Agent047
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970 - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream, But They Can See You Burning
🕑 Added 2025-08-26 00:19:48 +0000 UTC“Oh, God,” Ayaka said as she walked out of the stargate, feeling the large amount of poisoned mana being radiated from a distance.
Although she felt the radiated mana, what surprised her the most was the life force fluctuation happening in that direction; years of longevity were being expelled with each second, making her sure that whoever it was happening to was not having a good time.
“Miss Ayaka and Mr. Lee, please come with me,” a fully armored soldier said to them a few seconds after they walked out of the stargate, immediately escorting them toward a waiting ship that took off the moment they boarded, taking them to where the Emperor was.
{The Emperor is currently experiencing mana poisoning due to a technicality in a mana contract. What we need from you is to try your best to help him as he deals with the situation, or if you have a solution, to provide one,} Nova appeared and gave them a summary of the situation. Images showed the Emperor seated in a meditation position, radiating mana. The ship had to hover at a distance, as the atmosphere was unstable any closer.
“I’ll take it from here,” Lee said as he walked toward the door. As if reacting to him, Ayaka started floating seamlessly, the surrounding gravity unaffected by Lee’s ability, which only targeted her. She was already used to him using his powers on her. When the door opened, they immediately jumped out as a gravity shield activated, surrounding and shielding them from the mana turbulence.
“That must be very painful,” Ayaka said as she got closer to Aron, who was sitting and looking very calm, unlike the expression she expected him to be making as his life force was being tainted and lost. This was an extreme situation; the moment he ran out of mana, he would be a sitting duck, unable to counter the mana poisoning anymore. “What are his energy reserves at the moment?” she asked, wanting to know so she could prepare for when it happened. Seeing as this had been happening for minutes before she even arrived and the amount he was consistently expelling, she would be surprised if he lasted ten more minutes.
{You don’t have to worry about that. He won’t run out of mana,} Nova answered, earning a suspicious look from both of them, but there was no time to waste asking more questions.
As Lee got closer to the Emperor, he was forced to increase his mana expenditure on the shield as the poisoned mana from the Emperor collided with its outer layer.
{Don’t worry about mana. I will provide you with as much as you want,} Nova said as mana started filling the suits they were wearing, which had been provided by Nova when they were picked up from their research base.
This was a result of her providing mana converted from a portion of the electricity from the Mars core reactor, poured through a micro-wormhole stargate opened in their suits. This allowed her to supply as much mana as needed and also created a misunderstanding, as the two of them thought that was how she was supplying the Emperor with mana.
Feeling the reinvigorating sensation of mana being absorbed by his body, Lee got more aggressive. He started targeting and redirecting the poisoned mana, which in turn reduced the turbulence until they reached the Emperor. This allowed Ayaka to make contact with his body and try to collect information about the situation.
…………………….
While that was happening, the eyes of the Empire and the Conclave were now focused on one area, only a few seconds before first contact.
The Empire knew the advantage of being the first mover: controlling the terrain, dictating the tempo, and forcing the enemy into reactive positions. The moment the imperial fleets reached their selected area of choice, all of the spatial locks within a light-millisecond radius powered up to level two, straightening the space within it and forcefully pushing the Conclave spear-tip fleet out of FTL travel as the space denied bending.
It was a very useful move, but it expended so much energy that it couldn’t be used many times, as even the spatial locks themselves suffered from durability issues when level two was used.
Having prior knowledge that the Conclave spear-tip fleets were going to be thrown from FTL, the imperial fleets did the same the instant it happened and immediately exploited the surprise to launch an attack.
FLASH!!!!!!! FLASH!!!!!!! FLASH!!!!!!! FLASH!!!!!!! FLASH!!!!!!! FLASH!!!!!!!
Anyone observing the situation saw thousands of streaks of bright light momentarily overpowering the feeble sunlight that reached the Oort Cloud, brightly illuminating parts of icy asteroids that hadn’t received sunlight in hundreds of thousands of years. Explosions followed for the ships that were slow to react.
While in movies, lasers or direct energy weapons look avoidable, that is only for dramatic effect. In real life, they are nearly impossible to avoid in close proximity, as they travel at the speed of light. Although 299,792.458 meters (a light millisecond) is a very large distance, it is nearly instant in terms of light speed and its related attacks.
More and more lasers followed, but enough time had already passed for the enemy to activate their active protections. Still, ten percent of their fleet was already lost in the opening salvo. Space wars were won before the first contact, but that is only if both sides have enough knowledge about each other. That was not a variable here, as it was the first time the two sides were actually going at full power, and they both lacked enough information to decide the outcome before it started. Each side believed they had the upper hand.
But even a ten percent kill was more than expected. Although the Empire managed to attack them before they could activate their shields, the ships still had passive protections against energy weapons. Nearly all of the military ships were covered in ablative armor layers that vaporize on impact to absorb energy and protect the underlying systems. In case those were breached, attacks were then met with phase-change materials that absorb and spread the heat to the heat sinks, reducing the damage further and delaying it just enough for the active protections to kick in.
Moments after their shields went up, they went down as lasers came from the Conclave fleet in a response attack, refusing to remain passive before their shields came back up, the process repeating constantly as more and more laser attacks were sent when imperial lasers were cooling down.
But instead of the expected outcome of the energy weapon attack on the imperial fleet, they were instantly met with their attacks being reflected back at them. The imperial fleets used a single joint shield made of triangular pieces that turned fully reflective the moment the energy attacks touched them. They shifted and reflected the attack at a ninety-degree angle to another connected triangular piece that mirrored the first’s action, reflecting the light another ninety degrees and returning it to the senders at ninety percent of its original strength, having absorbed ten percent of it, as nothing is perfectly reflective.
In the first two exchanges, the Empire came out on top, but not even five seconds had passed since the first attack, so the fight was only in its warmup phase.
Comments
Billiam
Cool take on space battles. Personally hoping to see some boarding actions eventually but tyftc
Zabulus
TYFTC. NOW the real war starts :)
