Chapter 391

391 Thanatos Rises, Pt Avathii VII, Avathii System, Imperial Domain of the Boundless Drogar

The Imperial port beacon above Avathii VII was in utter ruin. Its armor plating had been wrenched open and torn apart, seemingly by heavy weapons fire. More critically, its internal systems had also been ripped out and shredded violently, which left the entire beacon a smoldering husk.

All around the wrecked beacon were dozens of Imperial fighters and mecha, all of whom had been equally ruined. They slowly spun in place as their liquid circuits bled out from their shattered carcasses.

But that was hardly the end of the destruction that hung over Avathii 7. There was a trail of crippled Imperial ships in which a handful of heavily damaged frigates and destroyers floated alongside the numerous fighters and mecha.

Their hulls had also been viciously ripped open, with their chitin shattered and exoframes sliced apart. A few had their demimatter batteries and generators blasted open as well, and their implosions carved out their interiors.

And it appeared as though the planet’s defensive fleet were in hot pursuit of the Einherjar.

Though the Imperial fleet only had a quarter of the Einherjar’s numbers and power, they still did whatever they could to hamper them. It was their wartime duty after all to go after all of the enemies of the Empire. And because of that, they fought against them as best they could.

Which didn’t amount to much. At least not with their numbers, nor with their weapons.

They focused a majority of their disintegrators on the Einherjar’s carriers and cruisers, but their beams did very little against their hardened armor. Most of their energies were easily dissipated by the armor’s hyperionization modules, while the tungsten-palladium plating weathered the rest.

.....

All their beams and charged slugs could do was leave light scratches and dents on their armor. Not that those blemishes lasted long – the Einherjar’s repair modules cleaned them up in no time at all.

Of course, the Einherjar certainly fired back at the Imperial fleet chasing them. They shot back with their plasma lances and other energy weapons, but carefully avoided using any physical munitions.

Not that they need to use them in the first place – the Erinyes’ overcharged plasma lances made short work of Imperial chitin. They made careful and precise cuts that sliced off chunks of chitinous armor, and exposed more and more of the ships’ exoframes to open space.

More critically, they only used their energy weapons because they were much more focused on the targets ahead of them, rather than the units chasing after them.

So as they fought, the Erinyes descended down towards the surface of the planet undeterred. Their noses glowed brightly as gasses in the atmosphere burned in front of them.

The planet itself was incredibly temperate, and had a rather heavy and dense atmosphere. And although it had numerous biomes all over from frozen poles to desert continents, many of its lush tropical islands were rich with life.

They were rife with large patches of purple, dark pink, and reddish flora, and swarmed with all manner of omnivorous fauna.

But most prominent on those islands were massive rocky plateaus that rose up from the brightly colored jungles. Every single one had huge crystal clusters on top of them. Although they looked perfectly natural amidst the beauty of the planet, all were constructed and assembled.

Just like many of the planets that the Corvus Republic had previously reconnoitered, these crystal clusters were actually fabrication bays and facilities. Only these were the largest that anyone had ever seen.

Sitting atop the central plateau on the island was the most massive crystal cluster on the planet itself.

The cluster in the center had numerous hexagonal crystals sprouting upwards perfectly horizontally, in varying heights and widths. The tallest crystal jutted up roughly 5 km high.

Most importantly, also attached to the cluster were two massive crystal-like structures that were laid down along their lengths. They were each roughly 15 km long and 4km wide. Although they appeared to be buried halfway into the rock, sensor scans revealed them to be almost 2km in height.

Deeper scans showed that they both held devastators inside them. Though one was still halfway through construction, the other was practically complete.

The Einherjar adjusted their course ever so slightly, headed straight towards that specific plateau, and pushed their thrusters forward as fast as they dared. They approached their target with near-reckless abandon, even as the Imperial fleet nipped at their heels.

Their front thrusters opened up and flared out at the last possible moment, along with various broadside thrusters. Each of the ships of the Einherjar turned to their starboard sides even as they came to a sliding halt above the massive crystal facility.

Streaks of thruster vapor trailed in the air behind them even as defensive turrets sprouted out of the many crystal structures beneath. The largest of the stinger-like turrets focused their fire on the carriers, just as the Imperial fleet did.

Their disintegration beams converged on the carriers’ armor expertly, though they were equally as effective as the fleet. Which was basically, very little.

At the same time they fired on the Einherjar, the facility also released hundreds of defense drones into the air. These were shaped much like antheads, which had two jagged mandibles that glowed a bright orange where their tips met.

The drones quickly sped up to the Einherjar and voraciously swarmed them. More specifically, they surrounded some of the Einherjar’s frigates and destroyers, and fired their thin disintegration beams across their armor.

These concentrated high-powered beams could cut into the thinner tungsten-palladium composite armor, but were still far from effective. Though they scarred their surfaces and cut grooves into them, they still couldn’t get more than a quarter deep into the thinnest frigate armor in a single pass.

And before they could do much more damage, the Erinyes’ fighters and mecha came out to fight.

Hundreds of them streamed out of the carriers and dove straight towards the nearest drone swarms. The light fighters in particular sliced the drones in half with comparative ease, while the heavy mecha straight up crashed into them shield-first.

And while they violently skirmished in the sky above the crystal facility, a few dozen heavy mecha flew straight down towards one of the devastator fabrication bays.

–

Thunderbolt Squadron

Role: Heavy Assault

Loadout:

Shaizen Mechanized Sciences “Ronin” Frontline Chassis [A]

– Shaizen Mechanized Sciences “Yumi” Particle Rifle [A]

– Mechanica Dharma X-54 v3.3 Prototype Round Shield [X]

– Primal Machinations “Flametongue” Heavy Plasma Lance (SM) [A]

–

As they flew closer, their potent tungsten-palladium round shields easily absorbed any incoming fire from the defensive turrets below. Not that they bothered to deal with the turrets themselves – the fleet had that covered.

Instead, they focused their shoulder-mounted plasma lances on the weakest sections of the fabrication bay below them. Then they fired tight, focused beams that sliced deep into the crystalline compound plating.

Each of them cut perfectly circular grooves all over the top of the fabrication bay, then slammed down in the middle of each one. The sheer force of their impact caused the ceiling to give way where they cut, and fell down into the fabrication bay itself.

The moment that they cut through and landed on the devastator itself, the entire fabrication bay around them went into emergency mode. The lights all flashed red, and a heavy klaxon rang in the air.

More critically, dozens of defense drones quickly swarmed the Einherjar invaders, and nipped at them with their beams. Here, their weapons actually saw some effectiveness. Their focused bright orange beams more easily cut into their armor.

Bits of their armor were cut loose and tumbled around, even as squadron Thunderbolt sped further down the devastator’s topside. They wove left and right evasively and avoided the majority of incoming fire as best they could. Some had spun around and skated backwards to fire back at the drones chasing after them.

They raised their large round shields, blocked incoming disintegration beams, and shot back with their plasma lances and particle rifles. Their powerful weapons easily punched through the drones’ flimsy chitin and ripped them into pieces. Some of the drones exploded in midair while others crashed down and shattered into pieces.

But no matter how many drones the squadron cut down, more took their place. Which was certainly a threat the Einherjar was aware of. After all, this was one of many fabrication bays in a massive facility, and it could very likely churn out hundreds of drones by the second.

In light of that, the squadron rushed towards the edge near the middle of the devastator and leapt off the side. The mecha’s thrusters flared out as they maneuvered along the massive ship’s broadside and evaded even more drones and their beams.

They charged straight towards the closest open hangar bay and swooped down inside it. And of course, they were quickly followed by the numerous drone defenders.

Their fighting alarmed any of the drogar technicians working in the hangar bay, who quickly ran for the exits. Some got away, but others were annihilated in the crossfire.

Inside of the hangar bay, half of Thunderbolt squadron spun around and charged the incoming drones. They slammed into them with their shields and fired point-blank with their rifles. Things quickly devolved into a chaotic skirmish even as the other half landed with a skidding halt.

They quickly crouched down, held their shields up protectively, and opened up their abdominal storage modules.

Freya, Amarok, and a dozen lightly armored Einherjar Infiltrators hopped out of the storage modules and quickly formed up around each other.

The infiltrators were wearing jet black armor, and were wielding compact but powerful Particle SMGs. They moved to Freya’s side protectively, even as she issued commands through her comms.

“Einherjar, hold position. Thunderbolt, hold this hangar!” Freya yelled. “Keres squad, to the bridge!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Freya and Amarok then ran towards the nearest exit and down the devastator’s passageways. They were both followed closely by her Keres Infiltrators, who held their weapons at the high ready.

Assisted by their helmets’ guidance systems, a handful of infiltrators took the lead. Each of them were on high alert, and fired at anything and everything that moved. They took turns and expertly fired bursts of their SMGs at fleeing technicians, maintenance drones, and lone security forces.

Together, they tore apart any and every drogar in their path.

But when a heavily armored security force came barreling their way far down a long passageway, Freya and Amarok shot forward to respond directly.

The two of them charged headlong, even as streams of enemy repeater fire were flung their way. Although Freya easily evaded their fire using the energies of Ascendant Form, Amarok simply shifted her body into that of tungsten-palladium and took the shots head-on.

The energies of their repeater rifles simply dissipated through her body without doing any damage at all.

She then leapt forward and slammed into the first closest armored security agent, hard. The force of her blow caused his neck to snap the moment she struck him. Worse, he was flung back so hard that he struck the agent behind him. Before they could hit the ground, Amarok leapt off and clamped her teeth down on a third agent’s neck.

Her metal teeth punched through his composite armor with ease and bit down into the much softer soldier inside.

Then, she bit down with a hard SNAP and killed him instantly. She flung his dead body aside as his blood dripped down her metallic jaws, then howled.