"For us, the storm has passed. But let's not forget the brave souls who had weathered the storm for our sake, those who have travelled into the void, never to return. Let's not forget those who fell on the bloody battlefields of planetside campaigns, their bodies lost to the chaos of warfare, nor those who met their end in the expanses of interstellar space, lost to the void amidst the wreckage of their ships.
"As we carve into stone the names, and into our hearts, the memories, of our loved ones whom we shall never see again, they have carved, in turn, our support, our love, for them, into their hearts. Entrusting them with our lives, our work, our plans, as much as they entrust to us now their unfinished, unrealized plans, dreams, for the future, and perhaps, their lives.
"The question now remains. Are we worthy of their sacrifice, or not?"
—Anonymous
The Abyssals. Well, what else could we name them? A threat that arose from the abyss, ravaging first through the seas of our homeworld, before following, haunting us like our shadows, throughout our first forays into the void of interstellar space, clashing throughout the final frontier.
They first emerged from the depths of the seas of our homeworld in 2020.
The brewing storm grew slowly. Ships disappeared in the expanses of the open ocean, missing, as if they were never there. Search parties sent to find their whereabouts never came back, swallowed whole, by the oceans, as if they never existed. Navies were placed on high alert, the world's countries fearing the worst out of their regional rivals; that war was imminent. Militaries around the world mobilized, the Eastern and Western blocs fearing that the other was the culprit, and that sooner or later, the world would erupt into war.
It did.
They came from the abyss, the very depths of the sea. The ocean would glow crimson wherever these creatures were present and a strange phenomenon would happen, warping and corrupting the environment around them. And then their wrath would come, directed at any hapless sailor at sea. We fought back, of course, but alas…there was only so much we can do against their overwhelming might. Their cannons, while hopelessly outranged by our own, smash through our ships like butter. Their fighters, while individually outmatched, outgunned, and outfought in any way imaginable by our modern aircraft, came in numbers barely fathomable even in the days of the wars long past. Their ships scramble sensors and radar alike, merely by existing. Capable of taking half the blast of a Tomahawk or Harpoon, and making it disappear.
We fought back with everything we could. But their might was just too great. It was impossible to defend our ports. It was impossible to fight off their invasions. Their ships and their warriors would come in numbers that would overwhelm and crush anything the world threw at them. We lost many of our cities. Many of our countries. Our militaries were routed, shattered. Our economies broken, ruined.
But they weren't without casualties themselves. Our navies, and our militaries, were no pushovers, either. Every engagement cost them, dearly. They suffered losses too...
Weapons were innovated, technology was developed. Warships and weapons of war were mass-produced, designed to give our navies a fighting chance. Amongst them, an extremely questionable artefact was recovered from the enemy, and then activated. It gave rise to a new weapon, a new type of vessel that could help turn the tides of war.
The Abyssals called them the Returned. The Germans grouped them together under the lofty title of Marinewaffe. The Japanese knew of them as…
Kantai Shōjo.
Prologue: Funeral for a Princess
Fleetgirls, the Japanese called them. The returned spirits of ships sunken in battle, given physical form.
They were an asset like no other, capable of fighting toe-to-toe with the Abyssals. While their weapons weren't as advanced, the sheer volume of firepower they could put out was enough to make up for it, and more. And as time went by, they would prove themselves capable of learning, and evolving, and growing stronger.
They were not perfect. As strong as they were, they had their limitations. Their physical forms were not without consequence. They could be tired, wounded, and killed. Their physical forms had their weaknesses too. Water could damage their systems. The cold of the deep, their undoing. They were not unkillable.
But ultimately, they were the exact thing the world needed at the time. They were the hope the world was lacking, in the face of this great and terrible evil.
The tide began to turn, slowly. The ships, and the fleetgirls, began to grow in number, and began to take the initiative, beginning to counterattack. Slowly, we pushed them back, retaking some of our lost territory, retaking the seas. They would retaliate. The enemy would send their own fleetgirls out. The battles grew even larger. Even bloodier. We fought equally harder. Fierce, grinding attrition, as the world battled in the hopes of survival.
We fought, and we died, and we won. We pushed them back. We took back our cities, and our countries, and the seas, and the skies. We drove them back into the deep, and the abyss.
But, alas...the fighting never stopped. It was merely delayed.
We rebuilt, licked our wounds. Countries and governments rose and fell, in the face of the aftermath. We learned. We developed.
Years turned into decades. We began to become optimistic, reaching out towards the stars, hoping to expand and grow, and maybe, just maybe, begin anew.
Alas...we were naive.
They came for us once again.
And the fighting started, once again...
July 17th, 2420, 0718HRS Coordinated Universal Time
Roseport, Sorelia IV system, fourth orbit
Renhai-class heavy cruiser SSV Princess Dou Wan
The heavy cruiser shuddered as mass driver rounds smashed into her thick frontal armoring courtesy of the enemy directly ahead of the main battleline, an Abyssal Kii-class heavy cruiser that was pounding the Alliance lines with heavy, standoff-range firepower with it's twin bow mass drivers. The 650m-long heavy cruiser shuddered again, her bow guns firing to answer the deed alongside the rest of the ships in her detachment, a deluge of shells well over a meter across in diameter at quite close to the speed of light spat across the void as humanity's answer to those who dared to awaken the sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, as Captain Stephen T. Hackett, Senior, mused to himself, what little humanity could afford to bring to bear was…underwhelming, to say the least, in the face of the enemy. Abyssal fire smashed and crashed apart two light cruisers, three frigates, and a destroyer in exchange for a pair of enemy destroyers dismantled forcibly and unwillingly, even as the Princess rocked, her main battery firing to propel a volley of two 110cm rounds downrange at roughly .858 of the speed of light, a pair of 550-ton shield-and-armor-piercing, kinetic-induced-nuclear-fusion rounds visible in the void only as a pair of golden tracers from the plasma 'sheath' that the magneto-plasma coils generated, part of the firing cycle. They flattened themselves against the Kii-class Princess Dou Wan was targeting, flashing, rippling against the shields, to little effect…
"Breaches across multiple decks on our forward portside superstructure!" the damage control officer stated the obvious as reports began to filter back, entire chunks of ship turning red on the displays indicating the status of the ship, the interior of the CIC a total mess as officers shouted out reports over neural uplinks and executed orders, the rumble of the cruiser's secondary armaments firing away at the enemy forming a perfect BGM against the desperate rearguard action that they were fighting. "Bow shields down until further notice, rerouting aux generators and other sectors over to compensate."
"More holes than I'd like," he mused dryly. "Our starboard side was trashed already."
The tactical officer cut him off as something on his display turned red, blinked for a moment, before staying that way. "Admiral Yang designates battleship Ru-173 as a priority target, single out and destroy at any cost."
Hackett glanced at the display, now a sea of two blue and red lines, the former larger than the latter by a factor of three but having blips wink off it at three times the rate of the red ones. "Slave the FC to the battlenet. Be on watchout for enemy missile strikes, I see a detachment trying to flank us. Reduce acceleration to speed 2-7-0-0, fall back into the fleet's ranks, we're far ahead enough now to risk being singled out as a priority target."
"As they will target us," Verdant, the ship's XO, nodded dryly, running a hand through her light blue hair before taking a quick glance at the battle beyond the panoramic viewscreen. "Slaving FC to the battlenet…accounting for dispersion factor…coordinating with fleet FC…we're locked. Bracketing volleys…"
Dou Wan shuddered as her bow 110cm guns discharged their 550-ton payloads at the enemy yet again, their target, a battleship that had strayed too far of the main battleline and was now an easy target to engage and destroy at will. Ru-173, at least as it was marked on Alliance battlenet displays, began a sharp turn to port as soon as it detected the salvo, only to stop mid-way as a spread of Mark 40 torpedoes screamed into way directly in it's path, forcing it to stay the course, lest it eat corrosive payloads to the face, and be destroyed. No less than forty rounds smashed into the shields as a result, the fleet's combined sensor and optics suites overcoming it's jamming, accounting for it's most likely maneuvers in the face of such a threat, aligning the ships as such to fire accordingly, in effect, covering all of one's bases.
1,100m long from bow to stern, the battleship SSV Fusō dealt in the next blows with a pair of 1,100t shells at .861 of c, the ship's 180cm guns firing their deadly payloads across the void to smash into the enemy battleship's weakened shields as the fleet reloaded in preparation for another salvo. Basalt missiles, stored in pods of thirty-two missiles each, launched themselves out of their tubes, the broadsides of the Alliance ships disappearing virtually in columns and walls of flame and missile trails from the sheer amount of munitions fired, quite literally. Space almost in an instant became more metal than void; and the instant afterwards, fire. Thousands of missiles left their tubes and screamed for the battleship amidst storms of defensive missile and gun based AA fire, explosions blossoming against the void as missile met missile, the Abyssals firing their own volleys of guided ordnance as defense against the inbound swarm before they could even get in range of the CIWS and autocannon emplacements they mounted on their broadsides.
Return fire laced out as the battleship—it's main guns rendered useless due to it's sideways position relative to the Alliance ranks—instead opened fire with it's broadside autocannon batteries, hundreds upon hundreds of low-caliber rounds being spat out at rates that would give Bofors AG's handiwork a good run for their money. The Alliance ranks broke and scattered as ships swerved left and right to avoid the rounds that could tear them apart in massed, concentrated salvoes, burning their maneuvering thrusters hard to bring themselves back in line and let their main guns rip once again…
"Coordinating with fleet FC—locked, we're dead on. Weapons Control, mount 1-1-0 batteries release!"
"Mount 1-1-0 batteries shooting!"
The skies lit up with volleys of tracers at near-lightspeed, metal spat out of the barrels screaming downrange at the Abyssal battleship, hell bent on ending it's life once and for all. The battleship turned again, trying to bring it's powerful main battery to bear on the Alliance ships, but alas, to no avail. The fleet's combined sensors overcame it's jamming, bracketed the solutions all over the place, as before, and accounted for every single maneuver the battleship could make, before letting the rounds fly. Fifty-four rounds smashed against the shields and popped them open like a balloon before another twenty found home against the armor, smashing through meters of plating, smashing open compartments to space, and starting fires that spread as fast as if they had hit diesel. The battleship shuddered, rounds tearing through it's outer hull and into the innards, before Fusō fired again, sending a pair of 180cm shells into the midst of the battle damage. Two MAC shells, hollow-point-shredder this time around, and not SAP-KNF, careened into the ship's interior before breaking apart, splintering as they made their way inwards to shred apart hull, armor, crew, and anything else unlucky enough to be in the way of the shot.
"Target destroyed!" the report came as the battleship fell, engines falling silent from battle damage to leave the vessel a drifted, mangled mess, the CIC crew mentally fistpumping for a moment as the fleet resumed their duels with their Abyssal counterparts, MAC rounds lighting up the void, sent one way, to answer the mass driver shells being sent the opposite. Three heavy cruisers went down in trails of fires as their engines flickered and died, enemy fire getting to their fuel lines and very nearly caused annihilation reactor breaches on all three ships, but they also did manage to claim their quarry and drag it down with them. A Chi-class heavy cruiser, mangled from repeated impacts from all three ships, winked off the display, it's antimatter storage ruptured causing it to disappear into a brilliant explosion of matter on antimatter…
"Contact, contact positive! Three enemy contacts, Ri-class frigates! They went dark and coasted round the battlefield before lighting us up—holy sh*t—Vampire, Vampire, Nova! Nuclear material detected, we have nukes inbound on us!"
"Evasive maneuvers! Point-defenses batteries free!" Hackett barked, but the FC director was already well on it. "All Basalts, take track 17-C, pods free! I say again, pods free! Phalanx guns batteries free, I say again, Phalanx guns batteries free!"
Princess Dou Wan's broadside disappeared in a haze of fiery missile exhaust as virtually all of her surviving Basalt missile pods took their tracks, flooding the void with metal and flames as huge, cigar-shaped darts launched themselves against those of the enemy, using their soon-to-end service lives as kamikazes to take down the Abyssal munitions down with them before they could obliterate the damaged Alliance cruiser, blossoms of explosions in the distance marking where missile struck missile, thinning out the cloud significantly enough that the point-defenses could handle them now.
Bofors AG's handiwork sprang to life, their 40cm/L60 autocannons turning in seconds to engage the missiles, lighting them up with a hailstorm of 40cm gravi-metric pulse shells at the staggering rate of two shells to the second. The skies almost immediately lit up with flakbursts as the shells found their marks and detonated, dozens upon dozens of missiles getting shredded apart within seconds to the autocannons, the twin turrets laying downrange a constant stream of fire that would make the void a death-trap for any attacker. A steady stream of explosions trickled from the outside towards the inside as missiles fell, each one closer to their target than the previous, even as the Phalanx point-defense guns swiveled around to engage their targets once they were within range, the triple turrets all finding a target each before letting loose with 40mm GMP rounds at some 9,000 rounds a minute combined per turret.
Chaos ensured; tracers lit up the void as a last line of defense amidst the dense autocannon fire to down as many munitions as they could before the swarm overwhelmed the point-defenses. Princess Dou Wan swerved hard to port and to dorsal, afterburners burning on full power to squeeze as much out of the antimatter drive as possible to at least shake off some of the inbound missiles and prevent them from hitting. What normally was 3,700Gs of acceleration became in an instant upwards of 4,400 as helium-3 was dumped into the exhaust plume of matter-antimatter annihilation reactions to increase the thrust output as much as possible, propelling the ship to extremely high velocities in a bid to buy as much time, or perhaps shake of as many incoming munitions, as possible…
There was only way for one to describe any fight with the Abyssals, especially on the ground: hell.
"Jug-eola, Gaejasig-a, Jug-eo!"
Gore, splattered flesh, and oil-black blood splattered all over the ground, a few nearby walls, and herself, as Private First Class Myo Hei-Ran fired her M54 assault rifle into the Abyssal that was pinning her down, the hailstorm of 7.62x40mm rounds fired into it's body at roughly eight and a half kilometers a second pushing the entire enemy's bulk upwards, the assault rifle's report barking amidst that of a thousand others as Marines and Army troopers dueled it out with the enemy, the fierce, urban warfare unfolding now becoming an absolute mess of hand-to-hand fighting and A-Team firing.
"Wait, holy f*ck, there's a child out there, somebody get to her before they—" whoever shouting over the COM as he tried his best to suppress the enemy got cut off short when two Commandoes got to him with their rifles and left him a mangled mess of red, fleshy gore slowly turning a sickly shade of oil-black, one of them grabbing the aforementioned civilian and bashed her against the wall while it was at it, leaving the bloody, mangled little corpse to tumble against the ground in a heap while it carried on with it's rampage, the human defenders fighting tooth-and-nail to keep the enemy at bay.
Automatic fire racked up impressive rackets as Alliance troopers fought it out eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth, literally and figuratively, hacking, stabbing, and slashing any Abyssal that got too close for comfort with bayonets or even outright swords and combat knives in some cases, omni-tools adding to the chaos with their flash-forged hardlight blades that sliced through armor, shields, and flesh alike, gruesome, mangled messes littering the ground only to be stepped, trampled, and mangled even further by the mess of enemy forces, advancing under heavy fire. A Marine emptied the 60-round magazine of his M54 rifle into a charging Clone and downed it, but another got up on him before he could reload, pinning him down to the ground with it's bulk and…
Myo caught a Hound and threw it aside even as the screams of the unfortunate Marine indicated the telltale, gruesome work Abyssals often did on their human quarry, turning her rifle on it and emptying the remaining 45 rounds in her magazine into it as well, popping open it's shields before tearing it apart in cold blood, one round aimed perfectly at the Marine's head below cutting short his suffering amidst pools of splattered gore and oil-pools. She snapped around just in time to see a pack of Hounds charging at her and the Alliance lines, reloading her weapon and spraying the inhuman creatures with a steady storm of automatic fire that was echoed by her fellow troopers, rounds fired as fast as the guns could send them downrange into the face of the enemy. The Hounds that charged them were swiftly cut down one by one, dozens of rounds tearing through their flesh and ripping them apart in displays of black viscera. But, alas…
Kaboom. Bang. Crack.
The streets of Roseport shuddered yet again as artillery fire in the distance filtered back, the low rumbles of rounds packaging within them several dozen tons of TNT equivalent in CORDITE-17 smashing home onto enemy formations probably on the more contested areas of the city and obliterating them, each shell carrying with it probably more than enough firepower to level entire city blocks outright. Rounds continued to be exchanged at frenzied rates as Abyssals kept pouring and pouring into the streets, their own weapons dumping crystal all over the Alliance ranks even as humanity tried their absolute best to hold the line, for even at least one more second. The streams of automatic fire proved devastating, if the sheer number of mangled corpses was of any indication. But for every cartridge the Alliance troops had in their pouches and magazines there was at least three Abyssals in need of being shot at…
"Holy mother of—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Myo turned around just in time to barely miss a Commando and plant her bayonet into it's back alongside a quarter of her magazine, she then glanced at the source of the audio to see one of the Hounds pounce onto the Army trooper halfway through with reloading his rifle some meters out and start...tearing. It took only a couple of seconds, but those seconds were the most brutal seconds of the trooper's life as the Hound tore him apart, the trooper's screams and cries echoing throughout the battlefield. It didn't help that his death wasn't quiet either. Myo had seen enough of these kinds of deaths during this campaign that she could no longer vomit or even feel anything about the gruesome spectacle.
"Goddamnit, we're getting f*cking hammered here! Backup, we need backup, else we'll—" screams cut short the COM chatter as Myo's subroutines muted that channel of audio on the COM, turning to see the unfortunate Marine that was being, well, eaten alive by a Hound. The Hound finished, turning to the next Marine, and was about to pounce when Myo, having just killed another Commando, saw the Hound and immediately raised her rifle, aiming the crosshairs directly on the creature's head.
Bang.
It's brains came out, there was little that the creature had to stop a bullet propelled to well past escape velocity, after all. The Hound's head exploded from the shot, it's body immediately collapsing into a crumpled mess on the ground with it's blood pooling all around the point of impact. Myo didn't give it a second look, saying a quick prayer for the dearly departed, she turned her rifle on yet another Commando that was rallying a pack of Hounds to the frontlines, emptying the last few rounds in her magazine into it. The Commando staggered, the impacts throwing it off-balance, before it regained enough of it's bearings to find the offender and began to turn it's own rifle on her. She paused, glancing at the smaller hostiles about to charge at the line again, before pulling a grenade out of her belt and hurled it. A second burst of fire gave the Commando the memo to remain steady, and even as it staggered afresh, knocked off-balance from the impacts, the grenade went off, everyone's vision turning all shades of explosive and oil-black for a moment as hypervelocity pellets tore through anything unlucky enough to be caught in it's way.
The splattered blood and gore gave the entire place fresh, sickly paintjobs, mangled bodies lying all over the place. It was a good thing the Marines were trained to not get nauseated, especially when there was a literal war going on, but she wasn't going to deny that the scene was gruesome.
"Fire in the hole!"
Another explosion rocked the battlefield, and Myo was pretty sure that she got a good view of a squad of Clones literally disintegrating in the air, their remains showering the surrounding area with oil-black blood, the shrapnel doing plenty of damage to the surrounding area and the rest of the enemy. Rifles clattered empty casings against the ground and rifles were reloaded, magazines popped into the receiver, bolts shoved forward to chamber the first round.
"Hold the line, goddamnit! Just hold the f*cking line!"
"We're trying! Holy mother of—"
An explosion made itself known almost directly behind Myo, the overpressure blowing her hair this ways and that even as she turned around to see what was it. The resultant shockwave knocked the air out of her lungs, but she was still standing, her shields absorbing the worst of the blast. Eyes turned to track a short contrail to see what it was, a Clone with a rocket launcher that was about to fire a second one into the midst of the Alliance ranks. She brought her weapon around to bear moments before disaster, a sustained burst popping open the hostile's shields like a balloon before shredding it's body and left it a mangled mess.
"Holy f*ck, thanks, Hei-Ran!"
"No problem, Private!" she called back, snapping her weapon back to the frontlines as her HUD began pinging hostiles in the area, a couple of Clones and a pack of Hounds moving along the streets, trying their best to flank the Alliance forces. Myo was pretty sure she was on the verge of getting a new ribbon or a badge by now, with all the hostiles she'd been gunning down, but with the current rate of affairs...
"f*cking sh*t! Where the hell is our arty?!"
"We have no arty, you f*cking idiot, the artillery units are all getting hammered and—"
The conversation was cut short when a round blew a Marine's upper torso into bloody chunks and splatters, the remaining lower torso falling over in a crumpled mess, blood splattering everywhere. Myo cursed, snapping around and emptying her magazine into the offending Clone and the remaining Hounds…
"Friendly airstrike inbound, clear the skies!"
FB-17 Hayabusas streaked above the skies as the announcement was made, the huge, 42m-long fighters casting a shadow over the battlefield as they did so. External, under-wing hardpoints laden to the brim with munitions as they made their attack, they all swiftly swooped down to lay onto the Abyssals hell, cluster bombs dropped onto the enemy bringing about deadly results. Incendiary payloads set entire sections of the battlefield afire even as they finished their attack and retreated, shrapnel flying maiming and shredding dozens upon dozens of hostiles asunder. Rivers of blood, both human and Abyssal, trailed out everywhere, mangled Abyssal corpses falling to the ground with little 'thuds' here and there as the Alliance forces recovered their bearings, taking glances at their surroundings.
A Leopard battle tank rolled onto the scene, all four track pods covered in bloody viscera as it trained it's 100mm/65 gun downrange to cover the Alliance forces. "Retreat! We're not holding this position any longer. We'll cover you guys."
12.7x100mm rounds were sent downrange at staggering rates as three Hellcat light multipurpose vehicles, resembling pickup trucks, minus the doors and plus an overexaggerated set of fore and aft bumpers, let loose with their remote-controlled heavy machine guns, tracers flying into the enemy forces to cut down massed charges of Hounds, Clones, and Commandoes. Crystal sent their way in return claimed dozens of lives in an instant, even as the steady roars of gunfire showed no signs of letting up. But what were they to the horde of attacking Abyssals, who had three bodies to throw for every bullet humanity carried in their vests?
"Fire!"
A 155mm/60 field gun lit up the battlefield with a deafening boom, a single 55kg shell impacting to a thousand times as much force in raw TNT equivalent. An entire chunk of the enemy disappeared in a display of raw explosive power as a result, the shell burrowing it's way a few meters underground before detonating causing a pillar of dirt to erupt and send whoever atop it, sky high. Mangled corpses tumbled to the ground as the rest were buried underneath the falling dirt, a cloud of dust and blast residue the only thing to be seen for a few brief moments before crystal burst through it yet again, cutting deep into the Alliance lines to claim troopers by the truckload. A Marine fell, his M54 rifle clattering against the ground. Another glanced at his recently fallen comrade and swore, before he, too, was claimed by the crosshairs of the enemy. Two crystal rounds nailed him on the chest and in the head, his blood spraying out of both changing color even on the way down.
Lance Corporal Li Pei-zhi ducked, covering her heads with her hands, as artillery hit home too close for comfort, spraying dirt into her, and everyone's faces. The telltale wetness of blood being splattered against her body told her well enough that some didn't make it alive, but who was she to care? Her M55 battle rifle barked, a trio of 7.62x64mm rounds landing against a Clone to pop it's shields open and tear it's head apart, leaving to tumble to the ground a headless corpse that was quickly forgotten amidst the advancing horde.
"Holy Lord Jesus Christ, that's such a great idea, fighting a rearguard against the enemy in the middle of an artillery duel…" Corporal Hwa Dae murmured even as a fresh artillery shell impacting too close for comfort showered him in mud, bloody gore, and dirt. "Oh Praise the dear Lord, us, half a company, maybe one, at best, against what, three full companies of Abbies rushing in for the kill? Oh, f*ck yeah, I never thought we'd be fighting against the biggest odds in the entire god dammed planet…"
"Shut the f*ck up, Hwa, Lead, Dammit, Lead!" Li shouted as her battle rifle ran dry, magazine ejected to be slotted onto an empty pouch and replaced with a fresh one. "They're getting closer! We need to start dumping lead downrange faster, faster, or we're all going to die stranded on this planet, or worse, eaten alive by those horror-film abominations that are the Abyssals—"
Li was cut off mid-sentence as a mortar shell landed near to her and sent a few fresh bodies into the air, mangled into unrecognizable messes from the forces of impact and the deadly filler the rounds in question were laced with. High above, shrapnel struck a Raptor dropship on the side as it maneuvered amidst enemy AA fire, causing it to start belching smoke and flames even as the pilots tried their best to bring the stricken craft upwards and out of the atmosphere. A few Hayabusa fighters swept around and over the battlefield as escorts, eleven other Raptors clawing wearily for altitude even as the enemy shot at them with murderous intent. One, losing control from battle damage, tilted to the side and fell down to the ground, turning in an instant into a huge fireball that engulfed the entire battlefield.
One of the Abyssal fighters overhead burst into flames as a rocket team pointed a Javelin at it and nailed the hostile with two missiles dead center, amidst the storm of tracers Alliance AA guns racked up to defend the LZ the best they could against the oncoming enemy. Tracers lit up the skies as automated turrets jinked back and forth to engage targets, their twin and triple rotary autocannons held within racking up impressive rackets even as they spat out thousands of rounds a minute at the hostile aircraft flying back and forth directly above. One fighter fell, shredded to bits, as a Phalanx turret got to it with 40mm rounds at 9,000 rounds a minute, leaving it's fragments to fall down to the ground below. Another exploded in midair, Goalkeeper point-defense turrets shredding it apart with 50mm high-explosive rounds that tore it more or less to ribbons.
Yet the Abyssals continued their onslaught, the sky itself looking like it was raining red and blue. The sound of the fighting was almost enough to deafen someone, but the people here were all veterans and had heard worse. A Clone, it's shields gone, took a full magazine from a nearby Marine's rifle and was thrown onto the ground, blood spraying out from it's wounds. Another claimed two Army troopers with rifle fire from half a kilometer out, crystal rifle smoking, even as snipers put an end to it's life and left it a headless corpse on the ground. Hounds, humanoid creatures running around on all fours that looked like something straight out of an horror film, pounced, claws tearing away at flesh even as their teeth bit cleanly through metal plating on BDUs with relative ease to get at the human flesh and bone underneath, screams of the dying filling the air almost as an afterthought.
Flash-forged hardlight blades answered, those who had the time to prepare themselves slashing brutally at the oncoming horde to cut them down where they stood. Some died, their bodies sliced into multiple pieces, others, standing their ground, not even giving their comrades second looks even as they slashed, hacked, and stabbed their way through in what could only be considered the most brutal of the brutal in hand-to-hand combat. Bayonets were stabbed all the way into the hilt, twisted, and violently ripped out, the butts of the rifles they were mounted on bashed into the wounds they had created to send Abyssals flying into the air. Shotguns worked their magic, hypervelocity pellets from buckshot payloads ripping, slashing, and shredding Abyssal flesh.
One Marine, who was carrying an M40 submachine gun, turned it on the offending Hound and gave it a burst that sent it tumbling onto the ground with it's face ripped off, oil-black blood spraying out of the massive hole in it's face. 5.5x30mm rounds were sprayed downrange without reserve, shredding apart Hounds left and right. An Army trooper's flamethrower worked it's magic, jets of almost white-hot flames lacing out from the muzzle and engulfing a pack of Hounds and turning them into crispy, burned messes. A Clone was taken by surprise and had the flamethrower pointed at it's chest, it's arms and legs immediately going up in flames, the creature staggering around, it's screams echoing, as the flames consumed it entirely, leaving a burning, writhing, corpse on the ground...
Artillery struck home yet again to claim even more human lives as Li and the rest of her squad ducked, taking cover behind their armored transports and the wreckage of a Leopard battle tank that was caught in a stray shellburst. They weren't out of the woods yet, not with the way the situation was escalating and the sheer numbers the enemy had to throw against them. Even as the sounds of a dozen or so M55 rifles were exchanged for the telltale whines of an autocannon, the Alliance forces were pushed further and further back.
Even as a Raptor dropship lifted off to carry with it a squad of troopers, it's fuselage covered in holes.
Even as a Hellcat's remote-controlled machine gun was cut to shreds by the enemy.
Even as a Raptor dropship got clipped by AA fire and was forced to veer wildly away to avoid crashing.
Even as another Clone's head exploded under a sustained burst from a rifle.
Even as another squad's M55 battle rifles and M3A submachine guns barked and rattled their deathly tunes, the enemy forces kept pushing them back, and back, and back...
An explosion rocked the battlefield, the force of the blast throwing Li's body into the side of an armored truck, the impact knocking the air out of her lungs, leaving her gasping for breath. Her head spun, her ears rang, the world became a haze, and the only thing she was aware of was her fellow troops calling her name...
SSV Princess Dou Wan lurched to port sharply, knocking plenty of her crew off-balance. A few plasma lances struck cleanly on her shielding and penetrated, the weakened barriers unable to protect fully against the incoming fire. Fires belched all over her hull and decks, her internal systems flashing red from the hits.
"Direct hit to our starboard sides, multiple breaches. Fires, venting atmosphere, DAMCON is getting them under control but we won't keep up for much longer!"
Captain Hackett grunted, turning his eyes towards the viewport of the CIC. "And that's another hit. sh*t. Get the engineers working double-time to repair those holes and patch them up, ASAP, else I'd be there to patch them up myself!"
"Not advisable, sir," the XO replied. "Those holes are big enough for a Raptor to fly through. Fine naval officer you are, what are you going to do with that? Raptor-sized patches of SmartSteel carted on giant carts meant for the assembly line?"
"Not helping, but damn, sure fair point…" Hackett grunted, even as Dou Wan shuddered again, a pair of mass driver rounds flattening themselves on the cruiser's weakened bow shielding. The cruiser shook from the impact, the shields already down to their bare minimum…
Not far off, the light cruiser SSV Sakawa disappeared in a bright flash of light as no less than five plasma lances pierced her shields and armor after mass driver hits took out the shielding, fires ravaging through her bulk as her armor plating crumpled under the onslaught, jets of flame erupting out from breaches in the hull as her atmosphere escaped, superheated by the plasma beams. Escape pods ejected from the rapidly disintegrating ship even as she did so, before a large, singular explosion consumed the ship whole, leaving no trace of her anymore once it had died down; ruptured fuel lines had sprayed their contents into the flames, engulfing the ship whole and sealing her fate, once and for all.
She wasn't alone in her fate, either. Abyssal fire laced out amidst the chaos and claimed in quick succession the cruisers Eternal Hope, Autumn, and Aantiago in explosive displays of kinetic and plasma, their flaming hulls drifting amongst the void in exchange for an enemy cruiser messily bisected, it's bow split wide open from repeated hits as an entire detachment focused fire, breaking through it's shields and tearing the armoring underneath apart…
With howls of fury and displays of raw firepower, the Alliance fleet spat their reply across the void, bright muzzle flashes heralding the barrage of kinetic impacts that was to come as MAC rounds were let loose, tearing into the enemy like packs of angry wolves propelled to close to the speed of light. Missiles were launched out of their pods to curve around and beeline straight for the enemy, Basalts surging forth like waves of angry bees closing in for the kill. Shipwreck missiles followed close behind, their MIRV warheads laden to the brim with deadly, nuclear payloads intent on engulfing the enemy whole. Hostile ships began maneuvering wildly the moment they saw the incoming fleetwide volleys headed their way, some managing to get away, others, not so lucky. Point-defenses laced out at incoming missiles, downing them by the thousands. But regardless, humanity had learned all to clearly now that quantity was a quality in it's own right. The void turned into a Macross Missile Massacre, nuclear explosions blossoming as they sent ships to their firey graves, others, simply shredded apart under the sheer volume of fire.
Ships fell as MAC rounds ravaged their armor plating and hull, smashing open dozens of compartments in instants to superheat the atmosphere and spark fires that would only grow worse, fueled by escaping air. Missiles tore apart armor plating after their companions took out the shields protecting them, tearing deep into the hull with each explosion from their warhead, starting even more fires, ravaging interior, and burning, boiling, melting at anything that they could touch. Nukes, their outer shells designed specifically for this purpose, burst. What normally would be a normal fusion reaction was instead contained and forced to fuse upon itself down the element chain; the skies lit up, flashes of light in the distance engulfing ships whole and leaving naught but charred, slagged remains in their wake. Sensors seized up, the signatures blinding them to the point of permanent damage. In the distance, it might as well be a few hundred supernovae going off at once—ferrous, starcore-hot plasma still fusing with the sheer forces of the detonation to become uranium, all done in a fashion no different from one.
Secondary explosions engulfed the doomed, sending them to their graves in space. Eight Abyssal cruisers vanished in an instant, the nuclear detonations engulfing their forms whole, never to be seen again. Six others drifted the void as mangled messes, their forms shredded apart by dozens of MAC rounds and hundreds of missiles, tearing apart their armor and splitting them wide open down to the keel. Thirteen destroyers winked off the map, their bulk shattered into a million pieces, twice as many frigates shared their fate, as well. Amidst the wreckage, a single Re-class battlecruiser drifted lazily, bow split wide open to make it look like a mushroom. Debris, and mangled corpses, littered the space immediately around them, former crew members who were unlucky enough to be ejected into the void.
It came at a cost. Battleships Hyperion, Proxima, and Isabel vanished off tactical displays, their hulls torn asunder by mass drivers and plasma lances that popped open their shields like balloons and slashed their armor, smashing open compartments to vacuum to split their interior open to the vacuum of space. CruDiv 6, 11, and 9 were pounded into nothingness, exploding in brilliant displays of antimatter after mass driver rounds and plasma lances slashed their hulls, and fuel tanks, open to the expanses. Destroyers Houston and Walter Raleigh ran headfirst into volleys of enemy torpedoes as they steered wildly, trying to avoid bracketing salvoes of mass driver shells and plasma lances, unable to make the turn in time even as they saw the inbound munitions, silent prayers in the void their only comfort as spatial distortions tore them to pieces, portals opening to teleport chunks of their form to oblivion and leaving them with bites taken out of their hull.
Hackett cursed as Princess Dou Wan rattled from a single mass driver round that smashed cleanly through her rebuilding shields, crashed through over a meter of SmartSteel plating, careened through an engine, and out the other side. "Sitrep! How badly did they smash us?"
"Engine One is inoperable, I believe that shot took it out as it went about on it's merry way, Captain," the damage control officer reported amidst the ship shuddering and rattling from a combination of weapons fire and engine power. "Amidships citadel has been compromised, that one round smashed open the plating there like an egg. Medical reports fifty wounded, thirty killed. Half the portside Phalanx turrets are gone, so is a third the Basalts. Bofors unharmed, miraculously, and so is the bigger Sentry turrets, but…yeah."
"Lovely. Try to keep the damage under control..."
"Bọn no bắn rát vãi hết biết, mẹ nó!"
Sergeant Nguyen Mai Hoa kept her head down as she cursed in her own native language the whole way, showers of dirt sent in her face splashing against the visor of her helmet as her fellow Marines ran down the depths of the muddy trench, mud splashing beneath their boots amidst showers of dirt every here and there as artillery struck home too close for comfort. In the distance, the booms of 100mm/65 field artillery pieces became deafening, defiant roars as the gunnery crews poured a constant stream of fire to arc over the air against the enemy and pound them asunder, loading, firing, and loading again their cannons against a hailstorm of Abyssal counterbattery fire. One gun fell silent as a shell landed in the middle of it's crew, blowing them all off to high heaven and rendering the gun a mangled mess. But the others carried on, keeping up a constant deluge of shells that would definitely do to the enemy some serious damage…
"f*cking bastards, gotta respect their love for artillery," Corporal Marie Iverson cursed underneath her breath as she rushed forwards ahead of her platoon CO—err, what's left of a platoon, anyways. "Who knew it would make the days of us leathernecks—"
Even more mud showered on them both as extra artillery hit home, causing the shields of some Marines in front of Mai to flare as they stopped shrapnel from hitting home and give them bloody ends, jumping over fallen corpses of those unfortunate enough to be hit and killed by the impacts. Mai herself included, jumping over a section of trench that was reduced to a big crater when a shell landed directly into the trench, leaping over obstacles like, well, rice farmers back during the 1960s. She stopped when the bombardment let up a little bit, allowing her to slot herself neatly into a section of trench that crossed over with a foxhole, her fellow squadmates following suit. Normally she'd command a squad into battle, but alas, her squad had been chopped into a fireteam long ago, and with the battle taking turns for the worse, she was now commanding an ad hoc platoon of both Marines and Army troopers alike. Evacuating the planet in the middle of an artillery duel—not the best idea, to be honest. But there were infinitely worse situations to bail out of from. Such as, namely, evacuating in the middle of a full-on mechanized assault.
"Incoming!"
Mai ducked as a fresh round struck near the edge of the trench and detonated, showering a patch of the trench ahead of her again with a splash of mud and dirt. Two Marines, unlucky enough to be caught in the blast, were in an instant sent off to their respective fates, mangled body parts sent flying accompanied with the shrapnel and mud that showered the others, cowering for dear life. Mai's shields flared as they blocked the crystalline fragments from coming close and tearing her body apart, jumping over fallen corpses of those unfortunate enough to be hit and killed by the impacts. A few troopers in front of her hopped over fresh obstacles as they moved forwards, amongst them the smoldering remnants of a 100mm gun and it's crew, now just mangled bodies and metal in a crater.
/DEFCOM (Roseport)/: Nuclear weapons deployed to counter northern front. One HAVOK, standard delivery. Stand by. Forces in region to arm anti-shock and anti-flare countermeasures immediately. Impact in T-minus, 10 secs.
Mai didn't as much as give the report a second glance, they were all along the south, rendering it irrelevant to her situation right now. The few guns that were still online kept up at their orchestra of destruction at the enemy beyond, a fierce artillery duel unfolding to completely pepper the other side in explosions roughly a dozen tons of TNT each and above. Mud splashed into the trenches with each hit that came too close for comfort, showers of dirt raining onto everyone while they were at it. Dense clouds of multi-colored fumes rose as smoke grenades were tossed, flares illuminating the night against the backdrop of constant rainfall.
"Shiiiiiiiiiiii—"
An Army trooper was cut off as shrapnel got to him, sending gore and blood spraying everywhere. The lower half of his body was sent a good distance into the air before falling into the mud and the rest of his squad, his intestines spilling out for all to see. A 100mm gun lit up the battlefield with a roar. The barrel belched fire even as shells were loaded and the breech closed, spitting 13-kilogram shells across the sky, arcing and landing in a field some kilometers away.
"Raptors incoming, clear the LZs!"
Mai looked up to the skies. There were two dozen or so, maybe a little less, Raptors inbound. The dropships swooped in, juking back and forth to avoid AA fire as they did so, amidst tracers from Abyssal fighters trying to catch up as the local CAP of Hayabusa fighters tried their best to hold them at bay.
"Get ready! We're leaving!"
A fresh batch of smoke grenades was hurled across the air to blanket the LZ in smoke as Marines poked out of cover, before, one by one, clambering out of the trench and into no-man's land. They didn't stop until they had reached a small collection of rubble, where, amidst the smoke and the chaos, they could hear the sound of engines powering up and the faintest of hums. A dozen Raptors touched down amidst a hail of gunfire, the doors swinging open as the Marines began climbing in.
A shrill whistle blast could be heard in the distance as NCOs blew them, urging on their fellow troops. Raptors landed amidst trails of AA fire, their wheels making firm contact with the ground as their ramps lowered, engines idling by as they waited for their passengers.
Mai watched the proceedings with a grim, determined look. Marines and Army troopers rushed out from cover to get aboard, the last of the dropships that were able to touch down. A shell burst nearby, showering a few of her fellow troopers and herself in dirt and shrapnel (that her shields luckily took), the resulting explosion and shockwave throwing those nearest to it onto the ground, hard. She cursed, rushing over to help a fellow trooper get to his feet, before another shell struck close, throwing the both of them onto the ground...
"Đủ chưa hả cha!?"
Crystal began to whizz overhead as the first of the enemy reached the perimeter despite the Aliance's best attempts to repel them and began to light up the evacuating troops with heavy gunfire, quite a few rounds striking down Marines and Army personnel where they stood, even as others scrambled for cover or returned fire where they stood. Machine guns barked, rifles crackled, autocannons spat, the sheer volume of fire the Alliance was putting down proving enough to drive back the advancing horde for the time being, but they all knew it wouldn't be lasting for long.
Mai was amongst the latter, her assault rifle firing wildly at the advancing Abyssals from her vantage point close to the dropships, not even bothering to take cover. Rounds whizzed by her all the while, some striking her protective shielding and glancing off, causing them to flare, but she didn't give them a second thought. Overhead, a Raptor that was hovering in the lobby turned around to light up the enemy with it's chin-mounted 40mm autocannon, causing the enemy to scatter as the rounds tore through their ranks. But the effect didn't last for long, the Abyssals soon began to fan out into cover and began focusing their fire on the transports.
A Marine cried out, clutching his shoulder, as a Clone's rifle shot pierced his shielding and ripped through his flesh, blood spraying out from the wound and staining the mud. A few Marines were quick to rush him into the nearest dropship and get him patched up, and Mai could only hope that they'd make it in time, and that the wounds weren't fatal.
"C'mon, you f*ckers! Get in the goddamn birds already, we're gonna f*cking die out here if we don't!"
More and more people piled into the dropships, but not nearly fast enough for their liking. Mai could hear the engines spooling up and the telltale whine as they did so, waiting for her and the last stragglers to climb aboard. An Army trooper rushed past her, screaming in terror and pain, even as the sounds of crystal rounds ripping his body apart were heard. Blood splattered on the ground even as he stumbled, his head blown wide open from a lucky shot, before his body collapsed onto the ground.
"Get in, get in, get in! Last group, let's go, let's go, let's go!"
The last of the troops rushed in and the ramp raised up. The Raptors lifted off even as the first enemy infantry were beginning to arrive at the perimeter, a hail of crystal tearing into the sides of the armored dropships. One was caught in the crossfire, a shell punching through the armor plating and blowing open the troop compartment, sending gore and blood spraying into the air and claiming dozens of lives at once. The dropship went down, slamming into the ground and sending a cloud of smoke and flames skywards, a mushroom rising into the sky.
Mai dumped the last 45 rounds inside the magazine of her rifle before hopping into the troop compartment of a Raptor at random. The engines were spooling up to full power as the pilot throttled forward, the ramp closing behind her as she did so, before lifting the bird off the ground. Mai felt her stomach lurch slightly, a few Marines chuckling even as the dropships began to lift off.
"Fuuuuck, I hate flying..."
A Marine laughed as he turned towards the Corporal. "Aww, are you scared, little girl?"
"Shut the f*ck up, you asshole, or else I'm gonna shove my f*cking boot so far up your ass, you'll be sh*tting out the soles, you dick!"
Mai ignored them as she sat down and strapped herself into her seat. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but at this point, it didn't matter...
The surviving Bofors turrets on the Princess Dou Wan's broadside laid fresh volleys into the enemy ranks at staggering rates, 40cm rounds pumped into the skies at the rate of twice a second from each barrel forming a dense screen of flakbursts around the ship and detonating incoming missiles by the truckload. The ship lurched to port, hard, just in time to avoid a plasma lance that would've ripped her starboard side a fresh, red-hot gash, even as the deluge of MAC rounds the Alliance fleet sent downrange seemed to weaken by the minute, three ships ever so often getting shot to pieces in exchange for one ship on the enemy side.
Captain Hackett watched, his eyes fixed onto the tactical display as the fleet took losses. Cruisers Autumn and Winter, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill, and, destroyer Stiletto, and frigate Gambit were reduced to drifting wreckage, their hulls ravaged and shredded apart by mass driver fire and plasma lances. Cruiser Valediction was set ablaze, fires raging through her superstructure, her superstructure split wide open. The ship was doomed, her crew fighting futilely to save their dying ship.
Dou Wan shuddered as a salvo of four mass driver rounds struck her, her shields going down in an instant and leaving the armor plating to suffer the brunt. The plating crumpled and bent under the pressure, buckling, but not giving.
"Direct hits! Armor's holding, but we're down to our last 25%!"
Hackett grimaced, but his mind was still sharp. "All right, bring her about and keep her nose facing the enemy! I want those Phalanx and Bofors guns doing their job, else we're all gonna get killed!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
Princess Dou Wan turned, hard, to starboard. Trailing smoke and flames as DAMCON struggled to get them under control, the ship still nonetheless spat her replies across the void, MAC rounds and Basalt missiles lighting up the darkness in a brilliant display of muzzle flashes and missile trails, turning the expanses in an instant more metal than void, and then back again. Another salvo struck the ship, sending her rattling and shaking. More compartments were opened up to the void, air and fluids rushing out and into the nothingness. Alarms blared and the crew fought frantically to stop the leaks, but it was a hopeless endeavor.
"Shields are back up, but down to 12%, we're down to 70% on the armor, sir!"
"I know that!" Hackett shouted. "It's the f*cking Abyssals! What else do you expect?"
Even as he said so the Alliance fleet focused their fire on a trio of unlucky hostiles, two destroyers and a cruiser going down in an instant as massed fire gutted their bulks whole. The Abyssals, obviously, took to that trade kindly; in return they let their shells fly against the Alliance ranks and swept off the map three light cruisers and two heavies, three frigates joining them shortly afterwards in a follow-up barrage of plasma lances that boiled through the armoring to slag them whole. SSV Perseus withdrew under heavy fire, shields close to breaking fully, and armor breached in dozens of places, perhaps hundreds, all across the hull. And things kept going downhill from there.
"Transmission from Admiral Yang: assume Attack Pattern Alpha. Bow onto the enemy, slow curve to starboard. Swing us around to cover the last remaining transports evacuating the planet."
Hackett glanced at the comms officer before a series of arrows appeared on the central display within the CIC, lining out the course the Admiral intended for the fleet to take. "Tell him we confirm. Helm, set course accordingly, try to maintain formation with the fleet. Weapons, get solutions with all batteries. Dump every last round we have left in our magazines."
"Aye, aye."
Autocoils sprang to life as the fleet lit up their antimatter torches and burned, hard. The void in an instant turned more plasma than space as helium-3 was dumped into the exhaust plume of photons created by the antimatter torches, pushing the battered Alliance ships forwards at accelerations well beyond what normal engines could manage. Tracers lit up the void from every single gun the fleet could ever possibly bring on to bear, and trailing behind them, missiles followed, like a cluster of angry hornets. Destroyers and frigates, those who still had their heavy weaponry left, fired spreads of torpedoes at the enemy, long, cigar-shaped munitions trailing silently in the void to light their engines and boost themselves onto the enemy upon entering terminal distances. Within an instant, the void lit up; a hailstorm of fire sent in the Abyssals' way as the fleet burned hard along their course, charging straight into the teeth of the enemy. Firing, all the while, with every round of ammunition in their stocks.
The enemy seemed to stagger for a few brief moments, seemingly caught off-guard by the Alliance charge. Ships went down as the inferior, but still deadly nonetheless, human ships targeted them three-to-one, leaving naught but drifting wrecks in the void as MAC rounds gutted their interior open to space, missiles blowing apart their insides even more and destroying utterly whatever important to their operation. Two destroyers found themselves victim to six on the human side, MAC rounds smashing their shields open to leave them open to later, follow-up salvoes that tore through their armor plating and ripped them to shreds. A Chi-class cruiser turned wildly to evade a salvo of MAC shells headed it's way, only to find itself sailing straight into the solution of three human battleships, the much heavier shells simply careening into the cruiser's midsection and tearing it apart into two sections drifting lazily away from each other. Torpedoes entered terminal distance, lined themselves up with their targets, and lit up their engines, gunning to each their assigned targets. Portals spawned into existence, ships maneuvering wildly to evade shells flying straight into their path. Dozens more wrecks littered the void as a result, entire chunks missing as if a giant dragon had decided to take bites out of them.
The shock of the humans going on the offensive soon wore off, and the return blows began. Cruisers Los Angeles, San Diego, Cleveland, and Baltimore went down almost instantaneously as mass drivers tore through their armoring and ripped their hulls to shreds, missile impacts nailing further in the hammer into the coffin and deleting them whole off the map. Destroyers Shiborako, Kira Sasaki, and Amakaze were ripped to shreds as enemy fire got to them, plasma lances boiling cleanly through their armoring to scorch the interior within. Frigates Shiden, Ryusei, and Takeda were similarly torn asunder, a combination of missiles, mass driver shells, and plasma lances punching through their shields to tear their hulls apart, and into a million pieces. The charge stalled, even as Alliance ships swerved left and right to avoid fire, leaving behind curving trails of afterburners in their wake, shots cutting down ships left, right, and center, all in a scene quite cleanly from Midway. Dreadnoughts Sea of Tranquility and Mare Europa unleashed their firepower across the void, the small, nimble pocket battleships turning on dimes to get themselves potshots at the flanks of the enemy. A Chi-class fell silent amidst the chaos, fires burning all over it's hull.
"Last transports are away, ETA to FTL five minutes, six seconds," the telemetry officer reported over the din that was the CIC. "Transmission from Admiral Yang. Once the last transport departs, we bail."
"Tell him we copy. DAMCON, someone tell DAMCON to get their sh*t in order or else we'll—"
He didn't get the chance to finish his statement, a fresh barrage of rounds had impacted against Dou Wan's armor belt and penetrated. Alarms started blaring, entire swathes of the ship turned red on the displays. Decompression, venting atmosphere. Fires. Breaches across all decks. Main armor belt compromised, engines 2 through 4 gone. Aux engines 1 through 3 offline. Main power fluctuating. Aux power online, barely.
Captain Hackett gritted his teeth. They couldn't continue this charade.
"Catastrophic damage in Engineering! The reactor's going haywire, core's overheating. Safeties are failing, what's left of them anyways, we're gonna blow at any minute!"
"DAMCON, can you keep that sh*t under control or are we all f*cked!?"
"Negative, Captain, we're losing containment!"
"..."
Other than the alarms, the CIC fell silent as the rest of the crew processed the information.
Hackett turned towards his console, before flipping open a cover, and pressed the button underneath. The lights flashed red from their normal yellow for a few brief moments, before settling on their new, reddish hue. Through neural uplinks and the ship's PA system the automated systems did their job. "All hands, abandon ship. All hands, abandon ship. Prepare to enact Cole Protocol."
Escape pods launched from the stricken cruiser as her engines dimmed. Her shields flickered and died, her armor was gone, and her hull was riddled with holes. The ship's captain sighed as he looked at the holodisplay. She'd served well. Now it was time to say goodbye.
Leigh Hunt glanced at the ship's mangled sides beyond the viewports of his pod. It was a sight, that was for sure. He'd seen better. Much better, actually. But at least, it had done its job.
"May she rest in peace..."
"Renhai-class heavy cruiser SSV Princess Dou Wan, our core's destabilized and about to blow. We're going in for ramming. God bless you all."
Dou Wan's engines flared to life, afterburners kicking in once again, and the battered, bleeding, smoking hull of the ship was pushed forwards. She sped along a trajectory that would have her crash into a Chi-class, trails of bluish plasma left in her wake. Her sheer acceleration meant she was out of everyone's sight within moments, her trajectory taking her towards the enemy. The crew could see it. The end was nigh.
The ship struck the Chi-class head-on. Plasma and antimatter were released in a violent explosion that tore the two ships apart and engulfed the surrounding area. Both cruisers were gone, vaporized and leaving nothing but a cloud of superheated gas and a few dozen bits and pieces of debris...
A/N:
Hmmmmmm…
Yeah.
The original's, to say the least, an absolute mess. There's plenty of plot points that would've had a lot of relevance to the story, but ended up getting glossed over; others that are nowhere as important, but ate up much more space anyways. And the whole basis of the story? Who tf goes on raiding sprees with close to two thousand ships man
Let's not forget the major padding issues the original had. Long, dense combat scenes, with longas paragraphs that basically keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Something you guys pointed out before, and for good reason. I don't really blame you guys, after all.
Inconsistency. Alliance engines are bigger and take up more bulk than Citadel ones, or was it the other way around?
References towards anime and other franchises, often at random, or other, awkwardly made references that breaks the flow of the story. Also, too much tech p*rn, apparently..
...imma rewrite the whole thing top to bottom now, it's too far along to be edited anymore, kekw (300,000 words and counting)
Special shoutout to acceptmyusernamealready (yeah, that's his FFN username lol) and his work, Greenhorn, for inspiration when doctoring this story. Also, thanks to CrazedBureaucrat64 for pointing out the many mistakes that made the original a total mess, now that I have the chance to look at it.
Also shoutout to Clive Cussler, I read his novels before, and I definitely looked to them for reference (the title of this chap is also a reference, lol).
I don't really know if a solid update schedule is possible or not, but I'll try to crank a chapter out every week or to, if possible. But fingers crossed 
Also, sidenote: should I include tech descriptions in codex entries or do infodumps with character dialogue lol (like, say, discussing about exhibits in a museum, such as, for example, weapons, tools, history, other things)
