Chapter 30: Chapter Twenty-Five Skirmish

The ship leader studied the sensor readings. In a couple of minutes, they would be making their final jump. The Cathamari were nearly to the system they were heading to. Assuming their jump math was right they would enter the system just outside of the Cathamari fleet’s sensor range. That would give her enough of a margin to spy on them, and figure out what they were up to. Her long-range scanners were able to give her a rough number of how many ships the Cathamari were sending here, but no information on their types. In interstellar warfare most battles were isolated skirmishes with only a few dozen ships to a fleet. It wasn’t even unheard of for the skirmishes to be smaller either. The reason for this was that space was vast. Sure the large empires maintained massive fleets containing thousands of ships, but most battles didn’t involve that many ships. One of the rare exceptions to the rule was when several primary fleets were gathered to defend or assault a core world. Important planetary systems like Kraylus, the Krall homeworld were veritable fortresses, and it would take a full fleet at the minimum to take a world like that. It was not uncommon for a significant number of ships to make such worlds their homeport, so a standing garrison of ships ready to defend these worlds was also the norm. As such it was at such worlds where the normal rule of only a few dozen ships at the most being involved in a battle no longer applies. Instead, you can expect the number of ships involved to number in the hundreds or in some cases thousands.

It is with this in mind, that the number of Cathamari ships she saw approaching the system became odd. It was uninhabited, with no infrastructure or fleet bases of any kind. The system was also of limited strategic value. Yet the Cathamari had sent a force of three hundred and seventeen ships to this system. True she did not know how many were actually warships, but that was a fair number of ships.

Speaking of ships, she had been looking over intelligence reports. The Cathamari had dispatched at least nine large fleets to this sector over the last two years. However, her long-range scans had only been able to account for barely seven thousand ships. That was a smattering of what they had sent to this sector. It begged the question, where are those missing ships? The ship leader did have an idea. Knowing them, those fleets were sent here for war, but with whom was the question. Intelligence knew of no power in this sector that could compete with the Cathamari. Certainly not on the kind of scale needed to wipe out so many ships.

Her helmsman informed her, “Ship leader. We are ready to jump.”

She braced herself, and gave the order. A moment later her world lurched, the screen turned black, but only for an instant before the stars presented themselves again. Then the ship shuddered, a screech sounded, and the alarms wailed.

Her Battle-leader shouted, “SHIELDS!”

The Ship-leader had no need to look at her screens to know what was happening. They were under attack. Worse they had been hit while their shields were down. She cursed, and glanced at a nearby screen, only to feel another curse coming on. Thirteen hull breaches, heavy damage to their main drives, and secondary shield grids. It seemed they were going to be stuck here fighting.

The shields had thankfully come up quickly enough, and now they had some breathing room. Breathing room that her battle-leader was already using to take stock of their situation. As ship leader, it was her job to lead the ship, except during battle. Men had a better head for combat, so it was her Battle-leader’s job to lead during battle. Their system might differ from that of other races, but it was one that worked for them.  

She spared a glance at the sensors. Eight Cathamari battleships were currently bombarding their shields with little effect, along with a several dozen cruisers. The rest of the fleet was outside weapons range. She noted a few of those ships didn’t look like warships, they had enlarge cargo modules, lacked armor, and mounted few guns. That gave her an idea of what they were here for. The system must be of greater value than she thought, they were here to establish a base. Most of the ships were likely here to secure the perimeter around the base. Unfortunately, the Cathamari must have predicted their arrival. They had ships positioned near all of the most likely jump-in points for them. 

The ship-leader glanced at her engineers, and ordered damage control teams dispatched. Her battle-leader was there to take care of the attackers, she was going to make sure they could keep fighting. One time was ordered to inspect the drives, they needed to know how bad they were hit. She wasn’t too worried about the ships outside the hull though. Their shields were vastly superior, and the Cathamari would have a hard time getting through them. At least for the next few hours, a heavy bombardment would eventually bring them down. On the screen she saw several bright orange-red beams ripple from the hull of her ship, the Teketh. The energetic plasma streams, slammed into the hull of a nearby battleship. Her shields flared brightly, even as some of the plasma penetrated the defensive screens to strike the hull. It wasn’t enough to destroy the enemy capital ship, but it certainly did some damage. Those beams were strong enough to destroy lesser ships outright. The focused plasma beams were so powerful in fact that no shield could fully protect a ship from the beam. Not even the renowned Valorian shield generators could produce one, that could fully stop those weapons.

She didn’t focus her gaze on the battle for long though. That was for the men to be worried about, not her. She had more immediate concerns to deal with anyway. A younger engineer was already approaching her data pad in hand, likely a report on the damage from that first strike while their shields were down.

---

The Warlord on his flag ship cursed, his incompentent battlemasters had failed. Still his plan hadn’t failed entirely despite that. The Krall were well known for the strength of their ships. None could match their warships in single combat, but they were not without weaknesses. The first was that every time the Krall made a jump, they left a powerful flare that showed up on any hyperspace scanner. Unfortunately it only showed where they were when they jumped, not where they went. Still it was enough if you were clever to figure out where they were going. The other weakness was not so well known, but it was known to most Cathamari of warlord rank and higher. Krall warships could not use their famed shields while making a jump. It made them vulnerable for a brief period before and after a jump. A weakness he had taken advantage of.

He had noticed them closing, so moments before they were expected to jump, he rushed his ships into an ambush around the likely jump points. The Warlord had even told them where to shoot to hurt them most. They should have destroyed the ship in that first volley, but hobbling them worked almost as well. Unfortunately they had not knocked out the weapons, or main shields. The ship had barely any engine power thanks to the first strike, but it could still strike back. As any hunter could tell you a wounded foe was most dangerous, especially when cornered, and the Krall were most certainly cornered.

At the moment he was planning his next move. He had plenty of ships, but only his cruisers and battleships had a chance of lasting for any length against the firepower commanded by that one cruiser. Thanks to the war with the Humans they had a learned a few things about armor. That war had certainly challenged what they previously thought they knew about armor. Not to mention helped them develop better armor, armor he was now relying on here. His shields could never fully block the output of the Krall ship’s plasma beam cannons, but they could weaken the output. Those shields when combined with heavy armor could protect a ship from those beams. At least as long as the armor held.

Th warlords smiled, his teeth showing in a predatory manner when he noted something. A fluction in their aft shields. He growled, “All ships focus fire on their port aft shield quarter.” He figured it might just do something.

---

She braced herself as the ship shook. The attacking ships had unleashed a heavy payload of torpedoes and plasma cannon fire. Alarms blared, and nearby a warning light hovered about the aft shields, specifically the port aft shield. It turned red, and then she heard something.

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The ship stabilized, and someone shouted, a report about a hull breach. The next report made her curse, “Sir, that last hit completely destroyed the main engines, and the Inversion drive. We are dead in space.”

She turned to an engineer, “Deploy damage control team, and get that shield quadrant back up, now!”

Behind her, she could here he Battle-leader shouting orders to focus fire on any ship attempting to fire on their aft quarter. They were taking too much damage to that section, and she was glad he recognized that.”

Then she remembered something. There were signs that at least one ship not Cathamari was here. The ship-leader turned to the comms, “Send out a short range distress call, all frequencies.”

The woman there nodded. Perhaps understanding what she wanted. Even if the other ship could not understand Krall codes, perhaps it would get their attention. Hopefully they would be able to help them fight of the Cathamari. Glancing at the screens, the sooner they got here the better.”

---

The Warlord felt elated when a warrior informed him they had sent out a distress call. It was short range. They must have hit them harder than he thought. Thankfully there wasn’t anyone in the area that could respond, and this meant he had them. As soon as that pesky shield of theirs failed he would claim the honor of being one of the rare few to have defeated a Krall cruiser in battle. With something like that under his belt maybe he could gather enough support to take on one of the High Warlords, or perhaps even the Grand Warlord himself.

He leaned forward his tail lashing, “Charge the main cannons, and bring us into range. Order all ships to double their fire.”

---

Countryman was monitoring the reports of the evacuation. They hadn’t yet transferred anyone aboard, but progress was moving about as swiftly as could be expected. Naturally a few of the people down there actually wanted to stay, while others were beyond elated to know that they could leave the planet. The news about Earth was not so well received though. It was met with skeptisim and doubt. That was understandable and expected. If they had not seen it for themselves, they might not have believed the events that had taken place. Even the evidence they had was being doubted. It would take time to convince them. Getting them all ready to move was expected to tka e a few days more.

The Horizon on the other hand, work there had gone nicely enough. They hadn’t yet decided what to do with it. The meeting on that was scheduled for tomorrow. In the meantime, they were poring over what they had taken from the ship’s databanks. The Horizon had actually completed a full survey of the system, including detailed analysis on all of the planets. Rigel Kent II was not the only habitable planet in the system. Tolimon III was also habitable, but it was no garden world either. Three more planets, had conditions that made them prime terraforming canidates. The system was also rich in resources, most importantly they had identified several large asteroids that were rich in the minerals they needed. It would be easy to harvest what they needed from those rocks, and process those into things they could use. Things they would need for their research, and maybe even upgrades. At the moment the main focus of their research was the Warp Four project, but they were also researching other projects. Such as weapon upgrades. Everything they were doing had a cost associated with it, even if they had a fair amount of lab space, and a powerful system of computers to aid their research.

Suddenly a female voice informed him, “Sir we are picking up weapons fire on long range sensors.”

He looked towards the source and noted it was Kaori who had been watching the sensor displays with nothing better to do, “Can you tell who is shooting?”

She nodded, “The majority of weapon signitures are Cathamari. The other source is unknown.”

Misaki looked, “We are also receiving a comm burst. The computer can’t decipher it, but its coming in on all frequencies. Its coming from whoever the Cathamari are shooting at. It might be a distress call, but I can’t say for certain that it is.”

He sighed, “Apraise the ground teams of the situation.” he turned to Eri, “Set a course for the battle, Maximum warp. Charge all weapon banks, full power to armor.” Glancing to Misaki he ordered, “Alert Coto, and Umikaze to follow us. We will need to investigate this. The presence of the Cathamari in this system can not be overlooked.”

He left unsaid the obvious. The Cathamari being here would likely force them to cut short their activities in this system. He hoped this wasn’t a prelude to them setting up a permanent base here. In any case, they would likely have to speed up their business in the system, and depart. It was a shame as well, they hadn’t even finished breaching warp four. Well at least the weapons research was proceeding faster, but they hadn’t yet incorporated those upgrades into their ships. They were still working on finalizing the next set of designs. It wasn’t long before all three ships, set off on full tactical alert, red lights flashing to let people know their alert status. Normally those lights would be blue, but during a tactical alert they were red. Although they weren’t going to be arriving at the battle site for a few hours, even pushing the engines into the red it was going to be a few hours, as they couldn’t risk pushing the engines much faster than warp 3.4. That was 46 times the speed of light, but it was not a speed they could maintain for long, and was certainly not a speed they would travel between systems at. For a short intercept like this one though it was the highest speed they could safely attain. They would have to slow once on the intercept however, and allow the engines to cool. Either that or they would have to dump drive plasma the minute they arrived.

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