Chapter 16: The Collapsible Front

—August16, 2018—
—11:25 GST—
"Pass on this review to Alpha Factory," Captain Elensh said to the fuzzy image on her monitor, "that the goods have been received and are greatly appreciated."

The courier pilot nodded in understanding, then without even closing the channel, the small fold-capable shuttle disappeared into a rift of hyperspace, speeding out of the system in the direction of Gallaron. Captain Elensh's "goods" hovered alongside the Victory now, lined up in review formation before actually heading out into combat. Twelve Thor class destroyers and twenty ARMD class escort carriers, replacing the nearly two dozen Zentradi picket ships as the battle group's primary defense line. But along with them, two other curiosities: a pair of Zjendiel-class destroyers, flying side by side in the front of the formation, still in cruiser mode and shining in the pale light of Rijuno-Delcaan's red giant. Having passed her review, all thirty of Victory's support ships now spread out around it, forming their defensive shell around them in accordance with Admiral Hayase's innovative new battleplan.

"It doesn't seem like it would work," Commander Gouraz said absently, "I mean, with the formation we'll be flying the next closest ship will be a spec in the distance. How are we supposed to cover each other spread out like that?"

Elensh sighed, "As the Admiral explained it, it has something to do with defensive response time. With the scouts and pickets hanging out at maximum range, they can give advanced warning of enemy fighters or ships approaching the main group long before they come into firing range. It gives us more time to evaluate the threat and figure out how to handle it. Then, if we need to, we have more time to maneuver for a most effective counter attack."

Mia thought about it for a moment, then said, "How would that help is in a swarm attack? If they sent a couple divisions of battlepods on a beeline, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"They tried that," Imura said, "According to Hayase, the enemy fleet tried a wave attack with about four divisions through what they perceived was a gap in the defensive line. The advanced scouts picked up the attack almost twenty minutes before it would have come into range of the capital ships. They counter attacked and cut them to pieces before they could even get within sight of the Monitor."

Mia groaned, "I still think it's not going to work."

"Have a little faith in Misa. It wouldn't be the first time one of her goofy ideas turned into a stroke of genius."

"I hope you're right..." Mia watched the remainder of their fleet drift away into the darkness, spreading out in their formation with gap between the main body of ships of almost a thousand thousand miles. When the formation was fully extended, their small fleet would be spread out over an area the size of a small planet.

"Contact on sensors," Lieutenant Merrick reported from the tactical console, "Gravity wave signature. Enemy defold, forty million kilometers. Energy signature confirms it as the command ship the Monitor reported."

"Right were we expected her to be." Imura said cynically, "Where are they headed?"

Merrick looked at the data for a moment, then frowned, "It's on a direct course for the accretion disk."

"Are you certain?" Imura couldn't help but shoot a glance at the little glowing disk off in the distance, close to the center of the star system. "That uh... that looks like fun."

"You're not actually going to go close to that thing, are you Captain?" Mia turned around, her face pale, "Because... I mean..."

Imura hesitated at first, then gathered her courage and said, "If that's where the enemy's going, that's where we go as well."

Mia's face turned just a shade below being truly grey, "C-Captain, you know about b-black holes, right?"

She knew where this was going, and despite her own disposition it made her nervous as well, "C'mon, Mia, those are just ancient legends. Don't tell me you believe it?"

"We believe the old battle records, don't we? Why not the Varcans?"

"How do you know the Varcans ever existed in the first place? Those reports are probably just old myths made up by bored infantry to pass the time."

"So how did they get into the archives then? I'm telling you, the Varcans were real!"

"Uh..." Lieutenant Merrick turned around slowly, "Captain, is there something I should maybe know about all this?"

Imura shrugged, trying her best not to look as nervous as she felt, "There's an old Zentradi legend about Juna—an old war goddess—defeating an Archon beast near the edge of a black hole. But she strayed to close, and a demon called Sybulla attacked her and dragged into the event horizon and nailed her hands and feet to an asteroid. In exchange for her freedom, Juna..." Imura chuckled, "It's a silly myth, I know, but this demon, apparently..."

"He asked for a sacrifice," Mia finished fearfully, "Juna offered him the strongest and most graceful from among her crew. He took fifty of her women, cooked them, and ate them. Another version says that he crawled inside them through their rectums and ate them from the inside out. Still another legend says he planted beasts in their stomachs and they devoured their insides, then used their bodies like hosts and that some of those beasts still wander around the galaxy looking for new hosts. And you know what, after we met the Microns some Meltrandi archivists started to suspect that Sybulla was probably some kind of rapist, so micron women aren't safe from him either, Sue!"

"Uh..." Merrick stared at Mia for a moment in disbelief, then at Imura, seeking a less bizarre explanation.

"It's just a myth," Imura said, "I mean it's scientifically impossible to escape from a black hole, goddess or no goddess. And how can you be nailed to an asteroid without asphyxiating? It just can't happen."

"Well..." thinking quickly, the young tactical officer said, "You know, Earth sensor algorithms have had some success tracking... er... apparitions or demons or what have you. With our dispersed formation I can pretty much guarantee you we'll know at least an hour in advanced if that Sybulla guy happens to be hiding in that black hole."

The color slowly returned to Mia's face, "Are you sure about that, Sue?"

"As sure as the nose on your face, Commander."

This seemed to put her at ease a bit, but another look at the black hole spinning in the distance still made her nervous, "You wouldn't feed me to a demon, would you Imura?"

She was about to answer, but a flashling light on her own pannel caught her attention, indicating that the fleet was in position. "It's time. Mia, tell the navigation bridge put in an intercept course for that command ship."

"Yes, Sir," she send the orders, then repeated, "But seriously, would you?"

Imura grinned, "Absolutely not."

"Really? You mean that?"

"Of course. If I feed you to a space demon, who would wrestle the Luron monsters of Haifa-Cati?"

Growling, Mia focused back on her duties, muttering to herself in annoyance.

—31:50 GST—
Kai Chan flipped to the next page of the report, stroking his chin in thought at the new data and all the possible uses for it. His own squadron was to thank for most of this information even existing, and with any luck there would be more to add. By now they had categorized three varieties of picket ships, four types of destroyers, and four distinct types of cruisers both heavy and light, each serving various mission roles within the supervision fleet. They came in all different shapes and sizes, varieties of firepower and defensive capabilities. Kai Chan couldn't help but notice that some of these warship designs could have found a great deal of use in the GSDF—others, he knew, already had for the Parankazu and some of the other isolated protoculture bands they had run across from time to time. The booklet was almost a hundred pages long, and every page had detailed information about the strengths and weaknesses of every design.

Kai Chan was determined to memorize them all.

"I'm a little disappointed, Skipper," Beecher said from somewhere behind him.

Kai Chan asked without looking up from the intelligence report, "You were born disappointed."

"I mean these new fighters," She sat down on the bench next to him and glanced passively at the report over his shoulder, "Some upgrades... judging by the specs and even their performance they're just glorified Valkyries."

This time Kai Chan looked up, studying the sleek contours of the new planes that had been flying in combat for only a few weeks by now. It was similar to the Valkyrie, albeit more streamlined and plush within its own parts, less like a variable fighter and more like the old fashion fixed-wings of Old Earth. He was tempted to pass the same judgment on the VFX-12s, but somehow he hesitated to do so. "Give it some time. We're still just getting used to them, remember?"

"Yeah, but..."

The growl engine noise caught their attention, the low familiar hum of a munitions trolley as it made its way across the hangar and snuggled up against the side one of the VFX-12s. On command from the mechanics the fighter's wings opened from their swept position and spread to the sides, and without missing a beat the mechanics lifted an armored blast cover off the top of the trolley. Something massive rose from the bed of the trolley on a rail until it gently slid into position on the fighter's wing hardpoint, then the mechanics locked it into place and the rails retracted. The trolley drove off again in the direction of the hangar's munitions stores, but even as it did, three others came from the same direction for the same fighter, and behind them a dozen others for the first of the experimental fighters.

"What's all this about?" Beecher asked.

Kai Chan looked around for a moment and located the nearest technical officer, then lunged across the deck and grabbed him by the collar in mid stride, "Do we have a sortie? What's going on?"

The technician grinned like a wolf, "Captain Elensh wants you on the front when we go after that battleship. We're testing your full load in combat for the first time."

"What are you talking about? Full load?" Kai Chan looked past the technician to the new weapons being loaded onto his squadron's hardpoints. Just from looking at them, their purpose was not immediately clear, "What are those? Extra fuel tanks?"

The technician laughed, "As if! What you're looking at, Major, is the next big thing in anti-ship weaponry, the XASM-405 extreme range hyper velocity cruise missile!" The technician declared it with a note of pride and elation, then stood there for a few seconds and waited for Kai Chan and Beecher to share his pride. Instead they just stared at him blankly; feeling suddenly self conscious, he explained, "They're ship-wreckers, major. We call them 'Sandbox'"

"Those things?" Kai Chan looked past him again, "So they're... what, super-sized reaction missiles?"

"They're not reaction missiles at all. A single variable fighter costs as much as four reaction missiles, and then most of that cost is from processing nuclear fuel." The last of the trolleys delivered the weapons to Kai Chan's fighter, and the technician walked towards it and gestured for them to follow, "The Sandbox contains a more conventional, compressed energy proton warhead. Although not as powerful in a general sense as a powerful reaction warhead, the amount of damage they can inflict is far greater. The explosive charge is relatively small, but it triggers this surge of anti-protons so that any metallic object within the blast radius turns into a superheated plasma. The secondary effect are these crazy electromagnetic waves that can shatter bulkheads, scramble reactor settings, turns anything electronic in a flame thrower. It's really one nasty little weapon."

"Mass destruction down to an exact science," Kai Chan muttered.

Beecher frowned, "So they're phasing out reaction missiles?"

"Not really. If you're an escort carrier up against anything bigger than a Phoenix class, reaction missiles are your best option. But for the fighters and bombers in the fleet, long range precision attacks with standoff weapons are crucial. If you can get one of these babies into their reaction furnace or main engine pyle, we wouldn't even need to destroy it."

"They look expensive," Beecher stared at the oversized device on the wing thoughtfully, "Nice and high tech... I assume you've tested these under battlefield conditions?"

"A few times."

"So how do they feature?"

"Afterburning impulse drive for propulsion with a navigational A.I. with full self-guidance capability, so even if they miss the target, they still come back around and attack and keep attacking until they score a hit. We tested their strike range up to about thirty thousand kilometers or more... we're talking battleship ranges, know what I mean? Optimal range, of course, will be much shorter, but it's still more than you got with the old blockbusters..."

Kai Chan glanced at him quizzically, "And you say these less expensive than a simple reaction missile?"

"Oh, definately. With the war effort they're keeping the prices at a minimum, but you can still get a single RMS-1 for the price of ten of these babies."

Beecher frowned, "It's not really worth it if they can't destroy their targets..."

"Precision strikes, you say?" The gears in Kai Chan's head suddenly started to turn, "And self guiding?"

The technician nodded. "You don't really even have to lock on. Just point em in the right direction and they can find their target."

Kai Chan flipped open the intelligence report again. An idea was forming in his head, and if this technician wanted to see how his new toys worked in combat, Kai Chan would give him the perfect opportunity. "Jessie, get the squad together in the briefing room. I've got an idea."

—August 17, 2018—
—02:31 GST—
Bennet watched the tactical displays with a sense of foreboding. The Zentradi were only too willing to follow Sarron's ships deeper and deeper into the sector as they pulled back to Bokata, but with the way things had changed recently he was no longer sure if that was a good thing. Kong had reported from the rear line that they were encountering more and more Zentradi ships armed with reaction weapons, and though they were clearly unaccustomed to using such devices they were certainly learning fast. He had lost eleven hundred ships in just the last week alone and Sarron had lost at least three times that number in heated battles, now all fronts were sending the news that the Zentradi were overpowering them by sheer numbers alone. His plan didn't seem to make sense anymore, and somehow he knew he had Misa Hayase to thank for all this… "Admiral Bennet," Sarron entered the control room of his battleship, alittle frustrated to have been called back from the front on such a menial assignment. "The scoutships have finished their sweeps, sir. We have the data you requested."

"Show me," Bennet took the papers from Sarron's hand and looked over the data boredly. It was just one of his little pet theories meant to cover his ass in the event of a plan that could and probably would backfire, and though he didn't expect it to work he wasn't about to be caught without some kind of contingency plan. "Bokata-Delcaan," He said, reading the title. "Class-II red giant... internal mass in the upper 81st percentile of the sector, that's good... mass-volume ratio 47.3, also good… what's this? Irregular convection currents?"

"That's what the computer said. I have no idea what it means though."

"Well it's interesting is all... composition, 62 helium, 19 Lithium-hydroxide, indications of compressed… no way!" Bennet looked at the information in the sheet more closely and re-read the printouts. "Sarron, are you sure this is accurate?"

"The computer's never been wrong before. Why?" Sarron said, leaning lazily against the wall next to Bennet.

"If this data's correct, then the core would have to be... That has to be a mistake…"

"And what if it's not?" Sarron said, trying to drag up some clue from Bennet. "This system hasn't made an error in over twelve thousand years. It's accurate, I'm sure of it."

Bennet looked at the data again, then tossed the whole pack of papers over his shoulder and broke out in laughter. "Unbelievable! We've had the ultimate weapon sitting right here in front of us and we never knew it!"

Sarron hadn't followed Bennet's plans from the beginning and by this time he had completely given up. Kong had buried all four of Bennet's fold weapons in caverns far below the innermost planet of the system and at Bennet's request he had ordered all of his ships to begin carefully retreating back to Bokata. He had not been told the reason for any of this, he had only been given an assurance that it would be a "grand achievement" for the army. In this case, however, he would prefer not to wait. "Admiral Bennet, I don't suppose you're planning to share this big plan of yours with the rest of us?"

"You're right, I'm not." Bennet said, chuckling again. "Just sit tight and do exactly what I say and I'll give you a fireworks show like the universe has never seen. We can get rid of the Zentradi in just one attack, and all it will take are four fold weapons and a little diversion tactic to make sure they don't run away."

Sarron was annoyed, but in no mood right now to drag the info out of him. Instead, he preferred to let Bennet make a fool out of himself and pick up the pieces himself later on. "As you wish Admiral, just give the word…"

"Also, I suggest you set aside at least half of your fleet for decoy operations and evacuate their crews and mecha compliments. You should also start picking out some asteroids in this system and get to work fashioning one into a likeness of Lacul's fortress."

Sarron was more interested now. It almost sounded as if Bennet actually knew what he was doing. "A dummy fleet sir?"

"Just large enough so that the Zentradi don't try and leave the system once they realize what's going on. Also, you should place them in orbit of the planet closest to Bokata and try to make it look like they're trying to use the star to hide themselves. We need the Zentradi to be as close to the star as possible when the time comes. Of course it's inevitable that many of them will escape unharmed, but at least it will remove the Zentradi as a significant threat."

Sarron was a bit more confident, and now he followed his lead. "Should we take steps to bring more Zentradi in on this one?"

"As many as possible, the more the better! Trust me Sarron, this will be the finest hour of our empire! Go now, make preparations. We don't have much time!"

"Yes sir." Sarron saluted and walked out of the control room to send out the orders. Whatever it was Bennet was planning to do, he could only hope and pray the fool knew what he was doing.

—02:11 GST—
Lieutenant Beecher's sensors chimed a gentle warning, and a series of indicators lit up on the canopy, identifying the approaching mecha. She counted their numbers and confirmed the IFF codes before breaking radio silence, "Skipper I've got the Zentradi squadron on radar, moving in to join us."

Kai Chan spotted them as well, and rolling his fighter slightly on its side, he zoomed in to confirm visually with the sensors in the fighter's head, "That's affirmative, about two hundred battlepods and two scout ships. That should make a nice tasty diversion."

Far up ahead of them, the battleship the Victory had tailed into this system had picked up some company. A large super-dreadnaught command vessel had pulled up alongside, and with it a support fleet of at least two hundred ships that were now moving into an escort formation around them. All at once, Kai Chan felt a strange sense of admiration for the young technician and the four 'sandbox' missiles he had slung under his wings. With the Supervision fleet setup as it was, any approach closer than a thousand kilometers was effectively a death trap. These new missiles had over twenty times that range.

Then Beecher called in again, reminding him of the need for the Zentradi diversion, "I've got enemy fighters on scanner, maximum range. They're on an intercept course and closing in fast."

"What's our range to the target?" Kai Chan said.

"Twenty thousand kilometers."

"Alright," He plotted his course on the navigational computer, and aimed his nose towards the enemy fleet. This, he knew, would be quite an adventure. "Split up to your firing positions and kill your radars. Setup your datalink at fifteen thousand and release weapons on my command."

"Are you sure about this, Kai?" Aziz said anxiously, "These fighters aren't very maneuverable with the slugs under the wings. If you get spotted out there..."

"Follow your orders, Lieutenant. I know what I'm doing."

"If you say so." The eleven fighters broke away from him now, split up into different positions spaced out across hundreds of miles until they could no longer see each other. Kai Chan himself slammed is throttles forward and kicked in the afterburners. He reached peak acceleration at almost the same time the enemy battlepods showed up in his HUD displays. The distance between them diminished and continued to close until he could almost see the shapes of the enemy mecha against the faint glow of red giant in the distance.

All of the Supervision battlepods opened fire as one, and a strange coincidence, the Zentradi battlepods further behind Kai Chan's fighter did exactly the same. A storm of missiles and plasma beams criss-crossed in space, then a galaxy of explosions flashed into existence. Kai Chan found himself winding through the chaos with white knuckles, his heart pounding in his chest... then he passed the first of the enemy pods and raced through their formation at break-neck speeds. Some of them took shots at him as he passed, others ignored him completely, but the majority of them were focused on the attacking Zentradi, exactly as they should have.

When he was finally through them, his canopy lit up like a christmas tree. A galaxy of red boxes and warning lines displaying hundreds or perhaps even thousands of enemy pods in space around him, at distances ranging from a thousand kilometers to a few hundred meters. Some of the pods from their counter-attack had even turned around to follow him, and now a few bursts of plasma fire zipped past him above and below. His navigation screen counted off the distance from the enemy ships; he happened to glance at the screen just before the counter passed twelve thousand kilometers. "Zero One to strikers, begin datalink!" More pods came into range in front of him as his computer connected with the fire control systems of the other eleven fighters. He began dodging left and right on his path as enemy guns grew more accurate; suddenly he realized that the Zentradi diversionary attack wouldn't help him any longer. At least a hundred pods were gunning for him now, and a low-pulse tone in his headset warned him that at least three variable powered armors were trying to lock on from behind. "Jesus... this is insane! I'm..." A high pitched electronic scream filled his ears, the audio warning of an enemy missile launch. He managed one glance over his shoulder to see four variable powered armors hovering on his tail, and a sky full of missiles closing in for the kill. "Time to test out this new bird!"

He flipped a switch on his throttle and the internal missile bays on the sides of his engine nacelles opened. Each bay released six mini-missiles into space behind him that spread out in a pre-programmed pattern. All twelve exploded in the face of the enemy missiles, then Kai Chan began twisting his fighter in space like a mad man to avoid the rest. As others closed in he released a small pod from the tail slot that burst an instant after release and scattered a cloud of metal fragments into space. Several of the missiles behind him detonated in the debris, and with a few sharp moves Kai Chan shrugged off the ones that made it through. But the VPA's behind him remained undaunted, and another warning pulse indicated they were about to fire again.

He glanced at the navigation screen; six thousand kilometers from the target. Now was as good a time as any. "Zero One to all strikers, fire on my command!" He stopped dodging just long enough to point his nose at the enemy fleet and switched his radar to hunting mode. It took two seconds for the computer to identify the targets, and only a microsecond to relay its coordinates to the other eleven planes hanging back thousands of kilometers behind him. Kai Chan tapped a short command on his keypad, then as another high pitched missile warning filled his ears he shouted, "Bombs away!"

The four sandbox missiles under his wings dropped away, then fired up their obscenely powerful engines and shot forward towards the enemy fleet. Kai Chan banked hard to the left, as hard as the plane would turn; too late he realized that the fighter had become much more maneuverable without its heavy missiles, and suddenly he found himself pinned against his seat with the force of ten gravities pressing on his chest. His fighter went into a spin, out of control and out of weapons. Kai Chan desperately shoved the controls, trying to get back onto his escape course, and as his fighter tumbled in space he could see with every revolution a storm of missiles closing in for the kill. Hot damn, he thought, finally getting the fighter back under control, This thing's got a hell of a turn rate...

—02:17 GST—
Sarride walked through the hatch into Jinai's command center, noting a bit of elevated activity that seemed somehow out of place. Jinai, as usual, was sitting in his chair lost in thought, while his command officers were either directing some urgent activity or sitting motionless, spaced out, awaiting someone's orders. "I've come to report, Jinai," She said passively, then looked around again, "What's going on?"

"Some raiders on the outer marker. Nothing to be concerned about."

Sarride grunted, then approached his seat and handed him a small computer unit with the information already displayed on its tiny screen, "They're using a new tactic, some new formation. They keep their fleet spread out over a terribly large area beyond the missile range of any fighter."

Jinai read the first bits of the report and chuckled, "That's ridiculous. We could send the whole fleet right up the middle and blow their command ship out of the sky."

"That's not the end of it, Jinai. This formation is part of a new combat style. Somehow they've found a way to improve the accuracy of their weapons over extremely long ranges. We don't know how they're doing it, but they can target us from well beyond the effective range of our targeting scanners."

"I imagine they must have developed better sensors. We'll just have to capture one of their ships."

"I thought so as well, Jinai, but..."

A proximity alarm in the command center started wailing, and one of Jinai's radar officer called out a warning, "Incoming missiles. Speed, thirty-five relative. Ten seconds to impact."

Jinai scratched an itch on his neck, then said to, "Oh my... Sarride, I hope you didn't leave anything valuable on your ship."

Sarride caught his meaning, and in a moment of horror, ran to one of the control panels and opened a holographic window, showing the image of her flagship alongside of them now. Four tiny points of light were closing in from the distance, and as the seconds ticked off, all four of them slammed into the hull of her ship at amazing speeds, exploding deep within the hull before punching their way out again on the other side in a spray of fire and molten metal. All four missiles hit the ship at its most vulnerable positions; one hit the main engines, one the main reaction furnace, and two others hit the capacitors for the ship's main cannon. The the blast from the warheads alone gutted her battleship, then secondary explosions ripped open bulkheads and sections of armor plating in the hull. Only then did the damaged components of the ship join in the destruction, all at once, and Sarride watched the battleship disintegrate in flames from the inside out. "Just my luck," She said tiredly.

"Indeed," Jinai glanced over his shoulder at his radar officer, "Where are they shooting from?"

"No reaction from sensors, and no positive radar spikes. If those were launched by warships, they're probably hiding in the shadow of the second planet, just beyond firing range."

Sarride turned around and grinned at Jinai, "I told you, they're using some kind of trick. I don't know how they do it, but they can hit our ships from distances that make it impossible to fire back."

"I'm not convinced that's the case. If those were capital ships they would have used reaction missiles. Why would they use conventional warheads for that?"

"No conventional weapon does that much damage. And what else could have fired those missiles? No fighter-launched weapon can move at those speeds..."

"Incoming missiles." The radar officer called again, "Speed, thirty-nine relative. Twelve seconds to impact."

This time, Jinai stood up from his chair, visibly anxious, "How many this time? What's their trajectory!"

"Forty four missiles, varying trajectory. Seven of them are locked on to this ship. Five seconds to impact."

Jinai took a deep breath, then sat back down. "Sarride, you might want to grab a hold of something."

The barrage of missiles slammed into the hull of Jinai's command ship at nearly twenty kilometers per second. In the first impacts, four of the missiles sliced right through the outer shell of Jinai's starboard hull as if it were made of paper, and detonated deep within the ship. A jet of white-hot plasma erupted through the other end, punching a hole in the vessel large enough to fit a heavy cruiser inside. Around the impact point, a dozen types of shockwaves ran wild within the hull, smashing bulkheads and triggering secondary explosions, a chain reaction that that just kept building. In just a matter of seconds a section of the hull almost a thousand meters long shattered and fell away from the command ship. The other missiles impacted just moments later, two through the port hull, and the last through the primary hull that joined the two at the center of the horseshoe-shaped vessel. The ship rocked violently as pandemonium broke loose within, filling its inner spaces with racing curtains of flame and electromagnetic chaos.

The other missiles pounded the capital ships of Jinai's fleet seemingly all at once. Several of them hit the cruisers alongside from at least three different angles. Two cruisers were blown completely in half by the strange warheads, others took strikes in vulnerable areas and began to collapse from secondary damage. The barrage continued for just twenty seconds, a medley of impacts and explosions as brief as it was devastating.

When it was over, Jinai wiped his eyes as he stared through the smoke-filled command center at the grainy image on the monitor in front of him. His command ship was still intact and there was no immediate danger of loosing it, but around them, sixteen of his heavy cruisers were burning in space— and then only the few of them still had any atmosphere to burn. Before his very eyes, three of them exploded from the inside as their reaction furnaces lost containment. He did a quick count of his forces and the numbers of ships remaining, and found with a pulse of irritation that the Gallaron attack had rendered half of his most powerful ships utterly useless. "Radar," He said slowly, "Any more incoming?"

"Sensors show no incoming, Sir."

Jinai turned to Sarride, still holding on to the side of one of the control panels in anticipation of a second wave. "I don't understand it. If they'd used reaction missiles they could have destroyed us."

"They don't need to destroy us if we haven't the power to fight back. Don't you get it, Jinai? They used conventional warheads to inflict more damage on vital areas of the ship. Reaction missiles just aren't that precise, which means they're easier to defend against."

"I guess even that lost technology only got us so far..." There was something wonderfully ironic about all this, something Jinai could grasp readily without much coaxing. It's not enough to have the secrets of protoculture. Gallaron also inherited their genius. A new warning alarm flashed on the monitor in front of Sarride, and this time she put the data on the main screen before the radar officers could report it. "Seems we have company."

Jinai looked at the data for a moment, then folded his arms and laughed, "A defold reaction just short of a half a million marks. Their timing couldn't be better."

"Then we're outflanked," Sarride sighed, "That enemy fleet that chased me in here is closing from the opposite direction. And if you would look at your damage control board I think you'll find that most of your primary weapons are offline. I think we should retreat while we still can."

"You would say something like that," Jinai sat back down in his chair and folded his arms, back into his usual relaxed demeanor despite the smoke-filled command center around him, "As the Gallaron are known to say, 'it aint over till the fat lady sings.'"

Sarride looked at him, puzzled, "What does that mean?"

"It means go below decks and get something to eat. I'll call for you if I need anything."

She tried to think of something—anything—that might benefit Jinai in this situation, keep him from making what she was very sure would be a horrid tactical mistake. But she knew him better than that; when he made up his mind about something he never changed. Disappointed, Sarride walked out of the command center to the lower decks as Jinai brooded over the state of his damaged command ship. Where normally he found himself thinking of new tactical scenarios and possible counter attacks, today for the first time, the only thing he could think or feel was a sense of admiration for his current foe. "First time in twelve centuries," He said, thinking out loud, "I finally face someone who comes up with new ideas."

—09:40 GST—
The delaying tactic had served its purpose, and apparently it had bought Bennet the time he needed to setup his little stunt. The Gallaron forces couldn't push through Lacul's defensive lines as quickly as before, even with their Zentradi allies, thanks to the enormous effect of the black hole's tidal forces twisting the space around it. It was like fighting a war on an ocean of wet cement, it slowed everything down and made movement difficult and exhausting, but at the same time if gave both of them time to regroup. Kraken's command ship was at one end of a collapsing battle front while Jinai was on the other at Rijuno Delcaan. It was a battle he knew he was over before it began, but he also knew that it would take the Gallaron fleet at least a week to clear out his mine fields and make the jump to the next system. He knew he would loose many ships before this was over, in fact Kraken was sure this would be one of the costliest diversions in the history of the Supervision Army, but if Bennet could pull off his miracle he assured everyone it would all be worth it. They were gambling their last scraps with a shaky hand and if they didn't play their cards right it would all be over for them.

Kraken had taken this to be a kind of rest break for himself and his armies, but nearly halfway through the retreat his officers reported intermittent contact from an unknown ship edge the edge of communications range. Worried that it might perhaps be a distressed courier ship, Kraken kept his channel open on that frequency almost all day and all night, and on the third day when the signal finally came through, he greeted the face of his all time favorite adversary. "General Shikari Raskanos, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I want answers Kraken." She said grimly, her face still slightly bruised from her fight with Tiamat. "What the hell is happening with your fleet? Why are you retreating on all fronts and giving up tactical position? You know you're boxing yourself in and giving up too much ground."

Kraken knew it better than most. Being one of the three beings in the entire Supervision Army who could still think for himself, he had made it a point to keep track of just how vulnerable their position really was. "What's your point Shikari? Lacul has supreme command of our fleet, I don't give the orders, and there's nothing I can do about it."

"But I want to know why. Didn't you tell that the only thing the Supervision Army needed was good tacticians? We both know you're good, so what went wrong?"

Kraken figured there was no harm to be done in leveling with her, in fact it might actually help his position in the long run. "One of your former comrades, a human named Samuel Bennet, has devised some harebrained scheme that's supposed to bring the war to a swift and brutal end. No one knows what he's up to, but it involves gathering all of our ships in one place and fighting some massive engagement in front of our own bases. Lacul is betting everything riding on his little scheme. He doesn't seem to realize that Bennet is a fool who doesn't know what he's doing."

"And you have no idea what his secret plan is?"

"I know only that it's not worth my time. In fact, in the past three months I've been seriously considering for the first time going off on my own. Maybe I should just slip away with a small fleet and follow my own whims for a change. If it came to that, do you think you'd like to join me? Or would you instead choose to end our rivalry once and for all?"

Shikari shook her head. "I rather enjoy our little jousts, Kraken. I think I'd prefer it if you joined forces with Gallaron so we could continue our battles in a more… relaxed setting."

Kraken snickered. "A powered armor is my idea of relaxing, Shikari. Besides, I think I'd rather go down fighting with the others. And at this point I think it obvious that you are the only one in Gallaron who could finish me."

"That's probably true."

"I'll be waiting for you at Kaladan. If this is to be the last battle of our long fought war, let's make it a battle worth remembering."

Shikari smiled. "Agreed. Fight well, Kraken. I'll be seeing you very soon."

—21:11 GST—
SDF-04's main cannon swung down into place, adjusted its aim slightly for a positive lock on. The data relay from the Elint-Seekers at the outermost edge of their formation gave her a more accurate target than any of her sensors could hope for. From this distance the entire enemy fleet appeared as a single spec in the distance, and even with their best telescopes they could barely distinguish one vessel from another, even though they were separated in some cases by hundreds of miles. Even so, the enemy fleet was trying their best; a burst of laser fire from one of their cruisers reached out from the darkness and crossed in front of the Monitor's bow, missing its target by almost five kilometers. Three Zentradi cruisers and several destroyers in the Gallaron fleet fired back immediately, and with far greater accuracy; the ship that had fired the errand shots was silenced now as one of the GSDF laser cannons split its command tower down the middle.

"We've got a target, Admiral." Commander Gashi said, "Energy level rising... ready to fire, sir!"

The image of the targeted ship came up on the main viewer; a heavy cruiser close to the enemy command ship in a vain effort to shield the larger vessel from GSDF gunfire. Its reflex barrier was still active, but not up to full power and clearly not up to a direct hit from Monitor's main cannon. Misa gripped the arms of her chair, "Take him out, Gashi!"

A flash of orange light filled the bridge as the main cannon fired. The beam crossed an ocean of space before it reached the enemy fleet; two destroyers and three pickets caught in the beam disintegrated until the full force of the attack slammed into the bow of the heavy cruiser. The ship dissolved into a cloud of ions, even as the beam swept past it and slammed into the reflex barrier of Jinai's damaged command ship. Somehow, the energy barrier managed to absorb the brunt of the attack, but not before the backlash of energy overloaded his systems and shorted out the relays that sustained it. The command ship would not survive another direct hit. "I guess this is what you were trying to tell me earlier, Sarride." Jinai said teasingly, "Even with weapons back online, I can't get off a halfway descent shot."

Sarride was standing a few feet behind his chair, looking at the same screen and the same information he was. "You've already lost more than half your fleet. It's like trying to attack an army of snipers."

"Indeed." Jinai watched his main screen with a sense of helplessness, focused now on the image of a dozen smaller destroyers suddenly caught in the line of fire from several Gallaron vessels in the distance. A combination of heavy lasers and smaller, fast firing particle cannons rained down on the destroyers in a barrage, and the Supervision vessels fired back impotently, hitting nothing but empty space. In less than a minute, all twelve of the destroyers had been shot to pieces by the barrage, the last of them just now flying apart like a house of cards. "Let's cut our losses, Sarride," Jinai said.

"Agreed. Navigation has a partial fix on our exit vector. We can fold now, as long as you don't want to go too far."

"Get us to Morakum-Delcaan and bring as many escorts as can make the fold."

Sarride hesitated, "What about the others?"

"Leave them. It'll give the protoculture a that much more of a headache."

"We can't afford to loose this many ships at once, Jinai. I don't think this is..."

"Sarride, don't make the mistake of thinking I value your opinion. You have your orders, now follow them."

Sighing, the exasperated woman entered the commands into the console and waited for Jinai's officers to respond. Another retreat, she thought bitterly, And more losses on our side. Damn, is it really that hopeless?

A quarter of a million kilometers away, Captain Elensh's radar system put up a new warning on the main viewer. Imura instantly recognized the meaning and opened a channel across the gulf of space to the battlecruiser on the opposite side of the battle, "Delta-Vee calling Gunsight Four, sensors indicate enemy ships are attempting to fold."

Misa's sensor computer gave her the same information at the same time Elensh reported it. "We confirm, Victory. Standby." Then, closing the channel, "Commander Gashi, plot their defold coordinates as soon as they..."

"There they go," Lieutenant Gorath reported, "Oh man... with the gravitational weirdness in this system it's gonna take us a couple of hours to plot their coordinates."

"Then I suggest you get started right away. How many ships did they leave behind?"

Gorath checked her computers, then said, "They only took about thirty or so. The others are still engaging. We should be able to clean them up pretty easily in any case..." Her console started beeping, and checking her screens she reported, "We have Skull Squadron on final approach, Admiral."

Misa smiled. "Send my compliments to Skull Zero for a job well done. Meanwhile, select another target and charge the main cannon for another firing."