Nocturnal Me

"We're fifty-ish kilos above the site, boss" Ravi says from the station behind my right. "The Crypt-Breakers are good to go."

Grendel occupied the torpedo station on the lower deck, Deacon behind me to the left, Arcantha in the pilot's seat and Verdi in copilot.

All our turrets were occupied by Stone, Fern, Pine and Bella while Kat stood at my side on the bridge.

I leaned over and clicked on the ship intercoms.

"Alright everybody. Operation "Homewrecker" is good to go, and we've established that Deadbolt is definetely on-location. We take him out, we're hitting the north, east, west and south corners and everything at the center is gonna be fucking VAPORIZED."

I hear Fern and Pine giggle down the hall behind me.

"On my mark, we're pinning thrusters, decoupling, and launching these things at NAV speed, and the grangles below won't be able to stop them."

Ravi then chimes in.

"I can still access the pad turrets from here through the comm-links, once the goods get within a kilometer away from their active range, they'll shut down the the torps with hit full-burn and won't be stoppable. When the rods from gods are free of the ship we're recoupling and slamming on the brakes so brace for a hard deceleration."

Dad was given notice to leave the caves, but turns out he was already gone. Man can sense danger WAY before it remotely shows itself.

"Long explodey tubes are ready, I got my lock and ready to party." Grendel radios in and I nod to Arcantha.

"Let's wreck house." I say and the ship jumps forwards. I watch the radar for hostiles and friendlies, the ship begins to pick up some entry burn and things rattle in my head.

Nav speed shows 300...400...600...we're approaching full send when I hop on comms again."Torpedos, standby...Fire in ten!"

Green light on my seat comes up that she's reading me loud and clear, and in ten seconds on the dot the ship shudders, jumps and is subjected to a thud so hard and every bone in every body rattles violently while my synthetic arm shuts off.

Fuck...

Ahead of us all we see the four torps are already burning in atmo and the ship whips forwards hard as we hit the brakes. Everybody would have flown out of their seats given we didn't strap in already.

"Fun-torps are out! They're reading at around 3K velocity and climbing!" Grendel radioes back.

We make jokes about things travelling at mach-fuck, but this may actually be an official measurement of speed at this point.

"Fern, why did those kick a hundred times harder than a normal torpedo?!" I call out.

"They had a detonation launch charge like a mortar, then the charge credle at the back itself had a mild gaussing effect and electro-magnetically accelerated the projectile way-hehe-faster than it needs to go so the chances of them being shot down is...OOOOOH! LOOK!"

In a thump felt all the way up here at thirty-five-ish kilos up, the torpedos bury themselves at two-and-a-half kilos underground. Not...what I was promised.

"BACK UP AND HAUL ASS! NOW!" Pine screams on comms and in a panic Arcantha throws it in reverse and we begin to gain altitude.

Then the world around us seems to break the rules and laws of nature. A small dot surrounded by four smaller dots on the ground become the most blinding light imaginable.

Imagine staring at the sun. And imagine staring at the brightness of a billions suns. The canopy immediately darkens and all we see is a bright white ball followed by a shockwave that manages to hurl the Polaris even deeper into space.

"EVERYBODY HOLD ON TIGHTLY! SOMEBODY OVERCOMPENSATED!" I shriek.

The ship is tumbling, and the exterior is starting to heat up from the light generated by the nukes.

"SHIP IS COUPLED AGAIN! IT'S SLOWING US DOWN!" Arcantha yells and my mobi stars ringing violently with encrypted messages.

<WHAT DID YOU DO>

<WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!>

<WE'RE GETTING SICK OF YOUR SHIT, CALLIE>

We slowly regain control of the rotation and half of us are suffering terrible g-loc.

"Everybody uh..." I shake my head. "Everybody just um...sound...sound off. Who is still here?"

Maniacal laughter from Fern and Pine, Ravi is snoring, Arcantha is taking deep breaths, Deacon is snoring and Verdi is trying to catch hers.

"Bella! You there? Stone?"

<S: I don't feel so good>

<B: Mom you scare the fuck out of me. I'm uh...good?>

The canopy starts to lighten as the ball of light turns a deep cobalt blue, then turns dark and finally nothing.

"Fern, why the fuck was the explosion blue at the end? Was the the ships in the hangar?" I radio weakly.

"Nope! Just a LOT of quantainium! Refined just enough to be stable but still volatile enough to explode in PRETTY COLORS AHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Never asking her for ordinance anymore.

We get up and wak about the ship, stretch our legs and check on each other. Grendel is going to be obscenely busy later today. Or would had the lights not just shut off and ship lost all power.

"Uh, Ravi? Honey? You okay?" I ask and she slowly comes to.

"Wh-what happened? Why is everything so dark?" She replies and goes silent when she brings up her mobi.

"Fuck. Oh fuck...Callie we fucked up."

Thud. Thud thud thud...thudthudthudthudthudthudthudthud

A quick glance outside the front and there are Bengals, Krakens, Pegasus, Idrises, more Polarises and an armada of fighters.

All with the UEEN badging on the hulls.

<This vessel is now under UEEN authority, everybody is to lay on their stomach with their hands behind their backs and do not resist arrest>

I just needed a little boom, I got the four horsemen of the apocalypse and now things are going to get extremely dark for mom. We all lay down on the ground, close our eyes and wait for the kings of the 'verse to pick us up.

Fuck...

==============

<Mister chairman, she just launched four apocalypse-grade nukes at microtech>

<Where...what?!>

<Custom-built, Crusader and Behring already attempted to intervene but they couldn't get anything from the person who built them>

<What grade ordinace?>

<Extreme quantities of quantainium, only enough conventional explosives to set it all off>

<Wait...quantainium nukes? That's Fern's signature>

<Fern? Like your brother's kid?>

<I hope not, get him on the horn, but try to intercept the torpedos before th->

<One second...sir, they've made impact and detonated>

<I thought we had the twins locked up tightly?>

<They got out, no idea how or who did it but they're on that ship>

<Send everything, spare no manpower. I want every single ship over there to nab those two!>

<Aye sir!>

==============

Not my first time in a brig, but it's kind of humiliating that it's my own brig in my own capital ship.

Across the way I see Fern and Pine giggling and laughing at something. The sound dampening on these is so insane that I can barely hear myself think. All of our mobiGlasses have been taken away and I've just been laying in bed for the past who-knows how long.

The ship moves gently, and I can't feel the quantum jumps and drops with the sheer mass of the boat.

Maybe we're at Cascom again, Tenga, who fucking knows. All I know is they took my arm away and I just have the empty shoulder socket implant.

Then the door to the brig opens and in steps a tall man, large dark beard, and the person at the brig console looks terrified out of their mind.

He says something, guard is now at attention. Points at the twin's cell, nods and talks, points at mine and the beard chooses to only look at ME! NOT THE TWINS. He walks over, opens the door and the air feels outright terrifying.

"Moira Casse?" His voice deeper than the depths of the ocean or hell itself, vibrates my very soul and I feel like death is upon me to the point that I don't correct him but simply nod.

"You're under federal arrest, all of your assets will be seized and may be returned pending investigation. Do not resist or you will be shot. You have the right to remain silent."

Another guard comes through the door, manhandles the shit out of me and cuffs my hands behind my back.

"Just like the old days when I met Deacon..." I mindlessly blurt and the guard puts the butt of his rifle to my head. I think.

This new cell I woke up in makes Pyro look like a fucking palace.

I look across my cell and see rags, shitty clothes and excessively long reddish-auburn hair pouring out of a hood.

"Hey." I say, and they don't respond.

"I'm Callie, what are you in for?"

The person in the cell shakes their head and says nothing.

"Been here long?"

Silence. I look around the cell and see blood, claw marks, tally marks and "its over" smudged in the wall.

"Love the decorations ya got here."

"Shut up, please." The figure says, voice feminine and gravelled.

"Oh there ya are! Hey beautiful, don't supposed we could-"

"Shut. Up. Please."

A real charmer! My leftover arm is chained behind my back and impossible to move.

"Hey friendo, need help with your-" I say and she lets me know how much she loves me.

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I will stash your corpse inside the walls if you do. Not. SHUT. UP!"