The pitch black ship maneuvered wildly, ignoring the limitations of it's pilot's body, while charging it's main weapon and locking on the closest enemy bomber. Swirling particles soon gave way to an intense glow, almost immediately casting a lightning-like beam - that crossed the void to impact over it's target's surface. The Seraphim's hull seemed to scream in agony, as the powerful stream of energy drew an almost straight line over it, completely ignoring the shields and melting the extremely resistant materials as if they were nothing but hot butter. In less than a second, the bomber was perfectly divided in two, being torn apart by the explosions on it's missile bays and engines. Moments later, nothing occupied that area of space but a few burnt pieces of metal. The streak of light remained active, roaming the battlefield towards it�s next target.

Toshiro fought with all his strenght only to remain conscious, as the fighter that carried him unleashed it�s fury upon the ancient enemy. He could feel a torrent of emotions passing through him, as if coming from the ship itself. The fury against the now almost desperate attackers, the relief of thousands of people as they witnessed a beacon of hope shining through what seemed to be an endless sea of darkness, the primal fear of an elemental force that had never faced such powerful and committed resistance. He was scared, but somehow felt warm and comfortable again. The cold feeling had passed.

Multi-colored beams formed intrincate patterns on the sky ahead of the Nyx, as the Proximus exchanged fire with the remaining Shivan corvette. The Terran ship still had the advantage, and was using it well � the Moloch was already feeling the burden caused by the damage it suffered on the initial stages of the battle, as it ignored the Deimos to advance towards the disabled destroyers. Locheart had exploited such mistake to the fullest, and his ship was now just moments away from complete victory. Toshiro�s eyes captured a last bright flash from the battle as a beam from the Proximus hit a critical spot on the Moloch corvette, and was able to understand a last communication from the Zephora before falling into unconsciousness again � it had brought it�s fighterbay and weapon systems back online.

He awoke to find the ship standing still by the side of the Zephora, no hostile contacts at all on the sensor display. Extremely tired from the stress caused by the high G forces experienced while the Nyx ignored him to fight the Shivans, he was barely able to bring the fighter to inside the destroyer�s fighterbay.

"What do you mean by this" shouted Locheart through the communications system, while staring right into the eyes of Admiral Andreas Emer on the main screen.

"Exactly what you heard, captain. You are ordered to surrender your vessel and prepare to be boarded. This attack will not be left unpunished." Replied the Admiral.

Jeremiah was starting to understand it. He shouldn�t have received any information about the RIP 0131, let alone be allowed to witness it in action. The same applied to all of his crew, and the GTVI could not let such information slip through their fingers. The presence of the Shivans had only made things worse, as now they had the perfect excuse to capture the corvette: it had attacked them uprovokedly while both destroyers had their weapon systems down for scientific monitoring.

"We are deploying a shuttle carrying a security team. You will allow them to dock and will oblige to their directions. The GTCv Proximus and it�s crew are now on the custody of the Galactic Terran Vasudan Intelligence, under charges of high treason. Follow our orders, or you will be destroyed" came another message from the Zephora, directly from the mouth of the Admiral. Locheart couldn�t allow his crew to be captured under false accusations � not by the GTVI at least � and more than everything, he couldn�t allow the Intelligence to cover the presence of Shivan forces on GTVA space.

He dircreetly signaled his communications officer to add some noise to the transmission, creating the opportunity for him to tap a scripted order into the ship�s main computer. Bringing the transmission back to the normal status, he sent his reply to Emer.

"I know that this is not true, you know that this is not true, and most of all, our signed combat logs show that this is not true. We will surrender, but we�ll prove our innocence, and we�ll show everyone the truth behind your actions".

Emer didn�t even have the time to think "What a fool". Locheart knew that his crew wouldn�t be awarded a fair trial, he knew that most probably they wouldn�t even face judgement. Execution was more the way of the Intelligence, so he activated the program.

All at once, the Proximus fired all of it�s beams on both destroyers communications systems, and engaged it�s subspace drives. On both Intelligence vessels, the almost magical precision of the corvette's beams had brought the target systems offline, while also creating a major and essential distraction. Soon the battle-scarred corvette was inside subspace, while the Mohses and Zephora were unable to send any long distance communications to the rest of the fleet. As Locheart�s ship vanished into the white and blue whirlpool, a last message arrived at the Zephora�s bridge.

"This is not the end."