Arthur emerged onto the command watching bridge of Aegis-One. Then, the viewport was filled with the terrible, pulsing dark shape of the Void Talon.
The alien frigate was nearly two miles of segmented, bio-clockwork nightmare. Its hull was built from layers of stone-hard cosmic hard shell, heavy with ribs of dark star-fallen iron that bent like the ribs of a deep-sea whale. Along its ventral spine, twelve massive, living-glow nodes were swelling with blinding violet light, channeling hundreds of terawatts of dark aether toward the forward lance emitter.
“Shields at forty percent,” Instructor Valerie Koslov stood beside the central light-projected plot, her gray combat uniform streaked with sweat and graphite dust. She pointed a scarred finger at the tactical display. “If that spinal beam strikes our central ring, it will turn to steam our habitat modules and punch straight through the ionospheric defense grid into the skies above Mega-City One.”
“Our moving railguns can’t penetrate their frontal armor,” Toby said from the backup weapons console, his fingers flying across the targeting keys. “We fired three heavy dark metal sabots from Battery Alpha. The rounds deflected off their heavy local gravity shield like pebbles off a tank tread!”
Arthur stepped up to the main firing console, his Monocle Taxonomy Loupe humming as he studied the alien warship’s energy channels:
