Southern Cross by Windstar

Mira's hands shook as she gripped the arms of her command couch.
The small varient ten Guardian ship bucked as yet another Bak'ra energy weapon sliced through
her shields and ripped open a gash along the side of her hull. She was bleeding air in a dozen
places, her primary fusion reactor was off line, half her crew was dead or injured and life support
was failing on a dozen decks.
Truth be told the old Guardian was surprised to still be alive.
Other Guardian ships were desperately blowing apart Bak'ra ships as they got into ranges that
were suicidal, less than a hundred kilometers in some instances. It was sheer madness, even out
at the Asteroids they hadn't interspersed this closely. Ship's fired broadsides at each other at such
low ranges that explosions from their targets buffeted them.
There was one Bak'ra ship though that was getting through everything they could throw at it. It
was a big one, and Mira realized with a start that she was the nearest to it. Another few seconds
and it would get a clear shot at the vulnerable planet beneath, and she knew, perhaps better than
most, what those biological warheads could do.
She ignored Julie's sudden command to stop as the First Guardian figured out what she was
going to do. Abandon ship alarms came to life in those parts of her ship self where they still
worked, but few of her crew heeded them. Most of them had lost everything to the Bak'ra and
none of them wanted to run away from this fight.
Not a single member of her command staff moved, and she met the eyes of her Provost with a
peaceful smile. He returned it with a quirked grin of his own, his partner had died with Talia, and
he calmly returned his attention to his station.
She was old, her ship self had been made nearly two centuries before, and was four Variant's out
of date now.
That didn't mean she wasn't fast though.
The small Guardian ship arched up and under an exploding Bak'ra ship, slipped between two
smaller Bak'ra escorts, blasting them to the abyss as she passed, and then dove towards her
target.
-----------------
Lortal smiled in victory.
His fleet might be decimated, but with the death of that orbital fort, finally, he had a shot.
Biological warfare missiles replaced warp gate missiles in his ship's missile launchers and he
savored the split second before launch. The plague that he was about to unleash upon this pitiful
planet would do the same thing to it that he'd done to Tiri prime. Then he would just gather what