Chapter 1—Know Only Battle
Imperial Palace
Starguild Capital Complex, Villa Nova,United States Of North America, Terra, Terran Starguild
5/4/2970 C.E., 1815.27 Interstellar Time
The Reverend Corey J. Williams, President of the Terran Starguild, watches from His desk, as the holovid projector plays on the wall in front of his bed, showing Him real-time Webcam footage of the unpleasant scene outside the Seven Worlds Government House, all those ungrateful, goddamn mojadas on the front steps, screaming "GIVE US A VOICE! GIVE US A VOICE!" over and over.
Highly unauthorized Webcam footage...iVU knows better than that, the Terran Law Enforcment Service as well, letting a freelancer get a cam within a mile of the Seven Worlds' capital city at a time like this.
Knocking back half a glass of ancient whisky with his free hand, the inheritor of the Starguild Imperium can only watch, as the rabble infests the steps of Government House and the streets of Hawkland City like the vermin they are, those vogging animals continuing to chant and stomp their feet, the Landcaste officers and their Bondsmen constables just standing there, hands on their weapons, not doing one damn thing to stop them.
On top of that, His bitch—lying facedown on his bed—has the bad vogging manners to whimper for more of what He'd just gotten through giving it.
With the lesser breeds, enough is never enough, observes the Leader Of the Free Worlds, his eyes watching the animal in his thrall writhing on the bed, its whimpering turning into sobbing, as the mojada persists in its attempts to make him subject it to more of the depravity it craves above all else.
Angrily, he knocks back the rest of the four-hundred year old Glenlivet—from around the Phoenix Wars which had begun the Descent—its Lord and Master getting up out of the chair, grabbing the kinky black hair of that worthless piece of ghetto trash, jerking its head up just so He can slap it across the face one, two, three, four, five, six frickin' times, just like it wants him to, like it would do to some other mojada whennever He turned His back on it for even a second.
Its subhuman kind continues screeching in the background for rights they don't deserve, which only serves to make Him that much angrier, as He just keeps beating the slave down like the slave it is, just like it wants him to.
Like all those other mojadas want him to as well.
"GIVE US A VOICE! GIVE US A VOICE!" they all continue chanting , their stomping pounding in his head, as He hauls His bad little piece of vog out of bed, throwing it into the ancient cherrywoof desk, the Anointed Lord of Mankind grabbing hold of its hair again, driving its ugly, face hard into the desktop's mirror-polished surface.
His every breath comes in ragged heaves cooling the white foam running down the corners of his mouth, the President—their President, whether they frickin' liked it or not—stabbing a button on the holodisplay.
If they wanted a voice, then he would give them a voice.
By God, would he ever give them a voice.
"C.J.?!" the holo of First Star Lord Micheal Hayes, His Chief Of Fleet Operations, asks over His Bicomp. "What do we do about them?"
"What the vog do you think I want done with them, Micheal?" his Lord and Master replies, Micheal acting instantly:
"All units, fire at will, I say again, fire!"
On the HV, a Starguild Missouri-class battleship swoops down over the mojadas, its eight 16-inch railguns scourging the streets below, Starmarines and Enforcers converging on those having the indecency to survive, their guns blazing, the mojadas getting what they wanted at long last, the speakers in his office deafening him with the cheering and exultation of those watching this on the InterWeb.
Echoing with the only voice their Anointed Lord would ever permit any of them to have.
Dining Facility #359, Freeman Corporate Arcology
MarBerk Corporate Reservation, Wagoner, Corporate State of Sequoyah, United States of North America, Terra, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1818.00 IST
"Just what the vog's their problem?" Ben Griego asks the Bondsmen he normally supervises ,"We support 'em lazy mojadas, we've been supporting them for over four hundred years, longer than that, and this is how the hell they repay us."
"How the vog they repay us," he repeats, over his third cup of coffee, his plate of fettucine alfredo as yet untouched, as he adds:
"Far as I'm concerned," he adds, "the Starborn can kill all of 'em off, the whole goddamn buncha whiners."
"Damn straight," says Allen Miller," you damn straight they are, nothin' but a buncha damn crybabies, every damn one of 'em, bitchin' 'cause they ain't got no rights....hell, we Bondsmen have been fighting for our rights since the days of the old Starguild, still ain't got 'em yet,. and—"
"—who's goddamn fault is that?!" Larry Moore, over in tech support, demands to know.
"It's 'em vogging mojadas, man," José Gomez, one of Ben's lead men, remarks. "They were the ones behind the Corporate Wars and the old Imperium in the first place."
"That's right," Ben says."Says so in the Great Encyclopedia, the mojadas set us all against each other, and by the time we realized we'd been set up, they controlled the stardrive, the corps, the military, the government, and all the tech, started calling themselves lords and masters, divided all of us up with their caste system, and kept us too busy beating the crap out of each other to even think of wanting to be anything other than their slaves."
"Damn straight," Allen says. "Two hundred years they worked us to death, starved us to death, herded us into communites, infected us with their virus so they could get off watching us kill each other, while they sat there lived like queens and kings on the Seven Worlds and lorded it over all of us."
"And," José remarks,"'em bitches still wonder why we rocked their asses back to the voggin' Stone Age!"
One of the skanks assigned to servicing them flits by, its brief skirt barely covering up its shame.
"Hey, bitch!" José hollers, a brown arm reach out to yank the service unit to him, transferring his grip to its long, glossy black hair, as he forces it to look at the cheeseburger and french fries on his plate.
"This shit is voggin' raw," he spits at it, almost rubbing its grubby little face in the mostly-eaten cheeseburger,"and these fries are cold and greasy."
"Can't get no good service round here," Allen remarks, as all the stupid mojada is capable of doing is going,"I-i-i-i," like a bot with a broken vocalizer.
Slap! goes José's free hand across the animal's face, José hissing:
"I want service, not voggin' excuses, you voggin' wetback!" he shouts at the service unit." They take fifty creds outta my account every voggin' week for this shit, do you know that, bitch?!"
"No," he concludes,"you're too voggin' stupid to know a damn thing other than making us breed you like the subhuman animals you all are, before takin' every goddamn thing from us you can get your filthy hands on, and working us like slaves just to support your worthless," slap!" sorry," slap!,"millivoggin'," slap! " asses!"
"Isn't that right, bitch?!" José asks, spitting the question in its face.
Slap! goes Larry's hand across its filthy ass, his other hand keeping its skirt hiked up so everyone in the dining facility can see its whoredoms for themselves
"Answer him, mojada!" the tech support nerd then orders it, to the cheers and exultation of those watching this online, screaming for Larry to "spank that nasty ass again, Lan'caster!"
"What the vog's with that crying bullshit, huh, wetback?!" José demands, slapping it across its stupid face again, as tears keep rolling down her cheeks.
Ben quickly tires of this mojada's disgusting public spectacle, turning his attention to the holovid projector booming from the far wall of the dining facility, Micheal Hayes, flanked by a pair of Terran Starmarines, as he stands on the charred and bloody steps of the Seven Worlds Government House, telling a free people:
"The rule of law, simply does not apply to enemy combatants, and that was what those people were, plain and simple, foreign troublemakers, instigated by Mechelle McCain," the High Council's Vice-President," and the Legions she willingly serves, just to create problems where none existed. Yes?"
"Micheal Jones," a white-haired bespectaled man, medium height, wearing a brown suit, speaks from the middle of the mob of iVU News reporters at the foot of the steps," Your Lordship, what do you have to say to the claims that the people in the Seven Worlds simply wanted sovereignty or representation on the High Council?"
"You right-wing liberal media talking heads are something else indeed," Hayes, chuckling and shaking his head, replies.
"Damn," he adds, shaking his head, pausing for a few moments before finally answering Murdoch's question:
"It just so happens, Mister Jones, that the majority of the people on all of the Seven Worlds—as opposed to all the instigating rabble rousers, most of whom are not even native to any of those worlds—are perfectlly fine with the way things are now; if you don't believe me, then check the BuLect's IW site for the results of the election held last November, you'll find that, after adjustment to account for the Legions' pathetic attempts to interfere with the electoral process, 73% of the people on the Seven Worlds voted no on Amendment 46 of the Starguild Charter, which would've given them the independence they supposedly wanted, and—again, after adjustment—77% percent voted no on Amendment 49, which would've granted each of the Seven Worlds the full voting representation on the Council you liberal Republican media elites keep telling folks they all want."
He pauses again, and the reporters to laugh, Hayes concluding:
Mess Hall,458th Law Enforcement Battalion Barracks
East Cherokee Street, Wagoner, Corporate State of Sequoyah, United States of North America, Terra, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1819.47 IST
"And, for those of you still believing the mojadas' ridiculous assertions that we somehow made all that up, let me clue you in on a dirty little secret...the head of the Bureau of Elections for the whole goddamn Starguild just happens to be one of them."
"Damn sure is," Constable First Class Geoff Halfacre says, through a mouthful of chili cheese fries, salad dressing and ketchup, the voices of those watching this all over the IW agreeing with him, Dad adding:
"And, even she doesn't think too highly of her own kind," Dad adds," as she proved when she voted for C.J. Williams two years ago, instead of Mechelle McCain."
Terran Law Enforcment Service Constable 1st Class Garrison Lee Hayes picks at his double cheeseburger and fries, only part of him really tuned in to either his Dad or his partner, most of the rest of him still thinking about the mojada they'd rousted earlier in that traffic stop on 69, just a mile out from Chouteau.
What they'd done to her kid, while they made her watch...what they'd done to her afterwards, while waiting on the unit they'd called in to transport her to the Muskogee NOCCM.
What was going to happen to her, that part unpleasantly reminding the thirty-six year old Hayes of twenty-seven years ago, when they'd blamed Bobbi for Mom being murdered.
Hayes sighs, Halfacre looking at him funny but saying nothing...they even sold copies of those three seasons on the IW, Cr59.99 per download, and still, they said she'd only ended up in containment, getting slapped on the wrist while being turned out by the other mojadas.
He'd even told that lie to himself and the three nephews Bobbi had never even seen, even after Jacob had found the footage in his comp, Hayes catching him staying up 'till well past sunrise watching his Aunt Bobbi being—
"Hey?!" Halfacre snaps Hayes out of his reverie. "You there, Garry?"
"Yeah," Hayes replies, repeating himself, taking a bite from the double cheeseburger on his plate, in spite of being sick to his stomach.
"You been doing that shit a lot lately," Halfacre, his mouth stuffed with even more food, observes. "Anything you wanna talk about?"
"Naw, man," Hayes lies,"I'm good."
"You sure, buddy?" Halfacre asks. "You not having problems with your wetback, or nothing like that, are you?"
"Naw," Hayes assures him. "Micki ain't givin' me no trouble, least no more than what she usually does."
"Mojadas is nothin' but trouble, brother," Halfacre remarks, shovelling a forkful of chili cheese fries into his mouth at the same time.
"Not," he adds, food dropping from his mouth back onto his plate with every word,"a goddamn thing b—"
A BOOOOOOOOMMMMM! like the end of the world echoes from the speakers, rattles the windows and bounces off the walls, Dad's holo asking the same question as everyone watching this online, before the holoprojection breaks up.
"What the vog's that all about?" Halfacre repeats that question, as the holovid projector switches to another channel of iVU.
"..uh,uh, bitch!" Dad snaps at her, twisting the naked thirteen-year old mojada around, forcing it to watch...itself, shoving a voggin' toy into its mom as she lays there, bound and helpless on the bed, screaming her head off.
"I said, no, wetback!" Dad adds, fingers balling themselves up inside it, pulling on its hair with his free hand.
"You're gonna see every voggin' bit of what you did to your own mama, you goddamn voggin' little slut!" he spits out through clenched teeth.
"Every..."
...hit she took further ripping the ship apart, the bridge coming down around her ears, as the frightened twenty-year old woman now commanding the Divine Lightning fumbled with the piloting and navicomp controls, taking the wounded Seven Legions war cruiser into stardrive.
Exiting into a hail of 16-inch railgun fire erupting across the forward drivefield, bringing down more of the bridge in crashes of sparks and fire.
"Drivefield geometry destabilizing!" Lieutenant Meliza, fifteenth Clan Potonakro, reports from the engineering station at the rear of the bridge. "Starbord drive housing severely damaged, venting antimatter and coolant, auto-repair system off line, interceptor batteries one to seven destroyed, torpedo launcher knocked out, port anti-ship missile launcher knocked out, tractor beam forward and starboard emitters destroyed, electronic warfare subsystems destroyed, all decks open to space, boat bay destroyed...med section reporting heavy casaulties, 20 dead, 28 wounded."
"We can't keep—" the Anazazi flight engineer starts to say, Bobbi shouting over her:
"All available reactor core power to the drivefield! Guns, return fire!"
She then snaps:
"We have no choice, Lieutenant, get that through your vogging, feathered skull, we have no...."
Aboard the Seven Legions Ship Divine Lightning
Hawkland City Aerospace Corridor, 0.05 AU from Alpha
5/4/2770 C.E., 1820.68 IST
...choice.
"Guns, fire at will, " snaps Senior Captain Barbara Hayes, commander of the Seven Legions Ship Divine Lightning, no hesitation in her voice, as her ship hurls itself at the Terran battleship massacring civs on the planet below," defensive, stand by all interceptor batteries! XO, ahead full, evasive maneuvers!"
"Ahead full, executing evasive maneuvers," her second in command, Commander Aja Morales,calmly replies from the piloting station at the forward end of the bridge, the 10,000-ton Divine Lightning-class war cruiser's gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Abraham Kalsi, reporting from the gun station behind and to the left of the command conn,"Missiles and torps away, railguns o— "
Vog!
The bridge shakes, sparking briefly in places, alarms howling, as the Lightning's flight engineer, Lieutenant Alaine Varnell, shouts from her station behind the comm and lidar operators,"Forward drivefield stability reduced by 62%, primary electrical system 64% disrupted, secondary el system 41% disrupted, direct hit to port drive housing, containment destabilizing in the reactor core, venting—"
"Return fire!" Bobbi snaps. "All nonessential systems to secondary power, all available reactor core power to the drivefield!"
"Got the bastard!" Kalsi exults at the same time, the captain of the Divine Lightning watching the cylindrical 340,000-ton Missouri-class battleship go up in a bright ball of fire, the Seven Legions cruiser's twin sixteen-inch Vulcan V railguns punching through the forward screens of a half dozen Zumwalt-class guided missile cruisers at point-blank range, Aja jerking the stick in her left hand in all directions at once, twisting the cruiser out of the path of 1,200 16-inch rounds streaking towards her with fingers of blue-hot plasma.
Aja brings the railguns to bear on the soft underbelly of a Villa Nova-class heavy cruiser, Kalsi slashing it open, even as the ship's sixteen robotically-controlled interceptor gun turrets hose out short-range bursts of plasma, scouring the surrounding blue sky clean of F18D Freedom starfighters and Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Smashmouth kinetic-kill torpedos and Lancer II kinetic-kill antiship missiles smashing into Broadsword-class assault boats, Elmer Montgomery-class frigates, Sullivans-class destroyers, guided-missile cruisers, heavy cruisers, Ceres-class battlecruisers, battleships and a pair of Ticonderoga-class carriers.
"I think they're pissed," Divine Lightning's navigator, Lieutenant Kelly Forrest, remarks out loud.
"And, whatever gave you that idea, Nav?" Aja quips.
"All those ships coming up from Hawkland Downs and from Alpha High hellbent on our destruction?" Kelly replies innocently.
"That would be a big enough clue, I'd think, Nav," Bobbi remarks, Master Chief Lidarman Danielle DeLuca reporting,"we've got more hostiles inbound from Alpha Highport, another DesRon, squawking Terran Starguild 2d Fleet idents."
"Comm traffic from Alpha's surface, Skipper," Senior Chief Radioman Debbie McKeckney then reports. "Civs running for cover, Terrie Starmarines and Enforcers running around like chickens with their heads cut off, Starguild CFO hollering for extraction at the same time he's trying to explain things to his President."
"Poor pity him," Aja remarks sarcastically, as the Starguild carrier explodes, and a battlecruiser charges in to take its place, all guns blazing, the Seven Legions war cruiser's Vulcans goring it in passing, while Lancers from the starboard missile launcher tear through a pair of heavies hugging close to their larger cousin.
"GSMs inbound from Alpha!" Dani shouts out."Mobiles and fixed silos, estimated time to intercept—"
"Signal coming in from Starguild CFO," Debbie adds."He is demanding to know, quote, 'what the vog do you think you're doing?!' "
"Do not reply," Bobbi says, her voice taut and cold.
"Starmarines to the teleport chamber, hangar bay, launch the assault boat!" she adds, as Divine Lightningcontinues twisting and careening through the clear blue sky of Alpha.
Executive Council Building, Interstellar League of Human Nations
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, New Columbia, United States of North America, Terra, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1822.11 IST
"How in the hell," the Leader of the Free Worlds demands of His First Star Lord,"did your little b—"
"Divine Lightning and her cruflight were on their way here, regardless," Micheal is quick to reply, even as he's ducking down to avoid a burst of two and a half-millimeter steel slugs whizzing over his head at fourteen percent of light speed.
"Really?" Williams asks coldly, glancing away from Micheal's still-beautiful face to the larger HV, now showing the newly-implemented Amendment 1804 of the Starguild Charter in action.
"Their Saikami," the holo of General Sedgwicke Hawkland, the head of Terran Secret Service operations for the entire Seven Worlds system, informs his anointed Master,"personally cut their orders a couple days ago, Your Excellency."
"They were prepared to intervene," Micheal remarks, in between bursts of gunfire,"regardless."
"It would seem that way, " the Leader of the Free Worlds remarks coldly.
"They are only the vanguard," Hawkland adds,"to be followed by the remainder of the Eighth Starfl—"
His holo erupts in white fire and white noise, before it disappears, leaving only Micheal's image floating in front of His right eye.
"What just happened?!" the Leader of the Free Worlds demands of His First Star Lord
"I don't vogging know!" Micheal spits out, blindly firing the assault railgun in his hands at a fast-moving Seven Legions Starmarine, before having the gall to discomm on his anointed Lord and Master.
The Leader of the Free Worlds furiously punching a dent into the oaken double doors of the Executive Council chambers, before throwing them open.
Executive Council Building, Interstellar League of Human Nations
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, New Columbia, United States of North America, Terra, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1824.86 IST
"I trust," Sir Stephen Cameron-Maitland, Chairman of this gimcrack Star League's Executive Council, says, as he stares down his beak at her,"you have an explanation for your unwarranted violation of the Starguild's sovereign rights."
"Murdering civilians is no one's sovereign right," Julie Tallgeese, Saikami of the Confederation of the Seven Legions, replies coldly, breaking off each word as if it were peanut brittle in her teeth.
"Bullying bullies is not murder!" the butcher of New Birmingham thunders down at her. "It is justice!"
"You have bloody Home and Second Fleets in the skies over Hawkland City," the Saikami reminds this serial murderer of the cloth,"Enforcers and Marines in the vogging streets outside the Seven Worlds Government House, and all those people had was their right—"
"They are non-Terrans, mojadas, at-risk children, they have no rights!" Williams screams, his face red, his people cheering him on the InterWeb.
"Freedom," he then condescends,"means responsibilty, and mojadas do not want to take responsibility for the freedom they always insist we simply hand out to them."
"You tell 'em, brother!" a deep masculine voice thunders over the speakers built into the Executive Council chambers, as Williams continues prating:
"Their responsibility is to be quiet, let responsible adultsspeak, and do as they're told, and, if they don't want to do that, then, that's what makes them bullies, bullies who murder entire worlds and try and blame us for it—"
"Oh, God," Julie whispers,"that again?!"
"—and my Starguild, from the darkest days of your Seven Worlds Imperium, has always dedicated its very existence to putting bullies in their place."
"That," Williams concludes,"is our sovereign ri—"
"Oppression!" Malachi Luther Roy III, Lord Grand Cyclops of the New Aryan Order, rants as he stands up and stabs a bony, black finger at her."Oppression is the sovereign right both you and this bitch both claim as a sovereign right! Both of you take pride in your continuing persecution of ethnic and economic minorities, perscution and eradication in the name of superiority; that has always been the goal of the non-Aryan races, from the moment they subverted the ancient Aryan Republic and turned its dream of peace and brotherhood amongst the nations of Europe into a nightmare of imperialism and oppression!"
"Bra-vo," Williams replies, clapping his hands,"bra-vo, Malachi, your outrage is almost convincing, almost enough to fool this body into believing you and this harlot,"he jerks his hand at Julie,"are not allies in the atrocities you two have inflicted upon the innocent beings of this Galaxy time and again."
"That the two of you," the preacher preaches,"have not conspired to subvert order and discipline on Alpha and throughout the Seven Worlds system by funding, equipping and training the terrorists you have turned loose upon our innocent, unsuspecting citizens, not just to deny decent, peace-loving peoples the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but to keep the worlds from seeing just what terror—"
"Terror indeed, Reverend Williams," Malachi ripostes,"terror you, her and your Imperium have resurrected from the grave we laid it in, when we freed space itself of the tyranny of Terra and her Seven Demonic Legions who were and still are nothing more or less than missionaries for the false prophets of death and destruction!"
"The non-Aryans," he adds,"have always hated the superiority of the true Chosen, have always conspired to keep the Chosen down in degradation and oppression , because they are jealous of what they could never—"
" The last resort of the oppressor," Williams screams back in reply,"the race card , used by you and your Legions to make us all equal by making us all equally miserable—"
"It is you and harlots of your Legions ," Rashad shoots back,"who—"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Walker George Chavez, President of the Brotherhood of Free and Democratic Worlds, finally speaks up,"you are doing her Legions' work for her. "
"It has been my people's expirience," he adds, lifting his fat, overprivileged, bourgeois ass out of his chair,"that dissidents, jealous of what we proletarians are capable of achieving without them, will endeavor to make us conscious of our differences, so that we may divide ourselves for their conquest, just as they have now divided the people of Alpha amongst themselves, so that they may more efficently oppress them, and as they have so efficently divided us amongst ourselves, frustrating our great brotherhood of Man, so as to make ourselves more receptive to their conquest in the name of brotherhood."
"A conquest in which you and yours have played a prominent role, " Williams snaps,"true or not true?!"
"Some in my government," Chavez says,"are not as dedicated to the ideas of the proletariat as they should have been and conspired to sell the Seven Legions advanced weapons technology."
"Including the means of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction," Williams counters,"which Starguild intelligence has confirmed are being manufactured by terrorist factions currently operating throughout the Seven Worlds."
"External Security confirms those reports, yes," Chavez replies. "Dissident elements within the Democratic Forces cooperated with the Legions and terrorist elements on Alpha in using the Legions' network of underground factories—secreted in the ghettos of all seven worlds—to manufacture kinetic-kill devices, nerve gas, and other weapons of mass destruction."
"And," he adds," we have conclusive proof that these so-called terrorists are, in fact, commanded and officered by Seven Legions Secret Service personnel."
"As do we," Malachi says. "Proof positive that your government, the Starguild and their Seven Legions henchmen have all been actively using Titan as a base for a campaign of terror and oppression—
"Is that your only big word, Malachi?" Julie finally speaks up, that old fool calling himself a Chairman of this farce snapping:
"I would think the Confederation of the Seven Legions would regard these charges with the same seriousness—"
"What charges?!" Julie remarks, shaking her head, to the outrage of the most of the assembled heads of state.
"—as the rest of us," Maitland finishes.
"Or do you think you can continue with your people's usual arrogant, blatant, cynical disregard for the rest of Humanity?!" he has the nerve to add.
"Your people," Williams supplies helpfully,"were the ones who once swore to eradicate every trace of us."
"And your Imperium weren't as equally hellbent on destroying my people?!" Julie reminds him.
"I only remember the old Imperium being forced into actions your people goaded them into," Maitland remarks,"into confining you to your worlds, stripping your people of their technology and the sovreignty they clearly were not entitled to, after you turned the whole of Humanity into your Bondsm—"
Laughter is the only reply the Saikami of the Seven Swords can give to that tired load of propagandistic nonsense.
"We will see just who is laughing after tomorrow, Madame Saikami," that old fool threatens her, the arrogant Polly asshole adding:
"This Executive Council is in recess until nine o'clock tomorrow morning, when the Terran Starguild and the Brotherhood of Free and Democratic Worlds will present their evidence against the Seven Legions, as a prelude to an unilateral, armed response by the Interstellar League of Human Nations to this problem."
"Once," he added, before banging his gavel,"and for all."
East 53d Street North and Garnet Streets
Hawkland City, Starguild Crown Colony of Alpha, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1840.06 IST
"Vog!" growls Micheal Saint John First Star Lord Hayes, KC.S, SMH, Chief of Fleet Operations of the Terran Starguild's Starforces, First Star Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Marshal of the Seven Worlds, just barely ducking around an alley, a Seven Legions Dragonstar-class assault boat whizzing overhead, its 40-millimeter and five-inch railguns ripping into Starmarines and Enforcers trying to put the boots to the ungrateful mojadas stinking up this worthless shithole planet.
Not that there are too many on the streets, most of them ducking inside the nearest door and locking the sumbitch tight behind them, the rest quickly getting out of the way, as Seven Legions Starmarines swoop down on Terran soldiers and police with their perps, the bitches screaming "SEVEN SWORDS! ONE DREAM!!" at the top of their lungs, as they rip through any and all opposition with two and a half millimeter assault railguns and four-millimeter storm guns, Starguild marines returning fire with their assault railguns and storm guns, Enforcers firing back full-bore with their assault rifles.
"Where the hell's that extraction transport?!" the Starguild CFO screams into his Bicomp, even as he takes a few potshots at a couple of Swordswallowers in passing, running further down the alleyway.
"Inbound to your position, Your Lordship,"some j.g.'s holo replies. "ETA, three min—holy creet, those Swordswallowing bull dykes just burned another one!"
The sky darkens above him, Hayes finding himself looking up into the belly of the bullet-shaped Seven Legions war cruiser which has been raising all this Cain...cursing to himself, as he sees the words Divine Lightning written in silver serif letters against the painful metallic blue of the enemy cruiser's nose....
The ground trembles from kinetic-kill torps slamming into the planet's surface at eighty percent of lightspeed, a flurry of antiship missiles flying out of electromagnetic mass launchers along the front of the cruiser's midsection, all of them flying straight and true for the collection of Terran warships trying to form up and converge on her, the sky flashing blinding white, the ground shaking even worse from more torpedo impacts.
And, the bitch is gone, just like that, swooping down on something else in another part of the city like the predator she is.
Hayes breathes raggedly, the fighting sweeping past the alley's he's in, as he moves further along it...ungrateful, goddamn, chickenheaded dyke bitch, he'd busted his ass and neglected his boys spoiling its ass rotten, trashed his career over it wanting to boost cars, run with gangs, and eating out the stinking-ass cunt of that goddamn Tayler voggin' Webb, and what thanks did he ever freakin' get for that?
His bitch—nine months pregnant with another goddamn breeder—raped, tortured and murdered in cold vogging blood by an ungrateful little brat high on his whisky and his recchems.
Because it was a mojada, all it got for what it had done was a few months containment in Muskogee, learning how to be even harder core, raping and murdering one of the new fish, and only having to choose between the service and being bottom girlie to the top dyke on Hyrken as its "punishment."
Not that the spoiled little brat even voggin' cared, but its Daddy had followed its career, a career that wouldn't even have been possible with him breaking his back to make it do right, whether it wanted to admit that or n—
"Get 'im!" a rough male voice shouts, as machine gun fire showers him with chips of masonry from the surrounding arcologies, Hayes firing blindly, moving back up the alley, as an armored groundcar with a ring-mounted heavy MG and 30 millimeter grenade launcher charges at him full tilt.
The Alliance CFO is able to make out the insignia of the colonial militia on its front bumper.
They were supposed to have been disarmed and locked up, he has time to think, as he keeps running, the gunner behind the heavy MG rips burst after chemically-propelled burst past his ears, the gunner shouting to the others in the car,"Starborn bitch ain't s'damn high and mighty with his pretty white uniform all mussed up, now, is he?"
Hayes squeezes off a burst from his superheating assault railgun, aiming for the radiator, the vehicle's defense screen shurgging it off, the heavy MG gunner snapping off more rounds closer to his head, the car throwing off sparks on both sides, as it scrapes the walls of the alley, the gunner growling,"hold still, damn you!" as he fires another volley of 15mm steel-jacketed slugs at Hayes, Hayes squeezing off another burst, and another after that, the car's screen soaking it all up.
As his assault railgun buzzes, clicks and sheds both of its spent, smoldering, white-hot clips—with no spares for the weapon he'd taken off a dead Starmarine—the First Star Lord of the Admiralty cursing, as he tosses the useless weapon away, drawing his rail pistol, firing twice at the improvised armored car.
The heavy machinegunner Rebel-yells, as Hayes and the car both make it out onto the now-deserted street, the gunner having a filthy grin on his bearded face, as he—
Explodes, along with the rest of the militia vehicle, Starmarines in light powered combat armor flashing into being meters from the CFO, weapons at the ready, one of them, a master gunny sergeant, telling Hayes:
"MyLai's holding teleport station directly overhead, milord, and they have retuned their system to your Encoder freuqency."
the Terran CFO activating the Encoder sewn into the braid of his white dress uniform and leaving the surface of Alpha in a crackling flash of light.
Alpha Motorway 169 and East 101st Street
Hawkland City, Starguild Crown Colony of Alpha, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1846.91 IST
In a thunderclap, Lieutenant Commander Eamon Fitzpatrick and five squads of Seven Swords Starmarines appear in the midst of a far larger group of Terrie Starguild thugs, the Lightning's attached Dragonstar-class assault boat now punishing the area in front of them with KK missiles and hard rounds from the 40-millimeter and five-inch Minigun and Avenger railguns.
Fitzpatrick walks his white-hot 7SARG-17 assault railgun in his gauntleted left hand across a line of Guilders, a firestorm of four-millimeter rounds from the 7SSRG-18 storm gun slung underneath the right arm of his Living Steel power armor ripping through the forward screens of an advancing Starguild Standard Assault Vehicle, before it can bring its six-inch main railgun to bear, the military grav vehicle disappearing in a torus of heat and light.
Fitzpatrick moves forward, the kinestethic sensors lining his powered armor firing the 7SPA-4's plasma rocket pack in short bursts, the eight-being squad under his personal command fanning out all round him, a fireteam of four covering either side of the street.
Too much like twenty years ago, he remarks to himself, remembering Sinclair, the Lightning and her squadron being ambushed in orbit by a Star League "peacekeeping" force exiting jump after its people—without help from the BuLect adjusters—had voted to restore the monarchy and break away from the Guilders, Field Admiral Tallgeese-Morales killed, along with the rest of her squadron, then-Commander Hayes taking the conn and fighting twelve thousand Star League ships in an attempt to get as many people the vog away from them as she could.
He'd been the detachment's master at arms then, on the ground with the rest of Lightning's Starmarines, hindering Guilders, Aryan Schwarzbrüders, and Democratic Naval Infantry at the same time they'd helped Sinclair's militia with the evac.
From there, ten bloody years of war, worse than even the Phoenix Wars four hundred years ago, over three and a half trillion dead on the deck, three times as many wounded or missing, the economies of most of the belligerients—including the Starguild's—in shambles, all culminating in the bloodiest battle in Human history, the Second Battle of Sinclair.
Also known as Bloody Sunday to the veterans on both sides.
Fitzpatrick tries not to think too much more on that, as the Seven Swords Starmarines slowly advance along the street, a flash of movement directly in front of them causing them reflexively to flinch and ready weapons, the holodisplay on his Bicomp showing the flashes of movement to be a group of civilians, caught out at the wrong place and the wrong time.
Hard rounds chasing them, as they cross the street in a panicked run, the last in the line, a little girl, twisting her ankle, falling down, looking back with tears in her eyes, male voices hooping, hollering and shouting vulgar encouragments to one another.
Fitzpatrick glances to his left, sees the other civs stopping short of the street half-paralyzed with indecision, then moves to shield the child with his own armor and screens, as he takes aim at the group of Terrie Starmarine Raiders in the alley opposite him and fires a long, rippling burst from his ARG-17 and his SRG-18 at the same time they pelt his shielding with a massed fusillade.
Armsman 3C Nikita Branch adds her weapons to his, the two of them tearing through the Guilder bastards' shields to reduce them to a fine mist of protoplasm, Fitzpatrick scooping up the little girl, handing her off to the civs cowering in the opposite alley.
"Get the hell out of here," the Black Legion Sword says needlessly, before rejoining the others.
Seven Worlds Government House
221 Main Street, Hawkland City, Starguild Crown Colony of Alpha, Terran Starguild
5/4/2770 C.E., 1850.64 IST
"Admiral," says Admiral Andrew Lord Crowe, KC.S., SMH, Governor-General of the Seven Worlds, "I believe I ordered the militia disarmed and confined to the stockade at High Fort Petraeus."
The Governor-General's back remains turned to his Adjutant-General, as he studies the holos showing the rapidly-deteriorating situation in Hawkland City in particular, and on Alpha in general...it had taken six hundred years, the Spectrals' unwitting aid, the fall of the old Imperium, subtle manipulation, a healthy dose of terrorism, and every other dirty trick at his race's disposal to strip all seven of these troublesome worlds of their independence and put their people in their places as punishment for their daring to defy their Chosen superiors, and those damn mojadas were threatening to bring it all down in less than an hour.
Micheal Hayes and C.J. Williams deciding to whack at Alpha with the biggest hammers they could get their vogging hands on didn't help matters either, he thinks bitterly to himself, watching a militarized crane truck with a half dozen turreted autocannon and plasma projectors rip the shit out of a column of SAVEs, and they just had to time it with Seven Legions cruisers popping out of stardrive for just that reason.
"Your Excellency," a tech speaks up from one of the stations in the SitRoom,"am reading five additional Seven Swords Divine Lightning-class cruisers exiting jump on approach vector for Alpha;IFF idents are Pegasus, Nemesis, Fearless, Resolute, and Eagle."
"Pass the information on to the CFO," Crowe says, another tech shouting,"Sir! Naval Militia warships launching without authorization from Alpha Highport!"
"Vog!" Crowe growls...under normal circumstances, the collection of outdated fighters, assault boats, frigates, destroyers and guided-missile cruiser both Starguiilds had permitted the colonial government to have would've been of no account, only a mocking, symbolic gesture of what they'd once had and would forever be denied.
Today doesn't come under the heading of normal circumstances.
"Goddamn you, Hawkland," Crowe screams, whirling about to confront his Adjutant General,"what the vog—"
The Governor-General of the Seven Worlds sees the white-hot flash, hears the younger Hawkland's voice echoing,"you wouldn't understand, you Starguild son of a bitch."
Then, everything abruptly stops.
Aboard the Terran Starguild Ship MyLai
Hawkland City Aerospace Corridor, 0.01 AU from Alpha
5/4/2770 C.E., 1857.73 IST
"This is Admiral Gralen Lord Hawkland IV," the treasonous bitch's holo booms across his bridge,"Adjutant General of the Seven Worlds Militia! As Governor-General Crowe has accidentally had his vogging head blown off, I have assumed the Governorship of this system, as per the 2760 Starguild Security Act, and, effective 1800.00 Interstellar Time, this date, I am imposing martial law, until such time free, fair, and, especially unadjusted elections resolve the issue, once and for all, of whether or not we wish to remain part of the Terran Starguild.
As such, I have ordered all ground and naval militia units to render all necessary aid and assistance to the Seven Swords forces currently engaged in the defense of our citizens against unwarranted and excessive uses of force by the Terran Starguild against them. All those who want no part of the fighting, find you a hole to hide in 'til the dust settles; everyone else—"
"Goddamnit," Dad screams in Rear Admiral DeForrest Tucker Hayes' ears,"order a voggin' Alfa Strike against 'em!"
"Seven Worlds Naval Militia units now one light-second from us and closing rapidly at 0.8 c, Admiral," the MyLai's lidarman reports.
Hayes nods his head.
"Guns," he snaps." launch Mark 125s, stand by Harpoons and railguns. Air boss, launch all surviving Freedom fighters. Nav, plot an intercept vector for the traitorous bastards. Sparks, advise the rest of the fleet. "
"More like it, boy," Dad tells him, slapping DT on his left shoulder, as he listens to the acknowledgments of his orders, Predators and Spectres launching from the one-million ton Ticonderoga-class carrier's port and starboard hangar bays.
"Ahead full, Mister Harris!" Hayes barks out to the ship's pilot, the Shield drive generators of the MyLai's ten massive stardrive housings pushing the carrier forward, the remains of Home and 2d Fleets forming up on their de facto flagship, as they bear down on the ninety or so ragged hulls of the Seven Worlds' sad apology for a naval militia.
"By God," Dad whoops, clenching Hayes' shoulder even tighter,"we damn sure will give 'em what f—"
The lidar alarm howls in Hayes' ears, his lidarman shouting out:
"Divine Lightning's acquired—"
at the same time the frickin' bridge explodes, and Dad curses incoherently.
...spanking it as hard as he could, spanking it even harder, when it can't hold in the sobs, the screams or the pleas, DeForrest Tucker sticking his fingers in there from time to time for variety, as Avery sits in Daddy's chair, playing with himself while watching Off the Leash! on iVU.
"It's so nasty, ain't it, DT?" Avery asks his older brother, watching Harlee Madison, wearing a leather thong, stockings and high heels, burn lit cigarets on Katee DD's tits, slapping its face when Katee, handcuffed to a rafter in the House's play room, yelps in pain.
Avery tells DT ," this is my favorite scene in the whole movie, bubba," the nine-year old boy then saying,"That's what Barbie likes."
"Damn sure is," his eleven-year old brother replies, spanking his six-year old sister even harder.
Even knowing it wouldn't do any good, Barbie tells 'em,"no, it ain't! I wasn't even—"
"And, now it's lying too," DT snaps back, balling up his fist, drinking another bottle of Daddy's beer, as he grabs hold of its long, brown hair and forces it to.....
Aboard the SLS Divine Lightning
Hawkland City Aerospace Corridor, 0.01 AU from Titan
5/4/2770 C.E., 1903.18 IST
...watch.
Bobbi focusses on the here and now, as her Lightning skins up the starboard side of Deetz's ship, the Vulcans ripping gushing, gaping holes into the Guilder carrier's cylindrical space frame , missiles slamming into the hangar bay on that side, a follow-up volley slipping through the resulting wound to tear the ship inside out.
"Engineering, boost power to the aft drivefield," the Divine Lightning's skipper says needlessly, as her right-hand command holodisplay shows MyLai manipulating his drivefield in an attempt to turn round and bring its guns to bear. "Guns, stick to targets in front of us."
"Aye, sir," comes the reply from both Alaine and Kalsi, torps, missiles and railguns finding targets amongst the surviving Terran warships.
"Gods, Lightning," comes the teasing rebuke from Pegasus' commander, Captain Meliza, fifteenth Clan Potonakro,"do try and save some for us, will you?"
"Take your pick, girlie," Bobbi replies, as CruFlight 832's other five ships get their licks in. "Got plenty of Guilder cocksuckers to choose from."
"Between you and those Alphas out there," the Anazazi female remarks, as the Seven Worlds flagship, an elderly Lockwood-class guided missile cruiser squawking as the Ira Hayes, scores direct hits on five of the MyLai's ten stardrive units"I'm not so sure of that."
The ship shakes slightly, Alaine reporting:
"Aft drivefield stability reduced by 60%, no other damage."
Bobbi nods, watching MyLai firing its eight 16-inch railguns at the twisting, turning Divine Lightning, even as the distance between the two ships widens.
"Guns," she says quietly,"set the next Lancer salvo to home in on the MyLai's drivefield frequency."
"Fire when ready," she adds.
Aboard the TSS MyLai
Hawkland City Aerospace Corridor, 0.01 AU from Alpha
5/4/2770 C.E., 1911.52 IST
"Goddamnit," Hayes curses, as the deck explodes all around him, screaming, burning, dead men slammed into the nose of the ship and smashed flat like so many French-fried bugs.
"Numbers one, three, four, six, seven and eight stardrives destroyed," MyLai's chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Joshua Burke reports."Numbers two and five stardrive housings severely damaged, venting antimatter and coolant, no better than 0.2 c normspace and one-half light per day jump possible; med section reports heavy casaulties, 1,167 dead, 3,914 wounded."
"Weapons status?" Hayes asks, the stench of his burning bridge assaulting his nostrils.
"Main guns off line, no repair possible," Burke tells him," Interceptors one through eighteen and twenty-three through thirty-eight destroyed, defensive computer destroyed, tractor beam generator destroyed, port and starboard missile launchers, port and starboard hangar bays destroyed."
"That's all she wrote, then," his XO, Commander Roland Christopher comments, sweat glistening on his perfectly smooth, perfectly pink head.
"Indeed, XO," Hayes says, disgusted.
"The Hell it is!" Dad snaps. "Air boss, order all remaining fighters to—"
"Additional Seven Legions warships exiting jump on Alpha approach vector!" the lidarman shouts. "Hostiles squawking Third, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Sixteenth Starfleet iden—"
The bridge explodes again.
"Nav," Hayes orders,,"get us the hell out of here."
"What voggin' part of—" Dad starts to object, Hayes shouting over his father:
"Try and get us to the Starguild Naval Yard at Abon-Kar."
"Heissen generators two and five coming on line and answering navicomp commands," the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Warren Krebs, replies, his hands furiously working the nav console to Christopher's right. "Jump in five, four, three, two, one—"
MyLai jumps, the Ticonderoga-class carrier limping through the void at just a little over seven hundred times lightspeed, exiting on approach vector for sparsely-populated world holding this system and sector's naval yard.
"Initiating decel," Christopher reports.
"How much of the fleet got away?" Hayes asks.
"Based on sensor and lidar returns from the surrounding area," Krebs replies, as neither the lidarman nor the radioman are alive,"twenty or thirty ships, various classes, including five known capital-class starships."
"Counting us," he then adds.
Hayes sighs, before saying:
"Get a channel open to the President as soon as possible; I'm sure he'll want to have a word or two with the CFO.
"You have the bridge, XO," he says, undoing the straps restraining him to his chair.
"What's left of it," he remarks, before stepping through the hatch leading to the ship's wardroom.
Aboard the SLS Divine Lightning
Hawkland City Aerospace Corridor, 0.01 AU from Titan
5/4/2770 C.E., 1913.27 IST
"Stand down from general quarters," Bobbi says, her whole body starting to shake in spite of her.
She can just barely control her trembling hands, her fingers fumbling with the buckles of the her chair's restraints, managing to undo them, her knees almost going out from under her as she stands up, eyes on the wreckage of a bridge, as Aja turns the ship over for deceleration.
"Effect repairs," she adds, voice almost gone, as she abruptly turns and walks towards the hatch leading to the wardroom. "Bridge is...."
"...yours, XO," Lightning's AI net tells her , as a burning....
...white light blinds it, his voice, stinking of alcohol, screaming at it, beating it savagely, bending it over and sodomizing it, before stomping it into the floor, kicking her, hauling it back up onto its feet, laying into its tits, ass and twot with his belt and his boots, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he calls it a murdering, goddamn wetback bitch, screaming at it, telling it did it, it did it, it was the one who'd raped, tortured and murdered its own pregnant slut cow of a mother, because it 's a chickenheaded goddamn vogging mojada who hates even the bitch who'd given it birth, and how dare it even try and put all off on him.
It laughs at Barbie, as it climbs up off Mom's dead body, grabbing it by its hair, the mojada wearing Barbie's face changing, face, hair, body.
Taylor's face, hair and body.
Taylor just laughs at the look on Barbie's face, telling it,"this is what we are, baby, what we all are."
Just before it shoves its tongue inside Barbie's gaping mouth, pulling on its hair, as it shoves the three-foot....
"…no," Bobbi whispers over and over, as she sits there and shakes uncontrollably on the sofa in the Lightning's wardroom.
"No," she repeats, through a clenched jaw and the tears running down her cheeks.
—endit—