Chapter 1

The mission was nearly routine. The Nagina-class carrier, Rosa DiCatania, had barely departed the target system, when an opportunity to "lay the egg," (in Asp pilots' parlance), had occurred. The Rosa had released a number of self-deploying observation drones before leaving, so after deploying his first planet-buster, Cristiano Martelli made tracks to the primary rendezvous point, in order to observe the effects and wait for retrieval.

Although the rendezvous points were only a short hop away from the primary body (star), using the Hwee FTL drives, they were nonetheless far enough that light, and thus information moving at light speed, would take many, many months to make the trip. Because of that, every mission required that the drones deploy themselves closer in, so that video information could be relayed using subspace radio. Like all of the cosca's military assets, the drones were programmed to self-destruct if tampered with.

Following mission SOP, Cris had instructed his AI to begin recording the feeds, before settling in to wait for pickup. The recorded observations showed a textbook-classic mission: only minutes after he had evacuated, the "egg" had translocated into the planetary crust near the center of Sa'arm activity. The target didn't completely disintegrate, the way Confederacy records seemed to indicate things should happen, but the upheaval triggered by the explosion made life, on or anywhere near the planet, impossible, at least any time in the foreseeable future.

As expected, some of the planetary mass reached escape velocity and would never again be part of that world, most did not, however, and the effect of mutual gravitational attraction would draw in all of the larger bits within a few weeks. Of course, the surface of the newly reformed planet would be mostly chunky lava, and it would be peppered with smaller, house-sized bits returning home for many decades. In short, this planet would not be usable again, as a base for the Sa'arm (or anybody else!), for a long, long, time.

Not for the first time, Cris found himself questioning this approach to fighting the Sa'arm - it seemed a prodigious waste of a planet. On the other hand, he had seen first-hand some of the worlds that had been taken, used, and then abandoned by the Sa'arm, and there appeared to be little difference in the end. Even, and maybe especially, when those planets had harbored sentient life, they had become total wastelands, with nothing of value left to extract. Those planets' prior tenants had all become Sa'arm chow, and their civilizations were gone, not even leaving behind any ruins to show they had ever existed. The records given to Earth authorities by the Confederacy were the only evidence of that. Such would be the fate of Earth, if the Sa'arm were not stopped.

Once again, he concluded he was doing the right thing.

With nothing more pressing to do, while facing a likely six-week wait for the return of the Rosa, Cris instructed the AI to monitor the feeds, and to notify him if anything odd happened, while he went about sorting through his collection of entertainment media, looking for something to pass the time. This was his hedge against that situation which normally describes both military and law enforcement jobs: i.e., long periods of mind-numbing boredom, punctuated by irregular moments of sheer terror.

Being a closet Enya fan, he was about halfway through her last release when the AI chirped to get his attention. Removing the headset, he commanded "Report!"

"A SMALL VESSEL HAS BEEN DETECTED ENTERING THE SYSTEM. IT HAS BEEN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS A SA'ARM COURIER. REQUESTING INSTRUCTIONS."

"Lock on and make ready to pursue!" he responded.

"ACKNOWLEDGED. PREPARING TO PURSUE."

Not for the first time, Cris found himself wishing that the AI was as capable as the ones made by the Confederacy. Along with other Hwee technology, the cosca had recovered AI programming from a damaged vessel, and it was far and away ahead of anything that Earth had come up with on its own. It was, however, severely limited in comparison with the AI's that seemed to run the Confederacy - even the ones they considered obsolete! If there were any advantages in using the Hwee technology, they lay in the fact that the technology was accessible, and would run on readily available computer hardware. Even the hardware used by Confederacy AI's was out of reach, at this point.

Following his third mission, Cris had noticed a Sa'arm courier entering the system containing the destroyed target, then immediately departing. This event coincided with the timing of a successful deconstruction of an HSIT, its sensors and command computers. Studying these components resulted in techniques that allowed construction of devices that could detect, track, and match phase with, objects moving in hyperspace.

The convergence of these discoveries allowed him to propose a change in the standard mission SOP. The proposal posited that if the Asp still had HSIT ordnance remaining after the successful conclusion of its assigned mission, and had sufficient energy reserves to engage in pursuit, then, at the pilot's discretion, the Asp might follow the Sa'arm courier to its next destination and attack targets of opportunity. Any such activity had to be completed or terminated quickly enough to allow the Asp to return to one of its original rendezvous points, before scheduled pickup.

The change in SOP was approved, and since that event, Cris had only returned home with unspent ordnance on one occasion.

"PHASE LOCKED AND IN PURSUIT," the AI reported.

"Maintain separation of 0.5 AU approximate," Cris directed.

"ACKNOWLEDGED. MAINTAINING 0.5 AU SEPARATION."

There was no guessing how long the pursuit might take, but since he had nearly six weeks to get back to the rendezvous, Cris instructed the AI to limit pursuit to fourteen Earth-standard days, and to alert him if there was any change in apparent flight plan, then settled in to take a nap.

The next six days were pretty boring. It was pretty much the same thing, over and over: eat, check systems, sleep, check systems, piss, check systems ... but then the AI announced:

"TARGET HAS TRANSITIONED TO REALSPACE. CLOSING ON TARGET. POINT 4 ... POINT 3..."

Cris yelled out, "Transition now!" The Asp entered realspace at a distance of about two-tenths AU from the courier's exit point. And all hell broke loose.

"WE ARE UNDER FIRE. SHIELDS UP. INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE."

"SitRep!" Cris demanded, strapping himself into the command chair.

"EXIT TO REALSPACE HAS PLACED THIS VESSEL WITHIN WEAPONS RANGE OF A FULLY FUNCTIONAL SA'ARM HIVE SHIP. THIS VESSEL CURRENTLY SURROUNDED AND UNDER ATTACK. PRIMARY ENGINES ARE DEFUNCT. ATTITUDE CONTROLS STILL OPERATIONAL. SHIELDS CURRENTLY AT 85 PERCENT AND FAILING. INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE."

"Divert all power not required for life support to shields. How long do we have?"

"ESTIMATED TIME TO SHIELD FALURE 18 MINUTES. PROBABLE LIFESPAN FOLLOWING FAILURE, TOO SMALL TO QUANTIFY."

"Prepare the message torpedo for launch. Camera and sound on me NOW!"

"ACKNOWLEDGED. READY NOW."

The Rosa entered normal space, somewhat beyond the periphery of the Oort Cloud surrounding the target system. The pilot and commander, one Julius "Jules" Lancini, took a long look at the planetary system, verifying that the mission had been accomplished. The evidence was clear: the fourth planet in the system, which six weeks previously had sustained an active Sa'arm colony, had been replaced by a glowing mass of molten rock. There was no sign of life anywhere in the system.

Jules carefully maneuvered the ship to the primary rendezvous point, and began searching for the Asp bomber that had been assigned to this target. The smaller vessel wasn't anywhere to be found, but that wasn't a particular cause for concern. Jules launched a small self-propelled beacon, which after moving a safe distance off, began burst-transmitting a low-power encrypted hail at irregular intervals. Many long minutes passed with no response from the Asp, and Jules began to worry.

Standard procedures at this point called for proceeding on to the alternate rendezvous, and repeating the process. This would be the first time that those procedures were ever invoked, though, and Jules was worried. He moved the Rosa further out into interstellar space, and sent the beacon a self-destruct command. After observing the small flash created by the disintegration of the beacon, he made the short jump to the alternate rendezvous location.

On arrival, he repeated the entire search and retrieval sequence, and this time an answer came back, but not from the Asp. Instead, the response came from a message torpedo. This was bad. Every Asp carried a single message torpedo, to be launched only as a last resort. Its flight plan was updated automatically and continuously, by the ship's AI, to return it to the secondary rendezvous location, in the event of a mission failure that resulted in the loss of the Asp.

The torpedo's payload consists of a message cube - essentially, a large chunk of static RAM - that contains flight and activity data for the Asp. Like the torpedo's flight plan, it is continuously updated, and has sufficient capacity to retain (with data compression) the entirety of the ship's sensor and monitor logs for the normal duration of a mission. In addition, it has space for a pilot's action report and, if he wishes, a short video message.

Jules instructed the Rosa's AI to issue the encrypted command that would cause the torpedo to eject its payload. Rosa's waldoes then recovered and stored the package, and after moving off a safe distance, the torpedo self-destructed. He called a meeting of the current supercargo, to inform them that one of their number would not be returning.

The nine other Asp pilots who had already completed their missions already knew what the SOP called for in this case, but Jules had the AI play back the required actions anyway. Only two of the pilots gave him any grief about it, and in the face of the evidence, even they had to admit to, and accept, the loss.

Four Earth-standard hours after arriving in the formerly Sa'arm-controlled system, the Rosa departed for Home

Joe Fanelli - aka Don Giuseppe DiCatania - sat alone at his desk, having just read the action report filed by the pilot of the Rosa. He hadn't yet opened the message packet that had been delivered along with the report. Instead, he instructed the office AI to retrieve and display the personnel record for the missing pilot. When the AI notified him that the information was ready, Joe turned to his ancient, flat-panel LCD monitor to review the data. He wasn't a big fan of holographic displays, and the flat-panel still worked very well for his purposes, without adding unnecessary layers of confusion. What he saw on the screen was exactly what he expected.

NAME: CRISTIANO MARTELLI

OCCUPATION: ASP BOMBER PILOT/COMMANDER

STATUS: MISSING IN ACTION, PRESUMED DEAD.

AGE: 28 EARTH STANDARD YEARS

SPOUSE(S):

NAME: ORQUIDEA AGE: 43

NAME: TEODORA AGE: 30

NAME: GEMMA, AGE: 21

NAME: CLARISSE AGE: 16

MINOR DEPENDENTS: 7 (3 M, 4 F)

There was more, of course, but none of the rest was as important to Joe as were those few lines. They told him, not only what the cosca lost on this last mission, but the number and names of those who would feel the loss much more deeply and sharply. Cristiano was in the first class to graduate Asp pilot school, and like his classmates, he had a record of exemplary and effective service in the cosca's war against the Sa'arm. Now he was to be honored as the cosca's first fallen hero of that war.

There would be public acknowledgement of Cris' valor, and the equivalent of a state funeral, but first there was the matter of breaking the news to his family, and taking care of their needs. Both jobs fell to Joe. Even before that, however, there was a need to review the mission data log.

Time was of the essence. The pilots returning with the Rosa had been debriefed, and would be arriving at their homes by evening. Getting to Cris Martelli's family before the news did was of critical importance. Joe made one call before he left the office.

"Hello? Oh hi darling!" Not knowing the reason, Maria was pleased that Joe had, uncharacteristically, called home before actually arriving there. That is, she was pleased, until she saw the look on his face.

"Maria, I have some bad news, and I'll need your help in dealing with it," he said softly.

Looking concerned, she responded, "What is it Joe? Are you sick or something?"

"Just sick at heart, my love. One of our Asp pilots did not return. There is no doubt that he is dead."

"Oh! No!"

"Afraid so ... and worse, he's got a family ... a big one..."

"Kids?"

"Seven," he confirmed. "and one of the wives is very young, as well."

"What do you need for me to do?" she asked, becoming businesslike. "We have to take care of his family."

"Yes, we do. I need to get over there tonight to break the news to them, and let them know we're going to be there for them. The first thing I need for you to do is to contact the family and wangle us an invitation to visit tonight on some other pretext. I don't want them going off the deep end before we can get there to help."

"We?" she queried.

"Yes. That's the second thing I need from you. Try to find someone to watch the kids tonight ... perhaps your Aunt Michela ... I want you and Luisa to come with me."

"Good plan," she agreed, "we can hold their hands while you give them the news, and maybe offer some comfort."

"My thoughts exactly. Oh! When you talk to Michela, ask Father Nicholas if he could show up at the Martelli house, about twenty minutes behind us?"