The Best Defense

"Evade!"

The call came even as multiple hostile craft converged on the location of the sole remaining defender. The battle had not gone well from the very beginning. Despite their brutal reputation, the Ko-Dan were savvy opponents who lived to fight. They were not stupid. Problem was... lots of other beings assumed they were and that always cost lives. Lives that were hard to replace. Starfighters did not grow on trees.

Coherent energy flashed through where the ship had just been and Legion Commander Alex Rogan let out a deep breath even as he spun his chair and started picking off enemies with the skill of long practice. It was a matter of seconds for the veteran starfighter to pick off the missiles that had been fired at his ship and then start taking out enemy ships. But they were not closing!

"Not again." Rogan cursed softly under his breath as he saw the Ko-Dan englobement formation. He did not stop firing, his shots clean and precise as only a Starfighter could be. The bastards really didn't want him slipping the net this time. Each ship of the sixty or so that remained were closing at an equal speed and he could see another globe of ships forming behind it. There would be a third, the Ko-Dan always did it that way. No matter how well the navigator-monitor danced the ship, sooner or later, the area in which it could dance would shrink enough allow an enemy to land a killing shot. Especially now with the deflector plating so diminished. He had a counter for that. However... "Grig! Status on Death Blossum?"

"Still off line since we used it the first time." The Navigator-Monitor growled. The scaled being was still his partner despite repeated attempts by bureaucrats to get him reassigned. Grig had stubbornly remained Alex's partner throughout the conflict they had seen erupt back when Alex was still just a kid from a trailer park even though he should have gone home cycles ago. "Six more time parts to recharge and let the emitters cool."

"We don't have six time parts." Alex said with a growl of his own. This war had been brutal in the almost thirty Earth years ever since the renegade Rylan Xur had taught the Ko-Dan how to breach the Frontier, the ancient energy barrier that had protected the civilized Star League from the barbarians. "Did Kirlos get clear?"

They had started this battle with three gunstars. Alex and Grig were in command. The other two had been operated by Kirlos and V'Tris as well as the newbies Los and Treik. All three had been equipped with the newest and best gunstars available. The plan had been simple, find the Ko-Dan base of operations in this area and eliminate it. The rest of the Legion was still defending Rylos and the other planets of the league so three Starfighters had been all that could be sent. It should have been enough. It hadn't been.

This wasn't a Ko-Dan forward operations base. It wasn't a Command Ship acting as a haven for raiders or scouting the Legion's defenses in depth. No. The sole habitable planet that shone on the scopes was overrun with Ko-Dan signals of all types. the barbarians had conquered the world and turned it into a massive base. Many shipbuilding facilities of various sizes orbited the planet that had once been known for its stunning ice sculptures. Alex had a moment to hope that some of the residents survived, but if so, their lives would probably be painful and short as slaves to the Ko-Dan. He had seen the residue of Ko-Dan raids all too often in this war. He dreaded what he might see on a world that was conquered.

Alex's first experience in what was now being called the Second Starfighter War had been brutal as hell, but it hadn't prepared him for the reality of long sustained conflict. He didn't think anything could have. Maybe if he had talked to veterans or something, but there hadn't been many in Starlite, Starbrite trailer park where he had grown up and those few hadn't been social sorts.

"Kirlos made it to supralight." Grig broke into Alex' reverie.

The Starfighter noted he had been firing steadily even as he had been thinking. Starfighters were trained to fire steadily, so as to let their laser weapons recharge. Not that the gunstar primary weapons were laser based, but Alex stubbornly called them that since that was the terminology he had learned first and no matter the personage who tried to get him to change, he resisted. It was what he did. Well, that and kill stuff. He fired the heavy weapon mounted under his chair and two enemy ships disintegrated as the insanely powerful energy beam tore right through them. The survivors closed ranks and continued their slow but inexorable approach. He estimated two time parts until the mass of enemies closest to them reached firing range. Then it was all over.

"Good." Alex muttered. "Some good will come of this no matter what else." He kept firing.

"Los and Triek were not your fault, Alex." As always, the green scaled alien saw deep into the human heart that Alex carefully hid from the universe. "They knew the risks."

"I know." Alex did not stop firing, but part of his mind smiled at the twin pair that had come highly recommended. "Still hurts."

Most Starfighters came to the Legion after problems of some kind. The Star League had been peaceful for so long that violence of almost any kind was anathema to many of its inhabitants. Alex suspected that the original Starfighter Legion had been part penal facility and part defense organization. His certainly was. He got recruits almost exclusively from prisons. The good news was that the League had a lot of experience in dealing with violent people of any kind. The bad news was that it was Alex's job to keep them violent and aim them at the enemy instead of their allies. Alex was unique in that regard. He wasn't a violent person by nature. If he had been, old Jack Blake would have had a much harder time bullying him. No, Alex was an anomaly to many of the League scientists. They knew he could fight and did quite well. But he didn't enjoy it except in savoring the victory and his survival.

Los and Triek had been the same way. Neither of the siblings had criminal tendencies. Neither of them had possessed a dishonest bone in their soft jelly-like bodies. They were not docile, no. They hadn't caved in to any of the dominant personalities that had emerged in the Legion. They had simply ignored the attempted hazing and bullying and eventually, the bullies had quit to seek better targets. Alex had talked to them both and found them quite nice. That meant that seeing their gunstar reduced to a small pocket of incandescent gasses had hurt a lot.

The Legionnaires had flown right into an ambush. As soon as the trio of gunstars had reverted to realspace, they had been fighting for their lives. Some kind of defense ship had been close to the jump point and had taken the three under fire even as they had emerged. Alex and Kirlos had savaged it, but its fire had devastated Los' Gunstar. The final blast from the doomed ship had claimed the twins. There hadn't been time to mourn. There were multiple enemy squadrons closing so Alex had ordered Kirlos to flee with the report and activated Death Blossum to cover his Legion mate's withdrawal. As he had expected, as soona s the peculiar energy patterns had been seen by the enemies in the system, all of the Ko-Dan had charged Gunstar One. They really hated him.

That was fine. He hated them too.

Despite the best scientists and technicians in the League working overtime for cycles, Death Blossum wasn't something that anyone could duplicate. Either something Grig did and didn't remember or some odd change done by the techs of the doomed Starfighter Command that Alex had first been processed into and never got the chance to document, it didn't matter. The modifications that had been done to Gunstar One before Alex's insane solo charge at the Ko-Dan armada in defense of Rylos could not be duplicated. He wondered sometimes of that was intentional. After all, Gunstars had incredible firepower even without the incalculable spherical blasts that were the hallmark of Alex Rogan, Legion Flight Commander of the Starfighter Legion. Just the thought of a Starfighter going rogue had to keep League diplomats and others up at night from worry. But Alex knew better. Without the Legion protecting it, the Star League had no chance. Without the League supporting it, the Legion had no chance. Both needed the other and he worked hard to keep his people aware of that fact.

But there were moments...

He had to smile even as he fired his primaries again. Maggie had found a place for herself in the Legion. She had never been happy in the trailer park, but she had been afraid to leave. Leaving her Grandmother had been the single hardest thing his sweetheart had ever done and she hadn't handled the transition very well at first. Then again, neither had he. Suddenly, neither of them had to worry about money or food or housing. Both had access to any information that they wished to learn. Add some free time and they had done what teenagers from time immemorial had done with free time. Neither had thought of contraceptives.

It had been a hell of a shock to both of them when the League medics had refused Maggie's tearful insistence on an abortion. She hadn't really wanted one, she had just been scared and the League medics had known it. Alex had been too stunned by all of what had happened to have any comment except to support her in every way he could. It wasn't his fault or hers. It had been both of them working at it, but neither had thought about that. There had been a few arguments after the discovery, but Alex's quiet support had meant the universe to Maggie. He would never tell her that Grig had taken him aside and 'explained' a few things about being an adult to the wild teenager who was finally free. Except he wasn't. He had been working to rebuild the Legion and Maggie had been at loose ends. She had been bored, so... He had worked with many others to find her a job. She wasn't a Starfighter, thank god. But the Starfighters were only the very tip of the spear, the barely visible part of the iceberg that showed above water. The support network they relied upon was invaluable.

Maggie had found her niche in Supply. She had a desk and a staff. She worked tirelessly to make sure the Legion had enough tools and spare parts to maintain the gunstars, enough personnel to make use of those tools and spare parts and also she worked as a morale officer. The Legion had its share of prickly personalities. Kirlos in particular was a bitter, angry sort at almost all times. But when he stood in front of Maggie? The huge shaggy being seemed to wilt just from her presence. Alex was fairly sure it was a dominance thing. Maggie told Alex that females in Kirlos' species ruled and Maggie knew far more about the myriad races that made up the League than Alex did. He simply didn't have time to learn all of it. Especially when the Ko-Dan came back.

The League had outdone itself. Far from the pitiful first defense which Alex had managed to pull off through surprise, sheer dumb luck and more than a bit of brashness, twenty new gunstars had met the ferocious Ko-Dan meteor gun bombardment of Rylos. None of the hundred massive projectiles had even made it to Rylos orbit. The fighters that had swarmed in through the hole in the Frontier had been met with a wall of fire that had sent the few survivors fleeing. For a time, there had been hope that the Ko-Dan would retreat and give the League time to reinforce the Frontier, but Alex had forgotten another major player.

Xur was a renegade Rylan. A fanatic on par with almost any in human history, the being was a nutcase of the first order. He might have given Adolph Hitler near the end of World War II on Earth a run for his money in sheer crazy. What was even crazier was that people were still following him! Alex understood about cults of personality., he worked hard to keep any from forming around him. There were never many Xurians. But the damage they could do was incredible, especially when they got into League facilities who didn't understand anything about security. The Legion? Not so much. A few tried now and again to access Legion facilities, but Alex and others had instituted serious security measures even before the Ko-Dan had returned. Centauri himself had tried to access a Legion facilty and been caught in short order. Embarrassing for the shyster, but good to know that there was one secure group in the League. Other places? Sigh. Every time the League started to reinforce the Frontier, Xur sabotaged the work.

Xur was a known threat though and the only good thing about him was that the Ko-Dan hated him almost as much as they hated Alex. It had been at Xur's direction that the first Ko-Dan force had attacked. It had been at his insistence that the force had disregarded defensive postures in the need to show Xur as a conqueror. It had been the failure of his assassins on Earth that had galvanized Alex to come back and fight. The solitary gunstar that had taken the Ko-Dan by surprise and to everyone's amazement wiped them all out had been disregarded by Xur as a pathetic bluff.

To say the Ko-Dan Emperor was upset with Xur was a monumental understatement.

So, it was essentially a three way conflict and had been for more than two Earth decades. The League and the Legion on one side with their technology and determination. The Ko-Dan on another with their numbers and experience at waging war. And Xur, the wild card. Always probing for weaknesses. Always seeking to hurt either side as he could. Sooner or later, the Legion or the Ko-Dan would find and squish him like the bug he was, but until then, he would remain aggravating. The Ko-Dan could pick and choose their targets almost at will, but the Legion had strong defenses around every core League world now.

Right now, though... Alex had a problem. His ship was rapidly running out of places to evade the fire that was coming in.

"Grig." Alex said softly even as he fired another salvo and another Ko-Dan fighter evaporated.

"I know." Grig sounded calm, but then again, he always did. "Death Blossum won't be charged in time. If we fire at half charge or not fully cooled..."

"Boom." Alex winced hard enough that he actually missed a shot. He sent a follow up shot and the Ko-Dan deck fighter he had been aiming at disappeared from his screen. Only once had anyone tried to duplicate the Death Blossom systems on another ship. Legion security had been incredibly tight, even for them and no one outside the Legion would ever know what the drone that had been destroyed so spectacularly at the Frontier had been trying. Using Death Blossum without a full charge to discharge or without time for the emitters to cool was a death sentence. Then again... "Wouldn't take any with us, would we?"

"No." Grig snarled as the gunstar rocked from a hit. He evaded without orders and Alex took out the enemy ship that had hit them along with two others for good measure.

"I am sorry I kept you in this, Grig." Alex said softly as he continued to fire. "You should have gone home cycles ago."

"My family understands. You know this." Grig said simply. Alex had to smile at that. When Maggie had delivered their daughter Sarah, Grig had all but demanded that Maggie and Alex come home with him. There, the pair of humans had met Grig's mate and all of his children. All six thousand of them. Alex, Maggie and Sara had been honored guests for a week. That was the one time that Alex had asked Grig if he had wanted to go home. The green skinned form had just looked at him and Alex hadn't asked. But now... "Why didn't you go home to your family, Grig?" Alex demanded. "You had a future!"

"Alex..." Grig's voice was gentle even as the Ko-Dan closed in for the kill. "You, Maggie and Sarah are part of my family." Alex froze, his hands stiff on the firing controls. "I pulled you into this. Centauri had a large part, but so did I."

"I..." Alex shook himself and continued firing, wiping out enemy after enemy. "What was it you said when we met? When I asked where the Starfighters were?" He felt a familiar goofy grin stretch his face. He hadn't smiled in so long.

"Battling evil in another dimension." Grig said softly. "And yes, we will join them. But maybe not today..." He mused as Alex stiffened.

"Grig?" Alex demanded. "When you say things like that, my life gets interesting. What?"

"There is a jump point here." Grig said a bit dubiously. "I can't read the beams, but..."

"Anywhere is better than here!" Alex agreed with a grin as he bent to his weapons with fervor. He stilled as a massive salvo of red exhaust missiles erupted from the surrounding Ko-Dan fighters. Far too many to shoot down without Death Blossum. "Grig!"

Space warped even as the missiles reached the ship and...

Far way, a teenage girl woke up screaming.