The remaining Sowir transport ship kept its course towards Nuva, there was no chance for Lia and her ships to catch it. The light cruiser that served as its escort drives were damaged and it couldn’t keep up, it slowly turned and set a course for Lia and her ships. Looking at her crew and then back at the holo she gave the order for them to meet the enemy ship.
Ship Master Paul Isaacs glanced at Adrian, his friend, as he commanded the fleet. For Adrian the battle was a chess match, but for Paul and the other commanders it was a lot more personal. They were fighting their ships, trying to destroy the enemy while keeping their ships safe.
“Power grid fourteen is down, we lost railguns thirteen through fifteen.” Weapons Handler reported.
“Send the repair crew, get them back online.” Paul’s High Prime ordered.
Studying the holo Paul noticed that battleship Battle Song managed to push six missiles through one of the Sowir battleships defenses, the one designated as H3. Seeing an opening Paul immediately started giving orders.
“Rotate the ship. Bring all our top weapons to bear on H3.” Paul ordered.
Almost immediately Leviathan started its rotation, turning its top towards the Sowir battleships. As each of Leviathan’s weapons got into range they started firing on the 290 meter long battleship. Railgun fire started ravaging the battle ship’s hull even as Leviathan’s lasers scorched it. And then one of Leviathan’s main lasers managed to keep a full 5 second burn on its target. The result was a flash of fire as the beam burned through the hull and ignited the air inside. A change immediately came over the ship.
“It’s point defense is offline!” Sensor Handler yelled out.
“Load torpedo tubes 1 and 3! Get me a lock.” Paul said.
“Torpedo tubes 1 and 3 loaded, we have a lock!”
“Fire!”
Two torpedoes launched from Leviathans forward tubes. The torpedoes were devastating weapons, but lacked maneuverability and evasive capabilities of missiles. But now that the enemy ship’s defenses were offline it was the perfect moment to use them. The two torpedoes sped towards their target, and then slammed into its hull. The detonations were devastating, momentarily blinding sensors of every ship close to the Sowir battleship.
In the fraction of a moment after the detonations, Iris recognized the advantage, and assumed direct command of every missiles already on its way toward the enemy ships. In the moment that sensors were blind, she changed trajectories of all the missiles, she had a virtual map of the battlefield in her memory. As the torpedo blasts expired, Sowir point defense computers tried to lock onto the incoming missiles, searching for their previous tracks. It took them a couple of seconds to realize that the missiles were no longer on those tracks, but that was enough. Hundreds of human missiles hit their new targets, inflicting heavy damage to Sowir battleships.
Adrian watched as quick thinking from Paul resulted in a complete change of the battle. Adrian adapted his tactics, changing orders to capitalize on the advantage they just acquired. The map showed Adrian’s ships inflicting heavy damage on the Sowir battleships from one side just as Retsar Isani and his were attacking from the other. The advantage Paul created gave Retsar Isani’s ships room to strike on the damaged Sowir ships. Focused fire from Valor and its escorts broke through defenses of Sowir battleship designated as H5. And with its destruction others started to fall, but not without a fight. Their particle beams constantly hammered both Adrian’s and Isani’s ships, a critical hit on the already damaged heavy cruiser Valkyrie caused an explosion that rocked the ship, its forward section blowing up opening the ship to space. Valkyrie spun dead in space, and Adrian hoped that the crew managed to survive, his board was still giving him status reports from Valkyrie, but no one was answering comms. All of Valkyries weapons systems were offline as were most of its critical systems. Putting the Valkyrie in the back of his mind Adrian continued to guide his ships, he had no time to worry now. Seeing the Sowir heavy cruiser entering range and starting to open fire on his ships, Adrian gave order to the taskforce he previously sent above the field of battle to cut previous order short and swing back immediately, striking the heavy cruisers from behind. Then he split his main force in two, sending the battleship Protector to keep them busy, while Leviathan and Battle Song helped Nel ships finish off Sowir battleships. He cast his eyes on the two Sowir transports and its escorts, seeing that his light cruisers and Nel frigates managed to destroy one transport and three of its four light cruisers escorts, but at a heavy price. Nel lost the damaged light cruiser and three of its frigates, while Conqueror and Talon sustained heavy damage. And now the remaining light cruiser was slowly turning to meet Conqueror, Talon, and Nel frigate. Seeing that there was no chance of his ships reaching the troop transport in time to stop it from reaching Nuva, Adrian sent a message to Company Leader Okoro, letting him know that one troop transport was on its way.