The last High Archduke came apart into inert dust behind Reika's back, and a strange quiet settled over the battle.
Where a thousand ships had thundered, there was now a graveyard. Hulls drifted, rotted and frozen. Miasma thinned into the dark like smoke after a fire. Somewhere a Duke-class frigate turned in slow, aimless circles because no one aboard was left to steer it.
Lucifer and Ren dropped back into the formation. The eight of them hung together in the void for a moment, a small constellation in a very large sky.
It hadn't been a war. It had been an execution. Two years of training, of bruises and arguments and breakfasts eaten standing up, had been tested against an armada built to break planets, and the armada had broken instead.
What remained of the enemy was scattered, leaderless and running. Cleanup.
"They're bolting," Lucifer said over the link, cold and pleased. "Let's not let them."
