Hello all,



So, while classes and other college work has kept me too busy to really be that active here on the forums, I have at least been picking away at my stories. And, while I wouldn't say it has been improved exactly, I have added some more stuff to "Dust and Honor." So, here you all are.

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The headquarters of the Imperial Navy was a buzz of activity. Reports were streaming in of an invasion of one of the United Empire’s outlying colonies. Intelligence officers were accessing every scrap of data they could find from before the system went dark to learn what was going on. Private emails were intercepted and hacked, video and voice messages being relayed through deep-space buoys were being decrypted and displayed to analysts to pour over. It was a horrendous breach of privacy, one that happened every day to citizens of the empire. And they were none the wiser.



The doors in the back of the room slid open. Admiral Conan Forsythe walked in, glancing down at the data pad handed to him, before looking at the officer that saluted him as he walked in. He was a man in his mid-fifties, with streaks of grey peppered in his black hair. He was the highest-ranking admiral in the Imperial Navy, and one of the first men that had been alerted when issues arose.



“Report.” was all he said. The room was bathed in a blue light from the large galactic display that hovered over the room. Every system known to humanity was represented on it: humanity's own holds and colonies, the territory belonging to the war-like avian race of the Hissho, the science loving Sophons, the cloned hordes of Horatio…Everything that humanity knew of or about was displayed on this map. Programs feeding the galaxy information from the Ministry of Security added red and gold lights to the blue display. Disparate elements of data were being groups together and assigned to the sections of the galaxy where they applied, connections being made and traces being followed.



Data skimmed and danced across the display as systems updated with the newest information, trade and travel star lanes showing where concentrations of pirate fleets were suspected to be, the last sightings of the renegade human traitors calling themselves “Pilgrims.” Every day, billions of clue and millions of secrets were dissected and analyzed by the best mind that the United Empire could offer. It was a rare day for every human in the room to be focused on the same task, with all else on the map ignored. But today was one of those days, with every eye glued on a small star named Turak.



“The system went dark three hours ago on our displays. Whatever we’re finding now happened well over three days ago, sir,” the officer reported. Forsythe frowned. The United Empire covered such a large expanse of the galaxy that getting timely updates about all of their holdings was all but impossible. Even with quantum entanglement communication systems, which in theory should transmit data instantly between two places no matter the distance between, it still sometimes took days to learn what had happened at the edges of the empire. Turak was one of their furthest colonies, bordering the edge of unexplored space.



“What do we have?” Forsythe asked, skimming the data pad, trying to pick out the most important pieces of information.



“Not much, sir. Whatever hit the system hit it fast. Communications were disabled quickly. All we’ve picked up so far are typical day-to-day communications and data links," the officer reported.



“What about corporate feeds? Turak is a corporate colony, isn’t it?” Forsythe asked. After the defection of the Pilgrims, the emperor rarely sanctioned imperial colonization projects any more. This left the expansion of the empire solely in the hands of private corporations under the power of the Executive Board. The Board was a body of CEOs that governed all of the corporations of the United Empire. The emperor founded them, and he was technically the chair of the board, but allowed them to manage things on their own. The emperor had more urgent matters to tend to, and trusted his directors to do their job faithfully. Recently, however, the directors had been getting bolder, trying to take more power for themselves under the guise of lightening the workload of the emperor. The worst part about the Executive Board was that they were able to upkeep their own branch of armed forced that operated outside of the supervision of the Imperial Navy or the emperor’s court.



“Our liaison with corporate command has been silent. It isn’t as if they share that much information with us anyway. Our friends at the Ministry of Security are digging up what they can, but so far, all we know is that the entire fleet assigned to the system withdrew hours before the system went dark.” the officer told the admiral, before a woman at a computer console called for his attention.

Forsythe stood there, looking up at the galaxy map, thinking. Why would the entire corporate fleet leave the system? Looking back at the data pad he had, Forsythe pulled up information on the fleet. Some of the analysts had determined the fleet had reappeared in the Hexeron System, and from there jumped to the Pisces System. It looked like they were on their way back to the capital, Sol System. They would get their answers soon enough, then. The Admiralty Board would confront the officer in charge of the fleet and find out what was going on. He started tapping through the pad, looking for the officer in charge of the fleet, when one of the officers in the room shouted.



“There!” he cried, standing up from his chair and pointing at the screen, “They’re back!”



The images on his display were promptly taken and thrown onto the large wall display in the front of the room. They were snap shots from the survey beacon at the warp gate that led from the Turak System to the Aradil System. Large fleets of ships were emerging from the gate, guns firing at the beacon. At least it managed to get them these pictures before it was destroyed. When Forsythe saw the profile of the ships, though, he paled.



“Lieutenant!” he called, summoning the officer that had greeted him when he walked into the room back to his side, “Put out a call to arms. Every ship in my battle group is to report for immediate deployment. Forward this information to MinSec and the Sheredyn.”



“Yes sir!” the officer said, saluting, before rushing off to relay his orders. Forsythe just looked back at the screen. The Cravers were back…



The Cravers were a race of android war-machines built millennia ago, as weapons in a war fought before humanity even existed. Their sole purpose was to consume. Organic matter, inorganic matter, it mattered little to them. Resources were broken down to their base elemental components and incorporated into the hive-mind. All they wanted was to eat. The United Empire had first encountered them two decades ago, and in the resulting war had lost seven star systems and billions of lives. A stunning victory by Rear Admiral Archer over the dead system of Jun had seen the Cravers disappear back into unexplored space. They had all hoped that was the last they would see of the machines. Now they were back, pushing into the Turak System.



However, Turak was on the opposite end of the empire from where the Cravers had first been encountered. How could the Cravers possibly be over there? Leaving the question for the analysts to figure out, Forsythe left the war room. He had a fleet he had to prepare for war.



***



Forsythe stood at the other side of his desk from the two envoys of the emperor’s court. His hands were balled up into fist, his jaw clenched. Behind the envoys stood two members of the emperor’s elite personal bodyguard, the Sheredyn, clad head to toe in their ceremonial golden armor. Despite their status as the emperor’s bodyguards, they were assigned to protect every member of the emperor’s Inner Circle. Forsythe was, himself, technically a member of the Sheredyn. As the fleet admiral of the United Empire, he had been admitted honorary membership into their ranks, due mainly to his military record and the fact that the only person he took orders from was the emperor himself.



“What do you mean to stand the fleet down?” he asked. The two noble class politicians glanced at each other, appearing to Forsythe to be pained to speak to someone with common blood. It was something he had been battling ever since he had been promoted to admiral. Society’s elites hated having to accept the fact that one of the common rabble could ever earn a place of power nearly equal to them.



“The Turak System had been cut off, by order of the emperor,” one of the envoys, a short, round man who had not even introduced himself said. Forsythe shifted his gaze to him, the force and anger behind his green eyes making the man pale.



“We’ve just been invaded, and you think that—”



“Not us, the emperor.” Other envoy, a tall, lanky man interrupted him. Forsythe shot him a glare before continuing.



“Has the emperor been informed of what is happening?” he asked, trying another tactic. He could yell at the envoys all day and not get anything done. But it was common knowledge that, in his old age, the emperor allowed his closest magistrates to make decisions in his stead. There were many instances where “orders from the emperor” were made without the man even knowing words had been put into his mouth. The question caught the two slightly by surprise, and they glanced at each other before answer.



“Ah…Well, where does a commoner like yourself get the nerve to question the authority of the emperor?” the small fat man asked.



“The emperor knows all that goes on in his empire. And when CEO Admiral Vauclas arrives to give his first hand report of the situation in Turak, he will know all that he needs to.” the tall, skinny man continued, “Now be the good soldier you’re known to be and follow orders, Forsythe.”



The two envoys left his office, then, the Sheredyn soldiers following them. Forsythe sighed and fell into his chair. While he doubted that the emperor knew what was going on, his orders had his seal on them. And they told him to stand down his mobilization of the fleets. While the politicians and businessmen played their games, people were dying. Turak was being consumed to satiate the endless hunger of the Cravers, and nothing was being done about it. He was positive he knew why. Turak was a new colony, one that had yet to start turning a profit. Moreover, the colony looked as if it would not generate a profit any time soon, either. It was easier to write those lives off and work on defending the systems that were already established and contributing to the treasury, than to risk resources defending Turak. Corporate analysts might figure that the Craver onslaught could be held in the five systems that Turak linked to…But that was a five-front war they could not afford. It was as if no one remembered the sheer number and power that the Cravers fleets had. To give each of those five systems an adequate defense would stretch the empire’s military resources to their absolute limit, weakening them on other fronts. However, if the line could be held at Turak…

Standing back up, he picked up the piece of data pad with his orders and put it in a drawer of his desk. Locking it in an effort he knew to be vain, he left the room. He had one chance to get his fleet out of Sol. There was just one thing he needed to know, first…

***



“This is low, even for you, you corporate bastard!” Forscythe shouted down the hall, catching the man in mid-step. Karta Vauclas remained silent, just looking at Forsythe as a nobleman would look down upon a commoner. In essence, he was. The Vauclas family was a prominent one in the capital and long had its members served in the emperor’s inner circle. Karta had been one of the exceptions. Instead of politics, he had gone into the business of war. Forsythe, on the other hand, was a commoner. Born to blue-collar workers, as a boy he had dreamed of sailing through the stars, and enlisted into the Imperial Navy the moment he was of age. He quickly shot through the ranks, proving to be one of the sharpest tactical and strategic minds that the empire had seen in generations. Instead of studying books and learning business and war strategy, as many cadets did in hopes of joining the better-paid corporate military forces, he learned straight from the mouths of the men who lived in war by fighting by their sides. Instead of grades, bribes, and family prestige determining his place in the fleet, he had earned his place through proving himself in battle.



On paper, the two men were virtually the same. One was the highest ranked admiral in the Imperial Navy, the other the highest ranked in the in the Corporate Navies. Off paper, they could not be more different. One had the respect, admiration, and absolute loyalty of those that served under him. The other only saw human lives as mere figures, assets to discard at a whim, and cared little for those under his command—a fact that Forsythe utterly hated Vauclas for.



The differences went straight down to how the dressed, even. Vauclas wore the regalia as befitting someone of his birth. His black corporate dress outfit, with the crimson red overcoat of nobility, fastened with all of his medal and honors. Forsythe, on the other hand, wore his naval working uniform, looking every bit like the other sailors in his navy aside from the rank marking on his collar. All of his medals and honors were stashed away in some case in his quarters on his flagship, gathering as much dust as his dress uniform was. Forsythe looked out of place in Imperial Palace dressed like that, when everyone else was scurrying around in dress uniforms and regalia, trying to look their best should the emperor glance their way.



“The costs of defending the Turak System would have been too high,” Vauclas said, his tone as icy as ever, confirming Forsythe’s earlier suspicions on why nothing was being done. There really was no question why the man was called the Vice President of Winter. “It will be more cost productive to set up defensive lines in the linked systems while Turak falls. We can defeat the invaders with minimal losses.”



“You left those people there to die!” Forsythe said. He had read the reports Vauclas submitted after his retreat. The lieutenant in the war room had forwarded them to him the second they had been received. The only defenses left behind for the system were the ground forces too slow to get onto a ship, and they would provide to no protection from orbital bombardment and invasion.



“They’re expendable. Turak hardly turned a profit anyway.” Vauclas said with a shrug. “Now, I suggest you remove yourself from my path, admiral. I am already late for an audience with the emperor, to personally give him my report and receive a commendation for my efforts in delaying the invasion in the Aradil System. Have you heard? They’re calling it the greatest display of fleet tactics seen in this generation.” Vauclas boasted, his tone arrogant. Forsythe just clenched and unclenched his fists. Vauclas always managed to get under his skin, but now was not the time to lose his head. He just needed a little more information.



“Does he know you abandoned the entire system?” Forsythe pressed, posing the same question to the corporate admiral as he had the envoys.



“It was the throne that authorized my withdrawal. See for yourself.” Vauclas removed a small tablet from an inner pocket of the large cloak he wore and tossed it at Forsythe. Catching it, the admiral shot a glare at the corporate noble, before looking down at the display.



To all corporate forces within the Turak System,



By order and decree of the Emperor, you are to withdraw with all haste and avoid any confrontation with the invading ships. VIP personnel and essential projects to the Executive Directorate only are to be recovered from the system before departure to the Oron System. Await further orders there.



Under no circumstance should events in the Aradil System, or of this withdrawal, be spoken to any non-corporate personnel. Failure to abide by these orders will result in termination of contract and appropriate legal ramifications.



No corporate military force is hereby permitted to enter the Turak System. Actions to do so will be considered treason.

With the authority of the Emperor,

Sukhoi Sobeikov, High Councilor to the Throne



“Of course it was Sobeikov!” Forsythe spat, throwing the display back at Vauclas, invoking the name of one of the dirtiest men in the United Empire. Sobeikov was well known to be in the pocket of the Executive Board. But the man wasn’t the emperor, and that was all Forsythe needed.



“Be careful what you say, Forsythe. You slander a member of the Inner Circle, and you could be brought up on charges,” Vauclas warned, his tone mocking, the rare grin cracking his cold mask.



“You’d love to see that, wouldn’t you?” Forsythe muttered back. He wanted to punch that grin right off of Vauclas’s face. And he knew the man knew it, too. It would give him reason to call those guards over and have him arrested. The grin faded, though, when a woman wearing the uniform of a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy ran up to them, snapping into a salute with Forsythe returned, but Vauclas ignored.



“Admiral Forsythe! The fleet is ready to depart,” she said. Perfect. That was just the news that he needed to hear.



“I’m on my way.” Forsythe said, dismissing the woman. As she hurried off, Vauclas just looked at Forsythe, frowning.



“Where is the fleet going?” Vauclas asked.



“The Turak System. I will not leave our people to become the next meal for the Cravers.” Forsythe said as he turned and started to walk away.



“You’ve been ordered to stand down, Forsythe.” Vauclas said, calling out to Forsythe’s back, “The Councilor said that no military force could enter the system!”



“He addressed all corporate forces, and I’m sure as hell not corporate!” Forscythe yelled back over his shoulder. He took his orders from the Emperor, not one of his bootlickers. It was shaky ground, though, to stand on for ignoring the order to stay out of the Turak System. It was a corporate system, and the Imperial Navy had virtually no real jurisdiction there. And it had been the office of the emperor to give him his orders. But he had to do something—he couldn’t leave those people there to die. The ending of the first war with the Cravers would not be repeated, not if he could help it. And if that meant playing loose with his duties and technicalities, so be it.



Forsythe did not need to look back to know Vauclas was glaring daggers into his back. The man would try his best to keep him from leaving. The ceremony would prevent him from making a report of this incident, and by the time it was over, he knew his fleet would be gone. The trick would be how to get what ships he would have left at the end of this back home.

It took him twenty minutes to get a shuttle to his flagship, the massive dreadnought Bahamut, docked in one of the orbital shipyards over the planet. The first in the new line of Bahamut-class dreadnoughts, engineers had told him it was named after a dragon god found in references of legends from times all but forgotten. Or, possibly, it was a giant fish. Forsythe chose to believe his flagship was christened in the name of a dragon god.

Stepping onto the bridge, he grinned when he saw the crew fast at work. The ship’s captain, an old friend of his that he had known since they enlisted together, nodded that everything was ready to go. Taking a seat in the fleet admiral’s chair, he opened a comm line to all ships in the fleet.



“To all ships, this is Admiral Forsythe. The cowardice and greed of our corporate counterparts has left one of our systems, our own people, helpless before a Craver invasion force. We go to the defense of our colonists; the people that we have sworn to protect…despite orders to abandon the system. But I will not condemn millions of human lives to their deaths, to allow the Cravers a repeat of their last invasion.



“This fleet will be departing on what could be grounds for treason. Any ship captains uncomfortable with that, you may leave the formation now. I will not order you and your crews to do this.” he paused, watched the fleet display to see if anyone left. Two destroyer formations and a cruiser formation blinked out, but that was all. Sighing in relief, he keyed the comms again. “Thank you, all of you. Now let’s remind those buggers why they should stay out of humanity’s space.” Cutting the com link then, he relayed maneuvering and formations orders throughout the fleet.



As the fleet left the orbit of Terra Prime for the three-day journey at maximum warp to Turak, Forsythe went over the various holo-displays in front of his chair. They would be meeting more ships as they traveled to the Turak System, but even with these additions, estimates from the Ministry of Security still had them outnumbered by the Craver fleet, as last reported before all communication with the system went silent. He was flying into nearly two-to-one odds. He might be able to appropriate some corporate ships, the ones left in the Oron System. They would help even the odds, but not by much.



One way or another, though, he would push the Cravers back out of human space. The United Empire did not abandon their own people, their own systems, to invaders without a fight. The Turak System was too important.



He just prayed there would still be a system there to protect.



[END]





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So there, I hope this isn't too horrible. I haven't quite proof-read this, so there are probably grammar and spelling mistakes galore, awkwardly worded sentences, and so on and so forth.

Good story, well done - was fun to read



Btw: Who cares about grammar mistakes, when the story is good?

Eh, I care :P I'm kind of hoping to get a career in writing, and who would want to look at anything filled with basic mistakes for publishing? But thanks. ^_^

FinalStrigon wrote:
Eh, I care :P I'm kind of hoping to get a career in writing, and who would want to look at anything filled with basic mistakes for publishing? But thanks. ^_^

Good luck



It's correct, a text should be "mistake free", but smaller mistakes don't interrupt my reading!

Not bad. I like it.