The Dromon Class planetoid dreadnaught, easily proved themselves to be the largest, toughest ships in the war. They had no equal. Battered and damaged repeatedly, but they continued to fight on.
None of them had ever been destroyed or had known defeat.
Naero shot to her her feet from her command chair, shook both fists at the enemy, and cried out to Hippolyta’s sisters over their links.
“That’s it. Fight you amazons! In for the Alliance. For the Omaria and all our dead!
HEW THEM DOWN AND SCATTER THEIR ASHES IN THE FLAMING MAELSTROM OF OUR WAKE!
A great cheer split the links, as the crews of the Alliance roared in echoing response.
Aunt Sleak formed the various cruisers into diamond wedge wings on either side of the massed battleships. Then the destroyers next on the outer flanks, where their speed and great maneuverability would be key, in multi-ring formations on either side.
The Carriers brought up and protected the rear this time, their waves of starfighters ready to swarm, waiting for the fixers to do their work, and clear the attack vectors for them.
The Alliance fleets rode head-on into the fury of battle–straight into the teeth of waves of enemy fire, on wings of flame.
Haisha! By the Powers, it was a stirring sight.
The Alliance lost eight ships in the initial sortie, three destroyed outright.
Triax lost forty vessels–sixteen of them dust or reduced to burning wreckage.
Enemy vessels continued to flee in terror, whether they defected or merely voided the field.
Unfortunately, more than enough Triaxian zealots still remained to continue the bloody fight.
Triax attempted an envelopment strategy. They still had the raw numbers.
Admiral Sleak re-directed the Alliance fleets on their secure link, including Strike Fleets Six and Fifteen.
“Captains Maeris and Wilde, Bravo-Hotel-2 helix assault formation. Ribbon sweep through their port side on these vectors. Continue to concentrate all fire on their battleships and dreadnaughts. Take down their shields and maximize all damage. Leave their carriers to the smaller ships or let them retreat to the rear.”
“When we come about, we’ll be exposed, completely wide open to their many reserves,” Naero noted. “You know they’ll hit us hard.”
“Planning on it. Our reserves and fighter elements will cut them off. Got your backsides, but I do need to use them as bait for a time, so make sure you wiggle. Next, figure-eight back through their starboard side. Same objective. Take down shields, eliminate as many primary warships as you can. Once you reduce their bigs enough, we can–”
“–split off and go on the hunt. So many of their ships are jumping. Do we know how many are actually defecting?”
“No clue. We’ll sort it out later. Just glad to see them go for now. Plenty of foes left to fight. Now ride!”
“N, watch our two-sixty, X-Y-Z!” Captain Rebecca Wilde called out.
“I see them, Becca. On it.”
Five enemy fleets, clockwise galaxy tight formation. Designed to concentrate all of their firepower in a small, intense area.
“Okay, they’re trying to break us, Becca. Not happening. Mohawk. Panther. Swordbreaker. Strongheart. Form your Alpha-Tango attack lines on splitting and punishment vectors.
“Take these heavy cruisers and destroyers, spin out and bring these fighter elements along with support to hold the attackers off. Bottle them up and delay them. Admiral Sleak is sending two fleets in to join you. Just hold them for a few minutes.
“Copy that, sir.”
Two minutes could be a long time in a hot fight.
“I know things will get rugged. When we figure-eight and ribbon back, the amazons will link back up and take them on their right from above on their one-fifty-seven arc. Once we break them, you can form up with us once more, or retreat to the rear–if you need to do so.”
“Don’t worry about us, sir. We’ll do our best. Give the girls their head. Mohawk out.”
Naero trusted her people–even at the toughest times like these.
Over one hundred ships from the two combined strike fleets spiraled off in precise, complex formations at full attack speed, screaming into the enemy, cutting off their advance.
Aunt Sleak sent in the two support fleets behind them.
Complications led to Naero and Becca taking almost twice as long to execute their actions, and pause to help three other Alliance fleets that had gotten cut off and trapped.
They blasted their comrades free with raking fire.
By the time they got back to Naero’s people, those battered units were still holding the enemy in place, but just barely.
Half of Naero’s warships on either side were gone or in flames. Yet the remaining forces stayed steadfast, exchanging close-up duels and broadsides with the still larger enemy force.
“Sorry we’re late, Mohawk. Mohawk?”
“This is Swordbreaker, sir. Mohawk is in flames and losing power. She’s being towed to the fixer clouds. Glad to see you and the gals. We could use some help here.”
“We’re coming in white-hot and ready to fire. Have all your ships scatter out from your positions away from our incoming attack vectors. Coordinate on these marks.”
Naero led her and Becca’s sortie, looped down and unleashed their tsunami of firepower.
At the last instant, Naero’s battered holding forces and the remains of the other supporting two fleets peeled away and out of the fight at top escape velocity.
Combined fire lashed the Triaxians, adjusted to the one thirty nine arc, like burning whips of destruction shooting out from twin, vengeful stars.
Then Naero and Becca executed a flawless, counter-clockwise swing along the edge of the shattered enemy wheel.
Ships groaned. They pulled some heavy stress forces. A few smaller vessels lost power and fell back, or got damaged by sporadic fire.
But the majority of Strike Fleets Six and Fifteen kept their rapid firing big guns trained on the five enemy fleets.
Most of these foes had their shields negated by now.
Naero and Becca completed one full circle, and five entire enemy fleets burned and exploded.
“Break off and leave them to the sharks,” Naero commanded. “All ships and crews, good work. Now let’s tear the enemy right a new ass, just like the left. Follow me in and form up, mirror configuration. These vectors, on these marks. Let’s burn right through them!”
Becca laughed openly. “Lot’s of them running every minute, N. We’re close to breaking them.”
“Close isn’t good enough. Attack, Becca. Obliterate their entire starboard flank!”
“Wahoo! Light these fuckers up!”
The final battle for Helapine-3 lasted almost an hour longer.
Just when Naero thought they could stand down and assess their losses and damage, Admiral Joshua put in an emergency call from the battle for Kysarra-5, in the next system over.
The fight there had bogged down into a messy stalemate.
Even worse, many of the enemy ships that fled Helapine-3, jumped in on the Alliance forces at Kysarra-5, tipping the scales in favor of Triax.
Seventy percent of the Alliance fleets there were now cut off and in danger of being completely wiped out.
“All available ships, this is an emergency,” Admiral Maeris announced. “Proceed immediately to support our other fleets at Kysarra-5. They’re outnumbered, trapped, and taking a pounding. Jump in on these vectors in multiple attack wings.”
“All ships on our link,” Naero relayed. “If you are sixty-percent combat ready or better, form up and jump with me. Any others, proceed through the fixer clouds and follow on, as able. Our brothers and sisters need us. We cannot let them down!”
25
Haisha! Two major battles, in the course of a single, standard day.
Strike Fleet Fifteen was too beaten up and had to stay back.
When Naero and her forces jumped in on the edge of the Kysarra-5 ba
ttle–several minutes later–at first look at the scans, things could not be much worse.
The fight had degenerated into the equivalent of a street brawl in a vast muddy pit.
Triax had the Alliance forces almost fully contained and hemmed in close with sheer, superior numbers.
The Alliance forces could barely move and maneuver.
Ships rammed each other repeatedly, and fired directly into one another, negating most shields.
That was the basic, dire situation she jumped into.
Triax also had ships free of the mix and who still joined in fresh. They wheeled and spun around, sniping from above and below. Yet because of the nature of the enemy trap itself, the enemy strikers often hit their own ships as well when they tried to attack.
Either way, the Alliance forces were in a very bad way, bottled up as they were by an envelopment strategy that constricted tighter and tighter around them. The trap was similar to a long metal mesh rat trap, tapered at both ends, and bulging in the center.
But the tightly packed enemy formations instantly told Naero what they needed to do.
“All ships, concentrate precise, destroying fire on the tapered end of the enemy rear positions. They won’t be able to hold out for long against that. Once the breach is made, our trapped friends can escape to regroup. Ignore the other ships. Let our fighters keep them busy.”
They maneuvered into position.
Nine of the amazons cut loose first, breaking up the packed group of ships and destroying many outright with their combined firepower.
The first Alliance ships saw daylight and shot through to escape the trap.
“Form concentric rings in convex pattern Charlie-Kilo-Romeo-8. We’ll rake the rat trap rapidly along its full length. They’ll have to break off and regroup–if they don’t want to be destroyed.”
Admiral Nathan Joshua cut in, just as the enemy trap began to break up, as planned.
“Alliance forces. Do not allow the enemy to regroup. Repeat, stay on them as they scatter. Expand your rings and then hunt them down. Keep the pressure on. All reserves join in. Any ship that can still fight, let’s break them, now!”
Despite being beaten up after hours of constant ship-to-ship combat, the battered Alliance captains did as they were commanded.
Even as the enemy tried to peel away and regroup, the Alliance fleets would not let them.
The plan worked for the most part, but there were still so many Triaxian ships remaining, that in the fighting and confusion, a good many of them were still getting clear enough to jump away.
Everyone on both sides seemed bloody and exhausted by then, but the fight did not let up. In fact, it grew even more confused. Triax ships were everywhere.
And the senseless losses for a senseless war only continued to mount.
But eventually, Triax would fall.
The enemy’s days were roughly numbered, yet still numbered. They were finite.
The fact remained that the enemy continued to force the Alliance to pay a very high price for each victory along the way.
Once this battle ended, Kysarra-5 would await pacification.
A number of massive explosions suddenly rocked The Hippolyta to her core. She shuddered and shook.
“Rina, what’s happening?”
“A dozen enemy ships just uncloaked and hit us point-blank with missiles.”
“Shields are down, sir,” Ensign Nick Alexander said.
“Second attack wave about to hit,” Surina said calmly.
“Haisha! More missiles, Rina?
“Alert the Marines,” Tarim shouted. “Get everyone armed and ready to defend this ship!”
Surina turned and faced Naero, activating her shield and drawing her own blaster pistol and battle blade.
“Not missiles this time, sir. Enemy boarding craft–hundreds of them. They’ll hit us in seconds–everywhere.”
Naero readied her own weapons, just like everyone else.
“Spread out, everyone,” Tarim said. “Stay sharp. Watch for entry points.” He turned to Naero. “They mean to overwhelm us, sir. Just like they did The Silver Devil.”
“Like hell they will. All crew–everyone fights. Get our fighter waves back and have them attack the boarding craft up close. These killers are going to hit us from every direction. Defend our girl and each other. Let them come!”
Tarim shouted. “They’re after our captain. Everyone defend her to the last breath! That, is an order.
Hayden and a full rifle platoon of heavy Marines poured out of the lifts to reinforce the bridge.
Just as the enemy boarders blasted through the hull.
26
The enemy attackers penetrated the bridge blast shields alone, at sixteen key points.
The Triaxians swarmed on The Hippolyta and ripped their way in at seventy-four other key locations.
First the foe tossed in explosives to disrupt shields, then smokers to obscure their entry points.
Spacer Marines and crew flipped up visor optics to target the attackers.
Scores of Triaxian elite Marines and Hevangian assassins poured in from all directions on grav wings.
There was no way to shoot them all fast enough.
They were sitting ducks with the enemy swarming above them.
“Cut the Gravitics!” she shouted. “Split up and secure each of those access points. Let’s take them on in zero-G!”
Spacers were superb fighters in null gravity.
But Naero and her people were already heavily outnumbered.
Hayden organized his Marines into sixteen, four-man fireteams, each with a shield pod in front of them.
“Naero!” he shouted. “You and your people back us up! We’ll do the heavy lifting!”
“Right! Two-thirds of you–pair up with the Marines and assail each of the breaches. The rest of you, with me and Tarim. We’re going to swirl around and tear the enemy to pieces at high speed. Blast and cut them as we go!”
The bridge was quickly enveloped in criss-crossing firefights.
The fireteams attacked the breaches, cutting down the attackers still trying to pour through.
Personal shields took and hits and buckled.
Naero led eleven Spacers, rocketing up to clash with over thirty foes.
Naero hurled microgrenades and exploding blades.
Some of the grenades were flashbombs, and stunned the foe.
Others blew the foe up, just like her blades.
They gutted the enemy thirty and took out almost half of them.
More shot up at them from the sides and below.
Tarim dropped head down and spun, raking the packed enemy forces with his plasma machine pistols.
Foes withered before Tarim’s blazing guns.
Naero saw Fenley Wilde, her Co-pilot, shredded by and enemy mini-gun, a split second before he took it out with a pulse grenade.
Medical Specialist Xaevin Cheyenne knifed two foes with her battle blades, just before they were all three cut to pieces by heavy blaster cannon fire from below.
Naero saw the shock and surprise on Xaevin’s face, just before her head and body exploded in pieces.
A split second later, precise fire from Leftenant Hayden and his micro-grenade pistols took out the enemy blaster cannon.
A team of six Hevangian assassins cut loose on Naero herself with heavy stunners, driving her back and disrupting her shields.
The next barrage would take her down–they obviously wanted to take her alive.
“Captain, look out!” Surina yelled. She shot one assassin in the face and threw her battle blade into the throat of the next.
Then she flung herself directly in front of Naero and took the concentrated blasts of the stunners full on.
Direct hits drilled Surina into the wall, where she floated, bloody and helpless.
Two dozen assassins drew their poisoned shokkog blades and swept down at Naero, Tarim, and Enel.
Six of them broke away to to slaughter Surina.
Tarim slipped around to the side, giving Naero and Enel room to fight. Each rapid shot from his pistols ripped off a Hevangian head.
Enel tore into the six killers going after Surina like a demon unleashed.
He emptied his blaster pistol in the chest and torso of the first three attackers. Then he drew his own battle blades and sliced the hands and arms off two more–laying open one killer’s throat with such speed and fury–that he nearly decapitated the foe. The last assassin he smashed into the hull, held off the lethal shokkog, and crushed the assassin’s skull repeatedly with his bare fist.
He secured a heavy blaster and gunned down any foe he could target.
Enel became a terrifying warrior in those brief instants.
Eleven assassins still came straight at Naero.
She smiled and accelerated to meet them, hurling blasting blades and microgrenades up into their bunching numbers.
That was just to knock them around and distract them.
Then she went on the attack, with every ounce of her enhanced speed and might.
She drew her energy cutlass and went at them with it and her last battle blade.
Naero swept into them hard and fast, whirling, whipping kicks and flashing blades. She wheeled into them, spinning one way and back the next. She severed poisoned shokkog knives from their hands, crushed heads and torsos.
Like her mother before her, she transformed into The Invincible Cyclone. She crushed and slew her foes in a whirling dance of deadly kicks and stabbing, slicing energy blades.
In mere seconds, the elite enemy assassins floated and spun around her–crushed and butchered into bloody pieces, bubbling in zero-G.
Outside the ship, their fighters surgically blasted the enemy boarding craft off the flagship’s hull–like removing parasites.
Hayden and his remaining Marines cut down the last foes trying to fight through the breaches.
Once the fighters blasted those last boarding craft away, the hull shields could seal, and the bridge was secured once more.
At a quick glance, twenty-three Marines floated lifeless, along with eight more of Naero’s bridge crew, KIA.
Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War Page 17
