Maty by Aer-ki Jyr (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“Battle formations,” he ordered calmly as the second half of his fleet was still in transition and not yet braked behind his leading units and flagship, christened by the trailblazer Roger-009 himself. The DinoThunder was one of a kind at present, with two more identical versions under construction in different shipyards. It was more than a thousand miles long, but thin and flat like a knife, which made it smaller in mass than a Borg vessel, but not by much.

Over a quarter million Era’tran served onboard along with many more Star Force Zen’zat, which was in stark contrast to the trainblazers’ Borg vessels that were built for minimal crews. The DinoThunder was a warship, and any other description of it would have been inaccurate, but it was designed for a long term war rather than a single battle, making it a mobile city/command center at the same time, and along with it came attack drone carriers that would have their cargo flown by remote pilots onboard the massive vessel in addition to the more traditional V’kit’no’sat warships that had undergone some significant upgrades since joining Star Force.

But more than that, the V’kit’no’sat’s purpose was now clear. They were not building a warfleet to fight off all of the empire’s threats. Like Clan Kai’sa, their focus was solely the Hadarak, and the V’kit’no’sat warships were built to handle the massive swarms of minions, the Mainline units, the Wardens, and even the Lurkers and other special nastiness that was being thrown at the galaxy. And despite the greater than 5 million ship count ahead of Mak’to’ran, he was not worried. His 7,391 warships, if working in concert, could not be stopped by the Hadarak unless they ran out of Essence.

And the fleet’s Magicite wells were all full to the brim.

The DinoThunder moved to the head of their central formation, with the other ships flaring out around it and going backwards in a spiral to form a column, and staggered behind it would eventually be 8 other columns. The trick to fighting the Hadarak was not letting them surround you entirely, so the columns’ circular width always had friendly ships on one of your sides, and if the enemy minions or larger vessels tried to get inside the column, they’d be surrounded by weapons batteries that had no line of sight other than into the hollow center…and in that environment they would not survive more than a few minutes at best.

Those hollow centers also allowed a fallback position for damaged ships on the exterior of the column, allowing them to rotate in as other ships took their place on the front lines. All of Mak’to’ran’s columns were at least three lines deep, except for the primary, which was 9 deep with the DinoThunder at the head. He wasn’t going to nip at the edges of the Hadarak swarm as combat normally played out. He had the strength here to force melee range combat on their largest units immediately, and the minions would not be able to stop their advance with all the tonnage he had to bring to bear, let alone the DinoThunder’s primary weapon.

There was a reason only one had been built to date, and that reason was the Nova Incinerator Matrix, or NIM, that the entire forward half of the ship was covered with, and in fact designed around. The NIM was designed to destroy biological mass and stone-like armor, and could be countered easily by strong shields…but the Hadarak had none. The DinoThunder was not a match for a Borg vessel. Not even close in a head to head, but against the Hadarak, the amount of damage that could be inflicted on the enemy was unmatched in the rest of the Star Force arsenal, and he took a significant amount of pride in that. But never had he had a moment of opportunity such as this to hit the enemy so hard and so fast…and he wasn’t going to miss it.

As soon as the last ships in his convoy arrived and moved into formation, Mak’to’ran had his fleet make a soft microjump towards the jumppoint the Hadarak were exiting on…and he left the command deck for the rear stairs that led him down several levels to the solitary firing station that was a gigantic spherical chamber with a single walkway extending out into the center.

As he strode down it the walls of the sphere lit up with images of the exterior of the ship, then tactical markings were added on top of them. No neural interface could be used here, despite its increased accuracy. Mak’to’ran or one of the other few Hakja onboard that were cleared to operate the weaponry had to have their mind firmly grasping reality rather than a simulation, for the weapon couldn’t fire anywhere near full power without an Essence enhancement, and that had to be done manually.

Other Essence weaponry on the ship only required a filled Materia and a button press, but the NIM was radically advanced Ysalamir technology blended with Essence techniques that were only a few hundred years old. Mak’to’ran was going to have to extend his Essence out into the primary firing chamber, which was directly around the sphere he stood, and manipulate it to get the necessary tuning. If he failed the weapon would still work, though not as well, and the 9x multiplier was something that they couldn’t afford to miss out on when there were that many Hadarak so tightly grouped together.

Mak’to’ran had skilled commanders onboard his vessel, enough to fill a fleet of warships, so he wasn’t worried about personally directing the combat. They could handle it well without him, but they could not take his place here, for he was the most skilled Era’tran or V’kit’no’sat when it came to Essence techniques, and not by a small margin. He’d dedicated a significant portion of his life to learning and