Chapter 181: Cold Engagements

Chapter 181: Cold Engagements

USD: Eighteen hours after Jump point battle

Location: 92 Pegasi, SR Destroyer Squadron, SR02

Alpha Yalof remained in his command seat, observing the colored blips on SR02s tactical screen. Over the months of his command of the ship, he had found little reason to leave the captains chair. His lower body had slowly merged with the seat until it was impossible for him to move if he had wanted to. The organic parts of his body were sometimes a hinderance, requiring expensive amounts of his limited computation capacity to maintain.

He had pared down as much as was possible until only the flesh required for maintaining his neural pathways remained; everything else was directly interfaced into the ships systems. Other specialized members of his crew had done the same; melding with whatever specific system they were assigned to operate.

The only crew members who were still mobile were the damage control and security units. They were no less integrated into the ships control network, however. Despite his rank as Captain, they were all Alpha units, with limited capacity. The ships computers had been expanded and upgraded to allow all of them to enjoy less strained computational bottlenecking, but Yalof disliked listening to the whispers of his fellow crews thoughts.

They were much too tortured.

Unfortunately, the circumstances did not allow for that. The destroyer squadron under his command was controlled by GAIs, so it was left to him to direct their movements. They had outpaced the rest of the elements of the fleet; given an early order to avoid the first battle in 92 Pegasi and chase after the fleeing Corporate ships.

Yalofs few remaining motor control units twinged slightly as he thought of the now fleeing Corporate ships. He could even feel a small thread of sympathy for the commander, who had just witnessed a much larger and more formidable fleet than his be wiped from existence by Starlight Revolutions grand battle station that more and more resembled what most would consider the pinnacle of IS class warships.

The group of lighter destroyers he chased had fled before the fleets arrival; no doubt warned by the fleeing ships from Nu Crateris. His mission would not have been as dire, except for the fact that their escape path crossed into a close orbit of the sun, bringing the force closer to Planet Ackman and the operations there.

A yellow dot representing Ackman Station orbited the systems singular frozen planet. Thousands of confused dots predicted possible civilian vessels, mining operations, or even potential ambush locations by hostile warships. Until they were closer, the sensors would not be able to discern more clearly.

There were too many variables for Yalof to consider in extensive detail, and in any event, his orders from his creator were clear: Chase down those destroyers and destroy them. Dont allow them to attack Ackman Station.

He had replayed Psi Abbeys command in his mind repeatedly, like a mantra. The ships in his squadron were a hodgepodge of different units and some had been forced to overdrive to over 200% Linear Drive output for the entire chase. Maximum Military Power levels were hard on the ships systems and yellow maintenance and overdrive warnings had slowly begun to populate his HUD, but he left those to the ships engineers to worry about.

They had closed the distance rapidly, cutting in towards the sun as fast as possible to bring their orbit inside of the Corpo detachment and prevent them from slowing down to intercept the station.

None of the enemy ships were Inner Systems class, but the numbers werent exactly in his groups favor. They were decidedly outnumbered in hull count, although the Corporate ships were not as well equipped as the Starlight Revolution destroyers, except for a few of the oldest ones like SR02. It made for complicated tactical equations. Even the requested assessment assistance to Psi Abbey had only been able to determine that the most likely outcome would be both groups crippling each other.

Reinforcements had not been offered or allowed, despite the numerous available units after the jump point battle concluded. His processing dedicated to strategic planning told him that this was a mistake, a waste of resources. They could strengthen his detachment and intercept the Corpos at another point with more force and enforce a surrender or destroy them with little loss.

And yet, his request had been denied. It was as if his mission was a challengeor that the losses were somehow desired.

USD: One day after Jump Point Battle

Smoke filled the CIC compartment, blocking Yalofs view of his screen. He disabled his eye units to save the processing capabilities for other tasks. His soft-brain tissue has begun to degrade as he pushed more and more complex calculations onto it to make up for a lack of capacity.

Laser communication had become impossible as both squadrons entered laser range, and stealth had been abandoned in favor of using encrypted high-band communications to synchronize and coordinate his ships efforts.

The ship had taken a single laser hit at the beginning of the combat, but it had been a heavy blow that had severed multiple ship systems, including their entire port side PDC-K control feed. That had been part of the reason he had decided to deploy refractive chaff immediately, but in hindsight, it would have been better to utilize the heavy lasers of his high revision destroyers on the way in.

That had not happened, instead two volleys of missiles had traversed the space between the ships as they closed. PDC-Ls struggled to cut down the numbers, and ships disappeared in angry blazes.

For some reason, no enemy ship had targeted SR02, and Yalof realized they might have thought his ship was disabled. He plunged the ship into darkness and cut power to thrusters, leaving the ship in a slight spin.

Forty ships had desperately clawed each other until there were only twenty, then ten, five on each side as they finally reached railgun range.

None of his higher-revision destroyers had survived, and the remaining vessels were inadequately armed for the railgun exchange. The trajectory of both squadrons took the ships past each other in just seconds, but that was enough for the deadly bolts to lash out and score deadly hits on both sides.

All the remaining ships of Yalofs squadron blinked out, destroyed or disabled. The Corporate ships took several hits but four survived.

But they had made one fatal mistake.

SR02s main thruster flared to life, burning hard against its course to keep the range close for as long as possible. The moment just before it left railgun range, its two railguns fired at the rear of the closest two enemy ships. They spun in a dead cartwheel almost immediately.

Lasers lashed out from SR02 at nearly the same time while the enemy ships desperately swung their weapon systems around to target the new threat. Chaff clouds had dispersed enough for laser energy to dig into hulls with a vengeance. The three remaining ships fired PDC-Ks filling space with hostile clouds of bullets that mostly dinged off ineffectively, but no chance to spit back hate at the enemy was wasted by either side.

Yalofs seat harness held him in place while damage control units were flung into bulkheads as the ship bucked a nearby missile explosion. Their own missile magazines had run dry, firing at the highest ROF possible. Control lines to weapons were momentarily severed, before units literally bridged the gap with their own bodies, integrating themselves into the ship to maintain critical system functions.

One enemy destroyers fusion core ruptured then ignited its stores before ejecting, causing the ship to explode abruptly, its outer hull bulging into a balloon before rupturing and spilling energetic fire and gas from its front and rear.

The remaining Corpo ship continued to slash at SR02 with its laser, hacking at it like it was a stubborn piece of meat. Calibration errors had rendered accurate fire impossible, and Yalof coldly processed the data in an attempt to strike their last foe down.

Both ships lost control at the same time. Their few remaining weapons continued to fire well beyond maximum range as the ships drifted away from each other before finally stopping and ending the engagement.

A dozen distress signals blared out into 92 Pegasi, begging rescue and assistance from both sides as humans and AI units did their best to preserve their ships functions and restore systems back to operation.

Yalof counted his crew. Half of them had perished. Their own distress signal began to blip as their damaged communication suite hummed back to life, although he questioned whether their superiors would come for them.