[Personal Notes Section 87631a2817]
Our arrival at Alpha Centaur was not especially memorable, but there were apparently a number of things that I had overlooked. Upon our approach to the solar station (not the planetary station I’d expected) around the largest of the three stars, I was shocked.
Floating between the warp point (a legal designation primarily, but also subject to gravitational field proximity) and the solar station was the largest armada I’d ever seen.
Imperial vessels of all kinds hung in the void, including, what I could see, four capital class vessels. There must have been hundreds of craft in the void, but those four were special.
Imperial capital class vessels can typically serve as the arms of the empire, with the various escorts being the talons and feathers that make them all the more potent. However, it is rare to see one, let alone four.
These massive vessels stretch more than 45000 selim and carry thousands of personnel. They aren’t particularly beautiful, being designed exclusively for void side operations as getting too close to any planet would undoubtedly apply stresses that void side operations don’t see the equivalent of. Not that it mattered, since their weapons could reach planetside well in advance of the vessel itself.
No, their flat red painted hulls, broken up only by lights at this distance, while not obviously remarkable, typically spelled doom for any beings on the opposing side, having occasionally inspired surrender before the conflict was officially decided.
There had been talk of one coming to the Wugtari Rebellion, but that had only been talk.
Perhaps what confused me was two fold.
Firstly, the mere presence of four of them.
This area of space, to the best of my knowledge, wasn’t very important, at least to the Empire. It was little more than what the humans might equivocate as ‘the frontier’.
Imperial laws were enforced with arms more often than words and writing, the less law-abiding tended towards these frontier areas, skirting legal entanglements much more unscathed than if they’d been further in system.
Pirates, slavers, rogue traders, rebels, the forgotten, and those who simply did not wish to be found could be found here under normal circumstances.
These were not normal circumstances.
The station we were approaching was a segmented and tiered solar station, allowing for the normal trade and life alongside the more locked down military sections, marking this system as being a full outpost status. As ever, it took a practiced eye to see the delineation, but to my eyes, it was as obvious as the stars themselves.
I might even wonder for a long moment or perhaps even longer if there was a shipyard or maybe even one of the portable shipyards (rarer even than the capital ships since they had to be towed through FTL).
The second was the apparent reaction by the humans who were also watching. The general consensus at seeing the various ships and the extremely large station seemed interesting, but unimpressive to all but the younglings.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
I asked one of the humans who I recognized, but hadn’t formally interviewed why they weren’t impressed or shocked by the presence of the four capital ships.
His answer: “It’s just showboating. Old Terra used to love parading out our vessels and tanks. Figures the Empire would do the same to keep us natives in line.”
Not so much an answer, but a dismissal and seeming accusation that these vessels, with all their attendants and crews, had nothing better to do than to hang over the heads of a single species.
A few more inquiries yielded similar statements, revealing that this wasn’t unexpected and ‘it isn’t like they are in Terran orbit, now are they’.
This dismissal for the sheer degree of firepower present in this system alone was perhaps what shocked me more.
The only human who seemed to look up at the void-side vessels and understand what they represented was Simon. He and his family and escorts watched the station approach, seemingly at ease, but far more reverent in knowing what they were seeing.
Quickly, I reopened my research on this region of space. There was clearly something I’d missed.
[Imperial Profile: Ixetu-250 – Clearance Level: ISB Grade 2]
Stellar information: [Astronomical information]
Planetary Information: [General information]
Colonization Status: Class 8 – Self Sustaining, Military Outpost
Population: 4.5 Million +.
Primary Species: Human (Homeworld Ixetu-251 3.1) – Population: 2.1 Million +.
General Notes:
Ixetu-250 is of strategic import relative to its position on the outer fringe of the Empire and the nearby systems.
While Ixetu-251 is not in general of particular strategic importance, the presence of the newly incorporated species of Humans increases its strategic value. However, 251 possesses clear resources that are important to enemies of the Empire, most notably the gas giants, and presents a clear entry point into the Empire.
Additionally, given the presence of the Humans in 251 and their history in joining the empire [Link], it was decided that placement of a military outpost in 251 was not advisable, the next nearest location being 250. The political will to make this change found it permissible to orient to a non-inhabited system for this major investment, pending the longer term status of the Humans. A warp station may be established between 250 and 251 if the results are satisfactory.
Tensions between the Humans and the Empire have made it clear that this was the correct choice to have made, a more obvious occupation by the Empire being otherwise determined.
[Clearance Level: ISB Grade 2] – An additional 1.5 million immigration visas for Humans from 251 to 250 are hereby authorized and to be granted to all levels of Humans at the discretion of local authorities, taking care to allow for an adequate cross-section of the human population. Travel visas for Humans are to be authorized to Regional-Civilian unless sponsored by an appropriate Imperial Entity or barring legal trouble or equivalent annotations by an appropriate Imperial Entity.
Humans have largely been the colonist force for 250 due to proximity. Colonists should be chosen to be self-supporting and focused on building out the local resources, up to and including the operation of shipyards.
[Clearance Level - … ERROR – Insufficient Privileges]
CONTENT REMOVED FOR INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES CONTENT REMOVED FOR INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES CONTENT REMOVED FOR INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES
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This by itself has told me a lot. It told me there are a lot more humans in this system than I realized and it also explains a bit about why there’s a military outpost here, although it appears I don’t have the necessary clearances to know more about what’s here and why.
I’ve never been to a colony planet in the early years, despite my years of travel. Most worlds that I have been to have been wartorn or suffering from various ill effects or even simply doing tourism articles, and therefore far more established in the more grand scheme of things.
And I’d always known the Empire had any number of colonization efforts going at any one time. But this felt… rushed.
Perhaps the imperial strategic planners knew something I didn’t. That was always possible.
The mention of Imperial enemies came back to me on loose wings. Perhaps as a matter of oversight, but I’ve never really given much thought to what happens outside of the Empire. It always seemed more like the province of other reporters, there being enough strife and happenings within the Empire to suit me.
Species certainly existed outside of the Empire, some of them powerful enough in their own right – such as the Nthixis, the sole Imperial trading partner.
Was the Empire nearly at war with an external species and I’d somehow missed it?
Why would the 251 gas giants be so important?
Is this why 251 and the humans had been incorporated so quickly?
What lay beyond the human system that made this area so important as to warrant four capital vessels and their attendants?
These questions all flew through my head in rapid succession and I was grateful for having my auto-recorder at the ready to capture all of these thoughts.
We were fast approaching the dock and I’d need to focus on finding temporary accommodation in an hour or three, depending on how efficient the dock was.