Then he sent an order to the drone control. The drones suddenly increased the rate of their missile fire, doubling the number of the missiles on their side as they expended all of their missile ammunition. Then their rail gun turrets locked on to the enemy ships and fired. Thousands of ri-steel rounds exploded out of the drones on their way towards the Shara Daim just as new signatures appeared all around the Shara Daim force, exiting out of their skims.
He knew that, alone, those kinetic weapons wouldn’t finish that force. If they hit, they would hurt. The energy shields were great at stopping missiles and energy weapons—slabs of metal traveling at fractions of speed of light, not so much. The shields would be able to stop a lot of kinetic fire, but would also be drained faster. And Adrian knew that his enemy’s ships could move out of the way easily, even at the distance they were now.
Which was why he needed to keep them in position. Forty of the largest freighters that the Empire had in use appeared around the Shara Daim force. Their cargo containers opened and released the newest of the Empire’s defense platforms. They were spherical in shape and 100 meters across, and each of the 6-kilometer-long freighters carried fifty of them. Suddenly the Shara Daim force found itself surrounded by 2000 defense platforms, each armed with three dreadnought-class proton beams and laser point defense, making it hard for the Shara Daim to maneuver and evade the incoming fire from his drones. The only available action for them was to move back towards the trans-station.
Then, just as the Shara Daim forces realized that, a massive station skimmed and moved to just outside the trans-station, at the position it had occupied before Adrian had had it moved. All of their newer stations had skim capabilities now; it was the only way they could move them quickly across the Empire from the areas where they were constructed. The station was a prolate spheroid seven kilometers tall and four wide and deep, with four fin-like extensions on the two sides and top and bottom that stretched another kilometer from the core station. It was a jointly designed and constructed by Warpath and the Sowir, meant to protect trans-points in important systems.
The Shara Daim knew that they were trapped, and their super battleships started firing missiles towards the station. The station started sending its own missiles at the enemy and firing its powerful proton beams. The station’s laser point defense took down a lot of Shara Daim missiles, but some still managed to sneak through, and those exploded inexplicitly. Adrian knew that the station had started using the new weapon that he’d had Lurker of the Depths and his people install—the GPW, or graviton projector weapon. It used artificial gravitons to create localized gravity events. It required a lot of power, but was effective as both a defensive weapon and an offensive one.
The station’s operators targeted one of the Shara Daim heavy cruisers, and Adrian watched as one of its ends suddenly crumpled in on itself in a bundle of twisted hull, and the ship exploded. Adrian checked to see how Anessa’s ship was doing and found it on the front of the Shara Daim formation, shielding the smaller ships from the drones’ attack. He resent the order for that ship to be left alone, unless it was a danger to the station that had people on it. Then he started giving orders to the drone control that would make the most of the situation.
Chapter Seventeen
Bloodbringer
Anessa had known that this had to have been a trap all along the moment those ships appeared and those platforms exited them. And she had been made certain of it the moment that that large station appeared behind the Legions, in a place where she knew it was always supposed to be. How had it not occurred to them that they could use their FTL technology to move such large stations? Adrian had allowed the Legions in; not only that, he had manipulated two empires, the Shara Daim and the Erasi, making them both think that their system was undefended. All those times when she had seen things that she wasn’t supposed to, had felt his emotions and thoughts slip past his blocks, all those had been planned. He had wanted them to attack his system before they had greater numbers.
The unmanned ships in front of the Legions fired thousands of kinetic shells. Anessa knew what those primitive weapons were; the Shara Daim had encountered a few races that used them, and all had perished against the Legions. Now those primitive weapons would shred the Legions; there was no space to maneuver. The platforms were firing energy beams that even her ship’s shields felt, and at the back of their formation was the massive defense station that was mauling anything that came close enough.
The kinetic shells hit the front of the formation. Her and Garaam’s Legions fared better; the two of them had their larger ships in front, and their shields could take the hail of fire. However, Narrasak had his destroyers and cruisers up front taking the kinetic fire, while his heavy warships were in the back being destroyed by the large station, and his ships were losing their shields rapidly, the platforms surrounding their formation picking off any ship without them.
She was losing ships fast. Already she had lost almost a quarter of her Legion, and the losses of the other two Legions were even worse. But they still had the numbers advantage, at least in heavy warships. If they reorganized and punched through, they might be able to escape this death trap and defeat the enemy.
Anessa ordered her cruisers and destroyers forward, away from the station at their back, but she knew that they had to do something; if they stayed on the defensive for any longer, they wouldn’t have the numbers to attempt anything. Then she noticed Narrasak’s ships tightening formation and moving ahead towards the unmanned drones. She checked the holo and saw that there had been no orders from the Ravager. She tried to open a channel, but Narrasak ignored her. She knew what he was doing; he was trying to push through the front and get to the planet. But she also knew that in the process he was going to lose a lot of ships.
Anessa opened a channel to Soulsworn. Garaam appeared her eyes determined.
“That idiot is going to kill us all,” Garaam said.
“Close the hole his fleet makes, and let’s move away from the station and towards the platforms. We should be able to break through while Narrasak keeps them busy,” Anessa said.
“So we are running,” Garaam said, her voice bitter.
“We can’t win, Garaam. With Narrasak, perhaps; without him, we would certainly lose almost everything, and if losing our Legions is the cost for taking this system, then I don’t want it,” Anessa said forcefully. She was angry—at Narrasak for going off on his own, at herself for hearing alien words in her mind, and at that alien for tricking her and proving his words true.
Garaam’s eyes flashed. “Alright, and I hope that they smash that moron to pieces. At least his idiocy might buy us enough time to get out of this.”
The Empire’s defense platforms fired dark green proton beams at the Shara Daim, even as they returned fire with their own versions, which painted the space around them in dark blue lines. The platforms were taking down Shara Daim missiles that were targeting them, but a few passed through their defensive fire only to impact against the platform’s shields. The drones were firing with their lasers and kinetic weapons, as they had expended their missiles.
Adrian noticed the Shara Daim ships changing formations. One of the Legions, the one in the central part of their formation, moved in front and set a direct course through his remaining drones. The other two were closing the hole that that Legion made, and changing course towards the wall of platforms, away from the station and the Legion trying to push through the drones. He saw Anessa’s ship among that formation, and sent out orders for the platforms closest to that formation to target the damaged and smaller ships of that formation. The rest of the platforms he pointed towards the foolish Legion that was trying to break through his drones.