Shadows of the EmpireHosnian PrimeMusicMusashi veered to the right and downward as a strange, bright white star destroyer with tentacles appeared, striking at her Klein field with strange beams of energy and gravity waves. The Fog superbattleship repositioned itself, successfully breaking away from the odd vessel, as it seemed more interested in the general destruction of First Order ships, rather than specifically Musashi.
As the Ensari battlecarrier's energy beams struck Musashi's Klein field, the ship shuddered. The continent leveling beams weren't too powerful for the ship, but did leave an impression.
"Several enemy energy weapons striking. Klein field dropping, currently at 85 percent."
Shouzou turned to look at the Ensari ship, visibly impressed.
"Dump the energy into the graviton ballasts to begin degeneracy, and bring out our super graviton cannons."
The bridge crew carried out the orders with haste, and slowly, Musashi's entire hull split open horizontally across its length. The top and bottom halves separated, revealing 24 large metallic lenses that floated in place between the hull sections, half of them facing port, the other half starboard.
From bow to stern, the lenses along the port side began glowing in their center, charging massive amounts of energy.
Suddenly, several blue antimatter beams struck Musashi; a barrage from the Andromeda. The beams dumped huge amounts of energy into Musashi's Klein field, forcing the tiny mental model to double over. Shouzou looked towards Musashi with grave concern, as she straightened herself back upright.
An officer called out, as small wisps of damaged nanomaterial drifted through the room.
"Klein field at 73 percent and recovering rapidly. Energy being redirected to graviton production; currently at 62 percent degeneracy."
"Navigation, bring us starboard 72 degrees, and with the Andromeda in between us and as much of the fleet as possible, then roll to face Andromeda."
Musashi quickly repositioned herself parallel with the Andromeda, facing the seven thousand meter ship with her broadside. As missiles and fighters came around the Andromeda to close in on Musashi, several anti aircraft batteries opened fire, spraying red pulsar rounds through space, almost making a screen around the ship. Five and six inch cannons clustered around her superstructure took aim, firing red laser beams through the void at incoming fighters and missiles, aiming at anything that survived the hail of pulsar rounds.
"Degeneracy has reached 98%. Shall we open the reservoir, sir?" a random officer called out.
Musashi smiled as she went over her adversary with her sensors. Unlike any lesser Fog ship, she was capable of firing several super graviton cannons at a time, and firing such broadsides in rapid succession.
Shouzou glanced down towards Musashi, before turning back to the officer.
"Yes. Fire on the Andromeda when ready."
As the cannons aimed at Musashi, they generated a tractor-beam like gravitational well. Due to the rapid nature of the cannons, they didn't lock both ships in place like a graviton cannon would normally, but they did slow the Andromeda's and Musashi's acceleration. A bright, cross shaped, scarlet flash appeared briefly, turning clockwise for a fraction of a second, and condensing into a small ball of energy just in front of the lens, before exploding outward as a large energy beam powerful enough to shatter a moon; the first cannon had fired.
One by one, the other eleven cannons fired at the Andromeda, beams of gravitons, photons, and charged particles cutting through space in the blink of an eye.
The Venomian fleet spread out, dozens of fast attack ships maneuvering to form a spherical formation around the battle and firing island-shattering lasers onto the New Republic ships from all directions. The larger Venomian ships remained in the center, opposed to the Republic.
In the center of a wall-like formation of 1,500-meter-long rectangular battleships and 800 meter cruisers was the Venomian admiral's flagship, a massive five kilometer triangle, the front end split as two prongs, with a massive black forward-facing circle in between the points. One of a few new, upgraded copies of a superweapon ship used during the First Lylat War, the
Salvadora III floated just ahead of the wall of Venomian ships. Surrounding the Salvadora III were a handful of Nagara-class Fog light cruisers, the WWII-style ships' bright red hulls glowing with white tribal markings.
The admiral stood in the middle of a massive observation tower; going against Lylatian shipbuilding conventions, the Salvadora possessed a tall tower with a wide command center at the top, giving an appearance similar to the star destroyers that the New Republic was all too familiar with.
The admiral watched as the Venomian battle wall opened fire with missiles and mountain-crumbling secondary weapons. Occasionally, massive main lasers would fire, cutting through space with enough power to destroy a moon. However, despite their power, the lasers had a long cool down period, leaving the battleships reliant on their secondary weaponry for constant firing.
As the Amatsukaze-class destroyers engaged the Venomian battle line, most of the battleships tanked the positron and kinetic bombardments, returning fire with their secondary cannons. An attack carrier behind the middle of the wall formation launched drone fighters from three large hangar pods. The drones poured out by the dozens; There seemed to be no end to the fighters, and soon the ship had launched far more drones than could fit within the confines of the ship. The drones engaged the destroyers, swarming in all directions like flies to a cube of sugar; while their individual movements seemed erratic and chaotic, the drones flew with perfect precision and synchronization, sharing a network with a massive central computer in their mothership.
As the ape admiral watched the battle unfold, he smirked. The Venomian battle sphere was a simple, but effective formation that would trap the enemy fleet in a relatively confined space and leaving them no cover from laser fire. Ideally, this would leave the wall of battleships to sweep forward across the sphere, slowly but surely destroying the enemy, provided the formation could be maintained. The sphere also provided outside covering fire for the battle line, helping create a network capable of intercepting any ship or missile sent against the Venomian fleet within.
"Now, all we must do is walk forward to victory." the admiral mused.
MusicWhile the rest of the ships fought, Kongou flew into position to fire at Zordan Stark and the U-2501. Without warning, two small scarlet U-boats appeared, being U-1062 and U-1059.
"We've got company, two enemy Fog U-boats, U-1062 and 1059." Terrell called out.
Terrell leaned forward slightly, watching his computer screen.
"Increased gravity readings from U-1062, locking onto or position.""An interdiction field?" Tadayoshi thought aloud.
"Our main guns should be powerful enough to penetrate their Klein field in one shot. Fire turret one on U-1062."As he spoke, Zordan's ship quickly drifted away, and was replaced by several seehund miniature submarines, firing corrosive torpedoes at Kongou. U-2501's thrusters glowed brightly, as the ship sailed away to command from afar. They passed through a nearby field of debris; a New Republic warship that had been destroyed by a Venomian ship earlier in the battle, its hull torn in half.
"We should head into one of the halves." Zordan commanded. "It won't be enough to stop Kongou's lasers, but the majority of the New Republic ships would need several hits to break through the armor, and the corrosive field from a standard amount of thanatonium won't quite reach the center. If we power down our engines, with some luck we could disappear from sensors, t-"
Zordan cut the end of his sentence short, as he noticed a tiny red blip appear where the debris was.
What?Just underneath the broken fuselage of the New Republic cruiser floated a strange, cylindrical cross, almost 40 meters long and about 30 meters wide. The apparent space station was covered in extendable solar panels, heat shields, and radiator panels.
The commander of
Mir II sat in a cramped seat, looking at a rather old computer. The module he was in had a handful of other officers in IMPDO space fleet uniforms, crammed into the ship like sardines.
"Ready for ignition of weapon." one officer called out, with a thick Russian accent.
As the long cylindrical cannon running along the underside of Mir II aimed at U-2501, the station's heat signature grew rapidly, and the submarine was held in place from a build up of gravitons. The commander leaned forward, staring down the faint image of the red submarine through a thick port hole window about the side of a dinner plate.
"Nuclear Complex Active Particle Accelerator, fire!" he shouted.
There was a moment of absolute nothingness, and in an instant the inky black void of space lit up white for two seconds, and a massive white beam of radioactive energy shot out from the end of Mir II's main cannon. The beam literally cut through space, ripping apart electrons and their anti-matter counterparts. It struck the submarine's shields, being stopped for a slight fraction of a second, before piercing the hexagonal paneling, and passing from the starboard side of the bow through the port side, punching a hole clean through Zordan's ship.
The beam lasted several seconds before dissipating. The Mir II tracked the course of the U-2501; as if the station had its own life, the black lens of the cannon stared menacingly at the submarine as the system cooled.
In U-2501's command center, Zordan had been knocked to the ground, as the ship had also been knocked off course violently. He reached up to the command station's console, using it to help lift himself off the ground. Looking forward, he could see that Francette was fine.
A third crew member and the ship's weapon's controller, Romuald, called out.
"They've penetrated the Klein field by focusing too much energy into a single point, instead of saturating the whole shield... The command center is still functional and intact... Klein field overall saturation at 52%!"
The young red-head took a second to catch his breath and focus more.
"2501's patching the holes, but it'll take a few minutes."
Francette turned her head so that she could hear the other two better.
"They were already hiding in the debris?"
Zordan struggled not to let horror show on his face, but his heart raced, and his blood ran cold. Despite this, the man felt a sense of determination, almost like a craving. He gripped the sides of the console tightly.
"They already thought of that..."
A different train of thought crossed his mind.
Did they already know I wold attempt to trap them in this battle? If they planned for that ship to hide this entire time, they must have assumed that I would be here ahead of time...A second ship in the wreckage floated downward from behind Mir II. Composed mainly of five Saturn V rockets stacked horizontally and surrounded by rectangular rooms on all sides, the ship had a very distinctly trapezoidal-prism shape. A single observation tower stuck out from the top, looking over the skinnier dorsal side of the ship. Seven laser cannon turrets dotted the hull, made of heavily modified M1 Abrams tank turrets. On the rear of the ship were docked four modified space shuttles, which served as heavy fighters, and two large stationary cannons extended from the front of the ship, side by side. Extending several meters from the port and starboard of the ship were pylons, each topped with five modified Phalanx close-in weapons systems, pointing up, down, forward, backward, and to the side.
As the
Hawking's Revenge made its way towards Kongou and the two small Fog submarines, the four space shuttles detached, and flew to all sides around it in formation. Arwing g-diffsers placed along the base of the wings near the fuselage added a blue glow to the otherwise dim white flame coming from the main thrusters.
One of the shuttles opened its cargo bay, revealing a four interchangeable weapons pods running the length of the ship; this particular shuttle had two pods with missiles, only one of which fired, releasing two dozen corrosive missiles towards a handful of the seehund submarines.
Kongou's main guns turned to face U-1062, destroying the lightly shielded ship with a single blast from one of her three-gun turrets. The submarine erupted into a fireball, dying out and dispersing quickly in the vacuum of space. A thin haze of smoke and fog drifted around Kongou, a result of tiny pieces of shrapnel and debris being destroyed as it struck her Klein field.
Tadayoshi leaned forward in anticipation.
"Next target is U-1059, engage. Load corrosive torpedoes into tubes 1 through 4, and fire."The four torpedoes shot forward out of Kongou's bow, streaking towards the other submarine with haste. Half a second away from impact, U-1059 made an FTL jump, appearing directly behind Kongou, facing parallel.
"What?" Terrell shouted in contempt.
"Their FTL shouldn't be active! It's only been five minutes since they jumped here, they should still be cooling off!"Just then, a communications link was established between Captain Rallus and the bridge of Kongou. The Mon Calamari officer's face and torso appeared on the large screen at the front of the bridge, requesting information on Fog weaponry and shielding; he was having trouble with Musashi.
Hyuuga spun around to face him, and was taken off guard by the squid-person's appearance for a brief second.
"Oh! I can send the information to your ship's computers. It's a bit much to explain by word of mouth right now."
Hangar, CoruscantThe Cornerian marines fired at the terrorists from behind the cover of the shuttles, as the commander went by, pulling a small number aside to prepare for an assault. The three marines chosen activated a device on their left forearm, and an energy shield activated; glowing light blue, the hardlight shield was wide enough to cover a person from shoulder to shoulder, and tall enough to protect everything from head to toe. Metal arms extended within the shield from the device on each Cornerian's left forearms; the hardlight projectors were weak points in the shield, but were only an inch wide.
All stopped as the entire hangar rang out with an ear-shattering boom; Link had shot one of the terrorists, using a flintlock pistol.
The commander turned to the three man team he had assembled.
"I think it's time to move out."
The trio walked side by side, forming an angled wall around them, and walking along the mostly-closed bay entrance to the hangar. As they moved, the terrorists fired bolts of plasma at them, which ricocheted off of the shields, generally downward. They eventually made it to the other end of the hangar, and crossed behind the shuttles parked along that side; they had effectively flanked the terrorists, with Cornerians moving towards them on one end, and Link and Doug closing in on the other end, the Cornerians across the room pinning the terrorists behind the shuttles.
UNHQ, New York City, Earth-AAs the leader of the AEGIS forces on Earth-A, Ms. Grey, spoke to Bernie and Putin, a theory emerged for Venom's goals; they wanted the bulk of their enemy's population alive, so that they could conquer and absorb their populations. In as few as three generations, new education programs could be used for Venom to conquer not just the bodies, but the minds of any planet who fell to them, allowing them a new pool of potential soldiers, to allow their empire to grown exponentially.
Despite this revelation, many world leaders had already left the headquarters. A secret service agent approached President Sanders, handing him a note.
Bernie's brows furrowed, as he read the note.
"It would seem Venom is offering a sort of peace deal, to preserve the leadership of any country that surrenders to them..." he muttered. "But that would just be handing them what they want on a silver platter."
Kozhva, Siberia, Earth-AMusicAs the Venomian tank line approached, the heat of their engines created a heat shimmer that broke even through the raging blizzard around them. The snow within a few meters of each tank was vaporized, leaving thick plumes of steam to be slowly drawn up and away from the tanks. As the Russian commander watched the tank line close in, they were partially obscured by both heat shimmers and almost-sideways snow.
Their technology can even fight against the forces of nature... the man's heart seemed to fall into a void at the image of the tanks.
He turned behind him, shouting.
"Plan Veh, send out the Armata-Ls."
From several unassuming buildings and garages came the next generation Russian tanks, T-14 Armata. Their cannons had been replaced with large laser cannons provided by Corneria, and a small drum-like device, a shield generator, was placed on top of the fully automated turret. Along either side of the hull of each tank were two thin but long rectangular boxes. They were custom made g-diffusers for tanks, placed in such a way so as to not interfere with the movement of the turret.
The commander looked at the tanks with pride; the pinnacle of the combined technology of Russia and Corneria. This moment of awe was interrupted, as one of the troops shouted.
"Vasily! Behind you!"
The man spun around, but lost his footing, falling down from the top of the hastily erected wall just as a Venomian drone circled around to where he was. As the drone hovered and turned to face him, Vasily could see the barrels of its guns. Light glinted softly off of the metal tubes, whose depths were merely black voids.
Vasily's life flashed before his eyes. His wife and kids, his neighbors, his work. Time seemed to slow drastically, and for what felt like an eternity, the man truly felt death upon him.
There was a very faint red glow in the barrels, which grew until-
The drone was slice in half by a large blue laser beam. Vasily looked behind him, seeing one of the laser tanks directly behind him, gun barrel steaming from heat.
The tank turned 90 degrees to its right, and pushed forward, its tracks breaking the road as it moved.
A line of Armata tanks rolled out of the city, creating a wall between the city and the Venomian battle line. Out of the Venomians' ranks, three tanks stopped, along with the strange radio-tower tank. Altogether, 20 Venomian tanks pushed forward, facing down an equal number of Russian tanks.
One of the Russian tanks fired first, their laser striking its target's shields and keeping a continuous beam of energy on the Venomian tank.
Hidden behind the thick snow, almost one hundred Venomian armored infantry transports waited for their opening.