Two days had passed since they had arrived in system. Time enough for them to have conducted some initial reconnaissance of the system. The charts allowed them to narrow the number of areas in need of initial scouting. Still they had made use of micro-jumps and fighter deployments to do most of the work. As such they were already putting together a decent picture of the conditions in the system, and what defenses or lack thereof were present.
The colony of Iridia had a population of just under eight million. Those eight million lived in several scattered settlements along the equatorial continent. Two larger settlements were roughly city-sized and appeared to contain the only real infrastructure on the planet including the local spaceport. However the colony was largely defenseless. Other than a few emergency bunkers there was nothing on the ground really worth noting. It was largely a farming colony with vast fields, and numerous small farming towns scattered across the surface.
It gave them a lot of inconsequential targets to shoot at for their weapons testing. Still the system did have some defenses, just not on the planet. There was a small orbital outpost above the planet, it had a few docks, and was protected by a reasonably strong shield. It was not heavily armored nor did it feature much structural reinforcement however. Making the orbital somewhat fragile when the shield was down. The outpost did carry a few heavy concussion plasma cannons, and some pylon mounted torpedo launchers, but those were only for its own defense. They would not allow a single stationary orbital to project the power needed to defend a colony. The secret to that was the four large hangers present on the orbital, hangers that had room for thousands of fighter craft, and dozens of short-range scout ships.
Most of those craft were kept stowed in the bays at all times, but there were also a few that were on clear regular patrol patterns. Since the colony was of little strategic import, they must be around to deter pirates, smugglers, and other illegal activity. It was quite clear that the defenses were not intended to withstand any kind of serious assault. As it was, they could wipe out the outpost with a single well-placed volley of torpedoes, and that volley could be fired from well outside the orbital’s own weapon’s range. In fact, that is exactly what they had done, they had fired a volley of mark fives at the station, keeping their more valuable photons in reserve. At the moment those warheads had not yet reached their target, but they had been aimed at the hangers, so he expected quite the fireworks display when they did go off.
The handful of patrol craft that would survive that display would be of no real threat to them and could be easily mopped up at their leisure. Cathamari fighters and scout ships were unshielded, and their armor was not anything worth mentioning. As such they could be easily ripped apart with a single hit from a particle cannon. Such as the dual-purpose medium particle cannons the Enterprise carries.
At the moment, he was waiting on the bridge for confirmation of a hit to come in. Ruri was down below at the bridge science station ready to conduct her tests the moment it was clear. The plan was to jump into orbit and deploy the test drones the moment the station was confirmed destroyed. The remaining ships would at the same time be dealt with by the Coto, Umikaze, and the fighters already deployed in the area. Keeping them off the drones should be trivial, but just in case he had a few fighters in reserve, and he planned to have the photon missile batteries on standby to engage any Cathamari ship that got too close. It occurred to him that this just might be the first time they actually use the missile batteries since the ship had launched.
Before he could much consider that line of thought, his screen lit up with a series of flashes in the distance. Quickly those flashes were followed by a rapid series of small flashes that built up. In seconds a massive fireball erupted flaring with the brightness of a hundred suns. The orbital had been hit. The light of that attack was just now reaching them, but they had hung close enough that the delay while noticeable wasn’t large enough to hinder their plan.
Kaori at tactical was already reporting the hit, “Reading multiple confirmed hits, and secondary detonations. Target destroyed sir, no survivors.”
A second later, operations officer Misaki confirmed the readings. The orbital was indeed destroyed. He gave the order, and moments later they made the jump into orbit. In an instant, they were in low orbit of the colony, and the drones were being unleashed, while elsewhere the other ships were sweeping the area to clear it of remaining Cathamari ships. Countryman ignored those, and moved down to the lower level, while the drones were launching.
They had fewer prototypes to test this time, but the same number of drones. For the standard pulse cannons, they had with some help from the Krall settled on just two designs to test. There were only slight differences in the two designs, and those changes were largely related to the power configuration. The last set of tests had been quite helpful in that regard.
As for the Compression beam weapons, they only had a single design to test. They had designed their only prototype of a compressed cutting beam with the lessons of the last test in mind. Like the last prototype it featured a much improved sustained beam yield, but it also featured a supercharger. Allowing it to fire a more powerful, but shorter beam if needed. In fact while all three prototypes promised increased performance, they also featured the new supercharger modification allowing them to put out a more intense blast in a shorter time period.
Based on simulated data this would come at the cost of an increased heat build-up. As such while a supercharged blast would hit harder, they can’t quickly follow up with a second. Instead the weapon will need a little extra time to cool. It also increased the energy draw of the weapon, meaning it would aslo deplete the capacitors more quickly. Regardless the ability to unleash a more potent blast when in a pinch would be invaluable. He could already think up quite a few uses for the new supercharger weapons modification that the new compression modules allowed.
As the drones entered position to fire, he monitored the status of the only ships able to interfere. Small patrol ships that could have deterred the usual threats this colony would have been faced with, but not any proper fleet or in his case a small task force. At the moment those forces were diminishing rapidly in number. They were being devastated, by the superior ability of his 1204 starfighters. No real surprise there, given that human fighter craft had always been superior, perhaps not in armament, but certainly in armor and mobility. The great design trio was mobility, protection and firepower. Something ships always strove to have the best balance of. Overlord armor provided substantial protection, while pulse wave engines offered nearly unparalleled mobility, allowing human fighters to pull ahead in two of the key areas. Cathamari plasma weapons were far more potent, and they could mount a fair number of useful toys. However they lost in protection due to their inability to mount shields, and the substandard armor they carried. While with mobility they lost due to the terrible efficiency of Cathamari plasma engines.
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As such it was quite clear that the Cathamari pilots were not able to effectively make use of their superior firepower, and were being steadily wiped out. Every few seconds a few of their ships would blink out. He watched one fire missiles, only for the warheads to be outmanuevered. Then seconds later that fighter’s would-be target counterattacked with a burst of highly accurate particle fire. The ship blinked out, and her wingman followed an instant later.
Countryman turned his gaze awy from the central strategic master display, just as Kaori was reporting the drones were in position to fire. He glanced towards Ruri who signaled that she was ready to monitor the incoming data. He gave the order to fire, and then moved towards Ruri. He planed to be near her and monitor the datafeeds as they came in. Datafeeds that were already coming in by the time he had reached the console bank in question, and it was only a few steps from the master strategic display. It took only a couple of seconds to cross that short distance, but that was enough for the first shots to be fired.
One of the smaller settlements, a village had been the first struck. A barrage of fiire from a particle cannon outfitted drone rained down upon the defenseless village. Powerful bolts struck the village in rapid succession. Cathamari architecture was somewhat different from Earthen architecture, likely due to their biology, and culture. Above ground they built small stone work structures, that led into underground warrens. It was those underground warrens that compose the real bulk of their homes and buildings. Not surprisingly all of those warrens were connected to even deeper emergency bunker, which was little more than a reinforced network of tunnels, and rooms. No shield, but the tunnels were hardened with reinforce concrete, and duranium plating.
This construction gave them more protection against orbital bombardment than a human town, but that was meaningless against the drone’s particle cannons. Powerful charged particle streams burned through kilometers of rock, concrete and metal with each strike. Not even the underground bunker held long. It took barely anytime for that one drone to wipe out the entire village, and its inhabitants. The morality of this attack was fairly murky, and they didn’t even have the defense of being able to claim they had no choice. They did, but they were not the ones to start this war nor were they the first to wipe out defenseless colonists. Morally there was no justification for this attack. It was an attack of retribution pure and simple, but it was also one that would play into a larger plan. A plan of vengeance, afterall, they took an eye so they must pay the same in kind at the very minimum. He was going to take one of theirs.
He glanced elsewhere, noting one the beam drones wiping out another settlement. A focused beam of energy cut across the small town in question. Rock vaporizing instantly under the extreme heat of the beam. The process releasing toxic gasses into the town. Fortunately for the inhabitants, most of them were being vaporized by the high-intensity particle stream boring through the town. The gasses only killed those unfortunate enough not to be vaporized instantly, and even then it would have taken longer than the village had left.
The beam crisscrossed the town several times, each time it passed it left a kilometers deep meters wide canyon in its path. In minutes the town was gone, her population dead, and the drone moved on to another town where she demonstrated her supercharger. Powerful, but short beams ripped the next town apart. It was longer between shots, and the shots weren’t as long, but the damage was something special. They penetrated the crust, releasing the molten magma beneath. Pressure from below forced that molten rock up through the fresh cracks, and into the town. Needless to say local life readings disappeared very quickly after that.
It wasn’t the only town facing sudden volcanic activity. Elsewhere another town was experiencing such activity as a drone with a compression particle cannon fired supercharged particle bolts down into the town. Each pulse of purple energy slammed explosively into the ground, and yet still penetrated through kilometers of crust. Allowing magma to well up thanks to fresh breaches in the crust. Life readings however disappeared before the magma reached the town.
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The Battle-Lord shifted in his stance, as the ship came out of warp. He was looking forward to the scheduled stop at Iridia station. It was one of his favorite stops. Iridia was not the only world he visited regularly, but it was by far the most peaceful. There was even this cute young lady at the station that he liked to visit.
That line of thought quickly came to an end when he realized something was wrong. They should already be receiving calls from the orbital. Not only that but there was always constant chatter in the system. It was too quiet.
The next thing he heard was, “Master! The Colony!”
He turned his attention to the readings, and he felt the blood drain from his scaly face. His tail slammed the deck plates hard, and he growled. Sensors were picking up massive amounts of weapons fire in the vicinity of the colony, and he could also see the floating wreckage of the orbital. It was under attack. For a moment, he said nothing too shocked to see this. It was so far outside his expectations, that it took him a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, and that proved to be a moment too long.
“Shields!”
The ship shuddered before his crew could even acknowledge the order. The lights flickered, and there was a shout, “hull breach! Deck 37, engineering level!”
Another shudder followed and the lights went out. After a second they kicked back on. He had a feeling what that was, he shouted an order to get the shields up.”
Moments later, he received a report, “Sir, whoever it is, knew exactly where to hit us. We have lost main power, weapons and shields are down. Main engines are offline, we are adrift, and auxiliary power is failing. I estimate the reactors will fail in the next twenty minutes. Worse, we lost life support with that second hit, we are shallow breathing right now.”
He cursed, while unlocking the local equipment locker, “Arm yourselves, and grab an enviromental suit. Prepare for boarders.”
The battle-lord knew not who attacked them or the colony, but he had a strong feeling that whoever it was intended to board. One back up by the fact they likely could have destroyed his ship instantly, but instead they had disabled his ship. Knocking out the primary systems was a clear precursor to a boarding action. A glance at the system display showed that they had been hit in several places with two volloys. All of them focused on the engineering level. Those hits had been very precise, doing minimal damage. Just enough to knock out their primary systems, and disrupt their main power conduits. He noticed the main reactor was still online. If they could patch the conduits they might be able to restore main power. Even better it looked like the shields themselves were undamaged. If they could restore power, they would have an easy time getting the shields up. Weapons would not be too difficult either, but the engines on the other hand had taken heavy damage. The fuel and power lines had been severed. That would take longer, and they might not have the time to fix it. A series of alarms going off seemed to support them not having time. They had been boarded.