Lieutenant Staravyn, a mature human, strode forward as the alarm sounded around him. The dull red lights pulsed around him from the hallway lights as he joined the frantic flow of rushing personnel. Code Red alerts were serious things that excused no idleness.

Farrah, the mature Selk-Trigan, on the back of his head shifted uncomfortably as she picked up on his agitation. She was a very calm and tranquil person but she was also very sensitive to negative emotions. They were close enough that his agitation became her agitation.

Her twelve tentacles flexed around his head while he weaved around other personal and entered the corridors to the mobile fighter hangers. It was like how humans wrung their hands in nervousness. Her octopus-like body writhed gently against the back of his head but he barely noticed. They had been through these situations many times.

Farrah's thoughts flittered and expanded as they got closer. The Code Red meant impending battle. She triple checked to make sure that her supporting legs were still holding her up. Her suckers firmly adhered to Staravyn's skin and hard suit as he strode forward.

While her species were not very heavy, but on a human head, it was definitely uncomfortable for them. So she used her own legs to maintain her perch. This kept the weight off his head and onto the study body below.

Her thoughts kept leaking into his and she envied him yet again. He could so easily create mental walls that filtered out her thoughts from his own. Selkies had no such ability and it was both a blessing a curse.

With other Selkies, she became a piece of a greater whole, yet with the other species she became a pronounced individual and she was often uncertain which one she preferred. Yet she always returned to Staravyn and this had been so with their last two centuries together.

She had now grown to dislike being separated from him for long periods of time despite her occasional desire to join with a pod of thought. He also felt the same way when their thoughts meshed together. It came and ebbed like the tide and their thoughts intersected as effortless as water on a beach. Natural and unhindered.

The traffic died down as they entered the space fighter subsections. It was long stretches of land that housed the orbital fortress's mobile space fighters. From here, the Athena, they could launch from here to intercept whatever danger that threatened the Union of the Red Star. The single planet that they controlled was precious as it was their only home.

For this was the last star. The final bastion of natural light and, Wick, the red dwarf still burned with enough fuel for another hundred million years. Around this star was a hundred planets that were artificially transferred and housed the multitudes of surviving species. Some cooperative and other xenophobic.

Within the Hundred Planet Alignment, they owned only one piece of it and the rest were heavily defended by similar factions that needed them for their own survival. This final bastion of light was theirs and theirs alone.

They shared what little land they could afford but in the end, what was, was. There were no more stars and no more room for planets. The current alignment of the hundred worlds was what was optimal for maximum density before planetary gravity began to seriously interfere with each other.

The Disaster of the Thirty almost fifty years ago was a testament to those who ignored the alignment as thirty worlds fell pretty to the red dwarf's gravity well and were consumed by its slow-burning fiery.

The Alliance of Digra, The Alliance of Three, The Entities of Quadrupeds, The Federation of Space Born, The Mountain, The Water, The Space Stars, and thirty-three others were completely erased from the Wick as their planets were destroyed.

Here, at Wick, the final red star in the known universe. The stars had finally died and the many life forms had gathered here. The weak radiation was glorious to those who had once basked in the radiance of suns. Here was the last natural light. Here was the constant struggle to maintain their share.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Staravyn waited as the security system scanned his body and identified himself and Farrah. Her mind was oily today as agitation and abhorrence to war stained their thoughts and fueled her turmoil. He found it harder to connect to her when she was like this.

She would be shaky until they began to fly. Then she could concentrate on the mission and her mind would once again calm down. The focus was she lacked and focus she would soon get.

Farrah was always funny that way and he would never ask for more. He trusted her with his life and she trusted hers with his. Partners until the dark end.

The blast doors opened and the two walked through as Farrah picked up on others coming up behind them. He paid them no heed as their thoughts mingled again. She was beginning to calm as the large fighter docks came into view.

Part hallway and part port, the long and wide corridor had many windows leading to the empty space outside. The view of their blue planet, Aquarius, the 36th planet in the alignment, was a beautiful sight against the red rays of the sun.

Staravyn walked and nodded to fellow pilots and engineers. Their hard combat suits were recognizable even among the Hundred Planets. The assortment of Humans, Selk-Trigan, Valkor'es, Strin, and Eueireie gathered never failed to impress.

Five species under one banner.

A mutually beneficial alliance of free people. They were only beaten by the Kingdom of Kings were they had almost a dozen races enslaved and controlled 3 whole planets. They had numbers but the Union of the Red Star had quality. Free people fighting to maintain their freedom.

They had lasted over two thousand years this way and he would be damned before he failed to upkeep the legacy of their predecessors.

It took a long journey by the automated walkway, but they made it to their fighter. A Humanoid Space Fighter, and he nodded to his Eueireie mechanic. The HSF was locked out behind a glass-steel wall and it was tethered by metal braces while many mechanical arms moved all around it.

The gelatinous worker burbled at him as its cylindrical body wobbled while thin tendrils quickly danced across the holographic display. The many mechanical arms smoothly responded and placed the finish touches on the fighter.

"Looking good, Richie!" Staravyn complimented as he raised his fists and bumped a bunched up group of Richie's tendrils.

Rich-Mineral was a bit goofy but he was unquestionably skilled as he was able to resurrect Staravyn's HSF many times. Richie gurgled out a bunch of sounds that Farrah had to translate. The Selkies were great diplomats as Eerie speech made almost no sense to Humies.

Four dozen tendrils wrapped up and around Staravyn tightly. With little effort, Richie lifted Staravyn up to the odd sensory organs near the top of his body. It burbled loudly and seriously while Farrah snickered as she translated.

'Bring Sofia back in once piece you amino scum, or else!'

Staravyn gave Richie a suave smile, "Of course, buddy!"

Staravyn didn't even need Farrah to translate Richie's blurb of a disdainful sniff as the translucent, baby-blue man simply dropped him.

He smiled as Sofia began to warm up, the engines hummed and the space around it began to distort as the Omni-engine powered up. Though slower then Armoured Space Fighters, HSF has a magic of their own. Omni-directional engines could be better then Linear-directional engines but are always slower.

The door to the piloting pill opened. Staravyn stepped up and Farrah's docile arms quickly grabbed onto the many handholds inside. She helped him balance as he smoothly slid into the pill and her arms effortlessly strapped him in before she moved into her own small seat.

The outside arms gently grabbed the pill as the thick doors sealed shut and then fitted the pill into the fighter's stomach. The pill then integrated the walls came to life as streams of data fed itself to the pilots.

Staravyn nodded for Farrah and he felt one of her tentacles reach out to touch his cheek. Her suckers gave him a dozen soft kisses for luck before he released the locks on Sofia. She floated there for a minute while Farrah insured that everything was good to go.

Selkies were excellent in data management, able to understand multiple streams of information while Humies were good with reaction and subtleties of thought driven controls. They made a perfect team in his not so honest opinion.

The selkies had great construction and AI-supported systems but they have vastly outmatched in close combat that humans excelled in. Together they made a great team and with the addition of the other three races, they were incredible. There was a reason that the Union of the Red Star had lasted over two thousand years.

Cracking his neck, Staravyn locked in the coordinates to the battle sight just above the twelfth orbital fortress, Gaia, and blasted off to defend it from invaders of the bear-like creatures of the Inter-Species Confederation.

Staravyn's and Farrah's mind mingled into Sofia. She flexed her strong arms as her body pierced space and time. Soon they would be in battle and their fates would determine the outcome of their entire Union. No battle was insignificant and no lives useless.

This was their planet and they would all need to be eradicated before they began to give it up.