Nessah was sitting in her chair waiting for news about Reya’s surgery when a blaring alarm went off in her office. Not two seconds later, Sytha forwarded emergency reports directly to her desk. The General didn’t need to read them to know what they were about.
An enemy army had appeared on their doorstep.
She silenced the harsh alarm and immediately took stock of the situation. Her eyes skimmed the reports in record time, and she sent out orders to her troops to prepare for combat. Her first thought had been that the gru’ul had finally mobilized against them, but to her surprise, images showed foreign ships belonging to the Rukkan rather than the gru’ul.
Sytha called Nessah using an emergency line. “General,” came the secretary’s voice when the call was accepted, “we have been hailed directly using official military channels by the Rukkan. Shall I patch them through?”
Nessah straightened herself. “Yes,” she ordered. “We are owed an explanation as to why they brought an armada to our home.”
Sytha’s image was quickly replaced by that of a strange woman, dressed exactly as Annkor had been upon arrival. “General of the Sunalii,” the stranger said, “I am High Diplomat Annase of the Rukkan. We demand an explanation.”
Nessah didn’t need for her guest to invoke the same code Annkor had, for the size of the army lent immense credibility to her status’ claim. “I believe that is our question,” she said. “Why have you brought such a large force directly to Verilia without authorization?” she asked, her voice holding a dangerous edge.
“Silence, heathen!” Annase spat. “We are the ones asking questions.” Nessah raised a brow as she prepared to order to engage in combat. “What have you done with High Diplomat Annkor? We have received an emergency beacon from him coming from your planet. We know he is here.”
Nessah knew there was no point in denying the accusation. Annkor had managed to contact Miarre, and Nessah had no doubt he’d been able to contact his home planet as well. “You mean the blubbering fool who threatened war between our factions repeatedly?”
“If you do not present him to us unharmed, then the war he threatened will definitively occur,” Annase threatened. “Our High Diplomats are law when it comes to dealing with outsiders. To capture one constitutes a direct attack against the Rukkan. As General, you knew this already. You have already declared war with your actions.”
“My actions,” Nessah stressed, “were an appropriate response to the accusations and threats thrown at us by a foreign nation.” She narrowed her eyes. “Given your faction’s bloodthirsty diplomacy policies, I presume that nothing I say here will change your mind about attacking us. Consider this your only warning. You have five minutes to turn around and leave the system before we kill you all.”
“You unsightly Sunalii dare threaten us?” Annase screeched. “Of course, violence is the only action you brutes would think to take. You blew up a peaceful diplomatic envoy and blame us for it.”
“Your envoy was far from peaceful,” Nessah quipped. “Shall I present to you the transcripts of what was said?”
“Yes,” Annase replied. “And you will do so while you bring us High Diplomat Annkor, lest you incur our wrath.”
Nessah smiled internally. “What wrath? Your ships are vastly inferior to ours.”
“You are missing half your fleet,” Annase challenged. “Is now really the time to handle an attack?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Nessah shrugged. “Is there anything else you’re here for?”
“We demand that you relinquish to us any of your findings regarding that awful chemical you have created. Such a thing must not be allowed to exist.”
“We played no part in the creation of that chemical,” Nessah said calmly. “As was explained to your counterpart, we discovered it in a gru’ul research facility.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Annase said. “But soon we will know the truth.”
Alarm bells went off in Nessah’s head. “What have you done?” she asked.
Annase smiled. “Gru’ul technology is something we can’t afford to allow you Sunalii to hoard for yourselves. You will only find ways to adapt it for war. It is better off in our nurturing faction, where we can use it for the greater good.”
“You intend to capture the facility,” Nessah accused.
“Correct,” Annase said. “The battle will begin any moment now.”
Nessah wasted no time and pushed the button that would signal her troops to attack. “We Sunalii view these transgressions as acts of war,” she declared. “We do not tolerate attacks against our faction.”
“You already declared war when you captured High Diplomat Annkor and then refused to give him to us,” Annase fumed. “Bring him to us, or we will destroy everything you love.” She cut the connection and Nessah found herself alone in her office.
Immediately, the General drafted orders and sent them to her highest-ranking officers. Monitors winked into existence around her, ready to display real-time data from the fight. She would direct the battle from her office.
The screens displayed the Rukkan ships getting into combat formation near the outer reaches of their solar system. Before they could react, Sunalii ships appeared before them, appearing out of nowhere thanks to the engine upgrades. Nessah was glad to see that the response time was so rapid.
The Rukkan would make a good test run for their newest upgrades.
General Nessah lamented the inevitable loss that would occur from the battle, knowing full-well that they needed everything advantage they could get for the coming war with the gru’ul.
System scans displayed for Nessah the amount of enemy ships there were as well as their nature and positions. She watched impassively as their new weapons carved paths of destruction through the Rukkan ships, leaving soundless explosions in their wake. The nearby enemy ships that survived the attack were immediately ripped to shreds by the incoming shrapnel.
Nessah decided not to deploy the flagship, opting to keep it close by should the enemy ships manage to approach Verilia. Judging by the way the battle was going, she doubted it would’ve needed to be mobilized anyway.
She took a moment to send news to Cyrix, warning him of the imminent battle his troops were about to fight. Likewise, Nessah informed the Tribunal about their devolving relations with the Rukkan. She knew the Elders wouldn’t tolerate such blatant threats in light of the current situation.
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Messages sent, General Nessah focused her attention back onto the battle. The enemy finally got their act together and commenced their counterattack. Nessah ordered all ships to retreat to a safe distance. Satisfaction ran through her when she saw her soldiers disappear from the line of fire, only to return moments later and resume attacking.
Her pleasant mood was soured when she received casualty reports. Infrequent though they were, Nessah knew that there were people behind those numbers and that she’d sent them directly to their deaths. It was a feeling that never got better during her numerous years as the army’s General.
Her satisfaction turned grim. She looked forward to the post-battle reports. Her ships’ new shields shouldn’t have failed against such a weak enemy. Any problems with the new equipment needed to be dealt with swiftly.
Time passed until at last, most of the enemy fleet was destroyed. The remaining ships fled to gods knows where, leaving only their flagship behind, crippled from a stray attack and unable to leave. She was hailed once again by Annase. Nessah accepted the call and found herself face with a very shaken enemy leader.
“You brutes!” Annase said, holding back a stutter. “Do the lives of your fellow a’vaare mean so little to you that you would indiscriminately kill us in such an awful fashion?”
Nessah cocked a brow. “You told us you’d destroy everything we loved. You’re a fool if you thought we wouldn’t take that threat seriously.”
“How did you do it?” Annase asked. “We’ve upgraded our fleet and should’ve been able to surpass you!”
“We’ve also upgraded our fleet,” Nessah sneered. “This could have been avoided. You decided to make such needless death a reality. Have you anything to say for yourself?”
“Mercy,” Annase pleaded. She knew full well that her remaining troops’ lives were subject to the whims of Nessah. “Help us repair our ship and we will leave you alone.”
“No,” Nessah said coldly.
She gave the order and watched the subsequent fireworks display with a cold anger.
Jyn and the others were settling into their positions on the bridge when they received an emergency alert. “Tassie,” Jyn barked over the blaring, “status report!” He didn’t have to wait long before Tassie shut down the alarm and answered.
“Enemies!” Tassie said. “It’s an alert from the flagship. We’re under siege.” Her eyes scanned the missive that arrived once she’d shut down the alarm. “The Rukkan have arrived and they’re attacking the flagship,” she relayed quickly. “Commander Cyrix has declared every foreign ship as a hostile, to be killed on sight.”
Jyn frowned. “How did the Rukkan discover our location?” he asked. All he received was shrugs in response. “Tassie, Beor, prep the main weapons for battle,” he ordered. “Rann, fetch us all equipment more powerful than pistols. Eimir, alert Kell in the med bay and then help Rann.”
The team split, each one of them following commands to the letter without wasting time.
Adrian was in the med bay with Kell, Irric, and Ava when the news came. “What can I do to help?” Adrian asked nervously. He didn’t like the idea of remaining idle when Reya was in such a precarious state. His hand instinctively reached for hers and tightened its grip.
“Nothing,” Kell responded. “This isn’t your fight. Either we’ll make it out alive or we’ll die trying. If we want to help Reya, we need to bring her back to Verilia where she can recover without risk of further injury. The med bay has everything we need, but we can’t remain in an active war zone. It’s too dangerous. I’m going to the bridge to help with the weapons.” He handed Adrian a comm. “Ping me if anything happens. We’ll be in the clear once we enter hyperspace.” Kell made a hasty exit so that he could assume his battle position and left the three others in the med bay.
Back in the bridge, Tassie prepped the ship to take off. The entire facility was being evacuated in case the fight came to them. With only one exit, the hangar would make for an easy target. Its destruction would trap them all inside without a way out. After receiving the all-clear, she took off and brought the ship out of the hangar.
She cleared the exit and started moving forward when alarms blared once again. She barely had the time to activate their shields when a bolt of energy ricocheted off them and struck the mountain behind them, barely missing the hangar entrance.
Tassie didn’t need to wait for Jyn’s orders to push the ship into full gear to get away from their attackers. The ship lurched forward, and Jyn gave the orders to Beor and Kell to shoot down their attackers.
“Those aren’t Rukkan ships!” Beor shouted when a visual feed showed him a clear image of their pursuers. “Unless the Rukkan drastically changed their military, we’re being hunted by somebody else.”
“Tassie, what are their signatures?” Jyn asked from his command chair. “Beor, Kell, fire at will if you have a clear shot.”
Tassie scanned their surroundings and frowned at the readings. “The readings match those of a gru’ul ship. I recognize them from the last time we were here.”
Jyn’s mind raced furiously as he examined how best to proceed. “Our objective doesn’t change. We need to escape. This isn’t our fight. Tassie, circle us around the planet away from the flagship. Hopefully, there will be less enemies there.”
Tassie nodded and a moment later the ship veered sharply to the left. A bolt of energy passed by them on the right, narrowly missing their shields. “Brace yourselves, I’m accelerating,” she shouted. Splitting her attention between the scans and navigating, she relayed that there were eight ships in pursuit.
Jyn brought up another weapons system he could control from his command chair and joined the others in their attempt to shoot down the gru’ul. Rann also joined and soon it became a matter of whose shields would give out first.
Tassie did her best to avoid incoming attacks while a coordinated effort between the other four managed to down three of the enemy ships. Still, the distance between them and the enemies grew with every passing second. A sense of relief flooded her for a brief moment, only to be doused when another alarm went off. There were enemy ships ahead of them and they were heading directly towards them. “The Rukkan have arrived!” Tassie shouted. “Jyn, Eimir, focus your attention in front of us to deter them.”
Relying on Tassie’s judgement call, Jyn and Eimir turned their weapons around and fired off warning shots to the squadron ahead of them, hitting two ships in the process and downing them. The Rukkan returned fire, only for their shots to ricochet off their shields harmlessly. In a stroke of luck, one hit an already weakened gru’ul ship that was flanking them and destroyed it.
Tassie maneuvered the ship sharply to the right and let the Rukkan and gru’ul fight amongst themselves. Their respite didn’t last long, as the gru’ul made short work of the Rukkan ships. Tassie’s sensors detected that they were all destroyed and that the gru’ul were pursuing them again. She drove the ship higher, hoping to break out of the atmosphere before the gru’ul caught up.
After exiting the atmosphere, Tassie’s next order of business was to find a position to enter hyperspace from that would bring them safely back to Verilia. She took a moment to scan their surroundings to see how the rest of the military was handling the two-front attack.
Debris from destroyed ships littered the space surrounding the flagship, which had sustained some damage from a concerted attack from the gru’ul. To her surprise, a large contingent of gru’ul ships broke away from the fight and made straight towards the planet. Realizing no one would stop them, she sent an emergency broadcast to her allies on the surface, warning them of the incoming attack.
Another alarm blared, warning the team that there was an attack incoming. Tassie tracked the barrage that would surely destroy them and turned her ship into position. She pushed the ship into hyperspace right before the barrage arrived, narrowly avoiding being blown up.
Successfully having escaped, everybody on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief.
All that was left was to wait out the trip back to Verilia. It would only be two days long, but for Adrian it was an eternity. He waited patiently in the med bay, never leaving Reya’s side while Kell and Ava monitored her vitals.
Finally, two days later, the ship pulled out of hyperspace, Verilia in sight. Tassie carefully brought the ship closer to the planet, wondering why there was so much military activity. They were even escorted by a contingent towards an authorized entry lane after confirming their authorization to land.
Hours later, Tassie gingerly brought the ship to land at the safe house. Reya would be staying in the med bay for the time being, until she was fully stable.
Relief flooded Adrian when the announcement came. He pulled up closer to Reya. “We made it home,” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “Now, it’s all up to you.” He grabbed her hand in a tender grasp and used the other to dab his eyes dry.
A weak squeeze in return startled him, and he immediately looked back at Reya. She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Adrian, by her side. Just as he’d promised. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?” Reya said softly.
Adrian couldn’t hold back his tears any longer. His love was safe. She’d come back to him. That was all he could ever ask for.
