It will be centuries before we are an entirely space faring race. All memories of life on earth and the planets in this solar system that we will come to inhabit distant and dry.
There is a vast war, and defeat and in the dream I am the commander in charge of the defeated, sending out a rear guard suicide mission. Delay the enemy while the main fleet is able to make good a retreat, although I don't know to where, or if there is a place to retreat to.
The commander of the rear guard action is a Chinese man in his thirties, and I talk with him before I send him to his death. I've served with him over the years and I know him well. I put my arm around his shoulders and I know both the necessity of what I am doing and the sadness of letting an old friend go.
The number of ships that I command are in the thousands, and the rear guard action involves hundreds.
