Inheritance (Rise of the Empire Book 5) (11 page)

Chapter Sixteen

From both sides of the battle, Empire shells struck the massive Sowir Construct and the defensive platforms, denting and in some cases blowing holes into the Construct, and destroying the platforms outright. Laser fire scorched and melted the hull, doing only superficial damage, while the Empire’s particle weapons blew holes that apparently had no effect on the overall capability of the Construct. All that was minor damage to the Construct; its armor was too thick and anchored deep inside the massive moon beneath its hull. Behind the Empire’s kinetic assault followed their missiles. Thousands of the Empire’s missiles blew up in moments as the Sowir’s sophisticated point defense systems ravaged the crippled Empire missiles.

The Empire’s missiles evading protocols relied on their FTL comms capability, with a few relay missiles mixed in the waves receiving the evading patterns from the AIs of the ships that fired them. Now without their FTL capabilities, they were picked apart and destroyed before even one could reach the Construct.

On the other hand, a great number of Sowir missiles punched through the Empire defensive nets from both the Construct and the Sowir cruisers and struck their targets. Missiles hit the massive Second Fleet ships, their field generators in most cases managing to deflect a lot of the explosive force, even while the ships themselves suffered damage. As the number of missiles that breached the Empire’s defenses increased, so did amount of damage that the ships received. Soon, one of the Second Fleet’s missile ships exploded as its field failed and several particle beams struck it, followed quickly by another.

On the other side of battle, the combined Vanguard and Third Fleets had an easier job. Their greater numbers gave them stronger defensive capability, but even they faltered and missiles passed through, hitting their targets, weakening the ships’ fields enough to allow the Construct’s lasers and particle beams to destroy ships.

***

Harbinger

Adrian watched as he lost twenty-nine ships to the Construct’s weapons, with another thirty-two that had sustained various amounts of damage. The Second Fleet had lost forty-six, and their reports showed another eighteen damaged. It could have been worse, especially if the full Sowir fleet had been around. But they needed to take care of the Construct before the rest of the Sowir’s forces arrived. As he watched the holo, he saw that another Sowir force would soon enter the battle on his side, at least one thousand ships strong, and this force wasn’t just cruisers. He had no time to spare; he couldn’t allow his ships to be caught in the middle. He sent orders to the Second Fleet for it to renew its assault on the Construct and close the range, focusing most of their ships on it. A few dreadnoughts could hold off the Sowir cruisers.

Then he sent orders to Tiamat and Titan to close the distance to the Construct, enter the range of their molecular disruption cannons, and weaken the Construct’s hull. Then he sent orders for the Harbinger to get in position to fire its main weapon, the massive rail-gun that stretched half the length of his ship, capable of cracking small moons. He planned on showing the Sowir just how outmatched they truly were.

It was then that the Sowir Construct fired another salvo of missiles, twice as large as the one before, while its energy weapons continued to batter his ships.

***

Audacious

Beth sent orders for her dreadnoughts to shield the damaged ships, most of which were her missile ships. Her Krakens and Mark Twos had managed to get through the Sowir fire with very little damage at that point; most of their fields still operational. As she received new orders from Adrian, she modified her own and sent them out.

Leaving behind twenty ships—ten Krakens and ten Mark Twos—to take care of the Sowir cruisers, she ordered the rest of her fleet to focus their attacks on the Construct, while they adjusted their formation to meet the new missile salvo.

Her Mark Two dreadnoughts took positions at the front of the formation, with her Audacious in the lead, and burned towards the Construct, making themselves targets for the incoming missiles even as their point defense struggled to reduce the numbers thrown against them. Her ship’s turrets fired shells constantly, and she decided not to keep anything back. She ordered her missile ships to fire all of their remaining missiles at the Construct.

***

Tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of missiles launched from the Second Fleet’s Furious-class missile ships. All types of Empire missiles intermingled in one large wave of destruction. But as they entered the Sowir Construct’s point defense range, they started to die. Their evading protocols, designed to work exclusively with FTL, had no chance of escaping the Sowir fire. But the sheer number of missiles forced the Sowir to use all of their available assets to defend, and in the end they destroyed most of the missiles.

But a couple Enforcer missiles with their field generators made it through and exploded against the Construct’s hull, blowing holes, opening compartments to space, destroying weapon turrets. But it was still not enough; even with the constant fire of the Empire’s ships, lasers, particle beams, and explosive shells, the Construct was still operational. Its surface was scarred, battered, and burned, but thousands of weapons were still operational and continued to fire at the Empire’s ships.

The second wave of Sowir missiles smashed through the Second Fleet’s point defense, thousands of missiles striking the dreadnoughts in the lead of the formation, crippling their field defenses and burning their hulls. But the Mark Two dreadnoughts were tough; even before the Empire’s scientists had developed the field technology, they had been juggernauts that could take punishment. Now, with most of the dreadnoughts having no field defenses, the Construct’s energy weapons reached their hulls. But the thick hulls and reflective coatings that all Empire ships possessed allowed them to weather the storm as even as many other ships succumbed to the impossible amount of fire. All the way the Empire’s ships were firing and blowing chunks of the Sowir monstrosity away.

***

Sowir Construct

The Sowir operating their greatest weapon noticed the shift of the enemy’s forces. The enemy fire on their battle station intensified. Their ships started firing waves after waves of missiles; their lasers scorched the station’s hull; their shells smashed at the battle station’s armor. It was not going to be enough, though; the Sowir had spent a long time making sure of that. Eventually, they knew, the enemy would destroy them, but by then the enemy’s impressive fleet would be reduced to a fraction of what it was now.

Chapter Seventeen

Harbinger

Adrian studied the battlefield, seeing the Second Fleet survive the second Sowir missile wave with another eighty-four casualties, with many others damaged. And then the Second Fleet’s missiles pushed through and hit the Construct. Adrian watched the scans of the Construct; its power and gravity signatures barely fluctuated at the havoc that the Second Fleet’s fire inflicted. Adrian quickly thought through hundreds of scenarios; he knew that the heart of the Construct had to be deep inside the moon buried beneath the rocks that were surrounded by armor. Its weapons systems and power plants were most likely compartmentalized, each section working independently. It explained why his forces hadn’t yet hit something that shut down an entire area of weapons. Until now, only weapons that were disabled were too damaged to fire or had been destroyed.

As the Second Fleet continued to move forward, spewing fire at the Sowir Construct, his own force was shooting down the Sowir missiles at an amazing rate, but was expending their new seeker countermeasures fast in order to do so.

Adrian watched carefully as the enemy missiles reached and hit his ships. By now, he too had put his heavier Mark Two dreadnoughts and the heavier Vanguard ships in front, shielding his Furious- and Kraken-class ships. The enemy missiles exploded and his Mark Twos punched through them, and he lost another thirty-eight ships. Others made it through with varying losses in field integrity, with some even losing it completely.

As the storm passed, Adrian focused on a small taskforce, including his Harbinger, which split from the main force and moved towards the Construct. At the front of the formation were Titan and Tiamat, surrounded by twenty drones, shielding the other twenty drones that were flanking Harbinger, which was following close behind.

The Titan and Tiamat fired their lasers and particle beams at the defense platforms in their way, clearing a path to the Construct. Then, as they entered the effective range of their molecular disruption cannons, both ships fired.

Two gray-white bolts of energy left the cannons from the two large ships speeding towards the Sowir Construct, and then impacted against its hull and spread in a spider web pattern around the impact site until their energy was expended. The attack did no outward damage, but Adrian knew that it had done its job. Harbinger positioned so that its front was angled towards the Sowir Construct, as its main weapon was built into the ship.

Glancing at Paul, he gave the order.

“Fire,” he said.

Immediately, Adrian felt the Harbinger shudder. Lights dimmed for just a fraction of a second as the massive rail-gun drew power. And then a boom echoed throughout the ship as the weapon fired.

***

The forward point of the Empire’s warship Harbinger exploded in fire and light as a massive 18600mm caliber explosive shell blasted out of it in a shower of electricity. The thirty-ton ri-steel shell sped towards the Sowir Construct at amazing speeds. In fifteen seconds, it crossed the distance between the Empire’s taskforce and the Construct. Striking its target and bursting through its armor as if it were nothing, it pushed inside the rock below, the force of its impact cracking the crust and tearing it apart. The cracked pieces of the moon shifted, crushing and blowing apart the facilities that the Sowir had built underground. Their massive power plants, ammunition depot, and fuel storage facilities ignited and blew, adding to already massive explosion spreading from the heart of the moon.

***

Harbinger

Adrian felt his lip curl upwards as his fleet’s scanners detected massive fluctuations and explosions coming from inside the Construct. He watched as internal explosions started blowing the Construct from within. And then the Construct started falling apart, its insides blowing outwards.

As he watched the holo and the read the information from his scans, his smile slipped. Time slowed down, his mind going into overdrive; he read the data and then read it again, checking and checking hundreds of times in a span of moments. He was still looking at the holo, at the positions of his ships. He was helpless.

I’ve miscalculated,
Adrian thought to himself as time resumed its normal flow.
I didn’t account for the amount of fuel; I didn’t account for their ammunition stores, their power plants, and gravity generators
. Frantically, he reached for the comms to his left, opening a channel to the Second Fleet even though he knew it was too late.

***

Audacious

The crew of Audacious’s CC cheered as the Harbinger’s main weapon hit the Sowir construct. Its weapons fire died off, and Beth saw multiple explosions appear all over its surface. Then her comms chimed.

“Beth, get away from there now!” Adrian frantically yelled out.

Bethany was about to respond, when she saw what was happening at the Sowir Construct.

Immediately, she opened the comms to her entire fleet.

“All ships turn around immediately. Get as far away from the Construct as possible,” Bethany ordered, even as she realized that her dreadnoughts were too close and wouldn’t have enough time to get away.

The pieces of the moon blew outwards in a storm of fire, the explosions from the Sowir power plants blowing them in all directions. The massive station surrounding the moons disappeared in a fast-expanding rain of fire and debris. The moon and the Construct exploded, the debris field moving in every direction.

Bethany’s dreadnoughts were too slow; they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of the rapidly approaching danger. Her ship was firing at all the closest pieces, hoping to shatter or deflect some of them, but with no success.

Beth watched as her crew desperately tried to get more out of her ship, but the Mark Twos were not built for speed. She realized that she would die, and that there was nothing she could do about it. She recorded a message and sent it off, just as a three-kilometer-wide piece of rock smashed into her ship.

***

Harbinger

The Harbinger turned using its massive auxiliary drives and was speeding away from the oncoming carnage and towards the gas giant, where the rest of the fleet was now heading in order to escape the debris field. Titan and Tiamat were following with the drones, which the command crews used now to ram smaller, faster pieces of debris that threatened to hit the three warships. The Vanguard ships were much faster than the Empire’s other ships, and had little problem with keeping ahead of the danger.

Adrian looked at the holo. Bethany’s dreadnoughts were trying to get away, but he could see that they wouldn’t get far; the old ships were tough, but too slow. He saw ships fire all their weapons, but to no avail. He saw ships turning around and ramming the bigger pieces of the moon, hoping to save their friends, but it didn’t matter.

Adrian forced himself to look at Audacious on the holo, to look as a big chunk of the moon he’d destroyed bore down on Bethany’s ship. He watched as the rock struck the large dreadnought in its side, breaking its spine and then plastering it on its surface, followed by a big, short explosion as the Audacious disappeared. He watched as Bethany died.

Grief threatened to swallow him. Iris appeared in front of him.

“
Adrian,”
she said in his mind. “
Bethany sent you a private message, before she—
”

“
Not now, Iris, I don’t have the time,”
he said, and she looked at him for a moment before disappearing, focusing on guiding the Harbinger’s systems again.

He saw Sora looking at him, angling her head. He knew what she was asking, but he was not the same person he’d been so long ago. He had spent a great part of his life with two empathic animals, and he had learned a lot from them. He didn’t need her help. He pushed his emotions aside and focused on his task.

“FTL comms are back online,” his Communications Handler said somberly.

Adrian looked at the status of his ships. The Vanguard and the Third Fleet had managed to get away with only minor damage; most of their ships had been further away from the Construct when it blew, and Adrian’s Vanguard ships had been fast enough to escape. The Second Fleet, on the other hand, was gutted. Bethany had taken all of their Mark Twos close to the Construct, and all of those ships had been destroyed. Of those further away, only one hundred and eighty managed to escape.

Adrian glanced at the crew, all of whom were studying him. They had all known about him and Bethany. Paul’s look was the hardest to bear; he’d known her personally too.

“Is Watchtower operational?” Adrian asked Paul.

“Yes,” Paul answered.

Adrian stood and turned, icily stating, “Set a course towards the Sowir fleets.” And then he exited the command center. He still had a mission to finish.

***

The force consisting of the combined Third and Vanguard Fleets moved in formation towards the Sowir ships. Behind them was the carnage of the destroyed Sowir Construct. The Sowir were not running away; they knew that they had no chance of escaping, so instead they opened fire. Thousands of missiles launched from their ships, speeding towards the Empire’s fleet. In retaliation, the Empire’s fleet opened fire. Lasers, particle beams, and kinetic shells closed the distance between them, destroying scores of Sowir ships every second. The force of more than a thousand Sowir ships was rapidly shrinking down.

The Vanguard ships led the charge, their lasers cutting ships in half, their particle beams smashing holes through entire ships, their shells pulverizing the Sowir ships’ hulls.

In a short time, the Sowir fleet died, just as the last of their missiles died from the point defense of the Empire’s fleet.

The invading fleet continued forward, hunting down any and all Sowir warships. An unstoppable force that destroyed everything in its way.