Introduction

"Are there any additional findings to what's already been found, Doctor?" Abebech looked around the haunting age of the abandoned toroidal space station. It had been a receiving and transfer point for gas and Ioian exotics-fuel products, in short.

"Just the content of these messages," he answered, gesturing to them on the wall of the station.

Goodenough followed his message. " Forward, to our Universe. " He shook his head. "Rather bloody enigmatic, isn't it, Ma'am?" He offered to Abebech. "Like 'Croatan', bloody near."


"Helm, break to port!" Elia called as she shifted controls. Violeta instinctually followed her, because it seemed like Elia had a plan, even though that brought them even closer to the two ships, as the shields suddenly surged with over-power through the tertiary generators and the shields slammed into the active plasma cutters, driving a massive energy feedback into the systems of the two small attackers. As they did, there were two enormous explosions along the port aft quarter, shaking the Huáscar like a bone in the mouth of a dog as both of them detonated from the impact and energy feedback tearing their thin hulls to pieces.

"We were going to lose the shields no matter what, Captain, better to take them with the generators," Elia justified herself simply.


Abebech, as silent and reserved as ever, got in the 'lift and called up the Heermann dock. As it traveled, she pulled a builder's plate out of her pocket that she had taken from the captured ship, and looked long and hard at it, cupped in her gloved hands.

Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

"We Build Better Worlds."

Heavy Shipbuilding Division

Union of Allied Planets Navy

Enforcement Cruiser Ioannis

Laid at Londinium Geostationary Dockyards

Oct 14 2510.

Gripping it tightly, she put it back in her breast-pocket as she left the turbolift.


Will started the explanations for the crew of the ship they had already learned was named the Serenity, with a heavy use of holo-slides, because he hadn't had the time to do anything better than steal the standard Public Affairs template.

But as he spoke, with the others entranced, River Tam was staring across the table at Abebech and Elia. It didn't take long for the two of them to be totally focused on her.

Why can't I feel her mind at all? River was musing out loud, and both of them and then Hygienist Va'tor could feel it as well, the Dilgar woman also turning her attention to River.

She doesn't want anyone to, Elia answered automatically.

That doesn't stop me other ti- River cut off abruptly and looked sharply at Elia. You just talked back.

I'm a telepath, and so are you, Elia answered.

"They're like me!" River suddenly exclaimed about as loud as she could in the meeting, looking with eagerness and surprise over to her brother. "They're like me !"


"Shields collapsing, Captain. There's no more I can do to keep them cohesive," Elia popped her knuckles. "Seconds, Captain."

"Commander Yuzhao, this is Commander Huáscar. Yield now or die." Leaving the channel open, she pitched her voice. " Tactical, lock forward batteries on target, maximum firepower."

The officer on the other end of the comm could hear them, and spoke in Chinese, but the autotranslator rendered the words into English. " My body may be broken, but my name shall live true in history. "

Zhen'var closed her eyes. "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chapter Seventy-six. Guan Yu retreats to Maicheng. Tactical, Fire!"


Back on the Huáscar, Elia blinked at the transmission. This isn't good. "Captain, laser burst from the Heermann coming through now." Abebech wouldn't break comms silence for nothing.

"Let me see it on my small screen. Keep on alert, if the enemy knows why our course is shaped as it is, they will be waiting..."

Elia sent the message over it. As she did, she watched it herself, and felt a chill starkly cross her skin.

It was a ship, with something of the form of a squared rocket, tapering toward the nose. Two great squared oblong deck clusters thrust up from the main hull, and what might have been the track of a mass driver lay along the dorsal hull. The armour was thick, immensely thick, twenty metres or more, and was gouged and torn in every place. She hung in space, a ghost ship of an ancient battle.


Suddenly, Elia's senses flared with danger, threat, warning. All from behind. She spun toward the entrance of the bridge to see an African man with a UAS type pulse pistol drawn, aimed at Zhen'var. Elia had no time to make a decision about anything, and fear for her best friend in the multiverse drove what she did next. She knew intimately how terrified, privately, Zhen'var was of being taken prisoner on her bridge again. At times at dock when the bridge was empty or she had control at secondary control, she had even drilled it. Elia reached out, more on instinct than thought.

Zhen'var felt the intense, all-encompassing feeling of Elia's warm closeness to her, the telepathic equivalent of a bear hug of her mind. Elia's reassurance came even as she triggered the muscle sequence and plan that Zhen'var had drilled. This was faster still than simply assuming control of her; within her friend's mind she found the plan she had trained to execute, and had her rolling from chair, pistol in her right hand as her left slapped a button on her belt.

The infiltrator's gun spoke, even as an iron hand lunged out from the man to wrench Fera'xero from his chair. And Elia, for a horrifying moment balanced on the precipice of not knowing whether or not her effort had worked, refused to draw back, even if it meant she followed her friend to The Door.


Undiscovered Frontier Origins : Meta Incognita

Season 1, Episode 6


Act One

Time itself seemed to have no meaning as the shot ricocheted off the deck. Zhen'var rolled to her feet with her pistol levelled. But Elia could not fire through Zhen'var's body, wouldn't inflict that knowledge on her friend. She released her instead.

Arterus already had his pistol out, also aiming at the man. He had one hand on a tube across the front of Fera'xero's suit and another on a gun aimed right back at Arterus as he slowly moved closer to the console.

" Stop where you are." Zhen'var's voice was flat and cold, her pistol leveled as she slowly started to creep to open the angle between her line of fire and Arterus'.

"Reckon this man is in a suit for a reason," Jubal Early answered. "So you probably don't want it open on the bridge. Or anywhere. Reckon you don't want that pointy-eared fellow dead, either. Might take another of you using this man as a shield, too."

"I have faith in my sister."

"Is that so?" He snorted softly. "Where's your sister, Captain?"

Suddenly, the tenor of his eyes changed. Relaxed, unfocused. His mind bowed under an intensely precise telepathic assault which first removed motor control. The finger on the trigger moved away. The fingers on the tube relaxed.

Fera'xero delivered a tremendous kick downwards to Early's foot, slammed an elbow into his chest. He toppled away, the gun clattering to the desk, as the Quarian took cover.

But Early didn't rise. Instead, shaking with some kind of seizure, he rocked on the deck, as with measured footsteps, Elia advanced on his position. "Right. Fucking. Here." Elia marched off each word. "When it comes to Zhen'var. Right. Fucking. Here."

Reaching Early, she stared down with her dark eyes fixed. Inside of his mind, she lunged and plumbed. You. Will. Tell. Me. Everything. Legal niceties quite aside, they were thirty-five hundred lightyears from relief. Elia was going to know exactly what they were up against.

Zhen'var's omnitool interrupted the terrible quiet of the bridge. "Captain, this is Secondary Control," Will's voice spoke, "We have control. Are you able to respond? May I launch the assault force?"

"We have control of the bridge, but keep the conn, Commander. Launch the assault force, but be alert for anything. Do not let our guard down. Please call Security to the bridge, we have an enemy infiltrator to place in custody." She replied, before looking to the Quarian on the bridge. "Are you all right, Commander Fera'xero?"

"Quite well, Captain, though being the convenient hostage is getting a lot for me," Fera'xero answered with a laugh, a shaky laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

"Launching the assault force," Will's voice echoed back.

Then the situation began to get worse. Elia suddenly jerked. "Captain, countermand that order, please!"

" Recall assault force, prepare for ambush!" Barked sharply out of Zhen'var's mouth, her eyes going wide. Only one thing would make Elia say that so urgently.

" Unauthorised transmission," Tor'jar reported from the comms station… "Localised to the parasite hangar. Doors are closing… Interrupted."

What the hell is going on, Elia?!

"The New Resistance Ship. That's how he came onboard. He hacked all of their systems. He was going to kill everyone aboard, but a better opportunity presented itself. They thought he was from Serenity, the crew processed him through as one of the Browncoats. He murdered Spacer Michaels in the Security Detachment, that's how he got his arms," Elia spoke in bursts, tight, controlled, still inside of his mind, ripping it apart from top to bottom. "He programmed the ship's computers to send a burst transmission to the Alliance of Planets. It contains data on us and … On the Heermann running ahead under cloak."

Zhen'var didn't even pause as she dashed to her command chair. "White to Ray-Ban, emergency priority, your status and position are compromised by treachery! Secondary Control, the enemy has our measure!"

The bridge crackled open with the running report from Secondary Control. "Captain, we're detecting a Government squadron. They were hiding behind the wreck. Five Longbow -class patrol cruisers, six Trebuchet class cruisers, ten combat corvettes, two ECM ships. Sublight sensors heavily jammed and we're having trouble with the subspace sensors this close to the interference wave, too.. Captain, they're firing on Heermann, broad-band dispersal patterns, trying to find her with gunnery… Damn it,Captain, direct hit as she was decloaking! The Heermann 's shields aren't coming up, they knocked them out before they could be raised!" The Alliance's tactics had been brutally simple, extrapolating a straight line ahead of the Huáscar, with the Heermann running as beam-bait, and then opening fire on a predictor barrage pattern.

Huáscar had already commenced long-range fire, her heavy cannon chewing into one of the Longbow class cruisers as it appeared. The class was a purpose-built military version of the largest of the Reaver ships, which had been converted military transport versions of the same hull. It had almost twenty percent of its weight in mass as armour, unlike the Tohoku -class cruisers, but the Huáscar was concentrating full main battery power on her. Distance was too close for the Oculus -type ECM ships the Government navy had to prevent passive visual targeting with unerring accuracy.

Security arrived on the bridge, led by Janice Richards herself, who snapped a full hog-tie set of stuncuffs on Early; she scarcely needed to, as his mind was in no state to function by the time Elia had finished with him, now turning back to her Ops console.

"Launching full deck strike!"

The Heermann was firing, too. Damaged and lamed, Abebech's attacker came smartly about and fired into one of the Longbow class ships as she was launching her wing of Warhammer fighters and Foxbat general purpose interceptors. The torpedoes detonating in the opening bays from Mehmet's well-placed shots triggered a rippling chain reaction down the flank of the ship which sent her tumbling into a corvette which the Heermann promptly finished with forward cannon fire.

"Captain, Secondary Control." Will's voice came through firmly, recovered from the initial shock of the situation. "We are holding position to complete launch of the strike. Seventy-two fighters, thirty-six bombers, twelve war-fit runabouts. Are you prepared to reassume control? I advise proceeding to Heermann 's support with our fully formed wing."

"We are. Captain has the conn. Helm, move us to support Heermann at best possible speed. We have our enemy, cover our attacker!"

"Captain, the Heermann 's been hit hard," Fera'xero reported from his science console. "Readings consistent with Naqia reactors being scrammed."

The Huáscar began to surge forward as the wing continued to launch. Zhen'var had elected to go straight in, and Lar'shan simply shrugged and set about modifying his attack. He understood why Zhen'var wanted to get in close at the expense of taking the time form up the wing. And the Heermann didn't have much time…


"We've got battery power for a few shots, that's it, Captain," Abel Veeringen's voice echoed across the smoky darkness of the red emergency lighting on the Heermann 's bridge. He was down in main engineering, keeping the situation under control, as best as he could.

"Not enough thruster power to come to a stop before we hit the wreck, Captain," Goodenough added grimly. The ship violently shuddered under them as another group of heavy autocannon took aim along the length of her self-healing armour.

"Helm, bring us about! Four-one-five mark six. Thrusters only." The thrusters were exotic hypergolics that self ignited, they didn't need power for them. Abebech's voice cut the smoke as calm and cool as a computer even under those circumstances, perhaps only the slightest of inflection as she gave her orders to indicate the direness of the situation. "Weapons, target that cruiser we're bearing on and give them everything."

The young helmswoman tapped at her controls. "Four-one-five mark six, thrusters only…" Ca'elia was proud her voice didn't shake as she shifted their attitude in the face of almost certain death.

"Firing." Lt. Mehmet was steady on his controls as bursts of firepower raked the armour of one of the enemy cruisers and four, then six torpedoes followed them home. A Longbow was a long, narrow ship, never designed to face this kind of firepower, even though it had real armour. The main cannon tore massive chunks from the armour in scoring lengths of blackness down her hull, and then the torpedoes plunged into them and erupted in brilliant flashes of white. The savage glee of watching the ship break up into two pieces was met by a quiet smile from Abebech.

Then the world seemed to explode again around them, the ship tumbling and shaking as sparks leapt from the controls. Even the emergency batteries failed, leaving only the compressed air lines allowing Ca'elia to manually turn thrusters on and off.

"That was the Warp Drive, Captain!" Abel's voice called. "Twenty seconds to impact with the wreck."

"Steady lads, steady," Abebech answered, and finished reconfiguring her omnitool to power the visual sensors. They flickered to life on Ca'elia's console showing the looming hull as more autocannon rounds stitched their armour. It would only last a minute before draining, but they only needed a minute.

"Helm, see that bay door at nine o'clock high, port? Use thrusters to redirect us for it."

"I intend to attempt to survive the landing, ma'am." Ca'elia replied, grim but with a hint of a death's head smile, as she started to use her thrusters to their fullest extent.

"Don't worry, just do it-Sound collision!"

Goodenough found an emergency alarm control that still worked and the sharp blasts on the klaxon rent the fading air of the battered attacker.

Abebech smiled to him and let Ca'elia do her job. "Goodenough, how handy are you with a cutlass?"

"A cutlass? Well enough to do the job, I expect."

"Pistols?"

"Perfectly good shot, ma'am."

"Quite good then." There was something sharp and predatory in her eyes as she watched the bay doors loom. As they did, a brilliant, dangerous smile began to spread to Goodenough's face, too.

Boarding is getting a bit ahead of ourselves when I still need to let us survive the landing… Ca'elia thought, as her eyes stayed locked on the fading sensor display, hands moving across her console to leverage every possible bit of impulse from the thrusters.

Then there was a dull, sharp crumple as they slammed into the bay doors and carried through them. Somehow, Abebech had known, sensed, or guessed, that it wasn't a primary armour door but an internal vacuum-excluding door, thin and light. The Heermann stayed intact through the door, and the rending of metal served to cancel their momentum.

Abebech smiled. "Good work, Leftenant. Take us down."

"Taking us down, Captain… save a pistol for me, ma'am." With more space, she was more confident, as she slowly brought Heermann to a stop, with screeching metal.

"All hands, this is the Captain speaking," Abebech called, using Goodenough's omnitool on his kindly extended arm. "We claimed three of the enemy despite being surprised and ambushed, good show, Heermann. Our current situation in this-we have landed in one of the primary hangar bays of the unidentified wreck. We have guns and arms. As always, following the first principle of our ship, we have one objective: To find the enemy, if present, and take the battle to him. Viva Huáscar ! All crew except engaged medical personnel and wounded are to assemble at airlocks one through four in three minutes. Doctor Foru, you are to report as well, and give me a report on all wounded at that time. That is all."

She looked up, and smiled to her tiny bridge crew again. "What was it Nelson said at Cape St. Vincent, Goodenough?"

"Westminster Abbey or Glorious Victory, Captain."

"...Very good then." She chuckled and walked to her sea cabin, forcing the doors. "Get all the emergency packs, get your suits, we have no idea how long we're going to be here or what condition the wreck is. And take up arms!"


As part of the order to launch the landing force, the Serenity had been underway out of the parasite bay when the order was countermanded and the doors began to close. Seized by the state of emergency, River had jammed the throttles wide open for a full power burn, sending them blowing out of the bay before the doors closed. They had caught the transmission from the New Resistance ship moments later.

Shaking his head, Mal could guess exactly what had gone down. Jayne, you idiot ! But he didn't say it out loud. He had Jayne on his ship again, and he needed him, right here, and right now. River proved just as adept at piloting the Serenity as Wash had been; she quickly pulled them around and clear of the area the fighters were mustering in to avoid collision.

From their position outside of the main fighting, they watched with increasing grimness the struggle of the Heermann and the Huáscar standing into danger with her wing accelerating up and around her from behind, weapons streaking and flashing across the void with energies greater than any he cared to think about.

"The Heermann 's going down on the wreck," River said, and then added, dimly. "Abebech could use our help."

"Goin' down, they …" Mal stopped, paused, fully digested what River had just said. Oh, yeah, he didn't want to feel helpless anymore. He also hadn't ever seen a concentration of Government warships like this, except at the Universe battle. But the Huáscar was already tearing into them.

"You're sayin' we should head for that wreck ourselves?"

River paused, like she was still digesting what, exactly, she was saying. Then she nodded. "Yes."

"Commander Imra's been good to us. All right. We'll see if we can get them off. River, if we can make an approach from the front of that ship, it's pretty chewed up. The Feds masked themselves behind that leviathan, we can too."

"On it. " Manoeuvring thrusters worked, and again, Serenity 's main drives burned, worked by hands that were still wearing the gloves that Elia had given her.


"Captain, we've lost the Heermann, " Elia said very, very quietly on a hushed, taut and grim bridge. The Huáscar was undamaged and standing into action against a force it had already sloshed around, brutally. That still left them feeling no pride or confidence, and the loss of Abebech's ship was the reason why. "She impacted with the surface of the wreck."

"Commander, I do not think one as lucky or skilled as Imra is gone yet. We would have picked up emergency beacons from even a partial abandonment if she thought the loss of her ship upon her. Colonel, prepare your assault teams." Zhen'var was clenching her hands hard enough to score the stone on the armrests of her chair.

Elia sniffled softly and clenched her teeth. You will be strong. Abebech may not yet be gone. "Yes Captain."

"Confirmed," Fei'nur echoed on the intercom.

Huáscar was standing off, pummeling the enemy, with her group now formed up, overtaking her and going in.

"I want a sensor probe launched after Heermann's ballistic trajectory, Ops, to guide Colonel Fei'nur. Keep us on the attack."

"Understood, Ma'am. The enemy fighters and bombers are forming to attack us. They number at least four hundred," Elia answered. "Unlike the ships, they have the turn to force battle."

But the ships were already suffering. Huáscar 's main batteries had held the range open, beyond the effective ability of the enemy to reply, for more than five minutes now. They had disabled or destroyed five enemy vessels, about one a minute, in that time. The only risk was running out of torpedoes. It was obvious that the enemy had realised what was happening and was taking active measures to try and embroil the Huáscar with their fighters , otherwise it might take some time and be logistically inconvenient, but they would be destroyed.

Or so it had seemed. Fera'xero raised the alert first. "Captain, our sensor readings are resolving a major wave-front of energy emissions from the Alliance fleet. Hypothesis: Long-range missile salvo. They have localised us with sublight sensors sufficiently well to rely on seeker-heads for final approach; Heermann was also jamming their sensors. Time to our position: Twenty-seven seconds!"

"Alert the wing, Tactical, Helm, Ops, you heard him!"

"Withdraw to increase time for interception, Captain?" Implicitly in Elia's confirming question was the concern about how long it would take to ultimately close the distance and find out about the Heermann. Violeta laid in one local evasive and one distant. "Major Lar'shan confirms his fighters are intercepting."

"Torpedoes and tertiary cannon reserved for anti-missile use… Resolving intercept trajectories," Daria was working the mathematics-at sublight, actually relatively straightforward-and torpedo-on-missile intercepts. Of course, depending on how dense of a pack it was that might be very useful or pointless.

"Ten sub-waves of approximately three hundred and sixty missiles each, Captain," Fera'xero updated as the sensor picture resolved. The dots of the missiles now populated the tactical display, showing velocity, acceleration, and position relative to the strike-wing.

Zhen'var grimaced sharply . "... Increase the range." Her voice was soft, as she took the decision to prioritize Huáscar over Heermann's crew.

"Coming about four-four-one mark one!" Violeta called out as the Huáscar spun to show her tail. "Engineering, utmost power to the impulsors."

"Utmost power," Anna's voice answered with a steely calmness. Violeta watched as the drives peaked through their rating thrust and then increased it by almost half again, hitting 145% of design thrust. The ship's impulsors began to scream in a way that could be heard through the deckplates, a shivering vibration straight up into their acceleration couches.

"Captain," Anna's voice came to Zhen'var next, "We have overloaded the engines by more than forty percent. They are holding."

Daria held fire with torpedoes. The fighters engaged.


Artesia de Más-a woman variously known as Artesia som Deikun and Sayla Mas in previous identities-held the controls of her Mongoose tightly. Her first engagement in the fighter was going to be against something that a normal telepath could not sense: Missiles. Despite that, she could in a dim way sense the pinpricks of electric fields rapidly closing. They provided a peripheral awareness as her HUD focused in on them.

The Mongoose was, truth be told, not a fighter she was completely pleased with. The integral photon torpedo launcher wasted weight and increased volume. The wing hardpoints were what really mattered for carrying small missiles. The bombers continued to close with the enemy under Lar'shan's plan.

Now she selected her missiles. Interlocking lobes on the sensor dish converged twenty-four targets at once, and she didn't remotely have the missiles for all of them. Six hardpoints had been considered adequate. They aimed for the heart of the waves, the missiles resolving themselves into clusters based on launching.

"Aim for the gaps between the clusters with your fighters after counter-missile launch, then match vee and engage with guns!" Lar'shan was used to his universe's schema, using fighters to support anti-missile ops; Zhen'var was treating it as a matter of course.

"Independent action," Artesia directed to Wildcat Four, her wingman. Close formation on missile intercept duties just risked accidents.

She then flipped the switch inboard on her console and watched the final target resolution. As it completed, a sharp pulse of the thrusters swung her fighter about to face behind it-toward the enemy fleet-as she killed main engine power. "Wildcat Three, good tone, taking shot." The trigger salvoed the missiles in unison.

The moment they were gone, she followed Lar'shan in with thrusters burning and course shifting, as the missiles spread out, their group of four fighters one of countless many of the seventy-two the Huáscar had launched. Around them, the micro-torpedoes fired by the runabouts began to detonate, tearing holes in the cloud of missiles.

Again, she brought her nose around, now because she was in the midst of the missiles, and using her cannon, tore through a brace of them. A flash of her senses, disembodied in space, warned her of the approach of one of the heavy anti-ship missiles toward her course, and the fighter skewed hard to right and she fell in behind it, claiming a third with guns.

Distantly on sensors, the Huáscar could be seen putting distance between herself and the salvo. Twenty-seven seconds had turned into more than a minute as her drives flared to maximum power and, from the enormous radiation spike, far beyond. It was a battle of blips which felt bloodless.

Still, it piqued her memory of combat. " Form on my right !" Lar'shan's voice echoed, meant for his wing. She slid to the left until the indicator lights of friendlies were glowing in position. "All runabouts, this is WC50 Actual, head for home. Fighters on me, full thrust."

He led them in to overtake the bombers before they were set upon by the enemy's wings, now burning out to pursue the Huáscar. Artesia closed up in a classic 'fingers four', eyes scanning brightly ahead. "Wildcat three, this is Wildcat four. Forming on you."

She confirmed her wingman was in position. "WC50 we are in formation."

"Roger that." Artesia's quick look at her sensors suggested they were outnumbered by about five to one and going to be in the thick of it in one minute. Business As Usual.


"Lead wave at point blank range," Elia didn't look up from her console, not at this point.

Daria's finger firmly depressed the activation button on the automatic anti-missile systems. They worked too fast for sapient involvement beyond that point. Tracking and allocation between the dozens of light anti-missile pulse cannon that the Huáscar had meant that space simply came alive with fire as they allocated their fires by computer against a metric of greatest threats and targets with the highest kill probability.

The missile waves were tightly spaced, and the Huáscar' s batteries pivoted and tracked, aiming at points of space where the missiles would not be then, but instead the microsecond beyond required for the energy to cross the distance to its target. Everything was a prediction.

Space rippled with blossoms, and the energy was mostly delivered by the Huáscar 's cannon, not the detonations. Her drives straining under their feet, now the missiles began to hit the shields. A rippling sound like rain on the hood of a car was all they felt or heard as the shields were impacted.

"Ten to one ratio of octo-derived chemical bursting charges in rocket-driven armour-piercing warheads and NuDets," Fera'xero reported. "Only one-tonne shaped bursting charges on the former, but the rocket fired penetrator can slip through the shields at missile body disintegration and impact the hull with considerable kinetic energy.."

"Not going to be enough for them to compromise us unless we're knocked down to tertiaries," Elia answered. Huáscar caught a nuke, but her shields shrugged it off. "Captain, may we come about?"

"Please, with alacrity." The Huascar 's captain barely showed the strain and worry she was feeling at the fate of her attacker, but she was showing it.

Violeta worked the helm. The engines thrummed in the deckplates. The order for utmost power had not been countermanded and with the impulsors roaring in the hull, the Huáscar 's powerful gravimetric impellers and thrust vanes redirected momentum and thrust with a flaring of waste heat from the drives, glowing cherry-red as she completed the turn. " Zero-zero !"

From the moment she called out the conclusion of the violent turn, the Huáscar 's impulsors were driving her back at the hulk with growing and redoubling speed.

"Major Lar'shan is engaging the enemy wings," Elia shook her head, wondering what the tremendous engine noises she'd never heard before truly meant, as ops she had a better view than most, and the power had skyrocketed in the impulsors to almost 150% with the warp drive down and cold, but the details of the systems with their design load well exceeded and what was being done to them in that moment was in the hands of Anna and her engineering team alone. "They allowed the bombers to pass through to focus on carrying home their own attack, so the Kestrels are making their runs, Captain. They are also adjusting course to intercept us on our new heading."

"Give them something to think about aside from lining up on perfect attack vectors, Tactical." Zhen'var replied, eyes flicking across the displays she could see.

Daria took the pulse cannon Mk.1 and Mk.2, the large anti-ship mounts, and quickly reconfigured the normal firing pattern. Instead of pulsing at a single target, she had them jerk around while firing a burst, to create a pattern barrage. "Elia, tell Lar'shan to target the outside wings, we'll take the inside!"

"Confirm," Elia answered and brought up Stasia. "Block off fighter operations against the inboard enemy wings relative the wreck, Airboss."

"Confirm, Ops. Concentrating fighter operations outboard." Stasia hastily began ordering squadrons to shift position to concentrate their effort against part of the attack force while the Huáscar concentrated on the other part. When she was satisfied she'd deconflicted, she activated the comm again.

"Ops, PriFly Actual. You are clear to fire."

"Tactical, you are fire-free inboard! Confirm deconflicted trajectories and open fire at your discretion!"

Daria blinked tracer-lines across her tactical plot showing the firing arcs of her predictor barrages against the operational area designated to Lar'shan's wing. She pointed, exactly like they'd trained. "Trajectories confirmed deconflicted! Opening fire."

Come on, come on, Imra is likely in trouble… Zhen'var could only mentally curse at the enemy for being so utterly uncooperative.

Huge shafts of energy rent the night as the main batteries and secondary batteries fired on the enemy. They had little chance of hitting fighters, but the predictor dispersed patterns corrected that. It forced the enemy to keep moving, jinking, dodging. It bought them time. Time Abebech Imra might not have.


"Weapons check?" Abebech Imra stalked down the line of the Heermann 's crew of seventy-eight effectives from a crew of ninety-two, verifying their armament and readiness, assembled in spacesuits outside of the ship. "Very good."

"All in order, Captain?" Goodenough asked, fingering a pistol.

"Yes, all in order. Go ahead and secure the airlock."

"Aye. Come on, First Platoon!" With one squad of security personnel or marines in each 'platoon', Goodenough lead them across the ruins and age of the hangar bay. The shattered remains of fighters, the collapsed girder trusses. Stil, it was only a hundred meters.

There at the bay personnel doors, he drew up short. There was a symbol etched into the metal above it. The swords were crossed upright over the top, the laurels of victory completing a rough diamond from the bottom. A crown occupied the space between the two sword tips, and inside of the diamond shape were four interlocking circles in black and white; the bottom had a Germanic eagle, the two to the sides showed the two hemispheres of Earth, and the top one that surmounted them showed the Eye of the Illuminati. A banner twirled around the laurels of victory, declaring Mes Werke, damiu que mon Leutle ne soit esklaven sind. The language, he knew not, but that it was human and European, there was no doubt. God…

A minute later, leading the second platoon, Abebech came up with Ca'elia at her side. "Commander, is it locking you out?"

"No, Captain, I … Was trying to figure out where this ship was from, Ma'am. It's clearly the original."

Abebech looked up, and smiled wryly. "Well, there's no time for that now, Commander, but that's simple. This seal means it's a battleship of the Earthreign."

"Merciful God," Goodenough muttered. "You must feel like you've just cracked open Pharaoh's tomb, Captain. What does the motto mean?"

"Oh, it's Old New Fraconian," she laughed. "' My work, all so that my people shall never again be slaves. '"

"Doesn't sound much like what I've heard of the Earthreign," he replied, following her as she had started padding toward the airlock.

"The histories are written by the Normals, Commander. The Earthreign meant something different for Espers. Haiti was a massacre or a liberation depending on who you ask back home, was it not?" That question made the point succinctly, in a conversation between an African and a self-identified mulatto.

After the exchange, Abebech pushed up to the airlock. The outer door opened. She stepped in. "Atmosphere beyond," her words crackled over the short-range intercoms, the squad of Marines insisting on following her in before it cycled, lest she be cut off. Quickly, the rest of the boarding party followed, removing their suits and stacking them in the dust-covered lockers beyond. The ship had partial lighting.

"Three thousand years and the lights still work? Djinn like as not," Abdulmajid shook his head.

"Nuclear emergency batteries," Abebech explained, "though… We might also consider…"

"That the Alliance has restored some power," Commander Goodenough finished grimly.

Lieutenant Ca'elia's eyes were wide as she looked around. "More like as not, I'd say by the ambush. I think I'm the quietest scout we have, Captain, Commander. Just like prepping a tac op back on New Eden."

"Leftenant, you understand the risk?" Abebech looked sharply to her.

"There is nothing certain in one's life other than that you'll lose it, ma'am, but I'm the best one for it, and I'm volunteering." The young Dilgar shifted with her rifle slung over a shoulder.

Abebech looked at the young Dilgar officer for a long moment, and then nodded. "All right. So the enemy doesn't know we're moving, see that two character symbol like so on the airlock? Duplicate it as your mark for your trail. They should think it's a regular shipboard marking. But it's only on airlocks."

Narrowing her eyes, Ca'elia nodded. "Understood. Anything else, Captain Imra?" Not eager, but determined, the helmswoman was shedding her pack and all non-essential equipment for this. "Objectives?"

"Find the bridge. It will be called the Passrelle. If the design is anything like that of the custom of follow-on ships from successor states, it will be buried into the keel," Abebech explained. "Scout the enemy position as much as you can and determine their numbers and strength. We will begin advancing to contact."

"Understood, Captain." Ca'elia saluted properly, and began to move off rapidly, determined and sure, even if the idea of finding the bridge in a 3-km long ship was utterly daunting. She loaded the nearest derivative of New Franconian her Omnitool had, knowing it would not be completely the same but would assist with visual recognition of what she was looking for.

"She's a bloody brave one," Goodenough shook his head. "Was it right to send her off alone?"

"She is the only woman we have trained for it. Sending someone untrained with her would be worse than sending her alone," Abebech replied. "All right, platoons. Forward!" Keeping her rifle cross-chest, barrel-down in a commando carry, she advanced in the front herself. From the stories that the crew had been circulating in the past few days, nobody thought to suggest that she take a safer position.


The Huáscar 's fighter wing was swirled into action, pitting seventy-two Mongeese against almost four hundred Warhammer-type fighters and nearly a hundred Foxbat-type bombers that they were escorting in to attack the Huáscar herself.

WC50 had an enormous acceleration advantage over the enemy, as great as the one Lar'shan had possessed over Char's forces or the forces of Zeon at A Bao a Qu. The problem for their enemies was that the Government forces didn't have any pilots to compare to the Red Comet. Or even the Crimson Lightning.

Artesia, flying the second element in Lar'shan's lead flight, watched the vast arrays of enemy fighters, burning hard for the Huáscar. At full thrust, they had the smallest chance to overtake the Huáscar if she did nothing but run; but their hour of running was over. The Huáscar was standing back into action. It was time to win.

They had already exhausted their light missiles engaging the enemy anti-ship missiles. That meant they had torpedoes and guns only. They were outnumbered five to one.

"All squadrons," the Dilgar Major's voice cut sharply. "Stand by for full power acceleration on my mark. We are concentrating against their left. Huáscar takes the right. Go after the bombers, we want the bombers first!"

"Donkey, on my mark!" Tactical plots flashed through the link, and Artesia acknowledged and swung in behind WC50 Lead. They never got flattering callsigns, her's included. Suddenly the acceleration force of the Mongoose pushed her back into her acceleration couch.

They surged ahead, transiting the battle and de-acclerating, before Lar'shan's voice gave them a sharp "break right!" and Artesia surged her engines until black spots appeared at the edges of her vision again. The flock of fighters banked back to the right, toward the Huáscar 's fire, but cut out at the last moment as an ambush of fighters formed up to block their run on the Foxbats.

Their sharp de-acceleration this time wasn't followed by a new order. It put them directly behind a group of the Warhammers that was still adjusting to them. The fighters of the Government could barely match the acceleration of one of the ASN's capital ships. "Select your targets and engage!"

"Acknowledged, Camel," Artesia answered dryly. "Greenthumb on me," she called to her wingman and sighted the first of the fighters. She flicked the lever outboard and opened fire, a stream of energy pulses tearing through the first target. Bucking left and outside she pivoted her nose past the spray of debris and fired again. Another of the Warhammers exploded.

To her upper left she saw Lar'shan's Mongoose scream past her. Four Warhammers were left exploding in its wake. A tell-tale feeling of warning kept her nose tracking to the rear even as momentum carried her forward. She saw a group of four Warhammers bearing down on Lar'shan from behind and selected her torpedo launcher. The brilliant energy of the torpedo in flight spun away from her fighter under power. Activating the selector, she chose remote detonation and watched the anti-ship weapon annihilate the tight enemy formation.

That feels like cheating to become an ace so easily, but then, it was no different than what Char had known against the Federal forces. That roiled her stomach as she pivoted her nose back ahead and selected the throttle levers, the fighter surging ahead to catch up with Lar'shan again.

"Sharp shooting, Donkey. We've taken down a squadron ourselves," came his encouraging voice. "Now let's go for these Foxbats!" They had blasted open their own approach route, and the plots flashed from Lar'shan's computers to her own. The Huáscar, an immeasurably distant object, was still visible beyond by the continuous flashes of long-range fire against the other half of the formation.

She angled for a group of the bombers and selected her guns again. A brief pang of longing for something like a Mobile Armour surged in her heart, but the Mongoose was what she'd been issued and she'd make it do. Grabbing the control levers, she used thrust manoeuvring to drop herself in an abrupt lunge behind one flight of bombers. "Camel, I am going in with guns."


The stale air of the shattered remains of the ship had soon shown evidence of someone else having been here since her demise. There were the bulkhead doors which had been opened with hydraulic overrides, sometimes footprints in the dust on the floors. Abebech tread lightly, like she were walking in a tomb.

From her historical perspective on the Earthreign, Goodenough rather fancied she might be thinking exactly that. This had been the crew of a ship whose culture she had started her life studying, apparently. A people now erased from the multiverse by their own hubris and the mysterious formation of the Fracture.

They didn't have any of the fancy drones that a proper ground force would to scout ahead. It was just eyeballs. As time went on, Abebech's insistence on staying quiet and moving quickly were exhausting a crew that after all were the bedraggled survivors of a crashing ship, not an elite invasion force. The initial surge of adrenaline at the prospect of carrying on the fight had faded away.

It was then, at the slump in their energy, wanting to stop and eat, that they heard noises ahead. Abebech raised her left hand. The rest of the group, their two crude scratch platoons, ground to a halt. "Commander," Abebech's eyes never wavered from looking ahead. "Turn out the troops, quietly, to the flanking corridors."

With that, she started to walk forward again. Goodenough closed his eyes for a moment. Her voice suggested that she did not expect to return. What the hell are you gaming at now Commander?" But he activated his omnitool at a whisper. "Squads Epsilon and Gamma, turn out to the left. Eta and Delta, right flanking corridors. Use any debris you can to dig in."

Abebech had advanced out of sight, and for a moment Goodenough felt an intense wave of melancholy. He liked the woman, liked his Captain, and didn't want her alone. They settled down, assumed their positions, and waited. When the gunshots started, they never had the chance to advance.

The Alliance troopers mustering were suddenly introduced to a hurled grenade. It detonated in their midst as rapid-fire from a pulse rifle split the air. The grenade shook the corridor, and six of them fail. Another four fell to the gun as Abebech turned the corner.

Another group of troopers advancing on her down the corridor froze in place-no less than eight at once as an inexorable power locked down their muscles. "What are you doing defiling one of the ships of the Terran Reich?" Her voice echoed down the corridor distantly, laced with bitter power.

A third group turned a corner and were swept by her gun. Her accuracy was inerring and the second group of frozen soldiers did not, could not take advantage of any distraction in her. Twelve soldiers laying dying ahead, ten behind, eight frozen like statues as she lankily, lazily walked past them.

Then an entire different kind of threat flung herself around the same corner, with a gun barking. She kicked off one of the walls and lunged for Abebech, going for her sword. Abebech tracked with her own carbine and fired, and fired.

Stunned by the resistance, the woman in the straight, black wig flung herself to the deckplates against the thin cover of an open access hatch into wiring in the bulkhead. For a moment, there was a standoff between the two, pistol and rifle, telepath…

...And telepath.

"I see River has found some new friends," the woman-child remarked, staring at Abebech in almost wonder. "And what friends they are."

"Your name is Kalista, and you are the new generation of Parliamentary Operative," Abebech answered matter-of-factly.

Get out of my head, Kalista answered.

Get out of my ship, Abebech countered.

The crew of this ship is our foremothers; and they have been dead three thousand years, Kalista answered, pitting her strength against Abebech. She found the contest shockingly inequal. For a moment, the female Operative faced defeat.

Then she did something ruthless enough that Abebech seemed to be unprepared for it. Kalista knew, in a heartbeat of realisation, that she was outmatched. Immensely outmatched. Only savagery would turn the tables on the power pressing against her mind, and it had to be fast; within microseconds. That left one option. She shot her own troops that Abebech was in the minds of, controlling, freezing. The headshots were fatal, and as Abebech felt the open-shut nature of The Door taking souls, she froze in a strange state of horror… And ecstasy.

Kalista took advantage of the distraction, and lunged forward in a single, all-or-nothing effort, and plunged her sword deep into Abebech's chest. Dark red blood gently drizzled from the wound, strangely oozing like ichor, and Abebech whispered as she toppled back against the wall. "You're good." A smile was locked in a rictus on her face.

"Thank you. Why didn't you expect that?" The blade was straight through the woman's heart, she'd be dead in a moment, still Kalista was intensely curious about this outlander Telepath and the strange ship she had come in on.

"I try to think better of people than that," Abebech replied, oddly composed, and slumped against the wall.