Six months went by in a whirlwind. That was how it felt to me, at least. I can't speak for the others.
We had lost eight hundred when one of the starboard magazines went up as we fled for the node. A third of the crew was injured or incapacitated. With most of the standing forces either destroyed or defecting, all we had was a handful of cruisers, a few fighter wings, the Ephesus herself and the GTCv Manchester. All of them were carrying wounds.
I don't know much about what the politicians did during that time. I mean, they must have known, surely! You don't just annex three systems and forty percent of the Terran standing fleet without some kind of warning. There must have been something they saw that could have tipped them off as to the bottle of antimatter brewing in the outer colonies, but then we didn't see it either. We were right next door and we only found out through our brass.
After we fled, the Vasudans held the node for forty two hours. The Psamtik was a front line Vasudan capital ship and the now NTD Victory was licking her wounds. They couldn't really challenge her, but everything beyond the Psamtik was quiet. We were having a workup at Midgard station and taking on supplies. The Exec had been in emergency session for close to a day by this point. The Big E's wrecked squadrons were being resupplied with fresh rooks and gear but it wasn't coming fast enough.
We were a morgue. None of us had duties - most of our birds were wrecked. What could we do other than sit in the mess waiting for news? We were helpless. We'd lost friends, family, even homes. My whole squadron was dead. Where would I be reassigned? For the first time in my career, maybe even my life, I felt genuinely helpless. Looking around the mess, I knew I wasn't alone.
The casualty reports didn't help our fugue. Counting Ephesus alone, we'd lost two thousand, two hundred and forty seven. Aboard the Manchester, close to four hundred. Fleet wide, barring defections, over thirty seven thousand had been lost.
When the Exec finally made their choice, I don't remember being happy. I know some Zeta wavers will paint it as a moment where our mighty military apparatus ground into motion and we reorientated ourselves to face the enemy in our midst. I can't remember it like that. I can only remember my family who were now behind enemy lines, the friends who I now had to kill and the pit in my stomach.
They teach you to switch off that part of you, but I don't think it ever fully goes away. I am not enough of a refined sociopath. It was Renard who finally taught me how to deal with it. How to pull the trigger, not knowing if I was murdering an ex-boyfriend or an old university drinking mate. Not everyone could harden their hearts like I could. It cost us. Six months is a long time to nurse a grudge.
I owe a lot of what I am to Renard Stallon. I am not always sure I should thank him for it.
