As his force drew closer to the enemy, he started to notice a change in their formation, they had finally seen his ships. Which meant that the defenders should have gotten his message. There was no response from the Sowir and their movements suggested that there wasn’t going to be one. Another couple of minutes later and Adrian noticed the Nelus fleet moving forward, abandoning the defenses of their stations and moving to engage the Sowir. He also noticed that the Nelus ships moved at speed that will let his ships reach the Sowir first. That was fine, their ship were less powerful than Sowir ships.
Then his ships entered into firing range. Firing missiles at the Sowir ships wouldn’t be as effective as it would have been against a smaller force, their ships were positioned close together and there was enough of them to provide protection for each other. But Adrian still sent out orders for task forces one and two to do so. His missiles might not even reach their ships, but it wouldn’t matter, the Sowir had no way of defending against his ships other weapons.
Three hundred of the Empire’s battleships came to a stop and launched their missiles, in a span of five minutes each task force fired 7500 missiles. 15000 missiles sped towards the Sowir. The last time that Sowir ships encountered the Empire’s missiles didn’t go well for them. But this time they were ready. Upon detecting the Empire’s ships the Sowir assumed a formation specifically designed to fight this kind of threat. Each ship’s on-board point defense computer linked with each of the other ships, creating a net, their point defense lasers now working in perfect harmony. As soon as the Empire’s missiles entered the range of their defenses they opened fire.
Six hundred ships were positioned to take the Empire’s fire, each of those ships equipped with dozens of point defense lasers. Lasers reached out to strike at the missiles with pinpoint precision, every laser fired at the same time at the missiles that were approximately the same distance from them. The tactic was devised to take down as many of the enemy missiles as possible before their computers realized that they were under fire and executed their evasion protocols. But the Empire’s missiles were not the same as they were thirty years ago. For every 500 missiles, one was actually equipped with FTL sensors and connected with the others. The 30 sensor missiles detected the danger the moment the Sowir ships fired, but still the near instant response wasn’t fast enough.
About half of the point defense lasers missed their target, destroying only 6000 missiles in a span of seconds. The Sowir defense net now changed protocols to match the Empire’s now evading missiles. The Sowir had studied the records of their battles with the Empire’s ships, their new defensive system designed specifically to battle them. The Empire’s missiles were more advanced, faster and more maneuverable than before, but the Sowir defenses were more advanced as well, and the number of their ships coupled with their positioning meant that Sowir had an upper hand. Over the next minute their defenses destroyed all of the Empire’s missiles.
Harbinger
Adrian watched as his fleets missiles were destroyed by the Sowir.
“They’ve upgraded their defenses.” Iris commented.
“Yes, we knew that it was likely they would do so. We haven’t observed their ships in battle since our last encounter.” Adrian said. But he was impressed, his ships were capable of firing much larger load, and his battleships had fired only about 10% of their supplies, and only their standard missiles – the Striker MK 7 missiles. His ships were equipped with other types of missiles, but this first attack was a test in a way, he wanted to see how effective the Sowir defenses are. He was sure that his fleet could fire enough missiles to overwhelm the defenses, but then he would be dangerously low when the main Sowir force returns. The battleships ammo supply was just too small for this kind of engagements.
His fleet now stood at a relative stop, across from the Sowir ships. Battles in space could take many different shapes depending on circumstances. Now the Sowir force was blocked between Nelus and his forces, if they tried to move and escape they would only make things worse by turning their backs to his and Nelus ships. They were forced to stay put and wait for their main force. So the three forces would stand at a distance and fire at each other.
Adrian noticed that four hundred Nelus ships had moved out of the protective area of their stations and engaged the two hundred Sowir ships positioned at the back of their formation. Nelus ships were technically on the same technological level as Sowir, or they were thirty years ago at least. But half of the Nelus ships were converted merchant ships, another hundred were their new cruiser class and the last hundred their old heavy cruisers. The Sowir force consisted out of two hundred battleships, three hundred heavy, and hundred light cruisers, presumably all upgraded with all kinds of technologies they got in the last thirty years as proven by their much better defenses. Thirty years ago the human ships managed to defeat Sowir mainly thanks to their kinetic weapons against which Sowir had no defenses. Now Adrian couldn’t use those weapons against the force in front of him, any miss could find its way to the Nelus force behind the Sowir, and in the worst case he could accidentally hit the planet or the installations in orbit.
He was forced to use laser and particle weapons. The clock to his right showed another eleven minutes until the main force reached firing range. He started manipulating the command board and issued orders to his ships.
Chapter Twenty
December; Year 31 – Nelus
Three hundred and fifty ships of the Warpath Fleet opened fire with their laser and particle weapons, just a moment before the Sowir fired with their own weapons. The Sowir fire included their own missiles, and every second hundreds of missiles launched and sped towards the Empire’s ships, only to be destroyed by their defensive fire.
Powerful lasers struck at the Sowir ships scorching their hulls, forcing the Sowir ships to move or roll their ships in order to dissipate the heat. Each of the Empire’s lasers held their fire for five seconds before stopping to cool down, the Sowir lasers doing the same. In the opening minute of fire the six hundred Sowir ships managed to inflict light damage to fifty of the Empire’s battleships with their particle and laser weapons, while the Empire’s battleships destroyed twenty of their heavy cruisers, fifteen light cruisers and eight battleships. But soon enough the fire from the Sowir ships changed focus as they started targeting less ships, but brining to bear more fire on them.
The Empire started losing ships.
Harbinger
Adrian watched his holo as reports started coming in from his battleships, they were taking more and more fire, forcing him to move the damaged ships back. The Sowir ships were not as technologically advanced as his battleships, but their weapons were obviously more powerful than 30 years ago. And they were fighting smart, firing with as many of their ships as they were able on a single one of his.
But even with their numerical advantage the exchange favored his fleet. For every one of his ships lost the Sowir lost five. Adrian knew that he could have destroyed more of their ships if he had ordered his Vanguard ships to fire with their full capabilities, but he didn’t want to tip his hand and show what those ships can do before the Sowir main force arrives.
He glanced at his holo to see how Nelus side of the battle was going. The exchange there was more even, Sowir lost thirty eight ships and Nelus thirty two. Even though Nelus had numerical advantage.