The crew of the Kinetic Regret was gathered once again in the briefing chamber, several of them slouched creatively across chairs, bulkheads, or each other. The lights flickered in sync with the mood: dim and suspicious. Captain Gobbins stood before them with an expression that suggested he’d just read a war report and eaten a lemon at the same time.
“Good news,” he began.
Silence.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Actual good news this time. Delve and Querious are, more or less, on fire. But not our fire. Their fire. The Imperium is evacuating.”
A few murmurs rose from the crew.
“Wait—they’re leaving Delve?” asked Lieutenant Gilthune Aideron, squinting like this was some kind of trap.
“Yes,” Gobbins said. “Turns out, after months of patient and surgical misery from our sig teams, the enemy decided they couldn’t hold it anymore. We didn’t roll in with titans or have some glorious one-day siege. Just… methodical harassment. You know—what we do best.”
He flicked a holoscreen into view, showing two bright red systems blinking out like dying stars. “Delve and Querious. Mostly evacuated. Consider it a love letter to the power of small, coordinated torment. Special credit to Rdmr and Jakaya with the BRO sig, Hedliner in BFL, and Nalani for older ops with the Prae crew.”
“Wow,” someone muttered. “So… no supers, no mass brawls?”
“Nope,” Gobbins replied. “Just months of being incredibly, relentlessly annoying.”
From the back of the room, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 scribbled something into a datapad. They hadn’t spoken since joining the Kinetic Regret three deployments ago. No one really remembered who had cleared them for duty. But every time something exploded, they were there, lurking with a stylus.
Gobbins pointed toward the glowing tactical map. “For the near future, we burn everything. Citadels, refineries, socks left on cloning bay floors—if it’s anchored and Imperium-colored, light it up and see if it drops a core or a killmail worth posting.”
Galthune raised her hand again. “Do we have… an actual plan?”
Gobbins shrugged. “The sigs might push further. Or they might pack up and poke the Imperium from somewhere else. HQ says new plans will come next week. Until then, just assume ‘maximum chaos’ is still policy.”
The lights flickered again, slightly more ominously.
“And yes,” he added, “before anyone asks, FRT has been poking at our moon holdings. Valuable stuff. Ansiblexes. It’s annoying, but we’re not fighting two blocs at once. Focus remains on the Imperium. Besides, they’re getting hit by Initiative and FRT too. So technically, the universe is… helping.”
“That’s terrifying,” Gilthune said.
“I know,” Gobbins replied, deadpan. “Lastly, if you were wondering what big doctrine change we got out of this—”
He tapped a button, and a large, rotating image of a Maelstrom appeared on the holoscreen.
A soft gasp echoed across the room.
“Yes. We’ve added Maelstroms to our doctrine. Because nothing says ‘we won’ like a fleet of Tempest knockoffs with dreams of glory and absolutely no agility.”
A long pause. Then a voice from engineering: “Captain, do they perform well?”
“Incredibly. For at least one fight. After that, your results may vary.”
Gobbins took a final sip from his mug, then set it down. “Now get out there. Burn Delve. Save the loot. Try not to die in a Maelstrom. And someone, for the love of everything, figure out what Gallente Citizen 4586793463 is actually writing in that damn pad.”
From the back of the room, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 quietly turned the page.
A Pixel Nomad 