Humanity Endures

Part 11 - Nahmatiix | Chapter 3

In such a hectic, close-quarters combat as the one that was unfolding near the center of the battle, the Ineffable couldn't even hope to fire its own antimatter cannons, unless they were loaded with almost ineffectual metal slugs, for fear of destroying countless friendly ships; without these weapons, the prospects of the Loyalist fleet looked even more bleak. Maneuvering safely within the chaotic tempest of battle and death had become an impossibility, and as metal and ordinance swirled every which way in the largest naval encounter the galaxy had seen for over ten thousand years, not even tenacity and thick armor guaranteed as much as fleeting survival. For many, either their ship, their skill, or simply their luck, was found lacking, and they soon joined the billions that had already perished throughout the past thirty minutes of ceaseless, merciless combat. Desensitized by the catastrophic losses of the Alien War, awash with drugs, and with the future of the Empire at stake, neither side showed cracks in their resolve, even as they both displayed cracks in their lines; many would fight until the end — or until their leader, and their cause, was destroyed.

Even for those aboard ships as large and as robust as the Ruthless, the situation was quickly becoming dangerous; many of them were swamped by vast numbers of frigates and fighters that threatened to deprive them of their ability to fight, either by striking at their vulnerable engines, shearing exposed turrets off of their hulls, or, when they were in sufficient number, even by penetrating the substantial armor of the titanic vessels. Furthermore, if a Tehkria-class were cornered by enough cruisers, it could be overpowered and destroyed like any other thing made by human hands. It was the duty of Xertaza to lead her crew in fending off the larger ships assailing her warship and its battlegroup, but theirs was often a failing defence, and the fight against the equally lethal, unending swarms of fighter-craft that plagued Loyalist forces fighting in every corner of the system lay in the hands of fighter pilots like Theten. These people were well aware that for pilots such as themselves, there was no foe in the galaxy more dangerous, more skillful, and more numerous than the enemy they then faced; still, they ventured out to meet this foe anyway. Most Tehkrian fighter squadrons were remote-piloted fighters, which was perhaps the only thing preventing Lassarha's force from losing a few million additional people; over half of the Loyalist fighters had been destroyed already, and with the majority of those remaining fighters waiting in reserve for a more critical moment, the fighter cover for the Loyalist ships remained almost nonexistent as the battle went on.

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Theten piloted a fighter rather than captaining a Tehkria-class, and he led a squadron rather than a fleet; he could not have a major impact on the state of the war system-wide, though he could at least fight to change the state of the battle for his own devastated battlegroup. In doing this, he would save allied lives, and end enemy ones; there was nothing more that a soldier was supposed to do.

Resting comfortably in the cockpit of his fighter, in spite of the fact that he was pinned against his chair by his nigh-suffocating restraints, Theten eagerly awaited his opportunity to do this very job. He and his squadron shook within their fighter crafts' cockpits, being rattled by nuclear weapons detonating on the Ruthless's hull, and by the recoil of the ship's own countless banks of weapons firing, as they awaited orders to launch into the fatal fray — as soldiers, they would prefer to act, rather than see the battle for their future be fought by others. The Loyalist advance had initially been so swift that until then that fighters and other craft had been unusable by the Loyalists, as these fighters would be unable to keep up with their quickly-moving host vessels, and, indeed would probably have gotten in the way of other advancing ships. Now, as Heralax's armada recovered and began to counterattack — bolstered by an unending swarm of militia fighter craft — Lassarha's ships were compelled to pause and defend, meaning that Theten and his squadron could finally enter the battle they had longed to join. The fighter war had become critical; now that the Loyalist vessels were all but stationary in the face of front-wide Traitor counterattacks, they had become prime targets for the frenzied sea of Nahmatiixian fighters that permeated nearly the entire battlefield. Surging relentlessly at the hulls of any Loyalist ship they could reach like waves crashing against a sturdy rock, the Nahmatiixian fighters intended to strike their massive targets until they were nothing, and in many cases they had already succeeded. The Loyalist pilots were outnumbered, and on the defensive; though they could rely on the support of their nearby warships, the Nahmatiixers were both more skilled and much more numerous. Theten's position was less than ideal, but he, a part of one of the most critical engagements of the battle, was going to have to make it work nonetheless.