Red Skies

The sky bled while red and black clouds danced in the atmosphere.

Among them large shapes moved, obstructed by the clouds and smoke.

Smaller ones came down from the sky and flew close to the ground, others landed and disappeared between the buildings.

A lone shape landed far from the buildings, the fires, and the constant noise.

The landing was smooth, if a bit rushed, the transport took a few bullets and needed to land, the pilot was saying something about a broken fuel line and how they needed to fix it.That meant they would have to land and spend at least some time fixing it or risk crashing.

The fighting would be all over by then, well, of the fight, the part everybody wanted to fight in, to earn glory and maybe a promotion, to prove themselves to their superior or family.

The clean-up would take days, if not months, and that would be for only the major resistance cells. There still would be smaller cells for years, if not decades, but that part would earn them no prestige, only the commander who gets assigned this place.

The planet was small in size compared to most others, at least in habitable land, most of the land was too cold or too hot, too high and uneven for proper cities, and everything else was covered in water.

The planet had a primitive species which had almost made it to space expansion. This was the primary reason for invasion; if they made it to space they could be used by rival powers to harm the Empire.

This also was a power move by the princess; she had to prove herself to her subjects, mostly to the grand dukes whose families had multiple star systems and planets under their control. A successful invasion of a planet, even if it was primitive was a good start, but more shows of power would soon follow.

If one of those were to fail, trouble would be on the horizon for the young princess, but she was far away in the orbit, watching from her ship.

The pilots looked over the brand new holes in their transport. They were very close to the fuel line, and required a more in-depth inspection; they would be stuck here until the clean-up began.

The soldiers wanted to fight, especially the nobility, even more the noble bastards, but the pilots remained firm.

Even though the pilots were always more level-headed than any other branch of the military, their mistakes were always a bit more explosive.That meant no flying until every part was checked and worked perfectly ven when the officer threatened them with her last name, they would not budgeBetter one angry noble than a transport filled with dead ones.

Elinsys walked through the field around the transport, pretending to patrol, sometimes stopping to look into the far off woods.

The scanner never seemed to pick up on anything, nothing big or interesting at least, just a few rodents and birds.

The rest of her squad mostly sat around loading their guns over and over again; the gunners kept the guns hot and pointed towards the woods.

The woods went all the way up the rest of the hill, meanwhile down the hill was a field and then the city.

The squad was supposed to be taking the government buildings with the other squads. Now, however, everyone but the pilots was just getting yelled at. Nobody ever yells at the pilots.

As the officer approached her, Elinsys saluted her and grabbed her rifle firmly. The officer looked her over with anger in her eyes, even through her helmet the rage shown through.

“Private, stay here and keep your eyes on those woods, if you hear a firefight, advance and provide us cover. Understood?”

Elinsys knew what the officer really meant, she was going to take the more senior members of the squad with her to go and try to secure themselves some glory, while she and a few others got to stay here and protect the pilots.

Most of the squad went with the officer towards the city. At least they will clear the outskirts and maybe capture a few fleeing enemy soldiers.

Elinsys waited until they were out of sight, then headed towards the transport.

The pilots were basically tearing the ship apart and putting it back together; meanwhile the gunners were getting bored and started to relax more. Her squad members were sitting in their seats and playing around with their guns and coms.

All was quiet and peaceful, except the spreading fire in the city.

Suddenly, Elinsys was blind for a few seconds. All she saw was white and then blue. It was moving across her helmet, this liquid that lost all color thru her purple visor, it was more of a slime than liquid.

Then the realization hit her, she turned around on her belly and started to crawl away from the fire and towards the woods, as gunshots rang out behind her, but she made it to the woods.

She was enveloped in dark, comforting shadows. Slowly, making sure not to be noticed, she turned towards the fire and the terrible carnage.

The transport was in pieces and burning, mangled corpses skewed all about the field. One corpse twitched and started to crawl away, but the fire slowly overtook the struggling pilot.

Before the fire could fully catch up to her another shot was heard, she fell to the ground motionless and slowly caught on fire.

A few figures came out of the woods. They were covered in rags and armed with lasers, the standard issue laser her people used,, but one weapon was more primitive, it was a tube which had smoke coming out of it.

As they slowly disappeared in the cover of the woods and headed towards the city, they threw the rags off themselves as they descended, the darkness covering them fully.

For a few moments she sat there in the woods looking at the burning wreckage, then she checked herself for wounds. A few minor scratches and bruises were clearly visible on her armor, there was a single penetration, a piece of metal stuck out of her. She couldn’t feel it, but it was there.

She stayed there in the woods, her legs failed her.

The report came in over the screens, the invasion was a success, there were losses, but nobody important.

Take Formation

Elinsys woke up with a sore back. It usually hurt a bit in the morning, but it would pass soon, it always does.

Her alarm was about to go off soon. She hated it, she hated it so much she always woke up a few minutes before it rang to turn it off.

Today was a special day, she would get a promotion and medal from a high ranking officer for her work on her home planet.

She felt proud for getting it, it was a very prestigious award.

An award for loyalty to the empress. Given to her.

She had fought a guerrilla war against the rebelling countesses. She hadn't been able to save her home, or even do that much in the Five Countess Rebellion. But she had been loyal, when few others had.

It was a multi-month rebellion and promotions come quickly when there are gaps in the chain of command. And there were many gaps.

She made it to an officer position almost within a month, but that was mostly due to everybody being dead or too afraid to lead.

With her new rank, Elinsys set up smaller cells to resist the countesses and laid traps all over her home planet.

After the military finally took back the planet, there were only a few leaders left, she among them.

There was the military leader who was captured when it all started, she was nobility so she survived. A few war veterans who formed their squads and blew everything they could find: And her.

She tried to limit her damage to her homeworld. At the end of the day, her job was not to make war on civilians, but on the rebels. Working with limited resources, and against a superior enemy, her best weapon was using traps, to use the buildings around her as weapons against her enemy. But it always weighed on her, that she was destroying innocent people's homes, maybe even unintentionally causing civilian deaths, if the traps went off later. She tried to limit it, but she knew she would have to live with this for the rest of her life.

She set up traps which would trigger when the enemy was in the area, usually a building or two would collapse, killing or trapping everybody under them.

The noble would get all the praise, but she didn’t mind.

Looking back, it was all a blur. First the injuries from the invasion left her bedridden for months, and then the therapy which took almost a year.

Some of the nobles had wanted her executed for cowardice. Mostly the family of those who died in the transport. Well, one noble died.

After she was finally rescued, her officer tried to pass the blame to her. The officer's family wanted the whole thing swept under the rug, and so it was.

She and the rest of the squad were paid very well to keep their mouths shut, hell, she even got this posting on the far edge of the galaxy.

Then she got a post on her home so she could take it easy. But a few years after the rebellion started. She wanted to finally get some peace and quiet, she had earned it.

Now she was older, most would say now was the time to get a permanent posting in some cushy office job doing paperwork and start a family, but first she had to go to the capital and get her medal.

She was a passenger on this ship and could do whatever, mostly reading about the ceremony and the capital world.

Always be ready is something she learned after the invasion and during the rebellion.

She needed a walk to clear her mind and get rid of the pain in her chest, there was a large scar there. It itched and sometimes it hurt.

Walks were one way for Elinsys to calm down.

*

The Swift Express was not a military vessel, well, it used to be, but now it’s just an armored passenger ship for nobility, mostly focused on defense and speed. It was being escorted by a few support ships.

She went to the lounge and stared out of the window into the galaxy before her. An older woman sat next to her and ordered a drink, they were free, something that she clearly was going to abuse.

“So here we are, getting medals for killing our own kind. Why? Because we chose the winning side. Only that." She seemed to be mostly saying this to herself, but Elinsys could hear her nonetheless.

The woman made her uncomfortable and nervous. People usually don’t just start talking to you.

“I lost a son to this war, then a daughter after. She was executed as a traitor. I pleaded and begged, but no mercy was given.”

“Well, I am sure we all have...”

“I lost many friends. A few died in a building collapse, even if they were on the winning side, our side.” Her stare was anything but subtle and her words were daggers to stab Elinsys' conscience.

Her traps killed anybody who was there at the time. She had tried to clear out those buildings and close them down, but sometimes allies wanted to set up their ambush nearby and refused to listen.

Few civilians also died, usually hiding away from the airstrikes.

She felt shame for getting the medal because of these traps, they were crude, but extremely effective.

Elinsys feared that her strategy would become commonplace now, or at least that she would inspire commanders to destroy anything to win.

The woman emptied her drink and pulled out a knife. She lunged towards Elinsys, but her movement was slow and sluggish .

Elinsys managed to dodge it by dropping to the floor, the knife embedding itself uselessly into the bar.

She fell on her back and tried to shuffle away, meanwhile the woman dislodged the knife and went for a second attack.

A baton struck her right in the chest, she didn’t react at first, but when the electric shock was activated she dropped to the floor.

Now guards were swarming all over Elinsys, an officer helped her up and looked her over for wounds, as the woman was dragged away.

Elinsys hoped they were taking the poor, grief-mad woman to the brig, and didn't just throw her out of the airlock.

The military didn’t take well to traitors, especially now that the rebellion had just happened.

Elinsys was taken to the infirmary for a medical checkup. She wasn’t harmed, but the procedure was mandatory.

*

“Do you feel any pain? You look sick.”, the doctor asked.

“I am not sleeping well, back pain mostly. My attacker was drunk and couldn’t do any real harm to me, got lucky I guess.”

“I am prescribing you some sleeping pills, take one before bed and don’t mix it with anything but water. You are free to go,” the doctor, pointing towards the door after giving Elinsys a bottle of pills.

Elinsys left the room and was greeted by a security detail, a man and a woman dressed more for a ceremony than fighting. They would escort her for the rest of the trip. Only in her room was she truly alone, the woman would even be following her into the bathroom to watch over her.

The sleeping pills helped, but the back pain was getting worse.

Maybe it was due to the hard bed she slept on, or the different gravity of the ship?

The ships gravity was attuned to the capital world, sometimes nobility had their ships tuned to the gravity of their home planet, but the capital planet was the imperial standard.

The different gravity was something you got used to as a soldier, but is still it felt weird to be a different weight from planet to planet, a person’s mass is stated on their identity cards rather than weight for this reason.

Somebody was knocking on her door, rather loudly and constantly, then a notice appeared that somebody wanted to enter.

Elinsys looked at the notice to check the camera. An officer from the bridge, judging by her markings and outfit.

The military could build a dreadnought with all the money they spend on outfits for officers, two if they stopped providing spares every single time there was a scratch or loose thread.

The officer was nervous when Elinsys greeted her with a casual, “Hello.”

“I am sorry for the intrusion, but your presence is requested on the bridge by the captain, please come as soon as possible.” She left in a hurry after that.

Elinsys went to get breakfast or something to eat; food was served on a schedule, even if they were in space.

There were signs all over the walls and lines in different colors to point to the right place. One could simply follow the lines on the floor.

The mess was tidy and had plenty of seating, it was most likely one of many on the ship.

The food was diverse, there was food for any time of day here, this was the passenger mess so they required variety.

Elinsys grabbed some pastries and went towards the bridge eating on her way there.

The bridge was separated by an airlock of its own and a short elevator ride. When the elevator doors opened Elinsys saw a large room with windows covering the wall in front of her, information about the flight appeared on the windows.

One of the windows turned off to reveal a monitor.

Windows were a structural weakness and were only used on luxury ships and transport craft. All modern military ships used monitors, only a few very old ships used glass, and usually in multiple layers.

There were consoles everywhere and officers were making rounds constantly. The helmswomen were calculating something around one console while the other crew was checking if the ship was running smoothly.

She was approached by an officer, an officer with a small heraldic badge on her lapel, a noble officer.

Which family Elinsys couldn’t tell, most of them all looked the same to her untrained eye.

“Hello ma’am, please follow me to the captain's office.” She moved her arm towards the door on the side of the bridge.

The captain's office was bigger than her quarters. Maybe not by much, but much better appointed.

Two large banners were covering the wall; the larger being the Empresses family crest. The other one, Elinsys assumed, had to be the captain's family crest."

She sat down in one of the guest chairs and waited. There was a painting on the wall, or at least a competent copy of one.

The reds and black were familiar to her, it was the invasion, it showed the empress surrounded by her soldiers accepting the defeat of the enemy leaders.

She wondered how the planet was doing, the rebuilding must have been finished by now.

The door slid to the side and the captain entered, she was older than her by a decade at least and wore a tired expression.She closed the door and sat down in her chair.

"I will be honest with you; this attack has caused me a massive headache." The tone of the captain was much more relaxed than Elinsys expected. "The paper work itself is already a nightmare, but all the messages from nobles who heard about it is infinitely worse."

“I demand you increase your security. How can you let assassins board your ships! I will tell the Admiralty about this, your career is over!” She was smiling a bit to herself after imitating the voice of a noble.

“And so on and so forth. Now I have to give extra security to anybody who has a trickle of noble blood in them.” The captain's mood soured after that.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle and some glasses.

She placed the bottle in front of Elinsys.

“I am sorry for the unprofessional behavior, but I am tired and so are you, as I heard?” There was actual concern in her voice. A motherly concern.

“Are the pills working, or do you need a stronger dose?” She leaned in a bit after saying that, trying to see into her eyes.

“Yes, they helped quite a bit. Why did you call me here captain…” Elinsys was ashamed to admit she didn't remember the captain's name.

“How rude of me, I am Commodore Melora of Vessina, my family name is of Vessina.” Melora tilted her head towards the small banner on the wall.

Melora then picked up her glass and finished her drink in one swig.

"I had originally called you here to reassure you that no further attacks will happen, and to apologize. Then, I took a look at your file, and some old memories started to pop up." Elinsys shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

“Destroying buildings to bury your enemies alive, now that is vile, effective in many ways, but vile.”

Elinsys tried to defend herself, but there was no need. Melora wasn’t judging her, it seemed. And the captain had already seemed a bit tipsy when she entered.

“Were you deployed long on Earth after the invasion was finished? The record wasn’t clear about that.”

“No, I was wounded in the chest area and was evacuated off the planet with other wounded. I had some nerve damage for a long time, but a surgery fixed it a few months after the invasion.”

Elinsys remembered her time in the hospital, waiting for the surgery, going up and down the waiting list every single day. She was sent home after that to finish rehabilitation, just in time to be caught up in the rebellion.

“I was there for a year, went with my cousin to study and prepare for my own captain position one day. Then the rebellion started and I was sent to serve under my sister.” Melora’s tone lowered.

“I tried to stay away from the Veneration, it brings bad luck to my family. The current captain is my brother’s wife. Bea’ti is a turox if there ever was one, does she deserve it?” She started to pour another drink.

“No, a machine would be a better captain, but she is a part of my clan now and it was her or some rival family.”

Elinsys was sitting there quietly, she was worried why the woman was telling her any of this, was she extremely drunk or did she not care?

“So tell me about your new position, are you excited about it or do you dread it as much as I dread that woman becoming commodore one day?” Melora asked her.

“New position? I don’t have any new orders, I thought about finally going home and retiring or at least taking up some office job there.”

Elinsys wasn’t really planning anything, she wasn’t sure what her rank actually was now and what options she had.

Right now she wanted to get her medal and take a break, maybe see a professional for her back pain.

“You haven’t been given new orders yet? And you are not worried at all? Guess they are letting you rest up before throwing you into a star.”

“I would hope so, and I hope they leave me alone after the ceremony too. Is any of your family going to be there?”

“Nobody who I know of, but probably some brat who sat around all day.”

“Who will give out the medals, do you know?” Elinsys asked, trying to sidetrack Melora from ranting more about her family. She didn’t want to know any of this.

“Probably the general in charge of stopping the rebellion. I know who my admiral is, but I didn’t really keep track of other branches.”

*

They spent a few hours talking about the rebellion and the capital planet, until someone opened the door.

“Commodore Vessina, your presence is required in communications immediately.” The officer was the same as before.

“Yes, we can continue after we land at one of the parties. Would you take my guest to her quarters, please?”

“Of course commodore, follow me miss.” The officer started to leave the room, when Melora stopped her.

“Do help her with anything she needs, and make sure her guards are our best.” As she was saying this, the bottle went back into hiding in her desk.

“Yes ma’am. Please follow me, ma’am.” She walked off quickly and Elinsys had to take long steps to catch up.

By the time Elinsys reached the elevator, the officer had already pressed the button, and the doors closed right behind Elinsys.

The ride was quiet until the officer spoke up.

“Listen, you will forget that you saw her drinking. It is for the best. I would appreciate it if the reputation of the commodore was spotless.”

Elinsys was about to say something, but the doors opened.

Two soldiers were standing before her, her escorts who were missing this morning. The officer took the elevator back up after Elinsys got out.

“Did you have one of her famous elevator talks? Hope she hasn't been too hard on you,” the woman asked.

“You know about that, does she do it often?” Elinsys asked.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t be talking if Henera meant you any harm. If she didn’t like you she would have told us to follow her.”

“It’s a code, like ordering special drinks in bars when your date is being pushy,” replied the male soldier.

“If the little miss de-facto captain had a chat with you and isn’t too hostile, you are okay with the rest of the crew, otherwise you might need a new ship” The female guard was more energetic than her fellow guard.

“Have a nice night, hope you enjoy the rest of your trip. We will be landing tomorrow at around 1000 hours”.

“Sleep well, and if you need something, call for Nilni and Gelln.” Nilni indicated herself and then Gelln.

“Goodnight to you too.” Elinsys closed the door.

Elinsys walked over to her table and changed into sleepwear.

She checked her computer for mail or updates about her future posting.

There was only a memo for the ceremony and the schedule for all the parties that she would have to attend, it was from Melora.

At the bottom was a comment from her.

“What did I tell you, all party after party, rest up while you can.

Commodore Melora of Vessina.”

Elinsys went to bed after taking a sleeping pill.