1.06

“Hell of a day to miss work!”

Hollace hurried back to the corner of the library where she’d been sitting for uncounted hours, lifted the empty coffee cup one more time only to find it still empty. It probably wasn’t a great idea to be slamming caffeine so late in the day, she admitted, and the most monumental political earthquake of her entire life had her buzzing with a shock of adrenaline regardless.

1.05

Hollace awoke hours before dawn.

She had spent the previous two days researching Maren Whitlock, a Progress Party challenger to the incumbent Halden Thorpe, reading as many articles as she could find, digging into as much of Whitlock’s political history as time allowed. And since Hollace wasn’t working until Monday, she had all the time in the world. She’d immersed herself so deeply into the life and work of Whitlock that she forgot to eat the previous day. She even dreamed of Whitlock. 

After a traditionally quick shower, Hollace sat on the cool countertop beside the sink and dove back into her project, not even stopping to put on clothes. Across the room situated on her bedside counter, Martin’s TV played the news. It provided a bigger picture than her old model. She kept the volume just loud enough to be heard over the industrial trucks loading and unloading cargo twenty stories below. 

“Alright, Maren…Let’s get to know each other even better.” 

1.04

Vae Rova could not take her eyes off the little orange ball that hung in the desolate void of the Federation’s interior space.

“Do you think anyone down there will be happy to see us?” she asked Andar, who stood beside her likewise gazing out the main observation window of the Chrysalis.

“Hardly,” he said with a chuckle.

Vae turned to face him. “No, I mean it. What do you think would be going through the minds of the prisoners when they see PDR Strix in the sky?” 

1.03

Burning orange flashes of astral firelight saturated the bridge of the Chrysalis between stygian blinks.

Vae gripped the central command console with fingers that now ached. Vibration shot through her arms and down her spine. The whole ship jostled on its unsteady trajectory straight through the galactic core.

If this was to be her last moment, Vae swallowed hard and accepted her fate.

1.02

The resupply of the Dreadnaught at Erania took so little time that Rane did not even have the chance to go planetside on his own homeworld.

Not that he wanted to. The first priority in Rane’s mind was Thalassar and Vice Admiral Roland Scothern. The plan required a delicate balance and he couldn’t let Scothern blunder into a moment of accidental competence and ruin the whole operation. 

The details had been kept to a select few higher in the chain of command – outside of the Security Council, Fleet Admiral Hammersley of the Federation Space Armada, and the President and Vice President, only Rane knew how the Thalassar operation was meant to play out.

He liked it that way. 

1.01

Executing a new mission had always been Rane Dryden’s favorite part of being Vice Admiral, with its preparation and planning coming in a close second; it was like putting together a puzzle whose final and completed form revealed another victory for the United Empyreal Federation.

His least favorite part was what happened after. 

1.00

The war began before anyone fighting it today was born. The exact start of the conflict remains disputed, but most historians would agree the secession of planets declaring independence from the United Empyreal Federation was the catalyst which set the greater conflict in motion.

Following a long period of economic reforms, rollbacks in social safety nets, and consolidation of power into fewer and fewer privileged hands, resistance grew among the laboring people on various planets under Federation control as those elected to represent the people failed to do so. This trend continued, although it could not continue forever. Incremental changes over time pushed the working people to their breaking point, and they began to push back, demanding a greater say in the systems controlling every part of their lives. Too many people had been held down for too long, deprived of the basic needs they deserved as human beings and left with no legal recourse by those in power as the electoral system continued to produce the same unwanted result of preserving the inequities of the status quo. 

Thus, the course was set for revolution.