Vek continues to bounce between the ceiling and the floor like some strange hatchlings' toy that Astrianna was no doubt planning to sell the rights to.
Astrianna actually growls when she notices her cryo-pistol has absolutely no effect on Servoux. Doesn't he get it? She's supposed to save the day!
"Cueta! We've already run the you dying joke into the ground, I need you to hang in there!" She shouts something resembling encouragement to the flying, glowing lady.
"The rest of you need to aim better! You're shooting like a bunch of evil mooks in a bad trid!"
Leila groans. She didn't want to be a wind trooper! But in her defense, she couldn't actually both see and shoot their target at the same time. Until now!
"Nice throw Fi! His demise will look *fantastic!*" she gleefully actually aims her pistol and shoots the glittery fiend. Take that!
"For your information, captain, I am shooting quite well. Especially considering the target has been invisible for good part of the combat."
But Prospero-4 has to admit fighting this magically enhanced opponent hasn't been easy. If they ever make it home from this adventure, some training against magic-users should be in order.
Meanwhile, best just keep shooting.
Bloody and battered, Cueta knows it is a "game" of rocket tag this point. Gritting her teeth, the pilot floats forward lashing out again with her spear, once more reaching out into her colleague's minds as she goes. "Agreed, Captain. No intention of dying... again. Today anyway."
You draw forth otherworldly energy to create a small, spherical, floating wisp that can distract your enemies in combat. This wisp can move 60 feet per round in any direction, and you can direct it as a move action on your turn. If the wisp occupies the same space as an enemy, the wisp provides your choice of either harrying fire or covering fire against the enemy each round on your turn, and it follows that enemy within range automatically unless you direct it to change targets. The wisp is made of pure light and energy and can’t be damaged in combat, though it can be dispelled as normal.
In addition to the function described above, the wisp sheds light in a 20-foot radius in a color of your choice (chosen when you cast the spell).
31/109 stamina, I have no idea how many HP Cueta has
* fly 12 metrons
* Mindlink
* Superpowers: You can transform yourself into blazing starlight as a standard action. Your body sheds normal light in a 30-foot radius, and you gain the benefits of concealment (20% miss chance). At 7th level, a creature that ends its turn adjacent to your starlight form must succeed at a Fortitude save DC 20 or be blinded for 1 round. You can maintain your starlight form for a number of minutes per day equal to your mystic level; this duration does not need to be continuous, but it must be used in 1-minute increments. You can forgo the ability’s concealment and blinding aspects to instead simply shed light, though this still counts against the ability’s duration for the day.
Cueta misses her attack but her relentless pursuit distracts Serovox enough that nobody else does. A punch from Vek, two laser shots from Prospero-4, and a pistol from Leila smash through his formidable defenses and his doulbe image disappears leaving his body, still glittering, to fall to the ground like a sack of bones, as it rebounds it turns to dark ash and disappears.
He leaves behind an empty estex suit IV (deflective reinforcement, mk I spell reflector), an aurora arc pistol with 1 high-capacity battery (40 charges), his staff, and a system-wide comm unit
Just a little bit more digging unearths a tech artifact sheped like a key that seems like it can fit into the central console.
Finah-Jin unplugs her device from the console and brings up floating holo windows of The Empire of Bones and its position in the artificial system. The worldship had continued its slow and cautious spiral towards its prize now mostly emerged from the portal right at the center.
Well, what is it that you will do? Fianh-Jin asks distracted by the terrible sight of the star ending and very alien looking death machine.
Leila blinks and stands up behind her cover. "Huh. I was starting to get a bit worried he wouldn't actually die ..."
"That... was it..?"
The sudden fall of the enemy leaves Prospero-4 wondering. He wasn't sure what he expected, but some grandeur upon the enemy's demise. But magic or no, it stands to reason once one is dead, he just drops down.
The android picks up the key-shaped object from the fallen necrovite, and approaches the console. "Are we in control of ship, now?" he asks.
Leila takes a few calming breaths and reloads her pistol, just in case. Refilled with air and fresh batteries in her gun, she grins and bounces towards Prospero and the consoles. "Yes! Until anyone else tries to stop us! What do we do? Ramming speed? Fire all guns? Find the self destruct button?"
Astrianna tracks the undead mage's body with her pistol as it falls to the ground, expecting some sort of trick or new gambit. Instead, Servoux turns to ash in a really dramatic fashion that she was quiet pleased to capture on her head-mounted recorder. "Phew! Felt like we were fighting him for two months."
"I really don't like the whole ash thing." She complains, walking over to toe at his purple robes. "He could be regenerating somewhere, don't lichs and vampires do that?"
Well... not much they could do about it now.
Turning to the display Fi had brought up, Astrianna watches the Empire of Bones slowly progressing towards its target, the guns of the artifical system nearly silent. "We're going to launch this entire ship right into the Stellar Degenerator."
Putting one hand on her hip, she points towards the holographic imagine of the Degenerator. "Prospero, ramming speed! Override the safeties on the navigation system, set a course of the degenerator, and set maximum accerlation on the engines! I want you to turn this ship into the biggest gods-damned-bullet you've ever shot!"
Then, a little sheepishly, she turns to their halfling companion. "And uh... find us some escape pods. Or better yet, escape ship. A nice one this time, with oxygen and a flushing toilet."
As Prospero picks up the key he feels a sudden rush of connectedness to the entire system of the ship. Whatever the key is, it gives him a sensation of the entire ship being an extension of his body. Which includes control over all the corpse zombies that are an extension of the engineering of the ship. That's millions of cells of dead flesh working like silicon under his command to control the ship and also to shuffle around as he desires.
Fi-Anh, considers the news. Hah, bold. And makes sense as there is no other help in the system against the Corpse Fleet. Then she picks up the small computer deck that had been plugged in and pockets it. Well I will let you heroes be heroes. The rooms at the back are escape hatches. Perhaps we will meet again at a mutual friend. Perhaps not. SHe moves towards one of them.
"Affir..." Prospero-4 begins to say, and then rush of connectedness hits him. He is the ship - the mighty engines, the gun batteries - he is the thousand eyes of security cameras and the thousand arms of the cybernetic zombies. The thrusters rumbles, when he flexes his hands, altering the ships heading as he does.
"...mative."
Then he brings up the course plotting on the main display for everyone to see, and aligns the Empire of Bones' course directly towards the Stellar Degenerator. And then he starts transferring all power to the ship's engines.
"Keep in touch!" Astrianna says cheerily as Fi pockets a priceless trove of data to take back to Eoxian Ambassadar. "Oh, and give Ambassador Nor my thanks. I'll make sure the Pact Worlds know of Eox's commitment to a safe galaxy for all sentients." She purrs, smiling at the furture prospect of more work from the Ambassador.
While Prospero looks like he's having a grand time at the central controls, Astrianna paws through Servoux's stuff. "Wow. A mk I spell reflector! And... this staff! Gods I love free stuff." She does turn to watch when Prospero brings up the navigation course, taking a long shot of him working the console while the dashed lines begin to make a direct course for the Stellar Degenerator.
"Ha Ha! Physics is a real b+#&#, let's see the course stop this runaway coffin once it reaches near-light speed." Astrianna gloats as she walks over to one of the console to have a bit of her own fun. She uploads their theme song on the ship-wide communication system, ready to play it over every communicator on the vessel at the click of a button....
Cueta floats to the ground, the hair on the back of her neck tingling as she approaches the key. The tingle turns to nausea, and the pilot's stomach tumbles, a grimace of revulsion, as if she'd just stuck her head into a vat of spoiled meat, crosses her face.
"That key's the key, chinney? An ahhh electroencephalon," Cueta says, her mouth stumbling over the word rebounding in her head. "Severoux will be back in a couple of days, yeah? Unless the key is destroyed I guess?"
"Hmm..." Leila ponders Cueta's question. She looks from the key, perilously close to her android friend, to the giant doomsday device outside the viewport and back.
Vek watches for surprises, one eye on the escape pods and the other on the awesome view outside.
"...Would it be excessive to make the stellar degenerator degenerate this system? If we could. There's a lot of creepy Eoxians here. And the weapon - this key included - would be gone for good." the halfling suggested hesitantly. She didn't want all these priceless artifacts gone. But she also kinda liked the universe.
"My intuition never fails!" Astrianna proclaims when Cueta reveals that Servoux will be back in a few days if they don't destroy his electroencephalon. "We're in a system with Twelve Suns. Let's just fire the key into one of them when we're done with it. Though... Eox might pay handsomely for a traitor if we captured Servoux..." She waves a hand, dismissing the thought. "Eh, too much of a risk. We'll have plenty of time to figure out how to destroy it on our way back to the Sunrise Maiden, but we're sure not leaving it here to possibly survive the crash."
The half-elf shakes her head at Leila. "Osteth said the Degenerator takes days to drain the energy from a star and it doesn't explode or anything. It would probably upset the orbital balance of the system at most."
"Speaking of whom!" Astrianna snaps to attention, pointing to the escape pods. Her hovering drone snaps a few pictures, the camera flash bright enough to blind a fire elemental. "We have a Kishalee A.I. to rescue! Send this ship straight to hell and let's go!"
"Oh yeah." Leila sighs as facts crush her hope of recreational doomsday device usage. Welp. Better pack up and into one of the escape pods then!
The Empire of Bones had, in fact, started to move fairly close to its prize while your group had rested and, with full impulse power, it's only a few hours of travel to get to the portal in the center of the system.
It doesn't take long for the course correction to happen for the crew of the empire of bones to realize what's happening and, the group would definitely have been overwhelmed by a counterattack to retake the bridge... if the person holding the key wasn't in charge of a worldship full of zombies.
And so a few tense hours pass of watching the holoscreens of either the Stellar Degenerator approaching, or, security feeds of a pretty great shakycam trivid reality horror flick created by them of undead assault parties getting swamped by the group's own personal zombie hoardes.
Finally they close to within 20 units of realspace travel of the stellar degenrator. Guarding it are two Thaumtech Omenbringers who are very aware that there is something seriously wrong as their flagship barrels towards them. These would be by far the most horrific ships you'd every fought... and if you weren't piloting the unholy terror that is the BlackWind Annihilator that might have been a problem.
On the other hand... uh... the ship is kind of hard to pilot so...
"Damn it. Prospero, zombie hoard 12 has stopped in hallway 6x to eat eyeballs again! I think they need a full reboot." Astrianna had put herself in charge of supervising the zombie hoards as they shuffled around the ship seeking out anything that wasn't controlled directly by the bridge, even if Prospero was the one directing them.
She squints at one of the security screens. "Hey, that's a ghoul! It just got naked and is pretending to be a zombie! Prospero, hoard 4 in maintenance corridor 7q." A smile blossoms across her face as she watches the ghoul be torn to shreds, and sort of wishes the secutiry feed had sound.
With a glance at the bridge's main doors, she notes the pile of both active and inactive zombie corpses they put in front of the door were doing a great job of holding off any attempts to retake the bridge. Sure these commandos could shoot the hundreds of zombies they had stationed outside, but did they have the means to move them all in a timely manner? The answer was no.
Spinning in her chair, she notices the Thaumtech Omenbringers on the tactical screen. "Oh wow. Those look nasty. Who wants to blow them up?" With a dramatic point at one of the Omenbringers on screen, she issues her first command as the new Captain of The Empire of Bones. "All weapons free! FIRE EVERYTHING!"
"What? No! Not our eyeballs! We *might* actually need them to see!" Leila wasn't sure what worried her the most; that there were spare eyeballs laying around - or that the ship could actually need those!
"Let's see ... " the halfling didn't want this ship vaporized yet, only they would destroy this ship! So she looked around to see what sort of countermeasures could be deployed.
"Deploying chaff! I uh hope it's not just a giant cloud of eyeballs ..."
"There are few things my passenger thinks are more destructive than slamming two giant deathships into each other while one of them emerges from a giant portal. Probably leaving the key on the bridge of the Empire of Bones is enough to destroy the key. Firing it into a star would work fine as well, chinney?"
Turning to the bridge, Cueta frowns. All zombie cortexes and wires. Where's the thruster gauge? Rudder? Flipping a switch nearby, a light hum lights up her brain, as if her passenger is talking to the ship through her. "Ahh, alright, let's do this then."
Vek grins at the sheer number of missiles and guns available from the gunnery zombie’s station, though the smile fades as he notes just how many of them create destructive blasts of negative energy.
As the ships move slowly into position, the vesk gleefully pushes button after button on the console. “Firing broadside - all forward guns and turrets!”
Cueta lost initiative so has to go first, Vek is pretty sure negative energy weapons are a bad idea against an undead ship. Map should now be editable.
Edit: Also you have two targets, which ones are you attackign? North or South?
"Not to worry. The eyeballs were from the should security unit from sector G-27-5. They will need those no longer."
Prospero-4 does feel slightly evil moving the hordes of zombies around the ship, ordering them to kill pretty much everything that moves. Luckily, the deeper inner moral considerations are interrupted by the fact they are at the same time fighting the whole of the Corpse Fleet out there. So he'll keep himself busy switching between the zombie controlling and keeping track of the starship battle.
Unfortunately the focus on getting the Empire of Bones ponderously turned towards the emerging Stellar Degenerator, the increased speed from Prospero's divert action, and the enemy ships outmaneuvering the massive ship they are able to slip out of the firing arc of the massive front facing ultra plasma cannon. Vek does the next best thing and fires a broadside of port weapons into the closest ship.
The ship's front shields falter against the massive weapons of their hijacked flagship and real damage lands on the hull. It's response front fire into the empire of bone's port shields are thwarted by Leila's defensive measures and only a heavy laser cannon is able to put a dent in the shields. (22 damage to port)
From the other side, from longer range. the north ship does not have to contend with the science officer trickery and three attacks', including two torpedos and one laser array, smack into the starboard shield. (53 damage to starboard.)
It feels to Leila like they're trying to target the engines!
Cueta frowns, flipping a lever to open the ship's thrusters to full speed. Reaching out to her companions through her minlink, her voice rebounds in their heads, "Get your safety harnesses on then, chinney?"
The ship groans and shakes as Cueta ups the power, shuddering as it moves, seeming for a second like it might just come apart. Like pulling a sandtark with a single-seater, Cueta thinks, and pushes the hulking ship to its limits.
"Shields holding." Prospero-4 reports, after the barrage of shots.
His consciousness residing withing the networks of the Empire of Bones, the android almost feels pain with each shot they take. But here, he can control everything as well. And he plans to squeeze every bit out of the engine power.
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"They're trying to wreck our engines!" Leila notes in alarm. Her tone grows even more shrill "I'm not sure this ship has safety harnesses!!" Perhaps that was what those arms sewed to her seat was for, but she sure as hell wasn't going to find out!
"Deploying more countermeasures, hope they all miss!"
Vek turns the turret’s joystick to the side, tracking the massive ship off the port side. Again he pushes button after button, not caring that the ammunition indicators are depleting rapidly. Won’t matter soon.
"Cueta!" Astrianna screeches over their comms. "I can't record your mind whispering, use the damn private channel!" she was trying to produce a show here.
Though standing around yelling at people was certainly Astrianna's calling, it didn't seem to be having its usual effect. The ship was just too big and too complicated got her to micromanage anything. "I'm taking control of the starboard weapons battery!" she She announced to the crew, fingers flying across the console in front of her.
"Mass drivers? More like ASS drivers amiright?" The kids were going to love that one. Astrianna mashes the conformation button on the firing solution like she was donating to her favorite political candidate and wildly fires a barrage of tungsten rounds into space.
Vek Crit roll
Port Arc Glitching
Astrianna Crit roll
Sensor Glitching
The Empire of Bones really isn't meant to go as fast as it's going and the two OmenBringers are left far in the wake of the massive super ultranought. The massive strain on the power systems will also need a massive tuneup after all of this is done. Not that it matters really.
The three massive ships trade a massive amount of ordinance, defense a forgotten factor, the impact of the super weapons is such that even impacts on shields cuase the underlying vessel to shudder and judder violently, throwing systems into disrepair. All three give as good as they get and alerts start to blink red on the bridge of the ship. Thankfully most of the damage on the Empire of Bones goes to parts of the system the living crew does not care about, but the forward arc weapons systems are malfunctioning.
Cursory and minimal scanning by Leila indicates that their systems aren't 100% either after the last barrage!
"Ha! For a flying reliquary this ship can sure take a hit!" Astrianna says as she watches bits of spiky, decorative bones fly off super capital ship to expose the adamantine-doped titanium alloy plating below.
"We can make it to the portal, just keep firing! Blow out the engines if you have to, Prospero!" Buttons are mashed and moon-destroying amounts of ordnance fly from their hijacked dreadnought.
"Shield breached. Structural integrity holding." Prospero-4 says, words coming out both from his own mouth and ships loudspeakers.
"Shutting down all non-critical systems, diverting power to engines and shields. Power core overheating, but stable."
The amount of energy he was now pushing to the engines could comfortably run a small planet. The power coils are on verge of burning out, so the challenge is just to keep the flow just barely below critical level and keep shutting down all those failsafes trying to ruin his plan.
The maintenance crew of the Empire of Bones would have a very bad day tomorrow, if there was any ship left to fix.
Vek takes aim at the lower ship, letting the captain fire the side missiles into empty space. Or maybe she has a plan for those...?
Cueta grimaces as the cameras on the Bones pick up a huge chunk of bone and steel splintering off and tumbling into space. Either she holds or she doesn't eh? She keeps the ship pointed at the Degenerator and pushed beyond its limits, willing herself to ignore the shaking the ship is undergoing as it accelerates closer to their target.
"They still just need to break our forward momentum. I'll deploy more countermeasures. And hope there's no thermal exhaust vents in dumb places!" Leila mashes the deploy chaff button even harder.
The shuddering on the bridge intensifies as the engines and power core of the ship are pushed to the absolute limit.
Cueta, leaving her opponents in the dust, yanks the ship in a tight turn at the last moment to keep from overshooting the Degenerator. It looms large on the visual screen. Its bone white spiral point emerging from the pink and purple pocket portal that had been its home for countless millennia, seeming to fill the universe.
It does look a lot like the rock that had started it all in colour. The scale is quite different of course.
Alarms start going off absolutely everywhere in the Empire of Bones, red blinking on black, in the ship as proximity sensors start to inform the bridge that a crash is imminent.
There are panicked incoming messages in Eoxian coming from the Omenbringers as they start to realize the hijacked Empire of Bones isn't rushing to secure the superweapon but... crash into it? Only a chaotic living being could come up with such a... foolish... gambit. The cold logic of undeath on the other hand recognizes a lost cause. Within the ship you can see quite a lot of emergency escape pods being activated as the heroic attempts to retake the bridge turn to attempts to abandon ship.
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Astrianna can feel her teeth rattling as the shockwaves from the overworked engine finally start the reach the bridge. Alarms start to ring in her ears from the local channels and alarms flash on the part of her helmet's HUD that she had reserved for the hijacked ship's system messages.
"They can't catch this bullet now!" She exclaims, jumping up from her seat with a mighty cheer. With a little too much excitement she lifts up a foot and smashes it directly into the console she had been working at, sending the joystick and several pieces of plastic flying everywhere.
"Now to lay our calling card gently upon their coffin's pillow." A few taps on the glitching holographic screen in front of her deploys a program she had been working on while everyone else was doing grunt work.
"Boop." The vlogger says to herself with the final button press, and music begins to blast at maximum volume over the Empire of Bone's internal speakers as well as every communication channel that attempts to hail the ship. Panicked Eoxian is drowned out by a guitar and a sultry trio of voices serenading The Corpse Fleet with the group's theme song..
"Awaaaay we go..." She starts to sing along, dancing across the bridge. "To explore the great unknown," A leap, a pirouette, "Let's go without a care," She breifly balances on the tips of her toes by Vek "Adventure awaits us there!" before hopping forward and cartwheeling towards the escape pod hatch.
"SO BLAST OFF!" Is yelled for seemingly no reason mid-cartwheel, "Let's make what's theirs our ooooown." A little flair was added as she comes to a stop in front of the escape pod bay, and the half-elf bounces in excitement while entering the code to initiate the launch sequence. "The universe is ours to roam,
and together we're not alone across the...."
After entering the sequence, she faces the drone that was following her and throws her hands up in the air, shaking them madly. "Sta-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahahahahars," She shakes her hips, undulating in place; The wild dancing and singing continues unabated while she waits for everyone to get in the pod. "Sta-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahahahahars... Sta-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahahahahars... Sta-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahahahahars!"
Vek winces as his sound dampeners don’t kick in for a second. The turret twitches slightly as his hand involuntarily jerks the joystick controller, but he quickly re-orients it towards the de generator that is rapidly filling the viewscreen. He knows it’s a futile effort given the superweapon’s defenses, but he still programs all available weapons to fire repeatedly.
Maybe it’ll stretch the shielding, make the impact more… impactful. The beak can’t help but grin - both at the pun and the music continuing to make the floors vibrate. He waits for everyone else to clear the bridge before following them to the escape pods. Who would’ve thought that you’d end up here?
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Cueta leans back in her chair, a sigh escaping her. There was no going back, nothing else to be done. The Empire of Bones would wipe out the Degenerator, they would save the galaxy. Cueta was surprised to feel herself feel empty. Their lives would be turned upside down. Fame awaited them, media interviews, trids, unimaginable wealth. Going back to the 9 wasn't an option, besides, everyone she knew there was dead anyways, gone a generation ago at least while she slumbered in a cryogenic freeze...
The realization is like a mule's kick. Letting go another sigh, this one deep, shuddering, her frame shaking to her core. There's nothing to go back to. She didn't want the fame. She was a woman outside of time. Hells, Desna - her passenger was probably Desna this whole time, Cueta admits - had even provided the group with another pilot, the third time Cueta had (almost) died, so they'd have a means to get away, return to their lives.
Standing, Cueta shrugs, an almost comically understated apology. "I'm not going, chiney? Someone's got to see this through. Make sure the ship lands its last landing."
She turns to Vek, drawing her doshko, the first weapon she took from a foe, all those weeks back. "I took this from a strong warrior on a train on Castrovel. I want you to have it. You're one hells of a warrior and an even better pilot. Get everyone to safety."
Approaching Prospero, she unholsters her Azimuth rifle. "It's a poor addition to your arsenal, but... This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Now it is yours. I hope you look on it fondly."
Smiling at the camera drone - perhaps for the first time - Cueta wraps Astriana in her arms. "All I got for you is a hug, captain. And this -" Cueta leans in close, whispering in Astri's ear, "There's going to be a serious spike in Cueta action figures when my death airs. It is going to seriously pad your bank account."
Last, Cueta pulls off her badass black duster, now frayed and dirty, and folds it, gently placing it in Leila's arms. "I saw this in the shop window and it immediately made me think of Harmonica from Once Upon a Time in Alkenstar. You can uh, get a tailor to take it in a bit. Wear it next time you watch that trid, yeah?"
Cueta doesn't cry, except this one time - almost. She wipes a little moisture from her eye and sits back down in her chair. "It's been real, y'all."
Once the others are gone, Cueta watches the approaching doomsday weapon with interest, wondering what death will really feel like, when it finally comes.
Leila cheerfully bounces up from her seat as their theme song overcomes the alarms. She makes a small pirouette to mimic Astri and cheers. " We're saving the woooooooooooooooooorld!!"
Everything was going their way! The evil plot thwarted, Fi was back(ish) and gods willing she'd get some time to poke around a bit more in the alien tech. Yay!! Nothing could surely sour her mood now ...
"... wah? Y-you're staying here?" The halfling stopped in her tracks, stunned by the revelation. She blinked a few times and tried to take it in. Yes. "Not going". That's what it meant. Slowly she turned into a small fountain as she properly processed the information and Cueta approached her.
"I-I'm not very good at goodbye..." she held the duster tightly and went in for a hug with her other arm. She didn't want to let her frozen popsicle friend go. "I h-hope they have trids in heaven, I'm going to quiz you w-when I catch up you hear! A-and take care."
She shifted to just clutching the duster - it was already perfect and didn't need no tailor - and slowly backed towards the escape pod. "I-its been nice. Farewell Cueta..."
Vek looks at the doshko in his hand, then back up at Cueta. He watches her calmly as she speaks with everyone else. Once they all have left, he claps her shoulder with one hand.
“You have been a guiding light, Cueta, even when in eclipse. I would give all the doshkos in the Veskarium to feel the warmth of your star on my skin once again, but it is a lucky warrior who gets to choose when to die. May your final voyage lead you to victory, and may your soul find peace in the vastness of space.” He salutes her as one would salute a general. “It has been an honor to serve with you.”
He does not look back as he heads towards the escape pod and the other Starfinders. What is done… One hand touches the weapon haft as if on its own. …is done.
"Collision course locked. Destruction of the target and this ship are imminent. We should proceed to the escape pods." Prospero says, pulling his consciousness back to his body. But before he can take a step, there is Cueta, handing him her rifle.
The android tilts his head sideways, trying to understand what the warrior of ancient times is saying.
"You are not evacuating? Why?" he inquires. The ship's course is secured, and there is no way the Corpse Fleet could alter it anymore. Poor as he is understanding human motives, he thinks there is more to Cueta's decision than just not trusting Prospero-4's plotted course.
The organics are good companions, but sometimes it's just very hard to understand them.
Astrianna stops dancing when Cueta announces sh will be staying on board The Empire of Bones, looking at her with clear confusion. "But... we won! We This isn't fair, you can't just..." Frowning when the pilot hugs her, the vlogger tenatively reaches up to hug her back.
Her facial expression changes at the whispered words, and it dawns on her what Cueta is doing. Unlike the undead they fought on the way there, Cueta was choosing to die. "You're right...you're right, there's no other way!" She says dramatically. Squeezing Cueta tighter and subtly angling them towards the floating camera. "Damn the Corpse Fleet! Their virus has disabled the autopilot and one of us has to stay behind to fly ship into the Steller Degenerater!" She sniffs and pushes Cueta away. "Go on, do it! What's one more death to you, anyway? You're the selfless hero the galaxy deserves!"
With the footage secured the half-elf drops the act and winks. "I'll make sure they build a statue of you on the 9, Cueta. Maybe a water park. And hey..." With a two-fingered salute off the top of her helmet, Astrianna jumps into the escape craft. "...look us up if you manage to live through this one too."
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The group takes the door other than the one Finah Jin took, and find a waiting elevator pod ready to whisk them away from the central deck. The door closes as they share, one, final, look at Cueta standing at the bridge watching them go with a hand raised in farewell.
The ride down is a a curious mixture of somberness mixed with elation. It's a hardened escape route for the most important leaders of the Corpse Fleet so the chaos of the rest of the ship is muted. Only an occasional hitch, or judder, as The Empire of Bones draws ever closer to the massive dimensional portal from which the Stellar Degenrator is emerging.
Soon they are deposited right into a very powerful and sleek looking escape pod with plenty of space for the four of them to recharge their depleted armor, though, no atmosphere, so they'll need to live in their armor for a while longer. It's easy for the group, probably the most accomplished hackers of Eoxian technology in history by this point, to override safety protocols and launch with all the speed the soon to be destroyed power systems of the Empire of Bones can provide.
The speed of the launch means that the pod is a good four minutes away from its mothership before it starts to impact with the star killing weapon. Looking backwards from the windows of the pod the group can see the Empire's prow ram right into the spire of the Stellar Degenerator and crumple as it drives right into it. It's only the ridiculous mass of the rest of the ship following that causes cracks to appear in the superweapon, and, finally, an explosion, as massive as it is silent envelops both ships.
There is no shockwave in the airless vaccum of space, but reams of truly exotic particles of radiation from the explosion flood over the escape pod as it spreads out from the impact. When the explosion clears, all that is left are the remains. They're not even wrecks as the explosions set off within both ships of war were so massive that it's more like a cloud of magical and tech shards slowly spreading out from the portal.
The impressive energy reserves and design of the pod means it only takes 2 days of travel from the center of the system back to the first control moon of the system and the atmosphere entry and landing capabilities perform well. The Sunrise Maiden is unmolested, and a pretty impressive number of undead corpses at the entrance to the control center shows that Osteth was able to mount an effective defense. The cold logic of undeath probably did not devote much resources to the attempt in any case as the assault of the ancient defenses in space had gone well.
Osteth is ready for them and points to a disappointingly flat grey slab of magitech with a selection of ports and dongles. Here, I have copied my main consciousness into here. I have analyzed your technology and have fabricated connectors so that I may live on. I am already in there and thank you for the opportunity to have new experinces and make new choices. I have also... deleted... Eltreth though it was hard to kill my old friend. The folly of preserving ancient dangers is now apparent to me.
And with that there really is nothing left for them on the Gate of Twelve Stars.