Hello again, everyone. Hope the past couple of weeks have been treating you well. Been all over the place myself, but that's typical in my line of work. I'm kinda nervous about this one, I have to admit, and it may be subject to revision in the future, as I'm not as experienced writing space naval battles as I am with ground ones. Hopefully it's passible. *crosses fingers* If anyone spots any glaring errors in it, please feel free to point them out to me. I need to improve, after all.

As always, a big thanks to my friends and proofreaders. You guys make this story possible, and I cannot thank you enough for all the time and effort you put into helping me out. I really appreciate it.

A big thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read this story so far, and I hope that this chapter is worth the wait.

Chapter Five: Hard Contact

"Okay people, stay alert, and godspeed," Michaelson's voice echoed over the comm. channel. "Boost power to your comm. systems, once we hit that close range ECM, it's going to be hell to stay coordinated."

Ratchet did as instructed, and then patted the control console lovingly. Aphelion was a combination of Lombax and Zoni technology, fused together to create a starfighter that had handily thrashed everything that had come after it before. Now it was time to see how well she stacked up against these newcomers.

The assorted flight group pivoted around and streaked towards Arcadia. The viewing screen in front of him enlarged his view of the planet, and then zoomed in further to enable him to see the capital ships that were hanging above her surface. He could see slashing streaks of weapons fire arc off of them and down onto the planet, and he felt a moment of pity for the infantry that had to be down there on the ground. Even the most advanced infantry weapon was little more than a security blanket against an orbital bombardment.

That was all the time he had to think and then they were in the thick of things. The transports were grouped together tightly, the fighter craft hovering outside of them like a group of sharks, waiting for something to approach. The Lombax made certain to maintain proper distance from the battleships; Blue Leader's warning echoed in his mind. He brought the ship down to an appropriate low-orbit combat speed, and fed more power into his maneuvering thrusters. He'd need that more than raw speed here.

As the rag-tag defensive group approached, the hostile fighter swarm broke out of its holding pattern. Like a horde of angry wasps, they streaked towards the defenders. Alarms warned him of missile lock-ons and Aphelion reacted automatically, boosting her jammer suites to try to spoof the guidance packages and project false signatures of herself. The missiles swerved off course and Ratchet got his own lock on. At ten thousand klicks, he fired a pair of proton torpedoes. The small missiles streaked away from Aphelion's wings and were out of sight in the blink of an eye. The guidance packages of the missiles proved superior to the enemy fighter's jammers and maneuvering capabilities, staying locked on its six o'clock as it pivoted upwards and tried to streak away at the last moment. Watching via his sensors, Ratchet smiled as he watched the first missile impact and the fusion warhead knock out the shielding on the craft. The follow up shot came in a split-second later, its proximity warhead detonating and vaporizing the alien craft.

The two fighter groups streaked past each other a moment later, silent buzzing insects in the void of space, spitting beams of crimson death at each other, broken by the winding arcs of missiles and torpedoes. Aphelion highlighted some friendly callsigns for a moment, before removing them from the targeting data.

"Warning, hostile point defense weaponry moving to track us, shooting solution acquisition possible," the ship told him.

"Tracking but not firing?" Ratchet growled as he pivoted his ship about, Clank firing the rear turret as an alien fighter tried to latch onto them. The ship's shields flared for a moment before they faded away, and the pulse lasers ripped it apart.

"Affirmative."

"Monitor weapon outputs, energy spikes, things like that. Those things even look like they're about to shoot, you know what to do."

Another trio of fighters latched onto his tail and Clank continued to fire the rear gun. Alerted to the defensive weapon by their comrade's demise, this group was more wary, and kept jerking around as they tried to acquire a lock-on. Ratchet shot through the line of transports that were heading down towards the surface, Aphelion's forward facing pulse lasers ripping into them, destroying a number of them before he streaked out the other side and then stamped down hard on the left maneuvering pedal at his feet. Aphelion snapped into a horizontal pivot that pushed him back into the acceleration chair, and Ratchet was once again grateful for the modern wonders of gravity diffusion systems. If he'd tried that without them, the resulting G-forces would have turned him into a smear on the inside of the cockpit.

Aphelion skidded backwards for a few seconds before her thrusters overcame the colossal forward inertia she'd built up, and Ratchet fired indiscriminately into the enemy swarm. A number of transports took glancing hits and he noted that they seemed to lack the same level of energy shielding that the fighter craft did, watching as a six shot burst sent one into a death spiral. Aphelion adjusted the targeting reticule as she regained her forward momentum, the A.I. making tiny adjustments to the angle of the pulse laser cannons as she streaked back towards the swarm of hostile ships. At the ranges involved here, being off by even a minute fraction of a degree could result in a pulse laser missing its intended target by dozens or even hundreds of kilometers.

Return fire from the trio of enemy fighters streaked in and the crimson beams slashed across Aphelion's shields. Ratchet swore under his breath as he fed more power into his shield generators and flipped the arming switch for his swarm rockets. Targeting information immediately began to appear on the sensor overlays, and it was a simple matter to get a lock on two of the offending fighter craft as they rocketed towards each other. Ratchet depressed the firing stud and ripple fired a pair of swarm rockets.

The fighters attempted to evade, one of them snapping into an upwards spiral while the other one jinked right. The micro-missiles homed in unerringly, their targeting computers unfazed by the jamming systems and false data feedback the targets were giving off. Ratchet watched them impact, one more pair of silent flashes appearing in the empty void.

He stomped down on the maneuvering pedals again and shifted his control stick hard to the left, snapping the Aphelion around and trying to lock up the third and final fighter. Over his radio he could hear the other pilots talking, his mind filtering out the irrelevant bits as he slid sideways through space. He felt the vibrations as Clank opened up with the rear turret, his HUD broadcasting the data as the diminutive robot raked a number of transports with weapons fire. A growl in his helmet, complete with this targeting reticules turning red, indicated a shooting solution on the fighter. He depressed the firing studs again and grinned savagely as dozens of bursts cut through the enemy craft's shields. Armor was explosively ripped off and vaporized and a pair of bolts ripped into the cockpit. The pilot was disintegrated instantly and the starfighter careened helplessly through space.

"Blue six watch out!" he heard Michaelson shout over the comm. There was a scream that was cut short, and he saw through the sensor grid that one of the Arcadian defense fighters had wandered out of the dogfight and gotten too close to a capital ship. There was a bright beam of purple light and then the fighter vanished from existence, reduced to a super-heated ball of plasma and gas.

"Holy hell…" Ratchet said, his eyes wide behind his helmet. He felt that old chill work its way down his spine, that tickling, scratching sensation of fear, the one that compelled him to run just about every time that he got into a scrap. He grit his teeth and suppressed it, forcing himself to focus on the battle itself, not the potential outcomes.

Then he shook his head. "Hang on," he growled as he dove back into the mass of transports. It didn't take long for another group of fighters to lock onto his position and he snarled as he spun around to engage them. Four this time.

"Ratchet, Clank," it was Admiral Phyornix.

"With all due respect, Admiral, this is hardly the best time, we are somewhat occupied," Clank said, narrowing his photoceptors as he used the rear gun to swat down a quartet of incoming missiles.

"I know. Just got off the horn with some of the powers in the Valaria Cluster. You've got cap-ship support inbound. Should be there in a few minutes." Sasha said.

"I'll be sure to tell them thanks if I'm still in one piece," Ratchet said as he launched a barrage of missile fire towards three of the enemy fighters. Two manage to spoof, evade, or otherwise intercept the warheads before they could home in enough, but the last one wasn't quite so fortunate. It nearly got clear of the proximity range, but the swarm rocket still detonated with enough force to tear the ship apart.

"Aphelion, this is Blue Leader, moving in to support you," Michaelson said over the radio.

Aphelion highlighted the Viper on the sensor grid about seven and a half thousand klicks off. The Viper's forward facing plasma rotary cannons filled the void with a hailstorm of blue fire. The fighter that he'd latched onto kicked around and to the right, traveling forward a considerable distance as inertia kept it going. Ratchet saw the tactic instantly as it slipped well out of the "tube" of space that the transports were moving through. However, Michaelson didn't take the bait, and turned well inside of the safe zone. He fired off another burst as his targeting computer locked the fighter up, plasma fire perforating the left wing and ripped off a number of maneuvering thrusters. It spun about before the remaining ones could compensate for the sudden loss of equilibrium, but in the time that it took for the machine to adjust, Michaelson fired another burst. The fuselage was ripped apart and there was a flash of the reactor cooking off.

"Nice shot," Ratchet said.

"Watch your tail, you've still got bogies on you," Blue Leader said.

"I haven't forgotten about them," Ratchet said as the Aphelion pirouetted through the vacuum above Arcadia, the planet lurching in and out of the primary viewing screens. The hostiles were coming at him from two different angles, each one trying to lock him up, each one occasionally sending off a burst of laser fire.

Ratchet flipped the Aphelion over and pushed an extra boost into the ships primary thrusters. The Lombax starfighter lurched forward as if it had been shot out of a mass driver. The ship's A.I. plotted mirco-corrections to avoid collision with the thousands of transports that were filling the space above the planet and Ratchet dove downwards in an attempt to get behind the ships while his targeting computers attempted to get a lock on the nearest one. The two ships fired retrorockets and rapidly decelerated, forcing the Lombax to do the same or risk overshooting his targets.

He gritted his teeth, feeling the intense pressure of the deceleration despite Aphelion's gravity diffusion system. He had to resist the instinctive urge to treat this like an atmospheric fight and kick Aphelion over onto her side and let air resistance help out. Any attempt to do that out here would just send him rocketing off course. He did manage to slow his ship in time, but just barely. His foes were less than a kilometer in front of him, close enough for him to actually see the fighters with his own two eyes for the first time.

They were jagged and angular, a little wider than they were long and a dull gray in color. He could see the glow of the quartet of engines that they sported and he snarled in frustration. "Too close for a missile lock," he muttered. Not exactly true, he could lock onto them, but the swarm rockets and proton missiles that Aphelion sported had minimum arming distances, safety mechanisms to keep a pilot from accidentally blowing himself up if they were launched too close to the target. He still had his pulse lasers though.

Before he could shift to acquire one of the targets, though, they started to dart back and forth in front of him, one going up and the other one slipping underneath as well. He recognized the tactic, a basket weave some called it. The forward facing pulse lasers could only rotate so much, he'd have to shift to go after one of them. If he did, the other one would probably flip around and hose him with its own laser cannons. They were probably expecting him to turn and fly back around, build up his acceleration again and get back into missile range, which would let them renew the pursuit. Ratchet had no intention of playing by their rules, though.

"Clank…"

"I am ready. Do it," the robot replied.

He spun the Aphelion around in a yaw-heavy turn and forward facing retro-engines blasted to life. To their credit, as soon as the pilots saw him start to spin, they accelerated away and tried to shoot back up towards their capital ships and the rest of the fighter swarm. Clank did not give them the opportunity. The dual laser cannons in the back opened up and slashed into the shields of the one on the right. They cracked through them and a four shot burst punctured the cockpit and incinerated the pilot. The second one was clipped and lost a wing and by this time Ratchet spun the ship back around and fed power back into the main engines. His foe slipped back out the minimum arming distance of his swarm rockets, and Ratchet fired off a trio of them. The ship was able to spoof the guidance packages of two of them, but the last one still homed in, slammed into one of the port-side engines and detonated. There was a brilliant, split-second flash and then blackness. Ratchet gave a savage grin as he turned back into the transports and began to open up on them again.

His eyes scanned over his sensor grid once again, and it was as he'd expected. There were others responding to Arcadia's distress calls. A squadron here, a group there; but nothing like what they were going to need to throw an attack like this back. Then he got a warning of a warp-space bubble fading and saw them. His grin widened as he realized that Sasha's promised reinforcements had arrived. A full two dozen capital class ships jumped into real-space, mostly frigates and destroyers, but there was a Tyrus class heavy cruiser leading the task force.

"To all Arcadian defense units and partisans, this is Commodore Delacroix of the Mar-Saran Fifth Defense Fleet, onboard the heavy cruiser Isador," a new voice said over the comm. "We need your transponder signals uploaded so we can tell you apart from everyone else in that hornet's nest."

"This is Aphelion, complying," Ratchet said.

"Sure hope you're not the only ones coming in, this is a heavyweight fight, we don't have the tonnage to kick these slag-heads back to where they came from." Blue Leader said over the comms.

"Two more task forces behind us, they'll be here shortly. They had to bring us in from a long range patrol," the Commodore said, her voice confident. Ratchet nodded his head. It was rare for individual planets to have more than a few dozen ships and orbital defense platforms, and the Bogon galaxy was a lot more 'disorganized' than Solona or Polaris were. "Let us take some of this heat off you."

"Won't complain, but watch yourselves," Blue Leader spoke up. "These guys know how to reach out and touch you."

"Noted," the Commodore said. "All ships, move to combat formation, ready disruptor batteries and feed primary weapon power into your shields. Charge primary lancer batteries when we get into range, not before."

With that, the Mar-Sarian fleet accelerated towards the planet and the battle that was raging above it.

"Laxor, enemy ships detected coming out of FTL, distance is four light minutes and closing."

Ar-Zel turned to face his navigation officer and pulled up the display. They were small ships compared to his own vessels, ranging in size from about four hundred meters up to about eight hundred, but that meant little. MSE ships were often less than half the size of their Dominion equivalents and could still hold their own against many times their number in Shartan fleet assets. The Tribunal was much the same. He'd need to see what they could do without risking his entire force. "Cruiser Jurit, take destroyers Canto and Mirak with you, probe their attack capabilities. If necessary Dreadnought will move to assist you."

"Understood, complying with orders." Came the response and Ar-Zel nodded his head. Things were going well so far, but he couldn't help but growl as he looked at the losses that his fighters were sustaining. Losses under ordinary circumstances were minimal, about three percent so far. His ground forces were managing well enough, only about ten percent casualties. Or rather, they would have been well enough were this an ordinary mission.

But it wasn't, the Laxor thought to himself. His fleet was a scant shadow of its former self, he had no idea how many of his forces were still out there, lost somewhere, and even if he found all of them, they were still cut off from the Dominion. Every life lost, every ship destroyed, was one that could not be replaced. They needed to wrap this up within the next couple of hours, before yet more of these ships came in. Every few minutes, his sensors would pick up incoming hostile craft, first it was small fighter squads, then larger groupings, and now full-blown capital craft were coming in to assault his troops. It was becoming clear that no matter what, this attack was becoming untenable. They needed to get those generators up to the ships and get out of here.

"Status of the ground attack?" he inquired.

"Still dealing with pockets of resistance around the power plants, but we should be able to have at least four of the generators up to the Dreadnought within the next standard half-hour."

"Good." He clasped his primary hands in front of his face and leaned forward in his command chair. "We cannot afford to remain locked in this place for long."

"This is Jurit, we are engaging now. Plasma torpedoes away." Came the voice of the cruiser's shipmaster. "Concentrate fire, bring them down one at a time!"

Laxor Ar-Zel nodded his head and returned his gaze to the tactical display before him.

"Alert, three capital ships are breaking geosycn and heading for the Mar-Sarian fleet," Aphelion notified Ratchet.

"Gotcha," Ratchet said as he opened fire on another transport group. The damn things seemed to be endless in number, and he growled once again as he shook his head. He got a targeting warning moments before the Aphelion was raked by a burst of laser fire from another hostile fighter. The ship shuddered under the impacts as Ratchet instinctively pulled back on the stick rocketed upwards.

He made several quick jinks and feints before doubling back and charging at his attacker. He fired off another set of swarm rockets and nodded to himself as he saw the ship try to swarm out of the way, only to have the bad luck to shift right into a transport craft. Both of them disintegrated into an apocalyptic flash of plasma. As the targeting data disappeared from his computer, the Lombax distantly wondered how long it would be before Arcadia's space lanes became safe to travel once again. The debris from this battle was going to leave this place a navigation hazard for years to come.

"Alert, hostile capital ships have targeted weapons, they are opening fire on the Mar-Sarian forces," his ship warned him and his eyes danced over the console.

Ratchet felt a bit of horror well up inside of him as he watched swarms of hundreds of missiles rush towards Isador and her support ships. The Mar-Sarian fleet changed its formation, the ships breaking out of staggered lines that they'd been in, switching to a configuration that bore resemblance to an open flower. As the missile and torpedo swarms closed in, overlapping fields of fire from hundreds of point defense weapons created a field of missile swarms, laser bursts, and plasma fire so thick that Ratchet thought he might be able to try a hand swimming through it.

As potent as the fleet's point defense weaponry was, some of the missiles still got through. The Isador's energy shields stopped the ones that managed to slip the killzones and Ratchet let out a small sigh of relief as the defenses held. He really did not want to think too much about the implications of a Tyrus class cruiser going down that quickly. He depressed the firing studs on the control stick a moment later and shredded another transport. It was like trying to hold back a tide or put out a plasma fire with a bucket of water and the Lombax grit his teeth in frustration.

"Blue Leader, this is Aphelion," he spoke up.

"Blue Leader here, go ahead Aphelion," Captain Michaelson responded.

"We might as well be trying to squash a termagaunt swarm with a flyswatter for all the good that we're doing here," he said as he jinked away from another fighter swarm. "The Commodore said that there were more capital ships on the way, I'm thinking we might be better off groundside."

"I'm beginning to think that you might be right," the Arcadian said glumly. "We don't have the firepower or the numbers to make that much of a difference up here, but the ground-pounders would probably appreciate some close air support."

"Then let's go give them a hand," Ratchet said, banking his ship over and putting her down into a dive headlong at the planet. "Aphelion, keep your attention focused on those point defense weapons, I don't want them taking potshots at us as we go down."

"Affirmative, Ratchet," the ship responded.

In seconds, Arcadia grew from being a small blue-green orb to encompassing the entire view of the ship's cockpit. The increasing friction of an atmosphere caused flames to start to lick up around the ship and Ratchet slowly eased back off the throttle and eased up on the dive. All the while, Clank continued to fire the ship's rear facing turret, knocking out what transports he could. Clouds started to pass them by, and looking over his sensor grid, Ratchet could see the remains of the flight that he'd linked up with a few minutes ago. Four of the Vipers were still there, Michaelson's included, and some of the scrap jobs, too. Only one of the Star Explorers was still intact, and it seemed to have lost its portside engine, while ugly black scoring along the hull indicated where it had been struck by enemy weapons fire. At the same time, he could see where other pilots had come in to assist from other systems, and the group actually seemed to have grown a bit, now numbering some thirty odd craft.

Breaking through the cloud cover over the planet, Ratchet got his first good look at the surface below him. A chill ran down his spine as he saw the cityscape below him. Half-destroyed buildings stretched up kilometers into the air, and blackened glass craters stretched as far as they eye could see. In the far distance, towards the horizon, he could see the remains of mushroom shaped clouds stretching up into the sky.

Hostile transports were still coming down everywhere, packed together like swarms of chittering locusts and the Lombax felt a spike of rage flow through his mind. Growling like a feral animal, he locked one up and opened fire on it. Aphelion's pulse lasers ripped it apart and it disintegrated into a ball of blue fire.

"Command, this is Blue Flight, we're down to minimal strength, but we've picked up some outside assistance while we were up in orbit, feeding you their transponder signals now," Blue Leader spoke up. "I need you to start relaying instructions to them so we can optimize ourselves for ground and close air support."

"Understood, Blue Leader," came the garbled reply. There was a moment of silence. "Security codes confirmed, proceeding with your request."

Ratchet braced himself for what was to come, this was going to get worse before it got better, he couldn't help but think.

Nefarious stood in rapt attention as he watched the battle on Arcadia unfolding before him, blissfully unaware that his arch-nemesis was present in the fight as well. He watched a trio of alien ships break away from their positions and move towards the newly arrived capital class ships. As before, the alien warships opened up from extreme range and attempted to wipe out the opposition before the other fleet could bring their weapons to bear. The Mar-Saraian response was cool and calculated, spreading the fleet out in such a way as to allow an overlap of their point defense weapons and wiping out most of the incoming swarm.

Then the aliens turned and began to run sidelong to their adversaries, firing yet another missile swarm off towards them. They started to move up as well turning their ships on their sides as they looked to make an extreme outward turn around the enemy. Nefarious nodded to himself as he understood the logic. You can shoot at your opponents, they can't shoot back, why let them get close enough to remove your massive weapons range advantage? He couldn't help but snicker a bit as he saw the Mar-Sarian fleet attempt to compensate by cutting over to an inside turn, turning their sides towards the enemy while dipping their bows down slightly to bring more point defense weaponry to bear. Another missile salvo was launched and hundreds of warheads accelerated away from the attackers' vessels.

Far too often those dimwitted squishies made the mistake of thinking of space like an ocean, and the modern warships much like their ancient, seafaring ancestors, where the ships stood at range and pounded away at one another until one of them was broken and defeated. It was infinitely more complicated than that, the Doctor knew. Dives, loops, twists and turns, constant maneuvers to get ships facing the right way, both fleets weaving and diving along the three dimensions. There was an art to it, a science, and within the circuits of his positronic brain, there was an element of it that Nefarious found hauntingly beautiful.

Some of the Fletcher class destroyers in the Mar-Sarian fleet turned themselves upside down as they hurtled through space and the robotic Doctor nodded his head once again. Fletchers had initially been designed primarily as a planetary defense and assault ship, meant to support ground operations. For that reason, it had most of its weapons located on the ventral side of the ship. The incoming missile swarm was once again stymied by a combination of point defense and energy shielding, and the two dueling fleets remained at a stalemate. However, the Mar-Saraian ships were slowly closing the distance between the two. Seemed they were faster than the alien ships out of FTL as well.

Nefarious watched for about another thirty seconds as the two units dove and twisted and maneuvered about. Then the Mar-Sarians came into range. They lashed out with disruptor cannons and singularity missiles, focusing their fire on one of the smaller alien craft. Point defenses intercepted some of the missiles, and ECM and maneuvering threw off some of the disruptor bursts, but a number of shots got through. Shimmering, translucent blue barriers came to life and stopped the weapons cold, but the Mar-Sarians continued to fire regardless. As the fleets closed to within a single light-second the alien craft opened up with their own energy weapons.

"What do you think, Lawrence?" Nefarious looked over to his butler.

"The enemy seems to be conducting themselves well enough, Sir," Lawrence said with a shrug. "Though I have to wonder why they sent such a paltry percentage of their ships to engage the enemy." The other robot tapped a few controls and pulled up readings from another incoming probe droid. "Long range sensors are detecting additional fleet assets inbound, two Mar-Saran fleets and a Targorian one. Together, they look to outnumber the enemy by a significant margin."

"Perhaps they're playing with their foes?" Nefarious seemed to muse aloud, his lower jaw twisting into something that approximated a frown as he rubbed it. Then he chuckled darkly. "If that is the case, we might get along better than I thought."

Yes, because toying with one's enemy can never end poorly, Lawrence thought to himself and rolled his electronic eyes. "A possibility, Sir. If it proves to be the case, it might demonstrate 'genius' approaching your own."

"Lawrence, did you just suggest that the…newcomers... might be capable of matching my mental facilities?" There was a grating undertone to the Doctor's voice and his eyes glowed brightly for a second.

"Oh, heavens no, Sir," Lawrence leaned back away from him and waved a hand dismissively. "Your mental facilities are completely unique, and there isn't an entity in the known universe that would be capable of matching yours. I merely suggested that they're emulating a type of behavior that you have been known to do in the past."

Nefarious glared for a moment, and then shook his head. "Very good, now," he rubbed his hands together and turned to one of the PT-7 robots, "bring the drone around and get in closer to the battle," he gestured to the dueling fleets. "This is the best entertainment that I've had in ages."

"Of course, Sir, shall I prepare something to help you further enjoy the experience?" Lawrence asked, opening his left eye just a little bit more. "Perhaps an oil bath or some mood music?"

"No, none of that, Lawrence," Nefarious waived him off, "I just want to see how this ends."

As he spoke, the alien ships suddenly pulled snap-turns and fired maneuvering thrusters, blasting themselves onto new courses that put them on a proverbial collision course with the Mar-Sarian ships. They focused fire on the lead destroyer and in the blink of an eye hundreds of energy pulses hit her. Her shields crackled, flickered and collapsed under the weight of the barrage and the aliens did not relent. Sections of the ship's outer hull plating began to glow white hot under the furious salvos that she was being pummeled with. Exterior weapon placements were ripped off, and entire sections of armor plating were vaporized as the alien ships dove down underneath the destroyer. Weapon's fire ripped into her primary engines and her aft maneuvering thrusters and Nefarious's eyes narrowed as he saw the strategy.

In space, acceleration capabilities were critical to being able to fight back. If you crippled an enemy's ability to maneuver, they'd have no way to evade your fire except through ECM, and on its own, ECM would only go so far. The Fletcher class ship blared alarms and her communications operators took on a frantic tone as the other ships rushed around to protect the damage destroyer. A massive laser cannon shot caught her amidship, blasted through the weakened hull plating and ripped out the other side. Fire blossomed from the mortal wound as atmosphere leaked out of the vessel.

"Reactor's failing, we're losing her!"

Three more shots came in, the ship seemed to twist and distort in her death throes, and then a final salvo blew her to pieces. The alien ships shot away, trying to put more distance between themselves and the Mar-Sarians as their own shields were battered by lance-battery strikes and the missiles that managed to slip through their point defense cannons and ECM. The ship scattered, two of them diving downwards while the larger one peeled up, each one taking a slightly different angle as they again focused their fire on another one of the destroyers. Bracketed from three sides, the ship was ripped asunder in short order.

But the Mar-Sarians were giving a good show for themselves regardless. Nefarious leaned in as he saw the shields of one of the smaller alien craft shudder and fail. It tried to break away from the fight while its two companion craft provided cover and dove headlong towards the Isador and its escorts. A couple of the Fletcher class destroyers broke away to engage them while the rest of the fleet continued to pound away at the compromised vessel. Armor melted away or was blown off, but the vessel continued to maneuver and fight, streaking back over towards the main battle group. A trio of ion cannon blasts impacted along one of the ventral engines, but the ship soldiered on regardless, firing missiles and rear facing turret weaponry at its numerous adversaries.

"Sir, energy spike detected, the alien flagship is powering its engines," one of the PT-7 drones announced.

Nefarious looked over towards one of the other displays. Sure enough, the massive alien craft was accelerating towards the Mar-Sarians. Already, it had left the planet behind, and it was rapidly closing in. However, it would still take it at least a minute or two by Nefarious' estimations for it to get into weapons range.

The damaged alien ship continued to shudder under the impact of scores of missiles and energy blasts, her armor plating vaporizing away as she limped back. More shots struck her engines and maneuvering thrusters, finally knocking them out. Still she continued to fire back, even as more than half of the ship's decks became compromised and opened to vacuum. Malfunctions in her remaining thrusters caused her to start to tumble through the void as the Mar-Sarian fleet, eager to avenge their loses and finish this thing off before the flagship could come to its aid, swarmed in around it and hammered it from all sides.

Laxor Ar-Zel snarled, clinching his fists and slamming them into the armrests of his command chair. Mirak was being pounded into dust, and he knew that there was no way that they would reach the stricken ship in time. A mistake, his mistake, he realized. He'd underestimated what these new ships could do and sent too few of his own to oppose them, spread his forces too thin, and now the Mirak was going to pay the price for his arrogance. His six eyes narrowed behind his helmet and the fleet commander felt a spike of rage go through his soul. His mistake would cost him the lives of over two thousand of his men, but if he could not save them, he would avenge them.

"Weapons to full, I want a salvo launched the moment we're in range!" he shouted to the weapons officers.

On the display screen before him, he watched as the Mirak continued to fight on, despite the pounding that she was taking. Canto and Jurit continued to blaze away at the ships they'd managed to distract, crushing one of the smallest ones, probably a frigate, into nothing but superheated plasma and space debris. It was not enough, though, and the enemy vessels continued to pound the Mirak, swarming around her like vultures. Ar-Zel heard the shipmaster barking orders as more and more systems continued to fail.

"Missile tubes two-thirty-six through four-oh-nine offline, hull integrity at thirty percent, engines offline, generators failing… ship capture imminent." There was a pause the sound of a rapid exhaling. "Initiating Kyron Protocol."

Ar-Zel winced, knowing what that meant. Moments later the Mirak's anti-matter generators were super-saturated, and secondary generators suffered similar fates as the crews deliberately overloaded them. A series of blasts ripped through the ships bulkheads, gouts of blue flame shooting out through the damaged hull sections, and then as the reaction hit critical mass the Mirak was consumed in a massive, blinding flash.

The Laxor snapped his mandibles and inner jaw together and he visibly shook. "Annihilate them!"

His crew was all too eager to comply.

"Interesting," Lawrence muttered.

"What? What is it?" Nefarious asked, looking over at his butler and clasping his hands behind his back.

"The way the alien craft was destroyed. Those explosions were internal, not external." Lawrence tapped a finger against his chin. "I think it's safe to say that our 'friends' blew their own ship up."

"Hmmm, indication of desperation, or fanaticism?" Nefarious cocked his head to the side. There were a large number of organic cultures out there that felt that it was better to die by their own hands than to be captured or killed by the enemy. Perhaps they followed a similar creed? Nefarious logged that detail in the back of his brain in case it turned out to be somewhat important. Then he refocused on the flagship. He'd seen what it could do against orbital defense platforms, now it was time to see what the massive alien craft could do against a fleet.

-00-

Okay, hope that was decent, and that everyone found it to be worthy of their time. As always, I appreciate any feedback that people are willing to give, positive, constructive criticism or the like. It's the only way that I'm ever going to get any better. Especially in regards to this chapter, as again, I've never really written all that many space combat scenes.

Thank you again, everyone for all your help and for taking the time to read this story. Until next time, have a great day, and stay safe.