Welcome to the next episode in the Space Opera saga of Alex Deroma.
I'm carrying on with the idea of using the brilliant writing prompts in the Worldbuilding Community to determine which direction the story goes in. The one I'm using for this episode is; Worldbuilding Prompt #587 - Victory
This is a bit of a long post, but it's a climactic part of the story !
Not all Slavers were reptilian. Hive-Admiral Bzatrishard was a vespiform of the Akzatt species. It considered the reptilians to be inferior, hardly worthy of being a Slaver species. This was amply demonstrated by their inability to contain the slave uprising in their territory.
Bzatrishard's orders were simple. Resources were limited due to the massive losses suffered by Slaver fleets in the recent battles, but the revolt was to be put down. It was to be done with extreme violence. No slaves were to survive, and the retribution should be so legendary that in a million years time, slaves would still talk about it in hushed, terrified voices.
So Bzatrishard had been given a still-formidable force of ten thousand ships, the last fleet the Slaver confederacy could pull together from rear-area detachments, with one goal. Take an anti-tachyon accelerator bomb to the centre of the galaxy whose slaves had risen, detonate it, and get out before the faster-than-light wavefront of destruction.
The bomb was a galaxy-cracker, a device of horrifying power. The galaxy would be shredded, stars blown out like candles or scattered into inter-galactic space, planets stripped of all life or vapourised. Nothing would survive.
But there was opposition, and Bzatrishard was bemused by the form it took. Imperial forces were rumoured to be in the area. The ships barring their passage were Imperial types, but fought more like Rim pirates than Imperials.
There were no set-piece battles.
Small groups of enemy ships would sweep out from behind a planet or star, unload all their ordinance at his fleet and then dive back into cover before his fleet could crush them. Or they would drop in from another dimension and be gone after a few shots were fired.
Worst of all were lone battleships that would hide with systems powered down, fully cloaked and stationary. They'd de-cloak in the midst of his fleet, fire every weapon they had and then jump into another dimension before the chaos subsided.
Occasionally his fleet would swat one of their attackers, but the casualty ratio was not in the Slavers' favour. Ten to one or worse. The ships they killed might look like Imperials, but they weren't painted the puritanical grey or black of Imperial ships. They were decorated with garish images of wings, feathers, beaks and predatory gaping mouths full of sharp teeth.
When they destroyed one and pored over the debris, the ships' names weren't like Imperial ones. Instead of the long, pompous or facetious names favoured by Imperial ships, they had simple, evocative ones. The Revenge. The Freedom. Alexandra's Spear.
Bzatrishard was becoming confused and worried. He pulled his ships into tight formation. That would present the enemy raiders with a wall of ships to prevent them penetrating deep into the formation. Then the Slaver fleet drove hard towards the galactic core to plant their bomb.
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Alex watched the Slavers in her holotac display as they tightened their formation.
Turning to Trass Yalandri with a huge predatory grin on her face, she announced, "There, they've made the mistake I expected. Our harassment has made them pull into a dense formation. It's time to mess them up."
Shade, sitting on Alex's shoulder, picked up the mood. The bird ruffled her black and white feathers gleefully and gave vent to an evil sounding chuckle.
Trass smiled back. Hers was a smile of quiet satisfaction, of a job well done. As X.O. she had co-ordinated the units in the Battle Corps, passing on Alex's orders and giving the officers the freedom to use the tactics that worked best for them.
She also knew of their secret weapon. Every ship carried two or three Kerber, freed slaves with an uncanny ability to sense both others of their kind and Slavers over vast distances. They helped guide attacking squadrons to where the enemy formations were densest, as well as to find outlying stragglers or ambushes.
"What is the plan, Admiral ?" she asked. "The Battle Corps has reformed into a single formation, as you asked. We're badly outnumbered, but if we hit the enemy hard and fast, we should be able to penetrate their defensive wall."
Alex laughed. "Oh no, we're not going to hit them head on. Do you remember that training exercise we did on the way to hit the Nexus gate ? We're going to do that, but Legion by Legion instead of just a ship or two at a time."
Trass went pale, her eyes widening in horror. "Are you fu.... Admiral, that's crazy. We'd be committing suicide. Their formation is far too dense !"
Shaking her head, Alex showed no sign of fear. "It's a space battle. Even in tight formation, there are huge gaps full of nothing but emptiness. Their ships are locked relative to each other by tractor and pressor beams. We can study their formation from a neighbouring dimension with the help of the Kerber. There is a small risk of a few collisions, but there are always risks in war, and we'll lose less this way than with a head-on assault."
"How long until weapon drop point, navigator ?" Hive-Admiral Bzatrishard flew back and forth across the command deck. He ignored the protocol of being strapped in and secured, he was far too important for such inconveniences.
"Three hours, Hive-Admiral," came the response. Followed by a buzzing of uncertainty.
"Hive-Admiral, sensors detect a disturbance. Oh. Oh, no."
"What ? Out with it !"
"Hive-Admiral, Imperial ships are jumping into the centre of our formation. Hundreds of them. Wait... I think it's a trick of some kind. They've gone. Jumped out or just a sensor decoy."
That was when first of the homing mines reached proximity with the battleship Grzzakk and detonated.
The whole of Alex's First Legion had jumped in, dumped mines, and jumped back out again. The centre of the Slaver fleet was ripped apart by explosion after explosion. The mines contained macrotic bombs, deliberately chosen to consume their targets, converting them to raw energy but leaving little debris.
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Into the spherical gap that had been the centre of the Slaver fleet jumped Second and Fourth Legions. Even after six months of fighting, there were nearly five hundred ships in each. They fired torpedoes and missiles at the nearest Slaver ships; vessels that until thirty seconds ago had been focused against external threats. Then they jumped out again.
The next to jump in were Third and Fifth Legions. A score of ships didn't make it, arriving in the same space as hunks of debris and mutually annihilating each other. But the rest hung around longer than their predecessors, lashing the disorganised and confused Slaver vessels with every weapon they had, until it was time to jump out and be replaced by previous Legions coming back in a devastating carousel.
Among the drifting, burning debris was the dismembered corpse of a vespiform. Bzatrishard had thought he was safe in his massive command dreadnought, at the centre of his fleet. But a mine had ripped the ship's stern off, and a dozen missiles had finished the job. He never knew what hit him.
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"I think we can call this a victory, Admiral." Trass had to remember protocol and formality in front of the rest of the crew. It was hard when Alex insisted on wearing the outrageously non-regulation and borderline-indecent outfit she had adopted as war-leader of the Kerber on Margal VI.
Nodding slowly, Alex felt tired. It was as if six months of constant strain had hit her all at once. But it was indeed a total and decisive victory. The Slaver fleet had been gutted, fewer than two hundred ships surviving and fleeing towards safety.
"How many did we lose ? What is left of us ?"
All Alex could think of were the casualties. How many more friends and comrades had she lost ?
Waving a hand over the control panel, Trass read off the numbers. "We lost two hundred and ninety ships. We're down to a round two thousand of our original roster of five thousand vessels. It could have been a lot worse. But I don't know how we'll be able to deal with the next fleet the enemy sends."
Neither woman knew that this had been the Slavers' last roll of the dice; their offensive resources were exhausted.
To be continued.....
