Chapter 203: (The War - Leebaw) (2/2)
Dark matter protoplasm was spreading out around the mortally wounded vessel, which was still firing its remaining guns, the battle-screens flickers and sparking. As Delivers watched the bottom half of the ship seemed to vanish as the protomatter spread out. The protomatter around the ship began to burn, the 'fire' spreading from the massive craters in the hull.
Flame and fire doesn't happen in vacuum, Delivers scientific arrays insisted.
He turned all his sensors to the mortally wounded warship, rotating up thinking and analysis arrays to compute what was going on.
The wounded warship began to sink into the dark protomatter, vanishing as it's main gun fired one last time. Sensors showed it was sinking into and through the dimensional subspace foam. The protomatter continued to burn as if it was inside an oxygen atmosphere, then sputtered and went out.
Delivers turned his attention back to the battle.
A third of his Harvester Class were dead, floating in space or nothing more than expanding fury. Half the additional craft were down and more of the tiny attack craft were boring in. Either they dropped bombs, did strafing runs, or slammed into the hull with a 'blade' of focused graviton energy that tore great rents nearly a half mile wide in the armor. They kept striking the same gouge over and over, driving it deep, widening it, lengthening it.
It made no sense.
The battle was going well. Another of the enemy ships reeled out of the battle line, spewing debris and streaming vaporized metal. The protomatter began to spread around the ship as it began to burn.
Concentrate fire on... he started to order.
I AM RISEN bellowed out across spacetime, making all three dimensions shudder and shiver.
Space screamed, the outline of a bulge appeared, stretched, and shattered, pieces of reality shattering away.
From... beneath? beyond? outside? of Realspace the ship breached the surface of wherever it had been, the screaming skull that made up the prow leading the way. Beyond the skull was a female Terran's body, made massive, bound by wire and twisted strangely in a way that made scanners ache and burn with pain. The female Terran was nude, wounds gashed into her flesh, streaming boiling red protomatter behind her. She was obscene in a strange twisted way, even to Delivers would normally would not be able to comprehend obscenity.
His circuits knew, even if he didn't, that what he was seeing should not be witnessed.
I AM THE BEAST MADE OF WARSTEEL! THE HAMMER OF THE CHROMIUM KRAUTMARINE! the newcomer bellowed.
Delivers suddenly realized that the battle could not be won.
All ships, retreat to Point Lima! Retreat to Point Lima! the massive Harvester ordered.
Hellspace rips began to appear.
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ARIZONA> BISMARCK! Get in formation! Print a DeathKawaii Captain and get back in the fight!
ENTERPRISE> Target 512E's shields are failing, get some Ginsu Fighters in there to rip up their armor!
ARIZONA> You heard Enterprise!
KAGA> online... booting... online... bootstrap successful... printing Captain.
ARIZONA> Kaga, get in tight with Enterprise while you warm up.
KAGA> What... what happened?
BRINGER> You had an anxiety driven heart attack. You thought your fusion reactors shut off and went into shutdown.
MARAT> Coming up on your port side, Bismarck.
BISMARCK> I see you, brother! Together we shall drive back...
>>WARNING! HELLBREACH DETECTED !WARNING
SINGING DUCK> THERE IT IS!
ARIZONA> ALL SHIPS, OPEN FIRE!
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On the Show Bridge of the Bismarck the girl posed, bringing her baton back. Her hair was black, her skin deathly white, her lips black, dressed in purple with red highlights. Half of her face was stripped away to reveal white bone. She was a DeathKawaii Captain, an Undying who had been Born Whole with a burning purpose beyond mere struggle.
She was a Deathless One, bound to the mighty Bismarck's very soul.
The Hellspace portals were opening for the Harvesters to try to escape.
”FIRE!” she screeched, her voice carrying through the vacuum.
She brought down the baton, pointing at the largest of the Harvesters, the one who's guns had pounded Bismarck beneath the Stellar Waves.
The Bismarck fired with a roar the shredded apart space around the ship as the massive warship delivered a full broadside.
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Ships were starting to enter Hellspace, eager to escape a battle that benefited nobody present, eager to escape their first encounter with the hated Ferals. The Pact of Greed ships felt the burning shame of having been proved arrogant and weak before the ships of the Logical Rebellion.
The feral warships suddenly fired and dozens of the Hellspace portals exploded in flames. Space around them shattered and knife-edged impossible glass-like sections of space tumbled away, some of the pieces hitting AWM ships and shattering against their hulls even as the ship crumpled like a clay toy in the fist of an enraged toddler.
Delivers saw his Hellspace portal explode and reacted instantly. He shoved aside a Pact of Greed Goliath and squeeeeeeeezed himself through the portal, screaming across his thinking arrays as he passed through the Eye of the Needle and into Hellspace.
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ARIZONA> Break off pursuit. Repeat, negative pursuit. All ships, report Damage Control. We'll prioritize who gets repair first.
AJAX> I am ready, I who stand and weld.
BRINGER> I'll keep watch for Hood. He should be resurfacing any second and he'll need me to help him figure out what's going on. He's going to be a bit confused.
BISMARCK> We are wrath incarnate, brothers and sisters. We have driven the enemy off and ensured the survival of the gentle frog people of the small jewel of a world behind our shields. The day is won, but this is simply one battle in a greater war.
ARIZONA> Exactly, Bismarck. Missouri, a word?
MISSOURI> Of course, Arizona.
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On the Show Bridge of the Arizona the teenage Terran female made a ”Hmph” sound and swung the baton so it was tucked into her armpit. She had scrapes on her face, butterfly stitches on her hip, and her socks were torn in four places to reveal sliced flesh. Blood seeped from her lip and down her chin and her hair was wild and tangled.
But victory had been achieved.
That was all that mattered.
Victory.
Or Death.
Either was fine.