1119:153:0700 HRS Local Time

Mora Highport, Naval Section, Breifing Room 1

Mora System[1], Mora Subsector[2], Spinward Marches Sector[3], Domain of Deneb[4]

The scene opens panning across a large room. 60 uniformed Army Officers of various rank sit in comfortable chairs. Behind a podium displaying the Imperal Sunburst, is a large wall with a video screen depicting a forested scene. There is a holotank recessed into the floor in front of the podium. The sounds of whispered conversations and shuffling datapads stops as a Admiral Sir Windzor takes the podium. The lights dim, and the forested scene is replaced by an Imperial Sunburst[5].

"Gentlesophonts, welcome. As I am sure that you are aware, today's discussion is to be considered category blue[6]."

The officer gestures to a map appearing in the air before the group. "As you know, our situation is less the pleasant. With Lucan[7] and Dulinor[8] going at each others throats in the core sectors, increases in incursions from the Varger[9] Extents[10] coreward, and the Aslan[11] Ihatei[12] pressuring us from rimward, we are in quite a pickle."

"Add to this increased tensions with the Zhodani[13] apparently mirroring the run up to the Fifth Frontier War[14], and we are in quite a situation. But you know all of this."

"What you do not know is that Duke Norris[15] has just informed Dutchess Dalphin[16] of Mora of the Emperor's will to elevate Norris to ArchDuke of Deneb."

The officer waits for the room to settle down.

"Emperor Strephon[17] expressed his will via Imperial Warrant[18] #1114/32 132-1119, before his death. Now, I am very aware that some of you are loyal to Dutchess Dalphin, and assume the worst. Well, gentlesophonts, we have the wolves baying at our doors, and now is not the time to fracture the defenders of this realm." His face hardened, "We will support the people of this realm, and do anything it takes to keep them safe. At this juncture, a clearly defined command structure is a positive outcome. Let the historians pick apart the actions and damn or praise Norris."

"The Archduke sent this along, as his first order"

The light dimmed, the officer stepped aside, and the back screen lit up. Everyone recognized ArchDuke Norris's face. The grey which had just touched his temples was more defined and his eyes looked tired. He was dressed in his typical ships jumpsuit, with Admiral clusters on the lapels.

"Friends. It has been a long, hard fight to keep the marches safe. When I assumed command of the Imperial Forces during the Fifth Frontier War, little did I know that in a few short years, we would be in even more dire circumstances."

"With this rebellion[19] sapping the frontier fleets through out the Imperium, old foes are waking up to the opportunity. Terra has fallen to the Solomani Confederation[20]. Varger Corsairs roam unchecked through parts of Corridor sector. The Aslan Ihatei are eyeing our flanks for their ever consuming need for expansion."

"But what about the ever present threat from the Zhodani Consultate? I have worried about that threat the most over the past months. However, I have just completed talks with Consular officials on Regina, and they have given me their solemn word that they will respect our borders. In fact, they voiced the opinion that an Imperial presence in the marches is preferable to anarchy on their doorstep."

"With assurances from that front, we have some latitude to start operations to more effectively secure our other borders. Starting now, I am taking full, direct command of all Imperial Assets in the Domain of Deneb. As you hear this message, plans are being put into place to help secure Corridor, push back the raiders, and diplomats have been dispatched to discuss options with the Aslan Ihatei."

"Your part in this great undertaking will be special. I am putting together several joint forces for special operations. Due to your outstanding performance to date, you all have been chosen for one of these special task forces. I know that I, and the hundreds of billions of people who call the Domain of Deneb home can count on you. Thank you and good luck!"

The lights came back up. and Admiral Sir Windzor took to the podium again.

"Bill, you'll take CruRon[21] 33 and 41 rimward to support the Diplomats with the Aslan. Your flag will be on the Battleship Cleon. Enri, I'm giving you CruRon 17 and DesRons 982 and 876 to have a chat with the Sword Worlds. I expect that you'll see some action there."

"YYgstrilli, take BatRon 3 and CruRon 9 and 11 into Corridor. You're only to do a Recon in Force, so get in, look around, and get out. If you see any obvious targets of opportunity, you'll know what to do. Norris will be backing you up in force in the coming months."

"Tu, take DesRon 33 to Depot, and see what condition they are in. We need Depot. If you need to call in YYgstrilli, do so. I want you to move quickly." 

"Jacobson, I have a special task for you. Norris feels that the Island Worlds might be of use to us in the near future. You're to head out there with CruRon 17, 88 and 9 and make sure that they do not become polarized. I'm also giving you AssaultRon 167 and 7872. If you need to take the place by force, you are authorized. Try and make peace with the natives however. We are expecting Dulinor to try and push into the rift, and strong arm us into giving up fleet elements."

"Folks, there are briefings like this happening all over Mora, and the domain. We each have our jobs laid out in front of us, so let's get cracking!"

----

1119:156:0400 HRS Local Time

Margo Imperial Grand Unified Army Base

Mora System, Mora Subsector, Spinward Marches Sector, Domain of Deneb

PFC Henry Zeng looked at PFC Julia Iishuii and waggled his eyebrows. "Damn, rookie, that rifle is spotless! You gonna eat off it?"

"Stow the chatter," barked the First Sergeant. "The Captain has something to say, so shut the frak up and listen!"

"As I was saying, the Dog Company, and the rest of the 19190 Battalion and 7872 Division has been activated. We have 1 week of training, and then we're shipping out. We will be accompanying several cruiser elements into the Islands Subsector."

PFC Zeng looked confused.

"Zeng, got something on your mind?"

"Sir, yes. Where the frak is this fraking Island place?"

"Far enough away that we're going as corpsicles, Private. And you're not going to be shooting at rebel impies either. If they need us, you're going to be shooting at natives."

The entire company groaned.

"corpsicles, sir?" 

"Shut your food hole, Private Zeng!" barked the Sergeant. "If the brass wants your ass frozen, you'll ask How Cold Sir! You will be getting the standard half pay for time frozen. And you will not age. Sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me Private! Do. You. Have. A. Problem?"

"No Master Sergeant!"

"Then let's shut the frak up, gear up, and get our week of smartifying on!"

The entire company shouted "Yes Master Sergeant", and fell out. Captain Peters held back a smile. The Dog was a young company. Most of the solders were green. Several of the sergeants and LT's had seen action in the Fifth Frontier War, and about half had gone into that hell hole of an anti-insurrection campaign two years ago. No one else had done anything other the guarding barracks and polishing rifles. Zeng was one of the old timers, and it showed. The mix of hard nosed old timers and raw recruits had it's challenges, but it also had its advantages. 

Captain Peters thought about his brother, taking a company of green Marines into the Sword Worlds as Ships Troops on a battleship. No, he was more then happy to be a corpsicle, and wake up to off load and do infantry things. No jumping out of ships in orbit for him, thank you very much.

It was going to be an interesting assignment, that's for sure.

----

????:???:???? HRS Local Time

Location Unknown

Your eyes stagger open. Your head hurts, it feels like a poni shit in your mouth and you are starving. 

It's dark. 

Where the frak are the medics? 

You feel around and find the emergency release, and pull. 

Less happens then you expected, but you do hear a pop, and smell a change in the air. You push hard against the capsule's hatch, and it falls open. Still dark. You hear loud clattering as a few other hatches fall to the ground. Red emergency lighting fades on, and you are presented with a scene that you never expected. Everything is canted over, and there is water... what the frak?

Notes:

The datapad's ROM has been wiped. The storage is still functioning (barely.) It shows a date of -200:134:--:--

Each time it's accessed it will fail on a roll of 9 or less.

----:000:00:00 Local Time

(The recording is very poor. There is lots of static and it fades in and out.)

"(calm voice)Major fleet elements engaging. AR 167 and CR 9 will fall back to a defensible"

.........."and they fracking went and nuked"

............"scrambling? Fire All"

..."Bastards will never know what hit them"

...............(sounds of explosion)"Get the frack down! Oh shit, they got the bridge..."

......."(labored breathing)got...hit...in...pod...Essex....ah shi(thud)"

(30 seconds of dead air)

----:034:12:15 Local Time

(A young face appears. 2nd Lieutenant insignia show.)

"My pod got picked up by the Leningrad. I was transferred to a troop ship, as they had free beds. I'm mostly healed up."

(he pales)

"What in the hell did we run into?"

(cuts)

"Anyways, I'm being transferred to this ship. They lost a lot of their...well, they have a job for me to do."

----:182:03:34 Local Time

(Same face. Lapels show Imperial Navy Captain's Cluster shows)

"Battlefield promotion. Gotta love it."

(shakes his head)

"Well, we've found a candidate. I'm leading a team to scout out sites and talk to the locals. We're talking a platoon of infantry with us. God, I wish we had Marines. Nothing like Battle Dress and Fusion Guns. Dress to impress, I say."

"Oh well, I guess the remains of the CruRons have stationed themselves around the system. Gonna be a tough nut to crack."

----:182:09:23 Local Time

(Same face, dirty and muddy)

"We got snookered bad. Some sort of Ine Gvar hideout or something..."

"Yes Sir, we're pulling out right now...."

(gunfire just off screen)

"Sergeant! get over there! we need to pull the frack out NOW!"

(The First Sergeant runs past, armor muddy and stained.)

"Like I was saying, we got snookered. But we were able to tag one of their computers hard. From what I could see the southern content is pretty much open. If this is the spot, we're gonna be best off there. The local industrial base is low, so it will take these fracktards a while to cross over. Plenty of time to dig in."

(the First Sergeant and PFC Iishuii help PFC Zeng hobble past the screen)

The First Sergeant barks "We are good to go sir!"

(The face turns off screen)

"Let's get while the getting is good, and leave them a ImpNav size present!"

(turns back)

"We're on our way back up. Requesting covering fire, and Ortillery on our position."

(turns away, and reaches towards the screen)

"go! go! go! get us the frack out of here!"

---1:231:12:02 Local Time

(the face, tired looking, wearing rough clothes)

"Has it been more then a year? Dammit, I meant to keep up on these things. Let's see.. The southern continent was inhabited, but they were pretty friendly. Insanely low tech, but really smart. Knew that the fracktards across the sea were space travelers, and not gods. They actually had records back three thousand years to the slowship that brought them from Terra!"

"Imagine our surprise when they tell us that fracktard and company is coming over every six months or so in a small ship of some sort to take 'Their split of the crops'".

"Wow. So we befriended them, and next time the frackers came over, they had quite a surprise. First we could see them coming. High ground is a bitch. Second, we had prepared defenses and a full battalion of Army Regulars on the ground. It was over really quickly. And we got 3 Type S Scout/Couriers for the trouble. Their JDrive is fracked, and their fuel tanks have been repurposed into cargo bays, but what the hell, beggars can't be choosers."

"We then dropped a few more Ortillery rounds on their 'base', and sent them a reminder that we were in fact, still up there."

"The Admiral is going to address the fleet in a bit. I think we're putting down roots here."

---1:231:14:12 Local Time

"Well, frack me. Volunteers to stay behind, 2 troop ships in orbit, and the fleet to engage incoming forces in a bottleneck system 15 parsecs trailing. They are using a damaged Cruiser as spare parts, and what they leave behind will be my first command. No jump, but armed, and the biggest badass in the neighborhood."

---7:305:18:21 Local Time

(the face, a new scar over the right eye)

"Well, it was a good run, but it's over now. We lost the IN Badass over the one gas giant in this crap hole. about a hundred of us made it to rescue bubbles and were picked up by the IN Badass I and II. The two troop ships were fragged in orbit. Then the bastards just jumped out. The'll be back. Of that I am sure. We're holed up with the natives on the southern continent."

He sighs.

"I have no idea what the hell is going on out there. I'm going to put this into a time capsule near some of the wreckage. Perhaps some one, one day, will find this and have some idea of what happened here."

"We are able to sustain a low but comfortable tech level - We are guessing 5 to 6. However we do not have the population base for any heavy industry. We think that by keeping our population low and somewhat scattered, what the hell ever hit us will leave us alone."

"We hope."

---42:012:14:32 Local Time

(a old woman's face)

"He told me to say this: We are still safe. I had a long, and happy life. Who knows what the future will bring, but staying was the best choice I ever made."

-133:092:21:43 Local Time

(A familiar face - Captain Peters)

"Well, this is a fine mess. I've reviewed what was still accessible on this datapad, and this explains a lot."

"I awoke from cold sleep approximately 10 days ago. My berth had failed, and it spit me out. There were about 15 other berths still active. As I do not have any medical training, and my awaking was rather... unpleasant... I choose to only awake one other person. I'd head out and gather intel on the situation while they kept watch."

"I outfitted myself with a rifle, two weeks of rations, and headed out."

"I made contact with a native tribe after several days. They are substance hunter gathers, living off the forest. They are outfitted with very impressive recurve bows. They have metal arrowheads and knives. They are familiar with my rifle, and it's capabilities. They are also involved in a guerrilla, low intensity conflict, with a higher tech foe."

"I was loath to get involved, as I really had no idea what the circumstances were. Honestly, I still do not."

"PFC Smythe and I are going to mount up, and try and make contact with the OpFor in the area. We've run diagnostics on the remaining berths, and they seem to be functioning. All are on emergency power, but the batteries have several decades left."

"When we can bring some medical help, we'll come back."

-136:261:09:02 Local Time

(The Captain's face - dirty, unshaven, with several new scars)

"I have thought for a week or so what to say here. I'm sorry, I've failed the folks inside. Meeting up with the OpFor was a bad idea. They saw the quality of our weapons, and confiscated them. They they took Smythe and myself prisoner. The local commander was convinced that we could provide them with more weapons and intel on the natives."

"Smythe lasted about a week."

"The natives found out what happened to us, and staged a raid on the firebase where we were being held. They got me out."

"It turns out that they had caches of Imperial weapons, however they did not know how to repair them or prep them. I was put to work getting them ready. We staged an assault on the OpFor's supply base, with mortars and light arms. we lost a lot of people, but the base was wiped out."

"We had a chance to regroup, and contact other tribes. I trained up a cadre of warriors on prep and use of the cached weapons. We figured that next spring, we would hit the OpFor in mass, and push them back into the ocean."

"We got hit from the air. Hard. All short ranged, cloth covered biplanes. One of them had a fracking VRF Gauss in a side mounting. The rest were armed with machine guns, rockets and grenade launchers."

"We fled into the hills, to lick our wounds. I would not take anyone up here, as I was not convinced of my people's safety, and I did not want to share the location of the weapons cache here."

"The next few years were hard. We were on the run, mostly. We heard that some of the other tribes had risen up, and the entire area was consumed in a war. We were able to build back up to preforming hit and run raids on OpFor convoys and bases. We hit where we could, and faded back into the hills."

"Like anything else, our luck ran out. I guess about two months ago."

"We hit a small convoy, and egressed into the hills. SOP. The next morning, we awoke to the droning of aircraft. Some how they had found us. They just bombed the hell out of the camp."

"I came to, alone. It was dark. Some one had put a tourniquet on my leg, and there was a big chunk of it missing. There were signs of a firefight in the area."

"I made my way back here."

He sighs.

-136:343:03:02 Local Time

"I think this is going to be my last sunrise."

"I've lived out my useful life. If anyone actually finds this, and can access it, remember our story."