RM Special Omake: ERS Tirpitz

RM Special Omake: ERS Tirpitz

Explosions rake the dorsal hull of the SES Fortunate Son as stray plasma shots from a flanking Automatons squadron miss their intended target, the Super Destroyer SES Legislator of Supremacy, and hit the Assault Carrier instead. Still, the Automatons has achieved its objective for the most part, and that is to cripple Assault Carrier's screening force, leaving them dangerously exposed to the rest of the Automatons Fleet.

"SITREP!" Fleet Admiral Hackett shouted as he slammed his fist on the armrest, frustration evidenced in his voice. All around the grizzled war veterans are bridge officers and crew scrambling to compile reports and send out orders everywhere.

"Fleet combat readiness is down to 47%! Escorts Judge of Innocence and Shepherd of the Free, lost! Cruiser Agent of Authority is disabled! Destroyer Legislator of Supremacy reports heavy damage!"

"Flight deck reports Runway 1 is disabled! They're trying to get the catapult back online!"

"Fires in Deck 1 and 2, we're venting atmosphere in the upper deck!"

And the stream of unfavorable reports keeps piling in, much to the Admiral's consternation. Squeezing his hand into a fist, the man starts dolling out orders, hopefully enough to not try and win the battle, but to survive for as long as possible. "Damage control to the upper decks! Put out the fires and seal the breaches! Have our remaining Liberty Escorts move to fill in the gap in our point defense! Move the rest of the fleet to cover the Agent of Authority until she can recover! And I need that enemy enemy Shrike squadron eliminated ten years ago!"

As the new string of orders is being passed down the line, Hackett starts operating the MFD screen by the right side of his chair. A second later, he pulls up a planetary map, one that is denoted as Malevlon Creek. Hackett frowns heavily as the territories painted in red, signifying Automatons' control, heavily overshadowed the territories held by the Helldivers, painted in blue. Even with dozens of thousands of boots on the ground, they have thus far been unable to secure a proper beachhead. Rather, the Helldivers are slowly being whittled down by the mechanical horde. Their situation is not dissimilar to what's going on in space right now, where the Automatons vessels outnumbered the Super Earth Navy 4 to 1.

Suffice it is to say, things are bleak. At first, things had been going quite well with the Malevelon Liberation Fleet swiftly destroying the stationed Automatons flotilla, thus clearing the way for waves of Helldivers to be dropped onto the jungle planet. The initial landings of the Helldivers had been met with some resistance, which was to be expected and accounted for. After an hour of fighting, a secure landing zone had been cleared for more and more units to touch down. It's expected that by the next twelve hours, a proper FOB will be set up. To facilitate the process, Hackett's fleet had positioned itself in a geosynchronous orbit above Malevelon, with the support vessels and Super Destroyers dolling out everything that is required by the Helldivers. With half of the fleet locked in a planetary liberation roll, Hackett was ill-prepared for when a huge Automatons fleet arrived in the system. Now, Hackett wasn't a stupid man, he had planned for a potential counter-attack from the Automatons space force. The man even worked under the assumption that with the manufacturing capability of the Automatons, his original fleet would be outnumbered 3 to 1. Yet, the Automatons jumped into the system with a fleet six times Hackett's. Despite the obvious disadvantage, Fleet Admiral Hackett isn't a man to back down from a challenge, nor are any members of his fleet. With an already sizeable Helldivers force on the ground, retreat in the face of such an odd will spell their doom.

Thus, the second space battle for Malevelon Creek commenced in earnest. It has to be noted that with pure skill and grit, Hackett's fleet has managed to destroy a significant part of the Automatons' counter-attack fleet, shortening the gap to a 4 to 1 ratio. Still, while the Automatons fleet has received a punch and a half to their metallic noggings, Hackett's fleet is also down to a mere 21 battle-damaged vessels from their original 43. If it's any consolation for Hackett, his fleet has managed to stop any new orbital incursion by the Automatons, thus giving the Helldivers some leeway on the ground, emphasis on some.

But the man knows full well that a stubborn defense will not do Super Earth any good here. Help is still a long way out, and it's not like Hackett can just retreat and leave the Helldivers to their death and possible conversion to become those damnable machines. Thinking through all of his options, Hackett decides that the most important thing right now is time. Buy enough time, then the Helldivers below can further consolidate their forces and dig in. Buy enough time, then reinforcement can arrive and end the Automatons on Malevelon Creek for good. If that cost the entirety of his fleet... Then so be it.

"Pass my orders! All remaining vessels are to deploy all of their Helldivers and ground assets planetside!"Diiscover new stories at novelhall.com

"But sir! That will make our fleet into a sitting duck!"

"And that will give the Helldivers the fighting chance they need! I don't care if some of them got blown up halfway there! As long as a portion of the wave gets through the flaks, then they will be kicking asses and taking names in our stead!"

Hackett then continues. "Our fleet has always been the foremost shield of liberty, democracy, and freedom! I will be damned if that shield breaks before it can leave behind any meaningful impact! Am I right, sailors!?"

The short encouraging speech elicits a chorus of positive affirmation from the bridge crew. Soon enough, Hackett's fleet reorganizes into an orbital liberation formation.

"Helldivers to Hellpods! Helldivers to Hellpods!"

"Dispatching Shuttle 1 through 10 planetside! I don't care what the fuck you are hauling, just go touch grass and kick ass!"

"Fighter bombers standby for retasking for atmosphere reentry and CAS sorties. Status on Runway 1? Good! Prepare it for immediate use!"

Gulping dryly, a crewmember struggles to report the readings on his screen. "A-Admiral... This is probably a mistake but... That thing! It's... It's 12 kilometers in length! Height of 2 two kilometers, Width of 5 kilometers! The energy level reading is off the chart! It's an entire city!"

Even Hackett struggles to shake his head. Still, he explains as he gazes at the underbelly of the beast. "Your doubt is understandable, sailor. But believe it or not, it's a vessel. The dead giveaways that it is a vessel, albeit ludicrous in size, are those humongous engines and the letters bearing its full names on the ventral side. Can you perform a deeper scan?"

"N-Negative, sir! Whatever the thing is made out of, it is scrambling out scanners!"

"Then it is safe to say that the vessel is also dwarfing us in the technological sense too." Even the Automatons ships can be scanned by Super Earth technologies, Hackett thinks to himself.

But unbelievably, or perhaps unsurprisingly, to them all, it's the Automatons that make the first move, and it ain't friendly. The still numerous machine vessels unleash bolts of red plasma on the new arrival. But shockingly, a blue film of energy intercepts the incoming attacks before it can even get near the physical hull of the unidentified vessel. It appears to be an energy shield of sorts, one that Hackett knows for sure that Super Earth still hasn't mastered to be used on space-faring vessels.

Hackett watches on as the plasma bombardment lasts for a full five minutes, the man and everyone else soon grow numb to the fact that the energy shielding seemingly takes no damage whatsoever. It would seem that the Automatons finally meet their match in terms of technological prowess.

Suddenly, a public broadcast appears on every single receiver, Super Earth and Automatons alike. Hackett quickly gives the words to hear it, an action that is mirrored by pretty much everyone else.

An imperial female voice can be heard on the broadcast. "This is Marshal Yukia Rosetta de Venusian on the ERS Tirpitz of the Eternal Reich. Aggressive mechanical lifeforms that are participating in hostile acts on our ship, stand down immediately or face immediate termination. This is your first, and only warning."

Hackett has the mind to ask while the others can only stare dumbly at the now-identified ERS Tirpitz. "Do we even have any data on those names?"

"Negative, Admiral!" More questions arise that Hackett swiftly stomps them down.

Despite the warning, the seemingly dumb machines still continue on with their attacks. Hackett immediately orders on a fleetwide channel. "ALCON, ALCON, do not engage the ERS Tirpitz! I repeat, do not engage the ERS Tirpitz under any circumstance! All units are to reform around the flagship immediately!"

The Marshal's voice can be heard scoffing at the blatant ignoring of her words by the Automatons. With a dismissal voice, she orders. "Ship to combat status. Charge up all weapon banks and lock weapons on all of the hostile vessels. Deploy our escorts and wings, I want this entire airspace locked down tight. Leave no survivors, we will extract data from their fried motherboard if we have to."

The Super Earth sailors, Hackett included, watch in muted shock as the Tirpitz opens up its many hangars, both large and small ones. From the large hangars, ten other vessels are deployed from the belly of the beast, with each and every single one of them dwarfing a Super Destroyer in size. Not stopping there, countless spacecraft continuously fly out from the Tirpitz, the sheer number of them is enough to overwhelm the sensors of the Fortunate Son. Then, the Tirpitz glows! The ship with its hull of spotless white and gold, glows as wings of golden light appear around the vessel. Hackett can barely see on the visual feed of retractable weapon banks being deployed on the Tirpitz.

And then the Automatons fleet is no more.

They are just... gone in the blink of an eye.

With heavy breathing, and still in disbelief, a crewman reports. "Sir... All enemy vessels... They're gone."

"No... They got evaporated after that burst of light."

Suddenly, everybody hears an amazed whistle. "Nice! Though I guess it was a bit overkill to set the output at three percent, don't you think so, Tirpitz?"

"It is as you have said, Marshal."