5 hours and 55 minutes later, the Necris fleet is on the final hyperspace approach.

Reavus was on his flagships bridge with Lt Bane on a lower platform with fleet logistics to his left and Maya was on his right in he own command chair to help command the assault. Reavus was also in contact with his other Admirals on key ships to co-ordinate other sections of the fleet. The plan was to hit the Prometheans with everything they had on multiple fronts in a sequential order to through their defence into chaos. Once that was done, they would clear a path for the ground teams to assault the Promethean production and power facilities to stop Promethean re-enforcements and disable their wireless energy grid powering the defence satellites.

Maya could notice Reavus getting increasingly nervous and distracted, which scared the hell out of her. She reached over to grab his hand and said in a soft voice as not to alert the crew "Reavus, you're scaring me. For the last hour you've had a look in your eye and I can see you arm's glow fluctuating . What's wrong". Reavus looked back at her and said "It's the Dreadnaught. The closer we get to the Andromeda, the more I can feel it...Gnawing at me. Don't try to worry about me Maya, you know I can take care of myself. Let's just focus on this battle". Maya nodded.

The ship's Captain then spoke up "Admiral Reavus, we are approaching the Promethean desert planet. Our sensors have picked up that their fleets have formed a defensive perimeter around the planet with the bulk of their forces stationed around their short range particle cannons and long range dark energy cannons. However, these cannons appear to rely on a charge before they fire. We have 15 minutes before the particle cannons are ready and 45 minutes before the dark energy cannons can fire". Reavus activated his fleets communication and said "Alright this is it ladies and gentlemen, you know what to do. Let's show these assholes why we are feared".

As much as the Necris brought everything they had, they were on the Prometheans home turf and the Prometheans brought everything they had too. The fleet numbers would be equal. Luckily, the Necris fleet had far superior range to the Prometheans and the adaptive capabilities of their Organids.


Necris Alpha Heavy Fleet (the biggest Necris fleet) which was headed by The Nightmare Apex came out of warp first while the other fleets were getting into position. Reavus could see the Promethean defence line that started to advance on his fleet but also trying to stay within the confines of the defence satellites.. He also saw the 6 dark energy cannons powering up along with the particle cannons. Reavus started ordering "Necris Alpha fleet, advance. All Capital ships open fire and clear a path to those cannons. All fighters, cover the Destroyers while they engage enemy ships. Destroyers, don't let anything near the Capital ships, without them we got no chance. ALL SHIPS FIRE".

The Capital ship force split in two. One assigned its weapons for close range ship to ship, while the other assigned its weapons for long range artillery support. The Nightmare Apex assigned its weapons with the former and started firing every cannon it had along with the rest of Alpha fleet. The Promethean ships started getting hit hard by the Necris and had to advance themselves, leaving the safety zone of the particle cannon defence satellites.

With the Promethean fleet being pulled in two directions, Reavus barked out "Bravo and Charlie fleets, begin you assault on their left flank and hit those bastards with everything you have". The two fleets did so and they employed the same tactic as Alpha fleet, dividing their Capital ships in two as they began their assault and attacked the Promethean front vanguard attacking Alpha, so they could clear a path to the ships defending the satellites.

The three Necris fleets were unleashing wave after wave of missle, beam and railgun attacks using their numbers to their advantage and suffering casualties well under their projections. The Promethean fleet was slowly dwindling under the onslaught. The radar operator of the Apex then shouted out "Sir, I'm picking up Promethean re-enforcements coming at us on our left flank. They're splitting to engage us and re-enforce the Promethean rear fleet".

The Promethean re-enforcements appeared and started charging their weapons to fire on Alpha fleet when Reavus gave the order "Support fleets Delta and Echo, deploy on our left flank and take out those Prometheans". With those words, the Necris close range assault fleets appeared behind the Promethean re-enforcements and opened fire. The volley of fire from the two extra fleets was enough to vaporise half the Promethean re-enforcements before they tried to retaliate against Delta and Echo. These fleets didn't have as many Capital ships as Bravo or Charlie but had far more Destroyers and fighters. This made them ideal for the close up encounter with the Prometheans.

A few minutes of the battle passed and Maya was smiling confidently as she watched the Necris fleet advance through the Prometheans. Reavus on the other hand didn't share her level of elation as he was trying to co-ordinate the approaching ground teams and try ignore the Dreadnaught, who at this point was driving Reavus round the bend with it scraping at the door.

Reavus then saw multiple small Promethean fleets coming out of warp in multiple areas with no real sense of strategy and adjusted his 5 fleets to compensate. He also noted the dark energy cannons starting to charge with more Promethean ships coming from the surface of the planet. He quickly went over his console to see how disarrayed the Prometheans were and took the opportunity, "Necris ground fleets, deploy now and et to those power and production bases. We got to stop those cannons and their re-enforcements".

The Necris ground fleets consisted mostly of Capital ships that held the Necris heavy troop transports within them. The 4 ground fleets deployed directly above the main battle and provided 'death from above' while deploying their transports to break past the battle and onto the planet surface. These transports were heavily armoured and had almost the whole Necris fleet covering them while they descended. Of the 800 they launched, 38 were shot down by Promethean Capital ships but it was negligible, for the surviving forces were still more than enough for the ground operation.

As the ground teams were clear, something happened in the battle that shocked the entire Necris force. All but one of the particle cannons at the rear of the Promethean fleet self-destructed and transferred all their power to the surviving cannon. Reavus then saw the particle cannon glow bright yellow and aim right down the centre of Alpha fleet, right where The Nightmare Apex was. He quickly shouted over his communicator to the whole of Alpha fleet, "Alpha fleet, divert all power to shields and get out of the way. MOVE YOUR ASSES. Helmsman, pull us out of that things line of fire".

The Nightmare Apex diverted so much power to its shields that the shield became visible to the naked eye and the engines were at full power to move the ship out of the line of fire. Then it happened. The cannon fired a bright yellow beam that cut straight down the centre of Alpha fleet and grazed The Apex. Reavus ship shook violently as the ship groaned, literally.

Reavus looked to his console and out the window to see nothing left in the cannons path. He looked over to Lt Bane and said with an urgent voice "Status, what happened". Bane turned to him and in a voice of disbelief said "Sir. That blast was nothing like anything I've ever seen. We just lost 128 Capital ships and 1019 Destroyers. Our ships shields are down and the hull is compromised. Automated healing is already enabled but we cant take another hit like that. That cannon will fire again in 15 minutes".

Reavus knew that with that power surge from the other cannons, that cannon wouldn't need to rely on the power from the planet. He also knew that with all the Promethean re-enforcements, it would be 20 minutes before they would be in striking distance of the satellite. Reavus took a moment and said to the Captain "Get a team of Ghosts ready. We have to get to that satellite and manually shut it down. Maya, take over. I'm joining the Ghosts. Bane, you're with me". The Captain nodded and quickly put a team of Ghosts together while Bane left his station and started towards the hanger.

Reavus got out of his chair to get to the hanger but as he got to the door, he felt Maya's hand on his shoulder. He turned and Maya said "I'm coming with you Reavus. The other Admirals can handle this". Reavus protested, telling her to stay but she then said "Reavus, I've got a bad feeling about this. I cant let you go in there alone even with your powers". Reavus sighed and said "Fine". The two raced for the hanger with the Ghosts with the intent of getting to the satellite before it roasted the rest of the Necris fleet.


This chapter ended up being over 4000 words long so I split it in two.

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