While officers and civilians alike rose to the call on Archanis Station, out at the edge of the star system, the Lincoln and the Vesta were locked in a pitched battle with the Vaadwaur. They’d splashed a Manasa, but the Astika and the other two Manasas were still giving them problems.

Right up until they weren’t.

As the cruisers dueled, word reached the Vaadwaur commander aboard the Astika as to what was happening on Archanis Station: they’d lost the station’s command center, their chief commander was missing in action, and firefights were being fought across a hundred decks. Recognizing the tides were turning, he called his colleague aboard the Astika dueling with the Juno on the other side of the system, and they agreed on a course of action.

“Enemy coming about!” reported Commander Arjun Rao. “They’re breaking back for Archanis!”

“We need to stop them!” Captain Cassidy Cayde demanded. The entire purpose of their duel had been to tie these ships up while the Polaris did her thing. Looking forward, he could see the Astika’s impulse engines flaring to full, turning and burning back towards Archanis Station. “Give chase! Signal the Vesta to do the same!”

Fast as the Lincoln and the Vesta were, they couldn’t overtake the enemy. Instead, all Lieutenant Saadi could do was throw the throttle down and race after them as Commander Rao lobbed torpedoes at their rear. One volley managed to catch a Manasa astern, causing her to smoke out, but the Astika and the other Manasa continued their charge unabated.

Captain Cayde’s mind went to the squadron. “What’s the situation at Archanis?”

“The command center has been retaken by the spec ops team, but they can’t get the shields down for boarding parties yet,” Lieutenant Commander Cathryn Winters reported. “Sounds like Grayson has rallied the station to arms though, and they’re making a mess for the Vaadwaur.”

“Good on him,” Captain Cayde nodded. There were nearly twenty thousand on the station. Might as well put them to work. “What of the battle beyond its walls?”

“Since Archanis stopped unloading on them, Polaris and the others have the upper hand,” Commander Luke Rawlins explained. “The Astika is smoking, and one of the Manasas has been destroyed.”

The problem, though, was that two additional Astikas, the one dead ahead and the one leading the Juno, were racing back towards the station. And they couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them. Captain Cayde tapped his combadge. “Felix, I need more power to the engines!”

“I’m working on it, boss,” Lieutenant Felix Tsideki replied frantically as they hustled to try and get more thrust to the impulse drive. But they’d already been pushing the Gagarin to its limits, and she didn’t have much more to give.

“I suppose the good news, at least, is that they’re desperate,” Commander Rawlins offered. The battle had started out with clear battle lines, the Vaadwaur disciplined and focused. “They’re improvising, their structure falling apart.” And that’s where he and Cayde thrived.

“A desperate enemy is a dangerous one though,” Captain Cayde warned his rough and rowdy executive officer. “Notify Polaris that she’s gonna have company in a moment!”

There was nothing they were going to be able to do to prevent it.

Back aboard the Polaris, Fleet Captain Gérard Devreux relayed the news. “Ma’am, the Vaadwaur have recalled their ships from the system’s edge. Two Astikas, three Manasas, inbound, ETA three zero seconds.” 

Fleet Admiral Reyes frowned. Even though they’d managed to take the upper hand since the station had stopped shooting at them, the battle was far from over. Pythus starfighters and Manasa heavy escorts darted to and fro while the Astika battlecruiser continued to pelt them with its seventy two polaron barrage emitters, four polaron cannons, and eight torpedo tubes. The last thing they needed was to contend with two more of those monsters while still dealing with the first one.

“Diligent CIC, Polaris,” Fleet Admiral Reyes said as she tapped her combadge. “Are you tracking the inbound?” Not only would the additional enemy ships complicate things, but there’d be more assets to manage too.

“Polaris, Diligent CIC, affirm,” Commander Jordyn Kerrigan replied calmly from the Diligent‘s Combat Information Center. She was several steps ahead of the admiral, already drawing up new vectors to integrate the Juno, Vesta, and Lincoln into the pattern. “Ready to call on arrival.”

That was good, at least. Jordyn Kerrigan was always on top of it. Fleet Admiral Reyes looked back at the viewscreen. The Astika that had been defending the station was smoking, and it’d be nice to clear it out before the others arrived. “CIC, I want that big guy outta my sky.”

“Polaris, Diligent CIC, on Astika, aye,” Commander Kerrigan confirmed as she began to relay vectors and firing orders to her own bridge and to the Ingenuity and the Kennedy.

Fleet Admiral Reyes turned back to her own crew. “Reza, bring us about! I want us down their throats!” They’d been doing flybys, whittling away the enemy while avoiding excess damage, but now they needed to speed things up. It was time they bring to bear the full might of her Odyssey class flagship, the damage they’d take be damned. It would pale in comparison to if they had to fight three of these battlecruisers at once.

“Three three four, on the big guy, aye,” Commander Omar Reza nodded as he plunged the ship towards the enemy battlecruiser.

“Bishop, all tracks, all batteries,” Fleet Admiral Reyes ordered. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

“All tracks, all batteries,” Captain Titus Bishop announced. “Firing!”

The Polaris opened up with everything she had, arrays and launchers dumping a full spread of nadions and torpedoes upon the enemy battlecruiser.

“Vampire! Vampire!”

Their charge had put them in range of the Astika’s entire arsenal, and the commander opposite them let it loose, hurling polarons and torpedoes unrelentingly in their direction.

“Brace! Brace! Brace!”

The ship shook hard as it continued to dive forward, but Admiral Reyes didn’t care. “Continue firing!”

And so they did. But it wasn’t just them. Suddenly, the Diligent came around the Astika’s flank, hitting her amidship with its big guns, the two forward-mounted Type-XIV cannons, and alongside her, the Ingenuity and the Kennedy opened up too, dumping their entire load.

Under the immense pressure, the Astika’s shields began to fail, and at last they gave way, nadions slicing through armor and quantum torpedoes detonating all across its hull. 

For a moment, it kept firing back, but then, in a bright flash of light, the Astika was no more, a bright explosion lighting the night.

“Splash one!” Captain Bishop declared triumphantly.

“Bring us around,” Fleet Admiral Reyes ordered, urgency still in her voice, acutely aware of what was bearing down on them. “Let’s see what we can do about the small ships before the other battlecruisers are upon us!”

“Admiral, I’ve got news from the station,” Lieutenant Commander Elena Mattson cut in with an important update. “Chief Shafir got us through the shields.” Their digital sleuth, hard at work in the computer core, had managed to circumvent the lockout. “We can get teams over there now.”

“Do it!” Fleet Admiral Reyes ordered. “Send the pain!”

Down in every one of the Polaris‘ transporter rooms, as well as in the transporter rooms across the squadron, security officers and others with combat qualifications already stood suited up on the pads. The transporter chiefs too, they already had their targets locked in, just waiting for the call to come. And as it did, over to the station went the teams.

Back on the bridge, they had another problem.

One of the battlecruisers returning from the outer edge of the system had just arrived, and its inbound vector had gotten it up on their starboard flank.

“Vampire! Vampire!” shouted Captain Bishop again as his gauges lit up.

“Evasive actions!” Fleet Admiral Reyes shouted. “Deploy countermeasures!”

Commander Reza dove the ship hard to port, ducking the worst of oncoming fire, as Captain Bishop unloaded chaff to disorient the guidance systems on the enemy torpedoes. Several polaron bursts still found purchase though, and the Polaris shook hard.

“Return fire!” Fleet Admiral Reyes ordered. “Rear arrays, kill track two two four!”

As the Polaris jousted with the enemy, over on the Diligent, Commander Kerrigan was in the zone, choreographing the dance at a frenetic pace as she integrated their returned vessels into the pattern while contending with the new bogies that’d just entered her battlespace.

First, her instructions went over to the bridge to take some heat off the Polaris from the battlecruiser that’d come up around her: “Diligent, zero nine five, on alpha two.”

Up front on the bridge, Captain Dorian Vox relayed the calls to his staff, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Coleman pitching the ship hard to starboard as Commander Ryan Hunt got a lock on the new entrant to the battle. In the background, she heard Captain Vox as he gave the fire order: “TAO, kill with fourteens and birds!”

Her next call went out to their maneuverable light cruisers, the Ingenuity and the Kennedy: “Light attack one, get those papas off Polaris starboard side.” The nimble pair was best equipped to contend with the Pythus class starfighters that were swarming the Polaris.

Captains Cora Lee and Ria Alleyne responded immediately, bringing their light cruisers about, pushing the starfighters back that’d been pressuring the Polaris.

Now there was some rebalancing to do with the new arrivals. “Juno, Vesta, Lincoln, welcome to the party! Ready to get to work?” Commander Kerrigan asked, her eyes on the other Astika. “Vesta, as heavy attack two, on alpha three. Juno and Lincoln, as light attack two, on cover.”

But suddenly, none of it mattered. Not really, at least. Over on Archanis Station, seated deep within the computer core, Chief Petty Officer Ayala Shafir had finally broken through the Vaadwaur lockout and released firing control to the command deck.

Up on the command deck, Dr. Lisa Hall called the targets from the center’s master tactical display. “Kill tracks seven, nine, eleven, fourteen, all batteries!”

“All batteries, on seven, nine, eleven and fourteen, aye,” Lieutenant Commander Keaton Ryder confirmed as he and Ensign Evelyn Luna worked the controls, directing nine torpedo tubes and twenty two Type-XIV phaser banks that lay along those tracks. “I have a solution. On your call.”

Dr. Hall looked out at the enemy ships. It was time to end this. “Fire!”

The enemy never saw it coming as Archanis Station suddenly came to life, phaser banks and torpedo turrets coughing out fire in an unrelenting barrage, striking the rears of the Astikas and the Mansas positioned, not to fight Archanis, but rather the Polaris and her squadronmates.

Meanwhile, all across the station, Commander Eriksson’s security teams, supported now by hundreds, if not thousands, of the station’s officers and residents, as well as the boarding parties from Polaris Squadron, dueled the enemy deck by deck.

The tides had turned. It would only be a matter of time now.

Standing on the command deck of Archanis Station, Captain Kurayami Kioshi looked over at Commander Robert Drake. There was only one more matter to resolve. “It’ll all be over soon,” Captain Kioshi said as he reached down to his holster and drew his sidearm, passing it over to the JAG.

“What’s this for?” Commander Drake asked curiously as he accepted the weapon.

“Him,” Captain Kioshi said as he nodded at the Vaadwaur commander, the architect of this nightmare, who sat bound and gagged between two of Lieutenant Commander Ryder’s men.

Commander Drake understood the insinuation, but did the intelligence chief really think he’d do such a thing? This wasn’t how it was done. “He’s a prisoner of war.”

“No, he’s a mass murderer,” Captain Kioshi corrected. They didn’t even have a full count yet, but it was likely well over a thousand, if not more, had died at this monster’s orders over the last ten days.

“For which he will answer when I put him on trial for crimes against humanity,” Commander Drake insisted. That’s how justice would be served. And he’d be there in the courtroom when that day came.

There was only one twist. “He’s also the one who…” Captain Kioshi began to say as he walked over to the front of the command deck, to a specific spot where this had all begun. “Who stood right here, raised his sidearm to your sister’s head and pulled the trigger. He – him, personally – he’s the one that executed your sister in cold blood for no reason at all except the fact that she existed.”

A pindrop could have been heard in the silence that followed.

Everyone on the command deck looked over at the JAG. Robert Drake was an idealistic law man, sure, but he was a brother too, and no one would fault him if he shot the Vaadwaur commander dead for it.

“If it was my sister,” Captain Kioshi admitted. “I know I’d want to know.”

In that moment, Commander Drake felt something within him that he’d never felt before, a desire, not for justice, but for vengeance, the type won not with a gavel, but with a gun. 

Rage began to build within him as his gaze shifted between the Vaadwaur and the spot in the room where Elsie had stood when that monster had… had murdered her. 

Elsie, the best of them, gone because of that monster.

“None of us will say a thing,” Dr. Hall assured him in an oddly compassionate tone. She wouldn’t use this against him, even after what he’d tried to do to her aboard the Polaris. “The report will just reflect that he died alongside his colleagues as we stormed the place.”

Commander Drake could feel the weight of the sidearm in his hand. 

He looked first to Lieutenant Commander Ryder, who simply nodded. He looked then to young Ensign Luna, who nodded too. As his gaze travelled around the room, making eye contact with each of them, they each just gave their silent consent. No one had any issue with this. Not after all that this monster had done, the nightmare he had created.

At last, Commander Drake’s eyes fell on Alex Grayson, a wise, thoughtful leader whose counsel he’d learned to trust. But the vice admiral didn’t hold him back either. “The choice is yours, Robert. None of us can tell you what is right. We won’t stop you either way.”

He wanted to. 

So fucking badly, he wanted to. 

This monster had murdered his sister in cold blood.

He raised the sidearm, his index finger sliding within the trigger guard.

But then he pulled his finger back and lowered the weapon.

This was not how things were done. It was not his job to play judge, jury and executioner. He would live his truth, even now. “This is what they do to us. This isn’t what we do to them. Even in the darkest of nights, we must not forget the light.” 

He set the sidearm down.

It would be morning soon, and with it, the nightmare would end.