Rebecca’s fingers dug into the cushioned material of her seat as she was pressed into it at a weight that was several times heavier than her usual self. Her teeth gritted together and eyes bulged as she felt the pressure continuing to mount.

On the monitor in front of her, a siren started to beep and upon it was a number pulsing in red.

This was their G-force indicator and it was currently pushing well past four gravities and rapidly approaching five. This meant that a body that usually weighed a hundred and sixty pounds was now approaching eight hundred.

Or in other words, way too fucking much.

Though just as it neared this point, the hoplite leveled out, sending Rebecca’s world reeling as she suddenly weighed next to nothing at all.

“Fuck,” she barked.

“Sorry about that,” Ashley cut in, sounding just as strained. “There’s just too many hostiles on the radar, we’re going to get chewed up.”

Rebecca grunted a response and started to hammer her fingers into a set of controls. The ship soon shuddered as one of the cannons reloaded and primed itself for another intense burst. Thankfully, there was no shortage of targets available as the computer instantly found one and Rebecca wasn’t slow in pressing the trigger.

A moment later and that target was a ball of molten slag.

“One down,” she yelled.

Ashley cackled. “Only fifty more to go.”

Suddenly, there was an explosion to their starboard side with a flash of light erupting from the blackness. The impact was enough to send Rebecca flinching to the side.

The shrapnel would impact any second now. There was no avoiding it, nothing that could be…

Suddenly, everything went black and the ship came to a sudden halt around them.

Rebecca’s chest was racing and every bone in her body ached at how hard she’d been pushed. She groaned and looked at Ashley.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

Ashley snorted. “Like we just pulled five gees.”

The ship shuddered and started to move out of place on its own, coming to a stop once it was settled at some invisible dock. Once stationary, the cockpit peeled back, revealing that they were within a well-lit room. Besides them was a catwalk which Ashley clambered onto.

She offered her hand to Rebecca and Rebecca took it, pulling herself out of her seat as well.

As Rebecca stood up, her joints popped. Each little crack made her wince.

“How did we do?” Ashley called towards some tinted windows overlooking the room.

“You got killed,” a voice boomed over the speakers.

Rebecca looked around the space, always amazed by how vast the simulators were aboard this ship. It made sense. After all, they were the most effective teaching tool available besides for actually flying an honest to the gods Hoplite.

“We were outnumbers liked fifty-to-one,” Ashley shouted.

The voice on the speaker snorted. “And you’ll be outnumbered a whole lot more when we’ve actually sent you out on this mission. You’ll be lucky if you end up in a dogfight with such fair odds.”

Ashley sighed and didn’t rise to the challenge.

Instead, the two of them walked along the catwalk towards the door. Thankfully, their trainer was kind enough to push a button and allow them to exit.

They moved out of the simulator suite and into a sterile locker room. Even though there were about a dozen lockers, there were only two other people waiting inside.

Constantine hadn’t been lying when she said that they could have as much trainer time as they could handle. In a way, it was amazing that they were being doted upon in such a fashion.

Though all Rebecca could think about was a sacrificial lamb. After all, weren’t such animals always pampered the most right before being sent to slaughter?

Jasmine smirked as she saw them enter. “So, how did it go?”

Ashley snorted. “We took four of them out before we finally got sidelined by a burst of shrapnel.”

“Not bad,” Jasmine chided. “You’re only one short of our record.”

She winked at them and stepped on by, along with Leslie who cocked off a finger gun in their direction. Once they were in the simulation suite, the door closed behind them, leaving Ashley and Rebecca alone.

Rebecca went over to her bag and grabbed a bottle of water, squirting the last little bit into her mouth.

“How fucked are we?” Ashley asked.

Rebecca snorted. “Somewhere between very and extremely. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m hoping that some merciful angel will come down from the heavens and save us if I ask for it over and over again,” Ashley murmured before looking towards the ceiling. “Come on Athena, you owe me one.”

Rebecca snorted. “Here, let me try.”

She strode into the middle of the room and flashed a playful smile at Ashley. Her attention then went towards the heavens; which were a series of plain looking metal panels in this case.

“Hey Aphrodite,” Rebecca tried, motioning upwards. “Do you mind doing a couple of loyal lesbians a solid? Because we’ve only had so much hot lesbian sex since we got married and it would honestly be such a shame if we didn’t get to have a whole bunch more before we died. So, like, if you could just do us a solid and curse a couple judges down on Thebes that’d be pretty great.”

Ashley snickered into the back of her hand.

“We promise that you can totes join in whenever you’d like,” Rebecca tried.

Obviously, the heavens didn’t respond. So, Rebecca looked back at her wife.

Ashley snorted. “She can join in whenever she’d like, huh? Isn’t that a bit ambitious?”

“I mean she seems like she’d be one of the Olympian who’d actually be into that,” Rebecca said, shrugging. “Wouldn’t you want to bang hot mortals if you were a god?”

There was whirling sound coming from the neighbouring chamber, meaning that the training simulator had kicked into gear. Thankfully, there was a screen which showed off the simulation from a third person point of view, giving them an excellent view of what was going on inside.

The situation looked hopeless. Though that was by design. The hoplite was in the midst of an intense enemy formation with at least a dozen hostile craft within immediate range and another three-dozen coming in rapidly. A hostile station also lingered nearby, ready to add its supporting fire into the fray.

“We’re so fucked,” Ashley whispered.

Rebecca nodded. “Yeah, we are.”

The little hoplite started to rapidly accelerate, trying to use speed to avoid the oncoming torrent of fire. Though it was up against quite a bit of it as simulated streaks of orange were launched from every direction imaginable. There were also missiles and cannons, each adding to the lethal volleys that filled the sky.

To Jasmine and Leslie’s credit, they dove through the vacuum with incredible valour, pushing themselves and their craft to its limits. Occasionally a blue stream, friendly fire, would launch forth though rarely did any of these blows come anywhere close to hitting.

Still, one of the red blips suddenly disappeared followed promptly by another. For a moment, it seemed like there would be some relief but sadly two hits would be all they could afford as suddenly the other enemy craft came into range. Soon, there were nothing but orange streaks of death all over the screen as the little green hoplite blinked out of existence.

“Two kills,” Rebecca quipped. “How long did they last?”

Ashley shook her head. “Two minutes? I don’t see how we could reasonably survive any longer than that.”

The whirl from the neighbouring room faded away, and after about a minute, the door to the locker room opened.

Jasmine sighed. “We’re so fucked.”

“Yeah, we are,” Ashley replied as a dark smile graced her lips.

Rebecca shivered as she recognized that smile, remembering that exact same grin when there had been literal blood on her lover’s hands.

Leslie plopped down upon a bench and closed her eyes. “I can’t even get a shot off on any of those targets. We’re literally so fucked.”

The speaker crackled.

“You four are dismissed,” the training officer said. “Get some rest and report here at seven-hundred hours tomorrow for another day of simulations.”

Rebecca stood up, swaying a little as she did so. She nearly fell over but braced herself against a nearby locker for support. As she looked at the clock, she saw that it was approaching thirteen-hundred. Had they really been in that machine for six hours?

“Want to get some lunch?” Leslie asked.

Ashley nodded. “I’m starving.”

“Heard they got a fresh shipment of vegetables up from the planet,” Jasmine quipped.

Rebecca cocked a brow. “It’s been ages since we got anything fresh.”

“The dust must be finally settling,” Ashley commented. “About time.”

“If rations are leans up here…” Leslie started.

No one else spoke.

On Thebes, the military came first. It always had and always would as long as the war lasted.

Which meant that if they were going through lean times then Rebecca hated to think about what things must’ve been like planetside.

---

Rebecca grunted as she turned the wrench, securing another bolt tightly in place.

Constantine had promised them the best and the best she had delivered. A pair of state of art Hoplites, fresh off of the assembly lines with pristine electronics, engines, and weapon systems. These were miles ahead of the training craft they had been using until this point.

Still, the best wasn’t perfect.

Something that Rebecca realized as she went over to the next of the bolts, pulling out the fresh black one and getting ready to replace it.

“What are you doing?” Ashley asked.

Her wife was looking at the engines, studying them with some sort of reader in her hands. She prodded away at some settings that caused a robotic assistant to start tuning the engine in a very minuscule way.

“The missile bays are using carbonite bolts instead of steel ones,” Rebecca answered. “I don’t like using carbonite on such an important component.”

Ashley cocked a brow but didn’t probe. After all, she was the pilot and not the engineer.

“They’re supposed to be better than steel but…” Rebecca sighed. “They just feel cheaper to me and I’m worried they’ll snap under the pressure. Really the difference is small and this would just make me feel more at ease.”

“I trust your gut feelings more than I trust some technical documents,” Ashley replied.

Rebecca smirked. “Thanks babe.”

Ashley plopped down on the metal floor next to Rebecca and leaned against one of the hoplite’s wheels.

“Did you see the missiles they’re giving us?” she asked.

Rebecca nodded. “Yeah, the new series of Quantum Bs. Apparently they’re using some sort of advanced warhead that’s even better than the last generation.”

“I hate new things,” Ashley grumbled. “Makes me feel like we’re testing this stuff out to make sure that it works.”

“I’m sure they’ve been tested plenty,” Rebecca replied, snorting to herself. “Plus, it’s not like they can really get that data back unless we make it home.”

Ashley smirked. “Maybe that’s a good thing, then?”

Another black bolt was added to a small pile while a silvery one was removed from a matching collection.

Rebecca started cranking it into the ship. She drew in a breath through her nose as she worked, smelling the freshness of the material. It still smelt vaguely of ozone and polish, a new spaceship smell if such a thing existed.

“How do you think Leslie and Jasmine are holding up?” Ashley asked.

Rebecca looked over to the neighbouring Hoplite, seeing that their second crew was also at work, doing something very similar to what they were doing. They seemed occupied with something, distracted and distant.

“I think they’re starting to regret their impulsiveness,” she answered.

Ashley sighed. “I think so too.”

“No one wants to die,” Rebecca replied. “And sadly… we’re going to die.”

“You really think so, huh?” Ashley asked.

“I mean we’ve done how many training exercises?” Rebecca responded, motioning with her wrench at her wife. “And how many of them have we lived more than ten minutes in?” She snorted. “Hell, more than five minutes even?”

Ashley sighed. “Zero.”

She taped away at her little pad. The machine above them disengaged and drew away from the craft. It was finished, at least for now.

“But I mean…” Ashley began.

Rebecca drew away from the ship and turned to face her wife. She could see the shade of indecision that coloured her complexion, the worry that went deep into her brow and seemed to fill every premature wrinkle.

“It’s not like we can just give up,” Ashley said.

Rebecca nodded. “And we’re not. But…” She closed her eyes. “Let’s be real here, babe. We’re doomed if we do, doomed if we don’t at this point.”

Ashley let out a single unamused note of laughter.

Before she could say anything else there was a loud crash from the neighbouring vessel followed promptly by a loud.

“MOTHERFUCKER!”

---

“So, I’ve got some good news,” Constantine said.

Ashley smirked. “You aren’t sending us on a suicide mission anymore?”

“Not quite,” Constantine chided, wagging a finger at her. “But at least I’ve made the mission a little less suicidal now.”

“What did you get for us?” Leslie asked.

Constantine waved her hand and suddenly the hologram of an ancient starship filled the screen. This was their sacrificial lamb to the other side. A completely boring looking ship that was really only collecting dust around the moon.

“The civil authorities have provided me clearance to stick the Olympus with weapons systems,” Constantine explained. “They want to give the Anatolians a black eye for Athens, and as such, have allocated a couple automated missile batteries for this task.”

She snapped her fingers and suddenly four missile batteries formed upon the spine of the ship.

“Tri-Lex short range missiles,” Constantine explained. “Each battery can fire three volleys of twenty-four missiles with a reload time of two minutes between volleys. If the ship can stay operational for four minutes, that would mean a total of two-hundred-and-eighty-eight missiles being slammed into various Anatolian installations on the other side of the gate.”

Rebecca smirked. “So, they decided to give us a present?’

“They want to see some serious damage done and this operation has presented them with a golden opportunity,” Constantine explained. “If those alien freaks are going to give us a black eye, then I fully intend to give them one back.”

She waved her hand over the ship.

“It also means that you’ll have even more chaos to distract the Anatolians when you finally break free of the Olympus,” Constantine continued. “With all the fireworks going off, they’ll hopefully be too busy to notice three small craft slip free and fly planetside.”

“Then we only need to worry about making it back home,” Jasmine murmured.

“Fragging their assets should make that whole lot easier,” Rebecca offered. “If those missiles hit good targets that is.”

Leslie sighed. “So, we might live?”

Constantine snorted. “I’d say we’ve upgraded your chances away from a snowball in hell to something closer to being a teacup surviving a bull in a China shop. Not ideal but I’m not writing the four of you off quite yet.”

She clicked a button in her hand and the simulation started to play. It showed the heavy cruise ship breaching through the portal and engaging in a brief skirmish. All the missiles did fire, over the course of the presentation, showering the neighbouring platforms in a lethal shroud of metal.

Three little blips then peeled off of it in the chaos, escaping before the vessel was finally turned into molten slag by the enemy’s arsenal.

“Admittedly, I’m a little peeved that the colonial administration never greenlit something like this before,” Constantine said before sighing. “But I suppose they were scared of retaliation. The point is, I fully intend to give the Anatolians a very bad day for what they did to Athens.”

She went over to her desk and took a seat, studying them closely.

“Anyways, I thought you could all use a little bit of good news to get you through these last few days,” Constantine said. “Your progress in the simulators has been impressive and I’m more than happy to greenlight all of the modifications you’ve made to your Hoplites.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Ashley said.

Rebecca nodded. “The assistance is appreciated.”

“Can I ask you a question, ma’am?” Leslie asked.

Constantine nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“What if…” Leslie worked her jaw. “What if the Anatolians launch another retaliation because of this attack?”

“They’ve already retaliated,” Constantine said.

Leslie bit her lip. “One ship hardly seems like an invasion force from an intergalactic empire. If the Anatolians are really as powerful as the stories are making them out to be, then don’t we risk poking the hornet’s nest with this operation.”

Constantine snorted. “Engineer, I assure you such considerations have already been made.”

This seemed to completely shut down further questions, so she nodded resolutely and motioned for the assembled crews to leave.

“You four are dismissed,” she stated. “Please enjoy the rest of your evening together and report promptly to the simulators first thing in the morning. I want you four in tiptop shape for when we finally launch this thing.”

---

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