The bridge of my dreadnought the Rache is dark as pitch as we ghost along the darkness of space. Hidden by two moons, kept off scanners due to the intense radiation from the dying red star of this system, we are all but invisible.
A fleet of fifty-thousand ships, just over two-hundred-and-fifty million infantry, another hundred-million in battleframe pilots and another sixty pilots dedicated to aerial and orbital combat craft.
It is the smallest armada I’ve commanded in two-decades, and yet my enemy doesn’t even have a quarter of the forces I do.
There will be those that claim this is petty vengeance; wiping away the stain of my defeat with a crushing blow. In truth, they are not entirely wrong. Six months we have traveled, agonizingly slow and almost lethargic with our needed pace. There were too many variables to risk being any quicker.
After all, the mighty Imperium has no idea that this armada is here. They’ve fortified all sector-gates and hyperspace lanes on the frontlines, fortified with moon-bases and fleet annihilators stations: the dreaded Ceres Fortresses. We have not made an attempt on the fronts in four years.
“Sir, we’re receiving an encrypted link from Amoridale,” one of the two moons orbiting the planet of Saldeth. “Shall I accept it?”
The soft voice of Communique Officer Terryvale knocks me out of my thoughts. She is a short woman, with a pinched nose and lazy blue eyes so pale they look almost grey. Her shaved head tattoed with angels wings and mathematical equations that I cannot even begin to understand. The lines shadowing her eyes reveal how tired she is after the decades of war.
It is feeling I know well.
I nod.
My optic lenses activate, and the image of a man blooms before me. There is little about him that gives off his rank. He wears dark fatigues, his pale features looking almost vampiric in the gloom. He wears no jewelery aside from a purple and gold dragon pendant on his chest. His face would be considered unremarkable, sharp and decently attractive. But, nothing like the chiseled statues or the dreams-turned-life of his peers. It’s his eyes that give him away: a beautiful burning gold, like catching embers of a furnace.
“How does it feel to be so close?” He asks, a smile tugging at his blue lips.
“Unremarkable. This has nearly taken all the fun out of it. Six fucking months of tedium.”
The man frowns at the language, perhaps believing himself to be above such crass behaviour. Nobles. Even the good ones never managed to take the stick out of their arses.
“Soon it will be done. Remember our agreement. His children must live. I do not care if the entire planet is turned to ash and rubble. But his children will live.”
I hide my displeasure, and surprise. Everyone knows that when Noble Houses go to war, they root them out by the stem. There are no innocents, children are merely the enemies of tomorrow should they be allowed to grow.
Not to mention, ensuring that two young boys remain alive during an orbital bombardment is hardly practical. Not with the little information we’re going on about the planet’s defences and bunkers.
“Rest assured, your noble heart will not bleed for the children. As agreed they will be handed over to you before you begin the second stage.” The man nods to my words, and for a moment a spark of wonder alights in his eyes. I grimace, remembering his reasons for his betrayal. Love truly is the death of empire.
The signal cuts.
“Sir, we’re passed the moons. If they haven’t got us on their sensors yet, they’ll see us soon enough regardless.”
I can’t find it in myself to withhold my laughter as the lights on the bridge activate. Light blue and a deep vermilion.
“All ships to battle formation Beta-Fourteen, form on the Rache.” I raise my hand as I view the firing ranges of our orbital cannons and torpedoes, waiting as it creeps closer and closer to their formation.
I cannot see it, but all around me ships cluster like the tip of a spear.
A high-pitched keening signals that we’ve come in range of enemy fire, and that they are now in range of us.
“Begin”