The asteroid glowed with the fury of a dozen nuclear-class impacts, each one painting the darkened sky with a fountain of molten iron and rock.

Rolling violently, the Phoenix dove through the calamity, its gleaming hull bathed in the furious light and radiation of each near miss while its PDCs spat fury at the asteroid's horizon in complicated geometric sweeps. The hull shook with the impacts of molten matter across its surface, marring its pristine paintwork.

Baz let out his breath in small staggered gasps as he struggled against the shifting inertia and the counteracting press of his flight suit. Flicking between feeds in his helmet, he watched the distant Hierophant line up another volley of rounds with its mass driver, coughing ruin every four seconds as it tried to cut off the smaller Phoenix's retreat. The real threat, however, was the trio of sentient torpedoes stalking them around the rock like a clutch of wolves, waiting for their moment, and sooner or later they would find it. PDCs only lasted so long.

"You got this, buddy?" Baz muttered through gritted teeth.

"Just focus on not shitting out your organs." Kessler growled, the AI playing the Phoenix's hull like a musician. "Mind you... any bright ideas would be welcome..."

The ship rolled hard and kicked to the right, its nose nearly gouging the planetoid as it hugged the iron surface, squirming just beyond the arc of the Hierophant's gun. More molten matter erupted around them in soundless splashes as they cleared the edge, one cutting clear through the jagged edge of the rock and nearly clipping the hull. For the moment they were clear of its threat at least. Baz's vision swam, his heart hammering in his chest as he tried to collect himself. He never got the chance.

"Fuck. Hold on!" The machine snapped once more, twisting the nose of the ship around before the feeds could even update and give Baz a sense of what was happening. The vessel shook sharply as its own cannon snapped off a round point blank into the asteroid before it, throwing a curtain of liquid ruin into the face of the torpedo that had doubled back to cut them off. The weapon dissolved in the firestorm.

Pushing forward deeper into cover, the ship stabilized, allowing Baz pump fully oxygenated blood into his brain once more. Kessler brought the ship parallel to the surface, maximizing the reach of the PDCs in all directions.

"Sorry about that, boss. You okay?" Baz could only numbly nod as he shook the cobwebs from his mind.

"Not dead yet." He muttered, each breath coming deeper than the last. "How do we look?"

"The spooks are hiding on the other side of the rock. Doesn't look like they are willing to chance it without the Hiero backing them up. He's closing in."

Finally able to focus, Baz flipped through the feeds once more, taking momentary glances at a half dozen different streams. The one that he settled on was a topographic overlay of the asteroid itself, already updated with all the holes punched into it by the Hiero and glowing off colour in thermal readings.

"I feel like you might have bitten off more than we could chew..." The AI chided him, but Baz could only grin. There was honour at stake! He wasn't about to sit around and let Mikelson badmouth Southreach Academy. The man needed to be taught a lesson!

Baz flicked the zoom, peering closely at the ridge of iron that the Hiero had punched through so cleanly with its last round. It still glowed molten in the off-colour image. Baz grinned as an idea flash-forged in his mind.

========================

Luthein Mikelson edged the Hierophant close to the glowing metallic surface and waited.

In battle, initiative was key, but in this moment that meant patience. His ship was larger and better equipped to square off in a CQC match, sporting nearly twice the PCD weight. He had also exchanged well with the Phoenix, smashing its smaller number of torpedoes and still keeping three... well two... of his own still in the fight. With his integrated neuro-kinetics, he also had a reaction speed edge over the old AI-Captain combination favoured by his opponent.

Once the thermal haze cleared and he had a good fix on the Phoenix's position, he could close the distance and finish this. It would still be a dice roll, of course, but the strong odds were he would come out crippled. Baz would come out dead.

Turning his attention briefly to the torpedoes, he saw the two sentient weapons flitting wide along his flanks, each using its sensor suite and uplink to the Hiero to widen their view of the battlefield. They were lean and hungry weapons, each carrying a pruned down AI fork that found joy in only one thing: Murder. And they were good at it too - wickedly clever.

Adrian Bassart really only had one play left to him - choose a point on the asteroid's horizon and push him. Luthien tensed like a hunter, waiting for his moment. He could hear the mass driver's carrossel beneath his feet reloading round after round.

Sensors flared when the moment arrived, glimpsing the Phoenix through the iron-oxide vapour. Rather than hug the rock, the Phoenix had swung out wide from the asteroid, its conventional drives blazing radiation as it pushed high above the asteroid before rolling back and aiming its nose towards him and the rock.

Instinct kicked in and Luthien pushed his ship away from the asteroid surface violently, expecting a fusillade, but instead the nose of the ship swung past his own to face completely opposite to its direction of travel.

Was Baz going to dive back into cover? The torpedoes thought so, hissing in digital delight as they threw themselves towards the vessel aiming to cut it off. Luthien turned, bringing his own driver to bear on the Phoenix's projected path and squeezed the trigger, the view of it zooming close so he could watch the impacts to follow.

Both ships fired almost simultaneously, but only one ship missed. Luthien's round whipped past the ass end of the Phoenix as it seemed to suddenly almost halt in space, its velocity plummeting. Without hesitation, he recalculated and prepared to fire again, only to see a glowing twenty thousand ton hunk of ferro asteroid swing into his firing view, clipped off from the surface with the Phoenix's gun and hauled into place like a shield with its gravity drive.

"Chaaaaaarge!" Came Bassart's voice blaring through open comms as the Phoenix's engines erupted once more, propelling it and its iron battering ram forward towards him. Panic and reflex took over, and Luthien pulled the trigger as soon as the driver's next round was in the chamber, the round carving a trench out the side of the mass but deflecting wide of the ship behind it. With a mental impulse, the Hierophant began to reverse course, but it's thrusters were no match for the closing speed of the Phoenix even with its massive cargo, the rock looming large in its sensor window.

The torpedoes hurled forward from both flanks, realising that this was the moment, or there would be none at all, but each met a staccato of PDC fire. Without having to focus anything on knife fighting with the Hierophant and with the asteroid blocking out half the sky, the Phoenix could throw everything it had at the two weapons, weaving lattice works of fire and death as they struggled to close the distance. Within moments, first one and then the other disintegrated as they fell victims to Kessler's cunning sweeps.

"Come here, you little shit!" Baz cackled as he slammed the rock into the nose of the Hiero, shattering the forward third of the vessel before Luthien could channel his own drive to counteract the force, leaving both vessels struggling for control of the shard.

Luthien wheezed in his command seat, neurons screaming like molten wires through his body as the ship's damage was piped through into his mind. Is this what it felt like to die? Struggling with his mental controls, he tried to pull the mass driver's trigger once more, but all he got was a scream of malfunctions. The weapon had been smashed to mangled scrap in the collision.

Point blank and with the Hierio almost stationary just on the opposite side of the shard, the Phoenix didn't have the same issues. Firing three times, the normal scalpel-like piercing of the mass driver became a shotgun of molten metal, gutting the Hierio from stem to stern and leaving it a hollowed out ruin peppered by secondary explosions.

With a flicker, the simulation collapsed into reality.

======================================

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Cheers erupted from the clot of cadets crowding around the pair in their immersion couches. Baz blinked bewildered as a dozen blurred figures hauled him up, shook his hand, and slapped him on the back simultaneously.

Facing back, he tried to catch a glance of his opponent, but he to was already behind helped away by a crowd of grim faced companions who had just seen their best and brightest vanquished.

Inwardly, Baz felt a tinge of sorry for his adversary before a beer was pushed into his hands. The figure that did the pushing slowly resolved into Captain Harper, the chief training officer.

"That was a quality bit of maneuvering, Lieutenant Bassart." The big man grinned, grasping his shoulder and nodding appreciatively. "Would only work one time in ten, but well executed."

"Thank you, sir, but it was mostly my CN.". Baz admitted cheerfully. "He's the real miracle worker! I'm just the madman who comes up with the ideas."

The captain grunted, but smiled. "You go enjoy your little celebration. Come find me when your done and we'll have a private drink."

Baz knew when to salute and quickly passed off his drink to someone nearby momentarily to snap one off. "Yes, sir!"

"As you were." The Capitan returned, turning to melt into the crowd.

Baz hadn't intended to get his name recognized when he had challenged the infamous Luthien Mikelson to a simulated brawl. He hadn't even known they were in the bar.

Leaning up, Baz took another glance around for Luthien and spotted the man pulling on his coat in preparation to leave. It seemed his defeat had soured his will to drink.

Pushing through the crowd, Baz hurried over only to find his way blocked by a thuggish looking Emerson Tech student that easily carried fifty pounds on him.

"If you've come to gloat…" began the man, his voice heavy with venom, but came up short when Baz raised a hand defensively.

"Wow, there! I just came to ask Luthien a question is all."

The young man raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but Luthien called him back.

"Just… let him through. What do you want Bassart?". Nodding to the bully boy, Baz gave him a wide birth as he stepped past.

"I just wanted to say, good fight…and to ask you for a rematch?". Baz intoned, offering his hand. Hesitant, Luthien took it, then have it a solid shake.

"That move was fucking ludicrous, you understand that right?" The dark featured Luthien admitted with grudging respect.

Baz grinned and shrugged. "You had me on every metric that mattered. I don't have any of those fancy neutral-kinetic lacing that you have, so I need instinct and stupidity."

"Why a rematch? You've already gotten the academy's eye on you."

Baz gestured for Luthien to step in close and the young man complied, allowing them to talk semi privately in the noise of the bar.

"Listen… We both know Emerson skims to best prospects, but that doesn't matter anymore. Everyone who has made it this far in the program has made it, so why are fucking around with these old cliques? We're all stuck together here at the STC together until we graduate.

Simply put, you need to stop fucking with my people, and we both need to set an example. So … rematch next Tuesday, and you bring the fucking best you can." He said with a grin, poking him playfully on the chest. "And every Tuesday after that. Fuck it, let's made this the digitally bloodiest semester the STC has ever recorded. Agreed?"

Luthien blinked, confounded, but Baz took it as acceptance.

"See you then, buddy!" He laughed, turning away and raising his beer in salute, returning to the crowd.

=======================

Stumbling back into barracks a few hours after too late, Baz slumped heavily into his bunk still dressed in his finery. Closing his eyes, he tried to will away the dizziness that plagued him.

Opening the bathroom door, Sylvie stepped out dressed in her usual pajamas, a single dark braid hanging low over her shoulder.

"Ugh…" Baz moaned, trying to shield himself from the glare of the bathroom lights, but earning a smirk and no other mercy from his bunkmate.

"I heard about the little showdown at the Academy lounge. Hudson filled me in four hours ago..." She chided, leaning against the doorframe. "Even let me know he got in safe about two hours after that."

"Mistakes were made…" he moaned, facechecking a pillow.

Snorting, Sylvie poured him a glass of water and then poked him in the shoulder until he reluctantly sat up to accept it.

Chuckling as the water dribbled down his chin, she settled cross legged on the floor. Baz only noticed the tension in her after he had drained the glass completely.

"You okay? Why the hell are you still up?"

"Not sure… just some jitters."

Baz blinked, dredging his semi-responsive memory.

"The special branch interviews? Oh shit… I forgot about those."

"Yours are booked the day after tomorrow." She intoned, reading his next thought.

Baz smiled softly. Sylvie had always had his back, even when it came to the organisational side of being in the navy. While he was an admittedly gifted tactician on the battlefield, the minutiae of the strategic tended to escape him. Hudson, Grier, and himself had only gotten as far as they had through the quiet encouragement and knowledge she offered.

"...Everythings going to be fine, Syl."

She shrugged forlornly. "I hope so… I just don't want to see us get scattered."

"It has to happen eventually. They always break up the training squadrons. Besides, once you get into command you'll just pull us all back together."

She quirked an exasperated eyebrow. "Command? Really?"

"Everyone has their gifts." Baz admitted with a shrug. "Yours are worthy of command. Mine will put me in a cruiser."

"A cruiser?" She scoffed with a laugh. "Aiming a little high, aren't we?" Cruisers were the dream for most Blue Worlds naval captains: Weapons, power, and prestige all rolled into one exciting package. It was the silhouette of a cruiser that detailed each and every recruited poster.

Baz grinned. "Of course I'll be in a cruiser! Fleet will want me some place where they can curb my urges for forward action and ingenuity. Someplace where I can't make trouble… Where better than a big ol' tub of weapons?"

=============================

"Alright, here's the order of command for this operation." Called the simulation commander, flicking through his datapad as he read through the roles. The trainees were scattered around the mostly empty conference room, reading up on the escort scenario on their datapads. Once the room had been full of the best and brightest, but slowly their numbers had been whittled down. "Hudson, Mikelson, and Hesh on picket. Grier, you'll be taking the overwatch in the Hound. Taff and Church, you'll be taking the heavyweights… no complaining! Bassart on the torp cruiser. Immersion in fifteen. See you on station, people."

Taff, sitting to Baz's left, muttered curses under his breath at once again being assigned to the troop transport. Ignoring him, Baz elbowed Mikelson in the shoulder. "Hey… you wanna trade?" he asked sarcastically.

Luthein rolled his eyes and chuckled. "No way in hell." He too had learned the truth of playing the cruiser captain.

"Have you seen Syl?" Baz had kept expecting her to turn up late for the simulation, but after roll call it was clear she hadn't been assigned. That wasn't in itself unusual, most captains-to-be got called for medical appointments or a dozen other reasons, but after their talk last night he felt a little on edge.

Luthien nodded. "Yeah, she was down in the main hanger with Commander Harper and a civilian."

Baz brooded, causing his old enemy to raise an eyebrow. "Baz… You have your dangerous face on. We have a drop in fifteen…"

"I'll be back. Cover for me." Bassart declared, tucking his datapad under his arm and hurrying from the room.

"Baz!" Luthein hissed after him in a half-whisper. "You're ranking officer on this one. I can't cover you!"

=========================

Hurrying through the Academy Hub, Baz felt a knot of anxiety growing in his chest. Weaving his way hurriedly through the ranks of technicians, marines, and other station staff, he caught more than a few angry glances.

The guards in particular were confused as one of their charges burst through their cordons, but they were ordered to keep people out, not in, and so starred on in confusion. Thumbing his comms, he opened a channel to Kessler.

"Kes, can you grab me Sylvie?"

"Yeah, sure… Boss, her commcode has been scrubbed from the Academy system."

"She washed out? No fucking way." Despite himself, he broke out into a run, taking corners and apologizing to the staff he brushed aside.

"Not like that, Boss. All I'm seeing is data fragments. The data wasn't just delisted - it was burned. Whoever it was didn't give a shit if they left scars behind, just that every scrap was eliminated."

Reaching the accessway to the flight control deck, Baz could look down through the windows to see the STC's broad loading bay. There were a dozen shuttles idling about, most designed to haul supplies to and from the station to the fleet at rest outside, shuffling about on the bay's automated handlers, but one ship stood out from the others distinctly untouched by the system.

Unlike the angular designs of the BWN staryards with their flat plates of grav-pressed metal, this machine was sinuous and almost organic in its modelling. It was smaller and elegant, designed for passengers, and he could see Syl climbing on board with a duffle over her shoulder. Two other figures, dressed in the official slate-coloured robes of the Tantulus Archive, followed her on board.

"Sylvie!" Baz yelled, pounding on the window. Vacuum sealed as it was, it was impossible for her to hear him and she disappeared glumly inside. One of the figures, however, turned its hooded face in his direction, somehow sensing his presence. It seemed to consider him for a moment before turning away, disappearing up the ramp.

"Uh, Boss…" Kessler whispered in his ear.

"What is it, Kess?" He growled, watching as the ship's ramp began to retract and sink into the metallic flesh of the shuttle and its drives flicker to life. It was then that he felt the heavy hand of a BWN marine settle firmly on his shoulder, pulling him away from the window.