I am on the bridge, with Harry, who is in a howling rage, and Jamie, who is the cybergeek god incarnate.
I drafted this battle plan, to Flanagan’s brief. And on my computer screen I can feel the war unfolding. Ambushes and boobytraps are carefully seeded, like twists in a detective novel. But most of all, we rely on the sheer fighting power of our rocket-propelled warriors flying outside the ships. They are like wasps that bring an elephant to its knees, and chew its bones.
“Brandon?”
The Captain is speaking to me. I realise that, for three long seconds, my heart has stopped beating. I gulp, force myself to breathe again.
“Alliea is dead,” I tell him. He stares at me blankly.
Alby
The rules of my ssspecies tell me I cannot intervene in any way in this combat. We are a paccccifist, nonwarrior life form. We do not fight, it is alien to usss, imposssssible to our nature. We cannot fight. Ever!
I watch as ten Corporation warshipssss close in on the Captain’s ship. I worry that they will be able to destroy Flanagan before his crew notice this new threat.
Sssso I ssssupernova. The nova becomes focussssed into a ssssingle flare. I lunge and plunge and ssssoar and sssspike, ripping through the enemy warships like a ssssun turned javelin.
It issss gloriousssssssssssss!
Flanagan
“Shit, what was that?” I ask.
Jamie checks his computers. The debris of enemy warships litters our path.
“Not sure, Cap’n. Spontaneous combustion?” he hazards.
The shattered warships are burning up, they are actually melting in deep space. I make a guess.
“Thank you Alby,” I murmur to myself.
Flanagan
Lena is in her room. I go and visit her. She is actually asleep.
I gently kiss her cheek and she awakes. “Oh, you,” she murmurs. Then her eyes flash open. “It’s over?”
“It’s over.”
“We’ve lost.”
“We’ve won.”
“How many survivors?”
“Very few. Perhaps, three ships in all. Maybe a hundred pirates still alive. Plus our own ship.”
Her face is ashen. I’m surprised. I didn’t think she would have cared that much.
“A hundred left,” she says, “out of eleven million, and that’s a victory?”
“Well, we killed all of them.”
“I’m sorry for sleeping.”
“There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I want to sleep a bit more.”
Lena lies down. Her eyes close. Within seconds, she is asleep again. I look at her with jealousy. I yearn to sleep. To switch off. To have a brief respite from guilt.
But that cannot be.