"Still approaching the enemy warship. Estimating... two minutes to engagement."
The sensors officer was trembling as he way saying it. It was the first time they've been this close to death. One good missile hit, and the ship would be destroyed within seconds.
Mei approached to my side, slowly.
"Are you sure the Imperium commander got the secret message?" she whispered over my shoulder. I just nodded.
"I'm scared, Kagan... What if they shoot us? What if they don't care, or shoot us by accident?"
"Then we will think about it after we die." I said. "Honestly, I'm scared as well, so I won't be able to comfort you."
I slowly pushed her away to hide our anxiety from the crew.
"Sir, we are about to enter the enemy warship's maximum effective range!"
"Prepare multicannons!" the flagship commander ordered. "Shoot down any torpedoes coming our way."
The command deck turned into hell as missile alerts started going off. Comms channels were full of random chatter because of the panicking officers through the fleet.
"Debris incoming!"
Two of our ships were already destroyed with the first missile salvo. The debris clouds were hitting nearby ships.
"Increase formation distance!" I ordered. "All ships, move away from the flagship!"
"Sir, we will be vulnerable to attacks!" the flagship commander argued.
"Sir, I know what I'm doing." I said. "Flagship escorts, break off formation!"
I was simply trying to keep the flagship away from debris fields and stray missiles that missed their original targets. If the Imperium commander was to capture us, he would avoid shooting this ship.
"Another missile salvo incoming!"
After the second salvo, only 3 of the Order's ships were remaining, including the flagship which carried us.
"Sir, what do we do? We can't engage the enemy from this distance and our fleet is already gone!" a tactical officer asked me.
"Move in closer to the enemy!" I said. "If we don't take them now, we will never be able to!"
"Y-y-yes sir!"
The remaining two ships were destroyed before we could even get within firing range. It was only us now, and the Imperium warship.
"Sir, the enemy has ceased firing!"
Mei took a deep breath. She was finally a bit relaxed - as relaxed as one could be in a front line.
"Cease fire!" I said. "Cease fire!"
We were not even firing in the first place, but I still felt a need to say that.
"Sir, the enemy ship is requesting communications." the comms officer said. The flagship commander looked at me, worriedly.
"Get it on command deck speakers. Everyone be silent." I said. After hearing a few beeps on the computer, we knew we were connected.
"Fleet of the de-facto Order of Salvation." the enemy commander spoke. "You have suffered a major defeat, and we know you don't have reinforcements. We demand you surrender unconditionally, or we will fire upon you. You have 60 seconds to comply."
Still being alive didn't mean much to the crew after hearing those words.
"Sir?" the flagship commander said.
"We have no choice." I said. "My assumptions were wrong. They defeated us."
The flagship commander looked down without saying anything. I waited until we had about 15 seconds left, and spoke.
"Commander of the Imperium military force, we surrender."
"Wise choice, commander." the enemy replied. "Stow your weapons and deactivate your thrusters. We will be docking in five minutes."
The communications channel was closed. The atmosphere was gloomy.
"Do you think they will send a bag of explosives through the airlock, just to mess with us?" a crew member said.
"Hahaha!" another one laughed. "No way, I'm sure they have labor camps like The Council does."
I hit my fist to the wall.
"Listen up! Everyone, get a hand weapon. This is not over yet."
The flagship commander's eyes lit up.
"Are we-"
"We will be boarding the enemy ship in five minutes. Just like I thought... the inexperienced commander made a big mistake. He is bringing in the warship itself to dock." I said.
Some crew members started preparing with renewed enthusiasm, while some others were scared more than before. In less than three minutes, everyone had a weapon of some sort; some had high power ultraviolet beam rifles that could melt through thin metal armor, while some had simple knives. I myself had a hand coilgun that could launch small bullets.
All of us were waiting for the enemy to dock and open the airlock. We first heard a few noises around the ship's hull as the enemy ship made contact.
"Open the airlock!" the enemy troops ordered us. We did not reply.
The noises continued for a while after they started forcing the airlock to open. When they realized that the door would not open by brute force either, they changed methods and tried to tear the doors apart.
The moment they created the first hole, one of our crew members threw in a grenade. Caught by surprise, the enemy couldn't react in time - the grenade took out quite a lot of troops, as well as our (pretty heavy) airlock doors.
"Quick, rush inside before they lock down their own airlocks!" I yelled.
Almost everyone made it into the enemy ship before the enemy commander immaturely undocked the ships. The airlocks were still open, and air was leaking. The strong airflow towards the vacuum of space forced us to stop and hold onto whatever we could find. Luckily, before all the breathable air was gone, the warship's systems automatically shut the airlocks. However, the people who were left on the Order's flagship weren't as lucky, as their airlocks were destroyed. Those people were doomed to suffocate.
"We are in." said Mei. "What next?"
"We will find our way either to the main engineering deck or the bridge." I said.
"Troops!" one of the crew members shouted. Everyone immediately took cover as the gunfight started. The enemy force was hiding behind the corner of the hallway to the airlocks. They had beam weapons.
Everyone was reluctant to shoot, including the enemy troops. Damaging the airlocks could be fatal for all of us.
Just when this was happening, we started hearing mechanical noises from behind the walls of the hallway.
"What is that? What is going on?" asked someone.
"They are loading missiles." I said. "Guess what for..."
The warship fired two missiles to the converted cargo ship we had just escaped from, completely destroying it.