[@OfWindAndRain] [@datadogie]

[b]Zerg Planet: Light of New Dawn
Galactic Coordinates 13788-0920
Lynat Sector
Border World 0248[/b]

Overmind 0024 grinned. [i]The first alien ship has fled in defeat! They flee in terror! Cowards![/i]

He laughed. His round bulbous body rumbled with glee. [i]That is what will happen if you mess with the Zerg Collective. You will die. Therefore, you must run while you can![/i]

He laughed and laughed and laughed and --

"My lord!" said a fighter-drone. "We're being shot at by point defense mass driver bullets!"

"What?" demanded Overmind 0024. "But the cowards have left!"

"They shot the field of bullets before they left, my lord!"

"Then evade! Evasive maneuvers -- All fighters of carriers 0007, 0008, and 0009 -- EVADE!"

But it was too late. 

Instantly, he could see through his sensors on board his 300 fighters that had left carriers 0007, 0008, 0009. He saw the point defense particles slam into his fighter cloud. Fighter after fighter went down, turned into exploding hull metal from the collision with the point defense particles. Explosions dotted throughout the blackness of space as his fighter's already significant kinetic velocity slammed into the kinetic velocities of the mass driver particles going in the opposite direction. By the time the explosions ended, only 40% of the original 300 fighters had made it through the enemy ship's point defense projectiles. At the same time, his 60 warship infiltration drones (that had followed behind his fighters) had also been dealt terrifying damage. Many drones had died, and now there were only 30 functioning pods out of the original 60. Still, there were 120 fighters and 30 drones, and each fighter carried two short range fusion warheaded missiles as well as a main kinetic cannon in order to...

But enemy ship that had shot those particles was no longer there...

[i]Cowards! They shoot and then they flee![/i]

There was only one thing left to do, thought Overmind 0024. "All fighters-drone and warship infiltration drones of carriers 0007, 0008, and 0009 -- divert away from your original course at the escaped enemy ship and head towards the [i]new[/i] enemy combatants!" His eyes glossed over 8 new enemy ships that had just warped into the system not long ago. He could already anticipate the excitement of taking them over with his warship infiltration pods. "Attack and occupy the new enemies!"

"My lord!" said carrier 0007 through the system-wide neural link. 

"What now?" said Overmind 0024.

"In-in-incoming missiles, my lord!" said carrier 0007.

"Fire your flak cannons!" said 0024.

"They're coming too fa --" A massive explosion detonated right on top of zerg carrier 0007. Overmind 0024 could see the explosion -- could sense it, could feel it, and the pain blinded him. Not only that, but he could feel more blinding pain as more and more missiles -- where had they come from? -- detonated on top of carriers 0007, 0008, and 0009. He could feel his carriers losing cohesion, and feel theirs hulls buckling to the stress, and felt as numerous sophont-drones living and working inside those carriers perished. He saw gigantic craters appearing all over his hulls, and could feel the pain as his three carriers were torn apart, explosions belching throughout their bodies.

Not only that, but somewhere in all that pain, he felt a lone superlaser beam crash into one of his carriers. The beam tore through hull-metal and organic composites, and dove through nerves and power conduits, and did more explosive damage than any of the missile hits.

When it was all done, Overmind 0024 writhed in agony. He had lost communications with two of his three carriers. He could only neural link with one, and through that link, he could see the debris field that had been zerg carriers 0007 and 0009. He saw the hot molten slags of 0007 and 0009 as they expanded outward in a forever expanding cloud, and could feel the stammering pain that carrier-drone 0008 felt even as it survived. 

And... when the pain finally diminished and reality set back in... Overmind 0024 could only feel one thing. Vengeance. "[i]All[/i] carriers within the system, deploy all fighter-drones and warship infiltration drones at the remaining 8 enemy combatants within the system. Destroy them! Pay them back for what they've done to us..."

---

[i]Zerg carriers 0001 to 0006 followed Overmind 0024's orders by launching all 600 of their fighters and 120 of their warship infiltration drones at 8 enemy ships that were still in the system. The remaining surviving fighters and infiltration drones of carriers 0007, 0008, and 0009 were already on the way.[/i]