Polity Agent

The Brutal Blade boomed and lurched, sending some of those onboard stumbling, and distantly Azroc could hear metallic objects falling. It must have been one hell of an impact to even briefly overcome the inertia of so massive a vessel. Gravity now shifted underneath his feet, bumping him up off the floor then back down again. All around him the Sparkind grabbed up their equipment and headed down towards the shuttle bay.

‘We’re gonna lose grav soon,’ said Karischev, hitching the strap of a proton carbine over his shoulder and grabbing up a bulky pack.

Azroc nodded and gestured for him to proceed.

‘Nice knowing you, Azroc’ Karischev stabbed out a hand.

Feeling oddly touched, Azroc shook it, then returned his attention to the displays. His position aboard this ship being only vaguely defined as observer/advisor, he did not need to follow any orders given to the others. In his opinion, if the Brutal Blade ended up in a fight it could not win, and ejected its various shuttles and landing craft, their occupants stood no more chance than if they had remained aboard. The situation would be different if they were near a planet on which they could land. Out here such tiny craft would be easy prey with nowhere to run.

On the screen, caught like a fish in a net, another of the old dreadnoughts became enwrapped in and concealed under a layer of bacilliforms. He observed the rod-ships melting into its surface but leaving it encaged in a sparse woody over-structure. This same vessel hung in space for a while as if contemplating its situation, then began firing on nearby Polity comrades. Azroc realized Brutal Blade itself had begun an attack run on this ship, and now he could feel the stuttering vibration of its linear accelerators under his feet. Their first action in this battle: to fire on one of their own vessels. An imploder missile struck the older vessel, gutting it, then an instant later blasting away its remaining shell.

Only a few Sparkind remained in the dormitory when the grav-plates shut down. Azroc grabbed a nearby stanchion, and braced himself. Now sudden changes in acceleration threatened to throw him off his feet. For a moment it felt as if the ship was dropping from a cliff edge, then it zigged and zagged, flinging him from side to side. He gripped the upright bar with both hands and applied his full Golem strength to lock himself in position. On the screens: wreckage, burning ships, clouds of metal vapour glittering like Christmas decorations.

Karischev was right about the duration of this battle; it would not be long at all.

Further detonations jerked him from side to side, then something struck really close by. The stanchion tore from the wall as a massive impact from below slammed him to the floor. A series of whooshing thumps came from his left, as air pressure blew the windows overlooking the shuttle bay from their frames. He could hear alarms screaming and a sudden gale began blowing past him, which meant terror for anyone aboard a ship who needed to breathe. Two Sparkind were sucked out into the shuttle bay, another nearby was hanging onto a bunk rail while his envirosuit automatically closed up. Beyond the windows the bay itself stood open to vacuum—the outer doors and part of the hull ripped away. Landers detached from the bay floor and blasted out into that night. One struck the edge of the hole now in the ship’s side and tumbled from sight. Bright detonation beyond, so bright that metal steamed and other materials burned or melted wherever the light shone. Dropping, manoeuvring—the screens were out, but plenty of information was still available through tac-com channels, if intermittently broken. Azroc quickly shut down all his human emulation and began accessing information in a way only possible to deeply gridlinked humans. Now he did not need the screens to see how badly they were faring.

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