“The two moons were rich in metals; perhaps they mined them all, taking them apart,” Iris suggested.
Adrian thought it unlikely. The Sowir didn’t use metals as their main construction material. And the amounts they could have mined from them would have had to be enormous.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally. There would be time later for him to solve that puzzle. Now they had other business. He gave the order, and his fleet started moving towards the gas giant and the hundreds of stations, defense platforms, and ships in its orbit.
As the Empire’s fleet neared the hyperspace barrier, their light reached the Sowir stations closest to it. Immediately, the Sowir on them used their FTL comms to confirm what they already knew, since they had detected the tachyon ping spreading through their system. The Sowir might not have possessed the tech, but they could detect it. The Empire had arrived in their system.
They had been expecting them, of course. And they were ready. They knew that it was unlikely that they would win. But they would hurt the invaders as much as they were able. By the time the battle was over, the Empire would regret invading the Sowir Dominion’s home system.
As the Empire’s fleet entered its maximum range, it opened fire. Thousands of explosive shells moved through space, targeting the stations and defense platforms, followed by tens of thousands of missiles, half of which were targeting the couple hundred Sowir warships in high orbit.
The explosive shells reached and ripped through the stations and defense platforms, destroying many outright and crippling others, reducing their capacity to defend against the incoming missiles.
The missiles reached them soon after, blowing apart the remaining stations and platforms, as well as destroying the entire taskforce of warships that futilely tried to defend against the onslaught.
Adrian watched as his fleet’s attack cleared all of his targets. The other Sowir warships in the system had meanwhile been on the move, coming at full speed towards the gas giant. He saw that if he continued on this course, he would clash with most of the enemy’s forces at the gas giant. Adrian could clearly see that the Sowir wanted to force that planet as the battlefield. Adrian could change that; he had the upper hand. If he wanted to, he could run circles around the system, firing from far outside the Sowir’s maximum range. He was the one who had all the power here.
But that would take time, and he was here to make a point. The Sowir needed to be punished, made to see that they could not harm his fleet. So he would allow them the advantage of choosing the battlefield. And he would crush them in spite of it. He sent out orders to Lighthouse, one of his Vanguard ships, which had the most sophisticated sensors in his fleet. It and its sensor drones were to move above the fleets and get a better look at the system. He then gave the orders to Bethany to split from his force and move around the gas giant from the right, while Adrian’s and the Third Fleet moved from the left. That would allow Bethany to intercept some 700 Sowir ships coming from that direction, while the rest of Adrian’s force clashed with the remainder of the Sowir force.
Chapter Fifteen
Audacious
Bethany acknowledged Adrian’s orders via her c-board and relayed them to her fleet from her flagship, the Mark Two dreadnought Audacious. It had been upgraded with the latest of the Empire’s tech, and at kilometer and a half in length, it was a force to be reckoned with. Her six hundred warships split from the joined force and started on a curved course that would take them around the gas giant and allow them to intercept some seven hundred Sowir warships. The Sowir force was mostly cruisers, and would be easily dealt with by her ships.
Beth watched as the two Empire forces approached the planet, using its gravity to slingshot around on different sides of it. As Beth’s force exited the high orbit of the giant and set a course towards the incoming Sowir force, her Sensor Handler spoke out.
“Ma’am, we are detecting a massive energy signature from an unknown object.”
Beth glanced at the now updated holo and saw the enormous object that had been obscured by the planet—a huge spherical station, 5220 kilometers in diameter, covered with docking ports and weapons, and throwing off a massive energy signature. It was surrounded by hundreds of defense platforms.
Immediately, Beth saw the danger to her ships. “Change course! Get us away from that thing and into the Sowir formation,” she said, just as the massive station and the defensive platforms opened fire.
Harbinger
Adrian saw the Sowir object before his force came into its visual range, as the Watchtower received the scans from Bethany’s fleet. Immediately, he started adjusting his orders to the entire fleet. And designating the new station on the fleet’s holo as Construct. As he was about to send new orders to Bethany’s fleet, the Construct and the defensive platforms surrounding it opened fire. Thousands of particle and laser beams struck the shimmering fields of the Second Fleet’s ships, but thankfully did no critical damage.
Adrian released a sigh of relief as information started flowing into his mind. The attacks coming from the Construct were powerful, almost as powerful as the Empire’s current weapons. But the fields held, although they wouldn’t be able to take that kind of fire forever; already some of the ships under attack were losing field integrity under so much fire. Recognizing the threat that the Construct presented, he order the Second Fleet to move and engage. That would allow the Sowir taskforce to move around and encircle it, but those ships couldn’t breach the Empire ships’ defenses with their weapons.
As Adrian’s force exited the shadow of the planet, he started getting information from his own ships on the Sowir Construct, and then the Lighthouse gained line of sight and its superior sensors focused on it. Adrian got a much clearer picture; their sensors detected a heavy gravity disturbance from it, which he assumed was why the Construct, already massive on its own, could stay so close to the planet without being pulled into it.
Adrian was impressed. He doubted that the Empire could have built something like that; it would take an enormous amount of fuel and resources just to keep it there. As more and more information kept coming in, Adrian realized that the Construct was most likely built around the gas giant’s third moon and then moved closer to the planet—for what purpose, he didn’t know yet. And the materials for it must have been mined from the two other moons. It must have taken the Sowir at least a hundred years to pull that off. The Construct still prevented most of the deep scans, allowing them only a surface look at it. It was made from metal, similar in makeup to the materials that the Empire used, which meant that his kinetic weapons would have a tough time blowing through all that armor. But he saw no other choice. What he saw was enough to convince him that they needed to take care of it first if he planned on taking the system.
According to what the scans were telling him, the Construct most likely had a firing range greater than that of his ships, and with the amount of power their weapons had, it could present a real danger. The weapons hitting the Second Fleet were not more advanced than those of the Empire; they were just boosted versions of the Sowir’s usual weapons.
Adrian composed and sent the order to all his ships to focus on the Construct and the defensive platforms surrounding it, ignoring the Sowir ships moving to engage. His ships fired their kinetic weapons, followed by thousands of missiles and particle and laser fire. The Sowir Construct started firing its energy weapons on Adrian’s force, and then it opened up with its own missiles. Thousands, then tens of thousands of missiles launched and kept launching. Soon, the number of Sowir missiles dwarfed those of the Empire’s.