They dropped out of warp on the dark side of Earth's moon.
The Mercy of Silence was even bigger than the maps suggested. It was a five-mile-long spear of white-and-gold marble, pulsing with a rhythmic, holy light. It looked more like a floating cathedral than a ship. Beneath it, the blue marble of Earth looked fragile—a soap bubble waiting to be popped.
"Incoming!" Sully screamed from the comms-deck. "They've got automated defense-shades! Thousands of them!"
Out of the Planet-Cracker's ribs, a swarm of Rank-7 Light-Sentries poured out—winged machines of pure energy that looked like mechanical angels.
"Don't fire your cannons!" Kane's voice echoed through the minds of every pirate in the fleet. "Ram them! Eat them! Use their energy to fuel your shields!"
The battle was a chaotic, beautiful nightmare. The pirate ships, now wreathed in Kane's black void-mist, didn't explode when hit by the holy lasers. They absorbed them.
The Rust-Bucket led the charge, Korgos laughing like a madman as his ship's obsidian hull literally bit chunks out of the Light-Sentries.
"Alpha-6! On me!" Kane yelled.
He didn't use a shuttle. He stood on the nose of the Stellar-Vulture as Vance pushed the engines to the point of meltdown. They were a black speck screaming toward the golden belly of the God-Killer.
"Brace for impact!" Doc shouted, her green spores forming a protective cocoon around the squad.
Kane raised his axe. "I'm not bracing. I'm biting."
The Stellar-Vulture slammed into the Planet-Cracker's primary shield. Kane didn't wait for the explosion. He leaped, his Void-Cleaver glowing with the combined hunger of five thousand souls.
SKREEEEE—
He tore a hole in the Tier-9 barrier with his bare hands, the sound like a universe being unzipped. Alpha-6 tumbled through the breach, landing hard on the polished, white-gold deck of the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy.
[LOCATION: THE MERCY OF SILENCE - LOWER DECKS]
[OBJECTIVE: REACH THE CORE / KILL THE PLANET-CRACKER BISHOP]
"We're in," Kane rasped, his armor smoking. He looked at his squad. Vance was glowing like a miniature sun; Doc was a cloud of emerald death; Sully was a ghost of data.
"Let's go kill a world-killer."