"Seems I gave them too much credit."
Silas Vire stared calmly through the bridge viewport as a second wave of enemy ordnance slammed into the Hyperion's energy barrier.
His expression didn't shift. The shield had barely flickered.
He turned slightly toward the bartending Marvin unit beside him. "Log energy depletion. What percentage?"
[Energy Shield Integrity: 88%]
[Recharge cycle initiated.]
Silas exhaled.
"I was hoping for a real test."
Outside, the battlefield swirled with debris, plasma trails, and desperate maneuvers. The Hyperion held position like a citadel among ruins—untouched, unshaken.
Inside the Crocodile Fleet's command vessel, the Giant Maw, panic was setting in.
Krell gritted his jagged teeth. "He's running an energy barrier?!"
"Captain, energy readings confirm it—fully integrated, continuous regeneration. We're not even breaching his outer plating."
Krell's eye twitched. "I don't care! No ship has an infinite shield!"
He slammed his clawed fist onto the command console. "Prep the armor-piercers! Load high-yield rounds! I want every cannon on this bastard!"
A chorus of nervous affirmations followed.
And then the pirates opened fire again.
Twin frigates beside the Giant Maw launched another cascade of missiles. Impact after impact lit up the black as flame met shield—useless, ineffective.
Krell snarled. "Bring up the spinal cannon!"
A rumble sounded as the Giant Maw's belly cracked open to reveal its only serious weapon: a retrofitted heavy-lance laser. Its power core whined as energy surged into the chamber.
With a roar, the cannon discharged.
A blinding beam ripped through the dark, striking the Hyperion's barrier head-on.
From Pluto Outpost and the surrounding fleet, the flare was like a second sunrise. Energy shockwaves rippled through vacuum, distorting comms and sensor feedback.
And yet…
As the light cleared, the dreadnought remained.
The shield shimmered for a moment—then dispersed into fading light.
The Hyperion's hull was revealed.
Untouched.
Not a single burn. Not a scratch.
Gasps echoed through every transmission channel.
"No damage?!"
"Impossible…"
"Twenty-four cannons… that kind of firepower could glass a colony."
Lyra Caelis stood in stunned silence aboard the Valkyrion. Her officers said nothing. Their ship couldn't have taken three of those shots in sequence.
And he just endured two dozen.
She felt a chill run through her spine.
That's not a ship. It's an extinction-level asset.
—
On the bridge of the Hyperion, Silas studied the aftermath with clinical disinterest.
"That took care of the shield."
He tapped his console.
[Energy Core diverted to main batteries.]
[Laser Cannon Array: Online.]
[Predator-Class Saturation Pattern: Armed.]
"Good," he muttered. "Let's end this."
He gave the order.
"Fire."
From beneath the Hyperion's hull, dozens of retractable panels hissed open. Turret banks rotated. Coaxial cannons extended. Along the ship's flanks, entire walls unfolded into micro-emplacement arrays.
And then—light.
Like a storm of focused lightning, laser fire poured across the void. Thousands of beams, rapid-fire and pinpoint-precise, swept across the Giant Maw and its escort ships in a catastrophic deluge.
It wasn't just an attack.
It was erasure.
The Giant Maw was the first to suffer.
[⚠ ALERT: Armor breach – Total failure]
[⚠ ALERT: Reactor integrity compromised]
[⚠ ALERT: Core containment breach imminent]
Krell's breath caught in his throat as the hull groaned.
Alarms screamed.
Metal warped and vaporized. The bridge exploded in a hail of plasma shards. Bodies were sucked into space like scraps of paper.
The pirate king's last words were lost beneath the thunder.
The flagship fractured in half and detonated.
The escort frigates didn't fare better. Their lighter armor didn't even hold long enough to register warnings. Lasers punched through decks, fuel lines, and reactors. Chain reactions bloomed like red flowers across their hulls before they disintegrated entirely.
—
Silas watched the battle's end without ceremony.
[All hostile signatures neutralized.]
[Combat efficiency: 12.8% resource expenditure.]
The AI voice was calm. Pleased.
Silas simply stood.
"Retrieve their wreckage. Deploy drones. I want all usable materials recovered before the outpost's recovery crews arrive."
[Recovery drones deployed.]
He turned his attention to the secondary display. Dozens of ships—civilian and otherwise—watched from a distance. Frozen.
He opened an open comms channel.
"This is Captain Silas Vire of the Hyperion. Let it be known: this territory is under my protection."
He paused.
"There will be no piracy in my shadow."
Then he closed the channel.
—
Back at Pluto Outpost, Commander Rourke stared at the feed as recovery drones spread like insects around the smoldering battlefield.
He slowly sat down.
"Contact Ascendancy Command," he muttered. "Now."