He saw a sun-soaked open wheat field. The golden grain was swaying with the wind under the searing light of a neighboring star. The scent of chlorine rain hung in the air as it evaporated. A young Erik Mal ran through the field, parting the coarse grain as he went. His face stung as tall stalks whipped at his face while he traveled at light speed. In his right hand was a stylized, mostly historically accurate toy model of the Silent Dawn, the legendary Ancient Fleet flagship. It was Erik's absolute favorite toy. His mother gave it to him for his eighth birthday and he carried it everywhere with him.
Erik was a little different from the other boys that way. All his friends would lose themselves in immersive fantasy world simulations, which he occasionally participated in when asked to, but he found the simulations to be easy and uninteresting. They bored him.
Making engine noises with his mouth, Erik piloted the Silent Dawn off to heroically defend a civilian transport from an indiscriminate attack by the Gytre. Just like the legends told, when the Dawn reached the edge of the wheat/asteroid field, it would slow down from light speed and attack. His teachers had told him about the Silent Dawn and its sacrifice made for the people of the UFAR. In the city of Muskat, on Loks where he grew up, there was a Memorial Day once per solar year. People would pay tribute beginning in the early morning. They would recount the day the Dawn was ambushed. It was considered a heinous tragedy. The crew was immortalized as a martyr of war and their faces, though no more, were the most famous faces he knew.
The UFAR got its revenge, though. As Erik later learned, the Gytre only occupied one planet. It was a small rock with a methane atmosphere and a volcanic core. The Ministry (as it were at the time) sent leaders to Gytre for a treaty negotiation, but that turned out just to be a ruse- there was never any intention to negotiate. The Ministry brought with them repurposed mining ships equipped with radiation drills used for liquefying metallic ore from the center of a planet for the purpose of pumping it out. They then invited the Gytre Prime Minister and her cabinet to the new flagship for the “treaty negotiation” to watch as the mining ships rendered the planet volcanically active. Super-heating the core placed pressure against the planet’s crust, forcing a release of organic compounds. The heat ignited the atmosphere, simultaneously poisoning and burning the entire population of the planet. Once the Gytre were immolated, they then executed the cabinet members one at a time. Finally, they extracted the brain of the prime minister for the purpose keeping her alive and conscious indefinitely without any sort of external stimulus. The brain was placed in a satellite that still orbits that God-forsaken rock. Justice.
When the wheat eventually ended, Erik kept running. He locked imaginary mass driver cannons onto imaginary enemies, dodging powerful blows from all sides. As the transport zoomed off at light speed, Erik fell into the grass. The Silent Dawn crashed to the ground next to him in a heroic ball of flame. The Gytre fleet was too much for one ship, even the best. A young Erik stared into the sky, thinking about his last day on his home planet before they take him away.
"Captain, we’re-"
"I know. I can see."
The situation was clear. Four additional Rostran cruisers closed in on the Hellbender from the rear. As they positioned themselves to attack, they were glowing the most vibrant shades of blue, pulsing as if possessing a heartbeat.
"Wave the white flag, Ursa," Erik instructed as the Hellbender began to accelerate through an opening in the surrounding ranks. The Rostran seemed to be charging for another blast as they maneuvered to cut off the Hellbender's escape. To show a sign of surrender, a ship would ideally cast off a piece of shielding or other moderately essential component to show that there is no will to fight.
"Captain -" Ursa said, unwilling to speak the rest of her thought. She tactfully avoided pointing out the obvious truth that the Hellbender had no physical shields to eject.
