Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

Two minutes later the clock hit zero, and the command center of the Leviathan sprang into motion. Adrian sent out the command via his command board. High Prime Paul Isaacs relayed to his command to the command crew of the Leviathan. While Adrian had command of the entire fleet, his High Prime took over as the commander of the Leviathan. Almost in unison the entire First Fleet started moving forward. A soft vibration was felt through the ship, meaning that the ships internal dampeners were working hard to negate the acceleration of the ship. Otherwise, all of them would have been just splatters on the walls. The damper was a technology they adapted from the device they found on the Union ship.

Adrian focused on the hologram, it showed no change in the positions of his opponents. Which was to be expected, the light of their movements didn’t yet reach the Leviathan. Two fleets had been placed just outside of extreme missile range. And as First Fleet moved closer and closer, Adrian started to wonder why he wasn’t seeing enemy fire, he assumed that they would fire immediately. A minute later there was still no movement from the Second Fleet, by the computer’s calculations the light should have reached them. If they moved when the counter hit zero. Which meant that they didn’t move immediately. Adrian executed another command.

Paul received the order immediately and instructed Navigation Handler to continue on the same course. A few second later the ships around Adrian started to change course. The two battleships flanking the Leviathan started to peel off to the sides, gathering speed in order to keep up with the Leviathans straight course. The battleships were followed by the light cruisers, which increased speed to catch the battleships, two on each side, they fell behind the battle ships. The three heavy cruisers increased their speed to catch the Leviathan, two above and one below. Adrian renamed the two battleships and their escorts as Team 1 and Team 2. As they took their positions, the first signs of the Second Fleet’s movement started showing on the holo. The Second Fleet started moving forward in unison. And a minute later the light and heavy cruisers started firing missiles, two minutes later 1400 missiles were fired. Adrian smiled, he hoped that Stern would take the bait. The greatest obstacle in space warfare is the light speed limitation of the ship’s sensors. The greater the distance between the ships, the greater the lag time between what your sensors are telling you and what is happening in that moment. The missiles that the Second Fleet fired, where in fact fired a couple of minutes ago, before Adrian split his formation. Battles in space were very different that those on a planet. At great distances, everything you saw happened before the light reached you, so you were in fact reacting to an afterimage. You were fighting a ghost. The key to winning battles in space was in anticipating your opponents moves, and in guiding them into moves that favored you. Adrian was aware that every move he makes would be seen after he made it, and he planned accordingly. On the holo in front of Adrian and the one in the middle of the command center, the missiles and their track were showing, their targets were his two battleships, or rather the positions in which they were previously. The missiles were guided, so they will adjust, but by then it will be too late. His opponent planned on overwhelming Adrian’s defenses by having her light and heavy cruisers fire all of their missiles. It would have worked if Adrian had not split his ships, the forward point defense turrets couldn’t handle that much missiles in time. His forward ships were his most armored ones, he probably wouldn’t lose any of them, but there would have been damage.

Adrian issued more commands on his board, a moment later Paul relayed those commands and Leviathan started firing explosive shells in a wide arc in front of the ship, it effectively blanketed the area with shells. A few more seconds, and the incoming missiles started dying, from the combined firepower of Team 1, 2, and Leviathan. Two minutes later they were gone. The Second fleet still kept its formation and course, coming straight at them. By now they should have seen that Adrian’s fleet was changing formation, in a minute they will see him taking down their missiles.

Manipulating his board, he issued more commands. All his ships opened fire with their turrets, thousands of shells were fired in a short time, and 30 seconds later Adrian gave an order for them to cease firing. Adrian looked closely, the two fleets were close enough that the lag was now less than a minute. Adrian watched intently, there were only a few options his opponent could take, try to take the incoming fire which would result in her losing most of her forward ships, or split up. Try to evade the fire, which would put her right were Adrian wanted. Just as Adrian started thinking that she chose to bludgeon through, the Second Fleet started splitting up. The entire forward section of the formation split to the left and right, with her dreadnought going downwards below the plane. But the decision came too late, one light cruiser got hit by the massive incoming fire and after a few minutes exploded, while one heavy cruiser sustained heavy damage. The rest of her front line suffered some minor damage. But now they were in Adrian’s hand. Their split came later than Adrian’s did, and the change in formation only served to surround the Second Fleet ships. The two segments splitting off only made a way through the middle of the Second Fleet for Leviathan and his heavy cruiser escorts to enter, and trapped them between Leviathan and the two Teams on the sides. Leviathan would be surrounded by the two sections of the Second fleet on its sides, with the Second fleet’s flagship below, but Adrian gambled that his opponent didn’t yet realize the full capabilities of her ships.

Selecting all his ships he gave the orders for them to open fire on the two split sections of the Second Fleet. Immediately all his ships opened with their lasers, the two enemy formations, started taking damage, and returned fire, with their own lasers. Adrian purposely didn’t order them to use kinetic weaponry. Those weapons were devastating if they hit, but it was hard to aim them at moving targets, and his opponents would be maneuvering trying to evade incoming fire, lasers on the other hand moved at light speed. His opponent’s ships were firing with every weapon available. But they weren’t as effective as Adrian ships were when firing only lasers. Every missile they fired was taken down from the combined fire of the entire First Fleet, all Adrian’s ships were in position to cover each other. Adrian’s battleships covered his light cruisers, taking most of the fire, while the Leviathan covered his heavy cruisers. For the moment none of the missiles reached their mark, while only a few lucky shots with their turrets hit, and coating on all the ships proved effective in dissipating most of the laser fire. Every commander flew his ship as to evade their opponents kinetic weapons, while still operating within the parameters Adrian set. They fired by using their own judgment, only changing targets when Adrian instructed. Which he only had to do once, when one of the Second Fleet battleships took a critical hit to its drives, he instructed Team 2 to focus fire and destroy it. The Second Fleet flagship was too far away by now to effectively join the battle, their attempts to evade incoming fire put them out of range of their most effective weapons. The Monarch was firing missiles and shells, but was too far that Adrian’s ships had enough time to see them and move out of the way, or take down any incoming fire. A minute later Adrian could feel the change in the flow of battle, and like dominos the Second Fleet ships started exploding on his holo. Adrian issued orders to his ship, refocusing fire from the Leviathan to those ships with most damage firing missiles and railguns, quickly eliminating them. When every ship except the Monarch was destroyed Adrian quickly reviewed the status of his ships. Battleship Protector took on heavy damage and was dead in space, Force Leader Krylov reported that it will take them a while to “repair” the damage, heavy cruiser Freedom had also taken heavy damage but was able to move. Other ships all took light damage save for light cruiser Swift, which somehow managed to take no damage. Leviathan itself took a lot of hits to the hull but nothing serious, it was built to take a lot more than that. Looking down on his board and the position and course of Monarch, Adrian quickly issued new orders to his ships. The light cruisers alongside the battleship Battle Song would turn and then dip down below the plane on a course that would bring them in front of the Monarch while the Leviathan and the heavy cruisers followed after it. With the light cruisers and battleships faster speed they would be able to get ahead just as Leviathan and his escorts catch up to the Monarch, surrounding it. He renamed the two groups, the light cruisers and the battleship into Team 1 and the Leviathan and his escorts into Team 2. As soon as he sent the commands his ships started moving. The Monarch seeing what was coming tried to change course and evade, but its previous course, the one that was meant to bring it back to its fleet put it too close to evade Adrian’s ships. Seeing no escape, it opened fire. Looking at the holo, Adrian was shocked to see the amount of missiles that the Monarch was firing. He knew that dreadnought class ships were meant to be fortresses that could take down anything thrown against it but he didn’t really grasp it. Thousands of missiles left the Monarch on an intercept course with Adrian’s ships, half towards toward the ships in front of it and half at the Leviathan at its back. In four minutes Monarch fired 4000 missiles total. Knowing that they couldn’t evade it, he sent the command for his light cruisers and battleship to turn their sides, the part of the ship with most defensive turrets and toughest armor, and try to take down as much as they could. He kept the Leviathan on the same course, and ordered his ships to open fire on the Monarch with their forward weaponry. Lasers, and missiles started flowing out of the Leviathan and its escorts, 6000 missiles started their trip toward cornered dreadnought. Leviathans main lasers didn’t inflict enough damage to the laser resistant hull to disable the ship, but the damage had started to accumulate. Looking at the missiles on their way towards Team 1, and the rate at which his ships were taking them down, he knew that they wouldn’t be able to take them all down. And a minute later the missiles from the Monarch reached their targets. 300 missiles passed and hit Team 1 destroying two light cruisers and disabling the Battle Song. Out of the 2000 sent towards Leviathan and his escorts 600 survived, as his ships couldn’t bring full defensive fire. The missiles struck Leviathan and his escorts, heavily damaging a heavy cruiser and mangling Leviathan’s forward section. The status on Adrian’s command chair, showed his ship with almost a fourth of its front shaded red, the status also showed many compartments open to space, weapons malfunction, energy grids shut down and more. But remarkably with all that damage the ship was still operational. It only reinforced Adrian’s beliefs about his ship, it was a moving fortress. Seeing that his ship had closed enough with the Monarch, he commanded that the ship dip its front brining all of the weaponry on its top side to bear. As soon as the ship finished its dip, all turrets opened fire. Thousands of metal slugs exploded out of Leviathans turrets towards the Monarch, just as the previously fired missiles reached it. Out of 6000 missiles the Monarch was able to take down roughly 4000, the Monarch’s citadel held more defensive turrets than the front of a dreadnought class ship, and could take down more missiles than Leviathan did. Out of those 2000, most didn’t manage to hit, but exploded close enough to inflict damage. Adrian closely monitored his sensors and watched in disbelief as he saw the Monarch survive. Its drives were damaged, and it was gliding through space, but its maneuvering thrusters fired and started turning the ship toward Leviathan. Close enough now that there was only a few seconds lag, he ordered all weapons to fire. Leviathan’s main lasers rained down fire on the Monarch with their devastating invisible beams. With Monarch barely moving, Leviathan’s shells hit their mark, and devastated the top of the ship. The return fire from Monarch, after its impressive first burst started dying off, but was still inflicting damage. Looking at his board, Adrian ordered the rest of his ships to start firing, and soon all of his remaining ships opened fire. But still the dreadnought held, even though it was by now just a wreck. It refused to die, its few remaining weapons firing. And then suddenly there was an enormous explosion, on the holo and the Monarch was gone. Cheers started throughout the First Fleet. Adrian brought out the status report on his fleet, and looked incredulously at the data. The Monarch had inflicted so much damage that it boggled his mind. Adrian surmised that a dreadnought class ship could have taken on all of the other ships on its own, without Leviathan the rest of the fleet wouldn’t have been able to take it down. Damage it inflicted on the Leviathan was minor even though its front weapons were offline, but then Monarch couldn’t bring all of its weaponry on the Leviathan quickly enough, by the time it did it was already heavily damaged. They would need to reevaluate everything they knew about space battles and ships they would build after this. The smaller ships just couldn’t compete with monsters like the Leviathan and Monarch. And this was just their first war game, Adrian knew that his opponent had learned a lot from this encounter, and would not make the same mistakes next time.