"This is pretty tall odds," I muttered, studying the screen and reports scrolling down. However, the situation wasn't as bad as I made it out to be. There were only five human ships, yes, but the alien armada had taken severe losses too. The Avalon navy appeared to have at least put up a good fight, and just as much alien debris littered the void as human ship wreckages. I counted about twenty surviving Sagittaur ships or so in total, with three of them in orbit over Avalon and sending down troops.
The trio of ships in stationary position over the blue, white and green planet of Avalon were massive, engorged hulls layered in a silver surface. They resembled bloated bugs with enormous sacs that spewed out dropships from the bottom, plasma jets flaring from short appendages along their edges. Ugly, huge things, they appeared clumsy and immobile.
In contrast, the rest of the ships were sleek, equine shaped vessels with sharp prows and wing-like bows. Several of them were arched, shaped like a bow with its string pulled back as long as it could, taut yet deadly. They were sliding toward us swiftly, cutting through the void like blades…or arrows.
"Commander Li?"
I realized Conrad O'Connor was still waiting for a reply. Damn, I had blanked out because I tried assessing the situation as quickly as I could. I was always bad at multitasking, zooming in and focusing totally on just one aspect of warfare, which was why I could never become a professional at Starcraft 2.
"Sorry, Captain O'Connor. We received your request for aid, and we are here to help as best as we can."
"…are you all that's coming?"
O'Connor couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice. I didn't blame him. We were just two ships. Even with the three destroyers, we were outnumbered seven times over. Six, if we excluded the three gargantuan troopships. Still terrible odds.
"I'm afraid we are all that's coming. I'm sorry, but these are the only ships I have. That I was able to recover. We do have 10,000 knights waiting in the holds, ready to deploy to the surface of Avalon, though."
"That will help the ground war," O'Connor conceded. "But it will mean nothing if we do not scour the alien foe from space. Even if we destroy their ground forces, their ships will surround our world and bombard it to oblivion from orbit." He hesitated. "They haven't actually done that yet, but we've seen what their ships can do. The fearsome weapons they bear. They cut our fleet into shreds while only losing a small chunk of theirs. We are totally outmatched."
Worse, they were heading straight for us now, intent on finishing off the last of the human navy in order to achieve total void superiority.
I was never one to run away from a fight, though. Furthermore, I couldn't just turn tail and flee, leaving poor Avalon to the mercy of aliens. From what I had read in the reports Aegis and Arondight fed me, Avalon had a population of fourteen billion. Fourteen billion human lives, snuffed out at the whims of cruel alien overlords. There was no way in hell that my conscience would allow me to leave them.
"Can you send me a battle report?" I asked. "Your fleet engagement, all combat data, whatever transpired during the battle. Recordings. Information. Everything you have on those aliens."
O'Connor studied me for a moment before he nodded. He turned and spoke to someone offscreen before returning to me.
"We'll provide everything we have, and you can use your ship's AI to organize and summarize the main points. I don't know how much it'll help, though."
"It's better than not doing anything."
"True," O'Connor agreed and saluted. "I thank you for coming to our aid, and at least not turning around and running away. You are risking a lot to fight for our world, I know, and we appreciate it. Even if we fall here, I am honored to fight by your side."
"As am I." I nodded and watched the holographic screen flicker off. It was replaced by a new hologram indicating data packets being transferred over and downloaded into the databank of the Crusader's memory storage. Immediately, Aegis and Arondight began running analyses and collating the data, editing and showing me videos of the important engagements. I watched intently, amazed at the detail and fidelity with which the Imperial AIs were able to reconstruct the naval battle that had taken place in the Avalon system.
"Hmm…"
I mused as I watched the edited footage and pondered deeply at what I had just saw.
To sum it up, the Avalon navy originally had about twenty-two ships as well. Three battleships, five cruisers, and about eight destroyers and six frigates. A formidable force by any reckoning, and to see them so reduced almost physically hurt.
The Sagittaur fleet originally numbered approximately forty. They had first warped in at the edge of the system and made for the only inhabited planet immediately, resembling mantas slicing through the ocean. The Avalon navy had taken some time to respond, but space was vast and the Sagittaur fleet wouldn't reach Avalon until eighteen hours later. By then, the Avalon navy had mustered their aging ships and formed a picket line.
They were picked apart by range.
I watched in awe when the bow-shaped Sagittair ships fired from extreme range – more than double the range of any human ship. Kinetic kills and balls of crackling energies were launched from the center of the curved ships, almost like catapults flinging boulders at an enemy fortress from afar. The kinetic projectiles accelerated to near light speed and struck with devastating effects, sending ripples across failing energy shields before punching through collapsing barriers and deep into the hulls of hapless ships with apocalyptic effects.
The crackling energies, I realized after the ship's AI analyzed them, were magnetic containment fields. Rather, the post-battle analysis had been conducted by the AIs of the Avalon Navy's ships and disseminated across the fleet's network, which was now uploaded into my ship. It took a while, but they had finally recognized the crackling energies as magnetic containment fields that fizzled out once they reached their targets.
Contained within those magnetic fields were antimatter.
Human ships flared into supernovas, whole hulls engulfed by exponential bursts of radioactive energy. Antimatter came into contact with physical matter before both detonated in mutual annihilation. Each only contained a few grams of antimatter, but that was enough to destroy an entire vessel several kilometers long.
I felt my heart sink. The enemy had antimatter tech. ANTIMATTER tech. what were we supposed to do against something like that!?
Despite the colossal casualties, the Avalon navy stood strong. Most of them, anyway. The admiral ordered a charge and the Avalon armada sailed toward the Sagittaur's siege ships with near suicidal frenzy. More of them vanished in explosions, kinetic kills and antimatter balls erasing them from existence.
By the time the surviving ships reached the Sagittaur fleet for what it appeared to be close combat engagement in terms of void battles, there were only eight vessels remaining.
Even so, the eight vessels were a formidable force. The three battleships had survived, their shields weathering the kinetic kills better than the smaller ships. The escorts also protected them by getting in the way of antimatter bombs, sacrificing themselves so that the capital ships could get in range.
The next engagement finally gave me a small glimmer of hope.
Despite losing over half their fleet and being bombarded from afar by an enemy with superior weapons, the remnants of the Avalon armada gave a good account of themselves. The three battleships, in particular, wreaked havoc within the center of the Sagittaur fleet, their weapons opening up and delivering deadly broadsides into the sleeker alien vessels. Plasma cannons roared and nuclear torpedoes knifed in, ripping holes into the surprisingly fragile Sagittaur ships and blowing them apart. I realized that, as incredible as their weapons range and technologies were, the Sagittaur ships were vulnerable at close range, their ships lacking the reliable sturdiness and energy shields that protected Terran ships.
In close range, the two battleships tore apart nineteen Sagittaur vessels, with the surviving destroyers and other escorts finishing off wounded ones. The Sagittaur ships had also pulled together and swerved into the way of lethal barrages, desperately protecting the cumbersome troopships that lumbered behind, the massive bug-like monsters filled with alien troops waiting to drop onto the planet's surface.
Their tactics were of interest. With antimatter and kinetic kills, it was fairly obvious that they were perfectly capable of destroying the planet if they wanted to. Their tactics meant that they wanted to capture Avalon intact. I wondered why. What was it that they wanted on Avalon? Did they want to enslave the human population? Did they desire the planet's resources? Was there something buried deep within Avalon that its ruling human nations were unaware of?
It didn't matter. At least not yet.
"I see a weakness in their ships," I mused to myself.
"Yeah, they are vulnerable in close range engagements. Their ships can be easily destroyed once we get within range." O'Connor's voice could be heard over the intercom. "The problem is that we will be destroyed before we can get there."
As if to prove his point, one of the battleships exploded in the holographic recording. Several of the Sagittaur ships had pulled back to target it with pinpoint accuracy, concentrating their kinetic kill projectiles on it until its shields failed. Then one antimatter bomb got through, and it was more than enough to wreck the entire ship.
Despite losing almost half their fleet, the surviving Sagittaur ships surrounded the debris of their slain brethren and bombarded them with antimatter bombs. Clouds of radioactive particles expanded as astronomical amounts of energies were unleashed in apocalyptic fury, vaporizing entire hulls. Even a few of the Sagittaur ships were caught in the shockwaves, torn apart by friendly fire despite the aliens' uncanny accuracy and careful targeting.
A second battleship crumpled, its shields overwhelmed. Several destroyers and frigates vanished as they were obliterated or engulfed by searing blasts from expanding explosions, buffeted almost like seafaring ships on a stormy ocean.
By the time the close quarters engagement ended, there were only three destroyers and one battleship left.
The battleship split off in the opposite direction, the captain and crew evidently having lost their nerve and fleeing the battle, despite being in the prime position to sink a few more Sagittaur ships. The alien enemy ruthlessly spun about, though I noticed how awfully maneuverable they were when they took a long time to turn about to aim their long-range kinetic kills and antimatter balls at the running battleship.
"Captain O'Hare is a coward," O'Connor spat, probably receiving info from my ship's AI regarding what I was watching at the moment. "The moment her battleship was the only capital ship left, she broke and ordered a retreat. The rest of us wanted to keep fighting until the end, but…we were just totally outmatched and outnumbered."
O'Hare's battleship didn't last long. after a ferocious bombardment that demolished the shields on its tail, an antimatter ball annihilated the vessel.
But the destruction of the capital ship wasn't in vain. While the Sagittaur ships were focused on eliminating the final biggest threat, the surviving three destroyers coasted clear, silent and stealthy. They left a few mines in their wake for a nasty surprise, but the enemy didn't catch on or notice them until now.
"We've been trying to stay out of their range for a while now, but we can't attack them either if we don't get close. We're at an impasse for now."
"I see." I nodded slowly and pushed my glasses up my nose with a smirk. "I think I may have a plan. It's going to be incredibly risky, but if we pull it off…we might be able to turn things around."