“Teleporting!” the same aide called out.
The various ships all glowed along their repaired runic lines. Spell formations appeared around the ships before they disappeared from their position, reappearing off to the side of the Jukal fleet.
“Flank speed!” Forsyth barked, holding onto the grab bars of his station.
Battleships, destroyers, and missile boats reappeared. As soon as they did, the original spell formations behind their ships surged with power. Blue arcane fire lit up the void as those within the ships grunted against the new pressure as the inertia runes took a second to adjust.
“Portals!” Forsyth called.
Hangars opened across the fleet as portals that had been recharged since their last excursion snapped out to the end of their soul gem umbilicals. The umbilicals themselves started to glow with power, ready to connect to the range portals within the asteroid base.
The range portals were simply a wall of weapons systems facing a portal. As the portal was connected to those floating or attached to the Pandora ships, they would unleash their spells, missiles, and cannon fire.
“Time till intersect?” Forsyth asked. His body felt light once again as the engine’s thrust was negated.
“Three minutes!” the aide from before said.
“Fire control, take over,” Forsyth said, his commands passing down.
The fire controllers worked with their nav, finding the best passage for them to follow and bring them into range of the Jukal.
“Coming into missile range!” another aide called out.
“Jukal are firing!”
“Eject missiles, have them ready. Interceptor modules, through the portals!” Forsyth called.
Portals connected and interceptor modules could be seen on the other side. They were linked through Mirrors of Communication to the sensor spells that were constantly being cast by the ships.
The tiny explosive grand working shells tore through the portals and out into the darkness of the void to meet the Jukal missiles. The barrage was staggered, showing limited fire control.
If they wanted to inundate our defenses with missiles, they would have launched them all at the same time. Forsyth was analyzing them as their engines calmed down. Now they had built up enough speed, they slowed down. Hitting missiles while accelerating so much could cause instability and lead to injuries—injuries Forsyth and the other ships did not want to deal with in the middle of battle.
He checked the plot. The missile tubes were firing constantly. As the missiles were ejected, they did not use their main arcane fire drive; instead, they used the stealthed drives of Air spell formations that were nearly impossible to detect.
They dropped below the fleet and surged above it, the lead missiles slower to allow those coming behind them to gather in increased numbers.
Forsyth looked at the Jukal missiles. They were all coming straight on. Looks like my hunch was right. Forsyth’s face filled with contempt. They only shoot their missiles straight on.
The remaining two minutes seemed to pass in the blink of an eye but also stretch for eternity.
Jukal missiles impacted the Pandora ships’ shields. The Pandora fleet who were coming in on a ninety-degree angle to the Jukal fleet were facing the Jukal fleet’s broadsides, allowing them to bring incredible power to bear.
Light cannons discharged. A few were stopped here and there, but they had adapted to the disrupting spells of the interceptor modules. Mana barriers flared angrily in the light of the light cannons’ force.
“Portal shields,” Forsyth said. A cold calm fell over him as he listened to the information coming in and watched the different screens. To many observers, the information was hard to digest; but to Forsyth, they were the nerves that linked him to the rest of the fleet. With but a glance, he looked over his fleet and was connected to them; with an order, they would react, an extension of his will and might.
Portals that had been grown on the front of the battleships lit up as the battleships rushed forward. A beam of light rushed out of the portal, shaking space itself; waves of energy rippled off the beam of light. The beams stopped a mile in front of the battleships. Spell formations formed as the energy from the beams shot outward; missiles and laser cannons hit the edge of this energy, slowing its progress but not stopping it.
The sheet of energy spread out, connecting to the other sheets of energy and creating a shield formed into the shape of a bubble that faced the Jukal straight on. The massive shield shone with a faint blue light. The Jukal unleashed all they had on the shield. It shook and ripples formed on it, but it held. The Pandora fleet couldn’t shoot at all. Unlike Mana barriers, shields couldn’t be penetrated by those on either side.
Forsyth felt a heat building through his muscles, energy just waiting to be unleashed. He hid his panting as his eyes started to turn red. His eyes shot to a plot that showed a cloud of hundreds of missiles around the edges of the shield, hidden from the Jukal’s sight.
With the items of holding, they could store hundreds of missiles aboard each and every ship, allowing them to saturate the void as they had.
The Jukal were still firing their missiles right into the shields that were being powered by the massive power reserves of the asteroid base.
“Prepare to switch to disrupting spells! Nalheim formation,” Forsyth called. His blood boiled with bloodlust as he continued to look calmly at his screens, forcing down his desire to join the battle to clash with the Jukal face-to-face, instead using that desire to make him look for any way to cause more damage to the Jukal and protect his people.
He wouldn’t let his desires take over and harm his people.
“One minute till intercept!” the aide watching the navigation plots said, not looking up.
“We’ll go at thirty seconds. Inform the fire controllers.” Forsyth seemed serene, a man looking at a tempest of chaos without reservations or worries. His actions and manner only made his people respect him more—their fear, their anxiousness covered over by the focused rage and anger that had been tempered by constant training.
Forsyth looked at them and felt an upwelling of pride in his people. Courage is not facing possible death without fear; it’s taking that fear and turning it into action.
“Thirty seconds!” As the navigation aide’s words fell, the universe seemed to change.
The shield collapsed and the portals that hadn’t been supporting the shield activated simultaneously across the armada.
Spell formations appeared above the ships. From the spell formations, massive Nalheim, thirty meters tall, appeared. They were formed from magical runes that covered their bodies. These giants stood above the Pandora fleet, looking upon the Jukal as if they were deities that could control fate by turning their hand.
The Nalheim were formed into ranks above the Pandora fleet. As one, all of the Nalheim warriors pushed their right foot back, lowering their bodies as they showed their spears. They opened their two mouths in a war cry and stabbed forward. Sound wasn’t transmitted through space, making it all the more terrifying.
As their spears shot forward, they glowed with power. The runes that made up their bodies rotated and glowed with destructive power that rushed down their spears. Their bodies dissipated as all that was left was their spears that shot forward, spell formations appearing in front of the spears.
The Nalheim’s terrifying disruption magic shot through the void, two hundred beams, all of them at least thirty meters wide.
As the beams of disruption struck Jukal missiles, you could see pinpricks of exploded ordinance. Laser cannon fire was ripped apart as if they were made of glass. The disrupting attacks were weakened, but they continued on their path of death. Jukal shields that were at full strength were shaken by the outpouring of power. One ship in the path of three beams was stripped of its shield and its hull started to disintegrate.
As the third beam passed it, the ship shattered, its parts being torn apart by the power unleashed onto it.
&n
bsp; Drones that had been moving around the Jukal carriers were unable to stop the beam, but weakened it before it hit the carriers behind them.
Jukal shields failed across the fleet from the single immense attack.
The missile cloud that had been unleashed for the last three minutes activated the next attack stage and raced ahead of the Pandora fleet; it now lit up the Jukal’s sensor screens, their arcane drives coming online.
The Pandora fleet came alive like some ancient beast. Missile salvos rushed from their tubes, turning them into tridents as missiles rushed to meet up with those that had been released earlier.
Hundreds of missiles appeared around the Jukal, as the Nalheim attack was still savaging the Jukal fleet, giving them no time to react and cutting down the Jukal’s defenses.
Spell formations flared to life as light cut through space. Plasma cannon spells fueled by grand working warheads tore through armor plating and threw their destructive power against the ship’s shields.
Pillars of light and cutting blades of dark corruption savaged ships that lay in their path.
All of this happened in barely ten seconds.
The Pandora fleet’s portals were now under the fire controllers’ orders. Cannon fire shot ahead of them; missiles and spell formations only added to the destruction. Four of the Jukal ships fell before the Pandora fleet reached them.
They were hitting one section of the massive Jukal fleet; as such, there were many ships to the right and left of their heading that were fully functional and able to unleash their attacks.
Missiles and lasers cut at the Pandora fleet in response. The ships on the edges of the Pandora fleet were taking heavy fire. They moved their portals to face them and once again shields appeared to protect them.
However, maneuvering the portals into place took time. Their Mana barriers took heavy damage and their hulls were even holed in places on more than one ship.
“Tell the flanks to teleport as soon as we cross the Jukal fleet,” Forsyth said. His heart ached at losing their firepower, but bringing them into battle, it was likely that they wouldn’t be able to take too many hits before they were knocked out of action.
He was not willing to put their lives at risk for defeating possibly only two or three more Jukal ships.
It was only a few moments later that the other Jukal ships could no longer fire on them for fear of hitting their own people.
Spell formations appeared around the battered ships. In a moment, they had lost eight ships. It was telling to the Jukal’s firepower; without the Mana shields, the Pandora fleet wouldn’t have been able to survive even this long.
As they entered the Jukal fleet, the cannons opened up and the portals were turned. Instead of facing forward, they moved to face the sides.
Six Jukal ships were unable to stop the destruction that descended upon them. They were torn apart and left as wreckage in the Jukal fleet’s path.
Drones came in, unleashing their attacks on the Pandora fleet in wave after wave.
The Mana barriers shook as the Pandora fleet unleashed everything they had, once again overclocking their magical coding.
The Jukal were now the ones who had to deal with their enemies’ broadsides. Only their engines and bows faced them.
The Jukal started to move erratically, trying to bring their weapons to bear. Even as they did, they were washed over by the spells, cannons, and missiles of the Pandora fleet.
Drones’ missiles and light cannons attacked the Pandora fleet in passing where they could bring them to bear.
“Tell the nav of those ships to jump out as soon as their Mana barriers go down!” Forsyth barked as a Pandora fleet ship that had lost its Mana barrier shook as a Jukal missile exploded next to it.
The Pandora missile boat listed off to the side. Its runic lining failed and tried to rebuild itself as it looked like a chunk had been bitten out of its side.
“The Marauder has lost the ability to teleport,” an aide said, talking about the missile boat.
“Get them to use the portal and evacuate. Put the ship on AI only,” Forsyth said without pause.
It was only a few moments later that the Jukal drones that were now crossing through the Pandora fleet moved to the hapless missile boat. The ships around the missile boat tried to help out as much as possible but the missile boat was already weak, its Mana barrier gone and its hull open to the void.
Missile armories of holding were flushed out. Missiles poured out from them as they shot off to fight the drones, but these drones didn’t care about surviving; they were simply computer programs given orders by the Jukal.
Shield orbs were ejected, trying to buy the ship more time as their teleportation runes started to light up.
The drones rushed the spread of missiles and fired upon the missile boat’s new shields. The Mana barrier of the orbs lasted for a few moments but it wasn’t enough time for the teleportation spell formation to activate. The Mana barrier broke and the missile boat shuddered under the attacks as people inside rushed out of their escape portal linked to the asteroid base.
The boat shuddered as a drone smashed into it, making it wheel away, leaving a path of debris and ejected gases, its decks open to space.
Another drone fired right into an opening in the missile boat. One second, it was drifting, still trying to fire out missiles; the next, the space it was in was filled with an explosion.
Forsyth took in a sharp breath and looked away from the screens for a moment. He shook his head, clearing it of the thoughts that rose with the sight of losing hundreds of people.
This was a battle of extermination.
The ships fought back and forth with all they had. More of the Jukal ships fell in battle. The Pandora ships teleported away as soon as they lost their Mana barriers. They were in so close by the time that they left, there were multiple hits on their hulls.
A destroyer lost its Mana barrier because of a roving group of drones; the ship made to teleport when laser cannons smashed into its side, raking the soul gem runic lines.
The teleportation spell formation collapsed into nothing as it continued fighting on.
The Jukal started to focus their fire on it. Dread welled up in Forsyth’s gut just as a Mana shield appeared out of one of the portals, staving off the hits on one side; a portal on the opposite side of the ship also grew into a shield.
Forsyth stopped himself from cheering on whoever put up those shields. A wash of destructive fire ran over the Mana shields. The shield changed its spell formation and turned into a Mana barrier. It wouldn’t last as long as a Mana shield, but it allowed the destroyer to remain in the fight.
The Pandora fleet charged out of the Jukal fleet’s path. Teleportation spells covered the fleet, including the ships that were unable to use them as they disappeared, leaving the Jukal fleet in chaos and reappearing where ships that previously had lost their Mana barriers and taken severe hull damage were waiting.
Already there was an active portal waiting, with the broken ships limping through.
From start to end—from when they had teleported in, to teleporting out—some five or six minutes had gone by. The destruction in those five or six minutes had been enough to leave the most veteran member of the fleet panting in disbelief.
The Pandora ships were all in a state of disrepair. Only four ships had made it through with their hull not taking hits. Their Mana barriers were good, but getting hit in one area would allow some damage to get through even if it didn’t fail.
“All right, you know the drill. Get people sorted out and to medical aid. I want a group ready to move back to the area of battle to recover anyone who was lost into the void. Get the arks out here,” Forsyth said.
People in the command center started to pass on the orders as from the portal’s exit arks started to appear. They would help with the re-arming process and they also had spare items to repair the Pandora ships.
The ships could regrow their soul gem innards and runic lines, but the ar
mor panels would need to be replaced and it was faster with the ark hooked up to their ships to supply them with power to speed up soul gem repairs.
Forsyth felt drained but he started to pull up the information on his people, looking over their status and checking on them. Once that was sorted, he would look at the information on the battle and see what he might learn and use on the Jukal in the future.
We’ve got two days before we need to take the portal to the next system to be ahead of the Jukal, Forsyth thought.
He was asking a lot from his people, but he knew that they were capable of it. If they didn’t win out here, then Emerilia would be threatened, as well as all the people on it.
We need more firepower. We need that portal bastion! Forsyth had been counting down the days until it was supposed to be finished. If everything went according to schedule, it would be ready in five days, just hours before the Pandora fleet should intercept the Jukal once again.
The reports started to come back as stealth buoys that were watching the Jukal fleet recorded their losses.
They had eighty-seven ships that weren’t damaged; twenty-five ships had varying levels of damage. Which meant that they had lost just over forty ships in the two engagements, while the Pandora fleet had lost five ships, including one that had been scrapped for parts.
If they hadn’t had the teleportation spells, then they would have lost four times that number to the fighting as a minimum.
The Jukal might not be coordinated, but their ships were incredibly powerful and their AI was smart enough to fight for them.
***
As the battle raged in the stars between the Pandora fleet and the Jukal invasion fleet, battles were happening throughout the Jukal Empire.
“Forward!” Lox barked. To his words, ranks of dwarven warclans marched forward. All of them wore Devastator armor that made them seem like giants.
Above their heads floated orbs, creating an overhead Mana barrier. Between the barrier and the dwarven lines, there were massive flying beasts. They growled and roared, unleashing magical attacks and physical attacks that shot over the dwarves to hit the Jukal-armored defenses that protected the planetary governor’s estate.
Emerilia Series Box Set 5 Page 50
