"Captain, our disabled ship has been destroyed."
"Useless idiots," The captain cursed before asking, "What happened?"
"Those unmanned fighters appear to be returning to their mothership and took the opportunity to attack it while it was in its weakened state."
"Serves them right if they can't even be bothered to maintain their ship properly. There's no way one mech and a few unmanned fighters should have been enough to disable them," The captain complained.
"Captain, enemy ship turning about, they're coming right at us."
"They've finally had enough of running now that they have support coming, huh?" He asked before ordering, "Weapons, lock target and fire as soon as they are in range, but remember to disable the ship only."
"Sir."
💫💫💫
"Enemy ships in missile range, five enemies locked on, firing rattler missiles," Stacey reported before five rattler missiles shot out of Spector's missile bay that had just opened up.
"Why rattler missiles?" Rowena asked in confusion.
"I thought I'd start things off with a show," Stacey replied with a smirk just before everyone saw the front end of each rattler missile open up and fire off eighteen smaller missiles, making for a total of ninety missiles that now flew towards the five enemy ships.
[AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): Holy shit. 😲 Look at them all.]
[Emojisonly (Earth): 😲]
[SciFifanboy (Earth): OMG TTHAT'S SO FUCKING SCI-FI.]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): It looks impressive, but that's all; rattler missiles are smaller and lack the same explosive punch as a seeker missile.]
[Noobkiller9000 (Earth): Do rattler missiles not have the same overall explosive force as seeker missiles then?]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): Well, they do, but the damage is spread over a larger area and is not concentrated like with the seekers.]
[AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): It still looks cool as fuck.]
As the rattler missiles neared their intended target, artillery fire erupted from each of the five medium-class ships as they tried to shoot them down.
"Firing seeker missiles," Stacey suddenly announced as five seeker missiles shot out of Spector's missile rack.
[HackerSu (Trillion): Now she's using seekers? What's she up to?]
"You plan to hide the seekers amongst all the rattlers," Rowena explained before adding in a proud tone, "Clever girl."
[Justiceistruth (Earth): I don't get it. Can't a ship's sensors tell the difference between the missiles?]
[DeverinianLordMalacoss (Deverinian 9): Sure, but she's probably hoping that the crew member responsible for the ship's defences fails to notice the seekers amongst all the other missiles on their screen.]
[Cybel (Argo Galaxy): Only a meatbag would make such a mistake. Our superior race would never make such an error.]
As the medium-class ship's defensive officer worked to shoot down the incoming missiles. The weapons officers in charge of attacking launched missiles from their ships.
"Enemy ships have just launched ten EMP missiles," Spector suddenly announced.
"EMP missiles? Why?" Aphrodite asked in confusion.
"They must want to commandeer Spector instead of destroying her," Rowena remarked.
[Celebrityhunter69 (Earth): Why would they want to do that? Wouldn't it make more sense to destroy the ship and any witnesses to their actions?]
[LadyErkath (Alastor): Unless we are dealing with people who already know or are suspicious of how advanced the streamers' ship is.]
[NonpareilRaphilia (Aaru): You think it's the same people or organisation that hired the Noir family to steal it?]
[LadyErkath (Alastor): It would make sense.]
[NonpareilRaphilia (Aaru): That would imply that the same organisation that wants Princess Tessa Terrana dead also hired the Noir family to steal Adam's ship.]
[Whitehorn (Darah 5): A bit of a stretch, don't you think?]
[LadyErkath (Alastor): Not really, if you think about it. Remember when they went to Terrana Five previously and how the TISF tried to arrest them?
The one responsible for ordering that might have been working for the same organisation as that corrupt prince.]
[DeverinianLordMalacoss (Deverinian 9): That actually adds up.]
[NonpareilRaphilia (Aaru): It seems that the streamer and Terrans share a common enemy.]
The medium-class enemy ships defended against the incoming missiles using their ballistic defences, and four of them managed to notice the seeker missile that was hidden amongst the rattlers as they managed to intercept it.
One of them, however, was too focused on taking out all the rattler missiles to notice the lone seeker allowing it to slip through.
In the end, four out of the five medium-class ships were hit by only two or three rattlers each, which their shields managed to withstand.
The fifth ship, however, was hit by both a rattler and the seeker, managing to drain a large amount of its shield strength.
"A seeker hit one of the ships. I'm sending targeting data to you both. Let's focus on taking that one down first," Stacey instructed.
"Copy that, acting operator," Rowena replied as she had the Spector make a beeline for the ship Stacey had indicated.
"Roger, acting operator. Engaging target," Aphrodite replied as she had the micro-fighter's head towards the target ship.
"For fucks sake," Stacey cursed, causing the other two women to chuckle.
"Firing thermal countermeasures." Spector suddenly announced just before it fired off five hexagon-shaped spheres that flew off in the direction of the five medium-class ships that had each fired two missiles.
The thermal countermeasures emitted the same thermal signature as Spector, which confused the incoming missiles and caused them to switch their target lock to whatever released the targeted thermal signature and was closest.
As the first missile from each medium-class ship hit the countermeasure, they blew up, causing the second missile that was slightly behind to be caught up in the blast and thus also blow up.
[Noobkiller9000 (Earth): Damn, those countermeasures are effective, but it makes me wonder why the enemy ships didn't use them.]
[MercheadAnderson (Palaxia): Most likely because of the sheer number of missiles that Stacey fired. A ship can only launch so many countermeasures after all.]
"Firing," Stacey announced just before the triple laser repeaters on the front of Spector started firing at the medium-class ship with the weakened shields.
"Don't leave me out," Aphrodite remarked as she had the micro-fighters join in, causing energy bolts to impact the ship from two separate directions and causing its already weakened shields to rapidly collapse before the energy bolts started ripping holes in the ship's hull.
Needless to say, the medium-class ship couldn't take the combined assault of the seven ships and was quickly destroyed.
"Enemy ships are firing," Spector suddenly announced.
"Oh shit!" Rowena cursed as she quickly had Spector perform evasive manoeuvres by rotating in space and attempting to evade the incoming energy bolts.
Most of the energy bolts flew past Spector, barely avoiding them; however, several of them still managed to impact the shields.
"Way to do your job," Aphrodite remarked sarcastically.
"Oh shut up," Rowena snapped before adding, "I haven't piloted a ship in combat for years."
"And you think I have? I prefer my combat to be in the bedroom, yet you don't see my micro-fighters being hit," Aphrodite retorted.
"It helps that your micro-fighters are tiny compared to Spector," Rowena replied.
"Can we please focus?" Stacey snapped before adding, "I'm designating the next target."
"Confirmed," Aphrodite replied as she received the targeting data.
"Spector, how will your shields hold up if you keep getting hit?" Rowena asked.
"My shields have regenerative capabilities, so as long as the remaining enemy ships don't have the opportunity to continuously bombard me, they should hold up fine," Spector replied.
[AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): We didn't hear the response.]
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Here we go again.]
"What are regenerative shields supposed to be?" Rowena asked.
"Shields that regenerate," Spector replied simply.
"I gathered that from the name, I mean, how do they work?" Rowena asked while rolling her eyes.
"They work by taking a certain amount of the energy that impacts them and recycling that energy into restoring them," Spector explained.
"That's broken as fuck and kinda crazy, right?" Aphrodite remarked in surprise before asking, "I mean, doesn't that essentially mean your shields would never collapse?"
"Negative," Spector replied before explaining. "I am only able to recycle a certain amount of energy that impacts my shields at a time. If too much energy impacts my shields in one go or over a prolonged period, my shields would still end up collapsing."
"Oh, thank the progenitor. I got concerned for a moment there," Rowena said with a sigh.
"Why are you so relieved that Adam's ship can be destroyed?" Stacey asked with a frown.
"What do you suppose would happen if these regenerative shields were capable of protecting a ship indefinitely and that tech fell into the wrong hands?" Rowena asked in return.
"I see your point," Stacey conceded.
"It's still incredibly powerful, though. It means Spector's shields can last far longer than other ships," Aphrodite stated.