Beatrix Metzger looked at Chloe. Chloe, holding the tracking device, looked back at her with tear stained eyes. The captain blinked. “Then… we’re compromised. I must report this immediately.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you know about this?”

Chloe continued to cry, but vigorously shook her head. Morgan rushed over from the ship.

“She found it by accident, captain,” she said. “Jostled something and it came loose. It blended in super well with the ship’s internals.”

The captain already had someone on her holo. “Yes ma’am. Something to report. A tracking device. Have I turned it off yet? Negative. Very well. Will have it flown out asap. Maid Chloe! Hand it here please.”

Chloe did so.

“Someone is coming to fly this thing out of here. We’re to remain here until then,” Metzger said. “Once that’s handled they’re debating a controlled evacuation of the compound. I believe it’s likely to happen.”

“Ma’am!” Someone they didn’t know came up to the captain. Someone wearing pilot’s fatigues; it didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were here for. Captain Metzger nodded and handed off the tracker. Sierra watched as the pilot dashed over to one of the few purely suborbital VTOL crafts at the end of the room, and as the platform it was on elevated out of sight.

“We’re in contact with skywatch for this,” the marble woman continued. “The moment ship movements are noted, the controlled evacuation becomes a full evacuation.” She gave Chloe a nod. “Well done. You may have saved lives today with that find.”

Sierra watched as Chloe stammered a bit, and wipe away the tears, which had slowed but not stopped.

“I do worry though with how long the tracker has been here, if it was always with the ship,” the captain mused. “Our relocation of it isn’t likely to fool them, I’m afraid. But… if we draw the fire of a satellite that otherwise would have fired on a city of civilians, then we have served a purpose.”

“C-captain?” Sierra stuttered. “You can’t possibly mean to…”

“What? Go down with the ship, as it were? Don’t be so grim. I will make my exit with everyone else.” At that moment, a siren wailed. 

“A controlled evacuation is underway,” a loudspeaker blared. “This is not a drill. Please report to your assigned point of exit, as per protocol 7-A…” As the warning was issued, the wall every ship faced rumbled all at once, and began to separate down the middle, like giant doors being opened. It gave way to a long tunnel that stretched on and out of sight.

“It’ll be faster than the elevators,” Captain Metzger explained. “Now, I believe you three have ships to catch? Let me see you off.”

“Hey, Chloe!” Morgan called.

“M-ma’am!”

“You’ll have to show me the controls, like, on the fly! So let’s get to it,” Morgan instructed.

“Not necessary, ma’am!” Chloe said. The tears had stopped, and in their place was a steely determination. “I-I will pilot.”

Morgan smiled and nodded at her, and climbed aboard.

“Are we executing the plan, ma’am?” Sierra asked the captain.

“Your ships’ communicators should be tuned to the HCC’s frequency. You will follow their instructions. Now I’d suggest you get a move on, Ms. Stinson!”

“C-come with me, captain! We can escape together,” Sierra told her.

“Negative, Stinson. I must help to coordinate the evacuation.”

“But—“

“We all have our parts to play, Stinson! I’d suggest letting me get to mine, so that we may meet again in the future!” 

Sierra blinked back her own tears as the controlled evacuation warnings gave way to full evacuation warnings. “A-at once, ma’am!” Metzger smiled and saluted her. Behind them, Chloe’s ship lifted off the ground and shot forward into the tunnel and into the unknown.

Sierra climbed into her own cockpit, and shucked her clothes off as fast as she possibly could before clambering into the interface suit. “P-please… please help me accomplish my task!” she told it. The thing didn’t fit at all, but it’d have to do. Lying back on the command platform, straps wrapped around her wrists, waist, ankles, and forehead. A visor lowered over her face in time with the cockpit sealing up. “B-begin horizontal takeoff!” she commanded.

The ship came to life in a split second, coming to a hover off the ground. The suborbital lift wings deployed, the gear came into the craft… and it rocketed forward, into the tunnel. It picked up speed slowly but surely, the flight path superimposed onto Sierra’s visor. It was like falling sideways, the maid being pushed into the surface she lay against. Lights in the compound’s pale green whizzed past on all sides like she was plunging through a never ending series of rings. Her display marked Chloe’s vessel in front of her in a friendly blue.

Acclimating to the speed gave Sierra a moment to think. It was… starting, wasn’t it? Everything. The war. It was starting, and the Baltic Geofront would be the first target. Sierra couldn’t look behind her until she was safely out of the atmosphere, but more blue pings on her display revealed more ships behind her, escaping through the tunnel as well.

Why… why had the captain refused to come with her?

“Light warning!” Sierra’s display dimmed automatically before she came hurtling out of the tunnel and into the day sky. Her craft angled itself upward. Sierra often passed out at this stage of takeoff, but no such loss of consciousness was occurring. Her craft warned her of a combat zone ahead.

That answered that question.

“A-access comms!” Sierra managed to force out. They whirred to life.

“This is Coalition Active Command for this sector…” a masculine voice stated, “who is accessing this channel?”

“Sierra S-S-Stinson, sir!”

“Right. You’re with the WG’s ad-hoc ‘defense force’. Did you open comms in atmosphere?”

“That…” she gasped, “that I did, sir!”

Command muttered something about civilians. “It’s just as well. You’re on course for a red zone. I’m sending you new coordinates. Adjust trajectory accordingly!”

A new flight path appeared on Sierra’s display, and she adjusted course to it. Her ship’s wings retracted, no longer needed.

Unexpectedly, however, her comms opened once more. "Hello, Sierra." Sierra said nothing, petrified. Ms. Mueller continued on, saying two words. "Initiating Sleepstate." Sierra found herself pulled back to that far away place, as Mueller continued to speak. "They didn't update their frequencies! Isn't that interesting, Sierra? Anyway, you and I? We need a plan. This is our world's darkest hour, but you, Sierra, you are our hope. Now listen. Outside of orbit but within the system, is a the space station from which the Federation is coordinating their attack. You, my dear, will break through their lines, informed by your own experience in such matters. Then, and this is the most important part -- you will land aboard their station, spreading to them our glorious gift! From there, it should be child's play to turn the rest of their fleet."

Outside, a way's away, a needle ship was struck by two warheads. Undeterred, the stellar artillery began to open down the middle.

"We are all so very proud of you, Sierra. You've worked so hard for the sake of our little world. Once the Federation is just like us, oh, they will realize their mistake. After you land, Sierra, it'll be up to you to coordinate their next moves. Point them to their capital ships, and so on. After--"

“Light warning!” Sierra blinked. What had just...? The dimming of her cockpit couldn’t stop her from witnessing the deathly ray of light loosed from the insidious craft. As the beam slowly quieted, a final warhead struck the needle and snapped it in half, panels breaking off and tumbling in all directions.

It had just— Sierra had just witnessed it—

Sierra’s breath caught in her throat. That ship had just…

And besides everything else, memories flowed into her. The meeting with then-Bennett Harlow. The night before. Heading into the depths of the Hotel de Ville with one Alexandra Mueller...

Sierra knew where she was. But only because a needle had...

"Sierra? Are you okay? I was briefly disconnected. Okay, now--"

Sierra cut the comms. "Block all further communications from that location," she told her ship. Ms. Mueller... the needle...

The needle!

Tears welled in her eyes but they would have to wait, she knew. Switching to manual control freed up her arms and head, now that she was out of the atmosphere. She could cry later, but for now, there was work to be done.

B-but still…

Radio chatter warning that they’d lost comms with the Baltic compound did nothing to soothe her nerves. Well, she knew where she could start. Her contingency plan. Keep it together…

Sierra readjusted the frequency. “Requesting permission to engage the Talerian flagship,” she said, with just enough force to be heard.

“Right, your assigned operation. We don’t even have a callsign for you yet, but…” He cleared his throat. “Assist Three Stars Republic strike craft in pacifying the vessel while agents Harlow and deGaine board. Once they give you the go ahead - and only if! - board the vessel as well. I’m sending you the targeting info on your HUD.”

As he spoke, a red square denoting the flagship’s location appeared on Sierra’s display. “Thank you, sir,” she said. "And one more thing, if you don't mind."

"Speak, Ms. Stinson."

"Please initiate contact between me and Earth's nearest operational command center."

Her comms were redirected. "Hello?" a feminine voice called. "This is Compound E-9-13. This is...?"

"Sierra Stinson, ma'am. I won't distract you for long. Alexandra Mueller is on floor B11 of the Hotel de Ville in Paris. Alert the relevant authorities at your earliest convenience. That is all, ma'am."

"Roger, Sierra."

Right. Well, the Talerian vessel. Sierra directed her ship over to line up with it and accelerated. The flagship just kept getting larger and larger. It had a rounded, almost insectile design; a heavy cruiser/carrier, if she recalled the briefing. Accordingly there was a cloud of smaller targets surrounding it; the ship’s complement of strike craft. They were engaged in combat with a number of blue markers — presumably the Three Stars ships. She didn’t see Chloe’s ship yet. The flagship itself looked to be equipped for broadsiding other capital ships, but Sierra had to imagine it was more lightly armed than more specialized vessels of its size. The hard points looked appropriately deadly for a large enough target, but a ship like Sierra’s would be able to avoid their ponderous blasts with ease.

Hence the fighter escort. How many dogfights had Sierra been in her life? She had always tried her best to avoid them. Still, trouble often found her. Taking a deep breath, Sierra descended into action. Would old instincts take over? She could only hope. Two red interceptors peeled off as she drew closer.

Survive, Sierra.

Laser fire cut across Sierra’s field of vision as she pulled aside just in time.

Talerian interceptors ideally should be caught as they turn back towards you.

Sierra set her ship rotating so that she was flying backwards. As both interceptors whizzed past her, she caught one in her own twin beam fire. Her shots struck true, setting her foe listing into the direction of their turn, ship well and truly disabled. Sierra rocketed forward, twirling along the line to catch the other one too, firing in a sharp burst. Her target was sent spinning, a propulsion ring knocked loose. They loosed a shot wildly before the beam cut and fizzled out. 

Sierra acted mechanically, picking her next target, a fighter chasing a friendly craft. The breeze across her legs escaped her notice as her interface suit started to reshape itself into her usual fashion. 

The maid fired, and her target’s cockpit separated from the rest of their ship. How many were left? She’d keep fighting until the danger had passed. She did, however, start to notice a disconnect between her and her ship making her turns a little slower, her shots a bit more delayed. Right, her outfit…

“Switch to full manual,” she told her computer. “Configuration B.” Her ankles came unbound as a quartet of pedals emerged from a panel below her. There were certainly some people who preferred a more hands-on control. Sierra, however, feared she was out of practice.

Still, she angled aside a beam that threatened to knock out one of her engines. The battle was drawing her closer and closer to the flagship; she’d have to be aware of its point defense as well as the interceptors. Luckily, however, the latter were beginning to thin out. She witnessed one lose control and hurdle into the flagship’s hull, which inspired her to wince. 

Another familiar voice came over her comms. “I’m going, Ms. Sierra.”

“Good luck, Ms. Chloe." The entrance to the ship’s hangar was in the back, an opening above the main propulsion and below the bridge tower. It was flanked by the wreckage of two turrets, already removed from play by Three Stars strike craft.

It was just a matter of time now, Sierra knew. But… would Chloe and Morgan be okay? That must’ve been the other reason Morgan had accompanied her; she wasn’t a maid. She could issue commands. But would they follow them?

She couldn’t concern herself with this now. There were still hostile—

“Ms. Sierra, they have a—“ She heard an explosion, and then Chloe’s comms went dead.

“Chloe? Ms. Chloe!” Sierra called back to her. “Chloe, Morgan, please come in!” She had to do something, she had to go in there—

You know that’s suicide. 

But she… but she had to…

Chloe, Morgan… Beatrix Metzger, Dalia, who she’d never gotten the last name of… Officer Morozova…

Everyone else in the geofront she hadn’t been introduced to! Even as the dust cleared, and her allies mopped up the rest of the Talerian strike force… even as the guns of the Coronam Princeps stopped firing…

Sierra was clutched by a deep despair. What was she even doing here? So many had died already, and she had the nerve to survive?

Ms. Elaine is waiting for you.

R-right, of course…

Sierra dialed Coalition command. “A-awaiting further orders, sir.” Three Stars craft were moving on to other hotspots.

“Standby until the status of the flagship is known,” she was told.

“Very well, sir.” She remained on guard, circling the great beast of a vessel that had gone silent. She imagined Chloe’s corpse transmitting the changes… how very morbid…

She felt a strange emptiness settle over her. She watched as elsewhere a piece of stellar artillery her HUD marked as Coalition-affiliated fired upon a Federation capital ship. A civil war could claim just as many lives as the genocide of her people. Even if her side won, how much further would the conflict go? Into the Federation’s own core worlds? And would outside parties like Taleria take advantage of the power vacuum?

All because a silly little smuggler had gotten lost during a silly little delivery.

And what was happening in the space over Aachen? Who was winning there?

Dare she ask? But her thoughts were cut off.

“Sierra!” a voice called.

“Ms. Morgan!” Sierra called back. She was alive!

“We’re ready for you now.”

Sierra circled back around to the hangar entrance. “Right away, Ms. Morgan!” She lined herself up with the lower of two gates in the center. “Requesting entrance,” she signaled to the flagship.

“U-um! Granted!” returned a high-pitched voice probably unused to being so high-pitched. Chloe’s change really did work quickly. But was she okay as well? Sierra gulped. She was about to find out.

Her ship slipped through the gate, which began to glacially close behind her. Once the airlock was fully sealed, the door before her opened up just as slowly. There was enough room between the gates for a whole host of fighters to come out at once, she noted. Sierra felt her ship shudder as artificial gravity encased it within its grip, but she kept it steady. Once the door finished opening, she inched forward into the expansive bay. Nearly every space was open; it seemed that the crew of the flagship truly had sent out everything they’d had. One of the occupied spaces played host to….

Oh…

It was Chloe’s ship, or what was left of it. A crumpled, smoldering heap. Morgan had evidently survived; could Sierra dare to hope that Chloe peeled herself out of the wreckage?

In the meantime, landing instructions had been sent to Sierra’s ship, which directed itself to a free space automatically. If there was anyone to greet her, they were not here. Sierra sat up off of her platform but didn’t open the cockpit yet. But then again, if Chloe’s ship was any indicator, perhaps she should put some distance between her and her ship sooner than later…

Sierra grabbed the seal and exited through the cargo bay. Closing it up behind her, she walked into a very empty hangar. Doors and elevators at the innermost section of the room promised to lead to any number of places. Sierra stood facing them, seal in box in hand, trying to figure out her next move. Banners featuring the Talerian royal insignia flanked each door, gold on red. The rest of the interior seemed, however, much more utilitarian than the gleaming outer shell would suggest. Part of her had been expecting a likeness of the gilded confines of the palace where the seal had been held, but this was more sensible, she figured.

She tried not to be surprised when one of the doors opened and a head poked out of it. The head wore a frilly white mobcap, and as the rest of the person slipped through the door, they were revealed to be dressed… just like Sierra, really. Another person peered around the door at her, and then another, and as more doors opened, Sierra was quickly face to face with a couple dozen maids. Sierra took a few steps back, but they seemed more startled than she was, nervously whispering amongst themselves. Soon, however, they all fell silent. The crowd parted to reveal Morgan, who smiled at her before running up to offer her usual greeting.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, hugging Sierra tight. The latter, for her part, nearly dropped the box, but held onto it.

“Likewise, Ms. Morgan.” Sierra felt the tears well up. “It is so good to see that you are alive and well…”

“Well?” Morgan replied. “Well, my ears are, like, still ringing like crazy, but, um… I’m doing better than Chloe is.”

“Is she… alive, Ms. Morgan?” 

Morgan pulled away, and nodded. “She’s badly injured, but the girls say she’ll live.”

“And… have… the girls… been compliant, Ms. Morgan?” Sierra asked. One of the maids watching them shuffled in place slightly.

“Oh! They’ve been totally fine. Helped me get comms setup with the brass planetside so we could, like, discuss our next moves. They were, like, sooo worried about Chloe, too. Once one of them recognized her, well, I think the changes were already starting to set in, but they got her into the sick bay nice and quick.”

“I will have so much to speak to Ms. Elaine of,” Sierra observed. “I’ll now return the seal, though I’m sure she’ll ask me why I did.” She walked over to the achromatic crowd, unlatched the box, and held it out to them. The assembled maids crowded around her, looking, murmuring, but not touching.

“Are they gonna, like, take it, or what?” Morgan wondered aloud.

“We dare not lay our hands on it,” one of them said, speaking for the crowd.

“We are unworthy…” another said.

“His imperial majesty’s seal!”

“In all its glory!”

Sierra chuckled nervously and closed the box for the time being. “What should we do with it, then?”

Morgan cocked her head. “Um… they’ve gotta have a cargo hold or something. Guess we can put it there?”

Sierra made an executive decision. “I will leave it to one of you,” she told the crowd.

“I can do it!” one of them said. She was on the taller side, with pulled back hair and big bushy eyebrows…

No, it wasn’t her…

Sierra nodded and handed off the box. “Thank you, Ms…”

“Oh! My name is… uh, well, it probably would fit anymore anyway.” She took the box. “Maybe I’ll call myself… Florina! Oooh… that could work…” She headed off in the direction of the cargo hold, presumably. “Oh, wow… the emperor’s own seal…”

Sierra gave her a quick bow. Next she should… see Chloe again before she departed. Yeah, that made sense. But then again, what was happening over Aachen? Sierra needed to know. The needles had to be preoccupied with the battle, right? It was common sense to deal with the ones shooting at you before you went for the defenseless.

But she’d seen them fire on the Baltic compound… could she really trust common sense?

“Ms. Morgan, do you know the state of the battle overall? Or rather… what’s happening over Aachen?”

“Hmm… I don’t,” she confessed. “But we can find out.” She pointed to a random pair of maids in the crowd. “Hey, you two! Go contact command and, like, get an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“Um… we will, miss!” They ran off into an elevator headed up. The rest of the maids gradually dispersed as well, leaving Morgan and Sierra alone.

"I was contacted by Ms. Mueller," Sierra told her.

"Ms... ohhhh." Recognition dawned on her, and it showed. "What did she, like, say?"

"She had been hypnotizing me. I was only broken from this trance because of the flash from a needle ship..." Sierra shuddered at the recollection.

"Ouch..." Morgan said. "You're okay now?"

Sierra nodded. "And I remember everything, too. She entranced me with a war-era machine the night before the meeting in Paris."

"That..." Morgan said the rest under her breath. There were some very unfriendly words spoken.

“Don't worry, Ms. Morgan,” Sierra said, "I notified command." That got Morgan to grin.

"Ooh, she's not gonna like that!"

"I should think not, Ms. Morgan."

"We best not wait around, though. Oh! D'you wanna see how Chloe's doing?"

Sierra nodded. "I should very much like to see."

The answer was, not well. “Ms. Harlow was concussed by the explosion and suffered burns on her back,” the maid overseeing her recovery said. The girl seemed to have been put under, prone on a tube-shaped hospital bed. Her breathing was, at the very least, steady.

“What caused the explosion?” Sierra asked. The maids looked uneasily amongst one another.

“Er… a rocket. Fired by one of us. When the airlock was hacked and opened, we knew whoever must’ve been coming in was, well, an enemy, miss.”

“Please don’t do it again,” Sierra said flatly. 

“Our apologies, miss! Those were the standing orders.”

“What are your orders now?”

“Oh!” Morgan piped up. “I can answer that. They’re to get to a safe area and act as a mobile base for Earth’s forces.” Sierra recalled the ships that had escaped the geofront just behind her. How many had made it out altogether? That question seemed determined to haunt her for the rest of time… 

Sierra watched Chloe’s chest rise and fall. Her unfinished delivery had uprooted Chloe’s life more than anyone else, perhaps. She was here because of Sierra. She was Chloe because of Sierra.

But how true was that, actually? Chloe’s misconduct during the meeting had been her own. It felt like ages ago, that meeting where Sierra had… goddess, and she remembered it all so clearly, now. She'd felt utterly awful with those memories that were not her own. It was like seeing the ones she trusted most, plunging a blade into her gut. Sierra had felt so very alone, and then Harlow had told her to....

No, she didn’t even want to think about it. Maybe... maybe she'd been better off without getting that memory back. But for now, she busied herself with making sense of Chloe’s fate instead. Her superiors had sent her to the surface, certainly not expecting her to ever return. And they’d… tracked her. Used as a pawn to uncover one of Earth’s well kept secrets. And then used as a pawn to get right back at them.

Sierra could relate. Elaine had always had a point, after all, even if she could be rude about it. Sierra would have to make her a promise, after all was said and done; the promise to be a pawn no more. After all this, that wasn’t asking too much, was it?

But Sierra wasn’t there yet. There remained work to be done, she needed only to find the best way to do it. For now, though, she allowed the breather, if only because they were waiting on the info Sierra needed.

“I am here, Ms. Chloe,” she said. “Can you hear me?” If Chloe could hear, she didn’t respond. Really, if she had been closer to the blast than Morgan had been… hearing might be a problem.

How many of them would make it out of this? Was it a fight they were even going to win? But regardless, the gambit had worked. It was bound to make the Talerian High Command apoplectic, but on the other hand… how many of them were maids, now?

Sierra surveyed the assembled crowd. A number were medics, obviously enough, but their outfits weren’t exactly denoting rank, anymore. A strict hierarchy had been shattered in moments, and laid on its side. The direct result of this earth’s greatest weapon. But that train of thought could lead to any number of unpleasant places.

Another Talerian maid burst into the sick bay at that moment. She looked out of breath, and was opening and closing her mouth repeatedly.

“Report?” Morgan said.

“The rest of the Royal Navy detachment has caught up with this ship, and are firing upon it!” the maid said. 

“We’ll need to defend ourselves,” Morgan said. Sierra felt a distant rumbling. “Are you girls prepared to do that?” She spoke authoritatively, in a way Sierra wasn’t used to hearing her. “If you aren’t going to act to defend yourselves, then defend your seal!”

The maids murmured amongst themselves. Eventually, one spoke up.

“The emperor is with us, girls!”

“Wait, really?” Morgan wondered aloud.

“It’s a figure of speech, ma’am! Now, let us be off, everyone!” They scattered to their stations soon afterward, as an alarm blared.

Sierra turned to her comrade. “I will be off myself, Ms. Morgan.”

“I’ll stay here and try to keep things coordinated,” she replied. Gripping Sierra by the shoulders, she added, “keep yourself safe, okay, girl?”

Sierra nodded. “I will not fail, Ms. Morgan! Not myself and certainly not Ms. Elaine!”

Sierra came out into another pitched battle. Her ship hadn’t known how to handle her remodeled interface suit, so she was back to full manual control. She was greeted this time not by strike craft but by a host of frigates and destroyers. 

The Talerian maids could be trusted, right? If they were going to take Morgan and Chloe prisoner, they would’ve already, right?

“We’re with you, Sierra!” her comms spoke up. It was an Earth signature; a squadron of fighters from the surface. Against craft their own size Sierra feared they’d be outmatched, but against Taleria’s screens they perhaps had a chance.

“Good to hear, ma’am!” she replied. “But use caution against the flak ships! They’re the ones with a diamond pattern of guns. Approach them from the underside where their guns aren’t!” Sierra cut a laser across the nearest frigate and rocketed past it for a second approach. “And it may be common knowledge, ma’am, but don’t fly in front of the cannon ships!”

There was a slight chuckle. “Roger.”

Sierra wasn’t sure how well she could tackle larger craft. Her modus operandi for them had always been one of avoidance; she was faster than them and usually just needed to get past. Coming back around, she hit her target with sustained laser fire, but the effect was much less pronounced than it had been on the interceptors. Nearby, a trio of earth ships engaged a flak frigate with what appeared to be kinetic weapons. Simple, but still deadly in space. Sierra imagined that if they could make any sound at all, it would be a loud KA-CHUNK.

It wasn’t all good news, however; Sierra witnessed a Talerian cannon ship, not as deadly as one of the needles but still quite potent, unleash its payload onto the Coronam Princeps, knocking a turret out of commission before it could fire back. Sierra decided to abandon her current target to handle the cannon. 

Talerian cannon frigates and Federation stellar artillery work on the same principle; destroy their exhaust ports and they can’t fire.

Before her heist job, her client had one of her eventual partners in crime gather intel on all kinds of Talerian ships. Sierra hadn’t been sure why she’d needed the details on an anti-capital class ship type, but they were coming in handy now. Sierra’s ship computer served up targeting information on what she needed to hit. To best get to them she needed to approach from a straight on angle, and then she could cut through to the core. Firing into the cannon directly would give her an ever surer shot… but she wasn’t about to risk that.

Before Sierra could finish lining up her attack, however, a flak platform drifted over to block her. If she were to freeze for a second with that quartet of guns trained on her, she was a dead woman. What she did instead was pitch down and accelerate, zooming past the side with the danger. Her chance at hitting the cannon ship was long gone, however. Sierra sent her ship rotating along its course to get a pair of hits off on the flak ship, but she felt just as impotent as she had fighting the other one.

She felt so useless. An earth ship got a shot off on the flak platform, doing visible damage, but was itself hit as it peeled off for the next go around. She watched despairingly as it got caught in its turn, spinning out and crashing against another frigate. Gritting her teeth, Sierra re-angled herself, hitting the frigate where the other ship’s shot had landed. That got results, cutting through exposed internals and punching a hole entirely through. That was one down, finally; but there were still so many more.

Still, Sierra would keep doing whatever she could. What kind of maid would she be if she left work unfinished? She trained her sights back on the cannon ship, strafing to the side to line back up with an exhaust port. It didn’t give her much time, but if she went…. Now! Sierra fired, and struck true; the cannon discharged back through the exhaust port, energy dumped uselessly into space, and then went dead.

Sierra pondered her next target when her comms came alive. “Sierra!” It was Morgan. “We’ll finish up here, but you’ve gotta move!”

“Where to, Ms. Morgan?” Sierra replied. “And why?” Morgan’s response answered both questions.

“A needle ship is moving into the space over Aachen! They might be targeting Paris, or the whole area!”

Sierra received an updated target listing and redirected her ship.

A maid’s work was never done.