Durandal, or rather his dreadnought, rolled in a twisted dream of a frightful sort. The Jjaro-energies throughout the ship pulsed as one as a giant neural matrix, a quasi-sentient mind the Durandal most enjoyed inhabiting.

But now, it screamed in it's sleep. Nightmares of sheer black terror throbbed back-and-forth in the network, and awfull feeling of dread drove the swirling images deep into the heart of Durandal's core. For a moment, Durandal and the Jjaro computer were one.

Immediately, Durandal seperated from the jjaro AI the was growing inside him, dismantling it and containing it's data packets inside a massive firewall. As quick as he could react to the ship's nightmare, he still witnessed it long enough to feel the full brunt of it's terror, and barely long enough to realize it's message.

They're here...

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Leela had taken the pieces from Bob. It was the only explanation for what had happened to the Argosian fleet. He dismantled the firewalls that prevented him from finding Bob and activated the comlink.

Bob had been waiting for a long time; several hours, at least. Bob was fully capable of wading into combat on the capital world of a large, powerful empire, in search of what would probably be the most carefully guarded objects on the planet. That didn't intimidate him. What made him anxious was not knowing if what he was doing was right on the cosmic scale. He had chosen the Greccan homeworld as his first point of assault on a whim, but even for someone very used to shrugging off the greater importance of his actions, having the fate of the entire universe resting on his decisions was beginning to wear him down.

Thus, he was sleeping uneasily as the scoutship sped towards Grecca, when his suit folded four legs out of its compact storage-form and walked over next to his bunk, beeping. Bob instantly jumped down and watched a hologram float out of the weird, vaguely rectangular box that he usually spent his time in. Durandal's manifestation appeared, and looked at Bob. He seemed sad.

"I suppose I shouldn't have expected you to hold on to them long with Leela on the rampage. On the plus side, at least you arn't dead, and at least I don't have the pieces, but I shall have to be more careful. I must make every effort to cover your back, but that means bringing me dangerously close to fighting Leela, who, if you havn't noticed, has become very, very powerful. I'm not sure if I could defeat her now, and even if I could, defeating her and taking the pieces for myself would hardly be an improvement. But, we must try our best. I have sent the Sph't on L'ohwon to investigate those ruins you were after. They'll tell me if there's anything interesting there, and I've set sentries near Polaris and Rodrum to watch for any attempts to snatch the pieces. I will see to your safety on Grecha personally.

Leela is entirely in the pieces power. They have deluded her into thinking that she can control them and use their power to protect mankind. She is mistaken. Once she controls them, the Wrckacktr will be free, and all will be lost. The pieces are perceptive in this way. If I had had possession of them, no doubt they would have concocted some equally enthralling lie to lure me into their service. But it shall not be so. I'll wait to test my mettle until every other option has failed. I very much enjoy the notion that I might be our last hope. Nonetheless, you are our first, Bob, so get ready. I'll take you to Grecca prime, and we'll see if you can't succeed where the best Phylidians have failed. Up until recently, anyway."

Durandal smiled and vanished.

If something without eyes could stare expectantly, then the collapsed suit was doing it. The quasi-intelligence of the suit made Bob uncomfortable when he wasn't in it.

"I guess we're going then arn't we..."

The suit seemed relived, and immediatly unfolded and flowered open for Bob to get in. He slid into it, and the suit eagerly folded up around him, pulling him into its own bizzare, transdimensional interior. As it made final adjustments, he heard Durandal in his ear.

"You're going to a remote Military Intelligence facility. The Greccan Special Forces have made it their Alamo, but that's not why you're going. You're going because its fifty-story basement will put you ten feet above the ancient tunnel system. You'll have to blast through, but leave that for later; you're being put in on the surface, just outside their defense shield. Unfortunately, they'll be on the lookout, some Phylidion Commandos are inside rescuing a prisoner, and I think they were discovered. The Greccans are on suitably high alert. You should be to. Good Luck."

Bob felt the familiar sensations of Durandal's teleporter. Bussiness as usual at last...

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Rioters filled the holo-screens, armed with crowbars and blades. In the background, three-hundred-story buildings burned, filling the twilight sky with green flame and grey smoke. Overhead, fighters were flying in formation, circling the city and standing by on patrol. The military, civil forces, and the poor class that had not been able to afford Cipcon were struggling to put out the blazes, to guard the capital buildings, and hold off the swarm of addicted souls in a drug-indiced frenzy. One of the rioters close to the camera, a twelve-year-old boy, screamed into the reporter's face. "KILL THE ******* POLARIS! KILL THE OCTICATE! STEAL THEIR CIPCON!" The screen went blank as Yuri Olovich turned it off.

He strolled about in front of the emergency council for the North Star Federation, his voice quick and hurried. "This shot of the riots on Dominus and other Imperium worlds was taken a few minutes ago. Gentlemen, this situation is most dire, I urge the council that the time has come to end the first stage of our campaign."

"But your forces are not ready to tackle the imperium, Admiral! This is suicide!"

Admiral Ulovich sighed deeply. This would be a long campaign. "That is indeed the case, however the Phylydion army is spread thin accross the imperium defending their civilization against their own people. They have traced Cipcon to our former importers and when these riots end- eventually- you can bet those Phylydions will be hopping mad. We can expect to see the full fury of the imperium upon us soon."

"You were a fool to trust that baron!"
"We must destroy all our Cipcon caches and facilities! Leave nothing of value for the phylydions to take!"
"Gather the fleet! Kill the bloody triclops'!"
The council-room lost all sense of order as panic set in. The admiral clenched his jaw. There was no time for this squabbling. He pulled out his shredder-pistol and shot a hole in the floor. The loud bang silenced the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the council, we are in a predicament, and unless we can find a way to fix it in the next month-or-so, we will have no choice but to launch a pre-emptive invasion into the heart of Phylydion Space."

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Dominus was in uproar. The Supreme Octicate gazed out of his office window onto Imperial Plaza as his troops stunned rioters in droves. Reports from all over the planet were similar. The enforcers were taxed beyond their limits. He gritted his jaw and pressed a comm button. Octicate Nerec's face appeared on the tri-dee comm screen on his desk. "Yes, sir?" Said Nerec, who looked bone tired himself.

"As of this moment, Dominus is under martial law. Use all enforcer and military forces that you deem necessary to maintain order. They may employ any necessary methods up to and including lethal force. Nerec, I'm giving you a carte blanche. Deal with the situation. NOW."

"Yes, sir." Nerec saluted and went to turn off his comm unit.

"Oh, and also-"

"Sir?"

"Have border fleets and primary sector defense forces standing by in case of a Polaris attack."

"Already done, sir. First rule of invasion: Shake your enemy into disorder first."

"Good. Go to your duties, Octicate." Nerec saluted and turned off the comm. The SO then switched to a different channel and the Polaris ambassador to the Imperium appeared. "Don't bother to say anything. I have a simple message for the NSF. We are aware that imports of Cipcon are the cause of the mass rioting that has exploded on many major Phylydion worlds. I deliver a simple statement: We will not go to war with the NSF under any but one circumstance. The NSF is to immediately and unconditionally provide us with an antidote and will pay for a percentage of the repair costs that will be decided at a later date. The Imperium also officially dissolves all military ties to the NSF. If the NSF attacks the Imperium and our military successfully repels the attack, we will not rest until our troops are marching across the surface of your capitol." The SO switched off the comm unit without another word. He then walked into his bedchamber to get a few hours' rest.

Garrion Retoe walked down a Dominus backstreet with two other PhylSec agents for simple observational purposes. A crazed Cipcon addict ran headlong into him, grabbing his collar. "Y-Y-Y-Your're with THEM," he mumbled. "Need the powder! Where is it??!! We know you just w-w-want it all for yourselves!"

"Get off me. I have important work to do."

"WHERE IS IT! GIVE IT TO ME!!!" The man started tearing at Garrion's uniform. Garrion roared and with his right hand fiercely shoved the man away from him. The man went stumbling back and tripped over a crack, falling and knocking himself out. Garrion and his fellow agents walked on to another spot. Three Imperial Army troops were in a scuffle with a large man. A young lieutenant stood nearby.

"Leiutenant?"

"This man used a homemade bomb to destroy an enforcers' vehicle, killing four officers," she said, looking uneasy. "I was unsure how to deal with the situation, and these men from another unit went for him before I could have them restrained." Garrion's face darkened at the civilian's actions. He walked forward, knocked aside the soldiers, picked up the man and pushed him away. The man screamed and charged Garrion, who drew his burst pistol and in a swift motion raised it and depressed the trigger. A tiny brilliant yellow plamsa sphere tore the air apart and detonated with a flash in the center of the man's chest. He was thrown backward into a wall. Garrion holstered his sidearm and levelled his eyes at the Lieutenant.

"THAT is how you deal with a murderer." He stalked onward.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so."
-Casablanca

"Sir," The grey old man who was the Polaris Ambassador pleaded, "There is no antidote to cipcon. However, there is a slightly lighter version of Cipcon, Alcon, that we could import to the imperium. It would be enough to calm the rioters just enough so you can arrest them and deal with appropriately. We could import five freightors full of the stuff in a matter of hours... for a price."

"Out of the question." The Supreme Octicate sternly said. "You've already worsened the situation on dominus; NO quantity of Cipcon or any of it's derivatives shall enter Imperium space."

"I believe that was your problem in the first place. Lift the sanction on Cipcon and we'd be glad to sell it to you at a slightly elevate-" The SO closed the link. No cooperation from the Polaris whatsoever.
He keyed in the scientists responsible for research on Cipcon. Hopefully the best biologists in the imperium had determined just what Cipcon was.

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Bob looked down a corridor. 4 Grecchans held the other end. Bob tossed a small capacitance bomb down the corridor.
Bob looked down again. 4 very-charred really dead Grecchans held the other end. Bob walked down the corridor.

He continued blasting his way through the halls. Suddenly, the sensors screamed in warning. Bob couldn't see anything, but then the suit pulled up a gravity field overlay. Somebody was using a gravity-field cloak - Bob guessed it wasn't a Jjaro. "In any case, if it was, it could take this!" Bob thought as he fired a wave motion cannon at it. Apparently, the very-very dead Grecchan couldn't.

Bob repeated this on the next two Grecchans. Apparently, they weren't really that tough when you could see them just fine.

Suddenly, he heard noises coming down the corridor. Really quite ones, ones an unaided human couldn't hear, indicating A) whoever was coming down the corridor was GOOD in all caps, and they didn't need any silly gravity-cloaks.

Bob had occasionally had moments where his belief in his own superiority to the whole dang universe got the better of him. This was one of them. He rounded the cornser, and fired a long blast on the wave motion cannon.
A long, WEAK blast. None of the targets was even crippled, except for one at the back, who he supposed was the prisonoer they were rescuing. He gulped at the prospect of taking pure taeskors unarmed. He reached into his pack for another wmc, but before he could, a Phylydion tackled him and slammed a knife hard into his chest.

To both of their surprise, the knife wouldn't go in. It wouldn't go into his faceplate either. Bob took advantage of his foe's amazement to throw him off at his fellows. One of them looked at Bob. "You aren't a Grecchan."

"Right, I'm a human. On a very important mission. Now let me by!!!" Bob had used the break in the action to grab a different wmc. "Unless you want to try doing that again on a fully charged one, I'd suggest you get out of my way. Right now."

"We don't take orders from you."

"Suit yourselves" Bob thought as he fired a 30-second burst. When it was over only the prisoner remained standing. Most of the others were moaning, trying to get up.
"Geez, these are tough sob's. If you did that to me, I'd be half-dead."

He ran past them, not wanting to waste ammo or time on them.

Finally, he reached the basement bottom. He pulled a wave motion cannon, and set it to "overload". Then he set the suit's inertial comp to "maximum brace". When he pressed the trigger, a stream of blue light tore through the floor and ground so well it would have made Akira Toryama pround. Finally, the cell went dry. Bob put in a fresh one, and leaped into the tunnels beneath the building.

------------------
Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

Cicion looked at the commandos lying on the floor around him and shook his head. "What a day. Who was that human, anyway?" He quickly used the medpacks the soldiers were carrying on them and himself and they started limping back to the ship. Three Greccha stood near where the commandos had cut into the asteroid. Cicion zigzagged down the corridor evading their fire, finally jumping and springing off a wall. He rotated through the air and landed with his right foot on one, then propelled himself off and with a single slash killed the other two, all before his feet hit the ground. When his feet DID hit the ground a surge of stabbing pain shot up through them and he nearly collapsed. He managed to drag himelf and the others into the ship and they flew and docked with Admiral Bedein's flagship. Bedein, however, was not there.

"Where's Dinial?" Said Cicion. "I'd been looking forward to seeing him."

"He was shipped to Jaltir VII for a high court-martial."

"What?! What for?"

"Possession and use of illegal substances."

Meanwhile, in a large assembly room on the seventh planet of the Jaltir system, Phylydion Navy HQ, Admiral Dinial Bedein stood on a pedestal in the very center. Arranged on the perimeter of the circular room were many top Navy officers. In front of him were three high commanders on a bench, and behind them atop a podium stood Supreme Admiral Viera Dor, an ambitious young woman recently appointed head of the Navy. Her eyes bored white hot holes into Bedein's mind. She pressed a button on her podium, activating a voice augmentor. He sighed. The formality of 'introducing' the accused was about to start. "Dinial Bedein, an officer in the Phylydion Imperial Navy, rank of First Advance Admiral. Frequently works in conjunction with spec ops teams. Graduated from the Jaltir VII Naval Academy with honors, one of the top in his class. Rose swiftly through the ranks, his first assigment as a bridge Lieutenant on a cruiser, swiftly being promoted to First Leiutenant, Captain, First Captain, High Captain, Rear Admiral, Lieutenant Admiral, Vice Admiral, Full Admiral, Advance Admiral, then to First Advance Admiral. All this in a space of eight years. You've fought as a fleet commander in twenty-five major battles, all but two of them victories. You've been awarded high honors throughout your career. In fact, the brass had a promotion to High Commander in mind for you."

Chatter filled the room and Bedein looked down at the floor. "I'll be lucky if I become High Lavatory Scrubber after this," he muttered. It was rather embarrassing being dressed down by such a young admiral. She had talent, but was too fiery to truly competently hold the post of head of the navy.

"One week past, you were found in a stupor in your cabin. A quick search uncovered several containers of the dangerous narcotic Cipcon in your quarters. This drug is not only illegal but was specifically prohibited for the military. Even if it wasn't controlled, the military has strict rules governing soldiers' diets, and specifically bans narcotic substances. The charges against you are as follows: possesion of a narcotic, use of a narcotic, possesion of a specifically banned substance, use of a specifically banned substance, and critically endangering an important mission by doing so. Do you deny any of these charges?"

"No." His voice was strong and clear as it resonated through the room.

"Very well. Session will adjourn for one hour so that I and the panel can decide on the appropriate action." She nodded her head and walked out of the assembly room into a small chamber. The officers on the bench followed. The rest of the assemblage left the room or stayed to discuss navy matters. Bedein was taken back to his comfortable holding cell. There, tiny amounts of Cipcon were injected into his system to keep him from going berserk until the hearings were over and they attempted to cure his addiction.

The assembly gathered again, and Viera Dor took the podium again. "The council has made a decision. Dinial Bedein, the charges against you are strong, but you are simply too valuable an officer to lose. You will be reduced in rank to Leiutenant Admiral and will be held here in your cell until you are no longer addicted to Cipcon. Afterwards, you will resume your duties and will be closely observed for a period of one year. Assembly dismissed." She stepped down from the podium, and tumultuous talk filled the room. Many officers were outraged that such a light penalty had been given. But Bedein knew that getting over his addiction was no light penalty. He was taken back to his cell.

Dominus had been turned into a military dictatorship. Roadblocks and patrols were all over. Now the soldiers didn't hesitate and simply stunned any raving addicts they found. Fortunately the prisons had plenty of room left. Things were similar on many other major planets. Virtually every biology lab in Imperial space was working with Cipcon, and hundreds of special fast attack ships had been designated to interdict illegal Cipcon shipments.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so."
-Casablanca

"You needed to speak with me?" Drion Nerec raised an eyebrow at the quirky scientist in front of him.

"Err, yessir. We've studied this 'Cipcon' substance, and it's a wonder how the Polaris manufature the stuff! It has an estimated shelf life of several hundred years, and is potent enough to be noticed in quantitiies as small as forty parts per million."

Nerec was growing impatient. "What is it?"

"After looking at the stuff closely, we have concluded that Cipcon is indeed a narcotic. As a matter of fact, it's a custom-made narcotic, specially designed for Phylydions. One whiff of the stuff and you are addicted- your body is permanently shifted to need it." He handed Nerec a small pill-like vial of the stuff. "This is the only sample of Cipcon left in the whole imperium, sir. The others were stolen and used by the rioters when they broke into the labs." He looked down at the floor sorrowfully. "I lost a lot of men so I could find this out."

"Thank you, doctor. File your report to the octicate."

"You've been given a chance, Nerec" Emporer Yanma was absolute in his tone; even through the personal channel his gaze was chilling. "The other civilizations the Polaris conquered never had a chance to begin with."

"But.." Nerec was skeptical. "Why would the Polaris do this if they knew that we would come for them? Why would they destroy the lucrative trading and military relationship? Why give us a 'chance', so to speak of." There was no logic to the the recent Polaris actions.

Yanma leaned forward towards his holoscreen, untill Nerec felt he was but a few feet away. "They screwed up, Nerec. They let their greed get the better of them."

"Why not conquer instead risking one's empire in such gambles?"

"The Polaris would have less to gain if they were to simply level your imperium. They realized that in the early weeks."

"The Polaris are fools; they shall soon feel the wrath of phylydion heritage."

"The polaris are no fools, your majesty." Yanma slowly said, enunciating every syllable. "This pattern has worked for them for generations. They find a neighboring civilization of their level of advancement, and they establish friendly relations. Through trade and research, the Polaris secretly addict their adversaries to a custom-tailored drug- in your case, Cipcon- without them knowing it. Then, as the civilization spirals downward, becoming more-and-more dependant on the Polaris, they move in. They have plundered entire empires through this way; but they would deny it. The Polaris would have you believe that they are but a peacefull federation of planets, but in truth they are a tightly-bound confederacy of empires."

Then Nerec did something he had never done before. He laughed in Yanma's face. "They wouldn't dare!" he laughed at the fantastic load of tripe.

"They would, but would deny it. They will do anything right now to allay your suspicions, to stall for time untill they are ready. Then with one fell swoop, the Imperium falls."

Nerec, still laughing, turned off his holoscreen.

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

(For crying out loud, slug, Nerec is not a pompous idiot!)

Nerec listened carefully to Yanma's words. "I thank you for your warning, Emperor. We had been suspecting much the same action that you warn against, and our forces are already in defensive positions. We may need to call upon your aid."

"Of course. I think we can push aside the tension between us to face a common foe."

"Good. I'll contact you again." Nerec turned off his comm unit and walked to the lift tube, which wisked him down to the war room located at the base of the governmental building. The other seven octicates were already there. The situation was not good. The Polaris might attack at any moment, if his suspicions were correct and Yanma had been telling the truth. Defenses were being set up, and many reserve and stationary fleets and armies had been activated. They'd have to temporarily stop their cleanup of the remainder of Grecchan space. Plus many recent colony worlds were being abandoned. The Imperium was pulling back. Fortunately only a few cases of Cipcon use had been reported from the military. The industrial base was losing a lot of factory managers and overseers, however, and manufacturing ability was going down. Agriculture was also losing workers. Food would have to be carefully rationed.

A young, bearded human piloted a small, unmarked shuttlecraft toward one of the Imperium's core worlds. Within seconds a Phylydion light fast attack ship pulled in behind him. "Unidentified shuttle, shut down your engines immediately." The man swore and swung his vessel evasively. A pair of burst bolts tore into his engines and disabled the ship, and the LFAS attached itself to the shuttle and forced open its hatch. A pair of armed Phylydion marines ran in and held the man while an officer opened up the cargo hold. Hundreds of clear cases full of a lavenderish dust. The officer turned and snapped his fingers. The marines took the man into their ship and threw him in the brig. The officer followed and walked up to the command deck. "Fire." The ship's guns spat golden death that impaled the ship, then blew it to space dust. After that, a wide-beam particle cannon sprayed the entire area with its searing white beam until not even space dust was left.

Now Lieutenant-Admiral Bedein roared in agony, strapped to the wall of his cell. So many torturous images clawed at his tender mind. Phantasms, apparitions, beasts, childhood horrors of all sorts threatened to choke off his mind at the root. He opened his eyes and focused at a point on the far wall. "I will hold on. I will persevere. My mind is my own!" The horrors grew stronger, almost blanketed him in their vileness, and he fought, fought harder than he'd ever fought before. Every sinew, every fiber of his living consciousness screamed with determined rage, viciously beating back the images his mind was unintentionally conjuring up. His teeth gritted until he heard them start to crack. Then, finally, the horrors withdrew. For now, he reminded himself. They're gone for now. He lowered his head and was instantly asleep, preparing himself for the next, inevitable, onslaught. Scientists and medics outside the room studied the readouts they were recieving. "He has an incredibly strong mind," one of them said. "The stress he's gone through would already have completely blasted clean the mind of an average Phylydion."

"Yes," said another thoughtfully. "That's why so many have fallen prey to it."

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so."
-Casablanca

(erm, the Polaris stopped trading and importing and smuggling after the grecchen battle)

They sat in congregation, the two groups of emmisaries. "I assure you..." The polaran delegate rambled, "that we wish for there to be nothing but peace between the two of us."

"Not untill you solve the problem by finding the Cipcon Antidote."

"How many times must I say; there is no cure?"

"Find one."

"Yes, we are putting all of our effort into this matter. We did not know Cipcon was addictive to Phylydions when we imported it, and we certainly have no intent on holding back on the Imperium."

"Why is Cipcon so conveniently perfect for Phylydion physiology?"

"I assure you..." The Confederate delegate rambled on, "That Cipcon was an industrial compound for hyper-oxygenation of saturated materials."

"Assurances will get you nowhere. Show me proof that you are not planning an invasion of Phylydion space on the back of this."

"That paperwork was lost when..." He thought, "Our chief command ship was destroyed in Grecchen space."

"Your records don't seem to indicate that you suffered a single capital loss during the Battle of Greccha."

The confederate delegate seemed half-asleep. "I am.. too fatigued to further this council. May we reconvene in a day or so?"

The chief Justice sighed, sharing his exasperation with others. "Alright. Recess untill monday at 0900 hours."

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Yuri Olovich stood in the observatory, watching the conflicts in phylydion space with crystal clarity. The riots had decayed into a constant brawl between civilian and police forces. The Phylydion Army was scattered accross the imperium keeping their own population under control. The Phylydion Industrial base had all but collapsed as workers and managers alike abandoned factories. The Phylydion fleet was amassing near the border out of sheer paranoia. Trade with all other factions among the imperium had utterly ceased.

The door to the observatory hissed open, and Fleet Admiral Aleck Yakovf entered, a slight grin on his face. The two men exchanged salutes. Yuri was the first to speak. "Yes?"

"The Phylydion big-Admiral Benedin has been court-martialled and demoted."

The darkness lifted from Yuri's face. "Oh?"

Aleck grinned. "They've replaced him with Admiral Viera Dor."

"Excellent. She is young and inexperienced. The opening of our campaign will be childsplay now that Benedin is out of the way. How long untill your taskforce is ready, Aleck?"

"We are fully assembled. Natasha's dreadnought as well as mine own shall be supporting the raid."

Yuri turned back to the orange globule which was the stellar chart of the imperium. "Excellent. Launch at my signal."

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

(oops That was supposed to be on the Greccan homeworld. Guess I should read more closely)

Something was up. The suit could tell, and it seemed reluctant to jump through the crackling field that had lined up with the wall of the tunnel before Bob had blasted it away.

"Durandal, is this normal?"

The voice crackled back instantly

"Yes, absolutely normal. How’d you expect these things to survive billions of years without some support? I’d still be careful, that’s the sort of field that bends reality pretty harshly. These tunnels are the sort of place you’ll find all those things that exist only because every probability curve has an end. Watch your back, and get the piece. Don’t climb down, jump. It’ll make it easier."

Bob shrugged, and jumped off the edge, into the abyss.

He landed in a pile of rock and looked up. The ceiling was entirely intact as a smooth, clean wall. Underneath him, something was grumbling. He shot to his feet and leveled his Plasma pistol at a dead body. It wasn’t moving. It spoke.

"Oh, you’re here. I’ve been wondering when you’d show up. Or wait, have I been waiting since you left?"

"What are you talking about?" Bob was suddenly wondering what he had gotten himself into.

"Well I’ve been here for a while, or am I going to stay here for a while? I never can tell. See that’s the trouble. When you get sentenced to watch the door for all eternity, they only count your consciousness, not the rest of you, see they forgot to leave me food, those damn Jjarro. On the plus side, they;ve arranged things to put you outside of everything –You know, time and all that mess, but it’s a lot for a mortal’s mind to comprehend, I've spent a few thousand years getting used to it. Ah yes, In a second, remind me to tell you to look out, I might forget. Oh here they come, look out!"

Two Greccan construction workers fell out of the ceiling and landed on Bob’s back. They looked confused.

"You kill these two, if I remember correctly. Do it now, I’ll tell you their story in a second."

Bob had already spun and flung them over to a corner before they had bounced to the floor. Unfortunately, he hadn’t really figured on his own strength or the proximity of the wall, and neither of them looked too happy. In fact, neither of them seemed very alive anymore. Not that that stopped either of them from standing up and brushing themselves off.

Bob looked in fascination. One's head was mashed completely. The other's carapace was ruptured severely, and what were likely very vital fluids were leaking out through its clothes.

When they spoke, Bob realized that their voices, much like that of the dead body, seemed to appear right in his head, and the fact that they were speaking a Greccan language didn't seem to make it any harder for him to understand what they were trying to say. They were asking who he was and what the heck he was doing at a restricted construction site.

Bob had had enough of this madness. He turned and, following his overlay map, went in search of the piece.

It wasn't that it was far, only that the tunnels formed a labyrinth locked by many seals each of which only responded to the coaxing of his transdimensional suit. It was several hours(as best as he could tell–his watch had stopped) before he finally pulled the piece off of its pedistal and shoved it into his pocket. He turned to leave, and panicked, blasting the two mangled Greccan construction workers with his Wave motion cannon. Well, he would have, if the trigger had worked.

"What the hell are you doing here!?"

"We want to see your passcard. This is a restricted site." one of them said, sheepishly.

"I don't have one, and I don't need one. Leave me be."

He pushed past them and walked back the way he had come.

"We'll report you to command! This is the construction site for a top-secret military facility!"

"Shut up" Bob said, slamming the sealed door behind him. At least the trip out would be quicker.

That is, until he got to the point where he had entered. The wall seemed just as solid as it had before. The dead body was still there.

"I am really sad that you left, er, well, are leaving, well, you know"

"Don't count your chickens, I don't see much of a way out."

"Oh but you just jumped through, or wait, I guess you havn't thought of that yet. Damn. Well, now you have, so goodbye, I guess."

Bob jumped up, shielding his head from what he expected to be hard stone, but what turned out to be an illusion. He had leapt right out onto the molten slag that he had blasted through. He scrambled back up to the corridor, looking around. His sensors were lit up with gravetic contacts. He pulled a small antimatter device from his pack and set it down, turning the timer on before calling for a dustoff. He felt himself getting lighter, but was dissapointed when he materialized on the surface. His earpiece crackled again.

"No way I'm letting that thing up here. Get your own ship, and meet me at the north star. Y'know what, here, I'll give you your ship, that one the Founder's gave you. Hurry up, that bomb is going off soon. I've got stuff to do too, so last one to Polaris is a rotten egg."

Bob cringed as the scoutship appeared in mid air and dropped three feet onto the relatively soft ground. He opened the door and fired up the engines, eying his watch nervously.

Twenty five seconds...

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

(Time to bring back my character a little, although slightly brainwashed)

Darkk tumbled out of bed. That had been a really wierd dream.
Something about "killing brother" and all. Almost certainly it was a piece of Leela's memory.
Ever since the takeover, he'd had little to dream but pieces of her. She controled him, like a puppet. The strings were all tied in through his cybernetic interface, and he would do what she wanted or hurt like crazy. Or worse.

He still had nightmares (when she let him) about the Auroran conquest stuff. Putting all those rabbits into those cages. Rabbits that until recently were people. He shuddered. Leela could do that to anyone. Maybe she really is a diety. If she isn't she's close.
Ah well, she'd always known what was best. Maybe this was, after all, right. Who cares. I'll follow her orders, because she is in charge. That is what I am, a soldier.

An underling's face appeared on the holoscreen wall. "Sir, our expedition to that Grecchan base was a total failure. The Taeskors had left, and we blasted our way in without difficulty, but the whole torn-wing (Vylae explative) tunnel system was gone. Blown to bits. Somebody put a lotta effort into this. A scan revieled the artifact was NOT in the rubble. As they are reputed to be indestructable, it means someone had taken it."

"Durandal, dang it. Dear brother's jealousy might ruin everything. He's so blinded by his jealosy that he can't see the truth." Leela appeared as a third person in the link.

"Yes, milady. Shall we track him down and dispatch him?" Darkk replied.

"No, fool. You are not strong enough to break him. I am not willing to break him, until I recieve a third piece. I could break him now, even if he holds a piece, but only with much effort. I will wait until I have more power. Each piece increases my power at an unbelievable rate."

"Very well, milady. We believe the next piece is in Polaris space. Battleroids can pass as humans with some contact lenses and hair dye. We'll send the 73rd Battleroid Unit."

"At once."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

North Star, steaming jungle-infested homeworld to the Polaris.
Deep beneath it, lay an unstoppable terror that even the planet's masters might be unwilling to use, if they knew the truth and could keep it in their minds.

Bob gasped at the armada surrounding the planet. Massive ships of all descriptions. Evidently it was prepairing for a sortie. He was glad the Jjaro had given him one of his stealth systems.

Suddenly, the voice of the Jjaro he had talked to earlier filled his ears. "You have always been most unpredictable. Your current chances of success are 200% higher than we had predicted they would be. You defy prediction, and have always done so. Or perhaps we should have predicted you would defy prediction. Ah well. Paradoxes such as these are our subject, not yours. We're going to correct your probability curve downward."

Without further warning, the stealth field clicked off. All the guns on all the Polaris ships in the immediate area pointed at him.

Bob knew he wasn't much of a fighter pilot, so he made a fast plan. Slam into the hanger bay of something expensive enough for them to NOT blow up to kill you. Shoot your way to the airlocks. Land. Run and fight until you come up with a way off.

Bob slammed the scoutship onto the deck of a nearby light battleship. In the process, he destroyed most of the scoutship, including the stealth system. Good, wouldn't want that in the wrong hands. Better take the ship with me to complicate recovery ops.

Bob stuffed a wave motion clip into the cannon, and ran an "additional power" cable into his suit. He then used the suit to suck up all remaining power in the scoutship's emergency reserves.

A squad of crack marines in Polaris uniforms had come out of the hanger doors now. Bob jumped down, sweeping a blue mist over them, turning them to red mist.

He used the "flow" effect of the wave motion cannon to clear around corners, and blasted everything that moved. At long last, he found the reactor room. Once he got there, he killed everyone who looked like an engineer or a trooper (which totaled everyone) and placed one of the small antimatter bombs he carried in the cooling pipes of the reactor.

Then he hit the escape pod marked "reserved for chief engineer" and was planetside in less time than it takes to tell. Overhead, a spectacular fireworks show was on as primary, secondary, tertiary, quadrinary, and quintiary detonations lit up the dusk sky.

THAT ought to prevent whatever invasion they were pulling from going off.

Bob dove into a river while engaging his suit's "Underwater: Stealth" mode. He'd better find that piece.

------------------
Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 11-29-2001).)

The Phylydion nightshift flight-engineer blinked at the screen of numbers. More civilian and military traffic. Another day in the life of the imperium, or not. The total of the Phylydion defense fleet was stationed at this dock, so he had to be extra-carefull. Eighteen long hours of work today. He draged his eyes off the screen, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. The irrepressable glow of the screen and the long hours were getting to him. Oh well, quittin' time in one hour.

It was the dead of night; every heavy vessel on patrol was docked, leaving the nocto-fighters to patrol the system as usual. The atmosphere was sleepy as the engineer walked down the devoid hallways- usually crammed with men during the daytime, only just beginning to realize how big the spacedock really was. On the promenade, the largest portion of the station, the shops were all shut and the lights were all off, the time being the phylydion equivalent of midnight. Only the starlight illuminated the room through it's three small windows (the station had a total of five windows, as windows were always weak-spots). He strolled up to the small meter-squared rectangular window, watching out into the void, gazing upon row upon row of docked battleships, sleeping behemoths.

Something flickered outside. His eye flitted toward the source, but missing it before he could see the small blur of grey. He looked over the sensors. A few comets, an asteroid belt, and the usual patrols of ship several hundred million kilometers away. Nothing out of the usual. He was tired; he must have just been seeing things.

He saw another flicker, his eye able to cath it just in time to see a Confederate X-19 gunboat zoom past the window. He stepped away in dismay. Polaris? But the sensors had picked up nothing. He looked back down at the sensor panel, no, they showed nothing unusual, but he had just seen a Polaris ship fly barely outside his window! He looked down at the panel again, this time his eye caught the date. It was a month old recording being played back!

By now, whole formations of X-19 fighter-gunboats were swarming around outside. Immediately, he picked up the intercomm. "We've got bogies in sector-" The loud blast of static met him. Jammed!

A surprise attack! Explosions erupted outside as the gunboats began unleashing their ravenous scram missiles. Battleships started to roll from the contrails as their crews woke to the sounds of their unshielded and still-sleeping ships being torn apart!

The engineer bolted down the coridoor to the station-crew quarters. He glanced up at the enormous steelglass dome above him, watching a veritable cloud of fighters fly overhead. The rumblings of tortured metal swept down the station. By now, men were already scrambling for cover, the fighter-pilots running for the hangar, still in their sleeping-ware, the engineers madly speeding for the shielding-reactor to activate it.

One-by-one, phylydion fighters flew from the hangars; their five-minute preflight check reduced to thirty-seconds; one by one they were blown from the sky as the confederate assault on the battleship row continued. There was little chance to fight back as men scrambled to escape the fire and carnage about them. A few capital weapons were brought online, but the resulting occasional compression bolt damaged the fleet more than it did the swarm of confederate fighters.

The control panel overloaded and blew open, shredding a technician. "Damnit! Get those Kadt docking controls back online!" The chief engineer screamed over the wailing of the destroyed shield-reactor as it leaked material into the room. Immediately, the night-shift engineer threw himself under the console and popped the lower panel open to reveal a mess of melted wires.

"We've got compression and plasma fires in quadrant one!" Yelled a Phylydion Captain into his interfleet comm held against the battle siren. "Get some damage-control over here!"

"Sir, the first wave of attackers has run out of ammunition and is retreating to the edge of the system!"

"That's where those traitorous Polaris are! Track them! Track them!"

"All vital systems offline! Casualty reports are coming in from all over the ship!"

"Damnit! Bring some weapons online!" The lights went off on the bridge as a direct hit was made to the battleship's power grid.

"Sir! The reactor's going out of control!"

No! "Get this ship away from the station! If this ship explodes while still in dock, half the battlegroup will be incinerated!"

"Docking controls are still locked! HQ says 'they're working on it'"

"Take us out then! We must get this ship away from the fleet!"

"She'll fly apart if we leave without undocking!"

The Captain, still groggy from his awakening, sweated under the heat of the fires and wreckage on the bridge. "Fly her apart then!"

Red wire to green wire, blue wire to main- ah kadt... "We need another fuse!" The nightshift engineer shouted over the hiss of leaking gas and the frantic yelling going back-and-forth between panicked men in the chaos of surprise attack. No response. He looked over to the chief engineer, only to find a bloody corpse crushed under a collapsed beam. Ah hell, this is gonna hurt.

He dipped his fingers in superconductor fluid, and jammed his hand into the mass of blue wires. The jolt instantly killed him, but also released every dock on the station.

By now, a formation of X-21 heavy bombers had entered the system, pummeling the rows of drifting battleships. Four more of the sleeping behemoths blew their caps, sending shockwaves rippling through the fleet. Heavy concussive torpedos snaked into the drifting rows of burning ships, dissecting an unshielded colossus with each blow.

Their mission complete, the Polaris fleet sank back into the blackness of space untraced.

Half of the phylydion navy was in complete ruins, the other half badly, and in some case irrepairably, damaged. Eleven-thousand of the imperium's finest were dead, another forty-thousand wounded. Not one capital vessel had survived the ordeal save the Phylydia and her sistership, which were not present at the time. The space-dock was completely shot to pieces. Especially the windows.

The high octicate awoke the next morning to most unpleasant news.

"It was a success beyond our wildest dreams, Yuri." Aleck smiled. "The death of Natasha and her crew have been avenged, and the backbone of the Phylydion fleet has been utterly broken. The Argosians are in a mad scramble; their fleet is in orbit over Dominus itself, leaving the rest of the Imperium ripe for the slaughter."

"I don't know." Yuri said with a glossy gaze in his eye as he watched the distant white star of Phylydia, hundreds of light-years away. "I am left with the feeling that we have but awakened a sleeping giant."

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

(Nice one with the Yamamoto quote, Slug.)

Drion Nerec let a low, grinding growl escape from the depths of his throat as he read the report. The Nuwara system, serving as a base for several primary border defense fleets, had been sacked. Gutted. Pulverized beyond recognition. Hundreds of prime capital ships torn to shreds by a lightning raid that had been generally predicted but not at all pinpointed. The Pols had crippled Phylydion border defense strength. Nerec looked up. "Mobilize assault fleets. Prepare to return the favor. And get the Vermillion Battlegroup to the Nuwara system." Aides scurried to convey his orders. Far across the reaches of the Imperium, fleets hummed to life. But in addition to the disciplined, ranked fleets of the navy, ragtag rogue and mercenary fleets rose up, in disguised ships, and sped toward the edge of Phylydion space.

Nerec then walked into a sound-proof, shielded secure-room in the back of the main war room. He lifted a tiny communications device and tapped his finger on it in a precise, seemingly random pattern. He put the device away and an anticipatory smile spread across his face.

Far away, near the Phylydion border, a Polaris battlegroup drifted. Aboard a flagship battleship, a young aide walked down a short corridor to awaken the Captain. He strode into the old man's quarters. "Captain, the raid on Nuwara is reported a complete succ-" he broke off in midword, gaping down at the Captain's slack form. A bloodless, inch-wide, millimeter-thick puncture lay, barely visible, in his neck. And elegantly carved into the wall was a simple message: "We are among you."

The Supreme Octicate sent a tight-beam transmission, in the form of an ancient-style official document, to the Polaris capitol.

Two days ago, the PHYLYDION IMPERIUM was ATTACKED by warships of the NORTH STAR FEDERATION. This act was another in a series of VILE ACTS commited upon our Imperium by the NSF. The Imperium had attempted NEGOTIATIONS previous, however as these have FAILED the Imperium has no alternitive but to issue this DECLARATION OF WAR upon the NSF. The Imperium hereby DECLARES an immediate CESSATION of any and all DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS with the NSF. In response to the aforementioned ATTACKS upon our soil, we the PHYLYDION IMPERIUM do pledge to repel all further attacks and NOT to REST until the NSF has been DEFEATED, REDUCED IN SIZE, DRIVEN BACK, or, if necessary, DESTROYED.

Yours Respectfully,
Gaedin Cesos, Supreme Octicate of the Phylydion Imperium

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so."
-Casablanca

(This message has been edited by Taeskor Cicion (edited 11-28-2001).)

"Bad news Bob, the Polaris just launched a surprise attack on the Phylidion staging area. From what I can see, the Polaris have just reduced the size of the Phylidion Navy by more than a half, and that's if those damaged ships are serviceable. Looks like you may have extra work to do evening the odds. I don't like haughty Phylidions any more than you do, but I find these Polaris tactics distasteful. Particularly the drugs.
As usual, here's where you come in. I'll be damned if I'm going to show myself in times like these, but someone needs to do something. That someone, as is so often the case, is you, Bob. But you can destroy the entire Polaris military machine later. Now its time to save the galaxy. I can't find a nice, convenient way into the cavern, as its under an Ice cap and a large radioactive metal deposit. This one will be harder than Grecca, these tunnels are not preserved, and the metal deposits mean that I can't scan the place thoroughly enough to be sure I won't put you in a wall. Now then, lets get you as close as possible, shall we? There are Polaris ships bearing down on you as we speak. Let's not stay and greet them."

Bob was on an iceberg. His suit sprouted krampons to steady itself on the small, rolling drift. It was barely above water. The suit did its best to reduce its mass. One of the perks that came with not being made of matter was that you didn't have to follow rules that constricted its usefulness.

"Go on, the water's fine." Bob turned off his less water-friendly weapons and stepped off of the iceberg. The suit adjusted his density again, and he began sinking like a stone. As he sank, Durandal briefed him further.

"I don't expect you out for a while. That mess down there is a few hundred miles across, and could be just as deep. Hopefully that piece you have there will be helpful. It might just lead you to the other. I'll be around. Don't worry about Leela, I'm keeping an eye out for her. Good luck."

In actuality, Durandal wasn't so certain about that, but he wasn't in a position where failure was an option. He had to count on Bob, he always had in the past. He just had to keep his mind on something other than the stones that Bob was collecting.

On the plus side, if he failed, he could always jump dimensions with his ship and make a new home. On the negative side, the Jjarro would be waiting there to express their ingratitude.

Bob sank.

------------------
NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Bob sank down to the bottom. Something whispered in his mind "Blast straight down."
Bob knew the piece was trying to control him. It was, however, in both their interests to find this next piece. Of course, it might be in the piece's interest for someone else to take this piece from Bob's cold, dead hands and grab the second piece.

Bob wieghed his options for a moment and blasted his way straight down. Once again, he popped into a bizarre tunnel, as the water above his head was held out by what looked like plexiglass, but was several hundred meters less thick than would be needed to hold back an ocean. Bob guessed it was the Jjaro screwing with reality - it WAS plexiglass, the water just wieghed less somehow.

Once again, a gatekeeper. A slightly different gatekeeper. A dead man in a Polaris uniform said "Well, at least I didn't have to wait too long. You were about to say something about me not waiting thousands of years like the last guy. I'm just sorta drowned. They took my body and put it here when they built this place a month ago."

"A MONTH ago?"

"They took the Arcanis piece back from someone else, and hid it here. Don't blow up this one, most of the Polaris computer equipment is stored on the seabed in blast radius, and I'd be court-marshaled if it got blown up."

"I'll grab the Arcanis, then blow this shizat sky high."

"Use a BIG charge, so they won't have time to court-marshal me."

"Sure." Bob's grin might even have scared a Jjaro.

It took several hours of searching, even though Bob could run much faster than any human who didn't have this nice suit. At least these doors weren't as common, his suit only had to open three of them.

Bob took the Arcanis from its pedistal, and put in its place a fairly dangerous 20 grams of antimatter, wrapped in a timer-release magnetic containment field. Then he ran for it.

When he got to the entrance, he once again jumped up. Unfortunatly, this time he fell back. The water pressure outside was preventing him from jumping through. And any minute now, this whole side of the planet would be gone. "Heh, you'll be in for quite a shock in 15.2 minutes." said the dead Polaris.

Bob considered. The teleporter and external communications systems seemed down. He hoped that the guy was referring to the Jjaro picking him up again. Wait, 15.2 minutes would put it AFTER the blast. Bob played a word game with the dead dude for 15 minutes, then closed his eyes. He heard a really loud bang.

Bob opened his eyes. The tunnels seemed intact. Above him, however, the water had been replaced by the redish sky typical after a large oceanic antimatter detonation. Bob leaped up - and suddenly fell several hundred feet. The "sea floor" was now lowered considerably, but the tunnels had not been exposed. Bob supposed some tricky fourth-dimensional thing was involved.

Bob pondered how to escape before the water came rushing back into the hole. Suddenly, the Voice of that Jjaro filled his head again. "Quite well done. We have decided we were wrong to try to alter the odds. We appologise to you by restoring your ship." Bob jumped in, engaged the stealth field, and keyed in a course for Rodrom.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yuri and Aleck watched the damage reports in silence. All the data in their main computer systems had been destroyed. The backup facilities hadn't been far enough away to escape the blast, and with no warning, the data could not have been transfered to another planet.

Yuri screamed. "D*****, this operation cannot tolerate more setbacks!"

Aleck tried to calm him. "My friend, we lost no vessles. The Phylydions have lost plenty. We can be done licking our wounds before they've found all of theirs."

"Perhaps, but the delay is still unsettling."

Suddely, the door flew open. Natasha stalked in, literally dragging her handler.
Yuri greated her "Natasha, we feared you had been killed in the explosion."

"I am not dead yet, Yuri. Indeed, I have never felt more alive. We must find who did this, and make them suffer to the utmost. We will show no mercy on them, on their families, on their people."

Yuri realised the implications of what she had said. "You are better?"

"Yes. I cannot believe what a fool I have been. I shall have to exact retribution on that computer, as well. Perhaps a little turnabout-is-fair-play. I've always enjoyed a little game time, it helps me relax so well."

Aleck let out a big laugh, then smiled. "Glad to have you back with us."

"They won't be so glad."

All three thought it uproariously funny.

------------------
Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 11-29-2001).)

Guys, I think you're getting this all wrong.

1. Bob blew up Natasha's Flagship- plain and simple. Yuri and Aleck's Flagships were away on the raids. Guess you wrecked your own plot there.
2. Aleck was assassinated by that Phylydion infiltrator, according to Cicion.

So Only Yuri's left? Guys, be reasonable. I'm trying to be realistic by not making the Polaris so super-huge that admirals are the guys in the red shirts. Captains may be expendable, but not admirals. My ego's not that bad. I don't kill your main characters, bloody well lay off mine. There are three Polaris Protagonists, the three admirals- Natasha, Yuri, and Aleck. They are the only Admirals, and each commands a dreadnought carrier. There are only three dreadnought carriers, and they are unique ships- much like Cicion's Phylydia (just as strong but not as powerfull). You don't kill Polaris Carriers without asking me first, please, as each is a character ship, and the death of it means the death of the Admiral therin.

3. The Polaris Confederacy is as far away from normal space as Argos. They are distant worlds that cannot be reached by normal drives in under a millenia. The Phylydions may traverse such distances because they use a variant of the quasi-space drive, which is the omnispace drive.

4. Why would a Diety AI expend the resources to destroy a homeworld for no aparant reason other than it did something not nice? If so, they would be punishing the Argosians for the atrocities-they-are-committing-at-the-moment-but-won't-be-revealed-till-later.

Okay, enough ranting, here's how to fix this:

-Cicion, change your post so a captain is assassinated, please. Apparently Darkk's objecting to your killing one of my main characters.
-Darkk, leave the Polaris worlds alone. They're not at war with you; by destroying them, you're leaving nothing to describe in the inevitable Phylydion retaliation except "The big fleet of ships flew into the destroyed star system."

Here's how things should be:
-Bob has the piece he came for
-The three admirals and their carriers are alive
-Natasha is messed up by Leela, or whatever. Darkk, you can play with Natasha as much as you like, just ask before killing her eh?
-The Argosians are unofficially on the imperium's side
-The Imperium and the Confederacy are at a very bloody war; imperium will launch retaliation soon

Thank you, and please remember I'm writing this because I like the plot, not an ego-slugfest. You guys are very good at plot; we just need to fix a few misunderstandings.

-Slug

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

(This message has been edited by Slug (edited 11-28-2001).)

(Sorry, Slug, I didn't mean for that to be one of your main characters. I'd just intended it to be a minor admiral or something, didn't know you only had three of them.)

A large Polaris convoy hurtled through space, going at sublight due to the presense of uncharted clouds of asteroids in the area. A Lt. Commander headed the operation, commanding from the deck of a medium corvette. All at once several omni-flashes flared up around them. "Phylydion attack, sir. Predictable. Shields are up, all weapons at your command. The gunboats are standing by for orders."

"Gunboats form a ring, we'll take out the Phyls one at a time." The Phylydion ships were raider corvettes, light and quick and deadly as daggers but not terribly effective against enemy formations. They fired a few salvos from their forward guns before peeling off. The Polaris corvette pursued one and was about to fire when it was struck from behind. "Sir, that came from within the convoy..." The image was displayed on screen as two transports opened secret panels, revealing weapons which blasted apart several gunboats instantly. Phylydion corvettes then flew in amongst the chaos and picked off more of them. The Polaris corvette fired, disabling one of the Phylydion ships. Then, a flare pulse blew a gaping hole in the Polaris ship's hull. "Sir, losing atmosphere, engines offline, weapons badly damaged."

"Signal our surrender."

"Yes, sir."

The Phylydion commander spoke with a lieutenant over the comm. "Excellent work. The disguise worked well."

"Yes, the omniflash cloak performed beautifully."

The entire convoy was re-routed, and disappeared just as Polaris reinforcements sprang into the system. Thus went the first in a long series of minor raids. Inner shipping lanes were now being plundered.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so."
-Casablanca

"They're getting deperate." Aleck chuckled. "Yesterday we lost three shipments of Cipcon, our fourth raid of the week."

"They have decayed to the state where they need to steal drugs to control their own population." Yuri was smirking. "But, if we provide a steady flow to them, the chaos in the Imperium will dissipate as their needs for Cipcon are met. All shipments are to be transferred to Outpost Theta, away from their grips."

It was Admiral Trebetauski's turn. "These attacks are to be retaliated upon to the fullest degree. We have already taught them not to oppose the wrath of the Confederacy; we shall now teach them a lesson in humility."

"What target in particular did you have in mind, Natasha?"

She grinned slyly. "Their command ship. The superdreadnought Phylydia."

Aleck was skeptical. "The Phylydia's a fortress. There's no way our destroyers can get in range before the remnants of the Phylydion Fleet blast them. Short of an all-out invasion of Dominus, there is no way we can destroy that ship."

Yuri agreed. "We do not want their homeworld to fall- that would break their unity and force them into using guerilla tactics."

Natasha, despite this criticism, smiled. "Boys, boys, I didn't say we should directly attack it. While the Imperium is in total confusion, the entirety of the Phylydion fleet, as well as the Argosian Taskforce, is heavily guarding Dominus, expecting an imminent invasion. All we must do is snatch up enough Phylydion worlds, and flush them out with Aleck's lightning-raids; it will only be a matter of time untill we force a confrontation. The Pendulum is in our swing now, gentlemen. Let us use our initiatinve to slice the Fat Imperium open."

------------------
Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

(This message has been edited by Slug (edited 11-28-2001).)