Commander Gev Braxal stood on the bridge on the assault carrier Vengeance along with Samantha Rand, her Executive Officer, and Captain Morgan, the Vengeance's new captain. The carrier had rushed here straight from spacedock, stopping only long enough to load Gev's fighter squadron from Fortress Pale. Captain Morgan assumed command two days before it left Rand Interstellar Spacedock .

They had arrived in system F.S. 37 just ten hours ago, and the bridge monitors were filled with images of destruction. Telemetry from the few remaining UPF warships painted a grim picture indeed. Of the nineteen UPF warships sent to F.S. 37, ten remained, with perhaps half that number still effective in combat.

The Captain and crew of the Vengeance had just witnessed the destruction of the battleship Admiral Clinton. It's attempt to cover an orderly withdrawal had been unsuccessful. When the other UPF ships attempted to join up in a formation around the Vanguard, the Sathar warships closed range and sent volley after volley of firepower into the UPF command ship. After the Vanguard's fission engines exploded in a white-hot fireball, the fight went out of the remaining UPF ships, and any semblance of order vanished. Now, the individual ships' captains were concentrating on escaping any way they could.

The Sathar had planned this ambush well. Even as the larger Sathar cruisers pummeled the UPF fleet from short range, the smaller Sathar vessels darted out from behind the planet, and completely encircled the remaining warships, carefully remaining out of weapon range.

The crew of the Vengeance could only watch in horror as their fellow spacers died. The Vengeance, having left Fortress Pale forty hours later than the rest of the fleet, was still about one half of a Standard Astronomical Unit away. The video and telemetry feeds that they were watching were actually two minutes old, as it took that long for the radio waves to reach the Vengeance.

Gev heard Samantha mutter, "We have to do something!"

Gev looked over at her friend. Samantha's expression betrayed the stress she was under as she watched the battle, helpless to do anything to assist. Gev knew quite well how she felt. As fighter pilots, they were accustomed to being able to influence the course of a battle. Now, they were as helpless as civilians.

"Samantha, even if we closed range as fast as possible, we wouldn't arrive until long after this battle is over."

"Logically, I know that, but that doesn't help the frustration I feel now."

Gev shifted her attention back to the monitors. As much as she wished she could comfort her friend, not watching the desperate battle seemed like a betrayal to those Spacefleet crew who were, even now, fighting and dying for the Federation.

The UPF ships were enclosed in an ever tightening sphere of enemy warships, which continued to pound the fleet mercilessly. A Sathar heavy cruiser's fusillade of laser fire left the destroyer a burning wreck, but the other UPF ships fled through the gap unscathed. A frigate and two assault scouts had broken out of the Sathar trap and were accelerating away from the Sathar armada.

Just as it appeared that the three UPF ships would get away, six Sathar fighters accelerated in pursuit of the fleeing vessels. The speedy fighters quickly overtook the frigate Glanrek and launched a volley of assault rockets. Five of the six rockets launched struck the frigate amidships and the telemetry feeds from the frigate went ominously dead. The Communications Officer on the bridge of the Vengeance switched to the camera feeds from one of the assault scouts, which showed the frigate spinning in space completely out of control. A few flares of light signaled the launch of several escape pods before the frigate's fission drives failed completely. The unarmed pods were quickly dispatched with laser bursts from the Sathar fighters as they continued accelerating after the assault scouts.

Gev felt her anger growing out of control as she watched that senseless act of destruction. The Sathar weren't known for being merciful, taking prisoners only when it suited them, but destroying escape pods that would be trapped in their system made no sense. Unless your goal is to annihilate all other races in the galaxy, Gev thought bitterly.

The Sathar had always made their goal perfectly clear to any races they encountered, but seeing their actions with her own eyes still shocked Gev even after all of her years of service.

Gev and Samantha studied a nearby tactical display as it was updated by the navigational telemetry from the assault scout Raven.

The Raven and it's sister ship were still beyond the pursuing Sathar fighters' assault rocket range, but it was difficult to judge the relative velocities of predators and prey in the vastness of the solar system.

"Do you think they'll outrun the fighters and escape?" Samantha asked Gev, her voice betraying how worried she was.

Gev waited while the Vengeance's computer calculated the acceleration differences and initial velocity before replying. If Gev's first guess turned out to be right, the fighters would close to weapon's range with the two assault scouts in twenty minutes. The assault scouts were far from defenseless against the fighters, each armed with a laser battery as well as four assault rockets like those carried on fighters. The laser battery could strike at the enemy fighters at up to ninety-thousand kilometers, while the fighters would have to close to within forty thousand kilometers to get a target lock with their rockets. However, there were six fighters, and only two assault scouts, so the odds of the escape were still slim.

The bridge crew's attention was riveted to the camera view of the Sathar fighters as they steadily drew within weapon's range of the laser batteries. The assault scouts fired in unison at the pursuing fighters, one ship's amber colored beam going wide of it's target, the second striking the nose of a fighter just aft of it's disk shaped canard. The laser sliced the fuselage in two like a surgeon's scalpel and bored into it's powerful engine. The small craft exploded in a bright flash of light as it's containment field broke down.

A brief cheer rose from the Vengeance bridge crew as the Sathar fighter was destroyed, but Gev knew the battle was far from over. The other five fighters continued to close and would probably be able to lock on to the trailing assault scout before its power coils could recharge.

After the destruction of their comrade, the Sathar fighters performed small evasive maneuvers as they closed range, darting side to side to throw off the assault scouts' aim. Minutes clicked by until the Sathar fighters had at last closed to forty thousand kilometers from the assault scout Dragonfly. Five bright flashes marked the launch of each assault rocket.

Two of the rockets struck the Dragonfly at the rear of the fuselage, penetrating ten meters before detonating. A bright flame shot out into space from the stern of what was left of the ship, indicating that the vessels oxygen tanks had ruptured in the blast. The crew, if not already dead, would have little hope of escaping in the ship's lifeboat. Even if they did, Gev thought, the Sathar would kill them by destroying the lifeboat long before it reached the planet.

The Raven's laser battery had finally recharged, and would have time for perhaps two more shots before the fighters caught up. The amber beam shot through space and found it's mark, slicing the portside wing from the lead fighter. With the sudden reduction of mass, the fighter's engine thrust pushed the ship into a flat spin in the direction of the remaining wing. Gev could see maneuvering thrusters firing in the nose and tail of the fighter as the pilot fought to regain control, and knew that he would eventually succeed, but at least that would keep him occupied for awhile.

The Vengeance's Communications Officer motioned the Captain over to his console. Gev followed Captain Morgan across the bridge to see what was so important. The Communications Officer, a human who looked far too young to be in Spacefleet said, "Sir, Captain K'teck'ck of the Raven is on Videocomm frequency Two."

Captain Morgan turned to the screen and addressed Captain K'teck'ck.

"Captain K'teck'ck, what can I do for you?"

The Vrusk captain looked at Gev and Captain Morgan before joking, "Sending a squadron of fighters would be nice" Her expression became more somber before she continued, "but given your distance, I know that's not possible. I wanted to tell you that the Raven, well, we're not going to make it out of this system, but I need to make sure you get our sensor logs to Fleet Admiral Bralloff. We've recorded a lot of data about the Sathar fleet, and it could prove useful. Listen, we've got about two minutes before we're in the fighters' weapon range. We're not going to keep running from them. The crew took a vote, and when we die, we want to die fighting these worms for all we're worth, so we're going to turn and face them with our full firepower. If we're lucky, we can take some of them with us."

Captain K'teck'ck touched a few buttons on her console. "I'm sending the logs now, as well as some personal messages from the crew to their families. Please ensure that they make it to the right places. Our fight is nearly over, but I have a feeling yours has just begun."

Just before the channel went dead, Captain Morgan replied, with some difficulty because of the lump in his throat, "Give 'em hell, Captain."

The fight between the Raven and the four Sathar fighters was short, but the Raven did manage to destroy one enemy fighter with a well placed assault rocket. The remaining fighters turned for home after demolishing the Raven, but Gev knew it wouldn't be the last time she saw them. It was, after all, a small galaxy.

After a final radar sweep for UPF warships detected only wreckage, Captain Morgan turned to the Helmsman.

"Helm, put us on a parabolic course back toward the Zebulon system, and accelerate back up to Void entry velocity for the jump. Coordinate with Astrogations for the fastest jump. There's nothing more we can do here."

Gev looked one last time at the radar display. The Sathar warships were returning to the planet, leaving behind nothing but hull fragments of the UPF fleet. Nineteen UPF ships had been annihilated in this system, fully half of the total UPF Spacefleet. The losses included a battleship, four light cruisers, three destroyers, six frigates, and five assault scouts. Even more appalling, over twelve hundred Spacefleet crew had lost their lives. The Sathar armada had only lost six ships, including fighters. Never in the history of Spacefleet had a battle turned so horribly against the Federation.

The bridge was eerily silent as Gev and Samantha walked out. Before they'd gone more than twenty meters, Samantha turned to Gev.

"A fleet of that size wasn't assembled just to guard a minor manufacturing world, that's a strike force Gev!"

"You're right, and it's next stop is the Zebulon system. Task Force Prenglar is fifteen days away from the Zebulon system. The only UPF warships that are close enough to engage the armada are us and the Challenger. With those odds, it'll be a very short fight. If we don't fight though, the colonists in the Zebulon system will die, then the Truane's Star system is next. It can't get much worse than this."

What Gev didn't know was that the worst was yet to come.

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