Chapter 234

234 Chessmaster, Pt The Marauder captain was completely dumbfounded as alerts dominated every screen on the bridge. It seemed that they were getting completely picked apart no matter what he did. Most of their guns were completely frozen, and their hangars were under severe attack.

And he was in a major bind – if he recalled his fighters to defend their hangars, they would be significantly outnumbered. Plus they wouldn’t have the tactical advantage of speed.

Beads of sweat fell from his forehead as he attempted to calculate his next move.

But the longer he deliberated, the more his fleet fell apart. He watched with trepidation as the Perseus fleet flanked him top and bottom.

Then they peppered their hulls with cannonfire. Their shells smashed on their top and bottom armor with abandon, and severely dented them. If they were allowed to continue their barrage, they would have ultimately broken through.

“Barrel formation!” the captain cried out. “Protect our standard armor and show our starboard. Hammer them with our rocket pods and push them off us!”

“What about repairs?” said an officer. “We’ve got multiple systems that need attention – guns, armor, and hangars. Where do we prioritize?”

The captain was taken aback – everything needed priority! Right now everything was set evenly, but that needed to change. He took a few seconds to deliberate and determined what he needed most, first.

“Guns,” he finally proclaimed. “Get our guns back online first, then move to armor!”

.....

“Yessir!”

Under the Gorgon captain’s orders, the five destroyers closed the distance between each other, stacked up like a cylinder, then rotated to reveal their starboard to their enemy, on all sides.

Their rocket pods then adjusted their facing, and fired scores of guided rockets out to their assailants. A couple hundred rockets cruised outward and left white contrails in their wake.

Dozens of rockets slammed into each of the frigates with incredible ferocity. Their explosions erupted across their reinforced armor, and tore fissures into them.

The few that were still repairing their armor from the first barrage of flak found themselves torn open, and their structure revealed. The rockets blew them open with disgusting ease, and wrenched the frigates apart.

Perseus crewmembers caught in the blast were incinerated immediately. Others nearby were instead blown out into space, where they choked and froze to death at the same time.

“Pull the wounded back immediately,” commanded Lucifer. “The rest: circle single-file, evasively, from 3.14k out. And let’s use our Equalizers to smack ’em around a bit.”

“Lucifer,” said one of the officers, “our fighters are getting overwhelmed – they need support or they’re gonna collapse!”

Lucifer quickly nodded in agreement – their fighters were on the losing end of the fight from the beginning and wouldn’t last long if they stayed out there.

“Have them pull back and begin repairs,” ze replied. “Screen their retreat with flak. Secondly, prep the mecha for a withdrawal and potential intercept.”

“Yessir!”

The frigates shifted from their pincer maneuver to a wide circle as fast as they could, even as their crippled frigates limped away. Their main thrusters were pushed to the maximum briefly as they slipped into position.

At the same time, their missile tubes rotated as they tracked their targets. Then once they had secured a firm lock on the destroyers’ cross-sections, fired their devastating Equalizer missiles at them.

They zipped towards the destroyers with incredible speed, and smashed right into their belt armor with astounding force. Waves of energy rippled out from the point of impact and blew apart the armor with ease.

The missiles were more than powerful enough to rip right through to the structure, and warped them open from the sheer force. A handful of decks were immediately exposed to open space, and any Gorgons posted there were sucked out into space.

If they weren’t obliterated by the massive blasts first.

Surrounding decks and passageways immediately sealed themselves shut and limited the damage as best they could. But there were now gaping holes in their armor.

Despite the damage their destroyers had suffered, the Gorgon captain grinned as he got what he wished – for the frigates to pull back. It eased the pressure on all of them, and gave their repair modules the time they needed. While the Perseus fleet readjusted, many of their railcannons regained their ability to move and aim.

“Status on the guns,” he said impatiently.

“6 of 10 on the starboard have partial articulation again,” said an officer. “Other destroyers report between 3 and 7 similarly operational.”

The captain grinned.

“Switch all repairs to the port side guns,” he replied. “Then have our starboard fire at will.”

“Yessir!”

A number of railcannons on each of the destroyers charged up with loud hums as they adjusted their aim in unison. They fired all at once at multiple frigates around them, and once again smashed into them with terrible force.

This time, they only targeted four of the frigates, but with more than two slugs at a time. The results were devastating.

Multiple sabot rounds smashed into the four frigates at the same time, and completely annihilated their reinforced armor. Their reinforcement modules themselves were utterly overwhelmed by the sheer damage, and short-circuited.

Not only was their armor torn off, but the underlying structure as well. Just as when their missiles bit into the destroyers, their slugs tore into the frigates. Entire decks were broken open and exposed, and Perseus crewmembers died from either suffocation or disintegration.

One frigate exploded violently as its power plant was ripped open by a sabot round.

While this happened, Perseus fighters disengaged from their sortie and sped back en masse to the protection of the closest frigate.

Almost all of them were riddled with huge dents and razor-sharp shrapnel. Some had their armor plating almost partially stripped and torn apart, and were perhaps only millimeters away from death.

Their numbers had been reduced down to 113, and were outnumbered by roughly 3:2.

But they were still pursued by the Gorgon fighters, who seemed to truly want their blood like no other. Their Shardthrowers spat out streams of shrapnel at the fleeing fighters, and ripped apart anything they came in contact with.

Two of the Gorgon fighters converged their fire on one of the Perseus fighters, and shredded its armor clean off. The rest tore straight into the structure and minced everything inside – modules, electronics, flesh, blood.

It was all the same to the Gorgons and their Shardthrowers.

The Perseus fighters did their best to sway and evade their fire, but no matter what they did, they were slowly picked off. The Gorgons were simply relentless in their pursuit, and kept their fingers on their triggers as long as they could.

But they soon got a taste of their own medicine. It wasn’t long after they entered the frigate’s range that they ate mouthfuls of flak.

Dozens of 166mm shells filled with shrapnel exploded all around them as the Perseus frigate pummeled them relentlessly. The fighters’ entire position was completely blanketed with dark clouds filled with razor sharp shards of tungsten and titanium.

A great number were torn apart instantly, from all sides. They exploded violently as their power plants were all shredded inside out. Every Gorgon inside the cloud was utterly trashed, and were forced to retreat.

Just like the Perseus fighters they had torn into, they themselves were covered with countless lacerations. Their armor had been rendered mostly useless in that single flak screen.

The exact same moment that the Gorgon fighters initiated their retreat, the mecha squadrons exited the destroyer’s hangars. As instructed by Lucifer, they were to regroup to one of the frigates.

They blasted away from the destroyers with great speed, and with their round shields in front of them. Though they were supposed to head straight to the frigate, they couldn’t help but veer towards the retreating Gorgon fighters.

Lucifer’s advisement.

“An optional goal,” ze told the officers.

It was definitely an option the mecha pilots took. Their enemy was wounded, and it would’ve been such a shame to let the opportunity slip.

They raised their rifles as the fighters blinked into range, and fired everything they had. The engagement itself lasted little more than a couple of seconds, as the two squadrons buzzed each other with a combined speed of close to 400 meters per second.

But within those moments, the remaining Perseus mecha squadrons unleashed everything they had. They squeezed their triggers and emptied their rifles. At the same time, they shot out whatever few rockets they had left.

The Gorgon fighters were completely surprised by the ambush. The mecha had only just appeared on their screens before their barrage of bullets and rockets struck them. They tore into what was left of their armor, and obliterated many of the remaining fighters.

Before they could even think to retaliate, the Perseus mecha buzzed past at great speed, and vanished towards one of their frigates.

The Gorgon fighters were utterly devastated in two brief attacks, and reduced to less than a quarter of their original strength.

What remained of their squadrons limped back towards the destroyers in shame.

The frigates continued their distant encirclement around the destroyers, but slowly wove their way back in. They rotated as they flew forward, and switched up which side faced the destroyers. This allowed their reinforcement modules to work on one side of the ship, while their repair modules worked on the other side.

In this way, the Gorgons were constantly presented with fresh armor, a fact that brought their captain into a cursing frenzy.

“Captain!” cried an officer. “Our fighters have withdrawn from the fight – their numbers were reduced to 44, and have received heavy shrapnel damage.”

“What?!” said the captain. “How did that happen? They were on top of that fight just a few minutes ago!”

“They were outmaneuvered, sir.”

The captain clenched his fist and his jaw at the same time. The grinding was so strong that his officers thought he was going to break his teeth.

“What about their numbers?” he asked sullenly. “Tell me we at least reduced them down just as much.”

“Our sensors didn’t get a full count at the end,” said another officer, “but it estimates that little over a hundred enemy fighters withdrew safely. Most of their mecha squadrons were unharmed and also withdrew safely.”

“And their frigates?”

“They’re down to 13 frigates out of 24, sir. But they haven’t drawn away. Instead, they closed in during the confusion. They’re back to circling at a thousand meters.”

The Gorgon captain turned red, overwhelmed from the humiliation.

But he felt he was far from beaten.

He had worn the Perseus fleet down quite a great deal – almost half of what they started with. All they needed to do now was wipe out the rest of them, and the battle was theirs.

“Let’s give ’em a bit of their own medicine,” he uttered. “Show them our port sides, and tear them apart!”

The destroyers then began to rotate, just like the Perseus fleets had done. They aimed to hide their damaged armor and reveal their freshly-repaired guns. And with all 50 portside railcannons active, they could easily annihilate what remained of Perseus’ frigates.

Fear spread throughout the war room aboard the command frigate as they watched the Gorgons’ wounded sides spin out of view.

“They stole your move!” said an officer. “That’s so unfair.”

“Perfect!” exclaimed Lucifer. “It’s exactly what we want! All frigates: tighten the noose!”

Ze grinned widely as ze adjusted every ship’s trajectory on the tacmap. Hir face was plastered with absolute glee, as though ze had just been handed a present. The new trajectories all spiraled inwards, towards the destroyers themselves.

“Full ahead!” Lucifer cried out. “Maximize reinforcement to bow armor! And brace for impact!”

While the destroyers slowly rotated to their port sides, the frigates quickly turned their noses inward, and pushed their throttles to the maximum.

Their main thrusters glowed brightly as they were overcharged with energy. They pushed the frigates further and faster with each passing moment. At the same time, the armor all along the front of their ships swelled as countless nanites increased their resilience, temporarily.

.....

They crashed violently into the destroyers, who had rotated to a point and revealed their bellies.

The frigates’ hardened noses ripped into the relatively softer armor of the destroyers’ undersides, and tore them off layer by layer. The destroyers themselves crashed into each other, driven further by the frigates’ overcharged thrusters.

Their hulls were crushed and warped from the impact, especially thanks to their wrecked and weakened hangars. They smashed into each other with great force, and tore off all manner of turrets and armor along the way.

Every Gorgon inside the destroyers were tossed around like ragdolls, as though they were all merely toys designed to be broken.