Three days had passed in a hasty blur. Kristofor sat in the dank and shadowed bowels of Sphere Two's Emergency Control Nexus, an empty, utilitarian vault situated midway between the vast Central Monitoring and Management Complex and the Network Operations Center.

  Breaching this forsaken vault had tested even his ingenuity. He’d wager its dust-laden consoles had lain untouched for nearly a century, or longer.

  But here, amid the wastewater sloshing below and the buzz of circuitry, he had insinuated himself into the station's controls, forcing unfettered dominion over every one of its systems and subsystems.

  His preparations and performance, thus far, had been perfect, the employment and execution of jury-rigged devices, hardware grafts, scripts, and code-weaves.

  He had bypassed the failsafes with a cascade of forged accesses and overrides, subverting the adamantine security and firewalls that guarded the station's vital architecture and arteries.

  Now, his makeshift shunt interfacing directly into the master control line, he counted down for Sphere Two's rotation to align ejection vectors as best as he could calculate, ready to unleash controlled destruction.

  Megastation spheres were constructed modularly, their colossal frames assembled from interlocking sectors, with vast, self-contained vaults housing habitats, manufactories, docking arrays, and so on.

  Critical conduits of all systems snaked between these segments, such as plasma relays for the power distribution, atmospheric structures, fusion spines, everything.

  Kristofor exploited this very architecture. With a final press of a finger, his homemade decker initiated a script first triggering overload protocols, flooding the inter-sector junctions with cascading surges that severed each docking bays' moorings in a chain of colossal explosions.

  Reinforced emergency bulkheads slammed shut like the jaws of death, sealing the doomed sectors as internal detonations ripped through them.

  Plasma conduits ruptured, spewing superheated fury with deafening roars as fusion substations bloomed in novae, their containment fields collapsing under the strain in vibrations that quaked through the station's core.

  And on and on the destruction went.

  The sections of massive berths, crammed with enemy vessels, buckled and tore free, propelled into the black by the violence of their own demise. Atmospheres from dome lattices vented in howling torrents that cycled futilely, trying to stabilize, instead feeding the vacuum crumpling the bays.

  Secondary blasts followed, a grim chain as berthed ships exploded or imploded amid the destruction ripping around them.

  The sectors compressed like accordions of twisted alloy, shrinking to a third their girth in a maelstrom of fire and decompression.

  Though most flew off into the void, two of these mangled husks hurtled outward as improvised projectiles. The timing and calculus for such had not been easy.

  Kristofor had orchestrated the ejections to coincide with the quartet's orbital dance, flinging the wreckage across the short 200,000-kilometer gulf, the distance and velocities far too immediate for defensive systems.

  These crumpled leviathans each slammed into a docking bay of Sphere One, kinetic hammers breaching the energy and atmospheric shields and igniting fresh conflagrations within the enemy-held ports.

  Simultaneously, his script unleashed Sphere Two's arsenals and defensive systems, repurposed under his overwritten directives.

  Safeties nullified, targeting slaved to his program, the weapons pivoted in unison, vomiting a storm of ordnance at the docking bays of Sphere One, Satellite One, and Satellite Two.

  Plasma bolts arced, kinetic slugs hammered with unyielding fury, and energy lances carved through decking and ship alike.

  The targeted spheres, still bound by their normal operational protocols, could muster no counterstroke. They wheeled through their stately orbits, spinning as usual, while the barrage seared unerringly.

  As he could not know the lay of ships berthed, the armaments’ algorithm tore along the docking bays in programmed furrows, targeting every meter with calculated equality.

  Docking bays erupted in blossoms of escaping atmosphere and debris, enemy vessels pulverized in their cradles.

  Only the emergency broadcast system connected all four spheres, binding them in communion, its laser relays spanning the void with near-instantaneous fidelity.

  In Sphere Two, Kristofor's pre-captured voice-message boomed from every intercom, and less than a second later, as the signal bridged the gaps, it blared through the other orbs.

  "Loyal citizens of the Holy Empire, this is our hour of reckoning. Rise up, in the name of our Lord, the Sovereign of Hosts. Rise against the United Front Heretics, strike them down without mercy, slaughter every Reptiloid on sight."

  He hoped the rumor about the Matriarch was true, as he had no evidence, just hearsay. If all went well, as planned, his words just condemned every member of the species within the megastation to death.

  As only such treachery explained the United Front’s swift, near-bloodless conquest, logic dictated his need to include that part.

  In only four orbital rotations, the blitz reduced most berthed ships to glowing slag in all docking bays of the three spheres.

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  But many vessels escaped into the void, and those posed a thornier quandary.

  His automated script had hard limitations. Sphere Two's armaments, designed for crews and fire-teams, blazed along the precalculated trajectories he coded.

  He had to seize manual overrides, one turret or cannon at a time, targeting escaped craft that didn’t sit still as he aimed and fired. They wove through the barrage, their own weapons lashing back with a vengeance.

  It was a grueling ballet of learning and intuition, his fingers dancing across keys, keeping an eye on the larger assault’s progress all the while.

  The damage toll mounted, with Sphere Two’s defenses scarred and silenced in retaliation. He had sought to preserve them as much as feasible given the situation, for the station's survival hinged on their integrity.

  Should the uprising prevail, Siemenaga would demand vast repairs, requiring fleets to arrive with materials, legions of specialized workers, and long years to complete. Sphere Two had no docking bays, effectively cut off from the outside world.

  He knew his plan would directly cause the death of many imperial citizens, their lives extinguished right alongside the Heretics.

  As he had forged this scheme in the quiet of his quarters, Kristofor had wondered if he’d feel guilt killing so many innocents, some flicker of remorse in the calculations.

  He did not. This was a feat of precise engineering.

  Instead, he felt an excitement akin to unraveling a vexing equation or birthing a grand schematic.

  As the final enemy vessel imploded, spiraling into the void’s dark embrace, a torrent of System messages flooded Kristofor’s eyes, searing into his vision in the dilated stasis of time’s suspension.

  He expected some admonishment for bucking the Parousia Protocols, utilizing illegal devices, and employing crewed weapon-systems on his own or with scripts.

  But no, each message praised, completely absent spurn.

  Among them, one proclamation burned brightest, unexpected and extremely surprising.

  Divine Theosis offered an immediate ascension to Knighthood, bestowed upon him for this grand feat of destruction.

  No testing. No Grim Ordeals. No requirements at all.

  He just needed to accept the offer.

  Even more surprising, as he read through the many messages in temporal dilation, a shiver ran through him as an ethereal figure materialized.

  Hovering just above the damp grates of the Emergency Control Nexus, an apparition of the blessed Mother, Mi Alcyone, floated with preternatural poise.

  Her presence was a vision of otherworldly grace and aesthetically pleasing beauty, surpassing even that of her statues and depictions etched in stained glass, the artisans failing to capture the totality of her unnatural allure.

  Her seamless vestment, a fluid weave of subtly shifting colors, embraced the perfect curves of her form, the hues dancing like liquid starlight.

  Her hands clasped behind her back, her posture an unyielding pillar of rigid serenity, her eyes a piercing blue, more a cerulean, locked onto his own.

  With a slight nod of her head, she spoke. “Kristofor. I hope you accept Theosis' offered ascendancy to Knighthood. You’re exactly what the Holy Empire needs right now, in this hour of desperation."

  She smiled, melting his heart. "We can do great things together. We can turn this war around.”

  The vision shattered.

  Angar looked into Spirit’s sad eyes, and she into his own.

  “The Holy and the broken,” she said. “Hallelujah.”

  Angar tried to tell her that her past actions, that she had also guided the unholy Horridus the Mortifer's initiation along the Glorious Path, meant nothing to him.

  Her sins, her mistakes, were irrelevant.

  But he was frozen still, and could neither move nor talk.

  Her fading arms embraced him, passing through his armor like ethereal mist, the warmth searing his soul with love and loss like a Divine flame cauterizing a wound that would fester eternally, and never heal.

  “Goodbye, Angar,” she whispered, her voice breaking, raw with millennia of unspoken sorrow. "Know I never abandoned you, not before. I’ve always been nearby, watching. But this is my end. I used everything to form this body and help here, to give you a chance. Nexus has me fully now.”

  She released him. “I pray you find the strength to free that good man hiding within you, and bask in the glory of the Almighty’s grace. Godspeed.”

  Light bled from her, flaring brighter as she yelled in agony, a cry that tore through his marrow, that vibrated through his bones, shattering something irreparable in his soul like fractured glass.

  She exploded into a radiant cascade, fragments of her essence scattering like dying stars across the ashen field, each fading spark a stolen piece of his life, his being, his purpose.

  Time lurched forward with a jolt, and Angar’s chest heaved, his heart hammering against his ribs as if trying to escape the emptiness she left behind.

  A gaping, cavernous ache bloomed within, a pit of despair so vast it threatened to swallow him whole.

  She was gone.

  Spirit, the blessed Mother, the broken part of her caught as a ghost in a machine.

  She’d guided him from the start, given him a chance for vengeance and redemption, forged him into the man he was.

  And now...nothing?

  She’d told him nothing.

  Nothing of where she was held.

  No location, no clue, only the certainty of her resignation.

  The certainty this was her end.

  He could’ve done something. He could’ve informed Hidetada, rallied the Seraphs, stormed whatever unholy prison bound her.

  Something.

  Anything.

  But she was gone, and he was alone again, adrift in a galaxy that suddenly felt colder, emptier, devoid of her light.

  The hope she had given him.

  He was going to fix her strange fanaticism, fix her mind, get her to see reason, and walk in the Lord’s true light again.

  She was his purpose, his anchor, the reason he endured all he did. Every swing of his maul, his cult, everything, it was all for her, to make her wish for a peaceful Empire come true.

  To lose her now was intolerable, a wound on his soul deeper than any Hell could inflict.

  His mind refused it, and her farewell.

  A fell bolt screamed through the foul air, slamming into his corroded armor. The rancid energy seared his flesh, a cold fire that bit through breaches in the plate, eating at his vitality with unholy hunger.

  The creatures pressed closer, their skeletal forms cloaked in writhing shrouds, their scythes glowing with profane malice, dark whispers slithering into his mind, surging in power.

  He staggered, his cybernetic legs grinding, claws digging into the cursed ground to keep him upright.

  The horde swarmed in, tearing through the distance Spirit had cleared like an unholy tide, blades slashing, spells tearing furrows in the blighted soil.

  Good.

  He needed to kill.

  He swung his maul, the hammer’s warped head creating a plasma-infused vortex as it crushed a Hellspawn in a spray of profane filth.

  Another swing shattered a second and third, but for every creature he felled, two more rushed forward, their scythes breaching his armor, burning with unnatural cold.

  He fought and moved, long after Ground Current ticked off cooldown. To stand still was to die, hollowed out by their necrotic sorcery, then his soul snared by those blasphemous blades.

  And he slaughtered, lost in rage, until his weapon, infused with Glory Thunders, unleashed a shockwave that rent his foes asunder.

  The vessel passed overhead, weapons blazing into the horde.

  He turned, fighting, surrounded once again, attacking more like a rabid animal than a man.

  As he fought, he exhaled.

  What was he doing?

  Spirit had given him a chance. He couldn’t dishonor her sacrifice with despair, yielding to a fate she’d given herself to prevent.