"They're locking on, Sarge!" Sully yelled, her hands disappearing into the holographic interface of the bridge. "Ten thousand signatures. They're firing the Solar-Lances!"
The space ahead of them turned into a solid wall of white-hot light. The Mercy of Silence groaned, its coral-hulls vibrating under the impact of a thousand sun-lasers.
"Elara! Shields to the front!" Kane commanded, his new Void-Demigod aura making the air in the bridge feel like it was made of lead.
The High-Artificer scrambled, her four hands blurring across the controls. "I... I'm trying! But the Tier-9 capacitors are melting! We can't take another volley like that!"
"We aren't going to take it," Kane said. He stood up from his throne, his obsidian skin glowing with a cold, violet hunger. "Vance, take the Forward-Cannons. Don't aim for the big ships. Aim for the small ones. I want a debris field."
"Copy that, Sarge!" Vance roared, his golden-iron fists slamming into the weapon-triggers.
The Meat-Grinder
The Mercy of Silence didn't slow down. It accelerated.
Vance's cannons didn't fire lasers; they fired Void-Slugs—compressed chunks of gravity that didn't just explode; they sucked everything nearby into a tiny, crushing point. In seconds, a hundred Consortium frigates were turned into a spinning cloud of jagged alloy and frozen atmosphere.
"Sully! Dive!" Kane ordered.
The five-mile-long cathedral-ship dived into the wreckage. The Consortium's heavy Solar-Lances couldn't hit them anymore—they were hitting their own drifting, broken ships instead.
"We're clear of the first line!" Sully reported, her face pale. "But the Golden Guard is de-docking from the Dyson-Ring. Those are Rank 8 ships, Kane. They're as big as we are."
"Good," Kane hissed, his Star-Eater's Gaze locking onto the massive golden ring surrounding the sun. "I was getting tired of the small fry."