The battle stance alarms woke Rear Admiral Lewis out of a deep sleep; jerking up, Lewis’ eyes quite literally lit up as his command implants activated, text scrolling across his line of vision. The voice of the Daedalus’ AI, Icarus, spoke quietly through his cochlear implant.

“A ship bearing Seraph drive signatures has been sighted on sensor, Rear Admiral.”

‘So it begins.’

Rolling out of his bunk, Lewis slid back into his shoes and affixed his cap, before rushing out of his cabin. At least the crews would be well-rested. The fleet had been running AR drills at station, but with plenty of R&R in between; the construction crews on the lunar surface, working on defense stations, were on strict shift-loads, to keep them from overworking. It’d likely be too much a risk to bring up the currently working teams. They would simply have to hunker down and wait.

The command bridge was tense, its crew settled at their battlestations and typing furiously. Few words were spoken; data was passed station to station; implant to implant. Lewis’ command implant interfaced with C&C as he sat in his chair, AR screens popping up as he pulled on his goggles, feeding his suite the collected data.

A monitoring station had spotted the craft, seconds before it was annihilated with a volley of plasma-type weapons by a cruiser-style Seraph craft, built in the style of the Lander that had attacked Equus. Other stations in system Legrange points reported the craft on a deceleration into the system- on a course towards the wormhole.

‘Of course.’

“Maneuver the fleet to face the cruiser. All heavies are to fire once the target is at maximum range. Have the CAG load strike craft with anti-capital munition and deploy to engage on my command.”

Furthermore, Lewis sent orders for four of the escort frigates to move into formation around the portal. This was a new kind of Seraph vessel- he did not like unknown variables. With a flock of his fingers over the AR screen, he ordered the remaining Albions into a loose claw formation, and the heavier capitals into a tight X in line with the portal. Once in position, they would lock down into fortress mode- EM shields would activate, and their modular armor systems would shift to cover the various weak points in their designs. They couldn’t move quickly in this formation, but their overlapping shields should protect one another. He glanced back at the scopes.

The Seraph craft had not changed trajectory; it was within the Daedalus’ own scanners now- power was building along spine and aft. A weapon? The signatures vaguely similar to their own Heidallman drives, but…

“All Albions, move into torpedo range and fire at maximum yield.”

‘Need to see how this thing moves.’

At the first battle, the Lander had seemed bulky and slow in comparison to its reinforcement corvettes, which had been armed with smaller versions of the lance weaponry the Lander had been using. This craft outsized those corvettes by several margins, but if they all used the same kinds of weapons… heh, what he wouldn’t give for one to mount on a battleship. Lewis stared down at the frigates as they powered into position, their formation mathematically perfect, thanks to their onboard AI. Hopefully those AI would be just as precise with their fire.

The Albions had been five hundred kilometers out- knife fighting range when talking about railguns or laser batteries. That had rapidly increased in the ten minutes since the order- Albions were speedy little Terran machines, and ate up distance for breakfast. They were closing on the craft, but it had not altered course, and the power kept growing. Like the pit in Lewis’ stomach. Johannes’ hand settled on Lewis’ shoulder.

“Admiral…”

“I know. Captain, you-”

The moment the Albion’s torpedos left their mother ships, the Seraph ship seemed to wink out of existence for several seconds- and reappeared two kilometers away from the Daedalus and its formation. Lewis’ heart seized. A wave of plasma blasted from the fore of the cruiser- Lewis focused on the scans of the vessel, trusting the captains to engage now.

‘The power surge must have been its charging a tactical jump,’ he thought with a subvocal growl, though physically keeping his face passive, ‘That’s insane. Even our AI’s can’t jump us in that close.’

The expanding wall of hot gaseous matter detonated the first reflexive torpedo barrage from the capital ships, then washed over the line. The Daedalus’ EM field barely fluxed- but its alarms flared regardless. Lewis’ vision was quickly brought up to the screen as three Europe’s reported failing shields, their older EM emitters frying from the sudden strain. Still closing with the line at full speed, and barely balking at two mass driver hits from the Daedalus, four plasma lances launched from the vessel and struck each unshielded cruiser and burning across the EM shields of an Endeavor battleship, the Ceres’ Pride. The star-hot material punched through two of the vessels, fore to aft; they flexed and glowed from the inside, and began to drift. Dead.

The third lance struck its cruiser midship and cut it cleanly in half. Escape pods began to quickly flow from the forward ventral hull, but everything aft was an inferno. Lewis grit his teeth; the lance had been absorbed by the Ceres’ Pride, who had quickly returned fire, though only at a partial charge. The cruiser soaked it up, its own mobile shield flickering, as it punched through the line. Aft torpedoes were launched- and promptly obliterated by a another, if smaller plasma pulse, fired in advance.

The Admiral switched over to the CAG’s screen- the strike craft were starting their run. SF-1’s, they were Belter strike fighters from the Unification period- old but sturdy, with multiple missile pods and a torpedo launcher when fitted for anti-capital work. Lewis had pushed for their inclusion- now he’d see if that was a mistake or not. He tapped into their comms.

“No PD, Command, just that plasma wave.”

“Stay away from its fore or aft, watch your fire- tight formation.”

“All flights, primary targets are the engines- watch for overlap from the caps.”

Lewis blinked. ‘No point defense weapons?’

“They’re launching ships!”

Lewis frowned and waved the SF sensor screens to the forefront- four corvettes had seemingly appeared from under the cruiser- long, thin craft brimming with energy. Two fighters winked out as the ships launched forward in a cloud of plasma- they had the same kind of wide-wave emitters then.

“Fox three, fox two!”

The torpedo slammed midships of one corvette, while its follow-up missile was burned away from a plasma wave- and the craft detonated like a nuke. The firing fighter winked out of existence. Lewis’ eyes went wide and he moved to radio the CAG-

“All flights, those are suicide craft- new primary target, leave the cap to the caps.”

‘Good man.’

The admiral switched back to a tactical view of the battlespace- in time to see the cruiser fire again, four lances bisecting the defending frigates. Three reactors took direct hits and went critical at once, the force blasting armor and debris off into the portal’s aperture. The fourth spiraled away in dead pieces, its escape shuttle blasting away after a tense moment and rocketing towards the moon for safety.

“Fire!”

Captain Johannes had stepped up to his command console, hands gripped tightly to his chair arms as he stared at the ship screen.

“Full power to the auto-loader and let ‘em have it!”

Both boring lasers from the Endeavors were on target now, joined by the laser batteries on seven Europe-class cruisers- two had malfunctioned and were stuck in fortress mode, power shunted away from engines and only able to slowly turn on RCS thrusters. The mostly invisible lasers were causing the cruiser’s shields to flare and flex- a lance snapped out, punching through the Pride’s hanger and several half-decks, but she kept firing.

The massive depleted uranium shells of the carrier’s mass driver punched clean through the cruiser’s weakening shields and into its spine, plasma venting in pockets on the dorsal surface. The next laser blasts had no shield at all to dissipate their energy, and melted through the vessel’s engine, practically cutting the module free of the ship. Eight torpedoes, ripple-fired from the Terran battleships, zipped under its fore emitter array and impacted- four forward armor-piercing rounds to cut open the ship, and four high explosive warheads behind that to detonate inside. Fire rippled up the craft’s body, pieces blasting free from the force of the detonations. The port of the craft glowed a bright white, a lance arching out to splatter against the Ceres’ Pride- before the entire cruiser detonated in a wave of plasma energy and surviving debris.

“Fox 2!”

“Watch that wave!”

The released corvettes were fast, and almost constantly firing behind them to ward off the fighters and their missiles. One had taken an indirect hit, leaking fire, but its shields were now entirely down, all power seemingly routed to the engines. A boring laser from the other Endeavor, Titania, glanced a juking corvette, which began to spin and break apart. The other two pulled up sharply, inexplicably breaking apart as well. And then Lewis’ saw it.

The Daedalus’ sensors lit up like the sun as they detecting the dozens, the hundreds of small spheres that launched into the portal, magnetically sticking to the swirling masses of debris. Nuclear signatures, each sphere bearing several megatons of nuclear fire. Nuclear mines now infested the fleet's only way home, and the only protection Equus really had. Lewis slowly leaned back in his seat, unable to help from paling.

‘Fuck.’

Author's Notes:

A smaller chapter, but important! I apologize for the time gap- we're working on a /big/ chapter.