Honor

Chapter 3: Briefing

We met in the star map room about an hour later. Me, Krip, and Kowalsky had gladly traded our absolutely filthy uniforms for much more comfortable and casual clothes. I wore a black shirt with the golden hawk of the military on it, with matching pants and boots. Krip had gone all out for some reason and found a tux somewhere on the ship. How that happened, I don't even want to know. And Kowalsky had traded his usual armor for a plain black shirt and jeans. Even though our clothes weren't filthy anymore, our faces still showed the telltale signs of recent events.

Elizabeth stood in the center of the room, holding up the grey holocore that sprayed the starmap around the room. She pressed a button and it changed, now showing a new set of planets of different shapes and sizes that covered the entire room. What I found strange was at the center of this galaxy was no sun, but a massive, green planet the size of Jupiter.

"This is the Drae system." The Grand Admiral announced as she took a few steps back. She put a finger forward, zooming in on the massive planet that stood as the center of the system. "And this is our target."

I took it in for a second. The planet seemed artificial, and almost hollow. It didn't look like it could support life at all. The best way I can describe it: the planet equivalent of white hell.

"Why's it so white?" asked Kowalsky.

"We don't know. Infact, we barely know anything about this system." Elizabeth replied.

"So, what do we know? And why's that our target?" I inquired.

"It's our target because, according to a recent discovery, Darvonian ships are all connected to one system within that planet. This might also explain why the system's so heavily guarded, but it's hard to say. One thing is for sure: there's something on the world that gives Darvonian ships power." The Admiral explained.

"So, let me guess: our goal is to get past the blockade" I pointed to the mass of tiny ships at the end of the room "get to the planet, find whatever makes it tick and destroy it?"

"Somewhat. The Warmaster would prefer it if we could steal it, but that's on the back burner. We need to crush these aliens anyways. And I'm confident we can."

"Then let's get to it." I said, eagerly.

"Not so fast, colonel." Said Elizabeth. "There's one last thing we need to go over before we go." She moved over to a curtain I just noticed that lingered in the back of the room.

"And that would be?"

"The rest of your team. Wouldn't you like to know the people you're probably going to die besides?"

I chuckled. "Let's see then."

The Admiral pushed a button and the curtin retracted to reveal two people. One was a man dressed in all black, an old pistol loosely holding at his side. The second one was a truly beautiful woman. Her eyes were silver like a star glittering in the moonlight and her face was gorgeous. She wore a naval officer's uniform which consisted of a boring grey uniform with the naval golden anchor pinned close to the heart.

They stepped forwards, taking a bow. "Asmine and Armondo will be accompanying you for this." Elizabeth explained. "Both of them are quite skilled. Oh, and one more thing " she picked up a small, tablet-like device with a glowing white screen "Asmine is a mute. She's one of the few unfortunate souls who were born without vocal chords."

The girl nodded, writing "Hi" with a stylus she pulled from her pocket. All of us gave each other weird looks, though they were mostly looks of uncertainty. Well, expect for Krip who gave Asmine an extremely suggestive grin.

"So these small fries are gonna help us infiltrate an alien world? I thought you'd get some more" he paused, inspecting us for a second "interesting people, Admiral."

That was rewarded by a rolling of eyes from Elizabeth. "You know I tried to pick out nobodys. This mission is near suicide, there's no denying it."

I could already summarized as much. "Anything else?"

"Oh, we have one last objective. One that's actually even more dangerous." Elizabeth said.

Fucking perfect.

She tapped something on her wrist and the map zoomed out, revealing the rest of the system. Before it could fully load, it zoomed in on one of the outer planets. It was about the size of earth and looked startlingly similar. Though it had far more land than water, it still gave me that general imprint.

"This is what the Council has dubbed Beta Earth. It's a very primitive world, but the few probes that came from the Drae system tell us this world contains some form of sentient life that the Darvins are afraid of. Chief Scientist wants us to get samples from this world. This world is also a failsafe."

"According to probes, the air there is breathable and the atmosphere won't be going anywhere any time soon. If we fail to destroy our main objective, we go there and pray to God the Darvins don't follow ."

I nodded. "What if we succeed?"

"If we succeed by some grace of the Holy Father, Colonel, then we haul ass back to Earth and party till we drop. If that really is the key to the Darvin fleet, then destroying it will completely cripple their whole offensive."

"I figured. So the planet is just our go-to retreat spot, right?"

"Pretty much. And it's very likely that we'll have to use it."

"Well, this is pretty much a bloody suicide mission. There's a ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent chance we'll have to use it and there's a fifty percent chance we'll die." Kowalsky summarized.

Elizabeth shot him a glare. "Don't ever tell me the odds." She growled.

"So, is that all?" I asked, eager to leave.

Elizabeth nodded, pulling out three cards with writing on them. "These are your rooms. Go find them. If you need anything, I'll be on the bridge." She handed one to me, Kowalsky, and Krip before promptly turning to leave.

As the door sealed behind her, I looked over the group before leaving to go find my room. I had a feeling the next few months would be rather boring...