Chapter 115: Chapter 115: First Strike (1)

September 24, 2022 (1640 Elysian Calendar)

Otaheit, Mu

Over a week had passed since the Gra Valkan fleet deployed from their capital city of Ragna, with little activity coming from the bases along the Muan border. It was clear to the Muans that by now, the calm before the storm was finally nearing its conclusion, with dark gray clouds and lightning visible on the horizon. It was only a matter of time before the Gra Valkans attacked, and they waited for the inevitable moment with severe trepidation.

The weather itself was like a manifestation of the feelings of the Muan leaders holed up in their War Department meeting rooms. Light drizzle tapped away at the windows, as unending as the ticking of the clock mounted above. Then, lightning flashed, striking rods positioned atop the city’s skyscrapers as the drizzle evolved into a merciless downpour. The storm had finally arrived.

Information had steadily come in the last few days, providing mundane updates on the positions of Gra Valkan forces until a report came in today that the Gra Valkan fleets had finally reached the outskirts of Muan territorial waters. Dozens of small fleets waited, poised to strike at outlying islands, colonies, and small bases scattered around Mu’s coastlines. However, these were an insignificant threat compared to the two grand conquest fleets stationed 80 miles from Mykal, which was a vital trade hub, and Otaheit – Mu’s capital city.

Seeing all the pieces entering in position, the Americans deployed their electronic warfare assets all over the Second Civilized Region, scrambling all communications from the eastern coasts to the shores of Ragna. As fate would have it, this ploy was not enough to stop the tide. Having anticipated such measures, the Gra Valkans preemptively set a time upon which all units would launch their attacks. 

The lull of silence served only to heighten the anxious air within the room. The midday sun positioned at its highest position for the day meaning it was close to lunchtime. Despite this fact, Sinclair didn’t feel hungry at all; he only felt tension from the staring contest between his nation’s defending forces and the Gra Valkan invaders positioned just outside the range of the defending forces’ weapons.

The only thing on his mind was a single question: when would they attack?

Right after he finished asking the question mentally, he received an answer. First, it came from the American liaison, whose attention was suddenly caught by his earpiece. He pressed his hand against his ear as he listened intently, before revealing what he was just told. An expression of seriousness grew on his face as he repeated the information coming from his superiors, “All Gra Valkan naval elements are now proceeding with the invasion. Hostile ground elements are remaining on standby.”

General Seneville received the update calmly. “So it has begun,” he said, careful not to let his fearful emotions surface, much less cloud his judgment. “When will they reach our defensive fleets?”

The American liaison relayed the question to his comrades. He received a prompt reply, which he then conveyed to the Muans. “About an hour,” he said. 

Seneville nodded, “Then our ground forces should also expect combat within an hour.” He turned to a group of communication officers, “Inform all coastal defense units and army units to expect combat in one hour.”

Outside the window, fighters and bombers began taking off from nearby airfields and from the carriers. Wyverns, biplanes, and enigmatic pseudo-jets from the Holy Mirishial Empire alike filled the skies, circling around the ships in a defensive posture. The sight itself was majestic, although not as much as the three Pal Chimerae that hovered above like grand deities watching over their domain. 

These were the secret weapons that their allies had committed to the fight. The massive constructs were finally in the air once more, after having been grounded following the lengthy journey across the Artticus Ocean. Now more than ever, their presence raised the morale of Muans and Mirishials alike.

They emitted a low hum as they hovered in place, their magic engines pulsating hues of bright blue. Vibrant blue lines intersected the outer hulls, contrasting against the golden exteriors of the Pal Chimerae. With the battle about to begin, these lines grew brighter as more magic energy was injected into the various systems. 

The ships themselves adjusted their positions according to data from American surveillance equipment, flashing their broadsides toward the open ocean as they prepared for combat. Across the entire fleet, the ships’ decks filled with men rushing to man turrets and cannons. The Muan and Mirishial warships took the lead, with the more fragile ships-of-the-line and magic ships taking position behind the more advanced steel fortresses. 

Thirty minutes of agonizing tension passed and before long, the American reported another update. “All enemy forces are now on the move!”

Shortly after his announcement, a flurry of alerts came through from domestic channels, with Muan spotter planes and scouts reporting the same thing. 

“So this is it,” Sinclair said with a wary tone. “The fight for our lives.”

——

Gra Valkas Navy First Conquest Fleet

GVS Grade Atlastar

50 miles from Otaheit

After painstaking days of navigating through minefields and then hours waiting at sea, Admiral Caesar was finally able to see the enemy fleet with his own eyes. The sight of hundreds of mixed warships — from antiquated sailing vessels to advanced battleships — was one to behold. The presence of the enemy ships matched well with the information procured by their scouts, who had flown near the enemy without being intercepted. 

Unfortunately, they could scarcely gather data using radar, due to constant jamming that further bewildered the already-perplexed technicians. What few glimpses they managed to grab provided dubious information, particularly the large radar contacts loitering behind the enemy fleet. As it turned out, these large radar contacts weren’t produced by glitches in their equipment. They were massive flying ships, hovering above the enemy fleet. 

“What in the realms are those?” Captain Luxtal gasped, pointing at the alien saucers, whose darkened visage contrasted against the stormy arcus clouds overhead.

Even the generally nonchalant Caesar couldn’t help but express his shock at the sight. Using binoculars, he analyzed these mysterious vessels and commented his thoughts, “At first glance, I would’ve assumed that these are some sort of new American weapon that we have yet to see… However,” he took a closer look at the overall design of the ship, taking note of the golden-blue color scheme and their intricate curves. “The ships themselves must be Mirishial. To think that they were hiding such assets up their sleeves… There’s more to magic than we were initially led to believe.”

“How shall we engage, Admiral?” Caesar’s assistant asked.

Caesar rubbed his chin, slightly enthralled by the prospect of a new challenge, “Hmm, let us first probe these new foes and test their defenses. From the looks of things, they are slow, but heavily defended, like some sort of aerial battleship. Have the Antares-Kaiser units focus their rocket attacks on the closest Saucer, designation Saucer One. Interceptors and bombers are to continue normal operations against hostile aircraft and naval assets. All warships will ignore the saucers for now and focus fire on the Muan and Mirishial capital ships.”

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“Understood,” Caesar’s assistant said. “I will relay the orders now.” He then used a manacomm to communicate the information to the rest of the fleet, using standard Gra Valkan encryption to send the order. 

Caesar looked at the young man performing his duties, wondering if the enemy knew how to intercept and decode encrypted manacomm messages. So far, his hunch played out to be correct and the electronic jamming employed by the Americans seemed to have little effect on manacomm and other magical devices. He just hoped that this gamble to use untested Elysian technology didn’t come back to bite him.

His fleet carried out the order transmitted via manacomm, taking position against the enemy fleet. In just minutes, the battle would begin in earnest. Although the enemy had tactical advantages granted by the technologically superior Americans and unknown tricks hiding up their sleeves, he couldn’t help but feel excited at fighting his first true naval battle of this fantastical world. 

—-

EDI Otaheit Defense Fleet

HMS Cosmo

Admiral Tachyon watched the approaching ships ever-intently. Despite lacking radar and radio, the enemy managed to split their fleet appropriately and coordinate together. His manacomm operators managed to recover traces of magic-based communications from the enemy fleet, which impressed him. He was interested in their ability to adapt, wondering how they would adjust their tactics when he unleashed his fleet’s weapons. Seeing that the enemy fleet was beginning to enter combat range, he ordered Captain Yleyza to attack. “Target missiles on the aircraft carriers in the rear of their formation.”

“Missiles locked!” The missile operator announced.

“Fire!”

Ten Comets fired from the VLS cells located on the Cosmo’s aft, releasing plumes of smoke as they accelerated toward the fleet in the distance. Another Orichalcum-class battleship, the Nova, contributed as well, firing ten more missiles for a total of twenty. They flew faster than any plane in the EDI and Gra Valkan arsenals, but slower than a standard Harpoon missile due to the missile’s excessive weight.

The heavy missiles skimmed the ocean’s surface at speeds slightly faster than an Alpha-3, dashing toward the enemy ships at almost 500 miles per hour. The massive payload and slower speed also meant that there was a higher chance of interception, but the prideful Mirishials wanted to send as big of a message as possible. Soon, the missiles reached the swarm of Gra Valkan interceptors as a hundred planes swooped down upon the Comets in hopes of preventing the destructive weapons from reaching the carriers.

Tachyon shared a tactical link with Pal Chimera Unit 01, captained by an ex-Navy admiral and Ancient Arms Department researcher named Meteos. A live feed from the Pal Chimera’s sensors showed Tachyon a view of the missiles as they approached their targets. Coming from a position in front of and above the missiles themselves, the interceptors strafed the Mirishial weapons. Their accuracy was pathetic, not even managing to graze a single missile in their first run. More planes from behind attempted to do what their predecessors – who were now out of range and unable to come back for another interception – could not. 

Fighters and bombers even joined in with their guns, hoping to take out at least a few of the low-flying missiles before they could reach their fleet’s vanguard, which consisted of battleships and cruisers. One of them happened to land a lucky strike, causing one missile to detonate with a massive blast that took out a few nearby planes that were trying to intercept.

The loss of one missile was devastating, as it meant the survival of an enemy aircraft carrier. Still, there were 19 more chances, and the enemy planes that had already been deployed were too slow to circle around for another intercept. By now, the enemy carriers were hastily launching what planes they had left, trickling in fighters one by one in a vain attempt to shoot down more of the missiles.

The Comets finally reached the range of the fleet’s anti-air defenses. Men along the ships turned their turrets as far down as they could, unleashing a torrent of tracer fire as they showered the bullets with as much firepower as possible. Much to the Gra Valkans’ surprise, the missiles completely ignored the battleships and cruisers as they blitzed past them and soared into the air, exposing them to more fire from the fleet’s destroyers. 

Black clouds spontaneously erupted around the missiles as flak cannons attempted to shoot them down. Meanwhile, streams of bullets from mounted machine guns to dedicated anti-air autocannons created an upward-facing rainstorm of metal. The sheer amount of weapons fire created a beautiful lightshow that outshone the sporadic lightning strikes occurring around the ocean and even threatened to outnumber the raindrops coming from the clouds above. Despite this, manual targeting and poor visibility overall hindered the Gra Valkans’ ability to shoot down these missiles. Only two were shot down, leaving seventeen left.

The remaining seventeen missiles slammed into their targets with heavenly force, their flames reaching the stores of ammunition hidden away inside the carriers. The combined explosive power of the already-mighty Comet-1 missiles and the ammunition in the carriers proved fatal not just to the carrier, but to nearby ships as well. Bright blue flashes temporarily blinded those nearby and generated so much luminosity that even the coastline could see the blasts, despite the visibility-degrading rain.

17 targeted carriers were completely and utterly annihilated, with the explosions from within their hulls expanding outward and turning the metal boxes into massive fragmentation bombs.

The carriers’ hulls were ripped apart by the tremendous power of the explosions, sending shrapnel made of their armor flying toward nearby ships, whose crews were simultaneously crippled by the pressure waves coming from the dying carriers. The destroyer squadrons tasked with defending the carriers from aerial attacks suffered the most due to their proximity, with over 20 destroyers completely sunk and another 30 damaged to the extent of uselessness.

Tachyon felt no pity for the crews that had died in such an unfair fashion. He only smiled at the power of the Holy Mirishial Empire’s newfound power, happy to exact vengeance for the cowardly ambush that sank the Trechton and the Biltenpas. Emboldened by his fleet’s devastating first strike and the Pal Chimerae flying behind him, the opened a manacomm channel on all frequencies. “Men of the Elysian Defense Initiative, you have just witnessed a small glimpse of the power of the Holy Mirishial Empire! We hoped for peace with the Gra Valkans, but they have forced our hand, ignoring offer after offer of friendship! They dared to threaten the stability of the Second Civilized Region and even went so far as to launch cowardly submarine-based ambushes on our fleets, so now, we will teach these mongrels what it truly means to face us in battle! These troglodytes will not lay a single finger on the coasts of Otaheit! All units, commence attack!”

——

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