Notes : Chapter 119 of The Fallen World has been written and added to the queue !
A lot of these notes will be copy and pasted from the previous special because I just came home from a LOT of train problems (including having my train get evacuated by corporate security), so I am at low power.
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And here it is, the promised special ! First of its kind for Manaforged Robotics as well !
It is a special and a shoutout in one, set in Dagger Dance's setting, a sci-fi space opera you can read here : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/162370/dagger-dance
Now, full disclosure, Dagger Dance is a story that I highly recommend (otherwise I wouldn't have gone all this trouble writing a literal fanfic for it, and yes this is NOT canon to Dagger Dance itself, at least as far as I am aware, and don't annoy Whiskey about it), but it is also one I am not objective about. Its author, Project Whiskey, is a personal friend, and I have helped her get this story up and running, given all the advice I could, etc.
The story has a female MC and I know Whiskey is interested in including some slow-burn yuri, but no promises. Romance isn't always easy to write about and it is her first novel. Not everyone dropkicks something like team crystalline in their debut novel XD
Which reminds me, for those of you who have read The Eternal Seeker Saga, Whiskey is a reader of it, and has been relentlessly lobbying me to start it back up. After her having given me some advice and some fascinating insights, I believe I'll be able to solve some of the major mathematical issues that had prevented me from picking it back up. And for the first time in several years, I've started writing about it.
Don't go expecting regular updates though. It will remain a secondary project to The Fallen World and Manaforged Robotics.
It's just...these specials made me realize just how much I missed writing space battles. And just stuff IN space. With no fantasy elements. I loved the concept of The Starlight Trader, and I still do for that matter, but some days I crave to just fire volleys of nukes between capital ships and fill the void with ephemeral stars.
I hope you'll enjoy this special ! Note that CQ is a character from TFW, and would be Sapphiria's cousin (her aunt's daughter) were they sharing the same universe. Reading TFW, as usual, is NOT necessary to enjoy MFR or any of its specials, it just enhances some aspects with additional context. The other part of the battle (the cruiser ambush) mentionned her is the TFW special though.
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"Auntie should have opened up the festivities by now. We'll see the light of that in a few minutes." Said Sapphiria, captain of the San Batavian Republic carrier Amaterasu, before turning towards her executive officer, and the hologram of her squadron commander. "It's time to get our show on the road."
CQ, her squadron commander and incidentally her cousin, smiled. Sapphiria didn't know where the nickname came from, but it was the only thing she wanted to be called, and even her parents complied.
"Finally!"
Her enthusiasm was unsurprising. She was always itching for a fight, and was practically born into a starfighter cockpit.
Sapphiria had to say that she shared her eagerness, as she looked at the tactical display. The raiders that had been intent on pillaging the system had fallen right into her aunt's trap. They had intended to come in, draw the defensive fleet out of position, wreck a few things and then do a parting missile and fighter strike on the navy before jumping out. However, her aunt's 'fleet', in truth a series of decoys, was holding position behind the guns of the orbital forts.
Certain they had eyes on the whole defensive fleet, and that they wouldn't be attacked, the raiders got greedy, and split up. They'd sent their cruisers off to pillage a juicy hollow asteroid...that instead of being filled with cargo, was packed with the rest of the fleet.
Meanwhile her own carrier, the Amaterasu, had been disguised as an equally juicy freighter. Covered in containers and gantries, it looked nothing like a warship. It was helped further by the fact that the carrier was a reserve ship and that it used a lot of civilian systems to begin with, and the whole Stella-class was originally designed from an actual freighter.
In any case, the enemy's carriers had sent their starfighters after her. They could blow a cargo hauler to smithereens if it decided to cause trouble, and if it meekly surrender, they could simply demand cargo containers be ejected and snap them up.
Cia, her executive officer, frowned slightly. Which for her, was a staggering show of emotions. Sapphiria had seen drones exhibit more emotions than this woman did.
"I would advise caution, ma'am. The enemy is in missile range and there is a serious possibility some of their squadrons were outfitted for a torpedoe strike."
"That's fair. Hold back...a quarter of the containers for counter-missile fire. CQ?"
The squadron leader's eyes unfocused as she delved into her implants.
"I'll detach two squadrons of interceptors to serve as a screen. I can spare them."
"Excellent. Ready?"
CQ's smile returned.
"Absolutely."
"Let us begin, then."
Several things happened.
First, the gantries surrounding the ship and holding its external containers came apart from carefully placed explosives.
Then, the containers were ejected by short lived, disposable thrusters.
And then they opened.
Revealing what was inside. Missile cells. Stacks upon stacks upon stacks of missile cells.
On the tactical display, there was a second of hesitation.
Then her ship vanished behind a wall of missile icons.
The ship began to shake, and she saw CQ grin as the starfighters launched.
Eight squadrons screamed out into the void. Two broke off, forming a loose screen between the carrier and the now panicking raider crafts, but the last six accelerated at full power.
She could feel the howls of the pilots at the edge of her perception through the combat net.
Someone on the enemy side reasserted order. The strikecrafts rearranged their formations, and-
"Torpedo launch! Reading five hundred, five zero zero, incoming!" Barked out Cia, and Sapphiria grimaced.
"You were right. Prepare to intercept!"
"We'll try to thin them out." Said CQ. "But I can't guarantee we'll be able to do much if we want to close."
Sapphiria nodded. Starfighters could be used as point defense, but their accuracy degraded under acceleration. Hence the current screen.
"We'll hold. Just make sure you get every one of these bastards."
"If the missiles leave anything."
Sapphiria glanced at the screen.
"We're about to find out."
The enemy, unsurprisingly, had immediately started to run for their lives. But they couldn't outrun the missiles, and at the last possible second the starfighters flipped in a beautiful, coordinated maneuver. Yeah, 'poor pirates' her ass. Those guys were professionals. Her aunt was probably right about them being elite mercenaries of some kind.
Too bad even elite mercenaries were dregs of scum when it came to facing a real navy. Especially under those conditions.
They managed to shoot down an impressive amount of missiles. First with their main weapons, then throwing their wingmen drones forward as sacrificial decoys.
The tactical display filled with static as the enemy's ECM went into overdrive, and the missiles entered final acquisition, overloading their sensors to pierce through the counter measures.
There was a cascade of flashes. Then silence.
"Scans indicate half of the enemy strikecrafts have been destroyed or crippled." Said Cia.
"Good. We'll have something to kill." Said CQ. "Missiles approaching, engaging."
Sapphiria watched as the icons for the enemy torpedo volley and CQ's wings got closer and closer. Icons among the torpedoes began to wink out.
They weren't standard missiles like the ones she'd fired at the enemy strikecrafts. They were larger, bulkier, and far less agile, meant to punch through starship armor. They weren't a meaningful threat to the strikecrafts, but they were meant to survive them nonetheless.
The icons merged...and the display dissolved into static as CQ's hologram winked out.
"Shit! Cia, report."
"The enemy torpedoes appear to have included dedicated ECM platforms. They are jamming sensors and communications."
"Shit. Screen squadrons?"
"Adapting to the situation, and tightening formation."
Sapphiria nodded. A loose formation was good for maximizing point defense, but they still needed the datalinks to their fellows to be effective and coordinate their fire. In this case, better they be tighter and able to talk to one another than dispersed.
"Then let's prepare to receive them. Stand by point defense!"
"Shall we fire the missiles?"
Sapphiria shook her head.
"No. We'd do more damage to our own than the enemy." That was why she hadn't fired follow up volleys after her initial one. She trusted a lot of the navy's systems, but this was a reserve ship, and it had the second-class missiles that came with the title. "Let's wait until they've gone through the screen."
"Yes ma'am."
The bubble of interference moved forward, and forward.
Until finally, it engulfed the starfighters.
They were close enough at this point that the sensors were able to strip away some of it. The starfighters engaged, and without having their own acceleration interfering, or the need to preserve resources for the remaining crafts CQ had been preparing to fight, they threw everything they had at the torpedoes.
Particle lances and railgun slugs slammed into decoys and torpedoes. Debris clouds erupted as interceptor missiles followed.
And finally, the wingmen were thrown forward, blasting their weapons as they went on suicidal collision courses.
Then they were past, the starfighters reorganizing their formation and deploying for any follow up strikes, since there was no point trying to pursue the torpedoes, especially not when they had already such a huge velocity advantage.
"Fire." Simply said Sapphiria.
Once again, her ship vanished under an avalanche of missile icons, as the last quarter of the missile containers and her own onboard launchers fired.
The torpedoes' onboard computers recognized the attack, and the ECM redoubled as they started burning through their last resources to make their attack runs.
Point defense guns spun up and fired. Torpedoes began to vanish, one by one, as the lasers methodically began to sweep space.
Then the missiles intercepted the torpedoes.
The tactical display outright blanked as nukes met nukes. Torpedoes detonated in sacrificial flares, trying to blind the missiles' sensors to the rest of the volley, while missiles exploded like glorified flak, trying to catch their foes in dying spheres of plasma, and form a wall of energy.
A surprising number of the torpedoes made it.
But unfortunately for them, they were stripped bare. Faced with such an overwhelming wave of nuclear fury, their ECM emitters were stripped, and their sensors half blind.
The point defense guns went into final defensive fire as the torpedoes dove in, and Sapphiria felt her ship rumble, the lights flickering as all power was diverted to sensors and defensive systems.
Then it was quiet. Just the slow murmur of computers and the thrum of the engines.
"All torpedoes destroyed." Announced Cia. "The interference from the missile interception is dying down. Receiving transmission."
CQ's hologram appeared again.
"Ah! Cousin! You live. I'd feared the worst."
"Our interception plan worked. If anything, I should be worried about you."
"Nonesense. Besides, there isn't much left of them!"
"What...Oh." She watched as the tactical display updated. Less than a quarter of the original strikecrafts remained. "The hell happened?"
"Some decided to break off and run away. From us and their own carriers. Clearly they didn't believe they'd make it, and probably wished to surrender. The others disagreed. They fought it out. The loyalists won. And we're about to repay them for their fealty."
Poor bastards probably thought the cruisers and carriers would speed back to save them.
The cruisers were probably atoms by now. And the carriers would have bigger problems as her aunt's fleet and her four capital ships went to run them down.
"Good hunting."
"Oh I will. CQ, out."
The hologram winked out. And a minute later, the light of what was happening in the rest of their trap caught up.
Sapphiria watched as the fleet surged out of the asteroid, and ripped the enemy cruisers to pieces.
The enemy squadrons had just enough time to realize how screwed they were.
Then CQ caught up to them.
Reserve squadrons or not, it wasn't even a contest. The enemy had just been through two fights, and they had depleted their missiles and wingmen drones.
They were annihilated in short order. Then Sapphiria watched as the fleet began launching missiles at the carriers.
This little 'incursion' was over. Now the enemy just had to finish realizing they were dead.