Henderson stood in the middle of the real-time 4D holographic display of asteroid field watching every minute detail. Both fleets were now fully inside the gas cloud, with his ship bringing up the rear.
Another two fake asteroid came alive and one of his fighter units blinked out of existence and shortly after the fake asteroids were destroyed by his units.
He had lost twenty-six fighter to the sentries so far, which all in all wasn't that bad. What annoyed him however was the fact that it was absolutely impossible to distinguish them from regular asteroids enabling them to continuously ambush the units he had pushing the larger asteroids out of the way, dramatically slowing their advance.
He didn't have a clue what the lionhearted strategy might be but he knew they wouldn't let themselves go quietly. As such he needed to get in there and take them out as quickly and efficiently as possible before they had time to react.
"Sir, our scanners are picking up a rather large amount of gravity fluctuations." One of his officers informed him.
His eyes grew the size of saucers as realization of the lionhearted strategy hit him. "Pull all units out of the gas cloud now!"
"Sir?"
"Now!"
His communication officer sent the message and he took manual control over ship throwing it in full reverse.
In seconds the cloud around the ship began to thin as they left it and he began to relax but as he watched the 4D hologram all of other ships continued to advance. "Why aren't they pulling back?!"
"Our message doesn't seem to be getting through." The officer answered.
"Wh –" he was cut off by a message playing over the ships speakers.
"You have entered lionhearted territory turn back now or face the consequences."
The message repeated itself ominously over and over.
"Sir whatever this message is it's blocking all of our communications."
"Breakthrough it you have to tell our ships to get out of there!"
There ship bucked backwards and Henderson fell to the floor as the entire forward viewscreen became white displaying hundreds of thousands of explosions as the gas cloud seemingly spontaneously exploded.
He managed to pull himself to his feet as the last of explosions died away. He anxiously stared out the viewport and at the 4D hologram. The cloud was mostly gone and what was left of it was easily seen through. Surprisingly however it looked like most of his fleet was still intact.
"Sit rep now!" Henderson shouted.
As the words left his mouth the 4D hologram screamed warnings as it displayed thousands upon thousands of red dots.
Life drain from his face as he watched fake asteroids scattered all through the asteroid field come to life and opened fire on the weakened ships. Most of the ship's shields had held against the explosions the gas had caused but they were at the breaking point and the endless streams of lasers pouring into them easily eroded what was left.
Henderson stood there completely helpless as two whole fleets were obliterated.
**
Daniel's mouth hung wide open.
"Your chin is about to touch the floor." Michael teased as they watched the destruction being wreaked upon the ships.
"Ho... How did you make the gas cloud explode?"
"Gravity." Steve answered. "When we first retrieved this ship it was covered by gravity bubble remember?"
"Yeah."
Catherine directed some of the fake asteroids to concentrate their fire on one of the ships that were still operational "At the time we thought the ship was emitting the gravity itself. In reality however there was thousands of tiny gravity generators placed in a perfect circle around it and we left them here when we left."
"It is one of the ways the lionhearted developed to create safe havens." Alf informed them.
"Yes, Alf told me about them when I suggested bringing the space station to middle of the gas field. And he just happened to have a few thousand more in one of the storage rooms on this ship."
"And let me guess once you heard about them you came up with the brilliant ideal of scattering them throughout the cloud?"
"Yep. As soon as the larger ships in the fleet entered the Cloud the little gravity generators clasped onto them and began to pull the cloud towards them forming concentrated pockets."
"They never noticed because they just thought the cloud was getting thicker as they went in." Steven said
"When in reality they were becoming giant balls of gas? Brilliant wish I'd thought of it."
Michael smiled. "But you didn't and that's why I'm the strategist and Commander while you're the lowly pilot."
Daniel snorted.
**
Mr. Henderson A Davenger dropped to the floor dead killed by Trin U Vilex more commonly known as Adolph's butcher.
Vilex spat on the dead man's body. The fool's blunders had cost two fleets and nearly caused the remaining fleets to run back to their home sectors in terror.
It had taken him a lot of maneuvering and quite a few deaths to force the remaining fleets to stay. Even now the tension was so thick that any second all-out war could break and the six remaining fleets would open fire on each other. He didn't mind the ideal too much but he also knew from the examples in front of him that if they didn't take out the lionhearted now there was a very good chance none of their governments would be intact by the end of next year including his.
He stared out the viewport of the combined fleets command ship at the over 200 disabled ships floating helplessly in what had been the heldrid gas asteroid field.
The lionhearted had been very precise with their attack only disabling every ship not destroying it leaving thousands upon thousands of stranded survivors.
It was a brilliant plan that would force them to slowly retrieve the survivors leaving them open to whatever else the lionhearted had planned.
He grunted, a plan he wasn't going to fall for. With the cloud out the way every once in a while it was possible to get a glimpse of the mining station smack dab in the middle of the field.
"Tell the fleets to completely surround the heldrid asteroid field and opened fire with their long-range weapons. I want everything in their turn to dust."
"But what about the survivors? If you do that you will kill them all!" One of the officers argued in alarm."
Vilex took two giant steps and grabbed the officer by the neck. "Do it, or you'll end up like your previous commander."
He slowly loosened his grip and the officer broke away gasping for air.
"Yes.. Sir." He wheezed.
**
Derrick's command ship propulsion engines had been completely eradicated along with his guns. By all rights his ship should've lost energy and power as well but that would've left him and his crew there to die. This was obviously not the lionhearted's goal, because he could easily tell from the radar that the fake asteroids which had just demolished two whole fleets had done so without hitting the bridges or cockpits of any of the space craft.
In fact all the ships he could see seem to still have power but just like his they were dead in the water.
He pulled himself to his feet and rubbed his forehead where it had smashed against the side of his chair. "Ouch." He whispered.
"The rest of the other fleets have just arrived Sir."
"Can you establish communication with any of them?"
"No, none of them are responding."
Still no response huh? He thought to himself. That could really only mean one thing. Whoever was in command of the combined fleets now had decided not to rescue them or take any more chances.
It was a strategically sound decision. Not one he could've made himself and he certainly didn't know how to tell his crew.
The weapons officer seen the look in his eyes and stood up. "They're going to level everything in this region aren't they?"
He swallowed and nodded.
Realization slowly spread across the bridge.
"We're going to die killed by our own allies." One of the young men angrily hissed.
"Those arch spawns! How could anyone even think of such a thing? There's thousands of us out here!"
Derrick blocked out the rest that was being said as he watched the fleets come into position. Mentally counting down the time until the first round was fired.
It took some time for the combined fleets to form up but when it finally did come it was an amazing sight as a solid wall of death launched away from all six fleets and smashed into the asteroid field.
Miraculously none of the first volley hit their ship but he watched as a railslug punched a hole straight through one of the ships that had been underneath his command.
He bit down hard as he watched three men get sucked out into open space.
Men on the bridge begins scream bloody murder and some of them began to cry but all he could do was watch as another volley smashed into the asteroid field and antimatter missile wiped out one of the ships that had been underneath his control.
He stood up and walked the very front of the viewport so none of the men could see the tears in his own eyes. He was not ready to die but that didn't matter he was going to and he knew it. In a few hours there would be nothing left at all to this asteroid field.
As he stared blankly out of the viewport something caught his eye. The asteroids they were all moving. Almost every last one of them had maneuvering Jets on them and they were moving.
Moving to form a barrier around the wounded ships.
He could hardly believe it as he watched hundreds of asteroids form a solid barrier in front of their ship cutting them off from view of the attacking fleet.
Another volley came from the six fleets and asteroids opened up revealing laser emplacements. And those lasers did their best to shoot down every projectile and missile coming towards them.
His crew became deathly quiet as they watched the weapons that had just disabled them put themselves in the line of fire to protect them.
"Look!" One of the crew cried pointing towards the middle asteroid field.
Derrick swung his attention to were the man was pointing to see a lone mining station. It had once been impossible to see with all the asteroids in a way.
Now however all those asteroids had moved to protect them and the other disabled ships.
Another volley came from the six fleets. At such range it was impossible to be accurate but most of the volley was obviously aimed towards the mining station and it took two direct hits.
"What are they doing they're leaving themselves wide open!"
No one answered.
Another volley and another three direct hits.
"Their shields won't hold much longer like this!"
Still no one could bring themselves to answer the man's cries.
This time the volley came and went scoring six direct hits on the mining station.
"No no no! They're the lionhearted they can't allow themselves to be killed this easy!"
Another volley seemed to sake space itself and the mining station exploded in a crimson ball.
The noisy man slid to the floor. "They allowed themselves to be killed!"
Derrick swallowed hard and turned to the man. "They did it to protect us."
The man didn't look up. "But we were their enemy."
"And they were the lionhearted."