Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

The rest of the Erasi formation finally fought through the pods’ missiles and the Shara Daim fire, and came to aid their flagship, forcing the Empire’s ships to retreat towards the Shara Daim defense line. A single dreadnought kept with the Erasi roll, keeping up with the barrage of plasma torpedoes and proton beams, firing their k-turrets as soon as they could be recharged. The damage seemed to be increasing, but it was only by a miniscule amount. Then the shields of the Erasi warship flared and the area was covered by the shields again. The dreadnought kept pouring fire into the Erasi warship, but with its shields back up, it was doing nothing. The Erasi warships overwhelmed the dreadnought’s defenses and destroyed it.

The Erasi flagship then rejoined the formation and they continued their advance on the Shara Daim defenses.

Adrian watched as his attack against the Erasi flagship failed. His taskforce had been mangled and he had lost almost all of the five hundred drones he had sent, as well as three battleships and one dreadnought. He didn’t consider the attack a complete failure; they had learned that the ship’s shields could be taken down, only now he no longer had any skim missiles and was down to one hundred and fifty pods. But the most frightening thing he had learned was about the flagship’s hull. He had looked over the scans, and judging by the effectiveness of his weapons, he figured out what that hull was made of.

It was highly compressed matter, something that the Empire had been experimenting on, only on a smaller scale. The factor of compression that the Empire used was small, but this… this was something on another level. The Empire had projects attempting to do exactly what the Erasi had done, but even a small piece of highly compressed matter took a long time and a lot of resources to be made.

That hull was almost immune to anything that either his or Anessa’s ships could throw at it. If he’d had more skim missiles, or if he could get a large force of his dreadnoughts to fire their k-turrets at a single spot, they might be able to take it down. However, the Erasi flagship was never too far out of position, and after this attack, it wouldn’t expose itself again.

Adrian glared at the holo. Seeing Anessa’s defenses falter, the Erasi flagship punched through and made a small opening in the defensive line. Erasi all across the defensive lines started pushing harder; more ships started moving towards the opening, forcing Anessa to weaken other sides to plug that hole. She would hold for a while, Adrian knew, but soon enough the sheer numbers that the Erasi had to throw at her would overwhelm the defenders.

They had lost.

“Damage report?” Garash asked.

“Hull integrity is down to seventy-eight percent in sector G-12. The repair crews are on their way to fill the cracks, but that won’t hold for long if we get hit at that spot again. Shields over that sector have been restored at half strength; we should have full strength within the hour.”

Garash acknowledged the report from his crew, and turned his eyes back to the holo. He felt a stab of pain in his missing arm, which made him angry; the Empire’s Lord Sentinel had damaged his ship just as he had managed to cut off his arm. An insignificant pest that had managed to harm him for the third time. He knew that there was little that the Shara Daim and the Empire had that could harm his ship; their best weapons to counter his ship were the Empire’s kinetic weapons. And even they were not powerful enough to pose a serious threat. The fact was that he had dismissed their threat on End of Hope; he had not truly believed that they would be able to take down his shields.

The devastator warships were created as an answer to the Krashin threat on their rimward border, whose kinetic weapons were nearly unstoppable. The devastators had shields that were nearly impossible to take down, thanks to the extremely powerful zero-point energy generator that the ship used to power its systems. And if someone somehow managed to take them down, the compressed matter hull would prove a match to any weapon. But the ships were costly; the compressed matter and the ZPE generators were difficult to produce. And then there was the fact that, once damaged, these ships could only be fully repaired in a shipyard in the Erasi core. The Empire had cracked his hull’s integrity, and he wouldn’t be able to repair it until he went back to the core. And that only served to fuel his anger more.

This Empire and the Shara Daim were not supposed to be this difficult. He had the numbers and the technology to wipe them out, yet they still struggled. He had lost too many ships, almost a third of the force he had brought to this system, and he would lose no more. He ordered the End of Hope forward, his ships following behind as they widened the hole in the Shara Daim defense.

Anessa’s Legions were faltering; the Erasi had destroyed enough of her defenses that they had started overwhelming her ships. She knew that her Legions would die here while she escaped with the Bloodbringer and the First Legion, as they were the only Legion equipped with skim drives. Her people knew it, too; it had always been the plan, if they couldn’t defeat the Erasi. Her people had no problem dying for her, and she did not feel guilt for asking it of them. The worst thing possible for a Shara Daim warrior was to die a pointless death. And their deaths would not be pointless; every Erasi ship that they destroyed was one less to threaten their people.

The Shara Daim needed stability, so Anessa couldn’t allow herself to be caught and killed. Her people knew and understood it; they had even shown her more respect for being here and fighting with them. And she would not dishonor them by running before the last possible moment. She would fight with them, and make the Erasi pay for every Shara Daim life they took. The people on the planet they were protecting were the same. All were ready to fight the Erasi once they decided to take the planet. There would be no surrender, no compromise; on Kaleras, they would only find death.

Anessa continued to guide her Legions as the Erasi slowly pushed on all sides and destroyed her ships.

“They are losing,” Iris’s voice said in Adrian’s head through his implant as she watched the holo through his eyes.

“No, they already lost. The Erasi just had too many ships; we never had a chance,” Adrian responded.

“She could still order a retreat; they would lose a lot of ships, but some would reach the hyperspace barrier and escape,” Iris said.

“That’s not the Shara Daim way. They will fight until death. If Anessa weren’t the Kar Daim and if Shara Daim didn’t need her rule, she would stay with them.”

“The Erasi will still have a lot of ships left,” Iris added.

“By the time the last Shara Daim ship is destroyed, the Erasi will have lost around half of the force they came into this system with. Their advance through the Shara Daim territory will be slowed because of it,” Adrian told her. “And if we manage to build enough skim missiles and pods, we will be able to slow them further with my remaining forces. Although those weapons will not be as effective as they were the first time. The Erasi now know about them, and will take precautions; their commander will make sure of it.”

“Lord Sentinel,” someone called from his side, and Adrian turned to look at the Fleet Commander of the Seventh Fleet standing beside him.

“Yes, Fleet Commander.”

“We’ve received a comm request from an unknown source.”

“Who is it from?”