The frozen battlefield was peaceful.

Mettan watched the Dark Legion Fleet. It was impossible to tell where the invisible line ended and where time was flowing normally. The dark-skinned Elf had to appreciate the violent beauty of the scene. It looked like a mural that would be displayed in one of the Congressional Art rooms. Scenes from heroic battles of the past, where the High Elf Alliance had triumphantly risen against impossible odds and defended freedom in the Universe.

Such days were long gone. The heroic battles where the fate of the Universe hung in the balance as they fought against the demon armies or the Camadt were long in the past. Now the High Elf Alliance spent its time fighting minor skirmishes against the Dark Legion. Instead of the Universe, it was a planet or a system that they fought over. To some, that very well may as well have been the entire Universe, but to someone who had traveled across the Universe and seen some of the evils hiding there, it all felt so insignificant compared to the stakes of long before he was born.

It didn’t help that because of a declining population, Elves were now conditioned to run from a fight. To preserve as much life as possible, because they could always settle on a new planet. But repopulating was something that their best scientists had been baffled by for centuries.

“Captain Mettan.” A voice over the comm brought Mettan out of his musing.

The water Elementalist leaned forward to turn on his comm, “Go ahead.”

“Our ships are running low on power.”

The dark-skinned Elf typed on his console. Schematics of the remaining forty-one ships popped up around the walls of the bridge. He got up and looked over the readouts.

Of the remaining ships only the Camadt’s Bite had an independent power source. As long as he was within a solar system, the Camadt’s Bite could recharge its power cells with solar power. The Fighters that were hovering just outside were not so fortunate. The conversion panels weighed the ships down and were not as sturdy as regular armor plating. Fighters were also not equipped with gate activators, limiting their ability to act independently from their Cruisers.

Seven of the ships were reading critical power levels. If he didn’t find a way to get them some power soon then the life support would fail.

“I’m re-designating the fighter numbers.” Mettan’s fingers dotted around his console. After a few keystrokes, the critical power leveled fighters were designated to thirty-six through forty-two.

“Fighters thirty-six through forty-two, reform behind me” Mettan ordered as he walked around the lone couch in the middle of the bridge and headed to the back of the bridge. The Camadt’s Bite had been a luxury ship before it had been confiscated and he had converted it into a personal ship. Most of the unnecessary additions had been removed over the years, but some of them had proved more difficult to remove. Such as the couch on the bridge that his cousin enjoyed lounging on.

To his right, the wall split in half to reveal a hallway. Mettan walked past two doors on either side of the hall. The closest door on his right was where he slept, while the other three were reserved for special guests, a carryover from its use decades before. At the end of the hall, there was a metal walkway that wrapped around the second floor of the cargo bay. He rode the elevator down to the first floor.

Beside the elevator was a closet filled with gray, tightly fitting space suits. Mettan withdrew one of the suits and stepped into it. His ears popped after he touched the collar, and an invisible barrier wrapped around his face. Stale air began to circulate inside the sealed suit, but it would protect him from the hazards of space.

Dressed in the spacesuit, The Water Elementalist wove his way through stacked crates of cargo to the back hatch of the cargo bay. The Dark-Skinned Elf hit the switch to the right of the doors, earning a groan as they squeaked open, exposing him to the vacuum of space.

“Fighters thirty-six through forty-two,” Mettan ordered. “Eject.”

The cockpits of the fighters shot off. The Elves in the fighters slowly floated out of the dead fighters. He closed his eyes as he focused on the bodies that were floating in space. He reached down to his belt and flipped the tops off of two containers sewn into his uniform. As a water Elementalist, he could manipulate water. He could manipulate any liquid, but he preferred water. Normal water would freeze in space, but his containers had been enchanted by Kark. The water could still freeze, but it would take a few minutes. He had to work quickly before that happened. He gestured at the nearest pilot and the water shot toward the pilot. Just before the water reached the pilot He twisted his hands and the water snaked behind the pilot. He pulled his arms down and the water pushed against the pilot. As the pilot floated towards the open doors He flicked the water towards the next pilot. Soon the seven pilots were floating toward the entryway. His fingers danced as the water expertly navigated the pilots onto the ship. He clasped arms with the last pilot before he hit the button to seal the doors.

Mettan’s ears popped as the doors sealed. Mettan touched the bubble around his head, causing the fluid to fall to the floor. The water that Mettan had used to pull the pilots in snaked down to mop up the fluid. Mettan wiggled his fingers and the water twisted its way back into the containers in his uniform.

In the time that it had taken Mettan to collect his water, the pilots had shed their space suits and were packed in an even tighter cargo bay. Mettan walked through the pilots and into the maze of containers. Seven Elf pilots followed in a silent line, each one carrying the weight of their scrapped fighter on top of the fresh loss of the Warpgate.

Mettan wanted to say something to cheer them up, but such platitudes were forbidden for a High Elf. Overexerting their fighters had shrunk their fleet and would impact their ability to aid in Earth’s Defense. To try to ease the pain of their blunder would only diminish the severity of their actions. If the Elf species was to continue to survive each member had to think about the best way to help the High Elves.

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“At least, that’s what we’re told”. Mettan thought sourly, “Since the Dark Legion solidified, and the code was put in place, our race has gone nowhere but down.” Mettan kept his bitter thoughts to himself. He might be the captain of the fleet at the moment, but treason was a declaration of allegiance to the Dark Legion. That was one group that Mettan would never join. No matter how wrong he thought the High Elves principles were, the Dark Legion would always be worse.

Mettan reached the elevator and pointed at two long hallways that ran down either side. “There are eight rooms in each hall; I trust that you can each find yourselves a room?”

The pilots nodded and broke into two groups. Three went down the hall on the left and four went down the hall on the right. Mettan watched them enter the rooms before he boarded the platform for the elevator and rode it back up to the second floor. The Elves were tired and they needed rest. He could only hope that the pilots that were out in the cramped fighters would be able to get some rest before they received their orders. Mettan pushed the thought out of his mind as he entered his room and stretched out on his bed.

As Mettan settled into the soft bed he pulled the pad off of his belt and waved the screen awake. The code to unlock his pad was 88224646, which he typed without even having to think about it. The screen changed from technical readouts of his ship to a picture of a younger version of him with a little black-skinned Elf girl with white eyes and straight brown hair. Her face had the biggest smile that Mettan had ever seen on an Elf. Although he couldn’t remember what she had been smiling about. He could remember that it had been her fourth birthday, but the twenty years since the image had been saved felt like a lifetime ago. A tear started to well in Mettan’s right eye as he thought about how much life was different without Neresa around anymore. Mettan closed his eyes to keep the memories of his planet being conquered and the people that had been lost from overwhelming him.

An ear splitting siren snapped Mettan’s eyes wide open. Mettan swiped the image with his fingers as he wiped the water from his cheek. Mettan leaped out of his bed and rushed through the door of his room.

There were different alarms on the ship. The dull, bass alarm was an imminent collision. The honking alarm was for failing power. The sharp, piercing alarm was for failing life support. The alarm that was the worst was the high-pitched frequency that made Weres and only the best Elves see stars. That one sounded when an unauthorized Mage had projected onto Camadt’s Bite.

The water in the containers in Mettan’s suit was swirling around him as he entered the bridge. Mettan held out both of his hands ready to strike at the four Elves that were on his ship.

“Whoa!” Kark stepped in front of the three purple-hooded Elves. “It’s just us.”

Mettan replaced the water into its container with a quick downward motion of his arms. “Forgive me.” Mettan made a slight bow as he tapped the pad on his belt. The projection alarm stopped giving him a headache almost as soon as it stopped broadcasting.

Kark’s grin broadened, “Wound up a bit tight aren’t we?”

“Just being thorough.” Mettan looked at the Mage directly behind Kark, “What’s so big that Feletis has to grace my ship?”

Feletis flipped his purple hood back. His sharp, gold eyes glared at Mettan as he ran one hand through his short white hair. Feletis was one of the few pure-blooded Gold Elves left. An effort to unite the Elves under one banner had begun with a requirement that any Elf had to bind with an Elf of a different tribe. Within three generations, there were just Elves, but there were still some Elves that had been alive before the homogenizing. As one of those few, Grand Elder carried all of the haughtiness of the near-extinct race. To make matters worse, he was quickly approaching his twenty-first century. A feat unheard of for even dragons, let alone Elves. Feletis had shaken off the calm logic of the Elves long before most of the living Elves had been born. His tactless and rude comments had isolated him from most of the Universe, but no one dared to speak against the Elf that had led the Elders for over a thousand years.

The other two Elders were Demetrius and Dumas. Dumas was approaching the normal 900-year life expectancy for an Elf Mage. A bald head, wrinkled ashen skin, and clouded gold eyes spoke that he didn’t have much longer in this world. His features were older than Feletis and had one not known better, they would have thought Dumas to be the older of the two instead of the former apprentice.

Demetrius had been Dumas’ apprentice until ten years before when he had risen to the rank of junior Elder. The destruction of the University had gutted the ranks of the Elders and forced them to induct members far younger than what was traditional. The younger Elf’s dark black hair and bright gold eyes matched a hunger to prove himself to his seniors.

Kark gestured at the walls of the bridge and the screens lit up. Forty-two locations in the world popped up. “We have started to pick the targets.”

Mettan looked at the screens, “Have so many manifested already?”

“Some of these are the most powerful,” Dumas answered, “Others are ones that we believe have potential.”

“Potential? Or are you making another prophecy?” Mettan quipped

“Don’t blame him.” Feletis tsked, “Even the best prophets are going to mess up once.”

Dumas blushed slightly, “I truly am sorry about your daughter-“

“Elves don’t feel sorrow.” Mettan interrupted as he pointed his finger at Dumas, “It is a distracting emotion.”

Kark stepped in between the two, “Whoa!” He touched Mettan’s hand and forced it to Mettan’s side as he stepped up to his cousin, “Let’s focus on the present, not on the past.”

Mettan allowed his glare to linger on Dumas for a moment longer before shifting his focus back to the screens.

“The remaining fighters can fly to their locations with a cloaking spell that we will give them.” Demetrius pointed at thirty-four blue dots. “The seven pilots that had to jettison their fighters we will project to a safe location close to their targets.” Demetrius pointed at the seven red dots.

“The gold one is mine then.” Mettan pointed at the screen, “What is so special about that place?”

“Actually there are three places you need to go.” Dumas flexed his fingers and the map zoomed in, revealing three gold dots.

“Why so spread out?” Mettan asked, “There have to be three strong water Elementalists that are closer together.”

“Dumas thinks that these will help you find the Triftion.” Feletis winked at his former student.

Dumas ignored Feletis, “I don’t think.”

“So you haven’t found the Triftion?” Mettan looked over at Kark

Kark shook his head, “Sadly, no.”

Mettan pointed at the Dark Legion Fleet hanging in space behind them, “The entire point of this was so that we could find the Human Triftion and he can fulfill the prophecy and destroy the Dark Legion.” Mettan glared at Dumas, “Now we have to trust a prophecy about a prophecy. Both of which HE gave!”

“Are we betting on a lot of prophecies?” Kark asked, “Yes.” Kark motioned at the Fleet, “But the Congress will not allow us to move resources.” Kark locked eyes with his cousin, “The prophecy is all we have.”

Mettan took in a deep breath, “Fine. Tell me what to do.”