Chapter 83: Blood on the Stars

Derek let out a long stream of breath as he settled into his chair aboard Intractable’s flag bridge, the battlecruiser’s actual bridge still unavailable. No more than three days after he’d decided that grand command wasn’t for him, he found himself in command of a thousand people.

Properly in command, even if it would run out in less than twenty-four hours, not just keeping the seat warm so [Flash Forward] would be available for use. Oh, Rear Admiral Naiser was once again on board, and he’d be the one giving orders, but this had been Derek’s idea. And even without operational command, the consequences of what followed would be on him.

The door slid open, admitting Isaac along with the noise of steel-shod feet clomping across the deck plates.

After all, the one thousand individuals that Intractable had to have aboard in order to be able to effectively act as bait had been filled out with marines. Because, at the end of the day, they were more likely to be able to survive the ship getting pureed by spatial warping than magic-focused navy personnel.

Of course, that further weakened the already damaged ship’s capabilities, and the obvious lack of faith made part of Derek want to be offended, but it wasn’t like he could fault Miyazaki for being careful. Stuffing a ship full of people and dangling it as bait without added precautions would be the height of foolishness.

As such, he’d taken the ridiculous indignation out behind the woodshed and shot it. Again. The damn thing had more lives than a cat.

And, speaking of cats … the big orange kitty that was Intractable’s official “rodent exterminator” and “morale officer” had apparently decided the flag bridge was now its home and had been permanently banned from that entire section of the ship.

Apparently, from the complaints the damn thing made, one would think it were being fed into a woodchipper.

Weird, all the places the mind goes when you’re waiting for shit to hit the fan …

All sixty-one ships that would be taking part in the battle were arrayed in a circular formation, with Intractable in the center, the battleships arranged in two circles around the ship, under the assumption that The Error would teleport right on top of the “bait.”

And the heavy cruisers were sitting behind the battleships, shielded by the larger vessels, though in large part, they would be protected by the fact that there were much bigger threats to draw the World Boss’ attention.

As well as the fact that their crews were well below the one-thousand threshold.

And they were gambling that the creature would be killed before it decided to wipe out the “easy prey,” the same way it had gone after the destroyers during Naiser’s battle.

Though in the end, this was all a gamble, wasn’t it?

All other ships, however- the light cruisers, destroyers, and even the Dragonfly- had simply formed into a rough sphere that bristled with weapons, precisely none of which would give a World Boss more than a mild sunburn.

Damnit, head in the game, Derek, he cursed himself internally.

Isaac, in the meantime, had planted himself against the far wall, clearly having chosen to stay nearby over once again taking position on the bow of the ship. He’d stated it was a simple matter of him not being needed to open the barrier during entry, and not wanting to be outside the hull while [Alcubierre Bubble] was active, though Derek got the distinct impression it was actually to protect him if something went wrong.

His older brother noticed his gaze, and flashed him a thumbs-up. Probably intended to cheer him up, but part of Derek felt it was actually an acknowledgement of the assumption, and a confirmation that it was true …

He didn’t dare ask, however, instead fixing the clock in the bottom right of the main viewscreen.

Ten more minutes to go.

Just barely enough time to look over everything one final time. Ship’s systems to check, [Skill]levels to take note of, plans and emergency measures to obsess over …

Derek stopped reading a couple of seconds before the alert he’d set for himself went off, the actual alert tone still making him jump despite that. Or maybe because he’d already set himself on edge.

“Good luck, and godspeed, everyone.”

That came over the comms, courtesy of Amy, who probably wasn’t supposed to have direct access to the Perseus’ comms … as they learned not five seconds later, thanks to the connection not having ended when the message had.

Derek snorted, listening to some poor navy junior officer having to give one of the strongest people in all of human space and beyond a dressing-down. At least until Naiser terminated the call from their end.

Isaac, however, for some reason, was wearing a knowing smirk.

But despite the new mystery, time still continued to tick ever down to “go” time, and Derek watched mana from the helmsman begin to pour into the ship around them, funneled through enchantments that could amplify the effect to surround the entirety of the kilometer-long battlecruiser, space itself bowing to the effect in a way that was infinitely more spectacular than when the Dragonfly did it.

Until the universe seemed to collapse in on itself, wrapping around Intractable like a wool blanket, settling heavily, separating the ship from the rest of reality, even if it did let a faint echo leak through. Either that, or [Cosmic Awareness] had leveled enough to make a difference. It was certainly cool to feel in real-time as they shot through the universe … for all of twenty seconds before they crashed straight into The Error’s trap. Deliberately, this time.

Derek could feel the gravity reversal this time, as the World Boss’ power chose to directly make a hash of the ship that had dared intrude on its domain, the supernatural effect beginning to force all living beings, and only living beings, to move in the exact opposite direction of where gravity was pulling them.

For all of a tenth of a second, then Naiser did something, and the effect was torn apart as though it were no more durable than an ordinary spider’s web.

Derek still felt the effect in his ass, however, as he was yanked back right side down.

“Five seconds, ten-second skip,” Isaac barked immediately afterwards. “Twenty degrees port, seven degrees ventral.”

When, how far, what direction. That was the format they’d agreed on using for ordering [Flash Forwards].

Time stuttered. Reality flashed past beneath them. And behind the Intractable, the World Boss went tumbling wildly across its bubble, actually hitting the field and rebounding, thankfully not at them, instead carrening off in an entirely new direction.

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And Derek’s hand came down on the freshly broken comm-node sitting in his lap.

One activation to make it known that The Error had taken the bait.

Pause.

Three pulses to communicate that the monster was moving away from their entry point, and would not be peacefully waiting.

Pause.

And finally, seven pulses, indicating a “seven o’clock” direction relative to the fleet’s orientation upon setting out.

Missiles burst from Intractable as he worked, one final parting shot before they fully zoomed out of range.

The Error, of course, gave chase, a titanic shark trying to hunt down … well, not exactly a minnow, but certainly a far smaller shark.

Almost as though some cosmic director had set the shot, that was when the rest of the fleet erupted into existence behind the monster, almost perfectly framing it, the ships vanishing almost immediately behind a wall of missile icons.

For the briefest of instants, Derek thought the monster might try chasing Intractable anyway, and allow the rest of the fleet to tear it apart from behind. That would have been the ideal response.

Instead, it spun in an instant, launching itself squarely at Miyazaki’s forces, energy beginning to gather around it, tentacles manifesting and beginning the process of its ship-annihilating “slap across time and space,” or whatever its nastiest range attack would inevitably wind up being formally titled.

That was when the missiles began to crash down upon it.

Dozens were torn apart as waves of energy flooded off The Error, ripping apart even shielded electronics with casual ease, truesteel plating ripping like tinfoil.

Dozens more blew apart as they self-destructed, destroyed at the admiral’s command to avoid them flying into the monster’s head, providing it energy to hurl at humanity’s forces.

But there were hundreds more, curving around The Error’s head, bypassing the abyss that lay within, ready to devour and return the cataclysmic energy being flung at it.

About half of those missed anyway, unable to make the tight turn required to reach the main body after avoiding the head. They blew in a ragged sequence as their electronic brains realized there was no way to make physical contact with the monster, unleashing lances of plasma at the creature anyway, shaped warheads striking across the intervening distance anyway …

Maybe fifteen percent of all missiles launched, total, actually detonated directly against The Error’s body. That was still more than enough to completely blot out the World Boss from view, even if the lack of a kill notification would have told Derek everything he needed to know about the strike’s overall attack without needing to so much as glance at the feed from the fleet’s main body.

And then the Wilhelm Tell was hurled back as a lance of plasma slammed into her bow, even the battleship’s armor incapable of entirely resisting the force of the attack, her entire bow little more than a glowing crater.

Even as the damaged battleship began to fall back from the front ranks of the formation, the center of said crater seemed to uncrumple itself, revealing three firing ports large enough for Derek to stand inside, each glowing with baleful energy.

It was not only the Tell who was readying its primaries, however.

Every battleship was on the verge of unleashing its heaviest weapons, and about to enter the extreme range of those very same weapons.

The first salvo slashed across space a moment later, distance and dispersion weakening the heavy beams down to a mere fraction of their original power.

And even so, The Error screamed, space rippling as it imposed its pain and rage upon the world, the World Boss seemingly redoubling its efforts to reach the nearest battleship …

But every kilometer of distance it crossed made the weapons that much more powerful, and with the human fleet spreading out more and more, until they’d be so dispersed that the World Boss would only be able to intercept the primaries of one, or perhaps two ships in a given salvo with its head.

The second volley of beams ripped into The Error, the monster bleeding light and fluids that gave the sensors a conniption.

That was when, finally, the titanic eldritch beast reached the formation fully, and things thoroughly hit the fan.

A heavy cruiser tumbled away, struck by a tentacle that had lashed out past the intervening space.

The already damaged Wilhelm Tell took another hit, a wide stretch of hull folding inwards as it was crushed by another tentacle …

Something scraped down the side of the battleship Heracles, sending delicate electronics and armor fragments spraying off into the void.

A second salvo of missiles was launched then, only barely reduced by the damage the fleet had taken.

Half the fleet suddenly vanished, only the disappearance of the stars behind them showing that this was a matter of something blocking the view, not the ships in question having been wiped from existence.

And after perhaps two seconds, parts of The Error began to “disappear” as well, vanishing in “stripes” as though … as though titanic tentacles forged from pure darkness were grasping the World Boss, holding it fast, wrenching its head back and out of the way of the next burst of heavy energy fire.

It promptly arrived, shredding the immobile monster, leaving it looking like the remains of a paper target someone had emptied an entire belt of machine gun rounds at.

And the damn thing was still alive, even as momentum carried the human formation past it.

“What the hell is Miyazaki’s [Class]?” Derek breathed. He’d tried to find out previously, but it had been classified, and all [Eye of the Predator] was “danger,” “doom,” “depths of the ocean.”

So when Isaac answered, he jumped in surprise, only to get yanked back down by his seatbelt.

“[Warlord of the Abyss].”

There was a story there, but not one he could ask for at that moment as they watched The Error systematically be torn apart.

But was it dying fast enough?

Derek’s eyes flicked over to the big, red countdown in the corner of the main screen, opposite the regular clock.

Thirty-five seconds remaining.

Thirty-five seconds before a ship full of people, perhaps even Intractable, was reduced to puree.

The second missile salvo struck then, The Error vanishing yet again, three immense beams of plasma flashing from the titanic eruption of nuclear fire, three battleships staggering away, bleeding air and molten metal, many systems dead, their foe having managed to absorb far too much of the explosion for anyone’s comfort.

Energy fire began to grow ragged and uncoordinated, vessels firing whenever they had a shot and full capacitors, several beams even flying through sections already having been destroyed by another ship a second previously …

Once again, how the hell was that thing still alive as nothing more than a series of giblet-looking strands of ragged flesh, connected by ribbonlike viscera?

The fleet had fully passed over the monster at this point, all battleships fully turned around, bows pointing in the direction they’d come from and at the World Boss drifting off into the distance …

A [System]-screen blocked Derek’s vision.

Congratulations, Human Fleet! The World Boss “The Error” has been slain by the hand of countless people.

The matter of the final blow was therefore random and immaterial.

All those who participated will be rewarded based on their contribution, with XP, Aspects, and monster materials.

And by the time he’d waved it away, the creature’s body had dissolved away into nothing.

His eyes flicked over to the timer for the creature’s next teleport. As he watched, it hit zero, and began to tick over into the negatives.

Way too fucking close ...

Derek could feel himself deflate into his chair, only to jolt back to attention as the universe around him began to shake, reality itself seemingly becoming unmoored … and then things settled. No, not just “settled,” relaxed.

The bubble was gone. And the Astron homeworld was now freely drifting across the cosmos, no longer dragged inexorably towards Earth by the power of a genocidal World Boss.

“How does the planet’s current momentum compare to its original orbital velocity?” Derek asked.

“I don’t have the or- …” the lieutenant cut herself off, took a couple of seconds to dig up the relevant records, and then gave a proper answer. “They’re identical.”

So it hadn’t been turned into a projectile of some kind, launched across the cosmos at impossible speeds, to eventually crush whatever world was first in its path, The Error had simply moved it along with all the space surrounding it.

Which meant the planet would continue to drift across the void between worlds likely for the rest of time, only populated by monsters.

He couldn’t decide whether that was a depressing fact, or a fitting memorial to the species that had been rendered extinct by its own version of the Devil.

However, even that particular moral quandary could not keep him from looking at the loot for long.