The ride out was different than the ride in thought Ellis. Wheras the transport that took them to Central was spotless and clean almost a show piece, this one had obviously seen years of hard use on an outer rim mining moon. The seats were worn thin by the rubbing of countless equipment belts and the nonskid deck was gouged from heavy use.

"Back during the war an attempt was made to seize the wave relay station for this sector," stated the PG liason Mr. Ballas. "A small incursion was made by a browncoat special forces insertion team which had minor results. They were able to damage part of the facility before a rapid response team from Central arrived. At that point they withdrew, however one of their assault shuttles was destroyed and their MEDEVAC was disabled and abandoned".

"What kind of MEDEVAC was it?" asked Ellis."

"A TALON class transport with a Special Forces series mod, so it has an extended range and life support. Additionally it has a more advanced treatment capability and increased cargo capacity".

As Ballas spoke the shuttle entered a long narrow valley at the edge of the foothills some miles outside of Central. After an easy turn or two the valley began to climb towards a wide plateau. At the top of the plateau were the three buildings of the wave relay station. As the shuttle slowed for its approach, Ellis could see odd clumps of moss covered berms and many shallow water filled sinkholes and ditches. It was then that he realized that he was seeing the remains of a battle. The old blast craters showing impacts of beam fire as well as the short straight ditches of strafing runs were slowly being reclaimed in their own way by the local flaura and fauna.

Ellis could only imagine what happened here those years ago as they settled on the logistics pad outside the main power generating building. Blaster scars were evident on the walls and on the paved approach to the other buildings. "It must have been hell that night" thought Ellis suddenly flooded with the memory of a Special Forces operation he supported once a lifetime ago.....

The gut wrenching drop into near atmo at high angle to minimize exposure time to planetary sensors never failed to make a man question his sanity, especially if he was the pilot. The rapid descent designed to mimic the routine reentry of space debris was hell on ships that did it, and worse on the men inside. Equipment begins to vibrate and then to shake to the point where something always gave way. If you were lucky it was just something minor like a sensor package or your stomach contents, but every now and then an insertion team found itself short a ship and a sizable portion of its attack force. The worse part of the whole deal was the troops riding the beast in the back of the transport. Locked in with their equipment unable to move, unknowing, all they could feel is the heat of reentry followed by the sudden bangs and drops inside the passage of a comet bent on suicide. The final high gee pullout under power was in itself an artform mastered by few. The few that could do it were repeatedly sought out by Special Ops command. Those that couldn't, well they were never in a position to be asked again remembered Ellis.

"That was one of the assault ships" said Ballas gesturing to a large pile of twisted metal half buried on the downslope behind the power building.

"Looks like a FIREFLY" said Vasily. "It hit hard", he added with a quiet sigh.

"Over here is the MEDEVAC".

Rounding a corner of the building Ellis came up short at the familiar sight of the TALON class transport. All three stopped for a moment, awash in the individual memories, long surpressed or forgotten now clear as the blue sky above.

"Look at her" said Ellis with a tone of wonder. "I never thought I would see one again."

" Oh man, look at that beautiful old bitch" said Mac.

The transport sat where it had been abandoned. Pointing down the slope in a small dip in the terrain. Ellis could imagine the pilot comming in for a pickup as the raiding force began to evac, trying to use the cover of the ridge line to the last possible moment before it unmasked and exposed itself to the defending fire of the security force protecting the three buildings behind him. What must it have been like, realizing as the transport settled in the gully that suddenly something was going wrong and that you had to get out into that hell of crossfire, explosions and chaos and find some other way back to safety.

" We have had some techs repairing and recharging its drive. We have also updated its sensor suite. Fueling will be set once diagnostics are complete in approximatly 36 hours" said Ballas breaking the silence.

"What shape is it in structurally?" queried Ellis.

"Fine" replied Ballas. "It was set down as a mechanical failure occurred in its compensators and drive. As far as we could tell the crew abandoned according to mission specific guidlines. In keeping with interplanetary conventions regarding Medical Resources, the ship was not destroyed but left in place with all nav and mission data wiped from the mainframe".

"Yeah, that was standard", said Ellis.

Approaching the nose of the transport, Ellis slowly reached out and touched the hard,scarred composite skin of the transport. To him it didnt feel like a tough synthetic designed to withstand the stress of passage throughout the verse, rather it felt like a piece of himself, and he felt ....whole again.

"Look at this" said Mac, pointing to a faded insignia on the hull just forward of the number two propulsion nacelle.

"What is it?" asked Ballas staring at the design.

"A good luck charm" replied Ellis with a sad smile. "The practice began back on earth that was. No one remembers why, except that this was unique to medical transports. They used to mark their ships with a white square and inside the square was a red cross. Inside the cross were the squadron numbers".

"My God" said Vasily in a choking voice,"It says 1059th!"

"Hwoon Dahn" said Mac.

"So what" said Ballas.

Turning to him slowly, Ellis said, "Mr Ballas, with all due respect, the 1059th was wiped out to a man at the Battle of the Twin Bridges on Essayons."

"I think I heard of that, isnt that where all those transports got blasted flying into an ambush or something?"

"No sir" said Ellis enunciating each word with obvious restraint. "It was where an entire Medical Transport company was wiped out because an Alliance intel officer used a wounded captured browncoat radioman to call for help in violation of the rules of war. He then directed fire upon the transports whenever they attempted to make a pickup. After five had been downed the high command ordered the rest to cease their efforts. They didnt", said Ellis staring off to the horizon lost in thought.

"And Mr Ballas" added Mac with a grin that stopped at his eyes, "That intel officer was executed after the war for his actions".

"OK guys" said Ellis visibly shaking himself, "Lets check her out, we have a mission to fly".

"Roger that Chief"said Mac,

"Aye Chief" added Vasily, "We fly!"

TO BE CONTINUED