Editing LotS/The Story/Scaean Gates/Black Skies over Sian

'''Black Skies over Sian'''
----
'''Intro'''
<br><br>
"Welcome aboard the Illaria, Lady Rhapsody."
<br><br>
The young woman's hands make a frantic tug at the hem of her uniform, as though realizing that it might not be quite neat enough for such august company. She tries to salute, bow, and courtesy at the same time -- a flustered confusion of protocol that almost makes her fall over.
<br><br>
Her face reddens. She looks away as she gestures to the chair she's just vacated. The bridge's other inhabitants are careful to face forward, suppressing whatever amusement they might feel out of good nature or a natural wariness at being seen smirking at a superior's misfortune.
<br><br>
"No, thank you, captain," you reply.
<br><br>
Surprise overcomes her awkwardness, prompting her to restore eye contact.
<br><br>
"Milady? I don't understand."
<br><br>
"I'll be overseeing the battle from the war room. The bridge is yours."
<br><br>
She gasps. Her mouth drops open. The expression makes her look like a startled schoolgirl. This invokes your sympathy, but it pleases you as well. That's why you chose her. Master Wu and the others expected you to pick a seasoned veteran. Instead you selected a young but talented commander to serve as your second in command aboard the Illaria. Their surprise was palpable, though no one thought to question you. If they had, you would have told them lies or half-truths.
<br><br>
You wanted someone who wouldn't have the confidence to challenge you...
<br><br>
"Directing the fleet will take all my attention. I'm sure I can trust you to keep us from being destroyed while I do that."
<br><br>
"Yes, milady! Of course, milady!"
<br><br>
This time she settles for a bow of her head. You return the gesture, then make for the door at the back of the bridge.
<br><br>
It slides shut behind you. A tap of the panel ensures it won't open except at your behest.
<br><br>
You sit in the soft, supremely comfortable chair in the middle of the chamber. There's an old pilot's joke that the comfort of one's buttocks is directly proportional to one's rank. It now seems plausible.
<br><br>
That chair is the room's only seat. There's just one other piece of furniture: the big, curved table that forms a crescent around it. Numerous terminals and fixed screens clutter its surface, all carefully designed and arranged by people who use words such as 'ergonomics' in their professional life, before being repositioned according to your instructions.
<br><br>
You press a button on one of the panels. Beams of light launch into the air like fireworks, broadening and sharpening into holographic screens. Once they're deployed, dozens of images float before you -- filling the front portion of the chamber.
<br><br>
From here you can manage things with far more efficiency than on the bridge. All the data is at your fingertips. There are no distractions. You weren't lying to the young captain. It's just that you didn't tell her the whole truth...
<br><br>
A gesture causes one group of holographic screens to emerge from the collection and enlarge themselves -- shunting their brethren aside. Some contain charts and diagrams, depicting systems. Others show recorded footage of space combat, windows of victory and destruction. The remainder are dominated by text and numbers.
<br><br>
Between them they tell the tale of the initial battles.
<br><br>
There are casualty figures, fallen warriors and bereaved families reduced to cold, clinical mathematics.
<br><br>
So many losses... On hundreds of worlds, weeping widows and widowers, along with orphaned children, will be lamenting the day their loved ones went to war on behalf of the Sian Empire.
<br><br>
But things are going in your favor.
<br><br>
Most of the peripheral fleets fared no better than the 32nd. And those which did, that managed to repel their adversaries or lock them into costly and as yet indecisive battles, are now the target of cruisers and squadrons fresh from other engagements -- fired up by victory and ready to triumph again.
<br><br>
When the Centurians attacked Sian, smashed through the Golden Armada, they had the advantage. Your forces hadn't been prepared to face Besalaad technology. But now... The moment you captured the Zenith, and had the opportunity to understand what their alien masters had provided them with, you were able to devise your countermeasures -- aided by your new friends from human space and beyond.
<br><br>
The Besalaad are an advanced species, a powerful empire. But whilst they may have given the Collective some choice weapons and other such tools, it's certain that they didn't give their allies the best they themselves possessed. Their goal was likely to keep their involvement a secret for far longer, to conceal their hands until the right time. It wouldn't have served them well to arm the Centurians with technologies far beyond those they could ever have devised on their own. Nor would clever imperialists like the Besalaad have been so foolish as to hand their new minions their most valuable treasures.
<br><br>
These were the conclusions you all came to. And the numbers on the screens seem to prove you right.
<br><br>
You dismiss those windows, sending them back into obscurity, putting the dead and their mourners from sight and mind. A commander can't afford to dwell on such things. Not while there's still so much fighting to be done.
<br><br>
"Wu Tenchu, Wilex..."
<br><br>
Your words cause two screens to push their way to prominence. One shows the Chief Assembler in his private chamber aboard the Asimov, the other the mandarin ensconced in a private war room similar to your own.
<br><br>
"Any sign?" you ask.
<br><br>
Wilex shakes his head.
<br><br>
"None at all."
<br><br>
"Our surmise appears to have been correct," Master Wu adds. "The Centurians are no longer useful."
<br><br>
"Perhaps not..." you muse.
<br><br>
But your hand twitches, half-consciously reaching towards one of the terminals. You have your contingency plans...
<br><br>
There's a row of green lights on one of the fixed monitors. Beside each is the name of a ship. The Asimov is there, along with the Illaria and countless others. All have signaled their readiness.
<br><br>
You conjure forth a screen showing the room beyond the sealed door -- the bridge of your flagship.
<br><br>
The young captain looks up, then salutes with such force that her head rocks backwards from the impact.
<br><br>
"Yes, milady?"
<br><br>
"Captain Silea!" Wu Tenchu says. "The proper form of address to an Imperial Jian during a state of combat readiness is 'Lord Commander', regardless of sex!"
<br><br>
"Sorry, milord!" She bites her lower lip.
<br><br>
The mandarin's eyes narrow.
<br><br>
"Captain," you say, "power up the hyperspace engines. Make the jump."
<br><br>
"Yes, mil... Lord Commander!"
<br><br>
You dismiss Wilex and Wu Tenchu before either of them can ask why you're not on the bridge yourself, occupying the captain's chair. This part of the plan is entirely your own.
<br><br>
A press of a button and the Silver Shadow appears on one of the fixed monitors. The craft is nestled among countless other spaceships in one of your hangars, nearly lost amongst the vast assortment. Another button switches the view to the inside of its flight cabin.
<br><br>
Talia's sat in the pilot's seat, Lu Bu in the co-pilot's chair. Behind them you see Telemachus at the gunner station and Ragnar hefting his axe as though testing its weight in anticipation.
<br><br>
"We're about to jump," you say.
<br><br>
"Yeah, we heard the alert, captain."
<br><br>
Captain... Even if you became supreme ruler of mankind, you'd still be 'the captain' to her.
<br><br>
"I'll see you on Sian," you say.
<br><br>
She nods.
<br><br>
You touch the terminal and the image disappears, swallowed by blackness.
<br><br>
----
'''Astral Warfare'''
<br><br>
The Centurians don't want to lose this system. If you ever doubted their determination, the images on the holographic screens would shatter those delusions.
<br><br>
Swaths of red daub the scanner display, so many blips that they seem to coalesce into one great three-dimensional mass. Hundreds and hundreds of ships fill the other screens, a massive armada which must comprise a huge chunk of the Centurians' remaining forces.
<br><br>
And more are arriving each moment. Fresh vessels drop from hyperspace -- swarms of fighters, squadrons of bigger, more menacing craft.
<br><br>
According to the other displays, allied fleets fighting in many of the peripheral systems report that the Collective are disengaging -- fleeing into the void, risking their lives by making jumps in the middle of combat.
<br><br>
"Inform those fleet commanders," you say. "Tell them to reinforce us."
<br><br>
A chorus of affirmations ring out.
<br><br>
But there's no time to wait for those reinforcements. The Centurians' weapons are opening up, their shoals of fighters approaching.
<br><br>
You give the signal to meet the attack.
<br><br>
On one of the screens, linked to a camera mounted on the outside of the Illaria's hull, the Silver Shadow plunges through the energy barrier that protects a hangar. It soars off, its elegant argentine body escaping the camera's sphere of vision.
<br><br>
You make a series of gestures. The external view of the hangar entrance vanishes. Instead the Silver Shadow returns, tracked by one of the other cameras as it swoops through the void. A blue dot appears on the main scanners as well, pinpointing its position amidst the bulges of green and red.
<br><br>
You have an entire battle to oversee. You shouldn't be concentrating on one ship, allowing yourself to be distracted. And yet you can't bring yourself to relinquish it.
<br><br>
An oblong window enlarges until it dominates the area devoted to the holographic screens, the others slotting into the space around it. This one shows a sweeping vista, allowing you to view almost the totality of the battle. It's the feed from one of the drones, positioned well back from the fleet. There's the Illaria, surrounded by a golden glow so that you can pick your position out. The Silver shadow is a blue spec, its location likewise highlighted in accordance with your instructions.
<br><br>
Just like when you were in the cockpit, you begin to track and analyze, plan and anticipate.
<br><br>
Flashing lasers, blooming explosions...
<br><br>
Zoomed-in views appear on the surrounding screens, each one drawing you into the destruction -- allowing you to see allies and enemies maneuver and fire, triumph or perish.
<br><br>
Fighters chase one another, weaving their beautiful dances of death like birds of prey. Dozens of tiny explosions flare between the networks of lancing beams and zapping blasts as pilots are found wanting or else simply find fate set against them.
<br><br>
Bigger ships surge through the deadly illuminations, bombarding the universe around them with powerful weapons. But not even the mightiest craft are immune to the cruel mistress that is stellar combat. A Sian vessel, its hull painted with a series of gorgeous patterns that coalesce to form the imperial symbol, presses itself into the fray -- lasers zapping in all directions. Then a gigantic orange blast, an infernal spear of energy, catches it square on the prow. There's one immense flash, the color of a sunrise. After that there's only wreckage.
<br><br>
A dozen times you have to resist the urge to open a connection to one of your ships, to yell instructions. You can't distract the pilots and commanders, can't disrupt the battle plans with arrogant micromanagement of individual spacecraft.
<br><br>
Your job is to concentrate on the battle as a whole, to direct forces as needed and hold your tongue when not.
<br><br>
Again the blue dot draws your eye. An instinctive gesture makes the Silver Shadow appear on a peripheral screen. The ship is spinning through a torrent of laser fire, accompanied by a squadron of other fighters that fan out from it in a series of loose, V-shaped formations which leave the argentine craft at their collective tip. Two of those fighters burst into flame, sliced by crimson blasts.
<br><br>
Missiles fly from the Shadow, unhidden by their cloaking devices. Too much risk of allies flying into them otherwise... Most forage for their targets with the unmistakable movements of automation. But one of them spins a deft path through the fray until it picks off one of the troublesome Centurian fighters with a potent detonation. Telemachus' handiwork, no doubt.
<br><br>
You begin to withdraw your gaze, directing it elsewhere through force of will, when something forestalls you. There's a flash near that little pocket of battle, on the edge of the screen. A quick hand motion adjusts the view, centering on it. More ships, emerging from hyperspace.
<br><br>
Wait...
<br><br>
The image zooms in further, magnifying the newcomers, rendering the suspicious familiarity indisputable. A huge squadron of fighters... Each of them fashioned in the image of the blackened Child of Heaven.
<br><br>
These weren't in any of the intelligence reports. None of your fleets reported encountering them. They must have come from deep in Centurian space, held in reserve -- ready to be unleashed in the hope of turning this battle.
<br><br>
All that passes through your mind in an instant. Then the carnage starts.
<br><br>
The miniature doppelgangers swim across the void like a school of piranhas, firing small simulacrums of the fallen cruiser's own weapons. They swarm across a nearby TALOS ship, their weapons slashing and slicing -- biting until it's devoured, torn to bits by external abuse and internal explosions.
<br><br>
Then they're on the Silver Shadow's squadron.
<br><br>
Talia spins the ship, evading the first barrage. She returns fire. The argentine craft's weapons rip through the middle of one of the fighters -- almost splitting it in two before the explosion ruins the elegance of its demise.
<br><br>
But her allies aren't as capable as the gunslinger. The black swarm descends upon them, their intersecting fire picking three to pieces before their pilots can even begin to evade.
<br><br>
"Go invisible..." you murmur. "Disappear..."
<br><br>
But you know she won't. Not while she has what's left of her squadron flying alongside her.
<br><br>
Another Sian fighter dies in flame.
<br><br>
The black ships, bastards of heaven, converge on the Silver Shadow and the others, placing your friends in the middle of a labyrinthine conjunction of laser death -- forcing them to weave between the lethal beams that threaten to puncture their hull and cast them to the void.
<br><br>
You try to plot their movements, anticipate the unfolding of the engagement. Talia is almost impossible to predict. So unorthodox, creative and sudden to the point of insanity when she flies. But you can sense the possibilities all the same. A dozen futures, and all of them end in death.
<br><br>
----
'''Void Killer Vengeance'''
<br><br>
You open channels, bark orders. All the while your gaze follows the whirling, darting argentine ship as it slips between the lasers with impossible, nerve-racking grace -- expecting a blast to strike it at any second.
<br><br>
On a scanner display the blue blip and a few green stragglers are surrounded by red dots, like doomed stones on a weiqi board.
<br><br>
But more green blips are approaching from the periphery. An impatient sweep of your hand widens one of the screens, throwing its edge out until it captures the relief force -- squads of fighters held in reserve and now deployed by your command. It was the quickest way... The others would have taken too long...
<br><br>
The Centurian ships, children of black heavens, fan out -- loosening their grasp on the Silver Shadow and the others as they prepare for the onslaught. Their crimson lasers flash towards new targets.
<br><br>
A Snuuth craft is transfixed by two cutting beams. It explodes in an opening flower of flame, leaving its brethren to continue on their way with a gap in their formation. A Sian Dragon Fighter does the same -- succumbing to a well-placed blast that catches it on the underside of its cockpit and annihilates the front quarter of the ship.
<br><br>
You try to tell yourself that you aren't buying your friends' lives with theirs, that the Centurian reinforcements had to be eliminated. Perhaps part of you even believes it.
<br><br>
The Silver Shadow is free now, no longer trapped in its desperate patterns of evasion. It becomes a weapon in Talia's hands once more, predator instead of prey. Argentine death. It swoops down on one of the black ships, its blasters crashing down upon its hull like the lightning bolts of ancient gods. The vessel is still burning, the fire not yet swallowed by the vacuum, when the next one joins it.
<br><br>
They're safe.
<br><br>
Lines of movement, routes of attack... Yes, you can see them all. With your squads there, the future has been rewritten. It's the Centurian fighters' deaths which are inscribed there now. They won't come without a price. They're costing you the better part of three reserve squads, precious ships and still more precious blood. But they'll come.
<br><br>
Your unfitness for this role coils in your guts.
<br><br>
It's one thing to make battle plans, to send men and women to their deaths, when you know you'll be flying among them -- facing the same dangers, running the same risks, making the same sacrifices. But this... Safe on your flagship... This is different. Once this is all over...
<br><br>
You tear those thoughts from you, rip them from your brain. Now isn't the time to contemplate such things. Not while there's a battle raging.
<br><br>
The panoramic view of the conflict returns to center stage. That's what you should be focusing on. Your duty... To the empire. To her.
<br><br>
Streams of text, details of damage and destruction, cascade beside it -- a waterfall of data which will chronicle your ultimate victory or defeat. Sian ships have borne the brunt of things. You see countless entries, scarlet lines of information, about squadrons ravaged by losses or entirely wiped out -- pilots who were the last of their units now joining their brethren in the sands of time and the pages of history books.
<br><br>
Your fellow subjects are putting themselves into the heart of the battle and facing the greatest dangers. They can do no less. Not with that blue-green orb revolving beyond the Centurian armada. How could they let their allies perish to liberate Sian, without inscribing their gratitude on the void with their own shed blood?
<br><br>
The Centurians are paying dear for every life. Their own losses are almost inconceivable -- perhaps the most they've ever suffered in a single battle, or even an entire campaign.
<br><br>
Innumerable dead, and things are still in the lap of the gods.
<br><br>
"Attention, wretched human stink-beast..."
<br><br>
Your attention falls on one of the small holographic screens. It expands, pushing aside the other minimized windows on that side of the main battle view, to reveal the face of a blue-skinned Rylattu female.
<br><br>
"Our superior technology shows evidence of imminent hyperspace arrivals!"
<br><br>
Another screen unfolds beside hers, further displacing the others. It contains a mass of strange, distorted colors -- a medley of blues and purples. It takes you a moment to realize that you're seeing an empty portion of space at the periphery of the battle, through the filter of some kind of bizarre, psychedelic lens.
<br><br>
A marker appears on the huge panorama of the battle, denoting the location of this incandescent blur.
<br><br>
"I don't-" you begin.
<br><br>
"Energy signatures!"
<br><br>
The colors are shifting, contracting, gathering as though to form... The outlines of starships.
<br><br>
Familiar shapes come into being, long hulls adorned with crackling expanses of contained energy.
<br><br>
Void Killers. But these are different from those you've fought before, and the ones elsewhere in this astral battlefield... They're larger. And something tells you that this isn't the extent of their enhancements.
<br><br>
You can just make out the markings on their sides. They're from the 3rd Fleet. One of the guard dog fleets. They never leave Alpha Centauri... The Centurian Collective are whittling down their home system's defenses for the sake of bolstering the armada guarding Sian. They're getting desperate...
<br><br>
The thought thrills you. But only for a moment. Then the Void Killers open their hatches.
<br><br>
Glittering streams gush from them, billowing out into great clouds of silver mist. Hundreds upon hundreds of drones, unleashed to destroy.
<br><br>
----
'''A Bigger Fish'''
<br><br>
It's like a gas, a toxic fog that brings death wherever it drifts. Ships fall into its bulging, amorphous clouds, then disappear in muffled flashes of crimson and yellow.
<br><br>
"Anti-drone countermeasures!" you say. "Now!"
<br><br>
But you see what's happened.
<br><br>
The Collective picked their moment well. The ships designed to neutralize drones are tied up on the other side of the battle, where they've been assisting against conventional Void Killer squadrons. So, that's why your enemies clustered them over there... Now your craft are bogged down in heavy fighting, pinned by the Centurian ships that swirl around them like spiders spinning an ensnaring web. They're struggling to survive. By the time their comrades could extricate them, and escort them to the advanced Void Killers that are causing such havoc elsewhere...
<br><br>
But one ship is flying towards the murderous clouds, a vessel with a sleek, sloping hull. The Odyssey -- the craft you gave to the professor...
<br><br>
"Mycroft?"
<br><br>
The man from Diogenes appears in profile on a screen. He's fiddling with an incomprehensible terminal of some sort.
<br><br>
"One moment! One moment!" He doesn't trouble to so much as glance towards you.
<br><br>
"Tell your pilot to turn around! He's taking you into-"
<br><br>
"I'm sorry, but I really must focus on my calculations."
<br><br>
One of his mechanical servitor arms darts towards the camera. The screen goes blank.
<br><br>
"Mycroft!"
<br><br>
The screen flashes back to life. But this time it shows a young man who wears a blue jumpsuit on his broad-shouldered frame and a look of resignation on his dark, handsome features.
<br><br>
"Thaddeus Trest," he says. "The professor's pilot."
<br><br>
"You're flying towards those Void Killers!"
<br><br>
"Yes, Lord Commander. The professor's orders. He believes we can be of assistance with that particular problem."
<br><br>
"I can disrupt the drones!" Mycroft's voice comes from some hidden recess of the Odyssey's bridge, beyond your sight. "But only for a short time. You'll have a small window in which to destroy the Void Killers. Now stop distracting me!"
<br><br>
The screen goes blank once more.
<br><br>
On another floating panel you see the Odyssey continuing on its path, making for the dangerous ships and their deadly clouds.
<br><br>
Your eyes flash across the main screen, picking out the positions of each unit. There must be... Yes! That should work...
<br><br>
You open another channel.
<br><br>
"Commander Chun, I want those Void Killers destroyed. Move your squadron into position."
<br><br>
"As you wish, Lord Commander," comes a woman's voice. "But against those drones..."
<br><br>
"Don't worry about the drones."
<br><br>
You hope that did a better job of convincing her than it did of convincing yourself.
<br><br>
The elegant, curved body of the Odyssey is near the edge of the silver cloud now. The fog seethes towards it, yearning for a fresh morsel.
<br><br>
Dozens of tiny crimson lasers flash, ripple against its shields like a torrential downpour bombarding a puddle.
<br><br>
And the Odyssey explodes.
<br><br>
No... It didn't explode.
<br><br>
There's an eruption of orange, but it isn't flame -- not a herald of the famed ship and celebrated professor's demise. It's like electricity... Crackling, dancing tendrils that caper around the hull before flaring in all directions.
<br><br>
The nearest of the drones flash in turn, their minute silver bodies crackling as though in vain emulation. Others follow suit, the orange tendrils skipping and jumping throughout the entire vast host until the cloud itself seems to change color -- as though infused by the brilliance of a sun it sought to conceal with its voluminous expanse.
<br><br>
"Now, Chun!"
<br><br>
But the commander's squad is already diving.
<br><br>
Sword ships, spacecraft fashioned in the shape of gigantic blades. And it's not just for show...
<br><br>
The wave of celestial weapons plunges through the crackling clouds. Haywire drones offer no impediment. They break by the dozen, splattered against protective energy fields like bugs against a windshield. Then come the great collisions.
<br><br>
Sword-tip prows pierce the Void Killers, penetrating their hulls, tearing through their innards. The rest of the blade-shaped crafts follow, widening the gaps, smashing through in their wake -- creating grievous, fatal wounds.
<br><br>
One of the Sian vessels explodes in the midst of its transfixed enemy, its glorious thrust ending in heroic sacrifice. Perhaps its shields failed, or else it encountered something particularly destructive in that portion of the Void Killer.
<br><br>
But the others emerge from the opposite sides, unscathed and victorious. Behind them the Centurian ships float as mangled, blazing wreckage. A worthy monument for the fallen Sian warriors.
<br><br>
The crackling orange energy has dissipated, released the drones from its grasp. But they're lifeless now, drifting on invisible currents.
<br><br>
Cheers emerge from perhaps a dozen of the screens, protocol abandoned in the thrill of victory. But a raised alien voice grinds through them all.
<br><br>
"Stink-beasts! There are more energy signatures! More ships are emerging from hyperspace!"
<br><br>
Silence descends. Your gaze flicks to the Rylattu's feed. This time it shows a broader sweep of space, a greater swath of blue and purple. The breath catches in your throat.
<br><br>
Have they come after all? Your hand twitches once more.
<br><br>
But the shapes resolve themselves into recognizable vessels. Familiar enemies. More Centurians. A fresh wave of fighters and cruisers. More forces torn from Alpha Centauri. A grim smile crosses your face. It would have been far more advantageous for them to dispatch these ships earlier, to support their Void Killers rather than throwing their fleet in piecemeal. They must be getting desperate. There may even be a rift in the Centurian High Council -- furious arguments about whether good ships should be thrown after bad.
<br><br>
The thought delights you. But it can wait. For the moment...
<br><br>
"Captain..." you say.
<br><br>
"Yes, Lord Commander?"
<br><br>
There's no trepidation in Silea's voice now. No clumsy salute on the holo-screen. With combat raging she's in her element, filled with a warrior's confidence. Just like you at her age. When the shooting started, the universe became yours.
<br><br>
"Take us in. Engage the nearest cruiser. All weapons."
<br><br>
There's a faintest pause. Then she smiles. She wants this just as much as you do.
<br><br>
"Of course, Lord Commander."
<br><br>
To hell with holding back, observing, and directing. It's time to destroy...
<br><br>
----
'''Galactic Reaver'''
<br><br>
The Illaria is a beautiful, graceful spacecraft. Her elegant curves and sleek design resemble those of a fighter or a voyager rather than a warship. The gold and sapphire adornments on her hull give her the countenance of a precious treasure, a gleaming jewel.
<br><br>
But like the woman after whom the vessel was named, in whose honor she now flies, there's boundless strength within.
<br><br>
Artfully concealed weapons unleash their fury, cry out in vengeance. Their blasts thunder against the Centurian craft, battering its shields, making its hull shudder beneath their might.
<br><br>
Nearby allies lend their weapons, and for one foolish moment you think of ordering them to hold fire -- lest they deny you your kill. But such vaingloriousness was never her way. And your comrades have earned the right to drink their fill of blood.
<br><br>
A group of Doomsday Devices fly into position. Each is a titanic cannon, almost its entire body devoted to the weapon. They're more like pieces of artillery than vessels, designed not for exploration or travel or any other purpose save one: to obliterate. Their massive mouths open. Doom spews forth.
<br><br>
The cruiser's shields flash, one final moan as though demanding to know how they could be expected to endure such punishment. Then the explosions start, as the Doomsday Devices' weapons and your own set greedy maws on the unveiled metal.
<br><br>
Other ships converge, like wolves encircling a wounded deer, vultures descending upon a corpse. They smell blood, want their portion of the grim feast.
<br><br>
Explosions roar across the cruiser's hull, a symphony of synthesized sound. When they're gone, it's just a drifting, broken hulk.
<br><br>
Now you have the taste for blood as well.
<br><br>
You scan the screens, like an ancient warlord in search of fresh worlds to conquer. And this time you want a more substantial enemy.
<br><br>
There, across the pandemonium... Outlined against the planet. A massive craft, perhaps the biggest in the Collective's armada. Their flagship in this battle, it seems. It's held back from the fray just as you did -- observing and directing instead of bringing its mighty weapons to bear.
<br><br>
You'll put a stop to that.
<br><br>
"Captain Silea, you see that Galactic Reaver?"
<br><br>
"Engage it?"
<br><br>
"Yes."
<br><br>
-------------------------------------
<br><br>
You feel the tremor, undulating beneath the soles of your boots. Then another, that rocks your chair and makes the world shudder around you.
<br><br>
"We're hit, Lord Commander." There's no panic in Silea's voice, no anxiousness in the face on the screen. She might as well be informing you that dinner is being served in the canteen.
<br><br>
"I noticed."
<br><br>
Half a dozen screens of equal size, arranged in a grid, show you the situation from as many different angles. The Illaria and the Galactic Reaver, locked in combat -- a grey mass that somehow reminds you of a giant metal anteater blasting away at the smaller warship that circles around it and returns fire.
<br><br>
Other craft are gathering, weighing in on one side or the other. Now that the two command ships are clashing, their black king and your white queen, everyone wants to pitch into the fray. The broader battle still rages around you. This is but one portion of astral aggression among dozens and dozens of others. And yet you know that this exchange, this galactic duel, celestial skirmish, will end it all.
<br><br>
An image flashes across your mind. A white gleaming gown. Redness.
<br><br>
Some blows can change everything. The loss of a leader, a champion... Spirits can break just as easily as metal.
<br><br>
The Illaria fires another burst, weapons strafing the grey hull as Silea tries to put you out of the line of return fire. But the yellow beam lances towards you, crashes against your shields. Another tremor.
<br><br>
Your captain is skilled, capable. But she's far from masterful when it comes to the intricacies of warship to warship combat. In truth, neither are you. You're a pilot...
<br><br>
You reach out and press a button.
<br><br>
The terminals in front of you shift, screens and control panels moving aside with the soundless efficiency of precision engineering. Something unfolds with the same noiselessness. You recline in your chair, its back adjusting to your movement, and take hold of the emerging contraption.
<br><br>
Holographic windows give way just like the terminals, the multi-angled displays of the Illaria and Galactic Reaver slipping aside to yield their space to an immense rectangle. This time it doesn't show the panorama, the martial vista, from a distant point. You're looking at the Centurian flagship as though through the Illaria's own eyes.
<br><br>
During your days at the academy you studied millennia of military history. As a gifted pilot, many of the classes you attended focused on naval battles -- the archaic precursors to space combat, in the days when water rather than the void represented the alien element for which mankind had to adapt the ways of war.
<br><br>
Among the innumerable facts which battered your brain in an effort to secure purchase there, you learned about a tactic employed by certain ancient and medieval forces whose martial knowledge and experience focused on land combat. Rather than attempting to engage in clumsy naval tactics for which they were ill-equipped, they instead drew their ships alongside those of their enemies and fastened the vessels together. Thus they created a floating battlefield, on which they could use their swords and spears to slay their foes. A stratagem almost childish in its simplicity. But effective nonetheless. Useful enough to have survived to the modern day, echoed by Niflung boarding tactics and the like.
<br><br>
It was a valuable lesson. If you aren't adept at one form of combat, perhaps you should turn the situation into one which better favors you.
<br><br>
You press another control.
<br><br>
"We've lost primary weapons and thrusters!" Now there's panic in Silea's voice. Of course there is. It's every captain's worst nightmare -- to be in the middle of a life or death struggle and find that your ship has inexplicably betrayed you.
<br><br>
"Don't worry, captain."
<br><br>
"But-"
<br><br>
"I've taken them."
<br><br>
You test the controls in your hands. They respond as if they were born to feel your touch. As indeed they were. Another contingency plan, set in motion when the Illaria was being brought to life in the shipyard.
<br><br>
The Galactic Reaver's main blaster cannons fire. Twin yellow beams flash straight at you, as though they'll break through the surface of the holographic screen and annihilate you in your chair.
<br><br>
You throw the craft into a spin, evading the clumsy fire. Then you plunge into an attack pattern -- your weapons raking against the shimmering barriers that appear over the Reaver's grey hull.
<br><br>
"Captain, are you flying that thing?" Talia's voice sounds in your ear.
<br><br>
"Why not?"
<br><br>
The gunslinger laughs.
<br><br>
You twirl the ship through the void, making her a dancer performing on the black heavens' interstellar stage. The ship's artificial gravity serves its purpose admirably -- keeping you and your crew anchored to the floor instead of throwing you against the walls or ceiling.
<br><br>
There are bleeps from several of the screens. Probably people wanting to know why you've taken leave of your senses. You silence them all with a gesture.
<br><br>
Granted, most commanders placed in charge of a flagship would be deemed insane if they tried anything like this. But most flagship commanders aren't ace pilots...
<br><br>
Sapphire-colored lasers whisper across the Reaver's shields, probing and weakening. The immense anteater swivels, as though trying to keep its great metal snout pointed at the Illaria. Its commander wants your ship in reach of its most powerful weapons. Good luck with that...
<br><br>
Another dive, then a sharp ascent. The Illaria's graceful shape and powerful, tactically placed thrusters give her unsurpassed agility for a vessel her size. And you know how to turn it to good use in the shifting, whirling theater of space combat. More weapons fire, pummeling the Reaver's underbelly.
<br><br>
Still the grey flagship tries to chase you, a dog trying to catch its own tail. Like you, the Galactic Reaver should be overseeing the battle -- commanding its forces. Instead it's trying to fight the ship which runs rings around it. A glance at the secondary displays reveals that this distraction isn't to their benefit.
<br><br>
Whereas your fleet may well have been left in superior hands. For by prior arrangement Master Wu was to take command if you were killed or otherwise incapacitated, and you signaled him to do so the moment you began your unorthodox dogfight.
<br><br>
So it is that your comrades, inspired by the way you're making a fool of the Centurian flagship, aided by Wu Tenchu's cunning mind, are striking hard against the Collective's fleet. More and more are converging on the duel between the Illaria and Reaver as well, lending their support and their weapons.
<br><br>
And you still haven't played your trump card.
<br><br>
"Captain Silea, open a communication channel with them."
<br><br>
"With the Reaver?"
<br><br>
"Yes. I doubt their commander will refuse it."
<br><br>
A moment later the pale, scarred face of a middle-aged man appears above your primary viewing screen. He's standing at his command station, clenching its sides with fingers even paler than his face.
<br><br>
You knew he'd accept. He wants to see the woman he's dueling. Good...
<br><br>
"If you wish to make your surrender..." he says.
<br><br>
"I don't. I just wanted to deliver a message. Behind you."
<br><br>
The man whirls round, his hand groping for a sidearm. He freezes in place, his body tensing, the back of his neck reddening as he realizes that he's been made a fool of.
<br><br>
"That's not what I meant..."
<br><br>
You break the connection.
<br><br>
There's a flash on one of the tertiary monitors. It shows the area of space beyond the Galactic Reaver. The brightness dissipates in a split-second, as the Asimov and the rest of Wilex's fleet complete their hyperspace jump -- arriving fresh from their victory above Zhen Bao.
<br><br>
"Unload everything," you say.
<br><br>
The Chief Assembler does. So do you. So do all the other ships swarming around the grey anteater.
<br><br>
It's overkill. It's glorious.
<br><br>