Author's Note

I had to rewrite this one, since I discovered that the Rosetta, a Faustus-class science cruiser, is sent to Altair, and it transfers the refugees to two Elysium transports in Altair during the return trip. This probably won't matter, since, if anyone is reading this, it will probably be after I've posted the change anyway…

Disclaimer: Volition-inc. owns Descent: Freespace, Admiral Shima, Operation Thresher and several other things. I own Vincent Schaard, Lorkhena Garamande, and Lt. Risnan as well as most of the plot, except where it intertwines with or makes reference to the plot of the game.

Fun Fact: Most squadron leaders in the GTA refer to their squad mates by their temporary designation during a mission (Alpha 1, Beta 4, etcetera), but the 66th are such a close-knit squadron that they always refer to each other by name. The reason for using temporary designations is to lessen the impact of a comrade lost, as this is typically unavoidable. Also, these designations are only temporary because the Greek alphabet only has twenty-four letters, meaning that by this system, the GTA could only have ninety-six active fighters and bombers.

Chapter Six: 3/4/2335 Begin the Gauntlet

"Welcome pilots. For those of you who are still new to the Bastion, I am Admiral Shima. Some of you may be aware of a recent transmission received by the GTA. The transmission is as follows:"

Shima steps to the side, and the screen behind her shows a primarily blue image and the familiar face of a Vasudan. The transmission begins, and shows itself to be a distress call from a group of Vasudan scientists. They were forced to crash-land on a planet in Altair, and there is some mention of ancient ruins.

"We received this message two days ago, and now have plans to rescue the stranded scientists. We have reason to believe that they have found an ancient civilization that was destroyed by the Shivans," a murmur ripples through the assembled pilots, but Shima continues, "What is more incredible is that the ruins appear to be at least eight thousand years old, which only deepens the mystery of our xenocidal foe.

"We will be sending the Rosetta under the escort of the 66th Black Knights to Altair, and-"

I don't hear the rest as I feel renewed hatred for the Shivans; after their attack on Vasuda Prime, we haven't faced any Shivans and I know the rest of the 66th feels as strongly as I do. I realize that I've missed a potentially important segment of Shima's briefing, so I ask Ron next to me what she said.

"We only get to escort the Rosetta to Altair 4 and two transports through Aldebaran on the return trip; they're having another squadron handle the rest of it. She also had to remind us about the intersystem jump drives for the small ships for some reason. I guess some people weren't here for the last briefing."

"Yeah, Ron," I say, "We weren't here; it was during the night shift and we were asleep."

"Right. I'd forgotten."

"-ill be deployed immediately. We will be arriving in Altair momentarily, so suit up."

I get up with the rest of the 66th and head for our quarters. I expect Risnan to be there, putting on his flight suit, since he already attended the other command briefing, but we find the rooms devoid of people. No one else seems to take much notice, so we all get suited up, and go to the hangar.

We've only flown one mission since Lorkhena joined our squadron, and she proved to be an excellent pilot despite her short service. Like most of us, she was a fairly new recruit, and although she was active during the T-V war, she never saw any action until the Shivans attacked a depot she was patrolling. Her weapon of choice is the Seth fighter. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Seth is one hell of a ship. It fits right in with our Apollos, and it's a good thing too, since the only other Vasudan ships on the Bastion are the ones that survived the Galatea, and are therefore already taken.

I reach the hangar and, as usual, the rest of the squadron trickles in. Risnan is last, which is also as usual. He's been a little on edge lately, and we all know it has something to do with the Vasudans and his military career before the 66th. But no one can pin it down; did he enjoy fighting the Vasudans? Did he lose someone to a Vasudan attack? The only way to know for sure would be to confront him, but he's been very shut off, and it seems that we'll never know.

"Alright, boys and girls," says Risnan, his back turned to all of us, already heading for his ship, "You all know the drill."

The Bastion had already arrived in Altair, and we could see the science cruiser, Rosetta.

"We're going under the usual designations," this means that Risnan, Ron, myself, and Lorkhena make up Alpha wing (in that order), Tate, Sanford, Tinman, and D are in Beta, and Lawrence, Fred, Al, and George make up Gamma, "Remember that we all cover the Rosetta, but if anything happens, Gamma stays with them, and Alpha and Beta go after the threat."

This was unusual for Risnan; he had only ever referred to Lorkhena by her typical designation during a mission, Alpha 4, but he always called the rest of us by name, and the wing by its leader. Risnan must have been perturbed by the prospect of saving Vasudan scientists. I begin to feel angry, but I distract myself with the mission at hand.

We all take off normally, leave the hangar, and approach the Rosetta.

"Rosetta, this is Alpha one, lt. Risnan of the 66th Black Knights. We are here to escort you to Altair."

"Roger, Alpha one. This is the Rosetta, our crew is ready to make the journey and our supplies are stable," the vessel is carrying some food and water for the Vasudans, in the event that their supplies have run out, "We are beginning the journey to the node. Over."

"I copy that," says Risnan, "Everyone form up. Out."

We form on our squadron leaders and proceed to escort positions around the Rosetta. I target the planet, Altair 4, and a digital image appears in the lower left-hand corner of my HUD, along with its distance. It reads 106984 meters, and I decide to start up a conversation, without which this trip will take a long, long time.

"Hey, Fred, how're you feeling about this one?"

"I have contingency plans for any attacks from fore, aft, north, south, east, west, and everywhere in between. The only thing that'll get past me is the Lucifer itself."

"Don't jinx it, Fred," says Ron, "I hope you have some wood to knock on in there."

After some laughter, we all hear Fred tapping his notepad, the only wood within several million light-years of his ship.

The next voice over the comm. is George's, "Yeah, my plan is the first Shivan I see not getting out of my crosshairs."

Then Lawrence, "You might try knocking out its engines so I can get a good look, for once."

"Hey, that reminds me," George says, "I heard you got another message from Ernst- Dr. Moncreafe, that is."

"Yeah, he says he's been preaching the hive mind theory, that the Shivans share a collective intelligence, like a bee hive. I sent back a reply with my latest observations, and I have to say that I agree with him. The Shivans make strategic decisions far too quickly by other explanation."

D cuts in, "Hey, Lawrence, did you see that footage of that team searching a Shivan transport?"

"Yeah, that brought in a lot of new data for Dr. Moncreafe. He and many of his colleagues agree that the Shivans are a fusion of biology and electronics. Some others argue that they probably just wear flight suits, but the armor in the footage is too closely integrated to be a removable suit. There's also the beam weapon one of the Shivans uses to eliminate a member of the exploration team. It's a shame the team didn't last longer in there, or we could have found out some more."

D again, "Well, that just gives us more of a reason to fight; we'll force 'em to talk!"

"Well," says Lawrence, "That wouldn't be so hard if we knew their comm. encoding. None of our scientists or engineers can seem to decode it. Dr. M is beginning to suspect that the encoding is not the problem, and that instead, the Shivans communicate by an as of yet undiscovered method."

"Well," Al says, "That Dr. M seems to know a lot about the Shivans. I hope he gets somewhere with his research, Lawrence; maybe we can put an end to all this fighting."

"This war had better not be over until I get more kills than Tate!" says Sanford.

"I'm sure you already have," says Tate, "You tend to daydream a lot, right?"

Tate and Sanford begin to argue again, so Tinman starts talking with Lorkhena.

"You know," says Tinman, "I was ready to drop out of flight school after I learned about the Vasudans."

"Yeah," says D, "Only after I suggested it."

"Well," says Lawrence, "I still wanted to fly, but I didn't want to kill Vasudans."

"I felt the same way," says Lorkhena, "I spent my spare time in the Vasudan Naval Academy reading Terran literature and history. I marvel at the fact that your leaders do not listen to your philosophers. Philosophers are the ones who devote themselves to understanding the world, and a leader without understanding is little more than a blind dictator."

"I second that," I say, "I heard that Shima initially planned to have herself demoted when she was first made admiral, but she realized she had reached a position with the power to end the war peacefully. I think we were all relieved at the Shivan invasion and end of the T-V war."

"This way," says Ron, "We can fight without restraint."

Ron begins to rotate his ship, lazily, but Risnan cuts in.

"Knock it off, Hughes."

"So, what was it like, fighting in the fourteen-year war, lieutenant?" asks Lawrence.

"Rosetta, what is your status?" Risnan ignores Lawrence.

"This is the Rosetta. Status normal."

For a long time there is an uneasy silence. Even Tate and Sanford had stopped talking. No one can think of anything to say to pick up the conversation, and we're all surprised when it's Risnan who breaks the silence.

"Lawrence," says Risnan, "You asked what it was like to fight before the Great War. Well, I'll tell you; it was hell."

The eerie silence falls upon us again, but this time, it lasts only a few seconds before Risnan continues.

"I was an eager pilot, eager to fight," he says, "much like you, Schaard. I knew Shima fairly well back then; she was my squadron leader on the Bastion before I transferred to the GTD Minnow. She was a genius of a pilot, someone I could look up to, and both of us tried to stay low in the ranks to keep away from a desk job and keep flying. I did it by reporting as few kills as I could, but Shima was so well known that she soon got her promotion to admiral.

"That was after I found myself on the Galatea, though. We'd had a falling out, because of our last mission, and the reason I requested a transfer. We were supposed to take out a Vasudan cargo depot, mostly food supplies for the PVN. The rest of us were occupied with the cargo, some freighters, and enemy fighters, while Shima was supposed to go after an Isis-class transport. This was early in the war, only the second year. The transport was supposed to be carrying Vasudan pilots, but our Intel was wrong. The transport pilot saw Shima approaching and contacted her, begging for their safe departure. The pilot claimed he was transporting civilians, but the rest of us thought he was lying.

"Shima let him go, and the rest of us blew up on her afterwards. I had already made my transfer to the Galatea before I found out that the transport pilot had been telling the truth. But that wasn't the worst of it…

"Some of you may know about Operation Thresher, the Terran operation that so gloriously failed in the Antares system. I was part of that operation, and I can tell you that the fighting you've seen so far is nothing compared with a true battle."

Risnan was right; we'd never been a part of a serious battle. The one time we would have engaged a destroyer, we found it had been attacked by the PVN and destroyed already.

"504 Terran pilots dead, fourteen MIA. That's what they reported. The operation was a failure, but the Vasudan losses were much worse. Although the targets were primarily supplies and transports, they were protected by two Typhon-class destroyers, several cruisers, and even more Vasudan fighter squadrons. I have seen the face of death; screams of dying men, Vasudans and Terrans, civilians and pilots alike.

"I returned to the Bastion after that mission. Perhaps you've noticed that I never sit in on Shima's command briefings. I have one of the other squadron leaders report her briefings to me. I thought I could repent under Shima's leadership, and I may yet, but I can't face her after my military career.

"223 Vasudans dead; 157 pilots, 66 civilians. Those are my kill numbers; enough to make me admiral three times over… Ancient Terran soldiers once died 'for God and Country.' Even then, there was no God, and their 'Country' was a mass of the impoverished ruled over by pretentious aristocrats. They were no less misguided than we are now."