Persephone Post tugged again at the collar of her uniform as the unabating heat rolled like a waterfall from the large, thrumming shield generator set into the bulkhead beyond the control room. She had already cast off her mustard overshirt, but the atmosphere was swiftly becoming unbearable as the temperature continued to rise; even with several inches of plating to shield them, the warmth was sufficient to turn her mouth into a desert. The squat mushroom contraption pulsed with a band of electric blue energy across its equator as a warble of pained strain suffused the deck plates, increasing the room’s growing likeness to a torture chamber.

“Does the uniform code say anything about operating equipment topless?” Post half joked to Agonak as he too tugged at his collar.

“Please don’t.” The squat Tellerite begged flatly as he entered commands into the console with his large, sweaty hands.

Suddenly, the grey device cried with an urgent, painful howl as the dorsal shield grid was enveloped by a hail of weapons fire. The deck rocked as the deflectors struggled to dissipate the energy, and the pair clutched their consoles desperately. In the midst of stopping himself from falling, Agonak’s large palms caught the command sequence, dispatching a faulty harmonic algorithm into the shield matrix.

The generator began to howl with a high-pitched scream.

“Shit, dammit!” Agonak cried as he began hurriedly entering a new set of commands.

“The plasma cyclers are running too hot,” Post realised as the temperature gauge turned its crawl into a sprint.

“I know, I know!”

“We’re approaching the red zone!”

“I know, I know!” Agonak’s fingers became a tarantella of movement as they leapt from control to control. “I need you to push the coolant lines.”

“Push them with what?” Post could feel the heat rising in her neck, turning her head into a rattling pot on the stove. “With what Agi?”

“More coolant obviously!”

“I can’t just add more coolant. It’s a closed system!” The gauge on her screen slid into the large red zone where the words CRITICAL flashed in desperately large letters.

A panicked alert joined the cacophony of the torture chamber, its angry screeching cries scraping at the bulkheads as if the generator was attempting to claw its way free of its immolation.

“It’s going to blow, Agi we have to move.” Post was already entering the emergency commands as the deep groan of the security doors began to hum behind her. Through the operations room’s small window, the air was getting foggy with energy, the shield generator turning into a mirage as the blue line of energy across its middle began turning white with an influx of superheated plasma.

“I can pull it back, I can,” Agonak begged, his eyes growing into saucers as the implications of losing the generator crept into his skull. They were attempting to pierce the enemy’s picket line; the loss of this generator could blunt Britannia’s needle into a hammer.

“It’s time to go.” Post grabbed his collar, attempting to pull the man away from the console as the blast doors began creeping down behind them.

“We can’t lose the generator!” Agonak screamed as Post began to drag him towards the closing portal, his arms waving wildly, desperate for some miraculous telepathic ability to manifest itself.

Beyond the small window, the room became bathed in white light as the shield generator strained to hold in the vast power. The duratium walls glowed with dull red warmth as the bloody death screams of the device clawed at their ears.

Seconds later, the blast doors thudded onto the deck plates with an indifferent thud and Deck 4, Section 6 exploded into the abyss.

Tigarr Zenn was already back at his console whilst the rest of the bridge crew were scrabbling back to their feet, his slender body crawling up into the high-backed chair with lightning-fast serpentine movements.

“Massive explosion, Deck 4,” Zenn announced from the science station with an unruffled tone, as if he had discovered a somewhat interesting rock. “Dorsal shields are at twenty-five per cent.”

“Engaging secondary systems.” A voice announced from the rear of the bridge before Harrison had even managed to instruct the action.

“What’s happening?” Captain Harrison’s was tinged with frustration; three swings now they had tried to pierce the picket but were batted away by the swarming escorts. Each time they clustered close as Britannia approached, creating a physical blockade that erupted with a cannonade of weapons fire, battering down their shields and causing them to veer off course. Now her own ship was seemingly bucking the bit too.

“Explosion in the shield generator compartment,” Zenn confirmed, summoning a small status display where the section flashed red in urgent silence.

Harrison gripped the armrest of her seat with her slender white knuckles as the deck shook again, as the ship’s giant impulse engines brought her back around for another pass.

“Ready to try again?” Tanek asked as he heaved himself back into the XO seat.

“Just keep going. Bahir, concentrate fire on target Gamma.” Harrison pointed to an escort on the viewscreen that billowed smoke as flames danced across its outer hull. The enemy was more resilient than she had originally given them credit for, but Britannia was relentless.

“Beginning run.” The young officer at the helm station announced to the room.

The idea that anyone on the bridge could hear the impulse engines as they launched the great ship to full speed was a fallacy, but Harrison would forever swear a high-pitched whine filled the deck as they were catapulted forward.

Suddenly, a cry leapt up from the rear of the room.

“Secondary generators are not responding. We have surges in the EPS grid.”

“I’m losing dorsal screening,” Bahir announced as the ship began to rock, tipping back and forth in the rough seas of battle. “Shields at five per cent.”

“Hull breach on Deck 4, starboard side. Engaging emergency forcefields.” A Selayan engineer hissed, his cobra hood beginning to twitch erratically. Tanek was already moving towards the operations station, a glimmer of his lifelong engineering mustard rumbling beneath his red shoulders.

“Damage control away, Deck 4 Section 6.” He instructed, tapping his commbadge.

“Shields failing, the hull is exposed,” Zenn shouted above the growing rumble of weapons fire battering against the hull. The slow roll of the deck became more frantic as the ship was blasted with unmitigated exotic energy, causing it to lurch violently from side to side.

“No! We go forward. Helm, auxiliary power to engines, forget the shields.”

“We’re taking direct hits to the dorsal surface. We’re losing ablative armour.” Tanek announced as he leaned over the Selayan officer’s shoulder.

“Signal Aldrin, prepare for release the moment we’re through. We won’t get another pass.” Harrison’s eyes were diamond-edged, burrowing outward through the viewscreen like she might cut the enemy to shreds simply with a look.

“The escort ships are not forming the shield wall again,” Zenn announced, his voice beginning to tremble as a crack of doubt reached a bony claw through his calm facade. “We are on a collision course.”

“Don’t look away. Find a gap,” Harrison instructed as she grasped the arms of her chair. Across the bridge, hands grasped consoles and handles as the Captain’s unrelenting confidence washed over the crew.

“Blast through them.”

Sound does not travel through the emptiness of space. The blood-curdling scream of two metallic bodies colliding does not race across the dark void and pierce the eardrums with its unholy wailing. Despite impacting with a force that would crack a mountain, there is little more than a whisper that vibrates through the bones of the two ships. No one would ever bear witness to the surreal, eldritch keening that would end suffocated in the airless battlefield.

For a moment, everything simply stops, as two things that should never meet, crash together in unfathomable silence. The long oval hull of Brtiannia drives headlong into the assembled escort craft, their dark brown hulls being turned aside, leaf like against the force of the ship’s oversided engines. Suspended endlessly in a debris filled snowglobe.

Then, everything begins to move once again as the forces of momentum shake the snow globe once more and Britannia sails forward, through the enemy.

At its tail, a sharp, angular shape slips free of its bonds and the hound is released.