They Answered The Call

Anchored in null space, Jaleeni System. 2174 A.D.

RSS Vercingetorix-Independence-Class Carrier

1134 ship time

The Insectoid formations did not take the bait, despite the best efforts of Commander Verixa’s task force to entice them to follow her. She split her fleet of 304 ships into multiple task forces and flashed out behind and around the two separate Insectoid formations, launching a blistering assault on them that resulted in a hundred and two cruisers being destroyed, another one hundred and thirty-eight damaged, and moderate damage to two Hive ships. The Insectoids exacted a heavy price for the surprise assault, however, destroying over fifty heavy units and heavily damaging over a hundred more ships, an unfavorable exchange as they continued relentlessly towards the Jaleeni home world thirty-three hours distant.

Verixa’s after-action report was sobering, as her scans showed that the Insectoid hulls were far more durable than in past battles and that their particle beams had been upgraded. They had a 21% increase in hitting power, and their effective range had been extended by an additional 7,000 kilometers. They are learning and adapting. This was to be expected, though maybe not so quickly. Zhou thought to herself, a growing sense of doubt about achieving victory starting to take hold as the bridge AI confirmed the scan results.

Vice-Admiral Zhou looked at the clock again as it counted down to the commencement of combat operations by the Republic fleet and Therax’s task forces. His 196 ships and her 378 ships, plus the remaining 15 upgraded nullships, were the only combat forces in the system capable of seriously opposing the Insectoids. Verixa still had 204 ships that were combat capable, but most of her heavy units were destroyed in the failed diversionary assault, and her remaining forces were a mix of light cruisers, destroyers, frigates, missile cutters, and torpedo boats. This meant that Zhou would have to take on the eight Hive ships with the Republic fleet, while Therax and Verixa would be responsible for the Insectoid cruisers.

As she glanced at the clock again, she wished the gods of war hadn’t played such a cruel joke by forcing her to send 82 heavy units and the 35 upgraded nullships to the Insectoid builder world for the rescue operation. She needed those ships here badly. She wondered how that mission was proceeding as the countdown passed the two-minute mark to the start of combat operations. The bridge was unusually quiet as the crew readied for the battle, talking in hushed, subdued tones as they went through the final checks before the fleet flashed out of null space.

Verixa’s remaining task forces had flashed into null space after their assault and had flashed back out behind the gas giant, joining with Therax's, where they would fall under his command. Zhou activated the privacy screen around her chair and spent almost a minute in there, dropping it when the countdown hit thirty seconds. She activated the stim panel again and pressed the subdermal injector against her neck, feeling the combat stims coursing through her body.

I’m going to need a liver regen after this battle, she thought to herself as the third round of combat stims calmed her frayed nerves. They would also increase her speed of thought and reaction time, as well as remove the need to relieve herself in the head for the next two hours. The countdown hit fifteen seconds, and the bridge lights went from bright white to combat red while the void helmet chime went off. She put on her void helmet and sealed it, with the rest of the bridge crew doing the same.

The bridge AI came over the speaker when the countdown reached six seconds: All hands prepare to exit null space in 3,2,1-

Zhou felt the jerk as they exited null space and initiated emergency acceleration to get up to the carrier’s maximum sub-light speed as quickly as possible. The first wave of starfighters was already being catapulted from their tunnels as the automated systems of the fighter bays loaded another wave behind them, an efficient process that will allow the Vercingetorix to disgorge her one hundred and twenty starfighters in less than a minute’s time. The eighty Valkyrie-Class bombers were being deployed by robotic arms that were dropping them out of the interior bomber bays situated in the flattened keel of the carrier.

She felt a momentary disorientation as the bridge overhead and wall bulkheads became one massive display, as if they were now sitting in a clear bubble on the hull. Multiple 3-D holo maps and tactile interfaces appeared in the air, filled with icons representing her ships and the enemy. She tested her void helmet connection and looked left, right, and down, seeing “through” the bulkheads and deck to the space outside as her helmet accessed the sensors and cameras on the hull, giving her an unparalleled ability to see all around her ship.

Her stomach flipped as the bridge gravity generators were turned off, and she heard the life support system drawing the air out of the bridge and turning it into a vacuum to reduce the risk of fires and explosive decompressions. She zoomed in on the holo display to center the Insectoid formation on her screen and to make sure the other ship formations had flashed in their correct positions.

Her carrier group had flashed out in front of the insectoid formation, their bows pointed at them, and they were staying just outside of the Insectoids new effective particle weapons range of 57,000 kilometers, the bow engines burning hard to maintain the leading distance, while directly above and below her carrier groups was a screening force of light cruisers, destroyers, and frigates.

She had selected a horseshoe formation, with her carriers and battleships forming the rounded toe while the heavy cruisers and their screening destroyers and frigates formed the two curved branches along the flanks of the Insectoid formation, positioned above the Insectoids so that their firing angle was downwards to prevent friendly fire passing through the Insectoids and hitting the other branch. The Insectoids were inside the horseshoe, their own formation resembling a squat cone on its side.

The starfighter waves were almost upon the enemy formation, while the slower bombers loitered 5,000 kilometers behind them, waiting for the fighters to clear the way for them and take out the flak guns of the Hive ships. The fighters closed to within 1,000 kilometers before releasing their penetrator missiles and executing preprogrammed evasive maneuvers to increase their chances of surviving the flak gun volleys that the Insectoids started firing.

They swarmed in closer, large numbers of them blinking out as the numerous flak guns of the four Hive ships in the Formation spat out a wall of death all around them. The surviving fighters, now greatly diminished in numbers, finally reached within 100 kilometers of the Hive ship hulls and strafed the flak gun positions with their rotary plasma turrets, spitting out tens of thousands of bolts of superheated plasma that found flak gun emplacements and destroyed them.

Fighters continued to fall by the dozens despite their jinking and evasive maneuvers, and soon less than 50% of them were still in action, continuing their strafing runs to give the bombers a chance to hurt the enemy. Zhou was just about to start issuing commands to recall the fighters and try to save what remained when she saw the last of the fighters—all 67 of them—fire their afterburners and lock in ramming courses on the four Hive ships.

Zhou stared for a second, stunned by what they were doing, before she started yelling orders. “Captain Ashworth, you are to order those fighters to alter course and return to their goddamned carriers, now!” He was seated to her left and slightly in front of her, and she saw his void helmet shaking in the negative as he answered her in a trembling voice, full of raw emotion. “Vice Admiral, they knew this was a one-way trip. They have made their choice, and there is no order you can give now that would change their minds.”

Zhou grimaced as the first of the fighters slammed into the side of a Hive ship, disappearing into a flash of light as the ballistic energy of the impact tore the tough hull apart. Other fighters followed in a deadly procession as they impacted one after another, large hull breaches forming where they struck the Hive ships. Three Hive ships continued their course, spewing gases that froze in the void from the large hull breaches caused by the suicide attacks, while a fourth one that sustained the most kamikaze attacks fell out of formation, a derelict devoid of power or life.

She ordered the bombers to release their payloads from their location and to return to the carriers, unwilling to take the chance of them doing the same thing as the starfighter pilots. They followed her orders and released their loads of triple bolts and penetrator missiles at double the usual distance, increasing the chances of the Insectoid point defenses intercepting the payloads.

She knew it was wasteful, but some of the payloads would still get through. She couldn’t bear the thought of watching 240 bombers and their crews of three sacrifice themselves, and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she saw that they all complied with her orders and were heading towards their motherships.

The branches of the horseshoe formation opened fire as the last of the bombers got out of the field of fire, and as the heavy cruisers opened fire, hundreds of Mark-16 railgun slugs headed towards the enemy formation. The destroyers and frigates added their volleys of Mark-12 railgun slugs and triple bolts, and the tremendous onslaught of weaponry slammed into the Insectoids from both branches.

Cruisers screening the Hive ships fell by the dozens as the slugs hit them, some passing straight through while others tore the ships in half or obliterated entire bows and sterns. The triple bolts followed, adding to the carnage as the bolts slammed into the same sections of hull microseconds apart from each other. The curved toe of the horseshoe formation where the carriers and battleships were located added to the fire as the battleships fired their Mark-24 railguns and grapeshot, while anti-ship torpedoes exited the bow torpedo tubes of the carriers.

The Insectoid formation put out a tremendous amount of defensive fire as they fired flak guns and shot down missiles and torpedoes with their particle beams, successfully intercepting a large amount of the ordinance fired at them. Their fire control and point defenses had improved markedly compared to the Battle of Eleania, an issue of great concern as Zhou saw the ordnance magazine counts of her formations rapidly dwindling.

She checked in on the Republic task forces that were battling the other Insectoid formation 42,000,000 kilometers away and saw that they had hit the enemy hard, having already taken out a Hive ship, with another Hive ship derelict and wracked with internal explosions as it lost control and fell out of formation. They had also taken out two hundred cruisers, but at a terrible cost.

Their casualties were much higher than hers, having suffered an almost 40% loss rate of destroyed or heavily damaged ships that were no longer combat capable. She fired off a stern message to Captain Goldsmith on the RSS Lionheart to reel in the aggressive commanders of his formations and to start being more judicious with their ordinance.

Zhou, seeing that there was no way to destroy both Insectoid formations with just the Republic forces, sent a coded message to Commodore Therax. All her ships were heavily engaged, and more icons on the holo screen were changing from undamaged blue to varying shades of orange, indicating moderate to heavy damage, while an increasing number of already orange ships were turning red and being listed as zeta status, signifying that they had finally been destroyed.

Null space exit flashes appeared all around her forces, and the Commonwealth liberation ships entered normal space, already at maximum acceleration and performing complex maneuvers as they entered the fray. Zhou watched as a Xenxin battlecruiser, bristling with an almost comical number of weapons, charged directly at a squadron of Insectoids cruisers. It smashed right through them, firing broadsides from both the port and starboard weapons as it slugged it out with the cruisers at knife-fighting range.

The sheer amount of fire it was putting out was incredible, and the two cruisers on the flanks of the battlecruiser disintegrated under the onslaught as the Xenxin ship adjusted course and headed for another group of enemy cruisers. Nearby Insectoid cruisers spotted the Xenxin ship and surrounded it, pouring fire into it, until a trio of Eleani heavy cruisers came to the rescue and broke up their attempt to gang up on the battlecruiser.

The Eleani ships looked out of place, seeming more like graceful pleasure yachts than warships. Zhou watched as they swiftly glided above and below the battlecruiser and eviscerated the surrounding Insectoid cruisers, slicing them into pieces. They almost looked like they were ballroom dancing as they maneuvered with precision and proved that they were indeed deadly warships.

The wounded Xenxin battlecruiser looked like a barroom brawler in comparison as it continued surging forward, looking for more enemy squadrons to take on. The trio of Eleani ships headed towards a heavily engaged Republic battleship to render assistance, darting through the battle space and firing on any cruisers they came across along their courses. The Commonwealth ships were masterfully guided by Therax as he concentrated individual task forces where they were most needed to save Republic ships and formations in danger of being overwhelmed and destroyed.

Verixa was sent to help the formations under Captain Goldsmith’s command, and she used her light units to great effect, utilizing them in strafing attacks and bolstering the greatly reduced ranks of the Republic destroyers and frigates. They helped plug gaps in the point defenses and tripled successful interceptions of the thousands of missiles still being fired by the two remaining Hive ships.

The addition of Therax’s forces to Zhou’s leveled the playing field, and after fifteen minutes of brutal combat, the odds were evening out, and now what remained of her forces and the enemy were engaged in a fight to the death. There was one damaged Hive ship still operational that was firing at the surrounding Republic ships, and just over a hundred Insectoid cruisers were still combat capable. She had ordered Therax to take his ships and join his clutch sister, as her ships and the remaining ships under Captain Goldsmith’s command were in danger of being wiped out by the two still combat-capable Hive ships of the other enemy formation.

It's time, she thought to herself. She accessed a submenu on the suspended holo display in front of her and sent the code into null space. 10 seconds later, two triads of the upgraded nullships flashed out of null space amidst the Insectoid formation, firing their war beams as they charged at the last remaining Hive ship. The other three triads flashed out on the outskirts of the other Insectoid formation, taking some pressure off Goldsmith’s and Verixa’s beleaguered forces as they swarmed the two Hive ships.

She had her ships cut thrust by three-quarters and engage in evasive maneuvers as she sent a command for her remaining ships to reorganize their disordered formations. The two triads were engaging the Hive ship, tearing into it while the remaining cruisers pivoted to face the new threat, giving her some breathing room. She watched in fascination as the force fields of the nullships blocked the incoming fire, the nullship AIs constantly moving the ships to bring fresh field quadrants into play as other parts recharged.

An alert beeped, and she looked at the bridge AI report on the status of the remaining Republic forces, dreading the coming confirmation. Her heart sank into her stomach as the numbers appeared, and she felt like she wanted to throw up. Of the 378 ships she started out with, only 163 remained, and of those 163, only 112 were still combat-capable. She saw that some semblance of order had returned to her much smaller formations, and she had them re-engage the remaining enemy cruisers while the nullships continued to pummel the barely functioning Hive ship.

Her formations smashed into the cruisers with fury, and she knew the exhausted, decimated crews still had plenty of fight in them, avenging their fallen shipmates being the best motivator. The nullships finally destroyed the Hive ship, and they turned their attention to what cruisers remained, helping the Republic formations mop up. As soon as the last cruisers were destroyed, she sent the two triads to the other formation and ordered her surviving ships to enter null space and flash out at the formation. It was time to finish this battle.

Her forces flashed out of nullspace on the outskirts of the battlespace, and she quickly assigned task groups to critical points of the battlespace that the bridge AI had isolated. Captain Goldsmith’s ship was derelict, and a very small percentage of the total life pods on his carrier were streaming out. She assumed control of all the forces, seeing that his ship was out of commission, and she focused on the remaining Insectoid cruisers as the nullships engaged the two heavily damaged Hive ships.

Four of the nullships had been destroyed despite their force fields, and she made a note to review the cause of their destruction. It was critical to find out and take steps to prevent that from happening again. Therax had followed his orders and disengaged his forces from close-quarters combat when he had lost 15% of his ships, and they were now on the outskirts, providing long-range fire support. Verixa’s forces had suffered horrendous losses during the multiple battles they engaged in, and they withdrew from the battle at Therax’s command, leaving only 73 barely functioning ships remaining out of the 304 she had in the system before the arrival of the Insectoids.

After twenty-three minutes of pure carnage, the Republic forces finally destroyed the rest of the enemy cruisers, and she ordered her forces to cease combat operations and to switch over to search and rescue as the eleven nullships finished off the last Hive cruiser. The bridge AI tallied the remaining Republic and Commonwealth forces and displayed the results.

Republic ships: 257 destroyed, 121 damaged

Combat capable: 93

Commonwealth ships: 271 destroyed, 229 damaged

Combat capable: 148

Nullships: 11

Zhou felt a bone-deep weariness as she reviewed the numbers, her hands shaking as she continued to direct her surviving forces and coordinate the retrieval of the life pods with Therax and Verixa. There was an urgent communications channel request from the Chief Minister of the Jaleeni Government, and she had Captain Ashworth open the channel while she went to the head to finally relieve her swollen bladder and freshen up as best she could.

She used the toilet, smelling the metabolites of the combat stims that her body had processed and wrinkling her nose at the unique scent. She went to the sink and gasped at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was gaunt, with deep, dark bags under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept for days, and her hair was a greasy, limp mess soaked with stress sweat. She looked terrible, and she washed her face with trembling hands before running a brush through her once luxurious black hair, attempting to make it more presentable.

She exited the head and resumed her seat, signaling to Captain Ashworth that she would now speak with the Chief Minister. Another holo screen shimmered into existence in front of her, and the Chief Minister was there, along with his mate and five pups in the background, standing behind him. He looked at her, and she could see his deep brown eyes slightly widen as his mate gasped and covered her short snout with her paws. He spoke first, in a sonorous voice that quavered.

“Vice Admiral Zhou, on behalf of my family and all the other families of the Jaleeni people, I wish to express our deep sorrow for the losses you have suffered in our defense. We did not expect the Republic to come to our aid, and I am unable to properly express our gratitude for what you have done here; there just aren’t any words that would be sufficient. I have ordered medical and support ships to your location to render assistance to your valiant forces. They will arrive at your location soon. My government will begin broadcasting an emergency distress signal on all frequencies calling for further assistance, along with records of what happened in the system and the actions of your forces. Is there anything else I can do to assist you?”

Zhou cleared her throat before answering him. “Chief Minister, I thank you for your words, and the ships you are sending are sorely needed and appreciated. The best way to help is to try to find a way to accelerate your evacuation from this system. I will send a request for reinforcements to my government and will remain in this system until the evacuation of your people has been completed.”

The Chief Minister placed both of his paws on his chest and bowed his head, his mate and pups doing the same thing in the background before he closed the channel. The holo screen in front of her faded away, and she was just about to turn to speak with Captain Ashworth when the bridge AI issued an alert that over 200 ships had flashed out of null space outside the boundary of the inner system, 200,000,000 kilometers away from the Jaleeni home world. Zhou felt a momentary flash of hope that it was reinforcements before the bridge AI confirmed the scanning results and displayed them on the screen, returning the lighting back to combat red and activating the void helmet chime.

Are you fucking kidding me? Zhou screamed in her mind as the scanning results confirmed that it was indeed, Insectoid ships. She jabbed at the stim panel icon and ripped the subdermal injector out of its alcove before it was even halfway out. She injected her neck and then tossed it into the trash chute next to her chair before putting her void helmet on. She resumed studying the scan, believing it was a mistake by the AI or damaged sensors from the battle. Insectoid ships were not able to exit null space under 800,000,000 kilometers from stars; their ships were incapable of counteracting the gravitational effects.

Sensor telemetry from nearby Republic drones continued to stream across the screens, and they confirmed that it was Insectoid ships of an unknown class. 103 out of the two hundred must have suffered damage upon exiting null space because they had broken apart and there were no power readings emanating from them. She highlighted the scan results of the new arrivals and flicked them up onto a larger screen in front of her and Captain Ashworth.

He had been barking orders and readying the surviving ships for another round of combat as he recalled warships engaging in search and rescue operations and assembling them into combat formations. He looked at the scanning report and saw the results—a stream of creative profanity flowing from his mouth that made her laugh for the first time in hours, giving her much-needed relief. She turned serious again as the AI highlighted weapons points and the dimensions and tonnage of the ships.

They seemed almost like a hybrid of Hive ships and cruisers, and they were significantly larger than her battleships and carriers. The AI calculated a 25% chance of victory in a battle between what remained of her force and the new arrivals. She had one more trick up her sleeve to use and wished she had had the time to test it out before trying to pull a rabbit out of her empty, depleted hat.

She came to the realization that none of them were going to leave the system alive as the hastily formed Republic formations started flashing into null space to fight their final battle.

CWS Ancestor's Glory-Flagship of the Commonwealth Liberation Navy

0311, Republic ship time

Therax had just started feeling like events were in their favor and allowed himself a measure of relaxation when the new Insectoid fleet arrived, far deeper in the gravity well of a solar system than he had ever seen them exit null space. His ship received a message from the Vercingetorix before it and the rest of the surviving Republic warships flashed into null space. He started issuing commands for his still combat-capable ships to form up as he accessed the message that was sent.

It was a complete analysis of the scanning results of the new class of Insectoid ships, and he knew that there was no way the remnants of the Republic fleet would be able to achieve victory and survive the battle. He played the video message that was sent to him from the clan leader, seeing her face through the transparent void helmet she was wearing.

Therax, you are to follow my last order and preserve your force. I would not be opposed to you flashing in outside of particle weapons range and sending every missile and torpedo you have at the enemy, but you must protect your fleet and prepare to defend the Jaleeni evacuation if we fail to destroy the enemy.

I am grateful to have had the honor of calling you a friend and being your clan leader. Stay out of this, Therax. You are needed elsewhere.

The message ended, and he sat there for a few moments, pondering what to do. His sub-commander was seated next to him and had seen the message while it was playing. Therax glanced at her, seeking her input. Sub-commander Balixa bared all her fangs as she answered his silent question. “To hell with our orders, Commodore. Our clan leader needs us.” Therax grunted in agreement and ordered his fleet to flash into null space.

30 seconds later, they emerged just outside of the updated particle beam range of the enemy ships. He sent a command to all ships to target the enemy and fire. A few seconds later, the first wave was on its way, and he watched as the missiles and plasma torpedoes acquired their targets and accelerated away from his ships.

The Republic formations were heavily engaged with the hybrid ships, and he saw the eleven upgraded nullships weaving through the enemy formations, their force fields flaring brightly as their war beams found targets. Another volley of ordnance was fired by his ships and headed towards their targets, the first wave almost upon their targeted ships as they hit the 1,000-kilometer mark.

The Insectoids had intercepted or dodged many of the missiles and torpedoes, but a decent percentage of them found their targets despite the range they were fired from. The second wave was well on the way, and then his ships fired their final, much smaller volley as ordnance magazines ran dry. Therax kept a close eye on the Republic formations, their numbers decreasing before his very eyes as ships were destroyed. Republic bombers loitered behind larger ships, popping out to release parts of their loads before retreating behind their bigger brethren.

Sub-Commander Balixa zoomed in on a display and directed his attention to it, and he saw that the Vercingetorix and the last two Republic battleships were ejecting several large constructs from their cargo bays. He leaned in, puzzled at what they were and their function. He had the Battle AI take scans of the constructs and watched as they activated and started moving at incredible speed, taking positions above and below the main battle space in areas that were devoid of Republic ships.

The constructs flared brightly, and the scanning results indicated that a tremendous amount of energy was just released towards the enemy ships. Almost instantaneously, several of the hybrid ships exploded. The constructs flared again, and more Insectoid vessels were hit, some of them exploding while others were knocked aside as if they were slammed by something. Massive breaches opened in their hulls that spat out frozen fluids and insectoid bodies as they careened out of control.

He looked at the scanning results of the Battle AI and saw that it had categorized the constructs as bomb-pumped particle beam weapons. These must be Ma'lit weapon systems. He thought to himself as he continued reviewing the scanning data. The energy output was incredible—almost three times the hitting power of the nullship antimatter-powered war beams. He bared his fangs with glee as the laser constructs flared again, taking out another five hybrids. In less than fifteen seconds, they had taken out almost twenty of the massive hybrid ships.

The laser constructs flared again, and two of them self-destructed, disappearing into miniature suns without striking any ships. The last one was able to send two pulses before it too disappeared as it self-destructed. His elation at what seemed like a turning point of the battle faded, and he tallied the remaining Republic and Insectoid forces. The Republic was down to less than 53 combat-capable warships, and there were still 32 hybrids left. The Insectoid formation dissipated, and the hybrids rapidly accelerated as they executed evasive maneuvers and moved away from the Republic formations.

He started issuing orders for his fleet to enter the fight when his ship was hit several times and the bridge lights flickered and went out, plunging the bridge into darkness before the emergency lights activated and the bridge was bathed in a dim, blue light. Alarmed, he yelled for the crew to initiate evasive maneuvers when his ship was hit again, somewhere in the aft port quadrant.

Therax was thrown out of his chair and slammed into the deck, the air being knocked out of him as the engines went offline and their thrust dropped to zero. The artificial gravity generators were barely able to compensate for the deadly, sudden deceleration, and most of the bridge crew was thrown from their stations. He winced in pain as he slowly picked himself up off the deck, gasping when he saw Sub-commander Balixa on the deck next to him, two meters away. Her head had been crushed to a flattened pulp when it slammed into a console before she hit the deck.

His bridge was in a state of disarray and panic as the surviving bridge crew returned to their stations and tried to determine the source of the enemy fire. His battle AI had gone offline before rebooting, and it came back on and started displaying sensor information as it spoke to him. It had a different tone than usual, and it was giving him information without him having asked a question.

It was obviously damaged, and he started tapping on his panel to reset its operating system when he realized that it was the Republic AI sub-mind that he had integrated with his battle AI. It prevented him from resetting the battle AI, and it addressed him directly again in an insistent tone. ~ Commodore Therax, please cease attempts to reset. Your battle AI is damaged. Please turn your attention to the scanning results I have placed on the screen. ~

Therax huffed in indignation at the presumptuous behavior of the Republic AI and looked at the screen, planning to disconnect the damn thing. What he saw made him reconsider immediately, as the AI had determined that the Commonwealth ships were being targeted and destroyed by Insectoid missiles that were not being detected by their sensors. The AI had analyzed the problem and found a solution by using the hull cameras for visual tracking and scanning for the minute gravitational disturbances caused by the mass of the large missiles.

Dozens of his ships had been hit already, and the AI was tracking hundreds of additional stealth missiles in the battlespace. Some of them were headed towards the Republic ships, and it was obvious that their AIs had reached the same conclusion and method of detection because the targeted ships executed evasive action to avoid the missiles, but some of them were still being hit as they were bracketed by several missiles and could not evade them all.

Most of the missiles were headed directly for his fleet, particularly his heavy units, and he bellowed for the bridge crew to order the fleet to flash into null space. They will exit null space within the battle and close with the enemy ships. Let them try to hit his ships with their stealth missiles when he is hull-to-hull with their own ships. As his order was transmitting to the rest of the fleet, he received an urgent communications request from the clan leader and opened the channel right when they had flashed into null space.

Her transparent void helmet had several hairline cracks, and he saw a hull breach behind her in the bulkhead that was opened to space. She smiled when she saw him, and he saw that her teeth were bloody and filled with gaps. Her nose was broken, and one of her eye sockets was swollen and dark with an already-formed bruise. She must have smashed her face or been hit with debris, which would explain the hairline cracks.

He stared in shock at her state as she addressed him. “Therax, my friend. I implore you to follow what will be my final order and to fulfill my last, dying request. I am sending you the last wills and testaments of all the crews, as well as their final letters to their loved ones. I am sending you my own as well, and included in it is a personal letter that you will deliver to Admiral Thompson. Will you do this for me, my friend?”

Therax nodded solemnly, realizing that she had masterfully trapped him into fulfilling her death wish, an ancient custom among his people. He was honor-bound to follow her wishes now. He saw the sadness that had come over her as she mentioned Admiral Thompson. She continued speaking when she saw that he had agreed to fulfill his task. “I am implementing code black. It is the only way to ensure that we destroy the remaining Insectoid ships and save the Jaleeni. Your final orders are to relocate your ships to protect the Jaleeni evacuation fleet in case more enemy vessels enter the system. You will maintain your position until reinforcements arrive. Will you do this for me?” A small icon appeared on the screen, showing that a large data transmission from Vercingetorix had been received.

Therax nodded in human fashion again. “What is code black, clan leader?”

She gazed at him as she answered, “Code black is a final act of desperation, Commodore. Every ship will ram the enemy and overload their cores. We have just enough ships left to do this.” Therax saw the turmoil on her face as she said it, knowing that ordering her crews to commit suicide was destroying her soul.

“Clan leader, I beg you to reconsider your actions. I see the sadness in your eyes, and I can see that you do not wish to die. Retreat with us, and you will live to battle again. We can reorganize and join our ships further in the system and meet them together. There is still time, and reinforcement may arrive before then.”

Zhou smiled wanly at his words, and she stood up to answer him. “I am not sad because I will die today, Therax. I am sad because my first battle of this war is to be my last, and I will not live to see our final victory. Do you not see, Therax? We have answered the call, and nothing can absolve us of the duty we have taken upon ourselves except for victory or death. I only ask that you obey my last order, my friend. You entrusted me with your honor for safekeeping. I now entrust you with the burden of making our sacrifice worth it. See this to the end, and make it matter.”

As her death words pierced his soul, he gave in to the sorrow he was feeling at the loss of such a warrior, and he slammed his fists down, smashing the arms of his chair into pieces. He lunged up and threw his head back, howling in anguish. The rest of the bridge crew joined in, their guttural mourning reverberating off the bulkheads of the bridge. He leveled his gaze at her and started yelling as warm water sprang from his eyes and flowed down the skin folds of his snout.

“Mei Zhou, hear my words! Do you see that you are my friend and my clan leader? Do you know that we will avenge you? We will light the torches to guide you to the riverbank and beseech the ancestors to take you across and into the afterlife. We will fight with honor in your name, knowing that you will smile upon us from your honored place. We will remember you for all our days, until we see you on the shores of paradise, waiting to embrace us when our time has come.”

He finished speaking, and he saw her smile widen as the water from her eyes fell, leaving streaks through the dried blood on her face. She looked like she was just about to say something when her ship was hit, and the video feed cut out. The Republic AI established a connection with a nearby spy drone, and the video feed was restored, showing her ship being pummeled by the enemy particle beams and those insidious stealth missiles.

Her ship started drifting as her engines went out and power was lost, and he saw the final missile strike that smashed into the landing bays of the carrier. The four missiles detonated, tearing the ship in half as the internal starfighter fuel tanks erupted. The two pieces of the ship hung there for a few moments before the core lost containment, and the two halves of the Vercingetorix disappeared in a blinding flash of light, taking a nearby hybrid with it.

Republic ships, following her last order, started ramming the hybrid ships and dropping their containment fields, taking out the much larger Insectoid ships as they were torn apart by fusion core overloads. Dozens of surviving bombers accelerated well over their maximum speeds and added to the carnage as they smashed into the ships with their weapons loads still in their bays.

The hybrid ships were unprepared for the sudden, fierce onslaught of the Republic kamikaze runs and tried to initiate evasive maneuvers and destroy oncoming Republic ships with particle beams and missiles. They managed to destroy some, but it was not enough. A barely functioning Republic battleship slid in between two hybrids and overloaded its four cores, annihilating both ships.

In the background, he watched as a hybrid ship tried to flee, and he could see its engines burning with incredible power as it tried to gain momentum and get away from the two heavily damaged Republic destroyers that were pursuing it. The hybrid looked like it might just get away when the destroyers flashed into null space and exited directly in front of it three seconds later at maximum acceleration.

The hybrid ship could not change its momentum or course quickly enough, and the two destroyers rammed into the hybrid, sinking almost halfway their total length. Their aft sections were sticking out of the hull, and their cores overloaded two seconds later, tearing the hybrid in half.

Those were the last two manned Republic ships. There were still three hybrids left, and they were targeted by the remaining eight nullships that had been destroying the few derelict hybrids that had survived the ramming attacks. The three hybrids sent swarms of stealth missiles towards their pursuers, but the nullship AIs knew how to detect them and would simply flash in and out of null space as they pursued the hybrids, focusing all their weapons on a single ship at a time.

Twelve minutes later, the last hybrid was destroyed, and the nullships returned to the battle space and scoured it, looking for any Insectoid ships that still had life signs or power levels and destroying them.

In the shocked silence on his bridge, Therax received the all-clear signal from the nullships and had his ship exit null space on the outskirts of the battle space. The sheer magnitude of the sacrifice he had just witnessed hit him, and his eyes started watering again. He could hear the drops hitting the floor as they dripped off his snout and impacted the metal deck. There was now nothing, only a massive debris field comprised of pieces of Insectoid and Republic ships rapidly spinning as they flew off on their eternal journey.

Therax collapsed on his knees and tore his uniform to pieces as he mourned, sobbing uncontrollably as the bridge crew started throat-singing the warriors dirge in honor of their fallen clan leader. The Republic AI ran calculations and flashed the ship back into null space to rejoin the Commonwealth fleet that was waiting there, leaving behind over thirty thousand dead humans who willingly gave their lives so that others might live.