October 7, 2277

318 days remain

The UNSF cruiser Pride of Nigeria sat in orbit above the quiet remains of the New Kolkata colony. With its vital infrastructure destroyed beyond repair, sustaining human life on New Kolkata at a large scale was no longer possible. The survivors had been herded in to transport ships and shuttled away weeks ago, now the only humans left in the system were the crew of the Pride, and a small research team surveying the remaining Ivo technology. Any Ivo tech that wasn't nailed down had been carted off to secure research stations not long after the evacuation, leaving only the ruins of Ivo prefab buildings and destroyed dome cities for the scientists to pick through.

The captain of the Pride, Commander Sai Devar Khatri, often found himself gazing at New Kolkata from his viewscreen, trying to divine some sort of meaning from the image of the barren gray wasteland. He'd always hated the worthless dustball, from the moment he'd first been stationed here by the Indian Space Guard. He hated how many friends he had lost defending it, and he hated the dull ache he could still feel in his chest when he recalled how he had been forced to flee from the planet. The fact that, even after so many had died defending it, humanity had packed up and abandoned the colony anyway just rubbed salt in his wounds.

He'd never been the brooding sort, but he found himself doing it more and more these days, especially since his very recent promotion to Commander in the Space Force. In better times, he might have thought he actually deserved it, but these were not better times. Which was why he, a Space Force Academy dropout, was now commanding a cruiser. The Space Force had lost the privilege of being picky, around the same time they lost a third of their officer corps in a single battle. However, as someone with actual (if brief) combat experience against the Ivos, Sai made a better candidate for rapid promotion than most.

While he had been (guiltily) happy about his promotion, Sai found himself reconsidering as he struggled to stave off the boredom his monotonous post had a seemingly infinite supply of. The Pride had been parked in orbit for nearly a week now, babysitting some scientists. Sai and his officers had taken the opportunity to relentlessly drill the crew, but even randomized drills could get monotonous if you performed them for a week straight.

Of course, the job of the Pride wasn't just to babysit the scientists, it was also to serve as a picket to alert the UN of any potential Ivo incursions. Sai's standing orders were to pick up the scientists and bolt the second he caught a wiff of Ivo activity. The Pride periodically transferred between Dark Space and normal space towards this end, keeping an eye out for Ivo ships in both realities.

The commander leaned back in his office chair and sipped disinterestedly at his bulb of green tea. He sighed. Drinking tea through a straw really took a lot out of the experience. It just wasn't the same if you couldn't blow the steam away, taking an experimental sip to gauge the temperature. Of course, getting tea to stay in a mug was something of a challenge in microgravity, so the bulb would stay.

A Klaxon sounded, taking Sai out of his tea self-discussion. He perked up at the sound. It was the transfer alarm, meaning that the Pride was making one of its periodic trips to Dark Space. Tapping his fingers on the desk in contemplation, Sai came to a decision. He stood up and made his way to the bridge, tea bulb still in hand, searching for something to occupy his attention.

---

Sai exited his office, and his XO, Lieutenant Commander Alya Peretz, greeted him with a "Captain on deck!"

Sai smiled. "At ease, commander. Has the countdown already begun?"

Alya returned his smile. "It has not, sir. Would you like to call it?"

Sai's smile grew wider. "I would indeed." Even with all the monotony, the novelty of commanding a proper warship had not yet worn off.

Sai eyed the helmswoman with an unspoken question, and the Astronaut nodded in return. Sai nodded back, and keyed the intercom. "Attention all hands, prepare for transition to Dark Space in 5...4...3...2..1...execute." The UNS Pride of Nigeria vanished into nothing instantly. On the viewscreens, the image of New Kolkata was replaced with the familiar black nothingness of Dark Space...except for hundreds of new stars in its sky.

"Contact!" the navigational officer shouted "Unidentified drive signatures...drives are confirmed antimatter!" Sai deflated, and a string of curses ran through the CIC as all of those present understood the implications. Humans didn't use antimatter drives, and the only nearby species that did were Ivos. Sai felt panic begin to overtake him, but then he stifled it as an icy calm washed over him.

"How the hell did we miss them?" one astronaut wondered aloud.

"Must've been behind a particle cloud or something. Hell, it could've been anything. That's just how Dark Space is." the XO answered.

The chatter died out as Sai spoke. "Time to intercept?" he asked.

"The main fleet is still about a day out, but there's several signatures that are far ahead. Closest one has an intercept in forty-five minutes." came the reply.

Sai cursed under his breath. It would be cutting it close. The UN wouldn't have much warning, even if he cut and run right now. If he left without picking up the scientists, it might buy him some...no. He wasn't leaving people to die on New Kolkata. Not again.

"What's the ETA on the next contact out?" Sai asked, a very stupid plan forming in his head.

"ETA on second nearest contact is twelve hours."

Sai mulled it over for a moment, and came to a decision.

"Move to engage the lead Ivo vessel." he ordered.

There was silence in response for a moment, then everyone in the CIC sprang into action.

At the beginning of the war, Sai wouldn't have even considered taking an Ivo ship on in a one-on-one fight. However, humanity had learned some hard lessons since then, and the Pride of Nigeria was a beneficiary of those lessons. While the focus of the Space Force's doctrine had shifted toward the lighter ships, frigates, destroyers, interceptors and the like, the Space Force still had a substantial amount of heavier ships, such as cruisers like the Pride, which they had to find a use for. The solution had been to strip out all of its secondary guns, and then fill every available space to the brim with missiles.

Against another foe, it would be an incredibly costly and wasteful way to fight. Against the Ivos, it was the only way to fight. In simulations, a cruiser like the Pride could beat an Ivo frigate 70% of the time, the Space Force found. It was that number Sai was banking on as his ship went in for the attack run.

"Open every silo and fire every missile when we're in range." Sai ordered.

"In range" meant as close as they could get without getting in range of the Ivo's beam cannon.

The Pride moved towards the Ivo frigate "ass first", decelerating to make it easier to break off once it had launched its missile payload. The Ivo, for its part, was burning as hard as it could toward the Pride, trying to get within beam range.

At the perfect moment, Sai gave the order. "Execute!"

Out of the many silos and sub silos littering the cruiser, missile popped out. RCS thrusters burned as the missiles maneuvered themselves to fire, and then as one they all fired their engines and hurdled towards the Ivo frigate. The Pride finished its deceleration burn then and started accelerating away from the Ivo frigate. The frigate had made a hard burn perpendicular to the oncoming missiles, trying to give its defenses as much time as possible to shoot down the missiles.

It was a futile effort. The amount of missiles in the sky could accurately be described as "overkill". When they reached the appropriate range, the missiles all exploded into hundreds of depleted uranium flechettes. The flechettes ripped the frigate to shreds, leaving it in pieces.

Sai didn't was anytime. "Get us back to our original position and then transition!"

---

Four hours later, with the Ivo fleet incoming and the scientists on board the Pride, Sai ordered that the cruiser make its way to Sapphire habitat.