"Orbital defense grid sighted, Ma'am!" called the deputy chief of navigation.

"ETA to orbit?" asked Captain Nina Soryuu.

"30 minutes, Ma'am!"

"Good." Soryuu turned to Vice-Captain John Roberts. "Vice-Captain, anything to add?"

"Negative, Captain," Roberts smiled. "You're doing a fine job."

"You were a fine Captain, Vice Captain."

"I'm honored, Captain."

"I shall inform the crew that we're 30 minutes away from Venice 3, Vice Captain. Do you think you can manage the bridge while I'm gone?"

Roberts laughed. "I think I can manage."

The TKY Shikinami had just orbited Solvenice and was currently cruising toward Venice 3. All the meanwhile, the crew prepared for their missions.

Aisling and the rest of team D was to land at Venice 3's spaceport pretending to be traders. They'd acquire three shuttles, return to the Shikinami, resupply, then warp to Sorian. She, Nathan and Philip had spent the last two Austraeus-days with the rest of Team D – the pilots, and the IMC soldiers – getting to know each other, discussing command – Jaggerjack would lead – and battle strategy. The IMC soldiers were all armed with R-101 carbines and EVA-8 Shotguns. The three mechanics were armed with Smart Pistols – the easiest way to make a new soldier effective in combat – and data knives. The Pilots were armed with weapons they'd chosen and customized themselves.

Jaggerjack was quiet and kind. At a young age – back before he'd earned his nickname – his parents had been killed by terrorists. Jack had learned that peace was not a human right, nor did it merely come about by force of nature. Peace, Jack reasoned, was paradoxically a thing that society had to fight for.

It took two people to kill my parents, thought Jaggerjack on day one of Pilot training. I don't need to be able to take on an army. If someone had taken those two lives they'd have saved my parent's lives. If I can take two lives – if I can take the RIGHT two lives – I could save many more.

And thus the 17 year old had asked the armory for a Longbow DMR sniper rifle with a 6x scope. The man had given him a funny look, as if to say, "Don't you want an LMG like everyone else?" and handed over the weapon a few seconds later.

Nathan, disbelieving his tale of peace and clean kills, had asked Jaggerjack "Oh really? How many kills have you gotten?" to which he had received the reply, "Twenty three."

Rimjob was a complete contrast to Jaggerjack's quiet maturity. He had asked the armory, "Give me the biggest, fastest, nastiest gun you've got," and received both a Spitfire LMG and a thump on the back from the Quartermaster. He'd earned his nickname performing a "Rim Job", in which he'd manually overridden the doors of a Goblin dropship, allowing him to jump out early onto the roof of a building and slaughter the snipers camped on the rim.

Daniek, Aisling had already met, but he still gave his life story to everyone else. Rich boy from earth, hated and ran away from his rich parents, joined the army, recommended for Pilot training. He accepted, but on the condition that he was paid as much as a grunt (which earned him the respect of all the Soldiers listening). "I don't care about the money. I care about being able to do something good for humanity and actually seeing it happen," he'd said to the IMC's accounting department.

Sophia was bound for Venice 3 as well – but she'd be staying there to purchase supplies with team E.

Team A was ready to go hunt out information. The soldiers all concealed carbines, SMG's and shotguns under their clothing, while Misha carried just a Hammond pistol.

"If ze shet hets ze fan," she'd said, "I'll call dawn mi Ogre. Mi Hemlock es inside."

"But Ma'am," Eoin Ireton had tried to argue, "It'll take five seconds to get here!"

"Yes," Misha glared, "Et well. I can handle feyve seconds." Pause. "Can't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Ireton replied. "Very well then..."

Team B had been ready from the start. Their SMG's were loaded – well, safeties on, – their pockets were filled with frag and arc grenades, their clothing was dark mottled gray.

Team C was as ready as they could be without the shuttle that team E was going to buy for them. The X40 warp drive and modified engines were sitting in a hangar ready to be fit to the shuttle, the cryopods and Jenni's Stryder were ready to be pushed aboard.

"Crew, this is Captain Nina Soryuu of the TKY Shikinami. We're dropping into orbit around Venice 3 in 10 minutes. Prepare for erratic changes in our acceleration as we make minor adjustments in our course. Landing parties, make your way to the Dropships, please."

"Ugh..." groaned a child in a clay building in Alpha, the largest and oldest city on Venice 3. "Mummy, do we have to?"

"Yes, Elizabeth, we do," answered her mother. "Daddy forgot to take his lunch. He can't come home now or he'll miss 11 o'clock!"

"What's so special about 11 o'clock?" groaned Elizabeth, kicking her feet in the dust.

"Come on, darling. 11 o'clock is mid-day, he can't just pack up his stall now! He has to earn money for us!"

Elizabeth pouted. "Well, why don't you take his lunch to him? I can stay at home; I'm a big girl now."

"Darling, you're 70 kilohours -"

"I'm 72 kilohours old."

Her mother hung her head in her hands for a moment. Her pregnancy didn't make taking care of Elizabeth any easier. She sighed.

"Oh, alright. But stay inside, okay? Call me if anything goes wrong!"

"Yes, mummy! Thank you!"

Elizabeth was happy now. Today was a good day. The soldiers were gone from the streets – off to fight at some weird place called Hammo – which was good. She didn't have to ride in the hot hoverbuggy with Mum. She didn't have to get out of the hoverbuggy and walk through the no-fly zone to Daddy's stall. She didn't have to walk back to the hoverbuggy and fly back. No, today she was free.

She opened the windows; it was too hot inside. Well, it was too hot outside.

"Screw it!" she said happily, repeating a phrase she'd heard Daddy say when he didn't want to do something.

There was the FWOOOSHH sound and then the WHOOOOSH sound as Mummy took off in the hoverbuggy. Elizabeth smiled. She was happy. She was a big girl. She went to the fridge, checked that Mummy and Daddy weren't around by force of habit – then opened it and stole a choco-crunch before getting the crayons and paper out of a cupboard.

Then there was a bang at the door and Elizabeth got a fright. She turned around. "Hello?"

Then the door opened and two men walked inside. One of them said a bad word, then turned to the other and said "I thought you said they left?"

The other man said "I saw their hoverbuggy leave!"

The first man said "Well what are we going to do now? She's seen our faces!"

The second man said "Relax. We came for their credits but we can take the girl instead."

The first man said "What's the point of that? We can't sell her!"

The second man said "But we can ransom her. Easier than looking for the credits, nobody hides them under the bed anymore. C'mon, you know you don't want to spend the next hour looking for a safe and the next hour trying to crack it open."

The first man said "I guess."

The second man took as step toward Elizabeth and said "You're coming with us!"

Elizabeth tried to run but the door was behind the men and the second one her. He slung her over his shoulder. The first man took her paper and her crayons and wrote something on the paper. Then the men took her out of the house and closed the door and she screamed and the second man took her off his shoulders and put her on the ground, but still held her arm tightly.

Elizabeth said "Let me go!" She tugged at her arm, tried to run.

The second man said "Girl, we put a bomb in your house."

The first man looked at the second man and raised his eyebrows.

The second man said "If you don't shut up, we'll make it explode when your parents are home. You don't want that, do you?"

The sky suddenly flashed behind Elizabeth. She saw the light on the first man and second man's faces for a second, as if a big ship had just appeared in the sky. The first man said "Holy," then a bad word, the second man's mouth dropped open. His grip weakened and Elizabeth tugged her arm out of the second man's hand.

Elizabeth turned and ran away from the bad men as fast as she could. She didn't look back, she didn't look up. She had to warn Mummy and Daddy about the bomb.