Assault
Captain Morwen awoke with a start. Lt. Fennex loomed over her, the cause of her waking up. The lieutenant’s expression was tight with worry. “Sir. We got a situation you need to see right now.” Fennex about faced and left the room in such a hurry. A small breeze gusted with him. Morwen flew out of bed in a tangle of sheets and clothes. She threw on her uniform in record time and tossed her hair back into a less than elegant pony tail. She lacked the time for anything more ornate.
She extended a hand, and Rozien flew to her palm. “Can you sense anything?” She asked.
“Unfortunately not. Your ship’s sensors are unfamiliar to me. They’re a bit...crude. No offense.”
Morwen smiled, patting the hull with her other hand as she hustled up the adjoining corridor that fed into the bridge. “None taken. The Crasher is actually a refit Brotherhood battleship of an older design. It was a gift to the Federation when it was first chartered. The mages on Eryn retrofit it with a spell drive, so mages could pilot it. She’s slow and lists to the left slightly. But she’s not built like a legendary spellship, but she fights like one.”
Rozien thrummed contemplatively in her hand as she slid down into the captain’s chair. Arjun was buckled into the chair to her right, and Fennex hovered at the left, uncertain of what to do. Being a water mage, and a poorly trained one at that, made him less than ideal for a combat in capital ships. Rozien floated up on motes of void magic to hover next to her shoulder. She fed the spell controls some fire and mind and conjured an illusion of what the ship’s sensors were detecting. Four Sauridius cruisers and eight dropships.
“That’s a lot of bogeys.”
Morwen frowned. They had more enemies than they had guns to fire with. Unless... “Lieutenant. Can you deploy your hover tanks to fire from the hangar?”
Fennex’s expression rolled through confusion before understanding erased it with a look of eagerness. He gave her a firm nod and raced out of the bridge to make it happen. She missed Sirsir’s presence. For now, she’d have to hope the silver ranked mage would be enough.
“What’s the play Captain?” Arjun asked.
“We run. The Crasher is ill suited to tackle that many enemies in a standup fight. But we can drag it out. Play the terrain. Make them come to us on our terms. That’s the best I have for now.”
She went silent as time slowed around her, the beginning of her spell to view the web of fate. Reality fractured around her like cracked glass and she could see every choice. Every action and reaction play out in its own little shard of glass. If all of existence were a beach, Morwen had the ability to view every individual grain of sand and the reality of choices and consequences it contained. She studied offensive and defensive options alike. She knew they were after Rozien. He was the key to the ship. The last remaining crew member of the Theferis. Most scenarios ended with the ship being destroyed and a pair of powerful dragon hatchlings picking through the wreckage for Rozien. There were a few in which the crew survives, but none of them ended with victory.
“No matter what we lose.” She whispered.
“Then we make it cost them as much as possible.” Rozien said. His voice was resolute. She glanced at the enchanted soul bound tome, wondering what kind of officer he’d been like when he was a mage. Morwen had no doubt she could have used the extra help in the minutes to come.
Morwen studied the enemy ships advancing and lifted the Crasher off the ground, bringing the ship about going full burn for a deep ravine she’d noted on their landing approach. It looked just big enough for the aged battleship to fit into. It’d be close quarters, but that would limit the enemy’s attack options.
She pressed a button for the ship to cast a quick missive. “Lt. Fennex, deploy half your men to the ground and have them employ all surface-to-air munitions. Even if the Crasher must go down, some may survive yet. We can also hit the enemy from two positions.” She smashed the send button and refocused on her maneuvers as the ship scraped against a jagged outcrop of rock and she winced. Morwen gave Arjun a quick look. He was pale and sweating. Gripping his own control sticks tightly.
“Arjun, can you direct the aft spell cannon to fire, please? Pick a ship and keep attacking until it stops moving. I’ll leave pool management up to you. I’ll need to focus on evasive maneuvers.”
Arjun nodded with an uncertain look and went to work. He wasn’t combat tested fully, but he was capable and applied himself to learning.
No better time to perfect casting abilities than trial by fire. Morwen’s stomach lurched when she dipped the ship down into the ravine. Her stomach fell away completely when she watched the Sauridius cruisers launch dozens of large warheads. She reached out with the Crasher’s sensors, scrubbing the missiles as thoroughly as possible and she dreaded what she’d detected.
The Sauridius ships were hurling nuclear warheads at them. Relics of the Brotherhood’s arsenal. They were survivable in singles, but a swarm of them would pose a problem. “Arjun. Direct your fire into those warheads. Thin them out.”
The Crasher belted out massive shuttle sized fire bolt spells that hurtled into the cloud of nuclear missiles. Detonations cooked the atmosphere. One of the attacking cruiser’s hulls was blackened, and it’s engines belted out smoke as it fell behind the other three. Warheads still tracked towards the Crasher. Arjun couldn’t take them all. Morwen dumped as much light magic as she could into the control matrix. A ripple golden sphere formed around the Crasher just before the nuclear wards could reach the ship. Most of them smashed into the ward before they could detonate, but a few went off dumping their full atom splitting fury into the magical barrier.
The Crasher rocked violently and Arjun cried out. Morwen did her best to keep focused on piloting. The ward held. Barely.
She torqued the aging battleship into a tight turn in the ravine, narrowly missing a volley of fire from the frustrated Sauridius ships. Arjun’s fire from the rear mounted spell cannon and Fennix’s men began to envelope the enemy forces. It was a valiant effort. But this is where Morwen approached the first nexus point of her divination. Leave Fennex’s men to die and keep running? Or double back and relieve the pressure. In the past, she’d sacrificed lives because it was necessary to acheive an outcome. But when the outcome was the same either way, she wasn’t sure she could just callously throw away lives. She wasn’t like Rayshe.
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The Crasher jerked upwards as it nosed up out of the ravine. The Sauridius cruisers were raining down fire on Fennex’s troops at the top of the ravine. His tanks gave as good as they got but without help it’d be a lost cause. The lead cruiser was about to unload a full salvo on the marines when a dark purple negative beam of energy bored clean through the ship. Smoke belched free of the wound as the ship listed. The marines on the ground whooped and cheered as the Crasher banked about, seeking to use the mountains for cover. Acid bolts thundered from the cruisers en masse.
Several rounds struck Morwen’s light ward. It discolored and shattered into aether shards. Motes of light flurried in the chaos before winking out. The rear spell cannon continued belching large fireballs into the enemy formation. Arjun desperately trying to relieve the pressure the ground-based marines were under. Morwen slowed the Crasher, letting the cruisers close the gap, drawing their attention away from the marines.
She watched with grim satisfaction as the marines downed the ship she’d wounded with her void ray. If they had to go down fighting, then she and her men would make the Sauridius pay for every inch. For every gram. The acid bolt salvos continued to lance out after the aged battleship, forcing Morwen to hastily recast her ward. She’d only be able to manage that a few more times.
Two of the remaining enemy cruisers advanced on the slower battleship. As they drew closer, the cruisers rammed into the golden orb protecting the battleship and opened fire at point blank range. Morwen cursed as she watched the shimmering gold barrier discolor and fracture under the strain. The ward erupted into mana shards under the thundering assault.
The rear spell cannon did an impressive job of holding off the attack, but the storm of acid bolts eroded the aged and barely functional wards holding the spell cannon together. It belched a final spell that fluttered out before striking the target leaving Morwen with no further options to retaliate with on the ship. From here her options branched into fewer and fewer paths. The biggest option she had was sending what was left of the crew to the Indra and fleeing. They could slip past the initial attack, but they would be greeted with an ambush before they could exit the system.
“No. We won’t die running.” Morwen growled.
The Crasher groaned as she threw the ship into a full stop and came about hard. Aged mythrial and enchanted steel creaked and moaned in protest. Arjun gripped his spell controls tightly as void straps held the team in place at their chairs on the bridge. Morwen watched as the compass ticked by until the enemy ships were square in view. She rammed the throttle forward. The Cadaver Crasher roared forward at full burn.
“Arjun. If you have any further feelings to express about this fight. Now is the time to do so.”
In short. Give them hell while you still can. She knew it wasn’t much of a speech, but the bleakness of the outcome left her feeling uncharacteristically morbid. Seeing your own death play out a thousand different ways had a sobering effect on ones outlook. She knew they weren’t going to make it out of this. Now she was just trying to exact as steep a price as possible.
Her charge had an effect on the enemy cruisers who broke formation and scattered to avoid her charge. What they couldn’t avoid was Arjun’s frantic blasting at the main spell cannon. It’s augmentations and enchantments magnifying and increasing the power of the spell. The battle scarred warship belched out one small star after enough. Two of the cruiser’s were completely engulfed in flame. Their smoking remains plummeting to the ground afterward caused Morwen alarm and satisfaction.
They were entering the endgame now. She torqued the Crasher’s nose down and away. The remaining cruiser was quick and seemed to know what she’d try before doing it. Had they successfully scryed the outcome? She felt the Crasher shudder, like a child trying to tug free of a parent. Loud metallic thumping sounds resonated from the hull in various locations. Docking clamps. She rose, hands ready to weave. She put herself protectively between Arjun who looked confused when sparks fell from the ceiling like a flaming leak. In moments a large circle had been cut free and fell to the deck heavily. A storm of bolts fell into the bridge and she quickly erected a ward to shield them.
They were beyond what she’d been able to divine now. Which meant they were either in a realm of possibilities that were too remote, or a hidden choice. But made by whom? And hidden by whom?
“Give us the tomb and you may limp away with your lives.” A reptilian voice called out from above. A large figure fell down to the deck clad in black and dark blue spell armor. It was a large feminine hatchling. Unmolted, but very close. Her armor was etched artfully with faces in states of agony and pain. No two faces look the same. Morwen shivered looking at it, trying to shake off the sensation of having her soul tugged free from her chest. Her eyes came to rest at the imposing spell blade belted to the dragons hip and Morwen instantly wished her crew were here. Sirsir, and Amara would have been able to deal with this one. Akamori too before his death.
“The tomb.” The hatchling demanded, a hand outstretched.
Morwen hesitated. She couldn’t give up Rozien so easily.
“It’s ok Morwen. I’ll go.” The tomb said from within her jacket. It drifted free and floated next to her.
“I can’t just give you up without a fight.”
“You can’t get me back if you die needlessly.”
Morwen grumbled at the tombs point. “Fine.”
The tomb turned to the hatchling. “I have your word?”
The hatchling paused before smirking. “Perhaps.”
“Not good enough.” A flash of aether, and a spell crashed into the hatchlings’ chest.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” the hatchling roared.
“Call it insurance because of your questionable strength of character. I bound you to honor your own word.”
Lips curled back to reveal rows of razor sharp fangs. Acid dripped to the deck and hissed menacingly. “Very well. Let’s go.”
Rozien drifted to the hatchling who tore him out of the air and tucked him under her arm. Then the dragon jumped back up through the hole she’d made. Morwen stood back stunned as the Sauridius cruiser flew away, leaving the wounded Crasher be.