Battle for the Confederacy Pt.IV

To Bell’s left Jenkins pulled at his sweat-stained shirt, trying to create a breeze to cool down as he typed away. He wasn’t the only person suffering from the sweltering heat inside the CIC, even Bell was tempted to strip off her overcoat. She resisted the unseemly urge, she had to project poise and strength to her brave men, who time and time again put their lives in her hands. Of course she still had to replace her tea with a cooling glass of water to prevent herself from passing out.

The central processors were working well above their usual load. With hundreds of thousands of objects to track on the field of battle to prevent one of their ships from running headfirst into the broken remains of a slave freighter, and several enemy fleets to track and predict, it was no wonder that the computer was beginning to overheat. They were heating faster than the cooling systems could account for and if they didn’t get a break soon then they might experience a catastrophic failure.

“Jenkins, could we possibly engage the full fleet brain?” she asked.

“Maybe Sir, we could delegate some of the more monotonous tasks out to the rest of the fleet, but their power and cooling systems are overtaxed as well. We could risk drawing power away from key systems.” He informed her.

Bell bit her lower lip, Beelzebub could not continue on at her current rate, but if her decision to delegate out some of the menial tasks cost the other ships key systems that could mean life or death then she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. What they really needed was a chance to break away from the fight and extend their radiator foils to allow their cooling systems a chance to catch up. But that was much easier said than done, they could barely buy themselves enough time to let their shields recharge.

“Have we finished spoofing the maneuvering commands?” she asked.

“Just about Sir, but I’m afraid we will only get one chance.”

“Then it will have to be our hail mary.”

~~~*~~~

Modius received the insane plan from the CIC aboard Beelzebub, and began to pray to his patron, Torwen, that this insane scheme wouldn’t be the end of him. He knew Bell very well, she had been his mentor when he left Torwen, she was a calm and level headed leader. She wouldn’t propose something like this unless she knew it was absolutely necessary. On paper he could see it working out in their favor. However the Terrans had a little thing called Murphy’s law, it stated that anything that can go wrong will go wrong eventually. A plan with so many different moving parts and variables had a much higher chance of something going wrong.

He trusted Bell, and she wouldn’t play with everyone’s lives on a whim. And if this worked it would be what they needed to turn this battle around. Most of the other shoddy pirate vessels had been eliminated or had fled the battlefield entirely. Some had even turned traitor and tried to join with the Aunviry, Modius and the other Hellworlders took dark pleasure in destroying any who tried to switch sides. Their vertical launch systems had expended their stockpile and more would need to be carted out from the central magazine, which would take time and manpower. And about half of their railguns had been made inoperable, and the number one main mount had been damaged after a bit of debris had shot through their forward shields and smacked right into the massive gun. Fortunately it wasn’t totally destroyed, but it did need some emergency repairs which would require some of his crew to exit the ship to render repairs. Something that was far too dangerous to attempt in the middle of a space battle.

“Prime the guns and load all missile tubes, but cease firing until I give the order. All power to shields and prepare for a hard turn.” He ordered to his bridge. Aibus had received the same orders from Bell and had only been waiting on Modius for confirmation. Modius reached over onto his command console for a ship wide channel “All crew, brace yourselves for hard maneuvering. I repeat, all crew, brace yourselves for hard maneuvering.”

Aibus signaled Astaroth at the front of the formation that they were ready, and Modius watched as the other remaining ships in the second fleet signaled that they were ready for Bell’s hail marry. Without hesitation the Astaroth found a break in the enemy formation off her port bow and charged through it, leading the way for the rest of second fleet to burst through the fray and temporarily exit the battle space and maneuver back towards the first fleet who had done something similar on their side of the fight.

Mobius was pressed back into his seat as the Asmodeus accelerated to full speed, they generally operated at only 2/3 so that they could still perform complex maneuvers. He felt the ship shudder beneath him as liquid hydrogen fuel was added to the thrusters to allow for an even greater rate of acceleration. He counted to 8 before the enemy bombardment began again as the Kruhur and Aunviry ships had finally turned around and had begun to chase down the second fleet. He watched on the central sensor display as enemy destroyers began to slowly catch up to the second fleets head start while the heavier cruisers focused on keeping them within weapons range, obviously they thought that they were trying to meet up with first fleet. They weren’t technically wrong; Bell’s plan did result in them eventually meeting up.

The Asmodeus made some small course adjustments as the fleet formation began to break up as they charged head on to towards first fleet. The enemy continued to accelerate to keep them within their weapon range while the Destroyers tried to head them off. The maneuvering computers made a few final adjustments and lined up their bow with the sleek gray silhouette of the Lucifer, setting themselves up for what seemed like a head on collision. The shadowed shape of the Lucifer grew larger and larger by the second and the Kruhur destroyers that were trying to head off the Asmodeus soon realized that they were about to be scissored in half by the knife-like hulls of the two battlecruisers. They tried to maneuver away only to realize that they were now on a direct collision course with the other Kruhur fleet that had been chasing the first fleet.

Normally the network of navigating computers would have easily corrected this grave mistake, but as soon as the network began transmitting course corrections all the Hellworlders began transmitting their own spoofed directions to the enemy fleet. Some courses called for ships to turn one way, while others called for full acceleration. Within seconds the whole space around the Hellworlders had become chaotic with ships turning every which way. Modius broke his attention away from the spectacular chaos outside to focus on the gray battlecruiser coming his way. He clenched the arms of his chair and gritted his teeth as the two ships passed each other with only half a meter of room to spare.

Had they attempted to do this within an atmospheric environment then wind resistance and the turbulence caused by the two massive ships would have ruined everything. But within the vacuum of space there weren’t any forces like that to ruin their plans. Even still he felt his heart flutter with dread as some wreckage jutting out from where a missile had torn open one of Asmodeus’s desks scraped against the hull of the Lucifer, sending a loud screeching through both vessels. As soon as the two ships passed each other they both turned hard to starboard until they were both now soaring side by side through the chaotic field. All around them Kruhur and Aunviry ships, confused as to which flight plans were the correct one, collided with each other and the new debris generated by other explosions. Asmodeus and all the other Hellworlder ships opened fire into the mayhem around them to add to the panic.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

An enemy cruiser that had been struck by several destroyers had her bank of thrusters significantly damaged, and could no longer properly control her forward motion. She listed in front of the Asmodeus and their ship had to drop her bow by 60° to avoid a head on collision. The ship passed just meters below the Kruhur cruiser and had to tilt a little to the side to avoid smacking her superstructure into the enemy’s keel. The cruiser continued to maneuver around wildly until it crossed the Lucifer’s path, to close for any evasive maneuvers. Instead Lucifer swung all her pulse cannons forward and shot at the center mass of the Kruhur cruiser, as soon as the bright beams of pulse fire hit the ship the Lucifer plowed straight into the ship. For several tense seconds that felt like years to Modius he held his breath until the blunted and significantly warped bow of the Lucifer pierced thought the center of the broken enemy ship. The knife shaped bow pushed the two flaming halves of the broken ship aside disdainfully as she continued to charge forward.

Modius let out a relieved sigh “Crazy bitch” he muttered under his breath. For all the coldness between the Hellworlder mother-daughter pair, Astarte really did take after her mother in terms of boldness.

~~~*~~~

Bell let out a breath as her gambit paid off with little damage to their remaining ships. Lucifer did incur significant damage to her bow, and many scrapes and bumps along the remainder of her hull. But the damage was mostly cosmetic, and didn’t impede her ability to hold herself in a fight. With the exception being her shield breaker cannon embedded in her bow, however they hadn’t had any chance to properly use the experimental weapon and likely wouldn’t need it for the rest of the battle.

The now united Hellworld fleet continued to soar away from the hellscape Bell had created behind them, and extended their folded radiator foils to give their cooling systems a chance to shed some excess heat. Bell watched with intense satisfaction as 41% of the enemy forces had been destroyed by her hail marry, with a further 17% grievously wounded. That was over half of the dwarfing enemy force handled, if they could get a few minutes to continue coiling, then Bell was fully confident that the remainder of this fight would just be mop up operations. Containing and eliminating the remaining enemy.

She watched the holographic display of the enemy fleet as they slowly reoriented and dealt with the devasting blow the Hellworlders had dealt. Her skin prickled up as the room around her rapidly cooled down and wrinkled her nose as clouds of rapidly evaporating sweat rose off her, and her crew. Bell turned and picked up her long-forgotten tea and sipped at the lukewarm brew as the enemy got their shit together and turned in unison to chase down the Hellworlders.

It would be another five or so minutes before the enemy arrived within weapon range, and Bell was content to sit here and wait for them to meet them on their terms. Asmodeus sent word that the wreckage that had been wedged into their number one main mount had been cut away and they were good to return for battle, the rest of the fleet reported similar repairs had been hastily completed.

The enemy were now thirty seconds out, the Hellworlder ships closed their massive radiator foils and turned to meet the enemy refreshed and ready for slaughter. Had the Kruhur been smart then they would have accepted their loss and left with their remaining ships

~~~*~~~

Alice had spared herself a glance away from the fire fight to watch the spectacular explosions happing 10-15 Km out from the station. Their side had pulled off some spectacular maneuvers to lead the two enemy fleets directly into each other, Lucifer had even gotten to plow directly into an enemy ship and snap it in half. She had been lucky to catch the whole thing on her helmet cam, and she knew everyone would love to watch the fireworks from her position when they later reviewed the battle.

The throngs of Egh’ahds had steadily dropped as they were incapable of escaping the kill box, Alice wondered why they hadn’t just turned to run the other way. Surely they weren’t this stupid?

Eventually their was a large gap in between the last Egh’ahd to emerge out of the hatch, she and her crew readied their weapons just in case the Egh’ahds had one last hurrah planned. They were expecting the final Egh’ahds to emerge from that hatch in one final wave of fire, which was why they were stunned when the hatch opened and a white cloth attached to a pipe came out waving back and forth almost tauntingly. They continued to train their guns on the hatch when the pipe was withdrawn and a head emerged, not an Egh’ahd head but a human one.

“Don’t shoot me Ghost” Charity said over the com channel.

“Baker!” she said in surprise as she recognized the decorative face plating of his helmet. “Why the hell didn’t you just use the com to us you were down there.”

“We tried to get your attention, but you weren’t responding we thought maybe something happened to your radio.” He said as Alice helped him out of the hole. She took a chance to peak over his shoulder to see the rest of his team lounging around.

Alice realized a little embarrassingly that she had probably blocked out any other sounds that weren’t directly related to killing Egh’ahds. She had sunken so deeply into her shooting and roaring that she didn’t pay attention to Charity trying to get her attention.

“Uh right, I’ll check on that later. Did you clear the ship already?” she said, not willing to admit that she wasn’t paying attention.

“Sort of, you guys really did all the hard work. Dumb fuckers all ran up here rather than guard the ship from an invading force. The only thing that had us up were the Aunviry aboard the ship.” He said now looking up the ever-expanding field of dead lizard aliens around them.

“How’d you do against them?” she asked.

Unlike the Captain and her team, Charity had been able to bring custom made Aunviry killing weapons. Modified anti-tank cannons with exploding bullets. Since the Aunviry’s tough flesh robbed bullets of their tissue shredding capabilities, and their skin was resistant to normal shrapnel, they had devised bullets that would penetrate their muscles then detonate within them.

“Worked really well, though they make one hell of a mess. Wanna see” he asked excitedly.

Alice looked up and saw the Kruhur fleet had now begun to pursue the Hellworlder fleet again, and their course would take them directly overhead. Alice didn’t want to be here when they passed just in case they took some cannon sized pot shots at them “Yeah, why not.”

She followed Charity through the immense and spacious halls of the Aunviry ship. There where dead Egh’ahds here and there, and the occasional scar left by gun fire, but other than that the ship was impossible ornate. Platinum and black marble as far as she could see, with odd art installations of what must have been Aunviry gods or legends. The sculptures were strangely appealing, and Alice didn’t feel her skin crawl while looking at them.

Charity led them into the massive throne room where several dead Aunviry had created a thin lake of blood on the normally beautiful tiled flooring, and had coated the walls in huge splatters of blood. There wasn’t much left of the Aunviry corpse’s, the most intact one she could see was missing half its chest. Another in the corner was on fire and Alice was glad she was breathing the oxygen within her suit.

“Yeah that one burst into flames after Dodge hit it with a Molotov. It shrieks were horrendous.” Charity said.

Alice nodded absentmindedly as she marched through the lakes of red blood, heading straight for the towering throne. Alice climbed the six steps leading up to the throne that dominated the entire room and used the carved flourishes on the leges( what is this word)to climb up to the seat. She walked to the large white marble backing and pulled out her combat knife and began the hard process of cutting her a symbol into the monstrous throne where Kazlum had ruled over his pirate empire. The other’s followed her lead and picked out a flat section on the chair to immortally carve their name onto the throne of the worst pirate the galaxy had seen.

Isabella had climbed up to Alice and nodded approving at the mark of Astaroth she had carked into the throne. “Captains gonna be very proud when she sees it”

“Hell yeah” Alice agreed

~~~*~~~

Kazlum laughed that awful discordant laugh of his as Alwen stared blankly at the place where Astarte had fallen. She couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing, the invincible pirate captain had been beaten to the other side of the room with a casual swat of Kazlum’s hand. The very same woman who had charged an enemy ship immediately after losing an eye. The same one who had only earlier been taking on Kazlum head on, leaping and dodging like the legendary warriors of myth and legend she had grown up on.

“Some devil” Kazlum chortled derisively as he turned to the rest of them “Now for the rest of you bugs”