Eleys Mue was watching the holographic map of the Altarian front lines when Azamar entered in the room, a small bunker several meters under the ground. In a word, an uncomfortable place, with only basic furniture: a steel table with the holo projector, two steel chairs, and a lamp. On a shelf, enough food rations for two months, and, painted on the floor, the Altarian Resistance logo. It couldn’t seem so, but that were the formal headquarters of the Altarian Government. Eleys turned her head towards Azamar, looking at the scientific Archiater with tired eyes. “So, Azamar, you told me you would like to talk of something with me… something that could help our people in this awful war” she said. Even her voice seemed tired. She was carrying on her own almost all the weight of the rebellion against the Drengin Empire, a rebellion that wasn’t going too well. She had been forced to made decisions that she considered horribly bloody. The Altarians once were a prosperous civilization, a civilization that stood for peace, rightness and justice. But times had changed. Now the Altarians were desperately fighting a war against the Drengin Empire, and Eleys had made some decisions that she would have never done, such as the use of bacteriological weapons or sneak attacks against civilian factories that were supporting the Drengin war machine. But she would have done everything to ensure a better future for her people, even if it would have meant to made decisions fit for a Yor leader. “Yes, milady. You know that, as the scientific Archiater, I have to cooperate with other sectors of our scientific community… Well, just yesterday, while I was working on the Mark II version for our mining facilities – a real challenge, I still can’t find a way to integrate the positronic field generator to…” “Please, be brief” Eleys interrupted him “I really would like to have a normal conversation, maybe while drinking some good Terran wine, but in this situation I can’t, really” “As you wish, sir. Well, I was experimenting a new combination of Ionantium crystals as a power source, as Sira, you know, the scientist that created the old invulnerability field, suggested me to do and… well… the results were explosive. The explosion I accidentally caused with my little experiment was stronger of the 76% than a normal plasma-based explosive. I talked with General Lynthra of the Silver Scythes special repart, and he almost kissed me when I told him the results of that experiment. Well, that was a little embarrassing. However, he proposes to use them for an incursion against the Drengin, maybe against that base on Paulos II that supplies their front lines...” Eleys rose her head and looked much more interested “Incursion? You have all my attention, Archiater”.

“Bravo six-two-nine, here is Shark Eight. We have found a group of snails. Requesting authorization to execute order 207”. Lieutenant Dave Esher, communication officer onboard the TAS Hammerhead, waited for a reply from the local Terran Fleet Command Centre. “Shark Eight, here is Bravo six-two-nine speaking. My light is green, I repeat, my light is green. Bravo six-two-nine over.” “Copy that”. “Sir, we have the authorization” he turned to Commodore Harper, commanding officer of the Hammerhead. The Hammerhead was a Shark-class incursor, basically a junk of metal with three warp engines MK III, a long-range sensor array and a nice Singularity driver cannon, good for piercing the Drengin hulls. It was built for speed, not for firepower. Its job was to kill as many unguarded troop transports, starbases, freighters, and so on as it can. After the Drengin invasion of the Terran Alliance, High Command putted something like 120 of these ships into active service, and they were on the good way to procure at Emperor Kona an hysterical crisis with their continue raids. The Drengin couldn’t send a single transport without being attacked from the Sharks, that used their superior speed to pass through dozens of slow escort warships, fire some projectiles on the convoy (generally hitting the fusion reactor of the targeted ships) and then flew away chased from a fleet or two of angry Drengins. This one was just one of their numerous incursions… Routine work, Dave thought.
“Sir, Snail Three is targeted” Dimitri Holson, the gunner, said. “Should we attack now?” “We are paid just to do this, ensign. Qin, deactivate the warp engines, switch to sublight propulsion. Bring us between those two Kari-class troop transport” Harper told to Qin Juoming, pilot of the incursor. “Roger, sir. They’re all yours, Dimitri”. The small vessel emerged from hyperspace near one of the smaller escort ships, and then it started firing like hell. The first target, a Dominator-class corvette, was quickly reduced to shreds from the rapid-fire Hammerhead weapon, then it moved towards one of the enormous troop transports. The Singularity Driver pierced the thin armour of the Drengin ship, and its shells hit the main reactor. The successive explosion damaged badly the other troop transport and destroyed a Dominator corvette that was ready to open fire. Then the Hammerhead turned and headed directly against the larger escort vessel, a Kazan-class frigate, that was at lest twenty times bigger than the small Terran fighter. The Drengin were surprised from the apparently suicidal Terran attack, and its CO waited a little before order at its weapons batteries to vaporize the irreverent enemy with the deadly array of psyionic beams. It was too late when he ordered to do so: the Terran vessel fired a deadly burst exactly in the ship’s bridge. Without control, the frigate impacted with the already damaged troop transport, and the two ships exploded. The Hammerhead emerged from the debris field that it had just created, chased from eight Dominator corvettes. “Ok, Qin, I think this is a good time to go! Activate the warp engines!” Harper said. “Excellent job, all of you! Now there are… err…around four billions Drengin less in this galaxy” “Uh-oh! I fear that there will also be five humans less, sir! I…I can’t understand! I can’t activate the warp engines!” Qin said.
“Merde! It’s a trap!” shouted Renee, the silent, introvert radar-controller. “We are inside a Warp destruction field! And other ships are incoming!” “A trap for a single incursor? This is a bit strange, no?” Dave objected “I mean, why…” “SHUT UP, CREW! AND LIEUTENANT ESHER, WOULD YOU MIND…” “Already done, sir. I just launched an S.O.S.” “Ah. Well. Pilot, try to dodge their warships. I really would like to be still alive to have my medal for what we have just done” “Oh-oh… Sir, the radar is filled with red dots!” “I don’t need it to know that we are in big troubles! Any ship near enough to help us?” “No, sir. With the reduced military budget, the Navy has less ships to patrol the Borderlands.” “Killed by the reduced military budget…” “That’s not funny, Dimitri. Not at all. Now, everyone, shut up and focus!”

Oh, great. Now the Altarians have a superweapon...

Well... FireBender is right. The Altarians used a nuclear bomb. Who is developing a superweapon is the entire Coalition... under the Terran supervision, of course!

Alan Bradley watched the holographic projector came to life and displaying the Altarian leader, Eleys Mue. He made a little bow, and then started speaking. “Greetings, Eleys, from the Terran Alliance. I and all the terrans would like to thanks your commando for his heroic action against the Paulos II starport. Thank to your men, the Drengin fleet was forced to leave the Sol system, constantly under the attack of our incursors. To fully express our gratitude, the Terran Senate has decided to give you full control over the Aldebarean system.” “We thank you for your gift, Alan, and we hope to proceed with a coordinate action against the Drengin. Our fleet is now trying to secure the Vega system. With your help, and with the help of your Tir-Quan marines, I think that we could successfully launch campaigns against the Empire. Our admirals should arrive on Earth in a few days, to help preparing a coordinated offensive.” “I have already sent a Marine Division towards your front lines. They should arrive in two weeks.” “Thanks again, Alan. And may the stars continue to shine over your people.” She ended the communication. Alan moved to the window, and observed the Lake Geneva from the Presidential Palace, behind the thick fog that was wrapping the Terran capital. He was worried. If even the Altarians begin to use nuclear and biological warheads, where the hell was the galaxy going? He turned, and he sat down on the famous “presidential chair”. His secretary entered in the room, with an impressive number of datapads. She putted them on the desk. “Mr President” she greeted formally “These are the reports from the 6th, the 11th and 22nd fleet, while these are the AARs of the 12th fleet and of the 2nd, the 3rd and the 6th fighter squadron. You should also control this (she gave another datapad to the President), it’s the quarterly report of the scientific research and of the military production. You also have to prepare a press conference to talk about the Altarian Attack on Paulos II. The world wants to know what happened, the reactions of our leaders, and how this is going to change our strategy. For this, you have a meeting with the public relations officer at 15.00. And finally, Great Admiral Alighieri would like to see you ASAP, sir” Bradley smiled. The most powerful man of the world is hostage of the Presidential Staff. “Ok, Mara, let her enter” “As you wish, Mr President”. She exited, and few seconds later Great Admiral Alighieri entered in the room. She was quite a young woman for her assignment, only 42 years old, and she looked even younger. But she was one of the most clever person, with a natural predisposition for strategy. She greeted her President, and she immediately began to speak about war. Her favourite topic, Alan thought.
“Sir, with the destruction of the Paulos II spaceport, the Drengin Blockade Fleet has retreated. That installation was crucial for their supply lines. Now they couldn’t even think to maintain a military presence in the systems of Sol, Alpha Centauri and Beta Aquilae. So, our fleets have already retaken control of these systems. The Drengin have evacuated most of their troops from these systems, and our Tir-Quan trained marines are now kicking the few that are left off the planets. In a month or two, the colonies of these three systems will return to complete efficiency, and could resume their military production. These are the projections elaborated by the Terran Navy Evaluation Department about the possible expenses for the reconstruction of the mentioned colonies.” She putted another datapad on the already full desk. Alan took it, and started passing the various sums. He was happy to know that most of the Terran original population was still alive. Some of them died during the Drengin invasion, of course, but thanks to their habit to made slaves, they were alive. “What is the military situation across the galaxy?” he asked. “Well… in most of ours systems, sorry, ex-ours, the Drengin military is still strong, but is confused and… shocked from the Altarian suicidal attack. Our incursors have destroyed a lot of enemy ships” she took the hundredth datapad and started reading: “ Five Kha battleships, twelve Aghrin cruisers, eleven Frydal corvettes, eight Kazan frigates, a hundred and twenty-three Dominator corvettes, five Hath troop transports, nine Drengh’ha armoured troop transports, six Kari advanced troop transports, two Hriath radar ships, and five full squadrons of Ch’dringh escort fighters. That’s a lot of ships, and a lot of Drengin less in the galaxy. We hit them hard -we, the Altarians, the Arceans and –mostly- the Shivans-. As I have already said, they have left Sol, Alpha Centauri and Beta Aquilae. Gamma Draconis, Dubhe, Deneb, Polaris and Aldebarean are contended systems. The Arceans are landed on Alphard II. Drengin causalities are estimated around 35 billions.” She took a brief pause to breath, and Alan took the opportunity to interrupt her. “But globally, Amanda, what is it the situation?” “Not so good, sir. The Varden Council is on the verge of collapse. I talked with Admiral Vartan, and he’s very worried. He fear that his people couldn’t stop the Drengin advance, unless they got more time. He asked at the Coalition Assembly to gain more time for his fleets to reorganize. On the Altarian front, the Drengin were advancing until two days ago, when guerrilla actions beyond their lines in the Dubhe system forced them to stop their attack. However, it is likely that they will move again once they have eliminated the Altarian Commandos, probably in two or three days. The Arceans footholds in the Spica system are now almost annihilated. They should fall in a few weeks but, being a warrior race, they will probably commit suicide while attacking a Drengin Task Force that is at least five times as big as their one, rather than retreat and reorganize. Arceans.” she sighed. “Mmm… the Krynn?” “Oh… they were hit hard five days ago in the Third battle of Talania Minor… worst than we thought. They will need a lot of time to rebuild their army. Mr Stamford is now trying to convince the Shivans to take care of that front, maybe with conventional weapons. He has already informed Avatar of our complaints, but as I had predicted, nothing has changed. He finds the use of neutrino bombs… How has he said… oh, yes, efficient.” “So, despite the Altarian sacrifice, we are still loosing this war” Alan said, sadly. And we can’t fully trust the Shivans. “Not exactly, sir. Now we can help more our allies. And the Project is almost finished. Another month of tests, and then it will start kicking Drengin asses across this Galaxy. This time Lord Kona will have something more than an hysterical attack” she said with an evil grin on her face.

“Damn, damn, damn… why have I signed? Other three torpedoes at 9-45-65, sir! Shields down to 34% and counting! ” “Keep quiet, Renee. Qin, move at…” “Something else on the radar, sir! A subspace distortion!” “What! Where, exactly!?” Harper was trying to maintain the calm aboard the Hammerhead, but it was more difficult than he expected. Understandable, when you have fifty Drengin warships that really want to kill you. And now, an anomaly that appeared from nothing… “Oh my God! Look!” Quin pointed at a blue circle that was appearing less than a kilometre from the ship prow. “What the hell is that?!?” “Other signals, sir!” Renee was crying “Identification… Friendly IFF!” “Friendly? Eight cliks away from the Terran border?” “They’re Shivans, sir… Three Lilith-class cruisers… They’re attacking the Drengin fleet!” “They’re hailing us, sir… wait… they say we can enter in the Konya’s hangar, and they will bring us out from this hell. The Konya is that ship.” Dave pointed one of the three dark red warships. “This is our lucky day… Qin, bring us in that ship. Maybe before we are killed” he added when a Phasor shoot hit the incursor. “How can they travel in a warp destruction field, sir?” “Their engines use a different kind of propulsion system… something about subspace distortions and the fourth dimension, that they call transpace, if I’m not wrong… ask a physicist, not me, Dave.”
Two minutes later, the TAS Hammerhead entered the hangar of the SC Konya, protected from the other two Shivan cruisers . As soon as the five men left their ship, a dozen of Shivans moved the incursor from the runway to the fighter stationing area, while the Konya actived its transpace engines. “Well, now we are safe” Dave said. At least for now.

“Welcome aboard the installation SPEC.T.R.E-15, Professor Sira. I’m glad that the Security Council has accepted your active participation at our… program.” Yamato Toshimoto, leader of the Project, welcomed Sira Aaryn, the Altarian researcher that was helping the Terran Alliance in the improvement of the Black Hole Eruptors, and an old friend of him. Sira smiled at him. “Thanks, Yamie. I hoped so much to be part of your research program… I have a debt to repay.” She sadden as she thought at the Drengin sack of Wisp, where she had lost her husband and her son while they were trying to defend her from a Korath sub-group commander… They had been both killed with a plasma rifle, only to gave her enough time to escape. Now she was creating advanced weapons to kill more Drengin in battle, but she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted something more. And, if what was told her from her CO was true, she had found it. The Terran Project. The definitive weapon to help her race and destroy the Empire. She was giving an help of the utmost importance at the SPECial Terran Research Centre E-15. She was going to avenge her family. For her, that was all.
“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the result of your studies.” Sira looked confused “But… they were classified… only I had the authorization to use them… how have you obtained them? And they were only experimental… They haven’t been already tested!” Yamato smiled at her, while they entered in the Control Room. “There are a lot of things that you don’t know. You even don’t know what is the Project, exactly. Well…” he keyed a series of codes on the only keyboard of the room, and a thick metal sheet slowly moved from the wall in front of the two scientists, showing a window. Sira ran there, and her jaw dropped for the surprise. “… this is the Project, Sira. Your work had been essential for our program. Your improvements have already been tested, and now we only need to made a check of the global thing. After that, if it works, you’ll have your revenge. I can assure you this.”

The freshly-promoted Overlord of the Imperial army, Sakrine I’Aghol, was angrily looking at one of the holo maps in the dark room of the Drengin Headquarters. The war wasn’t going exactly as he wished. Red dots, indicating imperial forces, were disappearing from the map at an impressive speed near the Terran front, while blue arrows, indicating the human forces, were penetrating in the so-called “secured perimeter” in various zones, rapidly hitting high-valuable targets like fuel depots and then returning behind their heavily-guarded lines, without being intercepted by the appositely formed Imperial Rapid Counter-Reaction fleets. He was impressed how quickly humans had built fortifications in a sector that was Drengin only a week before. However, they were only bugs. The might of the Drengin Armada will crush them before they could even understand what’s going on. At the War Academy on Drengi his teachers always repeated this phrase dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. Unfortunately, they weren’t fighting this war. The humans were bugs, yes, but intelligent and hard-to-die bugs. Even the Krynn, with all their religious fanatism, weren’t fighting so hard as the humans were doing. And how they managed to get all that different races united under a Coalition… He would never understood how they had done it. Additionally, his plan to capture and use one of their incursors to acquire intelligence from them failed due to the presence of the Shivans. Shivans… a simply disgusting race. Unfortunately the Korath haven’t exterminated them all during our civil war. Well, I’ll provide personally to correct that error.
He moved from the map of the Terran front to the map of the Varden front. This was much better. Vardens were really near to annihilation. They were holding only their home system. Sakrine was sure that in less than a months he could conclude that campaign, but unfortunately there were always less troops than he needed. The Terran front was absorbing Drengin warriors at an impressive rate. Thousand of young soldiers were killed each day in the most different ways: ambushes, sabotages, heavy bombardments, and so on. The humans were challenging the Drengin supremacy in the Art of Killing. Sakrine sighed. Where was the universe going? He shook his head.
His silent philosophical debate was interrupted by an Elite Intelligence Officer that drew his attention to an encrypted message that was slowly being decrypted on his screen. “What’s up?” the Overlord growled. “Here, sir. I think this deserves your attention.” Sakrine started reading, deciphering the complex code without the help of the computer decrypting program. At the end of the first phrase he was upset. At the end of the second he was worried. At the end of the third he was shocked. At the end of the message he was close to an heart attack. The EIO noticed this “Is all right, sir?” Sakrine didn’t responded. He ran in the Secure Transmission Centre without a single word. The officer was a little puzzled. Then the computer finished his work. He started reading. He read for the second time, just to be sure. Then, thinking at a program error, he checked the translation codes. When he ended all the controls, and found that the message had been wiyhout doubt rightly decrypted, everything he managed to say was “Oh, shit.”.

Pretty amazing, looking forward to the continuation..

Totally and shameless stolen from Executive Orders

I hope that someone will tell me sooner or later what I should have copied, and from what. In the meanwhile, I'll continue with my story.

Aaron entered in the Imperial Room. Again. He bowed, and started the usual before-we-try-to-kill-each-other-diplomatically conversation with Avatar. But this time the leader of the Shivan Empire wasn’t particularly friendly. “Now, terran, can I know why I wasn’t informed of the development of a superweapon in the Epsilon Pegasi system? Maybe you think that we can’t be trusted?” Oh, you got the point. Usually Aaron was a calm, imperturbable diplomat. But this was too much… and Alan Bradley agreed with him. The Shivans really needed a clarification over their relations terms. And I’m sorry if you can’t know all our plans or be our guardian for everything! “I hope you’ll forgive me, Avatar, but the Project wa…is highly classified. We can’t say to everyone “oh, you know that we are developing a superweapon?”, don’t you think?” “Not to everyone, terran. We have saved you from the Drengin, we are your best allies, and we think that…” “You think what! Listen to me carefully, Avatar, because this is something that is crucial for our cooperation. The Alliance is based on freedom. As our President once said, the Alliance is freedom. The last thing you can say us is what we can or can’t do, is it clear?” “Ambassador, I think that we deserves more respect than you are showing no…” “Avatar, let me finish. Your people come out from nowhere in 2226. They presented at our leader as the custodian of our race, the protectors of our destiny, according to some strange predictions of your Seven Prophets… The fact that we accepted your help in our war against the Drengin Empire and that we accepted your vision of our race doesn’t mean that we are ready to agree at all your decisions like stupid cattle!” This would had been much more effective if Avatar had an idea of what was a cattle. Aaron had to explain him. “We don’t want you to agree at all our decision, mister Stamford, but we think that we should had been informed of the development of a secret weapon! Now, if you want that my troops still cooperate with yours, and I’m not joking, you have to respond a simple question: what is the Project?” His five eyes where all pointed on Aaron, waiting impatiently for an answer.

“Right right right… NO! LEFT! LEFTLEFTLEFT! LEEEEEEEFT!” Centurion Atik was shouting at the driver of his Domee support jeep. Around him, the battle was rampaging between an Allied scout group and a Drengin heavy infantry sub-group. The two factions were doing their best to annihilate each other, while erasing everything from the landscape. A fusion shot missed their jeep, but hit a Terran Hopper tank right under the turret. With a nice KA-BOOM!, the tank was vaporized. Trying not to think at the four humans that just gave their lives, Atik rotated the jeep railgun and targeted a group of Drengin shock troops. The only good Drengin is the dead one, he thought while firing. Overall, the situation wasn’t bad. It was worse. Unexpectedly, the Drengin had attacked a few hours ahead a planned Allied strike, and now the joint force was retreating. They never reached Hill 295. Terran plans he moaned. If it wasn’t for we Arceans… Like if they wanted to demonstrate that he was right, three Khan MBT destroyed a Drengin tank and slowly moved to the top of the hill where they were fighting. Hill is an insult to Mother Arcea. That little terrain bump was less than ten meters high, however the Drengin and the 23rd were fighting for it like if it was the highest peak of the continent. But if we continue like this there won’t be an hill, bump of whatever else for long. The Terran artillery was levelling the entire zone, trying to open a breach in the Drengin lines, and in the meantime trying not to kill its supposed allies. “You’ll never believe that, sir!” his driver shouted. His finger was pointed at something in the sky… a plane. But that wasn’t a normal plane. It was a piece of museum, for what Atik remembered. The one I saw at the Cela City Air Memorial three weeks ago. But his pilot was flying that old banger like an interceptor. That terran opened the cockpit, activated the detonator with his teeth, with the other hand on the cloche, and launched five plasma grenades over a Drengin long-range Dharma mortar. The destruction of the heavy artillery was greeted wit a thunderous ovation from the 23rd. The pilot thanked his folks shaking his hand, and then returned behind its lines. “Wow! Not all the terrans are coward, uh, sir?” “No, not all. How has he managed to pilot that flying monument without being shoot down is behind my comprehension. But… WATCH OUT!” The next seconds were confused.
Five Drengin VTOLs in the sky.
A shoot.
An explosion right behind him.
A fly towards a trunk.
Then everything went dark.

The Space Force One slowly entered in the secret hangar of the base of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, NAF. What seemed an entire regiment of Tir-Quan marines took Alan Bradley and Great Admiral Alighieri, bringing them inside the Command Centre. Once the headquarters of the NORAD, now Cheyenne Mountain was the Alliance Central Crisis Coordination Centre, or AC4. Admiral Alighieri, more familiar with the place, began showing at her superior his new Presidential Office, but was rudely interrupted. “Oh, c’mon, Amanda. I think that this transfer is a waste of time and taxpayer’s money - the Shield is still active, and Earth is safe behind it - but you know better than me that we can’t avoid the procedures. However, we can avoid to waste other resources for nothing. You have your orders. Defend Epsilon Pegasi, by any means necessary. I think that I can survive at an office change, even if unfortunately I’ll no longer have my favourite armchair” “As you wish, sir. But before…” she drew the attention of a young lieutenant. He put a titanium suitcase on the table, and opened it. Then he turned it to the president. “These are the codes for the nuclear warheads. Just in case…” Alan looked sadly at the suitcase, then to his second-in-charge. He slowly shook his head in agreement. “Yes. Just in case.”