What War Had Wrought (Rise of the Empire Book 7) Read online

  He had debated with Anessa about sending a couple of skim missiles at it, but it never gave them a clear shot, and Adrian wasn’t about to waste a skim missile just to test that ship. Thankfully, only one of the ships had come with the Erasi force, which was a small blessing if that ship was as powerful as Adrian suspected.

  Shara Daim forces moved into the protective envelope of the defenses and waited for the Erasi. Like before, the Erasi sent rocks at the defenses, but this time Anessa’s ships and defense stations started taking them down with pinpoint accuracy. Adrian had scattered enough stealth drones around the area that they could triangulate the speed and trajectories of the rocks. The Erasi would need to come into the range if they wanted to take that point.

  And they did. A mass of Erasi ships entered the range and started firing missiles, just as the Shara Daim did the same. The Erasi outnumbered the defenses and could put out more missiles, but the advantage of the defense stations and platforms was enough that they were near equal, both taking small losses, but nothing that would break the defense. That is, until a large group of Erasi ships, almost five fleets, among which was the Erasi flagship, started moving forward, while the rest of the Erasi ships adjusted their formation to cover their advance.

  The advancing fleets entered energy weapon range and started firing against the defenders. Then a new beam of energy entered the battle. The Erasi super battleships in the formation started firing weapons that pierced right through the Shara Daim’s shields. The Erasi flagship fired a ridiculous number of particle beams and their shield-piercing beams that soon enough the defense stations started losing their combat effectiveness. Several stations blew up, and the Shara Daim ships started taking losses.

  Adrian received a message from Anessa, and immediately ordered half of his fleet into a skim. Three minutes later, they dropped out above the Erasi formation. His drones and cruisers pelted the space with explosive rounds, forcing the Erasi to evade, and in doing so decreasing the effectiveness of their point defense. Ion and Enforcer missiles followed, as volley after volley of missiles launched from his ships.

  The Erasi ships faltered, and with their cover of the advancing fleets nearly gone, the Shara Daim managed to counterattack and force them to slow their advance. Then the Erasi flagship moved into the front, and Adrian saw a chance. He immediately gave orders, and from across the system, five skim nuclear missiles engaged their thrusters and then disappeared into a skim, only to appear several minutes later a mere kilometer away from the Erasi flagship. The missiles covered that distance in a blink of an eye, and a moment later, the space that the Erasi flagship had occupied was engulfed in nuclear fire.

  Then as the fire cleared, Adrian watched in amazement and dismay as the Erasi flagship continued moving forward, its shields clearly visible for a second after the blasts before they became invisible again. The ship had survived, and it was undamaged. Emboldened, the Erasi ships surge forward, smashing the rest of the defenses and forcing the Shara Daim Legions to retreat. Adrian’s fleets did the same, moving out of the range of the Erasi as they demolished the remaining defenses and took control of yet another part of the Kaleras system.

  ***

  Anessa grimaced as she saw the Erasi flagship survive Adrian’s attack. She didn’t know of anything else that they had in their arsenal that could do more damage. And the fact that the ship hadn’t even lost its shields bothered her. As her Legions retreated towards another defense point, she looked over the reports. She had suffered many losses; almost half of her Legions had suffered light damage, and she had lost almost two Legions’ worth of warships. The Erasi, on the other hand, had somehow managed to lose far less, even with Adrian’s fleets ambushing them. She glared at the holo. There were still points in the system that the Erasi hadn’t taken. She was sure that they would take all other points before they turned their eyes towards the system’s main planet. They wanted to surround her, to attack from all sides and destroy her against the planet.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  December; Year 58 of the Empire — Kaleras

  Garash grinned savagely as yet another Shara Daim warship exploded under the onslaught of his devastator. He would’ve given everything to see the expression on the faces of the Shara Daim’s Kar Daim and the Empire’s Lord Sentinel once they had seen the End of Hope weather their attack. It appeared that the Empire still had some of their advanced weapons; however, the fact that they had used it only now meant that they must have a limited supply. In any case, he had already implemented safeguards to minimize their potential damage. Those weapons would not be as effective as they had been before.

  As the last of the Shara Daim defenses exploded, Garash started issuing more orders, sending several fleets to follow the retreating Shara Daim and harry them as they ran. So far, the invasion was going well; not as easy as he had anticipated, but then, he hadn’t yet committed all of his forces to an attack. He was testing their defenses, devising tactics. He was old, and he had learned over his lifetime that to defeat an enemy, you needed to know them. To understand how they would react to different situations, how far you could push them before they broke.

  These initial skirmishes were him getting to know his enemy. There were only a few more areas in the system under Shara Daim control, and once those were his, their last stand would begin. And he would break them.

  ***

  Adrian watched coldly as one of his dreadnoughts succumbed under the Erasi attacks. Several missiles broke through its shields and energy beams opened its hull, but still the dreadnought fought, refusing to die. The metal melted and parted under the Erasi energy beams, and finally an internal explosion broke the ship apart. So far, Adrian had few losses compared to Anessa and her Legions, who had been taking the brunt of the Erasi attacks. Adrian’s fleets had served as a fast and mobile attack force, skimming across the system to strike where they were needed and to change the flow of small battles and overcome the Erasi.

  But the Erasi commander had grown smart, and his tactics had changed to prevent him from doing much damage. After the first few times Adrian had caught the Erasi ships at an disadvantage, he had started sending larger forces, augmented with more super battleships. Adrian ordered retreat as the Shara Daim force was overwhelmed despite his fleet’s help. The flow of battle was changing, and he could feel it. The Erasi had started anticipating Anessa’s moves, and she was taking too many casualties.

  Adrian had lost many ships as well; not whole fleets, but he had lost a majority of his drones, which made the bulk of his forces, and without them, his other ships were more vulnerable. And he was spending his special weapons fast. He had used another three of his skim missiles, as he’d felt the opportunities had been too good to pass up, leaving him down to five. Now after he had used them, he was starting to wonder if maybe the Erasi commander had wanted him to use them. The opportunities were too good. He was goaded into spending his best weapons, and the Erasi had sacrificed little in the grand scheme. The Erasi commander was excellent, and no matter how many scenarios Adrian ran through his mind, he couldn’t see a way to victory.

  The Erasi now controlled all of the system’s trans-points, with only one area under Shara Daim control. Anessa had started pulling her forces behind the largest defenses in the system, waiting for the Erasi to come and attack. Adrian ordered his ships to skim to the outskirts of the system, as was the plan Anessa and he had developed. His fleets would add little stationed behind the defenses, so he would attempt to strike at them from behind, taking shots as opportunities presented themselves.

  He still had one trump card. Besides five skim missiles, he had around three hundred skim-capable missile pods. They wouldn’t be nearly as effective against ships that had their shields active, but they could still be a threat to the Erasi, and one they didn’t know about. Adrian looked over the holo as the Erasi formed several formations and started advancing at Shara Daim positions. By moving behind those defenses, Anessa had cut off her means of escape. The Era
si surrounded them now; there wouldn’t be an escape for them, not for the ships without skim drives.

  He knew why she’d done that. The Erasi needed this system in order to move quickly through Shara Daim territory. They could split their force and send it through trans-lanes to attack several systems at once; they had the numbers. If Anessa had abandoned this system, she wouldn’t have had enough Legions to defend them all. If she stopped the Erasi here, if she crippled their fleet enough that their advance was slowed down by lack of ships, then she could win. Her shipyards were building Legions as fast as they could. Eventually, she would be able to throw them out of her territory, especially with the Empire’s help.

  There was a still small chance of victory, a chance that the Erasi would make a mistake that would allow Anessa and Adrian to retaliate and win. But either way, this battle would be costly on both sides.

  ***

  The Erasi assault began with kinetic attacks against the fixed defenses. Anessa watched as the Empire’s stealth drones transmitted the locations of the rocks, and the defense stations and defense platforms—both Shara Daim and Empire—fired beams of energy to take them down. Several Erasi formations closed to missile range, sending thousands of missiles towards her defenses, and her Legions responded with their own.

  The Legions and the defenses seemed to be getting the better of the exchanges, except that each time an Erasi ship lost shields, they retreated behind the lines and new ones took their place, while the damaged ships moved to the back of the formation so that Erasi repair ships could repair them. So while her forces were inflicting more damage, they were taking more losses. She didn’t have enough forces to rotate them around; all were required to hold the Erasi.

  With no other choice, she gave orders for several of her formations to leave the protection of the defenses and enter energy range. Legion ships fought and died as they prevented the Erasi ships from retreating, adding their firepower to the defense platforms and stations to destroy them utterly. Quickly, the Erasi shifted formation again, forcing her ships back behind the defenses. The Legions were battered, but they had succeeded; the Erasi had been momentarily pushed back. Anessa saw one of the Erasi formations push too far towards her defenses, leaving their support ships and the small taskforce defending them too far from any other Erasi formation. She opened a channel to Adrian’s ship.

  ***

  Half of Adrian’s remaining fleets dropped out of the skim as close to the Erasi support ships and the forces protecting them. Immediately, they opened fire. Short-range ion beams burned through the Erasi ships’ shields, taking them down and allowing for plasma torpedoes to burn through their hulls. The Erasi force protecting the support ships attempted to shield them, but they were caught off guard, and were outnumbered.

  Adrian’s warships quickly dispatched them, and started a retreat while firing several volleys towards the Erasi back lines, hopefully disrupting them enough to give more breathing room to Anessa. A few Erasi fleets moved to intercept his fleets, but he knew that his skim drives would recharge before they would catch up.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Kaleras

  Garash studied the battle map. His fleets were making progress taking down fixed defenses, but the Shara Daim had also destroyed many of his ships—too many. Attacking a heavily defended point was always extremely hard, but the Shara Daim were too effective. And Garash couldn’t let this battle continue while his forces suffered this rate of losses. He formed a new formation with his most advanced ships, four of the ten fleets that had been equipped with weapons capable of passing through shields, and he put the End of Hope at the formation’s point.

  Slowly, they moved out of the protective coverage of the rest of the fleets on a course for the Shara Daim defenses. Once the Shara Daim figured out what he was doing, the fire shifted towards his devastator, which shrugged off all of their attacks. The devastator’s shields were near impossible to take down, and even if they somehow managed such a task, Garash doubted that the Shara Daim or the Empire had something capable of punching through his ship’s hull.

  His ships started firing their beams, completely ignoring the Shara Daim shields. Defense stations and platforms exploded, and the Shara Daim were forced to pull more ships from the other sides of their perimeter to attempt to stop him. It wouldn’t matter in the end, Garash ordered his ships forward, increasing the pressure, with his devastator leading the push.

  ***

  Adrian watched as the Erasi flagship started pummeling Anessa’s defenses. She was trying to stop it by pouring more fire into it, even going as far as to pull ships from other sides to help. Yet the flagship didn’t even slow, its shields illuminated from the constant attacks but showing no sign of going down.

  Adrian saw another chance to take a shot at the large warship. By pulling in front without the cover of the superior numbers, it had made itself vulnerable to his attack. Adrian accessed his c-board and started giving out orders, forming a taskforce to attack the flagship, as well as sending coordinates to the missile pods he had placed outside of the system. The Erasi forces were divided into several formations that surrounded Anessa’s position, but there was actually room between them, direct lines of sight where his pods could skim through.

  As soon as he finished crafting the orders, he sent the instructions to the pods to go to skim. Adrian sent a message to Anessa, telling her what to expect, and then he waited for his pods to arrive.

  ***

  One hundred of the Empire’s missile pods exited their skim between the Erasi flagship and the rest of its formation. The sudden appearance and launches from the pods disrupted the Erasi ships’ fire and formation as they maneuvered to get into better positions to take down the incredible number of missiles. Their maneuvering isolated the Erasi flagship, and once another fifty pods came out of their skims, it had only its own point defense to protect it.

  The Erasi warship’s response was immediate and devastating; nearly a fifth of the missile pods were destroyed before they could launch even a single missile, and the missiles that were launched started dying at an incredible rate. But despite that, there were just too many for it to stop them all alone. Ion missiles delivered their powerful shield draining charges at the bottom side of the ship, the Shara Daim taking the opportunity to increase their rate of fire as well and pound its front.

  The shields were wavering, but still held, until five skim missiles appeared and slammed into the shields at the exact same. A hole appeared as the Erasi ship’s shields collapsed in that section, just as several new arrivals exited the skim. Five hundred of the Empire’s drones, followed by five battleships and three dreadnoughts, left the skim close enough to the Erasi flagship that they could fire all of their weapons.

  Proton beams and plasma torpedoes left the Empire’s battleships and dreadnoughts before the Erasi flagship could even react. Weapons fire bathed the flagship’s hull—and did nothing. The Erasi warship retaliated, its energy weapons swathing drones as fast as it could retarget, as the drones fired their kinetic shells and lasers at the flagship’s hull.

  Powerful shield-piercing beams of energy exited the Erasi warship, targeting two of the Empire’s dreadnoughts, and instead of bypassing their shields, the beams were dissipated across the surface of the Empire’s warships, doing almost no damage. All of the Empire’s warships in the taskforce had their shimmering fields active to counter the Erasi shield-bypassing beams.

  The dreadnoughts targeted their k-turrets, firing their kinetic ship killers at the Erasi warship’s hull. Nine kinetic shells slammed into the Erasi ship’s hull at nearly forty percent the speed of light, transferring all of that kinetic energy into it. The hull held. But indentations appeared at impact points and small cracks splintered across the hull. Emboldened, the Empire’s ships kept firing, but the Erasi warship rolled, forcing them to move with it. Its weapons pummeled the Empire’s ships, and two battleships exploded as their shimmering fields failed and the Erasi energy weapons cut th
eir hulls open.

  The rest of the Erasi formation finally fought through the pods’ missiles and the Shara Daim fire, and came to aid their flagship, forcing the Empire’s ships to retreat towards the Shara Daim defense line. A single dreadnought kept with the Erasi roll, keeping up with the barrage of plasma torpedoes and proton beams, firing their k-turrets as soon as they could be recharged. The damage seemed to be increasing, but it was only by a miniscule amount. Then the shields of the Erasi warship flared and the area was covered by the shields again. The dreadnought kept pouring fire into the Erasi warship, but with its shields back up, it was doing nothing. The Erasi warships overwhelmed the dreadnought’s defenses and destroyed it.

  The Erasi flagship then rejoined the formation and they continued their advance on the Shara Daim defenses.

  ***

  Adrian watched as his attack against the Erasi flagship failed. His taskforce had been mangled and he had lost almost all of the five hundred drones he had sent, as well as three battleships and one dreadnought. He didn’t consider the attack a complete failure; they had learned that the ship’s shields could be taken down, only now he no longer had any skim missiles and was down to one hundred and fifty pods. But the most frightening thing he had learned was about the flagship’s hull. He had looked over the scans, and judging by the effectiveness of his weapons, he figured out what that hull was made of.

  It was highly compressed matter, something that the Empire had been experimenting on, only on a smaller scale. The factor of compression that the Empire used was small, but this…this was something on another level. The Empire had projects attempting to do exactly what the Erasi had done, but even a small piece of highly compressed matter took a long time and a lot of resources to be made.

  That hull was almost immune to anything that either his or Anessa’s ships could throw at it. If he’d had more skim missiles, or if he could get a large force of his dreadnoughts to fire their k-turrets at a single spot, they might be able to take it down. However, the Erasi flagship was never too far out of position, and after this attack, it wouldn’t expose itself again.