The capsule was ejected seconds before the ship had been vaporized by the combined salvo of dozens of the black ships. It fell unnoticed or ignored toward a distance main sequence type G star, its occupant suspended by the survival systems built into the pod. As it approached a small rent in the casing was exposed to the radiation of the nearing star and flooded the interior with what should have been a deadly bombardment. The unconscious occupant, however, was of a sterner stuff and radiation mixed with genetics and subtly changed the very structure of the body.
On and on the pod fell, boring in toward the distant star and its sure destruction but the star did not float through the ether unaccompanied. A blue green marble raced across the face of the star and intercepted the falling craft. Automatic programming activated, slowly waking the passenger even as the ablative coating on the surface began to burn away. When the capsule hit the water, the hatch exploded up and away then rockets fired and boosted the single couch high into the air. At its apex, a chute deployed, forming a canopy over the solo survivor of a space battle more then thirty light years distant. The wind and fresh air acted as a tonic, enhancing the stimulants already injected, and the passenger awoke seconds before the couch touched down in the sea.
Cold, salty water poured into her mouth, she sputtered, coughed and struggled with the crash webbing holding her to the sinking couch. Then there was another beside her in the sea, deftly severing the tough strands of the webbing. A strong hand gripped the webbing bunched across her chest and pulled, snapping the remaining tendrils and freeing her. A powerful arm looped around her body just below her breasts and a kick sent them racing toward the surface. Grateful lungs expanded as they rose nearly half her body length into the air and fell back into the cool sea with the other beneath her, holding her head above water.
The other spoke, the voice deep and masculine and totally incomprehensible. She replied, her language lilting and slightly sing-song, her voice a melodious soprano. Again he spoke, this time in what must have been another language with a repeated word of her own language interspersed. What nonsense, she realized that he should be holding her afloat when she was perfectly able to swim on her own. Without considering, she twisted in his grip and pulled away, at last facing the creature that had pulled her from the sinking couch. They treaded water, their faces and bodies only a foot apart and regarded one another.
What he saw would have heated the blood of any male of even an approximate humanoid. The girl floating before him had the face of a golden hair angel with eyes the color of a cloudless summer day. Though her skin was a hue no different from his, she had the most beautiful blue markings on either side of her face and on her shoulders. Between small, high breasts a blue arrow seemed to point up to her lips. He was not sure if the coloration was natural or body art.
She gazed back at a man with black hair plastered to his skull by the sea water who gazed at her appraisingly through the greenest eyes she'd ever seen. His skin may have been a touch darker than hers but without the markings of her race. He was a terribly handsome male and on impulse she reached out and stroked his cheek. The dazzlingly white smile she received in return made her laugh lightly.
Again she spoke, explaining who she was and what had happened and though he did not reply, something in his look told her to keep talking. She was of the Arcadian race, a people now inhabiting vast cities orbited their native star in the Green Zone that once held their home world. Millennia ago, Arcadian scientists had discovered their world was moving further out from their star at a surprising rate, a rate that would doom the people if some method of saving them was not found. To this end, the entire race, united against a common problem, developed space flight, ever striving to escape through the use of an FTL system. They failed and at last resigned themselves to saving their race with the use of Generation ships.
