In five seconds, its adversary would be revealed. The Herald of Oblivion held its countermeasure screens at maximum output, fending off the constant streams of electromagnetic harassment attempting to wrench control of the ship from its increasingly desperate intelligence. In a geostationary orbit, the planet's penumbra slid ever closer as the barren landscape fell into darkness below; soon, The Herald of Oblivion would have a direct line of sight of the hostile craft drifting ever closer in its own parking orbit.

  In a battle of equals, the game of electronic warfare was most frequently won by the player who began broadcasting first; once a ship began receiving electronic harassment, its ability to retaliate with similar tactics became almost impossible due to the degradation of sensor capabilities and the power diversion to its screening arrays. At this point, if each ship had roughly equal capabilities, a stalemate ensured, as was the current situation. The enemy ship did not have the impetus to penetrate the Herald’s screens, and the Herald itself was locked into a constant, energy-draining defensive posture.

  In space battles, this stalemate often resolved itself once one of the two ships was attacked directly by a third party, leading to a shift of priorities and, thus, a change in energy output. In the end, energy was the ultimate limiting factor; only a certain amount could be generated within a ship's hyperspace furnace at any point in time. The ship’s job was to allocate expenditure according to its current priorities. Whether to power a transition to hyperspace, a high gee acceleration or an energy weapons broadside, when demand met production, energy in all its forms had to come from somewhere else in the ship.

  The Herald kept ten per cent power output for its countermeasure screen in reserve. It could feasibly shunt an additional, modest surge of power into its defensive screens if it began losing too much ground in the current battle. The Herald had also yet to burn through its high-capacity stores, which it had been charging ever since it left port less than a week ago, so things could be worse.

  Thankfully, the Herald was still receiving long-range pings from its Autonomous Gunship as it made its way to the surface; although it could not return them, at least the heavily armed drone could assist the ground forces while it remained contained by the enemy ship.

  Three seconds to line of sight; even with the electronic harassment, the Herald could obtain a visual of the enemy ship. The Herald hoped it would provide a much-needed assessment of its adversary’s capabilities.

  The planet turned slowly on its axis, rolling within the vastness of space to reveal the enemy vessel, just visible poking above Raysor’s dull brown surface. At the same moment the vessel was revealed, the Herald made a hasty adjustment to its strategy.

  Twenty per cent of current energy expenditure was diverted to the Herald’s starboard weapons array, which had been cycling in readiness since the hostilities began. Medium-range laser batteries fired, sending snapshots of high-frequency energy searing through the void. Within the Herald’s hyper-accelerated ‘consciousness’, it perceived the multiple beams briefly linking the two vessels. Due to the alignment, the incandescent vectors passed through Raysor’s upper atmosphere, where some of the energy was diffracted by the gasses and other compounds present. The Herald saw the night side of Raysor light up with the beam’s passing; violet explosions and flickers cascaded and shuddered like lightning on an enormous scale.

  As the laser batteries discharged, the rail guns simultaneously accelerated five tonnes of ordinance up to near relativistic speeds. The guns erupted in silent unison, slinging their payload into the void. The warheads chased the fading laser beams, angled slightly higher than the laser batteries to intercept the enemy vessel as it slid slowly in its orbit.

  The Herald struggled to see through the sensor jamming, probing the enemy vessel to determine the effectiveness of its opening salvo, ready to adjust the frequency and alignment of the laser batteries or change the warheads in the railgun slugs. In all wavelengths of the light spectrum, blooms of energy fluoresced in shimmering discharges, the Herald analysed the energy flare and determined that the enemy vessel’s shielding had held by a significant margin; part of the Herald recognised that was further cause for alarm.

  Fractions of a second later, the railgun ordinance began slamming into the other vessel’s kinetic barriers, and white fission eruptions blinked in staccato pulses, lighting up Raysor’s night sky once again. The enemy warship’s defences held again. The Herald was not impressed.

  Lasers began hammering into the Herald’s shielding as the enemy vessel responded, the shielding held at the expense of a slight degradation of sensory functionality. At this point, the Herald’s intelligence had no more reason to hold back; this was now a fight for survival. As soon as the Herald had gained a visual of the enemy vessel, it had understood this would be the likely outcome.

  The Herald diverted power to the engines and flinched as it lost further sensory input. Its acceleration was constant, and the Herald gained velocity, angling its prow towards the enemy vessel and beginning to make headway. Its kinetic barriers shuddered under a salvo of railgun ordinance, and it launched torpedoes in reply. As it closed on the enemy vessel, the laser attack increased in intensity. Its shield generators were redlining now, straining at their maximum output and likely seconds away from burnout. Its energy reserves were still at one hundred per cent, but they would be needed soon.

  The Herald pondered briefly, whilst lasers flashed in and out of existence and projectiles slammed into and burned off on its kinetic barriers, how the fate of its crew was now almost entirely out of its hands. It felt remorse and guilt but was sure of its purpose. Raysor drifted by faster and faster as the Herald’s huge ion drives accelerated the vessel. Somewhere below, its Captain was fighting. It wished The Nay’ra’en well.

  The Herald launched another salvo of torpedoes: a larger swarm with a greater spread. These torpedoes were launched by railgun without propulsion, making them harder to detect. After a specified delay, all torpedoes would initiate rocket propulsion and close in on the enemy vessel from multiple directions at close range.

  At a distance of two hundred kilometers, the Herald’s prow was suffering under the withering barrage of laser fire and raigun ordinance. The shields began failing, and the Herald registered hull damage in the bow armour.

  At one hundred and fifty kilometres, the Herald drained half its power stores into a considerable boost for acceleration and the other half for the shields. Fresh hull damage ceased as the energy and kinetic shielding received renewed impetus. The Herald would impact the enemy vessel in a quarter of a second.

  It was a gamble. All combat was a gamble, simply balancing the probabilities of risk and reward. Organic life forms did this instinctively: when to run and fight. They also suffered the effects of emotion, and specific fears or confidences tended to warp the probability estimations. Everyone was a slave to the numbers at the end, itself included.

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  A tenth of a second from collision, what the Herald predicted would happen happened. The enemy vessel jumped, a manoeuvre so incredible it could not help but marvel at the improbability of it. The enemy vessel was at point A, and then five milliseconds later, it was at point B, four hundred kilometres distant from its starting point. A jump with no transition into hyperspace. It was almost too perfect to be true.

  To power that manoeuvre, the enemy vessel had ceased all offensive actions, and suddenly, the Herald experienced its surroundings in perfect and unmolested sensory clarity. This relief was then shattered by the reality on the surface; the crew were being surrounded, and The Nay’ra’en had almost lost all reasonable judgment. The enemy vessel, however, was beautiful; whilst similar in size to the Herald, every surface was a celebration of geometry and design. Functionality met beauty in every hull plate, hanger-bay door, sensory blister, weapon housing and engine block. Describing it in detail was pointless to a machine like the Herald, for it saw every square meter in perfect clarity and had instantaneously modelled it in three dimensions. For a machine like the Herald, it was only a pleasure to describe the feel of such a vessel, how all those parts fit together in an exultant synergism.

  A hundred tiny stars lit up in a halo around the enemy vessel as the torpedoes fired, and the halo became a noose that tightened faster and faster. The Herald felt a pang of regret; it was almost sad to damage such a vessel, but it had to be done at least for its crew.

  Something hit the Herald with enough power to pause all computation momentarily.

  The first fourth of the Herald’s length fell away, listing to the side as its velocity began to fade relative to the rest of the vessel. Fires bloomed where escaping gases vented into space, and the whole section began breaking apart against the rest of the hull. The Herald was confused. Sections of itself were numb, and most of its functional systems were offline. It targeted every weapon it had left, dumped every drone from its hanger, and deployed every last torpedo, knowing it would still be insufficient. Meanwhile, as the noose tightened, the enemy vessel jumped again, so soon?!

  Torpedoes exploded ineffectually in cold vacuum, all railgun ordinance missed its target, and the lasers scored minimal damage before the jump.

  The enemy vessel targeted the Herald’s stern with a withering salvo of laser attack; hull breaches came first, then secondary explosions as ordinance and other combustibles cooked off within its less protected sections. The Herald was dying - so this was what it felt like to die.

  Shielding failed, lasers lost power, engines were maimed, and most of its ordinance was spent. The Herald drifted onwards, its prow drifting behind, broken and dark in the void, sill burning where it had been amputated from its length.

  The Herald diverted all power to a conventional radio transmission, a fifty-millisecond pulse on multiple frequencies transmitting every moment of the engagement in space and on the ground to nearby units. It was the only method of communication the Aggressor was sure couldn’t be blocked entirely. Unfortunately, it would be slow, expanding at light speed in a spherical wave around the dying vessel and, quite embarrassingly, would be received by every single vessel or station that was listening and could decode the encryption. They would receive an in-depth, personal account of the first military defeat the Jar’ron had suffered since the Blood War.

  The killing blow came a millisecond later in the form of an executioner torpedo designed for this exact purpose. A single, low velocity - high yield weapon designed to put down injured vessels now merely considered a nuisance to the surviving vessels. It plunged into the Herald’s hull like a bullet into flesh before erupting in a colossal fission explosion.

  Raysor’s night side lit up one final time after witnessing thirty seconds of unnatural disruptions to its regular day-night cycle. The twilight sky flashed with a starburst brighter than the brightest moon, illuminating the faces of the few inhabitants brave enough to stand outside and watch the short, intense spectacle.

  _______

  On either side of the small hold, kinetic barriers allowed him a view of Raysor and the city fifty meters below; the monotony of the dark stone buildings had been torn away by the battle. More than half the structures along the main street were destroyed, and for every building still standing, there were an equal number of fires of craters glowing brightly in the smoke-filled atmosphere. It looked like a warzone.

  -Alright, Arker, prepare yourself for a bumpy flight

  -What are those Gop?

  Arker was pointing at two glowing lights which were approaching from the west.

  -Those are anti-aircraft missiles

  -And what is that over there?

  Arker pointed to a bright light on the ground, about two hundred meters away.

  - That’s the targeting laser of a ground-based rail gun.

  - Great.

  The gunship changed its attitude, and Arker felt its acceleration.

  Outside the hull, two missiles streaked towards the craft. Under Gop’s guidance, the laser batteries singled out each warhead and obliterated them. Then, the railgun began firing below, which was a bit trickier. Gop guided the craft into an evasion pattern while still gaining altitude. Next, he directed countermeasures to deploy periodically in an attempt to confuse the targeting laser. Finally, he pointed the burst railgun turret toward the discharges below and unleased two bursts of high explosive shells. More powerful munitions were now arcing up at the craft; Gop formulated another shield pattern and dispersed more countermeasures.

  - I'm angry at you, Gop.

  - Ok Arker.

  - Don’t ok Arker me, you left me for dead down there.

  - You’re not dead, Arker.

  - I could have been, though.

  - You’re not dead, Arker, and I haven’t left you.

  Arker watched the light show outside the barriers, feeling his anger rising. On the horizon, he saw the beginnings of dawn poking above the small hills in the distance. Arker was shocked at how quickly the night had passed and how quickly the sun was rising. It didn’t have much light to it either. Maybe it was all the smoke.

  Then his stomach dropped. The sun had wings.

  - Gop, it's following us.

  - What is Arker?

  - The thing.

  - What thing.

  - The gold thing.

  - Yes.

  - Fuck.

  The angel approached, somehow travelling faster than a Jar’ron gunship. Arker could see the wings properly as it came closer, and long trails of iridescent ions spiralled away in its path. It was beautiful in a terrible way.

  -We’re doomed, aren’t we, Gop.

  Gop didn’t respond. The angel swept out of view momentarily. Arker’s suit informed him that it was hardening again, and Arker thought of something his father had said once. We need the dark as much as we need the light. He hadn’t understood that until he’d met this glowing demon warrior. He missed his Dad.

  A searing blade gouged through the hull of the gunship in a fast sweep. Sparks and bits of molten hull spluttered out of the gouge as another rent formed next to the first. Then, a bright hand reached in and ripped the hull section off completely. In the portal created by the damage, Arker saw the object of his fear. The demon's shape was distorted by the kinetic barrier but was still as frightening as it had been on the ground.

  The golden warrior disappeared.

  A bright flash washed out his HUD as he caught a glimpse of the bight figure and its sword coming down from above through the middle of the gunship, cleaving the world in two. Just like that, Arker felt the gunship listing, and suddenly, Raysor was in front of him, spread out like a dark rug. The demon appeared before him, grabbed his shoulder with one glowing hand, and tossed him out of the gunship and into the night sky. He twisted in the air to see the broken aircraft losing altitude as it spewed thick smoke and blue fire. At the same time, sparks flared from the fractured hull like streams of mechanical blood, and its shorted kinetic barrier oscillated spasmodically. Arker couldn’t see Gop, only the glow of his killer guiding the wounded bird to its grave.

  The suit sedated him shortly after, silencing his screams