Nadee sat in the pilot seat for a few hours, leaning on a control panel and gazing at the screens displaying the flight parameters. Sometimes she glanced at the stars through an illuminator. The gravity of the spatiotemporal rings deformed the view like a lens. Dark, dead space filled the Kehrian woman with tranquillity, giving her a sense of floating in nothingness as if time never existed.

Quirinus appeared absorbed in his task, responding to messages and listing reports. This way, he tried to distract his attention away from the conversation that awaited him with his Commander. All the time he kept tapping the wrong keys, deleting long, complete statements and wringing his fingers until his joints crunched.

A communication about deactivation of the rings and leaving the spatiotemporal sphere appeared on the screen. Nadee tapped a green square to confirm the autopilot’s decision. At that moment, she heard a muffled sound of something hitting the door of the hold and looked at Quirinus. He nodded, bringing a gun out, and Nadee pressed a button to open the door. They turned their backs to the illuminator.

Cerridwen entered the cockpit in a sluggish stagger. Her tousled hair floated around her as if she was underwater. With her weary sight stuck on the board, she leaned against the door frame.

Quirinus narrowed his eyes. “What?”

She raised her head. “Look, I…” she began, but when she noticed the view behind the illuminator, she became speechless. She straightened up and opened her eyes wider. She moved her jaw but could not make any noise.

A structure of bewildering different sizes drifted in space. A ship seventeen kilometres long eclipsed starlight and floated impassively ahead as if it had no mass. Its shape reminded her of a recumbent, flattened obelisk. Large spatiotemporal rings surrounded its prow and stern. The ship’s dark silver broadside reflected the weak light of a nearby star so brightly that the Celestian girl covered her eyes which were accustomed more to darkness.

A new class was created especially for such ships. Enormous crafts called Epifortresses, nearly the size of a small city, served as mobile bases. They held hundreds and thousands of crew members, countless supplies for them, and arsenals of weapons. They could drift in space for decades, powered by antimatter and hydrogen fusion reactors.

“What the hell is this?” asked Cerridwen, stepping back.

Quirinus stood straight, gazing at the three overlapping circles in bright orange colour on the ship’s prow. He took a deep breath and with a gleam of pride in his eyes, he said, “Annihilator. The flagship of Zetherion.

Our only hope for freedom.”

“Cerridwen, go back to the hold,” cut off Nadee, “we’re going to dock.”

The tiny ship approached broadside of the colossus, bristling with cannons. Each barrel could fit a large tank-sized bullet or strike its enemies with a laser which could reduce a fair-sized gunboat into a cloud of steam. A force field that separated the hangar from cold void blinked blue when the cargo ship flew through it. Massive metal gates slammed shut to additionally protect the interior of the dock from radiation and the debris floating in the vacuum.

On the airfield, which was five-kilometres wide, stood rows of vehicles attached to the board. They ranged from tiny and easily manoeuvrable suborbital fighters, bombers which were twice that size to long, broad gunboats and tens of other machines of various types which could execute diverse missions in both space and atmosphere. Majority of them bore marks of the fights on their plating. Bombarded by bombs and lasers, dark brown smutches defaced their armours, and deep cracks due to bullets and debris uglified their varnishes. Around the ships bustled paleskinned Celestians, dressed in worn-out boiler suits, who either carried boxes and tools or stared at their LiqBoards.

The cargo ship landed on the designated space and turned the magnets on. Quirinus got out of it, and Nadee followed him, keeping her distance.

What am I supposed to tell him? he pondered. Should I say my team-mate is an idiot or that I couldn’t complete a simple mission?

He clenched his fists to mask the trembling of his fingers and hurried through. He gazed down at the shining floor which reflected the cold white lights. Walking through, the mechanics and pilots gave him a wide berth without paying more attention to him.

He trusted me, believed I could handle this. Maybe I am really the idiot?

Two hundred metres away, he stopped close to the wall and stood straight with hands behind his back. He tried to cast his misgivings aside but with each passing second of the wait, his hands started trembling even more. Nadee remained a step behind him and assumed the same position.

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The lift stopped. Three, skinny pale Celestians marched out, and the tallest one outpaced them. He moved like a live battering-ram, taking heavy, brisk steps but due to the scars covering his bony face and the icyblue eyes, he looked like a drowned man. He had dark hair cut short in the shape of a mohawk, and two rings glistered in his lower lip. He wore a raggedy, brown jacket with rusted sheet metal as pauldrons. On his right sleeve, he had tied a black armband with the logo of the coat of arms of Zetherion − three orange circles. Coming face to face with Quirinus, he halted with an echoing stomp of his heavy boots, which were strapped to his ankles with buckles.

Quirinus gulped with effort and saluted. His stiff hand shook as if he had been electrocuted. Charon Antares returned the gesture and with a grimace that was supposed to be a smile, he asked, “So… where is the famous SynthBreed founder?”

The firmness in his Commander’s hoarse voice intimidated Quirinus. “We haven’t found him.” He glanced down at the floor. “Yet.”

Antares raised his scarred eyebrow. Quirinus sniffed and continued, “Chandri let the Unions discover her. They pursued her and… we had to pull back.”

“Really?” interrupted Antares, crossing his arms. “I send two of my best people, risk losing them and they return with nothing?” He lowered his voice. “We go way back. Everyone but you can screw up something. Never you.”

Quirinus felt a cold shiver passing down his body as if the glance from Antares’ eyes had frozen the blood in his veins. His jaw muscles started twitching. In his mind, he was trying to seek an answer, but shifting the blame on Nadee Chandri would not be enough.

Gathering up his courage, he explained in a nervous voice, “I left her unsupervised as I had to stay on the ship and…”

“I know what you were supposed to do.” Antares pointed at him and growled under his breath. “Do you understand how serious this is?” An expression of disappointment appeared in his eyes for a short time. “And the fact that you let me down in one of the hardest moments. If you had succeeded, we could have started looking for the target instead of playing the paper chase. Do you know what will suffer the most?” He quietened down to let Quirinus reflect on his words. “Zetherion. Every victory brings us closer to the liberation of our home from the Union parasite.” He bit a ring in his lower lip to hold off a wince of sadness. “You failed not just me but everyone who fights for our planet.”

They both remained silent, listening to the cacophony around them, of machines whirring and the punches on metal coming from a distance.

“So…” asked Quirinus, digging his nails into his wrist with all his strength, “what are the consequences… Sir?”

Charon folded his hands, popping his joints loudly. His gaze swept over the entire hangar, starting from the ships attached near, across the high ceiling and ending with the Celestian standing in front of him.

“I don’t know.” He put his hands down and shrugged, “I’ll think about it.”

He walked away, called to the two other commanders and talked to them for a while, gesticulating vigorously. He came back holding a LiqBoard. His face remained impassive and stern, but a spark of anxiety flashed in his eyes.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “Chandri!”

The Kehrian woman stepped ahead and strained her ears, giving Quirinus a dubious look.

“Devi Kali has been arrested,” said the Commander. “We can’t connect with her or with anybody from her company, and the last message we received was Tanaros has descended.”

Such a signal was used only in a dead-end situation when every help that was given did not have any effect. All survivors would then leave their allies behind and pull back to avoid the same fate.

Back in the day when the Union did not exist, Caturix Luxovios, acting under the orders of an even more powerful being, struck terror in the hearts of the Tribes. If inhabitants of a planet, who did not want to submit to him, saw his descending from the sky destroyer, they knew their days were numbered. Tanaros, almost an imperishable war machine, engulfed tens of cities and millions of beings in its fire.

This time, the Union captured somebody way more significant than a common rebel. Devi Kali, the ruler of a little known but rich planet, Jalandhara, led the rebellion from the very beginning. She financed their weaponry and established alliances with smugglers and pirates, doing shady deals with them. In the deeper parts of her planet were located countless deposits of radioactive elements that she sold to the enemies of her enemies. That way she could afford to wage a war, striking the targets in a flash and immediately pulling back. A top-notch Jalandhara defence system, liberation of other systems and eventually, total annihilation of the Union became her mission in life.

Several years ago on different planets operated local groups of rebels lacking in centralized command, alliances or plans. Their resistance against the Union was mostly to trigger violent riots on the streets during major public events or plant improvised explosive devices under buildings and governmental vehicles.

Witnessing their helplessness, Devi Kali established The Alliance of Independent Systems. She united all the scattered groups of rebels, equipped them with weapons and ships and gave them specific tasks that would help them liberate their motherlands.

A few days ago, Devi Kali had found out that the Union was occupying her planet and had decided to personally carry out a liberating action while the enemy forces were weak enough, but she did not foresee the cunning intelligence of her opponents.

“You have five minutes.” Antares pointed to the cargo ship. “Wait for me.”

“Yes, Sir,” replied Quirinus and headed towards the vehicle. Too late, too damn late, he thought, gazing at a distant point and gritting his teeth. I won’t hide this Celestian girl. Even if I try to, someone will certainly notice and rat me out to Antares. And he’ll kill me. He’ll surely kill me for another breach of trust.

He glanced at his left hand. Four deep nail marks, marked by the clotting blood, appeared on his pale skin. He spat on his wrist and wiped it on his trousers. He did not even notice that he had hurt himself, but that was the only way he could keep the appearance of coolness during the conversation with his Commander. He turned his head to look at Nadee. The Kehrian woman was checking all the helpful details on the unknown territory on her LiqWatch and did not pay any attention to him. Quirinus straightened up, changing his posture from a frightened animal to a proud warrior, and kept marching on.