[ WP ] The mines have run dry

# [ Prompt Subversion # 1 ] 
 
 `` Captain, status report from fire control - the minelayer's dry, we've done all we can.'' The jumpsuit-clad ensign, scarcely a decade behind the helm, was illuminated by the dozens of flashing symbols and alerts at his control station. Yet another angry, red popup joined the others - the Tortoise XI area denial mines, the Flintlock Mk V subspace missiles, the even the Flyswatter CIWS turrets were signalling near-depleted ammunition reserves. 
 
 Twelve weeks, twenty-seven days, fourteen hours, eleven minutes, and five seconds. The crew of the *TSS Detachment, * a Neptune-class battlecruiser, had held the line at the Lowell jump point far longer than could ever have been expected of them. Battlegroup Sigma, those tattered survivors of the Fifth Fleet, had been left behind in the Octanus system as a sacrificial lion in hopes that the retreating armada could regroup in time for the inevitable Gliesen assault. 
 
 One by one, the ships of the Fifth Fleet winked out like the stars they were firghting to protect. The *Overlord* battlecruiser, the carrier ships *Merkur* and *Market Garden, * even the logistics ship *Marshall; * all vanished into clouds of cold vacuum, twisted titanium, and thousands of frozen corpses. The *Detachment* was all that remained. 
 
 `` Ensign Travell, please list what offensive options we still have available.'' 
 
 `` Commander, we have approximately 780 rounds remaining for the Flyswatter batteries, three Shoemaker missiles, and enough reaction mass for one 37 % discharge of the Tunguska array.'' 
 
 *'' So not even enough to scratch a force shield. `` * Commander Pliskin's grim realization was interrupted by the blaring of the klaxons - an all-too-familiar occurrence, now. 
 
 `` Commander! Fiftee-no, twen-damnit, forty-four enemy jump signatures detected in Arc 4; they've sent half the theater fleet!'' called one of the sensor technicians from the operations theater below. The bridge was now a flurry of activity as the skeleton crew remaining on board struggled to create a clear tactical picture of the emerging battlefield. 
 
 The Commander stood upright, adjusted his collar, and smiled. 
 
 `` Engineering, initiate critical overload of matter annihilation engine, authorization Commander Jack Pliskin using code 985-A. Step down containment fields to coincide with stability failure of the propulsion drive. Fire control, ready the Tunguska array for discharge against target Epsilon 33...'' 
 
 As if in trance, for a full thirty seconds he raved with the smile of a madman on his face. Intentionally, strategically, *insanely, * he overloaded every system on the ship to its limit, timing them all to fail spectacularly like a composer weaving a symphony of destruction. Each command boomed forth in a rising cadence, each intertwined with the last in a melody of chaos, and the crew rushed about like dutiful players, until it at long last released in one triumphant crescendo: 
 
 `` Full power to engines - **Humans die at ramming speed! **'' 
 
 Six light-hours away, the last evacuees of the Kepler-186 system saw what looked to be a tiny star wink into being for a fraction of an instant as their ships jumped to subspace.
