The Death Moon lit up like a disco ball backed by an Omega Sanction laser.
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There had been a lot of energetic discussion about the name of the place. Death Star was ruled out because it couldn’t actually blow a planet up, only set swathes of it on fire and carve the mantle a bit, plus it wasn’t motile.
Wave guns, Eye of Terror, God's Eye, blah blah. Death Moon was settled on because it was a fixed installation on an unimportant moon in the middle of nowhere, seemingly with no purpose. Of course, putting an Omega Sanction gun on a planet was much cheaper than putting it on a Starship, devoted power plant and what not, but it also meant it was pretty useless, since the gas giant it was circling wasn’t anything important, and certainly wasn’t going to be sanctioned.
On the plus side, its first firing butchered over fifty bioships!
Reflective mirrors carved up the beam, refracted it in all directions, and sent the light cutting in arcs through the starry sky. Real-time coordinates and nano-spoor tracking sent them slicing through the living hulks streaming through the sky after the retreating reserve fleet as the ragtag ships fled from the overwhelming numbers pressing after them.
Their attack and retreat had been classic Imperial tactics against a superior foe, and they had been mauled by the massed fire and organic projectiles of their enemies. On the other hand, their coordinated fire had been marvelous, and over twenty mid-size ships of the Xenos fleet were now ruptured, burning hulks, venting atmosphere and liquids into the uncaring void. Although pounded and limping, not a single Imperial ship had been destroyed outright, even though the flames and vapors they were leaking trailed for millions of miles across the system.
But now the Death Moon had opened up.
In the five seconds it lasted, twelve different arcs of fire sliced through the heart of the bioship fleet, dancing through the void to shred them just as they came out of Jam into the gravity well of the moon.
The other half of the bio fleet, arcing around the moon in Jam to intercept the retreating fleet, found that instead of sandwiching the fleet between two merciless arms, the Imperial Fleet was bearing on them with all guns broadside and roaring on the offense. The enemy walked into a hell of cannon fire and torpedoes that had been calculated to within a half-second of them breaching the gravity well.
Psychic screams were rippling through the void; Nulls were ignoring them, Sources were loudly shouting that the aliens could go fuck themselves, and the pursuing fleet’s formation shattered, trying to get out of the range of that deadly weapon.
Alas, they were in the gravity well, and would need at least another minute to do so. This weapon had been designed for improbably fast firing in exchange for reduced lifespan, much like the vakker-tech blazing hot inside it, and forty-five seconds later, it fired again.
The refracting mirrors didn’t really care about how close the ships were, as a few hundred thousand miles meant nothing when the coruscating beams of annihilation were refracted across the sky, and wheeling, swooping bioships driving for the edge of the well were bisected in passing.
Needless to say, pursuit of the Reserve Fleet wasn’t a thing anymore.
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Back on Janus III, Anatolia Rantha listened to multiple very current reports of the status of the Death Moon as she directed murderous focus fire on ship after ship of the enemy fleet. Psychic static was flooding the vacuum, shrieking through the bandwidths of the telepathic coordination of the bioships, and their radio-brainwave backups were being disrupted by electromagnetic disruption of ion cannons and fusion explosions going off in crackling waves of actinic hell.
With that conflict taking place on the level of Signals, the techies were setting up the gunners. At this level, ever-increasing coordination and timing was the deciding factor in fleet-level conflicts. One side having one second of advantage over the other consistently was a murderous advantage in maneuvering and aiming, and not having to deal with any lag in communications using the Marks was an unbelievable advantage over distance.
Complex fleet patterns were drawing the bioship fire this way and that, pulling them apart as they pursued targets or moved to shield other pummeled ships.
Anatolia was processing all fleet movements, pointing out weaknesses in formations, guiding movements this way and that as she mentally advanced ahead of the fleet hivemind and their ‘vore guides. The Imperial fleet was in a raging, pounding slugfest again, and many of the fires, radiation leaks, and vapor spraying from them before seemed to have receded miraculously as the Reserve ships pushed through the flank of the biofleet and shoved it down towards the moon, even as the bioships were aiming that way to get the bulk of the moon between them and the death beam that had just eliminated seventy percent of the other half of their fleet straight off.
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“Deploy reflector. All crew, prepare to Focus,” Tabitha called out calmly at Anatolia’s mark, and everyone at their stations on the Widow’s Bite put their hands to specific golden pads or rods located throughout the ship. They concentrated, and Nimbuses rose as transpsionic claws and blades in multiple hues came up.
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Outside the ship, the reflector plate of carbonfoil, laenwork, and ultra-polished adamantine unspun from its wedges, clicked into place, sealed flawlessly.
“Releasing Nimbus! Fire!” she relayed right down to the Moon.
Down below on the station, whole banks of vakker-tubes blew out as the third shot went through. Vented heat through superconductive cables snaked through the rocky mantle for a hundred miles around, veining the moon in angry red as frozen gases exploded into the thin atmosphere from heat they’d never expected.
The beam raved up, computers linked and adjusted, and the perfect resonance of Reflector to incoming energy bounced the beam away as if it were mere light, instead of atom-smashing destruction.
Its arc of fire now definitely included the entire bioship fleet, conveniently drawn closer together, with thicker-hulled defensive ships above covering for the more vulnerable ones below, while the motherships were unleashing hordes of fliers to bedevil the imperial fleet assaulting from on high.
The fractured and reflected beams seemed to spin in a fairly narrow cone, considering the distance. Omega Sanctioned death ripped the long way through the bioship formation, and the ships who had thought themselves safely out of the line of fire were instantly cut to shreds.
Ninety percent of that group was struck by the Omega beam, and even if they didn’t die instantly, they were wounded so severely there was basically little difference.
The Death Moon was silent. If they tried to fire again, the whole station would be drowned in lava from the waste heat, and it would take them hours to replace all the fried circuits, anyways.
But all the expense, time, and position had proved fantastically useful. The Death Moon had basically saved the whole Reserve Fleet, fully justifying the expense and the secrecy that went with it.
With the fleetmind crippled, coordinated clean-up was murderous and relentless. The released light biofighters were unable to coordinate effectively and were picked off by squadrons of starfighters, drones, and point defenses, despite their numbers.
The gravity well was happy to send them plummeting to the Death Moon for removal.
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Captain Tabitha paid attention to all the reports coming in. Four ships had suffered boarding breaches by xenosym spore launchers, and the xenos got to learn about Sun Strikes at both close quarters and long.
Two ships were crippled and barely able to limp out of the gravity well under power. If they went to Jam, they’d probably rip apart. Other ships had suffered hull punctures, internal ruptures, and major power loss in many areas.
Casualty reports were running over twenty percent, although confirmed deaths were just over ten. The psi-healers were on it, and the Ranthas were probably processing a lot of damage as they took on the non-fatal injuries for the crew. If severed limbs were available, they could be re-attached, but Regeneration of even lost limbs was a priority for all Marked crew, it was just it needed a Nine to actually accomplish normally.
Happily, each of these ships came with a Regeneration Matrix, and as long as you could scrounge up people with the 9 PP to power up the Regeneration, it would work. Given that every Psion serving came with a Null Partner, and potential Metaconcerts with willing Null crewmembers was definitely a thing, even major limb regrowth was something that the lower order crew members could now have access to, instead of being forced to take a cyberlimb replacement.
Of course, not everyone was a Null or a Psi, and a cyberlimb wasn’t completely unwelcome for the short term. If they had no real drive to make Seven, it was a perfectly valid choice, and the ability to incorporate some extra surprises into them with the approval of their commanders meant these maimed warriors were quickly going to become much more dangerous than they had been.
The remnants of the First Xenos fleet were fleeing to join up with the Second, which the Janus System Fleet was converging on.
Captain Tabitha of the Widow’s Bite peeled off, heading after the fleeing biovores, slipping into shadowy Jamspeed. Behind her, the battered remnants of the Reserve Fleet cheered their victory into the aether, ragtag elements moving after her, and across the system, the Rantha Protocols updated accordingly.
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The news of the victory of the Reserve Fleet was a shocking welcome to the main Fleet forces in the system, given the fighting going on with the much larger Second Swarm of the Xenos.
Unable to prevent them from advancing, Fleet Admiral Colos had opted to pummel them from the rear and spinward flank, harrying them and maximizing use of his smaller numbers to distract the enemy.
The Rantha Protocols were just annoyances to him. They had been lucky in surprising their enemy, showing unusual forethought, doubtless some psychic fortune-telling that had actually proven useful for once. But Colos was the ranking Admiral of Fleet assets in the system, and they were his to command.
His thoughts moved to the Bared Saber, riding the forward edge of his right flank, and happily and repeatedly diving within range of the Xenos Swarm to land some devastating shots. The Coronal ship’s accuracy and penetrative power was outstanding, and it was severely punishing the lighter bioships. This Captain Tiffany’s initial strike against the bioships had been very impressive, and certainly raised morale across the fleet. He should probably recommend her for a commendation to her superiors.
“Sir, we’re getting multiple warnings of Swarm separation!” one of the Signals officers called out with calm urgency.
“They are finally turning some of their ships to deal with us!” Admiral Colos raised his fist in anticipation of the fight to come. He had at least succeeded in drawing some pressure off the Threshold Stations, which was the best Admiral Ontiff could hope for in this situation.
The Xenos Swarm ahead of them was splitting in two, the forward elements pressing on, while the rear elements turned into one another and prepared to engage the chasing imperials, moving like interlocked fingers that would spread apart into an enveloping net and swallow them all. The bioships prospered in close combat, where they could penetrate the hulls of ships, overwhelm the point defenses, and send thousands of carapaced syms into their vessels, killing the crew from within instead of without.
Their massive tentacles were better than tractor beams for holding a ship tight, and if it came to a grapple, the following boarding effort was sure to wipe a ship’s crew and feed them to the unending hunger of the Xenos, birthing more syms to replace those lost from every dead crewman. Unless another ship could come up within minutes, the recommended procedure was to blow the ship’s core and take the bioship with them in suicide before the crew was eaten alive.