Chapter 186

186 Rain of Fire, Pt Orbital Station Kappa-056, Planet Firrex, Tenlaub System, Federal Colonial Territories

Heavy cannonfire slammed into the orbital station high above the colonial planet’s capital city. Surrounding it was a quintet of Hegemony cruisers, each one circling the station as though they were vultures waiting for their prey to die.

Their sleek lines were accentuated by the thick armor and huge guns that peeked out all along their sides.

Up on the bridge of the lead cruiser, a Hegemony Rear Admiral watched as the battle unfolded on the screens in front of her. Her face was etched with a stern, stoic expression.

“Concentrate all cannons on the station’s main power junctions!” she barked. “All cruisers, fire on my mark!”

Her officers immediately set targeting markers all around the station, each one set with numerical priorities. They then spread that information to the rest of the cruisers in their fleet, who quickly adjusted their flight paths to optimize their firing angles.

All of their cannons altered their aim towards the station’s weakest point, and highest target priority, then fired. The cruisers lurched as every one of their gun batteries fired one at a time with muffled, but powerful BOOMS.

Thrusters on the reverse side of each cruiser fired off simultaneously as the guns themselves fired, which kept the ships stable and steady. And most importantly, accurate.

Their salvo slammed into one of the station’s major weak points from multiple sides, and tore its armor to shreds again and again. Cannon shells bore through the structure and exploded well inside the station itself. Many Federation engineers were instantly atomized by the sheer devastation wreaked by the Hegemony’s powerful cannonade.

.....

More than that, power began to fluctuate as their attack disrupted the station’s power grid.

Not that the station was defenseless – far from that. They had multiple chaingun turrets, all of which were busy firing back at the cruisers. They ripped into the cruisers’ armor with blinding efficiency and unceasing fervor.

Streams of bullets pelted their armored hides, and left dents and pockmarks all across them. Some were able to penetrate through the armor and into the structure, where the massive slugs perforated anything and everything inside.

Deep in the station, the security chief was bathed in red warning lights and his ears rang with the sound of heavy klaxons. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he grit his teeth with determination and fear.

“Hitting us where it hurts, huh?” he said. “Well, we’re just gonna have to bite back. Bring to bear all guns on one cruiser at a time! I want to see its perforated carcass spinning carelessly into space!”

His officers quickly spread his orders all throughout the station, and every turret gunner quickly synchronized with the others. Every single one turned towards one of the Hegemony cruisers, and opened fire without hesitation.

The sheer amount of firepower tore into the cruiser as though it had no armor installed on it at all. Tens of thousands of bullets slammed into it, penetrated its armor, and obliterated everything they struck.

The cruiser itself was riddled with so many holes so quickly that its structure deteriorated in the span of seconds. It wasn’t long until its hull had been ripped open, and bullets smashed everything inside into pulp.

Those who weren’t torn in half were instead sucked out into space, where they froze and choked to death in the frigid vacuum.

“Evasive maneuvers!” cried the Hegemony Rear Admiral. “And keep pounding on those junctions! I want that station down by the top of the hour!”

While the cruisers entered their maneuvers, the station’s guns turned towards their next target. Then fired in unison once again. Though some of them were forced to power down when the Hegemony cruisers launched another crippling salvo into a critical power junction.

Even as the station and cruisers traded blows and kills, dozens of Hegemony frigates faced off against the station’s destroyer fleet. And in between all of them were hundreds of fighters on each side.

Wings of Federation chased after wings of Hegemony, and vice-versa. Streams of chaingun fire and beam lasers criss-crossed the entire battlespace. Armor was perforated by bullets, or slagged by pure heat.

Regardless, too many were caught up in their collective, destructive, chaotic dance and burned to ashes with barely a scream.

A wing of Federation fighters encircled one of the many Hegemony frigates, and scored its armor with their beamcannons. Each one cut further and further into those huge plates, faster than their systems could repair.

After a dozen passes, chunks of the frigate’s armor broke off, and exposed the weak structure underneath. Inside, all of the crewmembers in those vulnerable sectors ran for safer havens, even as their captain angrily issued orders to maintain position.

As the wing of Federation fighters swung back around to make a more devastating attack run, the frigate’s fighters came to defend it. They fired on the Feds in a brutal surprise attack, perforated two of them with devastating ease, and reduced their pilots to little more than pools of blood.

The Federation wing quickly split off and engaged into evasive maneuvers, then rejoined in pairs and faced their attackers. It wasn’t long before both wings were mired in a deadly skirmish even as they wove around the wounded frigate.

Not that the frigate had much of a reprieve – a nearby destroyer quickly aimed for its weak points, and fired dozens of explosive rockets at it. Each one slammed into the frigate and detonated on impact.

The explosions pushed the frigate around and tore open its structure with brutal ease. They peppered its insides with more violent force, and blasted open every adjoining door.

Even those who escaped to other sectors were blown apart, or sucked out into the void.

The Hegemony frigate visibly powered down as the destroyer’s barrage had clearly crippled it beyond belief. Not that they stopped. Instead, they ripped into the frigate even more, and tore it open further and further.

They ensured that the thing could never power on ever again.

Despite the destroyer’s big win, her crew could barely relax. She was still flanked by two other Hegemony frigates, both of whom were pelting both her port and starboard sides at the same time.

Though their cannons were only a quarter as powerful as their cruiser’s, they were still highly effective against the destroyer’s thick hide. Its repair systems were clearly outmatched, despite already running at the maximum.

They poured shell after shell at the destroyer, and wore away at its armor shot after shot. They had pounded it with such resolute diligence that their barrels glowed red from the sheer heat. But that diligence proved enough to eventually punch through their armor, and that was the only opening they needed.

The destroyer was pushed left and right as the two frigates tore its armor up more and more. Their shells slammed right on through and bounced around inside, where they caused massive damage across the destroyer’s many decks.

Federation engineers and crewmembers suffocated and died as the internal atmosphere was sucked out at speed. Others were consumed by fire and force.

One of the bouncing shells eventually struck the destroyer’s secondary power plant, and ruptured it open. Red plasma burst out of it with great violence, and tore the ship open from the inside-out.

The huge blast tore the ship in two, and set both halves adrift from each other. The frozen, charred, torn bodies of the dead floated everywhere in between.

The Spirit of Amelia flashed in at the naval port beacon ten kilometers away from the station, but she too was met with a flurry of gunfire and lasers.

“Holy shit!” cried Eva.

She swiftly threw her throttle forward and slid her yoke at the same time. The ship lurched as she swung into a defensive maneuver, not that there was anywhere to go. Fighting was all around them as well.

Both the Federation and the Hegemony knew that control of the navigational beacons was absolutely critical to the domination over the planet. Every single beacon within the Tenlaub system was the site of major battles, sometimes even more so than the battles over the major starports and harbors.

Eva had been advised to expect a show up to a fight, but she didn’t think it was as chaotic as it was. Nor did she expect it to happen the moment she got there.

None of them did.

All around her, sensors reported what seemed to be every kind of vessel in existence – Federation and Hegemony combat ships, commercial trade ships, and civilian smugglers just like them. It seemed like everyone in the whole galaxy was here in the mix.

With every gun on full blast.

Explosions erupted all around them as ships were torn asunder. Fighters zipped by while their guns slammed into other fighters. Combat frigates and destroyers and cruisers fired relentlessly at each other, mindless of the civilians caught in their crossfire.

Bullets rapped all along Amelia’s armor even as Eva swung her this way and that. There was simply too much for her to handle. For anyone to handle.

“How’s our ship looking?” she asked.

“I have maximized repairs, and focused them on our armor,” replied Miko. “However, we have only replenished half of our repair ingots. We should not stay in this fight.”

As Miko fine-tuned and directed her repair nanites, Amal opened up comms and hailed every ship in the vicinity.

“Stop firing!” she cried. “Civilians are in the port zone! I repeat – stop firing!”

But her pleas were of little use. Not a single combat ship ceased fire. There was no way that any of them would do so.

“Don’t bother,” said Eva. “Get the civilian ships to follow us out instead.”

Amal nodded, then narrowed her broadcast to only the civilian ships, then sent them a ping through their sensors.

“Everyone, follow us!” she said. “If we stay here, we’re just gonna get spaced!”

Almost all of the civilian ships turned as fast as they could towards the Spirit of Amelia. Though the faster, more agile ships quickly caught up, the huge cargo hauler instead took ages to get up to speed.

All the while, it suffered a number of hits to its armored hide. Its captain appeared on the civilian ship’s comms displays, and he looked as though he was on the verge of a massive panic attack.

“Easy for you to say,” he yelled. “I’ve got the biggest boat here – I can’t just change my facing willy-nilly!”

“Yeah, well you’re headed towards the thickest of the fighting,” countered Eva. “If you don’t get your ass over here, you’re gonna end up as a wreck planetside!”

“But there’s ships in our way!”

“So what?! Plow right through them! That’s what they get for shooting at you!”

Forces on both sides of the fight fought all around the cargo tanker, their guns blazed as they fought to take down their opponents. As they did so, many stray shots raked the tanker’s armor and slowly tore it apart bit by bit.

The cargo tanker’s captain grit his teeth as he realized the situation he was in. No matter what he did, his ship was going to suffer serious damage. In the end, he chose the path of least resistance.

“Swing the ship 90 degrees to starboard,” he ordered. “Follow that corvette and get us the fuck outta here. Overcharge repairs to the prow, and smash into every Fed or Hegemony scumbag along the way.”

The huge cargo tanker lurched as it swung itself in Eva’s direction. A few fighters from both sides were caught unaware of the ship’s sudden turn, and struck its hull by accident. Their ships were easily mangled by the sheer impact, bounced off, and spun out into oblivion.

The tanker also clipped a Hegemony frigate with its bow, and easily tore its main thrusters from its body. With its rear wrenched open, crewmembers were sucked out into space and met their fateful end.

Then, with afterburners on full, the tanker lurched forward with a thunderous groan and struck combat ship after combat ship on their way out of the cloud of death.