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“Brace for impact!” The Admiral shouted as the threat icons turned to red, signaling that the enemy Grav-Cannons were fully charged. Signaling our imminent destruction.

I knew that, with her experience, she must’ve known the order was frivolous. There would be no bracing for this impact.

I just closed my eyes and waited for the end…

And waited…

And waited…

Eventually I peeked an eye open. Seeing that I still had a body, and furthermore that it appeared to still be sitting inside an intact ship, I opened my other eye.

On the displays we could see the enemy ships—those that had been poised to mete out our annihilation mere moments before—now dissolving into rapidly disassociating clouds of debris. The Heavy Cruisers surrounding The Redeemer were no more, only the smaller fighters remained, which, though still great in number, did not pose as serious a threat, since they lacked the Grav-Cannons and other heavy armament necessary to seriously challenge our flagship.

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And on the screens I could see the Hegemony Cruisers that had been surrounding our other key vessels—those too began detonating. And even the innumerable small fighters had begun exploding in brilliant flashes by the dozens.

In the span of a mere MicroCycle, the tide of the battle had completely changed. Now it was we who were decimating The Hegemony. Our fighters chased down and destroyed those remaining of the enemy’s, aided by our invisible friends, The Hegemony stood no chance.

Finally, all that remained was our Warfleet—dwindled to nearly half—and 2 Hegemony Heavy Cruisers drifting idly near the Rift.

“Fleet, this is Admiral Preyl, I want all firepower directed at those 2 ships. Turn them to dus—“

“Negative Admiral!” The familiar voice came through the comms. “Do not engage. We are commencing a boarding operation. I repeat, do not engage!”

“Kel!” The Admiral blurted. “Those ships are armed with Grav-Cannons and who knows what else! The threat to my Fleet is unacceptable, abort your boarding opera—“

“Don’t worry Admiral,” Kel said. “The ships are not a threat. I repeat, they are not a threat. Their armament has been neutralized… I’ll explain later I promise, but I assure you they are not a threat. I am with Bronze Squadron right now, we are proceeding with the boarding operation. We need to… uhh… sterilize the ships before we can relinquish them for evaluation.”

The Admiral let out a small sigh, re-donning her practiced professional deportment. “Very well Lieutenant Colonel, let me know if we can be of assistance. Standing by.”

“Roger that.” Came the gruff reply.

We waited for what felt like an eternity while Kel and his teams cleared the enemy ships.

As I sat there on the bridge of The Redeemer, I recalled the debacle in the hallway aboard The Hands shortly before our rescue, I couldn’t help but shiver at the memory…