“We should break warp in about three hours,” Ray informed me, “from there we should touch down and be powered off in twenty minutes.”
“Be careful, we don’t know what we might run into when we break warp, keep our signature masked until we know what we’re dealing with,”
“That’ll slow us down about an hour cap’,” Ray said.
“That’s fine, I want us to be as quiet as we can, no surprises. Hold down the fort Ray, Booker with me.”
David followed me off of the bridge and into the conference room. “What do you think we’re up against?” I asked.
“We don’t know much Alan, just rumors and news reports of the mad colonists. Alliance intel is little to none, we’re almost flying blind, we should be very careful.”
“Agreed, we should gather the team to prepare.” We called over Iora from engineering and our new head of security, Don Udina. Don was fresh out of the academy when we picked him up, graduated top of his class. We geared up and I got some rest. Ray woke me telling me we were descending into the atmosphere. I called the team over to the cargo hold. “Alright everyone, we don’t want to raise suspicions so we will be going on foot, the settlement is about 2 clicks to the East. We are posing as immigrants from a nearby town to the West called Hipro.” We all stepped onto the planet through the open bay door. Immediately we were bombarded by a volley of rancid smells. Smells of sulfur, industry and sewage. Giant clouds of smoke billowed from smokestacks of the factories in the nearby town. The planet was nearly void of all vegetation save a few dying scrubs. The ground was dry, dusty and was a dull gray color. In fact, the entire planet was colored in grayscale. The buildings, the sky and even the dying scrubs were a boring gray color. “God it stinks!” Iora exclaimed.
“Smells like the academy cooking,” Don said in his low, grizzly voice.
I pulled my coat up over my face, “Okay everyone, let’s move, the ship cannot provide support so don’t draw and unwanted attention,” We trekked across the barren wasteland into the town. The smell intensified, probably due to the close proximity to the monolithic abominations of factories that resided in the town. Something was wrong, no one was there. The town was completely deserted, no one, anywhere. Doors were left open and half eaten plates of food were still on tables. “Something is very wrong here,” Iora said. “I’ll scan for any traces of human or Tarin DNA,” While she was scanning the area, I had some time to look around. The place gave me the creeps. What could’ve happened here that caused everyone to leave so quickly? Iora’s scanner started beeping, “Got something!” she said excitedly. There’s a trail of human DNA stretching about ten kilos to the East.”
“No one is here, I say we have Ray drop us off there,” Don suggested.
“No, we don’t know whose trail that is, we’ll have him drop us off some bikes,” I said. “Ray, the town is deserted, but we found a trail of DNA leading East, we are going to need some bikes. You can power up and fly them here.” Ray brought the ship to the ghost town and dropped us off some motorbikes. What a sight, the alliance’s newest, best ship landing in this pile of crap town.

The stench continued to persist even as we gained distance from the town. We were about half way along the trail when it suddenly veered off to the North. After that the trail started

The ground began to shake violently. “What the hell is going on?!” Don yelled. I called Ray on the comm., “Ray we need evac now! We found a survivor!”
“A little busy!” He replied as the Valiant shot past us with an alien fighter on it’s tail. “Get on the bikes!” Ray commanded, “I’ll open the cargo bay and take a low pass!” The quakes were getting worse, it was hard to stand. Ray spun the Valiant in a 180 to avoid hitting the cliff about 50 feet off the bow of the ship. The fighter that was tailing him couldn’t stop and slammed straight into the wall with a thunderous explosion. We got on the bikes and shot off straight toward the open bay door. As the ship picked us up and began to rise the bikes were thrown into the air by the force of the ascent with everyone still on them. As we landed I heard a sickening snap and a cry. “Ray get us out of here!” I commanded.
“Already on it!” He yelled. I turned to investigate the damage. The survivor had his broken leg pinned by a bike that had come down on top of him. “Get him to the med bay, quick. I’m going to the bridge.”

I arrived on the bridge just as we broke atmosphere. “What the hell just happened?” I asked and, for some reason, expecting that anyone knew more than I did. “No clue, all I know is that it was big and probably wanted to kill us.” Ray responded.
“We should scan the planet, find out what those quakes were all about… I’ve got a hunch, but I hope to God that I’m wrong.”

I went down to the med bay. The survivor was there with Iora, she must have carried him there, along with our new Tarin medical officer Rax. “How is he?” I asked.
“The break is pretty bad, I had to put him on anesthetic to set the bone, but he will be okay.” Rax replied. “Call me as soon as he wakes up, I need to know everything he does about what happened on that God forsaken place.” I left the med bay and sat down at a table just outside, hell of a day we were having.
*
*
*

“Scan’s almost done Cap’ you should get up here.” Ray informed me. I arrived on the bridge just as the scan was finishing. “Those quakes were of the charts! Over a nine on the richter scale. Alan, come see this,” I walked over to the console. The quakes were enormous, the scan registered the largest tremor at 11.5. The, I noticed a strange reading on another screen. “What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s just a low level energy reading, its probably from the factories,” Booker informed me. I wasn’t sure about that though. “Run an intensive scan on that reading, something seems off…” I said.
Booker turned from the console, “What do you think that might be?” he asked.
“I’m not sure but I want to figure out as much as we can from this.”
“Okay, I’ll get that going,” Booker said. Before I could even leave the bridge i heard ray let out a yell, I turned around to see a colossal ship rising from the planet; and the worst part, it was coming straight for us.

“Ray get us out now!” I yeled
“Where?!” he asked frantically.
“Anywhere!” I replied, ray turned the ship around and we shot off at maximum warp towards wherever the hell anywhere was.
“Captain…” Ray said. As soon as he said that my stomach dropped. Ray never called me captain unless something was very wrong.
“What?”
“It’s following, and its gaining on us…”
“S***… what are we going to do?” I ashed, fear closing in on me.
“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it,” Ray said, “I’ll drop out of warp, pull the ship in a 180 and then re-engage warp in the opposite direction.”
“Do it,” I commanded, “It’s our only shot.”
“Buckle up!” Ray yelled. The sudden deceleration from dropping out of warp threw Booker and me forward. Ray spun the ship and in seconds we were off again. I got up, my head hurt, I must’ve hit it when I fell. “Did you shake it? Is it following?” I asked, fearing the answer. Ray checked the scanner, “No, it’s headed back to Armada,”
“We need to find out what the hell that was,” I said. “and I think I know who can tell us.”

*
*
*

I walked into the med bay, the survivor was having a seemingly intelligent conversation with Iora. “How is he?” I asked Rax.
“He’s stable, I ran a scan on his neurological and cognitive function, they seem to be normal. based on the rumors, I’d say those things didn’t get him.”
“Good, you think he’ll be able to answer some questions?” I asked
“Yes, I do believe I can,” The survivor replied, “My name is Roger, I was the leader of the settlement you landed in on Armada. I’m glad you found me, those things were in that cave I ran out of.”
“What things,” I asked.
“The Ethereal of course, haven’t you heard the rumors? They’re true I’ve seen the Ethereal and I believe you have too.”
“Well, I think we saw one of their ships, I was chasing us when we left the planet.” I replied.
“Oh no, that was one of them, that was an Ethereal.” He informed me. What?! I thought
“That thing, that enormous abomination that was out to kill us was one Ethereal?!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m afraid so… and there are plenty more where that came from,”
“We need to get a message to Alliance command, we need to warn them.” I called ray up on the comm., “Ray, set course for Alliance command, we need to see the Admiral.”
“Is it that bad?” Ray asked.
“‘Fraid so…” I replied.
“Alright, setting course,” Ray said reluctantly. Admiral Khel was the human Alliance commander, sort of like the president from the ancient United States of America. No one liked him, he was an exceptional leader, but he was a pain in the ass to deal with. “We should be there within two

We arrived at Alliance command a few days after the Ethereal encounter. We docked and Booker, Iora Don and I disembarked. We were immediately met by a team of armed guards. “Come with us,” one of them said. They led us to a scanning room. This procedure is fairly routine, but the guards seemed on edge, something was wrong. They led us into the Admiral’s office, he was debating with a rather well armed Tarin whom I recognized as T’San. He was the Alliance’s top special operations agent. He would only talk to the Admiral if the Alliance had something big on its hands. T’San noticed us and excused himself, looking back at the Admiral as he left. “Ah! Captain Ryke!” The Admiral said in his heavy British accent. The Admiral was Earthborn, from London. he was very proud of that fact. “Your pilot told us you would be here. I’m afraid I don’t have much time, the Alliance is working full time on the rumored Ethereal threat. So what do you want? Make it quick.”
“Well Admiral,” I replied, “You've obviously heard of the Ethereal. They are exactly why I’m here. The rumors are true, the Ethereal are real, my crew and I had an encounter on our mission to Armada-V.”
“I feared as much… this is grave news. Have your pilot patch through the mission report, I would like to discuss it now.” He commanded.
“Ray, send the Admiral the mission report and patch me through a copy of the intensive scan on my communicator.”
“Will do cap’” Ray responded. I heard the Admiral’s computer ding in the back room signifying that the report had gotten through. I opened up my communicator and took the copy of the scan and put it onto the Admiral’s holo-screen. I’ve always loved doing that; so much control with just a flick of the wrist. “Admiral, if I could direct your attention to our scan,” I began, “We ran an intensive scan on an odd, low-level energy reading we picked up in our scan of the planet. At first we thought this reading was just energy being released by the numerous factories on the planet; but after we ran the intensive scan it revealed that the energy reading was brain waves. Admiral, if you know anything about neuroscience average Human and Tarin brains emit miniscule electrical pulses between 12 and 30 hertz. The brain waves we scanned were emitting pulses at an upwards of 1,000 hertz. While that output is fairly normal for modern factories, that is off the charts for any unaffected brain activity.. We only figured out that the readings were brain waves from the pattern. As you can see the pattern of pulses is much less algorithmic that that of a typical AI assisted factory.”
“What does this all mean, Captain?” the Admiral asked.
“Sir, I believe that the Ethereal are psychic creatures, that they can manipulate electric charges in the brains of living organisms to get them to do almost anything at all. The electrical pulses that the ethereal send to their victims are a much higher intensity than Human and Tarin brains are used to, this forces the brains to adapt to the higher input. I would guess some just can’t handle the pressure. This would explain the seemingly insane colonists stumbling into towns rambling about the Ethereal. Based on this theory I would say that the Ethereal pushed those colonists too hard. In overloading their brains, the Ethereal broke key synapse nodes in the brain which caused reality to fall apart for the victims. Their heads are a literal jumble of thoughts, ideas and emotions, nothing is coherent or in any sort of order for them; they are almost living

“Captain Ryke, eh?” Krios asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, “Got promoted just after the war. I’ve got my own ship too.”
“I can see,” he replied. “She’s a beaut, newest prototype in the Alliance I hear.”
“You hear correctly, I love the Valiant, she’s a tough ship.” Krios was a Tarin defector during the war. He saw the Tarins would only win if they wiped out the Humans; he knew that was wrong. He journeyed all the way to Alliance space from the Tarin homeworld, (which, if you don’t know, is about 6 parsecs) in a stolen cargo ship, to negotiate peace. After he was accepted into the Alliance, my squad was assigned to protect him. We came all the way from the front line at the request of Admiral Khel. We lost a lot of good men protecting Krios, but Krios didn’t let them die in vain. Some say he was the one who ushered in peace for us.

“I’m gonna get some sleep Alan, I’ve been working for a while,” Krios said.
“Deck three, first room on the right. Your stuff is already there.” I told him.
“Thanks,” he went up to his room. I needed to prepare the crew for the upcoming mission. Flying blind, again… I was wondering how much the Ethereal had strengthened since we left. I was broken from my thoughts by a call on my comm. it was Iora. “Alan, can you come down to engineering? I need to talk,”
“Sure, I’ll be right down,” She seemed uneasy,something was bothering her. As the elevator opened onto the engineering deck I saw Iora standing in front of the warp core looking up at it, listening. My suspicions were confirmed, she only did that when she was upset. I walked up to her making sure my footsteps were loud enough to announce my presence. I looked up at the core, “Peaceful, isn’t it?” The pulsating rhythm of the core echoed through the room.
“Yes, I always come here when I’m stressed, it calms me down,” she replied.
“What’s wrong, Iora?” I asked, worrying what her response might be.

I assembled the team in the briefing room. I turned on shipwide broadcast for the mission brief. “Attention crew, in about an hour we will arrive at Armada-V again. We were sent by the Admiral to investigate Ethereal action and learn more about them. This is potentially a very dangerous mission. I am placing the ship on red alert, and I want everyone at their muster stations until further notice. We will be running on minimal power as soon as we leave warp; so, with some luck, no one will know that we are around. Good luck everyone, we’ll need it. Ryke out.” I shut off the public comm. “ What’s our best option as to finding out what the hell is going on down there?”
“Me,” Roger, the survivor, walked into the room, “I know more about those damned things than anyone on the ship.”
“You’re not coming with,” Don said, “Can you even handle a gun?”
“Armada is a hostile world, Don. I’ve had my fair share of practice.” Roger retorted. Don knew he’d been beaten in his little argument, he backed off.
“I think we should explore the cave Roger came out of,” Booker suggested.
“Roger, do you remember anything from the cave?” I asked.
“Not a lot, all I remember is feeling detached from myself, like I was looking at myself from somewhere else. It felt almost supernatural…” He trailed off, reflecting on the horrors of his recent past. “I think if we are going into that cave we will need something to protect our minds,” Iora suggested. “Good idea, how can we do that?” I asked.
“I can modify our shields to block incoming electrical signals, but if we do that our comms will be blocked; we’ll have to stay close. It will take a large portion of the shield’s power to block the signals so we will be more vulnerable to gunfire,” Iora said.
“How long will it take?”

I jolted forward at the sudden deceleration of coming out of warp. I was greeted by multitudes of those monolithic ethereal. “Woah!” Ray and I exclaimed simultaneously. “Ray started prepping for another jump. I grabbed his arm. “Wait! I don’t think they know we’re here,”
“God, they’re horrible,” Ray said. This was the first time I got a good look at one. They were gigantic isopod looking creatures, their gigantic mecha-organic bodies were repulsing. A grotesque mixture of machine and flesh. It seemed as if these monstrosities were once fully organic creatures, but had since been augmented with various mechanical implants. The implants seemed to serve multiple purposes, but all of them looked menacing. “Is there a place we can descend?” I asked. Ray punched a few commands into a console.
“There’s a gap between those two that’s about 10,000 kilometers,” he pointed at two Ethereal off in the distance. “Is that far enough away to avoid detection?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but i think it’s our best option.”
“Take us in,” I commanded.


We descended into the planet’s atmosphere. Ray flew us over to the cave where we first found Roger. I assembled the team. “Alright everyone, we’re here to explore the cave that we picked up Roger from. The Admiral believes that it is our best option for learning about the Ethereal. “Don, Booker, protect Roger. He’s our best way to learn about them. Roger, take this.” I threw him a pistol. “Iora, you’re with me.” Ray came on the comm.
“We’re landing cap’”
“Good, as soon as we’re off, initiate full shutdown.” We landed and the cargo bay door opened. “Alright, everyone off.” We all disembarked the ship. “Shut her down Ray,” I said.
“On it, my comms will be off when we’re off cap’, you’ll be on your own.” Ray told me.
“Acknowledged,” I replied. I drew my plasma pistol from my belt. The rest of the group drew their guns and followed me in.



The cave was surprisingly warm, it was almost like a desert. No moisture in the air, yet it seemed musty. “Shields up everyone,” Iora said. I heard swooshes of energy as barriers formed around my squad. I turned mine on and heard my communicator switch off. “Everyone okay?” I asked. “All here,” Booker replied.
“Lights on, move in,” I heard the click of lights turning on and saw dots of light appear one by one on my team’s heads. I turned my light on and started into the cave.


It wasn’t long before we came to a large cavernous room. The ceiling of this place was easily 50 feet high. The cavern extended below as far as I could see. There was a bridge across the middle of the gap in the floor that seemed to lead to another doorway across the room. There were more of these bridges above and below us.The room resembled some sort of storage chamber. “Dear God! What the hell is that?!” Don exclaimed. We all rushed over to him, he was looking at a pod stored in the wall. It housed a grotesque life form that rather resembled a wasp. “Is that… an alien?” Roger asked.
“Its nothing like anything I’ve ever seen,” Booker said.

We set off for command to report our findings to the Admiral. “We should arrive in about three days Cap’,” Ray informed me. I went to my cabin to get some sleep, hell of a day I just had.


I woke up the next morning, got dressed and headed down to engineering to see about Iora’s progress. The elevator opened and I saw her, asleep at the worktable with countless modified shields strewn about the table. It looked to me like she’d been up all night trying to create this weapon she imagined. I turned to leave, not wanting to disturb her, but before I could close the elevator door I heard her say “hey,” I turned around, I must’ve woken her up. “Sorry to wake you,” I said
“It’s alright, Alan,” the replied.
“How’s the weapon coming?” I asked.
“Not much progress…” she stood up from her chair.
“Have you learned anything?”
“About one hundred ways not to make this damned thing,” she said. “I looked over the scan and found that the links the Ethereal form work like electrical circuits. The ethereal’s links seem to form poles, like a circuit might; but the poles are constantly rotating. This will block the weapon from coming through because, for it to reach its target, it needs to latch onto the opposite pole of the person who is firing it. I think this works as a defence mechanism for the Ethereal; as long as the pole is rotating, the pulse will keep changing direction until it has dispersed. For the weapon to work, the pulse emitted from the shield has to follow the pole into the brain. Once it reaches the brain it will spread out and disable all key functions within the brain, rendering it useless and, hopefully, killing the target.”
“So what do you need to figure out to make the weapon work?” I asked.
“I need to find a way to lock this pole rotation long enough for the pulse to travel along the link and detonate inside the Ethereal’s brain,” she replied. “I need to get to work on that,” she said.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” I stepped into the elevator and went to my cabin.

The next two days of travel were fairly uneventful, Iora continued to work on the weapon, and we all just waited, helping whenever we could. It wasn’t until we got into command space that we noticed something was off.

“Cap’, you’d better get up here,” Ray said.
“On my way,” I replied. I went up to the cockpit, Ray was looking intently at the radio channels. “What’s up?” I asked.
“The radios are silent…” Ray said, “No chatter at all. No loading crews, no docking control, even the restricted channels are silent.”
“Go to yellow alert, hail the station,” Ray opened a channel to the station.
“Alliance command, this is U.S.S Valiant requesting permission to dock,” Ray said. No reply. “Alliance command, this is U.S.S Valiant requesting permission to dock,” he repeated. Again... no reply. “Maneuver us into docking position, Ray,” Ray flew the ship over to the docking bays. I could see through the energy barrier that there was no one on the docks; but I wanted to be sure

As Ray was powering up warp, I saw a menacing green light start to swirl around the Ethereal. “Ray, get us out, now!” I yelled. Just Ray throttled the ship up, a gigantic wave of energy shot from the Ethereal it grazed the hull as we shot off into warp. “S***!” I exclaimed. I called up Iora on the comm. “Damage report!” I commanded.
“Hull breach in crew quarters, Captain, no casualties. Sealing the breach now.”
“Where are we going Ray?” I asked.
“I set course for the Tarin homeworld, I figured we could use some help,”
“Good idea,” I replied.
“Damn, that was too close,” Ray said. Before Ray could respond, CRACK! Another wave of energy slammed into the ship and we dropped out of warp. “Port engine down!” Iroa exclaimed over the comm. “We can’t run…” Ray said.
“So we fight, we’re taking this bastard down. Bring us about, shields up!” I commanded. As Ray was turning the ship we were being bombarded with more energy waves. “How are the shields?” I asked, “Steadily dropping, Captain,” Ray said, “at this rate they’ll be down in a few minutes,”
“Hit it with everything we’ve got,” I told Ray. As the guns started firing, I felt the thunderous vibrations cascading through the ship. The gigantic shells and waves of plasma were crashing into the Ethereal with enormous speed, but nothing was phasing it. “It’s… absorbing our fire.” Ray said. He was right, the Ethereal had some sort of barrier that absorbed our every shot, the shield dispersed the energy and got rid of it. “I have an idea,” Iora came over the comm, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“Shields at sixty percent, Captain,” Ray informed me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I have a prototype for the weapon, but it isn’t safe.” I can’t guarantee that the wielder will survive. I figured out a way to lock the polarization, but the shield will sometimes send a pulse in both ways.”
“Fifty percent,” Ray said. The ship was shaking violently with the impacts of the Ethereal's weapon.
“I’ll do it,” Roger walked onto the bridge. I turned to him, surprised that he would want anything to do with the Ethereal.
“You can’t,” I said, “It’ll kill you.”
“I know,” Roger said, “I’ll do it, my home is destroyed, I have no where to go. I’ll do it, right now, its all I can ask for to kill one of those bastards.”
“Alright…” I said, knowing I was authorizing Roger’s death.
“Bring it up, Iora,” I said.
“On my way,” she replied.
“We’re going to need to modify the shields to allow the Ethereal to make a connection,” Ray said. “Do you think it will continue its assault?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but it’s our only option. Get the shields modified, Ray,” Iora came running up to the bridge. “Here it is,” she held in her hand a gigantic black shield generator, it still had the shape of a normal rectangular shield module but it was bigger and was emitting an unsettling humming noise. “Let me have it,” Roger said, “How does it work?”

“Get him to the med bay now!” I yelled. Booker and I picked him up, but we both knew he was gone…”Movement on the scanner Cap’, there’s more of them!” Ray said over the comm.
“Set course for Tarin command, we’re taking these bastards down and we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Booker and I ran into the bay and put Roger down on the table “Check his vitals!” I commanded. Rax performed a number of tests; after he was done, he looked up and shook his head. “Dammit!” Booker slammed his fists on the table. I sat down. What was I going to do? The only weapon we had against the Ethereal killed its user. Iora came bursting into the room “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” I asked.
“I know how to stabilize the weapon. The data that I gathered when Roger used it told me everything I needed to know.”
“Can you make more of them?”
“With the help of the Tarin fleet, easily.”
“Good, we’re on the way now. The crew needs to know, I’m going to the bridge.” I went to the bridge followed by Iora and Booker. “Ray, I need to make an announcement, open a shipwide channel,” Ray fiddled with a few buttons.
“Channel open,” He said.
“Attention crew, I’m sure you all know what just happened, we managed to kill an Ethereal,” I heard a few muffled cheers from other decks. “Sadly, however, the weapon fired both ways. Roger, our survivor from Armada is dead…” The cheers ceased. “But the data that Iora gathered from the use of the weapon has allowed her to stabilize it. We believe

We spent the next few weeks at Tarin command prepping the fleet and manufacturing thousands of the now stable shield-weapons. Funny how something meant to protect could be turned into something used to destroy. As the day we were to leave drew closer, tensions rose among the fleet. Fights broke out in the hangars, food was stolen from the kitchens someone was even shot. We were prepared, but everyone was scared. My crew were the only ones alive that had experienced an Ethereal attack, everyone at Alliance command were either dead or missing. The rest of the fleet only had our word to go on; we had no videos, no analysis of the Ethereal beside what little data we collected to create the weapon. We were flying mostly blind, again, we knew that the weapon was our only chance and that it worked. My biggest fear was our ability to stay alive while the weapon connected. We would have to drop our shields and although one Ethereal would stop attacking, who’s to say that another won’t blow a hole in the attacking ship? We were going to need a distraction. I called a meeting with the fleet commanders to inform them of my concern.

“We’re going to need a distraction to be able to destroy the Ethereal,” I said “As you know, an Ethereal forming a telepathic link cannot fire its weapons, but who’s to say that another one won’t blast a hole in the side of the ship?”
“I suggest a sword and shield approach,” one of the commanders said.
“Go on,” I said.
“We would need organize ships into units consisting of one attacking frigate and four others to defend it; create a shield-wall from any attacking Ethereal while our frigate forms a link with the weapon.”
“What would be the percent of the fleet dedicated to each job?” Another commander asked “We don’t have the Alliance fleet anymore.”
“With the current fleet standing we would have,” the commander who suggested the plan punched in some numbers into his datapad, “ten attacking ships and forty defending ones.”
“That’s not much firepower…” one commander commented.
“Its our only option,” I said.
“Let’s put it to vote,” the first commander suggested.
“A show of hands: all in favor of the sword and shield plan,” The vote was almost unanymous, everyone knew that we only had one option and no room for error. “Alright, we need to move I’ll assemble the fleet,” The mobilization was fairly simple. We were all out of the docks in half a day. “Ray, open a channel to the fleet,”
“Channel open cap’,”
“Alright everyone, I’m sending the coordinates for the jump to you all now, report in when ready.”
Reports started coming in on Ray’s screen after a few minutes, everyone was ready. “All ships accounted for, fleet ready for jump,” Ray said.
“On my mark,” I said ”...engage,” all of the ship’s engines powered on and we were moving. I could see all the ships travelling next to us. “We should be at Alliance command in a few days,” Ray said.
*
*
*

“Arriving in twenty minutes Captain,” Ray informed me.

“We did it, we won,” Ray said.
“Get me the fleet, Ray,” I said.
“Open,”
“Attention fleet, we need to board the Alliance ships and help the survivors; disband the detachments, help as many ships as you can,”
I went to the med bay to check on Iora. I walked up to her bed “We won,” I said.
“Good,” she smiled. “Very good,”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, I got a concussion from the fall but Rax fixed me up. Do you remember all those aliens we found on Armada?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I wonder if there are any more. I always dreamed of meeting a human when I was a kid; even during the war. I never thought I could get into the navy and there weren’t any humans on Avialae at the time. I’m glad you were the one to save me, Alan,”
“So am I, you should rest, and I need to help with the rescue missions. I’ll be back,” I got up and made my way to the bridge. “How are the rescue attempts going Ray?”
“Most of the Alliance casualties came from the Ethereal connections being severed. If I had to guess, most of them died before they were released. The fleet did a good job only disabling the ships, but there were still some casualties that came from that. Rebuilding shouldn’t be an issue, the Ethereal kept most of the station intact to keep their slaves on board alive, We won, but at a great cost.” It was true we had won, we had driven the Ethereal from our land, but we hadn’t wiped them out. They were beaten, but they sure as hell weren’t gone.

It sticks with you, you know, the Ethereal. Once they get into your head, they never quite leave. Sometimes I think I hear the cries of ancient races. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat thinking they’ve taken me again. Its been years since the last Ethereal sighting, and even more since we drove them from Alliance command; but I can feel them. I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing, but they’re out there, somewhere waiting. The one thing I know for sure is that this is certainly not the end.