She heard the com unit buzz. Captain Barron again, she knew, probably intent on making one more appeal for her to surrender. She knew the enemy commander meant well…but all the buzzing did was torment her, to tease her with glimpses of survival she knew could never be.

The children were still there in her mind, amid scenes of darkness. She tried to push the bleak thoughts aside, but they were there, clear and resolute despite all her attempts to ignore them. Each of her children, years from now, grown, blood-covered and battered, driven on by rage, by the thought of their mother, dead so many years before. They would fight, and they would find their end, death’s bitter harvest in some battle years from now.

Just as I at this moment…

She felt sadness for her crew, and guilt at having failed them. Yet there was a spark of light too, gladness that at least the deaths of her people might avert war with the Confeds. Indeed, it almost certainly would. Her fall, at the hands of a single enemy vessel, shameful as it was to her legacy, would force the high command to rethink Confederation capabilities. She had no doubt they would cancel the proposed invasion, and that would save thousands of lives. Millions.

She stared back at the image of her children, seeing them now, for just a moment, not as they would look in the future, but as they appeared in the image. The Ordeal, their lives as warriors…all of it was far away from today, in the future. There would be good years at Litora Montis…hunts and fishing expeditions, and long hikes in the mountains. They would be well cared for, she knew, as the inheritors of the Rigellus estates and wealth. And Tarkus would protect them, care for them. They would be happy, she hoped, at least for many years, though she felt a twinge of pain to think of them joyous without her.

Live well, my children. Enjoy the days and the nights before duty claims you…and remember, your mother loves you always…

She took a deep breath, staring down at the tablet image as a single tear dropped from her face and hit the screen. Then, a moment later, she set it down and reached over to her control panel. “Ship control, this is Commander-Princeps Katrine Rigellus.”

“Commander-Princeps Katrine Rigellus, officer in command, AS Invictus. Recognized.”

“On my authority, initiate sequence Omega-0.”

“Sequence Omega-0 initiated. Ten second countdown begun.”

She closed her eyes. She had done all that was required of her, all that duty demanded. She would die now as she had lived.

Seven…

She thought back, to the births of her children, to her days as a child herself. Now she would find her end far from home and leave her children to grow up without her, just as her own father had done.

Five…