CRUCIBLE
Prologue
P 1.1 – Caius
“Multiple contacts ahead, sir! Enemy fighters closing on the Parvus.”
“Ready thrusters for assault maneuvers — intercept before they reach the hull.”
“Yessir!”
The acceleration pinned him to the captain’s chair as the frigate’s engines howled.
Not a bad sensation. It granted him focus.
“Redirect power from rear repulsion shields to the front array. Prepare short-range anti-aircraft weaponry.”
He waited for confirmation before speaking again.
“Rise thrust to maximum — we charge straight at them, gentlemen.”
“Yessir, Captain Cornelius!” two officers shouted in unison.
Another violent surge pressed against his spine. Outside, the Parvus’ lower hull — the Dreadnought-Kentaurus class battleship he’d been ordered to guard — rushed past like a moving continent.
He didn’t need holoscreens to picture the enemy beyond it: FPR “Tharsis” fighters.
Small, fast, each armed with four repeating rocket launchers. Agile, but fragile — easy to shred under sustained fire.
Caius had to erase them quickly; they were only the vanguard of the Martian fleet. Their task was to gut the turrets and clear the path for bombers.
“Commence attack,” he said.
With that quiet order, the last act of a three-century long war began.
The enemy formation split, trying to flank him. But his reckless course of action paid off.
The Corvus — the heavy frigate he’d been assigned for operation Second Sunset — had gathered enough speed for the Tharsis fighters to be unable to evade the railcannons’ projectiles.
“Open fire.”
The rhythmic hum that echoed through the ship sounded like a promise.
One soon fulfilled — he watched the enemy vanish from the holoscreen as the cannons fired. Only a handful of survivors remained, enough for the Parvus to handle unscathed.
—A notification flashed.
A simple order from the fleet admiral: attack.
The path for the warheads the Parvus carried had to be opened. Caius’s fingers drew across the holographic display, tracing new coordinates toward Phobos. His lips curved at the irony.
They called him the The Lunar Wall — and he would lead the strike to destroy one of Mars’ moons.
“Coordinates updated, Lieutenant Carter — take us there. Full speed.”
“Working on it, captain.”
Cornelius switched to the fleet’s open channel.
“To all ships: time to prepare for dusk — we’re going in.”
From the heart of the Earth Alliance fleet, more frigates, bombers, and fighters surged forward, charging alongside the Corvus.
Mars, green with terraformed cultivations, was already in sight — and so was the Fourth Planet Alliance fleet encircling the planet.
Something vast loomed at its center; something Caius had only heard about.
Their flagship — the Tessarakonteres — the largest warship ever built. A thing so vast it could hold entire frigates in its hangars.
If Second Sunrise succeeded, this would be the last chance to meet such monster of a ship in battle.
Torpedoes streaked through open space beside the heavy frigate — the Parvus and its accompanying battleships had opened fire.
—And so did the enemy fleet.
“Prepare for evasive maneuvers,” Caius ordered. “How long to impact?”
“Fifteen seconds, Captain.”
He didn’t need to think about the next move.
“Arm torpedo tubes F-1 to F-4 — set detonation to timed, five seconds.”
“Copy that, Captain.”
Caius tapped the bracer of his chair a few times, counting.
“Fire.”
“Torpedoes away, Admiral.”
He watched the missiles drift out, silent across the void.
—The horizon flared.
He didn’t blink. His eyes were engineered to witness such scenes.
“Enemy torpedoes destroyed, Captain Cornelius,” reported the artillery officer. “Should we fire back?”
“Negative. Save ammunition — we only need to move that flagship out of the way.”
Small icons vanished from the holo-projection as FPR missiles tore through ships flying beside the Corvus.
Caius reopened the fleet channel. “To all ships: stay on course — assume assault formation.”
The FPR frontlines advanced in turn: destroyers, frigates, bombers, fighters.
Moments after the command, the two fleets collided.
Railcannons roared, squads broke and reformed, icons vanished from the holoscreen, more appeared — and still they pushed forward.
Reaching the Tessarakonteres wouldn’t be easy. But it didn’t need to be destroyed — he just needed an opening past it, for a few seconds.
Cornelius checked the holoscreen again. The Parvus was still holding formation.
“Taking enemy fire, Captain!” Petrov, head of the Corvus’ defenses, warned.
“Front repulsion shields at eighty-five percent!”
Energy flared across the bridge’s viewports, the attacks halted by the ship’s barriers. The radiation that slipped through prickled Caius’ skin.
“Return fire — save the torpedoes only.”
The railcannons hummed again, deep and rhythmic. Flashes of azure and white erupted from the energy batteries. Enemy aircraft exploded. More surged forward to fill the gaps.
“To squads Ruber and Flavus: detach and engage enemy bombers,” Caius ordered to the fleet wings. Even a ship as resilient as the Parvus would shudder under those bombing runs.
“Squads Albus and Viridis — stay on course behind us.”
He couldn’t slow. Time was everything.
“Fighters flanking us, sir! They’ll get past the front shields!” cried Petrov.
“Request to divert power to the rear array!”
“Denied,” Caius barked.
“Arm all rear torpedo tubes. Set proximity detonation, deactivate propellers,” he countered. “Release on my mark.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Yessir!”
He watched the enemy fighters circle on the holoscreen as the Corvus shook under heavier frontal fire.
“Fire.”
The fusion missiles detached and drifted into space behind the frigate, engines cold. The enemy would meet them halfway.
Weapons were tools — their names only suggested their use. But a man could redefine purpose, if he had the expertise to do so.
And a century and a half of war had granted him such experience.
The improvised mines detonated; The enemy fighters vanished in the bloom. The small nuclear shockwave shoved the Corvus forward even faster.
They were almost past the FPR fleet now.
The frigate narrowly dodged the burning carcass of a Martian destroyer. The Parvus’ shields grazed it — still keeping pace, barely.
The Tessarakonteres loomed ahead, its three colossal arms stretching as if to seize them.
That giant would be his prey.
“Squad Viridis, surround the Parvus and shield it. Squad Albus, charge behind us.”
The Corvus shook violently.
“Taking heavy fire! Front shields at fifty percent!”
They were in range of the flagship’s anti-air batteries now.
“Return fire! Target the lower arm defenses!”
He corrected course as he spoke, steering directly toward the barrage. Green icons vanished from the holoscreen — team Albus being annihilated.
Their sacrifice would not be wasted.
An alarm blared.
Then the calm, synthetic female voice followed.
“Warning: multiple hull breaches detected,” the Corvus AI reported politely. “Sealing bridge to preserve atmospheric integrity.”
No reaching escape pods now. The bridge would be either a hall of triumph — or a crypt.
“Arm front and upper torpedo tubes. Fire at will — blind them!”
Missiles streaked from the frigate’s bow. A storm of explosions rippled across the Tessarakonteres’ shields.
“Sir, requesting course correction! We’ll impact the enemy shields!” shouted the navigator.
He had finally understood where Caius was taking them.
“Denied,” came his cold reply. “We won’t crash — only graze their shields.”
Silence filled the bridge. He felt their doubt — ignored it.
“Brace for impact!”
Sparks, fire, lightning — the shields of the two ships collided.
“Left shield lost, sir!”
“Warning: fires in sectors A, D, L, P.”
The Corvus’ hull scraped along the enemy shield, then broke free.
Phobos came into view. Caius burned its jagged outline into memory. The last sight anyone would ever have of it.
The FPR had never found a purpose for their nearest moon. Ironic that their enemies had.
He turned back to the windscreen. The Tessarakonteres’ rear thrusters filled it.
The Corvus stood alone now, cut off from the fleet — but not for long. More enemy fighters poured from the flagship’s many hangars.
“Target their thrusters! All weapons ready! Arm all torpedoes!” Caius ordered, rising from his seat.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” he shouted. “Release everything we have into them!”
Volleys upon volleys burst from the Corvus as counterfire tore through her hull. Most strikes broke on the flagship’s shields — but some hit.
One thruster dimmed, damaged.
The Tessarakonteres lurched, just slightly — but enough.
Caius stared at the flickering holoscreen, the radiation-thin air and the damage they took interfering with its functioning.
A message from the Parvus: Blazar warheads out.
He watched three massive missiles glide past the Tessarakonteres — toward Phobos.
It is done.
—The explosion bloomed on the moon’s surface. White filled everything. Even his eyes were forced to squint.
When vision returned, the moon was still there — a vast crater gouged into its back.
But its front already glowed red as it fell into the Martian atmosphere.
No weapon could pierce Mars planetary shields.
But what if an entire moon were thrown against them?
The Solar System was about to learn.
Phobos became a meteor.
It split in two as it burned, then struck the surface. The impact was visible from orbit.
Second Sunset was a success.
Cheers erupted on the bridge as Mars began to turn red as it once was. This time form fire.
Caius watched in silence.
“We did it, Captain! For the Earth Alliance! We won!”
Three centuries of war ended today.
“Salute the Lunar Wall!” voices cried.
“Salute Captain Caius Cornelius!”
“Captain!”
“Honor to Captain Cornelius!”
—”Admiral Cornelius, sir.”
—
“Admiral Cornelius, sir?”
The voice pulled him out of memory. He turned, lowering his gaze.
A dark-skinned officer addressed him.
“Captain De Chevelle, what is it?”
“I wanted to inform you that the ship is embarking the last batch of supplies, sir.”
Caius nodded. “Sorry,” he said, “I was… reminiscing.”
“Report to me when we’re ready for departure, Captain,” he added.
He turned back to the view beyond the massive windscreen.
The six-meter pane of reinforced glass overlooked the Parvus’ upper hull — a sprawl of armor, turrets, and antennae, vast enough to resemble a city skyline.
The ship he commanded now. The same that had destroyed Phobos. The only Dreadnought-Kentaurus-class battleship to survive the Three-Hundred-Year Solar War.
A relic of bloodshed, some called it. For humanity, once again, a promise of the future.
The War had ended ninety-eight Unified System years ago, yet the Parvus had not been allowed to rest yet.
Constructed in the second phase of the conflict to breach Mars’ orbital grid and deliver the Alter-human army to Arx Xanthes, she remained the sturdiest vessel in the United System fleet.
Three Quasar-class fusion cores powered her — an output so extreme it required Scipio, a military-grade quantum AI, to regulate it. The machine lay silent, listening to every whisper aboard save one sector, its hum vibrating through the hull like a living breath only Caius could hear.
Launched from the Lunar shipyards in United System Year 2735, they had christened her Parvus — “little” — in deliberate mockery of the enemy.
The largest and most heavily armed ship in the Earth Alliance fleet.
Dual-layer repulsion shields. Dozens of plasma cannons. Over a hundred torpedo tubes. Rapid-fire railcannons—
Someone coughed behind him.
He turned. Captain De Chevelle still lingered.
“Sorry to interrupt your… reminiscing, Admiral,” he said. “But there’s something else to report.”
“No need to apologize, Captain — go ahead.”
“The technician for the prison blocks has arrived with the supplies I mentioned.” De Chevelle said. “She boarded moments ago.”
“ Alba Fauster, right?”
De Chevelle nodded.
“Between us… how will you brief her, Captain?” Caius asked with a faint smile.
“Ah, you mean about the... contents of the prison?”
Caius inclined his head.
“We’re the only two who know about the Alter-humans down there,” he said, raising one brow. “You wouldn’t trust a simple technician with such intelligence, I hope.”
De Chevelle shrugged.
“I’ll simply tell her the capsules are empty.”
Caius turned back to the horizon. The captain swiped across the omni-com on his wrist.
“I’ve updated the inventory with the supplies I mentioned — transmitted the data to your omni-com, sir.”
The admiral glanced at the device strapped to his own arm, then made a slow gesture toward the glass before him. A section of the windscreen came alive, projecting the manifest. Cornelius scrolled through it with indifferent swipes.
De Chevelle stepped beside him.
“Were you admiring the view before I interrupted you, Admiral?” he asked. “Saturn is extraordinary from here — though I didn’t imagine such sights would move a…” he felt him hesitate. “a man like yourself.”
“Sometimes they do, Captain,” Caius murmured, unbothered.
“The task before us is something none of our ancestors could have imagined.”
He paused.
“And yet here we are — knocking at the gates of the great unknown, about to dive past the abyss we once dared not even glance into.”
“I couldn’t help feeling a little emotional saying goodbye to this ringed giant,” Caius added, forcing a hint of nostalgia into his tone.
Blatant lies — but they should have sounded human enough.
“I can surely understand you, Admiral,” said De Chevelle. “This mission is like no other before. And your words — dramatic and inspiring — are like no other, too.”
Caius said nothing as he finished scanning the data.
“Cornelius, sir, may I ask you something?” the captain resumed after a pause.
Caius answered with a slight nod.
“Have you found out why they’re making us transport those Alter-humans?” De Chevelle asked, lowering his voice.
“I don’t know, Captain,” Caius replied. “But I intend to discover the truth soon enough — and I’ll need your help when I do.”
Caius noticed a shadow pass across De Chevelle’s face.
“I want to know why — why that order came.” The man’s voice dropped further. “Why when the Parvus was first reassigned to this operation they made me do that with the original prisoners.”
Caius glanced at him briefly.
Today’s humans were uncomfortable with executions. A condition particularly unsightly for Navy officers.
“I remember your report” Caius said.
Unlike De Chevelle, he didn’t lower his voice. He spoke as he did before.
“Two years ago, Captain De Chevelle, you received an order from the UN.SY. Fleet Admiral,” he began.
“You were commanded to begin the reconversion of the Parvus from cryo-prison to combat readiness. All prisoners were to be transferred elsewhere — except those in the original prison.”
De Chevelle nodded once.
“Afterward, a Science Bureau vessel arrived with one-hundred and eight cryo-capsules,” Caius continued. “You were ordered to jettison the remaining inmates into open space and replace them with the newly arrived capsules.”
De Chevelle inclined his again, this time hesitant.
“And you later discovered those capsules held Alter-humans,” Caius added.
Caius didn’t care about the jettisoned prisoners. He gave such orders himself in the past.
What mattered was the fleet admiral had omitted — or lied to him — about the contents of the cryo-capsules.
“Worry not, we’ll discover the truth, Jerome.” Caius said, assuming a more comforting tone.
“Remember,” Caius said with curved lips, “I’m aware of everything that happens — and has happened — aboard this ship.”
“I still don’t understand why…” Jerome asked quietly. “Why Alter-humans? After the War they were hunted down, wiped out — barely any survived the purges. Why bring them now, when the rest of the System is being left behind?”
“I already told you I don’t know,” Caius replied, “Yet.”
The captain drew breath to speak, but Caius cut him off.
“I suspect this to be the Science Bureau’s design,” he continued. “With this Eden operation they’ve amassed more power than ever — perhaps more than during the War itself.”
“Currently not even the Union Leader can’t tell them a simple no anymore,” Caius said, ending both his explanation and the data review.
With a sharp gesture, he returned the windscreen to plain glass.
“If that’s all, Captain, show the ropes to technician Fauster — then send her to me.” He smiled faintly. “It’s only courtesy that I welcome personally the newest addition to the Parvus’ crew.”
“Dismissed.”
The captain straightened.
“Sol Invictus, Admiral.”
The right arm bent at ninety degrees, four fingers raised, then five striking the heart.
The eight planets of the system and the Moon — a symbol of unity born after Mars became a wasteland.
The UN.SY. salute.
Caius had seen it conceived, unlike any other officer aboard.
“Sol Invictus, Captain De Chevelle.”
The captain turned to leave — then stopped. “May I ask one last thing, sir?”
“Talkative today, aren’t we?” Caius said dryly. “Speak your mind.”
“Do you think they brought the Alter-humans back for the H.O.Pe. Project, sir? Are they still continuing it?”
“That’s unlikely, Captain,” he replied flatly. “No need for more of me when I — like this ship — have stood without purpose for forty years.”
“Since the Alter-human purge ended, you mean?”
Caius nodded.
“Do you regret it, sir?”
Caius tilted his head.
“Becoming a H.O.Pe. human, I mean.”
He couldn’t help but laugh.
“Sorry — I didn’t mean to mock you — but your nerve startled me,” he said.
“Sometimes I do, Jerome.”
“I actually envy you humans,” Caius went on. “You have short lives — but you remember most of them. My memories of when I was human are only noise in the back of my mind now.”
He forced himself to sigh.
“I only sense there were good ones among them. But what I recall are just sad images of bloody battles.”
Moments later, he watched Captain De Chevelle leave.
Amusing individual, he thought.
Caius had told him half-truth, half-lie. Laughed in his face — but not for his nerve.
How could one regret becoming a war demi-god?
What Caius truly despised was the ghost of his human self still lingering. There was regret in it. Weakness.
And the battles he called sad — he cherished each one.
He missed those times.
After all, Caius was made for war.
