Chapter 1 (Revised Version)

Blood coursed down her side, seeping between her fingers as she ran with the others through the dark forest. The lit display on her wrist said they were still heading towards the last transport vessel waiting for them in a clearing a mile away. Shots rang out in the distance behind them where three of her team had volunteered to hang back to give the rest a chance to get away.

Finally, the transport came into view. She could see two of the escort fighters circling above, while several more traded fire with a squadron of enemy interceptors higher in the night sky. She lifted her wrist and pressed a button.

"Open the hatch! Now!"

"Yes, Commander."

The double doors began to split across the middle, the bottom half lowering to form a ramp. She stopped at the foot of the ramp and waved the rescued prisoners ahead of her into the belly of the ship. Not until the last surviving member of her team had gone past did she finally dash up the ramp herself and slam her bloody palm onto the access panel to close the doors.

"We're in! Go, go, go!"

As the vessel lifted straight up into the air, she held her injured side and slid down the wall.

So many lost...

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Three days earlier, she'd been assured the rescue operation would be an easy one, a morale booster for her discouraged troops. At least that's what her lieutenants had said in their combined efforts to persuade her to approve the mission.

The detention center was small compared to most. It only held roughly one thousand prisoners and was minimally guarded. Since they had more ships than pilots to fly them, it made sense to find more people wherever they could.

"Assuming any of them have the skills or are even willing to join us," the Commander had said as she looked over the report her lieutenants had so carefully prepared for her.

"If they aren't willing to join us, they can go back to their prison cells," her third-in-command said.

The Commander looked up and pierced the lieutenant with a glare.

"Did you just suggest we enslave our own people?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

The third's eyes widened and she bowed her head.

"My apologies, Commander. I spoke out of turn. Please forgive me."

The third was clearly on the verge of falling to her knees to begin groveling for her life. The Commander refrained from turning away from the cowering image, despite how much it disgusted her, since it would be interpreted as a sign of condemnation. Such a gesture from a master usually preceded the slave's execution.

How does the Council expect me to win a war when this is what I have to work with?

She kept the thought firmly behind her mental walls as she formally placed her left hand, the one that was ritually considered the giving hand, on the lieutenant's accepting right shoulder.

"You are forgiven," she offered quietly.

The lieutenants collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

"If I may," her second broke into the silence. "I think most of them will be so grateful to be free, they won't hesitate to volunteer."

"Exactly. Commander, we won't find a better opportunity than this," her fourth continued. "And once we've increased our numbers, we'll be able to go after larger targets."

"Yes. We must build on our successes, but to do that, we must first have some successes to build on," her fifth added.

The Commander pretended to go back to reading the report as she considered her options.

Since escaping their masters only a few months ago, her ragtag fleet had run from one encounter after another. It wasn't just a matter of being outmatched, though that was a big part of it. They had yet to meet up with a single battle group less than twice their size and most had included more than ten times the number of ships in their tiny fleet.

No, the real problem was that going up against their masters really meant going up against their own people. Almost from birth the females of her species were trained as conscripted pilots, their families used as leverage to ensure the pilots performed at their best. A low kill score in battle would lead to days of torture for a loved one. An attempt at desertion was unthinkable.

And so she was left with either shooting down her own people, who were only doing what they must to protect their families, or retreating. They'd made one attempt to rescue some of the hostage families, but that... hadn't gone well.

She mentally laughed at herself. Hadn't gone well? It had been a dismal failure, one the Council refused to let her forget.

She looked over the report one last time, noting the summary of risks versus gains based on their past performance and their analysts' prediction if they did nothing.

In their previous encounters with the enemy battle groups, no matter how quickly they'd been able to get away, they'd lost several ships each time. At the rate their number was being whittled down, they weren't expected to last more than another six months. Of course, if they went on this mission and failed, they'd lose a lot more than a few ships, but if they succeeded, they might finally be able to fill enough pilot slots to give their fleet some teeth.

"Mission approved."

While her lieutenants worked out the tactical details, she left to inform the Council of Elders of their latest plan of action. She waited impatiently as she watched them deliberate by vid-stream. She was unable to hear anything they said, since they'd defaulted to telepathic communication amongst themselves. After several minutes, one of the Elders addressed her.

"Due to the dwindling hope your recent decisions have engendered in your personnel, we feel it would be prudent for you to lead this operation yourself, Commander."

"I'd already planned to," she replied. She had no intention of leaving such an important mission in the hands of another. "And for your information, my personnel have dwindling hopes, as you so eloquently put it, because they've been asked to fight a war against impossible odds, while their governing body hides in an underground bunker on some backwater planet they've never even heard of. If you really wanted to boost morale, you'd come join the fleet."

More telepathic deliberation, judging by the silent looks passing between them.

"The fleet could be replaced if lost. The Council could not."

"Melora guide your hand in this desperate mission, Commander."

The last was spoken by her mother just before the display went black. She touched the screen with her fingertips, tracing the ghost of her mother's image until it faded completely. She sighed, longing for simpler times when her mother seemed to be able to make everything better—or at least easier to tolerate—with a mere hug.

She caught her reflection in the blackness and ran her fingers through her shaggy blonde hair. It had grown out quite a bit from the soft stubble of the standard-issue slave cut she'd worn her entire life. She debated whether or not to cut it off. In a little while it would be long enough to be a nuisance, but she worried what kind of message it would send to her people if she went back to wearing the shaved head of a slave.

She shrugged off the pointless line of thought and turned away. She didn't have time for such irrelevancies. She had a mission to prepare for.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Three days later, her fleet arrived outside the star system where the detention center was located. Several of her people had been previously held there and were able to give vital information about its security measures and layout.

Her lieutenants, unaware of the Council's recommendations, were strongly opposed to her going on the mission, citing her importance to the cause as its military leader. She ignored them and went anyway.

They landed in the middle of the night, planet time, with a dozen cloaked transports, which could carry a hundred passengers apiece, each escorted by two cloaked fighters. Her team consisted of two systems technicians and eight volunteers from the assault unit she'd handpicked and personally trained over the past couple months.

The techs efficiently bypassed all the security measures, while the Commander and her insurgents took out the few guards that crossed their path.

Not a single alarm had gone off as they furtively progressed down the last hallway to the Core Control Center. The white walls, floor, and ceiling were as sterile as the corridors of her command carrier, the familiarity of which would normally have been comforting to the Commander, but now just seemed to close in on her from every side, while the bright lights left her feeling exposed with no place to hide.

Finally, they reached the end of the hallway. One of the techs immediately set to work deactivating the access panel, while the rest stood guard. The Commander counted the seconds as she stared down the sight of her rifle to cover the left side of the other end of the hall. They were completely vulnerable here with no cover and nowhere to retreat.

We don't have time for thi—

"Done."

The tech scrambled out of the way as the Commander swept around to take point. She readied herself and then nodded to the tech, who palmed the lock. The door slid open and she rushed forward, the rest of her team following closely behind. The room was empty, as expected, and she breathed a short sigh of relief.

As the door slid shut behind them, the Commander turned to issue her next orders. In an instant, she dropped to her knees as if gut-kicked. She was flooded with the overwhelming emptiness of one of her people dying. Then another. And another. Death after death...

"Oh, Melora!" she gasped as she tried to block the sensations that were making her nauseous.

"Commander?"

Her senses were stronger than most. None of her team could detect what she was picking up.

"Get me an info panel! Hurry!"

One of the techs pulled up a display showing the prison's current status. Cell after cell was shifting from red to black. She skimmed the alert message at the bottom.

"No, no, no... You bastards!"

They'd tripped a silent alarm on that last lock. The prisoners were being gassed in sequence from the first airtight cell to the last. She knew it was a failsafe tactic to keep them there trying to save their people while more troops were called in, but they didn't have a choice.

"Shut it down! Shut it down now!"

The two techs worked as fast as they could, but by the time they'd managed to disable the failsafe, over nine hundred prisoners had been killed.

"It's our fault. If we hadn't come here—" one of the techs began.

"Stop. We don't have time for self-recriminations right now. We need to get down to those cells and get the rest of our people out." She looked at each of them in turn. "Let's finish what we came here to do. Our people are counting on us."

She turned and left, running down the hall without looking back to see if any of them were following her. If she had to do this alone, she would, but after a few moments she heard their steady footfalls behind her.

They reached the last of the two remaining cell blocks. One of the techs used a nearby control panel to corrupt the locking mechanisms for the individual holding cells.

Some of the prisoners cautiously peeked around the edges of the opened doors while others mindlessly shuffled out into the central corridor and lined up, obviously expecting to be taken for another shift of labor despite the late hour. When they saw the Commander and her team, they stopped, understandably confused.

»Listen to me. I speak on behalf of the Elders. Our people have begun to fight back, but we need your help. Join our cause and follow us to freedom.«

The telepathic message from the Commander was enough to convince everyone it wasn't a trick. The masters weren't telepathic and a lie would have been recognized by even the most simple-minded of their people.

As the team led the prisoners through the maze of corridors to the outside, the Commander contacted the unneeded transports, sending them back to the fleet and out of harm's way, though she kept back half of the escort fighters. It was unlikely the failsafe was the only alarm they'd inadvertently triggered.

Halfway back to the remaining transport, her suspicions were confirmed when they were ambushed by ground troops, probably sent from the nearby city.

The group scattered, but the Commander felt at least a dozen of her people fall in those first few instants before they reached the edge of the forest. She heard the screams of others getting hit, but not fatally, and then she took a blast to her side. She stumbled, but didn't go down. She had no mental energy to put towards healing, instead using every last bit to send a guiding beacon to her people so they could follow her to the transport.

»Commander, it is our honor to sacrifice our lives for you and our people who have already sacrificed so much.«

The unified thought, sent with uncontrolled emotion from three of her insurgents, made her eyes sting. She blinked hard to push the tears away so she could see the path ahead.

»Your sacrifice will live forever in our memories. Melora is with you.«

As the transport came into view, she felt the last of them disappear into nothingness.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Please, Honored Elder, you need medical attention."

She looked up into the concerned eyes of one of the rescued prisoners. She shrugged him off.

"There are plenty of others who need more help than I do. See to them."

She tried to stand, but the transport suddenly seemed to spin out of control, and she landed hard on the metal deck.

What the...

"Help! I need help! I think she's dying!"

I'm not dying, she thought in irritation, but neither the words nor the thought made it out of her mind and she realized she might be a little worse off than she'd thought.

It seemed an eternity later when she sensed several people gathered around her, their hands placed along her body. Healing pulses flowed through her in time with her heartbeat. She'd been healed before after particularly severe beatings, but this felt different. Maybe it was because she'd never been quite so close to death before, but it was almost as if she could sense each molecule, each atom, of healing energy as it coursed through her, seeking out the places where she needed help the most. Her own ability to heal finally kicked in and joined with the external energy, directing it to work faster.

"Melora be praised!"

"Would you look at that!"

The Commander sat up and gazed at the astonished faces surrounding her.

"What?"

She saw several of the nearest swallow, but only one of them had the temerity to speak.

"You... Well, you healed very quickly, Honored Elder. A wound like that should've taken several hours, but you..."

The Commander raised her eyebrows, trying to get him to continue.

"We only had our hands on you for a few minutes."

The logical part of her mind said that was impossible, but as she stared back at the people staring at her, she knew they were in earnest. Another part of her mind, the part that held secrets she wished she didn't know, simply saw it as one more item to add to the list.

"Well, I'm fine now. See what you can do for the others."

The Commander got to her feet, surreptitiously checking her side to make sure it was completely healed. Only the hole in her shirt remained, surrounded by crusted blood. The skin underneath was perfectly smooth.

Something tickled her ear and she reached up a hand to brush it away, stopping abruptly when she realized it was her hair. She cautiously ran her hand over her head and swore. Her hair was at least an inch longer. Anger welled up in her, but she pushed it down, refusing to think about what it meant as she distracted herself by heading for the cockpit.

Once she was assured the escort fighters had done their job of safeguarding the transport's retreat and were themselves on their way back to the fleet, she started a tour of the cargo hold. Most of the prisoners were injured in one way or another, though from the snippets of conversation she overheard as she passed by, many of the wounds had been sustained prior to the rescue.

As she moved through the various huddled groups towards the back of the transport, she heard a cry of pain and hurried over to help. A middle-aged man held an elderly male in his arms. A gaping wound in the old man's stomach showed he wasn't long for the world. Though her people could heal even extremely damaged tissue, they couldn't replace it out of nothing and they were nowhere near the proper medical facilities.

The Commander did a double-take as she recognized the old man.

"Honored Elder?" she asked as she knelt down beside him.

He wheezed loudly with each breath, but his eyes tracked her steadily. He appeared afraid, but resolute.

The middle-aged man spoke instead.

"Who are you?"

"Fleet High Commander. We've been looking for him and the others, but we've only found thirteen of the Elders so far. How long have you been in that prison?"

The old man winced and glanced away. A moment later, the other man looked aside as well, as if considering how to respond, but then he nodded minutely. The Commander realized they were conversing telepathically and were apparently so used to doing so in front of their oblivious guards that they forgot to hide their physical cues. That sort of thing wasn't tolerated around the masters and would've normally earned the two a whipping if they'd been caught at it.

"We were tossed in that hole and forgotten so long ago. I can't even remember a time before. I—"

Suddenly, the middle-aged man stopped as the frail Elder stiffened. The Elder convulsed with several spasms and then went limp.

The Commander sensed the emptiness and bowed her head in shame. She'd barely been able to save a tenth of the prisoners they'd come for, nearly half of her team had been killed in the attempt, and now...

Now I've allowed one of the Elders to die.

She looked up as she felt movement. The man was gently, reverently, laying the Elder to rest on the metal deck. She stood as he stood, squaring her shoulders and waiting for his public denunciation of her incompetence. He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"I was his son. He passed everything he knew on to me. And there's much you need to know."