“Holy crap!” Chimera found herself saying aloud.
“Direct hits on several key points, Captain! Their shields are coming back online, but those beams surely hit something important!” one of the crew practically cheered as Bark gave the orders to turn the ship around.
‘N-No energy from the world killer, one of those beams hit the source!”
“I want our fighters to take out those remaining defensive batteries, let's send this monstrous vessel to the depths!”
Chimera shook her head as she reconnected to the cannons, feeling the rails begin to charge once again while her gravity cannons picked up debris and rocks to launch at the sprawling Motherdome.
The Meras was already launching out the fighter pods as the first salvo from the Mother dome sent green beams towards the Sword.
She felt the forces from the ships as they commited turns and twists to avoid most of the blasts, some landing hits of the shields while dodging the rest.
The Meras took advantage of the directional fire to move in closer, covering the pod fighters with its own shields as it pushed towards the vessel.
The Sword was made of sturdy stuff when it came to its own weaponry it seemed, as the green beams from the Motherdome hit and sometimes reflected off of the hull.
Bark caught on that quickly and issued orders to the pod fighters to take positions behind the Sword to use the captured vessel as a physical shield to the laser batteries.
Meanwhile Chimera was launching another salvo of magnetically charged destruction back at the capital ship looming over Torsca.
The shields took four of the blasts this time, stopping the shells enought that they bounced harmlessly off the hull, but the fifth blast hit one of the major laser batteries on the top side.
The plume of green fire flashed for a moment as parts and pieces flew into space, the destruction taking the Motherdome out of its spin for a short moment.
Chimera cheered herself on as she moved to take out more of the colossal defense turrets, her excitement clashing with her worry as she spotted more green beams and even kinetic weapons making their way towards their ships.
They were winning, but just barely as the dome started to release a group of their own fighters.
The pods met with the oddly triangle-shaped vessels, dodging and weaving about between a sea of green laser fire and charged death.
Chimera felt a grip in her stomach as she spotted one of her pods engage its emergency failsafes, the breached vessel sending the pod back to the Meras for emergency service.
She couldn’t feel the person inside the pod which only pushed her further to end this fight.
Stretching her power, she connected to each of her defensive cannons and started launching indiscriminately, targeting anything that fired back and any turret that looked exposed.
The wall of debris and rail-launched shells impacted the Motherdome, breaching some sections while flickering shields blocked most of the rail cannon shots.
It was razor thin, the advantage that they had over the capital ship.
We need to get those cannons to stop firing, there’s just too many to dodge and the pods can’t reach them with those flying triangles in the way.
A piece of the enemy vessel passed by the Meras just as Chimera was trying to find a solution, until suddenly the tractor beam ignited on the ship.
Grabbing the chunk, it twisted around to sling the floating piece of garbage back at a nearby turret, crashing into it and blowing up the entire section of batteries along with it.
Another presence touched her mind briefly, and Mera smiled as Bayleaf sent her a thumbs up, her own thoughts strained as the tractor beam grabbed another piece and launched it at the Motherdome.
We can do this!
A blast tore through another shield, lighting the dome up in fire, while a blast from the dome directly impacted the Meras.
The ship shook, Meras was reeling from the hit which made Chimera lose her own connection to the ship’ systems briefly.
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The technopathy she had as a power worked with the ship, but with Meras being the core, anything that could rattle her disrupted the connection She had as well.
A salvo of fire blasted through the ship, parts of the Meras were being burned through by laser fire while the crew tried their best to patch up the holes.
It hurts!
Chimera felt her friend’s pain as the vessel that was her body was littered with burns from green fire.
We can’t stay here, the more hits we take the worse it becomes.
Chimera checked their positions, noting the Sword was taking hits as well. The damage was slowing the vessel down, and it wouldn’t be long before it too was destroyed.
The map she was looking at showed that the Motherdome still had almost half its guns online, and the next rotation of the vessel would hit them soon, lighting them up with no way for their ships to dodge them all.
The dome wasn’t in the best shape either but it was still capable enough to end their lives.
Mera peered at the holes in the dome, the few that made it past the shields, and a few more that had been hit twice.
Just large enough, perhaps, for a vessel.
Chimera sent a message to Bark through the ship's computers, bouncing the signal off to let the pod fighters know to return to the hangar.
“Captain, these orders… Are you sure?”
Chimera nodded as she returned to her task, focusing the defensive guns to target as many of the coming turrets on the enemy vessel as possible.
“All ships, head to the opening, we’re parking ourselves inside that damn dome.”
“S-Sir?!”
“Really?”
“Oh Goddess preserve us!”
The crew complied even as Chimera felt the messages coming through like a wave of panic.
It’s the only way, those guns can hit us from the inside, and with a bit of time, my defensive array will take out the rest of the batteries.
With a surge of force, the ships made their way inside the dome, just as the batteries turned to fire on them, only to miss as the ships entered what Chimera assumed was once a hangar.
Debris and a few unfortunate Hoodians who couldn’t escape floated in the vacuum there, but there wasn’t any time to think about that.
The Meras locked the landing clamps to the dome, preventing it from simply drifting off into space as the dome continued its slow spin.
Chimera checked to make sure the Sword was secure as well before she turned her attention back to the defensive array.
Without the worry of the fighters and the turrets from the dome, Chimera launched volley after volley of concentrated fire, blasting and destroying the turrets she could reach.
“Uh… Captain!”
“Those energy readings…”
“Brace yourselves, attention crew, strap yourselves in immediately, prepare for warp!”
Chimera was so focused on her targets that the words she was hearing didn’t register completely. Not until she too felt the energy somewhere deep within the vessel surge.
It feels like… no, what is that?
Meras tried to tell her something, but the moment it registered, the whole dome lurched and pulled.
The pull launched Chimera out of her seat, splattering her against the window of the Meras before scrapping her alongside the walls.
Her body tried to keep itself together, but the force of whatever she was feeling pancaked her further, preventing her from moving even a sliver of her body.
Her consciousness faded in and out as she lost connection to her defensive array, to the Meras and her crew, to Bayleaf and Meras and everyone around her.
The force suddenly let her go, launching her further into what she could only assume was the vacuum of space judging by how cold it was. Darkness surrounded her, stars twinkled by, and her body was starting to freeze from the oppressive cold that threatened to grip her being.
Until it was replaced by fire.
Lots of fire.
Fire that fought against the cold that tried desperately to reach her core.
Chimera opened her eyes to see herself falling into an expansive blue world, a place surrounded by water with a few large land masses in the horizon.
She burned and froze and burned some more as the heat from reentry fought with the cold that tried to pierce her blobby body.
Until finally only the fire remained, and Chimera screamed as her body flew closer and closer to the surface of the blue marble.
…
“Status! Someone give me a gods damned report!”
Bark was searching frantically for signs of the Captain as the crew began unstrapping themselves from their chairs.
It was only thanks to the Meras that any of them survived the emergency warp that their enemy initiated. Only a fool would do such a thing when half the vessel was burning up, but clearly they had underestimated the suicidal nature of their enemies.
Bark didn’t have time to lose though, as the ship began the uncoupling procedure from the now sheared off piece of the former Motherdome.
“Status yellow sir, some parts of the ship show breaches, but the core is healing those sections enough to reestablish the air circulation.”
“Sir, no signs of the Captain on the Meras. I can’t find her signature anywhere on the ship systems.”
“Sir, I have our coordinates!”
Bark took it all in before he latched onto the last report.
“Where are we?”
The woman turned to meet the vice-captain.
“It's Cerula sir, the warp placed us right outside of Cerula.”
…