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So it finally came to be, half a Cycle after The Hegemony’s attacks, that Admiral Preyl, with her Warfleet already spread thin after several hundred MilliCycles spent pushing farther and farther into the void—and having to contend with the ever-present topological fact that every additional LightCycle away from the Charted Zone roughly doubled the new volume that her Fleet needed to secure—had to accept that she had searched as far as possible for the time being.
Her forces had been stretched to the breaking point, the Fleet needed to regroup.
So the order was put out to fall back. Sensor arrays and relay beacons would be left at regular intervals—every time we dropped out of Hyperspace—on our return home.
Nothing would make it within ten thousand LightCycles of our borders without tripping the alarm.
If The Hegemony so much as lobbed a rusted bolt our way, we would know it.
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This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Standing on the bridge of The Vengeful Redeemer, crown jewel of the fleet, i watched on the view screens as more of our contingent dropped out of Hyper for the rendezvous before our final Jump home.
In the past few dozen MilliCycles en route back, we had re-amassed about a sixth of the Fleet, the remainder, having travelled orthogonal to us, we would see once we were firmly back in Collective controlled territory.
“All hands, this is Admiral Preyl.” The indefatigable commander broadcast to our local contingent. “Prepare for transition to Hyper in 2 MicroCycles.” She turned to our ship’s pilot. “Captain Goolie, commence reactor initiation phase on my mar—“
“—Admiral!” A voice blurted through the channel, it was Captain Yribia on the heavy Cruiser The Wrath Ye Shall Fear. “We are detecting anomalous gravitational signature 3° to starboard!”
Everyone on the bridge snapped to attention at their consoles.
“Captain Yribia!” The Admiral shouted into the comms “What is the telemetry repor—“
“It’s dropping out of Hyper now, Admiral!”
“All ships, target lock that Signature immediately! Whatever it is, I want firing solutions the instant it finishes jump!”
Out in the Void, no more than 10,000 Standard Units away, the Rift opened, piercing the veil separating our reality from the exotic extradimensional fundament. Raging quantum Charybdis tearing a hole through spacetime, and spitting out… nothing at all.