A far-future firm scifi in the rich Kerbae ad Astra setting.
Kerbal Future is a multithreaded story. That means the perspective will bounce between a handful of characters—one per chapter. Though some of the characters are from very disparate place-times, don't worry—their threads will eventually knit together.

Kerbal Future

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Chapter 1a

Wehrcan stirred restlessly. In the murky light of his bunkroom, provided only by the window's generic starfield display, his mind conjured images of every kind of failure the next day could bring. Thermal control faults, frying him at his gun console. Destruction of the radiators, reducing their capacity below their ability to sustain life. Even a simple hull breach in the wrong place could be disastrous.
He turned over and reached for his tablet. Perhaps with a little distraction he could finally get to sleep.

The Harpoon-class cruiser hurtled through highspace at a fifth of lightspeed, its apparent velocity multiplied many times by the peculiarities of highspace. It kept pace with the other vessels in its task group, which formed a cone a hundred kilometers wide. The gigantic Reaver-class supercapital ship at its apex dwarfed even the fourteen battleships. A search-and-destroy mission of truly legendary proportions, its mark was an entire planet orbiting a nondescript yellow-white star. It was the homeworld and capital of a bitter enemy of the Kerbol Federation—and the century-long war which had raged between the powers would come to an end with its destruction.

Wehrcan awoke to the sound of the bunkroom alarm, alerting him to the imminent translation. He braced against the wall as the shipwide address system echoed his own alarm. The room spun as the translation drive rotated the ship in unsettling ways. His stomach churned, vertigo-induced nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He glared at the bag attached to the frame of the bunk defiantly, willing himself to resist its attraction. Finally, the ship rotated back into realspace. Wehrcan took a few deep breaths to steady himself before donning his uniform and leaving the cabin. Following the AR tags to the briefing room, he joined his fellow sailors.

After the prerecorded pep talk ended, his CO stood up and delivered the real briefing. None of it was new information, but Wehrcan welcomed the routine. He left the room, the last of his nausea long faded, and proceeded to his station: a gigantic turreted diode laser. As he strapped in, the viewscreens flashed to life. With a dull clank, the huge focusing optics were released from their stowed position and lifted into alignment with the targeting optics. The turret released its mooring clamps. Wehrcan slewed it around to bear in the direction of the enemy fleet—even as far as they were, their drive plumes were easily visible—and waited, watching his rangefinder. The wartime shields shimmered as they energized, their narrow transmission bands wavering across the sensors' spectra. He zoomed in to pick a target. The planet, ocean blue and forest green and sodium lamp yellow, loomed large above him.

The defense fleet looked like a scrapyard given life. Gashes in the armor vented air, propellant, and coolant. Only a quarter of the ships were shielded, and several vessels had their service radiators extended even as they accelerated. Attrition had not favored the defenders, and this—their last-ditch effort, the final line of defense—was the best they could muster in the defense of their homeworld.

Wehrcan hesitated, but not overlong. He had his orders, after all. He trained on a target: an aging hulk of a frigate, battlescarred but largely intact. His focus set, he waited for the vessel to meet it. A swarm of drones flashed into his vision. Their light arms spat thousands of tiny pellets into the paths of the weakest ships, letting their velocity do the work. Beneath his seat, the ship rumbled as its reactor charged the colossal capacitor banks which supported its great spinal railgun. Coolant pumps churned, chilling the laser to its operational temperature of a few kelvins.

The range alert beeped.

Wehrcan pulled the trigger, and with a high-pitched hum, the laser engaged. The beam, visible only by its impact upon its target, splashed over its shield and excited it sympathetically. Colors danced over the surface like a soap bubble. Gradually—inevitably—the bubble tore open, and the laser struck the hull. He eased up on the trigger, and the laser's hum dropped to a buzz. As the incandescent plasma from the impact site illuminated the hull, he dragged the spot across the ship. A searing line of white and yellow heat followed it. As air escaped through the gash, the beam found something important. The vessel's drives cut out, and it was left tumbling helplessly.

As Wehrcan chose a new target, a sound like rolling thunder announced the firing of the spinal railgun. The slug, its motion so great as to render it but a blur on his screens, slammed into a cruiser. With a flash of incandescent light, the vessel was torn apart. The sparks of its dying shields fluttered in the vacuum for a second before dissipating. He

Wehrcan had destroyed four ships when it happened.

An orb of light, indescribably bright, wandered sedately across his screens toward the planet. Its brilliance forced even the brightest engine plumes and the star itself into darkness. As the incandescent sphere drew near the planet's atmosphere, its luminance grew. A bulge of burning light swept around the disk. The light traced the continents with a brief wave of impossible radiance before fading to the sullen red-orange glow of molten stone. The oceans' steady luminance gave way to a similar flash.

And it was over.

Shocked, Wehrcan could only watch as the enemy ships spooled their frameshift drives and limped into low warps. There was nothing left to defend. The war—and their empire—was at an end.

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