By David C. Daoust
Mari was heralded a hero of the Royal Alliances’ Fleet. She finally found herself on the frontline as the coming battles between the two Royal factions heated up. A war that would last years, years that Mari spent fighting. By now star battles were an old hat to Mari, that dream had been sated long past. Her years since that first victory had been filled with the Vanguard’s retaliation for the loss of their Cruiser, which was then answered with the Royal Alliances’ retaliations.
Mari was Royal Alliance, and any loss anywhere in the Onion only fueled her to fight all the harder. She’d become grim to it all.
Over the years, the battle strategies changed so much, that, while there was a brief revival of ship hacking after Mari’s methods knocked the Vanguard on their ass, battles evolved from shutting things down system-wise, to electromagnetic blasters crippling ships, to super massive shield generators that not only blocked EM blaster fire, but also outside feeds; effectively ending lockouts entirely.
Mari’s old Star Fighter had been upgraded, no longer was it simply a sleek dig fighter of the good old days. It was now equipped with what was known as a ‘Javelin’. A massive ion cannon attached to one wing, that, when brought close enough to a Battle Cruiser’s enemy shields, could punch a hole straight through the shield, long enough to fire a massive laser blast instantaneously through the hole. A well placed blast could cripple communications, life support, even destroy the shield generator itself.
Getting the Javelin in range of a Cruiser though, could prove trying.
This was her mission. The rest of her Wing was there for cover. If they were spotted trying to bring the weapon within range of the ship’s shields, they would need to protect the Javelin at all costs.
While the killing fields above were over crowded with both Royal Alliance and Vanguard fighters, her entire Wing was in formation, far under the engagement fields the normal fighters vied to control.
The first shots strayed far over head, and her Wing immediately responded to the assault. A small group of three enemy fighters had spotted their movements, and dipped down from the field above to try and end their charge before they could get the Javelin in range of their Cruiser’s shield.
Mari had only one job, to survive long enough to fire her cannon; her Wing however would do anything to keep the enemy fighters from ending her run.
Her boards lit up red as the flashing lights informed her of the missile on her tail. Luckily, her computer was able to inform her of her distance to the weapon. If she spun away too soon, the missile would just adjust its aim accordingly; if she waited too long, there was no way she would ever shake it, resulting in a direct hit. It became a game of chicken as the number became smaller and smaller.
Just in the last moments before the missile would make contact with her ship, she suddenly hit boosters and spun out of the path, the missile flying harmlessly overhead and then exploding some distance away. She felt the shockwave of it as she rocketed towards the Battle Cruiser floating in the distance, never losing target.
The distance between her and the enemy Battle Cruiser became smaller and smaller, her boosters were far from empty, and she punched it the remaining distance.
All she needed was one clean shot, straight through the shield, disabling the shield generator, leaving the entire enemy brigade’s command center defenseless. She knew she had it before she even activated the ion cannon; the thrill was there all the same as the laser fired instantaneously through. The shields once again came down, and the Royal Alliance Cruiser fired torpedo after torpedo into every other vital systems cluster. As it was in her first battle, so it was in her last.
She’d only just now been able to check on the other members of her Wing. They’d already lost three of their fighters. And thanks to technology, they weren’t just floating disabled in the nothing. They were blown to high hell by live munitions. Mari missed the days when lockouts ended battles, rather than deaths. Technology was always one step ahead, and war always came down to a ‘do your worst’ mentality.
Mari had lost more fighters than she dared remember at this point, the losses were tiring. They kept fighting though, and as long as there were fighters in the stars she’d keep fighting the good fight. Or so she thought. This was all before, while the Trade Consortium was still young.
The Royal Alliance was fighting for people’s rights to form their own governments throughout the solar system; they had no interest in a growing empire from which they ruled all those under them. While the Consortium only cared about coin. Once they had enough coin, it turned out even the fascist Vanguard cared more about money than anything else, especially when the funds began to run dry against the Royal Alliance.
The battles between the Royal factions fed the Consortium, as it was the Consortium’s technological advances that kept evolving the battle. The Trade Consortium was able to buy back much of the sectors the Vanguard had taken by force.
Royal Alliance had to find a new stance, as the Consortium was growing so large, absorbing everything in their path, that many of the people were starting to go hungry.
The Vanguard began to break up, not only was their fleet on the brink of extinction by the end of the ‘Factions War’, many fascist royals were starting to see that the Consortium was where the true power was. While still some of the Vanguard, felt the socialist ways of the Ark Age were far better… and joined the Royal Alliance.
The Royals, the Swans included, found that they had backed a monster in the Trade Consortium. A monster that, the Royals felt, threatened to eat everything in sight, and leave anyone in the wrong place to starve. Even those of the Consortium would be either cast aside or crushed under the eventual crash. The Consortium was quickly becoming an empire throughout the solar system, though an Empire that bought and sold entire moons, as one may buy and sell businesses.
This all left Mari, the Hero of the Royal Alliance, with a bad taste in her mouth. All that she had fought for, all the fighters she had lost, was all pointless. It was all an endless loop of violence, retaliation after retaliation, there was no choice in Mari’s eyes but to end the loop.
This is how she found herself, far from home, coughing up black oily mucus, married to the son of an anarchist, on the dusty dry moon of Twin Crown, when she found out her son’s plan for retaliation against those he blamed for the deaths of so many of her new home’s inhabitants.
