49 Surprise Invasion (1/2)
”What's going on?” Ivan asked grabbed the shoulder of a nearby person who were in the middle of fleeing.
”It's an attack, if you don't want to get caught in it, you should find somewhere to hide or get out of here as soon as possible,” The man answered will desperately struggling to get free and escape, but Ivan's grip on his shoulder was like steel.
”Attack? Who would be attacking?”
”Dunno. Competition, someone who holds a grudge, maybe someone who wants ownership of this here planet, could be anyone. But this is a big alarm, I ain't gettin caught in the middle of the two sides.”
Ivan let the man go and turned to look up at the sky. The answer to the question he had previously been asking was quickly answered.
”Scalians? Why are they here in the Delta Quadrant?” Ivan furrowed his brows.
Small black endo-atmospheric ships powered by antimatter flew through the air and began to drop antimatter bombs and fire antimatter beams down from the sky. A massive amount of destruction began to spread throughout the settlement.
Almost immediately as soon as they appeared though, massive platoons of fifty meter battle fighters flew across the sky and began to fire back at them. Even more mechanoids ran through the settlement and started firing back from the ground, ignoring any unfortunate people still fleeing as any who didn't get out of the way would simply get stepped on by the massive human-shaped war machines.
”Fire at will,” Ivan commanded the guards returning to the ship with him. ”Those who are to remain, protect our store, but don't allow yourselves to suffer any casualties. I don't want anybody else getting their hands on any of your biological data.”
”Yes, President,” Everyone knelt in salute before taking defensive battle stances.
The Scalians began paradropping their own wardolls onto the surface to eliminate the ground forces while Ivan led his guards back toward the Kraken.
Several wardolls noticed Ivan's group flying back to his ship and turned their weapons toward them before firing small antimatter beams. The Scalians piloting the wardolls however didn't realize the Celestials were actually just below the surface universe in subspace so the small beams did nothing but alert them that they were being targeted.
The Celestial guards instantly retaliated by firing their energy spears back at the wardolls. The Scalians four armed mechanical suits couldn't even react as the white beams turned them into pincushions.
The sound of firing stopped as the wardolls crashed onto the ground on after another, kicking up a storm of dust. The Celestials could see through the fourth dimension, so all their attacks were targeted at the upper chest of the wardolls where their Scalian pilots were located.
The guards shot and destroyed several small endo-atmospheric ships and many more wardolls before they got back to the Kraken.
Within the Kraken's bridge, Ivan sat down in the captain's chair and crossed one leg over another.
”Start up all systems. I don't know why the Scalians have appeared here, but this planet is one of the keystones to the rise of Celestial Trade. This is an attack on us, so we will retaliate with full force.”
”Yes, President!” The crew in the bridge echoed in unison.
”Full power to subspace thrusters, bring this ship up to the planet's orbit immediately.”
The Kraken suddenly took off from the dock, twisting in a seemingly impossible matter before facing straight up and piercing through the clouds, scattering them across half the sky with a large sonic boom.
The atmosphere around the ship burned up as it ascended to space several fold faster than an asteroid falling on a planet. The four-dimensional material was impervious to normal heat however and didn't even glow red by the time it reached space.
”Radars are picking up signatures of a large fleet of vessels.”
”Good,” Ivan responded immediately. ”That will be the Scalian fleet. How many ships are detected.”
”A total of 6,148 vessels.”
”Deploy the Gatling energy laser, can the ship target the enemy's engines?”
”Apologies, President, but our ship in unable to detect their engines.”
”No matter. Set the Gatling energy laser to manual targeting, I will personally aim it.”
”Understood.”
Two doors on the bow of the Kraken retracted and a massive energy laser with eight equally massive barrels emerged. A holographic screen with a target emerged before Ivan and he used his hand in the air in conjunction to the target box to aim the laser.
With the pitch-black Scalian warships displayed on the targeting screen, Ivan moved the laser and squeezed his fist shut to begin firing.
The Gatling energy laser didn't rotate like a standard rotary machine gun, it simply fired out of each of its barrels sequentially. The rate of fire was approximately two massive energy lasers per second.