Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

“Order the fleet to equip swarm missile loadouts, ready the pods for launch,” Nair ordered, and waited for the Erasi. The clock ticked down as the Erasi accelerated, showing the true capabilities of their gravity drives. “How much faster are they than us?” Nair asked the room once the Erasi speed became constant.

“At least thirty percent, Fleet Commander.”

“How long until they reach Eurus?”

“Ninety minutes.”

“Order taskforce three to move towards Hades’ shipyards. Have taskforce two cover them from above the rings, here.” Nair pointed at the holo; the place his finger touched turned blue and coordinates immediately appeared, which the Adjutants then relayed to the taskforce. Nair continued adjusting his troops, deciding to spread them around the shipyards that orbited the gas giant. He was setting the board before the Erasi came in range. Once they were close enough, he would engage the Watchtower interface to have a faster and more immersive ability to send out orders. For now, there was no need to tire his mind.

Almost an hour passed when the Erasi plan became apparent. “Only two of their fleets are slowing down,” Nair said to himself.

“What do you want to do, Fleet Commander?”

Nair debated with himself. He had committed to defending the shipyards. He had assumed that those would be the Erasi’s primary target. They still could be, and they just believed that only two of their fleets were enough to defeat his fleet and the defenses. “Nothing. We are committed to defense. It will take them at least another four hours to reach the defenses at Sanctuary. And we have the skim drives,” Nair said. “They’ve made a mistake; they should’ve committed their entire force to Eurus. Two fleets we can deal with, and after we are done, we can move behind the defenses at Sanctuary before they reach them.”

Nair knew that the Erasi had some knowledge of the Empire’s capabilities; they had witnessed the battle at Sol, and had had a short engagement against retreating battleships when they’d ambushed Adrian. But they didn’t really know what their warships could do. They must be underestimating them.

“The Erasi have entered missile range, Fleet Commander.”

“Fire.”

From all around the orbit of the gas giant, missile pods and warships fired their missiles at the oncoming Erasi ships. The missiles fired were Swarm MK IX, and as they neared the Erasi point defense range, they split, increasing the number of missiles by six times. Mixed among the Swarm missiles were ion missiles, designed to take down ship shields, and while the Erasi had seen those missiles used in Sol, they didn’t have exact scans of them. And even if they did, it wouldn’t have mattered; the number of missiles flying towards the Erasi fleets was too large for them to be picked out.

Wave after wave of the Empire’s missiles sped towards the Erasi forward fleets, the eight fleets that hadn’t been decelerating, and they started taking down missiles with point defense. But with such a large number of missiles, it was impossible to take them down all. The Empire’s missiles struck and exploded against the Erasi ships’ shields—until the ion missiles arrived. Harsh beams of blue light ripped out of those missiles, targeting the closest Erasi ships and taking down their shields.

The next wave of Swarm missiles didn’t encounter shields. The missiles that passed through the point defense slammed against the Erasi ships’ hulls.

Weaver Hanaru winced inwardly as he looked over the damage of the Empire’s assault. The number of missiles they had put out had been far larger than what he had anticipated. He had known that the Empire had missiles with longer range than the Erasi, as well as missiles capable of taking down shields, and that they utilized missile pods to increase the number of missiles they could put into space. Yet they must’ve expended most of their missile arsenal to achieve this effect. Four of his fleets had suffered damage; three fleets had lost some ships and had suffered minor damage to about half of their number. But the fleet that had taken the brunt of the attack had lost almost ten percent of their hulls entirely, and had also sustained heavy or minor damage to about twenty percent of the rest of the hulls.

It wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon eight of his fleets would pass by the gas giant and further into the system. The two fleets he would leave would be enough to keep the Empire’s fleet occupied and to do some damage to their shipyards. Hanaru’s plan was to keep the system’s eyes focused completely on his eight fleets. He wanted them to think them the greatest danger, and if their attention was on those ships, they wouldn’t see what he had in store for them.

Then his fleets entered the range of his missiles. He knew that he couldn’t expend nearly the same number of missiles that the Empire had; he would need them later. For a moment, he debated firing the missiles, just to hit back against them, but ultimately he knew that he couldn’t afford it. He planned to attack more systems, and he couldn’t resupply as easily as the Empire could.

Instead, he sent out orders for his ships to target and fire their energy weapons once they were in range, and as they passed the planet.

Nair leaned back in the command chair and engaged the Watchtower interface. He opened his eyes and floated above his fleet, watching as the Erasi drew closer. They hadn’t fired their missiles, which wasn’t really surprising; they weren’t going to stop and fight here. But he was sure that they would fire in passing. He started sending out orders and organizing his fleet and the shipyard defenses, along with the defense platforms, making sure that they targeted only the ships already damaged by their missiles. He knew that they would have a very short window of time, too short to actually harm an undamaged ship.

Then the Erasi entered the range of the Empire’s proton beams. The Empire had the advantage of range in this category as well, and they opened fire first. Beams shot out of the Empire’s turrets, reaching out to the Erasi. The Erasi returned fire as their speed brought them into range, and the exchange filled the space between them for a short time as their incredible speed sent them out of the range of his weapons.

Nair looked over the aftermath of the exchange in satisfaction. The Empire had again come out on top; the Erasi had lost more ships, while the only loss on Nair’s part was eleven defense platforms. A great number of his ships that had been the closest to the Erasi fleets had suffered minor damage in places where the shield emitters had failed under Erasi fire, but he had lost only seven ships. It wasn’t that surprising; the Empire’s ships were slower than the Erasi’s for a reason. The Empire built their ships out of metal alloys, with thick hulls. They had far greater mass, which was why it took so much power to move them, but it also made the Empire’s ships much more durable.

He watched the eight fleets for a moment, and then he turned towards the two fleets that had slowed down and were about to enter the range of his missiles.

Two hundred and sixty of the Erasi’s newest stealth ships moved through the system undetected. All the eyes of the Empire were focused on ten fleets that had invaded the system. And so, the Empire’s scanners missed the launch of the stealth ships’ weapons. Rocks, gathered in the system’s asteroid belt, were accelerated with the stealth ships’ top-of-the-line gravity drives, sending them on their way towards targets that the Erasi were certain did not have shields. Those targets would most certainly be civilian, but the Erasi had a mission that had to be fulfilled, no matter the cost. They had to create chaos across the Empire, to hurt them so much that they pulled back their forces from the Shara Daim territory in order to defend their own.