Southern Frontline Head Quarters, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

Rows of tents stood erect in a sea of bodies. A screech, foul retorts, and even louder honks heralded the arrival of an army jeep cleaving a path through the swarms of idle soldiers. A lieutenant stepped out of a nearby tent, his face red as he screamed after the hazardous driver, to little avail since the vehicle had already disappearing beyond the neighboring row of tents.

The angry lieutenant stepped back into his tent, where a corporal handed him a phone that was connected to the defenders of the Western Flank. The equipment was antiquated, considering that the Alliance was already using long range “waving” communication that could wirelessly link individuals from different planets, but the Independents could neither afford nor obtain this coveted piece of tech. What few interplanetary communication devices General Levitt had managed to acquire during his raid into the Core Planets were distributed amongst the space fleets. The ground troops were stuck using World War II era communication equipment.

The lieutenant barked angrily into the mouth piece, and the brave soul on the other end appeared to be giving as good as he got, since the lieutenant’s face grew increasingly purple. With almost a feral snarl, the lieutenant slammed the phone down, and the corporal stepped forward, pen and paper at the ready. Sound came out of the lieutenant’s mouth, and words appeared on the reused piece of equipment requisition memo. The corporal looked extremely uncomfortable under the glaring scrutiny of the dictating lieutenant.

A private came running by the tent, carrying a stack of paper under his arm. The corporal gave the private the transcript, adding specific instructions to hand the transcript over to Colonel Donovan personally. The private nodded, his mind running a mile a minute as he mentally juggled dozens of other specific instructions given by the dozens of other NCOs.

The transcript eventually made its way over to Colonel Donovan’s tent, and was given to a lieutenant who approached the busy commanding officer leading the defense of Serenity Valley against the Alliance assault. The man stood at a large table, a large topographical map spread out over the surface with numerous toy markers placed at various locations. Various officers milled around the table, passing memos and discussing reports, even as the Colonel stared intensely at the large enemy force, represented as red army men on the map, gathered at their footsteps.

“Colonel.” The transcript bearing lieutenant spoke to Colonel Donovan. “The western flank is reporting an incoming enemy armored battalion, and is requesting reinforcements.”

A corporal, hearing the report, quietly placed a small grey tank at the mouth of the valley exiting to the west.

The Colonel shifted his glaze over to the two green army men at the western front, now placed squarely in front of the grey tank turret.

“What is the largest intact unit we got not on the frontlines?” The Colonel raised his voice over the background noise, and the response was the sound of paper shuffling.

“I got a platoon of 30, rifle team survivors from Fort Tranquility.” A corporal called out.

“I got a squad of six, fire support with mortar from Central Command.” Another sergeant reported.

Several more voices spoke out, naming relevant anti-armor units that had reported in.

Colonel Donovan silently cursed. All the units being listed were at half strength if not worse, and they were all stragglers and survivors that had somehow managed to make their way to Serenity Valley, after their respectively bases and posts were leveled and obliterated by a liberal use of Alliance explosives. The 3rd Battalion of the 142nd Planetary Defense Forces left to defend Serenity Valley was only supposed to number around a thousand, but now the number was creeping up to almost ten thousand. Nine thousand crushed souls had sought refuge at Serenity Valley, the last line of defense to the south of Serenity Base to still stand against the unstoppable march of the Alliance forces.

They were in a bad position, and every officer in that tent knew it. The extra nine thousand troops should technically make Serenity Valley impervious to assault, especially with the orbital defense missiles at Serenity Base keeping the Alliance cruisers and capital ships from coming into low orbital and glassing the entire valley. However, the nine thousand troops were in actuality a logistically nightmare for the commanders of 3rd Battalion; there was little to no preexisting command structures left in the troops that found their way to Serenity Valley. As such, every available staff member was put on the task of cannibalizing the surviving squads and reconstituting them as units of adequate strength.

Given a few months, the capable commanders of 3rd Battalion would have been able to reconstitute the survivors into nine new battalions, fully officered through a liberal round of promotions. Given only a few days, however, not even a single fully strengthened platoon had been completed, and with the Alliance forces constantly probing Serenity Valley’s defenses, a few days were all they had to form up the stragglers and make them into a cohesive fighting unit.

That said, there can be no better forge for cohesive fighting units than having your back against the wall and facing a tyrant that goes by the name of Alliance.

Looking over at the circle of logistics officers reading squad dossiers, Colonel Donovan began issuing commands.

“Lieutenant Pearson, reconstitute an anti-armor platoon and send them to Western Flank in 30.” Lt. Pearson nodded, fingers already flying through a particularly high stack of papers.

“Lieutenant Ellis, I need that progress report from the 33rd Armored.” Leaving the circle, Lt. Ellis made a beeline for the communications tent.

“Corporal Hunter, get a sitrep from Frontline. Tell them the Alliance is moving on West, and warn them to expect contacts.” A quick salute and the soldier ran in the same direction as Lt. Ellis.

“Sergeant Harford, contact FieldOps and ask them how in the gorram hell they managed to miss an entire Armored Division landing right under their noses, and tell them I need to know if the Alliance is going to surprise us elsewhere.” There was a grin from Harford, and then man stepped to a high security communication booth in the tent.

“And Sergeant Bell, get a line to Serenity Base, I need to update them on the situation.” The female Sergeant responded by handing the Colonel an ear piece and a clip-on microphone, while her other hand flew over the dials that would link Frontline HQ to Serenity Base.

The ambient noise level in the tent rose back up, and Colonel Donovan mentally prepared himself for the debriefing with his military superiors at Serenity Base.

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Beachhead Command Base, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

The Aether Short Range Transporter touched down on a square block of black tarmac, blasting the incoming group of refuel staff and staff officers with a wave of turbulence that threatened to send hats flying. With an audible hiss, a door slid open, and a young man stepped out into the sun. Dressed in a two piece white suit, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of black sunglasses. All the while, his head was tilted skyward, his body language showing no signs of being aware of the group of four officers that were staring and studying him.

The lead officer stepped forward, one hand taking off his cap and the other rising into a salute, and the rest of the officers followed suit. The young man took no notice, and instead appeared to be avidly avoiding eye contact with the waiting officers. The lead officer cleared his throat once, then twice, and finally the man responded by taking steps in their direction, his shaded eyes still pointed skyward.

Taking the movement to be an informal at ease order, the lead officer relaxed, and gestured for two of his subordinates to search the transporter for any luggage that required unloading. From his other two fellow officers he took an oddly white briefcase and a manila envelope stamped with a bright red ‘CONFIDENTIAL.” The young man stopped in front of him, and the lead officer took the liberty to start his welcome speech.

“Welcome, Brigadier General Weir! I hope re-entry was not too turbulent for you—”

“Are those what I have requested?” Brig. General Weir pointed to the white briefcase.

“Yes, general. All of our most recent field reports, and intel on enemy strength, reinforcements, and officers are all in this briefcase. Would you like for me—” The lead officer tried to smile, but the twitching of the corner of his mouth was making his attempt very sloppy.

“I’ll take it.” Reaching out and grabbing the briefcase, Weir turned and walked towards a newly erected white administrative facility in a sea of camouflage colored buildings. The building was a single-floored, small rectangular shaped block that had more than a few antennas and satellite dishes sticking out on the roof.

The lead officer stood for a few seconds, his hand clenching and unclenching as if searching for the missing briefcase handle. Finally realizing he still possessed the manila envelope, the officer ran after Weir, stuttering his sentence in an undignified tone.

“Wait! General! Your Ident. Codes!”

---

Alliance Military Vessel Venus, Cruiser-class, high orbit around Planet Hera

A large computer screen flashed, drawing the attention of the two scientists that occupied the room. The room was small, but not cramped, and the walls were lined with monitors and screens that displayed data received from hundreds of miles away. One of the scientists with headphones on mouthed ‘busy’ to his partner, who nodded and tapped a few keys that caused the computer screen to rotate and face him.

Green words appeared onscreen, and were quickly replaced by the face of a middle age man. His hair was covered by a military cap, and his chest bore a circle of stars. Upon seeing the scientist, the General spoke.

“I have just received report that Subject SRP-72 as reached the forward base attacking Serenity Valley. How is his condition? Is he functional?”

The scientist shifted his glasses. “His vitals are optimal, and his brainwaves are showing no anomalies. He seems to be functioning quite well on his own down there.”

“On his own?” The General frowned. “You sent him down there on his own? What if he goes berserk?”

“Well, SRP-72 is our most stable subject, and his powers are strictly cognitive. Even if he goes berserk, he will not be able to harm the military operation down there.” There was a slight muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth, a flash of a smirk on the scientist’s face. “And he insisted that he be allowed to go on his own, said he saw that he would be able to see more clearly without us hovering in the background.”

“And you listened to him? I didn’t know you took suggestions from your subjects.”

“Given the nature of SRP-72’s ability and his past records, we were not taking suggestions from him as much as using his ability to help us make the best choice.” The scientist tapped a few keys, instantly sending a file over the wave. “And we detected the tell-tale activities in the neocortex. It was the right decision to make.”

The General tapped the screen, and took a moment to study the file before making a waving motion at the screen. His eyes focused in on the scientist again. “Just keep a close eye on him. SRP-72 is the star of our program, and I expect him to return in prime condition.”

The scientist gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Of course, General.”

---

Academy Codex, Entry 2, the Artemis

Though the Exodus was oversaw by the Global Exodus Alliance, the constructions of each individual Ark was managed by a local project lead due to the sheer size of the spacecraft. Each Ark consumed the equivalent of a whole developed city’s worth of raw material to complete, as the designers completely forsook the popular manufacturing model of “build to break,” and took pains to ensure reasonable perfection in the parts used to build the Arks. This resulted in the rush to construct new factories capable of the higher heat, higher pressure, and onsite stress testing manufacturing model mandated by the Global Exodus Alliance.

It was here that the project leads could customize the designs of the Ark, and the GEA made no complains as long as the finished Ark had the necessary capacity to evacuate a set quota of human survivors. Between the civilian riots and terrorist rebellions, the GEA leadership had its hands full keeping what was left of humanity from imploding. As a result, very little attention was paid to just how many scientific laboratories or extra storage rooms the project leads were installing into their Ark.

The result was a diversified fleet of Arks. Most project leads were civil leaders, and therefore were content to pour uninterrupted funding and resources into building and supplying those factories that built parts for cryogenic sleep pods, general maintenance robots, and electronic hardware. These Arks became towering mazes of cryo pods with redundant electronic circuitry embedded everywhere to ensure the continued function of these pods.

The military generals had a different goal: military stockpiling. Resources were diverted, as much as they were able, to the manufacturing of weapons, equipments, and vehicles, all of which were packaged to be stored in carefully insulated vacuum storage rooms, to prevent degradation over the long centuries of travel.

The Artemis, absolutely unique in its design, was planned to be a research Ark. State of the art research facilities were scattered all over the vessel, with the rest of the space serving as storage rooms for foodstuff as well as research specimens. Due to the complete lack of consideration for installing enough cryo pods and the disproportional allocation of space to research facilities, Artemis was inadequately built to safely house the necessary number of passengers.

Before the GEA spaceflight crew was due to arrived to begin the loading process, the Artemis engineers hastily added a new outer layer to the Ark, while stuffing a hazardous quantity of cryo pods in the new space. Shoddy manufacturing and installation was the name of the game, and if not for some very excellent forgeries, Artemis would not have passed inspections. When Artemis lifted off into space, a full half of its population of humans was housed in cryo pods shielded by an outer layer that was insufficiently thick so as to block the gamma radiation from the Sun.

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Author’s Note: So yea, less action and more exposition in this chapter, and the implications of that small segment of science talk is ignorable, as I will be revealing it next chapter, but feel free to make your guesses. I’ll let you know how close you got. Note that I have decided to alter a portion of the next chapter, to replace a few cookie-cutter characters with a better one, so no promises again on the release date. I want to make sure my replacement character fits well into what I have written so far, and what I have planned for the finale.

And for these Academy Codex entries, I have completed five, and got a few more planned to cover the new technologies that I will be introducing into the story. I would definitely welcome suggestions on what you guys like to know more about the Verse background.

Chris