---War---

---Victor’s perspective---

“Hail him and put the call through to my holo, Twila!” I bark, taking it from my pocket.

“Hailing him now.” she answers instantly.

I hear the tone of an unconnected call… then a *click*.

“Oi! Darth Arsehole! What’s your fuckin’ problem?! Didn’t feel this went badly enough for you the first two times you tried it or what(!?)” I roar into my holo before Stetter has a chance to speak.

There’s a few moments of silence before “…Hey there, Lllllimey…” he answers, his deep, gravelly, artificial voice completely absent the cocky smugness he had in our previous run ins with him as it plays from both the speakers in the room and my holo. He sounds almost drunk but I’m guessing whatever’s causing it’s a bit less biochemical and a bit more psychological… He’s had a long time to stew and (if he’s alone right now) no one to talk to in that time! Isolation literally causes brain damage to Humans (and it does it shockingly fast) which is why solitary confinement’s banned as a punishment in all Terran prisons! This guy’s just subjected himself to it for maybe months!

Everyone’s looking at me, the Twigg and the Vrakhand obviously able to tell from tone and context that this is serious, even if they don’t have a clue what’s going on!

“What makes you think we ain’t gonna hand you your own arse again this time, Stetter!?” I demand, projecting a confidence I have not earned.

He’s not deranged enough to let it slip by him, retorting “Dooon’t act like you had anything to do with the scoreboard, carrottop!… It was the old Chinese dude who beat me the first time… after I knocked out your teeth, if I remember right!… That trick your AI played last time, with hacking my body, was just cheap!”

“Worked didn’t it?” I retort, humourlessly “Anyway, we’ve still got the same ‘old Chinese dude’ and the same AI that beat you last two times, so, I ask again, what makes you think this time’ll be any different!?”

“Oh, that…?” he answers, hazily “…that’s ’cause this time, I’m in a heavily armed, heavily armored, heavily digitally fortified, UTCM patrol scout ship… and you guys… you’re in a barn door size target! Even if your AI turned all your point defense on me and I just sat here and took it, you wouldn’t’ve even scratched the paint job before I’d reduced you guys to a flaming wreck!”

“You’re bluffing!” I accuse “You can’t collect your bounty without proof, can you!”

He gives a dark chuckle in answer “Yeeeeah… that bridge’s already burned, I’m afraid… Sucks for you guys!… I’m not here for the bounty… I just want you guys to not exist anymore!"

“Then why answer the call? Why ain’t you already started bombardin’ us?”

“I just wanted you guys to know who’d taken you out…” he answers, dispassionately.

Desperately, I try a last appeal to his Humanity “Stetter… we currently have a hundred people aboard from that planet down there! I am not exaggeratin’ when I say that, if you shoot us down, you will be makin’ hundreds of orphans of their kids!”

“Humans…?” he asks, idly, clearly already knowing the answer.

I hesitate before answering “…No.”

There’s a pause from the other side of the line “…Then they get what they get…”

With that, he hangs up.

3 seconds later, the ship is rocked again by the first salvo striking us.

---Ngngomg’s perspective---

“What’s going on?!” demands Viig “Why…!?”

“No time to explain!” announces Taylor, decisively “Twila! What you got for us?”

“Nothing, Victor! I’m trying to get into his ship’s systems but, at this rate it would take me 200 years! Like he said, the ship’s too heavily armoured for our point defence lasers to be effective! And if we start evacuating…”

“He switches to shuttles and escape pods which will take a single hit to destroy.” the man surmises “How long do we have to think of something?”]

I stand, drawing every eye, and announce “I’ve thought of something already, CSS…”

---Yakchutt’s perspective---

I run from the gymnasium after the tall Gollogng man with the R’qali woman riding his shoulder, my two fists balled with my four inside [thumbfingers] folded against my four outside [fingerfingers] with my (relatively) short legs desperately working to allow me to attempt to catch up to him with his long stride and deathworldification augmented muscles.

He makes it into the Gallery and the R’qali launches herself off his shoulder and begins flying upward immediately as he jinks right.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I should have said something before he left but my mind didn’t allow me to put the pieces together fast enough!

I jink right after him, cutting the corner to the extent that I bump my shoulder on the doorframe.

I’m just able to see as he disappears into the cargo bay.

“Wait!” I shout, ineffectually, as the *BOOM* of another salvo striking the ship both swallows my voice and causes me to almost lose my feet!

My muscles work furiously to try to bring me to him before its too late.

I finally make it into the hangar and shout “Ambassador!”

He turns to where I stand, frozen midstep up the short ladder to his fighter craft, a quizzical expression adorning his noseless, humanoid face.

Still sprinting toward him, I ask “Tail gunner?”

He smiles, leans over the console and hits a button.

At the back of his craft, a door pops open on the side of a plexiglass gunner globe.

“Get in, [Commadore]…”

---Tcakqaal’s perspective---

The door to my quarters opens, revealing my lifemate consoling my squawking daughter.

“Tcakqaal, what’s…?!”

“No time, Qorak…” I say, breezing past him “…I’m going out there to stop him. If I don’t make it back, I love you and tell our daughter the same!”

“Wait! You’re what!?” he asks, as I punch in the passcode on a numberpad labelled with R’qali numerals.

“I risk my life, or we all die.” I answer, simply, as a [1.5m] tall bulkhead slides aside “Don’t try to stop me.”

“Tcakqaal, I…”

I turn and wrap my wings around him, pressing my beak against his for as long as I’m willing to spare.

I rip myself from the embrace and pass through the airlock to the entrance to my fighter.

Desolately, Qorak simply says “Don’t die, my okla… come back to us.”

I sigh “I’ll try, sweetfruit!”

Then the bulkhead seals and I step through into the cramped cockpit.

Out of the window, I can see where the Terran military scout is hanging in space, lazily shelling us.

Each strike causes the shields to fizz, a little more purple each time, indicating that they are growing weaker.

I activate the comm channel and say “Come in, Wing Commander. This is Tcakqaal. Do you read me? Over.”

“Loud and clear, Captain.” returns the Ambassador’s voice “Change of plans; Yakchutt is acting as my tail gunner. Suggest you do not launch until we draw his focus. Once he’s distracted with us I’ll give you the go ahead and you come up behind him to take him by surprise. Over.”

“Acknowledged, Wing Commander. Over and out.”

“Over and out.”

My hearts sink somewhat at the thought that I now just have to hurry up and wait for the next few minutes, watching that monster shell my ship while the former navy men launch and approach him… watching as the shields get weaker and weaker and willing myself not to launch to confront him!

Anguish twists my features as I look at the barely visible speck from which the ordnance battering my ship’s shields is emanating.

The man in that vessel… he is a monster, yes… but was he born a monster?

He supposedly had a [wife] and child once… There was a point in his life where he managed to convince another Human that there was enough good in him that she chose to join her life to his and procreate with him.

I suppose, for all I know, that she might have been a monster as well, specifically drawn to his monstrousness, but that seems unlikely… if not impossible…

No… I think it’s far more likely that he was a halfway decent man at one point… A halfway decent man the Special Brigade he joined outfitted and trained as a monster, to turn loose on the enemies of Terra, during the War…

Actually… I don’t think I can lay the blame at their feet… certainly not entirely!

They may have fanned the flames but it was what happened to the man that kindled them!

And what happened to that man… was entirely the fault of the GU…

We treated his species as monsters and, in so doing, we made him one!

We made a monster for whom the War has never ended… for whom it can never end!

We realised our own worst nightmare when we killed that man’s family.

And, now?… I may not be able to say ‘I never killed a Terran’ anymore, after today…

I should want to kill him!

This man who is threatening my livelihood, my ship, my crew, my family!

I should hate him with a greater ferocity than I hated any Terran starpilot I flew against in the War but… I can bring myself to feel nothing but pity, disgust and remorse, looking at that ship and knowing it contains a walking ghost…

“Mother, Father, Destroyer, Crafter, Titan, Pygmy, Watcher, Orchardist, Warrior, Peacemaker, Lawgiver, Thief, Teacher, Pupil, Scholar, Reveller and Stranger… You know I am not a praying woman but… if you are there… if you are listening and if you can help… I ask that you lend me your grace… I ask that you let us survive… I will not ask that you allow me to kill that man, only… that you allow him to find his Peace at last… that you allow his War to finally end!”

The Bright Plume’s shields fail… we start taking hit’s directly…

It’s agonising… Each one feels not as if it’s striking my ship… but me!

Then, five explosions engulf the tiny craft, followed by two long (but rapidly shrinking) thin bars of green light, following them.

The bars shrink then disappear.

A few [seconds] pass before, on the other side of the dissipating explosions, two more, rapidly lengthening, green laser beams appear, presumably from the tail guns being operated by the Ulat man.

“He’s swallowed the bait, Captain. Launch now! Over.”

---Jackson’s perspective---

Just when their shields finally failed and I started to actually do damage, I’m thrown to my right as my scout is struck by a barrage of missiles.

There’s a roaring I recognise as laser fire coming from first the port then the starboard.

I check the instruments and see that a single xeno starfighter is responsible.

“Alright… You wanna challenge a Terran to a dogfight(!)” I sneer.

I’ll have time to finish the big fish once I take care of the small fry.

The ship dives into the atmosphere of the planet below where they’ll be making a nice shooting star of themselves, to anyone down there looking up(!)

What they’re also doing, though, is making themselves a beacon to all my targeting!

They’re so bright they’re actually blinding my sensors as I follow them(!)

Idiots!

Useless bolts of laser streak past me from the tail gunner.

The craft is very obviously flown by a gardenworlder!

He’s pulling evasive maneuvers but… they’re very… technical(!)

None of that spur-of-the-moment inspiration or instinct that defines real pilots… Human pilots!

I launch a homing missile and, to they’re credit, someone aboard does react quick enough to deploy chaff!

“You think you’re being clever but you’re nooooot!” I sing “All you’re doing is volunteering to be the first ones to di-*OOF*!”

Even though I don’t have lungs anymore, I grunt as an explosion rocks my ship from behind!

Alarms blare from all my equipment as I uselessly tug at the yoke, trying in vain to raise myself from the planetward nosedive I’m in.

At the speed I’m going, I’ve not got long to contemplate my fate as I careen down to the desert continent below.

“They beat me… AGAIN!” I roar, disgusted at them and with myself!