Nacht und Nebel

Near Xalion, in the orbit of Almarillion

A fleet of ships was orbiting the moon of Xalion, the former capital of the Federated Colonies.. Almarillion. Under camouflage, invisible unless anyone would have actually been looking for them.. the ships of the Fleet of the Human Colonial Alliance were safe. Xalion and its moon were now drowned in chaos, places of lawlessness and cruelty. Criminal worlds, away from control and authority. Officially, they were neutral areas.. where neither the Colonies nor the Alliance were allowed to send forces..but the two factions tolerated small military forces and spies sent by each other....since it would have been impossible to gain control over Xalion and its moon anyway. But the HCA wasn't going to tolerate spies of the Confederacy so deep in the Milky Way.. and they were going to do something about it..


The commander center of the fleet's flagship was filled with silence.. since well, there wan't much that all these brainwashed people could say. The officers of this ship, all clad in black uniforms with silver accents, were all minding their own business, quietly. But among them.. their leader stood out. A young man that some people might remember, from the past.. or not. He was changed..as he stood there with an emotionless expression on his face. His once black eyes now had a blood-red color, and his once black hair was now mostly white, with only the tips keeping some of its former dark color..but no one remembered him anyway. He was dead..

"Is everything ready?", a voice asked, and the mysterious HCA Admiral turned around to salute his superior, a Grand Prior of the Axiom Knights. A female, to be more specific. A young girl, with a really, really messy and long hair that was somewhere in between white and gray, dark gray eyes, and a really pale skin that greatly contrasted with the dark uniform she was wearing. But besides from the fact that it was obvious that she had not been brainwashed.. her expression was her most striking feature.. broken, insane even.

"Yes, my Lady. We are in position. Ground teams will be launched soon. I will lead them personally.", the Admiral said, gripping the handle of his sheathed, black-red sword. "Excellent.. you might wonder why we are doing this..", the girl said, smirking, but of course, the man remained quiet. "Well, the Armistice is a joke after all... let's see how far we can push them before they break. Peace, reconciliation? Those are jokes.. acts of domestic dogs who have forsaken their fangs. We will not do the same mistakes as those cowardly Federals and believe in the false ideals of peace. And more importantly, we will not allow these Confederate dogs to sully this galaxy even further. Too bad that we need them alive.. otherwise, it would have been quite enjoyable to drown this moon into blood and corpses.. but well. They will stand no chance against our troops. When the time comes, our forces will land in the area surrounding the former Confederate Embassy.. and we attack. We need them all alive..understood?"

The Admiral bowed. "Yes, my Lady.", he answered in a blank voice.

High in one of the remote mountain ranges of Almarillion, the former Confederate Embassy was very much alive, even if officially, it had been closed long ago. Outside, its landing pads were empty except for a few starships, and its defences were well hidden. The first was in the circular gardens surrounding the courtyard. They were low and flat, and pipes, wire, and durasteel tile ensured that the greenery could easily be turned into a field of death in an emergency. Beneath the planters were well-concealed laser turrets. Its walls were strong, and wouldn't be broken by anything less than the main guns of a patrol vessel.

Secret armouries were concealed throughout the buildings, as well as emergency exits and panic rooms. The biggest weakness was the transparisteel skylight, which could probably be broken by the boots of an attack force. It could be sealed off, but not before it had been penetrated for at least half a minute. Even if this were breached, intruders would face a final obstacle. The unofficial embassy garrison, a task force of fifty agents of Imperial Intelligence. They were all humans from the Dothvalian Confederacy, and their mission was to keep tabs on HCA agents near Xalion.

All of them were fairly young, and extremely capable. Their eye colours were a diverse mix. Many had irises of silver, deep and clear like a mountain spring. Others had simple dark blue. All had served during the War Of Tainted Blood, and all had undergone the Super Sapien Procedure. Clad in white with accents of gold, their attire, service, and superiority to ordinary men united them. The agents weren't as elite as the STAR Commandos of course, but each was a formidable opponent. Together, they were the last and mightiest defensive measure of the Milky Way Operations Centre.

One of the agents wore dark glasses, and sat in a chair near the sensors, poring over them. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but he suspected something big would happen soon. He was Phantom Agent Terry Radford, the garrison commander and the strongest fighter of the enhanced agents. Across his back was a vibrosword of red trisilviate. The metal was extremely rare, and the beautiful weapon marked him as far above his subordinates. Whatever was to come, he would be at the centre of it.

It all began suddenly. The pods were launched from the orbit, together with their escorting fighters, but a few minutes were going to pass until the Confederates would realize what was actually happening. A lot of objects were falling through the atmosphere of Almarillion, courtesy of the huge fields of debris and the moon's gravity..precious time was lost until the Confederates realized that the trajectory of the objects that were falling was far too artificial for them to be natural. And then, hell was soon unleashed. The fighters arrived the first in their crazy dive, opening fire with everything they had in a short but destructive strafing run that attacked the starships on the landing pads,the gardens, bombing the area around the embassy, leaving fire and death behind them. And then, the pods crashed all around the embassy's territory, surrounding it. They had no time to actually fully slow down the pods, as this was a question of time and speed, so prepared shields absorbed the shock in a classical crash landing operation. At the same time, above the embassy itself, a single pod slowed down, the force of its engines enough to bring it to an acceptable speed, as it opened, leaving a small group of Knights to paradrop, landing directly on and through the skylight of the embassy's main building. The attack had started.

The pods around the embassy also opened, as a force of the black armor wearing mindless soldiers of the Human Colonial Alliance and the knights of the Axiom Church stood ready to advance, supported by a few small armored vehicles. Opening fire, the Alliance's forces started to advance into the gardens. Meanwhile, inside the building of the embassy, among the broken glass, the knights stood back up, clad in black and silver, as they prepared their rifles and their swords, their faces and features hidden by their armor suits. Very similar to those used by the Colonies.. but their design clearly reminded people of the armors of the medieval knights back on the Old Earth. Among them, a single person had no helmet, his white-black hair and his red eyes clearly visible as he unsheathed his sword. It looked old but powerful, its crimson blade shining in the light of the sun, complementing the intricate models on the hilt, with their jet-black and dark red colors. And as the mysterious Admiral unsheathed it, old mechanisms were activated, and small and delicate red vines made of nanomaterial were created, surrounding the man's hand, as thorns pierced it, making the connection between the sword and its wielder. But unlike in the past, the wielder remained completely inexpressive, quiet and cold. One of the Knights approached him. "My Lord, we believe that a large part of the enemy soldiers protecting this former embassy are genetically enhanced. Attacking them only with a sword would not be recommended. We believe that as our commander, you should remain in the back.", the man said, while the officer looked him with hollow eyes, as he simply took the knight's pistol from its holster with his left hand, as to mock the knight's words - he no longer had only a sword. "Forward." , the man said in a low voice, and the knights obeyed, turning around, ready for battle.