Continued from the mess in the previous post:
General Lishtima looked nervously at his data pad. He had observed the nanite swarms for years and had found that they always seemed to path to the nearest occupied system, in an attempt to purge the galaxy as efficiently as possible. Over the last year the Luuvisk had made terrible sacrifices to take advantage of this fact. Several valuable systems had been abandonded. Their science and mining stations destroyed, and their outposts scuttled. This was done to carve empty corridors through Luuvisk space to guide the incoming nanite swarms to the desired direction, as there were no good choke points in nearby space, and fleets were ariving from three directions. He had even ordered the destruction of the mighty Irriamun defense station, this massive station was one of the most powerful ever build, but it was in a location that would have compromised his strategy.
Constructors had been send out to claim a number of systems at great influence cost to further guide the enemy ships, but Lishtima did not know if they had been succesful. All he could do was wait.
Suddenly the alarms sounded, a fleet was dropping out of warp at the system's edge.
It was not the nanite swarm, but a small fleet of first generation corvettes that had been recalled from pirate patrol duty on the far side of the empire. These ships were over 65 years old, and had never seen an upgrade since. They would not make a noteworthy difference in the total fleet power that had been gathered here. Still general Lishtima opened comms and greeted them as equals. In this final hour, all would stand together.
The massive base orbiting the central star was the core asset of the allied fleet in the Shard's Nest system. It packed 14k of raw power, and was even larger than the decommissioned Irriamun base. The three orbiting fleets together had a similar calculated value. Lishrima had 28K under his command but still felt completely unprepared.
He and everyone else in the fleet knew that three fleets of 31k were approaching.
The nanite swarm warped into Shard's Nest. This particular fleet was responsible for the destruction of both the Tarvarite empire and the Huvidi-Zaan, once the largest empire on this side of the galaxy. In addition it had, over the last few years, reduced the core worlds of the Cithin empire to nanite dust.
The mothership quickly and methodically identified the targets in this system; a large base and several fleets of mismatched ships. Like it had done countless times before, it calculated optimal trajectories and then fired it's weapons: massive swarms of missiles and other nanite ammunition.
The projectiles tore through the vacuum towards the Luuvisk fleet; At the last moment the local dust cloud was lit up by the fire of hundreds of point defense beams. The void filled with massive explosions that obscured the battlefield from view, the radiation oversaturating even high tech sensors. All was silent.
the mothership was almost ready to set course to the next system, expecting the enemy fleet to be torn to bits. Then a small ship emerged from the clouds of hellfire. A tiny corvette armed with first generation lasers that limped towards the Tempest fleet. The mothership calculated new weapon trajectories, it was displeased that it would need to spend more energy on this. Then, suddenly, a rag-tag fleet of ships, a mix of corvettes and destroyers with some cruisers and a single battleship emerged from the radio-active dust.
These ships were flown by pilots from at least 22 different races, all refugees from the destruction that the Grey Tempest had wrought. Born in different parts of the galaxy they were united in the hardship they had faced. All had fled from worlds ravaged by nanite fire and all had everything taken away from them.
Today was their one chance to fight back. The Nanite swarm once more fired it's powerfull weapons. Again in response point defense fire lit up the void. A few ships were struck by terrible beams of concentrated energy, but the rest continued. The tiny but fast corvettes were the first to reach the agressors, and their weapons started tearing up the nanite hulls. When the cruisers joined the battle the enemy ships were suprisingly quick to fail. The mothership lasted the longest, but it too went down in a massive explosion.
This one battle might have changed the fate of the galaxy. The allied fleet had not only won against the odds, but it had done so with minimal losses. Only 3 destroyers, 7 corvettes and one cruiser were missing. 55 ships remained. The allied fleet of refugees now had a fighting chance against the other two fleets that were fast approaching. That though, would only be the start.