Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered

Chapter 277: The Escaping Governor 3

The room fell silent.

Daskor’s jaw tightened.

"They are moving too fast."

An officer near the door spoke carefully. "My lord, if we surrender now, we may preserve the capital."

"The capital?" Daskor said softly. "This capital exists because I made it useful. Without the fleet, without the relay, without fear, these people will kneel to whoever feeds them next."

He looked toward the sealed door leading to the lower vault.

"Open the black reserve."

Several officers stiffened.

The aide from the cruiser stared at him. "My lord, that reserve is not meant for use inside the city."

"It is mine to use."

"If released here, it could poison the lower districts."

"Then the enemy will inherit ash and sickness."

For the first time, the aide did not obey immediately.

Daskor turned toward him.

"You hesitate?"

"My lord," the aide said, voice shaking, "this is our city."

Daskor’s expression hardened into something ugly.

"It was our city."

Aurelian received the warning from Eirenne before the first reserve vault opened.

"Commander, I have detected activity beneath the governor’s fortress. Chemical or biological hazard indicators. Containment locks are being opened."

The command deck went cold.

Aurelian’s voice sharpened. "Can you seal them?"

"Not remotely. The system is isolated."

Cassian was already on the command channel. "Assault teams, accelerate fortress breach. Hazard containment units forward. Elowen?"

Elowen’s voice appeared from Larkspur Haven’s support channel. She had not joined the battle, but she had been monitoring for environmental threats. "I’m here."

"Prepare treatment protocols. Unknown hazard below an urban fortress."

"I’ll need samples as soon as possible."

"You’ll have them."

Aurelian looked at the fortress map. "Rhoswen is closest."

Astra turned toward him. "She is."

Aurelian opened the channel. "Rhoswen, new objective. Fortress lower reserve. Hazard release possible. You are not to smash anything unless directed. Repeat, do not smash unknown containers."

Rhoswen’s answer came with no humor this time.

"Understood."

She moved.

The fortress assault began in full within minutes. Family mech infantry breached the outer walls under cover fire while air-defense nodes were disabled from orbit with needle strikes too precise to threaten the city around them.

Rhoswen joined the second breach group and drove into the lower fortress access corridor with a containment team behind her.

Aurelian watched her progress through overlapping feeds.

The fighting inside was brutal but short. Kharov loyalists resisted from prepared positions, but they had expected frightened rebels or rival Kharov forces, not Arcturus assault troops backed by shipgirl close support.

Rhoswen broke the hardest choke point by driving her shield straight into a barricade and holding it there while engineers cut through the side wall.

This time, she did not break the wrong wall.

Aurelian was genuinely proud.

The lower reserve chamber came into view seven minutes later.

Daskor’s men had opened two containment locks.

The third was halfway through release.

Rhoswen arrived before it finished.

The feed shook as she hit the vault control platform, not with wild force, but with enough precision to throw the operator away from the panel without shattering the console.

The containment team flooded the chamber with sealant foam, while one of the family specialists manually killed the release sequence.

The third lock stopped at eighty-two percent.

The command deck stayed silent until Eirenne confirmed it.

"Release halted. Limited leakage from the first two containers. The containment team is sealing the chamber. No citywide spread detected."

Aurelian let out a slow breath.

Cassian’s voice remained calm, but it was colder now. "Find Daskor."

They found him in the lower command hall, surrounded by a handful of loyal guards and the aide who had finally turned his weapon on him.

The aide was wounded.

Daskor was alive.

According to the report, the aide had shot two of Daskor’s guards when they tried to activate the final manual release.

He had failed to stop Daskor completely, but he had delayed him long enough for Rhoswen’s team to arrive.

When the family troops entered, Daskor tried to order them all executed.

No one listened.

Rhoswen stood over him in her combat frame, looking down with open disgust.

Aurelian opened a channel to her. "Status."

"Daskor captured," she said. "Hazard contained. Prisoners alive. His own aide helped stop him."

"Secure both. The aide gets medical treatment."

"And Daskor?"

Aurelian looked toward Cassian’s display.

Cassian’s answer came quietly.

"Alive. Public trial later, once we understand the full record."

Rhoswen seemed disappointed for a very different reason this time.

But she obeyed.

Hours later, when the capital fortress was fully secured, the last organized resistance on Karven Spire’s planet began to collapse.

Local officers who had been waiting to see which side survived started surrendering. Workers opened sealed gates for the occupation teams.

Medical crews entered the lower districts. Elowen’s hazard teams received samples and confirmed that the leak could be contained before it reached the wider water system.

The planet had come dangerously close to disaster.

But it had not fallen into it.

Back aboard the Black Crown, Aurelian stood before the tactical display as the system finally settled into full blue control.

Astra stood beside him.

Eirenne’s projection looked quieter than usual.

Rhoswen’s ground feed remained open, showing her seated on a broken section of fortress wall while medical teams moved past her. She looked tired, but not unhappy.

Aurelian spoke first.

"Good work, Rhoswen."

She looked up through the feed.

"You mean it?"

"Yes."

Astra added, "You did a really good job, better than what I was expecting."

Rhoswen smiled faintly. "That’s good to hear."

Aurelian allowed himself a small laugh, though the weight of the day remained.

Karven Spire had been won.

The relay was intact.

The warning had not escaped.

The prisoners were alive.

The city had been spared from its own ruler’s spite.

This was what occupation meant.

Not just defeating fleets.

Stopping the defeated from burning everything behind them.

Aurelian looked toward the map again, where Virell’s Reach still waited beyond the captured chain.

The road forward was clearer now.

But it was also darker than it had looked from orbit.