The first tungsten shell generated a loud bang throughout the ship as the fore dorsal 2200mm railgun's rotary assisted hydraulic loading bay rammed the first shell into it's firing chamber. The capacitors promptly began charging as radiator ports opened to cool the superconducting conduits to the hugely powerful electromagnets that would propel the shell out of the barrel at more that two hundred thousand meters per second. It would take less than a second to reach the first Oneiros. The primary fire control computers were now in automatic mode, identifying targets within certain parameters for certain armaments, and then passing the firing solution to independent tracking and fire control computers operating the enormous 2200mm rail guns, or to the warheads of the fifty meter long torpedoes housed in massive launch bays, or to the point defense cannon network.
The next boom was more violent. Fire control computers made last-second adjustments just before massive hydraulic shocks recoiled as a small explosive charge began initial acceleration of the first shell. It accelerated down the two-hundred and fifty meter barrel past fifty electromagnets, shutting each off as it passed. In just under a quarter of a second, it found it's mark on the first Oneiros, just barely missing primary nanite emitters and passing straight through the engineering section of the ship. The shell from the aft dorsal railgun also slightly missed, but this one impacted the massive energy transfer coils absorbing and sending energy between the networked reactors of the Oneiros group. With the transfer array's primary control circuit atomized, it quickly backfired, overloading the reactor whose control computers couldn't cut the power output fast enough. In the span of seven seconds, the first Oneiros had been almost vaporized by a reactor failure.
The first Dominix had also not faired particularly well either, as four of the precision missiles, two of them nuclear, had acquired a guidance lock on the ship who appeared to be leading the fleet. Brilliantly engineered Gallente point defense blasters were successful in taking down one of the enormous torpedoes, but given their size and power, it wasn't going to make much of a difference. Without any gasses to superheat, the one remaining nuclear torpedo detonated upon smashing into the particle shield of the Dominix, emitting a blinding light, and a blast of electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum, and the shield emitters of the armor specialized Dominix could do little to stop the torpedo from overloading them, though a nuclear detonation beyond direct contact of the hull had done little to the armor of the Dominix. However, the two other torpedoes, with no shielding left to protect the hull of the attacking fleet's flagship, quite easily found their way to critical components of the ship. One impacted the primary nanite pumps on the front of the ship, but the hole was quickly sealed by the armor repair nanites, and the pumps would take little time to repair themselves. The engines, however, were not so lucky. The primary ion drive system of the main engines could push the ship along at no slow speed, but they were precise, delicate machines. The explosive warhead of the second torpedo didn't completely penetrate the armor, but it got close enough as to sever connections between the reactor and the giant electromagnets that suspended superheated plasma in chambers just forward of the engine nozzles. Without full control over the plasma, it quickly began melting through the suspension chamber, and then melting bulkhead after bulkhead until venting gasses had caused the plasma to disperse. With cascading violent decompressions along most of the ship, and fires in dozens of places, the ship quickly tried to align out and enter warp, but the warp core in the engineering section of the ship just forward of the engine compartment had not survived the engine breach unharmed. As the warp drive activated, weakened power conduits overloaded and exploded, severing the reactor from the warp drive. Four more explosive torpedoes reduced the ship to a barely recognizable pile of scrap, completely splitting the ship in two just aft of the primary nanite pumps, and then reducing the halves to twisted, partially molten wrecks.
After a minute or so, the mining barges had started to get the message, and less than 50 remained in the ice field. Three of the five Charons had warped out, and the other two had begun aligning out, rolling to face the attacking fleet with the underside of their ships and turning hard while jettisoning massive blocks of ice in an attempt to shield themselves from the hail of sentry gun fire, however, this turned out to be entirely pointless as said hail of sentry gun fire was actually a panicked attempt at doing some damage to the massive ship that had appeared out of nowhere and had very promptly demonstrated an inherent ability to deal catastrophic amounts of damage very quickly. Indeed, the upper two railguns aboard the Eyrie were already preparing to fire again. Massive hydraulic lifts had moved a new shell into place just in time for the shocks to return the cannon to it's normal position, where more enormous hydraulic pistons shoved the new shell forward into the firing chamber. All that the fire control computers were waiting for now was the massive capacitor banks, who where just passing 70% charge after only ten seconds. The massive torpedo bays took only a few seconds to reload, as advanced magazine handling systems loaded torpedoes into tubes leading to the launchers, where final loading was completed by hydraulically actuated arms moved them to launch positions while they wirelessly downloaded guidance information from ballistic control computers deep in the heart of the ship.
Within ten minutes, little had been done to the Eyrie, as the reinforced shields had only dropped down to 87%. Any normal Leviathan would be in perhaps a significantly worse situation, but this was the experimental titan Eyrie. By now, only two of the Oneri remained, and the interceptors unlucky enough too land within range were cut down within seconds unless they warped out. With ten Domini remaining, most having been destroyed or warped out, the fleet was making an attempt at trying to escape, but they weren't going to get anywhere. Caldari Navy forces had already locked down the gates. The unknown ships later identified as experimental dedicated tackling Protei having closed to within stabbing range in an attempt to perform their role stood no chance against dozens of rotary railguns and guided rocket launchers designed to take down everything from missiles, to interceptors, or deal massive damage on a broadside volley to anything alongside, should it come within three kilometers.
By this point, Xan was just trying to kill them faster. He was simply done playing about. He simply wanted to get it over with, and go get another cup of tea. The last thing any of the remaining ten Domini crews saw was the blinding white plasma and EM beam of the Eyrie's Scythe-type doomsday. The encounter, start to finish, lasted eleven minutes.
And that's that. I decided to write this chapter in something of a specator POV, trying to make this chapter a bit more like a proper space battle. I just wanted to write a badass space battle, and I did. I don't think it turned out terribly poorly either. Then again, that's just my opinion, and I'm biased. Tell me what you think! Drop a review! I need those!
Cheers, o7, and fly safe.
