“Multiple contacts established on East Quad! Scramble all available fighters from East and South Wings!” Lord Kanin shouted for the room. Zha and Caliman turned to me, and I nodded in assent with Kanin for the time being. Little did my latest rival know, but it was not he that was calling the shots for this engagement. “Should we hail them?”

“They’re hailing us,” Lord Lycia replied. “The question is whether we answer.”

“We do. Do not give them visual, only an audio feed,” Lord van der Skar replied, catching much of the room—myself and even Bliss included—off guard. None had seen his entrance, but he was here now, strutting forth into the middle of the room as his cane clacked against the metal floor. “Accept whatever feed they offer.”

“They’re providing both,” Lycia answered, then gestured for an admech—not Varnus—to patch the enemy fleet in. After a few moments, a field of green lights appeared in the center of the room, forming the rough image of a humanoid with severe augmetic adjustments to his head. A casual glance would not have been too remiss in surmising his appearance as that of a servitor, though all in our command center knew this being to be vastly more dangerous than that.

“Inquisitors of Ixaniad, I address you now as Telgonus, Son of Iron,” the barely-human machine in the green display spoke. “You are far from our intended targets, but we recognize your lethality all the same. Surrender your Starfort, and allow us to detain Lord Inquisitors van der Skar and Caliman, as well as Inquisitor Blackgar, and we need not break your fortress in half.”

“This is Lord Inquisitor van der Skar responding to Telgonus, Son of Iron,” van der Skar replied to the communication. “You speak of intentions. I myself have little intent to surrender myself or others with no guarantee of others’ safety, or that of the Ixaniad Sector. What guarantee can you make for me?”

“We will leave your Starfort intact. Captain Valeran Mortoc, Son of Iron, wants an audience with the three of you.”

“Intriguing. Well, I am not committing vessels for our transport in front of your batteries. If you want us, you will need to send for us,” van der Skar explained.

“Does that mean you are volunteering your surrender?” Telgonus asked.

“Mine, yes. Caliman, Blackgar?” van der Skar asked us.

Caliman nodded. “Good to go here.”

“Works for me,” I agreed.

“Excellent. So how is this to happen, then?” van der Skar asked, turning back to the projection of Telgonus.

“You will lower your Starfort’s shields on your Eastern Quadrant. We will send a boarding craft for you. Try anything clever, and we will cleave your Starfort twain.”

“I am not being fooled into lowering our shields in front of enemy warships. Your boarding craft will approach for our Southern Quadrant,” van der Skar returned.

“Nor will I throw my men to slaughter. Order your fighters to stand down, that I may hear it over this exchange. And should our communication cease I will assume you intend to hide counter-orders from me and open fire immediately. We will also send attack craft to accompany the boarding party. I am making no further alterations to this opportunity,” Telgonus offered.

“Agreeable,” van der Skar nodded before turning to me. “Blackgar?”

“All units, this is Fleet Command. Stand down now, I repeat, stand down now. Do not engage unallied contacts unless fired upon,” I ordered of our fighters and accompanying cruisers.

“Satisfied?” van der Skar asked.

“For now. Our craft will launch when your Southern Quadrant’s shields lower. Captain Mortoc, Son of Iron, looks forward to speaking with you. Stay on this line until then,” Telgonus demanded.

“Lycia,” van der Skar called to her.

“This is Lord Inquisitor Lycia to Dawnshadow Engineering. Please lower the Southern Quadrant’s shields as soon as possible, thank you,” Lycia passed along the command.

“Very well. You should make way to your docking ports,” Telgonus explained. van der Skar then nodded to me.

+Zha, scan the vessels they send for us. Tap my arm when you have results, then keep them in your mind. I will find them there,+ I told her. She nodded to me.

Some time passed. Low range sensorium scans displayed the loading craft, accompanied by a small squadron of fighters, pass harmlessly through the lines of our own voidcraft. It was then that Zha tapped my shoulder, and I peered inside her head. I sent my findings to Caliman, who was reluctant to receiving psychic communication, and van der Skar, who was counting on it.

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+Piloted by servitors. Lined with explosives. If they don’t detonate against the Dawnshadow, they will kill us after we’ve boarded long before we reach their fleet.+

Not unsurprising, van der Skar thought, and then gestured his free hand—the one not atop his cane—across his neck. Killing season.

+Lycia, raise the shields back and cut our communication,+ I told her. Then, before waiting for her to do either, made the call to our fleet. “All units, this is Fleet Command. Fire at will. Engage and destroy all targets.”

“Death for all, then,” Telgonus nodded. “Prepare boarding torpedoes. Captain Mortoc will not be denied,” he ordered of his crew shortly before our communication with him ceased outright, the large green head in the air vanishing at last.

“Would you three have gone along with that if it was genuine?” Lycia asked us then.

“Not likely, though I admit I am intrigued this Mortoc wants us alive. No, the only audience he will receive is the one that comes to take his head; isn’t that right, Blackgar?” van der Skar asked.

“Dead-on, sir, yes,” I answered. Our faux-surrender was never actually going to see us leaving the station. Instead, we would bait what hardware or—better, albeit unrealized—personnel out from the enemy to destroy it with ease. Downing the transport vessel itself likely will not matter in the long run, but executing its mock support craft would not hurt. Every little bit helps. “What’s their fleet composition look like?”

“They have—additional Warp tunnels opening on Northern Quadrant!” Kanin reported back. Before I received any answer to my initial question, the Dawnshadow began to shudder as the shield of its Eastern Quadrant was pummeled, and as the Starfort itself returned fire in kind. I admit, controlling the minutiae of a naval battle was not my forte. Now that it was underway, I had little to do, save for ordering the out-maneuvering of the enemy. I could not tell a captain when to fire any better than their own judgment would suffice, so just as I had given Lucene autonomy in controlling her Sisters, I chose to leave our defense to our defenders.

Still, I wanted an idea of what was going on out there. “Ms. Trantos?” I asked, moving my question initially asked of the room to her alone.

“New contacts still need to be identified, but initial vessels were made out as a Battle Barge—the Soulcrusher, likely where Telgonus hides—as well as the Nicodor and Surecrest, both Murder-pattern Cruisers, as well as supporting craft,” Zha reported to me. In that regard, we had outgunned them quite significantly; two Cruisers on either side left the Soulcrusher to stand against the Dawnshadow on its own, and a Starfort well outweighed a single Battle Barge.

“Can you patch me in to Mirena?” I asked of Zha, then. She nodded and began working on such a connection. In the meantime, Lucene and her Sisters assumed defensive, fortifiable positions throughout the room, and Bliss began to pace to encircle me, making sure to get an eye on every angle of approach to me. I was in good hands, I knew that. The other Inquisitors in the room, those that did not answer to me, fell into their own trusted cliques as well, coordinating with their operatives in secrecy, as one might have expected—I certainly had. Of course, that just compounded to make me feel further useless, as the scope of things I could or should directly address narrowed by the second.

Let the generals do their jobs, Galen once told me, long ago on Pyrras-3. When they have, they’ll let us do the shooting. We needn’t envy them their cleanly hands. Sound advice for the time, but now I was playing the part of a general, and certainly did not enjoy it. I think it was in that command center, then, that I first truly realized that my hands—and boots—belonged in the mud, so to speak. Alas, the board was already set of its pieces, and I was not among them.

“Mr. Blackgar, sir?” Zha asked, perhaps for the second time, pressing a handheld voxcaster my way. I thanked her with a nod, and took it into my grasp, stepping away from our mutual sensorium array.

“Still out there, Mirena?” I asked of the vox.

Mirena’s reply was heavily garbled, but discernible all the same. “Can’t do away with me that easily, sir,” she answered.

“We’re still waiting on our scans to identify the new enemy craft, but what do you got?” I asked her.

“A lot of unwelcome guests. Hold on, sir, I’ll try for a better view,” she told me. I made note of how, despite our closeness, when in times of combat or otherwise greater stress, I regressed from ‘Cal’ to ‘sir’ on her lips. This was not uncommon among those of my retinue. After a few moments doing Throne knows what, Mirena replied, “Six capital ships, sir, four of which are Retaliator-class Grand Cruisers. The other two are Styx-class Heavy Cruisers. Each has already deployed their fighter squadrons. They’re out of range as of yet, but that’ll be changing soon.”

I snapped my fingers toward Zha and Caliman, who silently nodded in confirmation that they received the information Mirena provided, with Caliman giving me a thumbs’ up. Fleet tactics would begin adjusting accordingly, even if we had not made positive ID on our opposition. “The head of this snake is the Battle Barge of first contact, the Soulcrusher. Confirm visual?”

“Confirm.”

“It must survive to flee the scene if at all possible. You can pick your targets, but if you’re to attack the Soulcrusher, do not damage its engines. It must be allowed to escape if it chooses. Everything else can be terminated. Do you—”

“Boarding torpedoes sighted, sir!” Mirena interrupted me. “Are those worth prioritizing?”

“They’ll be armed and escorted. If you can down them, do so. But don’t jeopardize yourself for them,” I explained. “I’ll leave you to it. Kill as kill can. Over and out,” I bid her farewell, and then turned back to my allies at our sensorium. “This isn’t unwinnable,” I noted.

“It isn’t, but they’ll outnumber our fighters three-to-one,” Caliman calculated, earning an agreeing nod from Zha. “Our own will be shredded out there. Are you prepared for that, Blackgar?”

“She’ll live,” I assured him, knowing he was referring to Mirena. Or was I assuring myself? I did not know.

“When do we engage surfaceside defense batteries?” Zha asked us, but looked to me for a response. I had one, as I had been waiting on the question.

“When the Cruisers on our North front overcommit to battering us. When they think they have a chance of shooting us out of the sky. When they have hope,” I muttered. “That’s when we’ll take it from them.”