Planet Earth is blue 5

The attack came soon enough, our pursuers shading the distant sun as they flew low over the glacier. We fought off the first assault easily, strewing their blackened remains across the ice, and the next wave were successfully lured into a narrowing valley from which they couldn’t escape. Their wings became entangled in that tight space and we rained down fire mercilessly from above. But they learned from their mistakes.

Lily had spent most of her time training the young ones who would (and did) follow her to their deaths. I’d watched the older folk looking sadly on – they knew what would come of this. I wonder whether Rhea will ever recover her children, a whole generation lost in that pointless slaughter.

There were just too many in the end. Flying up above the meagre atmosphere with ten others from our army who could make it that far, I saw the fleet waiting in the darkness and knew that we’d lost. We still managed to take out the mother ship but I was the only one who returned. Lily and I looped around Saturn, using its gravity to escape, leaving our friends to their fate. I’m not proud of that.