On October 6th. a 17,600-ton ship of the Vaelor Hegemony, designated as Wildcat class, transited into Albion and was instantly destroyed by the Gibraltar class fortresses on the jump point. Two weeks later, a Clouded Leopard transited, appearing 92,000 km from the bases. Two salvos were required, due to the increased range and lower damage. So far, the fortresses were proving to be an effective defence.
The Olympia system was discovered in June 1902, four transits from Sol via Sirius. Procyon and Typhon. The yellow-white F5-V star was three times more luminous than Sol and hosted eight planets and over sixty moons. The second and third planets both had nitrogen atmospheres, with a small amount of oxygen, and hydrospheres, with Olympia II having oceans and Olympia III ice sheets. There were mineral deposits on Olympia III but nothing to compare to the Triad Worlds. What made the two planets special was the discovery of a ruined colony and a ruined outpost respectively. A survey of Olympia II was completed in December 1902, with sixty-one potential recovery sites identified. Based on the experience in the Carthage system, the 4th infantry division was deployed to Olympia II, along with the 11th Royal Artillery regiment. The light cruiser HMS Perseus was standing by in orbit of Olympia I.
In January 1903, the discoveries in Olympia were completely overshadowed by the discovery of an abandoned but completely intact alien city on Delta Eridani IV. Delta Eridani was four transits from Sol via Lalande, Tartarus, and Sisyphus, with an overall distance of ten billion kilometres. It would have been much further, but a probe of a jump point in Tartarus in 1900 revealed a previously dormant jump point in Lalande, just one transit from Sol. Delta Eridani was a K-class sub-giant star, eight times more luminous than Sol, orbited by six planets. Delta Eridani IV was smaller than Earth, with a thin nitrogen atmosphere and extensive ice sheets. The surface temperature was -70C.
The British Empire was now faced with numerous competing priorities. In economic terms, the highest priority was expanding the population on Carthage, to allow more mines to be moved from Earth and its rapidly-depleting mineral deposits, and to terraform Marlborough, the least productive of the Triad Worlds. Logistically, creation of a new forward base in Jörmungandr to support the Expeditionary Force would greatly ease the strain on the Royal Navy of combatting both the Vaelor Hegemony and the Rhexar Imperium simultaneously, while maintaining a watch for the Nyxian Raiders and protecting the many colonies of the Empire. Strategically, exploitation of an intact alien city could advance the Empire in many ways, from scientific research, to recovered intact installations and to new sources of minerals, fuel and supplies.
The problem was military. The Automata deployed robotic ships to defend the small ruined outpost in Carthage. The Naval Intelligence Department had determined that the Automata were not the race that had once lived on the planet and suspected they might have been responsible for its destruction. If the Automata were some form of ancient threat, they might also deploy forces to interdict any effort to exploit the ruins in Olympia or Delta Eridani, with commensurately larger forces. That would stretch the Royal Navy to breaking point, given its many existing commitments.
On April 23rd 1903, the military overstretch was eased a little by the completion of Formidable and Implacable, the first two ion-engined warships to join the Royal Navy. The Formidable class was an evolution of the previous Majestic class, using more modern technology. In addition to the upgraded engines, the new design featured improved shield generators that boosted shield strength by 40%, direct fire controls that increased tracking range by 25% and included more advanced ECCM, more compact reactors and an improved missile jammer.
Unfortunately, the new battleships could not fill their magazines. The massive expenditure of ordnance expended against the Rhexar Imperium had severely depleted Royal Navy stockpiles. The battleships returning from the most recent battles in Jörmungandr found no Perseus missiles available at Earth, although they did receive their allocation of Theseus missiles. Together, the two new battleships required one hundred and eighty Theseus and sixty Perseus missiles. All that was available was one hundred and forty-five Theseus. There were also one hundred and ten of the new Theseus II, which had higher speed and improved decoys, but the Admiralty had hoped to establish a stockpile so the new missile could be rolled out en masse. Instead, the available missiles would be used to fill the gap in the magazines of Formidable and Implacable, leaving no reloads. As there was no point in constructing additional battleships without missiles to fill their magazines, the Portsmouth Dockyard orbital shipyard began the refits of a pair of Majestics to the Formidable design.
On May 4th, the first four Hunter class destroyers were launched from the Yarrow Shipbuilders orbital yard. Like the Formidable, the Hunter was an evolutionary design of the previous destroyer class, the Havock, with improved engines, fire controls and reactor. It was armed with the new Daedalus II light missile, for which there was still a reasonable stockpile.
Interrogation of Rhexar prisoners from the recent battles revealed some gravitational and geological data for the systems beyond Jörmungandr, plus information on a couple of unknown systems. A couple of Rhexar officers also provided technical specifications on a new Rhexar design, the Haiphong II jump battlecruiser. The ship was larger, and faster than the known Imperium warship classes, with a top speed of 7000 km/s. That would make it even more difficult to inflict sufficient damage with missiles before the Rhexar closed to point-blank, where their railguns would be most effective.
On June 22nd, a survey of the ruins on Delta Eridani IV was completed far more quickly than expected. Seventeen hundred sites were identified with potential for recovery, compared to just sixty-one on Olympia II and thirteen on Olympia III. The Delta Eridani ruins had the potential to transform the Empire, if they could be defended against the feared Automata attack. So far, the 14th Royal Artillery regiment and the 1st Armoured Division had been landed, with the latter comprising four armoured regiments: the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays), 3rd (Prince of Wales’s) Dragoon Guards, 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and the 5th (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s) Dragoon Guards, comprising fourteen hundred Cromwell medium tanks in total. Further units would be landed as troop transport capacity allowed. There was only a single light cruiser in the system, but with the ruins now surveyed, a significantly larger force would be deployed.
By late October, the sixteen thousand men of the 1st Infantry Division were also in position on Delta Eridani IV, along with two more regiments of the Royal Artillery. On October 28th, a tidal wave of Automata ground forces poured out of hidden bunker systems, massing almost half a million tons, more than twice that of the defenders. Like the crews of their spacecraft in Carthage, the Automata ground forces were entirely mechanical in nature, with no obvious biological component or controlling entity. The only advantage for the British Army divisions was that they were fortified. The Royal Navy forces in the system were stationed at Delta Eridani V, approximately six hundred million kilometres from Delta Eridani IV, where a small population of 500,000 settlers had been established. Both Formidable class battleships were present, along with the Diadem class heavy cruisers HMS Europa and HMS Niobe and the Hermes II class escort carrier HMS Furious.
Delta Eridani Squadron
Formidable class Battleship: Formidable, Implacable
Diadem class Heavy Cruiser: Europa, Niobe
Argus class Escort Carrier: Furious
4x Thunder class Torpedo Boat
22x Lightning class Torpedo Boat
HMS Furious and her sister ship HMS Argus were a new concept for the Royal Navy. Their close cousin HMS Hermes had been designed to carry a pair of destroyers to distant colonies. The Argus class updated the Hermes design to include ion engines and a slight increase in magazine space. Instead of destroyers, they carried twenty-two 400-ton Lightning class torpedo boats and four 800-ton Thunder class torpedo boats. Each torpedo boat carried a single Theseus II anti-ship missile, with the Thunder adding the same active sensor as the Pelorus class light cruiser. While the torpedo boats could be delivered to colonies, they were also intended to be based on the Argus class and used for long-range strikes. The carrier itself was slow and unprotected, so it would avoid combat if at all possible.
The newly emerged Automata ground forces included some units with active sensors, so it was likely they had surface to orbit weapons. The Royal Navy forces would be unable to support the ground forces on Delta Eridani IV unless those could be neutralised. HMS Formidable and HMS Implacable broke orbit of Delta Eridani V and headed for the fourth planet. Their travel time would be thirty-six hours.
On Delta Eridani IV, the mechanised Automata horde charged across the ice fields towards the British lines. The most common mech type was a humanoid-sized robot, armed with an equivalent of the Maxim machine guns used by the British Army. They were quickly dubbed the Iron Men by the defending troops. More fearsome was a huge walking tank with two arm-mounted weapons: a heavy anti-vehicle cannon and a heavy machine gun, both more powerful than the weapons of the British tanks. With the classical education of most of the British intelligence officers, it was no surprise that they were designated as Titans. There were two variants of the Titan; one armed with only the anti-vehicle weapon and possibly functioning as some form of command unit, and a second armed with what appeared to be anti-aircraft weapons, although they functioned well enough against both tanks and infantry. The Automata also possessed a static artillery unit that was more powerful than the British 48-pounder field gun. In addition to the combat forces, there was a man-sized robot without any weapons that probably served a logistics function, and a large unarmed vehicle used for construction.
The dug-in British line infantry and hull down tanks opened fire, killing thousands of Iron Men in the first few hours of combat and perhaps three hundred Titans. British casualties were forty-one Cromwell tanks and seven hundred infantry, including machine guns The total alien numbers were unknown, but initial estimates were in the region of twenty-five thousand. That number would become more accurate over time. The Iron Men continued to attack in waves, throughout the first day and into the night, heedless of their vulnerability on the open ice. At dawn, the entire battlefield was covered in shattered metallic corpses, glittering in the cold light of the orange sun. The British troops had been in position for months, so the fortifications of the line infantry made them difficult to hit, while their powered armour gave some protection even against the Automata weapons, allowing them to survive approximately a third of the direct hits. The Cromwell tanks were extremely vulnerable to the Titans and roughly even in numbers, but they remained in cover rather than engaging in close combat on the ice fields.
By the end of the second day, the attacks had weakened considerably. The outnumbered British forces had held their ground against a technologically advanced enemy with superior numbers. With the enemy reduced to isolated combat units, the British Army went on the offensive, massacring the Automata logistics units and cutting down the remaining Titans and Iron Men. The enemy force included a large number of surface-to-orbit weapons, but these were now extremely vulnerable to ground attack. HMS Formidable and HMS Implacable reversed course and returned to Delta Eridani V without ever venturing into range of the Automata defences.
Four days after the appearance of the Automata, they had been completely wiped out; half a million tons of hostile ground forces reduced to battered wreckage by the 1st Armoured Division and the 1st Infantry Division. British casualties were fifteen hundred infantry and a hundred Cromwell tanks. Any loss of life was regrettable against the faceless, non-organic foe, but given the strength of the enemy, those losses were remarkably low. Most importantly, the two divisions had protected the three Royal Artillery regiments, that could now repay that protection by eliminating any Automata spacecraft that appeared in the skies above Delta Eridani IV.
In total, the three regiments comprised eighteen 10” lasers, eighteen 8” lasers and seventy-two planetary defence railguns. On November 11th, ten days after the ground engagement, a single Moray class of 28,125 tons appeared over Delta Eridani IV, emerging from the deep Aether. It was instantly destroyed by a combined salvo from the 8th and 14th Royal Artillery regiments. A second Moray appeared nine days later, with similar results.
Ten transits away, a sensor buoy detected a Krait class scout of the Rhexar Imperium transiting from Einherjar, a red dwarf binary with a single barren planet, into Utgard, a planetless system two jumps out from Jörmungandr via Ymir. With twelve systems so far discovered beyond Jörmungandr, the Naval Intelligence Department believed the most likely direction of the Rhexar core words was via Ymir and Utgard. This new detection suggested that Einherjar was the next system on that list. The Krait ignored the buoy, moved across Utgard, through Ymir and into Jörmungandr, where it was promptly blown to pieces by the Expeditionary Force, sat on the Ymir jump point. The four Royal Sovereigns in the Expeditionary Force had already exceeded their normal deployment time, but the Royal Navy was becoming increasingly stretched.
That overstretch was eased a little by the launch of the first pair of Drake class heavy cruisers, HMS Drake and HMS King Alfred. The design was very similar to the Diadem, but with ion engines, longer-ranged fire controls, thicker armour and improved shields. There were still no Perseus missiles available, but sufficient Theseus II anti-ship missiles had been produced to fulfil the normal loadout for both ships.
Back in Delta Eridani, four Automata ships appeared at once; two Barracuda class and two Starfish class, Both types were approximately 28,300 tons. The Royal Artillery units targeted the new arrivals, although one was barely damaged by the attack and the others absorbed almost all the damage with their armour. The two Barracudas each returned fire with ninety-two 4” lasers mounted in twin turrets. The ice fields that had left the Automata ground forces exposed now worked against the Royal Artillery as the devastating fire rained down upon them. Three 10” lasers, three 8” and nine of the planetary defences railguns were all destroyed. The Starfish were less immediately threatening as they launched a volley of fifteen small missiles. In response the Royal Artillery’s quick-firing railguns targeted one Starfish and one Barracuda, inflicting significant armour damage but just six strength-1 internal hits between the two targets
Given the weight of fire, the Automata ships were mostly likely orbital bases. The 4” lasers of the Barracudas had a five second recycle time so they continued to rake the surface with fire, destroying six more lasers and six railguns. Fire from the 8” surface-to-orbit weapons inflicted massive damage on one of the Barracudas, but failed to destroy it. The railguns fired again and one of the Starfish bases exploded, but it was the Barracudas that were massacring the ground-based defences. Five of the 10” batteries were obliterated, along with five more railguns. Only seven of the original eighteen 10” lasers remained in action, along with twelve 8” and fifty-two railguns.
All the remaining surface-to-orbit weapons fired simultaneously as their firing cycles coincided. One Barracuda exploded and the remaining Starfish took over forty internal hits, but the second Barracuda still had eighty-four operable 4” lasers and they eliminated six more surface batteries. Missiles from the Starfish took out two more. The Royal Artillery railguns and the Automata lasers fired again. Four railguns and an 8” laser were lost in exchange for the second Starfish. Another 8” was lost to a missile detonation before the last Barracuda was finally eliminated.
The brief but massively destructive exchange of fire cost the Automata over a hundred thousand tons of orbital bases and gutted the surface batteries of the Royal Artillery. The defenders were reduced to a single, reinforced regiment with five 10” lasers, nine 8” lasers and forty-one railguns. The two Formidable class battleships were too far away to help with the immediate battle when new Automata ships emerged, but if they were stationed in orbit they would potentially be subject to devastating fire before they could respond. Instead, they would deal with any Automata warships that moved out of range of the remaining surface defences, or retake orbital space should the Royal Artillery be defeated.
On December 3rd, another Moray class emerged in orbit over Delta Eridani IV. The surface batteries, now reformed as the Royal Artillery Eridani Regiment, blew it out of the sky before it could take any action. A new Royal Artillery regiment, the 16th, was unloaded by the troop transport Ioke, named after the Greek goddess of onslaught, battle-tumult, routing, and pursuit.
Less than three weeks later, the new regiment was in action as a group of four Automata ships appeared; a 28,300-ton Mako, two 14,100-ton Archerfish and a 14,100-ton Marlin. The Eridani Regiment and the 16th Royal Artillery booth opened fire immediately, causing minimal internal damage to the three smaller ships. In response, the Automata squadron launched thirty-nine size-11 missiles and forty-nine size-1 missiles at the planet, the latter from the Mako.
The large missiles had laser warheads, using their detonations to generate a laser beam. While this would be effective in avoiding short-range point defence, it was less useful against ground targets. Even so, they inflicted multiple hits. The smaller size-1 detonations caused significant damage too. Over half of the laser batteries from the newly arrived 16th regiment were destroyed, along with nine railguns. Simultaneously, the Royal Artillery regiment scored multiple internal hits on all four Automata warships. No further large missiles were launched, but waves of the small missiles arrived every ten seconds. Losses mounted on the surface, although the overall weight of fire was still in favour of the Royal Artillery. The Marlin was first to explode, followed by an Archerfish, but the threat was the Mako. Before it was finally destroyed, the newly arrived regiment had been virtually wiped out and the Eridani Regiment suffered its own losses too.
After absorbing the survivors, the Eridani Regiment was down to two 10” lasers, ten 8” lasers and fifty railguns. The Royal Artillery was being destroyed faster than reinforcements could be delivered. The next regiment would not arrive for over two months. The Automata waited just four days before the next ships arrived; three 14,200 Snakehead class. The Eridani Regiment opened fire immediately, causing internal damage to all three with their first volley, then destroying them with a follow-up attack from the railguns. Given the ease of their destruction, they were unlikely to be warships, which led the naval Intelligence Department to question their purpose. If the Automata were bringing through commercial shipping, that suggested a much large operation than simply defending the planet.
Twenty-four hours later, another four Automata ships appeared. A Mako, with its forty-nine light missile launchers, a pair of Orcas, each armed with twenty 10” lasers and a powerful 15” laser, and a single Pike, armed with twenty 4” lasers. It was an ideal combination of ships to use against the weakened Royal Artillery. The Eridani Regiment combined its firepower against the smallest ship, destroying the Pike with two salvos and somehow only losing two railguns to the Automata lasers. Then the missiles began to fall, with forty-nine detonations every ten seconds, accompanied by more laser salvos. Three more railguns exploded, then four more. An Orca blew up and the Eridani Regiment changed targeting to the Mako. One of the last pair of 10” lasers was lost. Two 8” lasers were struck by missiles and the number of surviving railguns continued to fall. The Mako staggered under numerous hits, launched a reduced salvo and then finally exploded. The remaining Orca continued pouring fire on to the planet, taking out a further six railguns before it too was destroyed.
Once more the Eridani Regiment had survived, but it was a shadow of its former self, comprising a single 10” laser, eight 8” lasers and thirty-three railguns – all that remained from the original four Royal Artillery regiments on Delta Eridani IV. Despite the grievous losses, the Royal Artillery had destroyed 400,000 tons of Automata ships. They had no time for respite. Three days passed before sixteen 930-ton Piranhas appeared in orbit. One was destroyed immediately. The rest launched forty-five size-11 missiles. Remarkably, not a single battery of the Eridani Regiment was lost to the laser warheads. With no further weapons, the Piranhas were sitting ducks and rapidly eliminated. The time until another Royal Artillery regiment could be delivered was now fifty-two days.
On January 2nd 1904, two days after the latest Automata assault, a tracking station on Delta Eridani V detected thermal emissions from a Mako, approximately two hundred and twenty million kilometres away and almost half a billion kilometres from the ruins on Delta Eridani IV. Somehow this ship, and any others accompanying it, had not been detected by the Eridani Regiment. The Eridani Squadron, comprising both Formidable class battleships and two Diadems, was based at Delta Eridani V to counter any such Automata movement away from the arrival location. The four ships moved out to intercept the Automata, although at 5880 km/s the Mako had a significant speed advantage. Also at Delta Eridani V was the escort carrier HMS Furious. She launched her strikegroup of twenty-six torpedo boats, which had a speed of 8000 km/s.
The Mako was on a course that would pass within a hundred million kilometres of Delta Eridani V, but its ultimate objective was clear; the commercial traffic that was moving between the planet and the Sisyphus jump point, bringing infrastructure, colonists, engineer regiments and even terraformers to develop the growing naval base. As the Mako drew closer, the tracking station detected three smaller ships; a Marlin and two Archerfish. The Mako was armed with light missiles and the three 14,100-ton ships were armed with size-11 missiles, the range of which was unknown. The Royal Navy torpedo boats were armed with Theseus II torpedoes, with an effective range of approximately four million kilometres, the battleships had a mixture of Theseus I and Theseus II, while the only Perseus missiles were on the two heavy cruisers.
When the torpedo boats moved within fourteen million kilometres, the Automata changed to a head-on course. Six minutes later, the four Thunder class boats detected a wave of nine inbound missiles. The smaller Lightnings had no missile detection capability and neither type had any form of missile defence. The laser warheads of the alien missiles detonated short of their targets and used the explosion to generate a directed laser beam. Two Lightnings were destroyed by strength-3 hits and a third was crippled. A second salvo of nine missiles accounted for a further two destroyed Lightnings and another cripple. The remaining twenty torpedo boats launched their missiles at the Mako from just outside their theoretical range and ran for their mothership, counting on the closing speed of the Automata to bring them within range.
As the Theseus IIs approached, strength-1 detonations were recorded amid their ranks. The Mako was using its light missiles, which had a speed of 77,000 km/s, to shoot down the much larger Royal Navy missiles. The Theseus II was equipped with ten decoys for just such a situation and many of the intercepting missiles were misdirected. Only two Theseus were hit short of their final attack ran. Nine detonated, four of which were distracted by the Mako’s own decoys. One of the on-target detonations penetrated the Mako’s thick armour belt. The remaining nine missiles turned to make another attack. One was shot down and the other eight struck the Mako, reducing it to half speed and causing it to fall out of formation and retreat toward the inner system. The first ‘carrier strike’ mission in the history of the Royal Navy could be judged a partial success.
Even as the torpedo boats retreated, the three smaller Automata ships continued launching missiles. One of the Thunder class boats was destroyed, then one of the crippled Lightnings. Two more Thunders were hit and crippled. The Eridani Squadron was still outside range of its few Perseus missiles. The Thunders were drawing considerable attention, with the last one knocked out of formation and then all the cripples destroyed by follow-up salvos. The attack on the main body of the strike wave resumed, with one Lightning after another either destroyed or crippled. The Automata were relentless in their pursuit. The Eridani Squadron tried to close the range but to not avail. Every single torpedo boat in the strike wave was blown to pieces, then the Automata missile ships reversed course, while just outside Perseus range, and followed the Mako.
Five minutes later, the Eridani Squadron had its own problems. Thirty size-11 missiles appeared on the edge of detection range. The squadron reversed course to keep the range open, but the missiles had a speed of 33,000 km/s. Five were hit by 5” lasers at 52,000 km/s. The rest detonated and struck the heavy cruiser HMS Europa with strength 6.9 lasers, blasting down her shields and holing her armour in eight places. The senior officer in Delta Eridani was Captain Nicolas Evans, C.O. of the damaged heavy cruiser. Knowing his own ship and HMS Niobe would not be able to stand up to many Automata salvos, he ordered the two battleships to continue the pursuit, while the two cruisers pulled back to Delta Eridani V. More battleships were desperately needed now that the Automata were starting to break free from Delta Eridani IV. Securing those reinforcements while maintaining a strong watch on the Vaelor Hegemony and the Rhexar Imperium was going to be a huge challenge for the Royal Navy and for the Empire.
Unfortunately, the next salvo of missiles was already in flight and targeted on HMS Niobe. The two cruisers shot down five missiles between them, but the rest detonated at 58,000 km. She suffered similar damage to her sister ship. The two heavy cruisers continued their retreat. HMS Formidable came under fire next, but she was well named. Her shields absorbed the incoming laser fire. The Automata turned the attention back to the two heavy cruisers, which were twenty million kilometres further away than the battleships. HMS Europe was struck twenty-seven times, although the damage was slightly less per hit as the missiles detonated at 64,000 km. A single hit penetrated her increasingly damaged armour, but failed to cause any internal damage.
HMS Formidable absorbed the next attack on her shields, perhaps because the battleships had pushed the fleeing Automata beyond range of the heavy cruisers. That was the final attack. The three smaller ships, now dubbed destroyers due to their missile armament, set a course back toward Delta Eridani IV, perhaps in an attempt to reload their magazines. The damaged Mako class cruiser continued toward the inner planets with the battleships in pursuit. They could not catch the fast destroyers, but they had a 1200 km/s speed advantage over the Mako, at least until it could repair its damaged engines. Once within range, HMS Formidable launched a salvo of ten Theseus missiles. One was hit by light missiles. The rest blew the Automata cruiser to pieces, a small revenge for the loss of the entire strikegroup from HMS Furious.
The two Archerfish and the Marlin stopped moving away and began lurking at the edge of sensor range, between the battleships and Delta Eridani IV. When the Royal Navy ships attempted to close, they moved away, without setting direct course for the ruins. Eventually, the salvage ship Phoenix broke orbit of Delta Eridani V to rescue the torpedo boat crews and begin salvage operations, whereupon the Automata destroyers tried to intercept, then backed off when the battleships moved into their path. Captain Evans, still senior officer in the system despite his heavy cruiser now heading for the Sisyphus jump point, along with HMS Niobe, ordered the battleships to split up and invite the enemy to move between them. When the Automata took up that invitation, they moved back together, attempting to box in the faster enemy ships.
Once within missile range, they each launched a salvo of fifteen Theseus missiles against the two Archerfish. While it was possible they could move within energy range, the enemy ships could still slip away, so Captain Evans was willing to take whatever chances were offered.
The Automata destroyers had no point defence and were sitting ducks for missiles with retargeting capability. After multiple attack runs, both Archerfish were destroyed and three surviving missiles struck the Marlin. The battleships continued closing, with the Marlin frantically reversing course away from each ship in turn. Once the two Formidable were within energy range, it ended quickly.
A week after the battle, an Orca, armed with twenty 10” lasers and a single 15”, and two Pike class, armed with twenty 4” lasers, appeared in orbit of Delta Eridani IV. They opened fire immediately on arrival, taking out two railguns on the surface. The Eridani Regiment responded, scoring two internal hits on the Orca. The two Pike were the more dangerous ships at point-blank range though and carved a fiery path across the ice, blowing up several Royal Artillery batteries in succession. Due to the low number of operable surface batteries, the battle lasted notably longer than previous ones. The Eridani Regiment was ultimately successful, destroying all three Automata ships, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. When the skies were finally clear, the regiment had two 8” lasers and seventeen 4” railguns.
Two days later, eight 930-ton Piranhas appeared and the Eridani Regiment destroyed them without a single loss. Unfortunately, that was their last success. Another squadron comprising a Mako, a Marlin and two Archerfish arrived in orbit. The remaining batteries of the regiment managed to inflict internal damage on an Archerfish before they were wiped out by multiple missile salvos. Their gallant defence and remarkable tally of destroyed Automata ships had finally ended. The 1st Armoured Division and 1st Infantry Division were still on the surface of Delta Eridani and now lacked any defence.
A day after the loss of the Eridani Regiment, the Mako, Marlin and one Archerfish moved out to challenge HMS Formidable and HMS Implacable, which were still protecting RFA Phoenix. The battleships reciprocated, trying to keep the Automata out of missile range of the salvage ship. The three alien warship retreated back out of sensor range, so HMS Formidable launched an Orpheus sensor drone at Delta Eridani IV to check if they had returned to the ruins. The drone found the three undamaged ships in orbit, but there was no sign of the Archerfish damaged by the surface batteries.
After the drone launch, the Automata ships broke orbit and approached the battleships once more, firing several missile salvos with no permanent effect. The battleships pursued them back toward Delta Eridani IV, then chased them out of orbit, absorbing several further missile salvos with their shields. Unable to catch the fleeing warships and unwilling to be caught near the planet should a major force arrive, the battleships eventually withdrew back toward the salvage operation.