Sorry all I've been busy writing a Prelude to a fantasy book I'm writing
Well here's the next chapter,I hope you like it.
2421.3
One War Begins As another begins to close
“The 1st and 3rd fleets have continued to conquer even further into Phong space, yet they still will not surrender, Gentlemen to make matters worse the Praetor has bowed to the Manti Star Empire and the Neo Star Empire and declared all out war on the Maggellan Corporation, and we still don’t know the full capabilities of the Corporation.” Grand Admiral Hallice frowned deeply as he looked at the holomap, the planet hopping campaign was going well for the Empire, entire systems were falling in a matter of months but even at such a rate it would take up to three years to end the war and that was simply unacceptable considering the fact that this war had raged on and off for nearly 18 years now.
“I’m afraid we have to end this war in one fell swoop gentleman and ladies, we need to find the Phong home world and take it out of the equation, either by invasion or orbital bombardment, but it needs to be removed.” Hallice paused as the Admirals around the table murmured.
The Empires best intelligence operatives couldn’t find the enemy homeworld no matter how hard they tried, yet they expected the navy to find and neutralize it in a matter of months, assuming the Phong home world still existed, after all naval intel had shown that the yellow freaks were also at war with a race called the Crystallin Republic, whether these were humans or xenos was still unknown however.
“Well there you have it, we are to conquer the entire Phong empire in under three years as ordered by the Praetor himself, however ladies and gentlemen I will not let this get sloppy, if we fail our mission I will be forced to resign, but damned if I will allow even one life to be lost because I am in a hurry to save my own political ***, understood?” Hallice said bitterly, the other Admirals knew that “Getting sloppy” meant wasting lives on suicidal attacks simply to prove “progress was being made” and they all knew how the Grand Admiral punished such actions but to take over an entire race in under three years seemed impossible.
The entire Admiralty general staff left the room feeling rather grim and doomed by their orders, but Icaran naval officers never failed the Empire before, not even during the Final March all those long centuries ago when they were driven from their Earth and the entire Icaran military was destroyed, if there was a way to conquer the enemy in 3 years they would.
2421.3
Five Swords of Heaven
The five worlds chosen for project “Five Swords” were buzzing with activity, their entire population centers were cut off from the outside Empire, even the capital world Icara was cut off, all communications stopped, the home fleet had even been deployed in a blockade orbit of Icara, ensuring that no ships either entered or left.
All that was known of the Project was that it was a new “ultimate weapon” and that the entire project would take two years to complete.
Meanwhile the war weary troops of the 3rd fleet invaded three more enemy worlds, conquering them all in under a month’s time, Ross ordered the fleet to hold position over their most recent conquest, to allow his troops a rest as well as secure the supply transports captured from the Phong merchant guild.
Ross sat quietly on the bridge of his flagship and watched the video recording that had just arrived from the Admiralty, it was the usual monthly report but this one was special, it had video clips taken from the 1st fleet, showing entire worlds decimated by Imperial guns, Admiral Babcock had destroyed 4 enemy worlds killing a total of 600 million Phong, Ross knew how Babcock must be feeling, even though the Phong were simply xenos the Empire had killed billions of them and would likely kill billions more before the war was out yet the Admiralty put a positive spin on the whole thing, telling the public of the Navy’s heroic victories over dangerous Xeno scum and the Church spun it as a holy crusade purifying the universe of the enemies of God, but here, on the front lines it was butchery pure and simple, it was to preserve the human race and ensure Icara’s survival but it was butchery none the less.
“William, penny for your thoughts?” Ross heard a gentle voice behind him and turned away from the pad playing the video clip, seeing Lin he felt his mood improve almost instantly.
“What’s a Penny?” Ross, tried to sound cheerful but his old friend knew better and patted him on the arm, her smile warmed his mood but even she was getting weary of this ongoing war.
“It’s an old form of currency, haven’t you ever studied Pre-Antimatter economies?” she just smiled quietly after that and sat next to him, both of them just needed to see a friend even if they had nothing to say, they had seen so much death and knew that there was so much more coming.
After several minutes of silence Ross turned to Yu Lin “I hear the
Blackbird scored 4 kills earlier this month.”
“How about that, she’s going to be getting some serious battle honor if she keeps this up.” Yu said cheerfully, after that they began some casual conversation, all the while avoiding the most recent reports that an entire SS brigade was destroyed when the Phong blew up one of their own worlds. The 35th SS brigade had recruited Ross youngest niece Meleena when she was 17, she had gone with them to that world and was among the 400 other dead Icarans of that brigade.
Ross felt angry at himself for feeling so hurt by her loss, he had only met the young lady twice and she was only one out of millions of Icarans who had died in this war, but for some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling of loss and sorrow.
Lin knew more then most how the sting of such a loss felt so she just stayed quiet, and waited for her “stoic leader” to bring it up on his own time and in private, she knew the two of them were getting closer as time went by and she found herself becoming more and more comfortable with that thought as well, even though it made her a little nervous. Ross too was enjoying their knew closeness, in his mind it was the only good thing coming out of the whole damned war.