Episode One:

“Paradigm Shift

“Sir . . .”

A small, scared voice. A voice like a small child living in the dark with her worst fears crawling up her skin.

“Sir . . . what are we doing?”

There was a moment before the man spoke. The words came slowly. He was visibly calm opposite the others’ nervousness. “I’m not sure,” was the response. “I’m really not sure. That’s why we’re doing it.”

“Colonel . . .”

A plea, a child’s plea for sanity to reassert itself in the world. For the shadows that leapt out at her from the dark to suddenly knit themselves back together and somehow make sense. Small, wide eyes darted off to the right taking in what she saw with palpable foreboding.

“I know what you’re feeling, Poe. I know what you’re feeling ‘cause I feel it too.”

“Then why . . .”

“Because like many readers I just can’t pass up a good mystery. And that there is as good a mystery as I ever expect to see. My curiosity needs to be fed, you see.”

“Winston . . .”

“ ‘And the sea shall grant each man new hope . . .’ ” with a voice of quiet reflection. “ ‘and chance to dream.’ ”

“Sir, I’m not sure you’re . . .”

“Let’s see what the sea washed up today, people.”

The stars were bright. Brighter than any you could ever hope to see in the clearest, darkest night. And they didn’t twinkle. Each of them glowed in the canvas of space as if someone had poked a hole in the universe. There seemed to be millions of them, and each one was beyond comprehension. Impossibly distant was the horizon, suffused with a orange glow atop soft reds and pinks and tilted on its side. It was also a pretty good distance off to the right. And in the middle of the star-field, in the near distance, something floated. Something large. Drifting visibly. Something white like mother of pearl with an almost visible texture of organic swirls.

The man looked sharply at the woman beside him.

“The orders stand, Major,” Winston stated in a tone of voice that denied any argument. “Hold your fire.”

~ * ~

The ship was like a work of art. White at first glance, the irregular surface was mottled with hints of color. It was both smooth in appearance and covered with strange artistic irregularities. It drifted ahead, like a piece of wood caught in a gentle, undeniable tide. A group of oval nozzles arranged along the rearmost surfaces of the ship glowed with a faint blue light, light that seemed to trail behind the nozzles in beautiful flickering coronas, like comet tails.

The pink and red planet off to the left illuminated the ship with a faint reflected light.

In the distance, something else was visible, something much larger than the ship, massive, hanging above the planet like a moon. It was shaped like a large thick disc, with three large bites taken out of it at equal portions around its edge, so what remained were like three thick extensions equally placed around the rim of the disc. Extending up and down from the middle of the disc were a group of organically shaped skyscraper-like shapes, covered with lights, each so tiny in the distance. Windows, brief indiscriminant glimpses of the life that lived within. They skewered the disc right down its center. The disc seemed to be turning slowly, so slowly it was difficult to even notice at first glance. The skewer in the center of the disc was like an axle around which it slowly turned.

A space station.

Motion, from above. A ship, dropping down.

It easily slipped directly in between the mother of pearl ship and the space station. The new ship was small, much smaller than the other that approached. It’s surface was gray, obviously metal. The occasional extensions, antenna and the small communications dish atop one side of it ruined any hope of regularity in the design. But the design, while basic, was full of swept back angles. It hinted at speed. Swiftness. Cunning.

~ * ~

“The Mystic has positioned itself between them and us.” The boy peered down at his scope. “It’s holding position.”

Colonel Winston nodded. “Very good, Tony,” he said. “Very good.”

“Sir,” asked Poe, “why aren’t we just attacking? Get them before they get us. This is our territory. Pinnacle Station is ours. We are at war, sir. Shouldn’t we act like it?”

“ ‘cause I’ve seen Bug ships, Poe,” the Colonel said, raising his voice just slightly. “I wake up every night with the memory of it plastered all over my nightmares. And that’s not it.” He gestured out the window. “Take a look, Major. Take a good look.”

The alien ship glimmered in the orange and pink planet-light.

“That looks nothing like it, and for the life of me I want to know why.”

~ * ~

The ship drifted ahead slowly. Light moved across the irregular surface, bringing out hints of color. The light slipping across the irregularities along the surface left brief shadows that seemed to move like they were living.

It moved ahead slowly on the tide of its engines.

Oval nozzles glowing faintly with a blue light, light that trailed behind the nozzles in flickering corona tails.

The engines winked out.

The corona tails dimmed and disappeared.

~ * ~

“The ship has stopped, sir.”

Poe looked between Colonel Winston and the boy, Tony. “What?”

Tony, looking down at his scope, “It’s holding a steady position well short of the Mystic. And it seems to be staying there.”

Colonel Winston took a breath and looked over at a young brunette girl at a nearby console. “Ensign, make sure Mystic holds position. They’re not to do anything . . . without my express permission, or unless they’re fired upon. You got that, Fries?”

She seemed too distracted to hear him.

“Sir,” Fries raised her left hand, holding the headset she wore tighter to her ear. “I’m picking up comm traffic,” she said with a faint British accent. She slid her chair on it’s rail further down the console and made a few adjustments. She looked up at him. “That bloody ship out there is hailing us.”

Colonel Winston frowned, “We’re not exactly equipped for translation.”

“It’s in English, sir.” The girl gave the Colonel a confused look, a look which suddenly deepened. “And they’re asking for permission to send over a bleedin’ shuttle.”

~ * ~

The massive space station, hanging there. Tall towers, surfaces seemingly melted together. Thick disc in the center made up of three extensions that reach out in space like arms. The whole thing turning imperceptibly against the backdrop of the orange and pink planet below.

Mystic and the strange mother of pearl ship, motionless against the stars, facing each other in the distance.

A ship, much larger than Mystic, massive, slowly moved above one of the thick extensions that made up the station’s disc. The engine exhaust, six circles on the back of the ship, three arranged triangularly on sightly on either side, glowed a bright, bright blue.

Another, smaller ship trailed slightly behind and to the side. The second ship was of similar size and design to the Mystic.

The massive ship drifted down in front of the station.

~ * ~

“Vanguard and Corona Fire have taken up covering positions.”

Tony sat over the scope at his console. All of the young officers on the command deck looked up at Colonel Winston, awaiting his next command.

“Good.” Winston leaned over a flat screen on top of a large table on one side of the room. “Somebody bring up a map of Pinnacle Station. I want to know what’s the most isolated landing bay we have?”

Poe’s eyes were wide. She looked between Winston and the image of the alien ship on one of the large monitors. “You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“But you can’t just . . .”

“Yes. I can.”

Blueprints of the station appeared as a graphic image of blue lines across the flat surface of the table.

“The fighter bays in the wings are out.” Touching the image of the flat dish that encircled the station on the blueprints. “So’s the fuel depot. Their shuttle explodes and the whole station would go up.” Winston’s eyes narrowed, “What about the freighter bay on E Deck? ”

“No.” One of the young crewman leaning over the plans shook his head. “Too close to crew quarters. Something went wrong who knows how many people we’d lose.”

“It’s a bloody space station, Alex,” said another. “It’s not like there’s a lot of places to look.”

Alex ran his fingers back through his brown hair and looked at Winston. “I think the best bet is the residual cargo station at the base of Tower Three.” He pointed to a place near the bottom of one of the central towers. “There are some small fuel tanks, but if we pump whatever’s left in them back up to the freighter bay there shouldn’t be much else down there that we can’t afford to lose.” He looked at Winston. “You’re not gonna get much better than that, Colonel.”

~ * ~

A long empty corridor.

An open hatch along the wall.

The hatch hung open, a heavy oval shaped door with a circular wheel in its center.

A sudden hiss of gas as heavy the door started to close. A soft bang as it slipped into its final position. The wheel spins and then stops.

Sounds, with a faint echo in the emptiness, moving down the long corridor as each of the hatches slip closed one after another.

~ * ~

Poe, leaning over one of the consoles, looked up at Winston.

“All hatches are sealed, Colonel.”

Winston looked down at Fries. The young girl, sitting at her console. She was looking back up at him, waiting expectantly for his orders.

“Lieutenant, extend an invitation.”

~ * ~

Pinnacle Station, a massive shape in the abyss.

A tiny shuttle, white and shining in the planet-light like mother of pearl, floating slowly across the empty space toward the station.

The silence of anticipation.

~ * ~

A colorless ripple as the shuttle floated through the invisible outer barrier to the large, empty landing bay.

The shuttle had the same smooth curves. The same slender lines, all seeming to flow into each-other, as the ship it had come from. Almost as if it had been grown rather than built.

Winston spoke to one of the Marines. “I want you guys to just hold back. Be cool. Don’t do anything unless I say.”

The Marine nodded his understanding. Took his position with the others along the back wall of the bay.

The shuttle floated the last distance into the landing bay. Skids lowered from its underside. The large shuttle slowly floated down. The skids hissed, small clouds of gas escaping as it settled to the floor of the landing bay.

A few long moments when nothing happened.

Winston watching silently. Some of the Marines nervous and antsy.

A hiss of gas as something in the ship opened. A dark line in the smooth surface of the shuttle’s underside that only got wider. A ramp settled to the floor of the landing bay.

There was some visible motion inside the shuttle.

It appeared to be a woman. She wasn't at all tall, nor was she what some people would have called classically beautiful, yet however beautiful anything about the ship was, she eclipsed it. Her hair was pale blonde, cut no longer than her shoulders. Her face was crafted in small, delicate features. And her expression, though tinged just a little with nervousness, seemed kind.

She stopped at the bottom of the ramp and stood facing Winston. Her pale eyes met the Colonel’s unwaveringly and held his gaze. Those eyes looked almost blue, though there seemed to be a hint of violet.

She was wearing a blouse made from a nearly diaphanous cloth, loose and airy around her body. At first glance it looked almost white, but there was a hint of color reflected from it. The shirt hung to a couple inches short of her knees, but the hem was uneven, longer in some places than others, giving another aspect to the looseness of the cloth, a more even flow. At the neckline, where the collar came together, it was held together with a large filigreed brooch pin of polished silver, the deepest valleys of the engravings touched with the barest hint of red and gold. Beneath the flowing cloth of the shirt she was wearing light gray pants that weren't quite skintight. Her small hands were clad in fingerless gray-white gloves.

She smiled at him.

"Hi," she said, giving a brief wave with one of her gloved hands.

A moment later she seemed to collect herself and straightened noticeably. When she opened her mouth again any nervousness she could have possibly been feeling was barely noticeable, hidden behind a regal air. "I am the Princess Ariana da ‘Mecini of the Chrys'lyc Confederacy, and hereditary heir to the fifth of twelve seats on the Council of the Teskal’jai. It is a pleasure that you finally permitted us to meet, and for that I give my thanks."

Her English was good, though left with a faint accent.

The Princess and the Colonel faced each-other across the emptiness of the landing bay. The Marines were lined up along the back of the bay behind him. A silent, awkward moment. His eyes, watching her. Her blue/violet eyes looking back at him.

The Princess’s skin was delicate, flawless, just this side of pale. The only thing about her that wasn't quite human was a faint ridge running up the middle of her forehead, not quite sharp or defined, and it was concealed by her bangs somewhat, which hung not quite short of her eyes.

The Colonel finally granted her a slight awkward nod. A faint smile on his lips. His voice seemed to come just as awkwardly.

"I’m Colonel Blair Winston of the Earth Defense Corps., and Commander of this station. It’s my pleasure to welcome you."

A faint laugh broke through his facade.

"I’m sorry if it may seem rude," he said, motioning at the hangar briefly, "but if we’re going to speak I was wondering if we may be able to retire to somewhere more appropriate. Someplace more . . . comfortable."

Apprehension flickered across her expression for the briefest moment, but then it was replaced by something else. One corner of her thin lips rising just a little, one shoulder settling just the tiniest bit as she shifted her feet. Amusement just beneath the surface.

The Colonel’s eyes suddenly darted up past her shoulder.

Halfway up the ramp into the shuttle stood a pair of men. Both had the same kind of brow ridge as the Princess, though slightly more defined. Both wore clothes of a fine gray cloth, bare of all but the barest of insignia and gathered about their waists with wide, black belts. In each of their hands were weapons that vaguely resembled rifles.

The Marines came briefly alive behind him. Orders whispered just out of hearing. Faint noises as they raised their rifles slightly.

Winston never moved.

“You don’t need your guards,” he told her, looking up at her with every appearance of calm. “You’re safe enough here. Believe it or not, none of my people have any intention of harming you.”

Colonel Winston stood there across from her, looking at her kindly. There was a pistol tucked in a worn leather holster at his hip within easy reach. The eight Corps. Marines lined up along the back of the landing bay behind him.

She hesitated only briefly and then looked back at her guards.

“Hrii gi’ap,” the Princess told them. “Shree et le Fizwik jik tee ditt gi’ap.”

One of the guards gave her a sharp look as if she were insane. “Tuta aii wistli!!”

“Est krik palmai aii,” the other said loyally. His hands clenched on his rifle. He cast a distasteful glare at where Colonel Winston stood at the foot of the ramp. The guard looked down at the man with derision. He bit off his words, “Est tuma craik aii friev wid fray’si . Hrai tiis dim fray’sa vim mi?”

Princess Ariana responded evenly, “Aii krik mi dim seam aii.”

Both of the guards looked rebellious. Neither seemed to want to move.

“Hrii,” the Princess said sharply.

One of the guards turned and walked back up the ramp into the shuttle. The other hesitated briefly and then followed his mate, throwing a look over his shoulder as he went.

The Princess turned back to Colonel Winston. She smiled at him awkwardly. “Tee li triv.” She suddenly stopped herself, eyes drifting down before looking directly at him again. Her smile brightened. “I am sorry.”

“No need to be. Let’s go.”

~ * ~

An empty corridor.

Spartan walls. Flat, metallic and blank.

A closed hatch along the wall.

The hatch suddenly hissed open.

The Princess stepped through the open hatch first. The Colonel was right behind her.

Winston hesitated beside her and gestured, “This way.”

The Princess nodded and started walking slowly in that direction. The Princess and the Colonel walked down the corridor together side by side.

Two expressionless Marines, their rifles slung from their shoulders, followed them silently at a distance.

Suddenly the communicator on the Colonel's shoulder beeped stridently. It was tethered to a slightly larger box in his front pocket by a length of coiled wire, like between a telephone and it's handset. The wire made a short arc across one side of his chest.

Princess Ariana looked at him and arched an eyebrow.

Winston reached up across his body, holding the small box between his thumb and forefinger and turning his head toward that shoulder unconsciously. “What?”

“Colonel,” Poe’s voice. “We seem to be tracking two large ships coming in from the outer reach. They’re following the same course as our . . . new friends.”

Something silent and undefinable briefly passed across Winston’s face.

The Princess stood there with her eyes on him.

“Copy that,” turning his head and speaking into his shoulder. “Get the ships into position for a Tau Ceti. I’ll be up in a minute.” He dropped his hand from his shoulder and gave the Princess a hard look. His voice was even and emotionless. “Care to tell me who might have followed you in?”

She wordlessly met his stare and held it for a few long moments.

“Okay.” He finally gave the girl a slight nod. “That’s the way you want to play it. Come with me.”

~ * ~

The young Princess looked awkwardly at Colonel Winston across the cramped lift.

She was standing as far to one side as was possible.

Distracted in his thoughts, Winston didn’t even seem to notice her.

She briefly opened her mouth and then closed it. She unsurely wrapped her slender arms around herself and swallowed visibly. She didn’t say a word.

The lift stopped with the barest jolt

The doors hissed open almost silently.

Ariana looked around as they emerged into a small bare room. The round shape of the lift was set in one corner like a pillar bearing the weight of the ceiling. The opposite wall was a large open archway.

Winston stepped over threshold beneath the arch, silent and assertive. The Princess followed doubtfully in his wake.

Pinnacle Station’s Command Deck was a den of chaos.

They emerged on one side of a large circular room. Another smaller room like the one they had come from extended off the other side of the Command Deck, a large table sitting in the middle of it. Command consoles took up most of the room with young officers sitting at them. Data screens and monitors covered most of the available wall space. In the curved wall past the command stations was a huge window, looking out at the stars.

Poe looked back at Colonel Winston as he entered.

Princess Ariana hung back, arms still wrapped around herself, seeming to do her best to make herself invisible.

Winston stepped up beside Poe and looked out the window at the stars. The spaceships and the red, orange and pink planet to the side. "Tony, how far out are they?"

"Major Potalia moved the two cutters out to face them.” Winston glanced briefly at Poe. “The Vanguard seems to be slightly ahead of the Mystic. The Major shifted Corona Fire’s position slightly but kept her back near our new friends. It’ll be about six minutes ‘til Vanguard comes within range of the two new contacts, sir."

"What are they?"

"They don't match anything in the database, but considering the size of them I’d call them heavy-cruisers. Big ships, sir.” Tony turned around in his chair and gave Colonel Winston a look. “Those two ships together outgun the Mystic, Vanguard and Corona Fire combined.”

Princess Ariana suddenly looked at them sharply.

~ * ~

Two dark shapes against the stars.

Side by side.

Each ship was a dark metallic blue. Massive. Momentarily occluding the sun from the perspective they were visible from. Briefly hidden in the glare before coming free again. Each had a surface made up of long sharp angles and deep shadows. Each identical. Each with a hard, blunt shaped bow as if they were used to break forcefully through an ice flow.

Gothic.

~ * ~

“Another style,” Winston said softly as he leaned over Tony’s console and studied the image of one of the ships on a monitor. “Not the Bugs, but not exactly mother of pearl.”

Tony looked up at him curiously, “Excuse me, sir.”

“Nothing.” He ran his fingers back through his hair nervously. “Poe, launch the fighters.”

“Aye, sir.”

~ * ~

Pinnacle Station hanging there in the emptiness.

Many tiny specks, coming of the edges of the disc at the center.

The fighters were in the shape of thick wings that swept forward. The wings were far too thick to hold it up on their own in any kind of atmospheric travel. The cockpit was slightly off center of where the two wings came together, just a bit off to one side.

The blue slits of the engines burned bright on the length of the back edge of the wings.

~ * ~

Princess Ariana stood off to one side silently, staring up at the tactical display, her expression contemplative.

One hand came up as if to touch the large filigreed pin holding the neckline of her blouse together.

"Your ship so much as twitches I'm going to blow it out of space," Winston said sharply. His eyes were hard, the lines of flesh around them tight.

Her slender hand pulled back from the large, silver pin just a little.

"But you are outma . . ."

"Don't tell us how to fight!"

The soft lines of her jaw were set. Her pale blue-violet eyes narrowed as she looked back at him. This, he knew, was another aspect of the same nobility he had admired in her before. She was stubborn. She wouldn’t back down. “You know I’m right.”

Never looking away from her, he said, "Poe, bring half of Pinnacle Station’s orbital batteries around to target the Princess’s ship."

Ariana visibly flinched. She swallowed slowly. Lowered her eyes.

She looked back up at him slowly.

"May I tell them this?" There was fear, contrition, in the softness of her voice. She looked at him steady.

Winston nodded. "Yes."

She nodded back, one end of her mouth lifting just as little, as if to thank him. She turned and walked few steps away. She was trembling. Her slender hand, clad in a fingerless gray-white glove, reached up and touched the silver pin delicately. She mumbled something, as if to herself.

"All our fighters are clear, Colonel," one of the young officers called out.

"Good work, Quince. Tell 'em to form up a few klicks off the station and hold position.” Winston raised his voice. “And raise the shields."

Poe, "Aye, sir. Shields up."

Tony, “I’ve got a good sensor read on them, sir. The pulse cannons and other weapons systems seem pretty standard compared to what we're used to.” Tony stopped and leaned down over his console just the tiniest bit more. “I'm reading power.” He turned in his seat and looked back at Colonel Winston. “Their weapons are armed, sir."

Winston was quietly thoughtful, “I understand.”

~ * ~

The stars were bright points of light in the wide breadth of the darkness, and in the middle of it, were five ships.

The two metallic blue alien heavy-cruisers. Dark and ominous.

A distance off in front of them, seeming infinitely tiny in comparison, were the cutters Vanguard and Mystic. Vanguard was slightly ahead.

And then a distance further behind them was Corona Star.

The Princess’ ship was far off to the side behind Corona Star as if it had been forgotten.

~ * ~

"Secure to battle-stations. Confirm all atmosphere-tight doors are locked and secured. Fries, did you get a message off to Earth Con and the sector fleet?"

"I got it off three minutes ago, Colonel."

Tony, "They're coming up on optimum range of Vanguard now, sir."

Winston studied the display for a few brief moments, "Fries, tell Vanguard to throttle back a bit on the helm. We don't want them to get too far ahead."

The noise in the room suddenly drifted off. All eyes seemed to be on the monitors.

Waiting.

~ * ~

The cannons in the lead-most alien heavy-cruisers fired briefly. A series of bolts of violet light lancing out across space and impacting against Vanguard. A corona of light around Vanguard, barely visible, seemed to soak up most of the energy.

A pause.

Vanguard started to turn away.

The alien ship fired again.

The series of blasts of violet light slammed into the small cutter, forming a corona that surrounded the ship like a bubble. The invisible shield that surrounded Vanguard suddenly seemed to collapse. The explosive bolts of light impacted against the hull, melting armor and cutting into the engines. The glow of the engines winked out like a cinder. Vanguard stopped dead in space in the middle of its turn, drifting sideways.

Trailing moments behind, Mystic’s engines suddenly brightened. The small ship accelerated, darting in hard and fast over Vanguard’s bow. The fast moving ship slowed suddenly as it passed over Vanguard, as if it had been tied at the end of a rope and suddenly reached the end. Vanguard’s bow suddenly began to turn with her, in a direction away from the two alien heavy-cruisers.

Vanguard was thrown away from danger, following Mystic off vaguely into the stars.

~ * ~

Tony, “I’d hate to be a crewman on Vanguard about now.”

Alex shook his head. “I hate to be crewing on either of them. Grabbing another ship that size at full speed with their tractor beam like that. Power levels in Mystic will be all over the place about now. The crew is probably puking up all over the deck. Not exactly what you could call textbook.”

“No,” said Winston, his eyes never leaving the monitor. “It’s not.”

~ * ~

One gray ship left floating there in space amidst the silence of the stars.

Two much larger dark metallic blue ships facing it. Ships that were advancing on it.

~ * ~

Fries looked back at Colonel Winston from her station, “Corona Fire is asking if there’s any change to their orders, sir.”

“They know their orders,” said Winston. “Tell them again to fall back toward the station to regroup.”

Off to the side, Princess Ariana cast a perplexed look Winston’s way.

~ * ~

Tiny thrusters burned with sharp actinic flame. Faintly visible as a blue glow reflected off one side of Corona Fire’s bow as she turned ponderously away. The ships engines were a bright blue glow along the back of the ship as the large ship accelerated.

The two metallic blue heavy-cruisers, acting as if they were one, were accelerating to pursue.

Pinnacle Station, small and heavy in the distance.

The planet, far below. Untouched. Orange. Pink. Violet. Beauteous splendor.

~ * ~

“They’re gaining on her,” Tony said. “Corona Fire won’t make it back to Pinnacle Station before they’re able to catch her.”

It looked bad.

For the crew of the Corona Fire it looked very bad.

Winston closed his eyes briefly and whispered a prayer beneath his breath.

The Princess looked up at him pleadingly, her pale eyes begging the question. Begging for permission.

~ * ~

The large ship was turning ponderously to the left. The tiny maneuvering thrusters were a faint blue glow burning bright along one side of the bow of the ship as they strained to bring the massive ship around again. The blue glow reflected almost imperceptibly off the thick hull plates.

Corona Fire was turning side-on to the two larger ships that were chasing her.

~ * ~

“She’s turning,” Tony said. “Showing them her broadside, letting them look down most of her cannon.”

Alex, with pride, “Oh, they won’t get her without a fight.”

~ * ~

A large turret on the side of Corona Fire with four cannons pointing out into space. The two large alien ships, side by side, visible against a backdrop of the stars and the orange and pink horizon of the planet in the near distance. A brief feeling almost like a jolt as the turret moved slightly into position and then stopped.

A few brief moments. Respite.

Flashes of red light from the tips of the cannons.

Red flashes all along that whole side of the ship as many other cannons opened fire as well.

A series of crimson bolts flying off across space toward the lead-most of the alien ships. They melted against an invisible shield bubble, making it briefly visible as a rounded pink corona encasing the bow of the heavy-cruiser as the bolts diffused against it.

Blue flashes of light as torpedoes exploded from a few small blisters arranged seemingly at random along Corona Fire’s side. The torpedoes raced off across space toward the heavy cruiser on blue contrails. The contrails slowly fading behind as the torpedoes rocketed across space.

The combined firepower was all focused on just the one ship, all slamming into the bow of the ship like the wrath of God.

The alien heavy-cruiser fired back. A staccato streamer of bolts of violet hellfire. The empty space between the ships was a storm of red and violet light traded back and forth.

One of the torpedoes was clipped by a violet bolt just a few seconds short of the alien ship’s bow. A violent explosion of white light tinged with blue remained for a few brief moments. Almost blindingly bright.

The rest of the torpedoes slammed into the shields. A raging firestorm. An explosion of white sparks thrown up into space along the edges of the shield. 

~ * ~

“And it’s a hit!!!”

Tony briefly pumped his fist in the air.

Princess Ariana looked at Colonel Winston. “Your ship cannot stand toe to toe with the two larger ships for long. Not out there . . . out of effective range of this station.”

“Patience, Princess. Just watch and see how it’s done.” Winston raised his voice, “Poe, release squadrons one and two.”

“Aye, one and two are free to engage.”

Tony, sitting at his console, grinned, “Here comes Mystic.” 

~ * ~

Bright blue flashes from the single torpedo blister on Mystic’s bow. She was moving fast, a high speed dive down toward one of the alien cruisers as Corona Fire lit up the bow of the other with concentrated firepower. Single torpedoes, strung out in a long line one after another, coming down on the cruiser.

Red bolts of light, darting out from Mystic’s small cannons in a steady stream, and past the fast moving torpedoes, at the enemy ship.

A storm of bright violet light as the cruiser fired back.

Mystic swung back and forth as she advanced, avoiding most of the counterfire.  

And in the distance, where Pinnacle Station was visible, twenty-four small fighters, arranged in a formation resembling a long line, closed in on the battle.

~ * ~

Winston stood there in the middle of the chaos of the Command Center and watched the Princess suddenly go stiff beside him. Her pale blue/violet eyes were watching the image displayed on one of the large monitors over the Command Center.

“Chy’ilee!!”

~ * ~

The planet’s horizon. Distant. Orange, hints of pink, with wispy seeming white clouds overlaid. The horizon was diffuse at the edge, the colors turning pale and disappearing as they gave way to the blackness of absolute space.

A huge ship coming over the planet's horizon.

It was in a low orbit, approaching fast.

A virtual swarm of small fighters with wings that swept forward was spread out in front of it.

Ahead, in the distance, the two metallic blue heavy-cruisers hung small against the sky. The blue glow of their engine exhaust on their backside was brighter than the stars.

~ * ~

“It’s one of our Dreadnaughts,” Winston told her. “The Morning Star. Half again as large as either of those heavy-cruisers and a hell of a lot of firepower . . .

“And that’s four whole squadrons of our Cassidy fighters in front of her.”

~ * ~

A small woman sat in the cockpit of a fighter. Short dark hair barely visible beneath a helmet. Hand on the control stick. Feet on the pedals. Indicators on the control panel growing brightly. The fighter was designed in such a way that it pushed the seat forward and up, leaving her helmet clad head and much of her narrow shoulders up in the extended bubble-like canopy, according her a generous view of the space around her.

The image of the two metallic blue heavy-cruisers against the stars was growing in the canopy.

To either side, visible from the cockpit, were other fighters. They were in formation, a distance off either of her wingtips, rocketing in at the aliens at high speed. 

“Raven Leader,” a static voice. “This is Pinnacle Station actual, come back.”

“Raven Leader,” she said. “I copy you, Quince.”

“Raven Squadron, I’m sending you your target.”

A semi-transparent red mark appeared in her canopy as a hologram as over the right-most of the alien cruisers. She reached out and flipped two switches on her control panel. “Got it.”

“Good hunting, Kitara,” the voice said “Show ‘em what it means to fuck with humans.”

The two heavy-cruisers, trading fire with the Corona Fire and the Mystic in the other direction, were occasionally haloed by violent bursts of red, white and violet light.

As the first bolts lanced out toward Kitara’s fighter from the distant heavy-cruisers, as if the stars had turned violet and were stretching out toward her, one of her boots pressed down on a pedal, easing it closer to the floor. The fighter started rolling, making the world through the canopy slowly start to spin sickeningly.

~ * ~

A long line of fighters across space.

One by one, as large bolts of violet light flew across the emptiness and passed between them, each of the fighters began a slow spin around their cockpit.

The peculiar design of the Cassidy-fighter accorded a strange boon here. With the cockpit slightly off center, and the fighters spinning on an axis around the cockpit itself, it left each of the fighters looking slightly wild and out of control, making it that much harder a target for any gunner trying to hit it.

              But not an impossible target.

One of the fighters was caught dead-on by one of the large violet bolts. It exploded. A spark. A bright flash. An expanding cloud of vapor and flash-boiled steel . . .

~ * ~

Kitara’s fighter bucked around a little, and she kept her hand loose on the stick, riding out the blast wave. Another bolt streaked by, missing her spinning fighter by a matter of feet and leaving behind a momentary dark line across her vision.

The alien heavy-cruisers were much larger in her canopy now, huge, metallic blue blots across the star strewn sky. Three more shots exploded past her canopy, darting out from just below the top ridge line of the closest cruiser. It was like they were exploding past her head.

“Fire!”

Her thumb touched the round button on the wide pommel the control stick and with a bright flash a pair of photon missiles exploded from slots halfway down either of the fighter's thick wings.

“Raven Leader, missiles away.”

Kitara’s voice on the radio was drowned out by a swarm of voices saying similar words.

The blue exhaust of the missiles jetted out across space in the direction of the alien cruisers. It was joined by a swarm of similar missiles that sparked and exploded against the nearer cruiser's defense shields. The firestorm flowed over the edges of the shield like something liquid.

She pulled back on her stick. The maneuver pushed her back into her seat as the swept-wing fighter sailed up and over the metallic blue cruiser's bow. The row of cannons on either side of the cruiser’s ridge line fired at her ineffectually.

~ * ~

“I just don’t get you, ‘tara,” said the girl.

The slender brunette was sitting carelessly on top of the backrest on the right side of the couch. She had her two boots settled in the middle of the cushions on that side where a person would normally sit. The girl, energetic, who couldn’t seem to sit still, was looking down at where Kitara sat on the other end of the couch. Kitara seemed so much smaller, stooped over slightly, elbows resting on her knees, seemingly staring down at her open hands.

“You’re always so . . . serious . . . all the time. We’re at war . . . so what! That isn’t exactly gonna change anytime soon. It’s what we do. So you learn to live with it. Find fun in the little things . . . beer . . . beaches . . . boys! I don’t know if you figured it but I got a whole ‘b’ theme goin’ on. Don’t make me move onto the ‘c’s ‘cause it’ll get really dirty. You’ll blush. There’ll be the whole embarrassment thing. It won’t be comfortable for either of us.”

“It’s just . . .” Kitara visibly swallowed and briefly looked up at the other girl with dark, shiny, empty eyes. “He’s dead, Dawn,” she said evenly. “Charlie’s dead. He was my friend. Last night I was laughing with him in the mess and now he’s gone. I feel empty. Hollowed out inside. Like the things that make me ‘me’ have all just been stripped away. I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore. I don’t have a fuckin’ clue. Maybe it’s better, in some ways, to be like Charlie. Just to be gone. Not to be burdened by memories of things you just can’t let go.”

“You think I don’t hurt,” Dawn asked. The leggy brunette shifted a little so that she was looking more directly at the smaller girl. “You think the thought of Charlie doesn’t rip me up inside. You don’t have a fuckin’ clue how I feel. In that we’re all alone.

“I’m not saying it shouldn’t hurt,” Dawn said kindly. “Charlie was a great guy. The hurt you feel tells you that, why it is that you’ll miss him now that he’s gone.”

Kitara sniffled, “It’s just . . . Charlie. My parents. Little Sarah. Everything I care about. They’re all dead. It all just gets . . . stripped away,” Kitara said sadly. “I just . . . I don’t have a lot to hang on to anymore.”

“You’ve got me.”

Kitara looked up at her. Dawn looked back at her with nothing but kindness on her face.

“Come on,” Dawn said, reaching out and taking the other girl’s hand. “Let’s go.” Guiding her off the couch. “Let’s go down to the Crash with the others and raise a drink to our friend.”

~ * ~

“Dawn,” said Kitara into the mouthpiece of her helmet. “You still with me?”

Space spun by, visible through the canopy of her fighter.

“Where else am I gonna be,” Dawn asked. “The Defense Corps. isn’t exactly handing out tickets to Disneyland lately. No worries, ‘tara. I’m exactly where I should be, trailing behind you to the left and covering your sorry ass.”

“I’m coming around again. Stick with me.”

“Always!”

~ * ~

Two fighters with swept forward wings and a slightly off center cockpit, side by side, diving down on top of one of the heavy-cruisers. Engines glowing bright. A pair of missiles launched from each, as the fighters sharply pealed away.

The four missiles impacted against the invisible shield, leaving a small, bright firestorm raging along its surface.

~ * ~

The Marine was large, muscles stretching the short sleeves of his shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned. He was wearing a white tee-shirt beneath.

Kitara was much smaller, tiny even, standing across the mat from him in the empty gym.

The Marine looked at her. “You sure you wanna do this, Commander?”

She smiled faintly. “Come on, O’Reilly. I mean where else are you gonna get the chance to fight a superior officer?”

“No,” said O’Reilly, shedding his outer shirt and giving her a sly, calculating look. “Just a higher ranking one.”

Kitara took off her own shirt and tossed it aside, leaving her in nothing but a gray sports bra and tight form fitting black pants. Dark tattoos in strange patterns were visible all along the length of her back.

The small girl and the large Marine, not quite ten feet apart, each took a fighting stance, facing off against each-other across the mat.

~ * ~

One gigantic, metallic blue ship, turning toward Corona Fire and Mystic. Taking them both on. A firestorm of violet light coming from it as it traded fire with both of them.

The other massive blue ship having turned away.

Momentarily free and unencumbered.

~ * ~

Kitara reached out and adjusted a few switches on her fighter’s console.

Shifted the stick, gentle nudged a petal with her foot, and banked around again.

“Everybody be alert,” Quince said, his voice over the radio. “The starboard cruiser is launching fighters.”

~ * ~

Kitara grinned. “Let’s go then!”

She came at O’Reilly all out. O’Reilly almost casually brushed her aside. She rolled across the mat and got back up, grinning widely.

“A fight is about control,” O’Reilly told her. “You’ve got a certain . . . enthusiasm. But enthusiasm on its own doesn’t mean anything.”

The marine and the young girl slowly circled each-other.

“Don’t just think about the hit. The punch you’ll throw. The kick you hope to land. It’s not just about the moves, luv. Think about where you’ll be when you make that hit.”

~ * ~

It came at her head on.

The tiny fighter sent a streamer of violet bolts at her.

Red bolts fired back at the last moment from Kitara’s wingtips. They didn’t even come close to tagging the tiny fighter.

A single bolt of violet light clipped the top surface of one of her thick wings, leaving a long black scorch mark behind.

A brief glimpse of the other fighter at the last moment, before they went blasting at high speed past each-other. 

The alien fighter was a pale gray color, covered from front to back with wide, blue tiger stripes. The blue was more of a bright color, not the dark metallic shading of the cruisers.

The fighter looked vaguely like a nearly flattened cone, more or less flat on the bottom and rising up toward the slightly angular cockpit, though toward the back the shape of the engines ruined the more or less even slope of the hull. On either side of a blunted, stumpy tail fin that rose no higher than the level of the angular, bubble-like cockpit, each fighter was marked with a red glyph. The pale gray color of the ship beneath the tiger stripes began to disappear the closer it came to the back, turning the tail end to an even blue.

Kitara’s head snapped around to watch as the tiny fighter went by.

The engines were tiny blue circles glowing bright on either side of the back side.

~ * ~

“It’s . . . How can I put this?” O’Reilly paced the mat. “A fight . . . fought the right way . . . is as much psychological as it is physical. Move and countermove. You have to bloody think. What is he gonna do? Where is he gonna be when you make the next strike? And you have to learn to use that to your advantage.”

~ * ~

Kitara’s hand, wrapped tight on the shiny chrome colored control stick of her fighter, making subtle adjustments back and forth. The grip, shaped around her small hand with a widened pommel on top. A button on the top in a small groove for her thumb just beside a red selector switch. A trigger on the front with her forefinger hovering over it.

A small alien fighter visible through the canopy. Red holographic indicators floating over it in the clear glass. The tiny alien fighter twitched back and forth against the backdrop of stars. Kitara’s gentle hand on the stick, making subtle adjustments to match it. Anticipate it.

The tiny fighter, briefly bracketed by the ethereal red indicators.

Her forefinger twitched over the trigger.

Bright crimson bolts shot out from the wingtips to either side of her. Tiny streamers of red light across space the vastness of space. The blasts met as they punched into the tiny fighter, turning it into a brief expanding fireball.

~ * ~

Her body hit the mats hard.

“Ow!”

Groaning as she sat up, Kitara pressed a slender hand to the side of her head and looked up at the Marine standing over her.

“Answer me, ‘tara! Why did you lose?

Kitara rolled her shoulder as she got to her feet, checking to see if anything was broken. She glared at O’Reilly. “I don’t know, maybe because you’re stronger than I am!”

“It’s not about strength.” O’Reilly smirked gratingly. “It’s also not about how bloody fast you are. Well . . . not completely. Those things are important, true. But you still don’t get it. You’re rarely gonna fight someone weaker than you. You won’t always be stronger. You won’t always be faster.

“But you can be smarter . . .”

~ * ~

Kitara’s left hand jacked back the throttle briefly as her right hand twisted the angle of the control stick. The fighter banked around sharply, chasing two of the small, fast, blue-striped gray fighters. They always seemed to be just out of reach as she strained to catch up to them. It end as the two fighters finally darted just under one of the metallic blue heavy cruisers and ascended out of view.

“Those things can fuckin’ move,” Dawn said.

Kitara slammed her small fist down on one side of her seat.

“Dammit!”

~ * ~

Kitara groaned as she took O’Reilly’s hand and he helped her to her feet. “Patience . . . is one of the things you have to learn. To wait for your moment. What do you do, if you’re faced with a Bug? No gat at your hip. No weapons of any kind. Just you against him.”

“Run,” ‘tara said simply. “Just fuckin’ run.”

O’Reilly nodded. “And that’s the right move.” He smiled at her and began walking slowly around her, always keeping his distance. “Hand to hand . . . a Bug would tear you apart.” O’Reilly looked down on the much smaller girl. “But what if you can’t run? What if you’re backed into a bloody corner? No way out. What if there’s children behind you? What do you do then, luv?”

“Stand and fight,” she said grimly.

“Of course you would.” The Marine smiled faintly. “That’s simply who you are. But fight and you may die. It’s just the way of the world. You’ve learned that at least. But there are things you can do that can tip the balance somewhat in your favor. Opportunities to look for.” He stepped in to strike at her. ‘tara blocked. “A Bug, for example, is stronger than you by far . . .”

Their fight was like a dance. They moved on the mats together, back and forth. The small girl and the large Marine. Violent punches thrown. Kicks lashed out and avoided. He struck out at the middle of her chest and she parried it away with a sweep of her forearm.

“But there are weaknesses,” O’Reilly told her. “Yellowed spots on the chest where the carapace is thin. The joints of any articulated limbs. Any creature with arms and legs has knees. Elbows. You strike the right way, in the right place, and you can cripple it. Strike and move. It’s the only way to fight someone stronger than you.

“Even then,” he said, “that’s no guarantee that you’ll win.” O’Reilly suddenly dropped low, pivoted around a hand placed flat on the mat beneath him, bringing an extended leg around and sweeping Kitara’s legs out from under her in one smooth motion.

Kitara hit the mat hard. “Ow . . . again!”

~ * ~

“He’s coming straight in at us,” said Dawn.

“Double up on your forward shields,” ‘tara told her, reaching out and adjusting her console.

A tiny ship, visible in the distance. A red icon holographically highlighted on ‘tara’s canopy. It was closing fast.

A moment later Dawn fired, crimson bolts of coherent light exploding out of her wingtips. The first few bolts missed, making scarlet streaks across the stars. A second later the trailing end of the salvo brushed against the small blue and gray alien fighter, creasing its hull.

A moment’s hesitation, and it exploded, spectacularly.

The fireball was there for a moment, then gone, turning into an expanding cloud of blue-tinged gas.

Dawn giggled.  

~ * ~

O’Reilly walked up and stood over her. Crouched down beside her. “And sometimes you get into a fight you can’t win. It’s almost certain that you will die. What do you do then? Victory isn’t ever inevitable. Sometimes it takes hard work. Sacrifice.

“Lessons . . . more painfully earned . . .”

~ * ~

Dropping down from behind, one of the small alien fighters opened fire without a moment’s warning. The violet bolts melted through one thick wing of Dawn's fighter and blew straight out the other side.

A scream on the radio, bitten off at the end, as the clean lines of Dawn's fighter were overwhelmed by flame. The scream was pain, anguish, the sound of flesh being seared from bone.

One wing of the Cassidy-fighter broke away in the explosion and tumbled off into space.

The alien fighter flew through one edge of the fireball, twisting slightly on it's axis and breaking off a little to one side, almost as if it were sliding into a turn.

Kitara flipped the switch on top of the pommel of her control stick and twitched the stick slightly to one side, centering the fighter in her targeting indicator. A faint tone filled the cockpit and her thumb touched the firing button.

A photon missile exploded from one of her wings, jetting out across the infinitesimal space between the two fighters in the blink of an eye . . .

The missile missed, blasting over the top of the alien fighter. It left a faintly visible contrail of sky blue gas in its wake, etching a long, quickly fading line across the starry sky.

With a roar of engines, the two fighters blew right by each-other at startling speed. A faint glimpse of the alien fighter, and then it was gone. The front of the alien fighter, curving up and sweeping back faintly at either edge of the bow, and a faint hint of cannons concealed beneath either of the slight curves.

Kitara sniffled. The first tear welled up and rolled down her cheek.

She blinked away her tears.

Inertia pushed her back into her seat cushions as she twisted back on the stick, bringing her fighter around. But it wasn't there.

It was coming around too, trying to get position on her.

With a press of her foot she rolled her fighter onto its side, then pulled back on the stick, throttling back a moment with her other hand to tighten the turn. A glimpse of the bright blue fighter off not too far in front of her, but then it was gone, blasting off at a sharp angle. Kitara matched the maneuver as best she could, briefly throttling back again..

And then there it was right in front of her, tilted up onto its side, ninety degrees to her orientation. Her targeting indicator flickered a static green.

She fired.

A string of blood red bolts lancing out across space from her wing tips. The two static lines of light missed, passing to either side of the blue fighter, the narrow profile of its orientation compared to hers granting it a few more moments of life. She started to roll her fighter to correct the situation, but the alien was already reacting, banking away at a sharp angle that ‘tara couldn't quite seem to match. The alien's exhaust, two small, blue circles set far apart on the back of the fighter, glowed brighter with the strain of the maneuver for a moment, and then it was gone, disappearing from her forward arc.

Kiara looped her fighter around, trying to line up on it again, and again it twisted out and away before she could quite manage to catch it.

It was quickly becoming clear that however punky the alien fighters looked, they could move.

The two fighters chased each-other around in a tight circle, twisting, turning, both trying to get an angle on the other.

Kitara was a split second faster. The alien fighter broke off at a sharp angle before she got more than a token shot off.

But Kitara had been ready for it, banking her Cassidy-fighter around in anticipation of the move. She discovered a moment too late that the alien had outguessed her again, looping around the other way and leaving her badly out of position.

Gracefully, the alien fighter dropped into a position behind her.

It fired.

Violet bolts lanced out from blasters nearly hidden beneath the upturned curves of the alien fighter's nose. The bolts impacted against an invisible bubble surrounding Kitara’s fighter with explosive force, dissipating against it.

Kitara sent her fighter into a weave, trying to shake him from her tail, but the alien stuck with her like a parasite. More bolts sparked against her shields.

A whole bunch of red lights winked to life on the fighter’s console.

A bit of smoke wafted up from the console, making Kitara cough. Filling the air. Fingers touched a control of to the side and fans sucked the smoke away.

The alien fired again.

Kitara sent the fighter into a spin, making the starfield go in dizzy circles around her head. Miraculously, the bolts missed off to either side of the spinning fighter. Kiara pushed her stick as far to one side as it would go, eased back on the throttle, forcing the fighter into the hardest, tightest turn she could manage.

She spared a glance over her shoulder but it was still there, a very short distance behind her. Still hanging with her tight. Perhaps even tighter than ever.

Thoughtlessly, ‘tara tugged back on the stick a little, making the fighter rise up just a bit, and then jerked the throttle back hard. She slammed forward against her seat restraints, the belts cutting sharply against her skin. A moment later she pushed the throttle forward just as hard, slamming her back in her seat cushions.

The alien fighter slipped past. Her holographic indicator went from red to green, the not quite shrill sound of a target-lock filling the cockpit.

"I got ya, ya fucker!"

A series of red bolts lanced out from her wing tips as she brushed the trigger with her finger. The pair of staggered crimson lines raked across one side of the alien fighter. Two of the blasts connected, punching through the armor along the right side and leaving a thin ribbon of melted and resolidified metal dangling off into space. Hull plates flaked off around the wound like dead skin. A brief, faintest flicker of color from inside the tangled, half-fused flesh of the wound, like a spark. A moment later the engine on that side exploded, peppering the angular cockpit and the hull all along that side with shrapnel and sending the fighter sideways into an uncontrolled tumble across space, like a coin flipping edge over edge. A couple seconds after going into the tumble the alien fighter exploded, the brief boiling cloud of a fireball burning itself out like a spark.

‘tara’s fighter flew past the explosion and banked away.

She was trembling. Her breath coming in fits and starts. She was leaning forward, bent over herself. Her face mostly hidden from view. All the life seemed to have gone out of her, as if whatever animated her had been snatched away. She was slumped, head bent over at the neck and buried in her hands. The sound of her sobs was all that could be heard, great heartrending sobs that tore at her throat.

There was nothing left . . . but grief.

~ * ~

"You tricked them," the Princess said. She was standing off to one side. Her voice was soft, serious. "You drew them in so you could attack."

"Yes,” Winston agreed. “We did."

"You tricked them into fighting."

"We let them see what they wanted to see,” Winston said grimly. “They wanted to believe that we were weak. They wanted to see us as powerless. The decision to fight was their own." Winston let a hint of menace bleed into his voice. "It’s a decision the cost of which they’re only beginning to contemplate."

~ * ~

Thick metallic blue hull plates cracked and shattered. Metal, melted, running in drivels or burned up into clouds of vapor, and then frozen into strange amoebic shapes.

Any faint hint of light on the surface of the ship winked out

~ * ~

“They’re losing power,” Tony said.

“Keep it going,” Winston said evenly. “Pulverize them.”

~ * ~

The alien heavy-cruiser was all but dead in space. Morning Star and Corona Fire pounded on the hulk with their cannons.

Unhesitating.

Unflinching.

Merciless.

The human warships just hammered on the ship, blasting it, until it was a half-melted asteroid just floating there in space. Until it became an implausabily beyond reason that anything inside could be left alive. A cloud of vaporized metal hung in space around the derelict ship like a fine mist.

~ * ~

"You’re barbaric," Princess Ariana said, a strange note in her voice.

"Yes," Winston admitted. "We are." 

~ * ~

Colonel Winston picked up a large glass bowl from the top of a small wood-grain cabinet beneath a wide window that looked out at the stars, many tiny, bright, beautiful diamonds of light shining in the wide black canvas of space.

With the exception of the small cabinet and the window the large room was rather spartan. It's only other apparent feature was a long irregular shaped table, encircled by a ring of small, dark chairs. The edges of the table were smooth and rounded, lacking any sort of symmetry, almost as if a puddle had been somehow solidified and turned into a table.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"Eat?" The young Princess looked down at the contents of the bowl. Her doubtful expression melted into a smile. She picked up one of the strange red-orange colored fruit with a slender hand, looking at it. Her smile was a not-quite faint line on her face. "Ah, yes. You captured Sabeau some months ago, didn't you?!” She took one of the small fruit. “Thank you."

The Princess sat down at one end of the table. Winston remained standing. He seemed awkward. Nervous. As if he were forcing himself not to pace back and forth across the floor.

Ariana pierced the strange fruit's skin with a fingernail and began peeling it gingerly. Her small fingers were dexterous, working at taking the peel off in one long, spiraling piece.

Winston let out a breath and looked down at her. "You called us barbaric before. Perhaps that's true, but if we are it's only because you made us so."

The Princess looked up at him sharply, "That's not true!"

"It is and it isn't,” Winston said evenly. “You watched us cut those ships apart. We were ruthless. Merciless. And we didn’t hold back for even the briefest moment.”

"You speak of wholesale murder," the Princess spat back with fire in her eyes. "You tell me of genocide as if it were a virtue."

Winston gave her a ruthless smile.

"Yes," Winston said, biting the words out, "because we are barbaric."

~ * ~

The derelict alien ship floated in the emptiness against the stars.

The surface of the once metallic blue hull was torn, shredded.

Heat from the violent attack still lingered. Twisted metal deep inside the gashes in the ship glowed with a ethereal orange light like cinders.

It was barren.

Shattered.

Lifeless.

~ * ~

Winston watched the Princess for a few brief moments. Saw her look up at him, her wide eyes standing out in the middle of her delicate face.

She was young.

Winston himself wasn't very old. He was perhaps younger than a Colonel who spent every day sending men off into battle had any right to be, but she appeared far younger than he was. She couldn't be any older than sixteen, if the human model was any comparison. And yet something in her eyes seemed harder than that, or, if not hard, then more mature than perhaps she had any right to be.

"You're not what I expected," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we've been fighting the Bugs for more than five years now . . ."

Ariana’s pale blue-violet eyes narrowed slightly, "You call the Bakaal 'Bugs'?!"

Winston nodded. "If that's what you call them. We've been fighting with the Bugs for years now, and we thought that . . ."

The Princess suddenly smiled brightly, "You thought that any other species you met would be as different from you as they were."

Winston stood in front of the window and stared out at the stars for a long moment. His expression was blank. Far away. Behind him Ariana popped a slender section of the fruit into her mouth delicately. Winston blinked, shook his head, turning away from the window.

He smiled faintly, "When I was a kid I used to collect comic books. To tell the truth I was a little bit of a nut about it. My favorite stuff was the science fiction. Star Trek, X-men, Star Wars, I read anything like that I could get my hands on. A couple of years ago photon missiles and hyper-light engines were only things I read about in books. They were only the things I dreamt about when I dreamed about being somewhere else."

Winston fell silent. His expression was indecipherable. He ran his fingers across the thick glass that was all that separated them from space almost reverently. He slowly turned and looked at her.

"I love the fact that we're in space, that I lived long enough to get the chance at all this, but I’m disgusted by the way we got here."

He held her gaze. There was a hint of sadness reflected in her eyes.

"I woke up beside my wife that last morning. Even today I remember the way she smiled at me. She was so beautiful! How much I’ve wished I could go back and live forever in that moment.” He reached up with one hand and quietly wiped away the tears. “How was I supposed to know how quickly it would be gone? Chicken Little had nothing on me."

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I didn't expect you to. I was being cryptic." He paused a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. "You know about Earth?! You've learned to speak English. You speak it better than I ever would have thought possible. You must have learned something. About us. About Earth."

"Yes. A little."

"History. Geopolitical boundaries. Dry population estimates. Things like that?"

The young Princess nodded.

"You called us barbarians," Winston said, quietly lucid, "so I figured you had to know something. I guess parts of our history read like something of a horror movie. Prejudice. Genocide. People slaughtering each-other for no other reason then that they thought they were better in some ineffable way. Because they were thieves, or bigots. It was like that for a long time. Everyone did it.

"But that changed before I was born. The world I lived in was a nice place, for the most part," he admitted almost indifferently, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "A stable place. I won’t kid you, it was never perfect, but it was home. People seemed . . . better. Kinder. Whatever wars we fought were more or less meant to try to put an end to things like had gone before"

Winston looked up at her, allowing the first emotion for a while to bleed into his voice.

"So yes we are barbaric, but we were trying to be different. We were trying to be better. But that was before . . . Before the war. Before the Blitz. Before we were blind-sided early one Sunday morning.

"I saw my nation's capital after the Blitz was over. After my wife died in some dirty hole somewhere in the middle of a war. London was just this big mountain in the middle of a lake of water. It was pretty. I thought it was weird that it was pretty. It was hard to think that people once lived there, that every one of them was gone in one moment. Even the earth they walked on. It was all gone. Blown apart. Sucked into the middle of the firestorm and left as part of this pretty mountain."

Ariana shifted in her chair uncomfortably. Her expression was somewhat unsettled.

"Implosion munitions."

"Yes," said Winston quietly, looking up at her briefly. "Nasty stuff." He stared down at his open hands for a long moment. He shook his head slowly, as if shaking away an unwanted thought. "Whatever our faults for the most part we tried to do the right thing. I always liked to think that however bad we once may have been, in the end more often than not we did the right thing. We tried so damn hard to be noble.

"But again . . . that was before, before the war, before the Blitz, before all of this. Whatever our faults, we didn't deserve this. We never did anything that bloody justified what they did to us."

The Princess looked at him kindly. "Perhaps what you did confirmed their fears."

Winston looked at her. "What makes you say that?"

"The Bakaal did what they did because they thought you were dangerous,” she said slowly. “They thought you were monsters."

"They thought we were monsters!?"

The Princess arched an eyebrow. "They were wrong?"

Winston took a long, slow breath. He looked down at her, hesitating another long moment before he spoke. When he did speak the words came out as just one long thought, emotionless for all the sound of them.

"One day the sky just fell. In a single day everything I knew changed from something that made sense to me to something that didn't make any bloody sense at all. The months after that were like a haze. The Bugs just pounded on us. They didn't try to conquer us, or to enslave us. They tried for nothing less than to wipe us out."

The Princess looked at him quietly. "Slavery is not unknown among us,” she said. “Humans would make dangerous slaves."

Winston just looked at her expressionless. He paused a moment and then just kept talking in that dull, inflectionless way.

"Before the Blitz,” he said, “they say the population of Earth was something along the order of six billion people. There's no official numbers mind you, but last I heard it was somewhere slightly north of five hundred million. Something like ten or eleven out of every twelve people died during the siege."

Winston watched Ariana open her mouth, as if to say something, and then close it again. She stared at him with wide eyes.

He continued slowly, "So you may want to call us barbaric. You may look at the way we kill every one of the bastards we can get our hands on and think of us as some kind of . . . genocidal monsters. But what we're doing is nothing compared to what they did. Before the Blitz I may have thought that what we're doing is crazy, but what they did to us is crazy. You can judge us by the fact that we're committing genocide, or you can judge us by the fact that even after everything they've done to us we're still here at all.

"I don't think we're monsters, but what we are is really, really pissed off.” He looked hard at her, “You stood with me . . . in the middle of this station’s Command Center, surrounded by my people. Each one of them has to live with what the Bugs did to us. Each and every one of us has a little piece of something as cold and harsh as anything out past that window nestled up right up close to their heart. The memory of what the Bugs did to them, and the people that they loved. You can think of us any way you wish, Princess, but it is us or them. Only one or the other of us is going to survive this war, and when we fight, we fight to win."

At that Ariana smiled almost shyly, "I know. After all this time you are beginning to get something of a reputation."

Winston laughed humorlessly. "I'll bet we are!"

Princess Ariana stood up from her chair slowly. She left the fruit skin orphaned on the edge of the table. She ran her fingers back through her hair carefully, taking a few steps not quite in the direction in the window. She moved fluidly, with the controlled graces of a dancer, the cloth of her long blouse shifting around her body loosely. She looked out at the stars for a long moment.

Winston was struck by the thought that she knew it was her turn to say something, to explain things, yet was trying to think of a way to construct the thought. Her expression, while not quite serious, was contemplative. She shook her head slowly. Took a few slow steps down one wall.

She crouched down on her haunches in front of the wood cabinet with the fruit bowl on top, her blouse forming a few small loose folds across her thighs. She was looking at a glass bottle and matching snifter set that was on a shelf in the cabinet beneath the fruit bowl. The bottle was two-thirds filled with a dark liquor.

Winston walked a few steps toward her as she stood back up, the delicate folds of her blouse gently settling back down her pant leg. He himself crouched down for a moment where she had, reached into the cabinet, grasping the neck of the decorative glass bottle in one hand and two of the matching snifters in the other. When he was done collecting them he turned back around and set the two snifters on the table, the glass clinking together almost silently for a moment. He removed the glass plug from the bottle and began to fill both of the glasses with the dark liquor.

Winston slid one of the glasses down the table toward her gently. Ariana grasped the snifter in one slender hand and took a seat. She held it up for a moment so she could look at it. He could see the faint play of the overheads off the rim of the glass and in the dark, amber color of the liquor. She sloshed the liquid around in the glass the tiniest bit.

"Scotch," Winston told her. "I was saving it. You don't see much of it these days. Then again, I wasn't expecting such august company."

The young girl raised the rim of the glass to her lips and took a cautious sip. When she lowered it she peered down at the liquid in her glass wistfully, "Not exactly samia thai, but not bad."

She caught Winston's eye and smiled. She had faint dimples at the edges of her face when she smiled. After a moment her eyes drifted away. She sighed and the smile melted. She looked down into the glass again. This time her expression was distant.

Finally, she spoke, "From the earliest I can remember I heard about the Teskal'jai. From the day I was born it was like a caul around me. Everyone from the chambermaids that turned my bed to the courtiers in my grandmother's court looked at the Council with awe and respect. Everyone. The 'jai were worthy of respect. They settled the quarrels between the disparate races. They defended us from entropy. For more generations than I can count that was what they did. They were a voice of purpose, of reason, of ethics."

Winston asked, "What went wrong? You talk of the 'jai as if they're nobility." And yet she was here. It implied a rift of some sort, and yet the way she spoke of them it was hard to see something that would make her turn against them that way.

She softly bit at her lip and turned to look across her shoulder at him. "I don't know what went wrong. Not any one specific thing. All I know as that the 'jai changed somehow.

"From the earliest I can remember I was told that I was 'jai. As a firstborn girl of the house of da 'Mecini, as Princess, the fifth seat on the Council was mine by birth. I was taught how important the 'jai were, how on their every decision rested the fate of more sentients than I could ever count or see."

Winston, "So the twelve races of the galaxy are represented by the twelve seats on the Teskal'jai."

"No.” The Princess shook her head. “There are many more races in the galaxy than those represented on the 'jai."

"How many?"

"More than I could ever hope to count. The older races among us are those that are represented in the Teskal'jai. Those races that supposedly earned the honor and the responsibility in some way. My family has been 'jai for over a hundred generations,” she said proudly. “The Mah'cen'tani have been for nearly a thousand.

"When I was eleven of our years old, which is not much different than a human year,” she clarified, “I was granted my birthright. I took my seat on the Council. The first issue that came before the 'jai was one brought to us the by the Bakaal."

"About us?" Winston leaned forward slightly.

"Yes. About you. They used an Earth word to describe you. They called your race a 'juggernaut'." There was a slight lilt to her voice as she wrapped her mouth around the unfamiliar word. "They said you were a menace. They said you were progressing at such a rate that if they weren't allowed to deal with you then that you would become a problem with which we could not deal.

"While it was certainly the Bakaal that held the enmity for the humans of Earth, it was the Council that had the final decision on the matter." She looked Winston in the eye. "So the Bakaal may have been the mechanism behind Earth's perils but the 'jai was the cause."

"And what of the Chrys'lyc?" Winston couldn't quite manage to keep the scorn from his voice. "What was your vote on the 'Earth issue'?"

The Princess lowered her eyes. "The proposition the Bakaal brought before us passed through the Teskal'jai by a margin of eight to three. It was the first vote I was present for since I accepted my seat on the Council. I abstained.”

Winston shook his head, "Don't try to tell me you learned the magnitude of your mistake or the error of your way. That you've come here because you somehow wish to make amends, because I won't believe it."

"No. That certainly could be a valid reason for why I am here but that’s not it. Or more truthfully if it is it is only one of many."

“Then why?”

Ariana brushed a sandy-colored lock of hair behind her ear, "You have to understand. Earth was a symptom of the change in the 'jai, but it was not the only one. Even the members of the Council that voted against sanctioning the Bakaali attack on Earth didn’t do it for reasons of altruism. You were meaningless to them. The ‘jai has been beset by squabbles. Feuds and alliances of the moment have turned it into a . . . quagmire. When I didn’t vote, it wasn’t simply a protest against the Bakaali. I was an idealist when I took my hereditary seat. I was eleven, young, and very opinionated on the world I was to find myself in. What I discovered there, the infighting and the backbiting, disgusted me. I walked into things I had only the barest conception of.

“For a long time we, and by 'we' I mean the Chrys, have had something of a feud with a race called the Mah'cen'tani. I don't know what the cause of the feud ever was or when it first came to be, and to tell the truth I really don't think I care. All I can say is that they've never really liked us. Perhaps part of it is that we are more like you yourselves than is good for us, but I don't think so. The antipathy was there long before the human issue ever came up.

"There's a lot of space out there, like I told you. And a whole lot of different races. Far more than is contained in any of the individual nation-states of the 'jai. So what we're left with is long, thick bands of space between the nation-states, star systems that are independent unto themselves or loosely aligned with a few others, all only nominally overseen by the 'jai. We call these sectors of space the 'Borderlands'. The Borderlands serve many purposes, from nexuses on the major trade routes all the way down to providing a wider resource base for the 'jai, but the one that seems a little more important than the others is that they provide what you would call a 'buffer zone' between the nation-states of the 'jai. They keep us at a safe distance from each-others throats. The 'jai allow the Borderlands a certain bit of autonomy, and the Borderlands provide the nation-states a certain amount of stability."

Winston said, "I take it something has happened to change all that."

"What has happened is that the Mah'cen'tani have begun to encroach on the Borderlands. While it has all seemed to be more or less trivial until now, mostly long circuits of a portion of the 'tani fleet through the sovereign zones and occasional harassment of the local system governments, I’ve begun to see the situation in a more ominous light. In a couple places, like Aberseen and Dwaii, the 'tani have begun to place 'peacekeeping' forces, which they say is to 'maintain stability in the region'. I think that they may be setting up forward bases for a move against us, by ‘us’ I mean the Chrys'lyc Confederacy. I, among others, see it coming, and yet we can do nothing. I have petitioned the Council. What the 'tani have done in the Borderlands is reason enough that they should be censured, yet my petitions to the 'jai have gone unanswered. It seems that they are content to toss us to the kacherak."

"Those heavy-cruisers we slagged earlier," observed Winston, "they were Mah'cen'tani?!"

The Princess nodded slowly. "Chances are better than not that they followed us here. I don't know how they could have done that, if there was some probe or ship back where we set to space that tracked our vector somehow or if there’s some manner of spy or tracking device on my ship."

"Why would they follow you all the way out here?"

"I don’t know,” she answered. “Most likely to stop me from doing what I am doing."

Winston narrowed his eyes. His voice was wary. "And what the hell are you doing?"

"What I offer I offer for many reasons. I came here to offer an alliance between us. Between the Confederacy and the peoples of Earth."

Winston blinked his eyes slowly. Opened his mouth and closed it again.

Slowly, he asked, "Exactly what is it that you mean by 'alliance'?"

"What I mean is that we take the fight to the 'jai. What I mean is that we combine our forces. Not just you against the Bakaal and not just the Chrys against the Mah'cen'tani. I mean us against the 'jai."

"That's all well and good, but why should we? What the hell would we gain by joining you in your vendetta against the 'jai?"

The Princess flinched just a bit at the word ‘vendetta’, her features tightening for the briefest moment.

After a moment, she looked at him directly and said, "You wouldn’t be joining us in our own private war. You’d be joining us in a war that you would have had to have fought anyway."

He looked at her sharply, "Explain."

"It’s rather simple. You are holding your own against the Bakaal. Actually, you’re more than holding your own. In the past year or two you have been besting them quite readily. And the way you fight makes no secret of your intentions. They will petition the 'jai for aid, and the 'jai will agree, if only on principle. Any of the noble houses of the 'jai is more important than some barbaric race from the back of nowhere. And the Bakaal were only doing something the 'jai had decreed should be done. In the end you would be overwhelmed."

The briefest hint of fear flickered across Winston’s expression. Not fear of failure or fear that he'd somehow let his people down, but real fear. They'd come so close to going out during the Blitz, but somehow they'd fought their way out of it. But if things were as the Princess said, if the Bugs were one step away from exponentially increasing their strength, then the war and the fate of everyone he knew would take a drastic turn for the worst. He felt a cold shiver run up his back.

He thought, They won't get me without a fight.

But against those odds, fight or no . . . He thought of a candle flame, snuffed out by a single breath.

Quietly, Winston asked, "And were we to accept your offer?"

"Then the humans and the Chrys would fight side by side. Our ships and your ships. Our people and your people. But that’s only a portion of what we offer. There are other things we offer along with it. Whatever technological magic you have accrued I take it has been stolen. All of it damaged in some way, remnants of your war with the Bakaal. We offer whatever technology we can give you. Things you may not have had the necessary pieces to figure out on your own. Things you were never able to get your hands on intact. Any and all we can give you is yours, from any technology you never had down to detailed curved-space maps and inside intel on the places and people we’ll be fighting."

"Us and you?"

"Yes. Both of us. Against the 'jai."

Winston narrowed his eyes slightly. He had heard something in her voice just then. "I take it you don't agree with this?!"

She smiled timidly, "It was my idea."

Winston spoke slowly, "But still, despite all the reasons you gave me, you seem . . . reluctant somehow?!"

She looked at him sharply, "Of course I am."

"Why?"

"Because I’m scared." She was holding the glass on the edge of the table in front her with both of her slender hands, staring down into the liquor in the bottom of it distantly. Her voice was cold. "To go up against the 'jai is to risk death. Not simply my death but that of my people, their way of life. It is much to risk. And risked in the name of something I am not entirely sure of."

"Humans?"

She shook her head. "No. What I am unsure of is going against the 'jai at all Everything my father instilled into me before he died goes against it. But at the same time I know that it is something that should be done. Must be done." Ariana lifted her head and looked him directly in the eye. Suddenly she seemed very tired. "Whatever allegiance I owe to the precepts of the 'jai doesn’t matter now. Whatever laudable things they once were they aren’t anymore, and though the thought cuts like a laser blade for the life of me I cannot think of any other way to change it."

"Why us?"

She chuckled humorlessly, "Why not." She leaned forward in her chair a little. Paused to rake her fingers back through her hair. "You do confound me a little, more now than ever. Like I said, I’ve read up on you. The more I heard of you the more you held my interest. Some of what I have read frightens me. But I see other things in you. Something that as you said ‘tries so hard to be noble’."

"So we gang up and trounce the 'jai."

Ariana smiled faintly. "You make it sound so simple. The situation is more dangerous than perhaps you realize. The fight would be far from easy. It may well take longer than you or I could ever dream, and cost more lives than we'd wish to imagine. We may discover that even banded together standing up against their will might be impossible.

"All I know," she continued solemnly, "is that we have to try."

She looked down at the last hint of liquor in the bottom of her glass. Raised it to her lips, and after two or three swallows, returned the glass to the table empty. Afterward she stared down into the empty glass thoughtfully. For a moment she seemed profoundly sad, and then she looked up at him and that went away, as if a veil had fallen over her eyes. Her thin lips twitched into the barest smile, but it seemed a hollow gesture. Her pale eyes still seemed a little unfocused, turned inward.

She shifted restlessly in her chair again, drawing her legs up closer to her easily, folding them up in the seat cushions in a limber way that defied description. Her blouse was drawn up into gentle folds of fabric around her thighs. One hand, clad in a fingerless gray-white glove, brushed absently at one edge of her face, her fingertips barely running across her cheek as if wiping away a tear, though her pale, blue-violet eyes remained dry.

There was a silent moment then. While not uncomfortable, the silence hung in the air like something real. A quiet shared moment.

Ariana hugged one knee against her chest gently. Rested her chin on the knee. Her almost melancholy gaze lazily drifted down toward the floor between them. Twice, she blinked her eyes slowly. This wasn't the same girl Winston had met oh so short a time ago. The girl with the noble upraised chin and the hard flecks of steel in her eyes. This girl was unsure of herself, yet at the same time there was a hardness there, like something tough not so deep beneath the surface.

Winston said, "You hate them for forcing you into this position, don't you?"

She raised her eyes. "It is not right to hate," she said almost softly. "My father told me . . . " Her voice drifted off like something carried away on a faint breath of wind.

"There's nothing wrong with a little anger. Nothing wrong with knowing that you've been wronged in some way."

She said, "To a point."

"Yes," Winston said slowly, "to a point. War is a nasty business. I know that if anyone does. But sometimes you have to fight. Sometimes there's no other choice. You can't give up simply because you know how nasty the fight will be, simply because you don't wish to. You have to choose your fights carefully, but sometimes your fight chooses you."

One corner of her thin mouth twitched just a little. "Yes. Sometimes it does." She sighed softly. "But it has been many years since the Chrys have had to fight any major war. Ships of our navy have had occasional run-ins with pirates and marauders, but war for us is like the vaguest memory. It is hard to grasp that those days are ending, like a last breath of twilight before night finally falls. Even peace cannot last forever. And who knows when we’ll ever see the sunlight again. I have to hope that I’m doing right, but the black hole of it is that I don’t know for sure. Cannot know for sure.

"I am setting a course through dire nebulae, and find myself second-guessing myself at every turn. I know there has to be better answers, and I hate myself for the fact that I can’t think of them. More lives than I can imagine hinge on my decisions, and yet at the same time I know that I’m not perfect. My answers are never as right as they could be."

Ariana wiped tiredly at her eyes. "So now you know,” she said. “Now you know everything I came here to say. Some things that I never thought I would say. I am unsure I will like the answer, but I have to ask. What do you think?"

Winston looked at her for a long moment, seemingly scrutinizing her, his expression thoughtful. She unabashedly met his gaze. She brushed her sandy blond hair back with one hand self-consciously. A few strands of hair hung low across her eyes like wispy streamers of light.

“It’s not my decision to make,” he said, seeing her shoulders slump as the disappointment hit her. “But for whatever reason I do believe you,” he added. He shook his head slightly, “I don’t think you’re trying to play us. I don’t see what good it would do the Bugs that would be worth this much effort. All I can do is send everything up to the Admiralty, and then they’ll past it up to President Shannon. All in all I think there’s a good chance that they’ll accept most any offer you give us.”

“But you’ll be cautious,” she said, looking at him sadly.

“We have to be.” Winston was standing beside the window. “So many dead,” he thought aloud, pausing to stare out at the black sky and the stars, his fingers barely brushing across the glass. “So many casualties. So many years.”

“And so many more to come,” Princess Ariana said softly.

His fingers flinched back from the thick glass, “It’s cold.” He quietly stared down at his fingertips. “Death, so close and yet so far away.” He smiled and turned to look at her. “But we’re still here.”

Her reflection was a faint image in the glass just over his shoulder. Her visage set against the wide expanse of the stars like the faded misty memory of a dream.

“At least for now.”