Originally posted on the Imperial Datanet Central News Hub

Publication: The Trios Gazette

Author: Spek Teydar, War Correspondent for TG

Tags: Imperial Navy, Peacekeeping, Outer Territories

I realize that for many of my readers, this might be the first time they’ve even heard of the planet Vipordia or a viperiux. Much less would they have heard about the insurrection those serpents enacted a month ago in the planet’s capitol. If you live in the Outer Territories, you might remember a report about trade being interrupted because that key space port was taken over by the native subject race. Maybe your world even experienced a shortage of food or fuel for a time because of it. For most of the Trioptine Empire, the ripples would have never reached you.

So why even tell this story to begin with? Why not leave it at “Space port seized by rebels, liberated now, all’s back to normal”? Well, two reasons. One, when your specialty is War Correspondent in a time of peace, you don’t get many opportunities to be in your element, amongst the camaraderie and spirit of Navy spacers. There’s just a certain realness to that crowd that you don’t get in the civilian sector (no offense to my civilian readers). And two, even though it was an episode that would be lucky to get a footnote in our historical record, being down there and witnessing it unfold, I think I found a story worth telling. It wasn’t your usual tale of Naval heroics, putting down insurgents threatening the peace and our citizens. It was one that left me with a different sort of feeling, one I’m still not sure I understand.

I arrived in the system after the Navy fleet were well into their preparations to retake the occupied zone. There were only three warships in orbit, two light frigates and a destroyer. Obviously, the Navy didn’t put too much stock in the rebels’ chances. They could probably have ended it from up there, except they wanted the space port to be more than a crater when they were through.

I managed to transfer from my civilian craft to one of the orbiting warships and catch a ride down to the surface in a troop transport. I think the spacers were expecting someone a bit softer when they heard a journalist was coming aboard. As they whispered among themselves, I overheard some unprintable but amusing jabs at my kind’s expense, as well as a suggestion I would make a good distraction for the enemy once the fighting started. The jokes stopped when they saw I was laughing with them. A couple of them recognized me from my work during the last major civil war. Someone pulled one of my old articles on his net reader and showed it to his comrades. Once they saw I “got” them, I was just one of the guys for the rest of the trip.

I found they barely knew any more about the situation than I did. A lot of them didn’t even know what a viperiux was. One of the younger spacers had heard rumors from the planetside guard, though. They were snake-like creatures, that much I already knew. Apparently, they had a strong warrior tradition, and nature had done good preparing them for it. They were supposed to have nearly impervious natural armor, and they could be on you in seconds once they spotted you. Up close, they could kill you just as fast. They didn’t even need a weapon for it. If they had to, they could just rip you apart with their powerful jaws or slice you to pieces with their two clawed forearms. These descriptions terrified the young spacer and some of the other fresher recruits, but their comrades didn’t seem phased. We were the Trioptine, after all, and no race in the galaxy had been able to stand up to us yet. Maybe that was bravery, or maybe it was that phenomenon I’d experienced myself when I first became a war journalist. No matter how graphically the danger is described to you, your brain didn’t let it be real until it was right there in front of you.

We touched down at a base camp set up miles from the occupied city. After stepping off the landing craft, I found the trioptine I most wanted to see, looking out at our objective through his trinoculars. The Commodore was the perfect picture of an Imperial Navy officer, the kind you’d put on the recruitment posters. Tall, broad-shouldered, perfectly trimmed crimson fur, sparkling white fangs, and a blood-blue uniform just dirty enough to give it character. Rightmost eye was a prosthetic, and the pincer on his tail was cracked and broken, showing that he’d been through some action. But more than that, he acted the part as well. Ears pointed up in alertness, his face calm but stern even as he coordinated his men’s efforts. When I introduced myself, he gave me his full attention and politely but firmly told me he didn’t have time for an interview.

With a little prodding, I managed to convince the Commodore I wouldn’t take up too much of his time. I asked him for a rundown of the situation. He told me that the viperiux were being led by a “Kay-Lur,” a radical who had been preaching for months in defiance of the Trioptine Empire’s rule of the planet. His band had been leading guerilla raids on Imperial colonists, until a month ago they descended on the capitol in a surprise attack, overwhelmed the local guard, and killed the governor and an unknown number of Imperial citizens. They were now holding the capitol hostage, and since it was also the planet’s main space port, this insurrection had disrupted trade routes in the outer territories. The serpents were now demanding concessions from the Empire in return for the city, ones that would considerably cut down our presence on the planet and leave our colonists with even less strength to protect themselves from the viperiux.

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Obviously, the Empire wasn’t going to make such concessions, hence the reason we were here. I told the Commodore how a few of the men were nervous about their enemy, having heard stories about their ferocity. I asked if he shared any of their concerns. No, he said. He’d studied up on the viperiux and knew very well that they were a race of warriors. But they were an antiquated, romanticized sort of warrior. Their battle philosophy revolved around up close, personal conflict, the honor of one-on-one battle. When the Empire had first come to this planet, the serpents had barely developed combustion-propelled projectile weapons. Establishing governorship had hardly required military action other than a few dramatic demonstrations.

That was a few decades ago, yet the serpents still clung to their old ideals. The insurrectionist’s victories with their little guerilla raids had convinced them that their kind of warrior was still relevant. From the reports, the Commodore saw no sign they’d adapted their tactics at all. They still went in close for the kill. They didn’t realize the difference between taking on a lightly-outfitted local guard, caught by surprise, and a fully-prepared Navy engagement. Kay-Lur thought he and his followers were there to fight a glorious battle for freedom. The Commodore said he was there to do his job and go home.

The Commodore directed his people to set up a massive weapon system, just dropped off by a transport ship. He told me what his plan was. They’d made no secret to Kay-Lur and his warriors that they were setting up over here. A spy report had told him the warriors were getting jumpy seeing what they were up against. The Commodore predicted that he could provoke them into making a preemptive strike to try and eliminate our force before we became too powerful to stop. In that case, this weapon could bring a swift end to the conflict before it’d even begun.

It was an intimidating piece of hardware. The Commodore told me it was called an ASP, or Area Sterilization Platform. Fully assembled, its size dwarfed the transport ship I’d arrived in. Its dozen massive barrels were pointed at the sky as it swiveled into position on its platform, controlled by a technician’s remote pad. If there were a weapon that could live up to the Commodore’s claim, this certainly looked the part, at least.

After that came the long game of waiting. More and more forces came down to join us from orbit, partially in case we had to move into the city to fight the rebels, but also to aid the Commodore’s ploy, making a spectacle of our might to spook Kay-Lur into making the first move. Time and again the Commodore went up on that hill with his trinoculars, looking for signs of movement.

Finally, late one night, he came rushing back to the camp and ordering people to ready the ASP. I and several of the troops came out to see what the Commodore had seen. I’ll never forget the sight. In the dark, we could just make out the huge, writhing mass of serpentine forms pouring out from the city, moving swiftly toward us like a wave. I was with some of the spacers who’d laughed off the stories about the viperiux on the transport. I could see their brains were finally making the danger real for them. It was incredible, like a force of nature coming for us.

As we watched, dumbstricken, the night suddenly lit up with a thundercrack. I instinctively pressed my ears down against my skull to try and drown out the roar. The darkness over the landscape slowly melted away, for a moment revealing the true fanged, scaly faces of our enemy. Their advance had frozen as they stared up in disbelief at the great balls of hellfire launched from the Commodore’s special weapon. Seconds later, they disappeared as a white, molten blanket of plasma descended on them, burning away everything that had stood in that area. Sterilizing it, you could say. So that’s where the name came from, I thought to myself.

We could tell that the bulk of their forces had literally just gone up in smoke. The capitol was practically ours for the taking. The troops raised a cheer of victory, until the Commodore held up a hand to silence them. He looked out over his handiwork, the scorched land where the ASP’s fire had fallen. The ground was black and orange with molten rock, casting a warm glow on the night. All across it, we could see the twisted, charred remains of the viperiux warriors, looking like piles of burnt twigs.

Then he did something that surprised me. He took off his hat and placed it against his chest, closed his eyes, and whispered something I was just able to make out, an apology to our fallen foes, for not giving them the glorious deaths in battle they’d hoped to see that day. I wasn’t the only one that overheard. One by one, I saw the spacers’ ears go from perked-up jubilance to drooping somberness as it sank in how quickly we’d snuffed out what must have been hundreds, if not thousands of lives, even if they were just a subject race. One young spacer let out a wail of dismay as he saw one burnt form at the edge of the sterilized area move, still alive, trying to drag itself away, undoubtedly in excruciating pain.

We had to wait for the ground to cool before we could move in to retake the city. Kay-Lur and his surviving forces surrendered without much of a struggle. Seems that their best had been in that ill-fated charge. Seeing the creatures up close triggered an instinctive shudder of revulsion in me, that hardwired psychological response to reptilians that’s bred into our race. Even through his alien features, though, I could see on Kay-Lur his bitter, crushing sense of defeat, and maybe some regret as well, likely for sending so many of his followers pointlessly to their deaths. I heard rumors that he negotiated with the Commodore for leniency to his surviving warriors, in exchange for accepting his execution without protest. I’m inclined to believe it, as in the end, Kay-Lur was the only one put to death for the insurgency, while the rest were placed into indentured servitude offworld.

After some semblance of order was restored and a new governor instated, I met the Commodore for one last interview before returning to the Center Territories. He told me he’d been commended by the admiralty for making quick work of this problem. I sensed, though, that he wasn’t as pleased with this victory as his superiors. He didn’t think he deserved the title of hero. I tried to remind him that he’d restored order to Vipordia and saved its Imperial citizens from falling into the hands of a savage race. The Commodore laughed at me for saying this. We hadn’t saved the planet from savages, he said. All we did was show the viperiux we had the bigger rock.