A Leader's Burden, Part II
Posted on Fri Nov 21st, 2025 @ 5:29pm by Commander Kytolos Sh'reyva
1,307 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Tales of the War
Location: Bridge, IGS Vorchal
Timeline: 2156 (Two months into the War)
The Vorchal pitched violently as plasma fire hammered the hull. The viewscreen--centered on a forward perspective--glowed red from the emergency lights, and rolled along the deck like slow-moving ice fog. Kytolos gripped the arms of his command chair, letting the vibrations run up his legs. Each pulse through the plating he could feel in his chest as though the ship was calling-out to him that it could not survive much longer.
"Shields at forty-five percent!" Indora shouted, leaning over the tactical console. Her antennae quaking with tension. "Hull integrity failing on Deck Three--containment fields are barely holding!"
"Forward emitters, concentrate fire on the port bird!" Kytolos barked. "Lead it into the void. Hit it hard. Do not let it come around and flank us!"
Indora's hands jumped over the controls, firing in measured bursts--sequences she that had been drilled into her from her training days. The first Romulan bird shudders under the assault, sparks streaming across its hull plating. Then, with the inevitability of ice cracking under weight, it tore itself apart in mushroom-like eruption of green plasma and metallic chunks.
"Good work, Lieutenant!" Kytolos said, coming to his feet suddenly, though his voice was devoid of warmth. There was only duty. Only precision. He glanced down at a display to his left, noting the Niben was still twenty-seven minutes away. She would be too late.
The second Romulan ship had begun a methodical run along the Tivornik's crippled starboard side. Its disruptor beams sliced neatly into the habitat pod like a hot knife moving through thin ice. The hull silently vented its atmosphere, and spilling the precious cargo--supplies meant for colonists on Cherath--floated free into space. Kytolos felt a tightness in his chest but maintained a neutral expression. Duty demanded it. The loss of life, the destruction--placing it on a line in an invisible ledger for later. For now, they had a ship to save.
The Vorchal shuddered again. "Thruster assembly has been hit! Life support on Deck Two is compromised!"
"Keep your hands steady, people," Kytolos said, though he had settled back into the command chair and had gripped the arms of it, knuckles turning white. The room smelled of scorched metal and smoke was now billowing freely through the bridge. Most of the crew were shadows now, flickering in the emergency lights, faces drawn and pale, but they still held themselves like soldiers amidst the growing chaos.
"Commander, we can destroy the remaining ship if we concentrate fire on its dorsal plating!" Eubol shouted, his voice urgent and nearly breaking.
"Do it," Kytolos replied. He made a fist and leaned it slowly onto the chair arm. "We have nothing left to lose but our lives. Make sure it counts!"
Eubol, now standing beside Indora at the tactical station, rerouted every piece of energy remaining and poured it into the Vorchal's weapons. A streak shot across and into the Romulan hull. Sparks scattering in zero gravity rained across the viewscreen as the enemy ship twisted in a sickening rotation before finally exploding in a flare of green fire. The debris tumbled past the Vorchal, flashing momentarily against the stars.
Kytolos allowed himself the briefest breath of relief. And then there was one. And the Vorchal itself was already unraveling.
"Hull breaches--Decks One, Three, and Five! Plasma fires uncontrolled in engineering and aft command!" The sensors officer, Lieutenant Renak, shouted, coughing through the thick, poisonous smoke.
The bridge groaned. Lights flickered. The viewscreen blurred with condensation formed from heat and vapour. Kytolos remained in his chair. He would not leave. The ship was his command, his responsibility--his burden.
"Eubol," he said. "Get the remaining fire control online. We take the last bird with us if we die. Concentrate all remaining power to particle beams. All else is secondary."
"Aye, Commander!" Eubol and Indora began directing all weapons fire toward the last Romulan vessel. They had learned from Kytolos what it meant to fight with everything, even when the odds were impossible.
The final Romulan ship moved methodically, cold as ice in the void, firing disruptor bolts that tore into the Vorchal. The hull screamed, metal flexing and buckling. Alarms shrieked. Smoke rolled even thicker across the bridge, stinging eyes and lungs. Kytolos could not see his crew anymore, but he could hear their laboured breathing and their nervous but precise calls.
"All engines are offline!"
"Life support now failed on decks two and three!"
"Particle beam charging complete, sir!" Indora shouted steadily, a small sliver of light in the madness.
"Fire!" Kytolos said.
The Vorchal's beams lanced out. Sparks flew where the energy hit the Romulan hull. The enemy vessel jerked, twisted, and finally ruptured silently in the vacuum of space. For a moment, there was silence between the alarms.
The another jolt. The Vorchal's port nacelle had exploded. The ship lurched violently, sending bodies flying over consoles and another plume of smoke across the bridge. Kytolos's eyes stung. His face was blackened from the dying electronics and overheated panels.
"Abandon ship," he announced, a slight hint of regret in his voice. It carried authority--a command that was binding. "Get the surviving crew out!"
Eubol, antennae flat against his head, gave a stiff nod. "Yes, Commander." He and the others began herding personnel toward escape pods.
Kytolos did not move. The bridge was a furnace, the smoke thick enough to choke. Heat licked at his legs and the smell of superheated metal assaulted his nostrils. Still, he remained seated, hands clenching the arms of the command chair as though the vessel were a child he refused to let go of.
Fires raced across the deck. Sparks exploded like little suns. The last of his bridge crew left him, dragged into the airlock by the hands of those trained in emergency protocol, while he kept his eyes on the stars which were still visible on the broken viewscreen.
The Vorchal groaned again, a deep, shuddering sound that shook the fragments of consoles littering the floor of the bridge. The viewscreen had begun to melt from the heat and black smoke found its way into Kytolos's lungs. He could no longer see the stars clearly, only their blurred lights and the reflected orange flare of fire igniting the bulkheads.
He inhaled once. Then again. An internal pain stabbed outward from inside his chest. His vision began to darken around the edges, the bridge simply fading into grey.
And still, he did not leave.
He felt the ship beneath his feet dying slowly. And he let it. He was a glacier in motion, slow but unstoppable only in his refusal to abandon what he had commanded. He felt the Vorchal's last heartbeat in his own chest--a final dovetailing of duty and vessel.
The smoke thickened. The heat began to singe his skin. The alarms and hissing of fire consuming everything became a single sound--an incomprehensible roar.
He tried to stand but his legs failed. He slumped back in the chair, gripping the arms until his knuckles cracked. His eyes turned once more to the viewscreen--to the stars and the convoy that had moved on without them. The Tivornik's cargo was now lost, helpless, and floating in frigid space. His crew--safe in pods, though separated. His ship, breathing its last.
And then darkness took him.
The last thing Kytolos Sh'reyva felt was the vibration of the Vorchal's hull through his palms, a trembling that had no stake in emotion--it was neither fear nor pain. Simply recognition. The ship was ending. So too, perhaps, the commander who had never once considered leaving it behind.
The world had become black.
Commander Kytolos sh'Sh'reyva
Commanding Officer
IGS Vorchal
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