If you hear The Flame its already too late.

  - Rebecca discussing Feebee’s fighting style

  Feebee slept poorly, she tossed and turned. Unused to sleep in the Real.

  And when she did eventually manage deep sleep, her dreams turned dark, filled with chaos. She'd been helping a village of small sentient ringtails, fend off some crystal mantids. It had gone well initially; there was an uneasy stalemate. The ringtails had tried to negotiate, be restrained but the mantids betrayed them. Killing and burning everything for no reason. Just senseless killing and burning.

  The ringtails were losing, not the war but the planet they were trying to tame. The mantids were slowly destroying it.

  Feebee had tried the quiet stillness of her training but was getting nowhere. A voice, like Kirr's but more an echo voice seemed to come from within and spoke to her in gentle whispers.

  When balance and stillness are not enough, overwhelming force is all that's left. Destroy them quickly, decisively, so those left do not return. Feebee screamed, and raged at the mantids, threatening them. She warned them, "If you hear The Flame, its already too late."

  The mantids wouldn't listen so she ordered her forces to drop atomics on the attacking mantids. It reduced a quarter of the planet to a nuclear wasteland but the mantids left. Chaos has won, peace achieved.

  And the black motes last whisper, final message of the night was delivered, Chaos can lead to balance.

  Feebee woke up covered in sweat. She recalled fragments of the dream, and dreams were lessons. And like all her dreams they were stored away for future reference.

  Before she could go back to sleep or review the dream an alarm went off and the blue light over her door started to flash.

  There was a knock. "Ma'am. Ma'am!"

  "One minute."

  She slept in her boots with her trousers on. Always had, always will. Took too long to do up the boots and you couldn't pull your trousers on if you’re wearing boots.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a black camo top. She also pulled out her cloak. It looked like any other poncho but once on, like the backpack, it could melt into the background rendering her cloaked; invisible to visual and sensor sweeps.

  While she was doing this Feebee asked Kirr for a SitRep.

  'We've been boarded. Eleven pirates. Mix of human and Drexari.'

  'You're kidding me?'

  'No. They're working their way here.'

  Feebee opened the door. Peas was there, calm as anything. "Ma'am."

  Bench press and Spotter were with her. "Where's Sparky and the coffee boys?"

  "Covering our six."

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Peas gave Feebee a pistol, ammo clips and some stun grenades, "Blue clips - Special ammo. Won't pierce the hull but will kill. Green clips - normal ammo."

  "Ack."

  She smiled, same colour coding as Choc.

  Feebee brought up the ship's schematic. It showed her team, pinned and tagged.

  She assumed C1 and C2 were the coffee boys, they were with Sparky.

  "Lead the way." Peas set off at a jog. Surprisingly fast. Feebee kept up.

  Feebee got disorientated in the corridors, unusual for her. Must still be asleep. She ignored it.

  Focus on the mission. Secure the ship.

  She watched her overlays. The three marines covering their back moved with them, maintaining distance without losing contact.

  Then she heard firing. Up ahead.

  "Contact. Contact." It was Peas.

  "Hold. Sparky, bring the coffee boys to us. Close up."

  'Can you identify the position of the pirates?' She wasn't sure how much visibility Kirr had.

  'No. No eyes deployed.'

  'Peas. I need eyes on the pirates.'

  'On it ma'am.'

  A few seconds later three drones, barely visible, flew past Feebee and down the corridor. One went left, one right and the last straight on. Three new windows opened in her overlays, tagged D1, D2 and D3 respectively. The drones were also tagged on the schematic.

  D3 rounded a corner and slowed. The corridor ahead was filled with Drexari Scouts. Feebee made a quick assessment; standard Drexari, four arms, two legs and six eyes arranged equally around a bulbous head. Chitinous exoskeletons, dirty red. Eleven in total.

  'Peas. Fly the drone into them and detonate, before they spread.'

  'Ack.'

  She reacted quickly. The overlay showed the drone lurch forward into the Scouts. Then the view went dead. A message came up 'Connection Lost' and D3's overlay closed.

  'Peas. Get me another drone in that corridor.'

  'Already on it.'

  D1 and D2 were converging on the Drexari group, but holding distance. Checking to be sure none had escaped, or there weren't more nearby. A new window emerged, D4. It approached the turn in the corridor where D3 had made contact with the Drexari Scouts.

  It was mayhem. Half of the Scouts were dead, blown apart and spread across the walls of the corridor. Of the survivors, one had a huge chunk of exoskeleton missing. Two of its arms hung loosely, useless at its side and one other arm ended in a stump from which red 'blood' oozed. It was staggering around, distressed.

  One of the surviving Scouts shot it in the head.

  "Interesting."

  'I count six left,' said Peas.

  Then one of the coffee boys came over the comms, 'We've got another group of pirates. Eleven. Drexari. Coming from the South.'

  'Sending drones,' it was Peas. Three more drone views appeared. Feebee's overlays were getting cluttered as D5, D6 and D7 appeared next to the schematic.

  D5 came upon them first. The Drexari pirates were evenly spaced in a zig-zag pattern down the corridor. No easy single target this time.

  Five up front, five behind with one in the centre of the corridor. They must have seen the drone, they stopped moving and one pointed a boxy looking weapon at it.

  The feed went dead. D5's window closed. Another drone down.

  'We now know where they are. Or at least where they were,' she corrected.

  'All converge on the first group. We need them gone, so we're not surrounded.'

  'Ack.' Came the response from everyone.

  'Peas. See if you can get eyes on the first group.'

  D1 and D2 moved into the area where they'd ambushed the first group of pirates. There were five left. Still disorganised.

  'Carefully. Approach from all sides.'

  She watched as their tags converged. They were close, she could hear the tell-tale clicking of their speech. There was nothing coherent coming from her translator.

  She took a sneaky look around the corner. They were ten, possibly twelve paces away.

  Really close.

  All looked to have taken a hit from the drone and were standing in the middle of the corridor or pacing around as if lost.

  Feebee could see from the schematic that Sparky and the coffee boys were in place.

  'On my mark, We all go. Stay low, shoot high. Don't kill each other.'

  One of the team laughed, Feebee responded immediately. 'I'm serious.'

  'Ma'am.'

  She looked at the three marines with her, they nodded back.

  'Ok. Three - two - ONE GO!'

  Her team and Sparky's emerged at the same time. All were low, well spaced and firing up into the Drexari. It was over quickly.

  'Good job. Now we go get the second group.'

  They had eyes in play but no eyes on. Where were they?

  'Hey Kirr. Any ideas where the second group of Drexari are?'

  'How could they be hiding?' asked Kirr.

  Then it dawned on Feebee, they must be in the rooms. But why? That didn't matter for now. Where were they?

  'Kirr. Are you able to interrogate the logs for the doors in this area?'

  'Yes, of course.' Came the AI's response.

  'Which doors have been opened in the area where the pirates are in the last five minutes.'

  'Doors opened not by us. There are two. Both lead into a common area. Designated S-34.A'

  'What's goes on there?'

  'Unclear.'

  'Do the pirates have access to our ship's schematic?'

  'Almost certainly.'

  'Damn.'

  She looked up S-34.A. It was unremarkable, but then when she looked at what it contained, she paled.

  A macro-forge.

  'Kirr. Is the macro-forge in S-34.A in use?'

  'Yes. It has just started a second print.'

  'Shut it down. Immediately.'

  'Ack. Done.'

  'What was printed?' Feebee asked.