AUTHOR'S NOTE: I will be posting a chapter each day until the story gets to chapter 9. The reason is because i'm hoping to get a general opinion on the story and get some feedback before i continue with it. ONLY up to chapter 9 will be placed on FanFiction as i'm hoping to publish this eventually :) Cheers
It began in the 25th Century. Humanity had ascended to great power and strength under the United Terran State, formed at the end of the global conflict that was the Third Great War. Humanity had begun spreading across the Solar System, building orbital stations, constructing colonies on Mars, the moon and Pluto. Their home system under control, humanity strived to bridge the gap between their system, and others.
Testing in FTL (Faster-Than-Light) travel had begun.
63 years of research and development lead to the first working prototype of a warp capable starship; the U.T.S.S Ulysses. On 23rd March, 2478, the first case of FTL travel in human history was achieved...as well as the first step into darkness...
The Ulysses entered the warp tunnel, accelerating to 1.2x the speed of light within 0.003 seconds, and exited after 5 seconds of FTL travel. Emerging on the other side, the ship's hull strained as the inertial dampeners kicked in, slowing the Ulysses to a halt.
The Ulysses never came back through the warp tunnel.
Three hours after contact with the Ulysses had been lost, OS-003, the orbital station near Pluto, had lost contact with Earth and the Terran Fleet. All comms had been lost, system scans were unresponsive. The station was too far away to visually see any of the other planets in the system. In their last hours, the crew of the station loaded a backup Ulysses prototype with civilians and military personnel and sent it into warp.
After an hour of FTL flight, the spare prototype dropped out of warp, emerging next to a large, earth-like world. This was their new home, this was humanity's refuge; refuge for the remaining 33,000 people...
Taranis Prime was her name. The remainder of humanity had prospered with their advanced technology on this immense, green and blue pearl in this void of space, making sure to not make the same mistakes that earlier humans did on Earth. Over the next century, the newly formed United Imperium of Taranis spread across the system and its neighbours, colonising worlds, exploiting resources, conducting research and building its military, as well as conducting more...unethical operations.
It was discovered that due to the experimental nature of the backup Ulysses warp core, a portion of the refugees had received genetic alterations. It became evident in newborns that there was a rare chance of the child developing certain, psionic abilities. These people became unstable as they grew older and their powers were amplified. Very quickly, the Terran military saw fit as to abduct these psionic children to be trained for their own use. Through rigorous training, they would be crafted into powerful weapons; assassins and commandos with the loyalty of a drone to its queen and the power to split bone with a thought. Thusly, the Phantom Project was born.
The UIT military deployed these "Phantoms" as part of a special operations task force, using them to eliminate threats before they could truly emerge. Political leaders, revolutionaries, idealists, rebels. None were tolerated, all were terminated.
The Phantoms are the dagger of the government, the knife in the dark. Officially they don't exist...to the people they're a myth.
To one with psionic abilities, they're either your brothers and sisters,
or your death.
