83. Daybreak & Abyssal

“Are you sure helping that person is a good idea, Master?” Kuon asked. She was currently seated on one of the numerous seats within the bridge. She was connected to the ship’s systems, or rather, the aiming systems of the shark-class. The upgraded shark class which now has three main guns— guns that as far as Abyssal knew, have the firepower of guns that are available in a main battleship.

The whole idea of the shark class was that they contain a bit of the firepower of a battleship while maintaining the agileness and the scrappy price of a corvette. Abyssal, however, have been working on an upgrade for a while now, converting that whole idea into a destroyer sized shark-class. With the newly added reactor plus all of her old reactor and the leftover materials from the asteroid and Astral’s hideout, Abyssal finally realised her plans to upgrade to a better ship design— one with more firepower, size and armour.

The whole process wasn’t that hard considering that Abyssal’s true setback from upgrading to a better ship was getting a ship design and a better power source. The ship design problem was solved with both Kuon and Meica on board. The power problem was harder to solve as it required very specific materials that could not be found easily. A problem, which solution, was given to Abyssal without any qualms by Astral. The relatively short time to upgrade was thanks to the fact that the shark-class was very modular, allowing for ease of upgrade or change of parts.

‘Truly the ship of beggars,’ Abyssal thought to herself at the moment of the upgrade.

Although still small, Abyssal was officially a destroyer class ship with significant firepower to her name— plus with all the baggage that comes with a cheaply made ship within a serious time constraint, of course. The same exact ship had just launched two very large and accurate beams towards a destroyer from tens of thousands of kilometres away; towards the very same ship that once dealt a lot of pain to Abyssal— Sensenmann.

“I can’t just leave her like that! I got hit by that before. It hurts ya know! Also, she’s probably with Jinko and all,” Abyssal replied back to her first maid. Kuon merely replied with a nod before going back to scanning the surroundings. She was currently providing computation support to Abyssal, who was too busy steering through her self-made minefield.

The same can be said for the other Dawning Star ship, a cruiser that was making its way through the mines laid by Abyssal prior. She was slowly but steadily moving through as if guided and knowing where all the mines are laid— knowledge courtesy of Abyssal. Abyssal didn’t know if helping and giving the unknown ship help was a good idea, but she couldn’t really ignore the ship. Plus, who knows if she might get a few extra points with their leader for doing so?

“Master, how’s the situation on your side? Do you see her? I don’t see anything on my side,” Kuon asked Abyssal.

“None here. It’s like she disappeared into thin air,” Abyssal replied, having whatever remained of her focus trying to find Sensenmann. She was trying her best to not get hit by another one of her sneak attacks.

‘I don’t really want to experience that again, that’s for sure,’ Abyssal thought to herself.  The last time she took an attack from Sensenmann, Abyssal blacked out and the damage left a sting that was felt for days. If she concentrated hard enough, she could still remember the pain that came with it.

“Uwahh...wonder what kind of technology weird box ship girl is using? Vanishing tech?” Meica asked.

“I have no idea. Never in my life have I seen anything like it. I expected you to know, little fluffy lady Meicanika, seeing as you are the one who has more knowledge on recent tech? Also, not to mention the heir of a large weapon’s tech company,” Kuon responded sarcastically.

“Doesn’t mean I know all the tech in the galaxy, nyaa. Snobbish maid Kuon in navy should know more, lots of secret techs,” Meica replied with sass.

‘Least they are on a first-name basis now,’ Abyssal muttered to herself as she ignored their banter and continued to view the battlefield. Both of them fighting each other was such a normal occurrence to Abyssal that she automatically filtered them out from her consciousness at this point.

The whole crew were on full alert for at least five minutes as Abyssal and the Dawning Star cruiser made their way through the cluttered minefield. Abyssal’s destination was Astral’s hideout while the cruiser’s destination was to group up with Abyssal. The engines of the ship blasted bright lights at different directions as it tried to manoeuvre through the dense field of destruction. Abyssal could see that it has its guns aimed at various locations around itself— a small matter that Abyssal should have taken notice of as she soon understood why the cruiser did so.

At a location, quite a distance away from both Abyssal and the cruiser, was Sensenmann reappearing from a vortex of energy. Her broadside was aimed in such a way that it could aim at both Abyssal and the cruiser at the same time. What was more surprising was that it appeared at a location that wasn’t supposed to be possible due to the abundance of mines on the battlefield. It was as if the ship avoided every single mine in the area— or rather phased through them.

“Wait, what? How did she get there? That whole place was littered with mines. What kind of cheat stealth technology is that!” Abyssal complained as she quickly manoeuvred herself and her gun to aim towards the destroyer that appeared.

It was unfortunate that Sensenmann was much quicker. It quickly shot out its volley of shots and missiles towards Abyssal before disappearing into thin air via the vortex again.

“Woah!” Abyssal said out before immediately starting to move away from the shells.

The green shells themselves were easy to avoid as, just like the last time Abyssal fought with Sensenmann, her accuracy was horrible— especially at the range that she shot them from. However, the assortment of missiles was a different story. Abyssal had little to none point defence systems so shooting down the missiles would be an almost impossible task for her. She could shoot down a few with whatever laser turrets she had, but that attempt would be futile at the number of missiles launched by Sensenmann. Seconds before impact, Abyssal simply poured maximum power into her shields and braced herself for a world of pain. Taking damage was always a painful experience for her, and she hoped that the missiles would hit the less vulnerable parts of her own body.

It was fortunate for Abyssal that she didn’t need to worry about such things as from afar, long-range flak type shells came from the Dawning Star cruiser, intercepting the missiles, shooting down almost all of them. A blaze of small gunfire then lit up the space around them. A small number of missiles went through but were safely blocked by Abyssal’s shield. Although this damage did put a strain on Abyssal’s shields, almost breaking it down in the process.

Abyssal let out a sigh of relief when she figured out that she was safe— for the time being at least. She quickly made a decision and decided to plot a course towards the Dawning Star Cruiser. She figured that if by getting near to the ship, she would benefit from the blanketed that is the cruiser’s point defence system. The only problem was the numerous mines between herself and the ship.

‘Argh… why did I put down so many…’ Abyssal thought to herself as she steadily steered through the obstacles without triggering them. Meanwhile, she took care to observe the surroundings around herself, making sure that Sensenmann doesn’t get another jump on her.

[Incoming transmission from Dawning Star Cruiser] Abby said out towards Abyssal when she came close enough to the Dawning Star ship. Abyssal instantly accepted the transmission which caused the screen on her bridge to display a girl that looked in her late teenage years standing at ease within a bridge with red lights. The girl had long black hair wearing a black kimono and had an apathetic look on her face. Behind the girl, were men and women wearing military uniforms calling out and typing on their workstations, though their voices were muted. The girl did a quick salute towards the camera before introducing herself.

“D.S. Annihilation Class Cruiser Yoake. Thank you for your assistance earlier,” the girl said fluently. Abyssal couldn’t help but noticed there was a familiar accent in her voice. Less like a national accent and more of a robotic accent like the one Abby had— her split personality ego.

“Um, yeah. You too, thanks for shooting down those missiles. I’m Abyssal. Anyway, Astral…. help will be arriving within twenty or so minutes. We just need to hold on until then.”

“The phoenix? How do you know that she will come? Did you contact her? By bypassing this communication disruption?” Yoake asked.

“What? No, I didn’t. Just something we planned in advance before we separated. Anyway, I’m counting on you for point defence, and keep moving galactical west of our location.”

Yoake simply nodded before turning around. She spoke some words towards the people around herself before looking back towards the camera. “Roger,” she said before cutting off transmission.

“Master, Contact spotted, below us!” Kuon said as soon as the communication between Abyssal and Yoake finished.

Immediately, Abyssal looked towards the general direction below her, only to see Sensenmann. Not far from her, a weird mixture of black boxes appeared out of a swirling vortex. As if already knowing where Abyssal and Yoake were, it had its broadside aimed towards the two cores. Without giving time for Abyssal to react, the destroyer launched various missiles and shells.

The process of launching all of her missiles took some time, allowing for Abyssal to shoot out one of her guns that were already aimed towards the below. The pre-armed gun shot out a bright blue laser beam of death towards Sensenmann. Thanks to Kuon’s additional computation power, the laser was shot with incredible accuracy. Abyssal crossed her fingers and let out a preemptive smile, knowing that she would at least deal some damage towards this annoying destroyer.

That smile quickly turned into a frown when the shot hit a red curtain surrounding the destroyer, completely dispersing Abyssal’s shot. Like splashing flowing water onto a hard surface, the bright beam of light refracted in multiple directions before disappearing into the Abyss. The shield was a very different kind of shield than the one Abyssal had. It was more like a blanket of pure energy surrounding the silhouette of the ship rather than a round translucent bubble. Right after Abyssal’s shot was deflected, Sensenmann disappeared into the void again.

“Wha?! She didn’t have that earlier!” Abyssal yelled out in surprise when she realised that her battleship tier firepower gun was dispersed with ease by the small ship.

“We are going to need more than just one laser to hit to damage her,” Kuon said to Abyssal.

“What is that shield?” Abyssal asked as she tried to dodge out of the way of Sensenmann’s incredibly inaccurate shot of green shells. She left the destruction of the missiles to Yoake who respectfully blanket Abyssal with a flurry of flak, lasers and small arms fire towards the missiles.

“It’s a curtain shield. Trades off stealth capabilities and for extra protection. Extra here means shrugging off shots like it means nothing,” Kuon replied.

‘Don’t need stealth if you can just disappear…’

Abyssal opened her mouth to respond to Kuon with something witty, but Sensenmann didn’t even give Abyssal that time to even do that. Above her, was the appearance of a black and red destroyer with its guns already aimed towards Abyssal. Somehow she managed to navigate right through Abyssal and the abundance of mines without Abyssal even noticing.

‘What the, when did she get there? Goddammit, this bloody ship is so annoying!’ Abyssal yelled out internally as she looked at the timer on the top left of her consciousness.

[Rendezvous in 11 minutes 27 seconds]