Barbarians

There's no time for us

There's no place for us

What is this thing that builds our dreams

Yet slips away from us?

Who wants to live forever?

Who wants to live forever?

There's no chance for us

It's all decided for us

This world has only one

Sweet moment set aside for us

Who wants to live forever?

Who dares to love forever?

Oh, when love must die?

Queen - “Who Wants to Live Forever”

According to the display beside her bed, it was deep into the wee hours of the morning when an insistent alarm woke her from her sleep. Leandra took a minute to throw on a dressing gown and run a brush through her hair, giving her a chance to compose herself, before answering the call.

Admiral Matevosian, looking far more composed than she did, stared back at her. “We just received word from our scouts,” he informed her. “We’ve spotted the Khonhim fleet, near the boundary of Tetrarchy space.”

The Prime Minister closed her eyes and nodded. And so, it begins, she thought to herself. “Where?” she asked him.

“On a direct course to Xaqaip,” he said. “Our forces are already enroute.”

Xaqaip was an Ophipteran world, on the far edge of the Chennoor Cluster. “It would seem that our intel was correct,” she said with a meager smile. “Will you have enough time to prepare?”

“We’ll be ready,” he confirmed. “It’ll be tight, but we’ll make it.”

There was nothing else to be said...no last-minute orders, no rousing speeches, no reminders of what was at stake. They’d done everything they could think of. They would stand...or they would fall. Words from her now seemed empty, so she opted for simplicity instead.

“...Good hunting, Admiral,” she whispered, as he disappeared from the screen.

Dhyaksh Chugaz Uydan’s body seemed to hum with anticipation as they neared the worlds of their ancient enemies. Somehow, he had always known that he would be the one to fulfill the oath of their Forebears, and as the fleet prepared for their first strike he could feel their excitement flowing into him. It was a far more intoxicating sensation than any drink, and as the blue-green world appeared on their sensors he bared his teeth, as they prepared for the kill.

“Dhyaksh, I am reading several vessels in the planet's vicinity,” his tactical officer informed him.

Chugaz rose to his feet. “I want hard data on those ships,” he ordered.

The crew worked to determine the nature of the threat, as their scans zoomed in on the point targets. Within a handful of minutes, they had their answer.

“Dhyaksh...I am reading several what appear to be transports,” the officer reported, “and…”

The officer froze in mid-sentence, as the data firmed up. Chugaz’s eyes widened in amazement as he moved closer to the display, confirming his suspicions.

And then threw back his head and laughed.

“So! All they have left to face us are freighters and relics!”

Admiral Matevosian held his breath, as he waited for the Khonhim to respond. This was the crucial moment when they would learn if their plans had all been for nothing. The squadrons of aging Comets and HK’s, remnants of the previous war, were all he had left to fight with. As they’d built the new Navy from scratch, they’d parked the old fighters and gunboats near the dwarf planet Eris, far beyond Pluto’s orbit near the inner border of the Kuiper Belt. During the century of forced demilitarization, it had housed a classified research facility, hidden from the Triumvirate, designing ships and weapons in case they ever needed them. It had made a convenient dumping ground for obsolete hardware.

The first rule of military logistics is that nothing ever gets thrown away.

Getting them back in service and manned had been no easy task. The HK’s had been difficult, given they designed them specifically with Ronin pilots in mind. With no life support system, converting them to human use (or anyone else) had proven impossible in the time available.

There were many Ronin pilots still around, though only a handful anywhere near Earth when the call went out. After the attack on the shipyards during the Ministers’ Coup, there was a great deal of mistrust between the races, but there was no one else who could fly them. So instead they’d towed the birds to the Chennoor Cluster, where they linked up with waiting pilots. At least since they were artificial life forms the refamiliarization process had gone smoothly.

And now it all came down to this. One last, desperate gamble.

Matevosian watched as the Khonhim fleet came burning in hard...and why not? It wasn’t like he had anything that could stop them.

But that didn’t mean there weren’t some cards left to play.

He nodded at his communications officer, who opened a channel. “Matevosian to all combat squadrons, stand by. Freighter captains...begin your run.”

“Dhyaksh, the freighters are moving!” the tactical officer reported.

Chugaz Uydan watched as the transports began racing away from the fleet. There was the question of what they were doing there in the first place, though perhaps it was something as simple as bringing in last-minute supplies. That they were now trying to escape his clutches was unsurprising, since their arrival had caught them by surprise.

And then he cursed in anger, as the sensor readings turned to hash.

“The freighters are jettisoning debris,” the officer disclosed, after double-checking his readings. “It is interfering with our sensors.”

Mollified, Chugaz returned to his chair, chuckling in amusement. “They think they can hide from us,” he laughed.

“Time for us to show them the error of their ways.”

The freighters redlined their engines as they ran for safety, disgorging chaff as fast as they could dump it out of their holds. It wasn’t much, Admiral Matevosian mused, but it would buy them a few minutes grace...for a few minutes was all he needed.

“All units...stand by. We’ll only get one shot at this,” he cautioned them, as the ragtag fleet held its breath.

“...that’s it...just a little closer,” he whispered...as a knowing smile began to play at his lips.

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

“All ships, attack!” Chugaz Uydan roared, as the fleet surged forward. The humans could play all the games they wanted, but nothing would stop them now. If they thought scattered strips of metal would save them, it only showed how desperate they were. He would smash their pathetic armada as he had destroyed the one over Ghakh, and when he had finished turning their antiquated ships into wreckage, he would turn his attention to his pursuers. Let that fool Jiyazh Ghuuyaz and his alien allies come! He would finish them ...and then there would be nothing left in the quadrant to stand in his way.

The Khonhim fleet raced into the teeth of the waiting fighters, as they began charging weapons.

There were so many ways the plan could have gone wrong. When the Prime Minister had briefed him on Lacuna, he could see it for the forlorn hope it was. No one was sure if it would even work. But the scientists and engineers running the computer models assured him the math and physics were sound, and given the paucity of any other ideas, he had signed on...even if as far as he knew nothing like it had ever been attempted under real-world conditions.

...well, that wasn’t true. Something very much like it had been tried once...over the Ronin planet ϒ12.

“Nadezhda Parisi, I hope you’re watching,” Admiral Matevosian prayed, before giving the order. “Full power to the Generators!” he shouted...as the massive planetary shield generators, stripped from a dozen nearby worlds, came online.

In the space of a millisecond, the bulk of the Khonhim fleet found themselves trapped, on the inside of the shield.

It wasn’t a perfect sphere, and at least a quarter of the enemy ships had been outside the zone when the shield snapped into place. The energy field crackled and hummed with power, shredding into component atoms the unlucky vessels the barrier had intersected when it materialized into existence.

“After the stragglers!” he ordered, as the Comets and HK’s opened fire, diving against the Khonhim ships they’d missed. They had to keep them away from the generators, long enough for Admiral Fujimoto and the rest of the fleet to arrive.

Admiral Matevosian gripped the mic, his eyes blazing with fervent madness.

“...hold the line, damn you! HOLD THE LINE!”