The military docks erupted almost instantly.
What started as a line of controlled explosions turned ssy fast as parked ships began detonating beside one another.
A shieldless destroyer vanished in white fire and took two smaller craft with it. Nearby, a half-repaired cruiser tried to bring its defenses online too late and split open along one side when explosions rolled through its inner fra.
On the starport side, Kharov soldiers barely had ti to react before flas, sealed pressure doors, and collapsing corridors trapped them away from their ships. So still tried to force their way through.
It didn’t help.
Solenne’s second wave ca in low over the berth lines and finished off anything trying to power up.
Ships that had survived the first strikes were hit again before they could stabilize. So never even got their engines fully online before carrier craft tore through them.
Outside the port, the larger Kharov fleet finally began moving.
Too late.
They had ships.
They had numbers.
But they didn’t have an order.
Their commanders knew they were under attack, but not how many enemies there were or from where.
So reports claid pirates. Others said internal revolt. A few thought another Kharov group had turned on them.
By the ti they understood it was a coordinated strike, the docks were already burning, and half their fleet was scattered.
The far-garrison commander reacted faster than the last one had.
He ordered every active ship to break formation and escape separately while sending warnings to the other zones.
Under normal conditions, it would have been the right move.
But movent wasn’t possible anymore.
Aurelian had activated the warp denial field before the attack even started.
The mont Kharov ships tried ergency jumps, their systems failed. So tried again imdiately.
Others switched to hard conventional burns, trying to reach the outer lanes far enough away to send clean warning signals.
Eirenne shut that down just as calmly as she had handled the networks earlier.
"Warp escape denied," she reported. "Long-range communication remains blocked. Local traffic is being delayed or redirected."
"Good," Aurelian said. "Solenne, hunt the runners after the berth strike. Lysara, remove command ships. Rhoswen, break the center."
Rhoswen moved before he even finished speaking.
She drove straight into the strongest organized section of the garrison force, forcing them into a bad choice.
Either stop her or let her rip through the middle of their formation unchecked.
They chose to stop her.
That was exactly what Aurelian wanted.
Rhoswen was made for this kind of pressure. Her upgraded armor absorbed hits that would have crippled weaker ships, while her return fire hit far harder than the Kharov expected from sothing they still thought might be part of a pirate group.
Their front line bent almost imdiately.
Then it broke.
Part of that was Rhoswen.
The other part was Lysara.
Lysara didn’t fight like Rhoswen. She just removed the ships that mattered most. One command cruiser lost its bridge before it could finish giving retreat orders.
A heavy weapons platform was cut open through its reactor spine. A carrier tried to turn and escape but lost power after a clean strike hit its exposed underside, trapping most of its aircraft before they could even launch.
Every ti the Kharov tried to rebuild coordination, sothing important disappeared.
Solenne’s aircraft spread through the battlefield at the sa ti, fast and relentless. They hit ships trying to flee, targeted shield weak points, and circled back toward the docks whenever sothing looked close to launching.
Any ti resistance began to form properly, the carrier craft marked the position, and the rest of the fleet hit it hard before it stabilized.
Aurelian watched the battle carefully from start to finish.
This was going smoother than it should have.
Not because the Kharov were weak.
Because they had been caught at the worst possible mont.
A fleet in active refit looked strong on paper, but only if it had ti to organize. Docked ships, half-powered systems, crews still moving through damaged corridors, commanders relying on broken communications, all of that turned strength into dead weight.
And the dead weight sank fast.
Neris kept the fleet supplied through the entire engagent. Her upgraded engine gave her enough extra speed and movent flexibility to stay where she was needed without falling behind the battle itself. That alone justified the Halcyon Vault operation.
"Support balance is stable," she reported. "Solenne is using ammunition faster than expected."
"I expected that," Aurelian replied.
Solenne answered imdiately. "Carrier warfare is expensive."
"It is working."
"It usually does."
The far-garrison flagship finally made its move after Rhoswen forced the center apart. It was a large Tier III battleship, cleaner and better maintained than most surrounding ships, and it was obvious where the command authority sat.
For a short mont, it looked like it might actually break through.
Then Lysara marked it.
Aurelian saw the firing line appear.
"Take it."
Lysara fired.
The first beam ripped through the flagship’s outer shield layer. The second cut across the weapon banks before they fully charged.
Rhoswen closed the distance imdiately after that and slamd into the weakened side with enough force to crack the hull wide open.
The ship didn’t die all at once.
It ca apart piece by piece.
Power failures spread through the fra first. Then internal explosions followed. The entire battleship drifted sideways, burning from multiple open sections while secondary detonations rolled through it.
The escape craft launched from the lower bays almost imdiately.
Most didn’t get far.
Solenne’s drones locked them down or tagged them for later capture before they cleared the battlefield properly.
Rhoswen sounded genuinely disappointed.
"That was their flagship?"
"Yes," Lysara replied calmly.
Eirenne had already made sure it never really saw the battle clearly in the first place.
That was the real difference.
The Kharov still had ships left, but by this point, most of them were fighting blind, reacting instead of planning.
Their networks were fractured. Their command structure was collapsing. Every attempt to regroup got interrupted before it could settle properly.
And while all of that happened, the Crownward March fleet kept moving exactly the way it was supposed to.
Fast, clean, and controlled.
Aurelian watched the battlefield shift piece by piece and knew the opening phase had already succeeded.
The docks were burning.
The fleet was breaking.
And the Kharov still didn’t fully understand what had hit them.
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