CHAPTER 45: BRIGGS

Briggs

Joint Defense Fleet

Outer Earth Space

Sol

“Sir, three more Sumerian ships have been lost.” The report rang out, shouted amidst the chaos, yet it received no acknowledgment, swallowed by the torrent of urgent updates flying through the air like oxygen coursing through the ship’s recyclers. Admiral Briggs stood transfixed before the fleet display hologram, a grim tableau of destruction unfolding before his eyes. Ships from every corner of the combined defense fleet were being decimated at an alarming rate, their losses mounting like a grotesque tally. The kinetic weapons that had once promised an edge in this fight now felt insignificant against the overwhelming tide of Alliance ships, which seemed to be pouring into the system with an unyielding and limitless ferocity.

Hope hung like a specter in the air, nearly tangible yet utterly elusive. The death toll had already eclipsed any acceptable threshold, and the timeline that the Admiral had given his engineering team to execute their audacious plan had slipped away minutes ago. Briggs felt as if he were standing at the edge of an abyss, peering into the void of despair. He had no clear path forward—options dwindled like the last flickers of a dying star, and he estimated that the battle would not last another hour before every ship under his command was annihilated. As he stared into nothingness, time stretched and twisted around him, moving slower than diamonds forming from carbon under the weight of eons. To the world around him, he appeared brave, a stalwart leader, carefully formulating his next move. But within, he was screaming, wracked by agony and pain, utterly devastated by the knowledge that he had already failed millions, with the specter of trillions more hanging perilously in the balance. He waited for a miracle to manifest, praying that sending the WarpStar on its fool’s errand had been the right choice, but none came.

The comm unit blared to life, interrupting his internal turmoil, yet it offered no miracle—only a grim report. “Fleet Command, Engineering, Sir, we have good news and bad news.” Chief Engineer Thomas’s voice crackled across the MC unit, laden with urgency.

“Spit it out, Lieutenant! I don’t have time for any bullshit!” Briggs nearly shouted, his frustration boiling over, a stark departure from the calm demeanor he usually maintained.

“Sir, the system is set up and ready to go, and we’ve pinpointed a vulnerability in the Alliance’s systems. Not only can we easily trigger a hyperspace jump, but we can also manipulate their navigational systems to jump to any specific location we desire! That’s the good news.”

“That is phenomenal news, Lieutenant!” Hope began to creep back into Briggs’s heart, only to be immediately snatched away, leaving nothing but a hollow echo.

“Yes sir, however, we won’t be able to control the virus’s spread, meaning any ship, friend or foe, military assets or civilian, within the broadcast range will be affected. Furthermore, our systems cannot handle the power output required. We have an eighty-nine percent chance of causing a complete catastrophic overload. I do not believe the Independence will survive this jump.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I will take all of that into consideration. Be prepared for further orders.” With a heavy heart, Briggs calmly set the comm unit back in its place, the weight of the decision pressing down on him.

While the news was promising and the audacious plan was ready to be set into motion, the grim reality loomed large: every life aboard the mighty Independence would likely be extinguished. Yet, if he chose to disregard this plan, every soul would surely perish at the hands of the Alliance. As the ship continued to shudder from high-energy plasma impacts, the Admiral wrestled with his thoughts. It did not take long for clarity to strike him. The lives of the many outweighed the lives of the few. The salvation of Sol was worth the sacrifice of his crew.

Now came the critical decision: he could choose where to send the invading forces of their enemies, but where? The hyperspace network was limited; only a handful of systems were known. Alpha Centauri? No, he would not risk humanity's last untouched civilization to the hell currently raining down upon them. Sirius? Another poor choice, though less populated, it was still home to millions of miners and industrial workers. Orion? Perhaps—while the system had been devastated in the initial attack on the Federation, it was devoid of civilian life, but that wouldn’t solve the problem of the Alliance fleet. They would simply continue their onslaught, returning to Sol to finish what they had started. Where could he possibly send them?

Then, an idea struck him, a fleeting thought, a memory long buried. Some time ago, Admiral Briggs had attended a scientific conference—one he had found dull and uninteresting but had been required to attend to represent the Navy. What had they been discussing? It was something about theoretical uses for hyperdrive technology. He found himself staring down at his feet, pondering, yet his feet seemed to scream at him in urgency. Why? What was it about the solid deck plating beneath him that ignited a spark of inspiration? Deck plating, the gravitational pull from the grav-plating! The conference had delved into using massive gravitational anomalies as beacons for potential hyperspace travel before the advent of FTL technology!

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“Someone, I don’t care who, just get me the strongest damned gravitational signal you can find on the gravimetric sensors, somewhere outside of the system, and do it now, damn it!” Briggs shouted, urgency infusing his voice.

A junior officer, grasping the gravity of their situation, quickly responded. “Sir, that should be the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way!” He recalled this fact from his sensor training, a small nugget of knowledge that had been drilled into him. In order to accurately read and interpret the data from the gravitational sensors, one had to filter out background readings, and the strongest signal the sensors registered outside the immediate vicinity was always the supermassive black hole. Even when techs fine-tuned the sensors for local readings only, a trace of the black hole would always bleed into the data. Figuring out which signature belonged to the black hole was one of the first lessons for sensor techs in their training.

“Excellent! I don’t know who said that, but you’ve just been promoted to Captain. Send those coordinates to Engineering immediately!” A sense of exhilaration surged through him. This was the solution to everything. Yes, the Independence would not survive, but one thing Briggs always remembered from command school was the warnings regarding black holes. Never jump a ship or fleet into a system with a black hole. Decades earlier, a group of explorers had made the tragic mistake of jumping into a system with a newly formed black hole, unaware of the danger. They transmitted data until they were obliterated, unable to comprehend the warnings their hyper buoy was sending them: do not enter, danger! The explorers attempted an emergency burn to escape the gravitational pull, but it was futile. The forces were too strong—the hand of some divine force had torn them apart before their capacitors could even react. Every fiber of the Admiral's being screamed at him; protocols dictated this was an absolute death sentence, yet that was precisely what Briggs wanted. If they were going down, those bastards would go down with them!

“Fleet Command, Engineering, coordinates received, sir, are you…?”

Briggs interrupted the Lieutenant, his irritation boiling over. “Just get ready for my damned order!”

“Aye sir, coordinates programmed, capacitors primed for a full charge. Once the order is given, the system needs thirty seconds to charge before the command bursts can be sent. Once initiated, the process cannot be altered or canceled.”

“Understood!” Briggs’s gaze fell on the green command button on his terminal. “Execute.” He hovered his finger above it, hesitating. Was he making the right decision? Would this end the slaughter? Would it save Earth and the rest of Sol? Or was he condemning even more lives to a slow and painful demise? “God, you are our hiding place and our refuge in times of distress. We turn to you now, seeking comfort from the wounds of the world and strength to face all our afflictions. Be present in our struggle, and help us to rest in your eternal promises. Amen.” Briggs prayed, his heart heavy, and made his decision. His mind sent the command racing down his nervous system, urging his arm to move, his finger to press the green execute button. But just as he was about to carry out the command, another junior officer shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Sir! Something’s happening!”

“Explain yourself!” Briggs barked, fury coursing through him, disgusted at the interruption and even more disgusted with himself for allowing a junior officer to derail him.

“Sir, there’s a bizarre anomaly forming in space. I can’t describe it—it looks like a black hole-like…thing? A lightning storm in space? I… I have no idea; it’s just fucking weird!”

Ignoring the breach of discipline, Briggs’s attention snapped back to the Fleet Command hologram, which displayed the chaotic activity surrounding the theater of war. Something strange was unfolding in space, an anomaly forming before their eyes. Could this be an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, a theoretical phenomenon he had once read about? Deep down, he knew it was possible, but were they truly real? He recalled a similar sight from a video recording made by the AI fighter, known as Betsy, when the WarpStar had evaded the Legion fleet. The Legion had created what John had dubbed a wormhole and escaped through it.

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Briggs prayed, and as if in response, a voice boomed around him, reverberating through the very core of his being.

“Admiral, take this gift, bring the fleet here, save Sol!”

The voice did not sound like what Briggs had imagined; it was achingly familiar, and recognition struck him like a lightning bolt. That was the voice of Captain John Henderson!

Without hesitation, without a moment’s doubt, Briggs knew he had to issue the right orders, for his miracle had arrived. “Engineering, Fleet Command, new coordinates are coming your way! Lock on to that hyperspace signal and execute immediately. Do not wait for a go or no-go from me—just fucking go!”

Seconds ticked away, and the world around the Admiral began to shift. Lights flared brighter than he had ever seen, consoles erupted into showers of sparks, conduits burst forth with violent energy, and a deep hum reverberated through the ship as the fabric of reality around them began to warp. Earth distorted before his eyes, the blue marble of his home being consumed by an encroaching black void. Then, chaos erupted around them. Gravity vanished, and flames consumed everything in sight. The Independence was rendered dead in the water, caught in the merciless grip of fate.