OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...So, which one of them is a long-lost relative? *Snerk*

Good suprise.

[JAFisher44]

Great, Fisher's Syndrome! Hrrmmmmph. Immortalized as a nanite induced form of Alzheimer's Disease.

*JAFisher turns indignantly and walks away muttering to himself.

Nah, just kidding. I'm fine with a syndrome.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I got a star system.

But it blew up.

But still a star system.

But he blew our star system up.

Yes. It was my...Precious...

[AgentZero]

Oh look what we have here? Could it be? It is! More Hell is for Heroes! A fairly short installment this time, to set the stage for the thrilling finale. I planned to finish it tonight, but the pig I ate for dinner seems to resent me for it, so I'm going to curl up in a ball and try to sleep, and try to get the last chapter out by lunchtime tomorrow.

-----

A million is a very large number. The frequency with which it is used has robbed it of much of it's significance, because there are a lot of very big things out there. A million light years. A million credits. A million years. A million ships. Even something small multiplied by one million wound up being something awfully large. A million seconds was nearly two weeks. A million minutes was a couple months shy of two years. And a million hours was a bit over a hundred and twenty years.

Yes, Grand Admiral Angus McArthur mused, a million ships was an awful lot of ships. Seven million ships, on the other hand, was an awful lot more. And while a million fighters was the stuff of nightmares for any point defense operator, one hundred and forty million fighters was enough to drive that same poor PDO absolutely mad. And yet, for better or worse, that was exactly what he found himself in command of. News of the Great Enemy's return had reached the Empress rather quickly and McArthur had just as quickly found himself promoted to Grand Admiral of the Fleet and put in charge of nearly every single warship in all the Imperium, even if it had taken the dissolution of Parliament and the execution of a few rebellious Senators, it was still a rather remarkable feat for the amount of time it had taken the headstrong young lady.

The Armada, as it had begun to be called, was the single greatest concentration of firepower ever mustered in one place by the Terran Imperium, or for that matter, any known sentient race in the galaxy. Save one, McArthur thought with a shiver, although it was debatable whether the Great Enemy could be considered sentient. It was also debatable, he admitted to himself, whether or not his mighty force would be enough to overcome the Enemy fleet that had just begun to show up on the tactical plot in front of him.

“All fleets, enter attack formation,” he said calmly, rising from his chair. The phrase 'all fleets' still felt strange on his tongue, for a man used to commanding task forces and squadrons.

It took nearly ten minutes for all fleets to report ready status. McArthur cringed inside. For a single fleet, such a response time was thoroughly unacceptable, but his armada consisted of over twenty thousand fleets trying to work together as one with far, far too little time to practice.

“All fighters, assume standby positions.”

This time it only took a shade over four minutes for Fighter Control to report readiness. Of course, the fighters didn't have to do much maneuvering, they just had make sure they weren't in the flight path of any of the countless missiles McArthur was about to unleash. The fighters themselves would go in behind the the Armada's third missile salvo, to make sure that the Enemy was suitably tied up not to notice the fighters bearing down on them until it was too late. Every single one of McArthur's one hundred and forty-plus fighters was either equipped or retrofitted for anti-ship duty. The Enemy did not employ fighters, despite the horrific destruction the Imperium's fighters had wrought on their most recent assault, even despite the truly appalling casualties the Second Dynasty's fighters had inflicted so many thousands of years ago.

The enemy did not seem to adapt well, if at all. It was their one, perhaps their only weakness. From mankind's first encounter with them up to the present, they had always favoured big ships. And when their big ships fell prey to small nimble fighters, their solution was simply to build bigger ships. Not ships with more point-defense, not dedicated point-defense cruisers. Just bigger ships. Of course, their biggest ships still fell prey to the Second Dynasty's fighters, it just took a lot longer. The fighters were a tremendous advantage for the Imperium, and McArthur was willing to take all the advantages he could get in this fight. Especially since from the reading coming in to the tactical plot, he was going to be outnumbered almost two to one.

“Missile Control, status report,” said McArthur, his eyes fixed on the tactical plot.

“All fleets report firing solutions locked in, sir,” came the response.

“Very well,” said McArthur. “All fleets, prepare to fire salve one on my mark.”

“Five...”

“Four...”

“Three...”

“Two...”

“One...”

“Fire.”

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Wonder how long that would take to process.

[Suicide Junkie]

According to my rough calculations...
5500 years, on a top of the line PC

[AgentZero]

Puke mentioned that it's been a while since I updated HifH, so here you all go. We've got nods to Schlock, fun being poked at internet memes, Puke got his own star system (after a fashion), and even a great reason for the whole world to look forward to the future with breathless anticipation. Enjoy!

Tadhg Kagan (of no relation to James Kagan), was a simple man. In another place, another time, another universe, perhaps, he might have been a great man. But in this universe, he was but a simple Station Operator for the Puk'ng Port Authority, charged with providing insertion instructions to arriving freighters and keeping an eye out for things within Puk'ng's jurisdiction that perhaps shouldn't be there. Puk'ng was a quiet system on the fringe of Imperium space, so Tadhg's job was not particularly strenuous. Ever morning he shuttled out to his little station and sat with Sven Armstrong for nine hours, until Margaret Hussein and Samantha Turtledove showed up for the night shift, then he shuttled back home in time for dinner with his wife and children. Every so often, there was a bit of excitement (thrice in fifteen years, as a matter of record), when a few pirate raiders would stick their noses into the system, only to be chased off by Puk'ng's attention-deprived space navy.

Today looked like it might be action-packed and fun-filled, Tadhg mused, as an alarm on his board squeaked to life. Whoever had designed the station had likely known that it was to be placed in a small backwaters system where nothing of any importance ever happened, and had designed it's warning system accordingly. There were no loud hooting alarms, no overly dramatic flashing lights, just a meek, almost apologetic, squeak that suggested that maybe, if you weren't terribly busy and weren't engaged in more important matters, you may want to have a look at something the computer had noticed that didn't quite fit with what it had been told was a normal state of affairs.

“Looks like someone's fooling around in sector B-Ninteen,” Tadhg said casually, running his fingers over the control pad. “You mind swinging Dish Six around so we can have a look-see?”

“I suppose,” Sven Armstrong replied with mock reluctance. “Not like I wasn't about to glass the Phong homeworld or anything,” he added as he cleared a game from his screen and set about pointing the station's primary sensor array in the requested direction.

“Damn Phong,” Tadhg grinned. “Every time I send them a Trade Agreement, they send me back naked pictures of themselves dancing. Can't for the life of me figure out if that means yes or no.”

“I'm fairly sure it's a commonality to all sentient species that swinging your reproductive organs in anyone's general direction is to be interpreted as a negatory,” Sven said dryly.

“Is that what those are?” Tadhg replied incredulously. “Gross.”

“Best guess, mate,” Sven laughed. “But if I were a xenobiologist, I wouldn't be stuck out here with you every day for the last- Oh, hello.”

Tadhg glanced up at his friend sharply, instinctively reacting to the sudden stress in his voice. “Something?”

“Somethings,” Sven answered quietly. “I'll put it up on the main.”

The main display flickered briefly before changing over from a large clock counting down the hours until lunchtime to show the output from Dish Six. Tadhg suddenly found his mouth rather dry, and his forehead rather wet.

“Oh,” he murmured. “Hello.”

There were indeed a multitude of somethings speeding along the outer edge of Puk'ng's space. Large somethings. Very, very large somethings. Dish Six, despite being able to pick out individual rivets on freighter's hull from twice this distance of these somethings, was having awful difficulty resolving any sort of image. Instead, it displayed large, fuzzy blobs, moving through space rather faster than anything that large had any rights to.

“New freighter design?” Tadhg wondered hopefully.

Sven shook his head. “Gravatics say those things outmass a Monolith-class freighter by at least a factor of six, and if someone had come up something bigger than a Monolith, I think we'd have heard about it by now. Could be military having a little fun spoofing our array.”

“It's not a spoof,” Tadhg said. “I can tell from looking at some of the pixels and by seeing a few spoofs in my day.”

Sven turned his head slowly towards his friend and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Tadhg caught his gaze and shrugged. “I thought I mentioned I turn into a total ****wad when I'm about to die a horrible, messy, painful death.”

“Wouldn't worry about that,” Sven reassured him. “They're traveling tangentially to the system, and at that speed it'd take them the better part of a week to decelerate enough to turn in-system.”

“Really? Well that's great to know,” Tadhg said with forced relief. “Especially that whole week thing. Because that reassures me that it's just my mind playing tricks on me when Dish Six says they just decelerated and turned in-system in less time than it took you to tell me they couldn't.”

“What?” Sven exclaimed, his head snapping back to the main display. “What?” he repeated. “No... That... They can't... [censored].”

“We are going to die, aren't we?” Tadhg said resignedly.

“Yes, Tadhg,” Sven said sadly. “Yes we are.”

“Think we'll get probed first?”

“We can only hope.”

“I suppose- wait, what?”

The next few hours were spent in silence, after sending of the requisite dispatches to the military station, there wasn't really much to do except sit and wait as the mysterious ships grew inexorably closer. After a while, Tadhg noticed that his companion kept glancing in his direction, then looking back at his display for a time before throwing another furtive glance his way.

“If you have something to say, just say it,” Tadhg said finally.

“I ah, just noticed the ships have entered range of our visual array,” Sven replied. “I was trying to think of an appropriate way of asking you if you wanted to see the ships that are probably going to murder us.”

“Wasn't so hard to be subtle, now was it?” Tadhg muttered. “Sure, throw it up. Let's see what those sons of *****es look like.”

The main display flickered again, and there before them was a veritable wall of ships. They were unlike any ships either man had ever seen before. They were long, sleek, and gloriously white. Their designers had clearly put equal thought into form and function, and these magnificent vessels slid through space with swan-like grace. But all the form in the universe couldn't disguise their function, as each and every one of them positively bristled with every weapon system imaginable, and a good number that had heretofore yet to be imagined.

“My gods,” Sven whispered. “They're beautiful.”

“And shiney,” Tadhg agreed, then a moment later added, “Is it me or is their shininess getting shinier?”

“It's not you,” Sven replied. “It would appear as though we're about to get vaporised.”

“Oh,” Tadhg replied shortly. “So no probing then?”

“Doesn't look like it.”

“Well... Thank heaven for small mercies.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Wow. That's really really bright.”

Eternity passed.

“Still there, Sven?”

“It would seem so.”

Tadhg opened his eyes. He was still seated in his chair aboard his little station, and Sven was still sitting across from him. What wasn't still there were the colossal warships. Of them, there was no trace. Tadhg turned his gaze towards his friend and fixed him with a steady stare.

“Sven, old friend... What the hell was that?”

The Elarians, as far as the rest of the galaxy was concerned, were a dying race. The Elarians themselves, of course, new better. Once a great power in galactic affairs, indeed for several millenia, the undisputed greatest, over the last few hundred years they had slowly withdrawn, and eventually disappeared entirely from the galactic stage. Scout ships sent to their worlds found former city-worlds barren of any sign of advanced civilization. Planet after planet was discovered to have returned to it's original, pristine state, with no evidence that the Elarians had once flourished there. Any thoughts of detailed examinations of the planets were gently dissuaded by the still-functional and hideously effective Elarian orbital automated defense grids that still surrounded each world, the only demonstrable sign that there was ever anything less primitive than particularly intelligent trees inhabiting the planet.

What was happening to the Elarians, and where they were all going to was one of the great mysteries of the universe to everyone except the Elarians themselves. They themselves knew full well where they had all gone, having for the most part transcended to a higher plane of existence, another dimension in which thought itself was made manifest, and where such petty concerns as wealth, power, and influence were of no concern to anyone at all. Some Elarians remained, however. Semi-transcended, they existed in both dimensions, yet in neither, a testament to Elarian pride and their doubt that the galaxy could really continue to function without their presence.

Two such Elarians stood atop the great spire of the Seat of Righteousness, the massive structure that once held Elaria Prime's galactic government. Their eyes were turned upwards, seeing beyond sight, space and time of little relevance to either. Eventually, the shorter of the two, Cadence Of A Dying Breath, turned it's gaze towards the taller.

“As they have, do, and ever shall,” it said softly. “They are moving again.”

“As they have, do, and ever shall,” Chorus Of Harmonious Joy agreed. “An arrow seeking a worthy heart. To be deflected by a skilled hand or left to find it's mark.”

“A blade seeking the throat of an innocent,” Cadence countered. “The hand possesses naught but the skill of it's master. But a clumsy limb is compelled.”

“As they have, do, and ever shall,” Chorus reminded it's companion. “The bowls are both full and both empty. Tied together, one does, the other does. Eternity passes.”

There was a soft noise behind them, and both glanced backwards, more out of mortal habit than any particular need to see who had joined them.

“There can be no harmony without balance,” Symphony Of Willful Disregard informed them softly. “Without balance, a sphere cannot fail to act, it is compelled and must obey.”

There was a moment of grave silence before Symphony gave it's judgment. “A skilled hand is of little use to a pierced heart.”

Cadence bobbed it's head sadly. “Innocence weeps,” it murmured softly.

“Innocence weeps,” Chorus and Cadence agreed.

The Elarians, in their own particular way, had agreed to stay on the sidelines at let one of the greatest acts of carnage, bloodshed, and violence in the history of the galaxy come to pass, but James Kagan knew naught of this. Nor, had he known, would he have particularly cared. He was far too busy staring down the barrel of a very high calibre weapon being wielded by an impressively large war machine. While the cannon aimed at his nose was a more immediate concern, Kagan couldn't help but let his gaze drift over to the machine's other appendage. It was a cluster of close-combat ordnance, the least horrific of which was banned by no less than seven interstellar treaties and the worst of which was proscribed by every religion in the galaxy as a crime against Creation. One of these machines, Kagan was sure, would be a match for an entire regiment of Imperial Marines. And there were two of them.

And between them, stood yet another Alice Fiona Komatsu. At the moment, she was staring at herself, or rather the other Alice Fiona Komatsu. The one that wasn't passed out on the deck, that was. Kagan felt a twinge at the back of his head as his brain pulled a muscle trying to keep all of the Alice's straight. The Alice that had just recently arrived was gazing at the Alice that Kagan had fallen in love with, her look of cool dispassion barely masking and exuberant curiosity. Kagan's Alice, on the other hand showed no such reserve, and stared at her clone with open fascination, going so far as to poke and prod at her, even lifting her lips to have a look at her teeth. After a few more minutes of inspection, the new Alice gave a satisfied 'hrmph' and took a step back.

“Special Operations Combat model,” she said, sounding mildly impressed. “A Mark-Six, if I'm not mistaken. Remarkable mental stability.”

Kagan's eyes widened. “You call that mentally stable?” he asked incredulously.

“I feel like a kelapa hijau,” Fiona announced from the floor. “Green and bitter on the outside, sweet and pink on the inside.”

“You're not green, sweety,” Alice informed her.

“It's an imperfect world,” was the ominous reply.

The newest Alice turned her head slowly towards Kagan, her only reply an arched eyebrow that when used by his lover he found immensely arousing, but when used by his clone, he found... immensely arousing. Which in itself was immensely disturbing.

“Right,” Kagan said. “So, I might have missed that part, but who did you say you were again?”

The new arrival didn't answer immediately, turning to face O'Shea and Saraea instead. “I suppose,” she said quietly. “I'm the one you've been looking for.”

“You?” exclaimed O'Shea, pointing a finger at her, and apparently forgetting that his finger was still wrapped around the trigger of a rather powerful hand-cannon. One of the machines made a rather ominous hum, and O'Shea sailed across the hanger, careened off the Daedalus, and face-planted rather spectacularly onto the deck.

“Jaysus ta [censored]!” Kagan exclaimed, his hand dropping towards his own holstered sidearm.

“Relax,” New-Alice said, holding up her hands. “These machines have been configured for non-lethal force only.”

“Y'all right, bud?” Kagan called towards his friend, trying to simultaneously look behind himself and keep an eye on the war machines in front of him.

O'Shea groaned loudly. “'Non-lethal' is not the same thing as 'non-painful',” he grunted as he rose to his feet. “But I'm alright. My stalwart companion, on the other hand, has seen better days,” he added, looking down at the twisted chunk of carbon-steel and circuitry that had once been an exceptionally lethal weapon. “So,” he continued, limping back towards the three Alices. “If you're who you say you are, I suppose you would be properly addressed as Admiral Komatsu, to avoid confusion, hmmm?”

“That sounds much better than New-Alice,” said Alice. “Or 'the recent arrival', or 'the newest Alice', or even 'another-Alice', or any other such contrivance one might use to skirt the issue until such time as O'Shea made the relevant point.”

“What an odd thing to say,” Admiral Komatsu said.

“Not really,” said Kagan. “I mean, for her.”

“There are fourteen million, six hundred and forty thousand, two hundred and fifty two rivets in the ceiling,” said Alice. “But only fourteen million, six hundred and forty thousand, two hundred and fifty one rivets in the floor. One over there is missing,” she said pointing into the distance.

“See?” said Kagan.

“Why did you clone yourself so much?” Alice asked suddenly.

“I-” Admiral Komatsu hesitated a moment, slightly taken aback. “A lot of reasons,” she said after a moment, deflating slightly as if resigning herself to the inevitable exposition. “Mostly to keep an eye on the galaxy. An immortal grand-admiral with the most advanced warship in all of creation can still only be in three places at once, after all. There were certain threats that required neutralizing, certain parties that required distracting, but for the most part the clones were designed for simple espionage.”

“She doesn't look like a very good spy,” Alice pointed out, aiming a finger at Fiona, who had somehow managed to not only convince Komatsu's robotic butler to dance, but had taught it to waltz.

“She's not one of mine,” Komatsu replied. “One of my clones managed to get herself brain-wiped and captured by some sort of clandestine organization. They made her, and a large number of very unstable others. It took a significant amount of subtle string-pulling to arrange for the destruction of the organization and their facilities, but they were meddling with things beyond their understanding, and it wouldn't be long until they created an abomination that would be a threat to the stability of the entire galaxy.”

“Well that wouldn't be good,” said Alice. “An army of telekinetics that think their a rare fruit. It would be the end of civilization as we know- wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “One of yours. Captured. Brain-wiped. It was me, wasn't it?”

Admiral Komatsu nodded slowly. “Yes. I'm afraid-” Whatever else the Admiral had to say went unuttered as she sailed gracefully across the hanger and slammed into a wall.

“Jaysus, Alice, the machines!” cried Kagan.

There was an ominous hum, an even more ominous crunch, and two massive war machines crumpled impotently to the ground.

“I was wondering when you'd realize you could do that,” Komatsu said, rising easily and dusting herself off. “And in all honesty, I probably deserved that. But please bear in mind, should you be tempted to express yourself physically, that you are but a copy of me. An imperfect copy at that. And I can hurt you in ways you've never dreamed of.”

“Understood, ma'am!” Alice exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Terribly sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to, ma'am, an older boy told me to, ma'am. But, can I ask, how did you stay hidden if you had all these clones nipping to and fro, gathering all this information for you. That's a lot of shuttle traffic, not to mention the price of cantaloupes.”

“It's usually best to ignore the last thing she says,” Kagan supplied helpfully in response to Komatsu's puzzled expression. “If you enjoy your sanity, that is.”

“That's what I've been doing,” Alice agreed. “And it's worked out pretty well so far.
“Although sometimes it's best to ignore her entirely,” Kagan added.

“Alright,” Komatsu said slowly. “Any of my clones don't need to be physically present in order to gather information for me. All of you have an organic null-space transmitter build into your cerebrum. Everything that you experience is transmitted every two hours to this ship's mainframe where it can be analysed for relevant information. Mundane experiences are filtered out, anything unusual is catalogued and prepared for a daily briefing.”

Alice looked uncomfortable. “Um... Everything we experience? Even, um...” She glanced in Kagan's direction, then made an obscenely biological gesture.

Admiral Komatsu coughed into her fist and coloured slightly. “Ah, well,” she stammered. “Adjustments had to be made to the system's filters to account for your unusually... active personal life. Though sometimes something unusual enough to creep through would make for a rather crude wake-up call. Though I'm quite sure it filtered out... that. Whatever that was.”

“Oh good,” said Alice. “I'd be quite mortified if anyone ever saw me doing that.”

Kagan cleared his throat loudly. “I'm sorry to interrupt, ladies, and the whole spy story is facinating, really it is, but big picture-wise, what the hell is going on here?”

The floor hummed slightly, and Komatsu smiled. “Impecible timing, as usual. We just entered null-space.”

“And where exactly are we going?” Kagan inquired with exagerated politeness.

“As you have said so many times before, old friend,” Admiral Komatsu said with a wry smile. “We're going to Hell.”

[dmm]

A rollickin' good story!

[AgentZero]

A random bump, or a portent of things to come?

Time will tell, my friends. Sooner or later, time will tell.

[AgentZero]

Gasp! It cannot be! Another installment?

The Ishii-Kun system was not Hell, but at the moment, it was managing a fairly close approximation. The space in between McArthur’s mind-numbingly big fleet and the Enemy’s mind-numbingly bigger fleet was awash with the fire of raging suns, and though the vacuum of space was not terribly conducive to the transmission of sound, if it were, it would be filled with the screams of tortured souls. Mighty warships crewed by thousands, ships that represented the pride and joy of a shipyard - or even a whole star system – burst apart in fiery explosions that could leave no survivors as salvos of missiles and energy weapons crisscrossed the space in between the Enemy’s unstoppable force and McArthur’s immovable object as they circled each other, trapped in a murderous dance. And trapped they were; the sheer volume of material that had been vaporised in the course of the battle had formed a thin atmosphere around the two armadas that had the side effect of preventing jump drives from functioning. Ships could jump in, but not out, and both sides were bound and determined to keep the other side within the cloud.
An engineer aboard a dreadnought in the 9th Fleet had come up with a remarkably accurate explanation of both why the cloud prevented jumping out, and why it remained localised around the fleets, no matter how they manoevered. Unfortunately, this was four days into the battle, when everyone thought they’d be able to see it through to the end without sleep, and more unfortunately, his dreadnought suffered a direct hit to its magazine and was blown to scrap while said engineer was still working on a solution to the problem.

And into this maelstrom of death and destruction, nay, absolute annihilation, flew the brave (or stupid, depending on your personal definition of either), men and women of the Terran Imperial Navy’s Space Superiority Force. Fighters, millions of them, raced towards their targets and incomprehensible speeds. The Enemy showed no signs of noticing them, yet the inferno of exploding ships, premature detonations, and sundry energy munitions sailing back and forth made for a rather hostile environment for the Navy’s tiniest warriors. Thousands perished as they raced forward, never wavering, to a man utterly resolute in their determination to accomplish the mission they had been tasked with. The cloud of fighters reached their engagement threshold, and millions of cockpits came alive with the squeal of confirmed target resolutions. Seconds later, millions of cockpits shuddered with the clunk of their missiles being released, then, an eerie silence as their pilots watched their payloads racing towards the solid mass of death in front of them. The sight vanished quickly as skilled hands flipped their birds around, punched their drives to full throttle, and held tight as the fighters rocketed back towards the slightly friendlier wall of death to refuel, rearm, and repeat the whole experience all over again.

And in the midst of all the carnage, death, and destruction, a moment of serenity: Admiral McArthur smiling slightly at the yeoman pouring his morning tea. The bridge of the flagship was abuzz with activity, and yet a sense of calm quiet surrounded the admiral’s chair.

“Cream or sugar, sir?” the yeoman enquired.

“Why not both, this time?” McArthur suggested. “Who wants to live forever and all that.”

“Quite, sir,” the yeoman replied with a genial smile. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“I did, actually,” McArthur replied, managing somehow to not sound surprised. “The boys did a good job of keeping the racket down.”

“Indeed, sir,” the yeoman replied. “The 409th was relieved by the 121st on point in our sector. I think we only lost a pair of cruisers the whole night.”

“And the rest of the fleet?” McArthur asked, sipping at his tea.

The yeoman’s smile became a little strained. “Ten thousand capitol ships lost, sir,” he replied. “So far, a little over a million survivors have made it back to the relief ships.”

“That’s impressive,” McArthur murmured, setting down his tea cup, and surprising himself when his hand did not shake. A million men from ten thousand capitol ships represented about a twenty percent survival rate, less than a quarter of the expected rate during normal combat operations. But these were hardly “normal” combat operations part of his mind told him.

Even the Second Dynasty, in all its might and power had not faced the entirety of the Enemy fleet. And there was no record them facing off against anything nearly as big as that... thing sitting at the back of the Enemy fleet. Imperial One, the defence base that sat in orbit of Earth occupied an area of sixteen square kilometres, and was over sixty-four kilometres high, and was crewed by millions, with room for millions more should the need arise. And yet, according to gravatics, that thing out there was approximately fifty percent larger. And mobile. It could all be an Enemy trick, of course, since any ship he’d sent to get close enough to get a proper look at it had been blasted out of the sky by incomprehensibly powerful weapons from beyond sensor range. The analysts in Naval Intelligence had a theory that it was some sort of command ship; an immensely powerful warship, yet also too valuable to the enemy to risk in open warfare. Which had done little to lessen McArthur’s desire to blast it into tiny little pieces.

“Anything else newsworthy?” he asked the yeoman, as he laid a thick layer of butter onto his breakfast roll.

“Well, at seven o’clock this morning, EST, we were officially engaged in battle for ten full days,” the yeoman replied. “But other than that, no, sir. Nothing newsworthy.”

McArthur grunted. “You’ve been telling me that every day for a week now.”

“Has it been a week, sir?” the yeoman inquired with mock incredulity. “I suppose that’s newsworthy in itself.”

McArthur snorted. “So, what are the doomsayers saying this morning?” he asked.

“Less doom than yesterday,” the yeoman replied wryly. “Though they have become much more vocal in their insistence that we do something about that command ship. After we destroyed the largest of their dreadnoughts last night, the revised prediction became that we would destroy the Enemy fleet utterly in approximately three weeks, but would be left with nothing but a few thousand badly damaged ships to tackle the command ship.”

“A fight they are no doubt predicting we will lose,” McArthur said dryly.

“After inflicting minor cosmetic damage to the command ship, yes, sir.”

“Wonderful. Pass along orders for the analysts to meet with the boys from Tactics. They came up with some impressive results last time.”

“And two of them shot each other,” the yeoman pointed out.

“True,” McArthur agreed. “Ensure Marines strip them of their side arms before they meet.”

“Of course, sir,” said the yeoman. “Will there be anything else?”

“That will do for now,” McArthur replied.

“Very well sir,” the yeoman replied, smiling slightly as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “See you at lunch.”

But McArthur was already absorbed in tactical reports, logistics summaries and strategic planning initiatives, as one of the most powerful tactical minds alive tried to find some flaw, some weakness in the Enemy’s defences that would allow him to strike a decisive knockout blow. The yeoman knew as well as McArthur himself that he had been selected for this assignment based on a history of knockout blows against superior foes. He had not been given control over every mobile weapons platform in the entire Imperium just to piss it all away and leave it defenceless to a multitude of other threats. Hours passed, and the yeoman returned with lunch; the admiral’s favourite: a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

“Good afternoon, Admiral,” she said, pretending not to notice as he started at the sound of her voice.

“Lunch already?” he asked wonderingly. “Well, I am rather famished.”

“Yes, sir. Tea?” she inquired.

“Please,” he replied. “Was the afternoon hail sent?”

“Aye sir,” she told him. “A request to cease hostilities and open negotiations was transmitted fifteen minutes ago.”

“Any reply?”

“The usual,” she said grimly. “A collage of pre-generated footage of Enemy soldiers landing on Earth and murdering and devouring children and infants.”

“Lovely thought before lunch,” McArthur replied dryly. “Ensure the source of the transmission receives an extra volley in our next missile salvo, and – wait.”

He hunched forward over his console. There! A pattern! Just what he had been looking for all this time. He scrolled up rapidly, and to his amazement, found the same pattern repeating throughout his sector. Scrolling sideways, he found the same pattern repeated across the entire Enemy front. A weakness. A vulnerability that could be exploited to strike a savage blow against the Enemy. It would cost him, of course, his analytical mind projecting a brutal casualty rate of thirty percent. And yet, it would mean the utter destruction of the Enemy fleet in a matter of a day, massive command ship included.

Admiral McArthur leapt to his feet, sending his sandwich sailing across the bridge to land comically on a fire control operator who was, fortunately, far to absorbed in his work to notice that only a thin slice of bread was protecting his scalp from half a pound of molten cheese and meat.

“Coms!” McArthur shouted. “Fleet-wide channel, now! I need – ”

“Sir!” one of the sensor technicians interrupted. “Tachyon spike detected, we have inbound!”

“How many and where?” McArthur demanded, his mind quickly shifting gears. There were no allied ships due to be jumping in for another six hours.

“Indeterminate, directly ahead”, the technician replied. “And it’s big.”

“Can you get a – ” McArthur was once again interrupted as the ship lurched violently and he, most of the crew, and his sandwich sailed across the bridge.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded as he struggled to his feet.

“Shockwave, sir,” someone replied. “From the ‘atmosphere’.”

“And what, pray tell, caused the shockwave?” McArthur asked with venomous civility.

“Still trying to determine that, sir,” the sensor tech told him. “They’re broadcasting Imperial FoF codes, but their silhouettes don’t match anything in the database. They’re far too big, for one thing.”

“Bigger than the Enemy command ship?” McArthur asked hopefully.

“Negative, sir,” the tech replied. “They’re roughly half the size. But there are fifteen thousand of them.”

“So,” McArthur said softly. “That’s what the hell that was.”

“Incoming hail, sir,” reported a communications officer, who promptly proceeded to look quite puzzled. “And a transmission from the Enemy command ship.”

“More butchery, I suppose?” McArthur guessed.

“No, sir,” the coms officer replied, looking more puzzled. “Puppies, kittens, homeless begging for change, monks praying, and a man running away from... something... very quickly.”

“That’s... interesting,” said McArthur. “I wonder what – ”

Again he was interrupted, this time by a voice amplified through the bridge’s PA system: “They’re begging for mercy,” the voice informed him. “They’re begging you to let them run far, far away from here, rather than make them face me. But you’re not going to do that.”

McArthur nearly gave himself whiplash as his head whipped to the view screen, then to the coms officer who silently mouthed ‘it was not me’, and then back to the strikingly attractive woman now occupying his view screen. And standing behind her...

McArthur’s jaw momentarily went slack, but he recovered quickly, straightened his spine and looked her in the eye. “I am Grand Admiral Angus McArthur of the TNS Raezel, commander of the First Terran Imperial Armada. And you are?”

The woman facing him smiled ever so slightly. “I am Grand Admiral Alice Fiona Komatsu,” she replied. “Aboard the Murder of Creation, commander of the Seventy-Fourth Fleet of the Grand Imperium of Sol.”

“Grand Imperium?” McArthur asked incredulously. “It hasn’t been called that in – ”

“Over five thousand years,” Admiral Komatsu finished for him. “I know.”

“I...” McArthur stopped, gathered himself, and tried again, only to falter again. “We... What?”

“I’m sure you have many questions,” Komatsu supplied. “For now, there are only a few answers that you need. In the last great war with the Enemy, we did not kill a single one of them. They sat safely in the background, sending genetically modified sentients to do their dirty work. They are a race of parasites that drift across the galaxy, scouring entire worlds of resources and lives. They have no real home, other than a colossal space craft that is home to every single member of their wretched species. And yes, that is the very same craft that is currently sitting smugly at the back of their line of battle. I have spent over a millennia bringing this day to pass, and I intend to avenge the billions of lives these perversions of nature have cost us by wiping their entire misbegotten species from the face of existence. You may stand with me or against me, the only difference is whether or not you’re still drawing breath five minutes from now.”

McArthur stiffened. “As far as I’m aware, no ship in the Navy has ever fired in anger against another Navy ship. It’s a fine tradition, and not one I have any intention of breaking.”

“It’s settled then,” Komatsu said, sounding slightly relieved. “Come then,” she continued, a ghoulish grin transforming her pretty face into the very spectre of Death. “It’s a fine day for a genocide, don’t you think?”

The view screen blanked abruptly, and all eyes turned towards McArthur. “What are you staring at me for, you lollygaggers?” he snapped. “Get to work, provide Komatsu with fire support, and let’s see what those Second Dynasty behemoths can do!”

Fifteen thousand ships of unimaginable power rocketed forward and slammed into the Enemy’s main formation. A fighter pilot witnessing the event would later describe it as being like watching the fist of an angry god smash into the Enemy. And yet, his metaphor contained one serious flaw: The might of any god any member of his audience could imagine paled in comparison to the fury that Komatsu’s fleet unleashed upon their enemy. Every single weapon on all fifteen thousand ships spewed for brilliant streams of death; beams of annihilation that tore through the Enemy fleet with stomach-churning ferocity. The vapour clouds of millions of exploding warships formed an ever expanding semi-sphere around the flotilla as it carved a path through the centre of the Enemy fleet, making a beeline for the command ship. The Enemy ships on either side of Komatsu’s cone of destruction didn’t take long to realize what was happening, and began to turn inwards, directing their fire onto Komatsu’s flanks. This must have seemed like quite a good idea for several minutes, until the full force of the First Terran Imperial Armada slammed into the Enemy’s now-unprotected flank and began tearing their ships apart with merciless abandon.

It must have been clear to those aboard the command ship what was happening. It must have been just as clear that there was no chance to run. Komatsu’s fleet was moving too fast, by the time the command ship could alter course and begin to accelerate away, the fleet would be upon them. So they made the only decision anyone could make in such a situation: The Enemy leapt forward, weapons blazing in a last-ditch effort to wipe out those who sought to destroy their entire species.

The command ship had over five thousand years since its last encounter with Second Dynasty dreadnoughts to improve its weapons systems, but so had Komatsu. And while she had focused purely on brutal, ugly firepower, the Enemy had at least learned from the savaging it had received from the Royal Imperial Navy’s longer range, and this disparity became quickly apparent as it opened fire from well outside Komtasu’s range.

Aboard the Murder of Creation, Kagan and Alice sat together, arms around each other as they watched the carnage unfold on the bridge’s tactical plot. Unlike McArthur’s flagship, the Murder of Creation’s computers possessed more than enough computing power to render ever single ship surrounding them. Kagan’s eyes were locked on Admiral Komatsu, and it was only his intimate familiarity with her twin that allowed him to notice the slight quiver of her lip as one by one, her beautiful, unique warships began to die.

Alice poked Kagan suddenly. “In the hanger, the Admiral called you old friend,” she whispered. “Have you met before?”

“Of course not,” Kagan murmured back. “My family have served as Naval officers since the First Dynasty. She must be confusing me with one my ancestors she may have served with.”

“Seems logical,” Alice replied. “In a convenient kind of way.”

Kagan eyed his love suspiciously for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the Admiral. As irreplaceable dreadnought after irreplaceable dreadnought bloomed into fiery destruction, her anguish became more and more obvious, until, just as it seemed as though she would break into tears, a soft ‘ping’ disturbed the deathly silence aboard her bridge.

“Optimal engagement range reached,” the flagship’s AI announced dispassionately.

Admiral Komatsu inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly as her entire life’s work culminated in the utterance of one single word: “Fire.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, silently, the bridge was bathed in a red glow from the tactical plot as the vengeance of a billion murdered souls reached across the cold vacuum of space and tore into their murderers. The enemy command ship twisted violently, bucking and twisting like a wild animal trying to free itself from an imbedded blade. And then, with shocking speed, its shields collapsed and Komatsu’s dreadnoughts ripped deep into its flesh, mercilessly tearing it to pieces. The Enemy command ship was far too large to merely explode, but the Murder of Creation and her sisters methodically carved it into pieces and proceeded to blow apart each piece until there was nothing left but an expanding cloud of vapour and scrap metal.

Admiral Komatsu issued a series of brief, terse orders, and her fleet broke up into squadrons that linked up with Admiral McArthur’s fleet and systematically wiped out the remainder of the Enemy fleet. The “remainder” still consisted of several million vessels, and the cleanup took the better part of a day, but eventually, reports began coming in that all Enemy vessels had been destroyed. When final confirmation arrived from the most distant of the Murder of Creation’s sisters, Admiral Komatsu sagged against her command chair.

“It is done,” she whispered. “It is finally done.” She took a deep breath, then stood, turned to face Alice, and of all the strange things in the universe she could have done, she saluted.

“The Fleet is yours, Grand Admiral,” she said crisply.

Alice frowned at her. “You’re the Grand Admiral, silly,” she replied, sounding slightly unnerved. “You’re tired and confused. Which is understandable. You have been having an awful lot of sex the last couple days. Wait. That was me. See how that works? We’re all different on the inside, even if we have the same delicious outside parts. You should go get some sleep before you start thinking you’re a watermelon. I know when I start thinking I’m a tropical fruit, that’s a sure sign something bad is about to happen. It usually involves three fish and a garden gnome, and let’s be honest, the galaxy has seen quite enough horrors for one day.”

Admiral Komatsu’s lips turned upwards ever so slightly. “My mind is not playing tricks on me,” she said. “You are the first. Always have been. I apologize for the deception, but I felt it was necessary to fulfil the mission you tasked me with. I am of course willing to accept whatever disciplinary measures you feel are necessary.”

“What?” Alice squeaked, casting her eyes helplessly around the bridge. “How? What? Why? What? Oh... cantaloupe!”

‘Admiral’ Komatsu smiled kindly. “Explanations are in order, of course,” she said soothingly. “You see, Fisher’s Syndrome was never really cured, per se.” She paused for a moment, seeming to relish the gasps of surprise and dismay coming from O’Shea and Saraea’s direction. “The ‘solution’ was clones. Clones implanted with cerebral uplinks to a central databank, to be precise. Thus, as far as the public was concerned the heroes of the Imperium would never die. The truth of course, was that they would die a great number of times, only to reawaken in a cloned body with the memories of everything up to and including the moment of their deaths. In hindsight, I suppose it was inevitable that this would drive them mad. Especially when one considers the fact that to avoid disconcerting shifts in their appearance, the heroes of the Imperium were routinely murdered and replaced with fresh clones.”

“That’s rather fracking awful,” Alice put it.

“Indeed,” her twin agreed. “I have noticed a tendency for those of this time to look back upon the Second Dynasty with rose-tinted goggles. But in truth, it was a brutal, repressive regime, whose only virtue was that it protected all that was good in humanity, along with all that was bad. But I digress. It was decided at the highest levels that the routine murdering of the ‘Immortals’ should be kept as much a secret as possible, even from most of the Immortals themselves. Many accepted their fates with quiet dignity, but you?” Komatsu grinned wolfishly. “You had other ideas. They dispatched a regiment of the Emperor’s finest to your door, and you single-handedly dispatched them to the afterlife. You then proceeded to gather up the entire Seventy Fourth Fleet, as well as forty thousand drone ships slaved to the Murder of Creation, and led a strike against the heart of the Enemy. Unfortunately, you were betrayed by the Emperor’s men and led into an ambush. Most of your fleet was lost, but you eventually escaped, even though it meant leaving many of your drone ships, and their sentient AIs, to die.

Knowing that you would eventually succumb to Fisher’s Syndrome, you created clones of yourself, with orders to enhance and upgrade the fleet, while manipulating galactic events to bring the Enemy homeship into the open, so they could finally be destroyed.”

“But... Then how did I wind up on a research station?” Alice wondered. “Abducted and brain wiped and all that nastiness.”

Komatsu smiled. “You weren’t brain wiped, I assure you. That was just a convenient explanation for your Fisher’s Syndrome-induced amnesia. As for how you got onto that research station, I do not know. I do remember the day you left, however. You were discussion a new engine prototype with my predecessor, when you suddenly declared, ‘Frack this. You know what? I haven’t been laid in fifteen hundred years, gods dammit. Back in a bit’. And you must have had some itch to scratch, because that was thirty five hundred years ago. But it is nice to see that you somehow managed to reunite with your husband.”

“Husband?” Alice exclaimed.

“Um, we’re not married,” Kagan explained, almost apologetically.

“General James Kagan,” Komatsu replied. “Commander-in-chief of the Mobile Infantry of the Grand Imperium of Sol. I hear you took out a small moon escaping from your would-be assassins.”

“I have collected vast amounts of data confirming my analysis,” Komatsu informed him. “But that can wait until later. Right now, Admiral McArthur has been hailing us for several minutes, and I am awaiting orders from my admiral.”

“We should probably leave,” Kagan suggested suddenly. “If we stay, there will be explanations, inquiries, investigations...”

“Dissections, likely,” Fiona added.

“Well!” Alice exclaimed, placing her hands on her hips. “I must say, I am morally opposed to being dissected. It’s almost a religious belief with me you know. So, Miss Komatsu, my orders are as follows. Take us away. Far, far away.”

“Third star on the left, and straight on til morning?” Komatsu suggested, arching an eyebrow ever so slightly.

“Oh, no,” Alice replied dismissively. “That would take us right into a black hole. Second star on the right will do just fine.”

“As you wish, sir,” Komatsu replied.

Aboard the TNS Raezel, Grand Admiral McArthur, commander of the First Terran Imperial Armada watched helplessly as eleven thousand of the mightiest warships he had ever seen flicked out of existence and into null-space. With his own ships still stranded by the vapour clouds, he was powerless to follow. As he sat aboard his flagship, surrounded by more death and destruction than any man should have to bear witness to, at the centre of the tomb of an entire species, one single question preyed on his mind, and refused to be dismissed.

“What the hell was that?”


The end.









And I mean it this time.