Barbarians

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black

With flowers and my love, both never to come back

I see people turn their heads and quickly look away

Like a newborn baby, it just happens everyday

I look inside myself and see my heart is black

I see my red door, I must have it painted black

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts

It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

The Rolling Stones - “Paint It Black”

Dhyaksh Chugaz Uydan leapt to his feet in shock as his armada found itself trapped within the shield’s bubble. What manner of trickery was this?

But once he forced himself to calm down and think, he realized the situation was far from catastrophic. In fact, this tactic was a sign of just how desperate the enemy was, for if they’d had any other ships in reserve, they would have produced them by now. No, the old fighters were all they had, and once he smashed his way free of this energy field, he would annihilate them.

“Order the ships outside the shield to destroy the generators,” he snarled, before turning his attention to the tactical officer.

“Arm the Breakers and fire!”

The HK squadron charged forward, firing a volley of antimatter projectiles while the Comets covered their flanks, the Khonhim answering with a flight of missiles in return. The agile fighters dodged and jinked their way through the swarm of death, destroying any that threatened the Ronin gunboats. They had always envisioned the HK as an offensive platform, relying on its heavy armor to shrug off damage. It was all ax, and no shield...whereas the Comets could be used in either role. By covering for their big brothers, they increased the effectiveness of their armada by an order of magnitude, as they fought to keep the enemy at bay.

But the Khonhim warriors they faced weren’t tyros, but battle-hardened professionals...and they knew the capabilities of the ships they faced. They splintered off into separate groups to deny the HK’s a massed target, coming in on oblique trajectories to strip away the fighters...as suddenly it was the Comets who were fighting for their lives, with the Khonhim charging in for the kill.

The trapped Khonhim fleet fired a barrage of Breaker missiles in one heavy gasp, sending them arcing away towards the shield. Chugaz Uydan watched as they sprinted towards self-immolation, impacting against the field in groups of two’s and three’s as they detonated.

The effect was devastating.

Massive surges of energy sent shockwaves through the fleet, refracting and rebounding from dozens of point sources like handfuls of gravel tossed into a still pond. Alarms wailed throughout the flagship Resolve, as systems were suddenly overloaded and shorted out. It tossed the ships of the armada about like toys as the concussive waves reverberated within the field until ebbing away as they canceled each other out.

Chugaz Uydan clawed his way back to his feet, the smell of smoke and ozone heavy on the bridge. “Report! What is the status of the shield?”

The crew struggled to find their way back to their stations, working to restore crippled systems before the tactical officer could respond.

“Dhyaksh...the shield is still in place!” he said in astonishment.

Fury twisted his face beyond all recognition as he railed at the news.

“Another salvo!” he ordered.

The Planetary Shield was a marvel of science and engineering, the pinnacle of Triumvirate achievement...but it was not without its flaws. While seemingly a smooth uninterrupted sphere, in fact, it resembled one of Carl Fabergé’s crafted Easter eggs.

They had designed the Breaker missile to exploit the seams and fracture lines within the energy matrix, shattering the sphere with a tap on just the right spot, instead of hurling massive broadsides against the shield wall itself, to no effect. With a simple sphere, the math used to locate the fracture lines was a straightforward exercise in n-Dimensional Multilinear Subspace Tensor Calculus.

...but the shield bubble thrown together by Admiral Matevosian was not a simple sphere. Far from it. In fact, if any 3-dimensional object could be held up as a model of what they’d created, the closest parallel would be...a potato.

A rather lumpy and malformed potato.

From an engineering aspect, it was an abomination. From a tactical standpoint, however, it was a Godsend. The simple fracture lines in the standard model, the ones exploited by the Breaker missile, now radiated in a hundred different directions. Any hit along those seams would be dampened out, the energy whisked away as it dissipated.

But there was a catch.

One constructs a skyscraper with massive beams and girders...not tinker toys. The very structure that gave Matevosian’s Shield its resiliency was also its weakest link. Hit it hard enough and it would shatter, which is why the Admiral had insisted on quadruple-redundancy. It had required them to strip out the generators from a dozen nearby worlds, so in theory, when a generator was knocked out the ones remaining would accept the increased load and maintain the field.

In theory.

As the salvo of Breaker missiles detonated against the shield, Admiral Matevosian watched as dozens of the shield generators exploded in incandescent balls of plasma. The energy field spiked as the remaining generators took the strain...and held.

...for the moment.

Major Parisi had used her “Bubble Guns” to crush the individual ships caught within the field, but there was no chance of repeating her feat here. As it was, they were barely managing to keep the shield from collapsing. Besides, it had never been the intent of Lacuna to destroy the Khonhim, only to delay them until Admiral Fujimoto’s joint fleet could arrive.

Their battle wasn’t against Chugaz Uydan...but Time itself.

They delayed the second volley of missiles while Damage Control parties aboard the Khonhim armada rushed to repair the systems wrecked by the first barrage. Chugaz Uydan stormed and raged as the engineers fought to bring them back online, but soon they gave their grudging consent.

Another broadside of missiles hurled themselves against the shield, once again sending shockwaves throughout the enclosed space. This time at least they were prepared, riding out the undulating currents as they struggled to see if their attack was successful.

Once more, the shield mocked their efforts.

“AGAIN! screamed Chugaz Uydan.

A flight of Comets disappeared in actinic fire, as the shield generators they were defending exploded. Many of the Khonhim vessels pressing them were also wiped away, but that wasn’t Admiral Matevosian’s greatest fear. No one would ever confuse him with Engineer Scotty, but even he could see the latest fusillade had visibly weakened the shield.

There was no doubt in his mind that Chugaz Uydan was busy readying a third salvo...and this time, all bets were off.

Chugaz Uydan was done playing it safe. He’d ordered a double volley of Breakers to be fired, despite the obvious risks. They needed to escape now, before Jiyazh Ghuuyaz and his alien allies arrived. He could defeat each smaller fleet in turn, once he brought his forces to bear, but if they linked up then things suddenly became much dicier. He still liked his odds, but he had not risen to power by gambling. The ruthless elimination of random chance had determined his every move.

The only horse races he bet on...assuming for the moment the Khonhim had such events...were the ones he’d fixed himself.

Every ship in the fleet was braced and ready as the third flight of Breaker missiles sprinted towards the shield. The armada seemed to hold its breath, waiting for confirmation, as the missiles detonated. Even with the extra precautions, they’d taken their ships were tossed about once more, but this time, the shockwaves disappeared...as a feral grin of triumph appeared on Chugaz Uydan’s face.

Admiral Matevosian could only watch in horror as the shield flickered...and disappeared.

“...God help us all,” he whispered.