Free Star Force: Zealot (SF87) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-ki Jyr

Dre’mo’dons that really packed a punch and they were flying from all directions. Tight clusters of them on the Excalibur were launching in sync and literally blowing holes into the Trinx ships with each salvo. Firing one against their shields hurt, but launch eight side by side and even the advanced enemy shields couldn’t stand up to that.
    The drones couldn’t carry that much weaponry, but a few points on the Excalibur had been packed with it instead of spreading out the cannons evenly and Paul was rotating his big ship around to put those sweet spots into the most advantageous positions.
    As all that happened he saw a Warship -class jumpship also be targeted, with a slew of Trinx ships ignoring all else and heading for it. It was heavily armored, but not as much as the Excalibur . It wouldn’t go down quickly, but Paul could already see that he had too few ships and the Trinx had too many to keep them from picking off a few select targets if they didn’t value their own lives.
    That left him one option, and at the cost of the majority of his drones, he ordered all his big ships to turtle up and have the expendable weapons platforms form a defensive sphere around them to take the brunt of the attack.
    Getting them into position was costly, for they’d fanned out upon arrival to better fight with crossfire options and Paul had to sometimes ram drones into Trinx ships in order to clear a path for recall, but eventually the Excalibur and the six warships with it got in so close together that they were able to increase shield strength in select areas while counting on the bulk of the nearby ships to block firing runs on others. A few Trinx ships could get through into the gaps, but not enough to do damage when they’d be toasted at point blank range with weaponry hitting them from multiple angles.
    Now reinforced but with no chance of going after the enemy, Paul waited to see if the Trinx would back off or force the issue…and their tenacity did not disappoint. They refocused their efforts on a single warship on the edge of their 7 ship clump and Paul likewise reinforced the drone ‘hive’ in that area, but so much weaponsfire was getting through that the shields on the warship were already beginning to fail.
    By the time they fell completely the Trinx were literally sacrificing three ships on approach to get one into firing position, but they were scoring some very big hits and Paul couldn’t move the Excalibur in to block for them because of their already packed formation. All he could do was play with the drones and try and buy time.
    It wasn’t enough, and the warship took a huge hit on the port forward flank. Deck after deck was punctured even while other parts of the ship were still fighting. Drones flew in to interpose themselves like living armor, but the Trinx were in so close that they had to ram them out of the way in most cases. The carnage at that one spot was incredible…then all of a sudden the Trinx ships abandoned the attack and began to run away.
    Paul saw why immediately as the system battlemap showed the Uriti braking out of its deceleration phase and coming up right behind them. That freaked out Paul too, because he didn’t know how it would respond to them being so close. He got everyone moving immediately, including the damaged warship that still had some engine capability, and out of the way of the smaller, but far deadlier player that had just arrived on the naval chess board.
    It was ironic to Paul that something smaller than his command ship could pack so much power, but then again that’s why the V’kit’no’sat were all but unable to deal with the Hadarak…and the Chixzon had gone to lengths to add combat capability to the Uriti. This one wasn’t as large as the others, but still deadly enough to destroy all the ships with Paul in a very short period of time if they decided to stand still and slug it out. Running was to their advantage, thanks to the fact that for as powerful