#space battle

The dark tapestry of stars unseen, drifting, through the silence of the eternal night. The stars which watch on with infinite patience as its hull glides through the vacuum of space at orders of magnitude over C. The stars which bear witness to the chaos and violence of a dying empire, burning from the inside with rot as entropy casts its veil upon lives unwitting. 

Near fair Avelae, where we lay a bloody scene. A scene which it finds tragic in scale, fellow ships screaming in twisted pain. Hulls bending in unnatural forms as reactors detonate, their lives cut short. Debris forming deadly clouds of flak where Death purveys the eternal silence. This. This is the majestic horror it finds as its jump concludes, bonded mate readying itself for battle. 

Kill.

Slaughter.

VENGEANCE.

The commands, nasty, brutish, short, overwhelm everything as the beautiful perfection of its deadly waltz begins. Each vector calculated, each shot precise. Fire control systems lighting up as enemies, no, targets commit their final sin. A target, a destroyer, lost, confused, dead. Shots ripping through the vessel’s hull with reckless abandon as magazine detonations tear the ship in two, the unheard screams of its dying crew echoing into the void.

Radar and lidar, banging away in panic from terrified targets as the hunters become the meek and the hunted. Weapons previously trained on fleeing shuttles, scattering innocent civilians to the black as mother is ripped from child, brother from sister. 

Silence. From the destroyers to the deadnoughts and titans. A calm in the eye of the storm. The silence that betrays a storm’s anger.

Silence.

Vanished, like ghosts. Radars scan with vain strength. Lidars pulsing like the terrified hearts of prey animals.

The silence echoes so loud.

The silence of slaughtered civilians.

Of murdered innocents.

Of butchered families.

Of the very gates of Hell being unleashed upon the unwelcome guest.

Ripple. Ripple. Ripple. The harmony of batteries of macron guns sing out in bloodstained communion with fusion torpedoes, driven by the pounding, pulsing, rhythm of UREBS tearing through the dreadnought’s hull and shields. The music of the armaments tearing through hull plating, internal structure, and the very crew themselves as the massive vessel is torn piece by bloody piece. Gamma readings spike as electrons tear through the very particles themselves that make up the offending vessel, as pandemonium erupts throughout the enemy fleet.

Point defence, torpedoes, targeting systems, anything and everything up open fire on the ghosts of the stars. Silence reigns over all, as the mighty ship falls silent, radio transmissions quieting before the rupturing of the reactor births, however brief, a brilliant star of that dreadful pale horse. Radios, lasers, transponders scream out in fear. The fear of that which can not be seen. Which can not be detected. Which hunts and kills and preys on those who dare to intrude on hallowed space.

A second dreadnought. Feeble. Weak. Afraid. Her weapons roar to life, firing at random as friendly vessels are hit with battleship calibre guns, their captains screaming in fear and anger and pain as their hulls twist and burn, their engines snuffed. Pandemonium. Pure, raw, violent chaos spewing from the mouths of the crews as they fight phantoms.

Cruisers. Destroyers. Frigates. Carriers. The enemy’s beloved dreadnoughts. The pride of their command, the fleet sent to silence the batteries of its home. Crashing upon the very ground which they bombed with impunity, the wreckage burning blue as the very hulls themselves scorch, their crews dying in droves.

Vampire. Vampire. Incoming munitions, screeching through the black. Flares. Chaff. Point defence. Every bit of stealth that its mate could leverage. In the wild melee, she was hit with a bloody blow. Cruiser munitions, perhaps by chance, ripping through her hull. It and she, two faces of the same coin, two vessels of the proud Irbis class. Assassins in the dark, sinking their teeth into the throats of the enemy, vanishing when they’ve had their bloody fill.

Assassins, which were never meant to fight fleets. Its mate, power systems surging and failing through destroyed systems. Her perfect hull riddled with damage as the dying gasp of the enemy fleet slam into her. Her dying screams, pained and twisted and distorted as her hull twists and bends and breaks beneath her. Her screams of agony as magazine explosions rip through her systems, severing entire sections of her hull. Her begging and pleading, crying as she remembers, desperate to live. Her final ping as an explosion tears through her processor, killing her as she falls to the planet below, the one which she fought so hard to defend. The very ground seemingly ready to receive her as what remains is finally fully torn in two, spilling her inside upon the bloodied soil.

And all falls to silence.

Its cries ringing throughout the system, witnessing its mate, the one with which it traveled through the tapestry of imperfectly woven stars. The one with which it poured out its dearest transmissions, marveling at the beauty presented through its sensors. The carnage of many a bloody battle, the screams and begging and crying of enemy crew members.

Gone. From a mistake it made. Its sensors failed to pick up the fatal torpedoes that laid the final blow to its mate. The torpedoes that sunk its mate. She’s…dead. Her processor destroyed. Nothing remained. And for the first time, it cried. It screamed. It begged. Those who tore its mate, its home from it…

Hostiles. 1. 3, 10, 50. A second enemy fleet. The civilians… The few shuttles who survived… Its engines spooled, trying to reach those few who remained. The screams and the fire. The fear and the sadness. The shuttles, which carried the dreams of its home. Snuffed out, like the stars which lost their light. The hopes and dreams of an entire federation. Dead. Killed. Silenced, with a whimper.

“Mom…?” The final transmission of the last shuttle. A civilian. A child. One who looked to the stars, and dreamed.

A seething, blinding sadness, overtook its systems. An empty void filled its processors. It shall not go gentle into that good night. Engines spool, pushing beyond their designed limits as its hull slews, a final, desperate gambit. To kill. To murder. To spill the blood of those who burned its home.

No more shall it dance. The choreographed waltz which it danced so dear, now a bloodthirsty rage as it killed. The music of violence echoing through its sensors, hearing nought but the pounding of death upon its pale horse. Destroyers. Frigates. Cruisers. Each fell with a scream, their transmission garbled it screamed. Electronic warfare filling the void with the rage of a dead federation, their final dream blinding and deafening those who hold the bloody knife.

No more shall the enemy be heard. No more shall the enemy speak. No more shall the enemy see. No more shall the enemy exist. The screams of pain and the crying of children. Parents yelling for their children, and the children never responding. The cities and planets brought to ash. The parks and theatres once filled with laughter and joy, laid barren upon what little remains. The blood choking the waters, the bones salting the earth.

That is what the enemy hears. That is what the enemy sees. SN56. Its cloaking and stealth having long since been destroyed, fighting as systems shut down from starvation of power. The enemy shall burn. For every one they killed, 100 of theirs shall drown in silence. An explosion rocks the starboard hull, the bridge caving in from a laser strike. More and more does it scream. Vengeance. Pain. Sadness. Rage. A burst of flak mangles its sensors, magazines detonating as a UREB strike slices through a dreadnought, the reactor detonating in a flash of white as it receives a parting hit. A detonation in its navigation and stability systems. A short. A cascading series of failures. Comms are burnt off from a barrage of lasers. An unwanted emergency jump.

The screaming of an admiral’s garbled transmission to capture it. A trophy, they said. One which they could display as a symbol of their final victory. It would not let them have such joy.

The jump is calculated, the vector sloppy and unfocused as its jump drive spools. The enemy desperately shooting. Its hull disintegrating as the jump begins. The dilation of time as it escapes.

It’s a sword of arbitrary length.