Septemberr 27th, 2372
School is back! Yay! Flying lessons start again tomorrow! No classes today because there was a speech at our school. It was Govnerner Shanria! I learned so much today, I will never have time to write it all but I'll try! Governor Shanria said our pilots are the most in-portent. She said even though we're all inda-pendent, the reason the far-away call-innies from the last twenty years are safe is because of us out here on the front lines.
She talked about all the ways our friends on other planets are helping us too, like sending us new tech-knowledge-gee to help our fighters and soldiers and factories and to see Meklar ships coming from far away.
She even talked about the brain-trust organ-is-say-shin she set up with thirty-seven Mrrshans rep-presenting all nine Mrrshan stars. But then she said why our fighters and fighter pilots are so in-portent. It's because of the Meklar.
Here is the way TVC-15 asked for peace: It said mean things to us and sent a giant attack ship to Berel and bombed it and killed our colonists in space and sent twenty million troops to conquer us. But later it did ask us to trade, except it called our new brain-trust an emperor for some reason.
Here are our acts of war: We didn't all die when the Meklar tried to kill us, and we defended ourselves when their troops attacked and we made new call-innies at stars far away from them and we didn't give them what they wanted. Maybe TVC-15 isn't crazy and really is peaceful! Maybe it's telling the truth! But then why is it at war with every single thing in the entire galaxy that isn't a Meklar? That's a little bit suss-pishes. We'll see soon though, because we aren't going to attack the Meklar and I have a feeling they'll attack us. A lot.
Here's another suss-pishes thing: The Meklar are attacking the Darloks right now at Gion, but I don't see anyone attacking the Meklar even though everyone is at war with them. The Darloks have to defend themselves and I think everyone else is too far away. Like the Sakkra.
They're way out past Her-cue-list, our newest, farthest-away call-innie. They don't like us very much, but we're trading a lot now so maybe we'll be friends someday.
Governor Shanria says we gave the Sakkra very important tech-knowledge-gee this year just to learn how to make our shields a little better and our factories a little faster but they might have found better tech-knowledge-gee on their own soon anyway and we need help right now to survive if the Meklar attack again. That's also why we taught the Darloks things to get better rockets, but also the Darloks like us and we're friends.
We're trading more with them than ever and now we both promised not to attack each other! I hope they keep their promise and stay friends.
Aprril 26th, 2375
They picked me! They only picked twenty girls, and two of them were Sanras and me! We're really going to Berel with the fleet! Ralash is so jealous of us! We have to stay aboard an escape shuttle on the planet, and run away if the death fleet even gets near us, but we'll get to see the battle up close! When I get back, I'm going to tell Ralash all about it!
Maybe if one of the grown-up pilots gets sick, they'll need me to pilot one of the Mrrnitcat 2 fighters! They say it's not for kittens, but I'm really good at the flying sims. How can you be afraid when you get to fly a Mrrnitcat? It's only a giant Meklar death fleet!
Januarry 21st, 2376
I don't believe what just happened! All the Meklar ships were brand-new except the colony ships, and when I saw that Annihilator ... well, I don't know who named it, but they were right.
Sixty-two fusion bomb racks and a nuke on top just to be mean. We could have built a lot more bases and still lost all of them! And all seven cruisers have fusion bombs and heavy lasers too! It sure is a good thing we sent over so many Mrrnitcat 2s, because when Governor Shanria said our fighters were the most important thing, she was right! It's almost like she had a spy telling her what kinds of weapons the Meklar could build! Wait, she's the real governor of Maretta. I guess she did.
The Tornado cruisers are as fast as our fighters, so we had to hit them first, but they only have two fusion bombs each, so the Mrrnitcats only hit them once as they went by and let the base and the old fighters try to finish off the last one since it was very badly hurt. Our pilots had to destroy as many heavy lasers at once as they could, because otherwise we'd lose our fighters and the base wouldn't stand a chance! So the big group of Nexus cruisers had to go first, but then the Annihilator was getting close to the planet, where it could kill millions and millions of us!
Luckily, we did it! They killed a lot of our pilots, but we did it! We destroyed the whole death fleet! I mean, the real pilots did it. Sanras and I were just on this shuttle sitting on the planet's surface. But still!
The only problem is, that wasn't the only attack fleet, and the others are moving very fast. They're a lot smaller, but one is going to Reticuli, where we don't have almost any fighters! I hope they can stop it, because the other one's an Ajax cruiser that looks like it's coming here, and it's going to be hard to protect both places at once.
Decemberr 11th, 2377
Those cruisers are still bombing Reticuli 4! They've been at it for almost two years now, and they never stop!
They have twenty million of their mechanical soldiers on the way too. At least we'll get there soon - I just hope we have enough fighters! The other half of our fleet is still at Berel, even though they haven't seen anything coming since they blew up the Ajax at the beginning of the year! I think they're worried the Meklar will try another fast attack there. If only I were of age so I could help! The way their ships are moving, they can hit Berel or Reticuli or Maretta - and if they find a way to keep their mechanical parts working in the snow, Proxima will be in trouble too - and we never have more than a year's notice that they're on their way! What's worse, it's hard to tell if they're coming for Berel or Maretta when they launch from Artemis (which is always). We have to trust the Admiralty to guess right or to split our forces exactly right, and then it's up to us pilots! Well, the real pilots, but Sanras and I will be of age someday!
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NEXT: Coming of Age
