The Ethnomusicology of the Last Dreadnought by Yoon Ha Lee (The Sunday Morning Transport, 5th February 2023) starts with this:
It is not true that space is silent.
The darkness between stars is full of threnodies and threadbare laments, concertos and cantatas, the names of the dead and the wars that they’ve fed. Few people are unmoved by the strenuous harmonies and the strange hymns. Fewer people still understand their significance, the decayed etymologies and deprecated tongues.
It is your solemn task, as an archivist of the last dreadnought, to preserve its unique ethnomusicology for rising generations.
After this portentous start the rest of the story develops the idea of a space dreadnought as a musical instrument and its battles as performances:
In any case, the plan directed the last dreadnought, with its hypertrophied weapons, to open with a power chord against the more discordant forces of the Diamantines’ enemies. The orchestration manuals of the day called for a ratio of a single dreadnought to one hundred battle cruisers or equivalent. The percussion line alone should have demolished the other side, especially with the chimera missiles deployed as a basso continuo.
An unconvincing idea, and one made worse by the style, which seems to be a weird mix of pretentious academese and instruction manual.
* (Mediocre). 1,500 words. Story link.