, boosting their fire as needed now by Lance missiles. All of a sudden an alarm went off, as the Shadowblade stealth missiles were revealed. The fleet had gotten a very slight early warning as the missiles had come close enough to be gravimetrically picked up before firing their engines, however it was not much of one. However in this case the fleet benefitted from the slightly over a million fighters that still swirled within the fleet's cloud, which reinforced the vessels' point defense in destroying some of the missiles, especially the ones that waited longer before detonation. However it was only a partial solution, and shields failed on multiple vessels as others were destroyed outright. Serran cringed, growling slightly under her breath, as the fleet subcommanders rearranged to compensate for more vessels being lost. "Find where those stealth missiles originated from and destroy them!" she barked, continuing to monitor the battle. Her spirits were slightly elevated by the retreat of EPA, however she was not pleased with these enemies that were bombarding them that they could not see. Gravimetric scans from the fleet were focused in the general direction from which the missiles had originated, as the search for Shadowblade's stealthed vessels began. Meanwhile, the fleet continued bombarding the APP fleet before them with their weaponry, spatial shear beams continuing to be aimed at the largest stations and warships, along with the other standard weapons fire. And the offensive matterconverter arrays continued to be aimed at the Blinkers, utilizing their several hour window before the Axiom craft orbited behind the planet to work on disintegrating their hulls, focusing especially on structural weak points and the scalar antenna.
The Restevian rear-formation was composed mostly of carriers and dreadnoughts, and of those almost a hundred simply vanished under the Eosian assault. Hulls buckled, engine cores went critical and exploded and in bare seconds almost five dozen Restevian craft simply ceased to exist as warships and life bearing space-craft. Debris twirled away from the explosions and the psionic comms were jammed with a sudden shock and panic as they alerted their comrades to the sudden assault.
Those that survived immediately turned to engage, the Restevian dreadnoughts numbering in the tens and higher coming about to bring their heavy arms to bear. Barely a breath was taken before they were firing, unleashing storms of ballistics and laser beams, the heaviest of the RSC's warships so close that all they needed to do was get the slightest inkling of the enemy's position, point at it, and fire everything they had. And with storms of many thousands of slugs erupting from each ship alongside hundreds of lasers and storms of nuclear and plasma missiles in silvery swarms so great as to please even the Annointed there was hardly any way they could miss their assailants. CIWS and fighters still near the carriers went after the Eosian strikecraft and bombers with a vengeance, diving upon them like birds of prey with cannons and missiles blazing in. The snubs that had launched them came in hot on the heels of their munitions as they attacked, aiming to disable and kill fast and hard.
And even then squadrons barreled for the Eosian dreadnought, their boosters screaming as they flew right for the enemy vessel among the storms of fire from their fleet.
The Shadowblade stealth strike had managed to get past the Restevian missile defenses far easier than the last missile attack had, and when the enemy munitions began exploding among the RSC ships they for sure generated some level of chaos. CIWS and PD leapt to life to claw as many of the enemy strike weapons from the sky as they could, near a hundred, but in return over sixty heavy Restevian warships were blinded and stunned, rattled by what had struck them.
And at the middle of the formation, there the assault went on. The warships in formation continued to unleash hell and metal upon the Capitol defensive platforms, but they were not the only thing now active.
It had taken a long time, and a lot of work, to construct the Heavy Laser Pump Combat Vessels. This one was Soul of Vengeance, named for the loss at Ural. Within it's core under meter after meter of armored hull and blazing CIWS turrets, the gigantic prism and thermonuclear pump became active. "Core spooling up, ready to fire off in thirty seconds!" "Targeting." "Da!" "Do you see the Captiol starbase over RII?" "Yes, comrade commander." "I don't want to." "Yes ma'am, targeting now." "Core ignition, detonating pump device now!" "Firing!"
Deep in the core, an thermonuclear explosion of such magnitude to ignite the atmosphere of a nitrogen-oxygen planet entirely erupted. The force of the blast would have been utterly punishing and utterly annihilating to the superweapon had the nuclear hellfire not been contained, rerouted. And in the prism, death flared. The Soul of Vengeance focused everything it had into a single sustained, hell-borne beam that lashed out at the enemy starbase over Rubikon II with irresistible force to strike it's target and anything else in it's path.
Vilrik made note of the missiles inbound to the main fleet bloc, along with various other munitions. They were quite honestly low on the list of his concerns, his battlecruisers various mass drivers tracking their movements before firing interception rounds. Those that were missed were still targeted by PAM turrets as they drew closer, the masers angled to strike the missiles as their flight paths angled their main payload in a semi-safe angle, topped off with the support ships' gravitational pulses keeping latent debris at bay.
As the Immortal Empire ship's signal reached Annoliddan ships, the various AIs and comms officers simply ignored to pick up on the frequency. What with the sheer amount of jamming and secured channels, a wanton signal like this was easily recognized as a false one. Instead, they used the signal to triangulate the IE ship's region of space and fire a spread barrage of relativistic shells from the decks of three battlecruisers.
Meanwhile, seeing the hellstorm of shrapnel and ships above Rubikon II, Vilrik sent out several dropships with a three-fighter escort each from his flagship to skirt the battlefield away from the crossfire, finding a relative opening in the carnage. Each was piloted by Virtual Intelligences only, and began sending out hailing signals across all available frequencies. Their message was short and brief, calling out to the panicking and fleeing civilian vessels to follow them to safety.
Elsewhere in the system, the Inquisition strike fleet took a decimating blow from the Capitol ships. Though the sudden arrival left little warning, it was enough for most of the destroyers and battleships to maneuver to avoid the arrows. But 6 battleships and 13 destroyers still suffered crippling critical blows to their main systems, 3 of which were hit in their cores and summarily detonated immediately, along with 6 destroyers. 7 more destroyers and 8 battleships received glancing blows, fortunately taking out only a few of their weapons in the process. The dreadnoughts in turn took light damage across the board, their shielding and heavy armor allowing all but one to only lose various weapons systems, including several of the Fafnir cannons. The most damaged one actually began to break in half, its mass working against itself and tearing the broken ship apart. The nearby Ceres class support ships made way to it and the other most damaged ships, setting to work their grav fields and repair drones to keep them intact and functional.
The dreadnoughts quickly retorted to the attack, sending out a barrage of relativistic, critical mass rounds at the Capitol ships. These were intentionally fired at angles that would miss, and shortly followed by a barrage of guided missiles and three more Fafnir constructs on intercept trajectory of the battleship and destroyers. This was an age old tactic, giving the Capitol ships the option of staying their course, or evade and increase likelihood of the relativistic rounds hitting.
Volkus watched as another huge barrage of Tachyon Arrows now slammed into the Union group shield, the sheer number of them coupled with the defense platforms now forced the large group shield around the front of the AGA fleet to collapse entirely the vessels of the Union fleet now reverting back to their regular shield emitters and the Nova Class carriers and Chakram class battlecruiers that projected the field now had to slowly recharge and cool down their emitters. Needless to say however the missile swarm did far less damage, most of the huge missile waves launched from the Capitol fleet were destroyed by the flak screen, the sheer millions upon millions of rounds with uncountable submunitions creating a seething display of pyrotechnics in front of the Union fleet, thousands of missiles were caught and detonated, and those that managed to push through the barrage found themselves instantly assailed by Firestorm fighters or the prestigous point defense systems of the Union fleet as a whole. Those missiles that did impact merely hit shields a scattered few smaller craft were destroyed but overall the attack had been ineffective.
The Triarch and Shadowblade missiles however proved more effective, while Triarchs stealth barrage was also heavily wittled down by the flak barrage those that did break through managed to hide long enough to strike their targets, the gravimetric sensors of the Union only picking up the two missile waves at close range. PD flared as small meson lasers, counter missiles and rapid fire gatling cannons attempted to intercept their targets. More ships were lost this time, cruisers mostly but a handful of battleships detonated as the Shadowblade missiles hit home, the warning from the Nucleans coming too late due to the jamming.
In return however the AGA fleet was now in ideal weapons range.
"All guns open fire, target enemy fleet priority heavy munitions target enemy defense platforms! Flak shield revert back to basic fire, all attack craft begin bombing runs and clear us a path!" Volkus shouted as the roiling mass of flak in front of the Union fleet ceased, a lull for several seconds as the autoloaders on the thousands of mass drivers switched shells before finally firing again as millions of rounds backed up by Meson laser beams, Spearhead drones, Union QAC cannons and missiles now roared forward straight toward the main APP fleet defending Rubikon Prime. Firestorm Fighters and Eagle Eye bombers formed up into huge attack waves, keeping their spacings still to prevent easy destruction also sprinted forward, the fighters engaging the Justicar, Capitol and Triarch fighters that formed a picket line in collosal dogfights as the bombers pushed through to also fire their large missile payloads. The battle around Rubikon Prime now began in ernest.
---
The Eramon fleet however managed to recieve the warning of the incoming missiles seconds before they were picked up on their own gravimetric sensors, Gravit cannons ripple fired into the oppitunistic missile swarms of Shadowblade as numerous Eramon vessels exploded from SB missile strikes, stray Capitol and Triarch missiles and Tachyon Arrow rounds fired after the group shield collapsed. Their own attack craft split, one half joining the Union craft in their attack to open a hole the other half spreading out to act as a missile picket to try help against any further stealth missile swarms.
The Leviathan however rocked as its shields took the brunt of the Relativistic shells fired by the Haephestus class super dreadnought, coroscating arcs of energy leaping out from strained emitters as the Eramon fleet now properly opened fire along with the Union Gravit cannons, Phased plasma cannons and more targetting Capitol and Triarch forces alike as they aimed to wipe out the large amount of smaller ships, hoping to rob the APP of their covering vessels to give the attack craft an easier time on the attack.
The Haephestus however that Tasume commanded now found itself targetted by the Leviathan, its monumental armament now focused on the Triarch flagship and surrounding fleet as thousands of shots lanced out into the void.
Fifty IRS ships were suddenly entangled in a cobweb of plasma bolts and lancers, destroyed within a flash of a nanosecond as metals melted and reactors went critical. Another 30 of them survived the Separatist Union ambush, but not for long. Their damaged engines and power failures made them sitting ducks...at the mercy of the swirling high speed debris and the Separatist foe.
The smaller frigates were the first to go. With damaged shield panels that flickered on and off, the debris storm simply shredded them into an unfortunate grizzly salad of Lunamite bits and pieces. The larger cruisers managed to divert what maximum power they had left to the shields and managed to hold on for a little while longer.
But alas, destiny awaits. Even with functioning sensors, the stranded IRS ships could not hope to repel the incoming onslaught. The hulls and wrecks of destroyed APP station were screaming towards them and all they could do was to fire all they could at them. Everything - nuclear missiles, tachyonetric railgun rounds and even the pithy point defences all blasted upon the incoming APP wrecks but to no avail. The 30 ships were no more as the wrecks either sliced through or pummeled the incapacitated ships into bits.
"All callsigns retreat to my position!" Razael relayed to the rest of the Hunter Teams that survived the ordeal. While the bulk of his cruisers and frigates were grinded into dust at the debris field, his heavy hitter forces withstood the APP barrage with minimal casulaties of 2 battleships and 2 battlecarriers through tough shields and evasive manuveres. Down to 336 ships, Razael must now thread carefully lest more of his brothers and sisters die in vain.
His Co-commander, Yunon, suffered similar damages, worn down by Capitol tachyon arrow barrages and the sudden hits by Shadowblade nuclear missiles. His fleet was down to 300 ships.
"Yunon, retreat to Union positions let their superior defences give your forces cover. Protect their flanks in return,"
"Fleet Admiral, Capitol escape pods detected and are heading towards us. What should we do?"
"Broadcast proximity warnings. If they get too close, let our PDs deal with them. Otherwise, let them go. We have no business with civilians at the moment," Razael replied before resuming his focus on the battle at hand.
"All those under me. Focus fire on the Separatist fleet! I want ARNAMs on the debris field!"
As per his orders, Razael's fleet regrouped and launched a fresh volley of thermonuclear railgun shells and nuclear missiles, except this time they also fired a total of 10 Astronomical Range Nuclear Missiles at the debris storm near Separatist Union positions. The remarkably large fission-fusion warheads detonated at specifically calculated positions, scrambling nearby sensors with a shower of gamma waves while propelling superheated shards and pieces towards the Separatist fleet.
The small D.N.A. fleet, supporting the IRS’ Hunter Squadron Fleet, suffer the same fate as they did with the high speeding debris that all remains from the damaged or destroyed Capitol defense platform and starbases, while the CIWs on the fleet vessel are firing onto the debris, their warning system flairs up as the Separatists Union and remaining starbases open fire with Nuclear Missiles, railguns and TA. The debris field will provide little cover, which avail no successful protection, the D.N.A. surviving vessels retaliated against the Nuclear missiles with their Scatter missiles to interception them, only less then half of the missiles made it through the debris field, and only take out half of the nuclear missiles while the CIWs took out some, the rest managed to hit the vessels while those with their energy shields still had enough powers to withstand the nuclear fire other are not so lucky as they are either destroyed or more damage than before. More would have followed from under TA and railguns fire if they had stayed longer, instead what's left of the small supporting fleet are regrouping back to the main D.N.A. fleet as they provide cover fire for, what's left, the retreating IRS and D.N.A. flanking squadron. The Sep. Union and Capitol Defense stations that are in range are fired upon with Advance Capital Railguns, Long Ranged Capital Lux Laser Guns and AP Havok missiles, till the two fleeing fleet made it to safety. What remains of the small fleet is 2 Hades Destroyers, and only a hand full of Chimaera and Thespian Frigates that made it back to safety.
Xa'vil seeing that the RSC fleet under assault by the remnants of Eos lead an small volunteer force of 50 D.N.A. vessel came to help the RSC as the main D.N.A. continues to support the main AGA assault fleet.
"All ships focus fire on the Eos vessel at long range and don't use missiles, from the dossier of their weaponry, their kinetic wave gun can destroy our missiles never to touch them and at close range they'll crush our ships like soda cans to crushing machine, so use main our Capital Railguns, Lux Laser guns and if we get halfway to them use Corus Plasma guns for additional firepower." Xa'vil order to the ships following her as they open fire on to the Eos ships just as Xa'vil asked. Vessel with the capacities to have hangers launches Darknight Fighters and Kunai Interceptor to fight against Eos strikecrafts and bombers .
The main fleet open fires unto the APP forces alongside with AGA allied fleets with everything they go from Advance Capital Railguns to Starbrust Plasma missiles and launchers fighters and bombers to join in the AGA and APP interstellar dogfight over the Capital planet of Rubikon Prime.
The Dominion’s naval forces continued on in their support fire role from the flank of the AGA line. The location and nature of the position meant that the Dominion’s vessels were simply not experiencing the volume of fire that the mainstays of the AGA fleet were receiving. If anything, it seemed that the light damage that had been received was really due to the low numbers and position of the sixty-seven vessels that also had maintained a formation that thwarted some of the enemy fire that had come their way. But of course, as the meat grinder of conflict continued rendering the larger elements into scrap, inevitably the current status of the Dominion elements would not continue to last. Amongst the vessels of the Dominion fleet the longest ranged vessels continued to lay fire down at targets of opportunity, as the order to fire independently and at will had been given some time earlier. Where a clear shot at a surviving defense platform or stray enemy vessel were seen within a rough 120-degree arc the vessels of the dominion fleet took their shots using the same energy weapons used prior to maintain a stand-off range where the fleet could deal damage more reliably without undue risk of attracting more fire then necessary. To the casual observe the tactic of maintaining distance while inflicting maximum damage might have been interpreted to be a reluctance to engage yet in reality Captain Taravis Nthanda Mtaolaia knew full well that in a battle were enemies and allies were tossing about thousands of warships like it meant nothing meant that he had to act in restraint for the time when finally, the allies or the enemies started to engage from differing fronts. This was why he never questioned why his force was posted on the flanks and went virtually unopposed thus far. The enemy if they even knew the Dominion was present had likely discounted its existence. This of course would be a terrible strategic error if left in the current state, however the Captain was never one to discount an enemy unless he had a specific reason to do so. He looked carefully at the status of all visible allied assets and then those of the enemy in the three-dimensional display. Even in the command information center the subdued sound of point defense weapons rattling away at incoming fire from the enemy directed at near AGA assets and possibly at the Dominion warships and it somewhat punctuated the thought process of anticipating the enemy’s next probable move or two. Some enemy vessels had begun moving already, but this was on other fronts…it was only a matter of time now.
Union, Nuclean, and Eramon fleets became the new foci of the ECM suites under Raztaes' command. Communications officers throughout the fleet began tapping away at holographic screens, suggesting maneuvers that lined up with their current movements as the staff on the fleet support warships and the remote crews of the Blinkerzwillen alike began creating false targets that originated right on top of their allies' ships, splitting away the moment the actual craft began moving into enabling maneuvers. Rumbling, low-energy scalar emissions branched out and away from the arc-wakes of warships as gravitic and electronic signatures bled apart from the hulls themselves, mimicking everything they could. As the gunners of the secondary weapons on the mainline fleets hammered away at targets of opportunity and craft ignored by heavy, primary weaponry of other nations, the fleet support craft began taking on the role of processing communications. With ten isolated suites per craft, a total of two thousand communications lines could be routed through the Carnaithian fleet, minimizing risk of electronic attack... such an example being presented by the isolated suite that attempted to open the Immortal Empire data packet, keeping the resulting attack limited to its own particular network, causing the suite to be quarantined further for reset as a copy of the original two files was saved on a thumb drive in a second room. Raztae sighed as he read the report on this, turning to peer at the spherical battle map in the center of the combat information center. A great number of non-military IFFs spotted the battlefield, and the number of them speeding towards the AGA formation in order to flee the ever-growing Kessler effect worried him. "Communications, send it out to the rest of the AGA fleets to spread out and create a corridor for those civilians. Record their passing, and send out messages deterring any attempted militant action. Re-task the forward group to screening and get a scalar battery or two to begin carving them some elbow room."
"Yes, Rear Admiral Raztae. Generating evacuation corridor for Capitol civilian craft..." Responded one of the communications lieutenants across the room, the impossibility of actually hearing the battlegroup commander being rendered moot by the networking chairs. Scalar batteries gingerly erased the debris clouds rushing towards the civilian craft, hitting any projectiles on approach as well. The order expanded, a number of batteries from the scalar carriers in the forward group charged their batteries to direct-intercept incoming munitions and continue screening the non-combatants along their approach as the lighter ships of the maneuver group began moving into a long cylinder, denoting the evacuation route for those craft that had decided to direct themselves towards the AGA forces. This came as the flight control rooms of the carriers and other fighter-carrying craft lit up with chatter as they deployed five hundred fighter-bomber wings screamed out of the magnetic launchers of the carriers, ten-craft formations headed by a single manned fighter burning their engines as they course-corrected towards APP fleets even after the initial launch, building immense momentum. As the G-forces settled down, the pilots were brought back to consciousness by their AI copilots, adding the "sapient touch" needed for their operation. Four dozen five-craft ORAM wings were fired to begin eating through the debris fields as the forward maneuver group began deploying their own manned fighter wings to assist in the screening of the incoming civilians. Scalar-carrying non-FTL leech craft split off of the carriers and began burning off to wildly separate positions along the solar plane in relation to the actual AGA fleet, avoiding the flank where the stealth munitions originated.
"Begin training of fleet hyperfrequency lasers on the Hephaestus superheavy, and begin shelling the static tachyon platforms with secondary EMACCS arrays. Target the High Emperors with guided kinetics from fleet spinal guns," Raztae calmly rattled off as he finally began concerning himself with combat. While all but the missile bays and spinal guns of the fleet were firing, it was general activity firing upon targets of opportunity as was standard procedure, but the fleet was now operating almost like an orchestra; the guns of the fleet now fired in unison at the long-range targets, three-shot bursts letting loose every half of one second to five whole ones in the effort to knock out heavier enemy combatants. Most notable were the battleships, with union-like prows married to fairly familiar hulls of the Orion family, resulting in a slim, dirk-like shape that now flared with guns. Spinals throughout the fleet thundered into the void separately from the secondary and tertiary mounts of the rest of the fleet, the "wing"-mounted guns of the Orions joining in with the spinals of Ozarks to spear the center points of the APP formation as various turrets flooded the space between the two fleets with ferrous lumps carrying multitudes less per-shot energy than their larger siblings. Solaris globules were expanded and brought to bear defensive arcs, even as the Blinkerzwillen began final checks on their lasers and the Blinkerzerstoren continued screaming into the void, out of interdiction and combat range.
The scattered Annointed vessels activate their psionic disintegration fields, the vast vessels disappearing under the purple maelstroms of telekinetic energy, rubble and shrapnel is ripped apart on the molecular level in showers of crackling light and incandescent savagery.
When the haze clears the frigates hang mostly unharmed, PD guns on several are torn or damaged from where larger chunks of ships and space station brute forced through the psionic ADS by sheer mass and overwhelming number.
Turning in long gradual arcs the now isolated vessels among the IRS fleet burn their engines at above line rates to quickly rejoin the Singaporian vessels, leaving behind the crippled and broken ships among the shrapnel storm.
The two ships near the D.N.A fleet push on having hid in the shadow of the Megaladon class dreadnoughts, moving from the ships flanks the dark grey frigate fires all forty eight thousand of its canister guns towards Rubikon II, the cylindrical canisters bursting in atmosphere to release vast swathes of telekinetically powered self replicating nanites into the atmosphere.
Among the Union, Nuclean and Eramon fleets the arrow head ships simply continue providing active scan and comms services to the ships around them.
Agamo watched as his fleet was once again rocked with overwhelming enemy fire. Even with the cover of the orbital defense platforms and the starbase the APP fleet was heavily outnumbered and outgunned, Capitol vessels exploded violently struck by meson laser fire, hails of mass driver munitions or more exotic munitions. Defense stations also crumbled under the heavy firepower arrayed before them, it was simple even with the forces arrayed here over Rubikon Prime they would be swept aside. The Capitol fleet did not sit idle however all weaponry instantly fired the moment the AGA fleet hit engagement range, Tachyon Arrow fire and missiles intermingled with railguns and Tachyon Torpedoes as they streamed towards the allied fleet now without their group shield Agamo aimed to inflict heavy fire on the AGA screening ships, if he could peal away and destroy their escort screen additional missile barrages would have a greater chance of smashing their heavier ships.
His own dreadnought was thrown violently to one side as a whole host of fire was directed at it, the shields holding the vessel replied with a massive barrage of its own. He watched as the sensors called out the Eosian suicide charge, both angry at such a throwing away of life until he stared in disbelief at the damage wrought by the kinetic waves, he had heard of such power before but had never thought the Eosians could inflict such damage.
CIWS from the APP fleet ran hot as it tried desperately to intercept the near constant hail of firepower being directed at it, Union Spearhead drones and Eramon missiles, Carnaith EMACC rounds and Nuclean munitions all detonated prematurely or were shot down. But there were too many. The crossfire was too great and the rate of losses amongst the APP fleet was now rapidly starting to climb, even with the Triarch contingent overloading their diffraction shields Agamo knew this fight was best fought at range but he could not allow for Rubikon Prime to fall. Doubt entered his mind as the Haephestus class in their ranks exploded.
That was until he saw some very familiar contacts appear in system.
---
The Capitol fleet engaging the Inquisition chose to evade the critical mass rounds launched against them as they continued to accelerate away on their attack run. PD leapt out to engage and destroy the incoming missile barrages and the constructs on intercept. However it was not quite enough and several destroyers and a cruiser exploded as the projectiles slammed into the Capitol craft aft engine arrays, causing them to loose power and spin out wildly or merely explode altogether from reactor damage. The ships continued to withdraw.
However elsewhere the small pocket fleets continued to move into new attack vectors, their hit and run tactics very much still capable. One such fleet converged on the Annointed comprising around 42 vessels as they came in at a steep curving angle, firing Tachyon Arrows, Tachyon Torpedoes and regular thermonuclear missiles as they aimed to skim past the edge of the formation. A near identical attack also played out against the Dominion, 38 Capitol vessels now moved to intercept and engage the vessels of the Dominion to stop their unmolested moves in system and to tie them up from whatever objective they were trying to carry out.
-- The huge roiling dogfight continued in front of the AGA/APP fleets, Union Firestorm fighters, Eramon fighters and Nuclean interceptors engaged Triarch Defenders, Capitol Sabre Mk.2B interceptors and Justicar Reavers in colossal engagements both at range using repeating missile strikes or even in close knife fighting ranges, enough to use canons or laser weapons at point blank on the enemy’s tail. Despite the AGA superiority in numbers the APP craft were top rate, and were being reinforced by the attack craft of the orbital defence stations and starbase. APP bombers however were nowhere to be seen. --
Tasume knew this was it. The Hephaestus repeatedly rocked hard, impact after impact from the Eramon Leviathan smashed into the 30km Triarch super dreadnought, its Diffraction shields were now down as were its prestigious regular shields. Systems were knocked offline as gouges and impact holes were torn through the ship, numerous other Triarch vessels of the accompanying fleet desperately tried to help, covering their flagship with their shields for a few moments before the heavy bombardment from the super ship destroyed them also. Tasume bit her lip then sighed.
“Abandon ship! All crew abandon ship now and make haste to orbital trajectories to land on the planet! All other ships engage and destroy the enemy and provide cover for our allies!” She ordered. Thousands of escape pods and shuttles launched from the huge ship as the combined fire from the Carnaithian Hyperfrequency lasers and the Leviathans colossal attack finally caused the vessel to go critical, exploding in a sheet of white light the Hephaestus was no more. Sadly Captain Tasume did not make it out alive. --
As the APP now struggled against the allied attack numerous FTL signatures appeared in system, tearing themselves free from FTL 1083 new Capitol vessels now entered the system on the edge of interdiction moving in system the majority of the fleet was new Mk.3 vessels however the ship at their lead was no Capitol made vessel. The sleek and slender form of the Suma Histrionica now gracefully led the Capitol counter charge, gravitationally lensed weapons charging as it prepared to enter the fray, the projected course taking it past the leaving EPA fleet and straight at the main AGA force assaulting Rubikon Prime. Neither were these the only arrivals.
963 Triarch ships also flashed in system, immediately forming up with the Capitol fleet elements and covering them with their shields and defences the fleets now moved together as one. One singular large FTL wake also registered on the allied sensors briefly as well before disappearing. Unknown to them so far the large form of White Wraith now moved in system under full stealth, the second ship of the Grey Phantom class the vessel readied its nano stealth missiles for combat aiming to cripple or outright destroy as many of the allied super weapons present as possible.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 14:54:21 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Flashes of white and orange dotted the swirling debris field as the ARNAMs detonated. Gamma rays bombarded the sensors of the nearby 30 Separatist Union ships, causing mild interference but otherwise no major permanent damage. The real damage, however, came from the superheated debris that peppered the extended fleet. Smaller ships were needled through with molten shrapnel and promptly exploded into pieces while the larger warships managed to deflect most of the incoming debris with their shields and sustained superficial damage. Many of the drone bombers and Julka mechs were also destroyed, their remains joining the metallic cemetery that was Rubikon II's orbit.
"Those dogs have a long way to go before using the same tricks again. The Triach might be corporate scum, but they are mighty good scum," Admiral Uzajhan remarked as his main fleet continued to hang back at a distance from Rubikon II.
Then came the combined hail of D.N.A and IRS weapons. Tachyometric rounds, Advanced Capital Railguns, Lux Lasers and AP Havoks screamed through the shroud of plasma fumes and the wreckage, striking the remaining 20 ships of the extended fleet without remorse. The Triach cruisers faltered and shattered under the sheer force of such firepower while the carriers just simply burst, vomiting out the contents of unused starfighters, dropships and decompressed crewmen. 5 ships survived the ordeal, evading and strafing away from the bulk of the barrage.
"Recall the survivors!" Uzajhan ordered, slightly perturbed at his losses. The debris field was no longer to his advantage, it had become too thick and too convoluted to be utilised safely for his purposes.
"Deploy energy screens and decoys! We will relocate to Rubikon V and slingshot to their rear and hit them from behind!"
The remaining 145 Separatist Union ships launched out a package of plasma bomblets and decoys in front of their position. The plasma bomblets detonated, creating a 'smokescreen' of plasma flashes that masked the high energy signatures of the fleet while the decoys mimicked their engine and radio frequencies, scattering them around to fool the AGA sensors into thinking that the fleet was still at Rubikon II and was moving towards them. Upon completing their 'smokescreen', the Separatist Union fleet quickly micro-jumped to Rubikon V, aiming to use the momentum and the gravitational field to launch their surprise attack.
To the galactic west thousands of FTL signatures could be detected travelling deeper into Capitol space.
Until his reinforcements arrived, Captain Oon felt no real desire to leave the safety the planet provided to his ships. So he remained where he was, maintaining his defensive formation behind Rubikon.
Stillute had laid back down into his seat just before ordering a relocation to his forces, much like a sniper team in a planetside operation. While any data the AGA had would now be outdated and worthless, with the Shadowblade craft now at vastly different positions compared to when they had fired, it nonetheless pointed out that they had succeeded in dragging focus away from the faltering defenses. A wordless command and the ships turned, breaking stealth to accelerate farther away from the AGA fleet in random directions and dump built-up radiation for split-seconds before cloaking again, firing soft engines to keep away from prying eyes as they randomized vectors, preventing predictive targeting solutions.
The split-seconds of visibility were accompanied by another, much larger volley of nuclear gauss rounds being flung towards the AGA formation, split between the Union and the Anointed. Three hundred missiles were again cold-launched, split once again between the two focused fleets.
The ship was being torn apart around her.
Exemplar Yutrine was going to die, but she nor any of her crew feared it. They spilled sermons and fiery verses of the Eostine from their lips, carrying out their jobs even as energy feedbacks and weaponsfire killed their number where they stood. Over one hundred enemy vessels had been torn apart by the raging fire of Eos, more than enough to sate Yutrine with the meagre force that she had, they would die in Eos name and take as many heretics down with them as possible.
The 4 Heavy cruisers were gone, swept away by the return fire from the AGA fleet, their atomised hulks now swept across the battlefield as the Corona class dreadnought was hammered again and again by enemy fire, its bulk was what had kept it alive this long and Yutrine knew the ship was giving its final moments to Eos name. Another kinetic wave lanced out from the dreadnought before the weapons went offline, more than capable of wiping out the enemy attack craft now swarming the vessel. Her own attack craft outnumbered now fought on fanatically, even ramming their foes where able rather than go down to enemy fire.
"The light of Eos has paved the way for our allies to destroy our hated foe, while our physical forms may die none die in Eos embrace! We will strike the enemy from the heavens and show them what it is truly like to have faith!" Yutrine shouted as the bridge exploded around her, with a final act she triggered the self destruct before she died from shrapnel. The Singularity core in the centre of the vessel already battered now destroyed itself in a giant burst of energy, vapourising the remaining Eosin attack craft in the area and aiming to engulf many of the vessels that had fired upon it.
The strangest thing was that after the Eosians had died yellow flashes seemed to sputter into existance whenever one of them died, only to dissapear seconds later.
-----
The Justicar fleet came in close to Rubikon II on the blind side of the AGA fleet, several smaller vessels torn to pieces by the storm of shrapnel and debris as launchs occured across the Justicar vessels. Drop pods, landing craft and more launched through the debris storm onto the planet below, some were destroyed before they made ground fall but they aimed to bolster the ground defenders of the planet, immediately spreading out into anti nuclear formations they deployed anti orbital weapons of their own and dug in, ready for any allied gound assault that may come.
As the ground forces deployed the Justicar fleet now slingshotted around Rubikon II, diving for the DNA flank of the AGA fleet assaulting Rubikon II limpet missiles, railguns and relativistic mass drivers opened up across the Justicar fleet, aiming to strike the DNA fleets flank before curving off, they were not suicidal they were outnumbered and they aimed to do a surprise flanking strike before burning their drives hard and escaping return fire range.
To contend with the approaching fleets, the Auraxii shipmasters had only scant few options that they could see. Bringing the main guns to bear directly above them on the underside of the nearest AGA fleet, An order to open fire into the largest targets was given.
"Shipmaster, APP forces have identified our targets as Dominion."
"Thank you Quartermaster. Deploy our escorts in a wide vanguard formation. Let the Cruisers and Battlecruisers take the wings and the smaller vessels take the centre."
"Aye-Aye"
Before the salvos began, the Auraxii flotilla arrayed themselves in a "V" formation with the heavier ships along the wings. Along with the Heavy Cruisers and Battlecruisers firing into the Dominion ships from below, the first wave of Auraxii drones arrives shortly after the opening salvo. 3,000 Drones armed with Torpedoes and Smart Missile pods to get into close quarters with the dominion.
After the Arrival of the drones, the bombers would appear and join in the fray delivering their Anti-ship missiles and cluster munitions to target smaller escort corvettes and frigates. All the while the main guns would continue battering the Dominion ships
The arrival of the much anticipated Capitol and Triarch reinforcements made the EPA Operational Maneuver Group instantly change course. While their new heading still brought them away from the battlefield, it did so in a course that allowed them to pass very close to the ingoing reinforcements. Once their new course was charted, they pivoted towards their retrograde vector and began accelerating at full burn, slowing them down relative to the reinforcements; the hundreds of missile bays per ship opened and the alarm was sounded for what was to be a last minute change of plans. With the additional cover now provided by the reinforcements, the leadership of the EPA fleet saw an opportunity to avoid saving face by fighting and to lighten their ships for the final leg of their escape. Every ship emptied out its missile and supertorpedo arsenals onto the fleet approaching Rubikon I, sending tens of thousands of such superheavy munitions at the area of operations; they were simply dumb-fired at the overall location of the APP fleet, targets to be provided by the land installations of Rubikon. As soon as each ship had spent its whole ammunition load in its volley, they reversed themseles to their original vector and continued fleeing the battlefield. Only five ships fully broke off from the Operational Maneuver Group to follow the missiles: the five H2A-class battleships, which were themselves merely gigantic cluster munitions the size of capital ships. The trajectory and location of the missile swarm meant that they would complete their entire acceleration burn under the cover of the reinforcing fleet and the defensive umbrella of Rubikon I and would arrive to their targets at extremely high velocities.
The launch itself had to be reported via communications to Rubikon Prime given that their long-range radars were badly coping with the billions of contacts generated by the ferocious shrapnel storm that whipped the battlefield over Rubikon II. Along with the arrival of the reinforcements it was a relief to Arcon and his staff, though an extremely short-lived once as soon as an enormous spike of radiation was detected coming from the AGA fleet that assaulted Rubikon II. The beam of the Restevian superweapon didn't impact the starbase as much as it completely ionized it out of existence, turning it into an enormous and almost mandala-like cloud of bright golden plasma that blossomed like a spectacular firework into the size of a small moon. The plasma shockwave was strong enough to pulverize the smaller defensive stations that huddled the closest to it and completely sear one side of the stations and ships further away. As they had taken cover closest to the starbase, Capitol orbital defense forces were the hardest hit by this blast whereas the lack of shrapnel from the starbase's vaporization meant that the civilian ships further away were largely spared any major damage. Not only that, but they found that an enormous safe zone had been cleared by the Restevian beam, which had vaporized not only its intended target but also every piece of debris in a wide area along its path. With their main bastion completely gone and with a huge number of surviving stations severely damaged from the blast, Capitol orbital defense around Rubikon II were finally silenced. Stations started attempting evacuation through the cloud of shrapnel, finding it by now a less fearsome risk than the fleet which has anihilated their starbase. Their shrapnel-cratered husks of the majority of stations were left behind rather than scuttled in an attempt to use them as sensor feeds for whatever remained of their lives.
Arcon's biggest forward controller was now a cloud of gas slowly becoming a faint ring around Rubikon II and he was informed of munitions exploding into clouds of nanites in the planet's atmosphere. Most of the command had just been delegated to the lower ranks for fear that AGA would cut communications between the two planets, all Arcon was in charge of now was the high-level strategic forces, which he exercised by ordering tactical ballistic missile batteries to strike the clouds of nanites with airbursting neutron bombs. He observed the launches from his virtual vantage point, watching the missiles arc towards their targets. The order to launch was sent directly by him via strategic channels but the warning to the citizens that large areas were about to be hit with neutron bombs was sent through the overloaded and increasingly spotty emergency communications channels, which meant they would almost certainly not get there on time.
"Any other signs of landing preparation?" Arcon asked uneasily, powerlessly watching readings from radar installations showing that the reach of his sensors was shrinking.
"None, sir." A high-ranking staffer replied. "Blinkers are awaiting orders."
"I'll give it to them." The Capitol general replied. "Tell fleet reinforcements to come and take pressure off of us, Rubikon II will hold."
Arcon quickly attached himself to the axiomatic communications device and began broadcasting orders. The Axiomatic ships, which had hid behind the planet to avoid the AGA fire, began firing their neutralino beams through the planet itself towards the heaviest targets that could be picked out amongst the ranks of the AGA combined fleet. Boosted by land installations providing them with terawatts of additional power, the spherical turrets of the blinkers fired unusually quick, outputting a torrent of shots far above what was expected of the relatively small group.
"Sir nearly 2000 signatures just appeared from FTL including some kind of large signature that we have lost contact of, we are unsure what it is. Capitol and Triarch reinforcements confirmed it seems they are making full speed towards our fleet sir!" The sensor operator called out, flashes of weapons fire and explosions lighting the bridge as Volkus nodded.
"Understood continue full assault-" He was cut off.
"Sir EPA fleet appears to have temporarily changed vector... Wait... Im detecting missile launchers, sir I think EPA just dumped all their munitions into the reinforcements flight path... Their target is us"
Volkus eyes widened, the prospect of tens of thousands of EPA munitions hitting their fleet alongside the reinforcements was much more cause for concern, while they still outnumbered the APP forces a devastating volley such as that would smash their formation and leave them easy prey for the charging APP relief force. And whatever that siganture that had appeared was couldnt be good news.
"GET THAT FLAK WALL UP ALL SHIPS PREPARE TO INTERCEPT" Volkus shouted, the Union fleet hammering the APP fleet in front of them now switched all of their mass drivers from offensive fire now redirected them into a flak shield encompassing the region of space that the missiles would approach from or try to curve around in, PD units kept on intercepting current targets but were given priority overrides for when the EPA missiles came through and once again the group shield while not activated immediately was readied for when the wave of munitions was to hit.
While the Union fleet also readied for the coming storm it continued to move forwards, while the Mass drivers a significant portion of the Unions firepower, was redirected the remaining weapon systems were still fully capable and continued to pump fire into the APP fleet before them and the weapons platforms orbiting the planet. With the Triarch super dreadnought wiped out by the combined Eramon and Carnaith barrage the Triarch line had spread out, allowing easier concentrated fire on their remaining vessels. The APP fleet was failing, already their vessels were moving deeper and deeper into their orbits as the allied pushed and it wouldnt be long now until they either withdrew or were wiped out, leaving the orbital defenses and the huge starbase before them as their main targets.
However when a squadron of Ferrum class battleships simply exploded out of nowhere that was when Volkus realised the Axioms had leant their hand to the defense of the planet. Neutralino beams struck out targetting the large ships, the Ferrums were just the start, several more larger vessels, Chakrams, Quarrels and more also detoanted or were crippled by the Axioms weaponry before Volkus could issue the order to raise the new MTP shields. While not all the ships in this fleet had been outfitted with them the larger vessels had been so, and they now powered additional shield generators as the Neutralino beams normally able to strike unhindered now found their beams intercepted by gravitational ADS, scattering the beams or deflecting their course enough to explode next to the vessels rather than inside them. Some ships will detonated their shields either not correctly calibrated or crippled earlier in the battle through enemy fire but Volkus was content, it would hold for now.
"Sir we have another barrage of missiles incoming!" The sensor operator called out, Volkus growled as the oligarchy stealth missiles now only just picked up on gravimetrics now entered PD envelopes, powerful SENTINEL units fired up on all the vessels targetted as Firestorm fighters tasked with covering the ships also moved in to intercept, Bullet KKVs also suicided themselves to take the shots but a fresh load of detonations filled the void as Union vessels either died in fire due to weakened or collapsed shields or weathered the barrage with loss of shields or integrity.
"Someone find that damn stealth fleet, we have our hands full!"
---
With the Haephestus destroyed the Eramon fleet re-orientated itself, warned by both its own sensors and the Unions information on the incoming threat the Eramon fleet pivoted keeping its momentum moving towards Rubikon Prime alongside the AGA fleet the Eramon vessels positioned themselves to be able to intercept as many incoming missiles and then subsequent vessels as possible. Only the Leviathan didnt move, with its primary quarrey destroyed its massive armament load now once again began unloading into the APP fleet, the huge barrages of its weapons more than enough to smash apart a small battlefleet just by itself.
The Eramon attack craft however that had moved to help the Union now dived into the fray, as the lines closed between the two fleets the outer edges of the dogfight now benefitted from AGA point defense fire, and so both sides attempted to bait each others squadrons onto their freindly vessels fire support. Missiles, lasers and cannon fire filled the void, with easily thousands of fighters attempting to gain superiority the AGA had the numerical advantage, however periodic reinforcements from the APP starbase and planet attack craft made the situation a difficult stalemate. Bombers pushed through the maelstrom as the Eramon craft launched Cluter drone missiles and devastator warheads, not at the APP fleet but at the easier to hit defense platforms alongside Union Eagle Eyes doing the same with their own plasma warhead munitions in an attempt to clear the orbital lanes of platforms.
Fleet Admiral Yunon eyed the Union reports of several EPA and stealth missiles as well as damage reports. The Axiomatic neutralino beams had also taken out quite a number of his Sovereign-class battleships, who had been on the front engaging APP fleets. Like the Union, Yunon had no choice but to switch to a more defensive fleet posture as well in order to survive the next APP attack. Yunon's flank teams contributed PD fire to the Union's own point defence network and linked up with Union computer systems to coordinate targeting data. Gun Drones and starfighters were also redirected to engage the EPA and Shadowblade stealth missiles, firing shots of kinetics and lasers at the incoming threat. 40 more ships faltered under the weight of the volleys of missiles and neutralino beams as they attempted to lend assistance to the Union-led AGA fleet.
"Tell our Sensor frigates to link up and send out a deep scan of the system. We need to find if there is any stealth fleet hidden nearby,"
Elsewhere prospects seemed more brighter for the IRS forces under Razael's command.
"Fleet Admiral, APP orbital weapons have been silenced and the Separatist Union can no longer use the debris field. Their forces are retreating to their main fleet."
"A window of opportunity presents itself! I want energy maps and scans of the planet, and then we will determine the sequence of deployment and execute it as the situation allows," Razael exclaimed.
Sensor frigates moved forward and began scanning the planet surface, using its suite of mesonscopes and virtual terrain mapping analysers to sift out significant planetary features; geography, climate, power grids, major cities and strategic military targets. They were here, above Rubikon II, to silence the Capitol's war industry and ground-to-space assets. Sensor drones moved closer to the planet's orbit, fixing themselves in an exo-static position to function as satellites and spy on designated military targets.
"Tow the RSS Indrayama and crash it at this coordinates," Razael pointed to an area on the planet surface, where the IRS would land shortly after their little 'stint' they were about to perform. The RSS Indrayama, a dead and shot up cruiser floating within Razael's ranks, would serve one final purpose; clear the landing zone of enemy forces and installations through sheer seismic area of denial.
"Prepare to tow the other dead ships as well in case the Indrayama fails to breach the orbital defences."
Support ships began pushing the dead cruiser towards the targeted area, attaching rocket boosters for acceleration and flight stability. The gravitational pull soon started its magic on the Indrayama and the support ships detached themselves immediately before they become ensnared by its lure. Meanwhile, Razael's carriers and battlecarriers took up deployment positions around the planet's orbit, readying an approximate total of 600 000 troops for the ground invasion. Their objective was simple; destroy enemy ground-based space assets, cripple the industrial zones and capture vital intel and personnel if possible.
Vilrik grinned in delight at the arrival of surprise munitions to the AGA forces, having doubted the enemies' tactics beforehand. The surprise missile attack dealt considerable damage to the lesser Inquisition ships, namely the corvettes and frigates tasked with covering the fringes of the fleet. He ordered the remaining Ceres support ships to doubly counter the inbound EPA missile barrage, and make a hard turn to the incoming enemy ships. They responded in full, gravimetric fields spooling to cover a far greater area than would be effective for shielding, but instead acting to increase the ships' own profiles and pull in any and all dumbfire projectiles. With this, they sped around the growing Union flak wall, escorted by a flank of half the remaining cruisers, putting themselves between the missile swarm and the AGA fleet.
Vilrik turned his attention, and hence the rest of the fleet's, to the barrage of neutralino beams carving through Union ships. Three of their own battlecruisers received crippling damage to their primary gun batteries and PAM lines, making them nigh useless against other capital and Capitol ships. Having been informed of Blinker stratagem, it was clear what maneuver they were using, striking from the opposite side of Rubikon Prime.
"Wings One through Sixteen, launch all when ready. Target: Axiomatic fleet positioned behind target planet. Motherships, provide escort. All remaining ships, suppressive fire on that base!" With this order, all but three of the battlecruisers dropped below the rest of the AGA fleets, all taking separate vectors to reach around to the other side of Rubikon Prime, all the while launching scores of S-73 Harpoon Interceptors which took up elongated wings behind and below their parent vessels in turn.
Vilrik called out over both the psionic communications and still functional and secure comm channels to Volkus and the Union fleet. //I need to correlate all targeting data you have and will gather regarding those Axiomatic targets. I will send what I can to stall them. ---------------------- Elswhere in the system, the collective and damaged Inquisition dreadnoughts and battleships made way for Rubikon Prime, their current target effectively taken out of play. The most severely damaged dreadnought began deploying all manner of pods, blocks, and craft from its underbelly and rear, using the Ceres class that held it together to direct them to the planet while the ship itself began accelerating towards the large station in its orbit. With 3/4 of its power supply separated from its main weapon, it was rather slowly preparing another construct for launch, but was accelerating rather fast for a ship of its size.
The remaining heavy ships and deployed pods remained on a flanking route of the ships defending Rubikon Prime, firing a second barrage of CRM and Ouroboros cannon fire into their side.
The Restevian fleet had come, seen and conquered over Rubikon II despite the hits they'd taken, and now it was time to move on and redirect their efforts. Admiral Kutzov looked over his situation map as the reports flowed in of the damage the rearguard had taken from Eos' death throes, and he rapped out his orders.
The superweapon was ordered immediately to disengage and head for the edge of the interdiction to head home, as reports from it's crew had alerted the admiral that their lenses were warped, and thus if they attempted to fire again the result would likely be far more damning to them than to the enemy. They needed to go home for repairs, and so the superweapon turned and retreated rapidly, heading outwards from Rubikon with her escorts screening the titanic craft as it moved away.
As for the rest of the fleet, those not detailed to guard the transports heading into the atmosphere tasked and moved out-- the bulk of the fleet headed for the Union formation to aid them, the vast majority of their snubfighters following along with their far larger cousins like a cloud of insects as the Restevian squadrons once more headed into war at full burn.
Pilot Lebechev called out acknowledgement to the flight control of the main carrier group, bringing himself and his wingmen around and going full burn after the fleet. The EPA was fleeing, and so his chances of killing more of them was low-- but he still held out hope. There was certainly no shortage of targets over Rubikon Prime, and with the Restevian fleet on it's way there now there would still be blood for the Restevian fighters before all was said and done.
The rest, about seventy vessels, remained in orbit and took up stations to deliver whatever support the landing AGA forces needed-- and to punish any enemy craft attempting to leave the surface to fight them.
"Sir incoming barrage from the Justicar fleet on our flank!!" said the Comm-Officer.
"Fire and CIWs and Scatter Missiles!! And Raise shield to full power!!" Said the Captain.
The CIWs fire and Scatter Missiles intercepting the Justicar's incoming Limpet missiles, thinning out the numbers, but the rest of the missiles along with Justicar's railguns and relativistic mass drivers fired onto the D.N.A. fleet orbiting Rubikon II, several more ships had their shields overload from the barrage forcing them to be shut off and the ships getting blunt by the fire, some ships were either heavily damaged or wrecked into husks. On the aftermath the main D.N.A. fleet upon hearing the IRS and RSC's plan of landing an ground forces onto Rubikon II, along with support of the Annointed fleet, D.N.A. sent some few more ships to support them with the ground assault, while they don't have any current ground soldiers to help them, beside the Space Troopers to help the ships against boarders, offer to proved Orbital and Air Support to their ground troopers, giving them codes for their ships to give to the ground troopers so they can summon down fire and thunder from the sky.
Battle reports poured in regarding what was going on across the front based on what the dominion force could readily see, it seemed for the most part the heavy hitters had been content to bash each other into dust with little notice or concern regarding the Dominion assets. It was an interesting situation to be in, given that this battle would later be called the largest in galactic history and yet, somehow a lot of the major players seemed to be fighting with blinders on. Despite this there seemed no real gap in the enemy line to take advantage of nor any really good way to maneuver to extract a better tactical position and advantage then the dominion already had. Instead it seemed that two enemy forces decided it was time to move in an attempt to flank the dominion position on the flank. The static reports of point defense batteries lending fire support to allied units on the dominions right flank against the projectiles employed by the EPA. Although at the range the support fire probably wasn’t exceptionally effective but it was better than doing nothing given the circumstance and nature of the battle. Captain Nthanda looked at the holographic representations of the two forces in the midst of maneuvering in what appeared to be two separate attempts to flank the Dominion position. Although he did not have a positive identification for either force, both were labeled as APP-Unit-38 (Capitol) and APP-Unit-80 (Auraxii) respectively for the number of vessels spotted at range in their formations. From optronic detection the latter force was closer while the former force would be arriving within a few moments which opened up a unique opportunity. From the Captain’s perspective, whoever was leading Unit-80 had clearly made several tactical errors which suggested inexperience or a failure to observe the enemy. The launching of so many small units which seemed to be primarily drones or small fighter craft at the range they were launched supported the theory that indeed whoever was leading APP-Unit-80 clearly didn’t know who they were fighting. The whole business of charging right at a formation of dominion ships who had already demonstrated hemispheric fields of fire from below was foolhardy to say the least. Yet, Captain Nthanda could not dismiss it as it might be part of a joint plan between the two flanking units as a bait and switch maneuver which put the entire AGA flank in severe jeopardy.
There was just one way to handle this, and so Captain Nthanda gave out a sudden order to the fleet altering the placement of assets and the angle of the ships relative to the flanking elements. “All vessels adjust formation, move all Hudson class corvettes into facing to counter APP-Unit-80, Shift Essex class corvettes to rear guard and position Passaic class assets to support the Hudsons.” It would take a moment for the order to get out and the fleet to shift to a formation commonly called ‘stellar-abatis’ for its ability to devastate fighter squadrons. Although the Formation was actively taking fire from the approaching APP-Unit-80 capitol the change in formation was quick and largely unhindered. Now, the fleet had faced it’s point defense assets in a wall that offered maximum firepower against the small craft of the approaching enemy. A hail of kinetic, energy and missile fire applied at long, median and extreme ranges specifically aimed at the vectors where incoming Auraxii small craft where attempting approach was applied. Amidst this the Captain was not done exploiting the mistake of the Auraxii’s lunge. “Now, move the fleet’s core vessel group’s horizontal axis fifteen degrees to port, depress on vertical axis by 45 degrees! Once the enemy is sighted with ventral weapons Focused fire broadside on marked targets, Axial weapons, focus fire on critical illuminated targets.” On the Captain’s word the fleet’s cruiser’s carriers and its Mercer class destroyers all shifted their positioning. At a glance it might have seemed that the rotation on position was insignificant, but in reality it allowed for the dorsal batteries and those on the portside to enfilade the approaching capitol forces while the ventral batteries and any axial guns possessed by the fleet along with starboard armament was squarely aimed at the Auraxii. Effectively the dominion could level heavy firepower at two targets though the Auraxii were about to find out why you never close on a dominion force in formation. When the reposition confirmations came in, Captain Nthanda had finished marking targets on the holographic display indicating which vessels were to fire what at whom. With a tap of a few commands across the short band communications used by the fleet, he issued the order to fire. The coherent energy created by Autoglaive cannons lanced across the distance at both the Auraxii and the Capitol forces, in the latter instance the shots were aimed at demolishing fleet assets such as carriers or cruisers where present. In the former instance the Autoglaive shots aimed at the Auraxii however were aimed at large specific targets such as battleships, battlecruisers or carriers in that order of importance. The Autoglaive was a particle cannon and so in this use it was intended to soften up the target and irradiate it with stabilized epsilon radiation. Following the Autoglaives came the impact of the Pulsed AGML energy weapons in axial mounts which acted entirely different as numerous pulses were fired at the target tracking its movement with a weapon that bore firepower several orders of magnitude greater than the Autoglaives could produce. This would make for the first time the Dominion had ever used a Pulsed AGML in the entire battle of Rubikon. Meanwhile support neared for the outnumbered Dominion forces holding the flank.
The incoming fire from the APP fleet, now especially as they focused on the screening elements of the Nuclean fleet, was very much beginning to show as the lesser vessels continued to focus their efforts on screening while being required to defend themselves more directly. Phased arrays lasers swatted most of the physical munitions, however once again they were useless against the tachyon arrow fire. Their numbers were starting to wear thin, and this fact was made evident to Serran on the fleet's flagship as warnings were given concerning the screening elements. Meanwhile, the first 1.2 million fighters which had been launched, now dogfighting against Capitol forces above Rubikon Prime, continued to do so, the agile Hyperfighters using their excellent manuverability to zip around through space, enabling them to easily fire their beam weapons and missiles at the enemy. Meanwhile, another several million fighters had been launched to attempt to offset the declining numbers of the screening warships, which due to numbers alone was rather effective, although not neccesarily ideal. New alarms occured and notifications popped up onscreen in front of Serran, informing her of the 2046 new APP vessels making a beeline, as well as the several tens of thousands of superheavy missiles from the retreating EPA fleet and the unknown mystery contact. Her eyes widened and she barked orders while her hands furiously danced at her terminal's controls. Large amounts of smart chaff were hastily deployed in the direction of the incoming missiles, forming a sort of shotgun effect as the small chaff pieces utilized the slight manuvering ability they had to position into a large shotgun like effect. Behind this, the mass of screening fighters focused their efforts onto the side of the approaching missiles, aiming to thin them down as they approached. The effect of the Blinker's fire went rather unnoticed, as the neutralino beams simply bounced off the gravimetric shielding that the Nucleans had always employed, although one unlucky ship suffered a large internal explosion from a ricocheted beam hitting its unshielded hull. Otherwise the fleet carried on firing as they had been towards the APP fleet.
"Blink" was a nice word. The fifteen Blinkerzerstoren of the Carnaithian forces had been accelerating away from the fight for some time now, building more and more speed as they went. At the edge of the system itself now, and out of interdiction range, they disappeared into the infinite night only to reappear on the opposite side of the solar plane, careening inwards towards the fight once again with their long engine exhausts firing out away from the star.
Blunkerhunde followed these ships, two each, creating a total of thirty sub-craft that now sped slightly in front of the Blinkerzerstoren. Vector variance maneuvers were initiated, randomly lessening and increasing the throttle on the main engines of each of the forty-five individual craft. Ten of the Blinkerzerstoren spooled their scalar antennae to nullify the movements of the EPA, splitting the overall firepower between the fleet itself and the missile swarm that now sped away from the flanking ships. With these two strikes made, a shortwave-only flood of scalar energy was focused on the Axiomatic Blinkers in front of the group to nullify any scalar activity on their part. A key part of this small orchestra, though small, was the rapid deployment of a bomb-pumped-laser missile screen by the Blinkerhunde, the swarm of missiles moving to the flanks of the formation to guard against retaliatory strikes. With the Blinkers pinned, larger missiles now detached from the Zerstoren. Ten deployed at a time, falling away from their mothers and wrapping themselves in Alcubierre bubbles before screaming away towards their targets, resulting in twenty alcubierre targeting the Axiom craft.
On the conventional side of things, crews scrambled to respond to the missile wave, particularly the superimpactors. While they didn't seem to be targeting the Carnaithian fleet, there were allies to worry about. Carriers and Blinkerzwillen spooled their own antennae in the rear group, with the forward groups' scalar-carrying destroyers doing the same. A vast wall of scalar energy pushed forth from each of the fleets, moving to meet the wall generated by the flanking Zerstoren. Guns across the fleet loaded self-guiding shells to assist in cleanup in the event any of the priority superimpactors survived, pre-emptively bolstered by missile launches and the initiation of both fleets moving perpendicularly to the missile wave's path.
Raztae looked at the laserline monitor, ensuring nothing was making his own ship obvious to the enemy. With the missiles on the way, he couldn't help but remember his idiotic motion during Histrion where he announced his position to the enemy. Civilian craft were just now beginning to move past the Carnaithian fleet, screened by fighter swarms to ensure no attempt at asymmetric strikes
The six Annointed ships on task with the fleets assaulting Rubikon prime braced to receive the incoming fire from the 64 Capitol ships that had made it their goal in life to fuck up Asdriels day.
"SIR GROUPS TWO AND THREE REPORT HEAVY INCOMING FIRE."
Grinding his whitened teeth behind his brown helm the captain weighs his options in the few moments he had.
"Ship groups, military vessels bring heading to broad and present your portside to the enemy, activate ADS, church vessels hide in their shadows."
The tachyons and missiles of the hostile fleet found themselves met early with the PD of the accompanying fleets whittling their numbers slightly, however tied up with their own defence it was on the Annointed ships to ensure that any semblance of survival was achieved that day.
With flashes of silver and gold C-beamers and tungsten leap into space felling missiles and converting tachyon beams, a field of explosions began to blossom before the Annointed vessels growing inexorably closer as the counter fire was slowly overwhelmed, eventually the first of the tachyon beams met the military vessels ADS blowing aside and disintegrating many, however sheer mass eventually tore through and shields flared before dying to overwhelming force, active armour detonates in showers of steel and flame as yet more missiles and tachyons are rendered inert, alas it was not enough and all three military vessels fell silent hulls cored and shredded.
Their sacrifice however was not in vain, the three church vessels had used the time bought to slink away behind allied capital ships, the bulky vessels defences enough to save them from sharing the fate of their less advanced cousins.
"Let us pay back the enemy, target Blinker firing contacts with spinals."
"Aye aye sir spinals charging, capacitor 1 charged.... cap 2 charged... FIRING!"
With howls of psionic release six purple bolts of brilliant telekinetic force leap free of the church vessels, the half a dozen bolts hurtling towards the planet and passing unmolested through the celestial body, tearing through the other side undiminished in force as they track unerringly towards the blinkers, the firing pattern had been intended to counter scalar waves, the first three shots adopting a stretched out oval like shape forming a sheath around the first, the intention being that the first bolt would take the brunt of any scalar defences and push a hole through for the second one it encompassed, however untested as the technique was Asdriel was confident in its success, after all god was on their side.
His ship rocked again as another heavy impact slammed starboard causing alarm klaxons to wail heavily. Agamo himself had a gash on his head, his entire bridge crew had been thrown about when a heavy munition of somekind had hit close to the bridge, either way with his reinforcements here Agamo knew that simply keeping the battered handful of his fleet in its same position was suicide. They barely had more than 400 damaged ships to defend Rubikon Prime, and they were outnumbered obscenely. The Triarch subcommander had agreed they could not stay here or they would be wiped out by overwhelming firepower, even with the allied fleet now arranging itself to combat the incoming reinforcements their concentated fire still swatted ships from the void left and right. Agamo oversaw his fleet retreat around the curve of the planet, protecting them from direct fire as they continued to launch stealth, fusion and Tachyon missiles on courses that would slingshot them round into the allied fleet.
Only the defence platforms kept firing, the massive starbase unloading its power armaments as it continued to take impact after impact. The planetary defences themselves groundside also added to the fire, launching ground to space missiles to do everything they could to take pressure off the defending space fleet. Agamos small and heavily damaged force now set to link up with the Axiomatic blinkers, at least that way he could provide cover to them and in turn be protected from larger allied vessels.
--
The incoming Capitol and Triarch fleets that now burned at full acceleration towards the AGA main fleet did not sit idle during that time. With the veritable EPA missile swarm trailing behind them the APP ships sent all non essential power to the shields, the Triarch contingent extending and overcharging their diffraction fields to cover the force as they came in. The ships had changed formation into a 'speartip' their course now looked to punch straight through the AGA fleet, just like the APP had done at Irobottom to massive effect. Launchers on the ships cycled as they continiously spouted flame, Stealth missiles, fusion missiles and Tachyon Torpedoes were launched in rapid succession of volleys, each one falling just behind the main fleet to mix with the swarm of EPA munitions, growing ever larger with each passing moment.
Attack craft also launched from the ships as well, pulling away to form up in loose squadron formations they lagged just behind the main force, in front of the missiles but behind the main fleet. The attack craft had been fitted with all the anti ship munitions they could carry, even Sabre Mk.2B and Defender Interceptors carried anti ship missiles in some shape or form, their performance against enemy attack craft swapped out with sheer stopping power.
When this attack would hit, it would do horrifying damage.
--
On the edges of the battlesphere an unseen predator kept constant vigilance. Its crew linked into the ship as information flowed through their augmented senses, feeding them priority information and targetting uplinks from various APP vessels and command channels. White Wraith had run numerous simulations on its now confirmed attack plan, the captain and gunnery teams plotting a weaving course for the missile payload to reach in system and strike their preferred target. The Eramon Leviathan was the main prey, it had caused substantial damage to the APP guard force around Rubikon Prime, and continued to batter the defences including the starbase that was for all intents and purposes the only bulwark left against the allied fleet now.
With a silent order the launchers of the ship retracted and three huge missiles were cold fired into the void, activating their powerful stealth fields the missiles then lit their main drives and accelerated in system towards their main target. With its attack done White Wraith instantly moved to redeploy.
--
The Capitol small attack force that had charged the Dominion now broke off, its attack run completed the return fire from the Dominion however speared through several of the larger vessels mainly Medusa class cruisers exploded in rapid decompression as they were destroyed. The Capitol force then rapidly burned to accelerate away, several more of their smaller screening vessels were also rapidly taken down by the co-ordinated Dominion fire, their hulks kept on course drifting away from them as fires burned across all decks. Those who could escape did so.
The only thing the Capitol fleet could do as it accelerated away was fire one last salvo of fusion missiles towards the Dominion before their speed and change of direction brought them out of range of the Dominion vessels, the fleet continuing on to look for either a new attack vector or a new target.
--
The Capitol force attacking the Annointed fleet took two ship losses from the C-Beamers reply but were surprised when they did not concentrate their fire on the fleet, instead gravimetric sensors determined that they were firing at the Blinkers. The Capitol fleet despite its small size now chose to dive onto the Annointed fleet in a daring move to distract or interupt them, all weapons fired as Capitol overcharged their Tachyon Arrows, pushing the cooling and reactor units to the limit and beyond as they increased their rate of fire exponentially, in return several weapons exploded, a hark back to the old days of the 1st war as they rabidly attacked at full speed.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 15:12:48 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Captain Oon pressed down on the sealing ring of his helmet, locking it in place. Having finished putting on his combat uniform he resumed his seat. The bridge was a lot more active than usual, but looking at it one would think that they were just busy not in the middle of a battle. There was no rush. And why would there be? The enemy was on the other side of the planet between them. This wouldn’t last much longer though and Oon’s forces planned to be ready to defend themselves even if their methods prove to be unconventional.
No sooner had he gotten comfortable than the Immortal Empire reinforcements arrived near Capitol and Triarch’s. Oon’s skin began to prickle slightly at the realization of what had just happened. He had assumed that reinforcements would consist of a warfleet and that an admiral would assume command. He had not thought that he would be put in command of 5000 bioships.
”Quickly, bring up the tactical map.” Oon had been keeping up with the positions of enemy and allied forces, but had done so in a cursory fashion. He had to think quickly on how he was going to deploy the bioships.
He had promised to help repel invaders off of Rubikon II and given enemy forces located there he split the force with 2000 making their way to the besieged planet while the 3000 remaining charged at the large concentration of AGA vessels near Rubikon Prime. A secondary FTL arrival briefly raised Oon’s hopes for a warfleet and an admiral to take command, only to have those hopes dashed when the ships were identified as belonging to the 312th Void Fleet. Void fleets were completely independent from normal command, which left Oon in command.
The maneuver pulled by the Carnaithians caught his attention. He wouldn’t be able to stop them with force, but other options were available. ”Open a secure comms channel with APP forces and begin feeding them the map for our hyperspatial field as we bring it up to full power. Limit it to one ship per fleet and let them worry about dissemination of the information.”
The bioships had split and those heading for Rubikon Prime were on their way to catching up with the Capitol and Triarch reinforcements. Normally bioships would flood the area around them with overlapping hyperspatial fields to drastically increase their survivability, but with no way to communicate with friendly forces they unable to bring to bear the fullest of their potential. As the living ships traveled they began shedding lesser bioweapons, the equivalent of fighters, which began to swarm around the larger creatures.
The Void Fleet had likewise split with 10 ships heading for Rubikon II and the remaining 90 heading for Rubikon Prime. Both remained a fair distance behind the bioship swarms.
The 145 Separatist Union ships materialised out of FTL into the orbit of Rubikon V, the sheer momentum, the planet's gravity and their sublight engines at full speed slingshotting them along the rear of the AGA formation near Rubikon II.
"ALL CALLSIGNS! OPEN FIRE! FOR THE GLORY OF COMRADE SETH!" Uzajhan screamed as the mass drivers, plasma cannons and thermonuclear missiles fired in large shrieking volleys towards Razael's IRS fleet as well as those of the Annointed and the RSC all while his ships remained zipping on the gravitational orbital circular highway. After the first barrage, they will deploy more decoys and smokescreen while they travel along the orbit and later come around again for another attack. A circular motion of hit-and-run strikes. A cycle of speedy death and destruction.
Many of the fighters and other attack craft along with the drones launched towards the Dominion fleet were destroyed by the volleyed and crisscrossing fire, surprising the shipmasters of the Auraxii, that so much heavy fire could come from such a small amount of ships was rare indeed, two battlecruisers detonated as rapid Autoglaive beams punched through their frontal shields and cored the ships through causing their reactors to detonate violently. Still the Auraxii formation massively outnumbered their foe and while their fleet was primarily geared towards fighting foes that were much larger than they were size wise they were not in an underhanded position. The shipmasters ordered the fighters to concentrate on one particular angle, they would deny their foe multiple fire lanes by clogging very specific ones to then unleash their payloads as the bombers launched their anti ship missiles before breaking off to re arm or come in on a new attack run.
The Auraxii fleet proper kept its heavy hitters back, content to let its screening smaller vessels take the most direct fire especially from the Autoglaives, continuing their V formation they now moved to attack the Dominion from the polar opposite side that Capitol was striking from, while this would allow the enemy to fire both weapon volleys the fleets could easily entrap the foe and crush them.
Railguns on the Auraxii ships opened fire, however they were quite unlike most other races, while most races used smaller railguns focused on ROF the Auraxii vessels were designed to kill vessel classes much larger than them, huge anti capital railguns opened up, despite their slow ROF their sheer mass and size would afford them collosal damage on impact and the sheer volley number of them meant they were hard to simply manuvere out the way of. Missiles were launched across the fleet too aiming to overwhelm the enemy PD as the fleet rapidly charged, with such small numbers the Dominion would either have to accelerate away to join up with a larger formation or take critical damage.
The shipmasters hoped that in honour they would choose the latter, to stand and fight.
--
The Justicar fleet was surprised by the lack of return fire by the DNA, they would be commended for their focus on supporting the AGA ground invasion however the Justicar fleet which had now pulled off in a rapid acceleration course to try defend against the full power of the DNA fleet found itself surprisingly unmolested. Apart from the sporadic return fire from capital grade armaments the majority of the DNA activity had been point defence to try stop some of the fire that had been sprung on them by the Justicar slingshot manuvere. Puzzeled by the lack of repsonse the Justicar commander decided to cease withdraw, pivoting the vessels in the fleet as they aimed once again to strike the DNA force this time from the rear, using the new vector to slam through the DNA rewar flank and then speed out to link up with the Seperatist Union forces.
Once again the Justicars came in rapidly, firing their main armanents into the rears of the DNA fleet hoping to demolish their rear guard and cripple as many vessels engines as possible as the Justicar fleet then went full acceleration hoping to get out of return fire range as soon as possible.
More kiting, more falling back. Stillute had little interest in being caught, and even stray rounds failed to find his flotilla. Again, the euphoria of having his focus bled into the missiles impacted him, his sight once again breaking into compound windows. Again, missiles approached gargantuan targets after nuclear gauss rounds served as their wake, speeding into the ranks of the Union and Annointed fleets.
EPA engines finally stopped accelerating as they approached the Lagrange point of the system, a sufficient distance away from the fighting as they had been charging their wormhole drives for exit. The missile barrage was now well underway along with the 5 H2A Battleships that even as they accelerate launched the huge munitions towards several of the larger Union and Nuclear vessels. With their frames lightened and their retreat now secure EPA was content in its escape from the battle. That was until the Carnaith sudden strike had appeared out of nowhere, just as the wormhole drives were spooling up across the fleet.
The smaller craft such as the YW corvettes were simply vapourised or rendered totally crippled as the Scalar wave hit the fleet, burning off critical communication and EW antenna and systems as the EPA fleet engaged its wormhole drives. Despite the sudden damage and loss of ships space rippled as numerous wormholes were bored through spacetime, quickly leaving the EPA ships to simply dissapear. The Z1 also dissapeared, its large form now even more scorched from the scalar wave was engulfed in the wormhole as its large energy signature quickly dissapated from the battle, the EPA fleet hoping to make several smaller jumps to try hide their path of escape. With their face saved with the missile swarm the EPA fleet had finally withdraw, they required extensive repairs, re-arming and refueling as well as the completion and fitting of Z1. Thankfully they had a place in mind.
The missile swarm itself continued as it closed with the AGA main fleet assaulting Rubikon Prime, targetted by most of the AGA forces across the system it remained surprisingly intact as it kept closing the distance. The Triarch and Capitol reinforcements covered the missile barrage in their own shield envelopes, using their point defense to shoot down incoming counter missiles or long range shots aimed for the large forms of the Super impactors. The Scalar waves however were harder to defend against, thousands of smaller missiles exploded silently in the void as the energy washed over them, but there were more coming. With more being added by the advancing fleet and with the attack craft swarms coming in behind the allies could only watch in fear and anticipation as the mass swarm of missiles were guided in on their final trajectories. Aided by the targetting sensors of both the surviving APP vessels in system and the huge planar arrays on the planets each missile was given its target, as the reinforcement fleet dived in towards the allied assault the time was now.
With their Scalar arrays suddenly surpressed by the Carnaithian batteries the Blinkers changed ploys, still using the cover of Rubikon Prime itself they now moved into formation with the retreating small fleet that had held against the allies as it moved more round the planet to get cover from the allied main fleet. The Blinkers accessed the flight computers of the Capitol and Triarch ships to aid in their placement, taking their positions in the middle of the small formation they now once again aimed their Neutralino guns at some of the largest vessels in the Nuclean and Union fleets, with their shields so overloaded from dealing with the missiles in time the Blinkers now timed their barrage to coincide with the missile impacts, aiming to put precise rounds into reactor systems, weapon magazines and critical systems. However two Blinkers violently exploded, one was torn in half, the other dissapearing into a searing ball of light as the Annointed rounds hit home. The remaining 7 Blinkers in response calculated the trajectories of the incoming rounds, directing the Capitol contingent to concentrate their Tachyon shields on those trajectories giving them an excellent measure of defense against another barrage of shots.
As the missile swarm closed in on the AGA fleet, Vilrik ordered six of the Inquisition dreadnoughts to cease rejoining the fleet and turn to face them. The six dreadnoughts pivoted on center axes, four of them taking critical damage with the maneuver alone. In addition, four support ships flew out into the missiles head on, throwing about their gravity waves to keep a number of the smaller missiles either following close behind them or at least locked on their current path to the fleet. The Rigel class dreadnoughts in turn diverted all available power not to their main launchers, but to their Ouroboros cannons. In an odd, extremely close formation, the cannons fired at trajectories that crossed paths with those fired from other ships. This in turn caused the spiraling particle beams to collapse and lash outwards in massive waves rather than beams. This sent swaths of particle cannon fire across the missile swarm, leaving visible lines of detonations as they passed through. This did not stop the majority of the missiles however, most of which continued on their way to tear apart the dreadnoughts and their support craft. Vilrik cringed as most of his heavy ships were destroyed. Despite this, that last maneuver gave time for the battleships to come into formation with little casualties, only losing three in the process and six more damaged but not crippled. The Inquisition fleet continued to fire alongside the Union, hoping their sacrifice saved at least a handful of their vessels. Meanwhile, the collapsed dreadnought and its launched pods continued their drift into the defense stations around Rubikon Prime. Most all of the pods, lightly armored and unarmed as they were, hung behind the wreckage of the dreadnought as it neared impact. Some others, mainly the larger broken off platforms and dedicated assault pods, drifted away to land on separate stations away from the main wreckage. The Antares battlecruisers now finished circling around Rubikon Prime. All but one appeared to be more than flying wreckage however; All the battlecruisers had put everything into speed and shielding, giving the interceptor swarms behind them as much cover as possible as Rubikon defense platforms tore through their hulls. The suicidal ploy paid off however, and at last the cruisers gave one final boost in acceleration to throw themselves at the amassed Triarch and Captial ship formation protecting the Blinkers. The closely following Interceptors charged their drives to maximum, all guns and missiles armed, and prepared to take on the true targets at the formation's center.
Even with the sheer amount of fire directed, and the large amounts of munitions destroyed Volkus knew it would simply not be enough. As the APP fleet proceeding the missile swarm pushed through the Unions flak wall he knew the only thing to do now was brace. Hundreds of missiles more were destroyed by the flak shield, as well as the Firestorm screens, long range PD, intermiediate point defence and finally CIWS as the first missiles began to impact the Union fleet. Ships came apart at the seems, their hulls smashed and punched through. Explosions tore through the entire areas as each ship was hit by vast numbers of smaller missiles, the larger battleships and more being impacted by numerous super impactors, tearing the vessesl to pieces as their now smashed wrecks velocities shotgunned smaller vessels behind them. It was a slaughter, albeit one made less by the combined efforts of the AGA forces the Union fleet had been crippled, the APP vessels had punched through their formation too, unloading everything they had at point blank ranges as the follow up fighter swarm also unloaded its munitions into now crippled vessels or those that had somehow survived. 1280 ships had been stood around Rubikon Prime, over 600 were destroyed in the ensuing maelstrom of missiles, firepower and attack craft.
But not all had gone to the APPs plan. The Union AIs had predicted near total penetration of the defensive walls and so at the last moments had overrode the firing solutions to target the APP fleet. All remaining missile racks and drones from ships that were going to be destroyed emptied in seconds, mass driver rails melted as they were forced to expend far more projectiles than they were ever designed to, Plasma cannon barrels exploded as they were forced to fire beyond tolerances and Meson Laser and QAC cannon arrays found their focusing beams slagged from the sheer power being expended through them. The Union fleet elements that were doomed fired one final barrage, it was their death song and just like the APP, they could not miss. Nearly 300 APP ships of the reinforcement fleet belonging to Triarch and Capitol exploded, were crippled or left drifting as they took huge amounts of return fire. Their fighter cover also suffered heavily, the Firestorms that had been protecting the fleet fell upon the attack craft, eager for revenge.
With his lines shattered Volkus cursed. His own Lancer class had taken 3 direct super impactors along with countless smaller missiles, it was crippled with most of its main weapons offline and its manuvering and main drives only functioning at 40%. Blood ran down the side of his head where he had hit the deck in one of the impacts but he now felt fury flow through him.
"All ships reform! I want all focus fire on the withdrawing APP fleet, all ships fire a massive missile barrage, attack craft that can cover it!" Volkus commanded before turning to those on the bridge "Prepare the Plasma Coil for launch!"
"Sir is that wise? At this distance even with their acceleration away the blast will likely affect the planet, not enough to destroy it but it may massively irradiate the surface" The XO replied. Volkus nodded.
"I know. But right now bleeding the APP is what matters." Codes ran down the large holotable in front of him as he inputting his own codes, before taking a genetic lock from his uniform and turning it in one of the slots at the tables base.
As the Union fleet focused those withdrawing, and the missile batteries of the remaining ships launched a huge barrage, a singular missile launched from the Lancer, it quickly sped forwards, escorted by the attack craft overseeing the missile wave it now targetted the moving away APP fleet. Energy built inside it rapidly as its internals armed the destructive warhead. At this range the APP fleet would not be able to evade it, and while the planet would likely be affected, Volkus was willing to take the risk.
"Sir multiple thousand strong signatures just appeared in system! It appears to be Immortal Empire, 3000 signatures are now closing on our position" The sensor operator called out. Volkus cursed.
"Sir the EPA fleet had withdrawn from the battle, including the Z1, Carnaiths strike inflicted damage but it was not enough sir" Another sensor operator reported.
"Dammit. Tell BSO to track them, we may as well make use of them. Tell them to get a fix on their location and where they are heading, we need that ship dead! Follow given orders, hopefully our allies can take care of this development. Focus fire on withdrawing ships!" Volkus growled. The coms officer relaying a long range FTL communique to the BSO forces in the immediate space around Rubikon to pursue and watch.
The remaining Union fleet now reformed, the crippled vessels still functional began withdrawing from the battle, those that could not discharged escape pods to be picked up by shuttles and more sent from Union escorts, with their fire directed at the withdrawing APP fleet and the Firestorms providing fleet defense and missile escort, the Union did not move to engage the APP force now around Rubikon Prime, it was no longer priority.
The Eramon fleet also suffered at the hands of the missile barrage, their defenses were just as powerful as the Unions, but they were just as overwhelmed. Ships exploded as missiles shattered their hulls and sent debris spalling into other friendly ships around them. Defensive fire flared back in response, destroying attack craft in their thousands and targetting the APP fleet that came through, the heavier Eramon vessels that survived the super impactors targetted heavy Capitol and Triarch vessels in return leaving many crippledas the force withdrew. However unlike the Union they quickly began once again targetting the defense platforms that still remained, and launched several missile barrages to swing around the planet to engage the previous APP fleet that had now linked up with the Blinkers.
However, the worst was yet to come.
The Leviathan, the massive super dreadnought that had anchored the APP line and that had survived the missile strike with some heavy damage from super impactors, now found its death coming from an unknown quarter. The three stealth missiles were only picked up at the last possible moment, defensive fire reacted instantly, downing one of the missiles in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics. However the other two slammed into the unsheilded and cratered hull of the super dreadnought, exploding not with conventional explosives but with clouds of trillions of modified, large grey goo machines. They quickly began replicating, devouring the hull and areas where they had impacted as the infection rapidly spread from the area of impact. The Eramons tried localised EMPs, traditionally effective against nanites, but these were larger, shielded and must more resilient than simple nanites, and they kept feeding. Parts were jetosened off into space but it was not enough. In the end the order was given.
Abandon ship.
Escape pods launched, shuttles departed and what could be saved was done so. As the weapon now devoured the super dreadnought its reactors, set to go critical now did so. Creating for a brief moment, a second star above the surface of Rubikon Prime. The fireball vapourising the nanites that consumed it, and the ship itself. With the Eramon fleet now down to a mere 350 odd fleet, things were starting to look bleak.
The arrival of these new 3000 ships made Serran pale, at least as much as was possible under his fur. The incoming APP fleet now numbered over five thousand, compared to less than a thousand ships he had first arrived with, not counting losses, in addition to the other allies around him. "Rotate and fire spacetime guns, empty missile batteries!" he shouted, as impact alarms were sounded throughout the fleet, ordering the crew to brace "Take them out" The navigation and gunnery officers were somewhat skeptical, but they followed orders. Generation 3 battleships and supercruisers, numbering 140 in total, rotated to point their bows at the incoming fleet and missile swarm, opening fire with their spinal guns, each set to occur interspersed within the swarms and APP fleet. Within these effect areas, the space itself began to expand rapidly, ripping apart anything within them and smashing or ripping anything at the outskirts as space was compressed at the edges. Then the two fleets and missile swarm merged. Many of the Nuclean warships, including the secondary flagship for the fleet, simply exploded, as superimpactors ripped through them. Nuclean warships emptied their missile batteries and fired their gun as much as possible, aiming to make the APP fleet which had survived passing through the Union fleet hurt even more. And in a similar situation to what they Union had done, at this range it was near impossible to miss. Post merger, 360 Nuclean ships remained operational out of the original 960 which had been sent to Rubikon. These did their best to continue firing at the APP fleet which now moved away from them, as well as firing those guns that were unable to aim at the APP fleet at the planet they continued to approach. while this went on, the neutralino beams from the blinkers continued to ricochet off the Nuclean shielding, the low energy beams, meant for causing damage to the internal structure rather than battering down shields, doing little, except to several ships whos shields had already dropped, which instead exploded.
Yunon's battered fleet had tried its best to cover the Union flank, forming a shield of gun drones, point defences and flak guns against the APP missile swarm. But alas, they were overwhelmed. Every laser and projectile was sent out and pushed to the end, but the missiles broke through with sheer numbers alone. They slammed through the gun drones and what was left hit the fleet hard. One by one the ships fell, each going out like a brief ball of flame before said flame extinguished due to the vacuum of space. Slowly but surely, the 'shield' had collapsed as there were too little ships to form an effective point defence network. Yunon's ships joined the Union fleet as fellow wreckage, the area now a graveyard for the spaceborne. His fleet was no more. He was no more.
"INCOMING!" Razael had no time to realize the demise of his counterpart before the Separatist Union barrage of plasma lances, missiles and mass driver shells came in from behind. He quickly ordered evasive maneuvers to all ships under his command, but they were seconds too late. Some of the ships made it and successfully swung to the sides to dodge the barrage. Others were not so lucky; plasma bolts gored through the thrusters, melting all the way through the reactors and even reaching the combat compartments. Thermonuclear rounds and missiles cooked off and his ships were now simply balls of fire. His battleship barely made it out alive, turning at just the right moment for the incoming barrage to hit the top side of his ship, destroying some of topside weapons but otherwise still intact thanks to its thick armor and shield panels. Out of the 336 ships he had left, he was now down to 200 ships. "Where did that come from?!" he cried out, demanding answers.
"Separatist Union ships made a slingshot to one of the orbits! They are now circling the system at full speed! We can track them, but our weapon systems won't be able to score a direct hit!"
"We also don't have enough power to pursue them either, Fleet Admiral!"
"Deploy Cluster munitions at this point," Razael highlighted the coordinates just behind the entire AGA formation, at the 'bottom' of the system map nearby the orbit. "Once they come close enough, we detonate them and send all these Separatists back to hell."
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 15:42:53 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Things were going well for the Black Sail Organization. With the heavy combat at Rubikon, and reports of more fighting beginning to erupt near the Crucible, Capitol space was easy pickings for the combined forces of the Vagrant Raiders and the Exiles. The pirates had already intercepted over a dozen convoys and made off with a fair chunk of loot.
Yes, Lethalon reflected taking a drag on a cigarette, things were going quite well. She quirked an eyebrow when the Anointed Guardian aboard her vessel turned to her and relayed the Union's message, smiling to herself. There was a humor to be found in the galaxy's paragons of justice turning to a criminal syndicate for aid... or at the very least a delicious irony.
"Tell Volkus I'll find his ships," Lethalon said. "But it will cost him extra. I'll be wanting the plans for those pion shields Hargun gave everyone as well as blueprints for the Union's Railgun system. As soon as he agrees we'll get under way,"
The Restevians barreled onwards for Rubikon Prime, their formations fully reformed as the Soul of Vengeance disengaged from the battle and retreated alongside it's escorts. Incoming fire from the Separatist Union and the mass of the Immortal Empire bioships coming right at them proved to be an unexpected and hellish interruption however, and the Restevians unleashed a heavy mass of missile barrages both nuclear and plasma into the bioships alongside cannon fire to slow, damage and outright destroy as many as possible, bringing shields and PD up to deal with the incoming Separatist Union fire when it reached them. All throughout this the RSC barreled on towards Rubikon Prime, stopping for nothing.
In the midst of the dogged defense, the Auraxxi got exactly what they hoped for, the Dominion wasn’t giving a single meter, although the original force had lost seventeen vessels with another three currently missing in action and presumed lost with all hands. Captain Nthanda had kept two ace cards in his sleeve this whole time. Captain Nthanda had never launched interceptors instead keeping his fighter assets on ‘hot’ standby for immediate deployment when the time was right. Additionally, the captain had intentionally arrayed his forces to give the illusion that his sixty-seven warships are all the Dominion had sent. Obviously, the AGA command knew differently, but one of the major aspects of warfare was deception, and Captain Nthanda had expertly played up the appearance of weakness until now. His detachment was just a bit less than half of a standard Dominion fleet of one hundred and forty-four vessels. Granted the other seventy-seven were delayed in arrival and the battle at Rubikon had started earlier than planned the ruse had worked perfectly. When the Auraxii pressed their attack Captain Nthanda transmitted a set of updated orders to the new arrivals; they were to break into two combat elements, and each had its own relative mission objective to the main line holding where it was. Fleet element number three was comprised of thirty-seven warships mostly corvettes and a large group of Camden class Marauder frigates. The group’s initial task was to screen if possible against the incoming fusion missiles and then press an attack against the capitol force as it was unlikely the enemy in this case could readily outrun the group. This attack was more or less geared at inflicting extra casualties and forcing the capitol group out of weapons range of the main Dominion force. Group number three was also strictly ordered to go only so far as the Auraxii needed to be eliminated.
Meanwhile, the main Dominion force saw about getting its interceptors launched to combat the Auraxii fighters and bombers and to intercept what elements of the Capitol fusion missile barrage got past group number three. The combination of point defense and the interceptors sent in that set of vectors would whittle the number of fusion missiles down further minimizing but not entirely eliminating incoming damage. Seven more ships were lost or crippled in the exchange while others took additional damages. In total the dominion had lost twenty-seven vessels, twenty-one corvettes and three frigates and three destroyers. The original force despite being bloodied and having been on the line for as long as any other element of the AGA fleet despite having seen proportionately less direct combat still fought on. When the Auraxii pressed their attack, the Dominion moved the other portion of the fresh reinforcements* noted on Captain Nthanda’s tactical display as ‘Group #2’ in to attack the Auraxii’s left flank in an aggressive sweeping motion that threatened to flatly obliterate the entire Auraxii naval force with a combination of superior numbers and possible encirclement. Once the reinforcements were committed to the action the original Dominion force began to push the Auraxii as well. To further increase the level of damage applied against the Auraxii both the main Dominion force and group number two fired on the same primary targets creating a deadly crossfire for the Auraxii. The primary objective for the combined fire was to systematically destroy major warships in the Auraxii force which would at the most cripple their command and coordination and at a bare minimum would sow confusion as the exploding vessel’s fragments would create a severe hazard for the enemy. Perhaps an hour ago this fight was about good and evil, but now it was about two cultures with a warrior mindset duking it out. For the Dominion, nothing short of the annihilation of the enemy’s ability to present any meaningful resistance was acceptable.
The last of the civilian craft that made it out of the shrapnel storm were now passing through the Carnaithian formation, out of the combat zone. The lack of attention paid to his fleet was attributed to this civilian-saving action in his mind; fleet-wide fire based on ship-to-ship judgement thinned out in anticipation for formation fire on priority targets. As fleet support from the Annointed faltered, standard programming from the lighthouse-class vessels activated, laserlines connecting to allied forces that had previously been relying on the gestalts. Active AI cores doubled in number, translating cross-empire data and processing all-calls.
The Blinkerzerstoren in the flanking maneuver broke from formation, careening in random vectors with their escorts as they set about calculating firing solutions for their Alcubierre munitions. The very CMB of Ancerious, almost entirely empty from the sheer age of its resident universe, was used as a benchmark for the highly independent method of FTL travel. Incredible ranges, redshifting the incoming data, were calculated to distances and measurements astronomically small in comparison in the simple crusade of eliminating the Axiomatic forces. Scalar suppression continued through gaps in solaris screens, defending the isolated force.
The Annointed had taken heavy damage, and their small force of 3 vessels was now reduced to two as a Neutralino beam detonated inside, sending the ionized remains of the cruiser dispersing into the void. Both of the remaining vessels that were acting as psychic communication hubs had also been hit, the one nestled within the Union fleet had been crippled by a super impactor and numerous smaller weapons despite the prestigious efforts of the Union to defend it, and it was now unable to provide what was required. The vessel within the Nuclean fleet remained operational but had taken damage, sadly without its sister ships its task here was impossible to carry out. Charging its C-Beamers it unleashed a horde of fire towards the APP fleet in anger, before sending a psionic signal to the Annointed reinforcements.
Outside the system on standby the remaining Annointed force of nearly 800 vessels began charging their FTL drives and plotting co-ordinates for their arrival. Weapons were powered across the fleet and shields were raised. The gestalts across the fleet eager to bring retribution to those who had spat on their offer of peace before.
Captain Albus, An veteran human captain, upon seeing that the Justicars were doing the same plan as before now launched his own counterattack in response; the fleet immediately intercepted the missiles again with the combined fire power of CIWs and Scatter Missiles while all ships boosted to full power to attempt to get out from the Justicar’s weapon’s ranges, and use the planet to slingshot around towards the Justicar fleet that was coming from behind. At the same time however multiple DNA ships were hit and damaged by the Justicar weapons, with some being totally destroyed by the barrage.
Once the Justicar fleet was in range of the DNA weapons the Captain gave the order to unleash the full barrage of Advanced Capital Railguns, Advanced Plasma Cannons, Laser Cannons, Scatter Missiles, Havoc Missiles and Plasma Missiles. Albus knew that he had to take care of the Justicar fleet quickly as APP reinforcements in the form of Separatist Union ships and Immortal Empire Bio-ships were rapidly coming to Rubikon II to support the Justicar fleet and the powerful ground defense forces on the planets surface. He immediately contacted the other AGA forces, requesting immediate assistance in protecting the ground forces on Rubikon II, even with his remaining forces the current odds were stacked against him.
"Sir huge energy signature detected! Its been launched at the reinforcing fleet!"
Agamos eyes widened as he saw the signal appear on the holographic screen. With the reinforcement fleets and the missile swarm having cleaved through the main allied fleet like a vengeful spear thrust they had taken heavy casulties from the return fire. And even now they faced greater retaliation. Nuclean and Eramon fire lashed out to struck already crippled ships and larger vessels as Capitol vessels and Triarch warships alike exploded, their engines were at full burn as they now arced away from Rubikon Prime. But it was a false effort, a huge Union missile barrage was catching them, including the tell tale sign of a Plasma Coil missile.
The prospect shocked Agamo, did they intend originally to simply crack Rubikon Prime? Even at this range the planet would be directed affected, but they had launched it either way.
CIWS and point defense tried its best to intercept the missiles, however the swarm approached from the rear of the fleet while they were still undergoing full burn acceleration and the entire reinforcement fleet had used its missile stockpiles to augment the initial strike. Fighters and missiles were swatted from the sky, with most defenses trying to engage the approaching danger. The Plasma coil however was shielded extensively, and covered by squadrons of drone Firestorms that intercepted or used themselves to shield against incoming munitions. Still the missile was impacted heavily, but not taken out of action. Spinning uncontrollably it detonated with a blinding flash of blue light. Hundreds of remaining reinforcing ships were instantly vapourised as was the remainder of the Union missile barrage and drone squadrons. The radiation wave emitted was strong enough to cause alarms on the nearby AGA fleet as the wave hit the planet. While the blast effects would not directly affect Rubikon Prime the radiation wave was a death sentence, an invisible ray that hit the nearside surface. Anyone not in the deep underground shelters died instantly as their cells simply fell apart. Aurorae danced in the sunny sky as the atmopshere was washed with gamma rays, causing untold atmopsheric damage in the decades to come. The ground was also irradiated, everywhere was contaminated. Without direct decontamination that would take years half of Rubikon Prime would be unlivable, and even those in the shallow shelters receieved huge doses of radiation which would either kill them shortly or in the long term.
As the reports came in Agamo was horrified. He sat silent for a short while watching the small remnants of the reinforcement fleet now break vector and move to a course to leave the system. Anger filled him as alarms range depicting the Inquisition fleet now moving to engage Agamos own small remnant force.
"All ships! Protect the Blinkers, weapons hot, do not stop firing! We will avenge those on the planet, they have desecrated our homes and we will make them pay!"
The Capitol and Triarch vessels, which had now deferred leadership to Agamo opened fire on the Inquisition fleet, the few orbital platforms remaining on the dark side of the planet also opened fire which was reinforced by high orbital weapons which launched from the planets surface. Tachyon Arrows, Thermonuclear munitions, Railguns, heavy lasers and stealth missiles now targetted the Inquisitions smaller vessels hoping the Blinkers would deal with the larger ones. The remaining attack craft of Sabre Mk.2B and Defenders augmented from several squadrons which had launched from orbital platforms that remained now moved to intercept the Annolidians own squadrons.
---
Away from the battle on the outer edges the silent form of White Wraith now powered its FTL drive. Its quarry of the Eramon super dreadnought was now dead and its job was done. Its orders were to withdraw and not give away its existance.
The remaining Blinkers having held station for much of the fight in the shadow of Rubikon Prime now began to move. Monstrously large antenna propelled the large craft as the Capitol and Triarch forces began moving to screen them. The course was clear, they would move away from Rubikon Prime and the imminent threat of the allied attack force, both the Inquisition which was directly attacking them and the Union, Eramon and Nuclean fleet that was still the other side of the planet.
As the Capitol and Triarch ships opened fire on the Inquisition so too did the Blinkers. Neutralino guns opened up, targetting Inquisition battleships and other large crafts internal critical systems pin pointed by neutrino imaging, while the screen dealt with the smaller craft the Blinkers would snipe the larger craft. However the APP screening fleet soon receieved a communication from the Blinker Fleet.
"Honoured allies of the APP. I am Blinker Saphenous, chosen representative of her holy Shifting Mirrors here in Rubikon. I beseech you to be ready for time dialation effects"
The communication confused some members of the fleet, while others who had survived Histirion knew what to do. The Blinkers as they moved slowly now activated their Tau Field. While only Saphenous itself had done so the other blinkers now shared the processing burden so that the honourable Blinker would not burn itself out quickly. A faint shimmer appeared around the small APP fleet, and in an instant the rate of fire seemed to double. Accelerated slightly due to the time dialation the APP forces seemed to fire at double the speed, and a Scalar wave was launched by the Blinkers, taking advantage of the Carnaithian occupation with having dealt with the missile wave as a brief opening, which was now directed as a rolling wave in front of the APP fighter swarms to protect them and to destroy the Inquisitions own attack craft.
--
The Justicar fleet took direct losses as they receieved this time heavy fire from the DNA fleet. With the enemy dispersed and now having outmanuvered the Justicars the commander gave the order to withdraw. The Justicar ships seemed to split up in multiple directions as they weaved through the DNA ships, having kept firing as they left they ignited their drives to full burn to get out of range of the DNA fleets weapons and away from Rubikon IIs orbit. Their objective now was to rendevouz with the IE bio fleet to reinforce and then move in to try clear the DNA fleet out of their orbital position.
The small Capitol fleet now rapidly moving away from the Dominion found themselves rapidly caught up to by the small force of corvettes and frigates. Now seeing that they could outrun their foe for their hit and run strikes the captain of the Trident class, the head of the formation now barked orders to stand and fight. Main drives were cut and manuvering thrusters fired to bring the small Capitol fleet around to engage. Knowing that now launching any missiles or TAs at the main Dominion force from outside of their range was now out of the question the Capitol force concentrated its firepower on the corvettes, with only 11 vessels left they were outnumbered but they had the advantage of heavier ship classes. And the Trident was their ace in the hole with its firepower as it prepared for a pitched small engagement in the huge cacophany that was Rubikon.
--
The Auraxii however were somewhat surprised to see sudden reinforcements. Having relied upon Capitol to cover the system adequetely with interdiction the Auraxii shipmaster growled under his breath. He would see diplomatic repocussions were carried out. Either way he did not let the opputinuty go to waste. After all the Dominion was standing and fighting as he had hoped, and while the main fleet was caught in a crossfire, he knew he could still prevail.
Auraxii ships exploded in the crossfire, their V formation however protected most of them from the resulting shrapnel and collateral damage from their own ship deaths. Larger vessels detonated, as Gargant and Cobra class BBs and BCs respectively were torn apart. Still the Auraxii did not simply yield or panic. Lines were rerouted, CIC elements were delegated swiftly or relayed to other APP elements. Years of insane Auraxii politics had given the race a knack for situational chaos and they thrived in it. The shipmaster immediately ordered for a formation change, the V formation while providing them with good defense now meant they were too spread out. He ordered a line formation, with the remaining ships quickly moving into place as they continued to fire back.
The second order was to now concentrate fire, not on the new arrivals but on the first group of the Dominion. Now effectively presenting their majority ships to the smaller damaged group the Auraxii opened fire again with everything they had. The fighters that had been launched also now set about engaging the Dominion craft, and escorting the bombers as they launched torpedoes on their runs then sped around to refuel and rearm. With the formation taken the incoming new group had a very small fleet cross section to hit, hopefully alleviating damage despite the severe impacts they were already taking.
Uzajhan smiled, the Separatist Union's ambush into the rear working as intended. The enemy has been alerted, and their presence has finally been let known to not only the IRS but the DNA fleet in orbit above Rubikon II as well.
"Comrade Admiral, some of their ships have turned around to attack us! What should we do?"
"Spread out and focus on evasive maneuvers. Use the last of our countermeasures if you have to."
On his orders, the ships kept their distance from the IRS and DNA ships and dodged majority of the incoming missiles, railgun and plasma counterfire. Some were hit, 5 of the smaller ships went down while others only suffered minor damages to the hull. Plasma screens were also deployed against any barrage of missiles, flash frying those in the immediate vicinity and blinding the guidance systems of the others and throwing them off course. The Separatist Union fleet's response was minimal at best; conserving the ammunition of its medium range cannons and missiles and opted to harass the AGA fleet above Rubikon II with long-range spinal cannons, targeting the carriers first and foremost. The strategy now was to draw away their forces from continuing and supporting the siege of the planet, thus assist the ground forces by cutting off the Allies' orbital fire support and supply lanes.
As the lesser bioweapons cavorted about the more massive creatures the swarms were beginning to look more and more like a dark cloud in space. Their plasma vents lending an eerie inner glow. They quickly caught up with the APP reinforcements that had arrived just before them and now continued to accelerate through the aftermath wrought by the Union’s Plasma Coil Missile. Shrapnel and debris dug into their armored shells, with the smaller stuff being absorbed into the bioships’ to increase their shells’ durability while the larger stuff was ejected and the wound quickly healing.
Moving with a serpentine grace the lesser bioweapons pulled forward, creating a defensive screen made from crafted bone and flesh.
The void ships however stayed back, behind the remaining Capitol reinforcements. Their engines and primary weapons burning bright with barely contained forces, yet they remained close to the rear waiting for the sacrificial bioships to tie up the allied forces.
The other half of the swarm was nearing Rubikon II with the Void ships taking point far ahead. Their insane speed would bring them past the planet and to a suitable firing solution on the besieging forces within minutes.
Oon stood saying, ”Fuzzball. You’re up.”
The Thyron got up from her post and sat down in the Captain’s command throne. She was so small compared to the Amood that the she was practically lost in the command throne. Removing her helmet she glared at the captain saying, “After this is done I’m filing a report for discrimination.”
”Good luck with that. You’re a part of the Immortal Empire now.”
Stillute's very subconscious was thrown forward in anticipation, the Nucleans had turned their focus elsewhere. Most of the forward AGA forces were now focused on damage control from the EPA barrage. He stared into the abyss surrounding him, looking for the next potential targets. Carnaith was close, but they knew Leistunganos maneuvers and their AI cores would undoubtedly punish his movements. Indeed, these... Rissalas were closer. The same process was repeated, and cold thrusters were fired to put some more distance between themselves and their new targets. A barrage of one hundred gauss rounds were flung forward, shortly followed by a similar number of missiles.
He could feel his arsenal being siphoned. He had halved his munitions at this point, attempting to sow disorder among the enemies of Inara. He felt he had succeeded, but he scowled. How much longer would he and his peers have to operate using these craft, when new ones had been designed with more fitting measures? It was no matter. He felt the inertia of his ships' engines tugging at his physical form as it and the rest of his fleet moved away.
Serran watched the detonation of the Union's plasma coil missile on the massive viewscreen of his ship's bridge, and nodding at the ensuing damage to the retreating enemy forces as well as Rubikon Prime's surface. The dedicated EW/CW systems of the ships of his fleet meanwhile, now cranked into overdrive to compensate for the failing Annointed psionic comms. As the IE bioships manuvered themselves in between the retreated forces and the allied fleet, the remaining supercruisers and battleships which had the spinal spatial weaponry, 75 in total, continued bombarding the retreating forces, creating large shield-bypassing space-time explosions within their ranks much as they had done before, while firing their conventional weaponry at the bioships. While this occured, the other 285 warships in the fleet directed all bearing guns at the Immortal Empire ships voidships approaching them, while the guns on the other sides of the hull that couldn't point towards the approaching enemy pointed towards any defense stations left in orbit this side of the planet.
"All callsigns halt!" Razael ordered as he eyed the IE bioships approaching Rubikon II, the sudden realization that they are attempting to cut them off from the ground forces below hitting him hard. On his command, the ships that were turning around to confront the Separatist Union ships now stopped dead in their tracks.
"Tell the carriers to get the hell out there! Cruisers 13, 15, 20, 22 and Frigates 3 to 9 pull back and escort those carriers! The rest of the fleet, prepare to fire on the IE bioships!"
The IRS fleet jumped into action, the remaining 20 Instrumental-class carriers and 10 of the Atlantis-class supercarriers retreating from the incoming IE bioships with their cruisers and frigates as escorts. The last of Razael's forces; 7 Orenstar Dreadnoughts, 30 Sovereign-class Battleships, 20 Vindicator-class Battlecruisers, 40 Temujin-class Destroyers, 50 Hammer-class Cruisers, 3 Python-class Frigates, 20 Serpent-class Frigates and 20 support ships all regrouped facing the IE bioweapons.
"Lets hope the scans are right," Razael skimmed through the ship's reports and analysis of the IE's bioships. "All remaining ships not tasked to escort duty, listen up! We are going to use up the last of our nuclear missiles and spread them out so the detonations will slow them down! Then I want concentrated railgun fire, one ship by one ship! Keep all your other weapons in reserve until I give the order!"
The dots that represented his fleet turned green, indicating that they acknowledged his orders.
"Fire at will!" Razael shouted. A split second later, the last of the IRS's missiles, the tens of thousands of Raptor II triple-alpha nukes, were launched towards the IE ships in a wide spread. It was hoped that as the nukes detonate within the IE ranks, the roiling heat, the intense radiation and the blinding flashes would be enough to stop their advance. After the missiles, a volley of plasma-sheathed thermonuclear shells joined the fray; a 100 of them heading for each IE bioship where they would puncture through their flesh and detonate from within, causing massive internal damages.
"Send a ping to the DNA forces. Tell them to focus all their efforts on taking out those Separatist Union ships and protect the allied carriers. We cannot afford to be harassed any more, for the sake of the boys below."
"Comrade, IE forces burning hard for Rubikon II, support alert received from the squadron there!" "Fucking-- Turn us around and go hard burn for Rubikon II orbit to support, open fire all missile bays and cannon, I want as many of those damned things down as possible before they arrive!" "Orders received, opening fire!"
The Restevian fleet nearly as one began to turn back towards Rubikon II, their missiles and ripping out in long rippling streams of silver projectiles from the many hundreds of ships, hurtling out into the silent void as turreted cannon began to mutely thunder, sending out wave after wave of shells in a constant, unending barrage. The fleet continued to turn, loosing constant waves of fire from missiles and cannons. Their crews in whatever stations they had worked constantly to keep their weapons firing, reloading and not even bothering to fully target as there was such a huge mass of the enemy that they didn't need to pick out individual targets.
However, the strain on engines and frames already slammed and savaged by battle was proving to be taking a toll as some vessels were beginning to visibly strain under the pressure of the about-face maneuver. Nowhere was this more evident to the extreme misfortune of the crew than the battlecruiser E.S. Yamadan, already having suffered a good deal of damage from Capitol defensive stations over the planet they now were heading back towards. Under the immense Gs of the highspeed turn and the hell the vessel had already been through, something, though nobody was immediately sure what, broke. A cascade in the engineering systems sent alarms blaring through the length and breadth of the ship as the power core's safety systems went into overdrive, trying to shut down the core in the face of whatever had failed. That unfortunately turned out to be a containment breach of the main reactors, the cascade causing the titanic power contained within the reactor vessels to spill out into the engineering chamber. Those that were in the room mercifully died fast. Those beyond were not nearly as fortunate as the ship died around them. The reactor failure sent the E.S. Yamadan's systems into total and catastrophic failure, explosions chaining through the ship killing hundreds and trapping even more as the vessel nearly folded in on itself, lights flickering as the battlecruiser's comrades sped past it. With venting atmo and screams of the comms the vessel died horribly, but with the fleet moving so quickly there was no time to help, no way to slow and pick up escape pods. There were others that had died as a result of the hellish maneuver, but the E.S Yamadan died the worst.
With the maneuver completed, barely, the Restevians went to full burn back towards Rubikon II, charging to intercept the IE wave and to defend their comrades providing support to the ground.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 15:43:06 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Volkus watched as the other AGA forces now dealt with their respective situations. For now it seemed like the main fleet had caught a quick break. With the APP reinforcement fleet now pulling off in a vector away and the IE moving in on Rubikon II it allowed the Union to reform its fleet. With its ships now working to repair those which could be saved and collecting the escape pods the Union ships that were still able to function began to bombard key parts of Rubikon II, known missile launchers, ECM sites, ground forces bunkers and more, despite the massive radiation burst the Union would take no chances.
As the clear up slowly started to complete Volkus knew he had to help the Inquisition take down the Axiomatic Blinkers and the small force that survived with them. Forming the fleet up the Union forces began to move out, keeping in the arc of the planet for as long as they could to defend against APP fire before opening up with long range laser and missile fire. Some of the vessels however also continued to bombard key locations of note on the surface or engage any left over defensive installations that hadnt been destroyed by the AGA or the debris clouds that now orbited the planet.
The fighters and bombers that had survived the APP missile barrage now began to land on the remaining vessels to refuel and re-arm. Those that could not due to low space waited until others relaunched before landing. Craft too damaged were directed on courses towards the planet to burn up in high angle approaches while the pilots were rescued by corvettes.
---
The Eramon fleet had also suffered heavily, with their super dreadnought down and most of their ships having sustained damage in some way they were in a bad shape. Still they moved with the Union fleet, adding their own defensive fire in case of return barrages by the escorting ships of the Blinkers. The remnants of their attack craft forces also now provided a screen for the small force, while the Unions re-armed the Eramon craft provided a frontal line of defence against incoming munitions. The odd round also was fired towards critical installations on the surface, linking with Union targetting as best they could to try break through the ECM, while most strikes would likely be false installations they would try their best none the less.
The pursuit force had done their job quite well as they had effectively intercepted the Capitol force with what the enemy clearly thought was a pursuit leading to a stand-up confrontation. Unfortunately, as the Capitol forces maneuvered their vessels for a line battle of sorts, the Dominion’s pursuit group had other plans they turned and used their speed to seemingly peel off, in a very loose formation utilizing evasive maneuvers to ruin the targeting of their enemies. The fancy moves would seem completely at odds with the aggressive interception though. Seconds would pass as the Capitol force possibly wondered what the hell all that was about. Was the relatively unknown Risallas Dominion losing their nerve and running from a tactically viable battle? Perhaps the fight with the Auraxxi nearby had prompted a withdrawal this or maybe Capitol had simply scared them off. Unknown to the Capitol forces, the pursuit and aggressive actions were a distraction, unknown to them the Ten Marauder Frigates in the group had cold launched every mark V AMP-ASM (360 total) they had with the obvious target being the Capitol forces with a focus on bracketing Capitol’s vessels with concentrated proximity detonated warheads with a yield of 120 petatons. It was expected that no less than half the warheads would be shot down upon detection which is what prompted the large number of launches. The missiles would be cold launched and run silent until within 0.6 au or less. The lack of energy signatures to their sub-light propulsion or any other normally detectable signature to indicate what was happening would be absent. The Dominion had not used it’s ASM weapons the entire battle, so no one, not even the AGA had any idea that the weapons were present. It was unlikely that the Capitol forces would expect the one-two punch of high yield concussive force and the sprays of corrosive plasma that would come from warhead detonation. Once the warheads went off it would be clear after that the pursuit forces were not withdrawing because of fear, it was to ensure they were not in range of any resultant shrapnel or blast effects. This maneuver was a mirror to what was about to happen to the misguided Auraxxi fleet. Captain Taravis’s world shook violently and went dark for a few moments as he was thrown to the ground. Everyone who wasn’t seated or otherwise in an anti-shock harness were tossed about like ragdolls in a tin can that had just hit all the bumps at once on a long bumpy hill. The wail of red alert sirens filled the air and the movements of those trying to recover from what just happened punctuated the brief moments of chaos. The acrid reek of burning plastics mingled with that of smoky ionized air from fractured conduits. Captain Taravis shook off his blurry vision and checked himself for injury… he could feel wetness on his neck and quickly he discovered he was deaf in one ear and probably had a mild concussion. This wasn’t enough to stop him from staggering to his feet and yelling out for a status report…which to him sounded strange, not unlike listening to a set of headphones with one earphone out, properly distorted. The holographic display before him flickered giving little information about the ship’s status and angrily he called for another status report but did not hear a reply. Movement to his left caught his attention as he made his way to an auxiliary station, Medics rushed to the command information center to tend to the wounded as he looked at the ship’s status report. His vessel was still in the fight, though it’s sub-light speed and jump range was down by a third. Much to Captain Taravis’s surprise, somehow the ship was still battle worthy despite the fact that the portside outboard engine was simply gone, even its pylon was obliterated by whatever hit the ship. An area along the port showed the telltale sign of a glancing impact that ricocheted into the engine and its pylon on the inward side. Shrapnel from the impact had damaged the engine cluster down the center somewhat the starboard engines were intact and fully operational. Slowly status reports came in, a number of ships were lost in the last exchange, but Taravis’s original line held. As if on cue the Primary holographic display flickered back to life showing the enemy taking their Arrowhead formation. Captain Taravis could not believe what he was seeing. A sensor technician sensed the inevitable query and confirmed that the enemy was indeed maneuvering as seen before the Captain could ask. “So, it seems these APP lackeys aren’t even competent warriors. Get me Captain Oluchi’s force, and an ETA to the return of the pursuit force we’re going to need them…” As if on cue, the Holographic representation of the battle reflected the detonation of the pursuit force’s warheads. Information on the damages done was not yet available but it signaled their return to the fleet for use against the Auraxxii force. Off to the Captain’s left Executive officer (Commander) Ujarak noticed the detonation of munitions and nodded while sarcastically commenting on the timing of it all. “Hmmm Commander Hildebrand… punctual as always!” Captain Taravis cracked a grin before issuing orders to both Commander Hildebrand and Captain Oluchi. The Dominion forces simply adjusted their line, Taravis’s remaining forces pivoted to a V-shape to capture the point of the enemy’s arrow formation with additional coverage on the enemy’s left flank so that any advantage it had was flat nullified. While they did this the second force of vessels under the command of Captain Oluchi which was relatively fresh and only lightly damaged swung their line around to encompass the entire right (by RD view point) flank of the Auraxxi line and wrapped around to encircle the rear and most of the left joining the two forces in a full envelopment… the arrival of Hidebrand’s pursuit force reinforced the left and center. The Auraxxi were now encircled and there was just one more move for the Captain Nthanda to ensure this battle ended quickly. Across the fleet Dominion vessels fired their primary energy and kinetic energy weapons into the hapless Auraxxi fleet. The shots were ranged so there was no chance of friendly fire, but then this was only to further corral and demoralize the enemy who was surrounded on all sides and from top and bottom. As if to reinforce the fact, Captain Taravis ordered all Dominion vessels to commence AMP-ASM bombardment at 50% of maximum yield with proximity detonation. Since the Dominion force had not fired the missiles at the Auraxxi before they like the Capitol forces would have no idea of what was coming and had nowhere to go. While it was safe to assume that at least 80% of the AMP-ASM’s probably would be shot down, the secondary level missiles would have a yield of 75 petatons while the primaries fired at 100 petaton yield. This would leave the Auraxxi with two options, unconditional surrender of what was left of their forces or complete annihilation
A scowl crept across Raztae's face as he watched the read-outs coming in from the APP fleet. The same dilation that occurred in Histrion was now being brought up by the enemy. With a quick note to himself on the complete evacuation of the non-combatants, as well as a tag to the irradiation of Rubikon Prime, he threw his fleet into motion. While the spinal hyperfrequency mounts of the battleships simply maintained tracking of priority targets, their EMACCS turrets swiveled, firing to angles that held no chance of actually hitting the APP forces. Before these shots had even been rushed into the breech of the magnetic launchers, the Blinkerzwillen had in turn motioned their hulls into the same line as the shells' path of travel. No other actions were taken by the conventional arms of the heavy fleet; even the carriers withheld their returning snub craft, the last action being small, pulsed firings of scalar weapons into the Axioms' scalar wave, creating holes in front of the Inquisitions' force as well as creating firing angles for them.
The light fleet, however, had been ordered forward. Right through the now-dissipating post-detonation field of the Plasma Coil missile. Open-cycle engines threw their cores into the maximum amount of actively-fissioning materials permitted by naval policy. Ships, unshielded against radiation, brandished their ordnance as they began to rush forth into the debris field of the short-lived hostile re-enforcements, taking approach vectors behind larger leftovers of hulls as scalar-carrying Scarab-class destroyers cleared dense fields of unavoidable shrapnel with controlled pulses. Short of this, even they held their fire.
Between the constant barrages from the APP forces and pushing their ships well past their limits, the remnants of the scattered Annoliddan fleet began to falter. Vilrik was well aware of how outmatched his meager force was compared to the titans before them. Regardless, he ordered all ships to continue firing. The remaining battleships and smaller vessels firing every relativistic shot they could at the APP capital ships closest to them and the Union.
The destroyed hulks of the dreadnoughts and other craft continued drifting through Rubikon Prime's orbital debris and defense stations. While their hulls were constantly shredded by other wreckage, what few troops that abandoned ship managed to decelerate behind them and take up position in the cloud of metal. Here the meager forces, a combination of shocktrooper units and surviving crewmembers, set in motion plans to board and assault what orbital defences remained, or at least send debris down into the surface below.
Meanwhile, the interceptor squadrons made their final move. The separate, spiraling tendrils of strike craft began linking together, the fish-folk aptly using a directed swarm formation to allow at least a fraction of themselves through. Thanks to the combined support of the Union, Eramon, Carnaith, and other factions' efforts, they now had a clear shot and chance at the Blinkers. Targeting the closest two, the tunnel-shaped school of interceptors began releasing their impactor missile payloads towards the holes in the scalar wave, aiming to strike both where the Blinkers currently moved and all possible vectors they could reasonably jump to what with the clustered space around them. As the foremost interceptors launched their oversized missiles at already near relativistic speeds, having counted for little under a third of each craft's mass, they violently activated their gravimetric drives, ripping themselves backwards and to the sides of the tunnel behind them. There was next to no chance any organic pilot survived the maneuver, and even the AIs would be dazed by the speed. However, for every ship that fired, this meant they were creating a physical barrier for those who had yet to do so. Overall, this maneuver would drop the interceptors from two thousand to only a few dozen, but also send a close range missile swarm of equal number directly into the Blinkers' paths.
D.N.A. fleet orbiting Rubikon II, while the AGA allies are coming to support them, Captain Albus knew that there'll be massive casualties on both sides over a planet of dust and sand. While the D.N.A. fleet continues to fire on the fleeing Justicar fleet till their out of range, the Captain receives the message from their IRS allies to pursuing the Sep. Union fleet to stop them from harassing the carriers. Albus contacted Captain Xa'vil to pursue and eliminate the Sep. Union harassers, while he focuses on having his fleet prepares for the counter-attack. Xa'vil, along with what remains of her Hunter Ship Killer fleet merge with what ships that Albus can spare then set off at full speed to the Sep. Union fleet. Once the Xa'vil fleet is in range of the Sep. Union's fleet they first open fire a heavy barrage of Relativistic Railguns, Relativistic Plasma Cannon, Capital-class Laser Cannon and Plasma Railgun-types turrets, and Havoc Anti-Armor Missiles, Scatter Multi-Cluster Missiles, and Plasma Missiles.
While the assault happens, Albus had ordered the Engineers throughout the fleet to have some of their Nano-Constructors units in the Missile Bays to program some of their missiles to be converted to Sentient Nanoswarm-class Bio-Chemical Missiles to be used against the Immortal Empire's Bio-Ships, while D.N.A. itself have very rarely dealt with MBOWs, Massive Bio-Organ Weapons, class but as along they can deal heavy damage on the Bio-Ships it well worth the hassle.
Of the eight hundred Annointed ships that arrived in system only seven hundred and ninety five found their hulking forms exiting wormholes above the Triarch and Capitol re enforcement fleet, enormous wedges hurtle down like the swords of Damocles at 97c shields and ion trails carving pillars of iridescent light mirroring the fires of hate and anger burning inside the concerts deepest veins, a cold furious wave of telepathic intent swept before the enormous fleet their intent clear, revenge for the wrongs committed upon them here a toll for injustice to be paid in flesh and blood.
Seconds after the opening wave the fleet began its telemetric attack, telepathic suggestions geas's and twisting mental parasites were flung, transcribed and telemetricly expressed over the voids of space toward the opposing fleet, compulsions of suicide sabotage and murder were the names of todays games as the telepaths of the Empire began turning the very minds of their enemies against them.
The remaining five ships found them self above Rubikon II a single super carrier and its four escorts heading quickly for the besieged planetoid.
The APP reinforcement fleet had lost multiple more vessels as Nuclean, Union and Eramon return fire hammered into the formation however they were quickly out of range as arced their path. Crews frantically worked, rearming attack craft that kept pace with the vessels and landed to try rearm their munitions, whatever missiles were left aboard the fleet were not being loaded into launchers to compensate for the fleet wide lack of missile munitions. It was a tense situation but the fleet still had approximately 1000 vessels left, a serious force to contend with. Orders were relayed for the force to head back around and re-engage the AGA fleet around Rubikon Prime however they did not get the chance before the situation changed.
The sudden appearance of the Annointed fleet at the edge of the interdiction field roused the re-arming fleet into action. Ships pivoted on their RCS to face their attackers, firing off a brief barrage of long range Tachyon fire and Proton Cannons from Triarch and Capitol vessels before the psionic attack hit home. The attack was unlike anything the two fleets had conventionally trained for, and while Capitol had been hit with a similar weapon in the 1st Ancerious war nothing had been implemented so far that could counter it.
Systems were sabotaged on numerous vessels as crewmen went mad, their minds overtaken or focused into committing acts of violence. Hallways ran red with blood as some marines turned on their comrades while several ships suffered catastrophic damage from reactor overloads or ship wide venting into space all acts of crew turning against themselves. In this situation Capitol could only try to restore order, those not affected fought back, marines cleared the ships and the Commissars who had been so instrumental in the 1st war once again reverted to executions, the fear of death overcoming some of the lightly affected. Either way the Capitol fleet was only partially effectively, what weapons were still available to be used and crewed now fired back at the Annointed with the C Beamers still incoming the Capitol fleet tried as they might to divert all power to shields.
The Triarch fleet fared better, the discipline and mental blocks taught to its crews providing them with some defence but again some vessels suffered break downs of their crew, with only a handful of ships suffering any real crippling damage from sabotage. The Triarch ships diverted all power to their defraction shields and focused on rearming their missiles and attack craft, it was only a matter of time until the Annointed attack hit home. -----
A lone FTL flash at the edge of the system denoted the withdrawal of White Wraith, the Triarch strategic strike vessel disengaged as ordered, it had targets elsewhere…
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The Justicar fleet had split up totally to get away from the heavy DNA return fire had now successfully rendezvoused with the IE bio fleet and now began to slowly form up its vessels. Using the bio ships as an ablative shield the vessels re-armed and repaired as best they could now preparing a full heavy barrage which they would use to augment the IEs attack pattern. While down to only a fraction of their initial force the Justicars would not withdraw, they would continue to fight for the APP as the treaties decreed. -----
The small Capitol force of 11 ships only detected the sudden ASM barrage at close range. With the fleet not breaking away to pursue the dispersed Dominion ships they had held formation, the captain finding such suspicious break off as rather suspicious. He was right, the PD of the small Capitol formation augmented with the small amount of attack craft they had present shot down little more than half the total ASMs, not expected such a strike the small formation took the hits head on, the smaller escort craft and the cruisers were reduced to little more than shrapnel as the ASMs punched through the hulls to detonate deep within creating expanding flares of debris that bracketed the other vessels. The Trident itself was also crippled, several munitions punching into critical areas as it now tumbled away trying to regain its RCS and main drive. Only the Trident and 2 escorts now remained, the force attempted to break off entirely and head for the main reinforcement fleet, they wouldn’t die for the Auraxii here today.
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Agamo watched the read outs as the next wave of Inqusition fire came in, the shots rippled across already stressed shields of both Capitol and Triarch vessels, his small original defense force had been reduced to a now pitiful collection of damaged ships that tried as they might to cover the Blinkers as best they could. Return fire continued to target the Inquisitions larger vessels. He grimaced as he watched the Annointed ambush onto the reinforcement fleet, he only hoped the IE could take back Rubikon II.
“Tell the attack craft to intercept those fighters at all costs! Move ships into the line of fire if you have to!” Agamo ordered as he watched the Inquisition squadrons break through the forces fighter screen unleashing a payload onto the blinkers.
Several small Triarch escorts responded instinctively, moving their bulks into the path of the missiles and opening fire with their point defense. Most of them took the hits for the Blinkers their forms exploding as the missiles impacted at high speed and the ships armour and shields were already damaged. Defender interceptors and Sabre Mk.2Bs rapidly scrambled to intercept those who hadn’t fired their missiles in an attempt to defend the Blinkers, but still some missiles got through it was up to the Axioms to defend themselves now.
The platforms that were now being boarded continued to fire, there were not many of them left and the Inquisition now found themselves fighting close quarter combat with the crews in cramped passageways. Still the crews were not properly trained for boarding actions, still they held on as best they could to delay their attackers.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 16:37:44 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
The heavy DNA barrage splashed on the Triach hulls of the Separatist Union forces, the overwhelming show of firepower tearing through their ranks. The Separatists tried to spread out and retreat away from the DNA ships as part of their plan to draw away the AGA from Rubikon II, but the price to pay was heavy. Fleeing ships for all their speed could do little to outrun the relativistic shells and plasma shots and many were either destroyed or incapacitated as their engines were taken out of commission. These ships, peppered and burned and scarred from the devastating DNA counter attack clinged to life as they set adrift in the void of space. They were simply awaiting the inevitable fate as the volley of DNA anti-armor, cluster and plasma missiles finally came to deliver their final mercy.
"50 ships confirmed KIA, comrade Admiral. 10 more are heavily damaged and others sustained light to medium damages."
Uzajhan cursed the DNA forces. He had hoped the AGA would focus all their attention on the incoming IE bioships and reprioritise their sights away from his fleet, but it seems the Separatists were still considered a threat after all. He did not know whether to be flattered, or be in panic.
"Can we still cover our retreat? If we lure away the DNA then Rubikon II will still have less attackers all the same." Uzajhan asked.
"Not with the countermeasures, comrade Admiral. We used up the last of them."
"Then we will do it with the missiles," Uzajhan asjusted his peak cap. "Set a course for the APP fleet, full speed."
The remaining 80 ships left in the Separatist fleet immediately set their engines to overdrive and streaked away from Rubikon II, heading towards the 1000-ship strong APP fleet that still remained in the system. Plasma missiles were launched at the DNA hunter killer fleets on their tail, more to distract them rather to outright kill them.
Stillute held a moment as he reviewed the situation in the lucid piloting state. Time slowed around him as he monitored what was happening all around; the situation was becoming increasingly dangerous to his force in the potential event of discovery. A glance at the munition reserves across his fleet told him that an engagement in such a situation would be unsustainable. Delving deeper into the forced dream that served as the connection to his world of battle, and with no need to pop stealth and vent hazards, cold engines fired and began moving his ships farther away - 'below' the solar plane - from the battle at large. He was doing his best without revealing himself, and the time for any possibility of that had come and gone with the ammunition he had expended upon those who would see Capitol defeated, and by extension his own nation dissolved. In the physical realm of his CIC, his face flickered between a sneer and a saddened scowl, the conflict of the performance in this battle and the likely end result of the action being compared to each other in his mind. No matter, he thought as his face froze back into the steadfast silence of lucidity. He would continue supporting the APP in this battle until an order to retreat was made. Gauging the preliminary calculations of hostile moments, he waited as standoff range was re-attained.
The Auraxii shipmaster was in a desperate situation. Turning to flee or reposition would result in having the spinal cannon away from the enemy. Likewise staying at this range and position would equally result in destruction. "Time until reinforcements?" Barked the acting admiral.
"ETA seven minutes!" The reply came. It would be seven minutes until the Auraxii fleet in its entirety arrived.
"Fire at will, max power to forward shields. Lower life support to minimum power and order all hands to E.V. stations. Have marines on standby and have the remainder of the fleet push forward and into boarding range."
The response was immediate. The battered remaining ships hit full power to engines and set the arrowhead to attempt a blunt force breakout
Then the missles hit
The caphacony of destruction, even for the Auraxii, stunned seemingly the entire fleet. From the void of space the only visibility between the sheep's would be obscured by trails of ion, deuterium, superheated plasma, and debris. "Remaining ships, focus fire on the ship that has the highest EMF signature and barrage fire it! Secondary cannon and rockets target the gun batteries that are visible. Launch dropships with boarders and I want every remaining fighter, bomber, gunship, and drone to cover it as chaff!! Fire low-speed rockets along the same trajectory. I want it to look like a hail of flimsy metal on their screens. The rest of us will cover until they board then emergency jump out of system." And so they fought on. Their last gambit to fly boarding parties into a vessel screened by every piece of moving metal or object they could. All while the fleet focused on singular targets one by one to clear themselves a path of escape.
As the bioships pulled ahead their hyperspatial fields were brought up to their full strength and now enveloped Rubikon I and the forces surrounding it. Accuracy quickly dropped for all not receiving the hyperspatial field map from imperial forces. The forward swarm, small creatures roughly the size of two men, were working as intended creating a bulwark that absorbed or deflected solid projectiles while shredding missiles which either destroyed them or caused them to detonate prematurely. Energy attacks fared slightly better but were still stopped. This effected both side and while many bioships were now close enough to engage allied forces with what ranged weapons they had, the swarm prevented them from doing so.
The void ships, finally under fire and lacking the full protection from the swarm of lesser bioships, decided that the time was right for them to actually begin engaging enemy targets. They had been moving quickly before, being able to keep pace with the bioships that had been moving at their interception speed, but now they began to accelerate to their own engagement speed. And they did so appallingly quickly. The ships scattered and began to utilize their knowledge of the hyperspatial pulses combined with their maneuverability to weave between the deadly energy and solid projectiles launched at them. That the majority of the Nucleans focused their weapons against the void ships greatly insulted the crews. That the bioships were closer and clearly the greater threat meant that the void ships were being singled out in an act of biased aggression. They began preparing to respond to this insult with destruction and death. Doing so required several things to happen simultaneously. Data was being compiled on the capabilities of the allied ships. Profiles for each ship class were taking shape based on the observed output and performances of every observable system and theorized maximum outputs settled upon. From the ninety void ships present around Rubikon I, a single vessel was selected at random. This sacrificial lamb was then intentionally steered into the path of one of the more esoteric weapons being leveled against them at such an angle that even should the shields fail the ship itself would be able to escape unharmed. Or at least mostly unharmed. The hit flared the shields and jarred the crew before dampeners could fully nullify the forces imparted into the ship. While seemingly senseless the action provided valuable information regarding the strength of their opponents and allowed them to determine when they could take hits. While other options were available and capable of ascertaining the same information with far less risk to a very complex and very valuable ship, this was by far the fastest and crews of void ships tend to value speed over all else. And finally, the void ships began the process to fire their iconoclast cannons.
For the moment the void ships were content to keep moderate distance while the bulk of the bioships moved in. Bioships which even now began to dump their remaining fuel for every bit of acceleration they could manage for their attack run.
Around Rubikon II the roles were slightly reversed as Void ships now engaged the allied forces while the bioships played catch up. Despite this the bioships remained the focus of the allies attack. Whether due to the void ships diminutive size compared to other imperial vessels or to there being only ten of them didn’t much matter. Except it meant that they were being ignored in favor of trash and this insult simply would not be allowed to go unanswered. The ships’ primary weapon began the arduous firing process, but this would be a surprise for later. For the moment ships brought themselves to combat speed and scattered to throw off the imminent retaliation. Shield disruptors were fired against the IRS forces arrayed before them. Thanks to the difference in numbers the void ships focused on only three to four ships at a time, aiming for the Orenstar dreadnoughts exclusively. As they worked on bring down shields in a conventional manner the crews all agreed to an additional and unconventional way to bring down enemy shields and do significant damage at the same time. By taking advantage of the debris left scattered about. The debris left floating in the dead of space. The unshielded debris. Conversion cannons fired, turning chunks of former defense platforms and ships and the occasional frozen corpse into what were effectively nukes. Whether these were close enough to actually cause any direct damage to vessels was irrelevant. Mostly. Targeting debris that would guarantee a hit was prioritized but simply causing the IRS to become worried about inert debris, and potentially splitting their focus was more than enough. Plus the explosions were pretty.
The bioships around Rubikon II had likewise sent the lesser bioweapons ahead to screen for the larger creatures. The nukes were either shredded when they entered the swarm or forced to detonate. The lesser bioweapons caught in the blast radius of the nukes were vaporized near instantly. Those outside found themselves bathed in radiation, briefly supercharging their metabolisms allowing them to more reliably intercept the nukes, creating a vicious cycle. The continual barrage did significant damage to the lesser’s numbers and a few of the penetrating plasma missiles were able to strike their intended targets. Though with questionable results. The plasma sheathe did little to help penetrate the chitinous shells of the bioweapons and resulted in the missile detonating on the ships’ shell rather than inside their body. The warheads still proved plenty effective even without internal detonation and bioships hit were either crippled to the point of being useless or killed outright. Railgun fire proved less effective as the hyperspatial fields were in full effect here as well. Even then, hits where absorbed by the bioships’ shells and their considerable mass. Repeated hits were rare leaving plenty of time for damage to heal and for the fragmented rail gun shells to begin being incorporated into the ships’ structure. This would soon change as the swarm of lesser bioweapons was being quickly depleted, which will leave the bioships only their hyperspatial fields to protect them. And as the distance between the IRS and bioships close, the effectiveness of that field will begin to drop drastically.
Captain Oon watched with interest as the Inquisition interceptors launched their missiles at the Blinkers. Figuring he should contribute at least a little he gave a very vague order, ”Deploy appropriate drones to intercept those.”
The order wasn’t for the crew, they wouldn’t respond quickly enough and time was essential in this moment. C.C.O.B.A.L. responded immediately, deploying a collection of fighter and bomber drones, some of which immediately launched their own missiles to intercept the Inquisition’s own. While nowhere near as quick, the imperial missiles didn’t need to be, as they had a much shorter distance to cover. Both missile and drone moved to place themselves between the Blinkers and the Inquisition’s attack.
Nodding at the action taken Oon commented, ”Good. Good. It would prove disastrous if one of those hit our precious cargo. Better safe than sorry and all that nonsense.” Casting a glance at the Thyron sitting in the command throne, he asked, ”Got that?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it. REAL clever of you. REAL subtle. I ALMOST didn’t notice.”
”That’s why I’m the captain.”
"59th KBBA Heavy Blinker Division has finished fueling up and is loaded for bear on your position, brother."
Just after the arrival of the message, the first of the nine blinkers finally succumbed to battle damage. There was no singular kill shot that brought down the heavy Axiomatic warship; instead it was simply the structural stress of trying to keep up with the maneuver that brought the heavily damaged hull beyond its fracture point and the whole hull snapped in half like a toothpick. Both halves remained attached by a large strand of shredded tendon, causing the ship to buckle up and crash in on itself, destroying its multitude of antenna-like engines and leaving it stranded. Blinker Saphenal was out of combat, crippled both physically and mentally by the sheer ammount of firepower that had been directed at them throughout the battle.
"Please inform them that we appreciate the relief force, and wish them the best. We have waited this moment for a long time."
Blinker Axillar was next, also succumbing to internal damage rather than a particular shot. With its radiators completely shot off, it was incapable of disposing the trmeendous heat that running the pion batteries, interdictors, normalizers and tau field generators at once. Its interior had simply melted, leaving nothing but a husk of a Blinker full of molten metal and manned by whatever little compartments had managed to keep their life support within tolerable levels. With two of them gone the remaining seven's CIWS coverage began thinning out and soon a third casualty had been reported, Blinker Cephalus struck by missiles and mission-killed in the middle of the battle. While the Immortal Empire's defensive fire was near overwhelming, previous battle damage as well as the natural fragility of blinkers had already done most of the job. Incapable of using their scalar antennae to wipe out the volleys of missiles directed at them, the blinkers instead attempted to sweep their neutralino accelerators to little effect.
Blinkers Aorta and Jugular were felled next by fleet fire. One of them had also overheated while the other vaporized in a gravitic containment breach. For the first time, the guns of the Blinker Fleet had been silenced and the Axiomatic vessels decidedly defeated to the point of no longer being capable of carrying out perations. Not only had they lost over half of their flotilla but most of the destroyed blinkers were still structurally in one piece, making them risky targets for enemy capture. No longer posessing enough firepower to try and evacuate the battlefield on their own, the remaining four blinkers decelerated and attempted to link-up with the destroyed ships. The survivors were themselves quite battered, only about a fourth of their neutralino batteries remained operational. Aware of this, the four surviving Blinkers joined up in a tight defensive formation in order to offer up a tempting target for an AGA saturation strike, preferring to be outright anhilated than risk the capture of their dying brethren.
As the Capitol and Triarch fleets accelerated out of range, the Nuclean fleet was now free to focus completely on the Immortal Empire bioships and voidships approaching them. Detailed scans had been performed during their approach and continued to occur even now, assessing the combat effectiveness of each object and prioritizing them accordingly. The first order of business was of course the approaching bioships, as they were closest and more numerous, although small and not as threatening individually as a warship. The 75 generation 3 supercruisers and battleships within the fleet now rotated using their RCS, aiming their bow spinal guns at the bioships and firing their space-time weapons in explosion mode, creating large spheres of spatial-shear within the ranks of the swarms. Accompanying this were the invisible but deadly beams of the phased array point defense systems, pinpoint slicing and outright vaporizing targets extremely rapidly with hundreds of thousands of beams per ship. For the fast approaching voidships, antiship Lance missiles flew forth behind the GM cannon fire as before. However now, the offensive matterconverter arrays of each ship now targeted the voidships, acting like NFD weaponry as they started to suppress the electromagetic and strong forces within the hulls of their targets, with the goal of causing them to simply fall apart into atoms and fine dust.
Meanwhile, aboard the DRNS-Solai, Captain Taravis peered at the changing battle data. The enemy was no longer pressing his taskforce element which to him seemed somewhat off. Had the Auraxii maintained their attack on the same front they might have broken through but no, they appeared to be turning to face his force’s relatively fresh right flank. Somewhere off to the Captain’s left in the command information center a crewman operating a sensor terminal issued a report to the executive officer, Commander Ujarak. “Sir, I’m detecting power fluctuations in their shields it seems like they are shifting their shields power to their frontal arc.” XO Ujarak looked at the crewman quizzically as he undoubtedly realized what it meant and turned to Captain Taravis and gestured to get the Captain’s attention. “Looks like these assholes are going to try a break out elsewhere.” Captain Taravis nodded in agreement as the enemy started to deploy smaller craft ahead of their move. It was strange to behold as it occurred over at least a half of an astronomical unit of space, but the Auraxii maneuver opened new options for the Dominion’s forces. Captain Taravis nodded to the XO, issuing an order that needed no real words; both men knew what had to be done and Commander Ujarak was issuing orders to all flight commands to launch everything but critical reserves to attack the wall of small craft being used by the enemy. At the same time Captain Taravis issued a set of orders for several segments of the battle line. The Dominion’s now un-engaged task force elements would tighten the noose around the Auraxii by advancing on the enemy’s newly exposed rear. With the primary orders issued, Captain Taravis opened a direct communications line to Captain Olouchi’s forces. “Captain, I have a special set of orders for you, As the line advances I want you to use those Camden class assault ships you’ve held in reserve to bring down this target right here.” Captain Taravis marked a specific vessel in the Auraxii force at the center of the formation. “Use maximum yield warheads, cause as much chaos and destruction as is possible, get in take that out and run for it unless a new target of opportunity presents itself….”
The Dominion’s batter but intact forces began their counter to the enemy’s maneuver while the line of reserves held their ground against an enemy force with dwindling numbers and options. The enemy’s attack had already claimed its first victims, the enemy’s renewed assault cut through the ranks of corvettes and frigates first as vessels exploded violently giving off bright EM radiation flares as their hyperfield drives released all the stored energy in their cores effectively vaporizing most of the vessels in question. The Dominion’s navy was used to the risk of core detonations as an accepted part of operations but the enemy probably was not. The explosions were brief, and utterly deadly to the crews as the ships would be for the most part vaporized leaving small amounts of ejected debris. The Auraxii for all their prowess had neglected to target the Dominion’s remaining three operational carriers and this would cost them as each launched an entire wave of craft to disrupt what the enemy was planning. It was amidst this that the fighters and small craft bounded through to assail the enemy’s wall of “chaff” from in front, the sides, above and below. To further compound the problem, the Auraxii had also ignored the three Starslayer class point defense cruisers which made that mistake known by applying a deadly triangle of fire against the “chaff-wall” in advance of Dominion fighters arriving to directly engage it. In one single vector though the lone Otun Class superiority cruiser found itself targeted and attempted evasive maneuvers which only was partially successful, the vessel did succeed in turning so that it was facing with it’s bow towards the enemy before it’s engines were knocked offline. The command of the vessel had the presence of mind to deploy its internally docked corvettes and assault dropships as well as it’s available fighters and combat-capable small craft as a protective screen. Despite this the ship suffered several more hits that degraded its individual combat capability when primary power went offline and for the briefest of moments the entire ship’s interior was plunged into darkness before the auxiliary battery system kicked online restoring limited functionality. For now, it was a race against time, the Damage control teams aboard the vessel raced to restore power before the enemy could capitalize on what had already occurred. Elsewhere a pack of ten Camden class marauder frigates darted out ahead of the Dominion’s line advance against the rear of the Auraxii formation with sub-light engines to maximum the craft engaged ECM and every countermeasure they had against being targeted and engaged before the element of surprise was lost. The Camden Class Frigates would find the target and attack it from four sides, left, right, above and below with weapons that belonged on a much larger vessel. Someone’s day was about to become very awful.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 16:37:57 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
"Everything we have, every warhead, every round, I want it in that mass now!" "Fire, fire, fire, all warheads!" "Full power to weapons, all spinals fire at will!"
The Restevian main fleet still burned for Rubikon II, a desperate race against time to intercept the Immortal Empire's mass heading for the planet. The RSC support squadron fired like mad, maneuvering to get as clear as they were able from the bioships heading towards them, but with their small number they and the IRS were going to be totally overwhelmed unless the main fleet reached them in time.
And that was exactly what the main fleet was trying to do. Reactors and engines were pushed to strain their very welds and joins as the engineers of the warships fought to get every joule and particle of thrust out of them, theoretical limits and safety warnings be damned. All the while cannons and missiles tubes continued to loose long, streaming barrages of fire. Shells were almost slower than the warships firing them for some, missiles leaving behind glowing trails of exhaust now as the launchers were given scant time if any to cool between reloads. Fusion warheads, thermonuclears, plasmas. every single type of warhead that the fleet had was being loaded and fired into the Immortal Empire's swarm as they advanced, the resulting lightshow almost beautiful if not for it's purpose and the skittering, chittering horde it was flung against.
Spinal railguns joined now in the barrage as well, great flashes of light bursting from the ships that had the angle on the enemy as the slugs of metal accelerated to so much of lightspeed flashed out in trails of plasma for the enemy. So much power was being used in these warships that the lights dimmed and oxygen masks were donned, but they charged on into the fray, to save their allies over Rubikon II and to halt the swarm, if it was possible. If not, they would get between their allies and the swarm, and they would show the IE how Restevian warriors fought and died.
Xa'vil's fleet have once again intercepted the Separatist Union's Plasma missiles with the cluster missiles and ADS defenses, despite the defenses some of the ships got hit by the plasma missiles with minor damage or shield collapsed. While the Sep. Union were hopeful being bait for a while longer the D.N.A. hunter killer fleet has other plans back at Rubikon II. Xe'vil have receive word from Albus that the Immortal Empire's bio-fleet along with remnants of the Justicar fleet have started their counter-attack on the Joint-fleet holding orbit over Rubikon II, so she has order her fleet to fall back to Rubikon II at full speed, but without leave a gift for the retreating Sep. Union fleet. Before falling back the hunter killer fleet threw one last barrage with any main guns and missiles that at are still in range of the Sep. Union, once it's done the fleet head back to Rubikon II at full speed to support their allies.
Fleet Captain Albus and his fleet are pelted by combine barrage of the IE's Bio-Ships and Justicar's ships with losing 23% of the fleet being either destroyed or reduced to twisted space hulks. The still standing remaining D.N.A. fleet unleashed a full barrage after barrage on both fleet in retaliation while changing formation of avoid any more fire from the two joint-APP supporters fleet. Thank to Albus' order some of Scatter Missiles and Havoc Missiles have been equipped with Bio-Chemical vials to be used on the Bio-Ships, once they been hit the Bio-Chemical start to rapidly decay the bio-ships around the impact zone, like if time has gone by them, with each more missile with Bio-Chemical vials hitting the same IE's bio-ships the faster the decay will happen resulting in their unavoidable and painful deaths.
The Union fleet was now only down to several hundred vessels and along with the Eramons and Nucleans most vessels were at least damaged in some way shape or form to varying degrees. Despite this however they would still face the IE fleet head on. The group shield was kept raised, albeit a great deal smaller than before only managing to cover the Union force and sadly not the two other allies for risk of overextension, while debris from the now quite widely moving wrecks of orbital platforms were broken down and thrown in front of the fleet by the Chakram class battlecruisers creating a particulate barrier both to absorb the incoming enemy munitions and to cause massive collision damage to any of the smaller bio forms who tried to push through it.
With long range shots having gone wildly off course Volkus recalculated the situation, the strange field they were part of was similar in nature to Triarchs defraction shields but much more offensive in nature, meaning conventional munitions would likely be thrown off. Ordering the Mass drivers to switch to flak rounds was the real hope of thinning out the swarm as well as launched BPLs. Space once again filled with thousands of explosions each sending out submunitions to also explode, blanketing the bio fleet in an attempt to cut their numbers massively while the BPLs targetted the void ships along with Meson laser fire, instead of focusing their explosive power across thousands of laser apetures the BPLs targeted singular void ships focusing all their power into one short lived laser. Those ships that still had the capability also fired Spearhead drones and Force dissapators at the Void ships with the drones rapid manuverability and targetting aiming to keep up with the foes speed.
---
The attack craft sent by the Union to help the Annolidian craft had used the sheets of debris covering the orbital lanes to get close without risking Scalar fire, breaking out from behind cover they unleashed their missiles not at the crippled Blinkers but instead at the Capitol and Triarch vessels surrounding them all being battered and near to total destruction. The craft then peeled away avoiding return fire or pursuit by APP or IE craft as they rushed back into the debris belts that silently hung around Rubikon Prime, the last remnants of the orbital defense grid that had once hung there.
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"Fleet Captain incoming priority message from HICOM" The coms officer called out as the Concordia rocked again from weapons fire.
"What is it? Put it through to my personal link" Volkus commanded as he began to scan the heavily encrypted text message only. He raised an eyebrow in surprise then nodded to himself, and re sent a message to the rest of the AGA fleets, relaying it through the Annointed psionic coms.
"This is Fleet Captain Volkus, we have just recieved word that the Auraxii Confederacy has initiated a ceasefire with the AGA and will be withdrawing from the battle, proper negotiations are underway and Auraxii forces are now considered non hostile. Any that do not leave the battle and continue to engage are still considered a threat, we can thank our Artifician brothers for this move. Volkus out"
The Eramon force acknolwedged the message, having formed up on the Unions flank they kept their attack craft out as a screen, drone fighters leapt to engage the bio swarm with what missiles and weapons they had available. With the Eramon fleet lacking in heavy firepower they more than made up for it in sheer numbers, Devastator cannons opened up on the swarm with entire fussilades of plasma fire and lasers while Multi Axial laser arrays engaged the Void ships at range along with powerful Graviton cannons. Just like the Union force several vessels were destroyed by long range Iconoclast cannon fire punching through hulls of ships who had lost shields and been heavily damaged.
Vilrik allowed himself a smile as the first blinker broke in half. The Annoliddan ships, along with sacrifices from multiple allies, had succeeded in taking down a high value target. As the other Axiomatic ships began failing, the remaining Inquisition ships in the melee began freely engaging Immortal Empire and Capitol ships in range. This was an act in futility, and the pilots and crew knew this. They knew that extraction was nigh impossible, and creating what little chaos they could was a far better way to go than letting themselves simply perish.
As for the remaining Inquisition capital ships -cut down to a mere 2 dreadnoughts, 3 battleships, 7 battlecruisers, 17 cruisers, and a handful of fighters and support craft from the combined fire of APP forces-, the remaining fleet now took a fully defensive formation and slowly moved away from Rubikon Prime. Inquisitor Vilrik gave out an order to his meager fleet:
"All ships, fall back and ready jump to FTL. Those who cannot, cover our retreat."
He then responded over psi-comms to Volkus and the rest of the AGA commanders. "Affirmative. Due to significant losses, we are readying to retreat from the system. However, we shall remain until the 'primary target' is eliminated. Vilrik out."
Several Annoliddan ships, including one of the dreadnoughts, halted their retreat as their damage prevented a timely jump to FTL impossible. They continued to fire every cannon, missile, and maser they could however. Similarly to the surviving fighters', they continued to fight despite their defeat and deaths being a certainty.
4 Orenstar Dreadnoughts disappeared in a flash of white before exploding into pieces. The remains of the meager IRS fleet, bombarded with debris that were effectively nukes thanks to the voidships' conversion cannons. Many tried to evade, but as the converted debris saturated the area such efforts became futile as even the smallest bolt and screw dealt significant damage to their hulls. Small explosions pummeled both cruisers and battleships alike, the smaller warship classes quickly evaporating as their shields failed and the ongoing storm of debris nuking through their armor all the way to the very core of their being. The bigger battleships, battlecarriers and dreadnoughts that remained could withstand more damage and eventually brought up their more powerful close range weapons to deal with the converted debris - but now as they were distracted they soon will have deal with the bioships that were rapidly closing in.
Razael sat in his chair, frozen and blank in expression. He had expected his missile barrage to work; it had failed. The biological forms were more durable than he, and the limited sensors of IRS ships, could estimate. And now his forces were almost no more. His Orenstar and another, 15 battleships, 10 battlecruisers, 20 Temujins and 20 Hammer-class cruisers were all that was left, a majority of them suffering heavy crew casualties, severe manpower shortages as a result and significantly reduced capability as a result of heavy damages.
This might be it. The end. Razael could picture the white light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. He had fought well, but that would never wipe away the fact that millions of the Republic's children had died on his watch, and after this battle the Republic would be reeling from the massive losses as a result of his decisions.
"General Jaman, I have failed to stop the IE ships from reaching Rubikon II. With what I have, I will buy time and the Temujins will redeploy to give you covering fire. But you must quickly deploy whatever you can for the boys below now!" Razael barked.
"The rest of us. This is it. I am sorry that it has to end like this, but let's make this count," Razael continued in the fleetwide intercom. "If these motherfuckers want to fight let's give them a fight."
"Temujin teams hang back and give us long-range fire. Focus your neutron cannons on the bioships. Rest of us, scatter and strafe the enemy! Give them everything we got!"
The meager IRS forces that remained immediately scattered and on a full burn, sharply arced towards the voidships' flanks strafing them with plasma-sheathed triple-alpha nuclear rounds, gamma lasers and relativistic nuclear railgun shells. The Temujin destroyed continued to back away, slicing and melting away at the bioships with their maser cannons and spinal-mounted neutron accelerators.
"Copy footage and readouts of those blinker deaths," Raztae shouted into the CIC, "And hold off on the Zerstoren jump! Make sure they remain on standby, but don't waste their momentum on just three Blinkers..." He carried off. All of these forces left under his command, and not much as far as his allies went. He was about to paint a big red radiotracer target on his back.
"Barring previous, begin attack."
The spinal collimated scalar lasers of the Blinkerzwillen lanced out, three thin beams from each ship spearing in sequence straight for the shells that had just been fired by the turreted guns of the fleet. These, in turn, flowered open. The fifteen reflectors bounced the beams, scattering them into waves in the process, into the major groupings of the APP; ten supported the Annointed attack on the Triarch and Capitol formation, while five raked the forces of the same two nations that supported the remaining Axiomatic forces. The lighter force of the Carnaithian naval elements in-system maintained their building momentum, beelining for the Blinkers and the forces supporting them under cover of thin scalar waves. Solaris globules were formed about the ships as guns began opening up, most notably the spinal armaments of the Phoenix-class battlecruisers, lining up best they could to dig through the most total tonnage of the Axiomatic craft possible. In sequence, the Sickle-class destroyers of the group forced their drives into overtime, compensating for the massive launches taking place on their dorsal surfaces, kilometer-long munitions silently thundering away from their motherships shortly after being magnetically hurled out of their silos. A hundred of these made their distance from the destroyers and burst, letting loose a swarm of varied submunitions of their own. Warheads, nuclear shaped charge howitzers, and bomb-pumped lasers took up supporting formations to slaughter the screening force, bomb-pumped lasers poised to lash out at any missiles launched in return. As for the rest of the light forces' armament? Sporadic bursts of varied calibers of EMACCS shot forth, striking targets of opportunity as the fleet awaited results from the submunition swarms.
The heavy force, meanwhile, attacked the larger force of Capitol and Triarch ships from afar, supporting the pressure let upon them by the Annointed. Their own solaris having been pumped some time ago, they immediately let loose wave after wave of spinal fire, supported by similar waves of missile launches. Even more for pressure were the drone fighters, launched in droves from the Syphoner-class vessels. A magnetic catapult throwing them clear of the ship, just below the speed of the battleship spinals, followed by rapid acceleration, taking them above such speed, and then rapid deceleration as they flung huge kinetic torpedoes - now at incredibly high velocity - towards the enemy formations before returning to the carrier. Exo-atmospheric escorts, however, patrolled some distance between the furthest extant of fighter-bomber flight and the enemy, serving as an advance screen of defense.
"Battlespace, sitrep on the Zerstoren?"
"Approaching zero-point-eight c, sir."
"Keep them accelerating. AI one, projections for effect of IE actions against AGA forces?"
"Uncertain. AGA fleet performance too inconsistent in combat history." A laugh was had around the CIC, a brief respite before responses were made to the Carnaithian actions.
"Keep calculating then. Keep me posted."
"I always do. Adjustment - factoring in First Ancerious War efficienc-"
"On the screen, please."
The main bulk of the Annointed fleet finally closed within what was considered effective combat range, the lighter ships accelerated in short bursts pulling ahead of their larger cousins as the first scattered shots of the joint fleet before them hit home, faced with what could only be described as underwhelming fire power in the face of the massed fleets myriad defences the vessels powered through the fullisade in a storm of flashing psi shield and the brilliant orange glow of defensive nuclear missile volleys with the barest of damage.
Now tearing through the rounds let off during the psi attack the fleet found itself able to focus on what the Annointed loved most, offence, the initial stages of the fleets attack began as a horrifying amount of tungsten was magnetically launched into space in thick clouds, the ball bearing sized chunks would surely be ineffective at these ranges after all how was one to guide them? any doubts were quickly curbed as the multitude of spinals all across the fleet launched their enormous kilometre long slugs in a mix of sensor rounds, grav shot, missile platforms and shield vents.
The spinal weapons propelled their payload much quicker than the smaller tungsten shotguns and the huge rounds quickly caught up, the first to arrive were the grav slugs their enormous rails of gravity manipulation devices dragging the tungsten shot along and accelerating it too its own relativistic speed even as they slowed very slightly to allow the shield veins to pass, glorious petals of purple energy burst free of the otherwise unassuming munitions screening the mass of munitions from intercepting fire, behind the aegis of psionic shielding, the sensor slugs caught up too and linked with the other large shots providing them with much more precise readouts as the wave drew closer, finally the missile platforms fell in behind the shields on stand by to fire bomb pumped lasers into missile swarms and fighter squadrons that attempted to intercept the cyclopean demi fleet of tungsten now closing with the combined APP reinforcements.
Of course this only accounted for the four hundred vessels of the military fleet, the church was yet to speak.
The white and gold monoliths of the Faith opened like august flowers to reveal enormous banks of cylindrical tubes, contained within each a three cylinder rotating magazine stocked with missiles, in a mass launch powerful enough to decelerate the mighty ships missiles were unloaded in their millions, the magazine would rotate and another salvo would pull free and another before even the now empty magazines were launched as kinetic kill vehicles guided telekinetically by their firing ship, the void those mags left in the tubes was filled in seconds as another dropped in to take its place repeating the process all over agin.
Next to the mighty swarm of missiles flew golden beams of iridescent light, conversion beamers in their millions lit the void as they arced at light speed toward their targets bending and curving to follow the enemy vessels like dogs onto prey.
The timing on the salvos had been perfect, first the tungsten heavy fullisade from the military would arrive eating up CIWS fire and damaging shields, precisely one point four seconds after the last ball bearing struck the missiles would arrive having hidden in the slugs shadows for safety until the last possible moment the equal mixture of kinetic missiles and telekinetic disintegration bombs focusing mainly on larger ships and stil shielded vessels, last to arrive would be the conversion beamers, their effectiveness spiking as the last two waves downed shields leaving ineffectual armour as the only non obstacle in the beams way.
And beside all this flew the disgorged masses of the Annointeds fighter-bomber sqaudrons, carriers ranging from one hundred and twenty to two hundred and ninety kilometres in length dumped more strike craft into space than some planets had people as they took up the job of escorting the salvos in before splitting off to hunt smaller ships that found themselves bereft of their shields with conversion beamers and telekinetic disintegrators.
Agamo knew this was going to be over real shortly. As the Carnaithian barrage came in the bridge was already in a frantic dissarray of directing damage control and constant feeds of data reporting APP losses. While the AGA had been bled dry here Agamo knew they simply did not have the forces to hold this system right now, he was contemplating withdrawal, despite the IE arrival, but he held off the Auraxii reinforcements would be here to turn the tide. The internal conflict he was having however did nothing to save his actual situation.
With the Blinkers mainly brought low and his force now cosisting of 16 vessels and another 13 Triarch vessels all cripplingly damaged the incoming Carnaithian fire wailed over sensors, despite the Immortal Empire coverage it was not enough. Agamo gave the order to abandon ship just as the flurry of fire hit. Damaged and crippled vessels exploded all around him, filling space with even more shrapnel as they unshielded vessels were torn apart. Escape pods launched in the ensuing frenzy quickly blasting free of the debris. Agamo stayed, directing crewmen to the pods as his died around him, systems overloaded, sections were vented into space and more as laser and EMACC fire tore the High Emperor Mk.3 apart. Even as Agamo entered one of the pods he placed his hand on the ships hull.
"Thank you for your service" He uttered before the doors closed and the pod launched. He knew full well if he had been in a MK.2 he would have died much earlier in the battle, as the pod now pushed away, linking up with the others and heading for the planet before them Agamo watched the last of his fleet die. He would play no more part in this battle but he would fight again, he would avenge those who had fallen here.
----
The Justicar fleet, also reduced now to a handful of vessels used the bio ships as a shield. The remaining dreadnought several carriers and a group of destroyers used the Immortal Empire fleet to dive right into the DNA formation, aiming to push aside screening vessels and punch for the flagship. Sensor data was analysed and the Justicars quickly pointed out the flagship of the DNA fleet from the crossing data links. All vessels ignited their drives as hard as they would go, weapons clearing a way as they came. Whatever attack craft were left now launched, clearing missiles and fighters.
It was a last move, the Justicar fleet aimed to ram the DNA flagship, and even if the ships were reduced to blazing hulks their mass would more than do enough to seal the enemies fate.
---- The Triarch shields, suddenly not working against the grav assisted weaponry flashed bright as the Annointed force opened fire, and added to the sudden additional barrage by the Carnaithian fleet collapsed. The joint Triarch and Capitol reinforcement force tried to disengage, pushing their drives harder to try get away from the current engagement, they were simply totally out matched and outgunned. Squadrons of ships exploded, Capitol vessels that had some control over their actions followed the Triarch vessels to try get away, those that were still under assault from the gestalts simply died. Conversion beam fire, relativistic kinetic slugs and missiles tore them apart. Some survived longer, automatic defenses intercepting incoming rounds as Tachyon shields briefly jumped across ships, negating conversion and relativistic fire into powerful detonations. The heart was torn out of the Capitol fleet, of the 501 vessels that had survived the Plasma coil strike from the Capitol fleet only 156 now continued, they fired back in rage. Tachyon Arrows overcharging as they targetted the Annointed large vessels, while railguns and any remaining missiles were fired in desperation.
The Triarch fleet fared little better. With their primary defensive measures overcome by stratergy and clever application of technology there was little they could do to try weather the barrage alongside the Capitol fleet. Nearly 500 Triarch vessels had survived the Plasma Coil strike, taking the brunt of the damage and now they were reduced to a mere shadow of 232 vessels. The rest were struck from the void, the Carnaithian barrage alongside the Annointeds own rapid strike kept the defensive systems overwhelmed, BPLs and Solaris annihilated heavy vessels while conversion beamers merely vapourised escort ships as the reinforcement fleet was smashed apart from the wrath of two AGA fleets, outnumbered, outgunned and totally outmanuvered the reinforcement fleet was scattered.
The survivors now a mere 380 odd vessels now continued to push their drives to the limit, hoping to escape the AGA attack and get away from weapons range. But as the Annointed attack craft rapidly continued to keep pace the remaining Triarch ships began bombarding them with flak rounds, using their proton cannons and lasers to pepper the Annointed large vessels alongside the Capitol barrage.
The shipmaster saw the situation before him. He had made the mistake of opening his flank while trying to break out. The damage sustained during the attempt was absolute. "All ships.." He took a deep sigh. "All ships stand down. Strike colours and broadcast truce.." As his own ship was barely crawling along, the last strikes had cut swathes through the fleet. Drust opened a single channel to the foe. "This is Admiral Drust of the Auraxii Commonwealth.. we hereby request a.. ceasefire. We have stricken our colours and request passage out."
The space-time explosions used by the Nucleans where warped and twisted by the hyperspatial field, minimizing the number of bioships killed. Only 112 of the swarm ships lost their lives. The combined firepower of the AGA fleet had all but exhausted the lesser bioweapon screen, cutting their number down to less than half and leaving the bioships open to attack. It also allowed the bioships clear targeting paths to the AGA combined fleet. And so the organic plasma cannons opened fire, a thousand times a thousand plasma bolts flew across the expanse. Amongst them the empire’s latest advancements in biological weaponry, the bio-organic resonate thermal cannon, joined in with power roughly equivalent to a gamma laser.
As they continued to close the distance, debris and flak began to pepper and shred the outer shells of the bioships. For the moment the flak did little more than irritate the larger bioships with most damage dealt to them when a plasma cannon was killed. Given time they would eventually be worn down to little more than pulp, but time was not on the AGA’s time as the bioships came ever closer. The more potent firepower from the Eramons and Nucleans caused more damage to individual bioships whenever they managed to hit any through the hyperspatial field.
The force of ninety void ships were proving why they are regarded as an elite force within the Immortal Empire. All twenty crewmembers of each ship were linked and they reacted as one, moved as one, thought as one. While this stripped away any individuality, something that those from Region 11 valued greatly, it allowed the ships to react organically to threats. Very few of the BPLs launched by Union forces actually connected as the lasers were twisted around and away from the ships. Those that did hit were intercepted by force fields which, while not strong enough to outright stop them, stole enough of the lasers’ strength to allow for the ships’ shielding to absorb the beams. Communication between ships was impeccable, resulting in near perfect teamwork. This was proved as ships turned about themselves to bring missiles and spearhead drones into a crossfire of particle cannon point defenses. Debris and flak were likewise intercepted by the ships’ point defenses. The most effective attack was the matterconverter arrays used by the Nucleans, though they too hit a particularly potent snag. They were only able to strip away the upper layer of circuitry smart armor as the rest of the ship was constructed using HC-5 matter, something that was highly resistant to any form of manipulation.
Not eager to simply be shot at the void ships scattered, forming a ring around the swarm. The Iconoclast cannons were nearly primed, the golden sheathe covering the front of the firing aperture glowed a brilliant white as excess heat was bled off. The twisting paths of the hyperspatial field were calculated and recalculated to ensure that the cannons would remain accurate. Once all preparations had been completed the cannons fired and the ships suddenly halted as the massive forces generated arrested their momentum and nearly tore the ship apart. Their thrust nacelles spread open to form an ‘X’ as they struggled to bring the ship back under control before the ships twisted and took off, flying away from the AGA fleet before turning again to loop back on them. The projectiles sped forth at just under the speed of light, leaving a trailing cloud of charged proto-matter in their wake, which decayed in flashes of brilliant light. While devastating weapons, their very low rate of fire necessitated that only the most dangerous enemy ships were targeted. The 75 Nuclean supercuisers and battleships, 2 Union Dreadnoughts, and 13 Eramon Battleships were deemed such and became the focus of the attack.
Meanwhile, near Rubikon II. The void ships’ attack against the IRS stopped as they broke off, looping around the bioship swarm they began to charge straight at the RSC relief forces closing in.
Just as with the swarm near Rubikon I, the screening bioweapons had been whittled down to less than half their original number and now the bioships were free to open fire on the forces above the planet. In additionthey sent a continual barrage of plasma bolts back towards the advancing RSC. But with the screening bioweapons thinned out, the bioships could now be fired on in return. IRS particle beams raked across chitonous shells, cutting deep gouges and spilling fluid and lesser bioweapons into the vacuum. Much to the dismay of the DNA, their biochemical attack proved less than effective, as what effect it did have was quickly contained by defenses engineered into the bioships genetic make-up. The contamination was sealed as the surrounding flesh crystalized around it so that the compounds could be safely deconstructed and adapted to. Bioships were being killed at a steady rate, though it was obvious they would reach the planet, and in turn the ships above it, within minutes.
The ten void ships swooped down, placing themselves between the RSC fleet and the bioships. The iconoclast cannons were ready and fired, bringing the ships to a halt before they could twisted out and away from the rapidly approaching Restevian attack. The cannons were focused on the Teshran class dreadnoughts.
Captain Oon busied himself with defending the factory ship with the system defender class ships running interference. With their smaller size and lighter armament they exceled at bringing down any fighters or bombers that dared too close to imperial forces. Though their size meant that they were also far more vulnerable and were even now beginning to suffer damage. Oon was careful to only engage in defensive actions as his forces were too limited for him to even think of directly engaging the AGA forces in open conflict. Plus he had civilian contractors to protect. PLUS he had ships that lacked hyperdrives, and without a tug or warp gate those ships were stuck in the system. And since we wasn’t about to just leave imperial equipment or personnel behind for the AGA to capture he was also stuck in this system.
Despite their grandiose nature, the Blinkers of the 59th KBBA Heavy Blinker Division could do nothing but simply die with defiance. Neutralino beams disregarded the incoming munitions entirely knowing that what weapons they did have were better used in making the enemy bleed, invisible particles were shot directly into the path of the Carnaithian light naval elements, targetting the phoenix battlecruisers and other CIC ships that directed the efforts. It was a meagre response at best, with most of their weapon systems taken out and the Scalar emitters all but destroyed the Blinkers all but stood their ground, dying with the rest of their screen.
Massive munitions and lasers, alongside nuclear shaped charges and EMACCs hit again and again, shattering the tough superplastics of the fragile blinkers frames, creating shrapnel storms of immense size which in turn tore sections of the other blinkers apart. It was over in moments as the last of the majestic starships ceased function. But not before a signal was sent from the last blinker to die.
Blinker Brachial witnessed the destruction of its brothers and those of the APP who had screened the 59th KBBA Heavy Blinker Division and was immsnesely saddened by such heroic efforts being wasted. As the Blinker was torn to shreds by a kilometre long munition ploughing through its slender form it relayed two messages one to the APP forces in system and the other to the Axiomatic Blinker fleet.
"Honoured friends of Rubikon. We graciously thank you with the fibre of our beings for the help and protection you have offered us. We merely regret that our meagre power was not enough to help turn the tide. You will all be known as heros to those of the Syntagma, but fear not warriors of Rubikon help is on the wa-" The message was cut short as the munition tore through Brachials core, gutting the Blinker utterly. The debris and resulting gravitic containment breach vapourised Brachials form, and pulversized even more the Blinker wrecks surrounding it. There would be minimum to salvage here, but the message was sent, the Axioms would not stand idly by.
"The void ships are breaking off their attack!"
"Leave them be and mark their positions on the allied battle network with urgent tags! The bioships are a priority! They must not reach the planet surface!" Razael shouted, slightly frantic, as his Dreadnought twisted, turned and spun around the IE fleet in an attempt to strafe them with whatever we have left.
The Fleet Admiral began marking out the bioships and placing virtual markers on them; each calling for a strike and the type of weapon to carry out that strike. The nearest bioships to the planet was targeted first with whatever heavy weapons were left. Relativistic thermonuclear railguns, neutron beams and large meson lasers were directed onto them, hoping that they were powerful enough to stop the advance. Razael's dreadnought also charged up its Nova Particle cannon and fired it at the largest bioship in the fleet, banking on sheer radiation of the exotic particles' decay to burn and vapourise its armor and flesh.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 16:38:09 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
Order's Conductor shook as the iconolast cannon shot aimed at it struck the hull, as similar situations occurred with the other 74 vessels that had been targeted. Serran barked orders left and right, as the Generation 2 battleships and supercruisers ceased firing their spinal space-time explosion guns, directing the energy into the matterconverter repair systems in an effort to halt the disintegration effect of the protomatter, slowly at first then more rapidly stopping the ongoing damage and then starting to reverse it. While this occurred, the remains of the fleet utilized their networks to collectively process the sensor data they had been receiving so far on the hyperspatial field and its effects on both space and their weaponry. This data was then compiled into an active model that was continually updated and used to provide targeting corrections. With that done, the plasma torpedo batteries of the warships continued to fire at the bioships, utilizing their guided nature to offset the distortions from the Immortal Empire fleet with the information that had been collected. This was of course backed up by the phased array point defense systems and particle bolt turrets, as well as the offensive matterconverter arrays, which had switched focus to the bioships. GM cannon beams lanced out from all vessels, aiming for the ninety voidships, each having at least sixteen beams aimed at it. Meanwhile, fighters and gunships began to be disgorged from the hulls of the fleet, several thousand in total, which then surged forward like a swarm of angry bees towards the bioships, firing their nuclear tipped Lance missiles at each biological construct. A brief acknowledgement was broadcast to all within system of the Auraxxi ceasefire.
Volkus watched as the already heavily damaged form of the Styrtis Major detonated within the Union formation. The dreadnought, while already without shields and suffering deck damage was destroyed as the Iconoclast cannons punched into its form through slagged and damaged armour, perfect for those of the IE void fleet to exploit as the ZPM was hit, and detonated. The Concordia also took hits, but the overlapping Crenelated shields and reformed fleet shield managed to hold, bright flares of energy glaring on the edges from the impacts. The bio weapons fire also pocked the shields rapidly draining the few Nova class carriers still capable of projecting the shields. The particulate debris shields of the Chakrams proved effective enough, clumping parts of defense platforms together to absorb plasma shots, or at least rob a great deal of their force before they impacted. Still lucky shots from closer bio weapons hit home, the energy resistant Quantum lattice plate taking the brunt of the shots. Those ships that had already taken damage however suffered more, several more being reduced to drifting hulks as their crew abandoned ship.
The Union fleet changed tactic somewhat. Changing the flak munitions now that the smaller bio forms were all but gone the Mass drivers began their huge rate of fire again with barrage rounds, not the kinetic slugs but the incredibly high explosive munitions typically used in orbital bombardment, hoping to blast outer layers of armour away Meson laser barrages followed up along with Plasma cannon rounds and Force surpressors for the larger forms. Another round of BPLs were launched, the Spearhead drones that already were launched continued to engage, any that did damage merely kept engaging.
"I may have a plan... Helm I want full output from the Slipspace drive" Volkus commanded after watching the fields disrupt the BPL shots, it was mesmerising but it gave Volkus an udea.
"Sir..? We are in interdiction we cannot jump"
"I do not want to jump. Charge FTL drives and put all power to the tractor beams, I want you to manipulate them to form stabilisation corridors, large enough for some weapons fire to get through, or maybe guide certain munitions against the hyperspartial field. Can it be done?" Volkus asked. Several helms crew on the giant bridge discussed for a moment before nodding with shrugs.
"Its possible, we will try sir"
"Thats all I can ask"
The Union vessels charged their Slipspace drives, the strange energies of the drives typically powered the Unions tactor beams, space time manipulating waves that could push or pull an object. Now they were used to combat the Hyperspatial fields effects, not in massive numbers but Plasma missiles were kept on course, the rapid ridges overcome by careful guidance using the waves, while the Meson lasers were kept straight using corridors. They could only be done so on a small amount of weapons, and so the fire directed at the Void ships was tiny compared to the bio fleet, but they still fired none the less, anything was better than nothing.
---
With the Blinkers and the Capitol force around Rubikon Prime destroyed it caused a cheer in the Union fleet, with the Blinkers down it was a symbol. The attack craft quickly used the orbital debris to make their way back towards the Union fleet, thousands of Firestorm and Eagle Eyes now raced back, hoping to target the IE ships from a different angle.
---
The Eramon fleet continued to endless barrage. A never ending wall of plasma, lasers and flak which leapt out to target both the bio ships and the void ships equally as their drone fighters kept the worst of the fire away from the ships. Bombers unleashed payloads into larger bio ships as the Eramon fleet kept fighting, they would not be dissuaded with the main Rubikon Prime force dead they could focus on this current foe.
The Eramons launched a large barrage of cluster mayhem missiles. Each group of missiles were directed at each void ship. The missiles themselves constantly corrected their flight pattern, their large sizes and powerful drives helping to compensate with the spacetime distortions somewhat. The warheads were designed for proximity detonation however before impacted each missile launched 20 Spearhead drones which independantly targetted, the warhead itself being a powerful anti-matter generating munition. It was one of the weapons co-designed with the Union along with the Thor cannon. While the Eramons did not have many of such a weapon they deemed now was the time to use it.
---
The combined fire of the Bio weapon swarm and the oncoming final rush of the Justicars kept the DNA fleet busy. While defenses held against the bio swarm with the odd escort squadron falling prey to rapid fire bioplasma weapons the DNA fleet concentrated on the ramming attack which now hurtled towards them. The Justicar ships were targetted repeatedly as vessels exploded, however their wrecks kept coming. The DNA flagship a dreadnought tried to manuver out of the way but its speed and size prevented it from easily avoiding the attack.
Despite the Justicar fleet being almost entirely destroyed in its final moments one of their carriers and several destroyers impacted the DNA dreadnought. Albus was thrown about the bridge like a toy as his ship came apart, smashed to pieces by the ramas the debris from the impact scattered across the area, destroying several more DNA ships as well. Albus had survived but barely, trying to find survivors aboard his destroyed vessel and the DNA fleet had instantly switched over to Xa'vils command, although angry the DNA forces kept up their attack on the bio weapons no longer using chemical/biological weapons as they had no effect.
In the fractions of a second before the request for a ceasefire a final nail in the coffin that held the Auraxxi’s continued ability to engage was hammered in by a pack of Camden class frigates who had breached the line to hit their target with incredibly heavy firepower. Their target was a small cruiser that was showing signs of power failures and thus was unable to power its engines adequately. On any other day and had the target been in full fighting strength this might have been an interesting fistfight but for the Dominion the intention was to send a message, the Dominion could strike anywhere in the enemy fleet without hesitation or fear of reprisal. The target never quite knew what hit it as the comparatively small frigates weren’t initially seen as a threat, and then the ships opened up with bow mounted DRAIL weapons that rightly belonged on a cruiser, as they began to pass the attack was followed up with a ample precision barrage of AMP-SM missiles and then on the way out to finish the job AGML’s made the wounds created utterly fatal. As the ships peeled off at maximum sub-light the stricken cruiser detonated spewing shrapnel from it’s demise within the ranks of its allies. Mere seconds after this the request for a cease fire by Admiral Drust came through, the chaos of the battle had created a number of factors for interference and the message was punctuated by distortion and static but the Dominion’s linguistics personnel were able to get the gist of it. In truth the request was somewhat of a surprise as all the Auraxxi behavior until this point suggested they were the fight until death sort, though it was a relief to see that that the Auraxxi chose the rational option. Commander Ujarak without being instructed by the captain began issuing fleet-wide cease fire orders. The incoming fire aimed at the Auraxxi slackened within the next few seconds and finally stopped. At the same time Captain Taravis utilized a directed channel to contact the Auraxxi in text only given the localized interference. “Admiral Drust, this is Captain Taravis the Commander of all Dominion forces in the battle of Rubikon. your request for a cease fire is accepted, your forces have fought fiercely and honorably as such we offer in return a guarantee of safe conduct. We will escort you past the edge of system-wide interdiction and prevent any further attacks against your forces. After that you are free to go with no expectation of reprisals from the Dominion in the Rubikon region.” Captain Taravis left the communications link open so that the Auraxxi could respond but muted so that the Auraxxi could not hear any chatter from his bridge. There was no telling how the Auraxxi would respond to his offer but then given the savagery that had already occurred at the battle, no sane sapient species would likely refuse. As he awaited the response Captain Taravis monitored the damage reports pouring in, a vessel with plasma fires here, another losing life support others with their communications arrays dying and sputtering out repeats of the last internal or external communications, and the occasional subdued detonation marking an internal but hopefully not fatal explosion. Spots of good news punctuated this as the marauder frigates now freed up from their attack run moved amongst the fleet aiding in towing crippled vessels from the line, and other vessels recovered from their damages thanks to damage control and engineering teams. Most notable of the recoveries was the damaged Otun class Battle ship that had received a fair share of specific attention from the Auraxxi, it’s hull illumination and guide lights flickered and came back online as it’s sub-light drives flared back to life. All of this was assessed in a few fractions of a second whilst the Captain waited.
The dreadnoughts targeted were unable to get out of the line of IE fire, the bolts of protomatter shredding them apart panel by panel, atom by atmo. Those aboard the dreadnoughts died quickly, a small mercy in the chaos of war as their pain ended in bare moments and they didn't have to worry anymore. The deaths of the huge warships generated shrapnel that killed another fifty or sixty ships of various sizes around them, their deaths by comparison filled with pain and terror.
But even as ships died around them, the Restevians answered. Dreadnoughts, battleships, battlecruisers and ships smaller and greater turned their weapons upon the IE ships. Guns roared, sending bolts of explosive thunder onwards towards their enemy as missile tubes hot from endless reloads opened again, loosing streams of silvery, now glowing missiles into the void. A wall of fire rushed to meet the IE voidships from over a thousand vessels and magnitudes more than that of weapons, the noise had it been heard so thunderous as to shake the very foundations of a world with it's fury. The Restevians were near to their goal now, so very near, and the Gods themselves might well have been driving these battered men, women and ships onwards. To glory, to honor among warriors, to the battle's end.
The call for ceasefire upon the Auraxii did little to change the Annoliddans' plans. So few of their ships remained firing on enemy vessels were instead intercepting munitions thrown their way. Now nearing the edge of interdiction range, the ship repair crews made final preparations to ensure their retreat would not end in becoming debris as they left.
"Cores are primed sir. Ready to jump on your mark." Vilrik raised a hand at this, waiting awhile longer. There was one thing he needed to hear for certain from the quantum communications...
".-." A small, quick burst of beeps and holds told him enough. While the Crucible was not 100% for certain destroyed yet, its eventual demise was now inevitable. With a smile, his hand fell, and the Annoliddan Inquisition ships appeared to stretch and shrink into oblivion as they left the battlefield. They would jump to seventeen systems en route to their home territory, and await word of Rubikon's fate as well.
There wasn't much of anything that could be done in terms of maneuvering on part of the Carnaithians; medium-range combat and light-speed weapons mixed that way. Seven battlecruisers burst into short-lived flame, some detonating and some crumbling, while a couple more still simply burned along their dead vectors. Four more were damaged, one being offensively crippled but still alive through an astonishingly lucky loss of only the front twenty percent of the ships' mass. It was incredible damage, of course, and for all intents and purposes it was a mission kill, but it could at least serve as a point defense and missile center. Raztae watched the readouts with only necessary amounts of attention as the damage was done both to the Phoenixes and the Blinkers. The quantum devices linked to the Phoenixes on the Lighthouse-class vessels went red in their own respective readouts, destroyed. All in all, he thought, not the worst possible damage. He sat idle a moment, thinking on the status of the battle.
"Begin moving the heavy fleet towards the outskirts of the system. Light force may make a pass on remaining hostiles before following suit, but we're getting out of here," he announced with little emotion. A nod from some officers and a responsive tone from the AI cores, and the force of the engines could be felt moving the craft.
"Should we jump the zerstoren out?"
"Not until after we leave."
The light force began their burn towards the nearest "safe exit," taking them away from interdiction wells and in the opposite direction of the star. While they had a blank check to spend on hostile forces, there weren't many options with a good argument to make - combat observation suggested Leistunganos presence based on weapon profiles, but hunting them down at this point in the battle would be an unnecessary exertion of effort and time based on protocols on combating them. They stayed true to their route.
The Annointed fleet continued its path down the solar plane past the now burning remains of the fleet they had just decimated, of course the return fire ripped through the swarms of attack craft in great scything arcs felling the agile craft in their hundreds, the remaining fighters made no effort to return to the fleet as they continued to dog the retreating fleet, it quickly became evident why.
The main fleet had no need to point its nose anywhere but toward the remains of the Capitol-Triarch fleet as the return fire whittled through the fleets group shield the first rounds ringing home against the personal shields of the gestaltic fleet, four frigates exploded in pyrotechnic displays as their forms were shredded by tachyon rounds, a cruiser and two heavies joined them seconds later the carrier they were escorting losing its port hangars as shrapnel tore through the exposed openings, the rest of the fleet returns fire in the exact same way they had moments before, fresh new strike craft pulling free of the carriers, how ever a new sight joined this parting barrage as every single frigate in the fleet parted with their starboard super impactors, the huge multi kilometre missiles were effectively ships lacking a crew or FTL drives, their forms projected gracefully to the front of the munitions storm their bright shields and sheets of PD adding to the munition storms already commendable defensive capability.
The situation was grim. And it was all but over.
Agamo had survived re-entry, coming down to find a heavily irradiated surface and death. He and several groups of his crew had simply walked onto a military base, bodies lying where they dropped at the sudden catastrophic burst of radiation from the Plasma Coil. They had gone to the command centre, to try get some kind of sit rep of the battle and direct whatever forces were still out there thanks to the rad hardened systems Capitol used. Ironic their systems were more proof to their own weapons than they were.
But there was little to direct. The Justicars were gone, sacrificing themselves to bleed the DNA. The Axioms were gone although Agamo still held out hope for Blinker fleet reinforcements. And the Auraxii to Agamos sheer anger had seemed to betray them offering a ceasefire and turning away their massive reinforcements that the APP sorely needed. All that was left was the Immortal Empire who was fighting an uphill battle, although Agamo greatly respected them in this situation they were merely a holding force, still Agamo would see their commander was awarded. Shadowblade was also still in the fight, their exact position was unknown and Agamo had not seen much of them since the start of the engagement perhaps they had withdrawn. And that left the reinforcement fleet which was no being chased down by Carnaith and the Annointed.
With the shipyards destroyed, infrastructure ruined and Prime now a mostly dead world Rubikon would not be the same. And Agamo doubted he would live long enough to see it rebuilt, not with the rads now coursing through his body. Still he remembered his duty as this systems fleet commander. There would be no retreat.
---
The reinforcement fleet once again was trapped. More vessels exploding as the Annointed chased them down with wanton aggression, the APP force desperately trying to escape interdiction and jump out of the system. The Triarch fleet fell hardest, they were much slower at accelerating than Capitol and the Capitol vessels quickly out paced them. It was simply becoming a rout as they fired back with whatever they had left.
The rest of the tiny Capitol forces spread out across the system now attempted to converge, taking long routes round away from allied forces they amounted to no more than 50 vessels. But they moved to join up with the IE forces around Rubikon Prime.
Stillute viewed his current state as satisfactory for one great barrage before his exit. His action was that of spite, meeting that of his enemy; Those who continued to pursue his faltering allies were those to pay as his fleet silently fired swarms of missiles into the void, to eventually catch up to and hopefully destroy the ships of the Annointed, who loitered in combat. it was a soft action, but one nonetheless as hundreds upon hundreds of these bombs made their way to the enemy. His forces jumped out of the system, far below the solar plane and just outside of interdiction range, leaving a single corvette to guide weapons to target.
Captain Oon was approaching the edge of the system. His first priority was the protection of the manufacturing ship and the civilians aboard it, and so he pulled his fleet away from the other APP forces. While questionable to remove himself from the protection of others, it was also true that they were more the targets of the AGA’s aggression than the Immortal Empire’s ships at the moment. Plus his ships had only defended themselves thus far. All Oon could do was wait and hope that his actions throughout this battle would benefit his position to come.
About Rubikon Prime was death quite unlike any to be found elsewhere in the galaxy. Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five beasts of war crashed headlong into the ravenous fire of the combined AGA fleet. At such ranges the hyperspatial field yielded little benefit resulting in massive casualties. Chitinous shells cracked under the forces brought against them. Or split as they were overfed, rupturing the cells meant to absorb and contain such energies. And as designed the bioships pressed on, uncaring of their own deaths. Husks of the dead continued on, their engines firing in death spasms as their momentum carried them on.
They pressed on until contact was made with allied shields. There the armored wedge that constituted many of the ships’ heads was peeled away as the immense kinetic energy of the living ships struggled against protective shielding, revealing a hardened core that drank deep of the power from the shields and dumped it into the engines. This sometimes resulted in the detonation of the bioship’s core, an intentional feature rather than an oversight as the massive explosion drove the front portions of the organic weapon through the shielding. Bioweapons that successfully penetrated shields drove these cores as spear points deep into ship hulls, killing all of the bioweapons that managed to make impact. The spear point was shocked and as it drove into the ship’s hull it likewise drove back into the bioweapon’s body, causing a reaction that fired yet more of the hardened spears surrounding the core into the target ship, dealing tremendous damage and anchoring the massive bodies to the hull.
A poison was delivered to these ships as lesser bioweapons rushed from the corpses that once were their homes and into the AGA vessels. These were creatures of guided chance in that while they followed a central locus their forms and abilities were left to be guided by the brutal conditions imposed upon them by their bioship hosts. Worst amongst them were the symbiotes. Three or more kinds of bioweapons that had formed a partnership. Because while some bioweapons were large beasts of muscle and sinew, others were small creatures that relied on poisons and stealth, and yet others we’re hives that worked together to bring down larger creatures, these symbiotes were the most potent aspects of each rolled into a single package. A massive creature playing host and factory to a hive of small yet deadly monsters. And the meat, bone and steel of the AGA would provide fuel for an army.
While the bioships killed themselves in their attack, the ninety void ships of the 312th decided that things where slightly too hot at the moment and scattered leaving the AGA fleet behind. The ships’ sudden change in standing threw off allied munitions incapable of serious course correction, leaving missiles to attempt to catch up with the violently fast ships, leaving them easy targets to be picked off by point defenses and TC cannons.
The ten void ships near Rubikon II being likewise attacked by the RSC fleet, and not wanting to be on the receiving end of a ‘hundred to one ship bukkake barrage,’ as one of the commanders put it, also scattered to leave the bioships there to their fate. All hundred void ships were scattered, singular ships cast against the void. Deciding to regroup around Rubikon V, where they could either retreat or attack based on how much damage the bioships dealt to the AGA forces. The path for thirty-nine of the ships coming from Rubikon Prime would bring them close enough to the RSC fleet for them to attack. And presented with such an opportunity they began charging their iconoclast cannons.
The bioships over Rubikon II were hit hard by the orbital fleets and the rapidly approaching RSC forces. The latter however where still a fair distance away and their damage output was mitigated as munitions were diverted by the hyperspatial fields. The IRS in particular were dealing considerable damage, being as close as they were and focusing their fire to overwhelm the bioships’ constitution. But even as hundreds died it was too late as the bioships crashed into the fleets. Or rather, most did. While the orbital fleets found themselves in the same boat as the main AGA force, a few bioweapons swept past the orbital ships and entered the upper atmosphere of the besieged planet. Engines flared and armor flaps spread wide to slow the massive organisms down enough so that them simply landing didn’t destroy all life on the planet. But their massive size still caused immense chaos as their landings whipped up terrible winds and sand capable of sweeping away unprotected flesh from bone and snatching away light vehicles. Damaged builds and tunnels collapsed as the planet shook beneath these massive weapons of war.
It was like a fly trap.
The last of Razael's forces made their final stand above Rubikon II spectacular, a blazing show of manuveres and strafing runs on the IE's bioship formations. It was unexpected that they would kill hundreds. But so too was it unexpected that the dead bioships wouldn't leave them alone. Plasma cores detonated near the Hammer cruisers that sped past the carcasses, and other ships were soon caught intertwined in a web of plasma shots from plasma cannons that remained operational even after their parent bioships' death. Superheated gas swept over their battered hulls, alike a molten sea that scorched and melted through the Lunaceramic armor plates. The IRS cruisers continued speeding through aimlessly on their course like bright streaking comets, before exploding shortly after. Formidable hulls of the Sovereign battleships and Vindicator battlecruisers were incapacitated as plasma sliced through their engines and power plants, leaving them adrift without power, propulsion and very little ammunition to prepare for what was to come next.
As the bioships crashed, it was as if the IRS fleet disappeared. Lunaceramic plates buckled, cracked and shattered into millions of pieces. Entire capital ships split into pieces as the bonds of its superstructure was severed apart by the sheer kinetic energy of the bioships that kamikazed into them. Brief but bright explosions followed as massive fusion reactors were breached and the plasma fuel within escaped and melted surrounding munitions and power cells. Soon enough there was no fleet. There was only a graveyard of debris and wreckage floating above Rubikon II.
Razael was no more.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 16:38:24 GMT
Rubikon System, APP Staging Ground: Capitol Space
With the damage from the iconolast cannons mitigated and damage to their hulls partially repaired, the remaining 69 Generation 3 warships of the fleet now began to fire their spatial explosion guns at the bioships, creating massive spherical gravity wave explosions nearby their own hulls, right in the path of the bioships. With the hyperspatial field weaker in this area and less likely to interfere, this created an area of intense shear which would rip apart anything crossing it. As this occured, all 303 warships utilized their matterconverter arrays to continue targeting the bioships nearby with a disintegration attack, negating their mass via Higgs field manipulation, which would cause the constituent atoms to fall apart. The phased arrays on the outside of the hull, developed to counter EPA's massed missile swarms, continued to slice and zap at the bioships attempting to ram with millions of invisible X-ray beams, which were joined by a blue storm of particle bolt, plasma torpedo, and GM cannon fire. Meanwhile, the warships accelerated after the retreating bioships, their gravimetric engines distorting space around them slightly (in a manner their weapons were more than capable of correcting for however) as they displayed a surprising change in velocity for ships of their size, as they fired their forward plasma torpedo batteries at the voidships, the guided projectiles carefully steered to offset the distortion from the hyperspatial field. This sudden acceleration also had the nice effect of causing the dead hulks coming towards them to miss. Those bioships that made it through the withering weapons fire slammed into the shields of the warships and attempted to drain their energy futilely. However the impact alone was enough to cause some of the shielding on the smaller vessels to fail in the impacted section. These bioships, after attaching, found themselves the target of the attack craft that had been launched earlier, who directed their weapons fire at the attached hulks to the tune of 1 kiloton nuclear shaped charge missiles, aiming to blast the carcasses apart. The bioweapons that had been disgorged on the other hand, found themselves isolated within the hallways that they had punched into, as blast doors closed, security shields raised, and the ship's internal matterconverter grid, usually used for cleaning and purification, was turned against them, treating them to the same disintegration effect that was being used on the bioships. At the same time, thousands of powerarmored marines were dispatched to the areas along with ship security forces.
The group shield simply collapsed. Already strained and with patches of it failing the small amount of vessels that could still sustain it simply could not handle the sudden rush of the Bio weapons. With the group shield down the Union fleet did still have its other defenses but damage had been sustained over the course of the battle and Volkus knew this was becoming a war of attrition, before long the allies would be ground down. He knew they had intended to take Rubikon, use it as a staging ground for further attacks into Capitol space, steal important documents and locations and they had already landed ground forces on Rubikon II.
But he knew they had to withdraw. Opening up a com channel to the rest of the AGA fleet relayed through the Annointed psi network Volkus relayed his message.
"We are bleeding too heavily. All forces withdraw from the battlespace and regroup at fallback point bravo. All forces that can pull back to Rubikon II and help rescue the ground forces, those that cant withdraw immediately. Forces that are still combat capable help cover the retreat, I wish luck to you all, we have acomplished our mission here. The enemy has been bled and their main system destroyed, all here have done a grand service"
With the order given the Union fleet still under attack began to move, the fleet forming up in close overlapping fire arcs now continued to keep formation with the Eramons and Nucleans. The Unions objective was Rubikon II, they would assist the retrieval of ground forces then withdraw. With the retreat of the IE Voidships however the Union could now fully concentrate on the swarm of bio weapons now facing them down, this was something the Union was used to.
Mass Drivers spat rounds into the void, hundreds of thousands of rounds in such short spaces of time at relativstic speeds. Backed up by short range rapid fire Plasma Cannons, wide dispersion beam Meson lasers, Spearhead drones, Bomb Pumped Laser missiles and Planc lasers the Union unleashed a sheer firestorm of rounds into their foe, with the particulate shields still up the Chakrams kept it spinning, debris including the now dead but partially alive drifting bio weapons were caught and swept up and used as shields to collide with other still alive bio weapons. Firestorms also flew in the void, unleashing payloads into particularly important targets before dodging back to re-arm. Losses were sustained however, nearly 89 vessels were torn apart as swarms of bioships broke through the fire smashing their payloads through shields and into the hulls of the vessels. Some died to the sheer amount of impacts, torn apart. While others were destroyed by the ships own self destruct mechanisms as bio weapons slaughtered the crews through overwhelming numbers and final protocols were inacted. Some ships kept on fighting as internal struggles erupted between marines, internal defenses and the bio weapon invaders. But the losses were high and Volkus only had a fraction of his fleet left.
They had to withdraw.
The Eramons as well tried their best to weather the massive charge of the bio weapons. Massive dumps of rounds into the void flashed bright as bio weapons were destroyed and Eramon drone fighters did their best to also keep them back, ramming their foes if their weapons were expended. Co-ordinated point defense fire kept them back for a time but it was only a delay, the sheer numbers overwhelmed many of the Eramons vessels, nearly 108 died from the gigantic suicide charge of the multiple thousand bio weapons, many of them in the same way as the Union.
The Eramons agreed with Volkus, they had lost their Leviathan class and now their fleet was heavily crippled. Firing their drives the Eramons matched the Unions course, hoping to withdraw in short order before they were wiped out.
In the short time it took for the AGA to order a withdrawal from the battle the Dominion’s forces present had already shepherded the battered Auraxxi forces from the field of combat as per the terms of their agreement. The entire affair was in stark contrast to the vicious nature of the fighting going on elsewhere as enemies tried to get in that final shot as a show of vengeance or defiance. Once the Auraxxi were clear of the battle area and its interdiction, the Dominion accelerated its salvage and recovery actions with what time was left. Second line elements destroyed what they could not tow, or otherwise get into a cargo bay. The dominion raced against time to effectively leave nothing for any enemy whom would claim the battlefield in short order. Efforts were taken to haul off any relatively intact Auraxxi ships that were left behind and in much the same way salvage assets with supporting guard elements moved to salvage what they could from the brief encounter with Capital’s forces. The only saving grace for the Dominion’s salvage effort was that they were not in the main body of forces and their battles occurred off to the side of things, this bought a few more minutes before finally even their second line assets along with whatever mainline vessels that were restored limped out of the theater of battle. Even if the foreign materials captured were insignificant, certainly the enemy would have little to study regarding the Dominion as well. Despite this action in space the Dominion took a greater risk elsewhere, the call for aid in evacuating allied forces from Rubikon II was heeded, Captain Taravis, saw the evacuation of allied troops from the planet as an extension of the Dominion’s habit of clearing battle fields after battle. As part of the last combat actions of the Dominion at Rubikon a small group of eight Blockade runners was detached to make a fast run to aid in recovering as many allied troops as could be put in their emptied cargo holds and elsewhere. Ironically these very ships were present because the captain expected that at some point they might have to manually transfer messages due to electronic warfare. They never put to use for this, and instead, they would likely be seen as salvation for a number of allied troops with no other way off a hostile world.
Raztae Didn't need to read into Volkus' order too much; it was a simple one, and one that he was already enacting. The heavy force was already out of allied interdiction range, and it would be a simple matter to turn their own fields off and make the jump. The BZe force had been out of range for quite a while now, and it would be a short time before the light force was free, their ships taking a slight dive away from the solar plane in order to escape the overlapping bubbles.
"Drop field and jump, get the Blinkerzerstoren out before the light force," He ordered to the AI, the words being repeated throughout the battlegroup by the Lighthouse-class ships, taken in by the AI cores on each individual ship in the fleet at large. Raztae drowsily rubbed his head, a... subtle, indescribable feeling washing across him. The jump had been made simple seconds after the order was put out, drives having been charging for a short time. Now to wait to punch through the other side.
The light force, meanwhile, doubled their thrust mass, not quite eager to get out of battle per se, but eager to not be left alone without their heavy element.
The DNA fleet was slowly regrouping, having lost their main commander to the suicide strike of the Justicars the DNA forces switched command and reformed their fleet formation. Still close to the planet to provide orbital support the DNA fleet was in prime position to try intercept the bio weapons directed at the planet.
Attack craft launched by the DNA fleet were diverted to engage the descending bio weapons as attack craft wings used missiles and cannon fire to destroy their foe in large massed attacks, battling through the vicious heat of re-entry as they continued to hunt their quarry into the upper atmopshere.
For the bio weapons attacking the DNA fleet itself all available weapons were fired, energy, kinetic and missiles all whipped out to meet the incoming bio swarm. The DNA fleet was not helpless and their new commander ordered an interesting response, the fleet broke position in giving ground support and manuvered higher into the orbital paths, screening the fleet with fast moving wreckage from the old Capitol defense platforms, the smaller vessels in the fleet took shield and armour damage, several being crippled from the move but it gave them a second albative screen against the bio weapons who now made attack runs.
With the DNA fleet having lost around 700 vessels from their 1300 the remaining 500 tried as they might to keep firing into the bio weapon mass, but as before many got through due to sheer numbers. Nearly 237 vessels died as bio weapons either smashed them to pieces, overwhelmed them with fire or disgorged killing organisms into their hulls. Around 50 more vessels now fought against the invaders within, employing anti bioligical procedures, sealing off sections and bringing up heavily armoured marines.
The Annointed fleet continued its path straight down under the solar plane peeling out of interdiction still barrelling ahead at .97C, the leviatic ships opened their wormholes leaving the battle nearly as quickly as they had come.
Having reached Rubikon II and noting the withdrawing beginning to be undertaken by the allies, the Restevian fleet began what was in essence a fighting retreat. While some ships went to aid the Risallas Dominion in getting their troops out, the bulk of the remaining vessels turned their guns upon the IE and the remaining bioships. Salvo fire from the battery guns tore into the bioships with their gunners having seen the fate of the IRS fleet-- if that happened to them then the Gods wouldn't have a lot left to work with. Spinal guns targeted the IE voidships, salvo fire not needed here but precision, with so fewer targets they weren't going to able to afford missing a shot. While all this went on the Restevian ships began to move towards the jump points, keeping themselves between the withdrawing armies and the enemy as long as possible.
With the Immortal Empire fleets now pulling away to regroup and several of the allied nations beginning to pull out of the system Agamo knew the battle was more or less over. Now was the time to consolidate what forces he had left and try to compile the damage caused, it was no easy task and he could already feel the early signs of radiation poisoning setting in despite the anti radiation meds he and his men had been taking. Agamo presumed he would be dead before the battle was over, it was something he could not help and so he put it from his mind.
The 97 Capitol vessels and 22 Triarch vessels still functional in system now raced to join up around Rubikon Prime, while more or less totally incapable of threatening the allied forces at this point they avoided fire lanes and potential engagements with allied forces as they went full burn. Agamo could help direct them and he intended to use them as a screen should the allies try to carry out long range bombardments of the world he was on just in case.
"And so it is over." Agamo sighed tasting metal on his tongue "We tried our best, and it was not enough but we bled them. Thats all we could ask for. I wonder how history will see this battle..." He mused.
The IE had finally distracted the DNA pursuers chasing the Separatist Union fleet, and did the honour of finishing off the IRS ships. While elated that their hated enemy has been destroyed, Uzajhan lamented that he had not been the one to do it. Still, the victory was his; he had been the one to bleed the IRS fleet dry until they no longer enjoyed their strength in numbers and with it, concentrated firepower.
But celebrations had to come later. The Allies would converge on Rubikon II soon to rescue their stranded brethen and now down to 60 ships they obviously posed no chance. Uzajhan was not willing to sacrifice his elite crew any longer. He had already suffered enough casualties with more than half of his fleet gone.
"Surely you jest!" the Kyomizar next to him shouted. "Abandoning this system is equivalent to betraying our allies! This betrayal would tarnish the name of the Separatist Union and the Great Premier himself!"
"Honoured Kyomizar, I've lost enough sons and daughters of the esteemed proleteriat in this battle," Uzajhan gritted his teeth, secretly loathing the unnecessarily politicised jargon and lexicon that people such as the Kyomizar only understood. "Better that I bring home veterans who can share their experience and continue to serve the State in a higher capacity. What Revolution can we accomplish, Kyomizar, if all of its participants are dead?"
The Kyomizar became silent, reluctantly convinced by the Admiral's reasoning. Uzajhan smirked. Another victory added to his name.
"All ships, prepare to warp out of system and set course for home. We are done here."
Oon visibly relaxed. AGA forces across the system were either retreating or in the process of withdrawing meaning the manufacturing ship and the civilians aboard it were safe. It also meant that he wouldn’t have to open comms with the allies to assuage hostilities.
”Okay fuzzball, get out of my seat. Enemy is in retreat and I don’t need you anymore.”
The diminutive Thyron hopped from the seat and went back to her station, grumbling at the captain trying to take advantage of her small size and very cute fluffy appearance. With the bioships all dead or dying Oon had little else to do than sit and wait.
As the void ships made to rendezvous over Rubikon V, the thirty-nine that had prepared their main guns fired once again upon the heavier elements of the forces found over Rubikon II. The ships rolled, using the massive recoil from the weapons to maneuver away from the allied forces. The plasma torpedo attack from System was ignored, the ships fast enough that only specialized missiles could hope to catch them.
Within the atmosphere of Rubikon II, DNA attack craft tore into the descending bioweapons. The organic war-machines fought back, lasers imbedded across their bodies fired on the allied craft, the creatures’ bulk helping keep them alive until they made landfall. Massive legs compressed and strained under the mass of the weapons as the ground itself gave way as loose ground was compressed and underground caverns collapsed where they landed. Chunks of flesh torn free by the DNA attackers and hundreds of gallons of ichor fell to the planet’s surface. The bioweapons seemed to grow slightly as their chitinous shells opened to the air of the world. Ground forces for miles were subject to what felt like a continuous earthquake as the bioships began to vibrate, spreading a dark cloud that filled the air around them before it began to settle. The DNA forces were the first to know what the cloud consisted of as their vessels were beset by thousands of lesser bioweapons. And millions more were falling to the planet’s surface.
The bioships were already wounded by the efforts of DNA forces and one was in the process of dying. They had landed fairly close to enemy forces and were moving to eradicate those allied forces that remained on the planet. With their hyperspatial fields active the forces in orbit wouldn’t be able to attack them without risking accidently destroying their own ground forces.
As the Immortal Empire had withdrawn from their attacks the Union fleet had immediately began to move towards Rubikon II. After a brief time salvaging wrecks of Union ships, destroying those that could not be saved and taking on survivors from escape pods the fleet had moved on. Volkus sat in the command chat surveying the holographic system before him, it was remarkably empty from what it had been. Most of the alleid forces had withdrawn and the Union was soon to join them, the remaining APP forces left in system were so battered or strung out that a concerted push was only available by the Immortal Empire, and even then they were concentrated on reinforcing the ground forces on Rubikon II.
Volkus knew that while in an ideal world they would save the forces on the planet, the dropping of the IE Bio-hordes would stop any premise of that. As he watched feeds from friendly forces in orbit and planetside he sighed. There was little that could be done. Still the Union fleet continued to move towards Rubikon II, they may have to leave the ground forces but at most he could assist and cover the RSC and DNA in their withdrawal. With the IRS having given their lives to the cause Volkus could do little but honour them with a salute. With jumped engines charged it was only a matter of time until they pulled out.
"Forces around Rubikon II, The situation is bleak and with the landing of bio weapons planetside the prospects of us recovering our forces seems non existant. I suggest withdrawal from the planet and leaving the system. I will help cover you, we have done our job here today, we can mourn these heros after. Save what you can, I will give you time to pull back" Volkus also now directed attention to the already damaged shipyards in system and sneered.
"All missiles and Spearhead drones, target enemy shipyards, BPL payloads, fire" Volkus had no drive left in his voice as the Union fleet unloaded a large payload of munitions towards the remaining shipyards in system, it would take time for them to get to their targets but the APP had no forces in system capable of intercepting them in time, and the defense platforms still defending such facilities simply wouldnt be able to shoot them all down.
As the Union now formed up with the RSC and DNA forces in retreat they added their firepower to the mix, helping to keep back the bio weapons as the AGA forces pushed their way to the edge of the interdiction bubbles.
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The Eramon fleet had pulled off the Unions run and withdrew away from Rubikon II, they had lost much and their final act before engaging their FTL drives was the firing of munitions towards the shipyards, slaing their own missiles to the Union fleet before brief flashes of light signalled their dissapearance from the System.
The DNA fleet continued to withdraw, with ships lagging behind out of formation as bio weapons slaughtered their crew. The drone fighters and bombers fighting until their last as they continued to engage the descending weapons and the piloted craft attacked those who still pursued the fleet. However soon the piloted fighters were recalled from their attack runs, landing on remaining ships as the DNA and Union fleets now broke the interdiction away from the planet.
The fire from the Immortal Empire void ships however found no puchase on the allied fleet, with the fleets withdrawal from orbit around Rubikon II and undertaking evasive manuvers to try break off some of the bio weapons that were continuing to attack their fleets meant that along with the travel time shots went wide or found little more than empty space waiting for them. Those ships that had stayed behind due to damage or boarding however took direct hits from the main guns, blasting them apart as the survivors in orbit were swiftly wiped out, buying whatever time they could give to their counterparts escaping.
As the Union and DNA fleets exited interdiction they dropped their own fields and signalled the RSC fleet. With bursts of energy they FTLed out of the system, both heavily battered and damaged. All that was left was the RSC and the missiles that now raced towards the shipyards.
It wasn't of great effort, strategy, or thought to evacuate the light force of the Carnaithian fleet. They hadn't gotten all too close to the Blinker-centric fleet they were initially ordered to attack, and after its near-total destruction it was only a matter of debating with fellow force commanders whether what blinkers - and escorts - were destroyed by who. At least until AGA command decided who was getting the destructions added to their name. If anything, the longest part since breaking off into the attack was eliminating momentum and restarting it in the direction of combat evacuation. It had been some time since then nonetheless, and getting out of interdiction range was only a half-hour - moments, in terms of void combat - away. Not many conversations to finish between crewmen, whether terrified or giddy or somewhere in-between or farther outward, before range was hit and pree-spooled drives wisked the Imperial ships away, no sign of their dissapearence, contrasting with their arrival, as there was no signal or particle travelling with them to announce it.
It was inevitably a race against time as the Immortal empire’s bio weapons began to deploy on Rubikon II. The eight Middlesex class corvettes sent by the Dominion to aid in evacuations sped through the intensifying chaos leading up to planetary entry of Rubikon II. It was fortunate that the ships of the class were fast enough at sublight that there would be little that stood a chance to intercept, as collisions with debris were the biggest concern. For a corvette travelling just shy of light speed on sublight propulsion a collision with any object over a certain percentage of your own mass could spell disaster. The maneuvers were punctuated by the increasing frequency of planetside weapons fire streaking by and the detonation of anti-orbital missiles striking nearby debris. As such the Dominion blockade runners maneuvered through the mess as though they were interceptor star fighters on steroids. Dashing through the planet’s atmosphere was quick though filled with high adrenaline moments where near collisions almost doomed the entire evacuation mission. Final atmospheric approach was marked by the increasing accuracy of planetary emplacements and the rattle of the blockade runner’s own point defense systems engaging anything that was too close for comfort. Despite the strange sort of exchange between the point defence activating and a often delayed report of something being shot down, there was a faint rattle and hiss of high speed shrapnel clawing at the hulls of the blockade runners as though it was a futile last attempt to make a puncture. Not a single ship in the group got through without the telltale signs of having weathered numerous near-misses, glancing hits and the unique carbon-scoring marks of being too close to a few explosions. At a set altitude, the blockade runners launched their respective complements of assault shuttles to conduct the ground portion of the evacuation. Once the shuttles were clear the blockade runners moved back to a higher orbit within the debris field for cover until a recovery signal was broadcast on a very specific communications channel. Each vessel had a total complement of thirteen assault shuttles, which were designed with hard extraction of personnel under difficult circumstances in mind. Inevitably, Enemy fire claimed a number of shuttles on the way in and then a few more were destroyed while attempting to land. The remaining seventy eight however, landed in an marked AGA evacuation zone and deployed loading ramps.
For those allowed aboard the order was simple, every ounce counted and as such the wounded loaded first then those able bodied troops who were closest. Inevitably piles of discarded equipment lay a few meters away from the landed shuttles as the ships were only embarking personnel and absolutely critical equipment. Internal space was at a premium and IRS personnel found themselves being packed in tightly but with a careful eye for not going over the maximum loading mass for the craft. Vehicles of all sorts were left behind possibly in a sabotaged state if those previously operating them had the time, if not they sat unmanned defiantly facing towards an enemy that was guaranteed to occupy the landing zone in just a few short hours anyway. In less than a half hour, the surviving sixty-two shuttles lifted off, their combined cargo wasn’t much compared to the large number of allied troops still fighting, but, a few thousand troops most of which were wounded and in need of medical evacuation would at least see another day. Despite the best efforts of the shuttle crews another five shuttles were lost to planetary fire on the way out of the atmosphere leaving the eight Middlesex corvettes to recover just fifty-seven shuttles, or a little over half the number that were launched. With the shuttles loaded the Dominion withdrew the last of its assets from the Rubikon region.
The Restevian fleet and their leaders did not want to leave their brothers and sisters behind. With the fire going in every direction at them, with ships splintering under the fire of their enemy as they so very desperately fought on, it seemed that too that if they were going to go, the door was soon going to be shut on them. The admirals in command waited for as long as they were able to, laying down fire to cover the retreat of the Dominion vessels loaded with IRS troops, and behind them from the boiling, horrible cauldrons of fire, began to rise their own transports.
Many were cripplingly damaged, more and more that rose from the storms below being destroyed by enemy fire as they fled. Flame and debris were spread across the sky, the transmissions from both the surface and the ships desperate like nothing else many of those aboard the fleet had heard before in this war. Down there they faced Armageddon with gnashing teeth, and those few that'd gotten away cried out for aid and salvation from the hellstorm that followed behind though with the IE's affects in place there was little, nay, nothing that the fleet was able to do but wait, wait and pray that those flying towards them made it. Here and there the fleet beheld a flash as a position was detonated, a signal going silent, transports being cut down like a scythe through so much wheat.
At last a transport pilot reported that they'd made it onto a carrier moments before the carrier reported thus, more and more transports grounding onto Restevian warships filled with RSC and IRS troops, so many of them wounded and broken by the battle below. Forty four reports eventually were given... and no more. Less than fifty, when they had seen nearly four hundred rising from Rubikon II to meet them. There would be no more as now the Capitol air units were sure to soon turn their guns upon them, and if they waited any long the door to their flight would shut.
It was now with desperation and rage that the Restevian fleet turned their guns upon the enemy, smashing a hole through the APP line as ships limped through the breach, dumping all power to their engines as they fled for areas where they would be able to jump. There was nothing more they were able to do here, and as the RSCN withdrew from Rubikon at last, those left behind would fight bitterly on.
While the missile barrage of the Union and Eramons had a seemingly large amount of time to reach the shipyards, the fact that the APP had no ships in the area to readily respond to it meant that the shipyards fate was all but sealed.
Agamo watched the feeds from the facility as the defense platforms attempted in vain to shoot down the swarm, railguns and missiles intercepting wave after wave until multiple broke though. Each one bursting into life to give birth to thousands of independantly targetted lasers which tore through the flimsy spiderlike lattice work of the yards like paper destroying drydocks, unfinished ships, material workshops and storehouses. Atmopsheric fires roared as sections vented into space or were sent on velocities to collide with other parts of the shipyard as the whole structure was hit again and again. Agamo ceased the feeds even as he felt the blood in his mouth from radiation exposure.
The battle was over.
Rubikon was silent again.
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