Ravens of Eternity

427 The Center of the Galaxy, Pt Thanatos joined the other drogar ships and lobbed numerous disintegration mortars at their enemies. They flung streams of mortar fire down at the incoming enemy ships with reckless abandon – even if they missed, they still struck the station far below.

Those that didn’t miss slammed into the incoming devastators with relative ease.

The orange energies that encased them swept outward and completely shorted out any repair circuits near the point of impact. Then, the dark nuclei burst all over the armor plating where countless nanites began to eat through the armor itself.

They chewed through every metallic element in their path greedily, and reduced the enemy devastators’ exterior defenses moot. Each of them had massive gaping holes that revealed far more fragile components inside.

In fact, the mortar nuclei already began to eat into those components, which caused a handful of the enemy devastators to begin to lose internal power.

The Einherjar hammered their enemies with an unceasing barrage and wrenched through their armor with heavy beams and lances and mortars. Then, they began to eat into the softer insides and slowly blasted their way further.

Large swaths of enemy armor were wrenched open and torn apart and flung away by Einherjar fire and tore further past the surface wounds and dug deep down into the devastators’ insides.

Even as they burrowed deeper into the devastators, they fired countless spikes and shells into the enemies’ wounds. Each one was charged with concentrated plasma or disruptive energies, which diffused into the enemy on impact.

They caused power to wane and flicker and fade, even as the Einherjar continued their relentless bombardment.

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Each shell ripped apart the complex machinery beneath, even as their diffused energies overwhelmed or bled dry any power in nearby circuits. Arcs of light blue and dark orange energies swept across the enemy ships’ circuits and interrupted their flow significantly.

Those who had emplacements quickly followed up and fired numerous missiles and torpedos at their targets, even as their beams and lances continued to wrench them open. The missiles flew in shallow arcs towards their targets, and even wove through space erratically.

This allowed most of them to avoid getting shot down by defensive weapons fire. They literally swerved out of the way randomly, even as streaks of anti missile rounds flew past.

Then, moments before they struck, most of the missiles burst open and allowed the cluster payload inside to scatter in every direction. Each of the bomblets peppered the enemy devastators, usually along their already open wounds.

All manner of incendiary, corrosive, electrical, magnetic, and concussive forces tore apart the devastators’ innards. Systems and modules and circuits were slagged instantly even as others were eroded chemically. Some collapsed and crushed themselves while others were blown apart by sheer kinetic energy.

The cluster missiles and bomblets were far from the only ordinance the Einherjar flung at the enemy fleet. Among the larger missiles were tremendous torpedoes and heavy bombs at blew past the already weakened armor, down into the destroyed innards, and detonated right in the hearts of the largest ships.

There, they erupted with extreme force and instantly ripped apart the ships from the inside out due to the sheer kinetic energy of the blasts.

Any of the torpedoes that hit simply erupted with such force that ships were blown apart into thousands of pieces. Any cruisers or battleships that they tore into were practically ripped apart from the inside from the sheer force of the kinetic blasts.

The ships were then torn further apart as a layer of superheated balls of shrapnel in the heavy missiles flung out in every direction. They punched through and perforated absolutely everything in their path. Some of the shrapnel punched out of the ships themselves from beneath the armor plating, and struck any ships nearby.

Then, the devastators in the Einherjar opened up their own primary weapons. Each of them held the largest weapons in the fleet, and charged them up to their absolute maximum.

Colviss’ devastator was the first to fire. Similar to most other Imperial devastators, the battleship-sized weapons that hovered alongside her broadsides were massive disruption mortars. Their pincer-like cannons glowed right at the very tips with large orbs of bright orange energies.

Then, their very centers began to coalesce into deep, dark nuclei as countless disintegration nanites were formed into existence.

Each of the orbs and the inner nuclei swelled greatly as the weapons charged up, and once they hit a fever pitch, fired. Massive disintegration mortars the size of cruisers flung down towards the closest enemy devastator.

They struck its armor with destructive glee – bright orange energies swept across the armor and disabled any repair modules quickly. That allowed the nuclei to burst open easily and eat through the enemy armor plating without delay.

The nanites spread out across the enemy devastator’s bow, and began to eat away at it from the tip.

The de Jardin devastator fired right after. As this was a Hegemony design, it instead used an accelerated particle launcher for a primary weapon. Its barrel appeared to be a fragile-looking framework that extended all along the devastator’s interior, right down the middle.

Its very tip protruded out from the ship’s bow, which glowed brightly from the various atomic energies being pumped through its circuits. Once it got to near blinding, the ship fired a small cluster of highly-energized particles at its target – one of the many battleships headed their way.

The particle cluster smashed right into the enemy ships and caused them to cave in with such violence that the entire front collapsed inward all the way out the rear. The battleship’s entire midsection blew outward and was torn apart from the kinetic force of the blow.

It erupted in a ball of fire not soon afterwards, and reduced the battleship to little more than millions of pieces of falling scrap.

More than that, the particle cluster smashed into two more battleships behind their initial target as well. The unrestrained force completely sheared those battleships into numerous chunks, which themselves exploded violently.

All of the battleships that were struck lost all power, and fell down towards the station itself. They crashed down on the surface and left large craters as waves of energy rippled out from every point of impact.

Thanatos was the last Einherjar devastator to fire. Freya aimed her Graviton Wave Disruptors at the closest enemy devastator, charged them up to full, then fired constant waves of gravitonic energy right at it.

The ship immediately stopped its ascent as its weight began to shift and ebb and increase and wane rapidly. One moment it was lighter, and the next heavier. At the same time, numerous internal systems began to quickly degrade and wear away.

Then, its weight began to increase further and further as the waves stabilized. The devastator began to crumple and compress into itself, unable to bear the weight of its own heavy armor plating.

Numerous interior spaces began to buckle and break from the sudden change. Finally, it began to fall rapidly. Its thrusters simply became unable to support its weight, at least, not this far away from the station. Out in the middle of space, it would have been no problem.

But a massive gravitational object nearby meant the ship had no hope at all.

It fell down to the station’s surface and practically flattened itself from its own weight. It quite literally pressed down on itself which caused its midsection to expand outward and burst open. At the same time, it smashed down on the station with such force that it resulted in the largest crater thus far.

Regardless of which of their weapons took down the enemy ships, the Corvus Republic did their best to collect and read all the incoming data from the destruction. They analyzed the enemy ships’ various strong and weak points, then sent refined targeting instructions to the rest of the Einherjar.

And so, as the moments went on, the entire fleet optimized their weapons fire more and more and more. All of them all adjusted their aim and blasted apart the more critical ship modules and systems with increased prejudice, and wrecked their enemies that much faster.

They ripped into power plants and repair modules and energy relays and sensor clusters with such unmitigated violence that the enemy fleet was ripped to shreds even in those opening moments.

The Einherjar’s first few barrages were so devastating and so effective that dozens of battleships and cruisers were blasted apart. More importantly, a handful of enemy devastators began to list and fall back down. The officers on the tactical bridge cheered as another of them broke apart into two large chunks and careened down to the station.

The two halves of the devastator smashed onto its surface, which caused it to warp and ripple from the impact. Each one punched massive craters onto the station’s surface, and dug deep down into the surface itself.

Yet another devastator fell right after and crashed with even greater force. Its body shattered into countless pieces even as it left an even larger crater at the point of impact.

One more tore itself apart in a series of explosions and fell down all over the surface violently. Each of the disparate parts caused their own dents and craters to pock-mark the station relentlessly, to the undying cheers of every Einherjar officer.

The cheers on the tactical bridge didn’t last long, as the enemy fleet quickly countered with their own barrage.

Large sections of their front bows glowed silver, which erupted in thousands of silver-white beams. They all screamed upwards towards the Einherjar, and punched into their armor with unbelievable ease.

It as almost as though their armor didn’t exist at all – they simply carved their way in with unrepentant efficiency. The silver beams dug further than the armor, chewed through every deck they passed, then punched through to the other side.

Any crew or module or drone or reinforcement in the beams’ paths were utterly and completely vaporized in an instant. One moment they were there, and in the next they were reduced to nothing. Those who were annihilated never even realized what had happened to them.

Those who weren’t killed outright instead choked and froze to death in sheer agony as the beams exposed them to space. That was on top of having some portion of their bodies consumed painfully.

Entire sections inside of the ships that were hit were immediately opened up to the vacuum of space, and anyone inside them quickly suffocated from the breach. Thousands died in those few moments, but many more would soon follow.

The smaller ships of the Einherjar were most devastated by the enemies’ beams. The bright silver beams literally cut through them with absolute ease, and practically eviscerated them, or chopped them into pieces, or outright consumed them.

Entire midsections were chewed right through and hollowed out.

Some exploded even as they were punched through, and fell down to the massive station. They too smashed violently on the surface, left huge dents on it, and joined the rest of the carcasses.

Countless ships of the Einherjar were obliterated in that first counterattack – the enemy’s beam weapons were simply incredibly potent against even the most robust and advanced armor. Even the Einherjar devastators could hardly weather the damage.

Enemy beams scarred their surfaces, whether it was heavy or chitinous plating. They left massive scars across their surfaces, and even dug in deep to the systems below. The crackling energy tore through them so easily that it almost seemed that the beams were made specifically for them.

Even Thanatos was heavily damaged, despite how much power Freya sent into its repair modules. No matter how much she overcharged it, there was far more than the ship could handle. More of its thick chitinous hide was scraped away faster than she could replace it. ƒ𝒓e𝐞we𝚋𝙣ｏ𝚟𝚎𝘭.co𝙢

Freya realized just how powerful the enemy ships were, and how insurmountable they seemed to be. She grit her teeth as she realized that winning the fight required drastic actions. 𝒇r𝙚𝙚𝓌𝙚𝑏𝗻𝑜𝘷𝗲𝘭.c૦𝑚

One where not all of them might make it out alive.