The Celestial Way

Chapter 20.2 - Clearing Ways

A few hours later, aboard the H'raal Exile Fleet, on approach to Terra Para's orbit

The bridge of the H'raal mothership had the same uncanny, darklight interior as the rest of the structure. The walls of blue-green solidified energy swirled and pulsed, lightnings flashing along indistinguishable boundaries. The bridge was gigantic in size, comparable to the High Temple of Dragon Retreat, and also shared many similarities with its layout. H'raal were manning energy-made battlestations everywhere around the bridge, soft halos around their heads and ephemeral tendrils at their clawtips being the only indications they were interfacing with the mothership.

Airo watched the gathered H'raal carefully, trying to see any differences in them. They all seemed identical down to the last detail, and wore no clothing, or any distinguishing accessories for that matter. To his eye they were all like clones.

"Ugh, vacuum felt so strange," Veralla said. She stood next to him, this time without a protective vacsuit, her attention divided between the bridge's environment and her own body. "I had not realized how pleasant breathing is."

"Well, you chose to not wear your scaphander," Airo replied.

The bridge was spherical in shape, and they stood at its bottom. Airo focused his attention to the large hologram screen projected in the center, displaying an external view of the cosmos outside, Terra Para being a small, bright dot in the ocean of stars.

"Are you ready, Clanleader Airo?" Shy asked. The massive H'raal te'ylna loomed behind, her demeanor stoic and unreadable.

"I am, Te'ylna Shy," he said.

"We shall begin our assault then."

Airo nodded and focused his attention to the hologram screen again. Besides the external view a stream of additional data was displayed at the edges, the most important of which was the virtual battlefield plane, showing an abstracted image of all combatants and their positions in the local starscape.

Airo had ordered the H'raal into motion as soon as possible, even though the Radiant Knights had advised him to fight the draconic Revenant on the following day. He couldn't afford to wait; each day, the Revenant grew more numerous and the planet's warpstorms were getting worse than ever, threatening to make any groundside operations impossible. Rushing the schedule meant there was less time to establish operational protocol, yet Airo had deemed this a minor problem compared to what was at stake.

Terra Para gradually grew larger on the screen as the H'raal starfleet made its way to the planet's orbit. The sphereships were arranged in a conical pattern, with a distance of several million kilometers between each 'tier', and the formation was led by a lone spacecraft.

"How will you engage the Revenant at such range?" Airo asked, baffled.

"Our vessels are equipped with the equivalent of what you call DEI cannons," Shy replied.

"Understood," he said. Inwardly, he queried Yeoman Cloud. "What is a DEI cannon?"

"The name is an acronym for Dark Energy Impulse cannon," the SAI explained with vim over Airo's commlink. "This type of weaponry is among the most destructive devices ever created in the galaxy. The nomenclature is a mild misnomer, as what is often identified as 'dark energy' is in fact the Æther itself, although interestingly enough, DEI cannons don't fire pure Æther. Nevertheless, they are very rare and are usually found only on the most prized or advanced starships, and are never mounted on anything less than a heavy cruiser."

The H'raal starfleet continued to approach Terra Para. The mothership was at the rear end of the formation, which meant the planet was still more than fifteen million kilometers away, while the leading sphereship was merely several hundred thousand. Airo had a vague idea what the H'raal were trying to accomplish with this type of formation and was about to ask Shy for comfirmation, when the battlefield telemetry warned about enemy contact.