The ship rushed over the large forest and continued making its way to the main base. Sitting on the commander's seat, Ridge was growing more and more anxious. After he gave the order to speed up, he could only sit and wait. Naturally, being a commander now, he shouldn't show it, so instead he attempted to hide it poorly by tapping his fingers. It barely seemed to help.
The ship would take around fifteen more minutes to get to the battlefield. He knew by now that they were likely running out of ammunition, at least with the plasma rifles. Once those were gone, it would be a grueling melee fight; even with the help of the wall, it was highly likely the base would get overrun within seconds when it did happen.
The wait was grueling; five minutes turned to ten, and ten minutes turned to fifteen. The ship's systems indicated a warning about the power being overdrawn; luckily, they managed to make it before anything bad could occur.
"We have arrived on the battlefield, sir!" Berkay reported quickly as soon as the scanners got in range and could be projected for Ridge to see.
Looking over, Ridge nodded, "Good, station ourselves over the base wall and begin broadside cannon fire with all ten heavy cannons on the right side of the ship!"
Getting up from his chair, he walked over to the bridge's window and looked down onto the battlefield. He counted a total of twenty-five soldiers all gathered on the east wall; the cannon fire also drew his attention. From the looks of it, they were still able to hold on this far because of these cannons. We'll probably have to build more cannons, he thought to himself.
From up high, he could also notice that the soldiers had seemingly been sustaining a certain rate of fire to save ammo. The machine gunner, on the other hand, seemed to still have some ammunition and was one of the other things holding the enemy back quite effectively.
George, who was on the ground, watched on with relief as the battleship returned and began positioning itself to fire. As Ridge predicted, they were already running out of ammo, and some of the soldiers with plasma guns had begun to shoot one burst at a time only when necessary. The Fungi had reached within fifty meters of the wall, and given five minutes, maybe a little longer, the base most likely would have fallen.
Booming sounds overhead delivered catastrophic damage to the enemy. Flames began to spread from the explosions, and the charge itself was effectively maimed. Because of their large numbers and proximity, the fungi had spread the flame even more effectively than they had hoped. Screams that seemed distinctly different from the ones before sounded out. To George, it was like hearing a beautiful choir sing. Smiling, he laughed aloud alongside some of the soldiers as they watched on.
The scanners showed that the line was effectively cut, but there were still reinforcements coming, so Ridge had the ship advance, flying slightly off-center of the reinforcing column so they could continuously bombard it and relieve the base of the siege altogether. The ship had more than enough ammunition for this, so Ridge wasn't afraid of using the cannons continuously, making sure every target had been erased.
The ship flew over the base and followed what the scanners showed them to the place mass-producing the troops attempting to invade them, showering flames that cleared the forests and fungi alike. It was picked up to be around six kilometers away, so the ship, after five minutes of flying, spotted their big target.
It was a structure, to be more specific; the tall-tree forest had seventy- to hundred-meter-long trees, and what they were seeing was at least half that, so it made sense they never spotted it growing. To Ridge, it looked like a large fungal stalk with a bark-like exterior and mushroom canopies growing at various heights. Underneath these canopies were holes that seemed to be spewing out more fungal soldiers.
Perhaps there was more at work here inside the structure, but Ridge really wasn't gonna go down there to find out.
"Fire and destroy whatever this thing is," he said firmly.
The pilots obeyed his orders and began rotating to prepare a full bombardment. Suddenly, while the ship was rotating, a warning from the ship's system sounded out.
'BEEP BEEP, INCOMING PROJECTILE'
A little further out from the structure, even further east, shots of large green plasma rounds quickly flew through the air and hit the ship. Still standing near the bridge's window, Ridge saw it firsthand. There were a total of around ten shots fired, and six of them hit the ship directly, requiring him to steady himself as the ship shook. Luckily, the material from which the ship was made- layered asteroid-derived alloy armor and composite plating- was quite effective in mitigating and absorbing the hits.
Naturally, it wouldn't be able to constantly tank it, though; a few more of those shots all aimed at the same spot would more than likely poke a hole through said armor. The ship wasn't gonna sit there and let it happen, though.
"Quickly maneuver the ship, but keep your cannons locked on the structure below us and blow it up!" Ridge ordered while making his way back to the commander's chair.
The orders were received, and they shot everything they had, ensuring that this nest or building would be blown to bits.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The side of the ship flashed lights of orange and white as the rounds shot out and hit the nest. The structure shook and caught fire. It slowly turned its green and orange color into a black char. With the explosions, pieces had also been torn off and fell to the ground, quickly turning brown, indicating they were dying off. It seemed like the structure itself was just a large fungal organism. The plasma rounds from the far east had continued firing at the ship, though this time, alongside the maneuvering of the ship and a mini cannon, more rounds missed than hit.
The mini cannon helped to divert the trajectory of some of these rounds, but because they were more used for small crafts, missiles, and other smaller targets on the ground rather than plasma-specific weapons, the rounds fired out mostly just passed right through and only served to weaken the plasma attacks or change where they actually hit.
After at least ten minutes of continuous bombing, the area where the nest was had been utterly obliterated, and small craters littered the land amongst fallen trees and charred remains of what used to be there.
"Great job. Carefully make our way over to those cannons next; once we destroy them, barring any more surprises, we'll head back to base," Ridge calmly stated.
Unlike his previous anxious mood while away from the battlefield, once they arrived, he felt an inexplicable calm. Perhaps it was just experience or something else, but he felt almost like a completely different person when fighting; it was a trait he was glad for. His usual self would have a much higher chance of messing things up, he thought wryly.
Since the cannons were still firing out, it wasn't very hard for them to weave their way overhead the position of one of them and observe it.
They saw that it had a long barrel quite similar to what humans used, but instead of being made of any metal, it was likely grown and had what looked like some type of fungi or mushroom sporadically covering it; perhaps they served some purpose, but it was a purpose humans would never find out. It also had green-like lines that covered it, which likely involved or was plasma.
Besides the cannon, there also seemed to be a small crew of humanoid fungoid people aiming and operating it. Before they could fire another round, especially one in such proximity, Ridge had the ship obliterate them. They got all the information they needed from looking at it once.
One by one, the cannons continued firing, and in return the H.C Heart tracked them down and destroyed them. Apparently the command unit from the fungi had been killed or was unable to communicate with the cannons, because it seemed hard for Ridge to believe that they were just letting this happen. None of the weapons even moved either; they just continued firing at the ship and being blown up.
The final cannon was fifteen kilometers out from the base, and Ridge made sure their scanners picked nothing else up before moving to take out the last one.
Boom! The last cannon exploded, and just as Ridge relaxed, he received an urgent message from George.
'IT WAS A DIVERSION! RETURN QUICKLY!'
Ridge's face turned pale, and he shouted aloud, "Quick! Turn this ship around and return to base; we've been led here on purpose!"
The hull of the ship seemingly croaked as they roughly turned around and pushed the engines once more.