(National Assembly Hall, Yokosaki, Nuevo Edo)
The crowd was rowdy, celebrating not just the victory over
the X’thari that threatened them, but also the arrival of the Empress of the
Terran Empire. For a people who had so long been cut off from their ancestral
homeland, the arrival of the leader of Earth and her Empire was something that
they had never hoped to see. The fact that she was a young woman, who cut a
charismatic figure in both her well-tailored gowns and the (discretely
distributed) photos of her as Captain of the Triumphant in her Navy uniform instantly propelled her to celebrity
status on the still matriarchal planet.
By now, everyone knew that the fight in the skies over Nuevo
Edo had been a closer thing than anyone dared speak of before the battle was
done. Massively outnumbered and outgunned from the start, it was only the
unconventional weapons and tactics that the Black Star forces had imparted to
them as they helped build their Nuevo Edo Navy that they had gained even a
ghost of a chance. And yet, with one section of the enemy fleet still unfought,
the list of Black Star and Nuevo Edoan ships who were capable of continuing the
battle was a fraction of the size it had been before, and amongst those, the
number of ships that were undamaged was so small as to be counted upon a single
hand, and all those ships were support vessels: the Carriers and the Nightforge.
Things had looked bleak, but then, in a burst of tachyons
that lit the sky (figuratively speaking), the Triumphant appeared with her task force, and laid waste to the
enemy ships, cutting through them like a scythe through wheat! It was a sight
glorious to behold, especially when the vid captures from the Imperial fleet
‘leaked’ into the public, including a scene of the Empress herself, dressed in
a Navy uniform without rank, standing upon the Flag Bridge of the Triumphant as it emerged from
transition, and giving the order to open fire. Or what of the cockpit cameras
of the imperial fighters, showing them on their attack runs against the X’thari
ships?
And the Empress and her forces were not the only heroes made
that day. Many were the stories told and retold of the fighting as those who
fought, whether Black Star or Nuevo Edoan, shared their tales over drinks,
while their friends laughed and mocked them when they exaggerated too much for
polite company. Of particular note was the Last Charge of the Shinokage, as some were calling it, when
Commodore Mollen ordered his command ship to launch what seemed to be a suicide
run on the enemy dreadnought, braving the deadly fire of the enemy guns to gain
a chance at victory as they turned and fired at the weak point in the X’thari
defenses with their powerful twin railguns. Battered and broken, but never
beaten, the Shinokage had managed to
limp into port, with an honor guard of Assassins. The rumors said that her
surviving crew were intent on waiting for their time in repair yards, so that
the less damaged ships could be repaired first, but the outcry from the Black
Star Fleet forced the Commodore to override them, and place the Shinokage as the first to enter the
repair slips.
It was happy circumstance that today was Founder’s Day,
marking the birth of the Nuevo Edo Colony after the Juan Ponce de Leon had emerged from an alien craft’s wake to find
themselves in this system. Though those early years were filled with heroism
and tragedy as well, they had come a long way since then, and fought through
many hardships. Now, with the Amazons and the X’thari behind them, the crowd
was exuberant, to say the least, as they prepared for the traditional
festivities of Founder’s Day.
A change in the typical parade this year, was the addition
of Commodore Mollen of the Black Star Fleet and Empress Vaughn of the Terran
Empire as guests riding alongside Premier Fukuya in her place as the Mistress
of Ceremonies. While the three smiled and waved to the cheering crowds, some
might be surprised at the conversation that played out as they rode in the
parade.
Merida laughed to herself as she waved, “I can only imagine
the heartburn I’m giving my poor security team with this stunt. I fear they
won’t allow me out of their sight for MONTHS after this!”
Talia laughed in return, from her spot in the center of the three
(as it was her planet), and said, “Oh, I’m glad I won’t be the only one, then.
Every year the security forces attempt to convince me to cancel the parade, as
if doing something like that wouldn’t cause riots. The people need these
demonstrations, and anyone who caused trouble here would quickly find
themselves a pariah on the planet.”
Merida snorted. “Which would make you no less dead, as my
guards like to inform me.”
“Mine say the same thing, but I ignore them just this once
out of the year, in return for being a good little leader the rest of the time.
Unless something interesting happens.”
Mirikon laughed as he joined in the conversation. “Ah, so is
that why all your guards were so upset when we ‘dangerous outsiders’ met you
the first time at the quarry?”
Merida looked over, smiling. “Oh, I hear a story there!”
Talia smiled. “Oh, not much of one. You see, we had detected
ships coming through the Gateway, but all our instruments were light-speed
based, so we knew the ships had been there for hours before we detected the
gate’s activation. We didn’t know anything other than the fact that they did
not look like the Demons we had been fighting, so we sent them the standard
‘first contact’ package of mathematical series.” Seeing Merida nod her understanding
of the old first contact protocols, she continued, “Well, imagine our surprise
when the mystery ships answered back with the correct sequence, skipped to the
final line of that sequence, and then proceeded to send out the first and last
lines of all the other sequences in the protocol, in the exact order we would
send them. And then signed off with ‘Hello
Cousins. Nice to see the Children of the Juan Ponce de Leon weren’t lost as had been thought,’ in
English, Spanish, and Japanese!”
Merida chortled. “Oh, that must have caused some
consternation in your ranks!”
Mirikon nodded. “Indeed it did. Their internal
communications spiked dramatically after that, and got very frantic for a
while, until the Premier got to the bunker where they were going to make
contact from.”
Talia’s head whipped around to look at Mirikon. “Wait, you
were already in our systems? How? We had just sent you our translation data…”
“My dear Talia, I mean no disrespect, but we were in your
systems before you first started those first contact protocols. Your encryption
systems were actually primitive enough that if we had not found similar codes
in the historical archives our modern codebreaking algorithms would likely not
have been able to decipher them. There is a reason why the General and I
quietly went over your communications system while we were upgrading your
defenses.”
Merida patted Talia on the shoulder in consolation. “Don’t
worry about it, my dear. Our Commodore here prefers the ‘beg forgiveness’
option rather than ‘asking permission’. But do continue with the story.”
“Hmph! We will be talking about this, Miri, the next time
you want to meet and ‘discuss the evolving political situation’ over drinks in
your suite!”
Merida almost choked, and said, “Are you two… together?”
Talia chuckled. “Oh, no. We’ve just had a few ‘liasons’. And
yes, I know about his harem. But he is the most famous man on a planet of
mostly women. I do not doubt that he has ‘enjoyed’ more than a few of the
leaders on the planet by now.”
“It would be a crime, a true crime for me to look into the
eyes of all those lovely and willing women, and turn them down. And so I make a
sacrifice of my body, bringing pleasure to as many beauties as I can, and if
they should offer me gifts, trade deals, or prime concessions, well, it would
simply be rude to turn down all those tokens of their appreciation.”
Merida struggled to keep smiling for the crowd. “I feel like
I’m in a bad movie or some novel on the net.”
“Ah, my dear Empress, if you are upset that I have not
offered you my services in that regard, I must apologize, and I will gladly aid
you if you call me to service in such a way. Say the word, and I shall bend all
my skills as a cunning linguist to sending you to new heights of pleasure!”
Talia giggled as she watched the Empress’s face grow pink in
embarrassment. “Proposition her after the parade, Miri. Unless your time with
the leader of the ‘Free Use’ party has prompted you to gain a bit of an
exhibitionist streak?” When no one spoke, she continued. “At any rate, the very
scary outsiders who we believed to be from Earth asked to meet, revealing a
fleet of stealth ships that we had completely been unable to detect, and they
were already inside our defensive perimeter!”
Merida nodded. “And he chose a quarry, a nice, open place
that your guards no doubt informed you offered nice firing lines if things
turned nasty, and he needed to destroy you from the air. And he probably came
down not in a shuttle, but with something big and obviously armed to make a point?”
Talia nodded. “His Starlight
Raven and four of his Raptor fighters, flying in formation, before the
fighters burst in a maneuver and then all landed in perfect synchronization.”
Merida sighed in mock consternation and said, “Pilots.
They’re the same everywhere.”
“Then he stepped off his ship with his harem in armor, and
had robots set up a building that grew out of the ground to serve as a meeting
place! If it wasn’t painfully obvious that he could have overwhelmed us before,
by that point even our troopers understood the situation.”
Mirikon shrugged. “We wished to make an impression. If that
impression also included things that moved the cookie jar out of reach, rather
than leaving it as a temptation for those with more greed and ambition than
sense, well, that is best for everyone, now isn’t it?”
Talia turned to look at Merida. “You see what I’ve been
putting up with? This is the kind of thing I’m constantly having to fight
against!”
Merida simply smiled, and nodded. “Oh, let me tell you about
the first time our dear Commodore was introduced to me!”
“This was during the Civil War, yes?”
“Yes, we were in a bad spot, frankly, and while the
destruction of one of the Imperial colonies that refused to submit to Travis
had fired up everyone, we were expecting the Usurper’s forces to regroup and
attack at any moment. But then we started hearing about small rebel groups no
one had heard of before, all in possession of mysterious ‘ghost ships’, which
attacked Earth, as well as logistics supply points, crippling trade in the
Empire.”
“Hmm. I think I see where this is going.”
“Well, I had ordered a small flotilla to make a raid on
enemy supplies in order to help distract the Usurper’s forces, but they were
suddenly joined by the ‘Ghost Fleet’ as everyone was calling them now, coming
to help ‘redistribute’ a good portion of the stored product on that world. As a
major producer of Coffee in the Empire, that would be tragic, yes?”
“A world without coffee is not worth living in, yes.”
“Well, according to my captains, here is how the encounter
went…”
The rest of the parade went easily, as the three traded ‘war
stories’ with eachother.
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Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
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Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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