The Final Judgment/Part I: The Captain

The silent stars gleamed in the far distance, tiny pinpricks of illumination much too far away to cast any light of their own on the Lambent Luminescence, though the vessel endeavored to live up to its name. Fully half its ovoid bridge was devoted to towering viewports, the three-meter-tall circle of transparisteel at the prow expanding into half a dozen angled wedges sweeping backward, and the bright lights of the command deck and its various workstations shone in the empty space around Toriafas. The 120-meter ship swept onward in its protective circuit, the gong emblem of the Exoi Kritocracy painted brightly above the bridge and along the body of the craft, the heavy gun emplacements on each side and in the middle of the craft roving in search of targets.

And, as ever, finding nothing.

It pleased Captain Churk Lathkapan to behold the infinite sweep of space; to him, the quiet dignity of the cosmos was a far grander vista than those to be found in the Capital District, with its towering monuments and tombs, even the Temple of Incarnate Glory. But the sight brought along a melancholy of its own. Once, the Kritocracy had spread over hundreds of worlds, its divine law binding as many species, a model of enlightened rule inspired by the gods and executed by judges possessed of wisdom Lathkapan could only imagine. Once, the Lambent Luminescence would have been nothing more than a picket ship at the head of the dominant Kritocracy Navy, the herald of the oncoming storm.

Once.

Now, living memory did not stretch far enough back to recall a Kritocracy with more than fifty worlds, and though the Lambent Luminescence was far from the heavy of the home fleet, every craft had to carry the weight of the homeworld's defenses. A few others roamed the space around Toriafas, keeping watch beyond the reach of the guardian moons, but most were docked in space stations orbiting the capital. When the Lambent Luminescence and her fellows returned to port, those other ships would take their turns, conserving fuel for efficient defense.

As he gazed out on the distant stars, Lathkapan wondered what that must have been like. No concern for the consumption of resources, because there were always more. If the Kritocracy was strained, it would expand. The gods had ordained victory after victory…for a time.

"Sensor sweep," Lathkapan commanded suddenly, his seven legs scuttling as he turned on the spot. The bridge was set up somewhat like a lecture hall, with his command post at the bottom, facing rising tiers of workstations where his crew labored attentively. Each of his three pairs of hands were folded placidly across his tall, narrow chest, but Lathkapan's four eyes fixed on the sensor station technician sharply.

The technician's prompt attention made up for the disappointment of his words. "Nothing irregular, sir."

Lathkapan nodded, swirling around to face the viewport again. Some seventeen hundred days ago—it was nearly a full two years now—the home fleet had been roused by the appearance of a probe at the edge of the system. The capital ships on sentry duty had been unable to apprehend it, and the entire fleet was on alert for months, guns charged and battle armor pilots ready to go. In the first weeks, the War Judge himself had stood aboard the bridge of the Sounding Gong, flagship of the home fleet, ready to face whatever might come.

Nothing came.

Lathkapan was not expecting anything so glorious as battle now. The inbound manifest for the day showed only the normal cargo ships bearing foodstuffs from the outlying worlds. The Exoi captain knew that the vestiges of the Navy guarding the other worlds had to deal with smugglers from time to time, but Toriafas wanted for nothing to be found in the Kritocracy, so even that was unlikely.

Drifting forward to the edge of the command post, Lathkapan returned his gaze to the familiar stars…and the stars blinked.

As he was still frowning, his sensor technician spoke up again. "New signatures, sir." He sounded less urgent than baffled. "Two…wait…three. About our size, a few dozen kilometers out."

Lathkapan was silent for a moment before training kicked in. "Project an image."

A hologram of a sleek, streamlined ship appeared above them, as if Lathkapan was a professor showing his class a slide. The sensors were still gathering data, the hologram filling itself in, but Lathkapan did not miss the gun emplacements along the ship's hull. The sensors were not sure how large the craft was, but it was clearly more than a simple freighter and much faster than a food barge. And there were three of them.

"Sound alert to the fleet," Lathkapan commanded, feeling uncharacteristically hesitant. At sixty years, he was a grown man and had served in the Navy most of his adult life, but he had never spoken those words except in war games and training simulations. His was the instinctive hesitation of a being taking a major step never taken before, and with real-life consequences. The next words sounded even more puzzled as he gave them voice. "Battle stations."

Nervous, excited energy charged the crew, many of whom began relaying orders. Though the Lambent Luminescence was not a large craft, close to a hundred Exoi served aboard, and Lathkapan could imagine them scrambling to their stations, rousing other crews from sleep, finding their way into gun emplacements, the two battle armor pilots aboard warming up their suits for flight.

"Fleet command acknowledges, sir," the communications officer called. "Fleet scrambling to reinforce."

"Orders?" Lathkapan asked.

The officer shook his head. "No sir, they're just coming. They sounded…"

He trailed off, the fingers of his lowest pair of hands fluttering uneasily. Lathkapan imagined he had just restrained a criticism, but he thought he knew the direction the younger Exoi had been going. They sounded flustered? Baffled? Frightened? Certainly they could not have sounded like the voice of experience; no being in the home fleet had any more experience with space battle than he did.

"Then we'll hold the line here until they arrive," he announced into the awkward silence. "Are we in range of the guardian moons' guns?"

The sensor tech looked at his status board. "No sir."

Lathpakan considered ordering a fallback to a better-defended position, but ultimately rejected it. It would not do to turn tail and run, especially not with the fleet racing to support him. He drew himself up, flexing his fingers in anticipation.

"They're spreading out, sir," the sensor tech noted.

"Flanking us for battle?"

"Possible. But they're moving in a single line."

Lathkapan nodded and glanced at the comm station again. "Open a hailing frequency. The law requires we give battle warning when practi—"

"Sir!" the sensor tech interrupted, and now his voice was filled with urgency. "More ships decanting from hyperspace. They're all bigger than the first three."

"Bigger?" Lathkapan found himself asking, as if the word was unfamiliar to him. "How much bigger?"

"They keep coming, sir," the tech replied, his voice shaking. "The sensors are trying to…"

He trailed off, all four eyes widening. Lathkapan could see his fear starting to infect the bridge crew. "Technician!" he barked, and the man jumped. "Report."

One of the technician's hands found his panel, and now the hologram changed to a triangle-shaped ship with a raised superstructure topped by two spheres Lathkapan took to be shield generators, or possibly communications equipment. It struck him as odd to make such crucial technology so very visible, but he ignored that for the moment to ask, "How much larger than the first ships?"

The tech swallowed. "That's them down there, sir."

Lathkapan followed the technician's pointing finger to three slivers he had initially missed, displayed beside the larger craft. They were less than a tenth its size. Trying not to let his legs shake, Lathkapan managed a quiet, "Oh."

"M-more incoming, sir," the technician said. "We're up to twenty-n…thirty. Thirty-one…"

The bridge crewers were whispering to one another now, and even those who had communications devices to relay orders throughout the ship were listening, apparently having forgotten the headsets they held.

"Attend to your duties!" Lathkapan snapped, trying not to let his own disquiet show. The situation was changing faster than he was prepared for, and he could feel the crew drifting toward panic. Not even his sharp command was enough to get them all back to their duties, but before Lathkapan could decide what to say, the technician gave his worse pronouncement yet.

"A new one, Captain," he said, and the despair in his tone made three nearby crewmen turn toward him with dismay. "Biggest yet."

The holo was still trying to piece it together as Lathkapan turned back to the viewport, and felt his own mouth fall open. He could see the newest addition to the unidentified flotilla. The ships were still many kilometers away, the pickets nothing more than pinpricks of light that might have been stars, but he could see this new warship. Thoroughly startled, he whirled around in time to find the holo giving a size comparison, though it was having difficulty outlining the hull of the new ship.

The triangular destroyer was not even a quarter its size.

"Pull back," Lathkapan commanded, his eyes wide now, but the clamor on the bridge as crewers spoke to one another was too loud.

"PULL BACK!" he shrieked, and several of the crew turned to stare. Struggling to maintain his composure, the captain reasoned, "We have to fall back within the range of the guardian moons! Do it!"

The silence that followed his commands was deafening, crew members typing input but glancing at him uneasily; Lathkapan could see their confidence plummeting. In the quiet, the comm tech's voice made several jump. "Sir…the hailing frequency…"

"I don't think we need to worry about battle warnings now," Lathkapan replied with a slightly hysterical chuckle. "There's no precedent for this!"

"No sir," the younger Exoi corrected. He looked at his panel as if it might bite him, then all four eyes turned back up. "They're hailing us."