Chapter 18: The Battle of Kaladan

—October 2, 2018—

—07:40 GST—
"Is that it?" Miko said, a sense of wonder creeping through her voice.

"That's it," Misa said, putting her hands on her daughter's shoulder, a strange sense of pride washing over her. It felt like they were scouting a strange new land on the eve of their new conquest. Misa almost had the temptation to pat Miko on the head and say, Some day, all this will be yours.

But it wouldn't be appropriate to make assumptions. Even from this distance, it was a beautiful planet. To Misa, the planet so reminded her of Old Earth that if she looked hard enough she imagined she would see the Japanese Islands somewhere beneath the cloud cover in one of the ancient seas. But in her mind she knew this was an illusion. Despite the beautiful blue planet in the distance, she knew the world had been long since abandoned by its previous inhabitants. This was not Earth, and more to the point, this was a world that seemed to have become the new capital of the Supervision Army's new empire. The fourth planet of Kaladan-Delcaan, and around it, a fleet of almost seven thousand enemy warships just itching for a battle. "I bet if you look hard enough you can see their whole aramada."

"What's an amada?" Miko asked innocently.

"It's a word that means 'fleet,'" Misa explained, "A very large fleet."

"Can we really fight that many of them?" She stared into the darkness beyond the observation dome, the Earthlike world in the distance and the twin suns rising just over its horizon, "That doesn't sound safe."

"We'll have to be very careful, but we just might pull it off. Do you remember that song I used to sing to you about the little birdies?"

Miko smiled, "When the mama birdy builds a nest too fast?"

"That's right. Just like in the song, Miko, we'll build the nest one little stick at a time."

Commander Gashi couldn't help but chuckle, "The Bird Song, huh? I was wondering where Shumi learned that one..." a flashing light on his monitor told him that the time index had passed a little earlier than they had expected. "The rest of the fleet has made formation, Admiral. All ships are accounted for, no reports of mis-folds."

"Very well," Misa returned to the command chair on the side of the bridge.

Miko, knowing the drill, made sure to stay no further than three feet away from her at any given time, just close enough for Misa to reach out and grab her if anything unexpected were to happen. It was rare that the girl was ever allowed on the bridge, and she wasn't about to jeopardize future visits with bad behavior. "Where are they? How come we're not shooting?"

"We're still a million kilometers from the planet, Miko," Misa gestured to a tactical plot on her own monitor, "Lacul's fleet is a quarter million kilometers out. We can't hit them from this distance, and they can't hit us. So we're going to send out the bombers to start the attack from beyond our firing range."

Miko's eyes lit up, "Is Daddy escorting the bombers?"

"He sure is."

Miko ran to the edge of the rail on the side of the bridge next to Misa's command chair. The Gallaron fleet was just within sight around them, spread out over an area of space thousands of kilometers across. On Misa's tactical screen it looked like a battlefield scenario straight out of a military history book, but somehow, despite all this concentrated activity, the Monitor almost appeared to be a loan warship in a vast and empty sky. And yet even Miko could sense the thousands of ships and millions of soldiers and crewmen all focused on the same goal.

On Misa's console, the long-awaited number—four hundred fifty thousand—crossed the indicator. She tapped a button on her console and said sternly, "This is Admiral Hayase to all participating warships: we have just crossed the fourth battle line. Launch your fighters to the designated targets and standby to engage from the third battle line. All units must maintain formation at all times, do not evade beyond one thousand kilometers from designated position."

Commander Gashi's console beeped, and he glanced back and said just loud enough for her to hear, "Datalink confirmed to Elint recons. We have target information coming up."

Misa nodded, then to the fleet she said, "Front line ships are cleared to engage. Set your targets and fire as soon as you're in range."

"Twenty minutes to front line in firing range, Admiral," Gash reported, adding only as an afterthought, "That, of course, is our extended range from the new data link system. The enemy won't be able to fire back for another hour yet."

Misa tapped Miko on the shoulder, all the while taking a look at her watch to make sure she had just enough time, "I need to take you below decks now."

"Just a minute!" Miko said, still staring through the observation dome, finally calling out, "There he is!"

Misa looked past her and saw it herself. The first Lightning squadron was being raised into space on the launch arms on the Monitor's grappler module five hundred meters portside aft of the bridge. The only reason they could see it at all was because the ship was in cruiser mode, but Miko's eyes were remarkably keen to discern the skull and crossbones on the tails of the fighters even from this distance. She watched wide-eyed as a long boom extended from the hub of the docking arm several dozen meters from the fighters, then their engines fired up and the catapult fixed to the boom flung them into space like a bullet from a gun. Miko's head followed Skull Zero as it shot away into space, watched it disappear into the stars before finally turning back to her mother obediently. "Okay, Mom, let's go."

—08:02 GST—
Far to the front of the Gallaron formation, the front line ships—a group of about a hundred ARMD carriers swung their main guns around to the enemy fleet and fired the first salvos of the Battle of Kaladan. A few thousand kilometers ahead of them, the first wave of Parankazu fighters did the same, and six hundred of the tiny ships opened their guns and ripple fired into the Supervision Army's front line vessels, followed by the Zentradi in short order. As before, the first attack from the Allied ships was devastatingly accurate; dozens of perimeter vessels in the Supervision fleet were torn apart from the first salvo alone, and dozens more suffered direct hits and heavy damage. The Supervision ships all fired back in the same measure, but with far reduced accuracy; not a single shot from any of their gunners scored a hit on the first attack, or even on the second.

Several heavier vessels, cruisers and destroyers moved into the mix in an effort to protect the smaller vessels, but it was an effort that would bear little fruit. As larger warships came into range, even the heavier cruisers of the Supervision Army became swamped by the precision of allied gunnery, directed ever so carefully by no less than five squadrons of Elint scout planes, each one guarded by an entire squadron of Lightnings and Zentradi battlepods.

Close to the front, among the waves of fighters and bombers swirling around each other in a dance of death, entire squadrons of VE-1 Elint recon fighters took up their new scouting positions and activated their massive, powerful search radars. Five seconds later, a stream of tactical data appeared on Commander Gashi's monitors, relayed to the Monitor from the hundred or more ARMD carriers at the forward edge of their formation and assembled into a single picture by the Monitor's main computer. "Target updates, Admiral... enemy ships are now in range of our guns."

Misa felt simultaneously relieved and anxious. "What's their formation density?"

"They're in a two-hundred split."

"Set anything over one thousand meters as a single target. Fire at will when target axis is verified." Misa tapped a small button on her command console, then opened a secure channel to one of SDF-2's tactical control centers.

A voice on the other end muttered in Zentradi, "U'debranta Gardrasdakan."

Misa responded with the appropriate password, "Mishae Kara. How are we feeling, Lieutenant Norton?"

In the CIC room of SDF-2, just a few compartments aft of the command bridge, Lieutenant Tyler Norton was hunched over a computer console, cycling through different radio frequencies trying to pin down exactly which one had the information he needed. "I feel tired, Admiral. Always tired these days. I want to go home."

"When this war is over, we can all go home." She said sternly, "Any luck with the enemy comms? The fighter units have already engaged. This is taking too long."

He said nothing for a moment or two, patiently scanning radio bands and descrambling signals to guess at their content. It was only a stroke of blind luck that he stumbled across the right frequency; a data stream appeared on his screen with a string of numbers in a pattern he didn't at all recognize, but glancing at the frequency reading on the dial in Zentradi characters, he slammed his fist on the table, "That's the one! Descramble it and get the frequency!"

Two other officers in the room did exactly that. Fifteen seconds later, a set of numbers appeared on the Misa's command console, "Admiral, I've got the pattern codes. Sending data to all ships computers."

Misa almost laughed out loud. Even though it was Hikaru's idea primarily, she had been dying to find out how well this little scheme would work in actual combat. "Commander Gashi, forward the necessary pattern data to the front line fighters." She watched him put in the data on his console, and settled into her chair for the long haul. This battle would be a turning point in military history, the end of the vaunted battleship slugging matches between opposing clusters of ships. Almost the entire battle depended on the performance of the fighters and the front-line escort carriers and destroyers. Eight to one, she reminded herself, remembering the count of all the allied warships compared to the Supervision vessels. Eight thousand enemy ships against just under a thousand friendly. Three hundred fifty five GSDF warships, a thousand from the Zentradi, a few dozen from isolated colonies and planets in the outer rim, the two Parankazu battleships and their armada of heavy fighters. And our force of 22,000 fighters and bombers, 15,000 mobile infantry against a mechanized force five times their number...

"First line reporting, Admiral," Commander Gashi said, "First wave has made contact."

"Excellent. Keep me informed." She took a deep breath and decided not to think about it anymore. Let's pray that nothing goes seriously wrong.

—08:55 GST—
It was only a few minutes into the battle when, close to the front, the first blips of enemy fighters appeared on the scanners, working their way through the lines of Allied firepower. Skull Squadron got the information from a nearby Elint recon long before his own radar spotted them. Theirs was one squadron out of twenty against this particular enemy group, although the next closest pack of enemy ships was just three hundred miles away—less than a swallow's fight in space combat. "Showtime, folks," He armed all of his weapons and pushed his throttles forward slightly, "There's an air defense group just ahead, five frigates and two destroyers. We need to knock them out to clear a path for our spotters. Set flash patterns on medium missiles and set your burst vectors now."

Lieutenant Arriaga asked form the number three position on his right, "Colonel, how many fighters do those destroyers carry? Intel says they're basically carriers."

"Five hundred battlepods, three hundred fighter pods, at most sixty variable armors."

"That's all?" Ensign Batista chuckled, "That sounds like fun..."

"Skull One to all fighters, Got a radar spike!" Major Brooks said suddenly, then relayed the data to the rest of the squadron so their own computers could verify. "They've seen us! They're launching fighters!"

A small voice rang out on Hikaru's headset, "This is Commander Zaky to Skull Squadron. Stand by to receive covering fire..."

A second or two passed, then from somewhere behind the Gallaron fighters, a storm of cannon fire struck down on the hulls of Supervision ships in the distance. The barrage held up for only a moment or two, then one of the destroyers began spinning in space belching flames as the beams from Zaky's fighters crippled its power grid.

Hikaru didn't have time to offer his thinks to the Di'maku pilots; the first enemy battlepods came into range and opened fire all at once. "Lay down a pattern! Open fire!"

Skull Squadron's thirteen planes did exactly that, joined only moments later by nearly a hundred other Lightnings just a half step behind them. The Di'maku squadron fired a second barrage right into the face of the enemy fighters just before the wave of medium missiles detonated in the midst of them. Several of the defending battlepods were struck down by the barrage of cannons, but the missiles exploded harmlessly around and between them, spraying gigantic patterns of colored flares like giant fireworks in space, all different patterns and arrangements for the enemy to see.

The Supervision pilots saw the colored patterns exactly as the Gallaron engineers had hoped they would. Immediately their entire formation fell into chaos, the zombie-like pilots scattering in utter confusion and perplexity as the dance of colors filled their eyes with meaningless instructions. Some of the pods began flying in circles where they were, others turned around and flew back to their home ships. More than a few even ejected from their machines, some self destructed, some began flying in bizarre evasive patterns as if avoiding the defensive fire from an invisible battleship on their flanks.

In these conditions it took the Lightning squadrons all of one minute to smash their entire defensive line, with swarms of micro-missiles and pulse lasers cutting into the lot of them by the dozen. Goldfish squadron was the first group through, with a half dozen Di'maku fighters on their flanks, clearing a path for them with their heavy cannons. Major Southerland took the lead while the rest of the squadron split up by flights, three groups of four and each one to its targets. Lieutenant Magellan scanned far ahead with the targeting radar, even as the range dropped off in clumps from his screen. "Standard picket formation," he said, and did another scan for details, "Looks like two destroyers and some frigates."

"Light me one pair. Put em both into the primary hull."

Magellan armed a pair of RMS-1 missiles, and from this long range programmed them just which part of the ship to home in on. One of the E-valks on their wing locked into the other destroyer, while the two behind them each targeted the two frigates on either side. "Got good tone. Weapons hot."

"Bombs away!" Southerland pressed the pickle switch, and felt the twin tremors as the massive missiles separated from his wings. Then the rocket motors kicked in and both of the missiles sped away into the darkness towards their targets, joined immediately by six more from the other planes in his flight.

Three of the frigates were strick one after another before by other reaction missiles from other Goldfish pilots—two of them tumbled in space and broke apart, the third began desperately turning away from its battle line even as its engines gave out. A salvo of gunfire rang out from behind the bombers, and the main guns of a pair of escort carriers more than a quarter million miles distant began carving up another of the frigates. Battle pods filled the skies around them in a vain effort to intercept, but the E-valks used their speed to the best advantage and charged through the enemy, leaving them to be picked off by the waves of Lightnings farther behind. Megellan counted off the seconds, watched the missiles home in on their target, then finally detonate.

Both of Glen's missiles were on target. They slammed into the enemy destroyer just in front of its command tower and detonated on impact. The vessel snapped in two like a twig before the nuclear fireball reduced it to a cloud of ions, then the second destroyer and the two frigates suffered the same fate. The sky lit up with a series of brilliant flashes then; Glen realized with a sudden surge of pleasure that the entire picket formation was suddenly gone from his radar screens. "Damn, that was easier than I thought... Goldfish-100 to Warewolf-203, all targets eliminated. Request target dope."

The radar operator on ARMD-203 answered much more promptly than Glen would have preferred, "Goldfish-100, second enemy picket group is moving forward to cover the gap. Enemy fighters are already airborne. Proceed with caution."

He could see from his radar screen that just over half the fighter and pods from this first group were still flying about, and their escorting Lightnings seemed relatively occupied finishing them off. "Warewolf, how long until they're in range?"

"Four minutes, nineteen seconds."

Glen changed frequencies now, "Goldfish-100 to Skull Zero, we need to move on to the next target group. You think you can clear these guys in three minutes?"

Hikaru could only barely hear Glen's voice over the buzzing of the missile alarm in his ears. At full afterburner he managed to lead the missile spread by a few extra meters, then spun into battloid mode facing them and cleared out the lot of them with his gunpod. The three variable armors that had fired them came up on all sides, their pulse lasers criss-crossing around him despite his best efforts to evade, "Goldfish..." He said through clenched teeth, tilted one arm and fired a few blasts from the laser cannon. The variable armor managed to dodge most of them, but the last shot caught it in the midsection and burned right through the cockpit, leaving the fighter dead in space "...I can have it done in two minutes!"

Two streams of pulse lasers crossed the paths of the second armor and chopped it to bits in space. The last one banked sharply and tried to run; Hikaru dropped the plasma cannon over his shoulder into position, then fired both barrels. The direct hit pierced it through the cockpit, and the variable armor tumbled in flight as it began to disintegrate from the inside. "Good kill, Batista!"

Skull-11 shot past in fighter mode, and Batista snapped off a quick victory roll before he plunged again into combat with more enemy pods.

—09:31 GST—
Captain Sekkai gripped the arms of her chair as the next barrage hammered down on them from the front. Most of the beams missed by a comfortable margin, but three direct hits bounced off the pointpoint barriers at the front of the ship, scorching the hull plating underneath. The gun destroyer on their starboard side wasn't so lucky, with much of the salvo cutting into its primary hull and punching open large gaps in one of its shoulder cannons. All four of them were in cruiser mode now, with the maximum number of their secondary guns firing back in patterns.

Sekkai's first officer reported off almost completely emotionless, as if nothing about this situation was even slightly unusual for him. "Direct hit on the number four shield. Sixty seconds to recharge."

"What's our time on the main guns, Sorel?"

"Thirty seconds on number two, sixty on number three, two minutes each on one and four."

"Set targets to number two and three to the enemy cruiser. Target their main engines and fire in sequence..." A brilliant light bathed them from the starboard side. Sekkai looked over in time to see the second gun destroyer, the Perseus, firing a blast off one of its shoulder cannons into the vast distance ahead. The beam rode its trajectory perfectly, finally slicing right down the throat of one of the enemy cruisers. The blast of energy plowed through the forward section of the cruiser and fully a third of the vessel was blasted into space dust. This left the cruiser effectively powerless and two more cruisers moved up to cover the gap in their formation, only to have their lines broken again as the Perseus' other shoulder cannon struck another cruiser amidships, planting an explosion there that immediately split the cruiser in two.

"That Doctor Varcus really knows how to use firepower." Commander Sorel said, then reported again in his usual detached tones, "Ten seconds on number two... incoming fire."

"Shields forward!" Sekkai gripped her chair again and held her breath. The ship's smaller particle cannons fired off one last barrage before the enemy counter attack hammered them.

This time they were much more accurate. Nearly twenty cannons aimed at the Zjendiel struck within a dozen meters of the hull, five of them scored direct hits. Sekkai watched one of the beams hit the hull just in front of the command tower, and geyser of flame erupted from deep within the hull and blinded the command bridge to anything beyond the transparent dome. Through the haze of flames, just for a moment, her eyes fixed on the shape of a human body amongst the debris, then two more—a dozen officers or so blown into space among the jets of flame and debris. The other blasts from enemy cannons struck the ship in other compartments, two against the pinpoint barriers and others being absorbed by the ship's armor.

Sorel reported after a moment, "Direct hit to sections twenty eight and thirty. Heavy casualties reported. Number four shield is destroyed."

"Get me main cannons!" Sekkai shook herself, tried to put the visual memory out of mind, "Target the second enemy cruiser!"

Sorel paused for a moment and set their target, and at the same time another blast from the Perseus' arm cannons fired off into space as the gun destroyer moved slightly to cover the Zjendiel from enemy fire. Another direct hit, this time through the reactor block of one of the cruisers, with spectacular results. The blast from the ships own reaction furnace crushed it into bits within a heartbeat.

"Resetting," He said, then reported, "Energy level rising, taking aim... target lock!"

"Put it right down the middle... and fire!"

The Zjendiel's first shoulder cannon fired at the enemy fleet at the same instant that the enemy fired their own barrage. This time the gladiator suffered no direct hits, but several heavy laser cannons punched through the armor of SDG-04 in more than a few already tender spots. The beams crossed each other in space, then the gladiator's larger, more powerful blast hit the lead cruiser head on and drilled through the hull entirely, right down the length of the vessel until it punched out again through the stern between the main engines. Curtains of flames rose up from the core of the ship and consumed it completely until there was nothing left but metal splinters and expanding clouds of burning vapors.

Sekkai turned her head in time to see her victory tainted; the stricken gun destroyer was burning in space, breaking up with every moment, its bulkheads buckling and its structure starting to collapse. A few life pods began to separate from its primary hull, then one last salvo from the enemy fleet poured into it and the hapless destroyer came apart in its fiery conclusion.

"Support fighters coming up," The Zjendiel's radar officer read through the first sets of data as they came up on his screens, "Two E-valk squadrons from the Ajax. They're requesting target dope."

That suited her just fine. All that was left of Varcus' little detachment was their three destroyers and four escort carriers that so far had done a superb job of keeping enemy fighters away from them. Two more bomber squadrons would make all the difference in the world. "What's the enemy strength?"

"Five cruisers, ten destroyers, at least two dozen frigates."

"Tell them to go after the small fries and leave the cruisers to us."

This time, Commander Sorel turned around in surprise, "Small fries?"

"It'll save time. If they can get past the defenses they can drop at least half of them on the first two passes. I don't want to be stuck plinking at the lighter ships for the next ten hours."

The commander grunted in appreciation, "I never would have thought of that."

"Send over target data to those new fighters and get a couple of escort squadrons to help out! All guns, target the enemy destroyers closest to the fighter's approach path! Number three cannon, match bearings and fire!"

The Zjendiel's arm cannon opened like the jaws of an aligator, sparkling between the two sections as the cannon charged for firnig. It raised up slightly, then turned a few degrees to one side, then from between the breach another massive column of energy shot towards the enemy fleet like a breath of fire from the jaws of a dragon. Two frigates and a destroyer caught in the line of the blast were vaporized almost in an instant, along with hundreds of battlepods and variable armors. The deadly beam cleared after a few moments, and then dozens of GSDF fighters poured into the opening it had carved and charged into the heart of the Supervision fleet to deliver their ordinance.

—10:55 GST—
Despite the brightness of the moon overhead and the spectacularly overgrown ruins of the cities, the landscape rolling beneath them now was the very image of "home." This part of the continent was a carpet of tropical rainforests, small lakes and networks of rivers so elaborate that in some places the entire landmass looked more like a collection of islands than a singular body. There was more fresh water flowing in this place than there ever was on Earth, and the forests here testified of this fact; this world was a paradise.

Kai Chan shifted frequencies again, keeping the live feed from the Victory as a background on his headset and listened in from the Minmei concert already in progress there. There was something reassuring about this, hearing Minmei's voice like a whisper in his ear even now, flying through space thousands of miles away from her. He fished through his pockets briefly, and found there a small photograph to go with the voice, one of Minmei in faded overals sitting on a couch somewhere with Taosan and Yu batting each other on her lap.

"Seeing you in my tears
In my own reflection
I hear you in the wind that passes through me

Feel you in my hunger
You're haunting my ambition
Beautifully destructive attraction

Climbed to zero G's
Now falling like a rock
Drugged and digitized you inside a dream..."

"Shadow Four to Shadow Leader, I've got a fix on the primary target..." There was a short pause, then Aziz gave the coordinates, "Enemy position confirmed, bearing 3-1-7."

He kept the music in the background and tuned his own computer into the datafeed from the Cats-eye. "Has intelligence confirmed it? Is this really...?"

Beecher piped up as well, "The Cats-eye just confirmed it visually. The facility is twenty six kilometers in diameter and runs underground at least a thousand feet. We don't think the Supervision Army built it themselves, probably some ancient mining operation from whoever owned this place last."

Kai Chan imagined the worst case scenario, "Twenty six kilometers is big enough to be a city."

"Possibly. Recon has sighted at least four of them on the surface, but this is the only one that shows any activity. What do you think is going on?"

"It doesn't help to guess. We know they've setup a massive amount of defensive weaponry around it, along with a dozen ships and a few thousand troops. Whatever it is, we can't let this battle end without bombing it." He glanced over his shoulder for just a moment, visually counting the weapons slung under his wings. It was an old habit from his days as a Stormlord pilot, checking his own stores by hand instead of using the computer; the four gigantic missiles slung under his wings, highly modified XASM-405 cruise missiles, their outer covering reinforced with a double-layer of hyper carbon. Each of these new missiles had its own small nuclear turbine engine, complete with an intake for use within an atmosphere. This mission was both a tactical bombing and a field test. "What's our distance?"

"Two hundred miles," Aziz reported.

"Let's get to altitude. We'll only have a few seconds to launch."

"I find you in my fears
And in my fascination
I taste you in safe water and it drowns me

Paranoid and peaceful
Inside a sweet addiction
Velvety electrical reaction

Soft insanity
And I can't make it stop
Live hallucination within a dream..."

I wonder what kind of dress she's wearing? Kai Chan eased the stick back and began his ascent. At fifty thousand feet they would launch their missiles, then climb up and out of the atmosphere, away from the planet towards the six Parankazu fighters that constituted their escape route. He managed a quick glance at his fuel gauge and saw that the additional fuel tanks in the internal bays on his legs were almost empty. Maybe her style is changing? I got used to thinking of her as the kind of sweet, classy galactic diva. Now she's really starting to turn heads with a few of those outfits... "Passing ten thousand feet," He reported, What is the deal with that? Trying to shake things up by shedding the "good girl" image? "Twenty thousand," He said, then whistled, "Damn, these things can climb!" Or maybe it's her producers or her record company trying to get more bang for their buck? Yeah, that's got to be it. Seems like that P.R. guy... Lieutenant Doyle, was it? I can't tell if he's a producer or a pimp sometimes... He broke from his train of thought for a moment, then howled in amazement, "Unbelievable! Beecher, you still think these birds are just suped-up Valkyries?"

"Aint no way, Skipper! Even my Queadlunn-Rau couldn't haul ass like this!" She pushed the throttle just a little, then added, "Fifty thousand feet and I didn't even have to cut in the afterburner!"

"Let's level off for a moment and set target data. Synchronize computers," A dial appeared in the HUD display on the front of his canopy, counting down from six seconds. The rest of it was done on automatic, the combat computers of all fifteen VFXs working and thinking together for the task. Then the clock struck zero, and Kai Chan felt the quadruple lurch in his controls as the giant missiles fell away from their hard points, dropped for a few moments, then their turbo-jets kicked in and the missiles raced away into the night sky.

The lights of the facility were just appearing on the horizon now, sprawled out in concentric circles around a massive metallic dome. Interceptors and battlepods were already launching to fight off Kai Chan's formation, and in the jungle dozens of missile launchers began rising up from beneath the tree line.

Kai Chan couldn't help but comment as they ascended again towards open space, "That target doesn't quite look like the recon photos." He glanced to his left as they continued to ascend, pushing his throttles forward even more to approach orbit speed, "In fact it looks like... like a..."

Aziz came to the same conclusion, "It does look like a city," He said, and turning his cameras towards the target zoomed in to maximum resolution, "And a big one at that. The architecture is identical to the Old City in Megaroad. Same pattern of roads, circular block layout..."

All at once, the other pilots zoomed in as well and saw for themselves. More than a few of the buildings were very familiar, and it didn't take an untrained eye to see the similarities. The dome in the center of the city was the only new feature, in fact its construction didn't seem entirely complete yet. There were signs of activity all over the city, but Kai Chan had seen enough to make a conclusion, "Am I crazy or they renovating this place?"

"You're not crazy," Beecher said, "But it seems like they're looking for something... I mean, like they're surveying the city for something, as if they were..."

Kai Chan's missile alarms began a sudden high-pitched howl as somewhere below them a dozen variable powered armors came into range and fired off spread after spread of missiles. "Let's just bring the data back to the fleet," He said. With a flip of a switch his internal bays swung open and the two large fuel tanks separated and fell away. Two other VFX fighters did the same, and the enemy missiles homed in on the fuel tanks, exploding harmlessly thousands of feet below the ascending fighters.

The threat warning was still chirping on his headset, but Kai Chan knew that none of their fighters would be able to make the intercept now. Their missiles had been fired, and in five minutes they would come raining down on the Supervision Army facility at a dozen times the speed of sound. Half of them would exploded on the surface and send a blast wave of supercharged energy particles sweeping across the city, the other half would borrow to a depth of nearly six hundred feet before their warheads exploded deep underground, vaporizing anything around them, and—ideally—filling any underground tunnels or chambers with a charged plasma millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

Minmei's birthday is coming up, Kai Chan realized suddenly, What kind of present should I get her this year?

—15:18 GST—

Bennet was late, his fleet had been delayed by the unexpected inconvenience of a Zentradi fleet between them and Vorhalas. The Botoru fleet, it seemed, was not entirely vanquished, in fact there seemed to still be several thousand vessels still at large on the Bokata front. Collapsing that front to destroy the enemy left them almost totally isolated at Kaladan, which he now arrived to find under threat by a seemingly aggressive and apparently successful attack, but with his reinforcements arriving he knew Lacul's army would seen be moving to a whole new base of operations. "Lord Lacul, this is Admiral Bennet arriving from Bokata-Delcaan."

Lacul's face appeared on the monitor filled with dread. "Bennet, where the hell have you been! I've been trying to contact you for the last three days! I need those fold weapons I gave you, I can no longer afford..."

Bennet laughed out loud, at once putting Lacul's mind at ease. "My Lord, you really should learn to relax a little! I have just dispatched the entire Botoru fleet and Commander Gyzol once and for all. They will not threaten us again."

Lacul's mood visibly brightened. "Did you really?"

"Of course. I told you I could do it, you didn't believe me. That'll teach you to doubt my abilities when I..."

"Okay, dammit, I believe you!" Lacul chuckled to himself over his good fortune. It seemed now that capturing Bennet and his fleet was the best investment he had ever made. "We're taking heavy losses from the enemy fleet. Somehow they've found a way to target our vessels from extreme range and we're unable to mount an effective counter attack. They've done far more damage than I ever thought possible, but it doesn't surprise me much considering how resourceful these people have been thus far."

Bennet looked at the tactical display and saw this for himself. "They seem to be relying on reconnaissance craft to direct their gunnery."

Lacul nodded. "An old Zentradi tactic. I've never seen it used so effectively though."

After a brief pause, Bennet said brightly, "Have they destroyed our early warning system on the asteroid moon yet?"

"No, the moon as on he far side when they attacked. They didn't bother with it."

A perverse smile crossed Bennet's lips. "Have your gunners synchronize their targeting computers with the main sensor array and direct fire that way. Move at least half of the fleet to a defensive position around the moon, then move the rest of them to a flanking position."

"That'll leave Vorhalas completely open to attack... Bennet, what are you thinking?"

"Are you doubting me again, Lord?" He chuckled, "Sire, we'll box them in and pound them into submission before they even know what hit them." He saluted his overlord, then with a tap on the command console Lacul's image vanished, replaced by Sarron's on the other command ship next to his. "It's time, Sarron. Are you ready?"

"You were right about the last one, I trust your judgment." Sarron checked his fold calculations one last time and nodded. "Ready to go. All we're waiting for is the signal, right?"

"Right. We'll attack in three waves, put four thousand in each and keep the rest in reserve. I want to get as many of the Gallaron ships as we can on the first salvo."

—15:20 GST—
The Phoenix had only just completed the transformation into its full combat configuration when a fierce volley of cannon fire crossed the bow of the ship, this one even closer and more precise than the previous attacks that had assailed them over the past few minutes. It took Captain Broli only a few moments to realize that this new wave of enemy gunnery anything but random, but the instrument behind it was a mystery to him even now. "Pinpoint barriers, enemy fire is intensifying! It's time to earn your paychecks!" Even as he spoke, still another volley struck down around them from the distant space ahead. The pinpoint barriers moved into position and deflected the beams, but one well placed shot punched through the side of the hull, blasting a small opening in the armor plating.

"Direct hit, Captain! Enemy heavy cruisers in satellite orbit!"

"Why are they so accurate? We're still half a million kilometers from the planet!"

Commander Raltha went over a list of possibilities in her mind. It was a short list. "This is Cruiser Two to escort, on my mark, secure all active scanners and switch to passive only for ten seconds! Recon fighters, switch to mode four!" She paused and gave the radar crews around the fleet a chance to catch up, "And... mark!"

A few seconds passed, then Lieutenant Carey called out from her console, "I've got a fix! High energy radar spike bearing 2-1-7! It's on the surface of the moon!"

Broli felt a wave of anxiety wash over him. The single moon of Kaladan-IV was far removed from the battle zone, almost as far from the fleet now as the planet itself. From that position, a well-placed sensor array could direct naval gunfire for every ship in the Supervision fleet. "Cruiser-Two to Gunsight Four, we're picking up an enemy sensor array on the face of the far moon! It appears to be spotting for enemy cannons!"

There was a pause as the Monitor confirmed it, then Misa signaled to the entire fleet, "Delta Four to Cruiser-Two, I'm assigning the array as your primary target! Take out the enemy sensor array before they zero in on us..." A concentrated barrage from what seemed like a dozen ships rained down on the Monitor as she gave out his orders. The pinpoint barriers moved to the front but not enough to catch all of them. At least four beams hit the hull and punched through to the ship's inner compartments.

Broli put the sensor data on his main screen, magnifying the image of the array as much as the computer could manage. "Can we take it out in one shot?" He asked even as the main cannon charged up to fire.

Commander Raltha shook her head. "The sensor array is spread out over a twenty kilometer radius. If we can hit it, we can only damage part of it."

"Just do the best you can! Fire when..." A burst of cannon fire reached out from the direction of the moon, pelted the Phoenix in a dozen places despite the best efforts of the pinpoint barriers. Something that seemed like a fury of beams and missiles of all shapes and sizes suddenly erupted from there, and it didn't take Broli long to realize why. A moment later the ship realigned itself again, and the main cannon fired off its deadly blast in the direction of the moon. To no one's great surprise, the beam only made it about half way to the target before an enemy heavy cruiser moved into the path of it and switched on its barrier field. The beam from the cannon crushed the enemy vessel and several others around it, but it traveled no further towards the moon. "Admiral Hayase, the enemy fleet is splitting up! They're moving to protect the sensor array!"

Misa knew where this was going. Given where the moon was now, the Supervision Army would be able to anchor the fight around the moon and the sensor array they were using as a spotter to direct their cannons. The GSDF would be forced to divert as well, and Kaladan-IV would be removed from the center of the battle entirely. With that, the offensive was as good as lost, but the battle itself was far from over. "Delta-Four to all ships," She said, more sternly this time, "Redeploy your formation to move on the moon of Kaladan-IV. We'll have to push through from there before we get to the planet."

A response came in from one of the gun destroyers, Varcus' voice ringing through, "Admiral, this is not good. If we divert our attention to the moon, the enemy will have a chance to build up a counter attack."

"I'm perfectly aware of that, Varcus. Right now my number one concern is reducing their battle strength as much as possible before we pull out of here. This invasion has just become a raid."

Varcus' training kicked in, and he forced himself to swallow his pride. He knew Misa was correct, even as much as he hated to admit it to himself. "I'll move my group forward to support the flanks."

"Get to it, Varcus, but watch yourself. This battle could turn ugly at any moment."

—15:39 GST—
The sky ahead of them lit up with the flashes as dozens of reaction warheads exploded among the guarding enemy fleet. Still hundreds of them remained, all firing in volleys at the GSDF attackers even as the Gallaron fleet fired back with equal precision. SDF-05's main cannon was still charging, but the four main lasers and secondary cannons drew a bead on one of the enemy destroyers in the distance; the gunners linked up with a VE-1 Elint close to the enemy fleet, and then all together delivered the grand finale.

Shikari watched on the monitor the enemy ship break into pieces in a fiery demise, and again as the gunners moved on to even larger targets closer to the array. Her radar registered a sudden shift in the enemy formation, and concentrated scans on that spot she picked out several ships charging them from far behind the others. "Cruiser-Five to Archer-One, there's a new group of ships coming up from the rear line. Should be in range in about thirty seconds."

Varcus looked past the enemy ships and saw them at last, a group of almost a hundred cruisers and destroyers with a single battleship leading the pack. All at once he noticed something else, something he realized he should have noticed a long time ago. Many of the cruisers and even a few of the destroyers were of an older design, much older than the Supervision Army's standard warships, which he knew to be ancient even by Zentradi standards. These vessels were of a design only hinted at in his oldest archives, the kinds of ships Zentradi battle orders once demanded should be left alone. For the first time since this battle started, Varcus was suspicious that there was something else going on here. "Shikari, look at the larger ships to the rear flank. Where did Lacul get that kind of technology?"

Shikari noticed them for the first time just a moment before they all opened fire, bombarding her ship with laser cannons from too many directions at once. She squinted through the red glow of enemy lasers to pick out the shape of the enemy ships before her, now she could see for herself. "Old but still deadly! I just lost my forward missile launchers!"

Corina could make out a small plume of fire reaching out from one of the Defiant's engines, telltales of some trouble in the ship's engine room. "Cruiser-Five, you're taking heavy fire! Fall back behind destroyer cover, we'll cover you!" SDF-2's gun turrets seemed to add emphasis to the statement, firing a full salvo from all thirty forward turrets at one of the lead cruisers. The enemy ship seemed stricken by the barrage but still undaunted until Megaroad's main laser cannons put the death blow into it and the ship came apart in a galaxy of explosions. Corina's gunners fired another barrage for cover, but the Defiant did not move to exploit it. "Shikari, what the hell are you doing!"

"The damage isn't as bad as it looks! Engine room reports all reactors are still running at full and we can keep fighting for a while! We'll stay in the fight as long as it takes!"

The enemy cruisers ahead of them charged and fired another volley, but SDF-03 moved in front of the Defiant to screen this second attack; the pinpoint barriers on its "arms" caught the beams before they could do any damage, then the Ajax launched a spread of missiles to answer them. "Ajax to Defiant, the enemy fleet is concentrating their fire in your direction! I recommend you fall back behind the escorts!"

Shikari clicked her mic, "Negative, Ajax! There's a new group of enemy ships moving ahead of the fighter wings! We might as well clear them out now so the rest of the fleet can advance!"

Varcus could only just see that on his scopes, and it only took him a moment to figure out what to do about it. The moon that somehow had become the object of their offensive was still quite a distance away from them, and the Supervision Army fleet massing between the GSDF and the sensor array on its surface seemed to be swelling with every minute that passed. "Alright... This is Archer One, leave it to us." He used his own command console to manually input the targeting data on the cruiser group that had been giving Shikari such a hard time. The targeting computers responded to his inputs, and after a moment the ship's four main cannons adjusted their aim and locked in. "Archer One to Archer squadron, match my targets and fire at will."

The captain of the other two ships confirmed the order as usual, but Captain Sekkai responded in action only. All four gun destroyers opened their main cannons at once and aimed at the approaching battle group as they charged. Once again Varcus was annoyed with her for her apparent lack of radio discipline, but he was satisfied that she was at least following orders when he gave them. In the next moments the Perseus ripple-fired all four of its own cannons, joining the others in a salvo that knocked out nearly a dozen enemy ships at once.

Hikaru's fighter squadrons were moving up right behind Varcus and his destroyer group, keeping clear of the ships to avoid getting clipped by the enemy's battleship cannons but staying close enough to be covered by the ship's defense lasers and missile bays. They were all watching the enemy ships moving in front of them to cut off their attack, and they could see on their radar that this small group was the only thing between them and Lacul's fortress. Once they were inside, all bets were off. "Skull Leader to all fighters, those cruisers are going to open up a hole for us and we'll to fly the gauntlet. Escort units, use flash missiles to draw their attention, but stay with the E-Valks as long as you can. Regult unit, we need you to pry open the fighter screens for us. Keep one eye on those variable powered armors!"

"We're ready when you are, Colonel!" Major Sutherland sounded off. "Here we go Eddy..."

Varcus' destroyer squadron laid down a pattern with its cannons to clear a path for the bombers like a snow plow from hell. The heavy fighters and their escorts slipped into the now open channel straight in towards their targets, leaving the rest of the fleet far behind on their way to destiny. Closer to the enemy fleet, the final vanguard of variable powered armors and battlepods came up in front of them, already locking weapons from well beyond firing range. "I see them ahead, Colonel!" Monty shouted, "Three or four squadrons! They look awful jumpy!"

"Confirmed! Full afterburner, we'll punch right through them!" Hikaru was in the lead, pushing towards an empty space in the defense line as fast as his fighter would move, locking on to the defenders in the distance ahead even before he was close enough to fire. He only had three more AIM-140 missiles under his wings, but his laser cannons and gunpods were just begging to be used. There's not that many of them! Bomber group, make em eat your dust! Escort squadron, we'll skewer them in one pass!"

"Roger that, Skull Leader! Cover our backs, we're going in full speed!" The E-Valks behind them cut in their afterburners and raced ahead of the Lightnings, leaving them all well behind as they charged headlong into the battlepods. None of them bothered to slow down, even to launch the micro missiles as soon as they had a lock. The variable armors tried in vain to intercept the bombers before they could get past, but to no avail. The Lightings behind them came into range a moment later and a storm of missiles and pulse lasers cut them down as the interceptors shot past the wrecked squadron of defenders at break-neck speed. From here it was a straight shot all the way to the enemy battlecruisers and destroyers where the missiles carried in the wings of the E-Valks would blow them out of the sky...

Then the sky lit up like a thousand suns. The open space between the bombers and the enemy fleet was suddenly filled to capacity with enemy ships, cruisers old and new, a few battleships and a single command ship and what seemed like a cloud of fighters and battlepods launching into space around them. An entire armada began to de-fold everywhere at once, all around the enemy front line and even on the flanks, out in the distance on either side of the allied fleet, behind them and above them, surrounding them on all sides. Everywhere one looked their numbers grew and grew until they almost blocked out the stars with their numbers.

Hikaru barely had time to switch into gerwalk and cut his velocity before a storm of cannon fire lit up the space in front of him from a thousand-strong force of battlepods. The E-Valks that had shot ahead of him had all disappeared, and as he turned back in desperation he just managed to call out a warning to the rest of the squadron, "It's a trap! Pull out! All fighters, pull out!"

For many of them it was already too late. A few of the interceptors were caught in a crossfire as they tried to reverse course, others flew headlong into spreads of missiles. The others cut in their afterburners and raced back towards the safety of the Gallaron fleet, and hundreds of variable powered armors screamed after them with lasers and missiles.

Skull-11 found himself lined up in he sights of an entire squadron of variable armors, jinked back and forth in desperate evasive maneuvers until one well-placed laser pulse burned into his cockpit. Skull-6 spun around in battleoid mode and emptied her gunpods, shooting down two enemy fighters at once before their comrades sank a dozen missiles into her torso. Skull-9 did the same, but the variable armor on his sights angled in sharply and rammed him at full speed.

A trio of battlepods appeared out of nowhere ahead of Hiakaru and started firing, trying to slow him down. He fired a spread of his mini-missiles around them, waited for the flash-warheads to detonate, then switched into batteloid as he passed and fired his laser cannons into their backs. Still more fighters charged after him in pursuit; he shot off one last volley into their faces before he turned again and broke for home at maximum speed. "Skull squadron, let's make a break for it! Brooks, get on my wing!"

Brooks' response was a rasp in his headset, "To hell with that! I'm not going down without a fight!" Skull-1 was surrounded by enemy pods, spinning between them with gunpods blazing, trying to keep them at bay. Two at a time he bounced between targets, putting a short burst into each at the same time he dodged their return fire. One variable armor dodged his fire and landed a clear shot; a long burst of laser fire chopped his Lightning into pieces.

Varcus saw it but couldn't believe it. The number of enemy ships defending the moon had doubled in an instant, then doubled again only moments later; now the entire fleet, Gallaron and Zentran and anyone else they had brought with them were surrounded on all sides by an enemy so numerous it was impossible to get an accurate count. "De'huna! We walked right into a trap!"

Corina fired another burst from her particle cannons, only to be answered by dozens of enemy ships in the same manner. In just a few moments half of her guns were no longer functioning and her consol showed hull breaches all over the forward section. "Damn it all! Helm, come hard about, 1-4-0 plus 19, engines ahead one-third until we've recovered the fighters!"

"Yes Captain..."

"SDF-2 to Gunsight Four, we've just lost our forward guns and taking heavy fire! We're retreating from the battlefield!"

Misa's voice rang into Corina's headset behind a curtain of static, "Get clear Megaroad, but try and recover as many fighters as you can on your way out! I don't want to leave anyone behind..." Monitor was already reversing course, with the Phoenix and the gun destroyers bringing up the rear not far behind him. All of the ships were transforming back into cruiser mode to get the most out of their engines as they fell back, as were the VFs changing to fighter mode and flying on ahead of them. "Gunsight Four to all ships, they've made us! Recover your fighters and retreat immediately!"

Another wave of fold reactions, equal in size, this one right behind the first one. There were so many ships out there Hikaru couldn't even see the stars anymore, only a growing cloud of enemy warships and fighters swarming around them, filling the sky with fire trying to knock them down. "E-Valk wing, if any of you have any missiles left, shoot em ahead of you and use em to clear a retreat path! Everyone else, get behind the bombers and ride em back to the barn!"

Glen pointed his fighter in a random direction and let Eddy pick out three targets on the radar. He selected three heavy cruisers, highlighted all three on the HUD and clicked off the safety. "Good to go!"

Glen pressed the switch, watched all ten missiles leap from their hardpoints and then turned his fighter around to return to the ship. The fighter was so much faster without its bomb load it was almost sickening. "This is Goldfish Leader, you heard the man! Drop your bombs and go!"

Every surviving plane in the squadron fired their missiles some in random patterns in the enemy fighter formation, some at the dozen or more warships that blocked their retreat. The missiles detonated one after another like a nuclear fireworks show, a dance of death that blinded all of them for a few moments and left the skies ahead of them blessedly clear for a few crucial moments. Glen fired his own missiles into the gap and then slammed his afterburners, while the survivors from the other fighter squadrons made their run right along behind him.

Corina saw the missiles from Glen's fighter hit first, crushing dozens of pursuing battlepods at once. She allowed herself just a moment of admiration, but then noticed curiously that those few pods were only a handful of several hundred. As the E-Valks passed through them along with the rest of the retreating fighters, all of the pods turned their attention onto the next nearest target. "Delta to Gunsight Five, you've picked up a few fans! Expedite your retreat immediately!" The warning almost seemed like a jinx; the newly arrived battlecruisers and destroyers began to turn their attention onto the Defiant at once, with increasingly larger guns training for a target, their accuracy increasing with every second.

Captain Harper could see much of the same, and from his position a dozen kilometers behind the Defiant, his was the only group in the formation now that could cover them. Somehow it annoyed him that it had come to something like this... "Destroyer groups, you need to screen the Defiant while she retreats! Shikari, can you get anything more from those engines?"

Shikari checked her navigation board and frowned, "Negative, Ajax! We're already running at maximum! We can't push them any harder right now!"

Harper looked at the image of the limping cruiser on his monitors, feeling an anxiety he had never known before. He felt the sudden realization that Shikari's life, in some way, was worth more than his alone and that somehow he owed her more than he had been giving so far... "Barrier system, stand by! Mr. Faulk, check your targets and fire at will!" Ajax's gun turrets fired at once while all twelve of the ships missile tubes launched their rockets, all homing in on separate targets across the distance. Four enemy ships took direct hits, three of which were instantly destroyed. The dead ships fell back behind the formation and answered Harper's attack with dozens of reaction missiles and a salvo of particle cannons. "Reflex barrier!"

Lieutenant Faulk threw the switch just before the missiles impacted and the energy field sprang up around the ship as the missiles impacted. What seemed like a hundred fireballs all crammed into one small space around them, tossing the vessel around like a feather in a tornado and bathing the vessel in pure energy. The last of the missiles impacted just before the field coils shorted out, leaving the Ajax now completely defenseless against future attacks. "Barrier system is offline! Immediate repairs are impossible!"

Kong noticed the change in the ship's attitude, the fact that its defense field had cut out so abruptly after that last impact. This one was finished, he needed only to knock it out of the way and move on to his real target. The ship that belonged to Shikari Raskanos would be a true prize for his collection. "Fire control, that cruiser is blocking our line of fire! Destroy it quickly before the target gets out of range!" On his command, the battleship's main cannon started to power up.

"They're preparing to fire sir!" Faulk shouted in pure angst. "Number two pinpoint barrier's off line!"

Harper took a deep breath and grabbed a hold of the railing. "Execute grappler program three! All hands brace for impact!"

Kong's battleship fired a single blast from its main cannon directly at the Ajax as the ship raised both grappler arms over its main hull in a vain effort to defend itself. The beam hit the arms dead center, punched through all four pinpoint barriers and both grapplers before striking the main body and punching strait through the ship itself. The innards of the vessel superheated, air and metal turned to plasma. The sudden burst of energy filling the ship formed a powerful explosion that split the ship in two, both halves quickly vanishing into the growing fireball. The destroyers that had been around Harper's ship answered back with their own reaction missiles and main guns, stalling the enemy away from the Defiant as it retreated but shortly to suffer the same fate as the Ajax itself.

Gallaron and Zentradi ships fought through the enemy reinforcements around them, pushing back through a gauntlet of laser cannons and battlepods to the safety of the rallying point far beyond the orbit of the planet. More enemy ships defolded behind them, and the Allies found themselves pursued by a force easily ten times their size, attacking from all directions. And on the bridge of the cruiser Defiant, Admiral Shikari was in tears for the first time in her life.

—19:31 GST—
The haze of energy from the fold reaction dwindled away, replaced by a calm, empty star field with the disk of a gas-giant in the background. The fall-back point at the edge of the Kaladan system was as peaceful as it could get. Even so, they had no intention of staying here longer than they had to as more and more Supervision Army reinforcements poured in from outside the system.

Commander Ryder cleared her throat gently, tactfully catching Captain Matheson's attention as she sat, crumbled in her command chair. Corina looked up slowly and listened for her report. "Reconnaissance confirms it, Captain," She said gently, "No enemy pursuit detected."

She nodded in satisfaction, but couldn't help but ask the question again, "Any update on our pilots?"

Amelia shivered at the question, "Yes, Sir, we have an official count."

"How many?"

"Um..." She shifted her weight uncomfortably, "We managed to recover forty one E-Valks and fifteen Lightnings. None of the powered infantry made it back, sir."

"I see." Corina sighed, and sank into her seat a little deeper. At this moment she was the living embodiment of the feeling that now permeated the entire allied fleet. The toll on the fleet had been relatively light, despite the massive losses of experienced pilots and soldiers all across the board. Even so, every one of them, from the Zentradi officers of the Botoru fleet to the Suranian crewmen in their little fighters, all knew the implications of the outcome of this battle. Their inability to contact the Botoru Main Fleet on the far side of the sector only confirmed their suspicions and effectively sealed their fate: soon the Supervision Army would regroup their main forces and begin the final fleet action that would see the end of protoculture once and for all.

Standing on the bridge of the Monitor, with an exhausted Colonel Ichijo just a few steps behind, Misa felt as though she had just been invited to her own funeral. Kaladan was now a distant point of light five light years away, but for her it might as well have been a distant galaxy in a completely different universe. "This is SDF-04 to all surviving ships," She said solemnly, as if she had somehow aged by two decades since the end of the battle, begin fold operations as per designated coordinates. We don't have much time before Lacul makes his move."