The ship shuddered violently, was calm for a singular moment, then heaved forward, slamming Rada against her seat’s restraints. The display in front of her went dark, leaving only the window itself, peeking out into the peaceful stars beyond. She tried to take a deep breath, tried to center herself, but was met with an immediate sharp pain. At least one broken rib, she thought. The ship was rotating, she could tell, because the stars were drifting gradually out the left side, only to be replaced by more from the right.

But then the stars were covered by the bright flashes of explosions, reflected even more off the floating shards of metal debris littering the space around her. She wondered, for a moment, how much of that was from her own ship. In the distance beyond those fragments, she could now see the Valken, the cruiser she had taken off from, that she lived on, and the small legion of support frigates around it. Smaller now than before, judging from the dark hulk of an anti-fighter vessel floating lifelessly alongside the cruiser’s bridge. She couldn’t see the enemy capital ship, couldn’t tell if they were giving as good as they were getting, but there were still fighters out there. There was no missing the trails of dark red exhaust, even from here.

Light flooded the cockpit again as the system rebooted, the calm silence shattered by the return of her comm system.

“Hammer 3, come in. Are you still with us?” The frenzied voice of the squadron leader came through. “Let’s go, soldier, we’ve got work to do.”

Rada took another deep breath, and was rewarded for her forgetfulness by more sharp daggers of pain around her chest. She punched a button on the side panel and was greeted immediately by a needle prick and the cold rush of numbness as the meds set in. She reached up slowly and, when faced with no more sharp chest pains, flipped her headset back on.

“Roger, this is Hammer 3. Drive is banged up, but still going. Resuming assault on the target now.”

“Negative, Hammer 3, new orders. We need to take out that assault ship before it reaches the Valken. She can’t survive a direct hit.”

The grim reality of the situation finally shook Rada out of her daze. She shoved the stick back towards the cruiser and punched the accelerator, gunning forward again at near the fighter’s top speed. There was a distinct wobble to the turn, which she concluded meant one of the fins got bent when she was hit. It worried her a bit, because even a little shakiness could make evading other attack craft much more difficult, but she was mostly glad to still be in one piece.

Pulling away from the enemy battleship that she had been assigned to attack would ordinarily have been dicey, but the enemy had poorly positioned their support, and the rest of Rada’s squadron had mostly broken what little remained. She joined the formation as they regrouped; it was a moment in every battle that she cherished. They had survived their initial assault, and that was all she could ever ask for.

The comms were quiet as they continued their approach, allowing Rada a moment to take things in. The battlefield could be beautiful viewed from that distance, the sleek metal of the capital ships, the sparkles of the laser batteries, the dark red streaks trailing behind the fighters, and the giant burnt orange orb of the planet floating peacefully beyond it. It wasn’t her homeworld, however, or the homeworld of any her squadmates. She wasn’t certain it had a native population at all, or why anyone considered it worthwhile.

As they continued their approach, the target became visible, coated with reflective paint in a symbol to some unknown god, a green stain on the stars. The assault craft twinkled incessantly with laser fire in all directions, with brighter flashes nearby where fighters that proved just a bit too slow were consigned to oblivion. It was a floating bombardment, two dozen anti-fighter batteries surrounding a single oversized plasma cannon, a hive of weaponry outfitted for the sole purpose of felling capital ships. The grunts had nicknamed them ‘harpoons’, but the brass refused to use it. Rada suspected the captains just resented their command vessels being treated as metaphorical whales.

It was a one-way trip for the assault craft; they didn’t have any solid means of acceleration, and had to be launched with initial force, so they couldn’t return if they wanted to. Even if they could, with no heat dispersion for the plasma cannon, they weren’t likely to survive more than one volley. But if they could get past shield range, they could do immense damage to even the largest battleship with a well-placed shot. Rada had never seen it herself, but she had heard the stories.

“Listen up,” the squadron leader began over the comms channel. “Command says Tiger Squadron is down. All of them.”

Beneath the numbness, there was a heavy stone growing in Rada’s chest. She tried to not think about who she knew in Tiger, to not remember any faces. There would be time later, she hoped, but anger was what she needed now.

“We’re the last thing between that harpoon and the Valken. We take it down and we’ll win this day. And when those green bastards meet their god, they’re gonna know who sent them there.”

“Ham-mer!” came the reply in unison.

“One more time!”

“Ham-mer!” The word left Rada’s lips like it was spoken by someone else, a response so practiced as to become automatic. But the fire burned in her just as intensely each time.

“Form up, and hit those batteries hard.”

The assault ship was close now, more fearsome and monstrous than ever, surrounded by the wreckage of a dozen or more fighters. It seemed to Rada in that moment less like a ship than some primal beast killing anything that approached it, compelled not by hunger or need, but by the thirst for death. The large green rune painted over the gun batteries was clearly visible now, seeming to glow unnaturally, but she had no idea what it really meant.

Light streaked past as the lumbering spearhead finally took aim at them, and the squadron spread out, breaking into an uneven line to present a more difficult target. The design was never to aim, but to fill the space with fire, and the final screams of two of her squadmates were cut off by the evaporation of their ships. The squadron was still too far out to do any damage, but several of the others fired volleys anyway, vain anger seizing them in the moment. Rada just tried to focus.

The assault ship was nearly in position already, having pushed past the broken remnants of the support fleet. They would not have time to soften the target up with repeated strafing runs, just one pass to knock out the anti-fighter batteries on one side, then a full barrage on the main cannon underneath. The batteries glowed again, lances of light piercing the space around them. Silence followed. No hits this time.

“Engage!”

The fighters broke from their wide formation and fell into a line, the brief cessation of enemy fire providing them an opportunity to sync up without risking total destruction from a single well placed shot. The fighters swept along the side of the assault ship, autocannons lighting up a line of explosive shells repeatedly, each ship battering the same strip as the one before it in the line. The turrets vaporized under the barrage, twisted metal peeling away to finally reveal the vulnerable hull beneath.

The fighters pulled off of their attack, surveying the damage as they positioned for another pass. The harpoon was ripped across the targeted side, a clear line of blasted and scarred metal, still glowing from the heat. They had opened it up enough to threaten real damage to the underlying structure, and each had a single heavy torpedo fitted for gutting ships exactly like this one. One more pass and it would be over.

But the assault ship had stopped moving, a recognition that sent cold chills through Rada’s already numbly tingling frame. It was in position, and the light beginning to glow from the plasma cannon confirmed her fear. They were out of time.

“It’s heating up, break formation, break formation! Get payloads on it now!”

The fighters split quickly out of their formation into a disorganized wave, each racing back towards the assault ship desperately. Rada’s own ship was still struggling to bank from its earlier damage, and the wider turn she was forced to take put her behind her squadmates. As she raced forward to join them, their last moments unfolded plainly before her. Without the benefit of a careful formation, the fighters were easy targets for the remaining anti-fighter turrets on the top and bottom of the ship, fighter after fighter shattering, burning, or simply disappearing entirely under the bright flashes of light and heat. There were screams, sometimes, but often there wasn’t time; one moment there was a Hammer, the next only empty space. Her squad leader continued yelling orders until his final moments, until his voice went silent mid-command. Finally, there was only her.

Some of her comrades had launched their torpedoes, but only a few had even managed to impact the wounded vessel, and none sufficient to stop the plasma cannon from continuing to heat up. The anti-fighter guns fell suddenly quiet, a moment Rada recognized from the stories she had heard: when the main gun is nearly charged, there’s no power left for the other batteries. She was down to a single chance.

Blazing forward, Rada quickly acquired a target lock on the softest part of the hull she could see, a narrow window to place her remaining weapon. She fired the torpedo immediately, the projectile releasing from the fighter’s underbelly, holding its speed with hers for a moment, and then racing off with even greater momentum as its onboard acceleration kicked in. So near to the behemoth, she could even feel the ionization of the surrounding air, and she just managed to lift her fighter up above the top of the ship as she passed, nearly clipping one of the now lifeless turrets. She did not make it far before the shockwave hit.

An explosion ripped through the vessel, and the resulting concussive blasts rocked her ship in waves, ripping off the remaining stabilizers, knocking out her drive power, and sending her sliding out of control into the distance. But as her view passed over the assault ship, the devastation was clear. The torpedo had pierced through and made contact with the cannon itself, causing the plasma to spill out of its containment, vaporizing surrounding metal in places and igniting fuel cells in others. It glowed with a ferocious heat for a few seconds, and then a final cataclysm lit up the surrounding space as the hulk shattered into millions of tiny shards. She felt a rush of jubilation, a moment of triumph, of a victory won at a great cost.

But as the light faded from the remnants of the enemy weapon, a different glow became clear in the space behind it. The clean, sleek shape of the Valken was replaced by two floating masses of inert metal. Plasma burns traced glowing lines along what had been the cruiser’s mid section, gradually fading out as the sundered metal cooled. She had been too late.

The power cycled back into Rada’s ship, and in that moment, the numbness faded and only anger was left. Though she hadn’t realized it fully, the sight of the vessel she called home floating lifeless in space had made her glad that she would likely join it when her oxygen ran out. But with the power returning, she would live on until rescue eventually came, watching the wreckage, a monument to her own failure. Alone, and alive only by virtue of a damaged stabilizing fin.

Out beyond the remains of her squadron, beyond the ruins of the enemy, beyond the wreckage of her home, the orange world they fought over watched silently in the dark, never seeming to notice they were even there.