Either Way

The diminutive jin-mei pilot floated inside her pod while she waited. Constantly on the periphery of her vision a set of numbers counted down the minutes while she absentmindedly browsed GalNet and kept an eye on the progress report for the stealth bombers she’d ordered bought and fit the previous day.

SPHERE had surprised her in the most pleasant of ways. As soon as they’d learned about Nox Draconum’s predicament, there had been a lot of contacting pilots and voting on a course of action. They had decided to help out by joining up with Nox for the duration of the war.

Kayleigh couldn’t help but feel touched by the gesture. Here she was, less than four months into a corp, and they were standing by her to the point of going to war for people they didn’t really know, just because Nox were her friends and meant so much to her personally.

And that was why she was keeping an eye on that counter. If the Rough Necks didn’t update the status of the war with CONCORD everything would be over at 17h11m, and SPHERE would go on with their lives as usual, having come just a little too late to really help. But if the war was to keep going, Kay would find herself among the ranks of Nox once more, and much sooner than she could have expected.

Feu D’Astres had got his hands on some intel, and was reporting heavy losses for the Rough Necks in one of their other three wars going on at the same time. That, and the fact that RN seemed to have got what they’d come for – namely the tower in Ignebaener – made them both think the war declaration wouldn’t get renewed.

Either way, Kayleigh had something to look forward to. If SPHERE were to go on the warpath, she would get to once more be a part of Nox, fly with her old friends, help defend the alliance she’d dreamed of and helped make reality. If the war ended, SPHERE wouldn’t join Nox but had operation Dauntless to look forward to and exploration of uncharted systems, a subject which fascinated her.

The minutes ticked by.