Part 2

AboardFSSLewis B. Puller

In orbit,1,000kilometers above Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:26:00

“Entering standard orbit around Colorado,” the Puller'sXO, Commander DeShon Gilyard reported from the piloting station atthe forward end of the bridge.

“We're being hailed, Skipper,” Chief Radioman Claus Delgado reported from the comm station directly behind Captain Thomas Boone Pendry's command station. “Presidents McCallum and Valdez both wish to speak with you, Sir.”

“Then, put them through, Sparks,” Pendry replied, the master holodisplay in front of the piloting station coming to life, splitting to accommodate the alleged rivals for the Presidency of the Republic of Colorado.

“Sirs,” Pendry said, nodding his head slightly,”good morning.”

“Captain Pendry,”Jacob McCallum said first,”welcome to Colorado. You'll be pleased to know that all Republican forces have been ordered to stand down and allow you to proceed without interference.”

“The Democratic Forces and Lamarian advisor units in the field,” Colorado's other President, J.W. Valdez, then said,”have been ordered to trail and observe the fugitives, but not to take any other action. Am uploading the relevant data to you now.”

“I have it, Sir,”Sensorman 1/c Joseph Benton reported from the sensor station on the opposite side of Delgado's comm station. “Tangos are nearing the rendezvous coordinates arranged via warpdrive transceiver with the Hammarskjolder medship we prosecuted, Sir.”

“Pass the data onto the Marines' Links, First Class,” Pendry replied.”Launch deck, this is the bridge.”

“Marines are on board the Eve,”said the holo of the launch deck officer, as it floated in front of Pendry's right eye. “Chief Pilot Officer Rabwin reports all systems go, and the launch rails are charged.”

“Open launch deck door,” Pendry ordered,”and—“

“Starcraft exiting warpdrive!” Benton screamed an instant after the warpdrive radar alarm blew off,” Bearing zero-eight-five degrees by two-three, zero-niner Zulu, three zero zero thousand klicks downrange, IFF data identifies her as Anacreonian, Dauntless-cla—oh,hell, vampire,vampire, vampire, raid count is—

“

“Nukes,charge deflector array!” Pendrybarked out, “XO,evasive maneuvers, get us the hell out of—“

The Zumwalt-class heavy cruiser's bridge exploded,showering Pendry with fragments of the ceiling and the core lift behind him, broken wires snaking down, spitting blue photons in the veteran Federated States Interstellar Fleet captain's face, as the donging of the general quarters klaxon and the buzzing of other alarms echoed across the deck.

 ...the soldiers burst into the classroom, snatching children out of their desks, dragging them into the hall screaming, crying, pleading for their teacher to help them.

Except Miss Olafsdottir couldn't help them now, not with all those men in armor on top of her, hitting her, pulling her back to them when she tried crawling away, tearing at her clothes, calling her a filthy piece of gynt.

A soldier called Stevie a filthy procreator, as he jerked hard on the eleven-year old girl's arm, pulling her around so he could slap her repeatedly across her face....

“...show it what all of you are about!“ one of the men in the bleachers screamed, as the prok gladiator Stevie was trying desperately not to fight slashed her good across her breasts with the whip of white-hot coherent plasma in her hands.

“P-please,“the sixteen-year old girl stammered, trying again to plead with her,“don't, you don't—“

She screamed, as the shock collar dropped her to her knees, one of the overseers standing at the edge of the pit hissing out,“it knows what it is, all it could ever be, you filthy little piece of vog!Now, you do the same,show it, show all of us, what you really are, the only gods-damned thing any of  you could ever be.“

“Fight me, filthy gynt!“Stevie’s fellow prok screamed, as she laid into her with the thermawhip.

Before she grabbed and twisted Stevie's matted hair, holding her down on her knees, as the screaming of those in the bleachers, those watching this online reached a fever pitch.

“Or sub-mit....“

“...you gods-damned voggin' traitor!“screamed a frightened twenty-one year old girl, as she fired the Skua's surviving guns into the Eagle, sending atmosphere gushing forth into the night, as the monstrous warship filling up most of the holodisplay plowed its way through much of what remained of Long-Range Fighter Squadron 109 and the 15^thFleet.

“Skipper,“Master Chief Engineering Officer Momvela, eighth Clan Zoyen, reported from the engineering station,“radiation is increasing, deflector array is destroyed, warp engine severely damaged, Rittermark field generator destroyed, containment destabilizing—“

Stevie ignored her second in command, tried not to think about all those dead on the bridge around the two of them, focusing her attention solely on the massive warship lumbering its way to warp speed, a brace of warships of various smaller types flying close escort around it.

Instead, she armed the bursting charges on four of the ship’s remaining torpedos, while aiming her mortally-wounded long-range fighter towards the Marzie battleship....

Aboard Ancreonian Ship of the Watch Unbroken

119,700 kilometersfrom Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:29:43

“...drop ship away, Skipper,” Chief Launch Officer Daniela Beckett's holo said,as it floated in front of Shipmaster 2d Rank Stephanie Ann Rhoads’right eye,”proceeding on planetary insertion vector at max burn.”

“Acknowledged,”Stevie replied, as the Unbroken's second in command, Pilot Major Prudence Davidson, jerked the five-thousand ton Dauntless-class destroyer down and hard to port, five-inch railgun rounds and thirty-terajoulegraser pulses sizzling past the ship on both flanks, as Prue loosed another pulse from the thirty-terajoule graser cannon mounted atop Unbroken’s prow.

The beam slashed deep into the 20,000 ton Zumwalt-class heavy cruiser the Anacreonian ship of the Watch was charging full-tilt, the bridge deck's own diamagnetic field generator pushing against the thrust of the twin warp engines' antimatter torches to reduce the effects of heavy gees on the bridge team, and to provide a stable artificial gravity field at the same time.

“Marzie commander hailing us,” Senior Chief Radioman Anyah Gooding reported.

“Enemy heavy punching fighters,” Master Chief Sensorman Meliza, fifteenth so named of Clan Potonakro, said at the same time.

“Pilot Major, arm torpedo bursting charges, and kill those fighters dead,” Stevie snapped, as she glanced at the tactical situation on her left-hand command holodisplay.

The holo of a fat,bald Human male with turd-brown eyes and a fuzzy caterpillar on his lip appeared in the master holodisplay, and barked out

“This is Captain Thomas B. Pendry of the Federated States Ship Lewis B. Puller! You are interfering in a legitimate peacekeeping operation, conducted at the request of the duly-elected government of Colorado! You will stand down your vessel, and prepare to be boarded, or—“

“This is the Anacreonian Ship of the Watch Unbroken,”Stevie spat back at him. “You have attacked a medship, raped and murdered its crew, and are planning to do the same exact, gods-damned thing to the people they were coming to this crapheap planet to pick up. Under the termsof the Treaty of Sappho, you are therefore guilty of piracy and terrorism—“

“They're the ones,” shot back Pendry's predictable response,”who were guilty of ter—“

“—and,” Stevie, with a voice which could chill the frickin' Big Bang, told him,”you have just voggin’ signed your death warrant! Pilot Major, where the hell are those torpedos?!”

Her answer appeared the left-hand command holodisplay, three Sledgehammer II kinetic-kill torpedos exploding into trillions of fragments of shrap travelling at relativistic velocities, shredding the Puller’s twelve SF-70 Thundercat fighters like a trailer park in a tornado.

The Marzie gugsucker’s ugly face disappered, and the master holodisplay went back to showing the view from the forward cams, just in time for Unbroken's skipperto see the enemy heavy cruiser briefly disappear in a photoflash explosion, as torps, five-inch railgun rounds and another pulse of 30TJ gras bulled through his defensive array of diamagnetic field generators to strike home.

Unbroken's bridge exploding, alarms howling, broken fiber-optic cabling spitting photons everywhere, Engineer Lieutenant Ariel Dixon reporting from the engineering station directly behind the sensor and comm stations,”deflector array strength down 56%, primary electrical system 60% disrupted, port warp engine housing opened to space, venting antimatter and coolant, port engine severely damaged, containment on port reactor core destablizing, port reactor core running wild, antimatter reaction rate now five kilograms per second and rising! Automatic repair systems engaging!”

“Planetary defenses, surface and orbital, going active!”Meliza reported, the Anazeen female then adding,”surface and orbital facilities launching fighters, lerfs, corvettes, frigates and, at least two destroyers!”

“Democratic and Republican commanders hailing us,” Anayah said,”demanding we stand down, and—“

“Do! Not!Reply!” Stevie replied. “Pilot Major, jump the ship.”

“Put us nose to nose with that Marzie cruiser.”

Part 3

AboardFSSLewis B. Puller

1,611 kilometersfrom Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:31:32

“XO,override the warp engine safeties, and jump the ship, now,for vog’s sake!” Pendry screamed, even as the cruiser's eightTavernier jennies kicked in to displace most of the ship'srelativistic mass through space rather than through time, turning itinto an imaginary mass—a tachyon—travelling faster than light.

For a instant, atleast.

ThePullerre-enterednormspace two thousand klicks from where it had been, more of itsbridge coming down in showers of sparks and debris, as even morebuzzing alarms echoed throughout the deck...the cruiser had beeneasing its way into orbit, way below the critical velocity of threethousand klicks per second, forcing the Rittermark jennies to workeven harder than normal(insufficent relativistic mass to shift), andhis ship had paid the toll.

Howmuch of a toll was something Pendry's sparkchaser would've told him,had the Pullernotslammmed into a hail of five-inch titanium-steel slugs travelling atrelativistic speeds, setting off a whole newpasselof alarms, as the barrage ripped up even more of the Starfleet heavycruiser's spaceframe.

Instead,the Puller'sflight engineer, Lieutenant Commander Micheal Crane,reported,”Deflectorarray offline, primary and secondary electrical systems 100%disrupted, teritary electrical system 56% disrupted, launch deckdestroyed, starboard torpedo launchers destroyed, starboard grasersoffline, starboard railguns offline, starboard reaction-controlthrusters destroyed, housings on warp engines five, six, seven andeight opened to space, venting antimatter and coolant, starboardradiators destroyed, all starboard warp engine Tavernier generatorsoffline, we are unable to make warpdrive! Internal temp nowtwenty-five degrees and climbing!”

“Switchin the auxiliary coolant!” Pendry ordered.

“I'mattempting to do that, Sir,”Crane had the friggin’ maraccasto tell him,”butthe auxiliary coolant pumps have sustained severe—“

“No!Excuses!”Pendry screamed. “Hardabout, Mister Gilyard! Fire as we bear!”

“Aye,Sir!”Gilyard shouted back, as the wounded cruiser slewed round on port RCSthrusters firing in fits and starts.

“Enemydropship in interface,and descending rapidly!”Benton reported. “Coloradofighters and lerfs are pursuing, but—“

“Sonof a gynt!”Pendryswore, even as the Puller'stwo working thirty-terajoule laser cannon lashed out at the Nakwarship rapidly receding from it.

“Didwe at least manage to punch our MarDet?!”heasked.

“Yes, Sir,”Gilyard replied. “Marines are ten seconds from drop altitude.”

“So,” he justvogging had to add,”are their Riflemen.”

Aboard CFS DragonflyIV

30 kilometers overReseda Valley, Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:33:47

“Go,go, go!”Rifleman Lieutenant Jesse Dawntreader shouted, as he fell through theventral airlock hatches of the Bumblebee-class dropshipDragonfly IV, as it levelled off thirty klicks above a rockyplain broken up by the occasional half-frozen lichen, hisdiamagnetic-assist, vectored-thrust harness kicking in after theveteran Rifleman of the Watch had fallen five klicks from the bird,turning a free fall into a controlled descent at over 100 kilometersper hour.

Railgunrounds spat past his faceplate, Jesse's Link lighting up with thetelemetry from his powered armor's radar and passive sensors, showinghim precisely where the Marzie vogheads were, the suit's kinestethicsensors relaying the appropriate commands to the davit, as Unbroken'sweaponsmaster turned to bring the Angel Arms’ RMG87 slung underneath hisright arm to bear, a hundred 2.5-millimeter rounds buzzing out of thefour rapidly-whirring barrels to render Marzie Starmarines intosprays of blood, bone, and grease raining down onto the valley below.

Jesse cursed, as abuzzsaw of deuce and a half pocked and scored the chestplate of hisarmor, causing it to smoke for a second or two, the Rifleman jerkingdown and sharply to the left, another burst buzzsawing harmlessly byhim, as he lined up the bastard who'd shot at him in his sights andripped him from the sky.

That was about thetime a freakin' scrumbug swooped down into him, knocking both of themover, the two of them tumbling through the sky at a rapid rate ofdescent, Jesse getting his knees up under the Abysar, using them tobreak free of his antagonist, the scrum tumbling end for end, hisdavit firing in fits and starts, the bastard finally catching anupdraft on his carbon-fiber encased wing flaps and gliding to theground some couple hundred meters away from the civs Jesse's Riflemenhad come here to rescue.

Reseda Valley

Colorado, IsabellaSystem

05/04/70, 02:35:19

Jomol just barely managed to get his tumble undercontrol, cursing the Nakkie pinkstink who had sent him spinning,before turning his focus back upon his objective.

Six filthy proks, one of whom had had theindecency to pretendto have been anything more than an animal enslaved by its wild-animallusts, staggered over the broken terrain of the valley...he could'vetracked them by the stench, breeders, those his race calledcahrok—meat or prey—knewnothing of proper hygeine.

Or of shame, either,not a single one of them wore anything even remotely close tocovering themselves, the rags they did wear, coupled with their driedblood, welts, cuts, and bruises, only served to exacerbate thedisgusting nakedness which their kind had used so well to snare manya strong, healthy hunter, and lure him to his doom.

The thing they wereabout to do was nothing more than justice.

This time, Jomal,charmailhu ofthe Briathu bloodline, private in theFederated States Interstellar Marine Corps, did not hesitate.

The firing stick of hisM60 grasped firmly in his right hand, the thermawhip in his left, hecharged towards them, the hunter’s spirit taking hold of him, as hehowled out a hunter’s righteous anger to the worlds of the MasterGod’s domain, and lashed out with his white-hot scourge of coherentplasma.

Only to have oneof the filthy, stinking cahrokwho had caused the Race to lose their special status in the MasterGod's eyes catch the whip in one of its claws, and use it to pull himto it, Jomal fighting against it with all his strength, but it wassimply not enough.

So he fired a burstfrom his M60 full into the chest of the abomination.

And it promptlyreturned the favor, a brace of deuce and a half from the assaultrailgun in its free hand knocking him back even as they tore burningholes through him, causing him to lose his grip on the handle of thewhip, as they slammed him into the ground.

”Zin,kromaak,”it clicked harshly at him, as the Abysar hunter struggled to hisfeet, firing off still another burst from his M60, the hunter’sspirit a burning river in his veins, a throbbing in eyes blinded by awhite-hot fire of perfect hatred against those who mocked His worksand dared to oppose His Great Cause.

Hisleft hand found the trigger of the patrol-slung M64 assault railgun,as, with a running start, he took to the air, howling, as he blazedaway at it with both weapons.

Reseda Valley

Colorado, IsabellaSystem

05/04/70, 02:36:08

She wrapped thesankveh round her like a shawl, hurling herself at theabomination who had almost destroyed both their races long ago, herARG85 assault railgun and her quickly-drawn RP35 rail pistol bothblazing away.

Master Chief ofRifles Kritzteena, eighth so named of Clan Nofohaz, sang a war songher Navaleen friends had taught her, as the Abysar and sheflew straight and true for one another, weapons blazing, tearingthrough nano-reactive carbon steel plating and carbon-fiber weave totear apart aerogel muscle fibers and flesh, the veteran Rifleman ofthe Watch barely feeling the plasma-wrapped pokers of titanium-steeltearing through her body, aware only of the burning in her veins, thesong in her heart, and the enemy before her who so richly deserved todie.

They slammed intoone another in mid-air, tumbling, too close to use guns, the scruminstead choosing to unsheathe the chain claws built into the knucklejoints of his powered armor, Kritzteena, on the other hand, choosingto punch him hard in the face with her left fist, crazing hisfaceplate.

The thermal clawsshe had just activated then burned through the armored glass to teara quadruple row of bleeding, blistering gashes across his ugly, grey,reptilian face, the claws implanted in the left boot of her armordoing the same to his chest, the kromaak, resisting the reflexto shield his eyes, slashing across her chest in return, the teeth ofthe chain claws' titanium-steel teeth biting into the chest andabdomen plates with sparks and whining, the whirring blades rippinginto her chest, tearing deep wounds across her right wing, theabomination firing his davit, attempting to steer them both into theground with him on top.

Not a situation theAnazeen desired at all.

She fired her owndavit to counteract him, the thrust correcting their mutual tumblejust as 30mm railgun rounds ripped past them, the sankveh coolingenough for Kritzteena to discern the beating of contra-rotatingblades chopping the air, the Anazeen glancing away from the Abysar'sruin of a face a second, seeing the AH-88 Pteradactyl helicopterentering the battlefield, the white dove and mailed fist of theNational Security Forces visible on its starboard side.

She kicked free ofthe abomination, ripping at him with her assault railgun, as sheshouted over her Link,”Helo inbound! Gnats deploying! Gnatsdeploying!”

Part 4

Aboard ASW DragonflyIV

10 meters overReseda Valley, Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:38:01

“Not anymore,”Master Chief Pilot Officer Alicia Parker remarked, a sustained burstfrom the twin MPAC3030 railguns in the wings ripping the Gnat heloapart, even as the passive sensors lit off on a large mass of troops entering the valley, Gnats,Starmarines, and the members of the so-called rebels on thismiserable voghole planet, swarming into the valley like ahungry nest of anklebiters.

With a nod of herhead, the pilot of the Dragonfly IV tapped a command on herleft-hand control holodisplay to arm the hafnium bursting charges inthe torp launcher’s torpedos, and fired, the kinetic-kill missilespraying a dense cloud of shrap which ripped through the charginghostiles, as the pair of thirty-thirties hammered at those stillstanding.

”They look prettywell equipped for a half-assed band of rebels and pirates,” Aliciaobserved to herself, launching another airbursting assault missile.

“And,”she added,”they seem to be following the lead of the Marzie sons ofvogs who aren't even supposed to be on this planet to begin with.”

“Imagine that,”she quipped, as she ripped into more useless Marzies.

“Imagine th—“she started to repeat, just as the ship shook, and the warpdriveradar alarm lit off on an SAC-81 Boojum dropship diving down on her,all guns blazing.

Aboard FSS Eve OfDestruction

10 meters overReseda Valley, Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:40:48

“Oh, hell yeah!” exulted Chief PilotOfficer Pax Judas “Hammer” Rabwin, the pilot of the SAC-81 Boojumdropship Eve Of Destruction, upon spying the littlepiece of Nakkie pie shaking its gynt in front of him, hammering ather with his twin 3030s, as the squatter, not having the stomach fora knife fight—same as all the rest—punched it into warpdrive.

“Vog!” heswore an instant later, fighting to keep control, as 30 mm roundsslammed into his tail, instantly reducing the strength of Eve’sdeflector by half, beforepunching through to make scrap metal of most of the Boojum’sinsides.

“You miserable voggin’ gynt!”shouted Rabwin at the same time his fingers flew across the SAC-81’snavicomp holodisplay, kicking the Eve Of Destruction intowarpdrive, breaking out right on the tail of that tight-gyntedlittle Nakkie slut.

Ain’t a gods-damned one of ‘em worthcrap in combat, no matter how much PC the political generalsand the proks running roughshod over all of them tried to cram downhis throat; they could strut the strut well enough, but when a realswingin' gug got a hold of oneof 'em, same result every time, every time, same aswhen he'd gotten a hold of that tight-gynted little Diana Shawnkafter it had compounded its audacity by telling the Hammer it wasn’topening up for him or for any other man, that it thought munching therug was the right friggin’ thing to do, and the tasty mothervoggin’way t—

Son of a gynt!

Alarms by the bushel screamed, as the cockpitexploded, sparks all over the place, both control holodisplaysflickering, the stick going slack in his hand, the veteran FederatedStates Starfleet chief pilot officer unpleasantly reminded of fifteenyears ago, when the carrier he’d commanded had rammed theTrans-Utopia ten klicks above L’Enfant, resulting ina fireball that could be seen everywhere on Lamar, and almosteveryone on both ships killed.

And, the same vogging political generals that hadlet his father be taken prisoner by the Naks busting him all the waydown from captain to a frickin' third class, sticking him in themothervogging JAG Corps, even though it had clearly been theirfault for lowering the training standards to the point where theAlexander’s half-witted excuse for an XO couldn’teven spell vector, much lessplot one.

Doesn’t matter at present,he reminded himself, as his deadstick machine spun like atilt-a-whirl, and plummeted towards the inhospitable surface ofColorado’s Reseda Valley.

Nothing to do now,he thought to himself with a sigh, except pull the magichandle.

Pressing the red button on the center buckle ofhis straps as hard as he could, Rabwin floated up out of his wreckeddropship, his suit’s integral grav harness moving him away, as theSAC-81 slammed into the rocky, barren valley below.

AboardASWUnbroken

1,750 kilometersfrom Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:46:19

Fighters and lerfswere ripped apart by shrap, as Unbroken unleashed herfirepower against the coordinated efforts of the two supposedlyopposed political factions.

Both of whom wereremarkably well-equipped, even the alleged half-assed rebels andpirates employing state of the art Mod. 4 Gato-classlong-range fighters, City Of Nations-class corvettes,Hull-class frigates, and a Cochran-class destroyer, aswell as an unending swarm of Thundercat fighters, a far cry from theancient Fletcher-class frigates and Onslow-classcorvettes that the Colorado Republican Navy had been using at thetime the civil war had broken out fifteen years ago.

Before the master ofthe Unbroken could muse on that any further, Meliza shoutedout,”starcraft emerging from warpdrive, bearing plus seven-fivedegrees by zero-one-zero-one Zulu, three-zero-zero thousand klicksdownrange!”

Unbroken'ssensorman added, a few moments later,”hostiles are five FlightIIIA Zumwalt-class heavy cruisers, all squawking Sixth Fleetidents.”

“PM,” Steviesaid,”refresh my memory. Didn't the Marzies report Sixth Fleet lostwith all hands in this system at the beginning of the civil war?”

“Attacked bypirates, Skipper,” Prue replied, while spearing one of the Zumwaltswith the graser,”according to what FSN reported, just beforeinfo of any kind stopped coming out of Colorado.”

Stevie nodded herhead.

“Sensors, Sparks,”she said,”upload everything to Sentinel Docks,” she said, beforetelling Prue,”Pilot Major, jump the ship.”

Steviethen glanced at the readouts on her right-hand command holodisplay,making sure the ship was still travelling at least 0.01c,as the better half of herfuriously punched up calculations and commands on the navicompholodisplay underneath the fingers of her right hand, and the ship ofthe Watch....

...shotinto warpdrive, away from Clarion and the Marzie sons of vogs nowdescending upon her surface to....

...notgonna be like that,notthis time,the master of the Unbrokenthoughtto herself, even as the five inchers flayed open three of the foursurviving Marzie cruisers, the fifth ducking into warpdrive, Unbrokenfollowingsuit, re-entering normspace ninety million klicks from Colorado,Anayah reporting,”Weapons master reports extraction successful,Ms Johansdottir and her party are aboard DragonflyIV now,dropship heading out of atmosphere at max burn.”

“Howbad off ?” Stevie found herself asking, as Prue gutted one of thetwo Coloradan destroyers, while torps turned into shrap rippingthrough a wave of hostile lerfs.

Whichis a stupid question, after all, she rebuked herself. You,of all people....

“...I-i'ms-sorry,“ Taylor blubbered, as she was forced to kneel on the stagein front of the other proks, an overseer standing behind her,prepared to activate the implant in her head at the slightestprovocation.

“I-i am,“Taylor stuttered, body shaking, as she tried fighting what she couldnot fight,“a d-dirty pr-procreator, carnal, perverse anddepraved, who seduces others, so that I m-may trap them into becomingas filthy and degenerate as I am.“

“No,“Stevie screamed, forced to kneel and watch this,“no,you're n—“

White fireexploded in her brain, and the fifteen-year old girl heard someoneusing her voice to shriek and shout out denial, as she struggled tocrawl blindly along the littered, broken street which had once beenthe main highway to Freya's downport.

She heardvoices echoing, some of them surprised as she was to see her fightingthe implant, others insisting it simply wasnot possible, it was a prok, a stinking, filthy piece ofgynt, for True God's sake, there was nopossible way it could fight something He above had createdfor its subjugation.

“...I begthe forgiveness of my Masters, my Mistresses,“ Taylor continuedsobbing,“and of my Progenitor and Lord, for profaning His Creationwith the ab-b-bomination that I-i....“

...should know just how bad Marzies can get,she finished thinking to herself.

Everythingthey’re capable of.

“Accordingto Rifleman Lieutenant Dawntreader, sir—“ Anayah started to say.

“Bad,”Stevie finished for her.

“Yes,Shipmaster,” her radioman replied softly, as Unbrokenonceagain ducked into warpdrive, re-entering normspace between a pair ofStarfleet destroyers, railguns and torps hammering both of them tillthey came apart, Prue taking them into warpdrive again, Unbrokenre-enteringnormspace inside the Colorado Highport complex, high forts andorbital weapons platforms all opening up on her, as she came upbehind her dropship.

“Spoton, PM, per usual,” Stevie remarked. “Nukes, warp engine status?”

“Auto-repairsystem has repaired all damage to the port warp engine,” Arielreplied. “All other damage still being worked on. Diverting allavailable warp engine power to the deflectors.”

“Thankyou, Nukes,” Stevie replied, as Prue impaled a squadron of lerfswith a thirty-terajoule graser beam which vaporized their fragilehulls before punching a dripping wound through the spherical hull ofthe high fortress which had launched them.

“Openinglaunch deck doors,” Prue reported,”Intercept in five, four,three, two—“

“Medteam to the launch deck,” Stevie said over the Link. ”I sayagain, med team to the launch deck.

“—zero,”Prue said, throwing the switch which initiated the warpdrive entrysequence, the master holodisplay a blinding flash, then a shower ofblue lights gradually darkening towards indigo, violet, and black.

“Dropshipsafely recovered,” Prue added unnecessarily. “Med team is on thelaunch deck, tending to Ms. Johansdottir and the others.”

Theship of the Watch re-entered normspace five AU from Colorado, abluish-brown Jovian planet and its system of moons coming slowly intoview in front of them.

“PilotMajor, plot a vector for Hammarskjold,” Stevie said, not relaxingfor a second. “Maintain present course and speed, stand by on theguns; all hands, remain at action stations.”

“Thehard part's,” she added,”just begun.”

Part 5

AboardFSSOkinawa

15.2 AU fromColorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 02:52:26

"Forthose of you who don't know,” an FSN embed droned on,” theHostile Unit Neutralization Device, used in a variety of roles by theFederated States’ Armed Forces for the last four hundred years, isa unique combination of harvested organic brain matter, coupled to acanine-like frame housing advanced sensor and target-acquisitionsystems, as well as a titanium-steel alloy skeleton, the latest inaerogel muscle technology, an advanced CQB weapons suite, state ofthe art self-repair capability, and a third-generation battlecomputer augmenting the organic element of this weapons platform. Itis uniquely suited to the counter-terrorist operations in which ourArmed Forces find themselves increasingly engaged in.”

"Mmm,hmm,” Vice Admiral Daniel Park said in reply, as he swung his feetonto the wardroom's coffee table and watched the HOUND run down, and,ultimately slam the procreator it was chasing into the gravel parkinglot of the c-store alongside a highway choked with hurtling DAVTvehicles.

"Up!”barked the Gnat in charge of the eight-man squad approaching her, themechanoid releasing its prey just long enough for its masters todescend upon it themselves.

Ifonly every operation went as smoothly, the commander ofthe Federated States’ Sixth Fleet thought bitterly, sighing,sipping at coffee laced with whiskey and powdered narcotic, as hischief of staff, Rear Admiral 2d Class Vashan udun-Khonyat,emerged from the core lift, turned on his heel, and snapped toattention before his superior officer.

"Theship of the Watch has eluded the kill, hasn’t it?” said Park,before his chief of staff could open his fanged horror of a mouth tospeak.

"Notentirely, Vice Admiral,” udun-Khonyat replied. "Itsucceeded in extracting Johansdottir and the others, before escapingthe vessels arrayed against it in Colorado orbit; however, we wereable to reacquire the Anacreonian destroyer with the use of warpdriveradar and passive sensors. It is nearing the orbit of the system’sfifth planet, a Jovian with the unoriginial name of Azul, presumablyboosting towards Hammarskjold.”

"As it willrequire some time for the Nak ship to complete the necessarycalculations,” he then said, Park wrinkling his nose at the stenchof cologne the Abysar used to mask his equally repellent naturalmusk,”we can still intercept, cripple and capture it, her crew, andthose they’ve taken.”

"Have we been ableto ascertain its identity?” Park asked.

"Easily,” hissubaltern said all too quickly and effortlessly.

"It’s her.”

Park’s lips drew intoa thin, bloodless line, at the same time the fingers of his handscame together almost like a prayer, part of the Sixth Fleet commandergalled by how casually the Abysar had spoken those last two words.

As if, hethought to himself, as he unknotted his hands, they weren’tthe signature on the orders delivering me from the cold and awayfrom this voghole system.

His chief of staff saidas much out loud:

"The reward andcredit for her capture will be ours; the Committee will have littlealternative but to recall us to life.”

"We need onlyprovide a cover story explaining our whereabouts for the past fifteenyears,” Park commented.

"That willprobably be the easiest part of the entire operation, Vice Admiral,”udun-Khonyatobserved.

"Idon’t doubt it,” Park replied, nodding his head, before tellinghis chief of staff:

"Returnto the bridge, and order the XO to begin boosting towards warpdriveon an intercept vector at once; inform the Allenbyit has command of the fleet, until my return.”

"Iwill join you shortly,” he added.

Aboard FSS LewisB. Puller

Docking Bay #67,Meechum Spacedock Maindock, Colorado Highport

1,000 kilometersabove Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 05:16:21

"Wehave deflectors,” Crane reported,”warp engines, and partialoffensive capability. "

"Spacedocktechs,” he added,”say we can have our full arsenal back on line,if we—"

"No,”Pendry decided, turning away from his sparkchaser to his XO.

"Cutus loose, Mister Gilyard,” he ordered,”and get us clear of thespacedock.”

"Aye,sir,” Gilyard said, without hesitation, as, moments later, Pendryfelt his ship sealing its dorsal and ventral airlocks and separatingfrom the umbilicals connecting them to the docking bay.

"Skipper,”Crane said,”we still have EVA parties working on the hull.

"Thenthey need to be offthe hull,” the Puller’sskipper replied evenly.

"Understood,sir,” was all Crane could say to that, as Delgado let him know thespacedock controllers were pitching a hairy fit over the ship leavingwithout being cleared.

"Tellthem to vog themselves, Sparks,” Pendry replied. "XO, ifanyone attempts to impede our progress—"

"Understood,Skipper,” Gilyard replied, fondling the firing triggers on thestick in his left hand, as the Pullerapproached the inner iris valve of the shiplock standing between themand space.

"Lerfsquadron closing dead astern, Skipper,” Benton reported a momentlater.

Pendrysighed.

"XO," he said, beyond sick and tired of this crap,”give me afiring solution on those lerfs, then shove a torp in their faces.”

"Firingsolution computed,” Gilyard replied,”arming bursting charges ontorpedos in launchers two and four, and firing!”

The shipkicked like a mule, as shrap from twoMark 125 torpedos ripped through the six-ship squadron of long-rangefighters, and much of the dock as well.

"Shiplockis cycling, Skipper,” Benton reported.

"SpacedockOperations,” Delgado added,”has cleared us for departure.”

"Ofcourse they have,” Pendry replied, with a tight smile.

"BravoZulu, Mister Gilyard,” he said.

AboardASWUnbroken

246,000 kilometersfrom Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 06:11:21

“Thankyou,” Stevie said to the service bot, as it handed her a baconsandwich and a cup of black coffee mixed with hot chocolate, themaster of the Unbrokennibbling on the sandwich, sipping at the coffee, as she studied hercommand holodisplays.

Shewas vaguely aware of the bot telling her she was welcome, before itscuttled off to feed the rest of the bridge team, all of whom at beenat their stations since they'd left Sentinel Docks late last night,after the Masters of the Watch had relayed Hammarskjolder militaryintel's concern that the medship and those they'd been sent to rescuewere all blundering into somebody'strap.

Unbrokenhadfound the medship adrift in the outer edge of the system, holed anddead.

The luckiest oneshad been those the Marzie bastards had killed outright.

‘Cause, themiserable gugsuckers had taken their time brutalizing the rest,before finally watching them die broken and alone in the eternalnight and cold of space.

And, per usual,Stevie had been too late for any of them....

“...Invincible,no. goddamnyou, d—“ was all Stevie had time to get out, Alexa Davidson'svoice screaming,”MYLIFE FOR THE WATCH!”over comms, before her mortally wounded destroyer entered warpdriveone last time, aiming herself straight for....

...onlya small fraction of the 400,000-ton SandCreek-classbattleship filled the Skua’sflickering master holodisplay, as Stevie pumped the trigger sendingthe last of the Raptor-classlerf’s torps against the monstrous warship.

Thebridge exploded again, Movela’s screams echoing in Stevie’sears,as she slammed the stick in her white-knuckled left handforward, shoved her ailing warp engines’ antimatter torches to thefirewall, blindly aiming her dying warbird at her antagonist, thetears she’d so badly wanting to cry filling her eyes, as she reached for....

...Taylor'slong, black hair, Stevie's hand trembling, still not knowing whatthat would mean, afraid she knew only too well, Taylor's deep browneyes wide with fear, same as Stevie felt, even as—

Oneof the mistresses violently wrenched Stevie's arm out of its socket,jerking her to her, her leather-gloved free hand catching her acrossher face ten, fifteen, twenty times, as she screamed “Whatthe vog?!”over and over.

Steviestruggled, trying to break free, trying to get to Taylor, even asmore mistresses grabbed hold of her, their filthy vogging hands allover her, as yet another mistress stood in front of her, spat on her,smacked her hard across her face every time she....

...screamed.

Not now, shetold herself, getting her breathing under control, forcing herself tofocus on the holodisplays in front of her, and the situation athand...six hours, thirty-five minutes to go, before Prue and thenavicomp finished their calculations for the ten-light year jump toHammarskjold, in the Christina system, six hours, thirty-five minutesand almost sixty ships of the Federated States’ Sixth Fleet lurkingout there in the dark, hunting for her ship, her crew, and theirpassengers.

Or,just waiting until she was locked into the warpdrive initiationsequence to jump her, since she was reasonably certain they knewwhere Unbrokenwas,either way....

“...shakeit, lil’ gynt!” screamed the mistress whipping her through thecellblock, the frightened eleven-year old girl running the gauntlet,other mistresses and some of the older proks lined up along eitherside, stomping, kicking, slapping, pinching, fingering, handballing,twisting, peeing, and crapping on her, telling her she was nothingbut gynt,nothing but worthless, filthy, vogging....

“...no!”shescreamed, as she succeeded at last in making it to her feet, chargingfull-tilt for the stage where masters, mistresses, bastards,haveher on her knees, begging forgiveness for something she neverwas.

Almostthere,Stevie thought to herself, even as fire seared her lungs and torethrough her head. Justanother couple of—

Theshrieks tore through her, Taylor now twitching helplessly on thestage in front of her, soiling herself, blood pouring out ofeverywhere on her body, in the paralyzed eternity it took for herto....

...either way,she'd just put her whole voggin' crew at risk, again,cause she'd gotten them into anothersituation where anychoice they made was the wrong frickin' one...Prue, bless her heart,if they evergot their filthy hands on her again—

They won't,Prue'svoice whispered in her head, even as she kept Unbrokenmovingthrough the void at max burn.

How do youknow,baby? Steviethought back, wishing to God she could just simply believe—nomatter how many times she'd screwed up—the way her heart and souldid.

You won't letthem,was Prue's answer.

I'm not thehero you think I am, Steviethought, refusing to give in to the tears she wanted so badly to cry.

Part 6

AboardASWUnbroken

477,000 kilometersfrom Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 06:14:00

“N-no,s-she'd n-never....” Kiri Johansdottir whispered raggedly,feverishly in her tortured sleep, as she fought the covers, thrashedabout to the limit of the tubes inserted in her arms, the woman whohad once been a candidate in Colorado's last Presidential election abrutalized, shattered husk trapped in a living nightmare of hisenemy's design.

Thefive other women, ranging in age from sixteen to thirty, werethrashing about in their beds, trapped in that same bloody nightmare.

Nowonder Jesse Dawntreader drank.

Hecould only wonder how his twin sister managed to stay sober.

“Sokay,luv,” whispered Surgeon Major Shannen Dawntreader, her own voicequavering, as she stroked Kiri's blond hair, calming her for themoment.

Hervoice weary, and as ragged as her patient's, when she said,”Jenwasn't with them.”

“Northeir child,” Jesse whispered. “How's Marina—“

“Notwell, Jess,” Shannen replied, not turning to look at her brother.“She's been fretting and hoping ever since we lost contact with theembassy fifteen years ago, she was up all night last night, eversince we got the orders to come here, working just so she wouldn'thave to think about what'd we find...then, when after we spotted thewreckage of the IMorgon, aftershe went aboard with you guys, saw what those miserable Marziebastardsdid....”

Shetrailed off, her whole body shaking, Shannen balling her fists tilthey were bloodless.

“She'snever seen the crap we have, Jess,” she whispered. “I mean, shewas just a kid, when Lexie was killed re-taking Clarion, but, still,she's never....”

Shesighed, trailing off a second time, as she finally rose from Kiri'sbed, walking past Jesse toward the coffeepot at the opposite end ofthe med deck's abbreviated intensive-care unit, her hands stillshaking, even as she tried pouring herself a cup.

“Vog!”she hissed, spilling coffee on her left hand, almost dropping thebeaker she was holding, missing the coffee maker the first time shetried putting the pot back in it.

“Onlya burn,” she commented to herself, succeeding this time in puttingthe coffepot back in the right place, taking one of the sandwichesfrom the plate one of the ship's service bots had laid down on thesideboard next to the coffeemaker, nibbling at it, putting both itand her beaker down, as she asked:

“Shouldn'tyou be by the airlocks, just in case?”

“Crewdeck's my next stop,” Jesse replied, mentally reviewing thedeployment of the ship's six reaction-rifle sections and combots foronly the thousandth and first time since Unbrokenhadre-entered normspace.

“Just,”he then said,”wanted to check on Kritzteena and the others.”

” Seehow you were getting on,” he concluded.

“I'llbe fine,” his twin sister lied.

“She'llget us through this,” she added, talking about Stevie,”and theywon't even come close to boarding us.”

Shethen turned round, looking her brother dead in his eyes.

“Ifthey do board us,” she added, her voice acquiring thehardness of nano-reactive carbon steel, her hands going to herholstered RP35 rail pistol and starfire blade,”we both know what todo, don't we?!”

“Now,bug off,” she said more cheerfully. “I've patients to tend to.”

AboardASWUnbroken

921,000 kilometersfrom Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 06:16:28

Throughthe armored glass of the launch control room window, Alicia couldhear the clank!clank!clankingof 30-millimeter ammo belts being loaded into her dropship’smagazines by the three members of the ship’s launch deck team, asan army of robotic technicians(or teks) reloaded the torp launcher’smagazine, and the automatic refuelling system pumped remass into thewing tanks of the arrowhead-shaped DragonflyIV,before being retracting its feed lines into recesses along thebulkheads.

Moreteks hovered over the electromagnetic launch rails set perpindicularto the ship’s long axis and the bay doors along its bottom(thusparallel with the rest of the deck), checking for signs of heaterosion, any foreign objects which might have gotten into the launchsystem, any sign of combat damage, the twenty-four year old masterchief pilot officer of the Anacreonian Watch knitting her fingerstoghether, steepling the two pointing fingers to her lips, shiftingher weight between one foot and the other, as she kept her eyes onher ship.

“Girl,you banged up my ship pretty good,” Beck remarked via Link, herholo putting a hand on her left hip, as she floated in front ofAlicia’s right eye, shaking her head and tossing blond curlsrandomly about.

“Idon’t think there’s a spot on her,” she added, still shakingher head,”which you haven’t dented.”

“Hey,”Alicia remarked,”that Marzie drop jockey put the dents in, not me.”

“And,you were just cruising along, minding your own business,”Beck rejoinded, grinning.

“Somethinglike that,” Alicia said, with a feigned show of innocence whichmade Beck chuckle throatily in response.

“Youminding your own business?!” she remarked, shaking her head andsmiling widely. “That’s like a scrumbug turning down raw meat.”

“Lies,I tell ya,” Alicia said, trying not to laugh at her own pretense ofwounded innocence,”all lies.”

“HonestIfshnit,” she added, biting down on her bottom lip, as the laughshe’d been trying to suppress came in spite of her efforts.

“Surrreee,”Beck’s whisper tickled Alicia’s right ear, as, via Link, she sawher hug her warmly from behind.

“C’mere,you,” Beck then said, holding her even more tightly, as she kissedthe base of her, blowing on the moist spot on her skin to sendgoosebumps all through her.

Aliciatwisted herself around, taking Beck in her arms, nibbling her rightearlobe a bit, before softly kissing her lips.

Andjust holding onto her, keeping her close for whatever time she had,before she had go back out there again.

AboardFSSOkinawa

15.33AU fromAzul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:19:24

A man who had oncebeen a squadron major of the Ancreonian Watch relaxed in his rightfulplace at the head of the Okinawa’s flag bridge and lookeddown upon those hard at work at their stations on the SandCreek-class battleship’s main bridge.

In spite of hisexile, Park had come a long way from command of a meresquadron of long-range fightercraft condemned to patrol aninsignificant ember of a star.

He’d made thoserabid gynts calling themselves Masters pay for the errorof having ever even thought of holding him back fromwhat he and his race were meant to be.

Not overtly, mind,as it had been his expirience that racism seldom operated in thesunlight, its practioners, like insects, preferring the shadows andthe darkness from which to work their bigotry, hatred, and elitistdogma into the flesh and blood of their truly God-damned Confederacy,poisoning its citizens with lies of procreators ever evencoming close to being the equals of His Chosen Few.

“And, the Chosen Few,“ he found himselfwhispering the seventh verse of the twenty-third chapter of the Tomeof the Sovereigns,“entered forcibly into the houses of theprocreators, where breeders wove tapestries in the service of theirfornication.“

“And,“ heheard his chief of staff whisper just as reverently,“Theydid wreak the terrible vengance of the True God upon the breeders andthe fornicators, doing violence and things unto them which would beunseemly to do unto those who were Chosen.“

“But,“ Park concluded, as the memory ofthe day of his ascension burned brightly in his mind,“the slaveonly understands discipline and bondage, the brute only brutality,and the procreator is both slave and brute, requiring constantcorrection from the rods and the staves of their ordained Lords andanointed Masters, lest she be permitted to seduce even a singlemember of His Chosen Few away from Their Progenitor and Their Lordand turn him into thewilling slave of willing slaves.“

"Everything is inreadiness, Vice Admiral,” udun-Khonyatthen said, as he stood at his commander’s right side. "We willinitiate the crash jump in precisely four hours, thirty-threeminutes, on the intercept vector plotted by the Okinawa’scaptain and executive officer; fighter and lerf squadrons arestanding by to launch the instant we re-enter normal space.”

Parknodded his head, thinking of the silly gynt commanding that Nakdestroyer, how she had so foolishly thought he could ever befriendoneof its diseased, subsentientkind, how hehad, without compunction, used it and its foolish sentimentality tohisadvantage, right up to the moment he had struck, right up to himtaking its red-headed piece of gyntfrom it, and using itfor what even it knew it could only everbe useful for,beforeithadhad the unmitigated galltostrike him down, even as the other one came to its so-called rescue.

Hisfists were bloodless, as they hung at his sides.

"Thecrew understand,” he said through clenched teeth,”that the shipis only to be crippled,thatit is notto be permitted to destroy itself.”

"Theyunderstand, Vice Admiral,” the udunmailhuoftheKhonyatbloodline calmly replied.

"Theyalso understand,” the scrum, still so damnably calm, added,”thatnoneof the cahrokaboard are to be given the opportunity to destroy themselves.”

"That,”he said, without needing to,”their deaths are to be at oursufferance.”

"Atmysufferance,”Park replied tautly, staring straight ahead.

Part 7

...she desperately pulled at thechain securing her by the neck to the bare deck, as he entered.

Andactivated the collar around her neck, making her scream, twitch,bleed, and soil herself.

“Disgusting,”he told her, watching her with narrowing eyes the entire time,”allof your subsentient breeder kind are truly disgusting, and all theliesyou tell yourselves and us through the media youcontrol,and the so-called educatorsin your schools doesnot change thatoneiota!”

“You,”he hissed,” can pretend all you want you’re not a carnal,subsentient creature controlled by its depravities and perversities,but you cannot, can neverfool the One True Godand those He Above has chosen to rule in dominion over the worlds ofHis Creation!”

“You,”he added, spitting on her,”will notbe able to fool me,one of HisChosen Few, whoyour obscenity of a race tried their best to seduce and break, but Iam proof against your wiles, and I willnot be broken!”

He then whispered:

“Youare nothingbut gyntand vog,and gyntand vogare allyou will everbe treated as...all even youwant to be treated as, especially by her...intime, this truth—your truenakedness—willbe allyou will be left with, for I willstrip....“

AboardASW Unbroken

4.2 millionkilometers from Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:31:09

"...not your fault,godsdamnit!” Pruewhispered through clenched teeth, wishing she could unbuckle herrestraints, walk over and hold Stephanie tight 'til she stoppedblaming herself for ever godsdamned thing those rotten Marziebastards had ever doneto every one around her.

Not that such a thing would ever happen,she thought to herself, without bitterness, because she knew herSteph could not stop feeling for every one around her, no matter howmuch that hurt, and Prue knew she loved her for that.

"Not yours either,hun,” Stephanie managed to croak out.

"That’s right,luv,” Prue asserted, smiling in spite of herself.

"It’s hisfault,” she said, with total certainty,”and we will make himpay.”

"Nukes,” shethen asked Ariel,”is the auto-destruct armed?”

"Affirmative,Pilot Major,” the young woman replied. "Set for voice commandfrom either the weapons master, the surgeon major, or any of thebridge team.”

"AI netself-preservation protocols have been overridden,” the engineerlieutenant then said, with as much determination as the ship’spilot major.

Ready as we can be,Prue observed to herself, as she sipped at the coffee in herself-heating cup, her left hand firmly grasping the stick, thumb andforefinger prepared to trigger the ship’s arsenal the instant theenemy appeared to block Unbroken'sentry into warpdrive.

The tacticaldisplay appeared in her Link, relaying the passive sensor andwarpdrive radar telemetry from Meliza’s station to a holoprojectiondirectly in front of her right eye...the Sand Creek-classbattleship Okinawa—carryinghis flag—wasboosting on an intercept vector from the Sixth Fleet’s primaryanchorage, some 15 AU ahead, while a single Zumwalt-classheavy cruiser(probably the one they’d initially bounced)wasboosting on an intercept from Colorado orbit.

Both ships would be ontop of them in another four hours, eighteen, assuming theircommanders chose to override common sense and the safeties on theirwarp engines, as both their psych profiles, Stephanie, and she allagreed they would.

Prue initiated anotherseries of weapons checks, querying Ariel as to the status of thearray of diamagnetic-field generators embedded in the ship’sspaceframe, and the close-fitting deflector field they generated,knowing the ship’s navicomp and engine computer would automaticallyshut down the deflectors the instant before the warp engine’sRittermark generator wrapped the ship round its own drivefield andshifted it into warpdrive.

The very instantUnbroken would be ather most vunerable.

Suppressing a shiver,the ship’s pilot major queried her weapons master.

...byall the holy gods, he barely recognized her, as she stumbled on thederelict Marzie warship’s bridge, towards the gods damned thingtearing through her with a thermal whip, licking its lips, cluckingher tongue, mockingly calling her baby girl, before grabbing at thering in the collar round her neck and pulling her towards it, aboutto shove its tongue down her throat, before an inhuman scream of rageforced the thing to turn around, face the woman screaming andcharging at it.

The thing, of course, wore the fleshof the woman comingtowards it, the abomination having time enough to laugh at her once,before a blast from Pilot Lieutenant Rhoads’ FRG157 tore herdoppelganger to shreds....

AboardASW Unbroken

10.84 millionkilometers from Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:38:11

“...all sectionsreport ready,” Jesse said over his Link in response to Prue’srequest, as he stood at the head of the three-being triang hecommanded directly, weapons aimed dead at the ventral airlock’sinner hatch, anti-boarding RMGs mounted in quad turrets directlyabove his head, while three sections’ worth of combat bots stooddirectly behind the three sections of Riflemen covering thatparticular hatch.

Out of the corner ofhis eye, the ship’s weapons master noticed Kritzteena at the headof the reaction-rifle lance’s remaining three sections—coveringthe dorsal airlock—even if the stubborn Anazeen should’ve beenflat on her back, by all rights.

And, because she wasa damn-fool stubborn hootowl of a bloody Anazeen, hismaster chief of rifles merely nodded her fine-feathered head in hercommander’s direction to indicate she was more perfectly fine thanthe med team claimed she was.

Same with the otherfour who’d been wounded in the dustup on planet, only one of whichwas Anazeen(a first-named Staphenye of Clan Zawnee, as indicated bythe coloration of her feathers), the other three all too stubbornlyHuman, same as their shipmaster and pilot major.

Theirweapons master as well, truth be told,he chided himself, nodding his head in approval, in spite of hisbetter judgement.

Becausethey were all Watchmenof the Confederacy of Anacreon, by allthe holy gods, and they knew theirenemy entirely too well to simply lie in bed waiting to be takenwithout a fight.

...thistime, no hesitation, not even the briefest moment of pity.

Thistime, there was only the pleasure and the righteousness of theEternal Hunt.

He smiled,as the filthy little piece of gynttried entrapping him with the perverse and, ultimately,limited amusements ofits flesh.

He smiled,and he laughed at it.

Just beforethe chainblade in his hands rendered it a bloody spray of flesh andbone....

AboardFSSLewis B. Puller

7.5 millionkilometers from Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:44:00

...and,because he had not hesitated in the service of the Master God, andHis Great Cause, Jomal char-Briathu emerged from coldwire andvirtsim, howling with the spirit of the hunter that burned throughhis veins.

His sergeant, uponseeing this, simply nodded his approval.

“I would’veexpected you to wallow in your descent, Private,” he said, as theAbysar hunter, fully detached from his coldwire chamber, swung hisbare feet onto the deck and stood tall before his sergeant.

“Instead,”Halfacre added, awed(as mere pinkstink should be)at the prowress of atrue alpha,”you have embraced your fall, using yourpunishment as an opportunity to transform yourself into a betterservant of His Great Cause.”

“As it should be,Sergeant,” Jomal humbly and simply replied, bowing his headslightly towards his immediate superior.

“Learn fromPrivate char-Briathu’s example!” exhorted Halfacre tohis squad’s five other Marines. “He stumbled, and he fell,but he did not allow the procreator and the fornicatorto lay him low, he does not make excuses andblame others for his fall, as only one of them would!”

“He hasaccepted his punishment!” Jomal’s sergeant then said. “Hehas accepted responsibility for the weakness which ledto that punishment, and he has accepted the opportunity givenhim by that punishment to overcome his weakness andmake himself a better instrument to be wielded by the True God in theexecution of His Great Cause!”

“Righteous andpure is His Great Cause!” intoned Lance Corporal VincentLawrence as he stood at the end of the line of Marines.

“Righteous,”echoed Jomal and the others, crossing their fists over theirchests,”and pure.”

“Never forgetthat,” their sergeant instructed them,”not even for a moment. Donot make the mistakes of showing them mercy, as Privatechar-Briathu did.”

“’For mercy,”Jomal said, quoting from the Tome of the Commandments,”isthe weakness through which the fornicator and the procreator hope toseek dominion over His Chosen Few and make slaves of them.’”

“Yes, it is,”his sergeant half-whispered, as he stared ceilingward.

“Yes, it is!”he repeated in a thunderous roar, as he stared down his Marines.

“Rememberthat!” he commanded.”Keep that wisdom close to your heart,and let it guide your hands, when we fight them in the nextthree hours or so!”

“No mercy,”he shrieked,”for the procreator!”

“No mercy!”his Marines shouted as one.

“No,” Halfacreechoed his men through clenched teeth.”Mercy!”

No mercy,Jomal thought to himself.

Neveragain.

Part 8

AboardASWUnbroken

22.64 kilometersfrom Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 12:48:52

"Pilot Major, override the warp enginesafeties,” Stevie said, in a voice which did not betray theknotting of her stomach and the tightening of her chest.

“Launch a salvo oftorps,” she added,”and jump the ship.”

No acknowledgemnt,no reports, no objection to the dangerous course of action the masterof the Unbroken had just ordered.

Prue simply carriedout her orders, even as Meliza sang out:

"Vampire, vampire, vampire! Raidcount one-zero-zero Rapiers inbound for Unbroken,along projected vector of enemy flagship, estimated time to impact—"

No longer mattered, asthe ship of the Watch entered warpdrive with a whining hum of herRittermark generators.

"ETA to Hammarskjold, thirty hours Zulu,” reported Unbroken'spilot major,”twenty-two and a half seconds ship’s cl—”

"Evasive maneuvers, PM!” Steviehad just enough time to shout. ”All guns, fire!”

Graserpulses sizzled past Unbroken alongboth her flanks on her return to normspace, herpilot major wrenching the stick in every direction, RCS thrustersfiring fitfully to throw off the Marzie battlewagon's aim.

"Vector is true,Shipmaster,” Prue reported, even as she kept raining fire into theenemy warship’s massive flank. "We are now ninety millionklicks from Hammar—"

"Punchit!” Stevie barked out, evenas her ship staggered under the weight of incoming fire .”Dropship, scramble,I say again—"

AboardASWUnbroken

89.99 millionkilometers from Hammarskjold, Christina System

05/05/70, 18:48:06

"—dropship, scramble!” the Old Manrepeated over the 1-MC, even as Alicia dropped herself into theDragonfly IV’scockpit, belted and sealed herself up, and stabbed the command on thepiloting holodisplay which initiated the launch sequence.

The diamagneticfield jenny kicked on at full power, when the rails spat theDragonfly IV out ofUnbroken at well overcritical velocity, the warp engine's antimatter torch kicking in theinstant she was clear of the destroyer, Alicia slewing the ship roundon her RCS thrusters, looking straight down the gaping maw of a400,000 ton Sand Creek-classbattleship's launch deck, the drop ship's master holodisplay showingher exploded bodies and twisted junk floating inside the dimly-litchasm.

Unbroken must'vevogged the bastard where it hurts the most,before entering warpdrive, Aliciathought to herself, before slamming a pair of torps into the enemybattlewagon to vog the Ticoup some more, and kicked the Dragonfly IV intowarpdrive after working up a quick vec on the navicomp.

The hundred-tonBumblebee-classdropship re-entered normspace, skinning the starboard side of theMarzie heavy cruiser closing on Unbroken fromdead astern, as Alicia cut loose with two more torps and thethirty-thirties, punching briefly-flaming holes into the spaceframe,ripping open two of the enemy cruiser's eight warp engines as shestreaked past him, Alicia turning her ship nose on to the heavycruiser’s stern, arming hafnium bursting charges in another pair oftorps, before she let them loose to shred two more warp engines,multiple gashes bleeding antimatter and warp engines coolant intospace, even as the Marzie started slewing himself around on his RCSthrusters, firing torps from four of his eight launchers to try andrip the Dragonfly IV apartwith shrap, as Alicia waited until the last possible second to takeher ship into warpdrive.

Thumb and forefingerached, as they fired torps and the thirty-thirties into the belly ofthe enemy cruiser the instant Alicia had re-entered normspace, herfusillade boiling away nano-reactive carbon steel plating, andshrivelling up thirty-terajoule graser barbettes like paper in fire,her guns then lancing into the exposed interior, gouging out evenmore firey bits of Marzie heavy cruiser and flinging them headlonginto space.

AboardFSSLewis B. Puller

89.99 millionkilometers from Hammarskjold, Christina System

05/05/70, 18:55:30

"Gods damnit!” Pendry sworethrough clenched teeth, as his bridge continued crashing down allround him, alarms by the freakin' millions screamingthroughout the shattered deck, the ship’s sparkchaser not evenbothering rattling off the litany of disaster, as he was too busybeing a charred lump hanging limply by the straps which bound hiscorpse to his chair.

"XO!”he screamed,”Noexcuses, just—"

Anotherexplosion ripped and thundered through the bridge, sendingmen—screaming like little gynt—to burn and splat against thebulkheads, stations disintegrating to the left and right of thePuller’s skipper, showering Pendry with gore and burningshrapnel, as he took one look at the wreckage and carnage, beforetaking the stick which had slapped itself into his left palm, jerkedit hard to port, and slowly turned his ship around on its damaged RCSthrusters.

"Godsdamn you!”barked the Traitor’s holoimage as it floated in front of Pendry’sright eye. "Staythe vogout of our—"

AboardFSSOkinawa

89.99 millionkilometers from Hammarskjold, Christina System

05/05/70, 18:57:08

Thebridge lights dimmed, at the same time the Okinawa’sgraserskilled the heavy cruiser who dared interfere.

Theventilators damn near roasted Park with blast furnace air, while theOkinawa'schief flight engineer reported via Link,”we've lost three of eightradiators, severe damage to radiators two, three, five, seven, andeight, internal temp forty degrees and rising rapidly, auxiliarycoolant system has sustained a heat casualty, deflector array hassustained a heat casualty, surviving torp launchers have sustained aheat casualty, all surviving grasers have sustained a he—"

"Canwe make warpdrive?!” Park’s coward of a flag captainshrieked.

"Atpresent rate of heat buildup,” the ship’s sparkchaser replied,”wewill have a warpdrive range of precisely fifteen seconds, before thewarp engine safeties force us to re-enter nor—"

"Weare notleaving!” Parkscreamed. "All hands, this is the fleet commander! Seal up yoursuits, engineering, blow out the ship on my mar—"

"Starcraftexiting warpdrive,” theOkinawa'ssensorman shouted out,”bearing zero degrees by one-two-zero-zero Zulu, 3,000 klicksdownrange!”

” Nine-sixtangos,” he then said,” positively IDed as HammarskjolderSkjold-classlong-range fighters, closing rapidly at three thousand KPS.”

"Doesn’tmatter!” Park snapped, trying to convince himself he couldstill win this.”We can take—"

Themain bridge exploded beneath him, hurling screaming, burning men fromwrecked stations to their deaths.

"Sir,”said his chief of staff, still by his admiral’s side. "Thereare almost a hundred lerfs, plus the Nak destroyer, and the MasterGod Himself only knows how many other—"

"Additionalstarcraft exiting warpdrive,”the damnable sensorman just hadto say at that point,” alongvector taken by the enemy lerfs!New hostiles aresix Hammarskjolder Stockholm-classheavy cruisers, plus two full squadrons of Slepiner-classdestroy—oh, holy vog, vampire,vampire, vam—”

”Jumpthe ship!” udun-Khonyat bellowed at the Okinawa’sflag captain, as he took over piloting.

"Getus back to where we belong!”he spat, the Abysar as disgusted with that order, as his admiral.

“Aye, sir,” thebattleship’s skipper replied, as Okinawa retreated intowarpdrive.

AboardASWUnbroken

89.99 millionkilometers from Hammarskjold, Christina System

05/04/70, 18:59:47

“Enemy battleshipentering warpdrive,” Meliza reported.

”Opening launchdeck doors,” Prue reported,”recovering drop ship.”

“Hammarskjoldercommander on the line for you, Shipmaster,” Anayah said.

Stevie nodded, andthe holo of a handsome dark-haired woman with flag officer's stripeson her green shipsuit appeared on the master holodisplay, comingstraight to the point:

“Anacreonian shipUnbroken, this is Commodore Ella Thorsen, commanding HerMajesty's Ship Götehafen, and Cruiser Squadron 25 of theRoyal Hammarskjold Navy. Are they all right?”

“No, sir,” themaster of the Unbroken whispered huskily, fighting the shakesthreatening to rip through her body.”They're alive, but, beyondthat....”

“Understood,”Thorsen said tersely, swallowing a couple of times, before adding:

”You have beencleared for priority docking at High Fortress Swedenborg; my shipswill provide escort.”

”Thank you,” theHammarskjolder flag officer then added.

“For bringing herhome,” she added.” Götehafen, out.”

“P-pilot M-major,” Stevie stammered, as her shaking hands fumbled with the releasefor the seat's restraints,”flip ship and initia-ate d-decel burnfor High F-fort Swedenborg; N-nukes, effect whatever repairs aren-necessary.”

Her legs almost wentout from under her, as Stevie stood up, managing to get out the words“Pilot Major has the conn,” before staggering her way to the corelift, collasping in a quivering heap against the back wall of thelift car, as it descended toward the wardroom.

—endit—

Are You Aware Of the Fire Beneath Your Feet

Are You Aware Of the Fire Beneath Your Feet?

Governor's Mansion

155 West Paces Ferry Road, New Whitehorse, Terranova

9/11/2101, 1815.27 American Time

Sitting down at his desk, Guy Thomas Zellner, Governor of the Union, calls up his copy of the LeHaye Bible, bookmarked to the Book of Tribulation, stroking a button on the workstation holodisplay to begin.

”The Antichrist,“ Saint Timothy LeHaye, the last of the true Christian prophets, speaks in the background, as fireballs boil up from the Twin Towers, from the Pentagon, from the Capitol, from all the ancient and long-vanished monuments of his race’s superiority over them,”in retribution for God-fearing men rallying together to stand against him, destroyed all the places holy to the race of Man, all the monuments of Their supremacy, bringing woe, devastation and death upon the believers and those still unbelieving alike, and,“ the scene dissolves to leather-clad, jackbooted zeds running through the streets on antique Ford-Davidson gasburner motorcycles, whipping and otherwise preying upon innocent men, women and children,” the armies of the Harlot of the Antichrist rode through the streets of the fallen cities, subjecting men , women and those children who still obeyed the will of their fathers and their Lord, Jesus Christ, to unspeakable and multiple depravities, turning them away from their Christ, away from their fathers, turning them towards the path to bestiality, darkness, Hell itself.“

A larger holovid projector plays on the wall in front of his bed, showing him real-time Webcam footage of the scene outside his Capitol, all those ungrateful, goddamn Fall Line and South Coast zeds on the front steps, screaming “GIVE US A VOICE! GIVE US A VOICE!” over and over.

Highly unauthorized Webcam footage...YouTube knows better than that, the National Police as well, letting a freelancer get a cam within a mile of the Capitol at a time like this.

”So it was in all the cities of the earth(’Chaos, rampant in the age of distrust’),“ LeHaye's voice drones,“ the armies of the Harlot—”

A child window briefly pops up, showing the murderous zed Hillary Clinton, butcher of Waco, chief architect of the Conspiracy against her kind and his.

”—and the Antichrist who was but her black-hearted harlot—”

Another child window shows Hillary's lover, the infamous Condelezza Rice, the zed directly responsible for the September 11^th Massacres a hundred years ago.

”—riding through the streets(’confrontations, impulsive habitat’)leaving misery and death in their wake(’on and on south of Heaven’)for three days and three nights. On the morning of the fourth day, the armies of Man banded together as one, under the banner of RJ Williams and all his mighty men, driving the forces of the Harlot before them, subjugating them in the bondage the race of Eve deserved(’on and on south of Heaven’), the bondage the Lord had commanded Adam to inflict upon Eve at the beginning—“

Knocking back half a glass of Kentucky and kike with his free hand, the inheritor of the New America watches and smiles, as soldiers beat down on all those filthy, stinking zeds.

His smile disappears when he looks back at all those zeds on the steps of his Capitol continuing to chant and stomp their feet, National Policemen arrayed all around them, not doing a damn thing to stop them.

”—and, when they were done(’on and on south of Heaven’),“ LeHaye continues, ignorant of the shrilling zeds on the other HV,“ the Lord called together all the mighty men who had done this thing, saying unto them[in a voice that sounds a lot like the first Chairman of the YouTube Media Committee, Bruce Boxleitner] ‘too much folly and wickedness has been loosed upon My Earth, too many false covenants, enforcing all manner of folly and wickedness and depravity in the name of freedom, have profaned and corrupted My Chosen People, have allowed the harlots free rein over you, and you have suffered much because of it, your people stripped bare and their shame and their whoredoms laid open and exposed, just as I warned them would happen should they ever turn away from Me.

Your sufferings are now at an end, and will remain so forever, if you follow My commandments to the letter. First, you, My mighty men, shall now take and keep your rightful places as My anointed kings over Men. In this duty you must not fail Me, or, again, you shall suffer My Perfect Wrath.’

‘This we shall do, Lord,’ said the mighty men all as one.

‘Second,’ Christ said unto them,’ you must place the harlots in the same bondage I commanded Adam to lay upon Eve at the beginning. They are beasts, lowest of My Creation, and, this is how you must treat them. Pen them up in cages, keep them apart from one another and from yourselves, put upon their backs all the low and hard labors of the world and constantly lay bare their shame, expose their many whoredoms and chastize them for it. In this duty you must not fail me, or again, you shall suffer My Perfect Wrath.’

‘This we shall do, Lord,’ said the mighty men all as one.

‘Third,’ the God of Abraham commanded them,‘ you must, at once, rule your nations with force and with fire, and forbid the making of false covenants, the adherance to false covenants; I say unto you now, true freedom lies in utter bondage to Me, the Lord, your God, and to you, My chosen Kings over all the earth.’

‘We know that now, Lord,’ said the mighty men all as one. ‘Forgive us the folly of adherence to false covenants, for believing their promises of freedom and equality, for we know those promises are promises of depravity, perversity, sinfulness and to bondage far worse than Yours, Lord.’

‘You are forgiven,’ the Lord, their God, told them,’ as only I can, as only the race of Man is capable of, but, be warned, you must do as I say, in all things, or, again, you shall suffer My Perfect Wrath.’ ”

‘We shall do as You command, O’ Lord,’ said the mighty men all as—“

Goddamnit, his Gilda would have to have the bad fucking manners to whimper for more of what he'd just gotten through giving her.

Angrily, he knocks back the rest of the Kentucky and kike, her Governor getting up out of the chair, grabbing the kinky black hair of that worthless piece of Fall Line ghetto trash, jerking her head up just so He can slap her across the face one, two, three, four, five, six frickin' times, just like she wanted him to, like she’d do to some other zed whennever he turned his back on her for even a second.

Her subhuman kind continues screeching in the background for rights they don't deserve, as “South of Heaven“ plays in the background, both serving to make him that much angrier, as he just keeps hitting her, just like she wants him to.

Like all those other zeds want him to as well.

“GIVE US A VOICE! GIVE US A VOICE!” they all continue chanting , their stomping pounding in his head, as he hauls his Gilda out of bed, throwing her into the desk, the holo of the Book of Tribulation wavering a bit from the resulting impact, the Governor of the Union grabbing hold of her hair again, driving her ugly, black face hard into the polished cherry wood of the desktop.

His every breath comes in ragged heaves cooling the white foam running down the corners of his mouth, the Governor of the Union—their Governor, whether they frickin' liked it or not—stabbing a button on the holodisplay.

If they wanted a voice, then he would give them a voice.

By God, would he ever give them a voice.

“Guy?“ Micheal John Bauer, his Prime Minister, asks.

“It's gone on just a little bit further than it should've, don't you think, Micheal?“ his Governor tells him, Micheal replying instantly:

“All units, you are authorized to use Delta Level protocols to disperse the crowd, repeat, Delta Level protocols.“

On the larger HV, National ACV-137 Spectre gunships swoop down on the zeds, five-terajoule laser cannon, five-hundred gigajoule autolasers and hell missiles tearing into them, other National Policemen converging on the Capitol's front entry, their .502 Magnum massdriver riflesblazing, the zeds getting what they wanted at long last, the speakers in his office deafening him with the cheering and exultation of those watching this on the InterWeb.

Echoing with the only voice the Governor of the Union would ever permit any of them to have.

“...Mama?!” the thirteen-year old girl screams, kneeling over her mama, holding her hand...she's bleeding from the ears and the mouth, her chest is all crushed, and her legs are bent out of shape.

She's not moving.

“Mama,” Jami pleads, hearing the engine roaring, tires squealing as he turned around again, “ you gotta get up, now, please, he’s comin’ back, Mama, please, please, you gotta get up.”

The roar of the gasburner’s engine grows louder, he had gotten up speed, Jami feels the headlights burning into her as he charges back down Long Street, horn blasting the first few notes of “Glory to the Union,” into the night, he’s gonna be on top of them any second now, out to finish what he’d started doing.

“Mama, please,” Jami sobs,“please, get up, please get up, please—”

Hot, burning white lights....

...rip through the bridge, more alarms screaming in her ears, goddamn Yanker warships everywhere she looked in the flickering piloting holodisplay...they didn’t have one freakin' chance in Hell of making it out of this alive....

“Grav shielding reduced by 95%!” Chief Warrant Officer Micki Phillips reports from the engineering station at the rear of the bridge. “Primary and secondary electrical systems are trashed out, teritary electrical system 78% disrupted, warp engine severely damaged, venting antimatter and warp engine coolant, auto-repair system off line, main lasers two, three, five, seven, eight and eleven knocked out, grav beam forward and starboard emitters destroyed, electronic warfare subsystems destroyed, crew and middecks both open to space, hangar bay destroyed...med section reporting heavy casaulties, 13 dead, 19 wounded.”

“Number One,” she adds,“ I know you want to save as many of them as you can, we all do...but—”

“All available warp engine power to the grav shielding and main lasers!” screams the frightened senseless 21-year old girl now commanding the Unbroken.“ Return! Fiii-re!”

“—you’re in command now,” that bitch of a flight engineer just has to remind her,“you have to think of your ship and crew as well...you’ve done all you can, you have to....”

Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken

Zellnersboro Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Twice-Born

9/11/2101, 2320.68 Zulu

“...all hands, man your battle stations, captain to the bridge, on the double, captain to the bridge, on the double!”

Commander Jamilinne Sipe, captain of the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken, is already out of bed—she's learned a long time ago to sleep in her greys—out of her quarters, and halfway down the red-lit corridor to the ladder leading down to the middeck by the time her first lieutenant had started shouting over the 1-MC for everyone to come running.

Jami's also learned to sleep light....

She barely acknowledges the cry of “Captain on the bridge!” made by one of the Legionnaires standing guard at the hatchway, barely even hears Lieutenant Commander Stephanie Rhoads announcing “captain has the bridge,” as she sits down at the command station, belts herself in, feels her ship emerge from warpdrive into normal space, hurtling headlong at 611 klicks per second towards—

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the Red Cross medical relief ship Bernadette Healey, transporting refugees from Twice-Born; am under attack by hostile machines, have taken heavy casualties, warp engine, hangar bay, and med decks all holed, grav shield generator destroyed...we are defenseless, we have women and children on board, someone please—“

someone screams amidst the snow on her right-hand command holodisplay, the captain of the Unbroken seeing the Red Cross medship for herself in the left-hand display, along with four Freeman Lang-class heavy cruisers, two with the coiled snake insignia of the Alliance For Ethical Government, the other two sporting the flaming phoenix and star of the Twice-Born Republican Interstellar Navy, all four closing on the medship together behind a cloud of T-novan-built F18B Predator warpfighters displaying both supposedly-warring factions' colors, lasers from all the hostiles tearing into the unarmed and defenseless ship.

“Gunnery deck, bridge, fire main lasers, “ Jami snaps, no hesitation in her voice,“ launch Gobstoppers and Smashmouths, defensive, launch decoys and anti-beam ordinance; Number One, release the hounds!“

“Warpfighters away,“ Stevie replies from the piloting station at the forward end of the bridge, the holo of the 1,262-ton Dauntless-class cruiser's gunnery officer, Lieutenant Prudence Davidson, reporting,“Missiles and torps away, firing main las—

Crap!

The bridge shakes, sparking briefly in places, alarms howling inside the headphones of her CyberLink, her flight engineer, Chief Warrant Officer Ariel Dixon, shouting from her station behind the comm and lidar operators,“Grav shielding reduced by 83%, primary electrical system 64% disrupted, secondary el system 41% disrupted, direct hit to warp engine, warp engine containment destabilizing, venting—”

“Return fire!” Jami snaps. “All nonessential systems to secondary power, all available warp engine power to grav shielding and main lasers!”

“Hit 'em again!” she adds unnecessarily.

Moot House #464

Flynt County Highway 49, Owensboro, Terranova

9/11/2101, 1830.00 AMT

“Maan,” Marc Bevill asks his fellow wits seated with him at the stretch end’s middle booth,“just what is their problem? It's our tax money what supports ‘em lazy zeds here and on the South Coast, and this is how they repay us...so what if they don’t have no real represenatives in the Common Legislature, and Horse's Ass gave the corps the right to do whatever they had to to make some money off 'em...man, it wasn’t like it was Pharaoh coming in and killing off all their first-born sons or anything like that.”

“Hell,” he adds, after a sip of his large to-go cup of Moot House coffee,“as far as I’m concerned, Guy Zellner can kill all of ‘em off, nothin’ but a goddamn bunch of troublemakers and crybabies anyway.”

“Damn straight,” Joe Keane chirps right up,“ you damn straight they are, nothin’ but a buncha crybabies, every damn one of ‘em, bitchin’ ‘cause we have to come in there and make 'em do a little bit of work and try to educate ‘em...shoulda shot all of ‘em dead back durin' World War I, 'steada lettin' em all live like we did.”

“Y’damn skippy,” Jim Hunter remarks. “Need to send the goddamn Third Shock Army down here and knock all their heads around, that’s what they oughta do.”

“How ‘bout some more coffee there, darlin’!” Joe hollers out to Candace Hill, the salesperson working the stretch end today, the dirty, goddamn leprechaun SOB banging his cup on the table, knowing damn good and well Candace is busy taking the orders of a family of four in the booth behind them.

“Maan,” Marc observes,“can’t get no good service round here.”

“Hey!” he shouts at Candace.“ The man said he wanted some more goddamn coffee! How ‘bout you shake that fat ass of yours over here with the coffeepot?!”

“You need to do somethin’ ‘bout them girls, Sunni,” Carl Eustis, Joe’s running buddy from way back in the Pleiocine Era, says to Sunni Pate, as she brings the pot around, refilling all four men’s cups. “Gettin’ to where you can’t get a cup of damn coffee without having to wait an hour and a half.”

“She was waiting on other customers,” Sunni replies, feeling Joe’s eyes zeroing in on her ass as she turned round to go back behind the line.

“Always got a damn excuse,” Jim comments, Joe telling him,“it’s the fuckin’ Cooter House, Jim, whaddya expect?”

“More than what I get, for the money I have to pay to eat here,” Jim whines in reply. “I mean, look at this, a goddamn dollar seventy-five for a lil’ bitty ol’ sliver of softshell pie, goddamn ninety cents for a cup of coffee that don’t fill y’hollow tooth and almost five damn dollars for two bacon cheeseburgers and hashbrowns.”

“I know, brother,” Marc replies,“ it’s just ridiculous how much you have to pay...ninety cents for a damn cup of coffee.”

The Moot House district manager chokes on what she wants to say to them, listening to Candace call in her order to Jody Harbuck, the second-shift cook, as she sits back down at the low counter and gets back to work on next week’s schedules for all three of her stores...Ibrahim’s sorry ass was supposed to be have been here ten minutes ago, but it would probably be more like two hours later, before he even bothered to come in the door, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be sober in any case.

Sighing, Sunni turns her attention to the tickets Ibrahim had stuck Amy Smith—no relation, thank you, Jesus—with auditing, the responsibilty, of course, having gone straight to the point on her head, no surprise there....

At least, she tries to turn her attention back to the tickets, hard to do with Toby X booming through the store, Canadace’s idiot co-worker, Scott Ogles, having uploaded ten dollars to number 127 on the jukebox in the far corner of the store...ten years ago, Toby used to be one of her cooks, making $6.75 an hour...now, he makes millions per second, three houses, the one he had in Vargas big enough for the whole town of Owensboro to fit in its horse barn...how the hell was that for irony?!

“....evil gonna fly, there gonna be some hail, when ol’ Guy Z. start rangin’ yo’ bell Terranova gonna give it to ya Terranova gonna give it to ya, say T-Nova gonna give it give it to ya.,” the “artist” once known as Toby James Bohannon raps, his holo gyrating in front of the Union Colors,“Brought to ya courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, numba one in da hood, gee!”

“O’,” Scott, looking oh so pretty(useless)leaning on the condiment stand on the office end, shouts,“hail yeah!” as the song restarts.

Another sigh...Toby had been just as good—or as bad—a grill operator as he was a rapper, at least on the nights when he hadn’t been too geeked out on rapture to put in a performance at the grill...and, clean or stoned, you could forget about putting him on weekends—which reminded her, she still needed a cook for third shift, Ibrahim doubtlessly having not troubled himself to call someone in for little Johnny’s worthless ass....

Okay, back to the tickets...the system automatically priced and totalled the damn things, yet, whennever food costs got a teeny weeny bit too high, the Moot House Method specifically called for her to access the tickets written in the last 21 shifts and go over them for any sign of error, when the only possible error the girls(and two guys)could make was to call it in wrong....

“...I didn’t—” Sunni starts to say, even knowing it wouldn’t be any use.

“Bitch,” Jimmy spits back at her, jerking a hand at the holoprojection floating over the office workstation,“ don’t you even think of effin’ tellin’ me these ain’t your errors—if they are, in fact, errors...can’t be nothin’ else, but yours, sweetpea, system only charges the prices based on what you say into your Link, so it can’t be its fault.”

“Chargin’,” he added, tapping the holo,“ for a grilled cheese plate on four on ticket 223, when I know damn good and well you called in a T-bone dinner on two, a pork chop dinner and a Porterhouse dinner for that same ticket...do you realize just how much money you just balled up and threw away on that order?”

“Goddamn,” he added, looking right between Sunni’s legs,“if you didn’t have other redeeming qualties to ya, I’d have fired and sent ya back to PTP long time ago....”

“...the rule of law,” Micheal Bauer's holoimage says from just over the high counter, a pair of TSID ops flanking him, as he stands on the Capitol’s still charred and bloody steps,“simply does not apply to enemy combatants, and that was what those people were, plain and simple, foreign troublemakers, instigated by Gilda Schrenko,” the Union Education Minister,“ and the Conspiracy she willingly serves, to create problems where none existed. Yes?”

“Jamie Murdoch,” a balding man, medium height, wearing a brown suit, speaks from the middle of the mob of YouTube News reporters at the foot of the steps,“ Sir, what do you have to say to the claims that people in the Fall Line and South Coast simply wanted sovreignty or representation in the Common Legislature?”

“You right-wing liberal media talking heads are something else indeed,” Bauer, chuckling and shaking his head, replies,“ willing to parrot every word put in your damn mouths by the zeds controlling the Media Committee.”

“Damn,” he adds, shaking his head, pausing for a few moments before finally answering Murdoch’s question:

“It just so happens, Mister Murdoch, that the majority of the people in both the Fall Line and the South Coast—as opposed to all the instigating rabble rousers, most of whom are not even Terranovan citizens, let alone from anywhere on the continent of Basseterre—are perfectlly fine with the way things are now; if you don’t believe me, then check the Ministry of State IW site for the results of the election held last November, you’ll find that 73% of the people in both regions voted no on Amendment 46, which would’ve given them the independence they supposedly wanted, and 77% percent voted no on Amendment 49, which would’ve granted each of the Fall Line and South Coast the full voting representation in the Common Legislature you liberal Republican media elites keep telling folks they all want.”

He pauses again, and the reporters to laugh, Bauer concluding:

Moot House #464

Flynt County Highway 49, Owensboro, Terranova

9/11/2101, 1831.40 AMT

“And, for those of you still believing the zeds' ridiculous assertions that we somehow made all that up, let me clue you in on a dirty little secret...the Secretary of State just happens to be one of them.”

“Damn sure is,“ National Policeman First Class Geoff Halfacre says, through a mouthful of hashbrowns, onions and ketchup, the voices of those watching this all over the IW agreeing with him, Bauer adding:

“And, even she doesn't think highly of her own kind,“ Bauer adds,“ as she proved when she voted for Guy Zellner two years ago, instead of Cynthia McKinley.“

National Policeman 1^st Class Garrison Lee Sipe picks at his double quarter cheese plate, only part of him really tuned in to either his elder half-brother or his partner, most of the rest of him still thinking about the zed they'd rousted earlier in that traffic stop on 75, just a mile from the Centerville exit.

What they'd done to her kid, while they made her watch...what they'd done to her afterwards, while waiting on the unit they'd called in to transport her to the LEC in Ford's Valley.

What was going to happen to her, that part unpleasantly reminding the thirty-six year old Sipe of twenty-seven years ago, when Mama had been run down with Daddy's antique gasburner, and Jami had been blamed for it.

Sipe sighs, Halfacre looking at him funny but saying nothing...they even sold copies of those three seasons on the IW, $59.99 TSC per download, and still, they said she'd only ended up in YDC, getting slapped on the wrist while being turned out by the other zeds.

He'd even told that lie to himself and the three nephews Jami had never even seen, even after Jacob had found the footage in his comp's plasma matrices, Sipe catching him staying up 'till well past second sunrise watching his Aunt Jami being—

“Hey?!“ Halfacre snaps Sipe out of his reverie. “You there, Garry?“

“Yeah,“ Sipe replies, repeating himself, taking a bite from the double cheeseburger on his plate, in spite of being sick to his stomach.

“You been doing that a lot lately,“ Halfacre, his mouth stuffed with even more food, observes. “Anything you wanna talk about?“

“Naw, man,“ Sipe lies,“I'm good.“

“You sure, buddy?“ Halfacre asks. “You not having problems with your old lady, or nothing like that, are you?“

“Naw,“ Sipe assures him. “Michelle ain't givin' me no trouble, least no more than what she usually does.“

“Zeds is nothin' but trouble,“ Halfacre remarks, shovelling a forkful of scrambled cheese eggs into his mouth at the same time.

“Not,“ he adds, food dropping from his mouth back onto his plate with every word,“a goddamn thing but.“

“Yeah,“ Sipe remarks, taking another bite of double cheeseburger, chasing it down with a forkful of hashbrowns covered in cheese.

Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken

Zellnersboro Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Twice-Born

9/11/2101, 2333.91 Zulu

“Got him,“ Prue remarks over her Link, the captain of the Unbroken watching one of the Loyalist heavies go up in a bright ball of fire, as twelve 160-terajoule lasers punch through clouds of anti-beam ordinance and grav shielding at point-blank range, Stevie jerking the stick in her left hand in all directions at once, twisting the cruiser out of the path of thirty-six 160 TJ lasers burning their way through the blue-gold fog of ice and strips of gold foil Unbroken leaves behind in the course of her evasive maneuvers.

Stevie brings the main lasers to bear on an AFEG heavy's underbelly, Prue and the other main laser gunner slashing it open, even as the ship's fifteen robotically-controlled five-hundred gigajoule autolaser quad turrets scour the surrounding sky clean of warpfighters, forty-seven megaton Smashmouth antimatter torps detonating in the midsts of more cruisers, heavy cruisers, warpfighters, even a few battlecruisers the Loyalists and the AFEGs had managed to hold on to in the five years since TB's disputed Presidential elections had torn the world apart.

“Aren't,“ Unbroken's navigator, Sub-Lieutenant Genera Muncie, asks out loud,“the Loyalists and the AFEGs supposed to be deadly enemies?“

“They're at least supposed to hate each other's guts, even before the civil war,“ Ariel is quick to speak up, something the captain of the Unbroken finds more unusual than two supposed enemies working together to achieve somebody's greater good.

As the Commonwealth's own history bears out, the latter is not all that unusual.

“Supposed to be,“ Jami remarks, Chief Lidarman Meliza, tenth so named of Clan Potonakro, reporting,“that medship's made it to warpdrive, but we've got three others lifting from the surface, along with additional warpfighters and cruiser-class machines.“

“Where the hell are their escorts?“ Radioman First Class Alannah Munro asks, Stevie quick to reply,“they have big red crosses painted on their sides; New Geneva apparently thought that was all the protection they needed.“

“Some fools,“ Jami remarks, Unbroken turning to bring her main lasers to bear on a Loyalist Benjamin Zellner-class cruiser,“never freakin' learn, do they?“

“No,“ Stevie answers, Unbroken executing a micro, emerging from warpdrive close enough to one of the battle cruisers to scrape its paint job, the main laser gunners goring it in passing, as the three other Red Cross medships clear Twice-Born's upper atmosphere, hotly pursued by nearly a full fleet's worth of cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers and warpfighters.

All of whom are painted in the dull olive green of the Terranovan Republican Spacefleet.

“Radioman,“ Jami says, playing a hunch,“monitor the comm and data traffic from those Yanker—“

“Skipper,“ Alannah cuts her commander off,“they're in communication with the Loyalist and AFEG machines we're currently engaging; it's encrypted, so I can't tell you exactly what's being said, but—“

“You've told me enough, hon,“ Jami replies, as Smashmouths and one-kiloton Gobstopper antimatter missiles disrupt the approaching Yankers' formation.

“More than enough,“ she adds, Unbroken entering warpdrive again.

War Room, Commonwealth Forces Headquarters

20 kilometers underneath Cydonia, Cydonian Desert, Mars

9/11/2101, 2335.06 Zulu

She watches Unbroken emerge from warpdrive in the midst of the Yanker formation, main lasers blazing away, autolasers stopping inbound missiles, the Dauntless-class cruiser's squadron of Raptors blasting their way through the Loyalist and AFEG machines to come to the aid of their parent craft.

Her worst suspicions have been confirmed, but Angelique Gault finds she isn't terribly surprised by that...the President of the Commonwealth has learned the hard way nothing was ever beneath a Yanker, except possibly decency, fair play and the democratic principles they insisted only they were capable of, even as they slaughtered three thousand of their own people on the steps of their bloody Capitol.

Oh yes, I forgot, she remarks bitterly to herself, those weren't really Terranovans, but foreigners, aliens, offworlders, zeds whose WARCOM almost destroyed the human race, had it not been for the Lord RJ Williams leading the righteous on a holy crusade against the unbelievers....

“Coffee, Madam President?“ the Anazazi chief petty officer asks, a large plastic beaker of strong, black coffee in her right hand.

“Thank you, Chief,“ Angelique replies, nodding her head, as she takes the beaker and sips from it, before looking back at the fighting raging over TB.

She's just in time to see Unbroken torpedo a squadron of sixteen Arleigh Burke-class cruisers in full Yanker warpaint, just as another full squadron of Loyalist battle cruisers lift from their side of the planet, their Predator warpfighters already pursuing yet another pair of Red Cross medships transporting more refugees of the civil war out of the effing kill zone.

Should never have listened to the goddamn Red Cross, she recriminates herself for only the millionth time since the head of the Red Cross had gone on the IW a week ago and announced her harebrained scheme to send unarmed medships into a system the Yanker “peacekeepers“ had closed off, when they'd returned to Twice-Born five years ago(all in the name of preventing the Loyalists and AFEGs from spreading their civil war throughout space, oh, so effing noble of the backstabbing yobs)before asking the Commonwealth Forces to, pretty please, not provide escorts, because that would only start another interstellar war.

So, instead, she observes, taking another sip of coffee, Unbroken's all by herself, in the middle of a whole whacking lot of hostile machines, a recurring motif in the almost twenty years Jami's held command of that ship, starting with the bloodbath on Clavileno....

The President of the Commonwealth closes her eyes, sighing, opening them back up to watch Unbroken fighting for her life and the lives aboard those medships...another effing mistake she's made, believing Busbee's good intentions and letting Petro take on the ecorepair of Big Sky, knowing damn good and well that King Solomon had been spot on, one miserable sinner of an epileptic Yanker pederast did indeed destroy a lot of good.

She's been through so much already, she muses, her whole life, she's had to fight so bloody hard for what we take for granted, even for the love of a good woman...especially for that one, simple thing, and it took her hitting bottom to finally let Stephanie in....

She shouldn't, Angelique adds, taking another sip of coffee, watching her old ship shoot down even more Yanker trogs, have to keep paying for my mistakes.

Governor's Mansion

155 West Paces Ferry Road, New Whitehorse, Terranova

9/11/2101, 1838.11 AMT

“How in the hell,“ the Governor of the Union demands of his Chief of Military Operations,“did your little b—“

“We think Unbroken was forced out of warpdrive by the recent additions we made to Achird B's System-Wide Minefield,“ Fleet Admiral Kennisaw Mountain Sipe is quick to reply.“According to our latest intel reports, she was supposed to have been en route to Big Sk—“

“I can read, Admiral,“ Zellner replies coldly, glancing away from Sipe's holo to the larger HV, now showing the newly-implemented Amendment 1804 of the Articles of Union in action.

He fights the urge to smile, as he turns back to his CMO.

“So,“ he says,“I already emeffing know where your little bitch was supposed to have been. Since, however, no warpdrive course to Big Sky that I'm aware of cuts through the Zellnersboro corridor, what I'd like to know, Ken, is how—“

Sipe has the temerity to interrupt his Governor a second time:

“Once in normal space, she was able to intercept the Mayday sent via warpdrive transceiver by one of the surviving Red Cross medships, as it left Twice-Born's atmosphere, something she couldn't have done if she was still in warpdrive, as even another drivefield intersecting with hers—“

“I am also familiar with basic warpdrive physics, Admiral,“ the Governor of the Union, adding a guttural growl to his voice, snaps.

“Of course, sir,“ Sipe replies.

“And,“ Zellner adds,“I now also know how she ended up in the Zellnersboro corridor, in spite of a system which was supposed to prevent such a thing from taking place.“

“It's not one hundred percent effective,“ Sipe tells him.

“Apparentally,“ his Governor replies,“it isn't even one percent effective, seeing how those effing medships also got through the mines.“

“No, sir,“ Sipe agrees, “it's no longer effective...doubtlessly, the navicomps on Unbroken and those medships now have a complete map of the SWMF in their plasma matrices—“

“Which the Commies can now use to get past the damn things,“ Zellner finishes for him.

“Just effing great,“ he remarks, just as his little Gilda, lying on the floor where he left her, starts up her damn whimpering again.

“Just“ her Governor repeats, stomping his bad little zed into the deep shag carpeting,“effing great.“

Aboard the Republican Union Ship Atlanta Three

Zellnersboro Aerospace Corridor, 0.03 AU from Twice-Born

9/11/2101, 1840.06 AMT

“Understood,“ Captain DeForrest Tucker Sipe replies to Daddy's holo, just as Unbroken follows the last of the Red Cross medships into warpdrive.

“Nav,“ he says to Lieutenant j.g. Jeff Ledford,“plot a course for Big Sky.“

“Sir?“ the preppie little North Coast brat has the nerve to turn and face his commanding officer and ask.

“Something wrong with your hearing, boy?!“ Sipe asks. “I need you to plot a warpdrive course which will have us come out on top of Unbroken and those medships before they can tell everyone how to get through the SWMF.“

“I think that's a pretty simple concept,“ he adds, his exec, Commander Phillip J. Snead, asking him,“do you want to recall the fighters, Skip?“

“Leave 'em in the air, XO,“ Sipe decides,“but have Ledford interlink our navicomp with theirs.“

“If,“ he adds,“that's not too much for your tiny brain to handle, Mister Ledford.“

“Intercept course plotted, interlink established,“ Ledford replies. “Drivefield generators one, two and three coming on line and answering navicomp commands, warpdrive entry in five, four, three, two, one—“

Space and time turn Sipe's stomach as Atlanta Three's drivefield twists them up, the stars themselves stretching like salt-water taffy, as the 42,053-ton Freeman Lang-class heavy cruiser enters warpdrive, her air group of 120 warpfighters forming a distorted V shape in front of it, the formation intersecting normal space, moving through it at roughly three thousand times the speed of light.

“ETA to New Seattle corridor,“ Ledford announces,“0306.00 AMT, 13 September.“

Twenty seconds subjective, give or take, Sipe observes, doing the math without even thinking about it.

Not even enough time to watch Dick Grissom, he muses, space and time returning to normal, the painfully blue disk of Tau Ceti's second planet resolving itself on his left-hand command holodisplay, his right-hand display showing him tactical view, warpdrive lidar instantly showing him the positions of the Red Cross medships.

And the ship commanded by his murdering, spoiled-ass brat of a sister.

“Gunnery deck, bridge,“ he snaps into his Link's headset.“ launch Mark 125s, stand by Harpoons and main lasers. Nav, as soon as—“

The lidar alarm howls in his ears, his lidarman shouting out:

“Unbroken's acquired us, entering warpdrive on an intercept vector!“

...spanking her as hard as he could, spanking her even harder, when she can’t hold in the sobs, the screams or the pleas, DeForrest Tucker sticking his fingers in there from time to time for variety, as Avery sat in Daddy’s chair, playing with himself while watching Girls Next Door on YouTube.

“She’s so nasty, ain’t she, DT?” Avery asks his older brother, watching Harlee Madison, wearing a leather thong, stockings and high heels, burn lit cigarets on Katee DD's breasts, slapping her face when Katee, handcuffed to a rafter in the Mansion's play room, yelps in pain.

Avery tells DT ,“ this is my favorite scene in the whole movie, bubba,” the nine-year old boy then saying,“That's what Jamilinne likes.“

“Damn sure is,“ his eleven-year old brother replies, spanking his six-year old sister even harder.

Even knowing it wouldn't do any good, Jamilinne tells 'em,“no, it ain't! I wasn't even—“

“And, now she’s lying too,” DT snaps back, balling up his fist, drinking another bottle of Daddy's and Mickey's beer, as he grabs hold of her long, brown hair and forces her to.....

Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken

New Seattle Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Big Sky

9/13/2101, 0806.00 Zulu

...watch.

Jami focusses on the here and now, as Unbroken emerges from warpdrive between DT's ship and his warpfighters, the main laser gunners burning holes through the Yanker heavy's rectangular spaceframe, the enemy ship's thrust vectrals lighting up with plasma vectored from its maneuver jet, Unbroken entering warpdrive before Atlanta Three has a chance to bring its main lasers to bear.

“Lieutenant Pollard,“ Alannah informs her, as they emerge from warpdrive directly behind Atlanta Three,“reports Fighter Squadron 214's dealt with the last of the torps, and they're now escorting the medships the rest of the way to New Seattle Spacedock.“

Gobstoppers set for radiation seeking home in on the enemy heavy's three warp engines, Unbroken executing another micro to dance out of the way of Predators about to swoop down on her.

“Signal from Commander, Eighth Fleet,“ her radioman reports upon returning to normal space.“Vice-Admiral Naoska Clan Kerokha is launching cruisers and warpfighters to assist.“

“Good,“ the captain of the Unbroken replies, a view of the Atlanta Three's port side filling the entire right-hand command holodisplay.

“Main lasers,“ she orders,“fire !“

Even as autolaser quad turrets on that side of the Yanker heavy open up, Unbroken's 160-terajoule lasers tear into its titanium skin, gouging out a wound which gushes atmosphere and vaporized metal out the other side, the Dauntless-class cruiser skimming across the top of the other ship, as it begins heeling sharply to starboard from the vented gas.

“Gandymede and Muskogee emerging from warpdrive,“ Meliza soon reports,“ten thousand klicks from us and closing rapidly.“

“Both ships,“ she adds,“punching their air groups.“

Aboard the Republican Union Ship Atlanta Three

New Seattle Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Big Sky

9/13/2101, 0307.52 AMT

“Goddamnit,“ Sipe curses, watching as a Commie Albion-class battle cruiser and a Commie Cosmograd-class heavy cruiser emerge from warpdrive on either side of the Atlanta Three, both enemy ships launching Raptors towards it.

“Numbers one and three warp engines destroyed,“ Atlanta Three's chief engineer, Ensign Alan Miller reports.“Number two warp engine severely damaged, venting antimatter and warp engine coolant, no better than two lights per day possible; med section reports heavy casaulties, 167 dead, 394 wounded.“

“Weapons status?“ Sipe asks, the stench of his burning bridge assaulting his nostrils.

“Main lasers off line, no repair possible,“ Miller tells him,“ Autolaser turrets one through eighteen and twenty-three through thirty-eight destroyed, defensive computer destroyed, grav shield generator destroyed, grav beam generator destroyed.“

“So much for that,“ Snead comments, sweat glistening on his perfectly smooth, perfectly black head.

“Indeed, XO,“ Sipe says, disgusted.

“Nav,“ he orders,“get us the hell out of here.“

“Drivefield generator two coming on line and answering navicomp commands,“ Ledford replies, his hands furiously working both navigation holodisplays. “Warpdrive entry in five, four, three, two, one—“

Atlanta Three enters warpdrive, an instant before the main lasers from all three Commie cruiser-class starships converge upon its former position in space, the Freeman Lang-class heavy limping through the void at just a little over seven hundred times lightspeed.

He doesn't need Ledford to tell him just how long it will take to get back to Twice-Born.

He's already done the math...five days, a minute fifteen subjective.

Plus time to decelerate in normal space.

At least enough time to watch Dick Grissom, he thinks to himself, before I get my ass handed to me.

“You have the bridge, XO,“ he says, undoing the straps restraining him to his chair, before getting up and walking off the shambles of a bridge.

Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken

New Seattle Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Big Sky

9/13/2101, 0808.01 Zulu

“Recall the Raptors,” Jami says, her whole body starting to shake in spite of her,“ stand down from general quarters.”

She can just barely control her trembling hands, her fingers fumbling with the buckles of the her chair's restraints, managing to undo them, her knees almost going out from under her as she stands up, eyes on the wreckage of a bridge, as Stevie turns the ship over for deceleration.

“Effect repairs,” she adds, voice almost gone, the grav field generators holding her fast to the deck, as she turns and rapidly walks towards the hatch leading to the wardroom. “Bridge is....”

“...yours, Number One,” Unbroken tells her , as a burning....

...white light blinds her, his voice, stinking of alcohol, screaming at her, calling her a bitch, grabbing her, turning her around just so he can knock hell out of her, Jami making the mistake of trying to get back up, Daddy stomping her into the pavement, kicking her, hauling her back up onto her feet, slamming her up against the hood of the car, ripping her jeans open, pulling them and her panties down, laying into her ass with his belt and his boots, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he called her a murdering, goddamn bitch, telling her she did it, she did it, she was the one who’d run over her own mama, because she was a chickenheaded goddamn effing zed who hated even the one what gave birth to her, and how dare she effing try and put this all off on him.

Blue lights strobe in the darkness, another man telling Daddy,” we’ll take care of it from here, Captain Sipe, go on back home and sleep it off,“ someone grabbing hold of her hair, shoving something hard, metallic into her, Jami screaming her head off, pissing herself, every last nerve in her body on fire, a gauntleted hand slapping her ass, wrenching her arms behind her back and snapping on a pair of neural-paralysis handcuffs, pushing on whatever had been shoved up in her, before pulling it out and throwing her down into the street, the same man who told her Daddy to go home screaming for her to get up, you sick piece of crap, get the eff up, as he stomps on her, kicking her ass as hard as he could with his boots....

...Jami falling down onto her hands and knees on the deck of the wardroom, gakking up all over the floor and herself, her body heaving and trembling, her stomach tearing itself apart, her breath coming in ragged sobs, Unbroken’s skipper unable to do anything else except puke, shake.

And cry.

—endit—

Marks Of Weakness, Marks Of Woe

Marks Of Weakness, Marks Of Woe

“...Mama?!” the thirteen-year old girl screams, kneeling over her mama, holding her hand...she's bleeding from the ears and the mouth, her chest was all crushed, legs bent out of shape...she wasn’t moving.

“Mama,” Jami pleads, hearing the engine roaring, tires squealing as he turns around again, “ you gotta get up, now, please, he’s comin’ back, Mama, please, please, you gotta get up.”

The roar of the gasburner’s engine grow louder, he 's gotten up speed, and Jami feels the headlights burning into her as he charges back down Long Street, horn blasting the first few notes of “Glory to the Union,” into the night, he’s gonna be on top of them any second now, out to finish what he’d started doing.

“Mama, please,” Jami sobs,“please, get up, please get up, please—”

Hot, burning white lights....

...rip through the bridge, more alarms screaming in her ears, goddamn Yanker warships everywhere she looked in the flickering piloting holodisplay...they didn’t have one freakin' chance in Hell of making it out of this alive....

“Grav shielding reduced by 95%!” Chief Warrant Officer Micki Phillips reports from the engineering station at the rear of the bridge. “Primary and secondary electrical systems are trashed out, teritary electrical system 78% disrupted, warp engine severely damaged, venting antimatter and warp engine coolant, auto-repair system off line, main lasers two, three, five, seven, eight and eleven knocked out, grav beam forward and starboard emitters destroyed, electronic warfare subsystems destroyed, crew and middecks both open to space, hangar bay destroyed...med section reporting heavy casaulties, 13 dead, 19 wounded.”

“Number One,” she adds,“ I know you want to save as many of them as you can, we all do...but—”

“All available warp engine power to the grav shielding and main lasers!” screams the frightened senseless 21-year old girl now commanding the Unbroken.“ Return! Fiii-re!”

“—you’re in command now,” that bitch of a flight engineer just has to remind her,“you have to think of your ship and crew as well...you’ve done all you can, you have to....”

“…Unbroken from New Orelans,” Vice-Admiral Kaplan’s voice echoes in her Link, Unbroken’s captain on her knees amidst the wreckage of her own bridge, eyes fixed blurrily on the command holodisplays. “Unbroken, do you copy?”

“Commander, Unbroken,” the Eighth Fleet commander's voice repeats,”please respond.”

Commander…that was a fucking laugh…Sarah had been a commander, right down to the bitter end, when Jami’s stupidity had forced her to….

“…Invincible, no, goddamn you, don’t—“ screams the Unbroken's skipper, watching helplessly as a ball of fire lights up the night 1,500 klicks off her starboard bow, Sarah Grey’s Vinnie, what remains of her, ramming Chickamauga at warp speed, Jami’s shouted order coming too goddamn late….

Happy Valley

1,600 kilometers from New Seattle, Big Sky

9/13/2101, 1827.04 Zulu

…always too goddamn late, or out and out just not good enough.

Commander Jamilinne Sipe stands in the shade of an evergreen marking another of the graves in the grassy meadow of the hellhole the Yanker sons of bitches had called Happy Valley, the crisp, clear, cold sky turning purple as Tau Ceti begins setting, the wind rustling through the green needles of the tree under which she stood…terraformers giving life even in death, returning life to the earth which had given them life, each grave marked by a headstone and a different plant, evergreens, apple trees, bogbushes, a few with violets, sacre coeurs, other flowers…they’d grown so much in the last ten years, all this beauty born of the ugliness that had happened to them only because Jami Sipe isn't, and has never been the legend everyone said she is.

She sighs, sniffling away tears, as she inhales the scent of evergreen.

Someone's standing behind her.

She’d been there for some time, Jami turning to walk away, looking into the moist brown eyes of a commander in the Commonwealth Forces' Legionnaire Corps, in her charcoal grey and red dress uniform, long brown hair tucked into her bright red uniform beret.

The other woman’s eyes stare past the captain of the Unbroken, at the evergreen behind her, Jami nodding her head, turning from her, walking towards the next tree, the woman stopping her in mid-stride with a soft, tear-choked,”you did everything you could’ve done that day, Commander, I know that.”

It wasn’t enough, Jami thinks, but doesn’t speak aloud, it's never effing enough.

I’m so sorry I wasn’t as advertised, I should’ve been able to….

Sighing a wet, trembling sigh, clenching her shaking fists, all the supposed Avenging Angel of Avalon can do now is just walk away.

She should’ve been able to do better than just effing run, same as she'd done nineteen years ago.

Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken

Landing Pad 150, Commonwealth Forces Base New Seattle, Big Sky

9/13/2101, 1833.11 Zulu

“We were up against a fiercely determined enemy,” says the holo of Jami's useless bastard of a father, as he sits on the bridge of his flagship, talking with one of YouTube's interchanganly-nameless and faceless interviewers,”ready to do just about anything to make sure the rule of law and of the people did not prevail on Big Sky, that their Conspiracy had no opportunity whatsoever to spread their political correctness and its attendent moral depravities to yet another innocent, unsuspecting people.”

“They,” Vice-Admiral Clarence D. Braxton, the man who'd led the assault on Clavileno almost twenty years ago, then prates, the camera dissolving to him now,”were cowards, pure and simple. Sure, they were able enough to terrorize and intimidate the weak and defenseless with their Death Star of a so-called terraforming station, the stockpile of biological and chemical weapons it manufactured and the nearly fifty thousand cruisers, heavy cruisers and battlecruisers it housed and was building on almost an hourly basis.

But, against the spirit, tenancity and superiority—in technology, intellect, creativity, science, evolution and morals—of the Terranovan fighting man, they simply could not prevail; when they realized they were fighting an enemy they could not bully into submission, they fled.”

“But,” YouTube's Roger Mudd says to Fleet Admiral Kennisaw Mountain Sipe, as the view dissolves back to the bridge of the Sumterfield,” the Big Sky government claims, to this day, that the Commonwealth liberated their people.”

“And,” that rotten rat bastard, snorting contempt, replies,”you right-wing liberal media elites believe and spread that load, furthering their attempt to poison our worlds with their politically-correct, morally-incorrect way of thinking.”

The HV dissolves to...oh, dear God, they're all hanging upside down by meathooks shoved into them, the poor things swaying in the wind, dangling from every lamppost, flagpole, stoplight, bridge and mag-rail in bloody New Whitehorse like bunches of atomic fireballs weighing down the bushes on which they depended.

“Those,” Sipe’s voice says,” who refused their would-be liberators’ call to give up civilized behaviors and return to the jungle paid the ultimate price...they did not die quietly or with dignity,” the camera pans even closer on all those brutalized corpses, making damn sure everyone of the wankers watching this online see all their burns, all their bruises, all their welts, each and every last gash ripped into their bodies, “ but suffered for a long time, degraded in the most unspeakable ways, before being slowly murdered for the amusement of—”

“Turn it off,“ whispers Lieutenant Commander Stephanie Rhoads,“turn the bloody thing off.“

The HV in the upper right hand corner of the wardroom switches itself off, Unbroken's first lieutenant shaking, fumbling for the tumbler of ice water on the end table next to the sofa, the glass continuing to shake in her hand, as she curses the goddamn Yanker knobguzzling bastards who could do this to their own people.

To someone as special as Jami.

Stevie sighs, finally calmed down enough to take a sip from the tumbler...yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the Tau Ceti Accords which had ended the bloodiest war in human history, begun with that terrible day nineteen years ago, when her first cousin Elli had been killed in the opening seconds of the fighting over Clavileno, and Jami—then the ship's first lieutenant—had been forced to take command.

Another sigh...even now, Jami doesn't think she did enough that day, even though she'd done everything humanly possibly and beyond, almost literally bleeding herself dry in the process of helping to save 6,500 ECP Petro terraformers, to say nothing of the state the ship had been in, when she had finally been forced to enter warpdrive.

Thirty-five hundred of the station's ten thousand personnel had been left behind to be captured and subjected to the unspeakable degradations that worthless pedo had had the balls to accuse her Commonwealth of perpetrating, before dying miserable deaths and buried in effing latrines in that miserable bloody hellhole Stevie's wife insisted on visiting every bloody time they were on Big Sky.

They're all in proper graves now, at the cost of eighteen of her crew and another piece of her soul, but she only sees that as more proof of her failures, more proof of all the evil men did being her own bloody fault, and Stevie....

She's shaking again, her left hand balled tightly in a fist, her right gripping the tumbler so tightly, her fingers are white down to the bottom knuckles...all that frustration's brought up memories of more frustration, Unbroken’s first lieutenant relaxing...she knows Jami can’t help being Jami, but, it still hurts, all the things that she’d said and done to try and make Stevie resent her, and, there had been times where she’d almost succeeded in making her say to hell with her and moving on....

Six months after Clavileno, it had all come to a head...Jami had started drinking, heavily, after the station had fallen...Jami had fallen, lashing out at everyone around her, at Stevie most of all, till, finally, one day, when she just couldn’t see the way out, she’d found herself at Stevie’s doorstep...and, it had all come tumbling out of her, everything, she’d finally put words to all that pain, all that terrible pain that should’ve brought her down for good.

But it hasn’t.

Stevie smiles, in spite of her tears.

She knows it won't, no matter how bad it gets.

Her Jami is a hero, after all....