Tannenbergs End

Notes: IVS is my acronym for Imperial Void Ship and is used to describe any named naval vessel utilized by the Imperium.



The IVS Tannenberg was taking fire, every deck ablaze, its oxygen supplies bleeding into the emptiness of space. Only a few of its turrets were still intact, their guns blazing, delivering devastating volleys of fire to any alien ship that strayed too close to the wounded beast. The shields were gone, there was no hope of raising them again. The shiltron defense system had long since given out, defense lasers overheated and rotary cannons out of ammunition. One by one, all weapons that remained were going silent as the shviri ships began to pick apart the stricken cruiser.
Rear-Admiral Fisk stood on the bridge, listening to the screams echoing across the comms as the situation swiftly deteriorated. The convoy he had been assigned to escort was scattered, all ships doing their best to reach their objectives planet-side. The shviri ships had been held up far too long to interdict the mass of transport craft. He had succeeded, he knew it, and it came at the cost of his entire command. Nearly nine-hundred thousand men, and three million of tons of supplies would be making it to Fyras surface, but at a terrible price. Only two of his destroyers were still fighting, trying to flee the battlefield. The rest were tattered wreckage, their burnt out hulks floating through the vast scrap fields formed from the detritus of war created during the siege. Slowly, Fisk closed his right eye. The other had been shot out by shrapnel nearly a decade ago.
"Abandon ship."
His voice was almost a harsh whisper, but the battle was over, the only hope for the crews salvation was an immediate evacuation.
"Sir?"
The ships captain, Sean, looked at him, not comprehending. Hearing that his will was not being done, Fisk turned on the man, his one good eye boring into the man.
"You heard me. Abandon ship. Send out the order immediately. All non-essentials off."
"Yessir!"
It was a flurry of orders as the officer began shouting out the commands. Several of the bridge crew began getting up, moving towards the remaining lifeboats. Their chances of survival in space would be slim, even slimmer if their vessels landed in shviri controlled territory, but still better than the certain destruction that awaited all who remained aboard the Tannenberg.
"Sir. You should leave before it's too late, We'll will clear out whatever's left."
It was his adjutant, Lena, looking up at him, a concerned look on her face. Fisk merely shook his head.
"X turret isn't evacuating sir, communication is cut."
One of the technicians shouted at the captain.
"Go tell them in person, I want everybody off, now!"
"Captain, go with them. I want you off this vessel. Go, get out!"
He shouted the last orders with greater force, overwhelming any objections the man may have planned to voice.
The bridge was empty, only the helmsman, Sims, and Lena remained, one desperately trying to keep the ship on course, the other trying to convince Fisk to leave with equal desperation.
"Sir, you need to get off."
A slight, saddened smile came across Fisk's aged face as he looked at his adjutant..
"No, it's over. Everything that happened here needs to be recorded, take it to Scipio personally if needed. This blockade needs to end, or there won't be any more convoys making it through."
"There's still a lifeboat ready, we still have time," the young woman persisted, pressuring him to act. But for Fisk, this was the end. He had done his duty, won dozens of victories in the fighting retreats against the shviri armadas, but now, it was all over. Slowly, he descended the stairs to the steering controls.
"Sims, activate the blink drive, start the countdown to a jump."
"Fucking god! Fisk, it'll tear this ship to shreds. The drive's already damaged. There's no getting out. We can't blink away!"
Sims almost snarled the words at the officer. He had Fisks other eye. Both had been on the Mandrake when a corsair shell had torn her bridge apart. It had flown between the two officers as they stood mere meters apart. In an ironic twist of fate, both had lost an eye that day, a seal of blood upon their war-torn history.
"I'm not getting out. Give me the controls."
"Fisk, I object, you can't, this ship, I, I-"
He reddened a little and stopped talking, but there was no condemnation coming from Fisk, he was not used to being called "admiral" or "sir" by his closest associates, but he expected their absolute loyalty. Sims relinquished his post, moving to begin the work needed to activate the blink drives, stepping back to stand near Lena as he did so, the young woman merely looking on in confusion, frozen and unsure of how to act. Together, they were two of the closest individuals to the old imperial officer. Sims a relic of Fisk's mercenary past, a battle scarred veteran of a dozen battles. Lena a young protege fresh out of officers training, a symbol of the new navy Fisk had helped build for the Imperium. He looked on calmly, entirely out of place in the desperate situation at hand, eye locking with Sims for a second, his former first-mate merely shook his head, a grim smile stretched across his features. Fisk turned to Lena, quickly listing out his last will, "Three minutes, the grav generators will be out, and this will all be over. Get off this ship, make it back to Bryga, make it back any way you can, tell them everything that happened, you have your report. It's an order. Run!"
She gulped, snapped to attention and raced off, barely keeping her balance as the whole ship shuddered under a new set of impacts.
Sims smiled coldly at the admiral, stretching the long white shrapnel scars that pockmarked his face. His bionic eye focused past the admiral as he worked the controls rapidly, turning the ship.
"Think she'll make it? I know we will, but them lifeboats Fisk, they ain't safe."
Sims asked jokingly. He had never been serious, and now, facing death, all vestiges of seriousness were gone. Fisk accepted his friends morbid humor with a slight sigh, behaving almost bored. Giving Sims the response he was oh so used to seeing when others heard his jokes.
"Of course she will."
Fisk smiled to himself and began turning the ship, working the controls of the massive light cruiser with skill long since ingrained in instinct. The ship normally needed a massive crew, but with all critical systems failing and the only remaining function being steering, one helmsman sufficed. Fisk wasn't going to try and talk Sims out of joining him, the man wouldn't listen even if ordered to do so. Staunchly loyal to his Captain, from mercenary to imperial officer, he would follow him through to the very end. There was a fire blazing on the starboard side of the bridge but the admiral was no longer paying attention. Automatic extinguishing systems kicked in, and instantly ceased. The pipes bearing the fire suppressant were damaged beyond repair. It mattered not. In front of him, Fisk could see the sleek outline of a shviri battlecruiser, its weapons blazing at the human ship that fast approached it. The range-finder ticked down at alarming pace, the ship rapidly flooding the view-ports of the Tannenberg. The gravity generators gave out, and slowly, both remaining officers felt their feet leave the ground, only staying in place by the virtue of their grip on the control panels. Peace, serenity. It was so calm here at the end. He could hear a wild yell of defiance coming from Sims, a shout more appropriate for a victory rather than a violent death. Fisk released the panel, floating upwards ever so slowly, his whole world dying around him. He sucked in one last breath, and closed his eye.

The Tannenberg plowed into the alien warship like a mailed fist, reinforced prow buckling shields and multi meter thick armor plate with ease. The explosions of munitions and power-cells on both ships tore a flaming path of destruction through the massive vessels, sudden oxygen loss throwing flares far out into the cold void. The damage was catastrophic, neither craft would survive the impact, but it no longer mattered to the Tannenberg, an unmanned behemoth in the throes of its last moments, unwilling to breath its last without dragging its foe down with it. Engines sputtered and rear-drives failed, silence, no more lights, last breath spent in one glorious charge. Then, the blink drives detonated. A violent implosion disintegrated the super-structure of the human light-cruiser with contemptuous ease, crumpling the vessel like tin-foil. For a second the alien vessel seemed to remain untouched, its graceful lines only marred by its slab-sided foe. Then it too was dragged into oblivion. Within seconds of the human cruisers death, the shviri vessel began to be torn asunder in . Armor plating stripped off in a matter of seconds, wreckage sheared off in great chunks and hurled into the void, the alien ship strained against its inevitable destruction, the whole vessel heaving and twisting in a sickening motion as it was utterly demolished, as if writhing in agony with the pain of its demise. Six thousand souls, human and shvir, annihilated in moments. All was silent, slowly, every flame died, snuffed out by the cold void, leaving the silent tomb of the two mortal foes to float away in silence. Another gravestone in the debris fields of Fyra.
Lena turned away from the external monitor, looking about the lifeboat. It was near empty, most of the crew had abandoned ship long before her, only a dozen remained aboard the bulky vessel. All seemed to be bridge crew, many heavily burned or injured. Wounded. Dying. One of the crewmen lay ominously still, dark blood spread across his tunic, while smaller crimson droplets hung within the stale, recycled air. The gravity-less lifeboat plied on. The charts indicated they would land upon Fyra proper. At least some of them would reach their destination Lena thought grimly. Even from space, she could see it was a warzone. There would be no salvation for them if they landed in no-mans land, or even worse, shviri territory. The life-boat had no real controls, it merely careened ever closer to the nearest habitable planet. One of the others was shouting over open comms, hoping against hope to get a response from down below. It was one of the few operable pieces of equipment on the lifeboat, but no response was coming. They were on their own.