Humanity Endures

Part 11 - Nahmatiix | Chapter 2

Terilan's mind was awash with tactical and strategic information, and as he was planted in his chair aboard the Steadfast's bridge, frozen in body but agile in thought and action, he utilized every ounce of mental strength he had to try and direct the unimaginably massive, unimaginably chaotic, and unimaginably lethal battle that was unfolding before him. The unimaginable seemed commonplace now; with alien horrors invading the galaxy through a fake black hole, and with a merciless civil war of nearly unprecedented scale gripping the Empire, human imagination had shown itself unequal to the universe's idea of drama. Nevertheless, it was the job of people like Terilan or Lassarha to endure, and beat back whatever this universe threw at them, so that humanity could do so as well. To this end, Terilan fought, directed, and killed in the battle of Nahmatiix with fury and efficiency that would impress even an alien; with himself and thousands of other Loyalist admirals working in unison to manage this battle for the galaxy, the Traitors were indeed well-matched.

The Loyalists had an advantage in at least one regard, for though the Traitors had many ships, and though many of these ships were even manned by well-trained crews, they lacked a well-structured officer corps, as well as the well-established hierarchy of admirals and other high-ranking leaders, necessary to effectively command these ships. Even if the average Traitor soldier was equivalent to the average Loyalist, and though there were many more Traitor soldiers than Loyalist ones, the average Loyalist commander was often of infinitely superior caliber to the Traitors' hastily-promoted counterparts — such was the value of having the Military Council on one's side. Any skilled leaders the Traitors may have possessed had been hastily promoted to ranks they had never even dreamt of, with no time to acclimatize to their new role, and this was obviously detrimental to their efficiency. It was for this reason, Terilan suspected, that the Traitors had been unable to react to Lassarha's plan appropriately, and they had disobeyed their superiors' instructions to not attack the diversionary Loyalist squadrons. Effective leadership was as rare as a habitable planet, and getting people to listen to it takes time; the Traitors had neither a lot of effective leadership, nor did they have a lot of time, before the Loyalists had brought the war to their capital. Better still for Terilan, the revolutionary mindset dominating the Traitors' ranks was unwelcoming to military discipline — their soldiers had too much enthusiasm.

Lingering just behind the vanguard, the Ineffable, its antimatter cannons loaded and targeted, fired a pair of the shells directly into the depths of the regrouping Nahmatiixian formation before it; the resulting detonation was equal to that of countless nukes, as the twin shots reduced fifty thousand Traitor ships to ash and dust. Having had its first taste of the battle, the vessel then pressed onwards towards the frenzied core of the rapidly-unfolding engagement, the ship and its accompanying escort being commanded by Yezalax, who was in turn supervised by Lassarha herself, though she, being gifted yet not an expert in war, often served more to motivate than to actually lead. Aside from serving in this capacity, Lassarha also acted to make the Ineffable the most critical target across the entire battlefield for Nahmatiixian warships; as countless Traitor vessels sacrificially threw themselves against the elite escort battlegroup of the Ineffable, barely managing to scratch scratching the golden paint of her flagship, it became clear that this attention was not entirely a bad thing.

The majority of the Loyalist force gradually slowed itself and its advance, instead concentrating on slaying as many Traitors as they could; the Ineffable, leading a vanguard comprised of the most elite ships in the Loyalist armada — and supplanted by a significant number of this fleet's Tehkria-class — continued to cut through the Nahmatiixian vessels before them, a reserve force plugging the gap they left behind, as they moved in pursuit of the greatest prize in the system: Heralax Tekran. Advancing in parallel, to the left, right, and above and below Lassarha's force, were four supporting spearheads, also headed by elite ships, which served to further disorganize and aid the main breakthrough as it pushed further into Nahmatiixian lines; the battle was, amazingly, going as planned, though all of the Traitor losses suffered in the initial moves would mean nothing if Heralax did not soon join the fallen before his fleet could regroup.