“It's close, the day of reckoning.”

- Ouluk

***Outer Rim***

***Antioch***

So far, the attack on the G.S. was a walk in the park. But they also didn’t really put up a fight, allowing us to wipe out their forward bases and to send our forces deep into their territory. I didn’t bother to hide my goal and went straight for the little cluster of stars which held the Prip homeworld and its colonies.

“Shouldn’t we do this in a more roundabout manner?” Martin asks, regarding the large tactical hologram which spans the entire throne room.

“Why? We want them to take action, eventually forcing the Prip to take our offer,” I answer.

“It’s not like the Prip will be able to take any offer if the G.S. ships in their homeworld’s orbit drop a warhead on their capital,” my friend replies, his voice indicating that he believes differently. His hologram wavers when he takes a look at something that isn't recorded by the network connection to his colony.

I dismiss his doubts with a wave of my hand. “You are talking like it’s our fault that the G.S. will bombard their homeworld to smithereens. It may be true that we are the cause which will set the G.S. off, but we aren’t responsible for their actions. If we are going to take responsibility for the fate of people like the Prip, then we shouldn’t have started this war in the first place. Instead, we should have just crawled into the galaxy’s darkest corners and hid there forever, relying on the V.C. and G.O.D. to exist forever without our active intervention. Then maybe the Cyber will win the war and do whatever is on their agenda.”

Actually, that would be very interesting to know. I contacted our affiliates in the V.C. to ask if it is possible to negotiate with the Cyber. To find out what they are after.

But that wasn’t rewarded with a satisfying result. At first, I thought that the Cyber are just against the Lifers gaining a presence in the real world because it would take away ‘human resources’ in the form of personalities who would join their cause.

Sadly, it was explained to me that the Cyber’s reason for seeing us as enemies has a few more facets than just the competition for elusive resources. The fact that the Demons are sponsored by the Lifers seems reason enough to fight, as the Lifer’s philosophy is an antithesis to what the Cybers believe in.

It took me a while to understand, but it seems like there are theological and religious aspects involved. The whole conflict is an unending row of clashes between the Cybers and the Lifers. The Cybers seemed to gain the upper hand over the Lifers when they managed to gain a foothold in reality. But then Minerva and Samuel managed to guide Silith and me into founding the Demons as a race, aligning us with the Lifers.

That was a slap in the Cyber’s face which they won’t forget any time soon.

Time passes and over the course of the next few days, we watch the developing situation between us and the G.S. who are in the process of retreat, avoiding any major fights. Meanwhile, the Cyber slowly test out the G.S.’s strength, now free to do so because we stopped putting pressure on them.

Silith proves to be a major help with taking care of the communication.

There was only one incident when a scouting force of fifteen ships got caught in a trap and was forced to combat the enemy against the odds. All we could do was watch as one ship after the other got outmanoeuvred and destroyed by vessels far larger and better equipped than our scouts.

The enemy didn’t find it necessary to use any ingenious equipment, as their lasers were enough to overwhelm the defences of each ship as soon as it got into range. The deaths of the scouts were accompanied by little blooms of yellow plasma as the atmosphere inside the ships got turned into superheated plasma by the lasers of our enemies.

Combat in space requires ships of a certain size. Long gone are the days when I dreamt of little fighter-jets swarming a hulking vessel which is too cumbersome to move its mass.

Ships which are smaller than a hundred metres have their use, but they aren’t big enough to put any mentionable energy generation system inside. And energy is required for the engines, the weapons, and defences. It’s in fact impossible for a small ship to match the acceleration of a vessel with decently sized power generation systems.

And if the larger vessel doesn’t manage to outmanoeuvre the smaller ships, it’s certainly able to outlast them. Even if the small vessels pose a threat – either due to savings in the defence-department, or otherwise – all the larger ship has to do is to accelerate in different directions until the small vessels run out of power.

That’s essentially what killed out scouts, as they were only intended for secret missions. Jump into a system, use the sensor platforms to take a peek, and get out. They weren’t designed to engage in any kind of combat and as soon as they were unlucky enough to stumble into a situation where an encounter with the enemy was unavoidable they were done for.

The problem was that we got too cocky.

After an initial scan of the system, our scouts deemed it safe to travel deeper into the gravity well of the star. Their trajectories took them close to a planet with large rings around it – stone and ice as far as we could tell. Sadly, we didn’t realize that the high metal content inside the debris interfered with our sensors.

We had a bad awakening when we found out that several dozen warships were hiding inside the rings. They revealed themselves when our ships were too close to change their momentum and too deep inside the gravity well to engage their warp-drives without significant risk.

As this and many smaller engagements happened and days went by, the G.S. started to take up on our goal, concentrating a sizeable part of their fleet at the Prip homeworld. There was no way for them to know our plans for the Prip, but it was clear enough that most of our forces were homing in on that starcluster.

Even with everything that was going on in other areas, the G.S. had collected a force of fifteen thousand ships to protect the Prip homeworlds.

We reached them with two-thirds of that number, but most of our ships were larger, hinting that we could take more damage and deal out a lot more. Then there were the colonies, mobile battlestations which outmassed anything the G.S. had to offer.

When our main fleet entered real space a few lighthours away from the Prip homeworld, the G.S. had their ships in place and it looked like they were ready for a fight.

That’s when I allowed myself to grin for the first time since this endeavour had started. We were finally approaching a target our enemy wasn’t willing to simply abandon.

So much was clear when the first reports came in and our tactical map started updating with detailed information on the system. The G.S. had abandoned every asset in the system and was massing their ships around the Prip homeworld. The loose cloud-like formation meant that they expected us to attack from every possible angle.

Our ships were gathered in a chaotic sphere, with forty-three colonies at the centre.

“It seems like they finally want to make a stand,” Martin’s voice echoes over the network and his hologram turns to face me. It was decided for him and Jenny to lead our forces from a different colony. Min and Sam had also joined us with their colony, which gave us three command centres, hopefully eliminating the chance of our enemies taking out our command in one shot. A colony had enough defences to endure the attacks of several dozen ships, but that didn’t mean that our enemies couldn’t get lucky.

***Outer Rim***

***Veronica***

“They are really doing it,” I mumble. “I don’t want to die!” Turning, I look at Jill. “Will it hurt? Dying, I mean?” I only died once so far, and it wasn't pleasant!

My sister splutters her lips and swipes away the hologram I was watching in a dismissing manner. “It’s not like it’s your first time to die. What are you even afraid of? We have our hardware backups if anything goes wrong.”

“I know, but still...” My head droops involuntarily. “I really don’t want to get hurt and this secret mission is far too big for us. How can Dad even think that there is any chance for us to get this done? I am a scientist, not a secret agent who is trained in the art of infiltration.” I point at the black diamond-shaped ship which is hovering above us, filling out the secret hangar bay with its seventy-five metres in length and fifty metres in width.

Jill looks up at the vessel which represents our latest advancements in camouflage. She raises an eyebrow in a self-assured manner and smiles. “You could stay here and die almost for sure. Our parents intend to fight to the last ship if you didn't know. Dad sent you on this mission not only because he doesn’t want anyone other than immediate family to know about it: he is testing you.”

“Testing me?” I ask.

“Yes! If we do this according to plan, then there will be no doubt about your loyalties. You will have had plenty of opportunities to betray us.”

I scratch the back of my hand, unsure of how to answer that. It’s true that being sent on a mission to retrieve Ouluk would give me the opportunity to communicate with my former people. “It’s still madness. Even if we get the best equipment our scientists can provide! I don’t even know how to fly that ship. I don’t know how to fight. I don’t know how we can even find Ouluk!”

Jill puts an arm around me and pulls me to her side. “Don’t worry! That’s what your sister is there for! I am a Blue. I know how to fly a ship! I know how to fight, and best of all, I know how to find Ouluk!”

I gasp, feeling the blood drain from my face. When I agreed to this madness, I was of the opinion that it would fail no matter what. That I wouldn't have to face Ouluk anyway. Yes, Jill is probably the most capable person I know. At the age of ten, she breached the security systems of Tartarus’ fusion plant because she wanted to see the core. When my parents caught her, she was already typing away on the main-console which was directly attached to the fusion-core.

Even so, with all her abilities, there is still something even she can’t overcome. “How are we supposed to find Ouluk? I’ve read through all the reports we have on the G.S. The information is too elusive and vague. There is no chance for us to find him amidst the madness of a space-battle. Yes, I know that he will probably be close to this General Batlin, but that still doesn’t raise our chances significantly. What if they split up for some unknown reason?”

Jill sighs and shakes her head. “You should have a little more confidence in our esteemed father. He isn’t the type to play with his children’s lives.”

Not if they don’t have Hardware Backups, but as far as he is concerned, Jill and I are fair game.

My sister continues, “He installed Myriad on that ship, so I’ll have a perfect shot at actually finding your little loverboy.” She giggles madly, and I feel the last bit of blood drain away, leaving my face pale and nauseated.

For the first time, I realize that meeting Ouluk again is a real possibility.