"Ramirez, shields!"

A wall of golden white light flared up around them cradling the Empyrean in a cocoon of golden energy. The shield's wall crackled and fizzed with power closing around them just as the void-ship dropped its shields discharging another round of orange beam energy.

Adam braced himself inside the cockpit of the darkfire just as the void energy hit the empyrean's shields.

Adam was rocked violently in his seat as the entire ship was pushed back against the power of her engines. The shields cracked and fizzed angrily but held back the void energy. Behind them, the shards of Ire's green moon had fallen into a confused unstable orbit giving the waiting battlefield a reminder of just what the void cannon could do.

Adam didn't want to imagine what it could do to his ship.

Ramirez dropped their shields as the second ship was waiting to charge theirs and fired again. Golden energy rolled and dissipated over the glowing orange of the void shield.

It was only open for seconds.

Luckily simon had read the situation well, and the Omen had fallen back. She had very good shields, but the power differential between very good and Godlike was an enormous rift, and if that sort of energy could break a moon in half, there was no telling what it could do to the omen.

But the Omen was a small ship and compared to the void carrier and the empyrean it was more agile.

During the quick two exchanges by Ramirez and the void pilot Simon had flanked around from the side using the debris from the Iris moon as cover, and as the Void shields went down, Simon fired. There was a small time delay and then a sudden blinding flash of light. The viewscreen of the darkfire immediately darkened to overload against the bright flash.

Blinking more spots from his eyes Adam squinted towards the void ship.

He knew that flash of light.

Simon had used one of their rare nuclear warheads, having judged the situation was far out of hand from the Omen. She had been forced to use her most powerful weapon right out of the gate. Adam could admit that he expected to see a pile of debris simply floating in the middle of space, but his eyes widened in shock and horror when, the light cleared and the void carrier was still there.

Its orange shield glowed with particular malice., but she was still standing .

Not that Simon hadn't done anything.

Even from this distance Adam could see the livid gaping hole straight through the center of the void ship, its edges glowing red like an angry eye from the face of a dragon woken from a thousand years of slumber.

"Holy shit."

"Simon watch out!"

The void ship was recharging again, and Ramirez took the gamble.

They dropped their shields at the same time, as the void ship fired on the Omen. Adam watched stupid and helpless as a swarm of enemy ships rolled over the back of the Empyrean peppering her with void fire . But Ramirez took the damage and partial victory as his bolt of Maker energy slammed into the low right side of the enemy ship burning another hole straight through it.

At the helm of the Omen, Simon took evasive maneuvers . The ship would have been to slow to avoid what was coming next, but then she pulled the most ballsy thing Adam had ever seen. As the void ship fired, Simon engaged a microwarp, and the Omen vanished.

Void light passed through the space where the Ship had bee, now appearing just a few kilometers up . It was a dangerous move for sure. Warps were generally calculated with extreme caution, but there was always a chance that you might warp into the space of soemthing that already existed. If that was the case it could cause major damage to the ship, and if worst came to worst kill everyone aboard.

It had been a risky move but she had saved everyone.

But then there was the void carrier, still alive and kicking despite the power that Ramirez had just poured into it. the hole he had left was substantially more damaging than the warhead had left, but still it wasn't dead.

Adam was left in shock when the ship itself didn't simply implode.

Adam new the power of their weapons.

He had used it to kill a god, or an eldritch horror

The Empyrean was more than capable of bodying an entire planet with relative ease, but here they were fighting in space like two pirate ships fight on the open ocean. They could take chunks out of each other, but no one was going to gain the upper hand through power over weaponry.

They would have to take each other apart piece by piece.

Inside their shield, a wave of void fighters was attempting to shoot the empyrean from the outside going in, but a swarm of Arcadian pilots teamed together to take on those that had slipped inside. Adam took the moment to survey the battlefield, they had two ships against one void carrier, but the void carrier was powerful and had already done irreversible damage.

They could outmaneuver it, switch back and forth between shooting, but Simon only had so many warheads, and eventually there would be nothing that she could do, and the Empyrean couldn't take the void ship without taking serious damage as it would have to drop its shields in order to fire at the same time the void ship fired, basically resulting in mutually assured destruction. He Continued to Survey the battlefield trained eyes examining the swarm of movements from the small jets.

They weren't alone here.

He could see Rundi fighter drones fighting to stay alive, but they were sparce, and dying out quickly.

The one thing he wondered.

Irus HAD a defense nexus. It was old, but it was effective.

This was the capital planet of the GA after all so it SHOULD have had a working nexus, but as Adam looked he saw no evidence of nexus activity. He thought he saw a few guns, floating dormant in space. If he could get the nexus online than he could change the die of the war. The smaller guns would take care of the individual ships.

And then he could use the bigger guns.

There were three of them all together each positioned on one of the three moons.

And that's when he realized.

The master gun was on the green moon. Somehow the void had managed to take down the defence nexus, and stall firing by the three master guns by blowing up the green moon.

Then again, the moon wasn't exactly blown up now was it. it had been broken into chunks....

Which meant the gun was still active, just in operational....

Adam was frozen for a moment as he thought caught between two alternatives. A part of him, a childish selfish part of him wanted to take control of the space battle. He was the best pilot in the known universe after all, so it made sense that he should be the one captaining the Empyrean, maybe he would be able to out maneuver the void ship.

He could send someone else to....

But no.

No.

He was being a selfish glory hog and now was not the time to want to look cool. Ramirez could be the hero of the day, and he was doing a pretty good job keeping the ship where it was. Adam taking over would just interrupt the flow of the battle.

Instead he opened a line to sunny.

"How long before you have your armor on."

"Already done."

"Get to an airlock, I am going to need you." She didn't make any argument, but she was a Drev and Drev never made arguments when there was battle involved. Now he just had to find a way to get to.

Then a knock came at his window.

He jolted upright and turned just in time to see a familiar face peering at him from outside, "Shit first Conn and now you." Celex grinned at him from the other side of the glass, his hybrid human Celzex starborn a strange sight against the vacuum of stars.

"I can get you to the moon."

"How did you know I."

Celex tapped his head, "maker remember."

"Right." He forgot that Celex could read minds now, so he knew what Adam's plan was, and if the old warrior thought the plan was a good idea, than Adam had no compunction following his own instincts. The warloard had become emperor for a reason, and it wasn't just because he was cute and fuzzy.

The man knew tactics.

So if he was supporting Adam that must be a good sign

"Engage Emergency eject." Adam ordered. The Darkfire protested, annoyed that he would bother to eject from a perfectly good plane. He had to initiate several sequences before it would allow him to do so. If the ship had been damaged that might have been one thing, but the Darkfire was in perfect condition. Eventually the canopy snapped open and Adam jerked in his seat as the entire world around him went completely silent. All the atmosphere that had been in the cockpit with him instantly dissipated.

Celex grabbed him by the arm, helping to pull Adam out of his restraints.

Now, looking out on the battlefield with nothing between him and it other than a clear helmet visor, he was hit with a sudden sense of microscopic inconsequentiality. Ships fractured apart. His fleet versus the void fleet. Teams of arcadian jets ducked out of the protective shielding and moved to form up with Rundi pilots holding the line at bay for the moment.

Sunny was already waiting when they made it to the airlock , and she gave no question as she reached out a hand to celex.

The man took them both by the arm.

Overhead the shield pulsed.

Celex's ribbons flared and the group of them shot forward. Adam felt his vision go black around the eges as the eminence acceleration almost blacked him out. And then they were in the thick of it, all around them ships cut sideways and up, and down, rolling past each other and firing their weapons. IT should have been loudbut everything was dead silnt other than his own huffing breaths. Inside his helmet fealty did its best to rack the battle, but it was too high speed and the AI had been meant for ground combat. Without plugging into the dark fire's targeting systems, it was having trouble .

His heart pounded and his head whirled as they continued to speed up.

Celex held them tight.

And then a ship shot straight towards them void cannons burning with orange energy. Adam shouted in fear and surprise.

And then celex let go of them.

There was a streak of golden light, and then the void ship ruptured into a million pieces.

Adam held up his arms as he was pelted by shrapnel.

Warning bells dinged inside his suit.

And then Celex was there floating amidst the carnage. The man shook himself a billowing mane of technicolored hair fanning out around his head like a halo. Some of the shrapnel had pushed Sunny to the side and she was floating away, but Celex zipped through the air, grabbing her and retrieving Adam as they rocketed across the battlefield and towards the shards of green moon.

Behind them Ramirez was still waging battle against the void carrier.

Simon desperately fought to keep her ship from blowing up, guessing that she only had one chance to survive while Ramirez had many.

Adam felt helpless to do anything as he watched.

They were closing in on the green moon now, and Adam felt a sudden tug as Gravity pulled them down towards one of the larger chunks.

It was a strange sensation. They were being pulled sort of sideways and down as another chunk pulled on him from the other side.

The chunks weren't very powerful, but they were still big enough to generate some level of gravity. The yslowly descended towards the surface of the first chunk, and Adam was about to ask hat celex was doing before he realized.

The moon was swarming with void creatures.

Even as their feet touched the rock, orange void energy cut past his head and out into space.

Adam dived to the side as did Sunny.

Celex dodged out of the way and then turned holding his hands together slowly generating a ball of white gold light. The look on his face was one of extreme concentration and he left off a blast of energy from the ball that took out three of the void creatures all at once.

They hopped and capered over the other side of the chunk as a set of two ships cut by overhead. Two of them cut through the rift in the moon, but one talented Rundi pilot used the gravity to their advantage causing the void pilot to slam into the open side of a rock.

He saw the sharp blue glow of Sunny's spear as she deployed it.

Fealty was happy now, tracking three of the void creatures. Adam asked for a Gun and fealty provided retrieving the collapsible rifle from the storage on Adam's back. Adam took the weapon and fired three times. Three void creature's flailed at their punctured suits and hit the ground. Sunny was already running forward, tearing through another three in hand to hand combat.

She got them close, Adam got them far, and Celex worked to control his energy.

It wasn't a quick process. He couldn't just conjure beams of light. The energy had to build inside him before discharging.

But when that didn't work he settled for just punching a void creature through the chest and then out the back side with his bare knuckles.

These creatures weren't entirely void creatures, they still had construct forms, and they could still die like anyone else.

Ahead of them Adam could see a maze of fractured moon bits leading down towards the gun.

They would have to be quick abut it.

And that's when the comms erupted.

Adam turned caught off guard for a moment, and locked his eyes on the Empyrean just long enough to witness as another void ship crackled into view from warp, and fired off a shot that took Ramirex right through the center.