The original HMS Dreadnaught was first launched in the year 1906 of the old calendar. At the time it was the largest and most powerful vessel ever built. Though what truly set it apart was the technology and philosophy behind its design. It had ten big guns at a time when most others had around four. It was fast, too. Able to outrun and outgun everything that came before it. However the age of the Dreadnought was short-lived. Less than a decade after its introduction, the Dreadnought’s replacement was already beginning to rise in the form of the Aircraft Carrier. By the second World War the age of big combat ships was over. The HMS Dreadnaught herself only saw 13 years of service before being scrapped, already a relic.

  Despite this less than spectacular history, the name Dreadnaught has persisted in human culture. A catch all for the biggest ship we could hypothetically build. Almost every species has a similar story for their own equivalent of the same basic concept. How many ever actually built such a vessel is another matter. The majority of races in the Union struggle to build anything over a Mark 5 in size. The Moby is a Mark 6,and on the higher end of that scale. More advanced and militaristic races like the Rackter and Phibians will sometimes build ships up to five Kilometers, the upper limit for a Mark 7. Union proper has a few of those, too. Far less than you’d expect. Above that is even rarer. Only the Greater races bother going to 8 or above. The Seraph has at least one 15.

  The issue isn’t merely the massive resource drain. It’s that technology is constantly evolving and eventually everything becomes obsolete. Your more typical Union warship already only has an average lifespan of a hundred Union years. Somewhere between sixty and seventy in Human years. At that point it becomes easier and cheaper to build a new ship rather than keep retrofitting the old ones. Generally these older ships are sent out on "light" duty missions until they eventually cease to function. Patrol, merchant escorts, monitors, training vessels, pirate hunters, so on and so forth. Because even an outdated, two hundred year old warship that was at one point a Tier 2 is better than a brand new, fresh off the yard Tier 4.

  All of this is to say that the fact that these Tier 4 or lower civilizations who have spent decades bashing each other closer and closer to a return to the stone age for countless centuries suddenly appearing with a ship four times the Moby’s length out of actual nowhere is such a massive shock to everyone.

  “Alcea, I need to know what we are up against here.”

  Alcea has been studying our scans as much as she could as we made our slow, violent approach. I lost count of how many ships we plowed through after the 30th. That sounds like a lot but we spent way more time running away rather than fighting. Our physical munitions are almost depleted as it is and all the energy weapons are running hot.

  “Incredible. This isn’t a single warship but rather many, many smaller vessels that had their hulls partially stripped to unify their internal systems.”

  “So it's a scrapyard Frankenstein. Great. How do we kill it?”

  “What is a.. Frunkentain?”

  “I’ll read it to you as a bedtime story with cookies and milk when we are done fighting for our lives.”

  “I-i don’t really, uh, like milk. It’s bad for my-”

  “ALCEA!”

  “Right, sorry, sorry. Just because the vessel is large doesn’t mean it’s any more advanced then everything else they are using. And Tier 1 beats Tier 4 any time of the day.”

  “That’s more like it. Raze, you know the plan.”

  “Already warming up the party favors warm blood.”

  Vivvian takes us to a solid attack vector. Up close it’s a lot more obvious this thing is a Frankenstein concoction. The hull randomly swaps in color and texture. Each patchy spot represents an entirely separate design lineage. It’s an ugly, lumpy thing. Of course, that doesn’t make the weapons any less dangerous. That’s why we are approaching from the rear. This Victorian era quilt-looking hunk of spare parts was built by committee under the doctrine of compromise. All the biggest and baddest guns are on the prow and sides; another inherent flaw in such a huge ship. It takes massive engines to make them move which means unlike most others there is a very defined front and back. This is made even worse by the fact these numb-nuts lacked the ability to make a few very large engines and so just strapped as many smaller engines on the ass end as they physically could. Fun fact, most engines explode like a frag grenade when penetrated. Haven’t stared at an ass with this level of devious intention since Joan discovered miniskirts.

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  “Everyone, brace yourselves. When we light this fuse it’s going to get real bumpy real fast. Raze, fire at-”

  “Think fast limp dicks!”

  A Sparkler has the equivalent firepower of a whole battlegroup of heavy artillery vessels firing in unison. So it’s rather concerning when such a powerful weapon does absolutely nothing. Its powerful pink energy failing to pierce a shield that should be millennia away from achieving such a feat.

  “Uh, Raze. It’s not working. Did you turn the power setting down or something?”

  “It has only one setting, Captain Twinkle toes. Instant destruction; it just takes a few tries sometimes, that’s all.”

  A second Sparkler fires off into the distance, smashing directly into the Dreadnaught's shield and disappearing into nothing like a common nuclear warhead.

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  Hundreds of engines erupt across the Dreadnaughts starboard side. Turning at speeds far greater than should be possible until it had fully rotated. Its prow and the Moby’s now pointing directly at each other.

  “Vivvian, dive maneuver."

  “As Stars across the sky!”

  The Moby dives directly downward. Narrowly dodging a massive onslaught of rail and energy weapons. The missiles with homing capabilities follow us as we fall. The point defense guns get most of them but a handful of the thousands manage to slip through, giving us a little rock back and forth.

  “New plan, fast.”

  “I still have the codes for the Max Priority channel of the Phibian armada. If we paint the Dreadnaught, the Star Hydra should be able to finish it.”

  “What about all the ships in the way?”

  “It has long range missile systems. As high tech as they come. We just have to hope enough can make it through.”

  “Out of time. Vivvian, move. Joan, message. Deed, paint.”

  We shoot forward. Keeping just in front of the majority of the incoming immolation. Alcea is working overtime to keep what does hit us from breaking our defenses.

  “Shields are reaching critical. We can’t keep this up.”

  “Need an ETA on those missiles. Inanna, how much longer?”

  “We need to get out of here right now!”

  Off in the distance, a massive explosion erupts like a new star.

  “Oh shit. 0.5 second Hyperspace jump. Any direction.”

  Microjumps are horribly inaccurate. Hurt like being rear ended by a train, too. Good thing whiplash is curable. Terrible for any kind of precision attacks. Perfect for getting the fuck out of some place as quickly as not physically possible. We cross five million kilometers in the blink of an eye. The second after, four kilometer long missiles strike the Dreadnaught. Just one could wipe out a whole fleet if it’s packed in too tightly. There is no way it survived that.

  “Danger: Enemy vessel approaching. Approximate shield strength, 70%.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “Interjection: Indeed sexual intercourse in this direction.”

  “Alcea, I now get what you see in him.”

  “W-we are not together. At the moment. Still talking things ov-”

  The Moby jolts hard to the side as another wave of death strikes us from long range.

  “Sitcom shit for later. Any bright ideas? Raze, how many more Sparklers would it take to break through the rest of that shield?”

  “Based on what the first two did, probably a hundred.”

  “And how many can we fire before they burn out?”

  “Between the two of them, around ten. Including the ones we already fired.”

  “No good. Inanna, how long until the Star Hydra can fire another volley?”

  “They are out. The Star Hydra only has three full volleys and they already used up the first two before we arrived.”

  “Damn it all. This is insane. There has to be some flaw in that homunculus."

  “Analysis: Structural scans indicate the vessel is, as you would say, held together by duct tape and hope. The structural shielding is already strained keeping the vessel’s form just from these maneuvers. If we could get past the shield in some way, it should require very little force to crumble its structure.”

  “And how do we do that exactly? You saw what it’s already taken.”

  Alcea jumps out of her seat.

  “That’s it! We can’t break through the shield, so instead we need to pass through it. We need the Harpoon.”

  “There is no way the Harpoon will work. Shields are already under 10%. We’d get blown away on the approach.”

  “Then we need a way to get in close as quickly as possible.”

  “But that’s impo-”

  No. I cannot believe I am thinking this. It’s suicide, institutionalized insanity, an affront to Space God and all he stands for. It’s… our only hope.

  “I might have an idea.”