Chapter 4: Chapter Four Defense Protocol

 

Megumi watched the two fleets fighting in close proximity as she waited for her weapons to regenerate. The Neku had closed to visual range and were attempting to destroy the smaller Erali fleet. Megumi was actually impressed with the Erali commander, her ships had neither the firepower nor defenses to last long against the Neku. However, they were smaller and more nimble, well with the exception of the transports. Of the five transports the Erali had, three of them had already been lost. The other two had been halfway to the jump node when the Neku fleet jumped in, and managed to reach it before the Neku could intercept them. Jump drives, while limited by the Jump Nodes, are faster than hyperspace so they had made a clean getaway. That had been about ten minutes ago, and by now they were likely in another star system on route to a second jump node or Erali outpost. 

As for the rest of the Erali fleet, they had lost two of their patrol frigates, but nothing else. Those frigates had been patrolling an asteroid field near where the Neku jumped in. Too close to the Neku fleet those unfortunate frigates had been forced to engage. Although they did buy a little time for the two lucky transport ships to escape. Along with some time for the Erali commander to reorganize her ships, and put a strategy into effect. Not to mention get a distress call out. Although there was only so long they could last against a dreadnought, eight battleships, thirty cruisers, and their escorts.

The only reason they had lasted as long as they had was due to the fact that the Constellation was disrupting the targeting scanners of both fleets. Megumi knew why, it was a natural effect of some of her defense systems. Systems that were intentionally designed to disrupt targeting scanners. Although her own could easily cut through the interference. They were designed to do that, by engineers that knew exactly how her systems disrupted sensors. The devices were part of her redundant stealth suite. Her cloak was her main method to avoid detection, but even without it most sensor officers would be hard-pressed to get an accurate fix on the Constellation. Thanks to sensor-disrupting devices, and a hull designed to absorb sensor pulses. There were other devices that scattered sensor pulses as well. Special care had also been taken to minimize her power signature, and thereby leave her enemies with very little to track in the event the cloaking shields failed. Although the systems were of only so much help against races with sensor technology that rivaled their own.

Not something she would have to worry about. At least if the intel she mined from her new captain was accurate. It likely was to a degree, but she didn’t know everything. It did paint a picture where a number of the younger races she once knew survived and grew into respectable empires. Although given that all of them had been, to her knowledge, conquered by the Darkations that meant at some point they had been liberated. Megumi already knew how that could be done, but unless a cure for Darkation infestation had been developed the only way to do that would have been to purge the entire adult population of those species. Darkation parasites tended not to infest children, their presence in a child had a detrimental effect on the development of the child. So they avoided that, and allowed the child to grow. It is why the policy of the empire was to send strike forces down to collect young children and then glass an infested planet. The empire already had the young of nearly two million endangered species in stasis, and that number would likely only increase. Although a few of their allies had been known to just glass the planet and not even bother to collect any young. As such some species had gone extinct due to the war.

That brought to mind another goal. To investigate what happened after she went down, and learn the fate of the empire and her enemies. She could likely get some information on that while investigating this new war between the Neku and the Erali. As strange as it was, she suspected that an older race was pulling the strings from the shadows, although not necessarily one of the elders.

She put aside any thoughts of future goals, when her subroutines informed her that the weapon repairs were completed. Just as her sensors picked up one of the cruisers getting hit by a Neku plasma torpedo. The primitive plasma round penetrated the shields and slammed into the armored hull amidships where it burned through and exploded. The force of the hit split the small cruiser in two, and destabilized the main reactor. Megumi determined that they had barely five minutes to stabilize it or it would go critical. She could not help, but she could help the unfortunates in the forward section. She activated a tractor beam, and locked on to the forward section pulling it away from the aft as it drifted on a collision course with her hull. She estimated impact in seven minutes, so it was likely to explode before it slammed into the hull at nearly a tenth the speed of light.

At the same moment, she considered the Neku. She could open fire on several ships now, but she could also demand their surrender. The short range comms were still perfectly functioning. She decided that a demonstration of her firepower would be needed first though. She locked a single beam emitter on the Neku dreadnought. Specifically a Subatomic Disruptor and not a PPB. The Subatomic Disruptor was an anti-hull weapon, one that fired an energy stream which disrupted the subatomic bonds of matter causing it to undergo total nuclear fission. It was the most feared weapon ever devised, but it wasn’t very effective at penetrating shields. Not that it mattered, the Neku vessel’s shields were little more than paper by her standards. The beam would have no problem penetrating. She fired.

A green-orange beam ripped across the void, and punched into the flaring shields of the dreadnought. Over 99% of the energy penetrated the shields, and interacted with the hull. A massive detonation was the result, as the ship went up in a massive fireball. Nothing was left when the explosion cleared, not even dust. The ship had been vaporized, as she expected.

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Random Neku captain’s point of view:

She was feeling a bit frustrated as a ship dived through a breach in the wreck’s ancient hull, and yet another plasma bolt sailed into its hull instead of her target. A different ship wasn’t so lucky. One of the cruisers they had been trying to sink finally took a direct hit. A plasma torpedo slammed into her amidships and penetrated the shields. It burned right through the armor before it detonated with enough force to split the small cruiser in half. The aft section was knocked onto a collision course with the ancient wreck, but the fore section barely got five meters on its new course before a tractor beam caught it. To her shock, it came from the wreck.

A visible blue beam ensnared the crippled cruiser section, and altered its course. Mere seconds later, she watched a bright orange-green beam sail from the ancient wreck. The beam struck the flag of the fleet square in the belly. The shields flared a bright and vibrant florescent blue, and then suddenly her screen lit up with the intensity of a thousand suns. When the light vanished, there was nothing there. Nothing, not even dust. A shocked voice called out, “By the gods! She’s been vaporized!”

Another equally unbelieving voice called out, “N.I.S Spirit of War lost with all hands.”

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She stared at the readings for a good minute. Long enough for the Erali ship she had been firing at to get a good portion of the wreck between her and it. In addition someone gave out an order. They were to put some distance between themselves and the wreck. The new commander of the fleet suspected that they had just crossed into range of an old short range beam weapon. Although one with unbelievable power, and hopefully a long charge time.

A hope that was suddenly dashed, when a second beam ripped out and struck a battleship this time. Just as they got out of visual range of the wreck, again an orange-green beam ripped across space. The shields flared brightly, and then there was a massive flash with the intensity of many suns. That lasted only a brief instant, and when it was gone there was nothing. Not even dust to mark the passing of a mighty warship.

The mood on the ship had changed greatly, as someone announced, “N.I.S Bulwark of Talara lost with all hands.”

There had not even been a warning, no power build-up. No flash of the emitter, the beam just fired, and an instant later the ship was gone. Vaporized as if it had never been. She had never in her life seen a weapon like that. Not even the elder races commanded such power. Who in the eighteen hells had built that ancient monstrosity? What kind of weapon could vaporize a dreadnought and a battleship in short order like that? Especially with their shields up?

She glanced at her sensor officer, and in a quiet voice asked, “What in the eighteen hells are they shooting us with?”

The young man turned from his screen, “I have never seen anything like it. I’m not even sure how it works. As near as I can tell both ships were completely converted into energy in an instant. Both times we picked up massive spikes of alpha, beta , and gamma radiation. At least their deaths were quick.”

She stared at the screen. No kidding were they quick, and she knew at any moment they could follow them into the afterlife. She would not even know it was coming. One moment she and her crew would be alive, the next they would be in the afterlife. Before she could think long on that, or ask for more information. Her comms officer reported, “The derelict just sent out a broadcast to the fleet. It is demanding our immediate surrender, and threatening our destruction.”

A threat she had no doubt that it could fulfill, but given the damage it had sustained in the past she doubted it could chase after them. If they could just get out of range, and make the jump to hyperspace they would be safe. It seemed to be targeting capital ships, so her light cruiser was lower on the targeting priority. That would give her a little more time to escape. Although it would do nothing for the unfortunate crews in the larger ships. She glanced at the starchart displayed at the navigation console. They were five minutes out from the nearest point from which they could safely enter hyperspace. They were too close to a gravity well at the moment, and it would interfere with the hyperdrive. She turned towards the communications console planning on ordering the officer to open a channel to whatever ship was now in command.

When another report reached her ears. “Sir, the N.I.S Eyes of Tumae just exploded.”

“What!!? How did that happen? Did they shoot it?”

“No, sir the wreck hasn’t fired again. I am picking up an expanding debris cloud from the frigates coordinates. Sensors picked up a power spike just moments before it exploded though. I am analyzing the data now.”

Great just what she needed, a mystery explosion to worry about on top of a surrender demand, and the ever present worry that the ship would fire that damn weapon again.

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