Chapter 8: Canceling the Doomsday

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December 30.

Staring outside one of the observatories of the INS Newton, Jaral lost herself a bit seeing the fain lights of the fighters speeding in the distance, not so far from the carrier herself.

 Staring outside one of the observatories of the INS Newton, Jaral lost herself a bit seeing the fain lights of the fighters speeding in the distance, not so far from the carrier herself

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The red gas giant was on the other side of the ship at the moment, and it was obscuring the local star. In fact, if it wasn't for the visual emulators of the window, she wouldn't be able to see a thing.

Recent reports had signaled that the Death Star had arrived as far as it could along the Hydian Way and was now heading toward Yavin. Everything would be decided in a little more than a rotation.

Then the door slid open behind her. She turned her head and saw Wedge, with his pilot suit on but no helmet, as he made the salute.

"Marshall, all squadrons are gathered." he reported.

She simply nodded and walked outside, walking in her armor, her helmet dematerialized so she could show her face. Along the way to the briefing room the crewmen of the Alliance saluted her, even a couple of Legionnaires of the Marine detachment of the carrier.

Despite having seen many Legionnaires time and again, she always felt impressed by them: in the Rebellion, she and Ezra were considered the best warriors, and yet, she always felt like most Legionnaires, people with the same modified genes as her, could easily take her down, if they wanted.

Especially the taller ones, the so-called 'Aquilae'.

She had only learned that fairly recently, but there were two kind of Legionnaires. The Aquilae, like her father, were trained since their infancy and received all genetic therapies; then there were the 'Evocatii', regular soldiers who had undergone genetic modifications and installment of cybernetic implants to become much stronger.

The latter were a fairly new unit, created only by reverse-engineering some of the Reapers' tech. They made up for cheaper super-soldiers, and while they still remained much more powerful than the regular human soldiers (who still received some genetic modifications since it was a habit of every army in the Milky Way) they couldn't hold a candle to the Aquilae, who had trained their entire lives and their gene therapies had brought them pretty much on a superior stage of human evolution.

Thinking of these details helped her distract and ease all the tension that was building up in her heart.

Finally they reached the room, where a vast assortment of aliens of the coalition were sitting on the seats or standing up, looking at the big screen at the opposite end of the room.

"Marshall on deck!" Wedge exclaimed.

Immediately everybody stood up and made the salute, whether or noth they managed to face her.

"At ease." Jaral calmly said as she walked past the crowd to reach the holographic board.

Next to it stood Ezra. He, too, with only his helmet dematerialized. Then there was a salarian intelligence officer and the captain of the ship, a quarian. Then there was also a staff officer from Yavin who was standing next to Ezra.

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