Side Story 4-1 Another Glorious Defeat (Patreon)

The following side story is meant mostly to explore the so far nebulous war between the Soleans and the Liritians. So if you want to see space cats getting their asses kicked, this is the story for you. Note: Most characters that show up here likely won't appear in the main story, even if they are named.

The commander sighed, as he entered the briefing room. Morale was low. It was low across the fleet. A string of defeats had done much to demoralize the Union fleets. They seriously needed a victory. Any victory to help raise morale, and thankfully this mission looked to be an easy one.

He took his place at the head of the room near the projector controls, and looked over the demoralized troops in front of him. Then again with troops like these, it might not be so easy. Unfortunately, they were all he had. At least Union Fleet Command had reinforced them with those new Artillery Cruisers. Twelve Liberator class Artillery cruisers had arrived recently to reinforce his rag-tag fleet of a dozen wounded battleships, one half-dead dreadnought, 40 cruisers ranging from lightly damaged to nearly crippled, 127 destroyers in various states of repair, and about 400 corvettes, most of which were barely functioning.

The 42nd fleet had taken a beating in the last few skirmishes with the empire, and this was all he had left. It wasn’t even a third of the original force strength. It was little wonder most of the men here were listless. Most were just waiting for the 53rd Fleet to arrive to relieve them of duty. He suspected that most of them would disappear the first chance they got. Honestly he understood that and wanted nothing more than to withdraw. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. The 42nd and the equally battered 37th fleets were the only forces the Union had in this quadrant. If they withdrew roughly 30 protectorates and about a dozen union outposts would be open to attack. As it was their losses had forced them to withdraw from several sectors, and roughly half of those only had token defenses. They just didn’t have enough ships to cover this territory. The only reason they hadn’t lost the quadrant was that the Imperial presence in this region was light.

He turned on the projectors, and a star chart appeared behind him. One projecting the current positions of ships in the 42nd fleet. Half of those were here at his field HQ, where they had set up a small outpost and ship repair facility. Many of them were being repaired as quickly as they could. Also displayed were the known positions of several imperial vessels.

The nearest Imperial ships were a single cruiser patrolling the border along with its four destroyer escorts. There were about five other similar patrols marked on the map, and then there was the ISS Columbia’s Vengeance, an Imperial Excalibur Class Superdreadnought. That ship was thankfully on the farside of the quadrant, and he hoped it would stay there. Everytime that nightmare showed up, the battle was soon lost. The first time the damn thing showed up, they lost three superdreadnoughts to its guns. Worse, the ship took minimal damage in the exchange. They just hadn’t been equipped to deal with cloaked capital ships that could fire while cloaked.

They corrected that weakness for their second engagement, and soon discovered that the ship was a pretty mean combatant without its cloak as well. It had very powerful shields, and those lost SDNs were sorely felt in that battle. Their sole remaining SDN was quickly outmatched and took heavy damage in the exchange. They were lucky the ship wasn’t destroyed in that exchange, but the end result wasn’t much better. Even now that ship was now moored in drydock back at their homeport as engineers gave her a full refit. Not that she had been able to get there under her own power, they had to tow her there.

Every engagement had taught them more about that ship, and their commander. Who had an uncanny ability to never be where you wanted them to be. Worse the ship was captained by a Solean Elder, one very powerful in their mysterious ‘magic.’ He didn’t believe the Solean nonsense, but that didn’t mean he could explain their abilities either. That one was a wily one, she could read a battlefield in a way no one else he fought ever could. Her ship always had the most advantageous position, and then there was her abilities. The first time he had seen them was a shock. He had no idea, even now how she had done it, but she had bent space itself into a wall. She had done it in several battles, forcing the bulk of his forces away, and allowing her to tear his fleet apart piecemeal. That wasn’t the only shocker either, a few times she had even twisted ships apart or crushed them; once again the how, he knew not. Although reinforcing the shields, and SIF systems did seem to help, and she apparently could not do that for long. Overall, she was a factor he would rather not deal with.

He sighed, again. Turned back to the chart, and finally decided to get this briefing over with. It a took a few moments, to get everyone’s attention, but once he had it he tapped a control. On the screen, a single object flashed four times, and then it zoomed on the spot before shifting to a new image.

“While, I would love to tell you that we could just sit here, and lick our wounds until our relief arrives. I am afraid that is not the case. Fleet Intelligence has located something of some concern. This facility you see behind me, codenamed Moonshadow, is believed to be a Solean Bioweapons facility. Exactly what kind of weapon they are working on here, is not yet known. Unfortunately this isn’t our only concern.”

Murmurs of concern rippled through the room, and then he tapped a new control. The focus moved away from the starbase orbiting a small moon, and shifted to a nearby metal object. It was a ring, a massive metal ring that was clearly under construction but nearing completion. The massive ring was not yet closed, and there was a gap on the left side of the image, equal to about twenty percent of the total circumference.

All of them gasped when they saw it. They all knew what it was. It was a Solean stargate in the final stages of construction. Once it was completed, the massive ring was big enough to encompass a planet. It would allow entire fleets to be transported between any two of them in very short order. If that gate was completed, the quadrant would be lost. A dozen SDNs could easily pass through that massive gate at once, and just one was a problem. Especially since Solean SDNs tended to be commanded by only the oldest and most powerful of the Solean Elders. The one elder that was here was trouble enough, they didn’t need a dozen.

“The Moonshadow facility is located near a Stargate, one that is nearly complete, but we do not yet believe to be operational. The gate is protected by a number of drone, and Plasma Beam satellites. Strategically positioned to make any approach of the construction site dangerous. In addition, the nearby Moonshadow facility is heavily armed with well over a hundred Plasma beam batteries, millions of drones, and a number of Hyperdensity Plasma cannon emplacements. Furthermore, the position is guarded by a garrison of four cruisers, and a dozen destroyers.

“Given the state of our fleet, a direct assault would be sucicide. I am sure you all saw those new cruisers that Fleet Command sent us, yes?” After a brief pause, and several nods, he continued, “The Liberators will be vital to us. Each of them carries four batteries of the new Supernova Cannons, they fire a powerful burst of superdense hyper-terrons contained in a negative flux field. What is important about these weapons is their range, and firepower. These weapons exceed the range of Solean Plasma weapons, including their Hyperdensity Plasma cannon by about half a light second. That’s not much, but it will allow us to take down their defenses from outside their weapons range.

“Naturally our chief concern will be their cruisers. Intel has identified them as Shadowclaw class Heavy Assault Cruisers. They have no shields, feature a powerful cloaking device, adaptive active defense systems, and something called the Oracle system. Some kind of predictive targeting, and evasion system. Compounded with this, ships of this class are equipped with powerful sublight engines, and can make short jumps through a method not fully understood. Giving them a level of mobility that more than makes up for their lack of shields, but while unshielded they are still heavily armored and can take a few hits. Thankfully they aren’t equipped with the wave weapons carried by the Demon’s Blade class cruiser the 127th Fleet encountered last month.”

He paused and almost everyone shuddered, remembering that report, the few who didn’t weren’t really paying attention. The 127th had been wiped out by a single Demon’s Blade class cruiser. The ship had been alone, no escorts, and it destroyed 14 SDNs, 9 Dreadnoughts, 31 Battleships, 379 cruisers, 2400 destroyers, and nearly ten thousand screening vessels. Intel believed that the Demon Blade class was designed specifically as a fleet killer, and it was devastatingly powerful. Thankfully, they tended to operate alone and were rare. Something about them must prevent the Empire from mass-producing the class.

The Shadowclaw class was also rare. Had only been encountered a handful of times, and were hard to deal with. Fortunately, they had managed to destroy a couple of them before, but it was very hard to fool that Oracle prediction system the cruisers had.

“While these ships don’t carry Plasma and Disruptor Wave weapons. They do carry a number of Plasma Beam cannons, multiple drone ports, fore and aft torpedoes, and two Hyperdensity Plasma Cannons. Weapons we will have to be cautious of.

“As for how we are going to deal with these cruisers. They are reasonably vulnerable to standard Flux Cannons, the trick is scoring enough hits to do any serious damage.” He tapped a control, and began outlining the plan for dealing with the cruisers.

Several hours later a battered fleet dropped out of warp not far from the Moonshadow facility. The commander glanced at the plots, and it seemed they weren’t about to be ambushed by the entire garrison. That was good, their approach had gone unnoticed, but not undetected. Three destroyers on patrol were about to enter weapons range, and they had just raised shields, and their weapons were charging. He recognized the destroyers, they were all Lancer Class Destroyers. An older design in the Empire, but a respectable one. It was also the only class they had a full dossier on.

Lancer Destroyers were multi-mission destroyers with a highly modular configuration. Allowing them to be rapidly reconfigured to suit different mission profiles. They were typically outfitted with class two shields, multi-adaptive armor, and a cloaking device. Each destroyer should have over seventeen million Phased Plasma Beam emitters arranged into fifty four arrays. Eighteen Hellfire Flak batteries, multiple torpedo emplacements, fore, aft, dorsal, ventral, port, and starboard. Allowing the Lancer to launch torpedoes at any target in range without turning the ship. The destroyers also had a small aft hanger from which it could deploy a small number of drone fighters. One feature he had noticed from the dossier were the large torpedo bays, the small ship could carry thousands of them, more than enough for any single engagement. Thankfully the only heavy weapons a Lancer destroyer was outfitted with were her torpedoes. Although some variants had been noted to be outfitted with vertical drone cells, and drone weapons. He found it interesting that the Soleans would use drones like missiles, but did not actually employ any missiles.

All three destroyers were a threat, but at least they knew where to hit them. The outboard nacelles were well armored, but taking them out would severely reduce the maneuverability of the ship. Targeting the connecting wings would be the easiest way to do that, but the wings were thickly armored, and protected by secondary shields. One point of interest was on the aft dorsal, the ship had a number of emergency vents there, while normally closed they represented a potential weakness. If they could force them to use the vents, a hit there could trigger an overload in the primary engines. The trick was forcing them to open the vents. The most effective place to hit the destroyers would be the starboard or port ventral, both places were heavily armored. However an armor penetrating hit in either location could trigger multiple sympathetic detonations that could potentially destroy the ship. Emergency failsafes would likely prevent that, as internal dampening fields, emergency bulkheads, and force fields would act to contain the damage. Regardless, a successful penetrating hit in either location would take the ship out of action. The weakness was something the Solean’s were well aware of, hence the thick armor on both sections. Another spot of interest also ventrally located was near the center of the saucer, a small dome there housed one the ship’s two primary sensor arrays, and by necessity it was lightly armored. It was however protected extensively by secondary shields, an Energy Armor matrix and a raised ridge of thick armor. The other one was placed on the ship's dorsal just above the heavily armored main bridge, and featured similar protection.

While the location of the bridge was interesting, and not ideal. There was a reason for that. The ship’s heavily armored center actually housed the ship’s delicate reactors, fuel cells, and primary capacitors. There just wasn’t space in the center of the ship for the bridge, all the critical and delicate engineering equipment took up that space. It was better to have that stuff there anyway. A hit to engineering could often mean the complete destruction of the ship, afterall. The Soleans did however do a remarkable job of securing the bridge where they did though. The armor there was heavily reinforced, and supplemented with powerful SIF generators, and secondary shields. If a weapon could penetrate that, it could also penetrate to the center of the ship, and blow up the ship outright. So targeting the bridge wasn’t going to net much of an advantage.

With the weakness and strengths of the Lancer class in mind, he gave the order for the fleet to engage. Within moments, tactical officers across the fleet began coordinating fire on the destroyers, who actively shot back. While his fleet was battered, his officers knew where to hit the destroyers for maximum effect. Over the course of several minutes, two of the lancers were destroyed, and the third pulled back crippled, but his fleet didn’t come out unscated he lost seven ships in that brief exchange.

He surveyed the retreating Solean destroyer while watching the four cruisers, and remaining destroyers approach. The retreating destroyer had taken a beating with some four hundred hull breaches. Her port side was especially battered; most of the armor on those sections was gone, but regenerating at a fair clip. She had taken an especially crippling series of hits to her port nacelle, and half of it was gone. Before he could worry too much about it, the destroyer made the jump to warp. It might be back later, after it had time to lick its wounds and regenerate but for now he had other fish to worry about. That was something else they had to worry about, crippled Solean ships didn’t stay crippled. Even without a yard, they could repair damage that a Union ship required a yard for. Given enough time, the fleeing destroyer would be able to repair all the battle damage his fleet had inflicted.

He did not have long to worry before the cruiser got into range. The Liberators opened up with long range fire, and he gave the order to activate the full spectrum jamming fields. The plan was simple, they were going to jam all sensors, in an attempt to blind the Imperial cruisers. He suspected that by blinding the cruisers they would be unable to use their defense systems effectively. It was the only plan that would give them an advantage. Suddenly an officer reported, “SIR! We just received an emergency communique from the 53rd fleet, they report they have been engaged by the ISS Columbia’s Vengeance.”

That was bad news, not that he could do anything about it. He just hoped that Commander Admiral Ixil Xar was up to the task of fighting off that ship. She had better equipment at her disposal then he did, and the benefit of his reports after all. So she better not lose that battle. His men were counting on her to relieve them, and he was too. The ISS Columbia’s Vengeance engaging the 53rd however, was an unexpected bout of bad news.

He turned back to the battle, and watched as the Solean destroyer escorts fell quickly under the long range barrage from his liberators, but the cruisers simply weren’t there to be hit. Suddenly they emerged in tight formation from a shadowy rift in the middle of his Liberator formation.

The commander cursed, and before he could give an order. One cruiser fired a barrage into the nearest Liberator. The first two beam hits were deflected, but the third punched through the shields and carved through the armor. The hull explosively decompressed as the beam swept along her side. The ship survived though, and returned fire with both her Supernova Cannons, and standard Flux Cannons. The bolts traveled maybe half the distance to the cruiser before an energy wave caused them to dissipate. That was something he had hoped the jamming field would prevent. That wave was part of the ships active defenses, and why ships of that class didn’t have shields. Their active defense system disrupted all energy weapons, or all physical weapons in a sphere around the ships, in either case the disruption would also knockout the shields of all ships in the effective radius of the device. Including the ship that fired the wave.

The cruiser fired twice more after that, both shots sent beams of blue-green plasma into the Liberator. One of them must have hit something important, as the ship exploded. Elsewhere he noticed one of the Liberators must have scored a few hits, as one of the Shadowclaw cruisers was crippled. Of his Liberators, six of them had managed to flee, two were still engaged with the Shadowclaw cruisers, three were crippled and adrift. Only one had been destroyed.

He gave the order to move in. He could not afford to lose too many Liberators. However it seemed his plan was working. The crippled cruiser was a sign that the jamming was having an effect. Little did he realize that the cruiser wasn’t actually crippled, she had taken fire yes, but her seemingly crippled state was a ruse.

Elsewhere, Commander Admiral Ixil Xar felt her ship shudder from another impact. At this point she had no idea what was going on outside the hull of her ship. The Soleans had knocked out her main drives, and systematically disabled all of her sensor and communication arrays. She was both blind, and dead in the water. The fact that they went to the trouble told her only one thing, they were planning on boarding her command ship. As such she had left the bridge, and was helping secure the ship.

Suddenly an alarm went off, and a computerized voice announced, “Intruder Alert! Hostile Boarding parties have breached decks 14, 19, 27, 132, 239, 278, 313, 380 and 427.”

She adjusted her rifle. Ixil had a strong feeling she would soon have company, she was on deck 278 helping set up a chokepoint, and intruders were already reported on this deck.