Commander Hart was worried. Seeing as she was in the CIC (combat information center) of the newest superdreadnaught of the Terran fleet that meant things were not going well at all. The remnants of the Terran fleet were arrayed around the last surviving colony planet of the Terran Federation, the research planet of Eorhild.

“10 minutes to contact.” Captain Meadow announced through her implant, which prompted her to wipe her sweaty hands on her pants, then straighten her back and look around her crew of hardened veterans.

“Complete final checks” she reminded the crew, while they went through the screens on their terminals, making sure the bridge did not miss anything. Through the Holotank in the middle of the CIC one could see the last 100’000 ships of the Terran Federation arranging themselves in their Battle formation, trying to buy time for the colony ship. Said ship was just now lifting off the surface of the planet, with their brightest minds on board to escape the Ourchos and rebuild on a far away planet to start over.

The 100 Surviving superdreadnaughts formed the center of the Formation with 10’000 Dreadnaughts and 30’000 Battleships forming the center. The rest of the ships were made up of a screen of cruisers and destroyers, trying to soak up enough damage for the big guns to make the difference in the coming battle. 100’000 battleworthy ships might seem like a lot, compared to the millions of enemy contacts on the other side however, it was not very confidence inspiring.

The Ourchos were a species humanity discovered over 200 years ago. The first extraterrestial lifeform ever encountered. At first everything seemed on track for a friendly first encounter, but then a simple misunderstanding lead to the slaughter of the Ourchos ambassador, and from there it just kept snowballing further and further out of control. Terra fell over 150 years ago now, and from there the Terran Federation was never able to regain the lost initiative and one loss kept piling on top of the other.

Eorhild was the best defended planet after Terra itself, due to it being the premier research facility of the Terran Federation. Though the planet itself was not too densely populated, mostly the families of the scientists in the R&D orbitals. As such the Ourchos left it for last, and it were content to slowly whittle away at the strength surrounding it. It seemed the time for the annihilation of the human race has finally arrived with the last system outside of Eorhild having fallen just 5 years prior. In a last-ditch effort, the research team designed a new type of colony ship with unprecedented speed and endurance. With it they hoped to save a last remnant of humanity, by being able to outrun the usually faster engines of the Ourchos, so as to restart civilization on another planet, as far from the scourge of their civilization as possible. The arrival of the Enemy fleet in system however meant they had to launch the ship now, before it was fully tested and hope they could fix whatever they missed along the way.

The rumbling of the Shield generators and Laser Capacitors charging brought Alison back to the present. They were only seconds away from maximum range and the final dance of death of Humanity was about to begin. The small green dot in the Holotank on the opposite side of the System, running as fast as it could, represented the salvation of the human genome. Crossing the invisible line of maximum engagement, the coherent beams of light started reaching out across the distance and shields started sparkling, when they adjusted their wavelengths to nullify the enemy lasers.

While Terran shields and weaponry were top of the line, the simple numbers of enemy ships soon started to show its weight, as more and more screening units of the Terran Federation Navy started to disappear in clouds of superheated gas and fragments.

Let their sacrifices not be in vain! Alison fervently prayed to whatever deity may be listening as she observed the small green dot in the holotank representing humanity’s salvation. She and the rest of their Navy made their peace with their approaching death as long as this single vessel could make it to the limit of the gravitational distortions caused by the massive weight of the star in the center of the system.

“Commander Hart there is a problem with the computer core. One of the hits overloaded the capacitors as a failsafe didn’t trigger properly. If we don’t get the core back into operation ASAP, we might lose our dimension tap.” Alison received over her implant from her captain. He did not need to mention, that if they did lose the dimension tap, most of the energy the superdreadnaught needed for battle operation would not be available anymore.

“Yes Sir. I will get my replacement to take over immediately” She answered him through the same means of communication.

“Brad take over, Captain wants me down in engineering” she announced to the middle-aged man behind her, before unstrapping and carefully making her way to the exit hatch. As Head Engineer, she was consulted whenever the on-duty personnel couldn’t handle something, or, as in this case, the issue in question is too sensitive to trust to less experienced crew.

The core room is the centerpiece of every Terran vessel, it regulates the energy siphoned through the dimension tap, preventing it from drawing too much and transforming an imposing starship into an elaborate bomb. Entering through the security around the core room Alison hurried to the terminal attached to the core immediately upon arrival. Several alarms and warnings were displayed on the screen which required her undivided attention. Tapping away at the keys, trying to get the fluctuating energies back under control, she lost all sense of time around her.

***

Captain Ismahal tried to hold back his tears as he observed the valiant last stand of the Terran Federation Navy, dying to buy him enough time to start his Dimension drive. Trying to run as silent as he possibly could while still maintaining a decent amount of acceleration the Colony ship Hope was running for all it was worth. If only mankind could turn back to that fateful meeting where hostilities had broken out.

The sudden alarm aboard the Bridge rudely ripped him out of his melancholy and made him focus back on the screens hovering in front of him. Their silent run it seems hadn’t been silent enough. Not 10 million kilometres in front of him a massive fleet of Ourchos fast cruisers just came out of Dimension space at the gravitational limit, right in the middle of their projected escape route.

“Shit where did they come from!” his XO couldn’t help but exclaim. Even though he would’ve like to agree wholeheartedly with him, he managed to press out through clenched teeth. “Focus Marc. Let’s figure out a way out of this mess.”

Looking back at the representation of the enemy fleet in front of him, he tried to think of anything at all that might save them from total destruction. With their direct route cut off he had to get creative to reach the limit where they could engage their dimensional drive before the enemy could come into range. Come on Jerry, THINK! THINK!

Due to shock and the limitations of inertia he was however unable to influence their trajectory too much and as he was still frantically trying to devise a way out of the trap that they were caught in, the weapons ports on the Ourchos cruisers had opened and beams of coherent light reached across the void, arriving at the colony ships mere moments later.

The shields managed to hold out for a couple of seconds, then the energy reached the hull and, in an instant, transformed the famous Terran ν-steel into so much superheated plasma. Captain Ismahal had a bare moment to realize that the colony ship was doomed before the blackness overtook his senses.

***

Admiral Jackson watched with dread as the small green dot on his display got swarmed by red icons and soon disappeared. So, it has come to this. He thought sadly to himself. Reaching for a button he hoped he would never need, a private line between him and the Captain of his flagship opened.

“Hi Randall, I take it you saw?” He opened with a dead voice.

“Indeed, I have” Captain Meadow answered full of sorrow

“With the colony ship we have nothing to lose now” the admiral continued “I give you authorization to use experimental weapon Zeta”

“Understood Sir. I will engage with haste”

Leaning back in his chair on the flag deck the admiral closed his eyes and waited for what was to come. Experimental weapon Zeta was a contingency he hoped never to use. It was a missile that, instead of a conventional warhead, had a specialized dimension tap mechanism.

However, this tap is not meant to open a rift to siphon off a specific subset of the chaotic yet organized energies of the other dimension, but to send out a pulse into the other side, which would theoretically destabilize the dimension and catastrophically collapse all the dimension taps on both the Terran fleet vessels as well as the Ourchos ships.

It was truly a suicide weapon, only ever meant to be created as a theoretical exercise, however desperation led humanity to create it in the end, in the hope that the population on the planet at least would be saved. The energies as a whole on the other side of the tap however were still poorly understood as humanity only ever used a small subset of it.

The destabilizing pulse might simply shut down all the energy taps on both sides, or it might destabilize the very fabric of the universe. Theories went both ways. With nothing to lose, Terran fleet command issued this weapon as a last resort.

***

Uncaring the Zeta missile made its way out of the weapons port and towards the center of the engagement. Soon after the core determined to have reached the optimal position and initiated its detonation sequence. A pulse entered Dimension space and destabilized the energies within. The weakened fabric of space separating the Dimensions ripped and the energies spread throughout the corners of the universe touched by dimension space in an instant.

It washed over the orbitals, deactivating every single electronic device and causing them to slowly deteriorate in their orbit. Doomed to an eventual fiery re-entry. Every vessel currently accessing dimension space simply ceased to exist. The only surviving piece of evidence, the core, designed to regulate access into dimension space within itself. Due to the proximity to the planet most of the cores of both fleets soon started to drift towards the gravity well and begin their re-entry into atmosphere.

***

Just as Alison was reaching for the Core in the middle of the room to reconnect some cables, she felt a wave passing through her that shook her fundamentally. She was about to retract her hand from the dimension core to check what it was she felt, when the energies inside it went out of control in an instant.

Where her fingers touched the crystalline structure of the core, a burning sensation instantly spread throughout her body. Time seemed to stop, and yet she could suddenly make out the stars shining through holes in the secured room. Instead of panicking she observed in fascination as in slow motion more and more materials seemed to be disintegrated and transformed into pure energy streams, that started flowing through the air towards the core.

Only when her feet and legs started to come apart, she found her lost emotions again and started to panic. In no time at all her upper body was gone as well and her head started to lose material cohesion. Instead of nothingness or even an afterlife as she expected, she instead suddenly felt her mind being expanded. Concepts of complex engineering or simple art and music found their way into her memory. She felt as though her mind had suddenly become one massive database as more and more of her consciousness was sucked into the dimension core.

Before the last of her awareness transferred to the crystal, she realized what must have been happening. Due to her touching the core, in the exact moment the Zeta weapon went off, hey she also suddenly knew top secret information, her consciousness must have transferred to the computer core, usually only inhabited by an AI to manage energies and the database every Navy vessel carried.

With the last of her material body transformed to energy and sucked into the core she caught one last glimpse of a massive view of stars with Eorhild in the distance before the tap suddenly shut off and the stress on her mind got too much and she passed out.