Three Square Meals Ch. 078

"Alright, time to see what the Gauss Cannons can do," Calara said, sharing a smile with the purple sprite.

Splitting her fire between the three cruisers, Calara opened up with the Gauss Cannon batteries that were built into the underbelly of the Invictus. Magnetic coils accelerated shells along ten-metre barrels, the Gauss Cannons trembling as they fired their opening barrage. Each shell casing was forged using Maliri crystal, which was much harder than the steel alloy protecting the Drakkar ships, allowing the rounds to easily penetrate the cruisers' tough hides. Piercing through the black armour plating, sensors in the shells detected the difference in resistance the microsecond that the ordnance plunged into the hull beneath. Each shell then detonated, the explosive force designed to radiate outwards, rather than forwards into the ship beneath.

The black-armoured surface of the three cruisers seemed to ripple unhealthily with those blasts, bubbling outwards with each point of impact. The precisely-shaped detonations tore thirty-metre holes in the protective plating and Calara continued to rake the Drakkar hulls with Gauss Cannon shells, firing a new salvo every five seconds. The kinetic rounds battered the ships with a ceaseless deadly rhythm, the sounds like a giant's hammer to the terrified Drakkar within. By the time the three cruisers had left her fire arcs, their hulls were a tattered patchwork, broad sections entirely denuded of armour, with the unarmoured hull lying exposed beneath.

Seeing the black armour torn to ribbons, the Ashanath cruisers fell upon their Drakkar tormentors, firing back now that they were vulnerable. The four remaining silver discs sent searing red beams into their tattered enemies, melting through decks with impunity and scything deep into the unprotected hulls. One by one the three Drakkar cruisers were carved into glowing chunks, ripped to pieces by the Ashanath as they avenged their fallen comrades.

***

With his mind still engaged with the telepathic firing interface, Tactical Officer Pallari's voice sounded distant as he informed his fellow officers, *That is the last of the Drakkar cruiser wing destroyed.*

*Very good,* Leader Linnaeus said with no small degree of relief. His vessel had been on the verge of destruction when JohnBlake had intervened to save them. Glancing at his Engineering Officer, he added, *Damage status, Batiri?*

*Our shields are back up to thirteen percent,* Engineer Batiri stated tersely.

*What of the hull breaches?* Leader Linnaeus inquired. *Have we resealed the ruptured disc sections?*

Batiri blinked rapidly as she replied, *We have force fields in place to maintain atmospheric pressure in sections twenty-seven through to twenty-nine.*

*Do we continue to hold position?* Navigator Cadimus asked, his voice trembling with fear. *We cannot survive another volley like that!*

*We have no choice, we must defend Ashana,* Leader Linnaeus stated, trying to sound brave and confident.

However, Linnaeus knew just how precarious their situation was. He had not yet informed them of the tragedy that had befallen the High Council, but he had felt the sharp stab of pain as their thought cluster was torn from the telepathic command web. That network was now rife with fear, the sense of terror at the scale of the impending disaster growing with every Captain's death.

***

Grand Overlord Vekrok coughed as he picked himself up off the floor, the Bridge thick with smoke. Peering out into the gloom, he saw more of his crew staggering upright, the red emergency lighting casting a blood-red pall over the scene of devastation. Flames flickered from wrecked, shorted-out consoles, casting cavorting shadows over the terrible scenes of carnage.

Spotting Grukig's armoured form on the ground, Vekrok lurched over to him, hauling him up by the arm. "Get up you lazy bastard!" he roared in the dazed Drakkar's lime-green face.

Grukig's bulging eyes struggled to focus for a moment but a cuff to the head quickly brought him around to the brutal reality of his perilous situation. "What happened?!" he yelped, fanged jaw quivering in fear.

"Those little podhumpers cut the Defiler to pieces, that's what fucking happened!" Vekrok raged, gnashing his rows of teeth together in fury. He squinted at the flickering map that was still focused on the Legacy, the image showing that the remaining two-thirds of that highlighted ship still had power. Eyes narrowing with vicious cunning, Vekrok bellowed, "Get every last man aboard the dropships! We're going after those fuckers!"

Grukig tottered briefly, grabbing hold of the Command Table to steady himself. He shot a worried glance at his commander and squawked, "You want to board them?! Shouldn't we assist in the battle?"

Vekrok's eyes gleamed with a burning hunger as he growled, "Fuck everyone else; this is much more important! Before I devour the delicious runts commanding that ship, I'm going to wring out all their secrets! Just imagine what I could do with weapons like that! I'd be worshipped as a god; the whole galaxy would be my feasting table!"

Whirling around, he strode towards the exit, leaving Grukig to stare at him in shock.

***

As soon as Dana was in range of the remaining four cruisers, she activated the Valkyrie's battle mode. The mech's four limbs unlocked from their fixed position in flight-mode, while the quad mounted Photon Lasers tilted forward to point over the Valkyrie's white-armoured shoulders. Instead of flying head first towards the enemy ships, the mech was now upright, which greatly improved her dodging capabilities and meant she could bring the mech's arm mounted cannon to bear. Her speed was reduced, but with the Drakkar turning to fight before they were systematically butchered, that wasn't as important now.

The Drakkar cruisers were all focused on the Raptor for the moment, turning in frantic circles as they tried to keep the uncannily nimble gunship within their fire-arcs. Avoiding all four at once was an impossible task and occasionally the Drakkar managed to fire off a brisk salvo of purple beams at the dancing Raptor. Their shots sailed wide though, leaving them oblivious to the fact that Jade's ship was immune to their laser weapons.

Pulling an impossibly tight Immelmann that had the G-Force meter screeching in protest, Jade laid into the closest cruiser with bursts from her Photon Lasers. She missed with the last two shots as she pushed the nose further forward to dip under her furious attacker, but she wasn't too worried. As she looped around the cruiser, the auto-tracking turrets plastered the large ship with Pulse Cannon fire, causing the shields to wink out and setting it up for her eager companion to finish off.

Dana flipped the weapon grouping over to mech-mode and her two crosshairs changed, no longer depicting the port and starboard pair of Photon Lasers. Now the left reticle represented all of the quad-mounted laser guns, while her right was assigned to the huge rotary cannon that was clutched in the Valkyrie's huge hand. She centred the left crosshair on an as-yet unscathed Drakkar cruiser, impatiently pulling the trigger to get the shot out the way. The fearsomely strong pulsed beams knocked out the cruiser's shields, with her subsequent shots blasting through the armour and causing havoc with the ship's internals.

The redhead gave the cruiser a cursory glance as it drifted away, the reeling ship left juddering after she chopped a large chunk out of the lower-middle section of the hull. One of her shots had burned out the power relays, leaving the cruiser without any power. However, she was more interested in test-firing the gun strapped to her right arm and she repositioned the crosshair to put it squarely over the shield-less Drakkar vessel that Jade had kindly set up for her.

Her sky-blue eyes sparkled with excitement as she carefully aimed her shot, holding her breath as she gently squeezed the trigger. The Valkyrie trembled as the Punisher Gatling Cannon opened up, the six magnetic rails spinning in a blur as a stream of slugs were hyper-accelerated towards the Drakkar cruiser. Not only was the cannon ten times bigger than the Punisher railguns they used for squad-based support weapons, she'd been able to push even more power into it from the Progenitor Power Core. With the six barrels greatly reducing the heat build-up per individual rail, the weapon was able to hit even harder, without causing critical levels of overheating.

The slugs chewed through the Drakkar ship like a buzzsaw, each round boring five-metre-wide holes straight through the hull. She ventilated the cruiser with a gleeful cross-stitching across its flank, squeezing off fifty rounds during the couple of seconds she held down the trigger. By blind luck, one of the slugs skewered the Bridge and explosive decompression did the rest.

Jade grinned at her when she saw the look of pure delight on Dana's face and said, "I don't think I need to ask if you're pleased with the Punisher Gatling..."

Dana laughed as she replied, "The Singularity Driver might be more powerful, but this beast is by far the coolest gun I've ever made!"

The Nymph laughed along with her, enjoying seeing her friend look so happy.

***

Irillith had already fallen into a trance by the time the Invictus reached hacking range, her mind soaring through the Invictus' gateway as she stormed the furthest of the three remaining battleships from Vekrok's retinue. The Drakkar's cyber-security was laughable to someone of her ability and she slipped through their firewall in six seconds, granting her unrestricted access to their internal cyber-realm. Grinning to herself, she began sweeping through their dank, grubby network, effortlessly seizing control of one primary subsystem after another. By the time she locked out their Bridge ten seconds later, she owned the entire ship.

Cycling through the internal cameras within the battleship, she chuckled to herself as she watched the Drakkar boss and his crew on the bridge. It had started to dawn on them that they'd lost control of all the ship's systems and she could see the fear on their faces as they desperately tried to break through her complete lockdown of the huge warship. Moving on to check the rest of the vessel took the blink of an eye in the Cyber-realm, but one image from the scores of footage she was flicking through made her freeze.

The ship's complement of Drakkar marines were eating while waiting for the invasion and what they were having for dinner made her blood run cold. On the feasting table was an Ashanath carcass, with several more picked clean and discarded on the floor in a tangle of bloody bones. Past the feasting room she could see a refrigerated pantry of some kind, with scores more dead Greys hung up by their heels on meathooks. From the twisted looks of agony on their normally impassive faces, it was clear they'd still been alive when impaled.

Irillith felt a wave of revulsion at the horrible sight, but that quickly turned into a seething spark of fury. She began opening internal doors throughout every section of the battleship, with confused Drakkar staring at them curiously as the bulky portals clanked up into the ceiling. When she opened all the airlocks a moment later, the Drakkar's looks of confusion were quickly replaced by stark terror as thousands of the malevolent aliens were sucked out into space. Irillith watched with satisfaction as she avenged the Ashanath those monsters had butchered, then brought the battleship about to train its guns on its former comrades.

The Invictus started firing its Beam Lasers at the closest of the three remaining battleships, just as Irillith used her newly-acquired Drakkar vessel to strike the same target. Blue and purple beams flayed the battleship's shields from fore and aft, quickly overwhelming them in that combined onslaught.

The Maliri hacker saved her missile-racks for the second battleship and launched an immense swarm of missiles towards the unsuspecting vessel at point-blank range. With no time to react, let alone activate their point-defence, every single missile struck home. The warheads erupted as they ploughed into the stern of the backstabbed battleship, in what appeared to be an unmatched act of treachery to all other combatants viewing the fight. The sheer destruction wreaked by scores of missiles striking the ship was appalling in its ferocity, leaving all the engines destroyed and the rear-fifth of the Drakkar ship utterly ruined. Miraculously, the vessel still had power and was able to turn, but only by using retro-thrusters.

Alyssa brought the Invictus around in a gentle arc and they now pointed directly at the first battleship's port flank. Calara had been preparing to take her next shot the moment this target's shields went down, her twin crosshairs evenly spaced along the centreline of the Drakkar hull. She stabbed both thumbs down on the buttons atop her weapon controls and the forty-metre-long howitzers on the Invictus' topdeck lurched backwards with the recoil as they fired.

There were six huge turrets on the Invictus' topdeck, with each mounting two of the enormous Heavy cannons. All of those massive guns contributed to that pitiless barrage and a dozen massive shells left long plumes behind them as they thundered towards their target, all striking simultaneously across the length of the exposed battleship. The Drakkar vessel was smashed backwards by the sheer force of that salvo, twelve gigantic craters stitched along its length and mutilating the entire port flank.

"What happened to aiming for the Power Core?" John asked, his eyebrow raised as he glanced at the brunette.

Calara grinned at him as she replied, "Just trying to get a feel for the Heavy Cannons. A live fire exercise against hostile ships is very different to a weapon test on asteroids."

Alyssa snorted with laughter and said, "Yeah, right! You just wanted to have some fun shooting them up!"

The Latina blushed but didn't bother attempting to deny the blonde's claim. Instead, she aimed her Beam Lasers at the sundered battleship, getting ready to gut them like a fish.

Tashana had watched the escalating battle in stunned silence, finally seeing the crew in action as they revealed the ridiculous levels of firepower at their disposal. She knew they were remarkable people, but to see them effectively neutralise six battleships in under a minute left her reeling. Tearing her eyes from the map, she glanced around the Combat Bridge, her eyes temporarily alighting on her sister, who sat serenely at her station as she gleefully abused her battleship puppet. She glanced up at John and blushed when she realised he'd been watching her gaping in wonder at the girls.

"Impressive, aren't they?" he said with a proud smile.

Tashana could only nod in awe, not trusting herself to speak.

***

*Ularean, wake up!* Councillor Lirrash urged him, her frantic voice finally penetrating his befuddled subconscious.

He slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying crumpled against a wall, the cold black floor chilling his face where he lay in a heap. As he tried to sit up, he felt shooting pain in his head, leaving him feeling dizzy and nauseated. Trying to focus, he was suddenly aware that his face felt sticky and when he reached up a grey-skinned hand to wipe away whatever it was, he found his fingers covered with dark-red blood. Ularean always was squeamish and he felt his face grow even colder, a rushing sound in his ears as the room began to spin.

*It is alright, you are not critically injured,* Lirrash continued, her tone soothing now as she placed a hand on his arm.

Ularean didn't attempt to rise again but his eyes swept the room to check on the rest of the High Council. He spotted others lying on the floor being attended to by their colleagues and with his voice rising in panic, he managed to ask, *What happened? Did all our brethren survive?!*

*The Legacy was struck by Drakkar Torpedoes. There have been moderate injuries to High Council members as the result of the catastrophic damage sustained to our vessel,* she replied, turning her head to gaze at the other robed forms that lay sprawled on the floor.

Councillor Rathus glided over to join them and was distraught as he exclaimed, *Ularean! It's been destroyed!*

With Lirrash's help Ularean gingerly sat upright and said, *Is the damage to the Legacy that severe?*

Rathus quivered, his face a mask of sorrow as he replied, *The section in which we stand survives, but the Quantum Flux Cannon... it was lost to the Drakkar's torpedo assault.*

Ularean blinked in shock. To think that a weapon forged in antiquity, which had been carefully preserved by his people for thousands of years was now destroyed - it was too ghastly to comprehend.

Councillor Talari's distressed cry pierced all their thoughts as he shouted, *More Drakkar vessels have been detected! They have jumped-in away from the battlefield and do not appear to be attempting to rejoin their colleagues!*

*Calm yourself,* Ularean murmured, doing his best to soothe his friend despite his thumping headache. *Where are these other vessels headed if not the battle?*

*They are raiding Ashana!* Talari blurted out, his words shot through with fear.

Ularean felt that same sense of dread and paused a moment, before responding urgently, *What of the reserves? Can they defend against this assault? If not, we must disengage other vessels from combat to assist...*

*The reserves have been moved to intercept, but they will not be sufficient to stop the Drakkar. As to the rest of our forces, they are all pinned down in close-quarter engagements. Attempting to withdraw at this stage would be suicide,* Talari explained, his thoughts racing.

*Our only hope lies with JohnBlake,* Ularean said decisively. *We must contact him and plead for his help to protect Ashana from disaster!*

***

Grand Overlord Vekrok stormed into the dreadnought's huge hangar and felt a surge of relief that it had survived the Ashanath's devastating attacks. However, lighting flickered overhead and the sound of distant explosions echoed throughout the hangar, competing with the muffled shriek of tortured superstructure giving way. The call to arms had been sounded throughout the Defiler and the vast room was filled with the raucous din of thousands of elite troops, who were being packed into boarding craft of all shapes and sizes.

His personal ship, the black armour-clad ship called "The Breaker" took pride of place in the centre of the Hangar, surrounded by the biggest and nastiest of the boarding ships docked in the Defiler. Much larger than a regular dropship, it could carry more troops, and had a few extra tricks up its sleeve that made it a terror in any boarding action. The strange hunchbacked design gave it an ungainly and cumbersome appearance, but with all the engines and retro-thrusters built into it, the Breaker was a surprisingly fast ship.

The rear loading ramp was lowered on the Breaker and he could see scores of his bodyguard marching aboard, their black power-armoured boots ringing loudly against the metallic decking. Clomping up the boarding ramp, his men wisely gave him plenty of room to pass as he lurched into the ship. His quartermaster saluted him with a clenched fist, then gave Vekrok a toothy grin as he beckoned him over to the nearby weapon racks.

"I've picked the best for you, Mighty Vekrok!" Krohag declared, two of the Quartermaster's four armoured hands spread wide in invitation. The other two hands pointed to four melee weapons that glinted with a dark lustre. "Activation switch is at the base of the handle, just like the Dark One warned us."

Vekrok grinned despite all the setbacks he'd endured that day, grabbing the pair of jagged swords and sheathing them on his back. He picked up one of the pair of maces next, hefting it to gauge its weight before taking a few experimental swings. "This is perfect," he grunted. "I can't wait to cave in some skulls with this!"