Bathed in the harsh glow of his tactical display, Captain Han'Gerrel clamped his fingers around the armrests of his command throne, his eyes riveted to his tactical display. Around him, the cold, echoing silence bore down on him with crushing force and echoed the palpable tension of the coming battle.
"Prime the missile pods," he commanded, his voice slicing through the oppressive quiet. "Set our lance batteries and super-heavy railgun to maximum charge. Target their vanguard, but hold fire until my command."
Murmured acknowledgments echoed across the bridge and blended with the eerie hum of his ship's energy systems. Keelah, the eerie calm before every battle always sent a terrible chill through his insides.
"Incoming translations!" his chief sensor officer's warning shattered the silence.
His pulse spiked, and his heart pounded in his chest, like a drum heralding the dawn of battle. His gaze remained locked to his tactical display, and every fiber of his being strained against the impending chaos, against the coming storm of death and destruction.
Without warning, fresh markers bloomed on his tactical display. However, their trajectories were erratic. Their speeds were fluctuating wildly. And their energy signatures were pale echoes of proper warships, more akin to space debris. Unsettled murmurs washed over the bridge, and a junior officer turned towards him, his eyes filled with uncertainty. "Captain, should we engage?"
"No…" he said. He exhaled, then gulped. Ancestors help us, the minefield was all for nothing. "They're decoys."
In an act of suicidal defiance, enemy vessels overloaded their reactors and erupted in mini-supernovas, denoting every stealthily deployed mine in a cataclysmic chain reaction. Space twisted and screamed, and the very fabric of space-time tore apart as local singularities erupted in their wake, and gargantuan explosions lit up the void with the deadly light of a thousand dying suns.
"Divert power to shields," he ordered, his voice steady. His crew complied without hesitation and with practiced precision.
A hurricane of hyper-accelerated space shrapnel rained against his ship's shields. Flickering and flaring under the assault, they rippled and iridescent sparks cascaded over its surface.
"Shields holding at eighty-five percent capacity and dropping," reported his chief defense officer, his voice wavering, barely audible over the resounding thunder of the impacts.
"More translations incoming!" called out his chief sensor officer.
In an instant, a swarm of markers saturated his tactical display. Emerging from the void like shadows given form, the enemy advanced. But something was off about their formation and gravitic signatures. Yes, the longer he studied them, the more his intuition screamed that they were not consistent with those of a main force…
But a feint to lure out his reserves.
And he would not be fooled.
With one swift motion, he slashed down his hand. "Open fire!"
His squadron unleashed a storm of super-heavy railgun slugs. Monopole and mass effect fields propelled them to near the speed of light, and they hurtled through the void, tracing luminescent arcs of destruction before detonating their two-stage payloads. A collapsing singularity followed by a colossal anti-matter explosion. At the same time, dark-energy lances speared through the void, alongside flurries of disruptor, warp, and nova missiles. And together, they tore the enemy vanguard asunder in a maelstrom of blinding explosions and collapsing singularities, strewing the battlefield with smoldering wreckage and molten slag.
"Captain," his executive officer said, "the enemy will close into weapons range in less than five minutes. Should we deploy the reserves?"
"No," Han said, his gaze on the tactical display. "It is a feint. They want to draw out our reserves. We wait until their capital ships reveal themselves."
As his words hung in the air, the enemy vanguard buckled under his squadron's onslaught, their shields sparking and failing, their hulls shattering or disintegrating in brilliant displays of carnage and mayhem.
"Mass translations!" his chief sensor officer's voice echoed in his ears.
Suddenly, a flood of markers overwhelmed his tactical display.
Finally, the main force had arrived. On the forward viewscreen, countless enemy warships crashed into view, and each one was a nightmarish silhouette against the distant, unfeeling stars. Indeed, the Silent One armada was a nightmare come to life, like a monstrous, living entity pulsing with a blood-red glow. Amongst it, each ship was a specter of death, their silent menace as chilling as the void from which they emerged.
His heartbeat echoed in his ears as he beheld the unfolding spectacle, waiting for the best moment to commit his reserves.
"Fire everything we have at them!"
His command was met with immediate action. His squadron retaliated with an onslaught of railgun volleys, dark-energy beams, and a flurry of missiles. Under it, some enemy ships buckled and shattered, their hulls torn asunder in blinding displays of destruction. But the enemy's larger vessels – the dreadnoughts, the battlecruisers, and the capital ship – withstood the barrage with alarming resilience, their shields flickering but unyielding.
And still, they advanced, undeterred.
"Captain, the enemy capital ship is deploying fighters," his chief sensor officer reported.
"Arm the flak canons and point defense arrays," he ordered. "Maintain fire!"
From the fortified underbelly of every dreadnought in his squadron, unmanned starfighters launched into the void, weaving their formations to intercept the incoming enemy fighters.
Finally, the enemy closed into weapons range, and opened fire with a hailstorm of energy lances and a barrage of missiles.
"Captain, the enemy is firing!" his chief sensor officer called out. "Two minutes to impact!"
"Full power to shields!" he ordered.
His crew scrambled to execute his order, but the enemy's counter-attack was relentless. Slowly, enemy fighters were overwhelming his own amidst the chaos, and several of his ships succumbed to the enemy barrage, their shields flaring until they burst and enemy fire rent them asunder.
"Captian, we've just lost the Orask, the Sirocco, and the Thaen'Shaa," his executive officer said, his voice grim. "Our losses are unsustainable, and we can not hold them off here any longer. We have to deploy the reserves."
His heart clenched at the names of the fallen ships. Ancestors, they were so much more than just hunks of metal. They were crewed by his people, by his friends and family. He drew in a sharp breath, and again his fingers clenched around the armrests of his command throne in a white-knuckled grip. May you find eternal peace with the ancestors.
He exhaled, then looked at his tactical display once more. Finally, the enemy's main force was engaging his squadron – with its flanks and rear exposed. Now was the moment he had waited for.
"Agreed," he said.
On his tactical display, he opened a secure comm channel to Shala and Valo. "Shala, Valo. Now!"
At his command, Shala and Valo's squadrons responded instantly. Their markers changed color to an aggressive red on his tactical display, and they maneuvered their ships into optimal assault vectors, preparing to strike at the enemy's vulnerable rear and flanks. And soon, with an almost vengeful wrath, they unleashed everything they had, flooding the void with cataclysmic eruptions of light. Taken aback, the enemy faltered under the storm and many of their vessels disintegrated in blossoms of fusion fire.
But the Silent Ones were far from finished.
The enemy's colossal capital ship responded in kind and spewed forth a swarm of fighters into the fray. Together, they surged into the chaotic battle and wreaked havoc amongst Valo and Shala's squadrons, raking the hulls of their ships with pulsing energy beams and arcane torpedoes, carving great scars or gouges across them.
Meanwhile, the Silent One armada reformed its ranks and counter-attacked.
And the battle spiraled into chaos.
Missiles and energy beams crisscrossed the void in a deadly tapestry. Singularities and gravity waves, spawned from the mighty detonations of warp missiles, distorted and tore at the fabric of spacetime itself. And the void became a cosmic slaughterhouse, with ships on both sides exploding into disintegrating into clouds of space shrapnel in the blink of an eye.
"We're taking hits!" his chief sensor officer yelled over the deafening clatter of warning alarms. "Shield capacity at fifteen percent and falling!"
His gaze shifted back to his tactical display, scanning the symbols and icons representing his remaining forces. The stark reality of the situation became abundantly clear. Yes, the enemy had rebounded and seized the initiative, leveraging their superior numbers and firepower to turn the tide. If they continued to fight here, then the Silent Ones would undoubtedly slaughter every last one of them.
"Attention, all ships. Fall back to the rally point," he ordered. "I repeat. Fall back to the rally point."
The response was immediate. His squadrons broke away and scattered, leaving behind minefields in their wake. Amidst the chaos of the retreat, he lost more ships to the enemy onslaught, their fiery ends reflected in the forward viewscreen. And then a direct hit tore through his ship's remaining shields and sent a jarring shockwave through the bridge.
"Damage report!" he commanded, gripping the armrest of his throne tighter.
"Hull breaches on multiple decks, Captain," reported a crew member, his voice shaky yet determined. "Oh, Keelah…the death toll, it's in the hundreds…"
A heavy silence hung in the bridge as the report sank in. Ancestors help him, the lives lost. The widespread damage across so many ships. And this was only the beginning. He took a moment, his mind racing. By now, most of his squadron had already vanished into the star-strewn expanse beyond this system, but they'd all meet again at the rally point, where they could plan their next move. "Engage FTL drives. Plot a course to the rally point.
"Acknowledged, Captain."
His heart pounded as he watched the tactical display. Finally, the last of his ships had retreated, and his ship hummed as the FTL drive charged with a comforting thrum promising escape and survival.
Briefly, he recalled the terrible ends of so many of his ships, of the countless deaths of so many people under this command. He sighed. Live well amongst the ancestors my brothers and sisters. Live well.
"Yes, Captain?"
"Send an urgent message to Captain Rael'Zorah through the quantum communications network," he said. "Tell him that we gave it our all, that at great cost we dealt the enemy a vicious blow. But that the Silent Ones have broken through our defenses are coming for the people of Mindoir."
"Of course, Captain," said his chief communications officer. "Anything else?"
"No," he said. Finally, the FTL drive was ready. "All hands, brace for FTL jump."
As his ship shuddered around him, about to leap across the stars, he steeled himself for the challenges ahead and silently prayed to the ancestors to grant Rael the strength and good fortune to survive what was coming for him.
He closed his eyes. "For those we lost, we carry on…" he murmured.
And then the stars stretched out into brilliant streaks of light as his ship jumped into FTL, leaving behind the ghosts of the fallen.
