Chapter 7 - Unscratched

"Rodgraim monitored the Aether Dominion's energy shield, relieved by how little of the attack it had absorbed.

A small smile ticked his face. "Guess I still held out a lot of hopes for them," he thought to himself.

At first, it was just going to probe at the Aether Dominion's defenses, but now he could see how attacks from these two fire frigates couldn't even draw a light dent on the shield on his ship.

It was weak – too weak, even just plain disappointment.

Meanwhile, his rival armada's commander on the flagship of the Crocodile Man felt his heart tighten up; he knew that the enemy armada was approaching very close.

He could see a layer of a kind of energy barrier that covered Rodgraim's ship, tension filled him.

"An energy barrier?" he muttered in shock. "He has that installed that sort of defense on his ship?."

These sorts of barriers were laid only on the advanced ships because their installation required a high amount of energy.

Most ships did not waste their power on energy barriers; rather, plating the armor since barriers could drain an enormous amount of power.

But instead of giving up in fear, the view of the energy barrier seemed to fuel the greed found in the eyes of the Crocodile Man.

"It's an S-class ship after all-it even has an energy barrier!" he said, grinning with avarice.

"Keep firing! We'll see how long he can keep that barrier up!" he barked to his crew. "Prepare the armor-piercing rounds.

When that barrier finally collapses, we'll use them to hit the hull directly!" Under his hysterical commands, the two fire frigates launched themselves once more into a relentless onslaught.

A hail of missiles crashed upon the energy shield of the Aether Dominion.

Never to be one-upped, the Giant Crocodile used its heavy laser cannon with a deafening boom as the powerful laser beam smacked the Aether Dominion's shield, creating an explosive shockwave that swept along the barrier.

The battle was watched in rapt attention by viewers on board ships docked at Pluto Outpost. They only got to see battles like that on these screens, at a distance. Many of them, seeing it up close for the first time, started getting scared thinking that they themselves were there.

If that were my ship," one onlooker whispered, "it would have been reduced to smithereens after the first salvo of missiles!

"They would have blown it to kingdom come! "

His friend replied, "Even if his defense level is high, that shield will run out of power eventually.

What will he do then? From afar, Luna watched Rodgraim's ship steady against the barrage of the crocodile pirate group like an unfazed monarch.

Her opinion on S-class ships changed; she thought to herself, "This really is the true might of an S-class ship," with wonder in her heart, both at their power and in her curiosity.

She had only wondered just how many fire rounds she thought her ship, the Red Flame, could tolerate in a similar scenario.

This suspense culminated as the fleet of Pluto Outpost started moving. In unison, like a wave of steel, they began storming forward, launching a full-scale attack on the group of the crocodile pirates.

Staying in watch, the Crocodile Man felt anxiety rising for the coming of that fleet.

Rodgraim's S-class ship turned out more durable than what he had expected.

Still, he steeled himself, not ready to let his last chance at capturing a catch of an S-class ship slip through his hands.

"All ships, all firepower!"

" he bellowed in an urgent tone.

"We'll take down that energy barrier one way or another!"

With one last roll of the dice, the Crocodile Man played his last trump card: all eight laser cannons hidden on the surface of his flagship heaved themselves out, joined with the three attacking ships to make a total of twenty-four laser cannons which pointed directly at the Aether Dominion.

The energy combined in these cannons was sufficient to flatten a small city in a single moment of time; hopefully, this strength was to be enough to overpower the Aether Dominion defenses.

Each laser cannon fired one by one, creating a blindingly concentrated onslaught upon Rodgraim's ship.

Intense lasers hit the energy shield of the Aether Dominion's vessel filling that ship with a brilliant flash of light.

Everyone squinted as the dazzling beams hit the barrier.

Then when the light faded, everyone gazed at the Aether Dominion to estimate how much damage had been done.

But as that energy shield flickered out of existence, the hull of the Aether Dominion remained completely unscathed.

Not even a scratch on the thing. Gasps of disbelief filled the air as the reality of the Aether Dominion's incredible durability sank in.

"What kind of defense is this?" one observer exclaimed. "All that firepower, and it only managed to bring down his energy shield?

"The power of those twenty-four cannons could blow a hole through a city!" another breathed in amazement.

"But all it did here was shut down his shield?" The viewers on Pluto Outpost were stunned, unable to really grasp the depth of protection they were witnessing.

Nobody had imaginatively thought the Aether Dominion to be that tough. They couldn't help but think, though: now that the energy shield was down, what would Rodgraim do next?

Inside the Aether Dominion, Rodgraim took reading of the wasting of the energy barrier. "Tsk, that barrier sucks power fast," he thought with mild irritation.

"The Pluto fleet should be closing in soon. Time to wrap this up." With a soft order, he enabled the laser cannon array on his ship.

The Crocodile Man's eyes sparkled with the prospect of seeing the energy shield dissipating from the Aether Dominion. Finally! The barrier is down—is it not time for my me to take over?

In his mind, this S-class ship was pretty much in his pocket.

He turned to his crew and shouted, "Armor-piercing rounds at the ready! Prepare for boarding!

But just as his crew drew the arrows from their quivers and aligned themselves with their target,

Aether Dominion laser cannons turned, aimed, and targeted the Giant Crocodile. Undaunted,

Rodgraim shouted:

"Fire!"

A torrent of laser beams shot from the Aether Dominion towards the Giant Crocodile relentlessly.

The pirate ship was enveloped in the storm of lasers in a split of seconds, without an opportunity for the crew to counterattack. Alarms blared inside the ship, and a series of damage warnings appeared on every screen. Undefined

[Warning: Giant Crocodile's armor is compromised…]

[Warning: Critical damage to Giant Crocodile's power core…]

[Warning: Structural integrity critical…]

The Crocodile Man sat upon the bridge, his mouth gaping agape at what he saw before him.

The scale of Rodgraim's counterattack was beyond words.

Laser after laser assaulted his armor, tearing it apart like tissue paper.

What was once the pride of the fleet of the Crocodile Man was a crumbling shell now laid bare by the relentless fire power of the Aether Dominion.

In his final moments of consciousness, the Crocodile Man was finally grasping the true depth of fire superiority: Rodgraim's S-class ship was a different league, and defenses and firepower strength far surpassed anything he could ever conceivably aim to equal.

The sternness of Aether Dominion's resilience and crunching blow had snapped any hope that the Crocodile Man had to even be able to take the battle. It was over, and the Aether Dominion ruled supreme.