The Grey Chronicles Part One: New Declaration of An Old War

Chapter 21: Drugs and Other Poor Decisions.

The Anarchist, outer space around Onyx Seven, April of 8096 AL.

The bridge was quiet, at least in comparison to what Salem had expected. There was no longer a multitude of alarms indicating the ship had taken damage, quite the opposite, in fact; the command crew still screamed updates back and forth to Briarios, but this time they had a happy, almost humorous tone.

Salem and Alex sprinted onto the bridge and up the ramp. There was no "officers on deck" call from the crew, they were busy with slightly more interesting matters. Augustus and Briarios stood at the helm, in front of the starmap on the command platform.

"Fire forward MACs one through four at current target," Briarios ordered.

"Firing sir!"Briggs shouted. Four cracks rang out, loud enough to rattle bones and shatter ears. With the thundering came four projectiles which rocketed towards, impacted, and gutted the destroyer in front of them. The cannons were built into the ship with a rotating base and a barrel sticking out of the hull. Normally the cannons made no noise, but the shields had been weakened by the continuous bombing. To compensate, power had been diverted from non-essential systems to the shield generators, including the sound dampeners around the main guns.

"A dozen hostile ships moving in system off to starboard sir!" Lt. Alles screamed from his console.

"Briggs, shift the firing sequence to target new ships!" Briarios yelled back.

"Aye sir! Permission to speak freely sir?"

"Permission granted, lieutenant."

"Hell yeah!" she screamed, "More shit to kill!'

Salem looked at his brother. "If I was a few thousand years younger, and single..."

Augustus grinned, keying the touch-screen on the console in front of him.

"I heard that," Briggs called, "And a few thousand? I'm thirty-six hundred asshat. No way could I be with your old, wrinkly ass."

"Demote her immediately," Salem directed at Augustus jokingly.

She threw a "one-finger-salute" in the direction of the command platform. Korana chuckled; Briggs was without a doubt her favorite officer in the command crew. Her bold and shameless manner always made the Queen laugh.

"Promote her immediately," she said to her brother-in-law.

Salem grinned and took his son's seat behind the helm, proudly watching Briarios command the ship.

"Sequence prepared sir, awaiting your order to blow them to hell," Briggs said, smiling like a maniac.

"Fire Helios pods C-thirty through C-seventy and a pair of Jerichos," Briarios ordered, his fingers flying across the console to authorize the use of Jerichos, Augustus had shared the authorization code with him earlier in the week. "Reload forward MACs and prepare a sequence for port MACs one through eight. Aim for the group of frigates moving to intercept the Hierarch."

"Aye sir, firing," Briggs said, still grinning, "Second sequence prepared, firing."

A flurry of small explosions were heard in the upper decks, and Briarios watched the Helios missiles stream away, followed closely by a pair of much larger missiles. The MAC cannons fired closely after, eight rumbling crashes vibrated the deck one after the other. The sound dampeners and recoil absorption systems all across the ship were offline, the recoil of every weapon they fired was felt in the floor and walls, reverberating up their legs into their very bones. Briarios keyed at his console, sending the coordinates where he wanted the Jerichos to detach and detonate. The forty pods of Helios missiles impacted all across the formation of destroyers, crippling four of the twelve and damaging the rest. The Jerichos' smaller warheads split off from the main chassis, one missile above the enemy armada and one below. The warheads flew into the ships, digging several meters into their armor. Moments after impact, the large warheads still connected to the missile chassis flew into the largest of the destroyers. Briarios keyed in the detonation codes. The moment he hit "confirm," the warheads erupted inside the enemies' armor. The entire armada was torn apart by a multitude of blinding yellow flashes.