Southern Cross by Windstar

Time which the Bak'ra put to good use. Emily's lips curled slightly as she watched the fleet's
formation shift. No one ever said that the enemy had to be stupid, even if I wish they were. The
Bak'ra fleet changed formation, drawing closer together, interlocking there anti missile fields of
fire.
Still they'd been caught by surprise; a missile launch, which must have seemed to come out of
nowhere before they spotted the Tiri Guardian ships. Even as the Tiri sped away, Emily watched
what happened behind them through her sensors. They had fired over seventeen hundred missiles
in six seconds. All of those missiles had been targeted at just a handful of ships in the Bak'ra
formation.
"There, see it, Angwar? They didn't quite pull their formation together fast enough."
Emily brushed a stray lock of black hair back out of her face and smiled savagely as the first of
the missiles closed in. It could be seen on the holo tank of course, but Emily had a much better
view through her ship self's sensors. Either way, it was obvious what was happening behind
them.
Counter missiles raced from the Bak'ra fleet, trying to destroy the incoming missiles. Dozens of
the Tiri missiles, then hundreds, were blown apart before they got into range to attack. If the
Bak'ra formation had been complete Emily was certain few of her missiles would have gotten
through. But it wasn't.
Her smile widened as one, then a half dozen, then even more of the missiles they had fired made
it into range. A warp gate missile had to get within five kilometers to attack. Once within that
range though, the small fusion bottle contained in it's middle would spin up to maximum power.
The warp gate generator in the missile was powered up and formed, for a brief second, an
unstable warp gate. It didn't last long; it didn't have to, not to do what it had been designed to.
The warp gate would tear apart anything that it encountered when it was formed. The gravitic
drives all capital ships employed formed a shield ahead of the bow and behind the stern of the
ships. The twin gravitic discs, which "pulled" and "pushed" the ship through space were
powerful enough to shield the ship from frontal and rear attacks. They didn't stop attacks on the
broadsides of the ship though. That was were the missiles tried to hit, some failed of course and
hit the gravitic disks, but many more succeeded.
All told, Emily watched eighty-one missiles make it through everything the Bak'ra could throw
at them. Those missiles hit only four separate targets, exploding mere kilometers from the flanks
of the large ships they had targeted.
Three ships became the hearts of blazing explosions as their fusion power plants exploded. The
fourth tumbled out of formation, its power systems failing, its hull shattered.
A cheer went up from the bridge and Emily eased out of her ship bond smiling faintly as her
command crew cheered. The sound was echoed across the other decks and on the other ships.
The first blow had been struck.