Chapter 12 - The End of the Beginning.

Almark. 14

It had been less than two days since she had been left to her task in the former maintenance bay, with almost forty designers and engineers, each of whom thought they were a better candidate for project leader. The funny part was that she didn't feel even remotely intimidated by the crowds of people who seemed to take a form of pleasure in talking to her like she was an idiot.

Her callsign since she received her wings had been Halfpint. She was small, and she knew she was small. In terms of her ability to physically menace someone to lay down her authority, she was woefully lacking. But that had always been the case. She could argue - maybe even other people could argue - that her recent promotion to Air Marshal was simply the case of every better candidate being dead, but there were two arguments against that: First of all, wasn't that always the case? They were at war; positions were opened up by the deaths of soldiers all the time, and they were filled by the best qualified, still-living person available.

Secondly, that hadn't been the case throughout the rest of her career, and she had risen through the ranks to flight leader through a combination of sheer determination, intelligence, and mental fortitude. Her former wing and those she had flown with in the past had all shown her the reverence and respect reserved only for those who led men in combat. All of them, every pilot and deck crew member she had ordered around, had been a bigger swinging dick than anyone in this room, and all of them had deferred to her. These fuckers wouldn't be any different.

Right now, she was staring down a particularly irate engineer who had decided that she didn't know what she was talking about.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he was yelling. He was one of those who thought, 'he who shouteth loudest, winneth more arguments.' He was an asshole. "These power levels are fifteen percent lower than the broadsword! Our fighters would never be able to keep up with them!"

"And?" she answered back calmly.

"And?" he balked at her. "And? What do you mean, And?"

"I mean that you are trying to make a point, one that I have already told you is wrong, so either you are wasting my time, you think I am not understanding your point, or you think that I am just wrong,"

"All of the above!" He almost screamed in her face.

Emylee smiled. It was one of those smiles an alligator might give a lost puppy. "What is the maximum operating speed of the XF-18 Broadsword in atmospheric flight?"

"1,628mph!" he barked defiantly, as if showing off the fact that he knew that information off the top of his head. "And with your power ratios, the maximum speed of the..."

Almark didn't let him finish; she was in charge, and this fool would understand the gravity of that before he left the room for the day. If she had to embarrass him a little to drive that point home, so be it. "And what is the highest speed ever attained during an actual combat mission? Not the maximum speed on paper, the maximum speed that real pilots use in a real fight?"

The asshole - Johns, or Johnson, or Jameson, or some name being with a J - just blinked at her. She arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for an answer. The look on her face told the man that it wasn't a rhetorical question. "I... I don't know."

"Do you want me to tell you?"

"I..."

"1,285mph." She cut him off again. "And I know that because I was the one who set the record. Do you know the average combat speed over the Battle of the Beach? Not even the ground support portion of the battle, but the actual dogfight." Jack, or Jules, or whatever his name was, stuttered a bit. Emylee didn't give him a chance to demonstrate any more of his ignorance. "It was 938 mph. Do you know why the Imperium wanted the Broadsword to be able to go 1,600mph?"

Jake, or Joe, or whatever, clenched his jaw. "Because, tactically..."

"It's so they could say it could. That's it. It was a publicity gimmick! Are you a publicist or just a fucking idiot!?

"But in space flight, that extra propulsion will be..."

"Completely offset by the lower mass of our design. Engine power, as you should know, is only half of the equation. More mass means bigger engines are needed; it means less maneuverability, slower acceleration times, and longer slow-down distances. The mass of our fighter is..." She arched an eyebrow at him again, waiting for him to answer.

"Lower," he answered with a growl.

"Which means that acceleration, deceleration, and maneuverability will be better or worse compared to the Broadsword?"

"Better."

"And if we added engines big enough to beat the Broadsword's top speed, how would it affect that maneuverability?"

"Speed is life in aerial combat; you should know that!" He snarled at her.

"I asked you a question!"

"Fine, it will reduce acceleration!" He conceded with a growl, "But what does that matter when they are flying rings around us anyway?"

"Us?" Emylee laughed. "Are you going to be in one of these when the shit hits the fan?"

"What? No, but..."

"But nothing!" Emylee raised her voice to match his at that moment. "You are wrong; speed is not life in combat! What matters is the ability to get to that speed, then fire stably and maneuver effectively when you get there. There is no point having a ridiculously high speed when you not only won't ever use it but it'll also reduce your agility and stability as a gun platform on your way to getting there. The broadsword counters that with additional anti-grav engines, but those in turn add..." She waved her hand at him, gesturing for him to finish her sentence.

"Mass," he finally said with a sighed huff.

"Which..." She rolled her hand again to keep him going. "Come on, I know you know it."

"Alright, I get your point."

Emylee took a breath and let it out slowly. "Look, what's your name?"

"Kenneth."

She blinked. She could have sworn his name started with a J, but now that she looked at him, she only had one thought. "Of course it is," she muttered to herself. "Okay, Kenneth, I get it. You have a list of specs here, all these different things the Broadsword can do, and you want to beat them. There is nothing wrong with that. But you know how the Imperium works; everything is a pissing contest. 'Our fighter is the fastest in the Galaxy!' Well, cool, but no pilot in their right mind would ever take it that fast; the fighter would be useless; it can't aim, can't shoot, can't turn, and can't make a blind bit of difference to any dogfight going anything close to that speed. It's a gimmick. I am telling you what our strike craft needs to do to be able to beat it, and that speed, coupled with a lower mass, means that it will outperform any Broadsword in any conditions."

Kenneth nodded, his eyes dropping to the calculations on the holopad in his hand. "What else does the Broadsword overdo?"

It wasn't a sarcastic question. It wasn't even said in a brusque manner. His gaze was locked onto the readout as if a thought had just occurred to him. "What are you thinking?"

"The shields."

Emylee paused. The shields were actually, in her opinion, one of the better features of the Broadsword, it was a point hammered home in spectacular fashion over the beach when she had lost them. There was nothing quite as effective at showing the value of a system as losing it, but... "Go on."

"If lowering mass increases survivability through maneuverability, the shield generator is... really heavy. And I think the beach has proven that relying completely on them in a dogfight is pretty fucking stupid." He blinked and looked up at Almark, suddenly realizing how many of her friends died because of their failure. "Shit, sorry, I didn't mean..."

"It's fine," Emylee held her hand up. Tactful, this man was not, but that wasn't a crime. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"I... think I might. Can you give me an hour?"

Almark nodded. "Works for me, let's see what you can come up with."

"You got it, Boss," Kenneth said absently as he turned and headed back to his workspace. Emylee smiled to herself; it was the first time any of them had referred to her as a superior. She was about to ask if anyone else needed to show her anything, but the door to the hallways slid open, and the hulking mass of Mac stepped into the room.

She had to be honest; Mac had never made her heart skip a beat the first few times she had seen him, but to be fair, between her rescue from her downed strikecraft on the beach, the injury-induced fog of their night in the makeshift fort, and then the pain the early days of her recovery, she hadn't ever looked at him properly... Until she did. It wasn't that Mac wasn't attractive, she just had more important things on her mind. But since she had noticed him, it was all she could see. Just being in the same room as him sent a thrill down her spine. She was self-aware enough to consider the possibility that it may have been a form of hero worship, but the swooning looks on the faces of several of the other women in the room as they turned to look at the new arrival told Emylee that it wasn't only her. She had a man who other women wanted. She had no idea why that mattered to her on such a fundamental level, but it did. The best part about it, though, was that Mac was completely oblivious to it. He simply didn't see the way women looked at him, and - seeing them light up a little as his gaze found her in through the crowded room - he only had eyes for her.

God, that made her hot!

And she was now more than well enough to indulge the carnal need she felt every time she was with him.

She stepped away from the desk and closer to her man... her man, and linked her arm with his. "I'll be back in an hour," she called out to the room of engineers. "Feel free to break for lunch." There were a few affirmative nods, but aside from the swooning women, most didn't even look up. She let Mac turn her and lead her out of the door, then leaned up and whispered into his ear. "I want to suck your cock."

Mac almost tripped over the deck plate as he looked down at her with wide, surprised eyes.

"I have a new office we need to christen," she purred up at him as she guided him in the opposite direction to the elevators and down toward her new office. It was nearby, ideally placed for her role, and close to the team she was working with, so it only took a few minutes of walking to get there. Mac stayed quiet, but there was no missing the bulge in the front of his pants that shook with every heavy step he made. Emylee tried to keep her eyes ahead, but the corridors were busy, and more and more of the female crewmembers passed them by, each of them casting a lingering glance at the hunk she was with. Every new glance made her wetter, made her hotter, made her want him more and more. She could feel her cheeks flushing, she could feel her heart pounding, and she could feel her breathing getting more and more ragged. Jesus, she couldn't remember the last time a man had made her this excited; in fact, now that she thought of it, she didn't think a man had ever excited her this much. She felt like she was in heat.

Mac swallowed hard as Emylee stopped him outside her door, then unlinked her arms with his so she could punch the access code into the locking mechanism. The door swished open, and she stepped inside, her fingers lacing back with his to drag him in behind her. The lights were dim, but it wasn't dark; there was more than enough illumination for Mac to be able to see the passionate fire behind her eyes. "God, I want you," she breathed, shoving him back against the wall and crashing her lips to his. There was a hunger in her, a carnal need; he was her man, and she wanted to taste him, she wanted to pleasure him, and she wanted to swallow him... She sank down to her knees, her eyes never leaving his, but her breathing became increasingly ragged as her fingers fumbled needily at his belt.

She loved the look on his face, the parted lips, the awed expression as his breath caught in his throat, both from the urgency of the situation and the unexpected intensity of her desires. It was clear that tonight was not going to be a simple romantic encounter. This was a fix; he was like a drug to her, and she had held herself back for too long. She wanted to be that woman, the one to totally lose herself to the ambitions of her desires. She wanted to fuck for no other reason than because she wanted to fuck. She wanted to suck his throbbing cock, and swallow his cum, just because she felt that burning need to give him pleasure, to show him how much she wanted him, to show him how fucking sexy she found him.

She had always held herself back; she used to talk - maybe even think - a big game, but she had never followed through. Well fuck that! That Emylee had died on the beach; this was the new Emylee, and she wanted to be unrestrained, free from those self-imposed shackles. She wanted to be free from antiquated ideas about demure women who needed to be led around the bedroom, free from obsolete ideas that women didn't have sexual needs of their own. She was never going to work her way through men like a common whore, that wasn't her, but now that she had a man she trusted completely, she wanted to give all of herself to him... she was going to give him everything.

She deftly undid his belt and then his pants, bared skin to warm air. She looked up at him with a voracious, unapologetic hunger, her eyes full of desire and promise. With a final, hungry glance, she took him into her mouth. She took him deep! She didn't care about the gagging, slurping noise from her throat, one that may have embarrassed her in a former life; all she cared about was the deep, throaty, guttural moan that rumbled from his chest as his head rolled back. She ran her tongue along the underside of him, tracing those veins that bulged out from his shaft. She was well enough to kneel for him, she was well enough to take him like this, but she wasn't quite well enough for sex, not yet anyway, but she couldn't fucking wait for the moment she could bend herself over, or spread herself open for him, or climb on top of him, and take this fucking monster inside her. He was big, he was really fucking big, Mac was a mammoth of a man, and his dick was perfectly proportionate to the rest of him. Thick, long, and powerful. There was no way on God's green Earth she would ever be able to fit all of him into her throat, not without causing an injury to herself, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to make a damn good show of trying.

She started to bob her head, throwing her mouth as far down his length as she could, her tongue swirling and rubbing along his as she did; one hand cradled his full, heavy balls, the other one held onto his hip, using it as leverage to pull herself onto him faster and harder. She was fucking her own face onto his cock, and looking up into his eyes the entire time. This was a blowjob that porn holos were made of; this was dirty, slutty, depraved, and fucking perfect! She wanted him to remember this; she wanted his hand working up and down his whole length in the dark of night, thinking of her like this, at the times she couldn't be there to take him, she wanted to be his fantasy come true, she wanted to be the woman who gave him new ones.

She was soaking wet; she could feel the warm dampness against her thighs as she ground her knees together against the deck plates. During the repetitive, facefucking bobs of her head, her attention had drifted inward; her gaze remained fervently lifted towards him, yet it avoided the direct plunge into his eyes. However, when she abruptly returned to the present by another deep moan from his lips, she discovered his eyes intensely fixed on her.

Yes! That is what she wanted; she wanted to see that lust on his face; she wanted him to be starstruck by her desires and her unabashed wantonness; she wanted to hear his pleasure and see his euphoria, safe in the knowledge that she was doing this to him. That he was looking down at the girl of his dreams, her mouth full of his cock, and nothing on her mind but the unabashed, unrestricted need to get him off. She pulled herself off his cock, panting under the exertions as her hand lifted from his balls to wrap around him, starting to stroke him hard. "Fuck, Mac, I love your cock, I love the taste of you on my tongue. God, I could suck you for hours. Don't hold back, okay? I don't need a warning, I want you to cum in my mouth."

Mac just growled, One of his meaty hands reaching down to grab her hair, and he roughly pulled her back onto him, thrusting his cock back into her mouth. She dropped her hands, both of them, and clamped them behind the small of her back, holding her own wrists as she let him guide her up and down his cock with powerful, determined, dominant movements. Fuck, she came a little, only a small one, just from the sensation of her clit dragging against the soaked material of her panties and from the sheer eroticism of what she was doing to him. She was making him lose control; her Mac, always so reserved, always so gentle, always in such control over himself, a man capable of unspeakable violence, had always treated her like the most delicate of flowers, but now he was pulling her gagging, drooling, frothing mouth up and down his rampant cock with an animalistic intensity. She was making him do this; she was having this effect on him!

She pulled off him again and spat her throat slime onto his cock before looking up at him. "I love you, Mac, I fucking love you! I want you to have all of me; I am yours. Fuck my face and feed me your cum, please, baby, show me that you need me as much as I need you. God, I can't wait to fuck you!"

His eyes blazed wider. "Fuuckk," he growled as he impaled her face back onto himself again. His voice was filled with both lust and astonishment. His grip tightened on her hair, pulling her back onto him with fierce urgency. She moaned around his cock, the vibrations sending shivers down her spine.

With a series of deep, primal grunts, Mac thrust up into her mouth as he pulled her onto him harder, his cock crashed into her gag reflex, causing her to wretch and cough, but she didn't try to pull back. She wanted to take it; she wanted to show him how far she was willing to go... for him, only for him. His cock pushed through it, past in, and slid deep into her throat. The sensation was incredible, like being in a never-ending orgasm, the way his cock jerked, throbbed and pulsed in the tight confines of her bulging throat. She could taste him, the sweet saltiness of his precum smearing onto her tongue every time he pulled her back to the tip before plunging back in deep again. She moaned around him, her eyes pleading for more.

Mac let go of her hair and placed his hands on her head, guiding her rhythm as his hips bucked, thrusting deeper and faster into her mouth. He was getting into it now; he was taking command like she knew he would. He was everything she could have ever dreamed of in a knight in shining armor, and she was determined to be everything she could ever want. She had always been a sexual woman; she was never short of arousal around the right man, but this was the first time she had ever felt like she had really found him. He fucked in harder, faster, and a little rougher. She gagged, but instead of pulling back, she pressed forward, taking every inch of him that she could. She clawed at the rough material of his pants, unable to contain her need for him.

She felt it building, that telltale tightness in the grunts coming from his chest, a hitch to the breaths falling from his lips, an increase in the precum leaking from his cock, and a little more power to the twitches of his shaft in her throat. He was ruining her throat; she knew it would be sore later, but not only didn't she care, she wanted it, she craved it; she wanted Mac to walk her back into that hanger with the taste of his cum on her breath, the flush on her cheeks and the smile on his face, and she wanted all those swooning women to know that she had just pleasured the man that they would never be able to touch. He was hers!

"Fuck, Em, I fucking love you!" he grunted through panted, breathless breaths. "I'm gonna cum!"

Emylee redoubled her efforts, pulling another deep gasp of pleasure from Mac as she took him harder, deeper, and faster than even his hands were insisting on; she could feel his balls tightening up; they weren't quite hitting her chin, but she could feel the weight of them shift as they swung. She felt him hardening in her mouth, bulging more against the tight seal of her lips. She fucking loved the taste of him on her tongue as she moaned out a "mmhmm" onto his shaft.

He stopped fucking in quite as far, no longer stretching her throat but stabbing quickly and frantically and urgently in and out of her mouth. She smiled to herself; she knew what he wanted; she knew he wanted to cum onto her tongue so he could taste him properly. But she had a better idea or at least an amendment to it. She fucked herself on harder and faster, feeling those twitches grow and listening to those gasps getting more raspy.

"Fuck!" he erupted into her mouth with a grunt loud enough to probably be heard in the hallway outside the door. Splash after spurting splash of him spurting onto her tongue. She relished in the taste of him, delighted in it, humming loudly as more and more of him pumped powerfully into her mouth. His prodigious load was as proportionate to the size of his as the rest of his cock was, and her cheeks had to bulge a little to take all of it without swallowing. More and more of him flooded her mouth, bathing her tongue and her tastebuds as she kept her eyes locked onto his.

Finally, he released his grip on her head and let her pull off slowly, sucking hard along the entirety of his length to make sure that every last pearl of him was in her mouth before she looked up at him and opened her mouth to let her see everything he had given her. He groaned loudly, purring as his cock twitched a little more at the sight before she closed her mouth and made an intentional show of gulping loudly, swallowing him all.

"Holy Fuckin' shit, Em, that was... wow," he panted.

"Yes, it was," she purred happily, the cat who quite literally got the cream, "And thank you, I needed that."

"Thank you?" he laughed. "Jesus, wha' d'I do tah deserve you?"

She grinned and stood up, kissing his cheek happily as she tucked him back into his pants. "Oh, you deserve much more than that, and I want to give it to you." She turned and made to saunter off to the room to actually have the lunch she was supposed to be having, but he grabbed her wrist and spun her back to face him.

"I love ya, too, Em."

She beamed happily at him. "Let me get a drink; then I'm going to kiss you." She purred at him

"Aye, lass, that you are."

About forty minutes later, her wish came true, and Mac escorted her back into the maintenance bay, a beaming smile on his face and a flush on her cheeks. She kissed him goodbye before he left, and she headed over to join her team. One of the women who had swooned earlier looked over at her, then to the closing door, before back to her again. "Lucky bitch," she grinned playfully.

"Yup," Emylee grinned back with a wink. "Yes, I am."

********

Michaels. 7

Serge Valdek was many things. He was brave, noble, and tactically brilliant. He was not, however, good at letting down his walls. Michaels had been friends with the man for over a decade before he really saw him let down his guard, really open up, stop being Valdek the Imperium Admiral, the hero of Signus IV, the leader of fleets and warriors alike, and start being Vadlek the man. That first particular night had taken two full bottles of Capricorn Whisky between them to break through the facade. It had gotten easier since then, three decades of friendship had seen the two very different men become the closest of friends. Michaels: passionate, courageous, and authoritative; Valdek: stoic, intelligent, and tactical. The only thing they had in common, at least at first, was the fact that both of them lived to serve and lived to command men in combat. But the age-old saying, older than the stars themselves, was as true now as it was in the earliest days of human interaction: opposites attract.

Michaels was quickly learning that Valdek was a changed man now, though. He supposed that was to be expected. Michaels had dedicated his life to the corps. He knew Marines who had managed to keep a semblance of family in their lives, but being posted away from home for years at a time, the constant fear of death, and the nightmares that came with combat—it wasn't easy. Michaels had never managed it; in fairness, he had never really tried.

Valdek was different. He had not only managed to keep a family in his life, but he had thrived in one. His wife, Danica, had been the one person who had seemed to see through him and break down his walls with a simple glance, and he had loved her completely. Her death, a few years ago from a particularly virulent strain of Marhuvian flu, had been a tragedy, and it had damned near broke the man. But he held it together for their son.

God, he had never seen a man fight his inner demons with the power and ferocity that Valdek had. It was a sight to behold. Michaels knew some strong men; he'd known hard men, but when it came to battling his own mind, Valdek was a force unto himself. As much as Michaels wanted to claim he could match that kind of mental fortitude, he knew damned well that he wouldn't have been able to get close. Battling yourself took a special kind of courage and fortitude, and the Admiral had it by the fucking truck load.

And then the Imperium had killed his son. Danjel was all that Valdek had left; he was the last living link to the man that the Admiral had been when he wasn't commanding battlegroups. It was like his friend had split himself into two people: one side of himself for the Navy, for service, and for the men under his command, and the other side of himself for those he loved. But now, with Danjel's death, that second, more private part of his character had been cast adrift, its anchor to any tangible part of the Galaxy gone forever. If a home was where the heart is, Valdek was heartbroken and adrift. It was haunting to see the man looking so lost.

But every now and then, when the whisky was flowing and the happier memories given voice with loud, rapturous laughter, Michaels could still see the smallest snippets of the friend he thought he had lost.

They'd been drinking for hours. Valdek had given the fleet its orders and retired for the evening, and the Colonel was just killing time until news of Captains Taylor and West's procedure came through. Even then, he didn't have much to do until they got back to Fort Ironholm and Cerberus.

"I remember this one guy, Corporal Williams," Michaels laughed. "We were on a hill during the 3rd Signus campaign when those scaly bastards tried to retake the planet with a strike force... anyway, we were on this hill, completely surrounded, cut off, and it was the middle of the night, pitch fucking black. We were starting to run out of ammo; it was looking pretty dicey for a moment there. We were getting ready for the next attack; we knew it was coming, when Williams suddenly jumped to his feet, ran over to the latrine area, and came back with his arms full of bottles of piss..."

"Piss?" Valdek snorted. "Why would you piss in bottles?"

Michaels blinked through eyes swimming in Whisky. "'Cause it was a small area, and you don't want to lay in piss... obviously. So you piss in a bottle and shit in a hole and bury it."

"Why don't you bury the piss?"

"Hole's not deep enough; it soaks back to the surface, and you do not want to spend a night laying in a puddle of it.... Anyway... Williams runs back over and starts dumping these bottles next to everyone on the firing line. There were fifty of us, and we'd been up there for a week; there were a lot of bottles. The whole platoon is just looking at him like he's gone fucking crazy, full-on section-eight. But just as I'm about to ask him what the fuck he's doing, we hear the roar. You know the roar, those lizard bastards used to bellow like fucking animals just before they charged, lethal fuckers if they got up close, but at least they were kind enough to let us know they were coming." Michaels could barely speak through the ripples of laughter. "So we hear the roar, and Williams picks up one bottle and just fucking launches it toward the sound, and I mean a proper baseball pitchers throw, he fucking hurled thing as hard as he could. Just as he does, we see them charging out of the brush, the bottle smashes right in front of them, and I shit you not, all of them turned around and dove for cover."

"What? Why?"

"They thought they were grenades!" Michaels howled through his laughter. "I'm not joking; that lucky bastard managed to hold off a whole company of battle-hardened Khuvakian warriors, for an entire night, by throwing bottles of piss at them!"

Valdek snorted out his own laugh. "How did they not know?"

"They don't piss, do they. They just sort of... secrete everything. All they knew was that we threw things at them; they blew up and killed them. So when that cocky bastard started throwing things at them, they weren't chancing it and dove for cover."

"Oh, that is brilliant!" Valdek joined his friend in his riotous laughter. "Okay, Okay, I got one. I had this lieutenant once, training to be bridge crew... so she would be left in charge of the command deck for the graveyard shift."

"Overnight?"

"Yeah, well, assuming nothing was expected to happen." Valdek nodded after taking another sip of his whisky. "Bowen, I think her name was. Lieutenant Bowen. Anyway, she used to talk to the ship, like full conversations, when she didn't think anyone was around to hear her. I caught her a few times when I was coming out of my ready room or coming off a late-night conference with command, and I would just sit there and listen to her for a little while. It was oddly soothing, just hearing her talk about her day, it was like she used the ship as some sort of confessional or maybe like a journal."

"What sort of things would she say to it?" Michaels asked, mirroring his friend's swallow of the amber nectar.

"Oh, I can't really remember. Silly things, like what she had for lunch or some gossip she heard around the mess, just normal everyday stuff. Anyway, one night, she's on shift and.. I don't know; she must have accidentally knocked the control to the ship's internal announcement system, meaning she was broadcasting everything she was saying to the entire ship's company."

Michaels laughs. "Oops."

"Oh, it gets better. The topic of discussion that particular night was a crush she had on a certain commander in her section, and a very vivid, very detailed, very graphic description of the things she wanted to do to that man."

"Oh shit, noooo."

"Oh yes. And to make things even more awkward, the commander in question was married... and his wife was the ship's comms officer."

"Holy fuck, she heard it?"

"Every word.... While they were in bed together."

Michaels had to put down the glass he was laughing so hard. "Oh my god, I need to stop, I can't breathe," he almost sobbed through the laughter. "What happened to her?"

"Unsurprisingly, she requested a transfer. Last I heard, she was serving on the ISS Ardent."

"A Destroyer? That's a bit of a step down from the fleet flagship."

"I don't think she was fussy about where she went," he laughed.

Michaels chuckled and shook his head. "That is crazy. Okay, so, we were in the middle of the trials for the 381st, and there was this Sergeant..."

He was interrupted by a chime from Valdek's holo-terminal on the other side of his office. The men both frowned at each other; it was the middle of the night, and there was no reason for them to be contacted unless something was wrong. Valdek climbed to his feet, strode around the desk, and tapped the icon to answer the call. "This is Valdek," he said imperiously, any sign of the alcohol gone from his voice.

Michaels couldn't see the screen, but he could clearly hear the flustered voice of the young lady on the other end of the line. "Um, I'm sorry to bother you, Admiral, but you are receiving a priority transmission on your private channel... from Earth."

"Private channel? Earth?" Valdek's confused look shot up to meet Michaels. They both knew that all but a handful of people on Earth thought he was dead. "Do you know who the transmission is from?"

"No, Sir. But it is marked as coming from a Mr. A. Friend."

"A friend?" Valdek pondered out loud, clearly curious about the caller's identity. "Lieutenant, Is there any way the call can be tracked if I were to accept it?"

"No, Sir, with all the scrambling and encryption protocols we have on the system, it would take a week to discern our location, so if you were to keep the call short, you would be safe."

Valdek nodded and set his tumbler down on the desk. "Alright, Lieutenant. Put it through."

********

Adam. 10

Okay, even he had to admit, he had outdone himself this time. He was currently sitting at a public access terminal in the main city library of Marakesh. There were no cameras here, not that they would be able to pick them up if there were, but he didn't want to take chances. As far as the records showed, he was still sitting in his office, thousands of miles away, at this very moment, and he had used the same trick as before the abduction of Sandra White to pull that off. But that wasn't where he had impressed himself.

He had found Valdek's number. It had been hard work, trawling through years upon years of comms logs to find the only frequency to have called both Danica and Danjel Valdek, but never the Admiral, at times when the Admiral wouldn't have been able to use a standard comms channel. Say, for example, during a comms blackout preceding an operation. It was the equivalent of someone finding his cell number, the phone he used to call Jenny. It wasn't impossible, but they would need to be damned sure of what they were looking for to have any idea where to look.

Adam had found it, and, from an isolated desk inside an almost deserted section of a seldom used public library, using every administrator access he could think of to mask the call, he opened the channel.

Weird things happened in the Ansible relay system, things he didn't quite understand, but much like old Earth's cell towers, each relay knew what frequencies were connected to it, and no matter how far away it was, it routed the call to that number in a heartbeat. His access codes let him bypass every single type of firewall and security block that existed within the Imperium network, all he needed was the supposedly dead Admiral to answer the call.

After an agonizing few minutes, his self-doubt growing with each passing second, the face of the cautious-looking Admiral Serge Valdek shimmered onto the screen. There was a pause as both men stared at each other. Adam tried to mask the surprise that this had actually worked from his face, while his counterpart made no attempt to hide either the recognition or the immediate suspicion from his.

Adam didn't pay too much attention to the plain, austere wall in the background of the call or to the tumbler of whisky perched in the man's hand. Instead, he held the Admiral's eyes with a mix of steely determination and solemn respect. "Admiral, thank you for taking my call. I'm very glad to see that the rumors of your death have been greatly exaggerated."

Valdek's voice was cool, laced with wary anticipation. "Mr. Doncaster," he said cautiously. "A call from the head of the ISD is the last thing I expected to happen today, and, as you can imagine - considering you know that I'm alive - I am not on good terms with any of the Imperium agencies, least of all yours."

Adam knew that convincing Valdek would be no easy task, but the stakes were too high not to try. "Admiral, I'm not here on official ISD business, and at this point, if they ever found out I made this call, speaking to you would be the least of my concerns."

"I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean."

"Last week, one of my agents was killed after investigating the unauthorized access of the Quartermaster's report for the Goliath Battlegroup. That was the fleet that transported the 381st Marine Division to Vallen."

"I know what fleet that was; I was on Vallen when they attacked."

"Then you know as well as I do that whoever accessed that file tipped you off, told you that the marines were coming, and gave you the comms frequencies and equipment shut-off codes, allowing you to massacre the entire Division."

The Admiral looked like he was going to say something but stopped himself, glancing at someone behind the interface before returning his attention to Adam. "And I suppose you want me to tell you who that person was. The ISD are losing their touch if they are resorting to these sorts of tactics."

"Actually, I already know who it was. In investigating my agent's death, I discovered that Minister Sandra White was part of that conspiracy. She threatened my family, so I killed her."

"She's dead?" Valdek blinked.

"Her state funeral is next Tuesday if you'd like to tune in. I know the entire council was behind this treason, and I know you and the rebels were put in an impossible position of kill or be killed. She was very forthcoming about the whole thing when given... proper encouragement. So as you can tell, with her death on my hands, my speaking to you is the least of my concerns when it comes to the Imperium finding things out. But that isn't why I'm contacting you."

"I'm listening," Valdek said, though the set of his jaw suggested a skepticism that would not be easily dislodged.

"This is not the first time they have done this. I know you already know about the 8th Defense fleet, and you have my deepest condolences for the loss of your son," Adam waited for a moment to let Valdek's suddenly tensed jaw relax a little. "They have done it before that, as well, but I am still investigating that part."

"Then why are you contacting me, Mr. Doncaster? I feel you are dancing around the point of your call."

Adam paused and slowly nodded. "You know about the situation on Orpheus, yes?"

"Of course."

"Last week, the order was given to evacuate the planet, a refugee fleet will be leaving there in the next few days. The Imperium is going to destroy it, along with all four million civilians on board."

"What?!?" Valdek balked, his eyes almost popping out of his head. "Why the hell would they do that?"

"Because they're not seeing the enlistment numbers, they need to escalate the war and retake the Spiral Arm. Hell, they still haven't even hinted to the general population that there is a full-scale rebellion at all. They are saying there are only isolated pockets of malcontents. The council is convinced that this is because all the atrocities carried out by the rebels..." he bounced his fingers in air quotes for the last part of that sentence to show he knew that wasn't true, "... have all been against military targets. They think a massacre of civilian targets would be enough to enter a state of total war."

Valdek leaned forward, eyes steely, his voice tinged with suspicion. But there was no hiding the look behind them. He knew that this was certainly within the realms of possibility, but the suspicion he held for someone in Adam's position was impossible to overlook. "So you want us to stop them."

Adam paused, then sighed, before nodding again. "I don't know of any other way to stop this happening."

"Go public."

Adam snorted. "They would have me and my family killed before they even bothered to quash the story. It would never see the light of day, and you know it."

"How do we know this isn't another trap? We received the intelligence about the Vallen attack from the Imperium, too. How do we know this isn't an attempt to lure our fleet somewhere so it can be destroyed by those four battlegroups you've sent after us."

"There aren't four battlegroups," Adam countered. "There are only three, and only one of them is up to full strength. That is why they need civilian enlistments. They have the ships, but they don't have the crews to man them. And to answer your question, you don't know this isn't a trap. Admiral, I'm going out on a very narrow limb here, but this conspiracy needs to be stopped. I can only do so much from the inside. To put it simply, I need your help, and we need to trust each other."

The tension between them was electric, a palpable force that filled every syllable of speech. Adam operated on a thin thread of trust, one that could snap with a single misstep. He reached inside his coat, slowly extracting a data chip and slotting it into the terminal. "I'm aware of how this looks, but I'm risking my position—and my life—to bring you this. It's everything I have so far. I'm not expecting blind faith here; I know how this looks. But if we are going to bring down the Emperor, then we need to work together."

Valdek's chair scraped against the metal floor as he rose, not breaking eye contact and leaned over the desk. Adam managed to suppress an eye-roll. The standing, physically intimidating pose used throughout his career was markedly less effective over a comms channel. "That, or you're setting a trap. And they're your bait." The Admiral repeated.

Adam hit the icon to send the files to Valdek, his own posture unflinching. "I understand your suspicion, but consider what I stand to lose. The Emperor doesn't take kindly to dissenters, much less ones who betray their own ranks. They wouldn't just kill me; they'd make an example of me."

Valdek looked down at the screen for a moment to quickly glance over the files. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because it's the right thing to do... and I want to be able to look my girls in the eye one day. That's already hard enough with all the shit I have on my conscience."

"Hmm," Valdek nodded.

A thick, heavy silence settled on the conversation as Valdek tried and failed to make Aam blink first. "Do you consider yourself to be an honorable man, Mr. Doncaster?" Valdke finally asked.

"I try to be," Adam answered honestly. "But I have been asked to do a lot of very dishonorable things. If those things were in service to a lying, manipulative, evil bastard of an Emperor, then I have a hell of a lot of atoning in my future. But this is a good first step."

"By doing this, you will betray everything you love. I know; I've been there."

"With all due respect, Admiral, but no, I won't. My family is all that matters. I have justified a lot of the shit I've done by telling myself that I'm making the world a better place for them. By doing this, I may actually be right about that, possibly for the first time in my career."

Valdek sighed a little and nodded his head. "I will take this information and your warning to the rest of the rebel leadership. The final say rests with them. How do we contact you if we need to get in touch?"

"I have included my private frequency in the data packet. It's my version of this channel, but it's not always on. If you leave a message in advance, I will make sure I am available any time you need to talk. Otherwise, leave a message from "A Friend," and I will contact you as soon as I get it."

"Okay, Mr. Doncaster. Lets see if you are as honorable as you claim. We will take this under advisement, but we will not tell you our plans if we decide to act. We won't put ourselves in a position to be ambushed."

"Whatever measures you deem necessary, Admiral." Adam nodded.

Vadlek regarded Adam for a few more moments before nodding. "Okay then, in that case, I will speak to you soon, or not."

"Good luck, Sir. And make them pay."

********

Laura. 11

Lycander smiled at her, offering her the same respectful bow of his head as he had done on the comms channel. With him were the rest of the command staff of the Mariner fleet. Lycander was the commander-in-chief, but he didn't necessarily hold a rank; he was in charge, and that was that. Beneath him in the chain of command - and following behind him now - were the five of seven.

To the uninitiated observer, the dynamics of the Mariners' command staff would seem perplexing. It wasn't that the concept was overly complicated; rather, it was a title that seemed anachronistic, belonging to an era thought to have passed. Still, the tradition endured with obstinate tenacity. In the tumultuous period following the Mariners' secession from the iron grip of the Imperium, they had fractured into seven distinct armadas. Each one charted a divergent, circuitous path, their courses converging toward a predetermined rendezvous point just beyond the reach of Imperium control. Tragically, two of the seven fleets met with catastrophic demise, caught and massacred by Imperium battlegroups, extinguishing tens of thousands of Mariner souls. Recovered records later unveiled a grim truth - the Emperor had branded every soul aboard those fleets as betrayers of humanity. His decree was merciless: every individual, regardless of age or innocence, was to be executed, and any hope of salvation in the form of escape pods was to be obliterated with the vessels from which they launched. Blissfully unaware of this dark edict, the Mariners held their position at the rendezvous for as long as possible, persisting in hope until necessity drove them to relinquish their guard and push further into the cosmic abyss.

The revelation of the lost fleets' fate emerged over the course of wearying years. Throughout that time, the spaces reserved for the fleet Admirals at the Mariners' command council remained solemnly unoccupied - a silent homage to those who would never return. History saw the now-five fleets often navigating in solitude, disconnected by the vastness of space. Yet even in separation, unity was maintained through leadership. The Admirals tasked with guiding the orphaned fleets had the solemn responsibility of occupying those five hallowed seats on the council, a poignant reminder of their duty and the sacrifice of their fallen kin.

So that was it; that was why they were called the "five of seven," a simple, harsh reminder that almost a third of their number had paid the ultimate price for their defiance of the Emperor, that there had once been seven fleets, and the five who remained were each tasked with command of one of the remaining five armadas. But it had been more than a century since any fleet had operated separately from the whole, which had become even more crystalized with the discovery of the Primis. So single-minded had the Mariner command been about securing this ancient hulk that any talk of splitting the fleets and wandering the stars - as their forebears had once dreamed - was now akin to heresy.

Lycander, to his credit, was the only one of the six delegates who didn't look like his eyes were about to fall out of his head. The other five were staring around in gawking wonder at the sight of the Primis - or at least the closest thing they could imagine to the Primis - in full working order. Clean and lit, its long hallways filled with fresh air and quiet, the almost imperceptible humming of machinery operating behind impeccably clean walls and beneath immaculately clean floors. You could almost feel the excitement of a million different questions emanating from them. If you had ever seen those old-earth animated shows where the guy's eyeballs change to dollar signs, you would understand the yearning on their faces. Not for monetary greed but for a thirst for the power that Laura's ancient friends could imbue into them. To be fair, the name of their cohort was literally a reminder about the dangers posed by the forces that still fled, so security was one of their primary concerns, but even Laura - remembering her own wide-eyed wandering through these hallowed hallways - had to admit it was a little distasteful to look so openly... covetous. Desperate even.

"It's.... Magnificent," Lycander whispered to nobody in particular as he reached out a hand and took one of Laura's, shaking it firmly. "You have no idea how much of a service you have done for the Mariners with this, Laura. I am so proud of you. I know your Grandmother would have been, too."

Laura smiled and nodded, grateful for the compliment while casting a look back at Admiral Belzec. She had taken the seat on the five after the death of her Grandmother about three years earlier. That had been the impetus for her leaving the confines of the Home Fleet and reaching out to the stars alone. Admiral Belzec represented the start of Laura's new life, one she loved very much and one that had seen her clearly achieve more than any other Mariner before her. But she also represented the loss of a woman who had been the only family Laura had ever known.

"Thank you, commander. It is an honor to serve."

Lycander snorted. "Spoken like a true acolyte, but we both know you are far beyond don't we, commander?"

Commander, the use of ranks in the Mariners wasn't really a thing unless dealing with the very highest members of authority. Acolytes were children, intoned with the same mantra over and over for years until it became instinct. It was an honor to serve, to contribute to the collective, to be part of something bigger than yourself, and it was a mantra she believed in with every fiber of her being. But he was right; the answer had been automatic, something that she thought she had to say, and less what she actually felt... because what she felt was pride, and pride had no place in a collective that was as close as family. Their wins were your wins, and yours were theirs. Your losses were shared by everyone; there was no "I," there was no "Me," there was only "Us," and it was that sense of community, shared goals, and mutual support that had been the bedrock of her character for as long as she could remember.

Laura smiled self-consciously but nodded. "Sir... The Atlas... It's... it's beyond anything we could have imagined." She could feel that giddy rush of excitement bubbling up inside her as the full magnitude of her discovery finally had the chance to see the light. She glanced back at the Five, each of them offering her a deep, respectful bow, but none of them interrupting her. They were as eager to hear what she had to say as Lycander was. The Commander-in-chief offered his arm to her and she took it, turning him and leading him toward the nearest of the transporter rooms.

"Err, isn't the bridge that way?" he asked, looking over his shoulder. He was right, it was that way, but he was about to be just as surprised as she had been to find the matter transporter was a thing.

"I know a shortcut," she grinned.

He shrugged and turned back to her. "So, I want to know everything. Tell me what happened."

She spent the next twenty minutes excitedly giving her boss a fairly abridged version of what had happened over the past few weeks. Obviously, she spent far less time on the part of describing digging into the cavern on Xnios than she did recounting the small, devastatingly fast battle against Commodore Hillman's fleet in the planet's orbit. She could see her superiors practically salivating at the prospect of that sort of firepower under their control, even a reverse-engineered variation. Their eyes bugged out of their head when they learned that they had made a two-week journey in less than three days and the fact that all of it was controlled by some sort of control helmet.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt, however, when they reached the transporter room. "Oh, of course, the elevators will be working. I'm so glad; I'm not sure my knees were looking forward to all those stairs," Lycander joked. "I'm not as spry as I used to be." he nudged her with his elbow. She just grinned and pressed the button to open the door and let all of them step in before her.

She watched, she had to, she had to see what it was about her face that Wu had found so amusing the first time she had been shown this particular function of the ship. She pressed the button.

The door swung back open and she stepped out again.

She stood there and watched them, the same expectant look on her face as Wu had worn. "Err, the elevator hasn't moved yet," Lycander said slowly.

"You sure?" she looked around her at the obviously different corridor than the one they had left. "It looks like we're in a different place to me."

Lycander's jaw fell open as he saw she was right. "But..."

"Matter transfer," she grinned. "There are loads of rooms like this around the ship, you can transport from one end to the other almost instantly."

"Oh my god, its a teleporter!" Belzec gasped.

"Mmhmm,"

"Can it transport us back to our ship?"

"No, don't be ridiculous, Do you have any idea how complicated that would be. You'd be reconstituted as soup," she laughed, paraphrasing the words Wu had said to her when she had asked a very similar question. "Sorry," she giggled at the dumbfounded faces of her bosses, "I asked the same thing, Master Wu found it very amusing, I'm starting to understand why."

Lycander, showing his qualities as a leader, laughed too and then stepped out after her. "This is truly incredible."

"Honestly, Commander, this is a convenience, the sleeping pods are a convenience..."

"Those platforms in the cabins are for sleeping?"

She nodded excitedly, "The real stuff is so much more... more. And the Ancients, Elijah and Wu, they're just... Please, I know I am in no position to dictate policy, and I have been asked not to say anything which, in the spirit of cooperation, I have agreed not to, but please, listen to what they have to say. A friendship with these people will be a game-changer, it could tip the scales of power in the galaxy... in our favor."

"You are quite impressed with them, aren't you?" Lycander grinned, clearly finding her excitement to be contagious.

Laura matched his smile as they arrived outside the captain's ward room. "I think you're going to be as well."

********

Elijah. 7

Elijah stood as the Mariner delegation entered the room, Wu—his mentor, guardian, and maybe friend—following his lead. Whether Wu was actually following his lead or whether he was just slower to his feet than Elijah was a different question entirely. Elijah seemed to have an innate understanding of where authority lay between them, but putting that into something like a more practical mental framework was another matter entirely. He knew, for example, that as the senior military and political representative of the Ancients, or at least of the crew of the Atlas, the negotiations were his to conduct. But as Guardian, Wu was responsible for any and all technological relics left behind by their distant ancestors, meaning he would be the one to determine the value placed on them, and what he would be willing to trade in return for them. Wu was also responsible for deciding who was and wasn't allowed aboard the ship, which meant he could, in theory, kick the entire delegation out of the nearest hatch on a whim and would be perfectly within his rights to do so. That decision could only be superseded by Elijah if it pertained directly to a matter of war or politics.

Okay, both of those caveats applied here, but the arrangement still clashed quite jarringly with Elijah's instinctive knowledge of the military hierarchy within the Imperium, where a senior officer held sway over a lesser one, no matter the subject of the disagreement. It was an extreme version of "stay in your lane," it made no sense whatsoever to him, but somehow, it worked.

"Commander Lycander, Please, have a seat," He said as Laura let the six of them take their respective seats, and the whole room sat down as one. "It's good to meet you in person."

"And you, Marshal," Lycander bowed his head deeper than he had done to Laura on the comms calls. It reminded him of the Uhmwaan's pillar of respect. Bows went up the ranks, a nods or simple acknowledgments went down it. Lycnader was indicating with that gesture that he saw Elijah as an equal, and that was certainly one of the better ways to start this conversation. He returned the bow, just as deep, just as formally, and for just as long, and silently congratulated himself for picking up on the importance of the gesture when Lycander smiled widely. "I hope this can be the start of a mutually beneficial and prosperous relationship between our peoples," Lycander finished.

"As do I, Commander."

"Please allow me to introduce the Command staff of the Mariner home fleet, the Five of Seven..." He unfurled his arm toward the assembly of individuals flanking him, each poised with a gravitas born of command. Elijah exchanged a glance with Laura, his eyes infused with silent questions about the cryptic nomenclature. In response, she offered him a knowing smile and a conspiratorial wink. Either she - or someone - would hopefully explain it later.

"This is Admiral Tanya Belzec," he began, indicating a formidable woman with steely gray hair cut just above the shoulders. Her sharp turquoise eyes reflected life navigating the stars. Her uniform bore the weight of numerous accolades, hinting at countless achievements and sacrifices.

"Next to her sits Admiral Kofi Olangua," the introductions continued as a poised woman of imposing stature acknowledged the gesture. Her skin was the color of dark mahogany, her bearing unyielding as the ancient trees of her homeworld. Her eyes, dark and perceptive, scanned the room, missing nothing.

"To her right is Admiral Heinrich Cublies," he gestured toward a broad-shouldered man whose hair was a disciplined brush of platinum, his posture as meticulous as his neatly trimmed beard. His expression held the calm of the ocean's depths, but his eyes spoke of the storms they've weathered.

"Beside him is Admiral Yang Lantz," the name assigned to a man whose face was etched with the strategic acumen of his many years. With hair like ink cascades and eyes like sparks from an anvil, his presence was a silent testament to a life dedicated to strategic mastery and the tutelage of future tacticians.

"And finally, Admiral Kseniya Bettleheim," concluded the speaker, directing attention to the last of the quintet. A woman whose red hair was a battle standard unto itself, flowing freely down her back. Her piercing gaze, the color of winter ice, promised strategy and resolve as hardened as her experience in the toughest skirmishes.

Each of the five Admirals bowed their heads in turn, a synchronized yet individually styled gesture of greeting. They were a mosaic of leadership, remnants of a substantially larger force whittled down to these five pillars—guardians and guides of the Mariner fleet, each bearing the legacy and burden of the armadas and flagships they represented.

Each individual before him wore the distinguished marks of extensive experience; their faces etched with lines drawn by time, battles, and the weight of command. Elijah was acutely aware of the gap in years between himself and these seasoned officers. A subtle unease knotted in his stomach as he considered his youth—his journey to manhood just beginning while theirs was well-trodden and mapped by scars and stars alike.

Elijah attempted to quash the disquiet, to force down the rising tide of self-doubt. Yet, as he stood amongst these decorated soldiers, their collective gaze settling upon him was humbling. How had he, still lingering on the shadowed, hazy threshold of his own manhood, found himself in the esteemed company of these battle-hardened veterans?

Yet, despite the self-consciousness that vied for a foothold in his mind, he could not disregard the unmistakable glint of respect in their eyes—respect bordering on reverence. There was a tangible air of intrigue as they observed him, a testament to his unique position and the extraordinary opportunity that lay before him.

Their stares were not dismissive, as one might expect when addressing one so green; instead, they held him in silent regard. It was as if his presence alone commanded a deference typically reserved for the most seasoned of warriors, and this acknowledgment from such esteemed company fanned the embers of confidence within him.

It was a strange and peculiar sensation. He simultaneously felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be, commanding fleets, men, and nations. Yet, at the same time, he was acutely aware of his age.

Elijah inclined his head in acknowledgment, committing their faces to memory. These were the hands that helmed the Mariners' might, the Five of Seven—an enigma he intended to unravel. But for now, his attention turned back to the Commander-in-Chief.

He cleared his throat. "This is Guardian Wu," he gestured to the man sitting on his right. The aged, bearded warrior bowed his head in quiet respect to the Mariners but - like the five - said nothing. "He is the Custodian of all Ancient technologies in this part of the Galaxy. He will also be the man responsible for the tests that will need to happen before a decision can be made as to reactivate your powercore or not."

The Admirals shared an uneasy look with one another, but Wu held up his hand. "Please rest assured, my esteemed friends. The agreement was for us to reactivate the power systems on the Primis, if possible. But therein also lays the caveat. I suspect I don't need to tell you that the powercore on that ship is capable of producing unimaginable amounts of energy. If the core has been damaged in any way at all, the explosion resulting from trying to reactivate it would obliterate everything within about three lightyears, including your entire fleet. Before I can commit to upholding our end of the bargain, i would need to conduct the relative tests first."

"And, um, how long would those tests take?" Admiral Lantz asked.

"About twenty minutes should do it," Wu smiled.

Lantz snorted out a relieved laugh. "And here I thought you were going to say it would take years."

"Oh, no," Wu shook his head. "I suspect that it just powered down. The Primis is, by outward appearance, in very good condition, and those power cores can take a fair amount of punishment before critically failing. No, this is more of a case of being better safe than sorry. I'm sure the Denizens of your fleet would appreciate not being vaporized." He finished with a teasing smile.

"That is more than acceptable, Guardian Wu," Lycander nodded with a smile. "In return for your assistance in that matter, I have drawn up a comprehensive list of every item found in Ancient Vaults since we have been collecting them. I apologize, but we didn't know what a lot of them were, so we have put pictures in place of those parts that we didn't recognize." He slid a holo reader across the table to Wu, who eagerly picked it up and started scanning through the contents, the occasional smile pulling at his lips.

"You see this one?" he laid the pad back down and spun it around to face Lycander and tapped on one of the entries. "Collected from a comet, designated X41-c?"

"Yes?"

"That is the schematics for a toaster."

There was a pause and then a ripple of laughter echoed around the room. "Rest assured," he went on, "there are several things in there that would be of use to us. But most of them we would be happy for you to keep. What is of particular interest to me, however, is the contents of your hangar bay."

"Ah yes," lycander nodded. "We have long suspected the Primis has a hanger, but have never been able to access it."

"Well, no," Wu shrugged. "The power to the pressurization system and blast doors would have been lost when the power was shut down. God himself wouldn't be able to get into there."

Lycander nodded, looking a little more thoughtful. "You suspect there are ships in there,"

"I do."

"And these ships, like the rest of the Primis..."

"Are completely beyond your ability to use, Yes." Wu nodded.

"Are we sure about that?" Belzec asked, leaning forward onto the table a little.

Wu paused for a moment and turned to face the Silver-haired woman. "What you need to understand, Admiral, is that despite outward appearances, you and I are of entirely different species. The only way to interface with either the Primis or any of the ships in the hanger would be through one of our Neural interface helmets. But please, don't mistake aesthetics for function; the biochemical makeup of our brains couldn't be more different. If a human, any human, were to put one of those helmets on and try to use it, they would die the most horrific kind of death. Please do not take this warning lightly."

"If you would excuse my forthrightness, Guardian Wu," Admiral Olangua said. "What use is reactivating the Primis if we cannot use her."

"That is a good question, Admiral. The way I see it, there are two benefits. First of all, the systems will be active, meaning a much greater understanding of how they work. I was very impressed with the quality of your reverse-engineered components on Laura's ship, the Seren. I can assure you that those systems would have been, and, indeed, will be, much more potent if you were able to see them functional when redesigning them for your own production methods. You must understand that, as it stands, we don't have access to our own means of production yet, either. So your ability to make comparatively accurate reproductions of our systems is very impressive indeed."

Olangua seemed to think about this for a movement, before nodding. "Moreover," Wu went on, "You have shown a remarkable ingenuity when it comes to interfacing your systems with ours, the fact that you have managed to apply your own form of power to individual terminals on the bridge, for example, is nothing short of astonishing. It is my belief that if we were to gift you one of our helmets - under the sincere promise you wouldn't try to use it in a direct interface with the Primis - it wouldn't take your scientists long to find a way to make a suitable workaround to let you use it safely. Unfortunately, not being human, we can't help there as much as we would like. But that will take time, and time is something we don't have in great abundance."

If she looked understanding before, Admiral Olagua looked positively excited after Master Wu's speech.

"If I may ask," Lycander said after the interchange between Wu and the Admirals had run its course, "What do you plan to do with the ships in the Primis's hanger? In the long term, I mean."

Master Wu and Elijah shared a defining glance, their silent communication perfected through mutual understanding and respect. With a subtle nod from Wu, a signal of support and silent encouragement, Elijah found the resolve to rise. Standing tall, he faced the Mariner commander, his voice steady and imbued with the weight of history and the burden of truth.

"Our present conflict," Elijah began, anchoring his gaze to that of the Mariner commander, "originates with the Emperor." He paused, gathering his thoughts before delving into an abridged version of their complex past. "The Ancients have a rich and expansive legacy—one that spans eons and galaxies. To condense an epic into mere words is... Difficult, but suffice it to say that our once-glorious civilization was ravaged by a cataclysmic civil war that sundered our people."

He continued, his eyes reflecting the depth of the history he conveyed. "A divide cleaved through the heart of our society, with our faction choosing a path of enlightenment, an evolution to exist as higher beings upon an ethereal plane-to ascend. Many attained this noble objective, transcending the physical to embrace a new form of existence. In an act of hope, we seeded our essence throughout the stars with aspirations that, someday, our lineage would flourish anew. Our dream was to shepherd emergent civilizations away from the errors that led to our own downfall, to put an end to the blight that is war."

The commander's expression was a tableau of vigilance as Elijah's account unfolded, his words painting the long-lost portrait of Ancient plight.

"However, our adversaries, they envisioned a divergent path. Their doctrine demanded that transcendence be a prize for the select few who proved themselves in battle, who seized their ascension by force of arms, they believed that only the worthy be granted the ability to rise to that higher plane. This philosophy, driven by conquest rather than introspection, insatiable for power, they spiraled towards self-destruction, dragging the last vestiges of our civilization down into oblivion alongside them. It led to the almost complete destruction of our people"

Elijah drew a steadying breath, the gravity of his following words requiring a steeled composure. "When you found the Primis, it had been deactivated and was floating adrift, yes?" he waited for Lycander to nod numbly. "The Atlas was different, the remains of the crew were still on board. Those people were among the last of our faction and they recorded what happened after people like Wu and I ascended, information that I have recently discovered. There were traitors within our ranks, they passed word of our plans to reseed the Galaxy onto our enemy. They, too, disseminated their essence across the cosmos, not to cultivate peace, but to fuel conflict. Their intent is to rekindle ancient wars, to sculpt a galaxy where only those deemed 'worthy'—through their twisted criterion of strength and domination—may claim the right to ascend, or even exist."

He locked eyes with Lycander once more, his gaze unflinching and resolve palpable. "We have come to believe that one such traitor, a being who carries the sinister legacy of our adversaries, now wears the crown of the Imperium. The Emperor, we suspect, is the heir to that destructive ambition."

Lycander and the rest of the group, Laura included, had their jaws hanging open and looked at him in astonished disbelief. But it was Laura who spoke first. "Well, that explains a few things."

"His need for endless war," Lycander nodded solemnly.

"And his merciless pursuit of anyone he deems as unaligned with his cause," Belzec added.

"He labeled the Mariners as traitors, just for the crime of wanting to be away from the wars and to just explore." Cublies added with a nod.

"The other two of the seven," Lanz murmured with a reverence Elijah still didn't understand, but this time his glance to Laura was met with a heartbroken shake of her head.

He put that question aside for later and turned his attention back to the gathered Marnier leadership. "Our conflict is not merely with the Emperor; it's with the very ideologies that led to the Ancients' downfall. He personifies the danger of repeating our ancestral mistakes," Elijah asserted with a quiet intensity, his every word underscored by the urgency of their predicament. "This man, this entity, sees galactic turmoil not as a tragedy to avoid, but as a divine mandate. He yearns to carve his will into the fabric of space, indifferent to the inferno that his ambitions might unleash upon the stars."

Lycander furrowed his brow, his strategist's mind grappling with the scope of the challenge. "I find it puzzling, then. How is it the Emperor remains unaware of the Primis, the Atlas, and the myriad of relics we've safeguarded? With such zeal in his quest, he should be fervently pursuing these artifacts to bolster his cause."

Master Wu interjected, his explanation effortless, cloaked in the wisdom of age. "Because he doesn't know about them. He—" Wu paused to emphasize the importance of history, "—or rather, the ancient incarnation of his being, had already transcended before our war concluded. The strategy to hide away these vessels was designed in the war's final days. There were only a few, like me, who knew about them. I was one of the last to have his essence spread. The Emperor has long believed that all was lost with the demise of our civilization. At least, that was his assumption until the skirmish above Xnios—I imagine he certainly knows now."

A flicker of curiosity crossed Laura's face, prompting further inquiry. "But doesn't this change the situation? If he knows about the Atlas now, why wouldn't he be hunting them, all fire and brimstone like?"

Master Wu shook his head, a faint smirk betraying the cunning that lay beneath his unassuming exterior. "To harness these ancient tools, one must wield the Ascendant's touch—akin to the ability that rests within Elijah. The Emperor, should he reveal his capacity to interact with these relics, would have to expose his ascended nature. That is a risk he cannot afford to take. His power lies with being seen almost as a God. Not just another member of a long lost race."

Olangua leaned forward, a tactical mind behind her questioning eyes. "So, he is restrained by his position." She pondered in understanding.

"His ascension grants him power but at the expense of isolation," Wu explained with a measured tone, his hands clasped before him in calm repose. "He could, theoretically, operate the vessels. Yet doing so would require abandoning the sanctuary of his palace and revealing his true nature. He thrives on the veneration of his subjects, who view him as a near-divine figure. To step forth as an Ancient—one of us—would be to crumble that carefully crafted facade."

Lycander absorbed the thread of the narrative, the gears of his mind visibly turning. He nodded, a silent acquiescence to the layers of complexity in their unfolding chess game against a hidden king—an adversary bound by his own secrets as much as they were by theirs. He had spent decades in the Yridian Nebula, treating the existence of the Primis with the same guarded secrecy as the Emperor had done with his identity, so it was a complexity that he understood all too well.

"Forgive me for asking this," Bettleheim spoke up. "But you say your faction wants peace, yet you seem determined to go to war."

Elijah nodded and turned to face the woman, making sure that she understood the full gravity of his response. "War is already here, Admiral" he answered simply. "His tyranny is real, we all already know that, and we all know his thirst for conflict. The simple fact of the matter is that we have the ability to stop him. And, according to our culture, those who have the ability to end war, even through the use of warfare itself, have the responsibility."

The question hung in the air, its weight settling in the silent space of the room. Lycander's gaze was intent, seeking an anchor in the vast sea of galactic politics they were navigating.

Elijah met Lycander's inquisitive stare, his own eyes steady, signaling the seriousness of their conversation. "You're undoubtedly aware of the recent turmoil in the Spiral arm?"

With a slight tilt of his head, Lycander conveyed a cautious recognition. "We've heard fragments, rumors, and official reports from the Imperium's feeds - nothing substantial."

A knowing smile crept across Master Wu's face as he exchanged a conspiratorial look with Elijah. The corners of his eyes crinkled mirthfully as he spoke. "The Imperium has been quite industrious with their narratives. Their propaganda minions have been earning their overtime payments with that one. But the reality," he paused for emphasis, "is a different beast entirely."

Elijah watched the reaction play across Lycander's features as Wu's words took root. "What the holofeeds omit," he said, "is the scale of the unrest. The rebellion is not a series of isolated skirmishes as they'd have you believe. It's a burgeoning revolution, one that's gaining momentum with each passing day. We plan to support their cause, to empower them, and to take this war to the Emperor."

Wu's eyes twinkled with shared resolve. "Yes, and we hope to extend an invitation to you, to the Mariners. Your fleets are formidable, and you have your own history of grievances against the Imperium. We ask you to consider standing with us in this."

Elijah continued, his voice underscored by a palpable determination. "We aim to unite the disparate threads of resistance into a grand alliance of opposition against the Emperor. Moreover, we seek to reveal his transgressions, to illuminate the truth for the people he rules over with lies, manipulation, and murder."

For a moment, Lycander remained silent; contemplation etched across his seasoned face. Then, slowly, recognition dawned in his eyes - an acknowledgment of the profound implications of their strategy. His eyes flicked to Laura. A grand alliance could indeed change the course of history, and, with it, the fate of the galaxy.

"Like I said," Laura grinned at him. "It's a game changer. It's what we've been waiting for."

"If we were to win, we could guarantee our freedom," Belzec mused. "And with the Primis active and able to move under her own power, we could get back to exploring the Galaxy."

Lycander nodded, appearing to indicate that the entire command staff were in agreement. "Marshal, you must understand, we are not a warlike people. But..." he flicked a look to each of the five admirals, all of them returning his glance with an almost imperceptible nod. "But... we have been running in fear of our lives since before any of us were born. Before any or our parents were born. That has to end; and if an alliance with you and this rebellion is what it takes to earn our freedom, then we will be proud to call you brothers-in-arms."

"Excellent," Wu grinned, banging his palms onto the table and standing himself up. "Now, I'm sure we can leave you fine people to hash out the finer details," he grinned and looked over to Laura. "Miss Dondarion and I have a date with a certain power core that needs to be turned on and used thoroughly."

Laura almost choked on her tongue, then snorted out a loud laugh.

"What?" Wu smirked playfully. "Something I said?"

********

Laura. 12

"Okay, Be honest with me," she said to Wu as she watched him examine a small part of the Powercore's lower cylinder. "How high are the chances that turning this on is gonna end up being one of those 'we are gonna need a new galaxy' kinda deals?"

"You are looking at it in entirely the wrong light, my dear," Wu replied. She couldn't see his face, but she could certainly hear the smile on his lips. "I prefer to think of it as witnessing our own big bang." He pulled himself up straight and stretched his back out a little, "But fear not, young one. If I accidently create a new universe, I will name the first planet I find in your honor."

Laura laughed. She was getting the hang of Wu now. It was like the old man needed to know exactly what was expected of him, so he could do the opposite, and he was on more than good terms with anybody who didn't question it. Leaving the negotiations, Laura imagined that everyone there - with the possible... possible... exception of Elijah - had expected Wu to bargain over the minutiae of the deal between the Ancient and the Mariners, securing valuable relics before even considering restarting the core, and he had done the opposite. He didn't give a shit what the Mariners had found over their vault raiding years; all he cared about was the possible contents of the hanger, and restarting the core was the only way to get into it. So he had done the absolute bare minimum required to make it look like the relics were important, then left the others to deal with the fine print while he went after what mattered. "Well, as touched as I am, I'd rather not be remembered as half of the team who fucked this universe up in the first place, so if it's all the same with you, can you not blow us up, please?"

Wu grinned as he headed over to a lifeless console beside the core and tapped the empty screen a few times. "I shall endeavor to keep the cosmos as intact as is within my power to do so. Besides, creating universes is a job with no weekends. Just ask God."

"I'll be sure to do that next time we bump into him. But if there are no weekends," Laura smirked, playing along with the joke to hide her building excitement. "Think of the overtime pay! You would be set for life. Just imagine it, you could set yourself as the market leader in no time. 'Master Wu's cosmic creation services. Rearranging your reality, one big bang at a time."

Wu turned and looked at her with that mirthful grin. "You have put far too much thought into this. But I like the way your mind works. My commissions would be astronomical!"

Laura chortled at the pun. "Just make sure you don't bankrupt the whole Home Fleet. I have to live here. Although bankrupting it would be preferable to obliteration."

"Nope, sorry, I'm afraid you've already exceeded this millennium's budget," he grinned as he started looking over the conduits that ran between the console and the core. "But not to worry, if this blows up in my face, my fee is on the house... well, inside the house, around the house... the house would be in several billion pieces around us. Hey, Maybe we'll create a new dimension. That would be something new and a hell of a story for the grandkids."

"Wait, so if we end up in an alternate dimension, do we get a discount rate for returning customers? Or..."

"Oh yes, absolutely. We're running a sale at the moment. Two-for-one. Accidentally visit one parallel universe and get a second one free." she chould see his shoulders rocking a little.

"Okay, well, as long as we don't get lost."

"Stick with me, young one. I never get lost; my sense of direction is flawless. Mostly... usually... but... on the slim chance I am wrong, I'll just ask a wandering blackhole for some directions. They seem to know how this trans-dimensional travel malarkey works."

"Sounds like a good enough plan to me."

"Excellent, hold on to that optimism, Miss Dondarion; we may very well need it. Are you ready?"

"Me?" Laura laughed. "I'm just standing here."

"Excellent. Then let's get this baby purring and see if we can avoid any extracurricular transdimensional travel or cosmological creations."

"Already?" Laura gasped, pulling herself from the wall and glancing around at the nervous-looking Mariner scientists who had crowded into engineering to watch history being made. "But..."

"What? I told you it would take about twenty minutes."

"But it's only been ten!"

"Well, yeah." he shrugged, "We had to get here too. There's your other ten. You seem confused. Do you need a calculator?"

Laura blinked at him and then rolled her eyes. "Fuck it, Light her up."

"Oh, to answer your question," he grinned as he opened a panel at the base of the core and started pressing seemingly random buttons, "the one about our chances? I'd say 50/50"

"Wait.. what?"

Wu pressed a final button and then stepped away from the core to stand next to Laura. She was about to say something but was cut off by a gentle but rapidly growing hum from the core.

The core stood there like an impassive sentinel, a gleaming metallic cylinder measuring two meters in height and half that in width. Crafted from an inscrutable metallic blend akin to the ship's hull, its purpose was to animate titans of the stars with unimaginable power. Laura's gaze rested upon it, her mind grappling with the surrealism of the moment. The sheer idea that this inert structure could warp reality's fabric to propel gargantuan vessels like the Atlas or Primis defied comprehension. And she was about to witness the first activation of one in eons. Humanity and the planet that birthed them hadn't even evolved the last time this had been attempted.

She puckered her brow as she recalled the fruitless attempts Wu had made trying to explain the core's operational tenets to her during their journey here. His explanations were rich with metaphors of cosmic synergy and quantum entanglements—like attempting to interpret the complexities of hyperspace harmonics to a herd of cattle. The disparity between the concepts she was equipped to grasp and the technology before her was vast and unfathomable, a chasm that even language could not bridge.

Laura felt a growing knot of anxiety within her. She stood amidst a sea of scientists—each a master of their field, yet all equally spellbound by the enigma of the core. The dim spotlighting of the room accentuated the solemnity of their vigil. As the humming began to emanate from the ship's interior, it tapped into a primal intuition of impending significance, sending vibrations coursing through the decking into her body. It was an odd sensation—neither the core nor the room itself vibrated, but it felt as if the essence of the ship was quickening, coming to life after eons of stillness.

The Primis was stirring.

Her heart pounded in resonance with the building chorus of hums and vibrations, every increase in volume amplifying her anticipation. The viewing window on the core, previously dark, flickered to life as the first speck of light pierced the gloom. It gleamed with an otherworldly brilliance, a single star emerging in the night of the room. Another speck of light appeared, then another, joining the first in a celestial array that expanded rapidly until the window transformed into a mosaic of radiant pinpoints.

As if signaled by some unseen conductor, the lights began a deliberate dance, orbiting and weaving amongst themselves; Laura's nervousness bloomed into awe. The choreography of illumination enchanted the spectators, a prelude to an awaited cosmic symphony. Their motions became increasingly intricate, a galactic ballet staged within the confines of the window. With each rotation, her sense of wonder grew, turning the anxiety into a distant memory. She would like to say that she couldn't look away, but in all honesty, she didn't try.

Amidst the charged silence of anticipation, a signal—imperceptible to the uninitiated—seemed to ripple through the room. In response, the lights converged, each once-isolated star in the viewing window joining in a unison of luminescence. They gathered into a breathtaking spiral, crafting a vortex of light reminiscent of deep space phenomena—a whirlpool that epitomized the forces of creation and the unbridled energy of celestial bodies.

This hypnotic convergence was punctuated by a crescendoing whoosh, a sound akin to the breath of the cosmos itself, heralding the power core's awakening. Then, as if the universe had exhaled through the core, a rapturous beam of brilliance burst forth, a radiance that seemed to carry with it echoes of ancient suns. It spilled into the room, a vivid testament to the potential that had laid dormant within this relic of a bygone era.

In the wake of this luminous exhalation, lights throughout the expansive engineering bay stirred from their slumber. One by one, they flickered on, as if warming to the touch of newly awakened life. What had begun as mere points of light grew into a steady glow that cascaded across the chamber, banishing the shadows to mere figments at the edges of the room.

The very fabric of the bay seemed to inhale the light, surfaces coming into sharp definition under the newly born illumination. Complex conduits revealed themselves against the walls; long-unused instruments displayed their readiness; the faces of fellow scientists, previously shrouded in dimness, now shone with expressions of shared wonder and triumph.

For the first time in eons—far surpassing the span of human history—the chamber glowed not simply with the artificial light of machinery but with the resurging heart of an Ancient civilization. It was as if time itself had reversed, allowing the ship to reclaim its rightful place among the living, functioning vessels plying the cosmic sea, and every one of the Mariner scientists in the room felt it as one, breaking into cheers and applause of triumph and gratitude. For most of these men and women, life about the powerless Primis was all their professional lives had ever known, and they were witnessing, firsthand, more progress being made in a few minutes than had been achieved in the past forty years.

Laura, enveloped in the burgeoning light, felt an indescribable lift within her spirit. The majesty of the moment swelled in her chest—a confluence of the past and the future, of promise and legacy. This was more than mere technology at work; it was the dawn of a new chapter in the galactic annals. The chamber, which had so long stood silent and forsaken, now pulsed with a vigor that hummed through the very air.

It was a testament to an epoch-making leap for humanity—a step into the light of ancient days, an embrace of the stars that had silently witnessed their journey thus far.

She turned to gawk at Wu. The old man just nodded in satisfaction, turned on his heel, and left engineering. Laura smiled to herself, she knew exactly where he was going. With one last look around the newly living and breathing engineering bay, she skipped after him.

Wu was standing by one of the transporter rooms, eyeballing the door. "Moment of truth," he said as she stepped alongside him.

"You mean that wasn't it?"

"Well, yes, but it's a really long way to walk if the transport system is down."

"How will we know if it's down? Wait, it's not going to reconstitute us as soup, is it?"

"No, don't be ridiculous," he smiled mirthfully. "The doors just won't open."

********

Histories and Lore

The Khuvakian wars, a complex tapestry of skirmishes, battles, and extended sieges, spanned the volatile expanse of the Imperium-Khuvakian border for a relentless eighteen years. These conflicts, varied in their scale and ferocity, etched themselves indelibly upon the landscapes of numerous worlds and the psyches of those who bore witness. A common theme of conversation, when talking to veterans of those brutal conflicts, will be to compare a recent battle to the time spent fighting in the Khuvakian wars. A simple, yet profound distinction is often made in these reminiscences: It wasn't as bad as Signus. The Khuvakian wars - the titanic battle on Signus IV in particular - are now seen as the height of cruelty, violence, and suffering.

A prevalent myth woven into the fabric of the saga holds that the ultimate showdown happened amidst the celestial ballet above and the ravaged terrain below Signus IV, declaring it the climactic crescendo of these harrowing times. However, this interpretation is far from accurate. While the battle was indeed both cataclysmic and titanic—its scars visibly strewn across the planet's surface and its debris clouding the once-pristine orbit—its aftermath was not the herald of peace that many believed it to be.

Much like an epic poem, the Khuvakian wars' narrative was subject to various interpretations depending on whose voice recounted the bloody stanzas. To some within the Imperium, these years of strife and bloodshed stood as a testament to humanity's indomitable spirit and superiority—an age where the military might and strategic acumen of humankind overcame the alien threat at each of those disputed star systems. They adopted the stance that the wars embodied human strength and resilience, with each victory in the vast theater of space carving a deeper notch of supremacy into the annals of Imperium history.

Conversely, there exists a deeply entrenched counter-narrative, one that pulls the curtain back to reveal a less glorified view. Critics of the wars—philosophers, historians, and astropoliticians among them, malcontents all—highlighted the brutal exchanges as the epitome of humanity's intrinsic penchant for violence and conquest. The countless lives lost to the vacuum of space and the planets razed in the name of victory were seen not as heroic tales, but as dark chapters of a species unwilling or unable to outgrow its barbarous predilections, desperately clinging to the rationale of "us versus them." Supporting this narrative is the undeniable fact that it was humanity who were the aggressors, and the imperium who encroached onto sovereign Khuvakian soil, and fired the first shots.

The discourse surrounding the Khuvakian wars thus remained divided, a perpetual battle for the moral high ground in the collective consciousness of the survivors and their descendants. Whether one saw the resolution of the wars as a cause for exultation or a somber reflection on the inescapable propensity for conflict, it was irrefutable that the galaxy had been irrevocably altered in its wake. The echoes of those years reverberated throughout star systems, leaving a legacy that would influence interstellar relations for generations to come.

The genesis of the Khuvakian wars followed the all-too-familiar path of historical conflicts: a quest for expansion. The relentless mark of Human expansion had pushed outward from the Hudson Expanse for generations, and it was only a matter of time before this unstoppable march of progress brought the forces of the Imperium into first contact with the enigmatic and equally ambitious Khuvakian Assembly.

Popular renditions, sculpted and sanitized for public consumption, have often glossed over the true nature of the initial interactions between the two civilizations. However, buried beneath layers of political redaction and propaganda lies a startling truth - the nascent stages of the relationship between human and Khuvakian were not only cordial but surprisingly harmonious.

Politically, the empires mirrored one another with uncanny resemblance. Each was a staunch pillar of autocracy, with civilizations rallying fervently around their central figures. The Emperor of the Imperium was as much a monolith of reverence in human space as the Khuvakian Primarch was within the domains of his species. In the eyes of their citizens, these leaders were elevated to an almost divine echelon, infallible and venerated.

Borders, despite their frequent role as kindling for conflict, were delineated with a surprising degree of mutual respect. Peaceful exchanges were not just possible; these early days saw them flourish. Several trade agreements, pioneering in their spirit of interspecies cooperation, swiftly took root. Each exchange was a testament to the potential for unity and understanding—a potential that, tragically, was destined to remain unfulfilled.

At the heart of this budding camaraderie, however, lay a geographic anomaly that would later prove to be the crucible of contention: an unusual protrusion of Khuvakian territory into the sphere of Imperium dominion. This bulge marked not just a boundary of land and space but also the fragile line between cooperation and animosity. It was this contested wart on the face of the map that would gradually inflame tensions, a sobering reminder that in the cold calculus of territorial politics, even the smallest of slivers can unravel the delicate weave of diplomatic interactions.

This strange territorial quirk, innocuous though it might have seemed at the outset, would come to represent the thorn in the side of Imperium-Khuvakian relations. For within its ambiguous borders and contested space, the seeds of rivalry and misunderstanding were sown, germinating silently beneath the surface of what was once a promising field of mutual respect and shared interest.

Or at least, that is the common narrative spun by politicians and politically correct historians these days.

The truth surrounding the origins of the burgeoning conflict is far more complex and nuanced than most denizens of the galaxy might have been led to believe. Unbeknownst to many within the realms of the Imperium at the time, the Khuvakians had long ago—three centuries before their fateful meeting with humanity—staked their claim on a lone, verdant planet within the contested expanse. It was one of the first planets colonized by the reptilian race when they had made their own first tentative reach for the stars. This world, which would later become known to all as Signus IV, had been a beacon of Khuvakian civilization; a jewel in their interstellar crown nurtured by time and undisturbed seclusion.

During the formative stages of the burgeoning Imperium-Khuvakian relationship, as the cartographers and diplomats of both empires huddled over star maps to define their zones of influence, the Khuvakians demonstrated an unexpected magnanimity. They willingly retracted their sphere of influence, offering concessions along dozens of light-years of frontier in a bilateral gesture many parsecs beyond what was expected. Every parcel of star and stone save for one—a planet whose roots in their heritage and whose importance to their society rendered it non-negotiable.

Signus IV was this inalienable exception. It lay ensconced at the heart of the Khuvakian bulge into the Imperium zone of influence, a necessary preservation in a galaxy of constant veritable rearrangements. The fact that the Imperium had, at that juncture, expressed no avarice toward the world, blissfully content with the territorial demarcations, warranted no contention. It is now a matter of heated - if secretive - speculation that the Emperor allowed this geographical anomaly to go uncontested so he may use it as the pretext of war at a later date. One of the major pieces of evidence for this, or so the doubters claim, is a distinct lack of publicly accessible, contemporary star maps that show the existence of the Khuvakian Bulge - as it became known - from before the war. This meant that, a few decades later, when the Imperium council declared that Sigmus had been aggressively occupied by the Khuvakians, despite it being on Humanity's side of the border, nobody knew any differently.

As the ink dried on treaties and the shimmering beacons on star charts crystallized into legitimate borders, Signus IV emerged as a symbol of intergalactic potential. Prosperity bloomed in the shadow of mutual ambitions—a testament to what two distinct species could achieve when they converged in a spirit of amity. The planet's urban landscapes became canvases painted with a palette of interspecies design; its markets, an intricate dance of xeno-economics, thrived on the exchange of not just goods but cultural riches and ideas. It was here that humans and Khuvakians, amidst the flourishing of trade and the collaboration of art and science, envisioned a future defined not by dominion or subjugation but by shared aspiration and collective success.

Signus IV's arcadian veneer and the rich tapestry of interspecies relations it nurtured only served to heighten the tragedy of conflict that would later engulf it. It stood as a poignant reminder of what could have been—an era shaped by unity rather than divided by war. This beacon of cooperation and prosperity would ultimately become one of the war's most fiercely contested battlegrounds, its potential as a paragon of unity instead devolving into a crucible of despair.

Six decades of prosperous peace followed the initial establishment of borders, with Signus IV standing as a monument to the spirit of collaboration between human and Khuvakian. Yet, in a turbulent political landscape where rumblings of civilian discontent were historically silenced by either further oppression or the presentation of a foreign enemy, the engines of war are never fully silenced. Tensions simmered beneath a veneer of diplomacy and mutual benefit.

The abrupt severance of this delicate peace came in the form of a shocking declaration from the Imperium's Emperor, a proclamation that thundered throughout human-controlled space with the grave tenor of inevitability. His edict stated unequivocally: war was upon them. The reason, brandished for public consumption, claimed an aggressive and unprovoked occupation of Signus IV by Khuvakian military forces—a blatant act of hostility that was purportedly intended as a jumping-off point for a broader campaign against human territories.

Yet, this sweeping declaration of hostilities did not sit well with a segment of the population, an enlightened and well-traveled cross-section who had personally experienced the tapestry of peace woven on Signus IV. Merchants who plied their trade on the docks of the planet, academics who debated within its hybridized institutions, xeno-biologists who explored its rich ecosystems, and linguists who bridged the communication gap whispered amongst themselves. These individuals, along with historians who treasured the collaborative past and assorted professionals who engaged with Khuvakian counterparts, knew the truth of the matter far better than the narratives spun by the cunning threads of the state.

The Merchants Guild, with its expansive and intricate web of trade routes and dealings, found its merchants in particularly stark opposition to the fabrication. Its members bore witness to the reality on Signus IV, rejecting the notion that a harmonious hub of commerce and cultural exchange could abruptly shift gears into a fortress of war. But whereas the merchants valued peace and trade, the guild itself knew that with war, came profits.

Yet, despite the murmurs of dissent, the bulk of the Imperium's citizenry, many of whom never glanced beyond the simplified star maps or the daily streams of Imperial newsfeeds, absorbed the deceit. To their untrained eyes, the territorial "bulge" of Khuvakian space was an abhorrent sword pointed at the heart of their sovereignty, a clear provocation painted in hues of danger.

Through the dark arts of propaganda and politicized falsehoods, alongside careful misdirection and strategic deception, the Imperium Council skillfully executed a masterstroke of psychological manipulation. They galvanized an entire species, pouring the foundation for their narrative on the bedrock of fear and nationalist fervor. The Khuvakians were imprinted in public consciousness as the duplicitous 'other,' a shadow hanging over the future of human existence—an existential threat par excellence.

In this climate, the complex and nuanced reality of interstellar relations was lost, submerged beneath the overwhelming tide of jingoism and paranoia. As the drums of war began their perilous cadence, the beleaguered flame of peace was snuffed out, leaving a galaxy braced for the relentless encroach of battle and bloodshed that was to ensue.

It wasn't the first time humanity had gone to war as a united species, but it was, by far, the largest single mobilization and deployment of human military forces until that point.

Contrary to the grandiose tales of explosive beginnings that would later define its history, the onset of the Khuvakian wars was a decidedly less dramatic affair. The conflict stuttered into existence, a dissonant symphony marked by a scattering of sporadic and uncoordinated naval engagements. These early clashes sparkled like scattered embers across the vast expanse of the frontier, a harbinger of the inferno that was to follow.

The Imperium and the Khuvakian Assembly may have shared similar political structures and ideologies, but the thread of similarity was abruptly severed when it came to technological prowess. The Khuvakians, having poured centuries into the intricate ballet of atoms and photons, boasted exceptional advancements in laser technology. This mastery gave birth to a fleet outfitted with shipborne weaponry of fearsome precision and destructive capability, far eclipsing the more conventional ballistic arsenal wielded by human forces. In tandem, they had synthesized shield systems of formidable resilience, confident that no projectile could penetrate their luminescent bulwarks.

Despite the sophistication of their armaments, the Khuvakian fleets possessed achilles' heels that would prove catastrophic in the theater of war. Their ships, designed with a heavy reliance on shields, prioritized power supply over propulsion—rendering them ponderous beasts against the more agile vessels of the Imperium. Moreover, their hulls, sacrificing density for the sake of energy efficiency, were vulnerable carcasses beneath the layers of shielding.

It was, however, the comparative scarcity of Khuvakian ships and soldiers that cast the longest shadow on their strategic outlook. In every instance where conflict erupted, across the void of space or on the terrain of contested worlds, the technological supremacy of the Khuvakians allowed them to dispatch Imperial ships in a maelstrom of efficiency. The data was undeniable—three-to-one kill ratios favored the Khuvakians consistently, a testament to the lethality of their expertise.

Yet, it wasn't enough. The Imperium fleets, although technologically outclassed, swarmed the stars in squads that dwarfed their foes by factors that bordered on incredulity. Where one Khuvakian vessel faced off against up to seven Imperial counterparts, killing three of them was a testament to the technological acumen, but it still left another four to cast their predatory gaze upon it. On planets' surfaces, the disproportion only magnified; small, lethal Khuvakian companies often found themselves charging into battle against a force a hundred times its number..

With each encounter, the human forces suffered horrific losses, the vacuum of space and alien soil alike drinking deep from the cup of Imperial blood. But that only served to reinforce the narrative that the Emperor presented to the public: that the Khuvakian menace was butchering human forces at catastrophic rates and that they would do the same to every human planet in their fictitious invasion path if they weren't stopped here. Nevertheless, unyielding in the face of these appalling sacrifices, the vast quantities of men and machines at the Imperium's disposal pressed on. They buried the technological marvels of the Khuvakian war machine under wave upon unforgiving wave of relentless, inexorable force. This unstoppable flood of numbers was to become the thematic dread of the war, foretelling the dark and costly nature of the extended conflict. The crushing weight of humanity's legions proved to be an immutable reality—one that would systematically suffocate the fires of Khuvakian resistance, battle by bloody battle.

In contemporary retellings, the battle of Signus IV has often been mischaracterized as the final event in the sprawling saga of the Khuvakian wars; the ultimate battle that saw humanity triumph over a common enemy and retake a strategic planet ager a cowardly invasion attempt. Reality, however, speaks to a more complex and enduring struggle. While the conflict on Signus IV did crescendo to an apocalyptic clash, it was far from the final chapter. Indeed, the battle was of such magnitude that it shattered the Khuvakian military to its core, breaking their backs in the process, it merely represented the zenith of the war's brutality up to that point rather than its conclusion.

The battle etched its legacy into history as a gruesome testament to the devastating extremes of warfare. The Imperium's victory was both grotesque and Pyrrhic, exacting a toll that scarred both victor and vanquished alike. Signus IV, once a symbol of interspecies cooperation and fertile ground for xeno-economics, was left desolate and broken, its potential destroyed by the ravages of conflict.

Yet, the Khuvakians remained undeterred, their resolve unextinguished by their crushing defeat. What the Imperium had assumed would be a conclusive blow only served to ignite the embers of defiance within the Khuvakian Assembly. They may have lost their first offworld colony, but they were - and indeed still are - determined to take it back. With a tenacity born from the ashes of Signus IV, the Khuvakians launched not one, but three major counteroffensives in a desperate bid to reclaim the planet that held such significance in their celestial domain.

Each subsequent attempt to recapture Signus IV bore the hallmarks of their indomitable spirit, although each was ultimately doomed by the mounting attrition they had suffered, both materially and in morale. The Imperium, battered yet unwavering in their numerical superiority, repelled the Khuvakian onslaughts with grim determination. The scale and ferocity of these engagements not only emphasized the strategic importance of Signus IV but also underscored the dogged tenacity of the Khuvakian warriors even as they faced increasingly insurmountable odds. Moreover, each successive counter attack was used by the Imperiums propaganda department to reinforce the idea that the Khuvakians, not humanity, had been the primary aggressors, the orchestrators of the war, and they were solely responsible for the enormous loss of life that humanity had suffered.

The follow-up battles raged with no less intensity than the initial cataclysmic conflict, albeit on a smaller scale, adding layer upon layer of tragedy to the tapestry of Signus IV's history. Though the Imperium's grip on the planet tightened with each Khuvakian defeat, the cost in life and treasure spiraled with uncontrollable abandon, redefining the concept of "victory" into a term hollow and filled with grief. As such, while Signus IV did emerge as a pivotal event in the war's narrative, it became clear that it was not the concluding note of the orchestration of violence—it was but the harrowing prelude to a drawn-out, brutal conflict that continued to unfold across the stars.

It has been forty-three years since the opening of hostilities yet the war - at least on paper - still remains unresolved. The Khuakians may be broken militarily, at least in so far as their ability to launch a large-scale invasion, but they are far from beaten. It is unknown if there have been any overtures of peace made between either party, although it seems unlikely. The Imperium still paints the Khuvakians as a hostile presence on their northern border, using their proximity to justify ever-increasing levels of militarization throughout human space, and the Khuvakains have vowed to retake their sovereign soil back from the menace that is the Imperium, and then exact a toll in blood from humanity for the betrayal and death suffered at their hands.