The Reavers worked like mad to get their weapons specifications changed on short notice, while the military fleet bore down on them. Once the fleet was fifteen minutes out, they were too close for their formation to disrupt the signal anymore, and everyone was in for a shock.
“Sweet mother of God, they sent the entire fleet. Did they really fake an invasion of Kepler space in order to ally with the Rebels and try to wipe out a few Kepler Officers and a Reaver Company?” Max muttered as he counted the vessels and updated his evaluation of the combat odds.
[Looks like we’ve got all the friends now. That new weapon configuration had better work Tarith, you know the rules.] One of the other Reavers broadcasted.
Once their ship had taken fifty percent or more hull damage they were no longer obligated to stay for a battle and could leave. Nobody signed on for suicide missions.
Of course, that wasn’t the case for Terminus, it was too slow to run away, at least for now, since the engine upgrades they had been working on weren’t finished yet. The shield modifications were all up and functional though, and according to the numbers, they should be almost as well armored as a Kepler Destroyer.
[Don’t fear, I will never lead you wrong. If there is one thing that Tarith Rage knows, it is war.] Nico replied, assuring the other Reavers that they weren’t all idiots for believing that they could successfully set up here.
There was a good reason that there were no other Reaver Systems. No Nation would dare to let them have an independent presence that strong, so every time they tried to establish a base, they were ambushed by the nations around them and destroyed.
That would be what it looked like from the outside, a large number of Kepler Rebel ships had joined the Tapani Fleet to attack Rae 5, giving the impression of an alliance between nations to prevent a Reaver uprising.
[Tapani will be translating in ten seconds. All hands to Battle Stations.] General Yaakov reported.
Nico was still somewhere in the ship, so Max ran for Enduring Rage from his spot at the Engineering bay control panels, where he had been watching the sensors.
Seconds later, Nico came running through, with a Tech Adept Harness already attached to her back and engaged the anti-gravity plating to fly up into the Mecha.
“Sorry, I had to go see a guy, about a thing.” Nico apologized, then strapped herself into the second seat.
“You know, that explains exactly nothing, right?” Max asked.
“Or everything, depending on how you look at it.” Nico shrugged, so Max looked into her thoughts.
She had sent a series of fake messages to Sector Command, that was supposed to be from General Tennant, ordering them to stand down, declaring that he was on Terminus, and negotiating with the Reavers for assistance with the Rebels.
That was both pure Evil Genius, and pure Evil. They were both on Terminus, and they had just lured an entire Sector Attack Fleet to them.
[Tarith Rage to Reaver Fleet, remember the plan, and you will see the results.] Nico broadcasted.
Nico had told the Reavers to target enemy engines first when they attacked so that the ships would not be able to leave the system. Sure, it didn’t reduce their combat effectiveness at all, since the interplanetary thrusters weren’t on the same power grid as the main engines, but it did leave them with a whole lot of ships to steal if the enemy chose to surrender.
The enemy fleet translated in, with the Rebels leading and the Tapani spreading out to deal with the Reavers, which were their nation’s primary concern in this situation.
For a moment, nothing happened, except ships closing the distance on the waiting Reaver emplacements, then suddenly the entire Star System was littered with greenish-white Ion blasts and explosions.
[All Mecha, deploy. The Rebels are almost on us.] General Yaakov ordered.
They were ready, and Max was firing before he even had time to lock himself to the hull, using the recoil of his weapons to position the Mecha where he wanted it.
The explosions of the shells from the Mass Drivers would blind the enemy sensors, while the Ion Bombard Arrays did the real work of depleting their shields.
In this battle, they were targeting the smallest vessels first and hoping that the shields of Terminus would hold against the first few volleys from the Rebel Cruisers.
A tremendous Explosion rattled Max inside Enduring Rage and Nico cheered, tapping away happily at the controls to modify their Ion Weapons to more effectively deplete the Rebels’ shields. Unlike the Tapani Vessel’s inferior technology, they couldn’t just pick a vulnerability and shoot through it, but even short bursts were taking down the shields on Cutters and allowing the next wave of bombardment to destroy the smaller vessels.
Then the Kepler Loyalist fleet came streaking out of the Atmosphere of the Gas Giant and began annihilating everything that moved. They were so trigger-happy that a few of their misplaced rounds even hit Reaver vessels after narrowly missing Tapani Vessels, but that wasn’t entirely unexpected.
Allies are allies, but the military won’t care if they cause a little collateral damage while dealing with an enemy fleet and a Sector’s worth of Rebels.
[Terminus Shields at 30 percent but holding. Engine output at 90 percent, temperatures stable.] The lead engineer reported, coming through Nico’s speakers loud enough for Max to hear.
30 Percent meant that they would be seeing breaches in the shield soon, as it got too thin to block the powerful blasts from Kepler’s vessels.
Max turned from the destroyed Cutter in front of him to a rebel Mecha Carrier and turned his weapons on their engines. There were a lot of people aboard that vessel, and not all of them, or even most of them, would have any clue what was going on. Max was almost certain that they had been told a very polite official story that made them the good guys in this scenario.
The other Super Heavy Mecha seemed to have the same idea, and a flurry of blasts took the Warp engines offline permanently, and damaged the deployment bays, locking them inside even if they tried to land on the planet to escape the wrath of the orbital fleet.
[Imperial Inquisition Destroyer Monarch to Rebel Fleet. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. Resistance will lead to the destruction of your vessels.] The Kepler Destroyer announced, just as the last few large vessels in the Tapani Fleet went offline, either destroyed or entirely without power to give off an energy signature.
[You hear that you accursed traitor. You can’t escape into a Reaver fleet this] Came a mocking voice over the comms before a blast from the Destroyer took a Cruiser offline.
[Again, Rebel Fleet currently engaging the Loyalist Reavers, bring your ships offline and prepare to be boarded or you will be destroyed.] The Kepler Inquisition Vessel repeated, bringing silence, and then a wave of radio signals marking the Stand Down status of the rebel Kepler Vessels.
Now, all that was left was the politics.