Chapter 34: Interlude 5 – The End of Earth (2)
Location: Solar System; VS Saoirse
Looks like Magnus really has everything under control…
Conor and the rest of the bridge crew of the Saoirse watch the front-facing view screen with rapt interest. It shows the battle around the wormholes almost in real-time and with great resolution. The two different approaches in battle are noticeable.
The Utopian forces get blown to pieces in minutes, but reinforcements appear non-stop through the wormhole so that they are always able to hold their tight formation. They throw out countless missiles, laser bolts, and railgun slugs. Most of them get either stopped by magical shields around the defending ships or in the case of the missiles, are straight up blown up by an attack spell way before they are effective.
Still, the numbers are mind-blowing and not everything can be stopped. Stray missiles fly around aimlessly and explode upon contact with anything they touch. Neptune, the nearby planet was already hit by a lot of those missiles and massive plumes of gas are thrown out. The evacuated space stations around the planet have long been blown to pieces.
That’s the first planet lost… It’s not going to hold much longer.
While the Utopian ships won’t stop appearing through the wormhole, one fact becomes clearer and clearer: The Utopians are losing! Despite the enormous firepower they throw out, they still haven’t managed to cause significant damage to the defending ships. The magical shields are still holding strong, even after hours of battle.
That fact has Conor frowning.
That can’t be it… They knew this would happen. What made them so confident to attack?
Suddenly, there is a bright yellow flash, and a projectile goes right through the magical shields of one Cruiser. Seconds later the ship explodes in a giant fireball.
Is that it? They have developed weapons that can punch through our shields? But they are still losing ships every minute… What a waste of life.
The process repeats a few times and Earth’s forces are starting to fall back a bit. Utopia is gaining ground!
What is Magnus doing? Why isn’t he stopping them?
Just when Conor is about to call Magnus, a big ship disappears in a purple flash, just to reappear above the two fleets. Blazing red lines appear above Utopia’s fleet in the dozens. Seconds later, they descend and cut a tenth of the enemy’s fleet in half. The yellow projectiles stop for now.
Conor lets out a sigh of relief. “Took him long enough. Let’s hope he has more of those attacks left before he runs out of power.”
Sam grabs his hand. “Even if not, there’s still us in the backline.” Conor smiles in agreement.
An urgent call has his gaze snap back to the front. “Captain, Mr. Valterion, we have incoming!”
His wife rushes to her console, Conor isn’t far behind. What he is seeing has him dumbfounded.
So that’s their hidden Ace!
“That wormhole wasn’t here before!” Sam calls out. “Did they secretly advance a Space Mage to Senior rank? How could they hide this from us?”
Conor has no answer for that. Once Space Mages reach Senior rank, hidden sensors detect their magical power, and they are evacuated out of Utopia to prevent exactly what’s happening right now. The Utopian government even signed a treaty a while back to legitimize that process. The alternative would have been Utopia’s complete annihilation as no neighboring nation would have accepted the possibility of the Utopians moving through space unrestricted. No one wanted a total war back then, hence the treaty was signed.
Conor isn’t sure if this was the right decision… Unfortunately, that was decided before his time. He would rather like to evacuate everyone and leave those Mage-hating bastards alone in their systems.
While he is processing the fact that they somehow advanced a Mage to at least Senior rank and secretly placed a wormhole in the Solar System, ships start appearing and advance toward Saturn.
Magnus and the main part of the fleet are still fighting around the original wormholes near Neptune. Currently, Saturn is on the other side of the Sun so there aren’t so many defending ships.
That’s our cue. We have to jump there, otherwise, they are going to catch us from behind with our pants down.
“Are you ready, Sam?” He asks his wife and starts gathering his power. The Saoirse is a big ship and even with his power, it takes a while till he can jump with her.
Sam nods and calls out to an officer to announce a combat jump in two minutes. The officer’s voice rings through the overhead speakers. “All crew, prepare for engagement! Combat jump in less than two minutes!”
During those two minutes, the communications officer made a magical call with his counterpart on Magnus’s flagship to announce their engagement with the enemy’s sneak attack. He calls out their confirmation to Sam and she gives a thumbs-up to Conor, indicating that the Saoirse is ready.
Conor gathers the last of the required power, then counts down from ten. At the end of the countdown, he triggers the spell and the massive starship vanishes from Earth’s orbit. A second later it reappears a good distance before the Utopian fleet near Saturn. Their number grew considerably, and Conor and the crew are now facing almost fifty ships of various sizes. Additionally, the wormhole is spilling new ships every minute.
Upon appearing, Sam immediately shows why she is the best for the command role on the Saoirse. “Shields up, I want a triple layer yesterday. Ms. Jordan scan for weak points. Conor, you’re on shield duty once you’ve recovered.” She takes a deep breath after shouting the first line of commands. “Mr. Wylder, fire up our guns, no limit on battery power, we need to get the first salvo out ASAP.” She turns to her second in command. “Svenja, make sure the crew starts refilling the magic batteries immediately, then take command of our A&D Mages on attack duty.”
Her orders are confirmed across the board and most of them are effective immediately. The shimmering translucent layer of the Saoirse’s gravity shield flickers in place and is soon joined by Conor’s light blue one-way magical shield. Other A&D Mages reinforce the shielding around the hull of the ship, then the last layer of shielding comes alive: good old and trusted electromagnetic shields.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
At the same time, the first sensor readings appear on Ms. Jordan’s console and are mirrored at the top right corner of Sam’s bigger screen. The enemy only uses magnetic shields. Sam sends the results over to Conor, who looks at the readings and grins.
Good, only magnetic shields. That makes things easier.
He calls out to Mr. Wylder, not caring for formalities at the moment. “Dave, we’re lucky, only magnetic shields. Give me a second before firing, I can make your first salvo very effective.”
A&D Mage Dave Wylder nods, knowing exactly what Conor is planning. They came up with that idea a few weeks back while preparing for the war.
Okay, here we go.
“Sam, can you take over for me for a moment?”
“Sure,” her power flares, and another shield appears around the Saoirse. “Give 'em hell, honey!”
He cancels his shield spell and starts to form small portals around the Saoirse’s guns. Meanwhile, the other A&D Mages aboard throw out their own attacking spells. But for now, they harmlessly hit the enemy’s shields or obliterate their missiles. The distance between them is still too great for stronger magical attacks or other weapons of the enemy.
When Conor finishes the portals around the guns, he has to act fast. He creates another set of portals inside the enemy’s shields – magnetic shielding doesn’t block Space Magic – and then mentions for Mr. Wylder to fire. He only manages to hold six portals active at a time, but the effect is devastating. The Saoirse’s guns – works of art, created by Armortec SE – fire their magically enhanced ammunition straight into Conor’s portals. Those act as miniature wormholes and immediately deliver the shots to the six enemy ships. They are caught with their pants down with shots appearing inside their shields and explode soon after.
Conor and Mr. Wylder are able to repeat the process one more time and obliterate another half dozen ships. Unfortunately, it didn’t do anything against the enemy’s numbers, as the wormhole is still spilling new ships non-stop.
We have to destroy that wormhole, otherwise, they slowly overwhelm us with their numbers…
Conor’s thoughts are interrupted when the ships enter normal weapons range, and the battle begins in earnest. Railguns and lasers emerge from Utopia’s fleet and impact the Saoirse’s shields seconds later. They are holding steady, for now. Conor, who has exhausted his magic quite heavily, takes back over shield duty from his wife and she cracks her knuckles.
Now it’s her turn. They are going to wish to have never left Utopia.
Conor flashes a grin. Power starts building inside his wife’s body, then dozens of orange energy balls blink into existence before the Saoirse, then they move forward at high speed. Where they impact, shields are overloaded and disappear. The following balls crash into the defenseless ships and blow huge junks out of their hulls. Those are the lucky ones, others immediately explode.
Suddenly, Ms. Jordan calls out. “Captain, we’ve got energy spikes. The energy signature matches the shield-piercing projectiles!”
Sam immediately stops attacking, throws up another shield, and calls out evasive maneuvers. The Saoirse moves to the side. The gravity generators strain with the sudden movement. Yellow flashes indicate the shield-piercing projectiles and seconds later they are on their way. The dodge was effective and most of them miss the Saoirse. But still, a few of them hit their shields. Conor grits his teeth when his barrier is broken. Sam doesn’t fare better and lets out a pained groan too.
At least their shields were partly effective. The projectiles lost a lot of speed while piercing both of their powerful shields. They still went all the way through and punched holes in the armor plating of the ship, but that was it. The Saoirse didn’t get damaged further and repair bots are already dispatched.
Fuck, those things are dangerous! We can’t be hit again.
Sam has the same thoughts, and her expression turns grim. “We need to play this tactical now… Conor, can you get us inside Saturn’s rings?”
Conor nods. “Yeah, I’m on it.”
She flashes a grin, then plans the next steps with the crew. Meanwhile, attacks fly back and forth, and the Saoirse shakes more often than Conor likes. He gathers his power and after an agonizingly long minute, they jump right into the rings of Saturn.
The floating rocks offer natural protection against the enemy's projectiles, as they fly in a straight line. Conor sighs in relief. That’s a problem that magic doesn’t have. He joins his wife in throwing out attacks and slowly, but steadily they start to decimate Utopia’s numbers.
Unfortunately, the enemy isn’t idle, and huge junks of the loose stones that make out the rings get blown to pieces. Conor grunts in frustration.
Not only did we lose Neptune, but now we are also losing Saturn’s rings…
“Sam, we have to destroy the wormhole, otherwise they won’t stop.”
“You’re right, can you take over command? I’ve got just the spell, but it takes a while to set up.”
Conor agrees and his wife sits down and concentrates. The Saoirse and her crew meanwhile continue with their destructive work and keep on blowing the other ships up. Their cover gets thinner and thinner and finally, after almost 10 minutes Sam opens her eyes and grins. “Ready!”
Power spills out of her body and gathers before the Saoirse. Everyone’s eyes besides Conor’s go wide, the unleashed power is enormous, something most Mages can only dream of. The magic condenses into a thick green beam and flashes forward. It disintegrates everything it touches and continues onward. A swath of destruction is forged through the enemy’s fleet. The beam continues straight through the wormhole and a flick of Sam’s wrist moves the beam upwards. The ring of the wormhole is cut in two and the wormhole collapses.
Sam’s knees give out in exhaustion and Conor catches her with a smirk on his face.
That spell always reminds me of that moon-sized space station with the planet-killing laser.
Everyone cheers and as Utopia is now cut off from reinforcements, they quickly take care of the remaining fleet. Then it’s done. Their first victory against Utopia. They successfully repelled the sneak attack!
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Location: Solar System; Orbit of Earth; System Defense Station
After weeks of almost constant fighting, the conclusion of the war is nearing. Utopia is slowly but surely losing, and they start a fighting retreat. While they caused a lot of destruction throughout the Solar System with numerous new wormholes and resulting sneak attacks, they didn’t come close to Earth itself.
Currently, everyone besides Magnus, who is still fighting out at the original wormholes, is sitting around the table in the same meeting room, they met in weeks earlier. Between them, floating above the table is the magical projection of a gigantic ship.
It appeared a day ago between the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter. Right after Utopia started their retreat. The ship exudes such a high gravitational force that no one can get close to it and long-range scans show that something is slowly powering up.
Li-Ming is the first to speak. “Any progress in finding out what it does?”
Ferdinand, who has long since returned successfully from his trip to check out the wormholes, nods with a grim expression. “Yeah, and it’s not good… It’s a weapon capable of extinguishing life in the whole Solar System. Once it’s fully charged, it’ll explode and release deadly radiation throughout the whole system. Our scientists guess it’ll make the Solar System uninhabitable for about 20,000 years. They call it the Worldender Ship. A fitting name…” He shakes his head.
The room falls silent, everyone trying to process the news. Maria asks with a shaky voice. “How long do we have? And can we stop it?”
Ferdinand shakes his head. “Unfortunately not… Not even Conor can get near it. The gravity is too strong, and every attack spell fizzles out. I guess it’s the same technology that managed to bypass our shields. Some anti-magic tech. We haven’t found out yet. As for how long? We have one year!”
A year? Fuck!
Everyone wears the same expression. Li-Ming clears her throat. “Is there an alternative besides evacuating? Maybe something in your labs?”
Conor and Maria shake their heads, while Ferdinand frowns. “I might have something. One of my engineers is trying to transfer her consciousness into a robotic body, practically turning herself into an AI. But it’s still early in development and I don’t think it’ll be ready within one year.”
Li-Ming nods. “So, evacuation it is. Let’s start.”
Over the course of the next few weeks, Project Exodus is born and immediately executed.
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Location: Solar System; Earth; Chicago; Valterion planetary headquarters
Conor asks himself again if keeping quiet is the right course of action. Project Exodus was a success, and he is now one of the last humans left in the Solar System.
I had to keep it to myself. If news of a possible weak point had gotten out, Project Exodus would have failed and I’m not even sure if there really is a weakness.
He glances at his tablet. The VS Stargazer has reached her position and is now anchored and cloaked.
Time to record the message for future generations, then I can leave too. Let’s hope the Magicon Empire will be a success.