17
11.2.43
Antais Jump Node, Antaris System
2300 Hours
"Fire Control, status report!" he cried.
"Sir, Fire Control is at 33%, we've lost targeting on turrets C through L!"
"Can we still fire?"
"Yes, sir, but we've lost most of our targeting dat-"
"Well, goddamnit, point and shoot!"
"Aye, sir!"
"If this wasn't a suicide mission," Captain Grena Tersra thought to himself comically, "things would be going badly."
Currently, Captain Tersra and his ship, the GCS Avalon, a Vega-class battleship, were engaged in a massive fleet action just outside the Antaris jump node. Tersra, a battle-hardened, fifty-eight year old Saiyan, was the ship's commander. The Avalon belonged to 3rd fleet, who along with the 9th and 11th fleets, were making a final stand at the jump node. The fleets were all-Saiyan units, and all were volunteers. All three battle groups chose the assignment as soon as it was announced. In totality, they had three carriers, each housing three fighter and two bomber wings, nine battleships, eighteen cruisers, and a large amount of assorted support craft, ranging from fuel and ammo ships to gunships and corvettes.
These fleets were currently arrayed against the entire Necron force in the sector. Outnumbered, outgunned, and outmanned by a ratio of god-knows-what, this suicide mission's purpose was to buy the forces on Gargantua enough time to dig in and prepare for the invasion. Already, the fleets had lost a third of their operational capabilities and were being pushed closer and closer to the node, which was the second-to-last before Gargantua. This relatively small number of ships had managed to extract a heavy toll on the invaders, but being without fear or emotion, they pushed on, driving the valiant defenders to the wall.
The Avalon was one of the few remaining battleships. Her escorts had managed to keep the fighters off her back long enough to allow her to flank a lead element of the enemy fleet. Her beam cannons carved a swath of destruction through the Necron ranks, virtually destroying an entire carrier group whose fighter protection was preoccupied with other targets. Now the carrier's escorts turned their attention to the Avalon.
"Engineering, status report!" the captain ordered.
"Sorry sir, but we've lost both our starboard reactors. The containment chambers are completely destoryed and I've had to erect force fields to stop the decompression down there.
"Well, we can still move with three engines. Helm, switch our heading to 8324. Fire control, bring all guns to bear on that damn carrier, we'll finish it off."
"Aye sir," was the chorus from the respective lieutenants. Fortunately, the bridge crew remained unharmed. Unlike in most science fiction novels, the bridge was located in the interior of the ship, surrouned by its massive superstructure. It would be completely insane to place a bridge on the top of a ship. It wouldn't last ten minutes in a firefight like this.
As the Avalon beared down on the Necron carrier, the carrier's cruiser escorts were whittling away at the Avalons gunships and corvettes. A bomber wing was obviously inbound. The battleship's beam turrets charged and drilled their fantastic blue and green beams into the hull of the carrier. Her mammoth turrets and numerous torpedo tubes added their fire to the mix, hurling their anti-matter charges at the ship. As they impacted the carriers hull, their cataclysmic charges destroyed any matter they came into contact with, blowing huge holes in the ships superstructure, causing it to visibly shudder. The ensuing explosive decompressions sealed the ship's fate.
When the beam cannons drained their charges, it could be seen that they had done their job well. The carrier was in two pieces, its huge frame separated into jagged halves. Secondary explosions moved through both halves, illuminating them like flickering light bulbs. The ship began its final death throes as its reactors reached critical instability, ripping the ship apart from the inside out. The shockwave obliterated both parts of the ship and rocked the vessels surrounding it. A few unfortunate support craft were ripped apart in the wave.
A collective cheer rang throughout the Avalon. This was the sixth carrier the fleets had managed to nullify, along with countless fightercraft and troop transports, which were their main objectives. Unfortunately, this meant they had to bypass the Necron support elements, a fact which was coming back to haunt them.
"Uh, sir, we have a problem," was the ominous statement from the sensors officer.
"Let me guess, we have a few Necron big boys breathing down our necks," was Captain Tersra's sarcastic response.
"Uh, yeah sir. Three Battleships and four cruisers have changed heading and are bearing down on us. Eight minutes to intercept."
"Apparently we aren't liked much around these parts." The captain maintained a sense of humor even though the end was near. They would last three, maybe four minutes against those ships. Then, then he'd find out was happens to you when you die. Thankfully, he would be leaving no family behind. They had all been killed when the Necrons hit his homeworld.
The Captain laid back in his chair and gave various orders, making sure that they would go down fighting. With five minutes to intercept, he thought now would be best to give his speech. Yes, it was dramatic, and yes, it was done all the time in the movies, but what the hell, at least it would sound good. Besides, it was the Captain's job to fill his crew with pride before the end. He pressed the general comm. command on his console and cleared his throat.
"Attention crew of the GCS Avalon, this is your Captain speaking." The bridge crew came to attention. "As you are well aware, within the next ten minutes we will all be dead. We have seven Necron capital ships bearing down on us, so any hope of survival is a joke. But you knew this was a suicide mission when you signed on. Remember, we are all Saiyans. This is a glorious day for us. We are warriors, it is our dream to die on the field of battle, so here we are. It has been an honor serving with you. All I we can hope now is that our sacrifice is not in vain. Our Coalition brethren are preparing themselves for the onslaught we are facing right now, we were supposed to slow them down, and I guess we have succeeded. So, let not a trace of fear enter your soul. It is a good day to die, and we have extracted a severe toll on these goddamned, soulless, Necron bastards. I will see you all on the other side. This is Captain Grena Tersra, GCS Avalon, signing off."
The bridge erupted in applause, everyone feeling the emotion the Captain conveyed. But the moment was short-lived as the sensors officer spoke up.
"Sir, one minute to intercept."
Tersra focused on the view screen, the tactical overlay displaying the Necron ships closing. He was amused by the fact he was not afraid, in fact, he was excited. All he could think about was how many of them he could kill before they went down.
"Fire control, pick your targets and make your shots count, we won't have long. Oh, and it's time to arm the charges. The sons of bitches are in for a nasty surprise."
"Aye, sir, we'll show them you don't fuck with the Coalition. Charges armed."
All of the Coalition ships in the sector had been rigged with Meta-Hyperion bombs. The weapons were so powerful that they could rip holes in space-time if enough of them were detonated at once. By the time the battle was over, the system would be an unstable pocket of warped space.
The Necrons would push on though, oblivious to the prohibitive losses they would take. After all, their sole purpose was to wipe out the Coalition, and nothing more. The Necron ships bore down on the Avalon, their own beam weapons and turrets opening fire. Simultaneously, a bomber wing began their attack run, launching their deadly ordinance at the battleship. Fortunately, the Avalon's flak turrets were still functional, as were the corvettes and gunships assigned to protect her. The bomber wing was nullified without incident.
Now, with their roles being fulfilled to their fullest extent, the gunships Bretana, Apollo, and the corvettes Highland, Wervat, and Iceblade did all they could. When the order was given for ramming speed, their crews let out a roar of defiance and pride. The small ships accelerated and drove down the throats of the Necron ships, detonating their own high-yield ordinance into the vessels. Since they were too small to carry the Meta-Hyperion bombs, they were rigged with powerful hydrogen warheads.
Only two cruisers were destroyed in the suicide runs, but it was enough to scatter the ships far enough apart for the Avalon to maximize her own self-detonation. With all that remained of her engine power, she manuvered into the middle of the sphere formation of the Necron vessels. She was coming apart at the seams under the withering Necron fire, her hull shattered and weapons off-line, but she did all that she could.
The Captain closed his eyes as he gave the order to detonate, a large grin on his face. "A five to one kill ratio. Not bad old man, not bad at all," he thought to himself.
The Avalon and surrounding Necron ships were completely and utterly destroyed in the ensuing blast as the fabric of space itself was torn apart. However, all around the battle raged on. The Coalition defenders fought tooth-and-nail, making the Necrons pay for every kilometer of space they gained. Unfortunately, it was a price they could afford to pay. Unknown to the Necrons, a cloaked probe was recording the entire battle, keeping a silent witness to the fantastic scene before it.
But being a machine, it could not appreciate the twisted beauty that war brought with it. Various colored beams crisscrossed the battlefield carving huge sections out of the warships. Explosions of all sizes flashed and glittered amongst the background of a purple-green nebula. Tiny fightercraft wove in and out of the scene, trying their best to dodge both fire from other fighters and the well-defended capital ships. Space was visibly being distorted from the shockwaves of the exploding ships, and more obviously, by the Meta-Hyperion bombs. What would have been strange to an organic observer, but nothing more than a factual reality for the probe, was the almost total lack of sound. Since space was a vacuum, it did not conduct sound, which requires molecules to vibrate. All of the action was like a silent film, the only sound was heard by the crews of the Coalition ships.
The probe, in all its mindless spectating, was placed there to witness the effectiveness of the MH bombs, as well as to watch the progress of the Necron advance. It relayed the information through subspace to Coalition HQ in the Tycho system. It had its own HUD, displaying Coalition ships as green blips and the Necron ships as red blips. Currently, there were five hundred red blips to seventy-six green ones on the short-range scanners. On the long-range scanners, it displayed eleven thousand red blips.
As the battle drew to a close, the remnants of 3rd, 9th and 11th fleets coordinated what was left of their forces into a final counterstrike. The only remaining carrier, the GCS Vengance, was surrounded by her comrades. They drove to the center of the Necron advance fleet, the escorts drawing as much fire as they could. When they could advance no further, they committed mass suicide, taking with them the majority of the Necron fleet. In the span of eight seconds, forty-two million beings were annihilated.
Amidst all the carnage, something unexpected happened. With the release of so much energy, the entire system became unstable. Gravity wells and subspace anomalies, many of which had never existed before, distorted and warped most of the space around the Antaris jump node. It became totally unnavigable, even by the Necrons. Once the information reached Coalition HQ, they would be delighted with the news. While the Necron advanced had not been stopped, it had been drastically slowed. With the inaccessibility of the node, it would take the Necrons an additional six months to reach Gargantua.
The sacrifice of the Saiyan fleets had bought the Coalition the most valuable commodity in the universe: time. It would give the defenders on Gargantua ample time to reinforce and prepare the most stalwart defense ever known. For the first time in a long while, they had a fighting chance.
11.2.43
Antais Jump Node, Antaris System
2300 Hours
"Fire Control, status report!" he cried.
"Sir, Fire Control is at 33%, we've lost targeting on turrets C through L!"
"Can we still fire?"
"Yes, sir, but we've lost most of our targeting dat-"
"Well, goddamnit, point and shoot!"
"Aye, sir!"
"If this wasn't a suicide mission," Captain Grena Tersra thought to himself comically, "things would be going badly."
Currently, Captain Tersra and his ship, the GCS Avalon, a Vega-class battleship, were engaged in a massive fleet action just outside the Antaris jump node. Tersra, a battle-hardened, fifty-eight year old Saiyan, was the ship's commander. The Avalon belonged to 3rd fleet, who along with the 9th and 11th fleets, were making a final stand at the jump node. The fleets were all-Saiyan units, and all were volunteers. All three battle groups chose the assignment as soon as it was announced. In totality, they had three carriers, each housing three fighter and two bomber wings, nine battleships, eighteen cruisers, and a large amount of assorted support craft, ranging from fuel and ammo ships to gunships and corvettes.
These fleets were currently arrayed against the entire Necron force in the sector. Outnumbered, outgunned, and outmanned by a ratio of god-knows-what, this suicide mission's purpose was to buy the forces on Gargantua enough time to dig in and prepare for the invasion. Already, the fleets had lost a third of their operational capabilities and were being pushed closer and closer to the node, which was the second-to-last before Gargantua. This relatively small number of ships had managed to extract a heavy toll on the invaders, but being without fear or emotion, they pushed on, driving the valiant defenders to the wall.
The Avalon was one of the few remaining battleships. Her escorts had managed to keep the fighters off her back long enough to allow her to flank a lead element of the enemy fleet. Her beam cannons carved a swath of destruction through the Necron ranks, virtually destroying an entire carrier group whose fighter protection was preoccupied with other targets. Now the carrier's escorts turned their attention to the Avalon.
"Engineering, status report!" the captain ordered.
"Sorry sir, but we've lost both our starboard reactors. The containment chambers are completely destoryed and I've had to erect force fields to stop the decompression down there.
"Well, we can still move with three engines. Helm, switch our heading to 8324. Fire control, bring all guns to bear on that damn carrier, we'll finish it off."
"Aye sir," was the chorus from the respective lieutenants. Fortunately, the bridge crew remained unharmed. Unlike in most science fiction novels, the bridge was located in the interior of the ship, surrouned by its massive superstructure. It would be completely insane to place a bridge on the top of a ship. It wouldn't last ten minutes in a firefight like this.
As the Avalon beared down on the Necron carrier, the carrier's cruiser escorts were whittling away at the Avalons gunships and corvettes. A bomber wing was obviously inbound. The battleship's beam turrets charged and drilled their fantastic blue and green beams into the hull of the carrier. Her mammoth turrets and numerous torpedo tubes added their fire to the mix, hurling their anti-matter charges at the ship. As they impacted the carriers hull, their cataclysmic charges destroyed any matter they came into contact with, blowing huge holes in the ships superstructure, causing it to visibly shudder. The ensuing explosive decompressions sealed the ship's fate.
When the beam cannons drained their charges, it could be seen that they had done their job well. The carrier was in two pieces, its huge frame separated into jagged halves. Secondary explosions moved through both halves, illuminating them like flickering light bulbs. The ship began its final death throes as its reactors reached critical instability, ripping the ship apart from the inside out. The shockwave obliterated both parts of the ship and rocked the vessels surrounding it. A few unfortunate support craft were ripped apart in the wave.
A collective cheer rang throughout the Avalon. This was the sixth carrier the fleets had managed to nullify, along with countless fightercraft and troop transports, which were their main objectives. Unfortunately, this meant they had to bypass the Necron support elements, a fact which was coming back to haunt them.
"Uh, sir, we have a problem," was the ominous statement from the sensors officer.
"Let me guess, we have a few Necron big boys breathing down our necks," was Captain Tersra's sarcastic response.
"Uh, yeah sir. Three Battleships and four cruisers have changed heading and are bearing down on us. Eight minutes to intercept."
"Apparently we aren't liked much around these parts." The captain maintained a sense of humor even though the end was near. They would last three, maybe four minutes against those ships. Then, then he'd find out was happens to you when you die. Thankfully, he would be leaving no family behind. They had all been killed when the Necrons hit his homeworld.
The Captain laid back in his chair and gave various orders, making sure that they would go down fighting. With five minutes to intercept, he thought now would be best to give his speech. Yes, it was dramatic, and yes, it was done all the time in the movies, but what the hell, at least it would sound good. Besides, it was the Captain's job to fill his crew with pride before the end. He pressed the general comm. command on his console and cleared his throat.
"Attention crew of the GCS Avalon, this is your Captain speaking." The bridge crew came to attention. "As you are well aware, within the next ten minutes we will all be dead. We have seven Necron capital ships bearing down on us, so any hope of survival is a joke. But you knew this was a suicide mission when you signed on. Remember, we are all Saiyans. This is a glorious day for us. We are warriors, it is our dream to die on the field of battle, so here we are. It has been an honor serving with you. All I we can hope now is that our sacrifice is not in vain. Our Coalition brethren are preparing themselves for the onslaught we are facing right now, we were supposed to slow them down, and I guess we have succeeded. So, let not a trace of fear enter your soul. It is a good day to die, and we have extracted a severe toll on these goddamned, soulless, Necron bastards. I will see you all on the other side. This is Captain Grena Tersra, GCS Avalon, signing off."
The bridge erupted in applause, everyone feeling the emotion the Captain conveyed. But the moment was short-lived as the sensors officer spoke up.
"Sir, one minute to intercept."
Tersra focused on the view screen, the tactical overlay displaying the Necron ships closing. He was amused by the fact he was not afraid, in fact, he was excited. All he could think about was how many of them he could kill before they went down.
"Fire control, pick your targets and make your shots count, we won't have long. Oh, and it's time to arm the charges. The sons of bitches are in for a nasty surprise."
"Aye, sir, we'll show them you don't fuck with the Coalition. Charges armed."
All of the Coalition ships in the sector had been rigged with Meta-Hyperion bombs. The weapons were so powerful that they could rip holes in space-time if enough of them were detonated at once. By the time the battle was over, the system would be an unstable pocket of warped space.
The Necrons would push on though, oblivious to the prohibitive losses they would take. After all, their sole purpose was to wipe out the Coalition, and nothing more. The Necron ships bore down on the Avalon, their own beam weapons and turrets opening fire. Simultaneously, a bomber wing began their attack run, launching their deadly ordinance at the battleship. Fortunately, the Avalon's flak turrets were still functional, as were the corvettes and gunships assigned to protect her. The bomber wing was nullified without incident.
Now, with their roles being fulfilled to their fullest extent, the gunships Bretana, Apollo, and the corvettes Highland, Wervat, and Iceblade did all they could. When the order was given for ramming speed, their crews let out a roar of defiance and pride. The small ships accelerated and drove down the throats of the Necron ships, detonating their own high-yield ordinance into the vessels. Since they were too small to carry the Meta-Hyperion bombs, they were rigged with powerful hydrogen warheads.
Only two cruisers were destroyed in the suicide runs, but it was enough to scatter the ships far enough apart for the Avalon to maximize her own self-detonation. With all that remained of her engine power, she manuvered into the middle of the sphere formation of the Necron vessels. She was coming apart at the seams under the withering Necron fire, her hull shattered and weapons off-line, but she did all that she could.
The Captain closed his eyes as he gave the order to detonate, a large grin on his face. "A five to one kill ratio. Not bad old man, not bad at all," he thought to himself.
The Avalon and surrounding Necron ships were completely and utterly destroyed in the ensuing blast as the fabric of space itself was torn apart. However, all around the battle raged on. The Coalition defenders fought tooth-and-nail, making the Necrons pay for every kilometer of space they gained. Unfortunately, it was a price they could afford to pay. Unknown to the Necrons, a cloaked probe was recording the entire battle, keeping a silent witness to the fantastic scene before it.
But being a machine, it could not appreciate the twisted beauty that war brought with it. Various colored beams crisscrossed the battlefield carving huge sections out of the warships. Explosions of all sizes flashed and glittered amongst the background of a purple-green nebula. Tiny fightercraft wove in and out of the scene, trying their best to dodge both fire from other fighters and the well-defended capital ships. Space was visibly being distorted from the shockwaves of the exploding ships, and more obviously, by the Meta-Hyperion bombs. What would have been strange to an organic observer, but nothing more than a factual reality for the probe, was the almost total lack of sound. Since space was a vacuum, it did not conduct sound, which requires molecules to vibrate. All of the action was like a silent film, the only sound was heard by the crews of the Coalition ships.
The probe, in all its mindless spectating, was placed there to witness the effectiveness of the MH bombs, as well as to watch the progress of the Necron advance. It relayed the information through subspace to Coalition HQ in the Tycho system. It had its own HUD, displaying Coalition ships as green blips and the Necron ships as red blips. Currently, there were five hundred red blips to seventy-six green ones on the short-range scanners. On the long-range scanners, it displayed eleven thousand red blips.
As the battle drew to a close, the remnants of 3rd, 9th and 11th fleets coordinated what was left of their forces into a final counterstrike. The only remaining carrier, the GCS Vengance, was surrounded by her comrades. They drove to the center of the Necron advance fleet, the escorts drawing as much fire as they could. When they could advance no further, they committed mass suicide, taking with them the majority of the Necron fleet. In the span of eight seconds, forty-two million beings were annihilated.
Amidst all the carnage, something unexpected happened. With the release of so much energy, the entire system became unstable. Gravity wells and subspace anomalies, many of which had never existed before, distorted and warped most of the space around the Antaris jump node. It became totally unnavigable, even by the Necrons. Once the information reached Coalition HQ, they would be delighted with the news. While the Necron advanced had not been stopped, it had been drastically slowed. With the inaccessibility of the node, it would take the Necrons an additional six months to reach Gargantua.
The sacrifice of the Saiyan fleets had bought the Coalition the most valuable commodity in the universe: time. It would give the defenders on Gargantua ample time to reinforce and prepare the most stalwart defense ever known. For the first time in a long while, they had a fighting chance.