The Dancer Prince
Chapter 23

Written by Ambassador Yrishna Wolf.


Inside the city of Arnouville, on the green and blue planet of Chinon, the atmosphere hadn't been filled with so many gray clouds in years. As the center of the unified Segan Monarchy began its day, it was welcomed to the sound of thunder and heavy rain. The temperatures were bitter cold, hovering around the three degrees celsius as the wind swept across the city of hundreds of skyscrapers. In the center of it all, seemingly an island of countryside, the palace of Arnouville stood quietly braving the wind and the rain like all the other buildings in the vicinity. A couple of palace servants were mingling around the windows, as they heard the thunder boom through the country side. The sky was filled with thunder, as what should have been a fairly clear day was now a dark somber one. While the palace on the surface seemed to be mingling with the usual activities, down below another type of storm was brewing.

Like the Palais d'Arnouville in the First City, the palace of Arnouville had deep in the underground layer a series of command centers which were designed to coordinate the efforts of a massive fleet deployment should the need arise that the governing King or Queen be responsible for the defense of the Segan Monarchy. It had been years since these facilities had been funded and manned with no particular duty other than just being available in the event they were to become necessary. The underground layer of the palace was a maze of networked webs of intelligence and counter-intelligence and communications centers along with tactical superiority centers all mingle and bunched up into a War Center. From these bunkers, bunkers that numbered in the hundreds, the King of the Segan Monarchy could coordinate a war involving 15,000 starships and half a million fightercrafts should the need arise.

08:00 hours, the Heir apparent to the Segan Monarchy stepped off the turbolift that led to the Command center. Mind controlled by the Styx for many days now, His Majesty the Crown Prince Vladimir Rosbourg had been reduced to a mute shell within his own body, suppressed to such fury that he no longer controled his own mind and body. "He" had convened an emergency meeting of the Joints Chiefs of Staffs, just a few days ago, and had ordered the convergence of ninety percent of the Segan Monarchy's Royal Fleet to the Trikari Nebula in the Delta Quadrant. The Chiefs of Staffs had been specifically instructed to make sure the deployment was unannounced, and that the news media agencies didn't know a thing of the deployment. "He" was fairly certain that these orders had been followed to the letter.

The snap of boots as two soldiers guarding the door to the Conference Room saluted their leader. The guards, upon finishing their traditional salute moved to open the doors. The doors, traditional 18th Century Segan Deco, were made of crystal, reinforced later on by transparent titanium. As the doors were pulled fully open, the Crown Prince entered the room quietly, as the Joint-Chiefs of Staffs' low mumbles came to a stop as they turned to bow to their Crown Prince. They were unaware that the orders they had listened to for days hadn't come from their own leader, that in fact the orders had come from the enemy itself. Vladimir Rosbourg had invaded the Segan Monarchy in a preemptive attempt to satisfy Styx demands. Now, while the Styx's demands had been met, they were determined to see the campaign through to the end.

The Arch-Achroid's assistant was standing in front of Vladimir Rosbourg, smiling to the Arch-Achroid. The assistant understood that the Arch-Achroid would only give this one last shot, and if it didn't work, the Styx would return several thousand years later when the Styx were more prepared for a sustained invasion of the Selevenar Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy. The lessons that they had learned were much more valuable than the actual losses sustained which were minor to the entire Styx Fleet. With the lessons they had learned, they would use the information to undertake the massive invasion of the Ytrakik Galaxy with a quarter million starships on hand. The Ytrakik Galaxy had always been a thorn on the Styx's side, matching their tactical prowess and setting a counter balance to the Styx has a super-power. Now, the other super-power would meet an end very quickly, they hoped. Their war, however, had gone for years with little success.

Vladimir Rosbourg instructed the Admiralty to go ahead and sit down, there was much work to be done. Vladimir Rosbourg sat down, as he glanced over the mission details. In the middle of the table sat the Cardassian star system, the target of the campaign. The Styx Arch-Achroid's voice was lively now, as the talk of war was open and soon there would be blood to satisfy the need of the surviving Styx troops in the area. This would be a two-thronged invasion, Segan warships were to attack the Cardassian super-base that was covering the vital point of entry into the Cardassian Star system, while "Allied" vessels would fire a planetary barrage that would destroy the anti-invasion planetary defense installations without them being able to fire a shot in return. Meanwhile, Segan mine layers would deploy behind the Allied attack lines and set up a cloaked minefield as they awaited the arrival of Supreme Militants' Union reinforcement. A careful and strategic retreat would be undertaken so that S.M.U. ships would be forced to go through the minefield, giving enough time for Allied vessels to converge and destroy the enemy fleet, then... it would be on to Cardassia, a quick campaign that would be done before the I.A.P. could ever counter-act.

"How many vessels will be involved in this assault all together, your Majesty?" An Admiral asked, as he looked over the numbers of the "Allied" contribution.

"We are contributing three thousand cruisers, battleships, and carriers, per your Majesty's request" The representative of the Styx Arch-Achroid replied, "You will be contributing 50 mine layers to complete the task of setting up the mine field quickly, while contributing three thousand six hundred of your destroyers, and cruisers to take out the St- I mean the Cardassian superbase."

"The four hundred destroyers left will be charged to defend our home land in the event this fails, if we succeed, then we can consider moving on to bigger things," Vladimir Rosbourg added, as he looked over the Admiralty, "Admiral Ulixes, of our Allies will be in charge of this operation. I expect you all to follow his orders as you would mine."

"Understood," The Admirals replied, as they looked over the logistics they would need to work out, not to mention their ships would all have to make hasty maneuvers to get to the Delta Quadrant in time.

"May the Quadaz be on our side," Vladimir Rosbourg stated as he put his crown off his head and onto the table, "Win this for me, and for the Galaxy, gentlemen. Dismissed."

The Styx Arch-Achroid was playing his final ace in his attempt to gain more and more land in the Milky Way Galaxy. With more space, he could begin reconstructing the nexus point he needed to transfer the reinforcements needed to overwhelm the galaxy with a new assault force. He'd do it slowly, more cautiously this time, and he would only attack when his forces outnumbered theirs ten to one. This was only the last assault of his first campaign, it took the Styx usually several tries before they ever succeeded in capturing a galaxy, but those several tries were always more than enough to overwhelm the enemy. That was what the Styx were infamous for, they were usually capable of doing it with the only exception of the Ytrakik who were their equal in almost every sense except that they fought for things such as "honor, loyalty, and peace." The Styx stood for the true things in life, "war, death in battle, blood." Cardassia would soon be full of all of these again, the Arch-Achroid was sure the Cardassian people hadn't forgetten his terror.

- - - - -

Prime Minister Wolf was extatic as he terminated his transmission with Space Marshall Nelson. The Space Marshall had succeeded in doing the impossible, he had combed through Segan space without being detected and had mounted one of the most massive manhunts in the history of the Segan Monarchy. The Space Marshall had succeeded in recovering the five thousand starships of the Ghost Fleet, and medical workers in his team had arrived to revive the million crewmembers that were responsible for running the Ghost Fleet. The Space Marshall gave his assurances that the Ghost Fleet would be on their way to Cardassia Prime to recieve their new operational orders within a few weeks. The Space Marshall in his own right was extremely happy with the work of his search teams, it had taken an exhaustive three weeks to do the search, but they had completed it and they had completed it succesfully.

With a lot of coordination on the part of the Ghost Fleets' crewmembers, work had begun on getting the crewmembers beamed into their right ship. Afterwords, it would be decided how best to get the ships out of their cocoon in the ice world and the desert world. Amongst the first of the crews being transferred to the ships were those of the S.W.S. Selevenar and the S.W.D. Clarel, the prototypes of the Selevelar Class heavy battleships and the Clarel Class heavy destroyers. Newly promoted Captain Davidson, commended for his contributing work in the initial propulsion tests of the S.W.D. Clarel was now once again seperated from his lover after having had a brief period to come to terms with the battle and their fears of loosing one another. While they might have been the best Commanding Officers in space, their feelings for one another overwhelmed them every single time. Captain Anderson, lover of Captain Davidson and Commanding Officer of the S.W.S. Selevenar was also feeling these same reciprocal feelings.

Captain Anderson's crew beamed aboard the S.W.S. Selevenar, and began immediately to figure out how to get out of the cave. Within a few hours, with more crews transferred to the now several hundred manned warships of the Ghost Fleet. The S.W.S. Selevenar fired a well placed phaser shot that opened a massive hole in the cavern, big enough for the Selevenar Class battleships one by one to escape out of their desert dungeon. As the vessels, not designed for atmospheric travel rose up, their hulls were tensed and stretched to beyound safety limits as the design work of one Dr. Yamadivosok began to show its true colors. Each Selevenar Class battleship in its turn scratched through the various layers of the planet's atmosphere as they reached space. They then headed back to their shipyards where they transported another crew back to their ship. With these simple exchanges, the million crew within twelve hours were back on the ship, as more and more ships massed in orbit of the desert planet and the ice planet that had safely hidden the ships from the enemy.

21:30 hours, with the completion of the transfer of the crews, and all the Ghost Fleet vessels powered up and accounted for, the Segan Ghost Fleet had deployed to strategic locations around the now fully powered up and armed Ghost Fleet shipyards. They provided for a more effective defense platform. Doctor Jean-Marie Daniels was promised an explanation as to what the Ghost fleet's operators could remember the moment they were under way. The son of their King was in trouble, and one of their Ghost Fleet vessel was on its way to pick that son up and bring him to safety. The five thousand ship Ghost Fleet was now awaiting the order to get going to Cardassia, and with the proportionately small Supreme Militants' Union task force also ready for departure the order was just about to come. With a confirmation of the flight plan, and an understanding that they would try to first and foremost reach Cardassia without being detected, Space Marshall Nelson and the Fleet Captains of the Ghost Fleet affirmed their decision to proceed carefully rather than quickly. Low hyper-transwarp speeds allowed the Ghost Fleet and the S.M.U. fleet the lowest energy signatures, they'd arrive at Cardassia within a few weeks.

"I think it's time to get going," Captain Davidson noted, as the Clarel Class starship's engines were powered up, "Set a course for Cardassia Prime, helm. Engage at lowest hyper-transwarp speed possible."

"Low hyper-transwarp speed, Navigations. Anti-Sensors Detection, CONN," Captain Anderson on the other vessel ordered, "Activate every equipement we have that makes us undetectible." Within seconds, the more than five thousand ship fleet had engaged hyper-transwarp and were heading straight for destiny.