Humanity Endures

Part 4 - The Beginning of the End | Chapter 9

Across the system, with each passing second, the bloodshed grew, and the Stygian void seemed to be made radiant by the flames of destruction; tens of thousands of alien ships were consumed by the tempestuous nuclear inferno forged and fuelled by the human armada, while tens of thousands more were damaged to the extent that they had to teleport away from the fight. Retaliatory alien fire mercilessly cut through millions of human warships after a mere twenty minutes; millions more human vessels, having believed the initial alien deception, endlessly breached into the system with each passing second, intent on joining a battle that, until a short while ago, hadn't even existed.

As the battle persisted, each and every second became more and more costly for both sides; the extensive network of hundreds of thousands of long-range space stations which defended Earth proved its worth, its heavy gauss cannons being capable of splitting an alien ship in two — provided the alien ship stayed still. Though the aliens never did such a thing, the stations were still numerous enough to fill much of space with their metallic death, and this steel storm eviscerated tens of thousands more alien ships where human vessels were ineffective. The stations' presence made the aliens' position far more unfavorable than it would be otherwise, and as the battle continued to rage, it gave the beleaguered human force a true chance at decisive victory, for though it was outmatched technologically, it was numerically overwhelming. Xertaza's heart filled with hope, and the bridge filled with the excited cheers of the overly optimistic, the overly eager, and the overly drugged, even as the hearts of those cheering were torn by the billions of deaths that sustained this glimmer of hope.

With Xertaza and the rest of the human force continually being reinforced and the rapidly-growing human armada bathing their surrounding space in nuclear fire, the alien fleet was confronted with a quandary — they couldn't attack the human ships at close range, for they would get melted or cracked open by the radioactive inferno that raged there, yet they couldn't attack from long range because they would be gradually destroyed by Earth's defensive stations, which still had enough nuclear armament to deter a few attackers even with the aliens' improved point-defence.

A few minutes of continuous human triumph later, and this fleeting human success came to an end as the aliens deployed their next powerful tactic — many of them began teleporting inside the human formation. These alien ships would lay waste to everything around them using their close-range weaponry, throwing boarding parties, borne on spherical, TDP-like craft at those human ships that survived, before teleporting away to avoid destruction, provided they hadn't been destroyed in the chaotic sixteen seconds since their arrival in the middle of the human fleet. However, as alien teleportation was a seemingly crude instrument, the ability of these alien ships to infiltrate the human formation was limited, and many of the alien craft instead opted to teleport across the system in massive groups; their sole goal — one they often succeeded at — was to surround and destroy defensive stations, teleporting between their targets as they wreaked vicious death across the system. As Earth's defensive stations were heavily armed, and as the human navy was loosely spaced enough that it could still use nuclear weapons against their alien assailants without fear of annihilating itself, the new alien tactic quickly became a bloody one for both sides, but the aliens didn't seem to care. The tenebrous hulls of the aliens' monstrous vessels were illuminated only by the distant light of Earth's star, the flares from their own murderous weaponry, and the fires of detonating human warships. With superior weaponry, superior ships, and superior coordination, the aliens were able to inflict catastrophic losses on the human navy, whilst Earth's defenders had only destroyed just over three hundred thousand of their alien counterparts. The bridge of the Ruthless was filled with the patriotic exclamations of uproarious bridge crew, though Xertaza, more focused on winning the battle than hollering empty threats at a foe that couldn't hear them, neither contributed to the chorus nor paid it any heed as she ordered the Ruthless and its battlegroup to descend on a nearby mass of alien ships. Another moment, and this mass of aliens teleported away, reappearing to destroy a few thousand human craft on the other side of the battlefield.