POSTURING BEFORE THE BATTLE
The Zell had no inkling of the civil war that had just occurred behind the human lines. And if they had they wouldn’t have cared, they just wanted to fight the strongest and would have probably appreciated the humans for thinning the herd so as not to waste time.
Between the opposing forces no man's land was sandwiched by the human phalanx shield wall and the Zell cloud–a chaotic and unwieldy-looking green vapor mass of Zell nano-machines that applied a cumulative repulsive force like a force field, but a little more. Zell were able to pass through their cloud because of technology that humans did not understand.
More importantly, anything that the Zell DIDN’T want in the cloud would experience fantastic drag, like it was in sticky tar and tar that zapped its prey with frequent destructive shocks as well. Breaching the thicker parts of the cloud would mean getting the fleet trapped and certainly eventually killed.
The front line of Zell themselves lived inside the cloud like a mischief of mice living in a loaf of bread. And still like mice many Zell poked their heads through the cloud in excited anticipation of some opening insults then they would dart back inside presumably zipping to other places via an elaborate labyrinth of pathways not comprehensible by the alliance's greatest super computers.
From the lookyloos it was clear that anxiety with the Zell was growing that the humans would do another space fold and cheat them of a victory, or a spanking defeat… either way the Zell just wanted some fun..
The Ronin fleet used a light mirroring field to prevent the Zell from seeing clearly past the phalanx wall. It had the effect of reflecting everything so the Zell could see themselves but not behind. The Zell weren’t too terribly happy about the mirror field as they were not much into looking at themselves or grooming for that matter.
Then the action began. The Ronnins deactivated the mirror field and behind was revealed The Red Destiny and the companion cavalry sporting a cone formation.
The Zell went nuts with excitement!
"Twenty minutes till Asymptote ", Fae Reported
"Let's rile them with the Holoprojector", Alexander said.
Fae activated the hollow projector. This time it was Alexander standing with his arms folded, his battle armor showing and his cape flowing behind him.
"Attention Zell Scum. Today your relationship with human kind as our most unworthy foe will end. Prepare for your entire species to be reduced to atoms.", The hologram went off.
Zell understood human language and most importantly (long ago noticed by Alexander) they LOVED being taunted like children. As a matter of fact the Zell was Alexander’s biggest fan and they relished and repeated his speeches right before he sent them to hell.
The Zell seemed characteristically thrilled, they spilled out of the exterior of their ship and seemed to be joyously yelling and threatening the humans. Often times they said things Alexander had said before with awkward modifications since they weren’t very creative at repartee. Vid screens throughout the fleet provided multiple close up views of the excited Zell faces. The riling amused and boldened the warriors.
"Commence", Alexander commanded.
CHAPTER: ROUGH EACH OTHER UP A LITTLE
Zell Skirmishers began spraying the enemy shield wall with bolt blasts and medium cannon fire.
Tractor beams from the Zell fleet crossed the cloud divide and pushed and pulled the Ronin Phalanxs.
One-Thousand Zell warships rounded the South-West shield wall and launched a Zell marine attack.
The Zell marine attack decided many battles. Zell warships launched thousands of Marine pods that burst open in proximity to an enemy vessel. One Hundred per pod would attack the hull furiously. Eventually the Zell marines would gain entry and slaughter the inhabitants. This attack always caused the most casualties to the alliance side and was a constant terror.
But top Tactical Engineering Support ‘Reason’ & ‘Reksep’ had been working on a counter measure and had a little trick in store for the Zell this time: the gravimectron trap. Thousands of them.
Eight small directed gravimectrons arranged in a large square formation, in this case each gravimectron inhabited one vertex of the cube, the emitter of the gravimectrons faced their diagonal cohorts. Inside the square a phalanx of 32 spear bots positioned their spears into a pin cushion arrangement. The Zell could not resist hand to hand combat -- even when they knew it was a trap. As Zell Marines pressed the spearbots the bots were programmed to give space easing back to the point that only the Zell was in the center of the gravimectron square. The gravimectrons would then fire simultaneously, crushing the Zell in the center point.
The Gravimectron trap worked quite well. Hundreds of thousands of Zell were crushed to death and the most effective Zell attack was now impotent and obsolete. Go TacEngs!
The spearbots held the line as The second drone cavalry swooped in and engaged the unprotected pod launchers, tearing them to shreds.
More skirmishing fire was exchanged. The Zell phalanxes began to close the distance between the planes. The Humans accelerated to greet them. Shield emitters crashed against each other. Ronnins deployed their lancebots to sap the enemy shields, Zell extended their infiltrator tubes to inject Zell marines behind the human shield walls. The human phalanxes began to be pushed back a bit, which was Supreme Commanders Alexander’s plan. The impact of the assailing shield is dampened if the weaker shield is yielding space.
"5 minutes till asymptote", Fae reported.
"Let's go."Alexander commanded. "Deploy the Shimmer"
From behind the human lines The Red Destiny began a leisurely parallel drift heading towards the East side of the Zell cloud. The cavalry assumed a cone formation with the Red Destiny serving as the very tip.
The Red Destiny and all her cavalry did nothing. They just continued to drift. They were halfway to the radius of the shield wall and seemed to be walking off the playing field.
Every Cloud Zell's desire to get his claws on The Red Destiny and tear it to shreds caused the Zell cloud to grow a slight bulge every where the blighted red ship was seen.
The Red Destiny boosted her contrails and began a little showy dance, diving in and pulling away from the cloud, doing flips and loops. It was all like kneading dough… the cloud continued to bulge and started to stretch behind its original boundary as it looked like Alexander was about to try the stupidest flanking maneuver of all time. Be assured the Zell and any competent fleet would be ready for something like that with a barrage of powerful cannon blasts.. But this was Alexander and he was quite cagy and unpredictable. No one knew what would happen next.
"One minute till asymptote.", Fae reported.
"Commence fallback.",Alexander commanded to his entire fleet.
The Human phalanxes began an unexpected reverse acceleration, a considerable gap between the opposing sides widened and the Zell hesitated to take the ground.
A small gap in the phalanxes allowed the cavalry to slip between the warring fleets. The cone formation continued its drift in the same direction but at an accelerated pace. In moments Alexander could super boost and be lost to the Zell forever.
The Bulge grew larger.
The Calvary accelerated even more. They ignited their offensive razon sheilds in unison but they held a steady course.
The Bulge grew larger and more agitated.
A Jolt of more acceleration and a slight turn towards the cloud.
The Bulge grew larger. At this point the Zell cloud was starting to resemble a deformed disc.
The Calvary accelerated and began a series of grazing maneuvers. The cone would turn slightly and graze the edge of the Zell disturbing the cloud and kicking up huge swirls of energy and then pivot back away from the cloud. It looked like a skipping stone bouncing against the water. Each graze followed some acceleration and steeper angle of attack. The hits got harder. One, Two, Three grazes; if the pattern continued it would be considered a punch maneuver on the fourth attack.
The Zell could be seen behind the cloud, every graze seemed to exponentially increase the excitement and the activity of the Zell. And yes, it bulged even more. The bulge was stretching resources on the Port side of the cloud defence and the cloud there had thinned as much as the bulge had bulged.
"We have reached the asymptote. Five minute until loss of containment.", Fae Reported.
"Second Attack: Commence!",Alexander Shouted.