“Captain, the incoming vessel is on an interception course!”

“Ours?” Tal gripped his command chair, looking over to the operations console.

“No, sir! Definitely Drasin configurations, sir.” The young crewman looked sick.

“How many?”

The young man gulped as he looked up from his boards in terror. “Twenty-three, sir.”

This time Captain Tal didn’t hesitate, not for an instant. He hit the fleet communicator and yelled in no uncertain terms, “This is Captain Tal! All ships break and run! Vector zero-two-zero-mark-three! I repeat, all ships retreat!”

The fleet vessels turned and ran sprinting for the only opening they had left: a white giant system a few light-minutes away.

They needed to buy enough time to escape into dimensional drive, something they couldn’t do with the drain the weapons placed on their systems. Most species had a choice when they were in a situation like this—fight or flight—and in this case, they could only choose one.

Tal was pale and haggard as he realized that he had chosen the wrong one.

They couldn’t outrun the Drasin in deep space—that was obvious even from the short battle. They could only hope to trap them within a gravity well. Then if things went right, they could escape the well and enter dimensional drive while the Drasin were recovering.

If things went well.

Milla heard the captain order the ships to deploy their mines, which shocked her since those nuclear devices were a last resort. The small fighter craft they had worked on for months, refitting from passenger shuttles and small freighters, were launched into the maelstrom. Their pilots could hope only to buy a few more minutes for the retreating fleet. Even that wasn’t enough, and the Drasin were soon upon them.

As if through a dream, she heard Tal give the order to abandon ship, but when she moved to object, his stare silenced her words and she left the battle-scarred bridge. Her last sight of Tal was his proud posture sitting in his command chair, staring at the damaged viewer.

At the pod, Milla looked wildly about. It was the last one, and she didn’t want to leave anyone behind, but no one else came. Stumbling inside the small craft, she thumped the controls, sealing the pod off and firing the ejection thrusters. The Carlache spun wildly, framed in the small window of the pod, taking massive hits from the Drasin ships. Its weapons systems fired one last time as they returned fire with as much fury as futility. The last thing Milla saw was a fatally wounded Drasin fighter spinning in her direction; then the pod spun violently and the universe went dark.

A long time passed without her knowing it. Time that saw the rest of her fleet destroyed. Time that saw the Drasin hunt down life pods just like hers as her shipmates began to broadcast their plaintive cry for help.

Through all of that time, Milla floated in the microgravity of the pod, held in place only by her restraint system as she tumbled over and over in space.