Massive Disaster 4-19 Outline (Patreon)

Zedd didn’t waste time. He was already punching in evasive commands, flipping auxiliary power off stealth shielding and into maneuvering thrusters. The Grande reacted instantly, frame humming as the engines took on the sudden shift.

“Who the hell are these guys?” Dev again, louder this time. Through the forward viewport, plasma signatures bloomed—two sleek ships moving like they’d rehearsed this ambush. They weren’t pirates. Too clean. Too fast. One approached from low-starboard, another from high-aft—tight pincer angles designed to lock vectorsvector before Zedd could break orbit entry.

“I don’t know.” Zedd’s voice was clipped, feral. He killed thrust, spun the Grande into a nose-dive spiral, and dumped a chaff burst from both lateral pods. Behind them, a torpedo detonated near the aft fins. The shield bled blue, soaked most of it—but not all. The Grande shuddered with the impact.

Caleb lurched into the cockpit frame, eyes wide. “Why are they after you?”

“I don’t know,” Zedd bit out. His jaw was clenched tight, fingers a blur across the holo-controls. His flying changed—not wild, but sharp, angry, half-instinctive.

He dropped the ship low into the debris field—a jagged minefield of dead satellites and fractured asteroids, old wrecks drifting like bones in space.

ADAM’s voice cut through the tension. Calm. Cold.

“Triangulating emission profiles. Five corvette-class vessels, one stealth-flagged command ship. Flagship configuration matches Asari stealth frigate architecture. Spectre modifications confirmed.”

Silence.

Then, Nina from the back cabin. “What the fuck?” Breathless. “Why is a Spectre trying to kill you?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Zedd roared, slamming a palm into the inertial lock.

The ECM suite screamed across his periphery.

“Hacker darts inbound,” ADAM said.

Zedd didn’t dodge. He flipped the Grande backward on its axis, launched a full missile spread into the nearest asteroid cluster, and detonated it mid-flight. The expanding cloud of rock and vapor caught the first wave of darts. Four deflected. One burst. One clipped the dorsal plating.

“System breach detected,” ADAM intoned. “Counter-AI deploying.”

The lights in the cabin flickered. Sparks snapped from a ceiling relay. Adele screamed.

Zedd yanked the Grande into a corkscrew spin and brought the plasma lances online. He spotted one of the corvettes trying to flank wide, peeling off from the formation. Three bursts from the lance cannons. The first missed. The second dropped its shields. The third struck the reactor housing and blew out the midsection. The wreck tumbled lifeless.

The second corvette swept in behind, trying to thread through the spinning debris. Zedd dumped flares, spun the Grande in a counterroll, and cut thrust. The sudden shift brought him parallel to its flight vector. Two plasma lances tore across its dorsal line. The first burned off the shields. The second opened its side like a can. The corvette spiraled out, colliding with a fractured solar panel.

The third came from above, loosing a pair of plasma bolts. One clipped the Grande's side, knocking out a vent intake. Zedd didn't flinch. He launched a missile mid-roll, then followed it with a forward burst of the quantum lasers. The missile forced an evasive maneuver—the laser caught it mid-bank. Clean kill.

A fourth corvette tried to close the distance, moving tighter, smarter. Zedd pulled the Grande back behind a drifting transport hull and used its mass to blind sensors for a second. He bled power into maneuvering thrusters and darted around the far side. As soon as the corvette reacquired him, he let loose another lance volley—center mass. The shields held for half a second before the third shot hit. The ship cracked and burst outward.

The last corvette hesitated. Wrong move.

Zedd surged forward, dumped three missiles wide, forcing the enemy into evasive patterning, then cut hard beneath its spin. He pulled the Grande into a barrel roll and fired the lance cannons upward through the corvette's ventral side. The first shot tore into the shield. The second blew out its gravity core. The third passed through the engine block and exited through the cockpit.

No explosion. Just sudden silence.

“Hostile vessels eliminated,” ADAM confirmed. “Flagship in partial retreat. Emission trail shows destabilization. Hull integrity down to 42%. Drive core cycling.”

Zedd didn’t answer.

He pulled the Grande into a slow turn, scanning through the debris. Wreckage floated in every direction. Plasma trails smeared the black. The ship groaned under strain, violet light spilling out of a cracked stabilizer vane.

Dev was silent. Caleb, white-knuckled, watching the wreckage drift. Nina was breathing fast but steady.

The Spectre frigate blinked once in the distance—an afterimage against the void—then vanished into FTL.

Zedd exhaled through his teeth. He could chase it, easily catch up to it, but he had no fucking idea what it was leading them to and he doubted that was a smart move. Still…

“We’re not done.”

He pushed the Grande deeper into the belt, scanning for a fallback vector.

This wasn’t just a hit.

It was a declaration.

He turned toward the largest asteroid, dumped heat, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Everyone was silent.

Zedd didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stared at the wreckage, knuckles white on the controls.

Dev: How did you take on all those ships with this thing? I thought we were zeroed, man

Adele (quietly): me too

Zedd: Everything I build, I build to punch above it's weight class. My ships too. This thing might be an Interceptor but shields and material wise, without worrying about Mass Effect, it could take on a stealth frigate in a dogfight, even if it's weapons were in the same tier. which they're not. I created ships that could eat anything anybody sent at me. Batarian, Turian, human, anybody...

Then, quietly—more shaken than he’d admit—he muttered to himself, “They knew I was coming back.”

His eyes widened as he realized something. "We have to get back to Arkadia."