The cruiser Reshitelniy advanced not with the silent grace of a predator, but with the grim purpose of a surgeon approaching a diseased limb. Bolted to its sleek hull, the new Ozvuchivatel Projectors were ugly, brutalist masses of Brotherhood iron, their heavy cabling a crude scar against the elegant lines of the ship’s Gzhel Weave circuitry. The cruiser was the first of the fleet to be fully equipped with the hybrid weapons, a desperate fusion of two opposing philosophies. Its mission was simple: to prove that this new, costly technology could turn the tide.
Ahead, the target drifted in the grey void of the Zarya System. It was an orbital archive, once a repository of colonial history, now a monument to decay. Its station-keeping lights flickered erratically, and its own Gzhel Weave patterns were fractured, the cobalt blue lines bleeding into a dead, listless grey. Two ghost scouts, shimmering and indistinct patches of agitated reality, circled the archive like vultures. They were the first test.
On the bridge of the Reshitelniy, Captain Eva Rostova stood rigid, her knuckles white where she gripped the command rail. Her homeworld was dying below, and these phantoms were the cause. The air was thick with the low hum of the new projectors warming up, a sound deeper and more guttural than any Continuum system.
A secure channel chimed, and Admiral Sineus’s voice filled the bridge, as cold and clear as the void itself. It came from the distant Stoikiy, but his authority was absolute.
— Captain Rostova, report status.
— Projectors are online, Admiral. We are in position. The scouts are holding their patrol pattern.
There was a pause, a weight of consideration that spanned the distance between the two ships.
— Cede tactical control to the Narrative Compliance Officer, — Sineus commanded. The order was a profound breach of protocol, a direct violation of the fleet’s rigid hierarchy. Rostova’s jaw tightened, but her training held.
— Acknowledged, Admiral. — She turned to Ksenia Voronova, who stood at a newly installed auxiliary console. — The board is yours, Archivist.
Ksenia met Rostova’s hard gaze with a steady, unblinking focus. She gave a curt nod and turned to her console. Her hands moved over the interface, her expression one of intense concentration. This was the price of her new path: to command weapons, to direct violence. She had to prove that her radical theory of memory was not just an academic principle, but a functional tool of war.
— The targeting doctrine is yours, Archivist, — Sineus’s voice added, for her alone. — Show us its worth.
Ksenia’s display bloomed with raw mnemonic data, a chaotic storm of light that bypassed the ship’s tactical filters. Within that storm, she saw the two ghost scouts not as ships, but as knots of pure, focused agony. They were the memory vectors she had identified, the core grief that anchored them to existence. Her doctrine translated that abstract pain into targetable coordinates.
— Locking vectors, — she said, her voice calm and precise. — Stand by.
She directed the Ozvuchivatel Projectors, her commands flowing through the ship’s systems. The brutalist weapons on the Reshitelniy’s hull did not fire a beam of light or a projectile. They unleashed a wide, shimmering field of pure resonance, a wave of energy tuned to the precise frequency of the scouts’ sorrow. The air on the bridge grew heavy, the hum of the projectors rising to a deep, resonant tone, like a vast iron bell being struck.
The effect was immediate and absolute. The two shimmering, indistinct ghost scouts were painted by the resonance beams. Their forms snapped into sharp, solid reality. The vague outlines of their hulls became hard plates of dark alloy. The corrupted, weeping Gzhel Weave on their surfaces solidified into a clear, sharp pattern of dead, ashen grey. They were no longer ghosts. They were ships.
— Target is tangible, — the tactical officer reported, his voice a mixture of shock and triumph. — We have a solid sensor lock. One hundred percent signal integrity.
Ksenia did not look up from her console. Her part was done. She had remembered the ghosts into solidity. Now, they could be killed.
— Captain, — she said, her voice quiet but firm. — They are yours.
Eva Rostova did not hesitate. The rage she had held in check for her dying world was finally given an outlet.
— Fire all batteries, — she commanded, her voice cutting through the tense silence of the bridge. — Erase them.
The Reshitelniy’s conventional laser cannons, useless only moments before, now fired with deadly purpose. Bolts of brilliant blue energy crossed the void and struck the now-solid ghost scouts. There was no flicker, no passage through an intangible form. The impacts were violent and real. Explosions of white-hot plasma tore through the scouts’ hulls. Metal screamed and buckled. For a brief, silent moment, the two enemy ships hung in space, mortally wounded. Then, they vanished in a pair of clean, silent detonations that left nothing behind but fading dust.
For a full three seconds, the only sound on the bridge was the low hum of the ship’s systems. The crew stared at the empty void where the enemy had been. Then, a single, sharp cheer erupted from the tactical station. It was followed by another, and another, until the entire bridge was filled with the roaring, cathartic release of men and women who had finally struck back against an impossible foe. It was the first victory against the Ashen Choir.
Captain Rostova allowed herself a single, sharp exhale. She looked at the tactical display, where the orbital archive now floated undefended. The first piece of her home had been reconquered. The morale of her crew, once shattered, now soared. They had a weapon. They had a method. They had hope.
Sineus’s voice returned, as calm as ever, but with a new, undeniable note of approval.
— Well done, Archivist. Well done, Captain.
