Post by him on Oct 11, 2021 5:48:50 GMT
Somewhere in the Consulate of Astril, a strange rift opened in the void between worlds.
From it's depths, a fleet of 15 strange, damaged bony ships burst out at intense speed, A multitude of thin tendrils of psychic energy emanated from every ship in the combined fleet, trailing behind like seaweed caught on a rudder. The ships themselves were also of interest; bony plates intersecting and interlacing with focal points of psychic energy on various open points, and with bridges of fluid-filled sacs housing odd temple-esque structures.
They were each battle-scarred, with charred craters and psychically plugged holes everywhere on their surfaces, and gelatinous blood trailing behind some of the more abused ships in long, directionless lines.
In theory, such damaged ships would slow down, as not to tax their systems. As the rift closed, though, the ships showed no signs of stopping-in fact, they were speeding up exponentially towards the nearest space station/planet/etc.
The only communication they gave was a system-wide broadcast, containing a single message translated into galactic common.
"[HELP]"
It was a small and rather quiet system they ended up in. A few barren rocks close to the sun, a single gas giant and some exoplanets. There was one sign of life here, the large terraforming station in orbit of an atmosphere covered rocky world with sparse pink oceans. As for a name, this system didn’t have a name yet, just a boring code. E-2093f
The station itself was a rather simple construct. It was elegantly curved with many devices sticking out of it which ruined the overall curvature of it, a few small hangars and some point defences were all the signs of a light military presence. They never expected something more then the occasional pirate so there was no fleet garrison or any combat capable ships at all in the system.
As the unknown ships entered the system at speed the sensors of the station lit up like a bonfire, the small marine detachment on board went to a low alert and pilots were ordered to stand by just in case. The garrison commander grabbed his clipboard on which he has listed every part of the standardised procure for incoming unknown contacts and went over it to find out what he had to do now.
After a few minutes a responding message came from the station spoken in galactic common as well.
“This is the Prism-8 terraforming and scientific station, we hear you loud and clear. Identify yourself.”
They received a sporadic reply, in separate parts each received 15 seconds apart from each other.
"[SADASHI]"
"[WAS INTERCEPTED BY DEVILS]"
"[WERE BADLY INJURED]"
"[DEVILS WILL FOLLOW]"
"[WILL REQUIRE ASSISTANCE]"
"[WILL REQUEST TO DOCK]"
The interlopers, bunching together like a shoal of sardines, still saw fit to continue chugging on towards the terraforming station, though now it seems they atleast had a reason to go so fast. Though, what the hell were these 'devils' they referred to...?
--
Meanwhile, somewhere a few systems away, someone was putting out more fumes than the ship they were commanding.
"KOA FUCKING DAMN IT PIECE OF SHIT FUCKING COCKSUCKING RUNDFIDDLING WATERHEAD FUCKING-"
The captain of the commanding Zetyan destroyer A'kaja was very unamused, cursing at nothing in particular as he raged over losing his quarry. The rest of the bridge was working overtime to get their ship back in order; the small 13-strong fleet of ships had been thrown into disarray by a series of disruptive psychic pulses sent by the fleeing Sadashi ships.
It didn't damage much, but it did manage to work as a sort of EMP, temporarily shutting systems offline fleetwide. It'd take a good bit to get everything back up and running-time their enemy could use to their advantage.
The captain, a mr. Q'oka Y'hal, turned to the ship's comms board. "Are they done rebooting yet?!"
"They say it'll probably take a little bit longer!" someone responded.
"Tell the slowasses to hurry up!"
"They said they were!"
"THEN TELL THEM THEY'RE NOT BEING FAST ENOUGH!"
He returned to staring at the main display while cursing to himself, rapidly clicking buttons on a nearby console to swap between various in-ship cameras.
The station was quiet for a moment, the commander was tense in thought as he quickly went over the possibilities. He was anxious to just agree to their request for aid, who knew what the political consequences would be of assisting these unknown ships? Then he considered it for another second, they called them devils. Maybe it was not another nation chasing them but some sort of threat beyond political boundaries. It helped that most of these fleeing ships appeared unarmed and defenceless
“Unknown vessels, you are free to dock.”
the respond was quick and repeated two extra times to make sure they heard it properly as it was assumed their communications were damaged in some way. With the confirmation of an incoming threat the small strike craft garrison was launched to escort the wounded vessels. It was only a dozen, 4 bombers escorted by 7 fighters and a lightly armed electronic warfare craft. Knowing it would not be enough commander Petrov Baker send out a local distress call requesting void navy reinforcements.
—
In a nearby system the First Cadet Flotilla were performing their final exam trials. Things were going well for them, the crew proved themselves a match for the tough requirements of the Astril military. Overseeing the exercise and training was Senior Captain Jacob Popora. He was just taking a sip of his military issue artificial coffee when he looked down at the computer screen which showed a bright red flashing light to indicate a nearby distress call.
“Oh great, which one of the cadet ships ran out of fuel? Hmm? It’s from another system?”
He turned his chair to take a better look, his command centre was deep inside the ship and various screens all around the room showed the cadet ships engaging targets and flying in formation. He raised a curious eyebrow and then started transmitting to the cadets under his command to halt their final exam and meet back up in formation with the flagship of Captain Popora. The order was soon given to prepare for a jump to E-2093f. In total it were 7 ships, 6 of which were crewed by fresh cadets that did not officially pass their exam yet and the single battle cruiser flagship of Captain Popora.
With a '[COPIOUS APPRECIATIONS]' and a silent roar of their engines, the Sadashi bioships made their way over to the Consulate station, with each of the small unarmed ships and one of the larger ones practically rushing to dock with the station first. The rest made do with huddling close to the station as they waited to dock, beginning a slow process of licking their own wounds.
As they docked, their hulls shifting into new positions to reveal bony, film-covered umbilicals, the latent psychic tendrils visible around the ships suddenly seemed to coalesce and 'harden' around the bioship's various points of entry, snaking out to form a shifting 'tunnel' of sorts to the nearest gangway, umbilical or otherwise respective entrance in their given dockyard. Lines of viscous fluid began to trickle, then flow from the bony umbilicals on each ship along the newly-formed tunnel, Sadashi both able and injured following in each one's wake.
--
The Zetyan ships still sat in the void, unmoving and silent. Lights flickered on here and there, maybe a spark or two from one of the thrusters made itself known. Slowly, they were getting the rest of their ducks in a row-for their captain of the A'kaja, however, they weren't getting there fast enough.
"How much longer?! It's been ten minutes!" Q'oka screeched, the entire bridge having been privy to his rage for the last five minutes. He certainly exemplified K'lvan anger issues.
"Engineering says about five more minutes, sir!"
"FIVE?! I've worked on megafusers before, they aren't that complicated!" He wasn't wrong, but unfortunately noone told him the distinction between 'temporary shutdowns' and 'electromagnetic pulse'.
"Uhh... they say they've gotten FTL and weapons connected and online, sir! Thrust should follow soon!"
"-sigh- ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿ' ᶠⁱⁿᵃˡˡʸ." His attention shifted elsewhere on the bridge. "Get the coords punched in! When they say Engie's gotten the thrusters online, I want ZERO hesitation!"
He turned back to the comms section. "And tell the missile guys to load the better missiles this time! The ones with the acronyms for names or whatever!"
Commander Petrov Baker looked out of on of the station windows as the organic ships docked themselves. He made a note of it, this was definitely something the higher ups would like to see and bringing this information to them would help him on his track to a promotion. He stepped back and ordered all command and control personnel into the armoured command core deep inside the station. As they entered and pulled the lever to activate the systems the dark interior was lit up by the various vector display screens shining a neon green glow. A few moments after that the dim red lights came alive. Positions were taken and routine pre battle checks were run.
Awaiting the incoming arrivals was the rather small medical staff of the station. They tried their best to get some order and treat the most heavily wounded first but they did not have the facilities to house all the wounded so some dorm rooms were repurposed to serve as hospital beds.
The squadron of strike craft were now patrolling far from the station to try and detect any incoming ftl signatures. In command of the squadron was sergeant Olina Sirus, she was positioned on the electronic warfare craft as the main systems operator but being the highest rank present made her automatically the one in charge.
——
Meanwhile the cadet flotilla were in formation and ready to jump. They were performing their last pre jump checks.
“Finally, some damn action. Wouldn’t you agree luitenant Jones?”
Captain Popora turned around his chair to look at his assistant who was busy making more coffee.
“I don’t know sir. I feel like something bad is going to happen soon…”
“Ah! You are just a scaredy cat. At most it is going to be some pirates in dinky little rust buckets. Nothing actually severe happens around these parts.”
As the first batch of ships began to dock, the other civilian ships moved to dock as well, provided there was room. The three warships, and any ship unable to fit, were content to remain in a meager shoal.
The Sadashi who brought their wounded, meanwhile, seemed feverishly intent with sticking close by to their injured brethren, even all the way to the table. Something along the lines of 'this one must not fade'.
The influx of Sadashi pouring from the ships into sickbays and dorms, meanwhile, provided an opportunity to look at them up close. To say they were strange would be an understatement.
They bore some visual resemblance to jellyfish, with an internal visceral mass surrounded by bone and a large floating brain suspended within some sort of fluid-they tended to drip it even after exiting their liquid tunnels, to the likely chagrin of any janitors. Two arms made of bunched up tentacles sank below their bodies, while other singular tentacles merely hung aimlessly, drifting around slowly with each movement.
Their strangest facet, though, was that they appeared to be psychic. They floated without any form of support, looking around with two beady 'eyes' projected by chitinous spires, and spoke without truly speaking, a tiny bead poking out the face of their brains flashing with every word 'heard' by those they addressed. For initial impressions, they were perhaps just a tinge unnerving. At the very least, they seemed rather polite, if also acting very rushed.
Who could blame them, though? If the sudden gravitic anomalies the strike craft suddenly began detecting were any indication, their attackers were hot on their tail...
--
"LAUNCH THE DRONES!! NOW!!!"
The words practically exploded out of the captain's mouth with a force (mostly)unheard of so far, having given his command before the bearer of the news could even finish his sentence. Thankfully, it was executed without delay, as the crew's earholes copiously thanked those souls who had their fingers locked on the button.
In vacuum, a drone suddenly propelled itself out of a tube on the lead destroyer's prow, followed by several more following it from a few other ships 10 seconds later. It silently roared up to a certain point, then suddenly began to... fluctuate, almost. It's followers proceeded the same way, each cutting the engines and suffering the same 'fluctuations' as the lead drone.
And then, they were gone.
A cavernous wormhole took their place, a corridor of stars leading to their quarry and a visual representation of how not to do alcubierre drives. On the ships, a 'shockwave' from the silent explosion rattled their interiors, each of the crew treated to a mini earthquake as punishment for making physics cry.
Then, just as soon as it had formed, the fleet's engines lit up, a collection of tiny suns each propelling their metal hosts towards the distant lands of E-2093-f. Each ship slipped into the confines of it's event horizon, seeming to turn into tiny streaks of shit brown propelled at high speed to foreign realms.
The wormhole entrance, meanwhile, soon slipped back into the quantum realm, never to be seen again.
The form and appearance of these floating jellyfish was very interesting to the Consulate doctors who were patching them up. Although unfamiliar with their biology they did their absolute best to make sure they stabilised and could recover. Something that did bother them was the insistence that the Sadashi stayed close to their wounded. The doctors just assumed it was some sort of cultural thing and worked around them the best they could.
The people onboard the station were clearly human but with various biological alterations that disrupt the standard human expectations. Most doctors had an extra limb to help with tool use and speed of procedure combined with extremely dexterous fingers that flexed in ways to suggest no bones were present. The Sadashi weren’t able to take a good look at the other people present as the station ordered everyone to move into armoured shelters.
Olina sensed the disturbance in gravity which was detected by her craft’s sensors. She felt it in her mind as the information of the detection equipment was wired straight into her spinal cord. Without speaking physically she ordered her squadron to form up behind the gravity disturbance to strike from behind once the ships came through while her own unarmed craft got some distance to stay safe.
The psionic nature of the Sadashi was noted, but none of the personal here had the opportunity to dive deeper at this moment.
———-
“All systems green” was heard across the comms systems among the cadet flotilla. As they got in formation Captain Popora was lazily ordering around his bridge crew, he had full confidence in their ability. Trust which was misplaced, as no matter how difficult their training was and the how high the standards they had to meet were. None of them had any combat experience apart from scaring away pirate strike craft.
In the beating hearts of these ships the ancerious fuel was pumped into the massive warp muscle. Every ship shook with the rhythmic pounding of the biotechnology at their core. The muscles contracted across the flotilla, each ship was soon covered by a spacetime warping bubble that distorted and thoroughly disregarded any and all of Newton’s laws. The escorts went ahead first, they accelerated forward under the nuclear force of their pulse engines and soon became but a streak as the acceleration was magnified to an unthinkable level. After 2 minutes the heavier vessels followed and the flotilla just became streaks of pulsing light.
And then, kaboom.
With a silent shockwave that certainly caused some rattling in the Astrilite cockpits, a massive wormhole formed right in the spot they expected, probably making Newton, Einstein, and Galileo revolve in their graves at mach 10. From their perspective, a black disk with thin white smokey edges came from nothing with a flash. On the other side, a hole leading to infinity slowly regurgitated the Zetyan fleet from it's unfathomable depths. Then, the hole went slipped into the confines of nothing, revealing the fleet it had expunged to the strike craft.
At the station, the three warships suddenly broke off from the remainders of their little shoal at practically the same time, speeding up towards their newly revealed enemy with a surge of psychic energy. The lead ship sent a transmission to the station, surprisingly this time not in all caps and in separate chunks.
"[We shall hold them. The Devils will act on rage alone. It will be chastized.]"
The other ships at the station also received a transmission from them, though in their native language and sounding absurdly sped up. And then, a final transmission to the Zetyan fleet, who already were extremely riled up...
---
"Status?!"
"All clear!" "Nominal!" "There's a blinky red button that won't shut off but I think it's fine! Oh wait that's the radar alert."
The bridge had gone abuzz with activity, as they worked to coordinate their systems coming out of warp. Main display, then radar, finally everything was up and running in the span of a minute. Now the only issue was, as the display zoomed in on the terraforming station, who were these guys?
"Radar! These fucks send anybody to help our floating scrotums?!" Q'oka screeched, as the display changed to the 3 approaching Sadashi warships.
"No sir! It's just those... three...?" Someone piped up, before going quiet.
"Who'd they send?! I know they sent someone with how your voice went quiet!"
"Uh... shit, six contacts dead behind! Tiny ones!"
"...WHAT?! TURN! HAVE THE FLEET TURN AND SMITE THE FUCKS I SWEAR TO-!!!" He punched a nearby control panel in anger, as the ships in the fleet began to obey his orders.
Then, the Sadashi message came up on screen. All heads turned to view the gelatinous organism on screen, many eyes now wide with anger as the prerecording showed it holding up a zetyan skull.
Crack. Crush. The pieces of the now shattered skull fell to the floor slowly. Then, it spoke, its 'voice' dripping with almost cartoonish disgust.
"[We had stayed the hands of the Devils once. It will be stayed again.
The Devils had wished for us? Come upon us, vermin.]"
...
"A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A"
Suddenly, in vacuum, the fleet did a complete reversal of direction and intent, beginning to roar towards the three warships. Some guns even fired prematurely, way out of range and bearing of their target. Whatever the jellyfishes said, it was enough for them to mostly ignore the six enemy contacts sitting behind them-though, some turrets on a few of the ships were turning to them. Perhaps some gunners still weren't completely blinded by rage.
As space was ripped open to let the Zetyan fleet into the system the station's point defences activated. The soft whirring of large rotary cannons could be heard in some parts of the station along with the clattering of ammo belts as the guns were prepared to intercept any incoming missiles and projectiles to defend the inhabitants of the station.
Commander Petrov Baker responded to the Sadashi message as their warships un-docked and flew out to meet the Zetyans. "Affirmative, we have confirmation that friendly ships are on the way, just hold them of for a little bit" Petrov looked around at the command centre, the countless vector displays were lit up with information on the station's subsystems, weapon status's, hull integrity and radar data to name a few.
“All pilots, attack pattern Oberon.” Olina communicated to her squadron. The strike craft suddenly gained a burst of speed as their nuclear engines were turned up to the maximum. The bombers were covered by the fighters from as many angles as possible. Since there were no enemy strike craft present the Astril fighters focused on intercepting enemy missiles if any came their way. The strike craft performed a boom and zoom attack, at an extremely high speed they fired their anti ship missiles at the engine sections of the smaller Zetyan ships before breaking of and flying away to regroup for a second pass. G-forces were seemingly no issue for these pilots as they weaved through the enemy with grace and some high level evasive manouvres.
Petrov baker kept watchful eyes on the various terminals around him and then turned to one that grabbed his attention as it’s operator called for him.
“Sir! We have an issue”
The screen was flashing red and a young systems officer was busy trying to solve a computer error. Several system restarts were attempted but it did not help.
“What’s the problem here?”
“Sir, our radar is not working properly.”
“How is it not working?”
“It is getting false positives, it is detecting targets that are not even there.”
Petrov suddenly remembered the fact that they have not actually used any of these weapons in months. It was most likely a build up of space dust that disrupted their accuracy.
“Can you still assign targets manually?”
“Yes sir but I need permission to connect to the targeting computer.”
“Permission granted, get on it quick.”
“Yes sir,”
The systems officer grabbed a bundle of cables from under his desk and connected them to various biological ports on his body. His body went limp as direct control of the point defence system was taken. Accuracy would suffer but it was much better then nothing.
————
The cadet flotilla was still on its way. Although it was a one jump trip the ships were slow, heavy and lumbering, more intended for the defence of core worlds rather then rapid interception.
Upon the backsides of an escort, 2 corvettes and a sloop, a ball of flame overtook their engine sections, knocking them offline with a succinct blow. The crippled ships soon fell behind their cohorts, metal husks drifting in the void while the rest met their enemies in combat. The sloop was rendered mostly without a thrust block; suffering much more damage from the blow than it's much larger cohorts due to it's small size, being more of an oversized FAC than it's designated role.
The Sadashi ships also made their fair share of damage; powerful psychic bolts raced towards the fleet, giving a destroyer one fiery hole in it's prow and another in it's midriff as some turrets lost power. A sloop had it's bridge eliminated with prejudice, and another corvette-this one without weapons but with a strange device on both top and bottom-received damage to it's midsections as well, slowing it down as it's own thrusters began to weaken-though not enough to shut off whatever the device was.
However, a strange effect soon became visible.
Two corvettes, one currently without a functioning thruster, began projecting a sort of grainy, yellowish field from their devices, enough to cover the ships closest to them. Soon enough, most things caught within the confines of the field began to seemingly disintegrate at a somewhat rapid pace. Though, minor debris and some unfortunate crew members in vacuum were the only victims so far, and the ships themselves seemed immune to it's effects.
The Astrilite squadron soon received a transmission from the Sadashi ships.
"Do not pass within the field! ItA$G$%3 -kshrrrt-"
And suddenly, one of the Sadashi ships was completely cored, a psychic implosion punctuating it's loss as two spinal-grade shells tore from it's backside. The other two Sadashi warships received the full firepower of the bigger half of the fleet, turning one into a dead swiss-cheesed mess and leaving another more wounded than before. A few rounds were flung in the direction of the station, though none were set to hit-more accidental misses and potshots than actual targeted assaults.
The crippled half of the fleet also began to fire upon the strike craft, large shells intertwined with smaller bullets flung in their direction with haste. A few tiny missiles were launched from the escort, normally meant for munitions interception but fine and dandy against anything small and fragile.
In a blaze of fiery speed the Astril craft tried their best to dodge everything thrown their way. But the simple fact was that they were outnumbered and outgunned severely, even if they did escape and got out of range there was no chance for a second strike for them as going back to rearm would take too much time.
One fighter blew up as it dodged a missile just to fly into a cannon round, another fighter got caught in the disintegration radius, one bomber tried to flee but in the panic of sudden return fire it was unable to evade several missiles at once. It looked bleak, especially as Olina ordered a full retreat of her squadron back to the station. They fully focused on evading now, what they lacked in numbers they certainly made up for with their training.
As projectiles passed by the defence systems of the station stayed silent. They knew which ones would hit and which ones were of no threat to them.
Commander Baker was not a religious man, but he sure was praying now.
“Just get here already…. Just get here…. I wanna see those ships right now dammit….”
He mumbled to himself, panicked on the inside yet remaining cool on the outside. Then he had an idea. He began issuing orders with some confidence.
“Call the engineering team! Now!”
In but a moment he had a telephone in his hand connected to the engineering section of the station.
“I have an idea, do you think you guys can jury rig the K57 anti ship missiles to fire without needing to be armed onto a bomber? You can? Fantastic, do as many as you can and bring them to the east hangar of the station. We will fire them out of the hangar when the enemy is getting close.”
The cadet flotilla was close, but was not close enough to have intervened at this moment.
A shrill excitement filled the Zetyan ships as their opponents fell and fled, akin to a palpable adrenaline rush that ingrained itself into every inch of the crew it could. Simultaneously and paradoxically focused and unfocused, their rage was fully directed upon all of their perceived enemies, as more shots began to travel towards the station instead of the remaining Sadashi ship. Still far off target, but the increase was certainly noticeable.
The remaining Sadashi destroyer, badly wounded as it was, soon fell valiantly like its siblings as psychic shields flickered and failed under the combined torrent of the Zetyan fleet's guns. However, it managed to get one last laugh in before going down to the locker-the spinal of the lead destroyer was crippled by a well-aimed shot, which made a poignant display of wrecking the internals of the large gun.
Inside the ship, a tremor on the ship's bridge made the effect awfully clear. The 'good' captain's fist rained down upon any surface nearby, as he cursed practically the entire phylum Cnidaria for it's baleful existence and crimes against his people.
"Who's left of our fleet?!"
"We only lost two sloops, sir! Some other ships got crippled, though."
"Can we live without them for a minute? They can repair the damage, right?"
"...probably?" Another crewmember pointed something out to him on the displays, and his expression somewhat doured. "No, they all got hit in the thrust blocks. Looks pretty bad."
"Shit. to another section of the bridge Do we have the missiles loaded?"
"Which ones?"
"The acronym ones, the ar-kay-whatever the fucks!"
"Uh... they say it'll be a few more minutes!"
"sigh As long as it's soon. Gun it for their... uh, their mushroom orb station thing 'till we're in range!"
A chorus of "H&A!" followed, and the fleet -the remainder that could, anyways-soon began to accelerate towards the station, large missile heads beginning to slowly poke themselves out of designated launch hoods like metallic ears of wheat. The remainder of the fleet left crippled unfortunately had to eat their dust, many curse-laden messages shot back and forth between the two as they worked to restore some semblance of mobility.
Meanwhile on the station spirits were low as the explosions of the Sadashi ships were seen by the command and control staff on board.
“Launch those missiles as quick as you can! That’s an order!”
Petrov shouted into the telephone as the engineering team quickly depressurised a hangar. The missiles they jury rigged were left to float in microgravity while one unlucky engineer in a spacesuit had to shortcircuit the wires they attached to 2 dozen missiles. There was a bright spark as the signal was given for these missiles to fly out towards the Zetyans. With no guidance systems to lead them these mini nuclear warheads had to rely on a timer set to explode for roughly when they would arrive at the enemy ships.
Olina and her strikecraft squadron meanwhile flew back to the station and circled it to provide extra interception capacity and to link the radar craft’s sensors with the control system of the station.
“It just had to be one of those days?”
Olina said to her pilot as they flew in a defensive formation around the station. She turned her head to look at her pilot who was currently in a womb like fleshy organ.
“You could not have said it any better, how do you rate our survival chances?”
She said back to Olina.
“Slim, although the planet below is partially habitable along the equator.”
“Yeah but they barely have grass down there let alone anything we could eat.”
“I think there is enough meat in this craft to last us for a month or two. If you aren’t picky about eating your own controls.”
“Well I would have no choice in that circumstance.”
Olina chuckled and didn’t respond further as she had to focus on her sensor readings again.
It was at this moment that all gravitational sensor systems were set alight with the detection of several rather large ftl signals arriving into system. The Zetyans could see 6 ships coming out of ftl on their left side. They were undeniably thick, covered in flak like guns and with several large gun turrets. Their gigantic pusher plates soon kicked into gear as they made for a direct interception course with the Zetyans. Looking at his screens Senior Captain Popora saw the wreckage and Zetyan ships aggressively flying towards a civilian station.
“Hmm, my gut tells me those are the troublemakers. All ships, Y formation. Make your nation proud!”
“S-sir.. we don’t have enough ships to do that formation.”
“Oh.. uh. All ships! Close distance and prepare for broadside!”
The flotilla began to spread out slightly to allow each ship to fire their forward weapons. Out of the forward bow of the destroyer and light cruisers several nuclear missiles were fired towards to the Zetyans while each ship turned their turrets and adjusted their targeting to prepare their casaba howitzers for the opening salvo.
"Shit. Someone get our PD going!"
As the jury-rigged missiles flied from the station, point defense turrets around the fleet began to preemptively fire at their general direction, an odd mix of CIWS-style fire from other ships in the fleet mixed with precise-ish laser beams from the escorts. It seemed that it would be all they had to deal with at this point; all that was left was to delete the jellyfuck ships, get something to kill the rest, the whole shebang.
The captain couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't got any help to arrive yet-was it just some really backwater station in fuck off nowhere? He hoped so. These guys were already annoying with their FACs and whatnot, and it'd be-
And then, seemingly just to interrupt his thoughts, their systems detected FTL signatures at a hard 9'o'clock.
"Sir! FTL signatures! We're getting 6 dicks bang left!"
"They sure took their time! How much le-" His tongue tied itself for a moment, as their location was brought up on the main display alongside visuals.
Very zoomed in visuals. He came to a horrid realization.
"Oh ssSHIT. t-Turn! TURN! HOLYSHIT TURN THEY'RERIGHTONOURFUCKIN'ASS-"
In vacuum, the fleet suddenly took a very hard left, throwing off the aim of any PD that was firing. A chunk of the PD began to fire at the enemy fleet's missiles as the others focused on the now-very-near jury-rigged missiles. Unfortunately, it mostly comprised of the two able-bodied escort's laser fire, robbing those firing at the station's missile bundles of any pinpoint words to leave them with blanket statements. A few more anti-munitions missiles rushed out from the escorts as well, 4 of them split evenly between the two sources of danger with 4 more sticking their heads out from the exhaust trails, getting ready to fire again.
Their divided attention, coupled with loss of precision, unfortunately let the station's missiles get close enough to explode. One scored a nasty hit on the undamaged assault destroyer's side, turning a ton of turrets to scrap, and another exploded near the support corvette, temporarily disabling it's upper shield projector and throwing it off course into the path of an assault corvette, both receiving decent damages to their hull and turrets as the upper half of the orange field around the Zetyan fleet suddenly disappeared with a light flash. Other explosions remained inside the fleet's boundaries, giving wakeup calls to any who thought they'd miss as bright flashes erupted around them like oversized flak shells.
The fleet began to fire upon the fleet despite the rattling from the mininukes, missiles and shells intertwining as they raced towards the Astrilite fleet while the Zetyan fleet began to line up their spinals in kind, large gaudy cannons of various sizes all mounted at the prow. No RKKVs yet, though some rather large missiles were sticking out of the missile hoods now. The sole remaining sloop decided to put it's speed to use, using it's speed to act as a sort of slightly oversized strike craft as it began to circle around the Astril fleet, guns blazing.
Meanwhile, the crippled half of the fleet could only sit and watch the fireworks. They were making some progress with repairs, but not enough-it'd take a good few longer to get any form of movement back, let alone restoring their thrust blocks to full operating capacity, and in this sort of situation you had to be there or be square. To pass the time, their crews took turns sending derogatory messages at, well, anyone-the docked Sadashi ships, the Astril station and fleet-even their own ships, despite being told to shut up multiple times.
Anything to stave off boredom, apparently.
The Consulate ships turned a hard right to get into a broadside formation and engage the zetyans. These space dreadnoughts turned their turrets toward the enemy along with their smaller flak guns. They did not fire yet, instead they took the time to aim and make sure all guns were loaded with their nuclear shells. By god, so many nukes. All the cannons on the Astril ships twitched and turned as the flotilla synchronised their targeting data to ensure maximum effective defensive fire.
Popora was not concerned at all, to him it looked like they stumbled into a junkyard fleet and combined with the insults he received over the radio he had little respect for the Zetyan’s ability to be a cohesive fighting force.
“Look at them, so rude, crass and undisciplined. A light breeze and I belief they will flee. Alright, no strike craft spotted so far. Just a chore then.”
He began to give out orders to his flotilla, he didn’t concern himself with electronic warfare or launching his strike craft or staying behind a proper screen of ships. To him this was just pirate Monday.
During their manoeuvring these slow ships were easy targets, there were noticeable impacts on their hulls which dented their composite armour layer. But they were designed to take hits, so some stray rounds at maximum range was no issue for them. There was no energy shield or active protection system, it was just steel, carbon and all the other things they used in their armour design.
The station was happy to finally see its reinforcements, there was deep relief but still no time to relax. The strike craft were recalled into the hangars to rearm and join the fight once more.
As the Zetyan ships continued their barrage, they prepared to unleash the biggest part of their salvos. The RKKV carrier missiles in the missile hoods across the fleet had finally stopped moving, and their spinals seemed right on target, with maybe a 1% deviation here and there.
Whoever commanded the remaining sloop, meanwhile, decided to play dangerously. In a sort of delayed monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, it now moved to strafe across the backsides of the Astril fleet, firing at anything that looked at least somewhat important with it's small cannons, fairly oversized minigun, and some dinky missiles that probably would've worked better for munitions interception or CAS. Suicidal, but it'd at least cause some damage.
On the bridge of the lead ship, the captain silently gnawed his fingernails as he watched the Astril ships line up their broadside as the sloop apparently moved to kill itself in a vainglorious fashion. Any more time those fucks in the missile bay spent sitting on their asses, and they'd be scrap like those guys that fought the space bug things or whatever a couple months ago.
He whipped around towards one of the fire coordinators.
"Are the spinals-.. the working spinals ready?!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Are the missiles ready?!"
"Yes!"
"Wait, not those ones, the fancy ones!"
"Probably!"
"Probably?! W-hu-The fuck does 'probably' mean?!"
"Haven't heard anything from the missile bay teams, but the lights are green, sir!"
"Then we assume yes! I tell you people this but you never listen! Aaaagh-FIRE EVERYTHING!!"
Then, with a thunderous flash, the remaining functioning spinals shot out their payloads alongside the RKKV carriers, large cannon shells and long red missiles racing ahead at a noticeably faster speed than the other munitions around them. The recoil was enough for some of the larger ships to move backwards a little, a plume of smoke making it seem as if they strapped a thruster to their front ends.
As they fired, though, Q'oka still was worried. Those strange ships were obviously lining up to fire, and if he knew broadsides from those old corny sci-fi movies he watched when he was 12 he knew they were bad news.
"When's our sup-corv gonna get her shields back up?" He inquired to the comms section After about 15 seconds of communication, he got his response.
"Upper shield should be up soon, they say, sir!"
"Upper? Is the lower one-?"
"They said it was a bit rattled, sir, but it's still working!"
"Well, shit. Have them turn the ship up! Get it angled towards these cocksuckers, they're about to light us up!"
"H&A!"
A few seconds later, with some verification it wasn't stuck in the assault corvette it had collided into, and the corvette began to turn upwards, exposing it's ventral shield generator as that strange orange screen beginning to move along with it.
...Slowly.
Ever so unbearably slowly.
There were many strong suits to the Zetyan ships and the long-range doctrine they normally followed. Upwards maneuverability, especially for an already damaged warship that just suffered a nasty collision, was not one of them.
And as that corvette began it's lateral transformation, even as the first vestiges of the shieldscreen began to intersect with the ships around them, it was certain that it wouldn't be able to completely cover the fleet with the most effective section in time.
The little ship coming up their backside was annoying but did not change their plans. They could not risk having to realign all their point defences to deal with it so out of the hangars of the ships about a dozen strike craft were launched to intercept the Zetyan sloop. There was some minor damage to the pusher plate of a light cruiser and some dents in its armour but it was just tickling the ship. The heavy interceptors flew out to met the Sloop with the usual mini nukes missiles.
"All ships, prepare defensive fire. Wait for their shot..."
The crew onboard the Astril ships were nervous, these so called pirates were much heavier armed then they thought they would be. As the Zetyans launched their munitions all warning sirens on the ships lit up and the men aboard held their breath for the incoming thunderstorm.
"Fire!"
The first moment would have been dazzling, confusing and overwhelming to the senses. The countless small flak like guns on the heavy Consulate ships fired out towards the incoming projectiles at a rapid rate. They seemed to completely miss at first but then they exploded into nuclear fireballs. The fast cannon shells and missiles were able to penetrate this wall of plasma death before it could vaporise them, creating nasty large gashes and holes in every ship. They were sturdy designs yes but this damage definitely reduced their nuclear flak capability in the future. Meanwhile this wall of bright light, radiation and electromagnetic interference grew in size. The idea behind it was obvious, to create a literal wall of explosions in order to destroy, redirect or otherwise disable incoming projectiles without having to be accurate.
Then the large guns fired, a full on broadside volley of massive Casaba howitzers. Bolts of nuclear formed plasma bolts flew out of the explosion cloud towards the Zetyans. With their radar and detection interfered with they relied on predicting the enemy movement based on their earlier flight patterns to hit.
While behind this shield of light the Astril ships with broadside torpedoes launchers loaded their experimental warheads, might as well, when will they ever use them otherwise?
The casaba howitzers impacted with rancor on the Zetyan fleet, bright flashes and vibrant explosions tearing across the myriad ships and causing massive damages. An assault corvette and escort were each eliminated, and one of the destroyers suffered even more damages to all sides, exposing multiple sections to vacuum and eliminating most of it's offensive capability beyond missiles and a now gratuitously shortened spinal gun.
Though some of the slower shots were eliminated by the escort's precise laser PD, and the support corvette's shieldscreen managed to disintegrate some of the broadside munitions that fell below the fleet, their best wasn't best enough. The rest of the main fleet also suffered damages of varying degrees, from minor scratches to great gashes that were each punctuated by the vermilion flash of nuclear blasts.
On board the now very battered lead destroyer, it was a nail-biting tension that gripped the bridge crew as the ship rocked and shook, displays and lights flickering like fireflies. The captain silently, yet hurriedly weighed what to do now in the chaos, as he unsuccessfully tried to drown out the screams and callouts from every side of the bridge.
He could have everyone overload their fracture drones, make some impromptu alcub-bombs, but if that didn't work they'd be stuck and dead. He could have everyone flee, but then they'd be followed and everyone at home would know he was a pussy. Maybe he could pull some madcap option, have the sloop pull a suicide ram...
Yeah, sure, suicide is badass, right? He reached for the universal radio, as he prepared to order a very-
Oop.
There went the sloop, flaming and chased by several enemy strike craft. He cursed to himself as he watched it fly past the other Astril ships, cannon shots and tiny missiles traded between each combatant like tiny bright lances.
He weighed his options again, and again, and again until he could only think of one thing that might, might work. With a dreading groan, he told the comms board to get everyone still able-bodied started on overloading their frac's...
----
The crippled half of the fleet, after what felt like an eternity of throwing shade and doing nothing, suddenly jolted back to life. Some had finally managed to field-repair their original engine blocs to some working form, while others merely saw fit to jury-rig up some backup 'engine's. The formerly-crippled, now just damaged-and-slow half of the fleet now began to slowly move towards where the action was, having loaded up the expensive ammunition while waiting for finished repairs.
————
Meanwhile inside the bridge of the battlecruiser Captain Popora was concerned, he definitely underestimated the power of the ships he was fighting and the damage they so far received was an indication of that. He thought about it and then quickly wrote something down on a piece of paper. He stood up, walked over to his communications officer and handed him the piece of paper.
“Send a distress signal, say out loud everything I have written here. Use every FTL relay on every ship we have. Send it on all channels and without any encryption.”
“Are you sure sir? The enemy will be Able to intercept it easily….”
“I know! Trust me, that’s an order. Now send this message.”
As he said this the master gunner turned to the captain.
“Captain sir, the EMP of our nuclear defence field would ruin the signal. Permission to switch to conventional?”
“Permission granted, i also want our electronic warfare systems to scramble their targeting.”
“Yes sir!”
The zetyans could see the bright flashes of nuclear mayhem slowly die down as the countless flak guns and CIWS systems on the Astril ships began to load conventional airburst explosives. With the disappearance of the plasma field the broadside torpedo launchers could open up and fire out their experimental warheads. They were not filled but explosives, they were loaded with vicious flesh devouring bug swarms that preferred to eat through the eye socket to reach the brain. It was hoped that they could enter via one of the openings caused by the broadside. Speaking of which, they didn’t stop firing their casaba howitzers yet, although the reload time of the larger vessels was noticeable so they got no second shot of yet.
Lastly, the transmission went out. Unsecured and on all frequencies.
“This is the first cadet flotilla, hostile forces have entered E-2093f and we are currently locked in combat with them. Signs indicate this to be the first wave of an invasion fleet, requesting backup from any nearby ships, we are severely outnumbered and won’t hold long.”
The truth might have been…. twisted to better suit a desperate distress signal.
As the nuclear fire died down, replaced by airburst, the Zetyan munitions began to slip through; protected by armor, they were a degree more resistant to, say, conventional explosives than a wave of pure nuclear plasma. The casaba howitzers fired at the Zetyan fleet were also somewhat stifled by the support corvette's shieldscreen as it now finished turning up, though a few managed to sneak through and cause more damages.
The sloop, so very damaged as it was, made a rather cognizant decision. Showing it's captain had at least more sense than their compatriots, it launched a fracture drone directly in front of itself as it flew away, deserting the battlefield though one of the wormholes that brought them here in the first place as it received many 'what in fuck are you doing' transmissions from the leader.
The torpedoes saw some difficulty in getting through, as the escort made a point of flexing with what las-turrets they had left to support the shieldscreen, with some being disintegrated and others being melted by red beams. Those that got through, though, hit the jackpot; one managed to hit an assault corvette, another hit the support corvette's side, and a great many others hit the assault destroyers, square in their sides.
On the A'kaja, and on the other ships affected, alarms went off all across the board, as hosts of black swarms began to travel through the impact zones deeper inwards, leaving all they saw as husks. Upon the bridge, chaos reigned, as everyone tried to coordinate everything at once while the captain tried to reign everyone back into some form of order.
Some measures were taken in an attempt defeat them; preemptive lockdowns for doors and vents, activation of fire suppression systems, and for applicable areas just outright exposure to space. Desperate, but considering how things were going, it wasn't entirely unwarranted.
The transmission, when received, only made things worse. The last thing they needed to happen was now broadcasting full volume towards anyone willing to listen, and any considerations that they deliberately let them know would find no purchase, drowned in waves of fearful, stressed havoc.
The bridge successfully rendered unruly, the captain now had to personally give out his orders, having needed to dig into the communications section as the bridge went on a figurative autopilot. One message went out to the rest of the fleet, for both halves.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! THERE'S MORE OF THE FUCKS COMING, LEAD SHIP IS COMPROMISED! WARP OUT! WARP OUT!!"
The main fleet, already beleaguered and beginning to falter, made little complaint as they began to move away from the Astril fleet, stopping the overload process on their fracture drones and instead prepping them for FTL. The other half, though, were rather taken aback-now that they had just gotten their shit online, they wanted to run away, tails between legs? They thought it bullshit, and one of the ship's captains decided to speak their mind.
"What the fuck do you mean, 'run away'?! We got this, our shit's loaded and ready!"
"They just sent out another distress call, you 'loid! This system's gonna be filled with reinforcements soon! You wanna win another day or die today?!"
"How about you let us fight, huh?! We just sat on our asses twice in a row!"
"You wanna fight, cover us while we plot a jump! We are NOT staying here!"
"Oh, so when suddenly you've got allied ships to help you win, you pussy out, huh?!"
"There are SWARMS of BUGS in my SHIPS and they are EATING EVERYTHING NOT ALREADY DEAD. COVER! US!"
After some more argumentation, the repaired half begrudgingly moved to provide the desired bodyblocking for their comrades in arms, their support corvette and escort popping lasers and spitting bullets at the interceptors as the fleet moved. They also fired off their weapons at the Astril fleet, shells, missiles and a few RKKV carriers intertwining as they rushed towards the enemy through an orange shieldscreen.
Even the heavy armour of the Consulate ships could be stripped away in time. The first few hits seems minor but every impact reduced the ships defensive firepower little by little. This was most noticeable with the battle cruiser leading the flotilla, being the biggest target and trying to protect the smaller ships piloted by the cadets it received more holes and tears across its hull. Then a sudden flash, an RKKV managed to sneak into a hole in the armour and hit one of the ships magazines. There was a massive cloud of blood that crystallised in the freezing vacuum of space and fires were started across some of the decks.
“Fuck! Damage report! Damage report!”
Captain Popora turned to his senior technician.
“30% of our flak guns on the left side are outright gone, another 15% are disabled. Sensor systems have taken a major hit and there are fires spreading across the decks. Several blood veins have been cut and are coagulating now. Currently we are closing bulkheads and doing damage control.”
“Navigator! Rotate the ship 180 degrees! Get our intact side facing them! Master gunner! Fire one last shot with the casaba’s and load flak with nuclear rounds on the double!”
Although the situation was chaotic the crew was well trained and did not yet break. But stress was mounting. The large casaba howitzers of the battlecruiser fired one last broadside volley before the ship began to turn to get its good side pointing at the enemy.
The other ships quickly loaded up their nuclear flak shells as well but they had to wait for the current airburst belts that were loaded to empty. During this time they launched a broadside volley of armoured torpedoes with nuclear hollow charge warheads to try and crack open the zetyans further.
The interceptors send out to fight the repaired fleet performed their attack runs with the expected grace and complete disregard for g-forces of all consulate pilots. Their nukes were mainly aimed at the fire and control systems of the zetyans. The lasers of the zetyans managed to score some good hits on a few of the interceptors as they dodged projectiles like adhd monkeys on caffeine and crack.
Although the bugs were brutal and numerous they were not very survivable, they had a short air supply to life in the vacuum for a few minutes but when bulkheads closed and they were exposed the space and fire suppression foam they died out rather quickly. They were clearly some sort of prototype or terror weapon. Not yet suited for actual combat.
The distress signal went out into space far and wide, it reached the ears of some civilians deeper in system who in turn send out their own distress signals as none of them wanted to be left behind by the ftl capable transport ships. This created a domino effect as more signals were sent out, received and sent out again.
The casaba broadside on the damaged fleet saw far more results than before, enjoying critical hits on already beleaguered and morale-broken ships as the shieldscreen flickered and warped out of existence, causing great damage and even destroying an assault corvette. The damaged support corvette's shield system, beginning to go on overload, temporarily shut off; automated failsafes built in to prevent catastrophic particulate decay. The rest of the fleet was also duly affected by the torpedoes, with one of the assault destroyers losing it's spinal and a good chunk of stuff near it to a flash of nuclear fire as their escort worked double time to try and stave them off without the help of their magic orange field.
The interceptors, meanwhile, had two targets for the three reinforcements-primary visual and sensor systems that took the form of black screens with interlinked red dots, and much less flashy grey control stations barely jutting out from the hulls, with bundles of antennae sticking outwards like thin strands of cloth woven together. For each system struck, each ship's firing line began firing a bit less, and any missile bays they had temporarily battened down the hatches while temporary backups for each system were booted online. Their bridges would have holes in their vision for every hole put in their visual screens, as well.
Upon the bridge of the A'kaja, the only thing preventing chaos and abandonment of ship was the promise of escape. As every ship in the fleet began to send reports for their FTL drone spoolups, Captain Q'oka couldn't help but kick himself in between getting damage reports and telling people to do things. All this way had he come, and now he had to get sent home on a broken platter. And the jellyfucks, they get off scott free with some new friends. Always getting away with it...
Then, he thought about it a little.
No, that was unacceptable. How could he just ignore them? After getting his entire ass handed to him this whole time?!
He soon got the attention of one of the intership coordinators, who he interrupted in the midst of their helping engineering calm down the megafuser while it diverted power to the fracture drones left onboard.
"You! How many drones do we have left, how many do we need?!"
"Uh-? We, we need three minimum, have ten, want five, I think!"
"Get two of them on overload! Have them launched at that fuckin' station, then we get lost!"
"What?! I thought you said-"
"Just do it!"
Suddenly, from an outside perspective, the leading assault destroyer would start to give off much higher gravitic readings than it's compatriots as they turned tail, angling towards the station. It still tried to return fire to the Astril with what they had left, as did it's fellows. At this point, though, it was either potshots at any applicable target or disorganized fire that would certainly be great suppressive fire if the concept actually existed in space.
The three (formerly) scrape-free ships continued to rush towards the Astril fleet, guns blazing and moving closer to their allies as they began preparations to flee with their figurative tails between legs. They remained facing sideways to the enemy, as to bodyblock as per the good captain's wishes-though may Koa know they wished it otherwise.
"Captain! We are losing hull integrity! We can't turn fast enough to avoid enemy fire!"
The Astril battlecruiser was still getting battered down and with it's exposed internals damage received was much greater. Fires began to spread and soon the entire ship was as bright as a bonfire. It's guns began to become silent as the crew manning them were ordered to pull back into safer areas of the ship. Captain popora was quick to make the call.
"Order everyone to the escape pods, abandon ship, abandon ship!"
Order aboard the battlecruiser slowly broke down as everyone rushed towards the escape pods or used shuttles from the hangar to fly away from the burning wreck. As is tradition Captain Popora stayed aboard. Only when his entire crew was safe would he leave himself.
The remaining ships began to pull back and regroup as without the battlecruiser in their formation they had to change their tactics. There was a respite of fire as the ships reorganised. As they manoeuvred to get into a new formation the Zetyans managed to score several good hits. A cruiser's propulsion became crippled as it tried to turn away. A light cruiser practically turned blind as a shot hit its main fire control radar. Although they had good armour these ships were lumbering and proved easy targets as they re positioned.
The Astril strike craft boomed and zoomed like annoying mosquitoes around the Zetyan ships. But they have already unleashed their heavy payloads into the sensors so now they strafed what exposed systems they could with their roaring Gatling cannons. After seeing the defeat of the battlecruiser the squadron leader decided that the craft would be way to exposed without its covering fire. They did what they could to try and slow down the escape of the wounded ships, trying to avoid exposing themselves to the repaired front-liners of the Zetyan formation. A craft was lost here and there as lasers proved themselves much more capable of tracking and shooting the tiny fast targets.
There was a response, a response to the distress cal emitted from the Astril fleet.
"This is battlefleet Necrosis, we hear your call for aid. Expect our arrival shortly"
As the Zetyan fleet gave it's final checks for FTL spoolup, gravitic signatures reached an all-time high, centered primarily around the leading destroyer. They seemed to take little interest in their opponents now, diverting most shots to defense of their own ships as they now focused on the little strike craft harrying them. As their PD mounts did their best to defend the fleet, their offensive weapons tried-and failed-to ape them in the same way, throwing shells of sizes far too big towards the general leading direction of any shots headed their way. Of course, potshots were still taken, but that was to be expected by this point.
The interceptors would have a ball with exposed systems, as despite their lack of heavy ammo there was plenty of exposed bits fleetwide to hamper. The sensorscreens of the Zetyan ships soon found themselves riddled with pockmarks, along with anyone and anything in the general vicinity of any hull breaches. They did have to get within concerningly close ranges with the shieldscreen up, lest their bullets turn to fine mist, but thankfully their idle targets found that their turrets couldn't quite rotate fast enough for them at such speeds and ranges.
A moment's notice, and then a series of projectiles were launched out of the fronts of each ship, small jerry-rigged drones that revealed themselves as the source of the gravitic signatures as they moved away from their launchers. They seemed to speed up as they launched, turning from tiny lights to gleaming stars in mere moments as they sallied forth from their motherships.
Then, kaboom.
Disappearing in a bright flash, the drones were replaced with a rapturous 'explosion' that seemed to shake the interiors of everything nearby. It soon revealed itself as a large, twisting wormhole, a whorl of stars and lights each coalescing on a gleaming single point, an unholy beacon dedicated to showing how the laws of physics could be snapped in twine. On que, the Zetyan fleet then began to accelerate, their ships beginning to disappear into the murky black one by one. The bodyblockers were content to stay behind for but a moment, covering for the more damaged ships as they slowly began their escape.
As the rats scurried away to their burrows, though, they saw fit to leave their enemies one more problem: of the drones launched, two of those were on wildly different courses, and were now accelerating exponentially towards the station itself-more exactly, towards the Sadashi ships in dock. Readouts indicated they were now bombs in all but name, and whatever the reasoning these enemies of theirs seemed intent on graduating from 'invaders' to 'terrorists'.
One of the stragglers, a support corvette, seemed to have power issues as it's engines seemed to sputter somewhat. They could ask them after all this, if only someone got a good shot on their engine block...
The battlecruiser burned and turned silent as it’s crew escaped it’s flaming corpse. One last explosion as the entire ship broke in two and began drifting in space. The remaining Astril ships stayed in a defensive formation and simply kept harassing fire up at the zetyans.
The strike craft booming and zooming in close combat with the Zets originally planed to head back and rearm but after receiving the news of these bombs flying towards the station the squadron leader ordered them all to disengage and save the civilian station. Meanwhile the stations own strike craft who where circling it began to assist interception of the bomb drones.
Meanwhile the station commander was panicking and ordered every point defence gun loaded and pre aimed at the incoming projectiles in case the fighters failed.
There was no more agressieve actions taken. Astril doctrine emphasised allowing the enemy to retreat instead of forcing them in a fight to the death. This gave the Zetyans a lot of room to breathe and manoeuvre as they stopped being bombarded.
And so, given the mercy of their enemies, the stragglers retreated into the murky black, leaving their dead behind in charred, burning wrecks and scattered fields of debris. The last to go was the addled support corvette, slinking into the now-closing wormhole as it's engines began to give out.
They left a few goodbye messages as they departed, though one could argue if profanities and insults stringed together counted as messages or not.
Meanwhile, the bombs saw little purchase for their initial efforts; one detonated prematurely thanks to interceptor fire, setting the other off course with a gravitic pulse, spinning it out and forcing it to readjust course. It also was on a timer; the overload was overheating it's internal systems, and sooner or later it'd either explode, melt down, or both.
Soon, though, the problem would be catching up-the little drone's acceleration was being aided now by a small pseudo-warp bubble, and as it began to accelerate towards the station once more it was picking up in speed even faster than before.
As the projectile increased in speed towards the station the fighters had to manoeuvre to turn around before overshooting it in their interception. Without any anti munition missiles equipped they had to spray and pray with their autocannons and rotary cannons to destroy it.
The stations’s own defences now joined the fray as the CIWS roared to life and sprayed its proximity detonated rounds towards the incoming bomb.
The ships simply turned of their communication’s systems to silence the fleeing Zetyans. The Astril ships tried to move closer to the bomb to help intercept it but they were too slow and bulky to catch up. Plus they had the lifeboats to worry about.
The burning battlecruiser was still suffering the occasional explosion as fires roared across the decks and caught themselves on various volatile internal systems.
Kaboom.
The combined firepower coming at the drone from so many sides, with noone else to tank the shots and no way of defending itself, ensured destroying it was only a matter of firing enough bullets to let a few hit. And indeed, a few struck true, hitting external fuel nacelles and knocking the main thruster halfway out. The drone soon began to veer violently off course to the right, going faster and faster as the outside began to turn red, heating up from the inside.
Then, with a bubbling flash and seeming distortion of a shockwave, the little craft of once-was uncontrollably FTL'd off to who-knows where, leaving behind globs of molten-hot metal, bits of scrap and a tiny trail of exposed ancerium fuel in it's wake.
The peoples on the station could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Though, one had to wonder if this would be the last seen of these interlopers...
Although the battle wasn’t a complete cakewalk as they expected the victory was still gained. The sailors and pilots felt pride at their accomplishments as the last of the enemy fled in terror. But it was not without moments they could learn from in the future. These men and women now knew that they were some of the few who actually fought in combat with a foreign hostile force. It might have not been a battle which would have gone down in legend but experience was still experience.
Although officially in charge of training cadet fleets, Captain Popora’s close survival of his ship being destroyed and seeing in his eyes the utter inhumanity of these Zetyans would request to be in charge of a new military formation. A formation specifically made to fight these Zetyans. The battle ensured his grudge with them as in his mind it was not a satisfactory victory. The insults also really got to him and he had to answer them back with equivalent firepower.
The station commander just celebrated another day he got to live. Now to just see to the wounded and these Sadashi refugees.
From it's depths, a fleet of 15 strange, damaged bony ships burst out at intense speed, A multitude of thin tendrils of psychic energy emanated from every ship in the combined fleet, trailing behind like seaweed caught on a rudder. The ships themselves were also of interest; bony plates intersecting and interlacing with focal points of psychic energy on various open points, and with bridges of fluid-filled sacs housing odd temple-esque structures.
They were each battle-scarred, with charred craters and psychically plugged holes everywhere on their surfaces, and gelatinous blood trailing behind some of the more abused ships in long, directionless lines.
In theory, such damaged ships would slow down, as not to tax their systems. As the rift closed, though, the ships showed no signs of stopping-in fact, they were speeding up exponentially towards the nearest space station/planet/etc.
The only communication they gave was a system-wide broadcast, containing a single message translated into galactic common.
"[HELP]"
It was a small and rather quiet system they ended up in. A few barren rocks close to the sun, a single gas giant and some exoplanets. There was one sign of life here, the large terraforming station in orbit of an atmosphere covered rocky world with sparse pink oceans. As for a name, this system didn’t have a name yet, just a boring code. E-2093f
The station itself was a rather simple construct. It was elegantly curved with many devices sticking out of it which ruined the overall curvature of it, a few small hangars and some point defences were all the signs of a light military presence. They never expected something more then the occasional pirate so there was no fleet garrison or any combat capable ships at all in the system.
As the unknown ships entered the system at speed the sensors of the station lit up like a bonfire, the small marine detachment on board went to a low alert and pilots were ordered to stand by just in case. The garrison commander grabbed his clipboard on which he has listed every part of the standardised procure for incoming unknown contacts and went over it to find out what he had to do now.
After a few minutes a responding message came from the station spoken in galactic common as well.
“This is the Prism-8 terraforming and scientific station, we hear you loud and clear. Identify yourself.”
They received a sporadic reply, in separate parts each received 15 seconds apart from each other.
"[SADASHI]"
"[WAS INTERCEPTED BY DEVILS]"
"[WERE BADLY INJURED]"
"[DEVILS WILL FOLLOW]"
"[WILL REQUIRE ASSISTANCE]"
"[WILL REQUEST TO DOCK]"
The interlopers, bunching together like a shoal of sardines, still saw fit to continue chugging on towards the terraforming station, though now it seems they atleast had a reason to go so fast. Though, what the hell were these 'devils' they referred to...?
--
Meanwhile, somewhere a few systems away, someone was putting out more fumes than the ship they were commanding.
"KOA FUCKING DAMN IT PIECE OF SHIT FUCKING COCKSUCKING RUNDFIDDLING WATERHEAD FUCKING-"
The captain of the commanding Zetyan destroyer A'kaja was very unamused, cursing at nothing in particular as he raged over losing his quarry. The rest of the bridge was working overtime to get their ship back in order; the small 13-strong fleet of ships had been thrown into disarray by a series of disruptive psychic pulses sent by the fleeing Sadashi ships.
It didn't damage much, but it did manage to work as a sort of EMP, temporarily shutting systems offline fleetwide. It'd take a good bit to get everything back up and running-time their enemy could use to their advantage.
The captain, a mr. Q'oka Y'hal, turned to the ship's comms board. "Are they done rebooting yet?!"
"They say it'll probably take a little bit longer!" someone responded.
"Tell the slowasses to hurry up!"
"They said they were!"
"THEN TELL THEM THEY'RE NOT BEING FAST ENOUGH!"
He returned to staring at the main display while cursing to himself, rapidly clicking buttons on a nearby console to swap between various in-ship cameras.
The station was quiet for a moment, the commander was tense in thought as he quickly went over the possibilities. He was anxious to just agree to their request for aid, who knew what the political consequences would be of assisting these unknown ships? Then he considered it for another second, they called them devils. Maybe it was not another nation chasing them but some sort of threat beyond political boundaries. It helped that most of these fleeing ships appeared unarmed and defenceless
“Unknown vessels, you are free to dock.”
the respond was quick and repeated two extra times to make sure they heard it properly as it was assumed their communications were damaged in some way. With the confirmation of an incoming threat the small strike craft garrison was launched to escort the wounded vessels. It was only a dozen, 4 bombers escorted by 7 fighters and a lightly armed electronic warfare craft. Knowing it would not be enough commander Petrov Baker send out a local distress call requesting void navy reinforcements.
—
In a nearby system the First Cadet Flotilla were performing their final exam trials. Things were going well for them, the crew proved themselves a match for the tough requirements of the Astril military. Overseeing the exercise and training was Senior Captain Jacob Popora. He was just taking a sip of his military issue artificial coffee when he looked down at the computer screen which showed a bright red flashing light to indicate a nearby distress call.
“Oh great, which one of the cadet ships ran out of fuel? Hmm? It’s from another system?”
He turned his chair to take a better look, his command centre was deep inside the ship and various screens all around the room showed the cadet ships engaging targets and flying in formation. He raised a curious eyebrow and then started transmitting to the cadets under his command to halt their final exam and meet back up in formation with the flagship of Captain Popora. The order was soon given to prepare for a jump to E-2093f. In total it were 7 ships, 6 of which were crewed by fresh cadets that did not officially pass their exam yet and the single battle cruiser flagship of Captain Popora.
With a '[COPIOUS APPRECIATIONS]' and a silent roar of their engines, the Sadashi bioships made their way over to the Consulate station, with each of the small unarmed ships and one of the larger ones practically rushing to dock with the station first. The rest made do with huddling close to the station as they waited to dock, beginning a slow process of licking their own wounds.
As they docked, their hulls shifting into new positions to reveal bony, film-covered umbilicals, the latent psychic tendrils visible around the ships suddenly seemed to coalesce and 'harden' around the bioship's various points of entry, snaking out to form a shifting 'tunnel' of sorts to the nearest gangway, umbilical or otherwise respective entrance in their given dockyard. Lines of viscous fluid began to trickle, then flow from the bony umbilicals on each ship along the newly-formed tunnel, Sadashi both able and injured following in each one's wake.
--
The Zetyan ships still sat in the void, unmoving and silent. Lights flickered on here and there, maybe a spark or two from one of the thrusters made itself known. Slowly, they were getting the rest of their ducks in a row-for their captain of the A'kaja, however, they weren't getting there fast enough.
"How much longer?! It's been ten minutes!" Q'oka screeched, the entire bridge having been privy to his rage for the last five minutes. He certainly exemplified K'lvan anger issues.
"Engineering says about five more minutes, sir!"
"FIVE?! I've worked on megafusers before, they aren't that complicated!" He wasn't wrong, but unfortunately noone told him the distinction between 'temporary shutdowns' and 'electromagnetic pulse'.
"Uhh... they say they've gotten FTL and weapons connected and online, sir! Thrust should follow soon!"
"-sigh- ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿ' ᶠⁱⁿᵃˡˡʸ." His attention shifted elsewhere on the bridge. "Get the coords punched in! When they say Engie's gotten the thrusters online, I want ZERO hesitation!"
He turned back to the comms section. "And tell the missile guys to load the better missiles this time! The ones with the acronyms for names or whatever!"
Commander Petrov Baker looked out of on of the station windows as the organic ships docked themselves. He made a note of it, this was definitely something the higher ups would like to see and bringing this information to them would help him on his track to a promotion. He stepped back and ordered all command and control personnel into the armoured command core deep inside the station. As they entered and pulled the lever to activate the systems the dark interior was lit up by the various vector display screens shining a neon green glow. A few moments after that the dim red lights came alive. Positions were taken and routine pre battle checks were run.
Awaiting the incoming arrivals was the rather small medical staff of the station. They tried their best to get some order and treat the most heavily wounded first but they did not have the facilities to house all the wounded so some dorm rooms were repurposed to serve as hospital beds.
The squadron of strike craft were now patrolling far from the station to try and detect any incoming ftl signatures. In command of the squadron was sergeant Olina Sirus, she was positioned on the electronic warfare craft as the main systems operator but being the highest rank present made her automatically the one in charge.
——
Meanwhile the cadet flotilla were in formation and ready to jump. They were performing their last pre jump checks.
“Finally, some damn action. Wouldn’t you agree luitenant Jones?”
Captain Popora turned around his chair to look at his assistant who was busy making more coffee.
“I don’t know sir. I feel like something bad is going to happen soon…”
“Ah! You are just a scaredy cat. At most it is going to be some pirates in dinky little rust buckets. Nothing actually severe happens around these parts.”
Luitenant Jones just handed over the Captain’s mug of coffee and took a sip of his own in silence.
As the first batch of ships began to dock, the other civilian ships moved to dock as well, provided there was room. The three warships, and any ship unable to fit, were content to remain in a meager shoal.
The Sadashi who brought their wounded, meanwhile, seemed feverishly intent with sticking close by to their injured brethren, even all the way to the table. Something along the lines of 'this one must not fade'.
The influx of Sadashi pouring from the ships into sickbays and dorms, meanwhile, provided an opportunity to look at them up close. To say they were strange would be an understatement.
They bore some visual resemblance to jellyfish, with an internal visceral mass surrounded by bone and a large floating brain suspended within some sort of fluid-they tended to drip it even after exiting their liquid tunnels, to the likely chagrin of any janitors. Two arms made of bunched up tentacles sank below their bodies, while other singular tentacles merely hung aimlessly, drifting around slowly with each movement.
Their strangest facet, though, was that they appeared to be psychic. They floated without any form of support, looking around with two beady 'eyes' projected by chitinous spires, and spoke without truly speaking, a tiny bead poking out the face of their brains flashing with every word 'heard' by those they addressed. For initial impressions, they were perhaps just a tinge unnerving. At the very least, they seemed rather polite, if also acting very rushed.
Who could blame them, though? If the sudden gravitic anomalies the strike craft suddenly began detecting were any indication, their attackers were hot on their tail...
--
"LAUNCH THE DRONES!! NOW!!!"
The words practically exploded out of the captain's mouth with a force (mostly)unheard of so far, having given his command before the bearer of the news could even finish his sentence. Thankfully, it was executed without delay, as the crew's earholes copiously thanked those souls who had their fingers locked on the button.
In vacuum, a drone suddenly propelled itself out of a tube on the lead destroyer's prow, followed by several more following it from a few other ships 10 seconds later. It silently roared up to a certain point, then suddenly began to... fluctuate, almost. It's followers proceeded the same way, each cutting the engines and suffering the same 'fluctuations' as the lead drone.
And then, they were gone.
A cavernous wormhole took their place, a corridor of stars leading to their quarry and a visual representation of how not to do alcubierre drives. On the ships, a 'shockwave' from the silent explosion rattled their interiors, each of the crew treated to a mini earthquake as punishment for making physics cry.
Then, just as soon as it had formed, the fleet's engines lit up, a collection of tiny suns each propelling their metal hosts towards the distant lands of E-2093-f. Each ship slipped into the confines of it's event horizon, seeming to turn into tiny streaks of shit brown propelled at high speed to foreign realms.
The wormhole entrance, meanwhile, soon slipped back into the quantum realm, never to be seen again.
Those strike craft, without doubt, were about to receive some rather unpleasant company.
The form and appearance of these floating jellyfish was very interesting to the Consulate doctors who were patching them up. Although unfamiliar with their biology they did their absolute best to make sure they stabilised and could recover. Something that did bother them was the insistence that the Sadashi stayed close to their wounded. The doctors just assumed it was some sort of cultural thing and worked around them the best they could.
The people onboard the station were clearly human but with various biological alterations that disrupt the standard human expectations. Most doctors had an extra limb to help with tool use and speed of procedure combined with extremely dexterous fingers that flexed in ways to suggest no bones were present. The Sadashi weren’t able to take a good look at the other people present as the station ordered everyone to move into armoured shelters.
Olina sensed the disturbance in gravity which was detected by her craft’s sensors. She felt it in her mind as the information of the detection equipment was wired straight into her spinal cord. Without speaking physically she ordered her squadron to form up behind the gravity disturbance to strike from behind once the ships came through while her own unarmed craft got some distance to stay safe.
The psionic nature of the Sadashi was noted, but none of the personal here had the opportunity to dive deeper at this moment.
———-
“All systems green” was heard across the comms systems among the cadet flotilla. As they got in formation Captain Popora was lazily ordering around his bridge crew, he had full confidence in their ability. Trust which was misplaced, as no matter how difficult their training was and the how high the standards they had to meet were. None of them had any combat experience apart from scaring away pirate strike craft.
In the beating hearts of these ships the ancerious fuel was pumped into the massive warp muscle. Every ship shook with the rhythmic pounding of the biotechnology at their core. The muscles contracted across the flotilla, each ship was soon covered by a spacetime warping bubble that distorted and thoroughly disregarded any and all of Newton’s laws. The escorts went ahead first, they accelerated forward under the nuclear force of their pulse engines and soon became but a streak as the acceleration was magnified to an unthinkable level. After 2 minutes the heavier vessels followed and the flotilla just became streaks of pulsing light.
And then, kaboom.
With a silent shockwave that certainly caused some rattling in the Astrilite cockpits, a massive wormhole formed right in the spot they expected, probably making Newton, Einstein, and Galileo revolve in their graves at mach 10. From their perspective, a black disk with thin white smokey edges came from nothing with a flash. On the other side, a hole leading to infinity slowly regurgitated the Zetyan fleet from it's unfathomable depths. Then, the hole went slipped into the confines of nothing, revealing the fleet it had expunged to the strike craft.
At the station, the three warships suddenly broke off from the remainders of their little shoal at practically the same time, speeding up towards their newly revealed enemy with a surge of psychic energy. The lead ship sent a transmission to the station, surprisingly this time not in all caps and in separate chunks.
"[We shall hold them. The Devils will act on rage alone. It will be chastized.]"
The other ships at the station also received a transmission from them, though in their native language and sounding absurdly sped up. And then, a final transmission to the Zetyan fleet, who already were extremely riled up...
---
"Status?!"
"All clear!" "Nominal!" "There's a blinky red button that won't shut off but I think it's fine! Oh wait that's the radar alert."
The bridge had gone abuzz with activity, as they worked to coordinate their systems coming out of warp. Main display, then radar, finally everything was up and running in the span of a minute. Now the only issue was, as the display zoomed in on the terraforming station, who were these guys?
"Radar! These fucks send anybody to help our floating scrotums?!" Q'oka screeched, as the display changed to the 3 approaching Sadashi warships.
"No sir! It's just those... three...?" Someone piped up, before going quiet.
"Who'd they send?! I know they sent someone with how your voice went quiet!"
"Uh... shit, six contacts dead behind! Tiny ones!"
"...WHAT?! TURN! HAVE THE FLEET TURN AND SMITE THE FUCKS I SWEAR TO-!!!" He punched a nearby control panel in anger, as the ships in the fleet began to obey his orders.
Then, the Sadashi message came up on screen. All heads turned to view the gelatinous organism on screen, many eyes now wide with anger as the prerecording showed it holding up a zetyan skull.
Crack. Crush. The pieces of the now shattered skull fell to the floor slowly. Then, it spoke, its 'voice' dripping with almost cartoonish disgust.
"[We had stayed the hands of the Devils once. It will be stayed again.
The Devils had wished for us? Come upon us, vermin.]"
...
"A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A"
Suddenly, in vacuum, the fleet did a complete reversal of direction and intent, beginning to roar towards the three warships. Some guns even fired prematurely, way out of range and bearing of their target. Whatever the jellyfishes said, it was enough for them to mostly ignore the six enemy contacts sitting behind them-though, some turrets on a few of the ships were turning to them. Perhaps some gunners still weren't completely blinded by rage.
As space was ripped open to let the Zetyan fleet into the system the station's point defences activated. The soft whirring of large rotary cannons could be heard in some parts of the station along with the clattering of ammo belts as the guns were prepared to intercept any incoming missiles and projectiles to defend the inhabitants of the station.
Commander Petrov Baker responded to the Sadashi message as their warships un-docked and flew out to meet the Zetyans. "Affirmative, we have confirmation that friendly ships are on the way, just hold them of for a little bit" Petrov looked around at the command centre, the countless vector displays were lit up with information on the station's subsystems, weapon status's, hull integrity and radar data to name a few.
“All pilots, attack pattern Oberon.” Olina communicated to her squadron. The strike craft suddenly gained a burst of speed as their nuclear engines were turned up to the maximum. The bombers were covered by the fighters from as many angles as possible. Since there were no enemy strike craft present the Astril fighters focused on intercepting enemy missiles if any came their way. The strike craft performed a boom and zoom attack, at an extremely high speed they fired their anti ship missiles at the engine sections of the smaller Zetyan ships before breaking of and flying away to regroup for a second pass. G-forces were seemingly no issue for these pilots as they weaved through the enemy with grace and some high level evasive manouvres.
Petrov baker kept watchful eyes on the various terminals around him and then turned to one that grabbed his attention as it’s operator called for him.
“Sir! We have an issue”
The screen was flashing red and a young systems officer was busy trying to solve a computer error. Several system restarts were attempted but it did not help.
“What’s the problem here?”
“Sir, our radar is not working properly.”
“How is it not working?”
“It is getting false positives, it is detecting targets that are not even there.”
Petrov suddenly remembered the fact that they have not actually used any of these weapons in months. It was most likely a build up of space dust that disrupted their accuracy.
“Can you still assign targets manually?”
“Yes sir but I need permission to connect to the targeting computer.”
“Permission granted, get on it quick.”
“Yes sir,”
The systems officer grabbed a bundle of cables from under his desk and connected them to various biological ports on his body. His body went limp as direct control of the point defence system was taken. Accuracy would suffer but it was much better then nothing.
————
The cadet flotilla was still on its way. Although it was a one jump trip the ships were slow, heavy and lumbering, more intended for the defence of core worlds rather then rapid interception.
Upon the backsides of an escort, 2 corvettes and a sloop, a ball of flame overtook their engine sections, knocking them offline with a succinct blow. The crippled ships soon fell behind their cohorts, metal husks drifting in the void while the rest met their enemies in combat. The sloop was rendered mostly without a thrust block; suffering much more damage from the blow than it's much larger cohorts due to it's small size, being more of an oversized FAC than it's designated role.
The Sadashi ships also made their fair share of damage; powerful psychic bolts raced towards the fleet, giving a destroyer one fiery hole in it's prow and another in it's midriff as some turrets lost power. A sloop had it's bridge eliminated with prejudice, and another corvette-this one without weapons but with a strange device on both top and bottom-received damage to it's midsections as well, slowing it down as it's own thrusters began to weaken-though not enough to shut off whatever the device was.
However, a strange effect soon became visible.
Two corvettes, one currently without a functioning thruster, began projecting a sort of grainy, yellowish field from their devices, enough to cover the ships closest to them. Soon enough, most things caught within the confines of the field began to seemingly disintegrate at a somewhat rapid pace. Though, minor debris and some unfortunate crew members in vacuum were the only victims so far, and the ships themselves seemed immune to it's effects.
The Astrilite squadron soon received a transmission from the Sadashi ships.
"Do not pass within the field! ItA$G$%3 -kshrrrt-"
And suddenly, one of the Sadashi ships was completely cored, a psychic implosion punctuating it's loss as two spinal-grade shells tore from it's backside. The other two Sadashi warships received the full firepower of the bigger half of the fleet, turning one into a dead swiss-cheesed mess and leaving another more wounded than before. A few rounds were flung in the direction of the station, though none were set to hit-more accidental misses and potshots than actual targeted assaults.
The crippled half of the fleet also began to fire upon the strike craft, large shells intertwined with smaller bullets flung in their direction with haste. A few tiny missiles were launched from the escort, normally meant for munitions interception but fine and dandy against anything small and fragile.
In a blaze of fiery speed the Astril craft tried their best to dodge everything thrown their way. But the simple fact was that they were outnumbered and outgunned severely, even if they did escape and got out of range there was no chance for a second strike for them as going back to rearm would take too much time.
One fighter blew up as it dodged a missile just to fly into a cannon round, another fighter got caught in the disintegration radius, one bomber tried to flee but in the panic of sudden return fire it was unable to evade several missiles at once. It looked bleak, especially as Olina ordered a full retreat of her squadron back to the station. They fully focused on evading now, what they lacked in numbers they certainly made up for with their training.
As projectiles passed by the defence systems of the station stayed silent. They knew which ones would hit and which ones were of no threat to them.
Commander Baker was not a religious man, but he sure was praying now.
“Just get here already…. Just get here…. I wanna see those ships right now dammit….”
He mumbled to himself, panicked on the inside yet remaining cool on the outside. Then he had an idea. He began issuing orders with some confidence.
“Call the engineering team! Now!”
In but a moment he had a telephone in his hand connected to the engineering section of the station.
“I have an idea, do you think you guys can jury rig the K57 anti ship missiles to fire without needing to be armed onto a bomber? You can? Fantastic, do as many as you can and bring them to the east hangar of the station. We will fire them out of the hangar when the enemy is getting close.”
The cadet flotilla was close, but was not close enough to have intervened at this moment.
A shrill excitement filled the Zetyan ships as their opponents fell and fled, akin to a palpable adrenaline rush that ingrained itself into every inch of the crew it could. Simultaneously and paradoxically focused and unfocused, their rage was fully directed upon all of their perceived enemies, as more shots began to travel towards the station instead of the remaining Sadashi ship. Still far off target, but the increase was certainly noticeable.
The remaining Sadashi destroyer, badly wounded as it was, soon fell valiantly like its siblings as psychic shields flickered and failed under the combined torrent of the Zetyan fleet's guns. However, it managed to get one last laugh in before going down to the locker-the spinal of the lead destroyer was crippled by a well-aimed shot, which made a poignant display of wrecking the internals of the large gun.
Inside the ship, a tremor on the ship's bridge made the effect awfully clear. The 'good' captain's fist rained down upon any surface nearby, as he cursed practically the entire phylum Cnidaria for it's baleful existence and crimes against his people.
"Who's left of our fleet?!"
"We only lost two sloops, sir! Some other ships got crippled, though."
"Can we live without them for a minute? They can repair the damage, right?"
"...probably?" Another crewmember pointed something out to him on the displays, and his expression somewhat doured. "No, they all got hit in the thrust blocks. Looks pretty bad."
"Shit. to another section of the bridge Do we have the missiles loaded?"
"Which ones?"
"The acronym ones, the ar-kay-whatever the fucks!"
"Uh... they say it'll be a few more minutes!"
"sigh As long as it's soon. Gun it for their... uh, their mushroom orb station thing 'till we're in range!"
A chorus of "H&A!" followed, and the fleet -the remainder that could, anyways-soon began to accelerate towards the station, large missile heads beginning to slowly poke themselves out of designated launch hoods like metallic ears of wheat. The remainder of the fleet left crippled unfortunately had to eat their dust, many curse-laden messages shot back and forth between the two as they worked to restore some semblance of mobility.
Meanwhile on the station spirits were low as the explosions of the Sadashi ships were seen by the command and control staff on board.
“Launch those missiles as quick as you can! That’s an order!”
Petrov shouted into the telephone as the engineering team quickly depressurised a hangar. The missiles they jury rigged were left to float in microgravity while one unlucky engineer in a spacesuit had to shortcircuit the wires they attached to 2 dozen missiles. There was a bright spark as the signal was given for these missiles to fly out towards the Zetyans. With no guidance systems to lead them these mini nuclear warheads had to rely on a timer set to explode for roughly when they would arrive at the enemy ships.
Olina and her strikecraft squadron meanwhile flew back to the station and circled it to provide extra interception capacity and to link the radar craft’s sensors with the control system of the station.
“It just had to be one of those days?”
Olina said to her pilot as they flew in a defensive formation around the station. She turned her head to look at her pilot who was currently in a womb like fleshy organ.
“You could not have said it any better, how do you rate our survival chances?”
She said back to Olina.
“Slim, although the planet below is partially habitable along the equator.”
“Yeah but they barely have grass down there let alone anything we could eat.”
“I think there is enough meat in this craft to last us for a month or two. If you aren’t picky about eating your own controls.”
“Well I would have no choice in that circumstance.”
Olina chuckled and didn’t respond further as she had to focus on her sensor readings again.
It was at this moment that all gravitational sensor systems were set alight with the detection of several rather large ftl signals arriving into system. The Zetyans could see 6 ships coming out of ftl on their left side. They were undeniably thick, covered in flak like guns and with several large gun turrets. Their gigantic pusher plates soon kicked into gear as they made for a direct interception course with the Zetyans. Looking at his screens Senior Captain Popora saw the wreckage and Zetyan ships aggressively flying towards a civilian station.
“Hmm, my gut tells me those are the troublemakers. All ships, Y formation. Make your nation proud!”
“S-sir.. we don’t have enough ships to do that formation.”
“Oh.. uh. All ships! Close distance and prepare for broadside!”
The flotilla began to spread out slightly to allow each ship to fire their forward weapons. Out of the forward bow of the destroyer and light cruisers several nuclear missiles were fired towards to the Zetyans while each ship turned their turrets and adjusted their targeting to prepare their casaba howitzers for the opening salvo.
"Shit. Someone get our PD going!"
As the jury-rigged missiles flied from the station, point defense turrets around the fleet began to preemptively fire at their general direction, an odd mix of CIWS-style fire from other ships in the fleet mixed with precise-ish laser beams from the escorts. It seemed that it would be all they had to deal with at this point; all that was left was to delete the jellyfuck ships, get something to kill the rest, the whole shebang.
The captain couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't got any help to arrive yet-was it just some really backwater station in fuck off nowhere? He hoped so. These guys were already annoying with their FACs and whatnot, and it'd be-
And then, seemingly just to interrupt his thoughts, their systems detected FTL signatures at a hard 9'o'clock.
"Sir! FTL signatures! We're getting 6 dicks bang left!"
"They sure took their time! How much le-" His tongue tied itself for a moment, as their location was brought up on the main display alongside visuals.
Very zoomed in visuals. He came to a horrid realization.
"Oh ssSHIT. t-Turn! TURN! HOLYSHIT TURN THEY'RERIGHTONOURFUCKIN'ASS-"
In vacuum, the fleet suddenly took a very hard left, throwing off the aim of any PD that was firing. A chunk of the PD began to fire at the enemy fleet's missiles as the others focused on the now-very-near jury-rigged missiles. Unfortunately, it mostly comprised of the two able-bodied escort's laser fire, robbing those firing at the station's missile bundles of any pinpoint words to leave them with blanket statements. A few more anti-munitions missiles rushed out from the escorts as well, 4 of them split evenly between the two sources of danger with 4 more sticking their heads out from the exhaust trails, getting ready to fire again.
Their divided attention, coupled with loss of precision, unfortunately let the station's missiles get close enough to explode. One scored a nasty hit on the undamaged assault destroyer's side, turning a ton of turrets to scrap, and another exploded near the support corvette, temporarily disabling it's upper shield projector and throwing it off course into the path of an assault corvette, both receiving decent damages to their hull and turrets as the upper half of the orange field around the Zetyan fleet suddenly disappeared with a light flash. Other explosions remained inside the fleet's boundaries, giving wakeup calls to any who thought they'd miss as bright flashes erupted around them like oversized flak shells.
The fleet began to fire upon the fleet despite the rattling from the mininukes, missiles and shells intertwining as they raced towards the Astrilite fleet while the Zetyan fleet began to line up their spinals in kind, large gaudy cannons of various sizes all mounted at the prow. No RKKVs yet, though some rather large missiles were sticking out of the missile hoods now. The sole remaining sloop decided to put it's speed to use, using it's speed to act as a sort of slightly oversized strike craft as it began to circle around the Astril fleet, guns blazing.
Meanwhile, the crippled half of the fleet could only sit and watch the fireworks. They were making some progress with repairs, but not enough-it'd take a good few longer to get any form of movement back, let alone restoring their thrust blocks to full operating capacity, and in this sort of situation you had to be there or be square. To pass the time, their crews took turns sending derogatory messages at, well, anyone-the docked Sadashi ships, the Astril station and fleet-even their own ships, despite being told to shut up multiple times.
Anything to stave off boredom, apparently.
The Consulate ships turned a hard right to get into a broadside formation and engage the zetyans. These space dreadnoughts turned their turrets toward the enemy along with their smaller flak guns. They did not fire yet, instead they took the time to aim and make sure all guns were loaded with their nuclear shells. By god, so many nukes. All the cannons on the Astril ships twitched and turned as the flotilla synchronised their targeting data to ensure maximum effective defensive fire.
Popora was not concerned at all, to him it looked like they stumbled into a junkyard fleet and combined with the insults he received over the radio he had little respect for the Zetyan’s ability to be a cohesive fighting force.
“Look at them, so rude, crass and undisciplined. A light breeze and I belief they will flee. Alright, no strike craft spotted so far. Just a chore then.”
He began to give out orders to his flotilla, he didn’t concern himself with electronic warfare or launching his strike craft or staying behind a proper screen of ships. To him this was just pirate Monday.
During their manoeuvring these slow ships were easy targets, there were noticeable impacts on their hulls which dented their composite armour layer. But they were designed to take hits, so some stray rounds at maximum range was no issue for them. There was no energy shield or active protection system, it was just steel, carbon and all the other things they used in their armour design.
The station was happy to finally see its reinforcements, there was deep relief but still no time to relax. The strike craft were recalled into the hangars to rearm and join the fight once more.
As the Zetyan ships continued their barrage, they prepared to unleash the biggest part of their salvos. The RKKV carrier missiles in the missile hoods across the fleet had finally stopped moving, and their spinals seemed right on target, with maybe a 1% deviation here and there.
Whoever commanded the remaining sloop, meanwhile, decided to play dangerously. In a sort of delayed monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, it now moved to strafe across the backsides of the Astril fleet, firing at anything that looked at least somewhat important with it's small cannons, fairly oversized minigun, and some dinky missiles that probably would've worked better for munitions interception or CAS. Suicidal, but it'd at least cause some damage.
On the bridge of the lead ship, the captain silently gnawed his fingernails as he watched the Astril ships line up their broadside as the sloop apparently moved to kill itself in a vainglorious fashion. Any more time those fucks in the missile bay spent sitting on their asses, and they'd be scrap like those guys that fought the space bug things or whatever a couple months ago.
He whipped around towards one of the fire coordinators.
"Are the spinals-.. the working spinals ready?!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Are the missiles ready?!"
"Yes!"
"Wait, not those ones, the fancy ones!"
"Probably!"
"Probably?! W-hu-The fuck does 'probably' mean?!"
"Haven't heard anything from the missile bay teams, but the lights are green, sir!"
"Then we assume yes! I tell you people this but you never listen! Aaaagh-FIRE EVERYTHING!!"
Then, with a thunderous flash, the remaining functioning spinals shot out their payloads alongside the RKKV carriers, large cannon shells and long red missiles racing ahead at a noticeably faster speed than the other munitions around them. The recoil was enough for some of the larger ships to move backwards a little, a plume of smoke making it seem as if they strapped a thruster to their front ends.
As they fired, though, Q'oka still was worried. Those strange ships were obviously lining up to fire, and if he knew broadsides from those old corny sci-fi movies he watched when he was 12 he knew they were bad news.
"When's our sup-corv gonna get her shields back up?" He inquired to the comms section After about 15 seconds of communication, he got his response.
"Upper shield should be up soon, they say, sir!"
"Upper? Is the lower one-?"
"They said it was a bit rattled, sir, but it's still working!"
"Well, shit. Have them turn the ship up! Get it angled towards these cocksuckers, they're about to light us up!"
"H&A!"
A few seconds later, with some verification it wasn't stuck in the assault corvette it had collided into, and the corvette began to turn upwards, exposing it's ventral shield generator as that strange orange screen beginning to move along with it.
...Slowly.
Ever so unbearably slowly.
There were many strong suits to the Zetyan ships and the long-range doctrine they normally followed. Upwards maneuverability, especially for an already damaged warship that just suffered a nasty collision, was not one of them.
And as that corvette began it's lateral transformation, even as the first vestiges of the shieldscreen began to intersect with the ships around them, it was certain that it wouldn't be able to completely cover the fleet with the most effective section in time.
The little ship coming up their backside was annoying but did not change their plans. They could not risk having to realign all their point defences to deal with it so out of the hangars of the ships about a dozen strike craft were launched to intercept the Zetyan sloop. There was some minor damage to the pusher plate of a light cruiser and some dents in its armour but it was just tickling the ship. The heavy interceptors flew out to met the Sloop with the usual mini nukes missiles.
"All ships, prepare defensive fire. Wait for their shot..."
The crew onboard the Astril ships were nervous, these so called pirates were much heavier armed then they thought they would be. As the Zetyans launched their munitions all warning sirens on the ships lit up and the men aboard held their breath for the incoming thunderstorm.
"Fire!"
The first moment would have been dazzling, confusing and overwhelming to the senses. The countless small flak like guns on the heavy Consulate ships fired out towards the incoming projectiles at a rapid rate. They seemed to completely miss at first but then they exploded into nuclear fireballs. The fast cannon shells and missiles were able to penetrate this wall of plasma death before it could vaporise them, creating nasty large gashes and holes in every ship. They were sturdy designs yes but this damage definitely reduced their nuclear flak capability in the future. Meanwhile this wall of bright light, radiation and electromagnetic interference grew in size. The idea behind it was obvious, to create a literal wall of explosions in order to destroy, redirect or otherwise disable incoming projectiles without having to be accurate.
Then the large guns fired, a full on broadside volley of massive Casaba howitzers. Bolts of nuclear formed plasma bolts flew out of the explosion cloud towards the Zetyans. With their radar and detection interfered with they relied on predicting the enemy movement based on their earlier flight patterns to hit.
While behind this shield of light the Astril ships with broadside torpedoes launchers loaded their experimental warheads, might as well, when will they ever use them otherwise?
The casaba howitzers impacted with rancor on the Zetyan fleet, bright flashes and vibrant explosions tearing across the myriad ships and causing massive damages. An assault corvette and escort were each eliminated, and one of the destroyers suffered even more damages to all sides, exposing multiple sections to vacuum and eliminating most of it's offensive capability beyond missiles and a now gratuitously shortened spinal gun.
Though some of the slower shots were eliminated by the escort's precise laser PD, and the support corvette's shieldscreen managed to disintegrate some of the broadside munitions that fell below the fleet, their best wasn't best enough. The rest of the main fleet also suffered damages of varying degrees, from minor scratches to great gashes that were each punctuated by the vermilion flash of nuclear blasts.
On board the now very battered lead destroyer, it was a nail-biting tension that gripped the bridge crew as the ship rocked and shook, displays and lights flickering like fireflies. The captain silently, yet hurriedly weighed what to do now in the chaos, as he unsuccessfully tried to drown out the screams and callouts from every side of the bridge.
He could have everyone overload their fracture drones, make some impromptu alcub-bombs, but if that didn't work they'd be stuck and dead. He could have everyone flee, but then they'd be followed and everyone at home would know he was a pussy. Maybe he could pull some madcap option, have the sloop pull a suicide ram...
Yeah, sure, suicide is badass, right? He reached for the universal radio, as he prepared to order a very-
Oop.
There went the sloop, flaming and chased by several enemy strike craft. He cursed to himself as he watched it fly past the other Astril ships, cannon shots and tiny missiles traded between each combatant like tiny bright lances.
He weighed his options again, and again, and again until he could only think of one thing that might, might work. With a dreading groan, he told the comms board to get everyone still able-bodied started on overloading their frac's...
----
The crippled half of the fleet, after what felt like an eternity of throwing shade and doing nothing, suddenly jolted back to life. Some had finally managed to field-repair their original engine blocs to some working form, while others merely saw fit to jury-rig up some backup 'engine's. The formerly-crippled, now just damaged-and-slow half of the fleet now began to slowly move towards where the action was, having loaded up the expensive ammunition while waiting for finished repairs.
Seeing the now flaming sloop as a non threat there was a moment of calm for the Astril strike craft before a new order was given to them, intercept the repaired ships. A few more strike craft left the hangars to form a total of 16 heavy interceptors who manoeuvred around the flank of the Consulate formation to fly past the nuclear flak field towards the damaged ships. They made sure to fly in wide berth around the zetyan ships on the front to avoid any incoming fire.
Meanwhile inside the bridge of the battlecruiser Captain Popora was concerned, he definitely underestimated the power of the ships he was fighting and the damage they so far received was an indication of that. He thought about it and then quickly wrote something down on a piece of paper. He stood up, walked over to his communications officer and handed him the piece of paper.
“Send a distress signal, say out loud everything I have written here. Use every FTL relay on every ship we have. Send it on all channels and without any encryption.”
“Are you sure sir? The enemy will be Able to intercept it easily….”
“I know! Trust me, that’s an order. Now send this message.”
As he said this the master gunner turned to the captain.
“Captain sir, the EMP of our nuclear defence field would ruin the signal. Permission to switch to conventional?”
“Permission granted, i also want our electronic warfare systems to scramble their targeting.”
“Yes sir!”
The zetyans could see the bright flashes of nuclear mayhem slowly die down as the countless flak guns and CIWS systems on the Astril ships began to load conventional airburst explosives. With the disappearance of the plasma field the broadside torpedo launchers could open up and fire out their experimental warheads. They were not filled but explosives, they were loaded with vicious flesh devouring bug swarms that preferred to eat through the eye socket to reach the brain. It was hoped that they could enter via one of the openings caused by the broadside. Speaking of which, they didn’t stop firing their casaba howitzers yet, although the reload time of the larger vessels was noticeable so they got no second shot of yet.
Lastly, the transmission went out. Unsecured and on all frequencies.
“This is the first cadet flotilla, hostile forces have entered E-2093f and we are currently locked in combat with them. Signs indicate this to be the first wave of an invasion fleet, requesting backup from any nearby ships, we are severely outnumbered and won’t hold long.”
The truth might have been…. twisted to better suit a desperate distress signal.
As the nuclear fire died down, replaced by airburst, the Zetyan munitions began to slip through; protected by armor, they were a degree more resistant to, say, conventional explosives than a wave of pure nuclear plasma. The casaba howitzers fired at the Zetyan fleet were also somewhat stifled by the support corvette's shieldscreen as it now finished turning up, though a few managed to sneak through and cause more damages.
The sloop, so very damaged as it was, made a rather cognizant decision. Showing it's captain had at least more sense than their compatriots, it launched a fracture drone directly in front of itself as it flew away, deserting the battlefield though one of the wormholes that brought them here in the first place as it received many 'what in fuck are you doing' transmissions from the leader.
The torpedoes saw some difficulty in getting through, as the escort made a point of flexing with what las-turrets they had left to support the shieldscreen, with some being disintegrated and others being melted by red beams. Those that got through, though, hit the jackpot; one managed to hit an assault corvette, another hit the support corvette's side, and a great many others hit the assault destroyers, square in their sides.
On the A'kaja, and on the other ships affected, alarms went off all across the board, as hosts of black swarms began to travel through the impact zones deeper inwards, leaving all they saw as husks. Upon the bridge, chaos reigned, as everyone tried to coordinate everything at once while the captain tried to reign everyone back into some form of order.
Some measures were taken in an attempt defeat them; preemptive lockdowns for doors and vents, activation of fire suppression systems, and for applicable areas just outright exposure to space. Desperate, but considering how things were going, it wasn't entirely unwarranted.
The transmission, when received, only made things worse. The last thing they needed to happen was now broadcasting full volume towards anyone willing to listen, and any considerations that they deliberately let them know would find no purchase, drowned in waves of fearful, stressed havoc.
The bridge successfully rendered unruly, the captain now had to personally give out his orders, having needed to dig into the communications section as the bridge went on a figurative autopilot. One message went out to the rest of the fleet, for both halves.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! THERE'S MORE OF THE FUCKS COMING, LEAD SHIP IS COMPROMISED! WARP OUT! WARP OUT!!"
The main fleet, already beleaguered and beginning to falter, made little complaint as they began to move away from the Astril fleet, stopping the overload process on their fracture drones and instead prepping them for FTL. The other half, though, were rather taken aback-now that they had just gotten their shit online, they wanted to run away, tails between legs? They thought it bullshit, and one of the ship's captains decided to speak their mind.
"What the fuck do you mean, 'run away'?! We got this, our shit's loaded and ready!"
"They just sent out another distress call, you 'loid! This system's gonna be filled with reinforcements soon! You wanna win another day or die today?!"
"How about you let us fight, huh?! We just sat on our asses twice in a row!"
"You wanna fight, cover us while we plot a jump! We are NOT staying here!"
"Oh, so when suddenly you've got allied ships to help you win, you pussy out, huh?!"
"There are SWARMS of BUGS in my SHIPS and they are EATING EVERYTHING NOT ALREADY DEAD. COVER! US!"
After some more argumentation, the repaired half begrudgingly moved to provide the desired bodyblocking for their comrades in arms, their support corvette and escort popping lasers and spitting bullets at the interceptors as the fleet moved. They also fired off their weapons at the Astril fleet, shells, missiles and a few RKKV carriers intertwining as they rushed towards the enemy through an orange shieldscreen.
Even the heavy armour of the Consulate ships could be stripped away in time. The first few hits seems minor but every impact reduced the ships defensive firepower little by little. This was most noticeable with the battle cruiser leading the flotilla, being the biggest target and trying to protect the smaller ships piloted by the cadets it received more holes and tears across its hull. Then a sudden flash, an RKKV managed to sneak into a hole in the armour and hit one of the ships magazines. There was a massive cloud of blood that crystallised in the freezing vacuum of space and fires were started across some of the decks.
“Fuck! Damage report! Damage report!”
Captain Popora turned to his senior technician.
“30% of our flak guns on the left side are outright gone, another 15% are disabled. Sensor systems have taken a major hit and there are fires spreading across the decks. Several blood veins have been cut and are coagulating now. Currently we are closing bulkheads and doing damage control.”
“Navigator! Rotate the ship 180 degrees! Get our intact side facing them! Master gunner! Fire one last shot with the casaba’s and load flak with nuclear rounds on the double!”
Although the situation was chaotic the crew was well trained and did not yet break. But stress was mounting. The large casaba howitzers of the battlecruiser fired one last broadside volley before the ship began to turn to get its good side pointing at the enemy.
The other ships quickly loaded up their nuclear flak shells as well but they had to wait for the current airburst belts that were loaded to empty. During this time they launched a broadside volley of armoured torpedoes with nuclear hollow charge warheads to try and crack open the zetyans further.
The interceptors send out to fight the repaired fleet performed their attack runs with the expected grace and complete disregard for g-forces of all consulate pilots. Their nukes were mainly aimed at the fire and control systems of the zetyans. The lasers of the zetyans managed to score some good hits on a few of the interceptors as they dodged projectiles like adhd monkeys on caffeine and crack.
Although the bugs were brutal and numerous they were not very survivable, they had a short air supply to life in the vacuum for a few minutes but when bulkheads closed and they were exposed the space and fire suppression foam they died out rather quickly. They were clearly some sort of prototype or terror weapon. Not yet suited for actual combat.
The distress signal went out into space far and wide, it reached the ears of some civilians deeper in system who in turn send out their own distress signals as none of them wanted to be left behind by the ftl capable transport ships. This created a domino effect as more signals were sent out, received and sent out again.
The casaba broadside on the damaged fleet saw far more results than before, enjoying critical hits on already beleaguered and morale-broken ships as the shieldscreen flickered and warped out of existence, causing great damage and even destroying an assault corvette. The damaged support corvette's shield system, beginning to go on overload, temporarily shut off; automated failsafes built in to prevent catastrophic particulate decay. The rest of the fleet was also duly affected by the torpedoes, with one of the assault destroyers losing it's spinal and a good chunk of stuff near it to a flash of nuclear fire as their escort worked double time to try and stave them off without the help of their magic orange field.
The interceptors, meanwhile, had two targets for the three reinforcements-primary visual and sensor systems that took the form of black screens with interlinked red dots, and much less flashy grey control stations barely jutting out from the hulls, with bundles of antennae sticking outwards like thin strands of cloth woven together. For each system struck, each ship's firing line began firing a bit less, and any missile bays they had temporarily battened down the hatches while temporary backups for each system were booted online. Their bridges would have holes in their vision for every hole put in their visual screens, as well.
Upon the bridge of the A'kaja, the only thing preventing chaos and abandonment of ship was the promise of escape. As every ship in the fleet began to send reports for their FTL drone spoolups, Captain Q'oka couldn't help but kick himself in between getting damage reports and telling people to do things. All this way had he come, and now he had to get sent home on a broken platter. And the jellyfucks, they get off scott free with some new friends. Always getting away with it...
Then, he thought about it a little.
No, that was unacceptable. How could he just ignore them? After getting his entire ass handed to him this whole time?!
He soon got the attention of one of the intership coordinators, who he interrupted in the midst of their helping engineering calm down the megafuser while it diverted power to the fracture drones left onboard.
"You! How many drones do we have left, how many do we need?!"
"Uh-? We, we need three minimum, have ten, want five, I think!"
"Get two of them on overload! Have them launched at that fuckin' station, then we get lost!"
"What?! I thought you said-"
"Just do it!"
Suddenly, from an outside perspective, the leading assault destroyer would start to give off much higher gravitic readings than it's compatriots as they turned tail, angling towards the station. It still tried to return fire to the Astril with what they had left, as did it's fellows. At this point, though, it was either potshots at any applicable target or disorganized fire that would certainly be great suppressive fire if the concept actually existed in space.
The three (formerly) scrape-free ships continued to rush towards the Astril fleet, guns blazing and moving closer to their allies as they began preparations to flee with their figurative tails between legs. They remained facing sideways to the enemy, as to bodyblock as per the good captain's wishes-though may Koa know they wished it otherwise.
"Captain! We are losing hull integrity! We can't turn fast enough to avoid enemy fire!"
The Astril battlecruiser was still getting battered down and with it's exposed internals damage received was much greater. Fires began to spread and soon the entire ship was as bright as a bonfire. It's guns began to become silent as the crew manning them were ordered to pull back into safer areas of the ship. Captain popora was quick to make the call.
"Order everyone to the escape pods, abandon ship, abandon ship!"
Order aboard the battlecruiser slowly broke down as everyone rushed towards the escape pods or used shuttles from the hangar to fly away from the burning wreck. As is tradition Captain Popora stayed aboard. Only when his entire crew was safe would he leave himself.
The remaining ships began to pull back and regroup as without the battlecruiser in their formation they had to change their tactics. There was a respite of fire as the ships reorganised. As they manoeuvred to get into a new formation the Zetyans managed to score several good hits. A cruiser's propulsion became crippled as it tried to turn away. A light cruiser practically turned blind as a shot hit its main fire control radar. Although they had good armour these ships were lumbering and proved easy targets as they re positioned.
The Astril strike craft boomed and zoomed like annoying mosquitoes around the Zetyan ships. But they have already unleashed their heavy payloads into the sensors so now they strafed what exposed systems they could with their roaring Gatling cannons. After seeing the defeat of the battlecruiser the squadron leader decided that the craft would be way to exposed without its covering fire. They did what they could to try and slow down the escape of the wounded ships, trying to avoid exposing themselves to the repaired front-liners of the Zetyan formation. A craft was lost here and there as lasers proved themselves much more capable of tracking and shooting the tiny fast targets.
There was a response, a response to the distress cal emitted from the Astril fleet.
"This is battlefleet Necrosis, we hear your call for aid. Expect our arrival shortly"
As the Zetyan fleet gave it's final checks for FTL spoolup, gravitic signatures reached an all-time high, centered primarily around the leading destroyer. They seemed to take little interest in their opponents now, diverting most shots to defense of their own ships as they now focused on the little strike craft harrying them. As their PD mounts did their best to defend the fleet, their offensive weapons tried-and failed-to ape them in the same way, throwing shells of sizes far too big towards the general leading direction of any shots headed their way. Of course, potshots were still taken, but that was to be expected by this point.
The interceptors would have a ball with exposed systems, as despite their lack of heavy ammo there was plenty of exposed bits fleetwide to hamper. The sensorscreens of the Zetyan ships soon found themselves riddled with pockmarks, along with anyone and anything in the general vicinity of any hull breaches. They did have to get within concerningly close ranges with the shieldscreen up, lest their bullets turn to fine mist, but thankfully their idle targets found that their turrets couldn't quite rotate fast enough for them at such speeds and ranges.
A moment's notice, and then a series of projectiles were launched out of the fronts of each ship, small jerry-rigged drones that revealed themselves as the source of the gravitic signatures as they moved away from their launchers. They seemed to speed up as they launched, turning from tiny lights to gleaming stars in mere moments as they sallied forth from their motherships.
Then, kaboom.
Disappearing in a bright flash, the drones were replaced with a rapturous 'explosion' that seemed to shake the interiors of everything nearby. It soon revealed itself as a large, twisting wormhole, a whorl of stars and lights each coalescing on a gleaming single point, an unholy beacon dedicated to showing how the laws of physics could be snapped in twine. On que, the Zetyan fleet then began to accelerate, their ships beginning to disappear into the murky black one by one. The bodyblockers were content to stay behind for but a moment, covering for the more damaged ships as they slowly began their escape.
As the rats scurried away to their burrows, though, they saw fit to leave their enemies one more problem: of the drones launched, two of those were on wildly different courses, and were now accelerating exponentially towards the station itself-more exactly, towards the Sadashi ships in dock. Readouts indicated they were now bombs in all but name, and whatever the reasoning these enemies of theirs seemed intent on graduating from 'invaders' to 'terrorists'.
One of the stragglers, a support corvette, seemed to have power issues as it's engines seemed to sputter somewhat. They could ask them after all this, if only someone got a good shot on their engine block...
The battlecruiser burned and turned silent as it’s crew escaped it’s flaming corpse. One last explosion as the entire ship broke in two and began drifting in space. The remaining Astril ships stayed in a defensive formation and simply kept harassing fire up at the zetyans.
The strike craft booming and zooming in close combat with the Zets originally planed to head back and rearm but after receiving the news of these bombs flying towards the station the squadron leader ordered them all to disengage and save the civilian station. Meanwhile the stations own strike craft who where circling it began to assist interception of the bomb drones.
Meanwhile the station commander was panicking and ordered every point defence gun loaded and pre aimed at the incoming projectiles in case the fighters failed.
There was no more agressieve actions taken. Astril doctrine emphasised allowing the enemy to retreat instead of forcing them in a fight to the death. This gave the Zetyans a lot of room to breathe and manoeuvre as they stopped being bombarded.
And so, given the mercy of their enemies, the stragglers retreated into the murky black, leaving their dead behind in charred, burning wrecks and scattered fields of debris. The last to go was the addled support corvette, slinking into the now-closing wormhole as it's engines began to give out.
They left a few goodbye messages as they departed, though one could argue if profanities and insults stringed together counted as messages or not.
Meanwhile, the bombs saw little purchase for their initial efforts; one detonated prematurely thanks to interceptor fire, setting the other off course with a gravitic pulse, spinning it out and forcing it to readjust course. It also was on a timer; the overload was overheating it's internal systems, and sooner or later it'd either explode, melt down, or both.
Soon, though, the problem would be catching up-the little drone's acceleration was being aided now by a small pseudo-warp bubble, and as it began to accelerate towards the station once more it was picking up in speed even faster than before.
As the projectile increased in speed towards the station the fighters had to manoeuvre to turn around before overshooting it in their interception. Without any anti munition missiles equipped they had to spray and pray with their autocannons and rotary cannons to destroy it.
The stations’s own defences now joined the fray as the CIWS roared to life and sprayed its proximity detonated rounds towards the incoming bomb.
The ships simply turned of their communication’s systems to silence the fleeing Zetyans. The Astril ships tried to move closer to the bomb to help intercept it but they were too slow and bulky to catch up. Plus they had the lifeboats to worry about.
The burning battlecruiser was still suffering the occasional explosion as fires roared across the decks and caught themselves on various volatile internal systems.
Kaboom.
The combined firepower coming at the drone from so many sides, with noone else to tank the shots and no way of defending itself, ensured destroying it was only a matter of firing enough bullets to let a few hit. And indeed, a few struck true, hitting external fuel nacelles and knocking the main thruster halfway out. The drone soon began to veer violently off course to the right, going faster and faster as the outside began to turn red, heating up from the inside.
Then, with a bubbling flash and seeming distortion of a shockwave, the little craft of once-was uncontrollably FTL'd off to who-knows where, leaving behind globs of molten-hot metal, bits of scrap and a tiny trail of exposed ancerium fuel in it's wake.
The peoples on the station could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Though, one had to wonder if this would be the last seen of these interlopers...
Although the battle wasn’t a complete cakewalk as they expected the victory was still gained. The sailors and pilots felt pride at their accomplishments as the last of the enemy fled in terror. But it was not without moments they could learn from in the future. These men and women now knew that they were some of the few who actually fought in combat with a foreign hostile force. It might have not been a battle which would have gone down in legend but experience was still experience.
Although officially in charge of training cadet fleets, Captain Popora’s close survival of his ship being destroyed and seeing in his eyes the utter inhumanity of these Zetyans would request to be in charge of a new military formation. A formation specifically made to fight these Zetyans. The battle ensured his grudge with them as in his mind it was not a satisfactory victory. The insults also really got to him and he had to answer them back with equivalent firepower.
The station commander just celebrated another day he got to live. Now to just see to the wounded and these Sadashi refugees.