But the smaller Omnic units didn’t retreat with it, because they didn’t think like living crews.
They turned toward the source of the attack and started closing in, swarming through the belt like a tal storm, aiming to surround the hidden predator that had just bitten their leader.
Aurelian watched it all without speaking, because he trusted Astra and didn’t think that he had to command to defeat these small units.
The screens showed it clearly.
The core was damaged badly, but it still had movent. It still had function. It still had enough brain left to try to escape.
Astra smiled slightly.
"The opening worked," she said, and there was a trace of satisfaction in it. "But we still need a decisive end, or it will crawl back to the main body and bring friends."
Aurelian understood exactly what she ant.
She wanted to go all out.
Not just stand back and trade fire politely, but push forward, crush the escort swarm, and finish the core up close so nothing survived to report, because when you fought machines, the most dangerous thing wasn’t the one you killed, it was the one that fled carrying your data.
Aurelian waved his hand as he gave her the green light to do what she wanted to do.
"Do what you want to do," he said, calm and sure. "End it properly."
Astra’s lips curved, not sweet, not playful, but sharp with intent.
"Yes," she replied.
Black Crown surged forward.
It didn’t go the roundabout way; it pushed through the belt with controlled aggression, crushing smaller rocks in its path and forcing the battlefield to beco close and ugly, because Astra knew exactly what she was doing, and she didn’t care if the Omnics wanted a clean fight.
The rail batteries began firing in layered bursts, the point-defense interceptors stitched the dark with fast, precise lines, shredding smaller units that tried to latch onto the ship or slip behind it, and all the while the damaged Foundry Core kept trying to pull away like a wounded animal that refused to accept it was already dead.
Aurelian stayed in his chair and watched Astra work, and the strangest part was that even now, with the belt flashing and the enemy swarming, he finally understood why so many people wanted to beco commanders.
Near the outer edge of the Shatterglass Belt, where the asteroids thinned out into long, broken streams of stone, a slender warship hung in the dark with its lights dimd low enough to be mistaken for drifting debris, and inside that ship a black-haired woman sat with one leg crossed over the other, calmly eating ice cream as if she were watching a theater show instead of a live battlefield.
She looked young at first glance, but there was an ease in her eyes that only ca from experience, the kind that would make anyone feel like their entire life had been seen through, and as the blue light of the tactical screen flickered across her face, she let out a quiet click of her tongue, amused and faintly impressed at the sa ti.
"So he really chose to push in," she muttered, spoon tapping lightly against the container as she watched Black Crown surge forward through the belt with the kind of control that did not belong to a first-week commander. "That’s not sothing a newbie commander would do, but it’s the way that ends it before it can report back."
She leaned her cheek into her palm, eyes tracking the flow of the fight, and in the corner of her screen the Arcturus crest sat like a silent stamp of authority, because this warship was not a local defense hull and it was not part of the academy’s reinforcents either, it was a private patrol craft dispatched quietly the mont the Arcturus line received the first confirmation that Omnics had appeared on an academy corridor.
"Aurelian Vale Arcturus," she said, repeating it as she thought back to when she saw him for the first ti and couldn’t help but compare the past him to the current one. "You don’t look like the kind that needs soone hovering behind you."
The ice cream disappeared in another bite, and she watched Astra’s control tighten like a noose as the ship carved a straight, ugly path through the Omnic screen.
Inside Black Crown’s command core, the fight had already turned into close-range pressure, because the Foundry Core’s retreat line was clear and Astra was cutting it off before it could crawl out into open space, and as the smaller Omnic units sward in they tried to adapt the way they always did, splitting into different approach vectors, shifting their body geotry to slip between rocks, and pushing forward in waves ant to blind the ship’s targeting.
It would have worked on a weaker hull, or on a human ship with slow coordination, but Black Crown was not those things, and Astra was not those commanders.
The twelve triple-mounted Vanguard rail batteries hamred in layered bursts, each burst aid where the swarm was thickest rather than where it was neatest, because neat patterns were a luxury Omnics rarely gave, and the point-defense interceptors stitched the darkness with fast, clean fire, shredding anything that got close enough to even think about touching the shield field.
Aurelian stayed seated, watching the tactical feed with a calm that did not co from ignorance, but from the simple understanding that right now the best thing he could do was not get in Astra’s way, because his orders had already been given and she was already doing what he wanted, which was to end this quickly and leave nothing behind to carry data ho.
The damaged Tier III Foundry Core still tried to run, modules shifting and locking as it attempted to stabilize its internal structure, and behind it, the belt filled with the sharp silhouettes of lesser units covering its retreat like loyal guards made of tal.
Astra’s voice stayed even.
"Main batteries will complete their cycle in twenty seconds," she reported, and the way she said it made it sound less like a status update and more like a sentence being read out at an execution.
Aurelian’s eyes remained on the Foundry Core’s vector. "You have full authority," he said, and he ant it, because he had already decided that this fight was hers to finish cleanly.
Astra nodded once as she operated at a speed that would shock anyone who did not have their own ship girls.
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