Intel broadcast teams took over the communication systems of each liberated world as quickly as possible. They flooded the information webnets with counter broadcasts.
First, the Alliance strove to calm everyone and keep populations from committing mass acts of suicide.
Mothers—STOP—don’t give your children that poisoned candy!
Next, they needed help locating and neutralizing any genocide devices that Triax might have left behind, usually located in heavily populated areas.
Once the natives on each system realized that the invaders were not going to commit mass rape and pillaging of their cites, it started to dawn on them that they were–now–in fact, finally free of Triaxian oppression at last.
Once a planet was fully pacified, the celebrating could truly begin, and the planning for new and better futures. Within hours or days, these peoples quickly realized that they could govern themselves get along just fine without Corps domination and theft of anything that had value. Even better, in fact.
All this, while the war swept past them and left these worlds behind to stand on their own and fend for themselves.
Even Triax could not be everywhere at once, as their power faded. If no immediate threats presented themselves, many liberated worlds were simply bypassed, while the war sped into its final phase.
More would be done, once the fighting concluded.
Naero and her people geared up for the fight in the next system, Noraga-8. This system was a key area with a vital enemy naval shipyard and weapons research bases scattered all throughout that system.
At first, it appeared that the Alliance fleets took on the usual Triaxian spread for that type of system.
Then Naero’s long range scans picked up something very weird.
Her long lost phantoms.
The huge enemy flagship, protected by twenty enemy fleets, immediately broke away from the battle in what seemed to be a great hurry once again. Almost a panic, as soon as they were detected.
Again, what were they so worried about? Intel plainly had no idea the enemy kept so many forces concentrated in the one system. It didn’t make any sense.
The Alliance only had ten fleets in the Noraga system currently.
Twenty enemy fleets, on top of the fifteen already involved directly in battle, could have easily pounced on the Alliance forces and overwhelmed them in short order–before any help could arrive.
Why instead were they running away from a chance to deal the Alliance such a major defeat? Again?
First she called in more forces to support them, in case the enemy changed its mind.
Then she attempted to analyze and track the odd movements and actions of their phantoms.
Now the big flagship docked at the distant naval shipyard and research facility at Moon Noraga-3.
A desolate rock where Triax tested weapons.
Long range scans revealed that the enemy loaded something onto the enemy flagship. They did so in an enormous hurry.
Their secret cargo? Missiles and warheads, apparently. And not just regular ordnance, but some kind of new tek by the looks of things.
Scans divulged that this new enemy ordnance gave off strange energy signatures, which didn’t match anything Triax had ever used against them in the past.
As more Alliance fleets poured into the system, Naero and her forces went straight after the still mysterious flagship.
If they could get in close enough, perhaps they could disable or delay that flagship, before it got away. Her sense of warning went nuts.
Every fiber of her being warned her to stop that ship.
Aunt Sleak called out to her.
“Hold off, Naero. Wait for the reserves to arrive and back you up.”
“We can’t. The enemy commander is completely focused on something new and important. Just like before, they clearly don’t care about this battle. They have their own separate agenda. We have to try to catch them before they jump.”
“It’s suicide, Naero. Our forces already have their hands full. Those twenty fleets are not going to ignore you if you try to get in there. They’ll tear you apart.”
“Admiral…trust me on this. Please. We’re going to pursue. Send as much help as you can in after us. My gut says we’ll need it.”
“I’ll do what I can, captain. You realize, of course, that we are still fully engaged here? Don’t get you and your people killed.”
“Roger that.” Naero cut the link. “All ships,” she commanded. “Full attack on the large enemy flagship at that distant shipyard. Concentrate all long range fire as we go in. Ignore the rest. Help is on the way.”
They raced in, sniping at the enemy from afar, but with little real chance of doing much damage.
At twenty to one odds or worse.
Amazingly enough—the enemy held true, formed up, and immediately began to jump out, in good order.
They didn’t even bother to shoot back.
The large enemy flagship vanished into jump right along with them, once it pulled free of the shipyard.
Intel must have gained more updated information.
Naero finally got it’s designation from the system AIs.
The large phantom ship was in fact–The Kronos. It’s commander was in fact: High Admiral Maximillian Jaxxon Dreth, last surviving supreme commander of all remaining Triaxian fleets and forces.
Their phantom might finally have a name, but Naero was already too late, once again.
She sent fixer waves sweeping into the enemy research base to search for any data files or intel left behind.
Even as the remaining Triaxian zealots blew up the shipyard, the research facility, and themselves.
Naero lost most of the fixers she sent in.
Tyber and Surina scanned the few fixers that made it back, skimming for anything useful.
Ty called to her in great concern.
“Captain, we’ve been forced to isolate one of the fixers. It picked up some kind of heavily encrypted Triax research files, but they are protected by attack viruses unlike anything Surina and I have ever seen before.”
Surina cut in. “Captain, this is beyond us. This is beyond anything Spacer Intel possess or has ever encountered. Where could Triax come across something as menacing and as virulent as this stuff?”
“Just tell me if you can crack it.”
“Not in time to be of any use to us,” Tyber added. “I don’t think anyone can.”
Naero might know someone who could.
She got on one of her secure channels to Baeven and his strange ship.
This time, fortunately, the outcast answered right away.
“How’s the war winding down, Naero?”
“Horrific. Need a huge favor. Came across some secured files on some kind of new Triaxian super weapon. But we can’t get past the security measures, unlike anything we’ve seen before. And we have no time.”
“Do a shadow-level-13 Intel duplication and send me the raw data files, complete with those defenses. I’ll see what Jia can do with them.”
The mysterious Jia again. Another one of Baeven’s weird, unseen crew?
Ty and Surina prepared and sent the files. Naero already made ready to jump after the fleeing enemy fleets.
Baeven came back a few minutes later. “What the hell did you send me? It’s even giving Jia fits. But from what we can tell, it does not look good at all. This must be alien tek. Whatever the enemy is planning with it, it’s going to be big. From what we can tell at the outset, we think they’re trying to unleash something that will destroy an entire system and everything in it.”
Not good.
“We’ll know more in a little bit, if we can crack the rest of the defenses. They are very tough. To be safe, tell Sleak and the other Alliance leaders they’d better focus on stopping those enemy nutjobs at all costs.”
She broke off instantly and opened her link to Aunt Sleak once more.
“Admiral. Contact all the other Admirals in the Alliance. Get every flee
t and ship that you can to Najindo-9. Anything that can float and fight. We have intel that the enemy is planning the biggest surprise for us yet. We need to hit them before they can unleash it, and take them down once and for all.”
“What’s this new threat, Naero?”
“An advanced weapon that can destroy all life in an entire system. Deets when we have them, sir. What’s the population of the Najindo system?”
“Among the heaviest in all of Triax. Trillions, multiple billions each on several worlds. The most heavily populated of all of the Capital Class Systems. The crown jewel of their bloated empire.”
“Then we’d better get in there and stop them. I feel certain that the Triaxian Supreme Commander means to take everyone down with him, if he can manage such a grand slam.”
Naero didn’t wait for further orders. Minutes to the nearby, neighboring system at maximum jump.
Everyone knew where the enemy was heading.
There wasn’t any place left for the bastards to go.
She again called for reinforcements, seized the initiative, and sent her fleet into jump, prepped and ready for battle.
41
The combined firepower, the main guns, of six Alliance fleets tore a breach through the dense Triaxian defenses surrounding the last capital class system.
More fleets rushed in, now that the way was clear, pounding and decimating key enemy elements.
Najindo-9 remained the key to capturing the entire system, and a battle royal in its own right had just begun.
More fleets from both sides jumped in, engaged, and locked together in deadly combat.
Naero and Strike Fleet Six raced after the secret Triaxian armada, led by The Kronos, Admiral Maximillian Dreth’s huge flagship.
The same ship that barely escaped from the Triaxian Naval Shipyards.
The same enemy shipyards that had been blown up and completely destroyed on Moon Noraga-3, in an effort to hide the enemy’s most vital secrets.
Five entire enemy fleets came about, fanning out in various formations to intercept Strike Fleet Six.
Two hundred and fifty warships against fifty–five to one odds.
While Admiral Dreth’s fleet pulled farther away, at top speed, with his remaining fifteen fleets still held in reserve.
The lopsided battle ensued.
Aunt Sleak and the rest of the Alliance sent in three reserve fleets to assist at the last possible moment.
Naero’s hands flew across her holoscreens to instantly redirect her fleet.
“All ships, follow my lead, Romeo-Sierra-1. Let the reserves hit them and bust them up. Screen out and sweep over the top of these foes. Keep up the attack. Rake them with all batteries as we soar over them, but continue to advance and overshoot them. Do not stop. Keep going at full attack speed, no matter what. Drive on!”
Mike Marshall called out to them. “Naero, we’ll never catch them at this rate. Both forces are at maximum acceleration.”
There had to be a way.
Varcas Adams called out from scanning.
“Several new fleets jumping in, interposing themselves between the enemy and the sun, cutting them off. One of those fleets is extremely odd—multiple planetoid vessels of all sizes, sir.”
Naero put both hands to her mouth.
Klyne told her in secret that those new ships were in production.
These had to be them.
The Titans.
An entire fleet—comprised of all planetoid vessels—leading several other Alliance fleets in to back them up.
They cut the enemy flagship off and engaged all the other ships as they piled in. They stopped the enemy advance in its tracks and stomped on them.
The enemy fought fiercely, doing their best–even sacrificing entire ships–in an effort to allow Admiral Dreth’s flagship to break away. That was clearly their objective.
“All ships, concentrate all fire on the enemy flagship. Destroy or disable it at all costs!
Naero and her fleet did what they did best, racing in to hit the enemy hard from optimal vectors.
Yet even as they did so, every enemy fleet and ship broke off from the other ongoing battle, and attempted to reach this new one.
Such madness only added to the intense confusion.
Worse still, enemy warships activated their jump drives close in, committing flaming suicide, and gouged burning ruts of destruction through both friend and foe.
Multiple ships on both sides burned, broke up, and exploded.
Naero’s fingers flashed in fury. “Triple-stack, Sierra-Victor-3 formation. Wheel above the battle in an inverted cone. Pour all fire on the enemy. Disrupt their shields; I want their shields down in their exact center within one pass.”
Several more enemy warships prepared to go into jump, in order to obliterate the Alliance formations and gut them.
The Titans spiraled out and did their best to sweep forward and intercept the looming jumpers, sending sheets of destroying fire against them.
They unleashed the fastest rates of fire Naero had ever seen from any major warships.
The sheer volume of it obliterated entire swaths of enemy ships.
Only one in seven of those suicidal foes flashed into jump.
The Titans blasted the other six straight to oblivion.
If the enemy wanted death, The Titans would give them all they could stomach.
Naero’s fleet succeeded in collapsing most of the enemy shields at the core of their formations.
For an instant, shields collapsed on The Kronos.
Then back up shields came on, before it could take much damage.
Without warning, the enemy counterattacked, swarming over The Hippolyta and her ships, in an attempt to take them out.
The envelopers became the enveloped, and Naero and her people struggled to stay alive and break free.
Admiral Dreth revealed himself to be an exceptionally clever bastard.
Once actually forced to fight, he proved to be a more than capable opponent.
Shields reduced rapidly on all of Naero’s ships, as the enemy used her own tactics against her and her people.
Collapse shields, then destroy them all with overwhelming fire.
The Titans had their own problems, stretched to their breaking point and outnumbered. They focused on fending off other enemy jumpers trying to plough through the mix. With their own hands more than full, they were incapable of coming to anyone’s aid.
Naero and everyone else simply had to fight it out on their own, against superior odds.
The Hippolyta and the other bigs were hemmed in, fighting for their very lives.
Only her cruisers, destroyers, and such could still maneuver.
“Mohawk, Panther, Swordbreaker–you are our only hope. Lead all equal and smaller vessels on close-wheel, Charlie-Whiskey-6 attacks, right on top of the packed enemy ships hemming us in. Hit them in every vital spot with everything you’ve got, and I mean everything. Drop you garbage on them and set it on fire if you must, but bust us out. Our only chance is for you to blast us free!”
“Copy that, sir. Engaging in close assault formation…maximum fire underway. Unleashing all possible ordnance.”
So much heavy firepower hit Triax in such a tightly confined space, that it was difficult to sort out what actually went down.
Two things happened.
First, The Kronos slowly pulled away from the general quagmire of the confused battle.
The Hippolyta broke and blasted its way free not an instant later.
“Continue to pursue that flagship.” Naero commanded. “Smash into anything blocking our way. Knock them aside! Any ships available, try to get out in front of them!”
The two huge warships took poundings from relentless assaults directed at them from both sides.
Both vessels sustained heavy damage, and kept up their chase, still punching at each other–like well-bloodied prize fighters.
Once she had time to think straight, Naero recalled that she s
till waited impatiently to hear back on her secured link from Baeven–urgently concerning the strange, heavily encrypted Triaxian tek files they captured from that enemy research base.
Only her outlaw uncle and his strange, miraculous ship possessed the ability to decode those files, in any time frame to be useful.
Naero trusted her instincts fully now. A final endgame masterstroke was about to unfold. Of that she felt certain.
By the thin facts alone, the enemy Admiral had destroyed his own naval base for some desperate reason, and the fixers deduced that some major enemy research project had indeed just been finalized there, only scant minutes before everything went all to hell.
What precisely did the enemy load up and whisk away from that top secret base in such a hurry?
What was the new enemy objective? What was this new super weapon they now prepared to unleash against them all?
Admiral Dreth seemed charmed and strangely fortunate. He had barely escaped thus far, and now he and his damaged flagship made every effort to abandon even the last chaotic battles around Najindo-9.
The enemy commander did so at all hazards–setting an evasive course directly toward the System’s star–for some bizarre, unfathomable reason.
Naero did all within her power to keep after them.
Baeven’s link on her com finally flashed and sounded in warning.
She took the message immediately.
Transmitted holo readouts and schematics passed rapidly before her eyes.
A pity she could no longer teknomance.
“Stop that enemy fleet at all costs!” Baeven warned her.
She had never heard such fear in his normally calm demeanor.
“Triax has developed a way to cause a chain reaction in their sun and force it to explode like a massive gigabomb—a quanta bomb of tremendous destruction. They will most likely attempt to do so with specialized, advanced missiles by the looks of the intel we just decoded for you.” Baeven paused and caught his breath.
“Naero,–this new super weapon will kill everyone currently in that entire sector, and on all of its worlds.”
Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War Page 30
