In Service to the Emperor Part I

by John Doucette

It was a peaceful night. There wasn’t a cloud in the moonless sky. The stars could be seen in beautiful clarity. The wheat in the mountain meadow swayed gently in the breeze. Fifty-four armoured figures crouched among the wheat, their massiveness only partially hidden. One of the fig- ures stood, looking off to the north.

Inside his two meter tall suit of powered armour, Lieu- tenant Valen Kryor of the Impe- rial Marines scanned the north- ern horizon. His sensors showed nothing out of the ordinary. A quick glance at the terrain map on his Heads-Up Display showed that the meadow petered out five hundred meters ahead where it joined with the foothills that

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sloped gently down to the plain below.

A bit of luck on our part, he thought. According to the brief- ing, his target was in a very moun- tainous region. We should be able to make good time tonight, he thought. “Sergeant Yres,” he said into his throat mike, “final equipment check. Make sure the men go over everything. Better that we find a problem now than later.”

“Yes, sir,” came Yres’s reply. Kryor detected movement to his right as Yres moved off among the

men, making sure that all equip- ment was at full readiness. As Kryor performed his own equip- ment check, his thoughts strayed to the mission.

A year ago, the Valusian Star Empire had contacted what ap- peared to be a major star-faring nation near the rim of the galaxy. What was more, this nation was dominated by humans. The Em- pire’s scholars were shocked; as far as they knew, no Valusians had gone this far out as yet. Of course, many records had been lost during the Dreknor Invasion three and a half centuries ago, so

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it stood to reason that these hu- mans could be Valusian descen- dents.

Naturally, the Emperor was pleased to hear of this devel- opment; the added economic and military might of this“lost colony” would strengthen the Empire immensely. When the emissaries sent to re-establish contact with the colony arrived at a major world near the Em- pire’s border, they were immedi- ately taken prisoner. ‘This was understandable. After three hun- dred and fifty years without con- tact, how were the colonists to know that the emissaries weren’t Dreknor spies. The emissaries were soon taken to the colony’s capital, a blue-white world orbit- ing a G2 star the colonists called Sol; the planet was named Terra.

Matters were soon straight- ened out, and the emissaries be- gan preparations to re-establish Im- perial administration over what they thought was a rather large colony. It was then that the emis- saries were politely informed that the ”colony” was not a colony at all, but a sovereign nation named the Terran League, that the Ter- rans didn’t know who the Valu- sians were, and that while it was quite evident that both“races” were human, Homo sapiens, as the Terrans were known, origi- nated on Terra.

The Valusians were shocked, to put it mildly. They requested some time to think over what had just been learned, and spent the next several weeks enjoying the Terrans’ hospitality and in heated debate about what should be done. In the end, they de- cided to try to carry out their original mission; to incorporate this area of space into the Em- pire. They presented their case to the League Parliament most

eloquently. They were informed

that Parliament would have to debate the issue and that it would be some time before Parliament would have an answer. The emis- saries left star charts and other relevant data with the Terrans, boarded their jumpship, and left for Valus to report to the Em- peror. i After debating the issue for close to nine months, Parliament had an answer for the Valusians. Thank you very much, but no. The League would be interested in entering into discussions con- cerning an alliance, however.

It was at this time that sev- eral high-ranking naval’ officers protested the Emperor’s policy of benevolent contact toward the Terran League. In other words, they staged a very bloody and very successful coup. The new Emperor, Emperor Hsian I, was

the > former Grand Admiral of the

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Thursday November 16,1989

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