False hope is deadlier than no hope. False hope makes you hasty, eager to jump onto a bandwagon that doesn’t exist. False hope says it gives you a platform to stand on, only to rip it out from under your feet and leave you free-falling.

That being said… that escort breaking up felt so very convincingly real. Charlie hadn’t even registered it happening- she’d just felt the two ships pass by, the jerk of Oakland‘s flickering, fading shields absorbing another blow, and as Rakko hauled the ship back about… she was just there, cracked in half dead amidships, the stern simply going dead in space while the bow spun end over end, shedding internal components into the darkness.

It wasn’t until Espinoza crowed, “One escort down!”, that it clicked in her head. They’d just destroyed an enemy warship in a utility cruiser. Oakland had done that. This giant waddling pancake on stilts and clown shoes had just bested an opponent in combat.

Just for a moment, Charlie let herself believe this fight was winnable. We can do this.

“Tactical, lock ontae that other escort ‘n let ‘er rip!” she howled, clinging onto the console before her as the ship shuddered again. The reality check- the knowledge that Rakko was practically flying Oakland apart at the seams- had to go unnoticed. Had to. They could not fail. Failure meant innocent lives lost. Failure was not something she could abide by.

So, fly her apart he did. Oakland wheeled hard over to starboard, lining up another joust with the escort. What a sight she was, hull plating rent and scorched, shields flickering under the strain of so long under heavy bombardment, fires flickering through gashes in her hull and blasted-out windows. And yet, despite the perfect image of Dante’s Inferno within, she still turned about and charged down her foe, phasers stitching her forward shields and two torpedoes following.

The ships shuddered again, passing over each other, then spun back about and charged again. A joust between two determined knights, a one-circle dogfight between two pilots sworn to die by the other’s trigger pull. Ventral, starboard shields drained to replenish the portside, dorsal, fore shields, and fingers crossed that the aft one would just hold on for that split second between their passing and the prow coming hard about for the next run.

Shards of hull plating followed in each other’s wake. Each shot picked each ship apart bit by bit, chipping away at their hulls, exposing bare steel ribs like great wounded beasts worn down to the bone. The escort too small, too tough, too powerful to take down quickly- Oakland simply too large, too much ship to take apart, too stubborn to die. No climactic explosions and starships disintegrating in a shower of steel- it was a slow, agonizing death by a thousand cuts.

The big utility cruiser was rolling back hard about towards her target for pass number who-was-keeping-count, her hull screaming in agony as Rakko pushed her so hard, so far beyond what a California-class should be going through, when Espinoza cried from the tactical seat-

“Commander! The cruiser, it’s-”

She never got to finish.

The only way Charlie could think to explain how this felt would be a punch to the gut followed by the death-shake of a predator clamping its jaws on its prey and then whipping it back and forth as fast as it possibly could. The punch landed first- she could feel the shockwave of the impact of torpedoes below and behind her, to the back. Ventral hull, aft, one- no, two- impacts. Again, she found herself catapulted into the air, just for the briefest moment- landing back on her feet sent stabs of pain through her ankles, but she refused to fall.

After that, Charlie simply couldn’t keep track anymore. It felt like everything exploded all at once. A rolling, unending cavalcade of large-caliber fire that ruthlessly tore the cruiser asunder, ripping into her saucer like a shotgun disemboweling a rotten pumpkin. The lights went out- something exploded behind her, little fragments pelting her back. The shield screen in front of her died. The console sparked, forcing her backwards with a yelp.

And then something directly beneath her feet exploded.

Charlie only knew white-hot pain, lancing up from beneath her as the floor beneath her first exploded upwards, into her, and then gave way entirely. One moment she was standing there, ready to bark orders to Rakko to bring them to bear on the cruiser- the next, she was just gone, just a smoldering hole in the floor where she’d been.

Charlie wasn’t sure if it was the pain that knocked her out, or the impact with the floor of the next deck down- but the last thing she could recall was watching Espinoza reaching out for her in the split second before a ceiling panel slammed into her back.

Then, her back hit the floor, and the world went dark- but it might very well have been the other way around.

It was such an abrupt action, just how quickly it seemed to end. A stark reminder that USS Oakland was not going to win a gunfight with an enemy force that had her outnumbered three to one and outmassed closer to six to one. She may get lucky breaks, here and there- that initial salvo knocking the cruiser’s power offline, the destruction of the first escort- but it was all just to build a false hope. Something to make her jump on a bandwagon that didn’t exist, to prop up a platform for her only to rip it away.

This was Narendra III. There is no victory over Narendra III. Just sacrifice.

Oakland went dead and silent, the final lights shuddering and blinking out, debris shedding from her mangled and darkened hull as she slowly drifted along her previous course. The two surviving ships- battered escort and near-pristine battlecruiser- regarded the dessicated husk of the old utility cruiser for a moment.

And then the escort limped on past, taking up station on the cruiser’s starboard side, and the bigger ship swung her prow back towards the planet.

The main battery, once more, volleyed and thundered. Narendra III’s clouds parted once more for a hail of polaron fire.

And her only defender drifted, lifeless, a scant three kilometers away from her victorious foes.