Allison resumed her seat in the Captain’s chair.  Widow took the twins and Veronica with her.  The eldest living wolf-born had made it clear before she’d let Allison leave the ready room that there was a dangerous fight coming.  Allison was on edge now.  She brought up her ship’s stores and put in her security code to unlock the Cataclysm bombs.  They apparently were a weapon of last resort that the Dark Qual’sa had developed to match the original Tearyna’s power to cause supernovas with her psionic prowess.  Allison would have no qualms about deploying them against something like Widow had described.  She looked at R’sslv.


    “Open a wormhole comm channel.  Get me the Ark Royal and get us linked to Earth.”


    R’sslv nodded and a few minutes later Allison had Eyre, Captain Seng and Maria on her viewscreen.  Maria looked… upset.


    “Allison when I gave you authorization to do what you need to stop the Sal’nash I did not mean start another war!”


    Allison let that go.


    “I had no intentions of starting a war with anyone, I was just trying to rescue some folks.  The entire crew is missing, the ship launched escape pods and none are here.  That doesn’t matter anymore.  Widow is demanding we chase down this enemy.  She says it’s an anathema to life a servant of the betrayer… that you and Enid killed?”


    Eyre and Maria both looked frightened at this.  It took them a few moments to compose themselves.  Maria spoke.


    “Allison… this could be a fallen angel.  If it is, you do not stand a chance.  They can warp reality at a whim.”


    Allison shrugged.


    “My four cataclysm bombs and main cannon say different.”


    Maria shook her head.


    “Conventional weapons are meaningless to them; You need blessed or divine weapons to do them any harm.”


    Allison glanced towards the door recently exited by Widow.


    “Or… wolf-born claws and teeth and I have four of them.”


    Eyre spoke this time.


    “Allison, mom fought several and she barely won against them.  You are not her.  She had Bloodseeker it could kill anything.”


    Allison sighed.


    “Widow isn’t going to retreat.  Neither am I.  If this thing is that dangerous then we need to put a stop to it somehow.  If you go against her wishes, I suspect the board will lose the wolf-born support.  I’m not calling to ask permission.  I’m calling to ask for reinforcements to be on standby and if you know how to beat it.  So far all I’m hearing is superstition and vague references about blessed weapons.  We’ll call you in if we need you Captain Seng, please see what you can get for support from the Commonwealth and Radiants.  Phoenix out.”


    She looked at her science officer after the screen went back to a view of the heavily damaged Commonwealth exploration cruiser.


    “Any hint what we’re facing?”


    Wesva, her Yorleer science officer responded.


    “They were using singularity weapons.  Highly advanced.  Shields would be useless against them.  The hostiles didn’t make any attempt to hide their course.  They are leaving a trail of ionizing radiation.  They don’t seem to be traveling at FTL speeds.”


    Allison nodded.  She looked at her helmswoman.


    “You are at Wesva’s command.  Follow the course she provides.”


    She spoke to the bridge in general.


    “Maintain ECM and cloak.  I don’t care if you have to whisper, they cannot know we’re here.  Those singularity weapons will cut us to shreds.”


    The Phoenix surged forward.  Allison could feel the comforting vibration of the sublight engines running all out.  They were cruising at maximum speed, which was seventy-five percent of the speed of light she was betting it was substantially faster than their prey, though it was more likely the Phoenix and her crew would soon be the hunted.  The hatch to the bridge slid open and Zelda came in with one of Allison’s Silwrath dragoons.  The dragoon looked apologetic; Allison dismissed her and motioned for Zelda to join her in her ready room.  There was nothing Allison could do on the bridge until they found the Bhiras.  Zelda was wide-eyed.  Allison motioned towards the chair on the other side of her desk.  Zelda sat down.


    “Where am I?”


    Allison flicked an image of the view screen to the display on her wall.


    “You’re on my flagship, the Phoenix.  We’re currently traveling at three quarters the speed of light, under cloak following the trail of the Bhiras that attacked your parents’ ship.”


    Zelda looked around at the ancient relic’s hull which was part organic and part metal.


    “This isn’t a Commonwealth ship.”


    Allison nodded.


    “You are correct.  This is an ancient ship I salvaged.  I’m not from the Commonwealth.  I was born on Earth.”


    Zelda blinked a few times.


    “The origin world?”


    Allison nodded.


    “Yes, I don’t live there though, I’m from a place called Eden in a galaxy about two and a half million light years from Earth.  Right now, we’re about fifteen billion light years from Earth.  I’m sorry you got dragged along, you were having a medical emergency, and my medical staff didn’t think you could be moved until they stabilized you.  I hope they didn’t frighten you too much.”


    Zelda was still confused.


    “But you’re in high school.”


    Allison nodded.


    “I am, I was here on a diplomatic mission and your government and mine thought I should attend school.  I’m also what’s called a Battlelord back home.  I was given command of this fleet to fight some really bad bugs.  I heard about your parents and thought we could help.  The good news is we did not find any bodies at the wreckage of the ship.  That means the Bhiras took them prisoner.  If we can catch up in time, we can rescue the crew.  One other thing, just so you can think of something else.  I’m actually a lot like Renesmee.  I’m half vampire.  Actually, we have four werewolves on board.  Two of them are my cousins.”


    Zelda’s eyes went wide.


    “You’re teasing me, that’s not cool.”


    Allison shook her head.


    “No.  I really was in a wrestling match with a werewolf last night, my cousin was having a bad night, and I had to tackle her.  She got me with her claw.  I’ll need blood soon; You might even get to see my fangs.  Sorry no sparkles though.  You can sit down on the bridge if you want, but once the fighting starts, I’ll need you to get to medical and just hunker down, okay?”


    Zelda nodded as the pair walked towards the bridge the goth girl looked at Allison.


    “You really think my parents could be alive?”


    Allison nodded.


    “Yes.  Until we confirm they are dead, they’re alive as far as I’m concerned.  The entire crew is, the System’s Alliance has a rule, we never leave someone behind.”


    Allison took her seat.  Zelda sat in the empty first officer’s seat.  Allison took a bottle of Synth-O from a Yeoman that came by with one.  Zelda gasped when Allison’s fangs came out while the teenage battlelord gulped down the blood.  The Yeoman took the empty away.  Wesva spoke up.


    “I’ve got something big on the edge of scanning range.  Power readings are off the charts.  It’s like there are multiple stars condensed in one spot.”


    Allison nodded.


    “All stop!  Stop active scans.  Stop all emissions.  Passive scans and visuals only.  Get the fighters ready for launch.  Move two Cataclysm bombs to rear bay, magnetize them and arm them for contact detonation with a timed fuse.  Give us five minutes to get to FTL.  See if we can pick up any of the emergency beacon frequencies provided by the Commonwealth.  Also, I want Silverfang team geared up and boarded on the Wraith with Widow, Plutonia and Rose.”


    Allison slid her finger along the top seam of her Atlantean armor sealing it up to her neck.  Then motioned with her hand.


    “Take us in closer but be careful.  Do not give away our position.  If something looks like a sensor shadow use it.  If they have advanced tech, we cannot assume our cloak is going to stop them from seeing us.”


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Zelda’s attention was focused on Allison.  The goth girl’s usual happy go lucky demeanor had been replaced with something akin to awe.  Here was a girl her age who was in command of a warship and her crew was hanging on her every word.  Allison looked towards Wesva.


    “Is there anything we can do against those singularity weapons?  Can we extend our antigrav fields?  Something like we can do with the graviton cores on Alliance fighters and ships?”


    Wesva pondered Allison’s question for several minutes.


    “No, we do not have sufficient power transfer to output that much of an anti-gravity field but theoretically our fighters could use their graviton defense fields to intercept them.  I would expect they wouldn’t survive more than one or two hits.”


    Allison frowned.


    “Four fighters, that’s a maximum of eight hits.  Something tells me this thing has a lot more singularity cannons than that.  Keep working on the problem.  Pull any engineering resources you need.”


    Allison leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers as she watched the silhouette of the massive ship grow larger against the blue star of the system they were entering.  The Phoenix seemed to inch closer by the minute.  It was like they were creeping through space at a crawl, in reality they were still traveling at relativistic speed.  As the shape grew, they realized it was the size of a small Dyson sphere.  These guys were so far beyond the System’s Alliance, Commonwealth and LSR Allison may as well have been in command of one of her mother’s pirate ships from the seventeenth century.


    The ship consisted of ten concentric planetoid sized spheres attached to spinning rings that surrounded three compressed stars that seemed to be powering the whole thing.   The whole mobile solar system pulsed with energy.  No wonder they could produce singularities with that kind of power.  Each graviton core that was initiated required a full charge of antimatter and the Alliance’s couldn’t damage a ship unless they were channeled through several gravity lenses and effectively tore their target apart with gravity vibrations at a relatively short range.   Allison felt something awful in the pit of her stomach as they approached.  It wasn’t fear it was a sense of absolute wrongness.  A pain twisted in her abdomen; It was like she was suffering from the worst period cramps she had ever had.  She held her side.  An intraship comm lit up on her command chair, it was from Widow.  Allison answered her.


    “Do you feel that, Allison?”


    “I do, what is it.”


    Widow sounded resigned.


    “That is what true darkness feels like to us.  If we know they are here, then they know we are here.”


    Allison frowned and winced.


    “Noted.  Will this pain go away?”


    “Your body will acclimatize to it.”


    Allison sighed heavily.


    “What do you recommend?”


    Widow took a few seconds to respond as if she was weighing their limited options.


    “Get the ship’s pastor to bless the weapons systems and warheads.  Otherwise, we might damage the physical ship but if our target gets hit, they will do little.  Get them to bless our weapons.  We’ll prepare for launch.  This isn’t going to be a ship battle unless we get lucky.  You should get your personal weapons done too.  Your armor can harm them from what I understand.  This is about faith Allison.”


    “Really?”


    Widow’s holographic form nodded on Allison’s AR HUD.  Allison nodded.


    “I’ll start with the team’s weapons.”


    She pulled her Qual’sa pistols out of their holsters and drew her vibro knife.  She looked at the Yeoman that was always on the bridge ready to do what she needed and offered them up.


    “Take these to the shuttle hangar and give them to Widow please.”


    The Yeoman took the offered weapons and rushed off.  She opened a channel to the chapel.  Her ship’s pastor who acted in a multidenominational capacity for her crew happened to be a Priestess of the Dark Mother.  The church had insisted on being at her side even in a minor capacity during her crusade as they had declared it, and Allison hadn’t argued.  She needed someone who could provide spiritual guidance to her crew.  The woman, who was in her twenties and likely just past the initiate stage looked surprised to see Allison.


    “First Daughter, how may I help you?”


    Allison was skeptical but if Widow said it needed to happen, she’d trust the wolf-born.  She was their eldest spirit speaker and just plain their eldest.  She’d actually fought demonic influences a long time ago.


    “I need you to provide the Dark Mother’s blessings on our assault team’s weapons, the ships weapons, and two bombs.  Please take care of it ASAP.  The team is in shuttle hangar two.  The bombs are in the bow ground assault deployment bay.”


    The priestess quirked her head to the side.


    “What?”


    Allison rubbed her forehead.


    “I don’t understand it either.  Look, this is the stuff the Dark Mother used to fight for us.  She’s not here anymore so it’s up to us.  All we can do is believe it will make a difference.  Apparently, we’re up against a disciple of the betrayer.  The wolf-born say we need to bless our weapons so we’re going to bless our weapons.”


    At the words disciple of the betrayer the priestess’s eyes went wide, she clutched her sword pendant and whispered a prayer to the Dark Mother.


    “I will get started right away.  Then I’ll get suited up.”


    Allison raised an eyebrow.


    “Say what now?”


    The priestess who Allison had never seen outside of her voluminous robes smiled.


    “I am a member of the order militant, First Daughter.  I was sent to fight by your side.  I was trained for this.”


    Allison was confused, she’d never heard of such a thing.


    “Just bless the weapons first that is the primary concern right now.  Apparently, we can’t really do much real harm otherwise.”


    Allison ended the comm with the priestess and looked towards her viewscreen.  The Bhiras dyson sphere loomed over them now and the feeling of wrongness had oozed into her entire being.  She felt like she was covered in filth that she would never get off.  She shuddered.  Zelda was sensing it too.  She looked at Allison.


    “What is that?”


    Allison shrugged.


    “I have no idea but whatever it is, it cannot be allowed to continue to exist.”


    Allison leaned forward in her chair, pressing her elbows on her knees and interlacing her fingers.  She had brought them into the abyss and soon whatever lived here would be staring back at them she did not want to meet its gaze.  How many of these things had her biological mother fought?  Had she been frightened?  Allison wasn’t afraid for herself.  She was afraid for her crew.  She was probably afraid for herself somewhere deep inside, but she didn’t see something to be frightened of, she saw a challenge to be overcome.  That is what set her apart.  That is what made her a Battlelord.  Finally, she made her decision she looked at Wesva who was her acting first officer at the moment.  She was about to speak but was interrupted by R’sslv.


    “Battlelord.  I am tracking multiple emergency beacons on the third planetoid in the structure.  It seems to be every single escape pod from the Commonwealth ship.  The signals are faint and fluctuating.  There is some sort of jamming field.”


    Allison didn’t bother to ask about life signs.  That would require active scans, and she wasn’t about to reveal the ship to confirm life.  They were going to board this monstrosity one way or the other.  This information only changed their entry vector.   Wesva spoke up.


    “Likely not a jamming field, just interference from the highly compressed stellar matter.  While they are contained, they are exhibiting solar flare activity.  Likely this will interfere with communications to and from that vessel.”


    Allison frowned.  That made things more complicated.  She leaned back in her chair and stared out at the terrifying ship that was exerting such a massive gravity field that the planets in the system they were traveling through were being pulled out of their orbits.  She had little doubt about what they were up too, they were going to consume everything here to fuel their massive ship and war machine then move on, just like the Sal’ Nash with life.  She reassessed her tactics then looked to Wesva again.


    “Wesva, I’ll need to be on the assault team.  You’ll be in command of the ship.  Our primary objective is to rescue any survivors we find.  We’ll have to use a broadcast beacon to cut through that interference, once we do, you’ll need to get close enough for the Commonwealth transporters to work.  Use the fighters to cover the ship and use the Bhiras’s own ship as cover from their weapons we are small and maneuverable use it to our advantage.   The ground team’s objective is the disciple.  One way or another it needs to die.  If you have any indication we have failed in our objective or will not succeed in escaping, you need to deploy the Cataclysm bombs on their stellar containment field.  If one can take out a star, I’m assuming two in a contained space can take out three.  If at any time you think this ship is in imminent danger of destruction you drop those bombs and you go to FTL and head towards interstellar space.  Drop a beacon and request a wormhole out of here.  Our Wraith has FTL we will catch up.  If you drop those bombs, you see an advantage, you call for reinforcements and press it.  This thing devours star systems, that puts countless lives at risk.”


    R’sslv spoke up.


    “Battlelord, I have a fix on the location of the pods. Sorry it took so long.”


    Allison stood up.


    “Wesva, you have command.  Zelda, you need to get too medical now.”


    Zelda shook her head.


    “No, I want to stay here.  I want to see what happens.”


    Allison frowned.


    “If you want to see what is happening, you’ll need to go to fleet C&C.  They’ll have info from the assault team and the bridge.”


    Allison stood up and headed towards the bridge exit.  Wesva sat down in the command chair and another officer sat at the science station.  Allison held the lift open and looked at Zelda expectantly.  Zelda rushed into the lift.  Allison selected deck three.  The core of the ship where the fighter and shuttle bays were, along with fleet C&C which was in the core of the ship.  Zelda looked at Allison.


    “Have you done this before?”


    Allison blinked a few times.


    “Attacked a quasi-Dyson sphere?”


    Zelda shook her head.


    “No, been in battle.”


    Allison nodded.


    “Yes, but I’ve never had to command a ship through a fight.  I’m more comfortable in a fighter cockpit or on the ground in the thick of things.”


    Allison led Zelda into C&C.  Allison smiled when she saw her friend Nutina looking at the holographic display with Widow and Thomas Elk.  They were zooming into the third planetoid and looking for entry vectors.  Widow and Thomas were arguing about where to enter.  One was a harder landing, and they suspected it had a higher concentration of defenders but was far closer to their target than the other which was likely not so highly defended.  It was guess work at best since they lacked real hard intel on their enemy.  Thomas was speaking.


    “Widow, respectfully we do not have time to play it safe.  This is the best call.  I know you want to be cautious.”


    Widow crossed her arms.


    “It would take a highly skilled pilot to make that landing.  They don’t put highly skilled pilots in transports, also we will likely be under fire immediately on landing!”


    Allison cleared her throat.


    “I can make that landing.”


    Thomas, Widow and Nutina all looked towards Allison.  Nutina was first to respond.


    “Battlelord we can’t risk you on this mission.  You’re too valuable.”


    “Your objection is noted my friend, but I’m afraid this is a fight I need to be in personally.”


    Widow and Thomas nodded.  Widow spoke.


    “We need her on the ground.  She is our strongest warrior against this foe.”


    Nutina’s wings shifted.


    “Then I’m coming too.”


    Allison shook her head.


    “Sorry Nutina, I need you here coordinating.  I’ll let you in on the fun next time.”


    Allison motioned at Zelda.


    “This is Zelda, her parents were on the Commonwealth ship, I told her she could observe the mission from here.  She is an empath and might have some insights we have all missed.  Widow, Thomas, let’s go, the sooner we get started the sooner we can go home.  We’re landing at site Alpha.  Nutina there are solar flares so our comms will be spotty at best.”


    Allison turned to Zelda.


    “Zelda this is Nutina, she’s a Silwrath and one of my closest friends.  Do what she says, please.”


    Allison and the two wolf-born headed out of C&C.