Only a day left before the fleets arrived, and that just wouldn’t do at all. But now it was only a few stragglers, and the large drop ships and shuttles made frequent stops as they scoured the continent for more who were lagging behind or had simply not wished to leave.

“We’re running out of time.” I heard Ula mutter, and I had to agree with her. I decided on one more sweep, then I needed to begin take off procedures. I couldn’t delay any longer. Ten hours later, the sweep was complete, only a thousand or so remained on the planet, but they were the stubborn, disbelieving sort, the type of people that thought they could weather any storm and took my warnings as fear mongering attempts at control.

So as the last shuttle docked, I summoned Ula to the bridge, and though I hadn’t mentioned them, I watched as she and her parents filtered into the room, along with a few priests and other chieftains. I grimaced at the thought of what they were about to witness, but having my new ‘captain’ on the bridge unlocked all sorts of possibilities that had been kept from me. Like the weapons. I could control them fully now, could select my own targets and prosecute at my discretion.

“All hands, prepare for take off.” I said, out of mere habit, before remembering that they were all primitives in comparison to myself. “Find something to hold onto tightly, it’s going to get a bit bumpy.” I clarified, and felt some satisfaction as the soon to be refugees would grab onto anything that was secured to the deck, sometimes even each other. My drones ensured that those with nothing to hold onto were secured, magnetizing themselves to the deck to act as anchors for those around them.

“If you all would be so kind as to find a place to sit, we’ll be departing shortly.” I said softly to those on the bridge, and Ula, being Ula, zipped right on over to the captain’s chair, securing herself just as I had taught her to. I felt a surge of pride in my circuits, then more when she instructed the others on how to do the same, her parents sitting on either side of her.

My focus suddenly split, I could sense the Yil’kaa were about to make the transition into real space, and that meant it was time to go.

“All hatches secured, redirecting power to life support, engines and hull integrity.” I announced. And so a low rumble began as the massive thrusters that had been constructed on my hull started to come to life. Six of them were submerged entirely, but they had been constructed specifically to handle such a thing. I heard murmurs of distress as the rumbling became more pronounced, as the forward thrusters pushed more power through them, slowly but surely pulling my ‘nose’ up and out of the water. For a brief moment we were perfectly level, and then the back thrusters kicked on, and we began to gain altitude. I devoted my attention to breaking atmosphere, and keeping an eye on the Yil’kaa.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

It was time, it was finally time. We were leaving a doomed world and though I felt awful for leaving so many behind, it was their choice and Intra wasn’t going to march them onto the ship at spear point. I felt the rumble begin, and I tensed up as she began to take to the sky. The bridge she told me was buried deep within the ship, hidden behind layers of armor so thick it would take a truly powerful weapon to pierce it. And yet what we saw wasn’t a view of armor, it was water. Dark and unforgiving, but we could all see fish swimming by what looked to be glass windows. But the view started to change as the Warden of Eternity tilted backwards, leveling out. The depths became brighter and brighter, and finally with a great splash the bow of the ship rose above the waves.

It was a sight to behold, I remember. Imagine living your whole life in ignorance of the beauties that this universe has to offer, and here I was, getting a chance to witness one of them. We were all shocked silent and still, as the world started to shrink slowly beneath us, nothing but glittering water stretching before the ship. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but it was… amazing.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

I had gained sufficient altitude to kick on the main engines, and that’s exactly what I did. I flinched slightly when I detected that the area where the tribe had been based under said engines was now nothing but a scorched wasteland, the heat of my engines enough to reduce everything to ashes. But in the long run, that wouldn’t matter. Soon the planet would be like that, and there was nothing I could do about it.

So as I started to move forwards, picking up more and more speed, I pushed more thrust into the forward engines, pushing my nose up towards the sky and giving the bridge occupants one hell of a view. Baby blue sky gave way to darkness and glittering stars, and it was then that an alarm blared unbidden throughout the ship and I received an alert.

YIL’KAA FLEET CONTACTS INBOUND, WEAPONS ARMING. FLEETS ON INTERCEPT COURSE, PLANET CRACKER WEAPON SIGNATURES DETECTED.

I cursed, and switched the lighting from a gentle white to startling red.

“All hands, prepare for combat! All passengers are required to remain in place and do not interfere with the crew. This is an order.” I said, unbidden as well. Old habits die hard it seems, even after a few thousand years. The refugees huddled together, some leading the others in prayer, others in song. Those drones not currently occupied by keeping the people secured would move to muster points, acting as my crew.

I could have sworn I heard the loud shouts and felt pounding feet of an organic crew rushing through my halls, gentle hands at my controls. I swear I was back in the war, fighting once more.

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I swore I could hear HIM, talking softly to me over our neural link. My captain… my sweet, kind, gentle captain. Anger again started to swell within me and I began to plot a jump away from here, back to Alliance space.

“Disengaging auxiliary thrusters,” I said, and the thrusters that’d helped me break atmo fell away, tumbling through space, though a few were drawn back towards the surface. That wouldn’t matter either. “Auxiliary thrusters disengaged, pushing engines to maximum. Jump course is plotting, FTL winding up. Time to jump… ten minutes.”

I watched Ula nod, a look of fear but also hope in her eyes. The others around her just looked scared. I switched my attention to the Yil’kaa, and watched as one fleet broke off from the others, scanning the planet. I knew what was coming next, and I couldn’t bear to watch, but I did. I watched them launch a weapon at it, just a single shot. That’s all it ever took. There was no massive explosion, no dramatic wind up. The weapon hit, burrowed deep into the crust of the planet, and then detonated with enough force to wipe everything on it out. I forced myself to watch as the planet cracked open, the oceans boiling, tectonic instabilities made mountains and mountains became flat. A little over a thousand people were reduced to mere memory in the span of but a minute, and those that managed to survive this first blow, wouldn’t survive long after. The unfiltered radiation would get them, and the lack of oxygen as well as the atmosphere was utterly destroyed.

I watched as the fleet launched one more weapon, this one detonating in whatever atmosphere was actually left. And the air became fire. I turned away, focusing now on simply escaping my pursuers. But something drew my attention back, another alert.

PLANETARY DETONATION HAS BEEN DETECTED. PREPARE FOR INCOMING DEBRIS.

I turned my focus back and watched as the planet exploded, and great chunks of it were coming straight for us.

“Shit.”

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

I do not remember much of what happened next. All I remember is that Intra yelled something at us, and our bindings tightened. I distinctly remember the sound of thumping coming from all around us, of things coming to life that hadn’t been used in a long, long time. I tried to speak but found I had no voice, it had fled and I was left dumbstruck. But my thoughts were heard, thanks to the implants Intra had forced upon me in her desperation.

Before us the screens came to life once again, and though Intra tried to turn them off, my will was briefly stronger. We saw what she didn’t want us to see, our homeworld, our beautiful, perfect world, gone, reduced to debris that she was now having to shoot out of the void simply to keep us alive.

I watched as her lasers and point defense batteries opened up upon the great chunks of rock and hardened crystal that made up our world, shattering it all into thousands of smaller pieces even as she streaked away from it. Through the chaos, we saw THEM, the Yil’kaa, the demons, coming for us. Like Intra, they were blasting their way through the debris, swarms of smaller things streaming out of the larger ships. Starfighters I do believe they are called, yes, that’s what they are called. Just as deadly as their larger counterparts if used correctly. And there were so many of them.

I watched Intra clear a path through what had once been my home, before the stars shifted and she dipped into an asteroid belt. For her size, she was surprisingly nimble, though perhaps that could be attributed to her deep knowledge of her own ‘body’ and its proportions. I heard my parents scream in terror, and I calmed them, leading them in prayer. It was the only thing I could think to do as we watched the demons grow closer and closer.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

Too many contacts, yet again. I’d avoided the debris thankfully, only a few minor dings here and there on my hull, but nothing bad. Nobody was dead at least. Now though I had to focus mostly on not crashing into an asteroid, and so I set my weapons to automatic, relegating their functions away from my own. Back and forth I weaved, and felt the PDCs open fire on the cloud of starfighters coming for us. The larger railguns and laser weaponry started to fire at the bigger targets, and those on the bridge got to watch as one of the Frigates was cored straight down the center, it went up rather beautifully and I felt some measure of satisfaction as I watched the former ship die.

Serves them right I thought, and continued on. My sensors detected another fleet moving ahead of me, trying to cut us off. But so many people seem to forget that space is big and doesn’t exist solely on a 2D plane. And so I dove, pushing my engines as hard as I could. I picked up more and more speed, gaining some ground before I felt the biting sting of weapons fire against my hull. A few of the fighters had made it through my shields and point defense, but they were swatted away quickly as many had been destroyed by high speed impacts with the asteroids I’d been flying through.

Now I just had to focus on not getting hit again around the jump drive, which I’d had heavily armored up after last time. I would kick on emergency thrusters whenever I got alerted to a volley, which shunted me sharply to one side or the other. A great thing about space is that like it’s 3D nature, it also is without any sort of wind resistance, and so a person, object or massive starship can pull maneuvers that they normally couldn’t pull off. Like a sudden jolt to the right, or the left, up, down, diagonal, etc. Sure, it would have probably killed everyone onboard, but the glorious invention known as inertial negators canceled it all out, allowing them to simply see - not feel - the shift in direction.

It also had the added benefit of wildly throwing off any sort of targeting systems save my own, which compensated quickly and efficiently to continue firing. And so I watched with satisfaction as more of the smaller Yil’kaa ships fell in droves under the withering fire my cannons could put out. Without an organic captain telling me what to do I was… Well, I was acting just like humanity had always experienced with Artificial Intelligence, cold, ruthless efficiency. I was free to do as I pleased, and while that certainly involved getting away, it also involved me ensuring that the Yil’kaa received a bloody nose. I might be a few thousand years ‘obsolete’ but I was a warship, and I would make them remember that.

“Jump drive at seventy five percent, aligning with the jump vector.” I say, and I turn to face Alliance space. I hope it’s still there, I hadn’t even considered that we might have lost the war, might have been eradicated… But it was too late now, I’d find out one way or another.

“Eighty five… Ninety… One hundred percent! All hands brace for FTL!” I cried out, feeling my guns go silent, the Yil’kaa taking this as a sign to swarm me. And then we were gone, a streak of blue light vanishing into the void.

I smiled softly to myself, as I heard their screams of impotent rage behind me.

“FTL translation successful, you are free to explore the ship now.” I say, before the typical sensation of weariness settles over me, and I take a small nap.