Dies Irae (A ‘Slipgates’ Short Story)

Unclaimed Territory, on T-T-A Explorer Ship “Zeus.” 2108

The Captain spun on his heel, seeing the stars whirl around him in all their heavenly glory. He let his eyes close gently as he continued to spin, raising his arms wide, his hands gently conducting an imaginary orchestra. He was on the bridge, constructed to have an almost unobstructed view of the universe outside, truly a glorious place to have all to himself and his music, which was blasting as loud as he could coax the speakers to play it. As the music swelled, so did his heart, and his hands clenched into fists as the choir belted out in full voice. He loved music, the power of it, the soul of it. There was nothing quite like this experience, feeling all alone here amongst the infinite stars, one with the universe, the music, and himself.

After a moment however, something tugged at the back of his mind and he opened his eyes to see his Allied Commander holding her hands pressed hard against her ears and yelling something at him. But, with the music as loud as it was, he couldn’t hear a word. He cut the music with a flick of his wrist, to hear her finish, “ — SO LOUD YOU’RE GOING TO GO DEAF LIKE THIS PLEASE STOP — oh thank you sir.” He blushed, but only slightly, to see a number of other officers in the doorway to the bridge all grinning at him, having caught him in the act. He smiled back faintly at his second in command. “Sorry, Commander Kaela. I was… enjoying the moment of calm.”

“By ruining it?” She snapped back, and then seemed to realize her insubordination and bowed quickly. “I am sorry sir it is not my place to — ” but he waved a hand to cut her off.

“No apologies. I’m the one who should be sorry for disturbing you. I didn’t realize it was quite that loud. Afterall, there are airlocks and bulkheads and things, I would think it’d be pretty much silent. I hope I didn’t disturb you.” He had regained his composure, smoothing out some minor wrinkles in his black suit.

Kaela rolled her eyes, which was no small gesture for a Telha, whose eyes were considerably larger than their Terran allies’. It was also surprisingly rude for a Telha, but Captain Kaiser liked to think some of the Terran’s more relaxed attitudes regarding hierarchy were rubbing off on their new allies. “Yes, sir, bulkheads. Big, solid bulkheads. And sound travels even better through hard things, remember? Half the ship can hear you.”

The captain looked a bit sheepish, but grinned. “Well, Mozart is a good way to wake up the crew for the next shift. I assume that’s why you’re all here not-so-subtly sniggering at me?”

There were nods from most of the Terran crew members, but their alien companions looked bemused. “Mozart?” There was a pause as several of them conferred with each other in their native language. Not really being fluent himself, he waited for them to finish, his mind wandering back to the music but brought back to reality when Kaela spoke up. “None of us have ever heard that word. What does it mean? Does it mean… loud… noise?” She guessed hesitantly.

Most of the Terrans stared at her and her fellow aliens. “You don’t know Mozart? Your Ministry Of Culture has been cataloguing every damn bit of art our species has ever made, and you don’t know MOZART?!” He nearly shouted.

She looked a bit hurt, but stood her ground like a good officer. “No, sir. I… apologize for our failure.”

Now it was the Terrans’ turn to roll many of their eyes. The rigidity of their allies could be… tiresome. Kaiser smiled. “Nothing to be ashamed of, but it really should be corrected. Here, I’ll play it again — ”

“ — Quieter this time?”

“Yes. Listen.” The music restarted itself. “This is called The Requiem. Sequentia, specifically. My favorite piece of Terran music.” He said, slightly loudly to carry over the music. Dutifully, the aliens listened, several of them turning their heads a bit as the music ebbed and flowed, their long white ponytails (a standard out-of-the-way-but-still-pretty haircut many of them preferred) flowing gently with the gesture and the music. The captain and his fellow Terrans watched their alien friends listening to the music, everyone slowly moving to their assigned stations as the next duty shift started but enjoying this moment of camaraderie. It was unfortunately rare to have many moments of real unity, alliance or no, working together or not, between their peoples, so such a moment was a lovely little one to treasure.

After a few minutes the song ended, and Kaela saluted sharply to her captain, and when he nodded she joined him in the ring of chairs overlooking the general technical officers. She said nothing, and didn’t even look at him, gazing out at the stars with a rather fixed expression, her back quite rigid. Kaiser barely managed to hide a small smirk. “I know that look, Commander.”

“This is how I always look, sir.”

“Yes, yes it often is. It is one I have learned to interpret as ‘I have something to say but I’m not going to say it because that would be rude,’ and from what I can tell of you people, being rude to a superior is practically a capital offense.”

Her large grey eyes glanced briefly sideways at him. “I was unaware you had a background in behavioral psychology, Captain. Or xeno-sociology” She said, her words clipped and short.

Kaiser snorted. “I don’t. But I do pay attention, Commander. Go on, I’d like to hear what you don’t want to say.”

She looked pained for a moment, struggling with some inner turmoil, and finally turned to face him. “Begging the Captain’s pardon, but other than it being… well, pretty, I suppose, what is the …point of that piece of music? Why do you care about it so much? I can’t even understand the words. They must be terrible singers.”

“Well, no, they’re just not speaking English, for a start. Earth has had many other languages over the years, remember? We haven’t… had your time and… ah, zeal, for unity. Yet.” She nodded understanding, and then asked what it meant. The captain first ordered the usual crew orders, scanning for new interesting possible colony sites or resources to mine, that sort of thing, and then began to explain. He told her all about the old religions, the old ideas that first, this was a song that celebrated death, and more specifically, back when such things were believed, that at the end of time god itself would come with wrath and vengeance to judge those who were evil and save those who were good. She listened with rapt attention, her already over-large eyes getting bigger as his tale went on. He noticed all of the other Telha crew and even some of the non-western Terran crew were listening curiously, while ostensibly busy with their tasks. When he had finished, she gave this some thought, her strange ice-white skin scrunching up on her brow as she frowned in concentration. Eventually she said, “So… it’s a… legend about the universe… hating people.” She said slowly.

The captain chuckled. “Not… quite. Really when you get down to it, it’s about respecting the honorable dead, and bringing vengeance down on the enemy, the evils of the world. Or, well, universe. Whatever. It used to be played when a well-respected person died.”

This seemed to make more sense to her and she nodded enthusiastically. “Ah, a death ritual for the lost friends worthy of glory? And rejoicing in the slaughter of the enemy?” She asked, arching a pale eyebrow.

Kaiser opened his mouth to correct her, then closed it again. “Close enough,” He said, chuckling lightly.

Commander Kaela looked mollified. “Well. Then I think I like it. I shall have to look up more of Mo-Zart when I get off duty.” She said, a surprisingly self-satisfied smile on her face.

“Mozart.” Corrected Kaiser automatically, then added, “And yes, please do. Probably the best music Earth has to offer. Well,” He amended, “In a given category, at least.”

“Thank you sir.” She did that sharp little half-bow he had come to know, the one that always made him wonder how it didn’t crick her neck. After a few minutes silence other than replying to requests for new orders and confirmations, she suddenly turned to him with a perky smile. This was more cheerful than Kaiser could ever remember seeing her. Maybe Mozart really had struck a chord with her. “On the topic of death songs and big orchestras, are you familiar with Po Lemara?” She asked brightly.

Kaiser frowned, trying to remember, “No, I don’t think so, I take it that’s one of your composers you think I should look up?”

“Indeed! I think you will find her compositions quite to your liking.” They both paused and listened to the music again, still looping gently in the background. She nodded again. “Yes, I am quite certain you will like Po Lemara if you like this.” She said, with certainty.

“Well, thank you for the recommendation, Commander.” He smiled broadly at her and she smiled back with a warmth he had never seen her have before. “You know, it would seem this allied ship idea is finally really working, don’t you agree?”

“Indeed sir.” She said, her voice clipped and professional again. He rolled his eyes at her severe swerve in attitudes, but smiled internally when he saw her normally stiff as a board back was actually relaxed a bit. “finally.” He thought, “maybe we’ll survive this afterall. Music seems to have pulled at least a little bit of the stick out of her ass. …or perhaps it was because it was about death and glory and vengeance. She is, well, …rather enthusiastic about her military career.” Kaiser continued to muse silently to himself for a few minutes until an alert jolted him out of his stupor. “What is it!?” He demanded.

A number of alerts were going off now, and Telha officers were yelling at each other and to their C.O., while most of his Terran crew were just looking confused. “WELL?!” He snapped.

“Sir, sensors are going nuts. There appears to be … a LOT of …something… about to Slip in any second.”

Kaiser glanced at his co-commander for this allied mission. “Friends of yours?” He asked hopefully. The Telha Empire — The Terran’s new allies — was vast and had countless ships. But he knew from scattered reports that there were… plenty of other things out there that Terrans had yet to truly encounter.

Commander Kaela’s face was grim. “I don’t think so.” She shouted something back and forth with a few of her officers, and kaiser was again reminded of a comment some poet had made about when these missions first launched, about how the white aliens in their white uniforms contrasting with the dark metal of Terran-designed ships and the dark suits of Terran uniforms made an allied explorer ship look like a chess board. She whirled to face him after a few more shouts, and said seriously, “It’s a Drail Dominion fleet. …A big one.”

Kaiser was uncomfortable, but tried to contain himself. “Well, as I understand it — and believe me, I don’t really understand their bizarre political system — Different houses can be friend or foe. We’ve opened trade negotiations with, what, six Great Houses now, and only fought with two. 3–1 odds isn’t too bad, eh? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

The Telha crew still looked grim. “Perhaps.” Said Kaela curtly. As one, she and the captain turned to look out at the vast screens of the multi-storey high bridge, just in time to see the Drail fleet Slip into space.

They were… Huge. There wasn’t really another word for it. Massive. Unbelievably massive. The truly gargantuan one in the center was surrounded by a dozen or more smaller ones, but even these ‘smaller’ ones were easily twice the size of his own ship, which he had considered quite big right up until this point. Now he felt incredibly small, like a rabbit facing down an elephant. “The biggest one will be their Flagship, the one with all the major royalty of their House on it.” Kaela informed him quietly at his side. They had both unconsciously risen from their seats to stare out at the astounding view.

Kaiser realized his mouth was hanging open slightly. He closed it, and swallowed hard. “It… It’s too big. It must be, what, twenty thousand fucking meters long?! That can’t be! It’s… HUGE!”

The bridge had fallen silent as everyone stared out at the new arrivals. After what seemed like an eternity, Kaiser said quietly, “Tactical. Scan results?”

His tactical officer, a young man with a remarkable amount augmentations in his flesh and bright green styled hair turned to gaze at him. “It’s… hard to say, sir. Their ships as we know a little about appear to be… organic technology, which is hard to, you know, pinpoint. But based on what scans we’ve been able to get of friendly Drail ships in the past…” He looked at his display, and then back to his captain, “It’s got at least …thirteen hundred gun ports, sir. Standard Drail lasers, from what we can tell. And there’s what appears to be about two hundred apiece on the flanking ships.”

Kaiser choked slightly. “And… remind me what we have?” He said slowly, not taking his eyes off the massive ship outside.

“Um… We have 3 Explorer-class Terran-Telha-Ally ships in our convoy. We each have 4 railguns, sir, but they’re mostly for just breaking up asteroids to check for minerals and such. These aren’t warships. Oh, and our Telha friends insisted on putting on some extra hull armor, and one of their plasma launching turrets. ‘Just in case’ is what I was told.”

“In case of what?” The captain asked, his mouth dry.

“Well… of this, I guess.”

“Yes.” Said Kaela flatly.

Kaiser turned to her. “Commander. You’ve had a long history with these people. We’ve had barely 8 months of even knowing they exist. Do we have the ability to at least talk to them?”

Kaela considered this for a moment, and conferred with her team once again.

“Just imagine how much paint is on that damn thing…” Someone muttered, and Kaiser snapped at his crew for silence.

Kaela turned to her Captain. “Well, we think we can use your communications system modified with our standard Telha Imperial Courier codes, that should accomplish 1: getting their attention and 2: hopefully, not make them open fire. …at least not right away.”

Kaiser stared at her. “…Proceed.” He said eventually. There was a bustle of activity, and after a few moments, the center screen was replaced by the face of a Drail Noble. It was a woman, girl really, surrounded by a bunch of other men and women in their famously outrageous robes of hundreds of colors and dozens of layers of silk and precious metals and gems. They certainly wanted you to know they were royalty when you saw them. The girl in the center appeared to be in command, given her massive throne and a variety of slaves at her feet and the way everyone seemed to be deferring to her. She sneered at him. “You are in Drail Dominion Territory. You will be purged.” She said, simply.

Kaiser raised his hands, trying to calm the situation and silence his crew at once. “Wait, please, madam. We have happy relations with many of your Great Houses.” He remembered part of his job was to be a diplomat, and he did his best. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking? Perhaps this is all just a misunderstanding. We were not aware anyone had made a claim to this area.”

The purple-skinned alien scoffed, her two little forehead antennae wiggling about in her long sky-blue hair in what he presumed was indignation. He could see the hundreds of swirling tattoos on what few parts of her skin that were not covered by her incredible robe. “I am Torvet, of House Torvet. And this territory is mine.”

“Ah, you are your own house. That… must be quite an accomplishment.” Kaiser tried weakly, glancing around to see if any of his crew had any ideas. They all returned mostly blank but nervous stares. “And… As I said, we were unaware of any claim on this area. When was that made?”

She sneered at him again. “It is quite an accomplishment. And it is now, because I have said so.” She said, rather matter-of-factly.

There was a pregnant pause. “I see.” Captain Kaiser eventually said, and after another pause, continued, “Well, in that case, we can leave you alone, and I… hope we can have a happy relationship in the future.” An idea struck him, and he added, “And might I add, M’lady, that I am very honored you are speaking English, so as to better allow for diplomacy? It is very kind of you. Thank you.” He figured that since he had been told they had egos even bigger than their ships, flattery couldn’t hurt.

She did appear pleased by this last remark, but shook her head. “No, no. I have been hearing about you… Terrans.” She spat the final word like it was a bad bit of food left stuck in her teeth. “Making pacts with nearly all of the Houses aligned against my rise to glory. That, to me, quite clearly makes you an enemy.” She glanced around, and saw the Telha crew on the bridge as well. “Oh, and what luck, even more of my House’s enemies present themselves for sacrifice. What a time saver. thank you.” Sarcasm and hate dripping off her every syllable. She gestured lazily to someone they couldn’t see. “Obliterate them.” She said casually, leaning back in her huge throne.

Kaela was quick to respond. “Hull! Now!” They could all hear the grinding and thudding as the extra hull plating slid out of grooves to cover the most vulnerable areas. She turned to the captain. “It won’t do much good, to be honest, sir, we need to leave, NOW.”

Kaiser yelled to his helm officer. “You! pick a course, anywhere, and Slip out of here, NOW!”

The helm officer tapped frantically at her controls, and looked terrified up at her captain. “The capacitors are still recharging, sir, we can’t move yet. Not at all.”

“How long?”

“At least 90 seconds, sir.” She said, her voice meek and fading in fear.

The strange sound of laser impacts, burning heat that caused pitted blasts of the hull to explode in little pockets dinged and thudded around them. “Well, then full EM burn! Now! evasive maneuvers.”

“You won’t last that long,” The Drail princess said lazily, reclining sideways in her huge golden seat. They had all forgotten the communications link was still open.

Kaiser ignored her, barking orders for the other ships to dodge as best they could, watching in mounting horror as the dozen other ships besides the Capital ship began to break out of formation to follow them. “we just need to stick together, keep moving, not let them do enough damage just long enough to slip out.” He said with determination he hoped he was conveying to his crew. He wasn’t really a military commander, he was an explorer. Yes, he had studied in a military academy, but he’d never even punched someone in his life. This was insane. It was going to be a massacre.

He looked around at his crew. They were all shouting and acting as best they could, wincing as they heard more thuds and bangs of the hull being chipped away. Drail lasers weren’t particularly powerful in themselves, but against so many, they had no hope. He barked orders to fire the railguns, and the plasma weapon, at least try to damage some of their gun ports so they’d have fewer weapons to deal with. “Come on, we can’t really take them on ourselves, but we can do enough damage to survive, I KNOW we can, people, we can do this!” He clenched a fist and glared at the screen, still showing the princess, now fully laying down on her throne, legs over one side and kicking idly. Another kind of alien, one of the slave races he presumed, came up to her and knelt to give a report. She gazed at the green creature as it spoke, but kaiser nor none of their crew could understand what it was saying. Meanwhile, His tactical officer pumped a fist. “YES! I got a shot that took out at least a dozen of those cannons, sir. Great angle, took the opportunity.”

“Well done, Lieutenant.” Kaiser shouted, and stuck a finger up at the princess, who was now looking distinctly less amused. She ignored him, but continued listening to the slave report for a moment before scowling and, seemingly out of her bejeweled hand, shot him through the head with a small laser. The corpse crumpled up and was hurriedly dragged away by several other slaves. She scowled at the captain now, her pupil-less golden eyes little spheres of hatred. “You will pay for that.” She said. Plain and direct.

Within moments, all of her flanking ships converged on one of the other in the allied convoy, and all fired at once. Pounding it over and over and over with blast after blast, the black sky of space was a fireworks display of laser beams and burning metal. Hull fractures appeared, venting gas and — to his absolute horror — even venting people out into the void. After just a few more seconds, they got a report of no more life signs registering on their sister ship, the Athena. All hands lost.

Kaiser’s fists shook with rage. He swore a long string of curses at the Drail bitch now giggling at him. “God is on our side, pink man.” She grinned evilly at him as her ego swelled even more than before, if possible. “WE are the chosen people of God. WE are the true creations of the universe. WE are the only ones who deserve to rule. I. I will rule. Because God is with me, not you…” her face scrunched up in disgust, “atheists.” She spat the word. She couldn’t have put more loathing into ‘child murderers’.

The battle raged on, orders from both sides being relayed, flurries of fire lancing across the dark sky between the ships. The Princess watched them with a strange mixture of contempt and glee. She drank from a jewel-covered goblet, and then suddenly hesitated. “Wait.” Everyone turned to look at her, on both bridges, though the fighting continued, only mildly subdued. She frowned. “Are you… playing music? During a battle? You’re about to die, and you’re bothering with music?”

Kaiser blinked. He hadn’t even realized the song was still on loop. And in another blink, an idea struck him. He leaned to Kaela and hissed in her ear, “Keep her distracted.” And then ran off to talk to his officers.

Kaela was flummoxed for a moment, but rallied spectacularly. She stood down her eons-old ally and enemy. The Telha had been variously at war and peace — depending on the mood of the Prince or Princess and seemingly even the time of day, they were quite an erratic people — for nearly a thousand Terran years. She had seen it all. “Let me guess,” She began, and the Princess’ eyes narrowed to look at her. “You think you’re so tough because you’ve got this fleet. Oh, and let me also guess, this is the entire thing, right? This is all of it? You knew we were here, you wanted an easy victory to make yourself feel big, little girl. But that’s all I see. A little girl. What are you, barely out of puberty? HA! My daughter could beat you up, and she’s still in her egg!” Kaela glanced at her crew, who while busy with the battle were also staring open-mouthed at their commander. She must have really learned a lot from these Terrans about being rude.

It was clearly having the desired effect, too. The little purple girl shook with rage, screaming at her in her native tongue, but Kaela cut in, “What, too stupid to keep thinking in English? Yeah, it’s a hard language, your soft newborn little brain probably can’t handle it for very long. Really, I’m impressed you managed to say as much as you did. Good job.” Kaela was internally delighted to see the royal court staring between herself and their princess, who was near frothing with anger at this point. Screaming for her ships to attack, attack, attack! Kaela waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. make your minions do the work, that’s always been the Drail way.” She considered this for a second, then added, “Actually, come to think of it, how the hell,” She surprised herself at using Terran slang already, “Did a little thing like you get to be Princess, anyway? Ooooh, I bet you challenged your parents for control of the house, right? That makes sense. …Wait. …But you’re too cowardly for an actual duel. No… No I bet you murdered them in their sleep, right? So no one would catch you, no one would stop you? And now you think you’re ‘hot shit’, as my pink friends here would say.” Several Terrans looked up at this remark, amazed.

Princess Torvet was actually stamping her little feet in rage now, and shot yet another slave in rage. “Oh, that’s real mature.” Chided Kaela. She was enjoying this, much to her surprise. Maybe this is why the Terrans were like this all the time, it felt great! A thought struck her. “You know these Terrans you sneer at, I learned something about them today. This music they’re playing, it’s a song that’s played when someone dies. I think that someone will be you. Do you know what they’re singing? No of course you don’t. Too stupid to speak English, of course you wouldn’t understand their other languages. This part of the song,” She pointed upwards to indicate the music, and looked over at her captain. He had an evil grin on his face. She kept talking about the music as the captain turned back to his tactical and helm officers.

“So… Hypothetically, can you initiate a Slip while moving? And, if you did, would that inertial energy be carried with you?”

The two officers stared at each other. “Sir, that question just… doesn’t make any sense. Slipgate technology, sir, you’re not really ‘moving’ at all. You’re just … here, and then you’re there. There’s no distance actually traveled. It’s a slipgate, it’s two connected points in spacetime.” The helm officer said, terror in her eyes as she tried to think of a solution to help.

“But, you can move around on the ship during the slip, you’re not stuck in place or anything.” Interjected the tactical officer, idly tapping away at a screen with his hands while they spoke, trying to do as much damage as possible.

“So?” Demanded their captain.

“So… yeah, maybe. But what’s the point? even at maximum burn it would take us like, a hundred million years to get home, what are you getting at?”

“I’m thinking,” The captain said slowly, “That it’s time for me to finally throw my first punch. And that god is, in fact, on our side.”

They both stared at him, blank faced. “What.” They said in flat unison.

He waved them away, and tapped away at some controls. They watched this curiously. He was maneuvering them right next to the Athena, the ship that was dead in space. “What are you — “ began the helm officer but the tactical shushed her, staring wide-eyed. He thought he was beginning to see the captain’s plan, and grinned. “Oh… you son of a bitch, sir.” he said, grin broadening as he saw the evil smile on their captain’s face.

The captain laid out a strangely complicated plan on the helm controls. “Do that, EXACTLY, on my mark.”

“But, sir, that won’t — “

“DO IT!” He bellowed.

“AYE!” She almost yipped, saluting so hard she slapped herself in the eye.

Kaiser ran back to stand next to Kaela, and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked over at him, surprised, and decided to reciprocate the gesture. They were allies, afterall. She smirked at him. “You have a plan?” She said under her breath, as the Drail Princess continued to rant and scream on the screen over the battle beyond.

“Yep.”

“Will it work?”

“Yep.”

“How do you know?”

“Because for once, I think God is on our side.”

She gave him a quizzical frown, but saw his wide grin. The man was smiling during a battle they were almost certain to lose, and he was making what she assumed was a joke about an old legend his people didn’t even believe in anymore. She tilted her head curiously, and finally said, “I… trust you, sir.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you. And I you. I’ve been honored to work with you.”

“Likewise.” She said quietly, and squeezed him back.

They both turned to face Princess Torvet, and Kaiser shouted to get her attention. “Hey, Bitch!” He yelled. She stared at him, unsure how to respond to such a direct insult. “Duck.” He said simply, and then nodded to his helm officer.

The Lieutenant closed her eyes for a second and then pressed the final button to start the sequence. Magnetic grapples meant for snagging comets shot out and grabbed the Athena, and the engines went to maximum burn. “Three, …two… one…” Kaiser said softly.

“Duck? Numbers? What?!” The princess screamed furiously, confusion and rage fighting for control of her face.

And suddenly, the Terran ship wasn’t there. Just gone.

She stared blankly at her view screen, and demanded from a slave to know if they had some sort of invisibility technology. He merely shrugged, so she shot him too.

And then just as suddenly, the ship reappeared. Barely a hundred meters away from her massive Capital Flagship. Far too close to possibly evade. The communications link came back online just in time for her to hear the music, and to hear the Terran captain shout.

“DIES IRAE, MOTHERFUCKER!”

The Zeus let go of the grapples and peeled off as sharply as possible, but the energy of their fallen comrade ship continued on its course, at full speed, hundreds of thousands of kilometers an hour, two million tonnes of ruined but still quite solid ship SLAMMED directly into the hull of the behemoth enemy ship.

Zooming away, rear cameras showed a nearly two mile-wide hole blown clean through the side of her ship. Fire was everywhere, it was spinning and reeling in space, tumbling and burning. It smashed into several of the other smaller ships, dashing them into burning dust upon impact with the colossal ship.

The surviving Terrans and Telha turned to look at one another. The Drail seemed completely disinterested in them now, flocking back to help their mothership, and a couple even abandoning the fleet altogether.

Everyone stared at the captain, who stood in the center of the bridge, watching it all burn in silence. Then he slammed his fist into his other hand. “YES!”

A cheer went up, and they all watched the tumbling flaming wrecks fade to the distance as they left as quickly as possible. There was a moment of silence, only broken when Kaela spoke at his side.

“Amen.” she said firmly.