5: Skirmish at Thyros Gate

Ne’zt watched the readouts from the ship's main console closely, pondering each indicator as it went off.
From the command tower of the Bastion of Light, a Corinth Man-o-War, the Thyros Gate stood like a great tower, floating in the dark void of space. For weeks now, Ramus had blockaded the outer perimeter of the Gate: dreadnoughts anchoring the line, frigates intercepting patrol lanes, and the Priests of the Specter Church making ceremonial boardings that the holonets could edit into benevolence. The blockade had been efficient and brutal; it had put Corinth’s trade on pause, crushing the merchants’ economy.
Ne’zt’s role had never been to court popularity. It was an admiral who trusted diplomacy as much as it trusted the enemy. Yet it felt the pressure of Kir’n’s words like a stab to the small of its back. Kir’n had rallied the Merchant Guilds into a single, furious embassy the week prior and now demanded action because of the profit threatened. Open trade with the Gate, Kir’n had said. Reopen the shipping lanes. Break the iron curtain. Restore coin flow. Make the neutral worlds feel the old comforts again.
Ne’zt had argued for precision-surgical strikes to cut the Ramus screen, not a headlong charge that could leave the Corinth in tatters-but Kir’n wanted theatre and results. If they could punch one corridor, even briefly, the Merchant Guilds would breathe. The privateers the Guilds had hired would do the dirty work; Corinth’s navy would be the scalpel that followed.
On the morning of the strike, Ne’zt reviewed the plan down to the last position of the smallest frigate. The operation would use three elements in concert:
A vanguard of destroyers would punch a temporary lane through the outer patrols and draw fire.


Then a swarm of corvettes would thread the needle and escort merchant tenders.


A hired fleet of mercenary captains would provide chaos and feint for the Ramus dreadnoughts.


There was, tucked into the orders as a contingency, the unsavory possibility of a Psiker strike. A whisper of a Psiker opportunist had been seen near the Gate the night before, a dark emblem that might offer a sensor jamming to anyone willing to barter. Ne’zt had refused to trade with unknown psionic hands; it was wary of dealing with a Psiker mystic. The Psikers were why they were in this mess to begin with.
“Admiral,” Kir’n’s envoy said, stepping into the command room at the last minute. “Take the Gate. Open a corridor and I will withhold no praise. Fail, and the Guilds will… pull their favor.”
Ne’zt looked at the envoy, nodded once, and turned back to the console. The dark void of space was uncaring and unforgiving. There would be no second chances.
The battle began with the sound of the destroyers as they exited the warp and began to engage the Ramus front line. Corinth’s warships moved in disciplined wedges, their large shield generators making them look like old Earth sailing ships. They opened with a feint, and the Ramus patrols took the bait.
Jol’s Aegis of Orion sat like a carved mountain at the base of the Gate, its hull a dark void against the stars. Ne’zt had seen the dreadnought’s signature a dozen times on the sensor ledger and recognized her commander. Jol was a commander who trusted discipline and the chain of command. He would not throw his weight recklessly. Ne’zt could use that to its advantage: Jol’s caution made him predictable. Predictability could be broken if you were precise.
The battle spilled outward across three bands: the outer patrols, the middle ground, and the Thyros Gate. Ne’zt watched his corvettes pierce into the middle ground. For the first hours, the operation hummed like a well-oiled clock. Destroyers opened the gap wider and the escorts slipped through, and the first merchant tenders were able to open and enter the warp point the Ramus were guarding.
Then the unexpected arrived.
A wave of psychic energy-small, quick, and surgical-washed across the sensor grid. It appeared at the ultimate moment, when Ne’zt’s corvettes were switching formation. The feed wavered, and fighter-screen imagery smudged into white noise. “Psiker interference!” cried the ops chief.
Ne’zt’s eyes narrowed. It had refused any Psiker deal, and Psiker/Ramus relations were shaky at best, yet here they were, in the battle. The interference was not total; it was a scalpel's brush, not long enough to blind, but sufficient to break the tight timing of his wedge. In that fraction of a minute, a Corinth destroyer took a wrong vector and crashed into one of the corvettes.
The crash exploded in a shower of sparks that turned into small, lethal shrapnel. The tight formations that had driven a wedge into the Ramus blockade now scattered to avoid crashing into one another. The Ramus frigates answered with disciplined broadsides, their torpedo salvoes finding the loose corvette cluster while Jol’s dreadnought swung into position, bringing its broadside to bear.
“Brace for impact!” Ne’zt barked. “Recover formation!”
Ne’zt felt the muscles of its face tighten. The precision strike that started was in shambles, and now death was on its screen. Kir’n’s envoy had offered it a chance at promotion; instead, Ne’zt had been handed a funeral.
It threw the fleet into immediate contingency: anti-torpedo fields, emergency maneuvers for the corvettes, in a last-ditch counterfeint to draw Jol’s fire away from the merchant ships. A small detachment of destroyers made a show of retreating, luring pairs of Ramus frigates into a chase that would buy precious seconds.
The Aegis did exactly what Ne’zt had predicted of Jol: disciplined counter-fire. Jol did not burn the dreadnought’s main batteries on the mercenaries; instead, he set up a firing lane: picking off merchant ships, denying the warp point, and pinning Corinth’s wedge between his frigates and the dreadnought’s broadsides.
Ne’zt’s fleet felt the fangs of the Aegis. A rapid salvo sheared through the lead merchant courier’s command array-the ship went dead, the smoking hull spinning off course. A Corinth corvette, caught in Jol’s broadsweep, went up in flames that were quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space. The mercenaries, sensing the shift, withdrew; they were hired to harass the Ramus fleet, not to win a full-on battle.
Ne’zt called the retreat. The remaining merchants, half-broken and smoking, reversed course, and the surviving corvettes folded back into the wedge.
In the aftermath, the results hit Ne’zt like physical blows. Corinth had opened the Thyros Gate for less than two hours. Merchant tenders had passed through-essential cargos, life-sustaining stores-but at the cost of five destroyers, seven corvettes, several mercenary ships, and two merchant craft. One hundred and sixteen civilian lives were recorded as lost aboard the destroyed merchant convoys. Corinth’s holo-anchors burned with grief and outrage. Kir’n’s envoy arrived at Ne’zt’s tower to discuss its failings.
“You gave us a corridor,” Kir’n said, voice tight. “But the Guilds will demand answers. Why so much loss?”
“We met resistance we had not expected,” Ne’zt replied, each word stuck in its throat. “The Ramus are working with the Psikers, even after the assault on their home world.”
Kir’n’s smile thinned. “You told me you would succeed.”
“It was open for two hours,” Ne’zt pleaded. “We opened and we withdrew. That was the assignment.”
They both knew the truth: success measured in minutes and lives would not satisfy the merchant Guilds. Success would be measured in coin, and the gate was not opened long enough for it to be profitable.
After the Gate skirmish, three consequences emerged.
First, neutral systems that had welcomed Corinth’s tenders for the brief window were abandoned by the Ramus. As the blockade tightened, famine hit the systems. The message was clear: support the Corinth at your own risk. Some increased their loyalty toward Corinth. Most bent the knee to Ramus. Second, Corinth’s fleet losses and the loss of income from the neutral systems raised pressure on Corinth’s economy. Public outcry began to swing towards open war. And third, relations between the Psiker and Ramus were on the mend. While many of the Ramus still harbored hate for the Psikers, the Council of Ramus had begun to steer public opinion away from revenge.