The Free City of Lys, alongside the rest of the Nine Free Cities, had long abandoned the calendar of the ancient Valyrians. Prior to the Doom, the cities, either trueborn daughters or bastard spawn of the empire, had used a calendar that had its origins in the founding of the Temple of Balerion, one of the foremost gods of the dragonlords. Since then, most had transitioned away from it, instead using calendars centred on the Doom and the subsequent independence of the nine. It had been during the Century of Blood, and the diminishing of Volantis' power in the aftermath of the Bleeding Years that the daughters of Valyria had agreed to a united calendar, to better facilitate trade between them.
Iressa knew the calendar, and so the date, by heart. She was one of the few slaves in her household who could read, at least not counting the scribes that their master owned. She was just a bed slave, meant to warm the sheets of whichever member of the master's family called her at any given time. Just the other night she had been taken by the guards to the chambers of the master and mistress, who had toyed with her from dusk until near dawn.
Tonight however, none of the family had called for her, though two other slaves like her had been escorted by the guards to the rooms of the master and the master's second son.
And so, it was that very night; the seventeenth day of the first month of the three-hundredth-and- ninety-first year after the Doom of Valyria that Iressa met her saviours.
It began with a bang.
It was a strange sound, loud and sudden and dying out as quickly as it had appeared. It shocked awake many of the slaves kept shackled in their pen, for Iressa refused to call it their apartments as their masters claimed when speaking of his generosity.
Then had come the crash.
If the first sound had startled them awake, then the crashing of wood sent them scrambling. As much as they could. The doors to their pens were broken, and the first thing Iressa could see was a strange bright light. It was cold and small, not at all like the torches that hung on the walls of the master's home.
"We've got more in here."
"Get them free. Have Holly talk to them if none of them speak English."
Iressa couldn't understand their strange tongue, but it sounded like the language of the people of the West that the master and his family sometime met with. As the light died down, she wondered at what she saw. Strange people dressed in curious clothes she could only guess was some kind of armour, stood before her and the others. The small white lights came from the sides of their heads where their ears might have been, and she could see no slit in their helmets for them to see through. Instead, some kind of orange material reflected back at her.
"Hello." Another voice called out, this time in a language she understood.
The choppy sounds of Low Valyrian rang out.
"Does anyone here speak the Westerosi tongue?"
The figure who spoke did not look like a woman, but she sounded like one. Iressa shrank back on herself, not wanting to risk this person's attention and possibly their irritation.
"I do." An old, weathered hand rose. One of the oldest slaves owned by the master rose to their knees. He was white haired and pale skinned, covered in wrinkles and some scars.
"Good" The woman said. "Tell everyone to get up. We'll get your shackles off in a moment."
The old man looked surprised, and Iressa wondered what they might be speaking.
"Right, everyone get up. These people are here to free us."
There was a wave shock that rippled through the gathered slaves, but quickly they rose, not wanting to waste a second when each one delayed their freedom. It took only moments more before the sounds of breaking metal and clanking chains sounded out across the room. Iressa rubbed at her wrists where the shackles had bitten into her skin and looked at the warrior who had freed her. She, even without seeing her face Iressa recognised the voice as female, spoke again to the man who understood the Westerosi tongue. The old man's face lit up and he laughed, scoffing something without heat before turning to them.
"Right all, they want us to follow them. Someone from Westeros finally got tired of these slaving bastards and is taking the city. We're to shelter in that dead bastard Vinharyn's home until the morning."
Excitement flooded through Iressa's veins. The master was dead? Vinharyn Orleanan and his family had owned her since she was born, when the current master had forced her mother to fuck another slave. She had never known who had been her father, and she had not been able to ask her mother before she had been gifted away to one of the Magisters who had stayed and taken a liking to her.
Her time reminiscing did not delay her however. Iressa followed gladly with the soldiers who led them out of their pen and into the rich house of their former masters. Once inside, the former slaves wandered, many of them nervous and skittish, flinching as if the slightest movement might make their tormentors appear and mete out punishments.
Moving through the large courtyards and rooms of the manse, Iressa came to the master's rooms and peeked through the door. There, laid out on the bed and staining it a deep crimson, was the master and mistress. Though she had followed her saviours here, and revelled in her freedom when her chains had been broken, seeing the dead bodies of those who had kept her in bondage left her shaken, almost lost, and she wondered what might become of her now that she was no longer owned as she had been all her life.
A flash of light from the far side of the room piqued her curiosity, a curiosity she was unable to resist. She stepped into the master's… no, into Orleanan's room. Walking over the pristine carpet that had probably been worth more than she had been she stepped out onto the balcony.
What she saw took her breath away.
High in the sky, floating in the air like a cloud, but too low and too solid to be so, were strange behemoths. They were dark against the moon and stars that shone in the sky, but beams of light travelled down from them, rolling over the buildings of the city. Screams and cries of panic carried up to her from all around, and Iressa could see on the streets below her the bodies of guards who had fallen.
Likely they had fallen to the very warriors who had freed her and her people, but Iressa could see no bodies like those of the warriors she had met. Had none of them fallen? There were dozens, likely hundreds of bodies piled below her, it seemed impossible that none of these invaders had suffered fatal wounds.
Another of the loud bangs startled her. Whipping her head around she saw a plum of fire burst into the night sky. The dull glow of the fire allowed her to see more of the city as it fell. Small groups of warriors rushed through one of the side-streets and out into the main square. There she could spot a large group of the city guards of the Lys gathered. Iressa lowered her head. The strange warriors numbered only five or six men from what she could see, and the guards were a throng of bodies easily ten times their size.
The former slave closed her eyes and prayed. She and her fellow slaves were free, and she prayed to whatever gods might be listening that come the morning they would still be.
"Plataea-actual, this is fireteam Katana. The main commercial buildings of Lys city have been captured."
"Affirmative fireteam Katana, hold position and await further orders."
"Yes Ma'am."
Kurt sat in the captain's seat in the Plataea's main command centre. All around him members of the UNSC navy and spartan corps were overseeing their first true military mission since Blue Flag's ill-fated assault. The attack on the Red Keep could barely be called an operation, and even this invasion was proving to create minimal consequences. Normal operations encountered problems, setbacks, and complications, but none had so far popped up with the six-pronged invasions of the three daughters.
Looking over the battleplans that he and his command staff had created, there hadn't been so much as a hitch all night.
One-thousand spartans had left the Plataea, transported on the many black-cat class sub prowlers that rested inside the Plataea's hangers.
It was at times like this that Kurt was deeply glad for the class of ship that Lord Hood had assigned him.
As an Orion-class supercarrier, the Plataea had more than enough room in her hangers for the more than twenty sub prowlers that had ferried his spartans to and from their missions. Not to mention the hundreds of warthogs, mongooses, pelicans, albatrosses, scorpion tanks, falcons and hornets that the ships advanced fabricators were capable of manufacturing. The orion class had been built to exist behind enemy lines and without support, and now that survivability and adaptability was serving them well.
"Myr city is secured. We're wiping up the last pockets of resistance and setting up the holo-displays."
"Understood fireteam Zulu, any problems?"
"None from the natives, but we had a mishap with one of our explosive charges. The building apparently used to be a liquor storehouse and burned faster than expected. Requesting additional fire-suppression equipment."
"Understood. UNSC Horus is manoeuvring into position, standby for equipment delivery."
"We see her. Fireteam Zulu out."
Kurt relaxed into his seat. He had trained every single one of the men and women who were down there, and he knew there was nothing any of these people could do to stop his children.
"Sir, Miss Rhaella has entered active labour. She's at 8 centimetres and the doctors believe she'll give birth within the next few hours."
"Good. Let me know when she's done."
Kurt turned away from the intercom to focus on the satellite display. Arrayed in front of the command deck was a map of the disputed lands of Essos as they were called, with three smaller areas zoomed in. The cities of Myr, Lys and Tyrosh had Spartan IFFs moving all across them, with hundreds more moving through the countryside to various outlying towns and settlements that were deemed sizable enough to require immediate suppression.
The UNSC colonial efforts would require a stable base, and controlling the three major cities and enclosing the area would allow them to effectively establish their control over that section of the continent. Not to mention it would effectively end the Essosi practice of Slavery in the region. Of course, Kurt intended to ensure that his version, the correct version, of events was known and spread across both Essos and Westeros. For all that he had now made an enemy of Tywin, and had arguably committed treason by the laws of Westeros, Kurt knew one man who would be able to override any of Tywin's attempts at reprisal.
Robert Baratheon was a product of his time and his upbringing, and by no means did Kurt intend to submit himself to the man directly. However, he had shown himself to be of firm enough moral character for his time, and aside from that a strong proponent of military and combat solutions to perceived problems. Framing the conquests of these cities, with appropriate compensations to sooth frayed nerves and bruised egos, as ending the evils of slavery, and bringing freedoms would hopefully get the man to keep Tywin off his back and prevent outright war.
Normally, Kurt wouldn't have nearly as much time to think when commanding a mission, but with the vast difference in training, discipline and technology, there hadn't been a call for command input in minutes, and when there was, it was mostly just requests for the next set of orders after an area had been handled and subdued.
Vaguely he wondered how he would handle the aftermath of operation. Given Rhaella's child was soon to be born, and there had been a decent amount of time since Robert's wedding to Cersei, he wondered.
He'd have to talk to Rhaella about how long she would need before the Wedding, and how they might be able to use it to smooth over flared tempers before they began full colonisation efforts.
A shot from her pistol killed the guard who had raised his shield and advanced. The other three, all armoured in the best that this medieval world could produce, looked on in shock as their compatriot dropped dead in front of them, bleeding from the hole in his forehead.
Holly lowered her weapon for a moment.
"Anyone else?"
The three men exchanged glances before looking at her and the city that she and the rest of Gamma Company had captured. Well, that was an exaggeration. Only about a third of Gamma Company was present in the city. The other two-thirds were moving through the rest of Lyseni territory, taking towns and plantations across their mainland holdings to fully bring the area under control. Alpha Company was doing the same to Myr and Beta to Tyrosh, and so far, there hadn't been so much as a peep of distress over any of their channels. There had even been a few instances of her company trading jokes and gags with other members of the operations.
The men in front of her still looked uncertain, and she could hear someone yelling from behind the closed gate. Her Valyrian wasn't perfect, but she was pretty sure that whoever it was, was calling for them to kill her.
Holly took a step forwards, readying her weapons in the event the men in front of her didn't listen and she had to kill them. Seeing her step forwards, whatever deliberation they might have been making was abandoned. They quickly threw down their arms and begged her mercy, much to the dismay of whoever was commanding them.
She rolled her eyes under her helmet, marching up to the massive doors and preparing to ram it. Normally, she wouldn't have gone for such a theatrical display, but the captain had given orders for shock and awe, and so Holly thought she was justified in using her enhanced bulk to terrify some slavers.
She backed up, braced herself and sprinted full tilt towards the thick sealed wooden gate.
A spartan in Mjolnir armour weighed about half a ton, combined with their own weight it was slightly over that. With all the enhancements granted both by their augmentations and their armour, the average spartan could reach top speeds of over fifty kilometres per hour. With that kind of bulk moving at those speeds, her first impact against the gate cracked it. The men who had surrendered looked on in horror at what they likely thought was a monster in human skin, and the sounds of panicking men on the other let Holly know that her scare tactics were effective.
A few charges were all it took to break through the massive gate, sending splinters of wood flying and bending the metal reinforcements. The hole she had made was large enough for a man to fit through without lowering his head, and it had only cost her a slight ache in her shoulder that was already fading.
Now she stood alone, in front of the gathered army and militia of Lys that had barricaded themselves to protect the main seat of their magisterial conclave.
"Right then." She declared, holstering her pistol, drawing the M392 DMR and pointing it at the most well-dressed of them men in front of her.
"Who's first."
"KILL THE BEAST!" Screamed the man she had aimed her weapon at.
He had a short sword in his hand, which he had raised to point at her. The men to his sides exchanged glances between him, her, the hole she'd made in their gate, and each other. Whatever was going through their minds, three of the guards roared in fury and charged her.
Three loud bangs as chemically propelled bullets pierced their bodies sent all three men tumbling to the ground before they'd made it more than three meters while Holly turned her weapon sights back to the man who had barked his orders.
Whoever he might have been before, he had only enough time to look at her in fear and open his mouth. Whether he had meant to beg for his life or order more men to attack was irrelevant as he caught a bullet right between the eyes. Several of the other well-dressed citizens, both male and female, cried out as he crumpled to the ground. One woman raced forwards and cradled the body, resting his head in her lap and soaking her dress in blood.
"Right, now that that's done with. Do we have anyone else who wants to try something?"
The assembled people traded glances, likely trying to deliberate without words.
"Holly, are you ok?" Ash ducked through the hole, followed by Dante, Olivia, and Mark. Seeing her team come up behind her, looking every bit as intimidating as she did, the gathered soldiers and higher echelons of Lyseni society looked near frozen with fear.
Mustering up his courage, one of them came forward. Tentatively he stepped over the body of the man Holly had shot.
"Who are you? As magister of Lys, I demand to know why you have committed this unprovoked act of aggression against our city."
Ash looked to her.
"You good to deal with this? Your Valyrian is the best out of all of us."
"Got it." Holly smirked. "I'm not gonna be all diplomatic like the captain though."
"Good. I don't care to spare these fuckers' feelings."
Turning back to the new man, Holly cleared her throat.
"Right then. Listen up. We're UNSC Spartan Gamma Company. Under orders from our captain Kurt Ambrose in accordance with UNSC colonisation and occupation procedures, as well as UEG constitutional article seven outlawing the practice of slavery and the operation of a slave trade we have officially declared war against the cities of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh. As high-ranking participants of this illegal practice, you have two options; surrender and submit yourselves to UNSC trial and justice, or die."
A ripple of shock passed through the crowd, and the man who had stepped forwards' face changed from apprehension to a mix of shock and rage.
"Surrender to you? Our city has stood since the time of the Valyrian empire, and survived when even the dragons of old perished in the fires of the Doom. I recognise you now, the new barbarians from the West. You dare to attack us like this, and to proclaim this false superiority over a practice that has existed since time immemorial."
The man arched his back, standing taller as he tried to match the Mjolnir coated spartan in height.
"We are the magisters and masters of Lys, and we will not surrender to-"
Bang.
Whatever speech the man might have made, whatever grand proclamation uttered in defence of his city or justification for their ancient practice was cut off mid stride by a shot from Mark's DMR.
"God, I didn't even understand half of what he was saying but I knew I had to shut him up."
The rest of Saber team levelled their own weapons. Though they might not have understood the mechanics of how their guns worked. The upper echelons of Lys were smart enough to understand what it meant for their weapons to be pointed at them. Most cast their own weapons into the dirt, falling to the ground as well or raising their arms in the universal gesture of surrender.
Those few that did not tried one of two things. They either charged in a valiant but ultimately suicidal attempt to defeat them, or they began proclaiming the longevity of their city and their society, and how even if they took Lys for the moment, the people and traditions of the city would rise again and send them to their deaths.
Neither side got to do either for very long, as they were all gunned down in a spray of bullets after Saber team opened fire with an assortment of UNSC firearms. Holly and Mark's DMRs spat individual rounds, while Dante, Olivia and Ash sprayed automatic fire from their own MA5B rifles.
It was over in only seconds. The ruling Magisters of Lys, who had overseen one of the most complete and pervasive systems of slavery in history, were dead or on their knees, pleading mercy. Holly turned on her radio, tuning in to the right frequency
"This is Fireteam Saber to Plataea-actual. We've infiltrated the main governmental buildings of Lys and have prisoners, requesting additional units to secure them before we sweep the building's interior."
"Understood Saber. Fireteams Katana and Gladius are en route, we'll have UNSC Shadowfax deploy prisoner restraints to your location."
"Roger that Plataea, we'll hold up until they arrive."
Rhaella had thought that after seeing the world from so high up on one of the Plataea's flying beasts that nothing would ever compare. Nothing could display just how far beyond the rest of the world House Terra was quite like knowing that they were not of this world.
She had been wrong.
As soon as she had begun the process of giving birth, something that terrified her greatly after so many failed pregnancies and stillborn children, Lord Kurt had called for his maesters to tend to her. The men and women, clad in white and blue robes meant to reveal any dirt or grime had wheeled her out on what they called a gurney towards the same place Ashara had given birth all those months ago. Once there, they had introduced what was perhaps the greatest evidence possible that they were truly of the stars.
They had called it an epidural.
Oh, the science of it, as they said, was beyond her understanding, but the effects were a wonder to behold. Birth had always been an agonising experience for women around the world, and Rhaella had been no exception as she had tried in vain to deliver child after child from her marriage with Aerys. All but two had been lost to her, either through miscarriage, still birth or illness soon after, but each time the fight to deliver her children had hurt.
Now though, Rhaella felt the pressure of her contractions, knew they were coming and endured them, but before there had been hours of wailing and screaming. With this wonder, there was just a mild discomfort, easily endured by gritting her teeth for a few moments.
"Alright Rhaella." The maester positioned between her legs caught her attention. "You're far enough along now, we need you to start pushing on the next contraction."
She nodded, more than familiar with the technicalities or childbirth. Steeling herself for what was to come she gripped the metal edges of the bed firmly, and as the next contraction started, she pushed.
The chatter around her dimmed, but Rhaella didn't notice. As she pushed, and the maesters encouraged her to continue, Rhaella was only concerned with the health of her child. All throughout her pregnancy she had been assured that she would receive the best of care, and that barring any terrible accidents she and her child would be well. But Rhaella had heard all those things before from maesters assuring her about her other children.
"She's crowning." One of the attendants said, offering her encouragement as the end of her ordeal came into sight.
Rhaella only prayed that her child would live, after Rhaegar, she could not bear to lose another child, especially if she would then have to marry another man and bear even more children who might meet the same fate.
It seemed that her prayers were answered, for soon the sound of a bawling babe filled the room, and one of the maesters quickly severed the birthing cord and lifted her child up.
"It's a girl."
Relief flooded through her. The maesters pointed out no flaw in her babe's health, as they had done for some of her other children. Looking over, she saw them taking her new daughter over to a table with several instruments.
"forty-nine point four centimetres long, three point four kilograms."
Rhaella didn't quite understand yet exactly how these people weighted and measured items. Viserys had been taught it recently in his classes, but Rhaella was still having some trouble converting these new measurements in her mind
The maester next the her must have seen the confusion and worry on her face, because she patted Rhaella's arm to ally her concern.
"That's a perfectly good weight for a newborn. She seems perfectly healthy. We're just going to run a few tests and then she'll be right with you."
She nodded, knowing that such test were normal to ensure that any problems with her child could be quickly dealt with. Other maesters swarmed her as well, examining her so as to ensure that she would suffer no complications that might threaten her life.
Time seemed to drag on, and the toll of childbirth was catching up to her as exhaustion closed in on her.
"Here you go miss."
A bundle was placed in her arms and Rhaella looked down to see the squirming face of her daughter. The newborn returned her look, eyes a light purple, almost blue, but she knew that in a few weeks those eyes would darken into the amethyst colour that was one of the defining features of her house.
"Hello."
She whispered gently to her daughter, rocking her slightly and bringing her mouth to her chest. She moved her medical gown and within moments her daughter was nursing from her. The idea of nursing her own babe was considered an oddity amongst noble women. Better to let the wet-nurse deal with such things, but the Plataea had no such women in their employ. As such, she would have to provide for her own daughter, but if that was the price for a healthy girl, the former queen was more than happy to pay it.
"Any ideas on a name, miss?"
"Daenerys. Her name is Daenerys."
FInished. I was wondering if I should keep Daenerys' name the same but in the end I decided to keep to canon.
In general I've loved the reviews and discussions, but I will admit it's a bit limited. So I've finally taken the advice of reviews and PMs and am cross posting this story onto spacebattles. I will be uploading chapters over the next two or three weeks and would love if you guys could go over, read and discuss.
Now for the real bit. As I've said last chater Rhaella and Kurt won the poll, and now with this section finished we will start moving a little more quickly. I know I've said that a lot but this is for real. This will mean we will skip over some of the minutiae when it comes to some aspects since we will have to skip days or weeks between big events. UNSC and Westerosi travel times make for poor pacing when smashed together so I'll try to keep it brief on that front.