Existential Threat: Chapter 2 Part 4 of 4 (Patreon)

Dana checked a notification, Klinsky having sent over the map, showing the Iron Armada going through several wormholes that would re-position the different fleets and change their orientation, coming in high and from the rear, the fleets that had been at the bottom and top of the original formation now the leading and trailing points, aimed right at a ‘face’ of the enemy formation.

“Wormhole transition in thirty seconds,” Dana called out.

“Prepare for wormhole transition, thirty seconds,” Ayambe’s voice rang through the ship and the fleet.

Statuses over the ship transformed, returning to nearly full strength. Small craft were landing and exiting the different ships that could carry them.

The counters ran down to ten seconds.

“Flipping the ships,” Klinsky said, thrusters fired, the ships turning to face the direction they were still travelling in, wormhole projectors slid out from their coverings, pouring out power to rip a hole in space-time.

Wormholes formed and spread.

“Enemy are orientating to wormhole exit,” Leblanc said.

The lead ships of her different fleets passed through the wormhole, holding onto the massive speed they had generated charging Weskarth’s forces on their first run.

“Exiting,” Klinsky reported as they trailed out of the wormhole.

“Armada is looking good,” Dana studied the ships. It was a tricky manouver to carry off with just several ships, with over three hundred and fifty ships it was hellish. They’d done it with only minimal mistakes.

“Our honor to get you where you need to be Admiral,” Klinsky sat straighter in his chair.

“I appreciate the piloting mister Klinsky,” Dana gave a slight smile, catching something out of her eye.

She didn’t miss Ayambe looking away suddenly. And that’ll be across the fleet already. A bit of light banter and praise was good to get everyone to relax.

“Now miss Leblanc, lets see if we can’t put some more hurt into Bernard Armada, they’re tough bastards over there, but I have a feeling we might get some good hits on them.”

“Aye aye admiral, coming up into hellbore range.”

Dana studied the Coalition’s Bernard Armada, in an impressive display of piloting and reaction the armada had flattened, the bottom plane coming up to meld into the upper plane, creating a reinforced flat diamond.

“Enemy ships are turning to present their broadsides and are spinning,” Klinsky couldn’t keep his appreciation from his voice.

“Going to spread out the damage over multiple planes and bring as much of their fire power to bear as possible,” Dana clicked her tongue, narrowing her eyes at the readouts. If she did the same she would have more firepower in their first exchanges, and then less as they passed through one another’s formation, but it would also make her a bigger target now and less of one afterwards.

She checked the status of the hellbore conversions.

“Enemy freighters are unloading all their missile ammunition banks and assisting in reloading the small craft,” Leblanc said.

“Present broadsides, spin the ships. Lets put our hellbores to work.”

“Aye admiral,” Klinsky growled, not happy with the last second change.

Leblanc’s hands flew across her console, screens popping up, her bot’s head bobbing, talking to get new fire plans and presets input across the fleet, blending plans and bringing them together with Sally’s assistance before plugging them into the different systems across the fleet.

Dana felt the push of the thrusters as the fleet slewed around, reminding her of ships from the age of sail, other thrusters caught the ship and fired in series, rolling the ships making them appear as if bulldozers.

“Missile barrages or weapons free?” Leblanc asked.

“Weapons free, lets use up our remaining missiles, Ayambe have the freighters rendezvous with us after the engagement to resupply munitions.”

“Entering engagement range,” Leblanc called out Hellbores bloomed across the fleet, ships moved to escape the worst of the attacks, sending back their own. Inevitably ships were struck, as time ran on, more impacts registered as the tempo climbed. Ships began falling out of formation, hits taking out critical systems.

“Enemy Freighters are wormholing away,” Leblanc said.

“Ayambe have our scouting force and attached units give chase.”.

“Yes Admiral.”

“Entering missile range.”

Missiles thumped free of the ships as fast as the tubes could reload, creating a heavy first cloud, trailing down as they ran dry of missiles on the smaller ships and then up the ship’s weight classes.

“Enemy are firing missiles,” Leblanc said. “They’re using the ones their freighters dropped.”

Seconds passed by, the fleets savaging one another again. Dana kept her ships at range to better use her hellbores ‘orbiting’ the enemy fleet so any missiles they fired needed to come on a predictable path to intercept her, or lose their speed advantage.

“They’re blowing missile prematurely to catch out ours again.”

“Playing the defensive game,” Dana nodded. She’d caught him out but Weskarth was still fighting his fleet to the best of his abilities.

CIWS, interceptors and missiles dueled one another, filling thousands of kilometers with a display of nuclear fury.

Both fleets were going all out, still engineers rushed through the corridors, bringing systems back online, fixing ammunition runs, tearing our and replacing power conduits or kicking reactors back into life.

“Wormhole opening ahead!” Leblanc yelled.

Containers with engines strapped to their rear shot through wormholes. Aiming for their broadsides, only seconds away.

“Target as if they were missiles,” Dana said. The hair on the back of her head was sticking right up and she drove down the sudden desire to smile. Well played Weskarth.

“Keep the engineers working on repairs.”

CIWS targets and engaged the incoming container missiles, spreading their contents across space.

“Ayambe our scouting forces?”

“They’re heading for the enemy fleet now.”

“Enemy fleet is accelerating at five gravities. Enemy wormhole closing.”

Thousands of containers turned missiles filled the space ahead of them, advancing in a constant stream, the ones in the lead  expelled their contents, creating a screen for those behind, each getting further and further.

“Damn,” Dana muttered as explosions triggered in the containers, flung out the material inside, creating cones of components, ingots ammunition and whatever else had been stored within.

Ships weathered impacts, weapons torn from their hulls, shrapnel tore through open sections in the ship’s armor and made new entry points.

Materials smashed against Shoki’s hull, some bouncing off, others embedding into armor or crashing through it to play havoc with her internals.

“We’re through the container rain,” Leblanc said through gritted teeth.

“Bring in the small craft, prepare to meet up with the Freighters for resupply.” Dana took time to study her Armada. Black oultines of dead ships, red ships fighting to stay online, orange ships working to pull back from the brink.

“Status on Shoki Sally?”

A hologram of the massive Dreadnought rotated infront of her, highlighted with reds, yellows, blacks and oranges.

“We’ve lost Forty three percent of our weapons, we have less than thirty seven percent of our ammunition stores remaining, a third of our landing bays have been trashed, half of them have been damaged in some way. Seventeen of the secondary reactors and eight of the primaries require repairs or are out of action. We have heavy holing across the ship. Two thirds of our wormhole projectors have been hit.”

“That’s more than just circumstance,” Dana muttered.

“Other members of the Armada are also reporting their wormhole projectors have been targeted,” Ayambe said.

“We’ll have to work the projectors together to open a wormhole. Looks like they don’t want us coming down on them again unsuspected.” Sections on the hologram of the warship updated into brighter colors. “Report on the Armada?”

“Operational one is at Sixty three percent. Two is at Thirty five, they are combining fleets now for greater command and control. Three is down to twenty seven. Four is at twenty nine percent. Enemy fleet is overall down to thirty Seven percent of their original strength, not including freighters, we are down to fifty one.”

“Alright, we’ve got some opening kicks in, three gravities of acceleration against our direction of momentum. Lets shed off some speed. I want to assume that the enemy fleet are using all of their stored nuclear materials for more missiles and hellbore shot. Bring watches to fifty percent, have the crews of the ships that are under repair or cannot be brought back to service as secondaries. We are just getting started, these battles are about endurance of the mind and sharpness of our reflexes.”

Dana checked the time and grimaced. Dammit I won’t make it out in time to see Luke before bed. She ran through final checks, sending him a quick message focusing back on her mission.