USD: Shortly before entering orbit above Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, CBC CSS Tremissis

Commodore Brigit’s grip tightened on his seat until his knuckles turned white. Glaring at the tactical screen, the plucky FedTech corvette had changed course and was moving back to the space elevator’s asteroid anchor. Debris and molten metal and carbon floated in a cloud around the space, heavy enough to degrade their sensor returns on the area.

He had spent thirteen-hundred missiles fully expecting the colony and defenses to be vaporized in fusion fire.

The laser defenses on the ground had been a great surprise. Not only had there been many more of them than expected, but they had also been much longer ranged and powered than a frontier world should have been permitted to deploy. It was as if someone had given the frontier planet access to core world technology and then hid it all from any inspections or surveys.

That the Solarians had obviously delivered to them illegal tech was cold comfort to his budget. The missiles were a substantial cost, and they had not delivered his desired outcome.

Still, it had made clear the ground-based systems were not quite up to core world standard. Their performance had dropped and failed as the salvos had continued. He was sure a fourth salvo would have been enough to finish things.

But he didn’t have a fourth salvo, and now the fleet was going to have to spend more time in orbit to perform a thorough cleansing via kinetic and laser bombardment.

“Commodore, we’ve confirmed targeting parameters for ground defense installations. We’re prepared to reduce them on your orders.”

Commodore Brigit read the new markings that had lit up on the hologram of the planet’s surface. He zoomed the display out to get a full picture of the fleet’s trajectory and the remaining defenses of the enemy.

As he considered whether to focus the fleet’s laser fire on the ground or on the Shrike, a man from tactical shouted.

“VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Planetary launch detected! 400…600…800 sources detected! High velocity escape from the planet on a direct interception course with the fleet!”

Brigit cursed; the planet shouldn’t have had any missile defenses like this! The feeling that control of the situation was slipping from his grasp made it difficult to process. Remembering his training from decades ago, he forced himself to calm down.

A salvo of that size would not break through the fleet’s PD net. The colonists could likely have more tricks up their sleeve; he needed to keep the fleet moving and not stop in geostationary as planned. They could bombard the defenses as they passed, eliminate their remaining ship, and then bombard the planet from a safe distance.

He should have done that in the first place, but he had rushed things because the fleet needed to exfiltrate the frontier arm and meet with their reinforcements that were likely already in 90 Pegasi.

“Fleet targeting priority: incoming missiles. Begin kinetic bombardment of ground defenses. Fleet Maneuver adjustment: cease deceleration and begin acceleration on designated vector.”

He listened to his aides transmit orders to the various ships in the task group, one even running across the bridge to give the order to the flagship’s captain.

“Sir, Captain Walker reports a mutiny has broken out on the Grazhdanin!”

Brigit frowned. They couldn’t lose the stockpile of resources that were stored on the captured ship. He pressed several buttons and gave another order.

“Prepare the ship’s assault teams for boarding action on the Grazhdanin.”

Suddenly, the main monitor flashed red, and the icons representing the four leading cruisers of the fleet turned black as they ceased to exist.

USD: As Tear’s counter attack begins

Location: Nu Crateris, PF-131, SMS Grazhdanin

As Lavigne ran down the corridor, a blast of gunfire into the intersection he was approaching sent him skidding backward on the blood-soaked metal plating. A muscular arm caught him and pushed him back on balance.

“Careful, sir. Don’t want to get your whities more stained than they already are.”

Lavigne wanted to laugh and immediately felt guilt. There wasn’t a scrap on him or any of the men that wasn’t covered in the lifeblood of their brothers or the Corpo bastards.

The lights in the hall suddenly flipped from their white-beige hues to a slow flashing red as an announcement played over the intercoms all over the ship.

|Warning! Ship depressurization event initialized. Warning! |

“Bastards did try to vent us.” A sailor muttered.

Lavigne nodded. There wasn’t much to do about it though, either the life support override taps would keep things running until the Corpos went and found them and removed them manually, or they’d all be dead shortly anyway. It was a risk they all had to take.

Morrison nodded toward the intersection, and the two men with rifles hurried over to it. One peeked around to see where the gunfire had come from and almost lost his head to another burst of fire.

“Fuck. The armory is on the other side of that hallway; we need across.”

“Well, sir, we don’t have frags, but we do have this.”

Morrison pulled out a metal tube with some type of cloth around it. Somehow it smelled worse than all the dead bodies around them and Lavigne covered his nose with the inside of his elbow.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Sludge filter goop, Sir.”

“Get it out of my face!”

“Right away, sir. With pleasure, sir.”

Morrison followed up behind the two sailors who had taken point and then lit the bloody Ertan-awful thing in his hand on fire. Then tossed it down the hall where the gunfire was coming from.

Another stream of bullets came in reply, but then there were screams. One sailor poked his rifle around the corner and fired off a burst, but there was no reply. A trail of green smoke wafted around the corner near the ceiling.

“Morrison, we don’t have any masks either!”

“Gonna get some in the armory, boss.”

The large petty officer waved a hand forward, and a group of men rushed across the intersection in unison. The big man followed behind them. Lavigne tensed as he fully expected a burst of gunfire to mow them all done.

A single shot erupted, but not until they had all passed by. The acrid smell was already causing Lavigne to gag as he moved up to the corner behind the two sailors that were providing intermittent suppression fire.

Yelling and gunshots from behind had him constantly looking over his shoulder, but other teams had taken up position on those corners as well.

There were so many dead men everywhere that he didn’t quite process it all.

Another set of men hurried from behind carrying a heavy cylinder when a gunshot ripped out and hit one man, sending him falling to the ground screaming. The other man dragged what Lavigne realized was their laser welding torch when another burst of shots slammed into the energy pack.

“Fuck!”

The man kneeling poked around the corner and fired off a few shots and Lavigne reached around to poke his pistol around and fire as well. He thought such fire was almost pointless, but it had been years since basic training and combat ops had never been in his curriculum and the best he could think of to keep anyone hostile from running down the corridor.

He was a ship’s engineer for Ertan’s sake! Not a marine!

Morrison shouted over to him, “What’s the access code, sir?”

“12345NINADHZARG!”

“It’s not working!”

“I told you they probably changed it!”

Taking a chance to peek around the corner, Lavigne ducked back quickly after noting the Corpos had thrown some bits of metal furniture halfway down the hall to act as cover. His eyes watered from the stench of the horrible, improvised weapon Morrison had used, so he couldn’t imagine what the men behind the barricade were experiencing.

Suddenly Morrison reached over and grabbed him by the shoulder, dragging him down the corridor while all the other sailors ran away with them.

“What? Where are we going? The armory is back there!”

“Yessir, they took out the laser welder, sir. We need a bit of space before we can get in, sir.”

As they rounded the previous corner, Lavigne demanded an answer. “What do you mean? We need to get back there; we need those weapons or we’re all going to get cut down as soon as security pushes through!”

A sudden pressure wave ripped around the corner and the explosion sent Lavigne and the rest of the men to the floor. Morrison was once again manhandling him and placed him on his feet.

“Sorry about that, sir. Hopefully you can get that out later.”

Lavigne was surprised his hearing protector-aides were still working, even as it was his head was ringing even though the things were jammed tight in his ears. He just stared at the petty officer for a second until he understood what the other man meant.

“You’re worried that my uniform is coated with blood instead of just splattered with it?”

The large man didn’t answer as he looked around the corner toward their main goal.

“Sir, the way to the armory should be clear now.”

USD: During counter attack against PF-131

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

“Splash four fat boys!” Alex cheered as the front four heavy cruisers detonated from the inside out.

[Notice: All smart munitions have been used. Cycling railguns to anti-ship penetrators.]

Alex nodded, going quiet. Taking out the cruisers had been easy. Now they would be digging in and scrapping with the rest of the fleet, which still outnumbered them heavily.

“Have the ground lasers recovered any?”

[Informative: Ground station defenses require extensive maintenance. 4% of ground units have regained operational status, but this number is not expected to increase in a useful timeframe.]

“Fuck. Alright, let’s target their lighter units first. H32 indicated it was going for the big one. What about the Grazhdanin? Any signal from it?”

[Negative: No signal has been received. SMS Grazhdanin is still operating in conjunction with PF-131, maintaining hostile status.]

That was a major problem. Alex wasn’t sure if they had enough firepower to destroy the massive ship, and H32’s missiles were all slated for the battlecruiser. She’d have had it split up the salvo, but even with as many missiles as had launched, saturating the point defenses of the large ships was an enormous problem.

[Notice: H32 Core and Avatar are currently en route in missile wave.]

“What!? That’s incredibly dangerous it… they could be killed!”

[Informative: H32 Avatar has assumed primary authority and has overruled its MainComputer objections. It has provided secondary access codes in case of destruction, allowing this unit to maintain control of ground defenses.]

She didn’t have time to process that as the enemy fleet crossed into the planet and Shrike’s laser range. Energy from the ground flashed out toward the first units at the absolute maximum of their range. They scored several powerful hits from the lead unit, but the last remaining cruiser cut acceleration and deployed chaff canisters to hide in a cloud of mirrors.

The ship shook minutely as return laser fire from other ships entering range found them and they took several hits from low-powered beams.

[Notice: Deploying chaff, enemy light units are maneuvering to bracket us.]

“Pull back, don’t let them.”

Nameless flipped the shrike and burned at an angle to the planet, readjusting their trajectory to match the incoming fleet’s while remaining much closer to the planet. The new vector change meant they were still cloaked by the canisters the EWCLS system was spewing out to protect them from the fleet’s massed lasers.

Targets shifted from the Shrike to the ground defense installations and a vibrant display of coherent energy began between the surface installations and the incoming ships. Ships continued to fire until they were stabbed or poked by incoming energy and then they would deploy chaff and hide.

It was impossible to shoot out of the cloud just as it was hard to shoot into one, unfortunately the ground installations had no such ability and damage quickly began to rachet up on them as they took return hits.

Four destroyers and seven frigates burned hard to try and match the Tears’ acceleration. Alex throttled their thrust vector down to allow them to get nearer as the entire group pulled out of range of the main battlecruiser’s close weaponry. They had taken the bait, she mused; it would help H32’s missiles to survive.

“Turn off safe-arming distance for AMCNs.”

[Notice: Disabling safe-arming distance places ship under extreme danger if missile is damaged while being launched.]

“Yeah, let’s turn up the EWAR, too. Dump all remaining drones now!”

EWCLS launchers momentarily swapped ammunition types and flung their small EWAR drones out into space, the small orbs pulsing and spitting their erratic decoy signals in every direction.

Alex cut the ship’s thrust and flipped it nose over end for another hard burn. The sudden change in acceleration turning a long stern chase into a few seconds of separation and PDC-Ks and railguns blared out from both sides.

Maneuvering jets flung the Tears in random directions to avoid the endless streams of shells, the main drive pulsing its output in extreme bursts to keep their course erratic before projectiles found them.

Lasers from the surface lanced out to slash into a frigate’s flank, impaling it completely and causing a chain detonation that left the wreckage hurling forward in a decaying orbit.

Clouds of chaff erupted from every Corpo ship as they ceased fire with their lasers, instead focusing on the Shrike with every one of their kinetic armaments. The erratic movement of the Tears coupled with all the EWAR made landing a hit incredibly difficult, but it was only a matter of time.

“Fire the Shriekers then prepare the AMCNs for as soon as they go off—with the custom targeting package.”

[Affirmative: Executing pre-programmed maneuver now.]

Two missiles blasted out of the Shrike’s bow tubes at high speed but did not ignite their drives immediately, preferring to take the time to gain some distance before starting a hard burn.

A Corpo destroyer’s railgun round slammed into the shrike’s aft nearly at the same time a nearly identical round from the Tears smashed into its center of mass. Both ships jerked suddenly, the destroyer spewing propellant and debris while the impact to the Tears punched through the outer hull and out the other side without hitting the inner hull.

Losing control for a few seconds allowed torrential rain of 22mm to hit the damaged shrike, pelting vulnerable superficial outer elements, including the observation deck, into scrap, but the small caliber shells mostly bounced off or flattened themselves on the heavy outer skin.

The Shriekers having sensed they’d traveled enough distance, fired off their powerful thrusters. All the 22mm cannons within line of sight swapped targets instantly, faster than any human crew could manage as their systems picked up the viable threat of a missile.

The missiles flared and clawed themselves several dozen more kilometers away from the Shrike before they were hit. That was fine, because they were designed to be detonated by damage.

Two blinding white pulses lit up space as the high-powered energy flared.

[Notice: Sensor reboot in progress.]

“Hurry it up!”

Alex had just let out the equivalent of two flashbangs right on top of themselves and all the Corpo ships that were essentially right on top of them as they passed by each other.

The Tears flipped hard as RCS thrusters twirled it to add gyroscopic force to the missile launch.

The AMCN missiles blasted outward as they burned hard for a few seconds to align trajectories with the hostile ships before cutting power. Their own internal sensors were still blinded by the ongoing crisis of rampant noise in the area, but Nameless had programmed them with a best guess.

There was a lull of a few seconds as Nameless and Corpo systems raced to clear the cloud of noise that had blinded them.

[Notice: Sensors restored; targets acquired.]

Ten missiles spun to life and launched themselves in a mad dash toward their prey. Two had nearly prescient positioning and detonated themselves scant kilometers away from their targets before they even knew they were in danger. The resulting anti-matter explosion slammed copious amounts of energy into them, causing the ships to jerk sideways as their outer hull suddenly vaporized.

That wave of heat and energy was impossible for the armor to stop and burrowed deeper until another Corpo destroyer and frigate simply ceased to exist except as clouds of energetic material.

Ground laser fire lashed out to tag another Corpo frigate, carving a massive gash from bow to stern that left the ship flashing a surrender as life pods ejected from it, destined for a rough landing in one of Dedia’s oceans.

But the bombardment of the Tremissis and Grazhdanin had nearly wiped out most of the ground defenses. Railgun rounds and laser beams missing their targets slammed into Dedia Prime’s city blocks, setting great swaths of the city on fire, but the entire population had sheltered in the underground bunkers underneath the thick city walls.

The deep parts of Szizsielia’s nest were unaffected, and the surface had already been scoured clean by their own rocket’s launch.

High above, the remaining eight missiles from the Shrike continued to home in on the three remaining destroyers and four frigates when a successful taclink reconnection with the Tremissis relayed enough data for them to fire their PD weapons in defense.

The Corpos dropped their chaff clouds and returned to using their lasers, scoring three kills in rapid succession. Alex copied them and a sudden laser duel developed between all the combatants, punctuated by a periodic burst of a ground-based laser fire.

One missile reached standoff distance behind one destroyer and lit off, burning away the ship’s armor and sending it hurtling in a dead spin, but pods billowed out the sides of it as crewmen and officers escaped from the destroyer turned deathtrap.

The Tears took two laser strikes that dug down the side of the ship, one laser punching through to cut into the inner hull as it passed over a patch of salvaged Corpo armor that had replaced the original outer plate.

Dozens of systems turned yellow on Alex’s screen, and she punched buttons, launching repair drones to take care of numerous leaks and cut power lines that needed bridging.

“Elis, you ok!?”

“There is a new hole in engineering, but yes, how is it looking?”

Two more missiles were shattered by the defenses at the same time the last two came into range with their targets and detonated. One made it to its standard ‘kill’ range and annihilated another Corpo destroyer, leaving only one left flying.

The other determined it would not reach its target and detonated itself early, scouring the hull of one frigate clean and leaving the side of it a glowing yellow hue of metal, but the ship rolled over and fired on the Tears with its other broadside armaments.

Canisters flashed out as another laser struck the Tear’s nose, the cloud cloaking them from the sudden stabbing of the remaining light ships that had burned hard to reverse their course to chase after the shrike.

Not wanting to lead them back to their heavier battlecruiser, Alex had the ship flip around and burn again, placing them on another jousting pass.

She frowned. She was low on tricks, and she was not sure they would win a close range pounding match with the four remaining ships.

Swapping her screen for a moment to check on H32’s missile wave’s progress, she found that over a quarter of them had already been destroyed by long range laser fire and were now nearing the most dangerous portion of their flight.

The long range comm crackled to life with a deep growling voice Alex had never heard before that vibrated in her ears.

“Mother, we are on final approach. May you watch this one’s defense of the nest with pride!”