Humanity Endures

Part 11 - Nahmatiix | Chapter 5

Leading his squadron through the rapidly-intensifying battle, Theten's squadron tore through more than a dozen hostile fighters as they passed and weaved through the carnage before them with elegance and skill; all of those with average talent or less had been callously liquidated by the chaos of battle earlier, and as a result, only Theten's most elite pilots remained. This allowed him to fight and move with far greater ease, for even if the loss of so many of his own pilots weighed heavily on his heart, it did the opposite of weighing down his agile fighter. That was a good thing indeed, for if the thousands of militia craft doggedly pursuing him ever caught up, it would not matter how skillful or fortunate Theten was.

Diving and dodging through the chaotic, ever-shifting front line, Theten's squadron, thanks in part to its smaller size and greater than average skill, incredibly suffered no losses and little damage as they peregrinated across the bloody battlefield — the same could not be said for their far more numerous pursuers, many of whom, though they possessed great skill, were far less lucky. His fortune did not change the fact that Theten's now much smaller force had before it a task much greater than any it had accomplished before, however — the last carrier, a warship from the Imperatorial Navy itself, staffed by an elite Nahmatiixian crew, was the most heavily defended out of any of the vessels Theten or his squadron had battled thus far. Sixteen Nahmatiixian fighter squadrons dedicated entirely to defensive Combat Air Patrols prowled the space around it; on the carrier's hull, banks upon banks of point-defence turrets were scattered between anti-capital weaponry powerful enough to destroy any shattered wreck of a vessel that Theten could hope to use as a shield, all while a swarm of raiders screened and battled with any ship audacious enough to try and assail the mighty craft. Two entire cruisers, each two kilometers long, stood vigil as extra deterrence, while a trio of heavily armed artillery cruisers, two from Nahmatiix and one of them bearing the regalia of Earth's elite planetary navy, hung above the carrier as they pounded the Loyalist front line from afar. Attempting to attack such a potent formation with anything smaller than a Tehkria-class would be downright suicide; Theten's situation was made worse by the fact that many thousands of fighters were hurtling through the battlefield with the express purpose of killing him, and they were mere minutes away. Theten, for his part, was left with only twenty-two fighters alongside him — if he had ever seen an impossible task, this was it. Even if his biological warhead hit the vessel, as it was former Imperatorial Navy, the carrier's countermeasures against such an attack were likely well-made; such an attack probably wouldn't do more than minor damage to the craft, but despite this fact, he had to try.

This situation called for an amazingly unorthodox and excessively risky plan, one more-so than even the last one Theten had attempted. As his squadron hung just outside of the range of any prominent Nahmatiixian warships, he dedicated a few moments worth of thought towards producing one such idea; in the chaos of battle and under the influence of MECS, even these few moments felt as if they were hours.

After this time had elapsed, Theten was left with but one option that retained even the possibility of success; with no other recourse but to attempt it, die, or flee as a coward, Theten then shared his plan with the rest of his squadron. Within seconds, he received an entirely mixed response, a response that was critical of Theten's own limited odds of surviving — something that Leselah was notably concerned about — as well as the plan's chances of success, though many also saw it as brilliant. Even his squadron realized that the plan had a chance of working, and under such circumstances, this was all any of them could ask for. Theten's fighter was the only one left amongst the entire squadron that had a remnant drive, meaning that it was the only aircraft that could hope to accomplish his outlandish plan: to breach into the middle of the hostile formation, fire the warhead, and retreat back into the safety of the Remnant before the Nahmatiixian escorts could notice and kill him. At the same time, Theten's squadron would launch a diversionary attack to draw away as many fighters as they could, leaving the path to Theten's target open. Any tactical simulation Theten ran said that the plan, at best, gave him a five percent chance of survival, and even lower odds of successfully destroying his foe — the fact that this was the best option was indicative of how desperate Theten was. He had to hope that his ploy was just insane enough to blindside the Nahmatiixers he was intent on killing, for if the carrier's point-defence or escorts noticed him, he would be all but dead. Keen on not wasting time — for with each passing second an unstoppable wave of Nahmatiixian fighter craft neared his own squadron — Theten ordered the fighter with the last biological warhead to dispense it; as the oversized missile slid gracefully out of its firing tube, Theten maneuvered his craft to catch it, activating his fighter's remnant drive at the same time. As the warhead was forced into one of Theten's own missile launchers, the Remnant breach in front of his fighter grew to a size sufficient for the squadron leader; while the rest of his pilots watched, Theten, the biological warhead secured in his craft, slid into the mystifying, comparatively peaceful domain.