Chapter Nine
The pilots had assembled in the launch bay as Jas had requested prior to what she hoped would be the final battle. The old hands would know what was coming, but she made them attend anyway. Her words were just as important however often they heard them.
Jas always spoke to the pilots on the eve of every battle. Though it tortured her to look into the eyes of the men and women standing before her, knowing that many of them would be dead within a few short hours, she felt that they were owed this personal address. It was the very least that someone like her, who would be within relative safety behind the force field and heavy hull plating of a starship, could do.
They deserved acknowledgment of the risk they were taking, and for many, of the sacrifice they would make, so that
