Dark Light

Working the System

Aboard the stealth ship USS Sea Shadow, Chief Jeff Anderson initiated the alignment program on the Dark Light Tactical Laser Array. The system, once touted as a revolution in missile defense, had become a liability—temperamental, power-hungry, and cursed with a cooling system that couldn’t keep up.

Despite months of testing, the second-stage amplifier never reached its projected power. Anderson, alone after the engineers had packed up and abandoned the project, had rigged a portable fan just to keep the thing limping. With it, the system barely hit the low end of operational specs.

To the Navy, Dark Light was a failure. A money pit. The funding dried up, and the prototype team returned stateside, leaving Anderson with a half-working laser, a cold steel ship, and a nagging feeling that the system wasn’t quite done yet.

Then the call to General Quarters came.

Stationed in the Red Sea, the Sea Shadow was awaiting orders to return home. Instead, chaos broke out: Israel and Iran had gone to war, and early warning systems lit up like Christmas.

Two hundred ballistic missiles—two hundred—were arcing through the upper atmosphere, inbound to Tel Aviv.

Anderson stared at the screen. The Dark Light system was online. Barely.

He flipped it from Standby to Operate. The internal temperature jumped instantly. He maxed the portable fan, cracked the coolant flow valve by hand, and overrode the thermal safeties. If the system burned out, so be it.

The beam pulsed to life.

Twenty missiles vanished from the screen.

Then the laser kicked itself offline, temperature soaring. Anderson didn’t stop. He jammed the space cooler to max, forcing arctic air through the cabin. The laser flickered, then relit.

Another twenty. Gone.

He throttled the power back, sacrificing output for duration. With a longer dwell time per target, each kill took longer—but it bought them more chances.

Ten more missiles destroyed. The system overheated again and dropped into Standby, refusing to restart.

That left 150 missiles screaming toward Tel Aviv.

Then the ship’s Aegis-linked interceptors fired.

Streaks of fire arced into the sky. Dozens of missiles collided with the incoming warheads in bursts of white-hot light. The Sea Shadow’s support network—satellites, destroyers, land-based interceptors—joined the fight in a coordinated ballet of precision and desperation.

By the time the last defensive salvos ended, all but five had been intercepted.

Just five missiles broke through.

Anderson watched in silence as they arced down into the city. On the display, they blossomed like poisoned flowers. Bright. Violent. Final.

He sat back, sweating, chest tight, eyes locked on the dead laser system before him. It had worked. Not flawlessly. Not as designed. But it had bought them precious time, chipped away at the impossible odds.

Without Dark Light, it might’ve been fifty. Or a hundred.

He muttered to himself, voice bitter:

“Too late for glory. Just in time for regret.”

After the call to General Quarters, the ship eventually stood down. The threat had passed. Reports came in from command and allies: five warheads had made it through. The rest—nearly two hundred—had been intercepted by the layered defense grid.

But in the post-mission analysis, there was no mention of the Dark Light Tactical Laser.

No commendation.

No data.

Not even a footnote in the preliminary reports.

To the Navy, it looked like another exercise in joint missile defense. A triumph of old-school interceptors, radar systems, and coordination. No one seemed to realize—or care—that a half-abandoned prototype system had engaged, hit, and destroyed fifty incoming ballistic missiles.

Chief Jeff Anderson sat in the Chief’s Mess that evening, still sweat-slick from hours in the laser control bay, cradling a chipped coffee mug and trying to shake the cold that came after the adrenaline wore off.

“You guys see the kill tally?” he said, voice a little too loud. “A hundred ninety-five missiles down. We took out fifty with the laser array before she fried.”

A pause.

A few heads turned. One of the senior chiefs raised an eyebrow. “The laser?”

Anderson nodded. “Dark Light. I had her limping, but she was in the fight. Fired three salvos—twenty, twenty, then ten. Fifty kills. She saved Tel Aviv.”

Silence.

Someone chuckled. Another chief smirked over a spoonful of chili.

“Jeff, that thing’s a glorified heat lamp,” someone muttered.

Anderson’s smile faltered. “I’m serious. She was in Standby, I kicked her into Operate. Manual coolant override. We hit hard before she overheated.”

Another chief leaned back in his chair. “Funny. Intel brief said interceptors got most of ’em. Nothing about a laser. Nothing in the log. Probably a sensor glitch. You sure you weren’t watching replays?”

The room buzzed with quiet laughter. Anderson didn’t laugh. He stared down into his mug, jaw tight.

He knew what he’d seen. He had burn marks on the coolant manifold, a fried comms panel, and a melted fan blade to prove it. But the system had no proper logging. No black box. No telemetry backup. No way to verify what he’d done.

To them, he was just a tired old chief clinging to a ghost project.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Probably just a glitch.”

But deep down, he knew better.

And so did the five missiles that did make it through.

Two days passed.

The Sea Shadow drifted silently in international waters, her stealth profile blending into the thermal haze of the Red Sea. Officially, the mission was over. Debriefings were conducted. Most of the crew had moved on—talking about heading back to home port, jokes about getting shore leave, football scores.

Chief Jeff Anderson spent those days in near silence, tinkering with the melted wiring of the Dark Light system. The fans were fried. The coolant pump was scorched. He found a spot where the vent duct had actually melted shut from radiant heat.

He didn’t bother trying to explain it to anyone anymore.

Then the message came.

A secure comm burst came through the lasercom terminal—encrypted and priority-marked from the carrier USS Harry S. Truman, flagship of the task force.

Anderson sat in the laser bay when the alert chirped. He blinked at the screen. It was addressed to him directly.

FROM: CVN-75 CIC — Lt. Cmdr. H. R. Ainsley, Senior Defense Analysis

TO: CPO J. Anderson, USS Sea Shadow

Subject: Thermal Signature Correlation Report

Chief—

Heat signature analysis from AWACS and satellite platforms confirms multiple high-altitude energy discharges from your position during the initial re-entry window of the Tel Aviv missile strike. Data confirms a minimum of 50 successful intercepts originating from the Sea Shadow’s Dark Light Tactical Laser system.

Please be advised: this information has been cross-confirmed with infrared and optical tracking. The State of Israel has been informed of your system’s contribution. Their Ministry of Defense has asked us to extend their deepest gratitude for your actions.

A follow-up question from NAVSEA and CNO:

Is the Dark Light system still operational?

End message.

Anderson stared at the screen.

He reread it twice. Then a third time. His eyes stung—not from emotion, but from the coolant fumes that still hung in the air. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Slowly, a grin spread across his face.

He turned to the control panel. The “Standby” light was still glowing. The fan system was trashed, coolant low, and the safety interlocks were tripped.

But the core? The beam generator? It was still there. Waiting.

He keyed in a reply:

TO: CVN-75 CIC

Dark Light system status:

Standby. Not mission-ready. Not dead either.

Give me 48 hours, some parts, and a real cooling unit.

She’ll burn the sky again.

Just after midnight, the kludged cooling system still holding, Chief Anderson sat alone in the laser bay. The lights were dim, the hum of jury-rigged fans the only sound.

Then the red alert klaxon shattered the quiet.

GENERAL QUARTERS. ALL HANDS. INCOMING STRIKE DETECTED.

His console lit up before the announcement finished. Incoming telemetry streamed from the Truman and from AWACS aircraft circling the region.

Another wave.

Larger than the last.

Sensors identified approximately 120 ballistic missiles—launched in a staggered ripple from deep inside Iranian territory. Their trajectory was unmistakable: Tel Aviv. Haifa. Ashdod. Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling were already spooling up for launch.

But the Dark Light was closer, its line-of-sight clear.

Anderson slammed the system into full activation.

“Bridge, this is Chief Anderson. Dark Light is hot. I’m going live now—recommend you give me wide-angle radar sweep and target deconflict.”

“Acknowledged, Chief. You’ve got green light for free fire. Take what you can.”

He routed the targeting feed, initiated pulse cooling, and gritted his teeth. The fans howled like jet engines, and frost began forming around the makeshift condenser. The core temperature began to climb the moment the first shot fired.

One missile down. Then another.

The laser hit its rhythm.

Five. Ten. Twenty.

Anderson’s fingers flew over the panel as he manually toggled focus duration, power levels, and recharge timing. He squeezed every fraction of efficiency from the system—like wringing blood from a stone.

Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty missiles destroyed.

The temperature warning shrieked.

The coolant loop was starting to fail—frost gave way to steam, and the fan made a noise that sounded like it was dying. The thermal sensors surged into the red.

He bypassed two more safety interlocks.

The system hit seventy confirmed kills.

Then—

SYSTEM ERROR: CORE TEMPERATURE EXCEEDS TOLERANCE

STATUS: STANDBY MODE ENGAGED

The laser went dark.

Anderson slammed his fist on the panel.

“Just give me ten more seconds…”

But it was too late. The system hissed, venting steam. The makeshift rig couldn’t take any more.

He watched as the remaining fifty missiles passed through the upper atmosphere. That’s when the fleet’s missile interceptors launched.

Arrow. Iron Dome. Aegis. Patriot.

A coordinated wave of kinetic intercepts arced into the sky, streaking toward the descending targets. Explosions lit the night. Most of the remaining missiles were shredded mid-air.

Only five made it through.

They hit far from the main population centers—damage reports were still coming in, but preliminary data showed low casualties. No nuclear or chemical payloads.

Anderson slumped in his seat, sweat pouring down his face, watching steam swirl from the cooling lines like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils.

Seventy confirmed kills.

Again.

He didn’t say anything. Just sat there as the laser array cooled, one fan still squealing in protest.

Then a new message blinked across the console.

FROM: CNO Command Liaison – OPSEC RED

Chief Anderson:

Your system’s engagement was tracked and confirmed via allied infrared and radar telemetry. Seventy intercepts verified.

Your actions, once again, have shifted the balance.

You are ordered to preserve the Dark Light system by any means necessary. Additional instructions to follow. A recovery and evaluation team is en route to Sea Shadow.

Do not shut down the system.

Do not speak to anyone not cleared for RED LANTERN protocols.

Well done, Chief.

Anderson leaned back, heart pounding.

This wasn’t just an experiment anymore.

This was war.

And the Dark Light had just drawn blood.

Three Weeks Later

Chief Jeff Anderson had barely cleared medical when the orders came.

He was transferred—quietly. No formal debrief. No medals. Just a tight packet of classified orders and a flight manifest that didn’t make sense even to him.

Tucson to Norfolk. Norfolk to Ramstein. Ramstein to Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia to the Indian Ocean, via a courier hop no one talked about.

His final destination: USS Kestrel, a stealth destroyer in long-term shakedown. Technically active, but mothballed before it ever saw deployment.

He stepped aboard and immediately knew why.

There it was.

Dark Light II.

Or rather, the exact same system they’d installed on Sea Shadow—but never finished calibrating. The optics were clean. Cooling lines wrapped in factory plastic. Power conduits still taped off. Not one fingerprint on the firing console.

The laser system had been aboard for four years, untouched.

When he arrived in the engineering bay, three civilians and a Navy project manager looked up from a stack of blueprint schematics and new system proposals. No one greeted him.

He nodded to them. “Chief Anderson. Reporting per orders.”

One of the engineers—thick glasses, too clean—barely looked up.

“We’re not bringing that one online, Chief. Orders are to start dismantling. We’re installing the Foresight LPI Beam Array—gen four. Factory module’s en route. Yours is obsolete.”

Anderson looked past them to the laser’s polished casing. He could still see the warning sticker peeling from the coolant pump intake.

“It’s never been powered up,” he said.

The Navy project lead gave a quick nod. “Yeah. And it’s going back in the crate.”

Anderson blinked. “You’ve got an operational prototype that could’ve intercepted real targets. Now proven. And you’re replacing it with a system you haven’t fielded yet?”

The engineer shrugged. “Gen Four doesn’t melt itself. Doesn’t require a Frankenstein cooling rig to function. It’s got modular redundancy.”

Anderson walked around the table, eyes fixed on the system.

“You don’t know what this can do.”

Another engineer chuckled. “We read the after-action reports. Looked more like a fluke than a system. You want to recreate that mess? That deathtrap?”

Anderson took a long breath. Then:

“That ‘deathtrap’ shot down a hundred and fifty missiles in two days. Saved half of Tel Aviv. And then burned itself into history.”

Silence.

Finally, the Navy officer said:

“It’s not your call anymore, Chief. Your job is to assist the retrofit. That’s all.”

Anderson stared at the pristine array. Then back at the men already planning to gut it.

He nodded slowly.

“Yes, sir.”

But his eyes said something else.

⸻

That night, Anderson stayed in the laser bay, alone. He didn’t sleep. Just sat on the cold steel beside the control console, a silent sentinel beside a weapon no one else respected.

He ran his hand across the outer casing, whispering to the machine like an old friend.

“They don’t get it. But I do. You burned the sky. You gave everything.”

He pulled a small data wafer from his jacket. One he’d hidden from every report.

A full copy of Sea Shadow’s laser alignment logs. Coolant cycle data. Manual override timings. Output harmonics under thermal load. Everything they’d need to rebuild it.

Or… resurrect it.

He inserted the wafer into the terminal.

And hit upload.

Twelve Hours Later

It happened at dawn.

A third wave of inbound missiles—this time without warning. Hypersonics launched from mobile platforms. No clear source. No electronic emissions. Just heat trails and streaking death.

The USS Guardian, an aircraft carrier on overwatch, picked them up on early IR.

Thirty missiles.

The carrier’s defenses took out twelve.

Land-based interceptors dropped another eight.

But ten warheads got through—impacting near key power and infrastructure hubs. Civilian casualties were high. Hospitals were hit. The media blackout wouldn’t last long.

The mood aboard USS Kestrel turned cold.

At 0800, the comms officer entered the makeshift CIC with a priority relay.

“Chief Anderson, you’re wanted by the Admiral. Line secure.”

Anderson stepped into the darkened comms room, the screen flickering to life. Vice Admiral Carolyn Meade, Commander of the Carrier Group, stared at him through tired eyes and battlefield exhaustion.

“Chief. I’ve read the reports. And I’ve read the parts that weren’t in the reports.”

She leaned forward.

“Did you really bring down fifty targets with that system?”

Anderson didn’t blink.

“Yes, ma’am. More, actually. Final tally was eighty-three across two days before it melted.”

Meade exhaled, visibly shaken.

“Then you’re going to bring it online again.”

He hesitated. “The engineers want to strip it. They’ve already started pulling power taps. I’ve got no coolant rig—no supply. It’ll burn out before it fires five shots.”

“You’ll get what you need. I’ve authorized emergency override. The system is now under direct command of Fleet—OPCON override. You’re in charge.”

Anderson looked grim.

“It’s not going to be pretty. Might go down in flames again.”

Meade nodded.

“Then I hope you make those five shots count. There’s another wave coming. ETA: one hour. Thirty-seven inbounds. Civilian targets. We need everything that flies—and everything that burns.”

⸻

Back in the laser bay, the engineers stood frozen as Anderson stormed in with two armed MPs at his side and a clipboard marked REACTIVATE IMMEDIATELY – CARRIER COMMAND OVERRIDE.

He tossed the clipboard onto the workbench.

“We’re done playing R&D. Get out of my way.”

They tried to protest—But the MPs stepped forward.

The engineers backed off.

Anderson turned to the control console. The system was partially gutted—coolant lines half-clamped, power main offline, targeting lidar still in a calibration loop.

He popped the control panel open and started reconnecting by hand.

⸻

Thirty minutes later, it was rough. Ugly. Unstable.

But it was online.

A dozen auxiliary pumps were rerouted from shipboard A/C. Battery backups were tapped. The alignment software was reuploaded from the Sea Shadow logs.

The beam chamber hissed as coolant circulated for the first time in years.

And then—like waking from a coma—the system chirped:

DARK LIGHT STATUS: STANDBY – READY TO FIRE

Anderson looked up, sweat pouring from his face.

“You’re back. Let’s go burn the sky.”

⸻

Forty Minutes Later

Combat Airspace, Eastern Mediterranean

Inbound Hostiles: 37 Confirmed

The Kestrel’s CIC was lit in red. Alarms barked. Dozens of sensor feeds poured in, glowing on the master display. Thirty-seven missiles screamed in over the sea—detected now by ships, drones, and satellite arrays alike.

Some were standard ballistic reentry vehicles.

But at least ten were low-angle hypersonics—harder to track, harder to kill.

The air defenses across the fleet activated instantly. Kinetic interceptors were launched from every deck gun and missile bay. But everyone on that ship was watching one system:

DARK LIGHT ONLINE – TARGETING ACQUISITION IN PROGRESS

Chief Anderson stood at the master console. His knuckles were white. His eyes were locked on the readout.

“Come on… hold together,” he whispered.

Then:

“TARGET LOCK x12. FIRING SEQUENCE INITIATED.”

The beam fired.

A flash too fast to see. A tremor through the deck. The laser swept the sky in staggered bursts, painting death across the upper atmosphere.

One.

Two.

Five.

Twelve missiles vanished from the display in a span of seconds.

Then a second volley.

Another ten kills.

The Kestrel’s bridge erupted in stunned cheers. CIC officers began calling out impact angles—“Confirmed splashdown! No ground contact!”

Anderson adjusted the thermal output on the fly. He dropped the pulse width, extending target time, dragging one beam across two fast movers—double kill.

Another six down.

The final salvo was erratic—targeting jitter from heat distortion. But it still brought down seven more.

Then the screen blinked:

COOLANT TEMP CRITICAL – THERMAL SHUTDOWN ENGAGED

STATUS: OFFLINE

Anderson slammed his fist against the console.

“Come on… we weren’t done yet…”

He looked up at the targeting board.

Twenty-five missiles downed.

Twelve remained.

⸻

The fleet’s kinetic systems roared to life.

Standard SM-6s and close-in weapons platforms kicked in. The carrier Guardian lit up the sky with layered intercepts.

Nine more were stopped.

But three got through.

Impacts near the coastline. One detonated over Haifa’s industrial zone. Two landed in open desert.

Damage, yes—but far less than anyone had expected.

⸻

An hour later, in the CIC, the admiral’s voice came through again—crackly, distant, but awestruck.

“Chief Anderson… Kestrel’s laser brought down twenty-five missiles in under four minutes. That’s two-thirds of the wave. Without it, we’d have lost a city.”

A pause.

“Washington is asking if the system can be brought back online.”

Anderson looked at the laser’s scorched casing. One coolant line had burst. The thermal sink was still glowing from internal heat bleed.

He wiped the sweat from his brow.

“Maybe. But not tonight.”

Then, under his breath:

“She’s not dead. She’s just resting.”

⸻

Three Hours Later

Aboard the USS Kestrel

Secondary Maintenance Bay – Dark Light Control Room

The room stank of scorched plastic and warm coolant. Fans still spun at full power, trying to dump residual heat. The Dark Light system sat dormant, one side of its casing blackened from thermal stress.

Chief Anderson was still in his grime-caked utilities, sitting on a milk crate, sipping lukewarm coffee.

The hatch slammed open.

Lieutenant Gregory Mills, lead systems engineer, stormed in—followed by two of his junior techs, all red-faced and furious.

“What the hell did you do, Chief?!”

Anderson didn’t even flinch. He took another sip, then muttered, “I shot down twenty-five hypersonic warheads. You’re welcome.”

Mills pointed a shaking finger at the control console.

“You overrode every safety protocol! You bypassed thermal controls, you rerouted power from life support, and you gutted our test diagnostic relay! Do you have any idea the damage you’ve caused?”

Anderson slowly stood, face still calm, eyes cold.

“The only damage I care about are the three warheads that hit instead of thirty-seven. I made that system work. You sat on your hands.”

One of the junior engineers stepped forward.

“We were following procedure. That system was never cleared for combat. It was experimental. You could’ve killed the whole ship.”

Anderson stepped in close—nose to nose.

“But I didn’t. And now your inboxes are melting down because command wants to know why the fleet’s best weapon was sitting in a box with a Do Not Touch sign on it.”

Mills turned red.

“Do you think you’re some kind of hero? You’ve ruined the thermal regulators! You cooked the emitter array! The core’s fused solid!”

Anderson gave a tired grin.

“So fix it. Unless you want me to show your bosses how I kludged it together with two feet of bilge tubing and a portable fan.”

Mills gritted his teeth, fists trembling.

“You’ve made a mess of everything.”

Anderson leaned in.

“I made it work. Which is more than I can say for you.”

⸻

Later That Night

An encrypted message arrived from Fleet Command:

“Due to demonstrated battlefield effectiveness, Sea Shadow-class laser system is now under review for emergency retrofit deployment. Chief Anderson to be attached as combat consultant. Engineer group to report on repair feasibility and future integration.”

Anderson smirked as he read the line:

“Combat consultant.”

“Guess I’m your boss now.”

⸻

Want to continue with the next stage? Maybe a Congressional oversight visit, or the engineers being ordered to rebuild the system under Anderson’s guidance while another wave threatens?

Absolutely—here’s the next scene as the fallout becomes official, and the chain of command lays down the law:

⸻

Next Morning

Aboard the USS Kestrel

Admiral’s Conference Call – Encrypted Satellite Link

The engineers stood in formation in the comms room, tension radiating from their shoulders like heat off the ruined laser core. Chief Anderson stood to the side, arms folded, saying nothing.

The wall screen flickered to life with the seal of the Office of Naval Research. Vice Admiral Carolyn Meade appeared a moment later, flanked by Rear Admiral Hossan of Naval Systems Command and a civilian in a Pentagon tie.

“Lieutenant Mills. Your entire department is hereby directed under Executive Order 213-Firebreak, issued at 0600 Zulu. You are to rebuild and restore the Dark Light system immediately.”

Mills swallowed hard. “Admiral… with respect, the system isn’t rated for—”

“We are well aware of what it’s not rated for, Lieutenant,” Meade snapped. “But the only functioning system in-theater just saved half a city when nothing else could. That’s more than your lab testing ever did.”

Rear Admiral Hossan cut in, voice firm:

“You are to rebuild that system. Salvage every component you can. Source what you can’t. Shipyard authority has been granted. You’ll have full access to prototype components. No red tape. No approval chains. Whatever it takes.”

Mills glanced toward Anderson. The chief was stone silent.

“And who’s overseeing our integration team?” Mills asked carefully.

The Pentagon civilian answered.

“Chief Petty Officer Jeff Anderson is now formally assigned as Field Systems Integration Lead. He reports directly to the Office of Naval Research and Fleet Command.”

Mills turned beet red. “He’s not even an engineer!”

Meade didn’t blink.

“He’s the only one who made it work.”

⸻

Two Hours Later

Laser Bay – Deep Refit Begins

The laser’s housing was cracked open like a dissected beast. Scorched optics were carefully removed. Burnt wiring pulled and cataloged. Portable chillers hummed in a corner, temporary stand-ins for the real thermal management units en route by drone drop.

Anderson walked the room like a foreman.

He pointed at two engineers working on the emitter rails.

“You’re gonna need to triple-insulate that loop. That housing never held under live fire, even in clean room tests.”

They paused.

“Do it,” he said simply. “Or it melts again.”

Lieutenant Mills, seething, worked at the control panel diagnostics. But even he didn’t argue. Not now.

⸻

Over the loudspeakers:

“Alert. New inbound telemetry reports suggest a fourth missile wave is being prepped for launch. All systems to battle-ready by 2200.”

Anderson turned to the engineers.

“You’ve got twelve hours.”

A junior tech asked, nervously, “Twelve hours for what?”

Anderson gave a quiet smile.

“To build me a miracle.”

⸻

2200 Hours

Combat Alert – Missile Wave Alpha-Four

Dark Light System: Status – OPERATIONAL

The red lights flared again. Missile wave Alpha-Four had launched—forty-eight confirmed inbounds, moving fast and erratic, laced with decoys and low-profile hypersonics.

But this time, something was different.

The Dark Light system—rebuilt from the brink, parts still warm from the techs’ hands—hummed with power.

Chief Anderson stood over the control console, sweat streaking down his face, his boots still damp from coolant spills. He barely noticed.

Lieutenant Mills sat at the thermal regulation panel, now cooperating, fingers flying across readouts.

“Power stable. Cooling nominal. Locking targets.”

“Weapon system—live.”

“We’ve got twenty minutes before intercept,” a voice called from the bridge.

Anderson nodded once. “Let’s make ’em count.”

⸻

Nineteen Minutes Later

The first wave entered effective range.

“Engaging.”

A flash.

A pulse.

Then twenty warheads disintegrated mid-flight, erased from the sky by invisible fury.

Another pulse—this one broader. Seven more kills.

Mills called out, “Coolant spiking—we’re buying time, but not much!”

Anderson grimaced. “Keep the pulses tight. Let the rails cool a second between targets.”

The engineers did as ordered.

A third sweep—eight more intercepted.

The system buckled—one last set of pulses got off, striking four additional targets just as the coolant alarms howled and the main relay dumped power.

“System offline. Final count: 39 of 48 destroyed.”

Bridge confirmed a moment later: “Kinetics have the rest. Nine left—eight down. Last one… neutralized. Zero impacts.”

⸻

Fleet Command Broadcast – One Hour Later

Encrypted Priority Channel – Global Defense Net

Washington’s press division wasted no time.

A sleek broadcast rolled across every major network, showing dramatic stock footage of the Sea Shadow-class vessel, doctored overlays, and polished graphics.

“In a landmark display of integrated defense, the newly authorized Dark Light system, a Navy-Pentagon joint venture, successfully intercepted the majority of incoming threats in the recent engagement over the Eastern Mediterranean. The cutting-edge weapon, developed in partnership with leading contractors and under DoD oversight, proved its value decisively. Senior officials credit decisive command support and forward-looking investment for this triumph.”

Anderson sat on a crate in the lower bay, watching the loop on a portable monitor. It never mentioned his name. Never showed the burnt prototype. Never once gave credit to the crew who salvaged it with jury-rigged parts and stubborn grit.

Mills walked in silently and sat beside him. He handed Anderson a warm soda from the deck fridge.

“They’re rewriting history already.”

Anderson nodded, cracked the can open.

“They always do.”

Mills looked over at the still-smoking laser core.

“We built something real.”

Anderson smiled slightly.

“And it worked. Even if they don’t say our names.”

A moment passed. Then Anderson stood.

“Come on. They’ll need it rebuilt again by Tuesday.”

⸻