A squad of marines in fighting suits stood outside of a nondescript hatch aboard the Paladin.

"God dammit, I don't want to hear it!"

Crew members who walked down that corridor couldn't help but occasionally glance towards that hatch. Some set their jaws, others shuddered and looked away, others nodded soberly. All carried on with their work and tried not to think about it.

"Chas, they nuked Danoc...."

The changing of the watch outside this hatchway was done with all the solemnity of palace guards, or memorial tomb sentinels.

"Ma'nhilei phu chak-rik thul'bora vhalshi tulk aanatrich--!"

"Stop speaking in Ezcalli, I know you're angry, but I can't understand a word you're saying."

"It's better that you don't!"

A small plaque beside the hatchway, in both Common and Braille, declared the room to be the STARLANCE MISSILE STORAGE - Authorized Personnel Only. It had not been guarded, beyond a pair of unarmored marines and a security lock, since the heavy battlecruiser had been commissioned.

"I know you don't want to do this, but they did this to us first."

"And that makes it all right?"

"No, it doesn't. You know what I mean."

"But I don't want to be like them!"

Elsewhere aboard the ship, a marine in a fighting suit stood the traditional guard duty outside of the flag cabin. He was incredibly uncomfortable, a young wallaby with just barely the right body type to wear afighting suit that was only slightly non-standard. Fresh from Camp Rodger Young, boot camp and fighting suit school, normally a ranger would be standing where he was, but most of them were on special missions.

After all, this was the Commander's cabin. And, for the time being, the Commander's husband's cabin as well. He wondered how long that would last, and glanced around to make sure there were no, other, evesdroppers.

There was a long, long pause. Finally, wearilly, "You aren't. You could never be like those devils. Nobody in Cygnus could be."

The reply was a lot softer, and the private breathed a silent sigh of relief. The conversation, it had started as an horrendous shouting match, was now down to a level that he could no longer make out the words through the supposedly soundproof hatch. He wondered who he should report the failure of that soudnproofing to.

The hatch clicked, and slid open; he barely had enough time to straighten to attention, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a brief look of amusement at his movement from a large pair of golden eyes.

"We'll be dropping out of superluminal in an hour," another voice was saying, and into his view walked a large, furred anthro-dragon and a blue-uniformed grey fox vixen with white hair of dull lustre. "We'll have the StarLances loaded by then."

The dragon nodded. "Our strike ships are already preapared. I know they're glad for the chance to do this."

"I know how much your people need to. Even if ... " She cut herself off, glancing at the private with still-luminous eyes of aquamarine. "Anyway. Time for preparations. You're welcome to join me on the bridge, Fairon."

As the two walked away, taking them around the curve of the portside grav-cylinder, the private suddenly realized what time it was. One hour! He unconsciously checked the plaser carbine along his suit's right forarm as he came to parade rest. In an hour this might all be over, or he might be dead, or ... worse, in a way ... he'd be facing Xurian death commandoes.

From down the corridor approached a slightly older jaguar, wearing an impeccable CSA uniform, a heavy auto-pistol at his side. The private had heard the Colonel was aboard, but hadn't expected to run into the Iron Jag himself. He straightened back to attention hurriedly.

"As you were, son," Stern growled quietly, giving the marine's fighting suit a once-over. He missed the armored fighting vehicles, the panzers -- he was an armored cav officer at heart -- but at least the fighting suits developed late in the Swansong War were coming into use against the Xurians as well. He looked up, peering into the laser-reflective faceplate, at the too-young face within. "Report to your squad bay. Ship security is locking down all offices and the cylinders are going to be secured soon." Even as he spoke, the hatchway to the flag cabin bleeped three times, then gave a thunk as it was remotely dogged. Down the corridor, similar sounds marked the locking of offices and secure spaces.

"Yessir!" the private responded, loping to the lifts. Jake stood there for a moment more, watching the private head off. The kids were too young, but then again he had said that so many times in the past it was getting redundant. The new recruits would -always- be too young. Until their first battle.

Jake glanced at the doorway, the hatch to the flag cabin. Commander Ward and Ser Ward, Chastity and Fairon, had been having a lot of heated arguments throughout this mission. He couldn't say he blamed either of them for feeling strongly about what they were about to do.

He made his own way to the assault bays. As for himself, he wasn't too sure how he felt. Atomics were not just any old toy you brought to the playground when things just got rough. By the same token, things just hadn't gotten rough. It had become clear that the Xurians were playing for keeps. And part of that game had seen them bombing Danoc into nuclear winter, just to get to the Dreamstar refugees.

His staff was already in fighting suits, gathered around the last suit in the racks and waiting for him. "Status?" he barked, striping off his uniform carefully.

Mike Tkullka, major of the marines aboard the Paladin, spoke up, his rasping voice hard to listen to. "We're deploying the first platoon to the bow," the wolf said, "the second to the section between the grav cylinders, and the last just forward of the engine section, near the hangar."

Jake slipped himself into the cloying harness of the fighting suit, attatching all the wires and connections deftly. "Platoon leaders have links to the interior sensors?"

Little Marina Cholis, the company executive officer, bobbed her head. "We just confirmed the links. They're flawless, and encoded. If the Xurians get on board, we'll know exactly were they are."

"We know exactly where they are. As expected, they're trying to move the space station deeper into the nebula."

On the bridge, sitting in the command seat with Fairon in a jumpseat nearby, Chastity nodded quietly, looking over the datapad. "And their numbers?"

The intel officer nodded. "The Ophi Choa sent some images to us ten minutes ago before jumping out. She's just rendezvoused with us and will be jumping back in with the rest of the task force; she suffered no damage while she was there. They didn't even seem to notice her. All told, besides the base we're looking at two destroyers, two frigates, something that looks like a research ship, and a lot of dartfighters and troopcraft."

Troopcraft. Damn. "Lampreys?" A nod. Triple damn.

"What kind of research are they doing?" Fairon asked, quietly frowning.

The intel officer looked up at him, shaking her head. "No idea, sir. But whatever it is, it can't be good. We could try to capture the research ship...."

"Too dangerous at this time," Chastity said, sighing. "We can't alter the entire plan. We need to wipe out that base, anything else would detract from that mission."

"And trying to capture a Xurian ship...," Fairon said darkly, letting the sentence go unfinished but the thought more than complete.

The intel officer swallowed hard. "I... see your point, sir," she mumbled.

Fairon accepted this with a dubious nod, and Chastity handed the datapad back to the officer. "Thank you, Lieutenant Kreuger. Watch officer, what's our ETA?"

There had not been enough time to get to know all of the replacements. Even so, Chas did the best she could, to know the faces and names of the men, women, and others who would very likely be laying down their lives on this mission. Not to mention the more personal impact that what they were about to do would have. Juis Arragone turned his seat around slightly from his console beside and just behind the oddly-oriented helm and leehelm. (For that matter the entire bridge was oddly-oriented.) "Fifteen minutes, Commander!" he called out crisply.

Here it goes. She took in a deep breath. "All right. Weapons, status of atomics?"

The squad of marines were watching the operation carefully. Gunnery specialists were loading a number of large Starlance attack missiles onto the lift that would bring them to their launch tubes. The harsh yellow-and-purple warheads a stark contrast to the much more familiar icy blue of heavy plasma concussion warheads. A corpsman from Medical was there with a Giger counter, keeping a careful tab on emissions from the warheads.

The weapons officer touched his earpiece, and turned in his chair. "They're going into the ready magazine now, sir."

Chastity glanced at Fairon. I still have my doubts, dear.

His reply came with a gentle, mental hug ... he was so good at that! And a sense of reassurance. If it helps, so do I. But you know the intelligence reports. The Xurians have more numbers than any of us, perhaps even all of us. And they're showing no compunction about using nukes.

She nodded slowly. "I know," she whispered, then raised her voice. "Right, then! Chief of the boat, sound general quarters! Signal same to the other ships!"

A chief sergeant started the klaxon blaring, shouting "General quarters, general quarters! All hands, man your battlestations!" and flipping the bridge lights from plain white to cool blue.

The klaxon sent a tidal wave of activity through the ship, and through the destroyer Sark and the corvettes Aurora and Columbia. The blurry tunnel of stars, tinged by doppler shift as the ships travelled within the embrace of their lightwave-envelope stardrives, was pretty, but there would shortly be no time to appreciate the beauty.

"Coming up on the target now!"

Fairon touched the communications unit set into the arm of his seat. "Strike craft, you know what to do...."

Chastity closed her eyes. "Weapons, prepare to acquire targets for massdriver and graser fire...."

Jake heard the signal from the bridge, and closed the faceplate to his helmet. "Hail Mary, full of Grace...."

Silence.

The emptiness of the Swanswing Nebula. On its fringes, a tiny cluster of black, sharklike ships move, guiding a deep space station deeper into the elegant wisps of the nebula.

Silence.

A flash, a roar of anguised space, the flare of collapsing envelopes of energy, a cone of Cherenkov radiation.

The first volley from Paladin was silent and invisible, striking even before the Xurians knew it was there. Her four fusion grasers ravaged one of the destroyers, biting and clawing at the smaller ship's shields and slicing reams off of its armor before it could even react.

Shortly, though, the Xurian ships began to respond. The dartfighters were already angling towards the small fleet when from the Paladin's sides four-winged fighters threw themselves into space.

At that moment, the small catamaran-like Reannan strike craft dropped from ersatz hardpoints on the Cygnian ships. Almost as one, wings or sails of flaring energy leaped from the nacelles, lending flight to the new-fledged starbirds. As Paladin tormented one of the destroyers, the six strike craft began runs on the other. And the armored scout Ophi Choa began flooding the ether with electronic waarfare, something the Xurians were not prepared for.

But the Xurians could fight back, and did, though this time the odds were against them. Even before she could fire a shot, the Aurora was buffeted by plasma blasts, her rotating section, locked down for combat, removed almost surgically.

But such a small one like Aurora was no challenge for the lampreys' cargoes of fury. It was against the Paladin that the dartfighters and troopcraft threw themselves, albet for the time being in futility, for the defense grid still guarded her well.

The frigates came about, making a mad run for the BCH. Sark arced above the Paladin, bringing her particle accellerators to bear. One pair of sustained shots from the Sark shredded an engine nacelle from a frigate, sending it tumbling uselessly. But before another shot could be loosed against the other frigate, it unleashed hell's fury against the Paladin, rippling fire accross her dorsal surface.

"Commander," a young subaltern at the Analysis -- once called Sciences -- station called out. "We have multiple inbound LWE signatures. I make five frigates, a pair of destroyers, and a cruiser. Looks like the Antagonist."

LWE signatures were just barely unique to each ship, and the Xurian "kitbashed" ones even more so. Antagonist had been identified as one of the first ships the Xurians had put stardrive on in the Trinity Zone. Chastity nodded mutely, then glanced at Fairon. "I guess it's time," she said out loud.

The dragon nodded, quietly. "Reannan strike craft, prepare to break from engagement...."

Chastity herself turned to the weapons officer. "Weaps, standard firing solution on that station with the atomics. Your authenticator is 'Avingon.' I say again, 'Avingon.'"

The bridge became silent, a loud silence as the weapons officer nodded, gulping, and keyed in the solution.

Chastity glanced around at the silnce, at the turned faces, some determined and some hurt. "As you were!" she said with a little too much anger.

They turned back to their duties. But it was muted, as now they knew that everything they did would be prelude to a hellstorm.

The Xurian frigate that had tumbled recovered enough to be swarmed by Columbia, eager to avenge her sister, and several Reannan strike-craft, pounding at it with plasma and particle beams. Sark finally managed to clip the second frigate, taking a plasma impact in her forward section and rotating section for her troubles. Paladin finally pierced the heart of her destroyer when she finaly got close enough to bring her massdrivers to bear, the turrets continuing to fire even as the destroyer became a flaming hulk. Paladin's own forward section had been badly mauled, and the forward sensor platform would not need to be repaired, only replaced.

The other destroyer had found worthy enemies in the Reannan strike craft, fusion bolts gouging her and yet still she was fighting. When Paladin pulled back slightly, the destroyer leaped upon ther assailants, the circling combat ships tightening their dance until they almost touched.

One of the frigates, the one harrying Paladin, finally got a series of heavy shots in where the destroyer had struck before, raking her starboard side with green plasma fire as well. The grav cylinder, living quarters and sickbay, was ruptured and blown open to space, the ship rocking from the force of escaping atmosphere but not enough to loose her sight upon the base.

The incoming task force dropped from superluminal, seeing their bretheren under assault by the Cygnians and Reanna. Dartfighters harrassed the Nebula and Thunderbird fighters, the dogfights swirling around the Xur base and the heavy battlecruiser.

They of course did not hear Chastity and Fairon give the orders, did not see Jake close his eyes when he heard it. They only saw four typical Cygnian StarLance missiles leap forth from the Paladin towards the base. They only saw the Cygnian fighters and the Reannan strikeships break off and run almost madly as far from the station as they could. Only in the last few seconds would they have perhaps guessed what was about to happen.

Two of the fast, armored, wiley missiles were clipped by the station's defensive weapons. The other two got close enough to detonate within a fraction of a second of one another.

Sensors in the frame of battle were blinded momentarilly from the inferno, as the hell of atomic fusion unchecked was released against the station. The electromagnetic pulse caught many of the dartfighters and troopcraft, and a few of the Cygnian Thunderbirds as well, sending the dead craft tumbling. Fortunately, none of the Cygnian fighters were close enough to the station to get the lethal doses of radiation that were released. Entire troopcraft of Xurians were hit with kilorems, poisoning them instantly with invisible death.

The sensors were barely clearing, when Chastity shouted, "Ophi Choa and Kenda Kashoka are to recover those pilots!"

"Chas, my people'll get them, the'll be quicker."

"Right, then, Helm, get us out of here!"

The Signals operator almost shouted, "Commander, Aurora is unable to go superluminal, her drive--!"

"Ops, tractor the Aurora! Signal all ships--"

There was a flare on the tactical plot, and suddenly Aurora wasn't going to come home with them.

"Incoming fire from the cruiser!"

The ship bucked, throwing crew against their seat restraints, and it was easy to miss the hard knocks against the hull.

"All ships are responding, they're getting clear--!"

"Engineeering reports go for stardrive!"

"More incoming!"

"The Reannan have collected the ships, and have locked on to their motherships!"

"Sark's rotational section has been breached!"

"All ships are signalling clear vectors, clear vectors!

"Helm, superluminal, now!"

The Cygnian ships leaped forward, wrapping themselves in the fields of their LWE stardrives. On the bridge, after a few minutes, Chastity closed her eyes, and leaned back in her chair. Fairon looked over to his wife, and had no words that he could say that would ease her hurt.

Signals touched her headset, frowning. "Commander, Sark says we have objects on our ventral surface."

It wasn't so much the report, as Fairon's sudden mental start that jolted her. Oh, no....

Could it be them?

Who else could it be?

Third platoon was reporting activity, second and first platoons had suffered casualties when the Xurian frigate had ripped into Paladin's flank, and there was no more time. Jake had had a feeling this wouldn't be a marine cakewalk. "All right," he growled. "Weapons section, let's go! First and second platoon survivors, head for third's position!"

Even as he was flying down the corridors, a sergeant with a HEFEL laser keeping pace with him, he knew what he would find. It was only by chance that he arrived to find a bulkhead exploding inward, spraying molten globs of metal everywhere, and a horde of vulpine Xurians leaping in with weapons blazing. Blood red armor glinted in the ship's light, the silent death commandoes having voice only in the ripping hum of their automatic weapons.

Jake's first shot with his shipboard rifle holed the faceplate of one of the marauders, and as the Xurian was flung back almost in slow-motion in the zero gravity, Jake Stern felt the weariness of a war that had gone on for too, too long settling in on him ... weariness that foretold that the war would continue for longer still.