The Battle Continues, On and On

It was absurd, sure — but the moment I saw the announcement confirming that the 'friendly teamkills' had been the result of an admin screw-up, I found myself nodding along. Yeah. That really had been some next-level bullshit.

The battle continues, on and oooon. (1)

After the emergency patch from the admins — the ones I'd assumed had shiny heads, only to discover it was their brains that glowed — the battles that followed were nothing more than the desperate thrashing of someone trying to cut losses and stay alive by any means necessary.

Of course, there was never any scenario in which I lost.

As I'd mentioned before, we had the Kraken — a ship that was downright broken in small-scale fleet engagements — and the Hresvelgr, which could single-handedly dump fleet-grade missile barrages while spewing death-lances that one-shot anything below battleship class with perfect equality. And then there was Naranjara, the supreme majesty itself, which had spent every single fight so far submerged for the full duration of its stealth window, handling kills when kills were needed and support when support was needed.

The strategy was simple: spam teleport missiles, spam carrier craft, then have Naranjara pin the enemy capital ships in place with subspace torpedo potshots. After that, we just sat at extreme range and methodically beat them to death with the holy trinity of main guns, missiles, and strike craft. At a bare minimum, a one-on-one engagement meant we could wipe the enemy without taking damage ourselves.

So whether I unilaterally shredded one opponent, crippled the enemy main force into sitting ducks, or simply wrecked them from the opening exchange — no matter what composition the other team fielded, we'd managed to claw out a win every time so far.

The real problem wasn't fighting the enemy. It was the bastard troll teamkill fetishists constantly lusting after our allies' asses.

In the second and third battles, at least, the tendency among our allies to band together and hold the line against the troll teamkillers was strong enough that we managed to hang on. But in the fourth battle — just when we thought it was basically over — I'd barely managed to drag a heavy cruiser back from the brink of exploding, only for one of the trolls to decide that since victory was imminent and the enemy was already half-dead, he might as well launch a surprise attack from the rear on me and the other nine players.

The result: most of my ships, including the Overseer — an SSS-grade vessel with thoroughly equipped self-defense armaments that had been hanging back for fire support from the start — managed to weather the assault without major issues. But that critically damaged heavy cruiser I'd mentioned, along with the resource mining ship attached to it for repairs, both went up in a chain detonation. And a destroyer that had somehow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠limped back alive right next to them cooked off in the blast too. Absolute catastrophe.

Naturally, the other players took even worse hits. One guy lost an entire large carrier — those things are expensive — to a sympathetic detonation. Another had three repair ships blow up on him. All in all, it was one hell of a backstab.

Not that the bastard who stabbed us in the back got ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off clean, either. He'd apparently figured he could just finish the game by wiping out the enemy regardless of the damage he dealt to us. But the nine of us who'd just been backstabbed before the match even ended had zero reason to leave a traitor like that alone. So we deliberately left the enemy capital ships alive on a sliver of health, buying them a temporary stay of surrender — and in exchange, we sank every last one of that clueless backstabber's ships in a thoroughly satisfying revenge drama.

And the fifth battle? Well… we twisted and thrashed our way to another win, same as always.

But no matter how hard you contort yourself to stay alive, keeping fragile standard-grade ships intact through ten-versus-ten player battles was always going to be a tall order. After grinding through those brutal fights, our combat power had been steadily whittled away.

"Commander, I have a report."

"Yeah… go ahead, Belial."

"The only small ships remaining in our fleet are four destroyers and two corvettes."

"Not ideal."

"Moreover, all four destroyers are resource transport vessels. They can hardly be considered actual combat assets."

Maybe it was the fatigue of just wrapping up the fifth battle, but Belial's voice carried a heavy exhaustion. I nodded and pulled up the fleet composition window right away.

Looking at those small ships teetering on the brink of extinction, just as Belial had said, I felt a genuine ache in my chest.

No… my ships…!

And as Belial had pointed out, those four remaining destroyers were, frankly, no different from transport freighters with a single beam turret bolted on. For all practical purposes, the only small ships we had left were two corvettes.

"This is a real mess, isn't it?"

"Tell me about it. If that battlecruiser that nearly blew up in the fourth fight had actually gone down… well, I imagine you would have been screaming, Commander."

"Even with triple buffs from Belial, Marianne, and Griyanaar stacked on top of each other, I never expected the ships to get shredded this badly."

"I didn't anticipate it would be this severe either."

Then again, looking at it another way — maybe it was precisely because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of those triple buffs that two ordinary-grade corvettes had managed to survive those insane battles at all.

Our glorious Pirate Empress Marianne's command buff, as always, didn't specifically boost carrier craft — but it stacked with Belial's accuracy and mobility buffs while dramatically elevating overall mobility and, more importantly, survivability. On top of that, Griyanaar's group aura buff layered on yet another +@ to base performance…

Yeah. That has to be it.

Those two corvettes were now, for all intents and purposes, the sole evasion tanks left in my fleet. I had no idea how many more battles still lay ahead — but I swore to myself, again and again, that I would keep them alive no matter what.

And so, during the remaining time, while the ships underwent repairs — and while I watched a heavy cruiser that the Kraken had stubbornly dragged along from some other player get crunched up like hard candy and disappear into the Kraken's maw — a thought suddenly occurred to me.

Just how many more battles was I going to have to fight?

Given that the event had kicked off earlier than the time limit suggested, it seemed like every player had participated. And if our total player count, including the gallery's casual traffic, was roughly five hundred thousand… what would happen if these ten-versus-ten matches just kept going?

Of course, calculations like that were Jessica's job. She heard my question, did the mental math, and came back with an answer.

"Commander, would you like the results of my calculations?"

"Yeah."

"Working from a total of five hundred thousand players including yourself, the remaining participants come out to approximately fifteen thousand."