Over the course of the next week, the production facilities in the city were busy making all the Samurai Pattern Line Mecha that they could to finish up Max's order before they moved on to other tasks, an order from the Tarith Reavers to get the ship that was supposed to be the flagship of the Rae 5 system up and running.
Max, of course, hadn't had a say in that. You weren't allowed to vote for yourself in a Reaver selection, someone else had to nominate you, and then the rest of the forces in the area would decide if it was a good decision.
Terminus herself was a unique-looking vessel, plus a Colony Ship, so it could be dispatched to do almost anything that they were asked to deal with and would make a good base of operations if they were sending multiple vessels.
Many Reaver Companies worked out of vessels the size of the Dutchman, which was currently docked inside Terminus, so the logic did make some sense, from a purely logistical viewpoint. If a small Company's vessel was damaged in action, they could not only ferry it home, they could put it in dry dock and start to do repairs on the spot.
[Gimli Merchant Alliance to Rae 5 Command. We have a confirmed attack against Reaver vessels by Tapani allied vessels who are now approaching the outskirts of the system at high warp.]
The alert was relayed directly to Max, who shot up out of bed. The Mecha were still here on the planet, and the Cutters were on the orbital base. The travel time wouldn't be much but it would take time to load the Mecha into the Cutters if they were going to do a boarding action.
[Kagar Reavers will respond]
[Malaki Reavers will respond]
[Tarith Reavers will respond]
[Terminus Trading Company will respond]
The last was in Nico's voice, and Max saw the alerts that said they were preparing to emergency launch the Cutters with just the four-person crews on them.
This would be an extreme test of their abilities as pilots, handling all the weapons systems of the ships while fighting. They didn't even have the extra crew to pilot the Drones as far as Max knew.
A quick scan of the ship's logs showed him that wasn't quite right though. The engineering and maintenance crews had already arrived aboard the Cutters, and Nico was still somewhere in the Moon Base, presumably harassing Uncle Lu about the new toys she wanted.
Max hadn't seen her in a week, since as his second in Command it was her job to make sure that the construction was proceeding on pace.
If the attack had come a few days later, they would have been fully prepared. The last orders of Light Mecha were on their way to Terminus, and after that, they would return to orbit and dock with the Moon Base to transfer the Cutters and stay ready for situations like this.
Tapani must have called in a lot of favors to try to get revenge today, and Max had a lot to prove, with five untested attack ships in his fleet.
They were definitely going to be the first ones to the Tapani fleet though, by nearly ten minutes, now that they had launched and had set a course for the attackers. The speed difference was a bit ridiculous, and the Cutters were leaving the other Reaver vessels in their wake.
The Tapani fleet seemed to think that it was a sensor anomaly, even though the ships were flying in a standard attack formation.
According to his sensors, the two fleets were getting exceedingly close, but the Cutters hadn't deployed countermeasures to force the Tapani fleet out of warp where they could properly attack them.
But Nico was aboard Cutter X1, and she had a much more fun plan, one she recalled from her past life.
If you actually collided with another vessel at warp, it would knock both out of warp, usually with severe damages. But if you modulated your Warp Field to match theirs and didn't quite hit them, you could do a hit-and-run bombardment.
Nobody ever expected it the first time, and the damage it would do was immense since defensive shields couldn't be raised while the Warp Field was active.
Three of the cutters bounced off their targets, missing the modulation by just a hair and pulling both vessels from Warp with minimal damage, but Cutters 1 and 5 both made the modulation adjustment perfectly, and two streaks of fire and debris littered the open space near the Rae 5 system as the vessels they hit disintegrated under the force of an abrupt transition and an Orbital Lance to the hull.
[You Psychopath! If you want to die so badly, we can do it for you!] Max heard a Captain scream into the communicator, and the fight between the five cutters and the incoming fleet moved to standard speeds.
The Cutters were much more maneuverable than the heavy Destroyers that the Nations had sent this time, and their hard-mounted main weapons couldn't track fast enough to target them, leaving the secondary ordinance to deal with the five experimental vessels. The battle was starting to turn lopsided in favor of the Reavers even before the strike forces of three more Reaver Companies arrived.
That was all the hint that the intruders needed, and they turned tail and ran, fleeing the system as fast as their vessels could move.
[Cutters, collect your drones and report damages. The enemy has disengaged.] Nico reported, making Max smile.
That went better than he had hoped. The Cutters didn't take any direct hits from main weapons, and a single hit from the secondary weapons wasn't enough to take down their shields. It would severely strain the power supply, even with the upgraded power output, but that was way more than any other Cutter could brag about.
With the output of a standard Kepler Cutter, a single hit from the Secondary Armament of a Destroyer was usually lethal, unless it only glanced off a nonessential area of the hull.
[Drones have taken an average of seventeen losses per vessel. Minor structural damages to all vessels. Operational Capacity still over ninety percent, maneuverability unimpaired.] Nico reported, taking stock of their losses.
The Reavers would love that. Drone Fighters made the loss of life zero, instead of a dozen or more per vessel with standard fighters, and the ships were still in good shape after their surprise attack.
[Return to base and start repair and replacements. Terminus will join you in orbit tomorrow.] Max ordered, then started sending the orders to get everything packed up for them to depart Rae 5's surface.
