Legacies

The Long Night continues across the galaxy.

On Cascade, a young girl leads her squad into a dropship. She's spent weeks convincing her superiors that this is a mission worth undertaking, and finally, they've relented. She smiles, and widens as she looks at her closest friend.

Her friend returns the smile, but only out of obligation. All his life, the spectre of death has hung over him and his people. If he survives this mission or not, it won't matter. None of it will matter.

And on a ship, thousands of light years away, a metarex commander gives orders for a salvage operation to begin. He has three goals in this universe – the mission will help him achieve them. By his hand, the Long Night continues.

Which is just as well. For once the Great Work is completed, the galaxy will know peace.

There was still air in here.

Tempting as it was to take off her vac suit's helmet, Molly kept it on, and beckoned the rest of her squad to do so as well. There was air in this particular segment of the ship. That didn't mean that air extended all over the ship as well. So, with a gesture, she led her team through the corridors of the White Zephyr, headed for the bridge.

"You're a downer, you know that?" Leon asked.

"Just following procedure Leon."

"Yeah, like you were ever one to follow procedure."

She tapped the four silver bars on the side of her vac suit. "Didn't stop me from getting these."

"Yeah, it didn't. But that says more about circumstances than chain of command right now."

Molly scowled, but didn't say anything. Sad fact of the matter was that Leon was right. Once, her people had sailed the stars, establishing an empire of a hundred worlds. Now, those worlds were gone, Cascade was in ruins, and the human race was on the verge of extinction. That she was even allowed to take part in ops like these was only possible due to radiation-induced infertility.

Speaking of which… She adjusted her suit's readout to get a sample of latent radiation. The White Zephyr was in a decaying orbit around the gas giant of Odessa, and that was to say nothing about its drive core. So potentially, she and her squad were getting a double whammy. Still, Black Wind had afforded them some grace in this universe, and that was that the drive core wasn't leaking, and the plating of the ship was protecting them from the gas giant's radiation. Much as she'd have preferred Black Wind to return and smite the enemies of Cascade like he'd done in the legends of old, she'd take small blessings over no blessings.

"So," Leon murmured. He walked up alongside her.

"So?" Molly asked.

"So, as in, is there a plan?"

"Course there's a plan. Why wouldn't there be a plan?"

"Well, there's five of us. And we're on the most powerful warship ever constructed by the empire, that we've got to get back to Cascade somehow, and do that without the metarex noticing." He nodded back at the last three members of the squad. "And that's all with five people."

Molly said nothing.

"You know Cyclone-class dreadnoughts had a crew of thousands right? They'd fit more humans on this ship than there's left in the entire Resistance right now."

"We don't need a crew of thousands to get it back home Leon," Molly murmured.

"And you're basing that on what, exactly?"

"Technical manuals." She looked at him and smiled. "You should try reading them sometime."

"Oh yeah, sure. In those little moments I get without being shot at by homicidal robots, I'll be sure to spend my last days going over tech manuals." He began walking ahead of her, and Molly's step slowed.

"Leon?" she asked.

He kept walking.

"Leon!"

He kept walking even faster.

"Damn it," she murmured. She glanced back at her squad, who were being dutifully silent. Either in deference to her, or in deference to Leon's words, she couldn't say. She might have seniority of rank over them, but being only 14 years old, she certainly didn't have seniority of age. In the old days of the empire, she'd have to have waited at least two years to even get a cadetship.

But those were the old days. The days as they were meant everyone had to do their part. It meant that she'd learnt to field strip a pulse rifle before she could walk, and had begun working at machine shops since the age of 3. One day, one exposure to radiation that had rendered her infertile later, and she'd found herself learning how to fly a Broadsword fighter. Training above the wastelands of Cascade, and then, fighting the metarex in space. Or, more and more often these days, within the atmosphere of Cascade as the metarex kept throwing their forces at them.

It couldn't go on. Which was why she'd convinced her superiors to give her a deep-space transport on a salvage mission to Odessa. Once, her ancestors had strode unchallenged among the stars, and they'd relied on ships such as the White Zephyr in which to do it. If that ship could be brought back to Cascade, if it could be manned…well, it might not turn the tide of the war, but it would certainly keep the tide at bay. They'd given her the ship, they'd given her a prayer, and they'd given her four pilots who, in this day and age, had to double as marines. She'd doubted that they believed that she'd return with anything.

And who's laughing now? Molly thought, as she continued to lead the squad to the bridge.

She didn't know. Maybe her. But only if she got this ship back home, and that meant getting its FTL drive working, along with everything else.

Could do a second trip, Molly supposed. Can't call home because of the distance, but if we give them a taste of the goods…

She slowed her pace. Up ahead was Leon, looking through a steelglass window. She quietly walked up to him and beheld the same view he did. Odessa. The reds and pinks of its atmosphere swirled, as storms larger than Cascade itself raged.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she asked.

Leon didn't say anything.

"Come on, you can say it," she said.

"It's just a gas giant," he murmured. "We've got two of those in our own system."

"Yes, but Tarawaw and Akuna, they're…well, they're not this." Molly gestured to the sight before them. "Come on, admit it. It's beautiful."

He glanced at Molly. "Some things are beautiful." He looked back at the gas giant. "Especially the detritus."

"The what?"

"Detritus." He took her arm and pointed it to the so-called detritus. "Monuments to the dead."

"Wow, so dark," she said sarcastically. But seeing what he was pointing to, she regretted her words immediately.

Detritus was a good word for it, she reflected. Pieces of scrap metal drifting in orbit of the planet. Defence platforms established by the seedrians to deter her peoples' advance into their territory. In the Great War, as Cascade had defended itself against seedrian aggression, Odessa had been the last world to fall before humanity had moved against Green Gate. It was a battle that had crippled the White Zephyr, but in the process, the seedrian fleet and the orbital defence platforms had been destroyed. After that, had come Green Gate itself. The seedrian homeworld.

"Come on," Molly said. "Bridge is waiting."

The squad moved out, but even as they walked, Molly's mind drifted. Generations had passed since the Great War. She'd read about it in what fragments of her people's history remained. Little had come from Green Gate, only that after months of fighting, the seedrians had been wiped out after refusing to surrender. In a war that had lasted years, been fought across dozens of star systems, and claimed millions of lives, Cascade had emerged victorious. And then, in the space of a year, it had changed. The fleet at Green Gate had been obliterated, and weeks later, her people learnt the culprits. An army of machines that wiped out 90% of her race in a matter of days before withdrawing, leaving behind ruined cities, and a planet that began to steadily die, as if consumed by some kind of poison. Generations of people like her, fighting for a golden age they'd never known, on and above a world that was steadily dying.

But that's going to change, Molly reflected as they reached the blast door that led to the bridge. Today, tomorrow, a decade or a century from either, that'll change. She nodded to Cecil, who opened up the keypad and began hacking it. Cascade will be great again.

The door hissed open.

And the metarex will be sent back to whatever black hole that spawned them.

The squad moved in, rifles at the ready. Molly knew it was unlikely that anyone (or anything) would be aboard the Zephyr, but years of drills, years of boarding actions against metarex ships, had drilled it into them. Rifles up, eyes sharp, shoot, leave questions for the techies who could hack the metarex CPUs. Still, there was nothing. Or at least, no-one. What there was, however, were plants.

"Huh," Leon murmured.

Lots of plants. Pot plants. Flowers. Vines. Leaves. Kind of like one of the greenhouses on Cascade – the few that remained on the surface, while the rest of her people had to rely on hydroponic farms located deep underground.

"Someone's been busy," Mac murmured. He looked at Molly. "Could there have been survivors here?"

"All these decades?" she asked.

"It's possible."

"Yeah, and it's possible I might grow a third arm and beat the metarex to death with it," Leon sneered.

Mac went to say something. Cecil and Hassan looked on. Molly however, said, "alright, that's enough." She looked over the bridge's consoles. "First priority is to see if we can get this ship moving. Then we can look into doing a scan for lifeforms. Cecil, you're with me. Rest of you, on point." She gave them a smile. "Oh, and I think it's safe to take the helmets off."

It was a breach of regulation, but the O2 readings coupled with the plants assured her that it would be fine. She walked over towards one of the consoles, she and Cecil taking off their helmets as they did so. A move that proved to be his undoing as one of the vines above them shifted…

What the?

…and something burst out of the leaves. Something small. Something green. Something holding a blade in each hand, and bringing them one of them down against the left side of Cecil's cheek, the left side of his chest, and his left leg. He screamed. Molly cursed. Someone began firing, and in less than a second, so did the entire squad. All except Molly as she saw what the assailant was doing, as they ducked behind Cecil's body, letting him be shredded by laser fire.

"Damn it!" Molly opened fire as well, but the assailant was moving too quickly. Not just on the ground, but swinging through the vines, as if they were reacting to their presence. Some kind of chlorophyll.

Molly doubted that that was a word. But the assailant waved a hand, and a vine shot down, piercing Hassan's arm. He yelled, dropping his rifle in pain.

Alright, enough.

Molly altered her rifle's settings. She kept her finger down on the trigger. Kept it trained on the assailant, still swinging around. Still evading the laser fire. Still keeping alive.

Got you.

She fired, but not a single laser, but rather a ball of energy. It didn't hit the seedrian herself, but it hit the space near her, generating a blast with enough force to knock her to the ground. Some of the vines caught alight and an alarm began to blare. But for Molly, that didn't matter, as she ran over to the seedrian, who looked up at the approaching human with a look of hatred in her eyes.

"Got you," Molly said, bringing down the butt of her rifle against the seedrian's forehead.

She was knocked out instantly.

"Well, this has been great so far, but I think this is the moment where I tell you it was all for nothing."

Molly barely heard Leon speak up from the main console. She was too busy thinking about everything that had gone so far. Cecil was dead, and that meant on Cascade, two children would have lost their father. Hassan was wounded. Mac was still Mac, but as he stood over the unconscious seedrian, bound with a pair of handcuffs, she was left to wonder how longer he'd be "Mac" before he turned into "Revenge!"

"Molly?"

And then there was Leon. Leon, who was a good techie, but who wasn't in Cecil's league, and whose skills mainly lay in the cockpit. Leon, who for months, had had a dark cloud hanging over him. Leon, who was letting that cloud extend to her as well.

"Molly!"

"What?!" she hissed.

He nodded to the console and after a sigh, Molly walked over. "Fine. Let's hear it."

"Well, the good news is that we have gravity, life support, and a fully functional nova cannon."

"And the bad news?"

"That the ship's dead in the water." He turned to face her after giving the console a little kick. "Engines have had it. And even if we got them working, the ship wouldn't get anywhere without an FTL drive."

"But it has a drive, right?"

"Oh yeah, sure. Completely dead too though."

Molly began pacing around. "So, what? Did the ship lose power over the decades and divert it to the sectors that mattered?"

"I dunno Molly, why don't you ask the talking plant?"

Molly looked back at the seedrian. She wasn't unconscious anymore. Oh sure, she was pretending to be, but while it might have fooled Mac, it hadn't fooled her.

"Alright," she said. "I will." She began to walk over, but Leon put a hand on her shoulder.

"Molly, come on. It would take months to salvage this ship. Best we can do now is cut our losses and-"

"Just do your job Leon, I'll do mine."

"My job. Right. Only been doing 'the job' my entire damn life."

"Now, Leon." She walked over to the seedrian girl, still playing mute. "Wake up," she murmured.

The seedrian made no move and Leon glanced at her.

"I said wake up," Molly snapped. She kicked the girl, and that got her attention, the seedrian letting out a yelp and opening her eyes.

"Good, we're getting somewhere." She looked at her comrade. "Mac, see if you can help Leon."

"Yes ma'am."

She glanced at Hassan, who was leaning against the wall beside the exit door, looking a mite peeved that the seedrian was still alive, while Cecil wasn't, not to mention that he was still clutching his arm where the vine had pierced it. If there was a breach in atmosphere, or a radiation leak, he was screwed. Regardless, Molly looked back at the seedrian.

"One of my men is dead because of you," she said.

"I know. I killed him."

Molly scowled. It wasn't so much the words that cut through her, but the icy tone that cleared the way. The metarex had slaughtered billions of her people, but they'd done it with a cool efficiency. This was 'cool,' so to speak, but on the other side of the emotional spectrum.

"Still," the seedrian continued, "considering the billions your kind have slaughtered, I suppose that's just a drop in the ocean."

"Excuse me?" Molly asked.

"You're a human, and unless your spawn evolved elsewhere in this universe, that means you hail from Cascade. And if you hail from Cascade, that means you're the heir to an empire that slaughtered billions."

"And you're a seedrian," Molly said. "If we had to kill your kind to protect the innocent, who's to blame?"

The seedrian stared at her. "What?"

Molly sighed. "I know history, so let's move to the present. You're here. We're here."

"Yes, I noticed that. Why?"

"You first."

The seedrian just glared at her, before shifting her gaze around the room. To Hassan, to Mac, to Leon, to Cecil. She smirked.

"Cascade," she whispered. "That's a name for a series of waterfalls isn't it?" Molly didn't say anything, so she continued. "I wonder – how many waterfalls would it take to wash all the blood off your hands?"

"Not as much it would take to wash off yours."

The seedrian's glare became akin to a pair of binary stars. "We are not the metarex," she whispered. "We-"

"The metarex?" Molly whispered. "What do they have to do with the Great War?"

The seedrian's glare faded, the binary stars winking out, consumed by the darkness within. "You really don't know?" she whispered

Molly stared at her, and the seedrian's frown became a grim smile. "You actually don't know. You know nothing. Maybe you lost your history, maybe it's been kept from you, but you don't know that the galaxy is burning because of you!" She giggled. "Oh, this is delicious." She looked at Cecil. "Must be so relieving, to die in ignorance."

Hassan got to his feet. Molly gave him a look, and with a scowl, he sat back down. She sighed, and looked down at the seedrian. "What's your name?" she asked.

The seedrian didn't say anything.

"You're bound either way, and Green Gate is gone. You don't have anyone to report to."

"Oh, there's people to report to," the seedrian murmured. She shifted her gaze to the steelglass window that separated the bridge from the vacuum of space. "I just choose not to." She shifted her gaze back to Molly. "But my name is Gaia. One of the last daughters of Earthia. And she can decay in the depths of space for all I care."

Earthia. The name didn't mean anything to Molly. Still, the seedrian before her was continuing to talk, and she didn't want to interrupt.

"Had a good time here," she said. "This world is the graveyard for both our peoples,' and given that there's no planet eggs in this system, I thought the metarex would never bother with it. Of course, I'd have preferred to live in one of the orbital habitats you destroyed, but-"

"You mean the defence platforms?"

"The habitats!" Gaia yelled.

Molly stared at her.

"More things you don't know then," the seedrian murmured.

"What don't I know?"

"How after you destroyed our fleet, the people here begged for mercy. How you destroyed them all regardless in a bid to get Green Gate to surrender – to set an example of what defiance would cost them." She laughed darkly. "I was once told that what happened at Odessa changed the course of the war. That we decided then and there that Green Gate would never surrender." She looked at Molly. "Check the ship's data banks if you don't believe me. Listen to how they slaughtered us before the last of our ships rammed into the engines, disabling this nightmare."

Molly looked at Leon – he must have been listening, given the look on his face. She gave him a nod, and he began to download the data.

"Oh for a different world," Gaia whispered. "A world where Green Gate would still stand. Where the metarex never existed." She glared at Molly. "And where your kind never climbed down from the trees."

Molly smirked, and looked up at the remaining vines coating the walls. "See you're pretty good at climbing down." She looked back down at Gaia. "Listen, you're seedrian. I'm human. We fought a war, you lost."

"All true. And?"

"And you've been here for awhile I take it."

"Years."

"So it stands to reason you must know a thing or two about the ship's systems."

Gaia squirmed. She didn't say anything, but as her eye glinted, as she looked away, that told Molly everything that she needed to know.

"So you know a thing or two. Such as getting this ship back to Cascade."

Gaia guffawed. "Why in the name of tree and sun would I do that?"

"Because as much as you hate us, I'm guessing that you hate the metarex more," Molly said. "And if we could use this ship against them…"

"Molly?" Leon asked.

"…if we could get this ship home…"

"Molly," Leon repeated.

"…then maybe the tide could be turned, and-"

"Molly!"

"What?!" she yelled. She got to her feet and stared. Not at Leon, but at the darkness of space beyond him. At the fleet of ships emerging from FTL travel. Metarex ships.

"No," Molly whispered. She ran her hands through her hair. "No no no no!"

Gaia chuckled. "Wanted to fight the metarex, Cascadian? Here's your chance."

Molly walked over to the console. "Have they spotted us?"

Leon did a quick read. "No sign of that." He looked at Molly. "But they're here. And there's only one resource of note in this system, and that's the seedrian defence platforms-"

"Habitats," Gaia snapped.

"…and the White Zephyr." He frowned. "Salvaging the platforms, we could live with. But if they got their hands on this ship, if they got it working…"

Molly didn't want to imagine it. She looked at Mac. "Options?"

He didn't say anything. He looked like he was fighting going into shock.

"Mac!"

He looked at her. "We bug out. We can make it back to our ship, head back to Cascade-"

"An option that stops the metarex from taking this ship, Mac," Molly said.

He looked at the console in front of him. "Missiles, PDCs, drones…" He sighed. "We've got them. They're barely working, but we've got them." He drew up a reading that showed the ammo and drone readouts. "But not nearly enough to fend off an entire fleet. And even if we did defeat it, what's to stop the metarex from coming back with more ships?"

Molly stood there, studying the readout. He was right. Black Wind's backside, he was right, damn it.

"Molly, we should go," Leon whispered. He glanced out at the fleet, before looking back at her. "We should really, really go."

"And leave this ship to the metarex?" she hissed. "We can't."

"But how do we scuttle the ship in the ten minutes, at best, before they move in?"

"Easy," said Gaia. "Use the nova cannon."

Three pairs of eyes looked back at the seedrian. The girl who though her wrists were still bound, had got to her feet. At only one metre tall, she was dwarfed by the humans around her, but at least for this moment, she commanded the room.

"Use the nova cannon," she whispered.

Molly sighed. "Even if we used it on the fleet, we-"

"Not on the fleet. On the planet."

Molly instantly recognised what she was proposing. So had Hassan, given how he got to his feet and began walking over.

"No," he said. "No way."

"Hassan-"

"Cecil's dead because of her! And now you're actually entertaining this?!"

Gaia looked at him. "You have a better idea, monkey?" She looked back at Molly. "You know I'm right. Use the nova cannon on Odessa."

Leon put a hand on Molly's shoulder. "Molly, come on."

"Come on what?" she asked. "You've got a better idea?"

"Molly, even if we went along with this, the metarex would pick up the energy readout. They'd destroy the ship before it fired."

"Then use its remaining arsenal," said Gaia. "Hold them off to take them all out in a single shot."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Mac sneered. "And who's going to stay behind to do that?"

"Well, one of you will have to," Gaia said. "Two, actually. One to man the gun station, the other to pivot the ship to fire." She laughed. "But only one. I'll be the other."

The humans stared at her. All except Hassan, who began walking over. "Like hell," he said.

"Hassan," Molly murmured.

He glared at her. "You're going along with this. After this bitch killed Cecil, you're actually going along with this!"

Molly opened her mouth to speak, but Gaia beat her to it. "If you want, two of you can die," she said. She turned back to Hassan. "Do you want to be one of the two?"

Hassan glared at her.

"Well?" she asked.

Hassan looked at Molly. Molly looked at Hassan. Hassan, after a moment, knelt down and unlocked Gaia's handcuffs.

"Hassan?" Molly asked.

"Go," he whispered.

"Hassan, come on," said Leon.

"Just go," he said. He looked at Molly. "Cascade needs you. It needs this." He looked at Gaia. "And this little alien needs a handler."

Gaia glared at him.

What followed was a minute of Leon handing Molly the data, them deciding not to take Cecil's body, and no small amount of curses and prayers. In the seconds that followed the minute, Molly walked over to Gaia, who was already altering the ship's trajectory, and charging its nova cannon.

"Gaia," she said.

"Bit busy right now little girl."

Molly couldn't help but laugh at the thought of such a diminutive creature calling her little. Nevertheless, she asked, "why are you doing this?"

Gaia looked up at her.

"Why are you doing this?" Molly repeated. "Giving up your life for us."

"Simple – I'm not giving up my life for you." She returned her gaze to the console she was at. "I'm giving it up for the galaxy."

Molly said nothing, and Gaia sighed. "I've never walked on a planet. I've never felt the sun on my skin, feeding my leaves. My toes have never touched soil. I was born in space, and I'll die in space." She looked at Molly. "All because of what your kind did generations ago."

Molly said nothing. Tempting as it was to debate history, she knew this wasn't the time.

"But for everything you've done, the metarex have repeated it tenfold. So to that, I'm willing to give my life to destroy as many of them as I can." She closed her eyes, and Molly could see she was trying to steady her breathing. "Now go."

Molly bit her lip. She had no reason to love, let alone trust seedrians after everything they'd done. But nevertheless, she got to her feet. Her eyes met Hassan's, who nodded. Her eyes returned to Gaia, who was operating the console perfectly. "Thank you," she whispered.

"You want to thank me?" She looked up at Molly. "Kill them." She grabbed Molly's arm, and whispered, "they made me what I am, Molly. Don't let them do that to anyone else."

An alarm began to blare. Hassan cursed, and from the bridge, Molly could hear the thump-thump-thump of the ship's PD cannons. She could see contrails of missiles zipping through space, and a fleet of drones on its way to waylay the metarex ships. She could see, for the first time in her life, a ship of her people engaging the metarex on even terms.

"Molly." Leon put a hand on her shoulder. "It's time to go."

She looked at Gaia. At Hassan. At Cecil's body. Finally, she looked at Leon.

She nodded.

It didn't take them long to get back to the ship. When they jetted off, she ordered Mac to keep them in real-space. She had to be sure that Gaia would be true to her word. She had to see this for herself.

It didn't disappoint. The nova cannon fired right into Odessa. From the ship's external cameras, Molly watched as its energy tore through the planet's clouds. Moments later, Odessa, the gas giant died. In moments, Odessa, the brown dwarf was born, as the process of nuclear fusion was kickstarted within its core.

Its atmosphere changed as hydrogen began being converted to helium. Its mass expanded, engulfing the debris of the seedrian ships and orbital defence platforms. Consuming the White Zephyr itself – a monument to past glories, and like those glories, forever lost to the sands of time. Consuming with it, the metarex fleet. Butchers of a hundred worlds. The scourge of the galaxy. The ones which haunted her dreams and memories both, tainting her past and future. Odessa consumed them all. And in silence, she, Leon, and Mac watched. Until at last, nothing was left but a new star. With nothing to mark what had once been here. What had transpired generations ago. Minutes ago. None but three pairs of eyes, linked to minds and beings that meant nothing to a cold, uncaring universe.

In silence, they watched on.

In silence, Molly nodded to Mac.

In silence, the ship engaged in FTL travel and returned to Cascade.

The Long Night continues.

On Cascade, two boys and a girl receive commendations for their work, while their comrades' sacrifices are honoured. None know the name of Gaia. They believe the girl when she says that she lost the data from the ship on the way out.

On Cascade, deep below the earth, the girl listens to the final hours of the White Zephyr. She listens to a seedrian pleading for mercy, that the space stations orbiting Odessa are simply orbital colonies. That they have no defences now that their fleet has been obliterated. She listens to the Zephyr's captain giving the order to fire, consigning hundreds of seedrians to a fiery death to set an example to Green Gate. She listens, and promptly deletes the data. Gaia had years on that ship to alter history, and she's not going to let a lie poison her people. One fights for the truth, not lies. She knows what happened in the Great War, and for all of Gaia's aid, she knows that her kind was on the wrong side of it.

Not far from the girl, a boy resides in his own quarters. He knows his friend is lying, and he knows why she's lying. He knows that lies are all that have kept his people going. The lie that there's hope. That their homeworld can be rebuilt. As an alarm sounds, as all pilots are ordered to return to their fighters, he's left to wonder how much longer the lie can be sustained. And what he might have to do to save what's left of his people.

And on a ship, thousands of light-years away, a metarex commander studies the last moments of the 8th Fleet. He watches a gas giant become a brown dwarf. He watches as tens of thousands of his forces are obliterated in an instant. And after that, he listens to the last transmission from the White Zephyr, from a voice that he recognises not as human, but as seedrian. Speaking in a long dead language, from the mouth of a long dead race, as alarms blaze around her.

I want you to know why I did this Lucas.

I want you to know that there's blood on all our hands. I want you to appreciate that violent actions beget violent beings, and that you are a testament to this tragedy – how out of the ashes of Green Gate and the Great War came a nightmare unlike anything the galaxy has seen. I want you to know that I stand beside Cascade in the last moments of my life, not out of love for its people, but out of hatred for you.

You, who have slaughtered billions in your quest for "peace."

You, who dishonour the memory of Green Gate.

You, who continue to hound the true daughters of our homeworld in your rampage across the stars.

Maybe Earthia will never stop you. I know that one fleet means nothing to you now. I know why you have assigned a commander to Cascade even after taking their planet egg, because while you have changed your body, you have not changed your heart.

I want you to know that someone will stop you. That while the stars are stained in the blood of those who fall outside the Great Work, that the arc of the universe bends towards justice. Someone, somewhere, from some world, will stop you. And be it a year, ten, a hundred, a thousand or more, the day will come when you will cry out for forgiveness and find none.

I meet my end with honour. I doubt you will do the same.

The commander, the one who goes by the name of Dark Oak, terminates the feed and clutches his fist. He cares nothing for this girl's rantings, but it is good that she is dead. If Earthia's spawn still prowl the galaxy, then it is as well that there is one less of their number.

It is just as well that he sends a message to Scarship – he's assigning the 5th Fleet to help it in his search for Earthia.

It is just as well that he receives word that the planet egg of Planet Noutoo has been extracted, and all resistance destroyed. Its people will either die, or live long enough to see the Great Work completed. Either way, the arc of the universe bends towards justice.

And it is just as well that he sends a message to one of his commanders, currently commanding the 4th Fleet in Cascade's star system. A message that is the same as ones he has given in the past, but one that bears repeating. A message that will ensure that the atrocity of Green Gate does not go un-avenged. That the defiance at Odessa will not be ignored. That when the stars finally shine on a peaceful universe, the people of Cascade will have long since faded into distant memory.

"Kill them all."