"Don't tell this to Pa!" Sylen said, nervous and afraid but also excited. She was floating in space inside of her Xanthe, amongst the defensive perimeter the Neo-Hegemony's fleet had set up.
"I won't," Omega answered with a slight smile. "You are lucky that our opponents are slow and heavy. If it were the Gynkwhon, I wouldn't let you out."
"I wouldn't want to fight the bugs either!" She grumbled. "I hate the thought of them! Don't even mention them! I hope they won't show up ever again!"
"Hehehe~ They won't! Our current enemy is some fluffy boys!"
"Hah!" She chuckled, shaking her head. "So… I should focus on their fighters?"
"Yes," Omega replied, seated in the prototype Suit of the Neo-Hegemony. It was manually controlled by joysticks and pedals, like an old cargo loader unit. He also had a helmet on, connecting him to the cameras on the outside, giving him at least a clear vision. "Every fleet has fighter planes. I guess that when arriving, they will let them swarm out. You are faster. Never forget that!"
"Worry not! I won't! Damn… I am afraid… but why am I this excited?!"
"Probably because of Xanthe." He added, and the Suit also chimed in.
"There is an unresolved error in my basic coding. My apologies." Xanthe said, but Omega just smiled.
"It is the left-over residue of her previous pilot."
"I won't turn into a different person, won't I?" Sylen asked, gulping, receiving a laugh from Omega.
"No, you won't! It just makes you feel a bit odd, but nothing major. Get ready~."
The Xanthe was kitted out with only its vibroblades. She would zig-zag around the battlefield, aiming at the coming fleet's fighter planes and drones. Things that would try and bore into their ships. It was a known trick of the Wuulfharns. In big fleet battles, they always relied on their soldiers, boarding enemy vessels and causing a disturbance on them, taking them out of the equation. On the other hand, Omega's machine was equipped with a heavy armor set, making it even bulkier than before. He was twice the size of the Xanthe and looked like multiple bricks glued together. It was nowhere near as slick as her Suit.
"What about you? Your weapon?" Sylen asked, as she did not know his part of the plan.
"I am the weapon," Omega answered with another broader smile.
Just as he did, the Astropath before them opened up right on cue. What appeared from it were a dozen destroyers right off the bat. They were like colossal shipping containers with engines, jampacked with torpedo and rocket launchers. They barely got out before opening fire. Just as Omega predicted, hangar doors opened from their underbelly, and multiple W-shaped fighters swarmed out, designed to crash into the enemy ships and let their pilots board them.
On the Neo-Hegemony's side, the first response came from the Hammer. Its giant cannon roared as it came to life, blasting two destroyers that just appeared straight to the face. It blew through their shields and ripped them to shreds without any opportunity to escape. The second was the Veil, as its beam weapons targeted the others, disabling another and destroying one.
Yet it was just the beginning as more and more ships appeared soon. More and more corvettes and frigates appeared before the cruisers came through. All of them were blocky and heavy-looking ships. When their battle cruiser appeared, their thick plating finally shrugged off the Veil's beam weapons, withstanding its attacks.
"We need to hold!" Parthen ordered every one of their vessels. "The reinforcement is 20 minutes away! Don't let them push through!" He said, focusing his eyes on the screen, watching the soon-to-be chaotic battle and looking at the countdown, signaling the arrival of Mirian and her newly discovered station.
When the battle started, to Sylen's own surprise, she found herself calm and collected. She was flying past there and the enemy's ship with ease. Whenever she locked onto a fighter plane, she easily caught up, slicing once and tearing it into two before leaving the scene.
"This is much more easier than I thought…." She whispered, rolling sideways, subconsciously dodging torpedoes aimed at her.
"Of course. My memories contain numerous engagements with these kinds of forces. I already adapted to their fighting styles." Xanthe replied, pushing herself forward to pursue another W-shaped fighter about the same size as her. "If we would have my usual loadout, we could disable the ships, making them easy pickings for the cruisers on our side."
"You mean the battleships?" Sylen asked.
"Those are not a battleship. Too small. Weak."
"Cranky, are you not?" She chuckled, slicing apart another plane, not even looking at the explosion as she flew forward.
"I am a warrior," Xanthe answered as another blinding explosion shook the chaotic battlefield.
It was one of the destroyers, going up in flames, as its reactor went critical, not just tearing itself apart from the inside, but another corvette near to it. The source was none other than Omega. He was flying forward and simply smashed into its side with his Suit. Reaching out, twisting and turning its strings, he ensured he needed minimal force to enter it. Once inside, it was trampling through Wuulfharn soldiers and machinery, reaching the reactor and sending it into a critical state before making his escape.
Just as he blasted out from the failing and soon exploding ship, he turned towards the Astropath that opened up once again. This time, what came through was a four-kilometer-long beast shaped like a cylinder. The front of it was like the barrel of a gun, and it was already glowing in a dark orange hue.
"Not good!"
The ones who repeated the words were not just Omega but also Parthen and Jankho simultaneously. What appeared from the Astropath was a Wuulfharn heavy battleship. It was more focused on the part of the word battle than being a ship, as it was a colossal weapon, first and foremost. Instead of torpedoes, a bright, reddish energy beam emerged, aiming directly at the Veil.
"Forward shields!" Parthen shouted as they were already raising them when the monstrosity appeared.
When the attack landed, it shook the ship, making them feel like nothing but a tiny little boat amidst the raging waves of the ocean. Their shield lit up in blue light, flickering and cracking before it crumbled and exploded into pieces. The scattering rays of the enemy warship left deep lacerations on the body of the Veil. Warnings of multiple hull breaches sprung up immediately, and the battleship of the Neo-Hegemony shook violently. The Hammer responded by aligning its main gun with the Wuulfharn's vessel, hammering it with its own barrage. It was trying to draw the cylinder-shaped ship's attention to itself so the Veil won't be destroyed.
"Our generator is failing! It was overloaded! Rururin said as she climbed back to her seat, being thrown out of it because f the previous impact.
The bridge of the Veil was darkened, flickering with multiple lights. Sparks were coming from the walls and burnt-out computers while two officers beside Rururin were lying on the ground, unmoving. It was hard to tell if they were unconscious when their instruments blew up to their faces or if they were already dead.
"We won't survive a second hit!" Parthen gritted his teeth, already trying manually reroute power from his own controls on the handle of his chair. The secondary generators were only coming online, short-circuited previously when their shields overdrew power from any sources available.
On the outside, the Hammer's blasts hit the Wuulfharn battleship from the side. It had no shields but an extraordinary shell, resisting their immediate attacks. Some simply scattered, exploding into millions of pieces, while others left deep dents on its hull.
"Can we help them?" Sylen's voice came, echoing in Omega's cockpit.
“I can… but…” He answered, nodding, seeing that Wuulfharn's ship was gathering power for a second strike, aiming straight at the immobilized Veil. The latter was still flickering, its lights going on and off, and it was letting out smoke from its many injuries. It was like a mangled fish in water, and its blood drew predators to it from everywhere.
"Then do it!" Sylen said quickly. Even though what happened before, she wouldn't want to see them die.
"The more I reveal myself… I will give more clues for them to find me." Omega answered but explained no further. The moment Sylen asked him, he was already raising his hand, trying to be subtle about it.
He was not directly interacting with the Veil or the coming enemy attack. He was interfering with the Wuulfharn's weapon systems. When it fired, the glowing energy blast was unstable. As if it had a problem focusing. Instead, it split into hundreds of strands, scattering in all directions when leaving the cylinder's opening. It hit not just Neo-Hegemony ships but their own vessels too. Some smaller ships were immediately destroyed from both sides, costing hundreds of lives in an instant.
"Omega!" Sylen shouted, seeing what was happening.
"Sorry. But I can't do more. Or that would mean everyone dies. This is the best." He answered with a calm voice, already flying towards a crippled enemy ship to destroy it. "Look around, Sylen. This is not a playground. Your hands have already ended many lives since the start."
"But they are our enemies!"
"They are." He nodded, punching a hole into the side of the brick-like warship, entering its insides to blow up its reactor. "And this is War. Many more lives will be lost on all sides. I let you experience it so you can see it yourself and get used to it if you want to pilot the Xanthe in the future. Losses are inevitable."
"But I don't want to lose anymore!" She protested.
"You won't." He smiled as every present ship's sensors came to life at that moment.
An Astropath was opening up in the distance, and a vast, snowflake-like station emerged from it. It was transmitting ancient signals that only the Neo-Hegemony's system recognized and pinged back to it automatically. On its control center, Mirian, Keshnar, and Miyon watched the battlefield appearing via the holo-projection. It displayed their allies down to such minute details that it was mindboggling. It listed their suffered damages and what it would take to restore them to full capacity alongside suggested actions to improve their resistance to enemy weaponry.
"I am already marking the enemy vessels," Dawn said as the image shifted. The allied ships were gone. Only the blocky warships and the giant cylinder remained on the projection.
"What kind of weapons do we have?" Miyon asked, but Keshnar just shrugged while answering.
"I have no real answer to that. I had not much time to explore the station yet."
"We have gamma-ray emitters, but those would hit our allies. They are too closely packed for that." Dawn answered after a bit of silence. "I am currently arming the displacer batteries."
"The what?" Mirian asked, furrowing her brows.
"Weapons are ready." She said, and before Mirian could ask if they could fire from this far afar, Dawn already did.
Greenish, lightning-like trails were flashing through space the next moment. When it hit the Wuulfharn's battleship, it looked like it was ineffective. No immediate explosion came, nor was damage visible, but when looking again, the warship's side was crumpled up like a piece of paper. The glow that was coming from its barrel was slowly dying off, preventing it from firing again. The damage was even more evident on smaller ships as what was hit by the station's displacer beam turned to scrap metal. Literally.
"It seems the weaponry is true to its name. It displaces the matter of its targets. For now, we disabled four ships. I am recharging for a second strike, now at full power." Dawn explained with a synthetic yet amused voice.
"Aim at their battleship!" Mirian ordered, leaning against the projection with excited light dancing in her eyes.
"Yes." She answered, and when firing now, the whole station shook from the recoil, sounding like thunder in space.
The green-colored lightning struck the cylinder-like battleship, and everyone could see as its form crumbled before their very eyes. It was as if a hand grabbed onto it, crushing it like a wet paper roll. Nothing but a clump of iron remained, accompanied by the Dawn's synthetic yet excited voice.
"It is ready to capture."
"Capture?" The trio asked simultaneously.
"Yes," Dawn repeated. "My new systems tell me I can use it and recycle the material to repair our fleet. My weapons are designed for this exact reason. The gamma rays should eliminate the organic crew on the target while the displacer is made to break up its components for further use. I already set a course for retrieval."
Her voice was surprisingly happy and eager. The same was true for Jankho, who was watching from the Hammer's bridge, for a moment forgetting to give out any orders, managing the accept the surreal spectacle before his eyes.
"With that station at our side… we can hold this system…." He mumbled. "We can do more than just hold it!"
