BattleDroids: GatheringStorm (SWTOR AU x BT AU x OmniFusion)

Prologue

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
Crossposting from SB, not that I'm desperate for feedback and comments or anything. This is brain-bug, a series of them, that crawled in my head and just. wouldn't. shut up.

What if the Journal of Hanni Schmitt was true and there were Royal Cameron Twins out there? What if BattleTech was even more Dune with giant robots than it already was? What if BattleTech takes place in the Star Wars EU/Legacy Unknown Regions? What if the Sith Empire in Exile, before her triumphant return and the sack of Coruscant came across the Camerons in Exile?

Can you say BattleDroids combat dropping on the Galactic Senate while Coruscant burns? Because I can see it. And then I read Falling Shadows and my brain gave up all resistance. Mecha Dragons needed to live. Why yes, I do like Baroque art, why do you ask?

The Sith in Exile want Vengeance. The Star League in Exile want Vengeance. Who is using whom? Daenerys? Daenerys Targaryen just wants a home. Can the future Darth Tempestari get what she wants?

A possible future for Falling Shadows.


Disclaimer: It is better to ask forgiveness than permission. Doc doesn't own these characters and settings and doesn't have any money, don't sue Doc. Credit to @Jaenera Targaryen for Falling Shadows, go read that first, it's a better story and this will make more sense after.

BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Prologue

“I felt myself on the edge of the world; peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night.” ~ Ancient Terran Poet

The Unknown Regions, dark heart of the galaxy, comprising essentially the Westerly (Galactic North long ago identified as the line of Empress Teta and Coruscant projecting from the Deep Core) third of the galaxy, trailing-wise of the hyper-lane connecting Terminus to Yag'Dhul in the Southerly Western Reaches, spinward-wise of the Bastion-Ord Mantell lane in the Northerly New Territories, largely cut off and isolated from the known, charted, and civilized realms by the vast astro-spatial workings of the Celestials during the mythic War in Heaven. Connected only tenuously to the wider galactic community by transient and ephemeral hyper-routes cutting through that chaotic web of nebulas, quasars, pulsars, darkstars, and stellar nurseries called Wild Space.

Here, quietly, slowly, surely, over decades and centuries of long years, hidden from the despised and degenerate Republic and their hated Jedi lap-dogs, the Reborn Sith Empire bides her time and waxes in strength. The Chiss Ascendancy. The Asari Republics. The Twelve Colonies of Kobol. The Ssi-ruuvi Imperium. The Scarran Hegemony. The Cylon Alliance. And many others besides, too numerous to name here, all have bended knee to the One Sith Emperor, or been made to bend the knee. All send tribute of slaves, weapons, ships, soldiers, and spoils to feed the growing might of the Sith, fuel for an expanding war machine that is aimed at the blithely ignorant Republic that falsely believes the Sith to be extinct at their own hand.

In this vast tapestry of occulted stars, lies a cluster of five marginally habitable systems, to which cling desperately refugees of a great calamity and civil strife some thirteen-hundred light years distant. Here the Star League-in-Exile clings to a fragile peace, eking a living from hostile and barely habitable rocks. Here the remnants of once proud noble houses hope to raise their last scions in some semblance of peace. But this was a peace that was never meant to be and now lies broken, shattered in pieces, but unknowingly so, for while the automated early warning satellites did note an anomalous high energy event, similar to known hyperspace emergences, far out system and away from the usual transit points at zenith and nadir, as several wedge-shaped and rectangular ships jumped out of hyperspace, and launched several low signature stealth probe-droids towards the first hapless world, and the obvious warships orbiting her, the event was quantitatively different enough and far enough outside of expected parameters that no automated alarms tripped and a simple spot report was emailed with low priority to the responsible parties, who were, at this moment, at a party.

“Can you feel it?” the red-skinned, full-blooded brooding Sith Lord standing at parade rest on the observation platform of the ceremonial command dias, gazing out at the black and the points of light suspended therein, asked of his kneeling apprentice and lord-retainer.

“I feel it, my lord, I felt it in my chambers before you ordered the fleet dropped from hyper, there has been an awakening.” The slight, platinum-haired, violet-eyed apprentice answered firmly.

Darth Vindican nodded, the Sith Lord fixing his golden eyes at the distant world, magnifying it in size with a gesture via the smart-glass viewports as their fleet kept wary distance. Beside her, Lord Veradun likewise kneeling in submission to his Lord, reached out in the force, and after a moment the deathly pale, voidborn human narrowed his albino-red eyes. “The Force,” he said softly. “It feels strange. It seems to be new to that world, but… muted as if those who have claimed it are themselves but fledgling prospective learners in their first year trials…”

Veradun trailed off, but Darth Vindican nodded. “Yes.” he agreed. It seems that the Explorators have found us a new race, new in terms of both technical and spiritual development, it is something of a coup, for Empire and for us specifically to have the opportunity of guiding such newcomers to finding a place in the greater galaxy. Under the wise and paternal tutelage of the Sith of course.”

“Once it was my Planetos on a platter before the Sith, now it is their turn" said the gold-silver haired apprentice, violet eyes blazing in a curious mixture of shame and pride.

“Perhaps we just might yet find out your true mettle, Daenerys.” Darth Vindican agreed in a cool tone, as though discussing the weather or the price of spice. “This is your given task Apprentice. You will command this Compliance, Lord Veradun here will be your second and I will advise, but only sparingly. The Dark Council wishes these worlds be brought into the fold of the Sith Empire, and so they shall be. Do not fail them, do not fail me. Success in this task will mark you for greater things my childe, we Sith know that the blood of Kings brings power and madness in equal measure, so do try to live up to our standards.”

“As you command, my lord.” Daenerys said with bowed neck, dipping into a full prostration before her master, tapping her forehead against the deck of the Imperious Will. “Though, from what we know of these worlds, the inhabitants are pre-hyper techno-barbarians. It should not take too much trouble for us to bring their worlds to heel.”

“Indeed it should not, but beware hubris childe, the cosmos and the force never fails to mock those who assume too much.”

Master and apprentices fell silent, looking on as their task force – a modest detachment of three Harrower class Battle Carriers, six Terminus class Escort Cruisers, five Gage class Assault Transports and a further triplex of Delta class Escort Carriers – continued to deploy combat space patrols and further reconnaissance drones shot towards the singular inhabited world deeper in the system and obvious warships orbiting it protectively, currently bearing the unimpressive and entirely forgettable designation of 6408561C-B93D-4430-9FAD-E594515716E4, thanks to the automated mapping and star catalog of the Imperial Explorator Corps. Well, technically, 6408561C-B93D-4430-9FAD-E594515716E4 was the system primary, a hot-burning white-yellow main sequence star of unremarkably average size and composition, the planet in question would actually be 6408561C-B93D-4430-9FAD-E594515716E4-II.

The Galaxy was mind-numbingly vast and unexplored star systems were all too common, this was simply exponentially, logarithmically more so in the eponymous Unknown Regions and for all that the Sith Empire had expended, was continuously expending, considerable resources to dispatch waves after waves of automated probe-droids to chart the stars within the vast volume of space surrounding Dromund Kaas, if only to factor in their gravitational influence on interstellar travel and the ephemeral hyper-lanes going back to wild space and Republic space beyond. It simply wouldn't do to rebuild the Sith Empire if the way back to ultimate and finally total victory was denied by shifting of unreliable hyper-lanes.

And so, despite the existence of manned and unmanned exploration and mapping missions from not just the Sith Empire's Explorator Corps, but also all other known (and presumably unknown) interstellar polities, vastly more star systems were known by strings of random numbers and letters than by proper nouns. This deep abyss of ignorance was compounded by the inability of technological species to simply hold still. For example, this very system had been visiting twice previously in the last five hundred standard cycles and on neither occasion had the surveying probe-droids found evidence of inhabitation, let alone a technic civilization of some aptitude.

Darth Vindican returned his musing back to 6408561C-B93D-4430-9FAD-E594515716E4-II ceasing his wool-gathering, it was unlikely this world, and the others within the local cluster, would retain such unimpressive designations for long. The mysteries surrounding these world's sudden habitation aside, the local cluster was, marginally habitable for most known species, but the surrounding barren rocks, gas giants, and asteroids were rich in untapped minerals, as a satrapy of the Sith Empire each world and system would need proper names.

And as its ultimate conqueror, as the master of apprentice Daenerys, who was unknowingly facing her most severe trial yet, Darth Vindican would have the honor of giving it a name…in time. If his difficult but promising charge conquered it, or at least brought it into compliance. This of course was the hidden danger of the trial. By placing his apprentice in charge of such devastating power, she would be naturally tempted to use it, to smash the eggs in front of her with the hammer provided. But killing the krayt dragon that lays the khyber crystals would be a failing grade, and at this level of her training, failure was generally life threatening.

Not that it should be too difficult, of course. As his apprentice correctly noted, the Explorators which had discovered the cluster of new settlements had also found only pre-hyperspace, techno-primitive information-age Humans inhabiting it. This modest detachment made up of a handful of Battle Carriers and their escorts should be more than enough.

Though there was the question of where exactly these Humans had come from, and just far had they regressed from Galactic standard technics.

But conquering these worlds and bringing it into compliance with the sovereign will of the Sith Emperor came first.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hours later, and the Sith Fleet still hung in cold oort cloud far above the ecliptic plane of 6408561C-B93D-4430-9FAD-E594515716E4. On the bridge of the Imperial flagship, Imperious Will, Darth Vindican and his apprentices stood at the head of a large holo-table, around which stood ranking spacy and army officers, along with lesser Sith Lords attached to Darth Vindican’s expedition. The holo-table itself displayed a map of the world far, far below, based on information provided by both the recon probe-droid's scans and those conducted in the past by the Explorator Corps stealth-scouts.

“Thanks to intelligence collected by the Imperial Scouts who preceded us once this settlement was detected by probe-droid,” Apprentice Daenerys began. “We know the world below us is a new colony of some human information-age technic civilization located elsewhere. This world seems to be their local locus of control and hypothesized capital world for a the local cluster of five colonies. This potentially makes our task easier or harder. Easier in that should the population be amenable to immediate or easily negotiable compliance with the imperial will, they will be able to communicate with and effectively administer the local region as an effective client state. More difficult in that if they choose to resist, bringing them into compliance without destroying the very technic base and population that makes them potentially valuable subjects in the fist place, becomes that much harder.”

"The good news" Daenerys continued, "Is that since these aren't feudal-age primitives, they have lots of delicious EM-spectra for the intelligence shop to sort through and wash through the droid-brains. After a few thousand cryptographic comp-cycles we cracked their codes and few thousand more we worked out a rough translation of their language, which, according to initial studies by the guild-of-archivists is, and I quote, 'yet another long-lost cousin of Coruscanti-basic mutated by time and distance.' So, we can listen in and we can even talk to them."

"Alright, this is what we know." Daenerys said as she launched into the briefing proper, handing out sheets of data-film and flimsy in cellulose briefing folders of the bland off-yellow colour that was probably universal. "These people are as close to stock-generic human as we can discern with current intelligence, another lost tribe as it were, and they call themselves 'The Star League-in Exile, whatever that means, although Q-shop extrapolates that we're looking at the losing faction of a civil war, which seems plausible. This Star League-in-Exile has settled a cluster five worlds, what they refer to as 'the Pentagon Cluster'. This world is named 'Eden' and there are also 'Circe', 'Dagda', 'Arcadia', and 'Babylon'. The Archivists are researching the names, but at the moment, we don't have a lot of context for them. We can extrapolate that this cluster is over one thousand light-years distant from their homeworld which is a rather long way for a pre-hyperpace, late information-age, early space-age culture. As far as we can tell, they have some sort of primitive hyper-drive that operates in 'jumps' on the order of tens of light-years. This along with their seeming reliance on fusion and fission for surface and space power generation leads us to conclude they do not yet have access to hyper-matter."

"Now, please, don't ask me how they make hyperjumps without hypermatter annihilation to generate tachyons. However, the science-branch memo mentions something about exotic high energy density fusion reactions generating virtual tachyons. And that's as far as I got before my eyes crossed and glazed over."

There were nods and wry grins all around, and then Apprentice Daenerys gestured towards the obvious warships orbiting the thankfully now named, 'Eden'. “Now, the opposing forces brief will be handled by my executive officer for this operation, Lord Veradun, Veradun?” she said.

The severely handsome and deathly pale voidborn human male, albino-red eyes taking careful measure of each attendee as the young man stroked his neat goatee and mustache, worn in obvious imitation of traditional Sith cheek tendrils, naturally bald and pale, hairless pate gleaming under the lights, spoke after clearing his throat. “Ahem, Q-shop is still developing our SIGINT on this Star-League-in-Exile, however here is what we know for certain. This,” Lord Veradun gestured at the holotable where star charts and orbital readouts where replaced with a sleek yet brutal warship of visible menace, if without the aesthetic grace of the Sith's dagger bladed vessels. "This is THV McKenna's Pride, the nameship of the Star League-in-Exile's premier battleship class, the McKenna class. Her displacement mass is one million, nine-hundred thirty thousand tons, her maximal length stem to stern is one thousand, four hundred and five meters. She carries an estimated sixteen hundred tons of slush hydrogen fuel to feed her triplet of fusion torch realspace drives for an estimated max rated thrust of two point five standard gravities before her structural integrity fails. Remember these people are not known to have any gravity or field manipulations, meaning no on board gravy, no suspensor fields, and no shields, not even nav-screens."

The room become respectably silent at this information, the technology was certainly primitive, but the quantity had a quality all of its own and in space, big masses and high velocities mattered.

"Her armour belt ranges from two meters thick to five meters in combat critical areas and is composed of an ablative woven composite of foamed mono-crystallic ferric-carbide, spun carbonite fiber, and depleted uranium lattice designed to maximize the energy dispersed by ablation. Her armament consists of at least twelve forty centimeter class high-velocity autocannon in four triple turrets, two turrets forward, and two aft, twelve five point five centimeter phased-photon guns in independent ball mounts, again focused in fore and aft arcs, six capital missile launchers, two each fo' and aft and two amidships, and forty-eight broadside heavy ion beam clusters, twenty-four port and again starboard. Oh, and her hangar bays are capable of hosting a combined fifty fighter and strike craft, plus miscellaneous shuttles."

"Who the kriff are these people!" one of the spacy officers muttered, rather more loudly than intended.

"People who have fought many wars." Darth Vindican stepped in, glaring at the assembled offices. "People we want fighting for the Empire. This is what they build when they're using two-thirds of their useful volume for fuel and stardrive. Imagine what they could build with just a few key additions from our own technics-base." Again the Darth stared down his officers, before grinning, "Not that we would be dumb enough to give them everything!"

“Perish the thought,” Lord Veradun agreed. “Now, that's their largest dedicated warship and in terms of keel length and displacement mass, she compares not unfavorably in terms of dimension, displacement, and mass with our own Harrower class at eighteen hundred meters of keel and two point five million plus tons of displacement. But obviously our quality of technics remains superior in all respects, starting with shields and artificial gravity, not to mention sensors, e-war, and weapons; our spatial turboblasters are capable of surpassing her raw energy on target by several orders of magnitude sustained.”

"Why do I feel a but coming?" muttered the same officer, Krennic read the nametape.

"But." Snapped Veradun, grinning at the irreverent officer, "we have three Harrowers with our little task force. Based on SIGINT, we believe the Star-League-in-Exile to have approximately twenty such vessels. We have confirmed scans of fourteen unique battleship class emissions spectra, and images of six unique vessels in this system alone. The previously mentioned McKenna's Pride, as well as Kerensky's Revenge, Cameron's Legacy, First Lord's Fist, Brian's Vision, and Ian's Sword. There are a further ten heavy cruisers, fifteen assorted escort destroyers and frigates, and thirty corvettes of varying types. In this system. Not all are presently operational, but we have no way of estimating how long it would take them to make them so. Oh and there's this, an armored orbital battle-station of eight kilometers length hosting armour and weaponry to scale, designated the 'Byzantium Vee,' whatever that means."

"Additionally, SIGINT points to orders of battle for one hundred and five dirtside division sized units of various sorts and another twenty plus independent brigades of various sizes. Intelligence suggest a highly developed heavy fighting vehicle park including several sorts weaponized walkers and battledroids of unusual size."

Again, there were slow and considering nods all around. “Then,” one Sith Lord spoke up, one of the handful of minor free Imperial Knights assigned to Darth Vindican's command for this mission, “a frontal assault is right out?"

“That is correct, Lord Steelix.” Darth Vindican said. “To seize this system directly by force of arms would require us to use force sufficient to glass the surface of this 'Eden' and that would be... counter productive.”

“So what does that leave on the table?.” General Scathac asked.

“It seems the situation calls for that most ancient of tactics.” Admiral Karst replied with a head-scratch, "parley?"

There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around, but Darth Vindican was silent. “What is your opinion, Apprentice Daenerys?” Lord Veradun asked.

“The Dark Side of the Force is strong here.” Apprentice Daenerys said, bringing up a holo of the planet's surface and pointing at the place of heaviest settlement, marked as Novy Moscva. “This must be where the awakening we felt has happened, if the dark side is strong here, we can use it to our advantage. I will require a Fury class Interceptor to transport myself and Lord Veradun and and honour guard, and an additional Dragonfly heavy interface dropper for Balerion.”

This time the temporarily in command Apprentice adjusted the display to show the system again and pointed at the Sith task force. “The Imperious Will will make a tactical in system hyperjump to this point, what the Leaguers call the 'zenith point' and we will begin negotiations by farcomms. As for the rest, we will adopt to the needs of the situation as it develops.”

Darth Vindican nodded and said. “let it be so, dismissed.”

At this the grouping broke up, scattering to attend each particular duty as the Sith war-machine slowly ground into gear.

“Daenerys!” Veradun shouted as Daenerys turned to march away. “You're taking that thing?”

“Of course, he is my servant and my bigger stick.”

Veradun nodded, then glancing around leaned in. “careful luv, Vindican is testing you and you cannot afford to fail.”

Daenerys rolled her eyes were Veradun couldn't see it, why were boys so romantic? “Of course this is a test and of course I will pass laser-brain, you forget, I am a princess, I know how to negotiate a silly alliance.”

“What makes you sure these Leaguers will be receptive to your charms, obvious though they are?”

“Didn't you hear those ship names? Proper nouns with fists, swords, pride, and vengeance? These may be a space-technic people, but at heart, they are feudal, I will speak their language.”

Veradun paused in mid stride then turned to this beautiful pain in his side. “Daenerys,” he said. “Just what is their language?”

The Sith apprentice stroked her shapely chin, and after several moments grinned slowly. “When you play the game of thrones,” she said. “you win, or you die.”

Veradun grunted. “Fine then, keep your secrets you saucy sorceress."

“Race you to the drop hangar?”

“Oh, very mature girl!”

Daenerys laughed then, like a burbling spring and wind chimes tinkling in the spring, "I'll win!"

“Oh no you won't!”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Darth Vindican knelt in his private quarters before the holocomm as it hummed to life.

“All is proceeding as you have foreseen my Emperor.”

The projected shadowed form loomed but said nothing, only nodding.

"Yes sire, we will bring this lost tribe into compliance with your will or we will die trying."

The dignified and regal shadow form gestured imperiously.

“The young ones Sire? They are well, and shaping up nicely. Not as well as proper full-blooded Sith would of course, but they will both ready before your deadline for Operation Revengence. I suspect young Lord Veradun might be soft on Apprentice Daenerys, but you know children, Sire, these things, they happen."

The kingly shape loomed large over Vindican, over-shadowing him in more ways than one.

"Yes Sire, no Sire, I will nip this in the bud Sire. Her bloodline will be saved for a proper use for the Ebon Throne."

The shape straightened.

“Yes sire, I have every expectation we will succeed in negotiating a favorable alliance that will leave these Leaguers in our debt and irrevocably in our orbit. And I foresee them making fearsome blades to wield against our enemies."

"Good, good." the Emperor finally deigned to speak using everyday words, his grandfatherly face emerging from the shadows.

“We shall keep you informed of all developments by the usual channels.”

“Go forth then, Darth Vindican, and enforce mine will.”

“It will be done, my Emperor.”

“Glory to the Sith!”

"Service to the Empire!"

Darth Vindican once again found himself alone in his room and he smiled.
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Chapter 1

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 1

"Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos." ~Ancient Terran Philosopher

The upper galleries and grand-hall of Castel Cameron were alive with happy voices and well turned out grandees in fine attire. The setting of the grand reception and brunch, prior to that evening's banquet and official courtly debut concluding in a celebratory ball, to be held later in the evening, was far from the long abandoned Cameron palaces of Unity and Versailles on long lost Terra. The architecture here and now was firmly grim, grey, martial, and utilitarian; battle-steel, cut-stone, and mass-concrete, without much in the way of decoration aside from an artfully placed heirloom here and a smattering of new craft-work tapestries there, battle flags, captured weapons, and the like, recalling an aesthetic much more eleventh century than the grand, Baroque seventeenth century style those present had been accustomed to in those golden days before the coup. On the other hand, many of the attendees considered that to be an improvement, as the Court of House Cameron-in-Exile was considerably more martial and practical now that most of the dross had been burned away in nuclear fire.

In fact, the military and civil service majority of those in the room would likely admit that this was rather a blessing in disguise, as the now firmly and almost exclusively martial aristocracy gathered here knew deep in their bones how bad it would look to their subordinates, dependents, and subjects to be seen as a detached and spoiled pack of nobles who did not share the labours and sacrifices of the rank and file. But as the overwhelming presence of dress service-uniforms (instead of honorary ones) testified, these rather grizzled and be-scarred men and women, many having only recently been granted their formal peerages and titles in the very land taking and settlement of the Pentagon Cluster worlds, were doers of deeds and men and women of action, hardly an idle hand to be found. This room was most assuredly not full of useless effetes, dandies, fops, hedonists, or God forbid, politicians; neither House Cameron nor the Star League in Exile had any use and less patience for useless people in this time of distress.

'Alas' moaned Elise von Hapsburg-Hohenzollern y Cameron, Regent of the Terran Hegemony and acting First Lady pro tem of the Star League, internally, 'if only it were 'all' not 'most'' as she stolidly endured the inane yammering of Comte Boris von Berg in his thick and gratingly affected pseudo-Russian accent.

"Of course, we Russians, we understand the pain of the exile, first it was the Soviets, then it was the National Bolsheviks, then the Neo Soviets. Your Grace, I tell you, you will find no greater supporters for your return in glory than the All Russian Council of Volunteers, admittedly we could do more if we had more, perhaps some sort of subsidy for the promotion of High Imperial Russian Culture? Take food for example, one of my favorite subjects... and ahhh, are you quite sure there is no more of that Beluga caviar to be had, a little bird has told me perhaps there might be a stash or two remaining?"

'Why couldn't Amaris have spared me this fat fuck' she screamed inside, but out loud she merely giggled slightly, covering her face (and her expression) with her fan, and mildly said "Of course my dear Comte, I shall rely on your support! And do try the local produce, despite great difficulties with the adaption process we are finally getting harvests from the nativized stocks" her eyes desperately scanned the crowd for someone to save her from another half hour of verbal torture, trying desperately not to think of the ranks of beloved faces never to be seen again, while this waste of space walked and drew breath, the sheer injustice of it all.

Finally her eyes lit up with a real smile as she spotted two of her favorite people in the universe, her Lord and Savior and Queen of Heaven excepting; Sir Father-Brother Ignatius, Hieromonk-Knight of the Order of the Shield of Saint Benedict Militant, chaplain, bodyguard, and confessor to the Royal Family, tutor to the Royal Heirs, Chief Minister of the Regency Petite Council, and a dear friend and confidant, too, he was accompanied by none other than Psi-Colonel Ingolf Voegeler, the Count of Landing, formerly of PsiCorps and brevetted commander of the Royal Black Watch Regiment, the man who (as a younger Captain) had personally saved her and her own twins' lives in the immediate chaos of Amaris' Coup, where his predecessors in the Black Watch and close friends Colonel Hanni Schmitt and Major Ian MacIntosh, and many others besides, had died bravely to buy them the time to make good their escape, bodyguard and commander of bodyguards, instructor martial to the Royal Family, Martial and Master of Arms to the Cameron Court-in-exile, dearest... friend and closest thing to a father to Ian and Amanda.

Both men were dressed scandalously casual for the event, in the padded but form-fitting arming jacks and chausses that together served as combination g-suit, cooling suit, ballistic and impact protection, and man-machine interface for war-harnesses ranging from personal PoweredArmor to FightingVehicles, to MicroDroids, to VeeTols, to AeroSpacecraft, to BattleDroids. Their wry grins shewed they neither cared much nor were concerned that the form fitting ensemble was rather, flattering to men of their trained physiques.

'And here I am, suffering and sweltering in this stuffed pastry of a dress with a pancake of paint on my face' Elise grumbled in her inner voice, her acerbic and constant companion.

Quickly raising her fan to cool herself (and incidentally cover her face) from the sudden warmth she felt, 'darn it, I'm not twenty anymore' ran her suddenly distracted thoughts, she called out, her voice light and pleased for any distraction but especially for these two, "My Lords! I find you somewhat under-dressed for the debut of my Lord my Son the Director-General and my Daughter the Princess of Dixie, now turned twelve this day, what say you gentlemen?"

The two stopped their sauntering and looked askance at each-other as if to say 'who, us?' and then Count Voegeler grabbed a goblet of wine from a passing tray and replied "Your Grace, forgive us lowly soldiers, is that day this day? We are somewhat tired from having a full speed bout between us, since your children and their servants did not arrive for their lessons in Holtzman-barrier fighting. We took to wondering, between us we did, if you perhaps knew the location of our charges?"

Elise felt her blood run cold and attempted to prevent her worry and irritation from appearing visibly on her countenance, for rulership was performative after all, 'never let them see you sweat' she remember her Grandfather saying, 'act like you always have a plan and never let anyone know what you think or feel, rulership is a game of poker that never ends.' Despite her effort of will her eyes did narrow as she replied with a cool voice as she fanned herself with a slightly increased energy, "Excuse me my Lords, I thought, rather, I assumed that they were with you."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A glow-tube flickered on with a hum deep in the bowels of Castel Cameron, illuminating an under-mountain bunker where precious strategic material and other stores were kept safe, the flickering soulless light cast four shadows on the wall as four young men and women emerged from the spiral staircase into the room.

"We shouldn't be down here" said Paul Shepherd-Atreides, Doux de Caladan (after the presumed death of his Father the Doux Leo in the palais coup of Amaris), Lord-in-Waiting and Retainer to His Grace, Ian Cameron, second of his name, by grace of God Director-General of the Terran Hegemony and First Lord apparent of the Star League-in-Exile, Defender of the Faith, Chief Warden of the Marches, Commander of the BlackWatch, etc, etc, the brat.

"Did you bring the makyr, sister?" asked the very brat himself himself, a boyish youth of twelve summers, awkwardly lanky with his first growth spurt but already handsome of features, almost inhuman in symmetry, classically hawkish of face, piercing grey eyes and effortlessly wavy dark hair in page-boy cut.

"Indeed brother, and you the spice-water?" answered the Lady Amanda, Princess of Dixie (the traditional honorary princedom granted the heir-apparent of the Director-General), so alike her brother it was near unnatural, save for a slight softening of shape and features, hints of future feminine charms, and longer cut wavy dark hair, the very distaff twin of her brother. They both carried themselves and spoke with a grace and dignity beyond their natural years and an aura of fierce and indomitable command that was near impossible to resist. As both Doux Paul and Lady Joanna Davion-Kurita could well attest, having followed their lieges into scheme after prank after scheme, never once blaming their younger charges and never rating them out, for their honour was their loyalty.

"I have a bad feeling about this Paul" said Lady Joanna, holding a metal basin in her hands, the flickering soulless light flattening her normally striking red hair and sharpening her already sharp features that blended Irish and Nihongo ideals of beauty, as if to ignore the scheming of the twelve-year-olds beside them. The two retainers shared a look of long suffering patience combined with that air of superiority often felt by teenagers for those in still in their awkward tweens.

Paul grinned, his face lighting up in the impish joy of that particularly boyish delight in breaking all the rules as he replied, his classically high European blonde colouring and square Germano-Slavic features a contrast with the Mediterranean blood of the Camerons and the wild Celtic-Japanese look of the Davion-Kurita scion, "Yeah, but it'll be fun!" Then he lead the way into the chamber and unslung his pack as he began unpacking in preparation for the ritual.

Joanna sighed and muttered "Lady Elise is going to murder us all." Then she hefted the large basin and moved to help Paul.

Ian and Amanda looked at each-other then and shared knowing smiles.

"We should hurry" They spoke in unison in the way that never failed to unnerve their retainers, "We are missing our lessons in barrier fighting with Maesters Ingolf and Ignatius and while they will likely take the opportunity to go all out with each-other as they have wanted to do for some time, that bout cannot last more than thirty minutes or so, after which they will make report to our Mother, after which it will be a matter of moments to confirm that neither Lady Shepherd nor Reverend Mother Mohiam has custody of us."

And that was that, The Twins, as Paul and Joanna thought of them, capitals very much included, had spoken, and their word was their command, as long as it wasn't obviously stupid or intrinsically morally illicit. The four young men and women worked then, quickly and efficiently and largely in silence, so as to minimize the auditory clues usable by search parties to track them down before their purpose had been accomplished.

A magnetic compass identified the cardinal directions and candles were lit to mark the poles. A surveyor's chalk line quickly made a cross in the chamber, marking the center. There the basin went as was quickly filled with distilled water that had been rested under the full moons of Adam and Eve in preparation for this day. All four stripped and washed then, with rags dipped in the basin, before donning robes of white.

Then with the surveyor's chalk line and sticks of chalk, a circle was drawn around the basin, large enough that the four younglings could sit or even lie at each of the four cardinal points around the basin. Around the circle a square. Around the square a triangle. Around the triangle another circle. Then the surrounding the outer circle a pentagram was inscribed. Finally, the pentagram was circumscribed with a third circle from which projected the arms of a cross, itself enclosed by the final, fourth circle.

Then the simple chalk lines were covered with the ritual powder; one part blessed salt and one part blessed chalk powder. A sliver-gold athame was produced, with which the four blooded and sealed their ritual space, and then mingled their blood in the water in the basin. An old stone, taken from Old Terra was set beside the basin as an altar, upon which went the athame, a crucifix, and an ancient Douay-Rheims Bible, with actual crumbling and yellow real-paper pages and wooden covers.

Only then was the spice-water added to the basin. This was it, the point of no return. And despite their efficient use of time, little of it remained to them, discovery of their plot fast approached. This forced awakening of the psionic potential locked in the mitochondrial DNA of the cells of Man was not without its risks. While rather common among the noble houses of the Human Sphere who oft did not wish to trust in the randomness of genetics and the fate decreed by the uncaring stars to produce a scion with The Gift that marked them as one of the NewType aristocracy. Of course, it was just that risk that had resulted in all subtle hints suggesting this course of action to the adults in their lives being shut down harshly.

Although they were firmly skirting the authority of their Mother and Overlord (at least until their majority in the case of Ian and Amanda) their previous explorations in search of tacit permission had been carefully phrased well enough so as not to provoke any clear command directly forbidding it either. Technically.

And through that loop hole, Ian and Amanda intended to drive an Atlas, that platonic ideal of the one-hundred-ton AssaultDroid, dragging their beloved and ever loyal retainers along for the ride. Even if it killed all of them, for Ian and Amanda had long since committed to each other their determination to LIVE and not ever to be ruled by the perfectly natural fear of a Mother who had witnessed the death of their Father and everything and everyone she ever held dear.

The Twins shared one last grin and whispered to each other their unofficial motto, "Better to Ask Forgiveness, than Permission."

Ian then took up the athame and made a slit in his palm, then Amanda mirrored him and then Paul and finally Joanna. They pressed their flesh together then, each with each, mingling their blood as they had done so many times before. Together they spoke the words as the hair on their arms stood on end.

"Blood for Blood
Life for Life
Soul for Soul
We are One
We are Four
Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Metal, Tree, Frost, Lightning
North, South, East, West
Sante Gabriel, Ora pro nobis
Sante Michael, Ora pro nobis
Sante Raphael, Ora pro nobis
Sante Uriel, Ora pro nobis
One for All
All for One
Blood Brothers
Soul Friends
Of one Mind
Of one Spirit
Anamchara
So Say We All
Amen"

Then, the die being cast, they took up the makyr, the wyrm whose discovery on the first extra-solar human colony of Terra Nova had changed history forever. From his flesh came the myomer muscles that drove the great BattleDroids. From his eggs, that microscopic caviar that was Dust, came the psycho-active and universal anti-agathic. And from his dying reaction when drowned in water, he vomited forth the Water of Life. Capable of triggering and activating the dormant psycho-active mitochondrial centers in Man, awakening his psionic potential. Four voices chanted in harmony.

"Bless the Makyr and His Water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May he keep the Word for His people."

Then four pairs of hands each cast the little-wyrm into the basin. The children stood stock still and listened to the heart-rending wail of the innocent creature as it drowned until stillness returned, then each crossed themselves and made an act of contrition, in unison.

"O my Lord my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins,
Because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pangs of Hell, but most of all,
Because they offend Thee, my Lord and my God, who alone are All Good and deserving of all my Love.
I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my own sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.
Amen."

And then each of the four scions, Ian first, then Amanda, then Paul and finally Joanna took the basin in their hands, and drank. It was awkward, it was heavy, but they managed and without spilling.

Then each quickly sank into a cross legged and meditative sitting position, for now their time was truly running out. They had only minutes to ride the psycho-reactive visions, hallucinations, wracking pain, and nausea, concentrating to achieve that final internal step of the ritual and awaken the sleeper, opening the third eye. For if they failed, the heavy metals and nerve agent they had just swallowed would surely kill or at least permanently maim them.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ingolf Voegeler felt a tremor in the immaterium as he was informing the lovely Elise, his principle and Regent for his Overlord, that her little pups and their pup-retainers had skipped out on their martial lessons for the day. Not that he necessarily was upset by this, sure, the little-ones could very well have time-off every now and then, and especially on this, their twelfth name-day, he just would have preferred if they had asked permission first, that's all. For fighting was not for moods but was serious business.

And then he felt not just a tremor, he felt a god-damned mind-quake, coming from right underneath his feet. Suddenly he was fighting to avoid being pulled into the vortex and failing. The blood drained from his face and started running from his nose, eyes, and ears.

"Oh what have ye done ye little pups" he spit blood and croaked at the room where everyone was suddenly staring at him, before dropping his forgotten goblet of wine, which crashed to the floor, staining a likely priceless antique Persian carpet blood-red as his blue-in-blue eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Ingolf found himself standing on a featureless white plane, with a featureless white sky above.

"Your charges have stolen a march on you Captain," said Major MacIntosh, "sloppy that."

"Hey, you try keeping up with the pups Ian, might be easier for a dead man, and that's Colonel Ingolf to ye."

"That's my Coloncie you're swearing with, Careful Ingolf, that I might not take your tongue for it." Said Colonel Schmitt.

"And Hanni too, oh Lord! Have mercy!"

"He's busy, now listen" said MacIntosh.

"Your pups are fine, all of the BlackWatch going back to the founding have walked with them through the awakening, and they did it proper, their guardian angels alone should have been sufficient, not that the Watch takes unnecessary chances, mind." said Schmitt.

"The important thing is the men from the stars, Ingolf" said Ian.

"The what now?"

"The aliens Ingolf, focus" said Hanni, "the men from the far stars, wielders of a great power. No, not them Ingolf, I said men, not the star-fungus our fore-fathers fought during the end of EarthAlliance, cursed be its name."

"Even now they approach," said Ian, "your charge's little stunt has attracted their immediate attention, they felt it you see, in the immaterium."

"I bet they did," said Ingolf, "I'll still be feeling it next week. I bet sensitives on Old Terra felt it."

"Although they would have come eventually, with or without it, Ingolf, so blame them not" said Hanni.

"What is important is the opportunity they represent" said Ian.

"Power and Terror in equal measure. Force that can be leveraged to get what we all of us burn for" said Hanni.

"Vengeance" whispered Ingolf.

"Aye, Justice and Bloody Satisfaction besides" said Ian.

"And the Restoration of the Walls of the World" said Hanni.

"Already, Blake has allowed the HPG network to come out alignment" said Ian.

"The Chair of Saint Peter stands empty after the depredations of Amaris, the prayers of the faithful are divided and unfocused. And the Dark, Ingolf, the Dark is Rising," said Hanni as both she and Ian turned to leave, already fading with the vision itself, "the very Stars themselves are fading."

"The FilthTide comes, Ingolf, things are moving, between the Stars, things that walk where nothing should," said Ian as they both vanished into a pinpoint of light in a suddenly ink-black room, their voices echoing hollowly as though from far, far away, "beware the Shadows old friend, they move when you're not looking."

Suddenly Ingolf was drowning in inky blackness, it was hot and cloying-sweet, it dripped and flowed everywhere and everywhere was filled with a buzzing, a million-million insects, a plague of flies and the buzzing was a voice that echoed in his ears as suddenly he was awakened by a slap and smelling-salts, the buzzing echoed words in his ears, "Ia. Iiiiiiii. Seeeeeeeeeee. Yoooou. I see you Ingolf Voegeler and I huuuuungeeeer."

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Chapter 2

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 2

"Could it be that God was an extra-terrestrial? What do we mean when we say that heaven is in the clouds? From Jesus Christ to Elvis Presley, every culture tells us of high-flying bird men who zoom around the world creating magnificent works of art and choosing willing followers to share in the eternal glory from beyond the stars. Can all these related phenomena merely be dismissed as coincidence?" ~Old Terran Philosopher

"Jump warning! Jump warning! Unscheduled hyperspace transition in thirty seconds!"

"Set General Quarters! Captain to the Command Deck! Captain to the Command Deck!"

The combat direction center in the red-litten lower pit-like sub-deck that surrounded the elevated command deck above them was a hive of frenetic activity as crew frantically secured for General Quarters, dogging all hatches and containers, sealing skinsuits, donning helmets, and strapping into crash chairs. Klaxons blared their hideous racket and the loud-hailer rumbled the general announcements of a WarShip coming to life.

The SLV Princess Royal was a Black Lion class battlecruiser, a sister-ship to the SLV Tirpitz that famously had carried the Royal Family to safety in the opening hours of the Amaris Coup. Of course, the Tirpitz had been ambushed and disabled in the Paf system near New Vandenburg where the refugee Royals had been attempting to link up with The General, that is, the Lord Commanding General of all the Star League Defense Forces, the Boyar von Sevastopol, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky. The Tirpitz had been abandoned and the Royals continued on, relying on the Aegis II class cruiser SLV Agamemnon (the very ship that now shared Princess Royal's Zenith Point Patrol), reaching Kerensky's camp in New Vandenburg, just in time, before he had pulled up stakes to launch Operation Orange, the invasion of Amaris's own Rim Worlds Republic.

Despite the Royals surviving that ambush, many saw the incident as the beginning of the end for the relationship between their General and their Queen Mother. Although it was never said openly or plainly, Regent Elise had self-evidentially blamed Kerensky (who in the absence of an adult of House Cameron, had been made the Regent and Protector of Richard after the death of his father Simon Cameron) for the weaknesses in Richard's character so masterfully exploited by Stephan Amaris prior to the Coup and Civil War. That their location had leaked to Amaris, well no one believed that Kerensky had done it on purpose, but Lady Elise, she obviously held him responsible, and it was hard to argue the point; incompetence or malice, did it really matter in the end?

Together with various statements from The General that, could be, in the right light, interpreted as supporting a reformation of the Terran Hegemony along republican lines and potentially ending the office of Director-General entirely once the civil war concluded, the Lady Regent had obviously concluded that Kerensky was politically unreliable and started creating her own power base.

The stage had been set for a messy Civil War between Lady Elise's Royalists and Lord Kerensky's Kadets, once Amaris was taken care of. And this nearly came to pass, given the way Lord Kerensky had been perceived to use Royalist aligned units as cannon-fodder, emotions were running quite high at the end of the Hegemony Campaign. However, Kerensky's death at the hands of the Vulture Lords of the Inner Sphere Member States of the Star League, in their roles as Council Lords of the High Council of the League, as he attempted to coerce them to accept his plan for reconstruction of the Terran Hegemony, prevented this from happening.

It was at this point that the Lady Regent, seeing the in-defensibility of the Hegemony, given the smashed state of her fixed defenses and the hollow state of the SLDF, with the armies and spacey of the traitorous League Magnates already crossing the borders into the Hegemony proper, declared the High Council dissolved and ordered Operation Exodus; the removal of the SLDF, the Star League government and civil service, the Hegemony Armed Forces, and the Hegemony government and civil service, and as many civilians and refuges as could be carried, from the entire known Human Sphere. Beyond the Far Periphery, deep in the black, where the SLDF had created secret black sites for just such a contingency.

The Exodus itself turned into a bitter and grinding fighting retreat, with the armies and spacey of the Vulture Lords and Periphery Barbarians alike hounding them every step of the way, seeking the blood of the last Camerons, or at least hoping to capture them as a way to secure their own position as Lord Paramount of the new order. The only reason it worked was that even savaged and decimated as they were, the SLDF was still the single largest body of armed men in the Human Sphere, by far, and none of the Vulture Lords could bring themselves to trust each-other long enough to join forces for long enough to matter.

Not when, from their point of view, snapping up a commanding position in the Terran Hegemony, before anyone else did was an achievable goal, one that did not require the buckets of blood that taking the SLDF head on required. As the Cameron Loyalists entered the Deep Periphery, the race to Terra was fully on. It was only a combination of the quick talking charisma of one Jerome Blake, acting Director of the Star League Department of Interstellar Communications and wariness of smashing the jewel each wanted for themselves if they kept going that allowed Terra's own neutrality under the SLDIC and the extraterritoriality of the HPG network to be secured.

There was one silver-lining to the struggles of the Exodus road however, seeing their own lords, their own states, turning their hands against the League, against the First Lord, betraying all oaths and fellowship. Well that right there and then had ended whatever last remaining vestigial loyalty to their old identities, their old states, to the very Vulture Lords themselves that reached now for their lives and those of their dependents, that the rank and file of the non Royal SLDF regiments may have had. Even the non-SLDF volunteer legions had right then and there sworn themselves personally to Ian II and thereby to his Mother his Regent. First in writing and soon as practical after the first landing on Eden, in massed ranks, passing in review before the childe and mother, lifting them up on ceremonial shields and all other manner of pomp and circumstance.

'And now unidentified and unknown schweinhunds jumping in system under my watch,' cursed Senior-Captain Hans von Langsdorff, who for his sins (namely not being quick enough to hail Lady Elise as Regent) was commander of the Zenith Point Patrol, as he floated onto his command deck, every inch the professional spacey officer, impeccably groomed and made up, bone white uniform gleaming, exuding command presence simply by breathing, 'Wunderbar, all this way only to have a make a final stand. Very well Gott, Devil, Spaghetti Monster, whoever you are, If this is your idea of a joke, it is not very funny.'

"Shut that scheiße up!" he barked at his staff, "And someone start talking to me, what do we have?"

"High energy tachynoic-gravimetric event enfolding at coordinates approximate to the Zenith Point Captain! Seventy-seven percent match for known transition patterns, warbook and human analysis concurs, incoming transition of an unknown WarShip of mass exceeding two million tons!"

"ETA?"

"Fifteen seconds!"

"Guns! Bracket that emergence zone but no one so much as twitches without my direct order! Sparks! Patch us into the command net with Agamemnon and get me a data link with all VoidShield elements in case I have to enact Case RAGNAROK. CAG! Scramble all squadrons, coordinate with our DropEscorts, move it people!"

Hans knew most of that was quite unnecessary, his subordinates knew what needed to be done, and were already doing it. But the comforting liturgy of command demanded it off him, that way all actions of the Ship were ultimately his responsibility. Besides the call and response had its way of calming and soothing them before and even during battle. Such were the ways of commanding men to die.

It was also a testament either to their fear and desperation or their professionalism, and Hans chose to believe the latter, that none of his boys and girls so much as twitched or hesitated at linking with the droid elements of the Zenith defenses, the ones that had killed so many of their friends and family during CHIEFTAN, the invasion of Amaris's Imperium.

In the meantime Captain Langsdorff reached out and touched the solid bulkhead next to him and murmured sotto voce a quick appeal to the ship, whose electrics had always been somewhat newfangled and unreliable, 'come on you bitch, don't fail us now.'

And then, in a flash of light and gut-wrenching non-euclidean pseudo-motion, the unknown was upon them.

"Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!" Someone blurted, many someones actually, and more were crossing themselves. And Hans, Hans found himself, despite his long personal disdain for the backwards atavism so popular amongst those army Neanderthals, found himself joining them. His mind reeled at the enormity in front of them, displayed before God and Radar on his screens (the command deck didn't have windows, it was quite sensibly buried deep in the armored heart of the vessel) unlike anything any of them had ever seen before.

No docking collars. No jump sails. Just a mountainous blade of armour and guns, twin peaks splitting around an obvious pair of flight decks inset deep in the center between the twin points. A flight deck from which glided elegant strike craft, with no visible means of propulsion whatsoever, for all the world as if they simply fell in the vector where they wanted to go. Impossible. Madness. Insanity! Undeniable.

"Gott in Himmel! Preserve us!"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


"It appears as if our arrival has stirred them up some" observed Daenerys from the ceremonial command deck in the pagoda like superstructure shared by all Sith starship designs, even before the advent of shields, for many uses of the force, it helped greatly to be able see your target, with your actual eyes. The Imperious Will of course had a secondary command center buried in her armored guts, behind an entire secondary pressure hull, the Sith weren't entirely divorced from common sense.

Reports from various staff departments echoed about the bridge but Daenerys only paid them little heed, such minutia was for the ship's captain, who was a reliable sort of fellow, or he wouldn't be where he was. She could very well see for herself that there were two warships of cruiser size defending the 'Zenith Point' they had jumped to. Through the Force she could feel their surprise and consternation.

She could also feel their wariness and determination not to start a new war, especially one they might lose. She could also feel the cold droid intelligences further out in the black, waiting for the command from their humans to pounce. That was concerning, droid warships were a hassle in space war, but nothing that couldn't be handled in the end.

"Indeed," agreed Lord Veradun, "although not quite as much as I would have expected, their sensors and early warning must be better than initially estimated."

"All the better to detect and fight our enemies Lord Veradun" said Daenerys.

"As you say."

"Very well, Captain! Now that they are quite sure we aren't going to immediately start blasting them, let us hail them."

"Yes my Lady, we are doing that now." said Captain Kellin Roeder, himself a scion of one of the old blooded human families of the Old Sith Empire, that melding of the ancient Red Sith and the Human Je'daii Traditionalists (and their retainers) who were exiled by their Reformist brethren. His family had been providing spacey and army officers to the Sith for generations upon generations, and had been rewarded lavishly for their loyalty.

Picking up a spare head-set from the communications station, he listened in to the conversation between the Leaguer vessels and his communications operator.

"Unidentified Vessel! This is the SLV Princess Royal You have entered Star League territorial space, state your intentions!"

"Princess Royal, this is his Imperial Majesty's ship the Imperious Will we come under flag of truce to negotiate an opening of peaceful relations between the Star League and the Empire of the Sith."

"Stand by Imperious, we are relaying that to higher authority. Request modify course and heading to achieve station keeping in the meantime, Imperious. Our task force is withdrawing fifteen light seconds, Princess Royal out."

Captain Kellin nodded and replaced the headset on its peg and clapped the crewman on his shoulder, before turning to his Lords and reporting what they most likely already knew from listening to his thoughts, but such was the ritual of command.

"My Lords, we have made contact and the Task Force in front of us is relaying our request for parley to their command structure. There's no telling how long that might take my Lords."

Apprentice Daenerys smiled, "You see? It's like my own biological father used to say, you can get more of what you want with a kind word and a big dragon than you can with kind word alone. Now we wait. Lord Veradun, shall we resume our sparing in the meantime?"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Daenerys pirouetted expertly, beads of sweat flying away, flung by centrifugal forces, twirling herself inside Veradun's guard, so as to slam her left hand's shoto lightdagger against his now out of position longsaber blade, locking it in a bind as the saber-fields clashed together in opposing rotations and sparked in anger, freeing her right arm to plunge the lightfoil in her right hand one handed at Veradun's midsection is a clearly killing blow.

Veradun grinned and flicked a switch, activating the light-blade quillions on his saber, sliding his bind forward so as to stab at Daenerys with the quillion itself and on the shorter line, forcing her to throw her muscles back into a shuffle-stepping disengage. Which became more of clumsy leap as Veradun force-pushed her and Daenerys barely managed to regain control before she was sent careening into the wall with bone crushing force.

Landing she flexed her knees and sank smoothly back into the strong side forward, weak side back and at ninety degree angle standard stance, long lightfoil pointing forward with hilt at her waist to ward low and short shoto high, her left fist near her chin like a boxer. She huffed then feeling the strain of the landing in ankles and knees and hips, but let the Force flow through her, grounding her and letting the pain flow with it, then she began a series of rapid passing side-steps to get further out of measure as Veradun pressed her hard.

"Still much too flashy girl, no one is impressed by acrobatics if they get you dead. The direct line is the best line" roared Veradun as he followed her, his long-saber flashing quick, efficient two handed rotational slashes from a roof guard, the infamous 'helicopter' of a two-handed longsaber practitioner.

At that Daenerys went into a sudden Force accelerated shoulder roll past his guard, thrusting her left arm out to take Veradun in the back of his left knee with the training blade, which gave a sudden tzzaAP! And Veradun yelped in pain as he crashed to the ground, his entire left leg seizing up and twitching uncontrollably.

Another shoulder roll and Daenerys was straddling Veradun's hips with her own, her knees pinning his arms against his sides, her blades crossed and hovering over his neck. "What was that Vera? I couldn't hear you over your yelp?"

And then, for a moment, a singular moment, as both Sith practitioners panted and stared deeply into each other's eyes, nothing else existed. No pains. No plots. No burdens. No duties. No hierarchy. Just two bodies in close embrace.

As eyes locked together the teasing, playful, flirtatious fierceness of each fencer's gaze melted into a longing tenderness and Daenerys felt a blush on her cheeks as her head began to dip toward Veradun's.

Then the door to the arming room beeped and whooshed open and both fencer's eyes widened as they felt without looking their master about to enter. Veradun's face went from soft and longing to panicked to angry and hard-set in a flash, and roaring, he reached for the Force.

Daenerys was already driving both of her training blades forward to confirm the 'kill' when Veradun's combination push and lightning blast threw her from his prone form head over heels. Veradun exploded into motion, a telekinetic push-leap taking him from prone on his back on the floor to flipping also head over heels in a parabolic arc towards Daenerys who was just landing and was the forced to immediately roll away again.

As Darth Vindican sat gracefully on the floor, to observe his apprentice and retainer, their ferocity increased again and he simply smiled, tasting their anger and pushing on it, as if blowing on the embers of a fire, testing to see how far they would go.

"Good, good my children, use your anger" Vindican laughed, a deep rumbling chuckle from his gut as he slapped his knee in delight, "One hundred cubits to the winner! Now fight like you mean it!"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


The petite council room of the Castel Cameron was not part of her public or even semi-public above ground structure. This was no place of ceremonial or pomp and circumstance. This was a place of deadly serious business. As such it was deep in the heart of the real Castel, the one few outside the household and BlackWatch regiment ever laid eyes on.

It was not exactly advertised or well known (but commonly suspected and assumed nonetheless), but the Castel Cameron was actually a Castle Brian long ago established on this rock as a bolt-hole for the House of Cameron in just this sort of circumstance. The above ground and public portions were a fairy tale worthy of Schloss Neuschwanstein (in exterior only, the interior was still largely barren) in Old Bavaria. The below ground portions, would put Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock, Yamantau, and Kovinsky to shame.

Just outside the doors to the petite council room was the central defense center, a planetary scale combat direction center from which planetary defense for all Eden could be coordinated. The room itself held a two great tables in a 'T' rather in the fashion of a medieval great hall, with a 'high' table forming the crossbar of the 'T' and the 'low' table the vertical.

Elise slumped in her seat in the center of the high table, fancy dress rumpled, makeup ruined, and head in her hands as the strident voices of the petite council clashed around her. One might infer that she was having a bad day. Her twins and their personal attendants were in hospital beds down the hall in the Castel's own infirmary, alive but unconscious. Likewise, the commander of her own LifeGuards regiment, the BlackWatch, was in a bed next to them, in a medically induced coma after some sort of hemorrhage, which might or might not be related to the stunt her children had pulled, and given his barely coherent ranting before he was put under, might or might not have something to do with the giant alien super-battleship currently occupying the Zenith Point of the system.

At the moment it all seemed too much. Much too much. For a moment she could see Richard sitting next to her, cruelly smirking as if to say, 'you think you have it bad woman? I'm dead!' They had all tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen. Why wouldn't he listen? She could still remember his petulant ranting at them all when they tried to show him that Amaris's sword was at their throats, hand banging on the table, spittle flying from his mouth, his face distorted and flushed beet red.

"No! No! No-no-no! No! Absolutely not! I refuse to hear any more slander or base character assassination of my good and dear friend Stephan! Those wild Periphery dogs rise against their betters and the most loyal Stephan has merely secured Our Hegemony while the SLDF goes out to subdue that ungrateful rabble of rioters and revolutionaries! You old women! You yellow cowards! You aught to be ashamed of yourselves! Worried that the presence of Rim World Republic troops present a security threat, indeed! Ha! You sound like jealous children not DroidWarriors! This is jealously isn't it? You lot are jealous of the friendship of Stephan and I! Well I won't hear anymore of this. I refuse. I am the sovereign here and I will not be told what is best or what I shall do. This 'conversation' is over! Good day 'gentlemen'."

Reverend Mother-Superior Mohiam's voice rang in her ears, as loud as ever, as if she was right there, as they conspired after to get herself and the babies off Terra on an Apostolic Nuncial DropShip, "We will do what we can for you and the children, but for the Father, nothing."

"For the Father, nothing."

"For the Father, nothing."

"Your Grace? Can you hear me?" asked Reverend Mother-Superior Mohiam, hand resting gently on her shoulder, aged face gazing at her with a piercing kindness, as if she could see the memories with her. "Your babes are fine dear, I have it from the Doctors and triple checked, be proud woman! They will be powerful Talents of the NewType. And your Ingolf will recover as well, strong as an ox that one. Now your council is ready for you Your Grace."

"Yes? Yes. Yes, well," Elise sat up and visibly composed herself, accepting the handkerchief the Reverend Mother gratefully to quickly wipe the ruin off her face, she continued, "very well My Lords! What has my Small Council to report?"

Chief Physician Wellington Uwe stood first, after Father Ignatius gave the benediction and a sparse opening statement for the record, Uwe cleared his throat and began reading his dry report on the condition of the young royals, which amounted to 'dehydrated but medically fine', continued observation was recommended merely in an abundance of caution. Elise stopped him from continuing on past that and asked for a summary sent to her desk for later.

Lieutenant Colonel the Dame Elizabeth de Chavilier, vice-commander of the Royal BlackWatch went next, aside from the current medical absence of their Colonel, the Watch is fine fighting form and security around the Castel was air-tight.

The Lord Commanding General of the SLDF, the Count of Novy Moscva, Aaron de Chavilier was next. His report too, was general and dry, stating the overall defense condition and posture of all available forces around Eden which Elise translated as 'ready to die fighting Alien scum because fuck 'em too, but please don't make us boss.' A sentiment she shared whole-heartedly.

Then came the report they were all waiting for, Lord High Admiral William Preston, the Baron of Byzantium V, stood, and after smoothing his uniform, presented what they knew about the aliens. Which turned out to be 'not much, we've only just now exchanged radio transmissions with them'.

"They're obviously highly advanced," continued Admiral Preston, "Initial observations by the officers on hand, those being the command crews of the Black Lion battlecruiser Princess Royal and the Aegis II armored cruiser Agamemnon, now reinforced by the McKenna class battleship McKenna's Pride, a second Black Lion, Bismarck, and another two Aegises, Ajax and Omega, suggest artificial gravity, reaction-less thrust, force screens, and Lord knows what else." At which point Elise was forced to give Dr. Brenner of Science Directorate a glare until he ceased spluttering and protesting the 'scientific impossibility' of the military's observations.

"Admiral," prompted Elise, "Could you stop them?"

"Your Grace, I cannot properly answer that, there are too many unknowns, I believe we could, but, we have no way of knowing how many of them are out there. We have no idea what level of investment that monstrous ship, Captain von Langsdorff of Princess Royal calls it a flying mountain and looking at his sensor logs, frankly ma'am, he's under-selling it, how many of those monsters are out there? Are they our McKennas? Or are they our Aegises?"

That last suggestion had the room quiet and pale for a few heartbeats, nightmare visions of the skies above Eden, full of dagger-bladed ships, uncounted like the stars dancing in their eyes. Elise looked around the room and decided she had to say something.

"My Lords. It has not been Our Policy, and I shall NOT make it Our Policy, to go seeking additional wars and conflicts that are none of Our Affairs. Let that be known Gentlemen. And ladies. However, I WILL defend Our People and Our Rights with every last breath, is that clear?"

Everyone in the room stood then and bowed, or curtsied, chorusing "Yes your Grace."

"Good, now someone, please, be a dear, and tell me, what do they want?"

Admiral Preston reached into his pile of briefing papers and produced a transcript of the radio exchange between Princess Royal and Imperious Will (now there was a name that didn't fill Elise with hope).

Elise looked up after reading. "They want to talk? Ok, let's talk. Tell them they may send a DropShip, or whatever it is they have, to meet our delegation on Byzantium V."

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Chapter 3

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 3

"For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." ~Ancient Terran Prophet

Seventy-two hours. Seventy-two whirlwind hours of briefings, meetings, committees, crash courses on Star League history, language, culture, religion, and etiquette, more meetings, not so brief briefings, paperwork, coordination, logistics, security planning, and to be sure, meetings that were not at all brief. That's how long it took to go from accepting the Regent's invitation to Daenerys standing here, at the loading ramp, off to the side of course, no one wanted a combat tripod to step on them as they shuffled up the ramp, safety klaxons blaring out its rhythmic racket, of the Dragonfly class heavy drop transport. Daenerys hadn't stopped to get a count, but she was sure she had not sneaked in much more than four total hours of sleep during the whole time.

Standing with her for the final briefing before contact was her second in command Lord Veradun, her chief advisor (and Master and exercise grader) Darth Vindican, Captain-Senior Jyord Knossos of Besh Company of the 375th Espacier Battalion (the Espacier Corps comprising the elite shipboard Spatial-Infantry of the Sith Imperial Army, each Harrower typically deploying with one reinforced expeditionary Battalion Combat Team), Flight Leftennant(SG) Hamal Zylvarstar of Osk Squadron of 5112th Space Supremacy Wing, Doctor Cul-utaan Caballa a red-skinned half-Sith in the robes of the Archivists' Guild, and Kalyn Vitaan, a silent brooding female Chiss wearing a sanitized, anonymous field uniform, that Daenerys was certain was with Intelligence.

"Ok people, we're wheels-up in thirty, hope you packed your extra skivvies because Force knows when this little trip will be back" yelled Daenerys over the immensity of the background roar of an active flight deck. "I will go over the operation once more, as this is your last chance if you do not understand anything. At zero four thirty hours, shipboard clock, we will proceed in-system at one point five standard gravity absolute reckoning. Yes we could get there faster, much much faster, but our friendly local escorts wouldn't be able to keep up. And let me be clear, WE. DO. NOT. WANT. to spook our new friends." Daenerys pushed a little with force to emphasize her point, not any sort of mental command or anything, just, emphasis, that everyone would know in their guts that she was serious.

"The transit itself will take approximately fifty-eight hours, which is actually short for this sort of low velocity transfer, but because the system primary is on the small end and the planets few, the 'Zenith Point' is closer than normal, or that's what the Star Leaguers tell us. After our transit we will rendezvous with the Leaguer's space station, Byzantium Five. Turns out that the Vev in the name was a number, who knew?" She quirked her eyebrow at the Doctor from the Archival Guild who had the decency to look at his feet sheepishly.

"Once there we will disembark in good order for a reception. There will be a military parade, they will show us theirs, we will show them ours. There will be a banquet or five. There will be speeches. There will be, Force save me, reporters. From our cultural briefings, credit to the Archivists due." At this Daenerys gave Doctor Cul-utaan a beaming smile to make up for the earlier jab, "we know their culture is not too dissimilar from ours in terms of social hierarchy, tell your subordinates to act as if they are on Dromund Kaas and anyone in fancy dress outranks them and we'll be fine. Then the VIPs will have their breakout workgroups and the real work will commence. Questions?"

"You still planning on flying your Balerion there?" asked Lord Veradun.

"Kriff that noise, I loaded him up first thing, I'm going to sleep on the way there, which is frankly what most of us should do." Answered Daenerys.

"Drukin' aurek ma'am, too right, always rack out on movement, unless you're the poor jedispawn that has to drive" affirmed Captain Knossos.

"What do we know of our escorts?" Asked Darth Vindican.

"I can answer that," said Kalyn, confirming Daenerys's suspicions, "Our escort of honor for the transition orbit will be the Aegis II class armored cruiser, Agamemnon, commanded by the Captain Sir James Purdham OMW, the Baron of Dante. He is significant for having saved the Regent of the Star-League-in-Exile, Elise von Hapsburg-Hohenzollern y Cameron, from capture when their previous transport, the Black Lion class battlecruiser Tirpitz, was disabled in a space battle in the Paf system. As such we should conclude that Regent Elise trusts this Captain implicitly and values our lives by extension."

"What about our counterparts?" asked Leftennant Zylvarstar.

"Flying from the Agamemnon's flight deck are 'Foxtrot' Group, 317th Tactical Space Wing, called the 'Wolfpack'." Explained Kalyn, adding that "'Fox Group' have two squadrons, 'Alpha' and 'Bravo', both squadrons are primarily equipped with SA-23NA3 StarFurys; a pure SpaceFighter as opposed to a mixed mode AeroSpacecraft designed for atmospheric interface operations. The StarFury is a seventy-five ton displacement 'heavy SpaceFighter' with a max rated acceleration of nine point five standard gravities, equipped with two 'Extended Range Particle Projector Cannons', roughly equivalent to our heavy starfighter blastcannon, two 'Rotary Phased Particle Guns', approximating our medium blastrepeaters, although we should note that these Star League 'PPCs' seem to split the difference between our blaster and ion weapons, doing more damage than our ion beams for the same mass, but with more systems disruption than our blasters, and fifteen external hardpoints for 'Thunderbolt' concussion missiles and 'Davy Crocket' proton torpedoes."

"During the Transit," Daenerys added, "we each will be operating two space patrollers at time, per agreement. You will rotating at roughly four hour intervals. Luckily the Dragonfly class is already setup for starfighter operations for hot drops. Anything else?"

The after frowns and shaking heads confirmed that they all knew as much as they were going to know in the time they had, Daenerys dismissed them with a final benediction, "Let's be about it then, and may the Force serve us well in the Dark."

"Uhz Rha!" was the reply from all.

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Hidden behind stealth-field, layers of hexagrammatic wards, and hieroglyphic invocations of invisibility graven on the interior and exterior of the Tel'tak, No'onak the Nameless knelt before the holographic projection of the Throne of Bone and Shadow and made his report. "It is as you have foreseen Mighty Nephren'ka, Pharon of Pharons, God of Gods, Faceless One, He of the Bloody Tongue..."

"Get on with it worm." said the Masked Emptyness.

"It is as you have foreseen Oh Forsaken One, the misbelieving Sith who acknowledge you not and who have even destroyed thine ships and slayn even thine servants, seek out even now additional groups of Adamlings, thine by right, to steal from thee. That thine worship and faith-food might lesson."

"Impertinent." said the Black Void.

"Yes, Great Hunger, my Lord of Flies."

"We shall dispatch one of our servants to teach them the errors of their ways. One full Ziggurat should be sufficient. And if it isn't, then that too shall tell us something useful as well, observe and report the destruction of these shol'va my worm!" said the Tattered King.

"By your command Oh Heart of Darkness!"

The swirling shadow form projected by the Holocomm faded away but unmercifully slow and No'onak maintained his kneeling and bowed position until the other occupant of the Tel'tak unfolded himself from his own cloak of shadows.

"Provoking the Dynasty to strike the newcomers is a dangerous ploy brother, are you sure it will be worth the price paid for it in agent's lives?"

"Anything we can do to distract the Dynasty from hunting us Lan'taash, or have you forgotten the death of Jolin'ar in the last great Tok'ka hunt?"

"But the price Anu', the price! These poor mortals..."

"Spare me your false crocodile tears for these may-flies you weak-livered hypocrite. You know as well as I that they exist only to be the food for the Gods, which is us if you forget. How many of them would you willingly sacrifice to have Jolin'ar returned to you?"

Lan'taash's only reply was a sullen silence an impertinent glare.

"How many!" Demanded No'onak.

"...All of them" Lan'taash whispered.

"I can't hear you and neither can she!"

"ALL OF THEM!" Lan'taash roared his pain, shame, and anger, eyes flashing white-gold, at his brother, "All of them, as many as it took, whatever the price right? That's what we said all those years ago, and I'd do it again and again and again! As many times as it takes!"

Anu'biis smiled, and only mildly said, "Good. Now that that's settled, let us watch together, brother, what entertainment these Sith may provide us."

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With a piercing, agonized scream that was heard in the heads of every conscious mind within several standard orbital diameters, regardless of capacity of hearing actual physical sounds, the vast, cyclopean, basalt bulk of an Ziggurat class WarTemple tore its way into the materium, right in the path of the Dragonfly class drop transport Eats, Shoots, Leaves and the Aegis II class armored cruiser Agamemnon and their shared combat space patrol.

Together with the vast enormity of the intruder, pouring forth from the inky blackness beyond, came a swarm of flitting shapes. Thick, streaming clouds of chitinous hive-things swarmed, a riot in pinks, purples, blues, indigos, ultraviolets, and other, more nameless colours, swirling whorls and patterns etched into biomechanical fungoid-flesh and heavy metallic exoskeleton alike, patterns echoed and fractally reproduced in dervish-like whirling flight patterns, all serving to catch and drag the unlucky observer's unguarded gaze, through angles and geometries both alien and unsane, as if to claw out the soul of a man and spirit it away from his shrieking, tortured and shattered shell.

In Agamemnon's combat direction center men and women are screaming as blood runs from eyes, noses, and ears, even as Captain James Purdham's hand was slamming down on the big, friendly, red button marked 'Gellar-Holtzman-Barrier' smashing the protective plastic cover, headless of torn skin and blood splattering in spherical droplets suspended momentarily, before falling away to the rear of the compartment as real-space and time and acceleration reasserted themselves.

Unbidden, the buzzing voices rose up from underverse transmitting to the erring mortal meat-things the will of the Gods.

"Despair and Die, morsels! Give us your Suffering and your Sacrifice!"

"Sparks," grated Captain James, spitting blood and teeth and chunks of tongue from ruined mouth, "Prepare to send, all channels, all frequencies, emergency military power, transit from my station."

"All channels, emergency military power, aye sir, coming online... now sir!"

Captain Sir James Purdham, Order of the Wheel of McKenna, Baron of Dante, wiped his face and straightened his uniform jacket, before straightening his peaked cap, and sat up straighter against the crash harness, before making his head-set live, broadcasting out to the entire system on tachyonic hyperpulse burst.

"All Stations, this is Captain James Purdham of the SLV Agamemnon, I am, on my authority, declaring Case BLACK. I Say again, enact Case BLACK, authentication code, India-Mike-Seven-Niner-Bravo-One-One-Delta-Niner. To the mushroom infested corpses who dare to order me, a Son of Adam to die, I tell you Nuts. I say again, Nuts. James fucking McKenna and John nuke'em-again Sheridan told me to tell you 'say hello to my little can of sunshine, motherfuckers!'"

James stabbed the 'end' button on his chair's control panel. "Helm! Cut transit thrust, spin ship ninety degrees port! Give me starboard broadside advance!"

"Broadside advance aye aye!"

Maneuvering jets fired, pivoting the eight hundred and five meter, seven hundred forty-five thousand ton heft of the Agamemnon, slowly, ponderously, but smoothly and even perhaps gracefully, around her center of mass, becoming an advancing wall of metal, a tide of armour plate and guns, dorsal turrets, fore-castle, amidships, and aft-castle each turning to present their trinity of thirty-five centimeter high velocity auto-cannon to the target.

Vibrations in the command deck became a shaking, the shaking became a thousand thousand buzzing flies, the flies a voice that spat its anger the impossible defiance, "Little Adamling, so eager for death? Stand aside, we come but for the Sith among you, you can feed us another day" the buzzing grew louder, wings rubbing against each other in ecstasy and agony.

Captain Purdham stabbed the transmit button in annoyance, the corpse-mushrooms wouldn't shut the fuck up and fight, damn their blind eyes. "Is that fear I hear from you? Well, you should be afraid you rotting mass of worms, you shit-maggots! You ask us to violate Guest-Right? You rotten corpses are dumber than you look, which is saying something. You say you can kill us? Well do it then! Because if we must choose between Death and Dishonour, what do we choose?"

With a squeal of feedback, James flipped the switch to make every shipboard comm circuit live, "What about it my children? Death or Dishonour?"

"Death! Death! Death! Long Live Death! Viva La Muerta!" came the thundering reply from every corner of the ship. With another jabbing finger Captain Purdham switched the pickup back to his headset, "there you have it scum, now fight or fly, I care not, the choice is yours!" Cutting off the circuit one last time he allowed himself to slump a little, and tried not to think of the butchers bill to come, even if they lived. One breath. Two. Three and centered, here and now.

'What we do in life echoes in aeternity'. Said his first wife, Alice, from their front yard in Unity, Amaris laughing behind her as he lifts a cut down Mauser las-carbine and shoots her down on full auto as mushroom clouds sprouted like cancer on the horizon. Mushrooms. Not today.

"Engines! Dump Lithium-Fusion Capacitor reserves into the Holtzman Barriers, we're going to need them! Guns! Unseal and load Special Munitions! Dorsal turrets and starboard broadside prepare for volley fire! Port broadsides and Ventral turrets, load and stand by. Lasers and Barracuda tubes to full point defense. Sharks, prep for 'Deguello' and stand by. CAG, launch everything you have ready and scramble the rest, load for Special Munitions Attack. Someone cut that damn GQ alarm, we know already, Sparks, queue up Dies Irae if you please."

The command crew of the Aggie chorused their acknowledgments and swung into action, training and hard won battle experience making them calm and efficient even in the face of overwhelming odds. Even as Mi-Goa'uld Plasma-rams started battering down the Holtzman Barriers which started straining and flickering, causing localized overloads and sparks and even free arcs of shorting current to erupt all over the ship, as shards of phased plasmic toroids, contained by cryptic and occult means, leaked through the shuddering and flickering barriers to detonate with explosive effect on the tons of armour cladding the Agamemnon, making the hardest plate known to the Men of Earth run like quicksilver, Captain James closed his eyes and offered a prayer for his crew, that the Good Lord might take his life for theirs, if he so saw fit. His will be done, always. 'In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.'

Eyes opened. "On the command of execution, Guns and Helm will execute fire-plan rolling thunder. Stand by for optimum range. Sound maneuver warning if you please."

Spatial five-point-five centimeter aperture pules laser strobed in their gimbaled ball mounts, a disco against the cloud of ash, dust, and vented gases generated by space combat. That the haunting multi-spectral light show that so captured the romantic imagination of generations of so many impressionable young men and women, enticing them into joining the Spacey in the first place, was only possible because of the battle-space remains of the victims of dying ships was one of life's dark little ironies.

"Hold."

Missiles flew true, spat from vertical launch tubes amidships by electro-magnetic catapults and puffs of compressed air from hard-point launch rails on StarFurys, spearing Gadfly class insect-drones in silent explosions. StarFurys burned hard, taking years of life off of space-frames in mere moments of full military power, viciously using their angular thrusters to change firing arcs on a dime, riding the very edge of g-forces, pilot endurance, and heat-sinks, spearing insectoid attackers with actinic fire, taking the fight to the filth, ancient Enemy of Mankind, who had ruled the men who had ruled the corporations who had ruled the senate during the Dark Times, during the hated EarthAlliance.

"Hold."

Before McKenna and Sheridan and the Great Fleet Conspiracy. Before the Founding and the Camerons, and the BlackWatch. Before Hegemony, before the Star League. But then the drones were among the Furys, ramming them, grappling with them, cutting with biomechanical arc-mandibles, crunching through cockpits with terrible maws.

"Hold!"

The Sith dropper was maneuvering sharply to clear the combat zone, thank God, displaying ludicrous acceleration and to League eyes, a conspicuous consumption of precious delta-vee. But the principles were clearing the battle-space and Guns had solid tone warbling in his ear, and his hand raised in a thumbs up.

"Execute! Roll ship! Fire as she bears, gentlemen!"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Daenerys Targaryen Sith Apprentice, watching the brave Leaguer ship advance suicidally at the kriffing Mi-Goa'uld Ziggurat, ten, maybe eleven times their mass, tiny in the holographic projection as the Drop Transport sped away, was fascinated. It was madness. It was awful. It was beautiful.

As hosts they would shame themselves unbearably to abandon a guest. This she understood in her gut. It whispered to her heart, it shouted in her blood, it screamed in her bones, and she wished, oh how she wished, as she sat there, wooden, staring, frozen in the jump-seat in the Eats, Shoots, Leaves cockpit, how she deeply wished she still knew how to cry. Even just one tear.

The great guns of the Agamemnon spoke then in anger, flashing on the screen and leaving a dispersing fuzzy mist of smoke. Then, curiouser and curiouser, the Agamemnon began to spin, to roll about her long axis before bringing a new line of guns to bear which then flashed, and so on. Meanwhile the Ziggurat's Plasma-rams spread themselves out, unable to simply batter the same sector of the Leaguer's surprising primitive shields over and over again.

"What is that madman doing?" asked the Lead pilot, a grey haired old-salt Imperial Human whose name Daenerys could not recall.

"He's bringing all his guns to bear and spreading the hits he takes across his armor and shields." Daenerys pointed out.

"But that's just prolonging the inevitable!" Protested the old man.

"Giving us time to run away." snapped Daenerys.

Then the first shots fired reached the Ziggurat and Daenerys's eyes widened. These were not solid shots, nor simple high explosive concussion rounds. Nay, these were proton detonations, properly shaped-charged proton detonations, directed high energy plasma and x-rays. And she saw the plan. These weren't torpedoes, subject to point defense, these were artillery shells. The enemy could either engage in a gunnery duel with the madman slinging proton detonations like a laughing mad bomber or he could move. Captain Purdham won either way. A delicious dilemma, either accept nine proton artillery hits every thirty seconds, on the second or be chased off by the low tech primitives. How audacious!

How she yearned to join them.

"Flight Leftennant Hamal Zylvarstar, get Osk Squadron out there, now!" someone ordered. "And prep Balerion for flight!"

Ridiculous! Who would presume to...

"Apprentice Daenerys, confirm that last" came a voice from the speaker.

Something inside Daenerys snapped and she grabbed the mic from its rest on the console with a snarl and quite calmly explained to to the Leftennant that, "I will be on flight deck in two minutes and if you are still here I will suddenly and very finally find myself with an opening for a new Flight Leftennant. Am I Understood?"

"On the bounce ma'am! Osk-actual out!"

With a tinkling jangle, her crash harness fell to one side and she stood up an began her march to the flight deck, eyes now blazing yellow-gold with power and no one stood in her path. Until that is, she ran into Darth Vindican.

"Going somewhere Apprentice?"

"To secure our Alliance Master, by your leave!" She snarled as marched right past him, daring him to stop her.

Darth Vindican grinned and thought 'they grow up so fast!' to himself before he glanced at the other Sith Lords in the first class compartment with a scowl.

"Well, what are you lazy lot waiting for? A graven invitation? Get after her and back her play!"

Then he turned on his heel and entered the comm shack, bellowing for someone to get him Admiral Karst on the line before he lost his patience and had to flay someone.

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The StarFurys of Fox Group, 317th Tac Wing, the 'StarFoxes', could nimbly dogfight, changing orientation at whim, the very definition of unpredictable multi-vector agility. But they were outnumbered ten to one or more, and their external ordnance was largely shot. The Aggie was supporting them with her laser fire and barracuda launches on ripple and the scrambled squadrons had Davy Crockets under their wings, which when set on 'area denial' could, and did, make great gaping holes in the swarm of Gadflies. But then the racks were empty and there was no time to return and rearm. It was fight or die, if the Gadflies got past the Furys to the Aggie, to rip and tear her open, to disable barrier field projectors, well, there wouldn't be a hanger to get back to.

Then it happened. A drone was about pounce of Flight Leader 'Vance' Vandenburg's Fury, he was had dead to rights, right on his six. His wingman, Ensign 'Queen's Own' Smythe was rotating trying but failing to get a tone for a shot in time. Then the Drone exploded in a shower of rotting guts and weird occult machinery that hurt to look at and the Sith's strange winged craft streaked by at a velocity that should take it irrevocably out of the fight all together, never able to counter-burn the vector until the fight was over one way or the other, except then it did the physically impossible, it banked in an Immelmann-cobra, as if it was flying in a bloody atmosphere.

"That's fookin' cheatin!" cried Smythe.

"Shut your mouth Queenie" growled Vance, "You can put him on report with Sir Newton later, after we live, now watch my six."

"Roger that Fox Alpha-6, coming about on your wing." replied a chastised Smythe.

The Mk.V Supremacy Craft of the Sith Empire had Power and lots of it. Quickly accelerating to velocities simply outside of the context of any furball any of the League pilots had ever seen, they executed devastating high velocity passes, picking a target, hitting it in a high speed pass, and killing it with little opportunity for return fire or even evasive action, then turning and 'burning' in again, classic high energy tactics for atmospheric air combat that shouldn't work in the black.

But it did. And the drones started dying. The Drones could fight Furys by swarming them. The Drones could fight the Supremacys by going evasive and ramming them on the pass. But they couldn't effectively do both. They were trapped between Scylla and Charybdis and for a moment they simply stopped, unable to calculate a course of action as they died.

And then everyone heard the metallic bellowing, an insane war-horn, which was simply impossible but the Leaguers had stopped counting the impossibilities seen today.

The bellowing was the war cry of a dragon. A dragon. In space. Fighting fungal-gadfly drones controlled by mushroom animated space-mummies in space-ziggurats.

Why not? But it wasn't a dragon was it, it was shiny like... a droid?

A droid? A dragon-droid? Elite SLDF Spacey fighter pilots were of course aware of transformable LandAirDroids, LADs, but this... this was madness.

The giant draconic warform flew nimbly, gracefully, like a living thing, with sinuous and darting movements. It even lunged its neck and terror lizard head out to snap bites out of the Gadflies and breath billows of green wytchfire that burned the Gadflies to ash, even as turreted blastrepeaters on its chest and shoulders tracked targets independently and micro concussion missiles vomited in clouds from box launchers on each flank, four wings beating the very aether like it was air, four legs tucked under cat like belly except when they lashed out to flash claws and slice Gadflies in twain.

"Run and die. Stay and die! It matters not! For I am Become Death! Uhz Rha! On me, Sith'ala! Drive them, Kill them, Smash them!" Daenerys had taken the field, riding deep in her and Mechu Mactur trance, unified with the cybernetic-brain of her half-alchemical, half-mechanical cyber-warbeast and mount that was part of her very life, purring sweet nothings of fire and blood into her soul, and it was glorious to finally, after so long of being cooped up in ships and boring meetings, to be truly Alive.

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Chapter 4

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 4

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." ~Ancient Terran Cynic

Daenerys was in her element, straddling Balerion's neck, seated firmly and locked in to his built-in war-saddle, transpariplasteel cockpit canopy giving her an armored yet sealed and vacuum-tight high visibility environment. Not that she was using her own eyes to fight, no she was borrowing Balerion's, his natural two and his installed ring of multi-spectral cameras, lidar, radar, dradis, and other more esoteric sensors spread across his war-frame.

And of course the Force was there to guide her, to whisper to her, to show what was and what would be. She had a full three-sixty three-dee perception of her battle space-time and her kill count showed it.

Nothing unfriendly entered her zone of control and lived for long.

A larger 'Dragonfly' combat drone came at her, this one was armed with smaller versions of the standard Mi-Goa'uld plasma-ram, like a high velocity plasmatic bolt thrower and Daenerys, after slipping Balerion to one side, out of line with the incoming burst of ovoid plasma shells, found a reason to actually deploy her main weapon. Her Dragon's 'lance' popped up behind and to her right from its locked and stowed position on Balerion's back-plate, and after a moment's work gliding on aetheric currents to line up a bead, her war-helm gave good-tone and she squeezed the triggers on her 'reins', very much like the control yoke of a racing swoop, and the thirteen millimeter rail-lance flashed a three round stonk, the only 'sound' more of thump-thump-thump that was felt rather than heard, right into the ugly Drone's ugly face, tearing it off and venting its' insides to the outside.

'Dragonfly' indeed, what an insult.

Daenerys then banked Balerion, leading her Sith'ala on a wild hunt through the Terror Field of the Ziggurat, past blast shields designed to keep out capital weapons but not snubfighters, to silence the shield-field projectors, swinging wide to avoid the beaten-zone targeted by Agamemnon's proton artillery fire. No need to go on diet of anti-rad drugs after this little fight nor for Balerion to suffer friendly fire unnecessarily. Insect and Gargoyle drones rose to meet them and ran into a wall of blastrepeater fire and missiles as the Sith'ala came in whooping and cheering, a veritable image of the chivalry of the Old Sith Empire.

After the third Terror Field projector exploded in inky-black and jade-green flames, whoever or whatever was in command of the Ziggurat seemed to have decided that he or she or it might have made a tactical error, or two. The WarTemple began accelerating away from the Agamemnon, which by now had closed to knife-fighting distance for WarShips and was launching WhiteShark missiles in quick-burn 'sprint' mode with fifty kiloton shaped-charge 'Santa Anna' warheads from her eight total medium capital-missile tubes, as fast as auto-loaders could cycle, while the shrill horns of 'Deguello' played across every comm-band; it was David's turn to make Goliath shake and shudder, shields and terror fields to flicker and reset, letting shots through more and more, even as Agamemnon's radiators glowed white-hot and her compartments became ovens.

Balerion's built-in in holocomm flickered to life with a ripping static squeal, a miniature holographic representation of Daenerys's Master, Darth Vindican appeared in her cockpit in the flickering greens and ambers of the old, last generation emitters which Daenerys preferred. "Commendable initiative Apprentice but I must warn you that..."

Daenerys interrupted her Master as she sent Balerion into a barrel roll to slip past the seekers of a Drone's spread of missiles hissing her way (thanks to the auditory sensory input outputs, pilots could hear a simulation of the battle around them) which then detonated behind Balerion spewing wickedly sharp shrapnel where he was moments earlier, "Yahooo! You kicked Admiral Karst's ass into gear and the big boys are spooling up their drives to join the party!"

"Well yes, but the important thing..."

Daenerys halted Balerion's spinning barrel roll by pulling sharply back on her control reins, in response Balerion swept his wings wide to grab as much aetheric current as possible, going into a final head over heels loop, before pouncing on a pair of Gadfly drones with singing-sharp highfrequency-claws as Daenerys interrupted again, "You want a prisoner, preferably high ranking and I'm running out time before the Bugs withdraw or are pounded into useless scrap and rubble by ImpSpacey!"

"Correct Apprentice," Darth Vindican ground out, his face flushed amber in the holocomm view, "But you know that I hate it when you..."

Daenerys flicked her right foot in Balerion's control stirrup then pressed down with the balls of both feet while simultaneously pushing both control reins forward, sending Balerion into a hard boost away from his previous position where three Drones collided with each other in a ball of puke green flames and smoke instead of ramming into her Balerion, again deploying her rail lance to spear a Tiger Moth drone carrier in her sights. "Yeah, interrupting you and finishing your sentences. Sorry Darth Daddy, gotta go, fungal crinoid parasites to kill and capture. Ok, I love you, bye bye!"

Daenerys slipped Balerion into another roll, stressing the minimally sized inertial dampener to the max, greying her vision in the process, killing the channel, her hands opened another while adjusting power levels and initiating a reload of her box launchers, 'boring conversation anyway,' she said to herself, before switching her helm to the squadron freq.

"You back there Lord Veradun?"

"You can't shake me that easily Little Wytch, I'm on your wing, pun intended."

"Well buckle up blasterbreath, we're going in, switch deflectors to full front!"

"Danny?!"

"Don't worry about it, we get in, get a capture then get out!"

"Danny!! The Spacey is on the way, that Temple is going to be bracketed by three Harrowers in less than five minutes!"

"So we move fast, you ready?"

"No! What about those drones between here and there?"

Lock tones harmonized a warble in her helmet that announced that Balerion's firecon had reached the maximum simultaneous track-target limit.

"What drones?" Daenerys asked sweetly, as she hit the thumb buttons to trigger a ripple launch from all four micro missile pepperboxes, this time loaded with proton heads.

"Just one time! Just one time Danny, can't we go somewhere nice?" Lord Veradun's words were a complaint, but his tone was all smiles as Balerion and Lord Veradun's heavily customized Super-Supremacy rocketed toward the 'Pel'tak,' the command throne-temple at the summit of the Ziggurat.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


With the remainder of her (temporarily) Sith'ala flying their custom Super-Supremacys on the wings of Lord Steelix, left in charge of their flight, catching any leakers and making their own trail of shattered Drone-husks and the Imperial and Star League regulars boxing them in with coordinated fires, the remaining Drones broke and fled for the safety of their Ziggurat-hive, animalistic survival instincts over-riding frantic control signals. At this, the Ziggurat finally deigned to launch flights of actual fungally-enhanced, insect-controlled-corpse 'Godlings' and their battle-thralls flying P'tah and Udajeet class snubfighters, but the drug-addled and disorganized Godlings had little chance against the forces arrayed against them and soon also fled back to the safety of their hangers, completely unused to opponents (other than other Dynasties of Gods of course) who fought back effectively.

A tear in reality started to form as the Ziggurat attempted its fighting withdraw, it's last spiteful blows penetrating Agamemnon amidships in multiple points, tearing holes in her armour belt and voiding compartments to the stars that vented atmosphere, flames, and broken bodies, even as the Ziggurat itself started to burn from the proton detonations slipping past her now compromised shields. It was at that moment, as Agamemnon broke off its close attack run to increase distance, her fire slackened as damage in the swirling melee had at some point knocked two of her triple turrets out of action, that the other shoe dropped. Just as victory seemed to be slipping from the allies' grasp, three Sith Harrower-class battle-carriers dropped out of hyper right on top of the skirmish.

From that point the conclusion was rather foregone and anti-climatic.

The Harrowers simply stood off, locking the Ziggurat in place with tractor-beams and proceeded to pound the evil, debased thing to so much basalt rubble with massed capital turboblaster fire.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Popping her canopy and dismounting from Balerion, who roared a challenge to all comers as he crouched protectively over her landing spot, Daenerys landed lightly on the surface of the little launch bay they had discovered, very near the Pel'tak. As she landed, absorbing the impact with the Force, a mental push deployed her Sith Armour around her armored flight suit, articulated lames of alchemically enhanced Sithsteel plate unfolding from stowed positions to cover her nearly head to foot, 'cap a' pie' as the Leager's would say.

She was particularly proud of her short skirt of armoured lames that deployed around the shapeliness of her hips in the reinforced synth-leather of the flight suit, protection and mobility, and looking good too. A 'tonlet' the Leaguers would call it, they had words for every bit and piece of armour, sometimes several, she suspected they would get along famously with her own ancestral people in Westeros.

A grunt and rattle announced Lord Veradun's arrival beside her, his own armour already unfolding as well, wrapping him in the multi-layered, all around, head to toe, completely encasing armour preferred by Sith comitted to the path of the Warrior. Motorized joints wined as they engaged and his great bascinet helm's single slit visor glowed red as systems engaged.

Both armours gave a popping, sizzling sound as their personal shields deployed a private bubble of protection around each Sith combatant, making their visual signatures fuzz slightly at the edges. Listening in the force, neither fighter could feel any immediate threat, sloppy of the foe, but 'twould be rude of guests to decline such an open invitation.

"We'd better get a move on, they had to have noticed us blowing up the door," Lord Veradun said over their comm-net. Daenerys nodded once and they were off with the sudden acceleration of those channeling the Force deeply to enhance movement. They cleared ground quickly, overwhelming several isolated patrols of the slight, child-like, bug-eyed, grey-skinned telepathic fungal-goblinoid servitors of the haughty crinoid 'Gods' with quick, precise cuts from their crimson blades.

They were cleaning up a third such 'pod' when things started to get interesting. A minor Godling wearing a human body and two of his heavily customized Gamorean guards rounded the corner just as Daenerys neatly and contemptuously bisected the last scuttling bug-like naked and grey child-thing from head to sexless crotch as it tried to flee from her in terror. The Gamoreans, crazed and unstable looking even compared to the labor slaves and janissaries she was used to seeing on Dromund Kaas, crammed full of fungal, cybernetic, and alchemical enhancements, half again as large as the usual specimens, truly, a ton of mutant Gamorean, blinked once each as they dimly comprehended something unusual in front of them with dead-souled, beetle-browed eyes.

"Jaffa! Kree!" shouted the Godling with a rather more entertaining expression of utter terror on his face, he pressed something on his wrist then, and an alarm sounded as he turned on his heels and bravely ran away, leaving his two 'Jaffa' to deal with the intruders. These words seemed to snap something in their programming on, flipping a switch visibly in their eyes and expression which went from dull and numb to twisted fury like a trap snapping shut, for they roared then, raising their staff-weapons into line with the intruders and hosing them down with sickly green plasma bolts on rapid fire.

Only the Sith weren't there, they had neatly leapt to the ceiling just before the dimwits opened fire, clinging like spiders to the smooth metal simply by expedient of nano-scale Sith-spider fibers embedded in their armour's surfaces, before they kicked off again and Force-charged right into the brutes, bisecting them at the waist.

"What a waste," commented Lord Veradun, arising from his landing crouch.

"There's more where that come from, I'm sure," replied Daenerys.

"Not that trash, the Godling got away."

"Nah, he's just middle management, we're here for the Boss."

They ran then, crimson lightsabers trailing behind them. Lord Veradun with his signature Greatsaber, a two-handed, long hilted Sith Slaughtersword of heavy blade and raw power and Apprentice Daenerys with a heavier blade than the one she used for dueling, this was the classic single handed Sith Warsaber, exquisitely balanced between, speed, dexterity, and power, her off hand clutched her reverse gripped shoto lightdagger as well as the emitter for a hand held ray-buckler, giving her supplemental offense and defense in one off-hand package. It was an unusual fighting style to her Sith teachers, but was now becoming popular given her own success on the tourney circuit and the Archivists' proclamation that the legendary Ajunta Pall and Xendor had used a similar methods.

Coming to an ornate door, covered in gilded hieroglyphics with inset jewels and treasures, as the whole Ziggurat started to rumble and vibrate, dust falling down on their heads, thudding impacts felt more than heard over the wailing alarms, they each took one side of the door frame, sliding to a stop to lean against the cool metal a moment.

"We're running out time, that's the fleet now," pointed out Veradun.

"Almost there," said Daenerys musically as she stowed her weapons on her belt momentarily, producing a pair of thermal detonators, "just be a dear and get the door, will you?"

Lord Veradun quirked his eyebrow in amusement, then stepping out in front of the barrier, he grunted with a powerful, force enhanced blow, striking from the Wrath Guard position, with saber point down behind his head, coming up and over and down, and cutting with entire body, hips, shoulders, abdomen, and arms, slicing the hieroglyphically ornamented door blocking their way diagonally from top right to bottom left, then, with a shouted mnemonic command and gesture, hit the compromised barrier with a telekinetic blast. The ornate barrier blasted into pieces and exploded into the room, scything down several corrupted snake-man-things coiled at the fatal funnel formed by the entry vestibule, ready to gun down any intruders. Daenerys propelled her detonators into the room, precisely aimed and guided around corners by the force, to wipe out two more clusters of mutant Gamorean Guards.

Nodding to each other, they sprung into the room, crossing the danger zone of the vestibule in a single Force-leap, before standing to face their objective in the flesh. The aethereal thing in front of them was a construct assembled from the parts of many races, but was mostly human, mostly. It was thin and spindly and had four arms and was crowned and veiled, concealing its face completely. It floated there in front of them, not even deigning to use its spindly legs.

**Who dares intrude on the Great and Powerful Afa!**

Daenerys's blade flashed.

"You talk too much."

**And you are impertinent young one.** The Afa-thing thundered in her mind as one of the God's hands unfolded to catch and grab the blade of her saber.

'Well this is going to suck' thought Daenerys before she was sent crashing into the wall in a pile of limbs. Lord Veradun roared a challenge and deployed the micro missile from his right gauntlet before igniting the booster rockets at his hips to launch himself as a lightsaber-missile against the monstrous entity in front of him.

**No!!**

Lord Veradun felt himself slow then stop in midair, helplessly caught like a fly in amber, held in a pocket of isolated space-time, he could only watch as his missile was uselessly swatted aside to explode against the wall, cratering millennia old bas-reliefs depicting unspeakable shapeless horrors from beyond the stars copulating with mortal females offered in tribute.

"Neat trick, but I'm betting even the likes of you has limits," said Daenerys as another thermal detonator rolled on the smooth metal floor beneath the thing's vestigial legs.

Afa spun in the air, hissing in exasperated frustration at the juvenile psyker that was so annoyingly talkative, one of these meddling Sith that had stuck their unwelcome noses in the business of the Dynasty more and more these last few centuries.

**Despair and Di-ARGH** whatever Afa had been trying to say was wiped out in the ensuing thermal detonation right below his hovering form. His patchwork body was thrown comically into the ceiling with a bone crushing crunch, only to fall bonelessly like a limp noodle back to the gilded floor in a welter of sickly green and inky black gore. Yellow entrails, dripping a cloudy and grey viscera that hissed and sizzled acidicly on the metal floor where it dripped, momentarily stuck to the ceiling, followed a beat later with a sick squelch.

A broken hand raised from the broken pile of parts as Daenerys stood and limped forward to stand over the target, soon joined by Lord Veradun.

**Mercy My Lords! Merrrrrceee...**

"How about, no?" Daenerys raised her blades and went to work while Lord Veradun prepared the containment cannister, grumbling as he did so.

"Every. Single. Time."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Back in her Balerion, the bleak basalt bulk of the WarTemple of Afa burning and crumbling behind her, Daenerys was riding high in the bloody exaltation and satisfaction of the fight, adrenaline and Force pumping through her, the superhuman might of embracing the Power fully and submerging herself in her link with Balerion, nearly numb to the everyday waking world of mere morals, no concerns, no thought for the future, no worries, just an aeternal now of fight or die, when a transmission from the Agamemnon caught her undivided attention, ripping her from that altered, maniacal state.

"Imperious Will, this is Agamemnon, we have multiple wounded including Captain Purdham and multiple fires including in medical section, are you able to assist, over."

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Chapter 5

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 5

"Usually the Fascisti enemy pushes forward large tank units in the directions of major operations. This move is preceded by the preparations of general infantry troop formations or by tank troops jointly with motorized infantry, supported by artillery and aircraft to make a breakthrough in the defense lines. Tank divisions are closely followed by motorized formations.

Mobile groups of troops push ahead as far inland as possible, and in their sweeping movement they neither look back nor pay attention to their flanks, irrespective of whether the rest of their troops are following along." ~Old Terran General


In the days following the 'Zenith Incident', Captain Purdham's funeral turned into something of a political football, much to Lady Regent Cameron’s chagrin. The Army insisted that as a Landed Peer of the Realm, therefore a commissioned Territorial Army officer by definition, his funeral should follow the traditions of the senior branch of the SLDF. The Spacey, on the other hand, maintained that as Sir James died in active duty with the SLDF Spacey, as a commissioned Captain Commanding the SLV Agamemnon, clearly that was how he should be buried, albeit with an honorary promotion to Commodore, as per accepted custom. And then, just to add Lady Regent Elise's list of headaches, the Sith Empire insisted on awarding the deceased a posthumous decoration during the proceedings. At least they weren't picky as to the timing and were willing to be worked in 'as convenient to local mores' as they put it.

The resulting compromise that emerged in the tedious inter-service negotiations that followed was a bit of a mess, but it kept the Territorial Lords and the Space Lords equally displeased, which was rather the meaning of the word. After a wake in state at the Castel Cameron, the funeral proper would itself would take place on the Byzantium V station, which itself was both a Spacey port and a Territorial holding at the same time. First, the Exequial Requiem Mass would be held at the Basilica San Barbara (Patron of the Navy and Spacey), after which the funerary procession would proceed, according to Army custom, from the Basilica in the gardens zone of the station, buried deep in the center of the O'Neill Cylinder, four kilometers to the public observation deck just 'above' the main shipping-lock at the spine of the cylinder, however the actual funerary ritual service and burial at space would be according to Spacey customs, and the strangers would get their moment to present their own award to the fallen hero. Commodore Purdham's body would finally be 'Committed to the Black' where it would orbit Eden for thirteen days and thirteen nights, escorted by a finger-four flight of StarFuries in missing-man formation, before being recaptured and finally interred in the Purdham family crypt on his estate, even now under construction.

Elise sighed as she finished another heaping helping of paperwork, it was a never ending, Sisyphean task for any ruler. There were - notional - budget allocations for the funeral and other related public events to sign off on, repairs for the Agamemnon to authorize, even some reports of discussion of upgrading her frame to the Flight III build standards, however the exact specifications for that were still in Admiralty committee, still being argued between the 'all big gun' faction and the 'needs more point defense' faction. Then there were arrangements for the preliminary qualifiers for the upcoming Martial Olympiad. Thankfully, with the deep stores held deep in the Castles Brian of the Pentagon Worlds, waiting for them, together with the automated factories therein, they could easily afford to burn equipment, and keep burning it, keeping the lad's edge on.

The civilian economy, such as it was, was still somewhat shaky however, given their demographics and the difficulties with the barely acceptable habitability of the Pentagon Worlds. About twenty percent of the Exodus had been non-military civilian in the first place, but most of those where highly skilled technicians, scientists, and other experts who were not themselves producers of anything. Upon landing, another thirty percent of those bearing arms had been prepared to, rather demanding of it actually, lay them down and return happily to civilian life, having seen enough of war for multiple lifetimes. Still, the need to feed everyone meant that they couldn't afford to keep the remaining fifty percent under arms full time, not and also have full larders or bellies.

Thus began the Territorial Forces List. The Royal SLDF elements, about twenty percent of the Exodus, became the A-list, a fully professional standing Royal Army, a personal retinue sworn to the service of Ian II as Hegemon of Terra. The remaining SLDF units became the B-List, Territorial Reserves, settled on sergeant's plots for infantrymen and crewmen or knight's fees for DroidWarriors, and received stipends to support training one weekend a month and two weeks a year. Finally, the volunteer legions, formerly of the Great Houses, had been demobilized (with the option of enlisting in the A or B lists if they qualified) and became the C-list, essentially militia without stipend, although they did receive demobilization pensions. They had been carefully settled together on yeoman's acres for the enlisted and serjeant's plots for officers, keeping each legion separated on different continents of the Pentagon Worlds, to prevent any... friction.

The result was something like you would see on countless Periphery Worlds, planets full of villages and homesteads, armed to the teeth, with maybe one or two cities per planet. And everyone quite liked it that way. The one added wrinkle had been that quite rapidly the Peerage had formed their own personal retinues, as befitting personages of their station, often poaching some of the best men from their units to do so. These retinues were technically not part of the Territorial List at all, but practically functioned as additional A-list forces, for the Peers are also personally sworn to Ian in his role as the First Lord of the Star League. All of which to say, they could feed themselves and, hopefully, defend themselves and keep what they had built. And maybe, someday, get their own back.

And that hope was why Lady Regent Elise had reinstated the Martial Olympiad with the Martian Decretal nearly four years ago, that, for the purpose of keeping their Martial Spirit alive and burning bright, that someday, they might return home in triumph, the Star League-in-Exile would again hold competitions every four years; a series of mock combats to find and award the finest, the bravest, the most skilled; the best division, best regiment, best warship, best airwing, and best spacewing in the SLDF. Additionally, there would competitions in individual and small group skills; everything from best Infantryman, to best artillery battery, to obstacle races, to droid duels and the creation of new 'Gunslinger' champions, to boxing, wrestling, pankration, marksmanship, and fencing. Public excitement was already building and the Royal Media (while Lady Regent Cameron was happy to let the Grandees and Peers buy their own presses, but she, and her Lord her son, would be able to speak to their people through channels their family controlled) talked about little else but who was likely to make the qualification lists for entry.

All of which was rather convenient for Lady Regent Elise, because, when several of these Sith, the actual Sith, who were all apparently NewTypes, and strong ones at that (which frankly seemed to be way her own Aristocracy was breeding), not their retainers, expressed the desire to see her ground forces in action, as while 'we know your Spacey is first rate, in spirit if not Technics, we'd like to see how your Army does in maneuvers, in the spirit of learning about our new friends'. So Lady Regent Cameron had been able to point them to the Noruff Training Grounds, where the Royal BlackWatch Regimental Combat Team was engaged in a training scrimmage with the 3311th 'Wolverines' Royal BattleDroid Brigade (331st 'Minnesota' Royal BattleDroid Division) and provide them with observer's credentials.

It was all rather naked a ploy to Lady Elise's knowing eyes, their Star League-in-Exile was being eyed up; weighed, measured, and fitted for a vassalage suit. Two weeks ago she would have taken fiery umbrage at the idea, and perhaps ordered her boys to do something... rash. But now, with the explosive return of the Yuggothim? The Deep Black held the Sith and the Star-Fungus of Mi-Goa'uld, hiding them from Terran eyes, what other vast terrors lay out there, watching, waiting for their time come round at last? No, friends were good, even friends on superior footing, or perhaps especially friends on superior footing, she needed such friends, her Lord her son needed such friends. And maybe, just maybe...

No, enough wool-gathering and wishing and praying about the unknowable future, she needed to wrap this stack of memos up so she could freshen up in time for her scheduled tea with this 'Darth Vindican' who seemed to be a high ranking personage in the Sith Embassy.



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Apprentice Daenerys, Lord Veradun, and Lady Asphodel joined General Khibroad Scathac and Captain-Senior Jyord Knossos in the open air cargo compartment of the Mk. III repulsor-raft, with a driver and co-driver operating the thing of course, provided by Captain Jyord's Besh company, 375th Espacier Battalion. The observation party watched the Leaguer proceedings using a combination of field smart-glasses and a holocomm feed plugged into the exercise grader's and referee's own battle-tracker systems, giving them multiple real-time views from multiple orbiting drones, reconnaissance aircraft, satellites, and synthetic radar and magscan droid-brain generated visuals.

Brigadier Lady Sarah McEvedy's Wolverines had won the coin toss and elected to play defense for the exercise, as such they could be seen digging in to the remote Noruff river valley, deployed to protect an entirely notional and virtual 'road' which Psi-Colonel Lord Ingolf Voegeler and his BlackWatch needed to cut or compromise to prevent a (again virtual) supply convoy from reaching its destination. Comprised of three over-strength 'square' regiments of four 'square' battalions each, plus a headquarters and other attached support companies along with an organic aerospace wing (the parent division, the 331st, had an attached aerospace group, one of each of the subordinate wings was attached to the three brigades of the division) the Wolverine Brigade was a formidable force in quantity, and given the 'Royal' designation, was supposed to be an elite unit in terms of quality as well.

Daenerys and company could see in front of them the 1/3311 Regiment of BattleDroids (Battle) walking their machines into dug in battledroid scale fighting positions dug by brigade engineers, from which they would be able to fight 'legs down' using the slope of the earthen ramp to expose their weapons to shoot, then reversing slope, withdraw to cover. According to their briefing materials provided, the impressive machines below them were also called 'Wolverines', no word on if that name was the same as the unit on purpose or not, along with 'Shadow Hawks', and 'Griffins'. Sleek, brutal, and dangerous looking under their camouflage paint schemes, each 'battle lance' of the regiment's droid battalions was composed of two of the Royal Wolverine-7H models, one each of the Royal '-2Hb' Shadow Hawks and '-2N' Griffin along with two Chaparral class 'Arrow' guided missile artillery systems.

"'BattleDroids of unusual size' indeed" said Daenerys as she focused her smart-glasses on one of the eponymous 'Wolverines' that was settling into its' dug-in fighting position, twisting its' torso right and left to check firing lane access, before sending a simulated three round burst of one hundred twenty millimeter auto-cannon HEAP shells down range, the blank rounds generating light, heat, flash, and smoke, but no man killing shrapnel, "how massive is that thing?"

"Fivty-five tons," said General Scathac offhand as he carefully noted how the Brigade's supporting mechanized infantry deployed to fill the gaps between the droids with infantry fighting vehicles, mortar carriers, and infantry in environmentally sealed hard-suits in well sighted slit-trenches manning crew served weapons, "armed with an 'ultra' rapid firing class five revolver auto-cannon, five centimeter pulse photon gun, and a short range guided concussion missile system. Considered a multi-role 'trooper' droid, it's capable of fighting above and dominating below its weight class. But remember, my lady, that these Leaguers consider that beast a 'medium' design."

"Kriff me, General, let's hope we get to see something they would call 'heavy' then!" exclaimed Daenerys excitedly.

"I think we can manage that!" called an unidentified, amused voice from below.



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Lady Regent Elise Hapsburg-Hohenzollern y Cameron swept into the little rose garden in a rustle of skirts and the clattering of the power armoured bodyguards who both preceded and followed her, keeping their principle inside their security perimeter during her movement. The two plain clothed bodyguards at her sides made careful inspection of the entire garden, and the red-skinned Sith Lord who was rising from his seated position to greet his host, before the male one nodded to the female, who grimaced, then whispered something to Lady Elise, who sighed, shook her head, then obviously dismissed them.

"My Lord Darth Vindican! Do forgive my tardiness for our appointment, affairs of state, I'm sure you understand." Lady Regent Elise surprised Darth Vindican by offering him a conciliatory curtsy, nor could he sense anything but sincere honesty behind her excuse, which he had little trouble believing, paperwork and subordinates hectoring with reports and requests for orders not escaping even the Lords of the Sith.

"Lady Regent Cameron," Rumbled Darth Vindican in reply, dressed finely in the Old Sith robes of state and kimono like under garments, flaming brass crown on his brow, as he bowed at the waist in return, "It is I who should bow to you, my host, and Regent of the Star League."

Lady Elise turned to the guards ringing the small octagonal garden space waved with her fan and ordered "Leave us gentlemen, give us at least the illusion of privacy please."

There was a tense moment of silence that stretched out uncomfortably as it appeared that the BlackWatch guard detail might refuse the direct order, but then the two plain clothed officers visibly deflated and confirmed her order by hand gesture for the clanking Paladin suits to withdraw, before they themselves bowed deeply to Lady Cameron and followed suit by gracefully walking backwards while bowed.

Elise watched them make their exit in silence and when they were alone, for sufficiently large values of alone (Vindican could sense two snipers under their thermoptic blinds on the rooftops overlooking the garden, and several surveillance devices, but close enough) approached the ornate wrought iron gazebo covered in decorative rose-vines and covering a table set with tea for two, and offered her hand to Lord Vindican, "Please, while we are in private, call me Elise, Lord Vindican."

Darth Vindican took the offered hand and, bowing again at the waist, kissed the back of her hand as an officer and a gentlemen, as the provided etiquette files indicated was appropriate, then straightening offered, "Then you must call me W'lachx, if we are to be so boldly informal with each-other, Elise, now" he gestured at the table set for two, "shall we?"

"Please" said Lady Elise who allowed Darth Vindican to pull her chair out for her and then waited for him to seat himself, "let us horse-trade then, light or dark My Lord?"

"Light, with two lumps please."

Elise poured milk into two teacups, followed by tea, then added two sugar cubes to W'lachx's cup. "There, now, respecting that we are now de jure co-belligerents against the Mi-Goa'uld, and de facto allies given our existing cooperation, the same star-fungus who are my people's ancestral enemy from before the founding of the Star League, I will be completely honest with you W'lachx, so please, do me the courtesy of giving honesty in return."

"Of course," replied Darth Vindican.

"What I would know from you is simply this, what is it that the Sith wish from us, and why have you not simply taken it, since you obviously possess the strength to do so."

Darth Vindican sipped then from his teacup, savoring the bitter and the sweet, not bad, this 'tea' alone would be a worthy luxury product for the court at Dromund Kaas, like the existing kaff planted on Dromund and the cha now imported from Planetos' eastern regions, but, different. The refined drinking of herbal infusions in hot water seemed to be near universal among humanoid beings of any real culture, a mark separating the truly advanced from the merely technically adept. He could see Elise's thoughts, she knew that the Sith Empire sought to make the Star League a vassal state, further she knew that he knew, and so on.

Replacing the teacup on its saucer, he said, "Because we are alike you and yours and me and mine. Because the rage, the thirst for satisfaction that burns even now in your breast, we know this ourselves. And more, we can use that. And your spirits, you are both refined and warlike, like ourselves, we can relate to that and use it to. Because you have opened yourselves to the Force, what you call the Immaterium, like us, if perhaps less advanced, we WILL use that. Let me illustrate, then, we Sith have many subjects," W'lachx held up a small holo-projector in his left hand, displaying images to match his words.

"The Asari, decadent clones who use implanted neutronium-hypermatter cybernetic 'abiotics' to mimic access to the Immaterium that is closed to their spiritless, material existence, useful tools for sure, but only that." The small metallic disk projected the holographic image of a comely if rather lewdly attired humanoid with short tentacles instead of hair entirely rendered in blue.

"The Kobolians, humans, and before you ask, humans are the most common species of the Galaxy, such that they rather set the baseline standards of biology, although if anyone knows why this is so, they aren't speaking, and technically advanced, but culturally backwards tribal polytheists, and seemingly completely Force-blind. We're still trying to figure that one out." This time the hologram showed a male Human in a rather strange looking jumpsuit, holding a helmet in the crook of his elbow that rather resembled an ancient Egyptian headdress of all things.

"The Scarrans," the projected image changed to a giant hunchbacked lizard-thing with claws and wickedly pointed jagged teeth jutting from strong overbiting jaws, clad in armored plates bedecked with skulls and bones and other grisly trophies, "barely sapient, only in symbioses with their 'flower of life' are they even capable of speech or high level abstract cognition, as you can see, brutally primitive barely even covers it. Useful, good shock troops and cannon-fodder, but..."

"Not something one brings home to mother?" asked Elise.

"Quite. There's more, but you see the pattern, the threefold combination of Technically Advanced, Spiritually Awakened, and Culturally Compatible has been something rather rare for us to find this side of the divide, so we are... disinclined to resort to force at this time, lest we, tip the balance as it were," said W'lachx.

"I see," said Elise, "it's rather a good thing you didn't meet us under the EarthAlliance, when the AI worshiping techno-cultists who ruled us by their stranglehold on money and debt waged a war on the awakened among us, forcing them to take drugs to silence their abilities."

"Mmm, yes, we would have objected rather... vehemently to that."

"I can imagine, but, who is it you are recruiting allies to fight? The Mi-Goa'uld? Something makes me doubt that, if you were seriously at war with them you would have destroyed them already, if we were able to push them off Earth back during the fall of the EarthAlliance, which we did."

"Tell me Elise, what do you think of Republics?"

"Oh my dear W'lachx, surely you have read our histories, the summaries at least. We, are absolute DEATH on Republics."

Darth Vindican smiled then, like a predator of the deep, leaning in to make eye contact, "Good. We're counting on it."



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Psi-Colonel Lord Ingolf Voegeler, Count of Landing, climbed aboard the Sith's ridiculously futuristic flying anti-gravity pickup truck thing, they called it a 'repulsor-raft', whatever that meant. He was wearing his dress tartans, embroidered tactical kilt in greens, blues, and blacks, fancy socks included, and dress uniform jacket of deep hunter green and white leather belt, extra floppy hunter green beret with crimson cockade, even the regimental swagger-stick, but only because Lady Elise had ordered him to, curse the devil woman. Once aboard he hailed the man that his briefings identified as a General Officer and grinned like a madman and said, "Ave General, Lords, ladies, Lady Cameron informs me that yalluns was interested in seeing what we could fo'ye dirtside as it were?"

General Scathac returned his salute by touching the knuckles of his clenched fist to his brow and said, "yes that's correct... Colonel?"

"Ingolf, Psi-Colonel Ingolf Voegler at yer service my Lords, senior Colonel of the Royal BlackWatch Regimental Combat Team. The Black Watch of the Hegemon, the one and the only."

"Aren't you the lifeguards of your Hegemon and his Regent?" asked Lord Veradun.

"Well, we haven't all of us taken the field as it were, but that's the advantage of getting expanded out to an RCT from just the old single Regiment. More of the love to go around as they say."

"Shouldn't you be with your unit?" asked Daenerys, the young Lady was clearly interested in the proceedings, "seems odd for the commanding officer to be absent from his men before action?"

"Ah lass, I'm not the commanding officer per se, rather the senior one, our Commander is Our Hegemon, His Grace Ian, second of his name, himself-himself, who of course happens to be twelve summers this year, the pup, and focused on his education rather than leading us big-louts in the field. Besides, as the senior Colonel and acting Commander, well, all my juniors know the job just as well as I, and well they should, as I hand picked 'em an' trained 'em fer it I did."

'And if I dinnae let old 'Geistkrieg' Hazen, excuse me, Mrs. de Chavilier out to do a bit of the old ultra-vee, she'd 'ave me balls she would, spooky bint that one.' Ingolf muttered to himself, before continuing aloud, "Besides, we're the fookin' Black Watch aint we? If we can't beat the Wolverines in an Olympus Rules match with a handicap, something's dead wrong innit, eh?"

**Who is this... colourful person?** Daenerys asked Veradun in the mind-speech of the Sith.

**A bit of rogue from the files we've been given, grew up a child mercenary and pirate on their frontier rim, also a blip, an, unregistered, untrained force-user. After being captured by the authorities he was remanded to their religious force-using institutions for training and correction, and from there enlisted in the SLDF where he eventually earned an officer's commission and a secondment to the Black Watch. He was personally instrumental in saving the lives of the Mother Regent and her twins during the palace coup of Stephen Amaris.** Replied Lord Veradun.

**A pirate made good, huh, with that wavy flaxen hair all tied back in a black velvet band, well groomed goatee, those slate grey wolf's eyes, those broad shoulders and that wasp waist, all in that pretty wrapping, mmmm, I'll dice you for him Daenerys** Added Lady Asphodel.

**As if, you cheat!** sent Daenerys.

**If you're not cheating, you're not trying girl!**

"Ahem, yes well, dice games aside," continued Colonel Voegeler startling a strangled half-guffaw from Lord Veradun, "the exercise will begin shortly, with a red illumination flare." As if on cue, with a whine and thundering bang, the mortar launched illumination round detonated, deploying the bright shining temporary red star in the sky over the training grounds. "Like that."

Silence fell over the river valley then as everyone waited for action to begin. The observers, floating above the field in their hovering platform could only see the Wolverines, as the Watch had opted for a hidden deployment under the cover of the forests and thermoptic camouflage nets.

The first sign of any action by the Watch was when the pipes started. Great war-pipes, not the little sweet-sounding Irish uileann bags, nor even the reel bags that a man might play in the house with the missus, but the great highland pibroch, fit only for piping men to war. The pipes swelled and soon spread to the radio bands and with but a few minutes, every single frequency available to the issue SLDF radios was getting the same piping piped into it, blasted into the airwaves with the power of military-grade communications jamming equipment.

Brigadier Dame Sarah McEvedy's Wolverines responded by launching anti-radiation guided missiles from their Chaparral arrow carriers. However these where promptly engaged and shot down by BlackWatch camouflaged air defense artillery positions. The Wolverines escalated their bombardment then, switching to cheaper unguided bombardment arrows to try to saturate the defenses and silence the pipes.

Then there was a roaring in the sky as the Watch's aeropsace began an attack, their hundred-ton Thunderbird strike craft roaring in to stomp on the now exposed Chaparral positions with simulated Gauss Rifle strikes, while their thirty-ton Spads tangled with those of the Wolverines, and the VeeTols of the Watch's AirCavalry swept in, attacking command points and air defenses, deploying men in heavy PoweredArmour and jump-packs along with seven-ton ScopeDog MicroDroids who proceeded to assault the Wolverine's dug in positions from the rear, the ScopeDogs deploying magnetic limpet mines on the Wolverines' droids, which then detonated by popping smoke, which in the exercises' master computers, marked those droids as hit by simulated incendiary detonations, covering the droids in a virtual white-phosphorus-iron-oxide-magnesium-hydrocarbon-gel fueled raging inferno. Those droids so hit responded by slowing down and even shutting down entirely as their computers responded to the control signals sent by the simulation control.

The Wolverines then committed their reserves, or at least attempted to, with the radio bands smothered in ear bleeding war-piping, their command and control was reduced to direct line of sight laser-comm. Which resulted in the Wolverines' heavy Battalions advancing to contact in piecemeal fashion, correctly marching to the sound of the guns, but without any fine unit articulation. Still, the advancing seventy-ton plus heavy-class Royal Warhammers, Archers, and Rifleman-IIs were a threat that had to respected and the surprise vertical envelopment of the Wolverine's primary defense lines was teetering right on the balance-edge, with the shock of their assault wearing off and the local quantitative advantage of the Wolverines just starting to come to bear.

It seemed that the Watch might have been a bit too cocky and audacious with their attack, soon enough pockets were starting to form with the Watch's jump infantry trapped within. But the Watch wasn't quite done playing their pipes just yet. The pipes shifted their tune again, and General Scathac glanced his question at Colonel Ingolf who simply nodded, "Ayup, good catch, most are so offended by the noise that they can't tell what we're doing with it." Thermoptic camouflage broke, revealing PowerArmoured infiltrators who had identified the command and control nodes of the Wolverines by visually identifying positions with active laser-comms antennae. These were the notorious BlackHearts, the Watch's own attached Special Forces Group, and they assaulted the Wolverine's command points, decapitating Brigade, Regimental, and Battalion command structure. Dame McEvedy herself-herself was 'killed' when a BlackHeart attached a limpet shape-charge to the side of her mobile command post.

Still, the Wolverine's heavies were accelerating into the thundering gallop, charging the pockets of the Watch and the situation was in doubt.

"It looks like your Watch is about to get kriffed, Colonel" said Daenerys.

"What? Proper kriffed? Nah, the Watch has not yet begun ta' fight lass" replied Ingolf as the pipes changed again.

Then the river, the river exploded. The Black Watch's Heavy Assault Droid Regiment had finally entered the fray in yet another tactical surprise. A whole Regiment's worth of HGN-732b Royal Highlander ninety-ton AssaultDroids rocketed out of the concealing depths of the river, riding jets of fusion plasma in the arcs of fusion rocket assisted jumps, launching simulated concussion missile and gauss rifle strikes on the advancing Wolverine heavies, whose simulation status readout promptly changed from green to yellow, to red.

Right on the heels of the Highlanders, ranks of seventy-five ton Royal Black Knights marched up the river banks, revealing a gun line of phased particle cannon and eight-centimeter photon pulse guns which then spoke as one shattering the spearheads of the advancing Wolverine heavies. Finally Royal Excalibur and Galahad fire support positions unmasked on the hills overlooking the river, using their gauss rifles and long range concussion missiles to pick apart any center of resistance to the BlackWatch's charge.

Almost as an after-thought to the systematic dismantling of the Wolverine Brigade, like watching a highly technical boxer who also has twenty pounds and two inches of reach on his opponent, the BlackWatch's Armored Infantry Regiment (hover) blew across the river in a spray of ground-effect blown water, blower-vehicles speeding right across the battlefield, not stopping to engage, only taking PPC and thunderbolt guided missile shots as opportunity provided in their max speed thunder-run. Meanwhile, the Wolverines' own heavy tracked combat vehicles were caught completely out of position, in the open, they were advancing to bring the Watch's assaults under fire and contain and pocket the breakthrough when their flying charge went right through the gaps in their formations, LandAirDroid strikers in AirDroid wing-in-ground-effect mode pouncing on any point of resistance.

Forty five minutes after the exercise began with the red flare, it ended with the launching of a white flare. In an unanimous three-three decision, the exercise judges awarded the victory to the Royal BlackWatch.

Then the beer trucks rolled up.

Daenerys looked at Veradun then with shocked eyes, sending, **Who the kriff are these people?**



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Chapter 6

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 6

"In the year 2048, Terran explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the farthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.

The Civilizations of the Galaxy knew it by many names. Naq'tar Force. Blue Shift. Hypermatter Physics. Quantium Fields. Neutronium Paraphysics. Dark Matter.

Earthborn civilization calls it the Kearny-Holtzman Effect." ~Old Terran Historian


As the sun lowered red and fat and dusky on the horizon and the evening stars shone forth their starlight from beyond the darkening azure-veil of the day sky, the men and officers of the Wolverines Brigade and the Royal BlackWatch Regimental Combat Team gathered in a single mixed bivouac centered around the circled convoy of heavy eighteen-wheeler trucks whose sides where emblazoned 'Spaten-Franzikaner', 'Weihenstephaner', 'Orkney', 'Guinness', 'Newcastle', and other arcane (to Sith eyes) proper names. In the center of the circle of trucks a stage was erected under a pavilion and a sleek black staff car rolled up just as the pavilion cover was finished in a show of stage-like timing.

"What is all this, Colonel Voegeler?" asked General Scathac.

"This is the Hegemon's reward to his faithful servants Sir, we fight hard, now we party hard" answered Ingolf, "we should set down and join in, we wouldn't want to miss the Hegemon's speech would we?"

As bonfires lit the evening's dim, uniformed retainers smartly opened the passenger doors of the staff car and from the depths of the armored luxury conveyance emerged Ian II, who then offered his arm for his twin sister, Amanda. They were dressed alike in dress-mess uniforms of the BlackWatch, black over-coats fluttering in the light breeze. As one they alighted to the stage and stood fearlessly displayed before their subjects, who crushed around them. They were soon joined by the two commanders and their staffs, Brigadier Lady Sarah McEvedy and Colonel Lady Elizabeth de Chavilier.

Colonel de Chavilier stepped up to the podium and loud-hailer first, saluting the crowd and crying out "Hail warriors of the Wolverines and the Watch!"

The answering roar was not just heard or felt, but it reverberated in the Force. As they approached on foot, Daenerys could feel the Force moving but in a way that defied description in the dogmatic terms she was trained in, this wasn't 'the Dark-side' or the 'Light', this was just, the Force, undivided.

"We have had a fine bit of training haven't we? Showing our skills for our Hegemon? All of you are veterans of hard fought campaigns and I won't waste yer time with many words, I will only say, good on ye! Wolverine and Watch alike, I saw no shirking out there, only hard fighting, as it should be. Now, without further ado, Warriors! Your Hegemon and Heir Apparent!"

The crowd of soldiers broke into applause and cheering as Ian II approached the pulpit, which was lowering itself to match his height as a youth of twelve summers. Many cried out "Oorah!" or "God save the Hegemon!" and others "Our Ian!" or "Wha wuld'nae bled fo' him!" and yet others "Whew Laddie!" but everyone was delighted to see the youngling.

"My Warriors! Men and Women of the Royal 3311th Brigade, 331th Royal Division and Royal BlackWatch RCT! Wolverines and Watchmen! My Sister and I have observed your training today and we have having nothing but praise for your displayed mastery and martial prowess! We are both humbled by the love and trust you have placed with us! And we pledge to you, here, now, that we return that commitment to you three-fold! In the name of the honored dead and those who have passed before us, we cannot tell you when we will return to reclaim our homes and our sacred honor from the Vulture Lords of the Inner Sphere, only that we will! But until the time is right, we must content ourselves to hone our edge and wax in strength, and what I see here, today, is the but the first step in our Long March toward Ultimate Victory! But a good first step at that, no matter the length of the path nor the cost of it. Now, before I leave you to enjoy your just rewards for services well rendered, I have a duty to attend to! Brigadier McEvedy! Colonel de Chavilier! Have you prepared your lists?"

"We have."

"What is the first name?"

"Cadet-Lieutenant Nicholas Kerensky!" cried Brigadier Lady McEvedy

Apprentice Daenerys watched as a handsome young human male in his late twenties climbed the stairs to the stage. Close cropped dark hair framed a stern and steely visage, proud aquiline nose and prominent cheekbones and square jaw, dark stormy eyes flashing between amused mastery, glittering ambition, and barely restrained rage. The Force and even Fate roiled and seethed around the man. He was an adept of some potential, but it looked like training was not yet complete beyond the barest of basics, but he at least had the discipline not to transmit the surging emotions behind his eyes through the Force for just anyone to pickup, that spoke well of his control. Still, the shapes in the Force that Daenerys could just but perceive fascinated her.

Gathering her Power she opened herself more fully, opened her third eye and looked, and saw. There was a whirlpool or perhaps a storm surrounding young Nicholas, a hurricane of the Dark Side. She felt herself pulled along and she saw shapes looming behind him, rearing up to challenge her. A dragon rampant billowing fire. A howling wolf. A leaping jaguar. A stooping falcon. A prancing white pony. A rearing sandwyrm. Cobras, coyotes, sharks, bears, scorpions, ravens, wolverines, badgers, and others besides.

A shrieking, howling menagerie of primal animal spirits, a veritable zoo of totemic forces all riding the same man, it was as terrifying as it was magnificent; the Sith were well aware of the powers available by bargaining with and even instantiating Archetypal Force Entities, but that power also came with danger. Control and Freedom were the essences of Sith, but incarnating an immortal Totemic Idea within the Force ultimately bound one to that Fate and that Story, this was the essence of Tragedy. But this, this man was host to a tribe of... Clans. What madness was this?

The storm itself was blood and fiery flame and it was speaking to her, as if from a great distance. Whispering promises of terror and vengeance, wrath and ruin and the red dawn over corpse strewn fields and buzzards taking plunder. It was, beautiful. Then Daenerys was wrenching her sight away from the storm, letting it recede in the distance until it became just the suggestion of a dark and stormy halo around young Kerensky's head.

The Royal Twins awaiting Nicholas also shone-forth in the Force with the immensity of dark stars, but entirely differently from the raging storm barely contained within Kerensky, they were like unto diamonds or fire-stones, immense faceted depths of power and potential lashed and leashed in an utterly binding control that would make many a Darth Master jealous in their expression of pure geometric rationality harnessed to the Will. Colonel Voegeler beside her was also utterly changed within her Sight, a Bear in Man's clothing, wise ravens on his shoulders whispering, an eye-patch that suggested a well nestled in the roots of a great tree, and the flutterings of thousands of wings beating war drums behind his head.

Shutting her Inner Eye with a shudder, Daenerys returned to the waking world of material cause and effect. Ian, Hegemon in waiting of the Terran Hegemony, First-Lord elect of the Star-League-in-Exile was knighting a kneeling Nicholas Kerensky, now made Sir Nicholas Kerensky and Lieutenant-Bachelor for his exploits in personally mission-killing three BlackWatch Royal Highlanders and 'killing' one more with an ammunition hit in his one Royal Warhammer, delaying the attack of an entire company of the Watch before himself being 'killed' in return, a notable feat of arms for one so outmatched in tonnage and quality of wargear.

Amanda held a sword in a scabbard up for Ian to draw, which he did, flicking on the power assist in the high-frequency vibroblade, making the sword sing in high pitch, just on the edge of human hearing. Ian dubbed his new knight with absolute certainty and with smooth and precise grace and Nicholas kept his visage stony and still, displaying his trust in his youthful liege to wield a live and singing blade next to his head and neck. Daenerys could see Ian drawing on the Force to guide his hand, but the concentration required was still impressive for a boy of his age.

After that, events proceeded on that pattern, names were called in a roll of honors, a few additional knights were created and other, lesser decorations and promotions were awarded and then the evening honours were finished. After which the Royal Twins, Ian and Amanda, bowed to their own subjects and bid them to enjoy their evening. Daenerys expected them to be whisked away by handlers at that point, but instead, to the entire Sith party's surprise, they simply started mixing with their people addressing their officers by name and chatting with them like adults. A folkish string band took up the stage then, playing something called 'Dixie', which seemed to have a rather specific cultural meaning for the Leaguers, as every throat began to sing along, although to Daenerys's ears the lyrics seemed nonsensical.

Suddenly the man-bear was standing in front of her and was bowing to her growling something in the speech of the beasts, the crows on his right and left shoulder calling at her, 'nevermore!' Daenerys gathered herself and brought the Force under control, re-sealing her Sight once more and begged Colonel Voegeler, "Excuse, me I didn't catch that Sir, could you come again?"

"Would the Lady grant this humble soldier the honour of a dance?" Ingolf asked again.

Daenerys saw that many couples were already dancing to the slow sad strains of something called 'Jolene' which made her suddenly realize that this bivouac included officers and enlisted wives, and camp followers, wash-women, and even obvious comfort-girls, and even shoe-less children racing about the camp. The stirrings of wilder music in many cultural modes could be heard as the rankers broke away from the highbrow big tent to really cut loose.

"Why certainly Colonel Voegeler, I'd be delighted!" replied Daenerys.

They danced slowly then and Daenerys dipped into the force to feel the steps before she placed her feet, blatantly cheating so as to 'know' their own styles based on what was expected of her. But the styles were similar enough to what she knew as a young girl long ago and far away that soon she let go of the Force and the enchantment withered away and she just danced.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Andrei Kerensky ducked, as his mother, Katyusha, threw the box of Republican fliers she had found in his room, at his head. The box flew past Andrei's cold and expressionless face, past the open door, and into the street, where it tumbled, the cardboard lid flying off, scattering fliers proclaiming slogans such as 'Workers and Professionals of the Exodus Arise!', 'Power to the People!', and 'Representation Now!' Andrei could see that her face was flushed and sweaty, the fever was getting worse, and finding his Republican Underground materials hadn't helped her mood any more than the recurring migraines.

Doctors were mystified and largely powerless against the mystery fever that was spreading amongst Eden's settlers. It was called Eden's Curse by those who knew and didn't care if they contradicted the official line. For the royalist hardliners it was a curse for tolerating the republicans and revolutionaries among them. For the progressive radicals, a curse for tolerating regressives and reactionaries in power. If something didn't change, the social situation, on 'the street' at least in Novy Moscva proper, could potentially explode.

"Andrei!" screamed Katyusha, "bozhe moi, my son! A republican! What would your Father say?" Andrei stood his ground as his mother's slight frame collapsed into his own, not even flinching from her repeated slaps, weeping and wailing punctuated by cursing, "Republicanism killed your Father, Andrei! Don't you understand? Going against the Tsaritsa and Tsesarevich, it brings God's judgment on a house and I won't have it, not here, Andrei, I won't!"

"It's ok, Matushka, it'll be ok. I'll leave. I will take the curse away from your roof. Nicholas will look after you. It'll be ok." said Andrei.

"Where will you go?"

"One of my comrades will take me in, you have my number if you need me."

"Don't go," his mother whispered to him, tears making the front of his shirt wet and cold in the evening chill, "don't go Andrei, come, we'll pray together to the Theotokos for forgiveness. We have suffered, and killed enough, you and I and Nicholas, and you both children, back in Moskva, can't this new world be enough, a new start Andrei?"

Andrei closed his eyes as a tears escaped from his clamped shut eyelids, "It's never enough Matushka, It's never over, someday, you'll understand"

He turned and left then as his mother slumped in the doorway of their flat, weeping openly. He took out his mobile and rang up Karl, holding the phone with his shoulder as he squatted in the street and started picking up the fliers, "Hey, it's me, Mum found the stuff and kicked me out, I need a place to stay," he said when the line connected.

"No Karl, I can't go back, I need to call on the party, I have nothing left."



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



"His Eminence, Gregory Cardinal Hesse, Patriarch of the Universal-Church All Exile-Synod and his Beatitude Primate Raphael Snychev Metropolitan of Novy Moscva, All Russian-Catholic Church Outside of Russia," announced Lady Cameron's mayordomo as the elderly men so named entered her working presence office. She rose smoothly at the announcement and offered the princes of the Church a curtsy in greeting and kissed the backs of their hands when offered, before bidding the eminences to be seated, before she herself took up her own again.

"Your Eminences, thank you for seeing me on such short notice and doing me the favor of waiting on me rather than the alternative. Tea or Wine?" Elise asked.

"Wine thank you and nonsense Your Grace, 'tis hardly any trouble, the Synodal Cathedral is down the street from your offices here in Novy Moscva and we old men needed the exercise anyway, but since we're each of us quite busy, why don't we get down to it daughter?" Replied Cardinal Hesse.

"Tea, thank you daughter," rumbled Primate Snychev in his deep basso profondo.

As the mayordomo of her State Offices busied himself with providing the requested refreshments, Lady Cameron got down to business.

"You have read the provided files?" As each of the Princes of the Church nodded she continued, "what then is the opinion of Church in regards to any future alliance with the Sith?"

Primate Snychev glanced at Cardinal Hesse, who gestured for him to go on.

"The sobor has read and prayed and meditated and even debated. We brought it to a vote. The Church-in-Exile in her Universal Synod and the national synods present here on Eden have agreed that an alliance with the Sith is licit if the Secular Power has reasons of State to negotiate it. While there are elements of the expressed Philosophy and History of the Sith that are of potential concern to Church, nothing we have found is of The Adversary, merely pre-Christian, Heathen if you will."

"Well that's a relief Fathers, frankly we need this. Unless they are mustachio-twirling puppy-sacrificing diabolists, and maybe even then, unless we want to give up on Restoration in any reasonable time-frame." Said Lady Cameron.

"I will remind you daughter, of Our Lord's words to his Disciples 'what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?' but as you say, we are in a desperate situation and that factored into our deliberations. Luckily, these Sith do not seem to be, as you say, 'puppy-sacrificing diabolists' so the proceedings were actually rather short."

"It is the clear teaching and praxis of the Church that alliances with and even political subordination to non-Christian heathens is entirely licit as long as the ultimate aim of the State remains the salvation of souls." Said Cardinal Hesse.

Elise looked sharply at Cardinal Gregory Hesse who had steepled his fingers in front of his bespectacled face, his eyes hidden by the reflection of the skylight.

"Are you quite sure you're not one of your Psi Templars Cardinal Hesse?" asked Elise, "you do seem to be in my head."

"It is the obvious conclusion, isn't it daughter?" replied Cardinal Hesse, "One does not have to be one of the vocation of arms to see that the correlation of forces is rather, extreme, and resisting them is contra-indicated."

Elise sighed, "true enough your excellency."

"In the negotiations that are to come, Mother Church would appreciate if the Rights of the Church to proselytize to the alien stranger are respected." Added Primate Snychevy.

"The State will do what she can of course," Elise said, "but our negotiating position is not strong."


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




"I am told that you are highest authority in your Embassy" ventured Ingolf in an opening gambit as the next slow dance started, a jazzy-polkish Southron-Bluegrass interpretation of a waltz.

"For the purposes of these negotiations, yes." replied Daenerys.

"Let's say that the Star-League-in-Exile was inclined to negotiate an alliance in favorable terms to the Empire of the Sith, what then?"

"Then we would begin the legalistic dancing. But our requirements would need to met."

"And what are those?"

"First, the Star-League-in-Exile must agree to treaties of Non-Agression, Aeternal-Peace, Mutual-Defense, and Market-Access with the Sith Empire. Second, guaranteed access to hire elements your Spacey and Army as mercenaries for our campaigns. Third, access to recruit directly into Imperial Service from your worlds. Forth, guarantees of immunity for Imperial Citizens on your worlds. That's the bare minimum for allies."

"And what's in it for us?"

Daenerys snorted, "Non-Aggression and Mutual-Defense with the Sith Empire for starters, what else do you want?"

"The General-Staff and the Star-Lords are drooling over your technology. Seriously, I had to wipe General de Chavilier's chin when he saw the specs for your heavy repulsor tank."

Daenerys giggled as Colonel Voegeler shared the image in his mind's eye with her, then she replied, "Allies have access to purchase Imperial technics and hire the advice of Imperial experts in its use, at market rates of course."

"But what if we wanted to make them for ourselves?"

"It is rather rare for mere Allies to receive production licenses for first rate Imperial gear, but older generation second line equipment licenses are possible."

"And if we wished to offer something more than alliance to the Emperor?"

"Why Colonel Voegeler? What exactly are you offering?"

"What if we bent our knees then?"

"In that case, as vassals of his Immortal Eminence, your prosperity is his prosperity, your swords are his swords, and all things are possible, Colonel Voegeler, all things. In fact we have a pressing need for additional ships and troops on the Centauri front, so much of what has your high command drooling could be expedited."

"In general terms, we are willing to proceed on that basis, submission and service to the Emperor of the Sith in exchange for technological uplift and economic development, and support in our claims on the Hegemony and the Star-League of course."

"The Empire is also prepared to begin negotiations along those lines. You will have to be willing to suspend pursuing your claims until the Empire of the Sith has achieved her own claims on the Galactic Republic. And I have read enough of your files to realize how much of an ask that is. That is why we are willing to throw in a freebee to sweeten the pot."

"Oh?"

"Yes, we have already synthesized an inoculation and cure for Eden's Curse and are prepared to assist with other issues with incomplete planetary habitat engineering."

Ingolf missed the next step in the dance as he realized that Apprentice Daenerys had just casually offered to solve the single greatest social crisis of the Star-League-in-Exile as an throw away bonus.

"You Sith are merciless in your friendship."

"Imagine how we treat our enemies."


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Chapter 7

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
BattleDroids: Gathering Storm

Chapter 7

“Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot fail to be impressed by the role in this historical succession by the image of the future. The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures ….In the end, the future may well be decided by the image which carries the greatest spiritual power.” ~Old Terran Philosopher.


The meeting of the Central Committee of the General Secretariat of the Unified Republican Front had started off an raucous note, but the bombshell that Andrei had dropped had caused an absolute furor to erupt. A chorus of angry voices overlapped and echoed in the pub's basement where the committee held their clandestine meetings, the roar quickly becoming physically painful.

"Impossible!"

"Have the reactionaries no shame?!"

"It's not enough they drug us all out here beyond the rim on their damn-fool idealistic crusade to put a child's rump on a fancy seat, they have to sell out our independence and sovereignty as well?!"

"General strike now!"

"General strike!? That old myth? No, the workers and peasants demand action from their vanguard! We must move to immediate and direct resistance!"

"This calls for immediate discussion!"

"Discuss what? Action now!"

"Oder dammit! We will have order!" General Secretary Helena Abramovitch Blavatsky pounded the table with her shoe as her shrill voice cut through the din of voices.

"Comrade Kerensky," she continued as her antics brought the herd of republican factional cats to a sullen dull murmuring of discontent, "please repeat that, I'm not sure all of our comrades heard you correctly."

"The Star-League-in-Exile, in the person of First Lady pro tem Elise Cameron, is preparing to negotiate a treaty of vassalage to the aliens that call themselves the 'Empire of the Sith', furthermore, in exchange, these aliens are prepared to offer supplies of a drug that can cure Eden's Curse" said Andrei, holding back his desire to roll his eyes by sheer force of will.

"And you know this how?" someone in the press of bodies shouted.

"That's out of order!" shrieked Blavatsky, before she continued in more measured tones, "But still a good question, consider it asked by the chair."

Andrei shrugged expressively and said, "A man hears things, especially if that man is the son of General Kerensky. There are still many officers, especially in the Spacey, who see things our way, the way my Father saw them, that constitutional rule is the only way forward."

Many in the crowd grew more restless hearing the General's name mentioned and more at the mention of the Liberal-Constitutionalist faction. The radicals that thought that the old Kadets were just another face of the reactionary capitalist class tended to bristle at anything that reminded them of the old movement.

"Of course, that constitution must only be a stepping stone to the rule of the proletariat, lest liberty for the propertied class become a new face of oppression of the workers" Andrei quickly amended.

"Of course," replied Blavatsky, "But what's important is if they can do it, can they?"

"I have seen reports of their technological superiority to us and they are frightening. I don't see how we can discount the possibility."

"If a cure for the Curse becomes widely available, for all classes not just the gilded lords in their castles, all of our support will dry up, it's the one issue that gets us movement against the romance of the brat's reactionary 'Lost Cause' mythology," Helena mused aloud, tapping her fingers on the table. She looked around the room at the rabble of bureaucrats, scientists, college students, intellectuals, trade union organizers, and professional revolutionaries gathered with her and saw agreement plainly writ on their faces.

"We must prevent this, somehow, we need a moment where we can force the corporate media to deliver our message for us, provoke outrage against selling out to these aliens... Any ideas comrade Kerensky?"

"One springs to mind immediately comrade Chairwoman Blavatsky."

"Go on."

"The public funeral of Commodore Purdham will take place tomorrow on Byzantium V station, where we have many comrades amongst the dock workers, stevedores, welders, pipe-fitters, merchants, and even security teams, and the tri-vid cameras of every Pentagon media outlet will be there, I don't think we will have any better opportunity to make a demonstration of our resolve and outrage than then and there."

General Secretary Blavatsky stared at Andrei then, as the room stilled in a stunned silence, what he was suggesting was audacious, especially for one of the acknowledged moderate Kadet faction, it sounded like something the radicals and vanguardists would suggest. Andrei held her gaze resolutely, "we won't get another chance to get the message out, if we emphasize that we have already bled for these aliens, sacrificed for them, we can suggest that the reactionaries are selling out our dead for personal gain."

"Spacey and their pet bulldogs in Station Security, not to mention Star-League Internal Security, won't like it, we'll be facing neural maces and microwavers for sure," Chairwoman Helena pointed out, eyes calculating the angles even as her face went still.

"Let them, if we stick to patriotic slogans and outrage over the selling out of our dead, then anything they do to us just sells our message more, and since we're choosing the ground, we can get even more of comrades in position ahead of time, present a strong unified front, magnify our apparent strength for the cameras. Nothing succeeds like success, if we can show ourselves as the strong horse, more will join our cause."

"Are you suggesting we make a fight of it?" asked a voice from the crowd, one of the labor-dems that counseled work stoppages at every meeting.

"I'm suggesting that if we don't do something now, the movement will be dead. What better excuse for your general strike than a bloody shirt?"

"Well said Comrade, shall we call a vote?"

The crowd carried the motion by acclaim and the mood soon turned predatory as plans started being laid in earnest for revolution.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




After the meeting and the vote for protest action at the funeral of Commodore Purdham, Andrei returned to the flat that he now shared with Karl and Kay and the others, but he needed to speak to Kay. Kay Amemiya Perrault was the younger daughter of Lord Charles Perrault, Baron Rubat, who was himself the owner of the premier progressive aligned media group, the highbrow text-based Yakut Times and Gazette and Yakut-News-Now the low-brow tri-vee channel, unfortunately, when Andrei reached their shared flat, his girlfriend was just then shooting up.

"Hey, stop that!" shouted Andrei as he pushed past the flat's door and rushed to her side, where she drooped lazily on the sofa, slapping the needle out of her hand.

"Whaaaaaaat Andreiiii? Geeeeze, you want some, get your own, dick."

Andre grabbed her before she could slump over and gave her a shake, "hey, Kay! I need you to clean up and get a hold of your dad, we need him for Party business."

He had to explain several times again to get his point across. "No Kay, you need to call your Dad now, and get him to talk to me, we need favorable coverage tomorrow, the Party Kay, the Party needs you!"

"Ahh, come on, chill out Andreiiii, let's forget about the old man and the Party and paaaartaaaaay!"

"Damit Kay, I need you, the Revolution needs you. You're always talking about what you want to do for the proletariat, daddy's little spoiled rich girl, well now's your chance!"

"Fuck you Andreiii!"

"Do you think this is a game Kay?" Andrei growled and slapped Kay across the face, "We're going to have a protest tomorrow at Purdham's funeral, there's going to be INSEC push-back, then we'll push back, people are going to get hurt and maybe die and it all has to serve the Revolution. Now. Make. The. Call."

"Ok, ok, geeze, asshole, I'll call, just, fuckin' relax, Jesus, fucking Christ!"

Andrei sighed as he handed her a pair of detox pills and glass of water, it was going to be a long night, he had a lot of calls to make, a long way and miles to go before he could sleep.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




"Barron Charles Perrault Rubat swallowed heavily as Lady Cameron, followed closely by ranks of bodyguards, stormed into the room where he was being held, along with all of his ideological allies in the Political and Media Mogul worlds, they had, each of them, been detained early in the morning by Star-League INSEC forces who had swooped down on them without warning, in a well coordinated operation, as far as he knew, no warning or word had gotten out to the rest of the Party either.

Commodore the Freiheer Yang of Yang's Bazaar, across the table from Charles, immediately stood and bowed in a show of 'everything is normal, I'm not intimidated in the least', merely saying to Lady Regent Cameron, "There you are Lady Cameron! Your men have been most rude and unsolicitous to our persons and rights as peers of the realm!"

Icy blue eyes, just regular blue, not the deep blue-in-blue of those who used makyr-water for life extension or psionic awakening, regarded the eponymous Yang coolly then swept an ice-cold gaze across the room, the the frosty and winter-like unconcern for their individual or collective lives in her gaze caused everyone in the room to stop talking. Then after staring each of them down individually, she turned to the tall and handsome scarred veteran in half-plate and Roman collar next to her.

"Sir-Father Ignatius, is the State of Emergency for the Star-League and the Terran Hegemony declared by Commanding General Kerensky and affirmed by the Parliament-in-exile still in effect?"

"It is your Grace," replied Father Ignatius.

"What about the state of Insurrection and Martial law, Father?"

"Those Acts of Military Government are in effect and have not been rescinded your Grace."

"Are you a member of my Petite Council as First Lady pro tem and Regent of the Star-League and Terran Hegemony?"

"I am your Grace."

"Are you also an Armigerous member of my Personal Household?"

"You know it, your Grace."

"Then bear witness to this Court Martial, Father."

"Very well your Grace, so witnessed."

"I find each of you summarily guilty of materially supporting enemies of the Star-League and Terran Hegemony, of Treason to the same, lese-majeste, and plotting against the life of my Lord my Son Ian II Cameron."

Voices babbled forth at once each tripping and falling over the other in rush to deny the charges. Except for Charles, Charles froze as Lady Cameron stared him down, again, with icy certainty that he was personally guilty. She knew, the clever bitch knew, he didn't know how, but they had all been betrayed.

INSEC must have had a mole in the Party, or maybe his wastrel of a daughter had rolled for more dope. Not that 'how' mattered in the end. All that remained was damage control. Charles glanced at Commodore Yang and shared with him a subtle nod, it was time to extract the remnants of The General's old Kadets from this doomed alliance, and sell the cursed rot-rabble down the river, saving their own families in the process, not coincidently.

Lady Cameron made a dismissive wave at the BlackWatch serjeant in full-plate powered paladin armour, who turned and barked a parade ground order magnified by external loud-hailing speakers and the enclosed room, "Silence!"

"Thank you Serjeant York," said Lady Cameron, "now, yes, now that we have established your miserable sinner lives belong to me, does anyone wish to offer a service to the state in exchange for my mercy?"

"Never! You foul tyrant! The people will rise up against your arbitrary and reactionary government! Do your worst bitch!" Lady Fatimah of Allah stood, visibly shaking in her rage, face flushed in passion, spittle flying, "You forget, my kind are not afraid to die!"

Lady Fatimah continued on in that vein launching into a veritable sermon regarding the historical inevitability of the replacement of the Feudal Aristocracy by the Commercial Bourgeoisie and then in turn that the Bourgeoisie would be overthrown by the Laboring Proletariat, this old labourism was mixed together with proclamations on the justice and inevitability of third world vengeance against Euro-centric power structures and the elimination of all caste based hierarchies.

Lady Cameron started laughing halfway through Lady Fatimah's diatribe, hiding her face behind her fan as if at court or a ball, even as Lady Fatimah's own putative allies cringed and averted their gazes, as if to superstitiously avoid their own contamination from her obviously suicidal descent into open radicalism and treason.

"Ha! Excuse me my dear Lady Fatimah, that was terribly rude and uncouth of me, as your liege and overlord, I should of course take your words with all due respect and the seriousness that they deserve. Serjeant York?" she said, turning to the armored man who had moments before shouted the crowd of progressive lords down, "your side arm please."

"Your Grace!" sounded off the soldier as he snapped to attention and crisply unholstered and handed his liege lady his model of 2711 Arisaka-Enfield photon pistol, butt first, snapping the pistol grip into Lady Cameron's outstretched and black-lace glove covered hand (there was a funeral today after all) in a display of parade ground snap and precision.

"Now," said Elise as she pointed the handgun at Lady Fatimah's face, which went bloodless and white as her eyes crossed themselves as they starred at the blank black eye of the three centimeter self-focusing objective lens, which whirred as it focused, then Elise squeezed her trigger and the heavy service photon-pistol let forth a tremendous echoing crack of thermally displaced air, then hissed with a blast of steam and heat as the powered action cycled and ejected a spent combination coolant casing and heat-sink to tinkle musically on the tile floor, and Lady Fatimah's head exploded like a melon in a microwave, blowing blood, brains, and skull-fragments against the white-washed wall behind her now slumping form, splashing red like an exclamation mark, before the former Lady Fatimah thumped to the floor without ceremony or remark, "does anyone else want to negotiate?"



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



"Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla.

Day of wrath and doom impending.
David's word with Sibyl's blending,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta stricte discussurus!

Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth,
When from heaven the Judge descendeth,
On whose sentence all dependeth.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
Per sepulchra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum.

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
Through earth's sepulchres it ringeth;
All before the throne it bringeth.

Mors stupebit et natura,
Cum resurget creatura,
Judicanti responsura.

Death is struck, and nature quaking,
All creation is awaking,
To its Judge an answer making.
"


Apprentice Daenerys found the hymn the funerary procession was singing to be intriguing, the themes of stark and final judgment and justice facing all and each at each one's end according to their lives, when all scales were at last balanced was something any Sith could appreciate, seeing the prominence the Sith placed on the concept of Justice in their own society. 'Let Justice be done, though Force Quake and Quail' was a common Sith aphorism after all and Justice against the Republic was the Sith Empire's over-riding goal and purpose for being and for good reason.

The somber and solemn rite they were now leaving, processing behind the body of the slain hero carried upon an archaic animal-drawn gun-carriage, escorted by fully power armoured BlackWatch in black surcoats of mourning, had been interesting as well. Purely cultic in function, with no regard given to sentimentality; not in praising the the life of the dead man nor of reassuring the living of their own saccharine goodness by way of meaningless babbling and therapeutic verbal nothings, no, this was chanting the spirit of the dead into the after-life and appeasing the lords of the outer-gates with sacrifices, pure and if not simple, direct. It was something anyone well read on Old Sith rites and practices would easily recognize.

Less interesting and more annoying were the lines of protesters waiting for them as they emerged from the shrine, held back at a safe distance by lines of half-armoured security men with large rectangular transpariplate shields and clubs and further back, waiting in the wings for the word to go, riot gendarmes in heavy armour and what looked like power-assist exoskeletons. The appearance of the Sith in the funeral party seemed to drive the rabble to greater anger, and the Force surged with hatred and fury. Suspiciously regular and obviously machine printed signs bearing slogans like 'Aliens go home', 'No blood for Alien Wars', 'Workers of the Galaxy unite!', 'End hereditary rule! Begin scientific management!' and 'Sith Empire? No thank you!' proclaimed the grievances of the crowd.

Next to Daenerys, in their place of honor right behind the funeral caisson, Lady Cameron pulsed with the Dark Side as she glanced over that the protesters then glanced at Daenerys and said, "Don't worry, this is all part of the plan to flush our internal enemies out into the open, your coming presented an opportunity to do so that would be criminal negligence on my part to pass up."

Daenerys chuckled at that and replied, "Your Grace, I bow to your deviousness, you would have made an excellent Sith."

Elise shared the chuckle with Daenerys before adopting a modest pose, "Deviousness? I think you overestimate my abilities my Lady Daenerys, I merely provided the rash with rope to hang themselves thereby, and motivation to pick it up, their own appetites did the rest."

As they spoke the crowd of protesters surged against the security men as shields and clubs rose up to meet them and a brick or bottle or some other heavy object hit a securityman in the face where his visor had been unwisely lifted, dropping him to the floor of the station where his fellows struggled to rescue him from trampling feet. Whistles blew then, and water hoses and irritant crowd control gas grenades detonated to push the press of protesters back as an improvised incendiary device detonated on raised shields.

"Ma'am?" asked Colonel Carrera, commander of the BlackWatch funeral detachment, marching with them, obviously itching and pulling at the reigns to be allowed to respond to the impertinent provocations of the crowd, "I do believe that is quite enough of the rope, Ma'am."

"Yes Colonel, I do believe you are quite right," replied Elise as a shot rang out and another securityman fell bleeding, "I am hereby invoking the Rush Act by the powers granted to me as Regent for our Hegemon and First Lord Ian, second of his name, by the Emergency Powers Decree of 2766, this unlawful insurrection is to be suppressed by all loyal Star-League forces, the word is MIDNIGHT gentlemen, I say again MIDNIGHT. Now please be a dear, and let us continue our procession in as much peace as we can manage."

"Oohrah Ma'am!" replied Colonel Carrera who after stopping to click his heels and hail his liege, stormed off with his aides to command the next stage of the operation. The heavy armoured INSEC troops began their advance then, not bothering with 'soft' things like CS gas or water cannon, but with smart-rigged belt-fed machine-guns throwing rubber bullets with a solid sound, like cloth ripping right in your ears, rubber-bullet hoses spraying the crowd with bruising and battering and eye-gouging force. Advance teams with electrified neural-maces and short range microwave heat-rays that sent protesters fleeing with burning clothes and second degree burns advanced into the crowd seeking high priority targets to detain. In minutes the open garden square where the procession had first met the protesters was empty of all save the procession and the cameras of the media critters covering the events.

All across the Pentagon Worlds images of the scenes were broadcast, and every channel, even the channels putatively aligned to URF politics, every single channel was proclaiming horror and shock at the outrage of the terroristic rebel scum who would attack the funeral procession of the war-hero, Commodore Purdham, who had personally saved the lives of their Regent and Hegemon and Heir, and fought the vile star-fungus for them all.

Not to mention the Reds bringing firearms and bombs to attack their Lady Regent in this moment of sacred mourning. In hindsight, that moment when every channel stopped it's regular broadcast programming and every channel simultaneously played the emergency civil defense alert, breaking in with the images of rioting reds attacking their Commodore and their Regent, that moment became a foundational 'I still remember where I was when' moment for the whole Star-League-in-Exile, forever sealing the fate of the still-born movement to restore Parliamentary rule and multi-party democratic politics, answering that call firmly in the negative.

All across the Pentagon Worlds, anti-Red demonstrations spontaneously broke out, very few if any of them even benefiting from any INSEC encouragement or guidance, the rage amongst the veterans, which was to say, nearly the entire population was a very real thing. Several riots broke out where known red businesses were attacked, smashed up and even burnt.

INSEC Snatch Teams struck targets on all five worlds simultaneously, decapitating the leadership cadre of the URF party and of their the Red Guards cells, coinciding with a general, if far less kinetic, roundup of known party members. Generally speaking, this round up often saved the lives of known progressive dissidents by snatching them from riotous crowds looking for payback. In the days that would follow, many dissidents would agree to sign loyalty pledges to the Hegemon and read those pledges on air, rather than see themselves sent to general population labor-camps with the common criminal element, who where themselves just as populated by veterans as the general population. No one could claim that Lady Cameron was not Merciful after all.

As she processed with candle in hand, singing, Elise Cameron listened to the reports of each mission success in her ear-piece, and smiled a satisfied smile, like a lioness returned to her pride with a catch, red in tooth and claw.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Andrei kicked in the door to Karl's flat and before Karl could say anything, from where he slumped on the couch enjoying his latest toke, smoke curling above his head, Andrei raised his revolver and shot, twice in the chest, then once in the head. Karl slumped silently after the shots finished echoing, head lolling back, an expression of pure uncomprehending surprise etched on his face.

"Kay!" shouted Andrei then, after making sure of the job by confirming no pulse, "Kay! Come on, we have to go, INSEC is on the way here! We're about to be raided! Kaaaaay!!"

Stalking through the flat he found her in one of the messy flop rooms, stuck half-way to shooting up, rubber band wrapped around her upper arm, giant widened eyes like moon-pies starring blankly at the gun in Andrei's hand.

"Andrei?" she said.

"Yes Kay?"

"Did you just shoot Karl?"

"Yes Kay, I did."

"Why did you just shoot Karl, Andrei?"

"He was a traitor to the Party Kay, he betrayed us all, he sold us out to the Bugs"

"How do you know though?"

"Because I know!" Andrei shouted, "look, we don't have fucking time for this Kay! The fucking Bugs are on their way here right fucking now, we have to go."

"Uhm, ok Andrei." Kay finally started to move, putting away her paraphernalia, putting on pants, running her hands through her hair, and rummaging in the piles of laundry for her flip flops.

"Kay, I need to know, where do we go?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where do we go Kay? Where is safe? I know the Party has a fall back hideout just in case, but I don't know where it is."

"Why would I know that Andrei?"

Andrei Kerensky rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to shoot the floozy in the back, "Because your Dad is a founding member of the Party Kay, because you yourself are on the executive committee."

"Oh yeah, that's a good reason," replied Kay, who paused her excavations of the clothes piles long enough to nod, then resumed her search.

"Kay?"

"Hmmm?"

"Kay?"

"Uhmhmm?"

"Kay!"

"I'm thinking asshole! Oh I remember, they're under the couch! Oh, Karl was on the couch."

"He still is Kay."

"Could you..."

"Fine!" Andrei put his revolver in his coat pocket and threw up his hands, "I'll get your damn shoes, but where are we going Kay? Huh? The streets won't be safe if INSEC is looking for us."

Andrei stomped into the main room and got down on his knees as he bent over to find the cheap plastic floppy foot-ware his 'girlfriend' had left there.

When he didn't see anything he felt his stomach try to make friends with his spine as his balls tried to crawl inside his ass, the hair on the back of his neck stood up as he heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun slide being racked. Andrei closed his eyes and whispered a heartfelt 'Mother-fucker' to himself.

"What are you doing Kay?" Andrei asked with a wince.

"Now I know why you always told me that fucking story trying to get in my pants, you're not my huntsman Andrei! You're the god-damned big-bad-wolf-Kerensky himself!"

Andrei started laughing then, deep belly laughing, it was either laugh or cry at how she had tricked him, and laughing might just confuse her and as he laughed, he started to stand. After a seeming eternity, but really only a moment, no thundering shot came. 'Gotcha' he thought as he slowly looked over his shoulder to get the trembling drugged up lamb in his peripheral vision, she could barely keep the business end pointed at him.

"That's right my little Red riding hood, you're in the woods now, and I'm the Big. Bad. Wolf!" said Andrei as he turned around, spearing Kay with his hungry glare, grabbing eye contact like a predator. Kay winced and took a step back breaking visual contact, glancing away like prey-kine, and then Andrei pulled a little on the immaterium, savoring her fear, stepping next to her in an instant, and grabbed the barrel of the pump action and twisting, ripped it from her hands.

"Do you know why wolves always win Kay?" he asked.

"No" whispered Kay, as hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she clutched a crooked and likely broken trigger finger in trembling hands.

"We hunt in packs Kay, that's why. You could have stepped in anytime there, Major"

"Nah, you have it covered" said the momentarily shimmering dark corner of the room in a disinterested woman's voice, "I'm curious, are you going to shoot her, fuck her, or interrogate her?"

"I'm leaning towards all three Major, to be honest, I nearly shat myself when she got the drop on me, still deciding on the order though."

"Serves you right for getting sloppy lieutenant and for the last time, stop using that damn obsolete hunk of junk revolver. Kay Amemiya Perrault, you are hereby detained by Star-League Internal Security, Section Six. Note I said 'detained' not 'arrested', this is an action under Internal Security and Martial Law decrees. You do NOT have the right to an attorney. You do NOT have the right to a jury trial. In fact, you have only those rights I choose to let you have and as of now, Kay Amemiya Perrault does not exist. Are we clear?"

"Yes," whispered a despondent Kay Perrault who was now realizing her entire world had collapsed around her.

"Now are you going to answer my Wolf's question, or am I going to leave you two kids alone for a minute?"

Kay started talking like she had never talked before.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Andrew Kolchak was finally released from Novy Moscva Capital Police custody with a heartfelt apology along with a nice settlement check for the wrongful imprisonment, after it was determined that Andrei Kerensky, with whom Andrew shared both a physical description and initials, known traitor and commander of the URF Red Guard's organization, had died in the final hold-out of the Party faithful in the sewers under the city. Andrei's burned body had been recovered and genetic and dental records all confirmed his identity. The INSEC 'Hellhound' group assaulting the final red redoubt had not been in a prisoner taking mood it appeared.

After cashing his check, he bought a disposable, prepaid handi from a corner shop, and after activating the thing, dialed a memorized number, entering a touch-tone code at the beep. Then walking down the bright, sun-lit street, smoking a filter-less cigarette, he waited for the return call. His timing was near perfect, and he dipped into an alley behind a noisy but too-busy-for-anyone-to-notice-him auto-shop to take the call.

"Andy," he answered.

"Nick," said the voice.

"How's the weather on Strana Mechty?"

"Dreamy and nice."

"It's done, I won't ask why we did it, burned everything we built, but I trust you, brother."

"It's what Mother said, da?"

"Da, going against them is a curse. You believe?"

"I have seen it bratec. I have looked into his eyes, he is True Tsarevich, of the Old Blood. Back to the Founding and the struggle against the technomancers. It is worth it for that alone."

"Da."

"Now I have knighthood, soon we will restore family to glory, it is good moy mladshiy brat. And you have moved into shadows, unofficial power is unrestricted power, this is good too. You will watch over the family interests from shadows, I will step into light, soon I will be attached to New Ones, this will be good move for family too."

"I miss you brother, and Mother too."

"I know, brother, but we knew the sacrifices when we set out."

"Da."

"We must find who started that rumor that Father was against them."

"What if it's true?"

"It's not! Don't do this Andryusha. We stay the course. Viglio Confido."

"Viglio Confido."

Andrew heard a beep, their time was up, the average time before any call was subject to human scrutiny if the algorithms had determined interesting keywords were used had elapsed.

"God go with you, little brother."

"And you, big brother."

Andrew pressed the end button, then broke the disposable in half, before removing the id chip and stomping on it with his boot heel. He lit another cigarette then, and started walking. He had an appointment to keep at the safe house, and if he was late, the Major would be an even bigger bitch than normal to the fucking new guy.



______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Sir Nicholas Kerensky smashed the disposable handi with a hammer before sweeping the remains into a bag which went to the bachelor's officer's barracks trash chute, which lead straight to an incinerator, the barracks was self-sufficient in power and waste management that way. Then he finished his assigned chores in the botanical garden and greenhouse attached to the B-O-Q before returning to his private if small, closet like room, rather like a monk's cell. Closing his door he opened his footlocker and removed the journal from its place under his folded droidwarrior jumpsuits.

Opening to the end, he found the page he was looking for. He had drawn her purely from memory, after their eyes had by chance crossed that day on the stage. A storm of empyrean power raged around her head like a halo and dragons rode on her shoulders. Her eyes were like lightning flashes, and her hair waived in still air, even without wind, rather, it rode the Aether currents like a living thing. Nicholas wasn't quite sure exactly what happened, only that he wanted her, needed her, that his tutelaries spirits demanded her. They commanded him and her, together. After all, a Khagan-i-Khanan needed a Khagum-i-Khanum as a consort.

Then his trembling hands found his new orders, he was officially TDY to the Sith's Honorguard, where SHE would be. Truly, the Sky Blue Wolves had cornered the deer of fate. And he would be the hunter of it.

"Selah."
 
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Wolf of Arrakis

Active member
Looks like Lady Cameron had destroyed a potential threat but is blind to another more insidious threat truly this is an accurate depiction of autocracy if I ever saw saw one killing the viper but not realizing the dagger aimed at the heart.
 

Wolf of Arrakis

Active member
Why do you say that?
I interpreted that Nicholas Kerensky has plans that are different from the Cameron and with the allusion to the Clans I can't help but wonder if Nicholas Kerensky is truly loyal didn't he go against his father's ideals in the Battletech Universe? Also Andrew Kolchak/ Andrei Kerensky I doubt his loyalty too why would he suddenly betray an organization he help build? Why would he change his identity? Such actions create doubts in my mind? Politics is never clear cut you cannot trust those at your side either.
 

DocSolarisReich

Esoteric Spaceman
I interpreted that Nicholas Kerensky has plans that are different from the Cameron and with the allusion to the Clans I can't help but wonder if Nicholas Kerensky is truly loyal didn't he go against his father's ideals in the Battletech Universe? Also Andrew Kolchak/ Andrei Kerensky I doubt his loyalty too why would he suddenly betray an organization he help build? Why would he change his identity? Such actions create doubts in my mind? Politics is never clear cut you cannot trust those at your side either.

The Kerensky brothers had been actively building up the Republicans as a tool to get to Nicholas’s vision of the Clans, but meeting Ian radically changed his plans, we will see what took place during the meeting of the minds that happened at Nikki’s knighting in a later flashback.

As for burning the identity of Andrei, that was required for staying on at Section 6. It wouldn’t do to have a public avowed Republican on the pay roll. Besides, a clean break with his own past makes him an even more useful and deniable clandestine asset.
 

Wolf of Arrakis

Active member
The Kerensky brothers had been actively building up the Republicans as a tool to get to Nicholas’s vision of the Clans, but meeting Ian radically changed his plans, we will see what took place during the meeting of the minds that happened at Nikki’s knighting in a later flashback.
How exactly is Kerensky going to implement his vision of the Clans? Will the Cameron establishment other than Ian (but that's if he agrees with Nicky's vision) accept this because they clearly have their own designs. I am just asking because I can't see the Clans existing within House Cameron's plans.
 

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