Uh... yeah. Here is the mostly unedited, most hyphens removed, submission edition of the NaNo.



Manhunt

Prologue



Joran Nebulid cast an uneasy glance about him as he stepped onto the bridge of the ex-Torsonnen light carrier Valour for the first time. It seemed to be standard fare in terms of command bridge functionality - Ops, Tactical, Communications, and the ever reclusive helmsman each having their separate little niches, with command staff stationed in the middle of it all. Visually it was as appealing as a blank, grey wall can get. Nebulid’s initial impression of the ship was positive - it could certainly get to places fast. All that remained to be determined was whether or not it could be relied on to fight well once it got to those places. God willing, he thought, we will not need to test it much.

In all the galaxy he had never come across so varied a crew in terms of species - the captain was a Phoenix, one of the scarcest of all species remaining in the wake of Torsonnen’s bid for extermination. Several species, especially the already severely weakened Conari, had simply perished, completely demolished by the warlord turned emperor’s pro human jihad. Nebulid himself was human and the first mate. The second mate was a Krion, two generations descended from the leader of the original Krion embassy on Earth seven hundred years ago. Long generations, remarked Nebulid to himself as he continued to be amazed at the varied composition of the crew. If there was one thing to be said for rebellion, it was that it brought everyone together. Phoenix working with human and Krion and Liroid and N’Dlara; no “species barrier”, no difficulties, just taking care of business as usual on Valour. It was a call back to earlier times, the times of the Federation, the times of economic prosperity and mutual hope. So sickening that a mere thirty five years had sufficed to destroy twenty five thousand years of Federation history. That bastard! Advira Torsonnen had gained massive military supremacy through some unknown means. There was no escaping his wrath or shaking off the iron fist of his rule. Either you were already free or you were his.

The exception to that rule now stood on the bridge of Valour, revelling in the serene beauty of it all, awestruck by the sheer hope implicit in the crew’s composition. It took him some time to recognize that someone was calling for him.

As it turned out, it happened to be the captain. His translation unit bleated out the words: “How do you find the ship? Pleasing, I hope.”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “I have never seen such a crew in all my life.”

“True! They are one of a kind, the best crew I have ever had. I assure you, they will be a pleasure to work with. I trust you have acquainted yourself well enough with the bridge! Come, meet me at the launch bays. I will show you the other aspect of our crew’s greatness.” It was phrased as a suggestion, but the intonation (not in the translation, but the original words) had been commanding.

He seems to be a natural leader. Let’s hope the situation is as it seems…



From the bridge to the hangar was an appreciable walk - “light” though it was, Valour was still a big (ish) ship, about one hundred fifty metres long and fifty metres wide at the centre of its ovoid hull - and Nebulid wondered what Captain Msul’b could possibly want with him here. But the captain was the captain, regardless of any personal doubts on the matter. When ordered, unless there was a good reason (and a damned good one at that to even merit consideration!) for disobedience, compliance was expected. At any rate, his answer came as he stepped through the pressure door. It was one of those true jaw dropping moments you come across only once in a long while.

“You got a hold of some working Sentinel suits. My God!”

“Exclamations are totally unnecessary. Yes, we managed to obtain some of the old Torsonnen stock battlesuits. Most of them are Model ANs, but we do have a couple of suits as recent as AT. Coupled with a number of very talented mobile trooper candidates, those suits are what distinguish us from other groups.”

“This is excellent! I cannot possibly be happier that I managed to find my way to this job.”

“Glad to have you on board. I doubt you will enjoy the job ever again so much as you do at this moment.”

The grim statement returned Nebulid to reality. This is the most outmatched of all resistance movements ever conceived. We face an enemy that can literally destroy worlds with his immoral weaponry. Looking out through the force field airlock to his native Alumehr, Nebulid was struck with sadness - the odds against his ever returning home were tremendous, and though he knew he had made the right choice in signing on with Valour, Nebulid could not help but wish there was another way. “I suddenly share that doubt, sir.”

“No ‘sir’. Call me Captain, or Msul’b, or both. Never ‘sir’.” There was a distinct tone of anger, almost a vehemence, in that voice.

“Understood, Captain.” His strict Imperial Navy training still demanded formality on duty. He wondered why Captain Msul’b so violently opposed the word ‘sir’, but dared not ask.

“Now, I would like you to give the order to depart. I know you’ve a bit of command experience on you, but your new crew does not yet know you. Perhaps now is the time to acquaint yourself with them. But first, acquaint yourself with your quarters.”

Msul’b led Nebulid to his “spacious” officer’s quarters, which really amounted to little more than a human bed, nightstand (plastic) and small hygiene station. The Phoenix’ instinctive disdain for such human oriented facilities was readily apparent, but Nebulid paid it no heed, chalking it up to nature. Instead he said “When am I expected on bridge?”

“Take” - a slight pause while Msul’b carried out the conversions from his native time units to Galactic Standard - “twenty minutes,” the translation unit finished for him, automatically converting Galactic Standard to Terran terms for Nebulid. Why the device’s inventors had not simply programmed every Federation time unit into the translators escaped Nebulid, especially given the little effort it had taken to so reprogram the machine with Terran-Galactic conversion factors.

“Sounds fair. I look forward to serving with you, Captain.”

“I look forward to serving with you just as much, Commander. We shall make it a resistance worth remembering!”

So we shall… so we shall. Nebulid did not wish to contemplate the alternative.



He was not quite so awestruck by the crew’s varied composition on his second visit to the bridge, and this time he was able to pick out one of the subtler traits of the bridge crew: though efficient and excellent at their jobs, they seemed to never make the mistake of taking their work too seriously. Nebulid could not say the same for himself… he flexed the biomechanical fingers of his artificial left arm, remembering the unfortunate incident that had led to its loss, along with the rest of his body. But he put it out of his mind.

Captain Msul’b was already seated, and something which looked nothing at all like the natural form of a Krion but could only be the second mate itself stood ready.

Somewhat flustered still, Nebulid glanced over at Msul’b. “Where are we headed to?” He could not very well give the order to depart without a destination.

“We’re due to hit a Torsonnen battle group en router to Praxas in” - again the pause - “two days. Give the order any time you like, Commander.”

Noting the urgency of Msul’b’s request, Nebulid cleared his throat quietly. “Set course oh four two one four six nine four three. Take us out at four G.” Not that at any point any crewman would feel four gravities - excellent inertial compensators installed at all points of the ship took care of that particular problem. Nebulid reflected on his order - had he remembered to code acceleration units too? Evidently he had, for the ship acted exactly to expectations, and in fact far beyond them. Valour leaving Alumehr orbit was its own little graceful ballet. As the carrier slid effortlessly out of the planet’s gravity well, Nebulid was again reminded of his days on the bridge of Relentless. Again he put the thought out of his mind - his time of Torsonnen service had passed. He knew that it would never return, and he was glad to have given it up for the good fight. Anything to bring back the Federation.



It took almost an hour, even at four G, to get Valour sufficiently clear of gravitational perturbations to allow the jump to warp. The lonely astrogator near the end of the line at the Ops station called out “We will have optimal solution for jump to warp in twenty seconds or less.” No language difficulties here - the astrogator was descended from the race that had originated Galactic Standard, which translated easily enough into Terran. Those seconds passed relatively quickly, and then the astrogator said “We have optimal warp solution. It is all yours, Commander. We are ready to go.”

“Take us in.” The three words seemed most appropriate for the occasion. We’re dragging ourselves into a war that doesn’t even exist yet. Certainly they were far more appropriate than the hopelessly clichéd “Engage” frequently used as a sort of in-joke by Torsonnen navy men. He allowed himself a chuckle at that.

“Is there something humourous about what you just said, Commander? Please enlighten me.”

“No, I’m just remembering a life I no longer live. The person I used to be is dead.”

“The sooner you move on from your dead past, the better your present’s chances of survival are.”

Again Nebulid flexed his artificial left hand, readily concurring.

A sudden lurch, and then they were completely out of the system. “First jump complete. Second jump in five seconds.” Five seconds passed, then another lurch and they were at Praxas, or at least at the outer rim of its solar system. “Second jump complete. Third jump in twenty seconds.” Final jump, Nebulid thought, to bring us just outside Praxas’ gravity well. From there they would proceed under normal power to wherever they were headed, to do whatever they planned to do. The third and final jump was the most important and delicate. If the calculations were even minutely off, the ship could be ripped apart by the vastly increased gravitational differentials - Roche’s limit on a man made scale.

The third lurch was stronger than the others. “Third jump completed. We are currently two million kilometres outward of Praxas. Real time elapsed while we were in warp is 22.49 hours. We’re here, Captain.”

“Excellent. How long until the battle group arrives?”

“10.24 hours, Captain,” said the helmsman. “Shall I move us into position?”

“No, we will stay here for awhile first. Nebulid, the bridge is yours; I will be back in… two hours.” Msul’b walked out, presumably heading to his quarters to rest a bit.

Great, now what am I supposed to do? Nebulid resigned himself to a long, long two hourse of more or less nothing. And people enjoy this?

Then the joke swapping started, and he immediately knew why they did.



“…Your Imperial Majesty? You are an unexpected addition to the ship.”

“I’m well aware of that. Praxas has been falling behind their Sentinel suit production quota of late. My men need those suits to continue to fight for me. Perhaps a personal visit will somewhat encourage them to put more effort into their production.”

“As you wish, Your Imperial Majesty.” And just like that, Emperor Advira Torsonnen of the “Terran Empire” (more aptly named the Torsonnen Empire, and most aptly named “those bastards”) was on board one of his navy’s strike carriers. He found the accommodations sufficiently bare for his taste. Out the view port he saw the rest of the battle group, loosely arrayed in a wide entrapment formation. Excellent. There was another reason Emperor Torsonnen was on board: he wished to see the fish squirm in the net. Fresh catch was always such a pleasure to behold, and to torture…



Captain Msul’b’s return to the bridge was unceremonious. “Commander, did anything of note occur during my absence?” The Phoenix already knew well what the answer would be, but there was always the possibility of an aberration.

“Nope. I must say I had forgotten what a tedious job being a skipper is. The last two hours have been a test of my mental endurance - and more specifically, my ability to resist boredom.”

“It gladdens me to see you enjoying your work so.” He chuckled. “Take two hours for yourself. I will have Makhidaralore take the second seat in your place.”

“Thank you.” Nebulid vacated the bridge hastily. On his way out the door, though, a thought struck him. “What if they know we’re here?”

“They do. I had our best intel expert arrange the leak. They think they got the information from their own intelligence service, but we know better.”

“What if they know we know they know we are here?” Nebulid had to ask.

“It changes nothing. The mission has nothing to do with stealth and everything to do with planning. More specifically, it has everything to do with plotting. This is an assassination.”

“Assassination, is it? Who is the lucky customer?” Who could we possibly be going after, unequipped as we are?

“Yes, assassination. We’re going after the ‘Holy Guardian’, Torsonnen’s chiefest of all chief fleet admirals. He’s due here in… 8.2 hours to check on the battlesuit production factories here on Praxas. I apologize for not telling you beforehand what exactly you were getting into; please understand that security issues prohibited it. Even command staff can go bad sometimes.” Tell me about it, said Nebulid inwardly, recalling the story of how his old Federation cruiser’s captain had come across Torsonnen troops, then defected immediately, forcing all crew to comply or simply shooting them himself. Nebulid had wanted to punch the “man” in the face over that. Coincidentally, he was to get the chance to repay the favour, as that same former captain was now their very target in this assassination ploy. Pay back time, you son of a bitch! The suggested punishment of a punch in the face had now escalated into full blown blood vengeance.

All this he thought within the span of his “Affirmative and understood” reply. The door closed behind him, and the Krion second mate settled into Nebulid’s chair. It was only a matter of time now - time for their Sentinels to get ready, time for the battle group to arrive. The waiting game has never been my strong point, Msul’b admitted.



The trap was set. The fleet was ready. They would all depart at the same time for Praxas in two minutes. Advira Torsonnen looked over the deployments one more time and smiled. The Holy Guardian certainly knew his tactics. This is perfect. We will drop out of warp all over the system. There is no way those rebel fools can elude such a net!

The thought that the rebels could know that he knew they were there crossed Torsonnen’s mind briefly, but he immediately did away with it on the grounds that his intelligence service had considerable talent in their field. Their methods were discreet enough to positively impact their efficiency, to say the very least. That lent credence to their reports. It was enough for Torsonnen, who had more on his mind than just the occasional sloppy Intel agent making his presence known by accident. Matters of state were nothing to laugh at. And if they do know, what difference does it make at all? They know very well how vital this supply mission is to us. They will still do everything in their power to block it, not that it will do a thing. And I will show them the meaning of futility! They will scatter before the wake of my driving force, and I will crush them!

A lurch, then five seconds, then another lurch, then twenty seconds, then another lurch, and they were there. The most important battle of Torsonnen’s campaign to date had begun, though he knew it not yet…



When only two Torsonnen ships showed up at the rendezvous point, all bridge staff immediately knew something was amiss. To be fair, they had already known to expect something like this, but knowledge and reality are not always necessarily the same thing. “Have our mobile troopers launch. We have at most ten minutes before they locate us. And let’s see if we can pinpoint the Holy Guardian’s ship, too. Tactical, charge up the plasma guns and begin working out firing solutions on those ships. Move out!” Msul’b had settled firmly into command mode now. He was totally intent, totally focused, totally in his element. A better tactician than him might never have existed in all time. Certainly not in the present. “Bring us about to face the first Torsonnen ship, that one over there.” He pointed.

“You mean Relentless? Even your souped up plasma gun is barely going to put a scratch in that behemoth’s hull.” Nebulid spoke from experience. “I suggest finding one of the smaller strike carriers and taking that out, just to eliminate one or two of the plasma guns shooting us. - Crap. Here come the fighters. I hope you have a lot of heavies on you.”

“We have a fair number. Do not worry. Also we have a small fighter squadron of our own; Ops, please have them launch now.” ‘Heavies’ referred to mobile troopers equipped with portable missile launchers rather than the standard beam sabre. Coupled with the standard issue ion guns given to all mobile troopers, the missiles made quick work of fighters, so heavies were typically employed in an anti-fighter facility, although occasionally they would be deployed against capital ships.

Tactical called out “Solution for Relentless has arrived. Shall I fire?” Nebulid frowned. He hoped Msul’b would make the right call on this shot.

Msul’b said “Fire.”

Nebulid cried out in exasperation. “It won’t do a thing! Find a smaller ship with less shielding and destroy that instead! For example, over there” - he pointed out a small strike carrier five thousand kilometres to port - “there’s a perfect candidate.” He trailed off. Something had struck him, something familiar about the ship he had just pointed out. It was almost as though… “…and the Emperor is on it.”

“WHAT?!” Shocked, Msul’b continued “How do you know this?”

“I had to kind of piece it together for myself. I got hints from actions the Emperor was taking around the time I made my run for it - strengthening that particular ship, grooming it for his personal favour. Also, he incessantly prated on about the grand plan, how he intended to trap each and every resistance group across the galaxy and personally oversee their demise. The connection was not difficult to make once I recognized that ship as Diligent. Your next move, Captain?” There was a hint of smug satisfaction in his voice - he had been right in pointing out smaller targets after all.

“Obviously we have no choice but to blow Diligent away. Tactical, belay the fire order against Relentless. I need a solution on Diligent. Helm, have us assume standard evasive pattern; needless to say, Tactical, base your solution on that.”

“Absolutely.” Now, for the time being, there was nothing to do but just watch…



Six shiny new Torsonnen fighters came cruising in, all guns blazing, their fire matched by six less shiny resistance fighters. Only six fighters emerged from that little fracas - and none of them had been shiny to start the fray, so the debris did not matter much in terms of scratches and dents to the already less than optimal hulls.

Omega Lead grinned. “A perfect sortie. If only the whole galaxy were so inept with their fighters.”

Omega Three concurred. “But then we would have no work left to do. They would all be dead.”

Two corrected him, “Nay! Know you not that for every hopelessly shitty pilot we slay, three more equally shitty pilots pop up to take his place?”

“Bah! A minor detail. The galaxy can’t have that many ships to kill. They would run out of raw materials for the fighters.” He knew he was wrong. They knew too.

“Your ability to pussyfoot around any concession of any or no importance is first rate. Just give it up, for once. Your ego will be sated enough by the end of the battle anyways.”

“Understood.” Three pulled sharply away from the flight group in pursuit of a tight grouping of Torsonnen fighters. Two peeled off as well to cover him. Together they made swift work of the flight group. “Thief,” he accused Two facetiously, then they fell back into formation.

As they systematically cleared the fighters closing in from Relentless out, the mobile troopers were having their own brand of fun. As the Torsonnen drop ships had yet to arrive within drop distance of Valour, then Sentinel had a lot of time on their hands, having quick draw competitions with their ion guns and races with their jet assemblies. Eventually, though, the Torsonnen troopers reached drop range, and legions of battlesuits poured out. There was something wrong about these suits, though… Major Lanai looked closely at them. That was the problem! She could see them! “Are those new models or decoys?” she asked.

“Emission profile matches the data we have on the new suits. Try shooting ‘em,” said Tactical on Valour.

Good idea. Raising here ion gun, she fired off a quick burst. Immediately the area she’d targeted burst into action - and light. Each and every one of the Torsonnen suits lit up with a delicate framework of illuminators. Their jet assemblies poured out emissions practically on a capital ship scale. Like a fireworks show. Putting it out of her mind, she drew her beam sabre and manipulated her jets to send her crashing into the Torsonnen formation. For all their fancy equipment, few of them, if any, had any actual combat experience. To a war seasoned fighter like herself they were nothing. A beam scythe came crashing down at her, but she caught the blade on one of her forearm mounted combat knives and plunged her sabre into the exposed battlesuit body. Quickly disengaging to move on to her next target, she was surprised to see an explosion that would have been accompanied by a thunderous BANG if it had occurred in an atmosphere. It looked to have been a strike cruiser. Taroth class maybe, although… “Was that Diligent that just blew up over there?” she called out to Valour in between engagements. Then she was occupied by a duel with somewhat of a more skilled Torsonnen trooper, so she didn’t hear the answer, or when she did, she wasn’t able to listen.



“Yes!!!” The answer was yes. Diligent had been destroyed, taking with it its payload of Advira Torsonnen. The exultation was enormous. Nebulid was lauded as a hero, as well as the otherwise anonymous Tactical expert, who had managed to hit the shot from an unprecedented five thousand kilometres away. Captain Msul’b said “Alright. Let’s pull out. Our work here is done. Gather up our fighters and mobile troopers, and let’s see if we can’t find a relatively intact Torsonnen suit to pick apart. Get at it!”



The Torsonnen forces were reeling at the loss of their commander. Valour even managed to get a couple more shots in, sending another ship to the grave before departing for destinations unknown. So disorganized was the whole mess that no one either side noticed the little personal sized craft streak down from the hollow remains of Diligent to the big, flattened disc that Praxas appeared to be from this distance.

“There’s only two courses of action they can take now. Either they’ll denounce Torsonnen’s empire, or they’ll hunt us down and blow us away. Most likely it will be the latter.”

“Let’s make sure there’s no chance of them fully realizing the latter. Get us out of the system, please.”

The astrogator punched a few keys. A lurch, and they were out of the system. Another lurch five seconds later, and they were at the edge of a new system. A new home.

Not that we’ll be here very long… Probably best not to unpack very many of the boxes. Alumehr was unfortunately out of Nebulid’s reach now. This would have to suffice for the time being…

One - Campaign

Captain James Kain of the Imperial supercarrier Relentless hazarded a look over at his secondary, who seemed deep in thought. Kain knew the man to be psionically gifted, but had rarely ever seen the gift in action. Finally the first mate said “I’ve located the Emperor.”

“He isn’t dead?! Excellent! Let’s track him down and bring him aboard, and quickly!”

“Not even necessary; he is already on a shuttle headed our way. Shall I dispatch escorts?”

“Do it immediately.” How did these rebels know with such precision where the Emperor was? And how did they calculate that shot so quickly? It was five thousand kilometres away in some of the most electrically active space in all the galaxy! I smell treason. But of course, in light of recent events, he smelled treason everywhere.

His thoughts strayed again to the most likely source of that particular habit - the traitor Joran Nebulid. Had that broken half man fell into bed with the rebels after his desertion? I will hunt him down now and kill him myself.

Soon enough the Emperor was on board, and with no further ado he seized personal command of Relentless - stressing all the while that it was nothing personal, merely a wish to oversee matters more closely. “I will have their blood. Are there any objections to that?”

On the contrary, there was uproarious agreement among the bridge crew. Shouts of bloodlust and cries for rebel heads on platters filled the room - Kain in particular seemed to be quite thrilled by the prospect of taking out the rebels.

“Then the hunt begins. The Holy Guardian will not go without vengeance! They are ours.”

Relentless lurched out of the system, then on to Eridium, where they would check with Intel as to any leads on the rebels’ current position. Nebulid, thought Kain, will likely know how Intel goes about its business. He can use that information against us, planting all manner of red herrings and other nastiness. Oh well. It will only make the final act of my driving this knife into his chest all the more satisfying…



Joran Nebulid came on bridge to see Captain Msul’b glaring at him. “What in the galaxy have you done, Commander? The natives are threatening to shoot us down! Why did you have to parade your cyberbiomechanical parts in front of them? As it so happens to turn out, they are mortally afraid of such artificial bodies!”

“I’m planting false evidence. Captain Kain and his Relentless are no doubt in hot pursuit of our trail at the moment. I suggest we now jump out of the system and hover around there for a couple of hours, then jump back in at that ice planet over there.”

“Perhaps I just don’t understand the underlying principles of this strategy here. What should this accomplish, given our success at pulling whatever ruse is on here?”

“They were bound to find us eventually. Intel is a serious information machine. Everything filters down to them with time. If Intel discovers we’ve been here and left, they will without a doubt advise against Relentless popping in there to look for us. Wasteful of time and such. Do you not think so?”

Msul’b considered it for a short time. “You seem to have an acute understanding of how their search is going to work. I trust that you know what you are doing. Is that why you picked this particular system at first?”

“In fact, yes it is indeed. Good catch. Let’s just hope this works; I’m all out of ideas otherwise…”



A lurch, and Valour was parked just outside the system. They would wait an hour or two more, then jump back into the system, thus providing themselves a handy hole to hide in. Basically they were digging that hole, getting in, and pulling it in behind them afterwards. It was a handy trick.

In the meantime, an impromptu science lab had been manufactured for study of the new battlesuit model. Nebulid decided to drop in on the testing. “How goes it now?” he inquired of a battered old Liroid, who appeared to be in charge of the procedure.

“The Model AX seems to be a huge departure from previous Model A editions. Jet assembly maximum output seems greatly enhanced, but it seems to carry with it a slight problem. I would not be surprised to see a complete reissue in the near future over this one, in fact. It generates far too much heat. Ordinarily this would be no problem, but it seems that to decrease the suit’s mass for the greater thruster output power, they removed the largest of the suit’s three heat sink systems. Weaponry seems to have been standardized, too - there is no way any weapon but a beam scythe could fit in that sheath. Do you have any ideas?”

“Death,” he said. “In the most prominent Terran mythology, Death is represented by a skeletal figure wearing a long dark cloak and wielding a scythe. The connotations of this vary from subculture to subculture, but the image remains similar. See the body plates here, here and here? They look remarkably like the fringes of a cloak to me. And the head piece is a dead ringer for a hood. I would say we have a galaxy class case of imagery here. In fact I would go so far as to add an adjective to the Sentinel name to properly reflect that change in imagery. These are not Sentinel suits of the conventional type. These are Death Sentinels.”

“An interesting term. Simple, too - I have no doubt it could become prevalent soon.”

“And it allows us to distinguish ourselves more easily from them. I certainly have the idea that John McCarmack is turning in his grave over what has become of his military program. What our own Sentinels are doing brings some honour back to the centuries old term.”

The mobile troopers in the room all turned momentarily from their work, saluted Nebulid, and went immediately back to analysis.

“Let’s get back to the primary topic, then. Do you have any idea why it might be so bright, even in idle mode?”

“No. With your keen analytical skill and closer relation to the Terran mind than us, you should be able to figure it out, though. I can only but guess.”

“Keen analytical mind? That was all strictly guesswork, just supported by the facts and by history. But I can see this being employed as a scare tactic by Torsonnen. The bright colours could potentially be intended to inspire fear. What do you think of that?”

“My own guess was that it inspired fear by revealing their numbers. It could very well be both, or either, or even neither one. I thank you for your visit, Commander. It has been very revealing, a probable source of insight for one of our analysts some later time.”

“Thank you for allowing me to see the suit in the first place. I know how tight you like to be about these things initially. I will come back again.” With such a polite cap to the conversation, he could not help but smile on his way to the bridge.

His smile faded quickly as he heard the sudden announcement: “Commander Nebulid, to the bridge, please. This is a Level One Alert. Repeat, we are at a Level One Alert.” His walk became a run. Crewmen were forced out of his way as he rapidly approached the bridge. His first words once he was through the door were “I’ve been had, haven’t I?” He turned to face Captain Msul’b and saw from the look of consternation on the captain’s face that indeed he had not.

“No, I was being serious. We’re in full evasive right now. They have not launched fighters or mobile troopers, yet, though. They’re identifying as rebel. Should I--”

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but their ID is bullshit. Anybody should be able to recognize that ship as Relentless.” Into the comm he yelled “Hear this, Kain. Your days are numbered! No mere ID swap is going to fool a former Relentless officer…”

Tactical said “They’re launching fighters and mobile infantry, Captain.”

Msul’b added “What have you done now, Nebulid? They are now firing at us! However will your plan work with this turn of events? Please tell me what that was for.”

“It’s no use having your enemy stare you down like that anyway. Get us out of here right now! We can’t fight Relentless, not without an entire armada of these.” Seeing Tactical punch in orders, he said “Don’t launch anybody! We need to run right now. No fighting retreat, no valiant last stand, no nothing. Just run! On normal power, if necessary, until we get a solution for warping the hell out of here. Ops, I need a solution to the Outer Rim. Anywhere is fine, just get us out of civilization. Quickly! We have no time left!”

As Valour streaked away from the supercarrier, Captain Msul’b spoke. “You seem to be quite good at being afraid of that ship, Nebulid. Almost suicidally so… This is another one of those unfortunate instances where you just did not know enough to be able to make the right decision.” A lurch, and in record time they were at the Rim. “Take us to Darahn, now. As I was saying, Commander, we were about to create a small warp stream in their engineering section. They’d have been unable to move at all for at least ten hours after they found a way to clean up the mess. Perhaps we would have been lucky enough to send their entire warp assembly to Earth if our aim was true.”

“Shit! You were seriously about to do that? Aww, I can’t believe it. I would have been totally ready to do that at the drop of a hat! My apologies for turning us around.”

“It’s not a terrible problem. We’re out of there; that’s all that matters at the moment.”

“Kain will make sure we are not out of his grasp for long. I know him well. He knows me well. There is, ultimately, no place in the galaxy to which he cannot track us. All he needs is enough time.”

“Then we will just have to correct that, won’t we? Darahn seems suitably obscure for our purposes. It is another ice planet, so we should turn up invisible on their sensors. The only difficulty will be moving out if they do find us. In the meantime we can establish a base there, conduct operations from there, et cetera. We will be unstoppable.”

“Except if some lucky bloke figures out how to block the sudden appearance of a warp stream in his engineering section, in which case one of the most innovative weapons of all time goes to waste.”

“The problem is that it is all too easily blocked in the first place. It is a one shot deal. Once we use it the first time, they will immediately have it figured out. Soon enough, it will be useless.”

“And we just missed our best opportunity to use it, too. I can’t believe it!”

“Don’t berate yourself so much! It could have happened to anyone - you are not the only commander who has been misinformed in the past. Self derision will not help at all with the current situation.” His sentence was punctuated by a lurch.



Darahn was a very small planet that had somehow found its way into orbit around a red dwarf star near the Outer Rim. It had basically been found, named and then left along by the Federation for thousands of years. Therefore, it was the perfect hiding place for a ship that wanted to disappear off the face of the galaxy. Pity there’s nothing to breathe there. The planet was far too small to maintain an atmosphere of any kind, however thin. It would be necessary to create an artificial habitat for the people living there. Not a huge problem.

The main problem seemed to be getting off of the planet. It would be a perilous procedure, especially given Valour’s non predisposition towards travel in a sharp gravity well like that found on a planet. The alternative was keeping Valour in orbit and using shuttles to traverse between ship and surface, but then departure was just as difficult, for the shuttles could not carry more than a fraction of the crew at a time. Eventually it was decided that the ship would remain in orbit, as well as most of the crew. Only as many crewers as the shuttles could hold would be stationed on the planet at any given time. Personally Nebulid had no idea why they didn’t all just stay on the ship in orbit.

He voiced this, and the crew’s response to it seemed mostly favourable, but Msul’b put his foot down. “Perhaps I should explain why the planetside base is necessary. So be it then. Basically, we’re running low on resources. We would run out of energy for the life support systems in a month without the fuel on that planet down there.”

“Wasn’t the entire point of this to set up a base for raids? We could raid for resources, then retreat back here where they can’t possibly find us.”

“That is… a workable idea. Also somewhat of a surprise coming from you. You seemed to me to be more of the security loving, conservative type, not the type to strike out boldly like that.”

“I would take offense at that if it were not so true. I consider it less of a risk to us than the planetside base idea. We get to stay mobile. Harder to hit a moving target and all that.”

“Admitted. Let’s give it a whirl that way, then. If it proves unsuccessful, either we can come back here and make the base, or… or it will not really matter anyway.”

“At least we have one major accomplishment to claim for ourselves. The assassination of ‘Emperor’ Torsonnen is nothing to be ashamed of or hide away.”

“It’s decided, then. We’ll try it the Commander’s way first this time. Move out!”



Emperor Advira Torsonnen, having taken complete control by now over Relentless, as was his standard fashion in all matters relating to his surroundings, took a look at the galaxy map, trying to determine possible locations for Valour. It appeared they were somewhere in the Outer Rim, based on their warp vector. It also appeared that they believed him dead. Good. Perhaps we can use that to lure them into the open sometime. In the meantime it must be nurtured. Kain would be his figurehead then. He could have Kain “assume command” over the Empire in the wake of Torsonnen’s “death”, then manage the entire affair from behind the curtain, while his puppet drew all the much unwanted attention away from the fact that, indeed, Torsonnen did still walk the deck of Relentless and the deck of life. Excellent! I impress even myself sometimes! Now, if only we could get those foolish rebels into the open, it would all be complete…



The “foolish rebels” were doing some scheming of their own, mostly centred around a little planet near the Galactic Core called Hodanh. It was rich in natural resources, such as the radioactive cobalt they needed for their reactor, as well as iron to construct the base with (their current supplies could only build so much) should this life or raiding grow ineffective or otherwise turn sour. Let’s hope for all our sakes it doesn’t. Nebulid, for one, could not abide the thought of spending his life sitting idly, tending machinery, never really living at all. Let’s make sure these raids pay off.

He also began training himself at the other stations. You never knew when your Ops guy was going to have to take a break to relieve himself or something, and you wanted to be able to account for his absence in those times, otherwise if things got unexpectedly screwy you would be stuck there without an effective astrogator. Or if your Tactical specialist was suddenly struck by an unknown ailment in the heat of battle, you wanted to be able to keep shooting, however less effective it might be. The list went endlessly on. A commander couldn’t just be a commander. He had to be able to substitute for any of his downed crewmates. It did not matter whether the chief Tactical officer or the lowliest sub-navigation advisory position was suddenly vacant. The vacancy had to be filled, no matter the type or reason.

Other ships would have had a pool of backups for such an instance, but Valour, despite its general state of overstaffment, had no such pool for bridge crew (most of the extra people were in the engineering section). Commander Nebulid thought briefly of getting a bridge training session for other crew set up, but dismissed it on grounds of sheer unfeasibility. Besides, overstaffed or not, those people were every bit as important where they were as they would be on the bridge, especially the engineers making it possible to take the ship anywhere at all. He silently applauded them all, even the lowliest of them.

He was again reminded of them when a lurch announced their arrival at Hodanh.



Relentless was refuelling at Earth when Torsonnen heard the news: Valour had carried out a resource raid at Hodanh. They managed to pick up large quantities of reactor grade cobalt, as well as inordinate amounts of iron and carbon. Damn! I must not let myself lose sight of the threat they pose to “Kain’s” empire. They could easily be our undoing if we let them alone for long enough. With Nebulid probably came some plans for military devices, possibly Sentinel suits, even! I must track them down soon. This raid has certainly made its impression on me…

“Kain!” He called for his figurehead, who was just glad to be able to hunt down the traitor Joran Nebulid. “I want you to order a complete military lockdown of all resource planets. Keep it on the low down though. Let’s see if we can’t trap them.”

“Absolutely.” He hastened to his HoloComm station to relay the order to the fleet. Excellent! My plan will come to fruition sooner than expected… and I will see them writhe in the net.



“Excellent Our plan has come to fruition sooner than expected. My compliments on an excellent idea, Commander. I hope you find it in yourself to forgive my initial hesitance. I was in the wrong - perhaps we can continue aggressively rebelling even in the wake of the assassination.”

“It’s become even more personal for me now. Kain has got to be my most hated person of all time, next to Torsonnen himself, who’s dead anyway. Besides, I never actually met Torsonnen. I have had much experience with Kain’s tyranny.”

“Hah! Tyranny? Perhaps he was their best choice, after all! He seems so much like Torsonnen that they could be long lost twins.” Msul’b chuckled.

“Don’t think it has not been the subject of much speculation among Relentless crewers, especially the ones like me who wanted out in the worst way.”

“Some of them did get out in the worst way. Did you hear? Total staff changeover on Relentless. Most of the people replaced were simply spaced for no good reason.”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find him, sometime, away from his invincible ship, and I’m going to take a knife and stick it in him, and I’m going to watch him die, slowly, and then I’m going to laugh at him. Then I’ll bring him back to life and do it all over again, and again, enough times to personally avenge every one of those poor people they spaced and their families.”

“Don’t go overboard here. Remember that he is out of reach at the moment. There will be a time for revenge, but do not blow it all now by acting too prematurely.”

I don’t want to wait! I can’t. The pressures are mounting inside me. They’re demanding action NOW. What am I to do, though? I can’t touch Relentless, that much is for sure. Perhaps another time the opportunity will arise… He resigned himself to waiting. I seem to be doing a lot of resignation lately. First my abandonment of the Empire for this rebellion, then leaving my home, then putting off all my exquisite revenge plots… How long will it have to be before I can plunge that knife in and hear him scream? How long until I make my brother realize his mistake?



Kain finished relaying the necessary orders, then returned to his Emperor’s staging room. Torsonnen himself was not there, having adjourned to his quarters for the time being. Nebulid will pay! His half human form will not continue to elude us for much longer. This will catch him, and when it does, I will show him the new true meaning of ‘cyber’. He will die! And when that is done, perhaps I can begin to purify all of mankind. It was all part of the master plan he had concocted over the long months since Nebulid’s flight from the service of his most illustrious Emperor Advira Torsonnen. Once the human race was all that remained in the galaxy, there would be nothing left to purify - nothing but the race itself. That, he thought, can be arranged.

And the anonymous voice that tended to drop in and out of his mind expressed its agreement. The purity of the race, after all, was always a very serious issue…



A half month passed without anything near or even somewhat resembling activity on the Torsonnen front or on the Darahn front. Basically the entire galaxy just sat and stagnated for two weeks. At long length, though, it was decided that the time was ripe for another resource raid, this time somewhere a bit closer to home to cut down on costs. Another Outer Rim world would be ideal - close, easy to hit, et cetera. The difficulty was finding a resource world in the Outer Rim worth their time. Most of them were basically one family planets with little personal businesses in the mining industry, trying to prove their worth to the Emperor in hopes of some kind of promotion or whatnot. Eventually they were forced to look back inward, closer to the Core. They came upon the idea of attacking Earth, but dismissed it just as quickly as it came, for all the obvious reasons and a few more - namely there was no poetry in it. However that point got in the discussion, no one may ever know, but it did, and it served to defeat Earth as a possibility. A half joking suggestion of Mars was also instantly rejected, for good reason. Tulsa Prime was eventually selected based on its resource stockpiles and its relatively undefended status.

The mission was planned out quickly over the next two hours. Nebulid suggested just coming in hard, but that was shot down quickly. Msul’b preferred a more stealthy approach, and Makhi agreed, so it was set. They would not blaze into Tulsa Prime, but rather creep in on their bellies and creep out. Leaving the Torsonnen fleet none the wiser… let’s hope it works as well this time as last.



Relentless was here to fill a hole. The hole was basically a missing ship not able to cover Tulsa Prime. Earth was more than well enough defended at the moment anyway, especially given its relative lack of resources remaining after millennia of exploitation by a hungry populace. Torsonnen was sure that a resource planet was going to be hit soon, though, and this one could be it.

I hope they come here, anyway, so I can watch them die personally. He turned to Kain. “Put us in idle, please.” Kain complied immediately. I like that man. He obeys me without question every time. I would be honoured to have that man as an heir. Of course, that could not be made official; certain circumstances tend to stand in the way of that, including this one. Perhaps after we crush those rebels, I’ll give it another thought. He could use a promotion.

Relentless immediately went into idle mode. All weapons systems remained at the ready, but propulsion was nearly nil, as well as sensors. It would take only five minutes to restart the ship in case of a raid, however. Torsonnen was pleased, for this was the case all over the galaxy at resource planets everywhere.

We have them exactly where we want them. It is only a matter of time before they turn up, wherever they do, and then they will pay for their crimes.



“Now preparing for final jump. Twenty seconds.” We have them right where we want them. Nebulid could not help but smile. They will pay in full for their crimes against the Federation! Against the galaxy.

A lurch, and the smile was immediately wiped from his face and replaced with a frown. They’d managed to drop out of warp right on top of a Torsonnen ship - supercarrier - Relentless. Aww shit, why’d my day have to become like this? “It’s Relentless! They’ve already started launching! We’ve been played. Let’s get the hell out of here! Go! Move!” Nobody moved. Nebulid was shocked to see a total lack of movement anywhere on the bridge, with one notable exception. “Lieutenant, what the hell is going on?” Surely the Krion would know.

It did. “It appears there is someone aboard that ship with psionic talent. Difficulty is, I can’t locate them yet. My guess is that they’re one of the bridge staff, however, based on how quickly they eliminated the crew. Can you pilot while I try to throw off the freeze that psionic Torsonnen crewer is placing on our crew?”

“Surprisingly, yes I can.” Glad to have taken the lessons he had, Nebulid eased himself into the helmsman’s seat, gently guiding its previous occupant to the floor. Trying to once more get a feel for the controls, Nebulid was rewarded with a slight lurch. They were moving - toward the supercarrier! Nebulid hurriedly countered the move, sending them violently the other way.

“It would be helpful if you could make the ride a bit smoother so that I can concentrate,” said the Krion second mate, still trying in vain to revive the astrogator. Good choice. The only two people we actually need to get out of here are the astrogator and the helmsman. Command staff take second priority to that. At the very least, they can be revived once we clear the zone anyway. Come on, damned controls! Respond! Again he was rewarded with a lurch. Damn you! Move smoothly! The device steadfastly refused to move the ship in any smooth manner. Nebulid growled.

“You are not helping with your erratic piloting. Please try to make it smoother if at all possible.”

“Cut me some slack! I just learned a week ago!” He punctuated the sentence with another shaky movement of the carrier. He was in luck - a plasma bolt came streaking by, missing barely. The hull took a little bit of heat damage, but otherwise no harm was done to Valour.

“What do you have to say to that? Huh?” Just try to rag on my piloting skills again, eh? I’ll show you! Valour made its shaky way towards the edge of the system, hotly pursued by a much more professionally piloted Relentless. I wonder what they’re making of this all over there? They must be laughing.

On the contrary, they were aghast. How in the heavens is that ship moving still? There’s not a way in hell it could possibly have enough crew to even run like that. There’s only two of them, both bridge crew, according to my gifted Number One! I’ll have my answers.

But of course Kain was not the skipper of this particular vessel any longer. He was a figurehead for Torsonnen, who was the real commander in this time. I hope his plan works… Nebulid must pay. Of course, they are doomed. “Launch the mobile troops.”



“Okay, this is not good. Relentless is spewing battlesuits. Let’s get our astrogator back in the land of the living, and quick!” We need to get out of here now. No choice. Just leave.

“I can’t revive him fast enough with your choppy flying! Try to get us under control!”

“I’m doing the best I can!” Valour continued to twitch side to side, but it was slightly less violent in its migrations. Come on, you steel brute! Bend to my will! I will--

--A plasma bolt grazed them. Nebulid could hear the computer squeal “Hull integrity compromised in Sector 8. Security doors closed and sealed. Repeat--”

“Quiet!” I need to concentrate! This beast is unresponsive enough already. Damn it!

“Looks like we lost one of our thrusters to the blast, too. God damn it all!”

“Good! Maybe you won’t bounce us around so much now! I can get some reviving done!”

Funny, thought Nebulid, then he returned to trying to elicit a response from Valour. “Their mobile troopers are closing in fast. I recommend you work a bit swifter, Lieutenant.”

It turned and faced him. “Shut the hell up and let me work! Lords, man.”

Nebulid went totally silent, stunned by the outburst. Alright, let’s see what this thing can do! He played with a few settings, netting a response mor favourable than earlier. Maybe if I can keep up these kind of less choppy maneuvers, Makhi can revive our astrogator.

For its part, Makhi was working without pause, trying approach after approach to the astrogator’s mind. It was not getting anywhere, however. None of the approaches it was taking were working. Lords Above, grant me this one request! All I ask is this one’s soul restored to its body! Applying its power, Makhi tried this time to forcibly rip apart the barrier keeping the astrogator in his comatose state. It felt something give way somewhere else. Good! Finally I’m getting somewhere! Now to locate the hole I’ve just created.

A cursory search pointed out the general area of the mind in which the block was in place. Good! We get closer at every step. But the mobile troopers approach, too. I must hurry and finish my diagnosis. Valour continued to barely dodge incoming plasma bolts, basically just because of the sheer dumb luck of Nebulid’s terrible piloting. Damn! To think that all that keeps us alive is that man’s ineptitude. I must rectify this situation. It had located the hole now. Now to get a figurative wedge. A false memory was quickly created for the purpose. Perfect. We will have this man’s mind back!

He stirred slowly, his senses returning to him. “What in the hell just happened to me? We appeared on top of Relentless, then nothing, then I just wake up? What is--”

Nebulid called back from the pilot’s seat “No time! We revived you first for a reason. I need a warp solution out of this system, and I need it yesterday.”

“Understood.” The astrogator lent all of his supreme calculatory skill to the task. The computer did all the dirty work for him, but the equations were all his.

“We will have optimal warp solution in around a minute, Commander.”

“I don’t want optimal solution! I want a solution NOW! Just get us the fucking hell out of here!”

“Understood.” He pulled a few switches, not bothering to refine the equations any further. A lurch, this time a blessing rather than a curse. “We made it. Problem is…”

“Oh good God, what could it possibly be this time?” Given the circumstances, it was not entirely unreasonable for Nebulid to expect the worst.

“Well, other than the fact that everyone seems to still be asleep, nothing. But that might be it.”

“They escaped. THEY ESCAPED! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?” Kain was to be heard shouting from kilometres away. “It’ll be a bitch trying to persuade His Imperial Majesty to spare your unworthy asses, do you know that? Sometimes I wonder why the hell I got to all the effort for underachievers like you guys! Do you feel so intrigued by the fate of the last crew that you feel you need to experience it personally?”

A chorus of “No” resounded throughout Relentless’ massive hull.

“I’ve made my point, I think. Next time, though, I’ll make my point violently, I swear.”

Disgusted, he returned to the staging room. How in God’s name am I going to explain this to His Imperial Majesty? I hope he is in a good mood today…

“Your Imperial Majesty? I have grave news to report. It seems--”

“Yes, they managed to get out of the system on two crewmen and half an engine. I must say that was an impressive bit of flying, crude though it was! Nearly no fault of your own, Kain. Do not worry.” However, do not bank on my good mood lasting as long as you may need it. At some point in any war there comes a time for either results or death. Remember that.

“Of course, sir. I will be sure to produce results in the future, Your Imperial Majesty.” Hah! He is a mind reader! That or he has learned from past experience. Either of the two is acceptable. They both serve my purpose at this time.

Now, what to do about the rebels? They are more skilled than I originally thought. I will have to adjust my plans to account for this sudden insight…

He looked over at Kain. “You’ve done excellently promoting my interests, Captain Kain. I must say, your idea of using the psionic was nothing short of sheer brilliance, failure though it was.”

“I live to serve.” Kain, noting the Emperor’s facial expression, hastily left the room. Hah! thought Torsonnen, he’s afraid of the friendly Emperor. Good to see him learning all the time!



“How are we going to get these people revived? It’s a terrible tragedy in which we find ourselves.”

“All we can do is take them one by one. I am going to start with the other psionically gifted crew member. In the meantime, please, for everyone’s sake including yourself, do not attempt to fly the ship!”

Acutely aware of the deliberate jab at his piloting skills (or lack thereof), Nebulid replied “Fine! I’ll keep my hands off this dreadful thing. Bloody unresponsive beast anyway.” Turning away in mock disgust from the console, he looked at Makhi. “How long for the two of you to get this done?”

“It could be as long as two weeks before we finish our revival work. It is a delicate process, and we have to take a different approach to every mind. My apologies, Commander.”

“Totally unnecessary. How long until we have enough to, say, build a base on Darahn?”

“Probably three days. It’s somewhat hazy at this point, however. I will do my best.” It turned back to its work, and Nebulid was left with nothing to do. Nothing, that is, except take lessons from the astrogator. The more jobs I can do… he smiled. Three days? Nothing to do for three days?! I used to dismiss such leaves as trifles. Now in the span of a month I’ve pulled a U-turn. Three days! What a luxury!!!

Of course, that’s three days in which we’re totally defenceless. If Relentless decided to show up in that time, Valour was finished, barring another miracle performance. I’d not like us to have to stake any more on that, however… beginner’s luck only lasts for so long before it withers and dies…



It took three hours for Makhi to break the mind block on the other Krion on the crew (all Krion are psionically gifted by nature, dating back to pre Federation days), and then the two of them set out to revive the rest of the crew in order of necessity, in terms of both running the ship and constructing the Darahn base. Nebulid knew at once that this was going to be a looooooong process, probably longer than the mere two weeks. Fortunately, one of the first ones revived was the normal pilot, so Nebulid would not be forced to ever pilot the ship ever again. Emphasis on ‘ever’, he thought, chuckling. I definitely should not tell the pilot about what I did to his beautiful helm record. I wonder what they thought of my skills on Relentless? He laughed again. There was nothing else you could do in these sort of situations but just laugh. If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane before long, that’s for sure. Like Torsonnen…



“Here’s our problem - they’re not likely to voluntarily show their faces again for a while.”

“Then we outwait them. It seems quite simple to me.” Let’s see what you’ve got.

“Except we can’t put the entire war on hold for one comatose band of rebels.”

“Correct answer! We will have to send one ship after them. Any volunteers?”

“How about yourself? You’ve got a dead man on board, after all.” The knowledge of Torsonnen’s still being alive was shared by select highly placed officers in his navy by now.

Kain nodded. “Not only that, but he’s commanding the ship now, too. We’re decided, then?” The captains, one by one, nodded and disappeared, the holograms fading into nothingness. Lovely little bit of technology, that. Now to find a way to eradicate the rebellion. The thought had no relation to the hologram, but strange minds work in strange ways. Nebulid. I’ll have your blood before this incident is all over with, scum!



Nebulid went off to oversee the revival of the chief engineer, who was absolutely vital to the operation at this point - something seemed to have gotten jammed in the warp assembly, and nobody else dared touch that monstrosity but Sergeant McClean herself. It’s too vital; it’s all too damned vital! God damn it! Why does everything have to be vital? Can there not be some inconsequential things too? I’ve had plenty of vital things for today, thank you very much! Cut me some slack now! But it was decidedly unlikely that the universe would ever allow him that again.

Damn! The futility of it all struck him for the tenth time (at least) today. How are we going to get any sort of resistance done in this sad, sorry state? It’s at least a minimum requirement that we have SOME manpower to do those things… this is just ridiculous! Relentless always hot on our heels, too - can’t wait for THEM to show.

Damn! Where’s the trigger happy captain when you need him? I’m sure he’d have us out of this rut in seconds flat! That’s it. I’m having him woken up.

“Makhi, where is the other Krion? I have something of a special request to make of it…”



It took nearly five hours doing it, but the Krion did indeed manage to revive Captain Msul’b. Thank you! Nebulid said internally. “Thank you,” he said externally, adding to Msul’b “Welcome back to the land of the living, Captain.”

“It’s good to be back, I must admit… I take it the situation is grim and the odds are against us. Oh well, it would not really be the resistance if that weren’t the case. That’s just normal. Let’s get this garbage scow moving, eh?”

“Let’s not have me driving this time. You really do not want to have that experience first hand!”

“I’ll trust your word on that one. Let’s get moving!” He started barking out orders, and immediately morale was at a record high - well, at least among those crew who were actually awake. Of course, it did not matter much to the comatose ones, but that was pretty well understandable given their current state of mind. He forgave them that particular transgression.

This is exactly what we were missing. He’s a natural leader, that one. The emotions started coursing through Nebulid’s veins again. Kain! Why do you have to do this to me? You’d think that my own brother would take the time to be a slight bit nicer to me…



Kain looked over at Torsonnen. “So! We’re going rebel hunting. Your orders?”

“Look for unsettled planets, preferably in systems with one or more settled worlds.”

“Are we going to check them all, then? That will take an eternity to carry out, you know.”

“Of course not! I’ll decide where they most likely are based on what you bring in for my perusal.”

“So is it glorified guesswork--” Kain caught himself. “I apologize for the outburst.”

“On the contrary, thak you for the enlightenment! How else do you propose to go about this, then? I’m anxious to hear your ideas.” Does he have a leprechaun in his pocket? I want to borrow it then! Tell me!

“No, I don’t. It was a stupid outburst. My apologies once more. Please disregard it.”

Absolutely. “Absolutely. You serve your Emperor well, do you know that?”

“Thank you.” Kain shuffled out of the staging room. Glorified guesswork? Why the hell did I point that out? Am I trying to sign my suicide note? Perhaps I’m dwelling too much on the issue. Just let it come naturally. That’s how I got here in the first place, after all. Oh well, life continues… work continues.



“We have optimal warp solution. Shall I take us in?” The astrogator sounded eager. Now here’s the benefit of a strong natural leader, people want to work for him. Nebulid could not say the same for his own leadership experience, brief though it had been. Another snide comment about my piloting and I’d probably have throttled Makhi, whatever it was at the moment. Makhi tended to only use one form, unless in its natural form, which was a relatively rare sight. That form had been so readily associated with Makhi that it was essentially its standard form. Heh. That particular form would be so easy to throttle, too, actually. It at least had the decency to possess a neck.

“Yes, do it.” Such a prosaic command coming from the great leader - strange that such an excellent speaker would prefer not to exercise his vocabulary often. As days go by, I’m more and more intrigued by this guy. I feel almost like I’m studying him… perhaps trying to learn from him. Hell, it’s not such a bad idea to try… Perhaps, just perhaps, I will pick up something vitally important from him. Again with the ‘vitally’ important! Where was the triviality? His senses told him that triviality was going to have to be somewhat of a luxury for the rest of his life; sighing, he resigned himself to that fact.

A lurch, and they were at the edge of Darahn’s system. Another lurch, and there they were, a million kilometres out from the planet itself. “There we go. That’s our new home. Let’s make of it what we can, while we’re still able to.”

“Once we’re able to again. Last I checked, there were two Krion elites running around trying to revive everybody we need to set up the extractor assemblies once we get there.”

“Bah! Trivialities!” Nebulid refuted that internally Fool! There are no trivialities left! “We’ll do what we can as soon as we can. Does that make you happy? That little rephrasing there?” Not really.

“I’ll accept it conditionally.” Nebulid grinned. “Shall we get under way, then?”

“I thought it might be appropriate for you to take care of that particular detail personally, given your obvious talent at the helm.”

“I’m afraid I would have to respectfully decline, Captain.”

Chuckling again, Msul’b gave the order to get Valour going.

The carrier had reached Mark Two by the time it became necessary to decelerate for the delicate dance of attaining a stable orbit. Slowing Valour down was an art. Small retrothrusters pitting the front of the ovoid hull were the only brakes, but working in concert they could actually put out a respectable amount of thrust, and Valour was able to slow from Mark Two almost all the way down to sitting still in space. At that point Valour basically just fell into orbit around Darahn. It truly was an art, and their helmsman one of the leading artists of the present generation. Nebulid smiled again - I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, it seems - perhaps I should have a reason for it more often. Most assuredly it bugs the crew - in fact, it seemed that Ops’ eye twitched a bit every time Nebulid pulled out the little grin for which he was famed the galaxy over. And feared, he ruminated; that smile once meant death.

Memories flooded over him. This time, he didn’t even make an effort to resist them…



Hey, how’s it going on Relentless? The man speaking to him he identified as an old friend.

“Acceptable. I’m somewhat distressed by my captain, though. Kain is pure evil.”

“So is the rest of the Empire; I thought you would have noticed that by now. It was obvious enough.”

“The rest of the Empire can go hang. This guy is the epitome of evil. I bet if you looked up ‘cold hearted’ in the dictionary, his picture would be beside the definition.”

“That bad, eh? Having worked on a Federation cruiser before, you must have had a--”

“No. Don’t talk about my Federation days. I’m liable to get killed as it is without giving them a good reason to pull the trigger. Especially with the circumstances being what they were in terms of my quote unquote ‘defection’. Change of subject, please.”

“Actually, seems I’m about out of time on this. Stupid public piece of shit Holo--”

The signal faded. Nebulid turned to the door, at the other side of which stood an anxious young ensign not more than six months out of the Academy. With him was someone much older, someone who really should have been somewhat wiser than the ensign, though of course he was not, as he would surely not be at Nebulid’s door, given the current charges.

“Come on in, Ensign. Bring him with you, if you will.” The young man complied.

“Now, now… Mr… Atvar. You seem to have been charged with insubordination.”

“I seem to have been charged with total bullshit, you mean. See it for what it really is.”

“That’s what the discovery process is all about. Now, you killed your major, did you?”

“I did it as a retaliatory measure for past grievances. The fucker had it coming from kilometres away.”

“I am sorry to say that won’t fly.” Nebulid smiled, then plunged the knife in. Leaving it in Atvar’s heart for fifteen seconds, he finally removed the knife and pocketed it, turning to the ensign. “Please clean up after this mess for me, eh?” He winked and continued “Welcome to the Navy, bud.”



“Commander! Wake up! It is not enough to be physically present on the bridge! Your MIND has to be there too. I don’t care what I’m breaking up; it has to be done.”

Awakening from his sudden memory trance, Nebulid shook his head to clear it out and said “Thank you for the wake up call - I was really deep in my memories there. My apologies.”

“No apologies needed. All I need from you at this point is to be present, both physically and mentally.”

“Not a problem. What in particular am I needed for?” Nothing involving piloting of any kind, I hope.

“At this point, we’re in desperate need of a shuttle pilot.” Asshole. “However, that is not what I have in mind for you. Rather, I think you would enjoy suiting up as a Sentinel more.”

“And why is that?” Although, truth be known, he’s damned right. Nebulid had always held the far flung dream in his mind that he would fight as a mobile trooper someday. Whatever the captain had in mind for him, it put him in a position to have ‘fulfilled’ his dream life without actually requiring him to undergo years of strict, harsh training regimens.

“Darahn just happens to be an icy planet, in case you hadn’t noticed. There’s a good reason nothing lives on it - apart from its lack of an atmosphere, it tends toward extreme cold. The Sentinel suits will provide the environmental protection you require while you supervise construction.”

“Okay, I think I can probably deal with that.” Can I, though? It’s a good question. Can I really take that pressure? He resolved to at least try, or else he would forever be know as the Little Commander that Couldn’t. And in the process he would get a chance (finally!) to wear the coveted Sentinel suit he had wanted so long.

“Unfortunately, we have nobody qualified to instruct you in the use of the suits at the moment. However, I do believe our astrogator has a firm grasp on the basics.”

The astrogator? This is news. “I will try to teach you what I can. All I can hope is that you are more naturally skilled with the suit than at the helm.” Once again Nebulid was struck by the biting remarks about his lack of piloting skill. I hope they get that over with relatively quickly. I get ANGRY after too much of this ribbing…



“Alright. Welcome to Model AT training camp. I’ll be your instructor for the day. Do we need to go into the history of the battlesuit’s various editions, or can we skip that part over?”

“I already probably know more about the suit’s history than you do, Lieutenant.”

“Then I will skip the boring part over. Now, the first thing to do is putting the suit on. It’s a tiresome, difficult process. In fact, the only harder thing to do is everything else associated with the suit and the actions you take while in the suit.” He allowed himself a chuckle over that. “The seals are all magnetic - unless the suit loses power or gets struck by several ion bolts, you should have no leakage. The seals are here” - he indicated his waist - “here” - his neck - “and here” - the seam of the helmet running from the back of the neck to the crest of the forehead piece. “The controls for the seals are on the suit’s exterior, but they require triple confirmation to disengage. I think you can probably easily guess at the reasoning behind that particular move. Now, let’s get you suited up. Careful with the jet assembly - even with the artificial gravity in this hangar dialled down to one third of its normal factor, the thrust units are still quite vulnerable. Alright, give it a try now.” He stepped back.

Nebulid approached the suit cautiously, as though it were radioactive, harmful in some way to his person. Gingerly he reached out and touched it, feeling the stiff suit material in his hand. It was pitch black, reflecting less than a tenth of a percentage point of the light striking it. Nebulid knew that only beam weapons provided the necessary local luminosity to illuminate the suit in any meaningful fashion. It meant little enough now, but originally it had been intended to throw the L46 mobile troopers off visually, so that the Sentinel corps could seize on the moment of hesitation and take them out remorselessly. A whole industry sprang out of the need to have that ever so slight advantage. Astounding. Of course, the reasoning behind the original decision had also depended heavily on something else, also long since outmoded by the passing of time and the improvement of technology. Mobile infantry with plasma weapons? How the hell did they ever manage to get a hit? Apparently, the Sentinels themselves had been the major catalyst of change from the plasma weaponry to ion pulse guns - Thomas Wright was reported as having said “Fer Chris’ sake, give me a gun that shoots straight. If we have to go back to lead slugs, do it. No more plasma!”

No more plasma, indeed. It did not take very long at all to replace the weapons - or, indeed, the mobile troopers carrying them. By the time the Krion embassy had been established on Earth, Sentinels had moved entirely from plasma to ion guns. How exactly the ion guns worked so that they did not wobble all over the place from random electrical phenomena like plasma shots did had been a company secret, remained a company secret, and would remain a company secret for, likely, all time. Even Torsonnen could not pressure them. Likely it was another piece of reverse engineered technology from the Gateway installation.

Remembering suddenly where he was and what exactly it was he was supposed to be doing, Nebulid grabbed the leg section (read: pants) and slipped it on. The push of a button activated the automatic body scanning system which measured his legs exactly and modified the suit’s shape to form fit him. Originally this had been done manually prior to production of a suit, and all Sentinel battlesuits had been form fitted individually. With the variability of the high tech suit material of the newer models, it became possible to have variable suits, to a degree, increasing battlesuit production efficiency. This had become particularly important when Earth, as a new Federation member in the early twenty third century, had been faced with a war against the ex Federation Harkulu species, who had already been at war with the Krion for nearly a hundred years prior to Earth’s involvement. The reasoning behind Earth’s initial jump into the war had been strategic - battlesuits were a foreign concept to the reptilian Harkulu, and thus, while still outgunned by a considerable margin in terms of technology et cetera, the Sentinel forces could at least distract them long enough for the Krion to work up something a bit more potent. And work it up they had, producing a behemoth of a battleship, bristling weaponry at every tip, every nook, every cranny. It was an unstoppable force. Fittingly, they had named it Relentless, which lent all manner of irony to the current situation. Remembering again that there was indeed a current situation, Nebulid continued to don the suit, working this time to get the body segment (read: shirt) on. A minute passed while the automatic scanner made the necessary adjustments once more to the suit dimensions, then he activated the first magnetic seal.

Newer and more improved versions of the suit had kept being developed, even during peace times, because humanity both a) was just that way, and b) did not really care what the Federation thought. Already the seeds of the Torsonnen Empire had been sown, as early as 2300 AD. Disgusting. For us to so openly defy the Convention older than our race? There is no honour to be had in that. It had allowed Torsonnen to amass the military power he had had, so that when he had made his bid for power, the Federation’s forces had been too little and come too late to really make any sort of difference whatsoever. Why?! Why did you have to steal my life from me? You even turned my own brother against me.

Struck by the thought of Kain, Nebulid returned to the task at hand. The helmet was a departure from the rest of the suit - its primary composition was hardened steel similar to that of the retractable combat knives mounted on the forearms. There was a seal at the neck and one along the extended back of the helmet (originally designed to resemble a creature from an ancient movie of some sort) - both of which he presently engaged. The astrogator, having nodded off a bit himself, was startled to see Nebulid there, proudly displaying his finally fully donned Sentinel suit. “Excellent! Now, try and work your way through the neural interface. This part I cannot really teach you, as our species’ cognitive systems are vastly different in structure. I can only help in terms of what commands you should give it to elicit best results. How you phrase those commands is up to you to decide.”

The neural interface of the suit was indeed intimidating. His every thought was paralleled by the suit. He thought “forward”, the jets started up. He thought “backward”, and they swivelled quickly around to thrust the other way. “Left” and “right” elicited similar types of responses. He was unwilling to try commanding it with “red button”, though the thought crossed his mind for a fleeting second. “Good! I see you have a very basic understanding of the suit’s movement. Now, try a lap around Valour.” Nebulid thought “up”, then “forward”, bringing himself slowly out of the hangar. At this point it became more an exercise of how natural he could make the mental commands, as opposed to merely putting the commands out at all. He knew that the best mobile troopers fought almost without thought, basically just pouring sensory data into a big vat of combat analysis from which they pulled their moves. The imagery appealed to Nebulid, but he did not actually know whether he would ever attain that level of master. It seemed a little far flung and ambitious for someone not even a mobile trooper by trade or training - perhaps if he were not primarily a bridge staff member, it would be slightly more realistic as an ultimate goal.

The mere fact that he was able to go through that entire thought process in the midst of his lap around the carrier was evidence that he was better at piloting a mobile trooper’s battlesuit than he was at the helm.

The astrogator was reasonably impressed. “You’re doing a bit better than the average boot camp Sentinel suit first timer at this point - certainly a far sight better than you are behind the wheel of Valour.”

“Excellent. Are there any particular skills I am going to want to pick up to do my job?”

“Well… Darahn has no atmosphere and less gravity than this hangar at the moment. You should be fine. Although… I would also suggest you familiarize yourself with one of these.” He pointed to a big rack full of weapons. There were sabres, scythes, spears - an almost infinite variety of beam weaponry to select from. Nebulid selected a particularly deadly looking spear, felt the sleekly curved handle in his loose grip, wanted to activate it but dared not. “I recommend training with a practice blade first,” continued the astrogator, “so as to reduce the risk of bodily harm from the blade. There is a training room, too, and with more or less the entire mobile infantry force in varying degrees of comas, you should have no trouble booking time.”

“Excellent. Thank you for everything today. Do you have a name I can add to your title, Lieutenant?”

“Just Wasted will do. I believe that sums up my life and personality fairly well, too.”

“Very well, then, Lieutenant Wasted. I thank you for your assistance with my training.”

“Much obliged.” The astrogator stalked silently out of the hangar area, presumably headed to the bridge. You learn something new about this crew every God damned day, don’t you? He smiled.



Over the next few days, he gained a sort of loose mastery over the Sentinel suit’s controls. At least, his flight was much smoother now than it had been before, and a damned sight smoother than had been his piloting of the carrier. This did not mean he was a master in the conventional sense of the term - in fact, he believed that might never for him be attainable at any time. But if ‘acceptable’ was all he would need for the job, he would be able to muddle through it with little more than moderate difficulty. And really, that was all that mattered in the end - did you or did you not accomplish the mission? If you did, congratulations. If you did not, you were either dead already or would soon join the ranks of the dead. At least that was how the Imperial Navy tended to work. In these ranks the problem of replacing dead crewmen for a good reason was ridiculous enough without the difficulty of replacing meaningless deaths to add to it all.

That’s all the Imperial Navy is - it’s a big conglomeration of stupidity and meaningless deaths. All of it. All it’s ever been.

“Message for you, Commander,” droned the computer’s voice, “from the captain. How do I direct it?”

“Send it to my datapad; I’ll review it on my way to the bridge.” He smiled again.

“Operation complete. Would you like to back up this message and / or its contents?”

“No thank you - I will take it as it is.” He studied the datacard well. “This is good news.” Having said that to no one in particular, Nebulid continued to the bridge, whistling softly.

He arrived to a sort of fanfare. Having observed his recent improvements with the operation of the Sentinel suit, Msul’b had decided to throw a quick bridge party before business stuck its nose in, as it is wont to do.

It was quick indeed. No sooner had he begun a conversation with Lieutenant Wasted than Msul’b returned to captain mode. “Now, Commander. It is time to lead your men down to the surface and begin construction of the extraction facilities we need.”

“Understood, Captain. I have been prepared for this occasion for days now, Captain.”

“Excellent! Go there now, then, and help to make for us all a brighter future!”

Two: Hunt



Joran Nebulid wheeled his suit around, clumsily due to a lack of adjustment to the lower gravity on Darahn. He wondered if that adjustment would ever be able to come. “How’s it going over there, Ensign?” He expected the usual noncommittal “It’s coming along as it comes along” response.

In a stroke of unexpectedness, the response came out as “We’ve got extractor assembly difficulties here. It’s taken a while to diagnose the problem, but now we have Sergeant McClean down there attending to the coolant leak we found. That should solve it.”

“You still need to cool the extractors even on a frozen over hellhole like this planet?”

“Especially on a frozen over hellhole like this, Commander. We do not want to create excessive hot cold differentials in an environment like this. At best it would melt all the ice and topple the extractor over. At worst it could fracture the entire ice field.”

“We can’t have that. Excellent. Have Sergeant McClean notify me when she finishes up. I need her technical expertise for another extractor over at sector 4-B.” The extractor there was exhibiting a particular talent for running into difficulties. It almost seemed as if there was a little gremlin hiding in the extractor’s core, sticking its wrench in the power supply feed, then prying loose an actuator circuit, then just giving up and physically breaking the thing, leading to the current situation - the extractor was toppled over and subject to extensive repairs and constant testing and retesting. Sergeant McClean had already been there once, and at first the extractor had worked fine, but soon it was plagued by troubles of different sorts. There is something evil living in that thing, I swear! If we opened the extractor up, a little gremlin would jump out and kill us all. “And tell her to bring a can of gremlin repellent with her too - she might need it.”

The ensign chuckled. Everyone in the construction crew knew about 4-B’s reputation. It was reserved for only the very best to try to put an end to troubles there, cursed though the posting was. The job frustration was just a status symbol. “Affirmative, Commander. I think a can of Raid! is all we have on us at the moment, however.”

“It will have to do. These are the times we live in, when we cannot even afford proper gremlin repellent for our engineering corps! All the more reason the Empire must fall. In the name of gremlin massacres!” Chuckling to himself as well, Nebulid fired up his jets and sped over to 4-B again. Perhaps there had been sort of miracle solution found in the last fifteen minutes since he had been there. Damned gremlins. Where the hell is the anti gremlin cannon when you really need it?



“Kain! Congratulations. You have managed to narrow our selection down to just forty systems? That is outstanding. I am really impressed. How good are the leads on those first few you have marked for special attention? I crave details.”

Kain was aware of the corrupted John McCarmack saying, but was not aware of the reason the systems had been so marked. “Good question. Also, how did they get marked in the first place? I did not do it, and I keep a tight rein on my staff, so…” he trailed off.

Torsonnen held up a little HoloComm receiver. “I just got word from someone high up at Intel that they were about to send the recommendations to you. My apologies. I will review these personally. Dismissed.” Kain hurriedly left the room.

He hasn’t slipped up yet, I see, commented Torsonnen to himself. He takes after his brother that way. Too bad the two of them are useless for anything other than entertainment, really… I wonder if Kain knows how many of his thoughts are actually his own? He smiled. I doubt he would like to know the answer to that particular question…



Kain returned to tracking intel reports from across the galaxy, scouring that mass of nebulosity for the few gems that were actually quality leads. Valour had done a simply excellent job of digging a hole, getting in, and pulling the hole in behind them. They were totally off the sensor screen. It was unknown whether they even existed anymore, but Kain knew as a matter of course that Valour had to still live. Beyond the practical aspect (which was that Valour could not simply disappear into nothingness - at the very least there would be a report of a torn up light carrier), a gut feeling pushed Kain forward towards that rebel carrier. Almost a compulsion, really, it was. Kain wondered where those rebels could possible be now. Probably they were holed up in some God forsaken wasteland out in the furthest reaches of the Outer Rim, trying to build up some war materiel to support their vain campaign against Imperial order, law, and justice. Fools! Fools, every one of them a damned fool! Oh well, you couldn’t pick and choose your favourite enemy of the state to hunt down - they all needed death.

And especially there is a particular ex bridge officer of mine that needs a bit of special attention…



Nebulid continued to monitor the progress on Extractor 4-B; really, it was a good laugh to watch the distraught engineers scramble around trying to diagnose this monster of a problem. We should have gone with our own design - less bells and whistles to break on us. Oh well. Contrary to popular opinion, there was actually no need for gremlin repellent - yet. They were still waiting for the outbreak. Some of the more tongue in cheek engineers on site had brought their ion guns loaded with “anti gremlin shells” and “stun bolts”. There was more than just one “phasers on stun” joke, too. Engineers…

Of course, fighter jockeys were just as bad if not worse, but Nebulid was neither. He liked to consider himself capable of shelving the jokes until the appropriate time, although he agreed that humour was essential to the proper functioning of a crew, especially one like this with nothing else really in common between crew members. The commonalities of the members of the Torsonnen crews had not been able to make up for the lack of humour, however. Why could we not have our fun? He would have had more of my life that way. I would have felt less bad about serving Torsonnen, knowing things were out of my control and just laughing about them. Oh, but that it could have been! As matters stood he was happy here, fighting the good fight against an oppressive dictator whose lease on life needed to expire soon. As soon as possible, if we can swing it.

The kicker was, the old dictator was dead already! It was Kain, the replacement, that Nebulid’s anger now directed itself towards. How could he betray our family? All of us proud Federation serving individuals, and he goes and muddies the whole thing up! Aiding and abetting the most underhanded, slimy warlord in galactic history. It’s disgusting! Why must there always be such a black sheep, and every time at the most inopportune moment and in the most inopportune way?! Nebulid was sickened by this. That his own brother could be capable of such rash betrayal of every principle upheld by the Nebulid line for three hundred years and running. Why?! he implored again, receiving no answer.

He doubted he would ever get an answer to that particular question. It was simply unreasonable to expect one, especially given the fact that the answerer could not be less than a few light years away, and Nebulid could not hijack a carrier to seek out the answer. All things would come in time. This he believed, and this he hoped - perhaps Kain could be made to see the light before Nebulid was forced to kill him. Let us hope that day never comes… or comes soon, so we can get the whole nasty business over with quickly and put it in the past where it belongs. Either way, it all works out fine.



Another day, and another of his patented summary courts martial. Today’s defendant just so happened to be one Sergeant Toofun from the Elite Sentinel group. He stood charged with murder of a fellow Sentinel elite. He put in a guilty plea, hoping to garner a lighter sentence. Unfortunately, there were no lighter sentences than those in place. There was only one sentence. So, with his trademarked smile, Nebulid slid the knife into Sergeant Toofun’s heart.

There was not much to clean up afterward. Nebulid was getting good at this.



Wondering why his trial memories kept flooding into his brain unbidden, Joran Nebulid resolved to continue his coordination work - it often went from unbearably dull to unbearably stressful in the span of about five minutes, and the best way to handle the transition between the two was to be constantly prepared for the stressful times. If the difficulties could be overcome before they even existed, they were. It made all the difference in the highly demanding engineering work. Nebulid just could not wait to get back on to Valour - fun as it was, the suit and the job were high pressure affairs, and he could only handle so much of that in one sitting. Perhaps that was what had been causing these flashbacks to his life as a trial officer aboard Relentless.

Or perhaps Kain is calling out to me. Perhaps he wants to convert to our side, after all…



Kain continued his perusal of the intelligence reports. Excellent! It seems our search is yielding results at long last! Just prior to our surprising them at the edge of that system with the cyber-haters - good thinking, Nebulid! I like your attitude - they had been shooed off the planet by said cyber-haters. Perhaps they were trying to plant a red herring by leaving the system and coming back in to move on to another planet in the system. Now, let’s see some system specs here: star named Tothliss, spectral class G0, yellowish white colour. Seven known planets; only one currently supports life, though some others have the potential. Particularly Tothliss III, which is rather cold but otherwise habitable. We should investigate based on this new information. This could be the key to locating them!

He looked for Emperor Torsonnen but could not find him anywhere - none of the usual places. That was strange. Torsonnen was a fairly routinized man, especially when it came down to ship’s operations. He saw no reason to not be able to locate the Emperor easily. Eventually he gave up, left the room, and thought more about his idea, trying to refine it further, to make it more presentable to the Emperor.

A spoken word to the psionic, and Torsonnen became visible once again. Excellent. We’ll see how much use we can put him to before it comes time to draw the final curtain. I would bet we can rely on him to find Valour for us, then we can pull our little stunt and off him.

Suddenly he could not contain his laughter. It was all so beautifully arrayed! Once things came to a head, the entire play would go down perfectly! It would be a true masterpiece of modern theatre, but in real life! One worthy of the Torsonnen name! We shall make this a betrayal to remember!



A shrill wind blew across the snow drifts on Tothliss III, as Imperial surveyor ships probed the surface for leads. This systematic scouring was the only way to determine the veracity of Kain’s suggestion. It was time consuming, but necessary, and certainly a lot better than missing the rebels right under their noses. Assuming, of course, that there were rebels here. With every ‘negative’ response from a surveyor ship, the chances of that being the case experienced a proportional drop, and Kain grew more and more tense. Perhaps he had been double whammied. Perhaps they wished him to waste his time here. It was too late to change that now, though. With the planet already here at his fingertips it would be suicide not to complete the search. The worst they could do was not find any rebels. Then they could move on to another system, similarly clearing it out. Problem: Relentless attracted attention. It was the current flagship of the Imperial Navy, meaning it was followed around everywhere it went. That info would eventually filter down to the resistance, and Valour would be able to park on, say, Tothliss III with impunity. And there was no way to perform a positive check on them if they did that. “Work harder!” he snapped at a random crewer passing by the bridge. Why in God’s name did I just do that? I must be losing my temper to go with the loss of my mind…



Another Sentinel came knocking at Nebulid’s door. This one was a bit different.

He had a strange look about him. “What’s up with your constant sideways frown?”

“A side effect of the breeding program that gave birth to me. Call me Project Twelve.”

“Very well, Project Twelve. What are you in my office for? I see no charges here.”

“I want to press them.” The sentence was as blunt as any sentence could possibly be, and that was a high calling, especially given some of the people on board.

“I’m the summary judge of courts martial on the ship, you know, not a litigator.”

“You are also the only man on ship with even an ounce of ship’s law knowledge. See, the problem I face is persecution from other members of the ship’s crew based on my mere appearances.”

“You do of course realize that the entire Empire was founded on the principle of persecution based on mere appearances, right? We just take it to extremes against non Terrans, that is all. I, myself, am constantly beset by complaints from all over the crew about the mere fact that one of the command staff is a cyber! It never really ends.” He did not smile, for he did not want to kill this man.

Project Twelve looked surprised. “Really? There’s a cyber on the command staff? Who might that be, then?”

“Me.” Nebulid finally allowed himself the smile without the knife, a rarity these days, actually. “Let me see what I can do to get this happening…”



Now here was a more happy memory, though still connected to that hateful time in which he had served aboard Relentless. Project Twelve, eh? I will have to delve into the rest of that particular memory later. But for now, pressing business needed his attention. Sergeant McClean had worked her magic, and now it was time to remount Extractor 4-B and try again. The moment of truth approached at breakneck speed (well, actually it was a veritable crawl, but time is subjective anyway). The extractor, now upright once again in the fastenings, beckoned, indicated that it wanted to be activated. Hastening to oblige this disembodied command, the crews hurried in and performed the final checks. Once everything was cleared, they backed off and McClean pulled a switch. Lights went on, indicating a successful power up. Now the real test began. Is this going to be able to extract anything from the surface kilometres below this ice sheet? It would be several hours at least before they could even begin to know. Hell, he did not even know how the technology was supposed to work in the first place! Something like a phase shifter coupled with a tunable electromagnet thingy. The sheer volume of technobabble even in the ‘simple’ explanations was overwhelming to Nebulid, who was not a fan of such talk. Joking references to ‘quasi-chrono-tachyal bosons’ sailed straight over his head, as did ‘reverse polarize the phase inducer’, though at least Nebulid had a firm grasp of the genesis of the latter brand of jokes. When confronted with legal babble, however, Nebulid was the best. He could cut through mounds of redundant, noncommittal, loophole ridden half promises with practiced ease. It had been his life, after all - several years as a Federation trial lawyer before the Descent had honed his skills, and Kain had used him as a summary judge for courts martial on Relentless.

Ugh, not again. The memories of Relentless were getting too obtrusive! It was beginning to intrude on his current work. Perhaps the captain was right… I need to put my past to rest, otherwise I could lose track of the present. But… this Project Twelve memory… what the hell had happened to him? The burning question drove Nebulid forward and inward to the vast morass of memory… and it swallowed him up whole.



“Mr. Project Twelve!” Nebulid confronted his client. “I have good news and bad.”

“What is the bad news, then?” Project Twelve’s face still was stuck in that scowling configuration.

“I could not find grounds for your case anywhere in the Ship’s Law code. I’m sorry.”

“What could the good news be, then?” The scowl had deepened a bit, but not too badly yet.

“You’re soon to get the chance to spill a little bit of blood. There has been an uprising at Kurant, and we need to silence it as soon as possible. Your unit is among those being mobilized for the purpose. Have fun!”

“More than you know.” It was something like a prophetic statement - Nebulid could not tell, however.

“More than I would care to ask about. My apologies and simultaneous congratulations.” Project Twelve left the room moderately satisfied. Nebulid proceeded to trim down the roster by a few more names before his ‘law’ time was over and he had to go back on bridge.



The extractor at 4-B seemed to be working smoothly, so Nebulid proceeded to the other most important construction site - the habitat for the engineers. The habitat project, at least, seemed to be going off without a hitch - no broken capacitors or missing parts or anything of that sort. The entire ordeal was not much of an ordeal at all, hardly worth classification as even a minorly difficult task. But it was still important, and important job sites needed visitation - frequent visitation, too. Nebulid arrived to see… nothing. Apparently he was at the wrong place. Turning around, he prepared to jet off, but a voice on his radio stopped him. “Come on, turn around! Don’t you want to see the big unveiling we have planned?”

What?! He turned back around - Oh, they cloaked it! Those bastards. “Sure, why not. Show me what you have accomplished with all this hard work.”

Slowly, the cloak dropped, revealing starting at the top and working its way down to the bottom. It was tremendous. Large amounts of it were dedicated to keeping it warm, but that made it no less magnificent - even more so, if anything. “You’ve done an excellent job, men.”

“Thanks, Commander. I think you will appreciate the chance to sleep on a bed tonight.”

Hah! You mean at all! Nebulid thought to himself, inwardly chuckling. There is no way in Hell to get even a catnap in this suit. In fact, I feel like turning in right now…



The raid on Kurant was a routine affair. Relentless had only to show up and begin charging weapons before the insurrectionists surrendered. But of the mobile troopers launched, one did not return. It seemed that Project Twelve had simply disappeared.

Nebulid was lost for words. There was now way to adequately describe his feeling. It seemed to be a mix of several emotions or feelings: anger, sadness… and a strange variant of satisfaction.

The last one seemed a bit out of place, but not as much given the message he had been sent anonymously (retrospectively it had to have been from Project Twelve himself). It read “Sometimes even ugly ducklings have to fly the coop…”



Nebulid was surprised a bit by the information he had dredged up. Project Twelve. Who is he? Did he succeed? Why does my brain feel that this is important all of a sudden? The questions just kept coming, with no answers provided by the depths of his reticent mind. He wondered if maybe he had once had the answer and now had lost it - but no, his recall was far too perfect for that. Unless it actually was not as perfect as he had once thought. In which case he was royally screwed. He had more or less built his early career on his recall ability. A stunning human database, he had gone from file clerk to trial lawyer and partner in his firm in a mere two years. His court record was… less than outstanding, but still respectable (he won around 200 of the 300 cases he handled in seven years as a trial lawyer). Ultimately he made the company money, and that was all that truly mattered in the end, in this Federation. Ah, for the days of the Federation! When the almighty Galactic Credit reigned supreme. All that was done was done in the hopes of gaining a few more of those credits. The game always continued - the high scores kept mounting - it all came to a crashing halt at the end.

Torsonnen, of course, had been one of the high scorers. It could be argued, then, that by liberal spending of his credits, he had quite fairly won and ended the game, but it was a matter of principle. Or rather, a matter of Torsonnen’s lack of said principles. Oh, Advira Torsonnen, how I wanted to kill you personally. You have no idea how lucky you were to die the way you did, so quickly and painlessly… he drifted off again.



He awoke to the sound of Captain Msul’b’s voice. “…get you back to Valour.”

“What?” He tried to replay the recording, but nothing happened. That was strange. He could have sworn the controls were right here--

“It’s a live feed. I would not bother fiddling around with that. Now, as I was saying previously, it is definitely time to get you back to Valour. Our second mate is still too busy scrambling around trying to revive everybody to really be able to contribute to the leading of the crew. We need you here for that. And besides, we just had the most interesting fellow pop into the system. Says he knows you. Just in case you do, I will not spoil the surprise for you…” He blinked out.

Groaning, Nebulid got out of the bed and went off to the battlesuit (really, in this environment, though, they were glorified parkas) hangar to suit up. It would be a long haul up to Valour, especially in the rickety shuttle. He sighed. Such is life. It was such an excellent descriptor for all manner of hardships, that.



Captain James Kain of the Torsonnen supercarrier Relentless, flagship of the Imperial Navy and leader of the fleet, looked off to his right, where he saw the first mate deep in contemplation. Psionics. Who’s going to tell them what to do? “Ideally, no one, but you will just have to do,” he heard, and Kain chuckled. Damnable mind readers will be the end of me.

“Ah, but we are just the beginning. It has been six hundred years since the first generation of reported psionics among humans. It will be more than five thousand more before our numbers match yours. When that happens… watch your back, eh Jim?” He chuckled.

“No kidding. Problem is I will be dead already. Why would I want to watch my corpse’s back? Seems rather redundant of me.”

“Good for the soul, I hear, though. What says our glorious Emperor of the search for the rebels?”

“I have not been able to get a straight answer out of him all day. Why don’t you try?”

“NOT good for the soul. I value my life too much to try that.” He smiled, almost a Nebulid smile in its characteristics but not quite.

“I’ve spaced entire crews before. You’re sure he is that much worse than me?”

“Absolutely. Totally terrible, all the way to his dark core. How do you survive his verbal lashings at all?”

“By the skin of my teeth, man, by the skin of my teeth.” Commander Arsivan left the room. Kain was left to himself; eventually he left too, and all was motionless.

But Arsivan’s thoughts were not. Far from it, in fact - he was deep in contemplation once more. How in God’s name am I going to play this? There was no easy way to pull it off. Playing both ends against the middle in a situation like this was never a simple task. He had to approach this carefully…



Kain was called to the bridge on an emergency channel. “We’re being fired upon.” Those damnable rebels! He smashed the HoloComm in a sudden fit of rage and ran to the bridge.

His arrival was punctuated by the entire vessel lurching to port after taking a missile hit on its starboard flank. “What in the name of God is going on here?”

“We’re being attacked by a heavy carrier; it’s identifying as Wombat. - They’re hailing.”

“Open the channel.” The HoloComm screen lit up to show a familiar face to Kain. “Captain Kelly! Good of you to pop by.”

“Admiral Kelly, thank you very much.” He scowled a deep scowl of derision at Kain.

“That is odd; I do not remember ever having given out an admiralty to you. I am sure it just slipped my mind, though.” To his tactical officer he said “Return fire.”

“Firing solution obtained. Firing plasma batteries three, four and six.” Two seconds later, he continued “Our shots were accurate. All three of them struck the same spot. Wombat appears to have a hull breach near its Engineering section. Shall I continue to fire?”

“Just one more salvo, please.” Tactical complied, then reported “Sensors detect multiple hull breaches in Wombat now. They also seem to have lost one of their plasma guns.”

“Excellent.” Turning to the HoloComm display, Kain said “You seem preoccupied, gentlemen!” Enjoying the moment, he took the time to release a calculated snort before continuing. “Your ship is now under my control. The man who ordered my ship fired upon is hereby declared a traitor to the Empire, and must be dealt with immediately.”

Kelly pulled himself back into his chair. “Kain, what do you mean?” His face showed a growing look of consternation.

“I mean exactly what I said, Captain Kelly. You… are a dead man.” Allowing himself one last derisive chuckle, Kain severed the HoloComm connection and ordered a boarding party be prepared. I will not have these people with their ideals of “justice” get in my way! There is someone far more unjust who must die.

Actually, given some time to consider it, he could think of two “someones” who could use a little bit of the death treatment, but Kain kept that little bit of information to himself.

The boarding party was dispatched immediately, and Wombat was once again a member of the Torsonnen Navy. Kelly was found dead at his captain’s chair. Cause of death was a knife to the back of his neck. Kain smiled.



“How could this be possible?” Torsonnen glared at Commander Arsivan, who shrugged. “Don’t just shrug at me! This is a serious situation!” His cries grew shrill.

“Look, there is nothing I can do about it. It is out of my control. Besides, what’s wrong with Weapon C having a bit of fun? I must admit to being surprised, however, by the way it managed to reactivate itself without our explicit command.”

“Countering an explicit command, even. We will have to keep an eye on it.”

“Aye, sir. I will have it monitored constantly with frequent status reports.” He turned and stalked out of the room.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t hit upon the “fun” idea of killing all my men off. That would be decidedly bad.



The ride up to Valour was pleasant enough - the shuttle pilot was an expert (certainly a far sight better than Nebulid) and Darahn’s lack of an atmosphere made for smooth goings otherwise. Nebulid did not, however, engage in small talk with the pilot, though the pilot seemed terribly interested in that, for whatever reason.

Instead, his mind was plagued by remembrances and by idle musings about who this surprise visitor might be. No one knew where Valour was, so why would they come here? Unless, of course, they were a Torsonnen agent, in which case it was time to pack up and move out. In a big way, too. It would entail a large amount of work; that work was not something he wanted to have to undergo at the moment.

I bet I’ll walk onto the bridge and find that it was all a joke on me. Then I’ll laugh, and they’ll laugh, and business as usual will continue. Fervently hoping so, Nebulid mutely awaited final docking clearance. It seemed to be taking forever to come, so, still in suit, Nebulid said “Oh, for God’s sake, just vent me and tell them I’m coming in hot, will you? I am in a bit of a hurry here.”

Shrugging, the pilot pulled a switch, and suddenly Nebulid was in space, loosely orbiting Darahn. A quick burst of his jets steadied him, then he did a quick bit of mental figuring. Calculating his angle with a ballpark figure, Nebulid thrusted hard. His momentum would be sufficient to do the job now. Except for deceleration, of course. It is a little hard for me to decelerate on momentum, unless I hit something - but then I would die, so it becomes an academic question anyway.



“‘Weapon C’, eh?” Torsonnen looked at the design specs. “It looks pricey. Is there a way to get the effect without as much of the exorbitant price tag associated with it?”

“No, there is no way to do that.” Lieutenant Commander Arsivan pointed out key elements to the design, commenting “these four parts are the most costly, and the most crucial.”

“Well… does it really need to have a super elastic face like that? I am almost certain that that is not strictly necessary for a killing machine like this.”

“It could have difficulty moving around the Empire without drawing attention to itself if we remove that particular component - believable facial expressions are a must, really. But I am sure we can work something up.”

“Why Weapon C, then? Surely there could have been a better name for it.”

“Well, Weapon A is yourself, and Weapon B is your fleet. Weapon C, therefore… is this.”

“Makes sense to me. Alright, Commander, you have a green light on this project.”



Upon reviewing the memory, Emperor Advira Torsonnen thought immediately of the immense costs that had been incurred by this monstrosity - I must not think of it that way. If it cost that much, it deserves some elemental respect. If we ended up losing it because of that, there would be no one to blame but myself.

Torsonnen’s plans for Weapon C now that it had suddenly reactivated were, at the present time, still unformed. It would be some time before he had a proper approach to the problem worked out. Something like Weapon C required a more delicate solution than most other military problems, which were generally of the type to be able to wave off at gunpoint.

However, what if I let it have its fun? I have never gotten the chance to see it in action as yet, but am I sure I want that particular demonstration to take place? Weapon C could potentially take down entire legions single handedly. Torsonnen was not certain that that was what he wished to have happen. There were other ways…

Nebulid was, fortunately, ready for the sudden onset of artificial gravity, and his landing was picture perfect. He could have been the poster boy of Sentinel training holos. Hah! Fat chance of that ever happening, not unless this rebellion succeeds soon.

And at this point the rebellion seemed to be doing little more than simply stagnating. Makhi and its Krion companion continued to spend their working days reviving people (they had about a third of the crew left to go - not bad, considering the constant state of horrible overstaffment Valour had always been in), and until that particular task was complete there would be no rebellion in which to participate. It was a shame, really. Nebulid had gotten so caught up in the running part that he had almost forgotten why. And the rebellion part had been so much fun, too! It was a testament to his obvious mental illness.

It is an affliction we all share… different people tend to call it different things. Me, I like to think a little differently than they about it. I like to call it humanity.

If you took a careful look at it, you would see that Nebulid thought more or less correctly - after all, a trait common to all humans must inevitably be part of the common mindset, hence the term “humanity”. It was actually quite simple.

This little bit of pseudo philosophy having been gotten out of the way, Nebulid proceeded to doff his suit, the dark green Torsonnen jumpsuit underneath revealing itself at last. At length he exited the hangar, seeing that (finally) the shuttle had gotten docking privileges. Man! How long did it have to take to get that done? The answer was “far too long”, of course, as evidenced by his unorthodox return method. It was another thing to debate internally as he made his way to the bridge.

He arrived to see Captain Msul’b - and with him, a familiar face of old.

“Commander Nebulid! It has been a while. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused to you.”

“Anything for a guy with a perpetual scowl like that. Welcome to the resistance, Project Twelve.”



“Where is Weapon C? It is not on ship anymore!” Arsivan’s voice rang out loudly.

“I have not seen Weapon C on ship at all, so I don’t know a thing,” replied Kain.

“It was a self directed question. I know for a fact that Weapon C left the ship sometime within the last two hours. Perhaps we can get some answers based on that loose timeline. I am going to call in the Emperor himself, if you don’t mind, Jim.”

“No problem, Ars.” The Emperor being on bridge obviously entailed a lack of HoloComm transmissions, for quite understandable reasons. After all, Torsonnen was dead.

He did not particularly look the part when he showed up on the bridge, however. On the contrary, he seemed very much alive. “Yes, Commander? What would you like?”

“You help in reasoning this whole ordeal out. We have narrowed down the time of Weapon C’s departure to a two hour time frame. Beyond that, nothing.”

“No missing vessels from the hangars? No suspicious deaths among the crew?”

“You would have been the first to know. Jim, do you keep accurate departure records?”

“Best bloody records in the Fleet, thank you very much! I will provide all the data you need.”

“Thank you. That frees us up a bit to tackle the other question: where is it headed?”

“Good question.” I like problems like these. It is an excellent test of my brainpower. Now, it would be much better if the stakes were not so God damned high all the time. “Perhaps once we know when it left and what it left in, we will have some insight into that.”

“I do NOT want to think about what it might do if it comes across an Imperial ship. Speaking of that, what is going on at Wombat?” He paused. “No. Seriously. Jim, please stop getting the records for a second. Comms, hail Wombat immediately! No questions asked.”

“And no answers given.” Despite that little impertinence, Comms patched him through to Wombat.

“Imperial ship Wombat, Acting Captain Matthew Isgott speaking. What do you need?”

“Great to see you, Matt! No time for debate here. I need to see your hangar activity over the last two hours. Do not ask why; if I told you, I would literally have to kill you.”

“It is Weapon C, isn’t it? It got loose, then, didn’t it? Anyways, my records show no activity in the hangars recently, but I will be on the lookout for it. Isgott out.”

Not bothering to ponder the question of how Matt had learned of the existence of Weapon C, Arsivan turned back to the problem of actually putting a location to the killer…



Weapon C was a year in the making. In that year it was the Navy’s best kept secret that everybody knew about. Jokes were made half seriously about how Weapon C was going to steal all their jobs - every last one of them - and run the ship itself. Eventually, the Navy would be reduced to a few of Weapon C spread throughout the galaxy, or at least that was the plan according to what a disgruntled mobile infantry corps said.

It was eventually time to unveil it - everything had been checked and double checked. It should have gone off totally without a hitch. But… the hitch was there anyway.



“Commander?” Captain Msul’b looked over at Nebulid. “I would love to hear the story behind this.”

“Okay, then.” Clearing his throat, Nebulid started. “A year ago I was not a rebel. I was first mate on Relentless under James Kain, who is now Emperor in the wake of Torsonnen’s death. But my trial law experience made me the summary judge for the pitiful excuses for trials that they call ‘courts martial’ on that ship. Not a happy posting. I must have personally offed about a thousand crewers. Project Twelve, however, unlike the others, came to me not to appeal a ruling but to press charges against the other mobile troopers in his unit. When I could not produce a law to base the trial on, he disappeared right off the radar, so far off that he evidently wound up here. He is wanted for three hundred thousand credits now. Torsonnen always took desertion very seriously, the hypocrite. Almost as if every desertion were a personal affront, in fact.” Nebulid aware of the fact that he was blathering on and on, subsided.

“You are a far better story teller than helmsman, though I cannot actually be sure, having never been adequately exposed to your piloting. I will take your word on the issue, though.”

“Good idea.” Nebulid, for one, knew that the bar set by his piloting skill was not high.

Project Twelve continued to simply stand motionless. The conversation really no longer pertained to him, so his obligations were done with. He could just sit back and listen. Entertaining stuff, really. If they fight half as well as they talk, we are in for a hell of a ride, here… His thoughtful silence, however, drew attention from all parties. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

He knew that eventually he would be called upon to provide a reason for his arrival here. Do not worry, he would say, it was simply a coincidence, happy accident. And it had been. Definitely it was an accident - how his navigational charts had screwed up so badly he did not know - and definitely it was happy, for here he was, reunited with the only person who had not discriminated against him based on his genetic “inferiority” and now given the opportunity to ram the knife right back into the stomach of the Empire. Eventually… I guess… The current state of staff was a less than beautiful picture. Evidently the crew had been stricken by some psionically induced ailment, from which recovery was slow. Both Krion on board had been working tirelessly to bring these people back into consciousness. At present nearly a third of the crew remained comatose, including the entire mobile trooper unit and fighter squadron as well as large portions of the security staff and bridge crew. Engineering was more acutely affected by the work crews currently engaged in construction on the planet proper than by the psionic plague. Other positions remained relatively intact. Overall, he supposed, it was not all that bad. In another week or two, the crew would be back to normal again.

His idle musings covered up a question asked of him. Msul’b had to repeat for him: “How did you happen to find your way to his barren wasteland, then, Project Twelve?” Ahh, that question again!

“Random chance. My charts were inaccurate, and a jump that should have put me at another Outer Rim world instead sent me here. I am lucky not to have been torn apart.”

“Lucky indeed. Doubly lucky you are to have come across this ship. To echo Nebulid’s statement, welcome to the resistance, Project Twelve.”

“I only hope that I can help drive the knife through the heart of the Empire.”

“I like his style,” Msul’b commented to Nebulid before continuing “I’m sure you will get the chance.”

Ecstatic about the prospect of offing some Torsonnen fools, Project Twelve grinned. “I can barely stand the anticipation. To a great many Torsonnen corpses between us!”

Thrilled by the man’s enthusiasm, Msul’b replied “To not many rebel ones accompanying those Torsonnen ones.” The grim statement still managed to come out in a positive light, so moved was he.

“Of course.” But we’re going to have to admit that we are going to lose men, no matter how skilled we are. This is war. There is no escaping casualties in a war. “I look forward to having the opportunity to serve with you. It will come shortly, I fear.”

“Is there something you know that we do not?” Nebulid frowned quizzically.

“Not particularly, no, but if my charts are wrong, theirs could be too. And if they try to go to, say, Dantiss and end up here instead, it will not make them any less likely to kill us all than if they came with the specific intention of visiting this system for our heads.”

“God help us all if and when that happens. I do not think I can take another surprise battle like that. Good thing is, we will not be fooled by psionics again. Makhi has worked up a shield to protect us from any further psi attacks. It will activate the shield the moment any vessel enters the system. I had wanted to include that tidbit in my status report, but I forgot. Whoops. Just thought you should know that we have got some protection here. And… our charts were right, and as far as I can tell, so are the Torsonnen charts. But anything could happen - a missed calculation, a stray gravitic anomaly, anything - to drop Relentless on our heads by surprise. Let’s just hope it does not have to come to fighting until we are decently prepared.”

“No kidding. I have seen the sorry state of crew here. Could be worse, I suppose.”

“HAS been worse. Well, Project Twelve, welcome to our little resistance movement, anyway. Glad to have you. At the moment, you are the only mobile trooper on board that is not in a coma.”

“I am glad to be here, and I am sure the lack of mobile troopers will not make much of a difference.” This got a rise out of Msul’b, but Nebulid just laughed and said “Good to see your ego is as healthy as ever, too. If you fight half so well as I have heard of and from you, we will do just fine.”

“Twice as well. Trust me, you’ll see.” With a mischievous grin, Project Twelve disappeared.

How he managed to pull something like THAT off, no one knew. It was almost as if he had put on a self cloak, even though it was clear that he could not have done so.

“He… is intense. He will make a splendid addition to the team. That is, provided we can find him.” Msul’b sent for a record keeper to mark down this event,, just as he did for anyone else who decided to fight the good fight. The datacard storing all these records was considered sacred literature.

If he turns out as Nebulid says… we may even stand a chance of winning this war.



The test went horribly awry. Weapon C’s potential increased from its already high starting point to nearly infinity, and soon it began to approach that potential. As it grew in power, it needed more and more to kill and destroy. The urges consumed it, and it slew the entire planetary garrison in one gargantuan fit of rage. The echoes of its cry and the repercussions of its destructive tantrum reached the world over, and the lead scientists (those that survived) had to deactivate it. And there went their entire year, wasted in a single night. Oh well, far better alive and with a large amount of wasted work than dead with Weapon C on the prowl.

This is not to say that all interest in the project was lost. On the contrary, Torsonnen kept a team of researchers on the problem full time trying to determine what had gone wrong with Weapon C, why it had gone wrong, and how to fix it in later projects. It is doubtful that anyone, however, could have predicted that Weapon C would find a way to reactivate itself…



“Where is Weapon C?” Torsonnen smashed the table. “Why am I not seeing status reports? I do not care whether you’ve got results or not yet, let’s see what you DON’T have!”

“Well, we have firmly established that Weapon C is not on board Relentless. This was a time consuming check, due to the sheer size of this supercarrier. Now we have found out when it left, which was definitely between 20 and 21 hours ago, so that little bit is taken care of. All we need now is to identify the craft it took when it left. Once we have that, we can fire it all off to the rest of the Fleet, and watch them reel Weapon C in for us.” Arsivan had, indeed, prepared a status report - he had forgotten it in his office, though. Not that it particularly mattered to a psionic with perfect recall and high intelligence. He could pull any memory or thought out of his head s though he were copying it from one datacard to another - it was simply a matter of taking the necessary steps. The clarity of the memories he pulled out was high, too - he could pick out fine details with extreme prejudice. I am a memory machine, in other words. I am also a wizard.

“You sound as though you were reciting those words from AN ACTUAL STATUS REPORT that you may or may not have neglected to place on my desk… I want it, Commander.”

“Consider it done.” And the report floated gently into Torsonnen’s office, settling in a neat pile on the desk. “I will go back to the search. Long live the Empire! Long live Torsonnen!”

Not with something like Weapon C out there trimming my roster for me… like the other guy. The other commander. I never got the chance to actually meet Nebulid, did I?



Nebulid looked up in disgust. Then he finally saw his client’s face, tower that the thing was. How it had gotten on board was up for debate. “How did you get here?”

Changing forms in mid sentence, it said “I am a Krion. Please do not be alarmed. I will only ask about a minute of your time, nothing more.” It nodded towards the door. “I can tell that I only have about that long anyway. I will make it quick, then. What would you say if I told you there was a way out of your commission on Relentless?”

“I would say ‘take me with you’. The Empire can only take so much from me, and it exceeded that limit ages ago. Time to claim some interest on the loan, I say.” He almost smiled, but caught himself, remembering the knife that came almost instinctively with the smile.

“Excellent! I will return in about a month’s time; we will execute this plan then.” The knocking at the door became insistent. “For the record, I am Makhidaralore. Now get a breathing tank on! I am going out through the window.” It shattered the thick window, quickly shifting into the form of a silicon based space dwelling species native to Alumehr’s moon. How did it know? he thought, but dismissed the question as stupid, since obviously these people would have done much research before coming here. Otherwise, Makhi there would not have ever come to convert him back to the light.

He radioed through the door “Don’t open it! I threw the intruder through the viewport. The whole room is in vacuum now. Send a recovery craft for me, please!” They did.

Ironically, he even received the Order of Torsonnen for “repelling a rebel spy from the premises.”



Ahh, the genesis of my defection, Nebulid thought. This is a far better subject than all the killings and the drama surrounding Project Twelve. If only every one of my trips down memory lane could be so positive. He was tempted to end that particular session of remembrance with “and the rest, as they say, is history,” but that particular phrase was so hopelessly clichéd as to lack any meaning whatsoever.

It is not the only phrase that has lost its meaning… In the twenty first century and through to the twenty second, the word “Sentinel” had been reserved for only the cream of the cream of the crop’s cream. If you had “Sentinel Corps” on your resumé, you had to know you were something special. John McCarmack had been exceedingly careful in selecting his personnel - doubtless he had picked that trait up in the Cyber War, where half your friends were actually enemies and vice versa. The skill level of the lowliest Sentinel of the old days would put sweat on even Project Twelve’s brow. And the few great greats, people like Lance Golan and Tom Wright and Ken Arkyst - they were essentially killing machines with souls. Compare that to the current “Sentinel” organization - basically a millions strong army of shock troopers that overwhelmed opponents with numbers rather than skill (though there were always exceptions, of course - Max “Pain” Smith from Wombat was considered one of the best mobile troopers of all time; he was a perfect match for Project Twelve). Nebulid, a self proclaimed Sentinel geek, could attest to the veracity of all this information, and would gladly cite it if called upon. Not that there were often debates over whether or not the word “Sentinel” had lost its meaning. That was common opinion. It just happened to be fact, too.

Another phrase that had fallen by the wayside: cyber. Originally coined by John McCarmack and Owen Fitzgerald in 2044, the term cyber (as a noun, not a prefix - which made things even more complicated later on) was intended to be a short form descriptor of people who had died and had had their dead bodies replaced with newly perfected cyberbiomechanical bodies which functioned essentially the same way (John McCarmack reportedly once said “Food goes in, shit comes out. Does your body do it any differently?”) as their previous “real” bodies. During the Cyber War period (2044-2047 or so) that descriptor was skewed by pro purity figures, particularly Girard Devroe, to become a mortal insult to be used as a sort of offensive weapon in the rapidly escalating war (this proved ineffective against a large number of cybers, however, particularly those situated in or near John McCarmack’s hometown of Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island) between puriedom and cyberdom. Eventually, though, the term lost its weight, as cybers became more and more flawlessly integrated into society as a whole. At great length, it became a general jesting insult to be thrown around to anyone and everyone, not just the ones with cyberbiomechanical bodies. And when the Torsonnen forces took over and began “purifying” (i.e. killing all the non Terrans), the term reverted to its wartime meaning for a short time, as “impure” humans were removed alongside all the other “impure” species. The human side of the war had been particularly ineffective, however, and actually hurt Torsonnen amore than it hurt others. So he dropped it officially. And now it once again held no true meaning. Only a scarce few, Nebulid included, still knew what the original definition was. And those few… did not really care enough about the matter anymore to put the record straight. Why bother reinstating a term that was essentially an open invitation to segregation in the first place?

Wondering how his thoughts had turned to etymology, Nebulid could at least be thankful that this was his off time and now an actual bridge shift. He knew that Msul’b would have fits of apoplexy if he kept the daydreaming up.

While he was already at it anyway, he decided to make it official and actually delve into his history and former professional life in law. His firm had been moderately successful, instrumental in one or two high profile suits, but otherwise flying mostly under the radar. The profits were always decent (even in a peaceful Federation, personal and business conflicts were inevitable, and the lawyers snapped it all up) and the people were fun to work with. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Federation had taken with it the civil courts, and Nebulid could do nothing but join the Federation joint forces as they desperately tried to nip the Torsonnen uprising in the bud, to no avail. Which had led him to his current situation. Stranded on a barren planet loosely orbiting a red dwarf. My wife is dead; probably my family too. They’re closing in on us. I can feel it. But why did he feel so happy about all this?



”This is Captain James Kain of the Torsonnen Imperial ship Relentless. I hereby demand your immediate surrender, or surely a terrible fate will await you!”

“Jim?” Why did he change his name? Nebulid smiled momentarily, then continued “I do believe I should be asking politely for YOUR surrender, propriety being what it is. My most sincere apologies if that happens to spoil your fun, Jim. I tried, anyway.”

Kain stared blankly into the screen for a moment. “I do not know which ‘Jim’ on board that you might be talking about, but I personally have never met you.”

That stung. The realization that his brother had completely abandoned all reason struck Nebulid like a freighter on a ram trajectory. “Then I am not responsible for what--“

The Federation ship’s captain strode in, finishing “--terms we humbly request in return for our surrender. I will hand over Ker’Gor only if I get it back once in the Torsonnen Fleet. I also expect my crew to be treated better than what I have heard of the other Federation surrenders you have handled.” Why is he surrendering us in the first place? Relentless is bigger, but we outgun it five to one! We could have it hollowed out in a display case before “Kain” had the time to say “Evasive”!

“What are you doing, Captain? We could blow these rebels away effortlessly!”

“My decision has been made. It is all a matter of time anyways. This plan has been in place for so long that we almost forgot it even existed in the first place.”

It was, indeed, only a matter of time. As Nebulid desperately ran for the escape pod bay, he imagined the narration of the coup: “Torsonnen’s forces were too strong. And the Federation Fleet, the galaxy’s only line of defense, was just too little to make a difference.” Inserting a gentle piano tune for dramatic effect, Nebulid swiftly took an escape pod out of Ker’Gor--

It was swallowed up by a tractor beam from Relentless. God damn it all! The pod quickly became one with Relentless’ docking bay, and Nebulid was hauled before a man who surely could be none other than his brother, yet did not act as if that were the case. “Alright, whoever you think you are, one thing should be made clear: you are mine. You do as I say, you live. Your family lives. Disobedience means your death and theirs.”

“I’m absolutely startled by the dazzling array of choices presented to me. Outstanding!”

“Hey, kid! Welcome to the fuckin’ Empire. You! The one standing behind him.” He indicated Kal from Engineering. “Let me show you how the Empire works.” He pulled the trigger. Kal fell slowly to the ground, a neat round hole visible on his forehead. Blood began to leak from the wound. “THAT is how the fuckin’ Empire works! Any questions?” Hearing none, he said “Excellent, then. Consider yourself defected. Don’t pull any bullshit on me, though - I will make it your final frontier if you do.” With that friendly warning aside, Kain smiled and continued “That being said, there are some benefits to serving in the Torsonnen navy. We try to take care of all our officers.” He’s selling it… Nebulid could not help but shiver at the prospect of serving under a brother who had lost all sense of his identity… “Ah! Hey, Ars! Come on over here, I’d like to introduce you to these people. New people, meet Lieutenant Arsivan, who’s been our pride and joy over the last two months. His progress has been outstanding! He went from raw recruit to where he is in that short time. He is on pace for an admiralty in less than ten years! Please learn by his example - he gives full attention to his work.”

“You haven’t the slightest clue, Jim.” Arsivan smiled. “Welcome to the ‘fuckin’ Empire.’” And just as suddenly as he’d dropped in, he dropped out, seemingly fading into nothingness. There’s a man I need to watch, thought Nebulid. He has the same air of benign superiority about him as the Krion do. He has the gift, I’d bet. A response to that would be lovely.

How’d you guess? The thought came rolling into his mind crudely - Arsivan was untrained.

I just went over my line of reasoning, did I not? I don’t think I need to repeat myself, especially to someone with the gift of psionics. Review it in your head, man!

A pause, then Ahh, I see came crashing in. Should I work on removing that, then?

Not necessary, unless you want to hide it, especially if there are a lot of ex Feds on board like myself. Anybody who has worked with a Krion before will be able to identify the gift. In the long run, though, the information will eventually leak out anyway, so why bother hiding it so carefully?

You can understand, of course, that I do not want to just put it out there either.

So just continue as normal; whatever happens happens. Life as normal continues. Surprised to be suddenly giving life advice to a man who disrupted order by trade, Nebulid “said” I have to go now; I should really be listening to Jim, even though he has lost his way.

His way? His… oh, his name. Yeah. Sorry about that identity conflict… He’s still a good captain. Listen to his advice well. And with that Arsivan broke off contact. Nebulid was left wondering… why he liked that guy so much. Maybe the air of benign superiority is actually an affectation…



Awakening swiftly, Nebulid wondered what had dredged up that particular memory. It was at once one of the more tragic and one of the more comic moments of his life to date. That on the same day as his captain had betrayed them all to the Empire, Nebulid had found himself advising a twenty year old lieutenant on how to deal with being psionically gifted. And a lieutenant on the TORSONNEN side, too! That self same lieutenant was now where Nebulid had been (not quite living up to Kain’s prediction, but still doing well for only forty five years old), on the bridge of Relentless, indirectly responsible for a million or more deaths a year. I wonder how he copes with that. Has he been so thoroughly indoctrinated, then, that he has lost himself? With the thought, Nebulid could not help but turn to the subject of his brother. Why? Why have you forsaken us? What did we ever do to you to deserve this fate?

What did the Federation ever do to deserve the fate Torsonnen forced on it? As he sat at the edge of his bed, the answers seemed to escape him. All he knew was that he would fight the Torsonnens again. How long will I continue to fight? How long will my pain last? Struck by what he had just thought, Nebulid finished off the ages old reference in the traditional style. Perhaps only the X-Buster on my hand knows for sure… He laughed.



Commander Arsivan looked up from the stack of datacards that was the full version of the hangar reports for the day of Weapon C’s disappearance. What he saw was the face of Emperor Advira Torsonnen, who took a seat and asked “How goes the search? I see a lot of datacards on your desk - not many in the ‘read’ pile, however. Perhaps you should pick up the pace?” The stack of ‘read’ datacards was actually quite large, just dwarfed by the other stack.

“There are several petabytes of data sitting on my desk at the moment. Shall I recruit some help reading through it all? I happen to know an emperor that may be interested in helping.”

“Give me one of those.” Accepting the card from Arsivan, Torsonnen slid it into the card slot in his datapad and began to assist Arsivan’s review of the hangar logs…



Kain was in a different boat. Not literally, as of course they were all on Relentless, which was hardly a boat at all, but figuratively. His issue was not finding Weapon C, it was locating those blasted rebels! Nothing aroused his ire like the inability to find something. Nothing. NOTHING. It was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing into a fit of anger every ten minutes.

That being said, there were some definite good leads. Though their last guess had been a miss, Intel had identified a system of interest in the Outer Rim. It was a white dwarf that had kept its outer planets, one of which was near the old Federation gravity standard. It was a totally nondescript planet with that exception - and studies of the standard sized planet had indicated that it was rich in natural resources - minerals like iron and the radioactive cobalt for the reactor. It had been targeted for Imperial mining speculation at a later date, but to this point no real effort had been made in that regard. The lead was about a B plus, excellent given the general lack of information regarding Valour’s whereabouts.

The system’s name was Sen, the planet more simply called MM-2707. Kain resolved to get Arsivan’s and Torsonnen’s opinions on it before doing anything too rash. After all, one can never regret the mistakes one does not make. And Kain was not one to make a mistake if there was a way to avoid it. Besides, with Kain’s luck, the two of them would hijack Relentless and run off after Weapon C anyway.



“I found it!” Arsivan cried out. “It left at 14.16 on board a personal craft. It appears to have been a Dukhaim Orion-B starfighter, though why escapes me entirely.”

“No; what was that transport type that resembled the Orion-B in looks but was totally different otherwise? It had a warp drive… IRP product I believe… The Corsair-class!”

“Alright, let’s go with that, because obviously Weapon C would have wanted to leave the system immediately. Corsair-class personal transport, IRP make. Registered as Gantrithor, though if Weapon C is half so crafty as we ascribe to it, it will have switched out the transponder already. Is there an emission profile for Gantrithor? We could identify it with that.”

“I’ll check the records immediately.” Working on a puzzle like this was the source of unaccountable pleasure for Torsonnen. It was his secret passion. “Indeed we do. I’m going to upload this onto the sensors, then we can check the logs and at least guess where it went.” Torsonnen smiled. “We have the tiger by the tail, Commander.”



Project Twelve was bored by the end of the second day. There were still no other mobile troopers reawakened yet, and Nebulid seemed to be in his own little universe of remembrance more often than not, so Project Twelve had been left to his own devices. And “his own devices” had produced a battlesuit simulator with some matching programs./ He had had the help of the engineering staff to create the actual simulator machine, which was standard fare in terms of equipment - basically Project Twelve had copied the Imperial design scheme and built a Torsonnen simulation machine for the rebels. He put that all together in less than a week, and his first programs were done the next day. Extensive testing of his scenarios made them even more challenging. When they got around to reviving the mobile troopers - if they ever do so - the troopers would simply go bananas over these programs. Project Twelve considered building another simulator for head to head networked battling, but dismissed it. Too much work, and they can’t really spare the manpower again like they did the first time. Besides, now he had his time killer, all the while brushing up on his people killing skills. Not that I will need them much, given the current pace of events…



“I have it! The first system along Weapon C’s exit vector is the Sen system!”

“You mean the one with the resource planet potential thing? MM-2404 or something like that?”

“MM-2707. It is an Earth sized planet, surface gravity about 1.09 G. Also where Intel thinks the rebels are hiding, which speaks volumes in and of itself. I suggest we take a look there, Your Imperial Majesty. It could prove rewarding.”

“I will take it under advisory. Captain Kain! What is your opinion on all this?”

“Are you kidding? I have been ready to go to the Sen system for four days now.”

“Excellent. I do believe it is decided, then. We now go off to the Sen system! For the Empire!”

A resounding chorus of “For the Empire!” sounded out, reverberating off the wals but also off the souls of the most dedicated of all Torsonnen crew members. They were a crew to remember - certainly not destined to the fate of the previous crew.

Kain has been making more of his own decisions of late. I wonder if he might have happened on the truth? No, Ars would have fixed that immediately. If he ever catches on… woe betide us all, for surely his wrath will know no limits.

”We have optimal solution for warp now.” Ops stood up, saluting crisply. “Shall I?”

Applying the hopeless cliché everyone had to use at least once in their career just for kicks, Torsonnen replied “Engage.” There followed the three characteristic lurches, but something was… off about the system. “Is that a red dwarf?”

“It is. That is not right. Either Sen has aged significantly over the last ten years, or--“

“We are in the wrong system. Sensors show no Earth sized planets in orbit.”

“What do they show, then? If we do not know where we are, let’s find out.”

“Only one planet sized object. It is an icy planet with no atmosphere, diameter approximately 3000 kilometres, gravity .17 G, similar to Luna but with far more surface water. Based on its wide, eccentric orbit, it was originally a foreign object - must have fell into orbit at some point - speaking of foreign objects, there is a ship in orbit around it. Shall I?”

“Yes. Probe the shit out of that thing. I want to know exactly what it is.”

A minute later, he heard “Today is your lucky day - it is Valour. We have happened upon the rebels!”

The psi shield had gone up perfectly. Makhi reported so, and Nebulid relayed that to Captain Msul’b, who had been trying to get some rest. Tough luck! Fat chance of that happening now. The emission profile showed that whatever had just popped into the system was a big ship. A quick look at the visual sensors proved that, and… oh, shit. They found us! “Shit, that’s Relentless! Tell the engineers and construction workers on the surface to pack up and get their asses up here double time!”

“Message sent.” A short pause. “Response received. There is a fair bit of profanity in it. Shall I read it out in front of the entire bridge crew anyway, Commander?”

“I’m sure they have all heard all the words before, Lieutenant. After all, I am on bridge. Read away, please.”

“I quote: ‘God damn it! God fucking damn it! We just got our shit together last week, and now you say we have to pack up? Just like that? Ain’t that royally fucking us over? GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!”

“Send them an image of Relentless, eh? That ought to stir ‘em up.” He turned to Tactical. “What is the status on their launches?” His voice carried much concern, for a guessable reason.

“They have launched two wings of fighters and a legion of Death Sentinels.”

They’re really after us. ‘What do we have that we can launch?”

“At the moment, just one mobile trooper - Project Twelve. Shall I send him?”

“Not quite yet. Makhi, how fast can you get Major Lanai operational again?”

“Not fast enough. Send Project Twelve out alone; I will notify you when Lanai is awake.”

“Great.” Not great. Terrible. The unstoppable behemoth of the Torsonnen fleet is less than half a million kilometres out and closing fast. WE NEED THOSE ENGINEERS OFF THE PLANET!!!! “What is the status on those engineers?”

“They have yet to reply. Should I scan the area?” Tactical frowned a bit.

Nebulid knew why. “No. We need all our sensor capacity for Relentless. Send another message. Tell them in no uncertain terms that we are leaving without them if they do not reply within ten minutes.”

“Understood.” Comms sent the message, and within two minutes they had an answer. “It is going to take them three hours to get off planet.”

“Tell them that’s too long. We don’t have that much time. Quick, let’s go! Pack it all up or just leave it, I don’t care. They just need to be the fuck up here. Do they understand this? In fact, get me a direct feed. McClean!”

“Yes, Commander?” She had one of those “Oh God, what is it now?” faces.

“You have one hour to be on that shuttle. We’re leaving in two or less. If you miss the bus, you miss the bus. I would advise against missing the bus.”

“Understood. Anything in particular to prioritize, then, Commander?”

“That is up to you. Choose wisely. Now get moving!” Nebulid cut the feed.

Msul’b (finally) arrived on bridge, relieving Nebulid (and relieving him of command, too) and taking charge of the deployments. “Astrogator, I need some of the special warp calculations. We are going to move their warp core to Earth.”

Wasted pointed at his screen. “Already on it. I will have the final solution in twenty seconds. I would imagine those twenty seconds are going to last an eternity.”

“Kain!” Torsonnen snapped out for neo real reason. “You are going to have to start up the warp shield. Even with their pathetic excuse for a targeting computer, they could have had us painted for a warp attack minutes ago. We should consider it sheer luck to have even survived to this point.”

“Fine, I will get on it. Say… if we followed… then… is it possible? ...no, couldn’t be.”

“I doubt it. More likely we had a random computer glitch. But all for the better! Now we get to toast some rebels! Have the mobile troopers and fighters launched?”

“Yes, I already had that taken care of. --Shield is starting to form.”

“Quickly! They could fire at any second now! Get on it, for God’s sake!”



Wasted turned. “We have weapon solution for warp. Shall I go ahead?”

“Absolutely. Fire it! Send their mechanics back home where they belong.”

Punching in a few keys, Wasted smiled a bit as he fired the warp weapon.



Project Twelve had suited up in record time, and now here he was, floating out here in high Darahn orbit, waiting for the Torsonnens to arrive. Fun, fun, fun. Then, noting his accidental reference, he played with it. Run, run, run! Beware, I live. I hunger! Run, coward! Throwing out all the old arcade lines he could remember, Project Twelve barely managed to deal with the boredom.

Then the Death Sentinels closed to within maximum striking range. Still Project Twelve remained motionless, but now at least he had a good reason to do so. If he stayed still enough, they would not notice him, and of course there were no other mobile troopers to speak of. Just like the simulator. Lie in wait. You’ve got to strike when the moment is right without thinking. He was simply chock full of references these days. Well, whether or not his true identity was Roger Waters, Project Twelve had a job to do, and at the moment it entailed… nothing. Lots of nothing.

Closer and closer they drew, and higher and higher the pressure mounted. Finally, Project Twelve could hold it no longer. With a vicious war whoop (delivered via wideband transmission) he sprung into action, unsheathing his beam scythe. Amid cries of “Who or what is that?” and “How did it get here?” he tore into the assembly of Death Sentinels. Hah! There was nothing terrifying about these at all! They were just poor, under trained, inexperienced Academy types!

The scythe made its way up the ranks and back down them again, leaving behind it a wake of pure destruction. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Who is the Death Sentinel now? One or two of his laughs made it onto the radio; no one knew what exactly he was doing.

Even he did not. All he knew was to let his instinct take over at this point. The laughing was an instinctual taunt to Project Twelve’s enemies. Nothing drove up the fighting skill of a man more than taunting him, anyway, so Project Twelve would be able to eventually find a dance partner worthy of the title. As it was, though, all he had was total shit - reserve forces, really - to fight with. And that just was not fun at all. I need some challenge - give me some challenge, please!

“Come one, surely one of you Torsonnen slime has more jump than that!” For emphasis he diced a Torsonnen mobile trooper up into neat segments. “Come on! Give me some challenge!”

“I suppose I will have to do.” Purposefully, a lone Death Sentinel floated down. “Project Twelve, I presume! Your reputation precedes you. It should prove a fun fight.”

“I…” Project Twelve flourished his beam scythe “…will be the judge of that.”

They circled each other, five hundred metres apart, weapons held ready but idle. For a second they stopped entirely, and then they started circling in the other direction. Finally Project Twelve broke the pattern, lunging at his challenger, who nimbly dodged. A swipe of Project Twelve’s scythe was caught on the shaft of the Torsonnen’s. The Torsonnen replied similarly, and Project Twelve caught it on one of the forearm knives, jabbing with the other. The Torsonnen backed off, and Project Twelve jumped immediately to the attack. The swipes came without mercy. There was no way any stock Torsonnen mobile trooper would have made those blocks, but this one seemed to be above their level. Is this the fabled Weapon C? Couldn’t be!

Still, there was no sense not asking. “Am I, then, fighting with Weapon C?”

“You know, I was just asking myself the same question. You are good.”

“You too.” They continued to almost absent mindedly duel with the scythes. Project Twelve was sure that none of the Torsonnen normies had a clue, at all, of what was going on. If they did, they would have intervened long ago…



The warp weapon had fired… and nothing had happened. The shield had come into place just in time. Msul’b could not believe it. How could the Torsonnens have possibly known about the warp weapon? It was pure insanity!

Well, now they were up the creek. There was no way to help it now. The warp assembly was out of commission. There was simply nothing that could be done in orbit. In orbit… who needs orbit, after all? “We’re going down to the planet’s surface. Tell the engineering crew down there that we are coming in hot and will require repairs soon. Also tell them we appreciate their hard work immensely, and when this is all over they will all be honoured in a special ceremony. Understood?” The bridge crew complied.

Nebulid, for his part, was still dwelling on the How did they know? question. That shield had gone up seconds before the warp weapon had fired. Such miraculous timing was suspicious. Could it be… Had Commander Arsivan already found a way through the psi shield? Also suspicious but equally possible…

Relentless! Why must you continue to drive me insane? I would like to yet remain in the realm of those still in possession of their cognitive and reasoning faculties! Insanity does not appeal to my mind in the slightest bit at all!

But it seemed to be happening anyway - it was inexorable. The progression of his mind from sane to stark, raving mad was a wonder for all to behold. In several months’ additional time, it would surely be completely in its finality. And he would roam the galaxy, hopelessly searching for a way to regain his wits.

Already he sensed himself going out on a tangent with his thoughts, but at this point, with Msul’b firmly in control of the situation and Nebulid relegated basically to an observatory role, it did not really matter. Certainly it did not matter enough to make Nebulid try harder at becoming sane again. If shit happens, it happens. Such is life. Such is rebellion. Such was his mind, too, especially in crunch times like this. It did not really matter what the circumstances were - if the situation demanded presence of mind, it could be guaranteed that Nebulid’s mind would be elsewhere. Perhaps it would be dwelling on the fact that it would be absent! Like now!

His inward joke attempt was met by no internal laughter. ’Ey! No booing! I’m trying hard! I am fucking going insane at this job - happy about that? Eh?

“COMMANDER! Get out of dream land! I need you in the present!”

“Whoah… what do you need from me, then?” Nebulid saw nothing around the bridge that required his personal attention to run smoothly.

“I need you to be here long enough to guide the ship down to the surface!”

“Alright, alright. I’m on it! Jeez.” A disgruntled Nebulid sat down at the first mate’s station. He began programming maneuvers into the ‘play book’. With the help of this (revised) play book, the helmsman would be able to bring Valour down relatively gently. Most of the changes were small, but big ones still existed - like accounting for the sudden presence of gravity. Even though that description was total bullshit, the general principle was the same. There was no way to really make it sound better, though it could be made more accurate if a large infusion of technobabble were provided. Fat chance of that happening. I loathe technobabble. Tell me even ONE more time that I need to repolarize the flux capacitor and I swear I will fucking snap. The consequences of such an event would be dire. Not only would Nebulid be reprimanded, he would also be without ANOTHER chief engineer. Again. The number of times that had happened on Relentless was staggering. Kain, it seems, simply could not keep himself satisfied with his crew. Spacings were common, though the mass dump shortly after Nebulid’s departure had been strange enough, even for a man of Kain’s reputation. Perhaps trying to flush out the traitor that helped me escape. Even though the traitor was a Krion, and moreover was never on the ‘ship’ part of the ship when I made the escape. Ah well, when push came to shove it really did not matter. Nebulid had escaped his term of Imperial service; that DID matter. Makhi had not been harmed during its help; that also mattered. Stupid little things like whether it ever got off its shuttle or not were irrelevant.

Glad to have been distracted by internal philosophy while his body made the necessary corrections to the play book automatically, Nebulid quickly returned to the land of the living just in time to hear Msul’b yell “Take us down!” and the resultant flurry of activity on the interface consoles. And Valour sank gracefully downward in precisely the same fashion as a rocket would not. Nebulid saw Darahn approaching swiftly, growing to a behemoth that would certainly devour them all - but that was the point. They wanted Darahn to devour them, so that Relentless could not get at them. It was a fool proof plan, really. Msul’b called out “Brace!” as they hit the surface.

For all the calculations done earlier, it was still somewhat of a rough landing. Preparation could only get you so far, apparently. Oh well. The point was not to land gracefully. It was to get one’s self the hell onto the ground.

And “get the hell on the ground” it had. But how would they get back off the ground, when it became necessary (soon)?

Three: Devastation



Project Twelve faced his opponent again. “Might I have the pleasure of your name?”

“That would be Max ‘Pain’ Smith. Pleasure to meet you again.” He bowed and chuckled.

“No, in fact it is to the contrary - the pleasure is all mine!” Project Twelve lunged hard. The blow failed to connect with anything - Damn, these new suits are fast! - but his momentum carried him safely out of the way of Smith’s counter attack. A quick jab with his combat knife gave Project Twelve the initiative, then a series of great slashes with his scythe pressed it.

Smith, driven ever backwards by Project Twelve’s relentless assault, searched for options. What am I ever going to do? Perhaps… but, finding nothing, he just jetted hard backwards, effectively ending Project Twelve’s immediate threat to Smith’s person but doing nothing else of any real import. He glanced about him.

Where did Valour go? The light carrier was missing - completely gone. Off the radar. Not visible. If there were audio detection in space, it would be off that, too. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” he heard his opponent laugh. Project Twelve had not decided to go back on the offensive. “Your move, Smith, or mine?”

“What do you mean?” His thoughts strayed back to Valour - it was gone. All gone.

“You know full well what I mean.” Project Twelve also happened to know that Smith knew exactly what he meant.

“Come to think of it, I do. Well fought.” Valour had successfully avoided Relentless’ mobile troopers (who had all been spellbound by the fight around them). Mission accomplished was what Project Twelve had meant.



Arsivan looked over at Kain, asking “Why have they gone to the planet’s surface?”

“I am not totally sure, but I think I may have the first inkling of an idea. Tactical! Do you know whether or not they tried to use the warp weapon against us?” Receiving an affirmative nod from Tactical - yes, indeed the rebels had tried the use of the weapon - he continued “Well, then, my guess is the feedback from the shield knocked their warp assembly out of commission. They are forced onto the planet to make the necessary repairs.” He smiled. “We have them now.”



Nebulid knew better than to try to step outside without being properly equipped. Therefore, he instead sent a message out to the engineering crews, giving their location and supply count. Once this had been done there was nothing left to do but just wait, at least for bridge crew. He knew there were dozens of people working their (insert rear end here) off in the Engineering section just trying to contain this problem, but for him, everything seemed to take forever. The tedium was enormous. He did not know if he could live through this wait… so he begged off work, ran down to his quarters, and lived through another situation instead.



”So! They call you ‘Scythe’, do they? Why might that be, then, Mr. Scythe?”

“That should be fairly obvious, but, if you wish to insist on the long, boring explanation, as is far too prevalent in the Empire these days, it is my weapon of choice and has been a sort of idol of mine over the course of my life.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Scythe - is that what drove you to the murder of your commanding officer? Be careful here - there is no dismissal on grounds of insanity in the Empire, tempting as that route may seem. Stick to the facts.”

“No, it did not. I stand here accused of a crime I did not commit. Where is the justice?”

“Do you have any solid evidence to back that claim? It will unfortunately be rather necessary.”

“No, there is no solid evidence. But surely you cannot - not without due process, at least--“

“I’m sorry. I am the summary judge. There is no such thing as ‘due process’ on this ship, much as I would like there to be. Nice knowing you, Mr. Scythe.” And he slid the knife swiftly in. No smile, this time, because he knew he was probably murdering an innocent man. But in this time of Imperial rule, what was to be done? Nothing could be done! Nothing!



Project Twelve raced back down to the planet, very conspicuously not pursued by Max “Pain” Smith or his “gang” of mobile troopers. It had all been part of the plan made in case of just such a conflict as was occurring here. If Valour were ever to be attacked by Relentless (for Smith had recently been transferred to that ship from Wombat), or indeed any ship carrying Project Twelve, then Max “Pain” Smith would help that ship out by distracting the mobile trooper forces by putting on a fantastic show in a duel with Project Twelve. The two were of close skill levels, so the duel was never boring. Especially with the bar set so high. There was no chance for any other mobile trooper than those two to accomplish that sort of spellbinding show. It was just totally impossible. That was all.

Darahn’s lack of an atmosphere made re entry simple - simply nonexistent, in fact - so Project Twelve had no difficulty taking care of that portion of his descent. But his suit was running low on power - at some point near in the future he would have to recharge the Model AT Sentinel suit at Valour. Valour, where are you? I can’t see you… A quick scan confirmed that he was, indeed, on the wrong side of the planet. Aw, shit. I can’t cover that entire distance with the little juice left in my suit. He called out for help: “Valour, this is Project Twelve. I am fully on the other side of the planet from you. There is not a way in Hell that I will be able to make it that far on what is left of my suit battery. Can I get some help here, please?”

“How long do you think you can sit idle? We are in a tight spot ourselves, trying to get the engineers coordinated.”

Making a mental check (literally, due to the neural interface of the model ATs and, in fact, all other battlesuits in Terran history), Project Twelve eventually determined that he had twenty hours remaining in his battery if he idled completely and kept everything down low, even life support. With life support on max, he had fifteen hours. He sent a transmission to that effect.

His response came quickly: “Damn. It will probably be close, but I think we can make it in under fifteen hours. I will start having the shuttle prepped immediately.”

Quickly making a compromise, Project Twelve set his life support at eighty per cent, which was just above the minimum of seventy per cent - this would give him eighteen hours of life before the power to the suit ran out and he died of either anoxia (from space; that would be due to magnetic seal failure) or shock (hey, it could happen). Oh, and sheer cold was a factor, too, though he would probably die of one of the other two first “Understood, Captain.”

The connection was severed swiftly - Project Twelve knew that they were busy, so he understood entirely. Msul’b still managed to feel a little guilty over it - sure, there were other things to do, but Project Twelve was still a member of the crew! There was no reason to mistreat him so. It was verging on criminal. “I want him recovered immediately! The clock is ticking. You have fifteen hours to extract him, or he will perish from the cold or from anoxia. Move out!”

Hurriedly, a rescue party was formed, and soon they were on their way, searching for Project Twelve’s radar beacon signal. I hope they are fast enough… we could use a fighter like him on our side. Besides, it is the decent thing to do, after all.

And now all that could be done for Project Twelve and for Valour was wait. They would be doing a fair bit of waiting in the next while. In fact, perhaps it was Commander Nebulid who had the correct course of action in mind…



He almost did not recognize the message when it was sent. It came out something like a cryptic puzzle or whatnot - “The eagle descends swiftly from the spire to feast on its prey” held little to no relevance to any of his current situations, with the possible exception of his murderous court martial habits.

Eventually, however, he was able to divine its source, and from the source he could obtain the underlying meaning. The message was from the Krion who had dropped in on him some time ago, and the essence of the message seemed to be along the lines of “get they ass to the hangar bay.” Not being one to hold up an appointment for any reason, Nebulid left his “law office” early, asked in his waiting room “Who all is here to see me for a ruling?”, saw four hands go up, slew the defendants expeditiously, smiled weakly at the rest, and proceeded swiftly to the hangar bay. He hoped it was not too late. Upon entering the hangar bay, Nebulid saw the shuttle he knew to look for, hastily dumped his court knife in the nearest waste disposal chute (fat chance of him needing to use that again, if he was headed where he thought he was headed). Seeing the Krion (or one of the Krion’s infinite potential avatars, at least - unless this reptilian form was its natural state, but weren’t Krion supposed to have originally been amphibians?) he heaved a sigh of relief, stepped in, and prepared for departure. Something came to him suddenly, however - wouldn’t the Krion have picked a human form to avoid getting inspected or, worse, summarily executed? It was strange.

That would be because you are on the wrong shuttle, he heard in his mind.

Oh, shit, he thought back. I... have to go, don’t I? I will get back to you later. He had to find a way off the shuttle.

Fortunately, the pilot was too busy chatting with his buddy over at Engineering about how stupid Nebulid had been to fall for the lizard suit ploy to really notice as Nebulid silently slipped out the aft hatch of the shuttle--

--To meet the barrel of an ion rifle and a familiar cold stare. “Forgetting something?” said Arsivan as he tapped his head appreciatively. “Two can play at mind games, Nebulid…”



Now there was a particular unpleasant segment of an otherwise positive memory. Besides, it was about time Nebulid checked on the status of the ship’s crew. Walking on bridge, he was treated with an image of desolation. Wonderful. They all figured out how boring this particular part was going to be, too. Good to see that we are in agreement, then! As if on cue, Makhi slithered in in a snake like form. “Ah, good to see someone still actually at their station.” Looking at Nebulid, who had been taken slightly off guard by its appearance, it continued “…ish. For what it’s worth, I did manage to revive Major Lanai. What is the status of things?”

Nebulid cast an uneasy glance about him. “I… to be honest, I only got on here two minutes ago. I really have not got a God forsaken clue what is going on here.”

“Well, that is just wonderful, isn’t it? You would think someone like you would be a little more prepared in two minutes. Shouldn’t you know everything there is to know about the situation by then?”

Flustered, Nebulid cast about him, looking for a way out of this uneasy situation, and at the same time acutely aware that Makhi was joking with him. Of course. “Well… uh… err…” he stammered, not wanting to lose the game on the very first round. “Uh… it looks like Project Twelve has been grounded on the other side of the planet. Search team has been dispatched. Engineering teams are on the way here to perform repairs on the warp assembly. Err… that seems to be the sum total of news here. Which would handily explain the absence of the entire rest of the bridge crew. How about the Major, then?”

Now it was Makhi’s turn to stammer, for it had not been prepared for a second round. “Uh… err… she made a… full recovery… now doing… well… absolutely nothing… Seems the first thing she wanted to do after a three week coma was sleep.” It had no bait to throw back in Nebulid’s face, however, so the game was declared a draw and adjourned until the next completely irrelevant situation came up, which was likely to be soon anyway.

Sleep all you want… it is not like sleep will not be a rare commodity soon.



“We have them now,” Kain repeated. “Bring us into a loose orbit over the planet. And run the planet through the Imperial Database, too, eh? Let’s see if there is something we can call it other than just ‘the planet’, something better, perhaps? More catchy?”

Relentless lumbered into orbit, just as gracefully as a bull in a china shop. If the bull were a trained professional ballet dancer. And then suffered from mercury poisoning. Regardless of the bull’s history, Relentless was quite as much in orbit.

And glad Kain was that it was so - orbital patterns in this system seemed wildly erratic. High eccentricity levels were the norm, here - there seemed to be no actual ‘plane’ for the various objects roughly circling the red dwarf. Almost as if the red dwarf were simply a thief of other systems’ material - it had enough speed for the part… and just enough gravity to keep some of what it disturbed. Sure enough, the star was called Alokan, a Conari word meaning thief. The planet was called something else… “Darahn is the name of the planet. Its origins are Harkulu. The term means ‘cold’, roughly. They have different words for different levels of frigidity.”

“That was one more factoid than I really needed to hear, Ars,” Kain commented. “Regardless of that, shall we begin our wake up call?”

“If we are going to bombard the surface, should we not pull in from geosynchronous orbit? We want to be able to hit more than one spot on the surface for a proper search, after all.”

“True.” He gave the order, and Relentless’ orbit began to tighten. As it pulled in closer he could swear he saw a small grid of black dots on the white surface.

“Are those… What kind of operation have these rebels been running here, anyway?”

“A mining operation, looks like. I think that those are makeshift extractors you are looking at down there.”

“But why - oh, because we pulled the net in on them on that one raid. I understand the reasoning now.”

“Do you understand that that means they have enough radioactive cobalt to run Relentless for a month by now, in all likelihood? Great! Just… great. They need have no fear of us. They can run their ship for years on all that cobalt. Damn!”

“You fail to remember our current situation, which just happens to be ‘about to bomb the shit out of a rebel mining operation and their little carrier, too’.”

“You fail to realize that while the yield projections were accurate - more or less, within about a half a month of operation time for Relentless - I was joking for that entire tirade. Strange for me to be the one to say this to you, but YOU! LOOSEN UP A BIT, EH?”

“Loosen up? Me? If I were any more slack I would collapse in a puddle on the floor!” With a quick grin he added “And that’s im POSSIBLE!” They shared a chuckle over that.

“Now, seriously speaking - relatively - we really should get around to that bombardment, eh?”

“You? Speak seriously? Never!” Regardless, he gave the order to commence bombing. After all, it was his job.



Nebulid’s first thought when he saw Relentless pop up on the short range sensors was Oh, for God’s sake, what a bad day. Then, realizing he should really have seen this coming anyway, he thought Why is it always my fault that my day sucks? I need some onto which to pass the burden Then, realizing who exactly his unlucky scapegoat should be, he called Captain Msul’b to the bridge, then after a moment of reflection, added in the rest of the bridge crew as a sort of afterthought.

They took the abrupt summons well enough - Msul’b, for one, it seemed, had predicted such an occurrence as this would come around anyway. Damn it all to Hell! There goes my scapegoat! Oh well, there was always next time. For Nebulid it was all just a game in terms of dumping the blame for various events on others. What mattered was the present, for once.

And the present was looking just a slight bit on the grim side at the moment. There was only one good reason for Relentless to be pulling into low orbit like that. That reason just so happened to be the every handy planetary bombardment option, an option for which Nebulid was somewhat less than enthusiastic in his support. After all, he liked to live.

It seemed that Msul’b also enjoyed life, for his own reaction was similar. Most of the bridge crew shared with him this sentiment. Makhi, as always, could not be bothered by it - for the Krion, the afterlife is a matter of course. Immortality is guaranteed for them all. They continually insist that the same applies to all races and that none need fear death, but no one tends to listen, as they would far rather wallow in their self pity. After all, self pity has been the driving force behind most sweeping changes in Federation / other galactic history, so why alter a good formula? It could throw off a few erstwhile warlords, and that would simply not do.

At any rate, the fact remained that Relentless being up there in orbit was usually classified as a Level Ten Bad Thing. What exactly that meant in terms of the rating system escaped Nebulid in its entirety, but their general plight did not. “Come on! Let’s get this thing operational!”

“Our engineering crews have not arrived yet. I wonder where they are?”

“I will find out myself.” Comms contacted Sergeant McClean, opening with “Where the hell are you? We need you people up here! Come on!”

It was an attention grabber; that was for certain. McClean responded “Why in such a hurry?”

“I should think that is obvious. However, in the event that you haven’t taken a look skyward lately, give it a try now.”

Briefly, she looked up. “Oh, shit. We will be there in fifteen minutes.” Before the connection was severed, Nebulid heard the shuttle accelerating hard, probably near maximum acceleration, in fact. Good. We need them here on the double.
He turned to Msul’b. “Can Valour take many hits? We cannot activate our shields in these conditions.”

“No kidding.” The ice would overload the carrier’s shields instantly; that was for certain. “Valour’s hull can probably withstand five missile hits.”

“Are those spread out, or same spot?” It would probably make a huge difference.

“Spread out. Three hits, same spot, game over. Probably. We will have to see.”

We will have to hope… He could already feel the concussions of the first missile shots.



“Bombing has commenced,” Kain heard from Tactical. “We will flush them out within the next half hour, with any luck. Bombing pattern is set to maximize search area. Once we get an affirmative hit, we will give ‘em both barrels.” Kain smiled along with the tactical officer.

Relentless continued to spit out missiles, churning up the surface of Darahn and destroying one extractor after another. It would be tedious work if it was not so much fun to watch the missiles make their presence known in an explosive manner. Kain could sit back and watch this for days! He did not advise that, however - for the time being, he still technically ran the Empire, so it would be difficult to keep away from matters of state for that long. But damn, it would be fun if he could do that anyway.

Reports clogged up the screen at the Tactical console, as missiles struck the surface of Darahn again and again. Arsivan seemed to be the only one on bridge not massively entertained by the pretty explosions; when asked why not, he merely said “Aww, I know it is pretty and all, but really I am just not in the mood for it right now.” As such, he begged off work for a few hours - “tell me how it goes.” Then he stalked off, and Kain wondered what on Earth (or off it) had just happened.

As Arsivan left the bridge, he wondered to himself Where do I actually stand? I have been playing both ends against the middle in the conflict between Kain and Torsonnen for as long as I can remember. But why? There had to be some underlying to be principle behind it, something more than just power - which I doubt I would want, anyway - perhaps the truth is so terrible that my mind has hidden it from itself. But… who, then, am I?



The concussions of bombs striking Darahn’s surface became sharper and sharper. It was getting to the point where the entire deck shook with each impact. There was only one logical conclusion - carpet bombing. They want to flush us out so badly that they are willing to expend millions of credits in explosives to accomplish it. I am surprised they haven’t just taken out the Day Wrecker and been done with it. He added to himself, of course, that this was not intended to be a suggestion of any sort of further courses of action for his brother on Relentless. Very much not. In fact, if Kain would just leave them all alone, it would be simply lovely. Too bad there was little chance of that happening under any circumstances. Hence the rebellion in the first place, of course.

Nebulid stared blankly at the HoloComm screen, which currently depicted Relentless carrying out its dread bombardment. Nebulid knew that the gunners and launch operators knew exactly how to space their shots for maximum search resolution. Valour had to bank on a miss or two, otherwise its hull really could not take the stress of the bombardment. Already, of course, the bombs were making their presence felt. “Where the hell is that shuttle full of engineers?”

“They will be here within five minutes.” As if on cue, a message arrived from the hangar crew: “The engineers have arrived. They are on their way to the warp assembly right now. They will have to diagnose it first, of course.”

“Tell McClean…” Nebulid rooted through his old Torsonnen memories, trying to find the one he needed… “Tell McClean to look for…” the idea suddenly jumped into his head “…a feedback surge in the main power capacitor or nearby.”

The engineer, having been informed so, inquired “What do you think you know about this, Commander? It would be interesting to know how you came to that conclusion.”

“It was a pointless little factoid I picked up in the Academy when they ran me through it right after my forced defection twenty years ago - seems they had already had experience with the warp weapon or something like it before, and they taught us how the shield worked and what happened to the warp assembly when its weapon was blocked by the shield. I thought it was useless information at the time; now, of course, I find that it has actual relevance to the matter in hand.”

“Excellent. Thank you for the insight,” she finished, and blinked out on the HoloComm display.

Nebulid cringed as a close explosion rang out. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it quickly, otherwise we will surely all be Kain’s cannon fodder…



Kain watched on with immense satisfaction as the bombs continued to track down Valour on the surface of Darahn. He could not help but laugh. Fools! Did you really think you could out run the wrath of the Empire?

Torsonnen strode in. “Having fun, are you not, Captain?” he inquired, grinning a bit himself.

“A large amount, Your Imperial Majesty. It is satisfying to finally have caught those rebels.”

“Then let us destroy them now and have done with it. No more delays. No more pussyfooting around it. This is war. How long will it take to deploy the Day Wrecker?”

“Less than an hour. Do you mean to end this… that way? That seems a little on the extreme side to me.”

“Do you question my orders, Captain? I have had people spaced for much less.”

“I do not question your orders. You have not made one yet. Shall I have the Day Wrecker prepared?”

“Yes. Do it.” The finality in Torsonnen’s voice was unmistakable. There was to be no more delay. This rebel foolishness would end TODAY. It would end NOW.

And then he could flush out all the other rebels by holding Darahn as an excellent example - he had gone so far as to use the Day Wrecker against Valour. Would he not do the same for other rebels? It would make a splendid open ended threat to hold over any potential rebels’ heads. It would ensure his reign for all time to come…

Commander Arsivan had difficulty understanding the situation seemingly forced on him by the circumstances. Was he going after Torsonnen, or was he gunning for Kain? Why both? He did not crave power; he was above such petty things. Eventually he had to compile a list of things for which either Kain or Torsonnen needed death.

Kain needed to die because of several things: betrayal of his name, then betrayal of the Empire (which his betrayal of his name had been in favour of) and general asshattery.

Torsonnen? It was dangerous to do this, but seeing as there were no other psionics on board that he could tell, he rattled off the list anyway: the evil manner in which he treated his citizens, the fixation on power he always carried about him, the planet sized ego, the ruthlessness of his war strategies (and peace strategies), and the off hand manner with which he treated everything keeping him on the throne. Did he not know how many people it took to keep him alive, with all the insurrectionists stirring things up relentlessly? There was simply no escape from it.

Why, then, did Torsonnen dismiss everything so matter of factly? There was nothing in his Empire that should be taken for granted. There was nothing in his Empire that should be left unappreciated. There was nothing in his Empire that was actually his. He called the shots, but there was nothing in his Empire that he, himself, had created. The money he had used to acquire his military superiority? Not his. Inherited. Even the plan had not been his own! Does the man not know how much of a tool he really is? He has been used by someone five hundred years dead! Just as many people in the past have been used by someone now eight hundred years dead. And I hear him at the door…

That is it. Time it has come for the shattering of illusions. The charade ends here!



Nebulid looked around, still unable to estimate how long they had until the first hit. It seemed likely to come in less than ten minutes, but there was no telling exactly when it would come along. Later rather than sooner, please. There would be no time for the repairs as matters stood - that would simply complicate things. Trying to deal with hull damage at the same time as dealing with the warp assembly would be a tall appointment. Nebulid doubted any team, even one led by the legendary McClean, could possibly pull it off in a timely fashion. And the fashion we need is a very timely one, indeed, isn’t it?

A missile stuck very close. Nebulid was thrown to the ground by the concussion. It appeared, though, that no hull damage had been done. There was no way Valour could take another rough shock like that, though. It had nearly sunk into a sea of vapourized ice from the missile hit. Another nearby hit would drop it right in, and then good luck getting the carrier off the planet’s surface again.

Makhi sensed something. “Wow. That’s strong. It is almost like someone is trying to contacty me by sending a brute force psionic signal in all directions, but inaudibly. Your Commander Arsivan seems to be having internal conflict issues. Is he prone to questioning himself often, Commander Nebulid?”

Eager to avoid slipping into memory again, Nebulid hastily answered “No. If anything he was always the most decisive officer on board. It seemed he had made his mind up years ago, and it would never change, barring nuclear bombing.”

“Nuclear bombing? What does that have to do with his opinion?” Silly Nebulid had forgotten that nuclear warfare had been taboo for twenty five thousand years of Federation history, so the Krion would have no way of understanding a reference to it.

“Never mind. It was a bad explanation anyway. Essentially, he was always the type to decide beforehand and stick totally to his guns. No quarter given or asked.”

“That is one of the stranger features for a psionic that I have ever come across.”

“It does not precisely make much sense to me, either. Perhaps we should investigate the issue at some point in the future, when we are not faced with imminent death.”

“Oh, thank you for the reminder. What a way to make us all feel better! That was a galaxy class morale booster there, Commander.”

“You know what?” Nebulid smiled a bit. “YOU KNOW WHAT? BLERR!”

“BLERR!” did not compute with the universal translation unit, but Nebulid still managed to get his point across fine. Not that there had been a particular point to that sentence.

It was all part of the game of survival - humour was essential. If one could not laugh at one’s problems, then one was doomed to worry too much about those problems, and thus end up making mistakes, and eventually dying. Laughter, then, was half the battle won. And half the battle was a significant portion, a significant amount.

Now, of course, the other half of the battle was just as important, if not more, and it was fairly pressing at the moment. Unless Sergeant McClean and her dream team managed to somehow restore the warp drive, and soon, they were all screwed over totally. It was only a matter of time before…

Project Twelve! We have totally forgotten about Project Twelve! He is on the other side of the planet. How can he possibly get here on time? I refuse to write off Project Twelve; he is too good. He is too important. He is… I don’t know. Is it just something about him that makes it so that you cannot bear to abandon him? I believe the issue is an excess of necessity. He is too God damned necessary!



Project Twelve was feeling anything but necessary at the moment. He heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing. He was in a total state of limbo. Though he tried to pass the time by sleeping, sleep refused to come. For God’s sake! If you are going to kill me, just do it! Do not just watch me die, laughing all the way! If that shuttle does not arrive soon - the shuttle announced its presence with a flourish of its jets and a radio message to Project Twelve. “We made it! Let’s get you back to Valour now, eh Project Twelve?”

Elated, Project Twelve powered up his suit again, gently parked it in the shuttle, waited for a seal on the door, and finally took the Sentinel suit off, glad to finally be out of that thing for the first time in what seemed to have been an eternity. “Whew! Glad to be here. How long to reach Valour now? It is a small planet, but just how small?”

“Under standard power it would take three hours. As matters stand, we are red lining the engine like nothing you could ever possibly imagine with your non technical mind. Estimated time of arrival at Valour is in one hour.”

“That…” Project Twelve searched for the right words to use, but came up short. “…is insane.”



“How long until the Day Wrecker is ready?” Torsonnen eyed Tactical impatiently.

“I doubt it will take more than about forty five minutes at the rate we have been driving those poor souls down there. I recommend a good break for each of them after this ordeal is through.”

“I will take that under heavy consideration. We will see how things work out. Captain!”

“Yes, sir?” Kain was boiling over with all the internal turmoil he had had of late. At least that damned voice was out of his head now, hopefully for good.

“There is a conspicuous absence on the bridge crew. Can you summon Arsivan here for me?”

“Yes, sir.” Kain dispatched a call for Arsivan to please report immediately to the bridge.

It was evident that Arsivan had not scanned the bridge with his psionic gift, for he seemed genuinely surprised to not see anything of note happening when he entered. “I’ve got to admit that I’m a little bit confused here. Have I been used?”

“No. I merely feel it important that you remain on bridge for such an important moment in the history of the Empire. You see, we are about to use the Day Wrecker for the first time since the original War of Imperialization, which they so callously call the Descent in rebel circles. This may finally prove to the rebels and all rebels potentials hiding out anywhere that we intend to play for keeps. I doubt there is much they can do to evade the awesome destructive power of the Day Wrecker.” Torsonnen let loose with his most malevolent grin on Imperial record. “They can try to lift off the planet, but with the ground disappearing under their feet, that might prove just the slightest bit difficult.” He collapsed into a helpless fit of laughter.

Slightly nervous, Arsivan and Kain tentatively put in a few chuckles of their own. Within a few moments the bridge was back to normal operations, though, and the tense situation subsided into the same old routine as always - keep the ship running, and the battle was already half won. The other half, however, was always the hard half.



Abruptly, the concussions stopped. It seemed Relentless thought that they had finally taken Valour out. But that hardly made any sense. Relentless, if anything, was the most methodical ship in the Torsonnen fleet, and Kain the most methodical captain. To see him pull out after just one wave of bombs was so strange that Nebulid distrusted it. Something had to be afoot here… Is he launching bombers, now, or mobile troopers? Perhaps he is sending heavies to finish us off.

“Well, you were right, Commander. It was a feedback surge. We can get it fixed in less than thirty minutes.” McClean set herself to work immediately, leaving Nebulid with an open comm channel to essentially nothing. Forgiving her, he severed the connection himself, turned to look at Relentless, and came to an awful realization: It was none of the above. Kain did not intend to launch bombers. He was not interested in sending mobile troopers after Valour. Heavies would be totally unnecessary and downright risky. No, he intended to take a far more direct route to Valour’s decimation. Or rather a far LESS direct route. The weakness of Valour was not the ship itself. Kain intended to use the Day Wrecker.

The mere thought of that device of pure destruction chilled Nebulid to the bone. He could not cope with the idea that Kain was willing to resort to the destruction of an entire planet just to get at a band of rebels. It was, if anything, too costly.

Take the idea of a bomb powerful enough to destroy, say, an Earth sized planet. Think of the energy required to break up a planet like that. It had taken over one hundred of the super powerful Nova warheads to threaten Earth’s existence in the mid twenty first century. And those had been millions of times as powerful as the asteroid impact that initiated the Mesozoic extinction on that planet. Now, imagine the amount of antimatter that it would to match that output. The costs begin to sharply rise. There were only three Day Wreckers in existence currently, down from five at the beginning of Torsonnen’s bid for power. He had annihilated two worlds during that campaign, one to eliminate a threat and one to prove a point and essentially cement his position as Emperor of the galaxy.

THAT was the true Day Wrecker - the fact that it could not be stopped. No matter what you did, there was no getting away from the Day Wrecker.

“Commander? Are you okay? Is there something we might need to know?” Makhi inquired.

“For the moment I am okay, though I may have to check in to the infirmary later on with a severe case of antimatter burn after the Day Wrecker hits Darahn and atomizes us all.”

As the final eight words exited his mouth, the entire human portion of the bridge crew immediately went silent, followed half a second later by the rest, as the universal translator made Nebulid’s sentence clear for them. Msul’b ventured “…the Day Wrecker?” after a while.

“Yes. Think!! The bombardment stopped five minutes ago. Did we take a single direct hit? No, though a couple of the missiles hit close. Kain is the most methodical officer in the Torsonnen fleet. Ask yourself: why would he stop with the conventional bombing when he KNOWS he could not have taken us out? The answer--” he pointed skyward “--is that he is using UNconventional bombing. Also known as the Day Wrecker. Kain is willing to destroy Darahn just to take us out.”

“You know, that would make me feel incredibly important if I were not about to die a terrible death at the hands of the Day Wrecker. Is there any way out of this that you can see?”

“Well, we could always just leave, but are the engineers ready for us to get going yet? I presume the repair needs to be made for it to be feasible to go anyway.”

“We will have to wait for McClean, then. How will we know the bomb has been launched?”

“Oh, we will know all right. Here, let me show you something. See this stuff here?” On a model of the supercarrier in the HoloComm screen, he indicated its gargantuan underside. “The entire underside of the ship is the Day Wrecker. What you see in the sky? Only half of it is Relentless. If the two halves split, then we know they have fired. And then…” he smiled weakly “…we run.”



Project Twelve could now see Valour in the distance - no atmosphere meant a huge viewing distance, especially at their altitude. They were still fifteen minutes (or more) away from the light carrier. There were craters all around the ship. A bombardment. Project knew Kain, knew that Kain would not stop until Valour was gone. Yet Valour hjad not even taken a single hit, byt the looks of it! Why would Kain pull off?

Instinctively, Project Twelve looked up at Relentless, from the supercarrier at the top to the Day Wrecker at the bott - the Day Wrecker at the bottom! I cannot believe it! I can only hope Nebulid has picked up on the goings on as well. For, if not… there can be no help from me. I cannot warn them; I am not allowed to…



“Release Primary Clamp One!” The engineer’s voice rang out across the ship.

“Releasing!” There was a grunt of effort as three mechanics laboured together to throw the gargantuan switch. It was a success - Primary Clamp One had been released. Only twenty five more to go, and then the five secondary clamps. Nothing, really, to a crew of this size.

“Release Primary Clamps Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty and Twenty Five!” It was done soonn.

The ground beneath their feet began to lurch. The rest of the clamps would have to be done remotely. “Alright! Let’s get going and pull out! Set the remote trigger mechanisms.” The teams got this bit of the procedure done swiftly, and they all pulled back behind various airlocks throughout the separation conduit.

“Excellent! You know the drill.” The rest of the primary clamps went out in sequence. The floor of the release “room” now veritably quaked. After all, the only thing holding it in place now was the vacuum and five pathetic little backup clamps.

“Now what?” One of the mechanics had no experience with Imperial protocol, obviously. He probably wondered why they hadn’t released the secondary clamps yet.

“Now we call the bridge and ask them politely whether or not they actually want this fucker dropped on the planet. What we do after that depends on the response.”

“Do you mean we could have done all that work for NOTHING at all?”

“Potentially, but I doubt it. Torsonnen has only ever ordered two Day Wreckers dropped in the history of the galaxy, and in neither case did he ever hesitate. I should know; I dropped both of them.”

“You what? I thought no one was in on both Day Wrecker launches but the Emperor himself. They were dropped from different ships! How did you manage that trick?”

“He brought me along with him, because I had experience with working the fuckers. Anyway, I have said too much already. Let’s get in contact with Captain Kain.”

He punched a few buttons, and Captain Kain’s face appeared. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wondering if you would like us to proceed with the immolation of an entire world or not. Nothing big, just a couple mechanics with itchy trigger fingers, never ever seen a Day Wrecker go off, et cetera. They will get over it soon, methinks.”

“Good to see your wit is as razor sharp as ever, Ahmus. Go ahead!” He disappeared.

“Alright, you heard the man. Release the secondary clamps! Quickly!” The mechanics scrambled to obey. One by one, the secondary clamps went, until all were gone.

And slowly, but surely, the most powerful weapon ever designed in the history of the galaxy slid out of the grasp of the supercarrier housing it. Darahn would die.



Nebulid chanced a look up - and immediately damned his chances. Why can I never get something good to happen to me? It is always a catastrophe.

“Alrighty, then! The fate of the planet Darahn has been sealed. Shall we to our next refuge, then? Or does someone possibly have… a bright idea stowed away somewhere?”

“We cannot leave yet. The repairs must be completed first. Sergeant McClean?”

“We need another five or ten minutes!” It was a plea for help, really.

“We do not have that much time! The Day Wrecker has been loosed.”

“We are doing all we can! I am sorry.” She cut the connection herself this time, for good reason. She would need her full focus to get this monstrosity fixed on time. It was all about time now, just like always: time for the bomb to hit, time for her to finish up…



Project Twelve was aghast. The Day Wrecker had come free of its parent structure. Relentless had shrunk quite a bit onow thtat it no longer bore the volume of the bomb with it. The bomb carried with it an immediate problem: “Pull up, now! For the love of God, pull up! We need to get away from here before the Day Wrecker hits and destroys the entire planet. Whether or not Valour catches up is moot. It will be easier to dock with them in orbit anyway, and if the do not make it we are dead anyways. There is not a thing we can do to change the situation.”

Reluctantly, the pilot pulled up, and the shuttle began a sharp ascent. Everything faded away: the planet, Valour, Relentless, the shuttle, its pilot. Project Twelve was all alone here. But what he found was a terrible thing; a most terrible thing, indeed. He was coming to a most profound, most awful realization.

He was beginning to have the first stirrings of understanding of just exactly who he was.



“Come ON! I NEED THAT REPAIR DONE! We need to leave! NOW!”

“They can not hear you, and it would not make a bit of difference anyway.”

“I need the venting. Can you please stop interfering with my quality venting time?”

“I will not stand for you attacking the engineers like that. They are doing the best they can, and if we left without those repairs we would all be dead anyway. So stop harassing them, even if they can’t hear. We all want to get out of here soon, so please calm down.”

Eventually Nebulid subsided, and with his calm came a sort of general calm over the entire bridge crew of Valour. Still, he could not stop looking skyward and watching as the Day Wrecker, that mechanical harbinger of doom, slowly ticked away the seconds to the planet’s demise. It was interminable - Nebulid could not imagine the amount of force required to nudge that behemoth out of orbit! Surely it massed millions of tons, billions most likely. He forgot the exact figure, but for certain it was on the ‘indecent’ side of the mass scale. Only half of Relentless was the ship itself! Nebulid, over the long twenty three years since he had been defected to the Empire, had forgotten completely about that part - Torsonnen had been on other ships; he had never seen the bombs loosed personally. It had eventually become little more than a ship’s legend, told to young recruits to scare them for the senior officer’s enjoyment. It was almost forgotten that they had ever been used.

Trying his hardest to avoid slipping into memory, Nebulid forced himself to stay awake by rattling out figures: “The Day Wrecker is one thousand kilometers out now. That distance decreases rapidly. It has not accelerated much yet; rate of acceleration is only just over one metre per second per second, as far out as it is from the planet. Current rate of descent is five hundred metres per second. I would estimate that we have about one minute left to make the repair; otherwise we will not have enough time to get out of the Day Wrecker’s blast radius, given the current lack of one of our main thruster assemblies.”

“Very well. We will have to see how it all works out, then.” Msul’b turned to the screen - and was rewarded by the sudden appearance of the face of Sergeant McClean on the HoloComm. “I assume, then, the news is good, and we can take off.”

“Indeed you can. I hope we got it all done in time, then. Things are looking sketchy.”

“According to Commander Nebulid, we have an entire twenty seconds to spare! Good work.” The face disappeared, and Msul’b turned and faced the crew. “Take us out, and make it swift!”

The helmsman nodded affirmative, then punched in a few keys, and suddenly Valour leapt into action. The light carrier took off with as much power as the inertial compensator could handle. Blasting away under well over ten gravities’ acceleration, Valour fled the surface of the planet as though Darahn were the plague itself. And not a moment too soon, as the vaccine for that particular plague swiftly approached the infected area, soon to eradicate the filth it had spread all over the system. To explain it without a strange, contrived metaphor, Valour was escaping fast, and the Day Wrecker was seconds away from obliterating Darahn entirely. Basically, the general situation was one of tension.

The strike… was beautiful to behold. The power, the terror, the sheer existence of it all. Yes, it was a terrible power. Yes, it had the ability to destroy a planet, though (the joke went) that was insignificant next to the power of the Force. But seeing it in action… words did not suffice to describe the awesome forces at work here. The enormous detonation played out almost in slow motion before Commander Joran Nebulid’s awestruck eye.

It started out almost as nothing, just a little speck barefly covering the volume of the Day Wrecker proper. But from there it just blossomed. A blast of searing white assailed Nebulid’s eye, though for the most part it was regulated by the vidscreen’s display limitations. The explosion grew exponentially, reaching out first fifty kilometers, then a hundred, then five hundred. As it went it decimated everything it touched. Ice, land, everything - all were vapourized. The poor extractors! The extractors were off to machine heaven, their gremlins sent back to machine hell for redeployment in other little bits of technology the universe over. Nothing went unaffected. Valour was shaking around like a mud hut in a Richter 9 earthquake. Even Relentless could not escape the awesome power of this beast. It could be seen rattling with the explosion. That is, you could see it rattling with the explosion IF you could see anything other than the explosion itself to begin with. It was madness. The sheer power!

The explosion now covered the entire side of Darahn, and it was still growing. Those people had known what they were doing when they designed that monstrosity of a bomb. The other side of the planet was now breaking apart. Soon the entire thing would rupture.

And rupture it did. And then detonate it did. The whole planet crumbled into fragments. These fragments began to spew out in all directions, so Msul’b had the shields activated. These swept up the smaller debris and deflected the larger debris, as well as lessening the still violent shaking from the energy being emitted. “How much longer could it possibly go?” thought Nebulid aloud, though he knew he would get now answer from the crew.

Instead, he got an answer from the explosion. As more and more things were annihilated, the detonation subsided, fading away ever so slowly to leave a loose cluster of planetoids where Darahn had once been. And to leave a simply awestruck crew on Valour.

And to leave the HoloComm unattended, apparently. It eventually gave up on the crew, opened itself up on the vidscreen, and spouted out “Valour, do you read?”

“Yes,” at long last, from Msul’b, “we read. You should really pick up the habit sometime, Shuttle One. Does wonders for your intelligence, as rumour has it.” The Phoenix laughed heartily. Nebulid could not help but join in. Even Project Twelve, on the shuttle and still somewhat traumatized, contributed a few chuckles of his own through that perpetual scowl of his, as the nervous energies of the entire crew were released all at once. They were alive. They had survived.

The realization spread over the crew, and they all laughed as one for a full minute.

The explosion itself? Nebulid put a rough guess at its duration to be two minutes. How to destroy a world in two minutes. Take planet - add liberal amounts of antimatter - shake until thoroughly annihilated before enjoying. Serves up to five Earth sized planets…



As Valour was busy picking up the shuttle, Relentless was undergoing a little bit of post cataclysmic detonation maintenance and minor repairs. It was nothing at all, really. Just a few dozen square kilometers of tarnished plating along the leading edge of the hull. Just massive power failures on Residential Deck Two. Just total loss of control over weapons, defense and other Tactical things. Nothing to speak of, really. Just all that.

To think that they had undergone all of this just to take out a single carrier.

I am never doing that again. Not for any rebel carrier. Not for any insurrection. Never. Kain looked over at Torsonnen. He might, but I? I will never do that again.

“I…” he struggled to say it aloud. “…can never… ever… do that… again.” He almost collapsed.

Torsonnen smiled weakly. With luck, you will never ever have to do that again, anyway.

Four: Betrayals and Broken Trust



NO!! The thought rolled through Arsivan’s head. DON’T DO IT YET!!

Why not? he responded to the voice calling him with such urgency. Why not?

I STILL NEED HIM FOR THE FINAL STAGE OF MY PLAN. AFTER THAT, GO AHEAD. BETTER YET, HAVE KAIN TAKE CARE OF THAT BIT FOR US INSTEAD.

Yes, I must admit that suits as well. But how do we prevent Kain from making that particular move before our preparations are complete? It could be--

FIRST OF ALL, THERE IS NO WE. THIS IS MY ENDEAVOUR. YOU ARE MERELY THE LUCKY BENEFICIARY OF MY PRESENCE. DOUBT NOT YOU THAT?

Understood. However, you still do not answer my question. How is Kain to be restrained?

USE YOUR POWERS. HIS MIND IS NO MATCH FOR YOUR PSIONIC ABILITIES!

Also understood. Arsivan turned to face the (blank) HoloComm screen. For how long?

I DO NOT KNOW. WHEN I HAVE A VAGUE TIMELINE, I WILL LET YOU KNOW.

Excellent. Arsivan could already see the plan coming into place - the necessary preparations almost complete, the power play beginning to shape itself, everything falling into place nicely. The presence in his head had but a few more moves to make before the final act could be properly staged. There was really only one big thing left to tackle, actually. That thing would be the catalyst of the whole play. That thing was Weapon C.



Nebulid strode back on bridge after personally seeing to Project Twelve’s welcome back aboard the carrier to find disarray. There were scattered reports coming in - some proclaimed that Relentless was launching mobile troopers and fighters and charging weapons already, others that Relentless was totally disabled. The answer lay somewhere in the middle. Though Relentless seemed to be moving towards Valour, it also seemed more than a little incapacitated at the moment. There was evidence of severe hull damage, as well as missing guns and / or other hull bits that burned away in the blast. It would be shooting exactly NOTHING down fast. Nothing at all.

Trying to make sense of all this madness, Nebulid sat down, head in his hands. He was so lost in thought that he almost did not behold the apparition of his worst nightmare upon the HoloComm screen. “Hello, Commander Nebulid. I do not believe we have ever had the chance to meet, though of course we know of each other well.” The holographic image of Advira Torsonnen sneered. “I believe it is time to say goodbye. I have five plasma batteries trained on your ship. I trust that will suffice.”

These were the times when Nebulid was truly glad there was a Krion on the bridge staff. Placing a thought deliberately for Makhi, Nebulid set out to mentally ask Lieutenant Wasted, in the roundabout fashion it required, how long it would take before warp calculations were finally done.

“Hah!” Nebulid put a lot more boldness into that exclamation than he really had to boast of. “Have you had a look at your ship, Torsonnen? It is no longer the supercarrier it once was. Five plasma batteries? I doubt you have the computing power left to aim them! Need I continue? I could, you know. I really could. In fact, I will. There is nothing relentless about your ship. It seems to be in a terrible state of disrepair. Relentless? HAH! Not so! Try again! I call it Undentless.”

He knew he was buying time, but did Torsonnen know that? Possibly. “I am sure you have been waiting for an opening for that particular line for years now. Congratulations on finally having that particular opportunity. Perhaps you can even take a sense of fulfillment to the grave with you!”

“I doubt it. After all, Your Imperial Majesty is still alive. Try back later, though - I hear emperors are the hardest to fell, but they make a resounding SPLAT on the ground.”

“If there was a shred of sense in that sentence, Nebulid, I have yet to identify or extract it.”

“Do not work yourself too hard. Now - is there some sort of appeal system in place here?”

“You were the fucking lawyer, Nebulid! You can fucking tell me that, eh?”

Nice! I got a rise out of Torsonnen himself. “Indeed, I can ‘fucking tell you that’, as I was indeed the ‘fucking lawyer’. But do you even know your own law?”

“THE ANSWER IS NO! NO APPEAL! THUS ANSWERED BY YOUR OWN--“ Torsonnen picked up a sheathed knife “--FUCKING--“ he drew the knife swiftly “--JUSTICE MAKER!!” He was in a full blown rage now. “YOUR FUCKING KNIFE CAN ATTEST TO THE STATE OF LAW HERE! THIS KNIFE--“ he gestured wildly with it “--IS THE LAW! IT IS THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF JUSTICE IN THE TERRAN EMPIRE! Shall I demonstrate?” Torsonnen waved a young pilot assistant into view. “Do you not remember you job being a little like this?” He smiled the trademarked Nebulid smile (well, almost; he was off a bit on a few of the minor details) and shoved the knife into the assistant’s belly. The man collapsed in pain, taking several drawn out seconds to die.

“That was terrible form. He took almost ten seconds to die! Imgaine, if you will, the enormous pain he had to have just experienced. My own killings were all quick. Humane, even, relative to the way you just randomly slew that assistant pilot there.” At the back of his mind he heard Makhi’s “voice” say One minute or less to warp solution.

Excellent! Let me know as soon as the calculations are complete. He still continued to stare Torsonnen down, still acting full of piss and vinegar even though he was fairly sure it was just piss at this point. “Are you going to take this even further, Torsonnen? Shall you slay another just to continue to weakly make your point? Is that the kind of suffering you wish to spread through the galaxy? One where even your vaunted human race is not safe? I believe you have crossed the line, Torsonnen, into the most blatant of all hypocrisies. And now there is no turning back.” Nebulid sighed. “So you will be forced to kill more and more innocent people to cover up the hypocrisy. And that will breed more and more revolutionaries, which you will kill, like the rest, in the name of justice… and peace.” He stared Torsonnen right down. “And in time, the resentment will grow. And when it all comes to a head, your hypocrisy is going to come back around and bit you in the ass. So yes, I was the fucking lawyer, but I fucking cared about it!” He smiled. “Anybody can take a few lives with impunity. And when push comes to shove, the hypocrites can stay behind in their safe little cages, and laugh as the universe descends into ruin. But who is the real joke?” Sighing again, Nebulid returned to his signature “I’m scared out of my wits but I will act all cocky to get out of this bind” stare. “You.” He cut the HoloComm connection. “Take us in, Lieutenant Wasted!” he cried.

“But we do not have a proper solution mapped out! Oh well, here goes nothing.”

As five plasma bolts raced out to destroy Valour (wow! They actually had had them!) it blinked out of the system. They were too little, too late. Nebulid, on learning they had successfully made it, promptly fainted.



Torsonnen stood there on the bridge of Relentless (Kain was also tempted to call the damaged supercarrier Undentless, but he decided against it in favour of remaining alive). Kain could not tell what was going on in that mind. Perhaps it was churning out an elaborate revenge plot. Perhaps it was assessing the ship’s status, wondering whether another ship might be a better choice. Perhaps (and this most likely) it was still working its way through Nebulid’s tirade.

Kain could not but look on as Torsonnen continued to just stand there. There was no meaning to Nebulid’s tirade - how could Torsonnen not understand that? Nebulid had not truly expanded on anything at all. Hist entire statement had been different permutations of the same, oh so basic idea. It had been little more than a time buyer LITTLE MORE.

Torsonnen continued to just stand there, and now Kain feared he would be driven to madness (Torsonnen, that is - not Kain, who was already long past saving in that regard) soon if he did not take his mind off the subject. Kain could see the Emperor stirring a bit, almost as if the man inside were trying to escape the shackles of its mortal body.

But, all in all, Torsonnen continued, as always, to just stand here. The greatest single power in the galaxy, reduced to standing in mute shock. It was as though Torsonnen were sleeping standing up, though few things were more difficult to do than that.

And so it came as a complete surprise to everyone on the bridge of Undentless (Kain allowed himself that name just the one time) when Torsonnen suddenly burst into awareness, blinked a couple times, raised his hands and started to clap.



“We did it!” Nebulid, now once again in possession of his conscious mind, looked over at Project Twelve. “We managed to throw Torsonnen off long enough to make the jump.”

“Why do I get the feeling that I just missed a patented three minute Nebulid monologue?”

“Not a second above two minutes. I swear! I swear on the fuckin’ Runestaff.”

“Pit that means nothing in real life. Can you imagine that? Alternate Europe superimposed on the galactic background. What wrong could we do?” Project Twelve grinned.

“Well, better charge up our flame-lances just in case Londra makes a move on us.” Chuckling, Nebulid waded through the sea of other Moorcock references floating through his head to locate the actual thought he had nestled in there. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Well, the planet was about to explode, so I thought I should avoid that.”

“No! I mean, how did you stay off the Imperial radar? Nobody tries to defect without them knowing. Why were you ignored? Why, when your suit was not among those to come back, was there no second thought? Who are you?”

“Trust me when I say that you really do not want to know who I am…” he smiled. “However, to most people, I am just good old Project Twelve, resident ass kicker and name taker.”

“There’s the rebel spirit.” The spirit I wish I had. “Now, where was I?”

Someone burst into the room. “Begging your pardon, Command4er, but there is an emergency.”

“No need for pardon. Let’s go!” Together they raced down the corridors, through door after door. Eventually, they came across the bridge, their ultimate destination.

“God damn it all!” Nebulid was aghast. For a long time he searched for more words to say, but he ultimately came up short. Instead he began to wonder how?

Well, as it turned out, it had been completely natural - as a Phoenix, he had lived at full energy right up to his death, and then just dropped out immediately into nothingness. There was no transition. It was a peculiarity of that particular species. Nebulid could not think of a single other race of individuals with that quality.

So now they were captainless. Nebulid knew it was ultimately going to fall to him to take up the mantle - the huge one, at that - left by Msul’b. He also knew he was not really up to the task. It was going to be a long haul before he got anywhere close to reaching the level of comfort Msul’b had had with command. But of course, he would be a terrible rebel if he did not try.

The heart of the matter was the fact that Valour was now approaching celebrity status among rebel groups. Valour had been so important to Torsonnen that he had deemed it worth the expenditure of a Day Wrecker. And so plucky was the light carrier that it had escaped the destructive power of even that ultimate weapon! And all with Msul’b at the captain’s seat, not Nebulid.

Pretty damned big shoes to fill, I would say. I doubt I can pull it off.

He tried to turn his thoughts to something else, but when he did, he almost wished he had not. For he had hit upon the true heart of the matter - Torsonnen still lived.

The one thing of substance that they thought they had accomplished - totally moot. They had not in fact assassinated the Emperor. They had done nothing of the sort. They had done nothing, probably, but infuriate the man, leading to this situation they faced themselves in.

It’s all my fault! We could have had a stock rebellion. We could have done our part and remained sane. But I tried to think too big. I just had to go for the ship that I thought Torsonnen himself was in. May he WAS in the ship and just survived by some miracle or something. If that is the case, he probably just got even MORE determined to take us out after that.

Nebulid had had his chance to take the Emperor out, and had tried it, and had failed. And now, here they were, hunted down like common criminals, though they were anything but. They were uncommon criminals. That was for sure.

He looked over to Project Twelve, whose thought processes must have been taking a similar tone in a different direction. He offered “Well, time to go kill the Empire off.”

Nebulid had no response for that, though he thought Too late. It’s too fucking late! We had our chance, we tried, we failed. There are no redos in galactic warfare! Come to think of it, he could have said that, but did not anyway.

Instead, he continued to grapple with other problems. Problems like what they were going to do next. Problems like what to do about leading Valour Problems like Torsonnen being alive.



“Bravo!” The sound of Torsonnen’s applause and voice resounded throughout the room. No one knew exactly what was going on, but it was better than his earlier silence by a long shot.

“Bravo!” he said again. “Excellently done! I must admit, when he is under pressure like that, Nebulid can be one of the smoothest talkers in the universe.”

“I would not say he was so much talking smoothly as attacking you.”

“Oh, not at all! It was the best delaying speech I have ever heard from anyone. It bought back the time he needed to leave at nearly two to one.”

Confused, Kain suddenly remembered the long silence after Nebulid’s disappearance and nodded. “Actually, on second thought, he did do a fairly good job of it.”

“You should really take more pride in your brother than that, Captain… For now, shall we proceed to the location where Weapon C has unwittingly revealed itself to us?”

“Absolutely.” Brother? Have I forgotten? Have I lost my identity? Kain began spitting out orders, but something was chewing at him from inside of him. If Nebulid is my brother, everything… everything suddenly makes sense now.

Nebulid smiled momentarily, then continued “I do believe I should be politely asking for YOUR surrender, propriety being what it is. My apologies if that spoils your fun.”

“Hey, bro!” Nebulid jumped on bridge. “Long time no see! Let’s kill us some ‘rebel scum’!”

References to a J. Nebulid that the commander could swear to not being himself.

Arsivan’s strange behaviour around the two when they were together on bridge, almost as if he knew something that Kain did not, which of course was nothing new.

It all started to come together. Kain was not Kain. In fact, Kain did not know exactly who he was. All he knew was that the truth was not something he would be able to grasp in its entirety without his likely death at Arsivan’s hand.

You are not as dumb as you look. Strange; the though was not from himself…

Arsivan, get out of my mind![p/i] Kain thought with the full force of his mind.

Reeling, Arsivan fled, for indeed there was no way to refute someone who definitively shoved an interloper out of the target mind. It was a weakness of psionics.



Nebulid was not ready to become the Captain of the vessel! It was beyond his capability to assume that role. The shoes were too big to fill - Msul’b had been the epitome of command staff, and Nebulid was the epitome of coward staff. He was better at running and hiding than any other rebel captain, probably every other Torsonnen captain as well. It was madness, trying to have him assume a role for which he was not suited!

The last time he had been truly courageous had been months ago…



[i]”Two can play at mind games.” It was the most chilling phrase of all time.

“Arsivan. Will you shoot me now? I, personally, would not blame you for it if you did. After all, I am about to betray your precious Empire, and you can’t have that!”

“Curse you and your false body! Cure me, too, for I must let you go. I must let you go.. for… I must… for… the good… of the… Empire.” Arsivan lowered the gun.

“I do not blame you. I personally think I am a crappy officer too.” He ran off to the correct shuttle, where Makhi waited in a human form. “Finally! I hope. Your name?”

You needn’t fear, you are in the correct shuttle. “Arsivan is about. I need better than that.”

“Very well. I am Makhidaralore. Is that sufficient?” Nebulid nodded, and they were off.



”Captain!” Makhi’s voice was insistent. “Return to the present! There is something in the system! It has the look of a supercarrier, possibly… it is.”

“Relentless?” Nebulid went still. “You are kidding. Relentless is at the door?”

“That is why I said to return to the present. Living in the past will help not at all.”

“Not unless I wanted to get OFF of the supercarrier. But anyways, can we leave now?”

“I have Ops calculating for warp as we speak. - They are hailing us. Respond?”

Nebulid sighed. “Open the channel. Let’s see if we can salvage this wreck.”

Torsonnen’s face appeared on the HoloComm display. “I must say… wait. You are not Weapon C. Nebulid? What are your ilk doing out here? Where is Weapon C?”

“Weapon C? What does THAT have to do with anything here? You would think that a mobile trooper perfection model would have the good sense to--“ he froze.

Things came rushing into his mind. Pieces, perhaps, of a puzzle? They were little fragments, coming together in unforeseen ways. It was almost as if… but no! That could not possibly be! The time lines were all wrong! It could not be him! “--to pick a better locale than this. I see no reason to look for Weapon C here. Therefore, you want us.”

“No. YI want you. I want Weapon C. I want both, I want them both at once, and I want them now! But as I… YOU! I SEE YOU, WEAPON C!!!” And Torsonnen waved his finger wildly around, not really pinpointing anyone until he rested on…

…on what Nebulid had feared. His finger came to rest pointed squarely at Project Twelve.



Suddenly, everything made sense now, based on the framework of the Weapon C legend. Project Twelve had been built (Weapon C had been built, rather) around a year ago. For a while they did not know whether or not he (it) would be capable of dealing with humans, so they sought to check him (it) by placing him in a human environment - as a mobile trooper on Relentless. Here was the kicker. Weapon C, at that point, still did not exist. It… it was a subroutine of Project Twelve’s mind. It was what had given him his skill. But Weapon C itself… never inhabited that body. When Project Twelve went to Nebulid to press charges, Weapon C did not. That was entirely Project Twelve’s doing. Therefore, there was no ‘test’ that went awry, not of Weapon C at least. There was no “escape” of Project Twelve. It was all a lie.

It was all a lie! Project Twelve’s scowl - it was no genetic accident. It was one of the cost saving measures. That scowl was… Ugh! Nebulid could not believe he had not put the pieces together! It had been plain as could be!

Project Twelve saying something about enjoying blood “a little too much, perhaps”.

Project Twelve’s sudden disappearance on that raid - one month before the termination of the Weapon C project. Doubtless they were taking him (it!) to that fateful ‘testing ground’.

Project Twelve suddenly appearing to join the Resistance, but instead succeeding only in bringing the Torsonnen flag ship down on the rebels’ heads. It may not have even been his fault. It could have totally been accidental. Everything could have been a total coincidence. But nonetheless, Nebulid was shocked. The one thing… the only thing that could possibly go wrong… had. And now they were all going to die for it.

“WHY?” Nebulid cried out. “WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN? WHY PROJECT TWELVE?!”

“I apologize. I did not think it would be possible for them to track me here like this.”

Torsonnen laughed. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That is where you were wrong, then! And for that, you people will all pay with your lives. Every last one of you will feel the power of the Torsonnen war machine!” Laughing one more time, Torsonnen cut the feed, leaving Nebulid struck still with shock. Torsonnen… is still alive. Project Twelve, who we thought would be our secret weapon, turned out to be theirs. So far we have accomplished nothing. We have done NO damage. Our entire rebellion thus far has only caused needless destruction wherever it went. Why?

Why do we hold ourselves on this moral pedestal over our enemies? We sneak around, stealing their resources as we see fit. We claim it is in the name of justice and peace for the galaxy, but in the end, what have we accomplished? More disorder!

“They are launching.” Tactical briefly brought him back into the present situation. Dammit.

“Can we get a solution out of here?” Nebulid wanted to live, still, just a bit.

“I am trying, but…” warning klaxons blared. “Something just took out our warp drive. Massive casualties, but Sergeant McClean seems to be okay. She is on the problem.”

“Shit! Okay… okay… launch what we have.” He glared at Project Twelve. The “man” really wanted to glare back, but could not, given the whole Weapon C thing. “I want our best out there. That includes you. Can I trust you to fight for us out there?”

“You have before. I think I can take the pressure. For the record, until recently even I did not know.”

“Yeah… right. Well, there is no sense in arguing over it now. The fight is out there. Now go! Go and spill their blood. God knows you are good enough at what you were built for.”

Project Twelve stalked off the bridge. With him went all the hopes of the entire rebellion. He was their last chance. He was the only thing capable of putting a stop to the Torsonnen menace once and for all. He was going to make or break the entire r3ebellion with his success or failure. On him rode the outcome of the battle, but also with it the outcome of the entire war. He… was truly the last of all true warriors. They had been an increasingly rare find in recent times, but they still existed, and Project Twelve was the latest. And possibly the last, if the Torsonnens won this battle. If not, honour could yet have a chance of living on.

Did he seriously not know? It was highly irregular - not to mention suspicious - to assume that the very sould of fighting, Weapon C, would not have that grasp of its own identity. But then again, Nebulid had just considered the fact that Weapon C was little more than a subroutine buried deep within Project Twelve, so it was not such a leap to reach the conclusion that Project Twelve had not even know the state of affairs.

Thinking more about Project Twelve, Nebulid uncovered a little something from the previous battle, the one above Darahn - Project Twelve having a duel with Max “Pain” Smith. The memories rolled through his mind with crystal clarity: the friendly exchange before the fight, the duel itself, the strange interlude - the strange interlude! There had been something fishy between Project Tweve and Smith! They had each expressed that they thought the other was Weapon C. When the routine had concluded, they had continued to duel a bit more, until Valour was on the surface - Until Valour was on the surface! Perfect! Project Twelve had prearranged that exchange! It had bought the rebel carrier the time it needed to madke the descent. Project Twelve’s entire duel with Max “Pain” Smith had been naught but a sham! It had been a construct, a play designed to wrest the attention of the Torsonnen mobile troopers away from the actual goal and to the little thing, hardly anything at all despite his skill and showmanship. He had pulled it off with sheer brilliance, too. That duel had been an epic stalling action for the ages. It was truly amazing.

“Good luck buying us the time we need now. There is a bit more doing to be done here than last time.” The words were almost inaudible, yet Nebulid was sure that in some manner, way or fashion, Project Twelve had heard them anyways. He smiled a bit.

Up for it? he added COMPLETELY inaudibly. He sincerely hoped Project Twelve was.



As it so happened, so did Project Twelve himself. Here I am with these rebel mobile troopers, none of them a Lance Golan or Tom Wright, but still far better than stock Torsonnen troops. They are about to launch, and I have not even begun to suit up. I hope they do not snap up all the kills before I can get in on the action. He heard the roar of various permutations of the Model V jet assembly starting up - he would not hear them for much longer, for soon they would be in space, where sound obviously does not carry. Plus, pretty soon he would be in an air tight suit that effectively insulated sound, too. Overall it would pose little if any difference. Sound was ultimately irrelevant.

Still, he heard the Sentinels (how nice to finally be using that term in a positive light again!) launching one by one, and it seemed appropriate for him to join them as quickly as he could. After all, as previously indicated, why should they get all the fun? Project hurriedly assembled his suit, set the seals, became one with the instinct for fighting he had long thought was a result of a breeding program. As it turned out, that particular trait had been caused not by genetics but by actual programming. That instinct for fighting was Weapon C. Weapon C was not really an individual “robot’ but rather a fighting subroutine. It would not be long before Torsonnen hit on the idea of programming Weapon C into all of his mobile trooper corps. And THAT… THAT was why Project Twelve was fighting. Let there be no more of me! One was one more than enough already. One was too much. One is still necessary, for the time being, though. When war ends, perhaps then I will no longer be needed.

And then Project Twelve would be able to retire, to settle down in a nice Alumehr estate, share a laugh or two with Nebulid every once in a while, looking back to this incident as an unfortunate turn in an otherwise positive life. The look ahead almost got Project Twelve lost in a Nebulidesque tendency to stay away from the present, but at the last moment he managed to pull himself back to the situation at hand.

Hurriedly adjusting the seals of his suit for maximum effectiveness (they could be used to block if adjusted correctly; that trick he had picked up from Max “Pain” Smith at some point in the distant - but not TOO distant, obviously! - past), Project Twelve shifted the weight of the jet assembly uneasily from side to side. Then, finally finding a comfortable position, Project Twelve thrusted hard. There was ground - err, space - to cover if he wished to catch up with the other mobile troopers going out to intercept the Death Sentinels launched by Relentless, and lots of it, too. It would certainly be a task. Quickly hitting his jet assembly’s maximum output, Project Twelve looked about him for targets or friendlies. It looked as though Major Lanai had had the unit split into two - he picked the tail half and quickly pulled into line with them. That attended to the friendlies. But what about foes? Where the hell are they?

If there was anything the Death Sentinel suits were know for, too, it was the blatant visibility. The shockingly bright colours lighting up when the suit powered on. The chill gaze of the crimson visors. Everything amounting to one thing: fear.

Project Twelve’s most ready fear associated with them was that he would grow bored of slaying them all, but now armed with the knowledge that Weapon C lurked in his mind and would never allow something such as that to happen, Project Twelve needed not fear that possibility. Now the fear became that Weapon C would come all the way out of its shell. The consequences of that would be dire. Project Twelve would exist no more, and Weapon C, it was certain to say, did not possess the ability to determine between friend and foe, ally and enemy, good and evil. It would not stop at killing the Torsonnen mobile troopers, or the rebel ones. If necessary it would take down the entirety of both ships just to satisfy its huge blood cravings. And why stop there? Weapon C would spread in any way it could, to anyone, to anything anywhere. It would be an enigma, perhaps disappearing for years before it returned to deal its terrible death blows to the people around it. It would cause sufficient damage to warrant the use of the most inhumane weapon of all time.

THAT was what Project Twelve feared. And THAT was why Project Twelve now fought.

He spied a Death Sentinel out of the corner of his eye, but as he turned to engage it he beheld an ion pulse already leaping out to disable it. Leaving that particular kill to its rightful owner, Project Twelve continued to press forward, searching for something to engage. They seem to be spreading out their forces. Either that, or they have already managed to outmaneuver us. Checking this second possibility, Project Twelve called out “Fighters, can you spot some battlesuits for us?” to the squadron.

Lead replied “Don’t you worry about a thing Mr. Project Twelve. You have not missed any yet.{“

“Great. Thank you.” He severed the connection, relayed this to everyone else in the mobile trooper unit, and set himself for the waves of enemies sure to come.

And he had been right. There they were - wave upon wave of demented avengers. Did they march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream? No one knew, but Project Twelve got to chalk up another reference point on his kilometers long tally, anyway, so there was some positivity to it. After all, it was not really necessary for every reference you threw out there to be actually relevant to the topic, was it? If it was, there was no point in the references anyway, for rare was it that one of those references held such relevance in any way at all. Quickly drawing a bead on one of the Torsonnen mobile troopers so callously intruding on his (and the other twenty Valour mobile troopers’ - those who were yet awake) territory. Project Twelve loosed a burst of ion bolts - one to stop its jet assembly, one to disable its weapon, and one to take out one of the magnetic seals. The offending party could do nothing but hopelessly watch as its air supply quickly vented into space. Cause of death would be either anoxia or shock. Both suited Project Twelve fine.

With the help of the rebel Sentinels, Project Twelve made swift work of the Torsonnen mobile troopers. It seemed he was a machine. He could dice up a Death Sentinel, then transition without pause into a grand sweep that took out seven at once. Why are they clumping together like that? Do they not realize that that makes them a pathetically easy target? I barely had to exert myself at all to casually take them out so! Surely they can do better than THAT! On the subject, now, of challenge, Project Twelve looked about him. Where was Max “Pain” Smith? Project Twelve wanted to do an encore performance of their spellbinding duel the last time Relentless and Valour had met in battle. Put on a nice show. Nice way for him to go out, eh? His final show. His final audience. And all comes full circle, back to the first time we ever dueled, a year ago at the Sentinel Sim Challenge. I trounced him then; I can trounce him now. But WHY? The question came to his mind. Why do I suddenly want to kill him? Why would I pick now? Why am I stopping doing my job for this?

The answer, he “knew”, was challenge - it was something that set Smith apart from the rest of the drones they so fondly called “Death Sentinels” in the Torsonnen Empire’s mobile infantry corps. He posed a challenge. He… had the gift. The same gift that had had to be programmed into Project Twelve. He had the gift of perfect reflexes, marksmanship and combat awareness.

It is like fighting myself. But that does not explain why I want him dead. Am I beginning to lose myself? Is Weapon C beginning its takeover of my mind now? Bad time! he cursed inwardly. Bad fucking time for it to happen! Why could Weapon C not have waited for one more fucking day? I would not be responsible for so many lives! So much blood! Why now? But of course by dwelling on it he could only make it worse, so he desisted. Instead he forced himself to seek out the nearest target, mundane or not. He really needed to get his ass in gear, else the entire galaxy (or even just the poor souls on Valour) would have been betrayed in its trust of Project Twelve. And Project Twelve really could not have that. Guilty consciences are bad for the soul, and all that nonsense. So he engaged the nearest foe he found, felling him with one swipe of the trademarked Project Twelve extended length battle scythe. The extended shaft and blade made large upgrades to his combat effectiveness. He had considered making the shift mandatory for all mobile troopers in his unit once, but the idea had been dismissed as quickly as it had come. First of all, Relentless’ mobile troopers were simply too stock and inexperienced to be able to handle such a big difference in weapon - keeping in mind that weaponry had still been up to personal choice in the Torsonnen mobile trooper corps at that point, so most of the switches would be monumental despite the constant popularity of beam scythes among mobile troopers. Second of all, he liked to consider his weapon personalized. Original. Unique to himself. Belonging only to Project Twelve. And last of all, the extended weapon took a great deal of skill to be able to handle properly, effective though it was. Project Twelve doubted more than a few of even these much more skilled rebel mobile troopers could handle it well enough for the benefits to outweigh the demerits in this particular case. So it would always be his, and his alone. He would carry his trademark with him to the grave.

Well, he seemed to be putting up with the tedium fairly well so far, but he determined not to let that be the only way he did so. There were only so many idle ruminations yet to be expressed by Project Twelve. He would eventually run out, and then what? Either accept the dullness or become Weapon C. Wasn’t that just a marvelous choice he had to look forward to? Come on man! Stop dwelling on it! The more you think about it, the more it pervades you. If he let this act keep up, it would transform him utterly and then they would have to deal with the costs of staging one of those elaborate, clichéd but still epic movie scenes where the main character says “You’ve become the very thing you tried to destroy, [insert villain’s name here]!!!” And that would not do. Not at all. Production overruns would likely be staggering, too - imagine trying to make a Day Wrecker prop. That would be insane. Too much stress, really.

Struck by the absolute absurdity of the thought he had just expressed, Project Twelve laughed, an almost malevolent sound issuing from his mouth. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” But, as he had not had his radio on, he was not heard by anyone. Good thing, too, as a) the Torsonnens would catch on to the fact that he was paying little or no attention to the battle, and b) The rebels would think he was insane.

Which I am not - yet. Weapon C remains fully in check. To prove this to himself, Project Twelve calmly sidled up to an unsuspecting Torsonnen mobile trooper, tapped the poor soul’s shoulder, then extra calmly drove his combat knife into the mobile trooper’s back. Mission accomplished, he thought to himself, bringing himself around to face someone - someone familiar. Someone with some skill. Someone who liked to go by the name of Max “Pain” Smith for a while.

Project Twelve set himself for the fight of his life. Why he did that, he did not know, but somehow this fight was exuding final battle-y vibes.

And why not? The fate of Valour, and with it the rebellion, hung on Project Twelve’s shoulders, essentially, so this had final battle potential, especially since Smith was the only mobile trooper that Major Lanai and her rebel Sentinels could not easily take out. If there was only one kill for which Project Twelve was necessary, this was it. This… was show time.

Remebmering that his mental presence would be required for the duel to start, however unnecessary it would be DURING the fight, Project Twelve returned to his wits. “So! Max “Pain” Smith. It has been far too long. Shall we play for keeps this time?”

“For keeps it is.” This was the signal to Smith that there would be no charade this time. They really WOULD be playing for keeps. Project Twelve sighed, off the radio. A shame that it has to end this way, but I doubt he would want to go out any other way, anyway. Project Twelve, for one, knew he himself would never submit to any other fate.

“Let the final duel begin, then! I wish you great bounties in the afterlife.”

“You will have to tell me what is like!” Smith had also known this day would come, and felt that while ultimately he would probably lose, he could still upt up a hell of a fight, and put on one last spellbinding performance for his adoring fans.

Project Twelve noticed this - it was suggested by the subtle undertones of Smith’s motion as he slowly drew his beam scythe. Now there is a truly noble man. He is still a rebel at heart, and if this was not necessary, he would gladly join me in destroying the entire Torsonnen mobile infantry corps, one shipload at a time. He hopes his death will buy us some time. Maybe just enough. Project Twelve reminded himself that victory came first and showmanship second. He will bring his full ability with him to the duel. It is only fair that I do the same for him. Igniting his own beam scythe, Project Twelve bowed to his opponent, who then returned the gesture. “Let it begin.”

And then they were at each other, the blades crashing, the crowd cheering. Project Twelve caught Smith’s initial strike on the blade of his own scythe, an awkward block both to make and to attack back from. Nevertheless, the fighting machine managed to bring his scythe around and drive Smith back momentarily. And a moment was all Project Twelve really needed to go to the attack. A combination of devastating swipes of his scythe and nifty javs with his combat knifves put Smith increasingly back on his heels. If he backed up much more, he would run right into Relentless, or at least so he said to himself to emphasize properly his situation.

Forward and forward Project Twelve came, and further and further back Smith was pushed. Project Twelve had the look of a madman, or at least he would if his face were visible beind the Sentinel mask. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” he laughed - he was certainly enjoying himself. That laugh went out on widecast.

He came within millimeters of missing a nifty little move by Smith. Sloppy attacking had led to a smooth parry instead of what Smith “should” have done, which was block low right with the shaft. As Project Twelve, carried forward by the momentum of his assault, desperately scrambled to get something going again on the offense, Smith smoothly sidestepped the reeling potential Weapon C’s half attack. But just as he was about to ram the combat knife in, Project Twelve put out max thrust away from Smith. They were back to square one. “If we were not playing for keeps, that would have been a point for me, eh Project Twlev?” Smith grinned.

“Indeed. But we are playing for keeps, so let that to yourself, eh? Damned nice move, though.”

“We will have to see whose luck runs out first, won’t we?” Grinning again, Smith started to circle Project Twelve, who joined in, doing likewise. This is familiar.

“We will. Too bad I already know the answer!” On “answer” Project Twelve burst into action, leading with his right arm combat knife and trailing the beam scythe behind him. Batting away a hasty swipe by Smith of his own beam scythe, Project Twelve brought his extended scythe around to where it was barely swatted away by a reeling Max “Pain” Smith. To this he added strike after strike, each one coming closer and closer to scoring flesh. It was now the height of Smith’s ability just to pick each strike off before it could find its home in him.

And, inevitably, he failed to make a block. Project Twelve’s scythe bit deep into the suit. Withdrawing it, Project Twelve almost froze in place, but then remembered he is still alive. Alive and suffering. It is the least I can do to ease his pain. And with a roar and a grand swing of the scythe, Project Twelve decapitated Smith.

For a long while he just hovered there, everyone else around him dispersing like a crowd departing the Collosseum. They had seen their fight, and now they had their own to take part in.

Silently, Project Twelve reflected on the things that had brought him to this. So! You Torsonnen dogs have now forced me to slay the closest thing to a friend that I have ever had! Someone is going to pay for that, and I would bet he wears Torsonnen green.

Outwardly, he said “Game, Max,” over the radio, then smiled weakly. “Game, set and match.”

Out of computer time for today, rest of it goes up tomorrow.

... Is it really required that you post all 50,000 words on here? Don't be a mineral whore.

he has negative minerals still...but man I dont think anyone will read this.

LOL! I haven't gotten a single mineral out of it yet! And I don't even care!

Make a PDF of it

I certainly am not going to read it. If I want to read a book I'll buy one.

I think you only get minerals for editing posts, I think. Well no one is gonna read that whole thing . Good job though, you wrote a book .

THANKS FOR THE PRODUCTIVE POST.

Sorry, most people hate reading from a computer, let alone a lot from a computer, I'm sure it would be fine, but I'm too lazy to read it.

Agreed. If you don't want to read it, I don't care - your business is your business. If you insist upon expressing your opinion, please do it politely, as I would.

I read the first paragraph and it seemed pretty interesting actually, but yea I'm not gonna read it. You should attempt to get it published, your use of adjectives and words just seems so 'right' to me.