Space is big, but Tactical Range means you have to get close to stuff to actually shoot and hit it, and the sky gets full pretty quick.

Given the sheer volume of fire coming in, even all the juking and displacement in the world wasn’t going to take it all, but that was fine, as I had a ton of targets in front of me, and I was popping them off as the White Hole Core really began to turn out the juice.

It looked like someone was seeding the sky with chaff, what with all the explosions ahead of me. I was arcing through vectors that crossed multiple ships as I maneuvered, and even at extreme range, the quark cannons were shearing through them. The absolute forward incoming fire was dropping rapidly.

The Weapons were also finding plenty of targets, opening up a big hole in the incoming swarm, and anything dumb enough to be pointing directly at us to shoot just meant they were an easy crossing target. We had greater range, much greater accuracy, and wow, was there a lot of coherent photons sliding around me.

Long range made it hard to hit me, but they could compensate with massed fire. Close range made it easier to hit me... and conversely, made it easier for my guns to hit them, and since there were so many more of them than me, for them to hit one another.

I went right into the heart of them. They had to turn to shoot me, but I did not have to do the same. I had to spin and keep in the heart of them, and give my Turrets lots and lots of targets.

The void kept lighting up, and the numbers of Darkwasps was dropping steadily. Everything within miles was a potential target, and I had the range to make it so. If they wanted to run, I could put a shot up their tailpipe in passing, but I wasn’t going to follow them and get back in range of the destroyer’s guns while in the middle of a dogfight of this level.

They kept trying to circle behind me, and Paten and Host kept thanking them profusely for doing so. They tried to sweep in from right and left, and they ran right into me running the side Turrets. As they swept and circled, I was spinning, circling, banking, diving up and down, and Darkwasps were crossing my line of sight and getting picked off as they did so.

Their numbers were falling by at least one a second, often faster if they got behind me. They simply couldn’t believe how marvelously coordinated my Turret fire was, synched with every maneuver, and their displacement tech just didn’t mean a thing.

I could have really annoyed them and added some judicious tractoring to the mix, pulling their ships off course into one another when they were in formation, but even I thought that was a little overkill...

Well, shit, they deserved it.

The tractor/pressor array in the forward mandibles began to push and pull, and since it had a near-360 degree of fire, I could mess with them at any angle.

Drow ships in their graceful arcs and perfect positioning began to slam into one another wildly, which definitely didn’t help their teamwork. Elite pilots lost control of their ships and rammed right into their own at miles/second relativity, which seemed to make the power core explosions all the more exciting.

Running all this was definitely not any harder than jumping around with five Tails and two Autobows shooting goblins cheerfully singing aaaK! at forty heads a second...

“Incoming capital ship!” Chalice called out, I flicked an eyeball at Divs, and snorted. “They’re just in time to clean up, aren’t they?” she noted caustically.

“Here they come to save the day!” I replied, and for just a second all the rates of fire of the guns doubled, and twelve different drow Darkwasps blew apart at the same moment. “It’s got the Nightwing.” I veered over hard, and the main capacitor was all charged up.

The Harmonic Drive shifted, and I crossed a few tens of thousands of miles of space. The Deathbat-class destroyer was already starting to veer off, just as the Monarch came out of Jam, all bright and shining and closing in rapidly on the hapless Nightwing less than half its length.

They were probably not too happy to see me, and their starfighter escorts were way over there...

I noted the bright and shiny Elvar ship did indeed have a few holes in it. I commenced taking apart this destroyer that was trying to leave, and whole bunches of Sunwasps were disgorged from the Dust Between Stars to go and play with them, while the ship’s Starthorn cannons began to unload on the rather desperately acting Nightwing.

“Apologies for the delay, Contessa. There were some arguments about the appropriateness of your visit.” The Sunhawk sounded totally sincere and unrepentantly amused at the situation simultaneously.

“No worries, Captain. I probably would have lost the chance to remove the Quilloceptra and the Whisperer from existence if you had gotten here earlier.”

Cue the moment of awkward silence... in between the fireworks displays in the void. I noted the Darkwasps were not coming back to help the destroyer, despite some screaming over uncoded coms. This ship was completely in my Interdiction, there was no Gloomjumping going to be going on, and I was inside its shields and working my way backwards as it frantically tried to hole up and withstand the non-stop barrage to all its defenses I was laying upon it.

The left power conduit of a Nightbat was in an asymmetric position because of power demands from the rear displacers. Take out the latter, a little focused fire, and you had access to the former. Hit the former, and the Quantum Core was going to eat a mountain of feedback before it could shunt it away, and this ship would be dead in the water...

------------

The drow destroyer was burning heavily, what escape pods it had were being popped like skeet-shooting, and I pounded a few more holes into different spots in its hull so the solar coalescers could destabilize and launch some harvested photons throughout the ship.

The Dust Between Stars wandered over after a while; the drow ship was a shattered wreck behind us, and the Darkwasps all swatted after being outnumbered so much. A few drow lucky enough to have Gloomjumpers might have been able to get away and out of this mess, but for all general purposes, this had been an absolute disaster.

When the captains of the ships I’d punched didn’t get downloaded, perhaps a little bit of fear might accompany that news. The elite drow wouldn’t like truly risking their lives, that was something for disposable subordinates...

On the other hand, it opened up some homunculus Vats for other drow, so I was contributing to the grounds-up economy. I was a generous person, after all...

“I see we didn’t need to worry about you arriving early, Contessa,” Captain Sunhawk mused in the holo-com. “Are you ready to head to the Lishiree Starhome?”

I noticed his hangers were open. No, I wasn’t bringing my Gunboat in there.

“Your escorting is appreciated, Captain. Lead the way, I can follow easily.” I skipped sideways without batting an eye to the edge of tactical range, leaving him free to go to Jamming speed.

He considered that with another not-smile. It was like I didn’t want him to undertake deep scans of my ship in a closed environment, or something. The Elvar had lost a lot, but they’d been a TL20 race once, too, and they were still the best psions in the galaxy. They’d find all kinds of interesting stuff on the Flitter here.

“Of course. Do you have a psi-lock to keep communication open?” Grim bleeped him. There was a flicker as alternate psi-powered communication was established. “We are going.”

I watched the solar sails power up, reaching into the solar waves and the quantum field in tandem, flaring with bright and beautiful colors, always a good show, especially on a ship that size. With a flow of liquid light, the Elvar Monarch slid into Jamming speed, and without missing a beat, the Flitter paralleled it.

“The firepower of your small vessel is impressive, Contessa,” he acknowledged. “These Gunboats of yours have been making quite an impression wherever they are seen.”

“I should hope so, given the number of hours we put into the design of them,” I replied. “What wonderfully insulting name did the Elvar come up with for them?”

That only amused him more. “Sporks!” he answered cheerfully.

My Weapons all laughed despite themselves, and I had to shake my head. Elvar...

“I understand that you’ve done well trading with Duke Briggs, but I confess to being surprised that you actually came with the Dust, Captain.” Since the first trade, he’d never actually shown up with his Monarch, sending smaller Lighthawks or Sun Eagles to pick up the cargo and exchange things. That about half the time the trades ended up getting interrupted by this or that interested party was just part of the excitement concerning things that went on in life between alien parties. It wasn’t like we had a mutual peaceful port we could pull into to make the trade as yet...

“There is not a lot of support for allowing a human on board a Starhome at all, given the relations between our species. That being said, you’ve been a faithful trading partner who has given me a bit of a reputation, and it would look poorly to show a lack of support, would it not?”

“If this is bringing undue pressure upon you, you need but say the word and we can call this meeting off right now.”

“Oh, by no means.” His large eyes were dancing. “There’s been so much fun already, I really must see this through.”

Elvar corsairs were among the most incorrigible of their people. I just laughed at him, kicked up my feet, and paralled him as he began to weave a light conduit that would accelerate him to FTL, and take him to the jump-point where a Gloom-relay waited to double-Gate us to another system.

==========

I emerged twenty thousand light years away from where I’d been, the two Gloomgates right on top of one another and basically allowing instant intra-galactic travel, just like we intended to use (and was almost finished). Looming ahead of me was the Elvar Starhome Lishiree, the Garden of Stars, looking like a bunch of forested mountains and islands wrapped up in crystal and rainbows, coasting through the void with impossible beauty and grace, an exhibition of the power and beauty of elven ideals at their height.

I also noted the damage at hundreds of places around the hull, getting fixed here, ignored there. Sunwater Silica would be used for those kinds of repairs, so the more I supplied them, the sooner it could get back to its flawless glory.

There were a bunch of other Monarchs around, along with support fleets of Sun Eagles and Lighthawks, all subtly different to underscore the individuality of their captains, but also indicating fleet and Starhome if you cared to look at them.

So, other Starhomes had indeed seen fit to send people. Serious or insulting? It would be interesting to see. Most probably just considered entertainment from those barely above monkeys...

------

Mom’s Flitter glided onto the platform smoothly, setting down with a grace and control belying its mass and armor.

The exit hatch came down, and I exited the ship under the eyes of many watching Elvar, in all their overdone, stylish, and colorful fashions.

The envoy of the Starhome was stepping forward to meet me when he heard the clunking footsteps, and a second figure walked down the ramp behind me, armor gleaming, every step hard and forceful and measured, trembling with internal strength.

King Rargyle Rittercrun of the Citadel Unforgotten, the first Ruk to set foot on an Elvar Starhome in forevah, stepped off the Flitter, and looked around with glittering eyes aloofly.