strained to breaking point. Some of these Unbroken are going so far as to raise their voices, so I know business is getting Serious. I can only understand every sixth word, but they’re the important ones. Words like depleted and destroyed. Words like unable and unresponsive.
Words that mean Andarael is losing.
With no time to send me to the brig, and not willing to leave me in her chambers, Saedii had her personal guard drag me up to the bridge with her, shoving me into a corner to watch the fireworks. Truth is, I’ve never seen a battle of this scope play out live before, and the tactics nerd in me is awed by it. Studying the moves and countermoves, the holographic displays projected on every wall, glowing images of carriers and destroyers and fighter craft overlaid with Syldrathi script.
As incomprehensible as the text may be, I can still appreciate the battle unfolding around us. Much as I hate to admit it, Saedii is a brilliant commander. She stands in the center of the bridge, Isha on her shoulder, directing the battle like a maestro before her orchestra. She acts decisively, thinking quickly, reading the conflict perfectly. She gives orders without hesitation, and her crew obeys instantly—it’s like watching the internal workings of some deadly machine.
The Andarael is an impressive ship, with twice the firepower of anything in the Terran armada. But she’s outnumbered and outgunned here. The Unbroken Get Out of Jail Free card hasn’t worked, and while she’s destroyed three ships and critically wounded another, Saedii’s counterattacks are failing in the face of superior numbers. No matter how clever a commander she might be, her only option now is to run. And that’s something a Templar of the Unbroken is never going to do.
Another missile plows into our stern, shaking the Andarael in her bones. The TDF gunners are targeting our engines and guidance systems, trying to cripple us. Reports are coming in from the lower decks—the Terran boarding parties are breaking out from their beachheads, TDF marines in suits of power armor inexorably carving their way through the Unbroken defenders. The numbers are grim; every Syldrathi is killing at least five Terran soldiers before they fall, but the TDF just has more bodies to throw, and they’re throwing everything they have.
It’s an abattoir down there.
Part of me still can’t comprehend that this is happening. The ramifications of an engagement like this—a full-blown slaughter between Terran and Unbroken troops—I don’t even want to think about what it’ll mean for the galaxy… .
The Unbroken on the bridge are all wearing breathers in the event of atmo loss, but nobody was nice enough to give me one. I can smell smoke in the air now, burning meat, charred polys. Another breach pod crashes into the lower decks, filled with yet more marines. I feel the impact through the floor, all the way up my spine. I’m not sure how much more of this Andarael can take.
And then Saedii’s lieutenant speaks, his words bringing sudden stillness to the bridge. I only catch three of them. But again, they’re the important ones.
Transmission.
Archon Caersan.
The name is like a punch to my gut. I tense, all thought of the battle gone from my head. Saedii turns from her tactical displays, speaks softly, and the central projection of the battle raging outside fades, replaced by another image.
The image of a man.
I’m honestly not sure what I was expecting. No matter what the storybooks say, monsters rarely look the part. I grew up hating this man for everything he took from me. But looking at the most infamous mass murderer in galactic history, the man responsible for the Orion Incursion, the destruction of his own homeworld, the death of my father, I was expecting something at least a little horrific.
The Starslayer is …
Maker, I don’t know what he is… .
Stunning, maybe?
The Archon of the Unbroken is tall like all his people, clad in an ornate suit of Syldrathi battle armor, fixed with a long dark cloak. The angles of his face are cruel, his cheekbones high, his ears tapering to knife-sharp points. His long silver hair is swept up and over the Warbreed glyf at his brow in ten intricate braids, curving down to cover one side of his face. And that face is like something out of a simulation—too beautiful and terrible to be real. It’s almost heartbreaking to think a surface so perfect could be so rotten underneath.