Altopereh hung in orbit, fully exposed now in front of Perciosa and Sirius. The two monsters tilted their heads at the battered machine.
"That last attack was high-grade," Perciosa said at last. "It probably killed his vessel on the spot."
Sirius looked at the Orbiton and scoffed. "Shame. I wanted to kill that vessel myself."
Perciosa shrugged. "So what do we do now? We still have a little time before our own vessels are gone."
Sirius lifted his head, and his eyes narrowed toward the stars. "I'm going to Sacros. I still haven't paid them back for what they did to me."
Perciosa laughed, a deep, rippling sound. "Sure. Let's spend the minutes we have left on old grudges."
The two towering monsters vanished in a ripple of space. On the Morphius, Mikhail stared at the place where they had been, struggling to understand what he had just seen, and he was still staring when Leonora's voice came over the comms. "General! Are you alright? My forces have entered orbit. We can clean up from here."
Mikhail let out a long breath. "Thank you, Leonora." He sank heavily into his chair. "I think this hell is finally over."
Leonora's fifty ships took up formation around the planet once again. She left her flagship and crossed to the Morphius to join Emilia and Mikhail. On the command deck, she looked out at Altopereh drifting battered and beaten in space. Something like a grin crossed her face. Then a call came in from one of the ships in formation. "General, we have the Tartarusios. She's climbing to orbit as we speak. We're firing, but her shield is holding. We request backup." And even as the message ended, the Tartarusios burst through the last layer of Antia's burned atmosphere and came to a stop directly in front of the Morphius, with Altopereh still hanging between them.
In the Tartarusios' control room, Oscar rose from his seat and walked to the great reinforced window that looked out on the battlefield. His voice was firm when he turned to Bjorn. "Send the call." Bjorn nodded and connected them to the Morphius.
On the Morphius' command deck, the call appeared on the main screen, and Oscar's face — hardened and grieving — looked out at the three of them: Leonora Kaelthorn and Mikhail Rozasar, two of the most brilliant generals in the Terrian Empire, and the young commander Emilia Rozasar, who had nearly caught them once before. All three of them glared at him with pure hatred, each for their own reasons. Few people had ever stood in front of those three and lived. Many had tried. But Oscar's face was empty of expression, his heart full of grief. He spoke to them plainly.
"Let's end this pointless bloodshed. Think of how many souls you've lost. More than half the ships you brought here are gone — most of them erased from existence — and the lucky few lie buried on the rocks below. Does life mean nothing to the Empire? You've proven your point. Let's lick our wounds and hope we meet again some other day."
Leonora listened to him closely. Then she let out a slow breath, stepped forward and looked him dead in the eye. A smirk crossed her face. "So you are the infamous Oscar Meilton. I thought I'd never get the chance to speak to you, and I thank the Almighty for giving it to me. I have three words for you. You will pay." She turned to Mikhail. "Let's end this."
Mikhail nodded and turned to his crew. "All ships, take aim at the Tartarusios." He looked back at the screen. "By the grace of the mighty Emperor Johan Adrin, I sentence you to death."
On the Tartarusios, Oscar had expected nothing else. He closed his eyes once. "Everyone, ready up. We'll take as many of them with us as the cannon can."
Bjorn smiled at him. "You got it, boss. We started with a bang. It's only fitting we go out with one too."
Chris burst out laughing. "You know, I always thought I'd die a boring death. But I have to say, this is one hell of a way to go. So thank you, boss. You gave us freedom, even if it was only for a few years."
"Yeah," Harry said, with tears streaming down his face as he manned the weapons. "Thank you, Captain." Mario, gripping the helm in his steady hands, said the same.
Nolan's voice cut in from engineering. "Hey, boss — I just got confirmation from Halley. The girls have landed and they're in position down below."
"Good," Oscar said. "Leaving them down there was the right call. Thank you, Nolan."
Nolan smirked. "You softie. You thought I'd let you die without me? So I want to get on the thank-you train too. It's truly been a pleasure." He turned to the mechanics and engineers behind him. "Wasn't it, boys?"
"Hell yeah!" they shouted back.
Oscar settled into his seat and turned to Tarko, who was standing at his left. "I'm sorry, Tarko. I promised you freedom, and it didn't last very long."
Tarko groaned. "You idiot. I lived more these past months than I did in my whole life." He smiled. "Take it from a man who's more than ten thousand years old. I don't regret a thing."
Oscar looked out at the drifting shape of Altopereh, and a smile crossed his face. I'm sorry, Youri, he thought. In the end I wasn't the right captain after all. Though you'd probably beat me up if I ever said that out loud. Then he raised his voice. "Set the plasma cannon to two hundred percent. It's time for our show."
Inside Altopereh's cockpit, the radio had relayed every word; somehow the connection to the Tartarusios was still open, and Youri had heard all of it, from Oscar's call to Leonora to what everyone believed were their last words. He was slumped in his seat with his head cut open in several places and blood covering his whole body from more wounds than he could count. Sync mode had turned his eyes red until he could barely see at all. He lifted his hand with an enormous effort and pressed down on the comm. His voice came out cracked and bloody.
"You guys thought I kicked the bucket? God damn. I need to work on my figure." He wheezed out a laugh and choked on blood. "My ship isn't dying today. And neither are you."
Altopereh's AI came back to life in autonomous mode. Backup power at ten percent. Initializing startup. The half-dead Orbiton convulsed and then slowly rose, barely holding itself together, climbing higher and higher until it came to a stop just above Antia's twin moons. Every ship around the planet fired on it, and not one of them left a scratch; the alloy it was clad in was truly monstrous. It hung there above the moons, half broken, pieces of its wings gone, parts of its body barely holding on. It stretched out its hands, and particles of light began to gather in them.
Before he fired, Youri spoke to his crew one last time. "Hey. I know what I am. And I'm sure you've probably figured it out by now too. So I'll just say this. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for putting up with a monster like me."
Then he took one last breath. "I'm sorry, Leonora," he said. "But I can't let you destroy my ship just so you can kill my friends."
Beams of light lanced out from Altopereh's hands toward every ship in the sky. Most of them were destroyed. Only a few barely survived. Then Altopereh shut down once more.
That last attack had opened a way out for the Tartarusios, and tears were falling all across her decks as she cut through the void, because once again their friend had saved them from certain death. She escaped the Empire, and the Battle of Antia was finally over — a battle that would be remembered for the rest of history as the Battle of Hell.