Humanity Endures

Part 11 - Nahmatiix | Chapter 4

A cursory scan of the Loyalist fleet's tactical data revealed the presence of three Nahmatiixian carriers near the front lines, one of them a converted civilian ship with barely any armament, and the other two proper military vessels, but smaller ones than most — all of these were just small enough, and just lightly defended enough, to likely be annihilated by a biological assault. Planning and then dispatching his general orders to all in his squadron, Theten immediately received positive responses from his subordinates, leaving him with a plan and loyal troops to carry it out: the only thing left to do was for him to act.

Ordering his squadron into a conservative offensive formation — a sort-of warped cube — which properly guarded those ships amongst his squadron which possessed biological warheads, Theten and his pilots then shot away from the Ruthless, descending into the lethal battle around them, for it was the first obstacle between them and their targets. Ignoring the failing fighter combat around him, and even being strafed by the occasional Nahmatiixian squadron as he fled the Ruthless, Theten headed straight for the contested front line that the Ruthless was attempting to break through. As they advanced, Theten's squadron darted under and past an Ihndrastarian raider-class, just as a nuclear volley from a nearby Nahmatiixian cruiser blasted the ship into pieces, melting three of Theten's own pilots to slag in the process — the price of maneuvering through a battlefield. Pressing on regardless of these losses, Theten's formation surged through the battle, weathering fire from the Traitor ships around them as they penetrated Heralax's lines with relative ease; exchanging gauss fire with a passing trio of Nahmatiixian military fighter squadrons, and suffering five casualties as a result, Theten's own force came into visual range of their new target: a Traitor light carrier, which, having sent its escort entirely to the battle at hand, had only its own meager gauss armament to defend against Theten's imminent assault. This was a vessel that Theten soon realized wasn't even a Nahmatiixian ship, and was instead a former Precalaxian light freighter, this being made clear by both the ship's obvious civilian structure, its unarmored bridge, its pathetic armament, and the fact that its hangars were repurposed shipping containers. The mercantile world's pre-Empire flag had been hastily carved into the port side of the ship's hull, alongside an inverted galaxy; Theten wasn't sure if the flag did a disservice to the ship, or the ship a disservice to the flag, for they were both hideous.

However, neither this patriotic flag, or the craft's meager armament proved enough to deter Theten; soaring towards the helpless vessel at considerable speed, his pilots evading the retaliatory fire from the beleaguered carrier and from nearby Nahmatiixian squadrons, Theten, alongside with another one of his pilots, fired a pair of biological warheads at the craft. With no point-defence to speak of, the missiles, both filled with ship-devouring genetically-engineered microbes, slammed squarely into the galaxy flag that had been emblazoned on the side of the craft, embedding themselves in the surface of the hapless Traitor vessel. Within moments, a tide of translucent, voracious microbes, so numerous they formed a visible sludge to the naked eye, spilled out across the surface of the warship, eating away at whatever microbial shields or armor stood in their path as they replicated itself en masse; in a way, the Tehkrian bioweapon was like alien biofluid. With hull and armor disintegrating into seeming nothingness, interior compartments of the vessel — and the cowering people within them — were exposed to space for a brief while, before they too were consumed by the vicious, voracious bioweapon. A number of escape pods were fired out of the vessel, though as it was a converted civilian freighter with a much-expanded crew complement, it was unlikely that there were escape pods for everyone, and Theten felt a pang of remorse struggling to form in his MECS-gripped chest. The Traitor ship was quickly deconstructed within half a minute, the ship's entire bow section had been subsumed by a translucent, pulsating blob of lethal microbes that sought only to consume more craft; of all the countless destructive weapons humanity had ever constructed, genetically engineered ones were the most terrifying, and some of the most effective.