Ravens of Eternity

341 The Star Dragon, Pt Sorallus Orbit, Pallan’cha System, Hegemony Conflict Sector DCX-02

High Admiral Therid de Jardin, Commander of the 5th Hegemony Fleet, the Dregha Skeszha himself stood on the bridge of the Grand Carrier ‘Gladius Pax’. Around him were all his officers and technicians, most of whom were tending to their terminals.

Though the pips on their collars displayed their ranks, on all their left sleeves were thin silver bands – most with one, some with two. It was a mark of their rank, and more critically, a mark of their knowledge and expertise.

The Star Dragon had five.

All of the holographic displays around the bridge had numerous warnings and alerts, all of which produced a level of panic on the bridge itself.

The most prominent of the data on the displays was a simple graph. It displayed the number of confirmed Federation warships in the entire sector, plotted over time. And it confirmed that their numbers had indeed doubled in the past cycle.

Worse, more and more reports flooded in and confirmed the systematic razing of townships across multiple planets in the sector itself.

Federation forces struck dozens of systems, hundreds of planets, thousands of townships, and killed millions of people. All at once.

A winded intelligence officer sprinted into the bridge and went right up to Admiral de Jardin, paused to catch his breath, then gave his report.

.....

“Admiral,” he said. “Reconnaissance drones have made landfall on multiple planets currently under assault. We’ve dozens onsite. Permission to connect feed.”

The Star Dragon nodded silently in approval.

The intel officer raised his forearm until it was level with his chest, then slid a finger across a strip across it, which activated his holopad. A number of controls and toggles appeared in the space above his forearm, one of which he made a few gestures with.

And a moment later, all of the holographic screens were replaced with multiple live feeds from townships under assault.

One showed a half dozen Federal Naval frigates looming above a township.

There were people running in various directions, in absolute panic. A few others simply gawked at the ships themselves, having never seen anything like it in their lives.

Then, out of the blue, the frigates fired all their cannons straight down into the township. The ground shook violently as the thunderous shells slammed into the ground, all around. They ripped into buildings and vehicles and people with equal ease, and obliterated everything they struck.

Chunks of titacrete and tungsten hyperpolymers were thrown in every direction, along with pieces of flesh and bone.

In the moment after that initial blast, the shells themselves burst open, and with a devastating spark, sprayed incendiary chemicals in every direction. Everything was coated in a layer of fire in a split second, and immolated absolutely everything all around.

As the ground settled and rumbling ended, the only thing that could be heard were the screams of agony, as well as the licking of countless flames.

Then, the frigates fired again.

This time they blanketed everything they didn’t hit the first time, which destroyed the recon drone, and ended the live feed.

On the feed next to it, Federation marines in heavy power armor marched down the streets of a township, completely unimpeded. Townsfolk ran in the opposite direction to flee the violent invaders, as fast as they could.

Not that the marines seemed to care. Instead, they stopped walking, steadied themselves with wide stances, then unleashed their massive belt-fed miniguns on everyone around them.

They spat out hundreds of thousands of rounds in those few seconds, and completely demolished everything in their path.

Their devastating slugs tore through people with absurd ease, and punched into the titacrete buildings beyond. They began to crumble and fall, even as they took on more and more slugs, as more and more people were turned to unrecognizable chunks of bloody meat.

And on the holoprojection next to that one, Federation mecha squadrons blasted another township with their shoulder-mounted corrosion launchers. Each one lobbed a trio of mortars randomly all over the township, which ruptured and exploded on impact.

Instead of doing massive amounts of kinetic damage, a greyish-green substance was flung in every direction. It coated everything all around the point of impact – buildings and vehicles and clothing and animals and people.

And before they could do anything about it, that same substance began to eat into them.

Swarms of nanites chewed into everything, and separated everything down to their base elements. Everyone was excruciatingly and painfully torn apart as they were literally disintegrated alive.

Over the course of a dozen seconds, entire swaths of the township was reduced to a fine dust composed of every element that created it in the first place. It was like a huge sand pit made with titanium, iron, copper, gold, aluminum, silicon, carbon, calcium, phosphorus, and so on.

Many officers and technicians stood up from their terminals in a mixture of horror and awe and terror and anger at seeing what was happening all around them. The sheer brutality and inhumanity that the Federation was employing sickened them to their stomachs.

So many were being killed, right in front of them, and for seemingly no reason at all.

“Admiral!” cried one of the carrier’s officers. “We can’t just stand around and do nothing! We can’t just let the Federation do... this.”

He was joined by numerous murmurs of agreement all around.

“Just how do you propose we do that?” challenged another officer. “Their numbers have practically doubled in just a few hours – how are we gonna go up against that?”

“Which brings up another question,” added a third officer, “if they’ve got the superior numbers now, why not just hit the fleet head-on?”

“Because they’re goading us into reacting incorrectly,” the admiral finally said. “All this horror that we’re seeing – we have to assume that it’s a psychological tactic, meant to overwhelm us emotionally. They’re doing this in order to increase the chances of us committing a tactical error.

“Maybe to make us pause, maybe to spread us thin. No matter what we do, it’s to their benefit.

“I’m not expecting any of you to overlook what they’re doing. Or even to put it aside. Instead, I want all of us to sharpen ourselves with it. Let’s think this through more calmly.”

The officers grumbled in minor protest, but only for a moment. They easily recognized the truth that sat in the High Admiral’s words. He of all people deeply understood the meaning of loss, and how he sharpened his anger with it.

It was what earned him his fifth band.

“If they’re assuming that we’re angry enough to react,” began an officer, “and split the fleet to assist the people, does that mean that they plan on ambushing us while we’re focused on defending them?”

“Potentially,” answered another. “Or they could be using our absence from the Pallan’cha system to attack our administrative centers on the planet below.”

“Why not both?” asked the admiral. “If I were them, that’s exactly what I’d want to do. Break apart the fleet, shatter it further from there.”

He gestured for his officers to follow, then moved towards the center of the bridge. There, the TacMap rose up slightly from the floor, and descended slightly from the ceiling. Projected in the space between was a holographic star map of the entire sector.

All of the bridge officers circled it as they studied the battlefield all around them.

“I say that we partially fall prey to their trap,” said the Admiral. “We split up the fleet like they want. Except, we don’t go face off against them on the planets below.”

A number of zones in the map separated from each other and were highlighted in different colors – six in total. Near the center of each of those zones were sprawling fleet harbors.

The admiral zoomed in on one of them with deft hand gestures, and displayed the entire station’s immensity to the rest of the officers.

In the very middle of it all were what appeared to be numerous resource depots. Next to them was a massive materials recycler structure, which no doubt kept the depots filled to the brim.

On one side of the sprawling expanse was a massive repair yard – the largest portion of which was a capital ship hangar bay. It had numerous docking arms that extended out from a central platform. Large maintenance arms stretched out from above the platform, so that all maintenance work could be carried out from above.

Nearby were another set of hangar bays, equally as specialized. These were clearly designed for frigates, corvettes, fighters, and mecha. Most had open tops for direct access to the landing pads, and were only sealed atmospherically.

Equally important, there were automated manufactories in the spaces between the hangar bays, where replacement parts were directly printed.

Opposite the repair yard appeared to be dozens of drone-manned armaments stations. Each of those appeared to pull from a series of sizable munitions depots off to the side.

In essence, the entire station was designed to repair and rearm entire fleets.

“We hit them at their repair yards,” continued the admiral. “As far as we’ve found thus far, they have six such stations in the conflict sector, serving very specific zones.”

“Some of our listening stations are reporting that they’re seeing more activity at those repair yards in the past few hours,” added an officer. “Maybe we can catch a few of their fleets off guard and neutralize them at the same time.”

“I’m with this,” said a second officer. “If we shut these bases down, then we’ll cause a massive loss of resources for the Federation forces out here. Eliminating any docked fleets would be a bonus.”

“Of course, this still leaves us vulnerable,” the admiral said soon after. “While we destroy their support positions, our own position here will be greatly exposed.”

The admiral then zoomed the TacMap all the way out, then back in, but specifically to their position in the Pallan’cha system. Specifically at their fleet, which was composed of numerous cruisers, destroyers, and frigates.

And, of course, the massive carrier in the middle of it all.

Just as he had split up the zones in the sector, he also split up the fleet into six. Then he moved them out of view, and left the carrier in the center.

“I say we use the opportunity,” he continued. “I’ll remain here with the carrier, and bait them into attacking. How could the Federation resist, yes? We pull them away from their assault, destroy their repair yards, and if all goes well, potentially regroup and push them out of the sector.”

His officers were all wide-eyed at his idea. All battlefields were awash with risks powerful enough to break an army or lead a victory. But this one seemed to gamble too much for them to truly consider.

“That’s too risky a move, sir,” said an officer. “The carrier doesn’t have the capability to fend off the amount of capital ships the Federation’s fielding. You couldn’t possibly hold them back for very long. They’d... they’d tear you apart!”

The admiral looked at each of his officers through the holographic field, and right into their eyes. His stare was grim.

“Then the fleet had better be sure to wipe out those repair yards quickly,” he replied stoically. “Because if we lose Pallan’cha, we lose the entire sector.”

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