5.

That afternoon once the class periods were over for the day, the cadets went back to their respective quarters.

They changed into their civies or street clothes and while some lounged in their quarters, others headed down to the entertainment decks.

Jace, Tia, Kyra, and Jaina had just stepped off the lift onto entertainment deck number two heading toward the food court. They were headed for the Italian food place, when suddenly there was a loud bang and the whole station shook with the force of an impact hard enough to cause some people on the main promenade to lose their balance and fall over!

"What in the name of the *seven sisters was that?!" cried Kyra after grabbing the railing to keep from falling.

"That's what I want to know!" said Jace nearly losing his own balance.

They rushed to the nearby observation lounge and looked out the windows. Down below them they could see a dog fight between Star Corps fighters and some other fighters that looked like double-bladed axe heads.

The attacking ships had already hit the star base in the side several decks down. The cadets could see the impact area near one of the military landing bays. a patch of the outer hull that had been severely damaged.

"Those are Kundari fighters!" said Tia

"Why would they risk attacking a base this big?!" asked Kyra

"Because they're not targeting the whole base!" said Jace realizing something his cybernetic eye had zoomed in on the damage and his optical scanner had analyzed the weapons signature. "They're attacking the decks where the new fighters are!"

"They must know that those fighters are there," said Jaina,

"Yeah," said Jace, "And they just hit the station with a proton bomb!"

"No wonder the station shook!" exclaimed Tia

"Yeah," said Kyra, "One more hit like that and the station could lose the gyro-stabilizers and start spinning out of control!"

"What can we do?!" asked Jaina

"Nothing," said an authoritative voice. The voice belonged to Commander Reynolds, "The Corps best star fighter pilots will handle the Kundari attack."

No sooner were these words out of his mouth that there was a loud bang and a flash of fire as a star fighter exploded.

"We just lost another one." Grimaced Jace without even turning around

"Cadets, return to your quarters and let the corps handle this!" ordered Commander Reynolds.

The Cadets all returned to their Quarters as instructed. When Jace and his unit got back to their quarters. Jaina immediately punched up the scanner display on the monitor in the common room so that they could keep and eye on the fight. The display showed the fight as blips moving around on the screen.

It didn't take long for them to realize that something was wrong. The Star corps was losing. The Kundari fighters were outmaneuvering them at every turn.

Jaina started working at the console again, and had soon tapped them into the communication channels between both the Star Corps fighters and the Kundari fighters.

"You hacked both frequencies?!" Said Kyra

"Jaina," nodded, "It occurred to me that, if we could eavesdrop on the Kudari a little bit, maybe we could figure out how they're out matching our fighters so easily!"

"Good Idea," said Tia, "And fortunately that console has the universal translator program on it. so, we won't have to record the Kundari conversations and translate them after the fact."

Immediately they heard something that puzzled them. one of the Kundari warriors was talking to his commanding officer.

"1st Commander Sir, why don't we use the second proton bomb?" he asked

"Because we are holding the second proton bomb in reserve, on the flagship, just out of sensor range, just in case!" snapped the 1st Commander, "you know the plan, Gavok!"

Jaina turned and looked at her squad mates.

"What do you think he means by that?" she asked

"I'm not sure," said Kyra, "I thought their plan had already failed, that proton bomb couldn't penetrate the hull of the station."

"But the dog fight is not going so well for us right now." Said Tia

"Yeah," said Jaina turning her attention back to the display on the monitor, "But that's also strange."

"What are you getting at?" asked Jace

"Well look," said Jaina pointing at the display, "The axe fighters are out maneuvering our star fighters, but every time you think they'd press their advantage they pull back instead."

Jace's eyes widened suddenly as a realization hit him.

He jumped up turned around with his back toward his squad mates. A glowing electric green ring appeared around the irises of his cybernetic augmented eyes as he scanned the decks below him with his full sensor array.

"There!" he suddenly exclaimed

"What," asked Tia jumping up, she used her own cybernetic eye to see what he had found.

"Oh no!" Exclaimed Tia when she saw what Jace had detected, "Are they after what I think they are?!"

"Uh guys," Jaina interrupted before Jace could reply, "The non-cybernetic folks would like to know what you see!"

"There's a Kundari raiding party two decks below us!" said Tia

"Yeah," said Jace, "This attack was a diversion, something to keep us busy while their commandoes snuck in the proverbial back door."

"And there's only one thing on this base that they'd be interested in…," said Kyra

Jace nodded

"The top-secret Delta-7 fighters!" he said finishing Kyra's thought, "The Kundari will no longer have the top fighters in this quadrant if they don't destroy those Delta 7s."

"But how could they have found out about them!" asked Kyra, "They were classified top secret?!"

"I can only think of one explanation." Said Tia, "The Kundari have a spy planted in the top brass of Star Corps' high command!"

To Be Continued…Please leave a review