A droplet of blood soars through the air, gleaming and perfect. The Generous Knight catches it elegantly in her wine glass and takes a sip. Courtiers applaud politely and she holds up the glass and grins.

"What do you think?" she asks. "Look like an omen to anyone?"

In the Divination Ring before her an Azura knight clutches the bloody ruins of her eyes. Across from her howls the Beast - a nightmarish amalgamation of bones, souls, and pulsating exposed organs. Its claws run with fresh blood and its jaws open to crush the skull of the knight. The Generous Knight catches its broken eyeglows from behind painted eyelids. She bats her lashes and it flinches as though lashed. It backs up, whining like a dog. The Generous Knight smirks and drains her glass dry even as another crashing detonation rocks the [i]Misericordia[/i]. Her serpentine tongue flicks out to lick her lips clean, every drop of red cleaned away leaving nothing but radiant, unreal blue.

"Come then, Rajehvo," she says to her squire. "What do you think this means?"
"It means -" said squire Rajehvo, a young girl burdened under the Generous Knight's dozen swords. "- that there'll be a moment of blindness, that the followers of the Crimson Goddess will triumph, it means -"
"No," said the Generous Knight languidly. "It means that the primitives still have not learned their lesson. Twice they have tried to kill me with antimagic. Now they try a third time. They strike at our eyes, again and again, as though the eyes are all that matter."
She smirked, sliding down the staircase towards the pit. She put her hand on the wounded knight's chin, fingers tracing just around the outside of the blood and the blindness.
"This is the nature of primitives, you see," said the Generous Knight. "They cling. They cling to their strategies. They cling to their senses. And above all, they cling to their knowledge. [i]Knowledge[/i]! The highest of barbarian virtues! As though knowing a thing gave them power over it! They are crucified on the altar of cause and effect, of cunning stratagems, of dramatic turnarounds, of precision strikes."

She leaned down to kiss the wounded Knight on the lips. Her mouth came away bloody again. This time she did not clean it.

"We were like them once!" said the Generous Knight, voice rising towards a howl. "But we are much wiser now! We know the skies are bright and full of terrors!"
"The skies are bright and full of terrors!" roared the assembled courtiers in response.
"When we fight we do not need eyes to see!" shouted the Generous Knight, voice cascading through her sermon. "We do not need thought to know! We do not need chains to control! We do not need sanity to rule!"
"The skies are bright and full of terrors!" chorused the ship, the chant filling endless bright corridors filled with the unnumbered ranks of warrior species.
"All hands, brace for impact!" cried the Generous Knight. "For the Endless Azure Skies, for the Shah, for the Furnace Knight -" she threw her wine glass to the ground and it shattered. She took her first sword from the hands of her squire. [i]"- ramming speed!"[/i]

*

The Dispel hits the [i]Misericordia[/i] as planned. The runes flicker and go still and dark. The damage transfer effect disappears across the entire fleet. Velinkar aims the shot.

[Friction: [b]1[/b]]

But the [i]Misericordia [/i]is already moving. It is caught in the focused grip of the Gravitational Emitters of all the surrounding Azura ships, the combined energy tearing space and time apart like the deployment of a battlefield black hole. Shots go wild, tracking is impossible, the interference is unreal. The effect is like building a railgun out of gravitational singularities.

And the [i]Misericordia [/i]is hurtled forwards at immense speed. Here and there it is clipped by shots but not enough to kill it, not enough to slow it. It soars right through the heart of the Aotrs fleet. It travels all the way through to the untouched [i]Doomskrieg[/i].

And it [i]splatters [/i]like a ripe tomato.

Through some strange quirk of Azura metallurgy the ship's hull has partially liquidized, becoming something like a sticky taffy substance. Ten percent of its mass is sent splashing into the void but the rest ripples and squishes around the [i]Doomskrieg[/i], half encasing it in the alien alloy. Immediately the structure of the [i]Misericordia [/i]begins to expand, flowing like water to wrap the Doomskrieg more totally, dissolving components of the [i]Doomskrieg'[/i]s exterior and hull and further fusing the two ships into one unholy amalgamation. 

And at every point along the whole hull of the Doomskrieg, alien metal eats through exterior corridors revealing rows of servitors like kingfishers and the Azura knights that lead them. They board the Doomskrieg in a massive rush from dozens of breaches. Electromagnetic flux flies from every shoulder, concentrated acid grenades from every gun, an avalanche of muscle and steel hurtling down every corridor.

Azura boarding doctrine prioritizes one thing above all: seizing control of the Reactor. The equipment of their breaching teams emphasizes blistering speed and heavy cutting tools that can go through bulkheads like paper. ELF strikes course through the ship's structure, disrupting communications, computer controls and attempts to scuttle. They haul with them heavy high-energy containment gear that might stabilize a critical reactor core. It's an avalanche of force.

A few other relevant details. The Dispel is still in effect and the runes on the surface of the Misericordia were disrupted by the impact but already swarms of maintenance mecha are pouring onto the surface to re-establish the glyphs with cutting lasers. With its circular shape disrupted and the Grav-Rail ruined, the Misericordia is immobile.

The choices, then, are:
- Abandon the Doomskrieg. This scenario is a full evacuation without even an attempt to scuttle. All key personnel will be able to escape, but it is unclear how long it will take the Azura to enact repairs to render the Doomskreig fit for battle.
- Attempt to save the Doomskrieg. Digging in with marine forces and Gating in reinforcements. This will result in high fleet losses but could both recover the ship and kill the Generous Knight in the best case.
- Attempt to scuttle the Doomskrieg. This is the 'compromise' solution - the crew of the Doomskrieg will all be lost, but perhaps they will outrace the Azura breaching teams and render the ship inoperable without the commitment of further resources. If they're lucky, they could buy enough time to start a reactor meltdown that would bring the Misericordia with it.