Finally you arrive on the bridge, or control center of the Stellar Degenerator. It's a strange design, but all in all, it is just a bridge for a space vessel that is operated by humanoids. There are a dozen seats in front of consoles to the left and right of THE MAIN CONTROL which gives off the vibe of final death. While the other consoles have many displays and redundant inputs for the most important function, the central two have one display and one pad to place a hand like appendage.
Everything is on standby, only emergency lighting is activated, lining the path's to follow on with a thin dim line on the ground, that gives just enough light to see where you go.
Behind the arch that the seatings form, like thrones, stand three elevated seats overlooking everything.
"They failed to put a bar here. To watch a world die in style, you need a drink. Don't you think?"
"That reminds me, I always intended to buy a whiskey flask. How did that slip my mind? Well, the sooner we do this the sooner we can get out of here. Hey, look at this control - it reminds me of a thing. Like, it doesn't quite look like a human hand, but if I do this..."
Maxim places his hand on the control, spreading his fingers to match the alien appendage.
"Are we firing this thing up, or do you want to shoot it directly? And at what?" Imagine inquires.
"Haha, I don't know. I kinda want to see what it can really do. Probably a super bad idea. Maybe there's a self-destruct. That's just the sort of useless thing I would expect to find on the craziest weapon in the galaxy."
Maxim pokes around the bridge, not really sure what he's looking for, but hoping it's obvious.
As Maxim managed to pick up some kishalee in the time he finds the one or other familiar thing. Everything touched flickers to life and a bit of tampering with the consoles manages to wake the sleeping beauty.
Playing around some more Maxim manages toget a reading of the ship's status. And it doesn't look too good. The damage caused by the rift taking a part of the ship is neglectable. Some systems that have several redundancies are lost, but nothing important. But staying on standby for several centuries has almost depleted the energy stored. It won't shut down anytime soon, if standing still, but any movement of this gigantic thing will deplete it within minutes.
The controls with the hand like activation areas are to fire the Stellar Degenerator at a sun.
"Huh," Maxim hums at the depleted energy store. "Is it ironic that this thing blows up stars but probably needs a star's worth of energy just to refuel every once in a while? Seems counter-intuitive. I suppose anyone with enough time could trickle charge it. The Eoxians could probably make use of it, but these cultists are wasting a lot of effort. Which reminds me, I wonder what happened to the Corpse Fleet. Hey, I think this must be an Engineering console."
Maxim breaks out his kit and begins disassembling the console. He may not speak Kishlean, but he knows the language of wires and circuit boards intimately, and they are the same regardless who built them, only the size of the switches is sometimes different.
"Alright, let me see if I can fool the firing mechanism into thinking the targeting control is active. It should be possible to overload the weapon by preventing it from discharging at a target, so it will blow itself to pieces and give us a few minutes to get the hells out of here."
"Why not give it a little push out of the pocket dimension? Once outside, we have twelve suns to refuel this thing." Imagine suggests.
"You want to refuel it? I thought we were here to destroy it?"
"Right. Blow the thing up inside the pocketdimension. You're sure we'd get out in time? And you're sure it fully and properly disintegrates, just because you rewire the controls a bit?"
"I'd say, let's blow up the twelve suns, to make a show you can tell your great-grand children about, with recorded live footage as seen from Absalom Station. And then send the thing into the last star or something. Where no one will be able to recover even a bolt of the thing."
"I'd say take it on a joyride to blow up those s@*$ty Eoxian's sun. But they and their planet is dead already, so they probably wouldn't even care."
Maxim laughs. "Yeah, what the hell. Let's go blow some s@@~ up."
Wiring up some personal hardware which runs in common language and coding a slap dash self learning protocol converter Maxim adds an actually readable console to the ship. Doing some calculations he fires up the thrusters for two minutes, sending the ship on a drift. Like a race car drifting through a curve. Just really sloooooooooow.
It takes a full day until the ship has moved out of the demiplane. It isn't really that slow, it is just an issue of those two and a half million miles and an empty tank.
Imagine uses the time to go through her stuff and search for something to pass the time. As there is a lot of time at hand, she plays around with her magic a bit. With a variation of 'create food and water' she whips up some hors d'oeuvre and something that tastes almost like wine. A bit too fruity and with too much alcohol to be real wine, but not bad.
"What do you think? How long does something stay awe inspiring, before it becomes just a mundane background?"
Half of the twelve suns are already in view, as Voxx calls. "Hey guys. In case you haven't noticed on that big rock you're piloting: We got visitors. From the looks of it, half the corpse fleet just jumped out of the rift. So whatever you do, hurry up."
"Of course they did," Maxim acknowledges while enjoying his fifth helping of hors d'oeuvre. He's unimaginably impressed that Imagine has managed to create from the aether an approximation of foie gras with quail egg and a cranberry chutney on sliced baguette. The paired wine is equally passable, and the hours fly by. He even enjoyed the conversation, and was about to suggest they get horizontal, sans clothing, and see how well their parts interconnect, when Voxx spoils the penultimate moment.
"Alright, smarty-pants. Now that we're outside and staring down the boneheads out there, what's your plan for recharging the main weapon and nuking the stars?"
"How would I know? Let's just put out hands on that center console and see what happens?" Imagine suggests.
As Maxim and Imagine do just that, the console comes to life. It starts what looks like some complex calculations - not made any easier to follow by the kishaleen language. It selects the star the nose of the superweapon is pointing to and demands the input of a code from each. And as before, the codes offered by Osteth work just fine. She probably hasn' tthaught that trough, when she gave those two codes to Maxim and Imagine.
Anyway, the preparation continues. The ship aligns it's longitudinal axis with the sun and starts slowly spinning. This is only experienced through the rotating view on the large main screen. Or seen from the outside.
Meanwhile the corpse fleet approaches. The big carriers are only seen on the sensor readings, but the small fighters are closing in on the super weapon. But it doesn't matter. By now the degenerator spins so fast, that an approach is impossible.
Voxx starts complaining about no longer having the flying rock as cover and too little crew to fight those little buggers off.
Suddenly a beam of energy, like a sharply focussed hot glowing light shoots from the doomsday weapon to the star. surroudned by a several smaller spiraling lines, it starts pulsing. Slowly and a little at first, but it gets more and more powerful. Huge amounts of energy are travelling back and forth between the star and the ship. Every necroglider that comes anywhere close to the degenerator or the beam is immediately obliterated. After a short time the star can be seen pulsing. A little bit at first, but more and more by the minute.
Checking the readings of the ship shows how it is done. Using the 100.000 feet length of the device, the pulse of energy that is sent to the star, and that is sent back by the electromagnetic field of the star is bent around and sent back to create an harmonic wave, that gets bigger and bigger. Parts of it are absorbed to charge the degenerator, and the fileds needed uphold the bar for this galactic game of pong.
Accroding to the historical information gathered from the kishalee, the sun should simply die out. But this is not simply a sun sitting in the middle of a dozen planets or so. It is on of twelve suns that form a gate to a pocket dimension. With aeons old, rotting technology trying to uphold the complex gravitational balance. As the pulsing gets more and more and the sun darker and darker, the controller moon starts it's descent. The large red opening begins closing. Slow at first, but then faster and faster. It took about 20 minutes to open, but it will close within only a few minutes. All the eleven suns move towards this one failing sun.
Imagine enjoys the show until the spinning picture gets annoying. "There has to be something..."
Pushing a few buttons she finds how the view is stabilized eradicating the rotation. As the effect on the star becomes visible she is stunned. "Whoah. I haven't even dreamed of having that kind of power. You know, that cultists of the devourer - wanting to destroy everything. He is a lame duck. Those gods look just like spoiled powerless brats compared to this. I mean, if that god was worth it, he wouldn't need this device to do his work. Don't you think?"
"Why not? A god can be a lazy ass like the rest of us. Somebody built you a big gun, wouldn't you shoot it? Oh yeah, you just did! Anyway, that can be the final chapter of my book, if I live long enough to write it. Let's get the f*%# out of here!"
Maxim re-engages propulsion on the Stellar Degenerator, nudging it in the direction of the inevitable supernova.
"Hang on Voxx, we're on the way!"
"Good idea - that with getting out of here. What's the plan?"
"How about a game of Chicken? We wait, and either the Corpse Fleet will lose its nerve and get out of here, which gives us a chance to escape, or they don't, and we either shoot our way out or take them all with us when this entire sector of space falls into the supernova. I'm game either way, because you know who's really afraid of the ultimate death? The undead!"
Imagine takes out her mobile device and poses in front of the large screen where the suns are closing in on each other. "You want to be on the picture too?"
"Go out with a bang! I'll totally post that!"
"Come on, even if we make it, you need a picture for your new book."
The corpse fleet keeps moving in. The small fighters keep their distance but the larger ones open fire. Missiles are exploding around the Stellar Degenerator, laser beams shoot at the giant rock. But nothing has really a big impact. Besides some warning lights that go on all over the consoles on the bridge.
"Here, get one of me in front of the window flipping off the Omenbringer. That's perfect. I wonder if they'd mind a chat."
Maxim pokes at the translated console and opens a hailing frequency to the Corpse Fleet flagship. "This is Grand Admiral Maxim Petrovich, commanding the Stellar Degenerator. To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking with?"
"I'm Ghurd Nashal, Captain of the Empire of Bones. And you're going to hand over the Stellar Degenerator." the eoxian that looks like a Vesk skeleton filled with some purple worm garbed in formal eoxian uniform.
In the background someone bursts out in supressed laughter. Then you catch some scrops of the conversation [i]... or, How to Spend Summer Vacation in the Afterlife ... book nerd ...
The captain turns around and silences the bridge with a stern look. Adressing Maxim again he inquires "Grand Admiral of what army?"
"Yes, what's the name of our army?" Imagine inquires. "That's a thing not only Captain "Died While Having Intercourse With An Alien Worm" wants to know." Imagine continues chuckling, having a hard time not to spill her drink.
"What rank do I get? Or can I make up one of my own."
"Empire of Bones? Sounds gay. I'm the Grand Admiral of go f&@@ yourself. You can take that thing coming out of your stupid mouth and shove it straight up your bony ass. I got bad news for you, Ghurd - you're too late. This massive space turd is already getting flushed down the drain. But you're welcome to come along for the ride. You look constipated. Maybe I'll just power up the weapon one more time and give you the most thorough enema the galaxy has ever seen."
Maxim leaves the channel open but begins the refueling process again.
"What a rude language." Imagine fake scolds Maxim. "Haven't you learned not to say bad things about the deceased."
"But whom are we talking here? The worm or the bones? I'm confused. Are we communicating with a dead man's sex toy?"
Maxim checks the comtrols, but the process of terminating the sun is still in progress and can't be interrupted. Further checks of the flying rock and its features reveal how the kishaleen managed to capture the weapon in the first place: It's good for nothing else but destroying stars. Maneuverability like a rock, and nothing to shoot but the big star destroying weapon, that only works in a very limited angle. Something, that would need an armada to protect it.
While it is still rotating and projecting pulses of energy back and forth with the star, it is close to invulnerable. But without that, its a sitting duck.
Maxim begins recording the conversation with Ghurd, overlaying live video of the Corpse Fleet, the super weapon itself, and the twelve suns, and beams it back to Absolom Station and also to Eox on an official Starfinder channel.
The Stellar Degenerator moves at increasing speed towards the dying star. The Corpse fleet fires for some more time, but as it becomes clear that it is already the gravity that speeds it up they retreat. All the tiny bone ships are again swallowed by the Omenbringer. Via the scanners you see that they finally jump into the rift to get the hell out of here.
The other eleven suns are also drawn towards the dying star. Everything converges to one place in a slight spiraling motion. The massive gravity of the twelve suns combined pulls everything together into a small spot and for a short moment everything goes dark. And then in a gigantic explosion - a supernova - a lot of matter is blown away into space and right into the face of the stellar degenerator. An awesome spectacle to witness, but only for a short while. Then it gets really bright and hot and then it gets dark for Maxim and Imagine.
After a moment you realize you are not dead. You feel a wooden support under your behind and in your back. As the confusion abates the vision comes back. Blurry at first but then you recognize the place.
A waitress puts two wodka martinis on the table between you. "From that lady over there, with the best wishes."
On the tray lies a note.
Drinks are on me.
Desna
The lady, a young woman in a revealing, flowing white dress, her aura almost sparkling, smiles at you, before stepping out of your favorite bar on Absalom Station.
"I vaguely remember you pulling me into the escape shuttle and the two of us blasting free just as the Degenerator was falling into the nova storm, then good ol' Voxx grabbed us up before we got fried."
Maxim sips the martini and returns the smile from Desna, affecting his biggest, 'You know, I'm famous' grin.
"It's funny, because of course I don't believe in coincidence, but I started this adventure with you in exactly the same way that we finished it - adrift in a life pod after an attack by the Corpse Fleet. You know, there used to be a term for when you do something that breaks through the way things always have been and rewrites the script; we just hacked this adventure, and it can't imagine a better way to end it."
As the music turns up in the Pig & Whistle, Maxim raises his glass and clinks it against the one held by Imagine.
"Cheers, baby."