Chapter 6/THEN Freespacer Home Fleet, orbiting Salusia May 8, 2300 Through the traffic corridor of the Confederate Freespacer Alliance Home Fleet flew a rickety old scout ship, sputtering by on what had once been a sublight ion drive. The hull plates no longer shone with pride; the cracked, bent, glued-together pieces seemed more leprous than healthy. Steel plates had replaced transparencies over two of the portholes in the control cabin. A tiny trail of radioactive particles trickled from the base of the ship, indicating a minor reactor leak which prevented the ship from using more than one-tenth of its full power. In very faded letters might be read, by someone with an ultraviolet lamp and psychic abilities, the legend CFA Sunday Driver CFA-1742. Its pilot glanced around the steel plates, powering his on-board nav systems by holding the power lead in his hand and thinking happy thoughts, and sought Hangar Four, CFA New Orleans CFA-919, in the very heart of the fleet. Ninety-eight years. For ninety-eight years, he'd explored worlds far beyond the region of stars which comprised the United Galactica. Some of it had been entertaining, some dangerous, and three years of it in particular had been the very worst of his life... but now, thank God, the end was (literally) in sight, and soon Kris Overstreet, sometime pilot, sometime general, sometime writer, would sleep in his own bed- a real bed- for the first time in years. The misadventures of the past century had made the Redneck a new man, sure of who he was and what he was. (Who he was was him, and what he was was sick of bouncing around the stars, patching together a ship that Jawas would have abandoned as hopeless.) He'd learned control not only over himself, but over the various surprises his body had given him since that day back in 1999 when Washuu's experiment went much farther than she'd intended. Case in point: with the main coupling fried beyond all futzing, the only power in the control cabin came from Kris himself. As he munched the last few stale crackers on the ship, he converted biochemical energy into enough electrical energy to power the sublight nav computer and ship's controls, plus some extra power to sustain the ball of coalescent energy which floated over his head and illuminated the cabin. After seven straight uninterrupted hours of this (his hyperdrive had given up the ghost some twenty million miles back), he was just a bit tired- and hungry. The gigantic form of the New Orleans crept over the viewports, and Kris steered the ship towards a hangar in the lower portion of the behemoth. With as much as fifty meters to either side to spare, the Sunday Driver slid into Hangar Four, passing through the athmospheric containment forcefields and into the vast pressurized landing bay. Once inside, he followed the instructions of the bay personnel and set the near-derelict ship down near the back corner of the hangar. Kris released the controls and the two leads to the nav systems and willed away the ball of light, relaxing at last. For a moment, he savored the feeling, no longer moving, no longer seeking, just _home,_ home for the first time in a century. Home. Gotta love it. It took a few minutes for the hangar manager to work his way over to the ship. He arrived just in time to see the landing ramp drop from the side of the ship, the running lights dim and die. As he tried to scan the registration of the decrepit ship before him, a figure in ragged khaki clothes and an old leather jacket strode casually down the plank. Two large duffel bags hung from his shoulders, and his pockets bulged with ancient datatapes. An old, old piece of paper crumpled slightly in his right hand. "Sir," the landing official said- why does he look so familiar?- "sir, there's a twenty-five credit -" "Sold!" the man said, and he took out a pen and scrawled a signature on the piece of paper, ripping it in two places. "Here ya go!" he smiled, with a spring in his step he walked up the loading ramp and into the chaos of the New Orleans' ship-wide Bazaar.. Puzzled, the manager glanced down at the paper, boggled as he recognized the form. The pilot had just signed over the deed to the spaceship in front of him, with a note handwritten beneath the registry; I, Kristan Overstreet, do hereby sign over to (blank space) all ownership of this ship in exchange for the sum of whatever the landing fee is. Beneath, in all the appropriate spaces, was a scrawl which might have had a K, an S, an O, and two T's. The manager thought carefully. First thought: Now wait just a minute, you can't just sign over your ship to pay off the landing fees! Second thought: But since your ship can be impounded and dispossessed if you -don't- pay... well, I guess he's saving us some time. Third thought: This couldn't possibly be -that- Overstreet? The one in the history books? After a few moments' consideration, the deck manager tucked the paper into his pocket and shook his head. Naah. If it was the Redneck himself, he thought, he'd be laying low. With the bounty hunters still seeking out anyone remotely related to the Wedge Defense Force, being an immortal was hazardous to your health- even if you weren't actually a Wedgie. Meanwhile, Kris was catching up on current events via the 'hot sheets,' more specifically a hardcopy edition of the Weekly Midnight Star from a newsstand among the many booths lining the sides of the concourse. (The dealer had frowned on Kris' century-old coins, until he found out the cheapest of them were worth roughly fifteen times their face value in the collectibles market.) The usual clutter of misinformation glared from the cover. In an inset on the upper left corner of the tabloid's cover, a homely woman wearing next to nothing was superimposed on a picture of Gryphon. Kris had seen similar images on occasion, in similar publications, and the headline had always been a variant on I'M CARRYING GRYPHON'S LOVE CHILD! This time, headline read, I'M CARRYING THE BUTCHER'S LOVE MONSTER! The Butcher? Kris thumbed through the pages, finally seeing the story in a two-page spread in the center. The lurid pictures of Gryphon, grinning insanely, gunning down the children on Musashi, of Gryphon look-alikes posing in various situations, and of an artist's representation of the Wayward Son's crash shortly thereafter- CRASH?? Kris re-read the sentence carefully. What the HELL happened? As he read the paragraph several times over, he noticed a small wicker chair in the next booth over. Just what he needed: someplace to sit and absorb the news. The blaster bolt in his back knocked him to the ground well before he reached the chair. Grumbling silently at the burning in his back, Kris held himself limp and breathed shallowly. He thanked whatever good fortune that the corridor was, at the moment, quiet and empty. Crowd panic- or crowd vigilantism- might have made identifying the gunman a problem. Kris noticed a flicker of movement on the edge of vision; a second later, a weaselly-looking human eased into sight, greasy black hair combed back from the temples, trenchcoat partially hiding an older model blaster rifle. The gunman walked up to Kris cautiously, carefully, eyes focused on the body laying before him... ...and completely missing the blade of coalescent energy forming behind his head. The blade defined itself as a length of light roughly an inch thick and two feet long, humming on the high edge of human hearing; as the gunman prodded him with the end of his rifle, it made a couple of practice swings, as if an invisible flying midget baseball player was eyeing a baseball painted on the back of the gunman's neck. The humming grew louder, and with a toss of his head the gunman turned to face the noise. ZZZZRRRRRRMMMMMM. THUNK. Home run, Kris thought, willing the blade away and standing up. A quick search of the would-be assassin's pockets revealed IDs for three different aliases, with bounty-hunter licenses in virtually every jurisdiction there was to work in. In the inside breast pocket of the hunter's jacket he found a small datapad, with a list of about three hundred names scrolling up and down the readout screen. The highlighted name, KRISTAN OVERSTREET, sat beside the words LT. JG 1999-2002, CR1000 DEAD, CR5000 ALIVE. Beside the list, also highlighted, was a -very- old image, from his Rapier days on the Wayward Son. Jeez, Kris thought, I look like a schmuck in this one. Scrolling to the top of the file, Kris read the terms of the bounties, noted the company posting the bounties; GENOM CORPORATE SECURITY. The names at the top of the list made clear exactly who GENOM was after in general. Gryphon. Mug shot taken, Kris guessed, right after the massacre. MegaZone. Image from a Card No. 1 poster. Kei and Yuri. Image from a Christmas card back in the 2100s when the Angels had had to spend nearly a full year undercover on a case. ReRob. No photo available. Lord Fahrvergnugen. Recruiting poster image. Hagberd Celine. No photo available. Mako. News clipping from his first victory, flying athmospheric fighters against Jalthis and wiping them out. Hammer. The best of the lot; Martin wore his usual Clay Pidgeons Gizmonics jumpsuit, only with some sort of stylized lightning bolt (similar but not like the CFMF emblem) on a badge over his heart. The names continued, on and on. Not on the list, to Kris' confusion, were the names of the officers of half a dozen WDF ships and bases- Bucky O'Hare, Patrick Chester, Robert Shannon, others conspicuous in their absence. Maybe, Kris thought, they aren't after people out of reach; then he spotted Queen Asrial's name on the list, with a particularly outrageous bounty- dead only. So much for that idea, he grumbled; anyone not on the list must have already been seen to. The WDF was gone. GENOM was mopping up the mess. No one, as far as Kris could tell, stood in their way. Wonderful. Kris strode off towards the CFMF recruiting office. Obviously a lot had gone wrong while he had been gone... and guess who would just have to put it right? A purple-haired young woman in the uniform of CFMF TacFleet, lieutenant's bars on her collar and Admiralty staff patch on her right shoulder, sat in a cafe and sipped her coffee. The third level of the New Orleans' immense Processional provided an excellent place to watch passing shoppers and fleet personnel. Despite the usual bustle and commotion, it was also a good place to introspect, and May felt like introspecting today. Today marked the twelfth anniversary of her escape from GENOM's Replicant R&D facility on Niogi. For twelve years, May Azland, Type 45/S Advanced Infiltration Replicant, had lived free as a Freespacer, and she treasured every day of those twelve years in her heart. Those few people who knew May was a replicant were curious as to why she referred to herself so anthropomorphically. People expected replicants to refer to their "nutrient pump" or "articulator joint" or silly things like that. Nobody expected replicants to think they were real people. Each time someone made a thoughtless crack about how she was 'functioning,', May felt a little bit smaller inside. She was a real person, dammit- that's why she ran away from GENOM in the first place. Why couldn't some people accept that Buma were true life forms, and not just some soulless mechanoid monstrosities under the thumb of a madman? The thought brought a cold shiver to May's body. Even twelve years after breaking her loyalty programming to GENOM, any thought against the Master, Maximilian Largo, brought pain and insecurity. A small part of her still insisted that she served the Master, that she should return to her Master and accept his justice. Of course, the rest of her knew that Largo's sense of justice was restricted solely to what was relevant to his personal goals, and the prospect of slow, painful disassembly had no appeal whatsoever to her. Besides, she smiled, I have friends here, I have a life here, and Largo, for all his power, can't take those twelve years of happiness away from me. The raggedy spacer who walked past her table on the concourse caught May's eye. An average-looking man, sporting a grizzled beard, ragged flight jacket and threadbare clothes, face and chest streaked and spattered with blood; he strode towards the CFMF Recruiting Office, looking neither right nor left, passing through May's line of sight in a moment. May blinked; do I recognize that man? <***CFMF.MIL PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT ONLINE***> KRISTAN OVERSTREET> Shaking her head, May shrugged off the feeling of unreality which had taken her for a moment. Whoever the person was, she must be turned on by that type, she chuckled to herself. Perhaps she ought to consider seeking out a male for a relationship of some sort. No sense having all the right equipment, she giggled, if you never get a chance to use it. Finishing her coffee, May placed a modest tip on the table, paid her bill, and jogged down the concourses for the next shuttle to the CFA Washington. Admiral Hemphill would be annoyed if she was late for her duty shift in the computer pool again. In the back of her neural net, a tiny impulse flickered, awaiting its time... Chapter. 6/NOW Wilderness Station August 11, 2388 Terri grinned back at the mirror, at the redheaded figure in white lace, holding up the wedding dress she had purchased in the station concourse over her body. The price had been right- better than right; torn between a desire for profit and a need for liquid cash, the owner had cut the price down to just over a hundred credits, easily a tenth of the going market price for such an elegant wedding dress. Terri giggled, taking a couple of stately steps towards the mirror. She'd given the matter some deep thought over the past week or so, and the "test drives" had been... very revealing. After all her thinking and trying, all the serious consideration she could give the subject, she'd made up her mind; she would accept Red's engagement. She couldn't say, not exactly, what in particular made the decision right. She felt... well, she felt _safe_ around Redneck. Not relaxed, not all the time- his responsibilities didn't permit that all the time, or even very often. When that duty was done with, though, Terri enjoyed the lack of pressure, the readiness to be a friend and nothing more if that was all she wanted... he loved her, but he accepted her, and in his presence she felt as secure as within a battlestation. And unlike the Condorcets of this universe, she giggled, Red not only wasn't angling for the bedroom, he actually dragged his feet about it. Once you got him into bed, he made love with a slow, tender touch- but it was a task convincing him that yes, you really did want him, right then. I love him, he loves me, Terri thought, and together we'll make it work out. "You look beautiful," a soft voice called from the door. Washuu walked into the stateroom, a smile hiding in the general vicinity of her lips. "The dress suits you well, Terri. I think with you in the room, it can't help but be a beautiful ceremony." "Um, thank you, Washuu," Terri stammered. "We, uh, haven't seen you around for a while." Understatement; Washuu hadn't left her lab for about a week or so, and on the two occasions Red had gone in looking for her, he hadn't been able to find her. "What brings you out today?" Washuu smiled and murmured, "I just wanted to wish you good luck with Kris... and please take good care of him." Terri watched as the smile vanished, and then Washuu's hand waved in front of her eyes, flashing in a soft yellow glow... The yellow faded to black. Terri never saw Washuu roll her off the bridal dress, never felt the hands working at the fasteners of her combat flight suit. She might have understood things, had she seen the tears hanging from the corner of those eyes, the uncertainty of the hands that pulled the suit off her body. Or maybe Washuu's thoughts might have given it away: It's all falling apart again, she thought, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to cry again. I'm losing Kris, we're losing the war... I can't live through this again... Unfortunately, Terri had none of these hints, and she would sleep for an hour and more in her underwear, without a clue as to how or why she ended up that way. "SCRAMBLE! ALL FIGHTERS SCRAMBLE! ENEMY SHIPS INCOMING ETA FIFTY MINUTES! ALL PILOTS REPORT FOR BRIEFING! ALL SUPPORT CREW PREPARE FOR FINAL EVACUATION!" The station's loudspeakers blared through the nearly deserted corridors, spurring on the roughly 200 fighter pilots from the MASS units gathered on the station to await the final attack. In Landing Bays One and Two, the tech workers of the many MASS units performed final preps on the fighters, topping off fuel cells, yanking the pull tags, doing final check-out on all the ships. In the back corners of the bays, the tender ships for the MASS units rumbled to life, engines quietly warming up, cargo bays open to admit the loads of equipment each unit would load up as soon as the last fighter launched. The vast majority of the squadrons flew modern Incom T-65 X-Wings, with the remainder flying rejuvenated Koensayr BTL-A4 Myrmidons, or Y-Wings. These ships came in blue and gold and black and green and lavender, many with kill markers, many more with battle scars. The shoulder patches of the pilots, rushing to their unit briefing centers, flashed a wide range of nicknames; Goldfish Squadron, Black Cat Squadron, the Buckeyes, the Happy Sehlats, the Righteous Flying Piggy Wrath. The eight X-Wings of the MASS-01 Rebel Squadron launched first, well before the others; they were assigned to protect the core of the Freespacer Home Fleet from surprise attack. The other twenty-four Mobile Attack and Support Squadrons would join the carrier-based fighters of the Tactical Fleet in the main delaying action against GENOM. Under normal circumstances, the scramble would have worked to the loud and rowdy cheering of rough, macho men, women and droids who took pride in being the biggest and the best mercenary force in space. Today, every voice muted except for the announcements coming in over the station PA. Hands worked fast but deliberately; men and women acknowledged each other with grim, silent nods. Whatever pounding the fleet got handed to them, the starfighter forces would feel it first and hardest. Within the small cluster of X-Wings belonging to the MASS-21 Cosmotigers, seven pilots sat around Lt. Commander Joyful Jubilee 'Stormy' Condorcet, a handsome blonde woman with a firm, statuesque figure despite her many years of fighter service- and chasing men. "Okay, people, listen up," she barked to the seven suited pilots around her, "the mission today is simply to survive. You're expected to engage the enemy starfighter force in depth, delivering as hard a blow as you can- but do not under any circumstances leave formation or enter the firing arc of the enemy capships. You're ordered to pull out if you sustain a disabling or damaging hit to your ship. Be ready for the whole squadron to pull out at Redneck's order. That's it, nothing else." "What are we looking at here, Stormy?" one of the pilots asked. "Heavy shit, according to the top," Joyful groaned. "We're looking at a force well in excess of five hundred capital ships, virtually all of which have starfighters. For the most part, we'll be screening the fleet as it runs along the edge of the enemy deployment, but if you get into trouble, get clear, hit hyper and don't look back. Your astromechs all have the jump to Zeta Cygni programmed. Use it if you need it, people, we need live pilots, not dead heroes." For a Condorcet, male or female, to say such a thing... several of the veteran pilots shuddered at the thought. The group sat silently, waiting for Stormy to add something else. Finally, Joyful said, "All right then, man your fighters. Oh, and Crash?" The figure in the back of the group, helmet already on and visor down, nodded silently in acknowledgment. A tail of red hair crept out from beneath the helmet's rear, but nobody commented on the regs on helmet hair. "Terri, if you want to, you can haul ass now," Joyful said. "Say the word, and I'll order you to join Rebel Squadron with the Home Fleet. We all know how you feel about Redneck..." The helmeted woman shook her head no, slowly, resolutely. "All right, then," Joyful said, "your call, Crash. Let's move, people!" With that, the group dispersed to their fighters. While the others ran, the helmeted one walked to one X-Wing, one S-foil freshly repaired, tiger's fangs snarling defiance on the nosecone. The astromech droid, already mounted in its socket behind the cockpit, whistled a electronic query to her... a few seconds later, it added a startled, indignant blatt of electronic noise. Looking up at the droid, the figure said, "Listen, you, if you let anyone know I'm not Terri Curtiss, I'll make sure you never function again." The droid made another loud blatt, this one a sarcastic razz. "All right," the figure said, "I'll make sure you function strictly as a calculator designed to find the square root of negative one... no matter how long it takes. Get my drift?" The droid whistled quietly; he got it. "Right then, warm 'em up," Washuu said, climbing into the open cockpit. Kris sat in his ready room, staring at the metal-masked face in his communication window. "Thanks for the offer," he said to the ambassador from the Autobot government of Cybertron, "but one fighter more or less really ain't gonna make a difference against these odds." "Hey, if you say so," Powerglide shrugged, obviously not believing it; Powerglide's ego could give most Condorcets a run for the money. "Any messages you want relayed to Optimus and the guys?" Redneck thought for a moment and said, "Yeah. Tell 'em we'll meet everyone at Zeta Cyg as soon as we can." "You got it," Powerglide replied. "You people take care of yourselves, now." "You, too," Kris nodded. "See ya." The screen died, and Kris pushed himself away from the table with a groan. Half the ambassadors to the CFA had made similar offers, and he had had to turn them all down. If they'd had ten battleships each, he might have taken them up on it; as it was, the Autobot had the most firepower to offer of all of them. Anyway, if they needed manpower, Kris thought, they would need it at the final showdown, not here. They needed time more than anything else, and time had run completely out. An hour before, the fleet had lost contact with MacLeod Station, the Federation's major defensive position in Enigma Sector. The final messages from MacLeod confirmed the intelligence Kris had from both the unofficial Freespacer grapevine and the more official WDF Intelligence spooks. The GENOM fleet was absolutely enormous- about six hundred large ships and the Dreadnaught, and a homicidal lunatic replicant of Ben Hutchins in command of it all. Kris had worked well past second thoughts about his battle plan; he was into triple digits, if you kept track of such things. Tactically, pulling out without a fight would be only sensible- preserve your force and fight another day. And but... but he had to buy some measure of time, time to give the Home Fleet a head start, time for stragglers from across the sector to make for safety or go to ground before the storm hit, time for some miracle to happen and save the day... what to do, what to do... Mind rolling with the variables of the battle to come, Kris stood up, walked from the ready room into the massive main bridge of the Tinker, looked around the bridge at the various officers on the twin decks. A voice cried out, "Admiral on the Bridge!" and for once, all the crew rose to attention; Kris had thought he'd never see the day. "Thanks," he smiled, "but we ain't dead yet. As you were," he waved, jogging down the gangway and striding towards the center seat. "Fleet status?" he asked as he sat down, lying back in the seat and strapping his seatbelt into place. "All ships deployed in pre-combat formation, as planned, Admiral," the Tinker's chief communications officer said from his console. Kris glanced out through the portholes to the left wing of the fleet, nodded at the carrier task forces, the wings of corvettes, the squadrons of starfighters lined up in geometric perfection. "Excellent," Kris said, shifting in his chair, looking for some comfortable position. "Any solid data on the incoming fleet?" "We read roughly three hundred major warp signatures at fifteen minutes from our position. Also a heavy hyperspace wave, probably up to three hundred more ships, nearby. Also reading a damn big ship in warp behand all of it, must be the GENOM dreadnought," the science officer called from the upper deck. "Get me the Twenty-Eight," Kris said. Before Sonset, variants of the name "dreadnought" had cropped up in dozens of fleets, and the CFF-28 Dreadnought- not the first or last- still served after centuries of service. To avoid confusion, it had been renamed 'Twenty-Eight' after its registry number, reserving "Dreadnought" for the ship more worthy of the name. The screen flashed from the view of the Kantaran Nebula to a view of a smaller, compact bridge, centered on a tall man with long grey hair, a long, well-groomed beard, and an impressive middle-age spread beneath his CFMF belt buckle. "CFF-28 here," he smiled, waving through the screen. "Good hunting, Admiral, hope we all get out of this one alive." "Me too, John," Kris mumbled. "How's the kid? Still into trouble?" "Hope not," Captain Johnathan Diggers said. "His CO is giving me grief over how Theo's trying to convert the entire Freespacer Marine Division to Jedi hoodoo. Hell, I know it exists, Red, but I can't get the kid to shut up!" Diggers threw up his hands in surrender at the thought. "Did he at least quit toting the lightsaber around?" Kris asked. If he ever found out who gave Theodore Diggers a lightsaber, he thought, he'd lay them out cold. Lightsabers are damn dangerous to the untrained, and all Theo's training aside from his Marines basic is what he digs out of old books. If he hadn't figured out Force telekinesis on his own... "I wish," John Diggers groaned. "He's gotten into two fights over the thing, and if it wasn't for that girlfriend of his, he'd have been laid up in a hospital by now." "Girlfriend?" Kris asked. "Who is this, then?" "Able-Bodied Seawoman Julia Brigand- you know, 'Big Mama's' girl," he chuckled. "Bright red hair, libido the size of Cybertron... Theo's got his hands full with that one." "Heh, karma finally balancin' itself," Kris chuckled, thinking back to a less happy couple and their all too brief friendship. "What's that, Red?" John Diggers asked. "Oh, nothing," Kris said. "Ancient history. Keep your command clear if you can, John; we ain't got the power to take on that other Dreadnought by ourselves." "I hear, Red, will do," John smiled. "Good luck." "You too. Tinker out," Kris said, and he signaled to cut the channel. "ETA on those ships?" he shouted up to the science officer. "Thirteen minutes thirty seconds, Admiral," "Twelve minutes." "Eleven minutes fifteen seconds." "Eight minutes forty-five seconds." "Admiral, by Surak and all the Prophets, will you RELAX a bit?" "Ahem. Admiral, sixty seconds," the science officer said, "and thank you for not asking in the last five minutes." "Right," Kris said, squirming yet again as he failed to find that elusive comfort zone. Gods forbid a commanding admiral should relax. "You know, this seat is as uncomfortable as a Klingon bunk?" "I know some people who'd die to find out, sir," The Vulcan smiled a minimalistic smile which a non-Charismatic might have approved of. "Well, they can have their chance later," Kris sighed. "Message to all ships, Tactical Fleet, red alert, prepare to receive maneuver orders." The bridge lights dimmed as red flashing panels and sirens whooped throughout the ship. At Kris' chopping motion, the sirens cut out, barely audible from the rest of the ship. "Status of Home Fleet?" "Just the New Orleans left, sir," the comm officer said, "and... there! It's hit hyperspace, Home Fleet and Supply Fleet is away. Wilderness is evacuated." The bridge doors whirred open, letting Captain James Joseph Condorcet XVIII onto the bridge. Kris spun his chair around to face the newcomer, recognized him and gaped, "JJ! I thought you were supposed to be on the auxiliary bridge." "I wanted to watch the bad guys drop with you," JJ said, trotting down to one of the two observers' chairs mounted beside and below the command station. "Mind if I stay?" "I suppose not," Kris said, and the grey-haired Condorcet dropped into the chair, relaxing into it with a contented sigh. Kris glared at him. "Fifteen seconds to drop, Admiral." "Stand ready," Kris said, on the edge of his seat, watching the expanse of star-sprinkled blackness, as the communications officer counted down to zero. A huge grey-white chunk of armament dropped down hard from hyperspace; three more followed in quick succession, then a dozen more, then a squadron of Ikazuchi carriers, scattered Interdictor cruisers behind them, hourglass-shaped black carriers, and finally, in the middle of the growing swarm, the immense monstrosity of the GENOM Dreadnought, sixteen kilometers long, dwarfing every other ship in the battlezone. Compared to the mass which was the GENOM main battle fleet, the CFMF Tactical fleet seemed a pitiful group of pebbles against a rolling avalanche of giant boulders. It was one thing to know intellectually that you were outgunned by factors of over two hundred to one, but quite another to see the reality in its horrible majesty before you. Nobody spoke for a long second. The bridge speakers buzzed, and a voice chuckled, "(Heheheh...) We are GENOM. Resistance is futile. (*snigger*) We will add your physical and technological distinctiveness to... well, nothing, really, because WE'RE GONNA KILL ALL OF YOU A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! OH GOD I LOVE MY JOB!" The laughing parody of Ben Hutchins' voice set off a wide range of emotions in the bridge crew, all of which kept them silent... except for JJ. "My God," he said, very quietly and calmly, "we are all going to die." Kris wanted to dress him down right there and then, but there simply wasn't time. "Message to Fleet. Formation flank starboard on my mark, long-range bombardment in thirty seconds, standby on all bomber squadrons." "Belay that, Commander," JJ said quietly. "I'm sorry, Red, but if we're gonna die here, we'll damn well make a fight of it." Kris spun his chair around to glare at his flag captain, found himself staring into the emitter of a fleet-issue phaser. The phaser fired, eating a hole about six inches across and three or four deep into Kris' chest. With a thin grunt, he fell forward, unconscious, to the floor. Three people screamed, and the science officer yelled, "By the Watcher, you've killed him!!" "Naw, I didnt'," JJ drawled. He flipped Kris' body over to reveal a thin layer of skin already grown over the wound, and subtle shifting of regrowing tissues underneath. "Call the nearest Broadway-class corvette to us, order them to prepare to receive wounded for evac. We've had a minor equipment malfunction. Told him he shoulda replaced that chair. Then order the formation full ahead, straight at their heart. "People, we're gonna die here, but I'll be damned if we don't take that big bastard down with us!" Nobody spoke on the bridge for a moment; then, the communications officer began relaying JJ's orders to the rest of the fleet. "Tinker airboss to all fighters," Washuu heard on the allcall, "new orders repeat new orders. You are ordered to engage all targets of opportunity. Repeat, engage all targets of opportunity. Let's get these bastards. Tinker out." The airboss didn't sound enthusiastic... resigned, perhaps. That's extremely odd, Washuu thought, Kris would NEVER change his main tactical plan a few seconds -before- engaging. After, of course, but -before-... something was wrong, very very wrong. A few seconds later, Stormy's voice came on, soft and clear. "Tigers, I just got a message from the West Side Story.... they're evacing Redneck. He was... severely injured. Captain Condorcet has assumed temporary command... Admiral Janicek of the Polaris has challenged his orders and is proceeding with Redneck's plan of action. People, at this point I'm as confused as all of you, but my orders stand. Do your damage and get out. Tiger One out." Washuu opened a channel and said, "Tiger Three to Tiger One. What condition is Redneck in?" A few seconds of silence followed. "Crash... I'm sorry, he wasn't breathing," Washuu couldn't speak. Kris... dead? Had it really been that bad? What had happened on the Tinker? Why hadn't she been there? Tiger Three broke formation, diving towards the nearest GENOM ship, lasers already blasting away ineffectively into space. "Tiger Three, get back into formation!" Stormy shouted over the comm systems. "Terri, get back here! You can't help him like this! TERRI!" "I'm not Terri," Washuu husked into the headset, trying not to cry, as she fired round after round into space, not seeing the enemy ships, not hearing the voices in her headset. I wasn't there for him. I want to DIE. "New orders from the Tinker!" Claire cried out. "We are ordered to engage and destroy all targets of opportunity." "All RIGHT!" Aya Nakajima grinned. "Set alpha wing to attack position! Charge up all weapons systems!" To Shwarz, she said, "Which one should we attack first, eh, Irving dear?" "Um..." Shwarz scanned the enemy formation for a moment, then pointed out an Interdictor cruiser. "We'll have trouble retreating if we get bottled up by those things. With our alpha wing open, its armament isn't much heavier than our own. I think we should be able to take it out..." "Right," Aya grinned. "Claire, send to all Liberator-class ships. Recommend to them that we concentrate firepower on the Interdictor cruisers on the edge of the GENOM fleet facing our line of retreat. Homare..." she grinned evilly, "POWER DIVE!" "Aye, Captain!" Homare smiled, and with a thrust no other ship its size could match, the Defiant heeled to port and charged the Interdictor, its forward hull splitting down the middle and opening up to reveal multiple laser turrets, phasers, and torpedo tubes coating the ship's new upper surface. A rain of concentrated firepower poured into the Interdictor's shields, collapsing them in seconds, drilling through the armored hull. The GENOM ship, faked out completely, managed a few feeble laser blasts before its reactor blew, punching a huge hole in its belly and leaving it helplessly adrift. First blood to the Freespacers. "MASS Airboss, this is Tiger One," Stormy jinked her fighter wildly around the blasts of GENOM's anti-starfighter guns, trying to keep a close tail on the renegade fighter ahead. "MASS Airboss, we have a Crazy Eddie, repeat Tiger Three is Crazy Eddie, acknowledge." A triad of TIEs swooped in on Tiger Three's aft quarter, closing ranks and accelerating to full attack velocity. Stormy locked a torpedo on the leader and launched, watching it jink and break away; unfortunately, its companions stayed on course, opened fire on their prey. Growling through her teeth, Stormy boosted her engines from shield power, blew away the pair of TIEs from long range, and watched as Tiger Three's fighter cut a hull-grazing hyperbolic curve over the bow of a Victory-class destroyer. "Come ON, dammit, airboss," Stormy growled, nosing beneath the destroyer to close the gap, "SOMEBODY answer me." The lock-alert siren went off in Stormy's ears; with a start she looked forward to see not three but six TIE Interceptors in perfect hex formation bearing down on her. "Oh.... HELL," Stormy groaned, gripping the gun trigger tight and switching her shields to full. She took out three of them. The other three flew through her smoking remains. Washuu, unaware of any of it, sped on. The Tinker rocked with the impact of GENOM lasers and torpedoes, diving deeper through massive formation of Star Destroyers. Flanking it on either side, a ragged formation of twenty ships followed, the bulk strength of the Freespacer fleet. Out on the periphery of the GENOM fleet, the remainder of the CFMF attempted to continue with the original battle plan, but the GENOM fleet ignored them in favor of the minor but tangible threat plowing towards the core of the fleet. "Lock phasers on the GENOM Dreadnought!" JJ shouted, standing despite the constant enemy fire, the rocking and shuddering of the ship. "Maximum power, target their bridge!" "Main phasers locked and ready, Captain," a weapons officer shouted. "All right, you fucking goose-stepping android bastards," JJ grumbled, "eat this! FIRE!!" he shouted. From the bow of the Tinker, two immense phaser beams lanced the Dreadnought... and vanished without touching the surface. In response, almost in contempt, the Dreadnought fired a single broadside, about half its weapons focused on one point, just above the Tinker's starboard warp engine. The engine casing ruptured, releasing a fireball which rocked the Freespacer ship. Smaller explosions rolled up and down the rear quarter of the ship, flames and smoke drifting into space in the Tinker's wake. On the bridge, sirens wailed and lights flickered. The ship bucked and rattled as explosion after explosion reverberated through the hull. Crewmembers fell from chairs, tumbled from the upper deck to the lower. JJ dragged himself off the floor and into the command chair. "STATUS!" "We've lost main power!" the helmsman shouted. "We have sublight maneuvering at 45%, no more!" "We've lost contact with Engineering and the auxiliary bridge!" the communications officer shouted. "Casualty reports rolling in from all other decks!" "Our antimatter containment is failing!" the science officer shouted. "We're attempting a core dump now!" "Weapons systems totally off-line!" the weapons officer barked. "No chance of bringing them back on without the mains!" "Core dump failed!" the science officer shouted, more frantic now. "Using transporter power to beam out the antimatter..." The lights dimmed, then rose, and the science officer cursed. "Transporters failed, Captain. We only got about half of the antimatter clear." "QUIET!" JJ shouted. Hitting the intercom switch on his seat, he said, "This is Captain Condorcet to all crewmemebers. All hands, prepare to abandon ship. If anyone is still in Engineering..." His eyes glinted as he growled, "Give me best sublight power. Ramming speed." Snapping off the comm switch, he said just over the ship's death throes, "Mr. Saxon, pick us a target." Ahead of the mortally wounded ship, rolling in the viewports as the Tinker spun on its forward axis, cruised the GENOM ISD Vendetta. "Got it." he said. "Engaging collision course." "Right, that's it," JJ nodded. "All right, folks, this is it." Triggering the intercom again, he shouted, "All hands, ABANDON SHIP! ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!" To the bridge crew, he shouted, "What are you all gaping at? Get out of here!" The crew scrambled for the doors, headed for the escape pods, leaving JJ alone on the massive bridge. Yet more, smaller explosions echoed through the ship: power conduits shorting out, life support dying, consoles shorting out. Ahead, the Star Destroyer grew larger and larger, shifting only slowly out of the way. JJ took a piece of rope from his pocket and, with a little effort, lashed his left arm to the armrest of his chair. So nobody knows, JJ thought. Big deal. I know. The bridge's lights flickered and died, leaving JJ in the glow of the consoles around him. The dim blue-white light caught his teeth as he smiled a feral grin. Die, you sumbitch, die. Two of the immense structural members spanning the ceiling of the Tinker's hangar lay broken across the hangar deck, blocking the flightpath for most of the remaining ships inside. One of these girders lay squarely across the engines of the prototype Starlight fighter, crippling and trapping it. In its open cockpit, its creator sat, a kamikaze headband tied around his head and the badge of the Noriko Takaya Fan Club on his lab jacket. Crewmen scrambled towards the lifepods lining the hangar, shouting and shrieking as secondary explosions continued to echo overhead. Here and there, tongues of flame flickered out from the walls and vents, smoke clouding up along the buckled ceiling of the immense room. Above the chaos, the distressed whine of wounded ion drives echoed through the ship, screaming its death song as it accelerated towards the Star Destroyer. One of the few remaining Engineering techs, face reddened from a light coolant burn, scrambled across the wreckage to the Starlight. "Dr. Kizuki!" he shouted. "C'mon, we gotta get out of here! The warp core's gonna go critical, assuming we don't go up from ramming the enemy first!" Dr. Kizuki shifted in his seat. "I will not go," he said. "Doctor!" The tech tried to climb up the side of the crippled fighter, only to meet the point of a sword. "Doctor, this is crazy!" the tech gasped, sliding back to the deck. "I will not go," Dr. Kizuki repeated, staring down his blade at the young engineer. "This fighter is a testament, a monument to my life, my skills, and a love which could not be." Maintaining a stoic visage, despite the tears leaking from his eyes, he continued, "My daughters will continue my legacy... but I wrought this vehicle with my own hands, and I will not leave it. We will die together." "Um.... sure," the tech shrugged. "Bye, Dr. Kizuki." With that, he scrambled to one of the few remaining escape pods, leaving Dr. Kizuki alone with his ship. With a sigh, Kizuki sheathed his blade and dropped into the pilot's seat. Reaching down beside the seat, he picked up his most prized possession, a thirty-year-old autographed picture of Noriko in her Thunder Force gym suit. He hugged the picture tightly to his chest, struggling to hold back the tears of a love which now could never be realized. "Noriko-chan..." The bow of the CFMF Tinker plowed into the ISD Vendetta amidships, punching its way through the heavier ship's armor, then crumpling under the thrust of its engines. Two seconds later, the remaining antimatter, some forty grams, fell through the failing magnetic bottle and touched the sides of the warp core. The explosion obliterated the Tinker and tore a jagged, gaping hole in the side of the Vendetta. This did not concern the GENOM Dreadnought, which had just mortally wounded the CFMF U. S. Grant and now brought its arms to bear on its namesake, the CFMF Dreadnought. It left the reserve TIE fighters, Buma at the controls of each, to swarm through the debris, using the scattered lifepods for target practice. No survivors. GENOM MILARM S. O. P. His first thought, concurrent with his first breath through his regrown lungs, was: This is, beyond a doubt, the closest I have ever come to being killed. With that, he passed out from lack of oxygen, and slept a few minutes while his chest completed its reconstruction. The pain woke him again, and gasping and spluttering Kris Overstreet returned to full mental awareness. That idiot, he's going to ruin everything! he thought as he tried to sit up. His chest still hurt ferociously from the point-blank phaser shot, and he planned to see JJ hurt just as badly once he finished skinning the mutineer alive. He couldn't move. Some idiot had put restraints on his bed. With a moment's thought, Kris generated a small energy blade and sliced away the straps across his body. Once freed, he stood up and stretched, taking in his surroundings as he did. Five other beds stood close by, arranged in a cramped rectangular formation. Beyond the other beds (his was nearest the door) through a doorway sat a likewise cramped surgery, barely enough room for one surgeon, a nurse and maybe a knife. Kris recognized it at once as the sickbay of a Broadway-class corvette- no other Freespacer ship had a fleet-issue sickbay so small. Beneath his feet, the ship vibrated with the power of twin ion drives running at 130% of manufacturer's spec maximum thrust. Now and again the deck would thump with blaster hits against the shields, bouncing him just enough to disrupt balance. He slipped on his discarded uniform tunic, hole and all, and strode out of sickbay, hanging a left and walking to the bridge. The bridge doors opened to chaos; the bridge had taken a direct hit, shattering one porthole and injuring a couple of crewmen. Kris recognized Lieutenant Bel Thorne, a dark-haired hermaphrodite from Betazed, operating the helm while the rest of the crew concentrated on repairing the force-fielded window, returning fire and keeping torpedoes and missiles from reaching the ship. Bel Thorne... that makes this the West Side Story, Kris thought. "Admiral on the bridge!" he shouted, and Thorne jumped in its seat. "Admiral!" Thorne looked over his shoulder for one shock-filled moment, then returned his attention to the helm controls. "You're not supposed to be up!" "Stow it," Kris growled. "Status report." "Tinker, the Twenty-Eight, US Grant, King Richard, King Arthur, Enterprise, Explorer's Wind, and Emperor are all destroyed," the communications officer, Ensign Elli Quinn, gasped. "Over fifty ships heavily damaged. One hundred seventeen fighters still in action, sir. We've managed to destroy the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Vendetta, twenty-one Interdictor cruisers, five Victory-class Star Destroyers, and four Ikazuchi carriers." "How long since engagement?" Kris growled. Wrong, wrong, this was all wrong... "Thirty-three minutes, sir," Quinn answered. "Shit," Kris said. Most of his offensive power was shot to hell, irreplaceable... "Ensign, broadcast to all CFMF vessels. This is Admiral Overstreet. I have transferred my flag to the CFMF West Side Story. All ships that can break off, do so immediately and retreat to Point Lynchburg. Repeat, all ships break off and retreat. Overstreet out." As Quinn transmitted the message, Kris turned his attention to the viewscreen. "Main viewer aft," he said. The screen showed ships exploding right and left; as he watched, a Liberator-class guncruiser- the Defiant, Kris noted- flew, guns blazing, towards a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Even as the larger ship's shields failed, its guns lanced out and caught the Defiant's forward wing, buckling the shields, tearing the portside wing away and disabling the Defiant's weapons systems. Trailing sparks, the ship limped away, angling for an escape vector. Behind it, the Victory Star Destroyer began to turn to pursue- and brewed up in a ball of fire and steel as the CFMF Bumblebee plowed headlong into her. "Shit, shit, shit," Kris moaned. "How could JJ have gotten things so wrong?" "Admiral?" Quinn looked up from her console. "I've got an incoming transmission for you from Wilderness Station." Her face lit with surprise as she said, "Sir, it's Lieutenant Curtiss, from the Cosmotigers!" "What?" Kris said. What is she doing still on the station? "On screen." The screen lit to show Terri Curtiss huddled in a public comm booth on Wilderness Station. One hand clutched the top of her loosely tied bathrobe; Kris couldn't tell how much of her flushed expression was excitement or embarrassment. "Red, Washuu's in my fighter," she gasped. "You have to get her out of there now! She doesn't have any idea what she's doing!" Kris' questions died on his lips. Instead of asking where Terri was and how to get her out, he whispered a command: "Viewer to fighter CFMF-M21-03. Maximum magnification." The main screen flickered for a moment, focusing and zooming in onto the cockpit of an X-wing flitting through the heaviest fire in the fleet, too fast for the GENOM gunners to maintain a lock on target. The view zoomed in even closer, interrupted by flickers of laser fire crossing the screen, finally zeroing in on the figure in the cockpit. The helmet, fully sealed, masked all identity, but Kris knew... "Patch me in to her command channel," he said at last. The command channel echoed through the bridge, panicked screams and shouts predominating as the remaining CFMF pilots found themselves overwhelmed by numbers. "Washuu!" Kris shouted, echoed by the channel. "Washuu, get out of there!" Washuu's voice whispered uncertainly, "You're.... you're alive?" "Yes, I'm alive!" Kris shouted. "For God's sake, Washuu, get out of there!" "I- I-" For a moment, Washuu's voice seemed filled with relief, shaking with barely restrained emotion. On the screen, the wild weaving and firing of the lone X-wing paused... the turbolasers found her fighter, slammed into it, tore away the weakened defense shields. "NOOOOO--" On the screen, two laser bursts punched through the fighter's shields, through the canopy, venting it to space... and cremating everything inside. A third blast shredded the engine housing and tore away one wing. Powerless, pilotless, the dead fighter tumbled, unheeded, through and away from the kill zone. Kris stared in shock at the screen, as the few remaining pilots scrambled to escape the deathtrap of the GENOM fleet, as the CFMF Polaris and CFMF Liberator, cut off from retreat, surrounded by TIEs and hammered by three Star Destroyers, both went up in balls of fire. The cold weight in his stomach threatened to drag him to the deck. Quietly, Bel Thorne said, "Admiral, the CFMF Camelot has successfully disengaged and awaits orders." In a soft, hoarse voice, Kris said, "Tell them to swing over to Wilderness Station and beam off all remaining personnel. We'll dock with her there and I'll transfer my flag. Then you're to head straight for Zeta Cygni. No stops, no rescues." "Aye, sir," Bel nodded. "All other ships are to warp out. If they can't make warp... well, GENOM doesn't take prisoners," Kris sighed. Trudging up to the bridge doors, he added, " Captain Kondo of the Camelot has command until I transfer my flag. You have the bridge, Lieutenant." Slowly, carefully, he tore his eyes away from the death-throes of the last remaining Freespacer ships, placed one foot in front of the other, until the bridge doors closed themselves behind him, shutting away the sight of his fleet's destruction. Mechanically he walked down the ship's main corridor, stepping into the ship's docking tube and waiting in silence as his mind replayed multiple images. Johnathan Diggers, who'd never get to see if his Jedi son would live to marry Ms. Brigand. Ralph Janicek, the Fleet's best saxophone player and task force commander, wasted. No less than six Condorcet ship commanders and two Condorcet MASS unit commanders, gone with twenty more somewhere in the insanity they seemed to court like a family tradition. So many people. So much history. So many lives, wasted because Kris Overstreet felt he had to buy a few minutes for everyone else. And Washuu with them. Kris stopped thinking after that. A few minutes later, the tube's car moved upwards, sliding into the Camelot's lower decks. The doors opened onto the noisy fighter deck, where stood three scarred X-wings- one from the Camelot's own contingent, one from the MASS-11 Wildcats, and one from the MASS-3 Righteous Flying Piggy Wrath. Burn marks covered half the hangar deck, wreckage from some anonymous pilot's failed landing attempt strewn higgledy-piggledy across the bay. The ship's engines, amplified by the huge empty space, howled in Kris' ears with the distinct unsettling tone of an imbalanced warp core. Kris barely noticed, trudging to the turbolifts and mumbling, "Main bridge." A few moments later, he stepped out onto the bridge, looking around the half-dead consoles and understaffed stations, hearing Captain Nanami Kondo shout into her intercom, "I need warp drive now, Bob, now let's get on with it!" "No promises," Bob's voice called back, "but warp drive at your own risk. Keep it to Warp Two until we can get this locked down, though." "Bless you. Lieutenant, get us out of here!" Captain Kondo barked. "Aye, ma'am," the helmsman responded, and his hands moved across the console. The stars turned to streaks, and the ship shuddered into an uneven warp. After a few tense moments, the captain slumped in her seat, obviously relieved. She leaned her head back, looked up to the ceiling, and for the first time noticed the man standing above her at the bridge railing, leaning forward and looking at the stars blur slowly past on the screen. "Admiral on the bridge!" she gasped. "As you were," Kris whispered. "Captain... what have we got left? The fleet, I mean." Kondo turned her head to her communications officer, a full-body cyborg half wired into his panel. "Well, Admiral... I'm in contact with the T'Pau, the Defiant, the West Side Story, and the Valiant... and there's the Confederacy with the Home Fleet..." "Five ships," Kris whispered. "We engaged with a hundred capital ships... and came away with five." The crew stopped and stared openly, startled by the cold, resigned tone in his voice; it was as if the man speaking had died in the battle, and only the ghost remained. "Sir," the communications officer pressed, "we can confirm at least forty GENOM ships destroyed or disabled, to say nothing of fighters..." "How many fighters survived?" Kris interrupted, hands now crumpling the metal of the banister. "Three," the communications officer admitted. "Just the ones that managed to dock with us. We weren't able to disable all those Interdictors... in time, anyway..." "Three," Kris whispered. "My God... " The bridge stood silent, all eyes on the admiral who stood in quiet shock and despair on the upper deck. Finally, he mumbled, "Order all remaining ships to proceed at best speed to Point Lynchburg. And if someone would assign me quarters..." Prying his fingers off the now-mangled railing, he murmured, "I think I would like to be alone now." A yeoman took Kris by the arm and guided him towards the door, just in time for Terri Curtiss, still in her bathrobe, to burst through it. "Red!" she shouted, wrapping her arms around him. "Oh, Red, I'm so glad to see you in one piece! I was so worried! Did Washuu get out all right?" Kris looked at Terri, face pale and motionless. His throat felt full, clogged with words and screams all fighting to escape. Finally, with one slow shake of his head, he slid out of Terri's arms, stepped into the turbolift, followed by the yeoman. The doors shut on a face trying desperately to deal with the deaths, so many people... and Washuu. Terri stared at the closed doors and said quietly, "I guess she didn't." Chapter 7/THEN Iacon, Cybertron January 5, 2117 Kris slouched his way down the broad, oversized Iacon avenue, mind wandering from the day's work. For the past four hours he'd sat across (on) a table talking with Ultra Magnus and finalizing the repair and refit agreements between the Autobot government of Cybertron and the CFMF. After the long and incredibly bloody assistance the CFMF had given in the recently ended Sixth Great Kilrathi War, they -needed- it. The Freespacers had earned every bit of the payment they recieved, and more- their stands at the Third and Fifth Battles of McAuliffe, the raid on Gerah Soar, and their participation in the larger battles alongside the RSN, the WDF, and the Autobot forces against the joint Kilrathi and Decepticon invaders bore testimony to that. So did their casualty lists, in men and ships alike; although technically the Freespacers hadn't lost a single capital ship in the war, over half of the Tactical Fleet sat in drydock somewhere; in the Home Fleet overhead, at Utopia Planitia, the Kuat Drive Yards in Corellia, the ExoSalusia yards, or here in the Cybertron factory facilities. A significant number of these, mostly the corvettes and a couple of light cruisers, would have to be rebuilt almost from the keel up... but they had seen their crews home, and to Kris' mind they deserved better than to be totally scrapped. The bit of news he'd received that morning from Osaka, Japan, Earth distracted him from the business of putting the Fleet back in fighting trim. Miyuki Haneda Isarugi had died, at last, at the age of 139. She wasn't the last of the original Freespacer pilots- not even the last of the Earther pilots- but her death struck home for some reason. Ever since he'd viewed that message, he'd thought about how old he was, how old he was likely to get... They'd asked him to give a eulogy at the funeral. 'Say a few polite and fitting words,' they'd said. Lord, O Lord, he thought, how many goddamn times will I say "a few polite words" for someone else I've outlived? It was a morose train of thought, made all the more depressing by the encyclopaedia of "polite words" he'd said for people a lot younger than Miyuki over the past fourteen years. He hated the idea of sitting around and watching all the people around him grow old and die, while if anything he looked younger than he had a century ago. He'd led people to their deaths, he'd killed people himself, in and out of a fighter- those deaths hurt enough, but the feeling of total helplessness he felt when people he cared for died of age, or under someone else's command... that feeling ate at him like a termite with dragon's fangs. The loud noises of heavy industry snapped Kris out of his funk. For the first time since leaving Ultra Magnus' office, he saw and noticed his surroundings. He stood in an enormous metal processing plant, not far from a giant blast furnace where imported ores were molded into Cybertronean alloys. As with most Cybertronian factories, it was tough to tell where the landscape left off and the factory began; it seemed to be all of a piece. Here and there, Autobot workers poured the ores into the smelter, skimmed away the slag, poured ingots, mixed alloys, and turned out huge plates of metal to be taken to the various factories nearby. Kris realized, with a humorless half-smile, why he'd come here; his morbid thoughts had led him almost subconsciously to a place where, should he so desire, he could end it all. Kris knelt down on the factory floor and contemplated the flames of the furnace, feeling no real desire to throw himself in aside from the usual morbid curiosity. That depressed he wasn't. The slow metal thrumming of a Transformer's footsteps echoed closer behind Kris, and with a grunt he stood to move out of the way. The Transformer in question stood eighty feet tall, possibly taller- considerably taller, Kris estimated, than Ultra Magnus. Grays, olive greens, and purples dominated the humanoid robot's plate colors, and a missile launcher sat on his right shoulder. Red optics gleamed out from a weary-looking flexalloy face. With a shock Kris noticed the Decepticon badge on the robot's left shoulder; the shock turned to confusion when he noted the Autobot badge on his right. The Autobots in the factory gave the newcomer only a quick glance before returning to their work. The immense robot glanced down and noticed the human standing beside him. "Pardon me," he rumbled, and with a slow, careful movement he sat down beside Kris, leaning back on the wall, elbow resting on his knees. "What brings a human to such a boring place as this, I wonder?" he said, almost good-naturedly. Kris forced himself to relax- non-aggressive Decepticons were rare, but not unheard of- and said, "Just contemplating mortality." Extending a hand, he said, "My friends call me Redneck. What's your name?" The robot reached down and allowed Kris to grasp a finger; as close as two creatures so disparate in size could come to a human handshake. "I go by Doubledealer these days," he said. "Don't have many friends to call me anything else. Few people lend their trust to a mercenary." Kris nodded understanding. "You worked for both sides, then?" he asked. "For quite some time," Doubledealer rumbled. "Originally I was an Autobot, ages and ages ago... but I've been on both sides many times since then. When Unicron came, I was working with the Decepticons... I would've cashed out right afterwards if they'd had anything to pay with. "After 2026, I went totally free-lance, picking up work where I could among you carbonlife. I had a partner for a while, a human like you... and then, I got caught in the crossfire when Dor-Lomin fell to the Decepticons." Kris nodded. Dor-Lomin had been one of the opening battles of the war, and one of the most one-sided Decepticon victories. The Autobots had barely managed to rescue their command from capture and dismantling. "Anyway, I don't know why, but Warpath- he was the Autobot in command during the retreat- he decided to pull me out with his wounded... and when I woke up, I found my partner and me binary-bonded. They told me about this Powermaster conversion or somesuch- I didn't care, so long as I was alive. I signed up as an Autobot for the war, and Reg and I saw combat virtually everywhere. We were with the strike force on Ghorah Khar, closing in on Galvatron's command HQ, when Reg took a bolt..." The Transformer shifted slightly, and after a moment of hesitation he said, "I hate losing a partner." "Is that why you're here?" Kris asked quietly. "In a way," Doubledealer rumbled. "The docs are still trying to finish converting me back to normal- seems Reg getting blasted screwed up the normal scheme of things. I go in for the final re-conversion tomorrow... and then I'm free, to go wherever I want." Leaning forward and resting his head on one hand, he said, "Problem is, I have nowhere to go." "How's that?" Kris asked. "I thought you were still on the Autobot side." "Well, yes, but the Autobots really aren't on my side," Doubledealer said. "I mean, a few of them trust me- Prime especially, and Kup, and Warpath, a couple of others- but when most of them look at me, they see a turncoat, someone who goes to the highest bidder. They'll never trust me. And the Decepticons... Galvatron put a bounty on my head, not long before the end, and I have no doubt Shockwave would be more than glad to pay the bounty, so long as I was terminated. The Decepticons don't take well to freelancers anymore. "But those are my worries," Doubledealer leaned back, smiling. "I didn't mean to lay my burden on you like that. So," he said, trying to be hospitable, "how are you doing today?"` "Depressed," Kris said. "An old friend died recently, and it's got me thinking about my life. People growing up, growing old, and dying around me... I'm just getting sick and tired of death, really. And I don't see any sign of it stopping anytime soon." Doubledealer chuckled. "No, not much chance of that. I can understand the feeling, though. Seems like my entire life has been death, one way or the other." "Can I ask you something?" Kris said. "Seems to me most Decepticons, not to mention a few Autobots, don't care much for 'dirty rotten stinking little fleshlings.' And here you are, making conversation with one." "Well, not everyone is the same," Doubledealer said. "For the most part, those Transformers who act superior to organics are just stupid, I think; they don't actually know any of you, so it's easy to make you inferior, at least in their minds. Me, I spent thirty years working with a human, and before that... well, before that someone else had taught me to look beyond structure, look and see the true person inside." Shaking his head, he said, "Don't know if she did me a favor or not." "So you wouldn't mind working around humans a lot, then?" Kris asked. "I shouldn't think so," Doubledealer said. "Why, are you thinking of something?" "Well, I do have a proposition for you, if you're interested..." The form on the operating table leaned up, feeling at the spot which once had held his partner, when they worked together in combat. The Powermaster socket had been removed, replaced by a conventional power source and primary transformation manifold. Above him, Wheeljack said, "All right, try transforming now." The humanoid form shifted, folding inward somewhat, coming to rest as a wheeled mobile missile platform. Then, the figure shifted again, and a few seconds later, a giant metallic falcon stood where the missile launcher had been. Another shift, and the falcon returned to humanoid robot form. "Everything seems to work," Doubledealer said quietly. "Congratulations, then," Wheeljack said, "you've got a clean bill of health. Just stop by if you can for a 100,000 mile check-up, okay?" "I'll try," Doubledealer said. "By the way, what do you think of the new look?" he asked, pointing to the twin flags on his shoulders. "Well, to be honest, I'd say black and gold clashes with your paint job," Wheeljack said. "As for what it means... well, your life, your choice. You're hardly the first to go your own way, y'know." "Maybe," the Freespacer Doubledealer said, "but I won't be going it alone." Maybe this'll work out, maybe it won't, he thought to himself, but it was worth the try... and who knows? Maybe he would fit in, even among organics. And just maybe, just maybe, he'd find something to fight for besides a quick credit... Chapter 7/NOW Approaching Zeta Cygni Dyson Sphere August 13, 2388 Not very many constructions designed by humanoid organic lifeforms (not counting the Zentraedi) are large enough to accommodate a Transformer. Many of those spacious enough to allow an average- sized Transformer elbow room are still too small for a few of the larger ones. Even on Cybertron itself, there are places where practical needs outweighed the desire for universal accommodation, and thus the larger Transformers, like Doubledealer, spent more of their lives outdoors than indoors, anyplace they went. For once, Doubledealer had a chance to stretch his legs, standing in the enormous main corridor which connected the various drydocks of the Utopia Planitia docks. According to reports, the retreating Freespacer Tactical Fleet had dropped to sublight a few hours before, and Doubledealer wanted to watch the ships dock.... if for no other reason than to have the excuse to move around. Through a huge pane window, Doubledealer could see the massive Hangar Number Twenty-Two, its exterior doors open to the interior space of the immense Dyson sphere. Inside, spacesuited workers were already maneuvering mooring ties into place for multiple ships. Yellow warning lights flashed inside the bay, reminding the few occupants of the airless environment they worked in. The oblique angle of the docking bay shaded everything from the unfiltered glare of Zeta Cygni, making the flashing hazard lights and the overhead fluorescents all the brighter. "Your attention, please," a feminine voice spoke over the PA system, "CFMF Camelot, docking Hangar 22. CFMF Valiant, docking Hangar 22. CFMF Defiant, docking Hangar 22. CFMF T'Pau, docking Hangar 22. CFMF West Side Story, docking Hangar 22." Once it became apparent to all that no other docking announcements were forthcoming, the junior officers and civilians waiting in the corridor mumbled to each other in confusion. Where was such-and-so ship? What had happened to XYZ person? Where were the starfighters coming in at? Doubledealer caught several ship names in the mumbling, and he shook his head sadly. As a unit commander, he'd seen the post-battle initial report, but like the other commanders present at Utopia Planitia, he'd been ordered to secrecy until the official announcement came down from the top. Obviously, none of the others present to watch the arriving fleet knew just how little fleet there was arriving... A white shape nosed its way into the blackness beyond the hangar doors; it slid into the lights of the hangar, revealing the giant windows of the forward bridge of the Camelot, then further on, showing carbonized streaks on the hull, a patch here and there to close up hull breaches... and on the delta hull, directly atop the bulge of Main Engineering, a large gaping hole where the warp core had been jettisoned on the edge of Zeta Cygni space. The next ship to slide into view, behind the Camelot, was the Defiant. A few gasped aloud as the guncruiser's crippled bow appeared in the hangar doors, missing one of its twin folding weapons wings. Behind it, the Valiant and West Side Story cruised serenely, sporting only a handful of blast marks, while the T'Pau, bringing up the rear, bore almost no marks of battle at all. As the Camelot slowly cruised up into the berth closest to the main entrance, a new voice echoed through the corridor. "Attention, all those awaiting the CFMF Tactical Fleet. The CFMF fleet commander will issue a brief statement to you once the Camelot finishes docking. Please be patient and allow our workers to perform their tasks unmolested. Thank you for your patience." The whispers, if anything, grew louder, as the crowd swelled with curious onlookers and a few members of the galactic press who happened to be nearby. The pressurized gangplank extended itself to the carrier's main docking port, latching itself onto the Camelot's hull with a low thump. As soon as the docking was completed, dozens of Utopia Planitian technicians strode down the plank, tools and crates in hand. Then, for several long minutes, nothing happened. When footsteps echoed again from the gangplank, the whispers fell silent, and every face turned to see Kris Overstreet walk out of the gangway, alone, dressed in an impeccably clean grey dress uniform, complete with cavalry sword, pommel gleaming, handguard glinting with each stride. He wore the uniform like a burlap sack, moving stiffly into the middle of the crowd. The Freespacers gave him a measure of space; the reporters used that space to close in and surround him, sticking cameras and mikes as close as they could to him. When one camera in particular came too close, he glared at its owner with murder in his eyes. "Get that motherfucking camera out of my face before I make you eat it," he growled. The cameraman backed away nervously, allowing Kris to move into the center of the group. When he looked around the people assembled there, his face drew up into a taut, neutral expression. Doubledealer felt for the man; he obviously did not want to be here. After a long moment of silence, he said quietly, "The Tactical Fleet of the Confederate Freespacers Mercenary Fleet engaged the main body of the GENOM MILARM starfleet at Wilderness Station. The GENOM force is reported to have lost over forty ships, including one Imperial-class Star Destroyer, although we do not have confirmed reports at this time." He paused, licking his lips before continuing, "The CFMF force lost all but five of its capital ships engaged, and all but three of its active fighters." He paused to allow this to sink in before adding, "The final count of casualties is not complete as yet, but we have confirmed over 18,000 men as being dead or missing in action. Since GENOM does not take prisoners, we presume all those missing in action are dead as well." There were a couple of loud gasps from the assembled group, and Doubledealer watched Kris' face as the latter struggled to maintain composure. Once the mumbling had died down a bit, he said, "I have sent a letter resigning my commission in the CFMF to Fleet Commander Sleik. Pending his acceptance of my resignation, and the full investigation of the events at Wilderness Station, I will continue as overall commander of Freespacer armed forces. Until such time as a complete reorganization of our ranks is possible, all officers of pay grade O7 and above will hold titular rank of Commodore." He pointed to his lapel, where instead of the wreathed five-point stars of the Admiralty, he wore the eight-pointed star of a commodore. "At this moment, intelligence has informed us that the main GENOM fleet has fanned out through Enigma Sector, clearing out organized resistance. We expect their fleet to regroup within two to four days and move, as a unit, to assault their final objective, the Zeta Cygni Dyson Sphere, by no later than a week from now. I am calling up all retired CFMF officers and crew to active status at this time. All ship-rated individuals who have attained majority are to report to the CFMF Reserve Activation office and await orders. "I am going straight from here to the command offices of the Wedge Defense Force, where I shall offer contract to the allied fleet. After that, I will personally supervise the organization of as much of a starfighter force as we can put into the air. When GENOM does come, the CFMF will play a part in their final defeat." Then Kris looked around the room, and when he looked up for a moment into Doubledealer's optics, his eyes seemed to glow with a wrath Doubledealer had seen only rarely, in Transformer or carbonlife... on the faces of the insane, or at least those riding the ragged edge. "Ladies and gentlemen," the Freespacer commander growled, "we will have blood." He stepped forward into the crowd, not slowing, not noticing the way the Freespacers parted again to let him pass. A reporter decided to ignore Kris's mood and stepped in front of him. "Admiral, can you tell us what factor played the greatest-uk!" Kris grabbed the reporter, picked him up, and set him down hard on the deck behind him. "Get in my face again, asshole, and you can fucking well learn to fly." He left the reporter to stare after him as he walked off down the corridor, alone. Captain Benjamin 'Gryphon' Hutchins had never been busier before in his life. Not even when building New Avalon. Not even during his nineteen months as Salusian Minister of Defense. Never. He silently thanked Skuld that the main GENOM force had dispersed to completely secure Enigma Sector rather than pressing on to attack the still-vulnerable WDF Allied Fleet. He had several ships still in drydock- dozens, actually, some berthed for lack of qualified crew, and all too many, like the immense SDF-23 Wandering Child, still under last-minute construction. Every day - hell, every minute - gave him more time to get ships operational. "Vision," he sighed, tossing one of the innumerable hardcopy status reports he hadn't asked for but which overeager officers from hundreds of ships seemed determined that he read. "What can I do for you, lover?" the AI's face appeared on his desktop monitor. "Could you get me the most current intel on GENOM's mop-up in Enigma?" "Sooner done than said, hon," Vision replied. "Let's see if the holoproj wants to work today." Next to the monitor, a small device resembling a wok ring with no wok on it glowed, then projected a freestanding holographic representation of the sector, with GENOM forces highlighted here and there. Two items showed minor victories- a clash near the Manticore Star Kingdom, where the Manticoran force had managed to give GENOM a bloody nose and escape- and Hyeruul, where the small GENOM task force had been utterly wiped out by 'a mysterious defense force.' Most of the rest, however, showed either quick GENOM victories or more prolonged blockades of trouble points- none of which would do more than draw maybe a tithe off the main fleet's striking force when it finally came for the final confrontation. Gryphon turned to his regular monitor, pulled up a spreadsheet of the WDF's projected strength, and lost himself in thought. Even as Gryphon began mentally calculating a final strength for GENOM, Vision's face appeared again, this time unnaturally concerned-looking. "Ben," she said, "Overstreet just showed up." Gryphon sighed for about the three hundredth time that day. More complications, more work, more worries. Under one of the small stacks of paper, pizza boxes, dirty plates, and other debris lay a disk which contained the detailed results of the Wilderness engagement; from what little he'd read from it, Gryph figured Redneck had earned his say, whatever it was. "Great, send him in," he said, raising some vestige of enthusiasm for the effort. "He really looks like hell, Ben," Vision warned. "Be gentle with him, okay?" Her face vanished, and a second later the office door opened to reveal a worn-out, used-up looking Redneck, who strode mechanically into the office, snapped to attention before Gryphon's cluttered desk, and saluted. "Captain Hutchins, sir," he muttered, without a trace of irony or humor in his voice. Gryphon stood, saluting. "Afternoon, Red... sorry about the mess. Sit down before you fall down." Overstreet sighed and sank gratefully into the one clear chair that faced Gryphon's desk. "Thanks. It's been a shitty last couple of days." "So I've heard," replied Gryphon, having a seat. "Unless I miss my guess, though, the week as a whole is going to get worse." "Well... that's why I'm here. I'm here to offer... what's -left- of my forces to your command." "I see," Gryphon replied, then added with a tired grin, "Well, what's a little more complication to the TO&E this week?" Sobering, he continued, "What -is- left of your forces? I have the report, but to be honest I only had time to skim it and get the impression you'd been hit hard." Redneck's seemingly permanent frown deepened as he thought for a moment. "One carrier, heavily damaged; one guncruiser, heavily damaged; one light cruiser, slightly damaged; three corvettes, undamaged; maybe fifteen X-Wings. Oh, and ten thousand Marines, if you can find some use for them." "This looks likely to be a strictly naval operation, but we can house them, anyway, and keep them out of harm's way. As for your other assets... " Gryphon lapsed into silence as his face took on that far-away thinking look. "I would recommend that the carrier - the Camelot - be restricted to a launching capacity only," Kris said, "and that it and the CFMF Defiant - the guncruiser - be held in reserve... should a retreat be needed. The Valiant could join the main line, and the T'Pau, Confederacy and West Side Story could be deployed as heavy gunboats." Gryphon thought it over, then leaned forward, elbows on his desk, fingers steepled. "Kris, it seems to me that if the carrier is as badly damaged as all that, I've got an alternate suggestion." "I'm open to suggestions." "Well, we've got several fully operational capital starships still in their construction bays here, all ready to go but for a shortage of one vital component: crew. Now, if your people don't mind being virtual prisoners for three days taking a crash course in new-ship acclimation, they can go into action fully operational, assuming the enemy gives us that much time. Indications right now are that they will." "Well... " replied Overstreet thoughtfully, "the Camelot's only got 1,000 crewmen, and I intend to have them working nonstop to rebuild the warp core... but there is an alternative... with the Home Fleet here as well, I can essentially call out the reserves - starting with about 3/4 of those Marines I told you about - and crew every ship you have to the gills." "All right, if that's the way you want it - I wasn't aware so many of your marines were crew-certified. Ordinarily I would keep recommending that we move the Camelot's fighters to another carrier and make her non-operational, but I understand how eager your people must be for a piece of the enemy... and I'd hate to stand in the way of the ancient Freespacer tradition of avoidable risk," he added, trying to draw out a hint of a smile. Instead, he got a long stare, coming from the face of a man who looked momentarily as old as his calendar years and as tired as Time, a stare mixing grief and hopelessness, but surprisingly little anger. "... Gryph, I just suffered a mutiny, the result of which was the near annihilation of my fleet. Right now the only thing that gets me out of bed in the mornings is the thought of giving a little back to GENOM. I can assure you every Freespacer feels similarly, if not so intense. "Now, you're the operations planner. You can deploy my ships however you feel most suits your battle plan. I don't intend for Camelot to engage the enemy, just provide an auxiliary launch and retrieval platform on the sidelines. But if you think she's better off non-operational, that's your call. But please, don't ever kid me about avoidable risk again. I don't think I'll ever be in the mood." Despite his age and position, Gryphon felt the same melange of self-recrimination and annoyance that he had always felt whenever he put a foot wrong in a situation like this. He gathered his thoughts, pressed them into a useful format, and let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "All righty, then," he said. "Vision, new vessel assignments for the Freespacer contingent." "Go." "Carrier CFMF Camelot to group 3, second element. Assign cruisers Firedrake and Temujin to cover. "Guncruiser CFMF Defiant to sphere reserve element. Assign cruiser Hawking to cover. Advise Captain Harris not to be surprised if that one goes barreling into combat despite her assignment and condition, and advise him to cover accordingly. "Cruiser CFMF Valiant to group 2, first element, to cover port low, battleship WDF Bismarck. "Corvettes CFMF T'Pau, CFMF Confederacy, CFMF West Side Story, to special group 4, first element. Assignment: enemy carrier harassment. "Also, I'll need a listing of every operational ship currently in need of crew elements, and all the completed ships without any crew. And a team from P&R to put their heads together with the CFMF equivalent and figure out how to make crews out of their reserves. "And don't let me forget: at the first available opportunity, I'm to write Commodore Overstreet a formal apology for my inopportune comments today. That's all for now." "Got it. Processing the lists now." "Right now," said Redneck, "as far as Personnel goes, I'm the guy. And as far as available ship-rated people... I should be able to offer, oh... one hundred thousand crewmen with no great difficulty." Gryphon nodded, eyebrows up. "That should certainly take care of our personnel difficulties, if we can make coherent crews out of 'em. For that, though, you need to talk to Commander Velspp in Personnel & Resources; contrary to popular belief, I can't handle every detail personally." He took a look at the status readings in the corner of his screen. "The manifests and such should be ready in half an hour or so... in the meantime, you might consider investing in some food. The commissary here is good, if you like Salusian food. Or we've got a food court over in Shipyard Three." "Thanks." Redneck rose slowly to his feet, moving like a man three times his apparent age, and turned for the door; then he paused and turned back to Gryphon. "Oh, and one other thing... assuming we both get out of this alive... you're more than welcome to attend Washuu's funeral." Gryphon had been expecting something, anything, but that statement, so his farewell smile collapsed into a smoking shambles as he replied merely, "... oh." (A syllable meaning, approximately, "Well, that'd be what's happened to your sense of humor, then.") "Thank you," he managed after a few moments' thought. "I... I'll be there." "Thanks. I appreciate that. Also, if you could ask Vision to pass the word to the appropriate people, when there's a chance..." "I'll take care of it," said Vision in a subdued tone. "Who's in charge of the starfighter forces? Daver?" asked Redneck. "Yes... he's holding a nominal TacDiv grade of Major, and running Fighter Command from the Lexington right now. Our organization is so screwed up right now that almost nobody's got the rank they ought to have or HQ where it belongs... we're sort of running on the honor system until this crisis is over and we have time to sort it out." "Thanks. He'll be my next stop, after this, then." Remembering his military decorum, Overstreet came to attention and saluted. "Force be with ya, Gryph." Gryphon returned the salute (an unprecedented two salutes in one hour) and replied, "Until all are one, Kris." Overstreet left, and as soon as he was gone, Gryphon flopped into his chair, putting his elbows on his desk and dropping his forehead into his cupped hands with a gusty sigh. "Well, that was smooth," Vision remarked. "Yeah. I know," Gryphon replied. "I think I'll get started on that apology now."