Ravens of Eternity

265 Breaking Free, Pt A Federation captain sat on the bridge of his light frigate, and stared at the contraption on the main screen. It looked like some sort of exterior ship module, and appeared to be an outer frame to some kind of dome or sphere.

“Someone tell me what the hell this is,” he said. “And why its near Devolatus space.”

One of the officers on the bridge pored over a report as it scrolled past his screen. But he could hardly make any sense of it.

“Not entirely sure, sir,” he replied. “Energy readings are at the minimum, but it appears to be a detachable teleport module. And some kind of coupling mechanism. Never seen anything like it before.”

“Is it dangerous?” asked the captain. “Does it have weapons, or armor?”

“No, sir. At least, not that we can see. Not while it’s powered down and detached.”

“Haul it in. Let’s have the engineers back on station pick it apart.”

“Yessir.”

Before the officer could issue any orders, an alert blared on a nearby terminal. The technician seated at it looked panicked by what she saw on her screen.

.....

“Captain!” she cried out. “Unidentified heavy fighter incoming! Unknown chassis, readings scrambled or missing.”

“Put it on the main screen!” he replied. “And send it a standard hailing comm quickly. Brief the fighters and prep for an intercept.”

As he spoke, a live feed of the incoming fighter was displayed on the main screen, but the image itself was scrambled and heavily marred. Its cross section was impossible to make out.

While the captain and his intel officer attempted to determine what the fighter was, the communications officer opened up a comms line and attempted to reach out.

“Unidentified vessel,” he said, “you are operating in secure Federation space. You are ordered to identify and surrender immediately, or we will respond with force.”

The comms officer repeated it one more time, but got nothing in response.

“No response, captain,” he said. “Can confirm our hails were received.”

“Have our fighters engage, and show it our starboard,” commanded the captain. “Use the disruptors and haul it in. I’ve got a whole host of questions for the pilot.”

The frigate’s multiple starboard side disruptor cannons immediately came to life, and began to track Lucifer’s fighter as it neared. Each one of the half dozen guns blasted spheres filled with concentrated unstable ions, one after the other after the other.

At the same time, the frigate’s fighter squadron escort flew in to intercept Lucifer’s fighter from both flanks. They too fired with their disruptors, and flooded the immediate area with their projectiles.

Not that any hit.

“I’m giving you full control of the guns,” said Lucifer as ze gracefully evaded each of the enemy’s shots.

And though ze faced an incredible amount of incoming fire, ze was hardly pressed. With Eva on guns, Lucifer held little fear. Ze had seen how skilled Eva was, and knew she could hold her own.

This allowed hir to fully concentrate on their defense, and pushed their odd little fighter to its absolute maximum. They wove between the shots with overwhelming speed and awe-inspiring agility, to the utter frustration of those who fired on them.

Eva found Lucifer’s maneuvers absolutely top notch. Though she was much more of a freeform, improvised kind of pilot, she recognized Lucifer’s skill easily. She saw the pattern of hir movements shift and change, as though ze was some kind of mindreader.

The complex patterns ze engaged in were always one step ahead of everyone that bore down on them. She found that it was comparable to her own style, albeit powered by calculation rather than intuition.

Regardless, since she didn’t have to worry about positioning or defensiveness, she could easily concentrate on eliminating their enemies. Which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Eva manipulated her twin control sticks as she slid the two guns across the core’s surface. Since they were both completely freeform, she could aim them in different directions and plug away at two combatants at any given time.

She peppered a handful of Federation fighters with numerous particle bolts even as Lucifer maneuvered into their merge. Ze used their fighter’s superior agility to spin around their enemies, and kept them on the defensive.

In fact, the operational differences between their craft outright impressed Eva.

It was easily maneuvering and could reach speeds of well over 300 meters per second, far faster than what the Federation fighters could do. Its acceleration was also equally lifted. She felt powerful g-forces push and pull on her as they sped up or down and changed direction and adjusted velocity.

It was a devastating assault on their bodies, and if they weren’t who they were, would have long since blacked out from getting g-locked.

Most pilots would have slowed down to give their blood time to flow properly. But these two were instead having the time of their lives.

Eva squeezed the triggers on her control sticks and drilled even more bolts into the enemy fighters. Red energy arced out from every point of impact, and whittled away more of their energy shielding.

She watched as their systems dwindled from the constant EM attacks, and began to lag behind.

Lucifer noted that Eva often fired at the crest of hir maneuvers, during the moments when their old trajectory shifted to the new one. It was simply when the ship itself was most stable, and was the prime moment to fire.

So, ze made sure to extend it by a sliver, and gave her as much time as ze could spare.

Eva noticed the change immediately, and took advantage of that time. Not necessarily to fire more bolts, but to better carefully land her shots. It was one thing to hit the nose, and another to hit the rear, where the majority of fighter systems were installed.

More than that amount of time, she noticed that ze also fell into a pattern, almost like a song. Certain moves lasted exact moments, but switched up for different moves that lasted different lengths.

It dawned on Eva that Lucifer was dancing, and it had an air of familiarity about it. It was a deadly and violent and beautiful dance, much like the kind she herself learned about and developed.

So, she instinctively fell into the pattern as well and danced along with hir in the lead.

While the crescent wing slid and rotated around the core, so too did the two guns. They spun all around and shot at every enemy in sight. Together, their dance of death annihilated the Federation fighters around them.

They dismantled them with such ease that those on the frigate were in utter shock. A single fighter winning against a squadron of twelve was unthinkable. And yet there it was, doing just that.

Every shot it landed simply slowed down and shorted out the fighters more and more. They had degraded to a point where they could hardly move, much less fight back. At which point, its trajectory switched away from the fighters, and moved to intercept the frigate instead.

“Can we take it down the same way you did with the ‘vette earlier?”

“EM Wave is still charging, so we’re gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Fine by me, but I’m not sure we’ve got the rounds to put it down. Magazines are close to empty”

“Not a problem – switch up the gun and put it into primary mode.”

Eva quickly went to her weapon’s settings, and flipped a toggle on its screen. She was utterly surprised that it was also a combination weapon. Most of them were typically melee/ranged mixed. But this gun took it to a different level – instead it was a mix between ballistic and energy.

Beam, to be specific.

The two guns swung to the default forward position, then turned inward and snapped into each other magnetically. The two barrels then synchronized their power flow and potential output.

It chimed happily once it was ready.

Eva didn’t hesitate and blasted the gun into the frigate’s rear. The dark red electrical beam slammed into the thick armor, and slagged it with incredible ease. The armor itself melted and glowed bright orange from the sheer heat that the electricity transferred into it.

By this time, the frigate had fired every weapon they had at them. Not just their disruptor cannons, but their regular ballistic cannons, and missile batteries too. They even blasted out multiple shells of antiarmor flak, and filled the battlespace with razor-sharp shrapnel.

More than that, they had called in for backup – the heavy kind.

The frigate’s captain was beyond panicked when he watched the fighter nimbly dodge their disruptors, and completely ignored the flak. They couldn’t even scratch the core’s omnitronium armor, and had virtually no chance to penetrate it.

Eva sent Lucifer a couple of points on the frigate, all centered around its power plant. She wanted to punch through one or two different modules before she hit the power plant itself.

“Can you get me an angle?”

“I can do you one better.”

Lucifer sent back the same target set, but with a few more points. When Eva pictured their flight pattern, she couldn’t help but grin widely.

Lucifer was also grinning wide. Both of them were in ecstasy all throughout this fight – the thrill of it exhilarated the both of them greatly.

“Let’s lock it in.”

Lucifer nodded, then immediately adjusted their trajectory, and began to corkscrew around the frigate. At the same time, Eva blasted their beam right on it, but constantly centered on the power plant deep within.

As they spun around it, and avoided its fire, they also tore into its thick hide, and slagged it to pieces. Entire sections were torn off in spiral strips, as though they were merely peeling a potato.

Then, Eva overcharged the twin beams and punched clean through its armor. They tore through the structure, and blasted everything underneath. Modules and people and fuel and ammunition all burst into flame as they were instantly immolated by the intense heat.

More than that, the beam had reached through to the power plant, and ate away at its thick outer shielding.

And as their fighter spun around the frigate, they carved deep into multiple modules and systems, and neutralized them all.

It didn’t take long for the beam to rip into the power plant and rupture it. The explosion tore through the ship itself, and blew the back half far away. The front half was blown in the opposite direction, and fell straight towards Devolatus Prime.

And as it tumbled down towards the atmosphere, multiple escape pods flew out and scattered all around.

Not that Eva and Lucifer stopped to watch.

They immediately went towards the detachable teleport module, which magnetically affixed itself to the front of the fighter itself. And when Lucifer poured power into it, wispy tendrils of dark matter extended out along its multiple frames.

Like sails.

“I was wondering how we were gonna get out of here in just a fighter,” said Eva. “What is it?”

“Shadowsail,” said Lucifer. “There’s a house out in the Hegemony that makes parts just for this core. The sail’s huge and kinda clunky, but it’ll get us anywhere in the galaxy.”

“Well then, what’re we waiting for? Let’s get the hell out there.”

“Read my damned mind.”

Lucifer primed the nav intelligence, and punched in some coordinates. Then, after a few moments, the space around them warped, and covered them in darkness. It seemed as though they were being swallowed by it.

And when it closed up, they were gone.

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