Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to First Lines 1000's Challenge #16.

Everything is a mess.

The blasts come so thick that Otto can't hear them separately anymore. He's almost in sensory overload: the constant pummeling of the ship, the vibrations beneath his feet and through his chair and the steering, the stink of a ruptured fuel cell and the screams of Colm the engineer who's caught between the ruptured cell and the jagged edge of a spar –

He's wheeling the ship desperately in circles to avoid the Earthling nukes. The Earthlings got smart and put tracking software in them; the Revanche is built to withstand ramming other ships, but not constantly, and can take only so many hits from nuclear missiles.

The mission leader, Will, is dead, fallen sideways in his seat where his body is still strapped in. If he hadn't been in the way it would be Otto dead now, from electric shock. Androsynth are tough, but not indestructible. Will's body flops from side to side as Otto jinks the ship in doglegs to get away –

The Revanche is the only Guardian still 'alive'; Man's Image got slammed between two missiles and disintegrated seconds after firing their first shot.

"Power up!" Cory yells above Colm's screaming which dissolves into loud sobbing pleas for help.

Who the hell's in charge now? Will's dead, another wasted life. Too many Earth ships here, it was bad from the beginning. The Earthlings can afford to lose ships and men, they have more of everything compared to Androsynth –

"Get out of here, get us out of here!"

Otto doesn't respond – what do they think he's been doing? – wishes someone, anyone, would step up and take the guns – someone does – it's Cory –

The Revanche begins fighting back, shooting molecular acid at anything in sight. Cory shoots wildly, but it's better than nothing, and the acid has a weak tracking mechanism. At least it'll get the nukes off their tail.

Otto spares a moment to glance at Cory. The latter shakes his head. "It's just us," he says.

Otto realizes that Colm is quiet now. Are they all dead? The rest of the crew?

What a horrible waste –

"We're powered up," Cory says, getting a feel for the guns; his shooting isn't so wild now. "We should just comet and jump to hyper and get out of here."

Three Earthling cruisers left. Suicide to stay. Otto looks at the console. It's not good; most of it is shot up, not literally, but scorched and some parts look half-melted. But it must be okay, or he couldn't fly. He was steering on automatic now, flicking his gaze between the view and the scanner and the console. Comet transform was over there –

"This one?" Cory said. He knows, though. All crew are taught every part of the ship, so any one of them can sub for another. Like now.

The Revanche shudders: three nukes following them, Otto avoids two but the third one hits home and sparks spray everywhere, the great glass screen cracks and the force pushes Otto against his seat harness as though he was dropped sideways down through a gravity whip; he feels sudden sharp pain in his ribcage. Alarms blare about the screen, the automatic repair system kicks in: Otto hears the gooey glop of emergency sealant. He looks to the upper right, tracking the sound: good, the crack isn't too bad – at least, if the seal holds and they don't take another hit there, they can make it home without too much air and pressure loss –

He gulps air and winces. Shouldn't be too bad though. Cory seems all right, he's shaking his head as though to clear it, and looks back at him.

"Androsynth Guardian, surrender now. You are outnumbered and outgunned. You will be—"

Otto ignores the rest. Androsynth don't surrender. It's not about honor; it's about survival. Any Androsynth taken by Earthlings will be interrogated, then probably turned over to the firing squad –

"Or the scientists," Cory says.

Otto blinks. Was he talking out loud? It's a bad sign if he is.

"Repeat, Androsynth Guardian, surrender now. This is your final warning."

"We're going to die anyway," Cory says. Otto nods. It's true. Almost. If the Revanche can get out of battle and into hyperspace, they stand a good chance of getting home. Two out of fifteen alive, but better than none out of fifteen.

Otto prepares the ship to go into cometform, already plotting how he's going to avoid the cruisers' gravity wells once the ship's in hyperspace. Cory punches the button, the upper levels "collapse" –

- but not completely -

The impact that cracked the screen must've damaged the outer hull more than they knew, Otto thinks in that frozen crystal moment when the ship shrieks like a dying horse. And it doesn't matter to the ship's programming, because it still changes to cometform even though it's damaged, and the Revanche shudders and leaps forward, directly at the Earthling cruiser.

In Guardian-class ships, the cometform is over twice the speed of standard form; yet Otto could still read the cruiser's name, painted on its side in Cyrillic, Potemkin, in that brief space before the two ships make contact.

The Revanche plows through the Potemkin, smashing it to flinders, and just on the other side of the expanding cloud of detritus, Otto triggers the emergency warp to get them out of the battle and into hyperspace.

Cometform drops, and warp happens just as the remaining two cruisers fire simultaneously. One missile hits, and it almost feels to Otto as though it helps to push the Guardian into hyperspace, even the ship's integrity threatens to fail.

The familiar sights and sounds of hyperspace greet Otto, but he has no time for them: the black masses of gravity wells that can only be the Earthling ships must be avoided, or they'll be back in battle. He weaves the Revanche around and away, and slowly the Androsynth ship increases the distance from its pursuers.

At last the black masses turn back. Otto slumps in his pilot's chair, suddenly and acutely aware of the pain taking over his entire body, and looks over at Cory to say Well, we made it, except there's no point.

Cory isn't breathing anymore.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com