Olber III [IC/Invite Only]

[Excidium Planetis]

Aeiouian Space: Olber System
The planet Olber III sat nearly unnoticed in the vastness of space. A small rock, nearly uninhabited even by Aeiouian standards, Olber III was worth little in the minds of most Excidians. What was the value in such an object?

And yet this little stone had somehow been deemed important enough to fight over. A matter of purely national prestige, a pointless war for a nation that had no real desire for planets. Except that one planet that was currently being conquered, but that's another story.

Over the last ten months, as the Excidium Planetis Dawn Fleet moved into position in Aeiouian territory, the forces of Aeiouia had gone to work preparing the planet for attack, mostly by evacuating the civilians to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Or whatever AIs shed. The extent of modifications to the planet was unknown to Excidian forces, but the Aeiouians had either carried through with their original plan of constructing cardboard cities for target practice, or had fortified the place in light of Excidium Planetis' former pro-slavery policies.

And now at last, the time had come for battle. Silently, 50 of the 92 Halberd Class Cruisers in the Excidium Planetis Dawn Fleet warped into the Olber system. With them were dozens of scout craft, and two messenger ships: Phantom Runner and Shadowed Envoy.

Admiral Emmerich Peters commanded from the cruiser HL-1101 Solitary Watchman. "Communications, broadcast the greeting, followed by surrender terms. We may yet end this battle without losses."

Over unseen microwaves in space, the Excidian national anthem began to play. It was followed up by a short message recorded by Admiral Peters:

"Greetings, Alien Freaks. I know you guys hate violence like we hate supernovas, so I'll be generous here. You give us the planet Olber III, tell your buddies Tinfect we conquered a planet from you fair and square, and grant one request of ours, and our fleets will leave without a shot fired. Otherwise, the rest of our invasion force warps in twenty minutes from now, and we will destroy your and take your stuff on the planet. I await your response."

[Aeiouia]

Olber System

While the sight of an extremely sparsely inhabited chunk of otherwise lifeless rock was a somewhat common sight in Aeiouian territory, one with defenses as light as this one was not.

It is common knowledge that Aeiouian worlds usually have a defensive grid of ten Sovereign-Class Forcefield Generators defending them. But, this one, despite the machines knowing that it would soon be the target of an attack, seemed to have only one.

The single station sat behind three Dyson-Class Cruisers, clearly arranged in a defensive formation intended to provide cover for the generator. Though, the small size of the ships compared to the starbase seemed to indicate that they would be rather ineffective in achieving this task.

Perhaps the Aeiouians had given up on their naive attempts to stop the slave labour practices of Excidium, due to the obvious lack of defenses. And probably as a result of the recent events in the WA that have outlawed it anyway. Either way, the AIs waste little time, and respond quickly.

Clearly parroting the somewhat zealous Excidium transmission, the closest thing that the Aeiouians have to a national anthem begins to play for a few moments, followed by the obnoxious and grating voice of the Collective's hopelessly idiotic leader. She speaks in a somewhat chipper, and slightly mocking tone:

"Greetings, tiny little meatbags! Ve'll consider your offer. We care little for national pride, and ve vill happily say that zis battle vas a crippling defeat. If you vant, ve'll even throw in a little fake video of ze battle complete with some nice CGI effects of our units getting destroyed.

But, you're clearly not being up front vith your demands. Before ve can fully consider zis offer, vhat is zis 'One Request' of yours, human?"

[Excidium Planetis]

"Admiral, the Aeiouians have responded. They have agreed to consider surrender if we reveal our request."

"What? These guys are pushovers! I should have asked for more... Too late now, tell them we will not reveal our request unless they agree to surrender." Admiral Peters replied.

"Yes sir!"

"And order all units to engage plasma shielding. We don't want to be caught off guard."

From hulls of the the Excidian cruisers, streams of plasmatic matter issued, and swiftly formed a bubble as they conformed to the magnetic shielding of the ships. The Plasma shield pulsed as the magnetic shielding fluctuated.

The Excidians awaited a response.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III System

While it takes a few seconds due to the distances involved, the sensors of the nearby Aeiouian units eventually detect the activity of the Cruisers.

"Hostile forces are rasin' their shields."

"They are not co-operating, either. I doubt that we will be able to end this without violence."

"I've already contacted our allies about their assistance in zis conflict. But I'll try one more time to reason vith zese slave traders."

A few moments later, the machines finally send a reply to the Excidium forces:

"Ve obviously cannot agree to a contract zat ve don't even know ze terms of. So, I am going to give you guys another chance. Vhat is zis 'One request' zat you speak of? If you are not going to answer, I would just like to inform you zat you are endangering the lives of all men and woman under your command.

We'd much prefer to agree to schome silly terms as opposed to getting violent vith zis. So, make up your mind."

[Excidium Planetis]

"Admiral, the Aeiouians are once again requesting the terms."

"Repeat our earlier answer. No elaboration unless they agree."

"Admiral, I respectfully must disagree. If we give them the request, we might win without a fight."

"You are relieved of your command, Lieutenant, until this matter resolves. Johnson, take command of the Comm station. Now, the enemy is far more likely to give in to our demands if they are losing. We will await the rest of the invasion fleet."

Admiral Peters turned to Johnson, an assistant Comm officer. "Tell the Aeiouians they have only 10 minutes left."

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

"Dummkopfs. Well, I suppose zat we should warn the fleet once they arrive."

"Wait for the main attack force to get here. Then, we will send the final warning."

After a few seconds, the transmission of the Aeiouian reply reaches the Excidum forces:

"Suit yourselves, then. We vill do what we can to not harm you, but as with the nature of warfare, we cannot guarantee that there vill be no loses amongst your forces. I'd suggest zat you seriously consider telling us your demands vithin the next ten minutes. Chances are, we vill happily follow them so long as they are not completely unreasonable."

As soon as this message is sent, the small amount of Aeiouian units seem to remain completely silent and motionless, as they wait out the ten-minute period.

[Excidium Planetis]

"Suit yourselves, then. We vill do what we can to not harm you, but as with the nature of warfare, we cannot guarantee that there vill be no loses amongst your forces. I'd suggest zat you seriously consider telling us your demands vithin the next ten minutes. Chances are, we vill happily follow them so long as they are not completely unreasonable."[/i]

"Alright." the Admiral says aloud. "So this is how it is. Tell them 'We will issue surrender terms again after the battle has begun.' Now, begin Phase 1. Order all scout units to initiate LIDAR scans, start near the starbase."

The scout and observation ships began firing low energy laser grids out into space, searching for any cloaked units in the area.

"Cruiser Squadron 1, initiate Jump sequence. Squadrons 2 through 5, launch assault squadrons."

Five Cruisers engaged their Perrault drives, preparing to make a jump. Another 20 cruisers opened hangar bay doors, unleashing several dozen smaller craft. 200 Bolt class starfighter-bombers and 100 V64C Majestic dropships flew out, headed for Olber III. Something seemed strange, however, with the Bolts. Rather than typical Excidian camoflage armor, these craft seemed to reflect random distorted segments of space rather than mimic the background. While all the Bolts appeared unmanned, the dropships were fully loaded.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

"Hostile forces are startin' to scan using their radiation-based detection methods... They seem to be focusin' on the area near the starbase. So, they're probably not gonna find you. But if you are somehow detected, immediately jump and re-locate before they can discover your vessel's class."

"Acknowledged, Searing."

"They are deploying strike craft... That is odd. They seem to have altered their design a bit."

"Yeah, And we have too! We'll have to see how they match up."

"I am not getting shot down by the slavers again, Searing. I promise."

"Well, we'll have to see about that, Forge. I hope you're right."

"Do we have clearance to engage?"

"Not yet. Ve're going to let zem take ze first shots, remember? Ve need to stick with zis plan..."

The Aeiouian units remained mostly motionless. Though, the point defenses on the station and the cruisers do begin to turn to face the incoming swarm of strike craft. But, they do not fire. It seems as if they are waiting for the Bolts to launch missiles or other munitions to intercept.

[Excidium Planetis]

The minutes tick by, verging closer the time of the main attack fleet's arrival. Very little happens, as the Bolts and dropships continue to travel towards the planet, and the scouts continue to spread beams outward in a cone.

"No hidden ships within a 5 degree cone of the station, Admiral."

"Keep expanding."

"Tee Minus One Minute until fleet arrival."

"Well, looks like they aren't going to take our offer. Solitary Watchman Weapons, target the nearest Dyson. Fire Antiproton cannon, 1 second burst."

A stream of near lightspeed antiparticles burst from a dorsal gun on the flagship cruiser, carrying enough energy to release a 22 Megaton explosion on annihilation with any normal matter. A flash of space dust getting turned into gamma rays clearly marked the beam's path.

"Tee Minus Thirty Seconds."

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

"Enemy fire confirmed! And they took the bait! Everyone's cleared to engage. Zinc, Light, how's your burn going?"

"We are moving at about 60km/s relative to the planet. We will be burning to reduce velocity shortly."

"Good. Stay cloaked, and don't fire until you're in position... Oh, and make sure that ya' don't fly outta' the world's sphere of influence, that'd technically classify you as non-combatants under the terms that we've agreed to."

"Understood."

As the Aeiouians had hoped, the Excidium forces fired upon the closest Dyson to the attacking fleet. The antiparticles break through the ship's shield. Dampening their effect slightly, but not enough to be all that much of a saviour to the targetted vessel. The 22 Megaton explosion creates a sizable crater on the vessel's hull, and knocks out a vast number of its point defense weapons.

However, having been given clearance to fire back, the few hundred point defense turretts that remain begin firing upon the the Bolt
strike craft. They seem to all focus on a single fighter at a time, aiming for the spots on their wings where munitions might be stored.

Although, the barrage from the ship is greatly weakened due to the damage that it sustained to its systems. And its already rather pathetic firepower has been reduced even further by the initial assault.

[Excidium Planetis]

The modified Bolt Fighters explode in spectacular and slightly radioactive bursts as they are individually targeted by hundreds of lasers. However, despite the success of the attacks, the lasers are maybe not as effective as Aeiouia might have hoped: With each strike as much as 70% of the laser energy is reflected in different directions by the layer of mirrors underneath a refractive fiberoptic coating, which would have dispersed the energy of a small number of lasers but does little against so many. These defenses, while not commonly used on Bolts, were long ago designed to resist laser attacks, and the heavy Aeiouian reliance on lasers recommended their use.

"They are taking out the fighters individually, Admiral."

"Fleet Commander Reznicek should be able to handle his forces adequately. However, I am surprised by the effectiveness of our antimatter weapons. The Dyson class, of course, should be dealt with much more easily than larger ships, which probably explains the damage. Tell Squadrons 6 and 7 to each handle a Dyson. Our own 10th shall take out the already damaged one."

Solitary Watchman and the other 4 cruisers with it each fired a one second burst of antiprotons at the damaged Dyson, and two other groups of 5 cruisers each fired upon the other two Dyson ships. The cruisers utilized their shots "sparingly", as each shot cost the Navy a whole NS$ 10 billion, and each cruiser only carried enough antimatter for ten seconds of firing.

At the same time, all but 100 of the Bolts broke away from the dropships they escorted, accelerating towards the Starbase as fast as possible. Each fighter could withstand less than a second of laser firing before being destroyed, but hopefully a few could survive if enough of the point defense lasers were knocked out.

"Admiral, Fleet is warping in."

Dawn Star, Flagship of the Dawn Guard, warped into the system accompanied by 130 Pike Class destroyers and 90 Gladius Class corvettes. Several other ships had also warped in, among them were 4 Scimitar Class dreadnoughts, 8 Crossbow Class carriers, and 2 odd looking ships kept near the back. Of course, a small number of observation ships came in well, the eyes and ears of Dawn Guard.

However, what stood out most was not the 2 kilometer long Scimitars or even the 3 kilometer Warp ship, but a collection of 24 ships of an unidentified class* of Stormwrathian vessels**, which at about 160*** kilometers dwarfed everything in the battlezone.

And yet these were not even the trump card, for another surprise lurked inside each of the newly arrived ships.

*I forgot the name.
**Stormwrath used lend-lease to give me some ships.
***Or maybe it was only 60. Anyways, bigger than the Dysons but smaller than a Tamarus class, which Stormwrath refused to lend us.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

The Dyson-Class vessels continue taking hits, receiving a noticeable amount of damage with each shot. Indeed, the antiproton attacks seemed to be incredibly effective. Almost too effective. But perhaps estimates about the durability of the Aeiouian vessels were grossly over-stated.

The other two Dysons open fire with concentrated laser attacks against the enemy Bolt craft, along with the station behind them. Although, it is at this time that the Aeiouian forces detect the arrival of the new Excidium vessels, including the ships on lease from Stormwrath.

"New contacts... And would ya' look at that! Shit! Well, we're gonna have to have a little word with Stormwrath after this is over. When is the allied backup going to arrive?"

"Well. Even if they got here, those new classes look a bit too cumbersome for them to deal with."

"This is Light. I am changing course to intercept the Stormwrathian craft. I would recommend that you send a warning to them."

"Yeah. I vill. But, before I do zat, let's get vone last bit of deception out of ze bait that we set..."

Suddenly, two of the moderately-damaged Dyson-Class vessels begin accelerating rapidly. After a few moments, it becomes obvious what they are trying to do. As they pick up velocity, it is obvious that they are headed straight towards the Stormwrathian vessels, on a direct collision course.

A few moments later, a transmission is sent directly towards the Excidum fleet. It contains the voice of the utterly moronic leader of Aeiouia, speaking in a manner mockingly attempting to replicate an announcer at a spaceport or other public location:

"Attention newly-arrived units. Welcome to ze battlefield! Unfortunately, ve can't guarantee your safety for this exercise. So, you are advised to evacuate all 24 of your largest vessels, as well as all craft within 500 kilometers of them. In order to ensure proper levels of safety, it is recommended zat you complete this procedure within three and a half minutes.

Aeiouia ish not to be held accountable for any injuries or deaths that occur due to crew-members not following the stated precautions. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day!"

The battered Dyson-Class ships continue picking up speed, barrelling towards the largest vessels in the opposing fleet at breakneck velocities.

With the departure of two of the ships, the station begins working on combating the Bolts using its point defense array. Thankfully for the Aeiouians, the fact that the fighters went past the damaged Dyson put them in a lot more danger. While the front side of the vessel was littered with craters and destroyed point defenses, the side facing away from the opposing fleet was completely un-touched. And had much more firepower as a result.

[Excidium Planetis]

Admiral Peters watched the battle on the Solitary Watchman's screens with increasing frustration.

"What the hell is Reznicek doing!? He was supposed to hit the Dyson when his squadrons got close! He's flown his fighters right past them!"

"Admiral, the Aeiouian leader has advised the Stormwrath ships to retreat, with a strong implication they could be destroyed. We have three and a half minutes."

"We promised them every advisor would survive. Give no orders to them yet. How are they going to do this?"

The chief tactical officer spoke up. "Sir, two Dysons have begun accelerating towards the Stormwrath vessels. They are on a collision course."

"Hmmm... these Aeiouians are known to use kamikaze attacks. And yet, they are also known to be deceptive. I think we are missing something here. Switch all LIDAR scans to sweep the area near the Stormwrathian ships, give permission to kill anything found there with appropriate force. Cruiser Squadrons 8, 9, target those Dysons, full ten second burst with the antiproton cannons. 6 and 7, maintain 1 second firing every 30 seconds."

Ten more cruisers fired off deadly antiproton strikes at the two accelerating Dysons, each beam carrying 220 Megatons of energy. NS$1 Trillion worth of antimatter, a significant portion of the yearly defense budget but hardly expensive for a planet, was "wasted" in the strike. Another 5 shorter beams were launched at each of Dysons by the other two squadrons of Halberds.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to either Admiral Peters or possibly the Aeiouian forces, Reznicek had everything under control. The fighters were dropping like flies, with only 37 of those that had broken off still operating, but that was enough. The hatches underneath the wings opened, finally exposing the torpedoes they carried. These were swiftly fired at the starbase all once, 222 torpedoes exactly, while the fighters positioned themselves between the torpedoes and the Dyson's guns, acting as shields for the torpedoes. For good measure, they reversed course and began firing their light lasers back at the Dysons, targeting the point defense lasers. The 100 Bolts and 100 dropships continued on unmolested, and began preparation to enter Olber III's atmosphere*.

Meanwhile, the 8 newly arrived carriers deployed some of their starfighters, a whole 320, five squadrons from each. These began to form a spaced out and rather complex formation, designed to prevent the mirror armor from reflecting lasers into another Bolt. Once the preprogrammed formation was complete, these ships began moving towards the first Dyson class vessel.

Everyone else stood by watched.


*Assuming Olber III has an atmosphere.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

"... Doesn't look like zey're falling for it. Have ze decoys change course to-"

Suddenly, the antiproton attacks strike the hulls of the two speeding Dyson-Class vessels. Having just been saved from being decommissioned, the out-dated Dyson models completely shatter from the force of the beams. Lacking Micro-Matter Reinforcement or the modern Bedrock material, the sheer power of the antiproton attack just proved to be too much for them.

They are completely destroyed by the blasts, causing them to split into numerous pieces, which obviously continue with their current velocity and heading, without the Aeiouians being able to alter their courses any more.

"Vell, shit."

Meanwhile, the starbase is struck by the massive swarm of warheads. With it also being a set-for-decomission decoy, it does not stand a chance. A good portion of the station's hull is completely blown away, and the shield that it is projecting begins to falter and flicker.

One of the spikes of the massive construct is completely severed from its parent body. The force from the blast that cut it off is so powerful that it manages to knock it into an unstable orbit, where it will begin re-entering the planet's rather light, non-oxygenated atmosphere within a few minutes.

The Dyson-Class decoy seems to fare a bit better against the attack, with only about 50 of its point defense lasers knocked out. But, due to a design error in this old model, most of the others seem to actually destroy themselves. As, lacking proper thermometers, they overheated due to the heat of the enemy laser fire, combined with that of their own.

The shield projected by the station continues flickering for a while, with it finally cutting out completely about two minutes later.

At this same time, the Excidium forces seem to get nothing from their LIDAR scans. The area near the Stormwrathian units seems to be completely clear. Although, if that had only searched a few minutes earlier, the scans would not have come back clear.

While the areas in front, above, below, and to the sides of the Excidium fleet would be clear, something is finally detected whenever they get around to scanning the area directly behind the fleet. The LIDAR would return the signature of something big. The craft in question being at least 450 kilometers in size.

"Shit! Just got hit with a scan! They've probably found-"

"Fire away, kids! Go, go, go! Burn em'! Launch the Disruption Bombs, Toroids, Limpets, everything! Come on, before they have time to react!"

From directly behind the Excidium fleet, the true Aeiouian ships involved in this conflict finally throw their hats into the ring. From quite far away, just barely within the sphere of influence of the planet, two massive vessels de-cloak. With both having an incredibly alien and quite bizarre look to them, it is clear that they are the two Aeiouian Sa-Matra-Class Dreadnoughts.

The vessels waste no time, and begin launching a variety of munitions, being some of the few Aeiouian ship classes that actually have weapons on them. Albeit non-lethal ones. As they do this, they are joined by their escort of four Avatar and eight Beserker Procne fighter-bombers.

The first wave of projectiles seem to resemble large spheres of magnetically-stabilized plasma, not all that dissimilar from the shield generators used by some of the Excidium ships. Ironically, however, these warheads are designed to pierce through enemy shield arrays, disrupting the function of weapon systems below them and paving the way for the second weapon in the vessel's arsenal.

After these projectiles come a wave of small drones, which are following behind the plasma warheads at a steady pace. At first glance, it would appear as if they seem to be designed to latch onto the hulls of the ships that they strike.

The two Sa-Matra vessels also begin firing their massive numbers of point defenses at the recently-deployed starfighters. While the number of point defenses on the huge vessels is extremely great, they are a rather decent distance from their targets. Decreasing their effective firepower by a slight amount.

The leading Procne fires seven missiles. Judging by their size compared to most Aeiouian munitions, they appear to be Disruption Bombs. These warheads head straight towards the Excidium fleet. With three of them focusing on the Stormwrathian vessels, two of them heading towards the back of the fleet, and the final one heading towards the ships near the front of the formation.

The other Procnes in the squadron fire a swarm of Nest Multi-Stage Missiles at the recently-deployed Bolt squadron. The missiles accelerate rapidly, before splitting into their second stages, creating an even larger swarm of warheads.

The Avatars seem to instead focus on the enemy fleet. Being mostly equipped with the new OD-2 Gun Pod, two of them target the Stormwrathian vessels, and the others seemingly begin taking pot-shots at the strange-looking vessels near the back of the opposing fleet.

All of the Avatars also fire on the targets using their single offensive lasers, which are one of the few actually not-pathetic offensive weapons in the Aeiouian line-up. Though, they of course only seem to fire when they have a clear shot on enemy weapon systems, and do not fire on other areas of target's hulls.

Olber III, Surface

The only six Aeiouian units on the surface of the world detect the incoming dropships. Thankfully for them, they had calculated the area where they would arrive earlier on, and were only a few kilometers off.

The two Terras and four Beserker Procnes remain cloaked and motionless, hoping the take the invading enemy forces by surprise.

[Excidium Planetis]

Olber III Space, Main Fleet, approximately 15 minutes since the surrender terms were issued.

"Targets destroyed, Admiral. Debris Field being mapped."

"Order the Stormwrathian vessels to make evasive maneuvers, just enough to avoid the wreckage."

"Admiral! Enemy vessels have decloaked behind our ships and opened fire! They've got Disruptor bombs!"

"Damnit! Sword Unit, fire on those Nest missiles! Typhoon Unit, hardlight cannons on those Disruptors! Crap..."

The volleys of point defense fired by the Scimitar dreadnoughts get out some bursts, but the Stormwrathian vessels barely have time to aim their weapons before Disruptors strike them, neutralizing their weapons.

The other Disruptor Bombs disable the rest of the main fleet, leaving a rather uncomfortable amount of time in which Excidian units mill around trying not to get shot by stuff. Several Bolts break formation to attempt to ram Nest Munitions before they strike any of the capital ships.

"Admiral, Perrault 1 and 2 are under attack. Gun pods, it looks like."

"Well, at least there aren't any external weapons to worry about. Move the fighters into formation as a shield, and power up Perrault 1's drive. We need to deal with these Sa-Matra dreadnoughts, and they are too big for most of our weapons. Also, tell the Polypontian mages to get working, make sure all weapons systems that get damaged are repaired. Prioritize the offensive weapons."

Now, Dawn Fleet's surprise kicks in. For onboard each ship is a couple dozen elf mages, trained by the Aeiouians themselves in healing and repair magic. Unnaffected by the Disruptors, these beings begin to slowly fix the two strangely non-descript ships that are being hit with Gun Pod rounds. They also focus on repairing the antiproton beam projectors and torpedo launch tubes of the capital ships, but largely neglect the point defense lasers.

Olber III Space, Near the Starbase

Fleet Commander Reznicek observes the battle from his cruiser in Squadron 1, issuing orders to the Bolt squadrons engaged in battle even as his own ship enters the final stage of a warp jump.

As the Aeiouian station exploded in what was probably an overkill, Reznicek recalled the last few fighters, their mission complete. Only a couple fighters from the 132nd Tau Squadron made it back, all the rest destroyed by Aeiouia's laser cannons.

After their docking onboard a Squadron 5 cruiser, Reznicek gave an order to man the fighters, and keep them in reserve until needed.

"Cruiser Squadrons 2 through 5, engage the last Dyson with antiship beams."

The twenty cruisers turn to begin firing on the Dyson with eight of their 10 MW laser cannons, which are pretty weak even next to the main laser of Aeiouia's Avatar. The beams target what point defense systems the Dyson still has left.]

Olber III, Surface

"Alright, we're approaching the LZ! All units, ready. Move!"

The Majestic dropships, having headed towards the main settled area of the planet, deposit some 30 troops each, 50 Excidian Guard platoons and another 100 or so elf mages. Each also drops off a Raffles-class walker, for good measure. These units break off an begin marching towards various seemingly strategic locations, possibly to take the planet as quickly as possible. A few platoons stay behind to guard the dropships as the escorting Bolts scan the skies for any Aeiouian resistance.

Oddly, none of the Excidian troops carry their usual rocket rifles... the lack of infantry in Aeiouia's army probably accounts for this. Roughly one in nine troopers carries an AE Celestia D7 energy rifle (some of the 40 million we purchased) complete with grenade launcher, but most are in pairs, and armed with a single missile launcher between the two. A few others in each platoon carry what appears to be a flamethrower to those who don't know better.

Of the Raffles, they carry the same armament used in the Simulations.

[Fylmyria]

An Aeiouian Manned Optional Procne de-cloaked behind the enemy fleet, but the colour scheme seemed different. Rather than the Aeiouian black and red, this one was cyan and black. Within the ship were 100 Fylmyrian troops, one of which was garbed in a black spacesuit. All the Fylmyrian troops had spacesuits on and 50 of them had an array of energy bombs and energy blasters. Tsukino pressed a button, coming into contact with the strange leader of Aeiouia. "Overseer, can you hear me?" he asked. The soldiers were all calm and collected, clearly not their first rodeo. One of the men looked no older than 18, but with Fylmyrians, you can never really tell.

A man approached Tsukino. He was short and stocky with a prominent jaw and a blunt nose. "Sir, there are a ****-ton of ships 'n shit out there. What are we gonna do?" Tsukino didn't bother turning to face the man. He clearly held no regard for the soldier. That was just one man. One man out of a hundred. Plus there were more back in Fylmyria, so it didn't really matter.

"Soldier, what you are going to do is sit the hell down and wait for orders, not question me. You'll know what you need to know when you need to know it and not a moment sooner. Sit down." He looked at the adversary, quickly scanning the area to try to locate the flagship. He was very much hoping that Aeiouia's leader would pop in soon.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III Orbit

"Missile Impact!.. Looks like the hit was a success! All units, focus fire on the Stormwrathian vessels first! They're the biggest threat!"

"Uh, Searing, enemy forces seem pretty intent on protecting those unidentified classes at the back of the pack. They are swarming the unmanned vessels with drones, and preventing me from having a clear shot on-...

And... It seems to be charging something. Possibly an FTL drive of some sort? Please advise, should I still change target?"

"Yeah, we gotta burn those Stormwrathi-... Wait a minute. You're right, scans do confirm that those vessels are unmanned. Aw, crap! New plan, kid! Crash into the bastards! Now! Just do it!"

"Okaaay, understood."

The Avatars attacking the strange vessels immediately change tactic. The one engaging the craft that is spooling up its drive immediately guns its engines, and hurls itself right at the unit. It uses the power from its shields to project a hard-light barrier, to be used as a cutting edge. The strike craft completely ignores the swarm of Bolts guarding the vessel, hoping to just crash through them instead.

The second Avatar also hurls itself at the other strange craft, projecting a similar barrier before the strike, and aiming for the dead center of the opposing construct.

The Bolts that decided to ram the nest munitions were surprisingly effective, as the warheads were not targetting the capital ships, but rather the squadron themselves. As a result, the few craft that that did sacrifice themselves took at a surprisingly large amount of the missiles. Though, the rest still continued to head for the remaining members of the squadron.

"I'm detectin' Psionic activity aboard their ships! Probably healin' spells! How the...?

... But, damn it! They'll probably be able to repair their weapons faster than we can burn em'!"

"Vell. Let's not destroy ze weapon systems, zen. Ve can knock zese Dummkopfs out of ze fight via other methods... Light! Get all of your Limpets to target ze Stormwrathian vessels. Begin pulling ze bastards on an escape trajectory!"

"Acknowledged, Overseer."

The thousands of small spherical drones launched by the Sa-Matra vessels seem to target the Stormwrathian ships exclusively. Using the luxury of the lack of point defenses, They immediately begin swarming the vessel's hulls and attaching to them in droves. Much like the tactics used by the Aeiouian point defenses, the projectiles seem to target only one vessel at a time.

They are joined by waves of the plasma warheads that were launched by the same parent craft. These rounds focus their fire on the Stormwrathian vessels. Prioritizing knocking out as many of their point defenses as possible to increase the time it will take for them to fire on the drones whenever they come back online.

As the drones start to pile onto the hulls of the craft to quite an excessive degree, to the point where many are even stacked on top of each other, they collectively begin firing their reactionless engines, in an attempt to begin pulling their host away from the field of battle at a rather high velocity.

The Procnes also follow suit in this attack. With many of them flying incredibly close to the hulls of the enemy ships, and attempting to cut as many weapon systems as possible right off with their unusual wing blades. Of course, this tactic is only effective against the smaller turrets.

The single Decoy Dyson seems to offer no resistance to even the incredibly weak 10MW lasers. The point defenses that are shot are easily knocked out from the heat, and the remaining ones on the hull seem to cook themselves. In fact, the entire vessel seems to begin overheating on a large scale, as its four heat exchanges begin to slowly fade from a red to a bright white as they radiate more waste energy.

Of course, even extremely out-dated Aeiouian reactors do not really melt down too catastrophically, so even this were to happen, the nearby vessels would not be in any danger.

"Just got a transmission! Our allies are joining the fight!"

"Excellent, I'll respond immediately!"

The Aeiouians waste no time responding to the allied message:

"Greetings, Tsukino! Glad zat you can make it! You arrived at a good time, ze enemy's veapon systems are currently knocked out.

While ve can't be completely sure which one of zese vessels is ze enemy flagship, ve have a strong hunch. Ve've been detecting a lot of transmissions coming from zis vone here..."

The navigation systems on the oddly-colored spacecraft suddenly receive data from the Aeiouians. Highlighting the Dawn Star with a holographic beacon of sorts.

"Zat's ze one I'd recommend hitting. Definitely looks like it's at least a leadership craft of schome sort.

I'm sending another fighter to escort you and provide medical support. You have my gratitude for helping us out in zis battle, and it is an honor to fight by your side. Good luck, friend!

Let me know if you need any more data or assistance."

One of the Procnes attacking the Stormwrathian ships seems to call of its attack, and instead heads over to fly in formation and help protect the allied craft.

Olber III, Surface

In the area where the forces landed, it had just became night-time for the planet. The planet seemed to be even more desolate on the surface than it looked from orbit. The light atmosphere of the world is just strong enough to sustain some light winds, which kick up a large amount of dust on the surface. Making visual detection quite difficult.

Although, only a few hundred meters from the landing zone, a single Aeiouian settlement seems to be present. The red glow of a nearby heat exchange would reveal its presence easily, even in the low visibility conditions.

"This is Spark. I can confirm that the enemy forces have landed. Almost all infantry."

"Oooh! Zat sounds delicious!"

"... Overseer, please do not actually kill anyone."

"Don't vorry, I won't."

"Anyway, I doubt that the enemy is going to detect my Terras for quite some time. When do you guys plan on arriving?"

"Zinc and I vill decloak and de-orbit vhenever you decide to engage."

"Got it. Enacting the first diversion."

Within this settlement, five Aeiouian units. Two Procnes, and three Peacekeepers, emerge from behind their defenses. The decoys powering their appearance seem to be extremely accurate, with reactionless drives attached to weights even being used to mimic the sound of the legs of the Peacekeepers impacting the ground.

The Peacekeepers seem to prepare for battle, and begin to face the incoming Excidium forces, lowering their forward-facing shields in preparation.

The decoy Procnes, on the other hand, seem to fly out to meet the Bolts. With the decoy missiles mimicking the fighters decloaking and firing on them with their point defenses. Using weak hard light projections to emulate the light damage from the attack.

[Excidium Planetis]

Olber III Space

"30 seconds to warp."

Fleet Commander Reznicek acknowledged the navigator's remark with a nod. He looked up at the battle screens, hoping to direct his cruisers, some the only capital ships left with operating weapons systems. What he saw instead was the Avatar strike craft charging Perrault 1 and Perrault 2. With no time to waste, he activated manual navigation and redirected the cruiser's jump course and distance.

With a blink, all five of Squadron 1's cruisers jumped, four of them arriving where directed: nearby one of the two Sa-Matra dreadnoughts. Reznicek's cruiser, however, jumped into the midst of the drone formation into one of the Avatars' path, unfortunately throwing many of them out of formation and destroying quite a few. There was no time to warn the crew to brace for impact, Reznicek simply hoped that the cruiser would survive being hit with the Avatar drone.

Perrault 2 was not so lucky to have a guardian. In fact, the Bolts protecting it moved out of the way as the Avatar rocketed past, giving it a clear shot towards the "ship".

Stormwrathian vessel number 7
"Dammit. These Procne craft are eating us alive out there. Without guns we're helpless." Lieutenant Commander Parker, Chief Weapons Specialist onboard this particular Stormwrathian vessel, said aloud.

"Here's a riddle for you," Commander Garrick Larue replied, "How do you fight with no weapons?"

"Probably the same way Fleet Commander Reznicek is fighting." Chief Tactical Officer Ashleigh Schweitzer remarked, indicating the impending collision of cruiser and Avatar craft.

"Brilliant!" Commander Larue cried. "Wait for it..."

A Berserker Procne drone swooped in for another wing slice at the hardlight cannons.

"Full turnabout now!"

The maneuvering thrusters engaged, rapidly turning the Stormwrathian vessel so that the Procne, which had been skimming alongside the ship, was now headed into the ship's side.

One of the other Stormwrathian vessels, covered in limpets, was rapidly accelerated off the battlefield.

Olber III Surface

24th Platoon was the first to sight hostiles. "3 Enemy ground units spotted, Northwest of LZ, Coordinates..."

Several missile teams set up positions, using laser targeters to designate the "Peacekeepers", before launching a salvo of 4 HEAT missiles at each of the mechs. At the same time, the two accompanying Raffles fired off some rounds from their masskill cannons.

"Bogies sighted in the air, 101st Gamma and 57th Epsilon Squadrons, engage."

16 Bolt fighters turned to pursue the attacking "Procnes", whose hardlight projectiles were dispersed and partially reflected by the Bolts' armor. The Bolts retaliated with their wing mounted laser cannons, following them up with point defense fire.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III Orbit

The Avatar targeting Perrault 2 begins firing its offensive laser and gunpods, in an attempt to deal as much damage to the unit as possible. The other Avatar engaging Perrault 1 also follows suit, and begins unloading its barrage of fire while accelerating. However, it is caught completely off-guard by the appearance of the Cruiser, and does not have a chance to stop firing and slowing down sufficiently in order to avoid damaging the manned craft.

After about two seconds of fire at the cruiser, the drone ceases its weapon barrage once it realizes that the unit that had just appeared in front of it shows obvious life signs on-board. The craft also attempts to pull out of its collision trajectory, but it lacks the proper time required to slow itself to a non-damaging speed to the cruiser. It crashes into the ship at a high velocity, with its shields taking the brunt of the impact.

However, the shields would strike the cruiser with quite a large surface area, meaning that it is possible that it could survive the hit if its own shields were also in working order. Though, it certainly would not be in good shape afterwards, and would probably be knocked backwards from the impact.

The other two Avatars in the group also begin firing their lasers at the strange vessels. With each one targeting a septate craft, and preparing for a second ramming attack from a different angle.

The Procne that impacted the side of the Stormwrathian ship was caught completely off-guard. However, the vessel does not turn quite as far as it would normally, due to the small amount of Limpets that were trying to counteract its reaction control system. Unfortunately, this small difference is not enough to properly save the Procne, and it slams into the hull of the ship. Dealing a great deal of damage to the area, but also crippling itself in the process.

The craft knocked away from this crash, and is clearly quite damaged. Being un-prepared for the direct impact, its hull is bent up very badly, and it takes a few moments for it to right itself in space. Even then, it seems to have trouble as it tries to limp back to its parent ship. Spinning randomly in the process.

Strangely, despite the effectiveness of this, the other Procnes do not seem to change tactics. After loitering around for a moment, two more also fly in for a desperate wing strike at the vessel, each from a different angle.

As soon as the rest of the fleet arrives, the two Sa-Matra vessels begin rapidly accelerating away from each other. Clearly in an attempt to spread the hostile forces out. While doing this, they still continue lobbing the steady stream of Limpets at the Stormwrathian craft, though some of their plasma warheads begin targeting the nearby vessels instead. They seem to focus on targeting the cruiser's Antiproton beams.

Olber III Surface

The two "Peacekeepers" are completely annihilated by the rocket fire. With the explosion not only taking out the decoys, but also blasting away a few of the plastic structures beside them.

The "Procnes" do not fare much better. While the wing lasers do not do much to the central decoy projection device on the units, the point defenses manage to strike the decoy missiles almost exactly, destroying them in the process.

"First wave of decoys destroyed. Preparing the next one..."

As soon as these fake units are annihilated, more seem to appear out of nowhere. With four fake Procnes heading towards the ground forces on what appears to be a bombing run. And four fake Gaia-1As seeming to speed in for a quick strike on the Raffles units as well.

Across the planet in many other plastic settlements, countless other decoy projections were being prepared. With the Aeiouians doing everything that they can to make the invaders take them as non-seriously as possible.

[Excidium Planetis]

Olber III Space

The Avatar crashes right through the weak plasma shield (which is designed only to weaken energy weapons) into Reznicek's cruiser, which unfortunately is only about 4 times the size of the Avatar. The viloent collision impacts near the hangar bay, which forces the hangar bay airlock doors inward, releasing a jet of air and small stream of cargo and Bolt craft that are sucked out into the void. A craft of the Avatar's size could easily have split the cruiser in half, but the spreading of the impact thanks to the shield merely sends the cruiser rocketing backwards toward Perrault 1.


Reznicek, recovering from the violent collision, sits up in his chair to survey the damage. Noting the current course will leave the Halberd colliding with Perrault 1, Reznicek continues to use the manual navigation controls, as the Chief Navigator seems to have blacked out in the impact. Reznicek guns the main thrusters while also using maneuvering thrusters to turn the ship away from Perrault 1, which results in a long turn that narrowly avoids hitting the other "ship".

"Weapons, get your asses up and fire on that Avatar!"

"Ugh... What the hell was that, Commander?"

"I made a rash decision. Now aim antiproton cannon at that Avatar and fire a tenth of a second!"

The small magnetic dish that funcrions as the antiproton beam's "turret" fails to swivel, having been damaged in the impact.

"Crap. Command any Psionics to repair that beam. Antiship lasers, target the Avatar."

Four of the laser turrets respond, and the 10 MW lasers begin firing at the Avatar strike craft, targering its main laser cannon.

Meanwhile, the other Avatar collides with Perrault 2 dead on, taking out the the entire middle section of the "ship" and leaving only a warp drive behind. Destroyed parts of what looks to have been a large hydrogen bomb float away.

Stormwrathian vessel 7
"Haha! Take that you bastard!" Lieutenant Commander Parker yells at the sight of the damaged Procne. "Let's ram 'em, take 'em out!"

"Negative, too many of these annoying things are on our hull, we can't steer properly." Commander Larue replies. "But... Communications, patch me through to... Um... Typhoon 9, they don't seem to have many. Beam transmission to prevent interception."

"You're through."

"Typhoon 9, this is Typhoon 7, these ships are durable enough to damage these Procnes. Of you can, ram that crippled one, and any others you see."

"Affirmative."

Typhoon 9 fires its thrusters, attempting to overtake the damaged Berserker drone. Elsewhere, the other Stormwrathian vessels who can attempt to use the same tactics to damage any Procnes that come close, but the increasing number of Limpets renders a few shipa unable to do anything but leave the battlefield.

HL-1101 Solitary Watchman
Admiral Peters looked out on the increasingly desperate space battle. With roughly half the capital ships and most of the firepower disabled, only unconventional tactics and the cruisers cpuld do anything.

"Squadrons 2-5 prepare to jump. 6-10, fire point defense at Antiship lasers at Typhoon unit."

"Sir?"

"We need to clear those Limpets off."

Olber space, roughly 21 minutes in
The 4 cruisers of Squadron 1, arriving at one of the Sa-Matras, wasted no time. Their railguns, while pretty weak, were likely enough to damage or destroy weapons, and began slowly firing off 100 kilogram iron chunks at various weapons on the Sa-Matra. The Antiship lasers and point defense followed as well.

"They are firing those plasma things!"

"Target enemy projectiles with Torpedoes. Fire Torpedo tube R1,2,3."

From each of the cruisers, three torpedoes crawled out of their launch tubes, oriented themselves to face a plasma projectile, and rocketed on an interception course.

Olber III surface
"Decoys... I knew it."

"Contacts, everywhere. There's dozens of them!"

"All units, this is Colonel Thompson speaking. Use minimum force unless the enemy unit is not destroyed. Proceed to objectives with haste."

The Excidian infantry began to fire energy rifle bursts at the attacking "Gaias", neglecting the missiles. Raffles walkers engaged any enemy with masskill rounds, while the Bolts used point defense.

All the ground units continued on towards buildings, seeking to capture them.

"Bolt Squadrons, use Lidar sweeps to confirm targets. Don't know if they'll pick up decoys or not, but they might find something hiding in the decoys."

[Aeiouia]

Olber III Orbit

The Avatar that rammed the cruiser immediately begins pulling away, being more than slightly confused by the sudden appearance of a manned ship. It does not bother to react to the incoming laser barrage, and has its single laser completely overheated and damaged as a result of the combined attack.

As the craft scurries away in preparation for another assault on the warheads, it retaliates by firing upon the cruiser's Antiproton Beam weapon with a combined attack from all of its point defenses.

The other Avatar attempting to ram Perrault 1 has to quickly re-adjust its trajectory in order to avoid accidentally hitting Reznicek's cruiser. As a result of the last-second course correction, it is not set to hit the warhead exactly dead-center anymore. Instead, it is about to strike the outer ring of the unit's FTL drive.

"Ooooh! Look at that, I was right! The thingie was packed with explosives! Hey, Forge, shoot the debris! I wanna see it go boom!"

"What?! No! Jenny, calm the heck down! The explosion from that could endanger all nearby vessels! ... Besides, shooting the warheads might not actually make them detona-"

"How many times to I have to tell you not to call me that, dumbass?!"

"..."

"Ugh, look. Just... Focus on the other one, we don't want it to hit Light, it could deal some serious damage."

The two Avatars attacking Perrault 2 immediately change course, focusing their laser and gun pod fire on Perrault 1, and beginning to accelerate in preparation for another ramming attack.

One of the Procnes in the squadron breaks off from its attack, and begins lobbing restoration missiles and Zapsat drones at the damaged vehicle of the group.

The barrage of the strange munitions manages to repair the Procne to a much more decent state, only for it to rather comically crash into the next Stormwrathian craft, effectively damaging it back to the state that it was in before. Additionally, one of the restoration missiles impacts rather close to the ship. Just barely close enough to repair the light damage caused to it by the Procne's impact, in fact.

The two "Procnes" sent on another wing strike against the Stormwrathian craft impact the hull, with the decoy missiles doing almost no damage. A few moments later, the actual Procnes decloak. This time attempting to directly ram the turrets of the opposing vessel from above, with both of their blades active instead of just one in order to mitigate the damage that they take.

Continuing their barrage against the Stormwrathian vessels, the Sa-Matra units still focus on lobbing limpets at the more intimidating ship classes.

The missiles used to intercept the plasma projectiles are surprisingly effective, and manage to stop them dead in their tracks. Although, it is at this time that the point defenses of the two warships change their focus from sniping at distant enemy fighters to firing on the cruisers right in front of them.

They each concentrate their fire, and shoot at the weapon systems of the cruisers one-at-at time, starting with the Antiproton beams, and then moving on to the railguns.

Their shields manage to take the hits from the enemy fire. But, a few of the Antiproton attacks do seem to deal quite a bit of damage to the projections. Still, the barrier seems to be holding, although losing power, for the time being.

Olber III, Surface

A large portion of the fake Gaias are destroyed by the fire, though it takes a while to destroy a few of them, on the account of the fact that the rounds were not striking their central projection devices exactly.

The LIDAR scans seem to not pick up much. After all, the hidden decoy drones were buried under the ground in order to avoid this exact form of detection. And the actual Aeiouian units lying in wait nowhere near any of the settlements, fake or otherwise.

Upon approaching the buildings, it would become obvious that the settlement in question was most definitely of the "Fake" variety. The red glow of the "Heat exchanges" seen earlier actually turned out to be radioisotope batteries attached to strings of red LEDs on wires. Something that an ancient, Earth-dwelling band of Humans would probably call "Christmas Lights".

In fact, the generators and other materials used to create the decoys do not even seem to be of Aeiouian design. Lacking any excessively over-engineered armor, and bearing the logos of corporations. It almost seems as if the machines had purchased them in bulk from a standard hardware store.

If any of the structures were fired upon, had their doors knocked in, or if any of the soldiers would fall for pressing the obvious doorbell button on their outer walls, the cheap plastic structures would implode and collapse in on themselves in an amusing manner. Using very small explosive charges to destroy a single steel support holding the plastic walls and ceiling in place.

In the case of the doorbell, they would also make a loud "Ding-dong" sound before doing so. Though, it is unlikely that the Excidium troops would be able to hear it through their enviornment suits.

"Enemy forces have reached the nearest fake settlement to the landing zone. Deploying decoys..."

"Send in vone of ze false Terras, too. Ve vant zem to get as desensitised and sloppy vith fighting zem as possible."

"Understood, Overseer."

As the Excidium troops approach, a number of additional decoy drones launch themselves out of the ground. Some take the form of Gaias, most bearing the police department design in order to better emulate units that could be found in a city.

The rest of the decoys take the form of Aeiouian citizens. With most also being Gaias (Albeit versions of the tank in civilian configurations), and others taking the form of Akug and L'Ormic individuals, who would consider the atmosphere of this planet to be habitable were they actually present.

Some of the fake citizens seem to prepare to fight the incoming troops, while others seem to run away, fleeing to the next town a few kilometers away.

At this same time, a massive Terra decoy begins driving towards the forces. Due to the utterly colossal size of the fake unit, the whole structure has to be built out of steel instead of the plastic that the Aeiouians are using on the fake structures. Due to this fact, the decoy unit might be able to take a few hits before getting annihilated.

[Excidium Planetis]

Olber II Space, Near Sa-Matra Cruiser
"Enemy point defense has completely destroyed our antiproton projector! Railgun mount is taking hits as well..."

"Railgun? Why would they fire at the spinal mount railgun? It'll take forever to disable that with point defense. Continue to fire with all available weapons, including torpedoes. Have the elven units begin repairing that antiproton projector!"

Near the Perrault Missiles (Did you successfully access the factbook info on them?)
Although the Halberd cruiser's plasma shielding causes the point defense lasers to waste energy burning off the plasma, and though the antiproton beam turret is mostly made of magnetic components that are unlikely to be affected much by laser fire, the sheer number of lasers fired at it causes it to melt into a useless piece of wreckage. Reznicek watches with horror as an Avatar barrels right towards Perrault 1's warp drive ring, his cruiser unable to stop it.

Just before impact, the unmistakable flare of an antiproton beam intercepts the Avatar, releasing what would be the equivalent of 2.2 Megatons, a 100 milligram burst of antiprotons. The beam was fired from Admiral Peter's ship Solitary Watchman, which still has about 7.9 seconds of beam firing left.

Admiral Peters then directs Cruiser Squadron 10 to begin targeting the remaining Avatar strike craft with antiproton beams, with orders to fire only tenth of a second bursts. The five cruisers select targets, and begin to fire. Meanwhile, Squadron 6 and 7 take aim at the Berserker Procne craft, making sure not to fire at any that are too close to the Stormwrathian Acunia-class Destroyers*, which continue to both be moved off the battlefield by Limpets and attempt to ram or otherwise collide with the Procnes.

Olber II Surface
OOC: Excidian troopers do not wear power armor. They wear titanium-reinforced Kevlar, which is actually rather MT of them. In this low-atmosphere environment, they are wearing what are essentially armored HAZMAT suits.

IC:
"The towns appear to be decoys, Colonel. All buildings self-destruct on contact. The enemy units all appear to be Decoys too."

"All units, cease assault and await dropship pick-up. We'll just level the towns by aerial assault."

"Colonel, civilians sighted, are you sure you want to level the towns?"

"Hmmm... Aeiouia was supposed to have evacuated these settlements. Take a Polypontian with you and fire non-lethal shots at a few civilians. If they aren't decoys, heal them. If they are, carry through previous orders."

"Affirmative." The Excidian Platoon leader takes up his energy rifle, fires a few rounds at a nearby civilian's legs, and then smiles grimly when it becomes obvious that the Aeiouian "civilians" are all decoys. The troopers hold their positions, firing at any troublesome decoys, before the Terra unit comes into the battle. As soon as it is realized that mere energy blasts are not destroying it, panic breaks out and soldiers dive for cover. Several missiles are hastily fired at the Terra, and the Raffles finally fire their ion cannons, which frankly the Excidians don't actually know the effect of.

The Majestic dropships swoop in just in time, swiftly loading the troopers and psionics aboard, before firing a few parting shots with their hardlight turrets. Bolt squadrons circle the airspace above, waiting to deliver the final strike to the shanty towns below.

*Stormwrath finally remembered the name. It is actually only 60-ish kilometers long.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III

"Ze ground forces are starting to wise up and are gaining land fast. Light, ve need you to jump to Zinc's location to start ze next phase of the operation."

"Orders received, ma'am. Spooling up drives..."

The two Sa-Matra class ships immediately cease all activities, and become motionless. They begin charging their void drives in preparation to enter the somewhat FTL-like transit system that the Aeiouians use. Of course, due to the strange nature of these technologies, no visual fanfare signals the fact that they are beginning this process. Save for the fact that they suddenly stop firing their weapons.

After being hit by the Antiproton strike, the Avatar seems to survive on the account of its now-depleted shields. However, it is still noticeably damaged by the attack, and is knocked off course even further. Only one of its wings impacts the strange vessel, crashing into the side of the warp drive's ring, breaking off the missile pod at the end of its own wing in the process.

The other Avatars, upon realizing that the opposing forces are beginning to target strike craft, immediately cloak. With the Procnes following suit soon after. However, one of the other bombers currently in a ramming run is struck and heavily damaged by one of the Antiproton attacks before this can happen, causing it to be heavily damaged.

Since the bizarre and dangerous vessel was probably not sufficiently damaged from the previous attack, the damaged Avatar begins a complete suicidal attack. It accelerates towards Perrault 1 even faster than the others did, and begins firing its laser as well as all of its gun pods and point defenses at the construct. With its shield knocked out from the Antiproton strike, it is unlikely to survive the direct hit with the enemy craft.

Being unable to cloak due to battle damage, and with its armor already crippled, the fire from Squadron 6 and 7 completely annihilates the one damaged Procne. The others scatter after cloaking, and start to head back to their parent vessels.

Olber III, Surface

After taking a surprising number of hits, the Terra decoy finally goes down. With the "Town's" fake structures being about as durable as Styrofoam, the fire from the Bolt squadron mows them down quite easily and quickly. The other decoys do not fare much better, and most are easily annihilated.

"Zat Terra decoy vasn't loaded vith anything, right?"

"Negative."

"Good, send vone of ze filled ones towards ze town. Have it try to pester and get ze attention of ze Bolt craft."

"Got it!"

Suddenly, another identical Terra decoy activates itself, driving forward and emerging from a hill in the process. It immediately begins heading towards the center of the mass of Bolt fighters. Oddly, this one actually seems to fire upon the enemy aircraft, using a hard light beam similar to the one used earlier by the Procne decoys.

"Zinc, decloak as soon as Light arrives. Begin de-orbit procedures now..."

[Excidium Planetis]

Olber III Space
As soon as the Avatar clips the ring of Perrault 1, an alarm rings throughout the Excidian ships: "Warning! Allied Warp Drive Destabilized!"

"F***." Reznicek curses, hitting the thrusters to get as far from Perrault 1 as possible. At the same time, several dozen Bolts latch on to the missile's Warp ring and begin accelerating it away from the fleet. After a few second, the Warp ring disentegrates in a spectacular fashion. All energy in the nearby area is sucked in by a negative energy vacuum, causing the Perrault missile to implode. This actually detonates the nuclear device at the center as well, but luckily the blast is almost entirely absorbed. A few high velocity bits of negative matter shoot out in all directions before slowing down and rapidly gaining mass as the Higgs Field around them normalizes. The only remains of the missiles and about 40 Bolts is an unusually dense cloud of cosmic dust. All in, not as bad as some Warp Drive destructions go.

As soon as the Avatar and Berserker drones vanish, Admiral Peters orders all scout ships to sweep the area with LIDAR. Again, because we can't have too much low level radiation in space. Orders are issued to fire Antiproton beams at anything matching the signature of an Avatar or Berserker craft. And of course, that one that destroyed the Warp Drive gets fired at doubly by Peter's ship.

The four ships attacking the Sa-Matra continue to fire lasers and railgun slugs, using this lull in the firing to repair their antiproton beams.

Olber III, Surface
"Roger that, Colonel. All friendlies have been airlofted out."

"Good. Call back all but one of the Bolts, level the town."

The Bolt swarm departs, escorting the dropships, except one. Ignoring the ineffective hardlight attacks, this Bolt swoops in, before revealing the missiles hidden inside its wings. Firing off two of the 20 kiloton nuclear weapons, the Bolt directed the missiles on the course most likely to destroy the most of the town, if not all of it. At the other "settlements" around this section of the planet, other Bolts did the same.

[Aeiouia]

Olber III Space

"Yay! Finally one of them exploded, and not on onea' our ships, too! Pretty..."

"Oh for f***'s sake, Overseer. Someone could have died in that blast."

"Yeah... You're right... Sorry..."

The Avatar that crashed into Perrault 1 is struck with the Antiproton attack and is is destroyed. Obviously, the one that was going in for the suicide attack was utterly annihilated by the collapse of the Warp ring, as well.

While the drones scattered in completely random directions in order to better avoid detection, the LIDAR does actually pick up one of the strike craft, a Procne, which is soon hit by an Antiproton blast. The attack knocks out its shields, and deals a good amount of damage to its hull.

Being unable to re-engage its cloak, the craft launches all ten of its Nest missiles, with the warheads headed straight for Squadrons 6 and 7. The fighter also engages its point defenses and fires upon the nearest Antiproton weapons to it at this exact same time.

Just as the shields on the Sa-Matra vessels begin to falter against the enemy fire, and their hulls start taking hits, the ships suddenly and abruptly just disappear. As they warp into the strange and bizarre FTL system that the Aeiouians designed.

"This is Light. The jump was successful. Proceeding to target location."

"Zinc, now! Decloak and activate!"

*BEEP* "All units, ze final part of ze operation is a go! Engage ze enemy now!"

The Aeiouians pull one final trick out of their hats. From the perspective of an outsider, right after the Sa-Matras seemingly ceased to exist, the world of Olber III is suddenly enveloped in a shield similar to the one projected by the station that was destroyed earlier.

On the side of the planet opposite the station that was destroyed earlier, a modern Sovereign-Class Shield Generator and a single Dyson-Class suddenly become visible. With the Dyson doing so quite climatically, with it beginning to experience re-entry effects as it enters the planet's atmosphere.

Only a few moments after this, the two Sa-Matras would re-appear, right next to the new station. Since vessels using the Void drive do not travel through normal space, the two capital ships had no problem flying straight "through" the planet in order to reach their destination.

When they drop out of the void, the two craft are very close to each other and the station. Mainly to avoid being detected by the Excidium forces on the opposite side of the planet for as long as possible. Although, the sudden appearance of another shield is an obvious give away that something is up.

A few seconds after all of the vessels get into position, a second shield seems to envelope them as well. In a stark contrast from the somewhat sickening red glow of the planetary shield, this one is a bright blue. On its surface, it is dotted by what appear to be archaic runes of some sort, indicating that it is most likely Psionic in nature.

Olber III, Surface

"Enemy forces are ignoring the decoy, Overseer."

"Well, okay. Blow it up on your own, zen!"

Meanwhile, in a decent-sized explosion, the Terra decoy below the squadrons of Bolts is blasted into pieces by its own volition. However, from the debris flying away from the blast, something seems out of place. Specifically, a swarm of Nest Missiles, which fly upwards and target the Bolt aircraft above. The dropships are completely ignored for the time being.

Of course, since even a strong breeze would threaten the stability of the fake settlements, they are practically completely vaporized by the Bolt's nuclear weapons. Each one manages to utterly annihilate a single town without any trouble whatsoever.

As the fake Terra meets its demise, however, the night sky above the planet suddenly brightens up very slightly with a red glow as the shield generator de-cloaks and activates. At this same time, massive atmospheric disturbances are detected above the area, with a Dyson-Class decloaking to reveal itself right above the main section of the Excidium forces.

Thanks to the vessel's incredibly light weight, combined with its rather overpowered engines, it has no problem staying aloft in the world's atmosphere, right below the shield. As soon as it is revealed, it begins firing on the Bolts, concentrating all of its point defenses in bursts against single targets. Starting with the craft equipped with the thermonuclear warheads.

As soon as it begins its barrage, it is joined by the two Sa-Matra vessels. Which begin firing their Limpet and Plasma weapons through the shield, with tiny sections of the projection opening up just long enough for the projectiles to pass through.

The Plasma warheads go after the Bolts. Though, in-atmosphere, their power and effectiveness is reduced substantially, meaning that they might not be as lethal as that would normally be in-vacuum. In fact, at this rate, they would be nearly as ineffective as almost all other Aeiouian weapons.

The Limpets, however, seem to exclusively target the dropships, most likely in an attempt to force them to stay aloft in the atmosphere without landing or entering orbit. Since the dropships have a much lower amount of mass than the usual warships that they are used against, it would not take many to completely control one.

At this point, the two remaining decoy Terras emerge and begin heading to the location of the bulk of the Excidium forces. Only one of them, however, is filled with a payload of missiles.

The real Terras also follow suit and begin moving. Since their cloaking systems are comically ineffective when they are in motion, they simply dis-engage them and begin heading towards the battlefield, firing on the Bolts in coordination with the Dyson overhead as they do so. They are followed by their Procne escorts, which stay cloaked and waiting for enemy fighters to target them.