"This is by far the most reckless thing you have done, Ishimoto..."

Tsuruno commented with an exasperated sigh as the pilots weaved through an endless rain of plasma bullets. To backtrack a little, right after they had won against the Neptunian forces despite the odds, Ishimoto suggested,

"Why don't we rift our way to the Asteroid Belt?"

"What? That's far too reckless!"

Tsuruno countered, but Ishimoto was ready for that.

"I would have agreed with you had we not experienced these upgrades. Did you not see how we demolished them?"

"Yes, but the forces we'll meet at the Asteroid Belt will be far worse than this!"

"And that's why I'll go there with a plan."

He continued with a reassured look on his face,

"It's not one of my most intricate plans, but its simplicity is what makes it so powerful."

"You're not going to reveal it?"

"No, I have my reasons..."

He said as he glanced surreptitiously at Marcus, who stood quietly in a corner. Tsuruno crossed her hands and said,

"I still feel like this is too reckless..."

"And I can understand why you would think that, but doing this will help us get to Mars faster, which may very well spell the end of this war. Besides, going from planet to planet could prove to be equally risky."

"You have a point there,"

Tsuruno conceded, but she was still not fully convinced, so Ishimoto went for the final push. He said as he placed his hands on her shoulders,

"You know we can't fight a war of attrition, maybe against smaller colonies, but not against a coalition, and especially not with our depleted resources. That's why we opted for this strategy. We could have chosen the usual route and gathered thousands upon thousands of spaceships, but we didn't because the coalition would eventually overpower us with their greater numbers and resources."

"But..."

Ishimoto delivered the finishing blow,

"I see a chance that may never present itself again in a hundred years, Tsuruno, and I must take it."

"Fine. I swear, once you get like this, you never stop."

"Thank you,"

He said with a satisfied smile.

That was all well and good, but why does it seem like we're losing?!

They were surrounded by enemy ships on all sides, with the elite pilots pulling all kinds of maneuvers to avoid enemy attacks. Occasionally, a plasma beam would almost blow one of them to bits, but they seemed to be hanging on just fine until...

"Reinforcements approaching!"

At this, Ishimoto stood up from the cockpit of the Stealth Ship with a panicked look on his face.

"But this wasn't supposed to happen so soon! How did they get here so—"

The answer no one wanted to acknowledge appeared before them in plain sight as if mocking them. Some strange, almost disk-shaped starships emerged from wormholes with massive fleets following behind them. There were three wormholes in total, with the one in the middle being the largest. 

"A wormhole generator? I never thought the day would come when I would see it at work... How did they manage to build something like that?"

Ishimoto pondered aloud, but the surprises wouldn't end there because the next spaceship that emerged caused everyone's faces to go pale.

"I can't believe it,"

A crewman muttered.

"We are doomed,"

Another said. Ishimoto was white as a sheet as he stammered,

"G-G-Graviton 22C..."

It was huge, bordering on the size of a medium-sized Asteroid, and starcruisers surrounded it. It had an almost oppressive feel to it as it made its way to the battlefield. Everyone could instinctively feel that things were about to change and not for the better. Tsuruno, sensing this, immediately unsheathed her blade and swung at it from the concealed Stealth Ship, but then she realized,

"What?"

She had directed her attack at empty space.

"Wasn't it just—"

Ishimoto clicked his tongue and explained,

"It's using its gravity to bend light, making it near impossible to pinpoint its coordinates."

As Tsuruno was about to ready another attack, they suddenly felt a strong pull that brought everyone to their knees. 

"This is bad, really bad,"

Ishimoto muttered as the gravitational pull grew in strength by the second. The pilots who were previously weaving their way through the endless stream of bullets were now being pulled to their deaths. Some crashed into asteroids, while enemy bullets destroyed others. The way things were going, it wouldn't take long for the Stealth Ship to crash into Graviton 22C. 

"W-what about the nanomachines?"

Ishimoto asked, but even their trump card proved useless in this situation, as revealed by the engineer. 

"They wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against this artificial gravitational field."

"Shit, I need more time,"

Ishimoto cursed as he bit his lower lip. Then, Aubrey, who had been previously silent, rose and asked,

"How much time do you need?"

"I-I'm waiting for the wormholes to close,"

Ishimoto replied with a grunt. 

"I never understood the reasonings behind your plans, but I sure as hell know I can count on them."

Then, he smiled warmly and said,

"I'll buy you time."

"Aubrey, no—"

Before anyone could stop him, he entered the shadows and disappeared. Reappearing on top concealed Stealth Ship, he said,

"I've always been a soldier. I've fought on thousands of battlefields and killed more people than I count, so it's only fitting that my life should end on a battlefield."

He crouched like a runner would before a race and released himself to the pull of gravity. Once the enemy pilots had identified him, they started blasting away with everything they had. Bullets and beams came flying his way, but he was unfazed, as if knowing that something that small couldn't possibly kill him. He spread two massive wings of darkness, which he used to shield himself from the powerful explosion that ensued, and though they had been damaged badly, he used the last of their strength to propel himself toward the Graviton Ship at breakneck speed.

He crashed into Graviton 22C with full force and started pounding away with his fists. As he didn't know where to target, he randomly attacked different parts as he ran around the ship, hoping to damage its internal components. Eventually, he damaged the gravity generator and weakened the pull, but his life ended abruptly after that. Crushed by intense gravitational force, his remains floated in the lonely void, and those in Tsuruno's camp were heartbroken when they saw it.

"Aubrey..."

Ishimoto said as he fought back his tears,

"Thank you."

The wormholes had finally closed, and Ishimoto's expression twisted into a mix of anger and agony.

"I will avenge you, even if it costs me my life."

In a shocking display of bravery, Ishimoto switched off the Stealth Ship's concealment. The anti-matter cannon was ready to fire, so he shouted,

"Somebody, anybody! Please, take Tsuruno away from here!"

Tsuruno was about to protest, but Marcus knocked her out with a swift chop to the neck and said,

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of her. Where are the escape pods?"

He called to one of the copilots,

"Franklin! Show him the way!"

"Yes, sir!"

He saluted and walked out of the room. As Marcus was leaving with the unconscious Tsuruno, Ishimoto said to him,

"She may be unconscious right now, but remember that she is still an Administrator."

Marcus' face showed slight disdain for a split second before he flashed a fake smile and said,

"Don't worry, I'll take care of her."

Then, he quickly left the room. After leaving that warning, Ishimoto turned to the fleet of spaceships in front of him and inhaled deeply, thinking,

I won't come out of this alive, but I don't mind throwing my life away if it means victory for the empire. Of course, I have my regrets. I'll be leaving Rosa behind, and just when we were about to have our first child, but...

As tears fell from his eyes, he thought,

I can't forgive this enemy!

With an order, the pilots fired a bright and powerful blast of anti-matter that proceeded to obliterate every starship and spaceship in the vicinity, including the Stealth Ship itself. Historians would come to see this as a mystery because, unlike other battles, there were no survivors. Nearby observers were also destroyed in the ensuing explosion, and a light that could be seen from Mars, followed by the disappearances of multiple signals, were the only things recorded.