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Impart Station had not gotten off light. A Lishni destroyer had managed to get close at some point during the communications blackout and now the upper habitat wheel was in ruins, a quarter chunk blasted free. Holes and rents tore across one side of the giant cylinder and the upper-most weapons and nest of antenna were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. One of the docking arms that radiated out from the station's cylinder was a mangled wreck, the ships within destroyed or damaged and stuck. Amongst them, was the [i]Reaper[/i], caged in by twisted scaffolding, melted armour plating and tangled wires and tubes. Sparks danced in the vacuum, crackles of electricity writhing along broken energy conduits. The only lights within the wrecked docking arm were those of the [i]Reaper[/i] itself, the destroyer's running lights blazing in the darkness as a warning to anyone who got close; Captain Umber's way of communicating a collision warning to any nearby ships as the space station was no longer able to do so itself.

The ships that were docked externally, those who weren't at Impart for repairs, maintenance or large-scale resupply were free-floating, their drives hot as they waited for the perfect opportunity to escape the chaos. Every working sensor watched as the Jes'wan task force engaged the thickest cluster of Lishni warships, picking them apart with ease before splitting off into smaller groups to engage yet more Lishni ships.

A sense of hopelessness had settled over Impart's anchorage point, quickly smothering the hope that the Jes'wa had brought with them. Even with the Jes'wan sensors corvette, [i]Ra'thinas[/i] screaming its jamming signals in the Lishni's faces, the invaders continued to press the attack, with more ships turning up by the hour. Everyone was either worn down or getting that way, their reserves depleted, ships broken, crew dead.

JD downed a painkiller with a deep draught of cold s'ryn. It had been a while since he'd had a headache so merciless. He briefly wondered if it was a side effect of the Chivan Spore poisoning exacerbating the stress of the situation as he watched the Lishni creep in towards Impart from all sides. The main bulk of the Jes'wan task force had met the Lishni heavy cruiser and its handful of stealthed escorting ships head-on, steadily beating them back towards the debris field, biting chunks from their hides. The Demon tiredly wondered if they were aware of the fresh-faced heavy cruiser that was currently making a swift bee-line for the station. From the [i]Jinx[/i]'s angle, no less.

'Mr. Consal, open up the in-ship comm, please. I have an announcement to make.' He said, speaking into the tense silence.

Consal gave the thumbs up after a couple of minute's fiddling with his damaged systems.

'All hands, this is your captain speaking,' [i]If you hadn't figured that out,[/i] 'it looks like a Lishni heavy cruiser wants to try its luck with us and the station. I want you to put your helmets on and prepare for combat once more. Good luck, people. Captain D'armeus out.' He looked out across the bridge, watching, as one by, his bridge crew donned their helmets, checked the seals and bent back to their tasks. Once he was satisfied that everyone aboard had donned their helmets and signalled their readiness, he put his own on, making sure the seals of his helmet had properly mated with the seals of his collar. His HUD lit up as his wetware connected with his suit's systems, providing him with an ambient read-out of his immediate surroundings.

They were all exhausted - beyond exhausted - and it showed in their posture as the bridge crew slouched, ever-so-slightly at their stations. The only one who was still on top form was Ari. Her Synthenoid technobiology assured him and everyone else that she was good for at least another several hours of intensity and another week of standard procedures. Assuming any of them made it that far, came the grim thought as JD watched the heavy cruiser creep closer to them.

'We estimate another thirty minutes until the Lishni cruiser is within their extreme weapons range.' K'narlas announced.

The [i]'We'[/i] being herself, Rojam and the War Witches, Lemur and Kiriana, plus Anusi whom they were using as a sort of dowsing rod/radar array.

'Lishni cruiser is maintaining direct heading for our flank, Captain.' Rojam stated, coaxing the information from her instruments and checking the gathered data with that of the [i]Ra'thinas[/i] and the War Witches.

JD studied his primary tac monitor. It was just the remaining Impart corvette, the [i]Reaper[/i] and the [i]Jinx[/i] in defense of Impart and the civillians docked. And there wasn't much the [i]Reaper[/i] could do, what with being locked in a tangled mess of wires and metals. That just left a damaged corvette and a damaged destroyer, plus what was left of Impart's guns; a trio of railguns and a missiles battery. He continued watching the TacNet feed, wondering how much of it was real and how much was being falsified by the [i]Jinx[/i]'s own damaged computer.

'Sensors, confirm that there's just the one Lishni ship on an approach vector.' He asked, looking to the telltales for the tachyon transmitters for the Gods-know-how-many-times that hour. One was orange, the other remained dark. A notification he had gotten earlier from one of his tech teams had reassured him that they were working on bringing the most viable of the two transmitters back online. That had been an hour and a half ago.

The Ocelot went about double checking then triple checking her collected data, looking to K'narlas for input and clarification.

'Aye, Sir, we can confirm just the one Lishni ship on an intercept vector: Ziphanos class heavy cruiser, Lishni-built and said to have been retired thirty years ago. I'm picking up no other enemy ships in the vicinity.' Rojam announced. 'That's all I got, Boss.'

JD shifted uneasily in his seat. For all the Lishni knew, Impart could have some kind of nasty trick hidden up its sleeve, ready to deploy once the cruiser got within range. Sending the one ship to secure an armed and - albeit now poorly - defended space station sat wrong with him. He had seen such attempts from much bigger, nastier ships and seen said ships blown to atoms by the prey's best kept secrets. He had witnessed damaged space stations deploy their squadrons of starfighters to pick apart superdreadnoughts as a last line of defense, seen a squadron of corvettes and frigates lead their dreadnought into a cloaked mine field and watched in amused awe as one of the most notorious space stations, Mid-Space, simply pulled its collective pieces apart and vanish into the slipstream, leaving its would-be attackers milling aimlessly around in the black, confused and angry.

'Something bothering you?' Spirit asked, switching to a suit-to-suit comm channel so no one could hear.

'Something's wrong with this set-up. I don't know what it is, though. Just got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach...'He replied.

'Maybe too much caffeine?' Spirit prodded, trying to bring an air of lightness to the mood.

He shook his head and looked down at his comms monitor. He was keeping in close contact with Impart Control, their corvette and Captain Umber via text-only communication since the [i]Jinx[/i] had been relegated to guard duty. The corvette was on one side of the station, whilst the [i]Jinx[/i] was overseeing the other. There was no sign that the corvette had anyone on an intercept course and JD had multiple sources to cite.

'Ten minutes until extreme weapons range!' Rojam called.

'Prepare to bring the shields back online and divert as much remaining power from our sublights that we can spare to bolster their capacity. Load every chaff canister we have into our rimward launchers.' He ordered as the cold, tight niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach grew.

'Aye, Sir, chaff canisters are being loaded and shields are being prepped.' K'narlas replied. 'First chaff loadout is ready.'

'Goldfeather, when that cruiser is three minutes away from us, launch the chaff. Then one minute after that, launch two unguided antimatter missiles, one after the other on staggered courses.' He said.

'Aye, Captain, preparing countermeasure and missile launches.' He said and started setting up the launch timers.

JD checked his inbox again, hoping to find some respite from the impending doom that was bearing down on them. He sighed, finding nothing but the similiar thoughts of Impart, its corvette and Captain Umber. It really did look like that Impart Station had nothing hidden up its sleeve.

'Go for Captain.' He said, switching to his suit's squad channel.

'Hey, man, just thought I'd tell you that it was nice knowing you and that it's been a real honour serving with you, or some-such. Y'know, the usual guff. Even though you still haven't bought me that beer you owe me for saving your ass back on Travan Prime.' Kieron said cheerfully.

'Man, I'm so exhausted that I don't even know what to say to that.'

'I got one last request. Something ain't sitting right with me about this situation, so if you could satisfy my curiosity by pinging the system, I'd greatly appreciate it.'

JD sat more upright in his chair, his eyes narrowing. 'Creeping sensation, like you're being watched?' He asked slowly, glancing at his tachyon telltales. The amber telltale had switched to green at long last and there was a new update in his inbox telling him that the transmitter was good for at least four uses.

'Mhm, by something big.' Kieron said.

JD looked to Rojam, 'Ensign Rojam, hit this whole damned place with the biggest tachyon ping you can muster.'

Rojam's posture straightened, startled by the sharpness of his voice, then she went to work. The [i]Jinx[/i]'s tachyon transmitter surged to life, flooding Impart's anchorage point. The sensor suite, or the parts still functioning, flooded the ship's TacNet and those connected to it with fresh information. She started picking through it hurridly, her fingers flying across her work station's interfaces.

'First wave of chaff away!' Goldfeather announced.

A minute later, the antimatter missiles followed suit, the first out of the tubes ploughing through the cloud of electromagnetically charged metal filings to detonate against the foreward shields of the Lishni cruiser. The second antimatter missile was hot on its heels fifteen seconds later, two degrees adjacent to the course its sister had taken. It exited the chaff in a sparkling puff of glinting metal needles and slammed against the weakened shields. The shields collapsed and the front of the cruiser took the tail end of the explosion, its rusty red flat nose buckling and warping, charring and bubbling as heat shielding and reflective coatings peeled away. A shield generator and a pair of point-defence cannons exploded. The foreward missile tubes were mangle beyond use by the second explosion, but the [i]Jinx[/i]'s missiles did little to hinder the giant's progress.

'Positive strikes, Boss!' K'narlas announced excitedly. Her excitement soon died away, her grin falling into a frown. 'Lishni cruiser is without foreward shields and some PDCs, but otherwise unharmed.'

Opposite the Jes'wan tactical officer, Rojam swore acidly. Her head snapped up as she gripped the sides of her console in a deathgrip.

'Sir, we're being shadowed by a Lishni destroyer!' She said in a loud voice that was a few decibles below a shout. 'She's right above us in stealth!'

'See you all on the other side.' Kieron said amiably over the squad channel.

JD didn't bother to ask Consal. He opened the in-ship comm himself from his communications set-up and ground his teeth together as the sluggish computer connected all communications units on the ship to the bridge. He watched his primary tac monitor closely, waiting for the strike from the Lishni cruiser and the destroyer that was so close to them, cruising towards them from above, all notions of stealth vanished. The telltale for the comms went green and the line opened. He sucked in a deep breath as he watched the dot representing the new destroyer accelerate towards them.

'All hands this is your captain! I am ordering you to abandon ship. I repeat, [i]abandon ship[/i]!' He snapped, his voice echoing throughout the ship.

'Sir, that destroyer is now right above us and turning to face us!' Rojam sputtered.

'I'm picking up a massive energy draw, Sir. Looks like a beam weapon powering up.' K'narlas said in a perfectly calm voice.

[i]Oh fuck.[/i]

Eight-man escape pods fell away from the [i]Jinx[/i], vanishing into the black as the wounded destroyer fired off the last of her railgun ammunition into the face of the swooping Lishni destroyer. The enemy beam weapon fired, a searing lance of pure, concentrated energy, burning away the [i]Jinx[/i]'s last act of defiance as if it was nothing. The energy pierced the ship's shields as a pin would pop a balloon and stabbed into the back of the Shadow Stalkers destroyer, stripping away the nano-matte paint, blistering and warping the composite metals and ceramics of the armour beneath, and speared the ship, killing everyone who got in its way. The [i]Jinx[/i]'s innards were vaporised, the areas around the lance of energy burned to a cinder or melted beyond recognition.

Gasses and fluids vented into space from the entry and exit wounds caused by the ten-second burst of high intensity, concentrated energy. The [i]Jinx[/i]'s running lights flickered, dimming to nothing as she died, her ruined carcass drifting slowly away from the station, her ID dropping from the TacNet shared by all friendly ships and the station itself. The Lishni cruiser and its accompanying destroyer settled into place around the station, making quick work of Impart's last remaining corvette. Heavily armoured shuttles burst from the cruiser's docking bay, making for the nearest available docking arm.

Soon after, Impart Station opened all channels, putting out a request to the Lishni Admiral heading the invading task force.

Impart's station master wanted to negotiate terms of surrender.