There were few things Gev Braxal loved more than flying. When she was only five years old, she spent most of her time climbing trees so that she could glide to the ground. Even when riding updrafts, her glider membranes could only keep her airborne for a few seconds, too short a time. Gev had become a civilian pilot when she was only twelve years old just so she could remain in the air longer. Love of flight wasn't all that unusual for her race, nevertheless, her enthusiasm for soaring free was unrivaled by any being she'd ever met. Being a pilot wasn't a job for her, it was a need.

One glance at her fuel gauge informed her that this flight must soon end, or tomorrow's training flight would have to be cut short. The atomic fuel pellets that she and her executive officer, Samantha Rand, had managed to buy on the black market would only last so long. It had taken a sizable portion of her year's income to purchase those pellets, but if the extra flight time saved the life of just one person in her command, she considered it a small sacrifice.

She keyed her radio to Fortress Pale Flight Operations and regretfully transmitted, "Fortress Pale, this is Phoenix Lead, requesting approach vector to the fighter bay, over". It took some time for them to reply. Strike Force Nova had arrived at Fortress Pale three days ago, followed by a steady stream of single warships from the various provisionary task forces throughout the Frontier. The arrival of these nineteen warships took a lot of coordination, as they were constantly taking turns at Fortress Pale's few docking rings. Finally, a reply from Flight Ops arrived.

"Phoenix Lead, vector 412 mark 18 and proceed to fighter bay. Alter course as needed to avoid the UPFS Courageous."

"Roger, Flight Ops: vector 412 mark 18. I have the other traffic on screen."

The reply was as automatic as breathing for Gev. At any space station, there were crew assigned to direct incoming and outgoing traffic who cleared dockings and tried to keep ships separated by at least two kilometers for safety's sake. This job was made considerably easier by the vastness of space, but collisions were known to happen in close proximity to space stations, where there was almost always a steady stream of shuttles, freighters, and other vessels constantly coming and going. Space stations were always a hub of activity due to the fact that most large starships couldn't land on planets, so they off loaded their cargo at space stations to be ferried to the surface by smaller atmospheric shuttlecraft. Space stations came in a variety of sizes and filled many diverse functions. Some were simply space based warehouses and commerce centers, while others were agricultural centers, shipyards, manufacturing facilities, research stations, or, like Fortress Pale, armed defensive installations. All were shaped like a wheel, and spun around the central hub. This spinning formed an artificial gravity that varied with the rate of spin..

The hub was ringed with docking ports for large spacecraft, while most smaller ships, like Gev's fighter squadron, landed in special airlock bays in the ring sections. This required intricate maneuvering to match spaceship speed and vector with the rotating ring

Because fighters lacked the firepower of capital ships, they relied on coordinated attacks to destroy enemy vessels through team tactics. One fighter was only mildly effective, but a small squadron could destroy any ship if each fighter worked together. Because of this, squadron leaders used radios on two different frequencies in battle, one on the Flight Ops channel, and one on their own. When coordinating attacks and receiving orders from Flight Ops in combat, Gev used the first. When coordinating with her own squadron, she used the second radio. She keyed the second radio now.

"Phoenix flight, this is Lead, we are cleared for landing , lets head home for now. Make sure you don't hit the light cruiser Courageous on your way in, flight ops says she's on our approach vector. See you in the briefing room in one hour. Lead out." Gev was satisfied to see the other three fighters immediately swing around to the new heading, and seconds later they'd left visual range. Her squadron was getting better by the day. Before, there may have been useless chatter over the squadron frequency, but now they followed orders quickly and efficiently, and never questioned them. Their flying skills had improved markedly as well, as the practice assault rocket run today had shown. They were now acting like a well-oiled machine.

Gev turned her fighter toward the station and, at last, the space station came in sight. The bay doors were already open and Gev fired a burst of her forward maneuvering thrusters to orient her ship in line with the rotating bay. She carefully matched her fighter's speed to that of the station's ring and pulled back gently on the control stick. When she'd matched her ship's gradual loop to the diameter of the space station and aligned her fighter twenty meters outside the bay and parallel too it, she fired one lateral burst of her maneuvering thrusters. This burst kicked the ship sideways and the ship slipped into the bay a mere two meters above the floor. Another burst from the thrusters on the opposite side killed her sideways movement until she seemed to hover over one point in the bay. She then eased the control stick slightly forward, increasing the diameter of the loop ever so slightly which settled her fighter on the deck with a slight bump.

She watched from her cockpit as fighters two and three of her flight maneuvered into the bay in the same fashion and settled to the bay floor as well. As Gev powered down her ship's atomic drive and completed post flight checks, the bay door slid closed with a clang that reverberated through the deck and into her fighter. As soon as she'd finished with her post flight checks, she became aware of a hissing sound outside her cockpit that indicated the bay had filled with atmosphere enough to transmit the sounds of the environmental control pumps which were pressurizing the bay.

At last, the air pressure equalized within safe, breathable levels, so Gev popped the seals on her helmet and removed her Fighter Inssuit. Inssuits were standard garb for fighter pilots. They were essentially armored spacesuits with radiation protection and survival packs attached. They weighed over sixty kilograms though, almost as much as Gev, so they tended to make walking somewhat laborious. Gev opened the cockpit canopy and stepped out of the cramped cockpit. Fighters weren't much for comfort, and removing anything more than gloves in the cockpit's confines was next to impossible.

Stepping down off her fighter's delta wing and onto the deck, she stretched briefly and stripped out of the heavy Inssuit. It felt good to be breathing air that didn't come directly from a can. The air in this station was still recycled, but the Hydroponics bay's live plants made the air a little better and the atmospheric scrubbers were more efficient in space stations.

Gev strolled out of the bay through one of the side airlocks as her chief tech was coming in. "Any problems, Commander?", the small human asked, his voice betraying the obvious pride he felt for his work. Since Maintenance Chief Brian Collins had taken over as lead fighter tech, Gev had yet to find any problems with her fighter. Collins delighted in tinkering and performed more frequent maintenance than the technical manuals required. His work paid off, and was infectious to the other maintenance crews. Because of this friendly rivalry, Gev's squadron had less unanticipated mechanical downtime than any in Spacefleet.

"You know better than to ask about problems on your ship, Chief Collins", Gev replied easily. "Great work on that starboard front thruster, she works great now."

The Chief beamed at the compliment and, after a hasty salute, continued through the airlock into the bay, calling out to his crew, "Lets get moving people, time's a wasting!" Gev smiled and shook her head as she turned down the corridor toward Rear Admiral Bolchak's office. She wanted one last update on the UPFS Vengeance before the squadron briefing began.

There was a nasty rumor circulating that the Vengeance wouldn't make the rendezvous with the rest of Strike Force Nova. If it didn't, Gev's squadron would have to remain behind while their fleet continued on to F.S. 37 to take on the Sathar. Gev definitely wanted in on that action. Forty minutes later, she strode into the squadron's small briefing room. To her satisfaction, her pilots were all assembled and talking about the latest scuttlebutt. The noise of their conversations died before Gev reached the briefing podium.

Aside from herself, there were seven pilots currently assigned to Phoenix Squadron, one for each fighter plus one extra in case of injury or illness among her primary pilots. It was as diverse a bunch as Spacefleet had ever placed in one small unit. All four races were represented among the eight pilots, and they hailed from all across the Frontier. They now waited expectantly for Gev to begin the briefing.

She knew what was foremost in all their thoughts. For thirteen months, they'd been stationed, or perhaps stranded would be a better word, at Fortress Pale when their assault carrier dropped them off here on it's way to the Prenglar Spaceyards for a complete overhaul and redesign. Since that time, they'd become a training squadron while awaiting their carrier to be operational again. Fighters based at a space station were useless for anything but defense due to their limited operational range, and since attacks against space fortresses like Pale only happened during major offensives, the likelihood of a fighter squadron based at one seeing action was slim indeed. Now Gev had to tell her squadron the unpleasant news she'd learned from Rear Admiral Bolchak.

Before dropping that bomb though, she'd handle the mundane part of the briefing. "Okay people, lets cover this morning's training flight before we move on to other things." Gev could read the disappointment from many of the pilots as they guessed the truth. Nevertheless, she continued on without pause, "Overall, it went well, Lieutenant Rand scored three simulated assault rocket hits, and our new pilot Junior Lieutenant Gorlma scored two. That's not bad considering your experience, but you did make some errors that highlight potential dangers for us all. In your attack run against the destroyer Allison May, you closed to only 25,000 Kilometers before launching. We should all avoid closing range to less than forty-thousand Kilometers if at all possible. The enemy vessel's return fire becomes much more effective as you get closer, but you gain no additional accuracy with the assault rockets. I need not remind you that the best way to continue the fight is...."

"Not to get hit!", the pilots all said in unison, some rolling their eyes at the oft-repeated favorite phrase of their commander. Gev used that line in almost every briefing so her pilots had come to expect the line to crop up sooner or later.

"That's right, don't get hit!", Gev laughed, "I've trained you all well, haven't I? You've all seen the battle holograms of today's flight, does anyone have any more questions or comments?"

Lieutenant Doug Watson was the first to speak, "Commander Braxal, any news yet on when the Vengeance will arrive?"

Gev sighed heavily, "I meant about the training flight, Doug, but there's no point in putting this off any longer. The Vengeance is on it's way, but the quickest estimate of it's arrival will put it here the day after tomorrow. Strike Force Nova leaves in six hours for F.S. 37. With the stopover to load our fighters, the Vengeance will get to F.S. 37 two full days after the rest of the fleet. Sorry, but we're going to miss that fight." Everyone but Samantha looked surprised by the news. Samantha Rand, as executive officer, had been told about the Vengeance before the meeting.

One of the Dralasite pilots, Lieutenant Noorn, was the first to break the silence that followed Gev's announcement. "So, Strike Force Nova won't even wait two days for us to join up?", he asked from near the back of the room.

"No Lieutenant, they have enough assault scout class vessels assigned to their strike force now to handle our squadron's role in a battle, so Admiral Hendriks wants to press the attack before the Vengeance can get here. He doesn't think he needs more forces to take the system. I know this probably won't make you feel much better, but the heavy cruiser Challenger is still being repaired in the Pale Shipyards and will miss this fight too."

Fleet Lieutenant Rand's eyebrows shot up at that comment. "You mean Admiral Hendriks isn't even waiting for one of his largest capital ships?" she asked incredulously.

"That's what I heard from Admiral Bolchak. Now lets get back to work. I've scheduled another flight tomorrow consisting of Lieutenants Lanar, Watson, and Sanders. Until then, continue to pack, because whether we miss this fight or not, I want to get us back on the Vengeance as soon as possible. See you at 0630 tomorrow. Dismissed."

Everyone but Lieutenant Rand filed out of the briefing room, most grumbling good naturedly at the early hour of tomorrow's briefing, and some chattering about what would be the best location to watch the fleet leave for F.S. 37, later that evening. After they'd left, Samantha asked brightly, "Hey Gev, what are you doing for dinner tonight?"

"Are you ready to give Vrusk cuisine another try?", Gev joked.

"That's not very funny", Samantha replied, her expression making it clear that she'd dredged up bad memories.

"Sorry Samantha, you're right, but I had you going for a minute didn't I?"

"If you say so. This'll probably be our last night of piece and quiet for some time. Transferring our squadron to the Vengeance will take some doing."

"You have no idea. At least we won't be getting so many new recruits from the Academy now that we'll be back on combat status. Did you see Gorlma's colored skin dye today?"

"Oh, yeah, what the hell color was that, lavender? I hope he runs out of dye soon. Where did the Dralasites of Inner Reach ever come up with that awful custom?"

"You've got to keep in mind that Dralasites are color blind. What looks very garish to us is hardly noticeable to them. It's all just different shades of gray. Still rumor has it was all your race's fault."

"Really, how so?", Samantha had let suspicion creep into her voice, as Gev had a tendency to tell stories of dubious origin at times. Gev had once nearly convinced her that the oceans on Pale had a parasite that could suck all the blood from a human in two hours. Samantha didn't go swimming in the water again until after a trip to the computer library where she learned that no such parasites existed in this system.

Gev continued with her story anyway. "When human ambassadors talked to the dralasites there, they used such terms as 'green with envy' and 'purple with rage' and the dralasites thought that was a unique concept, and even noticed the changes your skin can go through, so they adopted that custom." Samantha tried to gauge whether Gev was pulling her leg again, but Gev showed precious few clues. She finally gave up and decided another trip to the library was in order.

"Do you plan to watch the fleet leave tonight Gev?"

"I wouldn't miss it, but I wish we were leaving with it. I don't like being left out when we could be doing some good for the Federation. As you know, I owe the Sathar a little payback and the interest on that debt has been building for too long now."

Samantha looked thoughtful for a minute before saying, "Gev, I'm not sure I'm sorry to be staying here longer. Although it sounds like a cliché, I've got a bad feeling about this fight. Everyone has been treating this like some sort of cake walk, but we don't really know what's in that system. It's been over a month since the Challenger was in that system, and we don't know what the Sathar have been up to in the meantime."

"Let's let Admiral Hendriks worry about that, shall we? I'm hungry, let's get some food."

For the next few hours, they didn't talk about the impending fight at all, but at nineteen hundred hours, they were standing by one of Fortress Pale's many viewports watching the battle fleet accelerate away from the station and into the unknown. It would take two and a half days for the fleet to reach velocity for the jump through the Void, and two and a half days after that, they would arrive at the Zebulon system. Then they would calculate another Void jump to the Sathar-held planet in F.S. 37. The Vengeance would be following their route in two days, but in the meantime there was plenty of work to be done. When the fleet was completely out of sight, they reluctantly turned away from the viewport and resumed their duties. The fleet was out of sight, but never out of mind.

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