Vegnault Grats was frozen in place. No amount of captain’s training could have prepared him for this. The Grand Destroyer Sword of Slaughter was no more.

Grats had been sent back to system 109799. These primitive humans had dug in and refused to leave the system.

Admiral Vashnu Ablak had been particularly insulting about egg-sitting Gaultic Tarn. The humans, he pointed out, still used archaic ballistic weapons. The Sword of Slaughter could glass the entire volume with and never even notice. Given a few moments, even the Gaultic Tarn could do something tactically similar.

It was unsurprising that diplomacy quickly broke down. Ablak ordered the forward battery primed and ready.

The humans. Well, the humans fired first. They deployed a smallish cylinder of impure composite metals at the Sword of Slaughter. Only they did so at 0.1% below C and had fired it nineteen revolutions ago in anticipation of hostilities. They had more ready if anyone was interested.

At least now Grats understood why humans have so many rules of war. Without those rules… Grats shuddered.

All he had to do was broker a peace treaty, move the humans on, and explain why the most expensive gunship ever built was so much scrap.

It was going to be a long day.

Vegnault Grats is the captain of the moderately powerful Gaultic Tarn – the flagship of the Nagarlim’s Thirteenth Voids – a squad established to assign out of date but still valuable ships along with unpopular, incompetent, or untrustworthy officers and crew. The Thirteenth Voids get all the tasks that no one else wants. This includes tedious jobs, suicidal jobs, or tasks that will see them in deep space for many revolutions.