Decimation 

"Sir, FTL reports critical failure! Unable to jump!"

"The Wyrm is away, we didn't follow it!"

With surroundings clad in pure pandemonium, the newly appointed captain of the railgun cruiser Valourant saw that his tenure was shortening by the second. Although it was fortunate that the nuclear multi-stage torpedo that hit the Valourant's stern happened to malfunction, it had still taken out a good part of the craft's main thrusters and its main FTL drive, rendering all faster-than-light travel impossible. As Mike had revealed that the fleet commander betrayed his oath, the Solar empire royal guard had quickly splintered and started fighting each other, and in under half an hour about half of the entire fleet and the flotilla it had been protecting had fallen victim to strife.

But for the survivors, their problems were just about to begin.

As the fighting had flared up out of nowhere and without any lines being drawn, the entire thing had been a hell of a clusterfuck from the start, but with the arrival of outsiders, it only became worse.

"Disable the non-believers before they can waste themselves!"

"""Ma'am, yes ma'am!"""

As Inquisitor Lua arrived and crashed the party she didn't mess around, this time with clear orders secure as much blood as possible directly from the all-father, failing would land her in the same kind of facility as Dan.

Charging straight ahead with her flagship into the centre of the furball formally known as the Solar navy royal guard, Lua used her subordinates as shields while her flagship's railguns started disabling her prey, punching out their reactors and rendering them inert.

"FUCK! The bloodsuckers are here too!"

"Shit… That's it, we're done."

While the acting captain had planned to somehow board a working craft and escape with the rest of his sailors, that plan was dead before it even began. Looking around the combat information centre, the captain saw the same despair all around him that he felt in his core. Luckily all sailors aboard the Valourant were trained professionals, the fact that they were doomed didn't impact their ability to fight that much.

"Sys-ops, how are the reactors?"

"Sir, primary 100%, secondary at 44% but stable… We're good to fight."

"Helm?"

"While we lost our primary thrusters, manoeuvring is still possible using back-up cold gas thrusters and the recoil cancelling drivers."

Nodding his head at the good news he was hearing, the captain turned to the weapons officers and saw them all wearing the same kind of shit-eating grin which made asking them redundant.

"LET'S FUCK THEM UP!"

"""SIR, YES SIR!"""

"Ma'am! Suppression 75% complete, we've achieved our primary objective."

"Good, tell the rest of the fleet they can deal with the remainder as they wish. After wiping out the rest we start recovery!"

Blooming a smile, Lua learned back in her chair as she started thinking about all the 'fun' she would be having with the surviving heretics.

Sadly she didn't get more than a few seconds to ponder about it as one of her communication officers shouted out a report.

"Ma'am! Contact lost with escort White-2-2! She's breaking up!"

Out of nowhere one of the escort ships about 2 kilometres from the flagship was struck by something which created a flash of light on impact, then a millisecond later when the light was snuffed out, what was left of White-2-2 resembled nothing but a molten corpse.

"Multiple unknown contacts moving in! We got torps!"

"THEN INTERCEPT THEM STUPID!"

"R-roger!"

"AND IDENTIFY THE CLOWN RUINING MY FUN, THEN SMITE THEM!"

Immediately switching gears, Lua whipped her subordinates into action as the entire formation of Eden battleships and escorts started launching countermeasures as their point defence weapons lit up to create a blanket of shrapnel to intercept the incoming ordinance. Looking closer at the incoming torpedoes, Lua started searching from the hostiles which were launching them, but even before she could another one of Lua's escort craft fell victim to another nuclear-tipped torpedo.

"Another hit! 3 Eden vessels destroyed!"

"Good fucking work Weps, it truly brings a tear to my eye!"

Shouting over the cheering around him, the captain continued to coordinate his last stand with a sense of pride, with no need to save on ammunition or torps, the Valourant was going all out for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Sys! Precharge the shields and work with helm, we won't be able to defend for long, so make the best of it!"

While the Eden forces had initially ignored the Valourant because it appeared to be disabled, the captain knew that the time before they were overwhelmed by the bloodsuckers was limited.

"Warm up the railguns, we'll need them in a second! And prepare for an open broadcast!"

"Vilco!"

"Roger!"

"Where the fuck are they firing from!? Find them or I'll have all of you here flayed!"

While Lua's forces had started taking care of the torpedoes before they suffered any more casualties, her incompetent crew hadn't managed to locate the hostiles firing at them. As the Eden fleet had initially arrived to secure what remained of the Solar navy royal guard, their automated sensor suite had marked the Valourant as destroyed, hence without correcting the system the Valourant remained marked as not a threat and ignored.

Working rapidly through the possible troubleshooting steps as she disregarded her subordinates as useless, it only took Lua a few seconds to finally figure out what was going on.

"FOR FUCKS SAKE!"

Raising from her seat, Lua Immediately drew her sword and cut down the LIDAR system operator before resetting the system herself.

"There they are! Now kill them before I skin everyone in here!"

With the threat finally detected, the flagship's weapons came alive as several different targeting systems aboard the battleship pinged the Valourant.

"They see us!"

"Roger, no need to hide anymore, open up with the railguns!"

Noticing the pings hitting the Valourant immediately, the captain sprang into action and opened up with all the ship's weaponry. Bringing all the railguns to bear on the Eden ship which was pinging it, the Valourant hardly made a dent in the Eden flagship's frankly insane armour plating.

"No effect on target!"

"They're returning fire!"

While the captain would normally be starting to think about evading the return fire or even retreating, both of those choices weren't available.

"Give an open broadcast!"

"Sir! Hot mike in 3 seconds!"

As shorts started hitting the Valourant, the railgun penetrators passed straight through its shields after only a few hits overloaded it. The sailors aboard the Valourant who were unlucky enough to be standing in the path of these railgun penetrators or the countless amount of shrapnel they created never saw it coming, one second they were performing their duties, and the next second they were gone. With the fate of the Valourant all but sealed, the temporary captain started an open broadcast, transmitting to everywhere inside the ship itself and to any other surviving members of the Royal Guard in addition to the Eden forces.

[Comrades, remember our vow. Those who face us, fear our vow… Rage, rage against the dying of the light.]

Cutting off the transmission after uttering those words, the captain looked around the combat information centre, every time he established eye contact with one of his fellow staff officers he was met with a nod.

"Sailors, it has been an honour serving with you."

Leaving those as his final words, the captain turned a key he had inserted into the central map plot, initiating reactor overload.

Immediately after the open broadcast cut off, the contact which had ambushed Lua's strike force self-destructed, this act of suicide was immediately followed by serval other Solar navy royal guard ships detonating their own reactors or nuclear weapons as a final act of defiance against the Eden Theocrasy.

-

(Who the fuck is jumping on my chest?)

While he didn't recall how he ended up in the current situation, Mike felt like someone was jumping on his chest, meanwhile, something else kept his eyes closed and it felt like his ears were stuffed with wax and he had no sense of up and down or direction. It was like someone or something was smothering him in pure, void nothingness, but strangely this didn't upset Mike in the slightest, in fact, it was hard for him to feel anything, other than the dancing on his chest, and he couldn't recall anything or form any thoughts longer than a single sentence, even when he did that he couldn't hold on to them for long, and those thoughts also quickly slipped into the void of nothingness.

Doing this time Mike would occasionally feel like his chest was on fire, but with no way of doing anything about it, he was stuck in enduring the momentary burst of pain.

Not that those bouts of pain bothered Mike that much, as he forgot about them almost as soon as they ended.

"AAAARGH!"

Out of nowhere, Mike's eyes snapped open as he suddenly came to. Although he had a massive headache and couldn't really see or hear anything clearly, it was still apparent that he was being hugged by someone brawling their eyes out.

"MIKE! I'm so glad you're finally awake!"

"R-River?"

As Mike hadn't used his voice in quite some time, the few syllables he managed to squeeze out were craggily and rasp. While his eyes started slowly readjusting, Mike started recalling what had happened and found he was missing a large chunk of memories.

"... So, what happened?"

After calming down River, who still refused to let go of his arm, Mike sat down with the rest of the crew inside the Wyrm's all-room / Storage area which had been turned into some kind of hospital room or ICU to take care of him as Jessica and Dan started explaining.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know, everything is kind of a blur… We went to that planet to find supplies, then split up when taking contact…"

Remembering the problem with his shaking hands, Mike omitted saying anything more.

"Okay, some time after we split up you got shot. While your vacuum suit stopped the rounds, the impact cracked 3 of your ribs, one of which punctured your lung."

"After extracting, you suddenly collapsed and your heart stopped…"

Tearing up a little as she mentioned that, Jessica's ears dropped a little before she continued.

"Honestly you were between life and death for over a week while Dan conducted surgery with whatever medical supplies we had… All in all, you were out for about 2 weeks."

"Okay, thanks for saving my life guys… How are we doing otherwise?"

Not wanting to stand on ceremony for too long, Mike quickly moved on to more practical problems he and the others had, namely still being stuck in the Eden-controlled galaxy cluster.

"Yeah, about that…"

While Jessica wanted nothing more than update Mike on the current situation, a gaze which was currently drilling holes into her skull prevented her from doing so.

"Actually, I have something to do…"

"In that case, I- Nevermind, I have something to do as well."

Stepping in for Jessica, Dan was about to start filling Mike in on the situation when he was punched in the side by Jessica. The two of them immediately returned to the cockpit, leaving just Mike and River alone in the all-room.

"..."

Still refusing to let go of Mike's arm, River remained silent as she refused to look at Mike.

"Soooo… What's going on here?"

"..."

Still refusing to do anything other than hold onto Mike's arm, River remained silent for a while longer. As the pair sat in silence for a while longer, Mike tried to move away from River but found himself unable to as she strengthened her grip.

"... Why did you get shot?"

Finally ending her silence, River immediately got to the heart of the current issue.

"... They snuck-"

"Don't lie fucking lie to me."

Seeing through Mike, River clearly refused to take silence or lies for an answer.

"... I don't know what happen-"

"Mike I will break your arm if you keep this shit up."

"That's the truth, my hands started shaking and I don't fucking know why…"

Opening up his hands that he had kept clenching, Mike revealed the state of his hands to River. While it wasn't as bad as when it first started happening, Mike's hands were still quite unsteady. Examining Mike's hands closer, River's fingers ran over each and every finger, carefully squeezing each and every one of Mike's joints as if she tried to heal them herself.

"... Okay. Can you still pilot?"

Making it clear that she was asking seriously, River met Mike's eyes for the first time in what felt like forever.

"I think so."

In response to Mike's answer, River climbed onto Mike's lap and peered deeply into his eyes.

"Then at the first sign something changes, either for the worse or the better, you tell me."

"Okay."