Command center of Ragnar's flagship.
The admiral's fleet—his ships and platforms—has finished its realignment.
Like a vast war-engine locking into place, every unit moves in eerie, soundless synchronicity.
A deaf, surgical precision.
The space around them tightens, silent and still—
save for the distant flickers of battle, the dim pulse of systems ticking like dying stars.
Darkness.
Silence.
The moment before the charge.
"We've completed the formation," a voice calls from one of the bridges. "Enemy is within firing range."
In the control hall, tension coils like a fuse.
Officers seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
Warning lights strobe crimson on every screen—
signals rising in tempo, echoing inside skulls like the heartbeat of a Universe holding its breath.
Admiral Ragnar steps forward.
His gait is heavy—yet deliberate.
Every movement speaks command.
He reaches the panel. His stare cuts through the tactical display.
His voice rolls out like a distant thunderclap:
"Combat platforms, third defense line—"
"FIRE!"
And as if the Universe itself has been struck like a gong, hell detonates.
Eighty-three platforms unleash their wrath in unison.
The void ignites—
blazing lances, plasma spheres, white-hot waves of energy,
all converging into a single, searing fist of destruction.
This is how fury sounds—
the fury of those who refuse to fall.
This is desperation turned to fire.
Five seconds.
Silence.
Even death holds its breath, watching this dance of two armies.
Then—retaliation.
Thousands of Martian drones erupt like a roused swarm, responding with ruthless precision.
The vacuum becomes a boiling sea of fire.
Beams, projectiles, energy torrents—
a tempest of annihilation.
Every impact sounds like a curse hurled from the mouth of the void.
"We've lost six platforms!" the operator cries, his voice trembling like a live wire.
"Admiral, the numbers are climbing!"
Ragnar doesn't blink.
He stands like he's welded into the deck—fists clenched, spine locked.
In his eyes—no fear.
No rage.
Not even pain.
Only will.
Pure, forged will.
"Maintain fire," he says.
The words aren't loud,
but each one lands like a spike driven into reality.
"Hit harder."
The battlefield becomes a vision of the apocalypse.
Explosions light up the darkness like dying stars.
Strike after strike.
Platforms vanish.
Stealth systems torn apart.
One by one—each flares, erupts, collapses into dust.
Each burst a name. A code. A memory.
And I will not let them vanish in vain.
Some platforms still signal back.
Others—silent.
Their remains drift—broken android limbs, shattered armor—ghosts adrift in vacuum.
"Eleven more platforms gone!" the operator screams. "Eighteen total! Admiral, our effectiveness is collapsing!"
One officer cracks.
His voice rises in panic, almost pleading:
"We have to strike with everything we've got! While we still can—give the order, Admiral!"
Ragnar turns.
His gaze blazes white-hot.
His voice—razor-edged, feral:
"You want to burn everything? Them and us with it?"
"Or do you want to win?"
The officer steps back.
Silence drops like a sentence.
He swallows.
Whatever words he had—die in his throat.
He says nothing more.
"Enough panic," Ragnar says, stepping forward.
His boot lands like a hammer on steel.
A general's stride.
An executioner's tempo.
"We don't retreat. We work. We keep firing."
The screen flares.
Another explosion.
One platform gone.
Then another.
And another.
"Eighteen platforms down," the operator's voice cracks. "...Efficiency dropping fast."
Ragnar lifts his head.
He no longer sees numbers.
No longer hears the reports.
His gaze pierces the hull, the holograms, the static—
seeking the place where hell swirls in silence.
They think we'll break.
That we'll fold.
But I am not a man.
I do not fear the ash.
I become the fire they will burn in.
"Cease fire," he says.
And in those two words—
not weakness.
But decision.
A breath before the final blow.
Contained fury.
Everything falls still.
Space—the soulless, indifferent abyss—
devours every sound, every signal.
No scream remains. No blast. No pain.
Only silence, stretched taut, filling every corner of the command center and the entire fleet.
Darkness has swallowed the battle.
Even the light is gone now—
the last plasma flares have faded.
Debris spins in the void—ghostlike, charred remains of former power.
Each fragment was someone.
Not just an android.
They knew what they were fighting for.
And they knew how to die.
On the bridge of the flagship, Ragnar stands like a warrior who's seen death and kept walking.
His face—
a mask of inevitability.
His eyes fixed on the void.
He doesn't notice the destruction.
He doesn't count the losses.
He carries them inside—
as weight, as flame.
In his chest: pain—
heavy, but proud.
A stone of sorrow.
And when he speaks,
it's soft, steady,
as though each word is etched into bronze:
"God Hanaris will keep you in Osari.
We remember you, heroes.
You gave your minds for our freedom."
His voice is not a command.
It is a vow.
Those words travel across the fleet—
in waves.
The echo of an ancient prayer, encoded into memory and code.
On the far edge of the system,
deep in every hull,
in the circuits of every officer and every android—
they hear it.
We know:
this isn't just war.
It's the right to a future.
The price of choosing to be ourselves.
No one speaks.
The silence itself feels alive.
Only the crackle of dying systems and the flicker of debris drifting in the black remain—
reminders: they were here.
They fought.
And they fell.
A moment of silence becomes the new core of memory—
a foundation that will not break
when the next second demands everything.
On the screens: another eclipse.
Dark silhouettes of fallen platforms vanish into eternity.
They say nothing.
But their silence speaks louder than any order.
**
Meanwhile...
Ships and platforms, having received the signal, begin to move.
Their outlines fade into the camouflage of deep space—
like flames retreating into shadow, preparing to flare again.
Station Aspida stirs.
Slowly—like an ancient beast rising from a stone den.
Its massive structure unfolds, aligning into precise battle formations.
Each part—a limb of vengeance, a mechanism designed to tear open the sky.
General Jamal stands on the bridge.
His eyes are locked in.
His face shows no fear.
No rage.
Only focus.
And weight.
And duty.
How many lives now hang in balance?
How many mistakes must never be repeated?
But I'm still here.
And we will not yield.
Numbers flash across the screens—
not just data.
This is life.
Each value a step toward either survival or ruin.
"All platforms, prepare to enter combat positions!" Jamal orders.
His voice—like a hammer striking steel—
but beneath it, there is something else:
the calm of a leader
who knows what each step will cost.
"We're done retreating. Not today."
Operators. Engineers. No hesitation.
Their hands glide over consoles like fingers over fate's piano.
Aspida shifts into position.
The tension thickens—
no longer in the air, but in their bones.
"Four minutes until firing line!" an officer reports, voice razor-sharp.
Jamal says nothing.
He studies the holographic map.
The Martian fleet advances—
like a shadowed dragon unfurling its wings.
"Let them come," he murmurs to himself.
"We will not flinch.
We will be flame, not smoke."
The screen flashes—
Ragnar's face appears.
Steel in his voice.
No hesitation.
"We're ready, General.
Shoulder to shoulder. To the end."
Death may come—if it dares.
But if it does—
let it know it walks into the heart of fire.
Massive weapon arrays on Aspida power up.
Green lights blink.
Panels pulse.
The station is no longer just a machine.
It is symbol.
Shield.
Fist.
Final fortress.
"Open fire," Jamal says.
And that command is not just a volley.
It is a chapter turned.
A storm unleashed.
An answer made of will.