Galactic Rain[]
“Ma’am! Ships! Dozens! Hundreds!”
Her eyes were wide, there was no way, she was dumbstruck for a brief moment. Blakist ships were emerging from jumps within the asteroid field. That had never been done, scientifically, could never be done, it was too close to the planet!
It was silent on the bridge for a couple of seconds as the crew were focusing on hammering out commands and to keep the guns firing. Marshal Collins was able to see out the forward Ferroglass shielding the massive black ring. Ships were entering behind their defensive position. However, they were staging, trying to use the asteroid field as a wall to their backs.
“Air Master.” She said firmly into her comms microphone.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Divert all of your aerospace assets to our fleet, get in close with us, we have to engage that new fleet.”
“Yes, Ma’am, we are on our way.”
She switched channels to her ships, “All Taurian naval ships, you will be sent over a flight plan, launch final full broadsides, then fall in with my ship, we have to engage that new fleet, they will be at the planet in mere hours.”
The Taurian blockade continued a last couple waves of fire, shattering a couple more dropships. Meanwhile hundreds of Taurian fighters returned, swarming around the formation from their prior engagements. As one, the entire formation broke position and began an intercept course with the new enemy fleet.
“Logistics, once the fleet is clear, activate Galactic Rain.”
“Yes ma’am!” a female voice shouted back.
It was now a race, a new fleet after much of their own had suffered battle damage? Galactic Rain was not supposed to be a fallback option already.
“Ma’am! SASF is secure, activating Galactic Rain now!”
The entire crew looked up, unsure of what they were about to witness. Ahead of them, the awaiting Blakist reinforcements got the shock of their lives. Throughout the asteroid field against their backs, nuclear detonations went off. Dozens and hundreds of asteroids were suddenly sent flying in all directions. A wave of space rocks was thrown toward the fleet.
Everyone could see a burst of response fire as the ships tried to destroy the asteroids. Huge chunks of rock were impacting the hulls, even the smallest would cause massive damage at those speeds. Puffs of atmosphere venting and flames were bursting out of the ships.
A large holo projection showed the Gateway they were just blockading as detonations went off. From all directions asteroids were slamming into the already savaged fleet of Blakists. Numerous ships blinked off the screen. Impact after impact, ship’s hulls were shattering and bursting out atmosphere.
There was no discrimination, it was an execution of all crewmembers, to include ground personnel not involved in the battle and maintenance personnel on the ships. That detonation would cause in the billions and trillions of C-Bills worth of money and thousands of lives.
The nuclear weapons were placed throughout the asteroid field, divided into sections that could be activated remotely, to at least attempt to control some of the destruction. As soon as the explosions went off, any asteroids moving towards the Taurian fleet were blasted apart as they concentrated fire.
One of the reasons she chose to activate it was because it would flood the Gateway with asteroids, severely setting back the reinforcement fleet beyond from joining these new ships that jumped in. They would have to wade through ship debris, perform rescue missions, navigate the now tumbling asteroids, even have to watch out for any thrown towards them from the explosions as they approached.
A warship in the Blakist fleet took a few massive asteroids to the hull, showing that a simple space rock could do more damage than even some capital ship weapons. When the wave of rocks were past the ships, the Word of Blake ships began moving towards the planet. It was clear they were moving at maximum velocity, attempting to outrun Collins’ inbound fleet, still greater in number than her own fleet.