The five heavy cruisers and their fifteen strong escort slowly coasted between the many task forces that Nemesis had spread out around the planet. Despite that their number was still in the thousands, they were far too few to surround the planet entirely, not without thinning their fleet beyond effectiveness. Fortunately, they did not need to. Their forces were clustered around the targets for the ground invasion, namely the Novican Headquarters and the main defence hubs. Admiral Cindy was once again standing next to Admiral Verloff as they gazed down on the display. Cindy eyed the old Admiral with renewed wariness, but Verloff acted as if their earlier discussion had never taken place and was casually illuminating her on the finer points of planetary sieges.

'One of the things people tend to overlook is that planets don't stand still. They move around. Consequently, we need to take that into account. Both their rotation as well as their orbit around the star. Nothing is more embarrassing than finding your ships in the completely wrong location because you overlooked it. Or worse, because someone messed up the equations.'

Cindy gave a polite nod and received a knowing grin in return. Verloff pointed insistently towards the display, forcing her attention onto the battle that was about to unfold. 'As you can see, the Novican defences have us outgunned by an annoyingly large margin. Between their defences planetside and their orbital batteries they could easily cripple our entire fleet. Conventionally speaking our only choice would be to throw our full force at one spot and break through, before they can cluster enough stations together to thwart our attacks. That is very costly and stupid, however, so we're not going to engage them from up close at all. You can see how our forces are spread out, right? This forces Kolpovka to mimic it, lest we break through in places where his defences aren't. His heavy ground based defences are overlapping with the cover radius of the Kaperna-class space stations. Those things are the heaviest defences the Novicans have, almost on par with our own stations, so they're not to be underestimated. I'd rather not park my dreadnaughts close to it. So we'll have to be damned careful with how we position our ships. Everything moves in so many directions and we need to mimic the planet's rotation and orbit perfectly.'

He lifted his hand and pointed to a large amount of logistical ships, now no longer running under stealth. He opened up their folder and Cindy saw that they were classified as tow vessels. She stared at it blindly for a few moments, feeling Verloff's expectant gaze upon her, before a suspicion began to form in her mind. She scrolled down the folder, began reading their mission objectives and found her suspicions confirmed. 'That is just brutal,' she whispered.

'No more than normal mass rounds,' Verloff grinned. 'You could even say it's charity. I'm giving them their ships back.' In the back Captain Lannic barked a cruel laugh.

Cindy kept looking at the large wrecks that were being put straight in the planet's path, on a collision course with the stations. It was likely that some survivors were still aboard them, clinging to their lives with desperation, and they were about to be used as the opening gambit as Verloff's forces closed in on Lufer. She admired the move. It was cost efficient and likely to be fairly effective, if not in terms of damage than certainly in terms of morale. Her conscience didn't even whisper at her. This was war and the Empire subscribed to very little niceties when it came to that. The tow ships cut loose their cargo and began to pull back, out of harms way. The Imperial admiralty took to war with very little qualms. They were rigorously trained to protect their own soldiers and the Imperial civilians. They extended the same courtesy to their allies, albeit to a lesser extent, but when it came to taking down enemies, there were few tactics they eschewed. Morals only hindered tactics, after all.

'Of course, Kolpovka will know I'm doing this. He's not stupid and he caught on to it pretty quickly. I'd be surprised if he hasn't issued a gag order about what kind of projectiles we'll be using. His ground based weapons have also been realigning themselves to a large extent as his computers were crunching numbers and he deducted where I'll strike. They'll distract him, but I don't think they'll do more than knock out a bunch of satellites. The attack will, however, put stress on his systems and that's when we will launch our own assault. Which will happen in about ten minutes.'

'So what is your master plan beyond hitting them with their own wreckage? Move everything in at once and overwhelm them while their guns are focused on another target?' Cindy asked, more snidely than before. It was amazing how a little change in intonation transferred a reasonably polite and inquisitive comment into a derogatory remark. The effect on Lannic was noticeable, as the old Captain stood a little bit straighter and the lines on his face hardened.

Verloff grinned at the sight. 'Cindy' may have been young for her rank, but she had earned it on merit and could wield her aura of dread and intimidation well if she so chose. 'No, that isn't my plan at all.' He called up a broad view of the orbital defence grid, tilted it sideways and made room to summon the massive fortifications planetside. The shield generators and every weapon with a range that stretched out beyond the planet's orbit were lit up as angry red dots. Verloff fingers danced across the control planet and a plentitude of circles were conjured around the heavy space stations, every circle having a segment of their own.

'How quickly they can move within a certain timeframe. They're slow, they rely on thrusters to get about rather than engines. Gives them tremendously more shielding, armour and firepower in exchange. Now look at the Novican HQ itself.' She did and found three of the massive stations shackled together. 'They can link up. That way their shields overlap, certain weapons become redundant due to allied coverage and a lot of power gets redirected, meaning all other systems get a significant boost. Rather major pain in the ass that. Hence why our fleet is so spread out. If they boost their shields, my gambit will become useless.'

'And that gambit is?' Cindy asked, undeterred by the roundabout way Verloff was answering her question.

He pointed at the five heavy cruisers on the display that were taking up formation at the centre of the fleet. 'Bit of patience, Admiral. My ships are in position. Now we just wait for the planet to swing into the wrecks.'

She did not need to wait long. Verloff hadn't given any order but apparently the small squadron of warships weren't relying on a direct command. Bright blue plasma beams lanced out from their cannons, darting through a vast void and crossing an impossible distance before slamming into a single Kaperna station. Its shield stopped a solid portion of the impact, but most of the horrendous energy succeeded in bleeding through the overwhelmed barriers. Incredibly volatile energies finally lost cohesion and seeped into the station's superstructure, vaporising dozens of massive weapon emplacements and a good section of the hull as superheated plasma burned through everything in its path. Missile tubes melted shut, cables and pipelines burst into flames, emergency bulkheads slammed shut as alarms sprang into life, only to be shut down as the heat caught up with the sensitive electronics. Struts turned orange and bended, what little air that had not been vented yet was blasted through the hallways and scoured entire areas clean of all life not yet wearing protective suits.

Alarms began blaring their sombre tones on the other stations and down on the planet below as one of the key segments of their defence was on the verge of breaking. Down on the planet Kolpovka immediately saw the danger and began to react with remarkable speed. The wrecks were rapidly racing towards him and he had long since calculated their trajectories. They would no longer hit the stations, as they were now hurriedly moving to merge together, allowing their shields to overlap. Instead the tumbling wrecks would now impact onto the planet itself, which meant that the planetary defences had to deal with the threat, which was increased by several magnitudes on a planet with atmosphere. Groundside structures could not dodge the dangerous mass rounds and the air displacement created lethal shockwaves over vast distances. Verloff grunted at the rapid decision that his Novican counterpart had made. Kolpovka had been preparing and didn't hesitate to cut his losses. Which was a shame. Verloff had hoped that the man would at least hesitate slightly, or at least be taken off guard by the overwhelming attack from outside his own weapons' range, but he hadn't expected it. The defences he faced now were directly under the Grand Admiral's control. Kola was likely the only man on the planet who actually knew what he had come here to do. Given that the massive stations were pulling to take up a dense formation above their headquarters… No, the Novican leader was no idiot.

The cruisers fired again and the damaged station began showing signs of major structural damage. Life boats began to launch from it as the defenders realised the structure was lost. Most of them were still in the process of evacuating when a third salvo hit, capitalising on the downed shields of the already damaged parts and letting the large heat-bleed finish off the internal sections. Verloff watched it happen with grim satisfaction. The first of the forty-three Kaperna stations was breaking apart and slowly began sinking into the planet's gravity well and the battle had only been going for a couple of minutes. He turned to face the NavInt Admiral who was gazing at the raw destruction in badly hidden awe. He did not blame her for that. 'Well,' he asked. 'What do you think of my plan now?'

She recovered remarkably quickly, closing her mouth and turning to him with perfect decorum. Her eyes glittered as her mind processed what she had witnessed at a rapid pace. 'Those ships,' she began, eyeing him carefully and studying him for the slightest detail that would betray his thoughts. 'You basically stole them, you said?' She looked around the display and saw the other officers receive the data with a strangely mixed response and knew her guess was on the mark.

Verloff grinned in response.

'You are using the Kra'lagh vessels.' When Verloff didn't respond, she continued on. 'No wonder our fleets were annihilated. That range is inhuman. How come the plasma doesn't dissipate?'

The Admiral shrugged. 'We don't yet know. They somehow have it contained until a certain distance, after which it fades far faster than our own shots do. However, it doesn't lose much power until it reaches that point, despite the massive distance that it can travel. In raw, destructive power it is inferior to our Nova Cannons, but given that plasma bleeds through shields an awful lot...' He gestured at the station. 'You can understand why it was of vital importance that we succeeded in hijacking their ships. The Novican defence may as well not exist now.'

'Huh,' was the sole commentary that Cindy offered. Verloff wasn't fooled. The woman was neither cowed nor impressed, but instead she was busy calculating and drawing up a web of conclusions and theories. Seeing the fruit of Genesis' labours first hand couldn't be compared to reading about it in report. It didn't mean that Cindy would now consider Genesis, Eisel or himself as a non threat, NavInt imply didn't operate that way, but it was the first step of many to prove to the Empire at large that Genesis was a diamond in the rough and worthy of inheriting the mantle of command. In time.

For now, they had an invasion to accomplish and a Grand Admiral to kill.