The Admiral and the Assistant

In the battle high over Techterra, the tattered remnants of the Third, Fifth, and Ninth Fleets tried to rally. Formation and discipline were nearly forgotten as ships fought to maintain distance from their neighbors while still getting close enough to fire at the boneship.

The enormous, deadly sphere hung impassively, firing repeatedly into the fleets of the Imperium. The thin, intensely bright beam would leap from different areas of the ship every time, but the cadence of attacks was as steady as a pulsar.

The fleets had spread out enough that the deadly beam was only destroying a few ships at a time now, but there was no defense, no place to hide, no escape from the steady metronome of devastation that emitted from the boneship.

Their return fire was pitifully inadequate, merely shattering some of outermost struts of the boneship. Now that they couldn't even target a single spot on the boneship, the damage was almost imperceptible.

A few ships tried to fall back to the jumpholes, but that only clustered them up and slowed them down. The boneship mercilessly slaughtered every ship that looked like it was trying to escape.

On board the ISS Swordheart, Grimthorn and Kinnit clung to the railing around the captain's dais. The pride of the Imperium was spinning helplessly, knocked reeling by the reactor explosion of the ISS Guardian. The officers on the bridge were tumbled back and forth, slamming into consoles and sliding across the floor.

"Engineering! Lock down those inertial dampers!" Admiral Stonefist yelled at his console.

"Trying, sir!" came the reply. "We've lost seven dampers, and the reactor output has dropped to--"

"Less talking, more fixing!"

The crew continued to tumble around the bridge. Bridge officers clung to anything they could.

After a couple nauseating minutes of turbulence, the bridge calmed some. Though the Swordheart was still spinning uncontrollably, the inertial dampers had fully reactivated. Officers were able to pick themselves up off the floor. Grimthorn and Kinnit stood back up in the captain's dais. Grimthorn adjusted his uniform.

A loud cracking sound reverberated throughout the ship. The inertial damping wobbled a bit, but stabilized.

Admiral Stonefist keyed his console.

"I take it we just lost another damper?" he said to Engineering.

"Yes, sir. We've lost a full quarter of our dampers. The rest are running at half-capacity."

"It's good enough for now. Focus on the engines. Let's get out of this spin."

There was silence from Engineering for a moment. It was never a good sign when Engineering went quiet.

"Um, sir... that's going to be a problem."

"How so?"

"Sir, the engines are effectively gone. We... we don't have control any more."

Admiral Stonefist paled, but maintained his composure.

"What do you mean by 'effectively' gone?"

"Three of them are destroyed, sir. One is in an unknown state. All connection has been severed to it. It may be destroyed as well."

"Admiral," Kinnit said quietly. "Look at that." She pointed at his console. His lips nearly disappeared in a pinched line.

"Engineering," he said carefully, "we're caught in the edges of Ceon 12's gravity well. Get power to that engine at all costs." Admiral Stonefist scanned the readings. "I'd estimate we have fifteen minutes before we hit atmosphere. We need an engine before then."

"Yes, sir," came the reply. The line went dead as engineers rushed to begin dragging power conduit across the Swordheart.

"This is the one situation where I'd actually like to have Captain Minius on board," Grimthorn muttered. "He could probably bodge together an extra engine out of spare toilet parts."

Kinnit smiled stiffly, but she couldn't quite bring herself to laugh. Her eyes were haunted. She turned to the console.

"Admiral," she said.

Grimthorn went rigid at her tone.

"What now?"

"It's the Seventh Fleet, sir. Admiral Lander's fleet is finally arriving."

"No!" He gripped his console. "Emergency comms to Admiral Lander! Tell him to stay out of this sector!"

Admiral Stonefist watch with dismay as ships of the Seventh Fleet began streaming in through a jumphole.

The boneship noticed as well. The narrow beam lanced into the incoming ships, shredding their formation. As new ships streamed in, the boneship blasted them into oblivion.

"Get that message out!" he screamed.

"We're transmitting at full power, sir!" Lieutenant Renning cried. "We're getting no acknowledgement from Admiral Lander!"

The Seventh Fleet continued to emerge, spewing ships into the meat grinder. Admiral Stonefist spat a vile swear.

"Why isn't he acknowledging?" Grimthorn growled.

Kinnit laid a hand on his arm.

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"He might have led the fleet in," she said softly. "The ISS Supremacy may already be..." she trailed off, her eyes filled with tears.

"Fool," Grimthorn snarled, watching as the Seventh Fleet was ground up. "So full of foolish pride." He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fists into his temples.

The Swordheart continued to tumble helplessly toward Ceon 12 as the boneship steadily hammered the Seventh Fleet to pieces.

The hatch on the moon Callix gaped like an open maw. Its black depths loured expressionlessly at the slaughter in the sector. The coils within rotated slowly into place, aligning into a long line of rings, all centered on the invader that hung over Ceon 12.

On the far side of the moon, at the end of the bore, automated systems positioned the warhead behind the first coil, carefully arranging it so the tip was just barely within the ring.

The warhead was the size of a small destroyer. It was surrounded by a custom sabot: a cladding that wrapped it in magnetically sensitive steel, suitable for the magnetism of the coils to grab.

Reactors deep in the bowels of the moon reached their full operating capacity. They began pouring power into the supercapacitors that were attached to the coils. Each coil slowly filled with energy, preparing to unleash the Imperium's greatest weapon against the Imperium's greatest enemy.

The array hummed with pent-up power. With a click, the final supercapacitor was filled.

The Celestial Slingshot was ready to fire.

The armature manipulating the warhead pushed it forward, millimeter by millimeter, edging it into the the magnetic field of the first coil.

In a flash, the magnetic field snatched the warhead and flung it forward. The next coil flung it into the next, faster and faster, each coil accelerating the warhead. The acceleration was so sudden that the back of the moon caved in briefly, then blew out, spraying rock and dust far into space.

Halfway through the coilgun, the warhead initiated, beginning the fission reaction. Within microseconds, the warhead slung across empty space, impacting the Ash-tongue's boneship with a shattering impact. The fission achieved critical mass, and the nuclear warhead erupted in a rainbow cloud of radioactive plasma.

The impact and explosion happened faster than thought. The boneship shuddered as unimaginable forces were unleashed against its structure. An enormous slice of the surface was vaporized, sublimating directly into gas. The catastrophic impact splintered the struts in a wide radius, sending a thick clouds of shards spinning out through the space around it. Flames washed through the honeycomb structure of the boneship.

The entire sector paused as though awed by the scope of devastation wreaked by the Celestial Slingshot.

The boneship tilted, and its firing stopped. The plasma cloud boiled away into the cold of space, leaving behind a crater in the ship. The boneship, stricken, rotated slowly. The impact crater of the Slingshot made the boneship look like an apple with a bite taken out.

The boneship's rotation slowed, then stopped as it stabilized. The sector waited, with held breath.

The boneship zipped out of the sector like a thunderclap, leaving behind a devastated planet and the tatters of the Imperial Navy.

"It's gone." Admiral Stonefist let out a slow sigh of relief.

Kinnit leaned up against him, and he snaked an arm around her. Agreement to keep things professional at work or not, they needed contact with each other right now.

"Did we save Techterra?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know." Grimthorn said slowly. "There are still people down there, at least. It-- it's not Brolla."

"What did it cost?" she asked, her voice hoarse with unspent tears.

"Shh. We can worry about that later. Paying the price... is our duty."

She nodded silently, clinging to him, her silent tears wetting his jacket.

"All hail the Imperium," she sobbed.

"All hail."

They clung to each other as the Swordheart continued to tumble through space, drawing ever closer to Ceon 12.

Still holding Kinnit, Grimthorn activated the comms on his console.

"Engineering, report."

"We're just about ready to try that engine, Admiral," came the voice back. "It's a patch job. If it accepts power, you won't want to push it too hard. The power couplings are, uh, very bespoke."

"Acknowledged." Admiral Stonefist looked grimly at the timer on his console that was counting down the seconds the Swordheart had left before it was caught in the unbreakable grip of Ceon 12's gravity. "Report as soon as it's available. We're running out of time."

Grimthorn was strangely calm. He felt as though he were floating on a sea of tragedy. The Imperial Navy had been shattered. The Swordheart-- and their lives-- were about to be erased. The Feeders were still alive. Everything had gone wrong. Everything was gone. He felt weirdly detached.

The only real thing in the universe now was Kinnit's trembling form under his arm. He squeezed her tightly.

The timer on his console ticked down steadily.

"Admiral, we got it!" blared his comms.

Grimthorn and Kinnit sprang into action, scanning the data coming back from engineering. Grimthorn grimaced.

"It's not enough," Kinnit moaned. "Even if the power couplings hold, we don't have enough power to stabilize and break out of the gravity well."

"Maybe we don't have to stabilize," Grimthorn said. "Lieutenant Phet, we have one engine operating at..." he read the data on his console and ran some mental calculations. "At 22% capacity. We don't have the power or the time to stop ourselves spinning. Can you time the firing of the engine so that it pushes us away from Ceon 12?"

"Sir?" said Lieutenant Phet, his hands hovering over the helm controls.

"Toggle the engine on and off, Lieutenant. Push us away from the planet when we're pointed away from it. Turn the engine back off when we're pointed at it."

Lieutenant Phet swallowed heavily.

"I-- I'll try, sir."

Grimthorn saluted him sharply.

"I trust you, Lieutenant."

Lieutenant Phet deftly adjusted the settings on the helm console, his eyes fixed on the ship's attitude and orientation indicators. After a moment, he activated the engines.

The ship shuddered as the lone remaining engine fired. After only a second, Lieutenant Phet cut it off again. Sweat dripped from his brow and his hand hovered over the controls as he waited for the spinning ship to enter the correct orientation again.

The Swordheart groaned as the engine briefly activated once more. Admiral Stonefist's grimace stiffened.

"I think we've overstressed the support stanchions," Grimthorn said quietly, pitched only for Kinnit's ears. "The explosion must have weakened them."

"We'll make it, Grimthorn. We have to."

The engine fired again and again as Lieutenant Phet carefully timed the activations. Grimthorn and Kinnit watched the calculations on the screen as the sharp curve of their descent stretched and flattened with each successive firing.

Finally Lieutenant Phet stepped back from the helm console.

"That's it, sir. The engine's not responding any more. We probably blew out the power couplings."

Kinnit smiled as she ran the calculations in her head. Grimthorn's smile was only a moment behind hers.

"Good work, Lieutenant," Grimthorn said. "We've entered a decaying orbit around Ceon 12."

Lieutenant Phet looked sick.

"Decaying orbit? I'm so sorry, sir," he said. "I did my best."

"Nonsense. Our impact time is now measured in days instead of seconds. We can work with this. You've saved the ship, Lieutenant." Admiral Stonefist saluted him.

"Th-thank you, sir."

The tension on the bridge eased. Normally there'd be some cheering, or a little celebration of some kind, but the heavy toll of the battle left the bridge somber. The back of the Navy was still broken. The threat was still out there. The Swordheart was still tumbling along, helplessly spinning over the glittering city of Techterra.

But for this moment at least, they could breathe.

"What now, Grimthorn?" Kinnit asked.

Grimthorn stared blankly at the bridge monitor. He tried to focus his thoughts, to sharpen them to their usual decisive edge, but his mind was disjointed, his thoughts scattered. He stood silent for a long time.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I don't know what's next."