Three years have passed since the incident at Cantra. It is now June 3rd, 004 SDE and the Enterprise and her escorts are enroute to Krall Imperium space. After the incident at Cantra, the Enterprise had contacted the Krall, since they lacked the ability to investigate the attack. The Krall had agreed to investigate, in exchange for future favors. The Humans decided it was wise to lay low after the attack, and quietly left the sector. Following the star charts obtained at Cantra they made their way to the Lantaro sector on the far side of Valorian space, a journey of nearly a year at maximum warp especially since they chose to go around the Valorian core sectors.

The Lantaro sector was a lawless region with little political influence from the surrounding powers. Most of the planets in the sector were barely habitable, and the area was generally poor in valuable resources. However a few systems had large, but difficult to access deposits of valuable minerals. The Enterprise and her escorts spent nearly a year charting the poorly charted far side of the sector, looking for a viable world before a pirate attack on the Valorian colony at Hughnan, drew attention to the sector. By that time, the Valorian Council had learned of the technology the Humans had, and saw a chance for untold profit and a threat they could not ignore rolled into one. The Valorians have since been chasing, and engaging the Humans in an attempt to gain their technology and put an end to the threat their weapons represent. Something that proved difficult since the Humans had by then found a way to improve their cooling systems to allow for a sustained cruising speed of warp five, and their ships were hard to track. Despite this difficulty they still managed to find and engage the Humans on multiple occasions. Something that indicated they had found a method of reliably detecting the Human ships. Two Months ago, running low on supplies and having no luck replenishing their supplies locally due to the repeated attacks, the Enterprise changed course for Krall space. Being low on fuel they didn’t have the luxury of going around Valorian space, so they had to cut right through it. A path that leads dangerously close to their core worlds.

Captain’s Log June 3rd 004 SDE,

The continued Valorian attacks have been taking their toll, but it has been several weeks since the last attack. So our new stealth modifications may be working. It remains to be seen how effective they will be since both the Coto and Umikaze have sustained serious damage from our previous engagements. The Coto especially, she has two hundred thirty seven hull breaches, half her weapons array is still offline and her starframe has been damaged. Her structural integrity is estimated to be at forty seven percent of nominal. The Umikaze is not in much better shape, she has one hundred ninety two hull breaches, with a third of her weapons array still offline. With a structural integrity estimate, of fifty three percent. So far the Enterprise has remained undamaged from these engagements, but given our supply shortages it remains to be seen how long that will last. Reia finally seems to be getting over the fact that the Valorian council is responsible for these attacks. The actions of her people have hurt her deeply, and while I have offered to allow her to return to her people she has chosen to stay. A fact that has been of help, since she has helped us avoid their detection grids, which has made traveling through their core sectors easier. If things continue to go smoothly we will reach Krall space in twenty one days. Unfortunately we are very close to some of their more important core worlds so the risk of being detected is rather high. Hopefully if they do see us, they ignore us if not we may end up using more fuel than we could afford to lose.

The ship shuddered under the impacts of multiple plasma detonations. An officer at the engineering station cried out, “Hull plating at 38%, sir.” Countryman yelled out an order to return fire.

The ship, and her escorts were in the middle of a battle with a Valorian fleet. The battle had started a couple hours earlier, when the Valorains had intercepted the Human force and used a Warp disruptor to knock them out of warp. A tech that was rather necessary for interceptions, since combat at warp is a practical impossibility. The solution to the problem of intercepting interstellar ships, was to simply knock them out of warp. Something done by generating an energy field that disrupts the stability of warp fields. The same field has the added bonus of also forcing hyperdrive equipped ships out of hyperspace. The Valorian fleet was currently positioned defensively around the ship generating the disruption field. While her fighter craft, bombers and destroyers engaged the Humans.

The bombers that had just dropped their payload on the Enterprise attempted to withdraw, while their escorts kept the Enterprise’s fighter wings occupied. While the Enterprise had yet to lose any of her fighters half of her fighter were too badly damaged to fight, so she only had twelve deployed. Across her hull the Medium Particle cannons that made up her secondaries realigned to target the fleeing bombers. While midsized particle cannons weren’t intended for use as point defense, they were perfectly capable of tracking the slow bombers. Having been designed for use against starships were more than capable of penetrating the shields of the bombers. Blue particle bolts ripped across space and tore into dozens of the fleeing bombers. Their shields held up against the first three or four bolts before they failed, the following bolt disintegrated the hit craft, ensuring it would not be able to return to the mothership for rearming. Still the bombers were maneuverable enough for evasive maneuvers, and half of them managed to get out of the cannons range. It would have been left but a destroyer moved into the line of fire, to shield bombers from the starship guns.

Her shields easily absorbed the bolts tearing into them, but they wouldn’t hold up under the barrage indefinitely. Just as the bombers were getting out of range, the damaged Umikaze entered Electro cannon range of the destroyer, and fired her cannons at it. A bolt resembling blue-green lightning ripped into destroyer’s shields and they collapsed in an impressive flash of light. Allowing the barrage from the Enterprise to tear into her unprotected hull. The bolts tearing massive rents into the ship, atmosphere and living bodies being violently ejected into space. Then one of the bolts tore into the fuel pods, igniting the fuel and the ship was consumed in a massive fireball. A couple of bombers were still to close, and were caught in the explosion, their shields being insufficient to fully protect them. Their hulls being cooked to the point of melting from the blast. Of the bombers that got caught in the blast, only one escaped destruction.

At the same time, the Coto that had moved away from the main line, of battle was coming up on the flanks of the fleet. Lining up with them, she opened fire with her fourteen operational forward launchers. In just under a minute she had nearly two thousand torpedoes in the water. The blueish ripples of the torpedoes streaking towards the cruisers protecting the capital ship generating the disruption field. With several volleys aimed at the disrupter ship. The cruisers detecting the incoming torpedoes, opened up with a their cannons. Their secondaries had been modified with a flak mode to deal with incoming torpedoes. Unfortunately for the Valorians even with flak most of the torpedoes still found their targets. Some of the torpedoes exploded against shields, and nearly three hundred were destroyed by flak, but nearly a thousand struck their targets. Those cruisers unlucky enough to be hit, were torn apart by massive explosions. The capital ship, being the largest ship took nearly thirty hits to the hull, reducing it a wreck of scorched and twisted metal.

Two cruisers made a short warp jump the moment the field failed, and opened up on the Coto. Heavy plasma torpedoes, streaked towards the Coto, while they fired plasma pulses into her damaged hull. The Coto came about, while returning fire, with a course for the Enterprise. The moment the torpedoes, got close she activated her energy web projectors, neutralizing most of the torpedoes, but several hit the hull. Three of those torpedoes, penetrated the hull and exploded. Fortunately no one was in those sections, as the emergency bulkheads closed to seal the breaches. Several systems however were knocked offline for several seconds, while the ship switched to back ups. The Coto returned fire with her aft launchers, twelve blue streaks flew towards the cruisers attacking her. The cruisers quickly switch targets to the torpedoes, but only managed to destroy four, the remaining torpedoes hit them. Half of the remaining penetrated their shields, and detonated. The fragile hulls of the cruisers were unable to withstand the destructive power of the weapons and were reduced to smoldering clouds of dust.

Moments later the remain Valorian ships, went to warp leaving the Human vessels to lick their wounds. Aboard the Enterprise, Countryman requested a status report.

“The Coto reports she took some damage during the exchange, including three new hull breaches. She also lost some systems, but her critical systems remain functional. The Umikaze reports nine new hull breaches, and her warp drive is still offline. Her engineers report it will be back online before the hour is out. Given the damage, they have sustained it is now dangerous to exceed warp four. Our fighters all returned, but four of them are no longer combat capable and will need a full refit. Flight leader Robert Meyers is reorganizing our operational fighters into a single squad, and transferring them all to the starboard bay. Our hull plating is fine, minor cracking on the dorsal plates, that engineering is already repairing. However, our supplies are another matter, sir. Our remaining fuel reserves are gone, all we have left is what is in the main reactor. The Coto, and Umikaze though both have roughly 3400 liters still in reserve. Our missile banks have been depleted, and we are down to about 20000 torpedoes fleet wide. For our fighters we have 1200 missiles left, and 900 micro torpedoes,” reported Misaki.

Countryman didn’t need to ask after receiving that report to know, they had used to much fuel in that last battle. They no longer had the range to reach the Krall border. Well, technically they could still reach it, by solar hopping but they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves if they were attacked. Which was practically a certainty since the Valorians knew their position now.

“Long range sensors, scan for fuel sources in a ten lightyear range. Helm set a course for the nearby star, sublight only. Engineering set hull plating for maximal solar gain,” ordered Countryman.

“The only source of deuterium in a ten lightyear radius of our position, would be New Valoria, sir,” said Reia, before Misaki could scan the region. Misaki’s scan confirmed this statement a couple minutes later. While also providing tactical data on the Valorian forces in the area. Well limited tactical, the long range sensors were sensitive enough to identify individual ships and the chemical signature of certain compounds at this distance, but they lacked the resolution to identify weapons, and subsystems.

“Reia what can you tell me about this New Valoria?” said Countryman.

“Why, you not planning on going there are you? Can’t we just do some solar hopping?” asked Reia.

“No, our ship’s batteries have limited capacity. If we are attacked, they will drain pretty quickly. We will either fight them of, or be destroyed without fuel. If we do fight them off, the batteries will most likely be drained, leaving us stranded in deep space. Therefore we have no choice, but to attempt a raid on New Valoria,” said Countryman. Reia seemed to think about it for a few moments and then she replied, “I can see your point. Raiding New Valoria won’t be easy, since it is a heavily fortified world. The planet is protected by planetary shields, multiple ground to space Concussion, and Pulse Cannon batteries. Along with multiple orbital weapons platforms. Also in orbit is the fleet base for the entire third fleet, a heavily fortified starbase designed to service the third fleet. At any given time, a third of the fleet is in system.”

“Planetary shields? Not a problem, unless they work differently from starship shields. I doubt that though. Now out of curiosity how strong are the shields on that fleet base?”

“About ten times the strength of those found on our heavy cruisers,” said Reia confused. Then Countryman chuckled, and said, “Perfect, let's give them a bit of a scare. Misaki, have those bombs taken out of cold storage and readied for use.”

“Uh, bombs?” asked Reia.

“The Enterprise was launched carrying a complement of ten high yield antimatter bombs, and 1000 dummy bombs. We still have the full complement of dummy bombs, and four of the antimatter bombs. I was considering having the dummies taken apart for parts, but I have a use for them now. Hey Misaki, have engineering strip the shield penetrators from some of our torpedoes, and outfitted on the dummy bombs. Also have 200 liters of fuel transferred to the Enterprise, and a full structural check done on both destroyers,” said Countryman.

“It sounds like you already have a plan,” replied Reia.

“The beginnings of one, yes. That planetary shield changes little. The real concern is the fleet. The scans clearly show that the third fleet is out of position, the main fleet group will be slowed by the gravitational anomaly between them and the system. Assuming they detect us, and move to intercept us immediately we will have eight hours before they arrive. The one battlegroup is currently limping away from us at low warp, so we don’t have to worry about them. We can deal with most of the fleet resistance with a massive opening volley. I’m actually most worried about the getaway. I suspect we will have to abandon both the Coto and Umikaze,” said Countryman.

“But aren’t those two ships, irreplaceable?” asked Reia.

“No, the only ship we have that is irreplaceable is the Enterprise. We could build replacements for them, if we had the resources and were left alone long enough,” replied Countryman. The next few hours were spent, preparing for a raid, and working out the details of a plan.

Captain’s Log June 20th 004 SDE,

We are on final approach for the Valorian colony of New Valoria. The Coto and Umikaze have both been evacuated, and control switched over to the onboard computers. We have set the Last Stand protocols to activate the moment we drop out of warp. The Last Stand protocols are a series of last resort protocols designed under the assumption the ship isn’t going to survive the battle. Our plan is for our destroyer escort to use their entire remaining torpedo supply on the local defense forces, while we target the planet and fleet base. We will open up with the dummies and bombs, with all four bombs targeted at the fleet base. The dummies will be mostly aimed at the planet, targeting the planetary shield generators and defensive installations. Their speed and mass alone should be more than sufficient to destroy their targets, and will minimize casualties from the attack, since they lack warheads. Not our normal methodology, but the Valorian people are not our enemy just the morons on their council. Long range scans indicate that the Valorian fleet was slower than first anticipated at responding, giving us an extra four and a half hours before they arrive. Due to fuel concerns we will not be employing our fighters unless necessary. I have ordered that our full complement of Scorpion Class Battle Platforms, and Raptor Class MBTs readied for combat. We considered deploying ST-42s as well, but decided against. Half our Scorpions will be outfitted for AA combat to counter Valorian Hoverships, according to Reia it is the heaviest unit they use in ground combat. We also expect to encounter fighter bombers, and other air units as well.

Apparently the Valorians don’t use walkers so on the ground the worst we will have to worry about is the occasional hovertank. We expect it take some time for them to organize for a counter attack, since the local garrison is under equipped and undertrained for an attack of this scale. Unfortunately the planet side fuel silos are not far from three planetary garrisons, giving them six hoverships, three hovertank brigades, and three infantry regiments in range to respond. More can be expected to respond, but will take several more hours before we need to worry about them. Also the Krall mentioned they have a small ship in the area. The ship is too lightly equipped to be of much help, but the scan data it provided will be useful for Forrest in planning his ground attack.

Accessing central database.....

Scorpion Class Battle Platform,

The Scorpion is an all terrain heavy walker, and submarine. Designed by Earth during the Third Colonial War for use both on land and at sea. The scorpion is a mobile heavy weapons platform, and can be outfitted to carry both artillery and AA weapons. It can also be outfitted with troop pods and used to carry troops across the battlefield. In appearance it resembles a giant metal scorpion which is where it gets its name from. The front claws are designed for clearing obstacles, but can also be used as an improbtu weapon. The tail when on land curls up and forward. Mounted on the end of the tail is the Scorpion’s primary weapon, the Heavy Particle Lance. Additional armaments include sixteen dual medium particle turrets, 8 dual heavy particle turrets, eight forward torpedo launchers, and two superheavy particle cannons.

Optional armaments for the scorpion include three flak projector turrets or four 178mm Photon Artillery turrets.

Armor is 4.2 meters thick, and each unit is eighty five meters long. Propulsion on land is achieved by six Heavy Titan industries walker legs. At sea the legs fold under, and the tail extends straight behind the craft, and propulsion is achieved by twin pulse det hydro-rams. On land they have a cruise speed of 32 Kph and a sprint speed of 40 Kph. At sea they are much faster with a cruise speed of 60 Knots submerged, 54 surfaced. With a top speed of 73 knots submerged, 67 surfaced.

The Scorpion is a versatile weapon capable of fulfilling a variety of roles, and is often used for breaching heavy fortifications, defending key points, clearing a path for ground troops on land. At sea it typically employed like an attack sub, or to establish a beachhead on a fortified beach.

Raptor Class MBT,

The Raptor is the most advanced combat tank ever developed by Humans. She was designed to during the Cathamari war as a replacement for her predecessor the Rex. A hybrid between conventional tanks and Hovertanks. The tank is actually a bit overloaded equipment wise for her hover systems. Hence the use of a retractable track system, that has been integrated into her hover engines as much as possible. The hovor systems will allow the tank to remain suspend for several hours before the load starts to cause problems. Failures usually happen between six to eight hours. The tank is quite fast, highly maneuverable and can take a great deal of punishment. When fully loaded the tank weighs 185 tons, which is five tons over the weight limit for her hover systems. The Raptor has a track speed of 160 Kph and hovor speed of 92 Kph.

For protection the tank is outfitted with a meter of overlord armor, and she is powered by twin micro fusion reactors. Her main armament is a 155mm Photon Shell cannon, which she carries sixty rounds for. Her coaxial is a medium particle cannon, and she is outfitted with five twin light particle cannon turrets. The tank is controlled by a crew of seven, a driver, commander, main gunner, comms officer, engineer, and two turret gunners.

Photon Cannons, and Artillery,

These are the most advanced projectile weapons ever developed by Humanity. Each shell is accelerated to incredible speeds by a gauss style barrel, and is outfitted with a photon warhead, and a limited guidance system. The guidance system allows the shell to make minor course corrections increasing accuracy. The shells use intelligent detonators that control the detonation to maximize the destructive impact of the shells. The use of intelligent detonators minimizes the risk of an overpenetration. Greatly increasing the chance that the shell will detonate inside the target in the event of a penetrating hit. It is important to note that the intelligent detonator is not foolproof and that some shells will fail to detonate, or detonate too late. These shells come in three types. Type I, are high yield explosive shells. Type II are AP shells that feature a smaller warhead and have been optimized to penetrate armor. Type III were designed to deal with Cathamari armor. The Type III SPAP shells are shield and armor piercing shells. The SPAPs have the smallest warhead of any photon shell to make space for the shield penetrator.

The Enterprise came out of warp shortly after the other two. Thousands of torpedoes were already in the water and some were already finding their targets. As per the plan the Enterprise unleashed her arsenal on the planet and fleet base. The Valorians were already in disarray the local forces, struggling to deal with the sustained barrage. As for the civilian ships, they had already been evacuated by the local forces. It took the Enterprise just under a minute to send her bombs, and the dummy bombs towards their targets.

The Enterprise then set a direct course towards the planet, ignoring the local defense forces. Shortly before she entered orbit of the planet, a massive explosion hit the fleet base. Its shields flared briefly, and collapsed. A bomb lagging behind the others then hit the station. Hitting with enough force to punch through the hull, and bury itself dozens of meters into the hull before it detonated. Vaporizing a large chunk of the starbase instantly the rest being torn apart and reduced to a cloud of dust from the energy of the blast. A few seconds later the orbital weapon platforms were hit by torpedoes launched from the destroyers, and the planetary shield collapsed as the first of the kinetic strike bypassed the shield and knocked out the generators. The following strikes destroying defensive ground installations. As the Enterprise entered orbit she began launching her shuttles and dropships. It took the shuttles just under ten minutes to reach their destination.

At the same time the Coto was out of torpedoes and was engaged in a close range duel with multiple Valorian cruisers. The Coto rolled to dodge a volley of torpedoes, and came about. Opening fire with her forward batteries. A blue green lightning-like bolt impacted the shields of her target. The shields instantly collapsed and unleashed a powerful electromagnetic pulse that weakened the shields of the other nearby cruisers. The lightning-like bolt was followed by a rapid series of blue bolts that tore through the hull. Massive rents were opened in the hull venting atmosphere, and crew into space.

A second cruiser closing on the Coto’s flank opened up with its main batteries. A series of red bolts splashed against her hull. A few bolts tearing into the insides of the Coto, having impacted in a hull breach. The Coto returned fire with her aft guns. Blue bolts splashed against the second cruisers shields. Doing little apparent damage, as the Coto targeted a third cruiser with her Electro Cannons. Two quick blasts struck the cruiser, the first disabled her shields causing another electromagnetic shockwave further straining the shields of the other cruisers. Cruiser two lost her shields, and the Coto’s aft guns began tearing into its hull. The second blast striking cruiser three blew out every major system on the ship and she went dark.

Three cruisers coming up on her port side unleashed a volley of torpedoes on her. She turned towards the ships opening up with every weapon that had an angle on the three. While firing her beam array into the disabled cruiser. Seconds before the torpedoes were to impact she deployed her web, intercepting most of the torpedoes. The remain torpedoes impacted the hull and depleted her hull plating. One of which penetrated the plating and opened another hull breach in her damaged hull. At the close range they were at it took the Coto mere seconds to rip through the shields of her targets. As she was ripping into her targets hulls, the remaining ten cruisers that were holding off closed into weapons range and opened fire. The plasma bolts tearing into the hull, and internal bulkheads. However the Coto was built tough and most of the bolts were stopped before they could penetrate more than a dozen meters into the hull. It took her seconds to finish the cruisers that she was targeting, then she turned towards the cruisers firing on her.

Her onboard computer calculating the most damaging actions, set every system on board to overload. Then it used the pulse detonation drive to close the distance rapidly. In under a minute it reached close range with the cruisers mere seconds before the badly damaged Coto exploded unleashing a massive shock pulse that destroyed all ten cruisers.

Around the same time the Coto self destructed the Umikaze was also engaged and running out of power. Twelve cruisers were engaged with her at close to mid range, and her hull plating had failed and weapons were offline. The Umikaze responded the only way she could, and initiated a full systems overload, unleashing a shock pulse similar to the one the Coto generated when she self destructed. All of the cruisers in the area were caught up in the massive blast wave, eight of the cruisers were too close to survive and were torn apart. The other four were heavily damaged, and would require some time to restore their systems.

Meanwhile the commander of the Valorian fleet was watching the footage with a bit of impatience. She cursed the fact that they had been poorly positioned to intercept the enemy making a direct run on their base. Watching the enemy destroyers explode, she was filled with mixed feelings on the result.

“What just happened?” asked the commander.

“Readings from just before the explosion, seem to indicate some kind of self destruct. Every system on board suddenly built up to a overload. Resulting in some kind of shock pulse, one powerful enough to do massive damage to any vessel to be unfortunate enough to be within ‘five thousand kilometers’ of the detonating vessel,” said her science officer.

“Let me guess that pulse came from the engines detonating, right?” said the commander.

“Yes, sir. We saw a massive and rapid build up of heat and pressure in the systems we suspect to be the engines. The pulse was caused by an uncontrolled fusion detonation,” said her science officer.

“Go over the readings maybe it will reveal a weakness we could use,,” said the commander.

While the fleet, was trying to gain more intelligence on its route for the system, Human ground forces had landed in one of the larger warehouse districts of the colony. The Enterprise had landed her full complement of ground troops, her early launch meant she didn’t have a full complement of marines, but she did have a full complement of tanks and Scorpions. 10,000 infantry, twelve thousand tanks, and 80 scorpions had landed. The Enterprise kept some vehicles in reserve however. Everything she was keeping in reserve, were vehicles that would not be needed for the mission. Mostly recon, and transport vehicles.

The landing went quite well as there was very little in the way of defense near the fuel depot they were raiding. There were some local security forces, but they weren’t equipped to deal with a large well equipped force. At most they were outfitted to deal with criminals attempting to steal fuel. The depots were located on the outskirts of a major city with plenty of space for large vehicles and limited cover in the area. The depots themselves were protected by a dozen light turrets and a couple hundred guards in two man patrols. By the time Commander Forest the man responsible for leading the Enterprise’s ground troops had landed the local defenses had already fallen, and the troops were securing the depots. Commander Forrest stepped out of his shuttle, and surveyed the area already making plans for dealing with the counterattack he knew would come.

Forrest was familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the Scorpion and was thinking of where to have them deployed. The Scorpion was an effective ground weapon in open terrain, in urban terrain its size greatly limited its use. Its greatest advantage being the sheer firepower it could bring to the field. Their limited mobility being their greatest weakness, but he already had a few places in mind for positioning them that would mostly negate that issue. Heavy Walkers such as the Scorpion were not known for being particularly fast or quick at turns, but they made up for it with their superior ability to support heavy loads, and excellent performance on most terrain types. As for the Raptors, he wanted to take advantage of their mobility and deploy them as rapid response forces. They would move to reinforce the line when necessary or strike at the enemy flanks when needed. The general lack of cover in the area would present an issue for his marines, but he could deploy some barricades to solve that issue. Looking around he saw a few towers that would be a great spot for snipers. There was also a ridge a couple kilometers to the east of the depots, placing some snipers there or artillery would be a good idea.

Personally, he was leaning towards snipers as for artillery he saw a another good spot for them not far from the ridge about a kilometer south of the ridge. Putting a few artillery Scorpions there would be useful, and it would place two of the ground bases he had seen on the flight down in range of their artillery fire. Hitting those bases preemptively would help weaken the counterattack when it came. So he issued several orders to his lieutenants to reposition the Scorpions and to place four of the Scorpions outfitted with artillery along with two AA outfitted Scorpions in that location. Along with orders to place snipers in the towers and along the ridge. Then he pointed out a few locations for the combat engineers to deploy barricades.

Meanwhile at one of the nearby bases a Valorian general was watching satellite images of the Human troop movements. She was paying closest attention to the walkers, as she wasn’t all that familiar with them. The Valorians didn’t use walkers, and she had never fought any of the races that did in combat. Not surprising since the Valorians haven’t fought a war with their neighbors in decades. She called over one of her engineers, and asked her, “What do you make of those walkers?”

“Those are clearly heavy walkers, seem to have a good load capacity as well. That armor is quite thick and they seem to be carrying quite a bit of armament. They seem to have two different types as well. Looks like some of them are carrying flak guns and are outfitted for anti air combat. The others seem to be carrying some type of ballistic artillery. I’d say both will be dangerous to deal with,” said the engineer.

“Well, can you give an idea about their strengths and weaknesses?” said the general.

“I’m not an expert on walkers, but in general they tend to be slow. They make up for it with high load capacities and excellent all terrain performance. These walkers seem to be on the fast side as heavy walkers go, but they are still slow. That armor they have will be difficult to penetrate, but it should be weaker near the joints. As for firepower, they look to be carrying enough armament to outgun anything we can field. In general they could probably decimate any ground attack we make,” said the engineer.

“In other words we should probably take them out with an air attack,” said the general.

“That depends on how effective those flak guns of theirs, prove to be,” said the engineer.

“All the unknowns are what worry me, they make it difficult to determine how effective any given plan will be,” replied the general as she went back to planning the counterattack.

The troops under Forrest had just finished securing the area against a hostile counterattack, and had started loading the first group of shuttles with fuel taken from the depots. When the Valorians finally made their first move. Several wings of aircraft backed up by four of their hovorships struck from the air. They came in from the west, flying at high speed. Before they could even get into range to fire on their targets, the humans were already responding. The AA equipped Scorpions rotated their guns towards the incoming aircraft and opened fire. Almost instantly the sky was flooded with heavy particle fire. The bolts blooming seemingly at random. The Valorian attack planes were buffeted by the flak, their shields straining to protect them from the sheer amount of fire they were taking.

In the minute or so it took the planes to get into bombing range of the Human forces, the heavy flak had drained the shields of the lead planes by nearly half their strength. The following craft had also taken a heavy amount of fire and their shields were drained by nearly the same amount. The aircraft immediately initiated bombing runs on the nearest Scorpions. While the four hoverships they had brought opened fire with their cannons. Two powerful superheavy pulse cannons, and four heavy ion cannon batteries from each ship opened up on their targets.

The Scorpions were just as hardened as everything else the Humans use against ion weapons. So the ion blasts splashed against their armor harmlessly, while the pulse cannons didn’t fare much better against the thick armor. The plasma pulses doing nowhere near enough damage to matter. The volley drained the energy fields running through the armor by barely five percent on each target by the time the aircraft started dropping their bombs. The Valorians had armed their fighter bombers with precision bombs and missile to minimize the risk of blowing the fuel depots, since there was enough fuel stored in the depots that if it blew, the nearby city would be devastated by the blast.

The bombs were released with impressive precision, but the flak proved to be too heavy for the bombs. The instant they were released the computer controlled AA guns instantly locked onto the bombs and refocused their fire to neutralize them. Less than ten percent of the bombs made their way through the flak. With half of the bombs exploding while still close to the firing plane. The few bombs that made their way through the heavy flak, inflicted light damage to their targets. The remaining planes moved to withdraw and rearm, while the hoverships moved to cover them. Just as Forrest ordered several artillery Scorpions to fire on the hoverships, while artillery was not the best weapon for hitting an aerial target was perfectly capable of tracking the slower hoverships. Three Scorpions rotated their turrets to lock on to the Hoverships, 72 guns on 12 turrets opened fire. The 178cm shells fired in volleys of 12 from each gun with a cycle of three seconds between volleys, while causing a sonic boom with each shot the shells being instantly accelerated to supersonic velocities.

The impressive fire rate of the Photon Artillery allowed them to rip through the hoverships in seconds. The shield piercing shells tore through their powerful shields, only one shell in three made it through the shields but that was more than enough to reduce their target to shreds. The first hovership exploded in a brilliant fireball. The first shell that penetrated its shields penetrated its ventral fore tearing a hole nearly 20 meters deep before exploding. The second shell to bypass the shields ripped through the decimated forward sections, tearing deep into the hull and exploded near the reactor causing secondary explosions that ripped the hovership apart.

The second hovership didn’t last much longer, taking four penetrating hits before being destroyed. The other two managed to withdraw, but not before they took damage. The third ship barely got away, her underside shredded and her stern ripped from the hull. As for the fourth ship, her bow was reduced to mangled metal and she lost half her internals to the shells that hit her. Around the same time the hoverships were being fired on, Forrest had the Scorpions that he had placed to fire on the bases open fire. All four Scorpions opened fire with their guns. Thousands of shells were soon on course for the first base.

The base’s local shields helped absorb the brunt of the bombardment however hundreds of shells penetrated the shields. Each shell struck with impressive force, destroying buildings and vehicles in impressive fireballs. Hundreds of young soldiers were killed in the first wave, by the time the bombardment ended a minute after it started, the base had been leveled only the underground portions of the base had survived, but only barely. The second base didn’t fare any better and was equally devastated.

The Valorian general watched the attack on the depots. The attack had gone poorly, especially since she had not expected their artillery to be able to target their hoverships. Nor had she expected them to have the range and firepower to hit and destroy two of her bases so easily. Fortunately she had already started deploying her forces from those bases, but she had still lost an entire regiment of infantry. Along with half her tanks and most of her support units.

“Well, I guess that answered a number of questions I had,” then she turned to her engineers for countermeasures against those ballistics.

“Those ballistic weapons are quite impressive. The fire rate alone is practically insane. On the flip side I don’t think they can carry more than a few minutes worth of ammo. I recommend we stay mobile, we should be fine if we don’t get hit. We could also try using flak, like the fleet does against their torpedoes,” said one of her engineers.

“Why not remodulate the shields to block those rounds?” asked the general.

“That was the first thing the fleet tried, but every attempt to harden our shields against their shield penetrating weapons have failed. If we knew how their weapons were bypassing our shields we might be able to block them, but we don’t,” replied the engineer. The general looked at her available forces and positions a plan forming in her mind. It wasn’t much of a plan really, but it was the only real option left to her.

While the Valorians were preparing for their next move, the first shuttles were loaded with fuel and launched. Meanwhile in space the Enterprise was engaged with two Valorian cruisers that had survived the initial battle. Her hull plating was already severely depleted and she had eaten through most of her remain power. All of her remaining power had been transferred to the hull plating. As the shuttles broke atmosphere three torpedoes slammed into her port dorsal. The resulting blast draining her armor to critical levels, but not penetrating her thick her armor.

The shuttles were spotted breaking atmosphere, and a dozen fighters that were harassing the Enterprise broke off to engage the shuttles. Being cargo shuttles they were lightly armed and had poor maneuverability. They did however have decent armor. As the fighters got into range of the flight of shuttles, the shuttles opened up with their single dual particle turret. A series of light particle blast splashed against the fore shields of the lead fighters. The decently strong fore shields held up fairly well against the barrage and the fighters opened up with their pulse cannons.

Red energy bolts hit the lead shuttle, her armor holding up fairly well to the volley. As the fighters flew past in formation. Just as they were about to turn, the Enterprise unleashed a series of rapid strikes from her beam array using the residual energy in the capacitors. The beam array being designed for use against starships cut through the weak aft shields easily. In a span of 12 seconds she splashed half the fighters before the capacitors were completely drained. The shuttles managed to track and destroy two fighters while their afts were exposed to their guns. At the same time one of the two cruisers had stopped firing on the Enterprise and was angling to fire on the shuttles. When suddenly a ship decloaked just six hundred kilometers of their port bow.

It was a Krall destroyer, specifically a dagger class. The Dagger class was virtually identical to their mainstay destroyer the Inferno class. The main differences were that she carried fewer torpedoes, and a cloaking device. The Dagger’s main weapon was her single Plasma beam array a weapon famous for its ability to brute force penetrate energy shields. Still the beam often lost a fair chunk of its punch piercing the shields. Limiting what damage it does while the shields are up. Which is why the Dagger couples this weapon with powerful sensors, that allow it to pinpoint weaknesses in her opponents. The preferred strategy for Dagger commanders is to target critical systems such as the shield generators, and to finish her opponents off with a volley of torpedoes once the shields are down.

The Dagger opened up with her beam array. The beam was aim straight at the primary shields generator. The beam lasted a full four seconds, and while the powerful Valorian shields blocked most of the blast the beam still tore a hole in the hull. The beam penetrated nearly sixty meters into the hull and severed three of the primary power transfer conduits and damaged the shield generator. The cruisers shields however remained operational, and emergency force fields sprang up to seal the hull breach. The cruiser returned fire with her port batteries, while the destroyed began evasive maneuvers. Not that they helped much at such close range, which was why they were also increasing distance. While their shields took the volley, draining them nearly fifteen percent over the twelve seconds it took for her beam array to recharge.

Aboard the Enterprise Countryman was considering his options. Main power was already gone, the only power left was in the emergency backups and there was barely enough to keep life support and minimal sensors up. Hull plating was already down to seven percent and running on fumes and enemy weapons fire. Against any other foe they would already be taking damage. Valorian weapons though weren’t all that powerful. They had managed to improve them recently, but they still struggled against the Enterprise’s armor. At the current rate of depletion the plating will fall below five percent in a matter of minutes and once that happened they would start taking actual damage. He had used his last offensive option when he fired on those fighters, as it was there really wasn’t anything he could do without the fuel those shuttles were carrying.

As for the shuttles they were about ready to land in the port hangar, which is opposite of the attacking cruiser. He took a glance at the Krall destroyer engaging the one cruiser, before turning to Misaki.

“Misaki, open the port hangar doors. As for the fighters, don’t worry about them. Engineering transfer power from the emergency backups to the hangar bay mag tractor projectors. I want those craft to land safely,” ordered Countryman. The mag tractors in the hanger bay didn’t require much power so he felt he could afford to activate them without compromising any systems. Besides the projectors could be used to deal with the fighters, while he had never used them on a shielded vessel himself, since you actually had to hit the ship with a mag disk first. Something that was difficult to do in battle thanks to the speeds and ranges most starship battles were fought at. He was familiar with how the projectors interacted with shields. The shields actually have the peculiar effect of amplifying the beam making it harder to break free. While also causing a drain on the shields.

As the doors were opening one of the Valorian pilots noticed the doors opening and immediately informed her flight leader of the doors opening. Being the closest to the bay, she was ordered to make a run on the bay. She then checked her gauges, determining that she could make two runs on the bay before she needed to refuel. Breaking of her attack on one of the shuttles, she flew straight towards the bay. Getting an angle on the bay she fired into the bay, her pulse cannons splashing against the internal armor. Doing little apparent damage to the internal plating. She was just starting to break of her run, the other fighters moving to make their run when suddenly she felt a jolt.

The jolt happened when she got close enough to be targeted by the mag tractors. Three projectors had locked onto her fighter and launched a mag disk at her fighter. The disks sailed across the short space between her fighter and the projectors and struck her shields. The disk reacting to the energies of her shields adhered to the shields an instant before the beam itself switched on. The beam instantly created disruptions that pushed the disks through her shields to latch on to the hull. These tractors while not as powerful as the ships main tractors, were more than powerful enough to stop her ship cold.

Being an experienced pilot it took her mere seconds to recognize that she had been caught in a tractor beam. She immediately switched the engines on full reverse, and attempted to remodulate her shields. The engines strained against the tractor beam, unable to break free, and her remodulation failed to disrupt the hold of the beam on her ship. As the beams began pulling her fighter in, she got an angle on one of the projectors. Only she missed the timing by a fraction of a second and missed the projectors. Her burst instead splashed uselessly against the sturdy plating. She immediately sent a distress call to her flight only for her hopes of them knocking out the projectors when the Krall destroyer fired her torpedoes at her flight. The other three fighters were unable to evade and were destroyed by the torpedoes. As for herself, not a single torpedo came her way.

At the same moment the destroyer was again firing her beam array at the cruiser. Targeting the shield generators while simultaneously reloading the launchers she had just fired at the nearby fighters. This time the four second beam tore into the hull at an angle. Ripping a gash into the hull nearly a hundred meters long, and compromising three decks. While also disabling two of the secondary generators. The damage disrupted the cruisers forward shields. The shields however recovered quickly. The cruiser continued to fire on the destroyer, but she was having a harder time scoring any hits because of the increased distance between the ships. This gave the destroyer the time she needed to recharge for another strike.

She came about and fired the forward beam again. Just as the cruiser managed to get a solid weapons lock. This time the beam punched through the forward shields and hit one of the primary shield generators for the forward section. The cruiser fired her main batteries just a second after the beam hit her. This time her volley managed to tear through the destroyers shields and strike the hull. The destroyer took a few hull breaches, and minor structural damage. None of the damage was serious and the destroyer let loose a volley of spatial torpedoes. The volley hit the cruiser before she could reset her forward shields, and tore the ship apart.

The Krall battle-leader, turned to his crew and shouted, “Status report.”

“Minor damage to the forward plating, hull breaches on decks three, four and six. Emergency force fields in place and holding. Minor casualties reported, along with two fatalities and four missing. Shields will be back online in forty seconds, no damage to primary systems,” reported his engineering officer.

“How about the Enterprise what is her status?”

“Main power offline, weapons are down and her hull plating is failing. She is still under fire from the other cruiser, and her shuttle flight is landing. She should have main power back online in four to five minutes, sir” reported his officer.

“Will her plating hold that long?” asked the battle-leader.

“I can’t be entirely certain, their plating actually draws power from the weapons being fired at it. However, I don’t think their plating will hold for more than a few minutes,” replied the officer.

“Interesting, can we recharge their plating?”

“Yes, sir, a low intensity beam preferably set on wide beam should restore their plating, but it would also draw attention to us from that heavy cruiser shooting at them,” replied the officer. The battle-leader didn’t need to be informed to know that they would have a hard time against that heavy cruiser since it had better shields and weapons than the cruiser they just sank. Still he felt they could hold out against it for a few minutes, before they were forced to withdraw. So he gave the order to recharge the Enterprise’s hull plating.

Back on the surface, Forrest was nearly done loading the second wave of shuttles. When the Valorian general made her move. She had chosen to attack with a hit and run strategy. A wave of tanks came at human position from the northwest. She had another group come up by way of the city to hit them from the south. She had both groups supported by personnel carriers, the Valorian version of a personnel carrier used a hovercraft suspension and lacked armor. Relying instead on shields to keep the infantry they were carrying safe.

Forrest had several Scorpions target them and open fire. The incoming wave of Valorian troops employed evasive maneuvers the instant they detected they were being targeted. Even with the maneuvering they were unable to completely avoid the artillery fire. Both groups taking damage, losing a third of their vehicles before they managed to get inside the Scorpion’s minimum range. The instant they got inside the minimum range, they engaged the Human lines.

Commander Forrest split his tanks and ordered them to engage the two groups. The Scorpions being less effective now that the tanks were inside the minimum range for their artillery. Still their heavy guns were powerful enough to do quite a bit of damage to any tanks they hit. Often decimating their shields in two or three hits. Forcing the tanks to stay mobile or be destroyed.

Soldiers on the Valorian SPCs opened fire on targets of opportunity from the gun ports. While the Marines used their heavy weapons to fire on the Tanks from positions of cover. In the distance the snipers used their beam rifles to shoot at the SPCs their shields being far weaker than the hovertanks. The weapon the snipers were carrying was the LRB-1247. A favorite of Human snipers the 1247 was the latest in a long line of successful beam rifles. With a maximum range of 9 Km and an effective range of 6Km it allows snipers to engage at greater distances than their ballistic counterparts. The 1247 has a recharge of 2.4 seconds and was designed to fire a short beam capable of punching through light vehicle armor, the focused particle beam also proved reasonably effective at penetrating the shields Cathamari used on their lighter vehicles.

The SPCs were proving to be tougher vehicles, but the solution was to simply have more snipers fire on the same target point. It took multiple snipers aiming at same spot to pierce the shields, but it worked often forcing the infantry aboard to disembark. As for the Marines the heavy weapon they were carrying was the powerful HPL-400. The HPL-400 is a heavy particle weapon with a range of 2.4 Km and a fire rate of 450 bolts per minute. Designed for use against vehicles, it excels as ripping through vehicle armor and is great versus most tanks. The HPL however struggled against the shields on the Valorian hovertanks, their SPCs however proved far more vulnerable.

Half their infantry had already been forced to disembark when the Raptors moved onto the scene. Their turrets targeting the Valorian infantry that were in exposed positions, while they targeted the tanks with their main guns. Loading SPAP shells, they were soon making short work of the tanks. The shells weren’t as good at shield penetration as the torpedoes the Enterprise carries, but were still effective. A single penetrating hit was all they needed to splash the target.

The engagement only lasted a matter of minutes after the Raptors arrived before the Valorians retreated on both fronts. Forest ordered the Raptors to pursue, while the marines mopped up the infantry on the ground. The Valorian tanks though were faster and more maneuverable than the Raptor and managed to escape, but not before the Raptors splashed a few more of their number. As the latest engagement came to a close, Forrest had the damage assessed. On their side the hit, had left four hundred wounded, with thirty tanks knocked out. Fortunately they had no fatalities, and the tanks were only disabled with a few days work they could be put back into the field.

Meanwhile back in space the Valorian pilot was assessing her options. All of her attempts to break free from the mag tractors had failed. Her shields were already failing being almost completely drained by the beam. She knew the beam was actually being strengthened by her shields. Thanks to some kind of resonance that caused her shields to grow weaker while the beam grows stronger. Which meant turning her shields off would weaken the beam, but that wouldn’t help her break free one of her previous attempts to break free having fried her engines. She was already on the deck of the hanger, the beam holding her in place and she was surrounded by ship security. Which since her shields were the only thing keeping her safe, would basically be a surrender an option that didn’t appeal to her.

Unfortunately she was drawing a blank on how to get out of this situation. An easy way to get out would be to self destruct, problem is she broke the system needed to initiate the overload to blow the ship up during the attempt that fried her engines. Which meant she would have to manually initiate a self destruct. Making a decision she reached for the reactor controls, and disabled the safeties. Then she set the output to maximum and unbalanced the reaction. Almost immediately the reactor began building to an overload. What she did wasn’t going to be as effective as the autodestruct but it would do the job. Then she pulled her pistol, and hit the control to open the cockpit. Unfortunately that also caused the shields to drop. Almost instantly the beams holding her ship, shut off. Aiming her pistol she fired a few shots into the nearby security man. Like all of the ones around her he was wearing a suit of personal armor.

The armor was basically the same as the medium armor used by the marines but with a different paint job to indicate they were ship security. They also didn’t have all the toys the marines got to play with. They still got the XR-471 as it was a good weapon for dealing with boarders, but normally they were expected to use the LP-1230. As for grenades they were only issued the stun grenade to incapacite targets.

Her shots struck the first guard in the chest with little effect. Her pistol was a standard issue pulse pistol and wasn’t designed to penetrate armor in the first place. The guards returned fire with their pistols, several beams going over her as she had ducked just before they shot at her. She then jumped out of the cockpit shooting at the nearby guards, before making a run towards the nearest shuttle. As the guards turned towards her she switched settings on her pistol since the first setting wasn’t doing anything against that armor. She also started zigging a bit to throw their aim off. A few beams flew past her and then she returned fire. Her shot however went wide and struck the far wall and then her luck ran out. She was less than a third of the way to the shuttle she was aiming for when a beam struck her. Half her body went numb instantly, and then her muscles locked up as her nerves began screaming at her combined with a sudden bout of extreme nausea before she blacked out.

The instant she fell to the ground one of the guards climbed up into her cockpit and looked around. While he couldn’t read Valorian, because of his required basic engineering course he didn’t need to in order to recognize the reactor was building to an overload. That didn’t help him with shutting the reactor down, but his suits comms did. He contacted engineering and used his helmet sensors to transmit visuals to the engineer that answered. A couple minutes of working things out and they shutdown the reactor with time to spare.

Back on the bridge, Countryman was watching the Krall destroyers engagement with the heavy cruiser. He had been rather surprised when the destroyer fired on his ship. However it was quite clear that they were only trying to recharge his armor. Thanks to them the plating had recovered to fifty percent. The destroyer had already been engaged for a couple minutes now. He watched as another beam struck the cruiser. The cruisers stronger shields absorbed it better than her lighter cousin had and the beam still managed to rip an opening in the hull but didn’t penetrate the hull as deeply.

Then the cruiser returned fire, the destroyer’s evasive maneuvers allowed them to avoid most of it, but they still took several hits. Her already weakened shields failed and she absorbed several hits to the aft section. One of which knocked out her engines.

“How long before main power is restored?” asked Countryman.

“Just under two minutes,” replied Richards. Countryman could tell the destroyer wouldn’t last long with her engines disabled.

“Transfer power from the hull plating to the forward particle cannons and the Electro cannons,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye, sir transfering power,” replied Richards. It took a few seconds for the power to transfer and the weapons to come online.

“The forward weapons are online, sir. Hull plating now at twenty percent,” reported Richards.

“Kaori target that cruiser, with the Electro cannons,” ordered Countryman. The cruiser was just barely out of the effective range of the cannons. They however weren’t so far outside said range for the drop off to have much of an effect.

The moment Kaori informed him that the had a weapons lock, he gave the order to fire. A bluish lightning bolt lanced across space and struck the cruiser. Almost instantly the cruisers shields collapsed and unleashed a massive emp. Countryman gave the order to fire on it with the forward particle cannons.

The forward array opened with an impressive barrage that tore through the cruiser like tissue paper. When the barrage ended a few seconds later, entire sections of the ship were open to space, the only thing keeping the atmosphere in the ship were the emergency force fields that sprang up when the hull was breached, but not before dozens of their crew was blown out into space along with a good chunk of the atmosphere. The damaged Krall destroyer took advantage of her opponents damaged state and fire a full powered beam aimed directly at the main reactor. The beam ripped through the hull like tissue paper, disintegrating everything in its path. The beam hit the reactor disrupting the containment and triggering an explosion that tore the ship apart.

A couple minutes later they restored main power, with power back, they targeted Valorain troops in position to attack their ground force. While deploying shuttles to salvage the debris, focusing on their own sunken destroyers. As for the Krall destroyer Countryman hailed them and offered to patch up their hull.

“That is a nice offer, but can you afford to do that?” asked the Krall Ship-leader.

“Yes, we can afford to patch your hull. We might be low on our own titan alloy, but we do have a supply of tritanium. We picked up quite bit of it since it is a popular building material in the Lantaro sector. We don’t have much use for it however, we only keep it because it is a makes an excellent trade good. The debris in the area can be salvaged for anything we need to fix your ship,” replied Countryman.

“That will make getting back to port easier, but there is a fleet moving on our position. Are you sure you have the time?” replied the Ship-leader.

“We were planning to hold here for a few hours, by then we should have a full supply of fuel. Repairing your ship won’t hurt our time schedule,” replied Countryman.

“In that case we accept the aid. We will however patch our internals ourselves, fleet policy on that,” said the Shipleader. A few minutes later and the ship was docked with Enterprise, via the lower docking arms. Repair arms extend around the ship and began rebuilding the damaged sections of the hull.

Several hours later, the Enterprise had long since finished aiding the Krall destroyer in patching her battle damage and sent her on her way. They were also finished with their salvage operations and were in the process of recovering the last of their troops when the Valorian fleet entered the system. The Valorian third fleet was one of the larger fleets in the Confederation, with nearly thirty thousand ships. They came out of warp on the far side of the planet from the Enterprise. Which gave the Enterprise the time she needed to recover her shuttles. The Fleet was just coming into view when the Enterprise broke orbit and jumped to warp pushing the engines to warp six.