Outside the bubble field, the Shivan fleet, which now comprised of ten Cains, three Liliths, five Molochs, two Ravanas, a Demon and the
Yamato, begin moving, as if sensing the impending attack. As the
Reverend and its attendant ships entered subspace, the
Yamato’s cannon began glowing, as ruby energy streamed down to gather in an ever-growing ball of energy. The ball pulsed, and the massive beam lashed out, smashing into the field, which flared a pale blue in response. The shield fought against the furious energy of the beam, and barely won. Moments later, the GTVA ships slipped into subspace, the
Reverend carrying its deadly payload of Combat Frames.
The weapons on the Tyrean fleet glowed momentarily, and lashed out, the bubble field collapsing moments before the devastating storm of energy bolts, projectiles, missiles and the fleet’s sole firestorm beam could reach it, instead reaching out to smash the
Yamoto in the face.
The four prongs glowed again, but this time, the individual prongs lashed out, the quartet of ruby beams lashing out. “Incoming beams, sir!” Taylor called. “Fleet evade!” barked Ping. As the ships scattered, one scarlet beam barely missed the
Leowlynn, coming close enough that the
Lewolynn’s shield flashed silver. Another smashed into the front of the
Lothar, rocking the ship hard. The last two slammed straight into the nose of the
Freia. The frigate’s shields could not keep up with the punishment the beams poured into it, collapsing almost instantly. The beams drove deep furrows into the
Freia’s front hull, and one caressed the firestorm generator. Because the fragile flux field generator pulled power directly from the fusion reactor, this meant that it was situated almost on top of the oversized reactor. As the generator exploded, the blast damaged the dampening fields on the
Freia releasing the golden-white glow that was the heart of any Tyrean ship. The furious energy consumed the ship from the inside out, leaving nothing but a few particles of dust.
“The ...
Freia is down, sir. No escape pods, ” Taylor said, his voice shaking slightly.
Ping cursed. “Order the fleet to get in close! If we’re close, that monster can’t use its beams with much accuracy!” He stood up and yelled “Vaulk! Call in any shots we can make!” spending some of his frustration on the air.
“Yessir. Target Mark Eight, angle 63 degrees port, 21 degrees up; linear cannons, photon beams, missile tubes; target will vanish in thirty seconds.”
“Target Mark Eight, linear cannons up angle 20 degrees, minimum penetration, charge photon beam, load VLS tubes one through six with Mole torpedoes, acquire firing solution. Fire when ready.”
“Target locked. Weapons ready. Firing solution ready. Firing.”
The two rear photon beams, mounted on the rear ends of the bridge, glowed silver, then stabbed upwards into Mark Eight, one of the Ravana destroyers. The beams carved into the underside of the Shivan destroyer, as the linear cannons fired, sapphire beams preceding the cloud of emerald darts that splashed away more of the Ravana’s protection, leaving it open for the six Mole torpedoes, which slammed into the ravaged Ravana, burrowed in, and detonated, tearing the Ravana apart from the inside out.
As the Ravana’s death throes began to consume it, Taylor called out, “Sir, Shivan fighters and bombers are launching, vectoring in on our fleet!”
“Order the
Black Wing to began launching the fighters!” Ping ordered.
Onboard the
Black Wing the GTVA pilots were strapping into their fighters, nervous at launching from an unknown ship, Captain Samuel among them. Though he knew they meant well, he still wasn’t very sure about this new method of launching. “So I just wait for the elevator to set my fighter up on it, then report that I’m launching?” he asked the technician.
“Basically, yeah. When the elevator brings your fighter up, the catapult creates a magnetic field that will lock your fighter in place. Once you call in your launch, the catapult creates a second field along its walls with a reverse polarity and shoots you out,” he explained.
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Not really. It’s quite safe. Controls are released once your fighter has cleared the catapult, and you get accelerated to attack speed instantly. What’s not to like?”
Samuel opened his mouth to reply, but a voice echoed throughout the cavernous hanger. “All fighters, you are go for launch. Repeat, you are go for launch. First launches commence in ten seconds.”
“Alright, then. Good luck, good hunting,” the technician said, slapping Samuel on the back.
Samuel nodded, as the cockpit slid shut. He felt a jerk as the elevator began to rise, lifting his fighter up. He could see the other three catapults lifting the rest of his wing up. His screen crackled to life just then, forming the face of Major Max. “Samuel, your orders have changed. Stick close to this ship ... the
Black Wing. Forget about guarding the
Freia.”
“Why, sir? Isn’t she lightly armed for AA combat?”
Max stared at him. “Guarding the
Freia ... is no longer an issue,” he replied, then reached out and flicked close the channel.
Samuel knew that either the
Freia was destroyed, or it was badly damaged and out of the fight. Samuel guessed it would be the former. A sudden jerk announced the arrival of his fighter on the catapult. As his fighter floated forward, he heard the pressure door slid shut behind his fighter. There was a three light signal above him. As he watched, the first two red lights lit up one after another, then the third green light came to life. “Uh. Samuel, Perseus, launching?” he said, unsure. “That’ll do, Terran,” came the reply from the bridge. “Good luck, good hunting.” Before he could reply, the walls of the catapult flared and a massive force flung him into his command chair as the Perseus was pelted out of the catapult and into the chaos of the battle.
Pulling his Perseus up, he doubled back and flew over the catapult. Now that he thought about it, the
Black Wing was enormous, easily larger than any Orion or Hecate. ‘
I guess its called a supercarrier for a reason,’ he mused. In the distance, he could see the last vestiges of the
Freia’s reactor blast fading away.
Guess I know what happend to the Freia too,” he added to himself. “Alright, Templars, new orders. We’re to guard the
Black Wing this here beauty we just launched from.”
“What about the
Freia, captain? Isn’t she like a glass cannon?” one of his pilots asked.
“The
Freia’s gone,” he replied, “ So we gotta make sure that no one else goes down. Focus on bombers and bombs first. Spilt up into your wings and watch each other’s backs out here!” Acknowledgements came in, and Samuel banked his fighter around, targeting a wing of Seraphim bombers. His own wing formed up on him, and they shot in, firing as they came. Their shots splashed on the Seraphims’ shields, but the bombers broke formation, as the Terran fighters came dangerously close to colliding with them. Samuel felt the Perseus shake as the numerous turrets on the Seraphims pelted his shields. Flipping his fighter back around, he tightened his finger on the trigger again. Green bolts of light rained down on the scattered Seraphims, as his wing continued to harass the Shivan bombers. One of the Shivans wavered suddenly, and Samuel saw that its shield was gone. He thumbed over to his Tornado missiles and waited patiently, continuing to fire his lasers at the stricken bomber. When the dull tone of a lock sounded, he fired, and eight missiles tore free of their racks, homing in on the doomed bomber. “That’s a kill,” his wingman confirmed.
Swinging back to the other three bombers, he saw two more explode, the other two fighters of his wing storming past the debris victoriously. He turned to find the fourth, just in time to see it become the apex of a deadly light show, courtesy of the
Black Wing’s point defenses.
Samuel wasted no time in scoring another kill, tearing through the shields of a Manticore with his cannons alone, saving his Tornadoes and Harpoons for bigger fish. A flash of light blinded him temporarily, and Samuel saw that one of the Ravanas had exploded, a Tyrean ship right underneath it. He saw a Tyrean fighter, all graceful and lethal, fly past on eerie black flames, the edges of the fighter glowing purple as it caught up to, then
flew through a Basilisk. Again and again, the GTVA and Tyrean fighters tore into the ceaseless hordes of Shivan fighters, aided by the point defenses of their wards.
As Samuel flew through the fireball of a recently deceased Scorpion, he suddenly found himself free of any targets in the immediate vicinity. Half his squadron was down, destroyed by the Shivans. They had accounted for their equal in number, and then some. One more Tyrean capital ship was burning, the bridge all but wrecked. The Shivans had lost one Ravana and most of the cruisers, leaving only two badly damaged Cain and one barely moving Lilith cruisers. It was almost funny, he mused, when he saw one Cain attack that Tyrean destroyer, the
Dagger, and the
Dagger hadn’t bothered to turn, just fired its port side cannons and blew the Cain to hell and back.
“Incoming fighters, kids,” the major called over the general freak. Samuel looked, and saw a swarm of Shivan fighters, far larger than any other wave they had faced. To his amazement, he heard dark laughter, coming from one of the Tyrean fighters that was guarding the
Black Wing as well. “What’s so funny?” he asked, not understanding what was so funny about the swarm of Shivans.
The pilot replied, still laughing, “They drew their escorts off their ships to make that swarm. Without escorts, there’s no way they can track Combat Frames with their turrets. They’re doomed.”
As if to punctuate the pilot’s words, behind the Shivan fleet, multiple subspace portals opened, disgorging the GTVA fleet, the
Reverend leading the charge. As soon as it was half way out of subspace, Samuel could make out tiny figures launching from the Hecate destroyer. “Combat frames ...” he whispered.
*********
David pushed Revenant out into the void of space, then opened up his throttle. The two wings on his back, split open, as the powerful thrusters built into his Frame launched the Revenant forward. Behind him came the other thirty-six frames. Revenant was a Combat Frame, but also wasn’t.
Because David was a Paladin, he was entitled to have a custom machine, painted in any colour scheme he wanted, and he could customize it to be three times better than anything else. So he designed one, resulting in Revenant. Its full name was TACF-701XC, the ‘X’ denoting experimental. Unlike normal frames, Revenant had no rifle. Instead, lasers were built into his palm. They didn’t have the range of normal rifles, but they could charge up their shots or be used as daggers, making them more versatile than a standard rifle. He preferred using the ‘anti-ship sword’ instead. The sword was about the size of Revenant itself, with a normal slicing tip, but it also had a controlled fusion reaction on the edges. Any contact would disrupt the thin field containing the reaction, allowing the energy of a nuclear reaction to spill out. The Revenant also had waist mounted plasma guns, which wasn’t anything very special. The really special thing about Revenant was its thrusters; it used an experimental thavir particle thruster system, which used thavir particles directly for propulsion, instead of using the energy generated by the thavir reaction. This allowed for superior mobility, and rather pretty wings of light that could also slice anything apart.
For these reasons, Frames like Revenant were one of a kind. They were often used as test beds for future frames, but because they were prototypes, they had no safety measures and their performance often exceeded the mass produced versions. They were collectively called Advanced Combat Frames, and were legends on par with the Paladins themselves. For good reason.
David demonstrated this reason now. At the head of the charge, he whipped the massive sword of Revenant around and down, stabbing into the badly damaged Lilith. Without slowing down at all, he sliced the sword straight down the ship, essentially cleaving the cruiser in half. As it exploded behind him, he danced around the point defenses of the Demon, then flew into the hangar. In the hangar, he fired his palm lasers indiscriminately, as well as the standard pulse chainguns built into the heads of every Combat Frame. David tore down the pressure door between the hangar and a corridor, and stuffed a Combat Frame-sized grenade in the corridor, before exiting the hangar. As he did so, he made sure to slice the sword along the roof of the hangar. The Demon rocked from the blast, and continued to rock from numerous secondary explosions inside it. Its thrusters died, and it was speared by several purple beams, announcing the arrival of the other thirty six Combat Frames.
“Focus fire on the Yamato, now!” he ordered. Acknowledgements rolled in, as David angled the Revenant towards the gargantuan ship. He saw the Shivan fighters straining to pull back to their escorts, and the Tyrean and GTVA fighters that stopped them from doing so. He saw the
Dagger right underneath an unfortunate Moloch corvette, pouring fire into the stricken vessel.
Purple and green beams seared across space, scorching the metallic skin of the
Yamato, as the GTVA fleet added their firepower to the Combat Frames dancing around the behemoth. The
Yamato began to turn ponderously, and David saw red light beginning to gather. “Oh no you don’t,” he murmured to himself. Kicking Revenant across the void of space, he twirled the Combat Frame around, bringing the sword across. The sword, aided by his speed and momentum, sliced cleanly through one of the four prongs of the
Yamato, and the prong exploded in a blaze of ruby light, the energy that it had been gathering whipping across the hull of the
Yamato.
Explosions pockmarked the hull of the
Yamato as missiles exploded against it. Beams seared the armour, turning the skin to slag metal. David repeated his manoeuvre, destroying another of the prongs. But despite the amount of firepower they poured into the
Yamato, it just kept moving. “Get in!” he ordered. “What?” came a pilot’s reply. “You have to get your Frames in there! That hull is too thick for us to blow up externally.” Pushing his throttle down, David flipped Revenant around and dropped down to the
Yamato’s underside, searching for an opening. “We don’t have much time! The
Yamato is getting ready to attack the
Reverend! There!” Ahead, David saw Shivan fighters exiting from a gap, no doubt the entrance to the hangar.
Guiding Revenant in, and he noticed several more Frames on his tail. Ahead, he saw a hangar door, blocking their way. Touching the animus device, he rammed the pressurised door aside with a blast of invisible force. As the force of Frames spilled in, he found himself in a hangar ... and hangar was an understatement. An entire city could’ve fit in the space with plenty of room to spare. “What do we do now, sir?”
“Wreck the whole place,” he said. Demonstrating, he raised his hand, and fired, the silver blasts tearing holes in the hangar floor. Behind, him the other Frames too began firing around randomly. Then he saw a new contact enter the hangar; a Poseidon-class Frame. “You kids betta be ready to run,” came a lazy voice. The Poseidon swung the massive plasma positron cannon, pointing it up into the roof of the hangar. The barrel glowed, then fired, the beam parting the roof of the cavern like a hot knife through butter. He fired again and again, until the energy capacitator ejected from the cannon.
As the final beam faded away, the
Yamato heaved, causing the Combat Frames stumbled, as the Shivan ship shuddered again. “Sir, I suggest we run,” came the Poseidon pilot. “Suggestion approved,” he replied. The eight frames turned tailed and blasted out of the
Yamato, exiting the ship the same way they came. As they pulled up into the space around it, they saw the
Yamato heave again, then it seemed to shiver. For a moment it was still, then it exploded, a star of light bursting to life at its heart. As quickly as it was born, the light died away, as the ship imploded on itself.
“We did it! We did it!” crowed a voice over the general frequency. Soon the channels were filled with the cheers of the GTVA and Tyrean forces. David let them cheer; he felt strangely drained. He put it down to years of not piloting Revenant. He patted the command chair of his Frame companionably; he felt it respond gently.
Without warning, subspace portals opened behind the Tyrean fleet, and the
Warspite and the
Bulwark slid into real-space. Both were badly damaged; the
Warspite had a ugly gash down the side. “Sirs! We have a situation!” Dracip reported urgently.
‘
It never rains but it pours,’ David thought to himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well. Um. This is an awefully late one. Sorry. I got stuck trying to figure out the death of the
Yamato, and the battle as a whole.
Hnnh. Appears I forgot to close a tag somewhere along the way.
