'...ignition!'

Kathraya balled up her fists and delivered a swift punch to two large, round glowing buttons on either side of the control board, simultaneously engaging the engines and killing the anti-grav drive before wrapping both hands around the large black control stick situated in the centre of the gap between her seat and the collection of panels. In the hangar, the luminous blue glow emitted from the 'grav drive underneath the wings of the craft vanished, causing the ship to fall toward the metal floor for several milliseconds before the main engines fully cut-in, spewing twin jets of pale red fire from the rear thrusters and accelerating the small vessel out of the hangar opening with unnatural speed. Kath applied a tiny amount of pressure to the flight-control stick, pulling it backward gently to tilt the nose of the craft upward slightly, in order to counteract the downward fall experienced after shutting down the anti-grav systems, and in a fraction of an instant found herself passing through the grey-white hue of the atmospheric shield and gliding in the calm black infinity of open space.

Except that in this particular case, the space wasn't all that open. A thousand bolts of kaleidoscopic colour flashed overhead, causing hundreds of minute explosions as they impacted their targets. Plumes of grayish smoke hung in the vacuum, crowded around the dented forms of disabled interceptors and the great gashes in larger ships, their hulls ripped apart by never-ending streams of cannon shells and melted from the intense heat of passing bolts of plasma. Small groups of the dull-grey, vaguely triangular shapes typical of Olympian fighter-craft blurred past her view-screen, followed half a second later by a flurry of spear-shaped homing missiles and the long, sleek reflective black bodies of their Zeroth counterparts, engaged in the relentless pursuit of a "dog-fight". Truly, space couldn't get much more crowded than this.

Most of it was inconsequential now, though; atleast a couple of handfuls of Zeroth troop carriers had already made it safely through this figurative minefield and boarded the space-station known as Olympus. Even if the actual number was only small, what happened inside that vast metal construct was all that mattered; the battle outside could be easily won, but if they failed to take or at least seriously damage the station, a torrent of fresh reinforcements from the sector would render their victory meaningless. But if Olympus was captured, or even destroyed outright, the blow to both Olympian morale and their infrastructure, not to mention the death of their military commanders, would likely bring a standstill to their operations; the war would be won, regardless of what happened out in the black. It was a nice, idealistic thought, but so absurdly far from the truth that Kathraya almost had to forcibly hold back laughter; it all sounded eerily similar to one of those nonsensical propaganda-spewing newscasts. Kathraya didn't have the luxury of being on any of those transports; the perilous void was her battlefield, and little as she liked it, she'd be stuck here until she could blast her way through the arrays of sparring ships and join in the "ground" assault, but for now that was a long way off.

Kath gave the flight-stick a sharp tug to the right after exiting the immediate area of the carrier, and her craft neatly obliged by darting in the same direction, then gently pushed to the left and back to the centre again in order to straighten the ship once it was parallel with the cruiser.
'Spectre wing,' She called into the communicator. No response. 'Are you all deaf? Spectre wing, what's the delay?'
A brief spurt of quiet static filled the cockpit, followed by the voice of a young man. 'This is Spectre Secondary Lukas, reporting. Apologies for the silence, commander, we're still having some communication trouble down here.'
'Yeah right,' Kath whispered to the cockpit, then looked up to the central panels and pressed a collection of rectangular green buttons, transmitting here co-ordinates to the absent pilots. 'Never mind that, we're behind schedule as it is. Just haul it as fast as you can and form up on my position, before I consider you all expendable, got it?'
There was a notable pause that Kath thought was likely hesitation, Hesitation coupled with fear, she thought, and smiled as she did so, They have every reason to be afraid, but right now I'm at the top of that list. 'Confirmed. Firing in three...two--' The voice from inside the hangar vanished, washed away from the channel without warning by a sudden flood of interference, then the channel simply went dead. Far back, behind the view of the comparatively tiny assault-ship, a bright orange surge of energy erupted from the bridge of the command carrier. The blinding flash of white light it generated was viewable on the very periphery of the cockpits vision radius, but it was enough to catch Kathraya's attention, and she rapidly keyed in a sequence of numbers on the pad to the left of the control stick, which she then twisted, activating the auxiliary starboard thrusters in order to quickly spin the ship around and get a better view at what could have caused that blast of light.

Kathraya slumped back in her seat at the sight before her; the command carrier, Eternal, was a fiery wreck. The bridge--the area which was most likely the target--was obscured by a ball of white and orange fire, which rapidly grew and subsequently vanished, sending visible shock-waves throughout the entire ship and spitting out vast columns of d fire and smoke out into space, along with chunks of a dark, shining metal. Kath lowered her hand, which had instinctively raised itself over her eyes to shield them from the intense light, and took in the destruction dealt to the ship she had been on barely a minute ago. What little was left of the bridge took only the form of blackened, melted heaps of slag, draping out through the few intact portholes and almost gushing from the empty crater that was the front of the vessel, like some twisted, frozen sea of metal. What was left of the explosion was reduced the a blanket of amber flames, gently twisting its way through space and radiating outward from the impact site, consuming what was left of any escaped atmosphere as it went, before it too died away into nothing. There were no visible signs of survivors; anyone and anything in the immediate vicinity would have been vapourised instantly, including the communications equipment (which relayed all Zeroth comm traffic by default to their target ships), and from the looks of it there would be few if any escapees from the rest of the ship; violent surges in the vessels structure caused by the explosion had torn large holes in the hull, along which there were occurring masses of tiny explosions, serving only to spread the carnage even further across the ship.

By the time Kath had taken in the extent of the damage, the port hangar was already aflame and rapidly collapsing in on itself, belching huge tongues of fire from the large central opening. Several seconds later, the majority of the fires plaguing the ship put themselves out, devouring what little atmosphere and oxygen was left on their rampage through the Eternal. Without those shining gems of orange light adorning it, the carrier now looked a shadow of its former self; much of the shining Zeroth metal had been dulled and blackened beyond all recognition, and what was left had been melted away, revealing the brittle skeletal structure beneath. The entire ship itself had also begun to tilt on its side, succumbing to the gravitational pull of Sol and its surrounding planets now that the vessel had lost power, and it began to drift, inch by inch, toward the centre of the solar system.

Kathraya closed her eyes in respect for the loss of the ship and the majority of its crew, then gritted her teeth and flipped a crimson switch on her communications panel. She took several deep breaths, then spoke solemnly over the mic. 'This is Spectre Wing, broadcasting on emergency channel IC-1, any friendly ships receiving this message, please switch over to this frequency.'
Kath returned power to the Spectres engines and dove into the still ensuing--though considerably died down--battle over Olympus, emptying several hundred rounds onto surrounding Olympian fighters from the Spectres four wing-mounted 20mm Auto-Cannons, while waiting for some kind of response from the ghost-like Zeroth craft around her. Finally, there came a response.
'Spectre Wing, this is Raptor Primary Jakarta, what are you doing on this channel?' Asked the man on the other end, a young one from the sounds of it, and he obviously didn't know who he was addressing.
'Raptor Primary Jakarta, are you blind? Go and feast your eyes on sector 3C.'
There was a long, agonising pause before Jakarta came back on the channel.
'Ah, I see.' He said, in an almost apologetic tone. 'Eternal?'
'Got it in one.'
'Fuck. Any word from central, orders?'
'Nothing, and none of the other ships are responding. Hold for a second.' Kath flipped the dark red switch to the "off" position, then flipped it back and forth several times before switching it back to "on". 'This is Spectre Primary, Spectre Wing, do you read?'
'Confirmed Spectre Primary, this is Secondary Lukas reporting. I have Tertiary Keal with me.'
'Is that everyone from Spectre?'
'Seems to be the case, I've had no luck reaching the others, they're probably buried in the slagheap of the Not-So-Eternal-After-All.'
'Have some respect for the unfortunately-dead, Secondary, and form up on my position while you're at it. Raptor Wing, still alive?'
'For as long as we can manage, orders?'

'This is Spectre Primary to all vessels on IC-1, we're going to get some payback.'

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