HMS Valediction

Pre-ARC10 Embarkation Report

Before we begin, I must ask—

Do you even remember what happened? Back then?

No. I thought not. 

I prepared a report to bring you up to speed just in case. 

UNITED REGION OF EARTH 

INTERSTELLAR RECORDS TASK FORCE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Twenty-four years after the alien invaders scorched the Earth, the surviving population emerged from their underground sanctuary. Specializing in Topside Scavenger security, brassy militia captain Janika Lorn's goal was to keep the people of the United Regions of Earth (URE) alive when they left their subterranean city to scrounge for salvage. On a critical salvage mission, Janika disobeyed orders to save all her civilian assets and was injured. Captain Dean Freyer of Tactical Recovery Team—Janika's childhood friend and contracted partner in the government's repopulation program, the Human Hope Project (HHP)—extracted her from the aftermath of battle. 

Once she served her time, Janika returned to her underground hell, evading the onslaught of badgering about her lack of patriotism due to her obvious disdain for the HHP. 

Her job was not to breed. As a top candidate for an experimental weapons program, she knew there were bigger aspirations for her to attain beyond "favorable genetic material" (*Janika eye roll*). However, due to numerous near-death encounters with the Invaders, nightmares plagued her, making her technically unfit to wield the new, volatile technology. She hid her challenges well from everyone else but Dean. Realizing the harm she could cause, Dean pulled rank, going behind her back to request that she be excluded from training with the weaponry. It was because of this that her "little sister", Chief Moyra White, was accepted in her place and killed.

Janika remained subterranean, stewing in anger until a high-ranking commanding officer offered her an opportunity to protect the people in a different way—by joining a rogue operation to lead the remaining population off Earth to a distant exoplanet on one of the ten Alien Relocation Carriers (ARCs). It was there that Janika met the charming, too-enticing Chief Kai Kamalani. Letting her anger at Dean and the HHP cloud her judgment, she initiated an illegal affair with Kai as uncontracted partners. They were discovered. Shoved together, Janika and Dean were coerced to fulfill their patriotic obligations. They had sex.

Enraged, Janika was ready to accept the mission to get the hell off the planet until Dean, who was also offered a commanding position on the ARCs, blocked her path. Convinced that she was still being reckless since the HHP had a one-hundred percent success rate, he felt it was his responsibility to care for their child. In spite of his concern, she free-rappelled a ten-story vent to attend the meeting and was paired off with the leading officer, General Pama Hayomo, to command the final refugee starship, ARC10.

Preparation for launch commenced. Janika discovered Moyra was not dead but was a guarding the ARCs in their underground harbors. During training for ARC10 embarkment, the Xani—a hostile race of human-shaped/mechanical insect drones terrorized her, stalked her, and threatened her while she was alone. Through training for ARC command, she and Dean struggled with their participation in the HHP as, despite all odds, she didn't become pregnant. In the ashes of their friendship, a new heat emerged. After a third failed HHP intervention, Janika was labeled barren and returned to working Topside as Dean was reassigned to a new partner. In her loneliness, Janika turned to Kai after he fulfilled his own contract. They slept together, but when Kai realized he wanted more than Janika was willing to give, he attempted to assault her. She left him for good. When Dean returned, confessing his love, they began an illegal affair as un-contracted partners.

Invaders were closer to discovering the location of the URE than ever before. Amid the chaos, Janika was stabbed by her father's lover. At the infirmary in the care of the old curmudgeon Dr. Bertrand Knuckles, the inventor of the PAHLM (the technology that managed their lives), she discovered she was pregnant. As undocumented pregnancies were unprecedented in the URE, she decided to keep it a secret to protect herself and her baby's father—whoever he was—from the government.

Alien invaders located the URE. The people must leave. Before launch, Janika and Dean promised to pick up their love when they were reunited on the next planet. As they blasted off, they discovered the Invaders waiting for them in the clouds. Invaders attempted to shoot the ARCs down and nearly succeeded if a fleet of military jets hadn't provided cover for the defenseless refugee starships to break Earth's gravitational pull. When they barely escaped, Janika realized that her secret pregnancy could ruin her potential happy ending with Dean. She made the hasty decision to seek out Dr. Knuckles to terminate her pregnancy. However, in order to give her more time to process all that had happened, Knuckles gave her a sedative to help her to sleep. She woke up and, with a clear understanding of what she was capable of, decided against termination. Joyful but terrified, Janika accepted her new life as a guardian of the lives aboard her ship, including her child's. It was a different adventure than she had originally imagined, but it was the one she chose.