FROM: 2nd Lt

FROM: 2nd Lt. Lance Casey, TCS Cerberus

TO: 2nd Lt. Maxwell Garret, Classified

Re:

Maestro,

It's great to hear from ya, man. We were guessing where you'd been shipped off to a couple nights ago. There's nothing better to do, really, they haven't furnished the lounge in this tub yet. Stiletto and Spyder had a bet going for a rather large sum of money that that you got assigned another black ops deal. She promptly declared herself the winner when we couldn't even know what ship you're on. He put up quite a fight, but this is Stiletto we're talking about. Didn't last long, once she threatened him with death.

Zero's been digging through his father's old research, trying to find anything else in Kilrathi history about the bugs. He's found a document or two about other Kilrathi scriptures that have to do with it, but nothing we haven't heard yet. We get copies of the reports that Commander Finley and Chief Coriolis file about their research into them, I gave them the forward we use to reach you, they said they didn't have it. You should find it interesting.

The Captain hasn't gotten any new orders yet. No threat of more bug invasions, no nothing. Hear anything from your corner of the universe?

Senator Taggart mentioned in his last letter to me that now probably isn't the best time to talk with you, so hearing from you was a pleasant surprise. Anything you want to talk about?

---Casey

---

Setting the pad down, Maestro chuckled at the thought of Stiletto facing down the much larger Spyder. Senator Taggart should have been right about his mood, but the fact was that he couldn't think of anything else to do, and friends, no matter how insane the problem, would always provide a good ear. Assuming he even wanted to tell anyone about his father, that is.

Checking the time, Maestro pulled on his flight suit and headed off. The Behemoth was approaching Kilrah, where Confederate scientists had moved the alien Stellar Accretion device. Large contingents of Confed forces were there by now, blockading the location in case any aliens came through from the target location. The location was simply chosen because the Kilrah system itself didn't have a large population anymore, most Kilrathi that were still there had been killed by the aliens and no one was in a hurry to resettle.

Captain Rollins was standing at the podium in the briefing room. Maestro had been the last to arrive. Manic and Jaeger seemed passive enough for the moment.

"Well pilots, now we can get down to business. Since you'll all be having the same missions you won't need to worry about details on your ICIS, I'll be giving it all to you."

The main screen switched from the spinning Confederation icon to a nav map, showing the Behemoth, Kilrah Prime, and the alien Stellar-Accretion device. "Intel is setting up the alien device to start the wormhole up from our own power source that we can shut off any time. It's nothing small, mind you; the thing has to open big enough for us to get through, after all. Despite the large-scale implications of this operation, it's really quite simple. We go in, fire the Behemoth at this planet, and get the hell out."

The screen showed an old war-era style animation of the Behemoth approaching a planet and destroying it, the crude sphere wire frame shattering into tiny triangles upon the blast's impact.

"Now, according to the computers on their wormhole generator, the aliens are staging a conventional assault against us from the far side of Confed space. If all goes well, the shockwave from our shot at the planet will take out their entire fleet and set them back quite a bit. Your job is to provide a more surgical cover for us. If things get hot, pull back to the ship and we'll return the favor with our anti-fighter defenses. Dismissed."

Rollins stepped down and left the briefing room, leaving the pilots to stand and head for the flight deck. A wing of Panthers had been prepped for launch, and no one wasted time getting into the cockpit.

"Does anyone else think," Jeager commed, once they were in flight alongside Behemoth, "that this is a little… pointless?"

"That three pilots are flying escort for flying Death? Yeah, kinda," Maestro answered, "but that's assuming everything goes as planned. What if a series of this thing's turrets fail? What if there's an out-of-the-way target out of her gun range?"

"Ahhh, face it kid," Maniac added, "we're Gophers. Go fer this, go fer that, not the first time, won't be the last. Just make sure ya let the Maniac chew up the really good targets."

"Same old Maniac," Captain Rollins suddenly chimed in from the bridge of the Behemoth, rolling his eyes. Maestro and Jeager found it quite funny.

"Tch, same old Radio Head," Maniac rebutted.

Rollins came back on, waving his fingers in mock-offense. "Oooooooo harsh!"

---

On the far side of Sol Sector, a lush, green planet sat. Fighters made with black and green organic hulls flew in formation, and an installation hung in orbit. They weren't expecting a sudden energy surge to show up on scanners a slight distance away, with coordinates still in visual range. They didn't expect six towers made of the same technology to push out through a tiny hole and pull apart, making the gate large beyond anything they would normally deem necessary.

They didn't expect Death itself to pour forth, obscuring the stars in a veil of Confederation blues and grays.

But every single member of Behemoth's crew, from the three pilots to the enlisted man paying attention on a monitor, found something they expected less then the enemy had anticipated their arrival.

"Uhhhhh," Maestro broke the silence. "Is it me, or is there… no fleet here?"

"It's not just you," Rollins exclaimed, Behemoth's bridge clearly frantic. "Give us a minute, we're sending a message to Confed back through the gate."

Indeed, the planet was nothing like it should have been. A comm. relay station sat in orbit, but the only warships were a mass of fighters.

But no fleet. Not a single alien capital ship.

"Hey, heads up sleepyheads," Maniac intoned, "we've got incoming!"

A slew of alien fighters and bombers were swarming toward the Confederation ships from all sides. Even in Behemoth's face, the bugs were not deterred, not intimidated, and not afraid.

"Maniac, take your wing and kill the bombers on our starboard side, our defenses will handle their escort fighters as soon as they're in range."

Glancing to his right, Maniac suddenly understood why the bombers needed to be killed quickly; they were close. Despite Behemoth's defenses and size, skilled bomber pilots could evade gunfire long enough to launch their payloads and cause significant damage. Even a planet killer could be damaged.

"Crap, kill 'em all, guys!"

Jeager was the first to hit something, shooting down a torpedo the closest bomber managed to fire. He blasted at the Manta that fired it with his Ion guns before destroying it with an Artemis IR missile. "Hah, see how a Kilrathi fights, insects!"

"And the Maniac scores," that same pilot shouted as he sent a Manta tumbling into one of it's Moray escorts, destroying them both.

Maestro couldn't help but laugh as his own missile trailed a bomber trying to flail around Behemoth's topside, only to take the hit and explode. "Haven't you woken up yet, Maniac?"

"Kid, when I wake up, the little red dots on your scanner'll vanish so fast you won't even be able to lock a target."

"Now Maniac," Maestro answered, pumping his full guns into another Manta, "didn't they teach you in school that drugs bad? Especially when flying, I mean, those dots may be different colors altogether!"

Jeager sighed; obviously faking the sound, ensuring it was loud enough for all to hear. "Children."

With that, the feline destroyed the last Manta bomber that had born down on the Behemoth. The ship itself had torn the Moray escorts to ribbons; the last of them had exploded just as the bomber had gone down.

"Behemoth to HQ," Rollins broadcasted, "we're picking up a communications broadcast from the alien relay station, we're trying to figure out where they're sending, maybe we can find this fleet after… what the hell, it's broadcasting toward us!"

"That is a negative, Behemoth," the faceless burst transmission came back. "It's coming toward us! They're transmitting security override codes through the gate and into the control center, it's starting to close and we can't stop it! Reverse course and return at once!"

But the portal was already closing. Rollins blinked into his comm. window, clearly seeing the order an impossible one to follow. "HQ, I hate to tell you this, but the wormhole is already smaller then we are!"

"…very well, Behemoth, stand by," this time, the transmission was riddled with static. The gate's closure was starting to interfere with the transmissions. "We're send--- - --ta packe- -ith the alien star chart-, --u can find your --- --ck t- Confed spa--. Your orders are also…"

But the gate closed, the feedback destroying the generator towers and producing a shockwave that sent the fighters tumbling around. It even seemed like Behemoth itself shuddered under the aftereffect of the gate's forced closure.

"Well now I know what they mean when they say Military Intelligence is an oxymoron," Maestro stated.

"You know, we're part of that at the moment," Maniac reminded him.

"I think that was his point," Jeager laughed.

"Well then," Maniac said, realizing he'd been zinged, "hey Behemoth, think we can landing clearance?"

"Not a chance Major," Rollins answered, surprising the three pilots. "I'd advise you to stand clear, we're about ten seconds away from turning that relay station into dust with a three percent blast from the cannon."

"Three percent? Are you sure that'll," Maestro didn't finish his sentence, as the Behemoth fired while he was talking. The low amount of power provided almost no recoil to the massive ship, but the red beam of energy it shot out was nothing to laugh at. To the human eye, the shot was as large as a full on blast would have been, but it was much weaker.

Seconds before the comm. station could transmit news of the Confederation insurgency, the red light struck it and blew the alien construct out of existence, sending debris into the planet's atmosphere.

"That was three percent power," Jeager roared, shocked at actually seeing the weapon, the beam's incredible range and the mere fraction of its possible destructive force totaling an installation in a nanosecond. For what it worth, the beam fizzled out when it reached the planet, not strong enough to effect it in any way.

"Okay, now you have landing clearance. It'll take us a few minutes to sort out our sensor data and plot a course anyway."

---

"Our first mission out and we're stranded in some weird bug sector, dozens of systems away from home," Maestro lamented, logging off of the pilot records. He briefly tossed his hands up and with a total lack of audible sarcasm, shouted "terrific!"

"It ain't so bad kid," Maniac responded. "Like anything is gonna put up a fight against this thing?"

"Worry is not in your vocabulary, is it Maniac?"

"Hah," he answered the Kilrathi, a sudden fatigue evident in his voice, "when you worry, you're not flyin."

Jeager's gaze followed Maniac to the Decontam Chute. "Is it me or does he seem a bit… on edge?"

"He took it hard when Blair died," Maestro answered, remembering the ludicrous amount of alcohol Maniac had imbibed at the victory celebration on the Midway, but his ghosts had kept haunting him. "Flying is like a drug for him. Of course, when you're his age, and you've seen everything, what's more thrilling then tumbling around big alien bug things in the dead of space trying to fry 'em?"

"Fighting them hand to hand," Jeager waved his paw around, showing off his claws.

"Thanks, I'll stick to fighter combat, we frail little humans wouldn't stand much of a chance one on one to those things. Be that as it may," he continued as they entered the Decontam chute, "unlike Maniac, I am perfectly capable of drowning my sorrows in alcohol. Care to join me?"

"Hmmm, and I was going to challenge you to a fight in the simulator. I suppose we could get drunk first, it would make it far more interesting."

"I couldn't agree more."

---

"Let me get this straight," Maniac began, pointing to the star map and the group of unexplored systems. "HQ wants us… despite the fact that Sol Sector is not far away at all, to take some kind of wacko long way around and re-enter explored space from the Border Worlds?"

"That's the gist of it," Rollins answered, spinning around in the chair, reading over his orders on the data pad while Maniac studied the star chart. Behemoth was only a few systems away from the stellar-west end of the Confederation, and going back through the Union of Border Worlds meant traveling through a horde of unexplored systems and traveling just outside the perimeter of explored space.

"They deduced, in the five seconds we had contact before the wormhole closed," Rollins continued, "that the alien fleet is heading in that direction. We're going to follow the mass of engine byproduct that a fleet that large is leaving behind. So far, it looks like they're heading where we think they are, but this is only one system out of a couple dozen at the moment."

Maniac sat down in one of the briefing seats. "Assuming Intel is right, what's at the Border Worlds? What are they gonna do, take out a wing of Border World fighters here, a Confed cap ship there, make sure there are no witnesses, both think the other is attacking? Are we massing a fleet at the fringe?"

Rollins laughed and kicked off the floor, sending his chair into a full-on spin. It served to tell Maniac that he was going to question the sanity of what he was about to be told, and that Rollins was still doing so. "The UBW doesn't know about the aliens."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, the Union of Border Worlds," Rollins changed the nav map to zoom in on the cluster of systems that made the Union, "doesn't know about the aliens."

"How the Hell can they not," Maniac shouted. "The Bugs trashed everything around Kilrah, they were in Proxima for cryin out loud, Confed was holding public assemblies to celebrate Midway's victory!"

"All of which was, in the end, restricted broadcast, everyone who has anything to do with it directly, the Midway and Cerberus crew, us, you name is, it watched very closely and will get the Intel warning of 'talk and you're dead' if it looks they're going anywhere near the Border Worlds."

"Ach, this is absurd!"

Maniac stood so he could pace around and burn off the energy this revelation had given him. "Let me guess, they want us to catch up to the fleet and stop them?"

"Yep."

"Typical."

"Oh it gets better," Rollins answered. "Firing the Behemoth led us to all sorts of bugs and glitches that one normally finds on a shakedown cruise. Not only did we blow a superconductor, at only a fraction of power mind you, but we fried a ton of power relays and we haven't got weapons on the entire starboard side."

"And you're still taking us into battle," Maniac confirmed.

"Yep."

"You're going to take on an entire fleet with this thing," the pilot went over, "this thing that is very very large, with no weapons to one side, nothing to fight other ships to one side, three pilots to guard said entire side, no planet killer…"

"I didn't say the cannon wouldn't be fixed by then," Rollins interrupted, obviously feigning for a bright note. "In fact, it probably will be. I plan on going with the original plan, we'll just need to lure them to a planet."

Sighing, Maniac sat down again, this time hard. "Oh, is that all? I thought it'd be hard. Well, I'd better go tell the others and give them their own strokes."

"Break it to them gently, Major," Rollins snapped off a salute. Maniac returned it, and left.

---

"Damn, simulated space gets some nice color when you've had a few drinks," Maestro quipped, spinning his simulated fighter around Jeager's Vampire. He was enjoying his buzz.

"Speak for yourself, Kilrathi do not get intoxicated as quickly as Terrans do."

"Now ya tell me."

Squeezing the trigger, Maestro peppered his feline opponent with gunfire, but his aim was off and Jaeger maneuvered away with miner shield damage. Seconds later, a missile flew into Maestro's view and struck his target dead on, followed by Tachyon fire. Caught off guard, Jeager exploded in seconds.

"I do believe that's a kill for the Maniac!"

"Someone's a little too happy," Maestro commed. "Let's see of we can fix that!"

Maniac pivoted his newly arrived Panther around as soon as Maestro let his FOF missile loose, dropping a slew of decoys. Maestro cut back on the throttle to keep Maniac in his sites while he turned to keep up, and blasted him with his Excalibur's Ion guns. Jeager re-spawned into the fight.

"Ha! Tremble hairless one," he cackled, looking for revenge. Maniac took evasive action; avoiding the crossfire his two opponents were producing. Another blast from Maestro's guns and Maniac's shields fell.

But as good as they were, Maniac was much, much better. When Maestro launched another missile, Maniac swung up, spun around, went into auto-slide, and dropped a decoy that flew over Jeager. The missile took the decoy and slammed the new Vampire right on the bow, sending it spinning.

Maestro ended up with Maniac on his tail, his shields quickly destroyed a second later and a missile up his tail pipe after that.

Maniac shut the simulator down. "You guys are gonna love this."

---

After a month, everyone from Rollins to Maniac to the cooks started to worry that the alien fleet was too far ahead of the Behemoth for them to catch up. The Behemoth wasn't far from the fringe of explored space now, and there were systems they hadn't been through, but the engines trails held strong. The main cannon was repaired, but the conventional weapon grid wasn't going to get fixed without some dry dock time.

In a short time, however, Maniac flew Maestro and Jeager right at the alien fleet while investigating an anomalous reading. The fleet was massive, about three-fourths as large as the entire Confederation space force, made of several types of every alien ship class. The Ship Killers led the way, followed by the Tiamat dreadnaughts, with the carriers in the middle and the smaller ships mixed together, bringing up the rear.

They were flying past the dayside of a nearby planet; probably freak coincidence, as they weren't showing any interest in it despite the proximity.

"All right Maniac, bring your people back before you're spotted," Rollins ordered.

"Hey, before we do that," Maestro jumped in, "shouldn't we try to scout them or something? Get an exact composition?"

Quick on the answer, Rollins commed, "won't be needed, if what I have planned works. You'll be escorting an SWACS vessel back to the planet once you get here. The SWACS will broadcast phony scanner information and make it look like there's a very large Confed ship on the day-side of the planet, just out of the radar shadow."

Jeager decided to be the pessimist. The reason for making the aliens think they were about to be ambushed wasn't hard to comprehend. "Captain, what happens if the aliens do not take the bait?"

"Hell if I know," Rollins shrugged. "But let's hope it won't come to that."

"Yes, lets," Maniac agreed. "If they don't we're gonna be guarding our tub's poor little defenseless side against hordes of aliens."

This time, Rollins laughed. "Maniac, I'm paranoid, not stupid. You should thank me, I'm surprised you've survived the conflict this long without being out flown by every bug around."

"Hey, who do I look like, Maverick?

"More like Admiral Tolwyn," Jeager chuckled. "No offense, Maestro."

"None taken," the Terran answered. "You know he kinda does…"

"What did I do to deserve this?"

From Rollins, "I wouldn't know, Maniac, I'm just a Radio Head."

---

"Lookout 1 to Behemoth, I think it's working!"

"Roger that Lookout 1," Rollins commed to the SWACS, "we see it too. Stay there for a little longer, I'll advise you of when to bug out."

"Roger that, Behemoth. Holding position."

"It worked, I can't believe it, but it worked."

Fixated on the main viewer, Rollins shut his eyes tightly for a moment to make sure he wasn't seeing things. The tactical display clearly showed the triplet of fighters and the SWACS broadcasting the insanely large Confederation reading. As he'd hoped, the aliens thought that it was either the Behemoth or a fleet hiding behind the planet where their scanners wouldn't reach from the exact opposite side once the planet was exactly between the two. The fleet was looping around the planet, ready to surprise their newfound and very large Confederation target from behind.

"They're splitting off to surround them, we'll have to make sure our aim is perfect," he thought aloud, meaning for the primary gunner to hear. The man nodded his head in acknowledgment.

"That's perfect," he remarked of the display, or rather, the positions of every ship on the display. The aliens were even going in a low orbit to mask themselves, but the SWACS saw them easily.

Sitting down in his chair, Rollins switched the screen to forward view, setting the tactical for his personal console. After that, he pressed a comm. key. "Fighters, escort the SWACS away from the planet. If the aliens spot you, make sure the SWACS survives, they're going to keep broadcasting the signal to confuse the fleet that's not in visual range."

"Roger that, Behemoth," Maniac sent back.

In seconds, the four small white dots began moving away from the planet, in the relative direction of the system's star. The aliens were almost now in a semi-circle around the planet. As huge as the fleet was, any space faring force was dwarfed by the size of planets, which made it all the more possible to destroy the fleet by targeting the ball of rock

And Rollins wasn't sorry about it. From what the gun cameras on the fighters had seen, the world was very bleak. Its small oceans were hideously polluted. The landmasses were a sulfur-yellow. It wouldn't have surprised him if the aliens choose to pass the night side because they didn't want to see it. Shattering the dismal place would be a favor to the universe.

"Helm, take us in."

The Behemoth's jump drives engaged, taking advantage of the intra-system anti-graviton jump point nearby. The planet killer was about forty-five degrees around the planet from the fighters and SWACS when it emerged.

But as soon as Rollins could see the world, he didn't care, standing and approaching the screen, believing the site before him even less then the tactical display from earlier. And he didn't care about the alien fleet around it; now probably realizing they'd been lured into a trap, hopefully not knowing the true danger they were in.

Rollins didn't care because from Behemoth's position, unlike the fighters,' he could see the terminator and the world's night side. A night side that was riddled with what looked like the lights and flashes of population centers. Some white, others yellow, none of it looking natural.

"Holy mother of God," he muttered, finally regaining his composure. "Short-range scan, I want to know what's on that that planet, right now!"

"Aye sir," the sensor tech replied, getting to work. She didn't take long to get results; the short-range scanners simply gave more detail that she had to relay. To her credit, she kept her own shock out of her voice. "That planet's supporting an industrial society. I can't be certain, but I don't think they've developed space travel. Population looks like 3 billion, I would guess."

He'd hoped it wouldn't be what it looked like, but it was. And he decided on a course of action without considering the consequences, knowing it was right and not wanting to be swayed.

"Did we emerge on target," he asked.

Disappointed, the gunner replied, "aye sir, for what it's worth."

"Stand down from your post, Lieutenant."

"Sir, you don't have to worry, I won't," but Rollins stopped him.

"If I thought your trigger finger might slip, I'd tell you to disarm the damn thing. Now stand down."

The crewman complied, standing at attention next to his console. He couldn't help but look over when Rollins stepped up to the station, placed his hand on the DNA scanner that only he and anyone that manned the station were cleared for, and began entering final bits of information.

"Sir… what are you doing?"

"I'm firing the Behemoth, Lieutenant."

At the time, it was the most casual thing the bridge crew had ever heard spoken. But they didn't get the chance to protest before the lights turned blue and a unique alarm klaxon sounded. No other ship had this particular alert, but it told everyone aboard the Behemoth to brace themselves, because the engines had just cut out to let the main cannon's recoil push the ship back unimpeded rather then fighting the propulsion and compressing the hull.

And then it fired, the same bolt of red that trashed the alien communications station at first sight, but this time, the ship lunged backward from the massive amount of energy it expelled, the effects felt by the entire crew. This time, the beam wasn't obstructed by an alien construct, and it wasn't so weak that the planet's atmosphere acted as an impenetrable shield.

This time, the beam vaporized a portion of the atmosphere as it passed through. A large city disintegrated on impact and the planet was seared open. The deadly energy continued and impaled the planet at its heart, shattering the core. From the center, the energy lanced through the mass, a webbing crack tearing the world apart from inside until the matter couldn't support the energy being fed into it anymore.

Debris scattered in every direction with the shockwave as the planet truly died, exploding in a mix of rock, dust, and magma. The blast took out every single capital ship that made up the alien fleet. Dreadnaughts, Ship Killers, everything was torn apart as if it were paper.

The smaller fighters had a much better survival rate as they provided less mass for the shockwave to strike, but the survivors were either thrown into each other or shattered into fragments by fragments of what was once a planet. Three Terran Confederation fighters and an SWACS flew away from it all, the paints on their sterns singed beyond color.

And Rollins couldn't tell if his bridge crew was looking at him or at the screen, because he was looking at the latter as he backed into the bulkhead, watching as the debris field cooled, the last remnants of an entire civilization that he had destroyed to demolish the enemy. Now that it was done, he couldn't stop the actual horror that hit him.

He couldn't even breathe.

---

NOTE: Re-reading this, I almost deleted the parts about the planet being populated. In truth, the idea came to me because I didn't want it to be boring, pull trigger, kill planet, job done, nice and shiny, and this certainly adds a black streak to the good guys, as it should be, since the universe isn't perfect. But then I thought, would ROLLINS do that? Quite frankly after considering it…. I'm still not sure, but I went with it. I'm not going to give the reasoning away here, though… it's angst time for Rollins, he'll explain it just fine I think.

Thanks to Cloud Strife, guru of planetary destruction, for help with the planet killing. And a belated thanks to both he and Negative Creep for assuring me that I wrote a good Malcolm McDowell in chapter 1.