Epilogue
The battle of Somari 8 is over, now its time to see its long reaching effects.
Six months later…
COMMONWEALTH CRUISER ‘Snow’ WARD ROOM
/ / SO1_v-ogeo · Somari Prime / /
Admiral Colin Fisker sat in the private stillness of his day cabin, the Snow’s familiar vibration thrumming faintly beneath his boots. The comm panel retracted into the desk with a muted click, sealing away the Admiralty’s latest message. He’d received a personal communiqué carried over the ansible network directly to him. Costly minutes of stone-time, sent to deliver his complete exoneration from the Battle of Somari Eight tribunal, gilded with a commendation and the sweet, official weight of promotion to Post Admiral.
The tribunal had been theater from the start. He walked away unscathed from accusations that would have gutted a lesser officer. Command failures, fabricated charges, even the whispered allegations about what had happened to certain Cartolangious under his “care”. He almost laughed at that one. The key to survival was not innocence, but power.
Outside the Snow, the siege of Somari Prime dragged into its sixth month. Reinforcements: one battlecruiser, three destroyers, and thirty-three battle barges heavy with three divisions of planetary-invasion Marines – were already threading the void between the twin stars. The marines' journey would only take them a few relativistic weeks. Weeks of cramped quarters, stale air, and bad food. Fisker, on the other hand, had been here since he’d defeated the rebels at Somari 8, methodically grinding the rebels down with precision bombardments and marine raids.
The novelty had faded. Only the meals had improved.
He’d sent another raiding party down earlier for fresh Cartolangious meat. The supply from his own officer corps had been… exhausted. He savored the thought – rich, gamey, far better than the vegetable meat the hydroponics could produce.
He poured himself a cup of tea, watching the steam curl upward, and smiled.
Untouchable.
That was the word he was thinking of. Elevated to a new rank that brushed the edge of the peerage. Lands, titles, influence – no longer dreams, but inevitabilities.
The universe was full of prey, and he was a predator after all.
~ ~ ~
TWO WORLDS REPUBLIC GUN PLATFORM 'Vengeance IV’
/ / ???_Err_??? · >>> GEO Err <<< / /
In the cold between stars, a railgun sat in its cradle, the weapon’s massive coils glistening with frost from weeks of inactivity. Now it hummed with stored power, capacitors fat with charge, waiting for the order.
Jea stood at the forward console, eyes locked on the display. The invasion fleet’s formation was neat and predictable: one battlecruiser, three destroyers, and the great lumbering bulk of thirty-three battle barges. They were the hammer meant to crush Somari Prime’s last defenses.
Kask manned the firing controls, fingers poised but still. Every trajectory had been pre-plotted and refined: accounting for relative velocities, gravitational drift, the whisper of solar wind across the gulf. Every slug would strike home within seconds of the others.
Oskar sat at the tactical board, double-checking the final numbers. “Solutions locked. Impact spread: seven seconds.” His voice was calm, but Jea could hear the weight behind it, not fear, but the gravity of what they were about to do.
“This is it,” Jea said quietly. “For Somari. For everyone they’ve taken.”
No one needed to answer. They all remembered the faces of their friends lost on the Hound, and the images of hollowed-out cities under Fisker’s half-year bombardment. They’d all buried someone.
Kask exhaled once and tapped the trigger. The first slug leapt away, then the next, and the next, invisible lances of tungsten wrapped in magnetic fury, each one flung at a fraction shy of light-speed. The recoil shivered through the deck.
In the silence of space, they imagined the strikes closing in, silent predators across a million kilometers.
Then the tactical board lit up.
A barge vanished from the display. Then another. Then five more. Reactor signatures spiked and died. A destroyer broke in half. The battlecruiser tried to pivot, but two perfect shots punched through its spine, venting it into the void. The fleet came apart in less than ten heartbeats.
Kask’s hands fell from the controls. Oskar leaned back, eyes on the fading icons. Jea let herself breathe, the tightness in her chest loosening for the first time in months.
“It’s done,” she said. Not triumph. Not cruelty. Just the deep, steady satisfaction of defending what was theirs.
Now was the long wait, to see if they would come again.
~ ~ ~
COMMONWEALTH CRUISER ‘Snow’ WARD ROOM
/ / SO1_v-ogeo · Somari Prime / /
Steam curled from the fresh Cartolangious steak on Fisker’s plate, the scent rich and savory. He carved a slow, deliberate slice, savoring the aroma before tasting it. It was perfect. Tender, seared just enough to bleed into the fine flatware.
The comm panel chimed. Without looking up, he tapped it open.
“Sir,” came the voice, tight, almost strangled, “all thirty-three barges destroyed. Battlecruiser and escorts gone. No survivors.”
The fork slipped from his fingers. “What –” The word broke in half as a sudden, burning constriction seized his throat. He coughed, once, twice, the sound harsh in the quiet room. The fire spread to his chest. The meat turned to ash on his tongue.
He staggered to his feet, reaching for the wall as the air refused to come. The hatch opened.
Goddard stepped inside, sealing it behind him. No longer in an officer uniform, but that of a sentry. His facial expression, the calm inevitability of a man who’d already decided the ending.
Fisker gasped, half-reaching for him. “Med –”
“It’s poison,” Goddard said, voice low and steady. “Fast enough to finish you. Slow enough that you’ll understand why.”
Fisker’s eyes bulged. He tried to speak, but the sound was only a wet, rasping choke.
“This is for the Cartolangious you butchered,” Goddard continued, stepping closer. “For Volm. For Captain Arsnetti. For every Declanian you sent to die so you could polish your rank.”
Fisker’s knees gave way, and he frantically pawed at Goddard’s right arm. Goddard shook Fisker loose, but not before catching him by the collar, forcing him to look up.
“And for me,” he said, voice almost a whisper. “Because I was fool enough to serve you.”
His thumbs released their pincer grip on Fisker’s collar. Fisker hit the deck, convulsed once, then went still.
The cabin returned to silence, the Snow carrying on through the void as though nothing had happened.
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