Chapter 173: The Major Strike

Chapter 173: The Major Strike

The battle above Khelron had changed completely within minutes. What had begun as a desperate exchange between two fleets was turning into a methodical hunt as Major Cassian Rourke’s martial soldiers spread through the surviving Vraxith formation.

Noah remained beside the orbital display while portals continued opening at different points around the battlefield. Each opening released another small group of robed soldiers, and every group immediately moved toward an assigned enemy concentration instead of chasing whichever target happened to be closest.

The first thing Noah noticed was their discipline. A swordsman who had just cut through two smaller Vraxith ignored a third creature fleeing beyond his position because another detachment was already moving to intercept it.

Several spear users surrounded a damaged carrier and attacked its escorts from different directions. Fighters using ranged attacks remained farther away and struck organisms attempting to reinforce the carrier, while two soldiers stayed beside an injured comrade until a portal opened near them.

The wounded fighter disappeared through the opening with one escort. The remaining soldier returned to the engagement as soon as the portal closed and joined another group moving toward the carrier.

Noah had initially expected warriors with this level of personal strength to fight independently. Rourke’s force behaved like an organized army whose soldiers happened to possess combat abilities far beyond anything Eldrath currently fielded.

A Vraxith cluster tried to retreat toward one of the surviving carriers. Three portals opened ahead of its route, and martial soldiers emerged directly into the space the creatures had intended to use for escape.

The Vraxith immediately changed direction, only to encounter another group moving around their flank. The creatures were forced into a shrinking pocket between two detachments before they could regain formation.

Swords flashed across the observation feed as several smaller organisms broke apart. A spear-wielding fighter drove straight through a larger escort and emerged from the opposite side before turning toward another target.

Noah leaned closer as the orbital officers increased magnification. Creatures that had forced Eldrathi troops to use field guns and artillery were being killed by individual people in open space.

One robed soldier intercepted a biological projectile heading toward a nearby group. He raised both hands, released a brief flash, and destroyed the projectile before it reached the fighters behind him.

Another martial soldier attacked a Vraxith creature with armor similar in thickness to the Breakers that had battered the defenses below. The fighter struck the same point three times in rapid succession, cracked the plating, and drove a spear through the exposed tissue underneath.

Noah remained silent while the feed shifted between engagements. The battles unfolding above him bore little resemblance to the warfare he had spent the mission commanding.

Eldrath fought through organized formations, firearms, vehicles, artillery, industry, and logistics. Rourke’s soldiers still relied on coordination and command, yet each warrior carried enough personal strength to alter an engagement without a gun crew or vehicle supporting them.

Halden stood nearby and followed the same feed. "How many soldiers has he deployed so far?"

"Too many are moving through portals for a direct count to stay accurate," Noah said. "Track the detachments instead and record where each group appears."

The orbital staff changed their approach and began marking each martial detachment rather than every individual soldier. That immediately revealed another part of Rourke’s method.

A group would finish one engagement, enter a portal, and emerge moments later beside another Vraxith formation several kilometers away. The distance between separate battles barely slowed the Imperial soldiers because Rourke could place them where the fighting was developing.

Rourke remained outside his command airship and continued opening gateways near threatened escorts, retreating enemies, and damaged carriers whose protection had already weakened. His attention shifted across the battlefield without any visible hesitation as new portals appeared one after another.

One Vraxith carrier attempted to pull away under the protection of dozens of smaller creatures. A portal appeared directly along its escape route and released two groups of martial soldiers ahead of it.

The first detachment attacked the escorts while the second moved toward the carrier itself. Imperial airships stopped firing at the carrier once their soldiers reached its immediate vicinity, leaving the boarding force room to work.

Noah watched the attack through several observation angles. The martial soldiers did not search for an entrance into the biological vessel because they created their own opening through its armored body.

A swordsman carved through one section of armor while two others widened the breach. Another portal opened farther along the creature’s body and released a second detachment that attacked from another direction.

Vraxith defenders emerged from openings across the carrier’s surface and rushed the martial soldiers. Most were cut down before they could organize into a stable defense around the damaged sections.

Several minutes later, part of the carrier collapsed inward and the enormous organism stopped changing direction. The martial soldiers withdrew through newly opened portals as the crippled carrier began drifting away from the remaining formation.

An Imperial airship waited until the last fighter cleared the target before firing. The damaged carrier broke apart under the strike and scattered pieces of biological armor across the darkness.

Noah felt a growing fascination that went beyond the relief of watching the Vraxith lose ships. He was observing a form of warfare Eldrath could not reproduce with its current knowledge regardless of how many factories or artillery batteries it possessed.

The soldiers themselves formed a major part of the force Rourke commanded. His portals allowed that strength to appear wherever the Vraxith were weakest or wherever an Imperial vessel required immediate support.

The sight left Noah with questions he could not answer from one battle. He wondered how far an individual could advance, how common soldiers like these were within the Empire, and what kind of enemies normally justified deploying a formation built around them.

He left those questions unanswered and continued observing the engagement. Rourke’s strike force was revealing more about its methods with every target it destroyed.

A transmission from Varek briefly interrupted him. "Fresh landings have almost stopped. Surface Vraxith remain active, but our exhausted battalions are finally getting proper rotations."

"Keep rotating the units that have been fighting the longest," Noah said. "Move ammunition forward while the sky is clear, and keep the current defensive line intact. I don’t want a general counterattack until we know what remains in orbit."

"Understood. I’ll keep the surface formations in place and focus on restoring their strength."

Noah closed the channel and returned his attention to orbit. The defenders below could use the interruption without his direct involvement, while the fight above Khelron was showing him something he might not encounter again soon.

The Imperial airships had started changing their own attack pattern. With fewer Vraxith vessels coordinating against them, several heavy ships began concentrating their fire on individual carriers.

The first strike stripped armor away from one target, and the next opened the creature’s side.

Martial soldiers moved against the exposed section immediately while the larger vessels held their fire.

The soldiers destroyed nearby escorts and attacked the damaged tissue until the carrier could no longer maneuver properly. Once the fighters cleared the area through Rourke’s portals, another concentrated strike finished the target.

Noah recognized the sequence after seeing it repeated against another carrier. The airships opened vulnerable sections, the martial detachments exploited those openings, and the larger vessels destroyed the crippled organisms after their soldiers withdrew.

The surviving Vraxith were no longer controlling the pace of the engagement. Every attempt to regroup created another opportunity for Rourke to place soldiers beside an exposed formation.

Several carriers tried to withdraw together, and portals immediately appeared across their escape route. Dozens of robed figures emerged in a broad formation and forced the retreating organisms to separate.

Imperial escorts moved through the gaps created between the carriers and fired into their exposed sides. One Vraxith vessel attempted to escape beneath the main engagement, only for another portal to appear almost directly below it.

Five spear users emerged near its underside and attacked before the carrier could turn. Halden watched the observation feed follow them as the creature struggled to change direction.

"The Vraxith can’t establish a clean retreat route," Halden said. "Every time they move away from one group, another portal opens ahead of them."

"Rourke is controlling where they can safely move," Noah replied. "They have to fight through his soldiers before they can create any real distance from the fleet."

An orbital officer suddenly called for their attention before Halden could answer. Something massive was emerging from behind the wreckage of a damaged carrier.

The creature dwarfed the Vraxith organisms surrounding it. Its central body was several times larger than the Breakers Noah had seen below, while thick layered armor covered nearly every visible section.

Multiple heavy limbs extended around its body, and several large biological weapon organs protruded from its upper side. One fired almost immediately and struck near a group of martial soldiers, forcing them to scatter.

Another projectile hit an Imperial escort and damaged part of its forward hull. The airship changed direction while the enormous Vraxith pushed deeper into the engagement.

Halden looked toward the analysts. "Have we recorded anything similar to that creature?"

"Nothing of that size has appeared on the surface," one analyst answered. "We also don’t have a confirmed Imperial designation for it."

The creature accelerated toward a nearby group of robed soldiers. Three fighters attacked before it reached them and struck different points across its frontal armor.

Their attacks damaged the outer plating without stopping its advance. One martial soldier was struck by a sweeping limb and hurled far enough that the observation crew briefly lost him among the surrounding contacts.

A second group attacked from the side and targeted the joints between the creature’s armored sections. The Vraxith twisted through space with surprising speed and forced them apart with another burst from its biological weapon. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Noah focused completely on the engagement. This was the first organism he had seen place several of Rourke’s martial soldiers under sustained pressure.

One of the Imperial airships began turning its main weapon toward the creature. The familiar brightness started forming along its hull as the vessel aligned itself for a shot.

The light disappeared before the weapon fired, and Noah shifted to the wider observation feed to see why. Rourke was moving toward the massive organism while the nearby martial soldiers began clearing the space around him.

"Give me the closest image you can maintain without losing the wider engagement," Noah ordered.

The image expanded until Rourke occupied one side of the display and the Vraxith dominated the other. The difference in size made the approaching confrontation look almost impossible.

Rourke was a single man floating in dark military robes. The Vraxith facing him possessed limbs larger than his body and enough armor to withstand attacks from several martial soldiers.

The creature turned completely toward him and accelerated. Rourke remained directly in its path while the surrounding soldiers continued moving out of the way.

No weapon appeared in the Major’s hands. He pulled one arm back and waited while the distance between them disappeared.

The command center gradually became quiet as more officers noticed what was happening. Halden stopped following the other engagements and focused entirely on the enlarged feed.

The Vraxith lunged toward Rourke with its armored front leading the charge. The Major drove his fist forward at the instant the creature entered his reach.

The front of the Vraxith collapsed around the impact. A violent force traveled through its enormous body a moment later, splitting armored plates apart and crushing the central mass from the front toward the rear.

The creature broke apart before it could pass him. Fragments of biological armor and torn tissue scattered through space while Rourke remained where the impact had occurred.

Noah stared at the feed as the rest of the Imperial strike force continued clearing the surviving Vraxith around their commander. Rourke slowly lowered his fist while the remains of the massive creature drifted past him.