I was sitting in a chair, in front of a large table surrounded by officers and at the other end of the table was the commander, Lucas Winch of the Terance. I was seriously starting to think this room was for meetings by holo vid because there were no walls and all that existed was the table chairs. These judgy pricks whose sole purpose seemed to be complaining to the commander. I sighed, noting the mute symbol in front Of me again. Before Long they all turned to look at me and Commander Lucas Winch started talking to me instead of about me.

  “What am I going to do with you now? Erratic flying, complaints out the wazoo from eight frigates. You destroyed your own ship. I have received speculative reports that it was just so you wouldn't have to return to the Carrier as ordered. I suppose you at least stayed outside the planet mission zone and deployed your drop-ships, giving them a chance. Unfortunately for one drop-ship that was deployed roughly and hit the atmosphere at a bad angle, the ship, and the pilot, was lost. The troops onboard had to perform an air drop by parachute. I can't believe how lucky it was for all of them to make it to the ground together and alive! Ya know what, pilot I am so done with your insubordination and antics, I am assigning you to D.W.P detail. Dismissed, get the hell out of my sight, and don't ever let me see you again!”

  The officer closest to me leaned over and whispered. “You are assigned dead weight Pilot detail, It's for useless pilots that can't be trusted but can't be discharged either.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it, feeling more hurt and insulted than I had ever felt in my life, this was all lies made up to slander me. I couldn't stop myself from thinking, ‘why couldn't the commander see this is all bull dung? I had sent Zeo my flight data by secure HUD link for crying out loud, even if she had died she would still have it, why hadn't it been reported?’ before I could continue onto another line of thought a bright flash went off in my face causing me to blink rapidly. When my vision finally cleared, and I could see again, I was standing in an office, alone.

  I did think it was a little weird that there was an earth style computer with a monitor on a stand facing me instead of the chair that was on the other side of the desk. My curious mind was put to a halt as the screen lit up and Commander Lucas Winch sitting in the chair opposite me appeared on the screen. He seemed to be looking worriedly past me before focusing on something that was no longer on the desk.

  “Kenna, if you are hearing this then I have successfully managed to shunt you into a secure private server with a virus attached to it, relax the virus isn't for you. The virus will devour this server until it is a piece of slag on the floor of the real Terance. Unfortunately there is no way out of it so you're going to experience a nasty digital death. I'm told it won't hurt the real you, other than some horrid memories of it happening, it should be painless. I am sorry, I had to resort to this.”

  He looked up again and checked something on his HUD, as if he was nervously trying to make sure there was no way he was interrupted or spied on, before he continued.

  “That meeting, you just came from, is a farce, someone in my command is corrupt! I just don't know who, there might even be more than one.”

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  He sighed heavily as he seemed to age in seconds and got a kind of thousand yard stares.

  “A young Miss Zeo Walker, sent me a direct message braking all chains of command, however, once I read what she wrote me I realised she had followed the chain of command and the message she had sent me through her commanding officer had arrived as a complaint that you had killed her during deployment. But the one she sent me directly stated she had sent me the exact same message through the proper chain of command, only this one had all of your flight data including her own indicating that her drop-ship had made it safely to the ground, and she was then shot by her Squad Leader.”

  He suddenly sat up straight in his chair and quickly looked at his HUD again for a while before looking back at me.

  “I have just launched an electronic buoy to Federation Headquarters, a mayday if you will. It simply states a code that only, I, as the commanding officer of this ship, knows. It isn't written down anywhere and when sent goes directly to a certain office that does not exist. It encrypts itself so securely that if anyone even tries to intercept it, well let's just say, A Federation Armada showing up on your doorstep isn't for anyone. But since I have sent the code, one is now coming here!”

  He smiled happily as he seemingly watched me for a while before he continued.

  “Okay, this is it, after I say this the virus goes to work, so good luck with that. I had to assign you to the dead weight pilot duty. Anything less and well… you, joining us for the last few minutes of that twelve-hour meeting, had worn me down to let's just go with it and then play fast and loose with the orders kind of mentality. So, here is what is going to happen. You are going to uplink for your next shift tomorrow, and use the clone left in a drop-ship already planet side, I will be rerouting Zeo Walker to another one and will get Travis Johnson into the last one, at this point I don't know how I'm going to get Brendan Ripter down there but let's reassign him along with the other two to your command.”

  He suddenly paused and the sound of the video turned off, and he began to move papers around his desk, making himself look busy. After a few moments, someone entered the video frame and silently had a conversation with the commander before saluting and leaving the frame. I shifted my weight as I watched him continue to busy himself for a few more moments until the sound came back on, and he slumped back into his chair.

  “Okay, that was close, Kenna, no one can know about this assignment, you will officially be listed as going rogue and somehow convincing the Star Hawk team to go with you, I have sent you a code phrase to say when a captain from federation headquarters demands your surrender or tries to capture you, it will let him know you are performing a black ops' assignment, and you are still under legal command. That is very important for what comes next. Which is, you are hereby ordered to go crazy, steal what you need and use it to attack and harass the Terance’s Enemies. From here on out, your team is on its own, trust no one, claim as much land as possible and remain in the wind until a Captain of the Federation Headquarters can sort out this corruption!”

  He paused and looked at me with a funny look before he added an afterthought to his speech.

  “I suppose you could tell the captain onboard your Orbital Station everything, see what they can make of this. Good luck, this is the only thing I can do to save you.”

  He then waved his hand and the screen turned off. I turned, looking around the room nervously for this virus that was about to eat me, it took me a while to notice it, but I eventually noticed everything was starting to pixelate and break down. It was getting faster as it continued, causing me to start laughing at the absurdity of it, until I felt a sharp spike of pain shot through my head and what felt like an electroshock hit me in the chest.

  “Son of a bitch!” I screamed as I suddenly sat upright, as I began to wonder when I had fallen on the floor. Although considering that shock to my chest, I wasn't that surprised to be on my ass. I looked down at my chest then followed the wires from it up to the plate of metal on the rigs arm, and the next thing I heard made my heart plummet.

  “Emergency life supporting electric shock has been administered, the patient is now alive and stable.”

  “Painless and harmless, my fucken ass!” I screamed as I jumped to my feet, only to feel woozy and drop to my knees. I felt a strong nauseous feeling like I was about to puke my guts out over the floor.

  “Ooh, you lying sack of-”

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