The vast T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought was like a child before the thing across from her.
After a brief astonishment.
Charlotte called up another video window. "Xiaoxiao, the rest is yours."
"No trouble at all." Across the window Xue Xiaoxiao made the sign for all clear, then pointed straight ahead and cried out, "Blow the thing to pieces for me!"
The dreadnought-grade bow cannon of the T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought had long since been made ready; and as Xue Xiaoxiao's order came down.
A terrible pillar of light in black and gold pierced straight through the swarm's position across from them.
Every hive combat unit that came near that pillar — though it did but graze it — was in an instant burned to nothing within it.
Perhaps sensing the threat, green particle light appeared within the abyssal maw of that T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership, and thereafter a yet vaster pillar of green shot forth.
At the last this green pillar and the black-gold pillar struck against one another, and at the point of striking wave upon wave of blast rose; the swarms caught in it were torn apart.
Certain T3 Hive Motherships among them could hardly bear that terrible shock of energy.
Charlotte watched, and narrowed her eyes slightly.
The battle records upon the T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership are few.
Among them is a record of this creature's attack.
It belongs to the plasma-pulse cannon type, exceedingly strong in force of attack, and carrying an exceedingly strong corrosive besides.
When the Holy Radiance Empire fought them before, in the main one shot sufficed to finish a Holy Radiance T4 interstellar warship, and to take a great swath of the Holy Radiance fleet along with it.
For the crew and petty officers of the Holy Radiance Empire who had lived through that battle, it was a memory like a nightmare.
Only that this time was another matter: this T5 Leviathan-Sovereign had met an opponent of its own grade.
Xue Xiaoxiao on her side kept her eyes hard upon the data panel before her.
Upon it a number and an energy gauge were falling without cease.
That was the Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought's stored energy!
Xue Xiaoxiao's small mouth muttered without stopping, and both eyes were as round as bells.
The secretary beside her could hear words that ran like an incantation.
"Kill you dead! Kill you dead! Kill you dead!"
At the last, when the gauge before Xue Xiaoxiao's eyes had but half left.
That green pillar across from her — sickening, as Xue Xiaoxiao saw it — could hold no longer, and began to weaken without cease.
At the last, the green pillar vanished.
And this Sword of Hades, in an instant, struck the T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership's abyssal maw outright.
Because a Hive Mothership has no design of a star-shield: they resist attack wholly upon their own biological armor.
And most unluckily, by investigation, a Hive Mothership's mouth — with which it fires its strongest attack — is the weakest place in its defense.
One saw the light of that violet-and-gold pillar come showing bit by bit through this T5 Leviathan-Sovereign's body, like some shining lamp-globe.
And at the last pierce out at what answered to its neck.
The swarms and Hive Motherships about it grew the madder in their attack at this moment, as though they too felt the threat their own sovereign was under.
"Attack on!" Xue Xiaoxiao made a chopping motion.
Whereupon the Sword of Hades' beam began to move slowly downward, like a sharp sword cutting down from above.
And at the last this Sword of Hades divided this T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership in two; come close, and one could even see the cut section, like the bones of a fish split in half.
Green juices ran out of it.
"Reporting — the life-signs of Leviathan-Sovereign No. 4 are found to be vanishing. And the movement of the hive fleets about it has begun to grow slow and dull!" the secretary reported to Charlotte.
Charlotte let out a long breath, and looked across the window at Xue Xiaoxiao, who was waving her fists in her excitement and shouting proudly without cease.
"Xiaoxiao, how much stored energy has the Hades?"
At Charlotte's question Xue Xiaoxiao put her feelings away at once and answered, "At present 38.3 percent remains; to bring it back to 100 percent is projected to want some seven hours. And that with no consumption of battle whatever."
At Xue Xiaoxiao's report Charlotte nodded in understanding.
The Hades' fighting power is strong, but the drawback is that after each fight of high intensity she wants a stretch of time to recover her energy store.
Something of the look of a five-second hero with a cooldown of half a day.
Happily, the result was good.
Without the T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought, this Leviathan-Sovereign No. 4 could not, by estimate, have been slain in so short a time.
Under half an hour, first to last!
"Make ready to withdraw from here!" Charlotte set the task.
For the hive fleets about them, still very many in number, Charlotte had not the least thought of lingering to fight.
Her object in attacking of her own accord, in this lightning strike upon the enemy, was those T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Motherships; beyond them, every other enemy was in her eyes without value.
What was to be done now was to withdraw smoothly at the least field loss and consumption that might be, and go on to the next stage of the plan.
"My lady, look there…" The secretary beside her covered her mouth in astonishment, and pointed at the carcass of what had been Leviathan-Sovereign No. 4 within the picture.
For at this moment, beside that carcass, a great quantity of Hive Motherships were opening their bloody maws or their tentacles, and devouring this sovereign that had lately been their own.
Watching all of it, Charlotte showed no stir of feeling.
This is a nature of the interstellar hive-race: once a high-grade Hive Mothership falls, the lower Hive Motherships devour its body, draw the energy from it, and may at the last evolve themselves to a stronger stage.
And a T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership will at times put out its own tentacles of a sudden, stuff the lower Hive Motherships about it into its mouth without ceremony, tear and swallow them.
Such is the cruel rule of the interstellar hive-race.
Charlotte had no leisure to attend to this; she kept her eyes upon the war sand table.
For at this moment one T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership was upon the road here, carrying a great quantity of hive fleets besides.
By estimate it wanted under 20 minutes to reach this position.
And three hours after that, other T5 Leviathan-Sovereigns would come up.
At this moment Charlotte began to reckon the fighting strength in her hand, and whether it could carry out the next part of the plan.