The commander stared at the consoles. The battle if you could call it that was going badly. The alien torpedoes were proving far deadlier than she had expected and their point-defense solution was less effective than she had hoped. Although they did manage to improve them after that first devastating volley, but it was still less than she would have liked Her own torpedoes were also proving less effective than she expected. As they were unable to get through the alien defense screens. They weren’t shields, but some kind of high energy barrier nonetheless. Anything that tried to go through was either destroyed in the case of strike fighters or disrupted in the case of plasma torpedoes. They weren’t always there but they sprang up so fast.
The ship shuddered as a warhead slammed into the shields. No penetration thankfully. Yet she was starting to think they would need to withdraw. That was when she noticed something. She walked up to her tactical officer and said, “Question, why would their launchers fire in staggered bursts?”
At first, she hadn’t been thinking about it, but a moment ago something clicked. Initially, she had just thought it was saturation, but there seemed to be more to it now that she was thinking about it. These torpedoes were armored and they seemed to anticipate pulse fire. As a result hit accuracy against them was remarkably low and when they did hit the torpedo could take it and keep going. These aliens didn’t exactly need it, now that she thought about it. Just a small number could overwhelm the point defenses of a ship and then they could bypass shields reducing the need to concentrate power on a single ship. They were also so powerful that any hit to the hull would knock the ship in question out.
The tactical officer adjusted their point defense net and then gave her a look, “Huh? What are you on about?”
She pointed at the plots as one of the destroyers fired, “Look, why fire in bursts?”
“Um Saturation? More missiles the greater the hit chance against a protected ship.”
In the distance, several explosions rippled across the screens. A few unlucky vessels detonated into massive fireballs. She sighed, they had taken far too many losses already. A little over a third of their strength to these torpedoes. It should have been more, but between evasive maneuvers and heavy point defense, they had been able to preserve more ships. Those maneuvers more so than the PD were what mattered, as the longer they could keep the torpedoes from their targets, the more chances they had to hit the damn things. Then she spoke, “Those defense screens of theirs? They aren’t always there are they?”
The tactical officer blinked and then her eyes widened, “Wait? Are you suggesting?”
She nodded, “I want you to target that destroyer, but stagger our shots. I think we might get through.”
The tactical officer nodded and turned to coordinate the attack.
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Torpedoes flew through space as ships weaved and dodged. While strike craft both Valorian and Human danced in a deadly duel of plasma and particle fire. A light cruiser exploded as several fighters raked her hull, her shields having already failed from a previous hit.
In the same moment, several cruisers and frigates came about and opened fire. Multiple torpedoes headed straight for the Umikaze, the ship of one Ashley Drakes. The Umikaze banked hard, her beam array firing as it swept across a frigate. Her shields flared brightly as they strained against the beam. For a moment or two they seemed to be holding until the beam focused on one point. In seconds it was through, the shields still straining as the beam was cutting into the hull.
Then the first plasma torps slammed into the Energy Webs of the Umikaze. Several brilliant flares marked their detonation, followed by another set. Before the screen dropped and the next wave of torpedoes slammed into the hull. The ship shuddered under the impacts, but her cutting beam continued to fire. Steadily boring into the frigate despite her shields.
Then another wave hit, this time with impact. As the dust cleared, several ruptures were present on the hull. She fired torpedoes in response. Just as her cutting beam pierced the main reactor of the frigate she was firing on. Almost instantly the ship exploded in a brilliant fireball and she was soon followed by several more as the Umikaze’s torpedoes found their mark.
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The commander blinked as she saw the results. It had worked, scoring several hits to the hull. Proving her thoughts, the alien screen could only be deployed for a brief time. She smiled and gave her next orders. If they could score a few more hits like that, they would win the battle. Only it was not going to be easy, but when was anything easy?
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A cruiser banked hard, her shields flaring. Several heavy particle bolts slammed into her powerful defensive screens, as a volley of torpedoes sailed past her. Her own pulse cannons fired on them for little effect as they passed. Moments later, they locked onto a new target a light cruiser who wasn’t so lucky. All five torpedoes slammed into her, three of which pierced her shields to interact with her hull. Leaving behind nothing more than scattered wreckage. Some of which slammed into the shields of the heavy cruiser that had just evaded death.
A moment later a second barrage of heavy particle fire slammed into her shields as the Enterprise came bearing down. Elsewhere the Coto swept in firing on the cruiser’s escorts and drawing them away. Just moment’s before the Enterprise opened up with her beam arrays. Several purple beams erupted from the Enterprise all at once. Each one slammed into the cruiser and held for several seconds. Her shields flared brightly as fires erupted on her hull.
The cruiser returned fire with her heavy cannon. The bolts slammed into the Enterprise one after the other with little apparent effect. Her heavy armor easily absorbing the bolts. She returned fire her own heavy cannon ripping into the shields of the heavy cruiser as the two ships moved into a knife-range gun duel. One the cruiser was quickly losing. The fires spread, several explosions marred her hull and then her powerful shields just failed.
Heavy bolts started to rain into her hull an instant before twin cutting beams erupted from the hull of the Enterprise raking across the Protector class cruiser. The particle beam tore through her hull like wet tissue. Fires erupted as entire sections were vented into space. Bodies and debris were jettisoned into the void as the ship was torn in two.
Several frigates and corvettes swarmed in and opened fire on the Enterprise to no effect. Her heavy cannon lit them up as they passed to devastating effect. Their shields flared, but did little to protect them against the high-yield barrage of heavy particle bolts which punched through them in short order. Tearing into their unarmored hulls and leaving only fractured wreckage and plasma fires behind.
Elsewhere the Coto had been engaged by several light cruisers that she had pulled away from the heavy cruiser the Enterprise just sank when a second heavy cruiser swept in from above, with a combination of torpedoes and heavy cannon. The web held blocking the torpedoes. Her hull shuddered under multiple impacts from heavy cannon, as several sections of plating ruptured under the barrage, but nothing serious. She returned fire with a full volley of torpedoes and the cruiser exploded with the excess torpedoes seeking new targets. Several nearby cruisers proved the unfortunate victims of those missiles. Only one of which was lucky enough to escape mostly intact, but she was out of the battle. As plasma fires burned across her decks and sections were vented into space. She was lucky that all the torpedoes that hit her had detonated on the shields.
Moments later she was launching escape pods, while what was left of the Valorian fleet broke. Chaos erupted as it soon devolved into every ship for herself.
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The commander cursed as her ship shuddered. Someone shouted, “Hull breach!”
Her ship was taking a beating. This wasn’t going the way she was hoping and communications were shot. The ship shuddered again, and in the distance she watched a heavy cruiser explode while she was trading fire with an alien destroyer.
Turning to the helm, she shouted “Get us out of here,” pausing she turned to shout at the comm’s officer, “And keep trying to signal the fleet. We need to retreat.”
“Trying sir, but...”
“I don’t need excuses, I need you to do it.”
“Yes Ma’am!”
She turned watching the chaos. Thankfully a few ships seemed to get the message, as a couple of them warped out. Others broke, seeking to clear the field so they could go to warp. Not everyone tried to break, she watched as one cruiser tried to ram an alien ship. She slammed into the large capital ship, as her defense screen flared its distinctive blue-green. In response, shields flared and then failed as the ship disintegrated. It’s fragments rained on the armored alien hull for little effect. Then the alien shield cut out and the rest of the hull slammed into the alien hull. When the dust cleared, the alien hull looked a little scorched but the armor was intact. For a moment she wondered what it would take to breach that hull. Nothing they had thrown at the alien flag had so much as scratched the paint. The smaller ships seemed more vulnerable though. To heavy cannon and torpedoes that was, but that was doable.
Those thoughts continued as she watched other ships go down. A number of them however did escape the field. Moments later her own ship cleared the field. The commander glanced back at the field, it was still chaos with scattered ships still fighting but most of the active ships were trying to run. There were also escape pods floating in the field, but there was nothing she could do about them. Then the view was gone as the ship accelerated to warp. When she returned a week later to the still active distress beacons of those pods, she found them all neatly arranged together and secured with titanium straps along with several salvaged sections of ship hulls. Everyone aboard was free to move between sections and they had been gifted extra supplies. Something not at all like what she had been expecting to find when she returned. The aliens were naturally long gone.