Ravens of Eternity

352 The Drums of War, Pt Orbital Defensive Array, Feron System, Planet Alosine, Minor House: Ballistics, Inc.

The array of defensive orbital stations hovered above Planet Alosine in all its glory. Numerous defensive platforms floated in space near each of the stations, which were patrolled by swarms of defense drones.

More impressive than those however, was the large fleet near the center of the sprawling array. Though some of the ships were still re-equipping and refitting, the vast majority of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates were waiting patiently just to the side of the massive array.

They were accompanied by a heavily armed and armored battleship, which was designed and outfitted by Ballistics, Inc itself. Powerful, deadly weapons were scattered up and down its hull, which easily reflected the House’s wealth, power, and status.

Its bridge echoed this sentiment, and was both heavily reinforced while moderately decorated. There were rows of terminals that sat beneath an elevated platform, which had a commanding view of the main screens in front of it.

The doors into the bridge slid open as the fleet’s admiral walked in. A gaggle of officers followed right behind.

“Officer on deck,” cried the XO as he stood up from the command chair, and saluted.

“You’re relieved,” the admiral told him. Which prompted the XO to step back, then left the bridge altogether.

At the same time, the admiral settled himself into the command chair and looked at the screens all around.

.....

“Report status,” he ordered.

“Refit will be complete in exactly 10 minutes, 33 seconds,” said one of his officers.

“Good. I want us ready to rendezvous as soon as we’re able. Time to show those lizards what we’re capable of.”

“Yessir.”

Before the admiral could issue another set of commands, the bridge’s lights turned to yellow, and a warning klaxon rang out.

“Sir!” said a technician, “unauthorized fleet porting to the Alosine beacon!”

The admiral was immediately alarmed – this was one of the most secure and hardened Ballistics, Inc. port beacons in the House. Unauthorized teleports into it was practically impossible.

“What?” he cried out. “Scan those ships immediately!”

Data filled the main screen in front of the command chair, along with a live feed of the port beacon a dozen kilometers away. There, aggressive insectoid ships flashed into Hegemony space.

They watched with awe as hundreds of fighters, dozens of frigates, destroyers, and cruisers appeared on their sensors. That fearful awe turned to absolute dread as a battleship also appeared in their midst.

“Sir!” said the tech, “Ship technology confirmed – it’s the Drogar Empire!”

The admiral leapt out of his seat and pointed straight at the port beacon on the screen in a panic.

“Issue port beacon shutdown commands immediately!” he commanded.

“Unable to issue commands to the beacon, sir,” replied an officer. “It... it’s been fully compromised!”

The admiral’s brow twitched at the news. It dawned on him that the front had come to them, rather than the other way around.

He glanced at the sensor data that came in about the Imperial fleet, and found that they could barely make heads or tails of their systems. All they could see were general energy readings, but not much more.

What was worse was that their systems were using a substantial amount of power, which revealed their offensive potential.

Still, his fleet currently held the numerical advantage. All he needed to do was outflank his opponent, weather their damage, and kick them out of the system.

“Bring our fleet around – everyone who’s available – and take it to them,” he commanded. “We’re gonna wipe them from existence here and now. And send a report back to the Grand Parliament – let ’em know what’s here.”

“Yessir!”

The massive Hegemony battleship lurched towards the invading Imperial fleet. Its thrusters flared out even as the rest of its escort shifted themselves into position. Hundreds of ships bore down against their opponents and fired their longest-range weapons at them.

They were joined by the defensive array’s long range cannons as well, and took as many potshots of the still-stationary Drogar ships.

Though many were hit practically dead-on, the Hegemony’s guns did little damage to the Imperial’s curved, chitinous ship armor. All they could do was chip off large flakes where they struck, but not much more.

The Drogar ships themselves were organically shaped with sloping angles that deflected rather than absorbed any kinetic energy. On top of that, the molecular structure of their armor chitin meant they never deformed from damage. Instead, they typically flaked and chipped rather than get dented or punctured.

The chitinous armor was heavily ridged, segmented, and overlapped everywhere. Because their external shells were extremely rigid, it allowed the ships’ internal exoframes to be highly flexible. They moved in ways that human designed ships never could.

And now that they had stopped flashing in, began to move towards the Hegemony fleet in response.

Their ships seemed to sway as they flew, as though they were completely organic, living ships. As though they were swimming through space.

Equally as eerie, every ship in the Drogar fleet seemed to be linked to each other somehow. As they moved, they pulled on the ships around them right alongside. They seemed to all move like a massive school of fish in an endless ocean, through slipstreams they created for each other.

Hegemony officers could see individual energy readings on their ships rise, then spread out among the ships surrounding them. As though their individual power output were split out and shared among the entire fleet.

And it allowed them to be abnormally fast and agile, far more than what Hegemony ships were capable of. The Drogar swarm quickly built up more and more speed as they approached, which utterly terrified many of the Hegemony.

“Weapons free!” cried the admiral.

His fleet hardly hesitated, and immediately fired their forward-facing weapons into the incoming Imperial fleet. Their particle rail cannons shot bright blue streaks of superheated tungsten rounds into them. They slammed into the heaviest armor and caused cracks to spider around the point of impact.

Arcs of electricity swarmed outward in an attempt to discharge excess energy into the Drogar ship’s systems. But they quickly dissipated without doing anything at all – the Imperial power system was simply far too hardened against energy attacks.

And unfortunately, the Hegemony ships only got one round in before the Imperials completely closed the distance. They quickly broke in every direction mere moments before hitting the Hegemony ships head-on, then surrounded them on all sides.

Their smaller ships literally swarmed them all around and in between. Squadrons composed of frigates and fighters swam between the larger cruisers and destroyers at very fast speeds, and very closely hugged their hulls.

They were so fast and agile that any Hegemony fighters could hardly keep up – the best they could do was attempt to cut them off or ambush them.

Not that the Imperial fighters bothered to engage – they were designed to destroy much larger ships. Each one looked like a triple-pronged dart, with the main cockpit in the middle. Three weapon systems that looked like stingers extended out and forwards, one up top and two down bottom.

Though they didn’t have barrels like human-designed weapons – instead their tips glowed with bright orange balls of energy.

Dark orange streams of chaotic energy burst out from each of the vicious stingers and lacerated everything they struck. They easily chewed into thick Hegemony armor with devastating ease, as though the Drogar were literally carving through wood.

Worse, they left lingering pockets of charged plasma, which overwhelmed any nearby circuits and modules.

And while they scarred the cruisers and destroyers across their surfaces, the frigates accompanying them fired at any Hegemony fighters and defensive turrets along their path. Numerous ball turrets lined their topsides, each one armed with a single claw-like cannon.

Similar to the fighters, the claw’s tips glowed extremely brightly, then thin orange beams of concentrated dissolution energy sliced into any nearby fighters. They cut through their armor and structure and systems with such ease that it seemed like they didn’t exist at all.

Hegemony fighters were cut to ribbons by the beams, along with their pilots. Many exploded after their power plants were sliced completely through, and blew apart into millions of pieces.

While the Imperial fighters and frigates took apart the Hegemony cruisers and destroyers, their own cruisers and destroyers fired on the Hegemony battleship. The destroyers swam in fast, agile, tight corkscrews around it, while the cruisers swum in the opposite direction. Albeit with slow, loose paths.

They all fired into the battleship from all sides, and hammered them relentlessly. Though they had similar claw and stinger-like turrets like the frigates and fighters, most of their broadside weapons were mortar-like in nature.

Their short and wide barrels swiveled as they fired their large, globular munitions at their targets. The ‘blobs’ crackled with bright orange electric energies as dark metallic nuclei floated in their middle. They slammed into the battleship’s armor and stuck to them, as though the munitions were made of some gelatinous goop.

Instead, its plasma body sunk into the armor itself and released its energy payload straight into the titanium lattice structure beneath. From there, they spread through every circuit and system and module nearby, and overloaded them with energy.

Worse, they caused any repair nanites already deployed into the armor to short out and fail.

Each of the dark metallic nuclei burst open the moment they touched the enemies’ armor plating. And in doing so, released countless corrosive nanites across the battleship’s surface. They released dark orange energies that tore apart the armor plating from an atomic level.

It only took mere seconds for the reinforced armor to be turned into literal powdered metal, which then floated uselessly in space. The devastation was so vast that it almost appeared as though the battleship itself was being slowly dissolved as it flew.

Not that the Hegemony took any of that punishment lying down. Even as their ships were dismantled before their eyes, they fired back with as much ferocity as they could muster. And since the Drogar ships were literally everywhere all around them, there was no lack of targets for them to aim at.

The battleship certainly fired back with every gun it had, and literally filled the space around it with massive amounts of munitions. Their defensive beam turrets fired into the nearest Imperial destroyers, and cut deep scars into their chitin. Though they could easily repel kinetic damage, thermal was more than they could handle.

The chitinous layers slagged easily, and softened greatly – a weakness which the Hegemony gunners immediately took advantage of.

They aimed their more moderate cannons right at those weak points, and fired into them with absolute prejudice. Their shells easily ripped through the softened chitin, and tore into the much softer exoframe below.

Inside, Drogar crew members were blasted apart by the sheer kinetic force, surprise etched on their faces.

Cluster missiles also raked the Imperial ships’ armor, which blackened them with soot and flaked off large swaths of chitin. Larger cracks spidered across their hulls, which the Hegemony further ripped into with streams of concentrated particle-charged minigun rounds.

They relentlessly drummed their weakened chitin, and ripped them open further and further.

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