Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or mentioned in this draft, and am most certainly not making any profit off of it.

I finally got chapter 10 finished. The story is starting to kick in now. There are still some loose ends and unanswered questions. Who is Raven? Why is Henson so paranoid with Seymour? Is Seymour really the traitor who is just putting on an act? And what of Von Bolt and Kindle? It's up to you to interpret the story to and find out what's really going on.

Chapter 10

The battle was really beginning to really heat up. Sturm's forces were starting to go into overdrive to make up for the lost ground. However, whenever Sturm's troops got too bold, TA Seymour was all too quick to put them in back their place. The enemy tank units were all laying in pieces, the enemy soldiers' corpses littered the beaches, and the gun emplacements were overrun by Hawke's landing forces. Now all there was to do was to secure the fortress-like citadel overlooking the beach. However, before they could do that, they had to send what was left of Sturm's packing. That was no easy task: the dark lord had finally come to the realization that Hawke was not in command of the landing forces. His tactics were becoming far more aggressive: as if he was fighting for his life.

"It would seem that we have secured the beach for now. Admiral, Hawke, perhaps we should go ashore and personally oversee the capturing of the citadel." Seymour suggested.

"Can I come? Pleeease?" the student said as she entered the command deck.

"It can't hurt. It'll give you some firsthand experience in securing major enemy strongholds," Henson suggested.

"It's settled then. Let us proceed," Hawke said.

It was a long boat trip to the beach, and the command trio learned quickly that the student had never ridden on a boat across choppy water. By the time they had reached the beach, the young girl was dealing with a pretty serious case of sea sickness.

"You know, the waves off the coast of Green Earth can get up to five feet high on a calm day in the right areas. I used to flying over them in my boat. I could spend all day just cruising over the rough waters; just going up and down, up and down, up…and down," The advisor said knowing that he wasn't helping the little girl in the slightest. "When the water was too calm to ride the waves, I would make some large wakes, and then ride over them instead."

"Ugh, make him stop," she whimpered.

"What's the matter Lash," Henson taunted. "Don't have your sea legs yet? You were fine on the ship."

"The ship wasn't bouncing around nearly as much."

"If you're going to be sick," Hawke said, "point yourself that way. I doubt that neither I, nor my colleagues want you vomit all over any of us."

"Harsh," Henson said.

"I didn't mean it that way. I simply meant that she needed to be careful. In the future I would recommend that you take some sea sickness medication." Hawke said apologetically. He placed a comforting hand on the young girl's shoulder. She turned and smiled at him.

"Thanks Hawke."

-----

By the time they had made it to the entrance of the citadel, the place was already secured. They just had to contact Bolt and tell him that the shores were clear and he could start landing forces en masse. They were one step closer to breaking the back of the rebel forces. When they reached the command center, they all breathed easier. There was just something about standing at the control center of the enemy stronghold that seemed to confirm the victory. Lash took this opportunity to look at the enemy technology… and "acquire" some designs.

"It would seem that we will soon be seeing the last of Lord Sturm, and this rebel uprising," Seymour said with a smile

"So we can all begin to sleep easier?" Lash asked.

"So it would seem." It was then that Seymour looked at one of the security monitors in the control room. "Excuse me; there are a few matters that require my attention." As he left, Hawke threw a suspicious look towards Henson.

"Something isn't right. Seymour is up to something," Hawke said. "We should check it out."

"Agreed," Henson said. "You go on ahead; I will join you later."

"Wait. What's going on?" Lash asked.

"Seymour is a traitor. He brought us here to kill us all. He's probably going off to tell Sturm were to land his troops. It's up to us to stop him," Henson told her.

"Slow down. What makes you so sure that Seymour is trying to kill us? I simply said that he is acting strange. It could be nothing. He may just be going to smoke his pipe."

"Hawke, for a man as smart as you that is one of the most naïve, and dumbest thing I have ever heard. Do you really want to give him the chance to destroy our only shot at victory?"

"I am under orders to monitor the operation; to see that everything goes the way that Lord Von Bolt had planned it. I am not going to kill one of the most brilliant tacticians that I have ever seen simply because he says he needs to take care of some business. Like I said, it could be completely harmless."

"Ahem, can I say something?" Lash interrupted. "Listen, I don't claim to know much about Seymour, and I can honestly say that I know even less about his plans for Black Hole, but I do know that every time that I have been around him, he has been a very kind patient and honest person."

"He's just playing you. I'm telling you that he is the traitor, and I refuse to just stand here and let him destroy us. His deception has confused your young mind."

"I'll be the judge of who is deceiving who. I'm going after him and I will see what he is doing."

And with that, Hawke left to go after Seymour. He would see that things went according to plan: one way or another.

-----

Sonja was at her computer again desperately searching for anything related to or showcasing Seymour's tactical prowess. It just wasn't fair. She had to wait a week before she could find out more about a tactician she had been looking for her entire life. Sonja wondered what would happen when they found him. The first thing she would do would be either challenge him to a game of chess, or challenge him to a battle in the war room. In his day, he had to conduct a battle using only a crumpled map of the area, a sea chart, and weather reports. Sonja couldn't imagine having to conduct a battle under such conditions. She needed intel all the time; constant updates on the conditions of the battlefield. Imagine what Seymour would be capable of if he had satellite photography, infrared scanners, and spy cameras that could zoom to a single hair on a soldier's head. He would be invincible. She knew that if she didn't have all of this sophisticated equipment and intel, she wouldn't be able to make a single decision. She always had to double check every piece of information she ever received. Perhaps he could teach here how to operate more flexibly.

She had been everywhere on the net, and couldn't find much of anything. Why is there no information on you? How could you have just vanished from existence? She then decided to go to Green Earths war archives. She didn't expect to find much, but if there was anything on this guy at all, it would be here. It pulled up a list of icons each featuring different links to different parts of the site. She found one that led to a history database, much like the Black Hole archives. After looking through the database, she finally found an icon: AIR, LAND, AND SEA- A HISTORY OF EXCELLENCE. It looked promising, so she clicked on it and it sent her to a history website. It had a list of different military branches: Royal Army, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy. She clicked on the navy icon.

EASTERN FLEET OR WESTERN FLEET?

Sonja clicked on the western fleet icon. It brought up a webpage with four categories- Commanders, Ships (Decommissioned), Ships (Current Fleet), and Famous Battles. She went to the Commanders category.

SEARCH BY NAME

JAMES MAXWELL SEYMOUR

PROCESSING…PLEASE WAIT

SEARCH RESULTS: 1

FLEET COMMANDER: FOUR STAR ADMIRAL JAMES M. SEYMOUR

She clicked on the name and her computer pulled up a dossier of sorts. It listed his career achievements, ships and various other relevant pieces of information, but there wasn't much there that she didn't already know. She scrolled through his profile and found herself looking at a list of ships:

GREEN TSUNAMI, PRIDE OF THE SWORD, EXCALIBUR, RAVEN'S WRATH, TITAN Ω…

She found a name that intrigued her: The Raven's Wrath. She clicked on the name and it pulled up a picture and a profile. The ship was nothing short of spectacular. Its majestic hull was painted jet black, and there was something else about the ship that made it unique: it had a figurehead. She hadn't seen a ship with a figurehead since the exploration era. The large galleons were just as much works of art as they were tools of war. Such was the case with The R.M.S. Ravens Wrath. The figurehead was beautifully crafted and carved. It was a young and beautiful woman. She was wearing a robe and a hooded cloak, with outstretched angel's wings, and holding a sword and shield. The robe was a nice silver color; which nicely contrasted the black wings and cloak. Her shield was an ebony color with silver trim and had silver words engraved in it; Vallo Pallens, Succurro Validus: Defending the weak, Helping the strong. The sword was finely crafted as well. Its silver blade was sharpened, as if it could actually be used. The handle had a black grip with silver filigree inlaid into the handle. Overall, the ship looked as though someone took some pride in their work. It didn't look like the designer had cranked out a cheap, assembly line ship. It was quite stylish. She would show this to some of Yellow Comet's best engineers and see if they could either replicate it, or match it with a design of their own.

Sonja was no weapons expert, but as far as battleships go, this one looked mean as hell. It had a total of twelve heavy battleship cannons: two fore and aft turrets each one sporting three cannons. In addition to this impressive display of force, there were two flak turrets, six .50 cal. AA machine guns, and, though the picture didn't show it, the profile said that the ship also had four torpedo launch tubes. As far as size goes, It was a large, intimidating beast of a ship; yet not so large that its size interfered with mobility or versatility. She also noticed a certain angle to the ship's hull, giving it a more sleek and majestic appearance. Overall, she was impressed that someone not only designed a craft of such versatility (the ability to fire both directly and indirectly on sea units, in addition to the flak cannons and AA guns granting direct and indirect firepower against air units was quite ingenious), but managed to do so and still make it look classy. She would have to ask daddy about getting one just like it.

"So that was his flagship. I bet he had lot of fun with that thing."

-----

If there are any questions, complaints, or comments, feel free to send them to me and I will address them the best I can, but I won't answer any spoiler questions; not that any of you are that concerned about the outcome of the story or anything.