The Imminent Quarrel

PIRACY AND TERRORISM THREATEN OUR COLONY AND SPACE

December 6th, Year 380 by Anista Sherman

This late afternoon at about 15:25 PM, residents in the Civilian District of Messana, Lemuria's capital city, experienced what is currently rumored to be a combination of both pirate and terrorist assaults at two different places; the main communication array complex at the north of the neighborhood and the Civilian District's Visitor Center. The comm tower was reportedly suffering from computer virus attack, causing the district to lose broadband connection for hours, whereas the residential area suffered bombings around public utility buildings, though the bombs in questions did not have large explosive radius.

Dozens of people in the district, both Indoraptors and Agnaktors, were injured in various degrees during the skirmish between the colony's peacekeepers and the perpetrators, albeit with miraculously zero casualties from both sides. There were three identified terrorists as of tonight; all of which are recognized as Sylvon residents. By the time of this article's publication, two Sylvon terrorists have been captured by one of the Union's soldiers and will be interrogated shortly.

Official statement from Lemuria's Overseer Qorina Arienne at 19:18 PM, with the approval of the colony's security force, indicated one suspect is still at large, and that the bombers presently under arrest will be tried according to the Union's Anti-Criminal Constitution. No proclamation came from the Akantorin Council regarding the possibility of this attack being either false flag operation or political intimidation.

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WIDESPREAD UNREST AS UNION CITIZENS PETITION SYLVONS BE FORCIBLY DEPORTED FROM UNION SPACE

December 7th, Year 380 by Anista Sherman (published with permission on the Frontier Life cyber forum)

A series of vandalism acts perpetrated around Messana's Business and Administrative Districts sparked widespread protests from not only the colonists of Lemuria, but also on other colonies and Earth. Tens of thousands of people gathered in front of capital buildings, on Earth and the colonies as well, demanding that all Sylvons be extradited from Lemuria and be forbidden from entering Union Space ever again.

Early this morning between 5:03 AM to 7:56 AM, citizens and workers came to their workplaces, ready to carry out their daily duties, only to find the walls, windows, and even gateways of their place of work smeared in graffiti with racist writings, sometimes even whole posters full of offensive caricatures plastered everywhere. These graffiti and posters spoke of how the Indoraptors are 'a bunch of ugly lizards which should've been hunted to extinction', and how the Agnaktors are 'weedy and backwards in science and tradition'.

While the graffiti and posters didn't specify who put them there or why, the public, especially those of the Indoraptor Union were quick to blame the Sylvon residents as the source of the public discontent. The Sylvons' disconcerting reluctance to say anything, coupled with the fact that members of the molluscoid species orchestrated terrorism just the previous day, made them target of mass persecution.

The Union Prime Chief, Xen Alven, refused to comment much on the incident when asked, though he admittedly declared an emergency meeting with all the Union's generals and admirals, and allegedly contacted the Agnaktor Republic's Executive Zyr in the hopes of finding a mutually beneficial solution to the problem.

There is still no official word from the Akantorin Council on whether or not they accept the likelihood of their people being expatriated from Union and Republic Spaces.

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Indoraptor Year 380, December 8th, Adar Flam Spaceport, Admiral Kallini Ender's office...

"Admiral Ender, sir."

"At ease, Valzack. Have a seat."

"Certainly, sir."

Being back at the spaceport orbiting Earth was quite a breeze for Raizex. After two days of hunting down an escaped alien terrorist, hitting proverbial dead ends along the way, it was nice to just settle down and try to clean his mind, but no, Admiral Ender just had to call him in for a briefing. While Vion already filed an official mission report that he so generously copied for Xivena to bring back to his homeworld, Admiral Ender kept on insisting that Raizex be present to give him an 'abridged' version of the report. Supposedly something in the report was incorrect?

"I am wondering if the mission report was faulty, sir, or if we had done something unpleasant." Raizex said.

"More like I am expecting to hear unpleasant things from your little groundside exercise, soldier." the admiral added calmly, shaking his head as he sat down behind his desk. Seated in front of the old Indoraptor, Raizex did his best to remain impassive even though he desired to just go back to his post and return to his normal duty.

"What do you wish to know, sir?"

"Everything."

Raizex thought the admiral merely wanted to keep tab on his psychological condition, but the admiral's gaze said otherwise; he wanted to know if anything from the mission back on Messana was out of ordinary. Much to his own surprise, or the lack thereof, Raizex soon envisioned himself back at where it all went to hell.

The young operative was there, standing with his compatriots in the gates leading to the Civilian Zone, watching a multitude of small explosions went off everywhere around him. He was ready to break into action but had no idea where to go first or what to do. The sounds of panicking screams and loud groans from the injured and the witnesses temporarily distracted him. Xivena and Rivea already moved closer toward the still-breathing victims, trying to get them to safety, while Vion ran up a flight of stairs nearby to try and get a clearer sight of the surrounding area.

Raizex mentally slapped himself for stalling. What am I doing back there? He asked to nobody as he approached a wounded Indoraptor under Rivea's assistance. Looking back for a moment, he could see the peacekeepers flooding into the blast zone to secure the area.

"Are you alright, sir?!"

"I'm fine, soldier! I'll live. But I think you should check the pavilion over there! I think I saw a group of skulking figures walking towards the people gathering there."

"Go contact Hyperion, Raizex, I've got this covered." Rivea said.

The Crystalclaw Pavilion? That's the largest open area in the city, the closest public spot to the Civilian District, and one of the most supervised places too... But there were two blasts coming from that place as well. Come to think about it, Raizex pondered as he approached Vion, still scouting the blast zone with his sniper rifle, during the foregoing event three bombs went off but from different buildings, and yet two bombs exploded at the same time from inside the pavilion's fountain at the center. Some two dozen residents got wounded in the district's initial detonation, and yet only two or three people suffered from the effect of the fountain's blast. It could be seen as if the perpetrators wanted to create a smokescreen or a distraction in order to get away while the victims and authorities were in confusion, if Raizex viewed it that way. The three mystery people the wounded Indoraptor mentioned were...

Before he could finish his line of thought, his radio buzzed, indicating someone needing to talk to him. But when he answered it, the voice was neither Rivea's nor Xivena's.

"Raizex, babe, please answer me, over?!"

"I'm here, Lyra. What do you got?"

"I'm tapping into the Zone's security cameras right now, and I think I've tagged at least three individuals who are likely behind this attack!"

The mention of the weird trio folks instantly got Raizex invested, "Okay, keep going. Who are they?!"

"Sylvons, or what I strongly believed to look like them," Lyra's slightly crackling voice from the radio became louder, "I've told you, babe, they were getting very suspicious around everyone ever since months ago, and now I think our doubts are correct all along. We'll need you to find and interrogate the trio before they got away!"

"Alright, keep monitoring them. I'll tell the others," Raizex momentarily excused himself from the call in order to inform his comrades. The city's peacekeepers were already congregating to evacuate the masses, giving Rivea and Xivena a chance to regroup with the others for a while. Walking around for a bit, they found the other two Indoraptors standing on an elevated platform, surveying the crime scene. As Raizex was busy explaining what he had gotten just minutes ago from Lyra, Vion suddenly shouted in anticipation, gaining his attention.

"There! Three figures fleeing to the west of the Pavilion! "

At his partner's prompt, Raizex strained his eyes to witness three individuals, unmistakably aliens, making a run in the direction of the city's hydroponic farms.

"Double time, folks! Lyra, keep an eye on the sectors' security cameras! Xivena, alert the police now!" Raizex ordered as his team broke into a sprint, running past the blast zone into the pavilion.

Seemingly detecting that their lives were in peril, the aliens in conspicuous suits began to run faster, doing their best to evade any obstacles in their way as the pursuing Indoraptors started to gain more ground on them. The chase took them to a small park just outside the pavilion where one of the aliens threw a smaller bomb which wrecked a motorcar, and he did it again as the soldiers pursued them across the Business District and the farmlands. People left and right hurriedly jumped out of the way at the sight of the fleeing suspects barging through the crowds and the chasing soldiers hot on their heels.

Apparently, the bomb-throwing Sylvon forgot that he expended all of his arsenal, causing him to slow down a little as he tried to pull out another bomb from his now-empty pouch. Raizex, fortunately, saw the alien losing his speed, "Sniper, tackle him!"

Vion didn't need to be told twice, "I'm on it."

And with a bang, one of the Sylvons fell, alive but incapacitated. Raizex motioned for Rivea to quickly apprehend the fallen criminal, while he and the remaining compatriot hunt down the two escaping aliens.

Right after they made a sharp turn into a fenced alleyway, they saw the two crooks in the process of climbing the blocking fence in the alley; one was already on top of it whereas the second one was halfway up. Without thinking further, Raizex raised his submachine gun and fired...

"So the last one managed to climb the Zone's tall fence and slip away. But why did the other one failed?" Ender asked.

"We shot his leg, sir. Those two were already this close to running away. It was either let them off or try to capture one," Raizex answered, gesturing with his claws how 'dire' the situation was.

"Hmpf, smart move," the admiral nodded in agreement. "What else happened?"

"This second captive attempted to shot himself in the head."

"Pardon?!" The admiral leaned closer, thinking he probably misheard the last part of the statement. Calmly, Raizex repeated his previous sentence, "The second assailant tried to commit suicide to evade us, sir. Luckily, we stopped him."

Realizing his brief outburst, Ender straightened his posture again, his expression reverted back to that of stoical and focused.

"Ah, very well. Continue."

And so the story unfolded again.

"Surrender or die!" Raizex roared. Before him, the wounded Sylvon lay exhausted on the ground with no means of protecting his life, but in his eyes the signs of defiance in the face of imminent death. The sniper Vion stood on his left, having finished radioing Xivena to bring some security force to incarcerate the two terrorists. Now with a downed criminal under his mercy, Raizex decided to steadily but sternly question the alien. He got to know who the person was, and whether he was associated to any organization.

"State your name and affiliation." Raizex began his interrogation.

"Das vobl'in sivl ubretez!" was all the alien said. Both Indoraptors glanced at each other warily; it was either the translator software in their helmets didn't do its job properly or the alien did not speak in the Sylvon's standard lingua franca, Lavinian, as the species usually did.

"Who or what gave you permission to carry out terrorism activity in our space? What is your goal?" Raizex tried again with more intimidation in his voice.

"Das vobl'in sivl ubretez!" the Sylvon once again repeated the same phrase, eyes kept showing that remorseless glare. Frustrated, the soldier kicked the alien, causing him to cough and bend. "You either speak in Lavinian or in English, dammit! Or would you rather have your tongue cut?" although the roar in his voice was unintended, it was enough to discourage the terrorist from trying to clam up for any longer.

"I will not tell anything! I will not tell anything!"

"Oh, okay. What do we do now, buddy?" Raizex asked with a sigh. Faintly, he could distinguish the sound of marching feet; the police would be there soon, and that's if they brought some of the Union's military personnel with them.

"Bring him in, as per your girlfriend's request. If anybody can squeeze out info from a bad guy, it's the peacekeepers," Vion reminded him of Lyra's plea. As they stepped closer to the downed Sylvon, the alien unexpectedly unsheathed a gun from his suit. The two Indoraptors halted in shock as, instead of pointing the gun to either of them, the alien made a sign of wanting to shoot his own brain out. "Das vobl'in zesc ich gryoqech mich, lhorez! I won't let you arrest me, bastards! Screw you alien scum! We aren't letting your people grow stronger than us!"

And a gunshot was heard.

But it did not come from the alien's gun nor Raizex's. No, the shot came from Vion's sniper rifle, aimed at the alien's weapon in a brilliant attempt to keep the suspect alive for questioning. Now, with the terrorism completely disarmed, the swiftly forthcoming police could arrest him safely.

"Not so fast, little guy."

"Yeah, can't afford to have you off yourself now, can we?" Raizex let slip a sardonic joke as Xivena and Rivea rejoined his team.

With a nod of approval, he spoke aloud to the peacekeepers as they moved closer, "Alright guys, tow him in. Let the police question him first, or beat the crap out of him if the damn alien's uncooperative." Aside from the apparent tiredness in their faces, all of them agreed to accompany the security personnel as they towed the struggling Sylvon suspects back to the city...

"That is all I can share, sir."

At the conclusion of the tale, Raizex stared at his commanding officer expecting some kind of praise or admonishment for anything and everything his squad had done to resolve the situation, but the admiral lingered in silence. The two of them kept on staring at each other; the admiral with his calm but calculating gaze, and the soldier with patient but attentive gaze.

Just as when Raizex wanted to break the stillness by asking a request to leave the room, Ender seemed to have sensed the young male's building-up distress and permitted his to return to his workstation, but with one counsel. Well, in truth Raizex couldn't really remember; was it an unassuming advice or a gentle warning? All he could get was the admiral's words were somewhere along the line of "Be very careful when you travel amongst aliens from now on, son, as they might have painted you as a potential threat to their interests."

Serenity filled the office as the young soldier exited the room. At the moment Admiral Ender turned on his computer, wanting to investigate a number of files Raizex privately sent him. Supposedly the files were a secret 'gift' from Overseer Arienne's security attaché. Not much was said about the 'gift', except an ominous statement about how the files contained sensitive matters regarding the Sylvon Council's military capabilities, including possible signs of developing biological weaponry, and size of the Council's territory. Hypothetically, the mollusks anticipated some kind of war against the Union, but from the introduction files the brooding admiral read for the next half an hour, it looked like the Council preferred proxy war of sort, possibly to keep poking at the Indoraptors until they slip up and reveal a soft spot for the aliens to pierce through.

If this was true, then he'd need to organize security plans with the other admirals and generals.

A threat to the Union, no doubt.

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Sylvon Year 2192 (Indoraptor Year 380), December 9th, Planet Yunduk (Sylvon Space), unspecified location...

"Good morning, councilor. Your formal dress looks very lively today," the spymistress opened their private session with a playful remark. Her expression, regardless of the greeting, stayed smooth.

"Save it for later!" Councilor Astrax brushed aside her words, his facial tentacles curled tightly near his cheeks as he entered the secret office reserved for the two of them to convene in. "What do you have gathered from your agents so far? And remember, we need solid Intel on what the Indoraptors have behind their borders, not shifty data like last time."

"Relax, today we finally have real information."

The bright sunny weather and the woman's positive attitude did nothing to lift Astrax's mood, what with his inability to rest while waiting for the councilor's devious partner to collect information related to their alien rivals. Nevertheless, he refrained from making any unnecessary comments and concentrated his attention to the accumulation of Intel displayed on the spymistress' holographic screen.

"First, let's begin with the three border systems our agents tried to infiltrate," said the spymistress, highlighting three dots on her screen, which represented three star systems located at the outer edge of the Indoraptor Union's space territory. According to what her spies and mercenaries managed to discover, those systems were rich in minerals, namely titanium, platinum, silver, palladium, and iron. Further down the list were names of strange gas and liquid compositions harvested from gas giants and frozen planets, believed by the Union's top scientists to be terraforming materials that could either rise or lower a planet's climate and humidity. The spymistress' agents were unable to breach two systems before being immediately driven out by Union spaceships, but they were able to sneak past the defenses in the third system and stole a handful of mineral caches. "Of course, said caches were full of ordinary minerals, nothing more," the woman explained with a visible frown on her face.

"I assume this is all you got to share? Staging a fake pirate attack does not bring us any desirable effect. Maybe next time we can bribe a mercenary group or two to perform a real pirate raid on their stellar outposts."

"No. Perhaps we have failed twice, but the information we've retrieved is still valuable to some degree. There are still some left. Now pay attention."

Interested at what she wanted to show, the councilor examined the next bundle of information. On the word of the Sylvon agents sent to the Union's colony world titled Lemuria, there seemed to be quite a difference at how the populace was treated. Indoraptor colonists were given plenty of responsibilities, tasks that must be completed as a sign of loyalty to their government, and in return they enjoyed full rights as the Union's citizens; free education, higher living standards, etc. Agnaktor and Sylvon citizens, however, were prearranged with fewer duties to do, and as a result received much fewer civil liberties as residents of the colony planet. The Indoraptors were well policed in all planetary sectors, providing near-perfect safety for their people as a whole, with a few individuals among them even volunteering to be part of the peacekeeping force; the same couldn't be said with the alien citizens, whose living and work spaces were more prone to criminal activity despite attempts to curtail it. Population segregation appeared to be in full effect, the councilor surmised, as the colony map on the screen indicated the Indoraptors living in lavish but efficient architectures around the city center, followed by the Agnaktors who shared some practical spaces with the black lizards, and the close-knit groups of Sylvons living around the city's edges.

"What happened to your planetside agents? Have they returned?" the man queried, caressing his face tentacles.

"The Union's special forces captured two of them before condemning them into out-of-the-way death sentences. Lemuria's Overseer announced to her populace that our deceased agents had been branded as 'terrorists'," the councilor didn't need to look as his partner to know that she was becoming uncomfortable at their third defeat.

The bright sky was slowly getting cloudy as the councilor looked outside. Moving closer to the room's windows, Astrax reflected on the recent news the Council received some 24 hour ago.

Upon the revelation that Sylvon 'terrorists' attempted to provoke the Indoraptors into war, petition after petition were shared on the Union's internet forums, demanding the Council of Akantorin to do either of the three petitions forwarded by both Indoraptors and Agnaktors; issue an official apology to the victims of the attack on Lemuria, have the last escaping agent be publicly executed, or have their citizens currently living on Lemuria be deported as long as hostilities exist between them. So far, the members of the Council hadn't broadcasted their decision, all the while time was running out. Time before both the Union and the Republic declared war on the Council.

"Let us return to our discussion shall we, sir?"

"You are barely talking as of right now."

"It doesn't matter. There's still one more data cache we need to examine. Pay attention, councilor."

Redirecting his focus on the holograph screen, Councilor Astrax was presented with a list of spacecraft specifications and designs of the Union, accompanying them were comparisons against the Council's spaceship designs. The smallest design was titled Raptor-Class, agile and protected by deflector shields, capable of inflicting continuous damage with their laser-based weaponry at the cost of forsaking tough armor on their hulls. The medium sized ships were split in two classes, the Stygi-Class and the Stego-Class, the former has decent armor and shielding with small but rapid-firing autocannons and mass driver cannons, whereas the latter prioritized in strong hull armor and high-powered laser weapons. The third type of ships were also divided into two, the Rex-Class and the Giga-Class, the differences being the former owned a more aggressive role in combat, supporting a vast array of kinetic and projectile arsenal, while the latter played the defensive role, holding ultraviolet laser weapons and more shields than the former. All of them, the spymistress explained, were being upgraded to support quicker sublight travel and more efficient interstellar journeys. As the spymistress noted in her occasional commentary, there was a significant amount of discrepancy between what the Sylvons THOUGHT the Indoraptors were capable of when it came to technological levels, and what the Indoraptors were ACTUALLY capable of in real life.

"I must say, I am both impressed and frightened at how accurate this Intel really is..."

"Are you?" The spymistress flared her tentacles, "This particular data, as far as I'm concerned, allowed quite a large amount of margin error, so unless I'm seeing miracles before my own eyes, the agents were not very thorough at gathering what we needed."

"No, they did no mistake at all," Councilor Astrax replied coldly. He turned to face the spymistress with a grim expression, "Say what you will about margin errors, but the aliens' technology and naval strength are not something we can take lightly. Our warships and... mercenary ships appeared to be left behind by 125 years when compared to the Union's warship. Your top spies never lie to you, and you know that! We either do these 'infiltration' missions correctly or we formulate other plans to try and curb the Union's expansions before they become too strong."

"What can I do, really?" The spymistress darkly smiled and held out her hands as if gesturing an I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-anymore expression, "If you desire an open, bloody conflict with these lizards, then perhaps you should consult the other councilors. I bet you anything, they too are interested in claiming the Indoraptors' resources by force. I work best in spying businesses, Astrax, not in open warfare. I assure you, my spies will have the tech schematics covertly copied in four days, and then you can talk the other councilors into developing and installing them into our ships." With a cold grin the female twirled her face tentacles, eager to get back to work. The male Sylvon sighed loudly as he nodded in approval.

"Bah, fine. You better hope your suggestion really has merit in it. If not, be ready to be replaced by a new spymistress. As I said before, we do this right, or do other, more profitable missions!"

Councilor Astrax stomped his way out of the office hoping to be able to book meetings with certain military-inclined councilors. In his mind he desired a sure way to poke at the Indoraptor Union to exploit their weakness, all the while trying to avoid being caught in the process. What he did not realize, however, was that the spymistress staying behind in the office wasn't merely doing her assigned task; she was contacting her assassins in private to confer the best way to remove Astrax from power, once he actually succeeded in his objective and became too dominant.

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EXTRACTING CODEX...

AKANTORIN COUNCIL'S SHADOW LEAGUE

This particular branch of the Sylvon's regime is the actual governmental body of the aliens of Akantorin, comprised of the most powerful politicians among the species; so influential, in fact, they can push for agendas that the 'officially elected' councilors are not brave enough to perform.

The League formerly began as a small group of corporate businessmen with strong political clout during the dawn of the Sylvon's equivalent of the Renaissance era, where civil rights reared its head for the first time. The organization, founded of no more than three prominent conglomerates at the time, subtly manipulated the state Council in each nations to restrict the growth of these civil rights movement, all the while using double agents to infiltrate the civil rights groups with the aim of guiding them to make poor agendas that, in the end, got them easily crushed by pro-caste and slavery groups. Ever since then, the League's power grew steadily as more and more conglomerates joined the organization, even if their intentions were far from sympathetic to the League's cause.

From the Industrial age up until the Space Exploration age, the Shadow League is considered to be the true rulers of the molluscoid species, although they rarely appear to the public, if at all. The League preferred using officially-selected councilors to serve as their pawns, dealing with day-to-day matters while the real governors plotted every move behind the scenes. Granted, there is also a big chance of one member plotting the deaths of his fellow members just to gain greater power within the organization. The majority of the Sylvon public remained unaware of the truth behind their governmental system, but the most chilling fact is that nearly all of the masses don't care about it at all.

Below is a list of the Shadow League's current members.

Member 1 : Qyn'Lostur (age 88), specializes in public propaganda, brainwashing and slave monitoring.

Member 2 : Bin'Dolzul (age 73), specializes in expansionist programs in space, including first-contact protocols.

Member 3: Irs'Werdan (age 70), specializes in economy and corporate monopoly.

Member 4 : Luz'Daspan (age 81), specializes in information flow regulation.

Member 5 : Cri'Gromr (age 69), specializes in scientific R&D, including its application and commercialization.

Member 6 : Eyr'Aliveg (age 84), specializes in partisan division control.

Member 7 : Ars'Astrax (age 92), specializes in cutthroat politics and DATA BASE CORRUPTED, UNABLE TO FIND PREVIOUS INPUT. PLEASE CONSULT NETWORK SERVER FOR MORE INFORMATION.