Alex

I looked on in horror at the long-range sensors on the bridge of the Shooting Star. I had thought that the lack of QE communications coming from the central node on the Strength Through Diplomacy meant that someone had just attacked the ship, but I had no idea the magnitude of the opposing force. I couldn’t help but feel more helpless than I had in my entire life as I watched the escort ships being pummeled by Yalayan forces. “Holy shit,” I softly mumbled to myself as I slowly sank to my knees.

I had always assumed that when humanity inevitably got into a war with aliens, that we would have a grand old time of smashing their fleets and forcing a surrender out of their governing body. That impression was only helped by the successful capturing of the Indomitable Crusade not even two days ago, with nothing more than a squad of marines and a Mech squad. The very idea that humanity was caught this flat footed and unprepared was completely anathema to everything that I had come to believe. And yet, it was happening. But that wasn’t what I was focused on. There was something else nagging at the back of my mind.

This is all your fault, the traitor in my own head loudly shouted. All this death and destruction wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken this job. I shook my head, desperately trying to rid myself of those thoughts, but they only came back louder. This is ALL your fault! You deserve NOTHING MORE than to be executed by the first Terran that sees you! I shook my head more vigorously, desperation getting fiercer as the seconds ticked by and I saw yet another bombing run on the Terran carrier. It's all over, I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and started giving in to the despair.

Before I could sink too far into that black void, I felt an immense pressure on my back. Looking up, I saw Aeva standing above me with a concerned look in her eye, one hand covering my back. The captain, of course, was also looking at me concerned. “Are you alright?” Aeva asked as she removed her hand and took a seat next to me.

“What the hell do you think?” I spat back as I watched yet another successful bombing run. “This is all my fault, and I’d be lucky if High Command thinks that summary execution is a fitting punishment for me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, concern and confusion mixing on her face.

I scoffed at her naivety. “There are worse things than death.”

“That may be true,” the captain spoke up. “But we still need to get you to your people regardless of what they think of you.”

I nodded along, pretending to listen to what she was saying. “Could just fake my own death. Wouldn’t be that hard to say that I accidentally got blown out of an airlock during routine maintenance.”

The captain flicked her tentacles in disagreement. “There’s no way that we can do something like that without several green flags being thrown up immediately.”

“Perhaps,” I said as I stared at the screen in despair. “Either way, I’m as screwed as those guys are.”

---

Captain Kaushal

“Shit! Damage report!” I shouted as the next wave of bombers found their targets. The inevitability of our actions became more and more real to me as the longer time went on. We will not go quietly, I silently resolved.

“The last bombing run took out the last of the resupply hangars,” replied one of the engineers. “Those fighters are on their own now.”

I nodded and sent that report to the admiral. “What’s our point defense system looking like?”

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“The system is operating at forty-five percent efficiency,” came the reply from another engineer, eliciting another swear from me. “Current projections put us at combat ineffective in less than five minutes.”

I nodded. “And what of our fighters?”

“We are at seventy percent combat effectiveness.” The man stopped for a moment to catch his breath. We both watched in horror as one of the fighters that was out of ammo decided to make the ultimate sacrifice, plowing directly into a battleship’s main gun. “Sixty-nine percent,” the officer said, wincing.

I leaned back in my chair as I considered our options. We could keep going at the rate that we are, and be dead in the water in five minutes, assuming that the enemy doesn’t want to keep hammering us like they have. That gives us less than five minutes to as much damage as we can and keep the Strength Through Diplomacy safe for as long as we can. Or… Another thought crossed my mind.

I activated the intercom system paging the head engineer. “McMillan, you still there?”

“Fortunately, sir yes, we are. What do you need?” came the reply.

“How long would it take your team to rig the reactor to go critical?”

There was silence on the other end only broken by the sound of sparks of electricity in whatever part of the ship he was in. “Sir, did I hear that right? You want to blow the ship?”

“It’s not my first choice, and scuttling it wouldn’t do enough damage, but how long would it take you?” I asked as the ship got rammed with another barrage of missiles from a nearby battleship.

A frustrated grunt came through the sound system as something metal was hit with what I assumed was a wrench. “I can make it unstable in three minutes, but there would have to be sufficient damage to the ship to set it off.”

I thought about the prospect of ramming the ship into one of the clusters of enemy ships I was seeing on my HUD. “Not an issue, just get it done. Keep in mind that if they keep hammering us like they are, we may not have three minutes.”

“Aye, captain.” He started yelling to the other engineers to destabilize the main reactor before the connection was cut.

I looked around to see my bridge crew looking at me as if I was insane. I gave a heavy sigh as I nodded to them all and activated the ship wide PA system. “Attention crew of the Rabbit’s Foot, this is your captain. As you probably know, we are in dire straits right now, and I have ordered the engineering crew to begin destabilizing the reactor to scuttle the ship. If you are by some fluke still here in three minutes when it goes critical, then you will die a martyr in the eyes of United Terra and her people. All hands, abandon ship.” As the alarm bells of the ship started to blare as I heard shouting from people to get to their escape pods. The navigator plotted a course into the heart of the nearest cluster before giving me a nod and rushing off to his escape pod. I momentarily considered joining him before I shook the thought out of my head. Not yet. I got into a call with the Admiral.

The link went through just fine as the face of the Admiral showed up in the holographic display. “Captain Kaushal, my reports showed that you just signaled an evacuation of the Rabbit’s Foot, what’s going on?”

I braced as another salvo hit the ship. “Sir, you got the report, we’re going to be dead in the water soon if this keeps up. But there’s room enough in the shallow grave being dug for us, and they don’t have the luxury of refusing our hospitality, sir.”

The admiral thought for a moment, considering the options. He nodded solemnly. “Approved, get yourself to an escape pod before that tub explodes, you’re too good of a captain to go down with the ship.”

I saluted the Admiral. “Yes sir,” I said as I tapped a few buttons on my console. “You now have fire control over what’s left of her guns sir.”

He nodded again. “We’ll give ‘em hell, that I promise you.”

I nodded once more before terminating the call, and calmly walking over to the last escape pod on the bridge. The escape pods were a thing of beauty when you thought about it. There were enough life support systems on it that you could live a year in the thing, assuming that you could stand the seat that operated as the cockpit and main survival area of the pod. The outer surface was coated with the best light absorbing stealth camouflage that humanity could come up with. All Terran crafts had these types of escape pods on it, for the obvious reasons of keeping the secret that we no longer needed to keep. After all, if a Terran vessel were to be scuttled with the crew still aboard, it wouldn’t do for the crew to be discovered by the inevitable search and rescue teams that would make their way to their location. Getting comfortable in the chair, I slammed my fist into the ejector button, and felt as the G’s swiftly rose until the inertia dampeners finally kicked on and I was given an unrestricted view of the battle, knowing that the fate of this battle was no longer in my hands. I gave a glance to the clock that was routed to my escape pod. Fifteen minutes.