The Capture

         Proxi looked up from his plateful of mashed and mushed galley food. The meal, his favorite when made by his mother, was just insulting coming from the ship’s galley. He poked at the pile of brownish-gray vegetable, which was supposed to be light pink, and eyed his friend sitting across from him in the small, cramped pilots’ mess hall.
          “Rawan, I know I’m not much of a believer, either, but I still wear The Star. In times like these, you have to have something to believe in.” Proxi fingered the green amulet around his neck, the only type of jewelry allowed on board the warship.
         Rawan set his fork down, most of his meal uneaten too. “Why would The One allow us to be slaughtered by the Flefatrie? We’ve lost millions of people to them, and we haven’t destroyed one of their attack ships.
         Proxi set his fork down. “The One has a reason for what She’s doing. We must accept that and move on. After the attack that killed my sisters, I had nothing left but my faith. I know they are living on the grassy fields near the Great Green Mountain where my spirit will join them one day for all eternity."
         An alert sounded in the mess hall, stopping all conversations. “This is the captain,” the intercom boomed. “The Flefatrie ship is closing on us, and we cannot escape. Gamma squadron, prepare for immediate launch.”
         Rawan was already standing, “Looks like you’ll be seeing your sisters sooner than you thought.”
         Standing, Proxi straightened his flight jacket with its crisp logo of the Gamma Squadron unblemished and new. The pair strode at full speed down the hall toward the hanger deck. “Today might be different. If not, I will soon be seeing you on the rolling hills, my friend.”


         Proxi surveyed his small fighter from across the hanger bay of the command ship. Dozens of identical ships lined the huge room, but his and the fourteen others had technicians and pilots swarming over their hulls. The ship looked small, with only its thin canopy of “indestructible” plastic protecting him from the vacuum of space and the swirling energy masses of the Flefatrie vessels. Odd, Proxi thought, how his ship made of metal and plastic was completely opposite from the unknown energies that made up his enemy’s ships. And how one could so easily destroy the other but not the reverse.
          “See you out there,” Rawan said, nodding at Proxi and aiming for his fighter.
          “Good flying,” Proxi called back as he stepped up to his ship. The attendants saluted quickly and scurried off. Several ships were already powering their engines, filling the area with the low hum of fusion-powered engines.
         Proxi quickly strapped himself into the cockpit and watched the image of his squadron commander appear on a small holoprojector at the front of the cockpit. “Your squadron will deploy immediately to engage the Flefatrie vessel that has been pursuing us for the past few weeks. This should give us enough time to briefly engage our lightspeed drive and gain some distance from the Flefatrie ship. I know you will make us proud and fight honorably against our enemy. Good luck.” The image disappeared from the display and was immediately replaced with a three-dimensional display of Proxi’s command ship and the Flefatrie vessel.
         Proxi had heard of using this tactic before in escaping from Flefatrie. Most of the eight-month war had been a matter of Trenan warships engaging the Flefatrie, and systematically retreating, or not returning from, their engagements. Every time Command sent ships out with new and innovative weapons, a handful returned with nothing but casualty lists.
         The bad thing about the strategy used today, Proxi mused, was the fact that he wasn’t going to live. Their warship had been out for weeks, and the newest weapons had proven useless in protecting six other Trenan warships. Those weapons were identical to those mounted on Proxi’s ship. So, he was fodder to slow down the Flefatrie ship, which was faster than anything the Trenan had for faster-then-light velocity. The Trenan vessels had the sole advantage of being slightly faster at sub-light speed. Due to physics equations well-above Proxi’s science, neither type of vessel could enter the hyperspace dimension in close proximity to a star. If the captain could leapfrog the ship back, they could return to Trenan.
         Deck alarms rang over the hum of the fifteen fusion-powered fighters. The air was sucked from the room, giving Proxi a few moments to utter a silent prayer to The One.
         “All fighters, prepare to deploy,” the voice in Proxi’s ear said. The large magnetic doors, sealing the room from space cracked open, filing the hanger with the blue and green glow of the Flefatrie ship. “Damn, that’s close,” Proxi muttered.
         “Maintain radio silence,” the flight leader scolded.
         Proxi gulped at the remark and focused on his controls. With a slight thud, the doors finished opening, leaving a view of the swirling energies that composed the Flefatrie ships and presumably the people commanding them. There was little known of the Flefatrie’s biology, or whatever comprised their makeup. It was widely assumed they were made up of some type of organic energy, which allowed their ships to break off smaller pieces to engage their enemies. Forty of those smaller pieces now sat before Proxi and his comrades.
         “All craft, engage,” came the order.


         “Where am I?” Proxi called to the blue-green mists around him. He couldn’t feel his body or change his field of vision. There were muffled voices around him, speaking in various Trenan languages in hushed tones all around him. The energies sparkled and twisted randomly in various patterns. But the colors alone made his location obvious. Aside from the endless swirling mists, Proxi couldn’t see anything.
         Out of the murmur of sounds, Proxi heard a familiar voice. “Proxi?”
          “Rawan?” Proxi asked, a million questions forming in his mind. “What happened? I saw your fighter hit, then I was hit, and now I’m here. Where are we?”
          “They haven’t told you yet,” Rawan said softly. “You’ll understand soon.”
         “Told me what? Understand what?” Proxi screamed. The murmur grew quieter as Proxi kept shouting. “What happened? Send me back to my people.”
         “We can’t do that,” a new voice spoke.
         “Who are you?”
         “What you would call the Flefatrie. You are aboard the Flefatrie ship, but you are not a prisoner.”
         “Then send me back,” Proxi demanded.
         “We can’t do that,” the Flefatrie patronized. “Your ship was damaged and your body lost.”
         “What do you mean by ‘lost?’”
         “Proxi?” Another voice spoke to the Trenan. “It is Prizn.”
         “Sister,” Proxi called out hopefully. “What’s happening?”
         “Why doesn’t he know what happened to him?” Prizn asked the Flefatrie.
         “We’re not sure. Others are looking into it. The Trenan vessel recovered his ship’s wreckage before it escaped.”
         “Prizn, how can you be here. You died when the colony was lost,” Proxi considered he thought for a moment. “These bastards have kept you prisoner for eight months?”
         “I’m not their prisoner, and neither are you.”
         Proxi felt the presence of the Flefatrie leave briefly and return. “Young Trenan. You must bring a message back to your people. Your hyperspace technology destroys our space. If your people stop using it, the war will end.”
         “What?” Proxi asked in confusion to the statement and the now fading mists.
         “Proxi don’t go,” his sister called, each word softer than the last.
         All the voices grew softer, and Proxi slipped into darkness.


         Proxi opened his eyes to a brightly-lit medical bay on his command ship. “Captain, he’s awake,” a doctor’s voice called out from beside the bed.
         “Continue evasive action. It looks like we’ve finally lost them,” the captain spoke into a control panel on the wall.
         “Aye sir,” a disembodied voice responded.
         The captain approached the wide-eyed pilot lying on the bed. “We though we’d lost you, pilot.”
         “What happened to me?”
         “Your fighter was hulled, and you lost life support. We pulled your ship in before we went to hyperspace. You’ve been on life support since.”
         “You were clinically dead for over fifteen minutes,” the doctor put in. “It was something of a medical miracle that I revived you.”
         “Captain, doctor, I was aboard the Flefatrie ship. I talked to my sister and another pilot, Rawan.”
         “All the other fighters were lost. No one else survived,” the captain said.
         “There’s a good chance you were dreaming, Proxi. With experiences like these, hallucinations are common,” the doctor looked up from his medical instruments to add.
         “The Flefatrie I spoke with told me my ship was lost, and everyone else knew what was going on and wouldn’t tell me. But right before I left, one of them told me we’d started the war by invading their space when we first used our hyperspace engines. He said if we stop using them, they’d end the war.”
         The captain considered this for a moment, “Doctor, please come with me to your office.” The two left the confused pilot for the sanctity of the doctor’s private, and soundproof, office. “Doctor, this patient just became classified.”
         “Sir?”
         “This is the seventh reported experience of one of our people ‘visiting’ the Flefatrie. Young Proxi will be on the first transport back to Trenan to work with our scientists and diplomats.”
         “Captain, he had a hallucination. That’s all.”
         The captain felt “No, doctor, he spoke with the Flefatrie. And there’s only one way to speak to the Flefatrie, and that’s to die.”