The sequel to "Deleted" is here. This story follows on straight after "Deleted" and continues the story of the conspiracy seeking to bring down the Galactic Federation. Only the prologue is done so far but hopefully i will not be struck by chronic laziness and keep updating. Still not entirely sure of a title but for now this story will be called Smokescreen of Blood, Part 2 of the Rebirth story line which will comprise of an unkown number of parts with "Deleted" being Part 1. I hope you will all enjoy and as always your reviews are appreciated :)

Oh and I in no way whatsoever own Metroid, Nintendo etc. (although many characters to appear will be of my own fiendish devising)

Enjoy!

The scarlet clouds of the Klar Nebula cast a suitably eerie glare over the derelict ruins of the GFS Valhalla, the ruined battleship that had been all but destroyed by the combined forces of Dark Samus and the Space Pirates at the very beginning of the Corruption War. The corpses of pirate and marine alike still floated endlessly throughout the ravaged vessel and the vacuum of space. Their tortured expressions, of the deepest terror, agony and sorrow, immortalised for all time.

The Klar Nebula, located in the Gaflar System, had all but been abandoned by the Galactic Federation since the Valhalla Incident. The wrecked battleship had been left as a sobering reminder to the Federation of the evil forces that, even in this time of peace, still sought to bring the Federation to its knees.

The Federation were right to be afraid.

The Space Pirates still prowled the stars, the insidious Kriken Empire continued swarming out of its home systems and there were many other unspoken horrors in the darkness, glaring from their hellish lairs.

But the greatest threat to the towering Federation lurked not in underground bases and research facilities on hostile planets but in the corridors of democracy and the shadowy intrigue of politics.

The very fabric of the Federation itself was slowly unravelling as a form of corruption every bit as dangerous and virulent as Phazon moved silently and unnoticed throughout. Relentless and indefatigable.

The silence of the Klar Nebula was shattered by the arrival of the Federation Frigate Agamemnon. From this frigate class vessel a smaller ship was launched. This ship, an Aries transport, was designed to ferry platoons of soldiers or to carry cargo. Right now however, the ship was not heading to battle but was heading straight for one of the densest clouds in the nebula. On the edge of the cloud barely visible at all was a black shape that on closer inspection one would be able to identify as a state of the art space station.

The cone like body of the station, called Shade Station, had two kite shaped structures attached to it which resembled medieval shields. These colossal arrays housed the ships engines and state of the art cloaking field. The station was quite capable of cloaking itself but the interference caused by the nebula's high energy levels meant most ships would never detect it; unless they had been told where to look.

On board the Federation Ship heading for the station was a platoon of soldiers led by Colonel Morgan.

Morgan was a veteran career soldier who had seen action against most of the Federation's enemies at some time in his long time in the army and unlike so many had lived to tell the tale.

He had been born on the mining planet of Myrox, a barren planet on the edge of the Federation famed for its ore, year 2025 of the Cosmic Calendar. Like all young people in the Galactic Federation, Morgan had been fed the endless stream of propaganda about the glory of the Federation and its courageous, unyielding military that brought civilisation and peace to all the untamed regions of the galaxy. Morgan had signed up when he was just 16 and his training period had seemed to confirm the childish view of a benevolent, peace keeping Galactic Federation.

The officers, who regaled the recruits with tales of exotic worlds and grateful natives, were for want of a better word, chivalrous and preached regularly about the Federation's role as the galaxy's defender from destruction and upholder of civilisation and order. The officers also told stories of heroic last stands and of the untold horrors lurking in the dark and yet, in these supposedly factual accounts, the Federation always seemed to triumph despite any setbacks.

Morgan would later learn that at least half of these "knightly" men had never served on the frontlines and any defeats they had suffered were almost always blamed on the ordinary rank and file. These decadent pigs were shipped out to the borders from the safe and secure core worlds to maintain morale and the unwavering loyalty of Federation citizens who, due to their remoteness, could be susceptible to anti-Federation sentiment. Such a tour was often seen as a disciplinary measure among these officers and they longed for nothing more than to be away from danger and back in their cosy homes which they had bought with the stolen lives of the men under their command.

The cause for this level of incompetence and alienation from the ordinary soldiers stemmed from the Federations' own success. Since its official foundation in 2003, the Galactic Federation had expanded to become the largest power in the galaxy. It had done this through, among other things, offering other planets free Federation membership as well as investing heavily in terraforming and colonising previously off limit worlds. The fact it had the largest armed force ever created inevitably helped safeguard its expansion.

The problem was that the original generals, who had been appointed to lead the military upon its creation, had not had to fight any enemy of comparable strength. They had conquered entire sectors and accumulated a colossal amount of wealth from doing very little in the way of fighting. These same generals were the ones still in charge of the military when Morgan enlisted. Over two decades later and they still had no more real battlefield experience.

This would prove disastrous.

Morgan's idyllic view of the Federation was shattered in the course of a military campaign of unspeakable horror. The rose tinted specs he had been viewing the world cracked until, unable to see clearly anymore, he had removed the specs and seen the galaxy and his precious Federation for what it truly was. A festering pestilence, smothering the galaxy in its filth.

This revelation occurred when he and his fellow soldiers and friends had been posted to the world of Azag when Morgan was 20. A couple of quiet years followed with little in the way of serious action save fighting smugglers and wildlife. This had all been shattered when the planet fell under the malevolent gaze of the rising Kriken Empire in the year 2047.

The Kriken, whose advance from a planet of primitive warring tribes to a unified spacefaring empire in only a matter of centuries, had taken everyone by surprise. Not least their unfortunate neighbours, many of whom had only just reached the stage of steam power when the Kriken's armada casually acquired (invaded would imply some sort of meaningful resistance) their worlds and brought them into the imperial sphere of influence. The native populations were appallingly mistreated by their new overseers and a pitiful slide into extinction or acceptance of permanent slavery was the fate of most of these practically new-born races. While such aggressive expansion was condemned by some, such as the Vhozon, many of the established races of the galaxy immediately sought to negotiate with the new superpower which had emerged overnight on their borders.

Any attempt to negotiate however, was doomed to failure. The Kriken declined any offer of trade or alliance and declared boldly that the Kriken had taken their first steps into the stars as conquerors of the weak and as conquerors of the weak they would remain.

This seemingly mad act of declaring de facto war on the galaxy was treated by the "civilised" races of the galaxy as the childish tantrums of an infant who had encountered a set of rules they disliked. This may have been an accurate assessment but these supposedly learned races made the fatal assumption that such an unruly infant would ultimately obey and fall in line once they had finished sulking.

Millions of lives later and the warring factions of the galaxy had finally found something they could all agree on. The Kriken Empire was never going to fall in line and was willing to go to war and commit genocide to prove it.

"Respect your elders!" The older races had cried in protest at the outbreak of war. "Respect your successors!" the Kriken had answered.

So it was that the young empire rose to fight for its place among the stars and usurp the position of those who currently ruled the cosmos. Azag was one of the first Galactic Federation planets to fall in the Kriken warpath.

Kriken battle tactics had changed little since their pre-industrial age and the advent of technology rather than changing tactics had only served to make existing strategy more destructive. These tactics involved quite literally smothering their enemies in a living tide of berserk warriors. However, most Kriken were cowardly and ill-suited to fighting as individuals combat and were physically rather fragile. To compensate these weaknesses swarms of lower caste Kriken would charge, or be forced to charge, enemies headlong while the higher castes engaged in raiding and stealth warfare to debilitate the opposing forces ability and will to fight. This was achieved through acts such as sabotage, assassinations and hostage taking.

Against the Federation the Kriken found that conducting attacks on civilian populations worked wonders to pull troops from the frontline and the damage dealt to morale when the soldiers inevitably arrived too late was palpable. Another favourite exploit for the Kriken to attempt was to sneak into a barracks or tent where Federation troops were sleeping and silently butcher all but a few in their sleep. The survivors would awaken in the morning to the sight of their mutilated comrades, the sound of buzzing flies and the smell of fresh gore. This kind of psychological warfare drove many to suicide.

It was against this monstrously cruel enemy that Morgan had his baptism of fire. While the Kriken were barbaric beyond all measure, Morgan found his hatred gradually being more and more directed at the officers. While the officers on the front line were true soldiers who understood the realities of war, their superiors were not so accommodating. Requests to withdraw were met with refusal or worse orders to counterattack. To disobey such insane commands was to invite execution for treachery.

Morgan watched as the number of friends he had come to war with dwindled away. Many he saw killed before his eyes, others committed suicide, a few even deserted and, if they weren't executed first, fled into the wilderness preferring to take their chances as scavengers and nomads. In the first year of war the Azag Conflict had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Only two generals had perished and that was when their mansion headquarters had been abruptly flattened by a shot down troop transport.

The Supreme Council to their credit, Morgan would have to concede, realised such a position was untenable and removed all unsuitable generals from their positions and immediately implemented a system of meritocracy. The so called Competency Laws sanctioned a critical evaluation of all Galactic Federation officers and those found lacking were dismissed immediately, albeit with enormous cash bonus' to avoid a fuss. New generals soon arrived on Azag and the war began to turn in the Federations' favour at last.

For Morgan though it was too little far too late. Those he cared about had already all died and he wondered why it had taken so much wasted life to convince those in power something needed to change.

They won the battle for Azag. In the end.

The Kriken hordes were pushed back inside their hives where they were obliterated by orbital bombardment. Their massed ground attacks were no longer able to sweep away a properly led, well equipped army backed up with air support. The Kriken Emergence War as it became known was characterised by an incalculable number of dead for virtually no territorial change. The Kriken Empire grew larger just as the Kriken said it would but the worlds they acquired were mostly small and insignificant. For the Federation the war saw the end of military, economic and political stagnation as the Federation rebirthed itself.

For Morgan though, who was awarded the rank of colonel for his services, he knew it was only a temporary resuscitation. The Federation by its very nature was doomed to slide back into stagnation. The Federation was only strong when in a major crisis that potentially threatened its very existence. If there was no threat or if it was a distant one that didn't affect the Federations' core worlds, then idleness and decadence would soon emerge.

The Federation was so vast that even if the outer reaches were assaulted it would take months for any adverse effects to be felt on the capital world of Daiban or the other founding member worlds. The highest ranking generals who lived on these worlds would not enter action until a threat was all too real. Either they would fail and the Federation would fall or there would be nothing more than endless reruns of the Azag Conflict where so much was lost for so little gain.

The situation was unsustainable and Morgan had to make sure that a better alternative was found. He had to use the horrors he had been through as motivation to change the system. To what he wasn't immediately sure of but it had to change. He would make it change and sadly the only way he could do that was by putting the ailing Federation out of its misery.

That was why he had joined the conspiracy. The members of the group, while all having different reasons for turning their backs on the Federation, all agreed on one thing and that was the Federation would have to end. The group referred to themselves as the Rebirth.

Morgan's contacts within the military were especially valuable to the Rebirth and he knew no end of disillusioned soldiers willing to follow him in rebellion. The late James Pierce had been one of the best and it had been a bitter shame to lose such a valuable agent.

The troop transport was entering Shade Station and Morgan ordered to his attendant to bring the briefcase filled with the mission reports. He had a meeting to attend and his fellow conspirators would no doubt be anxious to hear first-hand what had transpired on the Bottle Ship and more importantly what they were going to do now.

The meeting was long and tensions were initially high but as the true extent of the damage was revealed, the conspirator's moods began to lighten. Only a few of them had been directly implicated in the Bottle Ship incident and plans were being made to move those whose cover had likely been blown to research facilities outside the Federation's grasp. Plans for a new facility, the Biological Space Laboratories, had been drawn up and the research lost with the Bottle Ship such as the metroids could be replaced given enough time. The Bottle Ship incident had delayed them but they would make up the time.

The Rebirth's main issue now was to occupy the Federation long enough for their plans to be completed unnoticed. The upcoming enquiry and investigation surrounding the Bottle Ship would have to be postponed somehow and the chief witness, the treacherous scientist Madeline Bergman would have to be silenced. Plans were already being made to tie up that particular loose end.

Furthermore the conspirators knew they had a hunter on their trail. A hunter so persistent and ruthless no prey had ever escaped her before. However, the conspirators knew just the way to throw her off the scent. A smokescreen of blood would distract their hunter long enough for them to cover their tracks.

Morgan was given his new orders and at the meeting's conclusion, he and a few of the more combat orientated conspirators left Shade Station and headed for the Agamemnon. The crew of the Agamemnon were loyal to Morgan, having been recruited almost entirely from the neglected border worlds, and a large number had been informed of the upcoming rebellion. Those who had been informed of the conspiracy and refused to swear loyalty had either mysteriously vanished by the time the ship had next landed or had found themselves in front of a court charged with "slander intended to destabilise the Galactic Federation."

As soon as he arrived back on his ship Morgan and his new comrades strolled into the assembly hall. Virtually the entire crew was assembled. Standing on a raised platform Morgan addressed them. They were all looking curiously at the newcomers he had returned with. After all, Morgan's excuse for being in the Klar Nebula was simply so they could take a moment to reflect on their dead comrades on the Valhalla.

Morgan produced some pages and began to read.

"Ladies and gentlemen,"

Morgan winced at the supremely cheesy opening.

Bloody well sounds like I'm doing a magic trick.

"Today we begin to rewrite our destinies." He read from the sheet one of the more eloquent conspirators had prepared for him.

What kind of soppy poet wrote this garbage?

"From this moment in time we will no longer be mere mortal soldiers but the righteous blades of…"

I'm not reciting three pages of this crap!

Morgan viciously screwed up the paper and hurled it over his shoulder. He knew his men, and such over the top hyperbole was not going to cut it.

"I'll start again shall I?" he jokingly enquired and was received with warm, grateful laughter from his troops.

"I'm sure this will not come as news to many of you but frankly the Federation doesn't give a damn about us. We fight its wars, we die at its whim and we are never thanked for it. The Federation has nothing to offer us but a life of servitude and suffering. I am taking a stand my soldiers for all the ordinary citizens of the Federation. We have a chance to make a difference and get the life and recognition we deserve. We need a new order that recognises hard work not how much money or how many social connections you have."

He could see many people in the crowd nodding in agreement.

"Therefore I am taking this vessel and turning my back on the Federation. I do this not for some selfish chance to gain power for myself but for the long term gain of everyone who as we speak is suffering the injustices of a society that treats them like dirt."

Morgan was satisfied with the look of sombre agreement and understanding his men were showing. Racking his head for a good way to finish, Morgan suddenly remembered something he had read a long time ago which he reckoned he could work in here.

Puffing out his chest, Morgan spoke with authority and zeal. "Soldiers of the galaxy unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

The applause was exuberant and Morgan felt a real affirmation that he was finally doing the right thing by these men. Even the doggedly loyal Corporal Bard, who, used to swear blindly by the Federation like it was his bible, was applauding and saluted Morgan with new found firmness.

The lad isn't as mindless as I thought! Still a scrawny little whelp but I'll work with what I've got.

Bard's salute spread out across the entire hall and soon all the soldiers were following his example. Morgan saluted back before he left the hall and walked to the bridge. Turning to the helmsman Morgan gave his next order.

"Set a course for the Planet Lear." Morgan barked.

The Agamemnon powered up its hyper drives and vanished from the Klar Nebula as suddenly as it had appeared. Silence once again descended upon the Nebula and the GFS Valhalla. The glorious hall for hundreds of wasted lives.

I most enjoyed using this chapter to add a little bit of backstory to the Kriken Empire and am satisfied that I have done them justice in giving them a worthy history.