Bulwark

No sooner had Sola dropped out of the Weave in the Lemth system than every shuttle and starfighter aboard launched. The tiny craft fanned out with military precision, each flying towards one of the smaller ships in the fleet. As the last shuttle left the safety of Sola’s hull, a swarm of similar vessels moved to take their place, flown in from the shuttle bays of the remainder of the fleet’s larger vessels.

Dustin stood on the bridge, watching the fleet move on the vidscreen and keeping half an eye on a camera feed in one corner showing Rye and her team directing the incoming pilots to load up their craft from the impressive stack of weave-torpedoes she’d managed to assemble in the time it’d taken the fleet to reach Lemth space. Another beacon had gone dark two days prior, and they’d pushed their ships and crews hard to get here, Defia giving them a best guess as to when their foes would reach the system that put the Fractal’s arrival at a little under three days time from the beacon going down.

Knowing they didn’t have long left to get into position, Dustin watched tensely as the tiny craft flittered around the fleet like so many dust motes in the vastness of space, loading and unloading the weapons they desperately hoped would be enough to turn the tide. As he tried not to panic about the lack of time, Emely informed him that they were being hailed by the planet.

“Dustin? Thank fuck you’re here. I hope you’ve brought the fucking cavalry.” Izzy didn’t bother with pleasantries as her face filled the vidscreen a moment later, the ears and tail of her Feliax girlfriend visible in the background as Terri worked on her own terminal. “We’ve gotten the locals to open up the deep caves and are pretty much hunkered down against debris by now - well, everyone bar the handful of us that are working up here in the comms station to welcome you to this shit-show. But judging by what info we’ve gotten from EarthGov, I doubt that’d be any good if you’d not shown up, right?”

Dustin nodded, trying not to grimace as he did so. “Sorry, Izzy, you’re right on that one. Based on what info I’ve got they’re running **** and would probably crack the planet to get at you. Did…” he swallowed hard before continuing “…did your team get the vital directive regarding Fractal attacks?”

The woman on the other end of the call scowled. “Yes. You better make sure I don’t need to use it, Dustin. I did not cross light-years worth of space to finally find the perfect woman only to have to eat the business end of a reactor detonation just to stop a bunch of grey goo from harvesting my brain as a kind of galactic sat-nav.” Behind Izzy, Terri’s tails went rigidly vertical at her partner’s compliment, before softening again as the Feliax woman returned to her work.

Giving his childhood friend a brief nod of reassurance, Dustin glanced around the bridge. “I certainly don’t intend to lose anyone here if I can help it, Izzy. Get yourself and that girlfriend of yours someplace safe before the fighting starts, and watch out for loose gravitational waves; we’ve got some experimental hardware we’re going to be using and while I’m assured it won’t ripple out far enough to hit the planet, I’d feel a lot happier knowing you’re not somewhere that flying debris is going to crash into you.”

Alarms blared three and a quarter hours later as the long range sensors picked up the first signs of vessels emerging from the weave. Dustin and the fleet had been waiting - no sooner were the Fractal vessels visible than banks of longer ranged weapons locked onto them from the depths of the defensive line. Only a handful of human vessels had firepower strong enough to reach that far out, so they were holding fire - but the simple act of locking targeting had the void-black ships scattering out into the loose net around the planet that Defia had predicted.

“Hold!” Dustin barked, the weapons of half a dozen ships whining with restrained **** as they watched the synthetic life drift ever closer to their tiny group of defenders huddled around the planet. “Hold…” he repeated as the first wave came within firing range of the mid-range craft. “Hold… nearly…” he added as the first of the lighter Fractal craft reached the **** range for the smallest vessels in the fleet, and then… “FIRE!”

As the Fractal ships crossed an invisible line in space, the human fleet fell open like the jaws of some great whale. From the edges, the weapons of the smaller craft shot forth like sharp teeth against the incoming ****. From within the core of the fleet, great lances of light spat **** into the hearts of the synthetics, a handful of reactors detonating from Sola’s initial shot alone.

From that point on, chaos reigned. The Fractal fleet whirled, closing in tight in all directions on the beleaguered defenders. One by one, amber and red beams of destruction reached out and punched holes in the smaller craft leaving ship after ship drifting listlessly in space, their reactors knocked out - if not outright destroyed. “Wait for it…” Dustin called out, knuckles white against the arms of his chair as he watched the battle.

The Fractal ships closed in further, and Dustin lost sight of many of the the lesser craft. It was now or never… “Deploy all fighters! All ships, launch!”

From the hull of the Solar Ascent, her tiny fighter wings darted out like angry hornets towards the Fractal vessels. The larger of the Fractal ships looked about to respond in kind, massive holes opening along it’s sides to reveal a swarm of black shapes shifting within. Just as Dustin was about to tell the starfighters to watch out however, the side of the vast carrier seemed to twist in on itself. For a moment, it looked like he was staring into a soap bubble as a sizable chunk of the craft’s hull appeared to be upside-down - and then with a flash of light the bubble collapsed inward, twisting and tearing the ship apart as secondary explosions ripped through, presumably from it’s reactor.

The bridge fell silent as they watched the destruction Rye’s weapon had wrought. “They’k will adapt quickly’k.” Yril’k’s voice was the first to speak, her hand pressed on her terminal’s communicator to **** her words to transmit to the entire fleet. “Strike now’k while we can!”

Sola’s main gun lanced out, punching a hole in yet another Fractal vessel; now was the time to ensure that not a single one of the hostile ships escaped. As more weave-torpedoes struck at their foes, the larger human vessels broke ranks and went on the attack.

Sammie hauled Sola around hard, slamming the breaks and holding the ship suspended for a moment to allow her side-shields to take the brunt of a Fractal beam that had been aimed at one of the smaller craft. Moments later, that same smaller craft dipped out from below Sola’s bulk to launch a tiny pinpoint of light towards it’s assailant, the torpedo tearing the midsection out of the Fractal cruiser with vicious efficiency.

Beneath, above and around them, human vessels ducked and weaved between the Fractal craft. Explosions rippled on both sides; the Fractals were firing to kill now, not disable; Dustin winced as two of the smaller craft in his fleet vanished in a white-hot nova as their reactors blew from a well placed Fractal lance.

Ahead of them, the rear-guard of the Fractal fleet was trying to reform, presumably to flee. “All wings, lock onto those ships!” Dustin called out, Sola’s main gun slicing through the middle of the retreating group. Around them, the small number of fighter-craft Sola could deploy swarmed, forming a drill of tiny motes spiralling around their mothership’s bulk as they pushed their engines towards the fleeing foe.

From each of the tiny darts, a single star launched - a pinpoint of light, drifting across the space between the starships before detonating into a silent lens of doom. Fractal vessel after vessel tore itself apart, Sola’s guns firing into the gaps thus created in the enemy line as the flagship of the human fleet ripped her opponents to shreds. Behind them, the rest of the Terran **** was having a similarly destructive time; when Sammie wheeled Sola around as the fighters docked to rearm, the battle was almost over.

Burning Fractal hulks dotted the space around the Lemth homeworld; a handful more weave-torpedo hits and a few rounds from Sola’s gun finished off what little remained. As Dustin watched, the first twisted chunk of Fractal vessel started to glow with the heat of re-entry - spiralling down towards the planet below as other fragments fell towards the moon. A voice beside him made him jump. “Statement. This is not dissimilar to how I was abandoned. Suggest high range scanning of planetary surface to ensure no units have survived re-entry. Lunar surface can be scanned at a later date and does not require our ship’s precision equipment.”

Defia had been watching the battle unfold silently this entire time; Dustin had requested she join them on the bridge in the event that the rogue Fractal spotted something about their enemies actions that he or Yril’k had missed - but until now she had remained so still and quiet that he’d forgotten she was there.

Turning to where she was stood beside his chair, Dustin reached out to squeeze the woman’s arm reassuringly before pulling back. He still wasn’t entirely sure how to act around her, especially after her emotional modifications, but felt he should ask. “Are you okay watching this? The battle’s over so you’re free to leave if you wish.”

Defia tilted her head to one side. “Statement. Emotions in accordance with descriptions of both sadness, relief and a sense of justice being served. I am… content, to watch those who cast me out fall into the same state they left me in.” With that, the pair fell silent - joining the rest of the bridge crew in watching the remains of the Fractal fleet fall out of the sky.