Dread Marine

Gilbert's armor thrummed violently as he spiraled away from the hub, flung through the airlock's veil like a life-sized toy. Warning lights flared across his HUD. Stars spun around him, the battle unfolding in the vastness of space—fleets burning in the background like dying constellations.

His flight unit sputtered, then flared. He jerked to a stop, stabilizing.

Above him, Naelixx V Sinclairei hovered.

He drifted with solemn poise, wrapped in silvery-gray robes and layered armor etched with flowing circuitry. A metallic halo of orbs floated behind his head, each humming with energy. His bident crackled with potential, as he fed it energy.

"You wear fear poorly," Naelixx said, his voice calm and invasive, resonating not through comms but inside Gilbert's skull. "But it's there. I can smell it."

Gilbert leveled his weapons.

The duel began, framed by crumbling wreckage, drifting ship fragments, and the flickering firestorms of the larger battle. Gilbert fired first, his serpent rifle lancing beams of concentrated radion.

Naelixx spun his bident once.

The beams vanished, cut apart, swallowed by graceful arcs of the weapon.

Gilbert surged forward, blades spinning, his crimson sword pulsed with heat, the white crackled with unstable lightning.

Naelixx caught the crimson blade barehanded. His gloves pulsing with energy. The blade froze mid-swing, clenched between his metal vise fingers.

Then came the counter.

He swung his bident with unnatural grace, Gilbert was flung sideways, tumbling through debris. His HUD screamed warnings as he spiraled. He slammed into a loose hull panel, stunned, before he used his magnetic boots to regain stability.

Then Nealixx vanished.

Gilbert's instincts screamed, twisting just in time to see bident descending from behind.

It shattered Gilbert's backplate, warning icons flaring red. His lower left thruster was disabled, sending him tumbling through the void again, only stabilizing by sheer will and his sputtering flight unit.

"You're fast…." Gilbert grunted. "But I've fought worse."

"You've fought lesser," Nealixx replied. "And survived by luck."

They clashed.

Gilbert surged forward, giving it everything he had, his serpent rifle fired point-blank shots, both swords moving in concert. His energy shield flared to life as he closed the distance.

But Nealixx was beyond him.

He flowed through the vacuum with the fluidity of mercury, weaponizing theas Gilbert's world fractured.

Gilbert's armor fractured, blood pooled in his mouth yet still, he fought.

Gilbert's radions surged. His body strained against its limits. His flight unit howled as rocked and banked through the void like a Bateleur.

Gilbert screamed, both blades slamming into the Nealixx's ribs but a soft translucent barrier caught the attack.

The noble retaliated with a pulse infiltrated Gilbert's armor, the pulse attacked from the inside, rattling his organs.

Aboard AlphaRomero flagship

Lieutenant Colonel Luca Vos narrowed his eyes at the duel projected before him.

"Who is that?" He asked one of his adjutants, pointing at the clashing figures.

"We don't know sir, they came from out the hub," she said tapping rapidly on her terminal. "We know the stygian he is the third heir of the sinclairei household, but the knight is unknown."

"Well then find out who he is," Luca said sternly. "He may be holding his own but he's clearly outclassed."

The adjutant the ships sensors to concentrate on the duel as he tried to read the markings on the armor.

"Radions reading 196. Knight class, rank sergeant, ID: 141," she said in quick succession as the ships mainframe used this information to access the database. Quickly the information displayed on the monitor.

Name: Gilbert Kruger

Class: Knight

Rank: Sergeant

Affiliation: Assauly Squad 9, Platoon 5. White Horns company.

Vos read the file, silent for a breath.

"Still no contact with the hub?"

"No sir. The stygian communication blackout is holding," the adjutant replied.

"Okay, contact a dread marine, we can't have a noble running wild on the battlefield," he instructed.

"Yes sir," she replied.

Gilbert's clashed with the noble continued swords swinging in desperate arcs but Naelixx bident met each attack, blade after blade, sparks and shards of light bleeding out with every clash.

From the bay below, the others watched helplessly as they clashed with the servants.

"GIL!" Kean's voice cracked through the comms.

"Stay back!" Gilbert barked, deflecting another blow just in time. "Reinforcements should be here soon."

Yet Gilbert could not be sure.

"We have made such a commotion hopefully it draws someones attention," he thought to himself as he focused on the battle.

Nealixx started to press his advantage, bident striking with dual point precision, each blow targeting a weakness in Gilbert's form, shoulder joint, visor seam, rib cavity. Gilbert floated backward again and again, forced onto the defensive.

"I grow bored," Naelixx said.

His words were a password changing his assault.

One orb detached from his halo, then another. Each spun around Gilbert like satellites, releasing bursts of disorienting force, jamming his suit sensors with shrieking static. Then the bident came again, this time striking his left thigh.

CRACK.

Gilbert grunted in pain. The limb, frozen inside his armor as sealant was covering the cracks. He floated arms spread, one sword lost in the void. Nealixx hovered above him, hands behind his back as his bident floated by his side.

"I expected a duel," he said with mock disappointment. "This was an execution. Oh well it was a fun warm-up."

Gilbert's fingers twitched, his right hand closing around the remaining sword's hilt. his chest his heart beat quickened his body heating up as healing increased.

[RADION LEVEL: 197…199…202.]

He didn't see the spike, but he felt it.

A slow breath filled his lungs. And then with a shout, he lunged forward.

The surviving sword surged with power, blade shifting from crimson to a bright white like a dying star. Gilbert moved faster than before, even in his half-crippled state. He swung with all his strength, catching Naelixx by surprise for the first time.

The blade bit deep across the noble's torso, slicing through robes and palting alike. Sparks exploded into void as the sword broke down into shooting fragments.

Nealixx hissed, for the first time, he bled, his blood crystallizing into silver as in the void.

"You wounded me…" he whispered, now more intrigued than enraged. "Interesting…"

But Gilbert's strength was fading. His armor sputtered, floating limp for a heatbeat. Cracks laced his chestplate. Internal hemorrhaging worsened, his body felt like molten iron beneath his skin. Vision blurred as blood drifted inside his helmet in weightless beads.

Nealixx approached regal and untouched, again bident raised.

"I had considered offering you mercy in death," the noble said, his bident blades growing few centimeters taller as energy edges were added to the blades. "But now, I'll peel you apart, one memory at a time."

Gilbert floated there, panting. Vision hazy. Only one thought echoing in his mind as his body screamed to give in.

"Not today, I do not fall today."

As his grip tighten around the grip of his pistols a pulse tore across the void.

Nealixx's head snapped sideways.

From behind the ruins of a drifting destroyer, Major Cade erupted like a cannonblast, his power armor dark plated with burning red sigils. His gauntlets and marble horns gleamed with energy. His thrusters flared behind him like solar wings as he crashed into the noble from above,sending the halo spiraling away as several of the orbs broke apart.

"FACE MY FURY BASTARD!"

The Noble staggered for the first time since stepping out of his ship, reeling as Cade's strikes came fast and heavy. Sparks danced across the dark of space. Gilbert barely registered it, chest heaving, eyes wide.

Major… Cade?" he muttered.

"You have done well, 141," Cade said through the comms, voice calm and resolute. "Fall back to the space hub."

Naelixx floated backward, now on guard. "Another mortal general. No matter. You are lesser creatures playing at war."

Cade narrowed his eyes. "Sorry to disappoint but I am no general."

He pressed a button on his left gauntlet. Red veins of light crackled along Cade's body his bio-engine glowed brightly at nape of his neck as it work to convert his radions, his marble like horns glowed gold, leaving trails through space as he launched again.

The fight reached a level that Gilbert found hard to follow.

"So he never took me serious huh." he thought as he slowly made his way back to the space hub.

Each strike Cade made burned with heavy impact, pressing Naelixx further back. Gilbert couldn't stopping himself from slowing down to watch his breath shallow.

The Cade was struck.

A repulsive field burst from the noble's now returned halo sent him reeling. Nealixx followed, using his mastery of space to hammer Cade with crushing pressure. His orbs now detached from his halo transforming into floating drones some used for the defense while others used to fire beams.

Gilbert felt a lump in his throat as even his commander was losing ground the the noble then it happened.

The light began at his spine, a warped light shone across the void as crimson arcs bled from Major Cade's bio-engine, flowing like veins of molten metal through the armor's etchings. For a moment, the battlefield fell still, Naelixx floated back, wary, as a weight unlike anything before gathered in the space between them.

Then came the flare.

His body erupted in white light.

Not a beam, not a flash, a bloom, like a newborn star forming at the beginning of the universe. Glyphs across Cade'schestplate blazed, his marble horns shone with golden radiance, trailing radiant lines through space.

Seeing his state Nealixx raced to bring him down.

Gilbert shielded his eyes as his HUD went blind. Warnings shrieked, then fell silent, overwhelmed by the raw magnitude pouring from Cade's frame. The comms hissed static, then broke through.

[RADION LEVELS: 9985… 9995… 10000… 10001]

[Warning all nearby combatants clear the battlefield, a disaster has descended.]

Gilbert gasped as the light erupting from Cade's armor like a small star, drove Stygian back transforming into a white dragon before shrinking back into the Major, his armor cracked slowly under the pressure as he moved appearing infrontNealixx his fist falling like the hammer of a blacksmith, the noble reacted quickly his floating shields moving to absorb the attack but fist still made its way through crashing into his soft barrier hurling him through debris as Gilbert had done prior.