High above the surface, the Atlantis and Everest continued to battle with the two unknown enemy vessels, trying their best to protect the critically damaged Olympus Mons.

The Olympus was dark as its lights flickered out and the power dwindled, and the crew were working at maximum to repair the systems and get power back online. Without the power they would begin to drop towards the surface, which would cause a massive amount of devastation.

The Everest was focusing on helping repair the Olympus whilst the Atlantis took on the enemy vessels.

Her main guns shook the whole ship each time they fired. With each volley of heavy shells being loosed towards the strange Pro-Independence ships, the crew of the Atlantis felt and heard what it would like to be punched by a god.

The heavy mechanical chunks and clanks of each artillery shell being loaded into the gun and aimed reverberated through the upper decks, accompanied by the smaller and quieter vibrations of the fast firing point defense guns that protected the vessel against missiles and bigger projectiles.

Some militaristic fanatics saw ship warfare as a kind of art and cherished every moment. The hot, sweltering temperatures of a ship reactor. Causing one to sweat constantly while they operate the equipment that keeps everyone alive.

The pinpoint and flawless equations that the navigators and engineers have to carry out constantly to keep the ship on course and functioning well, lest they cost the ship months of travel time or damage critical equipment.

Or even the careful and tedious planning that a technician must carry out to prevent ship wide outages when fixing pipes and wires.

To be on a warship you had to be the pinnacle of the pinnacle, always on the top of your game and ready to do anything and everything to keep your crew and ship safe.

It was this mentality that kept Ironclad going when the majority of the UPA admirals were reluctant to fight at Titan.

"They're already beaten, what can they do with one base on one moon?" one once stated. If they had gone with that assumption, then they never would have discovered their strange new ships until it was too late.

The Atlantis was fighting hard and continuing to batter the enemy vessels with volley after volley, but the enemy ships were retaliating. With two ships and double the firepower aimed at the Atlantis alone, she was overwhelmed quickly.

Pieces flew off of the Atlantis and explosions were causing a chain reaction on the vessel, ripping her apart.

But they weren't going down quietly. Although the comms were down and nothing could be sent to or heard from the Atlantis, her engines burned a bright white as she began to charge towards the two enemy vessels. With the higher speed and movement, there was nothing the enemy could do but watch in horror.

She sped up quickly until she was going faster than a bullet, explosions continually going off on the inside of the ship as her reactor.

Even though the enemy ship tried to move out of the way, it was too slow for the agile Atlantis. With thousands of tonnes of weight behind her, the exploding Atlantis collided with the enemy and completely mutilated their ship. Exploding into a bright fireball that blinded the area and cast a bright light on the battle below, the Atlantis took out an enemy with her last breaths.

What was left was just debris and fiery remnants.

The Everest now had to pick up where her sister left off. Unfortunately the repair drones couldn't do much to help the Olympus, and so they were recalled to the Everest to help bolster their front lines.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Onboard the Olympus, a vote was taken with the remaining crew. To stay and try and save the ship or to make it to the shuttles and flee to the surface.

The winner was to abandon ship, and the crew made their preparations. Documents, intel and the sorts were erased, and anything physical was taken with them to the shuttles.

Titan had sunk its claws into the defeated and limp body of the Olympus and was beginning to drag it down towards the atmosphere, the crew couldn't do anything about it without the power.

The Everest would continue to fight for her fallen sisters, not relenting with her barrages of heavy shells and constant fire.

The amount of pressure being put on the enemy ship was becoming overwhelming as their point defenses could no longer keep up with the sheer number of projectiles being fired at it. It was chipped away piece by piece, knocking off plates of armour in the hundreds as the Everest riddled her enemy with bullet holes as vengeance for her sisters.

After the final blow was struck and the enemy ship was still, lifeless and drifting, the Everest deployed her repair drones once more and got ready to assume the new role as command ship. The crew were grieving for the crew of the Atlantis, but they had a job to do, and they would have wanted them to keep going.

Shuttles and dropships carrying equipment and supplies began to depart from the hangar bays on each side of the Olympus and began to make their way towards the surface. Their best bet would be to regroup with River's forces, but they would need to establish contact. Radioes weren't working however, likely an enemy jamming tower near the base.

But minds fell blank and eyes were glued to the windows of the shuttles as they saw the Olympus begin to speed up as it entered the atmosphere. Her hull began to glow red, then orange, then pure white as it rocketed through the sky like some sort of meteor.

Her colossal corpse was beginning to fall apart as chunks were ripped off of the main hull. Soon enough she split in half at the extreme forces being put on her, and she fell apart into rubble.

But something seemed wrong, and the crew were only able to watch as they noticed the missile pods containing the Olympus' nuclear arsenal were tumbling through the air and splitting apart, sending each huge missile flying off in a random direction. Twenty hydrogen missiles were flung out and were about to cause unprecedented amounts of damage.

The shuttle pilots realised what was going on and pulled up away from the surface as the Olympus hit the ground and seemed to explode like a nuclear bomb anyway. The flash was immense and the cloud of smoke was indescribable. Her wreck skid along the ground for a few miles before it came to a stop, leaving a giant chasm in her wake.

But then the missiles hit the ground, and it was like someone opened up a portal directly into the sun. Each missile went off rapidly after another, like a set of firecrackers. The shockwaves dispersed clouds everywhere, and the trees were completely destroyed for hundreds of miles. Fire was spread everywhere, turning the usual peaceful forest into literal hell.

The Everest's crew could only watch in horror as they saw the gigantic mushroom clouds billow up into the air and the green forests turn into brown, red and yellow wastelands as the fires spread quickly and ruthlessly.