[member="Miss Blonde"] [member="Juwiela Melec"] [member=KeCholo]
Droid 71353-C
Clanker class walked towards the collection of orange sphere. It cocked its mechanical head to one side as it regarded them curiously. Inside its processing units it prepared to be utterly destroyed by the weaponry. Then they exploded. A swirling cloud of orange gas surrounded the droid. Droid 71353-C instantly reported full functionality maintained, but reported the chemical threat.
A Collateralhulk was a large ship. Very large. Despite multiple layers of armour they’d been designed with holding off the hypervelocity cannon batteries employed by the Protectorate in mind. In fact, any ship was designed to deal with hull breaches. A sudden drop of 1 atmosphere wasn’t enough to kill by explosive decompression – not by a long way – by most sentients couldn’t survive in a vacuum for long. For that reason they were designed to seal off compromised sections.
A sudden breach could suck the air from a whole section in an incredibly short period of time. A gas cloud was more limited. There was likely a mean crossing time of several minutes to cover the wide of the hulking cruiser’s massive arms. Thousands died to that cloud, but the ship was a long way from losing full capability. The Techno Union was heavily reliant on automation, with droid staff and almost exclusively battle droids to ward off any boarding actions.
With no hangar bays located on the central command section of the ship, KeCholo had a long walk ahead of him.
The first station fell apart in a brilliant display. A myriad of colours as the various explosives and fuels on the station erupted together. The other two suffered significant damage, but the heavily armed stations were tough nuts to crack. In response the Scimitar stations returned fire with their array of heavy batteries at the Udarniks. Often they wouldn’t strike out at frigates, but these vessels lacked manoeuvrability and made tempting targets for the droid gunners.
“Right,” Captain At’el called across the command centre of the Collateralhulk. The nerve centre of the defensive effort was well protected from breaches. They would often used at the HQ of an entire operation spanning sectore. “I want full analysis of what they’re using and what we’ve got en route.”
“We don’t know ETA of our ships sir, they’re blocking comms. Gravitational disturbances detected as well. Tactical analysis is coming in. On your screen now. It’s a brutally effective set of ships sir. Slow, few long range weapons. Close in brawlers. But there’s a significant lack of point defences. Tactical suggests weakness to ordnance and fighters. Their flagship is highest threat target, but low down the priority list. Proton cannons and heavy ordnance a great threat. Unlikely to bring her down sir without compromising our position.”
“Agreed. I want droid fighters and bombers making runs at those hammerheads.”
Effortless grace came when observing droid fighters act as a unit. What they lacked in individual talent, they made up for in precision formation flying, turning tight circles and realigning to make runs at the cruisers with a woeful lack of point defences and escorts.
“Captain?”
“Yes!”
Also, while the ship can easily shunt power where needed, due to the power needed to hold enemy warships in place, the tractor beams and ray shielding cannot be used in conjunction, a design flaw that Tenloss R&D staff are still working to rectify.
“Those tractor beams have a good hold on us, but we’re reading that their shields are compromised.”
Captain At’el steepled his fingers in front of his face. A wave ruffled across his black and white striped fur. Thousands of his staff had just been killed by gas. Good people who manned their posts ‘til the last. It was time for payback.
“All batteries, target those cruisers in turn.”
The Collateralhulk had enough weaponry to match the Red Dress, the Tek-1 and a hammerhead put together. Whilst no sound crossed space, the roar of a full volley was thunderous inside the command section. Wanga’s might have been tough little ships, but with compromised shields they were going to need to relinquish their hold on the Battlecruiser or be utterly destroyed. The particular sound of the Collateralhulk’s assault concussion missile tubes firing followed. Ordnance that could crack those cruiser’s shells and open up their insides to the harsh reality of space.
“Good news sir, that’s a burst of cronau radiation. The 5th fleet have reached the edge of the well.”
“More power to comms, start frequency hopping rotation to align with them and cut through this static. Have engineering prep to compromise hyperdrive systems.”
The relief effort formed up and started to launch fights. Their slow advance towards the lightshow over the capital was organised, but that arrowhead of vessels around the dagger shaped Gunray class held a certain type of malice.