Kali paces the cramped personal space afforded her by her rank in agitation. Her quarters are quite stark; gray metal walls left unadorned by any personal touches. The desk and chair, the shelf upon the wall, even her bed, are all standard issue.

She could be gone tomorrow and you wouldn't know it from her quarters, until someone new moved in and lent their personality to the space.

A sequence of short knocks at the door stops her in her tracks. She turns and presses the plate that opens the door, surprised to see Marta standing outside holding a charge rifle hanging over her shoulder from a black leather strap.

"Come on, we need to get to an escape pod," Marta says to an astonished Kali. "Signal just came in, top priority. Operative Drop is requesting immediate support, Yosip has to stay here and everyone else is unreachable or injured."

"Injured, who's hurt? What happened? I thought Gel had things under control," sputters the young scout as she's led down the empty corridor towards the hangar.

Marta barks out a short laugh and says, "Mar and Bella beat each other's heads in over a bet. They'll be fine in a couple days. Gelly, on the other hand, seems to be in it up to his crest. The two crewmen he took with him are both dead. His signal got bounced around and pretty scrambled up in the coronal storm, but we'll be headed very close to where he sent from."

They jog the rest of the distance in a silence broken only by the slap of their boots upon the floors of the corridors.

They find Tulson Rah waiting for them at the escape pods, wearing a standard issue blast vest and armed with two hand blasters which my files tag as Sketum Arms model thirty-threes. Big triple-barreled things she handles easily due to the ceramic aerogel generously employed in their construction.

She finishes loading the ammunition cartridges and puts her blasters in the tough leather holsters belted around her upper legs.

"Your rifle's already in the pod," she tells Kali as she climbs in. It's a SAm20, the same model that Marta's carrying. Firing dense clouds of tiny metal blades each engraved with an energized circuit, the rifles are powerful but lightweight enough for ease of use and transport. Two and a half ubits long with a chrome finish, it gleams in the artificial lighting.

Blast vests lay in Marta and Kali's seats, which they quickly put on. The three strap themselves into the small capsule and enter the short sequence of commands that will allow me to launch them at Gel's last known coordinates.

"Glad you two were prepared, I think I missed the alert," Kali says to the others, right before the door to their pod seals shut with a sharp hiss.

I wish them a decisive victory and a swift return as the small craft is jettisoned through the last of the liquid rainbow evaporating off the energy shields. The previously raging storm is reduced to a fraction of its former size as the surface of the sun reaches a new equilibrium.

Two additional pods follow them down, each bearing three more crew members. The launches are staggered slightly to keep them from colliding.

These people don't mess around when it comes to their alcohol! Perhaps I should look into setting up a distillery for them, if time allows. A thought for another time. With a mental shake I bring myself back to the present.

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I scan the area quickly, more from nerves than because I expect to find anything. It's a good idea to calibrate the sensors for use during various conditions.

Scans are still showing strange shadows and erratic movement. Visuals of the region are still limited to polychromatic shimmerings. I switch to deep system scans, my instincts nagging me, and I detect solid matter within the shifting echoes normal scans return.

Initial telemetry readings indicate that three large vessels were hidden in a deep crater on one of the moons. Their design doesn't match Imperium specs, these aren't our ships.

"Operative Peal, unknown targets approaching the ship," I alert the acting commander and display some artfully cleaned up sensor readings on the main screen.

Two of the alien craft are wedge-shaped while the third is more disclike and much larger than the others. That must be the command ship, hanging back just outside our effective targeting range.

"Try to open up communications, Mos," Yosip commands, "and we'll see if there's a good explanation for what they're doing here."

I beam a standard language packet at the flat command vessel and within moments they establish contact.

A brown furred figure appears on the main screen, its bearing exuding hostility. The being stands in the center of its own command deck, with only two visible subordinates present. All three are dressed in studded leather combat armor with large rifles slung across their backs. They stand upon two booted legs and possess two muscular sets of fur covered arms.

The alien officer growls out a string of barking coughs which translation software transforms into something we can understand.

"Surrender control of your ship and prepare to be boarded. If you resist, we shall reduce you to piles of slag."

Yosip is none too happy about their message but chooses not to respond. It plays back, they have nothing further to say to us.

The wedges have nearly closed the distance between us while the figure on the screen delivered their threat. I sever the transmission and await further orders from Officer Peal.

"Mos, target the leftmost vessel with the main cannon. Give active missile control to this station and pull us back."

Wasting no time, I begin laying into my assigned victim. The viridian beam of energy impacts the shields protecting the enemy warship. It is managing for now but cannot attack without weakening its own defense.

Yosip sends out two volleys of missiles, the first at his target and the other into the space where we just were.

Explosions fill the displays with static temporarily so it could have been either ship that hit us with that first shot. The shields absorbed most of the impact, but we lost a maneuvering thruster. The main cannon is also getting hot, so I reduce the energy going to our internal heating, redirecting the available power to air circulation systems.

Peal's target lost more than just a thruster, atmosphere spewing into space and crystallizing into an iridescent halo around the crippled warship.

The stream of charged particles from the Selberclaw's main gun has been pouring into the enemy's shields and they've started to glow red as they convert the kinetic energy into thermal. The excess heat is being sapped slowly by the void, but far too slowly to help them. Moments more and they overload in a cascading system failure that burns out most of the ship's systems.

The flow of the main cannon cuts out at a gesture from Yosip. A grim look on his scarred face he stands fluidly.

"I want to check for survivors after we deal with the last one," he states, not willing to be questioned on his decision. "But first get a transmission link to the pack leader."

I send out the link but rather than answer us the flagship responds with a barrage of missiles in an act of defiance. Yosip launches his own missiles to intercept. The enemy ship disappears from all scans, its means of escape camouflaged by the multiple exhaust trails and explosions.

Yosip waits several breathes before declaring it safe to begin looking for survivors. I line up with the wreck of one of our former adversaries and extend an airtight tube composed of many layers of tightly interwoven fibers.

"Docking complete. Awaiting further orders, sir," I helpfully inform the bridge crew.