+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>AMBUSH.

The final transport flight unload its passengers in mere minutes before reigniting its engines. Spears of ionized exhaust burn vitrified tracks across the desert sand, straining to push the bomber squadron into a near-vertical ascent.

Within moments, the squadron shrinks into a pair of faint pinpricks flickering in the dust-streaked night sky - joining countless others as they climb towards the SOLSTICE to refuel their drives and crash-rearm their hardpoints. Canted docking instructions squeal over local comms.

Thirty nine hours remaining.

On some level, you are perfectly aware that it would have been more rational to abandon this place - to escape with your crew and however many colonists you could feasibly evacuate. But you had already committed to your present course of action. The only question left was one of execution.

"The odds seem poor," observes Hibiscus, her fingers trembling as she reviews your intelligence readout with a small group of local foreman. "Very poor. "

You nod. "Correct. The incoming cruiser has a significant mass advantage, even assuming technological parity. Parity seems unlikely given their superluminal response time."

"Our fighter complement will attempt an ambush to reduce this advantage, but a favorable engagement remains unlikely."

Hibiscus pauses. "And yet you're not..."

You pause, your words suddenly becoming stilted when you realize that you are no longer briefing a rank of cloned pilots.

"We...have left enough behind already. There is only the execution of the task now and..."

"It falls on us too to see it through, at least to some extent," finishes Hibiscus. "We all know what will happen should this fail."