Wednesday, September 12, 2288
Uncatalogued System
Beyond the Outer Rim Territories

Two small craft appeared suddenly in the darkness, so far from this nameless system's primary that it wasn't even the brightest star in the unfamiliar sky. Both were battered, battle-damaged, with carbon scoring from blaster hits tracking what had been colorful armor plating. As they coasted, bleeding off the last of the momentum from their jump out of hyperspace, one shuddered and suddenly heeled to port, one of the two pods mounted on its back breaking away with a burst of brilliant sparks.

Miria Sterling growled and corrected her Valkyrie's roll, feeling the control system react sluggishly. She thumbed a key and jettisoned what remained of the fighter's FASTpack conformal armor, then set about trying to restart her engines. Her husband Max did likewise alongside. Not until they had their damaged vehicles under power again did they speak.

"Do you think we lost them?" Miria wondered.

"Well," said Max, but before he could say any more, his radar and Miria's both lit up with keening alarms, showing a flotilla of vessels dropping from hyperspace behind them.

"No," Max concluded, throttling up his Valkyrie.

"Damn," Miria said. "What is your weapon status?"

As he always did in such situations, Max smiled slightly, admiring his wife's cool professionalism.

"I've got a couple of Reapers and 400 rounds of cannon ammo," he said. "You?"

"My missiles are exhausted. I get no response from my cannon pod system. I do not think it is empty, but I am not sure it will work at all."

"Well, we're not going to be able to outfight them anyway," Max noted. "The only thing we can do is try to outfly them and hope we're in the right system."

"Agreed," Miria said, and then the two fell silent as they concentrated on flying.

They were able to stay ahead of their pursuers for several minutes, but the damage to their Valkyries and the loss of the FASTpacks' supplemental thrusters meant that they steadily lost ground.

Max peered ahead, straining to make out something, anything - but there was only the inky blackness of deep space. He looked at his radar, but it showed only the contacts approaching from behind. Ahead, the scope showed only emptiness.

"Miria... " He hesitated. "It doesn't look like they're here."

"So I see," Miria replied, her voice still icy calm. She looked at her radar scope, switched modes a couple of times, noted the closure rate of the enemy. They would be in range within moments.

"Maximilian?" she said.

"Yes?"

"We have had a long and happy life together," Miria said tenderly. "Longer and happier than most people ever have. If it is to end here, as long as you are by my side, I am content." Then her voice hardened into her familiar tone of determination - the one that, of all her many tones of voice, most consistently sent a thrill up Max's spine. "But I do not intend to go quietly, with my back to the enemy."

So saying, she pushed her Valkyrie into a split-S, reversing course and heading straight into the teeth of the on-charging enemy.

Max grinned.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," he said, and followed her.



On the bridge of the GENOM Victory-class Star Destroyer Relentless, Captain Thomas Edwards couldn't believe his eyes.

"They're turning around?" he blurted to his equally astonished exec. "They can't possibly mean to make an attack run."

"Even if they did, they'd never get through our fighter screen," Commander Katrice Malvey remarked. "They're outnumbered 200 to one." She pressed a key on her console. "Fighter groups, this is Relentless. Engage and destroy."

"Belay!" Edwards snapped. Then, a cold smile touching his thin lips, he said, "Ready the tractor beam. I want them brought aboard alive. Sterling's woman wants to go out fighting. It will satisfy me enormously to watch her die on her knees."

Malvey gave her commander a wary look - Edwards had a cruel streak that she, as a professional soldier, found distasteful, and his hatred for his former WDF colleagues was a thing disturbing and unnatural to behold - but obeyed the order, calling for the fighter groups to herd the two Valkyries into tractor range.

The two WDF pilots defended themselves with a skill and determination that were incredible to see. Even damaged and with weapons nearly depleted, they devastated the Relentless's fighter wings, making the GENOM pilots pay in blood (or boomer nutrient fluid, depending) for every inch of space they gave up. Still, they were so profoundly outnumbered that the ending was never really in doubt. They fought brilliantly, adding another chapter to the long legend of virtuoso aerospace combat that was the Sterling family history, but it seemed inevitable that that chapter would be the last.

"Eight-Ball Seven is within tractor range," Malvey reported.

"Ah, lovely Miria," Edwards hissed, then snapped in a more normal voice of command, "Bring her to me, Katrice."

Malvey reached for the control on her panel -

Suddenly, the darkness beyond the Relentless's forward viewports seemed to writhe, barely-discernible shapes appearing out of the void, invisible but for the fact that they were even darker than the emptiness behind them. The stars themselves seemed to vanish. Down in the work pit in front of the command and exec stations, sensor screens lit up. Proximity alarms screamed.

"New contacts!" one of the sensor officers cried, his voice laced with a shrill edge of panic. "My God, there must be thousands of them - "

"Identify!" Edwards barked.

"Interrogating IFF!" a commtech acknowledged. Then her face went absolutely blank with terror. She trembled, a full-body shudder, and sagged over her panel, emitting a low, horrible moan of utter hopelessness.

"It's the Kridanik Fleet," she whispered.

"What?!" Edwards said - and in that moment, the ships that had just jumped out of hyperspace switched on their running lights, and the darkness of space was suddenly filled with ten thousand ships - massive whale-like battleships, smaller-but-still-huge cruisers, sleek and deadly destroyers, all thermocoated a deep emerald green, all bristling with firepower. Any one of them would've been a match for Edwards's command. Together they represented enough power to reduce the surface of an entire M-class planet to glass.

From points on the prows of every ship in sight, streaks of light appeared, lancing through space, reaching for the Relentless.

"Breetai, you miserable bastard!" Edwards roared. "You're supposed to be dead!"

The streaks of light converged, their brilliant blue-white glow filling the bridge... and then there was nothing.

Max and Miria let their fighters drift, blinking furiously to clear the afterimage of the Relentless's annihilation from their vision, as the warships' smaller guns picked off the remaining fighters around them with a casual, almost contemptuous ease.

For a moment there was silence; then the comm speakers aboard the two Valkyries crackled and a familiar booming voice somberly announced,

"Miria Fallyna Sterling. Maximilian Sterling. You're safe now. Welcome home."



The two pilots stood on a catwalk, shoulder-high to the full-size Zentraedi manning the bridge of Breetai's flagship, and watched the fleet maneuver on the huge holographic tactical map being projected at the front of the enormous room.

"I haven't seen a complete Zentraedi battle fleet all in once place since... when? Operation Threshold?" Max mused. "It's just as impressive as I remembered."

Admiral Breetai Kridanik folded his massive arms and grunted. "You nearly didn't get to see it this time. It took us a full day too long to assemble thanks to maintenance and repair problems. Nearly half of our Micron repair crewmen turned out to be boomer infiltrators. I lost more than 400 ships to self-destruct sabotage before the security staffs could get things under control." Breetai's normally grim face became even grimmer. "I've received spotty reports indicating that the situation may be even worse in the WDF's other long-range commands. Righteous Indignation got out half a distress call and then vanished after the SDF-17 went down. Enterprise and Delphinus haven't been heard from at all. The whole scouting and communications network has gone down." He clenched one huge fist. "I should have listened to Exedore. He tried to warn me that this would happen one day. Largo planned this entire operation perfectly. Magnificently. I would admire him if every fiber of my being didn't yearn to crush him under my heel."

"Then why not do it?" Miria raged. "Take your fleet to Niogi. Even his full power cannot stand against this armada, and his subterfuge will not save him against the full fury of a Zentraedi battle fleet in search of revenge!" She banged a fist down on the catwalk safety railing. "Return me to my normal size and issue me a Queadluun-Rau, and I will personally bring you his head!"

"You don't know how your promise tempts me, Miria Fallyna," Breetai replied. "But it cannot be. I have other orders - orders that even my own longing for vengeance, which you know well from days long past, cannot be allowed to override."

"Who gives you orders?" Miria demanded. "MegaZone has abandoned everything he ever stood for. Gryphon has taken leave of his senses and turned fugitive in the face of allegations so preposterous a battlepod commander would not accept them at face value. Lord Fahrvergnügen is dead. All is madness!" Her anger suddenly burning out, she slumped, hands gripping the rail, head bowed, and whispered, "It is over. All is in ruins." Stepping up behind her, Max put his hands on her shoulders, trying to offer what comfort he could - though privately, he agreed.

"My body and spirit were both gravely wounded, I admit," came another resounding voice from the back of the room, "but the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Miria straightened with a gasp and whirled to see Max staring in disbelief. Standing at the back of the bridge, having just entered, was Wolfgang Amadeus von Fahrvergnügen himself - dressed in his gold-chased, fur-trimmed black armor - 50 feet tall!

"Chin up, Miria Fallyna," he boomed, smiling broadly, as he strode up next to Breetai and put his hand on the Zentraedi warlord's shoulder. "We're bloodied and staggering, I admit, but we're not down yet. Largo's treachery has set in motion certain things that must be allowed to play themselves out. In the meantime, the rest of us have work to do. A great deal of work."

Max blinked. "You mean... "

Von Fahrvergnügen beamed. "The Wedge Defense Force's struggle against the Ultimate Evil is not over, Maximilian. In fact, you could say it's only just begun in earnest! The second phase is upon us, and we must make ready for the third. Are the two of you up for it?"

Max and Miria looked at each other in disbelief, then turned and came to attention.

"Count on us," Max said, his jaw set.

"We shall not fail," Miria added, the gleam of her Zentraedi warrior spirit back in her emerald eyes.

Von Fahrvergnügen's beaming smile widened, if that was possible.

"Outstanding," he said. Then, turning to Breetai, he said, "Admiral, is your fleet prepared?"

Breetai scanned the tactical plot quickly, his vast experience and training enabling him to read the status of all his fleet's 10,000 vessels in an instant. "All vessels are in position, my lord," he reported. "Navigational systems are locked in. Motivator drives are ready."

"Then take us onward, Admiral Kridanik!" von Fahrvergnügen declared. "With your help we will yet snatch ultimate victory from the jaws of our very public defeat."

Breetai nodded. "Yes, my lord," he said. Then, raising his voice to address the bridge crew and the fleet all-call pickup, he ordered, "Attention all ships! Stand by to jump to hyperspace on my mark. Three... two... one... mark!"

As suddenly as they appeared, the ten thousand ships of the Kridanik Fleet leaped forward and were gone, leaving behind only a faint reverberation in the fabric of space.

Von Fahrvergnügen watched the stars on the forward display smear and explode into the ship's wake and smiled once more. Then, with a final nod to Breetai and the Sterlings, he turned and swept from the room - just as he always did, only on a larger scale.

Miria watched him go, blinked a couple of times to clear the surreal image from her mind's eye, and turned back to Breetai. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Beyond the galactic rim," Breetai replied. "To a place seen by mortal eyes only once before. A place so unknown we dare not attempt an outbound spacefold. The hyperspace journey will take us years. Probably decades." He smiled slightly. "The two of you had better make yourselves comfortable."

"What for?" Max asked. "I mean, why go so far into the Great Void? What could possibly be out there worth all that?"

Breetai folded his hands behind his back and watched the blue-white swirl of hyperspace filling his main display for a few moments.

Then he said, "Maximilian, are you familiar with the concept of a 'Dyson sphere'?"

Written by Benjamin D. Hutchins
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited