The Admiral and the Assistant

Minius watched the battle unfold again. Brutus was frantically gathering data from all the new scanners the Admiral had mounted all over the Ocher Dawn. Flander was steadily loading and launching torpedoes from its console.

Sparkles flickered on the bridge monitor as the boneship lanced another Imperial vessel. Minius sweated and moved the Ocher Dawn a bit further away from the battle.

"Minius, the scanners are losing fidelity," Brutus said, his eyes on his console. He glanced up at the monitor. "We're too far away."

"Right, right," Minius said. He edged the Dawn back into the battle a little. "I are just new to this battle experience."

"You're doing fine," Brutus said, his focus back on his console.

Flander activated the control that launched another torpedo. The ship rattled as another torpedo sailed toward the boneship.

In the distance, the majority of the Ninth Fleet was unleashing everything they had at the Feeders.

Minius frowned, berating himself. He was either in this thing, or he wasn't. He activated the engines and moved them closer to the fray.

"We can help," he said, more to himself than anybody else. Another Navy ship erupted in flames. Minius clenched his teeth and edged them closer still. "We'll help."

Flander tapped once on the deck.

Captain Cohrmere stood stoically in the captain's dais on board the ISS Helix, his arms crossed, his white eyes fixed on the bridge monitor.

The space between the Ninth Fleet and the boneship was filled with destruction: torpedoes, blaster bolts, ion shells and mass driver projectiles. They splashed uselessly against the mass of the boneship, making a mess but not accomplishing much of note.

The boneship's beam lanced out and struck the ISS Polaris amidships. It heeled and flared. It was only a few seconds before it exploded.

Captain Cohrmere frowned.

"This is wrong," he said. "I can already tell it's wrong. Helm, let's get some elevation. It looks like there's a weak point in the boneship's structure we may be able to hit."

"Acknowledged, sir."

The ISS Helix shifted its elevation relative to the boneship, and began firing down into the crater.

"Hold this position."

The repeated hammering fractured a large chunk of structure out of the crater. Another Navy ship flared and died on the monitor.

"Too costly," he said. "We're not hurting the Feeders enough. We're not hurting them at all."

"There's just... too much ship, sir," his bridge Lieutenant said. "We're chipping away at it, but it could take us years to get to anything important."

Captain Cohrmere nodded.

"We don't have years. But we can always try again." He glanced down at his console. "For a while."

The battle continued to rage. Other ships flared and died around them.

"Sir, the ISS Warspire has fallen."

Captain Cohrmere looked at the data streaming across the screen. He watched the Warspire flare out, then detonate, scattering its mass to the stars.

He flung a hand out.

"It must not be," he said loudly. "We will try it again. We will try it again until we can all go home."

Time and space opened before him. The world of possibilities spread out in his vision. He looked back, back to the place where "must not" became "will not."

As he gazed into the swirl, he felt the tug, the pull of jumpspace. It was a siren call, drawing him. Captain Cohrmere drew in a deep breath, breathing in the chaos like anyone else would draw in the scent of wildflowers.

"Soon," he promised himself. And the fleet rushed backward through time once again.

Herin Kasra jolted as he floated in his egg, listing slightly, his hundreds of arms tight against his body. His eyes, now blank and round, scanned the data with shock.

Again. Somehow they were at the start of the battle again.

He clicked and growled in anger, and his arms swept back and forth with smooth metachronality. He looked at the information projected on the inside of his egg. His data was gone, again.

He didn't know what sort of strange weapon the Imperial Navy had found, but it was deeply annoying him. He was beginning to understand why Senn had such a personal grudge against Admiral Stonefist.

"Stop interfering!" he hissed fruitlessly at the Ninth Fleet.

He tried to tell himself it didn't matter. The Navy could reset as many times as they wanted. The beam made the Feeders invincible. As soon as the scarabs were safely back with their delicious cargo, they could begin firing again. Until then, the Navy could fling whatever they wanted at the Feeders. They would never be able to meaningfully disrupt the boneship's structure.

"Just die and get eaten already," he said with a voice like scraping stone.

He began collecting data again. It didn't matter. But he did it anyway. Just in case.

Kinnit gasped, clutching her console. The reset had happened without warning, ripping them backward.

At least they hadn't died this time.

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She quickly powered through the settings on her console, setting everything up for the battle. She glanced at the main bridge monitor. Scarabs were streaming back to the boneship. They'd have only a minute before it began firing again.

Her eyes widened as she realized something.

"Admiral!" she cried.

"What?" he barked as he tried to stay focused on preparing the fleet. They were in a maniple formation now, and Grimthorn was struggling to give appropriate direction while juggling three sets of conflicting orders from three different timelines in his head.

Kinnit shook her head at his tone. She marked a spot on the diagram of the Feeder boneship and cast it up on the bridge monitor.

"Right there! That's where their weapon is!"

Grimthorn stopped dead and looked at her.

"How do you know?"

"That's where they first fired from during the last reset," she said. "And the reset before that! They're not moving it until after they fire!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Grimthorn slammed open comms to the fleet.

"All ships! Attack the marked zone with everything you've got! Full unload! That's where their weapon is!"

The fleet erupted, discarding the orderly salvos of earlier resets. They unleashed raw fury at the Feeder boneship.

Flames, flares, and explosions splashed against the vessel. Sprays of organic material fountained out, fanning across space. The scarabs continued to flow toward the boneship.

Like waiting for the next hiccup that might never come, Kinnit held herself tensely, waiting to see if the thin, bright beam would leap out again.

The area under attack glowed with an intense, pure white light, then shattered, spraying magnesium sparkles in every direction. A large chunk of the structure of the boneship cracked and groaned as it came loose from the vessel.

"We got it!" Kinnit shrieked. "We got their weapon!"

"Keep hitting them!" Admiral Stonefist roared to the fleet. "Turn that thing inside out!"

The Ninth Fleet closed in, driving at the crater they'd created. Without fear of the deadly beam, they could get closer, hit harder, fire more accurately. The fleet quickly began burrowing through the structure, tearing at it. The boneship was almost occluded by the cloud of debris coming off of it.

Captain Minius sweated and watched his console.

"Brutus, get us further from the fleet," Minius said. "I do not want to be close when that Feeder beam starts up again."

"Sure, will do," Brutus said.

"Flander, keep those torpedoes going," Minius said.

The robot tapped once on the deck.

Minius drew in a shaky breath. He'd gotten a curt warning about the resets from Admiral Stonefist, after the first one had already happened.

It didn't make them any easier to deal with.

Minius' grip was tightened on the arms of his seat as he watched the battle unfold.

With a shattering glow, the boneship's beam weapon was destroyed.

"Oh! Oh, we did get it!" Minius cried. "We got their weapon!"

Flander surged up straight, standing tall on its many legs.

"Flander? What are wrong?"

The robot tapped and scraped on the deck.

"Oh, your special torpedo, that are right." Minius frowned. "You can't use the loader on it?"

More scraping.

"Oh, fine, that are fine," Minius said. "If you have to handle it yourself, then that are how it is. Let me know when it are ready and I will launch it for you."

Flander stood still, looming over Minius for a long, silent minute. It was motionless. Minius' brow wrinkled.

"Flander?"

Suddenly the robot threw dozens of its arms around Minius, trapping him within a cage of steel.

"Flander! What are you doing!"

Flander released him and moved back. It moved smoothly over to Brutus.

"Do that to me, and I'll start tearing your arms out," Brutus said.

Flander stood motionless again. Then it moved smoothly out the door of the bridge and rolled down the hall toward the torpedo room.

"What were that?" Minius breathed.

Brutus' brow quirked with worry. "Maybe he's getting squirrelly because of the stress of combat," he said.

"Maybe." Minius cast a worried frown down the hallway, but his attention was quickly drawn back to his beeping console.

A minute later, his console beeped with a message from Flander. Minius glanced over at Flander's console. The firing button was blinking with the message "Ready."

"Ah, let's see what Flander's special torpedo will do," he said, tapping the button.

With a rattling whisssssh, the Ocher Dawn's final torpedo launched from its single tube. The silver capsule rocketed toward the boneship, leaving a trail of exhaust that quickly dissipated.

Ignoring the rest of the signals on his console, Minius watched the torpedo close in on the boneship. With a crunch that knocked a little structure loose, the torpedo slammed into the enemy vessel.

There was no explosion, no eruption, no obvious destruction. The torpedo simply lodged in the structure of the boneship.

"Ah, looks like Flander's special torpedo were a dud," Minius said. "It did not explode." He leaned back and yelled down the hall. "It are okay, Flander, we did a great harm to the ship with our other torpedoes. It were a good try!"

Flander didn't answer, so Minius turned back to his console to monitor the battle.

"Keep at it!" Admiral Stonefist yelled, as the Ninth Fleet hammered the boneship. "Don't let them breathe! Drill straight through!"

After too short a time of destruction, the last scarab ship wriggled its way back home.

The boneship vanished, thundering off to another sector at well beyond the speed of light.

Minius' attention was drawn back to the screen as the boneship vanished, rocketing off to another part of the galaxy.

"Ah, it are gone," Minius said with relief. "That are quite the poke in the eye we've given them, though. Broke their weapon and sent them running."

Brutus let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"We survived," he said. "I'm just glad we survived." His great eye rolled over to gaze at Minius. "I'm not suited for this, Minius."

"Neither I," he replied. "Once this threat are gone, I are going back to scrapping. And only scrapping."

They checked on the ship after the battle, making sure all systems were still operational.

"Flander, how are the torpedo tube?" Minius called. "Are it okay?"

Only silence came back.

"Flander?"

When no response was forthcoming, Minius stood.

"Keep scanning. I'm going to go check on Flander. He might be in a snit because of his torpedo."

Brutus nodded distractedly. Minius walked down the hall.

The torpedo room was empty, save for some scattered tools and a few leftovers from Flander's experimental torpedo. Minius approached the torpedo tube.

"Flander? Where are you?"

The room stayed silent.

Something on the floor caught Minius eye. He recognized the tell-tale warping caused by Flander's small cutting torch. On the deck had been burned two words, melted into the plating with perfect precision.

"Magnum Propositum."

Herin Kasra shrieked in frustration and slammed himself around the inside of his egg. His hundred arms flailed and thrashed.

Their weapon! Their defenses! Their food!

How dare the Ninth Fleet stand against the Feeders! How dare they resist their betters! They were just food!

He growled and clicked, hissed and swore.

Admiral Stonefist was just food. He needed to start acting like it.

A tiny harvest, and a destroyed weapon. A disaster for the Feeders. Furious hissing and clicking from the other feeders filled his mind. Herin hissed back.

This was not his fault.

The structure of the boneship could heal itself, but the weapon could not. It had been built uncountable millennia ago, and the Feeders had long forgotten the technology for it. It could take years for them to figure out how to piece it back together.

Herin tried to force himself to calmness. He told himself that it didn't matter. He pulled up the research he'd been doing, along with his scans of the Wraithfleet.

With the Imperium's knowledge of jumphole theory and the Feeder's technology, he was well on his way to creating a better weapon anyway.

One that would defeat whatever it was the Imperial Navy was doing.