by Ivan Kal
But a couple Enforcer missiles with their field generators made it through and exploded against the Construct’s hull, blowing holes, opening compartments to space, destroying weapon turrets. But it was still not enough; even with the constant fire of the Empire’s ships, lasers, particle beams, and explosive shells, the Construct was still operational. Its surface was scarred, battered, and burned, but thousands of weapons were still operational and continued to fire at the Empire’s ships.
The second wave of Sowir missiles smashed through the Second Fleet’s point defense, thousands of missiles striking the dreadnoughts in the lead of the formation, crippling their field defenses and burning their hulls. But the Mark Two dreadnoughts were tough; even before the Empire’s scientists had developed the field technology, they had been juggernauts that could take punishment. Now, with most of the dreadnoughts having no field defenses, the Construct’s energy weapons reached their hulls. But the thick hulls and reflective coatings that all Empire ships possessed allowed them to weather the storm as even as many other ships succumbed to the impossible amount of fire. All the way the Empire’s ships were firing and blowing chunks of the Sowir monstrosity away.
***
Sowir Construct
The Sowir operating their greatest weapon noticed the shift of the enemy’s forces. The enemy fire on their battle station intensified. Their ships started firing waves after waves of missiles; their lasers scorched the station’s hull; their shells smashed at the battle station’s armor. It was not going to be enough, though; the Sowir had spent a long time making sure of that. Eventually, they knew, the enemy would destroy them, but by then the enemy’s impressive fleet would be reduced to a fraction of what it was now.
Chapter Seventeen
Harbinger
Adrian studied the battlefield, seeing the Second Fleet survive the second Sowir missile wave with another eighty-four casualties, with many others damaged. And then the Second Fleet’s missiles pushed through and hit the Construct. Adrian watched the scans of the Construct; its power and gravity signatures barely fluctuated at the havoc that the Second Fleet’s fire inflicted. Adrian quickly thought through hundreds of scenarios; he knew that the heart of the Construct had to be deep inside the moon buried beneath the rocks that were surrounded by armor. Its weapons systems and power plants were most likely compartmentalized, each section working independently. It explained why his forces hadn’t yet hit something that shut down an entire area of weapons. Until now, only weapons that were disabled were too damaged to fire or had been destroyed.
As the Second Fleet continued to move forward, spewing fire at the Sowir Construct, his own force was shooting down the Sowir missiles at an amazing rate, but was expending their new seeker countermeasures fast in order to do so.
Adrian watched carefully as the enemy missiles reached and hit his ships. By now, he too had put his heavier Mark Two dreadnoughts and the heavier Vanguard ships in front, shielding his Furious- and Kraken-class ships. The enemy missiles exploded and his Mark Twos punched through them, and he lost another thirty-eight ships. Others made it through with varying losses in field integrity, with some even losing it completely.
As the storm passed, Adrian focused on a small taskforce, including his Harbinger, which split from the main force and moved towards the Construct. At the front of the formation were Titan and Tiamat, surrounded by twenty drones, shielding the other twenty drones that were flanking Harbinger, which was following close behind.
The Titan and Tiamat fired their lasers and particle beams at the defense platforms in their way, clearing a path to the Construct. Then, as they entered the effective range of their molecular disruption cannons, both ships fired.
Two gray-white bolts of energy left the cannons from the two large ships speeding towards the Sowir Construct, and then impacted against its hull and spread in a spider web pattern around the impact site until their energy was expended. The attack did no outward damage, but Adrian knew that it had done its job. Harbinger positioned so that its front was angled towards the Sowir Construct, as its main weapon was built into the ship.
Glancing at Paul, he gave the order.
“Fire,” he said.
Immediately, Adrian felt the Harbinger shudder. Lights dimmed for just a fraction of a second as the massive rail-gun drew power. And then a boom echoed throughout the ship as the weapon fired.
***
The forward point of the Empire’s warship Harbinger exploded in fire and light as a massive 18600mm caliber explosive shell blasted out of it in a shower of electricity. The thirty-ton ri-steel shell sped towards the Sowir Construct at amazing speeds. In fifteen seconds, it crossed the distance between the Empire’s taskforce and the Construct. Striking its target and bursting through its armor as if it were nothing, it pushed inside the rock below, the force of its impact cracking the crust and tearing it apart. The cracked pieces of the moon shifted, crushing and blowing apart the facilities that the Sowir had built underground. Their massive power plants, ammunition depot, and fuel storage facilities ignited and blew, adding to already massive explosion spreading from the heart of the moon.
***
Harbinger
Adrian felt his lip curl upwards as his fleet’s scanners detected massive fluctuations and explosions coming from inside the Construct. He watched as internal explosions started blowing the Construct from within. And then the Construct started falling apart, its insides blowing outwards.
As he watched the holo and the read the information from his scans, his smile slipped. Time slowed down, his mind going into overdrive; he read the data and then read it again, checking and checking hundreds of times in a span of moments. He was still looking at the holo, at the positions of his ships. He was helpless.
I’ve miscalculated, Adrian thought to himself as time resumed its normal flow. I didn’t account for the amount of fuel; I didn’t account for their ammunition stores, their power plants, and gravity generators. Frantically, he reached for the comms to his left, opening a channel to the Second Fleet even though he knew it was too late.
***
Audacious
The crew of Audacious’s CC cheered as the Harbinger’s main weapon hit the Sowir construct. Its weapons fire died off, and Beth saw multiple explosions appear all over its surface. Then her comms chimed.
“Beth, get away from there now!” Adrian frantically yelled out.
Bethany was about to respond, when she saw what was happening at the Sowir Construct.
Immediately, she opened the comms to her entire fleet.
“All ships turn around immediately. Get as far away from the Construct as possible,” Bethany ordered, even as she realized that her dreadnoughts were too close and wouldn’t have enough time to get away.
The pieces of the moon blew outwards in a storm of fire, the explosions from the Sowir power plants blowing them in all directions. The massive station surrounding the moons disappeared in a fast-expanding rain of fire and debris. The moon and the Construct exploded, the debris field moving in every direction.
Bethany’s dreadnoughts were too slow; they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of the rapidly approaching danger. Her ship was firing at all the closest pieces, hoping to shatter or deflect some of them, but with no success.
Beth watched as her crew desperately tried to get more out of her ship, but the Mark Twos were not built for speed. She realized that she would die, and that there was nothing she could do about it. She recorded a message and sent it off, just as a three-kilometer-wide piece of rock smashed into her ship.
***
Harbinger
The Harbinger turned using its massive auxiliary drives and was speeding away from the oncoming carnage and towards the gas giant, where the rest of the fleet was now heading in order to escape the debris field. Titan and Tiamat were following with the drones, which the command crews used now to ram smaller, faster pieces of debris that threatened to hit the three warships. The Vanguard ships were muc
h faster than the Empire’s other ships, and had little problem with keeping ahead of the danger.
Adrian looked at the holo. Bethany’s dreadnoughts were trying to get away, but he could see that they wouldn’t get far; the old ships were tough, but too slow. He saw ships fire all their weapons, but to no avail. He saw ships turning around and ramming the bigger pieces of the moon, hoping to save their friends, but it didn’t matter.
Adrian forced himself to look at Audacious on the holo, to look as a big chunk of the moon he’d destroyed bore down on Bethany’s ship. He watched as the rock struck the large dreadnought in its side, breaking its spine and then plastering it on its surface, followed by a big, short explosion as the Audacious disappeared. He watched as Bethany died.
Grief threatened to swallow him. Iris appeared in front of him.
“Adrian,” she said in his mind. “Bethany sent you a private message, before she—”
“Not now, Iris, I don’t have the time,” he said, and she looked at him for a moment before disappearing, focusing on guiding the Harbinger’s systems again.
He saw Sora looking at him, angling her head. He knew what she was asking, but he was not the same person he’d been so long ago. He had spent a great part of his life with two empathic animals, and he had learned a lot from them. He didn’t need her help. He pushed his emotions aside and focused on his task.
“FTL comms are back online,” his Communications Handler said somberly.
Adrian looked at the status of his ships. The Vanguard and the Third Fleet had managed to get away with only minor damage; most of their ships had been further away from the Construct when it blew, and Adrian’s Vanguard ships had been fast enough to escape. The Second Fleet, on the other hand, was gutted. Bethany had taken all of their Mark Twos close to the Construct, and all of those ships had been destroyed. Of those further away, only one hundred and eighty managed to escape.
Adrian glanced at the crew, all of whom were studying him. They had all known about him and Bethany. Paul’s look was the hardest to bear; he’d known her personally too.
“Is Watchtower operational?” Adrian asked Paul.
“Yes,” Paul answered.
Adrian stood and turned, icily stating, “Set a course towards the Sowir fleets.” And then he exited the command center. He still had a mission to finish.
***
The force consisting of the combined Third and Vanguard Fleets moved in formation towards the Sowir ships. Behind them was the carnage of the destroyed Sowir Construct. The Sowir were not running away; they knew that they had no chance of escaping, so instead they opened fire. Thousands of missiles launched from their ships, speeding towards the Empire’s fleet. In retaliation, the Empire’s fleet opened fire. Lasers, particle beams, and kinetic shells closed the distance between them, destroying scores of Sowir ships every second. The force of more than a thousand Sowir ships was rapidly shrinking down.
The Vanguard ships led the charge, their lasers cutting ships in half, their particle beams smashing holes through entire ships, their shells pulverizing the Sowir ships’ hulls.
In a short time, the Sowir fleet died, just as the last of their missiles died from the point defense of the Empire’s fleet.
The invading fleet continued forward, hunting down any and all Sowir warships. An unstoppable force that destroyed everything in its way.
Chapter Eighteen
Seven days later - Sowir homeworld
Lurker of the Depths stood with eleven others of his kind in a circle inside the oldest building on their homeworld. The Sowir race didn’t really have a ruler or a ruling body; all of their people were part of the whole. Their ability to communicate mind to mind had resulted in all of them having a singular voice. And their ability to see/hear/sense the Spirit of the Universe allowed them to always feel the collective of their race, even if they couldn’t speak with each other across vast distances. But while they were united, their beliefs and will singular, they were still individuals, and some parts of the voice held more weight than others.
The twelve gathered here were those whose knowledge, experience, and will pulled ahead of the others of their kind. The purpose of their meeting was simple: their entire race was about to end.
The ungifted who were even now dismantling their system had used their superior void travel technology to strike fast and hard before his people could respond. The Sowir Dominion had known that they were coming from the moment they appeared in Sowir border systems, thanks to the FTL communication systems that his people had developed. But it mattered little when their enemy could move faster than they could respond.
At the start of their conflict, the Sowir had decided to sacrifice a lot of territory, keeping the enemy busy in order to reinforce systems that were far away from the front, leaving the border systems to fall and buy them time. Over four cycles after they had taken those systems, the enemy had solidified their hold on the greater part of the former Consortium territory, including the shipbuilding facilities that the Sowir had repurposed for their use.
The loss of those facilities had been a blow to the Sowir, but Lurker of the Depths knew that it mattered little to the war effort. The Empire had even allowed them three full cycles during which they had not tried to push further into the Sowir systems; rather, they had ignored their advantage and only solidified the systems they had taken, which at the time had baffled the Sowir. The Enemy gave them time to rebuild, to fortify their systems.
And then the calm ended. The Enemy attacked their systems, and effortlessly blew through them. The Sowir decided to fall back to the system that had birthed them. Here they had spent hundreds of years building defenses; there they thought to make the Enemy pay. And now, they watched from the depths of their world as the Enemy systematically destroyed every piece of military technology or facilities in their system. Although, strangely, they chose to keep the facilities that had no military use intact.
The twelve of the greatest Sowir were connected through their telepathy, speaking and discussing in moments what would take an ungifted much longer.
“The last of our war vessels have been destroyed. Our cargo and transport vessels have been disabled and left floating in the void. The enemy vessels are moving in orbit around home. Their actions make little sense,” Sand Shard sent.
“I concur. They could have wiped the home clear of life with their weapons,” Shallow Water agreed.
“Ever since our battle station was destroyed, they have been sending surrender requests over all channels we use, in all the languages of the Consortium, even ours. They say that we will be spared, and treated fairly if we do,” Sand Shard added.
“They captured some of our translating equipment early on, along with some of our people. But their requests for surrender are illogical. Why should we stop fighting and let them kill us?” Dark Stream sent.
“The last of the Consortium are a part of their community; they must want to hold a trial before they finish us. Under their laws, the only sentence for our acts is death. We would be spared until then,” Lurker of the Depths sent.
“Idiocy. If they could use the Spirit, they would have no need for those trials,” Last Wave added.
“It is the way of the ungifted,” Lurker of the Depths added.
“We have failed. There is nothing more that we can do. We will die,” Last Wave sent, and all agreed.
***
Harbinger – High orbit over Sowir homeworld
Adrian waited in the Harbinger’s landing bay for the shuttle from the prison ship. Beside him stood Akash, Sora, and Paul.
“You shouldn’t do this. I know that you are hurting, but this insanity will only get you killed,” Paul said for the hundredth time.
“This has nothing to do with Bethany’s death,” Adrian said more harshly than he’d intended. Then, after a beat, he continued calmly. “This was always the plan. It’s why I brought the prisoners here. By now, the Sowir on the planet will be wondering why we haven’t attacked the
planet yet. Why we are still transmitting surrender offers. It does not fit into what they believe about us, and that will make them curious.”
“I still think that you should still take people down with you,” Paul added.
“No,” Adrian said. “They need to see me vulnerable; they need to know that I am in their power if they are to talk with me.”
Paul sulked silently. Adrian knew that his friend worried, that he believed that Bethany’s death was making Adrian careless, reckless. But it wasn’t so; he would end this war because of her. Because he wouldn’t let another die to the lunacy of Sowir beliefs.
The shuttle landed and Adrian entered it alone, leaving Paul and his two wolions behind. Inside, he was met with the pilot and the two soldiers who were guarding the Sowir prisoner—Clear Waters—. Adrian nodded at them, and the three exited the shuttle, the doors closing behind them, leaving him alone with the prisoner. He looked at her, for the first time seeing an unrestrained Sowir.
“I trust that you realize this is your people’s last chance. If they kill me, all of you will die,” Adrian sent to her.
“Yes. The island is the one place where there is a chance that they will meet with you,” Clear Waters responded.
Adrian didn’t respond to her thoughts; instead, he closed the telepathic link and sent out orders through his implant. The shuttle shuddered and took off, piloted remotely from Harbinger. It dropped down to the planet and towards one of the islands. Adrian took the time to look at the feeds from the outside as they dropped through the atmosphere. The vast Ocean covered the surface, its gray and muted water giving the planet a kind of bland look. Eventually he noticed land, a small island that was their destination. The shuttle lowered itself in the middle of the island. Adrian and Clear Waters exited the shuttle and walked a bit away and towards the beach as the shuttle doors closed and it flew away and back to its ship.
