Starlight

Ch1:  Dusk's onslaught

    "There is one thing to remember about flying a starship-  at any time you are free to scream in total panic."

Starships for Dummies

    Space.  Supposedly the tranquil and silent either of the universe.

    Yeah, right.

January 21, 3255

Sector: 25-31-Gamma-71

Coordinates: 29-14-Delta-12

CSS Long Shot, Bridge, 13:00 FT

    It was dark.  The sector was quiet, as it had been for most of the time since the very universe was born.  In the deeps of space, way off in the galactic halo, few things stirred themselves enough to even make it out to it with sensors.  Thus, had a sense of darkness fallen over the area, with the silence becoming ever more entrenched.  Until now.

    A torpedo burst, it's anti-matter payload filling space with numerous and uncountable varieties of strange tounge-twister radiation.  Fire from beam weapons arced across the cosmos, forming a web of destruction crossing the sector.  One of the greatest thorns in the Ohansu's side was there.  And the Long Shot was not alone.

    "Hang on!"  Captain Diess ducked a shower of sparks from one of the upper conduits, as he ship bounced in turbulence.  "Melony, reroute power to compensate for fire in our rear quarter!"  The ship bucked, under deadly assault from the small fleet behind it.

    "Don't tell me how to do my job!  I can see the failure in big flashing letters!"  Melony hung on as she was bounced backwards into her chair.  "I know we need more power back there, but we have no power left to re-route, and the generator is about to blow anyway!"  Melony clutched at her station, punching in adjustments with her right hand, and hoping that the constant bucking and swaying of the ship would not throw off her programming.  "If you know where I can find some more power that isn't needed, by all means tell me!" 

    "Boost that blasted core's output again if you have to!  We've got two additional command ships coming from the fore!"  Akalia kept most of her annoyance to herself, but she needed the job done right then.  She turned slightly, to get a look in at Andre, but he merely shrugged, indicating that he likely had no suggestions, or he didn't have a clue.

    "Captain, I'm an engineer!  The first things I think of is how to get more power without drawing from things that need it!  The problem is that blasted lower-power core is already running at 150%!  We'll be lucky if we get 10 more minutes out of it!"  Melony watched the alarms slowly blossoming from the very part she had been speaking of.  She sent notices down to engineering to get another team on balancing the core, and re-organized the power flow, trying to keep the ship from ripping itself apart.

    "In ten minutes, the only thing that will be left of this ship is that core!"  Akalia pointed at a squad of Ohansu starfighters that were foolish enough to try and head the Long Shot off, watching with satisfaction as they were wiped off the map by Roberton, her tactical officer, and executive officer.  "Move it kid!"  What was more alarming was the pair of battleships moving into attack position.

    "Will you two ladies please quit the in-fighting, and get this problem fixed so we don't all die a fiery death!?"  Andre had to hang onto the center brace between his console and Roberton's, as the ship tilted to port. 

    "Even if I wanted to force the core any higher, I can't!  The safeguards cannot be over-ridden any longer!  The only way you're going to get more power out of that core is with a breach that blows up the entire ship!"  Melony held on, as the slow tilting tried to dump her out of her chair, and onto her console.  "If you want to do something, it had better not involve engineering, because there's nothing more I can do!"

    "Captain, as much as I hate to agree, we must vacate the vicinity.  I know we're supposed to meet Grand Admiral Davison, but he has not shown up yet, and if he is anywhere near by, he won't approach a running battle.  And we're definitely no good to him DEAD!" Andre tapped into the bridge environmental controls, re-orienting the bridge's artificial gravity and inertial dampeners to compensate for the massive tilt.  As the bridge gravity leveled out, he leaned over the center rail.  His tone was urgent, a desperate request.  "Captain, we must retreat.  We have no choice."

    The ship rocked, and corkscrewed to starboard so hard that the structural alerts came on in several sectors across the ship. Fire streaked through the course the ship had been on, as the helmsman and Lt. Wang pulled a new course off, turning the ship to right angles with the Ohansu battlefleet, and starting to bring to bear the formidable forward guns of the ship.

    Akalia started to protest his giving her advice, but as the overhead systems sparked,  and yet more warning lights started to pop up on every screen.  She started to spit out an expletive instead, but held her tounge.  "Agreed.  Lay down a warning beacon for the Admiral, with a full report on the encounter.  Set it for a 5 hour broadcast delay.  It won't do him any good to be destroyed before it can start signaling.  Helm, start firing up the slipstream drive, and prepare for course targeting."  The old sage of a captain winced as another jolt in the ship slammed her seat up into her backside, jamming her curled around tail up into her posterior. 

    The bridge crew muttered a few personal battle cries, mostly things that should not be repeated in polite company and involved painful deaths on the part of the Ohansu.  Roberton let loose with the bridge controlled weapons, blasting the battleships coming in from the port side, while putting the starboard batteries to good use scattering the Ohansu formation.  The fleet scattered as a full brace of torpedoes burst from the ship's forward and aft engineering torpedo tubes, rolling around the ship's engineering hull, to drop behind the ship and slam into wildly panicking destroyers.

    "They're taking damage finally.  The destroyers finally are breaking formation to try and avoid fatal damage."  Roberton scowled grimly as he sent instructions down to the main torpedo deck to load the special case of torpedoes.  "The big ones are loading."

    Andre gave him a rather interested look, as he coordinated with the marine controlled turret batteries.  The massive guns had swung around, their massive cannons blazing out into the fleet, and slamming into the larger ships, and throwing more confusion into the fleet. 

    "The big ones?!?"  Wang had a small idea of what Roberton was talking about, having helped get the requisition for the torpedoes to be siphoned straight from the Metamor's arsenal. 

    "Go right ahead.  Save some, though.  For all we know, there could be bigger fish about to swarm."  Akalia held on as the ship shifted course slightly, pulling back into a flat-out run away from the Ohansu battlefleet.

    "Aye ma'am.  Let's see how they like the new temporal version of the scatter-pack."  Roberton savagely pressed the firing button, taking a certain glee in the maniacal destruction about to unfold.   Twin torpedoes from each forward tube screamed ahead, their ion drivers sending shuddering shock waves through space.  As they got clear of the ship, havoc unfolded as they split open, spewing forth their own payloads of 6 micro-torpedoes, each with a temporal warhead attached.  "I think they don't like our big new cannon."

    "Nobody likes a load of buckshot in the face."  Andre watched in fascination as the torpedoes hit in a blaze of total destruction, with the overall level of detonation far exceeding what any 8 normal torpedoes could do.  The massive conflagration ripped the two battleships apart, and scattering the debris across space.

    "Thank god for that success.  Don't count on it in the future, though, they could just as easily turn on us."  Akalia ducked a bolt blown out of one of the starboard access panels.  "Helm, course target for the slipstream drive is Proxima Centauri; do we have all other calculations!?"

    "Captain, aft starboard quarter of the shields is down to 10%, failure is imminent!"  Melony squelched yet another klaxon, as she started putting together an improvisational fix.  It was rarely done, and as far as she knew, it had never been tried on the Long Shot's class, but she had to take a shot.  "I'm going to try and rotate the shield projections to put the damaged shield into a low-fire area!"  Another impact rocked the ship; and the answering fullisade put a quick power drain warning onto Melony's board.

    "Captain, course plotted, though I don't know why you'd want Proxima Centauri, it's right next to what is likely a massive Ohansu battlefleet!"  The helmsman rechecked his figures, and laid them into the ship's navigational computer, ready for the jump to insane speeds.

    "Excellent.  Melony, keep up with that, though I don't think we'll need it.  Helm, I believe the operating term is 'Ludicrous Speed.'"  Akalia put on her seatbelt, and hit the ship-wide comm link.  "All hands, slipstream running engaging!  Brace yourselves!"  She waited 5 seconds, and looked the helmsman straight in the eye, as he turned around to face her.  "Helm, execute!"

    The massive rumble of the drive began to build.  It kept on growing, until a huge blast rocked the ship, and a pop rang through the ship.  The sound died in a whining revving, and a series of sputters.  The ship started loosing momentum, it's impulse drive disengaged for what was supposed to be slipstream running.  Everyone opened their eyes, looking out the view ports, and seeing a normal starfield.

    "Um, captain, isn't the slipstream drive supposed to be putting us into speeds never dreamed of?"  Melony looked at her board, not liking the sudden new red flags on an entire system.  "And making noises other than a pop and a fizzle?"  She rubbed her head, which had been knocked into her board.  She looked back to the board, and found the new error resolving into an alarming message.  "Oh, crap.  The slipstream drive is engaged and drawing power, but there's some kind of fault in the main drive systems.  I can't pinpoint it from here."

    "Oh, just great.  Just frieking great."  Andre slammed his hand on the rail top end of his console, wincing a few moments later as the delayed pain set in.  "That thing is going to take forever to fix."  He called up the drives specifications on his own board.  "Confirmed, as far as I can tell.  The Ohansu might have exasperated the situation to the point where it completely doesn't work, but there seems to be an internal fault in the system already.  The sensors haven't picked up the suppression of anything, and they're not being jammed, so we're fine on that count."

    The ship rolled slightly, as the helmsman and Wang avoided another pesky group of fighters.  The screen, and holographics around it had to back down in intensity, as a blast from one of the fighters hitting the forward shields whited out the sensors. 

    "I hate those little buggers.  They're worse than the rest of the Ohansu fleet ships."  Wang pulled his arm from his face, activating the surge protection for the forward half of the ship.  "I mean, I can see what the Ohansu find honorable, and courageous about the things, but where in the heck do they put them all?  You'd  figure that we'd of swatted all of those things already, but every time we do, there's another flight!"

    "Stow it, and find a vector through this crap."  The helmsman kept the ship true, though the piloting was not quite on par with Akalia's master works.  Of course, she cheated and was driving by wire, pulling maneuvers with a few pre-programmed buttons.  "I can't fly if all my courses are blocked!"

    "Then fly by the seat of your pants!  That's why you don't ever depend solely on computers when it comes to flying a ship."  Akalia held on as the flight of fighters bounced a torpedo barrage across the shields. She stomped to her feet frustratedly, finally accepting that she was going to have to do a little engineering work.  "Come on, kid.  I think I can fix the drive.  I know I've got more experience with emergency repairs to it than the engineering crew."  Akalia nearly fell from her feet as the ship lurched, dropping out from everyone's footing.

    Andre nodded to her, even though his mother and captain had her back turned.  "Go, captain!  I can hold the bridge."  Andre gave her a look straight in the eye as she stole a glance at him.  A soundless further plea to leave the ship in totally competent hands, and to go do what she needed to do.  He kept all the rest of his face a mask of stony resolve, even as his eyes glittered.  "Go!"

    Akalia nodded as she bounded up the port steps, grabbing Melony's arm as she stopped at the lift.  "You had better k-" The sudden huge blast, rolling the ship almost completely over blasted out the power conduits behind Melony's console, sending forth a rain of sparks and shratenal.

    Andre picked himself off the center bridge railing, where he had been bent around the support beam right behind the captain's chair.  "Captain!"  Andre peered through the fogging smoke, and the random sparks popping in the dim emergency lights.  As he hauled himself to his feet, he could feel the bark of pain from at least one broken rib.  Smacking against that  pole hadn't been the best thing that could have happened to him, but if he had hit back first, it could have been worse.

    As his vision cleared, and the smoke swirled into the space, Andre caught a glimpse of Akalia dragging Melony into the port lift.  The kid seemed alright, other than a nasty cut on her head that she was keeping pressure on.  "Godspeed, captain."  Andre squinted through the fog for a second more, before another hit, shaking the ship much less, but underscoring the urgency of the situation, rocked the ship to port.

    "Helm!  Bring us about for a port side broadside! Put us on an evasive course."  Andre clutched at his side, as he limped around the starboard side of the bridge, moving down into the center section of the bridge. "We've got to give the captain as much time as possible to get a main drive up to the best condition possible."  He knew he should get off his feet, but the only seat available was the center chair, somewhat littered with shards from the optics in Melony's console, but otherwise unoccupied.

    "Sir!  Another broadside run is gonna leave 'em a target big enough to hit from Andromeda to shoot at!" Roberton readied himself to meet whatever maker of the universe that wanted to see him after the ship was destroyed.  "We can't hold out!"

    Andre plopped in the center chair, after quickly wiping it off.  "I know that quite well!  But, we have to distribute the damage being done to the strongest shields, or we're going to be flambe!"  Andre started quickly calling up anything he could remember about his old home, and the Redemption class light cruisers.  "Helm, give me a port turn!"

    "Aye, sir!"  The helmsman shuddered for a moment, then heeled the ship over, her strongest flank coming to bear on the oncoming fleet.  Fire lanced out to her again, shaking the readouts under her hands.  "I'm having a hard time keeping her level!"

    "Then don't!  Work with the enemy, turn their own fire against them!"  Andre desperately tried to think of what could possibly help them out now.  Something tickled the back of his head, but every time he almost had it, it slipped away into the fathoms of his subconscious.  The ship rocked, but not nearly as badly, as the helmsman used it's impact to help her plot an evasive course.  "Tactical, prepare for a full broadside, fire pattern Davison Delta-1."

    "There's no such pattern!"  Roberton watched the fluctuations of the shields, getting worried about the strange resonances building up around the ship.  He stabbed out, taking out another fighter wing coming into range.

    "Trust me, it exists, and it should work when you key it in."  Andre winced as a particularly bad jolt poked the sharp edges of his broken rib into his abdomen again.  "Helm, drop us on the Z axis, take us down 5,000 kilometers!  Try and shake them off with anything you can think of!"  He took his hand off his chest, to find a small stain of blood on his palm. 

    The bottom dropped out on the ship, as it plummeted under the tight formation of the Ohansu fleet.  Just as it would have had the Long Shot in it's midst, they suddenly found themselves over it, in the arcs of some of her biggest guns.  Right then, Roberton finished keying in Andre's fire pattern, to find them re-aligning, and blasting upwards into the fleet, cutting into some of the damaged ships, and knocking in all directions others.  Several of the pursuing fleet were lost as ships plowed into each other yet again on evasive patterns, crumpling their hulls, and compromising their reactors.

    "The captain needs to get a refresher course.  She's lost a teeny edge." Andre leaned over the edge of the center chair, looking over to the secondary engineering console.  "Tell engineering to ready the warp engines for a High Energy Turn.  I want some serious maneuvering power for a few tricks against this fleet."  He coughed, and hoped he hadn't burst his lung's bubble.   The thought caught the problem nagging at the back of his head.

    "Sir, I don't think the ship can take such stress right now, not that we need such over-the-top maneuvering power.  We could rip off a nacelle doing one wrong, or some other massive calamity could result."  Wang had a point.  That was why HETs were generally not used in combat, they simply ripped ships apart.  He opened his mouth to protest further, even over the sound of more torpedo launches ringing through the hull.

    Andre never gave him the chance.   "Bubble-  that's it!"  His somewhat non-sequitor comment turned a few heads.  "What?  Roberton, this ship still uses a variant of the gravitic distortion shields, right?"  He drew a few blank looks, including one from Roberton, as he absently pressed for another round of weapons fire.

    "Yeah...  I'm pretty sure so.  The captain mainly has us swap out damaged generators with custom ones shipped in directly from the Metamor, or wherever she can find them. Dunno why, though."  Roberton drew a further blank as to what Andre was even hinting at.   "I looked at the specifications once.  They're supposedly Starfleet special ops MLSS type 5 or so.  Triple layered shields, with an anti-plasma component to the outer shield bubble."  Roberton had never messed with the Long Shot's shields at all, and didn't know what Andre had in the way of combat cheating.

    "Ohh.... yeah.  Wait, they haven't been modified to the modern temporal distortion type, have they?"  Andre realized that if they had, the ship was seriously screwed right then, and none of them would come out alive, likely.  He figured the chair had slowly prompted all his ideas, likely a nostalgic item from his home of old.

    "No, not as far as the engineering crew know."  The auxiliary engineering staffer was looking a little more confused, even as fire streaked across the main screen, and shook the ship.   "Like he said, the modules are generally built to be self-repairing, and any components that need to be fixed generally are given to special shops, or whatever.  Temporal distortion has been introduced as a backup component to every layer, but we're still relying on primitive gravitic distortion."

    "Sir, need some new ideas!"  The helmsman was leading the Ohansu fleet on a wildly corkscrewing course down and out of the galactic plane, arcing ever downwards towards sparser space.  Fire was lancing all around the ship, but much less of it was hitting.  Either the computers on the Ohansu weapons systems were wearing out, or the helmsman was finally getting better.

    "Let's break straight up, and give them the dorsal guns as we pass them!"  It was rather surprising, but it was Wang who suggested the rather murderous and devious course change.  Even as he struggled to help the science station and the tactical station keep up with the changing position of the Ohansu fleet, he  was realizing that it might be a good idea to think outside of his little cardboard box for once.

    "Excellent thinking.  Execute!"  Andre held on as the stars pitched violently under the ship, the inertial dampeners lagging, and shoving him into the seat, as the ship accelerated up, over the somewhat better armed upper surfaces of the Ohansu fleet.  Even so, their greater firepower was once again offset by the superior speed and smaller size of the Long Shot, as the gallant and wounded ship raced away from them.  "Okay, give me a second to think of what all I've got..."

    "Hurry, chief.  We haven't got much time!"  Wang held onto his console as the ship rocked to starboard from a nasty blow.  He hit a button normally not used for what he had added into the ship.  The normally harmless warning beacon dropper had been modified slightly by his hand, one of the few nasty things he usually quickly did aboard a ship.  Instead of launching a nice, normal beacon, a whole spread of homing mines dropped out that rear hatch, spreading out in the Long Shot's impulse wake.

    Everyone gave him a quick side-long look as he cackled,  before quickly returning to their duties.  No-one noticed the string of warheads dropping towards the now heavily damaged Ohansu battlefleet.  Not even the cruisers at the forefront of the fleet  noticed the spread, until they only had a second to scream in panic.  A blinding white flash rang through space, back lighting the bridge for a moment.  "Okay, now we might have a few seconds."

    Andre shook his head as he looked back over the master situation display, the cloud of wrecked cruiser parts breaking up the formation of the Ohansu fleet.  "I should have figured Wang was a bloodthirsty, inventive sneak."  Wang gave a slight bow at his post as Andre turned back.  "Anyway...  Commander, I have a tidbit for your thoughts."  Andre held on as the ship wobbled from the shock wave, even as the remaining Ohansu ships blew through the clutter in space.

    "Really?"  Roberton squashed the main torpedo control, as the torpedo launchers started to overheat.  "Would you mind hurrying up?  We're running out of fire able torpedoes.  We're about to have a launcher meltdown." 

    Andre nodded, as he kept his focus on the screen, hoping that someone would stumble into the fight with them.  "The particular model of shielding installed on this ship is designed to bleed out, as a protective addition to keep gravity based weapons from damaging them."  Andre looked around the bridge, wondering if anyone would catch on before he finished up.  The sound of weapons fire rattled the ship a little more, the Long Shot's own weapons beginning to damage her.  "The trick is, that any gravity well or shear that's more than a third of earth's gravity bleeds into the shield network, boosting it in exponential proportions."

    Roberton blinked at Andre for a moment, letting the main weapons of the ship fall silent.  Wang turned around, surprised at the tidbit.  None of them had ever heard of the engineering trick before.  A sudden rock forward from Ohansu fire got everyone scrambling again.

    "Returning fire, enemy craft inbound to our inner perimeter on port dorsal vectors."   Roberton held onto the center support with one hand, while mashing every firing button he could possibly hit at once with his other hand.

    "I'm on the lookout for gravitational hot spots and anomalies."  Wang had the navigational charts of the region displayed up over his console, the catalog nearly incomprehensible, the details lost in it's shrunken size.  He started pointing to something, thumping the helmsman on the back with his elbow.

    "Helm, prepare for the HET I got cooking.  Course change will be 50 degrees to starboard, down angle 15 degrees."  Andre wriggled on the chair.  It seemed like it didn't want him in it anymore, with a spring or something poking up into his left posterior.  Then again, it was likely command jitters, like the phantom needle his mother had been complaining about recently.   "Execute!"  Andre held on as the ship whipped about to the new course, the inertial dampeners almost completely unable to hold against the force.

    Fire continued to rain on the ship, shaking various loose clutter free of their tangles again. 

    Wang suddenly flipped around, elated.  "Sir, I've found something!"

CSS Long Shot, Secondary Engineering Decks, 13:35 FT

    "We're dead this time!"  Melony clutched a pressure bandage to the large gash slicing across her forehead, as she handed her captain a micro-synapser with her other.  It had been far too close of a call with it, and  she knew that she was going to get royally screamed at later by her father.  "There is no way even we can outrun an Ohansu battlefleet, even half of one, on warp drive alone!"

    "Shut up, and hand me a spanner!"  Akalia popped out of the slipstream drive machinery, long enough to grab the offered tool, before ducking back into the access tunnel.  She reached into one of the driver motivator units, which had been damaged by flying shratenal from the hull-ripping impact, trying to find the broken circuitry and control units.  "Melony, tap into the engineering computer, and make sure that the engineers keep us disconnected from the main core!"

    As the ship rocked yet again, Melony huddled next to the removed access hatch cover, watching the lights in the section flicker ominously overhead.  The engineering corridor was showing much of the battle's strain, with the black machinery lining the walls showing blown out components that the engineering crews were still trying to fix. 

    "Don't worry, the main linkage was completely severed just before we showed up, that's the last thing we've got to fix."  Melony hit the deck, avoiding a burst of coolant from a broken valve.  She lost the grip on her bandage for a moment, the priority of cushioning her impact of somewhat greater importance.  It took a moment for her to squish it back into place, some of the blood from the cut rolling in small rivulets onto her muzzle.  

    "Great, that's going to be worse than anything else to fix!"   Akalia yelped once, as she got zapped a reconnected coupling.   "I thought you said the power was out!"    She crossly reached up, grabbing the offered tool from Melony.  "Lt, when I get out of here-"

    "Trust me, it's out!  You must have hit a capacitor or something!"  Melony tied her bandage in place, so she wouldn't have to worry about a worse situation with her cut, and so she'd have both hands to deal with whatever situation was brewing.  The ship rocked, as she crossly checked the system status board on the wall.  A piece of tubing swung loose from the ceiling, conking her in the back as the ship's inertial dampeners lost ground to the maneuvering, swinging everything to port.

    "Oh, forget it!"  Akalia tossed a completely fried module out of the access hatch, and reached over the edge to grab a replacement package.  As she yanked it back down into the darkness of the access tunnel, she kicked a piece of conduit back into place under the drive, where it had come loose in rough turn.  "Check this motivator unit again!  If it's not working by now, we'll have to bypass it and go on 3 units!" 

    Melony took a quick look at the display, before leaning down into the hatch, handing a small display to her captain.  "It'll work with this one adjustment."  She just about fell over, the ship once again agitated.  "Captain, maybe I should work on the drive.  You're not the only person who knows how to put a slipstream drive together on this ship.  I've got a grasp of slipstream mechanics."  Melony brushed at her face, trying to get some of the blood patted off, only to find it was sticking to her already.

    Akalia reached down, yanking the conduit that had come loose completely back into place, before flipping around to deal with the second unit in the tunnel.  "Kid, trust me, knowing the basics of slipstream operations is nothing compared to the equipment in these Frankenstein units."  She lost her grip on the plate she was prying loose from the unit's housing as the ship whipped about in a second HET. 

    Melony was almost flipped by the sudden shift in the ship.  She barely held her ground by getting hooked in part of the housings for the machinery lining the corridor.  "What in the heck is he doing up there!?"  She slipped a bit, as the turn continued, almost getting pitched into the hatch.

    Akalia ducked the incoming  feet, flattening herself against the second drive housing.  She reached out, slamming shut the other unit's access cover as Melony pulled herself back up into the engineering corridor.  "Careful up there!"  A low humming rumble built up in the air, the sound of the warp machinery coming to full power. "He must have found a tactical advantage in going to warp..."

    "Just tell me what you need next!"  Melony stayed crouched down, as the deck shuddered slightly with warp speed.  The background noise of the engines continued to build, the ship revving up to maximum speeds.  "Captain, are you sure you don't need me down there?"

    "Just get me a micro-threader!"  Akalia reached into the second drive unit, pulling out an entire handful of charred data-cabling. Slight wafts of smoke drifted out of the wounded unit, a sign of the malfunction and damage.  "And a fire extinguisher.  Just in case."  She pulled loose a second part of the cowling, which dropped a fine cloud of ash into the air. 

    Melony dropped the small extinguisher down into the hatch while she pulled the other tool out of the kit.  "At least they seem to have cut back on that core!"  The sound of the main drive had quieted down a little, but from the sound of it, it was still running white hot. 

    The captain grabbed it, offering no more comment.  The unit was fine ash on the inside, and hopes for recovery were slim to none. She let loose several of her family's ancient curses involving such misbehaving equipment, keeping them under her breath so that she wouldn't give Melony anything to work with.  "Update the system status for me, will you?"  She tossed the pad back up onto the deck at last, as she continued to try and get life out of the unit.

    "Sure."  Melony took a good look at the board as she did so.  The status had completely changed, with the other two units showing as ready as possible on it, and the coupling between the drive units and the main core almost back to being functional.  "Hey, captain?  You'd better look at this..."

    "What?"  Akalia poked her head out, unsure of what to look at.  It didn't matter though, as the sounds of the warp drive suddenly cut out, 10 seconds before a massive hit threw the ship to starboard. 

    Melony was tossed from her position, to fall onto the captain and send them both into the maintenance hatch.  Tools rained down on them, with hollow thunks from outside ringing away.  The two tried to untangle themselves, as the ship further rocked and rolled around under their feet. 

    "Ow!"  Akalia pulled herself free of her protegee, wincing at the numerous bumps and bruises from the impact and tumbling.  As another hollow thud gonged through the deck plates, she pulled herself up out of the hatch.  "That wasn't weapons fire, something hit us!"

    Of course, life aboard the Long Shot being as it was, Andre came on the comm system, further underscoring her.  "This is Commander Andre to all hands, secure all stations.  I'm taking the ship into the Tibaltiar Anomaly.  Stand by for emergency maneuvers."

    Melony gave her captain a look as she pulled herself out of the hatch.  "We're as good as we can be down her.  The engineers jury-rigged the other two units, even if they didn't know what they were doing. And, we'll have to shut up anyway, because the power relay is coming back online."

    "Oh, come on!  What is it with today?  It feels like a Monday or something!"  Akalia scrambled for the lift in the next section, knowing she was probably going to be needed on the bridge.

CSS Long Shot; Bridge; 13:46 FT

    Andre held on tight as the wounded ship slung around an asteroid, before ducking under the next.  Space was filled with rocks of all shapes and sizes, and all of them on insane courses that defiled prediction.  The bridge crew looked around nervously, the holographic projection showing them just how much danger there was to be had. 

    "I take back what I said about this being a good place to hide!"  Wang held onto his console for dear life, watching a rock about as big as  the bridge go sailing overhead.  Smaller chunks were raining off the armor matrix of the ship, deflected by the most advanced hull protection ever developed.  "Can't we go find somewhere else to hide?"

    "Nope.  The Ohansu will be all over us again as soon as we clear this field.  So, we go deeper until we find a saner pocket, or until we find an asteroid that porous."  Andre watched nervously himself, noting the jagged edges of shattered rocks.  It was quite clear how deadly serious the region was, and why no-one had ever tried to get very far into it.  "Science, please tell me you've found something of the sort."

    "Negative, sir.  I'm looking as fast as I can.  Our best bet would be one of the rubble asteroids.  The ones made out of chunks of broken rock from some of the nastier impacts."  The science officer had a massive tangled web of trajectories, mass analysis, and all sorts of other data projected up over his station, incomprehensible in detail to most of the other bridge staff.  "Of course, they could be that way because they're in a ultra-high impact zone..."

    "Quit giving us the bad news.  Just tell me when we've got a spot to hide."  Andre watched one of the ship's torpedoes arc out, blasting a particularly large rock.  "Tactical, hold your fire!  We've got enough rock to deal with without you blasting more projectiles out of them.  Plus, it's like putting up a flare for the Ohansu to spot, so quit it!"

    The ship  lurched harshly, jigging around a misshapen axe-looking rock.  As they passed it, it almost looked like there was decks inside of it once.  "Please tell me that that was just an optical illusion..."  Wang looked almost sick, and some of the other crew were ashen.

    "Negative.  Firebird class ship.  It was destroyed recently, by unknown causes."  The science officer turned with the crew, to watch the destroyed ship slowly slip to the stern.  "There's not much left of it, merely the starboard nacelles, and a chunk of the aft engineering hull.  No life signs aboard." 

    A chill ran down everyone's spines, until the ship rocked with a glancing blow off the shields caught their attention back to the present. Wang held on slightly as the ship bounced around under the glancing blows of rocks.  "Will you watch where you're going!  Your swerving to avoid those little poppers is going to get us flattened against one of the big ones!"

    "Don't tell me how to do my job!  Only the captain can even think of telling me how to do my job, so quit telling me how to do my job!"  The helm controller was understandably snappy as she maneuvered the ship around further obsticals, whirling around in the void of space.

    "Well, I'm telling you to quit reacting so violently!"  Andre leaned forward, rather worried that she'd mess up as well.  "Truth to tell, I'd rather have our recharging shields take the impacts than the hull itself!"  He quickly squashed himself down into his mother's chair, watching one of the biggest asteroids he had ever seen rumble overhead.

    "Quit your whining!  I'm a helms woman!"  The somewhat frazzled officer kept up the frighteningly insane pace, trying to outdistance any pursuers out after them.

    "That doesn't mean you can fly like a psychotic!"  Andre watched rocks fly all around, as he kept himself nearly  buried in the patched up chair.  He wondered what could be holding Captain Diess up, and why they didn't have the drive at least to the limping point. "Computer, locate the captain!"

    "Captain Diess is currently using the emergency port side turbolift shaft ladder; Deck 14, Section 2."  The completely unworried computer's announcement did not help the mood on the bridge.

    "Okay then, that settles it.  The only person aboard who can drive like a psychotic is currently held up down below, so please do not drive like a psychotic!"  Andre was starting to get more than a little worried about the skills of the current occupant of the helm station, as a much larger piece than normal bounced off the hull.

    "Sir, Ohansu cruisers incoming.  Maybe 5 or so, a wing of them.  Wait, make that four.  One just flattened itself against a rock." Roberton turned around, to watch the far-distant detonation.  He could just barely make out the now cracked asteroid the cruiser had fender-bendered.

    "Man, what is it with this ship and everyone being a grouch?"  The helm station's officer shook her head, as she led the ship on an ever more convulted path into the anomaly.

CSS Long Shot, Deck 13, Section 2 Emergency Ladder; 13:52 FT

    "Are we there yet?"  Melony looked up, wincing as her somewhat cracked up head swam at the yawning tunnel above her.  She had been climbing for several minutes already, and she wasn't exactly what one could call physically fit.

    "Kid, I've already told you once on the bridge about what I like to do to people who ask me that."  The captain winced at the hated phrase, as she looked up herself, feeling some vertigo as well.  "Looks like we're still in the upper section of Deck 14.  No, wait...   we're, no...  actually, I'm on Deck 13..."  Akalia rotated her already slightly aching arms, trying to keep them loose for the climb. 

    "And, we've got to get to at least  Deck 8, likely Deck 6 or 5 before this shaft levels out to the horizontal..."   Melony sighed wearily, as she grabbed hold of a higher rung not too far below her captain. "Crap..."

    "You don't have to say it twice, kid."

Citadel, Main Bridge, 13:57 FT

    The mighty Citadel was quiet, unnaturally so, considering her position at the heart of the Tibaltiar anomaly.  The crew watched nervously as rocks bounced off the ship's near impervious shields, quietly and anxiously doing their duties.  But then, the dark figure at their heart more than explained their anxiety, and silence.

    Lord Dominatus sat in the central command chair, with a fiery fury smoldering in his eyes.  The experiments had not been going well, even under his supervision aboard the Citadel.  And the hunt for the rebels, the so-called 'Civil Alliance', was going even worse.  He had already killed more than one captain for incompetence, and for not tracking several sighted rebel ships properly.  To him, there was nothing civil about the alliance, they were no more than a pack of wolves, trying to take the galaxy from his capable hands.

    That thought, along with his more personal concerns, had left him on a slow simmering build-up to a boil.  His black-cloaked presence radiated malice for anyone crazy enough to further anger him, and left the bridge in an oppressive silence.  He looked out the expansive sweep of screens, a full 210 degree view of the space before him, using the sight of his elite battlefleet to try and calm himself.  They hung around the Citadel, waiting for word of something, or to fulfill his needs.

    Piedion looked on at his master, before looking down at the report he carried. For a long while, the empire had had nothing to report, but no longer. However, as he slowly approached his darkly robed master, he was worried that the report, though with a good tiding, could likely get him killed, no matter what professions his lord had made.

    Dominatus sat motionless in his chair, almost seeming to be asleep, lost in whatever other world he prowled.  Piedion knew that his master was wide awake, wherever his mind was scouring in it's search for the rebels.  The fact that he snored when he was truly asleep helped.  Piedion had never forgotten that moment, and dwelt upon it again as he continued to inch closer.

    Dominatus was not so foolish as to let the general crew know his secrets, but Piedion's job brought him to places no others came.  He had been in his lord's quarter's once, to get a slight glimpse of that fiery face.  The things that had happened a little later were not ones he wanted to repeat.  But...

    "My Lord, I know you left instructions not to b-" Piedion tapped his lord's shoulder for a moment, before quickly reaching back to his throat as Dominatus snapped back to full awareness, turning his power on him.  "Sir... there's been a sighting...."

    Dominatus turned, his eyes narrowing in the folds of his hood he looked to his aide. The haunting reflection of light from his hidden eyes seemed to drill right through Piedion's skull, before he released him.  "Is it some minor thing, or something worthy of my attention?"  Dominatus turned back around, to watch the starfield.  As he did, a far-off flash caught his eye, as it was followed by several others in quick succession.  His breath tightened ever so slightly as he readied himself.

    "Sir, the report is from the 5th battlefleet.  They're currently in pursuit of a ship believed to have led the assault on Kalida.  They have also mentioned they have sustained nearly catastrophic damage to many of their ships, due to the skill of the ship's crew.  They chased it, well, here.  They had to drop back due to the density of the field, but it's last known trajectory places it's course  very near to our current position." Piedion waited for the worst, looking out as his master did.  He focused on the nearby rocks, as they were shoved away from the ship. 

    Dominatus smiled evilly, though no-one could see.  He laughed suddenly; a dark, sinister sound as he stood up.  "Excellent news! I have been waiting to meet my new nemesis.  Likely it will be the only meeting, if all goes well."  He turned to his aide, patting him on the shoulder, before pushing him forward some.  Lord Dominatus quickly turned back to the small point where he had spotted the blasts, far off in the distance.  "I knew I sensed the approach of trouble, and so I was right.  Look out to the mid-starboard sectors, and take a good look at the coming storm!"

CSS Long Shot, Bridge, 14:11 FT

    "Commander, I've got strange readings to port quarters."  Wang watched the fluctuations with worry.  A single squadron of ships was too easy for the Ohansu, and there had only been half a battle-fleet chasing them, but why?  What was so deadly as to not need further protection? "I've been tracking them for the past minute or so, and they're still not any sense to me."

    "Could be the anomaly messing with the sensors.  Or a cloaked armada.  If all heck breaks loose in the form of some hole, it's the anomaly, if somebody starts shooting, it's an armada.  That simple."  Andre leaned back as far as the chair would let him without breaking his back. He held on a moment, as the ship bucked slightly from an energy gradient in space. "Though, just in case, put it up on my screen. I might be able to figure out what is going on..."

    "Yeah, it makes no sense.  Roberton, look at this for me, you might find this interesting." Wang routed his data over to the two tactical experts on the bridge.  "And I don't think it's the anomaly either, because it's starting to pop up all over the place..." He looked back at the screen, watching carefully for anything.

    "Ah, I wish the captain was here right now.  She's seen just about everything you can see." Roberton kicked his station ever so slightly, trying to see if the garbled read-outs he was getting was due to signal fade.  "I can't make anything out.  It's all scrambled.  I'll contact the security department to try and get the captain up here as soon as possible."

    "Don't bother.  Whatever route the captain's taking back to the bridge is likely going to be one the men wouldn't expect." Andre poked at the mysterious chartings.  Something was worrying him about the readings, which were fading in and out, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it, even though he had his finger on it.  "I don't like this, not at all.  I can't help but get the feeling we're about to get unpleasantly surprised...

    Wang shook his head, somewhat disgusted in his own way that the two couldn't make up their minds over even the simplest fluctuation.  He never had approved of Captain Diess, and still couldn't put his finger on the why even as he took a look through the view screen once again.  Perhaps it was his total unwillingness to depend on the captain for anything that helped him spot the ominous signs...  "Captain, something off the port bow."

    "Yes, I see it too, and asteroid.  Don't worry.  The rocks in this place look like all sorts of stuff."  Andre brushed the comment off, looking for the obvious signs of an Ohansu battlefleet approaching, and ignoring the fine details of the problem.  He was ready for a fight with an Ohansu fleet, but the wrong one...  "Roberton, have we got the shields restored to fighting trim yet?"

    "They're slowly creeping up over 90%."  Roberton frowned as a flicker in his sensors darted across his boards.  He looked over to Andre's temporarily ruined station, and the engineering console, wondering if perhaps his system had been damaged in the blast as well.  The readings couldn't be right, he figured, hopefully due to the interference from the anomaly.  There was no way a cloaked ship could stay cloaked with the energy discharges in the area, and no Ohansu had yet used one.  He looked back to the view screen, in time to catch an asteroid flickering, the unseen laying their web... "Captain, perhaps we should move on to another area.  There might be more potent and sharp gravity wells in other parts of the region."

    "Nah.  See if you can juice up the shields any further.  I don't intend to go too much farther.  We've already penetrated to the nominal center of the anomaly."  Andre watched the asteroids, wondering if he could find a nice crater to hide the ship in for a while.  "Helm, try and get us closer to the biggest asteroid you can find, preferably one in a heavy gravity well.  Ops, shut down the main navigational deflector emitter.  It's too dangerous to go fast enough to need it in here."

    "Aye sir.  And I'm telling you, there is something out there."  Wang over-rid the fail-safes on the critical protection, shutting it down and therefore reducing the signature of the ship.  He was doubly on his guard, and watched from all angles, hoping to spot trouble before it was too late.  His eyes darted back to the flickering area on the view screen, to catch a dark looming shape behind a rock, one impossible to find in nature. "Contact, bearing 29 mark 12!"

    Andre glanced in the indicated direction, his inner senses totally on alarm, but still not quite seeing the danger.  "Just another rock, nothing to worry about yet."  He looked down to the small status board beside the captain's chair, trying to check on his mother's whereabouts.  A flash off in the distance got him to flick his gaze back up, but it was Wang's eriely calm yet  panicking voice that sent shivers down to his very soul.

    "Sir, it's behind the rock.  Sensors aren't picking anything up from it, but visuals indicate range at 100 K, and the size is god-awful big..."  Everyone looked up, as Wang put a tactical reticule on the massive ship.  But, it was the computer that found the other half of the trap.  The sudden emergence of a hundred more target warnings, and the proximity alarms that went with them left everyone jumping out of their seats, and Wang whispering one further warning.  "Visual distortions all around, and the readings are suggesting last-generation cloaks."

    Andre rose to his feet, standing as straight as he could.  He traced the ghostly outlines of the cloaked ships, and the great monster on afar, back lit in the dark by electrical discharges.  He grabbed the chair as he tried to brace himself for some fatal blow, before the pieces clicked together, and a barely remembered incident flashed to his mind.  "No...  dear god almighty no..."  His voice was a whisper straight from a nightmare.

    "Chief, sensors are picking up more traces to all sectors!  It's an englobement formation!"  Roberton grabbed a hold of his station as he quickly locked on every passive sensor, and readied the weapons. 

    "Helm!  Full impulse power!  Ready the afterburner boosters!  Tactical, all weapons fire, all around burst!  HIT IT!"  Andre got ready in his split second of time to react.  The second seemed to stretch out, as a roar of energy built up in the bowels of the ship, and a sinister glow began to light the rocks.

    The helm officer punched the engines to maximum speed, putting the ship into the highest gear possible in the desperate gamble to catch the trappers by surprise. Roberton let loose with every weapon on the ship at once, a solid sphere of fire blasting forth from the ship in all directions and blasting the fleet hiding around her.  The Long Shot was free, but already being pursued.

    Andre watched grimly as the ship accelerated, and quickly sped away from it's rather cowardly attackers.  The dark and massive Citadel was quickly coming up on the port bow, moving to intercept the beleaguered Long Shot.  From it's bridge, an evil reached out, trying to touch the minds of the escaping ship and stop her without even firing a shot.  Andre could feel the mind's presence as he was rocked backwards into the captain's chair by the massive blast of acceleration.

    It concentrated on him, seemingly knowing him as he fought it as best he could.  "Get out of my head, and die you evil little bugger." Andre gripped the armrests of his temporary chair so hard that he could feel the foam padding tear slightly under his white-knuckle grip.  He lashed out, driving Dominatus's mind out of his own.

    "Sir?"  Roberton's concerned voice, and gentle shaking of Andre's shoulder brought his attention back to matters around him  Roberton had been worried about the somewhat blank look on his commander's face, but was relieved to see him harden once again, for battle and victory.  "We can't have you falling unconscious on us just yet, sir." 

    Andre looked back at him once, seeing the wicked grin on his face, before turning back around to do what he must.  "Helm, take us in close enough to that monster to clip the lights off her hull."  Andre tried to put a name to the awesome fear before him, and dredged up an old report he had once read and memorized in case of such an emergency.  He hit the ship wide intercom, hoping that what he was about to say wouldn't be the last thing many of the crew heard. 

    "All hands, this is the acting captain.  We are attempting to make a burn-out run back to the Metamor, to escape  the super-battleship Citadel.  Be ready, she could probably take us out with a single hit.  Give me everything you've got, and hang on to whatever you can.  Bridge out."  Andre swallowed the bile in his throat as he looked up to the oncoming ship.  The bridge crew that could spare their duties for a second watched him again, wondering what he was about to do.

    "Sir, we're on final approach, any particular part of the ship you want hit?"  The helms officer held onto her controls, trying to keep the ship from getting hit by the near unimaginably powerful fire from both sides.  "Hurry up, I don't have much time before this stuff cuts me off!"

    Andre followed the spine of the ship, his eyes following the hull up to the weapons & control tower, where the bridge hid.  "See that protrusion up above the main hull, follow it's forward surface.  We're going after the dragon's head!"    He got to his shaky feet as the ship closed, more and more distance lost to the mighty engines of the Long Shot.  "I want us close enough to blast the upper sections of the control tower to smithereens.  I don't  know the exact location of the bridge, so we're gonna hit it all!  And get the bridge holographics online, I want to see this in brutal detail."

    The Citadel was quickly growing to spread across the entire forward starscape, a massive monster letting loose with everything it had.  A small part of Andre's mind noted that the hull was no longer quite the death black it had been once, and only thought that it would be all the better to leave mementos with.

    "We're gonna pass the spot in 5 seconds from my mark!  On your command, sir!"  Roberton linked together all  the portside weapons, ready for a beheading, new-school style.  "Mark!"

    "FIRE! HOLD THE TRIGGER DOWN, AND FIRE!"  Andre grabbed onto his mother's chair as the ship was blasted away from it's scraping-near passage of the great fortress by the massive explosions less than 20 meters to port sides from it's all-on strike.  As Andre climbed back to his feet in the now darkened bridge, one or two of the personnel swore they heard him whisper: "And stay dead this time."

Citadel; Main Bridge; 14:23 FT

    Piedion pulled himself from the wrecked portside sensor alcove, where he had been thrown by the blast that had hit them from just about nowhere.  Or, at least he couldn't remember at first what had hit them.  Then he remembered the insanely close passage of the Long Shot, and her compressed and magnified weapons blasts.  As he wobbled out into the main bridge, he could see where the blast had literally buckled the frame of the ship in this section, leaving huge areas of the deck and bulkheads rippled like a choppy sea.

    He coughed as he stumbled through the fumes steaming from the floor vents, a fire raging somewhere below the bridge.  He tried to wave away the gloom, hoping to find survivors of te unexpected catastrophe.  Especially one in particular. 

    "Lord Dominatus!"  Piedion climbed through the wreckage of the mid-bridge, listening for a cry of help, or anything.  As he squirmed through one set of fallen bulkhead panels, he found the dark master unhurt and still seated in his command chair.  Piedion was shocked to find him as such.  He had known the Lord had mysterious powers, but to be able to stay in his seat through a blast that completely crumpled the rest of the bridge was nothing short of astounding.  "Sir!  Are you-"

    "Yes, yes, Piedion.  I'm fine, no thanks to the fools who were commanding.  Wait for the tractor beams, bah!  You shoot first, pick up the microscopic pieces later."  Dominatus spat something that looked suspiciously like blood as he got to his feet.  He picked his way through the rubble of the bridge to his aide.  "You're in command for the moment, Piedion.  Captain Piedion."

    Piedion winced, surprised by the sudden promotion. He hadn't expected a promotion by battle, and he had not yet taken a command tactics course, mostly because his lord found the courses to be unreliable teachers for battle tactics.  He quickly scrambled back towards the back of the bridge, realizing that the smoke was getting thicker.  "Sir, we need to evacuate the bridge.  There's a fire somewhere near by, and it's too dangerous to stay here.  That, and the fact that the entire facility is destroyed means we need to get to the auxiliary command post. Only a fool fights in a burning house."

    Dominatus gave Piedion a death stare for a moment, before snorting and conceding the point.  "Lead on, then.  You are indeed correct."  Dominatus kicked the body of the former commander of the Citadel as he moved for the exit. "Bah, lead the way, and prove that you are worth the trouble.  I never liked the old command crew anyway."  He spat on the face of one as he exited the ruin of the bridge, trouble planned for everyone.

CSS Long Shot; Access Shaft 14-D, Deck 4, Section 1; 14:35 FT

    Akalia could feel power being gathered in the bowels of her ship, a desperate need once again at hand.  The ship shuddered under a heavy blow, a new assailant coming to bear.  "Move it kid, we've got major problems."   Akalia redoubled her pace, seeing the bridge emergency hatches above.

    Melony was not doing well at all, though.  "I don't... think... I can make it...."  Her words were punctuated by wheezing pants.  She was several rungs below her captain, and her outstretched head was getting tickled by the very tip of Akalia's tail. "We've... gotta... put in... more stairs..."  She achingly reached for the next rung up, hoping to make it another deck.

    "Kid, don't give up on me, we're almost there!  Look, we're in deck three, just another deck to pass through!"  Akalia was trying to keep Melony's spirits up, hoping that she'd be able to get the kid back up to the bridge to where she belonged.  Looking down the dizzying height of the shaft, she could see Melony swaying ominously, perhaps disorienting from the cut on her head. 

    "You may be, I'm still on dec-"  Melony never got a chance to complete her complaint, as a massive explosion sounded through the structure of the ship.  Everything threw itself forward, and Melony crashed against the ladder, before falling back.  Akalia looked back in time to see her protegee start to slip, and fall...

    "KID!" Akalia reached for the safety field engage switch, hoping that she could hit it in the split-second of time available before Melony hit bottom.  Akalia could see Melony falling, falling...  until she stopped far below.  From the looks of it, she was too far down to have survived, so far down that the dull thunk of her landing couldn't be heard.

    Akalia shut her eyes, holding back the tears.  She had already developed a bond with Melony, and as far as she could tell, the kid was dead...  She had been a brief flash of light in the dark... 

    A insistent, shriek of a beep, louder than even an alarm clock squeezed through Akalia's remembrance.  She opened her eyes, to see her hand still pressed firmly against the emergency switch.  She looked down below again, to see a hatch open up far below, and she could faintly hear someone's lament.  Akalia shut away her tears once again, releasing the emergency button and forcing to mind the fact that she still had a job to do.

    She began to climb again, her pace quickly growing, fueled by her growing rage over Melony's senseless death.  She began to growl in righteous fury, her hackles standing up as she dwelled on the absolute stupidest thing she had ever witnessed.  When the ship jolted again, she climbed right through it, unable to be shaken from her path.  "This time, they die.  This time it's personal!" Akalia nearly shouted out her rage as she reached the hatch to the bridge, having worked herself up to a state of near planet destroying fury.

    There was a short snippet of conversation that cut off fairly quickly as she slammed open the emergency hatch to the bridge.  They had been talking about -del or something of the sort, and it sounded like the ship was still in full retreat from the entire battlefleet still.  She crawled out onto the bridge, stepping into the fray.

    "REPORT!"  Akalia's thunderous order snapped heads around so fast that she was surprised in some back corner of her mind that people hadn't gotten whiplash.  

    "Shields are approaching full strength again.  We've got damage on our Starboard side from an attack run, with a few isolated fires on several decks."  Roberton shied away from Akalia's gaze, seeing a mad glint at the back of her eyes that was never a good sign.  "We don't have any reliable counts on our below-decks casualties, though.  We've had widespread communications problems." Roberton didn't want to be the one to tell the captain the really bad news.

    "I'm pretty sure I broke more than a few ribs in that explosion, if that helps."  Andre quickly vacated his mother's seat, taking a spot at one of the auxiliary stations.  "We've been fortunate so far, but I can't guarantee that luck to hold."  Andre looked pained from his damaged ribs, wincing slightly.

    "Why?  And where are the Ohansu?"  Akalia spoke this time with ice, her anger having congealed further into a rage that could no longer be fiery.  It could be felt, almost as a malevolent presence all across the bridge as the ship rocked heavily.  "I want answers."

    "Then hang on to your mane..." Andre grabbed a remote from under the station, and turned on the rear holographics again, exposing the pursuing Citadel.  "We came in, and they didn't follow, until we found the black fleet.  And now...we've got a far bigger problem than a mere battlefleet.  I know you know the capabilities of the Citadel. Frankly, there's not much hope of escape..."  Andre looked determined not to let that stop him, though.  "I have the ship on an escape trajectory, and we should be clear enough in time to get to slipstream."

    "So, his legacy still haunts us, eh?"  Akalia set her grimace flat, holding her annoyance at the size of the opponents to take revenge upon.  A blast from one of the forward guns rocked the Long Shot again, further infuriating the captain.  "I'll give his progeny hell before we go, though."

    "Captain, it's not just the black fleet.  It's HIM.  He tried something, before we got a hull-scraping broadside in on the Citadel's bridge tower.  We blew it completely out, according to scans."  Andre started up preparations for certain procedures... best left as being called last resorts.  The bridge crew were all looking at each other hopelessly, knowing that the situation was far beyond their favor.  "Of course, that's what we got the recoil damage from, but somehow I don't think you care."

    "Andre, whatever you think, the man who founded the Black Fleet is dead, so it can't possibly be him.  The Ohansu must have adopted the Black Fleet as their elite forces to strike fear into their opponents."  Akalia felt a nervous twitch try to fight free of her restraints for a moment, before being subdued.  "Normally, I would suggest finding someplace to repair the ship, but I have no choice but to order us back into the fray."

    Roberton looked ready to run for a life-pod.  "WHAT!?  We're less than 500 yards long.  That ship is over 30 miles long.  We have no way to fight against it!  We must report it!  Dammit, captain, don't get cocky right now!"  His words bounced through the bridge once, echoing the minds of the other officers.

    "The fleet already knows.  The chance that this ship was about to drop into orbit around Kalida is the whole reason we evacuated."  Akalia's grim face was illuminated by the flashing of rocks and asteroids smashing against the Citadel's shields and being pulverized.  "Now, we stand and fight.  The only reason I do fight is the reason you listed.  They can't hit something this small accurately, and now we have them! Now hard about, ramming speed! I want that ship torn in two, and her captain's head on a silver platter addressed to the Grand Admiral, now then, we either fight and die, or we die like cowards running!" There could be no doubt anymore.  Akalia's tone was enough to scare grown men out of their masculinity, and to wilt plants.  She was pissed.  Master of Evil pissed. 

    Andre winced, knowing that only a miracle could save the ship now.  He kept an eye on overloads, keeping himself from dizzying on the whirling starfield as the Long Shot came about, the lone gunman against a battleship.  The sound of the engines began to rattle the deck-plates, as the Long Shot plowed through the cleared path, charing in what would be her final stand.  "Man, this is gonna hurt..."  Andre put his mind in order, knowing that this had to be done.  The Citadel by itself could wipe out the Alliance, and had to be stopped.  His words were ashen whispers of a condemned man.

    "Ready all weapons, we'll punch a hole right through..."  Akalia kept track of the pattern being drawn, watching the holes develop, then close, trying to trap the Long Shot.  Her coolness in the face of death was the only thing anchoring some of the bridge crew. 

    "Aye, ma'am, if we have the bang to do it with."  Roberton sweated, feeling  death's gaze upon him.  The huge Citadel swelled in the forward view-screen, a dark angel of doom upon what was left of the free universe. 

    "We'll have enough for this.  The stupid ship has a design flaw, if one is suicidal.  The auxiliary bridge has the secondary power coupling for the entire ship behind it.  Take one out, and the entire ship goes up like the fourth of July.  You already have the coordinates, so stand ready.  If you miss, we'll have to hit." Akalia's voice was getting to the point where even the crew that had been with her for years were somewhat scared of it.  It sounded like a hundred years worth of stored up malice being poured into a single moment of annihilating revenge.

    The two ships closed, the gap narrowing to almost nothing fast, one the irresistible force, the other the immovable object.  The Long Shot opened up true hostilities first, punching a hole in the Citadel's weakened shields just big enough for the ship to fit through, slipping down along the hull. The two closed to the point of their ultimate collision, and annihilation.  Then, a third force entered the equation...

    The in-expectable surprise showed up.  The saucer of a Salu class battle-cruiser flashed through the gap, less than 20 yards ahead of the Long Shot, her identification numbers and nameplate showing to all the universe as she moved in to save her embattled cousin at unimaginable speeds.  The Kep Salu II herself had come to the battle, weapons blazing as she ducked down to the hull, blasting weapons emplacements as she used the Citadel for cover in a private bout of vengeance.

    The helm officer of the Long Shot, not too unexpectedly, screamed like a little girl, while swerving to avoid the battle-cruiser on a mad helmsman rampage.  The ship dropped down along the hull of the Citadel, getting ready to curl over the side of her hull to get out of the way.

    "Now THIS is an insane breeaaakkk!!!  AHHHH!!!!"  Wang was thrown from his seat, along with most of the rest of the bridge crew as the inertial dampeners lagged.  The screams of people throughout the ship were overwhelmed by those of the engines desperately trying to produce enough power to hold the ship together through one of the hardest turns it had ever faced.

    The Long Shot rolled around the Citadel's massive portside engine block, skimming the dorsal surfaces until it could get out of the way.  As it dodged down, it slide back up to avoid the secondary hull struts, twisting and turning until the battered old craft passed through where the shields should have been, and then passed into mostly open shape, shooting away. 

    An urgent beep from Andre's borrowed console alerted his somewhat frazzled senses to reality again.  He pulled himself off the floor, apologizing once to someone he stepped on, before getting back into his seat.  "Captain, incoming transmission squirts from the Kep Salu II.  Her captain is ordering us out of the battle, citing protection of classified material, experienced personnel, and some suicidal tendencies of the ship's captain."  Andre frowned, somewhat annoyed at his father's description of his mother, but not enough to complain.  "Also, he's left an attachment note:  If Long Shot engages further in distraction battle, Kep Salu II will be forced to forcibly remove her from the battle."

    Akalia grimaced at the note, her lowered voice evil in tone as she contemplated the warnings.  A bright flash as one of the Citadel's guns exploded, followed by the Kep Salu II pulling a maneuver to make several more of the Citadel's guns attack each other finally forced her to make her desicion.  "Dammit, he's got a handle on the situation.  And since he won't let us re-engage, there's nothing we can do but get in the way.  Helm, set a course to try and scan for the rest of the Black Fleet."  Akalia felt, though, that perhaps her husband wasn't quite done with her yet...

    "Captain, shouldn't we arres-"  Wang started to say something, then silenced himself after getting Akalia's Ice Glare.  "Right, then.  Shutting up, ma'am."

    "If you're so interested in getting justice done, Lt., then you can take a shuttle, fly over through the resumption of one of the longest-running conflicts in the galaxy, force your way into the Kep Salu II, storm through countless numbers of Starfleet trained marines, single-handedly take on one of the fiercest warriors in the galaxy, and then drag him back before the Kep Salu II is destroyed due to a lack of leadership, escape the Citadel, and get back to the fleet on your own, because I will not have any part in further dooming this ship."  Akalia stared Wang down until he turned back to his post. 

    "Um, captain, there was also two encrypted packets hiding in the transmission.  I'm trying to decrypt them, but they seem to be based on DNA coding.  I've got one with tagging that indicates that it is your personal eyes only."  Andre only felt a little sorry for Wang.  For once, he actually had call to make his call, even if it was made in a bad light.  Still, he had to break the news...

    Akalia groaned, her vengeance even further delayed to take note of what important message that her husband could have for her.  He never interrupted her this greatly unless something of massive importance needed  to be told.  "Dagumit!  Pull us into a favorable position for our planned Proxima Centauri Jump.  We'll find out what kind of crap he wants to talk about there."  Akalia started to stomp to her office. 

    "Captain, I have a question to ask.  Why did you leave Andre in charge instead of me?"  Roberton watched the helm officer and Wang conferring the course plotting to get the Long Shot out to jump-safe space while listening for his captain's response.  He was getting worried in how she was conferring with the new marine chief more often than him now.

    "Because I know him even better than I know you. Try to keep us out of trouble."  Akalia shut her office doors behind her, letting the matter end.  Her voice oddly broke  as she finished speaking, but the bridge crew decided that it was best not to pursue.

    "Alright, you heard the lady, full impulse power as soon as possible!  Activate the cloak!  I want us hidden and out of sight for this!"  Roberton's voice echoed through the door, mocking Akalia's mood in a way.

    "Well, the two packets are likely keyed to your DNA, or mine, take your pick.  Of course, knowing dad, he could just be annoying, and have keyed them both to his."  Andre's sudden comment brought Akalia's attention to her desk.  "What?"  The good captain's son was slowly spinning in her chair, twirling round and round, his hands stepled before his face. 

    Akalia growled, stomping over to her desk, and righting the chair, glaring holes into her son's face.  "Out.  Of MY Chair.  NOW."  Akalia's gaze shrank Andre back some, and as soon as she let go, he quickly vacated her seat. 

    "Alright, sheesh!  I'm moving!"  Andre cleared the way for his hackled mother to get behind her desk.  As she scooted her chair back into position, he leaned on a  corner of her cluttered and cramped desk, watching her put her own personal decryption programs to work. A moment struck him, and he looked up at her office, taking in the sights.  The gilded model of the old Kep Salu, the painting of Kalida Base in it's first rain and the rainbow behind it, a collection of the various artifacts from both sides of the family on the shelf to fore...  and then the objects differing from memory, the staff of his father suspended, still shaking from the occasional lurches in the inertial dampeners, the more recent photos of Akalia and Davison together in jest and good times... 

    The mix of old, and the new sent small shivers up Andre's spine, deja-vu meeting the feeling of someone walking on your grave.  His eyes twinkled slightly, before blinking away tears of memories lost. He gave a single low chuckle, prompting an ear-twitch from his mother.  Seeing it out of the corner of his eye, he commented.  "It's just that it's so odd..  I see so much of his years of influence in here, and yet, it's far enough off to be creepy.  Sort of nostalgia mixed with coming home to find a techno-modern house in the place of your old log cabin."

    "Are you calling me creepy?"  Akalia's voice croaked as she gave her son a scathing look for a moment, while her decryption programs beeped and befuddled their way through the encryption left on the signals.  Her mouth twitched in a smile for a moment, as she nudged Andre in the ribs.  His expression of befuddlement owed a little cheer for a moment.  "I'm just kidding..." 

    Her quiet voice quickly fell silent, the memory of the few similar events with Melony quickly darkening her mood.  Her ears drooped, as her exposed skin drew ashen to match her mood.  She had the killers of the kid in her sights, only to have her husband avenger the young Vulpin's death instead of her...  She winced her eyes shut, tears slowly leaking from their corners.

    "What's the matter?  You look almost like your favorite ensign died..."  Andre watched as his mother sniffed back the tears forming and wiped a paw across her face to get the leaked ones.  His mind took a few moments to put his words together with the mood.  "Oh,  dear-  no...  not the kid..."  Andre felt his mouth grow cottony and dry with shock...  He felt certain his face was whiter than the armor on the hull as all the heat drained from his body.

    Akalia nodded, her mane of red fur bouncing with her actions.  She pressed her face into the surface of her desk, holding her black-streaked ears to the sides of her head.  Her white socked paws seemed semi-appropriate to the mood, as she pressed them down onto her abused mind-case.  "F... -fel-l..."  Her voice broke as tears began to flow freely with the full sinking in of Melony's death. They trickled down past the streak of black along the top of her muzzle, before rolling off her nose onto her desk.

    She pushed past her grief a little to continue...  "I pushed too hard...  she couldn't keep up climbing back to the bridge..  then, that first blast... flew into the other wall of the tube...  I almost saved h-her..."  She felt her body shudder some with the grief, never having been this close to one of her subordinates who died...

    Andre propped his head off the desk, elbows digging into the papers and stacked data-pad piles.  He wanted to be more supportive of his mother, but he realized that he had nothing he could say. At least, nothing that could help in Akalia's self-imposed mourning.  "She was...  just a little too young..."

    "She was ready for it!"  Akalia snapped at her son, angry that he would doubt her.  "She saved the ship before you got aboard.  She knew the risks, and willing went to face them."  Akalia had calmed down, some.  She grabbed a tissue from the box behind her desk on a shelf, blowing the grief from her nose.  She willed her way through the next quick wrack of guilt before continuing.  "She was willing to sacrifice herself for the ship, even before she became a member of the crew.  She went down to certain death, and she survived through that at least because partially my husband willed it.  In fact, I ordered her not to go...  and she still went...  She knew the risks, and she was as much a part of this as any of us...  It was just one..."  Akalia had to stop for a second to pull herself from sobs.  "It was just one stupid moment of hatred from the past...  Giovanni's last gasp for  real."

    Andre started to speak, but the bleep from her console beat him to the punch.  Andre opened his mouth several times slowly, trying to find something appropriate to say, before giving up, getting back to full height.  "You'd better get that." The words were weak in face of what had been going on, but he had nothing better.  In fact, it was tired, his mind unable to put feeling into it with the death of Melony giving it a hard time putting two and two together in his mouth. 

    Akalia nodded as she picked up her tear-matted furry face from her desk, reaching over with a somewhat trembling hand to transfer the de-encrypted files to a folder on her station's main storage drives.  A small window popped up, with a copy of the communicae that had come to the Long Shot to tell the ship where to meet with the Grand Admiral.  Then, the rendezvous coordinates highlighted, and the other text vanished.  The sector number, and the in-sector coordinate set switched themselves, and a small note appeared.

    Akalia looked at the revised set of location parameters, her fogged mind not quite comprehending what the significance of their switched form was.    Andre leaned in close, looking at the numbers, and getting a thought.  "Wasn't the rendezvous site information in Code Delta-5?"  Andre clenched his fist once, realizing why Davison hadn't shown up.  The small note with the adjustment re-affirmed his bad feeling.

    "Yes, wh-  no...."  Akalia moaned in self-loathing as her mind put all the pieces together.  "Sector numbers and coordinate settings switch in code Delta-5..." Akalia's bits of exposed skin turned ghost white at the realization, as she narrowly kept from throwing something.

    "It was one of first things yo-  Shutting up."  Andre zipped his mouth shut, seeing the aggrieved look on Akalia's face.  He realized he needed a way to draw attention back away from himself before she decided to give him something to do, and took a close look at the other files unzipped by the program. He cleared his throat to stop whatever buildup Akalia had in mind, pointing to the screen.  "There appears to be video message packets addressed to both of us..."

    Akalia nodded, starting to move to open hers before pulling her hand back in shame.  Andre looked at her again, before pulling out his personal data pad from his pocket, and downloading his file onto it.  "I'll just go over to the observation lounge and let you hear yours in peace..."  He quickly retreated from the room, clutching his pad to his side as he slipped out, hoping to avoid a wrathful response.

    Akalia sat in silence for a few minutes, feeling the deck slowly lurching with the sudden movements of the ship.  She wasn't quite willing to look at the message her husband had sent to her, despite the urgency that he obviously seemed to think it needed.  It's somewhat cheerful icon mocked her, telling her to be happy and to enjoy life.  Finally, she became fed up with the slowly moving icon, and she reached out growling in frustration, clicking it as savagely as her normally emotionless computer would allow.

    Her terminal clicked and whirred to itself for a moment, before the video player popped up, showing a grainy image of an unkempt Vulpin mane.  The owner of the shaggy fur was messing with something for several moments, before giving a kick to the recording device, causing the whole view to shake.  Finally, the mane of fuzz finally pulled back with it's owner to reveal Captain Richson.  "Stupid recorders, you can't ever get them to work right."  He put his nose right up to the recording point, like he was checking some settings on the device, before stepping back to the far wall to show him dressed in his favorite uniform choice of his normal black leather-looking flight jacket.  He started to pull a remote from one of the inside pockets, before turning his head to listen to an inaudible off-camera comment.  "It's on!?  Oh, crap!"

    Akalia had to shake her head in befuddlement over how her husband never had any luck with most technology, and she still didn't understand how he managed to accomplish some of his more spectacular technological blunders.  Then again, most men, her long passed on father, her husband, and her son, and most especially Davison, couldn't ever get the units right.  She wiped away a few tears, beginning to come over the hill of grief.

    "Sorry about taking so long to contact you, honey.  I've been waiting for years for a break to be given to me in this war so I could get a message over.  With more recent developments, this little problem of mine has become a little more exaggerated, especially considering how your alliance would be asking questions if a Starfleet courier came over to your ship and dropped off several dozen message capsules."  Richson sighed, trailing off into a chuckle as he thought of the various troubles he had been through.  He sighed again, slowly pressing the back of his head against the wall, as if he had some bad news to tell.

    "I..."  He started to say something, then shut his mouth for a moment, pulling himself into a more formal position as he tried to find words for his problem.  He finally just grabbed a chair from just to the right, plopping down into it and burying his hands in his face. "Akalia, I'm starting to die.  I've been going for almost an extra hundred and fifty years.  The modern Vulpin, they might last to be three hundred, but our era, well, for some reason myself, and the few Vulpins in my crew are all starting to feel the pinch of age.  We don't know why, and we don't know when.  The doctors are working on prolonging us, but we could just fall over and die sometime in the next five minutes, to hopefully 50 years from now..."

    Akalia's mouth dried up again at the news, feeling almost scaly.  It seemed like fate was completely collecting on the debt she owed it for returning her first born son, and that the price would be too much to pay.  She did have to admit, however, that more than a 150 years was far more than Richson had asked for, and so, though the time may not have been with her, he probably had a good life, through the good times and the bad...  and that was all the two of them had ever really wanted, besides being together.

    "If I die...  well, at least I've made sure that the KP II is delivered into your command irretrievably as a last gift.  I know how you hid the Kep Salu, so I know you're still in good hands.  I know how much you loved my few little special gizmos aboard the Kep Salu, and the number II, so I've got Davison delivering a few dozen cases of them to you, with another gift for a member of your crew."  He smiled grimly, surprisingly taking his fate well.  Though, then again, maybe he was remembering the old days...  Which were the subject of his next words.  "Oh, and I know you've been getting those tingly sensations of worry lately.  The ones warning of...  well, them.  I have a feeling that there may be more to this conflict than just taking over the galaxy.  Be ready."

    Richson's eyes seemed oddly hopeful for a few moments, as if he thought that they might get a few more times together.  "Don't worry about me all that much.  I've fought the good fight, lived the good life, and kept you in my heart.  This war shouldn't take fifty years if we can fight it right.  We'll have our last days together, finishing up training our replacements."  Richson got up from his seat, moving to turn off the recorder.

    Someone quickly moved on-screen, whispering something into Richson's ear.  He nodded for a moment, whispering something back, before his eyes widened in surprise.  "WHAT!?!"  He was in shock for a moment, eyes somewhat wide.  Then, just as suddenly, he broke in into hearty laughter, wiping tears from his eyes as he fell back into the chair with shaking mirth.  The worry was wiped from his eyes as he shook with laughter and relief. "Ah, figures.  Nice work on rescuing Andre.  I had always wondered what had happened to him.  Take good care, he's got my kind of luck.  I h-"

    The entire frame shook suddenly, as Richson had to grab a hold of his seat to avoid getting thrown.  There was a fading rumble as static blurred across the recording for a moment.  He looked around for a moment, before an infamous look of determination came to his face.  He jumped to his feet, running to the edge of the recording frame.  "Put us to Red Alert, open fire!"  He staggered back as his ship was pounded in the recording, a look of annoyance and apologies on his face. "Sorry honey, once again service calls.  The next time I get a chance, I hope to be able to say g-"

    The recording stopped suddenly, as if  the Kep Salu II had been destroyed, or the recorder damaged. Akalia knew in her heart that her husband was still alive, she could feel it in every fiber of her being, down to her bones.  She held out her hand once to the screen, hoping that perhaps a second part would present itself, or to call back the whole document again, but she slumped back into her seat, knowing that her husband's message was done.  "And good luck to you too."

    She sat there for a few moments more; the occasional energy discharge outside, and a few stray bolts of energy from the still raging Kep Salu II/Citadel battle splattering Akalia's outline on the inner bulkhead.  She let her spirit despair for a moment more, before she willed herself out of her chair, and towards the door.  "Once again, must I play my part.  Time again to put my mask on..."  She hardened her face, pulling the sorrow from it as she stepped through the parting doors and onto the bridge. 

    The bridge crew gave her different looks, from worry, to annoyance, to curiosity.  She gave a pointed glare to them, before tiredly starting.  "Where's m-"  She stopped herself before saying 'my son'.  She cleared her throat, before continuing.  "Where's Andre?"  She couldn't quite work up the energy to give her usual sharp bark, and it came out tired and worn.

    Roberton pointed to the Observation lounge doors.  "In there."

    Akalia nodded, then passed a pad with the corrected coordinates to him before slowly pacing to the lounges doors.  "We're to change jump coordinates to that destination as quickly as possible.  Then make best possible speed to the new rendezvous point."  Akalia turned to the controls for the door, opening them slowly as she tried to piece together how best to explain the new situation to Andre.  She mused along various paths as she passed the old display case of legendary ships, with the original Kep Salu at the point of honor, coming to a halt at her chair by the head of the table.

    Her son was oddly perked, with a strange grin she remembered from late nights of him watching old battles.  He sat on the table, watching the receding battle through a vid-scanner pressed to his face, cheering on his father in a subdued fashion.  "Come on, left, left!  No, your other left!  Come on, drop the bow 20 degrees, get ready to broadside him... now!"  Andre let out a shout of triumph as his father scored home, and a small flare burned through the field.

    "Andre, can I have a moment?"  Akalia covered her eyes slightly to let the flare subside, before keeping watch for her son to break out of his watchful trance.  "Andre!"  It usually took a little more to get him snapped out of it, as watching his father's ship fight usually got him far more caught up than old videos of battles long past. 

    "Yeah?"  He started to turn to his mother for a moment, but a lance of energy arcing across the sky called his wayward attention back to the battle.  "Come on, dad.  Evasive to starboard, power up 20 %!  He's got one of those big cannons tracking you!"  Andre took the scanners from his eyes, wincing as the huge blast from one of the main guns of the Citadel exploded, blooming up like a nuclear flower in the spring.  "Nice shot.  That'll teach 'em to shoot back."

    "Andre, I need to talk to you about your father.  Now."  Akalia's patience with her son was quickly running thin.  She had not tolerated this before, and she was going to take it even less now that he was one of her senior officers.  She wrenched him around, looking down the sights of his scanner.  Naturally, he was rather freaked out to see her somewhat tear-bloodshot eyes staring down at him at 5000 magnification.

    "AHH!  I'm listening!  It's about him starting to die, right?  He gave me a message about it." Andre held up his pad, with the text message pulled up onto the screen as he turned his head back to the battle, looking through his scanner again.  "He wrote it down while fighting off an Ohansu ambush, so he didn't have the patience to embellish much."  He zoomed in close to see the Kep Salu II running along the spine of the Citadel.  "Fire torpedoes, dad!"  He winced again, feeling somewhat sorry for the poor commander of the Citadel, but only a little as it managed to score several hits with the smaller guns in it's arsenal.  "He didn't give me a time-table, did you get one?"

    Akalia nodded, though Andre wasn't paying attention to her face.  "Anytime from right now, to 50 years from now.  If we're all lucky, the war will be over long before he is.  At least, I dearly hope so..." Akalia didn't want to worry her son further than he already was, and let the comment die out in silence.    She was somewhat afraid of what he might say...

    Andre put down his scanner, and looked his mother straight in the eyes. "Let's know so.  He's the only one who knows what to do when a final battle comes."  Andre shivered, his dark mop of hair bouncing a little.  "I can feel something evil on the wind.  Whatever is up, it can't be good."

    "Andre, Andre... your father is not the only one who knows how to fight the last fight.  I do, and you do.  It's in your blood to have the knowledge, should the need arise.  It was passed down to you from your father, before we had to let you go."  Akalia teared up somewhat, hoping to never have to put her son in that role.  She sat down next to him, hugging him slightly.  "If it comes down to it, you can take up the mantle of 'The Great Hero.' heh.  You could lead the fight now, if need be."

    "I don't have the experience, though."  Andre shook his head.  "I almost got us killed today."  He got to his feet, pacing the lounge circuit worn into the carpet by many years of anxious planning.

    "And I got us far closer to it.  You have the skills needed to fight better than even your father."  Akalia stood, waiting for Andre to come around the corner of the table.  "If you want, I can teach  you what little I know that you still do not, and we can find a way to get you to your father to complete your training."  Akalia smiled, a small memory restored of one or two late-night planning sessions similar to this with Richson foreshadowing his son's actions to come.  "Give yourself more credit than you do.  You're a far stronger man than your father was at your age."

    Andre nodded, filing away his mother's advice.  "Oh... I found a small message embedded in mine.  According to the editing dates, it was made and finished right before the new year.  He must have been impressed with..."  Andre had to pause to collect himself.  "With her."  He slowed to a stop at the head of the table leaning against his mother's chair.  "Damn it all.  Why in the heck did she have to get it?  Why couldn't someone else have taken her place?  I barely knew what she might have been!"

    Akalia weakly nodded, having already gone through all the trouble that Andre had gone through,  She looked at the file, seeing the notations by the computer marking it a far bigger file than even she got.  "Why did he have more to say to her than us?"  Akalia held the pad up close to her nose, before scooting up onto the table, and laying down along it's length to think.  "What was so important about her that he needed to talk so much? Why talk to her at all?  He only met her once."

    "That we know of.  As is, we'll never know.  He locked it with some reference to Melony's past, according to the password hint on the file.  Something that only the two of them had common reference to." Andre groaned as he pondered what devious scheme his father used.  He pushed off the chair stepping to the wall to turn around and lean on it. "I suppose I could reference the kid's history with the records of dad's history, trying to find it, but then again, he could be talking about a needle in a haystack for all we know."

    "Let it be."  Akalia ruffled her ears in annoyance.  "Whatever he had to say was for her ears only, and since she isn't going to be listening to much, it'll remain that way.  Actually, I've got to get down to sickbay..."

    "Go, I'll cover for you. And have some sympathy, as you have to comfort that one father..."  Andre motioned to the door, getting a nod from his mother to go.  "Do what you need to do, mom."

    "Yes, I-"  Akalia got to her feet, and was about to finish when the intercom came franticly online.

    "Sickbay to bridge!"  The comm was alive with activity, with the sounds of a scuffle in the background.  "Captain, we ne-  OW!  Don't make me sedate you again! I've got work I've got to do on you-  arg! Ow!  Cut it out!  Captain, get down here on the double-time!  Will you quit it already!?" The line cut out to the sound of pounding footsteps as Akalia careened out the door past Andre...

TBC