[member="Aedan Miles"]
"Ma'am, we've got two ships on approach -- another Haran'uliik and an old Tion Hegemony Impetus-class frigate. Independent telesponders."
Rave grimaced. "Another pirate crew. Well, too late not to show our hand. They'll be reverting in-"
The convoy appeared out of hyperspace.
"Fire."
Twelve Hammer-B Light Assault Craft began spitting very rare Fringe-made HELIX warheads as a full wing of starfighters boiled out of the heavy cruiser. Each LAC had two launchers, each launcher had six warheads, and all one hundred forty four warheads were in space before the fighters took station. The convoy's fighters surged ahead to meet and begin intercepting those warheads, because that was what one did with warheads like that.
Because they'd never faced the HELIX before. Apart from the Omega Protectorate over Eriadu, nobody had. The HELIX detonated much earlier than other heavy warheads, just as the fighters' laser cannons began to slash them from space. Invisible x-ray laser beams spiked out from each warhead like a pincushion, in all forward directions. Each warhead fired twenty beams, each beam had the power of a medium turbolaser-
Some warheads died under the counterfire. Others committed fratricide. A good portion of the dense thatch of invisible, speed-of-light beams sprayed off harmlessly into deep space. A few stray beams even slammed into the shields of Aedan's fleet. But the majority of the barrage was focused on the convoy, with the power of some large fraction of four thousand, three hundred and twenty turbolaser bolts. Two container transports bucked and cracked open, spilling phrikite ore into space. One of the Ravelins took a handful of beams through its reactor and vanished in eye-searing flame. The heavy cruiser's shields went all the way down, though the beams inflicted little damage on its hull. The starfighter swarm got chewed up.
The Hammer-B ships were already on their way back out of range of everything. And now the Lethewalker moved in for the kill, Vulcan cannon and deck guns spitting shrapnel into the remains of the fighter swarm. Its plan was to punch through, deck guns' ion cannons attempting to disable the foremost transport right behind the heavy cruiser.
