Prologue


Rear Admiral Lei Lebron had resigned entirely from the New Order Navy; he knew he would never need to return. He had even denied them a new address to send his pension checks. He would not need them where he was going. It was a gloomy time for Lei; he had just received word that his father had died. Years ago, his mother had died and that’s part of the reason why he left. The former Rear Admiral was piloting the shuttle Sadarna himself. For navigations he had a useful R5 unit plot the course home, to Kamaar.

His father, the King of Kamaar, ruled for nearly thirty-five years, but it was a very chaotic time. More than once a civil war had nearly broken out. The Goldenrook’s, a family whose power rivaled that of the Lebron family, wanted to rule and twice they tried. King Sen, Leis father, used brilliant strategy in defeating the rebellion. Sadly though, the Akiirti Balavaan, the most prestigious title given to most elite Whisper—who are the assassins of the Kamaar Arms—was a cousin of the Goldenrook family. He killed the King but was mortally wounded in the process. With his wife long since dead, Lei had to return home to assume the duties of ruling.

Kamaar was a temperate planet; in its northern hemisphere there were great mountains that spanned the entire continent. As you head south though, there are rolling plains which turn into swamps by the time you reach the islands that make up the southern hemisphere. Naturally, this provides for an excellent way to train soldiers to fight effectively in nearly every biome. Kamaar is the fourth planet in a system of seven. It has two natural satellites.

More than twenty thousand years ago, a group of colonists went to the midrim, looking for a habitable planet. They found one: Kamaar. The four thousand original families that took to the world claimed all the land, making them Nobles. Over the next millennia, more and more families came, forming a peasant caste. Then the Great Wars came about.

Nearly a dozen Warlords lead the entire planet into the first of the Great Wars. The first Great War was about land and resources. Several Warlords of the southern, swampy islands wanted the stronger metals in the north. The North was able to repel them in about fifteen years time. The second Great War came about in the middle of the peace talks for the first one. The Esu Nai, a clan from the heart of the swampiest island in the south sent an assassin known only as the Akiirti Balavaan.

The Akiirti Balavaan—using two swords, one long, one short—slaughtered thirty-five armed men and seven of the Warlords before he was forced to flee. Due to the long war and the lack of much interstellar trade, blaster power packs had become increasingly sparse, the armies had to equip themselves with other weapons, swords, pikes, arrows. They became the weapons of the armies. The second war was won by whoever could build a better blade. The second Great War ended within months, but it was very bloody.

The third Great War occurred about three years later. The city of Engi, the capital city of Northern Kamaar, erupted into flames. The Doyens—senators comprised of the more powerful Nobles of the northern lands—were slaughtered in the chaos. An army sailed from Slo’ka--a northern found island controlled by the south—and they landed a few hundred miles north, in the Lanta mountain range. They marched across wiping out anyone who came in their way.

The Army got about three hundred miles when they encountered the Kamaar Arms-- An army of highly trained warriors. They numbered about ten thousand strong. Not quite a fifth of the South’s army, but they were led by Shido Stark, the Destroyer. What is known is fact is that Shido the Destroyer and his men completely wiped out the Southern Army. What is rumor though, is that Shido himself killed over two hundred men in this battle. Shido then lead the remainder of his army to Slo’ka, where he defeated their defense force. After receiving reinforcements he sailed to Diln, where they razed the countryside and the city until the Warlords of the South surrendered. Ending the third Great War.

Nearly seven years after the end of the third war, from the depths of the southern half of Teicha, came the warriors of the Esu Nai. They attack the Kamaar Arms garrison base in Diln, slaughtering all of the men there. The Warlord Agn--the son of one of the former Warlords of Teicha, led the Esu Nai.

Shido the Destroyer and his Kamaar Arms were once again called into action, this time, with more numbers and better training. At first they seemed to have the upper hand against the Esu Nai, but with the revival of the Warlords, several thousands of men from volunteered to fight against the North. For two years the battles raged on. Finally, the Akiirti Balavaan and Shido Stark met in combat. For an hour they fought under the eyes of the Warlord Agn and thousands of soldiers from both sides. At the end, the two declared the fight a draw but Agn demanded that the Akiirti fight to the death. Fed up with the Warlord, the Akiirti killed him.

In the aftermath the two nations united to form an Empire. The Akiirti Balavaan and Shido Stark formed an academy to train the warriors of the Empire. All persons at the age of five would attend the academy until the age of twenty-two when they begin service. And for the next nineteen millennia, it would stand until it met the Empire of Palpatine.


“Emperor Lebron has arrived.” Said a soldier to a man wearing an array of medals.

“Excellent. Give him proper coordinates to wear to land and inform the royal legions of his arrival. Glory had returned to the Empire.

Hargeeva

"Captain Jordocks." Kyric Zen spoke to the man before him, "I want you to do some reconnoscance. Look around the sector for any threats. Try to negotiate an alliance before you wipe them out. You have Battlegroups four and five."

Somewhere in the Mid-rim

Captain Kip Jordocks was from Averam. He was a Leuitenant with Lord Admiral Zen when the Admiral was serving under Chadd Fearsons in the Jutraalian Empire. He was a fat man for an officer in Farfalen but he was competant was seemed to be an increasingly diminishing trait in officers from the time of the destruction of the first Death Star to today. The Captain was in command of fourteen capital ships as well as two shuttles. A normal compliment of ships for Farfalen's fleet. Admiral Zen was an inventive person, he felt that if a capital ship could have weapons that not only took out missiles but snubfighters as well, he could better arm his ships and save money in the long run.

The flagship of Captain Jordock's flotilla was the Shoto class cruiser Tanto . The Shoto class cruiser was an amazing piece of work. At twelve hundred meters long it was one of the most formidable craft ever. It boasted over fifty turbolasers and forty torpedo octets with shields stronger than an Imperator star destroyer. It had drawbacks though, it lacked much of a backup crew, meaning it was run by a single crew, they carried less than five hundred troops making it not a ship for transporting, its cargo space was miniscule as well as her docking bays. It carried four shuttles at a maximum. But, the Shoto had numerous anti-starfighter weapons including the Wyvern cannon.

The other craft in his line including the infamous Immobilizer 418 interdictor cruiser,He had two of them, one per battle group. The other ship, was the Cutter class gunship. It was similar in size and shape to the Corellian made gunships, but it had several tricks up her sleeve, including long range turbolasers and power dumps that hid weapons charging from her enemies.
But when it all came down to it, the greatest weapon that all the ships had was the Web-sensor grid, which allowed instantaneous sharing of sensor data allowing all ships to see the battle from a variety of points.

The Captain was running a fairly routine survey mission of a cluster of space near Hargeeva, in the midrim. Zen wanted to find out if any of these planets had either valuable resources, i.e materials that induce cloaks or some super metal, or species that are good at hard labor or a military race or even a race with many advances in technology. So far, twenty days in, the flotilla had encountered none of that, whilst working in a systematic sweep of the sector.

“Commander,” The Lieutenant Commander spoke to the Captain, a look of severe boredom on his face, “We have finished the daily sweep of the grid.”

“Yes, go on.” Kip replied.

“Three class two comets, some dust, and thirteen planetoid devoid of any life and any resources worth taking a second glance at.”

“Great. How about the second group?”

“They report similar findings. Nothing too impressive.”

“Thank you, dismissed.” But the Commander did not leave.

“Yes?”

“Permission to speak freely sir.”

“Granted.”

“Why the hell are we doing this?”

“The Admiral thinks that we might find something out here. Only about fifty days left of this.”

Captain Turek Besh sat in his command chair and examined his finger nails for any semblance of dirt and uncleanness.

Suffice it to say this mission had reduced him to boredom.


Breathing a gentle sigh, the young man flicked an ample sized crust of undesirable material from underneath his fingernail and watched it float like a filthy snowflake onto the floor.

From the reaches of his hearing he could hear the familiar whine of a mouse droid's wheels. Mouse droids, as they were known in the empire were found in abundance on all Imperial starships. They were indispensable little creations, mainly used in the task of ferrying sensitive information between computer terminals and individual workstations throughout a starship.

Several of these mechanical wonders had also found their way into the service of Farfalen, and as a result, a marked improvement had been noted in ship efficiency.

It made one wonder if these tiny technological tinkerers were in someway owed to for the Empire's success.

A tiny chuckle emanated from behind Turek's pursed lips as one of the small droids zoomed up from behind.

Captain Besh had also seen fit to have several hundred of the mouse droids outfitted particularly in the duties of sanitation and ship upkeep. A frighteningly clean man, Besh despised grimy conditions in all aspects of his life. From the vessels he served upon to the pips on his uniform.

In his former service under the empire, many of the governments physicians and psychiatrist's deemed him bipolar and bordering on acute obsessive compulsiveness.


Subsequently, the aforementioned doctors curiously seemed to perish under unexplained circumstances and/or disappear entirely, with swift succession.



Making its trademark squeak, the timid little droid trundled to a halt at the unsightly glob of dirt, that even on the pristine black floors of the command deck stood out like a sore thumb, and began its work.

A whirring emanated from its frontal section, and two small doors parted. From the tiny opening a small nozzle jutted out and engaged an instant vacuum, sucking in the little dirt fragment before it had any chance for resistance. With a click and another grinding noise, the nozzle retracted.


The nozzle was then replaced with a tiny pair of motorised discus-like mops. Turek gazed in amazement as the the two mops began to gradually spin and buff the floor with almost no noise whatsoever.


Lastly, the little machine squirted a tiny mist of air-freshener onto the cleaned area before turning and zooming off in the direction from whence it came.


Truly a wondrous procession of events. A life cycle all unto its own.

However, something caught Turek's keen eyes as he peered down onto the newly polished floor.

Suddenly an anger seemed to rise within him and he unclipped his sidearm and let loose a bolt of blaster fire onto the rapidly fleeing mouse droid.

A silence followed as the surrounding crew members turned to look in shock and curiosity as to their commander's actions.

The captain gently relinquished his grip on the trigger of his pistol and stared up at his dumbfounded crew.


"It missed a spot."


.............


After dealing out a series of stern warnings and threats of deactivation and restraining bolts to the mechanised portions of the crew, Captain besh departed from the bridge-as he often did- to carry out his regular inspections of the ships systems. As much faith as he had in his crew to see to the running of the ship, his faith only went so far.

He felt some personal obligation within him to maintain an eye on the efficiency of the systems that would very well be separating him from the precious oxygen within, and the lack thereof that existed-or rather didn't- beyond the deck plates.

His first stop was the engineering section.

In charge of the running of the ship was chief Engineer Rally O'hansen. Yansen while, fairly unremarkable, had an exemplary record aboard the Shoto-class vessel, Hell's heat before his posting under Captain Besh, although exemplary up until the point that he was reassigned for drinking on the job.

Something about the thought a former alcoholic operating heavy machinery of this magnitude did much to unease Turek, however he was stuck with him.

Turek, while a high ranker held little sway with the recruitment and postings department.

With the knowledge that Chief O'hansen never had his lips far away from the neck of a bottle, Besh was always attempting to catch him committing the foul deed on duty in his ongoing tirade to have the man discharged and on his way out the door as soon as possible.

However, O'hansen, wise he had become to the Captains ways. He had developed an intricate system in which he would strap several bottles of Tarkalian ale alongside the cooling vents that ran to the Liquid Nitrogen-cooled Wayvern cannons before the vessel left port. That way he could fuel said habit for an indefinite length of time, while keeping his contraband cool and concealed.


Stepping through a small hatch that led into the engine room, a suspicious Besh sniffed the air for any trace of alcohol. He had thought it best to keep a low profile on his visitations in the hope that he might one day catch an unsuspecting O'hansen, sucking at a bottle of sauce. An activity at which he had failed on every occasion.

He'd even considered having some of the ship's mouse droids specially outfitted for covert surveillance. However, the day's debacle involving the peculiar little robots had left him to think such methods were better left to one's self.


Straightening his gleaming white uniform, Turek pressed on into the bowels of the tightly packed engine room.

"O'hansen?" He enquired, listening out for a reply over the steady hum of the room's machinery. "Chief, are you in here?"

A figure popped out from behind a bulkhead covered from head to toe in a thick, dark brown grease.

Turek took an uneasy step backward.

"Cap'n? Is that you." Said the figure, wiping a considerable globule of brown muck from his visor. "Oh, this is a pleasant suprise, so it is." said O'hansen, his teeth seeming overly white as he smiled past the grease on his face.

"What can I do ya for Cap'n?"


Bemused, and severely disgusted at his Chief Engineer's appearance, Turek shifted into boot camp mode.

"Stand to attention when you greet an officer of the Farfalen navy. This isn't the galactic coalition you know, there is an order around here, and I will see to it that that order is maintained.

Is that clear Chief?"


"Aye sir, I mean . . . Yes Captain."


"Now, explain to me Chief, why you are covered head to toe in a material the consistency of pig @#%$?" enquired the captain.

"Well cap'n, um . . .sir, we had a little problem down 'ere earlier."

"Problem?!" Bellowed Turek, ", and I wasn't notified."

"Well, sir, it was merely a coolant leak, nothin' we couldn't 'andle y'see. It's all under control now sir."


"You are treading a very thin line Chief, you should know that I have my eye on you."

He breathed an audible sigh.

"Now, I'll let you know that I'm being very lenient on you . . . this time. The next time I find my engine room looking like a herd of banthas came in and crapped everywhere, I will be placing you in the nearest airlock, and blasting your oil-covered rear out into space.


Are we clear?"


Sniggering behind his eyes, O'hansen responded. "Oh, yes cap'n, as clear as crystal sir."


"Good, now @#%$ off out of my sight and clean yourself up."