The Nukaribbu Crusade: First Blood Pt. 2

As if on cue the Nukaribbu returned their fury in kind.  A Titan-class laser lanced out alongside thirteen tachyon-based experimental long-range energy beams, slamming into the coalition fleet in a rolling wave of destruction.  The Dominion trembled under the onslaught, its shields rippling visibly and part of its redundant outer hull seared from existence, klaxons blaring within the vessel and bridge as crew members urgently called damage reports to one another.  Corvettes and Destroyers vanished in balls of fire, and cruisers fell off the fleet’s network with a tide of annihilation.  The Emperor simply glanced at Gilgamesh - whom seemed utterly unphased - and was content.

“Enemy fleet strength decreasing steadily!”

“Battleship ‘Dauntless Valour’ lost!”

“Gidarean forces are breaking formation to engage the Nukaribbu on the lower plane.”

“Leave them be,” the Lord Admiral said simply.  “Gilgamesh, focus fire on the enemy’s dreadnought, designation Sierra-Delta-One.”

“Main and secondary batteries firing,” the Einherjar replied simply, folding his holographic arms with a focused expression.  The faint boom of discharging kinetics and whine of high-powered lasers rippled across the Dominion as the A.I. unleashed its arsenal with positronic targeting matrices, punching through smaller corvettes and frigates to assail the hull of the enemy dreadnought.

“Fleet formations are mingling!  Orbital patterns forming between individual vessels.”

“Avoid drifting close to that ‘Flytrap’-class.  Defer tactical control to ships’ captains and maintain strategic cohesion as best as possible.  Cruiser groups are to support designated Capital-class assignments.  Order all strike craft forwards, and prioritize shield emitters and engine subsystems.”

“Allied vessels are reporting hull breaches!”

“I only want to hear strategic or tactical-critical information, ensign.”

“Y-Yes sir.  Hull integrity holding at ninety-three percent.”

“Caretaker vessels reporting steady successes in the upper-plane!”

“Distribute the Hunter-Killer vessels downwards.  Focus tertiary weapons on the lower plane, and order the Grand Republic’s vessels to descend and provide pincer fire.  Allocate Battlegroup Trium to reinforce the line and focus-fire that Titan!”

“Incoming broadside from the enemy dreadnought!”

“Shields at forty-two percent!  Hull integrity at eighty-six percent, and we have a breach on deck seven!”

“The breach is immaterial,” Gilgamesh assured calmly.  “Blast doors are being sealed, and the space was minimally crewed.  Ship function will not be noticeably impacted.  However, I advise shielding our port side to avoid exacerbation of the... wound.”

The Emperor watched the holo-projected viewscreen in contemplative silence, His mind working at possibilities.  In void combat the speed of a positronic mind offered innumerable advantages, but animal instinct had a way of offering insight that was - arguably - unattainable by those lacking it.  His gut was one asset He had learned to trust in His time as Crown-Prince, and in the invariable truth that if something felt wrong, it most likely was.  If something, then, offered the notion of personal and imminent danger... Well, ignoring such a feeling would be utterly irresponsible.

Such as at that moment.

“Dive us.”  The Emperor commanded in a carrying tone.  “Dive now.  Thirty degrees, full impulse.”

The Dominion’s helm officer did not argue; he dived.  A groan of engines and tortured hull integrity accompanied the motion, and the Titan-class flagship slammed through a fleeing corvette and two frigates, blowing them apart as they crashed against the shielded mass of its pronged bow.  Whether it was prescience, battle awareness, or simply a veteran’s cognition - the move proved to be the right one.

A focused volley of kinetics and beams punched through the space the Dominion had occupied only moments earlier, missing the now-departed flagship and instead having the unexpected side effect of blowing clean into the Nukaribbu’s wounded Supercarrier, which became the new focal point for the exchanged weapons fire.  Like a newborn star the monolith vessel erupted, its shields and hulls obliterated by the mistimed fire of its own allies, and the eager assistance of all three Gidaeren destroyers.  They had seemingly sheltered under two of the larger Mioran vessels which had - from what could be seen of the field - willingly and selflessly surrendered their safety to give the Academy vessels an opportunity for the greater goal, and once given a clear line of sight, had emptied torpedo after torpedo into the underside of the carrier - fracturing its integrity enough to allow the mistimed volley to quite neatly snap it in half along newly created fault lines.

“Your Majesty, that... how?  How did you know?”

The Emperor turned to the captain and shook His head, “I do not understand it myself, Captain.  I simply knew without conceivable doubt that if we dived at that exact moment, not only would be spared critical damage masked by the madness of the fleet action, but we could potentially sink a valuable enemy asset in the progress.  It simply came to me, as if...”  The Emperor stopped, and His expression turned grim.

Heldon.

The Emperor filed away the knowledge for a more opportune time and fell back into observing the raging battle, glancing at the myriad of displays appearing and vanishing on the holo-screen, while ensuring His gene-enhanced mind processed the rapid data screeds flowing around the edges of the faux viewscreen.  The battle, from what He could perceive, was very definitively turning.  All that was required was a single moment, a critical fulcrum event, upon which the entire tide could be turned irrevocably in their favour.

“Lord Admiral!  The Covenant, they... I...!”

The Emperor looked towards the screen’s centre at the same time as the vast majority of the bridge crew when the report came in, His attention focused on the newly appeared block of imagery that showed the Hallowed Battlefleet formed into what could only be described as a spear-drive.  With precognitive piloting that seemed to defy the laws of probability, the Fefings were driving their vessels at full-burn into the enemy fleet’s mass; their helmsman dodging debris and intercepting fire with a near-gestalt level of rippling coordination.

The Emperor did not stand idle as He watched this, and instead raised His voice above the din of called reports and shouted information.  “Order the Caretakers to prosecute the top plane aggressively!  Converge Battlefleet Bahamut into a lance-thrust and testudo the mid-plane.  Focus fire on the enemy’s area command vessels.”  He turned, “Gilgamesh, provide the data.”

On cue, targeting information was relayed across the combined fleet, and the Covenant vessels acted on it like a swarm of coordinated automata, peeling their fleet into two different assault vectors and navigating through the chaos of the battle as if it were little more than a passing inconvenience.  Battleships and Cruisers bled fire and bloomed with white-hot death as even the Fefings’ uncanny precognition failed them, but the main body of the Hallowed flotilla continued unmolested - right into the heart of the enemy fleet.

“Ragnarök array completed primary charge!”

“That is... coincidentally fortuitous timing, how--?”

“It isn’t a coincidence, Lord Admiral.”  The Emperor said with a rare, genuine smile on His features.  “It is precognition.”

“Take aim at the enemy fleet!”  The Captain barked.  “Designated target, enemy Titan.”

“The path of fire is obstructed by enemy vessels, my lord!”

“Good.”  The Captain replied savagely.  “All reserve power to Ragnarök array!  Begin pre-fire sequence.  We shall bring unto them the savage wrath of His Imperial Majesty!”

Gilgamesh lifted his arm again dutifully, the rifle appearing once more as he took aim with a reticle only he could perceive.  There was a smile on the Einherjar’s face, one that The Emperor recognised well: The Artificial Intelligence was enjoying himself.  It was the smile he had before the kill, when he knew he was to strike the deathblow.

“Ready to fire.”  Gilgamesh reported calmly, voice projected through the internal emitters.

“Your Majesty?”

“No, Captain.  This honour is yours.”  The Emperor replied simply.

“Honour, my liege.”  The Captain stood, drawing His sword and pointing it with what some might consider comedic theatricality at what amounted to a metal wall overlaid with a holographic projection.  In truth, and this was a fact the Emperor knew all the present Nova Terrans would understand; the captain had done precisely what he should have.  A battle should start with a blade; and end with a blade.

“Tremble before the terrible might of the Emperor of Nova Terra!”  The Captain cried out with impassioned tones.  “Let the stars weep for envy at His Majesty!  Ragnarök array: FIRE!”

The Emperor smiled as crimson light obliterated the darkness of space, and a Titan died.

“Confirmed fatal hit on enemy Titan!  Enemy cohesion is lost; Nukaribbu vessels are turning at full-burn to depart the combat space.  Multiple vessels are undertaking emergency retreats; their formation is shattering.  It seems tied to the death of the Titan!”

“Like the snuffing out of a guiding light.”  Vaelian commented as the officer gave her report.  “A most interesting prospect, my Emperor.”

“One that bears consideration,” The Emperor agreed simply.  “Yet that must needs be held in mind until this battle is truly concluded, and the theatre is ours.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.  Augur!  Report.”

“Allied fleet strength reduced by thirty-seven percent, my lord.  Of that, we estimate twenty-five percent to be recoverable in the field, and a further six repairable in drydock.  The remaining are lost to the void.”

“Heroes all.”  The Lord Admiral replied, eyes locked on the viewscreen.  “Let the Nukaribbu run.  Order the fleet to reform in a twin-plane formation and prepare to run the ‘Flytrap’ gauntlet.  We will seize that Star Fortress for the Grand Imperium.”  He turned and looked to the Emperor.  “We should expect losses against this facility, my lord.  It will require sacrifice to properly lay claim to this fortress, and I fear it will take yet greater numbers of our operable forces off the field.”

“Fear not, Lord Admiral.”  The Emperor said with cryptic certainty.  “Deliverance is oft found where one last expects it, as the Hierarch might say, and I am true to my nature.”

“Your nature, my Emperor?  What--?”

“Warning!  Warning!  Massive gravity shock detected!  I... I don’t... This is impossible, it’s too big, it’s too big, I can’t--!”

“I protect,” the Emperor said, barely heard under the wail of screaming alarms.  “Always.”

The shock of jump dispersal rocked the system, a monolithic shockwave of temporal force that cause the stellar citadel to rock in its gravitational moorings, rotating it just-slightly more than prior as a new mass asserted itself into space.  Stunned silence filled the bridge of the Dominion, and panicked requests for understanding had started to flood in from across the allied fleet.  Where once only the ‘Flytrap’ and the desperately fleeing Nukaribbu vessels had occupied space, now instead was something more.

A Nova Terran Star Fortress one hundred and eighty kilometres in diameter, bedecked in weapons of all calibers from kinetic artillery, plasma cannons, proton torpedo launchers, disruption beams, ion cannons, legions of point defence, guarded by drone strike craft, and outfitted with monolithic tachyon batteries that were already firing; hovered in position above the Nukaribbu starbase - its arrival accompanied by a fully formed Nova Terran Warfleet.  On the holoscreen of the Dominion, both lit up with sudden red outlines to indicate Nova Terran assets; assailing the ‘Flytrap’ haloed in sickly green.  For the warfleet the designation was recognisable, as was the sheer audacity of its arrival.  BATTLEFLEET ARCADIA the screen read, sending a ripple of relief throughout the assembled crew.
For the station, the reaction was more one of awe as its name appeared: AEGIS.

It was as large and as powerful as the Coeus Star Fortress itself, and yet different: For where Coeus possessed moorings for vessels as much as weaponry, this held neither.  Instead, it had been fitted with gargantuan shielded engines - the very same that now propelled it inexorably closer to the ‘Flytrap’ fortress that tried, and failed, to ingress upon the AEGIS’ shield.  Firepower assailed each fortress in an exchange of unmitigated stellar fury, each bastion withering the other with endless beams, kinetics, and torpedoes that bloomed like newborn stars across the void of space.  Watching the battle was akin to watching the wrathful exchange of two space-borne gods; vying for dominance in a small part of an infinite cosmic nation.

The impacts from the ‘Flytrap’ dissipated like scalded flies against the rippling wave of the AEGIS’ shields, diffused by its force-fields in anti-light distortions that told the truth of its defence: Dark Matter deflectors.  The colossal lance weapons fitted to the AEGIS’ wings fired with oblivion-shattering force, manifesting coruscating waves of near-divine destruction that decimated the projected shields of the ‘Flytrap’ like battering rams shattering a castle’s gates.  Venting atmosphere combined with chemical combustion to give offering to laughing gods of destruction, eviscerating redundant wings of the looming Nukaribbu fortress, and lacerating its unneeded sections like scornfully dismantled detritus.

As the AEGIS drew closer to its bleeding and fire-belching would-be rival, Battlefleet Arcadia parted around the encroaching Star Fortress’ inexorable momentum; clearing its line of fire for what followed: A sudden swarm of massive projectiles ejected across the void to slam against the Nukaribbu Fortress’ hull.

Instead of explosions, the yellow pods stuck there; latched lamprey-like upon the outer shell of the fortress as if to disgorge something.  Minutes later, the guns and weaponry around the area of the projectiles’ impact fell silent methodically, as if suddenly shut down.  Battlefleet Arcadia had ceased its assault on the fortress as of then, and unmolested were sailing past it, intent on cutting off the fleeing Nukaribbu still seeking shelter at their doomed anchor-point.

The Emperor made sure they would find naught but death.

The combined fleet, reformed in the time it took for the AEGIS and Arcadia to make themselves known, pursued the Nukaribbu mercilessly.  No surrender was to be found in amid the increasingly desperate plantifiers; and nor was quarter offered.  They fell between the cross-fire of a magnificent host and their smaller, reinforcing warfleet.  Every last vessel, from corvettes to dreadnoughts, that did not jump out of the system in emergency retreat was culled: Their remains left to drift, unwanted and uncared for save that which was salvaged for analysis, to form a new gargantuan debris field within Theatre Primus.

Upon the bridge of the Dominion the air was celebratory, with Omnicoder Priests chanting eclectically and praising the Machine Spirits at the sight of the AEGIS.  The ‘culprit’ of it all appeared some few moments later, visible in a dedicated block upon the holo-viewscreen.  “Your Imperial Majesty!”  Magos-Enginseer Tink said enthusiastically.  “As you can see, the first combat test of the AEGIS is a fantastic success!  His Machine Spirit thrums with wrath and fury, and our applications of the sacred oils have appeased his mood!  The Angelic Intelligence at his core, the one you call ‘Herakles’, is most pleased with its operation!”

“Your arrival was most timely, Magos-Enginseer.  You and the Cult have outdone yourselves.  Tell me, what are those strange devices you fired at the ‘Flytrap’ fortress?”

“A new innovation!”  The augmented Howler answered gleefully.  “We have modified the drop-pod schematic and greatly increased its Knight-capacity.  With these ‘drill-pods’, we are now able to deliver your holy warriors directly into the bowels of an enemy vessel or station!  Their only limitation is range, which is best kept to a minimum, lest their size mark them as targets for shipboard weaponry.”

“A most useful invention, Magos-Enginseer.  I trust the Jump had no ill effects?”

“None, Your Majesty, though we will need to rest him before the mighty AEGIS’ Machine Spirit can be roused to break the space-time barrier again.  Even with the redundant drive cores, he will require at minimum twice the regular recharge time, lest our haste burn out the jump array with our impetuousness.”

“I defer to your judgement on this, Magos-Enginseer.  I am simply glad to see you arrived safely.”  The Emperor turned to the Lord Admiral.  “Theatre Primus is ours, Lord Admiral.  Send word to the fleet: We will take a single Nova Terran planetary rotation to recover ourselves and assess our damage.  What repairs the AEGIS can provide, shall be provided.”

“And the ‘morrow, my Emperor?”

“On the ‘morrow, Lord Admiral, we take the planet.”  The Emperor said with another rare smile.  “Then, we take the rest after it.”

“By your will, Your Imperial Majesty.”  Said the Lord Admiral, before turning to the bridge.  “The Emperor Protects!”

The response was deafening.

“FOR THE EMPEROR!”