The ship bucked hard as it disengaged its stealth field and fired its drives. The burn making me feel as if an ATLAS mech was standing on my chest. As the pressure threatened to smash me flat into the crash couch I heard the ship's AI begin announcing our progress towards the maximum burn.

When the count hit four I felt the crash couch inject me with the milk like stimulants we called the juice. And by ten Gs my vision had narrowed to a small dot as even my nanite enhanced body had to fight to keep me from blacking out.

On the tactical display, I could see that the UEC ships in the system had indeed seen what was going on behind our little stealth corvette. And if they didn't know before they certainly did when we launched a nuke at the freighter. Vaporizing the ship and bathing our ship in charged particles that mixed with our drive cores made us stand out like a road flare at night.

Keying my implants to show me an external view as our icon seemed to merge with that of the claw ship I watched in abject terror as our ship seêmed to be skimming the surface of the big ships hull. Following the shell-like contour as the lanky ship charged and fired a beam of red energy from one of its claws towards the rising cyber battleship.

"Hold on everyone! Can we jump to FTL?" Colonel Tiegh yelled as we watched the beam slice its way across the cybar battleship causing what would have to be extremely powerful shields to flair to life.

"Negative, we are experiencing fluctuations in subspace. If I had to guess either one or both of those ships must be getting ready to, or already have sent out some kind of signal. No, if we want to get out of the system we'll have to run the gauntlet." A guy with the name Barnet called out from his station after conversing with the ship's AI.

I don't know why but something about what he said made nod with understanding almost as if some subconscious part of me knew something was coming. And as I watched the UEC ships that had previously been patrolling the system began to burn towards the node, their trajectory, and speed displayed on the tactical plot showing that they intended to set up some kind of blockade around the node assuming correctly that we would have to use the Alcubierre jump point.

"Energy build-up from Bug-1." The sensor operator reported as the icon displaying the claw ship as the top left claw on Bug-1 began to pulse.

"Colonel! The Cybar battlecruiser is painting us with active sensors… torpedo launched! Vampire, vampire incoming at Mark six, point six on ingress. Time to impact five minutes."

Turning his command couch as the pressure of the sudden acceleration burn lessened somewhat. "Gunnery bring the PDCs online. And warm up the rail guns. Load cluster into tubes six and ten and return fire. X, get down to your combat stations, I think this is going to get worse before it gets better."

"Aye, sir. Damn those fish are fast, bringing PDCs online. Tubes six and ten firing, Warming up railguns."

"On it sir. Twenties, Habu. Let's move." X said clicking his mag boots on before unstrapping himself from the crash couch.

https://youtu.be/tFIf3MjJYX8

With a half-smile, I turned to Miiora, seeing the apprehension on her face. Thinking quickly of something to kick her into gear I recalled a one-liner I heard in an old movie. "This is where the fun begins."

That seemed to do the trick and as I unstrapped her and we made our way to the hatch as I began to feel the deck shudder as the PDCs roared to life.

A blazing ruby beam lanced from one of Sixth-claws four appendages searing a crimson streak through the void before slamming into the glittering particle shield that surrounded the Cybar battleship. Shields flared across the ancient Cybar ship as it fired its thrusters carrying its bulk forward and into a roll dispersing the energy from the Lanky's energy projector.

As it rolled great eight barreled guns emerged from the largest of the of weapons blisters that dotted its triangular hulls. The mighty guns tracked from the small primitive ship to its new target as several of the smaller blisters opened releasing several swarms of three-pronged dart-shaped drone fighters. In response several holes eyeressed open along the Claw ships hull as it released its own swarm of embarked Flayed.

With speeds, none of the two groups of young races in the system thought possible the two groups of fighters hurled themselves through space. And in a matter of what should have been minutes the watched children watched the two swarms begin exchanging ranging shots scoring several kills before the groups merged into a massive conglomeration of organic and inorganic fighters.

"Rad warming! Gamma-ray burst!" A sensor tech aboard the Defiant yelled as alarms began blaring throughout the ship.

A massive energy spike drew eyes across the system as six-eight barreled guns began to draw power. The Cybar battleships vacuum energy reactor poured power into the guns. The children watched what looked like golden dust seemingly form from space before coalescing into the guns. To their ancient ancestors what must have looked like holy golden light suddenly blasted from those mighty guns soaring straight into the flank of the maneuvering Claw ship. Radiation warnings danced across every display in the system as the entire left hemisphere of the claw ship disappeared in a brilliant flash of golden-white light.

Aboard the Defiant three individuals clasped their hands to their heads and hearts as a wave of anguish, pain, and anger washed over them. Two of the three fell to their knees while four friends of the third had to physically restrain him as he attempted to dash to the second.

In space red particles surrounded the damaged Claw ship. Growing thicker and brighter by the second before it burst outward sending out a wave of red energy crossing the system in a matter of seconds filling every speaker and communications system with an ear-piercing screech before dissipating at the system's edge. Caught off guard by the sudden wash of energy the shields of the Cybar ship flickered having not had enough time to analyze the strange anomaly.

The long-dead strategic brain of the Claw roared to life. Now disregarding the child patterns several thousand units at its flank its hull began to glow an evil red as The-One disengaged this claws safes and began to draw power from its zero point reactor.

"Neutrino burst!" A lieutenant called out from the bridge of the local UEC Planetary defense fleet flagship.

"Raise shields!" The sub-commander in overall command yelled as they watched the blades along the claws of the Claw ship begin to glow an iridescent red.

"Rad warning level ten! Newton radiation, and unknown particulate build-up from Bug-1." The sensor tech reported as Tiegh and as well as his entire bridge crew sat pale-faced at the sight of the battle. The same thought crossing almost every human's mind, that if the Lankys had these kinds of weapons why hadn't they used them during the siege? Were they so insufficient in the end?

Eyes watched as the three remaining claws of Bug-1 moved, closing, drawing closer together coalescing power before a red glowing orb appeared between them. And as the children of this galactic region watched what looked to be a small localized star appeared in the maw of the damage claw ship elongating into a long teardrop shape. Then in a sequence of events unknown to any witnessing somehow changed from a small star into a solid jagged translucent red crystal before rocketing off into space leaving a trail of glowing pink particles in its wake.

The large building-sized crystal slammed into the Cybar's partial shields overloading them instantly and allowing the Lanky weapon to continue on to pierce straight through the hull of their mortal enemies ship tearing a great hundred-meter wide hole through both triangular hulls.

The glowing crystal continued on into the gas giant's atmosphere where it created one of the most beautiful displays ever witnessed in this quadrant since the days of the ancients, and an event that would be recorded and witnessed in the histories of every sentient race in this quadrant.

Before the eyes of the children present the swirling clouds of the Jovian planet solidified becoming a gigantic almost transparent crystal that glowed the most beautiful red from within where it's core had once been. The light from the system's star reflected the light dancing off of its surface and illuminating beautiful fractal patterns within the planet.

The crystal sat silent for several moments, during which the children marveled at the display. Before all, at once the newly created crystal planet cracked and shattered. The solar winds of the local star sending shards of crystal spewing throughout the system creating large swirling patterns of glittering crystal. As well as shotgunning the Cybar ship's hull with large car-sized shards.

The Bug-1 attempted to follow up this attack with another however by the time it's remaining claws had managed to charge the second shot sixteen beams of golden light washed over its surface.

The light from the beams reflected off of the swirling shards around the two ships casting the two in brilliant contrast. And when the light died down a second claw as well as a second hemisphere of the Claw ship had been blown away, reduced to its constituent atoms. Seeing no other choice, with its main weapons crippled whatever passed for an intelligence in Bug-one decided to simply gun its reactionless drive opting to simply ram its opponent.

This, however, was a variable the Cybar intelligence had predicted and so as the Lanky ship advanced it aimed and fired its remaining gamma-ray guns into the flank of the wounded ship. Light flashed as the ship adjusted thrust vectoring on it's Z axis to let it's now crippled prey sail by. And prey it was, as the stricken Claw ship drifted trapped on its vector the Cybar battleship adjusted thrust and closed in for the kill.

As the children watched the Cybar ship slowly closed in, like some kind of cruel murderer. In its defense, the Claw eyeressed holes across what was left of its hull as the Cybar drew close spraying its hull with enough penetrators and glowing missiles to turn the pride of the human fleet the Galactica into a fine powder.

These weapons, penetrators especially were familiar to humans as most of their fleets had been destroyed by such weapons. These proved ultimately to be useless, darkening the hull in flashes of ruby light or simply denting and skipping off of the hull is sloped armor.

The cruel Cybar Intelligence relished in its victory against its mortal enemy. It dialed the power of its guns down and began sending stems of golden light into the side of the Claw ship essentially doing the equivalent of stabbing a wounded animal to death.

So engrossed in its psychotic revelry was the Cybar intelligence that it failed to notice the cluster of swirling tunnels that burst into existence several million kilometers away. "Siege war-n...ing…" The sensor tech aboard the Defiant trailed off as a cluster of ten old looking battle-scarred Claw ships burst from hyperspace.

https://youtu.be/7h-ZL2QVtSo

But what drew the children's eyes weren't the claws. No. It had reached out so many times over the eons knowing to search, knowing feeling something but never able to find it's a final foe. The humans had unknowingly destroyed many of its foes during its war with them, and for this reason, it had begun allowing other sentiments to live. Granting them those who had for the first time in a thousand years destroyed one of its ships the boon of unknown guardianship. And now it as it had reached out with the mutated placenta and damaged flayed it had somehow found its final foe.

The-One would finally be able to partake in it's created purpose and so as the children of the current watched The-One emerged not from a hyperspace tunnel, instead burst into existence flying through the system gateway tunnel.

Every set of eyes in the system eyed their displays eyes darting to the newest contact that had just come through the alcubierre node and was now crossing the distance form up with the Claw fleet at an unimaginable rate of 260Gs of acceleration.

Visual feeds showed an absolutely massive twelve kilometers long, claw ship. Its forward section didn't have four claws like it's comparatively diminutive cousins. Instead, this thing that humans could only describe as a monster possessed six large battle-damaged jagged claws. Furthermore, it lacked the pitch-black coloring of it's kind. This monster that the damaged Flayed named Shiraui had breathlessly and reverently identified as The-One, possessed a pale white carapace much like the flayed aboard the Defiant. And slung under its massive beetle shaped bulk sat a single massive protrusion, a huge gnarled claw that ran from the middle of the ship to just almost half a kilometer beyond its prow.

Veins of glowing red light spotted it's ancient scarred hull and as it picked up speed it began leaving a trail of glowing pink particles that disabled the shields of UEC ships as the humans fought their way out of the system in its wake.

In the shadow of The-One the Defiant took advantage of this unforeseen circumstance, angeling her two twin-linked railguns and sending volys of tungsten into the small defence fleet. The surprise stack scored several kills before an enterprising ships commander saw fit to launch her vessels marine laden escape pods into the Defiant as she shot passed.

Unfortunately, do to The-One's rarely used and ancient body lacking any kind of FTL Drive like it's smaller kin it was still forced to cross the vast distance of space. And by the time it had reached its escort the Cybar ships hull had mostly regenerated. And its own reinforcements had arrived in the form of two more Cybar battleships as well as the final vessel, The Creators had dubbed a Stardust Dreadnought.

And so it drew finally its bulk finally sailing passed the Defiant. In a femtosecond, The-One analyzed its opponents as the four ships began fighter launch procedures and found that it would not be able to control its fleets fighters, its body, and the ten claws at the same time while simultaneously focusing on the battle.

It focused on searching the trillions of tactical minds that had at one point been individual that made up that portion of its consciousness. It soon found an answer and so it reached out.

It reached out, faster than it ever had. Twenty-two trillion times per second it reached out. It reached out to the stars, reached out to every engram disk it had ever sent out. It backed up whatever engrams we're currently on those glowing disks and absorbed the original back up into the whole. It had its trump card, the Cybar knew it couldn't split its attention from the with the dreadnought and it's fleet to operate fighters.

But now all of its flayed at least temporarily were individually operated like a certain damaged flayed, The-Ones fighters had become sentient.

So as the Cybar fleet began launching fighters so too did The-One and the ten Claws and with that finale battle of its ancient war had begun.

One flayed yelled in a panic as it shifted from its fighter mode to swat a Cybar drone from the void.
A third flayed flipped on its axis, destroying another two fighters before shifting to come back to back with its cousin.

Another chirped excitedly as it swatted more of the drones from space. Turning it shifted forms mid flip and backhanded another drown sending spiraling through space exploding several seconds later.

Around the system, the two fleets of Vincent ships began to spread out sending lances of golden and ruby light towards one another punctuated by swarms of torpedoes, missiles, penetrators, massive bolts of plasma and crystals of solid glowing matter.

In the distance, one of the Claw ships exploded as the concentrated fire of two Cybar battleships vaporized it's hull and destabilized its zero point core. Meanwhile closer to the core of the system a particularly familiar group of flayed began making their way towards the dreadnought.

These flayed knew each other, somehow knowing instinctively how to find one another. These unlike many of their kin taking part in the battle we're partial to fighting on the hulls of the Cybar ships in their humanoid forms. Utilizing small unit tactics to prioritize targets of opportunity such as cooling vents and maintenance hatches. These "marines" fought their way inside of the Cybar to engage the machines on terms their formerly human minds could comprehend.

Diving vectoring another wing of flayed flew low skimming the hull of the dreadnought as The-One pounded the Stardust dreadnought with its bio particle cannon working to lower the prismatic partial shields of the Cybar.

The-One watched satisfied that its gambit had worked. The formally Human, Tymrian, Kleese, Pakra, Shinzi, and Hurkel minds occupying its flayed had thrown the cybar drones into complete disarray with their unorganized and chaotic methods of attack.

At its flank, The-One felt the death of one of its claws. The vessel had drifted too close to the dreadnought's firing arc and had been cored through by its main cannons. Then a nova-like explosion rocked the system as one of the Cybar battleships was rammed by a wounded claw rupturing the housings for both ships reactors. Causing a catastrophic meltdown as both zero point and vacuum energy reactors suddenly breached their containment bottles.

Clouds of gas and swirling crystal spiraled creating a nebula that crackled with overcharged particles. Great bolts of lightning flashed through space arcing between the planets completely vaporizing all life where they struck and bathing their atmospheres with harmful radiation.

Flashes of what could have been pain shot through the one as it's hull was punctured by one of the battleships gamma particles arrays. Followed by a flash of irritation as it was forced to tear it's attention away from this battle with the dreadnought.

Firing its massive vectoring thrusters The-One somersaulted bringing its main weapon to bear on the diminutive vessel. The entire length of the single claw glowed a brilliant crimson as particles were collected condensed and finally fired into a single massive beam that shot through space completely enveloped the battleship. Shields flickered and failed, hull plating boiled and flash vaporized as the entire ship was almost instantly disintegrated.

Angling its thrusters The-One swept the beam across the battlefield savoring the aft end from one of the two remaining battleships. And seemingly erasing three of the nine pathetically primitive UEC ships in the system from existence.

Its ventral side exploded then, several of its reactionless drives destroyed as its real opponent fired taking advantage of the compromised position of The-One. The ancient Lanky ship tried to adjust its position, losing a claw as it a prow was rocked by a massed antimatter torpedo barrage.

It rolled attempting to disperse the damage being done to its hull. Only for the Cybar to take advantage of its wounded state and pound it once more with a second volley of octuple gamma cannon fire.

Instantly the remaining Claws shifted position moving to interpose themselves between the dreadnought and The-One. The first of which being completely destroyed as it suffered almost thirty consecutive hits amidships. Puncturing its zero-point core and sending it up in a massive explosion that blackened a large portion of The-Ones hull. But managing to batter the massive vessel with enough large chunks of the hull to flip the ship back onto a proper course.

Concentrating fire the remaining four Claws conceived and fired solar shards into the remaining undamaged battleship. Its shields fell under the barrage, its targeting stays struggling to compensate for the damage before the Claws followed up with a barrage of neutron beams, and particle lances. Soon the damage being done proved to be too much and as a final solar shard landed through its midsection it exploded.

Two more claws exploded then, torn to shreds by the guns if the dreadnought. This was the moment of truth as flayed and drones swarmed around and between both capital ships. The taking its chance the final battleship attempted to make a run for the system's gateway only for the remaining three Claws to intercept it midway to its destination, losing another two of their number before the battleship was finally destroyed.

The dreadnaughts cannons angled one more time targeting the mighty rend in its midsection. However, as the Cybar aligned the shot its main targeting array was blasted to pieces by a trio of flayed. The shots fired going wide, missing The-One completely and allowing it to roll to bring its weakened hull out of the line of fire.

These flayed, The-One felt like it knew them. The first gracefully broke away from its companion and had begun destroying several of the cannons on that section of the ship. Yes, and as it flipped destroying several missiles that had been trailing it The-One placed it. This was the first of its kind based on the prototype strain that had killed it, killed and revived hundreds of times since its creation. Its placenta had been one Mary Dorson the alpha flayed.

And the second flayed however, The-One felt something strange coming from it. It felt off like it had been tainted by something foreign. And as it smashed through one of the building like structures that dotted the dreadnaughts hull it felt like it knew the answer. It had attempted communion with its template several times in the past only to be roughly silenced by some kind of outside influence.

It smashed another tower before using its claws to drag itself into an arc that traced the hull, and into one of the gamma cannons where it fired penetrate mines that perforated their housings and detonated them from the inside. Yes, it knew this pattern, its wounded flayed was linked to its template. It was the mental Ingram of Avery Fallon, and as The-One charged its bio particle cannon it watched the flayed run along the hull before smashing through an airlock to join several of its kin in the battle that raged inside of the dreadnought.

But it was the one that leads flayed the three that The-One knew the most. For it had unknowingly battled unknowingly at its side since long before many of these engram templates were even born. This template had killed and still hunted the followers of the quantum. This template was none other than the legendary human hero Tyrus Wrechs.

Particles condensed and as The-One fired its weapon into the center of the dreadnought the T-rex of the legion targeted and flew directly into the cybar Dreadnoughts DataCore ending both its own life as well shutting down the dreadnaught locking it on its current course. A course that would take the massive ship sailing straight into the systems sun.

Battery and bruised The-One recalled its fighters, ordering them to take samples and embark either itself or the sole remaining claw In the system. Before the massive ship flipped on its axis and began burning hard towards the system's gateway, its sole remaining claw escort following close in its wake.

Behind it, the final flayed jumped out of the doomed dreadnaught. And as The-One destroyed whatever UEC ships we're foolish enough to stay in the system on its way out the Dreadnought flew into the star, exploding in its corona with a brilliant explosion that could be seen from Earth in several thousand years.

A sense of calm washed over The-Whole as The-One entered the gateway intent on returning to what was left of the homeworld. Where it would at last set down and await the next great battle that would require its presence. The-One felt it something close to pride at what it had done, at long last the Cybar were defeated. It could rest and watch over the Galaxy it had originally been created to do.

Author's Notes:

Had a lot of fun writing this one so I hoped you liked it.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. (if you celebrate it.)