RR-117, 1312 hours May 13th 074 SDE,

A green energy beam lanced across space, and ripped into a nearby starship. Its deflector shields flared as they struggled, and failed to redirect the beam. The hull buckled and broke apart under the stress. Then the ship started to split in two, when suddenly an internal explosion tore a chunk out of the hull. Followed by several more small explosions culminating in a big one. When the dust cleared, all that was left was an expanding cloud of debris.

The admiral watched it go down, but he couldn’t focus on the lost cruiser. They had managed to intercept the Cylovan Dreadnought at RR-117. A small unremarkable system, that was only important thanks to its position. He was immensely thankful for the hyperspace data they had gotten from the Refuge for it had played a critical role in allowing them to intercept the dreadnought here. Otherwise, it might have taken another month or more to intercept the damn ship. That data had allowed them to find more efficient routes through hyperspace, and place this massive force right in the path of the damnable ship. The battle itself had been raging for the past two and a half hours. In that time they had lost nearly a thousand cruisers and hundreds of destroyers defending the battleships that were key to their battleline. Numerous fighters were keeping the enemy swarmers of the fleet, and by his count, they had managed to sink some thirty-thousand Cylovan Fighters. All of which came from that one dreadnought. It was a mind boggling number of fighters, and yet they were still launching more. To supplement the forty thousand that were currently engaged with the fleet.

Speaking of the fleet, they had already lost a third of their fighter complement in this engagement, but they seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the fighter war. On the screen he saw a barrage unleashed from his fleet slam into the dreadnoughts failing shields, and was rewarded with a flash of light as they collapsed.

“Sir, the enemy, has lost their shields!” excitedly reported a young lieutenant. He gave a gentle smile, and with confidence, he ordered, “All ships are to open fire with their main batteries”

“Aye Sir, relaying order,” replied his comm’s officer. On his screen surges of purple light flared as their special weapons opened fire. All of the heavier ships in the fleet were outfitted with the special particle weapons that were intended for use against the real heavy hitters of the Cylovan fleet. Along with the purple bolts, a mix of greens and blues surged from the masers of other ships that didn’t have particle cannons.

Hundreds of thousands of blasts tore into the thick outer shell of the dreadnought tearing holes in the plating, and the ship returned fire. Another green beam lanced out and tore into a cruiser defensively placed between it and one of the battleships. This time the beam cut through the cruiser dealing heavy damage to the upper decks amidships, but failed to cause any secondary explosions. The cruiser having survived the blast returned fire with a barrage of missiles. The projectiles slammed into the hull of the dreadnought moments later with explosive results.

A few more beams fired from the dreadnought catching several ships including the cruiser it hit earlier. This time the cruiser wasn’t so lucky and the beam cut through the main engine room and the primaries lost containment. The resulting explosion claimed yet another ship and the several thousand men and women who manned her.

The admiral was idly aware as each lost ship was named. Suddenly he saw a massive explosion on the dreadnought. He recognized it as one of the identified hangar bays. The outer doors had been breached by the barrage a few moments ago, but it looks like something important was hit. A few moments later when the dust cleared, it was obvious the hanger had been destroyed as a massive chunk of the hull was gone. In its place was a twisted and mangled chunk of metal. The hanger was obviously destroyed and with it, no more fighters would come from it. He heard another officer report the damage, and mention something about suspected shield generators being destroyed with it.

The damage, however, didn’t stop the enemy from returning fire. He watched several more ships including one of their battleships go up in flames under the barrage of green energy. Then one of his officers shouted, “Sir we are detecting an energy buildup on the dreadnought.”

He shouted an order to intensify bombardment. With the order every ship that could unloaded every missile and torpedo they had available unto the alien menace. Explosions rippled across the massive ship’s hull. Each impact ripping chunks out of the hull. Something critical must have been hit as well for the Cylovan guns fell silent. Then suddenly a massive green vortex opened up in front of the ship, and swallowed the dreadnought. A short moment later the fleet ceased bombardment.

Thousands of fighters were still left on the field and he gave orders for the fleet to deal with them. Then one of his officers reported, “The ship escaped into a new hyperwarp conduit, sir. We managed to trace the conduit, and it appears the ship will emerge somewhere in the Orialias Belt.”

“Alert command that the dreadnought escaped, and send them our casualty report,” ordered the admiral. He was not happy that his prey had escaped, but in the meantime, he needed to plan for its return. So he escaped to his office afterward to review the long battle. It had taken hours to breakthrough those shields, but once down they were able to inflict considerable damage. He guessed it would take the ship months to regenerate the damage. Especially the blow to the hanger that one was quite severe. If they could find and engage the ship before it could complete its repairs their victory would be assured. Regardless this encounter was a victory on paper, even if the ship had escaped.

LMR-717 1407 Hours, high orbit over Rykoni base world of X’cour’dal, May 13th 074 SDE,

A green vortex opened up into the black void and spat out a large damaged sphere. Its surface was heavily scarred, and deep jagged, melted scars marked the hull. On one side a massive mangled region was all that remained of its former hanger. It had sacrificed all of its deployed fighters to make this jump. Unfortunately, it had been forced to make a jump away from Cylovan space. The geography of hyperspace had made going this way the least energy-intensive.

The ship’s computers immediately analyzed its situation. Shields were down, and the system was heavily damaged, main weapons were offline and most of its fighter complement was gone. Thanks to sustained damage it only could deploy about two thousand out of the six thousand fighters that remained. In its current condition, it wouldn’t be much of a threat to most foes, but at least propulsion was still online. The FTL systems were too deep inside to have been damaged by the barrage of enemy fire. The jump, however, had completely drained the batteries. Not to mention the drives were overheated so it would be some time before they could make another jump. Several hours at the least would be needed before the drives would be ready for another jump.

Suddenly before it could complete its damage assessment it registered impacts on the hull. It took it a few moments with its damaged sensors to identify the source of the threats. Hundreds of ships, most barely a hundred meters long or smaller were attacking it. All of them could best be described as flying junk piles. Unable to jump away it responded by launching fighters and charging the still operational secondary beam arrays.

The attackers had about two thousand ships, but only three of them were capital ships. It targeted one of the big ships in range. A cruiser nearly three kilometers long, but otherwise unremarkable. A single green beam lanced out across space, and tore the ship apart from end to end. Then it exploded, and claimed a couple of smaller ships that were too close to the cruiser.

The dreadnought quickly followed up with a second attack targeted at a different cruiser. With spectacular results as the ship went up in a massive fireball, thanks to its leaky fuel tanks igniting. However, no smaller ships went up with it. Then the fighters started swarming the smalls ships. Rippling them apart in mere seconds, their shields proving to be useless against the Cylovan weaponry. The beams quickly adapting to disable them in mere seconds.

The third cruiser tried to run, but it barely made it a half a thousand kilometers before a green beam lanced through its hull. The fragile ship couldn’t take the hit and broke apart under the stress. Suddenly several batteries on the surface of the moon opened fire on the dreadnought.

The stolen high-energy linked particle batteries the Rykoni were using to defend their base impacted the ship’s hull at full power. The damaged plating melted a bit under the impacts, and the dreadnought rotated to get a lock on the attacker.

A green beam fired onto the moon and tore through the atmosphere to strike the base. An energy shield flared up, as it tried to protect the base. The shield lasted for nearly a minute and a half before it collapsed. Then the beam slammed into the base, and a shockwave spread out from the impact site. The pirate base was gone when the dust settled, only a massive crater remained where it once stood.

As the dreadnought was mopping up a single cloaked ship observed the battle. A young woman adjusted her posture and turned to a crewman. “Set a course back to the city-ship. We need to report this immediately,” said the girl.

“Yes, Matriarch. Setting course,” reported the young girl she spoke to.

She settled into a command chair, and considered the implications of this ship arriving here. The fact it was damaged was not lost on her, and she considered that fortunate. Especially since it meant they had a chance against it, but they would need the help of other clans to do it. Problem was half their clan was scattered, and a few other clans were in similar positions. All thanks to recent Rykoni activities. The recent upspike in Rykoni activity had included hits on all the major clans in the region. Disrupting trade across most of the sector and several surrounding sectors.

In such a state even this single damaged Cylovan capital ship represented a significant threat to the entire sector. She was not happy about this ship being here, but there was very little she could. She could only hope that the disruption would allow them to find their separated ships, and maybe locate a few of the other clans. Although she doubted it, as that ship was heavily damaged. Which meant it wouldn’t move much until it had time to repair its critical systems.

Then she felt the familiar sensations of a jump. With it, she finally relaxed as she knew her ship was unlikely to be pursued. In a few hours, they would be back with the city-ship, and then they would have to find a different route.

Meanwhile, in the office of the Elder, a young aide swam in.

“Sir, the fleet reports they are ready,” said the young girl. He gave her a smile and said, “Good, tell them that they may depart. They have my blessing for this operation.”

She nodded and swam out of the room to carry out his orders.