[b]~Lunysvet, Cindorayi Empire, Nova Mondial~[/b]
[i]The night of December 31st, 2056[/i]

Mairead moved quickly down the dimly lit street, dragging her 5-year old son by his tentacular hand. The Cindorayi patrols were very frequent in the capital city, and while she had a pass that indicated she was a free Aldabetuse citizen, she hated getting questioned about her destination and business as they would often do. It was especially severe now that they had issued a curfew declaration.

“Mother, what are those lights in the sky?”

Mairead quickly looked up, and saw some bright flashes from different points all across the sky. She narrowed her eyes. “Nothing, Iain, just come along. It’s probably some weird test they’re doing up in space.”

“Test? What are they testing, mother?”

“I don’t know. Come on, we have to get home before we get spotted, or we’ll be out here half the night, what with the curfew in-“

A bright flash illuminated the night for a moment, like a second sun, just as they arrived at their doorway. The purple and yellow banner hanging from the nearby lamppost seemed to wave in a slight breeze, but they felt nothing.

Mairead quickly pushed her son in despite his outburst of questions, and looked out one last time with the faintest smile of hope, as she had heard what was going on. And she knew what that flash meant, that the spark of revolution had come.

[b]~Mondial Orbital Command, LMO (Low Mondial Orbit)~[/b]

“Move it! To your corvettes, stat!” The voice of the Flotilla-Admiral resounded through the halls of Orbital Command. People were running back and forth along the narrow halls of the station, nearly running into one another, as would be expected in a crowded station with over 100 occupants at any given time. “The longer you take, the more we’re sitting ducks! No time for protocol or briefing, I want you all undocked now!”

Emsky quickly made his way to the dock section. He saw a messenger flying his way, and quickly flattened himself against the wall and grabbed the handholds to stay there as she flew past.  He resumed his journey, making it to the docking port. A laser flashed outside the window, and the station shuddered. Clearly there was some serious shit going on.

“Corvette-captain Emsky, serial number 013 Cindorayi Space Force, undocking!” His dear Lunya undocked and sped backward away from the station just in time to avoid a laser beam arcing past. He heard the resounding cries of his comrades through his headset.

“Listen up and listen well,” spoke the Flotilla-Admiral with an air of menace. “The damn fucking Colonials have hacked into our defense network and set it to engage us. They have to have someone on the inside of the Space Force down on Nova Mondial. They’ve only got the older models, the newer ones had updated electronic warfare protocols. You are to target and destroy the older satellites, understand?”

“Yes, sir! Pravilo nasha sudba!”  came the chorus from both Emsky’s mouth and the speaker. He engaged his plasma thrusters, and shot off towards the given coordinates for his first target.

“Heya, Emsky, this is some kind of mess, ain’t it?” His wingman, Yashkin, glided up alongside him and spoke on their private channel. “Some heads are gonna roll back home. I sure hope ours don’t too.”

“Don’t need this kind of talk right now, Yasha!” Emsky was carefully monitoring the approaching satellite, and when he saw it powering up-

Emsky’s corvette narrowly avoided the laser’s arc. “And, firing!” Yashkin’s railgun lit up in the blackness of space, and the laser blew up into a mess of fragments which floated every which direction.

“Good job, Yasha, next one.” The two glided onward.

The Flotilla-Admiral’s voice sounded through the speaker again. “Just six left, good work, all of you. We’ll get them back for this.”

The two fellow captains approached one of the last satellites. “These new corvettes really make this a piece of cake,” Yashkin opined. “They can’t hit us for shit with our maneuverability.”

Emsky concentrated on the approaching satellite. “What…” left his mouth as a missile fired away from the satellite towards Yashkin. Emsky’s lasers lit up and converged, and the satellite fried.

Yashkin narrowly avoided the missile. “Shit, that was close. What the hell are they doing, firing nukes at these little ships?

Emsky’s eyes filled with rage. “That wasn’t targeted at you, but you should have taken it anyway. Better that than…”

Yashkin opened his mouth. “You don’t mean the goddamn colonials would-“ He was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that came from behind them.

Emsky punched the comm button. “Flotilla-Admiral! Flotilla-Admiral!” Nothing but harsh static emanated from the speakers. “They’re gone…” Emsky looked ready to tear someone’s head off. Other voices in confusion started speaking on the command frequency, but there was no reply.

Through the static, a faint female voice emerged. “All Lunya corv…e-captains, repor… in!” Emsky adjusted the tuning to try to accommodate for the radiation. “This is Cindorayi Ground Command, can anyone hear me?”

“Emsky, number 013 here.” He was the first to respond.

“We’ve lost contact with Orbital Command, Emsky. Can you confirm its status?”

Emsky’s corvette slowly turned to reveal an empty patch of space, with nothing but minute debris remaining where there should have been a huge spinning ring station. “It’s gone, Ground Command. I regret to inform you that… it’s gone. They’re all dead.”

A quiet emerged, as all the fellow captains and the comms officer digested the information they had just received. A few moments later, something like thirteen different cries of exclamation resounded through the cabin.

“Everyone, be quiet!” The comms officer at Ground Command cut in. “I know this is an unfortunate situation, but we need to quickly work out replacement docking procedures before we do anything else or you’re all going to run out of air. Numbers 001 and 002, report to the Kalashnik Research Station for docking. Numbers 003 and…”

Emsky sat back, his ears tuning out everything that followed. The face of his wife floated through his mind. He could still see her slight nervous wave the first time they met. He remembered how excited she was when she learned she would be a navigational officer at Orbital Command, how she excitedly poked him and said they would be working on the same station so they could see each other all the time. He remembered… The tears started to flow.

“Numbers 024 and 025, you’re to report to the Rafinids’ Maahir Research Station. That is all for now. Ground Command will arrange for your retrieval and resupply.” The woman’s voice shook with emotion as well near the end, and then the speaker fell silent. Embry reached for his throttle, and then with a pause, pushed it forward.