Chapter 262

262 Breaking Free, Pt Devolatus Prime, Hades System, Federal Inner Sector

The prison transport and its fighter escorts flashed into space, high above Devolatus Prime. Similar to most other teleport beacons in the Inner Sector and Core Systems, this one was heavily guarded by the Federation Navy.

Flanking the entire port zone were three heavy cruisers. Their thick armor and myriad of broadside cannons and missile racks often intimidated most other ships they came across. But they were far from alone. They were accompanied by six light frigates, dozens of fighters, a wing of support mecha, and a swarm of assault drones.

It was quite the welcome wagon.

The lead cruiser immediately scanned the incoming fleet, even before their communications officer had a chance to open comms. Despite their aggressive scanning, it was all rather routine.

The Hades system was, after all, an entire solar system designed to be a prison. Every planet, every beacon, every orbital station were heavily guarded by robust fleets, and locked down tight. Access into the system, and even within the system, was restricted and heavily monitored.

Hundreds of trillions of credits went into the maintenance and administration and security of it all. And among the dozen planets within the system itself, over two hundred trillion people were imprisoned.

According to official statistics, the Hades Prison System’s population was 16.5% of Helios’ population, on average. It was certainly the highest incarceration rate between all of the galaxy’s dominions, with the Drogar being the lowest. Then again, they tended to outright execute criminals rather than keep them around.

The transport fleet was given the go-ahead once they passed the scans, but they didn’t head towards the nearby orbital station. Nor did they head straight for the planet. Instead, they stayed just out of its atmosphere and orbited all the way to the far side of it.

.....

It was only halfway across did they actually start descending down. As they did so, the friction of the atmosphere began to push against them, and caused them to glow from re-entry.

The entire process took many hours, during which every prisoner sat in highly confined and restrictive positions. Like animals. Or rather, like cattle.

Devolatus Prime itself was relatively flat, barren, and hardly had any life on it. It was essentially a planet covered in tundra, and most bodies of water on it were completely frozen. There were patches of dead or dying grass around frozen lakes and rivers, and it was clear that they struggled to survive even that close to water.

Beyond that, the planet itself was dotted with multiple domed cities, each one 100 kilometers in diameter. And they were hundreds of kilometers away from each other. They seemed to be highly isolated from each other as well, as there was no ground transport infrastructure installed anywhere between them.

No roads, no rails, nothing.

It was all a matter of isolation, of keeping the prisoners within their own tiny worlds. And any who were ingenious or determined enough to escape would only find themselves amidst an inhospitable planet with nothing around them but more prisons in the distance.

But at least the few thousand who escaped every year found true freedom in death. It was a relief for them.

The domes themselves were made of armored and reinforced titacrete, and had no way to look outside of them. Or into them for that matter. Not that there was anything to see other than utter misery, in either direction.

Outside of every dome was a smaller administrative township – it held the barracks, a small hangar, and a few landing pads. Along with multiple drone sentries and turrets, of course.

The transport’s destination was simply one of these many domed prisons on the planet, and they descended further down as they approached.

The copilot in the transport corvette scanned the planet below as the pilot eased them ever so gently into a cruising altitude of 5000 meters.

“Two hours, ten minutes to destination,” said the copilot.

“Mind taking over for a moment?” asked the pilot. “Need a break from all this monotony.”

“Yeah, go for it... wait a second...”

An alert suddenly started to flash on one of the copilot’s MFDs. There was a blip on the sensors – and it didn’t seem to have a standard Federation signal.

“We’ve got a bogey incoming,” the copilot blurted out. “It’s got a weird signature, can’t determine its cross section.”

The pilot, who had lifted himself halfway out of his seat immediately plopped back down. He checked his instruments then gripped his control sticks tight. An unknown ship in secure Federation space was a sure sign of trouble.

But just one of them? He wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“Get any info on the pilot?” he said. “Or the chassis? What’s the heading?”

The copilot immediately pulled out an extended sensor reading of the incoming ship, but found nothing useful to report. It was either heavily scrambled, or completely unregistered. Perhaps it was both.

–

Pilot: ???

Class: Heavy Fighter

??? Unregistered Manufacturer

??? Unknown Chassis

??? Unknown Model Number

Ranking: [X]

–

“I can’t tell!” said the copilot. Panic began to settle into his voice. “It’s unranked... No, sorry, experimental. It’s going ridiculously fast – and it’s headed to intercept us!”

“Get those Peacekeepers to deal with it! Quickly!”

The copilot immediately reached out to their Peacekeeper escort wing, and briefed all six of them on the incoming enemy fighter. But before he could finish, the fighter buzzed across all of them at supersonic speeds.

Its sonic boom followed a moment after.

The unknown heavy fighter held an incredible, almost alien design. The completely spherical core itself was completely exposed instead of contained inside of a chassis. Its surface was covered in heavy armored plating, and dotted with multiple sensor clusters and powerful maneuvering thrusters all around.

Wrapped around the core was a sleek crescent “wing” that housed the potent main thrusters, as well as the fighter’s multiple systems and modules. The crescent wing itself wasn’t directly attached to the core – instead it floated around it, suspended by both antigravity and electromagnetic forces.

The wing twisted and spun and rotated around the core as it maneuvered with overwhelming speed and precise agility.

To add to its impressive loadout, the unknown fighter also had two huge guns that hung suspended in front of the core as well. They too were loosely affixed by antigravity and electromagnetism, and had the ability to spin all around the core itself. The only thing in their way was the crescent wing, and vice-versa.

The Peacekeepers immediately sped after it with their thrusters on maximum, but could hardly even keep up. They could only watch helplessly as the fighter spun around with incredible agility, and adjusted its trajectory towards them rather than away.

“Unknown vessel,” hailed the lead Peacekeeper, “you are in secure Federation space. Surrender now or be fired upon.”

“It’s obviously aggressive!” screamed Seraph. “It just performed an intercept against the ‘vette, and is about to merge on us! We need to destroy it immediately!”

“Stand down, Seraph,” said the lead. “I understand that, but we must follow protocol first! Is that understood?”

“Yes... yessir.”

The unknown fighter’s guns were currently fixed in a forward attack position, and fired as the incoming Peacekeepers closed in. Particle bolts coated with red plasma slammed into one of the fighters’ armor, and embedded themselves deeply.

But the charged plasma continued further, and swept through the fighter’s electrical system. Extra energy coursed through multiple circuits, and blew them out unceremoniously. Multiple modules were suddenly overwhelmed with or starved of power, which caused the whole thing to fly erratically.

The pilot was forced to peel away to perform emergency repairs while the rest of his wing slowed and spread out in order to engage into a more advantageous merge. They expected the enemy pilot to do the same.

However, it instead hardly slowed down and sped past them instead. And it headed directly towards the corvette instead.

The Peacekeepers spun around as quickly as they could, but they were no match. They had lost most of their velocity, and their opponent had closed with the ‘vette as they recovered. The could only watch helplessly as it peppered the ship with multiple particle bolts along its portside belt armor.

The fighter’s bolts punched through most of the ‘vette’s armor, and a few even bit down to the structure. But the physical damage they did was hardly important. What was crucial was their placement, combined with their plasma discharge.

The energies tore through the corvette, and began to wear away at its energy shielding. Arcs of electricity coursed up and down its circuits, and shorted multiple junctions along their path.

Inside the cockpit, multiple terminals and MFDs began to flicker as power fluctuated throughout the ship. The pilot pushed its thrusters to the maximum while he struggled to maintain control over its trajectory.

At the same time, the copilot was frantically attempting to regain control of its systems. In particular, he was busy directing repairs towards any burnt-out circuits.

“Moderate module damage to EM protection,” he reported. “Energy shielding at 71%, but draining rapidly.”

“ETA to zero?”

“263 seconds. If we don’t get zapped again... I’m gonna man the turret and try to keep it off us.”

The copilot didn’t even wait for the pilot’s acknowledgement. He quickly activated the turret controls, and a targeting control stick popped out beside him.

Outside, two quad chaingun turrets mounted atop the corvette spun towards the unknown fighter that was now circling around it, and began to fire. In the span of a few seconds, they spewed hundreds of rounds at the enemy fighter and filled the air with red-hot slugs.

Despite all that, the fighter’s agility was simply far faster than the turret’s tracking speed, and it easily evaded most of its fire. The few that struck easily bounced off the core’s omnitronium armor plating.

Any that hit the crescent wing only left minor dents and scratches.

By this time, the Peacekeeper fighters had caught back up and rejoined the pursuit. Even the one who had fallen back had mostly recovered his systems, though he lagged behind somewhat.

The unknown fighter performed tight corkscrews around the corvette itself as it nimbly dodged chaingun and cannonfire from all sides. It was clear that it was faster and far more nimble than any other ship on the field.

All other pilots were completely astounded by it. No matter what they tried – whether they went into lead pursuit, or attempted to pincer, nothing seemed to work. They simply couldn’t outmaneuver it.

Just as their frustration mounted to a maximum, the unknown fighter spun up to the top of the corvette. The Peacekeeper fighters were also right at its heels, and came in from multiple directions.

Inside the unknown fighter, Lucifer grinned from ear to ear and laughed gleefully.

“All too easy,” ze said.

Lucifer then flipped a switch cover on one of hir control sticks, then flipped the toggle switch underneath.

A massive pulse of dark red electromagnetic energy swept out from the fighter, and enveloped all the other ships around.

It passed through all of their circuits, and poured massive amounts of excess energy into them. Any protective circuits and junctions were immediately overwhelmed and burned out, not that they were of any help. Whatever circuits they were protecting were hit at the exact same time.

Many of the ships’ core operational modules and systems were quickly fried as a result.

Peacekeeper fighters immediately lost all power from that single electromagnetic wave. All of their screens and MFDs went dark as their systems burned out from the excess energy.

And because their velocities were already incredibly high from the pursuit, simply kept going. Some crashed towards the ground, while others sailed into the sky first... before they crashed towards the ground.

The EMP was also powerful enough to severely damage the corvette’s systems as well. Thanks to Lucifer’s initial particle attack, their energy shielding had weakened to the point where the EMP could penetrate all their modules.

Like the Peacekeeper fighters, the ‘vette found many of its primary modules and systems overwhelmed with power. Most of them burned out and became slag. Screens and MFDs in the cockpit all flickered and died while both pilot and copilot frantically attempted to regain power.

Lucifer slowed hir ship and watched as the ‘vette crashed towards the ground, and smiled proudly at the carnage ze had inflicted.

.....