Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry for the delay, family and vacation got in the way of my writing, but I hope you enjoy this chapter. I am going to note I have made a change to a previous chapter, replacing the prothean mining tool from ch IIX with something far more intriguing.

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur Orbit, SSV Hamburg, Flag Quarters, Admiral Julia Hawking, 1320, April 6th, 2157:

I sit at my desk, computer active but unused, all duties relating to its contents either completed or best delayed until after this short respite ends and the battle truly concludes. Instead, my eyes are transfixed on a floating ball of water, held aloft by a small spherical plate, which glows a faint blue. I slowly move the pipette in my hand towards the sphere, barely penetrating it before releasing its bright yellow payload within the water, food coloring spiraling out into abstract forms within the zero g liquid. This is a rather old artform for spacers, first done by crews on interorbital journeys in the middle of the 21st century to pass the time, before spreading across countless communities across the Sol System over the next century. It is calming for me, bringing back old memories of when a spacer on Alto Station first demonstrated it when I was a child first leaving Earth for Ganymede, and of the contests I would joining between the crewmembers of the Space Guard, trying to outdo each other with more and more elaborate and beautiful tapestries of swirling color. Getting it to work on an Alliance ship, with their false gravity that still feels strange even years into my new service, may require a rather pricey new invention out of Titan, the disk below the sphere, but the calm doing this brings me is more than worth it.

As I slowly fill the pipette with green liquid, ready to add another color to the sphere, the door in front of me opens, revealing Commander Beek. "Ma'am." He says curtly, a salute quickly following, which I reciprocate.

"Do you have the report?" I ask, putting the pipette down.

"Yes ma'am." He says, handing me the data pad he's holding. The report on the pad tells a grim tale: 28 fighters from Anvil lost alongside 20 from Hammer, most of the rest damaged to varying degrees, over a quarter of our fighters lost. 'At least bringing them all with us is no longer a concern.' A morbid part of my mind supplies. The hangar facilities on the cruisers can barely deal with the Outpost's shuttles and the overflow from the cargo bays, with there not being enough space to fit an entire squadron, even with the losses from Da Ling Er. 'A moot point now.'

The brighter part of me looks at the enemy's losses: nearly two flotillas of frigates gone in an instant, almost the entirety of their heavy screen lost. Alongside that, and perhaps even more importantly, the strikes from Hammer wounded their capital ships, not enough to take any out of the fight, but enough to even the playing field a bit, and enough to make the enemy worry. They don't know we barely have any capital torpedoes left, they don't know our fighter force is nearly gutted, they don't know that our new cruiser, unknown in design and purpose, has more sensors than weaponry. They don't know, and so they are cautious, a wounded predator licking their light wounds and waiting to strike again. Every minute they spend making emergency repairs, every minute their fighters probe out closer and closer to our lines, testing for trapping and trying to bait out our fighters, is another minute to finish things on the planet. Speaking of which. "How goes the evacuation?"

"Well, ma'am, all non-combat or volunteer personnel have been evacuated to the ships, alongside almost all essential equipment. What's left is, while valuable, still expendable. Teams have moved on to sabotage what we can't bring, the Outpost's memory core has been wiped and explosives are being placed on and around important equipment we can't take, ensuring it won't fall into enemy hands. Some of the researchers have protested abandoning the ruins, but all have complied with the evacuation order, even if some delayed to collect final samples."

The sympathy on the Commander's face, yet also the shadow of annoyance alongside it reveals his nature to me. 'A man who favors the origins of the Alliance, yet still can see more militant necessities, quite rare, most are lost to one or the other, loyal in totality to a single focus.' The internal nature of the Alliance is mixed, a creature of both exploration and security, built for one, but having the other forced upon it by the nature of man. The two halfs rarely get along, personnel who joined to explore, to see strange new worlds and explore the galaxy, rarely meshing well with those who see themselves as defenders, soldiers instead of explorers, like myself. Those who can see both sides, the explorers and the defenders, like Commander Beek, give me some hope that the Alliance will eventually become one unity, instead of two halves forced together by necessity and the truth of international politics.

I turn my wandering mind back towards the present. "Thank you Commander, you are dismissed." As the Commander swiftly leaves my quarters, I begin to plan, for this short reprieve, for the battle to come, and for what comes after.

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur Orbit, SSV Hamburg, Hanger Bay 2, Servicewoman First Class Aurelia Walker, 1330, April 6th, 2157:

"You you bloody mother fucking son of a whore! What did you do to your fighter?! We only just fixed them from the last time those bastards ripped you idiots a new asholes, and now we have to do it again!" Hearing the Chief yell at someone other than the crew is always an interesting experience. With us, she has a habit of going a bit soft, no matter how much we fuck up, we are her's and I'm pretty sure she blames herself as much as us. With the flyboys though? She can make some rather impressive sentences that should never be shared with polite company.

'Considering what they brought us, this is well deserved.' I almost wince when I glance towards the slagged collection of parts somehow holding together that only a short time ago was a pristine F50 Trident. 'We aren't getting any sleep, are we?' I think, resigning myself to my fate and the fate of all the hanger crew, just like with the last battle. 'Only now we're on a timetable.'

'Only a matter of time before something goes wrong.' For the entire time since all our enlistments, the hangar crew has worked on regular maintenance, maybe some repairs for a handful of fighters after accidents or battles with pirates, not fixing up half the squadron at once. It has shown in our speed, painfully slow compared to what some of the older hands remember from other navies, and the fatigue has already caused some minor accidents. 'If this goes on, they won't be minor.'

I look over, my ears hearing the Chief's tirade against the Commander and my eyes confirming it. She beckons me and some of the few others not already working on the dozens of other wrecks in the hanger, and I prepare to get to work.

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur Orbit, HGS Swordbound, Outer Hull, Crewman 2nd class Adersin Fersalius, 1330, April 6th, 2157:

"Is this the one, sir?" I hear the kid's nervous voice on the comm, though she tries to hide it. 'Probably not a year out of basic.'

"Yes, the ship's sensors detected deeper damage than surface level in this area, so we're checking it out." 'Just like near all of these damn impact sights.' Whatever the new aliens used on us, most of the impact sights have damage that barely makes it past the outer ablative armor, barely being the key word. 'Not enough to heavily wound the ship, but too troublesome to leave alone.' "Let's get to work."

Slowly, we take the hexagonal plates that cover the outer hull, each a bit smaller than our heads, off, their surface looking more like warped metal than foamed aluminum covered in paint it is. Some segments have fused together, the enemy's weapon forcing the molecules together in a way that reminds me of a biotic's warp, twisted and broken. For those, we have to use the plasma cutters. The discarded plats are attached by a cord to the ship, ensuring they don't fly off while we're working.

As each plate is removed, the structure of the outer hull is revealed in its distorted form, circuitry-like lines spread across it, some glowing a faint blue, others warped and darkened, far too many darkened. I swear. "Kinetic barrier emitters are dead, considering how deep the other teams are reporting damage the backup is probably gone too." I bring up the comms system to the damage control chief. "This is repair team 9, we're gonna need a barrier weaver drone and some replacement armor plates, 23 subsections compromised."

It takes a few moments before reply comes in. "Roger that team 16, weaver-04 and supply team 6 on their way, begin plate salvage."

"So what now?" Asks the kid.

I grin, pointing towards the two dozen armor plates held to the ship by thin cords. "Now we get the joy of seeing how many of those are lost causes, and how many we can put back in." 'Not that it matters, without more time we'll have to put half the unsalvageable ones back in 'cause we don't have enough replacements, we stock only so many and the fabricators can't keep up.

I see her nod, and we get back to work, ready to finish this job before being pulled towards another of these impact sites across the ship. 'Could be worse, at least we're not dealing with repairing that radiator plate, the thing is bigger than a small corvette and a quarter of it is bent.'

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Mir Orbit, SSV John Cabot, Crew Mess Hall, Serviceman Second Class Simons, 1330, April 6th, 2157:

I slowly move away from the food line in the mess hall, looking for a place to sit. The Cabot's crew mess hall is rather large, capable of holding over a hundred people, larger than the number expected of it at any one time, expected. Now though, the room is filled to the brim, the crew having worked around the clock to get the alien ship ready for travel, leaving the mess at half again capacity to feed them all.

Due to this, and to my grief, the only place I see with an open seat is next to Griff, the rest being taken up by the countless other crew members of the Cabot, getting off of working on the alien ship like us. I reach the bench and table, one that would not look out of place in a school cafeteria if both were not bolted to the floor, faced with the annoyance already stuffing their face with a taco, cheeks puffed up like a man-sized squirrel. "Hello Simons." Griff somehow says with his overflowing mouth. "How ya' doing?"

"Fine." I say, reluctantly settle down across from him. "The current shift is finishing the final work on the alien ship, it's not too long until they're done."

"So we're- wait one sec'" Griff swallows his taco in a way not dissimilar to a bird trying to swallow a rodent just a bit too large to practically eat. "Mmm, that was good. So we're heading out soon?"

I scoff. "No, we're waiting for the ships over Baikonur to be done. Worst case and they all die, we can still receive all their data, the comms relays are still working and they're sending everything over as fast as they can." I slowly lift up one of my tacos and begin to eat.

Griff is silent for a bit longer than expected, before asking. "Do you really think they may be wiped out?"

There is something in his voice I can't quite figure out. 'Why would he-oh, didn't his sister join after him, isn't she on the Lagos?' "No, they'll be fine, we beat those guys in the last fight, so I don't think there is any danger." I say, hoping my words come off as genuine.

We eat our meal in silence, something I would usually cherish, but now seems wrong.

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur, Scientific Outpost, Main Base, Lieutenant Tadius Ahern, 1500, April 6th, 2157:

I stalk the streets of the outpost, looking for anything out of place, anything important we haven't taken with us or broken and strapped explosives to. So far, nothing, all equipment accounted for, gone, broken, or waiting on the landing pad, while the main outpost's data core has been wiped, smashed, and set to blow.

I gaze upon the scientific outpost, though it's more of an archaeological sites: centuries old alien structures intermixed with prefabricated human ones, advanced and primitive alien dwellings, the former seemingly brought with whoever made this world home, the latter built here, covered in protective equipment where possible to prevent any more deterioration while the scientists learn all they can. At its center lays the reason for the Outpost's designation, a standard Alliance outpost core, complete with a reactor, fabricators, and everything an Outpost would need, not dissimilar to the actual Alliance Outpost only a few kilometers away, already stripped and ready for abandonment.

'This place, it could have been a seed.' I think to myself. 'The start of a new colony, a new home for humanity.' I can almost see it: a small spaceport where the landing pad is, the dead structures and scientific buildings replaced by homes and infrastructure and growth, settlements spreading out from this point for a hundred miles, another bastion of mankind. 'Instead, it is to be just another ruin among millions. Hopefully we'll be able to come back and change that, hopefully.'

"Sir." I hear over the comms. "Message from orbit: the enemy force has restarted its advance, contact in T minus 30 minutes, we need to leave."

I sigh. "Roger that, all personnel more to evac. Shuttles, prep your final loads and get ready for liftoff."

I make my way back to the landing pad, barely sparing the outpost another look. When I reach the shuttles, I see one of the volunteers, a doctor Mathews, looking perturbed, like something important is slipping his mind, and each time he tries to grasp it, the knowledge becomes even more elusive.

I enter the shuttle, one filled up by most of my platoon, the rest spread across the others. I check that everyone is accounted for, before giving my XO a nod. She bangs on the separation between the bay and cockpit, leading to the pilot lifting off.

I look back towards the outpost, its white and rust brown buildings standing out with the open fields on one side, and the woods on the other. The door closes.