(Flag Bridge, BSN Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, Dimiya System)

“Oda Nobunaga is reporting severe damage. Their reactor is going critical!”

“Damn it!” I snarled, looking at the plot. “All right, tell Captain Swiftwind to break off, we’ll have the Miyamoto Musashi cover their retreat. If they can stabilize the reactor, then they can make for Black Star Station for repairs.”

Raven just shook her head, and pointed at the plot. “I don’t think they are listening, Sir.”

As we watched, the doomed destroyer went to emergency thrust on its engines, the power curve spiking dangerously as all its weapons fired at will. Surging forward, the destroyer SLAMMED through an Ihm corvette that flew across its path, breaking the smaller ship in two. Now on fire, the destroyer set its course towards an enemy dreadnought. I noticed a distinct lack of escape pods launching.

“Damnit! Tell them to abandon ship! THAT’S AN ORDER!”

“Transmission from the Nobunaga, Admiral. Captain Swiftwind sends his regards, and says, ‘For Ydan’.”

My heart dropped. Captain Swiftwind was originally from Ydan. He was looking at demons overrunning his home. I took a deep breath, and said, “Tell him, ‘Witnessed’, then.”

I watched the plot as the Nobunaga’s reactor spiked to critical levels, only staying together by prayer and sheer determination. Power was transferred away from the weapons, to put even more power to the engines and the shields. They did not stray from their course.

On an impulse, I snapped to attention like a fresh-faced sailor just out of the naval academy back in the real world. “PRESENT, ARMS!” As I called out, and snapped a salute, crisp as I’ve ever done, I could hear the clapping of bootheels as everyone else on the flag bridge followed suit. I held the salute until the destroyer plowed straight into the dreadnought’s core, piercing the armor. And then the reactor blew, and it took the dreadnought’s reactor with it, destroying both ships, and sending a cloud of debris like a shotgun blast that peppered the three ihm cruisers that were trying, in vain, to stop the Nobunaga’s final flight.

“At ease.” I let my hand fall, and relaxed my posture, before I turned back to the rest of my command staff. “Back to work, people. This is a furball, and mostly the work of the individual captains, but that doesn’t mean we can be slacking off. Help coordinate the strikes. Don’t let their sacrifice be in vain.”

“Admiral! We have a read on the new ships coming through the rift. They are of a design I’ve never seen before. Not Ihm, that much is certain!”

I looked at the scans of the ships. They most certainly weren’t Ihm. I could see six variants in their ships, each looking like, well, dice. There were variants with four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and twenty sides on them, as far as I could tell. The twenty-sided ships were the most common, followed by the six-sided ones, but there were only four of the twelve-sided ships, even though the total numbers for the newcomers was two hundred and sixteen!

“Incoming transmission! All frequencies, and in the clear. I’m detecting viral loadout embedded in the transmission, but cyberwarfare suites are holding.”

“We are the Gorb. Existence, as you know it, is over. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your Culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

“Interesting,” Raven said. “It looks like there was a psychic element to the transmission as well. Anyone who wasn’t behind psychic shielding would have heard that message directly in their minds.”

“Science fun later, Raven. What are these Gorb doing?”

“Three of the four-sided ships are settling over Ydan. No clue what their purpose is. The rest appear to be splitting into roughly equal groups. Half are heading towards us, and the other half towards Dimiya.”

“Do they have hellspace shields?”

“Negative.”

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“Alert Breath of Hades and the rest of the Dimiya Defense Group. We’ll try and help as soon as we can, but for now, they’re on their own. Starbolts authorized and encouraged.”

“Admiral! Sensor readings indicating a massive energy surge coming into the system. Not a known drive system, but many-many sources.” The sensor tech paused for a moment, and then said, “It looks like they came from Jagloth!”

(Flag Bridge, CNS Wrath of Gadran, Dimiya System)

Admiral Rizazzi shuddered as another series of X’thari grav-lances raked his ship. “Tell Folyen and Undarial to focus fire on that dreadnought, its shields are weakening!”

“Admiral! Fleet reports that our supply of Sunfire torpedoes is at twenty percent! Enemy fleet is still eighty-seven percent combat capable!”

‘Eighty-seven percent combat capable’. What a horrible, horrible way of saying that his ships had destroyed over a thousand enemy vessels. Not counting the few hundred that they blew up as the X’thari emerged from their Anchor Drives. The final count had been nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine X’thari ships exactly. There were eight thousand, three hundred and change remaining.

Somehow, he’d only lost ten percent of his forces, as the quick hits, the distraction probe, and focusing their fire on the leaders of the swarm had effectively hampered the X’thari response. But they could afford the losses better than he could. Every last one of the X’thari ships were only partly technological, and the X’thari themselves were instinctual hunters. They could replace their numbers far more easily than he could replace trained crews.

And then, there was the newcomers. Panicked calls were coming in from Ydan. The fighting had turned into a three-way brawl, as the strange, cyborg creatures arrived out of thin air, and began attacking both the people and the demons, stealing them away. What they were doing to them, he had no idea, and he was pretty sure that he had no desire to know.

He'd probably sleep better that way.

“New readings, Admiral! Counting two thousand ships incoming. Unknown drives, unknown configuration. Track puts them as coming from… from Jagloth!”

Rizazzi felt the temperature on the flag bridge drop ten degrees in an instant. “Scan for signs of the Legion Virus.”

“We are not, repeat: are NOT, detecting any signs of the Legion Virus, but the scans are inconclusive at this range.”

He felt his gut unclench, if only a little. “Understood. What are the new ships doing?”

“They are spreading out through the outer planets. I think they mean to try and claim as much of the system as possible, before moving inward.”

Rizazzi nodded at the sensor operator, and turned to his communications officer, sighing. “That is the best that we could have hoped for, I guess. Alert local forces. Tell them that we’ll get there when we can.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw his Nomad liaison jerk. The Ensign had recovered from the mental attack that had, apparently, struck all Nomads across the galaxy simultaneously, and was capable of standing post. He was still cut off from Nomad communications, but his action station was here, so here he was. And, Rizazzi realized, the Ensign had just noticed something.

“What is it, Ensign?”

“Admiral, sir! Look at the X’thari! They’re breaking off! Even the ships that were chasing the probe!”

Rizazzi’s eyes shot open, and he whirled back to face the plot. It was true! The X’thari were breaking off, even the ones going after the probe! They never broke off when they were chasing someone using ‘their’ tech! It was the most famous thing about them!

His eyes were locked on the plot, and then he saw it. The pattern in the swarm’s movements. They were heading towards the newcomers. These ships that came from Jagloth were, somehow, more important to the X’thari than even their instinct to chase and kill those who used X’thari tech.

“Message the fleet! Switch to standard munitions! Fly through the swarm, and turn to follow as they pass by! We’ll pick them off from behind while they do the job of softening up our new ‘playthings’ for us. And make sure Black Star is kept in the loop!”

(Bridge, BSN Breath of Hades, Dimiya System)

“All ships form up on the Hades. I want all tubes loaded with Starbolts and ready to go. Shinobi, Hammer, and Black Knight squadrons, form up and attack targets of opportunity. Crimson Blade squadron will escort Demon squadron’s bombers in.”

Slave-Captain Ahshala Ulaven leaned back in her command chair, trying to convey a look of calm composure. Inside, she was anything but. She’d never been in a true, life or death fight before. Not like this.

When she’d sold herself to get her family off Jagloth, she had been expecting to be some rich man’s sex slave. Instead, she’d been bought by Black Star, and her tests put her on the track to becoming a naval officer in the defense groups. She’d only been in battle once before, and that was when pirates tried to attack Black Star Station! She had been a gunboat pilot back then, but she’d moved her way up the ranks, as those who had more combat experience moved into the offensive groups.

She wasn’t prepared for this! She wasn’t a combat officer! She just wanted to do her job, being the silent threat that kept Black Star and its people safe. Kept her family safe.

She took a deep breath. Her family. Remember her family. They were on Black Star Station, behind her. They were counting on her, as were all the other civilians. She couldn’t do anything for the people on Dimiya or Ydan, where rifts were opening, and demons were attacking all the cities, but she could protect her family, right?

She took another breath, and pressed a button on her console. “Dimiya Defense Group, this is Slave-Captain Ulaven. As you know, there’s a battle raging across the system. I know some of you, especially the pirates, have been chafing at having to remain behind, while everyone else is fighting. But I also know that you all know the reason for this. We are the last line of defense. The rest of Dimiya’s protections, of Black Star Station’s protections, are all engaged with enemies that massively outnumber them. They are fighting and dying, to try and keep those ships from the core worlds.

“But we have new ships, now, and they’ve broken through the outer lines. They’re coming straight for us. Straight for our families, and the people that we have sworn to protect. And we are the last line of defense. Beyond us are just civilians. If we don’t stop the ships, then the ground forces will be wiped out by orbital bombardment, and the civilians will be left to their own devices.”

She took a breath. “I will not lie to you. We are as outnumbered as the rest of the forces. It is very likely that all of us will die. But every ship we take down is one less ship that can attack our families and friends. Every ship destroyed is one fewer enemy that can turn its guns upon defenders on the ground. Every ship wiped from the sky is one more chance for the people behind us to live another day.

“We have our orders from the Admiral. We are cleared for use of Starbolts. We are cleared to use Whatever Means Necessary, in order to protect the civilians behind us. I don’t want anyone coming back with ammunition still on board. They say resistance is futile. I SAY THAT WE GIVE THEM HELL!”

As she roared that last, part, she stood from her chair, and said, “All ships, to those who will not make it back, I promise you, you shall be remembered. To those who return, I promise that we will all raise a glass together, to honor the fallen, and then we shall raise a whole goddamn bottle to being the big damn heroes!”

Her bridge crew cheered, and she took her seat again. “BEGIN THE ATTACK!”