Knowing that the conflict was likely coming to a head, the fleets recombined together to cover the only real asset in the system worth defending, the facility on Eden’s End.

Katalynn had still declined to move into the gravity well so the fleet could maneuver if needed.

Alexander didn’t think that would be an option if Harlow responded the way everyone thought he would, but he understood Katalynn’s desire to be able to jump and maneuver.

No scout ships showed up to warn of Harlow’s imminent arrival. One second space was clear, the next, the man’s fleet was below them and firing on the planet as soon as his ships exited FTL.

The self-appointed pirate emperor had surprised the defenders by jumping right into the defensive grid’s attack range when it would have been much safer to jump in outside the range of the defenses to fire on the planet.

The comm went crazy as orders were shouted over it and the fleet scrambled to reorient and stop Harlow’s bombardment. Alexander sped up his processing speed slightly to ensure he could react properly to any changing circumstances without burning himself out immediately.

He watched in silent horror as hundreds of missiles flew from the enemy fleet along with multiple volleys of projectiles before Harlow’s ships turned to fire on them. The fleets were too close for any finesse in this exchange, this was going to be a slugging match. Most of the ships in the Asgardian/BSE fleet were already firing on the enemy ships as they completed their turns and Harlow’s ships were dropping fast, but he still outnumbered them by nearly two to one.

It quickly became clear why Harlow had taken this action. The priority of the defensive grid was to defend the planet, and now they had to deal with hundreds of fast-moving targets, leaving the remainder of the pirate fleet free to act. Alexander had to hope the people below were up to the task of eliminating the missiles as he had more pressing matters to worry about at the moment.

Heavy electronic countermeasures were deployed by both sides as each fleet finished turning to face each other.

Missiles were launched from both sides, but Alexander kept his eyes out for Harlow’s plasma missiles as he studied the tactical screen.

The fleet’s priority was still the same, eliminate as many supporting ships on Harlow’s side as possible. The only ships dedicated to dealing with the dreadnaught were Valkyrie and Vanguard since their lasers had the only real hope of burning through the thick armor of that behemoth in any reasonable amount of time.

“Fire a full salvo of missiles at the lead cruiser!” Alexander ordered. “Target the trailing cruiser with all of our railguns.”

The weapon’s officer acknowledged the order and split Soul’s fire to the two remaining cruisers within Harlow’s fleet.

Wayward Soul shook as its massive railguns started firing as fast as possible.

With the other two capital ships occupied with Harlow, it was Alexander’s job to ensure he dealt with the enemy's other capital ships.

Both fleet’s missiles passed by each other in the vast emptiness of space on their way to cause as much harm as possible to either side. The pirate missiles were struggling under the much stronger ECM of the combined Asgardian/BSE fleet, but there were hundreds of more missiles to deal with.

The bridge lighting dimmed slightly as the reactor struggled to keep up with the power draw from the PDLs. He wished he would have had time to replace Soul’s reactor back when Krieger first brought it to him. Alexander couldn’t see the icons of the missiles vanishing off his tactical screen, but he knew the PDLs were working to take out as many of those weapons as possible.

As they did their crucial work, the fleets slowly moved toward each other. They hadn’t been motionless when the pirates appeared, but their motion was on a different axis and now their relative speeds were slowly increasing as they changed course.

A sustained engagement at range is what they had hoped for but that wasn’t to be. They found themselves in a slugging match, which was exactly what they had wanted to avoid as Harlow still had the numbers and firepower advantage in a close brawl, but the fleet couldn’t afford to jump away because it would risk ships too slow to jump and leave Harlow free to act against the planet with impunity.

He hoped Katalynn saw that as well and didn’t decide to jump for a better position. Even Alexander could see that a temporary loss of half the fleet for a few minutes would lead to a disaster.

His mind refocused as the first of his missiles arrived. The enemy point defense had done little to stop the upgraded BSE missiles and explosions blossomed among the pirate fleet as they delivered their deadly payload. He had produced a few dozen more in the intervening days, but that was all of the weapons they were able to manufacture.

The enemy cruiser shrugged off one and then another of the missiles, but the third slammed into the same damaged section the first missile had hit and a large chunk blew off the front of the enemy vessel.

Three more missiles from the initial volley of eight slammed into the front of the cruiser, adding to the damage.

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Despite the vessel taking six missiles, it was still firing its turrets.

“Fire a second volley,” he stated coldly before turning his focus to the other cruiser.

Before he could see the condition of the second ship, Soul shook as enemy projectiles slammed into the forward armor. It shook two more times as missiles exploded nearby.

“Alert me only if we have venting or a critical system goes down,” he stated as the damage control officer turned to say something.

The woman nodded and turned back to her terminal.

He would order evasive maneuvers, but with the fleets being so close and only getting closer, it wouldn’t make a difference. It was better if he stayed the course and offered the weapons officers the best shots possible.

Alexander took the momentary lull to check on how the second cruiser was faring. All he could see were pinpricks of light flashing off the ship as tungsten penetrators slammed into the vessel’s armor.

This was exactly why he wasn’t involved in the attack against Harlow’s ship. Even his large railguns didn’t have the punch to go through capital ship prow armor with the first shot. That meant firing until the enemy’s armor was too depleted to stop further rounds.

He almost didn’t see the oncoming plasma missile until it was too late. The only reason he was able to react at all was because he pushed his processing to the max before reaching out through the ship directly with his mind.

Alexander’s cage had one more important feature other than holding him in place. It also functioned as a direct link to all ship’s systems, sort of making him the computer core. He wasn’t nearly powerful enough to operate the ship himself, but he could adjust their course in an emergency.

Soul’s top-mounted thrusters all fired at full power, shifting the ship down right as the larger missile turned to plasma and streaked directly toward them. Even with Alexander’s reaction speed, the weapon tore a large chunk out of the top of the ship, taking half the railguns with it.

A few people screamed from the unexpected motion, but they were quick to recover and realize they had just escaped death.

“Captain, all of the top-mounted railguns are offline and we have lost missile tubes one and three,” the damage control officer stated.

Alexander had already known about the railguns because of where the plasma ball had passed through, but losing the launchers was a blow.

“Are the point defenses still operational?” he asked. He would look at the screens inside his mind space, but he couldn’t afford to lose focus while the unfolding battle was ongoing.

After a quick look back at her screen, the woman turned around and nodded. “Yes, commander.”

“Weapons, focus all but two of the PDLs toward Harlow’s ship. We can’t afford to let any more of those weapons through.” This might open them up to more missiles, but they were closing fast, and even the PDLs weren’t going to be fast enough to track and lock onto the regular missiles soon.

Harlow would probably wait until that moment to launch the next wave of plasma missiles. At least the two cruisers were now out of the fight.

Alexander had the remaining railguns target a destroyer while he ordered the missile crews to target a new ship with each volley. It would draw attention to them, but Soul could take it more than the smaller ships.

***

Vitor cursed as the last plasma missile slipped through his PDLs and headed for Alexander’s ship. He thought it was all over for his boss.

The robot surprised him though as Soul seemed to shift in space as it fired all its top-mounted thrusters. The crew would be shaken up by such a maneuver, but the move had saved the ship.

That was all the time he could spare to make sure Kane was still alive. Vanguard shook again as a new volley of railgun darts slammed into its forward armor from Harlow’s ship.

The combined laser fire from Vanguard and Valkyrie was slowly melting through the ridiculously thick armor on the front of the massive ship, but the fleet was falling apart faster than they could burn through the armor.

One of the Hawks frigates had fallen already and Stormbreaker, the destroyer that Captain Hall had been assigned to, was destroyed shortly after that. Vitor had grown to like Hall quite a bit. The man had been a bit quiet and tentative at first but had quickly learned how to handle himself in combat.

The man’s death was a tragic loss and he knew a lot more good men and women would not be seeing their families after today.

Harlow’s fleet was getting worse than they were giving, but despite the pirate’s losses, the enemy still outnumbered them. And even though that number was quickly shrinking, Vitor wasn’t sure if they would have enough to get over that hump and reverse the course of this battle without something drastic changing.

***

Katalynn cursed under her breath. Harlow’s ship was taking too much fire and they were quickly closing in on each other.

“Lagertha, we can’t sustain these losses much longer,” Haldric reminded her as if she didn’t already know.

Before she could snap at her Sub-Commander, the comm line crackled to life.

“Let’s show these bastards what it means to be Asgardians!” Jarl Ylva Bergson roared over the open comm. “To me! Let’s drive these bastards back to the black pits from which they crawled!”

“Foolish girl,” Vyrik spat as he watched the tactical plot.

All of the Jarl’s ships pushed ahead and even a few of Katalynn’s did as well.

Katalynn wanted to agree with Vyrik’s assessment, but the other woman’s courage had stirred something within her.

“We either kill Harlow now or go down trying,” she stated coldly. “For Asgard!”

“For Asgard!” came a chorus of replies.

Missiles started firing non-stop from Valkyrie’s tubes until their entire inventory ran out.

The fleets crept past the effective range of point defense to intercept missiles and Katalynn prayed to Odin to see them through this battle.

Space filled with bright flashes and ships on both sides quickly started to vanish off the tactical holo display.

Valkyrie never stopped firing her lasers at Harlow’s ship. The only difference is that the angle of the turrets had to quickly adjust as the range shrank.

No more plasma missiles came from Harlow’s hulking ship so either he had run out or their attacks had finally rendered his launchers inoperable.

Soon her fleet and Harlow’s were passing each other. A few exchanges of weapons fire were made and Katalynn cheered internally as Valkyrie finally hit something important on Harlow’s ship. The lasers raked across his engines before the massive vessel could turn to avoid incoming fire in that vulnerable area.

Valkyrie took a fusillade of railgun darts along her starboard side, but no systems were crippled by the attack.

She watched the large ship try to adjust for the loss of multiple engines, but she could tell it was significantly slower.

“Lagertha! It appears that Harlow is trying to form a warp bubble,” the sensor operator stated.

Another wonder of Alexander’s improved sensors was the ability to detect the buildup of power much sooner than normal.

“Deploy gravity traps!” she ordered.

After going through all this trouble, there was no way she was letting that bastard run now. The trap would force him to either commit or eventually flip and try to burn for the edge of the gravity field. If he ran, that gave her fleet the chase advantage.