Even at the center of the B-Dec, itself surrounded by C-Decs and Lampreys, Athenalras felt the gravitic surge as kinetic energy projectiles passed nearby. The ship bucked around him from the force of the passage.
"Food with a sting, indeed," he snarled, as a nearby vessel disintegrated in his view-screen.
Athenalras cursed the loss, then issued orders for a concentration of fire against the thresh battery that had destroyed his ship. From dozens of ships, relativistic hail rained down on an obscure mountain in the French Pyrenees. To the defenders, below, it looked like a cone of fire from the hand of God, obliterating everything at the point of the cone.
Far above, another screen showed the Posleen commander a glowing patch of ground, no longer so mountainous. The area was soon obscured from space by rising clouds of dirt and ash, flames from the ruined surface glowing through the angry, dark nebulae.
Athenalras' crest lifted triumphantly as crocodilian lips curled up in a sneer. "Defy me now, little abat."
As if on cue, Ro'moloristen announced, "Incoming fire, my lord. Heavy fire."
Goaded beyond endurance by the loss of the Pyrenees battery, five previously masked, human-manned, Planetary Defense Bases—one each from the Vosges, Apennines, German Alps, Swiss Alps, and Atlas Mountains—lashed back. More of Athenalras' ships perished in rapidly expanding clouds of disassociate matter.
The God King cursed the foul thresh of this evil world yet again. He sent further orders to his ships. More deadly hail fell from the skies. In the Vosges, the Apennines, the Alps and the Atlas, snow flashed to steam, mountains shivered and quaked, men were charred to ash in instants.
On both sides losses in the space-to-shore battle were heavy. Yet the Posleen could afford the loss the better.
Seeing little resistance remaining below—little enough, in any case, to allow a landing, Athenalras determined the time was right. Besides, who knew if the damned humans had more batteries lying in wait. Safer on the ground.
"Land the landing force," he ordered. The Kessentai of his immediate entourage raised joyful cries of victory around him.