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A blinding flash of light. Piere blinked to clear his vision as he came screaming through the atmospheric barrier of New London. All around him bright flashes illuminated the night sky. Far, far, below glittered a sea of yellow lights on the planet surface below. He had no time to dwell on it; another - darker, redder, explosion blinded his vision again. A bomber had exploded in the mass of ships in front of him, hit by stray anti-aircraft gunfire no doubt.

Instinctively he rolled his Lynx through its own axis as the comm-system crackled to life. The order to go. With one last deep breath, Lassale pushed the throttle forward and dove his Lynx into the fracas below. Dive dive dive. He raced downward, cruise engines idling as the momentum of their initial burst carried him hurtling deeper into the atmospheric battle beneath him.

The rest was chaos. Fleeting moments that, now, he could barely piece together. He remembered watching the Sironoco burn. They had swarmed in like fireflies around a lamp, drawn to the fiery beams of the warwolf weapons. He remembered the ungodly beauty of that moment, as the light flickered into darkness and the flames engulfed her; the eerie warm glow of the nuclear fire that scorched the planet beneath them.

An endless series of ships, it must have been thousands of them, had swirled in a deadly dance above the planet. No grave or memorial for the fallen of this fight, but merely a bright light in the darkness, and a fiery end in the atmosphere below. It had not taken long for any pretence at order to fall away; locked in the all or nothing fight for their very existance, his wingmen had been blown to pieces or carried away in the swirling chaos of the battle.

Wherever he turned his ship, there seemed another enemy ready to meet his guns. Over and over he had dived into the fray, and over and over they had come again. The Bretonians throw themselves at our ships, an endless wave of men - a wretched mass of hatred, scaring us deeply each time our Triumph fell. With each falling ship we could see our victory slipping away, and our righteous anger turned to sorrow. But there was no time for it; it was like a dream he could not quite wake from.

The young soldier, if any soldier that served on New London could still be called young, returned slowly from his reverie. He stared down as his right hand, the sorched, twisted, skin would serve as an eternal reminder of that fateful day. His scarred skin felt hot against the cold metal of the workstation in front of him; for a second he was back in that moment as a nova torpedo, fired by a Gallian no less, had torn through his cockpit. Fire and ice all at once as the explosion washed over him - but somehow, by some miracle, he had lived. Battered as she was, his Lynx had carried him through - that, more than anything, the former bomber pilot would not forget; he had dived into that atmospheric hell in that ship, and hours later she had carried him safely back to the deck of the Dax.

Shaking himself back from the bitter nightmare, he rolled out the tension in his shoulders. Skimming the text on the screen in front of him one last time, he shurgged and hit Send. Report submitted, he went to find a corner to sleep in; before he even had the chance to relish the idea, the klaxons sounded once more. The Dax was due to begin her withdrawal, no doubt the Bretonians were here to stop them.

He was already running toward the Hangarbay.



Maitre Principal Piere Lasalle sat in total silence. His head was leant heavily against the cold steel bulkhead of the Auxilliary Bay. He lay half sprawled, half sitting, on a pile of spent canvas carrying bags from some ammunition or other. He didn't know. He didn't care.

Around him, or far away - he wasn't sure - there was what seemed like the faint and distant clatter of the hangar-bay. Some unfamiliar klaxon howled its incessant protest, and someone was shouting something, but it was all lost to him now. He stared blindly down at the pad in his hands, eyes dropping with exhaustion; it was still playing the Colony News on loop, each repeat burning the horrific image of Leeds into his mind deeper still.

He was so very tired, hardly able to remember the last time he slept; let alone in a good bed. It seemed now so infinitely long ago that hopeful day in Provence, before he had been transferred to the Bretonian front. Once he had been so excited for that chance to serve, to fight the kings enemies. It all seemed a blur, but he knew the numbers - they replayed for him like some terrible bad joke; for thirteen hours they had been in non-stop combat; and even now in the relative peace of the battered Dax, hiding in a cloud in Leeds, he felt far from home.

A tear ran down his cheek as the events of the last week flashed back in his mind. Five hundred torpedoes expended in just a few short days, destruction on a scale he could not have imagined it. The sight of proud triumphs falling from the sky, the rain hissing on super-heated steel, the unholy beauty of the nuclear fire burning the planet below... these were not sights he would soon forget.

Something had changed in those skies. He had climbed into the cockpit of his Lynx aboard the Dax still full of hope, or perhaps still believing; but in the moment that those wings dived into New London's atmosphere, something forever changed. Somehow, by some miracle, he had been carried through in one piece. Through every fiery explosion and bitter heartbreak, his Lynx had carried him through - and hours later, battered and burned, had returned him to the Dax in time to begin the long retreat.

At last, he thought of his sister, and cried bitter tears. Blind to the world he took little heed of the misery around him, barely lifting his head to the loud crack of a firearm somewhere in the bay, as yet another took their life into their own hands rather than face the bitter reality of defeat, and the long march home.






"Coreolis, lead flight is Y minus zero-point-nine, three seconds out... final approach locked."

"Confirme Monsieur, welcome 'ome. Nav-lock is confirmed." The reply was monotone, given for the thousands time to the thousandth wing of fighters returning home, but it was a welcome sound nonetheless. If the fighting around New Londonhad been forever engraved in their memories, it now seemed as if from another time long ago - for thirteen hours they had been on constant alert, responding time and time again to fierce attacks from the Bretonians. They could smell the blood of the wounded Dax, smell the fear of the defeated royal army, and they were coming with all the fury and hatred that New London and Leeds had endowed them with.

It seemed, now that the Gallian Lion was wounded every manner of predator was emerging from the long grass, come to claim their share of the carrion. Gaians, Order, Bounty Hunters, mercenaries, pirates and rebels alike; all had come crawling forth from their hidey-holes and biting at our heels. The battles around Leeds had been many and bloody, though in Lasalle's mind it seemed nothing would ever compare to the scale of the final wave that had marked Gallia's high tide. This time he had not been so lucky; a dozen bombers and fighters alike had been turned into orbital scrap, but time and time again, he had been carried through it, somehow. He felt himself almost cursed to live, no matter how bitter their defeats.

"Docking Clamps Engaged. Releasing Seal." The mechanical voice of his on-board computer was hardly needed to know that he had touched down, the thunderous shudder and accompanying crash was notice enough. There was a distinctive click and hiss as the cupola of his X class bomber slid back, letting the air of the hangar rush in. There was a familiar acrid smell in the air, the distinctive mix of fuel and oil, all mixed in the recycled air from a system struggling to keep up. He breathed it in deeply, resisting the urge to sleep where he sat. Foul as it was, the airtasted nearly as good as the pure spring breezes of his homeworld. Nearly, but it was a welcome thing nonetheless. "All systems confirm docking station. Hangar vessel identification: RNS-Coreolis, Ty-" Lasalle thumbed the off switch; the computerised voice lapsed into immediate silence. A few moments later the humm of the engines faded away. Patting the top of the console absent-mindedly, he heaved himself from the cockpit down onto the deck a meter or so below.

The next few hours passed in a blur. Nothing seemed entirely real as Lasalle stumbled half asleep around the ship. Somehow he found his way to the ship's mess; no gallic feast or portrait of plenty here, but right now these ration bars were god's own food. Sleepless days without food had taken their toll. He vaguely remembered some dark murmur in the mess as men talked amongst themselves in hushed tones, but he had neither the mind nor the energy to pay them any real heed. Eventually he found himself, tucked away in the corner of a cargo bay, a pile to sleep on. A few hours of sleep can do wonders for a man, he thought dryly to himself as he crashed into an oblivion of sleep.

Piere woke slowly. Little by little his consciousness heaved forth of the black oblivion of a deep, dreamless, sleep. He did not move at first. Eyes still closed, he just lay there. His body ached all over from... he couldn't even count the reasons anymore. Almost daring himself to move he gave off a deep grunt as he sat upright. A jolt of pain burned through the right side of his body, up his arm and side, across his chest. Taking a deep breath to brace against the pain, he carefully unzipped his flightsuit to reveal the wounds below; horrific, gnarled, skin and flesh, greeted his gaze. A cacophony of sweat and copper wafted over him, but despite the visual, the wounds did not smell.

"Not dead yet." He chuckled at that, and another bolt of searing pain flashed through him. Doubled over in pain, he reached for his field-med-kit, busying himself with tending to his plasma-burns as best he could. Inflicted by one of our own - the bitter thought battled for supremacy with his mind, rising to the surface again and again. Pushing the bitterness deep down, he began to dress his wounds, applying the salve and bandages as best he knew how. Far more had suffered far worse in the past days than a close call with a torpedo. The words became a mantra - he had seen far worse in recent days; he had seen Leeds.

The Colony News Broadcast had been an unspeakable horror. Somehow seeing it in person had been worse. In a moment New London seemed a drop in the ocean; he had seen first-hand the cataclysm wrought on the surface of a planet. He could almost smell the burning ozone as he thought of those beams burning through the atmosphere - that is what they did, there was no piercing, they burned away all that lay beneath their gaze. There was a time he would have been struck by the beauty of it and time when his stomach would turn at the thought of it. Now, he was numb; he could not fathom the scale of the destruction, he could not escape the entropic chaos of the Gallian defeat.

Tearing himself away from the impending abyss, he looked up and surveyed his surroundings properly for the first time. There was nothing distinctive about the room - a fairly standard auxiliary cargo bay aboard a Support Vessel. Coreolis, as he remembered, serving as a support base for the rolling cover needed by the beleaguered Dax. Her age was showing, and the worn state of every surface gave away long years of active service in the war - panels scarred with deep droves, or dented and bent clearly in need of replacing but too low on the priority list to get done. Across the bay, twenty meters away, on a makeshift mattress near the door lay another man - a gunner crewman by his uniform - motionless asleep; as he had been hours before when Piere first arrived.

Glancing at his chronometer, Piere smiled wryly to himself - he envied the man his ability to sleep so well in these times; he himself had slept for just a few hours, and felt as though he could sleep a thousand more without complaint. Hauling himself to his feet he made his way slowly across the deck toward the door - there were no klaxons in this moment, so perhaps - perhaps he could find some real food before next he was called to jump in his cockpick and re-enter the mayhem.

Passing, he threw the sleeping soldier a glance - he really was unmovingly asleep; then the realisation hit him. He was not still, he was motionless; there was no rythmic movement of the chest, no twitching. Stooping to check for a pulse, or a sign of breath, he too quickly confirmed the man was dead - and the nearby bottle and empty pack of some medication he did not recognise were clear enough evidence of why.

Looking around with a clarity he had not before had he saw the hangar, not so long ago a haven of rest, in a new light. It was not a haven, it was the proverbial dark corner. Over by the bulkhead door a plasweave sheet pile barely concealed the small indistinct pile beneath it - the lifted lip of the sheet gave a sickening glimpse beneath the sheet to reveal the discarded bodies of men who had taken another road. Along the farthest wall, half concealed by an upturned barrel it seemed an officer had found his resting place - his uniform, but for the blood, was pristine, but his body was crumpled over. Facing whatever demon drove him to this bay, the officer had swallowed his own gun.

Lasalle sighed heavily, rocking back and collapsing onto his rear, lost in despair. He could not - The thought was interrupted by the sharp sound of a high-power sidearm discharging somewhere in the nearby sections of the ship. It seemed to hang in the air for a moment, echoing through the silent cargo bay. Before Piere even had time to process it, another shot - more distant this time, shattered the silence once more. Still more that take their own lives rather than face defeat and the long, bitter, retreat. He couldn't really blame them for it; even now his hand rested subconsciously on his own sidearm, contemplating one final defeat - one final surrender.

More gunfire. Not a single shot, but gunfire. He sat there, dazed, confused. Why gunfire. But it was gunfire, and it was coming closer. Instinct kicked in - he was on his feet, pain forgotten, before he realized he should stand. Hand resting on gun he proceeded toward the hangar bay door, listening intently. The gunfire was louder now - and there was more of it. The cargo bay door hissed open, startling the pilot; a half step back before he recovered himself. The corridor that stretched out in front of him was dimly lit, a great many of the lights were out, but there was light enough to see the outline of a man - clearly dead - splayed out against a wall. This was no suicide, that much was obvious; multiple laser burns scarred his body, and a deep bloody gash marked his chest and shoulders. The wounds were inches deep, still gurgling blood onto the grey steel floor beneath him. Warm blood, not long dead. He pressed on.

Turning another corner, slowly, hand still on his weapon, Lasalle proceeded along what seemed like the hundredth identical beige-grey corridor. He had found nobody yet, but the gunfire had died down now. From time to time a shot or two could be heard echoing through the ship, and a short while after the gunfire stopped an ominous shuddering had begun to rock through the ship intermittently. He had reached the end of the corridor; fumbling with the control panel he activated the release and the oversized double-bay doors slid slowly open.

The sight inside the room, what appeared to be the wrecked remains of a mess hall or communal room, was enough to give him pause. Tables and chairs were strewn haphazardly around, the center of the room had been cleared. The walls were pocked and scorched with burn and impact marks, and corpses were scattered everywhere. Whatever battle had happened here had claimed more than a dozen lives and left chaos in its wake.

The sharp clatter of metal on metal drew his gaze deeper into the room. Moving slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, he stepped into the room proper. The ceiling opened away above him, and in the dim light he could see that there was still life here - hunched over another man, seemingly rifling the dead's pockets, Piere could make out the distinct outline of a large, musclar man. Something must have alerted the would be grave robber; leaping to his feat he turned on Piere, weapon in hand. Standing, here was even larger than expected. Although clad in the uniform of the Marine Gaulois, he was disheveled and dirty, his rank and unit patches torn from his clothes. Before Piere could take in any more, the man snapped in a thick Burgundian accent, "'at ar' you doing 'ere? Whose side ar' you on...?"

The man gaze was angry, and the blaster was pointed directly at his chest. Trying to suppress his fear, he tried to stammer out a response - but he could not find his voice. He stammered wordlessly for a moment. "Je- mai -"

Crack. Crack crack.
Three shots, clear as day. Piere fully expected to collapse - but he did not; peering out from beneath closed eyelids he dared a peek. Crumpled on the floor in front of him, the crazed soldier was dead, three perfect holes in his torso. Just like that. Kicking aside a table, a familiar man in pilot's garb strode toward him, gun in hand.

"Raphael!" Piere blurted it out - it had been months since he had seen his former academy comrade in arms, and famed drinking partner. "What the hell is going on?"

The young man beamed back at Lasalle - both men enjoying a brief moment of welcome relief in impossible circumstances. "Come, we don't have much time." He was already moving, gently but firmly leading Piere toward another door on the far side of the bay.

"You didn't want to be on his side."

They had been hiding in this dark, dank, access tube for hours. It was cold, and the silence was deafening. Lasalle sat amongst the small group of men, each cramped against the next, breathelessly waiting - he wasn't even sure for what. The minutes ticked by and turned into hours, and then hours more. Somewhere in the dark he could hear a faint creak of someone stirring, but he could make out nothing in the blackness around him. A hand firmly grasped his arm, giving a gentle shake.

"Lasalle. Mon amis, its time." A whisper in the dark. The stirring around him got louder now, as the men around him began to pick theirselves up onto their feet. "Eh...voila." The words were accompanied by a grunt, followed immediately by blinding light as the access hatch was hauled aside, opening the crawlspace up the corridor.

Shielding his eyes against the light, Piere waited for his eyes to adjust. Outlined in the light around him he could see the dozen men of the group, hunched low with weapons in hand. They were a ragtag band wearing uniforms of pilots, logistics and even ground forces. Standing above them in the corridor, back-lit by the hall-lights, stood a still youthful looking man wearing the uniform of the Gallian ground forces. His face beamed with a boyish smile that took a decade of his age in an instant, and flashed the group a double thumbs-up. "Ze route is clear all the way to the for'ard module, camerades!"

"Bien. Lets move." Raphael, Piere's long time friend and seemingly de-facto leader of their ad-hoc group motioned toward the left of the corridor, scrambling up into the main hall and offering his hand to the next man. A few awkward, tense, minutes of clambering later, and they were finally ready to go. Moving quickly, and as quietly as a steel floor could permit, the group moved through deserted sections of the ship, crossing several bays and a myriad of corridors that, alone, would soon have irretrievably lost Piere in its maze. They made good time, despite having to stop from time to time to determine the next turn - amongst the gathered men, few had been stationed on the ship long, and those few that were proved invaluable. Within half an hour, they had cleared their way to the forward module and found the access elevator.

Clustered on the transport platform, the group took position as best they could. They could not know what awaited them on the upper levels of the command decks. The tension was palpable. Piere looked over to Raphael by the control panel. Their gaze met; Piere was surprised to see a confident, reassuring, look in his friends eyes. "Ok, mon amis, mes camerades," Raphael spoke the words carefully, clearly, as if trying to reassure himself as much as the group around him. "Whatever awaits, together we will prevail. Pour le roi."

Pour le roi.

The words repeated around him like a human echo.

The elevator cranked into life, metallic grinding and scrapping as it jerked upward into the shaft. The pressure mounted noticeably as the platform accelerated, rocketing upwards through the darkness. As the speed increased the grinding faded, replaced with a loud whirring noise as the gravity-drives did their work. As they sailed upwards, somewhere above them the faint murmur of voices could be heard - not the faint lilt of conversation, but the stacatto of shouted, angry, words.

Just as suddenly as they had accelerated, the upward arc began to slow. The markers along the walls, flashing past with each passing level, slowed and became readable. Above them the voices became clear.

"Monsieur you will die for your king!" A shouted, angry threat carried in a thick accent. Another voiced, just as determinedly full of hate roared its reply, "Then I will see you in 'ell."

Piere looked around him, the tall young soldier hissed the answer they all already knew: Consilards.
"Lasalle!"

Thump.

The words echoed somewhere in the far distance, but Piere could not hear them. Thud. Thud. Thump. Again the voice rang out, again he did not hear it.

Thump. Thud. Thud-thud-thud.

"Lasalle! ENOUGH!"

The impact of the charging guardsman sent the pilot flying across the room, and sailing straight back into reality. Crumpled against the wall, still wheezing from the mighty tackle that had knocked him off the Councilard he had been... brutalising. Piere looked over at the man he'd been knelt on top of; and a fountain of disgust welling up within his gut. There was virtually nothing left of the man's face or head, replaced with a mangled mass of broken bones and flesh. Innumerous, bearly identifiable, impact-marks covered his face, torso and arms, the gore-soaked sidearm Lasalle had used as a hammer discarded next to the corpse. The sight was sickening.

"Lasalle? What the 'ell was that, are you alright?"

Tearing his eyes away from the corpse, Lasalle looked up at the man standing ominously above him, weapon still in hand. He had a concerned look about him. Piere half-heartedly gesticulated, croaking his response out. "I'm ok, I'm ok mon amis. I'm ok." He repeated the words as if to convince himself.

Holstering his sidearm, the soldier - Henri as he remembered - knelt beside Piere. With a concerned look on his face, he gestured vaguely at Piere's chest. "You are wounded, monsieur?" Hestiating for moment, Piere did an internal review of sorts. He ached all over, and his burns stung as though stung by a thousand bees, but he could feel no new pains. He shook his head slowly, realizing as he did so that his hands and face were drenched in blood - his eyes stung from the gore dripping from his eyebrows. Disgusted, he reached to wipe his face clear, realizing that it was not his blood, but the blood of the dead concillard.

"Oui, oui. I'm fine." He gave the man kneeling over him the most reassuring smile he could muster. A last lingering look, and Henri nodded, rising to his feet and moving away across the deck to check on others. Piere looked around; it was horrific. At least a dozen bodies lay scattered around, and here and there clustered groups of two or three survivors - many of them wounded. At least, it seemed, they had won. Good.

He tried to heave himself to his feet. Searing pain tore through his burn-wounds. He nearly screamed out as he crashed back down onto his knees, panting. He just sat there for a few moments, fighting to stay conscious against waves of pain. Fighting through it breath by breath, he slowly opened his flightsuit, grunting in pain as the fabric moved against his skin. Almost daring himself to look and see, he checked the wounds on his chest and shoulder. The smell was foul, a dank waft of putrid decay rising up from burns slowly turning grey-green around the edges. Merde.

Grimacing in pain he fumbled with the combat aid-kit on his belt. As he peeled back the claps, it spilled open on the floor in front of him. Merde. He frantically tried to sort through the assortment, pain threatening to overwhelm him agian; there. Anti-biotics and painkillers; Bien. He quickly grabbed the injectors, and almost immediately the relief was palpable. Nonetheless he sat there for another thirty seconds, slowly breathing to calm the pain as the drug flooded through him. At long last he slowly gathered his medical kit, returned it to his belt and rose up onto his feet.

The rest of the group had started to gather. Most seemed unwounded, or only superficially so; but there were alot less of them now. Piere, for a heartbeats' tick, looked for his old friend Raphael. But it was coming back to him now. They had emerged from the elevator just as the chaos broke out; bright gunfire had blinded him for a moment, and as his vision returned the councillard had turned on them and fired. He remembered the sound of Raphael collapsing at his side, dead in an instant. And he remembered charging the bastard with knife in hand, gun forgotten. He glanced over at the brutalised corpse he had left behind; well, he knew how it had ended. He tried to close his mind to it, shaking his shoulders out as if to rid himself of the weight, and joined the remaining men already engaged in arranging the best possible funeral for their fallen comrades.


Lasalle blinked.

How long had he been kneeling at this intersection in the dark. The line between sleep and waking was blurring.

Lasalle blinked.

How long had he been - "Get a hold of yourself." He snapped the words out loud to himself, trying to will himself awake. A faint whistle in the darkness heralded the return of the scouts. Having sat in silence for so long, he had nearly forgotten the men in the corridor behind him, now making their presence known with a faint shuffling in the dark.

Henri and the scouts clustered around them, speaking in hushed tones. "Zere is no way around, we will 'ave to go through." Lasalle couldn't remember the young scouts name now, and his brain had turned to sludge; he was still trying to understand the meaning of the words when Henri grunted out the plan. "Bon. Then we go through, 'ard and fast", shifting to face the ragtag band of loyal men they had gathered with them he raised his voice, "once we go, vous must not stop. We must get to zose ships in the hangar, and get out of 'ere. Be brave, be bold... be merciless, mes amis!"

"Pour le Roi."

It echoed softly down the hall as the band made its way toward the hangar bays ahead. The darkness lifted slightly as they approached the bulkhead door - the emergency lighting grid was still operational in this area, it seemed. A sudden whine behind him, and then another - followed by a dozen more in rapid succession - nearly made him jump out of his skin. Dulled by tiredness it took him a second or two before the realization dawned on him - behind him the men were loading their weapons, ready for this last great effort. He quickly followed suit.

Metalic rasping and hydrolic squeals. The bulkhead-door was sliding open; and once more the halls echoed with the familiar cry. "POUR LE ROI!"

A blinding hail of gunfire answered their defiant shout. Piere could see nothing in the light of the bay, but they had to go forward. He was already running headlong into the light, firing blindly ahead of him. Somewhere ahead lay escape from this hell. Somewhere. He did not stop running; not when he heard the thud of someone falling behind him, not when his pistol fired its last shot and powered down. He just kept running.

In an instant he was stopped, the air smashed from his lungs as he caught his leg against an upturned strut sent him crashing face first into the hard metal deck. He gasped for air, fighting for oxygen as much as against the cloying blackness that closed in around his vision as searing pain tore through his burns. He wheezed, gasping, as he heaved himself over onto his back. Above him, blackened supra-alloys - in an instant it hit him, and he could not withhold a wheezing laugh as he realized he had made it - above him sat the unmistakable air-frame of a Lynx.

He was not safe yet. The others were not safe yet. Summoning his will he dragged himself arms first from beneath the fighter, heaving himself up to the cockpit with what, he felt, was a slothenly speed. He groaned and wheezed with each step, collapsing into the pilot's seat. Back where he belonged, Piere's instincts kicked in; engine checks were done in moments, and weapons charging. Glancing up out of the cupola he could see the glitter of laser fire through the thick haze of smoke.

Jerking the joystick into action he heaved the ship into the air, gravity drives whining into action - in an instant he was the center of attention. Too late. He fired everything; a haze of smoke and glittering lights became an inferno. The emergency light system failed as secondary explosions ripped through the far side of the hangar, blasting bulkheads apart. Around him Piere could hear the whine of other grav-drives coming to life, and more explosions tore through the bay. He fired; again and again. Around the entire bay metal was burning apart as volleys of ever more ships joined the furious assault. Voice crackling as the communications systems fought the electromagnetic interference of the massed firepower, Henri's confident, almost triumphant, voice barked the longed for words: "All of you! Go go go! Alonsi! Lets go!"

A dozen engines roared in near unison as they went hurtling toward the spectre of freedom: open space. "Alarm: proximity danger detected. Alarm: proximity -" Lasalle ignored the monotone drone of the on-board navigational computer. He knew all too well that there was another ship just meters from him as they pushed their engines right to the limit. Lasalle held his breath as he came tearing out of the hangar bay. Explosions rippled through the Coreolis behind him, sending broken debris sailing into space at unbelievable speed. A silent, unseen, light-show in the Leeds clouds was the only memorial the ship got as it tore itself apart with nuclear fire. Rolling his Lynx he avoided a torn chunk of bulkhead tearing toward him, and another.

Lasalle exhaled.

And everything went black.
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It was a bright, beautiful summer morning on Nevers. The cool ocean breeze blew lazily across the warm sand, and the water glittered like diamantine in the sunlight. Piere just lay there, soaking it in. He breathed deeply of the sweet scents of the island as they mixed with the soft salts of the oceans. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sounds of a summer garden party, and from the trees behind him came the rustle of leaves gently stirring in the wind, and the playful chirping of birds.

Resting in the sun, at peace Piere drifted in and out of a gentle, lazy, sleep. As the sun began its steady climb toward its apex, he wiled away the hours, enjoying the blissful warmth that seemed to emanate from his chest. Hours passed, and as the heat of the sun began to become almost too much to bear, his sleep became restless. Piere came around slowly, waking from dark dreams, to the blissful sound of his sister's voice. Singing a song of their childhood, she came wandering up the past from the summer house. With a beaming smile on her face, Elaine threw herself in the sand beside him. Her sweet voice tinged with concern, she enquired as to the dark expression on his face. Quickly replaced with a smile, he shrugged it off.


"Nothing, a bad dream is all."


Warning: Structural Integrity Compromised. Warning: Inertia Compensation System Offline. Warning: Thruster Assembly
Offline. Warning: Oxygen Supply Compromised. Warning: Navigational System Offline. Warning: Proximity Alert. Warning:
Proximity Alert. Warning: Proximity Alert.


It was not the warnings that brought him back to reality, but the crackling of his comm-system coming into life. As if from some great distance, he could hear the murmur of voices.

"Can anyone see him? Alpha-17 is clear, Henri, 'ow is A-18 looking?" Piere could hear the voice but did not recognize it over the sound of the ocean's waves. "I 'ave something!" That bird sounded strange, somehow, though Lasalle could not place it. "Oui, all ships, I've found him." Why was the bird talking? "Piere, can you 'ear me? Your ship is badly damaged, can you move? Piere?" He tried to turn over in his sleep, hoping the strange bird would go away. Pain tore through him and he awoke with a jolt. Gone was the dream of Nevers, replaced with the grim reality of his situation. A dozen alarms were sounding in his cockpit, and the nagging concern of the voice of the open frequency. "Piere? Piere? Lasalle, wake up dammit!"

He blinked a few times, the haze withdrawing from his mind. It was coming back to him know. Reaching down he thumbed the reply. "Oui, I'm 'ere. I..." He tried to gather his thoughts, waving his hand in front of his face in a futile effort to clear the smoke from his eyes. "What the 'ell happened?"

"Mon dieu, Piere, its good to 'ear your voice. You gave us a real fright there. I'll explain later, for now: can you get your ship operational? We really need to go, we're not alone in these clouds."

Lasalle did his best to check the status of his Lynx; the situation was not good. Half the systems were ruined or unresponsive, and worst of all his navigational array was returning nothing but error messages. "Henri, it doesn't look good, I will try manual recovery..." He trailed off, and hoping some greater being was still looking out for him, he held the engine restart, gently pushing the stick forward. To his amazement, the engine coughed, gurgled and then ticked into life. Immediately, another series of warning lights flashed up on his displays. Ignoring them, he pushed a little more, and the battered Lynx lurched forward and back into life. "It wont last long Henri, but she's talking to me. We will need somewhere to land, alonsi."
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Lasalle instinctly held his breath as the shadow of the triumph class destroyer passed above him, looming in the clouds like a spectre of death. He could almost feel the ships gaze on him as its scanners pierced the nebula, relentlessly searching. Her weapons were charged - he knew that all to well; not minutes ago they had fled from its batteries back into the eastern smog cloud. The crossing had gone well enough, but at the last moment this consillard - or rebel- he did not know, ship has sighted them and taken up the pursuit.

Little by little the shadow passed, the triumph slowly moving along a search pattern away from him. He waited what seemed like an eternity; the hulk of the ship had long since disappeared from his view in the clouds, but be dared not power up his systems lest they should spot him again. He might not escape a second time. Dying at the hands of rebels wasn't part of the plan.

He waited. And waited. Eventually, half an hour or so he estimated, he finally felt secure enough to take a look on scanners. He thumbed the power switch, and moments later the gentle hum of his engines kicked in as the screens in his cockpit flickered back to life. A dozen warning lights immediately came online, but his attention was on the scanners. [color=#1F618D]Clear, thank god's good grace. Now to find the others.

His hands raced across the console, tapping out a series of instructions for the communication relay. It would fire a series of broadband static bursts on a rarely used frequency, seemingly static to the untrained eye. There, go. The system beeped affirmation, and sent it. Moments later a series of static beeps returned to him, each carrying an embeded location signal. All at once several dozen dots appeared on his tactical sensors, as the ragtag fleet of survivor ships he had assembled in the last few days reported their positions. Another series of beeps confirmed that the vocal network had been established.

"Last known position?" Lassale had to fight the urge to whisper as he asked for the report. The answer came quickly, though he had not yet had time to learn the man's name. "Heading south, toward the Jumpgate in pursuit of an evacuation ship." Piere pondered the situation for a moment, gently bouncing his head off the cushioned, if worn, headrest of his Lynx. "Bien. Move into starting positions," he pushed the throttle forward, his Lynx immediately leaping forward, inching toward the edge of the nebula, "if we are going to be successful we must get on-board ze vessel before we are spotted."

Leaning forward, he looked out of his cockpit. All around him ships were closing in. It was a bizarre assortment of vessels. Caracals, Lynxes, Servals and Cougars were intermixed with civilian Eclipses, and Sunbeams, a pair of badly damaged Perilous' and even a handful of freighters of different types. A far call from the mighty Gallian fleet of old, but it would do. Ahead of them, beyond the edge of the nebula, he could just make out the form of their target: a seemingly abandoned Triumph Class Destroyer. It was listlessly drifting in space, keeled at an odd angle with shields and engines offline. And yet, for all the obvious failures the ship was experiencing, there was only limited damage visible externally. Piere hoped, prayed even, that it would provide their weary group with the shelter and safe haven they desperately needed.

"Remember, mon amis: 'ard and fast. The primary bay seems jammed open, so head for there." He kicked his Lynx into gear, the full power of his cruise engine rocketing him forward. "Aloonsiiiii." He came slicing out of the cloud ahead of the others, thin whisps of nebula and smog clinging to the shield-induced static of his hull. The distinctive whine of dozens of cruise engines around him let him know the others were following. Here we go again.

"300 meters. Danger: Navigation Lock Failed, Abort. 200 meters. Danger: Navigation Lock Failed, Abort. 100 meters. Danger -" Ignoring the robotic drone of the navigational system, Piere worked his ship like he was born in the cockpit. Engines flared and faded into silence and momentum carried him beneath the jammed bulkhead into the docking bay. 3-2-1, now. Engines roared back into life at full reverse, stopping the ship nearly dead in its tracks. Piere slammed forward in his seat harness, the burn wounds on his chest making him immediately regret it. Instinct saved him, as landing gear came sliding down and he brought the ship to rest on the bay floor with a shudder. He sat there fore a moment, blinding pain rolling over him. As the others began to arrive, ships slamming down around him, he donned his helmet, re-checked his flight suit for integrity, and opened the hatch.

Groups of soldiers were already spreading out around the bay, weapons drawn. Piere followed suit in reaching for his firearm as Henri and a few others came walking across the cold steel deck toward him. "Ah, Henri, get somebody to get the hangar bay door functional again, then-" Henri pointed across the deck toward a small group, clustered around an access hatch, cutting torches already at work. "Jaqueline is already working on it."

"Ah, bon. Then," he hesitated a moment, looking around the bay and getting his bearings, "-then you take a group down to main engineering. Rene, secure the rest of the flight decks. Alain, go find mission control and sweep the ship for survivors or holdouts." He gesticulated to emphasise each point, nodding at the end to indicate his satisfaction with the orders. "I will take the rest and go check out the bridge. Lets hope she'll fly. Alonsi." He looked around the bay to find men to come with him - the other leaders were already forming groups, calling names as they went. Piere waved the rest to him, taking an extra moment here and there to ensure the newest members of their little band were informed. Within a quarter of an hour they were ready; setting out first, Piere led his group up toward the bridge.

The corridors were deserted. The ship was as if asleep, not a single light or system remained online. Not even emergency lighting was functional. Even so, wherever they went, they could find no major damage. To the contrary, the hallways were pristine and everything in its place. Somehow, that made the absence of the crew even more disturbing. They pushed forward nonetheless until, at last, the looming bulkhead doors of the bridge appeared before them.

The squad stacked up around the bulkhead door, guns at the ready. Taking a deep breath, Piere gave the nod to the man standing at the console. A few seconds later an alarm sounded as the bridge opened up to them. Stepping out into the corridor, he was nearly knocked off his feet by the blast of air that came rushing out into the depressurized hallway. Bracing himself against it, Lasalle took aim, but the bridge was empty. "Clear." The weapons around him lowered, and they moved forward onto the bridge proper. "Search the forward module. Go."

Piere let the men spread out, taking to the task of clearing the bridge's various ancilliary rooms. He stood there for a few moments before noticing the ship's plague, attached to a nearby wall. Here, for the first time, he saw the signs of trouble: a series of small explosions and blaster impact marks had scarred the wall, leaving it blackened and scorched. Small tears, micro-fractures and impact craters pocked the surface. Whatever had happened here, it had been explosive, and contained. Reaching for the manual release, he let the secondary bulkhead door drop about half way - here, again, scorching, worse at the top than the seal. It must have closed as the explosion went off. The thought made him pause for a moment, resetting the bulkhead door, and turning to the bridge access doorway. Again, covered in sorching. Intermingled amongst the explosive marks were the telltale signs of massed laser fire. Defending the bridge, perhaps.

At last, his attention came back to the plague on the wall. Once it had no doubt shon in glittering bronze-gold, proudly displaying its heraldry. At the top he could still just about make up the royal emblem of Gallia, but beneath the plague war scorched and buckled. He laid his hand on it, gently feeling the groves and markings. Beneath his fingers, he could feel there was still something of the inscription left behind. He closed his eyes and focused, letting his fingers slip across the uneven surface. Napoleon. A good name. Below the name, much of the plague had melted in the intense heat of the explosion, but right at the bottom, scrawled across a faintly etched banner, a phrase that would stay with him for many years to come: "Vers l'inconnu." Words for the moment.

The sound of boots on the deck approaching him brought Piere back from his thoughts and into the moment. He turned to see Rene approaching him. Before Lasalle could speak, the former navigation called out: "Piere, there's something 'ere you should see. Its..." The officer trailed off, leading the way toward the captain's ready room. "Well, you'd best see for yourself." Rene thumbed the door control, and gestured inside. The room was something to see: almost decadently decorated, with fine quality heavy woodshelves storing a collection of ancient books and holopads alike. Around the room, comfortable upholster seating stood doted around, some heaved on their side by some impact or other. Clearly the captain had fine tastes. In the center of the room sat a desk of massive construction, behind which sat the captain. Or, at least, what was left of him. Slumped back in the grand chair was a man whose features marked him to be perhaps in his fifties. His face was weathered, with a stern look of a school-teacher about him, but the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth hinted at a jovial man. His uniform was neatly arranged, with nothing out of place, bar for the large burn hole above his heart. On the floor beside the former captain lay the means of his demise - a standard issue duty pistol on the max setting - and a datapad, screen still unlocked. Kneeling to pick the pad up, Lasalle read the document on the screen, what he presumed were the final words of this gallant officer of Gallia:

They must have had a way to communicate with the traiteurs. As soon as that Consildard ship fired on us, the revolt started. They barricaded the main engine room, left us dead in space with no power. They tried to storm the bridge, but they failed. I tried to set the self destruct sequence - I do not know how, but they must have disabled it somehow. That function only works on the bridge, so I must assume sooner or later someone up here will show their colours. In response, the damn consillards have taken everything off line: power, guns, shields, communications, and we are trapped in here. I don't know what is going on in the rest of the ship. I cannot hold the ship, so I will give the order to evacuate, and turn off the life support. Without life-support, rebels and loyalists will die. Holding the ship now would be of no use, better to deny it to the enemy. Hopefully a few of my men get out. Long live Gallia, long life Le Roi!

"At least we know what happened." Piere's heart was heavy reading the words. He looked up at Rene, but was created by a blank stare. Tossing the pad to his fellow officer, he repeated himself: "Now we know what happened. I hope most got out." Taking one more look around, he led the way back out to the bridge. "I doubt anyone is still alive. We need to get life support back online, and make sure nobody left us any nasty surprises. Then, engines, we need to get to safe ground as soon as possible."

He slumped into the captains chair. Resisting the urge to simply fall asleep where he was, he set to work trying to bypass the ships security systems. He had been gathering every command code he could - from every ship he encountered, and from every person that joined their rag tag group of survivors. Now he had to hope one of them would do something. It was not easy work; while others busied themselves around him, Piere became locked in a battle with the computer. Code after code was rejected, until at long last one of them allowed him access to the communications relay. Waving over a young engineer whose name he did not know, Piere kept working, indicating for the technician to isolate the system.
"Warning, Security Breach Detected." Finally. "Warning, Security Breach Detected." The monotone drone of the ships' security system blared on, and finally the command center came to life. Quickly re-entering the command code, Piere instructed the system to locate the captain. Moments later, the screen produced the information he already knew: the captain was dead. Now, for my next trick.... Piere chuckled inwardly as the system requested a new command level officer. Scanning his identity badge, he set the final command, entered a new access code and waited. In just a few moments, the klaxon ceased, and full power returned to the bridge. All across the room screens came to life. "Ah, there we go. Now we should find out everything we need to know."

"And I thought you were going to get us all killed there, Lasalle!" Henri's booming, jovial, voice called out from the bridge access corridor. Striding up the hall, he was beaming, accompanied my several men Piere could not place. "You won't believe what we found. I was going to call, but," the large infantryman gestured vaguely toward the klaxon's in the ceeiling, "you seemed to have your 'ands full." Half-turning, Henri indicated the men about him. "Survivors, Piere! About two-hundred in all, it seems they barricaded themselves in a secure cargo bay and jury rigged the life-support system. The traiteurs didn't know they were there! Ingenious!" The man's tone and face darked after a brief pause, his feelings as always written all over him: "But, they 'ave wounded. Alot of the men will need medical attention, and recovery from Oxygen deprivation," he hesitated again, "it is not pretty in there."

Piere nodded his greetings to the men. "Proper introductions will have to wait mes camerades, but the bridge is secure, take whoever you need Henri." He half-turned on himself, barking at nobody in particular. "Anyone with medical training, or any knowledge of engineering, get down to the cargo bays and main engineering. Get those people the help they need, and get this ship moving again. Go." He turned back to Henri, inquisitive look ready on his face: "Anything else?" The infantryman shook his head by way of response, before turning on his heel and heading off the bridge, followed by the bulk of the group.

Suddenly the bridge was quiet again, with just a few lonely souls going about systems checks and cataloguing damage. Lasalle sat himself down on the captains chair again. At last exhaustion had caught up with him. He would rest, just for a few moments. Slumping back into his chair, he immediately fell into a deep sleep.