[IoD] And so it begins...

"Gaaah." 'u'Sadow snarled. "I hadn't expected auxiliary forces so fast. I suppose it makes up for the shockingly light defenses otherwise. It is disconcerting that they're using railguns, meaning our shields won't help much. Armor should be sufficient anyway." He said almost boredly as batteries turned to fire back at the offending PDRR, without slowing down. They were sandwiched between the GPA forces and the Photos sentries, though they were able to take much of the firepower directed at them and return it in kind.
As the Shadow fleet drew closer, the forward carriers began to launch assault ships. The small, agile craft made it to Photise in little time, and teleported down initial Sickle and Scythe waves as they entered the upper atmosphere.
The Photos were not without their own defenses, however.
Individually, the Anti-Orbital cannons sprinkled throughout Photise would be bad enough for an attacker. It gets worse, however, when they first open fire; each gun is linked to a fire control system which is connected to every AO Cannon in a large area; these are, in turn, connected to the High Command's fire control deck. With instant access to satellite information and data-feeds from all ships, along with long range sensor sweeps, the fire control deck and coordinate AO barrages with pinpoint accuracy, vastly increasing the deadliness of the system.
And it was now that the Shadow met this system. While the Assault Ships were too small and close to be targeted, the AO guns could tap out quite a good distance, and two forward carriers soon met their demise when the AO guns of an entire district focused fire onto them. One took a good shot to the bridge and the engines, and without a brain nor propulsion the ship was for all intent and purpose destroyed. The other one, took three blasts to the same location; the three purple-blue beams punched through aft to stern, but by some miracle the reactor didn't go critical. Other ships took hits from the guns, but survived in various states of function.