The Occupied Territories, Maramanakama, undisclosed location.

Ahmaianos stood before the address where he was supposed to go meet n.o.body, he had transmitted the rendezvous coordinates to each and every one of their group’s personal farviews and now, there was nothing left to do, but wait.

 There where still a few days until the deadline for the meeting, but he simply couldn’t wait that long, so he decided to spend his free afternoons on the veranda of a kava shop just across from where the coordinates indicated that they should meet up with him, her or more appropriately ‘it’ for lack of a better term.

As the days went by he noticed that the other members of his group had the same train of thought, so as time pa.s.sed, they gathered near the meeting point, and upon spotting Ahmaianos they joined him at the shop. Currently they all sat around a table, partaking in the various beverages the shop offered, heaven knew they would need it.

Ahmaianos looked at his resistance cell, or rather what was left of it, now being composed of Tubarin, who was distinguished from the others by his thick and short chin beard, while the rest of his face was clean shaven.

The rest all had unique features, Kalamus was the only person in the group to wear gla.s.ses and had a rather nasty burn mark on his right cheek, which he liked to tell was from the war, but was actually from being clumsy with a very hot cup of kava.

Duburius and Usanthus where twins, who where distinguished by the fact that they both had their short hair combed in a different direction,  Duburius had his hair combed towards the right side, while Usanthus had it combed to the left.

Barathamas had a bushy mustache on his lips, while Daiamar had an eye patch and a full rugged beard on his face, and Maiamar had a slim mustache connected to a pair of sideburns that went all the way to his ears.

Paiamara, the only girl of the group besides Kalynka, obviously had no beard, but she did have long flowing hair that was braided into one tail and tied in a bun at the back of her neck.

“Doesn’t any of you know what a shaving razor is?” Akanthos thought to himself as he mentally scrutinized his friends, for after that horrid day on the roofs of Dukhym, the first thing he had done once he was alone, was a clean shave and a decent hair cut.

He still did not remember ever letting his beard and hair grow so much, last time he recalled, he was shaved and trimmed.

“That’s quite a radical change for you Akanthos; tell me what made it come to pa.s.s?” Usanthus said commentating on his new look.

“Its how I’ve looked for years, I’m not some Buduru you know!” he said and the other occupants of the table looked at him in confusion.

“Buduru? What’s that mean?” Barathamas asked.

“You know, its slang for vagabond, a b.u.m, a street guy, all the young adults are saying it nowadays.” Ahmaianos replied.

“All the young adults? Ahmaianos old pal, we’re the young adults, and you’re not old enough to not be one, you feeling alright?”  Tubarin asked, concerned for his friend.

“I’m fine! I suppose that with everything that’s happen lately, I’ve been a bit absent minded.” he replied with a nervous chuckle as his friends appeared to believe his excuse, thought he doubted that they were 100% convinced, for he wasn’t convinced  either.

“Everything’s been so strange, these last few days after the forest fire and volcano, I could have sworn that the city was slightly bigger and different than how it is now, and the dates on all the news papers and channels……. I could swear that the calendar year should be a higher number…………..Just how badly did I hit my head in that attack on the roof?” he though, as he contemplated the possibility of either brain damage or it being the symptoms of early stage of dementia. Then again, he was now preparing to sign on full time for a terrorist organization, so that would probably be a bonus on his résumé.

“Moving on, I suppose everyone’s made their decision in regards to ‘you know what’.” Ahmaianos said changing the subject and putting those thoughts away from his mind.

“I suppose so; still it feels a little……I don’t know a little…” Maiamar struggled to find the right words.

“Wrong.” Paiamara added and the others nodded in approval of her answer.

“I don’t see what’s so wrong about it?” Tubarin replied as a matter of fact as he pulled out a thick cigar from his pocket.

“How can you say that, what we did, what happened was……..”

“The big leagues, that’s what it was Duburius my friend, the big leagues, it’s the very same thing we’ve been doing for the past few years, only scaled up.” Tubarin replied.

“But still!”

“But nothing Paiamara! We all knew what we were getting into years ago, when we started out. What, did you think we would be on the streets forever? That something like this would never come to pa.s.s? We all started this with the intent of one day vanquishing the Empire, well boys and girls this is how you do it!” Tubarin asked and eyed the lot of them, daring the group to come up with some counter argument, but he just got silence and everybody refused to look him in the eyes, except for Ahmaianos.

“When we entered the ‘corporation’ for lack of a better word, we entered with the intent of reaching our objective, and now we’re getting closer and you are actually p.i.s.sed that we’ve taken this to the next level?” he asked a few looked like they were ready to reply but Tubarin cut them off.

“This is how we achieve our objective; this is what you need to do in the ‘corporation’ to come out on top, so stop acting like children, you’re adults, you’re Marans………..but you’re not good people, good people don’t join the ‘corporation’.”

 “The innocent do not sit at this table!” Tubarin emphasized each point with a gentle stomp with his forefinger on the table for each word.

“Tubarin that’s a bi-”

“The innocent do not sit at this table.” a new voice came from behind them, cutting off Kalamus.

They all turned to see who this newcomer was………….it was Kalynka.

 She stood there in silence for a few moments, before joining them at the table, her red flowing hair tied up in a ponytail, fluttered as she turned her head to the counter at the opposite end of the room and called out for a cup of kava.

After the drink arrived, there was a general lack of conversation and silence reigned, as no one wanted to be the one to say it, with the exception of Tubarin who could and should have said it, but he was tired of repeating himself, so he just sat there and clasped his cigar with his mouth as he pulled out a small fire spell brick and prepared to light it.

“We’re in too deep, we could back away, but none of us will; And we tried to deny it, but now we can’t lie to ourselves on what needs to be done, if we are to ever see a new day for us, for our people, we must……we must……….” Ahmaiano’s mouth failed him, as the words that would have followed seemed to be too much, to say out loud.

“We must do what we’ve always done, we must be what we’ve been for the past few years, we just have to do it on a bigger scale…….nothing’s changed my friends……..nothing at all.” Tubarin replied for all to hear and for none to deny, not Ahmaianos, not Kalynka, not even the spider who was hanging upside down from a web in the air went.

And everybody knew they couldn’t deny it, and n.o.body confirmed it.

“Please make room on the table.” a waiter said as he placed a covered tray on the table.

1;

“We didn’t order anything like this!” Kalynka said.

“Complements of one of our patrons.” the waiter replied and walked away from their table and towards kava shops exit.

“What patron?”

“Oh no one special, just n.o.body.” the waiter replied before walking through the exit, Duburius who was nearest to the door leaped up from his seat after the waiter, but by the time he got outside, he was nowhere to be seen.

 “He just vanished!” Duburius said as he returned to his seat and along with the rest of the group gazed at the tray and after a moment’s hesitation one of them lifted it to reveal its content.

“Hey are those things, what I think they are?” Daiamar asked.

“I think so, Tubarin any input?” Ahmaianos asked.

“No comment.” he replied, after straightening his cigar which nearly fell out of his mouth, that was widened in disbelief from just how surprising, the content of the tray was.

“Anybody got a pen?” Paiamara asked, as she took one of the objects from the tray’s content and the others did the same, they looked at them for a few moments in confusion and disbelief before Tubarin finally spoke up.

“Hey you’re the teacher, are these things the real deal?” he asked Ahmaianos.

“They’re the real deal and one hundred percent maran top quality.” came the reply.

For the aforementioned objects where the instruments that were considered the most powerful weapon in any nation’s a.r.s.enal, the one thing that could determine winners from losers, super powers, from fourth rate countries.

They where school enlistment papers.

Ear system, Volunian Fleet Flagship.

Admiral Yemen has up until this point, had a long and ill.u.s.trious career, during which he had faced enemies from all over the galaxy. He had remained calm against every single one of the local sector nations, with which they would occasionally fight over territory, had stood fast against The Empire, remained unmoved against the Republic, and had held the line against the Federation. But now, now when facing a fox, he for the first time in his life, was feeling something new, something unfelt or even though existed within him until now!

It was fear.

“That boy is a demon, his sailors may look the part, but he can actually play that part!” he thought to himself as he gazed and the pulsar screen, not only  was the Imperial Fleet on a direct path towards the area where Balisha was situated, but they were moving at a speed of  Mark 19…….Mark 19!

His own ships where at mark 15 and they where light ships!

“How could he maintain such a high velocity without murdering his crew? Why, the only logical explanation would be too have only a handful on board; but then why has he come here, instead of going towards the Imperial lines? It doesn’t make sense!”

“If he only has a handful aboard, then he has no chance against my fleet! But why did he not retreat? It goes against the most basic rules of war!”

“You strike when you are strongest, at the time when your enemy’s the weakest, not the other way around!”

Yemen frantically thought to himself, as he gazed towards the Imperial ships displayed on the bridge screen before him.

The Empire’s ship design was a balanced model between the 5 basic principles of any war machine, namely: speed, armor, firepower, survivability and maneuverability.

They’re basic shape was that of a cylinder, which was sharpened at a very narrow angle on both ends, at the front there was a sharp needle about a fourth of the ships length, it looked similar like the ones used by atmospheric skywanderers.

Its surface was filled with geometric shapes that resembled very short pyramids, with the tip sticking perpendicularly out of the surface; the base was an unequal rhombus that had the two sharpest of angles, pointed in the direction of the front and the back of the ship.

The surface was entirely covered in theses pyramids, who did not leave a single area where their bases did not touch each other, forming a sort of sloped armor for the ships, one that combined with the nose needle that was there to help deflect energy and physical attacks, made the vessels very difficult to damage, let alone destroy from the front.

From each pyramid tip, one of the ship’s many weapons would emerge to fire on enemy vessels. From rune domes, to golem missile launchers, to warp cannons, the a.r.s.enal was diverse, deadly and after the fired their load, they could retreat back inside the tips to avoid being destroyed by enemy return fire.

At the very base of the surface pyramids, where four pyramids met, a great mast of steel and iron emerged. From it, a great sail made out of pure energy spread itself in all directions, ma.s.sive in size, they dwarfed the ships themselves and where used for both navigating within and outside the warp, by using the energy currents of millions of stars and the solar winds of billions of dead suns.

The sail poles where all arranged in a pattern of circles that depending on the length and size off the ship, measured from five to twelve poll long circles and numbering from the front and all the way to the back between three and 30 circles in all, depending on the size and type of the vessel.

But, the sails where also used when not in combat, in order to preserves the precious power supply of their energy crystals and even recharge them. They were still used in battle to help with maneuvering the ships and a seasoned sailor knew, when to deactivate the sails and when to raise them, for in a fight, maneuverability meant all the difference between life and death.

The main means of propulsion, was of course the eight warp and subwarp engines, that where on the rear of the ship and the smaller ones, that were used for maneuvering and where dispersed  strategically all over the vessel’s surface.

The main engines, where organized with one of them in the middle, surrounded by the other seven. The area where they would burst out a wave of energy, that was used for travel, was a very elongated conic shape, with the tip responsible for releasing the energy cut off just short of the top, this made the engines more difficult to maintain, but drastically increased their protection against enemy fire!

The engines, from a design point of view where not part of the ship, but rather eight structures attached to the rear sharpened end of the ship.

The reason for this, was that unlike other models of ships, that when their engines were destroyed the ships were also destroyed, the Imperials had designed their vessels to detach their engines when struck and the resulting explosion, instead of destroying what was left of the ship, would actually propel it away from most of the damage, this obviously did not always work, but it did increase survivability by a precious few percentiles, and that could mean everything in war.

This kind of design made the Imperial vessels more expensive and harder to maintain, but the Imperials considered it a fare trade.

That was the basic layout for most of the frigates, battleships and cruisers, they had no cannon ships, a fact which Yemen was grateful for, but they did have carriers, any ship carried a contingent of fighters, but carriers where the specialist in that field.

They were slightly bigger, by at least 50% than the battleships, but that’s where the similarities stopped, for unlike the battleships, at about a third of the way from the nose to the rear of the ship and vice versa, there was a sudden depression in their structure, that made the cylinder slimmer by about 20%.

 There, at the beginning of the front’s thicker segment, was an opening which went diagonal trough the body of the slimmer segment and exited at the opposite end, right before the area where the rear part of the carrier had the main engines attached, this was where the Pegasus, BEGS, Skywanderers and Impalers would launch for battle and return to.

Admiral Yemen’s ships on the other hand where designed in a shape similar to a very thinly stretched spinning top, with the handle stick attached.

The front of the ship being the eponymous top and the rear, the engines and the sail masts where the ‘handle’.

This ship design, unlike the imperial one, was made specifically for long range skirmishing. The Volunian ships had most of their armor and heavy shields placed at the front, the sides and rear where very lightly defended.

“Enemy Fleet is five minutes away from reaching Balisha!” the pulsar operator reported to Yemen

“We may have the advantage at long range, but if they reach Balisha, they’ll be in an entrenched position, the fight will close range melee, where their ships excel at!”

“Enemy fleet is four minutes away from reaching Balisha.”

“Also, they have heavy ships, while we are light, and you never attack a heavy ship with a light one!”

“Enemy Fleet is three minutes from Balisha.”

“But, we have superior numbers, we can overwhelm them! Even if he knows where Balisha is located, the only way inside is guarded by a heavy camouflaged door and can only be opened by a special key, of which I have the only copy!”  Yemen thought to himself as his nerves where pushed to the limit.

“Enemy Fleet is two minutes from Balisha, and they are on a direct course for the entrance way.”

“And the walls covering it are too thick to be penetrated by conventional weaponry, so he can’t bypa.s.s the door, he will have to destroy it, leaving him vulnerable to us!”

“Enemy Fleet is one minute away from Balisha, they are now directly above the entrance way.”

“Yet they need it intact, it’s not like the walls are made out of sand!”

“Enemy fleet has reached Balisha and has positioned itself at the entrance!”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Admiral Yemen’s mind became a complete black as he held his breath waiting for what was to come.

“The enemy has pa.s.sed the entrance way and is now going around Balisha!” the comms officer said and gave out a breath of relief, one which the entire bridge crew, along with Yemen gave out as well.

The Admiral had informed them of Balisha, since it looked likely the secret would be exposed anyway, but now he regretted that mistake, and was glad that he was able to regret it, since it proved that this was all a ma.s.sive coincidence.

“Enemy fleet is now at the rear area of the meteor, they appear to be turning around.”

“He came here because of a bad military decision and it was just coincidence he was set on course to Balisha, looks like I was wrong in my estimate of how much of a threat this Metternich really is.” Yemen thought to himself as he let himself relax in his chair.

“We are detecting a weapons discharge from the enemy fleet; it has impacted the asteroids surface!”

“You couldn’t conquer Balisha; you can’t beat the great Giant that it is our country! Serves you right for thinking you can slay a giant with a pebble!“  Yemen thought to himself as he with a rare smile on his face looked at the Imperial Fleet.

378th Heavy Fleet Flagship.

30 minutes earlier.

“We finished circling around, laying course for a second attempt at the crater.” Valyria said to her commander as the fleet began its maneuver.

“Don’t bother, the enemy will be in firing range in about 30 minutes, we just fried all of our main engines with the deceleration, it would take us 5 minutes to turn around, another 13 to stop again and at least 30 more to position ourselves properly for the crater I had in mind, we’re done.” Metternich lamented as he supported his forehead with both arms from disappointment at just how much they krifed up.

Everything was now shot to pieces, they where outmanned, outgunned, isolated and in the open.

“Send a message to the whole fleet, I want a concentrated barrage fired at the asteroid at………let’s say point B12, if we are too be captured, let’s at least make sure they don’t get our ammunition.” he ordered and with a nod of her head and a regretful sigh she gave the ordered to the fleet.

“Outnumbered and outgunned, hopelessly and with defeat staring us in the face, this is where the hero would usually pull of some weird stunt or give a strange order and presto! The tide would be turned and we would win the day.” Valyria mentally lamented to herself, as she gave a side gaze to her commander who moved his forehead from his hands and had enveloped the right hand with the left and has glued his mouth to them, while supporting his chin with the thumbs of his palms.

“This is not some fantasy, this is reality, and no one can pull that off…………..not even you commander.”

“First volley of the barrage has impacted point B12, second volley is being prep-ACTIVITY DETECTED ON THE SURFACE OF THE ASTEROID! POINT B12 IS COLLAPSING ON ITSELF; IT LOOKS LIKE SOME KIND OF CAVERN!” The pulsar operator reported from the visual display screen.

“ALL UNITS RUSH TROUGH THAT HOLE! CRUISERS IN FRONT! CARRIERS IN THE MIDDLE AND BATTLESHIPS IN THE BACK AS A REAR GUARD! AND KEEP THAT SECOND VOLLEY READY! WE MAY NEED IT!” Metternich ordered from the top of his lungs and the bridge crew turned to their commander, surprise at his reaction, Valyria in particular was taken aback by his sudden response, her brain started to process what she, along with the rest of the crew had just discovered about their leader.

For while they where grasping at this newfound and unexpected turn of events and their brains where still processing this new information, Metternich had already formed a response for this new development, and not just any response, but the most efficient and practical of them all!

It was only a split second faster than them, but that mattered, and then and there for all of them, one thing was clear, and that he was a natural born survivor who could seize the moment.

“Looks like my previous statement was wrong after all!” she thought to herself happily as she guided the fleet into the metero, away from the Volunians.

Ear system, Volunian Fleet Flagship.

No words came from Yemen’s mouth, for no words could comprehend what he had just witnessed, but his crew had no qualms about that and where happy to exclaim their astonishment.

“We are detecting a huge cavern from the area where the Imperial Fleet fired! Looks like its big enough for their ships to get in, one at a time!”

“How could this happen, meteors that size don’t just………..they aren’t……….they can’t be penetrated by a single volley!”

“Looks like it was a dustroof filling.”

“A what?”

“Sometimes on asteroids, caves and craters fill with s.p.a.ce dust that overtime becomes compressed and forms a sort of cork made out from dust, small pebbles and stones, those things are called dustroof fillings.”

“Well it’s good to know, and hurray for you, YOU GET A KRIFFING LOLLIPOP!”

“But, that should have been detected when Balisha was built, how could this be overlooked?”

“Well, compressed sand can appear to be a big solid piece of rock, and it many aspects it is just that, you would need a ma.s.sive and constant amount of kinetic energy in just the right quant.i.ty and delivered in a very slow manner in order to make the sand loose enough to be blasted away, but not so much that it could float out of the crater, but the odds for something like that are a million to one!”

And that sentence hit Yemen harder than what he just saw happen before his eyes.

“The doors! The b.l.o.o.d.y doors, those ma.s.sive beasts of iron where inserted forcefully on the entrance way of the single deep crater that contains Balisha, we attached them slowly and methodically so the very body of the meteor itself would hold it in place, once the nails of the door where hammered in!” Yemen thought to himself, as he remembered the slow and arduous process that they used to make the best attachments for the doors possible.

It had taken three days for them to slowly push the nails inside the meteor, during which, he once walked on the meteor’s surface and felt how the whole ma.s.sive s.p.a.ce rock vibrated.

What made matters worse was that they did do scans of the rock, but that was before beginning construction and they did no such scans during its creation, after Balisha was installed, and especially after attaching the doors.

“We did this.......NO........ I DID THIS!” the thought struck Yemen like thunder, a sensation which he was familiar with, the realization making his heart stop beating for a moment, but he had been a soldier for most of his life and his military training and decades and more of battle kicked in, so he regained his wits.

“How long until we reach Balisha?” he asked.

“Seventeen to sixteen minutes sir, we should be able to-“the navigations officer reported.

“THERMAL ENERGY SURGE DETECTED AT THE ENTRANCE WAY! IT LOOKS LIKE THE TWO HALFS OF THE GATE HAVE BEEN WELDED FROM THE INSIDE!” the pulsar officer reported, adding even more horrifying news to this already dreadful day.

“Aren’t gates supposed to be heat resistant!?!”

“Their design to withstand fire from the outside, not from the inside, it’s not like the crew of those bases would have suddenly declare that their doors are hostiles and open fire on them!”

“AND NOW WE PAY THE PRICE FOR THAT OMISSION!”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Yemen shouted as he brought order to his panicking bridge crew, he could only imaging what the other ships must be dealing with, if this if how the Flagship sailors where behaving.

“Comms contact Codolatecas, tell him that he is to move his fleet to the rear of the meteor and besiege that new breach with the first fleet, Baflashin will take his second fleet and fire on the entrance and try to pry it open, the third fleet will bombard the surface of the asteroid in search of other dustroofs.”

“Also helmsman, get this ship to the first fleet, that’s where the main fight’s gonna be and that’s where we will be needed!” Yemen ordered and they all complied and carried out his orders, all under his watchful and hard gaze. They took comfort in that gaze, for to them their leader appeared to know how to counter this sudden catastrophe and looked calm and unbothered by it.

But in truth, he was barely keeping himself together; it was only trough his many years of practice in maintaining the illusion of calmness, that he managed to not show, just worried he really was.

“That new cave is so narrow, that we can barely fit two ships, and the enemy has more than a hundred ships on the other side the cave will be impossible to storm and with Balisha they’ll outlast any siege, we must get the doors opened or find another dustroof, if not, if not…………….”

Yemen could not finish that line of thought, as if there was some danger of that thought becoming a reality, even if it was just a sliver of imagination.

So he could only close his eyes and grit his teeth in anger at the enemy, and with self-hatred, he clenched his fists behind his back, as he though to that day in which he was on the meteor, when it vibrated the strongest and trough being in physical contact with it, he remembered what sound the doors made, as the nails penetrated the body of the rock. He remembered how he was astonished to hear it and how he and the rest of his lieutenants had a good hearty laugh, upon realizing what the noise sounded like then.

But now, no one was laughing.

“This is perhaps the greatest military crisis ever to befall us, and it’s all because of those d.a.m.n vibrations! d.a.m.n them and the sound they made!”  Yemen mentally raged as he almost shouted out loud, but he was old, so he did the shouting in his mind.

“THE GREATEST MILITARY DISASTER IN OUR NATION’S ENTIRE HISTORY, AND IT WAS ALL BROUGHT ABOUT BY VIBRATING ROCK FARTS!”