Ravens of Eternity

233 Chessmaster, Pt The Gorgon captain stood on the bridge, his mouth agape. He was utterly incredulous at being cut off, and anger slowly rose out of the surprise and confusion that he felt.

It wasn’t just that he had been slighted, but that he had been so utterly dismissed. Whatever offense he had endured seemed to escalate even while he stewed. Somehow, it was made worse by the person who had snubbed him.

Something about Lucifer unsettled him down to his core, and he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

And while the captain boiled over slowly, many of his officers on the bridge murmured amongst themselves. One of them leaned over to the officer next to her, and nudged him.

“You hear that?” she asked. “They said Lucifer was on their side. I heard he’s some crazy battlefield genius.”

The other officer scoffed, quietly.

“You heard wrong,” he replied. “Lucifer’s some crazy myth to spook people, you see? There’s no such thing as a battlefield genius. If there really was a Lucifer and if she really was on their side, we’d be losing already. You and me and everyone here would be goddamned dead already.”

The two officers’ whispers were immediately interrupted when their captain roared in anger.

Apparently, his ego simply couldn’t handle the shoddy treatment he got from Lucifer, and it truly ate into him. The devil often did have that kind of effect anyway, and ze didn’t even need a Genetic Trait to accomplish it.

.....

That was simply in hir nature.

“That asshole bitch wants to cut me off?!” the captain screamed. “Well, fine! No quarter for any single one of those Perseus hullheads! Main thrusters to maximum! Crash right into their center line and shatter it apart!”

The destroyers’ main thrusters immediately glowed brightly as their engineers poured more energy into them. They each drove forward with a burst of speed, and careened into the tight group of Perseus frigates.

It was clear they were attempting to ram them.

Lucifer’s response was incredibly quick. Ze had already begun to adjust the fleet’s formation, and sent out hir plans to the rest of the officers. In turn, they spread it out to the rest of the fleet.

“I want those destroyers contained in a half sphere envelopment,” ze said. “Slow ’em down with the antiarmor flak.”

Due to their comparatively smaller size, Perseus’ frigates easily outmaneuvered Gorgon’s destroyers. As they approached, the frigates simply moved around them, and kept them inside of their envelopment.

Not only that, but every frigate peppered the destroyers with their 166mm flak cannons. Although the shards barely scratched their belt armor, they easily pierced through their upper decks and bottom keels.

Most of the damage was superficial, but the effect was incredible nonetheless. They had successfully torn into their armor, and with weapons designed against fighters.

In response to their top and bottom being shredded apart, the destroyers were forced to bank and rotate. They maneuvered so that the majority of the flak would hit and bounce off their belt armor, but this caused them to slow down greatly.

As a result, they ended up inside of the “bowl” created by the Perseus frigates, and the destroyers happened to be the fish inside.

Not that they were at all defenseless – with their broadsides now facing against the frigates, they let loose with their rail cannons. Each one zeroed in on every frigate in sight, and fired. Massive sabot rounds flew out at incredible speeds and slammed into their opponents.

Every frigate out there received two massive slugs straight to their armor, and shook them deep.

Everyone in the war room was tossed around, though Lucifer held tightly to the tacmap’s holo-table, and stayed on hir feet.

“Damage report,” ze said stoically.

“Portside armor damaged 26.4%, sir,” reported an officer as he climbed back into his seat. “Other frigates reporting similar damage, however four ships were heavily damaged and are backing away for repairs.”

Lucifer nodded, and reviewed the heavily damaged frigates on a datapad. They had received over 60% damage as the enemy’s shells had hit the same spot twice in a row.

The combined force caused their armor to collapse, and the second shot penetrated into the structure.

“That was just two shells!” cried the Perseus captain. “And that was with our reinforcement module on maximum! We’ve gotta end this quickly before they tear us apart!”

“Calm down,” chided Lucifer. “This fleet can handle worse. Order all remaining frigates to rotate, then switch reinforcement to the new facing side.”

Every Perseus frigate maneuvered again, but this time they simply rolled along their flight path until their opposite side faced the destroyers. Those were completely fresh and free of damage.

And this freed up the damaged armor to be repaired in peace. Relatively speaking.

“Now, we respond in kind,” said Lucifer. “All mecha squadrons – charge in!”

“Are you insane?” cried the captain. “Those are defensive units! They can’t take on those fighters!”

“Who’s in strategic command here, you or me?”

The captain was immediately taken aback as Lucifer stared him down with a menacing glare.

“Y-you are,” he stammered. “For the duration of this fight.”

“That’s right,” Lucifer replied. “Don’t question me ever again, do you understand? Every moment we hesitate is another loss of your people.”

The captain could only nod vehemently in response.

“Good,” said Lucifer. “Now pay attention – you might end up learning something about tactical flexibility.”

The mecha that flew around the frigates immediately formed into loose wings and charged towards the destroyers. They all took a long arc around and came at the destroyers from sharp angles.

And once they were close enough to their targets, unleashed hell with their rocket pods. Streams of fragmentation rockets flew towards the destroyers’ railcannons, specifically at the ball servomechanisms that adjusted their aim.

Though their ball turrets were heavily armored like the rest of the ship, the point where the ball itself met the recess of the ship wasn’t. Simply put, it was a seam in the armor, and the mecha fired right into it.

Their rockets crashed into the soft mechanisms, and at the armor all around. Although the armor was practically unharmed, the mechanisms were torn to shreds. The sheer number of rockets that crashed into them was utterly staggering.

Their munitions chewed through the most vulnerable portions of the turrets, and turned them to slag. In the absolute worst cases, the hardened fragments and shards dug into places they didn’t belong and ground the turrets’ movements to a complete halt.

In the best cases, entire sections of the rotating mechanisms were outright demolished.

And since the Gorgon’s fighters were busy with the Perseus’ fighters, there was no-one to stop the mecha. They lavishly tore into turret after turret with their munitions, and devastated their aim without a care in the world.

Once they were done, their orders were to invade the destroyers’ open hangars. It was an order each of the pilots accepted with glee. They had never had a more unopposed and unobstructed attack run on an opponent in their whole careers.

As they flew through the blue atmospheric shielding of the hangars, the destroyers themselves began to shift again.

“Captain!” said a Gorgon officer. “Main guns’ aiming has been significantly hampered! Operational capabilities have been cut by two thirds. Repairs underway, but damage is significant.”

“Fine!” growled the captain. “Then we do what they did – pepper them with AA and see how they like it. Get us out of their envelopment and move to a staggered starboard firing wall.”

“Aye, sir!”

As instructed, each of the destroyers lurched forward as they filled their main thrusters with power once again. At the same time, they peppered the space around them with their antiarmor flak.

Their cannons were larger, and the shrapnel much more significant. They ripped and tore at the frigate’s temporarily reinforced armor. Though they were only superficially damaged, they were forced to withdraw slightly and back away.

Simply, the reinforcement wouldn’t have been able to hold up against a constant bombardment and would have ultimately failed.

So, they backed away and allowed the destroyers to complete their escape maneuver. But they didn’t allow them to pass without penalty.

“Perforate their main thrusters as they pull away,” said Lucifer. “It’s like they want us to slice them apart. They’re practically begging for it.”

Lucifer sighed deeply as ze pinpointed multiple strike zones on the destroyers’ main thrusters. The Perseus frigates were only too kind to follow hir orders. They immediately bombarded hir marks with their repeater cannons.

Their cannonfire tore into the enemies’ main thrusters, and ripped into their relatively soft metals. Though the damage was far from extensive, and their opponents’ repair modules already began to work, it was incredibly effective.

It began to dawn on the Perseus crewmembers, and even some of the officers, that this was what it was like to be commanded by Lucifer. That ze always had a swift response to hir opponents, no matter how small it seemed.

They realized that the Strategist didn’t have some crazy, outlandish plan – ze simply responded to every situation with the most impactful move possible. Each of them added up, and as a whole dismantled their enemy expertly.

Their constant counters no doubt kept the pressure high on the Gorgon crewmembers.

Lucifer watched as the destroyers moved into position, slower than they liked thanks to their barrage. Then ze adjusted every frigate’s bearing, then issued the formation change to the fleet.

Every frigate quickly rotated 90 degrees to one side, and completely flipped the plane of engagement on their opponents. While the destroyers banked along the y-axis, the frigates began a rapid pincer maneuver along the z-axis.

By the time the destroyers had completed their facing, the frigates had already flanked them from the top and bottom.

The Gorgon captain was utterly speechless at how easily he was outmaneuvered. He opened his mouth to change tactics, but never got a word out as a klaxon rang all throughout the bridge.

Multiple alerts appeared on their screens, and each one relayed massive systems failures in their hangars.

Inside each of them, Perseus’ mecha forces were doing incredible damage. They tore through any defensive turrets with ease – they sprayed each of the emplacements liberally with their rifles. Their bullets tore into their armor and punctured gaping holes into everything inside.

Not that the mecha got off scott free – some were struck by the turrets’ devastating shrapnel cannons during their exchange. Mecha armor was shorn off, and sections of their shields were embedded with razor-sharp metal.

A few were even punctured straight into their cores, and were killed outright. Their mecha simply collapsed in place as their pilots died in agony.

But in the end their numbers were far too much for the turrets to handle, and the mecha squadrons ultimately slagged every turret in sight.

Once every defensive unit in the hangars had been turned to smoking ruins, they turned their guns on everything else inside. Any fighters on in their bays, or parked on the landing pads were the first targets to be wrecked.

Streams of rifle fire perforated them easily, and destroyed them where they sat.

Any personnel who were on the hangar floors were also wiped off the face of the galaxy, and with extreme prejudice. If they weren’t torn apart by gunfire or fragmented explosions, they were kicked or thrown around by the mecha themselves.

Their bodies were flung across the hangar with great force, and their bones broke when they struck the reinforced titanium walls.

Instead of killing any of the Gorgon personnel, one of the mecha wings instead aimed for their munitions and repair depots. They hammered them with their weapons fire, and blasted them apart with their rockets.

Although their attack only lasted a few minutes, it was plenty enough for them to completely wreck the destroyers’ hangars. By the end, their atmospheric shielding winked off, and all of them were instantly depressurized.

Any Gorgons who were still alive in the hangars suffocated to death while their bodies froze from the cold of space.