by Aer-ki Jyr
He was grateful for that, needing this test of himself and the Paladin against the fiercest opponents the galaxy had ever known. Thrawn had been bred for exactly this type of combat, then trained by Star Force in their unique tactics, and it was time to put his hybrid battle philosophy to the ultimate test.
But things were happening so fast it was hard to keep up. The reactions to the jumpship battlepoints were fascinating and intense, with each race responding a bit differently. The Brat’mar held position in their lines while moving laterally to block their path rather than engage, but all the others went straight towards the Paladin vessels that were larger than most of their own. Never mind they weren’t that well armed, compared to the V’kit’no’sat at least. It was as if the size attracted them, and that was a datapoint that Thrawn jumped on immediately.
He had the drones move in patterns to not so much damage the V’kit’no’sat as to protect the jumpships, and he saw the enemy appropriately ignore them aside from when they needed to blast their way through. That’s what he wanted, for there were other drones that he sent out to hit the flanks of those obsessed ships, but not in fixed positions. He kept them moving like schools of fish and depositing fire on multiple vessels as they flew in and around the enemy’s larger warships.
The drones received some return fire, but most of the enemy’s weaponry was pointed towards the huge targets and the walls of drones surrounding them almost as an extra set of shields while making gaps for the jumpships’ own weaponry to shoot through.
“You were right,” Thrawn said to the air, though he was directing the comments towards Paul. “They are egotistical. Their own physical size has biased them…as have the Hadarak. They need to be the larger and see the drones as inconsequential. Give them only drones to fight and it is the swarm they oppose, but give them bigger targets and they are fixated upon them.”
Thrawn’s reptilian nose sniffed with displeasure. He’d expected more, but knew well that the V’kit’no’sat were notorious for adapting to defeats. After today they may learn from their mistake, so he needed to exploit it now while he had the chance and hope they didn’t learn within minutes as a true naval commander would.
Thrawn kept the unfocused attacks up until the shield strength of the V’kit’no’sat ships were so low that they had to withdraw and allow reserve ships up into the firing positions, but the roaming drones went with them and that’s when all hell broke loose. The coordinated wall of death the V’kit’no’sat fleet was formed into was broken, and the navigational agility of the smaller vessels allowed them to spin and swirl around like river flows through the enemy fleet that was now targeting them.
But Thrawn had them swirl back to the front lines where the ships were still fixated on his jumpships as they lost shields and began to take armor damage. He selected a slew of targets and had the river flows converge on them, seeing the damage output of all the drones suddenly combine and crack one Dak’bri in half. The 18 mile wide ‘battlecruiser’ had its remaining shields almost totally forward, unable to even them out without exposing itself to the fervent attack from the front…and it wasn’t the only one.
The enemy ships nearest the front line were also not in a position to fight hard, for a lot of them were the shieldless vessels that were in retreat and their replacements were being held up by other drone river tendrils as Thrawn ordered more up, flooding the forward section of the V’kit’no’sat fleet and sending it into disarray. There were so many drones moving in and about the V’kit’no’sat ships they could not move without running into them, severely limiting their ability to support one another.
Their mass was high though, and their armor thick, both of which helped them survive the hammering for longer than any other vessel would, but amongst the river flows were specialized drones with negation shields meant to nullify dampening shields. One would fly into an enemy ship, hit the deployed shields used to prevent ramming, and emit a pulse that would eat away part of it. Thrawn had them firing themselves into the side of selected vessels like arrows, then when there was a breach in the shield other drones would go kamikaze into their hulls.
They didn’t have a lot of room to get up to speed, but it was enough to do damage and when there were large breaches exposed Thrawn had other drones with explosives moved forward through the flows, looking to be exactly the same shape and make as the others, then when they rammed the ships they popped with such force that they literally deleted part of the V’kit’no’sat vessels.
It was a tactic that Star Force had not used before, but the trailblazers knew that Thrawn had been developing it. They’d let him work on it in private, saving it for the Paladin to use someday, and he was glad because otherwise the V’kit’no’sat would have found a defense against it. Thrawn already had, and he’d been working to get around those defenses, playing a strategic game against himself for centuries as he guessed what the ultimate enemy would do.
One of those guesses proved true, for the damaged ships moved and pushed their way through the drones, taking damage enroute to each other where they rotated around and pushed their most damaged areas together, then combined their shields and essentially became one massive ship, allowing them to fight longer and harder now that their wounds were concealed.
It was an improvisation that the V’kit’no’sat had made instantly, confirming to Thrawn their adaptational ability. That he actually approved of, preferring to face his bane at full strength rather than relying on guile and surprise. He’d use those, naturally, but this was the enemy he’d been expecting to fight and even as the wounded ships clumped together other intact ships pushed up from the rear, some sacrificing the outer edges of their hulls to plow a path through the drones for others to follow…then they did it again.
They went straight for the jumpships, pushing right up near them then turning back before they were destroyed as the following ships took their place and went into pointblank combat with the Paladin drones swarming around them to block shots and deliver their own. His remote pilots actually linked many of the drones on top of each other, forming an actual wall with even stronger combined shields that they floated down over a huge hole in one jumpship, then the V’kit’no’sat Na’shor closest to them rammed the wall, pushing it into the jumpship and smashing it between the two thicker hulls.
That drew another eye ridge raise from Thrawn. There had been no need for that. No time sensitive attack that required the wall removed that instant. No immediate threat that couldn’t be better disposed of with a small amount of patience. Rather, that Voro’nam ship looked to have gotten frustrated. Either at the wall itself or the fact that they were being held back from getting at the jumpship.
And it wasn’t the only one. Others were taking similar aggressive actions to get at the jumpships when the Paladin threw up blocks around them, and Thrawn could sense a bit of desperation. The V’kit’no’sat had been delivered their prime targets and weren’t able to finish them off like they’d expected…and they weren’t running. The jumpships were staying put and slugging it out, making them perfect targets to make actual kills against the living controllers rather than…
Of course. Living crews. The V’kit’no’sat wanted to take the fight to the people arrayed against them, not their machines. Thrawn could see the pattern now, stretching back through all the years of war, and realized he’d dismissed it because it was too much of a newb’s reaction. The threat of the weapons were what was important, and the fact that Star Force didn’t sacrifice crews meant the drones would fight harder than manned ships…placing on them a higher priority to take out before the Archons did something clever.
Thrawn had been assuming the V’kit’no’sat would be as intelligent as himself, if not more so, but they were not interested in defeating the Archons’ weapons. They wanted the living kills, and for the first time in his life he was disgusted with them. Not for all the atrocities they’d committed in the past, for they were hard pressed to do anything worse than what the Li’vorkrachn
ika had done. No, he was disgusted by their impudence. They were acting like inferiors.
It was at that point he realized he had more experience than them. It was an absurd thought, for their commanders had probably lived hundreds of thousands of years, if not more than a million in some cases, but in all that time how much experience did they have losing? Thrawn had plenty as the Li’vorkrachnika were beaten by the Archons over and over and over again, and then even more so in training simulations once he’d joined Star Force. Thrawn had learned from battle itself, both real and in training. What did the V’kit’no’sat learn from?
The lessons of the past and wars in which they were heavily favored…save for the Hadarak. There they had a completely different mindset fighting them, but it was like they forgot those losses and assumed all enemies would fall to them, especially with a fleet of the magnitude that the V’kit’no’sat had brought here.
And now that they were losing, if only a small amount this early into the fight, they were getting frustrated and overreaching to compensate. The overreach was effective, for the jumpships being rammed were taking damage and being exposed more, but the V’kit’no’sat were taking more damage than they would have if they’d taken a more patient approach.
And in a massive fleet battle like this, attrition rates were the key to victory or loss…and right now the V’kit’no’sat attrition rate was sky high.
Thrawn intended to keep it that way, probing and provoking them as the trailblazers’ fleet fought its way back up into middle orbit and retreated. They’d gotten the relief down to the surface at the cost of many of their own ships, but it had been worth it. The ground troops had to be assisted, for the longer they held out the more V’kit’no’sat opponents would be killed, so that was an investment in the future. What the V’kit’no’sat were doing now was just stupid…unless they had a plan in play that was beyond Thrawn.
He didn’t discount that. He’d always be on guard for duplicity and guile, for he’d learned the hard way from the Archons how even a little overconfidence could wreck you and they held the V’kit’no’sat navy in high esteem. They hated them, but they respected them for what they were capable of in battle and Thrawn would do no less. He’d keep part of his mind looking for that other angle that they were playing while he continued to exploit what looked like their frustration getting the better of them.
Meanwhile the trailblazers’ fleet, a fraction of the size that Thrawn’s was, watched on as bystanders…but necessary ones. If the blockading ships left their positions to reinforce the bulk of their fleet, then they could run right down to the surface with all their ships and blast away at the enemy ground troops. Without competition in the skies the planetary shields could be dropped and Star Force bombardment could begin, but while those enemy ships were there they didn’t dare try that, else a few well-placed shots could take out key facilities or even the defending troops.
But Thrawn also liked that they were letting him fight this on his own, and he intended to prove the extent of his skills with the trailblazers watching. It wasn’t Paul, but two of his kin who had very high naval rankings and could commend or criticize his actions where few others could. He’d been on the sidelines for this entire war and now was his chance. He was the Supreme Viceroy of the Paladin, and it was time they made their mark on this war and took some of the pressure off of those who had held the diminishing front for so long.
He and the Paladin were ready, with Liam and Olivia giving him a chance to prove it while providing a necessary deterrent to the blockaders. Trailblazers were notorious for multitasking…this was no surprise to Thrawn…but the fact that they hadn’t assumed overall fleet command did, and he knew it was personal.
This was his chance to prove himself…either for the better or the worse…while Paul and others fought their own battles in other systems. This was team warfare, no one could be everywhere at once, and he needed to be part of that team. Every fiber of his being cried out for it, and both Paul and these two trailblazers were giving him the greatest threat he’d ever known to fight against.
And he loved them for it.
26
Nathan watched the fighting, both in orbit and on the ground, for several hours before the strike began. When it did there was a gap in the shields above to let the drones through and a few shots came with them, one of which hit less than 50 meters from his position.
The superheated thunderclap of air came a split second before the tidal wave of vaporized debris hit him and sent him tumbling across the ground…but thankfully it wasn’t too large of an Ardent blast and aside from getting his bell rung he wasn’t injured. He’d had his face towards the impact, so the exposed sections on the back of his legs were spared from the shock wave and debris, though in the tumbling his newly regrown skin got scraped off and bloody again.
Nathan scrambled behind the nearest cover and made like a statue, looking for anyone that might have seen him while he amped the regeneration of his skin a second time. The planetary defense shield was back up with the last few shots at the descending drones hitting it and being absorbed, so he didn’t need to worry about another bombardment shot unless it came from his own ships.
He was too far away from the ground troops to worry about that, and as he watched the drones slide through the sky shooting at the I’rar’et and downing several with good shots of their larger weaponry while their anti-air batteries peppered certain zones with a sprinkle of small Dre’mo’don blasts or sent out ring-like Ichod pulses to catch the fliers while the main weapons began shooting the surface and driving back the V’kit’no’sat in several sectors.
But they weren’t unopposed, getting hit by a bath of return fire from the surface that began to reduce their shield strength as the enemy ground troops desperately needed to neutralize the drones, with their aerial assets swinging wide to circle around and get at the few drones that had come down damaged and were currently shieldless.
Nathan hugged the dirt wall with his back pressed up against it as several flocks of them flew near and over his position enroute to those attacks, then he had a window of opportunity. He stood up, finding his head still ringing from the tumble he took, but he wasn’t waiting. The Archon took off running towards the city wall while watching the sky, happy that the enemy was too busy with the new threat to notice him down here, but all it would take would be an overhead warship glimpsing him and sending word.
Hopefully the Paladin had them too busy for that, and with each mile he ran he felt his luck running out. So close now, but he was totally exposed as he hit the smooth area around the city where there had been no explosives and one of the I’rar’et finally took notice, swinging around from the south and heading his way.
“Shit,” Nathan said, knowing there was no turning back now. He turned on his beacon, not knowing if it was working or not, and headed for the wall that had no door in it as he leaned forward and flew over ground to gain more speed. The I’rar’et was far faster and swooped in towards him, firing from range and missing save for one hit that Nathan absorbed using his bioshields, otherwise it would have hit his left shoulder.
But the anti-air defenses on the wall opened up then and turned the I’rar’et back, with it not wanting to take that much damage to eliminate Nathan. Had he known who Nathan was the Pterodactyl might have thought otherwise, but after a few more seconds the Archon angled upward and flew over the wall safely, landing on the other side of one of the top turrets and kneeling there as his back was now covered and he could see what was taking place inside the…
“Wonderful,” Nathan said, seeing huge tracks of the cityscape now junked. Buildings were literally toppled and moved into advantageous positions for the V’kit’no’sat as the entire northeast quarter was filled with smoke and explosions. It looked like they were building an impromptu Alamo as the drones poured down further destruction, ironically, into their own buildings to get at them.
With his comm and battlemap down Nathan couldn’t get any updates
on what was actually happening there, and he was just glad to be back in what was still Star Force territory with an intact planetary shield over his head, but he was too weak to do much to help and he knew it. The flight in had left him breathing heavily and his body aching where the tiny anti-grav nodules were spread out.
Fortunately someone was paying good attention and a dropship headed his way from the opposite side of the city, eventually flying up to the wall and spinning around as it lowered its rear ramp. Nathan jumped across the small gap and got inside where a pair of Commandos were waiting.
“Thank you,” Nathan said earnestly as he clapped one of them on the shoulder.
“You’re hurt,” the other said, seeing the backside of his armor.
“I’ll live, but I’m too exhausted to be much help right now. I need ambrosia, food, and a quick nap before I can get back in the fight.”
“Who are you?” the first Commando asked, seeing the Piccolo coloration of his armor but unable to get any ID tag from the battlemap.
“Nathan-937.”
“We thought you were dead.”
“Close. I lost my battlemap connection. What’s the situation?”
“We’ve got a huge relief fleet from the Paladin. They managed to cover for some drones to come down, and they’re helping, but we’re still losing ground.”
“How far from the shield generator?”
“Three, maybe four miles.”
“Get me there. If it falls we’re all screwed.”
“Pilot?”
“I heard,” a Kiritas voice said from the cockpit. “On the way now.”
2 weeks later…
The two Arc Knights jumped off the edge of the roof, falling down more than 50 meters and using their Lachka to create ‘crash bags’ that slowed them just enough they didn’t hurt themselves when they hit the city streets on Voran, then took off sprinting to the left after the Zen’zat with a target tag on them within the battlemap.
