Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

The advancing fleets entered energy weapon range and started firing against the defenders. Then a new beam of energy entered the battle. The Erasi super battleships in the formation started firing weapons that pierced right through the Shara Daim’s shields. The Erasi flagship fired a ridiculous number of particle beams and their shield-piercing beams that soon enough the defense stations started losing their combat effectiveness. Several stations blew up, and the Shara Daim ships started taking losses.

Adrian received a message from Anessa, and immediately ordered half of his fleet into a skim. Three minutes later, they dropped out above the Erasi formation. His drones and cruisers pelted the space with explosive rounds, forcing the Erasi to evade, and in doing so decreasing the effectiveness of their point defense. Ion and Enforcer missiles followed, as volley after volley of missiles launched from his ships.

The Erasi ships faltered, and with their cover of the advancing fleets nearly gone, the Shara Daim managed to counterattack and force them to slow their advance. Then the Erasi flagship moved into the front, and Adrian saw a chance. He immediately gave orders, and from across the system, five skim nuclear missiles engaged their thrusters and then disappeared into a skim, only to appear several minutes later a mere kilometer away from the Erasi flagship. The missiles covered that distance in a blink of an eye, and a moment later, the space that the Erasi flagship had occupied was engulfed in nuclear fire.

Then as the fire cleared, Adrian watched in amazement and dismay as the Erasi flagship continued moving forward, its shields clearly visible for a second after the blasts before they became invisible again. The ship had survived, and it was undamaged. Emboldened, the Erasi ships surge forward, smashing the rest of the defenses and forcing the Shara Daim Legions to retreat. Adrian’s fleets did the same, moving out of the range of the Erasi as they demolished the remaining defenses and took control of yet another part of the Kaleras system.

Anessa grimaced as she saw the Erasi flagship survive Adrian’s attack. She didn’t know of anything else that they had in their arsenal that could do more damage. And the fact that the ship hadn’t even lost its shields bothered her. As her Legions retreated towards another defense point, she looked over the reports. She had suffered many losses; almost half of her Legions had suffered light damage, and she had lost almost two Legions’ worth of warships. The Erasi, on the other hand, had somehow managed to lose far less, even with Adrian’s fleets ambushing them. She glared at the holo. There were still points in the system that the Erasi hadn’t taken. She was sure that they would take all other points before they turned their eyes towards the system’s main planet. They wanted to surround her, to attack from all sides and destroy her against the planet.

December; Year 58 of the Empire — Kaleras

Garash grinned savagely as yet another Shara Daim warship exploded under the onslaught of his devastator. He would’ve given everything to see the expression on the faces of the Shara Daim’s Kar Daim and the Empire’s Lord Sentinel once they had seen the End of Hope weather their attack. It appeared that the Empire still had some of their advanced weapons; however, the fact that they had used it only now meant that they must have a limited supply. In any case, he had already implemented safeguards to minimize their potential damage. Those weapons would not be as effective as they had been before.

As the last of the Shara Daim defenses exploded, Garash started issuing more orders, sending several fleets to follow the retreating Shara Daim and harry them as they ran. So far, the invasion was going well; not as easy as he had anticipated, but then, he hadn’t yet committed all of his forces to an attack. He was testing their defenses, devising tactics. He was old, and he had learned over his lifetime that to defeat an enemy, you needed to know them. To understand how they would react to different situations, how far you could push them before they broke.

These initial skirmishes were him getting to know his enemy. There were only a few more areas in the system under Shara Daim control, and once those were his, their last stand would begin. And he would break them.

Adrian watched coldly as one of his dreadnoughts succumbed under the Erasi attacks. Several missiles broke through its shields and energy beams opened its hull, but still the dreadnought fought, refusing to die. The metal melted and parted under the Erasi energy beams, and finally an internal explosion broke the ship apart. So far, Adrian had few losses compared to Anessa and her Legions, who had been taking the brunt of the Erasi attacks. Adrian’s fleets had served as a fast and mobile attack force, skimming across the system to strike where they were needed and to change the flow of small battles and overcome the Erasi.

But the Erasi commander had grown smart, and his tactics had changed to prevent him from doing much damage. After the first few times Adrian had caught the Erasi ships at an disadvantage, he had started sending larger forces, augmented with more super battleships. Adrian ordered retreat as the Shara Daim force was overwhelmed despite his fleet’s help. The flow of battle was changing, and he could feel it. The Erasi had started anticipating Anessa’s moves, and she was taking too many casualties.

Adrian had lost many ships as well; not whole fleets, but he had lost a majority of his drones, which made the bulk of his forces, and without them, his other ships were more vulnerable. And he was spending his special weapons fast. He had used another three of his skim missiles, as he’d felt the opportunities had been too good to pass up, leaving him down to five. Now after he had used them, he was starting to wonder if maybe the Erasi commander had wanted him to use them. The opportunities were too good. He was goaded into spending his best weapons, and the Erasi had sacrificed little in the grand scheme. The Erasi commander was excellent, and no matter how many scenarios Adrian ran through his mind, he couldn’t see a way to victory.

The Erasi now controlled all of the system’s trans-points, with only one area under Shara Daim control. Anessa had started pulling her forces behind the largest defenses in the system, waiting for the Erasi to come and attack. Adrian ordered his ships to skim to the outskirts of the system, as was the plan Anessa and he had developed. His fleets would add little stationed behind the defenses, so he would attempt to strike at them from behind, taking shots as opportunities presented themselves.

He still had one trump card. Besides five skim missiles, he had around three hundred skim-capable missile pods. They wouldn’t be nearly as effective against ships that had their shields active, but they could still be a threat to the Erasi, and one they didn’t know about. Adrian looked over the holo as the Erasi formed several formations and started advancing at Shara Daim positions. By moving behind those defenses, Anessa had cut off her means of escape. The Erasi surrounded them now; there wouldn’t be an escape for them, not for the ships without skim drives.

He knew why she’d done that. The Erasi needed this system in order to move quickly through Shara Daim territory. They could split their force and send it through trans-lanes to attack several systems at once; they had the numbers. If Anessa had abandoned this system, she wouldn’t have had enough Legions to defend them all. If she stopped the Erasi here, if she crippled their fleet enough that their advance was slowed down by lack of ships, then she could win. Her shipyards were building Legions as fast as they could. Eventually, she would be able to throw them out of her territory, especially with the Empire’s help.