9 Invincible

"Knight-Lord Rh`eisar! I order you to return with your forces immediately! Knight-Lord! This in Convoy Central. Return with fighter squadrons immediately!"

The Davii`d in command of Convoy Central definitely sounded hysterical. Even if he ordered the convoy to reduce compensation for added acceleration, the swooping enemy wings would not take long to overhaul them. Automated point defenses on the massive convoy ships were already licking out to space but the dodging enemy fighters were too agile. Many were staying out of sectors covered by the guns. The mold's highly analytical processing powers made it see the situation as untenable. At five-to-one odds, Rhizon fighters could hold their own against Vord swarms. Unfortunately, not only were the only Union defenders capable of standing against the Vord drawn away from the convoy, they faced greater odds. The only defense the convoy had were discipline and the point-defense laser systems. As such, it was a great shock to see the approaching wedge of enemy fighters suddenly crumple and wither.

By the Great Deluge! Where did additional Rhizon fighters come from? Were they hidden away in cargo holds waiting for such a gambit? Wait…are those the human fighters?

The mold-like creature's shock was understandable. On screen, he could see wide swaths of the Vord suddenly disappearing as flashes of light stabbed among them. Icons representing the human fighters on the radar seemed to crawl amongst the enemy. They also seemed to move about the enemy with impunity.

For the Vord commander leading the swarm, things were definitely not going to plan. With the Rhizon Velch-spawn drawn away and pre-occupied, destroying the convoy should have been easy. Only a pitiable screen of obsolete fighter craft not seen in the field for cycles remained. The files received from their agents were clear. The convoy only had four Rhizon flights to defend it. That the unknown fighters were now destroying entire wings of his own without cost was bad enough. That they were causing such confusion among his fighters some fighters were shooting at each other was unbelievable!

Reaching to flick a com and signal his fighters to spread out, he only had a fraction of a second to process the meaning light flashing towards his fighter. It was an enemy fighter turning and angling its laser guns towards him. He tried to twist way. He couldn't.

* * *

Lila completed her turn with a fusillade of kinetically propulsed ions against another Vord fighter ahead of her. Almost without pause, neural signals detached H`elle-fire missiles, the Rhizon version of Earth's own ion-driven AGM-114MK2, into a duo of Vord fighters too close to each other. The light from the exploding crafts momentarily blinded the senses of a Vord fighter to her galactic east and she used the opportunity to rake the cockpit with a barrage of kinetics. The crumpling fighter-craft suddenly swung to the side and caused its unwary wingman to swerve upwards and straight into an kilt shot from Lila's maser lance. It disintegrated. The death of the six Vord fighters took a few seconds and caused Lila to curse herself. Getting sloppy!.

Throughout the nearby region of space, scenes of utter destruction were being played out. Watchers on the convoy carriers and battleships were too stunned to operate their point-defenses. Instead, the automated system kept uselessly trying to discharge counter-missiles, ions, x-rays and masers against the raiders. For those watching in the command centers, as well as the hundreds of thousands stuck in the panic rooms and mess halls watching the battle, the scene was like something out of a video game. Wherever the guns of an ARk09 pointed, even when not pointed at anything in particular, something died. For the Ungalit battlemasters watching the broadcast in the mess halls beside their human compatriots, something deep within their psyches cried out. Hidden in their genetic memories were histories of a time before time when predators roamed the plains of their homeworld. Despite the powerful horns and armored backs of the massive creatures, that long-forgotten predator would move through herds of Families like Toledoon blade through paper. They were too strong, too fast and too agile. None in those halls but the Ungalit battlemasters knew what the Vord probably felt.

* * *

Usama could see the Vord were about to break. By his Caesium counter, barely six minutes had passed since contact with the enemy fighters. In that six minutes, the swarm had suffered losses in excess of 60% just trying to flee. He could see some wings were adopting a globular formation around points in space and facing outwards. The spherical defensive configurations were indiscriminately discharging energy, chemical and kinetic weapons into the space around them. It was effective and delayed resolution. For the Sauroids, it seemed the only way to keep the relentless Velch matrons from coming getting close.

For the most part, the formation seemed to work. Already, Andrea, Marko and Lila's fighters were destroyed, occupants most likely dead. Marko had perished while rushing to Lila's aid. That gave Usama an idea. Turning his fighter to steer towards the northeast quadrant where the globular formations were forming, Usama dodged the barrage of kinetic projectiles and maser stubs before ramming his fighter into an enemy fighter's craft swooping into his path. The disintegration of his fighter blew a huge chunk into the spherical formation and opened the door for the rest of the ravenous wolves.

Some Vord were not even fighting anymore. Most simply tried to extract themselves from the fight. They couldn't. Somehow, the mystery fighters seemed to have doubled in number, quadrupled, then doubled again. They were everywhere! Turning towards the asteroid cloud, the Vord fighters fled enmasse in the hope numbers would suffice. Most didn't get to break from the fight. Those that managed did so only to receive news of impending catastrophe. The Hive ships were calling for immediate assistance.

* * *

For Paul, Chen Li and Mfecane, things were looking up. Following the trail of discharged ion particles through the asteroid cloud led them to two massive Vord Hive ships hiding among the planetary debris. A screen of 1100 fighters seemed to provide protection for the ships and already they could see ship guns spooling up to meet the middling threat presented by the three lone fighters.

"Well boys, it has been a pleasure. If you get the chance, assassinate the High Preceptor for me, will you?" Paul send to the other two using the line-of-sight com he had remaining. The other two squawked their coms in response before splitting off his flanks. To remain close together was death and the geas on them would not allow a conscious decision to suicide.

Cutting his speed by half, Paul prepared to meet the wave of fighters headed towards him. A quick roll them twist placed the incoming fighters in front and simultaneously screened him from the Hives' guns. Depressing his main maser, Paul used the gun to cut holes in the shields ahead of him and followed up with kinetic barrages that tore through the enemy fighters. Almost without warning, he was through the small swarm and headed for the main ship. Behind him, most of the Vord gaped in surprise. The fighter was ignoring them!

Paul was not about to play by the rules. With the massive swarm facing the Rhizon wings, only a call for help by the Hive mother ships would change the situation.

Twisting his fighter then sliding down, Paul sent a 'winder to the side of the Hive just in front of him. The momentary breathing space offered by the distraction let him get close enough to rake the same shield plates with a maser. The cannon was not powerful enough to defeat the screen. However, it was powerful enough to momentarily deplete the energy in that section and let through a stream of charged ion particles followed by another H`elle missile. The effect was to bore a hole through the screen large enough to let his craft through. For the first time since forever, Paul smiled. He was through!

By now, the faster enemy fighters were rushing to defend their transport home. They were too late to stop him. He directed his fighter among the towers and spokes rising from the huge Hive ship. Too close to fire using the laser cannons, the ship resorted to missiles.

Dodging the missiles was child's play. Calculating probable flight paths, he used the missiles' own momentum to lead them against their own ship. Proximity warnings flashed across his console but he silenced them. They were designed with large safety margins. Swinging round what looked like a radar tower, he raked the vertical shaft with charged ions followed by one of his last missiles. The massive gape torn into the side was large enough to let his craft through when he swung back around.

Inside, he followed the massive power conduits to their points of origin. On his screen, he could see that both Chen Li and Mfecane were still alive and causing the second Hive extreme distress. Neither attempted to create a point of entrance like he did. It was not necessary. Already, their actions had caused a failure in the second Hive's massive ion drives. It would not be leaving the asteroid belt any time soon.

Paul turned his attention inwards. The slow crawl through the ship was leading him to the massive hive's hyper engines. Necessary for interstellar travel, the engines were ginormous power hogs fed by charged ions. Massive energy shields were needed to contain the null-point energy states used to create the grav pulses necessary for hyper flight. The power requirements necessary to tear holes through the time-space fabric were too dangerous, too powerful, to leave unchained. This was why the shields shunted the power towards other sections of the massive Hive such as the radar towers. Unfortunately, the shields were there to prevent anything from leaking out. Even if the Vord designers thought to prevent enemy crafts from somehow going through their own fighter screens, through the batteries of point-defense and the internal security battalions, it would not have helped. It was impossible to place opposing ends of a screen so close together. Overlap yes, but not opposite each other. It was the nature of shield technology.

All this meant that when Paul depressed the controls of his ion cannon against the hyper-drive's shield generator the massive shield should have collapsed and caused an immediate and catastrophic chain reaction. It didn't. Nothing happened.

Damn it to the nine hells! Can't a man die without having to sign a form in triplicate around here?

Paul thought furiously to himself. Unlike Usama's ramming gambit, Paul faced no immediate danger. His finger literally could not depress the controls and fire the ion cannons. Instead, he was forced to jury rig his systems and send his escape pod back the way he came. His fighter would have to do the work in his absence. If he survived, he would place all his increased IQ and technical skill into finding a way to ignore the neural chip.

Paul's escape pod was exiting the torn gape in the side of the massive Hive ship and squawking distress codes to anyone in the Union listening when the ion cannons fired into the shield generators. A sequence of catastrophic failures begun that caused everyone on the Hive ship's bridge dread. An order to evacuate would not suffice. Shunting power off to other quarters and immediately discharging energy weapons to reduce the pressure did not help. The ions used to fuel the hyper-drive generators reached the boiling mass and the Hive ship flashed out of existence, taking its neighborhood with it.