From the endless fields and vastness of s.p.a.ce,

The monsters came to tango!

And bring the brimstone and the flame.

Spearheaded by the commando!

But all these foes will shortly know,

What is this game’s angle.

No matter what you do, you will fall;

And dance with the death spirit, the Jango!

 ‘s.p.a.ce shanties of the 2nd millennium’

Pendleton press

Tarkan’s fleet, Balisha Meteor’s walls.

“All units initiate phase one!” Tarkan broadcasted throughout his fleet, as the enemy started to swarm through the newly created breaches.

But he was prepared for this with his ‘half-double punch’ maneuver.

It was a fleet maneuvered  that was derived from the strategy of defeat in detail, it was specifically designed to counter an enemy that had you outnumbered and was trying to envelope you from all sides. There were a hundred different variables of it, but the one Tarkan perfected was the following:

It was composed out of three phases: for the First phase you would launch any obstacle available to at the enemy, from mines and missiles, to cargo, be it fuel, extra ammunition, beverages with high amounts of alcohol. h.e.l.l, even ma.s.sage oil at the larger half of the fleet, with the intent to delay its advance. And since, they currently found themselves in the biggest supply base in the subsector, if not the entire sector itself, they had plenty of materials to work with.

That combined with the narrowness of the corridors made the area ideal for this tactic.

BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

The shockwave from the great blast created by the Imperial fleets barraged carried over to their ships, and once it touched them, it provided the crews with the sounds of the explosion.

“Detonation confirmed, the first half of the enemy fleet has been hit badly by the explosion!” the pulsar officer reported as before them hundreds of synchronized explosion had went off in a continued sequence, not enough to cause any serious damage, but enough to spread chaos along the advancing enemy fleet and force their ships to collide with each other.

“All ships turn about and raise the sails, we are proceeding with phase two!” Tarkan ordered.

Phase two was when you’d then maneuver you’re fleet towards the second half of the enemy while the first was delayed by phase one, and if it was big enough, you’d also used the shockwave from the explosion to accelerate your advance.

 Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately, the confined s.p.a.ce of the asteroid helped increase the effectiveness of the shockwave, and Tarkan’s fleet was propelled towards the second half of the advancing Volunian fleet much faster than what was their original design, or what was considered safe.

“All units lower sails, full break while firing at the enemy, we won’t want to get to close, let alone ram them!” Tarkan ordered before his flagship did just that and rammed not one, not two, but five enemy corvettes, the commodore was almost thrown out of his seat as the mighty beast of iron and steel that was his battleship ‘Polemarcus’ shook and bled from the sheer force of the impacts.

“Full barrage, give them all you got!” Tarkan ordered through the shacking of his ship, and a full on automated barrage of fire was spewed out at the Volunians.

 The narrow breach and sheer difference in fire power, armor and size between the Imperial Battleships and Frigates and the Volunian Destroyers and Corvettes was felt, as the enemy ships fell like flies before the onslaught.

“Their pulling back!”

“Good! All ships reverse course and head for the first half; it’s time for stage three!” Tarkan ordered, which basically amounted to a counterattack on the first half, now that they where disorganized from the missiles and obstacles.

And so Tarkan’s ships sliced through the first enemy fleet like a hot knife through b.u.t.ter, leaving nothing but molted sc.r.a.p metal that was once ships and bits of charred flesh that where once alive.

“Forward with all speed! ADVANCE! ADVANCE!” Tarkan ordered with glee as his ships pushed the enemy back, before reality hit them as they were near the exits of the breaches and a moment latter they where too close to the exits.

“FALL BACK! FALL BACK! All ships deploy every bit of mines, obstacles and supplies that can be used as explosives on the newly formed breaches, these sons of towngirl are going to be coming back, also get our fire ships ready!” Tarkan ordered as he sat down, and after a moment of catching his breath, he pulled out from his pocket a clothes brush and started dusting himself off.

“I’d best look my finest for whatever happens next.”  He grimly thought to himself as he finished grooming his uniform and turned his gaze back to the battlefield and waited for the enemy’s next move.

Georgaian’s fleet flagships, Balisha entrance.

“All units tighten our grip on that breach! I don’t want anything getting through!” Georgaian ordered.

“We can’t stop their advance sir!”

“What! Why not?”

“Because their falling back.”

Valyria’s Fleet, Balisha Breach.

“They’re falling back? But why? “ Metternich asked.

“Probably because of the warp storm, they’ll most likely stay in the sun’s corona until it pa.s.ses.” Valyria replied.

“How bad are these warp storms?”

“It depends, the lower ones are just like a strong gust of wind in real life, annoying but not dangerous and our ships are built to withstand them, why the only thing that could be a danger to us would be the ‘Centuria’ and that only comes in…………………………” Valyria cut herself off as realization dawned on her.

“In s.p.a.ce deserts.” Metternich said with a deceptively calm voice, that was masking a screech of terror,

“a.n.a.lysis of the storm has been finished it’s…………………………..” the comm.’s officer who was also doubling as  the navigator and warp supervisor said, before the image of the storm’s level made the words die out in his throat.

Metternich did not have to hear the words to know that it was bad, pauses in speech always meant that whatever mess you where in, just got squared to the power of twenty three, so he simply took another big gulp of water, so as to prevent himself from crying out like a frightened baby, or rather like something that would make even a frightened infant call him a wussy, as the news was delivered.

“It’s…………….It’s……………………….It’s a Centuria!”

“Oh course it is! And to top it off, with all the holes in this meteor, you might as well try to stop a tidal wave with a slice of cheese! A great military leader such as myself deserves nothing less, doesn’t he?!” he mentally lamented as the panic that overtook him was dissipated by virtue of a stomach ache and bladder pain, brought about by drinking to many liquids.

 Bladders where, after all, angry creatures!

He looked at the holes in the ma.s.sive rock they where inhabiting, those great breaches that where about twice the size of a Capital ship and inspiration started to grip him.

“Recall all the fighters, and regroup the fire ships into a single force.” he ordered.

Metternich’s brain now fuelled by adrenaline and the rational thinking process that had gotten him out of countless jams in the past once more brought forth a solution.

“Good idea sir, we’ll begin converting them back to regular ships immediately, heaven knows we need every ships we can get out hands on for the warp storm.”

“Who said anything about converting them back?”

“Sir?”

“I want every ship we have to be converted into a fire ship!”

“Sir, if your intention is suicide before the warp storm hits, I can understand that if it’s your choice, but we should give each sailor the same choice.” Valyria said and wondered whether or not she should discretely place her hand on her sword hilt.

“Rest a.s.sured Valyria, that I have no intention of performing a ma.s.sed capital sin, but I have every intention of surviving this, along with the rest of the fleet.” He replied and gave a smile.

“You’re planning on surviving an energy wave that incineration all, by turning you’re only shelter into an explosive?”

“Yes, That about sums it up!” he said  cheerfully.

“Sir, I think you have had enough ‘water’ for one day.” Valyria replied and gestured with her hand to take the bottle from Metternich.

“Ha! Don’t worry Valyria, I’m of sound mind, and once I explain my plan you’ll see just how sound I am and how it works, but first get Georgaian and Tarkan on comms, we don’t have much time and they need to know my plan as well.” he replied and a minute or so later, the turtle and hive-insect like faces of the aforementioned two appeared in holographic shape on Metternich and Valyria’s private farviews.

“That plan does sound like it could work sir, but it could backfire and we could be engulfed in explosions, why not head for the sun and hide in its corona?” Tarkan asked, before realization dawned on him.

“Oh that’s right, our main engines our busted, I doubt we could get there in time!” he said a bit embarra.s.sed of his slip of mind.

“Also, surrender is now out of the question, we did a lot of damage to the Volunians and I doubt that even Yemen could, or want to restrain his troops.” Georgaian said and a general pause followed as the implications of that statement fell in.

“I think its clear now, where our best chances lie, if any of you have an alternative I’m all ears.” Metternich stated and everyone had a look on their faces, that stated they wanted an alternative but where smart enough to realize they didn’t have anything better.

“Then let’s get started, after the ships have all been converted, I want them deployed at point A4-OMEGA, in the following formation and then…………...”

“…………….Well, G.o.d be with us!” Metternich ordered and they all nodded in agreement and muttered a few prayers in their own various religions, under their breath.

“If it doesn’t work, well, at least we go out in an appropriate manner.” the young commodore stated.

“Fighting sir?” Valyria asked.

“That too, but I was referring to something else.” he replied and gestured to the formation he had ordered the fleet to adopt.

Valyria looked at it in confusion for a moment, until she solved the visual puzzle she was given and a smile graced her insectoid mouth, as she looked at the intended shape of their fleet’s formation, and what it resembled.

“Yes sir, it is appropriate!” she said and gave a chuckle, one which Metternich reciprocated as he stole one last look at their fleets shape.

It was the shape of a nut.

The Occupied Territories, Maramanakama, Tolina river docks.

“Y-you’re highness!” Captain Cameron said in astonishment at the sight of the prince.

“You have something to tell me?” Gelios asked calmly as he lit a cigar.

“You’ve come just in time, these hoodlums have kidnapped us for no good reason and the Creator knows what they would have done to us if you haven’t come in time!” Cameron nearly cried from relief at his apparent rescue.

“They would have probably just continued my orders even if I didn’t decide to tag along.” Gelios replied emotionlessly and all the blood from Cameron’s face was drained, as what he just heard made his complexion become pale from shock.

“B-But you’re highness, why would you want to arrest us, surely we have do nothing treasonous!” Cameron asked, on the verge of throwing himself and the Prince’s feet begging for mercy, the others were not too far behind and it was only the fact that the black suit men and women where purposely keeping them quiet and bound that prevented that.

“Nothing treasonous? Do you have any idea just how much you betrayed me? No, you don’t!”Gelios said as he paced himself from left to right in front of the Cameron, all the while taking drags from the cigar to calm his nerves.

“I mean how could anyone who doesn’t have access to the highest government files possibly know the lengths I had to go trough to economically rebuilt the Maran nation after the invasion! Only they could realize just how much string I had to pull, how many calls I had to make, just how many favors I had to ask in order to make sure that the country would be rebuilt, that any garrison I got would be composed out of enlisted soldiers, instead of drafted soldiers, in order to make sure that the civilian population would be left alone and not swell the ranks of the terrorists!” Gelios said in a speaking voice volume level that betrayed how he was desperately trying to prevent himself from going into an angry rage.

The prince stopped his pacing, took one big drag of his cigar and with a look that could kill gazed at Cameron.

“And only they could know, that just when things finally looked like they had quieted down and the terrorists appeared to be in decline, it was the actions of a certain Captain, who on a certain planet, did a certain ma.s.sacre, that ignited the fires of rebellion so strongly that it made all of the years of hard work I put into stabilizing this area all for nothing!” Gelios said and he breathed out a stream of smoke into the captain’s face, who started chocking from the fumes.

When the smoke dissipated, the expression of fear on Cameron was surprisingly gone, and was replaced by confidence, determination and anger.

“So this is what it’s about, me and my boys and girls chopping up that village!? You’re a real piece of work you know that! You and every other high n.o.ble or royal or rich b.u.g.g.e.r! b.l.o.o.d.y hypocrites the lot of you!” Cameron shouted into the Prince’s face, and had to be restrained by the bodyguards.

“HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A HYPOCRITE!”

“That’s what you are, isn’t it? Who was the one who ordered the invasion, the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the royal family of course! And what happened then? Over a million Maran soldiers died, and from the energy and debris that resulted from the battles, hundreds of times that number of civilians where either put in the hospital or in the morgue, so just how are you and me any different?”

“We came here for a Creator given just cause! To smite all those who wronged us, and out enemy was the opposing government, army and navy, not the civilian population, you dare compare our cause with your bloodl.u.s.t!” Gelios finally lost his temper and shouted at him, to which he just grinned.

“So if you replace ‘I did it because I wanted to’ with ‘I did it because indirectly butchering hundreds of millions is the only way to do the right thing’ as the reason, all of a sudden committing genocide becomes right?”

“Not that’s not it! We didn’t intentionally target those civilians, you on the other hand did!”

“Oh I see! So if an arrow hits a child and kills him, it’s cold blooded murder, but if the arrow first bounced of a wall or a tree before hitting him, then it’s not; No sir, the one who shot it is blameless, he just bought it, brought it and fired it, and he deserves no blame whatsoever, is that what you’re saying you’re highness?” Cameron asked daring the Prince to say some kind of response to that.

Gelio’s anger left him after that statement and he struggled for a few minutes with an appropriate response.

“There were hundreds of dead children on those fields and ditches, some too young to have had a birthday, some of them hadn’t even been born yet!” Gelios replied and gave him a steely challenging glare.

“There where millions of dead children on every field and ditch, of every planet, of every system that you’re sister Cornelia and Gerula pa.s.sed through while they conquered the Maran nation, who might I add were also too young to have a birthday and a lot of them where not born yet either!” Cameron replied and glared back.

Gelios was silent for a few minutes, during which he took another drag of his cigar and closed his eyes in a moment of contemplation; he exhaled the poisonous smoke slowly out of his lungs, so as not to waste any extra moment of delay that the action afforded him for his reply.

“I see that no matter what I say you won’t accept the truth, so there’s no point in continuing this argument.” Gelios said to him.

“That’s my line!” Cameron said to him and dared him to argue, but the Prince did not reply with anything.

“So I’ll only inform you of your sentence and the reason behind it.”

“And why do you intend to kill us you’re highness, the court declared us innocent?” Cameron asked.

“Because what you did was a crime, and criminals need to be punished, justice needs to be served, even if justice is impeded sometimes.” Gelios replied the power of righteous clear in his voice.

“Impede justice? You think we got out because we bribed the judge?” Cameron asked.

“Of course you did! How else could you have escaped prosecution?”

Gelios asked to which Cameroon let out a bellied laugh which lasted for almost half a minute.

After it died down and he recovered he looked into the eyes of the Prince and said.

“You actually think it’s odd that a judge would not condemn a group of soldiers, deployed on foreign soil, for killing foreigners, in the middle of a war against said foreigners?”

“The war is over!”

“Tell that to the terrorist ‘you’re highness’, they’re the ones who are not listening!” Cameron said and another round of a silent staring contest erupted between the two.

“Can I have a drag of that cigar? I think as a dying man, I get one last request.”

Cameron asked and Gelios after a moment’s hesitation complied and took the cigar from his hand and placed the bud in Cameron’s mouth, who he took a few drags, before removing his lips from the cigar and slowly exhaling the smoke to savor its flavor.

“That is one fine cigar! And I’m a connoisseur of them myself, so I ought to know, though you should quit you’re highness, since smokers always die before non smokers.” Cameron said cheerfully before Gelios placed what was left of the cigar in the captain’s mouth and then turned his back and walked away to one of the agents that were holding what looked like a sword, which the Prince took from him.

“One question though, why now of all times?” Cameron asked.

“The catastrophes that fell upon us this month, made me realize that it’s time for a general clean up.”

“For the house, since it’s filthy and also for the host, since if he had been virtuous and efficient, this mess wouldn’t have happened.” Gelios said, as he approached Cameron and the other officers with his sword, his intentions now obvious to the whimpering soldiers.

“So it’s not just us, but every rotten apple in the barrel is it? HA! That’s fine by me! Hey when you finish, go to my apartment and look under my bed, there’s a hidden compartment underneath it, inside there’s a ledger filled with every dirty little secret of mine, my family and everyone we know and did business with, use it to get the others!” Cameron said with a s.a.d.i.s.tic smile on his face.

“No honor among thieves if it?” Gelios said with disgust, he didn’t expect much from sc.u.m, but still…

“It’s like I always say: ‘When the world’s coming to kriff you, make sure you introduce it to all of your friends!’” he replied with a s.a.d.i.s.tic smile, that surprised his officers and made Gelios and his group want to barf.

“Thank you.” Gelios replied before he raised his sword and slashed it down at Cameron, cutting the ropes thank blinded his arms.

“What the……………………………..?”

“Thank you for that lovely confession!” Gelios replied much to Cameron’s confusion.