5357 The Phase Leaders Appear
After the collapse of the outer defensive sphere, the First Armada did not press on right away.
A lull in the fighting ensued as both sides began to recover and take stock of the situation.
The alien defenders were more than content to use the available time to reorganize their defenses, analyze their enemy's weaknesses and recover their morale.
The human attackers recovered their injured and escaped personnel while also replenishing their mechs and other combat assets.
The leaders of both sides knew that the second round would become a lot more intense.
The First Armada had undoubtedly won the first round in a crushing fashion, but it had lost the advantage of surprise.
Sure, the aliens suffered a lot of material losses, but the units stationed in the outer defensive sphere happened to be the weakest ones in the star system.
The middle and inner defensive spheres possessed a much higher priority on newly released tech!
The powerful sensors and scanners of the First Armada already detected a lot more modern phasefighters, warships and defensive installations.
Many of them had been built in the last five years, which meant that each of them incorporated a hefty proportion of stolen human technology!
This made the middle defensive sphere undoubtedly more challenging to breach.
There were many clever minds among the alien defenders. The Red Cabal had allocated a large amount of elite forces from different alien civilizations to every Tide Station.
Even now, a lot of puelmers were working on developing countermeasures against the insanely effective hyper ECM systems of the Throne of Lies.
Even though she did not boast as many guns as her larger sister ship, her incredibly effective ECM systems posed a greater threat to the middle defensive sphere because of its more compact dimensions!
Already, the alien defenders were producing signal boosters, sensor probes, tightbeam transceivers and other stopgap solutions.
None of these measures could fully counter the unreasonably powerful ECM measures of the Throne of Lies, but they were better than nothing.
Soon enough, the First Armada had completed its reorganization. Its replenished mechs and recovering warships began to spread out in an attempt to envelop the middle defensive sphere.
This was not entirely a good idea as the human forces had to spread their mechs and warships thin.
Nonetheless, the Red Two's leaders deliberately chose to go through the effort of surrounding the alien positions because they aimed to do far more than destroy a single Tide Station today.
The second round commenced as both sides opened fire against each other!
The more modern alien warships and defensive installations performed a lot better than their earlier counterparts.
Their crews were more skilled and composed. Their hasty stopgap measures ensured that they could observe their enemies and maintain contact with each other.
The Throne of Lies did her best to compensate. Her armaments might not be as powerful or numerous, but they were particularly effective at debilitating enemy targets!
Hundreds of transphasic missiles launched from her hull. They accelerated rapidly through space and reached their designated coordinates before exploding in the middle of many alien formations.
Each detonation unleashed an electrical explosion that knocked out a lot of probes and nearby electronic modules!
Sensor arrays became blinded. Communication links became garbled. Whole phasefighters momentary glitched out, causing them to get taken down by human mechs with ease.
The Throne of Lies had plenty more warheads in reserve. The dreadnought launched a second salvo of EMP missiles as soon as they loaded into the missile tubes. The powerful AIs had already calculated the optimal spread patterns, enabling them to disable as many vulnerable enemy electronics as possible!
Still, as disruptive as the EMP missiles may be, the modern orven and puelmer warships were not that easy to disable.
The aliens might not put as much emphasis on electronic warfare, but even they knew how to harden their systems against EMP attacks.
The alien warships and defensive installations resisted the EMP missiles quite well.
This was why the Throne of Lies began to target them with her more direct weapon arsenal.
Her Spark Reactor began to output more energy. The primary and secondary gun batteries of the 15-kilometer dreadnought soon began to channel all of that power in the form of highly disruptive ion beams!
Each of the main gun batteries of the Throne of Lies had been upgraded with electrical hyper materials.
The incorporation of this special material supercharged the disruptive effect of her armaments and caused every strike to have particularly strong effect against transphasic energy shields and electronic systems!
Many alien warships targeted by the smaller dreadnought quickly lost their energy barriers.
Once exposed, entire gun batteries, surface modules and even thrusters started to get knocked out after getting struck by unerringly precise white ion beams!
Combined with the fiery attack salvos unleashed by the Guns of Armageddon, the aliens rapidly suffered serious losses!
However, the defenders of the Tenth Tide Station could clearly take it.
The middle defensive sphere actually served as the main line of defense.
The inner defensive sphere might be composed of the best and most elite alien units stationed in this strategically important star system, but their quantity was by far the smallest.
As such, if the defenders failed to break the backs of the human attackers at this junction, the Tenth Tide Station would come under serious threat.
This could not be tolerated!
The orven and puelmer defenders fought even harder, knowing that they had the advantage of numbers on their side.
Even if their weapons did not hit as hard as that of their human foes, they were able to launch more attacks, allowing them to overwhelm shield linked human warships by relying on massed attacks alone!
The battle became a lot bloodier as a consequence. Thousands of humans and aliens lost their lives as their vessels exploded far too quickly to give them time to evacuate.
Escape pods constantly flew into space. Only the most desperate people would attempt to teleport from their doomed stations as the huge amount of activity in space made it exceedingly dangerous to rely on this measure!
Even though the First Armada clearly sustained a lot more losses than before, the two dreadnoughts remained as unwavering as ever.
This caused the alien leaders to become steadily more discouraged.
The two ancient phase whales had seen enough. They understood that they needed to take stronger measures in order to take down the two dreadnoughts.
If that wasn't possible, then the Red Cabal at least had to drive them away!
The Singularity Lord and the Space Tearer began to move their old and age-marked bodies to the exit of the inner chamber.
At the same time, the eldest of the two phase whales transmitted a signal.
This triggered a new development that boosted the morale of the alien defenders while causing the human attackers to raise their guard.
"We are detecting multiple strong spatial fluctuations! Each of them are coming closer."
"We have confirmation that the aliens have brought out their phase lords!"
"Identify them immediately!"
"We have detected the approach of a orven greater phase lord that is known as the Darkstar King. He is the direct subordinate and confidante of the Singularity Lord. We are unable to identify the 7 adult phase whales and 4 lesser phase lords, but none of them are as strong. Each of them are converging on the Throne of Lies!"
This was to be expected. The aliens clearly wanted to take out the two dreadnoughts, but they had no guarantees they could accomplish their goal by splitting up their powerful phase leaders.
The defending side had made the difficult choice to leave the Guns of Armageddons alone for the time being. This put the Throne of Lies under much greater threat.
Dreadnought or not, it was incredibly scary to confront 7 phase whales and 5 phase lords at the same time!
"Follow the plan." Fleet Admiral Amelie Jameson calmly instructed. "Please ask our mecher colleagues to direct their ace mechs against the enemy adult phase whales and lesser phase lords."
"The ace mechs are beginning to confront the enemy phase leaders."
The ace mechs deployed by the Red Association had been warming themselves up by wrecking a lot of alien warships with their formidable power.
However, as soon as the enemy phase leaders started to converge on the Throne of Lies, those ace mechs suspended their current activities and moved to intercept the native 'gods' with single-minded determination!
All kinds of resonance-empowered attacks and spatial disruptions engulfed a large section of space as the two sides confronted each other.
The adult phase whales were not as laid back and passive as their other counterparts.
These militant aliens served as important leaders of the Red Cabal. They were much more oriented towards combat and possessed many spatial organs and abilities that enabled them to exert serious pressure onto the powerful first-class ace mechs!
The lesser phase lords were in a similar position. Each of them had pledged their service to the Darkstar King, and many of them already had experience in fighting against the Red Two's warfleets.
Their strong spatial barriers and even stronger bodies enabled them to effectively resist the Saint Kingdoms and the resonance-empowered attacks of the human ace mechs!
However, their ability to inflict damage onto the fast but durable machines was usually not that great.
Wide-area spatial quakes did nothing but tickle the ace mechs.
More focused attacks such as tearing the space in front of ace mechs always missed the mark. This was because the powerful intuition of ace pilots always guided them to safety!
This caused the champions of the two sides to enter into a stalemate, though the phase leaders were steadily moving closer to the Throne of Lies.
"Watch out! The Darkstar King is making a move!"
A single ace swordsman mech that had dealt the most damage against an orven phase lord abruptly stopped its current attack run and hastily tried to change its course.
However, the senior ace mech barely managed to turn around before its position became engulfed by a weak but unavoidable singularity!
While the sad excuse of a black hole was not even close to terrifying as an actual black hole, the miniature singularity still generated enough gravitational forces to inflict massive amounts of damage on anything caught in its event horizon!
The singularity only lasted a short time before a broken sword forcefully cut it apart, enabling a warmed and deformed ace mech to retreat to safety!
Though the ace mech's resilient alloys and powerful Saint Kingdom prevented the machine from getting crushed in its entirety, it became clear that it was no longer able to persist in the fight.
The ace pilot was lucky to make it out alive!
As the giant form of the Darkstar King continued to move forward, the alien defenders became encouraged by the arrival of their gods.
They fought harder than ever. The mounting losses no longer daunted them as much as they believed that their valiant performance would allow them to gain the approval of their patron gods!
The Darkstar King especially received a lot of worship as he was by far the strongest orven phase lord in the star system!
The difference between a lesser and greater phase lord was massive. The Darkstar King had already eliminated a senior ace mech with a single move. This meant that it would take multiple of them to contain this formidable alien threat!
Four more ace mechs started to reposition themselves. They moved away from their current foes and tried to prevent the greater phase lord from getting any closer to the Throne of Lies.
"Alert! We are detecting strong spatial fluctuations from the Darkstar King. The readings are roughly consistent with an instant, short-ranged spatial jump!"
Before the humans could adjust, the Darkstar King already disappeared from his old coordinates and appeared only a few dozen kilometers away from the Throne of Lies!
No ace mech stood in the greater phase lord's way anymore!
