The Harvester of Sorrow was not the only ship named such. Unlike the Crusade of Wrath ship named such, it was not named for unending rage.

It had been the lead ship collecting the body of a young Terran Descent Human woman who had died defending the Hamaroosan home system. Not a small lemur primate form, but rather the huge space going cephalopod body the young woman was using to explore the galaxy.

The ship no longer was fit only for system defense. It had been a large vessel, an armed trading vessel, to begin with and the arming and armoring of the vessel with what the Terrans considered 'modern' war fighting equipment had been extensive.

In the past five years, since the loss of TerraSol, new ship types had been designed by the Hamaroosan ship yards to the point where the Harvester of Sorrow was largely obsolete by modern ship design standards.

But it was still in service.

More than just in service. To serve aboard it was considered a high honor, reserved only for those who had been engaged in combat against the Lanaktallan, the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, or the Atrekna.

It would only be considered a heavy cruiser by Confederate Space Force standards. It 'only' packed eighteen C+ cannons, three hundred missile pod launchers, a single phased wave plasma motion cannon, and small parasite craft bays, along with only enough troop space for eight hundred Hamaroosan Marines.

But the Hamaroosa viewed it as the most important combat ship they possessed.

It was the fleet flagship for the Hamaroosan Two Pinches Combat Fleet of nearly five thousand ships, all built in the refurbished Hamaroosan shipyards. Many rebuilt over the last two years thanks to the data taken in from the Death Scream Document transferred by the Terrans when they went extinct.

But the Harvester of Sorrow was the flagship.

And for the Hamaroosa aboard it, there was no other ship they would rather be assigned to.

Not even the huge refurbished Terran Superdreadnoughts and Monitors of the Telkan fleet.

The Harvester of Sorrow held orbit around one of the twelve gas giants in the massive stellar system. Only a few years before the sight of the ships of the Lanaktallan Unified Military Forces would have been cause for guns clear.

Instead, no less than five different designations burned with cold white light in the holotanks. From "The Great Free Herd" to "The Chromium Fist of Those Who Graze Freely" to "Come Get Some".

Times had indeed changed.

The Fleet Admiral of the Hamaroosa was one Vereeta Hardpassage, of the Whispering Leaves Clan of the Crystal Singers Forest on Hamaroosa itself. Vereeta was everything young Hamaroosan boys and girls wanted to be.

Tough looking, scarred enough to be noticeable but not enough to be disfigured, hard features but soft pelted, with strong hands and even sharp teeth. Impeccable posture and elegant manners.

And a killer instinct.

Millions of young Hamaroosan boys and girls had posters of the Fleet Admiral on their walls. Not recruiting posters or propaganda posters, but posters run off from the videos of the last few tumultuous years.

The Fleet Admiral had transferred from the Harvester of Sorrow to the huge armada flagship Dropped Ice Cream Cone of Destiny and from there had been escorted to the massive battle center in the deepest part of the flagship.

He stood there with the other admirals, fleet Most Highs, Grand High Ship Masters, and even a lone Terran in heavy armor that just stood there, breathing heavy and staring at everything with burning red eyes.

Admiral Vereeta had made sure he stood next to the massive armored Terran.

Let none say the Hamaroosa were afraid of the remaining Terrans.

The massive fleet was being broken into Task Forces, each to be accompanied by landing forces, with each Task Force having multiple successive targets listed in case contact between the Armada was lost.

Each Task Force commander would carry the sole responsibility of what occurred in the system. Should the system be too heavily defended or the Atrekna were to unveil some previously unknown super-weapon or advanced tactic the Task Force Commander was authorized to break contact and retreat from the system.

Each Task Force Commander would have fast courier ships at their disposal that used advanced Terran space drives. Not the recently exposed upper jumpspace bands, not even the hyperspace lanes. Star drives with ominous names such as Darkspace Reality Matrix Collapsars and Lostspace Heretical Navigation Suicide Systems and Hellspace Phasic Scream Singer Chorus.

All piloted, of course, by the Mad Lemurs of the Martial Orders of Terra.

Admiral Vereeta had watched as the assignments were handed out, as the Task Forces were formed. He did not protest at the fact the Hamaroosa Fleet was divided up. After all, his people were some of the best space superiority fighter pilots in the Confederacy.

The targets were scattered everywhere. In Council Space, in Coreward Confederate Space, even in the Long Dark. Hundreds of stellar systems. Even stellar systems that were known to have nothing more than a single star or perhaps a hand full of asteroids or maybe a gas giant or two were targeted.

There could be no safely made assumptions when it came to the Atrekna.

They were a completely alien species. An invading, hostile species from a universe that (what little existed) telemetry had shown had worn down to a handful of nebulous red giants. A parasitic species from a dead universe that now sought to drain the life from this universe.

That was why Admiral Vereeta could stand between an Enraged commander of a Martial Order of Lost TerraSol and a Lanaktallan Great Most High Fleet Commander.

The war went beyond the Big C3. It went beyond anything that had happened for over a hundred million years.

It was a fight to survive. A fight to push back extinction.

And there was no doubt in Admiral Vereeta's mind that, should the Atrekna win, every species known and unknown would eventually become a food source for the Atrekna to devour as they devoured the universe itself.

Orders were given and the fleets broke up into Task Forces.

Admiral Vereeta arrived back on his flagship. The Hamaroosa Fleet would break into six sections, each part of a Task Force, with a total of eighteen objectives for their part of the war.

Out of politeness and out of respect for honor and tradition as well as personal history, he sent a single com message to a Captain of a heavy battlecruiser. A female Hamaroosa who had been part of the conflict since before there had even been a major conflict. Who had been there from the beginning.

-----

Sergeant First Class Kuplo stood next to Chief Warrant Officer Two Mukstet, staring at the gathered up troops.

"You think we looked that young?" Mukstet half-whispered.

"Right up until we launched off The Boop," Kuplo said. "They'll be fine, sir."

"You get your orders yet?" Mukstet asked.

SFC Kuplo nodded. "Yes, sir," he shrugged. "I'm more worried about training my boys up. Command says we'll be landing by dropship and any resistance to the initial landing will be light."

Mukstet grinned. "And we were supposed to be arriving for training back in the day."

Kuplo nodded again, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a flat oval can. He smacked it against his leg a few times, twisted the top open, and took out a pinch of tobacco.

"How can you use that nasty stuff?" Mukstet asked as Kuplo packed it into his lower lip.

Kuplo shrugged. "Picked up the habit during Second Hesstla. Good enough for Far Sight Trucker, good enough for a line slime power armor jock like me."

Mukstet just shook his head as Kuplo put the can away.

"Any idea what transit time is going to be, sir?" Kuplo asked.

"Three weeks. Every species here can handle mid-band hyperspace with little more than headaches and slight light distortion," Mukstet said. He looked at Kuplo. "Funny, we're back together again."

"Mm-hmm," Kuplo said. He squinted for a moment. "How long has the system been under Slorpie control?"

"A month ago the flare was spotted," Mukstet said.

"So we could jump in just ahead or just after the Slorpies hit it," Kuplo said.

"That's the problem with an enemy that uses temporal travel systems," Mukstet shrugged. "You up to speed on the new counter-temporal doctrine and systems?"

Kuplo nodded. "Platoon is training up. Dismount crews should just well trained by the time we get there."

Mukstet nodded. "You do your annual physical yet?"

Kuplo winced. "Yeah. A complete physical. I thought Searches Out the Problem was a doctor not a dentist. Felt like she was checking for fillings."

Mukstet snorted. "CO was a little startled by my record," he paused a second. "And yours."

"Why, sir?" Kuplo asked.

"According to his universe, we only signed up about six years ago," Mukstet chuckled. "But we've both got over fifteen years in the Corps."

That made Kuplo grin. "When we rotated back home last year for training, I met up with my family," he said. He lifted an empty bottle and spit into it. "My older brother looked fit to be tied. He was five years older than me, now he's five years younger than me."

Mukstet snorted. "You got off lucky. My parents were young when they had me. Figured that there was no way they'd ever pay off their debt, so they'd have kids nice and early. My mom saw how old I looked and cried."

"Ouch," Kuplo said.

"How'd the physical go?" Mukstet asked. "Heard a couple of people have been forced to retire."

Kuplo nodded. "Guy I replaced, he got stuck in bad dilation both times. He joined two years after we did, he's got thirty eight years in the Corps, thirty-six of them directly deployed against the Slorpies."

"Ouch," Mukstet said.

Kuplo shook his head. "Guy was actually older than his father and mother."

"This war's a nasty one," Mukstet said, watching the troops drill.

Kuplo nodded. "Yup."

-----

Senior Captain Delminta read the message twice, feeling her hands tighten on her command stick as she did so.

Her Battle Group would be linking up with several others, including an Imperium of Wrath Battle Group known as "Sheltak's Undying Fury", which apparently referred to a world glassed by the Mantid at one point.

The Task Force would be assaulting a system that the Atrekna were believed to be present in force.

The system was basic. It had a name now.

Ultrik's Point. Two dwarf yellow stars in a binary cooperative orbit tandem, nineteen planets including eight gas giants, eight asteroid belts, and a bean shaped Oort cloud. One-hundred-sixteen light years beyond the border of the Rim Worlds, deep into the Long Dark.

The very system that Delminta, as Captain of the Far Swoop had met a young woman, making Delminta the third Captain to encounter what was then only known as the Solarians.

The fact that the Atrekna had taken that system, had profaned that place made Delminta want to lean over and smack her left hand cousin across the back of the head hard enough to knock her out of her seat.

She snarled silently and adjusted herself in her Captain's seat, which was configured into normal stations setting rather than a crash couch or battle stations pod.

"Helm!" she snapped.

"Aye, ma'am?" the Kobold Space Force officer replied, his voice crisp and sure.

"Set course for Ultrik's Point," Deminta ordered. She turned to the Hamaroosa communications officer. "Interlink with the Crusade of Wrath," she leaned back slightly. "Inform them that we will be take point, be the first vessel into the system."

"Ma'am?" her right hand uncle asked.

"It is a matter of honor," she said. She could feel the curiosity from her Hamaroosa crew members.

"The Crusade wishes to know what honor so they may prepare properly," her right hand uncle said.

Delminta leaned forward slightly. "Tell them the truth: It is where I met Sandy."