[CaptRR]

Remember I'm a little behind Rutha in the stories department, I'm catching up and my next one should have me caught up to him, until then though...

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Chapter 9

Commander Dravel was deep in a dream when the com woke him. Which was probably a good thing, since the dream was more of a nightmare, he had been having nightmares ever since the tragedy, he could not even remember one time that he had gotten a good nights sleep. He would always wake up in a cold sweat, images of people dieing by the hundreds of thousands, and he would see himself, helpless to do anything about it. Could do nothing as his people and his father were killed. No not killed, murdered, there was no doubt about that, someone had deliberately murdered all those people.

Dravel wiped the sleep from his eyes, his military training, and years of being woken up in the middle of the night was already beginning to take effect, in a few minutes he would be alert. Alert for what though? He had transferred to Agamar, system a few weeks ago. Apparently there was some intelligence reports that the Terrens who had just got through a major power struggle might try to take advantage of the Republics weakened distraction with the Landing City Disaster. But that was neither here nor there, right now he had a message he had to answer.

He rolled out of bed, and did a small stretch and activated the com on his desk, on the small screen Sasha immediately appeared. Sasha was beauty as far as Dravens go, and being one of the few females on a Republic ship, she was quite popular with the crew, but anyone who thought that she slept her way to the top would be mistaken, below the beautiful exterior was dedicated officer, and despite being in the communications field she was also a gifted tactician. Dravel had tried many times to move her up the chain of command, even trying to get her, her own command. She had turned him the offer's every time, her reply was that she simply "wasn't ready". He suspected that the young officer while being a genius lacked confidence. That would have to change, if she was to advance much higher than Captain.

Dravel suppressed a smile, had she not been in his chain of command Dravel would certainly have tried to court her, but alas it was never meant to be, Navy regulations strictly forbid it. "This is the captain"

Here voice was as beautiful as ever but there was something in it, a dread that seemed to permeate every sound, "Uh, Sir, sorry to wake you, but something just came over the News Service and I thought you would want to know."

Dravel became worried, something bad had happen he knew it, could the Terrens have attacked? No that didn't make since, they were in lightly defended Agamar, a battle fleet would have invaded through here first, so what else could it be. He took a breath, he knew he wasn't going to like it, "what is it Sasha?"

"Uh sir, I..." she stammered for a second, "I think you ought to take a look for yourself." A heartbeat later the com switched, it now showed a lady seated at a desk, there was a lot of activity behind her. Dravel recognized it as the Headquarters of the Dravel News Agency, and the reporter at the Desk was Lelar, the head reporter for the DNA.

She was already talking, Sasha much of patched his com into the raw news feed. "...this startling news comes as no surprise to some, but to most it is a real eye opener, For the first time we now know who is responsible for the Disaster at Landing City."

Dravel Froze, breathing seemed labored, every breath was a struggle. This is what he had been wanting to know for 3 months. Now that he was close to learning it he felt fear, if Sosha's reaction was any indicator he knew that the news was not going to be good, and that there was not going to be any trial, something bad was about to happen, Dravel could feel it.

The reporter continued, "For those of you just joining us, The office of the Prime Minister today released the findings on the investigation into the Landing City Disaster. Most of report was general information about how Landing City was destroyed, but the most stunning of part of the report was the source of the Nuclear Weapon." Lelar, paused as the screen was replaced by a graphic of the letter, 1 sentence was highlighted and enlarged so it could be seen clearly. Lelar read it out as well. "It is the findings of this commission that the Nuclear weapon was in the 1 Kiloton range, and Isotopes taken from the clouds surrounding Landing City at the time, had been able to Identify the origin of the Fissionable Material as Sphinx."

Dravel could feel the room spinning, he fought for balance, and gripped the table as tight as he could, he wanted to scream, to take his ship into Terren space and kill everyone in sight, ravage their planets. Make them feel the same pain that they had caused him. He fought back the tears. It could not be, he thought, what the Terrans had done is and act of war. They had killed half a million people, including several Central Powers Representatives, and most of all the President of the Republic. Certainly they must know that the Draven people would cry for revenge, and the Central Powers would almost certainly be drawn into the conflict. It didn't make sense, but it was true, and the repercussions were obvious.

Commander Dravel looked back at the screen, Sasha was on it now, how long had she been watching him? He had no way of knowing, he calmed himself the best he could, "Sasha, did any other orders come in with the news cast?"

Sasha hesitated for a moment, distracted at seeing her captain, no her Prince, after all he was destined to inherit the Presidency soon, in pain. She had to admit he was an attractive man, and as a women she had often fantasized what it would be like, to be joined to the Prince. All little girls dreamed of that fantasy ever since they heard the fairy tales that had been passed on from generation to generation. Most of those stories involved dragons and castles, and while modern time had neither the romantic air that surrounded it was still there, but Sosha pushed that thought aside, it was dangerous to think such things, it could spell trouble. If he ever knew how she felt it would destroy her carrier, at the very least she would be sent to another ship far away from him.

"Yes sir," she stammered for the words, her thoughts still trying to come out, if only she could speak up, to go to him, hold him in his time of need. She would give him everything she had, some of her strength to help her prince, but it wasn't meant to be. "Yes sir," she repeated again this time with more confidence, "we are to proceed to the Agamar-Ansuroer warp point and wait for orders. If invasion of the system looks imminent we are to take any steps that we see fit to protect Agamr."

"Thank you Sasha," he was able to see a hint of smile on her lips, but just a hint, "Tell the Navigator on duty to proceed to the warp point, when we get there put us on tactical alert, I don't want anything sneaking up on us."

"Yes sir," and with that the connection was cut. Once again Dravel was left alone in the still dark cabin, the wine of the engines was the only sound, and while he new that a war was coming and he dreaded the massive loss of life that was to come, a part of him cried out for revenge, for his people, and for his father.

Chapter 10

"Members of the Central Powers Alliance, the course that we must take is clear, our very future is at stake," Josha sat in the great hall of the Central Powers Alliance Headquarters and listened as the speaker of the Alliance made his speech. The Weyrling was tall, and could most be associated with what was once called a cat, although no one would say that to their face, everyone in the known universe had heard that a Weyrling could tear almost any creature in half with those sharp claws, although that was probably fiction, no one wanted to put it to the test. The new speaker a relative of the Weyrling's Matriarch had rocked the statuesque very little, much to Josha's surprise, but that was changing now as this speech was demonstrating. It had been barely 2 weeks since news of who caused Landing City's demise was released. The news agencies, which Josha suspected were now under the control of the Prime Minster, had shown massive protests, some wanted the Terren's leader's head on a plate, many more though wanted to take the fleet into terren space and wipe out everything.

Josha had never seen such an outcry, and it was showing in the central Powers Representatives. Josha had tried to urge caution, tried to get the Representatives to wait, but he had failed. When the Weyrling's introduced a resolution to plan for military operations against the Terren Galactic Imperium, it had almost been Unanimous. Some Dravens voted against it, but not many. Josha knew that the representatives from his own Republic were up against a wall, the citizens wanted revenge, and if the Representatives tried to get in the way, they would be taken out of the way either at the next election cycle, or perhaps more forcefully. Emotions were running that high.

The speaker continued, Josha could see the speakers mouth moving, but the translators took a second to catch up, "We have already voted for war, that is not the discussion, we must now allocate the funds to initiate the opertion this alliance had voted to initiate." Josha looked down at the terminal in his lap, being the Chairman of the Dravens Defense committee he had been put in charge of planning the Draven side of the campaign, despite his objections to the war, the plan he had put together was elegant and simple. The Weyrling's had put together a similar plan, when the two were combined it looked like a sure fire way of fighting the opening stages of this war. Sledgehammer was its codename, and it seemed to fit, never had any empire or alliance fielded the amount of ships there were to be used in this operation. At first Josha could not believe it himself, the logistics of it were mind boggling, the cost of it was more so, that's what this meeting was about, who would pay the bulk of the cost for the war. The Weyrling's wanted the Dravens to pick up the tab. The Dravens wanted the Weyrlings to. In the end it would probably be a combination of the two, but first the politicians had to play their little political game and see who could squeeze the Last credit out of who.

Josha looked through the names on the list, ships, well over a hundred would be involved in the main fleet, and there would be even more before this is was over. The Dravel shipyards were operating at 110% now, and the newest Battleships were just coming off the lines, a new dreadnaught class was already in the works, again the cost was staggering, but no one seemed to mind now. Everyone was caught up in the fever of revenge, already the battle cry "Remember Landing City" was being circulate around the Draven ships. No one was concerned about the massive loss of life that was to come. As far as Josha knew a war of this scale had never been faught in the known universe, a war that didn't make sense. Why had they bombed Landing City? Certainly they must have known we would find out, and when we did, no peace talk would stop us.

Josha forced himself to relax, the war was on, already the Terrens had declared war because they had been told to leave Draven Space. Although they had attacked no Central Powers Ships, it was obvious they they were staging for a massive attack. The Draven-Weyrling fleet was going to be assembled soon, and Josha knew of nothing that would stop the armada from destroying every Terren in its path.