Humanity Endures

Part 5 - War is Politics With Bloodshed | Chapter 4

Seizing upon the initiative gained by their living weapons, the rest of the alien fleet, leaving its living cover, counterattacked savagely. In minutes, the "normal" alien warships massacred hundreds of thousands of disorganized human vessels in coordination with their monstrous allies, who silently laughed in the face of nuclear detonations and could deflect all but the heaviest gauss rounds or nuclear detonations without harm. Even that damage that was inflicted was soon healed by oceans of biofluid that spouted forth from the beasts' flesh in the wake of a wound, a potent trait that the monstrosity shared with its land-based counterparts, and to a lesser extent, the other alien warships. Seeing no other way to deal with the seemingly unstoppable alien vessels, whose biological armor absorbed any amount of fire the human navy had thrown at it thus far, Lassarha, assuming personal control of her forces, gave the order for a general withdrawal to a safer distance. This was but a prelude, however, to her true tactical move: moments later, she ordered Yezalax to activate the weapon she had been so afraid to use as of yet due to the potential for collateral damage. Lassarha's childish love of destruction had mostly died along with hundreds of millions of her people; a desire for vengeance enthralling and exciting her mind in its place, she rightly saw her vessel's antimatter cannons, using the ammunition they were designed to fire, as the most fitting instrument of Tehkria's retribution.

The ships of the Tehkrian fleet peeled away, being lightly harried by the alien fleet — most of the hostile vessels made no effort to change their course, as they wrangled with the battered, weakened, remnants of the Heralax-supporting Nahmatiixian navy. The traitorous fleet had only a hundred thousand ships left on their side; this was not much, but it would buy Lassarha some time. For one of the few times during the chaotic battle, Lassarha was able to breathe a sigh of relief: she was informed that the alien behemoths joined most of their compatriots in ignoring her withdrawing navy, preferring instead to seal the grim fate of those who remained — they were wide open to attack. A few moments later, and despite the protestations of more naive parts of her that wished to allow all of her ships to escape, Lassarha gave the order to fire.

Almost instantly, the deafening roar of power surging through the Ineffable's circuitry eclipsed all other noise in the ship; a moment later, and even this was subsumed by the roar of the antimatter cannons firing, the quaking of the entire vessel, and the straining of the Ineffable's hull against the recoil of its titanic weapons. The Ineffable's antimatter cannons fired simultaneously, sending their calamitous projectiles hurtling towards a trio of their monstrous foes, among which was the largest and most terrifying of all the beasts. A harrowing half-second later, and the quartet of antimatter projectiles slammed into the carapace of the nearest alien behemoth, forcing the few tonnes of antimatter within the projectile to react with the rounds' identically weighted catalyst; the catastrophic detonation that followed devoured the alien devourers, and threatened to shake the stars themselves from their heavenly perches. Two among the trio of tightly-packed behemoths hit were torn into gory, flailing, pieces, anything remotely nearby being annihilated in equally-spectacular fashion by the vengeful flames. The largest among the trio was simply ripped in half; the more-weaponized frontal part of the creature, its mouth agape with either agony, bloodlust, or both, teleported away moments later. Nearby aliens, Nahmatiixian ships, and even unfortunate Tehkrian vessels that had not fled quickly enough, all succumbed to the awesome blaze. Any ship that was not destroyed was still suitably rocked — even those on the Ineffable's bridge were shaken dramatically — and the side of Tehkria facing the blast shook momentarily as if there were an ongoing earthquake; even the ground itself cowered before the incredible might of the Ineffable's guns. As the gutted carcasses of the pair of once-great alien creatures ceased all conscious movement and began floating harmlessly towards the surface of Tehkria, having been attracted by the planet's impressive gravity, the alien fleet's attention shifted from the sorry remnants of the Nahmatiixian navy to the Ineffable and its already-reloading antimatter cannons. Descending upon the Ineffable and its stubborn escort in seemingly unending numbers, their blackened hulls nearly obscuring Tehkria's twin stars and darkening the already bleak void only for their rain of arcane fire to illuminate it the next moment, the alien armada launched a last-ditch assault to disable the Ineffable, before its weapons could obliterate any more of their prized behemoths. The alien force advancing on it conventionally was not the Ineffable's only threat — tens of thousands of alien vessels teleported practically on top of Lassarha's flagship, and though they were quickly driven back through the valiant usage of close-range nuclear bombardment, tens of thousands more teleported in to take their place. Witnessing such incredible power, the still-hostile portion of the Nahmatiixian fleet, already having been hit hard by the alien forces and desertion, contacted the Ineffable, offering to fight the aliens exclusively from then on so long as they were allowed to withdraw, having already accomplished their objective. Lassarha wasted no time in accepting — their annihilation would not fix her EWCC, and there were so few of them that blowing them up wouldn't make much strategic difference, yet there were enough of them that having them remain hostile would make enough of a tactical difference. Her ship only had 16 antimatter rounds left, and though this enough to kill the remaining behemoths, the wars had only just begun, and Lassarha needed to conserve her most powerful weapons.