Short story: Ghosts in the Sky

Short story: Ghosts in the Sky
July 2nd, YS 214
GHNS Derzhava, Strike Group “Orlan”, en route to Imgur-Elil

The mess hall was full with the commotion of several hundred enlisted crewmen and officers as Captain Dimitri Tarasev made his way to the exit with his tray of beef and mashed potatoes. The food would probably be cold when he got to his quarters, but that was far more appetizing than trying to eat in the pungent odor of unwashed bodies and machine oil that the crewmen all around him exuded. The crew, of course, didn’t mind. In all fairness, things like “cleanliness” went out of the window when one was running triple shifts trying to respond to distress calls for the third week in a row. The captain just hoped they wouldn’t be arriving too late this time.

	Dimitri sighed, then brushed his graying hair back a bit. All the 24-hour work cycles were taking a toll on his body, as the bags under his eyes can attest. He did not have much time to muse, though, as a sharp cough behind him prompted him to turn around, finding the familiar face of his senior michman (warrant officer) with a worried expression.
“Ah, michman Ilyasov. Is there something you wanted to notify me on?”
Although a little irritated that the warrant officer decided to bother him instead of submitting a report, Tarasev still put up with this breach of procedure. Ilyasov has always had good advice in his twenty years of service, and he only bothered his officers when there was something important going on.

“Indeed, Captain…it’s about the crew morale. We have a very serious problem…would you mind if we talked here?” the michman said in a conspiratorial tone.

Soon, the two were sitting at an empty table, with the captain setting his empty tray to the side and tenting his fingers in thought.

“So what’s the morale problem michman? Our crew are adequately supplied, and if anything they have always been excited to go into battle. So tell me what the cause of the problem is and I will fix it.”
Ilyasov’s brows furled in worry, one eye twitching a little from stress or frustration. It was worrying that the normally implacable man was anxious.
“There are rumors among the crew…rumors of a ghost ship, and it keeps spreading despite the punitive measures we are taking. At this point I’m sure the whole crew is talking about it.”
At this point Tarasev cannot help but suppress a laugh.

“Ghost stories? The average sailor probably sees ghost ships every night. If that’s your worry, then let the men talk. And you probably need some more sleep, judging by how stressed you’re looking…”
Dimitri was taken by surprise when Ilyasov slammed a hand onto the table, interrupting his advice.

“Look Dimitri, it’s worse than you think! It’s not ‘just’ a ghost ship–that story would never have spread without what happened to Bandit, Chaika and Kavkaz! You were probably busy filing paperwork and trying to fill the Admiral’s shoes, but I saw it all. Did you know that the rate for false-positive alerts tripled in the last week? I had. Did you hear of the fearful whisperings of the next battle? The crew, although you might not realize it, are afraid, and that is definitely not normal!”

“So what do you want me to do? My responsibility is to run the ship! I thought you were in charge of morale, Viktor? Isn’t it your responsibility, that our brave sailors are now gossiping about ghosts like old women in villages?” Tarasev replied heatedly. The accusation of being absent from his ship rankled, even though it was not without merit, but on the eve of facing the enemy it was never a good sign that the crew was afraid. And deep down, it scared him a little too–the three strike groups were all more powerful than his, yet they all vanished without a trace on the first encounter with the enemy, leaving behind only bare metal husks in the desert sands of Elaat.

“Just one speech, Captain. Give them a speech to inspire them before we arrive at Imgur-Elil. I’m afraid you’re the only one who can dispel this ‘ghost’ now–I don’t deny I have failed, but after the tenth sailor thrown in solitary confinement in a week because of the false alarms, I don’t think anything I can do will help.” With his frustration vented, the balding warrant officer seemed to shrink on himself, the stress lines on his face made ever deeper by the harsh fluorescent lighting. Reaching into his breast pocket, Ilyasov passed a folded sheet of paper to his captain.

“I’ve made some notes on your speech. I think you’ll need it.”
With that, Ilyasov turned and left with a weary tip of his hat. Unfolding the paper, Dimitri sighed again. He did not relish the coming battle, but it was his job to keep his crew safe, and there was always more work to be done.
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3AM July 3rd, YS 214
GHNS Derzhava, combat bridge

	Standing at the rebuilt CIC of the Derzhava, Captain Tarasev surveyed the battlegroup laid out before him one more time. The Nomad-class battlecruiser Derzhava led a complement of two Borey-class cruisers, as well as a squadron of five Navarin bombers, all against the reported squadron of a single destroyer and a couple of corvettes…so why was he so nervous, like a green lieutenant at his final exam at the academy? On the other hand, standing in the very spot that one’s admiral had been blown to bits by an aircraft rocket mere weeks ago was enough to give most people nerves.

Taking out a handkerchief, Dimitri wiped his forehead in the sudden oppressive heat of the room. The fleet had a mere three hours until reaching Imgur-Elil, to recapture the fuel depot from that damned “Black Devil”, Mark Sayadi, and deprive the rest of his fleet of a critical staging point. The Derzhava’s missile tubes were empty, having fired all of its payload at the city where her foe’s ships were moored. With any luck, Strike Group “Orlan” will only be facing a single destroyer and a couple of burning wrecks.

The captain gave a cursory glance of his CIC. Everyone was tense and focused, but he could sense an air of anxiety that–almost subconsciously–was higher than normal, whether it was the nervous tics of the chain-smoking radarman or the endless toe-knuckle cracking of the communications officer that somehow can be heard even over the engines. Everybody was high strung tonight–and not in a good way. If Ilyasov thought a speech would help then so be it, he thought.

Clearing his throat, Tarasev picked up his radio receiver and looked at his watch. His Navarins should be arriving at the battle zone by now, but radio silence protocols meant that they would not be able to report back. He had already set his personal radio to broadcast across the whole strike group, and with one final look at the plotting table Dimitri spoke into the receiver.

“Comrades, fellow soldiers of the Great Houses…this is your Captain speaking. In less than an hour we will be going into battle, against the infamous Black Devil of Gerat.” As his voice echoed through the PA system, Tarasev noticed that the whole bridge had gone deadly silent. Even the annoying crack-crack-crack of the communication officer’s toe has stopped. He took a deep breath and continued.

“Some of you may be afraid. Some of you might even believe that the ship we are hunting is a ghost, seeking vengeance for the nuclear destruction of Salem…that it has already destroyed three of our strike groups, and we are just more fodder for its cannons.” To the captain’s frustration, several of his bridge crew were already breaking out in cold sweat. The IRST operator was even praying and making the sign of the cross at the mere mention of their enemy. Ilyasov was right…what a bunch of cravens, Dimitri thought disgustedly.

“But any devil can be bested with faith and righteousness! We–our Great Houses–rose up against the Sayadis, because there is a righteous balance in the world that they had corrupted! The sanctity of nobility, the independence of the Navy…all of this, and much more the Royals seek to upend! And that is what we fight for: the natural order of things–so that our cause is righteous, and thus we shall fear no evil!” The captain scanned the bridge again while he was catching a breath. Everybody was intently looking at him, but he can see that the IRST operator–a young ensign who had a scraggly beard like armpit hair–looked visibly more confident. At least, he had stopped twitching and praying quietly. Picking up on the lead, Tarasev continued.

“Besides, Mark Sayadi is no devil. Mark Sayadi is a man, like any other. More specifically, he is a Sayadi–just like the Sayadis we defeated, time and time again, in the southern plains. He may be a cunning devil, but what can he do with a single destroyer against our whole fleet? Some may look at the trail of destruction he left behind and see a harbinger of doom, but not me. I see a cornered beast, like a wicked dragon run through by spears…and we will be the ones to slay it.” At this point Dimitri took a swig from the canteen on his hip. He can see the bridge crew’s trepidation has now turned into something that resembled doubt, with the slightest hint that they might survive through this. Now they just need a final nudge in the right direction, he thought.

“Mark Sayadi is exhausted! His forces, once a mighty armada, have been reduced to just three scattered battlegroups, and here we face only a single ship! So comrades, I ask you this: Will you follow me into the breach, to face this stricken dragon of Mark Sayadi and strike down the last remnant of a corrupt empire? Or will you shy away of your duty, of your cause for Order and for Faith, all because of some whispered ghost stories? I, for one, know where I stand, for God is with the righteous! Long live the Great Houses! Deus in Nobis!

“DEUS IN NOBIS!” The bridge was filled with the sound of several dozen different voices as they shouted the words in unison. Tarasev looked on as the bridge officers repeated the slogan with a fire in their eyes. As if someone had injected rocket fuel directly inside their veins, his men were now eager and aggressive, instead of the nervous wrecks they were a mere half-hour before. Now that’s more like it, Tarasev thought.
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2:55 AM July 3rd, YS 214
HMS Gremyashchiy, combat bridge

Clutching a cup of black coffee in one hand, Mark Sayadi ran a diagnostic of his ship’s control systems for the twentieth time today. Strapped into his pilot seat inside a spherical panoramic cockpit, he felt like a hamster inside its exercise wheel–or maybe a snake in its den, ready to ambush some unfortunate passer-by. An apt comparison, considering that it was his idea to bury the whole ship in the desert for this ambush. All systems nominal…again. But there’s so much that can go wrong…one sand-damaged engine can make the difference between a moving target and a sitting duck.

A knock on the access door disrupted his internal rant, and the duke quickly unbuckled his seat-belt harness to drop to the floor, turning around to face a freckled junior lieutenant with bags under his eyes.

“Ah, Lieutenant Sokolov. Is there anything to report?” Mark said as he and the communications officer saluted each other.

“Sir, the enemy fleet will be within our engagement zone in ten minutes. All preparations are complete and they will pass directly above us.”

Downing the rest of the coffee in one gulp, the Duke merely nodded and dismissed his subordinate, strapping himself into the pilot’s chair once more. These were his trusted men; he did not need to watch over them and remind them on what to do like an Army commissar, not when they have already fought their way across most of Gerat together. Clearing his throat lightly, Mark Sayadi activated the PA system.

“All hands, battle stations–say again, battle stations. We take off in five minutes.”

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3AM
GHNS Derzhava

The cheering was rudely interrupted by the beep-beep-beep of the IRST, but the crew still rushed to their stations. A moment later status reports started flooding in.

“New thermal contact! Distance 15, altitude…altitude ground level, straight ahead!”
“Attention–visual contact! Enemy ship, Gnevny-class!”
Immediately, a grainy image of the target appeared on the multi-function display that hung above the plotting table. It was a Gnevny alright: a graceless brick, built like a refrigerator and bristling with eight 100mm rapid-fire cannons. That would have been a rare sight after Salem’s destruction, but it was not the ship itself that had Tarasev’s jaw dropping to the floor.

It was the fact that the ship was blasting off from the desert, shedding hundreds of tons of sand as its thrusters accelerated the vessel’s ungainly form rapidly upward, like a reverse meteor hurtling directly toward the Derzhava, a mere 15 kilometers away–well within the effective range of 100mm guns.

How? Dimitri thought. We have ground search radar! Those crazy bastards must have buried the entire ship in sand to pull this off–and even then it’s a miracle the sand hasn’t turned the thrusters to glass! The captain forced himself to regain his composure. Now was not the time to stand around and gawk; that would just get everyone killed.

“Gunnery crew at the ready! All ships focus fire and spread out line-abreast! Missiles fire at will!”

The rapid-fire string of orders had their effect on breaking the bridge crew out of their bewilderment. Quickly he heard acknowledgements from the captains of the Vostok and Almaz–the two Boreys that he had not sent away on the bombing mission to Imgur-Elil. He could only hope that the Navarins took the city without incident.

Moments later, the whole ship rocked as the Derzhava fired its complement of dual 180mm cannons, followed by the much quieter sound of Zenith missiles streaking out from their launch brackets. Distantly, Tarasev can see great plumes of red flame followed by much thinner, curving trails of white smoke: the Boreys were launching their missiles and burning downward to bring their main guns to bear. So was the Derzhava, as she was designed to face the opponent side-on, at similar altitudes, but the heavy cruiser’s lumbering bulk meant that it would lag behind its lighter peers.

Gripping the edge of the plotting table with white-knuckled hands, Tarasev watched on the screen as the barrage of artillery shells streaked downward to the enemy ship. The destroyer suddenly spun on its main axis, maneuvering thrusters spewing out gouts of red-and-black sooty exhaust as it accelerated sideways and cut off its main engines, causing all but one of the 32 180mm shells to miss cleanly. The last one struck the armor on top of the ship and spun wildly before exploding midair.

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HMS Gremyashchiy

With white-knuckled hands, Mark Sayadi gripped his ship’s dual control sticks as the heavy destroyer blasted off on a cloud of sand several hundred meters tall, four gravities of accelerations pushing him into the pilot’s chair and pulling the blood into his legs. The hemisphere of vacuum tube screens flickered under the acceleration, black-and-white infrared cameras showing the Gremyashchiy’s quarry, getting steadily closer.

A flash from the lead ship accompanied by a shrill beeping sound notified the duke of incoming projectiles, 180mm artillery shells illuminated in bright orange by the radar display like angry hornets. The missiles will arrive after the shells…good. We won’t have that luxury after this.

With his eyes fixed on the incoming shells, Mark suddenly took his feet off the throttle pedals and twisted the control stick. The thousand-ton ship hung in the air, only held up by its remaining momentum as it spun like a top, then changed direction, the acceleration once more pressing the grand duke into his seat–but instead of being holed in a dozen different places, the incoming barrage flew harmlessly off into the air. Time for the real fight to begin, Mark thought as he moved the target cursor over the biggest enemy ship.

“Gunnery crews E through H, prepare to engage designated target. A through D turrets load VT and counterfire–remember your training!”

Even as he put the destroyer into another corkscrewing spin, Mark could see the Gremyashchiy’s four upper turrets training on the missiles, the dual 100mm cannons belching thunder and sending proximity rounds hurtling toward the Zeniths. As he mashed his thumb down onto the countermeasure switch, a small part of Mark’s brain thought that the fight looked like the opening act of an aerial ballet–and it was already clear that the side with Doppler radar-guided gunnery would be the better “dancer”.
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Damn! He’s good. Tarasev thought as his enemy danced nimbly in the air, jinking left and right while spewing out flares and chaff. Four of its guns flashed, and Tarasev waited for the impact or inevitable flash of tracers past his viewport, but nothing happened except for three missiles flying past the ship and going for the flares.

“Sir! First missile barrage destroyed–no effect! Enemy is counterfiring with main guns!” Tarasev wanted to throw something in his frustration, or to congratulate the enemy gunners–using proximity-fuzed shells to destroy aircraft was standard procedure, but they had just used the same weapon to literally shoot his missiles out of the sky!

“Keep firing the missiles, one at a time. Even if they don’t hit, we can force him to evade!” On the plotting table’s screen, Dimitri can see the Vostok and Almaz descending, but they were not fast enough. On screen, the destroyer’s cannons flashed in rapid succession even as it avoided another missile, and soon the unmistakable sound of high-explosive shells ripping into hull was heard as Dimitri’s radio came alive with the voice of the Vostok’s captain.

“Derzhava, Vostok, engine hit! TWR is nominal, but it’s going to take a while to descend.” His colleague’s voice sounded in equal measure excited and worried. Tarasev remembered he was a new transfer from the Khivan home fleet.

“Continue descent and keep firing! We’re providing fire support.” And for all the good that ‘support’ might do, the captain thought as his foe danced through yet another barrage with nothing more than a few fresh craters on its armor belt. 100mm guns flashed again and this time, he could hear something break below him as the whole ship shuddered, producing a sound akin to a metal door being hit with a brick.

“Status report!” “Ventral missile banks on fire, sir! Flooding magazine with halon now!” Tarasev gritted his teeth. The Zenith missiles’ solid fuel would burn no matter how much fire-suppressant was put on them, and they had the potential of setting off the whole front fuel tank.
“Jettison the missiles! Suppress the fire after.” The captain’s hands were beginning to involuntarily shake, and not because of the ships’ engines vibrating the hull. So that’s what happened to the three other strike groups…Putting on a calm facade, Tarasev announced into the radio again.

“All ships flank speed toward target! Let’s see how he’ll dance when we’re shooting from close range!” Dimitri was about to continue when an awful dirge started sounding over the radio, like a demented cross between a violin and a bagpipe, drowning out everything else.

“What the hell is it? Shut it off or switch to the backup channel!” Dimitri wanted to throw something at the comms officer, even though the latter did nothing to deserve it. Since when was battle music a thing after sky-ships were invented? The dopey-looking lieutenant, though, gave a swift reply, his hands flying over the radio’s dials.

“Sir, it’s being broadcast on all frequencies! Radio transmission is impossible!”
“Then shut it off! It’s only one enemy ship!” As soon as those words left Tarasev’s mouth, the viewport left of him was lit up with a brilliant blue flash. The Vostok had been hit in the fuel tanks and was now slowly listing to the side as the methane compressed within burned furiously. Directly below the stricken ship hung the damnable form of the Gnevny-class destroyer, its dark anthill-shaped hull briefly lit up by the explosion. Its guns were still firing at the stricken cruiser, high-explosive rounds flying like angry fireflies to bury themselves in the Vostok’s compartmentalized fuel tanks and setting off thousands of tons of liquid methane and oxidizer. With the second salvo, the Vostok’s jug-shaped hull flew apart, then the magazines set off in a tremendous explosion, leaving building-sized chunks of the ship sluggishly flying away from the dirty brown-and-orange cloud as tertiary detonations started to rip the wreckage into even smaller pieces.

Tarasev could only watch in shock as the destroyer vanished into the darkness once more, but not before a salvo of 180mm shells finally hit, blowing great craters into its side as the Derzhava’s cannons finally found their mark against a briefly-stationary foe. Never in his career has he felt so useless, watching his ships getting destroyed one by one as he is unable to even command them.

________________________________________

Pulling the Gremyashchiy out of another high-G turn, Mark Sayadi saw stars swimming across his vision as the ship beneath him accelerated sideways again. The enemy ships were getting hit and one of the Mason jar-like Boreys even had an engine knocked out and was falling out of formation, but there were still another Borey and a Nomad-class heavy cruiser bearing down on his lone ship–and the Nomad was launching missiles at him non-stop like this was one of those “war story” animations that was so popular back in the capital. Sooner or later one of them would get through…

Placing the targeting cursor on the big target, Mark spoke into the intercom.
“All turrets, switch to priority target! Fire at will!”
32 high-explosive and VT rounds flew toward the brick-shaped cruiser, and soon Mark could see a thermal bloom on its underside that refused to gutter out. Its VLS must have caught fire.

There was no time to celebrate his men’s superb shooting as the grand duke switched his target back to the already-damaged Borey. Even disabled, a Nomad could take quite a while to kill, and that was time he did not have as Mark used the maneuvering engines to align the Gremyashchiy’s main axis toward the light cruiser, silhouetted in the sky by a long pennant of oily smoke. A moment later the guns roared again, and in perfect synchrony Mark heard the opening notes of Tanc a Lelek being broadcast over the airwaves as he pulled his destroyer into another breakneck turn that caused the pilot’s chair to creak beneath him. Ah, Sokolov…always the one to make a dramatic entrance. At the moment, he decided that was a good thing.

The next ten seconds or so went past in a blur, but also felt impossibly long as Mark drove his ship to continuously dodge and weave, hands sweaty as the repeated high-G turns forced the blood around his body like water sloshing in a jar. Artillery shells the size of melons hurtled past the ship’s hull, made to seem alarmingly close by the distributed cameras that constituted Mark’s situational awareness. Then the damaged Borey–so close that it was practically looming over his destroyer, the smashed chambers of its main engines gaping like black holes–went up in a flash of white-hot flame, fuel tanks leaking burning methane into the atmosphere. Snapping himself out of the combat-fugue, Mark immediately bellowed orders.

“Sustain fire! One more salvo and the fuel will explode!”

Keeping just enough thrust to stay under the listing cruiser, the Duke quickly scanned his surroundings as the Gremyashchiy’s 100mm cannons fired again, high-explosive shells ripping deep into the stricken ship–but there was no explosion, and the Nomad had to be getting a bead on his ship even as the cannons reloaded…

A second after the next incomplete salvo, the entire panoramic viewscreen lit up in white infrared flame as a shell finally managed to set off the enemy’s fuel tanks, and Mark immediately threw the ship into reverse thrust, not caring that his vision turned red with blood rushing to his head before the crash couch whirled upside down. He only hoped it was fast enough to evade the Nomad’s return fire–

Not fast enough. The whole ship rocked as it was hit by an entire barrage of 180mm shells, structural members groaning as it continued accelerating downward. On one of the auxiliary displays Mark could see two turrets have been knocked out entirely, even as he spun the ship around again to reorient to the Nomad.--the other Borey wasn’t a threat anymore, its guttering engines leading the ship into a spin away from the course of the battle. We can’t survive many more hits like that…

But Mark knew well that only one side was going to come out of this fight. And with his face a mask of bloodthirsty rage he pushed the Gremyashchiy into a high-G burn again as Tanc a Lelek reached a frenzied pace on the radio, drums and strings blending with the dull thrum of nuclear turbines into a cacophony of destruction.

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Tarasev was violently shaken out of his reverie by the cry of “Enemy ship directly below us!”, and with a start he gave the order to evade and return fire. Through the right porthole of the command deck, he could see the Almaz firing at the interloper, but it was too late to stop the destroyer from putting a stream of 100mm shells into the unarmored underside of his Nomad-class cruiser. The ship rocked with the impacts, and alarms blared through klaxons.

“Bow fuel tank compartment C-2, breach! Suppressing fire now!”
“Ventral IRST destroyed! All guns switch to integral optics!”

Desperately, the captain yelled for the helmsman to evade, to do anything to bring his ship out of the enemy’s firing arc, but even with afterburners roaring the Nomad-class cruiser was simply too ponderous to out-accelerate its smaller foe. Another salvo shook the hull and soon there was a deafening secondary explosion in the bow fuel tank–but through one of the undamaged ventral cameras, Tarasev can see that the destroyer below him was taking a beating as well. Even with its undamaged side rotated to face the Almaz, two of its guns have fallen silent, and the other side routinely erupted in the explosion of a 180mm shell hit. After the fourth hit, the ship suddenly veered to the left and rocketed straight up–away from the rapidly-approaching ground, now only 3 kilometers away.

“Helmsman, turn 45 degrees starboard and reverse! Ready the frontal turrets!” With the Derzhava fighting from an equal altitude, Tarasev could now leverage her superior armor to batter the enemy to death–or so he hoped. The maneuver would expose his ship’s bridge to face the enemy, but it would also offer a clear shot for the Almaz to cripple their foe, which was much better than the alternative of the destroyer hammering his bridge while using the Derzhava’s bulk as cover. He prayed the move would pay off.

Like an immense mountain of carved obsidian, the Gnevny-class rose into Tarasev’s periscope viewports on a pillar of fire. He was close enough to see the faded white Romani eagle emblazoned on its cratered hull, which was lit up with the fire of the portside CIWS. 37mm rounds deflected off the damaged armor like hailstones while bigger 180mm turrets struggled to track their target. He also saw the eight pitch-black barrels of 100mm guns, pointed directly at the viewport, before Tarasev threw himself beneath the map desk and the world erupted into fire and noise.

With two deafening thunderclaps, the last of the Derzhava’s bridge armor was blown away, and Tarasev felt the biting desert wind on his face as he opened his eyes slowly. The entire bridge looked like a snapshot of Hell: the instrument banks were turned into a giant, flaming crater, fragments of armor plates the size of boulders were embedded everywhere and most of the floor was a gaping crater where fires burned within. In front of him, the gouged-open maw in the cruiser’s armor plating yawned, framing its killer in jaws of broken steel. Gingerly lifting himself up, Tarasev could only look numbly as he pushed a severed hand out of the way, its ring finger still bearing the band of the Imperial Officers’ Academy.

This must be Hell, Tarasev thought in the deafening silence. Despite the flames and the Gnevny’s still-alight nuclear engines, to his ears everything was as silent as the grave. Looking up at his monolithic foe, the captain was filled with a roiling mixture of fear and rage. My crew, my ship…all gone because of this Sayadi, this…demon! It should not have been possible!

And indeed, all was gone. Even the futile CIWS fire has now gone silent, the crews no doubt rushing to the escape pods that would never be enough. The Derzhava was in its death throes, tortured steel structure groaning like a stricken whale. And no matter how much rage filled Tarasev’s heart, he could not do a thing to prevent it–just as all his efforts did not do a thing to stop the Black Devil from destroying his fleet in the first place.

The world was now a blur around Tarasev, tinted with the faint haze of fear as he dimly heard someone yelling–no, that was himself, bellowing incoherently and shooting his service pistol at the Black Devil, for all the good that would do. Through the pitch-black night sky, the ship’s silhouette seemed to morph and twist in unnatural ways, as if it was the Devil’s face, teeth bared in a taunting grin…

Then the cannons flashed again, and Dimitri Tarasev knew no more.
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Face white and hands trembling, Mark Sayadi slumped into his crash couch as the Nomad finally died, escape pods streaming out the top like dandelion seeds. The engines were still burning, but it was not enough to escape the pull of gravity and soon enough the proud cruiser would be turned into just another half-buried monument in the Gerati desert, just like the other Borey that crashed half a minute ago. He–no, the Gremyashchiy’s crew–had won the fight, but there was still a long way to go to Khiva, and there were still strike groups and carrier groups pursuing him, all wanting to be the one who would kill the “Black Devil”. This encounter had been closer than he would like, but Mark shoved these thoughts aside for now as he released himself from the pilot’s chair, legs wobbling from the post-combat adrenaline crash. For now, the Gathering threat was set back, and he could finally catch some sleep while the wrecks were being salvaged for fuel and the rest of his squadron mopped up the enemy’s Navarins.

Lighting a cigarette, Mark slowly breathed in the tobacco smoke and closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be another day of hide-and-seek from the Gathering fleet, but today he has won–and moved one step closer to ending this war.