Planet K10 was rocky, barren, uninhabitable, a reminder of the damage caused by the Engressia Hivemind as they spread through the galaxy. In other words, a perfect place to set down a weapons battery.
The human weapons battery on K10 had earned the nickname "The Shredder" after it converted an entire Drekan fleet into tinsel. Attempts to take it head on had all ended in disaster as the weapons battery not just matched, but actually exceeded the output of the ships sent to destroy it.
One weapons battery had effectively made the Kinter worlds a no-go zone and prevented any resupply from reaching the ground troops, something which the Drekan leadership considered to be unacceptable.
"I'm tired of playing with these primates, nuke the fucker." Said Admiral Kell, his tail swishing angrily against the legs of his chair. "Use a planet cracker if you have to."
There was an awkward silence around the table. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?" The Admiral asked.
His aide was the first to speak. "The captain of the Zhivago tried that already. It didn't work."
The Admiral blinked in surprise and smoothed his whiskers, trying to hide the anger he felt. "You're saying that someone released nuclear weapons without my authorization… and failed to destroy the target?"
"Before the Zhivago was destroyed it unloaded four planet crackers and a sunkiller at the planet. No effect." The aide elaborated. "Nothing we have can seem to get through that counter barrage. The missiles were shredded practically as soon as they launched."
Something about that statement bothered the Admiral. From what he had read in the reports the human weapons platform seemed to be able to put out an almost impossible amount of ordnance and had destroyed two and a half fleets thus far. So where were all of those munitions coming from? The Humans were supposed to be fighting this war at the end of a shoe string, yet somehow they seemed to have an infinite supply of weapons to destroy his ships with.
"How are they resupplying? Do we know?" The Admiral asked.
"We have seen some smaller transports bringing food and supplies, but no larger munitions barges." The aide checked his notes. "No major Human military ships have been spotted in the area. We intercepted chatter on the commercial channels that a few mining vessels are coming to aid the Kinter but they haven't arrived yet. Our current working theory is that K10 is hiding some kind of weapons depot that was missed when we initially attacked the system."
The Admiral wasn't convinced. "No, this is something else." He mentally thumbed through his back catalog of weaponry until he came up with a possible solution. "Prep a RKW, let's see them try and shoot down a couple tons of tungsten moving at fractional light speed."
The aides looked at each other. "Sir… those are banned."
The general shrugged. "All is fair in love and war, isn't that what the humans say?"
Unfortunately for him there was another human saying that was about to become very relevant: Don't get in a shit throwing contest with an ape.
---
The Drekan naval vessel Antipova slipped out of the warp and fired its payload. The recoil of launching the RKW or Relativistic Kinetic Weapon made the Antipova shudder and actually slow down to the point where it barely had to do a deceleration burn. It had nine more shots left, but one usually did the trick.
Faster than any meteor the RKW streaked towards its target. Early warning systems detected the Antipova leaving the warp but the crew on K10 were blind to the tungsten pole moving at fractional light speed towards them. It had no thrusters and no electronics for them to lock onto.
The watch commander barely had a moment to remark on how strange it was that the Drekan had only sent one ship before the RKW impacted. There was no atmosphere on K10 to slow it down so it exploded with the full force of a hundred megaton nuclear bomb.
"Whoa." Remarked the captain of the Antipova. "We cracked the planet."
The weapons officer frowned. That shouldn't have happened. Maybe the weapon had hit some kind of munitions storage deep underground? He did a scan of the rapidly expanding mass of debris that used to be a planet and frowned even deeper, something was very wrong.
Scans from their initial survey of the system listed K10 as being a small lifeless planet of normal density. So why was there only about half a planet's worth of debris? Maybe even less than that now that he thought about it.
"Sir…" The weapons officer said, "I think that I figured out what they were using for ammo."
Before the captain could ask for an explanation a proximity alarm sounded as they detected the warp ripples that signalled the arrival of another ship.
"Must be those human mining vessels." Remarked the captain. "Prep a RKW, I want to give them a face full as soon as they exit the warp."
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The weapons officer prepared the next RKW and blinked with confusion at what his sensors were telling him. Whatever was coming through was massive, so massive that it was throwing off his computer's attempts to compensate for gravimetric effects.
"Sir… I don't think that's a mining vessel." The weapons officer cautioned. He would have been surprised to find out that the Colectivo Maya ship La Cosecha Agria was indeed just a mining vessel. However it was a mining vessel larger than Jupiter in terms of raw tonnage.
"Warp travel won't work!" The Chief Engineer called out. "There's too much interference. The fucker is so big the gravitational distortions are affecting our drives."
"Then shoot it!" The captain roared.
The weapons officer was trying to do just that but nothing was happening. "Sir, we've got a problem. The drives are down and the gun's dampeners use warp technology to mitigate the recoil. Firing the weapon without dampeners would be catastrophic."
The mining vessel had come fully through the warp now and hung there in space like a hostile planet. It seemed to be scanning the debris of K10. For a few minutes nothing happened, then the mining vessel hailed the Antipova over video link.
"Hello." Said an unremarkable human from his command chair. "My engineers tell me that you got caught in our wash and it knocked out your warp capabilities. But don't worry, we'll make sure you get home as quickly as possible."
Then the call ended leaving the crew of the Antipova wondering what was going on. The captain blinked with confusion. The humans didn't seem angry or even surprised by the destruction of their base.
Then the Antipova began to shake. Small rocks and debris rattled against the hull. "What in the seventh level of hell is going on?" The captain asked.
"It's some kind of gravimetric weapon, sir!" The navigation officer called out. "It's like we're in an artificial gravity well. It's drawing in debris from K10 as well as anything else nearby."
The captain winced as a large chunk of rock sent a shudder through the hull. If this continued for any longer they would be crushed or pounded into scrap metal.
"Fire the RKW." The captain ordered. "Fire it while we still can."
The weapons officer didn't hesitate. He understood that they were doomed and that it was their duty to take down the enemy ship even if it cost them their lives. But he didn't have to pretend he liked it. Not anymore.
"You're a terrible captain." He said as the weapon charged. He was going to fire it at max output because if they only had one shot, he might as well make it count. "I just wanted to make sure I said that to you before we died."
"Duly noted." The captain replied, trying to ignore the way his arms were starting to feel heavier than normal and the ever increasing roar of debris impacting the hull. "I was planning on demoting you anyway."
"You always were a motherfucker like that." The weapons officer said as he fired the weapon. The recoil liquified everyone on board in an instant as the ship jumped backwards before coming apart at the seams in a cloud of debris.
The RKW sped towards the mining vessel but didn't impact. La Coshecha Agria's anti-meteor shielding recognized the threat and redirected the rod harmlessly away into empty space.
"What a waste of good tungsten." Captain Gutiérrez remarked as he watched it go.
---
Light years away Admiral Kell was feeling good about himself as he paced back and forth in his quarters on the command ship Pasternak. He had sent the Antipova to take care of his little problem in the Kinter system and soon he would finally be able to send reinforcements and conquer those cursed herbivores once and for all. Then the harvesting could begin. The Kinter would make good food for his people.
His aide knocked on the door, breaking him out of his reverie. "Sir, there's a message from a human ship, La Cosecha Agria. They say that the Antipova was damaged and they're returning it to us as quickly as possible. They broadcast it across the whole system."
Admiral Kell froze. Wasn't that the mining vessel from his earlier briefing? And what did they mean, as quickly as possible? What were these humans up to?
---
"Stable warp gateway established, payload ready for delivery on your mark." Officer Lorena Venganza of La Cosecha Agria announced. The remains of the Antipova as well as what was left of K10 had been compressed into a near perfect sphere and loaded into the ship's mass accelerator.
Usually the gateways were used to transport their haul back home so they could mine indefinitely without stopping, but it had alternative uses. The concept behind the system was simple, open a gateway, send resources through the gateway, get paid, move on.
But this time things would be a bit different. There was no deceleration package on this payload. It would enter and exit the warp going faster than a runaway planet courtesy of La Cosecha Agria's mass accelerator. They had even added a little something extra, just to show that they cared.
"Send it." Captain Gutiérrez ordered with a wave of his hand. "Let's show these 'tigres' what happens when you fuck with a species under human protection."
---
Admiral Kell watched with seething hatred through the window as his orbital shipyards burned and his munitions depots exploded. The destruction was so great that it could be seen with the naked eye even from this distance. He could practically feel the heat as his people's future disintegrated before him.
With one blow the humans had managed to force the entire Drekan war machine to a grinding, smoking halt. There would be no reinforcements for his soldiers now. No new vessels to take up the fight. From now on they would be on the defensive.
At the start of the war the humans had been severely outnumbered both in terms of troops as well as ships. Now the balance of power was beginning to shift.
"Sir!" His aide called out, bursting into his quarters without even bothering to knock. He practically forced the data slate into Admiral Kell's hands. "You have to see this!"
"It's an invoice from La Cosecha Agria for a delivery. How cute." Admiral Kell snarled. "They must have thought it would be funny to twist my tail, to rub my nose in my failure."
"No sir, look!" The aide prompted, pointing with his finger at a very vital piece of information that the admiral had missed.
"Delivery one of ten." Admiral Kell whispered. "Oh no… please no…" His mind raced. He had to warn the other systems about what was coming. He had to-
Admiral Kell didn't even get to finish his thought before delivery number two struck home and turned his flagship and the fleet around it into a rapidly expanding cloud of scrap metal.
---
Later when the war was over a Drekan diplomat would ask why the Colectivo Maya mining company had decided to help the Kinter.
The Kinter had no mineral wealth, no advanced technology, no visible means of repayment. So why had the mining company defended them so fiercely?
"Oh that!" The Kinter diplomat had responded with a wide human style smile and a laugh, her ornamental gold capped teeth glistening like fangs from across the negotiation table. "We gave them exclusive salvage rights. There were a lot of expensive materials in that system. Exotic matter… metals…"
"We know." The Drekan diplomat cut her off. "Believe me, we know."