The battle continued for the next six hours, during which both Runir's and Giarna's fleet had to eventually intervene, as the enemy finally smartened up and sent a force of nine destroyers along with twenty heavy frigates, to clear a path for their forces.
The moment the enemy forces came through, the two lead destroyers were taken out, however, their destruction bought time for the rest of them to activate their shields.
Using their momentum the remaining destroyers pushed through the debris field, clearing the way for the heavy frigates, but they paid a high price for it, as four of them lost their shields in the process, becoming an easy target for the defense fleet.
The remaining three destroyers got through and opened fire on the satellites, and the station, just before the two fleets fired on them.
Their concentrated fire was enough to take down the lead ships, however, the heavy frigates, joined the fray before the last destroyer went adrift.
With twenty of them, they posed a challenge to the defenders, especially with more ships exiting the portal right on their tail, all of which had the time to activate their shields.
-This looks bad, I don't think we can hold them for long at this rate.
Gianna said as the battle raged on, turning from a one-sided massacre to a regular space battle.
-I know, I already told the station master to prepare for evacuation along with all of his remaining ships.
Runir said, while her fleet was firing their weapons as fast as they could be loaded.
-If worst comes to worst, we will cower their retreat and then leave to the other side, Rodill has already prepared everything to give our guests a beating they will never forget.
As she said that, she received a ping on her sensors.
-Someone is coming through the wormhole.
She said, that right before, Arien's fleet arrived guns blazing.
-I heard that you needed some help.
She said as her fleet laid waste to the enemy forces.
Behind Arien's fleet came the cargo ships, ten of them escorted by twenty corvettes who joined the fight as soon as they arrived, without leaving the big ships side.
To the two fleet commanders' surprise, the first five cargo ships opened up and launched drone fighters, armed to the teeth with missiles and bombs.
These small craft, rushed the enemy ships, literally raining all sorts of holly hell on them.
Before the enemy could even figure out what was going on, they were hit by barrages of missiles and bombs, followed by strafing runs.
In their panic they started to fire all their guns at the fighters, forgetting that they were surrounded by friendly vessels, and the result was disastrous, as their fire hit their allies, taking down their shields and ripping through their hulls.
Then the other five cargo ships opened up releasing new defense satellites.
-These bad boys are Nairin's new toys, they have much more than just a rail gun on them.
Arien explained when Runir asked:
-What the hell are these things?
The new satellites were bigger than their predecessors, but they were also much better armed.
Each one was equipped with two twin rail-guns and four rocket pods, each one filled with two dozen small unguided missiles.
Once the new satellites were released and took their positions, they joined the battle, sending, salvo after salvo of rail-gun rounds as well as rockets, straight into the enemy fleet.
With Arien's fleet, the additional fighters, and these new satellites, the enemy fleet was ripped to pieces in a few minutes, creating another debris field in front of the portal.
This time no matter what went through the portal, it was shredded immediately by the incoming fire and the debris in its way.
The enemy kept sending ships for another two hours, before they finally gave up and the portal was closed, leaving a massive ship graveyard consisting of hundreds of vessels.
The defensive fleets as well as the satellites and even the station didn't come out of the battle unscathed by any means.
Most of the satellites were destroyed, even the new ones took massive losses, and the ones that were still operational would need to be rearmed as they were out of rockets and almost out of rail-gun ammo as well.
Runir's and Giarna's fleets suffered some losses, but mostly to their drone ships and the ones crewed entirely by droids as they took the brunt of the enemy fire, only five crewed ships got damaged during the fight, but luckily their crews didn't suffer anything more serious than some light injuries.
The station however was a wreck as it lost its shields and took multiple hits.
Luckily, the only ones on board were the station master and four other people, who were all in the command center so they came out without a scratch and the repair drones were already at work repairing the installation.
The lightest losses were suffered by Arien's fleet, mostly thanks to the fact that the enemy focused on eliminating the fighters, after discovering how devastating their attacks were.
-Where the hell did these guys get so many ships from?
Arien asked, once the battle was finished and the search and rescue operations began.
-I have no clue, we counted over three thousand ships, including fighters.
Giarna said, also surprised at the number of vessels the enemy threw at them.
-Someone must be helping them, even if they have hundreds of system masters, there is no way for them to have such a massive fleet, not to mention that there were over fifty destroyers amongst their fleet.
Runir said, after a moment of thought.
-Think about it, if Andrew asked the Moon Elf Star Empire for help, they would most likely jump on the chance to get a new galaxy or two, especially with a staging ground already prepared.
-If they are getting help from another universe, then we might be in deep trouble, especially if they are eying the wormhole.
With how many forces they invested in this already, I very much doubt they will just back away.
Arien said with a grim voice.
-This time they used a portal, and suffered heavy losses, but if they use FTL next time, we won't be able to hold this system, no matter what we do.
She added stating the obvious, as there was no way in hell that the fleet could stop the enemy that had a numerical advantage at least 15 to 1.
They immediately contacted Aelita to share their thought on the matter.
-You might be right.
Aelita said once she thought the whole thing through.
For now, I'm sending all the tugs to get as many ships from the battle as possible, get the station drones, to load as much debris as possible to the cargo ships.
We might need to abandon that system soon and I don't want to leave anything to the enemy if at all possible.
Also, I'm sending Binon with some Ignis charges to mine the station in case we need to pull out.
The Cherin decided.
She talked with Andrew about something like this happening and they came up with a plan for such a situation, by dipping into the humanity's history.
Now she was implementing this plan to make sure the enemy would not gain much in case they were overwhelmed and forced to abandon Alpha Pictoris system.
-Arien's fleet will remain there, to provide security, the rest of you come back for now.
She added.
The three fleet commanders agreed immediately, but they also evacuated the station just in case, as the last thing they wanted was to lose people along with the system.
Fortunately, there was no sign of the enemy fleet at the moment.
This meant that the tugs could safely tow back the least damaged ships.
The first vessels to be towed were their own ships, which were either too damaged to return under their own power or were completely taken out by the enemy forces.
The idea was to deny the enemy any of their technologies that could be reverse-engineered.
After that, the first ships to be towed from the battlefield were the destroyers and heavy frigates, which were more or less in one piece, followed by frigates and corvettes that were relatively whole after the battle.
This alone took over eight hours of work, during which time, the cargo ships also went back and forth, taking as much material from the battlefield as they could, with the help of the station's drones.
Additionally, they brought back more of the new satellites to boost the system defenses.
As for the station itself, Binon rigged it up with enough Ignis charges to blow it to kingdom come, if the enemy ever tried to take it over and the same was done to the relay in the system, in case they were unable to retrieve it.
All in all, the system was even better defended than before the attack, and even if the enemy could take it, they would have to pay a steep price for that.
Alpha Pictoris, was also not the only system that was getting more firepower, as the Rodill system was the same since this was their last line of defense.
Before anyone noticed, two days went by without any incidents, however, the ladies didn't drop their guard even for a moment.
During this time all the ships that were in one piece were transported through the wormhole and were now being moved to the shipyard for repairs.
The rest of the destroyed fleet was too damaged to do anything other than simply scrap it, which was being taken care of by the drones.
-Do you think they will try again?
Aelita asked Runir, while her fleet was being refueled at the main system.
-I have no clue, if it was me I would have stopped the attack on our system the moment the first ships got wiped out, and yet they continued to send ship after ship for the next six hours.
This tells me that they don't care about their losses as long as they can get what they want.
However, if they have any sort of common sense, they won't try to use the portal again, or at least not the same way as they did two days ago.
The fleet commander expressed her opinion.
-Then how would you try to take the system if you had the resources they have?
The engineer asked, hoping to get some ideas about making it harder to take the system.
-If it was me, I would have, sent the fleet through the FTL, and surrounded the system or at least used as wide a front as I could to disperse the defense fleet and force the defense satellites to divide their fire among the fleet.
That would reduce the casualties for the attacking side, then once the fleet in the system and the defenses were engaged in a battle, I would open the portal again and send another fleet to attack them from behind, take out the satellites and the station, leaving the defense fleet surrounded.
Aelita was speechless at this plan as it would most likely work.
-That however would only be possible if I had thousands of ships like they seem to have, otherwise it won't work.
-Then how would you defend a system against such an attack?
-I wouldn't.
Runir shook her head.
-If they send another armada like the last one but through FTL, then the system will be lost, we don't have a fleet capable of facing something like that in an open battle, and even with the satellites, they would have an advantage in numbers and firepower.
So the only way for us to defend the territory is to abandon the Alpha Pictoris system if such a fleet arrives and focus our efforts on defending the wormhole.
The fleet commander said.
Aelita only nodded at this, understanding her friend's reasoning.
-Aelita, Runir, come to the command center immediately, we have a lot of movement throughout all the factions in the Milky Way.
Lanarine's voice, sounded from their bracelets, just as Aelita was opening her mouth to say something.
Not losing a moment both of them ran to the command center to see what was going on.