[b]Alas Prime[/b]
The young Grand Vessel's once-flushed skin now paled to a pasty yellow color. Her shoulders drooped and her jaw went slack, barely revealing her white, conical teeth. 

"Cert-...Certainly it cannot be that much of a danger? Our military prowess is of the highest grade; would these parasites be able to break through that stronghold?"

[b]Sol, near Asteroid Belt[/b]

"Ma'am! We've been spotted!" 1st Officer Turon'bum, the ship's stealth systems officer, cried.

High Marshal Turani'dum cursed to herself, then asked, "Can you determine what made us visible?"

"It must have been when we vented the coolant, but I thought we made sure we got away fast enough!"

"Well, we did not, Officer, an-"

"Ma'am," her communications officer reported, "we've received a message from an aggressor. They've raised arms."

"Play the message."

By cycling through a multitude of translation codecs, the shipmistress finally caught onto the warning. [i]And from this far away, incredible![/i] she thought to herself. "Ma'am", Officer Turon'bum started, "We cannot risk this mission. We need to keep the station here. If we break radio silence something can be revealed to High Command, and if we don't do anything and we lose the ship, and consequentially the station. It's a no-win situation, I understand, but we need to fight to the best of our abilities. You [i]know[/i] that if they recover our ship, the 'Terran' Government and Sazkarjhit higher authority will have our asses twice over."

The Marshal was instantly reminded of the [i]Wind of Divine Liberty[/i] Training Exercise she had to partake in to acquire her prowler license; and the situation was scarily similar. The goal was to stealthily recover an important transmission component from PNSS [i]Wind of Divine Liberty[/i], a crippled cruiser lost deep behind enemy lines due to a Slipstream Space fault. She recalled the grueling and unforgiving difficulty of the exercise as she had to carefully balance between making fuel-expensive maneuvers and maintaining stealth amid the dwindling thorium reserve left in the Samani's three fission reactors. She also remembered that, despite completing the exercise, she almost caused all three reactors to simultaneously melt down as they reached critical capacity to give her ship more power. But she remembered the situation after being detected by an enemy warfleet; either finish the mission, and get the transmission module and hope not to be reduced to a block of slag, or risk being captured and giving valuable information about Sazkarjhia to her enemy.

All prowler captains knew that ship destruction was a better fit than capture. A lost ship was tremendously less of a risk compared to one under enemy control. But the no-win situations she faced often caused her to lock up and become unresponsive--something that could prove to be of great detriment. She steadily began to realize that this situation was far more crucial and difficult than with the [i]Wind of Divine Liberty[/i] exercise.

"Open me up for a message." she ordered. 

"Ma'am, excuse me for insubordination, but are you [i]insane?![/i]" her stealth officer nearly screeched.

"No. Either way we go we risk losing the station. We have to gamble that they'll let us continue to run the operation if it has a non-malicious intent. Now allow me to send a message." she sternly responded. Her navigation officer simply nodded and opened up a channel.

[i]"Attention, battlecruiser [/i]Mjolnir[i], this is Sazkarjhit Stealth Prowler PNSS [/i]Reverence in Silence[i]. Our mission is not with a malicious intent. We are merely setting forth an observation post for future reasons. Do not interfere with this operation; this vessel's armament is far more superior, and attacking a Sazkarjhit warship will bring the full force of the Peoples' Navy of Sazkarjhia down onto your own military."[/i]