Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

“It’s point defense is offline!” Sensor Handler yelled out.

“Load torpedo tubes 1 and 3! Get me a lock.” Paul said.

“Torpedo tubes 1 and 3 loaded, we have a lock!”

“Fire!”

Two torpedoes launched from Leviathans forward tubes. The torpedoes were devastating weapons, but lacked maneuverability and evasive capabilities of missiles. But now that the enemy ship’s defenses were offline it was the perfect moment to use them. The two torpedoes sped towards their target, and then slammed into its hull. The detonations were devastating, momentarily blinding sensors of every ship close to the Sowir battleship.

In the fraction of a moment after the detonations, Iris recognized the advantage, and assumed direct command of every missiles already on its way toward the enemy ships. In the moment that sensors were blind, she changed trajectories of all the missiles, she had a virtual map of the battlefield in her memory. As the torpedo blasts expired, Sowir point defense computers tried to lock onto the incoming missiles, searching for their previous tracks. It took them a couple of seconds to realize that the missiles were no longer on those tracks, but that was enough. Hundreds of human missiles hit their new targets, inflicting heavy damage to Sowir battleships.

Adrian watched as quick thinking from Paul resulted in a complete change of the battle. Adrian adapted his tactics, changing orders to capitalize on the advantage they just acquired. The map showed Adrian’s ships inflicting heavy damage on the Sowir battleships from one side just as Retsar Isani and his were attacking from the other. The advantage Paul created gave Retsar Isani’s ships room to strike on the damaged Sowir ships. Focused fire from Valor and its escorts broke through defenses of Sowir battleship designated as H5. And with its destruction others started to fall, but not without a fight. Their particle beams constantly hammered both Adrian’s and Isani’s ships, a critical hit on the already damaged heavy cruiser Valkyrie caused an explosion that rocked the ship, its forward section blowing up opening the ship to space. Valkyrie spun dead in space, and Adrian hoped that the crew managed to survive, his board was still giving him status reports from Valkyrie, but no one was answering comms. All of Valkyries weapons systems were offline as were most of its critical systems. Putting the Valkyrie in the back of his mind Adrian continued to guide his ships, he had no time to worry now. Seeing the Sowir heavy cruiser entering range and starting to open fire on his ships, Adrian gave order to the taskforce he previously sent above the field of battle to cut previous order short and swing back immediately, striking the heavy cruisers from behind. Then he split his main force in two, sending the battleship Protector to keep them busy, while Leviathan and Battle Song helped Nel ships finish off Sowir battleships. He cast his eyes on the two Sowir transports and its escorts, seeing that his light cruisers and Nel frigates managed to destroy one transport and three of its four light cruisers escorts, but at a heavy price. Nel lost the damaged light cruiser and three of its frigates, while Conqueror and Talon sustained heavy damage. And now the remaining light cruiser was slowly turning to meet Conqueror, Talon, and Nel frigate. Seeing that there was no chance of his ships reaching the troop transport in time to stop it from reaching Nuva, Adrian sent a message to Company Leader Okoro, letting him know that one troop transport was on its way.

Light cruiser Conqueror fired with its railguns on the crippled Sowir light cruiser. It appeared that the Nel ship did much more damage. The Conqueror, Talon, and Nel frigate were pouring laser fire into the ship, with its return fire coming in short bursts. It looked like they would finish dispatch it quickly.

“Talon got hit! Their power grid overloaded, the backlash hit the core, its compromised!” Comm Handler yelled out. Leia turned sharply, there were countermeasures to prevent that.

“Are they ejecting the core?” Leia asked quickly.

“They are trying Ship Master, but—” Comm Handler started, but was interrupted as a big explosion enveloped the Talon.

“Th-they’re gone.” Comm Handler said softly.

It hit Leia hard, Julia Ness Ship Master of the Talon was her friend, and suddenly she was gone. Leia steeled herself, “Keep the pressure on the Sowir ship.” Leia said coldly.

Laser beams hit the Sowir ship, and Conqueror’s weapons handlers worked frantically to compensate for the Sowir ship movement, keeping the beam in the same place. Then after the third try they finally managed it, the Conqueror’s beam held and burned through the Sowir ship hull. Immediately Ship Master Leia ordered all lasers to be retargeted to the same point. All eight of Conquerors remaining operational lasers hit a target within five meters of each other. The 24cm beams burned deeper into the ship, until finally the Sowir ship couldn’t take anymore and it snapped in half. Short explosions split the ship and sent the two parts flying in opposite directions. There were no cheers among those in the Conquerors command center. Her task now partially complete, Leia sent a message to the flagship, then she looked at the holo in front of her. The Sowir transport had almost reached Nuva. There was nothing she could do about them now, it was left to the soldiers on the ground.

Nuva

Platoon Leader Sahib Adin stood in the makeshift command center on Nuva. Company Leaders Okoro, Hughes, and Mao were deciding what was the best way they can contribute to the defense of Nuva with the Nel military leaders. Nuva had just the one major city, with the rest being farms, that were mostly automated. Machines would do most of the work, people were only needed at certain points during the farming year. The two Nel Laas Rett that were in command of the militia believed that Sowir troops would drop directly into the city, as it had no defenses. It all seemed pointless to Sahib, they couldn’t possibly hold the city, their fleet was losing, if they had support from orbit perhaps. But landing troops now had no purpose other than their deaths. The two Nel Laas Rett, which translated as something like a warrior, argued for waiting and sending troops after the Sowir land, rather than spreading them out over key points in the city as the Company Leaders suggesting. Sahib had spent the time since they landed on the planet listening in to the meetings and planning sessions. And he got the expression that Nel didn’t put much stock into what humans said. They came off arrogant, but that could just be the impression he got from their emotionless faces. In the end Company Leaders had to agree to Nel plans.

As the Sowir troop ship entered orbit of Nuva it released five dropships and then used Nuva’s gravity to slingshot around and exit on a course out of the system, away from the space battle that was still raging. As the Sowir landing points became apparent Laas Rett started sending their militia troops to meet them, after some more “discussion” between Company Leaders and Laas Rett, Company Leader Okoro turned and walked over to Sahib.

“Adin, take yours and Monifa’s platoons to these coordinates, you are to reinforce the militia squad sent to deal with one of the dropships.” Company Leader Okoro said as he sent the coordinates to Sahib’s implant. Sahib could detect a trace of annoyance in his tone.

“And the rest of our people?” Sahib asked.

Okoro shook his head. “The fools are keeping us back. It’s their show, I barely managed to convince them to let me send two platoons as backup.” He sighed. “This needs to be fast Adin. These people don’t understand what is happening, they are giving their opponent time to dig in, they think that because the fleet got one troop transport there is no danger. These guys know how to fight, I can tell just by looking at them, but they don’t understand how to wage war.” Okoro looked Sahib directly in the eye. “Assist their militia, and make sure that you get every single Sowir.”