The pirate ship burned in the void, its hull a fractured skeleton wreathed in flame.
The asteroid field glowed with the wreckage, shards of metal glinting like dying stars.
Alarms wailed on the bridge as Syn's voice cut through the chaos, steady despite the inferno.
"EMP now, Pako! Everyone, to the hangar!" His hazel eyes blazed with resolve, his dark curls slick with sweat, his leadership a beacon in the ship's final moments.
Pako, her black bob bouncing, slammed the reactor override, her fingers trembling but precise in her lace-trimmed combat suit.
"Here goes nothing!" she shouted, her expressive eyes fierce.
The ship's core pulsed, then erupted in a silent shockwave, an electromagnetic pulse rippling outward. Ila's swarm of fighters sputtered, their systems fried, drifting helplessly. One of her battleships shuddered, its engines dark, crippled by the blast.
The Regal Fang, Ila's obsidian dreadnought, wavered but held, its shields flaring.
