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The flight computer known as Palamandry served many purposes, one of which was training, and he did this very well. A small battle cruiser appeared on the view screen, firing weapons in a classic head on approach utilized when an adversary had superior fire power.

"Uh, put the shields up," Ketty ordered. "Slowing to fighting velocity," She used the inertial brakes to scrub speed, still the heavy cruiser shot past them with minimal damage. She flicked the controls left, then right and came up in a loop behind and above the enemy ship. "Fire at will, attack pattern Radon six."

Belletine complied, sending an assortment of high power weapons up the tailpipe of the enemy vessel. "Their shields are holding, we need to try something different."

"Fire shield penetrating nano-bots," Ketty ordered, holding the blue burn of the fusion motors directly in the center of her view screen. She wasn't about to let the larger ship get the advantage. Everyone watched the brace of torpedoes and laser strikes disperse into the enemy shields, but the nano-bots spread like honey, covering a large section of the ship.

"Shields weakening, fire Lepton cannon," ordered Ketty. Things were happening too fast now. Suddenly a burst of energy balls erupted from the ship and headed directly towards them. Ketty turned away, even as their single shot hit pay dirt.

"We got a hit!" yelled Belletine a little too loud, but the maneuver had thrown them off course, and now the cruiser was directly behind them. "Incoming broadside," Belletine warned. Ketty tried to shake them but it was no use. A warning bell went off, then the scenario ended.

"I'm afraid you have lost the simplest of practice runs," Palamandry informed them. "You should consider getting a communications officer to compliment your crew and allow the pilot to focus on the task at hand.

"Rayleen." Ketty said at the same time as Belletine. They laughed. "She loves to talk, so she will be perfect."

"Very funny," Rayleen said, making them both jump. They turned to see Lindy and Rayleen watching with disapproval. Behind them was Bakes and Kato, as well as Sizy, Miss-cordoy, Egor, and Georgiana.

"I hope you do better than that, or we're all in trouble," said Lindy.

Ketty patted the seat to her left. "Come on Rayleen, we need a communications officer." Ketty noticed Rayleen still had her necklace, the same as Kato's. "Is that thing on?" she asked.

"No, there's been no need, but I thought maybe you could borrow Kato's, not that I need to know you any better." She winked at Ketty and linked up with the flight computer.

Kato placed his necklace around Ketty's neck. "For good luck."

"This time, use your neural interface to communicate, it's ten times faster than talking," said Palamandry.

"Bring up battle scenario Bravo." Nothing happened, just the ever present balls of jeweled fire sparkling among clouds of interstellar gas. "Palamandry, bring up battle scenario Bravo."

"Incoming vessel," Rayleen finally said inside their heads.

"Making course correction to one seven three, accelerating to fighting velocity." Soon a dim speck began to grow from the background haze, congealing into a solid ball which sent a shiver down Ketty's spine.

"Ship is accelerating, no identification yet," from Rayleen, the comm tech.

"Bringing ship up to light speed threshold." Ketty had no idea how to handle this. "Report ship's mass."

"Twenty seven kilotons, it's about our size," Rayleen said with a burst of pride. She had dug the information from a mass of data coursing through her head, but there was a method to it.

"Put all power to forward shields, prepare full spread of Barittorn missiles."

"Full spread ready," from weapons. "You're going to ram them?"

"Roger that... Oh my god." They all saw it at once, the unmistakable outline of an alien albatross, albeit, a scaled down version. Now it was closing fast. "Palamandry, confirm Scenario Bravo has Baird aliens?" The echo of silence felt like she was stumbling around in the dark at the edge of a cliff. She could still feel the bite of the data link, and the ship was responding perfectly, but she knew she was on her own. "This must be part of the training," she laughed nervously.

Ketty's hands were clammy, yet she tingled with excitement, like the first day of training when a hundred bots would scramble out to the beach only to get shot. Now she was in the zone and Kato couldn't help notice the look of concentration reflected in the view screen, the way she bit her lip and furrowed her brow, as if the world depended on her every move. If this was real, perhaps she could save them all, and in that moment he remembered why he liked her, because under pressure she was a shark. A relentless, no holds barred killer.

"Calculate the mass difference between ships, please," said Ketty.

"We are two tons heavier," replied Rayleen.

"Be more specific, please."

Rayleen fumbled for the calculator, then it was there in her mind. Three thousand eight hundred pounds, exactly!"

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