Sneak Peek - The Last Angel: Ascension, Chapter 52 (Patreon)

Well, I'm trucking along (knock wood) and hoping to get 6-7ish (maybe even the rough draft - ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!) pages of chapter 52 done for this weekend. If I can get it done by the end of next week, I'll try and get a third chapter (most likely a short story or addition to Names of the Demon) up before the 29/30 of this month - I'll be in another tournament those days, so the 28th is my cut-off.

In any event, here is a look at some of the opening scene from this chapter. Enjoy!

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Wraith Fleet Severance was burning.

The enemy fleet, reduced but still outnumbering Galhmena’s besiegers. It would win the battle of attrition. Reinforcements were dribbling in as squadrons in the outer-systems, chasing starships that Jirrico didn’t believe they’d ever find, came about and burned hard. He could imagine what it was like for the crews aboard those ships. Their acceleration has too high for inertial dampeners to fully compensate for. Anyone not a Tribune, or a handful of other hardy species would be extremely uncomfortable, requiring acceleration couches, webbing and even drug cocktails to stay functional rather than be crushed into their seats. Some vessels were moving at accelerations uncomfortable for Tribunes – lethal to most other species. 

Whether it was a sacrifice those officers and crew had decided upon, or one that had been made for them, Jirrico couldn’t know. They were that desperate to get back. He couldn’t blame them. Under similar circumstances, Kebrak Daun’s garrison would have been doing the same thing.

Most of them were too far out; they would arrive after the battle, either becoming last-ditch defences for the fleetyards and industry circling the inner worlds, or they would set upon what few survivors there were.

One million kilometers from Exsanguinator, a battleship exploded, the Heart-Seeking Blade. Jirrico had known Noble Ship Lady Ushena; her house had been long allies of Soton-ra. While the arrangement that had meant more thousands of years ago, he had liked and trusted Ushena. Her final report had been cut off mid-syllable.

The Compact battle-line was throwing everything they had at his vessels. Almost everything. The Compact commander was splitting the fleet. Not as much as he’d hoped, not enough to draw either arm out of support range of the other and force them to face their enemies alone, but enough to dedicate several hundred warships to Severance and the neverborn assault.

The Chariots were engaging. The Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment was turning to face him, while the missile variant was bombarding the smaller force. It was the expected play. If the heavy Chariot got into his fleet, he was done. He had nothing that could repel, much less survive, that kind of firepower for long. By the same token, his Compact counterpart wasn’t eager to get into energy range of Chrysalis and Coccoon, hoping to swamp their defences and weaken them enough for dozens of capital ships to finish them.

Nearly three hundred ships each, and the dozens of palisades behind.

His missiles and drones scorched towards the wall of battle steel, hammering the sleek, dark-hulled monsters into ruined, molten scrap, his superior computers and electronic warfare letting him accomplish with targeted strikes that his foe accomplished with brute force, but the Compact always had brute force to spare.