07:34 HOURS, JANURARY 31, 2298 (Military Calendar)

OUTER EXPANSE, LOCATION UNKNOWN, CLASS 3 NEBULA

UEC HEAVY BATTLE CARIER – 798 "SPIRIT OF ENDURANCE"

"Use Directive 3?" Barnes stood up from his desk and more yelled at the XO. "I will never use Directive 3. Using it would make us no better than the insurrectionists themselves."

"Sir with all due respect, we are out here by ourselves, and they are going to hunt us down like savages."

"Savages? During World War I, all of the allies, and associative powers, both fought savagely, because they had to, because they were in horrible conditions."

"But that was over 300 years ago. We are no longer that primitive. I will not condone war crimes." XO Jarvin was a hardened veteran. He grew up on insurrectionist controlled worlds. He saw plenty of violence. "We will fight like soldiers. I understand that you knew what they did. So did I."

"You know what they did?"

"My parents were killed on Drexicon 9, during the wars 30 years ago,. My mother was raped in front of me while I hid, before they shot her. They tortured by father until he died."

"I – I didn't know."

"Your dismissed." Colonel Jarvin nodded and quickly walked out of his quarters. Barnes walked over to the bathroom and turned the faucet on. He looked up at his face. Its been four months since the attack, and he's barely slept, or shaved. His weight had dropped by 10 pounds the doctors were less than happy. A commanding officer should be well fed, be sharp on his toes, and be awake. He barely had time for that. Barnes ran his hands under the cold water and grabbed a razor. He wet his face and began to shave off of the beard that had started to grow.

"Sir. There is a message from command. They say it's a personal message."

"Patch it through to my quarters." Barnes quickly finished shaving, and walked to his desk. He looked at the message that was encoded to him in the green. It was unencrypted, probably nothing important, and was labeled as personal. He pressed a button, and the screen fluttered to life. Barnes looked at the face of his wife.

"Hey John..." His face lite up at the sight of his wife.

"Hey honey."

"The Admiral told be what happened. He said we would have to wait until your within range again. Something to do with the nebula."

"Yeah. How's the kids?"

"They miss their Dad. I told them what happened. Kaden understand, Shelly doesn't quite. They both are waiting for you to come home."

"I'm working on it."

"Working on it? Admiral Forest said it could take up to a year or more to get home. Apparently, something to do with the age of your FTL drive."

"Yes. During the last attack, we depolarized several systems, and are rebuilding them from scratch. We plan on leaving then nebula in a couple of days." The ship shook suddenly and the lights dimmed as the red alert lights turned on.

"What was that?"

"I got to go. I'll get home. I promise." Barnes shut off the transmission, and quickly stood up and grabbed the com. "Specialist, what the hell is going on?"

"They're bombarding the nebula with omitron radiation, its destabilizing it."

"Is the FTL online?"

"Yes sir. But we only will get a 20-light year jump out of it."

"It's better than being blown up. I'll head up." Barnes quickly threw on his uniform, and ran to the CIC. The entire crew was getting the ship ready to jump. "We're going to need to exit the nebula if we want to make a safe jump. Launch the alert fighters. When we prepare to jump, recall them.

"Aye Sir. Launch blue squadron." The XO said into the intercom.

"All stations report condition one."

"Understood. We're going to allow them to go after our dorsal side, it's the heaviest armored section."

"But also, the area with our lateral structural members, if we lose them..."

"I know... Helm, take us out of the nebula, and specialist. Jump us out. Random location."

"Sir!" The Spirit of Endurance slowly moved out of the nebula pushing simple gasses, that would one day be a star out of its way. The alert fighters followed alongside, and met the enemy head on, they too had launched their fighters.

"Recall blue squadron," The entire battle was rather anticlimactic, not the normal insane. One ship against two others, was the least of concern. Barnes calmly barked out commands to those inside the CIC. All about they were preparing to jump the ship. "Helm, bow pitch 43 degrees, bow yaw 21 degrees." The entire crew was waiting for the command to jump. Hopefully this time they didn't land inside of a giant staging area. Barnes looked up at the DRADIS and showed them exiting the cloud.

"Sir we have exited the cloud, we are ready to jump."

"Are all fighters recalled?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Then jump us out of here." Specalist Kellen nodded, and quickly twisted the key, and the ship bent and squeezed for a moment before snapping back together. Throughout the ship, they could hear the support structure groan under the intense