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Flight Lieutenant Toya Dansen tugged sharply at the controls of her starfighter, sending the arrowhead craft tumbling through the upper atmosphere of the desolate planet below her. The fighter was not an air breather and the cheetah knew how low she could take it into an habitable world's atmosphere before the engines started heating up to stalling temperatures. She banked a hard left, turning a hairpin manoeuvre as heavy calibre explosive bullets streaked past, searing the space she had occupied just seconds ago. Toya briefly went cross eyed, her vision dulling. Sucking down a great breath and steeling herself against the Traal pilot's relentless attack, she shook her head, forcing the darkness back.

'Where the hell are you, Sharp? I need some serious back up!' She snarled into her comm, hoping her awol wingmate would reply.

She swore, forcing herself to drop even further towards the planet's jagged surface below as another Traal starfighter dropped in above her, forcing her down even more. Her ships' proximity alarm shrieked, soon joined by the panicked wailing of her engine's diagnostics suite; the two engines at her sides were starting to heat up, the needles fast creeping into the red. So long as they didn't quiver their way into the black, Toya figured she would still retain her fighting chance against the chitinous brown hunters trying to bully her to her doom.

'Sharp, Lady curse you, where are you?!' She almost shrieked. A third fighter had appeared, and she barrelled downwards ever more.

Toya knew the Traal knew her weaknesses. Toya knew their starfighters were multi-role; space faring air breathers with better armour, and more ammo and fuel capacity than Toya and her wingmates could hope to have. She watched them steadily through her golden canopy, studying the three brown fighters as they tried to cage her in, to force her to ground or to stall. They were bigger than her, and clung to her flanks, anticipating and mimicking her every move. They weren't directly ahead of her, nor directly beneath or behind. The Traal had positioned themselves just so. They had left her with no opening for her to engage with cannons or missiles. No room for her to squeeze past them and break free. At least not without killing herself.

Toya tried the comm again, abandoning the fighter channel and opening instead the channel that encompassed everyone she worked with. Static filtered into her ears then resolved into a cacophony of frantic and calm chatter. At least the Traal had not figured out how to jam the HRLS Knight's auxiliary comm channel.

'Hellcat to fighter control, do you read me?' She panted, blinking back the darkness and panic as she twisted her fighter hard in the air. Another proximity alarm shrieked as an un-guided missile streaked past her.

'FC reads you loud and clear Hellcat. Where the hell have you been?' Rasped a deep, male voice.

'I need assistance! I'm stuck with three Traal and my engines're almost in the black. I cannot raise my wingmate, please assist!' She was practically begging now, the sting of tears in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back, chastising herself. This was the path she had chosen, and so she would follow it to its end as promised when she took the Oath.

'That's a negative, Hellcat. A Traal super dreadnought has just entered the system. We simply cannot spare any guns. I'm so sorry, Toya, but you're on your own for now.' FC replied.

And he was genuine, too, about his sorrow, which stung worse than a thousand Fire Hornets. Sergeant Montgomery was never sorry. And he was always angry about something. Toya looked at her frantic readouts. She had another hour of flight left if she took it steady, two missiles and a quarter of a belt of ammo left. To make matters worse, her engines were almost half in the black and her manoeuvres were nothing but a jolly game before the kill for the three Traal.

'Understood, Fighter Control. Hellcat out.' She silenced her comm suite and studied the formation she had found herself in the centre of. The Traal were good, so good, she felt her jealousy rise through the dark dismay that blanketed her heart and mind.

But they weren't that good. They could only get so close to her and each other before the turbulence and the wash of high speed sub-sonic flight forced them to drift apart to readjust, stopping themselves from colliding with one another. She grinned suddenly as she watched them drift apart then close in on her again. Toya checked her atmospheric readouts. The data scrolled across the screen in a jagged scribble before smoothing very briefly into an almost even wobble as the air vortices settled. A minute was sufficient enough to work out the almost chaotic pattern.

She was a cheetah. She was a predator; quick and sly and patient. She relished speed, knew how to use it to great effect. If the Traal wanted to add her to their grotesque trophy rack, then they would have to work damn hard. She was a cheetah; she was speed.

The Traal formation drifted apart. Toya seized the moment, opened the throttle wide and shot forwards and upwards, through the narrow gap presented to her, turbulence pressing in from all sides, engines shrieking and sputtering. The needles of the temperature gauges slipped into the upper reaches of the black. The engines coughed then went silent. Toya whooped and shrieked with adrenaline fuelled excitement as space caught her, helping her forward momentum propel her back into the black.

Behind her, the Traal chased fiercely, a kilometre behind. They knew her starfighter's weaknesses, but had obviously forgotten about its strengths; its manoeuvrability and its speed. The temperature gauge dropped back into the green as the heat from atmospheric flight started to bleed away, the chillness of the cold vacuum acting as a soothing balm for her fighters' tortured engines. Toya eyed the gauges, her gaze flickering between the temperature readouts to the turmoil that was quickly unfolding before her. The HRLS Knight was drifting, powerless to effectively defend herself against the Traal onslaught. Two Traal gun corvettes flanked her, picking apart the sleek multi-role deep space destroyer, hammering at the Knight's sleek, silvered frame with punishing force.

Toya ground her teeth together. To see such a magnificent vessel brought low angered her to her very core. There was no reason for the Traal's sudden attack other than they could. The temperature gauges were now comfortably green, and she cycled through the emergency start-up sequence once more. The engines shuddered, letting out a sighing groan that was more felt than heard. They flared back to life, but the left side engine had taken too much punishment from the Traal fighter pilots. It flared too hot, filling the cockpit with a sound like a wounded mountain bear, roaring its last, angry defiance at the universe before falling silent.

The right side engine took up the slack with minimal effort as Toya swiftly shut down the fuel feed and electronics to the failed engine. The fighter shuddered, but pressed on. Her defensive suite screamed at her, three red dots flashing onto her scanners' screen. The lead Traal fighter was now within range for a target lock. Toya sucked down another, steadying breath of recycled air, and waited for the last second.

The two missiles streaked past a scant few metres away from her left wing as she banked hard, sending herself into a corkscrew. The missiles curved back around, and Toya lined herself up for a short burst of neutralising cannon fire. The missiles sat snugly in her crosshairs, then exploded. Shock and confusion pierced through her concentration. She hadn't pulled the trigger. She looked around, but couldn't see anything besides the black and the battle. She opened her commlink again, letting the frantic chatter rush into her ears. There was a curious warbling on the line, one she immediately set her comm suite to diagnosing and tracking, and, if at all possible, repairing.

'All wings be aware; we have reinforcements. I repeat; All wings be aware; we have reinforcents.' Sergeant Montgomery sounded harried, frightened and relieved all at the same time.

Before she could message back and query what he meant, a dark shape darted past, setting her proximity alarms to shrieking again. It appeared on her scanners as an Unknown. Then another one appeared. They converged on the lead Traal fighter, guns blazing, rolling and cartwheeling about the opposing starfighter, concentrating their fire until the Traal vanished in a blossom of pale blue fire.

'What the hell was that?' She blurted loud enough for Montgomery to hear.

'Hellcat?! Shit, I just about have you on the scanners. Good to have you back. I need you to do something for me. I need you to put a missile up that super dreadnought's ass. Scans show its shields are weakest over the exhaust flare. If you can blow its engine, we can have a fighting chance.'

'Who're the newcomers, FC? I got two of them on radar, but I can barely see them with my eyes.'

'Ever heard of a merc group called Shadow Stalkers?' FC replied a little uncertainly. Something exploded in the background and he swore.

Toya craned her neck to look over her shoulder. There was a flash of black and green against the ruddy sky of the planet below, then the two newcomers' profiles all but vanished from sight as they curved back towards space, giving chase to the last Traal fighter. She resisted the urge to join. She would need her last two missiles.

'I've heard rumours.' She replied slowly.

She checked her fuel. Forty-five minutes of flight left. She checked her range against the super dreadnought's position and decided that if she kept as straight of a path as possible, she could make it.

'They ain't rumours, Hellcat. And so far as I know, we didn't hire them.'

'Well, these two just took out my three tails, so I'm not complaining. Just so long as there's more than two to their team.' She chuckled nervously, and briefly wondered why Montgomery hadn't asked another, much closer pilot to try and disable the Traal's super dreadnought. 'FC, where are the rest of our pilots?'

'Gone. As of now, you're our last pilot.'

Toya's heart froze in her chest. Surely not? One pilot out of an entire squadron? It was an unthinkable notion, but when she queried FC again, he merely gave solemn confirmation. The tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving dark streaks in her golden fur, to pool at her chin, where her helmet was sealed to her flight suit.

She took another steadying breath. The day seemed to be full of them now, and each one tasted bitter and vile.

'Fighter Command, this is Hellcat; my course is set for the superdread. See you on the other side. Hellcat out.' She transmitted.

'The Guardians of the Lady watch over you, Toya. Now go show those bastard Traal why we call you Hellcat.' Montgomery replied.

The connection to FC went silent once more, leaving her with the hum and low whistle of her fighter. Her thoughts scurried about her head, searching for a way out, like frantic rats trying to abandon a sinking ship. She took her left hand off the throttle and rested it on her thigh, drumming her fingers as she forced her thoughts into a more coherent, calm state.

When she was satisfied that she was feeling professional enough once more to continue, she checked her comm suite for the results of the scan she'd set it to perform on the strange signal she had picked up. It was a comm signal, but not one she was familiar with. It wasn't Korrlan, and it wasn't Traal. Toya opened a line on the new frequency, curious as to whether it belonged to the Shadow Stalkers.

'This is Starfighter Hellcat, serving Her Royal Lady's Ship, Knight. Identify yourselves and state your purpose.' She repeated it again after a few minute's silence. The battle between the Knight and the two Traal corvettes dominated her vision. There was an explosion in the Knight's flank as a Traal missile detonated Forward Magazine 3. Fire, debris and vapour puffed silently into the void. She couldn't begin to imagine how that sounded aboard the ailing warship. She couldn't even imagine anyone surviving it. The violence of the explosion had opened up a deep rent in the hull that was about fifty feet in length and eighteen feet wide. With that one missile, three guns - two rail guns and a laser battery - had been permanently silenced.

Toya's lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl. All those lives lost for nothing. All those lives, she decided, would be avenged. If not by her, then by someone else, someone more capable, with far more combat experience than her meagre three years. She barrelled through the debris, rolling up, onto the spine of the nearest Traal corvette. The point defences tried to get a lock on her, but she was too fast and too small, and much too close. She checked her radar and realised that the two Shadow Stalker starfighters were trailing her, keeping up with her with minimal effort.

'Starfighter Hellcat, this is Stalker Three. What are your intentions?' The voice was a deep, male baritone, and the calmness it carried irritated her.

'I asked first.' She snapped, weaving around a cluster of antenna that sprouted from the corvette's spine like wiry hairs. Behind her, the antenna disappeared in a hail of laser fire, fragments of metal dispersing in all directions as the two newcomers arrowed through the cloud of destruction.

Stalker Three chuckled, and Toya ground her teeth together.

'Yes you did. We're in pursuit of this raiding party. Or we were until you lot showed up.'

'We didn't find them, they found us! We were just on a standard picket. Then they dropped out of hyperspace and launched their attack. Why do they want this world? There's nothing there, not even useful minerals.' Toya said. The bow of the corvette was coming up fast and a swarm of the chitinous, brown fighters was curving towards them.

'We don't think they're after the planet. They might just be blowing off steam because the T'raykes demolished the bulk of their raiding party after they were caught, quite literally, with their claws in the honey pot.' Stalker Three replied. He still sounded obscenely calm, even with a full squadron of Traal fighters coming down on them.

'Blowing off steam? They started a fight because they got told off for stealing?!'

Stalker Three chuckled. 'Basically, yes. Now, what're your intentions?'

'My intentions are to ruin that superdread's day by putting my last missiles up its ass.' Toya snarled, forcing her fighter into a hard bank as the Traal fighters engaged. The corvette dropped away from her as she moved.

The Shadow Stalkers replied with a heavy barrage of cannon fire and high explosive missiles. Two of the Traal fighters exploded, damaging those immediately around them. The formation broke, and the Shadow Stalkers seized the chance to cause even more havoc. Meanwhile, Toya disappeared into a cloud of debris, the wreckage of twisted gun tubes and torn, blackened hull plating, interspersed with the bodies of the gun crews, flashing by her.

Toya let out a string of dismayed curses as the shattered remains of a gunner bounced from her canopy and rolled deeper into space. She pressed herself as close to the broken hull of the Knight as possible, charging towards the imposing super dreadnought. It was a monstrous thing of the same chitinous brown armour of the Traal starfighters and corvettes. Guns of various types bristled along its surface; rail guns, laser batteries, missile pods and silos, giant rotary cannons nestled between the huge plasma cannons...

The sight of such of a beast made Toya want to turn and run. That's exactly the response these bastards are looking for. She thought grimly. She checked her radar; the two Stalkers were busy mopping up the Traal fighters with fierce efficiency.

Toya sucked in a deep breath, and swallowed what little pride she had left. For the sake of her crewmates, those still living and those who had died, she needed help.

'Shadow Stalkers, this Hellcat. I require your assistance. I have very little ammo left and I need it all for the superdread.' She swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat, 'I require an escort to keep as many Traal fighters off my back as possible.'

There was a moment of silence, then:

'This is the Shadow Stalkers Military Assistance vessel, Reaper; Stalkers Three and Four will stick with you. Do you copy?'

'I copy, Reaper. Thank you.' Toya heaved a sigh laden with tension. The two Stalkers plunged through the debris, like sharks sliding through murky water, and formed up in a fighting position just off her wing tips. She opened the line to the two starfighters and relayed her situation to them.

'You don't have much left to give, do you?' Stalker Three said in reply.

'Oh, I have plenty give. They just don't know it yet.' Toya nudged the controls and peeled away from the stricken flank of the Knight.

She dove through a forest of damaged antenna and dishes that thrust from the dying ship's attitude planes, trying to locate the Reaper as well as keep an eye on her surroundings. She wondered if it was painted in the same black and green livery as the starfighters that clung to her every move, or if it was utilizing cloaking technology. Toya gave up and looked to her instruments. More Traal fighters were heading their way, and the corvette now had enough distance to train its point-defences on her.

Her defence suite squealed as one of the laser batteries got a solid lock on her. She scanned the cluster of guns with her thermal, watching the temperature at their base rising. She flicked switches, telltales turning from amber to green and sent out a warning to the two Stalkers. A puff of electromagnetically charged chaff was ejected from her left flank, and the defence suite's alarm fell silent again. She couldn't see the thermal readings through the expanding chaff cloud, but she knew it was just enough to buy her the time she need to get the hell away from the chasing corvette.

'Looks like it's intending to join the superdread.' Stalker Three said.

'I do not have the time nor resources to try and disable it. My goal is to try and disable the superdread.' Toya replied.

'Copy that, Hellcat. The boss said this is your show, so lead the way.'

The super dreadnought was looming large now, dominating their field of vision. The new Traal squadron was keeping pace with the trio a safe distance away. Toya scanned the super dreadnought with her thermals, then swore at the results. The ship's weapons were hot, lingering on the threshold of white. Just one shot from a laser battery and she would be an expanding cloud of debris, joining the bulk of her shipmates in death. The super dreadnought was coming straight at them, and she wondered just how she was going to get behind it.

'Stalker Three, what are your readings on that ship's armament layout? My scanners are too damaged to get a solid look at where everything is.'

She checked her fuel levels. Eighteen minutes of fuel left.

'It's only bare patch is its belly. It's heavily armoured and there doesn't seem to be any doors down there beyond a couple of airlocks. What's the plan?'

'We go under, take out its thrust, then destroy as many weapon emplacements as possible.' She replied.

Toya cut her engine, allowing momentum to keep moving her forward. There was a query about it from Stalker Three, but she quickly assuaged his worry, telling him that she was still capable of making full use of her attitude jets. However, she failed to mention her life support, the readouts of which she had only just managed to bring back online. It told her that a small breach had been made in the main hose connecting her cockpit to the oxygen tank some two hours ago, not long after the fight had started. No wonder she had been feeling out of sorts. The recyclers could only do so much before they became ineffective.

Once she had realised this, Toya had immediately sealed her suit's vents and had started on the flight suits' small oxygen reserves. When she brought her engine back online, she would have fifteen minutes of fuel left. After that, she would have one hour of oxygen left.

Assuming, that is, the Traal didn't blow her up in the mean time.

She looked to her right, seeing the Traal fighters flying a loose formation, keeping pace. Toya felt them watching her from across the expanse, keeping her just within scanner range. Whether they now saw her as harmless as she drifted towards the behemoth, remained a mystery. She fervently hoped that's what they thought, anyway. It would give her a much needed edge. As for the two Stalkers following her, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure how the Traal perceived the two starfighters, or even if they could see them at all.

Every time Toya had tried to scan the two fighters, it was as if her scanners would slide over them, barely registering them. Her thermals saw them, a mixture of hot and cold, cruising on either side of her. If this was her scanner's reaction up close, then the Traal must be all but blind to their presence, being just out of range. As for the super dreadnought, she didn't know. Surely it must have far more formidable scanning instrumentation than a pack of starfighters.

The super dreadnought loomed larger than anything she had ever seen before. It dominated everything now, brown, pock-marked chitin riddled with bumps and grooves, holes and caps stretching as far as the eye could see.

'We measure it to be at least a kilometre and a half in length. Half a kilometre in width and height. She's a big bitch, all right.' Stalker Three said as if he had read her mind. He sounded far from impressed, though. Toya reasoned that that could just be down to her oxygen depravation.

She tucked her fighter beneath the super dreadnought's bow, being as innocuous as possible. As far as the Traal were concerned, she was just another piece of debris that had been discarded by the battle. She waited five more minutes, then brought her engine back online. It whined to life and she eased herself forward, rebuilding her forward momentum now she was within touching distance of the hull.

She looked across at the Traal fighters and saw they were now headed their way.

'Let's try and keep the fight down here. If the ship starts rolling, we go with her. There is no way I want to face those big guns' Toya transmitted.

'Copy that, Hellcat, we're staying low. Now go do your thing. We'll keep these guys amused for a bit.'

The two Stalkers kept their word, harrying the Traal fighters, destroying them when they could as Toya raced forward, with one eye on her readouts and the other watching the duelling starfighters. Laser and solid rounds streaked around her, fizzling and scraping against her hull. One stray shot seared right through, punching a hole in the right side of the fuselage just fore of the wing, and smashing through the armour plating on the other side. Alarms shrieked and Toya's control of the ship became heavier and more sluggish as an attitude relay was destroyed.

She swore acidly, hauling on her controls, forcing her fighter away from the fray as quickly as possible. Two of the Traal broke away and pursued, solid rounds streaking past her. She pulled at the controls, twisting and weaving, hoping to shake them off.

She now had less than ten minutes left and a kilometre to cross. Her flight suit's oxygen levels were already at half. She double checked, making sure she was reading the gauge right. She had half an hour of oxygen left. Toya jabbed angrily at the diagnostics panel on her right bracer then jinked to the left as one of the Traal fighters hurtled past, one of the Stalkers hot on its heels.

'How you doing Hellcat?' Stalker Three asked.

Toya gritted her teeth and pulled up, the stabiliser vane that ran across her fighter's spine briefly scraping against the hull of the super dreadnought.

'Doin' fine.' She grunted through clenched teeth.

Dipping, she slid sideways then darted back in the opposite direction. The Traal starfighter rocketed past, straight into the path of the Stalker. The Traal exploded in a ball of blue fire, the Stalker banking downwards, avoiding the resulting shrapnel. Toya squinted against the sudden brightness and heard a crack. She looked up, her mouth forming an O as she watched a thin line spider across her golden canopy.

'My canopy is damaged. I repeat; my canopy is damaged.' She said calmly as she watched the lines grow into shimmering cracks. Ice gripped her spine and her stomach felt knotted as the pressure gauge for the cockpit started steadily dropping.

'Will it hold?' Stalker Three asked.

'I think so, yeah.'

Somewhere behind her, another Traal fighter was taken down. She corrected her course; there was five minutes of fuel left. Toya looked hard at the crack in her canopy. It was deep, with a pinprick hole in it. It was also still expanding. The inner skin would hold if the damaged outer skin gave, but it wouldn't hold for long. She relayed this to Stalker Three who calmly acknowledged and urged her onwards.

She pressed forwards, even as her fighter's stabiliser vane exploded into twisted fragments, holding course, curving upwards as she shot past the giant black thruster hoods. She heaved on her near non-responsive controls and twisted, flipping over so that she was facing the roaring inferno of the super dreadnought's engine. The main engine, its thruster hood dominating the middle of the aft section, was surrounded by five smaller hoods, all of which were sealed off. She figured they were connected to the hyperdrive, and the Traal closed them off to protect them when the hyperdrive was offline.

Toya saw the spasmodic flickering of the shield as it curved around the thruster, giving it a flimsy layer of protection. She wondered just how flimsy it was. She took the safeties off her cannons and sent a short burst into the shield. It flared a vivid, bruised purple for a moment before settling into its spasmodic pattern again. She licked her lips, anticipating what was to come next. She armed her last two missiles and then pulled the trigger, hammering at the shield with the last of her bullets.

The shield wavered, flared, then collapsed. She fired her first missile, then her second, and a Traal fighter exploded, the wreckage wheeling away past her. More Traal fighters appeared, and the second missile was destroyed before it could hit its target. The Traal surrounded her, swarming her like angry bees. She launched the last of her chaff with an angry shout and jammed open the throttle. The Traal scattered briefly as the chaff dispersed, blinding them electronically. Toya's starfighter darted forward, guzzling the last of its fuel as she spat a tirade of curses and insults, quickly formulating a Plan B.

She flipped open a plastic cover at her shoulder, twisting awkwardly in her crash webbing, and grabbed a hold of the lever there. She tugged at it, hearing the satisfying thunks of bolts breaking and the hiss and sizzle of electronics and pipes tearing. Her left engine drifted away, falling behind into the frantic laser fire that crisscrossed the cloud of chaff. The engine exploded, and three Traal vanished from existence.

Toya hammered at the ejection panel, and the canopy popped away with a hiss of hydraulics and vapour, her seat following swiftly behind it. Below her, her silvery, beaten arrowhead starfighter steamed forwards without guidance, disappearing into the engine flare.

She crossed her fingers and counted. Five seconds. Five seconds into the fire and the starfighter succumbed to the intense heat of the super dreadnought's engine. The super dreadnought's aft hull plating rippled, seams bursting open, oxygen, plasma and fuel venting into space with such ferocity the entire aft section bulged, peeling apart like the petals on a grotesque flower. Blue fire flared in spots and lines up its spine and the behemoth twisted in space, trying desperately to bring its gun to bear on the one who had crippled it.

Toya froze as she drifted upwards, staring down the gaping bore of a giant chase gun. There was no plasma glare from the depths of the monstrous gun. Toya's drifting form was either too small for the targeting systems to pick up on or the ship was too badly damaged to operate properly. She looked down, craning her neck to look below her. The two Stalkers were mopping up the remnants of the Traal fighter detachment, taking them apart bit by bit.

She squinted down at their dancing forms, trying to discern their shape. She couldn't quite make it out, but she was certain one was badly damaged, a gaping wound torn down its flank. Something was streaming from it, the droplets glittering like diamonds in the light of battle. She looked over to where the Knight was drifting listlessly, its life venting from multiple wounds. One of the Traal corvettes had latched on to it, while the second continued to charge towards the stricken super dreadnought.

'Stalker Three to Hellcat, do you copy? Hellcat, are you still with us?' The voice was faint, almost worried and drowned in static and distance.

Exhausted and almost out of oxygen, Toya brought her hand up to her chest and numbly tore away a tag at her breast. Her HUD flashed to life, telling her that she had activated her distress beacon. Whether anyone could detect it through the electronic haze and expanding debris field, she did not know. Her gaze drifted once more to the Knight. The Traal corvette had inched even closer. They were going to board her, strip her bare and take any surviving crew for their own purposes.

Fire blossomed from the Knight's flank and the Traal corvette lurched, taking the remains of a full broadside at close quarters. The ship disintegrated as the HLRS Knight died in a blaze of glory. Toya grinned wide, tears running freely down her face once more. She groggily raised her left hand high above her head and flexed her fingers, pinching thumb and middle finger together in an ancient Korrlan warrior's salute.

Then she drifted into darkness, no longer able to hold her eyes open. She was out of oxygen and slowly freezing, drifting freely through a dead solar system, surrounded by her dead crewmates and what was left of the enemy. She was unconscious when the S.S.M.A Reaper drifted into view, sliding up alongside the super dreadnought like a shadow of sharp planes and sleek angles. It opened up with a full broadside, tearing into the stricken ship, finishing what Toya had started. Then the Reaper turned its attention to the remaining corvette. The Traal ship twisted, breaking off its course to run, but the Shadow Stalkers were already well within stabbing range.

The corvette's shields flared and it returned fire even as it turned to flee the incoming fury. The Reaper's shields rippled, a violet honeycomb hugging its sharp contours, taking everything the Traal ship could throw at it. The corvette's shields collapsed, and the Reaper's rail guns and missiles chewed through the chitinous hull. The corvette listed, explosions blossoming all down its flank as its magazines and fuel lines detonated. The Traal ship drifted towards the rocky planet below, the Reaper only breaking off its attack when gravity had taken a firm hold on the stricken vessel.

Toya groaned, cracking an eye open against the bright light that lanced into the room through an open window. She gingerly pulled herself into a half-sitting position, burying her shoulders in a mound of heavily starched pillows. Something dragged painfully at her arm and she scratched at it, then looked down at the thing in puzzlement. An IV was plugged into her left arm. She swiped away the oxygen mask that was pulled about her muzzle and looked around at the room she was in.

It was a small hospital room. A single blue leather chair sat in the corner beside the large window that overlooked the rolling emerald valleys that stretched to the horizon, disappearing in a haze of blue. She pulled the light sheet off, discarding it at the foot of the bed and stood up shakily, planting her bare feet on the cool, tiled floor. Everything was a harsh white and pale blue. A glass vase of bright red flowers dappled with yellow sat on top of the lone drawer set in the corner of the room, a black envelope leaning against it.

She shakily walked over, and tore the envelope open after studying the embossed silver dragon head emblazoned across the seal. Inside was a small data crystal and a single sheet of paper with just a few lines written on it;

_Hellcat, _

That was a damn fine show you put on. If you ever fancy a change of scenery and pace, you can contact us with this code through the Dark Channels on the CivNet:

SM/G3-1290-8971-5747-NSYST:M1

• S.S.M.A Reaper

Toya looked up and around. No one was in the room. There wasn't even a sign that anyone had come to see her, besides the flowers, and they could have been there since before she was brought in...

She then wondered who brought her in. She was definitely back on Korrla, that much she knew; the scents were familiar and the the Valleys of Dolchen outside her window a welcome sight. A hollowness then settled into the pit of her stomach, spreading out like a black mist. Toya groped for the bed and sat down. She was all alone. She rummaged for the control pad for the vid screen on the wall and tuned in to the news feed. A vid of the battle field dominated the feed, the reporter's bust being reduced to a square in the bottom left corner of the screen.

He was going on about an unprovoked attack, singing the praises of the Korrlan crew of the HRLS Knight and questioning the whereabouts and identity of the mystery support that had shown up. Her heart ached when the reporter who was apparently 'on site' at the scene of the attack put a number to the dead Korrlan crew.

''-It has taken the Korrlan Royal Black Navy the best part of three weeks to search the wreckage and surrounding debris field for the Knight's perished crew, and of the three hundred sailors aboard the Knight, only one that we know of survived-''

Toya numbly sank back into the pillows and sobbed as the reporter carried on.