Resurgence Raven Alliance Chapter 2
Battle for Alpheratz Begins
Chairman Sandra Rivera could not believe her eyes. Jump point reports had been relayed to Alpheratz that were entirely unexpected. Three separate jumpships had arrived, with video footage of massive naval forces attacking Rodolpho, Jordan Wais, and Praxton. Praxton’s jumpship was the only one to arrive with any ships, a heavily damaged Union.
She immediately called the 2nd and 3rd Avellar Guard staff to a meeting and gave orders to prepare for imminent contact. A Command relay went out with orders for all Alliance forces to redeploy to reinforce Alpheratz and nearby worlds. Word was also sent to Khan Sterling McKenna requesting reinforcements.
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Days passed and first to arrive was the 3rd Alliance Air Wing. Ship after ship deployed in a defensive pattern near the nadir and zenith jump points. No other ships had emerged from the three systems that were attacked. While the Ice Storm and Conqueror Naval Stars were spread among the bordering worlds, the Alliance Naval Star was present. Both the Lynn McKenna and Kutkh were stationed near the zenith while the Mashal Ney and Mulhacen were at the nadir.
William Adams was on patrol across various pirate points. Each of the warships were supported by a variety of assault dropships and aerospace fighters as they prepared for imminent contact. While this was an excellent start, it was not yet enough, just based on the videos of the battles.
At the last departure of a relay jumpship from a pirate point, the Zenith jump point opened up like a portal from a different dimension.
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Without warning a bright light blinded the bridge crew of the Lynn McKenna. It was a flash that continued on, nothing like a jumpship arriving they had seen. Immediately the bridge light shield activated, dulling the light. Then, they could see it, a massive, angular structure emerging from the light.
But, before it fully emerged, dozens of other ships began emerging, dropships detaching from jumpships and beginning hard burns. Dozens of Aerospace fighters enveloped the larger vessels. One by one, ships emerged, including three warships. The Zenith forces prepared attack formations and deployed aerospace fighters in a defensive formation to engage the distant enemies, who were only a couple hundred kilometers away and closing fast.
Finally, the enormous vessel was fully emerged, the light dying behind it. It was a long ship, angular, like a sword. Computer readings across the bridge of the Lynn McKenna alerted to constant weapons detections across the entire ship as various autocannon, missile, and laser batteries began emerging from the gleaming hull. Ronthu leaned down to his console designating the monstrocity a ‘Swordship’ for easy recognition. It was easily at least the size of two warships and sent the personnel of the Raven Alliance fleet into shock.
“Hold your resolve men!” thunderously echoed over the fleetwide comms. The Director of the Lynn McKenna was a powerful man whose voice immediately solidified the backbones of all the personnel in the defensive formation. A stern, rough man, Director Ronthu had no fear. He stood at the front of the bridge, his staff behind him, as he gave the appearance of leading the charge. While he was a sphereoid, he was an intimidating height a few centimeters over 2 meters, muscular in build with a salt and pepper beard and barely regulation haircut, if it ever was, all well-groomed of course.
“These Blakist bastards mean to kill us all! We will give them hell! Forward, break their formation!” he yelled, his arm reaching ahead, his index and middle finger pointing at the nearest warship. Both Raven Alliance Warships were the core of the formation, alongside their usual escort fleet, with the 3rd Alliance Air Wing’s 3rd Regiment, and the jump point garrison forces. While outnumbered, they would still give all they had.
While observing the attacking Blakist fleet, Blakist dropships departed their jumpship’s docking collars, obviously with ground forces, and altered their course to give the defending Raven fleet a wide berth. As Commander of the defense, the Director had to leave those craft for the William Adams or the planet’s garrison. He needed everyone to fight this battle, at least two more Blakist naval fleets were out there and could arrive from their conquered worlds at any time.
Still, hundreds of kilometers and closing, the fleets held formation, completing last minute checks and preparing for the coming calamity. “Director!” broke everyone’s concentration over the general channels.
“Send it for Director Ronthu!” he shouted back.
“This is the Marshal Ney! The 4th Alliance Airwing just arrived at the Nadir Jump point!”
“Hell yes! Excellent timing! We need their fastest assets to our formation immediately! I am sending you coordinates on an invasion force trying to circumvent us, Chairman Zapata needs to pursue them at best speed and leave some assets at the Nadir Point! We are engaged, Director Ronthu, out!”
Ronthu pointed at the officers to send the relevant data to the Nadir point, then turned back to the Ferroglass ahead. “Fire at will! Kill them all!”
Waves of Aerospace fighters surged past, all around the Lynn McKenna and escorting dropships. Flashes began emerging from the smaller vessels in the kilometers ahead. Assault Dropships began passing the pair of warships to take the brunt of initial weapons fire. All in formation, they continued into the conflagration of Aerospace fighters tearing each other apart. Then, the big guns began firing. All through the hull of the warships, the weapons fire was like thunder.
Forward batteries came to life. Director Ronthu stood solid, hands in fists, trusting his crew to know their roles, which they performed incredibly. Two Blakist assault dropships took the forward battery fire directly, causing them to crumble in on themselves, then explode. Even as they reached close range weapons fire, the formation held. Both warships kept aligned, approaching a Blakist warship that tried to change course but, couldn’t maneuver fast enough. Both the Lynn McKenna and Kutkh flanked it on each side, slowing their pace, both ships broadsiding the single vessel while their outside weapons continued unloading on any possible target.
Multiple salvos ripped into the Blakist vessel, in seconds, entire sections were blowing out, its own weapons batteries dealing heavy but, not nearly as deadly, damage in return. Back and forth, barrage after barrage, it was a savage display of the devastating weapons fire these vessels could bring to bear, like watching ancient Terran naval battles between pirate ships. It was soon nothing more than a crumpled heap, a powerful vessel turned to scrap. However, now the warships had the ire of the large ship as they accelerated away from the crippled vessel.
“Formation Bravo!” shouted Ronthu to his fleet. Continuing past the dead Blakist warship, they sought to come about the aft of the larger vessel. All space fairing vessels had weak points among their rear engines. Whether they killed it or not, to slow it down would be huge. Both warships were above and below each other now, escorting assault dropships and aerospace dogfighting with harassing Blakists.
Passing behind it, the Director looked to see there were no rear engines, realizing they were possibly belly mounted, however, he could see what looked like a series of hangar doors and a large landing pad, from one side of the ship to the other. “Open fire on the hangar doors!”
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With that, both warships began firing on the rear of the ship where the bay doors were. One by one, emergency sealing panels sealed the breached doors. Then something caught his eye, a single missile. “Evasive maneuvers Kutkh!”
It was too late as the missile that launched from the port side of the ship hit the Kutkh, the nuclear detonation destroyed the entire port side of it. “Status report!” shouted Director Ronthu.
“Sir, we are alive, that was a hard hit though, we have no port side weapons.”
“Roger, move to formation Charlie and get on our starboard side, we will cover your port!”
“Yes, sir!”
Both warships and the accompanying assault dropships continued about to the starboard side of the Swordship, finally seeing a name. Strength of Blake. However, it was outlined with weapons, all along the hull. As the Raven Alliance fleet passed by, both the Strength of Blake and Lynn McKenna began tearing into each other. At the very least, the assault dropships were adding their fire in.
However, in a feat of excellent skill, the Kutkh rotated, bringing its starboard weapons to bear over the top of the Lynn McKenna. Huge volleys of missiles, trails of autocannon slugs, and massive beams of energy were exchanged. A number of dropships were cut in half or ripped to shreds. “Gain some distance! We cannot outshoot this thing!” Ronthu ordered his bridge crew.
Pulling away from the Strength of Blake, they began taking on various other ships that were clearly ordered to pursue the Lynn McKenna and Kutkh for harassing the Strength of Blake, including another of the trio of Blakist warships. By now, the Blakists had taken an upper hand in the aerospace battle which had expanded into a massive area of space, like a sphere around the larger vessels.
By now the first waves of the 4th Alliance Air Wing, Second Regiment arrived, breaking through the Blakist fighters and dropships beginning to swarm the Lynn McKenna and Kutkh. Cheering erupted across the bridge as lances of fighters chased down and blew apart the Blakists one by one. All of the Blakist forces began to group up around the Strength of Blake giving the Raven Alliance forces some space. Both sides still had a significant quantity of dropships and were long from being out of gas.
Opening a channel to all allied units, “Welcome home 4th! We are damn glad to have you!” Director Ronthu called out.
“Glad to be here, this is Chairman Denise McInnes, the majority of our aerospace fighters have arrived.”
“Solid copy Chairman, we took down one warship but we have lost 25% of our Warship strength in the process. I advise you keep a tight formation, let’s keep tearing into them like wrecking balls.”
“Roger Director Ronthu, swinging in now!” the line cut off and Ronthu could see on the holomap display beside him the friendly formation slamming in below the Word of Blake defensive perimeter they had formed. As his formation came about to begin another run at the attackers, he checked to see where the invasion fleet had gone. “Bloody hell….” He said to himself.