Admiral Grimthorn swept onto the bridge with Kinnit in tow.

The bridge was an open, curved space, with a massive screen, twelve feet tall, covering three quarters of the bridge. Its visuals were fed by a cloud of sensors that traveled in the ship's gravity, rendering a perfect image of space outside the ship, overlaid with dense data readouts. The interior of the bridge was all polished steel and smooth controls. Some fifteen or so officers worked the bridge, each one busy at some critical task.

"Get us moving toward the invasion," Grimthorn barked. "And tell me what's going on."

"Sir!" responded a lieutenant. "The Oryndrax jumped into Imperium space twenty-seven minutes ago, Yankee Dog sector of Vylar territory."

"Bugs," growled Admiral Grimthorn. "I hate bugs."

"Sir, referring to the Oryndrax as 'bugs' could be considered an offensive violation of the Species Reference act of the Naval communications protoc--"

"Lieutenant Dol, either tell me something useful or get off my bridge!"

The lieutenant swallowed the rest of his sentence and nodded.

"We received the distress call two minutes after the Oryndrax arrived. They were fired on shortly after."

"How long can they hold out?"

"Not long, sir. They're a supply depot, not a hardened military outpost. They don't have the hardware or the training for a sustained defense."

Admiral Grimthorn spat an oath.

"How many enemy ships are there?"

"Unclear, sir. Early reports suggest a light cruiser supporting an unknown number of fighter squadrons."

Kinnit stood at Admiral Grimthorn's elbow, keeping out of his way while taking in as much information as she could from the masses of data flowing across the giant screen.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Dol called. "The outpost is contacting us again!"

"Give me audio."

A crackling, indistinct voice came over the speakers. Even through the choppy audio, the speaker's panic was clear.

"--continuing to attack... --out of shells for our ion cannon... --taken out our forward... --please, any... --hail the Imperium!"

"Blast!" Admiral Grimthorn slammed a fist down on the waist-high grab bar that circled the captain's spot. "They're in a tight spot. Check for other ships in the area."

"There's nobody else, sir! Just us."

"Then why aren't we moving?!"

"Sir, the fleet is forming up for departure."

"To Geina with the rest of the fleet! Get Swordheart there, all possible speed! The rest can catch up later."

Kinnit looked at the nav plan and ran a few mental calculations. She covered her mouth. Even traveling alone, it was going to take 45 minutes or more to reach Yankee Dog sector. If the outpost was already out of long-range shells, they wouldn't last. The Insectoids would have blasted the place to atoms and be long gone by the time the Swordheart arrived. Unless...

"Sir," Kinnit said. "The jumpholes... will take too long."

"You think I don't know that?" he fumed. "Maybe we can at least catch the dirty bugs before they escape, make them pay!"

"Sir, if we altered our route to use the jumpholes near the Candredi nebula..."

Admiral Grimthorn stopped fuming for a moment. He turned to her with a shocked expression.

"You want me to take the pride if the Imperial fleet through a jumphole next to an unstable nebula? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"It-- it was just a thought."

"I like it!" He turned to Lieutenant Dol. "Lieutenant, lay in a course along the Candredi nebula!"

"Sir? I don't think we want to--"

Admiral Grimthorn didn't even respond, he simply stared at the Lieutenant Dol. The officer turned back to his console and quickly laid in the new course.

"Execute!"

The ship vibrated as it oriented toward the Candredi jumphole. The engines drove the 40-story flagship forward, while the gravitational dampers shed enough inertia to keep the engine velocity from turning the ISS Swordheart into the Imperium's largest origami sculpture.

"Prepare yourself, bugs," Admiral Grimthorn growled. "The Ninth Fleet is coming for you."

"All crew brace for jump!"

The ship leapt into the jumphole. Kinnit clenched her teeth, willing her lunch to stay down as they exited spacetime and entered a realm where the available number of dimensions shifted on a second-to-second basis.

She closed her eyes, which didn't really help as she turned inside out, became large enough to enclose the ship and small enough to zip between the protons of an atom. Size, physics, and perspective held no meaning as they traveled through the quantum equivalent of television static.

Jumpspace travel was not for the faint of heart.

They popped out the other side, the crew heaving and gasping. The temporal officer grimly maintained enough control to call out.

"Three point four relative minutes spent in jumpspace!"

"Full forward shields!" yelled Grimthorn through the mess. Loud crackles vibrated through the ship as the shields absorbed near-lightspeed strikes from nebular dust.

"Shed velocity! Bring us around, 323 mark seven! Get us out of this cloud!"

Kinnit quailed as the ship groaned around her. It sounded as though it were about to come apart.

She made a mental note not to give Admiral Grimthorn any more reckless ideas.

The engines vibrated the deck plates mercilessly as the ship poured every erg of energy into escaping the Candredi nebula. Slowly, the crackling grew quieter, the groaning ceased, and the ship seemed to stabilize.

"Orient on the next jumphole," called Grimthorn.

"Sir," Lieutenant Dol said, "Are you sure? That will take us back through the tail of the nebula!"

"Do we have shields on this thing or not? I'm not spending time going around the tail just so we don't scratch the paint. Execute!"

The Lieutenant did as he was commanded. The crackling of the shields was not quite as loud this time, thankfully.

The shields flickered and vanished as the ISS Swordheart tipped into the next jumphole. Kinnit endured jumpspace once again.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"One point seven relative minutes spent in jumpspace!" called the temporal officer.

"Bring us about, orient on the last jumphole."

"Yes, sir," said the nav officer, relieved that there wouldn't be any more crazy nebula maneuvers on this trip.

Admiral Grimthorn glanced at the nav plan.

"We'll be coming out of jumpspace nearly perpendicular to the outpost. Orient ion cannons at 67 degrees, full vertical spread, upper and lower. I want a full volley as soon as we're clear of jumpspace. We'll hit those bugs before they even know we're there."

"Yes, sir."

"And get the fighters prepped, scramble as soon as we're clear. Have them keep a tight patrol until we know the situation."

"Sir."

"Be prepared for immediate maneuvers. If they've got a cruiser, they're expecting trouble. But not the kind of trouble they're about to get."

Kinnit watched Admiral Grimthorn in admiration. This was the legendary admiral. This was the hero of Arcturus. Her heart swelled, even as she feared for the people of the outpost.

If anybody could save them, Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist could.

"Seven minutes to the next jumphole."

"Any more comms from the outpost?"

"None, sir."

Grimthorn's mouth twisted in anger.

"Keep monitoring."

Minutes crawled by as they closed on the final jumphole. Everyone on the bridge quieted, seemingly holding their breath as the invisible rift approached. Kinnit tried to still her triphammering heart as they flew toward her first combat experience.

They fell into the jumphole.

The nice thing about jumpspace was that it was so terrible that Kinnit didn't really have room to be afraid of anything else.

They hit the exit, and the well-trained combat officer had the forward ion cannons going before the rear of the ship had cleared the jumphole. Waves of sharp-angled fighters boiled out of the hangar bays. Admiral Stonefist was scanning the situation tensely.

"What the..."

The outpost was located on a small planetoid in a backwater sector. It was a glorified warehouse, really, a place to keep supplies.

It was almost invisible under the cloud of fighters that swarmed it. A light cruiser hovered nearby, pounding the surface with a blaster bombardment.

"Why do they have so many fighters for such a small outpost?"

"Sir! We have a signal from the outpost. There are still survivors down there!"

The ion blasts reached the enemy ships, the EMP blasts crisping hundreds of the tiny fighters. But thousands more remained, and immediately closed the gap.

"Sir!" cried the lieutenant. "We can't defend against that many fighters! We have to pull back and wait for the rest of the fleet!"

"And let the bugs destroy that outpost?"

Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist set his jaw.

"No."

He frowned at the data that scrolled by.

"Those aren't Insectoid fighters," he realized suddenly. "Those are Vylar ships!"

The admiral grinned in a way that made Kinnit very glad she was on his side.

"Lieutenant Dol, for once I don't want you to argue with me, I just want you to do exactly as I say. Can you do that?"

"Sir? I don't understand."

"Okay then, dismissed. Get off my bridge."

"Sir?"

"Do I need to come down there and space you myself? Get out!"

Lieutenant Dol stood for a moment with his mouth open, then spun on his heel and stalked out.

"Lieutenant Renning, take his station."

"Sir!"

"Now, I want you to take us directly into the center of that cloud of fighters."

Lieutenant Renning paused for only half a second before entering the orders into his console. The ship swung around, orienting toward the fighters. Grimthorn gave some orders for the Swordheart's fighters as well.

Admiral Stonefist wore a grim, mirthless smile.

"Vylar fighters use a highly advanced AI cluster to coordinate their movements," he said to Kinnit. "That's bad news when you're facing them in a standard naval formation, because they can react faster and smarter than a human against a fleet. But we're going to be a single, fat target walking right into the middle of them. They'll cluster on us like fl-- like fleas on a Canid."

"And then?" she asked, desperately hoping that he had an 'and then' in mind.

Admiral Stonefist turned back to the Lieutenant.

"Renning, I want you to prep a full volley from the ion cannons. Set the range to half a click. I want to taste the electrons when the EMP goes off."

Lieutenant Renning raised his eyebrows but did as instructed.

"When they close in on us, we'll cook 'em all at once."

Kinnit wore a slightly horrified smile.

"Won't the EMP damage our systems as well, sir?" she asked.

"Probably."

Kinnit took a breath to ask how they were going to deal with the cruiser, but she looked up at the admiral. He stood firm, arms crossed, that grim smile printed on his face. In spite of his graying hair and the sag in his broad shoulders, he radiated confidence and command.

She realized that, whatever happened, nobody could beat the mighty Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist. He was the Imperial ideal. He was the Imperium.

She smiled along with him, trying to match his fierce demeanor, but her bubbliness and round cheeks were natural barriers to this.

"Shields up, Lieutenant," he said as they approached the cloud. "And get the blaster gunners firing, keep those fighters busy so they don't catch on to what we're up to."

Crackles sounded throughout the bridge again as a few fighters tested their hulls against the Swordheart's shields. A few braver souls started circling the Swordheart, dodging her blasters and returning fire.

The flagship slid with agonizing slowness into the swirling mass of fighters. Alarms blared and the crackling took on a popping sound as the sheer volume of incoming fire began to overwhelm the shields. The massive screen was black with fighters; they made a solid screen around the Imperium ship.

"Ion volley ready, sir," said Lieutenant Renning, who was looking slightly sick.

"Loose volley," Admiral Stonefist said quietly.

With a thump, the ion cannons fired, releasing intense pinpoints of light into the crowd of fighters surrounding them. With a blast like a trumpet, the volley went off, close, too close. The ISS Swordheart shuddered as multiple EMPs swept across her, washing away the last of the shields and frying systems across the ship.

The fighters around them died en masse, still traveling in their original trajectories, bouncing harmlessly off the hull or spinning away into deep space.

Grimthorn's grin widened.

"Like the galaxy's biggest bug zapper," he said.

A brief cheer went up from the bridge. Nearly all the fighters had been wiped out in a single blow, and a few gunners were rapidly mopping up the remains.

They couldn't celebrate for long, however. The cruiser had come around and was bearing down on them.

"How long until we have shields again?" Grimthorn asked.

"It will be at least 90 seconds, sir."

Grimthorn frowned. That ion array had landed too close.

"The cruiser's not going to give us that kind of time. What weapons system do we have left?"

"Ion cannons are offline. Blasters are online, but the targeting system is cooked, so we won't be able to hit anything at range. Mass drivers should be back up in a few seconds."

Do we have any torpedos ready?"

"The homing systems and triggers have been damaged, sir. We can fire them, but they'll just travel in a straight line."

Admiral Stonefist nodded.

"And even if we miraculously hit the cruiser, they'll just bounce off the hull. That's fine, the cruiser doesn't know that. Send him a couple torpedos, he'll have to evade. That should buy us a little time."

Two torpedos leapt from the ISS Swordheart and streaked toward the Oryndrax cruiser. The cruiser altered course and released a flurry of flares to draw the torpedos away. Since the homing systems in torpedos were dead, the flares had no effect. The torpedos continued to scream toward the cruiser. It began emergency evasion.

"Lieutenant, are the fighters in position?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have them coordinate strafing runs on the cruiser. Focus on one engine, slow them down."

"Sir."

Bright points of light flared around the cruiser as the Swordheart's fighters opened fire. The cruiser, still evading the perceived threat of the torpedos, was completely unprepared. One of their four engines flared, and began spraying flames into the cold of space.

The Insectoid cruiser finally got their shields up, protecting them from the fighters. The torpedos sailed harmlessly by, and the cruiser began re-orienting on the Swordheart. Their long-range blasters glowed as they prepared to fire.

"Shields?"

"Still another 30 seconds, sir."

"Are the mass drivers back online yet?"

"They're verifying the targeting systems now."

"No time for that. Pull the fighters back and give that cruiser a cannonball to the gut."

The Swordheart flung a uranium ball at the cruiser at a sizable fraction of the speed of light. The inert lump passed straight through the energy shield and impacted the cruiser amidships. The strike blew open a hole in the cruiser, sending shards of debris spinning away into the cold reaches of space.

The cruiser poured more energy into the remaining engines, but the combination of damage, stress, and the missing engine caused the gravitational dampers to fail. With no protection against the change in inertia, the cruiser's hull crumpled as the engines folded it in half.

The massive ship disintegrated in slow motion. One of the engines broke off and spun away, flaring brightly. The bow cracked open, spilling debris against the stars like a spray of blood.

The crew on the bridge cheered.

"Shields are up again, sir!" called Lieutenant Renning.

Kinnit watch Admiral Stonefist release a breath she hadn't realized he had been holding.

"Good job, crew. And a thousand-credit bonus goes to whoever fired the mass driver. That was a beautiful shot."

The bridge crew cheered and hooted and slapped each other on the back, but Kinnit watched the admiral's face darken.

"We'll rescue any survivors," he muttered, too low for anyone but her to hear. "Then find out why Insectoids are flying Vylar ships. And why did the bugs send a force that size of against this outpost?"

A deeply troubled expression settled onto his face as the crew celebrated.