Commander's Rounds Volume 1

Commander's Rounds 122: Master of War

Sovetskaya Rossiya was beginning to get a bad feeling about the operation. She and the ships under her command were part of a two-pronged operation to attack a Siren resource complex on the coast of northern Alaska while a separate force was off attacking a nearby Siren fortress to keep reinforcements off their back. While they had expected some extra Siren resistance, they were encountering weapons, humanoid and otherwise, that they had never encountered before, and some of them were a cut above their previous encounters.

The first clue that they were in for something different was when they started skirting the edge of Siren territory, and they encountered a fleet headed by a heavily armored, pale female humanoid weapon with long, white hair and bright red eyes that flashed whenever she acquired a target. And then...

"Triumph. Target is Verified, Commencing Hostilities!" She shouted in a voice with a strong hint of being synthesized.

Because this was not a machine meant to interact with anything through any means other than violence.

The twin gun turrets mounted on its shoulders fired off a pair of deadly shots, and Rossiya managed to get herself out of the way quickly enough so that the blasts only claimed one of her turrets. She was backed up by Colorado, who halted Triumph's advance with her own salvo of heavy shells, but even the heavy hits she scored were not enough to make Triumph restrain her assault. Smaller pulse lasers mounted into the humanoid's armor fired ceaselessly at anything that came close enough for those energy weapons to be effective. The highly accurate laser fire meant that destroyers and other light ships couldn't dare to approach to screen the larger ships.

However, some ships didn't rely on being close. Rossiya pulled back as Scharnhorst covered her with some very accurate long-range fire, the new set of hits giving Triumph some pause, but not much. The humanoid's own heavy guns lashed out at anything that was in range, and her accuracy was superb. Colorado got hammered and had to pull back, Maryland taking over instead.

Kronshtadt and Saint Louis, however, had been watching carefully. Kron looked at the other cruiser. "Look at her go... Their normal humanoid weapons don't normally give those girls a hard time, but I've got an idea."

Saint Louis blinked. "I hope you don't plan to rely on divine providence."

"Nah, just got an idea. I'll make an opportunity, and you'll take advantage. Follow me."

Kronshtadt watched Triumph trade shots with the battleships, and once she got an idea of the machine's firing pattern, and once she saw an opening, she rushed in, with Saint Louis following. Right after Triumph fired another salvo, Kronshtadt rushed in and fired her heavy armor-piercing guns and a range that even Triumph found to be uncomfortably close. "This is what happens when you turn your back on a sneaking expert!"

Most of the shells hit, but Triumph was unperturbed, even though the large cruiser had finally blasted a crack in the humanoid's heavy armor. As Triumph began to turn her guns on the large cruiser, Kron quickly dodged to the side to make way for Saint Louis, who used her vast, superhuman strength to ram her spear through the crack that Kron had opened, piercing the humanoid through with the long spearhead.

Saint Louis looked to see that Triumph's case remained unflinching, and began to use its lasers to start to burn through Saint Louis's armor while its guns swiveled to take aim. It would never get a chance to fire, however, as Kronshtadt slammed Triumph from behind with her rigging, pushing her over the bladed crosspiece of the cruiser's spear, tearing out the artificial internals that animated their enemy. Triumph eventually fell limp, and then started to disintegrate into ash-like particles that drifted away into the ocean breeze.

After the rest of Triumph's force was seen off by the multitude of other ships and escorts, the fleet began to move ahead slowly, doing repairs while on the move. Kronshtadt went over to Rossiya. "You all right?"