Turning Points

by Silveus

In the future, Nanoha and Company lead the TSAB as they track down the most Powerful Lost Logia in existence, but how did things end up this way, story examines the turning points they lead to the largest Inter-dimensional conflict ever.

5. Chapter 5

Notes

So here it is, Chapter 5. For those that follow this, I figure that you had just assumed I had given up on it, but well, I didn't.

Couple of things here.

First, I feel the need to explain the massive delay.

See, this chapter was actually finished at almost the exact time that chapter 4 went up, all those months ago. The problem comes in on my proof reading and beta testing phase. I send the completed chapter to a friend and a family member who was willing to read through this. Getting the family member to read it was like pulling teeth, and my friend just sat on it without looking at it. now admittedly, the chapter is big, like the last one, and isn't something you can just zoom through, so the fact that these two people were helping in the first place is already a more than I can ask.

Unfortantly, as I mentioned in my notes on chapter one, this is only my second attempt at writing something, and as such, I lack confidence. What I basically want from the two that I asked was just a general assurance that what I did wasn't garbage, and then just a quick review. Basically a verbal version of a elemtary school book report. I don't need some kind of deep analysis of my sentence structure, or searching for deep meaning into a characters choice of lunch. I just want a basic it's ok, and maybe someone to point out that this part didn't make sense, or this part sounded cool.

So after almost five months of waiting, the family member gets back to me, and instead of doing any of the things I wanted, he gave me a list of 30 or spelling and grammar errors. Mostly things like I put "Their" instead of "There", or "To" instead of "Two" Now I know for a fact that there are way more than just 30 spelling errors in this, spell check only does so much. So while my family member didn't do what I asked for, he didn't even provide me with enough errors to even make a real difference.

Then my friend comes through a month later with the constructive crtisism, and he does exactly what I asked, just way too late.

See, in the months that I was waiting for their reviews, I had continued writing later chapters (I have 6 more completed), and those were also not reviewed yet. Now with all the way out to chapter 11 written, my friend points out some changes that I should make to chapter 5, and when I go back and review the chapter, I agree with them.

Chapter 5 could have been much better.

But, my hands are partially tied, certain things needed to happen in this chapter to make the things that happen later on make sense, so despite my best attempts at rewriting parts, I still feel that this chapter is sub-par.

So, this chapter is not where I want it to be, but rewriting it and make sure I mentioned everything that I needed too is just not really possible, so here it is, in all of its imperfect glory.

Other mentions…

Following on what I said above, anyone wanting to beta read some chapters would be awesome. Even if you just want to get them earlier and look at them and then say, "It's ok," I'll settle for that.

I really do just want someone to read these before they go up online.

Also following on what I said above, there may be some inconsistencies with names and such in this chapter, due to the rewrites. Sorry about that, if anyone spots some of those, feel free to mention it.

And for now, since it's a hassle, I am not updating the glossary. I find it more important to just get this chapter up first, so I am not bothering with it right now.

However, when I do put chapter 6 up, which hopefully will be in a couple of days, I will edit the glossary then. Probably.

As I final note, I just wanted to mention something as sorta a fun fact. I borrow names from other forms of media, but I don't make any mention to that fact, but my friend caught one of them, specifically, in chapter 4, emergency naval protocols M-21 and M-24 were characters from a Korean web comic called Noblesse.

Chapter 5

September 23rd, 2045

With a little twisting, some bending, and finally some leaning, a muted cracking followed by a small pop reverberated through Deputy Secretary of Defense Craig Wild's spine. With the kink worked out, he straitened himself back into his chair and leaned back as far as it could go. He folded his arms over his face and tried his hardest to relax and enjoy whatever was left of this short recess, one of many since this briefing/meeting/situational report/status meeting/whatever had started over thirteen hours ago. Thirteen hours, or almost eight hundred minutes spent sitting in this same chair, with only two small lunch breaks, and thousands of bathroom breaks. They really should serve so much coffee at these things, every five minutes someone needed to use the restroom.

Now that his back was no longer sore, Craig instead focuses on his current skull shattering headache. It started as a dull throbbing over his eyes almost seven hours ago, and since then had spread to just behind his ears and to the back of his skull; it had also increased in its intensity, oh god did it increase in intensity. The dull throb had evolved into a booming crash every second that he was positive he would soon be able to literally hear. It's a shame, that with all their medical knowledge, stress, and by relation, headaches, were still something that they couldn't cure. He could go get some painkillers, those would numb the pain until he couldn't feel it anymore, unfortunately, Craig was currently on the hunt, and getting up and showing a weakness would be a setback.

Across the table, firmly planted in a similar chair, was Rear Admiral Brian Condel, a miserable and possible senile old codger. The man is the oldest enlisted officer in the ASN, and a thoroughly wretched person, he seems to hate everything and everyone, and at least to Craig Wild, the feeling was mutual.

However, he did have to thank the miserable turd for one thing, sitting behind him was one of his attendants, Stephanie Falaski, and she was the current holder of Craig's attention. He knew her name because he ran a small background check on her during an earlier break, 26 years old, 5'5, 118 lbs., exactly up to Craig's specifications. The report also contained info on where she went to school and such, but who cares about that, where you went to school doesn't make you look better, and man does she look good. Long blond hair, braided, that fell down to her lower back, an ass just begging to be grabbed, perfectly sculpted legs hidden under stocking, a perky bosom that was to die for, aaaand, she had glasses, tiny rimmed glasses that brought attention to her cute little nose. Behind those glasses, she had the most stunning pair of … what color where her eyes again? Blue? Brown? Maybe Green?

Well this was a problem; an expert hunter can't be seen forgetting important characteristics of his prey. Not good, not good at all.

So with a subtle shift of his hands, and a slight tilt to the head, Craig opened his eyes and calmly gazed across the table. And immediately locked eyes with an adjacent pair; a pair which turned out to be a deep violet.

Across the table, Stephanie Falaski quickly dropped her gaze and began clumsily ruffling through some folders, a slight tint of red spread across her cheeks. What an interesting development, now how to capitalize on it? So many options, what to do? Ok, once she gets up, we'll just have to accidently bump into her over by the coffee maker.

"Ok People, lets finish up and get back to our seats, we just got a new intel report that we need to go over"

Damnit, Ok, have to put the after work pursuits on the back burner for a little, seriously, why did it have to be right then?

As Craig fumed to himself, his coworkers slowly made their way back into the room. The Deputy Prime Minister Harvey Ofenmier, Vice-President Brenda Howl, Secretary of State Amanda Van-Heirden were already in the room, along with Rear Admiral Brian Condel from the navy, Brigadier General Yuan Chen and Major General Leirykaj Trihzen from the marines. Vice Admiral Nana Kunieda walked in from the hallway with her former student, Rear Admiral Francis More in tow. Behind them, Senators Evina Holyhand, John Shrieb, and Floyd Paun walked in as a group; following in their shadow was House Leader Mitch Toren. From out of the bathroom came Secretary of Industry Jeff Doran, who was looking extremely sick, and behind him Deputy Secretary of Civil Security, Kamal Hamash. And last but not least, Deputy Secretary of Intelligence Curtis Hemming, and Chief of Military Exploration, Helen Gold left the adjoining small briefing room and sat back down at their seats.

These 17 people, Craig included, were all that remained of the high-ranking Allied State military and civilian leaderships.

After they had all taken their seats, and the attendants and aids had settle down, and Secretary of Industry Doran had stopped coughing, Vice-President Howl stood and moved to the head of the table. She imputed some data chips into a computer terminal, while she was playing with the screen, the others shuffled documents and data pads, for awhile no one spoke. Then, when she finished with the terminal, a large holographic display of the Allied State's territory appeared, most of it was covered in the Silver and blue of the TSAB, only a small sliver at the top was colored the ASN Red. Once the display was up, the Vice-President turned to face the others.

"Ok, so we just got this new report in, and let me mention this in advance, I think there might be one thing in it that's good news, the rest ranges from bad to awful."

That comment brought muffled groaning from the rest of the table, for whatever reason, the Vice-President felt the need to try to raise everyone's spirits with halfhearted attempts at lame comedy.

"So I am going to quickly go over some important points, and then I will hand the floor over to Deputy Secretary of Intelligence Hemming."

As she finished speaking she reached over and grabbed onto the holographic display, a few finger twitches later and the map shrunk and was replaced by a bulleted list.

"First, scouts confirm the reports we got earlier, Oridian has fallen. The attacking fleet is already gone, besides a very small group that is defending the system. Scans of the planet reveal the same as always, no energy sources, no magical reactions, and no areas of heat. Also the scout confirmed that the Black Out Field is spreading around the planet."

"Sorry to interrupt you there, but what about wreckage around the planet?"

Craig looked back to see Rear Admiral More sitting forward, eagerly anticipating an answer.

"I assume what you're really asking is if the new targeting program on the defense satellites was effective?"

The Rear Admiral just continued looking forward. However, one of the senators, Senator Paun spoke up.

"What's this about a new targeting program? I wasn't briefed on any changes."

"Nor was I, and I Assume neither were Senator Shrieb and House Leader Toren."

"You're Right in assuming that Senator Holyhand. Why was this not mentioned to us? Rear Admiral More, do you have a reason as to why we were kept out of the loop?"

However before More, or Vice Admiral Kunieda could mount a defense, they were rescued by the Vice-President.

"Allow me to answer that. You were not briefed because they did not make the decision. The call to reconfigure the defense net was made on planet, and our esteemed members of the military only learned of it a few hours ago. And in regards to the initial question, there was no noticeable wreckage from any TSAB vessels in orbit, so either they salvaged anything that was damage, or there was nothing there in the first place."

Craig chuckled to himself as the elected senators fumed to themselves. Oh the joys of politics.

"Moving on, I have a nationwide status report, and one for each of our remaining systems, with 2 exceptions, the research outpost in the Panther System is currently experiencing heightened Ion Storm activity and will be out of contact for a few hours. Also, our mining facilities in the Begas Asteroid Belt are currently under the effects of the TSAB scrambling field."

Another quick series of finger flicks and a small map of an Asteroid belt came up.

"And that brings me to my next point, about 20 minutes ago, a small fleet of TSAB frigates and smaller craft raided the Begas Asteroid Belt, the targets were the iridium and osmodium mines built into the larger Asteroids. It seems like their raid party was small and only threw down a small scrambling field at first, we got some actual video footage from when the ships made their approach, and we also have records and some transcripts of the facilities' outbound emergency transmissions. And before anyone asks, the attack is already over; the TSAB now controls that system."

"I am sorry to interrupt, but what's the status on the TSAB ships at the Belt? Perhaps if we move quickly enough we can get a fleet there and retake the facility, and possibly salvage a TSAB ship."

"Don't worry about interruptions, I fully expected that I would be interrupted twice as much as I already am, and to answer that, I need to move onto the next point."

The map of the asteroid belt zoomed out, now the belt was off to the left, at least from Craig's point of view. To its right was a large desert world closely orbiting a red dwarf star, the planet was labeled underneath as Divina Prime and had an estimated current population of 10 billion. Further to Divina Prime's right was a small lifeless planet orbiting a blue giant star labeled Farsford Military Research Center, estimated Current population was 9 thousand. And in-between and bellow the Research Center and planet, was the symbol that now designated a TSAB fleet.

"As you can see, we picked up a TSAB fleet in the Dimensional Seas. Its intended target is either the planet Divina Prime, or the Farsford Research center. We could probably get a fleet to the Asteroid Belt and possibly recapture the mines, but we would almost certainly get blindsided by the approaching fleet, which by the way, we do have some information on, the Research Center's sensors are not to be underestimated. Also, on that note, we did receive a report from the Research Center, apparently they have some conclusions on the TSAB and their new technology, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wild will be briefing us on that."

Ah yes, the one report that was actually sent to him, which wasn't really intended for him anyway, he inherited it from the Secretary of Defense after he was likely vaporized retreating from the Ern System.

"I do have the report, but I don't want anyone getting their hopes up, most of it we already knew, and anything we didn't doesn't help us."

"Well, let use decided that after we hear the report."

"Of course, Evina, I just don't want anyone to get disappointed."

"That's Senator Holyhand, I would prefer you remember the proper titles, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wild."

"No Problem, Sorry About that, Senator Evina Holyhand, I wouldn't want to not show you the proper respect."

"Excuse me?"

"Ok, that's enough from you two, now can I get on with my briefing?"

The Vice-president was leaning forward with both of her hands on the table, looking really annoyed. Across the table, Senator Evina Holyhand turned and stared forward. Craig leaned back in his chair and folded his hands back behind his head.

"Go ahead."

She glared at Craig a second before moving on.

"In addition to that report, we also have an interesting autopsy report. As you all know, when the fleet was retreating from the Ern system, they were ambushed by a carrier task force. The TSAB's strike craft wrecked havoc on the civilian convoy, which caused parts of the military fleet to turn back and defend them. All in all, the withdraw almost turned into a disaster. But we had a sorta good stroke of luck, one of the escort ships shot down a TSAB light bomber which crashed into the side of one our battle cruisers. We were able to extract two corpses from the wreckage; they were not in the best of conditions, but we did learn some interesting things from them."

She looked down at a data pad for a second before continuing.

"And finally, we have some military reports, Vice Admiral Kunieda has a situational report on our fleets, Rear Admiral More has a readiness report on the Battle Station at Vol IV, And Major General Trihzen has a finished report on the buildup of forces on Solesta I. And on the civilian side of things, we have a whole bunch of reports there. So I think the first thing that is weighing on everyone's mind, is the defeat in the Oridian System, and of the fate of the 27 billion people who lived there. So I am going to hand the podium over to Chief of Military Exploration Helen Gold, who has the latest scouting reports."

"Before that, I have something to add."

"Go ahead; you have the floor Rear Admiral Condel"

Condel struggle to get up out of his chair, luckily for him, Stephanie of all people got up and helped him shuffle over to the head of the table. The Vice-President, clearly not expecting him to literally get up and "Take the Floor" hesitantly moved away and sat back down. Once he got to the head of the table, Stephanie disabled the current map display and then stepped back, then Condel cleared his throat in the most disgusting way possible, and then turned to face the table.

"Military intelligence has re-assessed the ambush out of the Ern system. The initial assessment was an ambush on the withdrawing civilian convoys with a carrier strike force, the attack came to a close when military ships turned back and engaged the carriers. When it became apparent that they would lose, the TSAB ships initiated an auto-destruct sequence that completely obliterated their ships. It took the returning ships almost 10 minutes to get back, and in that time, over 50 civilian transports were destroyed, estimated casualties hover at around 2 million, including some government officials."

The Rear Admiral decided that he was apparently too old to be standing, and motioned to Stephanie to bring over a chair. Now more comfortable he continued.

"Some people at Intel apparently though the situation odd enough that they re-examined it, and discovered some new facts. But before that, I want to point out what they saw, and the rest of you missed."

Just about every one sitting at the table seemed to have taken offense to that.

"First is the uniqueness of the attack. The TSAB only attacks from a position of overwhelming superiority, or I suppose, if the situation is important enough, they will attack from a weaker position, for example when they infiltrated deeply into our lines to attack Taleron, and then set up an ambush to kill the remaining Fleet Admirals. The attack at Ern fulfilled none of those criteria. The TSAB did not have an overwhelming advantage, the opposite was true, they had an overwhelming disadvantage. And the second criteria was also lacking, there was nothing important enough to sacrifice those ships within that convoy."

"Is it possible they thought something important was going to be in that convoy?"

"No, it is not Senator Shrieb. The TSAB's Intelligence gathering is notably better than ours, we didn't release any information in an effort to try to trick them, and so it's impossible that the TSAB somehow gathered incorrect Intel."

There was this awkward pause after he finished speaking, everyone expected him to continue, and he looked like he was expecting something, perhaps a rebuttal from Senator Shrieb?

"Attendant! What are you waiting around for! Bring up the next screen!"

Stephanie immediately jumped into action, after a short pause, a screen popped up showing two different types of ships, Craig wasn't an expert, but they looked small.

"The TSAB's task force was comprised of five ships, three of them were carriers, that destroyer up there is what the carriers looked like. Along with those three, there were also two escort frigates. Our information on TSAB ships is lacking, but what we do know is that these two types of ships have never been seen before. Now this next part is harder to point out in regards to the carriers, so I am going to focus on the escort frigate."

He turned to face Stephanie again.

"Well?"

And again she rushed forward and brought up the schematics on the frigate. God that man was such a bastard.

"Ok these ships are escorts for the carriers, for you civilians, that means that they are designed to protect the carriers from combat ships that get too close. Now first notice that the ships engine is larger than normal for TSAB ships, that indicates that the ship was designed for speed, which is normal enough. Now the main weapon on this ship is a single spinal mounted energy weapon, mounted down the belly, the small fixture on the bottom there. We know from video records that this weapon is not a beam cannon, it instead fires moderately powerful energy bolts, and we can tell from the size of the weapon that it has a long range. In addition to the main cannon, the ship has only 4 point defense weapons mounted on the nose, tail, and one on each side. For those that don't know, our escort frigates usually have twice that number on them, if not more. And rounding out the ships arsenal are two rapid fire pulse bolt batteries, designed for close range high-speed fire. Attendant, bring up the schematics on the TSAB's GTP Frigate."

Stephanie went and brought up the display for the GTP class frigate, this time however, instead of retreating back behind the Rear-Admiral, she stayed kneeling on the ground.

"This is the TSAB's GTP Frigate; it's the smallest Frigate we've seen from them. Based on the design, and the obvious similarities, we think this is an upgraded version of the Old TSAB's GGL class Medium Range Frigate, itself which is an upgrade from the much older GGC class frigates. Now compare the GTP to the new escort ship. Look and see how their chassis are different, the GTP is slightly shorter despite its overall increased tonnage, it makes up for this by being wider and by the nature of the duel main cannon approach that the TSAB uses, which gives their ships increased fire power at the loss of durability. Now our escort Frigate here lacks the Duel Cannons, and is also longer and thinner, and is also missing the wings that most navy's put on their ships. Zoom in on the GTP."

While Stephanie was zooming in, Senator Shrieb spoke up again.

"Not that I don't love a technical lesson on the TSAB's ships, is this going anywhere?"

"Yes it is Senator Shrieb."

The rear admiral apparently felt that the senator needed no more information than that, and quietly sat in his chair until Stephanie finished her task.

"Now notice the weapons, the GTP has 4 main cannons, long range energy beam cannons with unknown specs, along with that, it has six heavy bolt cannons, three mounted on each side. There is also a small missile launcher array mounted under the nose, and there are nine point defense Beam Guns positioned around the ship. We also know that this ship has a forward facing Shield Array, and at least 4 separate Barrier Arrays. Compared to the escort, the conclusion here is that the escort ship is greatly under armed and under armored."

The Rear Admiral struggled to stand for his big reveal, and required Stephanie help to do so. Who knew the old man had such a thing for theatrics?

"This means that the escort ship, and these facts are also true of the carriers, were not designed with pure combat potential in mind, the space that should have gone to weapons, was instead converted into sensors and stealth equipment."

"I am sorry Rear Admiral, but that means literally nothing to us."

"Actually it does Senator, do you mind if I explain it to them, Rear Admiral?"

"Go Ahead Nana."

"Our records of the attack show that the TSAB's ships were hiding behind a cloud of space junk, and when they came out, they immediately attacked research ships from the Girin Foundation. Those ships were long range exploration vessels that the Navy had commandeered to help evacuate the system. However, just prior to the attack, the captain of the lead exploration vessel contacted former Rear-Admiral Augustus three times. The first two times he mentioned that sensors were picking up an anomalous reading in the sector that contained the hidden ships, the final time he was unable to connect because the Rear Admiral was already on the line with fleet command, however they were left waiting with an open connection for 71 seconds before the TSAB attacked. The transcripts of the communication do not suggest that the Foundation ships knew they were viewing TSAB ships, but they kept focusing their sensors in an area that housed the hidden ships. What this new information suggests is that the TSAB ships were designed for long range recon and espionage missions, and if our new train of thought is correct, that the withdrawing fleet just stumbled upon them."

"Admirals, both of you, that means nothing to us."

"No, it does, at least to the intelligence department, Admiral Condel, may I take the floor for a moment?"

"Hmf, go ahead."

Deputy Secretary of Intelligence Curtis Hemming slid out of his chair and hobbled up to the center podium, his limp barely even slowing him down. Once he got there, he nodded to the Rear-Admiral, who with Stephanie's help, moved out of the way and went back to his place. Now with all eyes on him, Curtis cleared his throat, in a way that Craig noticed, was not disgusting, and then began speaking in his slow and quiet voice.

"As you all know, one of the TSAB's greatest assets in this war is their scrambling and Black Out fields. We assume that the two are linked, and that the scrambling field is a lesser and incomplete version of the Black Out Field. The Field itself blocks all forms of sensors and teleportation, likely interfering with the Dimensional Lines. The scrambling field does the same, but instead of blocking it completely, it just scrambles the signals."

Craig already knew this, his position as Deputy Secretary of Defense had allowed him access to a decent amount of classified information, and his current position as Acting Secretary of Defense allowed full access. He also knew that the two fields were creating a massive intelligence vacuum; that the Allied States, along with the Irlian Empire and the Free Trade Union had yet to fill.

"These fields have greatly hampered our ability to gain any form of useful intelligence in regards to the TSAB's fleet movements, or even their technology. With long range sensors and communications at worst, useless, and at best, compromised and unreliable, we have been forced to put more resources into Chief Gold's scouting divisions, however, that hasn't yielded the results that we would like. Chief Gold, I don't have the numbers right now, but do you know what your current casualty reports are?"

Chief of Military Exploration Helen Gold, a woman in her mid fifties with sandy blond hair, shuffled through some data pads. Craig paused to appraise her, she probably was once an attractive woman, she had aged well, and along with her military lifestyle, still had a nice body. Unfortunately, at some point she had received a rather large scar than ran from the center of her forehead, down her nose, across her mouth, and then finally ended at her chin. Craig considered what kind of fight she had to have been in to receive that kind of scar, and to survive it, but before his imagination ran wild, he was brought out of his thoughts by the woman in question finally finding the right pad.

"Casualty reports for scouting divisions roughly match up with the other fleets, with fleet casualties slightly coming out ahead, unfortunately, in our last war with the Irlians, fleet casualties were around 45%, this time fleet casualties are at 89%. With the Irlians our scouting casualties were only 4% whereas they are now 83%. In the opening week following the first TSAB attacks, scout casualties were initially low, at only 26%; this was due to their lack of use at the time. Then, once my people were put into action, casualties rose to 99%, this time due to the general confusion and chaos at the onset of hostilities. Once the Navy fully mobilized, and under the command of Fleet Admiral Lisanto, scouting casualties dropped to 91%. Then, eight days ago, we restructured our scouting parties, sending task forces instead of single ships, casualties dropped to the current 83%; however, while casualties are still much higher than the norm, with the new system we are getting a lot more usable intel.

The chief's voice was slightly slurred, initially Craig had assumed that she had been drinking, but he had realized that the slash across her face had almost certainly damaged some facial muscles. None the less, she was hard to understand.

Whether or not it was because of her slur, or because they just didn't catch the meaning, all of the elected and appointed government officials were looking confused, and Craig counted himself among them this time around.

"Deputy Secretary Hemming, forgive me, but I am not seeing the meaning behind this."

Well that was a surprise, House Leader Mitch Toren, despite being elected as head of the Senate, was generally a spineless coward. It was well known that he was just a puppet to the true leaders of the Allied Democratic People's Party, the senior senators, three of which had survived and were currently in this room, Senator's Evina Holyhand, Floyd Paun, and John Shrieb. The House Leader was just a tool of theirs to lead the general assembly around without looking like they were really doing anything, for him to actually show inactive without their prodding was rare.

Almost everyone in the room seemed to share Craig's surprise, except the military types, they probably didn't even notice that anything was off. So it was with his usual deadpan voice that Deputy Secretary Hemming responded with almost immediately.

"Scouting casualties have been unusually high. The fact that scout ships are the only way for us to gain intelligence, and to monitor their advances and fleet movements, should have been obvious to the TSAB also. If what Admiral Condel said is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt that, then these small "Raiding" task forces have probably been active since the onset of hostilities, and their goal, or their mission objective, is to destroy our scouting forces and leave us in the information vacuum that their Black-Out field first put us in."

It made sense, Craig wasn't exactly a "Military" person, but out off all of the remaining government officials, Craig was probably the closest, and as such, he could at least see some of the implications of this revelation. What exactly they lead too, that he couldn't say.

And apparently, neither could the other government officials. The Vice-President and Deputy Prime Minister both seemed to be waiting patiently for more information, as was the Secretary of State, although she was leaning forward in anticipation. Secretary of Industry Jeff Doran was attempting to stifle a coughing fit that was wracking his body; he seemed to be paying no attention to the conversation. Deputy Secretary of Civil Security Hamash was sitting motionlessly in his chair, exactly like he had been since the beginning of this meeting. And the three Senators, along with the spineless weasel of a House Leader, they were just about jumping out of their seats, eager to hear how this would translate into a victory for the Allied States, and also into a cake walk bid for reelection for them.

Craig wanted to laugh at the ridiculous of their behavior. The three of them, and before, when there were more senior senators still alive, had spent the entire time attempting to blame the war on the former Prime Minister and President. They had taken every opportunity to assign blame, because in their eyes, this had to be someone's fault. To them, someone had obviously failed to spot the warning signs, signs that a civilization that was assumed to have collapsed, would come out of hiding after twenty years with a massive fleet of super powered warships and would, without and reasoning, attack everyone. They honestly seemed to expect that the Allied States would have a winning plan in the event that war would break out, without any warning, and that the enemy would be many times more powerful. And since there was no plan, it must be the fault of the current administration.

So they had made a crusade of relentlessly attacking the Prime Minister and President, and when they had both been killed when the capital, Alliance Prime, was attacked, they had moved on to new targets, attacking any appointed officials of the administration. Never once did they stop and offer help, no, they only assigned blame. And for what? Reelection? At best estimates, within two weeks there would be no senate; the Allied States would cease to be. Hell, out of the four of them, only House Leader Toren's electorate was still under Allied State control, the other planets that voted for these people had fallen to the TSAB. But they still relentlessly attacked the government and military.

And Honestly, Craig could understand that. The desire to blame someone for your misfortunes is a very human trait. He himself had also wanted to do that at first, right until his birthplace, the Vidus Station, was destroyed. That had been a wakeup call, and it changed how he viewed the entire war. So Craig understood why the senators felt compelled to blame someone, and he could forgive them for that. What he couldn't understand, and wouldn't forgive, was the fact that they did nothing to make the situation better. If he didn't know for a fact that at least one of them was smarter than that, he would have assumed that they honestly believed that once someone accepted the blame, that that would somehow fix everything. But they had to be too smart for that, they had to know that all of their grandstanding and political rhetoric was not helping. Instead, they insisted on being informed and involved in every single thing. They bogged the process down, not following any form of strategy, one day they would force the Navy to send a fleet to evacuate some system, and another day they would stand idly by while yet another system was attacked. It was ridiculous.

And Craig didn't care. He couldn't understand them, and he had no desire to forgive them for their foolish actions, but he also felt no anger about it either. He really didn't care, because although they were making the situation worse, no matter what, it was unwinnable in the first place. Even before, the TSAB had been right on the cusp of being considered a Dimensional Super Power. The Allied States wouldn't have been able to stand against them then, and now, now that they were many times more powerful, the Allied States had no hope. So all the Senators were really doing was making the process of loosing just slightly more obnoxious.

"THEN WHY WASTE OUR TIME?"

The outburst from across the table brought Craig out from his musings. Musings that he now realized had gone on longer than he had anticipated, since he had no idea what was going on. The three senators across the table all looked upset, Senator Paun was sitting in his chair, arms crossed, looking disapprovingly up at the Deputy Secretary of Intelligence. Next to him, Senator Holyhand was fidgeting in her seat, constantly crossing and then uncrossing her legs while chewing on her lower lip, which made Craig give a soft chuckled. The Senator always had a habit of biting her lip when she was annoyed or confused, and Craig wasn't surprised to find she hadn't gotten over it.

Unfortunately, she noticed his little chuckled and sent him a death glare, which he ignored and then ever so subtly, bit down on his own lip before giving her a wide grin. She paused for a minute, looking slightly confused, but then understanding dawned on her and she blushed hard, her nose and ears turning pink before she spun away.

Before he could enjoy the little exchange more, Senator Shrieb flopped backwards into his chair and continued whatever he had been ranting about.

"So the TSAB has dedicated ships to hunt down our scouts. BUT, we can't do anything with that information because why?"

"As I have already said, Chief Gold's Scouting Forces are too depleted to make any changes that would allow us to capitalize on this information. But even if they could, we would gain almost nothing. The ASN controls so little territory that scouting is now almost unnecessary. We lack the forces to exploit any openings we might find in their formations, all we can do now is to fortify what we have left and hope we can hold them off."

So they were still discussing the scout hunting fleets, so Craig hadn't missed much in his little laps in attention, still, he didn't want it to seem like he wasn't taking this seriously, especially while Stephanie was still there.

"So then why even bother mentioning it? You just wasted our time on a pointless presentation."

Craig almost wanted to laugh; the Senator was acting like a child, upset that his parents weren't giving him something he had asked for. He was about to say something, but before he could, Condel, of all people, decided to shut him up.

"You wanted to be included in these meetings. We discuses Intel, not all of it is useful, not all of it gives us you an instant victory, we go over and see if we can make it useful, and if we can't then we store it for later when it might become useful. If you don't like it, you can leave."

The room went dead silent, the military types all sharing Condel's sentiments, The Heads of State and Senators all unable to believe that the old man, who usually only grumbled, would actually say that. And then there was Craig, who despite his mostly calm looking outward appearance, was struggling to not crack up laughing. Sure, he didn't like Condel, But he didn't like Shrieb either, and that little exchange had made this entire meeting worthwhile, and since the Senator was currently looking like his head was about to explode, Craig assumed that this situation was only going to get better.

"While I wouldn't have phrased it quite as eloquently as the Admiral, He is right. While this particular piece of information doesn't directly benefit us, it does give us more insight into the TSAB. And that is a point that we are severely lacking on."

Although he was disappointed that the situation was now no longer going to progress, Craig found himself impressed with The Deputy Secretary of Intelligence. He knew that Deputy Secretary Hemming was basically a glorified file clerk to the former Secretary of Intelligence, His strengths were organization and analysis of data, and his tone of voice and mannerisms would lead anyone to believe that he was lacking in people skills, more at home working on a computer than talking another living person. But, he diffused that situation masterfully.

"Ok. What does this tell us about the TSAB then?"

"Many things, we can conclude that their stealth equipment is highly advanced, it would need to be to allow them to have enough small groups of ships to hunt down all of our scouts without being detected until now."

That made sense, although, new information on the TSAB's stealth capacity wasn't that important. It was already known they had high level equipment when they ambushed the Fleet Admirals at Taleron. And it wasn't like the TSAB had been using much in the realm of Stealth; they mostly just crushed their opposition with superior force.

"Just something to add, we can also assume that the Irlians and the Free Trade Union are using scouts like us, and suffering the same problems. We don't know how effective the TSAB is at tracking our ships, so we don't know how many of the "Raiding" task forces they currently field, but it does give us more insight into the scope of their fleet sizes."

When she had started speaking, all eyes had turned and focused on her. Vice-Admiral Kunieda was a tactical and strategic genius, she was possibly the most influential admiral outside of the Fleet Admirals, in fact, rumor was that she had gotten on Former Fleet Admiral Ericson's bad side, and he had moved to block her promotions, if it wasn't for that, she would have likely become a Fleet Admiral herself.

To Craig, she was an enigma. She was short, barely reaching five feet, she wasn't particularly thin, but she wasn't large either. Her hair was simple, a shoulder length basic haircut, she parted her hair in the middle, it was generally, plain. Her looks were similar, she eschewed jewelry and accessories, wore the bare minimum when it came to make-up, she wore a standard Navy dress skirt, but Craig suspected that hers was longer, hiding more of her legs than it should have. She was completely plain and modest by all means, but at the same time, she somehow possessed some form of beauty despite that.

Her personality was the same, she was modest, quiet, and humble, but when you spoke to her, you could just sense that she could see right through you, that she was calculating thousands of things at once, and that she was barely listening to you at all, but that she was also giving you her undivided attention.

Craig hadn't met her before the war, and he had to admit that the stress of watching your civilization collapse might be affecting his opinions, but he didn't like her. He was unable to analyze her; he couldn't classify her like he could with all other women. He had no idea what made her tick, and what was more maddening, she seemed to know that. She knew he couldn't quite grasp her, and he knew that she didn't have that problem with him.

He suspected it was a pride issue. He had failed, and she had succeeded, and he didn't like her for it. Childish, he knew that, but he also didn't care.

But regardless, when she spoke, every one listened. Even the Senators, who had made a point of arguing with the military just as much as they did the Prime Minister, none of them confronted her.

"That is also true, a generous estimate would be that they have a single raiding party in or around each system, and probably have some hiding in the Dimensional Seas; if each Task Force has around five ships we have eleven systems under our control, so a low estimate could be anywhere between 75 and a hundred ships dedicated to hunting down scouts. That does shed light onto the total number of ships they are fielding."

Only Deputy Secretary Hemming was un-phased by the Vice-Admiral's presence. Along with her Student, Rear-Admiral More, the Deputy Secretary of Intelligence was the only person who could normally converse with her. The Rear-Admiral was as much a prodigy as his mentor; she had handpicked him out of Alliance Prime's Elite Naval Academy when he was only a first year. The fact that Hemming could be at ease around them only further increased Craig's assumptions that he was not just a normal assistant.

"Not only their fleets, this information tells us more about them as a whole."

"Oh? And what exactly does it tell us?"

"Yes, please do share with us your insights."

Francis More's youth and relative inexperience was an issue of contention between him, and just about everyone else. At just slightly past his 17th birthday, he was by far the youngest out of the other Generals and Admirals, however, his talent and skills had won him respect from his peers, some, like Condel, slightly more grudgingly than others. Unfortunately, military exploits only get you so far when dealing with the government. With his Mentor's support and her confidence in his abilities, the administration slowly learned to trust him, they were still cautious, usually requiring second opinions, but through time, even that stopped. However, the Senators, they didn't trust him at all. He bore the brunt of their accusations towards the military, and he probably received his mentor's share of the blame too, just because no one would say something negative to her face.

And Craig actually liked the guy, he might be a military genius of sorts, but he was still just a naive 17 year old kid. He was fun to joke around with, and his flustered face whenever Craig would bring up women was always worth a laugh. Probably, out of all of the people here, Rear Admiral More was one of the two people that he would have any desire to meet outside of a meeting room. Wait not quite, Craig had forgotten Stephanie, so there were three people he would meet outside.

Anyways, he liked the guy, and he disliked it when the Senators attacked him for no reason. And this was a good opportunity, he had been mostly silent, this was a good chance to show he had been paying attention, that little lapse earlier was still bothering him. Plus, not only would he be coming to his aid, and dispelling the idea that he had been zoning out, but it would make him look better in Stephanie's eyes, the pretty violet things.

"It tells us the TSAB is smart, or at least not drunk on its own power."

Craig rarely spoke in these meetings, not because he didn't like to, but because he had nothing new to add. The Admirals and Generals knew what they were doing; all they had to do was convince everyone else of that fact. Craig wasn't a strategist, but he knew that they were, so even if he couldn't fully see why something needed to be done, the fact that the professionals in that field said it needed to be done was reason enough. Craig also wasn't a doctor, wasn't an engineer, wasn't a pilot, and when those people spoke about their fields, he listened, because they were the experts, he didn't tell them how to do their jobs because he truthfully didn't know how to do their jobs.

So he rarely had anything to say, he relayed any reports that came in through his office, answered questions directed at him, and then watched, usually only chiming in to bother the Senators. And the others would after a while, almost forget he was there. They almost treated him in the same way they treated the other aids and assistants, so when he would speak up, they would all seem to be caught off guard. So he waited for them to regain their focus, and then hopefully someone would give him an opening to continue.

"What do you mean? Not drunk on their own power? They are invading every bordering nation, how are they not drunk on their own power?"

Bingo, a fast ball right down the center.

"Well Senator, this tells us that they aren't relying solely on their Scrambling Fields. They know that there are ways around it, and are moving to block them. And if they were drunk on their own power, then they would have just taken their massive fleet and steamrolled over us. Instead they probe are lines, striking at weak points, hiding within the intel hole only to emerge suddenly, rip into us, and then fall back into the shadows. They are fighting a harder war, scouting our territory out, preventing us from doing the same, laying ambushes, launching strikes deep into our lines. They minimize their own losses as much as possible, while increasing their strengths as much as possible against us. They didn't need to do that, they could have beaten us without, instead they are going the extra mile to make sure we have no chance. And they definitely aren't doing it because they need to, they are doing it to completely crush us with ease."

Senator Evina Holyhand had given him a nice setup, and she had been gentle about it too, so Craig had refrained from being rude back. Sure, she had been more curt than she needed too, but that was really the best he could hope to get from her, she seemed to be honestly interested in his opinion. It was nice, just like old times.

"Deputy Secretary Wild is accurate in his assessment. We can get a glance of what the TSAB is thinking with this, it is not a whole picture, but it gives us something, and the reasoning behind the TSAB's aggression in one of the biggest mysteries we need to confront. However, the Senators are also right, this piece of information does matter much right now. I just wanted to mention how the new assessment about the attack in the Ern system could now shed light on our abnormally high scouting losses. Perhaps Chief Gold can do something with the information."

As he was speaking, he took time to carefully nod at each of the people that added something constructive to the conversation. Rear Admiral Condel got the first nod, then Chief Gold, Vice Admiral Kunieda and Rear Admiral More, and then finally Craig got his nod, and then a final one to Chief Gold again.

"Now that said, I will give the floor back to Vice-President Howl. We have been off on a tangent long enough now, and the fate of Oridian is too important to be put off any longer."

With that, Deputy Secretary Hemming looked around one last time, and then made his way back to his seat at the end of the table, snuggled next to Chief Gold and Deputy Secretary of Civil Security Hamash. Once he had limped back, the Vice-President got back up and retook her position at the head of the table. She paused to remove the ship schematics that Stephanie had left up, and then replaced them with a large image of a blue and green planet.

"Well let's see here. At around 20:00 UDT yesterday, we lost contact with Oridian, about six hours later at 1:49 UDT, a small scouting detachment confirmed that the planet had fallen. In regards to earlier, the defense network was reconfigured, instead of the traditional targeting system, it was modified to concentrate fire on the smallest enemy ships. The thinking was to at least destroy something, since the defensive satellites weren't a real threat to the TSAB. Unfortunately, with their scrambling field and later, the Black-Out Field, and the fact that close to six hours had passed until we got scouts there, we don't know how effective the change was. That said, our scouts only found a small detachment of TSAB ships in the system, around twenty some ships, mostly smaller ones. And scouts were unable to identify anything on planet, like always. Oridian had a population of slightly over 27.2 billion with Regular military forces at about two million, paramilitary forces including local police of around 5 million, and as of the last reports, a conscripted force off about 7 million. On planet there was also 22 divisions of mechanized infantry, 17 regiments of armor…"

The Vice-President's list went on, a specific break down of all of the war assets on Oridian, Armor, Infantry, Ace and Striker Forces, bombers, Strike craft, dropships, gunships, mech infantry, artillery and so on. When it had become apparent that attack was imminent, they had received the same information yesterday, along with how the fortifications and such were laid out. But none of it mattered, because at no point in this war, never once had they managed to go back and even attempt to reclaim a planet that was attacked by the TSAB. And the small window of opportunity that the scouts took to gain the little intel they had was already closed, the Black-Out Field extending too far outside of the system, making any scouting missions way too dangerous. And like every other time that they got a glimpse of a planet, the scouts couldn't get anything useful from it; planets that the TSAB attacked showed no energy signatures of any kind, and no one knew why.

The TSAB's ground war capabilities were even more of a mystery than their naval assets. Never once had the TSAB started an invasion while allowing anything to observe them. They always had their Black-Out Field running, completely shutting down long range sensors and communications. In-fact, no one had ever even seen a TSAB ground unit, they could just as safely say that the TSAB used nothing but Belkan Era Knights, or that they only used the most advanced armor, or that they used conscripted civilians, no one had any idea.

So Craig had only listened to the report with half his attention, the important part being summed up as, "Oridian was attacked, and that's all we know." All that was left was to wait for the next topic, which the Vice-President had just started to introduce.

"Well, that sums up Oridian, next, according to our bulleted list is the nationwide status reports, but honestly, those are boring and I bet no one cares. I will mention the Panther System and then the Begas Asteroid Belt. In case anyone was wondering, the Panther System houses a large nebula that is home to a small research base, the nebula is known for having intense and sporadic ion storms, and one of them is currently blocking communications with the outpost Now, to the Begas Asteroid Belt."

The holographic display of Oridian was closed, the bulleted list from before momentarily popped back up before being minimized and a new screen, a still frame from a video from what Craig assumed was the Asteroid Belt.

"Well, this is the video footage we got. It's just over a minute long. A freighter that happened to be entering the system at a really bad time picked it up and then sent it out via a relay station hidden in an abandoned mine. Apparently, there was a little bit of a smuggling operation going on, the Osmodium is the basis of some of our larger ships sub-structures, however, it's too hard to work with without the use of an industrial grade manufacturing and refining plant. But, the Iridium is used in a lot of low grade explosives, and the Irlians buy that up in droves. The freighter was a smuggling ship, it came in out of schedule and using a small stealth field. It was able to arrive without detection, but once there, the TSAB spotted it and went after it. Before it was destroyed, they transmitted this video along with some other scans via the relay station. Well, let's watch the video then."

The Vice-President dimmed the lights and then sat back down in her chair at the head of the table. Once she was comfortable, she tapped the display once and the video started to play.

The first few seconds of the film were filled with static and Craig couldn't make anything out, then a gruff male voice came over the static.

"Ok Boy's keep 'er steady and follow the path. We wanna grab our shipment and get outta here. The stealth field running ok? No sign of detection yet?"

The static was still there, but now another voice answered the first, this time a younger and more exited one.

"Cap'n, I got something…passive scans are showin a whole lotta energy sources out there."

"Shit…Not good. They wasn't supposed to be no shipment today. The belt shoulda been empty."

"Cap'n! We just got scanned. They know we're here."

"Damnit, Drop the Stealth field. We gotta bail, forget the damn shipment.

Apparently the ship's stealth field was the source of the static, and once it was removed the video footage cleared up, unfortunately, it showed almost nothing useful, the freighter was hidden in an almost certainly un-natural tunnel of Asteroids. Pieces of girders were crudely dug into the large rocks, while others were tethered together with industrial grade cables, and still more had pieces of scaffolding welded to them. Someone had gone to great effort to make this hidden tunnel traversable to the less savory freighters.

"Cap'n, some of the ships are heading towards us…what do we do?"

"Are we too far in to use the Jump Drive?"

"Not sure, but probably, we'd get torn to pieces with all these rocks. We need to back track some."

"Ok, there is a thin section coming up, we are gonna blast through it."

"Sir, if we use the cannons, those ships are gonna know we are armed… that's gonna get us like an extra 5-10 years prison time…"

"Dumbass, when they impound the ship you think they won't realize we got guns on it? They aint hidden that well. Now its commin up in a sec, blast that rock with the red marker on it, once we get through we are makin a sharp U-turn and then headin right back into tunnel. Then we high tail it outta here. Got it? Good. Now hit that rock."

The camera that was recording this seemed to be set in the nose of the ship, with the audio playing over it. Craig couldn't see the guns that the crew was talking about, but when a series of deep blue bolts shot out from over the camera and slammed into one the less secured asteroids, it did become semi-apparent where they were located.

The blasts didn't destroy the large hunk of rock, they barely even cracked it's surface. However, the force of the blasts pushed the asteroid out of its position in the tunnel wall, sending it spinning out and away as a shockwave rippled through the rest.

Then the camera suddenly pulled up, the ship changing direction and heading to the new opening as other smaller rocks started drifted into the tunnel. More navy blue bolts lanced out, knocking the larger asteroids out of the way and vaporizing the smaller ones.

And then the ship was in the tunnel wall, small chunks of rock, along with pieces of metal bounced off of the sides of the ship, making the whole thing shake and rattle.

Before Craig could even fully notice what had happened, the freighter had cleared the debris and was now in open space. The view spun as the freighter rotated itself 180 degrees in its attempt to return back to the safety of the tunnel. Through the spinning and twisting, Craig thought he saw some flashes and bright splotches of color, but he couldn't make anything out definitively, it was too confusing.

"HOLY SHIT"

Someone on the freighter's bridge screamed, and then the chaos accelerated. A massive bright flash went off much too close to the freighter and overloaded the camera. The visual image was badly degraded, but at least outlines and some things could still be seen, and it did appear to be improving. And Craig could tell that the screen was no longer spinning out of control like it had been before, instead it was rotating much too quickly.

"What was that? What happened?"

"Cap'n, one of them ships shot at us, it hit a rock and sent chunks flyin all over the place, we got hit by a bigger one."

"Any damage?"

"Uhhh…it hit the starboard cargo bay and crushed the door, but I think we're ok."

"What kinda police ship fires on a cargo ship?"

"What kinda police ship has a gun with that kinda range?"

"Hell of a warning shot."

More voice chimed in, all showcasing various forms of confusion at why and how they had just been fired at. Their assumption that they were dealing with ASN patrol ships was reasonable, but to Craig who knew the truth, he couldn't help but want to scream at them.

"Alright, that's enough chit chat, bring us about. Let's see what shot at us, if it's a slow one we can still make a run for it. Otherwise, we give up."

The camera spun again, this time to the right. The freighter maneuvered around another large asteroid, and then finally showed a mostly clear image of the attack in progress.

If it could still be considered, "In progress." From the limited field of vision that the camera had, Craig could see that a "Battle," had never happened. The mining facilities were run-down and poor, they only had enough base fortifications to prevent unarmed ships from just moving up and taking whatever they wanted, they couldn't even defend against a remotely dedicated pirate raid, they had to rely on ASN patrols to keep away potential thieves. Against dedicated warships, and TSAB warships no less, the few guns and defense satellites were hardly worth mentioning. No, a "Battle," hadn't taken place, it was more of a loud and violent demolition project.

The camera picked up a few mining and construction craft, all gutted and shattered, their hulls burnt, there was also a small freighter, it was in pieces. The main base, with all of the living quarters and storage was a large dome shaped complex that hooked together a few of the larger asteroids. It was big and bulky, and it seemed to contain some form of oxygen producing plant. Craig could tell this because it was still burning. Most of the dome was missing; great holes were dug out of it, the smaller sub-sections were no longer connected, all scorched and floating in bits and pieces off to the sides. But the central piece, from some of the holes, even on the poor video he was watching, Craig could see tails of fire licking the openings.

But the little tongues of fire that shot out of the dome were hardly alone, there was plenty of other flames to be found, they were just of a different variety. Whatever the iridium in these mines was found as, it burnt an eerie pale green. And there was a lot of it. All of the asteroids that had mining systems attached were broken, the iridium ignited even in the void of space, and the ghostly flames burst forth. The shattered wrecks of the facilities, the destroyed freighter, the crushed machinery, all of it floated in a ghoulish green field of fire. And in the center of this scene, over forty TSAB warships idly floated, their long thin silver bodies reflecting the pale green flames, they sat there like some alien beast lazing around an entrance to the underworld.

The view was both terrifying, and oddly mesmerizing. The scene of destruction floating about was a testament to the power of the TSAB, Craig knew that this fight had been a slaughter, the miners were completely unable to do anything to fend off their attacks, they had all died a pitiful death at the hands of a monster.

At the same time, Craig couldn't help being awed by the sight of the TSAB warships. They were all sharp lines and hard edges, covered in that chrome like silver armor that they used, their little blue accents only serving to emphasize the shiny gloss of their hulls. And each of the ships, as if to flaunt their superiority, had a large black and orange crosshair painted across their bridges and command decks, as if to dare someone to attempt to fire there, to bring themselves directly into the line of fire of the massive guns mounted on the sides. They were ships designed and wholly dedicated to war, each curve, every side, all of the edges, they were all designed in an effort to intimidate the viewer, and they did just that. Craig knew that these ships were the most powerful warships that the Allied States had ever encountered, he knew how durable they were, how quick, how deadly. But seeing it in person, up close like this, brought it into a whole new light. These ships weren't just powerful and deadly, they were untouchable, to even considering going up against them was the height of folly, nothing could stand against that.

The scene of those ships, floating around in that vision of hell had unnerved him, he had known that the Allied States would fall, he knew that their navy was far to depleted to even offer token resistance, he knew that they couldn't win this war, but he knew all that as a statistic, as a series of numbers, as a cold hard emotionless fact. But seeing these ships had put it into a new light, a very emotional one, one that reached into the very core of his being and spoke to him. It whispered dark truths that he had known, but refused to fully process. The Allied States would die, his friends would die, his family would die, he would die. And just like no one could stand against those warships, he knew nothing could stand against this fate, it would come to pass, and all he could do was wait and watch.

Craig's thoughts were flying all over the place, a rising panic spreading though his mind; the two seconds of silent video stretching on into an eternity, but it ended; the crew of the freighter realized what they were looking at, and a panic much, much worse than what had gripped Craig spread through the bridge.

What seemed like hundreds of voices, even thousands of voices, but what was really only ten, all started yelling at once. The microphone was obviously damaged and the whirlwind of screams merged into an incomprehensible mess. Some words and phrase could be heard, perhaps because they were said louder, or with more emotion, or maybe because Craig was thinking them himself, but he picked up on things like, "TSAB," and "Die," or things like "Run." He couldn't tell exactly what was being said, but he could basically figure it out himself, it wasn't hard.

Then, one of the TSAB ships that was nearby, not close, it was still on the other side of the clearing, but still the closest, and definitely within firing range, brought a side mounted battery around and in line with the freighter. The TSAB had always designed their ships with noting but offense in mind, that, and little bit of speed and mobility. TSAB ships were some of the fastest and most mobile ships pound for pound in any of the known dimensions. Their ships were basically guns attached to engines, their philosophy being that armor and defenses could be put on the back burner as long as the enemy never got a chance to shoot back, and to a certain extent, it worked exactly like that. It also served created an extreme fear factor, the ASN and the nearby Irlians used more basic ship designs that had a more balanced approach. They were significantly more armored than their TSAB counterparts, but when the TSAB's guns came into question, even if the ship wasn't outright destroyed with one shot, it was still severely damaged; and no one wanted to fight an opponent like that. TSAB ships could end fights just by being there.

Even though these ships were only frigates and smaller, and even though it wasn't the main gun, only a small turret on the side, that cannon's potential couldn't be estimated. But from the camera's view, Craig could see a slight grayish purple glow forming on the tip of the gun; for better or worse, within seconds they would know how powerful of a gun this was.

"HARD TO PORT! Get us the hell outta here!"

There was another burst of yelling on the bridge, or maybe his attention was too focused on the TSAB ships and the first bit hadn't ended, Crag wasn't sure, but then it faded a little bit, seeming to die down as the crew became engaged with their tasks. And then slowly, painfully slow, the ship started to turn to the left.

Unfortunately, it was not turning or moving fast enough; another ship, this one smaller, or possibly just further away, the video footage's quality was making it hard to tell, must have zeroed their guns in on the freighter. This time a sparkling red mixed with a black started to form, but before Craig or the crew could deal with that, the first ship fired.

A large crescent shaped mass of grayish purple energy flew out, the tails trailing well behind it; it was like some kind of curved energy blade.

Craig winced, he knew what that was, at least to some extent, no one in the Allied States fully understood exactly how that weapon worked, but they had a general idea. There was a main core in the center that fed energy out into the half circle shape, then that energy got carried back around and reabsorbed from behind. It was an incredibly long range weapon, and incredibly good at destroying energy defenses, the rotating energy would grind through shields and barriers alike, the Energy Wave keeping itself sustained by recycling its own power and leeching it from its target. Against physical things, it was just an average attack, which for the TSAB, still made it deadly. Single shots, if uninterrupted, could bring down the defenses of even battleships; however, that was unlikely, a ship could disrupt the Wave by shooting it with their own weapons, or to a lesser extent, increasing the size of their own barriers to push it back. So, while there were ways to stop it, Craig was pretty sure that the smuggling ship lacked those abilities, they would have to dodge it, or hope that the TSAB's targeting systems were having a bad day.

"TO PORT! Fire maneuvering thrusters! Bring us behind the rocks!"

The camera kept turning, picking up more speed as the Energy Wave closed the distance, then, the camera was pointed too far away and Craig couldn't see what was happening, but he knew that in a few seconds the Wave would reach the ship, either the video would stop, or he would see the shot go past.

As it turned out, it was more of a combination of the two; he only caught a slight glimpse of the Wave as it sailed past before the camera spun around like crazy, again.

"DAMAGE REPORT!"

"Cap'n it took of the starboard wing and damaged the engine, we're outta control!"

"Attempt to stabilize the ship. Bring us about."

"We're…we're drifting into the rocks… WE'RE GONNA HIT THE ROCKS!"

"HOLY HELL! BRACE FOR-"

The captain was cut off by a loud banging as the ship careened out of control and into the tunnel wall. The ship was battered by hundreds of tiny asteroids, tiny being subjective, some of them were as large as a full grown man, but they were nothing compared to the larger ones that were the size of some small ships. The rattling was soon accompanied by other sounds; the screeching sound of metal tearing and a few periodic loud crunching sounds. Above the all the noise, the captain tried in vain to call out orders and bring order to the confusion.

"SHOOT THE BIGGER ONES AWAY WITH THE CANNON. BRING THE ENGINE TO A FULL STOP!"

It seemed someone on the ship was as competent as its captain, another flurry of navy blue bolts started flying out in every which way, some missing completely, others impacting the large stones, destroying them or pushing them away. For a second or two, it seemed to be working well, but then a loud grinding sound echoed throughout the ship and an asteroid the size of a small dropship bounced out from behind the camera, abruptly bringing an end to the energy fire.

Not only did the rock somehow disable the guns, it also pushed the ship down, changing its heading. Now, a much larger asteroid, this one the size of a cruiser, maybe even bigger, was right in front of the freighter's camera. The captain yelled something, but over the din of other panicked screams and the sound of the ship being battered to pieces, Craig couldn't make it out.

They hit the side and then skidded across the surface for a half second before it smashed into a small ledge. There was a singled loud bang followed by a crunching sound, and then the camera went dead.

Craig was annoyed, he would be lying if he said that this video hadn't upset him, and it really hadn't served any purpose, all he had watched was the last moments of some very unfortunate criminals. However, before he could voice his annoyance, the Vice-President whispered something from her position at the front.

"It's not over yet, they get the camera fixed in a second."

Her voice was quite, but seemed normal, as if she was commenting on the weather, and not the deaths of some random people.

However, she was right; the camera came back on, showing a fuzzy picture of the large asteroid, the freighter apparently resting on the surface of the giant stone. Some… piece of the freighter had broken off and was lightly spinning just a few feet off of the side; Craig really wasn't sure what it was, it was far to smashed to be recognizable with his level of expertise.

"Gah, that hurt like hell. Can I get a report?"

That sounded like the captain, the microphone's quality, unlike the camera's, was only slightly reduced in the crash, but the captain did sound kind of nasally.

"Damnit Mikey, don't make me wait on this report, my ship is wrecked and, I think my nose is broken."

Broken nose, that would explain the difference in voice.

"Sir, Mikey is dead."

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"Yeah, his head is… I am sure."

"Hell. Well your ok right? Give me a report. Lily, see if we can get moving again."

"Uh, sir, Lily is dead too… um, so is Meztion, and I can't tell, but Chrizolx might be too."

"Great. Just give me a report."

"Um, sure. We have lots of hull breeches, I think deck four was torn open, the computer is failing, so is life support on the rest of the ship, the bridge is on backup, jump drive is offline, but we do still have some engine power, but I am not sure if-"

The unchanging view of the asteroid surface along with the less frantic and more somber conversations had lulled Craig into a more relaxed state. He did know that the TSAB ships were still out there, and that they wouldn't leave the freighter alive, but he had temporarily forgotten about them.

Forgotten about them right until he almost jump out of his chair as the view of the asteroid exploded into action. If it wasn't for the ambient light shed from the burning iridium, Craig might not have ever seen them, but hundreds of tiny black orbs shot across the screen, digging into the surrounding asteroids before exploding into nearly invisible black shockwaves. The large asteroid's surface was torn apart and with a loud strained groaning the freighter was knocked free and sent adrift again.

"Sir, the Structural Integrity Field is failing, the ship is going to break apart."

There was a long drawn out pause where the crewman was waiting for a response that lead Craig to think that the captain might have been killed in that last attack, but he, if nothing else, was a resilient man and soon answered.

"Ok. Ok, time to abandon ship then, tell the crew to get to the escape-"

"Sir, the escape pods are… were on deck four."

"Uggg, fine, I knew I should have retired instead of doing this. Then how are communications? We still have them?"

"We have short range communications up, but the long range Line Transmitter is down."

"Good, transmit all sensor readings into the relay, maybe someone can use them."

"Aye Sir… It's done, I set up a link to send all new data out too. Now what?"

The captain choked out a tired sounding laugh that turned into a gurgle as he gagged on the blood from his broken nose.

"Heh, no weapons, no defenses, structural integrity it too low to even move the ship; we could surrender-"

"Sir, I've been broadcasting a surrender message since we were on the asteroid. No response."

"As I was saying, we could surrender, but the rumors are the TSAB refuses to talk. So let's take a bet, what kills us first, the TSAB or will the integrity field fail. Loser buys drinks in the afterlife."

"Sir, the field is going to fail in less than thirty seconds."

"So that's your bet, then I am going with the TSAB shooting us."

…

"…Sir, I think one of the ships is getting ready to fire again."

"Time until the field fails?"

"About twenty seconds."

"Ha, I win. Drinks are on you."

"Sir, I meant to mention this earlier, but I am an atheist, so I won't be going to the afterlife with you."

"That's a dirty way to get out of a bet."

"Sorry Sir."

"Yeah, its whatever."

"The ship is firing sir."

"Great… You know, I was gonna retire after this. Found a nice neutral outworld planet, warm all year round. Already purchased the property, right on the beach, doesn't that sound nice?"

"It does Sir."

"Yeah, it does doesn't it? I already put a down payment with a contractor to start building a house. Was planning on having a small farm, live simple and the like. With the money I got doing smuggling runs, I could live comfortably out there until I died, and then still have some. Yeah, woulda had a nice little rustic house there on the beach, farm in the back, it woulda been real nice. I woulda invited all you guys out once in a while too."

"I would have brought a house warming gift for you, a nice potted plant perhaps."

"Yeah, that woulda been nice, you've always been good at that stuff."

"It's a talent of mine."

"Yeah it is, you know, I was going to proposing to Cindy, you know, that girl from that club on Ern? She was real sweet, always giving the crew extra food and drink."

"Sir, I heard the evacuation didn't go over that well."

"Hmm, yeah I heard that too, but I just had a gut feeling that she made it out alright. Sailors Intuition, isn't that what it was called?"

"Something like that Sir."

"Woulda married her and moved out to that beach, course, I woulda needed to pick her up first, she'd be hard to find, but I would"

"I am sure you would Sir."

"Damn right I would, but yeah, I would pick her up, take her to my new house and make a home, no, make a life out of it. I'd have two, maybe three kids, at least one girl and boy. Wanna have a son to take over the farm when I get too old, and I always wanted to have a daughter, she'd be my little princess. I would have scared the shit out of any of her boyfriends. Then, me and Cindy would grow old, we'd be grandparents, my little beach house would grow, we'd build on, everyone would live-"

Just like that, the video cut out. Just a black screen and silence, absolute dead silence.

Craig squirmed in his seat, he was… uncomfortable. Craig would have never described himself as "Compassionate," he was after all himself, and other people, were to put it bluntly, not him. If he was being honest with himself, he would say that he was a little cold and callus, he only focused on himself and what he wanted. Sure, he acted friendly, and was likeable, but that was just an act. He only cared about others when it affected him, he knew what he was like, he didn't make excuses to himself, it was who he was and he wasn't upset about that.

However, this short video, the last minutes of an entire crew, a civilian crew, people with hopes and dreams, elicited a response from him, an emotional response, and one he couldn't make out fully. He didn't know exactly what he was feeling, he couldn't name it, but he didn't like it. He squirmed and fidgeted, but still, it persisted.

The dim lights return to their previous settings, and welcoming any distraction from his inner turmoil, Craig scanned the faces of the others around the table. The Admirals and Generals all seemed unaffected, their faces giving nothing away; whether that was because the genuinely were not moved by the video, or because they were keeping their emotions in check, Craig wasn't sure.

The civilian leadership, they were a mixed bag. Deputy Secretary Hamash was still looking un-phased, and Craig suspected that Deputy Secretary Hemming had already viewed the movie in private, that or he was too busy analyzing the data to feel anything about it. Secretary of Industry Doran looked as if he was about to be ill, but Craig suspected that that had nothing to do with the video. Secretary Doran had been looking more and more sick in the last few days, and even during the meeting, his condition had continued to look worse.

Out of all of the people, the senators seemed to have been the most affected by the video. Senator Shrieb's hands were white as he tightly clenched his chair's armrests, he was pushed all the way back into his chair as if he was recoiling from the screen. Senator Paun was leaning forward, towards the screen, giving off an appearance of intense attention that Craig almost believed, but his eyes were dull and unfocused; he was clearly lost in thought and his brow was covered in a light sheen of sweat. House Leader Toren was looking between his superiors, looking for direction. If there was one person who had less human emotion and empathy than Craig, it was probably him.

There was one person who seemed to have the same amount of emotion as him though, Senator Evina Holyhand was scanning faces just like he was. Her face was a little paler than usual, but otherwise she looked mostly ok, but when their eyes meet for a moment, she immediately turned away.

"Well that's all of the video we got from the freighter, it also had some sensor readings, but they were limited and didn't show anything we didn't already know."

Craig turned to see that Vice-President Howl had regained her position at the head of the table, around her sat Deputy Prime Minister Ofenmier and Secretary of State Van-Heirden. All of them sat back, or stood, in a relaxed fashion, as if they hadn't even watched the video, and they all had slight smirks on their faces; a slight look of…triumph?

Yes, that was exactly what it was, and Craig was impressed with their masterful stroke that they just pulled off there. That video had no intelligence value, the ships were models that they had encountered before, the weapons had all been observed, there was nothing new. So then why watch it? Apparently to strike at the senators.

That video wasn't like what the various news agencies were showing around, it wasn't chosen for its sensationalism, it was just average people getting murdered by the TSAB. It couldn't be ignored. And like Craig, the senators had yet to fully internalize the situation, they cast blame, made excuse, and lied to themselves that they could somehow still win, all the while their very actions weakened the ASN's ability to fight. The video had scored a hit on them just as it had Craig, forcing them to see the war for what it was, not a war, but a purge of the Allied States.

Now, if they would take that lesson to heart, that would be best, and that was probably what the Vice- President and her two subordinates wanted. But if instead, the senators continued to do as they already had, then if nothing else this video would be the one retaliation that they had made, the one point where they could strike back. It was very well played.

Craig just wished he hadn't been caught in the crossfire.

"Each of your offices will get a copy of that so you can go over it. Due to the freighter's nature as a smuggling ship, this is technically a case for Deputy Secretary Hamash. Since it is an active case until it passes through the courts, we can't release any important parts to the press, so keep a lid on it for now."

She removed video screen from the holographic display and brought her bulleted list from before back up.

"Then, moving on, I guess we should mention the fleet we picked up between Divina Prime and the Farsford Research Facilities. As you can see on the map, the fleet is currently located about nineteen dimensional miles away, it is about a day's travel time, give or take an hour or two, but they are currently moving much slower than that. At current speed, they will reach one of the two planets in closer to three to four days."

"Excuse me, I am not familiar with the Farsford Research Facility, would they have anything that would warrant an attack over Divina Prime? The TSAB usually goes after more densely populated systems first, which would indicate that their destination is Divina."

"May I?"

The Vice-President gave her a nod and then sat back down, leaving the front open for the Secretary of State who promptly moved in to fill the vacancy.

"The Farsford Research Facility is classified as a long range sensor station, and at one point, that's what it was. However, after the Allied States expanded beyond it, it's sensors no longer served any useful purpose, and the base was sold. The new owners significantly upgraded the station and formally turned it into a research institute. They are privately funded and their research has lead to numerous new devices, spells, and other things. They sell the rights to other research groups and corporations, so their name is never attached to anything, however, they are almost solely responsible for many military pieces of equipment, including our Shield Splicer Missiles, the Obsidian class light cruisers, along with the Marble Class Assault tanks, they also designed the Mana to Mass converting couplings used in some devices. Also, they continued work on their sensor systems and then made a prototype long-range scrying device."

"Long range scrying? Interesting. What is the range on that? The current ones in use by the Marines have a range of about ten kilometers, right?"

"You're close Admiral More, the ones we use have two settings, a normal mode that can view out to six kilometers, and a long range mode with less mobility and a smaller field of vision that views out to fourteen kilometers."

"Ah, thank you for the correction General Chen, scrying has too little effective range to be used within the navy, which is why we use traditional sensors, but the TSAB blocks those sensors, but I would assume a scrying spell would work fine, so what range does this prototype have?"

"Its max range is currently at thirty two dimensional miles."

"What?"

That single word was echoed by almost all of the military types in the room, even Vice-Admiral Kunieda seemed surprised.

"It can only maintain the spell for about five seconds at that range, but at ranges of between thirty and twenty dimensional miles, it can sustain itself for over an hour. It does require all of the stations power, so it is not a practical device for just about anything else. And it does in fact work through the scrambling field, and while they have no data to back it up, logic dictates that it would work within the Black Out Field."

"So then, I take it they scryed on the TSAB? So they know what it can do?"

"Not exactly, they only used it within its more sustainable range, so the TSAB doesn't know about its max effective range. Divina Prime is just outside of its range, but the TSAB shouldn't know that. They might be planning to attack the Research Facility to prevent us from learning about their ground war capabilities."

"So then, we don't know what is the TSAB's target…in fact, the Research Facility wouldn't require ground action, so they could attack that first, finish up quickly, and then change course. What about their fleet? If we scryed on it we should have some details."

"Yes, we do have information on that. The fleet is comprised of approximately six hundred ships, exact numbers were difficult to ascertain due to the nature of a scry. They picked up forty one ships that are of dreadnaught size, eighty plus battleships and about the same number of battle cruisers. There is an even spread of cruisers, both light and heavy, and destroyers, and like usual, there are less than the average amount of frigates and corvettes. There are the same ship designs that we have seen in the past…"

Craig tuned it out. It wasn't a conversation for him, it was military tactics and such. And it was a good time for him to come to grips with his…whatever it was. Who knew how long they would talk, and if his memory served, his report about TSAB technology and that autopsy report would be next.

And those reports, at least the Tech ones, would be useless and a waste of time. They hadn't recovered much equipment from the TSAB, and the little that they did, wasn't anything important. Perhaps if they had much more time, they might find something, but time was a luxury they didn't have. And the little bit of salvage they collected didn't compare to what the TSAB was really capable of, they weird new weapons, super powered ships, they had nothing but guesses and estimates for that.

Some of it was enlightening, at least to someone like Craig, but he suspected that the report would do nothing for the military, or even the government, it was more like idle curiosity on his part.

The autopsy report however, was much more enlightening, and possibly useful. The two human bodies extracted from the bomber fit in line with traditional pilots, at least at first. The larger, a male, was only 5'1 and the smaller, a female, was barely 4'8; they were both fully grown too. Space based strike craft are a complicated issue; to be able to maneuver and to have enough fire power to actually be useful, size becomes an issue; if everything is too big, the ship gets a larger targeting profile, if it is too small, the effectiveness drops. Usually, certain things are left out, armor is barely there, barriers are weak if they are there at all, and shields are never used. Field generators are almost exclusively used for structural integrity. But still, space is always hard to come by, so the pilots are selected both on ability, and on stature. Pilots of the small size of the two TSAB bodies aren't unheard of, but they are rare.

So as far as their basic physical attributes go, their height and size wasn't that big of a deal, it was their weight that brought up issues; the male, who was missing an arm, weighed in at 496 lbs, and the female was 601 lbs, the extra weight stemmed from their extensive use of cybernetics.

And not just regular cybernetics, which aren't that uncommon. The Allied States has been using cybernetics as prosthetics for centuries, and the Irlians use basic Cybernetic enhancements on soldiers and pilots. The heighted awareness, processing, and reflexes are invaluable to pilots, but the cybernetics have negative side effects and where never widely used by the ASN. However, the Irlian's strike craft are some of the best because of it.

But the TSAB pilots cybernetics went way beyond what the Irlians do, they were both closer to 50% machine, and it wasn't simple enhancement cybernetics either, they were fully specialized Combat Cyborgs. The metallic parts were made of some hyper dense alloy that resisted impacts and energy to great degrees, it also seemed to amplify magic.

Which was the next issue, both pilots were mages, likely around B class. They were both good enough to be in the Striker forces, but instead they were put into a lightly armored bomber, it didn't make sense.

Not only that, but cybernetics tend to interfere with mana production and use, full Combat Cyborgs like the pilots would only be able to use a fraction of their magical potential. The autopsy showed that the cybernetics were installed starting at birth, and weren't added later due to an injury, so why would the TSAB build Combat Cyborgs out of fully functional Mages?

And, not only that, the report showed that unlike the Irlian's failed attempts at creating full Combat Cyborgs, there was no degradation of the brain. The Irlians had succeeded in fusing the amount and quality of cybernetic parts into a human to make a Combat Cyborg, but the subject's minds would stop developing, creating robot like humans with the mind of a child that were prone to instability and mental break downs. The TSAB pilots showed fully developed mental capacity.

And then, just as an afterthought, the doctors had mentioned that the two pilots were related. Despite being of different races, they had enough DNA markers in common that the researchers could say that they were definitely related, a few steps beyond cousins, but still related. As an small joke, one of the doctors came up with the probability that two distantly related people would end up being pilot and gunner on the same bomber; it came to 1 in 59,325,550,347,298, how exactly they came up with that, Craig hadn't the slightest idea. The scientist had then wrote that with those odds, it being a coincidence was almost impossible, and that it had to have been a conscious decision, but the researchers could find no reason to place related people together like that.

While the dead pilots had been a wealth of information, they had not answered any questions, in fact, the opposite was true, they had only brought up more. Why were they related? How had the TSAB perfected Combat Cyborgs,? Why had the made them out of mages? Why had they violated inter-dimensional law to do so? Why had they taken Mage, Combat Cyborgs and made them into bomber pilots?

So many questions and so few answers, and would they ever find out? Would they live long enough to at least unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the TSAB? Probably not, the Allied States would be finished within the week, and Craig, and everyone else would be dead, or possibly refugees. But where would they go? The Irlians? Even if they would take them in, they would be the next to fall to the TSAB, if the ASN couldn't hold them off, then neither could the IIN. The Free Trade Union was in the same situation, and they were on the other side of the TSAB, the little bit of boarder that they shared had been conquered by the TSAB weeks ago. The left Neutral Planets, which the TSAB also attacked, or the Belkan Hegemony, and not even on his most optimistic days would Craig think that they would ever help the Allied States, or anyone else for that matter. Even with the TSAB attacking everything in sight, the Belkans had refused to intervene. And Craig wasn't even sure if they could stand against the TSAB in the first place, they certainly could in the past, but now, with this new TSAB, this TSAB that greatly surpassed its former self, could they even win while fighting a defensive war? Perhaps they were using the ASN, IIN and MN to feel out the TSAB while they prepared their own fleets.

Diplomacy was not an option, they couldn't win by themselves, and no one would help, all they could do was die fighting. There really was no other option, at least not that Craig could see. And so his thoughts wandered, back to the freighter and the captain's last minutes.

That man, the captain of his own freighter, would have been considered successful. He had his own ship, a successful smuggling operation, apparently enough money to build a dream house; he had risen as far as he could, but he wanted to give it all up. His last moments were spent talking about how he wanted to get married, have a family, and then just…exist? What did he want out of life then? How could he just call it quits and then retire? How did he know when to call it quits? What was he thinking during his life? During his death?

Craig couldn't understand it, and that upset him. To Craig, life was a pursuit of pleasure, he was wealthy, coming from a well established family, but staying there had bored him, he wanted to do things, be someone, he wanted enjoyment and excitement. He ate fine foods and drank fine wines, he went to parties and clubs, he played games and sports, he was always seeking out new and exciting thrills, and he spent most of his time with women.

He had been married four times and divorced the same amount. He had done it for the excitement, for the fun of the ceremony, for the party, especially the bachelor party, and also for the honeymoon, that was another good part. But eventually it got old, the women became boring, he would wander, fights would happen, and then it would all end. Four times.

He never planned on having a family, he didn't want kids, although some of the women did. He didn't want companionship, or her commitment, or looking back, he didn't even want love.

So then, why had he done it? Was it really only for the excitement? Or did he really want something from it? Did he subconsciously seek family, or was he just lying to himself the who time? But his mind kept going back to that one time, that one woman who had been…more than the others? He had viewed her as an equal, they had been passionate, but had they been in love? Was he capable of that? He had respected her, and she was one of the few people he would speak frankly too, but was that all? Could she have had real meaning to him? Perhaps, but he wasn't sure, and it had ended with her, differently than the others, and on good terms too…maybe they could…try again? But now there was no time, it was too late.

But he kept dwelling on it, going back. Maybe if he tried, maybe something could happen. It might be better than dying alone, to die with someone he considered an equal if nothing else.

But if she had moved on, then what? He had only been considering his own feelings and wants, but what about her? What if she wanted nothing more to do with him? That was a common trait to women he had been with in the past, they all frequently despised him afterwards, and he couldn't really blame them. Looking back, he had used them. Of course, he knew what he was doing back then and was unremorseful, and he still was, but he could at least feel for them now.

Or was this only stress, making him think weird thoughts? Having his civilization die around him caused a unique type of stress that few throughout history have ever experienced. That, compounded by his increased workload of being the Acting Secretary of Defense, his loss of leisure time, and perhaps that video was just the final straw to push him over the edge. Maybe if he just took the next few hours and just relaxed; got himself a good night's sleep, ate something actually healthy instead of just coffee and snacks, and then if he just some time to just laze around his current quarters.

Then he considered the opposite, what if doing that didn't help, what if he really had a problem here, then what would he do?

This thought process was maddening, he was making no progress as he just ran around in circles, and that headache was not helping matters. Regardless of whether or not it would help his current predicament, he would need to relax and wind down for a while.

But for the love of God, any of them, when would this meeting finally wrap up? Before, he just really hadn't wanted to be here, now he wanted to do something else, and that was making this so much more obnoxious.

And on that note, he had been out of it again for a while and he was now unsure what was being discussed, he really needed to get some sleep. A quick look around revealed that they seemed to be on the same topic, discussing the defense of Divina Prime, or lack of, they were planning on retreating the small group of ships in system, leaving almost all of the ten billion people there to fend for themselves.

While the Admirals and Generals were busy discussing strategy and logistics with the remainder of the civilian leadership, the Senators were being left out. Senator Paun was trying to include himself, but it was clear that he was only making a half hearted effort. Senator Shrieb was sitting back in his chair seemingly lost in thought while the House Leader kept looking to him for direction. And Senator Evina Holyhand was…looking confused at the terminal installed in front of her seat?

Craig watched as she started to chew on her lip while lightly pushing buttons, she was becoming more and more focused on her task. What could she be finding so interesting on the terminal? It was only a tiny screen with four buttons, Craig wasn't even sure what it was capable of, he had only used it sparingly, instead using the larger Holographic display at the head of the room, but whatever it was, it had consumed her entire attention.

Craig looked down at his own display in an effort to figure out what she was looking at, and at first, found nothing. Then he noticed a little flashing red light off to the side, which he immediately pushed. The little screen flickered to life, showing his mailbox, apparently he had an incoming transmission. He scrolled through the details, and became more and more confused himself; the Sender was not listed, but it was directed him by name, and it appeared to be an open holo-transmission. No one had any reason to send him a holo-transmission; he got all of his reports via actual live reports, if someone did need to talk to him, face to face, there was no reason to use the much more expensive and complicated Holo Array instead of a normal video call. Plus, he had told his aides to not connect any calls to him while he was in the meeting, he had been getting reports and making a few calls during the recess, so no one should have needed to talk to him this badly.

This was…confusing, he couldn't take the call right now, and it would be unusual to get up and leave, not only that, but there weren't many rooms that had the equipment to handle a Holo-transmission, which begged the question, why would someone send him one?

Across the table, Senator Evina Holyhand was still poking at her screen, and now Craig noticed that Deputy Secretary Hemming was also. Both the Senator, and Deputy Secretary seemed to have the same idea at the same time, both turned to their neighbors, Senator Shrieb and Chief Gold, and then pointed to their screens, then both of the new people looked down at their screens, expressions of confusion clouding their faces, and began poking at the screens too.

This was getting ridiculous, was everyone was getting the same transmission at once? If someone felt the need to contact all of them at once, then it must be important, so without even bothering to see who was talking, Craig interrupted and voiced his concerns.

"Sorry to interrupt you there, but someone is sending me a Holo-transmission, and it looks like some of you are getting messages too."

The Deputy Prime Minister had apparently been speaking at the time, and looked slightly offended that Craig had interrupted him mid sentence, however, at Craig's words, he looked down at his small screen, poked something, and then frowned before responding.

"It seems I have a message too, Madame Vice-President and Mrs. Secretary of State, I take it you do too?"

All around the table, heads nodded an affirmative, not only the Vice-President and Secretary of State, but also the Generals and Admirals around the table.

"Well, I guess I will connect it through the main display then."

The Deputy Prime Minister fiddled with the screen for a second before the current screen, a list of defensive points on Divina Prime, disappeared and was replaced by a screen of static. The static faded in and out for a second, shapes forming and then slipping out of focus, then it abruptly stopped.

Standing at the head of the table, on top of the table, was a holographic display of a woman. The image was tinted with a grayish blue, and she was slightly blurry, but enough was visible that the details could be clearly seen.

She had shoulder length reddish brown hair that hung free, her face was unmarked by and blemishes of scars, but everything else was hidden by the uniform that she was wearing. To Craig, it appeared to be a dress uniform, used for formal occasions, she wore black pants that ended in similarly black boots, a jacket made of some kind of velvety synthetic material, and across her shoulders was a small black cape with a silver lining. On the collar of the cape, Craig could see four silver eight pointed stars, marking her as a full ranked Admiral, a rank that he noted was higher than any of the people in the room.

Craig wasn't exactly sure what he had been expecting, but this didn't seem to be it. The young Admiral, possibly in her early twenties, stood mostly still as she surveyed the room. On his side of the table, everyone seemed to share his slight confusion, but on the other side, the Senators and Admirals were all showing a unique combination of fear, surprise and awe.

Then the woman turned and looked over his side of the table, and Craig understood the stupor that had taken hold of the others. Craig had still been looking at her face, so when she turned his gaze traveled down, and stopped on the emblem that was pinned into the other side of her collar, an orange crosshair on a black background. He recognized that from somewhere, but before he could connect the dots, he gaze traveled further down, to her left shoulder, where another emblem was sewed into her shirt. He didn't immediately recognize it, in fact, he likely had never seen it before, but he could read, and the words, "Time-Space Administration Bureau," were clearly visible.

The TSAB Admiral bent slightly at the waist, dropping her head about a foot into a shallow bow before straitening herself up.

"What a joyous occasion this is, I am Admiral Amber Lynnisis Sanjuyon Gallardo, commander of 6th Fleet's 2nd division. I am here n behalf f the TSAB to offer surrender terms to the esteemed leaders of the Allied States."

After she had finished her introduction, she had taken on a more relaxed stance, dropping her arms down to her sides and planting her feet a little more apart. Craig was still shocked to have a TSAB admiral in the room; they had after all refused every attempt at communication, and usually killed whatever was trying it. But he was getting over it quickly enough, and had already recovered enough to spot some details he hadn't noticed before, for instance, the fact that she wore a black glove on her left hand, and that the hand in question was slightly larger than the other, a difference that Craig noticed extended all the way up the arm.

"Terms for surrender? Don't you think you're being a tad presumptuous?"

She turned around fully to face the Vice-President who had just spoken, and Craig discovered another interesting fact, her glove had a device built into it, this Admiral was also a Mage.

"Presumptuous? Are you under the assumption that you can still win?"

Before the Vice-President could shoot back, she was stopped by the hand of the Secretary of State gently pulling her back. The two exchanged looks before the former continued on in her stead.

"You said you are here to offer surrender? Then what are your conditions?"

"Thank you, I am happy to see someone here is more level headed."

She turned and observed everyone at the table again before continue on.

"We request an unconditional surrender from the Allied States government and military. All military assets were be confiscated and then destroyed, as will all space going vessels and anything with a Dimensional Jump Drive, or a connected to the Dimensional Seas or Lines. You will cede all parts of your territory, except one of your choice. You may then hand pick up to 100,000 citizens to occupy this territory."

The Admiral had kept a straight face the entire time she relayed the surrender terms, and she seemed to genuinely think that they were good.

"Also, you will hand over the Battle Station at Vol IV."

"I am sorry, but for what reason do you need that Battle Station? I would like to hope that it doesn't involve the Linear Cannon."

After the fall of the Belkan home world, their Empire, already under the strain of centuries of conquest and decades of civil war, split into pieces, and those pieces eventually became the current Dimensional powers. The Irlians, who had only recently been conquered and who still attempted to resist, quickly tried to reassert themselves, however their battles had left them badly weekend and it would be almost five hundred years until they regained anything close to what they were before.

While the Irlian's had already existed, the Allied States were the first new government that ever achieved anything to form, but they had their own hardships. The Allied States were located in one of the more stable parts of the Ancient Belkan Empire, and miraculously, the civil war passed right over them. So they started with a good foundation and infrastructure, but they had almost no military assets and no military leaders.

While the Saint King Unification War raged on, and the Allied States tried to build a place for themselves and the Irlians tried to rebuild, a nameless Belkan general defected, taking his forces and ships away from the fighting and into the outer reaches where he formed the Belkan Hegemony. From there he united the far flung remainders of the Ancient Belkan Empire and then set out to re-conquer his homeland. The Belkan Hegemony slowly retook scattered pieces of Ancient Belka and as the Unification War began to die down; his forces came into contact with the Irlians for the first time.

The new Irlian Empire was unable to halt their advance, and slowly began losing territory, and eventually, they were forced back far enough the Belkan Hegemony finally reached the territory of the Allied States.

But even with the Allied States and Irlian Empire combined force, they were still unable to beat them back, and they slowly lost more and more territory.

At some point, the Allied States Navy began construction of a massive Battle Station, but instead of making it a purely defensive structure, they decided to build it around a giant Linear Cannon of Belkan design.

The exact specifics of the gun are classified, and even Craig didn't know exactly how it worked, mass weapons being illegal and the knowledge of how to make them being deeply restricted, but he knew that the Cannon was able to fire shells through the Dimensional Seas, and if rumors were to be counted on, they had the capacity to shatter a planet with a single shot.

The Cannon was completed too late to be used in the war, before it was brought online the Allied States and the Irlians made a new ally that came to their aid, the TSAB. With their ships built entirely around long range powerful energy attacks, their single small fleet of ships laid waste to the attacking Hegemony forces. While their small fleet controlled the Seas, their ground forces made almost entirely of Mages, using the new Mid-Childan system devastated the Ballan armies of knights.

The Belkan Hegemony would have eventually overpowered them, but with the Battle Station finally online, and the Irlians and Allied States able to rebuild while the TSAB bought time, the Hegemony was forced to accept a peace proposal for an armistice.

Or so the history books had taught him, Craig hadn't really been the greatest student, he was busy pursing other interests at the time, however, that part had been what would eventually lead him to a career in politics. To unite to fight a common enemy was such an exciting concept.

Unfortunately, things hadn't worked out quite how he had planned, although, he could definitely say it was exciting.

That said, if the TSAB was willing to attempt to negotiate in an effort to get the Linear Cannon, that meant two things; one, that they intended to attack the Belkan Hegemony, or at least they intended the Belkans to attack them; and two, that they thought they needed the Cannon to be able to fight them.

"I'll be frank, my main objective is to capture the Linear Cannon intact, and while I am confident that we could beat you, I am not confident that the Cannon won't get damaged. I, however, can go about my mission in any way that I so choose, and I have the authority to offer you these terms, and I can assure you, they are very generous."

Craig Couldn't help himself and laughed out loud, a sort of light chuckle that he quickly tried to hide, but it was too late, the TSAB Admiral fixed her gaze on him, and he noticed that almost everyone else in the room did too.

"I am sorry, Admiral… what was it again? Admiral Amber Lynnesis Sanjuyon Gallardo? That's a mouthful. Anyway, about your terms, I believe they are… absurd? Yeah, that's the word I am looking for, absurd."

Craig had spoken out of turn, and had obviously antagonized the Admiral during a diplomatic meeting, one that he wasn't technically able to speak in; but the terms were ludicrous, no one would take them. As he looked around the table, most of his colleague were giving him nods of approval, only the Senators seemed annoyed, but even that was more subdued than normal.

And as for the TSAB Admiral with the unusually long and weird name, she had a more predatory look on her face, but it there was also gratitude there, as if she wasn't prepared to attack him, but thankful of his set up, which Craig was not at all happy with.

"As I said before, I think the terms I outlined are very generous, however, I can allow some negotiations, but some things are inflexible. I could allow multiple territories as long as they are small, I had originally intended to leave you a single planet, but if you would be willing to use smaller bases, you could keep several of them. I could also increase the amount of population you can keep, maybe up to 150,000. We could discuses other aspects too."

She hadn't attacked, nor had she revealed anything else, but the small smirk that she wore was still there, as if she was still waiting to pounce. Craig wanted to respond, to see if he could counter whatever unknown verbal attack she was planning, but she had redirected the conversation into a direction that he really couldn't follow, terms for surrender was not something he could weigh in on, he could voice his opinion on the deal as a whole, but hammering out specifics was a place that was just out of reach for a mere Deputy Secretary.

He was pleased to see that the one person who could maneuver words as slyly as he could, Vice-Admiral Kunieda had decided to speak up. Unfortunately, as she spoke, he realized that she was leading right into the trap, whatever it may be that the Admiral had set up.

"You say we can "Keep" some population, I assume that to mean that we will be able to govern them? Then I need to ask, what will happen to the others?"

Come to think of it, that was an excellent question. The TSAB might make them prisoners of war, but Craig doubted that had the capacity to maintain the remaining 100 billion people in the Allied States. That left two possible options, they would make them into basically slave labor, or they would press them into military service and use them as the first line of attack against the Belkans.

Craig fully expected to hear some rhetorical political crap that would be a sugary way of saying one of his two options. She would never flat out say that they would become human shields or slaves, it would be some drawn out thing about how they would help the greater good and yadda yadda yadda.

So when her small smirk extended into a full grin that just oozed with evil intent, Craig suppressed an involuntary shudder.

"We will purify them."

She said that with a kind of religious fervor, the same way a priest talks about god. And what did "Purify" mean? Craig didn't expect religious dogma from the Admiral, in fact, it was farthest from his mind. The TSAB had always allowed freedom of religion, and despite the presences of the Saint Church, they, like the Allied States, Irlian Empire, Free Trade Union, and come to think of it, even the Belkan Hegemony, had had no state religion. But considering there completely unexplained and rapid collapse and then re-emergence, it was possible that some kind of religious cult had grown out of them, but it was unexpected.

"By "Purify them," you mean…?"

The Vice-Admiral seemed horrified by the conversation, like she had reached some conclusion that the rest hadn't yet.

"Obviously I mean that we would eradicate them."

The Vice-Admiral sunk back into her chair, a look of complete sorrow and defeat on her face. The rest seemed to be more in shock, or lost in confusion, two feeling that Craig was sharing. She couldn't possibly mean that the TSAB would kill almost all of the remaining one hundred billion people in the Allied States; that was…insane.

"You would kill…everyone? You must be joking."

The Vice-Admiral had uncharacteristically given up and instead, the Vice-President had taken over. She seemed to have more bite to her now, a form of almost righteous anger spurring her on.

"Every one? As in every person? No, not at all. We would kill everything. Every animal, every plant, every living thing on all of your remaining planets and bases, we would exterminate."

Now, shock was the predominate emotion on everyone's face. Was she bluffing? Was it just a threat? Craig could understand what they were thinking, it was just too much to fully grasp. But Craig saw the TSAB admirals face, watched her look around as if surveying an insect colony, like she was watching something so far underneath her that while it might be interesting, it was of no concern, and he knew that she only spoke the truth, it was no idle threat, just a statement of what was to come.

A few of the Generals and Admirals managed to spurt out some simple words, oddly enough, Rear-Admiral Condel leading them on.

"Really people, you're getting way too upset about this-"

She paused, and that grin grew even wider, the big reveal was coming, and it was going to be massive.

"-It's what we've been doing all along-"

Every one stopped talking over each other and just stared at her dumbfounded. She let out a small laugh that was more of a girlish giggle, not at all what Craig expected from a butcher like this.

"-or did you not know? HA, you didn't? What is your intelligence service doing? Geez-"

Complete and absolute dead silence greeted her from all around the room.

"-Did you think we were invading those planets? No, not at all. We wouldn't waste our ground forces on those planets, we just leveled them from orbit."

The room exploded into Chaos.