Chapter 399 - Far Future Ch. 109 – This is Why we Don’t get Along with Aliens (1/2)
The Death Moon lit up like a disco ball backed by an Omega Sanction laser.
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There had been a lot of energetic discussion about the name of the place. Death Star was ruled out because it couldn't actually blow a planet up, only set swathes of it on fire and carve the mantle a bit. Plus it wasn't motile.
Wave guns, Eye of Terror, Gods Eye, blah blah. Death Moon was settled on because it was a fixed installation on an unimportant moon in the middle of nowhere, seemingly with no purpose. Of course, putting an Omega Sanction gun on a planet was much cheaper than putting it on a Starship, devoted power plant and what not, but it also meant it was pretty useless, since the gas giant it was circling wasn't anything important, and certainly wasn't going to be sanctioned.
On the plus side, its first firing butchered over fifty bioships!
Reflective mirrors carved up the beam, refracted it in all directions, and sent the light cutting in arcs through the starry sky. Real-time coordinates and nano-spoor tracking sent them slicing through the living hulks streaming through the sky after the retreating reserve fleet as the ragtag ships fled from the overwhelming numbers pressing after them.
Their attack and retreat had been classic Imperial tactics against a superior foe, and they had been mauled by the massed fire and organic projectiles of their enemies. On the other hand, their coordinated fire had been marvelous, and over twenty mid-size ships of the Xenos fleet were now ruptured, burning hulks, venting atmosphere and liquids into the uncaring void. Although pounded and limping, not a single Imperial ship had been destroyed outright, although the flames and vapors they were leaking trailed for millions of miles across the system.
And now the Death Moon had opened up.
In the five seconds it lasted, twelve different arcs of fire sliced through the heart of the bioship fleet, dancing through the void to shred them just as they came out of jam into the gravity well of the moon.
The other half of the bio fleet, arcing around the moon in jam to intercept the retreating fleet, found that instead of sandwiching the fleet between two merciless arms, the Imperial Fleet was bearing on them with all guns broadside and roaring on the offense. The enemy walked into a hell of cannon fire and torpedoes that had been calculated to within a half-second of them breaching the gravity well.
Psychic screams were rippling through the void, and Nulls were ignoring them, Sources were loudly shouting that the aliens could go fuck themselves, and the pursuing fleet's formation shattered, trying to get out of the range of that deadly weapon.
Alas, they were in the gravity well, and would need at least another minute to do so. This weapon had been designed for improbably fast firing in exchange for reduced lifespan, much like the vakker-tech blazing hot inside it, and forty-five seconds later, it fired again.
The refracting mirrors didn't really care about how close the ships were, as a few hundred thousand miles meant nothing as the coruscating beams of annihilation were refracted across the sky, and wheeling, swooping bioships driving for the edge of the well were bisected in passing.
Needless to say, pursuit of the Reserve Fleet wasn't a thing anymore.
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Back on Janus III, Anatolia Rantha listened to multiple very current reports of the status of the Death Moon as she directed murderous focus fire on ship after ship of the enemy fleet. Psychic static was flooding the vacuum, shrieking through the bandwidths of the telepathic coordination of the bioships, and their radio-brainwave backups were being disrupted by electromagnetic disruption of ion cannons and fusion explosions going off in crackling waves of actinic hell.
With that conflict taking place on the level of Signals, the techies were setting up the gunners. At this level, ever-increasing coordination and timing was the deciding factor in fleet level conflicts. One side having one second of advantage over the other consistently was a murderous advantage in maneuvering and aiming, and not having to deal with any lag in communications using the Marks was an unbelievable advantage over distance.
Complex fleet patterns were drawing the bioship fire this way and that, pulling them apart as they pursued targets or moved to shield other pummeled ships.
Anatolia was processing all fleet movements, pointing out weaknesses in formations, guiding movements this way and that as she mentally advanced ahead of the fleet hivemind and their 'vore guides. The Imperial fleet was in a raging, pounding slugfest again, and many of the fires, radiation leaks, and vapor spraying from before seemed to have receded miraculously as the Reserve ships pushed through the flank of the biofleet and shoved it down towards the moon, even as the bioships were aiming that way to get the bulk of the moon between them and the death beam that had just eliminated seventy percent of the other half of their fleet straight off.
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”Deploy reflector. All crew, prepare to Focus,” Tabitha called out calmly at Anatolia's mark, and everyone at their stations on the Widow's Bite put their hands to specific golden pads or rods located throughout the ship. They concentrated, and Nimbuses rose as transpsionic claws and blades in multiple hues came up.
Outside the ship, the reflector plate of carbonfoil, laenwork, and ultra-polished adamantine unspun from its wedges, clicked into place, sealed flawlessly.
”Release Nimbus! Fire!” she relayed right down to the Moon.
Down below on the station, whole banks of vakker-tubes blew out as the third shot went through. Vented heat through superconductive cables snaked through the rocky mantle for a hundred miles around, veining the moon in angry red as frozen gases exploded into the thin atmosphere from heat never expected.
The beam raved up, computers linked and adjusted, and the perfect resonance of Focus to incoming energy deflected the beam away as if it were mere light, instead of atom-smashing destruction.