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“Breakout in three, two, one.”
Starlines collapsed back into pinpricks, and the Grayshrike was immediately rocked by multiple violent explosions.
“STATUS REPORT!” Senior Captain Irizi’in’daro yelled as she clutched the arms of the captain’s chair. “Ovinon, find out if we sustained damage! Vimsk, what in the Chaos did we walk into?!”
Ziinda’s bridge officers flew into a flurry of activity, each responding with the sharp, instinctive efficiency that she’d come to expect from her crew.
“Three ships, ma’am!” Vimsk called above the din as another explosion tore into their electrostatic barriers. “Two friendlies—the Parala and the Sunstrix. Unknown bogey is large, possibly Grysk. Bearing 4-2-5 by 5-2-8.”
“Starboard barriers down 30%,” Ovinon replied in his steady tone. “Bulkheads D and E impacted by debris, but minimal physical damage.”
“Ma’am! Parala hailing us,” Shrent called.
“Reinforce our starboard shields, draw from the stern power reserves,” Ziinda commanded. “And intercept those missiles with spectrum lasers until we figure out what in the voids is going on!”
Everyone nodded, and Shrent took her quick handwave as a sign to put the Parala through on comms.
“Senior Captain Apros, I thought you were on an escort mission!”
Senior Captain Csap’ro’strab’s voice was tight, but she still heard the confidence behind it. “Welcome to the party, Grayshrike—the Sunstrix and us are a bit outgunned, so it’s good you made it.”
Oh, joy. Her old first officer might be someone she could trust, but Senior Captain Clarr’os’culry wasn’t typically as willing to follow someone else’s lead. “And your escort? Where are they? I’m not reading any other—”
The ship shook again with an explosion off their starboard bow. “—friendlies.” She bared her teeth in a quick snarl before settling into the rhythm of battle. “Wikivv, take us in, shift us thirty degrees portside and bear down on the unknown ship 8-3-4 by 9-2-8. Ghaloksu, prep breechers to intercept the next volley of missile fire. And Apros! Where are your civilians?!”
“In the shadow to our portside,” came a new voice over the comms. “You’re welcome, by the way!”
Ziinda pinched the bridge of her nose. Same old Roscu. “No more heroics, Sunstrix," she replied, trying to keep her tone even. She was the seniormost officer on the field—her honor rode on her conduct as much as it did on victory. “We know they thrive on that. And Parala—”
Apros seemed to have read her mind as he’d done so often before. “Experimental cloaking tech, ma’am. The UAG techheads installed it on various volunteer merchant ships. Hoping we can—”
“Excuse me? No more heroics? I’ll have you know, Grayshrike, that—”
“—cut back on civilian casualties and kidnappings. My first officer is sending over the protocol to ping them.”
“—without the Sunstrix, this transport would have been lost exactly eight minutes ago!”
Ziinda shook her head and keyed her comm over to just the Parala. Let Roscu bluster for now. The Grayshrike needed to be useful, and to be useful she needed an orientation to the situation instead of Roscu’s boasting. “Thanks, Senior Captain - we’re on it.” Ziinda watched as Vimsk tapped away at his station, then threw her back a thumbs up. A moment later, a new dot appeared on her display reading friendly. “I take it I shouldn’t have this tech yet?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” Apros answered. “Nor should the Sunstrix, but this is a CEDF decision right now, not a UAG one.”
“Agreed,” she acknowledged, then reached over and switched the comm back to both ships.
“Did you just mute me?!” Roscu seethed with indignation. “We’re in the middle of an engagement and you muted me!”
“Yes, I did,” Ziinda replied coolly. “Because while you were yelling, I was making sure we didn’t all get killed. Now, if you’re done, Sunstrix, we need to escort the civilians out of the fight before we can do anything else. Parala, do you remember the ‘might as well be me’ maneuver?”
There was a small chuckle from Apros’ end of the line. “Who’s the bait, you or us?”
“I’m not putting a patrol cruiser in the direct line of fire from a Grysk Shatter-class,” she answered. “Besides. If the Grayshrike makes the pass, we can pick up the civilians when we pass by the Sunstrix. Senior Captains, I’ll send you our proposed trajectories.”
“Copy that,” Apros answered.
“Fine,” Roscu begrudgingly agreed. Ziinda scanned the readout for the Sunstrix and, honestly, Roscu didn’t have much of a choice. Her frigate had taken far more damage protecting the civilians than anyone would want. If the Grayshrike couldn’t relieve some of that pressure…
More explosions off the starboard side, but slightly further out. “Good job on the missile intercepts, Ghaloksu,” Ziinda commented. “Prep plasma spheres for our run.”
“Thank you, ma’am!” Her weapons officer sat up just a bit straighter with the praise.
The addition of the Grayshrike to the battle proved to be too much for their enemies, and it wasn’t more than a few minutes before the Grysk ship attempted to cut its losses and run. That wasn’t ideal, but for now Ziinda would accept that outcome if it meant that the civilians were safely recovered.
“Civilian ship docked, ma’am!” Ovinon called. “Evacuation commencing.”
“Good!” she replied, though she watched as the Sunstrix continued to maneuver, blocking the Grysk ship from escaping.
“Senior Captain Roscu, what are you-”
But Shrent interrupted her mid sentence. “Grysk ship … hailing us, ma’am.”
Ziinda’s brows knit together in suspicion, but she couldn’t resist. “This should be good. I’ve never heard a Grysk beg for their survival before. Let’s see what that sounds like. Put them through to all ships.”
Shrent nodded, then gestured to indicate the line was open.
“Grysk invaders,” Ziinda called, trying to keep the animosity in her tone to an acceptable level. “This is Senior Captain Irizi’in’daro of-”
“We don’t care,” came the gruff response. “You want to save Chiss lives? Then you’ll have to let us go. We have thirty-four prisoners onboard and no way out of this system. If we die, we’re taking them with us.”
Ziinda sucked in a breath. “And I take it you won’t be amenable to trading them for your safe passage.” It was a statement of confirmation rather than a question.
“Correct,” came the response. “You have five minutes to decide.”
Silence gripped all three bridges. Ziinda’s officers exchanged uneasy glances, tension crackling between them before their eyes inevitably locked onto her. Ziinda’s jaw tightened, her glare fixed on the comms as she cursed internally.
“... K’tahing void-sucking growser whelps…”
Ovinon raised an eyebrow. Alright, maybe the curses weren’t so internal. But there had to be a way out of this.
Roscu chimed in via the private comm. “There was a civilian transport from Rhigar that went missing,” she snapped. “A suspected Grysk attack. If anyone from my homeworld are in there—”
“Roscu, I don’t care where they’re from,” Ziinda interrupted. “Chiss are Chiss, and the whole damn Ascendancy is our home. If these k’thaing invaders think they can take that from us, they’re in for a rude awakening.”
“What if it’s a trap?” Apros asked.
“Then it’s a trap,” Ziinda answered matter-of-factly. “Do you want to make that call and potentially doom those people?”
“No, ma’am,” he answered. “You have a plan?
Ziinda narrowed her eyes and made a decision. “I think I do. Ovinon, muster a boarding party.” The evacuation of the transport’s civilians onto the Grayshrike had just concluded, and now she had a docked shuttle with new cloaking tech. It was too good of an opportunity.
Ziinda nodded to Shrent, who turned their communications back to broadcast mode. “Grysk ship,” Ziinda called. “We have no intention of destroying Chiss lives. Therefore, we are interested in negotiating for their release.” She looked over to her first officer, who gave her an affirmative gesture - the boarding party was assembling. “This doesn’t have to end badly for any of us. We can all prove here today that both of our species can be civil and reasonable. What do you want in exchange for your hostages?”
Roscu piped up on their secure channel “This is never going to work, Ziinda. You think they’re capable of negotiating?”
Ziinda just shook her head. She absolutely did not think that, but it was the only way she could come up with to stall them.
“Chiss ships,” the Grysk finally answered, “as it happens, there is information we might be interested in. We know that you have a civilian vessel in this region. We assume it’s cloaked with a new protocol. Give us that protocol and we may release a number of your hostages.”
Well, she’d gotten them talking anyway. “Apros,” she keyed into the Chiss-only comms. “Stall them. Tell them you’ll need approval for such a deal. Ghaloksu, work with the Parala techs to see if you can come up with a scrambled and bloated file to send to the Grysk pretending it’s the cloaking protocol if it comes to it. Just to buy extra time.”
Apros and Shrent both acknowledged her orders and got to work. She keyed into her shipwide comm, leaving the stalling to her ex-first officer.
“Attention all boarding personnel,” she started. “You’ve been briefed regarding what we’re up against. There are Chiss lives at stake, held hostage on an enemy ship. This recovery mission isn’t just for a random group of civilians, this is for the whole Ascendancy.” She dug her nails into the armrests of her command chair. “The Grysk think they can get away with stealing our people? Well, they’re in for a surprise. The Ascendancy isn’t just some collection of rocks floating in space. The Ascendancy is our people. It’s all of us. Every k’tahing last soul.” She pulled herself up just a little straighter. “May warriors’ fortune smile on you today in battle.”
Tension on Ziinda’s bridge reached its height as the shuttle took off. They all waited, listening raptly as Senior Captain Apros kept using the most words he could to say as little as possible.
“Enough!”
Ziinda tuned back into the conversation as the Grysk bellowed at Apros. “Stop wasting our time! Either you have the guts to make a decision or you do not.”
Ziinda could hear Apros’ polite little grin behind his words. “Well, you see, the Ascendancy bureaucracy is a bit more complicated than that—”
“If you refuse to surrender the scanning protocols,” the Grysk ground into the comm, “then we’ll trade all of our prisoners for your three navigators.” He sounded extremely pleased with himself.
Silence from the Chiss ships. Apparently even Apros wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
Ziinda checked the scanners. Their shuttle was getting closer…
“That’s what I thought,” the Grysk answered, seemingly amused. “Well then. Since you refuse, we’ll be taking our hostages and going.”
“Like hells!” Roscu roared, and before Ziinda could shout into their comms to belay any movement, the Sunstrix shot forward to once more cut off the Grysk’s escape.
Laser fire erupted between the Sunstrix and the Grysk ship. The Grayshrike and Parala followed Roscu’s lead with renewed vigor. It had been inevitable, and Ziinda could only hope that they’d bought their shuttle enough time. In order to stall, she ordered her crew to power the weapons on the starboard side down to 80% and adjust their vector to pretend to limp in space. Maybe if they appeared damaged from their previous maneuvers, the Grysk would stick around a bit longer.
It seemed to work. A gravelly laugh came over the comm. “Maybe we’ll settle for taking one of you out with us. How many of your people serve onboard your ships? It must be in the thousands.”
Ziinda didn’t answer, but he was right. There were over nine thousand Chiss souls onboard her ship, and she was personally responsible for every single one of them. But it went so much deeper than that. The Grayshrike bridge crew was her family. Ovinon could finish many of her sentences. Wikivv was one of the only people that could beat her at cards. Shrent made the best confections for everyone's starday—and he never forgot anyone’s starday. All of them were family.
She couldn’t fail them.
She wasn’t going to fail them. Nor was she going to fail those hostages.
“Vimsk, prime missiles and make sure the Grysk register our missile bays opening. I want them responding to our threat. Keep their attention on us.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vimsk replied, and started keying in the commands to do exactly that.
Ziinda took a deep breath. This was a bluff, of course; she wasn’t going to missile the ship that her own people were boarding. But if she could distract them for just a few moments more…
“Contact!” Ovinon called. “Shuttle in contact with Grysk hull.”
“Thank you, Ovinon,” Ziinda answered, trying desperately to keep the strain out of her voice and set the example of having patience. It was going to be a long few minutes.
Ziinda hated waiting. Waiting was the worst part of command. Back when she was a junior commander serving on boarding crews, there was no waiting. You were there, in the action, executing orders and making it happen.
“Apros, Roscu, continue on your current paths. We’re opening our missile bays. Don’t worry, we can take a few direct hits if needed.”
Both sent back acknowledgments.
The Grysk ship opened its own missile bays.
Only a minute had gone by…
Command was so much harder. You gave an order and then you waited. Waited to see if the order was carried out. If the team failed. If they lived. Or if you’d just sent people – your own people – to die.
Two minutes twenty seconds…
She wished she could listen over their radio as they breached the hull or check in as their team made their way through the Grysk behemoth. But that would give the team away in an instant.
Three minutes forty nine seconds…
“Wikivv, adjust our heading 8 degrees starboard.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Wikivv 's voice was as tight as her own.
Four minutes ten seconds…
The Grysk ship fired its missiles. The Grayshrike fired theirs to intercept. Laserfire bloomed through space.
Seven minutes thirty seconds …
Roscu called over the comms. “Sunstrix electrostatic barriers down to eighteen percent! Ziinda, tell me we have news!”
“Not yet…”
Nine minutes forty eight seconds…
“Shuttle away!” Ovinon called. Of course, no one would know if the hostages were onboard. Or even if the team had survived. But someone in the team was alive, because the ship was returning now on a vector toward the Grayshrike. They wouldn’t be able to reestablish contact until the shuttle was back in the shadow of one of their own ships.
“Parala! Sunstrix! We’ve done what we can! Unload on them! Now!”
All three Chiss ships let loose and the void lit up with explosions and spectrum fire. Ziinda watched the Grysk ship lose power section after section, then start floundering. She didn’t have to tell the Sunstrix to retreat—Roscu was way ahead of her in moving out of what would become the blast zone.
Sure enough, just like at Sunrise and just like in every other engagement in this wasteful, stupid war, space outside lit up with a massive explosion. The Grysk ship had died by its own hand.
Immediately after, all three ships got a comm from the shuttle. “Hostages secured, ma’am! Docking with Grayshrike in two minutes!”
Ziinda’s bridge erupted into cheers and applause. She let herself exhale and drew her shoulders back in pride. Let no one say that her crew couldn’t get things done. Her family would never let her down.
“Well done!” she bellowed over the comms, making sure that the channel was open to all three warships. “Bring our people home!”
Ziinda made sure to go down to the docking bay to personally greet her warriors and the recovered hostages. She was a big believer in bestowing praise whenever merited, and today absolutely merited praise.
“Welcome home!” she called as everyone deboarded the civilian vessel. She counted heads and realized some were missing, but it wasn’t very many overall.
“Eight casualties, ma’am,” her commander reported. “And thirty-four civilians rescued!”
They’d gotten all of them. Every single hostage was home. The eight warriors would be honored as heroes. Because of them, many families would remain whole today.
One of those rescued hobbled up to Ziinda, looking at her with grateful eyes. "We didn't think anyone would be coming for us…"
"Not coming for you?” Ziinda’s shoulders pulled back proudly as she pointed rigidly out the viewport. “Tell me, did you see what happened to that other ship?” She raised her voice, addressing everyone. “Did all of you see?”
The civilian gulped. "The ... the one that exploded?"
“Yes. The one that exploded,” Ziinda answered.
"We … we saw the explosion—"
"We didn't blow it up!” Ziinda declared, chest puffed as it always was when making a speech. “They blew their own people into the void. As soon as the enemy faces defeat, they take the cowards' way out."
A number of people’s eyes went wide. “Who would do that to their own people?!” called one woman. Whispers of agreement spread through those gathered.
Ziinda let the muttering settle before she continued. "The Grysk do that. Not us. We’re Chiss—we will always come for you.” People shared shocked expressions, but many were looking around at her crew with newfound gratitude shining in their faces.
“Our enemies think so little of their own people that they blast themselves into dust at the slightest taste of defeat," Ziinda continued, casting an intense stare across all of the rescued Chiss. "But we're going to come after every one of our own if it's the last k'tahing thing my ship ever does. And that devotion to our own people is why we are going to win this war!”
"Now,” she declared with a broad smile. “Let's get you all home."