She could hear the sound of jets overhead, a distant roaring that turned into a scream and then back to a roar as the sleek alien crafts cut overhead. She had landed by shuttle with a group of marines not a few minutes ago, and had already taken over command. As chief weapons officer aboard ship she saw it as her duty to prepare them for battle.

Off the books she was also an unofficial officer, but in charge of the Delta units (Drev) and the marines. Out of everyone on the ship she may have been second in line , behind her brother, regarding combat experience, but she did know more about human/other relations and their equipment.

Even so, she brought Cannon with her to supervise and give his advice as they went along. His mechanical leg brace clicked and hissed as they hurried through their makeshift FOB. They were about half a mile outside the city, with Rundi, Tesraki, and Humans landing continuously to augment their troops. The fighting in orbit had drawn to a close with the Gromm retreating to the edge of the system.

Their job wasn't to cripple the GA fleet though. Their job had been to simply breach the nexus and get one or two ships down onto the home planet where they would be in range of the Gromm capital City. They had done what they had come to do and so withdrew, it wouldn't matter if they managed to cripple the fleet, if they could just appear wherever they wanted without intervention by any other species.

On the ground, the Gromm forces had been mobilized, but looking over the state of their troops, sunny had to admit that she was not particularly impressed. Their understanding of war was rudimentary at best, and their physical constitutions were hardly conducive to war. The Gromm were a sort of gelatinous slime-covered species that required a lot of water to maintain their homeostasis, so their ability for drawn-out conflicts was sketchy.

The roaring of another jet thundered overhead, and Sunny lifted her head towards the sky. The F-90 darkfire roared past them low and on the right. The pilot was taking it risky and cutting very low along the ground, less than a hundred feet, but as they did gunfire and missiles streaked away and forward completely annihilating an entire row of advancing burg forces, just let loose from the amber dome that now covered their original ship.

The jet banked low and to the left, cutting around the side, chased by drones on at least two sides as it tried to find a weakness in the outer shell of the dome. A single missile was fired, and Sunny watched in great interest as the projectile shot forward and then rammed into the shield.

A bright, amber circle erupted from the point of impact causing waves of power to pulse out in ripples.

The missile itself exploded on impact sending shrapnel out and away from the dome giving the pilot just moments for a tight roll.

The maneuver was so fast, that the following burg drones either didn't have the time or the skill to respond, and both fell to the ground in wave of crashing heat.

Sunny smiled to herself, as much as a Drev could smile.

Despite being a human she was pretty sure that Adam had been born to fly. Perhaps whatever deity or spirit had made him hadn't given him wings knowing specifically what kind of power he would possess if that was the case.

The jet pulled in a slow parabola around the opposite side of the dome and then came shooting back towards them.

Anti Air artillery took out any of the burg ships that dare venture to far into the friendly zone, and so the commander made it away scott free from harm.

How did she know it was Adam?

She could just feel it.

Also 110% because he was totally the best pilot up there, and the maneuvers he had pulled made that pretty clear. The jet circled once, then twice before slowing, landing deftly on a major piece of infrastructure, now abandoned by all nonessential gromm travelers. Sunny and Cannon jogged across their little base and approached the slowly rolling jet.

A few of the marines had taken it upon themselves to clear a space for incoming aircraft, and though they weren't exactly trained in such things, they were smart enough to get the ball rolling bringing the commander to a stop just off the roadway.

Now that the burg had pulled back and were keeping a tight defense around their dome, the other jets had pulled away as well, and a few came in to land.

The canopy of the et opened just as sunny and Cannon were approaching, and she watched as the commander slipped from the front seat easily sliding down the ladder that had been provided. His companion was somewhat less steady on his feet wobbling down the ladder and then awkwardly tipping onto one knee as he hit the ground

The commander turned to face them, still wearing his helmet but allowing the oxygen mask to hang to one side as he absently adjusted the hooks and harness on the rest of his flight suit.

"Casualty report?"

All business, just like their military leaders back home.

The facial expression he wore, at first, seemed distinctly not-Adam jaw set lips pulled into a hard line head held high eyes hard, but the closer she looked into the single nonmechanical green eye the more she sensed her friend in there.

"Counting all the casualties from the Esperanca, pilots, and ground forces around 211 fatalities and another 100 injuries at least half of those being serious.

Sunny watched carefully, saw as the corner of the man's mouth twitched, watched the fiery spark in his remaining eye flicker and dim a bit. Though he didn't show it, not in any meaningful way, Sunny knew him well enough to know the agony those words must have caused him, an internal pain that would be building up in him for a long while silently festering on his insides.

Adam was an amazing soldier.

But he wasn't meant for war.

He had too much of a heart for it.

"First thing's first, I want a triage tent set up for our wounded. Get Krill to wherever the most medical action is and make sure he stays there to help. The second place gets doctor Katie, and so on and so forth using all the available medical staff we have on hand. Someone get a message to Conn, and have him come down here. If we can get him close enough to one of these, we may be able to learn about troop movements. Sunny, I want you to make a call to the GA and get in contact with the Drev representative, the burg command ship is pretty large and recruit McCaster, quick thinker as he is, managed to do a scan of the ship as we passed. Looks like they tried to cram an entire army into that thing. I thought I got a good hit on them earlier, but that is less than a fraction of what is inside, and that isn't including artillery, ground vehicles, and drones. I'm hoping the Drev will be willing to help us win a war."

"If there is one thing you can count on my species to do, it is to fight in a war." Sunny said

He nodded his head sharply, "In the meantime, I want to take the lull and set up the camp in the most efficient way possible, I want Artillery and ground forces spread out to greatest feasibility without compromising the line. I want to make sure they can't take us out with one lucky shot. I want snipers on the ridges over there and there, and I want at least two jetts, drones or UFOs patrolling the sky at all times. See if we can't call into the GA and get ourselves some kind of shield, or the Gromm city for that matter. Just as many shields as possible." He pulled off the helmet tucking it under one arm as he began to walk, "If anyone knows absolutely anything about the Gromm shield, I want to know about it. How do they go in, how do they go out, how long can it last, and how much firepower do I have to hit it with before it disrupts, or if there IS any firepower than can handle it."

"We already have our people on it, sir."

This was another voice sunny didn't recognize, and the group of them turned around to see another human jogging up fro the interior of the camp.

"Sorry sir, I couldn't help but overhearing. I was supposed to bring the news to you anyway. We have GA members that say they are familiar with the technology. It's an energy shield that is designed to incorporate the kinetic energy of a projectile into its own power output. The more we hit it, the stronger it is going to get until there is no way to breach it.

"Than what the hell are we supposed to do."

"That's just it sir, the design is great in theory, but the way it is made, it wouldn't allow anyone in or out, and that tends to include air particles as well. If you stayed there long enough you would suffocate, so they need holes large enough for ventilation and for their people and weapons to go in and out. Inside the shield they have collapsible portals that can be opened or closed fro both the inside or the outside."

"So, theoretically if we were to get close enough, we could just walk right in."

"Precisely sir, though that would reduce us to close quarters combat on their turf without the assistance of air support also leaving you trapped in an area with alien ship that contains a few thousand or more burg soldiers just raving for blood."

The commander sighed, "Just excellent."

The man nodded and stepped away,

However, the commander held up a hand to stop him, "Tell your scientists to take a look into whatever other technology they might have. I want to know everything we can before we begin a ground assault. Preferably I want them to come to us, and I want to thin out their lines before they show up."

"Yes, sir." The man hurried off leaving Sunny and the Commander to walk together through their little base and towards the operations tent where, seemingly all the officers had agreed to set up camp.

They allotted as the commander entered placing his flight helmet on the makeshift table and turning to his officers.

"Tell me everything we know, and lay it out for me as we know it. Don't leave anything out."

The man started with the casualty report and losses. Sunny glanced at Adam, who, again made sure to show no signs of how the news affected him.

"Based on the calculations sent from your scan sir, we reasonably estimate a body count somewhere in five thousand just on that ship alone. Judging from early estimates of casualties based on volume and square space. Maybe 200 of those 5,000 dead. As far as their artillery goes they seem to have one artillery unit per every 100 individuals giving us 50 units five of them having been destroyed out of the ten that were originally deployed. We do not think that this ship is meant to make it out of this alive. Clearly, we are under the impression their job is to get in and get the information by whatever means necessary." He pointed out towards the looming burg ship, "Everyone on that ship is likely to have been put on a suicide mission. They will have no fear and no qualms about what they are doing. Their best bet is to do one mass attack and push forward through our lines. If they do that, there is no way that we can stop them other than with mass casualties."

There was silence around the tent.

"What you're saying is, we have no chance of stopping them?"

"Realistically, commander, not if they are doing what I think they are going to do. They don't care about the civilians in the city, and they don't care about us. If they attack all at once we WILL be overwhelmed, and we will be overwhelmed quickly. They will make it into the city, and they will have the warp codes before we can do anything about it. Once those codes are in their hands they will have the ability to attack any target in the known universe within reason. Of course earth, the GA the Tesraki and the Rundi will be difficult targets owing to our defense systems, but other more rudimentary planets will not be so lucky. The Tvek, dead, the Finnari, dead, the Celzex, dead, the Drev, dead.... He paused and looked to sunny and Cannon, you get the picture."

"We can't let them get that far." The commander mumbled.

"No, we can't. It will, likely, take them a day or two to organize an advance at that scale. So they are vulnerable from now until nearing the beginning of the attack.

"What are our options?'

"Well, the one good thing about being inside that dome is that they are cramped together in such a tight space that any chain explosion could potentially annihilate them all in one go. Though whoever went in would have to be fast, agile, good at close combat, and almost indestructible."

The commander sighed looking up at the tent ceiling with a sick expression on his face, "So we have less than two days to come up with a crack team of demolition experts who are fast, agile, and trained in close combat to go in there on a suicide mission and blow up the dome before the burg can mobilize enough troops to wipe us all out, and cause mayhem across the galaxy."

"Not entirely so, sir. We have access to GA shield technology, so you would have that added protection."

The commander paused staring out at the field of combat eye burning with the pain of a difficult decision, "If we don't do this, the entire universe is in danger. I cant believe someone didn't notice this massive security breach. Giving the groom access to all those condones i none space was foolhardy at best and criminally negligent at worst, and now I have one day to come up with an idea to-" He paused

And in him sunny saw something.

The fire flared again though his face contorted for a microsecond into a mask of absolute agony, sadness and disgust. He shook himself, "I need to make a call. I think I have an idea."

He turned around to march off, "Lieutenant, take command."

"Yes sir."

Sunny followed after him, catching up halfway to a shuttle catching his arm with one of her four.

"Adam, are you ok? What's wrong."

He jerked his arm away from her, and she stepped back in surprise caught off guard.

He turned to look at her and his expression softened, "I'm sorry, I just. I have to do something that.... I don't want to do."

"What?"

"I can't tell you."

She was confused now, "Why not!"

The pain in his expression was only growing more palpable, "Because you would never let me if you knew."

"Shouldn't I just stop you anyway then?"

His expression was now one of open pain, "Sunny, don't talk me out of it because I WILL take you up on it, but you have to trust this is the only way."

"I'm sure you're just exaggerating."

"Maybe I am." the man whispered, "But it's the only solution I have."

She growled in frustration, "Then just tell me, and we can talk it out together! I can help.

He looked away, "I can't trust you not to be biased."

She crossed her arms, "And you can?"

"Sunny, this is going to happen whether you agree or not. So which side do you want to be on?"

They locked eyes, and despite his words of harshness she saw no malice in his face, and to her surprise she could see that.

He was afraid.

Where once pain had covered up fear, she could see it rearing its ugly head.

His cheek twitched.

"Please." He was begging now, and it made her sick to watch.

It hurt.

"Adam... I, whatever it is you don't have to do it alone."

He looked at her with a steady expression, "Do you promise?"

She nodded.

"I promise."