Skyfire Avenue - Chapter 684

Chapter 684

Chapter 684: Ares’ Cleaver

Holmen never took his eyes from the screen in front of him . He watched every detail as Tyrannosaurus lead its entourage in battle against the alien planet .

The monsters were crafty, using the galaxy itself as a weapon . Were it him in Kang Hui’s place, Holmen wasn’t sure he would have fared much better .  You better hold out Kang Hui, you miscreant, you better hold the line! Wait for me to come pull your ass out of the fire .

No matter his personal feelings, protecting the North and its army was their shared goal .

“Admiral! Sensors have picked up a strong pulse of vital energy . ” The voice of one of his officers interrupted Holmen’s thoughts .

He and Kang Hui had different styles of command . Tyrannosaurus’ Captain relied on his own superhuman vision to guide his men . Holmen, meanwhile, preferred to delegate when possible . He firmly believed that a single person had limits, no matter how strong . A fighting force was strongest when they worked in unison .

As a result his people were some of the best . Although Holmen was prone to angry outbursts, and was as cold as a man could be, his soldiers loved him dearly . Unless the situation warranted, his staff handled their own business and troubled him only when necessary .

“Continue battle preparations . Where are we with the main cannon?” A glint flashed in Holmen’s eye and his right hand slapped the surface of his desk . As though in response, two large metallic hoops rose from either side of him . His desk separated to reveal several control panels, transforming into a complicated operations control center .

“Sir, main cannon is charged to forty-one percent . It will be ready to fire in eleven minutes and thirty-two seconds . ”

“Redirect energy to the guns to hasten the charge . Thirty degrees to port . Reduce speed to standard ahead, forty percent . ” He calmly delivered his orders .

Arachnid’s spindly body suddenly lurched to the left . One of its enormous legs crashed down on a larger moon and used it to redirect its forward motion . At the same moment its secondary weapons systems came online . Glimmering railguns with glowing barrels appeared all along the Bastion’s surface .

Suddenly, a large purple sphere appeared not far to one side . They saw it just in time to witness a hail of purple beams launch from its surface . They were headed right for Arachnid .

A small, hard smile broke Holmen’s stony features .

That bastard was right after all .  Here you are then? Excellent! Let’s see what you’ve got . Brothers and sisters of the Seventh Fleet, today I make them pay!

The light surrounding Arachnid suddenly swelled . As its railguns took aim at the planet the ship feigned to one side .

A stream of data tumbled across Holmen’s screens . Quick calculations told him the alien planet was thirty-two times larger than his ship – quite a bit larger . There were no readings on power levels yet .

Holmen’s reactions were calm and precise . He’d been waiting for this .  Come on then, you bastards!

The purple rays were fast and rapidly approaching . Scanners revealed them to large aliens, with umbrella-shaped monstrosities in the lead . They raced ahead with a clear target, and large as they were they still moved with uncanny agility . They juked and dodged, changing direction so quickly they were hard to lock onto . Strange pulses blasted from the umbrella-aliens as well, confounding Arachnid’s scanning systems .

“First Combat Division, engage!” Holmen called out the order through his intercom .

Panels on the side of the ship split open, and from them gushed a horde of combat ships like angry wasps . They were all silvery-white, no larger than fifty meters from bow to stern, and sleek as missiles . They scattered into the surrounding vacuum of space, darting in all directions .

Stationed forces of a Bastion were different from general army units . A single division boasted a thousand ships . Typically a Bastion had between five thousand and ten thousand fighters ready to be deployed . They were their standard front-line troops .

Tyrannosaurus couldn’t engage the enemy with its troops in the midst of an asteroid storm, but Arachnid’s situation was different . He didn’t have to hold back vital combat resources and deployed them right away . Often in a space battle these small combat ships were more effective than mechas . Fighter ships worked better together out in space, while mechas were more suitable to ground combat operations . They were more adaptable and had more power and options available to them . Out here among the stars, a full contingent of fighters could erase a whole fleet .

Arachnid’s First Combat Division fighters spread out around the Bastion, but not too far . They gathered into a hundred units of ten ships, unifying agility with firepower . The aliens came at them like bullets fired from the purple planet . By the time First Combat Division was in place, the creatures were on them .

However the aliens weren’t met by the fighters . The first thing in their way was more than five hundred blasts of energy . They burst from between the fighter units, perfectly accurate .

Railgun fire! Arachnid started the fight with a wall of destructive energy from one of humanity’s most potent weapons . Each gun was individually manned, ensuring there was no friendly fire . Meanwhile the fighters hovered in position so as not to get in the way . The battle had begun!

The saucer-shaped aliens reacted quickly . They spun around at incredible speed, flinging out orbs of purple energy . The orbs spread out and stuck together like a film to warm the aliens from the encroaching attack .

Seconds later a deafening explosion arose . Blinding white and toxic purple met in a cloud of tumultuous energy .

Holmen grinned at his screens, confident that the salvo caused his foes pain . Those looked like normal alien fighters, nothing special, and that blast had come from his Alpha- and Beta- railgun arrays .

But he would be disappointed . As the tempest of energy subsided the aliens reappeared . Enormous, shield-like bodies protected the smaller aliens from the railguns, rendering them useless . Their cumbersome form looked thick and craggy like tortoise shells .

Arachnid’s long-range scanners peered into their midst, revealing the shell-bearing aliens . They were huge, easily two hundred meters in diameter for the big ones, no less than one hundred for their smaller brethren . Their shells were the same sickly purple as the planet and flickered with violet light . They were thick, just as effective as ships’ armor .

All the railguns had managed to do was push them back and cause their shields to ripple . Nothing got through .

Even Lan Jue, with all his experience, would be dumbfounded by the scene . They had been brought along with the saucer-aliens as natural shields . Saucer-aliens remained behind and pushed the shields ahead of them to protect against the railguns . The remaining alien forces followed . Meanwhile the giant alien planet was approaching from the distance!

A dark and seething anger tainted Holmen’s face . He wasn’t upset that they’d survived his first salvo . What troubled him was their intelligence . It was all planned, all deliberate .

“Ares’ Cleaver!” Holmen growled the words into the intercom . He firmly pressed a distinct, angry red button on his panel .

Arachnid’s First Combat Division burst into the fray while even more were dispatched from the Bastion . The bristling railguns swung back into the closed position, leaving Arachnid’s surface an unbroken field of alloy armor .

The atmosphere-like shield around the Bastion receded . While it seemed to be getting smaller, that was simply because it was condensing . Concurrently the ship’s eight mechanical legs splayed out around it, flipping in the process . Their back ends were thick and sturdy, while the front was sharp as a blade .

Arachnid’s body was thirty-thousand meters around . Its legs were eight thousand meters long and separated into two section . The bottom sections were five thousand four hundred meters long, and were tipped by the second section, each three thousand six hundred meters long . Thus in just a few moment the spider became a deadly sphere with eight razor-sharp blades splayed around it . They called it; Ares’ Cleaver!

Tyrannosaurus relied on its enormous size and impressive weapons suite – a very traditional Bastion . With its large energy stores it was best suited for fighting with other interstellar fleets .