Savannah Maya

[Savannah]

It was getting dark. Savannah just stood there looking at the twilight sky. Stars began to appear, silently twinkling as their light passed through the atmosphere. Billions of years passed since they were born, but they still burned. Hour by hour, year by year, millenia after millenia they burned, never giving up to time. As her feelings did. Many years passed, but her feelings still burned.

Flash. Her memory returned to days 2 hundred years ago. It was so long ago yet so recently. Malta looked different. There were less grand spyres, skyscrappers, green gardens and cities in general, less wealth and more acid. But one thing was always the same. Stars in the night sky were always calling her. As a little girl, she used to watch the night sky, ever shining stars and wondered about distant worlds hidden there.

When she grew up, she graduated the Flight Academy. It was a great time. There was no war. Exploration and expansion was going full speed. Profits from cardamine smuggling into Liberty were giving large influx of money. Texas prisoners, slaves of countless factories, became volunteers, growing cardi for even more money and volunteers.

Flash. Cardamine transport escort. Her first space fight. Arrogant libertonians. Slow and heavy. Flash. Particle beams stabbing into their fighters. Flyboys. Maltese fields turned to be to hard forthem. Pity. Or not.

Flash. Candles. Tango. Escorts. Fire dances. Love. Life.

Outcasts prospered. Everything seemed within short reach. One more step and they would be able to hypertransport cardamine directly to Texas. Or even New York. First short jumps were already successful. Just one more step...

Flash. Kisses, see you tomorrow. Flash. Bright light, shimmering sphere. Another insystem jump test. Just a little farther, to the other side of the sun. Flash. Connection established. Thrusting out of the sphere. Everything as usual. Almost.

Instead of being connected to the destination gateship, the transition zone connected to a previously unknown jumphole. To the other side of it, creating a peculiar spacetime configuration. Though normal short jumps of that time didn'€™t manifest FTL travel, both inside the trasition zone and for an external observer; the resulting configuration, like all jumpholes do, facilitated superluminar travel as vieved by an outside observer, retaining time dilation inherent to hyperjumps of that era.

While Savannah'€™s ship travelled 172 standard years, it took only a few minutes inside the transition zone. The formed jump connection rendered the Omicron Eta jumphole temporarily inactive from the Alpha side for at least a century, after which it was surveyed and Omicron Eta discovered.

Nearly 2 hundred years! Everybody Savannah knew were dead. Everyone she loved was dead. Everything changed. Life changed. Malta changed. Terraformic efforts and uncountable credits turned the planet into another world. Outcasts expanded their influence, cemented it with new bases and alliances. And wars. Yet there was nothing left for her to fight for. Nothing but her big home. Malta.

Flash. Military Academy. New studies. New ships. New drills. New life. Same feelings.

Flash. Three more stars suddenly appeared on the sky. Only they were not stars. Savannah snapped from her reverie. Even from such distance she could see distinct ugly outlines of Legate class dreadnoughts. Immediately the air was filled with weils of sirens. Scramble!

Rumors about cloaking devices were already spreading in the navy. It seemed cannibals layed their hands on some of them. It was time to cut these hands off. She was in her bomber in seconds. And then it started. Brilliant arrows of particle beams, falling stars of mass driver projectiles, smoking trails of missiles. Planetary cannons and missile launchers were already answering, thunder of explosions echoed from hangar walls.

The vessel ready to flight already, quick systems check and Savannah launched into space, spiralling up at the steep angle. The planetary bombardment already ceased as Alpha capital patrol and the Ghost squadron engaged enemy ships. Tactical screen showed her designation '€œTango-1'€. The metal tango, her fire dance, she shot a torpedo at her appointed target.

Soon it was over. Only not all. Although damage on the planet surface was minimal because all corsair missiles were intercepted, the breach of Palermo and Siracusa defenses was alarming at least. Shorty after the attack the decision was made. Although jumphole control wasn'€™t yet feasible in general, examinations of the data on the jump allowed to replicate conditions to sever, at least temporarily, the direct connection between Omicron Alpha and Eta systems. The jumphole was shut down from the Omicron Alpha side, securing the Outcast homeworld from the increased Corsair threat from Omicron Eta.

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