Then Adrian saw an opening that he couldn’t have had the chance of exploiting if he was using the c-board. He ordered twenty of his battleships forward, taking them through a wave of Sowir fire, but also placing them perfectly to fire on the group of enemy ships that will move out of the way of the fire from the Tiamat in a few seconds.
Then as the group moved the twenty battleships got a clear line of fire for a span of twenty seconds. And that was enough for the battleships laser and particle cannon to fire and destroy fifteen of their ships. At the same time on the other side of the battle, Adrian moved Valhalla back and above his ships position to cut of the Sowir ships that will soon try to move above his left flank.
The more he used the Watchtower the worse the pain got, at the fifteen minute mark he felt the pain almost reach the point where his people pulled him out last time, but he still kept going.
Invictus
Immediately after the fleet started receiving orders from Adrian, Isani had noticed a change. It wasn’t apparent at first. The Empire still lost ships, but suddenly they found themselves perfectly positioned to take advantage of short lulls in weapons fire from the Sowir ships. The Empire and the Sowir now exchanged ships at the average rate of one for fifteen.
Adrian had spread the Vanguard ships across the formation, using them to both shield the battleships and unleash devastating attacks at just precisely the right moments. The Titan, Tiamat, and Retribution followed by twenty battleships were moving at the enemy fleet, closing the range and drawing fire from the Sowir. And every time that the Sowir shifted their fire to the three Vanguard ships, the ships still in the formation punished them for it.
The flow was shifting, the Empire’s ships were switching from defense to offense as the holes started to appear in the Sowir formations.
Space
As the two of the Sowir battleship groups placed in the top of their formation focused their fire at the battleships in the middle of the Empire’s formation, the Vanguard ship – Invictus launched its missiles. In a span two minutes it fired its entire load, five thousand missiles burned towards the Sowir ships. By the time that the missiles entered the range of the Sowir defenses the rest of the Empire ships punched another hole in the Sowir formation, effectively cutting off the two Sowir groups from the bulk of their forces. It was perfectly executed, with just the right timing. The missiles moved unopposed towards the two groups, as their now lessened defensive power couldn’t harm the advanced Vanguard missiles. The bottom of the Empire’s formation fired with its laser and particle weapons at the top of the Sowir formation, providing even more cover for the missiles.
The leading wave of the missiles was three thousand Enforcer missiles, with their fields protecting them from most of the defensive fire. Out of the three thousand the Sowir managed to take down two thousand and fifty, but still almost a thousand missiles slammed into three hundred Sowir battleships. The Sowir battleships were extremely well made, and their hull upgraded and reinforced since the last time that the Empire encountered them.
Out of the three hundred, one hundred and six were destroyed immediately, others were damaged whether by missiles or debris. It didn’t matter, because the last two thousand missiles slammed into the remaining ships unopposed. These were the newest of Warpaths missiles, the MAHEM MK 1 missiles. Each of the missiles had a powerful magnetic force generator that powered up just before impact, shaping the liquid metal core of the missile into a spearhead that then punctured through armor, delivering the explosives directly inside the hull.
Two thousand MAHEM missiles struck at the Sowir battleships, penetrating inside their hulls and then detonating the explosives. The explosions of the remaining Sowir battleships made it look as if they were blown up from the inside.
Chapter Twenty Two
Harbinger
The destruction of almost half of the Sowir battleships in a span of minutes gave Adrian the opportunity to press his advantage. He pushed his remaining battleships to take the Sowir weaker ships, their light and heavy cruisers as he kept their remaining three hundred battleships occupied with his Vanguard ships.
The pain in his head was now far worse than anything he had felt the first time, but somehow he managed to function despite it. He felt as if his brain was tearing itself apart, but he couldn’t stop. He applied everything he had to block out the pain.
The Sowir were just now moving their “dreadnought” class in range. And they still had the numerical advantage. Adrian was down to two hundred ships, while the Sowir had around eight hundred. And he didn’t know what their new class of ships could do. He knew only that they were slow, like the Empire’s dreadnoughts are, which suggested that they were heavily armored.
He sent out orders for the Tiamat, Titan, Retribution, and their small group to move in the line of fire of the newly arrived Sowir ships. He would need to get them close enough to fire their weapon, which meant going through a group of three hundred light and heavy cruisers.
Tiamat, Titan, and Retribution and their battleship support entered the close range of the Sowir cruisers. Immediately Retribution opened up with its most powerful kinetic weapons. Slugs of metal exploded out of its rail guns, and turrets. The rail guns fired explosive shells, while the turrets fired grav-shells.
Hundreds of explosive shells struck the cruisers, followed by the bigger grav-shells. Once a grav-shell hit the enemy ship, the small but powerful gravity generator inside activated creating a powerful gravity event. The result destroyed the generator, but also created a small implosion at the impact point, shattering the ships armor. Then the lasers and particle beams from the battleships finished the job.
Three Vanguard ships and twenty battleships punched through the cruisers, destroying more than half of them. The rest of the cruisers were then easy targets for the main Empire’s fleet.
Adrian watched as his ships punched through the Sowir cruiser formation, immediately he had the battleships in his main formation focus fire and take out the disorganized remains of the Sowir cruisers. The Sowir remaining battleships were moving to support their dreadnoughts, but Adrian had other plans. He sent orders for ships to intercept them. And then he sent orders for the Specter to move out of its position back into the field of battle and engage the Sowir dreadnoughts from the rear, creating a distraction for his other ships.
Suddenly Iris flew to stand in front of him, “Adrian something is wrong. Your implant’s connections to your brain are failing. You need to stop this now.”
“Just a little bit more Iris.” He said, but it felt harder and harder to think and act. He needed more time.
“But—”
“A few more minutes!”
Harbinger, Valhalla, Twilight, and Invictus started boosting out of their formation to intercept the two hundred and eight Sowir battleships. The laser and particle fire from the battleships hitting their fields and doing no damage. The four ships fired with all of their main weapons. Harbinger, Twilight and Invictus firing their rail guns and turrets sending a hail of metal slugs towards the battleships. The closer the four ships got to the Sowir battleships the less chance they had to evade the fire. Valhalla’s lasers constantly kept their fire on the battleships, cutting through them in seconds just as its particle cannons punched hole in their ships.