Giving orders in the heat of combat came smoothly to Orn—not necessarily because he was naturally gifted at command, but because they were in the middle of an active battle against a powerful space predator and some of the most dangerous assassins in the known universe.
He could afford to give nothing less than his absolute best.
Missiles streaked across the void like silver comets, their contrails briefly visible as they burned through trace particles of frozen gas and debris. The railgun had fully charged now, drawing deeply on its first dedicated power cell. It fired off three shots in rapid succession—blazing hot projectiles that left glowing trails in the darkness.
The first shell impacted the enemy's shields and bounced away, but not before creating a massive spiderweb crack across the defensive barrier's surface. The second projectile smashed directly through that weakened point, creating a large, gaping hole in the shield matrix. The third shell punched straight through the compromised defenses and slammed into the cruiser's engine housing.
A small but intense explosion blossomed in the perfect vacuum of space, then vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. The damage seemed superficial at first glance, but there was almost no time to assess the actual effectiveness of their assault.
The enemy cruiser suddenly accelerated with desperate urgency.
Space itself began to visibly distort around the fleeing vessel—rippling and fragmenting like shattered glass, creating a kaleidoscope effect as the fabric of reality bent and twisted. Multiple overlapping distortions appeared simultaneously, each one a potential doorway into vastly different corners of the galaxy.
They were attempting a light-speed jump. In just a few more seconds, they would be completely beyond reach.
But whether through providence, fate, or simple mechanical failure, something decided it was better served by catastrophic engine failure at a critical moment.
The cruiser's damaged engine core went critical. The entire vessel transformed into molten slag in the span of a heartbeat, consumed by the fusion reaction that had been powering its propulsion. The expanding sphere of superheated debris quickly cooled in the void, becoming nothing more than tumbling wreckage.
Its occupants were dead before they could even register what had happened.
Orn immediately stood from his command chair and turned to leave the bridge.
Hera was already waiting near the exit, a combat helmet held ready in her hands. She passed it to him without a word. He placed it on his head without hesitation, and the helmet locked into place with his battle suit with a satisfying hiss of sealing mechanisms engaging.
They moved together toward the ship's hangar bay.
Five other soldiers were already assembled and armored, making a total team of seven including Orn and Hera. That was small enough to move quickly and quietly, but large enough to deal with whatever—or whoever—might be waiting for them inside that fortress.
"Open the hangar doors and initiate docking approach sequence," Orn ordered over the shipwide communications channel. "We're carrying proper imperial military identification codes, so it shouldn't be a problem getting them to grant us access for our arrival."
He continued issuing instructions to the bridge crew. "In the meantime, the rest of you maintain a safe distance from the Norkel. There's absolutely no way to predict if it might suddenly lose interest in the fortress and decide our big, shiny frigate makes a more appealing target instead."
A brief pause. "Regardless, keep the engines hot for immediate extraction if things go wrong. All weapons systems should remain at full readiness. If that creature so much as twitches in our direction, I want every gun we have trained on it."
Orn turned to face his assembled boarding team. "All right, people. Let's move out!"
With that said, he stepped directly out through the open hangar doors and into the vast emptiness of space.
His ears popped uncomfortably for just a second as the pressure equalized—a brief reminder that only a thin layer of advanced materials and force fields separated him from instant death.
But as always, he felt strangely at peace out here in the void. Psi seemed to dance and flow around him more freely than it did in enclosed spaces, and his enhanced perception of the entire surrounding area expanded dramatically. Every object, every energy signature, every subtle gravitational fluctuation—all of it became crystal clear in his mind.
The suits carried limited oxygen reserves, so he would have to move fast.
The back of his suit let out a soft hiss as miniature maneuvering jets activated—utilizing highly compressed air as a fuel source. With gentle bursts of precisely controlled thrust, his armored form was propelled smoothly toward the glowing energy shield surrounding the asteroid fortress.
As he drew closer, Hera and the rest of the soldiers fell into a standard tactical formation behind him. Their forms looked like tiny silver specks moving through an ocean of brighter lights—stars, reflected shield energy, bioluminescent patterns from the dying Norkel.
They passed through the outer barrier with an audible pop that transmitted through their suit systems. The constant impacts of the Norkel smashing its massive body against the shield from the opposite side created oscillating waves of Psionic reverberations that washed over them like invisible ripples in a pond.
It was actually an ingenious attack method, Orn had to admit. And if the Norkel kept employing it, the shield would destabilize and collapse in relatively short order.
He mentally revised their timeline. They had even less time than he'd initially calculated.
The creature was infusing raw Psi directly into its physical strikes, creating oscillating sonic waves from each impact that would progressively weaken the integrity of the energy barrier from the inside out. It was like using a tuning fork to shatter reinforced glass—you just had to find the right frequency.
And if the shield somehow managed to hold despite this sustained assault? Everything and everyone inside the fortress would be reduced to dust through catastrophic resonance collapse. The entire structure would shake itself apart from the inside.
Psionic vibration was not a pleasant way to die.
They moved smoothly through the microgravity environment, magnetic boot systems engaging automatically as they approached a dedicated landing strip that served as a docking area for smaller craft and personal pods.
There was a compact drop-ship secured there, along with another cruiser—probably the senator's personal escape vessel.
Orn immediately hunkered down into a tactical crouch. His boots let out soft, steady hums as they automatically engaged full gravity anchoring mode, keeping all of them properly oriented and able to move with reasonable ease despite the lack of natural gravity.
He turned and pointed silently toward the intact cruiser. Using a practiced combination of Psionic mental signals and standard military hand signs, he directed one of the soldiers to board that vessel and verify it would be ready for immediate takeoff in case they needed an emergency extraction route.
Orn absolutely did not want anything jeopardizing their ability to escape if the situation deteriorated beyond their capacity to handle it.
The soldier moved quickly and efficiently, disappearing into the cruiser's access hatch. He returned less than a minute later, giving Orn a confirming nod along with hand signals indicating the ship was fully fueled, powered up on standby, and ready to launch on a moment's notice.
Orn nodded his acknowledgment and pointed toward the fortress entrance. They all began moving cautiously forward, using the parked spacecraft and various decorative installations scattered around the landing area as cover to mask their approach.
There were ostentatious statues depicting some sort of alien equine creature—probably a status symbol or cultural reference Orn didn't recognize and frankly didn't care about. He paid minimal attention to such irrelevant details.
They reached the primary blast doors leading into the fortress interior in short order.
Fortunately for them, the massive reinforced doors stood wide open. A shimmering blue energy field covered the entrance like a curtain of light—an emergency atmospheric containment shield.
It seemed the assassins had forcibly breached their way inside. Looking more carefully, Orn could see the scattered debris and twisted remains of what had once been the actual physical blast doors, now reduced to scorched metal fragments.
No wonder the entrance had been left standing open.
The containment shield was there solely to prevent the airlock from becoming catastrophically compromised. Without it, that breach would create explosive decompression, violently sucking out all the breathable atmosphere aboard the station and killing everyone inside within seconds.
Orn stepped through the energy barrier, his rifle held in a ready position at shoulder height. Simultaneously, he reached out with his mind—extending his Psionic senses like invisible fingers to probe the environment ahead.
Almost immediately, he got a sharp warning ping in his consciousness.
Without breaking stride, he grabbed Hera firmly by the shoulder and shoved her bodily to the opposite side of the corridor. At the exact same moment, he used his Psi to send a powerful compulsion directly into the minds of the other soldiers: GET DOWN!
They were all veteran troops who'd trained extensively on how to fight alongside Psionic operatives. They knew what it meant. When you served with a Psionic in combat, your mind was never entirely your own anymore—it became just another tool and weapon in the Psionic's tactical arsenal.
But you learned to trust it. Because it kept you alive.
Concentrated laser fire split the air immediately above them, the superheated beams scorching patterns into the metal walls where their heads had been a fraction of a second earlier.
Orn waited patiently, slowly and carefully angling his rifle toward the source of the attack. He couldn't see the shooter directly—the airlock corridor led out into a longer hallway with a sealed door at the far end. Their attacker was positioned in front of that door, protected behind some kind of jury-rigged automated turret emplacement.
So he was probably dealing with an engineer or technician, then. Someone skilled with improvised defensive systems.
But that assessment changed almost immediately. The speed of the hostile's reaction after Orn had used his Psi to scan the environment told him something critical—he was almost certainly facing another Psionic user. They'd sensed his mental probe and responded instantly.
Then again, all the assassins were reportedly Psionics, so this shouldn't have been surprising.
Instead of returning fire immediately and giving away their exact positions, Orn stretched out his hand and concentrated on feeling the air itself—sensing its composition, its flow patterns, its density.
Sometimes the most efficient path to victory was elegantly simple.
He used his Aeromancy to systematically move all the oxygen in the corridor toward the ceiling, compressing it into a thin, concentrated layer near the top of the hallway. The rest of the enclosed space was left completely devoid of breathable atmosphere. He even went so far as to locate and use his technopathic abilities to block the environmental ventilation ducts to prevent fresh air from cycling in.
The automated turret's gunfire sputtered and died within seconds as the sound of someone desperately struggling to breathe became audible even through the walls.
Orn immediately took point, moving swiftly through the corridor and into the fortress proper. Hera and the other soldiers followed close behind, quickly spreading out across the hallway to establish proper tactical positioning and overlapping fields of fire.
Orn released his hold on the air manipulation as soon as they reached the would-be assassin's position.
The attacker was a woman—or had been, before extensive cybernetic augmentation. Half her face was replaced with sleek black metal, synthetic optical sensors glowing with a faint red light. She was on her knees, choking and gasping desperately for air, her remaining organic lung burning from oxygen deprivation.
The Theocracy of the Black Sun held deeply to a philosophy of aggressive technological integration—a semi-religious belief in union between flesh and machine. For some of their more extreme adherents, it became genuinely difficult to determine where the organic person ended and the technological enhancements began.
The assassin glared up at Orn with a mixture of hatred and grudging respect. Her mouth opened—probably to say something defiant, to deliver some final threat or curse.
Orn squeezed the trigger. His rifle fired twice in rapid succession—one shot to center mass, one to the head. Clinical. Efficient. Final.
The woman collapsed, whatever words she'd been preparing dying unspoken with her.
Orn turned to face his assembled team, his voice cold and absolute.
"Kill everyone you see. No hesitation. No mercy. Let's go."