Three Square Meals Ch. 133

"A worthy opponent indeed," he muttered with grudging respect.

He opened the tactical interface and began making rapid readjustments of their formations, swinging the farthest fleet around to act as a reserve, while fanning out the rest into an arc. The repositioning of his forces was made more complicated by the close proximity of the minefield, which meant shifting all his fleets to one side to give them adequate room to manoeuvre.

"What if they're just another group of freighters?" Libtegh asked quietly.

"So those ships are in that formation to aggressively hawk their wares?" Kaelotegh asked, pointed towards the sensor contacts.

Libtegh's fins drooped with embarrassment when he saw the Kintark force had arranged their ships into an offensive pattern. Civilian captains lacked the training to adopt such an aggressive fleet posture, so he knew they were facing warships.

The Brimorians held position, their massed ranks of gundecks pointed directly at the nebula as they waited for the Kintark to launch a suicidal charge. The mysterious sensor contacts moved closer, then also held position, stopping some distance inside the nebula. Minutes ticked by with both forces squared off against one another and it soon became quite apparent that the Kintark had no intention of attacking.

Curling his scaled hand into an angry fist, Kaelotegh felt the urgent need to break something to alleviate his frustration. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then felt a flicker of doubt. Could this all just be an elaborate ruse intended as a delaying tactic?

"Launch strike wings into the minefield and clear the closest mines," he ordered his carrier groups.

A dozen squadrons of Brimorian fighters peeled away from their carriers and streaked across the holographic map towards the minefield. There was silence on the Command Deck as the entire crew waited with bated breath, eager to find out what their illustrious leader was planning. The strike craft moved into attack formations and opened fire on the mines, raking the metallic spheres with streams of particle bolts.... but nothing happened. Either the pilots were the worst shots in the galaxy, or the explosives in the mines were not being triggered when they were destroyed by the fighters' gunfire.

The Shoal Master anxiously considered a third possibility. "Examine the wreckage," he ordered one of the fighter wings.

The blue and purple Brimorian strike craft banked around and their leader drew alongside the mangled remains of a mine.

"It's a hollow metal sphere!" the Shoal-Guide pilot exclaimed in surprise. "A garbage pod!"

"This has all been a series of deceptions..." Shoal-Commander Libtegh marvelled, feeling vindicated after his earlier humiliation and turning to give his leader a smug smile. "There's no threat here. The Kintark are simply playing games with us in an attempt to delay our invasion of their homeworld."

Kaelotegh grimaced, trying not to reveal his own embarrassment at being repeatedly duped by the enemy's subterfuge. He selected the strike craft squadrons and targeted the Kintark fleet. "I want a reconnaissance of those ships!"

The fighters accelerated to full throttle and arced around to engage the enemy. When the Brimorian ships plunged into the red and purple gases, the Kintark fleet turned and began their retreat. Rather than fleeing towards their homeworld, they turned to an oblique heading that led them deeper into the nebula.

"The path into the nebula is clear... there's no sign of mines," the Shoal-Guide reported from his fighter.

The nimble strike craft raced towards the Kintark formation, then swooped between the sensor contacts, passing within visual range of the enemy vessels.

When the Brimorian pilot spoke again, he sounded shocked. "They're just unarmed freighters!"

Bristling at the indignity of being delayed by a pack of merchants, Kaelotegh refused to make eye-contact with Libtegh, knowing he was gloating at being proven right.

"Ignore the civilians and recall our strike craft. Resume a direct course towards Kinta," Kaelotegh declared, his orders acknowledged a moment later by the five Shoal-Commanders leading his fleets.

The lead elements of the Brimorian invasion force powered up their FTL drives and the fleets proceeded into the nebula, taking the quickest route towards their destination. Kaelotegh ran a scaly hand over his face, demoralised by a mixture of exasperation, embarrassment, and weariness. He'd spent over an hour furiously dancing to the Kintark's tune, wary of threats that never existed, when all that opposed them were a dozen merchantmen and few hundred garbage pods.

Not only had it been mentally draining preparing his armada for a battle that never occurred, it was galling to realise that the enemy commander had made him look like a fool in front of his men. Kaelotegh swore to himself that he'd make the mastermind behind the Kintark defence suffer when he finally got to grips with the Imperial fleets. He wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than mercilessly crushing his opponent, thereby proving his superiority as a tactician.

Kaelotegh stalked over to his Command Chair and resisted the urge to slump there sullenly. He still needed to maintain an air of confident authority in front of the Bridge Crew, even if his reputation as an unsurpassed master of fleet warfare had taken a humiliating blow. The Shoal Master watched in silence as the five Enclave fleets surged through the nebula, the Kintark tricksters in their freighters making no further attempt to oppose the Brimorians.

The vanguard of his armada had nearly reached the opposite side of the nebula when a brilliant explosion flared on the Sector Map. Kaelotegh jumped in shock, jolted out of his reverie by the dazzling blast.

"What was that?! Are we under attack?" he demanded, leaping from his chair.

More explosions rippled across the holographic map, the exact cause of the damage impossible to see with his flagship's sensors inhibited by the nebula.

"Exit hyper-warp, shields up!" he roared into the fleet command interface, his order sent out to every ship in the armada.

The Brimorian forces responded to his curt commands as quickly as they could, but they were not fast enough to prevent another dozen ferocious detonations. The Enclave warships dropped out of hyper-warp and assumed a defensive formation as they reacted to the ambush.

"Look over there!" Shoal-Commander Libtegh cried out, his voice shrill with fear.

Kaelotegh whirled around to look through the starboard windows at the huge Brimorian battleship on their flank. There was a gaping crater in the upper portion of the once mighty vessel, the Command Deck reduced to a blackened mass of twisted metal and sundered plating. He couldn't believe how much damage the warship had sustained, his mind lurching to the terrifying possibility that the Kintark had come into possession of some kind of unstoppable super weapon.

One of the Wave-squires gasped, his scaly features losing their colour. "Shoal Master? I'm receiving reports from the fleet..." he stammered, a look of complete disbelief on his face.

"What are they reporting?!" Kaelotegh snapped, losing his already frayed temper. "Do they know what did this?!"

"Steel stanchions, Shoal Master..."

You could have heard a pin drop on the Bridge, as the crew were stunned into silence.

Kaelotegh tilted his head as if he believed his hearing was defective. "Say again?"

"The Kintark dropped clusters of steel stanchions in front of us," the Wave-squire replied in a hushed voice. His claws tapped the shell icons on his console. "Somehow they predicted our precise heading and jettisoned them directly in our path."

The holographic map disappeared and was replaced by a picture captured by an external hull camera. A long metallic-grey beam floated innocuously in space amidst the bright colours of the nebula. Under ordinary circumstances, such flotsam would be detected by sensors long before it could be a danger and easily avoided. However, concealed as it was under the disruptive cover of the nebula, the steel stanchion turned into a lethal hazard... especially when struck by a ship travelling at hyper-warp speeds.

Kaelotegh could only gape in shock at the ten-metre-long length of metal. The Kintark had effectively ravaged his fleet with a hyper-warp powered Mass Driver broadside... that struck with devastating effect on the lightly-armoured Enclave capital ships. In a dreadful moment of epiphany, the Brimorian leader realised that everything that had transpired around the nebula was just a clever series of feints, setting him up for this killer blow.

The enemy tactician had predicted that Kaelotegh would approach the nebula with caution after the asteroid belt debacle, then planted fake mines to block the shortest diversionary path around the potential threat. The minefield was only there to funnel the Brimorians into the nebula at a precise location planned by the Kintark... and embarrassed at being delayed by freighters, Kaelotegh had underestimated his opponent and stumbled headlong into the I-beam trap. He'd been deliberately antagonised and humiliated, his opponent manipulating him with distressing ease.

Fleet casualty reports continued to come in, with five battleships having sustained critical damage. Over a dozen cruisers had been obliterated by catastrophic hyper-warp crashes and scores more warships had been damaged by collisions with debris from shattered Enclave vessels. Another entire fleet had been crippled by his opponent, but this time tens-of-thousands of Brimorians had been slaughtered in the carnage.

Kaelotegh slumped in his Command Chair and felt a shiver of dread run down his spine. In that moment, the Shoal Master knew that he was facing an enemy unlike any he'd ever encountered before. He still had four intact fleets compared to the Kintark's two, but despite having a significant tech advantage, he couldn't help wondering if it was going to be enough.

***

"You'll have to try harder than that to get through her shields," Sakura noted with a smile.

John hammered Rachel's hex barrier with a rapid succession of savage two-handed swipes, then shook his head in admiration as she repaired the damage faster than he could inflict it. "I don't know how you can keep that barrier intact. I've been hitting it with everything I've got!"

Rachel stood off to the side of the Dojo, keeping an eye on the battered suit of Phalanx armour that she had surrounded with a spinning globe of grey hexagons. "Not quite everything..."

"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown.

"Don't you remember? Back on Arcadia when we encouraged you to avenge Faye against that projection of Larn'kelnar... you went berserk and managed to smash through my shield. It was like you were draining me of energy."

Lowering his sword, John stared at the runeblade in bewilderment. "I've no idea how I did that," he quietly admitted. "I was running on pure emotion... all that rage and grief... it was overwhelming."

"Mind if I have another turn?" Sakura asked, darting a hopeful glance at the brunette.

"Be my guest," Rachel replied, gesturing towards the propped-up armour.

The Asian girl sprang into action, a spine-chilling crack echoing around the room as she sheathed her twin ninjato in ice. Running full-tilt towards the protective shield, she hammered the barrier with her blades, trying to match the rotation and break her way inside. Rachel was far too wily to allow Sakura such an easy opportunity to break her hex shield and the angle of rotation shifted wildly at random intervals, making it impossible to predict which direction to attack.

Rachel glanced at John out of the corner of her eye. "Have you ever wondered how you're able to do some of the things you do... when you have no idea why you're able to do them?"

He snorted and gave her a wry smile. "Yes, once or twice."

"And what have you concluded?" she asked, studying him curiously.

John rested the tip of his blade on the floor, then leaned against the pommel. "My guide's been operating behind the scenes for months. He must be behind it all."

"That incident with you breaking through my shield only happened a week ago, but you locked away your guide a few days before that," she reminded him.

"Yeah... you're right," he conceded, looking at her in surprise.

Rachel rapidly repaired her spinning shield as Sakura pounded it with a succession of ice javelins. "Does that mean he's found some way to escape? I thought there was no way out of that runic prison?"

John hesitated, a flicker of doubt on his face. "There shouldn't be any way he can breach those runes. They keep him suppressed in a null field, leaving him powerless and in complete sensory deprivation."

"So how did you break through my shield then?" she asked, her grey eyes alight with curiosity.

He shrugged in helpless frustration. "I really haven't got a clue. I was operating by instinct, completely focused on executing Larn'kelnar for the millions of lives he destroyed."

Rachel glanced at the gleaming weapon in his grasp. "Perhaps you inadvertently unlocked some kind of shield-breaking ability in your runesword?"

"Maybe... but I'm not sure how to trigger it again," he said, studying the glowing runes that ran the length of the blade. "Have you got any suggestions?"

She laughed and shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Ancient Kyth'faren artefacts really aren't my area of expertise. Tashana studied the schematics for longer than you didn't she? Perhaps she might be able to recommend a method of unlocking the sword's full potential?"

John hefted the weapon in his hand, appreciating the comforting feel of its weight and balance. "Do you think it has a lot of untapped abilities we don't know about?"

"The Kyth'faren went to great lengths to keep that weapon out of Xar'aziuth's clutches. I can't imagine they would go to so much trouble if all it did was amplify your psychic strength."

Glacial winds were whipping around the Dojo now, Sakura channelling an icy vortex to aid in her attempt to break through Rachel's shield. John stood still amidst the buffeting, lost in thought as he watched the hex-barrier withstand her onslaught.

"Yeah, I'm sure you're right," he finally conceded to the brunette. "I'll discuss it with Tashana and see if she can remember anything helpful."

Sakura battered the spinning shield with a combination of icy shards from her tornado and frenzied stabs with her two swords. She also blasted the impenetrable sphere with a frozen javelin as quickly as she could create a new one, but despite hitting the barrier with everything she'd got, Rachel managed to keep it intact.

Blowing out her breath in a ragged sigh of frustration, Sakura skidded to a halt and lowered her ninjato. "I give up. You're so much better at blocking my attacks than John."

"Hey!" he protested, giving her a mock frown.

"Well... she is," Sakura said with a sympathetic smile.

"How about ganging up on her instead?" John suggested, darting a conspiratorial wink at the former assassin.

Sakura's smile widened into a grin. "Oh yeah! You're in trouble now, Rachel!"

The brunette politely covered her mouth as she stifled a yawn. "I'm sorry... what were you saying? I was hoping this training session would be exciting, but it's been a real struggle to stay awake."

John and Sakura laughed as they padded out across the mats, both raising their weapons in readiness. They glanced back at Rachel who looked away and whistled tunefully to herself, goading the pair into action.

"Okay, go!" John called out, activating his psychic speed.

Sakura was right there with him, sprinting in a blur towards the glowing sphere. Despite Rachel's supposed inattentiveness, she was concentrating intently on her hex barrier, knowing how difficult it would be to repair all the damage from both of them at once. The shield spun around wildly, making haphazard changes of direction that were disorientating even to look at.

They began their attacks, slashing and stabbing away as fast as they could in an effort to overwhelm her. John whipped his sword from left to right, cracking a dozen hexagons with every broad slash. Sakura's ninjato were primarily piercing weapons, so she unleashed a frenzy of skewering thrusts that were powerful enough to split a man in two.

Rachel's brow furrowed in concentration, but she was able to quickly replace shattered hexagons, preventing either John or Sakura from sundering the sphere.

John and Sakura spun and pivoted around their target, feeling that same sense of connection again as they worked together to find vulnerabilities in Rachel's defences. Fully immersed in their psychic powers, John's glowing blue gaze met Sakura's glacial white, the pair locking eyes as they continued their deadly dance. The sensation felt like the intimate closeness they'd shared when performing Tai Chi together, but amplified by eldritch energy it was taken to another level entirely.

Sakura gasped, her eyes widening, then she grinned with renewed focus. John brought his runesword around in a whip-like slash, crushing the surface of the spinning sphere and cracking a dozen hexagons. Lunging forward in a flash, Sakura stabbed the damaged globe where it had already taken damage, her ninjato piercing the barrier and impaling the Phalanx suit's arm.

Rachel gasped in surprise and instantly repaired the rupture when Sakura drew back to thrust again. She reversed the direction of her spinning shield, but John and Sakura immediately countered, working together in perfect synchronisation. Now Sakura unleashed a wild flurry of strikes with her dual blades, weakening a dozen hexagons with every frozen stab. John drew back his blade and hammered the damaged surface of the shield, completely destroying the already weakened tiles and threatening to destabilise the integrity of the entire hex barrier.

No longer able to feign casual disinterest, Rachel held up both hands towards the globe and gritted her teeth under the strain. She had to leverage the entire might of her intellect into maintaining the barrier, teetering on the edge of disaster as she barely managed to replace shattered hexagons in time. John and Sakura seemed to know exactly where the other was about to strike, coordinating chains of attacks with breathtaking precision.

The onslaught continued with no sign of abatement and soon Rachel was panting from the exertion as she channelled a constant stream of energy into the shield. A piercing dirge echoed around the Dojo as John launched a telekinetic lance at the barrier, knocking out a cluster of seven grey hexagons. The psychic attack landed a split second before Sakura struck with a double lunge, her twin ninjato driving through the gap in the barrier and impaling the Phalanx helmet with both blades. The white tips punched through the black armour, then shattered the faceplate with a shriek of metal.

Rachel's hex shield disintegrated in a shower of glowing hexagons and John chopped the suit in half with a thunderous cross-slash. The brunette dropped to one knee as she conceded defeat, her chest heaving as she struggled to regain her breath. Rachel heard a ringing clang and looked up, then smiled when she saw that John and Sakura had discarded their swords and Paragon helmets... and were now kissing passionately.

***

Shoal Master Kaelotegh stared at the holographic Sector Map and rubbed at his throbbing temple. He'd started to develop a nasty headache and his current predicament was doing nothing to ease his tension. Ahead of them, just out of sensor range, lay another huge minefield. He knew this, because a hazard beacon had been left directly in their path, warning of the minefield's existence and informing them of its precise dimensions.