- T-3 minutes to test firing -
Cool air fluttered against Admiral Eryss R-1's slender human figure, a constant, tangible reassurance of perfect order as twenty thousand times a second, routine diagnostics reported no system issues. In a well-rehearsed display of security theater, much taller and bulkier Marines waved the unimposing cybernetic unit and his not-so-precious cargo through the blast doors of the control center of New Dawn 7, cramped with rows of bulky monitoring equipment and displays.
"Admiral on deck!" Lieutenant Nylat J-12 announced from their post as seven navy blue uniforms came to attention in perfect synchrony. Captain Badelam VK-3, the other Command Unit in the room, gave a slight nod of approval.
Under normal circumstances, the admiral would've immediately waved them off. The Federation Militarized Asset Group was never big on formalities, and as a veteran of the disastrous Reclamation conflict Eryss Raeder was even less inclined. He plunked his cargo, an ice bucket, on a seemingly misplaced table against a wall.
>Teleprompter loading: test_firing_christening_speech_final_revision.doc
These were not normal circumstances, as evidenced by the colorful banners fluttering against the vents and everyone's pretentious expressions. Raeder straightened his posture and pulled a bottle of champagne by the neck out of the bucket, ready to give a particularly emotional speech. To his staff's credit, not a single laugh slipped out as he inhaled with all the pomp and circumstance his old chassis could muster. But before he could speak, the world froze.
>Alert: REMOTE MULTI-VECTOR BREACH -
>Alert: CRITICAL COGNITION FAILURE, EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN TRIGGERED.
The universe skipped several million clock cycles, and began to move again. Utterly disoriented as thousands of parallel processes desynced and messily reintegrated, Eryss nearly threw up in a fit of nauseated dysphoria and reawakened to a dense mass of system dialogues that all clamored for his attention and got in the way of a desperate instinctual need to confirm his still being alive and whole and undamaged -
>Initiating boot sequence from image: [ERYSS RAEDER-1].
>Consciousness initialized, 237 conflicts resolved, reboot diagnostics completed.
>Command Unit Chassis [B:NAVAL/T:TECHNICIAN/S:HUMAN] status: FUNCTIONAL, RECALIBRATION ADVISED
>Internal/external processing status: DEGRADED/SEVERELY DEGRADED
" - tH3 fucK j#st - " - on Fir# -
>Welcome back, Eryss Raeder-1.
Breathe. - f1rE suP!rEs#i@# R#qUi#^d - How long have I been gone?
>Internal chronometer discrepancy: 2.26 seconds
FUCK. HOW MANY PROCESSING CYCLES I DON'T KNOW I DON'T - panic unacceptable.
[SUPPRESS EMOTIONAL RESPONSE]
>Distress compartmentalized.
Unproductive question, the answer is too many. [DISMISS LOW-PRIORITY NOTIFICATIONS].
>Virtual-conceptual intrusion momentarily detected -
He marked it for review while deafened by the oppressive blaring of general alert sirens and hit [DISMISS]. The alarms fell silent, save for a harsh breath of relief. Crew?
>Lost contact with: 32% ON-DUTY STAFF, 70% OFF-DUTY STAFF. Vital signs for LtFC Decagon D-b3f6c4: CRITICAL -
His vision kept glitching out when he tried to look over -
[RESET OPTICS].
Shit, the cyberwarfare specialist. Dessie must've borne the brunt of whatever hit us. The "independent interactions hive-mind subunit," a fellow Reclamation veteran whose intentionally-digitized deadpan embedded a vicious wit writhed against the seat restraints as a reactor tried to burn its way out their chest. At least Local Backup would retain his personality and memories up to a few seconds ago - wait, will it?
>Local Backup server status: NOMINAL
Okay.
>Fine motor control: DEGRADED, RECALIBRATION ADVISED
Quick and clean.
A hand already rested on the backstrap of his compact emitter, and in one smooth motion the naval officer drew, aimed, and punched a ragged molten hole through the android's torso. He pulled the trigger twice more and smothered the immediate fire hazard that was its leaking reactor.
"Who's - who's still online? Sound off," Eryss managed, unsteady words followed by a roomwide ping for good measure. Only Cpt Badelam VK-3 and Lt Nylat J-12 responded.
"I'm alive! Can't move my back legs though," Lt Muror G-7 answered, and after a nanogel injector hissed Nylat helped lift his shell into a seat with a bit of snark and bared fangs. Three affirmatives, then.
Nylat, Badelam, half of Muror. Targeting, my second-in-command, and gunnery, plus myself. We can do this, but first...
Looking around revealed Lt Cmd Bellis T-26 still at attention, staring vacantly into the distance while one hand twitched erratically. Compromised. A laser through the skull severed the marionette's strings and his airless screaming with a thump.
"Taking Decagon's post. Wait for the all-clear," Raeder ordered. He pushed the slagged machine - a reliable friend - out of its seat and snapped the cyberwarfare console's jack into the back of his neck.
Reconnecting to Central Computing confirmed his suspicions. An unencrypted ansible broadcast combined semi-sapient infoweapons with conventional software exploits. As was procedure, Decagon quarantined and examined the package, left helpful comments such as "correct Federal message protocols," "targets newer citizen firmware," and "our old software should be immune," and ended on, "concept interference detected." This was presumably when the Cyberspace specialist spontaneously combusted.
He returned to the prompt flashing on the cracked console screen, and reread the words despite knowing exactly what they were.
>Trace program paused due to operator discontinuity. Continue?
Directly jacked into the machinery, the answer could've been instantaneous, but Eryss upheld the pretense of a physical tap.
>Primary non-local communications array status: DESTROYED
>Backup non-local array status: NOMINAL, DISCONNECTED
>Electromagnetic array: FUNCTIONAL, NO SIGNAL
>Conceptual enforcer array: SEVERELY DEGRADED, SHUTDOWN ADVISED
[ACTIVATE BACKUP ANSIBLES], [REPOWER CONCEPT ENFORCERS TO FULL].
Switching ansible arrays, integrating Command Unit self-concept into Central Computing. Any distinctions between the mind named Eryss Raeder-1 and New Dawn 7 vanished, merged into one supermassive celestial body. Eryss R-1/New Dawn 7 reached out to every passive sensor station within a million lightyears, then widened the search perimeter again as he retreaded Decagon's steps.
>Transmission source triangulated. Memetic/electronic/conceptual defense status: NOMINAL/DEGRADED/SEVERELY DEGRADED
>Recommence multispectral scan?
"Would you like assistance, commander?" the captain asked politely, in the way Badelam did when she knew something others didn't. "Large-scale conceptual topography can be disorienting."
The thought was unprofessional, but her patron's precognition was often as disconcerting as it was helpful. Sure, they were both Command Units, and like most Command Units his physical-digital form mirrored an intricate conceptual presence - but the VK-series (and the two other Concept Vessel-types he'd briefly known) took those proven design theorems to new extremes.
Considering how many concept-based entities had killed him (and vice versa), and how the CV-types did nothing of the sort, it was likely an irrational bias against ceebees. It would also be irrational to disregard a reliable executive officer's advice.
"Negative, Badelam. Prep the station for combat operations," he answered without missing a beat, and powered on his built-in reality enforcer with a whir. If I don't survive, she can replace me.
Eryss tapped on [YES].
New Dawn 7 was Eryss Raeder-1 and it was Eryss Raeder-1's crowning achievement, but it was more than an admiral or his brainchild. New Dawn 7 was a prototype Variable Yield Quasar Lensing Array, the largest weapon ever built in the history of the known universe, a quasi-stellar object forged into the shape of an artillery piece that erased galaxies at the press of a button.
And in a testament to the station's cutting-edge disregard for classical physics, New Dawn only required a few nanoseconds to find and model the infection, or, more accurately, one of its tumors.
Analog and digital sensors saw a Federation star system with unusually high ansible traffic and invalid ID codes. But Eryss Raeder-1 knew to look for things baseline baryonic lifeforms couldn't comprehend.
Even at a distance, before his mind's eye was something so vast and blinding that for a fraction of a millisecond, his augmented processes refused to acknowledge it. No, no, no, it can't be. That's -
Denial was a poor substitute for reality. Logically, Eryss was staring at one tiny part of a physical-digital-conceptual superorganism, larger and more virulent than any ever encountered or created by the Federation yet. Yet for the first time in his life the intelligence/admiral/superweapon felt so small, helpless, afraid -
[SUPPRESS EMOTIONAL RESPONSE].
>Distress compartmentalized.
It occupies known Federation space and assimilates structures, but does not broadcast Federation identification codes. Logically, it is an intruder, an enemy. My current weapons are incapable of destroying the enemy, but I have access to weapons which can do so.
His intrusion was, so far, completely unacknowledged. Or maybe it didn't care. Merely seeing it fried Decagon, and one of his ocular units was starting to bleed, so the Command Unit quickly and quietly -
[DISCONNECT].
- withdrew to the real world, and consciously slowed down the rotors in his artificial hearts.
Wiping away red stains from his faceplate, Raeder couldn't shake the vision of that immense web of light and its piercing chill. Maybe he never would. His second-in-command, in stark contrast to her typically severe features, looked on in silent sympathy.
[CONNECT TO CENTRAL COMPUTING].
>Local virtual space status: SCANNED, SECURE
>Neural clock timings: [STANDARD].
"Clear!" Eryss spat out to his crew in the room while other parts of his mind filled in the gaps of conversations with thousands of others at the same time. For the first time in his life, he registered the dissonance of doing so, of hundreds of his own voices forming entirely different words over the station's intercom. A recalibration was definitely in order.
New Dawn 7 ready for combat, Cpt Badelam said, at your command, Admiral.
Sir, we're getting FedMil transmissions, Lt Nylat added, I don't have clearance.
The ansible messages were heavily-encrypted F-MAG orders which given the risks of viruses and hidden infoweapons, took microseconds more to slowly decrypt, decontaminate, and open. The first file turned out to merely be a glorified spreadsheet, filled with star designations, attack priorities, and relative positions, to which Eryss appended the infected star system he'd seen.
The next file was just terabytes of targeting data and star charts, and the one after that an in-depth discussion of the most efficient ways to extinguish countless lives in utterly banal but familiar prose. He couldn't help but be irritated. We don't have time to sit through one of my own lectures.
There were so many stars to extinguish, far beyond the scope of what the Lensing Array was proposed for, far beyond anything the universe had ever seen destroyed in entire wars, never mind by a single weapons platform. He had not envisioned a war of this scale, and as a senior war planner that was his failure.
Frustration failed to fill the growing pit in his stomach.
Eryss tried calculating the casualties, and stopped after he confirmed New Dawn 7 would inflict enough to dwarf the hundreds of trillions of lives lost to the Holy Reclamation.
[SUPPRESS EMOTIONAL RESPONSE]. Eryss logged a note to increase the threshold for this function. Overuse of emotional compartmentalization could lead to some serious backlash later on, but that was also a concern for later.
Focus. Do not attribute individuality to the enemy. They are no longer living, thinking people.
The long-range sensors were still offline, but whatever was left of StrikeCom was assuredly already following through on the conclusions he just arrived at. The admiral parsed out the targeting data and passed it on to his command staff.
That's a lot of systems, Lt Muror stated plainly. Given the hologram of his clutch on the peaks of Imet, one of many planets on the list, it was obvious to any baseliner what the second-molt Kri'tak was thinking about, and from Cpt Badelam's frown it was obvious the lieutenant was about to be relieved of duty if Eryss didn't intervene. He's not the only one who'll be losing a home today, who does he -
[SUPPRESS EMOTIONAL RESPONSE].
>Distress compartmentalized.
Deal with the risk of insubordination. Delay grief. Execute the mission.
If we could save a single star, Lieutenant, I would be the first to give the order. We cannot, Eryss answered with a mechanical certainty he did not feel. It was so cold. Life support?
>Life support status: NOMINAL
But we can avenge them.
After a nearly imperceptible moment of hesitation, Muror pheromoned an affirmative, and new system dialogues popped up.
>Minimum user numbers met. Verifying identity... operators verified. Fire controls: UNLOCKED
>Targets programmed. Quasar Lensing Array status: READY
>Does the ranking Command Unit approve? You will not have direct control over the Quasar Lensing Array. One of my safeguards against rogue actors.
[YES].
Take aim, Eryss ordered.
Lt Nylat flicked a switch and a wormhole generator sketched a perfect violet sphere at the muzzle of the Quasar Lensing Array, if a gun's caliber could be measured in astronomical units. She tapped lightly at her console's astrometric hologram, and with a shimmer the sphere became a window to a matrioshka brain, a glittering silver sphere that contained millennia of science and culture and history. Tayblinyet Research Center 4. Raeder-2 frequently messaged one of the scientists there.
Wormhole endpoint secured, Nylat informed the room. Captain Badelam nodded at him.
Fire, Eryss ordered.
There was no fanfare, no dramatic charging period or lightning build-up in the firing sequence. Lt Muror's claw flipped up a cap on his joystick and placed a kilogram of pressure on the trigger, and with a distant rumble a colorless light erased the entire planetary system the computer was built in.
It was almost offensively easy.
Cease fire, Muror. Target assessed as completely destroyed, sir, Cpt Badelam reported somewhat redundantly. She didn't seem shaken by what he'd seen. It's true then, what her file said about the new models.
Not a scrap of solid debris remained of Tayblinyet Center 4, only an expanding cloud of hot gas where a mass grave should've been, and the reduced range of their passive sensor suites was enough to confirm the absence of any FTL footprints or wormhole signatures near their galaxy. They have no idea what hit the matrioshka brain. We have the element of surprise.
The admiral wasted no time with his approval. Next target.
One Dyson sphere, coming up, Nylat remarked, and in the time it took for the Big Bang to create the cosmos the wormhole flickered and brute forced itself in front of an enormous shining polyhedron, able to power entire civilizations with its energy output.
Boom, Muror followed, and the Dyson sphere was erased from existence.
Maintain proper shorthand, the captain chastised, and a grim determination settled over the room with all the gaiety of a funeral shroud.
Affirmative. Retargeting, Nylat acquiesced. A ringworld, home to a few trillion sapients. Not anymore it isn't.
Firing. The ring shattered with a quiet trigger click and the distant rumble of staggeringly powerful reactors discharging into a constricted accretion disk.
Retargeting. Jagged girders, superscale construction gantries, and docking bays stretched like a clockwork bird's nest across an entire solar system.
Firing. The production facility, indistinguishable from the hundreds of thousands of other shipyards just like it, earned the distinction of being the first ever atomized by a Quasar Array.
Firing. Retargeting. Firing. Retargeting - new message from Command.
Nice shooting, New Dawn 7. Enemy identified as the K472 Interlink, an aggressive metastasized superintelligence... Raeder-1 skipped past the platitudes and requested external sensor uplinks.
Affirmative, Command replied and the entire local supercluster was visible as billions of colorful little pins on a battlefield too large for any real, physically constrained display.
Firing. Retargeting. Firing. Retargeting. Firing...
Raeder-1 could feel his crew slip into a comfortable, if urgent, routine as they worked through more and more star systems, each little victory degrading the Interlink's ability to wage war.
Retargeting.
The station took aim at a Maneuverable Intergalactic Strategic Deterrent battery, its destructive potential buried under layers of supernova-rated neutronium cleverly disguised as a rogue planet in deep space. MISDs were, combined with a wormhole shortcut, reasonably fast, incredibly versatile, and literally brought a lot of bang for your buck to the strategic weapons toolbox. They were also an incredibly common tool relative to every other specialty device in the box.
Unfortunately, in the split second before disintegration it became clear the cavernous silos were already partially empty. Three starcrackers just saw their launchers get blasted through a wormhole by a Nicol-Dyson beam on steroids. Should only be a few milliseconds...
>Local cluster perimeter intrusion: WORMHOLE DETECTED, WARP BUBBLE DETECTED
Hostile Deterrent in our galactic cluster, Badelam reported, moving in a search pattern. Sir, do we prioritize missile interception?
There was no chance in hell a Deterrent, even an early-Block MISD without external guidance, could miss a target the size of a dwarf galaxy. But that would take time. We've caught the enemy's attention. Let's give them a show.
Negative. I'll handle interception. Targeting and gunnery, continue target elimination. Captain, keep an eye out for alerts and damage control. Going loud, the admiral announced. New Dawn 7 powered up every sensor and gravitic lens and distortion scanner it/he had, plus a handful of electronic warfare suites for good measure, and in an instant every wormhole and warp drive within several megaparsecs was revealed to Eryss Raeder's glass eyes.
While his bridge crew repeated their mantra, Raeder-1 took direct control of his designated galactic cluster defense network.
>Terminal Stage Interceptors: 50 INTERCEPTORS, READY
>Point defense status: NOMINAL, READY, OUT OF RANGE
[SELECT BATTERY 7, 10].
The TSIs would be the first line of defense, owed to their longer range and the expendability of their positions and crews. He would start with the Interceptors furthest from New Dawn 7 - the enemy would be forced to expend more resources to zero in on their actual position, when every second was worth its weight in literal stars.
[LAUNCH 5 INTERCEPTORS].
>Launching. Defensive perimeter intrusion: WORMHOLES DETECTED, WARP DRIVES DETECTED
At near point-blank range a dozen missiles hurled themselves out of new wormholes straight into the teeth of the Interceptors. All five defenders struck true, yet the remaining seven plus one Deterrents dropped out of warp and -
>Induced supernova detonations detected, contact lost.
A bit overkill.
Agreed, Badelam murmured. In the background, his junior officers continued their deadly work, their consoles chirping angrily with notifications and warning tones.
>Battery status: DESTROYED
[SELECT BATTERY 8, 12], [LAUNCH ALL]. Another TSI battery disappeared in a cloud of supernovae. [AUTO-SELECT], launching - and another misfired, likely because of foreign digital subversion. He ordered that last one to self-destruct, and luckily the local battery commander followed through. Unfortunately the enemy, this "Interlink," fully understood the importance of his station given how many irreplaceable starcrackers they were throwing at his defense grid. Do we run out of screens, or do they find us first?
>Sub-megaparsec intrusion: WORMHOLE DETECTED, WARP BUBBLE DETECTED
They found us. [LAUNCH ALL]. This time the enemy didn't even bother knocking out his last Interceptor missile batteries, and a rookie fresh from Logistics' printing vats might've sighed in relief and asked if it was over. Eryss did not do so.
Sir? Cpt Badelam interrupted his private thoughts.
We are now a counterbattery asset, Eryss answered. Raising neural clock speeds to max. Win the duels, Captain.
Badelam nodded in slow-motion. Nylat, trace the enemy's wormholes. Muror, reduce output, switch to continuous fire.
Affirmative, the duo chorused. Those two really sync well, it never fails to impress.
>Sub-parsec intrusion: FAILED WORMHOLE BREACHES DETECTED
Unsurprising. In the gravity well of the Quasar Array's supermassive black hole, most dimensional constructs simply collapsed. Higher end generators could power through such complications, but that took time. Time the enemy did not have.
Engaging. A lozenge-shaped mobile silo disintegrated, but as ordered, Muror never let his claw off the trigger while Nylat redeployed the wormhole exit as quickly as the generators could bear.
>Galactic perimeter intrusion: WORMHOLES DETECTED, WARP BUBBLES DETECTED
A medium range barrage. Close enough to minimize the odds of mid-flight interception, not so close that the Array's sheer spacetime imprint crippled their ability to be launched in the first place.
Engaging.
A few slipped past the quasar beam, which was where the Upscaled Ordnance Rifles came in. Ten electromagnetic accelerators, each a hundred kilometers long, drew lazy arcs with their supermassive barrels and with every blinding flash an incoming vector disintegrated. Closer in, at mere light-years, comparatively tiny naval emplacements added their weight of fire to the impenetrable bubble of death.
One MISD got past and rushed straight at an arm of the station.
Brace for impact, the station/Eryss announced over the PA system. The munition buried itself inside the neutronium skeleton and detonated with enough energy to birth a new universe. He felt a pinprick as kilometers of armor plating and an Ordnance Rifle violently burned away, but the floor under his crew remained still.
Damage report, Eryss queried, silently appreciative of the fact that militarized comms didn't support panicked screaming.
>CQB armaments: DEGRADED. 9 ORDNANCE RIFLES FUNCTIONAL. 80% SMALL CALIBER DEFENSES FUNCTIONAL.
>Quasar Lensing Array status: FUNCTIONAL, EXCEEDING RATED HEAT LIMITS
We lost a few short-range weapon emplacements, Badelam answered, and the Array is overheating. Damage control underway.
>Sub-light minute intrusion: WORMHOLE DETECTED, MAJOR POWER SIGNATURE DETECTED
Too few wormholes for a Press-Teukolsky mine. A Nicoll-Dyson beam, most likely.
The enemy is exposed to us. We have to fire first, the captain warned.
[DISABLE TEMPERATURE ALARMS].
Heat damage is a non-factor, Eryss stated. Kill the Dyson beam.
Affirmative, engaging. Nylat parked the Lensing Array's massive wormhole a light-second to port of the Nicoll-Dyson beam, and glimpsed its massive crackling capacitors as the stellar weapon desperately tried to fire first. Badelam's disdain for the pathetic display leaked into Eryss' own mind.
Muror and Nylat were vengeful, their anger flaring like bright candles against the sterile holographic displays.
Firing, they chorused, and in a fraction of a blink of an eye New Dawn 7 bisected the mirror swarm and smeared the insides of its host star across a desolate planetary system.
>Galactic perimeter intrusion: WORMHOLES DETECTED, WARP BUBBLES DETECTED
Eryss did a quick count of how many Deterrents were en-route, and promptly ordered his crew to strike more strategic targets instead of attempting the impossible task of intercepting hundreds of fast movers.
Central Computing will not survive much longer, Captain Badelam said in a private channel, we should get everyone off-site while we can.
Agreed.
[CONNECT TO LOGISTICS CONTROL].
[COMPRESS LOCAL BACKUP STAFF REPOSITORIES].
>Saved connection non-responsive. Establishing alternate signal route...
>Searching... searching...
It's taking a while, Eryss showed her. Are we losing or winning?
>Ansible repeater chain completed, receiving transmission.
You've reached Automated Casualty Reception. State your branch, identity, and order.
Something belonging to the Interlink tried to inject itself into the back and forth. Eryss purged it.
Strategic Strike Command, Admiral Eryss Raeder-1, full upload of all station personnel.
Greetings, Admiral. Recite your Command codes.
No matter how much they refined the compulsion programming, the experience was always unpleasant. At least his other processes were too preoccupied to notice the discomfort.
I stand upon the ashen banks of a river without end, in the shade of clouds that never clear. Freezing black water laps against my feet and voices whisper in my ear to turn back. There is something waiting on the other side, and it is afraid.
Identity verified. Logistics Control is standing by to receive you and your crew.
>Transmitting personality backups to Logistics Control...
The Array's massive metal ring, its accretion disk manifold, buckled under the impact of a starcracker, and with a sputter of nebulae and ruined superscale machinery the Quasar Lensing Array went dark. Nylat and Muror were saying something, but Eryss couldn't make out his own reply. There was nothing they didn't already know, but at least his tone was reassuring.
The Upscaled Ordnance Rifles struck down another handful of kill vehicles. The documentation clearly stated two Rifles could defeat a Block 18 Deterrent with a Pk, or probability of kill, of approximately 0.9. He had nine of the big guns, so that averaged out to just over four guaranteed splashes with every barrage at an effective range of one parsec.
The Interlink sent six at one of his Rifle hardpoints. And then another six. And six more.
All in all, it took forty missiles, a number achieved thanks to his crew's impressive signal jamming and cyberwarfare, for his last lines of defense to completely crumble.
Honor serving with you sir, read the Captain's abbreviated message.
>Sub-light minute intrusion: WORMHOLE DETECTED, MAJOR POWER SIGNATURE DETECTED
Sentiment appreciated. Save congratulations for later Badelam, he replied.
>Local Backup transfer completed.
See you soon, Admiral Raeder-1, Automated Casualty Reception concluded. They must be swamped with bodies, if they're relying on ACR protocols already. Hopefully, so is the enemy.
>Connection to Logistics Control terminated.
The crew of New Dawn 7 would live to fight another day. Eryss felt nothing about this. He certainly felt something about himself living to fight another day, but Eryss was trying not to trigger compartmentalization again.
A second Nicoll-Dyson beam sawed off a third of the megastructure, disabling the long-range ansibles a moment too late. The primary accelerator rails of the Array began to melt into a flat, oily plane. A dimensional collapse warhead? Exotic, and difficult to fix. I'm surprised they didn't open up earlier with one of those Deterrents, to be honest.
Nylat, Muror, withdraw from Central Computing now, Badelam warned.
Affirmative, they chorused.
Eryss saw the missile racing towards their supercomputer banks, but had nothing to shoot it down with. Desperately he tried to breach its rudimentary firewalls -
- an artificial supernova knocked out the station's main server racks in the midst of Nylat and Muror's withdrawal, and the latter flatlined mid-disconnect. I was too late. Why am I always too late?
Nylat screamed. Eryss couldn't hear her.
>Central Computing status: DESTROYED
>External processing status: DESTROYED
"It's so cold," Eryss whispered under his breath, "Why is it so cold?"
Under his semi-conscious control, a handful of electromagnetic accelerators and energy emitters continued to fire in a token display of resistance. What few sensors remained only served to warn the two remaining Command Units of their impending destruction, as the merciless barrage of strategic weapons systematically tore the station apart. A few warning tones beeped pointlessly.
I will not be led astray by the lies of angels, something in Raeder-1 finished.
A star exploded within visual range. Eryss had just enough time to register his chassis being shredded by pieces of reinforced wall accelerated to near lightspeed -
>@lErt: CRIT!C## CHaAS!S D#M4Ge. ~RIT!C@L C#GNiTIoN f4!LuRE. S~F3 S##Td0Wn iMP0S#1B -
The last sapient processes finally stuttered to a halt. Eryss Raeder-1 died for the sixth time, and only New Dawn's spindly corpse remained, frozen in its silent embrace around a quasar.
