The docking was successful, despite the light shaking during connection with the ship receiving and departure modules. The Thunderer was an old model and didn't have docks like the ones on our corvette.
The doors hissed, the agent accompanying us stood and straightened up before them. The doors opened, releasing white and cold steam from the sides. Ahead of us waited soldiers dressed in dark uniforms with green stripes along the seams.
Military officers. They greeted us and led us to our quarters, where they issued us clothes and food.
Everything around seemed to be going crazy. Commanders and legionnaires marched, the working crew repaired the ship and prepared it for battle. For the final battle.
The Thunderer was streamlined with a recess in the bow section. That's where its shields were located. The weapons were hidden under the fuselage and would appear and fire when needed. Quite old by Imperial standards of military production, but powerful and armed, capable of destroying an entire enemy fleet squadron.
Few ships like it remained in the entire galaxy. Probably around twenty, and many of them were likely unfit for use.
Twenty-three hours remained until the enemy's arrival. Soon we would meet with horror and pain. The pain that had claimed millions of lives.
I fell asleep.
The dream enveloped me from inside and out and consumed me in eternal oblivion. I saw our fleet formations and space defense crumbling before my eyes. Exploding without any external evidence of fire, as if they were blowing themselves up, as if some force had made them do it.
After that, I saw myself standing with a pistol in my hands, looking toward the end of the corridor. A girl stood there, but I couldn't see her face, nothing except the light that framed her body. She screamed and sobbed, begging for mercy. I fired.
The noise of the shot flooded my head, spreading through my entire body. Pain.
I woke up to the roar of a siren warning of an attack.
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! SHIP UNDER ATTACK!
These words repeated every couple of minutes. I jumped out of bed and started looking for my things. I found them, but there was only the Galts' uniform. Where was mine? I touched it, and at that moment the door to my room opened, and an agent stood in the doorway with a rifle aimed at me.
At my face.
He fired. Pain.
I woke up. It was a dream.
There was no sound of sirens, only the faint hum of ventilation breaking the silence. I got up and walked to the small window built into the door, through which I could see the corridor. It was empty, not a soul.
I pressed the display next to the door, and it slid open. I stepped out, looking around. About fifteen hours remained until the attack; everyone was apparently at their posts.
I decided to walk to the nearest section and see what was happening. Just as I turned the corner, two soldiers stood there with rifles in their hands, talking about something. I managed to slip back around the corner, but even if they hadn't seen me, the hidden cameras and sensors on board would have detected me, and the first group of agents would have been sent my way—unless they were already coming for me.
I decided to go the other way and see what was there. To my surprise, no one was there. I walked further, passing empty mess halls and weapon storage rooms. Soon I passed a row of windows that looked out onto a ring where two agents in light outerwear were practicing fencing.
The taller one struck from above, thereby giving his opponent an opportunity to parry and strike to the stomach. He did just that. The first one jumped aside from the strike with a small electric discharge. They separated to opposite corners and continued the fight.
Engaging again, they exchanged blows. The blades rang, and a screech echoed. Though the glass was thick, I could still hear the muffled sound of the slaughter. Two relentless titans clashed in battle, each praying for victory. The clang and screech of blades filled the hall. It was hard to look away from such a spectacle; time in moments like these seems to pass you by, not even warning you that it ever existed.
Strike.
The tall man struck from above, knocking his defending opponent to the ground. He had won. They shook hands and left the hall. How beautiful our life is in such small but deeply significant things. I never met them after the battle, and I never met them after the Thunderer was blown up. Who knows, perhaps their blades remained forever on that devilish ship.
I moved on, wanting to avoid being noticed, descending down matte corridors pierced by the cold wind wandering through them. I walked without knowing where, just wanting my dream to leave my mind. I couldn't stop replaying that moment in my head.
He comes in and…
Shoots.
I was probably walking in a cold sweat because I was shaking badly. Soon, as I expected, my overseers were waiting for me around the corner, but surprisingly, they didn't escort me to my quarters or place me under constant surveillance. They led me to the armory, where Dursal and Renod were already waiting, along with the legion commanders.
The armory was a spacious room with boxes stacked along the sides containing rifles, ammunition, and other supplies and equipment necessary for battle. In the middle stood an ordinary old chalkboard—the kind I thought had stopped being used since humanity's first wars in space. But the Thunderer was older than those wars, so finding such an example on board made sense.
Dursal and Renod looked tired; they'd probably been resting too. I approached the commanders, who were standing by the board, on which something resembling a ventilation plan or something else was drawn.
I straightened up and introduced myself:
"Captains. Kyle Gratz, number 0789, reporting," I said in a calm voice, looking somewhere between them.
They merely nodded silently, moving aside so I could see the board better. Soon one of them spoke:
"Respected officers and commanders gathered here, I would like to announce that the enemy will attack our fleet in three hours." He paused, turning to the board, then continued: "Our students must change into enemy uniforms and infiltrate their shuttles through the engineering block. Our task is to distract the enemy and buy as much time as possible."
I probably haven't mentioned it, but from the moment we were sent to the Thunderer, we had been given the ranks of Legion intelligence officers. An honorable and authoritative rank. At any Imperial base or city, you instantly became an object of fear and distrust, yet everyone was ready to help you—sometimes for a few crowns, or even for free. Many thought that if they helped a Legion intelligence officer or commander, they would immediately cease to be of interest. But practice showed otherwise.
"Grand Admiral Verus will arrive in half an hour. He will lead the soldiers into battle and organize the defense. If there are questions, ask them."
"Are we really going to blow up the Thunderer?" asked a gray-haired man in a dark blue uniform with a small gold circle on his chest. I hadn't seen such insignia before. The Empire used a triangle. Perhaps this elderly man had been with the Thunderer since the very beginning of its journey.
"Yes, Admiral Lenor. I'm sorry about your ship, and I honor what you've done for the Empire, but this is an order from above," he said, looking at the gray-haired man with a comforting gaze.
This old man was one of the greatest people in the Empire.
Could it really be him? No one had known his name since he became captain, and later admiral, of the Thunderer. Lenor.
He was the one who defended the planet from an enemy armada, saved billions of lives in the system. He was a hero no one knew about.
I looked at him. His stooped posture and old cane bore his burden. I wanted to approach him and ask so many questions, but there was no time for that.
We needed to act.
"Yes, yes. I understand," the admiral said in a hoarse and subdued voice, then looked at us.
There was something in his eyes that I only understood now, writing this so many years later. In his eyes there was not sadness or anger, but simple hope.
Hope for a different outcome.
The captain leading the final briefing continued:
"Since there are no more questions, I ask everyone to take their positions at their posts. The enemy is coming."
And he really was coming. We were sent to our quarters, ordered to put on Galts' uniforms and equip ourselves with Vympel-model pocket pistols. This little pistol, the size of a palm, had lethal power. Inside it had a mechanism that synthesized plasma in a small cartridge, which upon hitting flesh would open and release the plasma, causing deadly damage to the enemy.
I changed and was ready. I waited, and while waiting, I thought. All these orders, preparations, and briefings had knocked me out of ordinary life. What if where they were sending us was a one-way ticket? What if I never returned, and what's more, we couldn't even reach Apollo, let alone eliminate the Galts' emperor?
But surprisingly, there was no fear. Though my confidence and fortitude were fading with each day, we still completed our mission—just not the way we expected.
Many will call us traitors, the Legion command will be executed, and our feat will be considered terrorism against the people of the Empire. But all that will happen much later.
A couple of minutes after I came back to my senses from my thoughts, an agent met me and led me to the Thunderer's engineering section, where Dursal and Renod were waiting for us. Though we were hardly allowed to talk, we still knew each other fairly well, so I could understand what they were feeling in those moments. In moments when the alarm starts, blood boils in your veins and fear takes hold of you. It was the same with me.
We stood before the doors to the compartment with the ship's shields and weapons. Even from here, we could feel the hot steam escaping through the cracks in the door. Dursal and Renod in Galts' uniforms looked as if they'd always been them—ordinary soldiers or mercenaries fighting for an idea. But beneath that uniform hid professional diplomats and assassins capable of blowing up half a planet on their own, if only given the resources and opportunity.
With us were a commander and a dozen soldiers. Everyone was ready, as if born for this. Probably they were. The soldiers were dressed not in the usual uniform, but in black combat armor with marble triangles on their arms. And on the helmet, which covered the entire face, was a minimalist eagle on the side, sitting on a triangle with a blade in its claw. The sign of the Legions above the Empire, a reminder of who held true power.
The eagles differed in color. White ones were for ordinary soldiers, while officers and commanders had faint red ones, almost crimson.
One of the commanders spoke, repeating the plan one last time:
"You'll have to make your way through the sections, then exit through the ventilation into the medical block near the docks where the enemy shuttles will be. There you board them and transmit your location via the display. Our agents will hack the shuttles and direct them to the Galts' destroyer Chaos. There you'll have to rely on yourselves before Chaos heads to Apollo." He continued: "If something goes wrong, refer to the Protocol."
He finished and turned toward the doors.
"God be with you," he said quietly, still looking at the door.
Suddenly, the attack sirens wailed. The ship lurched so hard we had to hold onto walls and pipes.
ATTENTION, ATTACK.
ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO BATTLE STATIONS.
ATTENTION, ATTACK.
This warning looped almost without stopping, and the sound of the siren itself could drive you mad.
I looked at Dursal and Renod. They were afraid. Their eyes searched for something that could calm them. Nothing and no one remained, only us. The commander and military personnel quickly left the compartment and headed upward, likely to take up defensive positions on the Thunderer.
I approached the door and pressed the opening button on the control terminal. The door swung open, releasing hot steam that would surely have burned my face if the Galts' suit system hadn't activated the helmet. My screen went white and returned to normal after a couple of seconds.
I glanced back at my companions and nodded to them. We began moving deeper into the compartment. Our ship was under fire, but the shields held. After another hit on the Thunderer, it lurched, and Renod fell onto a hot pipe that would have left burns on his body incompatible with life, if not for the timely activation of the same Galts' suit. Amazing technology they had, not at all inferior to ours.
"You okay, Reni?" Dursal asked, approaching him.
"Yeah, the suit saved me. I'm fine," Renod said, waving off help with his hand.
We kept moving. The heat and steam coming from strange mechanisms and pipes made our path difficult, as if we were descending into the underworld. Weren't we already in it?
Our screens fogged up, so the cooling system had to work at maximum, generating icy steam from the heat. The ship itself was enormous, roughly the size of a town with a population of a couple million, so our journey was long. Soon we heard the sounds of the ship's weapons firing. The sound ricocheted off the walls, creating the feeling that we were under an anvil.
Blow after blow.
Sometimes small windows were built into the hull, through which you could see the weapons firing, but you could also see what was happening on the other side of space.
A huge armada of about fifty corvettes was heading toward us, opening fire and sending out smaller ships, boarding shuttles. Thus the enemy's numbers swelled into the hundreds.
Our planetary defense had been destroyed by enemy bombardment from orbit. The Galts' weapons reached from long distances, though their accuracy was low—but they didn't need it.
Weapons of terror.
Our guns only fired suppressing shots. We would lose, despite having two giants in our fleet. We had already lost this system and the nearest planets. War is endless grief.
We reached the staircase leading to the ventilation compartment. That meant we were halfway there.
"How much longer? I'll turn into steam soon," Dursal complained to my back.
"A little more, Durs. Just a bit. If the terminal's right, we're halfway."
"And you call that a little more?" Renod grinned, overtaking me.
After climbing the stairs, I swung the doors open and entered. Inside was a room with cameras and passages into the ventilation, which led to the shuttle docking compartment—our final destination.
Dursal and Renod followed me in, spreading out around the room, which was surprisingly small. I approached a table with monitors displaying the Empire's triangle symbol. I tried to turn on the system but couldn't.
"Step aside, amateur," Renod said, pushing me aside with his hand and sitting in the chair.
He started quickly tapping on the large screen, moving dots and some lines, connecting them together.
"That's it, easy peasy," he said with a smile, looking at me.
He hacked the Thunderer's surveillance system, and we gained access to all cameras and microphones on the ship. We could hear every word and order, every shot and sound.
Dursal was wandering somewhere behind, searching through containers. Meanwhile, the Empire's symbols disappeared from the screens, replaced by hundreds of images of our soldiers battling the Galts. Shots and explosions filled the room, screams and orders. I saw one of our soldiers shoot three Galts, then take plasma to the shoulder and fall, hiding behind cover. A grenade thrown into his hiding spot finished him off.
Horror was unfolding above our heads. Some cameras weren't working, probably due to shells or shrapnel hitting them. Dursal appeared at my left shoulder.
"They're fighting for us. Buying us time," he said almost inaudibly. "We have to move."
"Yes, we do. But where? We don't have the ventilation plan. Our brilliant leadership didn't think of that," Renod concluded sarcastically.
He was right. They'd only told us what to do. We weren't deliberately abandoned to fate, but we had to find a way out of this.
"Reni, check the system for ventilation and dock maps, then upload them to our terminals. Durs and I will look for something useful," I commanded him. If we wanted to survive and complete the mission, we needed to work together.
"Okay, Kyle."
"Durs, search those containers and keep your eyes open. We might not be alone anymore."
"What will you do?" he asked reasonably.
"The same as you."
He went to search the crates while I stepped back out onto the staircase, peeking around the corner where further on was the connection to the ship's shield compartment. Another shell hit our ship, and I fell onto the stairs and slid down, dropping my pistol in front of me.
I closed my eyes from the pain during the fall. After the painful descent, I opened them and saw my tiny pistol lying there, and standing before it was a Galt. A real Galt. I'd never seen one before. He wasn't dressed like us. Instead of the light gray uniform we wore, he had dark gray with distinct three circles on his shoulder.
The enemy Empire's insignia.
He was probably an ordinary soldier, while we were dressed in officer uniforms. In his hands he held a rifle resembling a long stick, but with a large suppressor on the end.
I reached for the pistol, but he beat me to it, pinning the pistol with his foot and aiming his weapon at me.
"Who are you and what are you doing here, officer?" he asked with an accent typical of their southern systems.
"I… I was sent by command to assist in hacking the ship," I answered him.
"I know nothing about officers on board. Which destroyer are you from?" he asked, still holding me at gunpoint.
"I don't remember. I…"
At that moment, I was ready to die. Dying at the hands of the first ordinary Galt soldier would be shameful, but I was pinned and couldn't move. Surely he was about to pull the trigger, then report saboteurs on board, thereby failing the entire mission.
But I heard a loud shot from somewhere behind and above me, and saw the polished visor of the Galt's helmet glow, after which he froze.
He fell on top of me, pinning me down. The air buzzed above me from the high temperature of the plasma. I tried to push him off while searching for my pistol. I found it and stood up, swaying slightly. Looking back, I saw Dursal with a pistol in his hands, steam rising from the superheated plasma.
"You okay, Kyle? I heard something fall, then some talking," he began explaining, clearly frightened by what he'd done. Soon Reni appeared from behind him, weapon in hand.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked worriedly.
"Kyle met his first Galt," Dursal explained to him.
"And Durs finished him off. Teamwork," I smiled, trying to brush the dirt off my uniform. "But he clearly wasn't alone here."
As if confirming my words, another Galt emerged from around the corner and opened fire without asking questions. We took cover, managing to hide behind obstacles. Durs and Reni fired from behind the door with their single-shot pistols. I was lower down behind some container. The Galt sprayed us with fire, making it hard to peek out and return fire.
The exchange lasted about five minutes, until the Galt hit a pipe above us, flooding the entire compartment with steam. We could barely see anything in that condition, and this was our chance.
I jumped over the container, rushing toward where the last shots had come from. The steam made it impossible to tell where I was, but moving forward a little, I saw a Galt's silhouette and opened fire. The silhouette disappeared.
I went toward it, making my way through the steam, stumbling and nearly falling. My foot hit something. Looking down, I saw the Galt with two holes in his chest. He was still alive. He wheezed and squirmed on the floor, his hands trying to reach the pistol holstered at his side.
I fired.
He went still. No sound, no movement. Sooner or later, we all kill someone, but the scariest thing isn't that we kill—it's that we don't realize it.
I went back to my comrades. They met me with fire. I took cover and started yelling at them:
"Idiots, it's me, Kyle! Stop shooting!"
And they stopped, peering into the mist the steam had created.
"Kyle? We thought he killed you," Renod said, squinting.
"Not today."
I climbed the stairs and turned to them.
"Reni, did you find the maps?" I asked sternly, looking at him.
"Yeah, they're uploading to your terminals. You'll get them soon."
"Very good," I told him. "Then let's go."
A couple of minutes later, data with maps and ventilation schematics arrived on our terminals. We knew where we needed to go, and we went.
One last time, we glanced at the cameras. Our forces were retreating significantly toward the ship's rear docks. We had very little time left.
We made our way through the ventilation toward the docks. Shots and impacts against the Thunderer's shields could be heard—the ship was holding on with its last breath. We crawled, occasionally stopping to check the map on our terminals.
Soon, reaching the docks, Durs kicked through a vent opening and we jumped down. The enemy shuttles were right before us. No one was around.
We entered the first shuttle. They differed from ours in shape and interior equipment, but the controls were similar. Renod sat at the control panel and started the engines.
I decided to radio our Grand Admiral about the successful mission:
"Come in, Grand Admiral Verus, this is Agent 0789. Mission accomplished. Repeat, mission accomplished," I said into the radio in a soldier's voice.
"I hear you, son. You did it. We're retreating and blowing the Thunderer. Good luck," he said in a sad voice, while in the background you could clearly hear the sounds of shooting and battle.
The shuttle's onboard system came to life and greeted us. Then it gave the report.
Three seconds to exit into space.
One. Two. Three.
Undocking.
We lurched pretty hard and began moving away from the Thunderer, which had blackened from impacts, and on the right side where its fuel compartments were, it burned. Something had torn through the ship's hull. It was already lost.
"Agent 0789… Come in… Ca… can you he…ar us… We're blowing the Thunderer… Tha…nk you for your service!" The radio crackled due to distance from the ship and probably the battle. But I could make out the Admiral's words.
I didn't see any shuttles leaving the Thunderer, but I hoped they were there.
And suddenly, the window through which I was watching the receding Thunderer lit up with white light. Explosion. The shockwave and sound tore through everything in their path. The Thunderer split into two parts, then fell from orbit.
I watched as the legendary giant of the Empire, the punishing hand of the Emperor, destroyed itself. It disappeared into the abyss.
The same fate awaited us.