" Good morning, Baron." The words hung in the air, bravely piercing the silence in the high-ceiling steel room. A large table separated two men, each fitted out in the finest trappings befitting those of social station.


" Good morning, Viscount," came the reply almost as chilled as the decking upon which jackbooted feet did fall. The man seated near the rea door of the room was possessed of a decidedly darker aura than the first, his clothes easily recognizeable as a uniform of some elite military formation. Epaulettes of braided silver hung atop a tunic of the purest black silk, a blood red sash running from shoulder to thigh.


A moment passed as the arriving man, the Viscount, took his seat. Both held their iron gazes for a long second before an unexpected occurance morphed the atmosphere of the room: each man smiled.


" How ridiculous to address my brother by his title!" exclaimed the seated man, taking cup firmly in ahnd and raising it ever so slightly. A door recessed in the wall opened to admit a dour-looking gentleman in a plain grey jumpsuit. The tray he carried was depostied on the table and the two aristocrats divided the food between them. There were beings in the galaxy who would never look upon poached quan eggs let alone eat them - for the upper echelons, it was a matter of course.


" I could always address you as Rear Admiral," joked the Viscount as he admired the craftmanship on a silver utensil before putting it to proper use.


" Very well, General," the Baron quipped letting his grin grow larger despite the only just-completed devouring of a while red pecan.


The General placed his utensils down after savoring the flavor of his first well-cooked meal since embarking. Over the table, he looked squarely at his brother. " It is good to see you. But you truly think you will need me on this little excursion? Surely you, the great Baron Paven Desaria will have no trouble annexing Praxis Major without the aide of the 2nd Regiment of the Life Guards."


Admiral Desaria never stopped smiling. " You know, as long as our father sits on the Military Council of the Republic, the Kuati Navy will never want for assignments; with us comes the Army. If you are wondering as to your specific choosing for this mission, that is by sure Chance that Command alotted you to me. And not to put too fine a point on it, my detachment of Fleet Troopers cannot handle a landing like this; I've only six hundred from all nine ships combined. You and your men have landed before and conquered. Besides, it should be relatively easy. The Praxians are relatively barbaric. They have some space-faring capabilities but are mostly land-dwellers. Your four thousand soldiers should have little trouble establishing yourself - they occupy only one continent, a handful of cities and towns, and have a dis-unified government."


General Desaria wrinkled his nose at the prospect of such a routine assignment on orders from the Republic. " This is doubtless a waste of my men, but what of you!"


" To be sure, we're being misused, my younger brother, but I know when no to question my orders."


The Viscount glowered. He was never a naval enthusiast like his brother which had lead to his posting in the Army, but even he could see the egregious waste of resources. Four ships of the line lead four new cruisers and a fast frigate; the battleships were brand new and dwarfed anything in the galaxy at four hundred meters. The ships each sported two turbolaser turrets - one fore, one aft - in a marvel of Kuati engineering. The technology of superheating the plasma of the charge had revolutionized gunnery adding something larger than heavy laser cannon but the systems were so bulky the hefty Corellian ships at four hundred meters only sported one apiece.


Father probably ordered this himself to show off. That Corellian Diktat has loathed him for sometime.


" To victory," toasted the younger Desaria, raising his glass.


" To the Republic."

To the prying eyes of a military mind, Praxis major certainly did not appear to be worth the investment to the Republic had placed in it. Strategic neccessity demanded its annexation on behalf of the Republic; at a glance, that task did not look involved or even challanging.


" Report, sensors."


A young human male looked up from his station to the black-haired officer in a well-tailored blue uniform. " Sir, orbital contacts total twenty satellites and two transports. Neither of the transports is emitting any transponder signals."


" Very well. Communications: tap into their satellite network and broadcast the order of annexation on all frequencies and and languages. Ops: bring the fleet to full combat readiness. Begin charging sheild emitters. Guns: commence power-up sequence on the turbolasers."


Rear Admiral-Baron Paven Desaria strode forward and looked at his target anew, each second of the engines' life bringing more and more detail into view as the distance between conqueror and soon-to-be conquered shrank. Reports made Praxis sound somewhat baren: dry soil, high bluffs and rocky plateaus separating wind swept plains. The Admiral had never been here, nor had that many citizens of the Republic given the generally-barabaric description of the inhabitants. That would change inside of a decade as some hyper-space explorer named Metallos planned to make a run just outside the system.


If he doesn't careen into some rock, this Metallos fellow will make this place very popular very fast. Better us to have it then. As background to the Admiral's thoughts, Captain Martzent took the reigns of his ship. Lasers and within a few centuries heavy lasers had been the mainstay weapons of ships across the known galaxy from the furthest reaches of the Rim - Yinchorr to Bestine. Turbolasers, however, were brand new to naval warfare and augured well if the power could be harnessed by engineers and shipbuilders, each shot being more powerful than a broadside of a dozen heavy laser blasts. However, being so new and the weapons' generators so large, more than a few vessels had been struck from the registry for turbolaser-related 'accidents.' That in mind, the Captain dutifully dispatched dmagae control teams to standby at every corner of his ship.


" Sensors do we have any hostile contacts?"


" Negative Admiral - I am not even reading those freightors as armed."


" Very well." The Admiral turned from his stare at Praxis and strode up to a plato table near the center of the bridge; on it was a map of the single inhabited continent on the planet, the rest populated only by farming machines and a few devoted prospectors tending large hydroponic complexes. " Inform Major-General Desaria he may begin his landing, the fleet will cover him."


Within an hour of the order, shuttles from the cruisers began making their trips to the surface, ferrying men and material alike. Each ship, once stripped of its passnagers, took up a place in formation save the smallest cruiser and the frigate at the end of the line who were sent into the depths of the system to act as the fleet's eyes and ears. They were the alarm that would be tripped if any trouble arose.


This is going off too easy - I hesitate to wonder what awaits my brother.

If a planet could feelt contempt towards those who had come to alter its destiny, then so did Praxis Major when the Republic arrived with a desire to lay claim. Diminuitive humanoid meteorologists in the capital city of Praxt found themselves stupified as the seasons changed with a speedhitherto unseen by native eyes. The tops of buildings across Praxis, accustomed to several weeks of light rains before the coming of the monsoon season, groaned under the weight of deluge after deluge, respite only granted in concert with the thunderous voice of the gods above.


" Bloody lovely, no?"


Major General Viscount Desaria held his leather greatcoat tightly together at the neck and tossed a frown towards Madam-Colonel Elaena Vorris. Close friend of his mother's or not, he was the commander of the expedition and the snide little comments she prided herself on interjection at every juncture of the aristocrat's career were tolerated only with patience any non-Kuati men would have considered divine. He ignored here and stepped away from the overhang a shuttle's entry-ramp had created. Rain pelted the General, striking his peaked visor-cap with more force than he had expected. I shall have to don my helmet. Combat is only an hour off anyway.


The saving grace of the present storm was a lack of wind for which the General was none to quick to lift his voice to the heavens in thanks. He heaveed himself onto the steps of a command vehicle that sported ten massive wheels and bristled with grenade launchers. Robbed of its inertia to admit the regimental commander, it lurched forward and crept slowly up to forty kph. Forceful though it was, the rain fell impotently on bonded armor made in factories whose workers could, as day faded to night, look up and see the sprawling shipyards that were renowned through the galaxy for challanging the supremacy of Corellan Engineering.


" Give me the layout, Major. It's been four hours since we started landing and I am positive my brother has been stuffing reconaissance data with the Fleet seal down your neck."


Major Holcom of cource agreed but dared not speak ill or her command officer's brother. That Intelligence, however, had been very useful. " The capital city is protected by a string of four fortress complexes, each one garrisoned by a bout ten thousand men. Their strength so far as we can ascertain lies in large-bore artillery. There is a small - very small, in fact - sliver of land where their projected fields of fire do not overlap. It is enough that we can force the column through directly from the landing site-"


" Thank you Major," the General replied, removing his visor cap and donning a black coal-scuttle helmet. " We will face them frontally."


Major Holcom felt all pigment drain from her face; were the gunners and other crewmen nearby not concealed within blast helmts, they would have similarly looked sick - a frontal assault on powerful fortifications was guaranteed enourmous casualties if not success. Ignoring the Major and the others in the confines of the small command cabin of the Juggernaut, General Desaria looked up towards the ceiling. " We have a secret weapon."

" Commence primary ignition."


Mistress Gunnery Officer Wynora lowered the blast shield on her helmet and peered forward, those solitary three words all she had to do in the actual combat operation of hery battery. The work of those with whom she had trained and, on occassion, bled, was now to begin.


Stretching back over a hundred meters from the turret-mount was an experimental reactor that roared to life as men and machine harnessed the power of nuclear fusion. Energy coursed through conduits and overloaded primary buffers over almost the entire relay circuit: secondaries kicked in and tertiaries where those had failed, channeling the awesome forces they had unleashed to where its human masters wished it to go. More and more power was sent towards the bow. Inside titannic containment drums the energy was stockpiled as dozens of crewmen looked on with bated breath. Beads of sweat formed on every brow from officer to gunlayer.


Creaks and groans filled the ship; Turret I slowly rotated on axis, the .005 degree list registered during construction now more apparent than ever. Grease shot out inside inner hull tracks created a goo droids would be sent later to chip away; those globules that escaped into the vacuum of space were flash frozen into grotesque shapes onlookers were glad floated away speedily. A dozen sets of eyes for each of the weapons watched monitors in the control cupola as the two turbolasers themselves were depressed two degrees from center. Left dropped first just a tinge below where it needed to be, sending a hundred men to the cranks, setting the gun manually to its precise firing position - the right gun settled exactly where it needed to be.


" We're ready, sir."


Control now rested not within the cupolas perched atop each circular turret but the officers in the command tower above the ship's central superstructure. An anxious gunner looked to his Captain for guidance, any accident or failure would resy squarely on his shoulders. Little did the gunnery officer know, Captain Martzent himself glanced up to where the stern-faced Admiral looked out from his upper-level position. The Admiral, however, felt the eyes on him.


" Captain, fire the weapons."


Martzent nodded, and the gunnery held his breath; now, for better or worse, was to be the first combat-firing of a turbolaser. Taking a black trigger in each hand, he said a brief prayer to the Gods and squeezed...


* * *


" General!"


The natives were indeed angry. From the armored tower jutting from the Juggernaught's armored hide, Viscount Desaria could see the fortress locals named Eban Emal. From more embrasures than he cared to count, clouds of flame belched every so often to send a shell to where the Life Guard had retreated behind a convenient reverse slope just out of their range. The still-burning carcasses of ten armored vehicles were a sound testament to the ability of the garrison artillerymen, ability the General loathed but respected.


Still, all good things must come to an end.


" General!" chirped a voice from the mounted comlink nearby. " They're walking their barrage towards us now - if we do not redeploy or flank them they will have our position in maybe twenty minutes."


" No."


" May I remind you that you're placing this entire regiment in danger. Kuati Law-"


" Threaten me with the laws of matriarchal ascension and I will execute you here on the spot, understood?" growled Desaria. Women ruled Kuat and by default controlled her position in the Republic, but sent men to do their bidding. Names on casualty lists were almost exclusively male, breeding a comraderie in the field no female of status could hope to breach, let alone in the middle of combat, however one-sided thus far. His men would go where he lead.


Even so, my brother had better hurry up!


Communications with the fleet above were totally monopolized by Naval Artillery Observers, those brave few who directed the guns of the fleet's warships. So accurate were they - and so demanding their training - that they were feared by all enemies; so much so that only a handful had ever survived capture. They did their work this day. As if the Viscount's voice had been heard in orbit, four blasts of neon plasma struck down from the heavens amid a deluge of rain and struck the ground with the force of a thousand shells. The torrents could not dampen the dust fast enough as a cloud rose from the impact sites. Secondary explosions sounded with the thunder as magazines cooked off one by one.


The ranging fire of the fortress ceased. The rain slowly asseretd its dominance giving the General a clear view: where the fortress had been only smoldering revetments and charred steel beaming remained. Mocking the power that had destroyed all round it, a purple banner still wove above what had been Eban Emal.


" Colonel, move forward the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 3 and 4 to remain in reserve. I think by the time you arrive at the city limits, a document will be awaiting my signature."

They were the most powerful warships in the known galaxy, each one constructed in the strictest secrecy behind a veritable wall of fighters and patrol craft, sealing off their shipways from any prying eyes. Rear Admiral Desaria had been one of the select few to view them up-close while being fitted out, and then only because his father was a member of the Military Committee: the fact that he was to lead them on their maiden voyage meant nothing. They were an impressive sight even then when covered in scaffolding and swarmed over by construction vessels of all kinds. Completed and smartly formed up, they looked nothing short of magnificent.


Relaxing away from the shuttle's viewport, the Admiral could feel nothing but pride and contentment. He turned his mind from martial matters and wondered what he was now to do. Praxis was conquered, the document of surrender sealed in the shuttle's hold. Now to hold it. A brief transmission had wormed its way from Coruscant naming the Baron Governor pending the arrival of the actual administrator three weeks hence. There was little he could do other than ensure the peace was maintained. That happy task however, fell more squarely on the shoulders of the officer on the ground in spirit if not in order.





" Congratulations indeed."


Major-General Desaria returned the salute of the irritating but competent Colonel Vorris, the taller woman giving a quick smile as she departed. Headed off in the company of three junior officers towards a bistro on a a nearby street corner, the woman resonated power. Her strong face and lithe physique could not be hidden by body armor or the dark green of Kuati walking-out dress; the General had to admit she was...attractive.


Other matters than carnal desire demanded his focus, a thought which forced him to smirk to himself and move off the avenue towards a sidewalk, lest some speeding transport end his career. Civilian traffic was all but dried up but a few curious heads were poking out of windows in the ctiy center. A squad of of the headquarters escort company moved ahead of the General, the only difference in their actions from a day before being a straight back instead of a hunched combat-step. The General tried to ignore them and looked above to the towers of the city. They were not as large as those on Kuat, but fifty levels was much more than he had expected from people dubbed barbarians by the galaxy.


Seven hundred thousand in this city. Nine more cities of a hundred thousand each. Who knows how many hamlets and towns each one outnumbering my regiment. What a task I have!


Desaria's easrs perked up, his eyes drawn from the buildings to the street - sirens fast approached. A truck careened into view around the bend near some brozen monument, a fleet of native police vehicles behind it shouting through speakers and strobing lights against the rays of the sun. As the truck came closer he could see a man standing in the back throwing stacks of papers onto corners and through shop windows. Before he had a chance to look closer a hand pushed the General back behind another man. His bodyguards fiercely resisted his attempts to break free and kept their blaster rifles trained on the truck but did not fire, as per his orders. The native police were permitted to remain and there were certainly enough of them than needed Life Guard interference.


The truck turned a corner from what the General could see between the pressing mass of over-protective soldiers - then time seemed to slow. A load roar filled the street, a tongue of flame shooting from a building on the corner. Rock and cement and metal flew into the air, trailed closely by a cloud of choking grew dust. All was silent, eerily so, before Desaria's ears adjusted. It was a very long moment; what were only seconds to onlookers was an hour for the stunned aristocrat. Hauled to his feet by his bodyguards, the General was quick to push off their attempts to move him to safety. Instead, he ran towards the dust the rain was only too quick to dissipate. Fires lit the street in small patches here and there, each flame the offpsring of suck a violent birth.


Civilian police vehicles stopped and created a quick barricade as soldiers ran towards the blast. The truck had not turned the corner, it had turned into the building on the corner, a small four story construct with a bar on street level of which there was nothing left. Desaria stopped running when he saw two of his soldiers drag a lifeless and charred carcass from the twisted mass of concrete and steel. There was a chizeled jaw line below a face burnt beyond recognition; heat, however, had failed to claim the Star of Prakesh on the body's left uniform pocket, a decoration in the regiment only Colonel Vorris had earned. More and more people - civilian police, emergency responders, and Kuati soldiers - were running to help. Civilian bodies by the score were taken out, not all in one piece.


The General just stood there. The city had surrendered! He looked down at the rubble strewn street and kicked a few stray rocks from a bundle of papers, the last the truck must have thrown. The papers were small, no bigger than a pamhplet and each crudely printed on what may have been a home computer system or office droid.


Invaders, you are not welcome. The Army has surrendered but we fight on until your death. Leave while you can


Viscount Desaria was taken hold of by his bodyguards and all but thrown into an armored vehicle they comandeered. As it sped away, the General closed his eyes. His work here was not done.

One week later...


The General stood inside the armored tower and reveled in silence. Five meters above the carapace of the Juggernaut itself, he was alone scanning the savanna, alone with his thoughts. The silence allowed him to think, and also remember. Pressed hard against the lens of macrobinoculars, the skin round his eyes tightened as a cavalcade of names scrolled before him. Officers he knew of, officers he had never heard of, and men he knew well - all dead. Some were fortunate and had been rushed into the practised embrace of Fleet surgeons, others had to languish in field hospitals. Where else could they go? The last civilian hospital to admit a Kuati soldier that morning had collapsed in a pile of debris and ash.


" General, we have located the speeder. 1st Platoon, Delta Company in pursuit."


Viscount Desaria clenched his teeth. He was a Brigadier General in the Kuati Army, a loyal servant of the Republic and commander of the 2nd Regiment, Life Guards; instead of acting like a General, he was overseeing counter-insurrection duties on the company at best. Certainly he had to, however, as duty commanded - the rebels refused to engage a full battalion and were retiscent even to fire on a company. When one dispersed however into platoon-sized elements, then all hesitation vanished. From windows and brush and behind school transport vehicles did lance the blasts that were so quickly thinning the ranks of the Republic's occupation force. Now, however, they had gotten lucky.


" Excellent. Lieutenant - flank speed to intercept and meet with 1st Platoon."


The Juggernaut lurched forward as the General climbed down and into the control cabin. As fast as its massive wheels would propel it, the lumbering craft surmounted hills and valleys, its escorting speeders whirring around it like wasps round the queen. Barely five minutes passed before it was stopped again, the only thing visible on the other side of a slope being the faded steel frame around the observation tower.


Let's have a look, the General thought to himself as he stepped from the ladder's last rung onto the diamond-plate deck in the tower. Up went the binoculars to where a village sat, surrounded by farmland, barely a kilometer away. A glance left revealed 1st Platoon, holding on the reverse slope and waiting for orders. Desaria returned his gaze to the hamlet. The binoculars registered some movement with their small sensor package and he adjusted his view accordingly. Bouncing along a barely paved road was the Urbikkian speeder his men were chasing. Into the center of town it moved, rushing past onlookers who waved. It came to a stop at a blue-colored house and out jumped a few humanoids, how many the General couldn't be sure. They ran over towards a shed and cracked some sort of door: the speeder rumbled inside. The beings closed the door and arranged some farming equipment to make it look as if nothing had ever happened. Squinting further, Desaria could see pistols and at least one blaster rifle get concealed under coats too heavy for this season - besides, the rain had passed. A few women and one man come over and embraced the arrivals.


General Desaria slammed the binoculars down on the small ledge at his midsection, cracking the light plasticoide frame of the scanner. There was no way for a speeder to enter town and disappear without the neighbors knowing; their ready welcoming of the rebels meant only thing: they knew exactly what they're friends were doing. And plan to do.


But what now? He could order the village stormed and searched, in which case the rebels would run before they were seized and all that would be accomplished was to push them further under ground. No, there was another method. But - civilians were there! Desaria struggled with his conscience. Long moments passed. Through the armored roof of the control cabin, a few of his staff looked up wondering what their general was pondering. From where 1st Platoon sat, its light assault vehicles ready, men tightly clenched their rifles waiting the word to go, or retire.


Complicity has relieved them of their status as non-combatants. This is now a legitimate target. The General straightened himself. " Lieutenant!"


" Sir?"


" Ready the concussion grenade launcher. You will fire to full effect, grid coordinates 9-Tau and Sigma."


" Very good sir. Ready."


The General looked out the tower's reinforced transparisteel. " Fire."





1st Company, Delta Company, proceeded back to New Praxia, the capital city, behind its black and grey camouflaged command vehicle. Soldiers and officers from Kuat all looked on with glee - the barrels of the light tanks and repeater-cannon of the personnel carriers were all elevated 45 degrees, the Kuati processional symbol for a mission successful. The civilians, conquered and quiet, had no idea what sparked the cheer from their occupiers, nor indeed did some of those who were returning triumphant, kept shaded from reality by the reverse slope of a hill.


Atop the Juggernaut, however, one man knew. General-Viscount Desaria knew. His victorious procession into the city was lit by the still burning fires of a village known only to the map as Begitt. No matter how hot those fires did burn, an entire village blanketed by high-explosive shells raining down from the sky, the General felt his soul grow colder by just a hair. However, as the roster of those slain while attending an opera or going to the hospital or stopping at some cafe for a meal scrolled again before his eyes, he realized something else.


He did not care...

Somewhere in the Praxis System


" Unidentified contacts, approaching on multiple vectors!"


Commander Heihachiro Togo stood from his seat at the bridge's center and quickly trod over to a starboard-facing viewport. He listened intently to his sensor officer as his eyes scanned the face of Praxis VII, a barely surveyed planetoid with no atmosphere to speak of. Against the brown, grainy image he could see no silhouettes, but that meant nothing. Lieutenant Kirstit frantically read off the text scrolling at the bottom of his screen as ranges ticked down closer and closer to the cruiser.


" Six ships, gunships from the looks of them. Armament undetected; they're grouping into two flights now. Here they come!"


Short and muscled, many said Togo had the making of a fine Chief Petty Officer, but looked the fool as ship's captain. True enough, his family came not from the gentry but tought peasant stock. He could count no more than ten others in the whole of the Navy who had managed to earn a commission without a title behind it. One heavy hand stuck down on the viewpane, his eyes still unable to see what his officer was telling him. Sure enough, general quarters was called. A look down the hull showed a half-dozen cannon in casements turning to bear. A flash! Togo squinted - there they were.


" Guns - target the lead ship in the starboard detachment. Our orders are to defend at all costs but we must warn the squadron. Helm - bring us about and full speed back to the flagship!"


The Izumrud was a bulkly cruiser, an older relic in a rapidly improving fleet. Still, while her guns were not as heavy as the two newer cruisers escorting the battleships, her speed was a marvel of engineering when she launched - thirty years later she could still match a modern gunship. But where the hell did they come from? The Praxians have no Fleet!


Togo held firm as the internal dampners took their time compensating for the turn. Decking vibrated when the reactors went to full. The auxilliary cruiser turned broad, bringing all eyes aft. Togo cursed aloud his own command as neither of the rear lasers could be fired at the now pursuing ships. Kuati ships were built with a broadside in mind and the Izumrud was no exception.


" Time!"


" Twelve minutes until we round Praxima's moon. Communications aren't possible at this time."


Togo gritted his teeth. He could not fire at the enemy ships whose identity he still did not know yet they harassed him with pricking light blasts. Time counted down as the cruiser began a high-orbit path around the moon. Success was so close...


In Orbit, Praxima


" Contact, port quarter!"


The alarm sounded throughout the ship. Men leapt from bunks and careened to duty stations, many that were not on watch arriving at their guns half dressed if dressed at all. Impossible as it was to imagine men sleeping through klaxons blaring in thin corridors, some did; burly Masters at Arms and thick-muscled Petty Officers ran round, rousing those who did not run instantly, bodily if neccessary.


Second watch was on duty on the bridge of the flagship, Captain Martzent taking command. He held tight the flesh torn open by too hasty a turn round a console with out-stretching desk. " All hands to battlestations. Take shield generators off-line, begin charging the turbolasers."


" Report!" Baron Desaria stormed onto the flying bridge, pushing an arm through his tunic sleeve as he went. Taking steps two at a time, he ran down from the command section to the ship's bridge. Despite having just woken, the Admiral was a pillar of calmness while others ruhed about. His jaw was clenched but still he took the time to button his tunic all the way.


" Ship approaching from the dark-side of the primary moon, size approximately three hundred meters. No markings that the computers can distinguish. No allegiance of any kind. The ship matches the description of a Corellian Adz-class Dreadnaught."


" Pirates, Admiral?" Martzent asked. Desaria wanted to reply negatively but had no proof to dispell the quick but likely theory. Pirates however, did not have the precision of maneuver with which the craft made itself known. It did not immediately orient itself on the quartet of Kuati battleships.


Curious. Desaria looked through the rear-most viewport as the ships turn in succession to meet the new threat. The flash of cannon fire was unmistakable, but it was from the opposite side. She was firing at another target. What that target was, Desaria could only guess. There were three cruisers dispatched through the system to hunt for unwelcome guests - it could very well be one. The dreadnaught completed her work and turned towards the planet itself, a flurry of six gunships taking up station around it.


" Ah - the Florinia." A quizzical look from the Captain bade the Admiral expound. " She's a mercenary vessel I have engaged before. No doubt hired with her escorts there to drive us off by whatever Praximans were off-world when we struck. Recall the cruisers, Captain. This will be a fight for us. Communications, call for Line Abreast if tyou please, extending from our port-side."


The four ships of the Borodino-class made stately turns and half-turns to get to where their Admiral commanded them, presenting a wall of armor plating and large-bore guns with two cruisers behind. The Florina edged off ever so slightly, trying to bring itself off the starboard-side of the Suvarov.


Good show, old man - the only possible move you could have made given the force discrepancy. But you won't get the chance to fight one on one, this time. The Admiral sat down in a vacated Captain's chair, Martzent glued to a viewport. " Turbolasers, all ships - fire at will."


The process of the firing the forward turret on each battleship began in earnest, secondary battery gunners content to sit by and watch. Through transparisteel embrasures they watched one, then two, then three pairs of neon bolts lance away from the battleships. The dreadnaught, out of the range of its largest heavy laser cannon, was impotent as the shots slammed against hardened armor, vaporizing it as if it were flimsiplast. Gouts of flame shot into the vacuum to replaced only debris. The Vacuum of space gutted the ship sucking out components and weapons and men. There was little chance of survival as flames consumed the reactor and fuel tanks. What remained of a mercenary warships hung listlessly in space, only inertia propelling fragments ever onward.


Aboard the Suvarov, a cry of victory went up on the bridge, drowning out a young Ensigned named Hatch. He stood but could not be heard as men cheered on the cruisers which went out to meet and dispatch the fallen craft's companion vessels. When the fervor subsided, he yelled again. Then all fell silent. He said nothing when he had their rapit attention, he only flicked a switch playing on the speakers the comm-traffic of the battleship Orel, holding the left-most place in line.


"...overheating, we cannot stop the fire...power valve jammed open, she's still feeding the buffer...dump it! dump it...damage control teams to the bow...abandon..."


All traffic went dead. The eyes that were watching the cruisers put paid to the fleeing gunships turned instead to their sister warship that now fell from formation at a horrid and ungodly angle. Where the bow turbolaser turret had been there was only the rotater ring and the flame-swatched hull which until moments ago had been home to a bluff bow, a reactor housing, and the ship's crew quarters. On the forward superstructure, fires raged - where the bridge had been, there was only twisted steel. Above the ship, floating at way with a slow, somber spiral was the charred remains of turret number one.


Silence reigned on every ship save the cruisers, too immersed in their work to turn around and watch. The only voice on the bridge was that of Major-General Desaria on another comm-channel, calling for orbital fire support. His brother the Admiral sat and stared, his face as white as the epaulettes on his shoulders. Captain Martzent, even more pale, turned to run into the bridge refresher station, a gloved hand over his mouth.

The lights of a once-brilliant city shimmered through the falling rain, muted by the fires and explosions and destruction which had thinned their numbers and put-paid to most reasons for turning them on. There was little need for the flashing illumination of an entertainment district if no one, occupier and occupied alike, felt like being entertained. A web of dread had been woven over and through the capital by a spider splashed with the colours of civil war - from the web's hold there was no escape.


General Desaria winced as a medic dressed a flesh wound in his left fore-arm; his quick breath in was concealed by a roar of thunder outside. The native medic did not even glance up, his eyes and mind focused on the task at hand. While one arm was undergoing the nightly routine of the last seven nights, the other was conveying no-longer full glass of vodka into the Viscount's system. When all was done, the General sighed. He thanked the medic and stood.


" You're arm is healing well?"


Desaria ignored the comment as he rolled down the sleeve of his tunic over the wound. He paused a moment as he did, straightening out the crease. He remembered how he got it, how the civilian policeman had saddled up to his staff car and with one deft movement he had produced a detonator, how in the blink of an eye and a flash of flame a dozen soldiers were dead - had the Viscount not stepped out of the other side to retrieve his visor-cap, he might have been one.


No - he would have been one.


" Tell me, Major: what next?"


Major Kurff was confused. More and more, the commander of the 2nd Regiment of the Kuati Life Guards had become detached from people. Wars they had fought together, battles where blood and torn flesh flowed as freely as the waters of melting snow, but still he had retained his composure. That was not to say the General was distraught, but there was a...distance...to his voice that belied some sort of detachment. Kurff dared not reply, hoping his chief would go on. He did.


" For three weeks we have moved about the countryside, raiding farms and villages. We have seized stockpiles of arms and ammunition and explosives and still the attacks continue. Garrisons have been placed in the other cities and still the attacks continue. Rebels have been dispatched and so too have their sympathizers. We have not done enough. It must be then that those who have sat idly by while Kuati soldiers were assaulted are as guilty as those who did the assaulting. Inaction has lead to death and now we will punish inaction."


" Sir?"


" There is a pattern, plain to see. The surrender took place here, we set up headquarters here - this rebellion is here! So we must destroy it here."


As the Viscount Desaria turned, a fiendish look in his eyes, Kurff responded. " Your Grace, we have an exceptional network of informers. There are no more rebels in the capital. These people want simply to get on with their lives."


" If we cut off the head, the body will die. There are rebels out there and we must send a message. They did not learn from the examples we have set until now so we must set one that they cannot possibly misinterpret. This city will be purged of all those who did nothing when their comrades went off to kill. We will eliminate them finally."


" Who, sir?"


The Viscount Desaria looked dead at the taller Major of Artillery, his eyes flashing with a rage that made Kurff sick to his stomach in the time it took to blink.


" Everyone."



The Major-General left the room and proceeded down the apartment tower to its basement where his staff had sprawled in the best accomodations a victor could afford. There he roused them into action with his iron spirit now blinded by fury and a singleness of purpose that none could stop. Still, Major Kurff remained in the General's loft, shrunk the floor as the realization of what his commander meant dawned bright than a thousand suns. He had to do something. He would do something.

It was raining again in the capital. Canals filled quickly, monuments to the awesome power water wielded as it pooled and flowed throughout an elaborate network of tunnels and causeways. Hydroelectric plants manned by droids and civil servants hummed to life as if there was no war, the only battle that between the engineering genius of man and the raw, unbridled power of nature's release. Streams dumped into large basins where Fitting, Major Kurff thought as he popped up the collar of his field-grey great coat against the gusts. The Gods know the fate of their people. They weap for them.


" Major, get in sir. This storm is only going to get worse."


Kurff looked at the dark-grey clad trooper holding open the door of a waiting staff car. Respect was kept, discipline never broken - why should it be? He was a superior officer, the driver a junior non-commissioned officer of the Kuati Life Guard. Kurff noticed something, however, as he moved closer to the helmeted man - his eyes seemed cold. Of course, he was a combat veteran, like every man in the city under the red and amber Kuati flag. But it was something else, something Kurff recognized instantly. It was the same chill all too plain in the General's eyes. The Major shuddered and took his seat. The door closed behind him and he quickly fell into sleep's embrace.


Thirty minutes later, barely conscious, he stood and managed a salute to a passing sentry as he boarded his shuttle. Once seated, he again felt his eyes roll back and all presence of mind drifted into fantasy.


Four hours later...


" It cannot be true."


That was all the response Admiral-Baron Desaria could muster as he sat into the elegant chair behind his desk. The facts before him, however well arrayed and concisely presented, could not be true. Indeed, a lie could be woven into a tapestry of partial truths to make even reality seem distorted, as thousands of conmen did every day regardless of race or region.


The Admiral weighed the reality of it. The man standing across the broad dark-wooden desk was an officer of the Kuati Military, a Staff-Major of a Guard Regiment. Try as he might, Desaria could see no motivation for duplicity. Every man who wore a uniform enjoyed medals and ceremony and promotion, but that could not have been the aim, for none of any would be the result of the report were it true. No, there was no motivation to lie. Could the facts as he saw them simply be distorted out of sheer mistake, absent of all malice?


Perhaps. But what chances of that?


" Admiral. I know this sounds absurd; were I in your position, I would dismis it as well. But I have been on the ground since we arrived. The war began and ended as any other. Honour was maintained. We won and settled in for what we hoped would be a painless occupation. But then this rebellion cropped up - we had to defend ourselves against women and teenagers carrying weapons. They were defending their homes - I kept this in mind and could not hate them for it. But many did - they took every action personally so that every day wore heavier and heavier on their souls. Soon, there was no soul left.


" The men who fought everyday had to be suspicious of every civilian, food stand, cafe - it became a life of constant paranoia. Under those conditions have we lived. Raiding towns to seize arms caches turned into razing towns because they hid rebel sympathizers. Now, we are to liquidate the capital, the rebellion's home. The logic is cold, it is flawless, and it is inhuman. I saw the look in the Viscount's eyes. If I thought there was any perception at all that I was wrong, I would not have stolen a shuttle on false orders and betrayed my comrades and commanders to be standing here. One thing I cannot abandon is my honour. I will have no part in genocide."


Major Kurff brought himself to attention and stared off into space, his speech over. The Admiral sat in silence, pondering all he could. The truth as he knew it was simple - he had not been to the surface since surrender negotiations began, nor had his crews on the advice of planetary command. The insurrection was real enough, though the reports of its happenings were bland and rarely received in orbit. The invasion - naval patrol and surface control - had evolved into two separate entities.


Desaria inhaled. " Whether you are lying, mad, or telling the whole truth as only the Gods hope you are not, I cannot rest and do nothing. I pray you are mistaken Major, I pray it on my very existence."


Orders were quickly given to un-needed crewmen to be armed, marines and masters at arms integrated into scratch companies of rifle-toting sailors, and guns to be trained on the surface. Fay beyond the planet in some dimenion whose location only the dead knew well, the Gods turned deaf ears to the beseechings of the Admiral in charge of the invasion forces. That which he prayed against was not his fear but fact unfolding on the world below...

Everyday the sun bathed Praxima's capital city in a blanket of brilliance only red giants could produce - or so it would were not a sheen of clouds finishing up their daily spray of the metropolis. Clouds may block the sun's rays for spells of the day, but never did they win out entirely. City life went on as usual, its citizens just as apt at placing on a jacket for the morning commute as grabbing an umbrella off some hallway tablestand. It was so then that when the sun god peered onto his worshippers' descendants, he found his face creased with scorn. From behind his blinding screen of light he looked towards the capital but could not see. There was something queer about the clouds that barred his vision that day, for rain-makers they were not.


The god hissed, turning away from Praxima, his tears shielded by light no eye could pierce. The clouds were not from the morning rain, but a result of the morning fire.


Baron Desaria looked from the cockpit window of his shuttle and saw the horror his scanners had reported on the Suvarov, horror he had ignored and believed could only be the result of any number of insurgent actions. No, those were not fuel distilleries aflame nor factories being torched to deny their usage. Homes, apartment complexes, towering dormatories, all were contributing to a blanket of smoke that refused to yield to the winds.


" Bring us in at the airfield. All craft, weapons ready."


The shuttle bounced around as it looped again over the city's ring of perimeter fortresses. Then it swept low, falling in at the head of a flurry of grey and scarlet transports. Lower and lower the craft did descend until warning signals bleeped and blared the closeness of rooftops and skyscrapers. Even over the noise of repulsorlift engines and the whine of aerodyne foils, there was the unmistakeable thunder of a thousand guns.


" Sir - there!"


The Admiral looked to where the copilot pointed. He strained his eyes to fix on a point, but did not believe what his eyes were telling him. All pigment drained from his face and he stumbled back out of the command cabin. He blinked and squinted and even slapped his face, but the image would not leave. Choking back emotion, he saw the revolution for what it had become. The sound of water trickling over damns piled high by nature's waste had given way the crackling of flames; the rustle of wind through trees and grass was now a tireless cacophony of blaster fire....the song of morning birds was totally drowned out by the shrieks of dying women and children and he men who stood to protect them. A tear streamed down his cheek as he replayed that solitary image in his head - a tall cavalryman, his face behind a soiled black helmet, his body wrapped in the steelen mech suit that made him twice the size of his compatriot grenadiers, moved the laser cannon on either arm of the mech from one group of frightened civilians to another.


The shuttle was the first to land. A squad of blue-uniformed sailors scurried out first, long blaster rifles pointed in every direction; three red-tuniced Kuati Marines followed around a figure in black wore wore no armor at all, only a long black great coat to protect against the cool breeze of the capital. Gusts of wind tossed the fringes on his golden epauelettes to and fro as he scanned around to where guards and technicians should have been - but there were none.


" Admiral, my men have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. The Life Guard must be inside the city itself."


Desaria regarded the shorter female Marine Captain and only nodded. He looked out into the city and felt his stomach tighten. He knew what his brother was doing, there could be no doubt now. He gave the order to mount up and the sailors quickly complied, piling into a dozen armored transports. Desaria stepped into the belly of a tracked vehicle and felt it lurch forward. The orders were already given, there could be no turning back. If orders did not arrive in burst-form bearing the Rear-Admiral's code, the orbiting battleships would let loose a salvo upon the city that would incinerate every rifle-toting Guardsman alive. He did not want to, but as the column pushed into the business district and the charred corpses of civilians began to pile up, he knew he may well have to.


Minutes passed as the column moved through debris-filled streets and around checkpoints erected by Guardsmen, each the same as the last. Everyone could see an evil determination in their eyes, and not a few sailors had purged their stomachs in armored compartments as the scenes they drove by defied belief.


" Up ahead!"


Desaria looked at the holographic display and listened to the radio as monitored transmissions were received and recorded. A sentry challanged the lead armored car which refused to yield. Again came the challange, and again the armored car kept on towards the barricaded building being used as the Guards' forward command. One shot was all it took to spark a civil war within a civil war as Kuati fired upon Kuati who fired upon civilian who fired upon Kuati. Shots pinged the side of the Titan Hoverpanzer Mark V but the Admiral could not be phased.


" All clear, Your Excellency."


A hatch popped and Rear Admiral-Baron Desaria stepped out. His jackboots found rough ground on the street; he just kicked aside the troublesome rocks and stood to his full height. Around stood sailors and marines with rifles leveled at Life Guardsmen. Bodies lay all around, mostly the sailors and marines who had leapt from cover first to be cut down by their brethren. A few wounded lay on the ground, each one eerily silent no matter the wound. Against the far wall on the first-floor's largest room stood a Kuati woman and several children. Sweat beaded on all their faces, each one terrified to become the next, so many of their friends lay dead around them.


Viscount Desaria stood where he was, a pistol clenched in one gloved hand at his side. The move of his head away from the live civilian to his arrived family member seemed labored to many who watched, and indeed it must have been; cuts from flying rock and metal and slashed away at his neck so that the brim of his tunic-collar was a dirtied crimson. His jaw jutted out more than normal and his eyes seemed sunken.


" What are you doing here?"


The Baron Desaria stepped forward so the two brothers were only three meters apart. Stoic as he tried the be, the older brother felt emotion flow in his words. " The question is what are you doing? You're killing civilians! What has happened to you, what has happened to you all?"


The Viscount jerked his eyes to left. " They happened to us! We came to conquer and they resisted. We vanquished and they fought on. We could not walk without fear; there was no safety. The very police and soldiers were enlisted to aide us in rebuilding carried bombs death right into us. Children carried explosives to the doors of walkers and vaniashed in a flash of smoke. They made us do this!"


The Baron clenched his fists." No one makes you kill non combatants! Rebels deserve to die but certainly they are not rebels! If they are, then we reeducate them! We are not monsters, brother-"


The Viscount studdered, his eyes boiling over with rage. " They are monsters! If we don't kill them now, they'll kill us. We survive or they do."


" What of honour?"


" Honour has abandoned Praxis."


The Baron looked at his brother, looked deep into the eyes that had once conveyed strength and loyalty; now, all he could see was blind hatred. Reason was gone, with it any sense of reality. Occupation had become elimination to the 2nd Life Guards.


The Viscount looked at his brother and then turned towards the civilians who cowered before him. He ignored the pain in his neck as he had for hours and made a choice; the only choice he could see. The muscles in his right arm flexed and brought his gloved hand up, pistol and all. Staring over his sights at the central mass of the crying female he knew his duty. He heard a single shot echo in the room...


...then felt darkness take him once and for all.