Explosions wracked the
Fatalis as deck after deck collapsed, shaking the tubolift in which Tu'teggacha cowered like a kite in the wind. Though the Taskmaster could no longer observe the battle through the main viewport, sensor data forwarded to his datapad revealed the bleak truth: it was more than clear that the fight was lost, and indeed that it had probably never been winnable. Even if the numbers
had been on the Maw's side, it seemed that
nothing could destroy the Io capital ships. Their lead ship had been fired upon continuously by eight star destroyers, then a full, point-blank super star destroyer barrage...
... and it was still standing. So far as the Ebruchi could tell, it was indestructible.
The
Fatalis, though mighty, was not. The turbolift suddenly ground to a halt, and the interior lights went out, stranding Tu'teggacha in the dark, cramped space. Power failure; one of the reactors must have been overwhelmed, or perhaps destroyed outright. For a long moment the Ebruchi huddled in a corner of the elevator, unable to see his own knobby hands in front of his face. Darkness had been his only friend back aboard his clan cruiser, when the others had mocked and beaten him whenever he showed his face... but he did not wish to return to those days. He did not want to die in the dark.
Red emergency lights flooded the lift with a bloody glow, and it jarred back into motion as the emergency power kicked in. It wouldn't last long, but it might just last long enough to get the Taskmaster to his private hangar... and that was
essential. As the last of the Mawite escorts died, the star destroyers blown apart by Elysian bombers they could no longer do much to fight back against, escape pods were launching en masse. They were also being
shot down en masse, Elysian fighters and interceptors streaking in to blow them apart before they could reach the relative safety of the
Avatar or the Ravager's fleet.
If the Taskmaster took that route, he would surely be killed before he could escape.
Glancing back at the datapad, Tu'teggacha saw something truly astounding. Many of the
Fatalis's largest weapons weren't even striking the Io command ship, not even at point blank. In the Force, he could feel why; somehow, someone had used Fold Space not to move
themselves, but to make some kind of portals that teleported weapons fire around, forcing the
Fatalis to shoot at the
Avatar instead. The entire idea flabbergasted him. Anyone who could do that would be the most godlike fleet admiral in the galaxy, someone who could have won the entire war - or indeed any war in the galaxy's history - single-handed.
Star Destroyers chasing the Millennium Falcon? Oops, fold space, they all shot each other.
Death Star shooting at Alderaan? Oops, fold space, the superlaser hit its own battlestation.
Who needed a fleet at all when you could just make the enemy shoot themselves?
Perhaps it was the massive aura of unreality that came from Solipsis's ritual that made such a thing possible, for Tu'teggacha could not imagine how such an ability could ordinarily be achieved, or why the user would have waited to use it when they could have won the battle instantly at the start with such power. Whatever the truth, it only confirmed what he had suspected from the beginning: this fight was hopeless. Let the other Mawites die en masse up here and feed Solipsis with their blood runes, as the Dark Voice had no doubt always planned. The Ebruchi was going to get the feth out of here.
As the Io and Elysian bombers, with ranged fire support from the Eternal Empire fleet, made run after run across the surface of the
Fatalis, the superstructure began to give way. The engines had already been crippled by that Io beam weapon, and the Elysians had bombed the hangars, ensuring that there was no escape from the dying ship. Well, no escape for the rank and file, anyway. As soon as he'd been placed in fleet command, a risky position which he had
never desired, the Taskmaster had made some secret modifications to the former flagship... and those modifications were about to finally pay off.
After what seemed like hours of panicked waiting, each moment that passed a potentially fatal one as the dreadnought's hull collapsed further, the executive turbolift's doors finally slid open. Tu'teggacha stepped out into a tiny hidden hangar, one that he alone knew about; he'd killed all the workers who'd built it for him
personally. It had no exterior opening, as that would reveal it and make it a target. Its walls were narrow, its ceiling low. It had just enough room for a single
Ommin-class Infiltration Shuttle. Tu'teggacha hurried over to the vessel, scuttling as quickly as his knobby little legs would allow, and rushed up the ramp.
He'd already warmed the ship up remotely. It was time to get out of there.
The Ebruchi slid into the pilot's seat, specially modified for his hunched physiology, and pressed several buttons. The bottom of the hangar suddenly slid sideways, opening the hull of the
Fatalis just enough to allow the shuttle to slide out into the void. Extensive stealth systems kicked in immediately, hiding him from both sensors and visual scanning, and he focused the full power of his mind on concealing his Force presence. In his mind's eye, he became small and rubbery, sliding into a tiny little space in this huge clash of souls. He had experience with that, both in reality and in his own little mental fortress.
He would be the only survivor of the
Fatalis's 250,000-person crew...
... and that suited him just fine. His own skin came first.
But as the shuttle jetted away, moving as fast as its engines could carry it out past the rear of the Mawite fleet, the Taskmaster could not help but turn and look. He had commanded the
Fatalis for over ten years, across many battles and just as many close shaves. And deep inside he felt a pang, as one might feel for a noble whaladon struck by countless harpoons... or the loss of a treasured pet. Enemy bombers swarmed across the hull one last time... and then there was a great white flash, blinding in its intensity, as the last reactors
burst. The light, the heat, the shockwave... anything that had been close was in real trouble.
Even the Taskmaster's shuttle, already at a good distance, was rocked off course by the force of the blast, and it took Tu'teggacha a good thirty seconds to wrestle it back under control. When the afterimages faded from his glossy black eyes, he looked back one last time. The
Fatalis had broken up into three major pieces, its starboard wing blown off, a second great crack running right through its center. This entire flank of the Brotherhood forces was a
minefield of drifting debris now; even the nimble interceptors would have to be careful in navigating it. That was the mighty ship's last gift to the battle.
The crew had held out as long as they could...
... bought the
Avatar all the time they could...
... and died boldly for the Dark Voice.
Perhaps that was enough.
An unfamiliar sense of profound sadness hung over the Taskmaster as he guided his escape craft away, his entire battle group now in ruins, his part in the conflict done. Never had he lost so much, failed so completely in the end, with no idea whether or not all the sacrifice would be worth it. Even if the Maw endured, there was no replacing what had just been lost, not fully. The Dark Voice would be
livid at the loss of such an important ship, even if the deaths of those aboard served his ambitions well. But the Ebruchi would face that when the time came. For now, all he could do was survive, save his own rubbery hide.
He was good at that, at least. He always had been.
Ryv
