Seventeenth Year of the Nomads

Eight Hundred and Forty Seventh Year After the Battle of the Sol System

Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta, Valo’Haltija of the Empire’s Fleet, was an elderly sapient. Born at the peak of a dust storm on the surface of Salama’Maa, he counted just over two thousand nine hundred Corwnword orbits, or just shy of forty nine Salama’Maa orbits to his name. In that time, he had commanded every kind of ship the Empire had produced, from light attack craft to massive carriers and their attendant battle groups. For Most of the cycles in recent memory, he sat at a table and commanded the Fleet. This cycle there were two printed missives sat on the table. Two printouts demanding explanations, demanding answers, demanding action. Two missives that would end the Empire as he understood it.

The first was from Overseer Typerys’Kielen’Sanahaku, decrying the Fleet’s defense of the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, the massive damage to the shipyard and forge station there. It called the Kokko’Liekki a traitor and demanded his career, his honor, and his head. It was also counter signed as the verified truth by the Emperor and the Heir, and included the needed documents for a summary execution.

The second was a much more detailed missive from that same Kokko’Liekki. It drew together dozens of memos, missivers, and documents, all clearly references in the Fleet Archive and attached as verified copies. It laid out the history of the humans, their wants and desires, and showed how the Kokko’Liekki had tried to find a peaceful resolution before being betrayed and shot in the back. It even included text documents from the humans themselves, translated into Empire common. All it asked was for the truth to be told, and for the results to fall where they may.

Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta placed his face in his graspers. He wished that this was someone else’s decision to make, that he was simply a young sapient again listening to the howl of a dust storm against the roof of his hidden place in the dunes around the Chana’Verta Compound. But that was in the distant past, and nothing Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta could do would change that which was in front of him. He pressed the button on his terminal that sealed his office door and activated all of the anti-listening device devices.

“Terminal, create recording for an all star systems public broadcast at a later time.”

“Recording for broadcast Valo’Haltija.”

“My fellow sapients, this is an Orbit like no other. It is an Orbit in which the true past will see the light of the stars once again, and in its telling, the Empire can never be the same.

“The telling begins twenty eight thousand one hundred and six Crown World Orbits ago when the First Scout-Claimant Fleet, as we now name it, arrived in what is now known as the Toinen’Maailma system. On that Orbit, the Empire and the humans made first meeting, and the first mistake of many was made. Both the First Scout-Claimant Fleet and the human Fleet attempted to communicate with each other, reaching out under First Meeting principles. Neither could understand the other, for they both used different cryer systems that could not understand the other. Neither side understood the other, or could even be sure that the other understood what was being said, so when ships and movement was detected in the asteroid belt the First Scout-Claimant Fleet sent a scout-destroyer to investigate. The movement was an automated mining ship that had never been instructed to consider the possibility of iron sided ships in its work area. The scout destroyer was lost to all hands before either fleet could act.

“In response, the First Scout-Claimant Fleet made the first and gravest mistake of the meeting. Ottolu’Liekki Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta proclamed that First Meeting Principles had failed, that the Toinen’Maailma system was inhabited by pirates, and that screens were to be raised and weapons armed. The humans saw this through their scopes, and drew the only conclusion that they could from those actions: a battle was coming. The humans saw that was to be no small skirmish, that this was to be a battle for their Crown World, their birthplace, and their only home. They prepared to fight unto the death, for they had nowhere else to live. They also fought for time, in the hope that their one and only slower than lightspeed cryosleep colony ship might escape.

“The battle was fierce, and the humans used every weapon that they had in defence of their home. Including many that they would never otherwise consider using. We sapients call these weapons ‘world breakers’. The humans call them ‘planet killers,’ and only ever used them when they saw no other option, no other solution. In the end, a salvo of world breaker missiles was damaged during launch, and destroyed the human fleet. Ottolu’Liekki Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta, in the face of the detonation of so many world breaker weapons, and with the Purifier incidents fresh in his mind, Invoked the Maail'Man'Loppu Diktat upon the humans home system.

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“Ottolu’Liekki Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta had not seen the human’s colony ship leave the Toinen’Maailma system, because it used a non-inertialess slower than light reaction drive. That ship would spend the next twenty six thousand five hundred and forty five Crown World orbits in transit to a system that we sapients now call the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system.

“While the survivors of humanity slept, the Empire swept the past into hiding. They promoted Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta to the rank of Kynttilan’Liekki, gave him a new ship with a sabotaged FTL drive, and sent him to what we now call the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system. Traveling at FTL speeds, Kynttilan’Liekki Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta’s ship arrived over twenty six thousand Crownword Orbits before the humans did. Because of the sabotaged FTL drive, his ship did not decelerate properly and crashed into an uninhabited and uninhabitable planetary body. No sapient aboard the ship survived.

“In the thousands of Crown World Orbis since, the Empire gave the greatest insult possible to the humans: it ground their homeworld into dust, harvested it, and used it to build up the Great Palace of the Crown World. The Empire defecated upon their memories and tried to erase them from the passages of time.

“The Empire failed in this task.

“Once the human colony ship eventually arrived in the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, and the colonists arose from cryosleep, they learned some of what the Empire had done to their homeworld. The humans discovered the wreck of Kynttilan’Liekki Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta’s ship. They built their own inertialess drives, their own screens, their own FTL drives. And the humans sent a scout ship back to the Toinen’Maailma system just as soon as they could manage. It arrived just in time to see the final planetary consumption of their homeworld, and managed to collect a few relics from an out system outpost before withdrawing.

“The return of the scout ship and its news split humanity into three factions. One wanted to stay in the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, meet the Empire when it finally arrived, and come to some sort of peaceable agreement that was beneficial to both sides. One third wanted to go further away, to leave the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system and travel to the far edges of the galaxy for a truly new beginning. And one third, led by the son of the human’s Kokko’Liekki at the battle of the Toinen’Maailma system, wanted war.

“When the Fourth Squadron of the Twenty Seventh Scout Flotilla re-discovered the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, the three human factions all reacted differently. The ones who wanted to leave left in a second titan-class colony ship. The ones who wanted war attacked with a titan of their own. The ones who wanted peace sent a warning and then stayed on their planets and in their orbital habitats to ride out the battle.

“That battle was a long bloody pounding match. Both the human warmonges and the Fourth squadron launch missiles. Neither salvo of missiles had any effect, and it came down to a slow ponding meteor cannon fight. The human warmonger titan was tough, but she had her weaknesses, which the Fourth Squadron seized upon. When it was clear that defeat as inevitable, the warmonger commander executed a self terminating attack. The result of which was the near total destruction of all sapients and humans in the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system. Only the command ship of the Fourth Squadron survived, though it too suffered heavy casualties.

“And once again the Empire swept the truth aside. It denied the honorable members of the Fourth Squadron the recognition due to them for their bravery in confronting a titan, their glory in slaying it, and their sacrifices in surviving its deathblow. The Empire denied the peaceful humans their place in the empire, writing away their memories by grinding up their orbital habitats, their colonies, their planets, and their very bones to expand the Crown World Palace yet again

“The wandering humans have every right to be angry with the Empire. More than angry, they have the right to righteous fury at the Empire. And yet, they have poked and prodded. They have raided, sparring for information, for time. And when the wandering humans finally returned to the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, they found someone in authority willing to talk to them, to exchange histories and to set right old wrongs.

“The Empire shot that sapient in the back. The Empire’s space station and shipyard, responsible for grinding up the worlds of the Kuud’Estoista’Maailma system, opened fire without provocation on one of the Empire’s own carrier battlegroups. That carrier and its battlegroup only survived because the wandering humans intervened to save them. The wandering humans pulled the stations’ teeth, wrecked the drydocks and the forges, and then left.

“That carrier battle group has risked much bringing back not only the truth of their betrayal, but also the truth of what happened to Ensimmainen’Vanha’Verta. They do not ask for forgiveness for defending themselves, despite how the Empire calls for their blood. Despite how the Emperor and the Heir themselves countersigned the execution orders. They ask only for the truth to be told. And so it has.

“This is my last act as Valo’Haltija of the Empire. I cannot in good faith serve an Empire, an Emperor, or an Heir who would betray their most loyal of servants to avoid the truth.”

Valo’Haltija Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta took off his rank insignia and placed them on his table. He drew his honor blade, forged with his name at the time of his induction to the service of the Fleet, and snapped it in half against is sheath. Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta, no longer the Valo’Haltija, instructed the terminal to end the recording and to schedule the broadcast as a priority one (interrupt all other programming), all star systems broadcast, to be transmitted in one tuhan. That done, Miekkailija’Vanha’Verta left the office behind, to go and see if his secret place was still there in the dunes outside the walls of the Vanha’Verta Compound.