Chapter 15: Empty Promise

—August 9, 2018—
—29:11 GST—
Tiamat was amused by Shikari's choice of companions; her first officer reported that the General was accompanied by a Meltrandi Queadlunn-Rau pilot named Febbria Komusara and a pair of micronians driving robotic suits. She had to hand it to the little guys, they sure were creative; despite their small size they still found a way to imitate their larger counterparts, perhaps even to the point of competing with them on the battlefield. Based on what she'd heard about the Warlord Shikari and the fact that her forces had held on so long with only a few hundred ships, she was certain this alliance would be a worthwhile investment and her micronian soldiers were probably worth knowing at the very least.

Tiamat came into the room and saw exactly what Shikari expected her to see, and judging by the look on her face she was thoroughly confused. "Who're you? I was expecting General Shikari. Has there been a problem?"

Shikari stood her ground, hoping she was ready for the entire process that she knew this meeting would involve. "I am Shikari, there's been no problem. I came here because I wanted you to see who it was you were really dealing with."

Tiamat stared with her jaw hanging limp. Shikari stood a full four meters shorter than her and was at least three tons lighter, a bizarre contrast to the impressive looking woman she had spoken to on communications channels. At first she found it amusing and almost laughed, but after a moment she began to find the idea insulting. "I see. In that case I will now relieve you of your command and take full autho…"

"No, that's not what I'm here for. I asked for your help, not a replacement."

Tiamat was even more confused. "Gen… Shikari, you are an archivist, nothing more. It is not your place to give orders, only recommend options. You are not fit for command, and just by wearing that uniform you are violating more regulations than either of us could count…"

"Twenty two last time I checked, unless you disagree with the emergency command clause about archivists managing field combat units in the absence of their commander in which case it comes to about twenty six. But I am not an officer of the Zentradi army, so those regulations do not quite apply to me."

"Not an officer…" Tiamat had to look her over again to make sure she wasn't mistaken somehow. "You're Zentradi, how can you not be an officer? There's too kinds of people in this universe, Zentradi and targets..."

"I don't think you understand. I've joined with a different force now and I answer to a new chain of command. We didn't come to you just for reinforcements, we came to you because we think we can help each other against a mutual enemy…"

"Okay, shut up, my head hurts." Tiamat stepped back and leaned against the door. "So a little shit like you wants to join her little private army in a fight against our "mutual enemy?" Shikari, are you deranged!"

"But I…"

"Forget about it! I didn't fight my way across two hundred and fifty light years and demolished my favorite suit just to form an alliance with a chicken shit archivist and a pack of micronians!"

Shikari nodded slowly. "If you want to put it that way, go right ahead." The three officers on the other side of the room hung their heads, and by their body language Harper could make out a kind of exasperation with this entire ordeal. He was sure that whatever was about to happen would probably not be pleasant, and everyone in the room except Tiamat wanted to get it over with quickly. "Just to make sure you understand," Shikari continued, "The sad fat is you are not going to beat the Supervision Army without our help. If we don't work together they'll destroy us both, and even if YOU have a problem with that, Commander Gyzol will probably see it differently."

Tiamat had been holding her temper for hours before then, restraining the urge to have someone killed for the discomfort she sustained when Kai Chan shot her down. After this impulse she parted with restraint altogether; and by a strike of Tiamat's fist, Shikari parted with two of her teeth. She tumbled back, crashed through a pair of chairs in the meeting room, and was just struggling to her feet again when Tiamat kicked her over. "Listen very carefully! You are nothing, cross me and you will be LESS than nothing! I could crush you like a micronian, you will not insult me on my own ship!"

Shikari came to her feet more quickly and held up a hand to stop Harper and the others from offering help; somehow they were all surprised she knew what they were doing without even looking at them. "I just did." She said sternly. "Or have you not been paying attention?"

Tiamat lunged again, catching Shikari on the other side of her face with the other hand. It had much the same effect, sending her spiraling around the room like a rag doll. Harper made another move in his fighter to help, but Febb put a hand up to stop him, realizing but not understanding why Shikari was doing what she was doing.

This time Tiamat pounced on her before she could get back up and stood over her, holding her by the collar of her uniform. "You have anything else to say?"

Shikari spat a jet of blood onto the deck next to her and smiled up as best she could with her swollen jaw. "Just this. You fight like a man." Tiamat pulled her up and punched her in the forehead again, bouncing her head off the deck with the reaction. "A small man!" Tiamat punched her again. "A micronian man!" Tiamat punched her again, three more times to ensure Shikari's silence. "Like a Shiar-zentran!" Tiamat wound up and delivered one final blow; the impact from Shikari's skull smacking the metal of the deck actually echoed around the room.

Harper could barely look at this anymore, but at least it seemed to be over. Shikari wasn't moving, and Tiamat backed off a bit to try and collect her temper. She took a few short breaths, then apparently noticed Harper's battloid standing near the doorway next to Febb and two meltran soldiers from the Defiant; her expression softened. "Hey micronian, you enjoying the show?" Matt wouldn't even dignify that with an answer, which Tiamat found more amusing than any answer he could give. "Heh. There's just no pleasing some pe—" She turned back just in time to catch the tip of Shikari's fist across her jaw, staggered off balance and fell right into a sweep kick. She landed on her shoulder and rolled back to her feet, but no sooner was she up again was she also airborne, with the heel print of Shikari's boot now indented under her jaw. She caught herself from falling all the way and tried to get her footing, and once again Shikari hit her for a third strike, capitalizing on the weak spot on her left side with a spinning roundhouse. The kick made contact right where it was supposed to, and Shikari felt the satisfying softness of three broken ribs, the same three Kai Chan had broken earlier that day during their brief but heated duel.

Tiamat fell to her knees, suddenly unable to breathe, but set to even the tables Shikari gave her a parting shot; two-step side kick to the side of the face. The meltrandi commander flopped to the deck like a rag doll, but unlike her smaller counterpart she did not get up again. Her officers looked on from the other side of the room, more embarrassed than anything else but not really sure what the best course of action would be. "We're sorry for that... display." One of them said. "Commander Tiamat's been a bit under the weather today. First she lost her favorite suit fighting your comrades, then while we were waiting for your ship our first officer challenged her to a drinking contest and... you know how it is."

"I completely understand." She said, grinning despite the pain on her cheek.

"Anyway, since the Commander is a little indisposed at the moment, I'll accept your offer of an alliance and I'll pass your offer on to Commander Gyzol. Speaking of which, those reaction weapons you delivered to us have already started to come in handy."

Shikari raised a brow. "You've been using them?"

"And how." The officer grinned just a bit. "The Botoru fleet has made more progress in the last week than in over a year of fighting. It's weird too, the enemy has just suddenly stopped reinforcing their positions and they all started falling back to Bokata. If this keeps up we'll be moving into that system before too long.

"That's... good news..." She didn't like the sound of this at all. The enemy was in retreat on all fronts, but in both cases there didn't seem to be any logical explanation for it. Obviously, there was something else going on within the Supervision Army that she was not yet aware of; she made a mental note to try and contact Kraken again next chance she got. Snapping back into the present, Shikari wiped the blood from her mouth and walked back over to the doorway to depart along with Harper and the others. "When she wakes up, tell her to take a long cold shower."

"Cold shower?"

"Micronian trick." She said disappearing through the door. "Helps with hangovers."

—August 14, 2018—
—07:30 GST—
He definitely heard something odd, this time he couldn't ignore it. That same scratching sound, like a set of very small nails clawing at the foot of his door. Every time Broli opened the door he saw no one there and nothing outside, but every time he came back from his duty shift or made any kind of sudden noise the scratching sound would be back. He had finally made up his mind to call maintenance about a pest problem when at last he lost his nerve, stormed to the door and threw it open. Again, there was nothing there and the sound was again gone. "I can't take much more of this." He grumbled. "Termites? Spiders? What the hell?" He stopped a moment at the sound of the phone ringing in his quarters and turned back to answer it. "Broli here."

"Secure line, Captain. It's your wife."

"I'll take it in here." Broli sat back in a chair in front of the vid screen, then noticed suddenly that he had left the door open. Just for a moment he had a brief vision of a strange alien monster sneaking into his apartment and leaving the door open just a crack like it did in all the horror movies. He darted back through the living room to shut it, then sat back in the chair, facing the image of a slightly confused Corina Matheson on the vid screen. "Hey Kitten!"

"Hi Broli... is this a bad time?"

He shrugged, "Good as any. What's new?"

"Just checking in on you, making sure you're not cheating on me or anything."

Broli snickered. "How'd you find out? I swore all thirty of them to secrecy! Hey don't worry though, they all mean nothing to me..."

Corina's cheeks turned purple, "Oh, get over yourself! You're not that charming!"

"You better hope not." Broli smiled again, then stopped and listened; the scratching sound was back. He glanced around the room again to try and pin it down, but there was nothing in sight other than the usual furniture and a few trinkets he'd picked up over the years. "So what's up? Haven't talked to you in a few days..."

"Sorry honey, but this is kind of a business call too."

Broli's shoulders slumped a bit. Lately he had started to miss the flirtatious small-talk the two of them exchanged and the equally goofball e-mails that passed back and forth from fleet to fleet, week after week. "I see," he said, shifting into a more serious mannerism, "What's going on?"

"Well, long story short, Shikari made arrangements with the Botoru fleet for more active support. They're sending warships to expand out fleet sizes in regular engagements, so if you're approached by any Zentradi vessels you're to assume them as friendly and link up with them right away."

Broli smiled again, but once again found himself distracted by that same scratching sound. He tried to ignore it, even though something told him it was getting closer every second. He could almost hear the creepy, ominous background music that would normally be playing at moment like this. "That is the best news I've had all year."

"I know. Also, there's a fairly large group on route to your position right now. You should hold your position for a little bit and make the rendezvous, they should be joining you in the next twelve hours."

"I'll tell the bridge to expect company then. Anything else?"

Corina blushed a bit. "Broli,"

"Yes dear?" He could tell from the tenderness in her voice that the business part of this conversation was over. This was a wife talking to her husband across dozens of separating light years.

"Have you been feeling... tension lately?"

"What kind of tension?"

Corina looked around shyly—a curious action considering she was in the privacy of her own quarters—and lowered her voice. "Do you sometimes feel uncomfortable around some of your junior officers? Like something about them makes you feel really unsure of yourself?"

Broli thought about it, then seemed to realize what she was getting at. "Oh! Well..." why she seemed so bothered by this he couldn't really be sure, but suspicion was not in his nature. "Well, occasionally, that happens, when a younger officer gets attracted to an authority figure... some kind of mother complex, I understand. Lieutenant Raltha announced to me last month that she had a schoolgirl's crush on me, but I think she's over it."

"You think it's over?"

"Yeah, I..." He heard the scratching again, this time it seemed to be coming from right next to him. He looked around the chair at his feet but again found nothing. "Weird..."

"Broli?"

He turned back to the monitor, "Yeah, uh... I used one of the gunner's mates to draw some attention away from myself, so I'm in the clear. So let me guess, some baby-faced newbie on the SDF-2 may or may not have a thing for his commanding officer? Something like that?"

Corina thought of Major Sutherland as many things, but baby-faced was not one of them. "Not exactly, somewhere along those lines. What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know for sure, it's a little out of my league, but the only thing I can say is, give the guy a distraction, a decoy to draw his attention from..." Broli felt something brush against his leg. He looked down slowly to try and see this thing that had been haunting him all this time finally manifested, and for a few moments he was speechless. "Hey a kitten!"

"Yes, dear?"

"No, not you..." Broli leaned down and picked it up, a little black and gray cat barely big enough to fit in both of his hands. It seemed exhausted, content only to lie there in the palms of his hands licking the back of its paws. "I think I just made a new friend."

"Where did that come from?" Corina gazed into the monitor with wide eyes. "One of the neighbor's?"

"I don't think so, but I'll ask around." Broli set the kitten down on the rug again and turned it over on its back. How it even got into his apartment was a complete mystery; the little cat wasn't much bigger than a large rat and didn't look strong enough to stand in its own let alone push open Broli's front door. "Anyway," he turned his attention back to Corina, "Whoever this guy is who seems to have a thing for you, I wouldn't worry about it. He'll get over himself eventually."

In all honesty, Major Sutherland was only part of her problem. She had actually called Broli for advice on what she should do, but she imagined that was probably the best thing in either case. "Think I'll do that, thanks for the advice."

Broli felt the kitten brush against his leg again, apparently struggling to get his attention. As little as it was, he imagined it was probably too small to fend for itself yet. But something in its eyes told him that was a mistake of judgment. His feline guest was much stronger than it looked, much like some other small felines that had come to earn his affection in recent years. "Well, as long as you're here, I might as well feed you."

"Are you gonna keep it?"

"Don't know. I've never had a pet before..." He scooped it up again in his hands and set it on his lap, wondering just what to do next with his new houseguest. The kitten looked up at him with admiring eyes, commanding and submissive at the same time, and finally gave the tiniest mew of approval and stretched out on his thigh. "Kinda reminds me of you though." He said grinning. "I think I'll..."

The speaker on the side of the screen broke through with Lieutenant Raltha's voice. "Captain Broli, priority message from SDF-09."

"Thank you Lieutenant. Sorry Kitten, duty calls…" Broli looked at the little cat again, still perplexed at how to handle this visitor, and apparently lost in thought he clicked off the monitor without another word.

Corina found herself staring at a blank screen for a few moments feeling now more uncertain than ever. It seemed to her that Broli wasn't at all bothered by being away from her, that he didn't seem in the least bit affected by her absence, while she on the other hand couldn't even sleep at night with that huge empty space next to her bed. She stared at the blank screen for almost a minute, partly looking at her own tired reflection and partly staring at the after image of her husband across almost a dozen light-years distance. At length, she gave up on it and decided to get back to work, but once she turned away from the monitor she saw her door was open. She wasn't at all surprised to see Major Sutherland standing there, half in shadow from the dim light of the corridor outside. "Goddammit Glen, do you ever knock?"

"Sorry, Captain." He said casually. "The door was open, I didn't think you were in."

Corina didn't believe that for a moment. She had no doubt he'd been standing there for at least the last six minutes eaves dropping on her conversation. "Why the hell would my door be open if I wasn't in here?"

"Well, uh..." he scratched his head, suddenly at a loss to explain beyond his own poorly contrived excuse.

Corina sighed, already too annoyed with him to care. "Never mind. What do you want?"

"Sensors are picking up a defold reaction near the third planet of this system. Profile suggests Zentradi warships."

"Is it them?"

"Uh huh."

That was good news, it meant the group from the Botoru fleet she was supposed to meet with was almost a day ahead of schedule. Even though she was very glad to hear this, Corina was glowering at him. "Major, did you really have to sneak into my quarters just to tell me that?"

"Nope."

"Then why the hell...!"

"Have a nice evening Captain."

Glen closed the door behind him and left her seething in a pool of her own frustrations. "I swear, before this war is over, I am going to kill that man." She grumbled, moving off to the bedroom to retire for the night. "And if I don't get a decent night's sleep, I'm going to kill myself."

—August 15, 2018—
—19:57 GST—
Nearly a thousand Regult battlepods from the Zentradi fleet swarmed the Supervision Army ships with a vicious intensity, filling the skies with light and fire. The enemy fleet was mostly exhausted already, so there weren't many pods or fighters in space, but there were more than enough to be a pain for the Allies. And yet, with the battle lines stretched across thousands of miles, it had even become a rarity for any two squadrons to cross paths except on their way to or from their home fleets.

They had arranged only a few hours before for the Zentradi battalions to act in support of VF squadrons, which saw fifty Regults supporting every squadron leader for a series of organized, coordinated moves. They all moved at once, cutting through enemy defenses with beam cannons and missile spreads to close in on their main objective, fighting through the patrol lines of fighters and pods, through the pickets and destroyers until by now they had finally closed in on the Supervision Army command ship near the rear of the fleet. It had taken them three days to get this far, and now that they finally had the command ship in their sights, the aces of Skull Squadron and a small galaxy of supporting Lightnings and Regults began to press their advantage.

Nevertheless, the ship was defending herself extremely well, defensive batteries putting out a storm that made Hikaru consider a career in sewing. Four Regults pushed forward alongside of him, and with a burst of fire from the flagship three of them exploded at once. The others deviated a little to avoid more fire, but the Lightings of the squadron pushed forward undaunted. Hikaru managed a glance at the mission timer on his instrument panel, and by now he began to worry. "Skull Leader to all units, concentrate all firepower on the communications array on the top of the bridge!"

"Communications?" One of the Regult commanders came through on the radio. "Are you sure that's a good idea? If we destroy the comms array they won't be able to signal a retreat..."

"But they also can't call for reinforcements!" Hikaru banked sharply to avoid a burst of defensive fire, and continued, "If we cut off her communications, she'll be stuck here! She can't recall her escorts and she can't leave them behind!"

"Good thinking, Colonel!" Some of the Regults broke formation and moved to close in on the bridge of the ship while the Zentradi leader's Glaug corkscrewed in on a nest of defensive lasers. "There's an opening on the starboard side! Get in there, we'll cover you!"

"I see it! Skull Three, Skull Six, on my wing!" He waited a few moments, gave Lieutenant Arriaga and Ensign Madison some time to find him, then setup his angle and swooped in on the starboard side of the command ship. A group of more than a dozen Regults and two Glaugs formed up around him as a flying gauntlet. A squadron or two of supervision mecha appeared in front of them in a vain effort to make up for the hole in the command ship's defensive screen, but the three VFs and their escorting regults plowed through them like a space-borne football team.

Hikaru lit up his targeting radar and locked onto the communications array. As soon as he was in range, he toggled his missiles to his last two AGM-156 "Hailstone" missiles; on his HUD, a green box formed around the array, and two small flashing dots next to it indicated his wingmen were locked in as well. So much the better; the communications array was the size of a small warship. "Let her rip!" he shouted, and his thumb pressed the pickle button on the flight stick.

All three of the Lightnings banked hard away from the command ship, and over his shoulder Hikaru watched the missiles they had fired diving in towards their target. Just before impact all eight of the missiles separated into their multi-warheads, spraying the comms array with a shower of armor piercing, high explosive rockets. All of them showered the command tower and drowned it in a sea of explosive force... but when the haze of the explosions cleared, the communications array, somehow, remained intact. "Unbelievable," he growled, "Skull Leader to Gunsight-Four... Misa dear, I don't suppose we could borrow some of your firepower?"

Back on SDF-04, with part of the bridge aglow with electrical fires and smoke filling the room, Misa was in a far less jovial mood than her high-flying husband. "Lieutenant Gorath, have all ships begin cannon bombardment, and have the destroyers Fenrir and Lexington deploy their missiles."

"Yes, Admiral. Target data coming up."

Across the fleet, the naval gunners of the GSDF's Fourth Advanced Fleet were setting up their datalink to the Cats-eye recon planes close to the front, relaying target information for the Supervision Army warships. At half a million miles, the Supervision warships were just within firing range, and at maximum resolution, the gunners on the Zentradi and Gallaron warships could just barely make out the shapes and outlines of their targets against the background of stars. With her own eyes, Admiral Hayase couldn't even see the enemy from this distance, but she knew by now that the only thing she would be able to see at all was the flash when one of them exploded. "Gunsight Four to all ships," she said at last, "Your primary target is the enemy battleship to the rear. Match bearings and fire at will." Then clicked her microphone on again and called out to Hikaru, "Gunsight Four to Skull Leader, we're starting out bombardment. Try and keep your fighters concentrated to the front of the enemy ships!"

"Copy that, Gunsight..." Two seconds later, like a bolt from the blue, a luminous hailstorm of laser fire struck down on the command ship from the darkness of space, streaking past it on all sides, raking along its flanks, swarming and surrounding it. Much of the first salvo were misses, but the second followed immediately with nearly a dozen direct hits, slicing through the hull of the great battleship and raising fireballs from deep within the hull. By the time the third salvo struck it had already raised its reflex barrier, but as GSDF guns grew more accurate, the barrier would not hold for long.

"I love watching that," Hikaru said, pausing for just a moment of nostalgia, "It looks like rain hitting a puddle of water," Then he thought, And every time we see a splash, fifty people get killed.

"On your six, Colonel!" Arriaga said almost too late; a spread of missiles buzzed in on Hikaru's tailpipe with almost no warning, fired from a variable powered armor none of them had seen coming.

Hikaru snapped out of his revile in a heartbeat, banked sharply left and then switched into gerwalk mode and reversed directions. His timing was perfect by a turn of luck; the missiles overshot and detonated a few meters behind him as he turned again with his two wingmen and fired back at the powered armors that challenged them. This plan might work, he thought excitedly; he pulled the trigger on his flight stick and both arm lasers discharged, cutting through the torso of the powered armor which promptly vanished into a ball of fire. Three more came up behind it, however, and the Lightnings began to circle into a dogfight, "I get it, we're not done yet..."

—20:01 GST—

"Damn you protoculture!" Sarride took a second look at the tactical displays to confirm what she already knew. The GSDF was well out of range for visual targeting, and her recon fighters had no change any longer of getting close to their fleet. Some of her frontline warships were starting to return fire, but without spotters they were shooting blind and hopelessly. And with the GSDF in front, an even larger Zentradi fleet was surely moving up from behind, catching her in a pincer her fleet was very nearly out of ammo and her remaining combat mecha—barely a third of her original strength—were low on fuel and sorely in need of repairs. Retreat was her only option, but it was an option that gave the enemy a straight path all the way to Kaladan, and Lacul still needed time to arrange their counter attack. Then again, being defeated would have much the same effect unless Lazuli's ships could get there in time to give them a spot to fall back to. Sarride hated to be kept waiting, but Lazuli's fleet was four days late and the resupply ships were even later.

Another salvo of laser fire struck down on her from the darkness, burning against the ship's reflex barrier and sending vibrations through the hull. Three of the beams actually penetrated the barrier, and one of them hit the forward hull just in front of the command tower. A jet of molten flame belched into space from deep within her ship, and before she could even utter a complaint another salvo razed the hull of her ship, one direct hit even smashing into the side of her command tower. An instrument panel on the wall behind her exploded in electrical fire, and then half the monitors in the command center clouded over with static. "Damn it all! The Gallaron have stopped making mistakes..."

An image battled its way onto one of the static filled monitors, the face of one of the drone officers in the communications room further aft in the command tower. It looked as if most of the room was on fire behind the officer, but the vital systems were, fortunately, still intact. "Lady Sarride, incoming message from Commander Jinai."

"Decode it immediately! And let's just pray it's not his usual banter." She switched on the main viewer on the bridge and waited for the signal to go through.

After a short moment, Jinai's face appeared on the monitor with the usual sullen look she had come to associate with him alone. He looked at the monitor image of her command center, smoldering and wrecked, smashed components and exhausted officers strewn about the room. It nothing more than a visual confirmation of what he already knew. "This just isn't your day, is it Sarride?"

"What do you want Jinai? I don't have time for your diversions right now..."

"I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd swing around and save your ungrateful ass from annihilation. I've just folded space to Rijuno-Delcaan, you think you can make it here in one jump?"

Sarride was impressed, partly with his good timing and partly with his great selection of hiding places. Rijuno-Delcaan was binary system containing a super-giant and a black hole, which in an area like the Arturo sector would be a pain in the ass to navigate around. Folding into the system was hard, folding out again was even harder, and keeping track of anything that went on in that system was next to impossible. That made it a perfect hiding place, a great fall back point, a spot where she could lick her wounds and replace her damaged and destroyed mecha and support vessels. Even as the though crossed her mind another, still more accurate salvo of laser fire from the Gallaron fleet pummeled her vessel, and one of the few working damage control monitors registered suddenly that the entire starboard side of the ship was in danger of explosive decompression. "I'm charging fold drives now," Her fingers flew over a control panel next to her chair, inputting the command to the navigation bridge, "My ship is hanging on by a thread. Do you have any supply ships so I can make emergency repairs?"

"No, but Lacul is gathering a large fleet here as a delaying tactic. You can probably cannibalize one of the older models."

Sarride scowled, "Another delaying tactic?"

"It can't be helped," Jinai said indifferently, "It would appear the Zentradi managed to get their hands on reaction weapons and now Bennet's asking for more time."

Sarride smiled. Fighting over Rijuno-Delcaan would probably slow them down by a few days or weeks, but it would slow the Supervision Army down at least as much. In any case, it was sure to drag things out long enough for conditions to change in their favor, and with alittle timing, a few miracles could be expected... "I need fold coordinates, I can't calculate that kind of transit in the middle of a battle."

"We're working on it, don't worry. It took our computers almost two hours to figure out how to get in here."

"I don't have two hours, we need to go now."

"Patience please, Sarride. I'll have your coordinates in a few min..." A sickening jolt rocked the command tower, and suddenly the monitor cracked and went blank. Sarride heard a strange wailing sound, coupled with the sound of bulkheads collapsing somewhere further aft of the command tower. She didn't even have to look at the damage control monitor to know that a lucky shot from the GSDF had knocked out her communications array. Now she was stranded, no way to get in touch with Jinai unless he could get a courier to her before the Gallaron fleet tore her to pieces. She couldn't call for help, nor could she recall her escorts in time to cover her retreat.

She was out of good options, all that remained was an act of desperation. "Navigation," She said stiffly, "Plot a short-range fold to Waypoint EG-10. Fold the ship immediately."

The navigation room responded instantly, "Commander, if we fold now the main fleet will be stranded here. Without official orders to retreat..."

"...they'll stay here and be slaughtered," Sarride said, "Better them than me. You have your orders, get us the hell out of here!"

"Yes, Commander."

There was a far off buzzing sound as the reaction furnaces powered up, and the deck began to vibrate as the fold drives powered up for her great escape. Even with this short-range jump it would take her a miracle to find her way to the rendezvous point at Rijuno-Delcaan; it was a longshot, but it was better than the alternative. "Sorry guys," She said, taking one last look at the external monitors, "You'll just have to take one for the team."

—20:04 GST—
Captain Harper pulled another ice pack out of the freezer and replaced the one already on Shikari's face against the stitches underneath her eye. Getting micronized again had helped close some of the wounds without needing stitches, but not without first inducing alot of painful swelling around her body that promised to nag her well into the next several weeks. It probably would have been better to wait a few days for her wounds to heal before resizing again, but she didn't want to be stuck in the macron section while there was the possibility of the ship going into battle again. Instead, she resized herself, drained some of the fluid from the bulbs forming on her face and torso, then spent the next several days in and out of an ice-filled Jacuzzi while her body recovered.

She was finally down to a point where she could actually move around without using Matt as a crutch, but with little else to go as the Zentradi fleets formed up around her she spent most of her time relaxing in his quarters, rotating ice packs on the last painful holdouts on her face and neck. The relief from the new ice pack he had just given was a welcome one, and she sank back into the couch even more. "Thanks Matt..." she said, barely able to talk over the pain in her jaw.

"Any time. How's your tooth?"

Shikari shrugged. "Stopped hurting,"

"Then maybe now you can tell me, what the hell was the point of all that anyway?"

She smiled at him, tried to look innocent, "The point of what?"

"You just sat there and let her beat you into the ground. You know if she'd been sober, she might have killed you."

"It was a risk I had to take." She said stiffly. Something in her voice indicated to him a hidden irony in her voice, "I didn't notice she was THAT drunk at the time, but by loosing her temper like that she left herself with a debt."

That probably made the least amount of sense of anything Matt had seen or heard in the last four and a half days. "Debt?"

"That's conduct unbecoming an officer. It's her responsibility to make it up to me and present herself like a line officer, even though we both know that's not her style."

"Yeah? And what IS her style?"

Shikari set down the ice pack and leaned back again. "Do you remember Kamjin Kravshera? Tiamat's the same way, only she's alot more patient."

Matt's stomach started to churn. "That's just what we needed! A warlord maniac with a macronized ego!"

"Don't look down on warlord maniacs," she said playfully, "Tiamat has a longstanding reputation on the frontiers. She's infamous in the Magellanic clusters, which are basically the badlands of the universe. They say it took her two and a half years just to move her fleet into this galaxy, and when she arrived the first thing she did was assassinate the commander of a Meltrandi scout division and assume command of it. She pretty much does that about every two years, she tracks down some high-profile Meltrandi division, assassinates the commanding and takes control."

Matt sighed from across the room. "Sounds like she wants to build some kind of empire. Charming woman." He patted the side of Shikari's face again and noticed the puffiness had gone down a bit. "You're a fast healer!"

"When I'm stimulated." She said coyly. "I'm not still bleeding am I?"

Harper came over to her side and looked at her face closely. "The cuts closed up in the tank. They're just swollen now, and you'll probably have a black eye for a few days."

"Oh no! Now you won't think I'm pretty!"

Harper leaned down and kissed her, careful not to brush on her bruises too much. "I think you're beautiful! Even with two black eyes!" He kissed her again, but this time she pushed him away. "What?"

"I'm sorry, but... Matt I can't do this anymore."

Matt's chest tightened. "Do what?"

"I mean, It's not your fault..." Shikari put the ice pack down and moved over on the couch, making room for him to sit down. "...or maybe it is. Sometimes, we go out, we have fun, we enjoy ourselves and you make me feel so special inside, but at the end of the day... Look, we're coasting. I feel like we're in a rut and I think we're long overdue for something a bit more serious. I mean, we can't just sneak around having sex all the time, that's not a real relationship…"

"You mean... oh." It never ceased to amaze him what a fast learner she was. It seemed like her social awareness had gone from schoolgirl to modern woman in six months flat, on the other hand he knew the almost comical innocence he had come to admire in her was still intact somewhere down below. Admittedly, it wasn't at all hard to think of spending the rest of his life with her, being true to her and remaining ever loyal forever. But still there was the notion of caution, the knowledge that one day they would probably get tired of each other or else something better would come along; everything he knew about life told him it would be a mistake to drop out of the game now and settle for Shikari once and for all. He still needed more time, but unless he said something in the next thirty seconds... "Is that all that's bothering you?" He said coolly.

"Pretty much." Shikari looked down at her feet shyly. "Don't get me wrong, I would never think of loosing what we have together, but I'd like to think we're actually going somewhere with this. Don't you feel like we… like maybe we were meant for each other?"

"Don't you?"

She thought about it briefly. "Yeah but..."

"Then let's get married."

Shikari's jaw dropped open. "What!"

"I don't mean now, just maybe some time soon like… like maybe once things calm down and the war ends and we really have some time to ourselves. We'd find a nice quiet place to just live out the rest of our lives, just you and me."

"But are you… you don't think this is too soon for you?" She said nervously. "You shouldn't make a decision unless you know for sure…"

"All I know… all I need to know is that I love you very much and I want you in my life. What more do we need to know?"

"Yeah, but I didn't mean for you to…" She gave it a second thought and realized suddenly that she hadn't expected much else from him other than some clue that he was at least thinking about it. Now it dawned on her that this was in fact exactly what she wanted, this was the climax of everything she had come to understand about human relationships. "You're right. That's really all we need isn't it?"

"Well… there's one other thing."

"What?"

"Miso ramen."

Shikari smiled broadly. "My place, tomorrow night."

Harper smiled back, patting himself on the back for his quick thinking. "I'll bring a bottle of Kyshien for us."

—24:09 GST—
Skull Squadron appeared on the outer monitors, as usual, with all thirteen of its planes in formation, not even a single loss. Behind them, more than two hundred VFs from just the Monitor's contingent were on route back to the ship, as were the hundreds of fighters from other ships around the fleet. There were fewer fighters than in previous years; most of the Zentradi Thuveral Salan class cruisers had been phased out for the smaller, more efficient Thor-class destroyers. Misa's fleet alone had ten of them, with a dozen Zentradi picket ships forming a defensive ring around their main body. Far ahead, into the distance, she could just make out the shapes of the Supervision Army pickets as the Monitor began to approach the perimeter of the enemy fleet—that is, the remains of the enemy fleet.

"It's sickening," She muttered, watching the display images on the main viewer in front of the command bridge. The final count had been tallied at last: thirty cruisers, fifty destroyers, and nearly a three hundred tankers, frigates and other support craft, totaling just over four hundred and twenty Supervision Army warships. Every last one of them was now a floating hulk, hanging in space like mangled corpses. Most of them had been hit by GSDF gunners from distances so far they never even had a chance to shoot back. This new tactic was no longer one of Misa's late-night musings, far from an experimental concept in a young woman's brain. Now it was a harsh brutal reality, a recipe for massacre that could leave few survivors. "It's sickening," she muttered again; the number of ships they had devastated was easy to cope with, but not the number of souls aboard those ships: all told, just short of three million soldiers of the Supervision Army had lost their lives in four days of battle. "Commander Gashi," She said tiredly, "Spin up the mobile infantry units. We need to clear the debris field of any possible booby traps."

"Yes, Admiral." Gashi put the orders into this control panel, but then looked up and reported, "Zentradi fleet approaching from port, four thousand kilometers. Battleship Herokan in the lead."

"Give my regards to Herokan for a job well done." Misa sagged in her chair. She felt drained by it all, as if she could no longer go on. As of late she had been grappling with a terrifying reality, even now unsure of how history would pass judgment on their conduct in this war. Would they understand the difficulties faced by the GSDF, the lack of options presented to them? Would they realize that Gallaron's very survival was at stake and excuse this behavior? Would the Supervision War be remembered as a prolonged campaign of genocide? Or would the authors of the history books even notice at all, in a world where every space war counted its dead in billions? All possibilities made her chest tighten around her heart. Even at this very moment she felt as if her heart were about to stop beating entirely.

She was not now aware of it, nor would she ever be aware of it in the future, but here on the bridge of SDF-04, Misa Hayase suffered brief and very mild heart attack.

"Admiral, incoming message from..." Commander Gashi glanced over his shoulder, seeing a strange expression on her face unlike any he had ever seen. "Are you okay, Misa?"

With a trembling hand she wiped the sweat from her face and took a long, slow breath. "I'm fine," She said, then stood up stretched her back. "Just a tired. Don't worry about it."

Gashi nodded, and turned back to his console, "Sir, one of our sensor drones has picked up a gravitational anomaly close to one of the outer planets. It's definitely a fold reaction, signature suggests battleship class."

"That must be the command ship that skipped out of the fight." Misa wiped her eyes again and said, "How soon can we finish cleanup operations here?"

Gashi punched up a checklist on one of his overhead monitors, then frowned, "At least twelve hours. Probably more."

"No chance of pursuit, then?"

Lieutenant Gorath looked up from her console, "Not from us, Admiral, but SDF-Victory is on route to join us. ETA, four hours and seventeen minutes."

To Misa, the solution was simply academic. "Relay our tactical data to Captain Elensh via courier. Tell them to skip the rendezvous and pursue that command ship instead."