The story begins with a semi-bored Dumauri riding atop a light tank, sunset was an hour ago and now darkness is setting in with a light wind and a drizzle she knows will soon turn into a downpour. She is part of a company's worth of her kind pressed into service to act as scouts and night fighters. Her ilk's low light vision being one of the few things that evens out the hours of darkness versus those the Gali seek to enslave and conquer. For her part, she has little loyalty to them, the only thing keeping her ilk from fading into the forests is being trapped on this side… and the hostages they have back home. Suddenly she hears something, something shes heard many a time in the last few days as they've fought… what did they call themselves? Colonists? Suddenly the tank in the lead bursts into flames, its turret launching into the sky. Already her eyes traced the path to a collection of buildings (a farmhouse?) four hundred paces away over planted fields.

Theres another flash of light and shes moving almost before she realizes it, propelling herself to the far side of the doomed vehicle. By the time she rises from a culvert on the far side the tank and the commander of the element are burning. She can see some of the wheeled carriers diving off into the field, some stopped, their infantry piling out as more rockets, they had to be rockets, lance out and pluck more armored vehicles. She manages a sigh before checking the chamber on her bolt action rifle and slipping off toward right side flank, rounds zip off to her side…. she remembers they can see in the dark too as she dives into another ditch.