NIGHTFALL PREVIEW 2

Short Fiction

A FAR BETTER THING

By Peter Nealen

Ship’s Master Kaelen Rylanos Tarn stood immobile on the bridge of the Heart of the Tempest and watched doom close in.

Light flickered out in the dark, each spark the death of a ship with its thousands aboard. The line was crumbling before his eyes, in some cases before the Imperial ships had even managed to get off a shot.

It was always going to come to this. Deep down, he’d known it was inevitable ever since the first Kurau ships had appeared out of hyperspace, flooding the comm waves with their terrible, chiming song of death.

The lead squadrons had boosted away from Aljana and her satellites as soon as the haunting chimes of the Kurau song had registered on the comms. Those ships were debris now, floating out of the system, as their slashing attacks had not even caused the oncoming destroyers to slow. It was hard to say whether they’d even hurt the aliens at all, since communications were now limited to laser links, as all other channels were flooded with the chiming chants of doom.

He tapped a control on the baroque scroll panel in front of him, causing part of the holograph in the primary arched window of the bridge to zoom in on the oncoming ships. Delicate crystalline fractal shapes, each one was unique. They would have been beautiful, glittering in the deep, had they brought anything but death.

Particle lances lashed out from feathery tips of the snowflake like ships, battering the electro-screens of the golden Imperial defenders, in some cases spearing right through the screens to vent their relativistic fury on the gleaming, ornamented hulls beneath. Few were the craft that could stand up to such punishment, and tiny stars erupted in the void as ships died.

The lead squadrons had only been intended to buy time for the rest of the fleet to enter stellar orbit between the inhabited planet and moons and the oncoming ships. Five thousand of the Eternal’s starships, in serried ranks forming a web across the ecliptic, ready to fight to the last hull.

They would reach the last hull far more quickly than anyone had hoped, he saw.

His eyes narrowed. Five more ships had just gone nova in as many seconds. The wall was dwindling, their own missiles and beam weapons hardly scratching the glittering ships as they advanced relentlessly into the system. The numbers were telling too quickly.

Footsteps rang on the deckplates behind him. Despite the violence out in space, the bridge was as quiet as a monastery. “My lord,” Ship’s Castellan Diego Arca stood at the base of the command dais, his hands folded behind his back, beneath his cloak of rank. His face was composed, as was fitting a Castellan with his time in service, but there was dread in his eyes. “The numbers are coming in.” He swallowed. “Only a fraction of the civilians are going to make it off the planet.”

Tarn sighed, turning back to the holograph. “Sadly, that is as expected. We had too little time.” The fleet had begun to assemble as soon as word had gotten out that the Kurau had hit the Gaede system. The singing death had stirred from the ruins of those worlds far sooner than Imperial Intelligence had expected.

The entire hull of the Heart hummed like a giant bee, as the displays coruscated with purple light, the interior illumination dimming as the onboard power systems fought to divert the searing beam of high-energy particles beating against the electro screens. Alarms wailed as the whole ship seemed to shudder under the hit.

Tarn’s eyes settled on the massive construct that pushed forward in the midst of the swarm of ships like gigantic snowflakes. He pointed to it in the holograph. “That ship. If we could destroy or disable it, perhaps we might buy the civilians a little more time. Give the singing death something to think about.”

Not a line shifted in Arca’s features, which remained as smooth as if he had been a statue, but he couldn’t keep the doubt from his eyes. “Do we have the firepower, even if we could coordinate the entire surviving fleet, my lord?” Even as he said it, half a dozen more ships blossomed into brief flares of nuclear fire in the depths.

As he eyed the great, fractal bringer of destruction, a realization settled on Tarn’s shoulders. He felt its weight, even as he took a deep breath, the inevitability of it in some way freeing while the dread built.

This is why we are here.

“No.” He reached for the console and touched a control to bring up the internal comms options. “Though we might have the mass.”

Understanding bloomed in Arca’s eyes, as the ship master’s voice echoed through the cavernous passages of the great and ancient starship.

“All men of the Heart of the Tempest, this is Ship Master Tarn. There is no time to speak of your valor, or the honors due this great ship, which carried The Eternal’s will to the stars centuries before any of us were born. There is only time to act.” He sighed. “Any who would seek to join the evacuees, you have five minutes to get off the ship. For all the rest, you have five minutes to make your peace with God in whatever way seems best to you. For the Eternal and the Empire.”

“For the Eternal and the Empire.” Arca’s voice was a whisper, but he did not budge from his position at the command dais.

Tarn had not expected him to. Arca was as devoted as he was.

There was nothing more to say. The two men had served together long enough there was no need. “Navigation. Plot a direct intercept course on that dreadnought. Power decks. Divert all power to electro screens, point defense cannons, and engines.” He blew out a short breath through his nose. “We will not need anything else.”

The five minutes were up by the time all decks reported ready. Many of the crew had taken to the life shuttles. Far more had not. He felt a surge of pride, and his eyes stung for a moment, even as the environmental fans stopped working, starved of power as all of the ship’s vast energies were diverted to turning it into a planet-wrecking missile.

“Maximum thrust.”

He crossed himself as the Heart of the Tempest leapt forward toward the enemy, her screens already flaring with auroras as her hull thrummed under the weight of both thrust and incoming weapons fire. The point defense cannons thundered, their reports a muffled pounding through the spars of the ship’s mighty frame, blazing away at any missiles launched by the Kurau ships.

No greater love hath a man, than he lay down his life for his brothers.

Tarn closed his eyes as the end came.