Chapter 32: Chapter Twenty-Six Cathamari Dreadnought

The Ship-leader braced herself as the ship shuddered from another hit. A shout informed her that the port shields were failing. After hours of battle the shields were heavily drained, their main batteries were completely drained, and they were running on fumes. At this very moment, she had a team of engineers trying to coax more power out of the main reactor.

She glanced at the screen and watched the cursed dreadnought firing another volley. It was the largest and most powerful ship the Cathamari had in the system. Likely it was also the flagship, her shields and armor were strong enough to resist the Teketh’s plasma beam weapons, and the cursed ship bristled with heavy plasma weapons. Numerous superheavy concussion plasma cannon mounts, and heavy plasma torpedoes made up the bulk of that ship’s armament. She was built to be a heavy hitter, and it showed.

The ship shuddered again, and she was informed of yet another hull breach. Emergency force fields were holding... for now. They weren’t going to last much longer, and it looks like whoever else was in the system must have ignored their distress call. Otherwise they would have been here by now. They returned fire, and one of the battleships hounding them pulled back.

Her Battle-leader cursed them, and she didn’t blame him. With their engines down, they could not chase down the Cathamari ships. As such they were free to move out of range whenever they took too much damage. Allowing them to recharge their shields, and patch their battle damage without interference. Despite this, they had managed to take down quite a few ships including three of their battleships.

Then suddenly, the retreating battleship exploded. No one shot at it. There was no sign of weapons fire at all. Only a sudden flash, and then boom. Her Battle-leader clearly noticed, and so did everyone else. With renewed vigor, they unleashed another volley of fire on nearby ships. The Ship-leader however turned to the sensor officer, “What happened? Why did that ship explode?”

The younger girl at the console furrowed her brow and tapped the controls. Quickly bringing up the playback, she played it in slower motion with enhanced imagery on the monitor. The Ship-leader watched, as the ship pulled away. Then she noted it was approaching a small disk-shaped object maybe a metras in length. They were perhaps a Metrasi from it, when suddenly the object flashed, and shot towards the battleship. The shields flared, and it passed right through them, and struck the ship amidships penetrating the hull.

She blinked, that was obviously a mine. Space mines were not a weapon she encountered very often, and certainly not something she would expect to find here. It also begged the question? Why were the Cathamari only hitting them now? There was only one answer that made sense to her.

“Scan the area for more mines and run another scan for cloaked ships.”

Her sensor officer’s brow furrowed more, and after a moment it turned into a full frown. She tapped a few more keys, and then changed the scan parameters, “Hmm, weird. I can’t find any mines or cloaked vessels. Give me a moment.”

She played with the sensors for a few more configurations, and then suddenly three new ships, and hundreds of mines appeared on their screens. Although the images were fuzzy. With a triumphant grin, the sensor officer looked up, “They weren’t cloaked at all! The mines and the ships are outfitted with some kind of dispersion plating. Our normal scanning beams were simply being dispersed by their armor. Doesn’t help that their energy signatures are also fairly low. Give me a second to clean up the images.”

The sensor officer tapped a few more keys, and then the images cleared up. She leaned over the shoulder of her officer, even as the ship shook under an impact. Her gaze focused on the big one, it was actually bigger than the Cathamari dreadnought, and it had been completely invisible to their sensors just a moment ago. Not to mention it was well inside her weapons range, and it was almost between her ship, and the dreadnought. The alien vessel was of a design she had never seen before, and it looked heavily armored. Not to mention it bristled with weapon ports.

The other two ships were much smaller, and they were actively deploying mines around the battlefield. It seemed clear they must have arrived minutes before, but none of them had engaged the Cathamari yet. Instead, the aliens had surrounded the entire battlefield in all directions with a thick layer of mines. Why, she wasn’t sure. Suddenly behind her, her Battle-leader interjected, “Interesting. Clearly these aliens, don’t want anyone to escape.”

“Hmm?”

“The only reason to deploy a minefield, around the entire battlefield would be to prevent ships from retreating. They must be quite confident as well, if they plan to engage with only three ships.” Then he pointed at the alien dreadnought, “Anyway, I suspect that ship is about to open fire.”

She frowned, and looked at the images again, “On who?”

“Flagship most likely. With so few ships, it would be the best target. In fact we should probably help them.” He turned to the tactical officer, and shouted new orders. This time refocusing their entire battery of weapons on that one ship.”

Orange red plasma rippled across space to strike the Cathamari dreadnought. Her shields flared a bright red, but some of the plasma got through with little effect. Then the aliens fired. Lightning like energy discharges rippled off the hull of the alien dreadnought. Each one struck the shields of the Cathamari flagship, which flared brightly with each strike. The ship immediately returned fire on the aliens, and every battleship and cruiser firing on the Teketh switched targets to the alien warship. Just moments before a shockwave emanated from the dreadnought, her shields had collapsed for the first time in this battle.

The aliens quickly followed up with a second weapon, two sustained beams of blue energy lept from her hull, and slammed into the side of the Cathamari battleship, raking over the hull of the ship. Her armor however seemed to be holding up even without the shields helping repel attacks. Her sensor officer commented, “Cathamari armor integrity is dropping rapidly. I don’t think it will be able to repel those beams for long.”

She barely noted that, more focused on the fact that the aliens were using a sustained beam weapon. Those were remarkably rare outside of the Imperium, very few powers had access to that kind of weapons technology. It was something that gave them an advantage on the battlefield. Idly she also noted several smaller Cathamari ships, and the civilian ships attempting to flee the battle area. Only to be destroyed when they attempted to cross the minefield, the ships were swarmed by the mines before they could even form a stable warp field. Their shields and hull plating proved to be of little help against the high yield photonic explosives. As they passed through shields easily, and punched through the armor. How those mines were punching through armor, she didn’t know. Not enough data.

She was more focused on the two dreadnoughts duking it out though. The alien dreadnought was also firing more lightning like discharges, and pulsed energy bolts into the Cathamari ship’s hull. The reinforced plating seemed to be taking the barrage, but even she could tell that it was losing integrity. Especially when it buckled in one spot, and a beam punched through as it raked over the hull.

At the same moment, the alien dreadnought was firing on several other ships, with much more effect. A battleship just below her, had lost shields. A massive volley of blue energy bolts were tearing into the ship with violent impunity. Its hull already had more holes in it than the Teketh, and she had lost track of how many hull breaches they had sustained. Quite a few of the bolts were going right through the ship in question. She watched one bolt penetrate right through the upper deck armor, travel through half the ship, through the bridge near the center of the ship, and out the other side. It didn’t even care about the reinforced bulkheads around that part of the ship, or the internal plating. Seconds after that, the ship exploded in a brilliant fireball as her reactors finally lost containment. That explosion was soon followed by another elsewhere as a cruiser went up with equally devastating results.

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Another battleship nearby was simply floating adrift, her beam weapons shifting to a new target. She didn’t even need to scan the wreck to know that battleship was completely vented to space. Its still had some power, but there was no one alive over there to operate the remaining systems. That ship made evident real quick why the other Cathamari had tried to run.

Glancing at her sensor officer, she asked, “Why is the flagship’s armor not failing, while those battleships barely last a second after losing shields?”

“Its plating has been reinforced by structural field generators, and its been polarized. In fact elements of the scheme seem to mimic that of the alien dreadnought, which I might point out is also fighting without shields. Her armor seems to be unaffected by the Cathamari weapons. As for the alien weapons, their main weapons appear to be charged particle cannons. The polarizing field protecting the Cathamari flagship seems to help repel these charged particles, but its already starting to fail.”

That much was obvious, and she could already guess, where all those unaccounted ships disappeared to. It seems the Cathamari had found another enemy in this sector. One that she hoped would prove their friend. Thanks to her own mistake, and damage they had sustained it would be best to avoid hostilities. If anything they needed their help. Their engines were shot, the entire assembly would need to be replaced. The Teketh was in need of a refit at the minimum, but she knew her vessel. It would not be scrapped if they got back to port. The key part being getting back to port, and without engines that was no easy proposition. They needed a tow. Not to mention while they were stuck here there was a chance another Cathamari fleet would come out this way. It would actually be really nice if the aliens could provide them with one.

On screen, she watched as the flagship was attempting, and failing to put distance between herself, and the alien dreadnought. The larger alien warship appeared to be the faster ship, because she was actually closing the distance. As her main guns continued to discharge into the failing plating of the Cathamari warship. The hull was already starting to rupture in fact. While the alien dispersion plating remained fully intact, no signs that it was even being strained by the Cathamari guns.

Her attention turned elsewhere noticing the other two ships, were using their mobility to make hit and run attacks. Clearly they were not relying on their armor, but their speed. The Cathamari were helpless against them as well, unable to close the distance enough to properly fight back. A few of them had ended up wandering into mines trying. Of course during this whole part of the battle the Teketh wasn’t idle either. A number of destroyers had wandered into range of her plasma beam cannons and were presently being shredded with rapid impunity. Their shields and armor proved to be insufficient protection against the powerful beam weapons. A single hit was all it took to leave one crippled, a second invariably finished a destroyer. 

Her attention wandered back to the flagship, her armor had buckled, and her drives had failed. Several blue energy beams raked over her hull, lacerating large sections of the ship. Venting entire compartments to space, cooking systems, and severing power conduits. While lightning-like discharges continued to be fired into the hull. The guns on the flagship had already fallen silent, as she was not shooting back. Instead, it seemed she was helpless to defend herself as she was systematically carved apart by the sustained beams cutting into her hull. Bodies could be seen being blown out to space as well, as new compartments found themselves open to space. In fact emergency forcefield systems did not seem to be engaging, at all either.

She glanced at her sensor officer, who anticipating the question, “Those lightning guns for lack of a better name, seem to be ionic in nature. They have completely disrupted every system on the dreadnought, weapons, shields, sensors, structural integrity, engines, you name it, its offline. Its effectively been disabled.”

In other words, they had already rendered the Cathamari ship helpless, and they were still firing at it. There were other disabled ships in the area that weren’t being fired on, but in every case sensors indicated no life signs aboard. That showed a pattern. While it was not one that sat well with her, it was a pattern she at least understood. These aliens offered no quarter, no mercy. A fact that only became more evident when one of the surviving battleships started launching escape pods. Those pods were immediately targeted and destroyed by one of the smaller vessels. All of them, in rapid succession.

At that moment, she noted her Battleleader no longer giving orders, from behind her he commented, “Brutal isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“War often is. Still for your first battle, you are doing quite well.”

“I am?”

“You are indeed. Anyway, this battle is almost over. I hope you paid attention when the instructors taught you how to negotiate. We are going to need these aliens to remain friendly.”

She nodded, and said, “I know. Just the battle doesn’t look over.”

“Trust me it is. The Cathamari recognize that as well.” he pointed at the screen, “See some of them are already trying to brave the minefield, rather than stay and fight.”

He was right. Quite a few ships had gathered into a group, and were pushing into the field. Guns firing ahead, aiming for the mines. They were small, hard-to-hit targets, but they were scoring hits. The mines however seemed able to take a couple of hits before exploding. As such quite a few were still getting through the flak screen, where they swarmed the ships. The entire group went down one by one over the course of a few minutes. None got through the field. There were simply too many mines, and not enough guns to protect them.

She turned her attention elsewhere and noted that the alien dreadnought had stopped firing on the Cathamari dreadnought. The massive ship was still intact, but predictably there were no longer any life readings on the massive warship, nor did the ship still support an atmosphere. It had been entirely vented to space.  The remaining half of the Cathamari fleet was in total disarray, they had no coordination at all. Vessels were fleeing, afew were working together, but it seemed to have become every ship for itself.

In very short order after the dreadnought went down, the remaining two hundred ships sank. Their crews were annihilated, there were no Cathamari survivors. The aliens had offered no mercy, no quarter. They did not take prisoners, they simply destroyed them with impunity. When the last Cathamari ship went down, the alien dreadnought turned towards the Teketh. Closing to ten thousand Metrasi, and coming to a halt dead afore. Moments later, the comm console lit up, and her communications officer informed her, “We are being hailed, short-range sublight band.”

She gestured to the main viewscreen, and said, “On screen.”

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