by J. J. Green
As she finished reading the damage report, she frowned. The enhanced capabilities of the Shadow ship and its fighter pilots, and its surprise retreat, still bothered her. With a sinking heart, she pulled up the list of pilots. Where there should have been dots, many blanks remained next to the names. She lifted her comm button to her lips.
“Squadron Leader Correia, report on the missing pilots.”
“We’ve finished our search, ma’am. Everyone who’s coming back is aboard ship,” came the man’s reply.
Krat. The list on the display screen looked more than half empty. “We seem to have suffered higher than average losses.”
“Yes, we have, Commander. Thirty-three missing.”
Thirty-three of seventy-eight. “How do you account for those numbers, Squadron Leader?”
The man took a moment to answer. “If I’m honest, Commander, I’d say we were outclassed. If it weren’t for the fact that the second ship jumped, I don’t think we could have lasted much longer.”
“I see.”
“I’ve been a part of this war for nearly three years, ma’am,” Correia went on, “and the Shadow fighter pilots just get better and better. At the same time, our recruits are younger every time we receive a new batch, and they’re worse-trained. When I joined up, I thought the caliber of our pilots was poor and we were scraping the barrel. Now, if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve got a war to win, I would send half of every new intake back to pilot school.” The man’s tone rose. “They simply aren’t ready, ma’am. And we send them out there like...like...”
“I understand, Squadron Leader,” Jas said. “I understand. Please let me know when we’ll hold the memorial service for the lost pilots.”
Correia had recovered his composure. He answered firmly, “Yes, ma’am.”
Jas closed the comm link and returned her attention to the screen. She prepared to write the first mail of thirty-eight. Pressing on a pilot’s name brought up his or her details, including the next-of-kin’s mail address and any last messages or requests from the pilot in the event of their death. She always read each entry carefully and crafted personal mails based on what the pilot had written. She pressed the first name:
If don’t make it, please send this message to my parents:
Dear Mom and Dad, don’t cry too long or too hard over me. Please don’t be mad over what has happened. I did what I had to do, and fighting the Shadows was it. Put on a brave face for those who need you, and celebrate my life.
Jas read the woman’s birth date. She’d been twenty-two when she died. Her eyes sad, Jas began to write.
She always referred to the lost pilot’s status as 'presumed dead’. If the searchers couldn’t find a signal from their chip, the person was almost certainly going to die if they weren’t already dead. Deep space was so vast, the chances of being accidentally found were just about impossible. Though Jas recalled a case where the pilot’s arm that held her chip had been blown way off into space, and it was only when she managed to comm her ship that anyone knew she was still alive.
Jas had only written two sentences of the first mail when her interface chirruped. The message wasn’t marked urgent, so she ignored it. Whatever it was, it could wait until she’d gotten at least one mail written. Almost immediately, however, there was a second chirrup. This time, she checked to see who was messaging her. It was Admiral Pacheco’s office requesting a vidcall.
She rolled her eyes. Vidcalls across space required excessive power. A simple mail should have sufficed if he wanted to discuss something, and whatever it was could probably have been handled by his office too.
She pressed her acceptance, and Pacheco’s familiar face appeared on her screen. She’d worked with the man in one way or another ever since had volunteered to join the Shadow War and he was first officer aboard the Infineon, where she’d been posted. Jas had been commanding a team of defense units, and Pacheco had earned a quick promotion to commander when the Infineon’s commander had his head blown off by a Shadow.
Jas and Pacheco had both come a long way since then, and the admiral’s dark hair had silvered at his temples. Over the years, Jas had developed a comfortable acquaintance with the short-tempered man.
If only the admiral’s feelings about her had been similarly neutral.
“Commander Harrington, good to see you, as always.”
“Hello, Admiral. Is there something I can do for you?”
The man’s features clouded. “Ever efficient and straight to the point. Would it hurt to just chat for once, Jas? It isn’t like we’re strangers.”
Jas rubbed her brow. Sometimes she and the admiral adopted a formal attitude to one another as befitted their difference in rank, and sometimes they fell into the old familiarity. She wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with either mode. “I’m in the middle of something, Pacheco. So, if this is about the meeting, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. Now, I really need to—”
“You’re writing to the pilots’ families, aren’t you? I keep telling you—”
“And I keep telling you that I want to do it. Now, please, krat knows how much power this call is using, so...”
“Okay, okay,” the admiral grumbled. “Yes, it was about the meeting. But not only that, you’ll collect your new intake of personnel while you’re here and jump back to your ship with them. You have some newly trained pilots, a team of defense units, a chief engineer, and relief maintenance crew as your current set are at the end of their duty tour, some medics, and—”
“Fine. I’ll make sure to collect them. I’ll see you at the meeting.”
“Wait,” Pacheco said. “There’s one more thing I thought you might be interested to know.”
“What’s that?” Jas asked, wondering what else the man would think up to prolong the call. She lifted her hand, ready to close the connection.
“As your intake were talking among themselves, I overheard something I thought you might find interesting. One of them already knows you, someone said. From way back before the Shadow War began.”
Jas’ hand halted on its downward trajectory to end the call. “Someone who knows me?” Her voice quivered.
Pacheco’s eyes narrowed as he studied her reaction. “Yes, that’s right. That was all I heard, though.”
Someone who knew her. For a brief moment, Jas forgot where she was and who she was talking to. But she didn’t dare to hope.
She returned to the present and saw that Pacheco had been watching her silently during her moment of distraction.
“Okay,” she said, with some effort. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you soon.”
She closed the call without waiting for an answer from Pacheco. Her heart was racing and her blood was rushing through her ears, making her light-headed. Could it really be him? It was hardly possible that he’d survived five years as a pilot in the Shadow War. The attrition rate was too high. Jas hadn’t met a single pilot who had been in the war since the beginning.
Her stomach was so tight, she felt sick. It was strange. She thought she’d given up hope of ever seeing Carl again years ago, when she’d accepted the remoteness of the chances of him still being alive. Yet this small remark passed on by Pacheco had thrown her back into a state of ridiculous, stupid hope. A hope she’d tried hard to give up.
Chapter Three
Jas had a few minutes before the Transgalactic Council gateway would open to take her to the Unity Alliance meeting. She checked her reflection in her cabin’s mirror, smoothing down the creases on her uniform pants. She preferred the flexibility of a combat suit to the stiff, black material of a commander’s uniform. Hers always looked crumpled and untidy.
She had managed to slow her racing heart a little by telling herself over and over again that it was impossible that this person who knew her from long ago could be Carl. She had met and worked with many people over her career as a security officer. Hundreds of crew members aboard the prospecting starships where she used to work, in fact. This perso
n could be any of them. There was no reason for her to suppose that it was Carl.
She checked the time and turned to face the spot in the corner of her office where the gateway would open. The technology was highly confidential. The Council insisted that it was used well away from lower-ranking military.
Minute green specks appeared in midair and were soon lazily swirling around. Jas had gotten used to traveling by gateway since she’d been promoted to commander, but she took deep breaths this time as the green spots coalesced.
At just the right moment, she stepped through.
She was in the entrance way of a tall building, standing in the bright light of twin suns. Jas stepped quickly away from the gateway to make room for other commanders and captains who would be appearing behind her. Looking up, she saw that her initial impression of the building hadn’t been correct. It would have been more accurate to describe the place as a kind of mound. Way above, the massive insectoid Transgalactic Council officials were flying on translucent wings, emerging from and landing at holes in the sides of the mound.
The entrance way she stood at was apparently only for species who went around on legs. Jas took a moment to enjoy the feeling of sunlight on her face for the first time in months before entering the edifice.
Inside, she was greeted by a Council administrator—a smaller, less colorful version of the higher officials—who led her and the other military officers through smooth, ceramic tunnels to the meeting room.
Accommodating the range of galactic species who had allied with the Unity, the military arm of the Transgalactic Council, could not have been easy, but the Council managers had clearly grown adept at the practice during the hundreds of Earth years that they’d been organizing the galaxy’s affairs. Jas settled down in a seat designed for humanoids and waited for the rest of the UA officers to arrive.
She’d been eager to attend the meeting after her most recent battle, to discuss what had happened with the new Shadow ships. She’d wanted to find out if anyone had had a similar experience and what they thought of it. But Pacheco’s news had distracted her a little. She was looking forward to the meeting being over so she could meet this mysterious person from the past who knew her.
The Unity Alliance officers entered the room in dribs and drabs, walking, hopping, floating, and sliding. Jas knew many of them by sight, some by name. During her brief time as a commander, some of the officers she’d gotten to know had died in the course of performing their duty.
She chewed the edge of her thumb, wondering how much longer she had to wait until the meeting would start.
Finally, when the room was bursting with the assorted UA upper echelons, Admiral Pacheco arrived. As he came in, his eyes caught Jas’. His black uniform was in a far better state than hers. Not a crease or piece of lint was in sight. He was wearing his admiral’s hat, which he took off and tucked under his arm.
Only an extra star on the breast of his jacket signified Pacheco’s rank, but his dignified composure was enough to tell any onlooker of his status. His gaze, as it swept the room, was quiet and serious. The hum of various languages that had started up as the officers waited was quickly silenced.
“Commanders, captains, rear admirals, thank you for coming,” Pacheco said. “Time is pressing, so let’s keep this short. I want a brief update from each of you on the recent and ongoing engagements in your sectors.”
Jas listened for a moment to the incomprehensible sounds being made by the commander next to Pacheco, who had taken it upon him- or herself to begin, before she realized she’d forgotten to turn her comm button to its translation setting. As soon as she made the change, the button relayed the speech in standard English. The commander was reporting on a successful raid on a Shadow trap planet.
From the commander’s description, the world sounded similar to K.67092d, where Jas had first encountered the hostile beings that came from the Void, somewhere outside the known universe. K.67092d had been a barren planet, devoid of complex life forms. Nothing but the strange, hexagonal Shadow traps was of any interest in the place, and that of course made them perfect for attracting the attention of unsuspecting visitors.
The commander related how his crew had successfully destroyed all the traps on the planet. At the same time, they had defended the place from attacking Shadow ships that were seeking to stop them.
The next Unity Alliance officer told a different story. This officer’s ship had been tasked with discovering new instances of Shadow invasion that had gone unnoticed by local populations. Galactic civilizations were numerous, and many hadn’t yet joined the Transgalactic Council. That fact didn’t make them off bounds to the Shadows, however, and to truly remove the Shadow threat from the galaxy, the Council had implemented a program to comb its reaches for their presence.
Not for the first time, Jas was reminded of the Shadows’ resemblance to an infestation. Insidious and difficult to permanently eradicate, the aliens had gradually crept into every nook and cranny of the galaxy. They hid away, slowly multiplying, until they finally erupted like a nest of cockroaches.
When Jas’ turn came, she told the room about the Thylacine’s most recent engagement. She emphasized the second Shadow ship’s superior fighter pilots, hull, and force field, as well as its puzzling disappearance the minute the first ship was destroyed. When she’d finished her short report, Jas looked to Pacheco for a response, but he gave none. He nodded toward the next officer to begin.
Her brows knitted. Hadn’t he understood that there had to be implications to what she’d said? She bit the edge of her thumb again, then stopped because it was already sore.
After what seemed like a long time, the final report was given.
“Thank you, everyone,” Pacheco said. “Plenty of useful information there. I also have a report to give. I’m sure you can tell from the many positive stories we’ve heard here, that the war is going well for us. At the last reckoning, the Unity Alliance effort had eradicated the Shadow threat from approximately ninety-five percent of the galaxy. The scanning protocols the Transgalactic Council put in place two years ago have been working, and the sloppy mistakes we used to make, allowing Shadows to infiltrate the scanning process, are a thing of the past.
“Through the excellent efforts of Commander Harrington and the Thylacine—” Jas cringed “—we have secured the Council’s access to mythrin, which is of course essential in detecting Shadows. Every day we draw closer to our goal of destroying every known and unknown Shadow invasion.” He gave a tight smile. “I think it’s safe to say we have the misborns on the run. And now, on to our next maneuver.”
Pacheco tapped an interface on the wall. The lights dimmed and a panoply of stars shimmered into view in the center of the room. For a moment, Jas was distracted from her personal concerns. It had been a long time since she’d seen a hologram of the Milky Way. She was used to seeing holos of the local star system wherever the Thylacine was engaging in battle. It was only rarely that she saw the galaxy as a whole.
The vast expanse of tiny points of light, representing gigantic, blazing suns, took her breath away.
“Through the efforts of the last five years and the sacrifice of many, many brave individuals,” said Pacheco, “we have concentrated the mass of the Shadows in this sector of the galaxy.” The holo zoomed into an area of thousands of stars. “According to our intelligence, several star systems in this region remain heavily infested with Shadows. In fact, we’re confident that this is where most of the resistance and re-emergences in previously swept sectors are organized and provisioned. It’s a Shadow stronghold, but it’s the last one. If we can wipe them out here, we have a chance of putting an end to the Shadow menace forever. In short, if we win back this region we will have victory. The war will be over, and the civilizations of the galaxy can return to peace.”
Pacheco stopped speaking, but no one said anything for a while. Jas, too, was having trouble processing what the admiral had said. The Shadow War had been going on for so long, fig
hting it had become a way of life to her. She found it hard to believe that the war could end.
A strangled sound, which Jas realized after a moment was a kind of laughter, came from a corner of the room. More sounds and voices joined in, rejoicing at Pacheco’s announcement. But before things could get out of hand, the admiral raised his arms and asked for silence.
“Let’s not be premature,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do before we can celebrate. Now, more than ever, we must continue in our attitude of utmost vigilance to prevent Shadows from infiltrating our safeguards. We must continue to protect our people from their invasions. We must continue to crush and eradicate them wherever we find them.
“I’ve brought you here today to tell you that we’re on the cusp of our best chance for a final, decisive blow. Now, I want you all to return to your ships and redouble your efforts. Expect and accept only the best from those you command. If we can maintain the courage, rigor, and determination that have brought us this far, we can succeed in putting an end to this war. When the time comes for the final push, I will send instructions.”
Nothing more needed to be said. The Unity Alliance officers slowly filed out of the room to return to their starships. As Jas had seated herself at the back of the room, she was one of the last to leave. Pacheco was thanking or having brief chats with the officers as they left, but he was alone when Jas reached him.
She tensed.
“Commander Harrington, could I have a word?”
Chapter Four
As always, Pacheco’s demeanor lost some of its stiffness now that he and Jas were alone.
“I just wanted to say, congratulations on another successful battle. How many does that make now? Is it eight or nine?”
Jas smiled, thin-lipped. “I’ve commanded the Thylacine for seven battles so far, Admiral.”
