Jupiter twisted in an eternal pirouette. Lightning flashed across its wide surface, bathing the dark sphere in momentary sparks of white. From orbit, the planet resembled a swarm of fireflies.

Theodora regarded the flashing lights from far above, safe within the glass and metal carapace of a rotating space station.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

She turned to her colleague, a short, heavyset man by the name of John Brannon. He was another engineer for EXN, and worked on the Facem along with Theodora so many years before. Most of the others had scattered in the intermittent time, going on to retire or transfer to other projects, but John was always there.

"Each one of those flashes represents up to a hundred thousand amperes of electric current. That sort of power could fry a person to the point of turning them into a hunk of charcoal."

"I get it," he sighed. "Beauty is only skin deep."

Theodora paused. "No. It's only nature. If you want to call it beautiful, sure, but that's all it really is."

John stared at the planet for a moment before turning around and walking into the bowels of the space station. Theodora followed him.

Past the observation deck was a spacious room, decorated lavishly with false vines and trees. The walls were papered, red with flecks of gold, with half-columns every few meters. Banners displaying a red triangle with a blue streak down the middle hung from the ceiling. A chandelier fitted with LEDs hung from the ceiling, an ugly combination of ancient grace and new technology. In the center of the room, there was a large, circular table. Above the table, four models hung on invisible wires, each in the form of a different spacecraft.

The one closest to Theodora was a simple cylinder, covered in antennae, spherical tanks and fuel lines. It was a small, about half a meter across. Below it was a bronze plate that read: "EXN-150 001 Fillium". The next model as three times larger than the Fillium, and consisted of two thick engine blocks, and strung between them four spheres. On each sphere, a letter was written, spelling out the company letters, followed by a small United Districts of Sol symbol, puny compared to the blocky script. This was the EXN-150 002 Ascensus. The next model was almost five times larger than the Ascensus, about eight meters long. It had an hourglass shape, with two large cones connected by a relatively thin column. Once again, the Exonavis logo was written boldly on one side, adjacent to a much smaller rendition of the nine circles circumscribed in a larger one; the UDS. Below the huge model was a plaque bearing the Facem's exulted name. The final model, much smaller than all the rest, no more than a quarter meter long, was labeled simply as the Colossus. It looked primitive compared to the rest, sporting a traditional nuclear rocket engine, with a small habitat compartment. In the front of the spacecraft was a flowering hydrogen collector, shaped like a funnel and many times larger than the rest of the ship.

John spoke. "Interesting that they decided to install a model of the Colossus. You'd think the higher-ups would be too caught up in their own achievement to pay their respects."

"It's not as if they aren't already tooting their horn," Theodora said, gesturing to the banners that lined the walls. "It's nice that they've shown this little bit of modesty in this homage. You know, respecting the dead, honoring the exploratory attempts of the past.

A pause.

"So, these are all the ships humanity has ever built to voyage among the stars. And you worked on every last one?" said John.

"Yes. All but the Conqueror, of course."

"Ha. Even you aren't that old."

Theodora glared at him.

"Yes, I was part of the development team for all three of the EXN-150 series. I should probably retire."

"Probably. Sixty years is a long time to be toiling under one banner. Not that I wouldn't miss your company, no matter how dry."

"I'm flattered."

"Anyway," said John, "When will they be launching?"

"The Equites prototype will be ready for its first test in about eight hours. It's been one hell of a ride, hasn't it?"

"Oh, that it has."

Theodora and the entire design team had been brought to this Exonavis station in low Jovian orbit to oversee the maiden voyage of Exonavis's newest spacecraft, the EXN-163 005 Equites. The ship was first proposed by the United Districts of Sol Navy over two decades ago, not long after the celebrated launch of the Facem, under the name Vesparum, meant to convey its wasp-like striking speed. As development progressed, both its name and its shape evolved. The Equites was the fifth iteration, and the first to be constructed and given a test flight.

Instead of a wasp, the Equites was closer to a snapping turtle. It was massive, heavier than almost anything but the largest battleships, with armor thick enough to absorb missile strikes.

"I never understood its name," said John, "Why name such an advanced machine after a farm animal?"

"It's Equites, not Equus. It means horseman. I always interpreted it as a reference to cavalry in old land armies."

"Guess I should have done more research. And what might that mean, oh informed one?"

"Maybe expressing the role for the Equites, you know, spearhead of the Solar Navy. Probably a naive attempt to strike fear into the enemies of the UDS. That is, if they ever manage to get an enemy. Everyone's too lazy to start a war."

"I heard that the Mississippi and Yangtze ADs are getting restless."

"Nothing but nationalistic rambling," scoffed Theodora.

"I suppose, but those two have been talking about cessation for a long time. Why would the UDS commission a new ship only now?"

Theodora considered his comment as the sun emerged behind the arc of Jupiter, joining the lesser flashes of lightning.

The next day, Theodora and the rest of the design team stood in the observation deck. Jupiter spun silently below, the stark reds and yellows contrasting sharply from the dark of space. Far in the distance, the device glimmered, a spark lost among the turbulent clouds of Jupiter.

The Equites was roughly rectangular, with a skirt of radiators fringing it on all sides. Piping covered the outer hull, carrying heat away from the center of the spacecraft and into the radiator complex. The EXN logo stood proudly on each flank of the device. The front of the ship was hollow, like a gaping maw or the muzzle of a rifle. A small set engines poked through the hull here and there, looking tiny and vain on the massive vessel. The Equites had already gone through basic maneuverability and weapons tests. All that was left was to fire the main gun.

A voice echoed through the observation deck. "Ignition in sixty seconds."

Apprehension enveloped the room. Nervous mutters floated about like motes of dust.

"Ignition in thirty seconds."

Perhaps the ship was too close. If anything went wrong, the station might be caught in the blast.

"Ignition in ten seconds."

The muttering stopped, and strained silence replaced it.

"Ignition in five seconds."

Theodora imagined she could hear a thin whine, but the only sound was that of the air filters.

"Ignition. Main gun at full power."

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, the Equites exploded. Fear gripped Theodora's heart. Of course, the energy demands were simply too high. The hull had burst, throwing a cloud of superheated plasma in all directions. The station would no doubt be enveloped in a moment's time. She was going to die.

But the terror passed as her eyes grew adjusted to the ungodly brightness. She saw that the Equites was weathering the storm surprisingly well. It's skin glowed white, and surface material was visibly evaporating in tiny puffs of pale gas. The radiators shone even brighter, unloading as much heat as they could into the cold of space. The logo was gone, presumably burned off by the immense heat beneath it.

The Equites was essentially a giant flashlight. The maw of the device contained a battery of gamma ray lasers that produced a truly terrifying amount of energy. The combined beam of the laser array was the Equites' primary weapon, and what a mighty weapon it was. A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that it was enough to vaporize small asteroids. The beam itself was invisible, the wavelength too tight for human eyes to pick up, but the glow of the heat was easily enough to make up.

For all its strength, the weapon was mightily ineffective in a dogfight. The infrastructure it needed to support it, all the batteries and lasing matrices, weighed several hundred tons, so maneuvering the device was tedious and slow. This meant that engaging multiple targets verged on impossible. The only targets worth firing at were those large and slow enough not to get out of the way. The implication was clear and sickening.

A distant voice spoke. "Main gun deactivation in three..."

When the Equites finally shut off, a sigh of relief filled the observation deck as the device began to cool from its brilliant white to a more pleasant orange. Flecks of black char covered the outer hull, mottling it like some extinct animal.

"That was a stupid idea", said Theodora.

"In what sense?" said John.

"It could've blown up. We could all be dead right now."

"We're always pretty close to dying. One micrometeor could punch a hole in this station, and we're dead. You could always trip while walking down the street, and get run over."

"Your point?"

"This ship is a stupid idea, I have to agree, but it's not because of the chance of catastrophe. I'm more afraid of what'll happen once it's working correctly."

"You don't think..."

"Oh, I think."

"Well. There hasn't been a war in well over fifty years, I don't think having this piece of shit around will change that. Hell, it's still secret. What could they possibly do with it?"

"I doubt it'll stay secret. This machine was meant to be as loud as possible. A message, not a weapon."

"Reminds you of something, doesn't it?"

John frowned and nodded.

The two turned away from the observatory window and drifted back toward the center of the space station. The deck was soon empty as the scientists and investors slowly went about their respective businesses. Jupiter twisted in its endless pirouette far below. The Great Red Spot, swirling orange, rotated into view. It swallowed the window, consuming everything with its chaotic turbulence.

A man became lost in the crimson swirls. There was no sight quite like it: Jupiter was no doubt the most beautiful of the planets. Earth, of course, was a close second, but it was a little too common a sight to take first. Saturn was easy on the eyes, that was true, but its static beauty could not compare with the living storms of Jupiter.

But there was something else for these ancient eyes to see. They settled, finally, on the blackened shape that floated quietly in the safe distance. He did not hesitate. Fear of death was not something he was especially subject to. The command passed through his lips and the sun was born again.

Yes, it was bright, but the black-suited man stared unblinking into it. The weapon was a mighty one, a bright point of unbridled rage burning its remaining life away.

It had been difficult, extremely difficult, to hide the true purpose of the weapon from even those who had designed it. The key, in the end, was to make it appear terrifying enough to quell all further questioning. They no doubt thought it would be pointed at cities to cleanly, neatly erase them from existence. Perhaps used to vaporize an asteroid. Perhaps, if done properly, it could be a tool of genocide.

But none of these were true. The Equites was not a terrifying monster. Just a simple industrial machine. And it was most certainly not flashlight.

The Equites was a black hole generator. Its lasers could be rotated to focus on a point directly in front of ship. The concentrated energy, if pulsed and mediated well, would be sufficient to compress a small cloud of heavy metals into a single, infinitely dense point. The result was a black hole smaller than a proton, weighing as much as an asteroid.

The micro-black hole, or MBH, was not very stable. It evaporated quickly, and would in fact disappear after about a century. But it died in a prolonged rage, spewing a constant stream of radiation as it went. It's death throes could be harnessed, used as a mode of propulsion or a source of constant energy, viable even for centuries. It could power a million ships like the Facem on their long, dark voyages through the stars. The Equites could give humanity the stars.

Or it could just as easily be used to destroy. Good, then, that only he knew about it.

The Equites automatically deactivated, sensing that any longer a burn would result in its own destruction. Within it, imperceptible but for the slight inward pull of gravity and the shower of gamma radiation it produced, was a dot of perfect, lethal black, shining as brightly as a nuclear bomb in frequencies too high for human sight. Hungry.