[CaptRR]

I'm sick so this might not be that good, I hope you all enjoy these two chapters. I know this should provide Rutha sith some storie material.

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Chapter 11

Commander Dravel looked around the round table, most of the seats were empty though. The King Dravel was built to be a command ship, and because of that she had been designed with large briefing rooms in order to accommodate the staff of the various Squadron commanders that would fall under a fleet infrastructure, but now there was only one other ship with them in Agamar, that meant a lot of extra room. One of the results of that extra room was the inclusion of several people who normally didn't attend briefings, one of them being both ships Psychic Weapon Representatives. The PWR was basically in charge of the of the ships Psychic branch. That branch had become more and more important as the Draven fleets reliance on Psychic weaponry increased. But Psychics or Psi's as they were called tended to be an isolated group, there were relatively few in a crews company. Many tended to be receptors for what was termed stray thought, not mind reading per say, but the Psi would experience the same emotion as the person giving out the stray thought. Those emotions could be anything from joy, and happiness to paranoid delusion, and in some cases Suicidal tendencies. Many Psi's couldn't take handle this constant bombardment of stray thought, for that reason suicide among Psi's was extremely high.

For this reason children who demonstrated Psi characteristics were immediately taken into Government custody, before their use for military applications was discovered, they were simply isolated from the general public, it was found that the Psi's couldn't receive stray thought from each other only from Normal people. For many years Psi's lived an isolated existence, shunned away society. A special floating city had been built for them, though not as grand as the other floating Cities on Kornephoros X, it was adequate for the relatively few Psi's that existed. Their isolated life changed though once contact with the Weyrlings had been established. The Weyrlings were a psychic race by nature, and had even been joined together as a collective whole at one time, it was unclear how this collection had been broken, but it was clear that the Weyrlings retained much of their Psychic technology, and once the Central Powers Alliance had been formed that technology was shared with the Dravens.

The results had been staggering. Using amplifiers a Psi's could create bLast wave large enough to destroy a ship. The wave was more powerful than the Depleted Uranium Cannons that had been standard issue on ships in the past, even if it was larger. Almost overnight Psi's were drafted into the military, in order to power these Telekinetic Projectors. Dravel many times detested the way that the Psi's had been forced into military service, but he recognized the realities of the situation. The Republic needed those weapons, and despite basically conscripting the Psi's the Republic tended to treat them as best as they could. Dravel use to joke that the Psi's cabin were twice as big as the Admiral's, and they got twice the pay too.

Dravel knew however how important the Psi's were to the survival of the Republic, and the Psi's by and large accepted their role in Society preferring it to the total isolation of the past.

The door in slid open and the final guest arrived, the Captain of the Furies Edge, Captain Lanare of Acamar. The captain was a short man, probably the shortest man at the briefing, but he carried himself with an air of confidence that had served him well in the Academy were he aced every single command simulation on record. As a result he had become the youngest captain in the history of the Draven Republic.

Once the Captain was seated the briefing started. Dravel cleared his throat, "Welcome," he paused gauging his audience, "We have been given orders."

Anyone who might not have been paying full attention was now riveted on Dravel's words. They had been sitting on the Agamar-Ansuroer warp point for 3 months now, since the Terrens declared war. Since then they had not tried to attack. But there had been reports of several small engagements in the Lesat system, some rumors even of a Weyrling ship being lost.

The lights in the room dimmed and a hologram appeared in the middle of the table showing the warp points in the Draven Republic and the Terren Galactic Imperuim. Currently the northernmost warp point was blinking. "Ok people we are here, in 4 hours we will enter the Ansuroer system and begin unrestricted warfare against any Terren Ships that we find there. We will make our war though the Ansuroer where we will meet up with third fleet. Our goal is to clear Ansuroer so that Agamar won't be in direct danger while third fleet engages the enemies main force."

The PWR from Furies edge interrupted, "Commander, I've never hear of third fleet."

Dravel smiled, "that's because third fleet had never existed until now. Just before war broke out the Weyrlings and us began assembling our forces in the Acamar system. Once the Terrens declared war the Central Powers Representatives Enacted the Sledgehammer Plan. The plan is simple, a joint Weyrling- Draven fleet will go right into the heart of Terren space and destroy all its industrial capabilities. Once the Terrens have been neutralized we will begin annexing worlds for forward bases, with our combined fleets we will have virtual immunity to strike where ever we want."

"Lieutenant Sosha will read the rest of the orders." Dravel watched as Sosha stood, and began o recite the orders that had come a few hours earlier. Dravel never heard a word though, her voice was like a song, and the way she moved was intoxicating. Dravel was sure he had never seen such a beauty in all his life. He wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, to touch her, not as one officer to another, but as a man to a woman. He leaned back in his chair, not really caring how wrong his thoughts were, but just enjoying her voice while it Lasted. Maybe some day, when this war is over, and he was President he would tell her. If that wasn't a reason to survive this war nothing was.

Chapter 12

Golmen sat silently in his chair as the Prime Minister paced in front of him. Yalre was mad, no mad was probably an understatement. Golmen wasn't even sure furious would be strong enough a word to describe the prime ministers mood.

"That ignorant... idiotic, ball of fur. If she was in the same damn sector I would rip her head off with my bear hands!!"

"Yes sir," was all Golmen could say, the Prime Minister always had this reaction after he had talked to the Weyrling Matriarch. She seemed to have a gift for upsetting Yalare that few living beings could achieve.

"I can't believe, she wants to go ahead this Sledgehammer!! Doesn't she realize the cost, and then she wants us to Pay the majority of the cost. Why I ought to..." The rest was a series of curses that Golmen would have sworn were form 5 different Languages. He took a breath, Yalare would have sworn the Matriarch was out to give him a heart attack. Every plan he sent out to Alliance HQ she would have here Representative change just enough to put it against his favor. This time had been particularly bad. Yalare had proposed a joint operation against the Terrens that would have spread the cost evenly over all three Central Powers Members, the Matriarch had changed the proposal to a joint fleet that was mostly supported and consisted of Draven units, after all the Dravens had the most to gain from this operation. The Thermolians still entangled with their war with the Infernal Relms had agreed.

Yalare had been furious with the Matriarch, and he had told her exactly what he thought of her. In response, the Matriarch had the Central Powers Speaker which was also a Weyrling throw him out of the Headquarters building. Yalare had eventually been let back in to the building, but only with the promise that he would act civil. Imagine, a fur ball telling him, the leader of one of the greatest empires in the known Galaxy, what to do. It was embarrassing.

Finally Yalare was starting to feel a little calm, "its ok Golmen you can leave." Golmen left in a hurry happy to be relieved from his role of punching bag. Yalare sat back in his desk.

"Why do you listen the that foolish matriarch?" it was the voice again.

Yalare nodded his head, he really didn't want to deal with this now, not only was the Matriarch preventing him from fulfilling his goals but now he had to deal with that voice in his head, "I have no choice," he said "She has control of the Central Power, I can't do anything military related without her approval."

"You should be running the Alliance, not her."

Yalare smiled, the voice was right, but what did it matter what should be happening the fact is, she was in charge.

"You could be running the Allaince."

Yalare froze, he hated the voice, despite gifts it had given him. Still he wanted control of the Alliance badly, "How?"

"The Matriarch is leading the Weyrling fleet into battle, should something happen to her it would change the balance of power in the Alliance."

"Are you saying that we should kill the Matriarch!" Yalare couldn't believe what the voice was saying. Starting a war was one thing, but killing an Empires leader, especially a friendly one was unspeakable.

"I didn't say anything about killing, I simply said that Combat is dangerous, sometimes there are friendly fire incidents, and escape pods have been known to fail."

Yalare was breathing hard now. How could he even be considering what the voice was suggesting, it was an act of war. No he wouldn't do it, he would not kill an ally no matter how much he loathed her.

The voice seemed to sense his thoughts, "Don't get high and mighty on me now," the voice was different now, no longer cold and calculating, now it was rage, Yalare had never heard the voice so enraged, he was more scared now than he ever was in is life. "I know exactly what you are, I know exactly what you did it!" Suddenly Yalare was assaulted by hundreds of images at once, terrible images. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in them.

"No, that's impossible!" Yalare was not in a panic, what he was seeing couldn't be him, but somehow he knew the images he was seeing were him. Yalare looked down at his hands they were shaking madly, "Great Creator what have I done?"

Yalare was almost comatose for several hours as he struggled with the images now captured forever in his mind. In the end he typed a letter in his terminal, it was short and to the point. It was addressed to a friend of his who was the Captain of one of the Sledgehammer Fleet ships. As Yalare pressed the send key, he knew that he had gone too far.