Legacy of the Void Fleet

”Squad Leader Ning, I guess this is all the help we can provide you with,” Cathy transmitted directly to the leader of the Light Spear Striker Squadron.

”Please watch out for trouble next time, Squad Leader Ning—and that goes for everyone,” Samantha chimed in. ”These hostiles are desperately hunting us down. If this happens again, you might truly lose all your progress and be forced to start all over. Over and out, Light Spear.”

Tsk!

With a sharp click, Samantha and Cathy cut the transmission simultaneously. Leading their small strike detachment, they wheeled around to rejoin their main formation, which was already driving deeper into the enemy lines and drawing heavy fire.

Behind them, Ning and her pilots were left speechless and thoroughly embarrassed. The battle had only just begun, yet look at the state they were in.

Cough, cough.

Sensing the awkward silence settling over the comms, Squad Leader Ning cleared her throat. ”No need to hang your heads, squad. What happened, happened—there’s no point dwelling on it. Let’s charge in and clear out a few more of these Republican scumbags before we pull back for repairs!”

Rallied by Ning’s words, the squadron regained their edge. Like a pack of starving wolves, they surged toward a nearby Republican destroyer-class warship.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Meanwhile, Varek had already run into heavy resistance, facing a wave of incoming Republican fighters and mechs charging head-on. In a fraction of a second, he locked his high-powered plasma cannons onto the leading hostiles and fired in rapid succession.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three rushing Republican starfighters were struck simultaneously, bursting into incandescent scrap as their momentum carried them straight into the plasma bolts. Behind Varek, the heavy bombers utilized their long-range weapon systems to target the slower, bulkier mechs, picking them off just as swiftly.

Having linked back up with the main formation, Samantha and Cathy checked in over the neural link.

Varek gave a simple, low grunt of acknowledgment. ”Samantha, Cathy—secure the flanks. Don’t let anything get close. Our primary target is that battlecruiser dead ahead.”

”Understood, Commander!” both replied in unison, immediately locking onto the next wave of incoming targets.

From the front, an even larger swarm of Republican starfighters surged blindly toward them. Samantha instantly broke away from the formation, accompanied by three other fighters, while Cathy maintained her position in the main wing—moving with seamless tactical synergy.

The main and secondary thrusters of the four interceptors flared brilliantly. Engaging their lateral maneuvering thrusters, they drifted into high-G slip-turns with lethal precision.

They cleanly evaded a volley of blue energy bolts that grazed their shields, causing the energy barriers to flicker slightly.

[WARNING: Energy shield integrity down to 89 percent]

Ignoring the warning, Samantha kept her focus razor-sharp. Snapping her crosshairs onto the lead Republican starfighter, she opened fire without hesitation.

A relentless barrage from her high-frequency Gatling plasma cannons tore into the two pinned Republican fighters. The concentrated fire obliterated their shields, punched through their cockpits, and detonated both hulls into spiraling clouds of incandescent debris.

The three fighters on her wing dispatched their own targets with equal efficiency, neutralizing the vanguard of the Republican interceptors. Seeing yet another wave rushing in, Samantha led her detachment into a sweep, while Cathy joined the fray with her own unit on the opposite flank.

With both flanks held secure, Varek seized the opening. Leading his formation of Scythe-class starfighters, he dove straight toward the enemy battlecruiser—or more accurately, a hybrid battlecruiser-carrier. Starfighters and mechs were actively deploying and docking from its hangar bays, while a defensive ring of Republican mechs formed a perimeter around the hull.

Barring Varek’s strike group were over two dozen void-combat mechs, laying down a wall of suppressing fire with their shoulder- and back-mounted energy and kinetic cannons. Protected by arm-mounted energy shields, they formed a dense, overlapping defensive phalanx around the cruiser. Glancing at his tactical navigation display, Varek noted that even more enemy units were converging on their sector.

”Lock onto targets and release plasma interceptor missiles! Take those mechs down now!” Varek barked over the comms.

Dozens of plasma interceptor missiles erupted from the four vanguard Scythes, bright blue exhaust trails scoring the void as they accelerated rapidly, slamming dead into the mechs’ overlapping shield line.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A cascade of violent detonations followed, obliterating the majority of the defensive mechs and crippling the few survivors in the very first salvo.

”Now, release shield-breaker torpedoes onto the cruiser behind them!” Varek’s eyes narrowed with focus. Seeing the mech line crumble gave him a clear shot at the capital ship—an opportunity he wasn’t about to waste.

From their internal weapon bays, the four Scythes salvo-fired eight heavy torpedoes that surged forward with blinding velocity. Weaving cleanly through the cruiser’s frantic point-defense fire, they slammed dead into the warship’s overlapping energy shields.

The impact didn’t trigger a massive fireball. Instead, the warheads discharged a cascading wave of localized electromagnetic dissonance. The disruption shorted out the ship’s primary emitter arrays, collapsing the defensive barrier instantly and tearing a massive hole clean through its protective envelope.

”Shields are down!” Varek roared over the squadron frequency. ”Bulwarks, take that battlecruiser out!”

With a tight maneuver, the vanguard fighters split outward, clearing an unobstructed attack corridor for the heavy bombers behind them.

Surging out from the protected center of the Obsidian Wing, the ten Bulwark heavy bombers accelerated into firing position, locked targets, and unleashed their Ship-Breaker torpedoes in a synchronized volley.

Streaking like bolts of blue-white lightning, the ordinance crossed the void and struck the battlecruiser’s exposed port flank. Upon impact, the warheads collapsed into spheres of superheated fusion fire, expanding outward like miniature suns.

The entire port section was instantly engulfed in raw, incandescent fury that shredded the armored hull plating like parchment. A secondary internal detonation tore through the primary conduits, snapping the cruiser’s port wing into jagged sections as all emergency power across the vessel died completely.

Stripped of all power, the ship’s inertial stabilizers failed. What remained of the hulking battlecruiser began to...