[ WP ] Write an epic battle

`` So this is how it ends...'' The place was falling apart around him, his opponent a twisted heap behind him. All this effort, all the death and suffering, and for what? Could he escape now and make it back? Would it even be worth it now that it was over? Unbidden his mind slipped back to the beginning of the whole mess. 
 
 The Consortium had been peaceful once, but its excesses had bred avarice. It had began taking what did not belong to it. As so many arrogant civilizations tend to do the Consortium eventually picked a fight they should n't have. World by world the Consortium had been beaten back to its final redoubt: the BlackMare. 
 
 A hellish cluster of failing stars inexorably being drawn into a black hole. The planets within slowly sundering each other in an eons long rush to oblivion. The region was swathed in stellar gases and singularity ejecta, swirling about the turbulent dark center. To call the BlackMare a navigational hazard would have been an understatement. 
 
 Into this place the corrupt Consortium Council and its Chancellor had fled to rebuild. A fitting home for their crumbling ambitions. Yet those they had wronged would not be dissuaded. Countless probes had to be sent forth to map the BlackMare's treacherous expanse of debris and radiation. The place had been riddled over many millennia with traps and fortress bastions. The doomed worlds within enshrouded as much by nature as technology and might. 
 
 It took years but passable lanes were discovered and the Consular fleet was forced into full defense. The Warriors of Justice would not be denied, though their blood was made to fill that cursed place. Gravity bombs, guided asteroid bombardments, ambushes, and protracted sieges of every point of contention took their toll. 
 
 Finally at their ragged ends both sides faced off over the last wretched battleground world: Capitol. Once the remnants of the Consular fleet was reduced to wreckage, the bombardment began. Like so many sieges before it was only a matter of time before the planetary shields buckled and developed gaps. 
 
 Gaps through which the ground invasion began. His task had been simple. Get through and disable the WorldShield Complex. He'd done it before on a dozen world's. None so heavily defended however. The initial landing had been a disaster. Sensor shadows had sent half his force right into the shield to be vaporized. More fell victim to atmospheric fighters and anti-aircraft fire. The rest landed right in the greatest set of fortifications ever constructed. A mere thirty-eight firebases survived that landing to deploy. 
 
 The next month of fighting saw only intermittent reinforcements. Tactical mass weapons proved effective but the Chancellor's best stood in their way. The WorldShield facility finally loomed before them almost tauntingly. Surround by a maze of concentric rings of defense. Itself part of the greater ring of battlements around Capitol City. 
 
 He had known that his men would not survive much longer so he had taken a daring risk. He led a breakout effort himself. He knew it would be suicidal. He would n't see any more of his men die, or waste further troops sure to follow. 
 
 He took one hundred volunteers in full mobile armor suits. Their mad dash from their entrenched position took them over 15 kilometers to close the distance to the WorldShield main complex. It had worked, with 75 casualties. The last 25 blasted their way deep inside. Finally the reactor chamber was before them. 
 
 It was only then that the Chancellors' Champion had ambushed them. His closest friend and lieutenant had died in an instant. A rod of plasma skewered him right in the cockpit module. Before he knew it the Champion was on him. As his team began returning fire on the Champion's squad they locked titansteel blades. 
 
 Back and forth they raged as more defenders poured into the breach from outside. In the melee they crashed into the reactor chamber itself like madmen. The swirling energy coruscated over their suits. The wounded or lightly armored in the corridor beyond were incinerated by the escaping torrents of power. 
 
 Still they battled. Electric arcing through their bodies, suits maxed beyond their thermal compensation. They continued to batter at each other. Then it was over as quickly as it began. With a powerful downward slash he had lost the suits main armature. Yet with his left, he sunk a piece of half molten metal through the Champion's egress hatch. Flame quickly enveloped it from the inside out. 
 
 The unconstrained reactor breach had nearly finished venting into the facility to disastrous effect. The walls buckled and sections of ceiling were crashing down. 
 `` No… I wo n't be entombed here with you'' He grimaced as he forced his battlesuit upright. The readouts protested, as he scanned for an exit. His wounds protested as well as he staggered toward one. 
 
 The suit was beyond tolerances and he hobbled with one leg completely frozen. He had no time to respect the cinders of his fallen comrades. He rounded the last corner and saw the open blast hole he had entered. The clear sky seemed to beckon him as he strove for it. With a great shuddering moan the facility imploded. 
 
 Like a terrible dragon of myth it roared and closed its maw about him. Then he knew darkness, and fell into unconsciousness. It was many hours before the sounds of shrieking metal awoke him. The suit was dead, none of the controls responded. Not even the manual ejector. 
 `` So this is how it ends…'' he spoke aloud as a wash of sparks showered over him. 
 
 The rear hatch was pried clear and he stumbled out into the sunlight. Without the WorldShield natural light filled the scene rather than a red glow. All about him the last of his troops were gathered in the rubble. They cheered at the sight of him. He could hear the sounds of battle far off in the city. Filling the sky was the Fleet of Justice in all its glory. Capitol had fallen at last, the nightmare was over. 

