Shiva by Aer-ki Jyr

Author:Aer-ki Jyr [Jyr, Aer-ki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

6

March 4, 3602

Solar System

Inner Zone

Rio and Ethan were both onboard command ships that were poking around the Inner Zone of the system but staying far enough away from the V’kit’no’sat fleet cluster in stellar orbit to not endanger themselves, though they needed to be close enough to their drone fleets to avoid the signal lag that would effectively make them bystanders in the next conflict. So far the V’kit’no’sat had done nothing more than comb over their captured stations and then destroy them, with both trailblazers expecting them to take further action soon.

That action soon came in the form of their ships breaking up mostly by race and forming dozens of smaller fleets that left the Mach’nel behind with only 483 ships. The other fleets scattered on different headings, but the Mach’nel didn’t hold position. It was headed back slowly towards the Sentinels on the incoming jumpline.

“Thoughts?” Ethan asked, suffering through a 3 second lag in their holographic conversation.

“They’re being overly coy yet arrogant at the same time. I think they want to hit something without us knowing what it is.”

“You know what the Mach’nel is going for.”

“And they want to draw our ships to it, leaving other targets exposed.”

“How do you want to play this?”

“If they stay out of range and use their Tar’vem’jic we either have to fight them and waste a lot of drones or let them kill the Sentinels. We’re boxed into a corner there,” Rio said grimly.

“I know. If we wait for it to get to Earth we’ll have lost most of our defenses. We’re gonna get our butts kicked one way or another, but I don’t think we’ll be able to take it out.”

“I agree. It’ll just jump away before we can make the kill and toast any interdictors we throw at it.”

“Then we have to ignore it and target its escorts. It’ll stay and fight while they die, correct?”

“It’ll be interesting to see either way. We’re going to have to bring in more drones to cover the rest of these fleets. Which one do you want?”

“It’s not one if they’re spreading out. We’re going to have to rely on second gen to keep them from hitting a soft target, and even then I think they’ll punch their way in somewhere.”

“We need to use the drones to assault the Mach’nel. Anything bigger will just be wasted with their one shot kills.”

“Maybe two shots,” Ethan corrected him, “but your point is valid. I’ll take the drones, you pull down a summon and pick a fight with the others if they don’t force one.”

“Oh I think they will. How many interdictors do you need?”

“Just a handful. Take the rest.”

“Thank you, I will,” he said as he watched the updating tracks of the V’kit’no’sat ships as they began to spread out across the Inner Zone with some heading for what looked like Jupiter and beyond. “You might want to consider spreading out the Sentinels, either as bait or to delay the Mach’nel from sniping them all down.”

“I’ll adapt as I go.

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