He couldn't see properly; everything was black around him. He seemingly floated in blackness. No, he was in space. He could now see stars. The immensity before him was mindboggling. He could not understand why and what it was, but there was peace about the whole scene.

  The plethora of stars was magnificent, like an impossible painting from a grand master at the Elysium Academy of Art and Science. He felt good and floated in nothingness for a long time. He was surrounded by happiness.

  He realized that everything was well. Humans were now united in one Empire, one direction, and peace was achieved. The Empire he'd created to work for the betterment of humankind.

  His dream morphed into a pleasant day at the Imperial Beach House on Elysium-Prime. His feet felt comfortable in the warm sand, and his wife, Empress Elita, bathed in the crystal-clear blue sea with his three sons not far from him. They all smiled.

  But then, was everything as right and good as it seemed? The question he asked himself seemed to echo for a long time while the pleasant scenery greyed out and disappeared into the blackness of space. He was back in the void, floating aimlessly. The difference this time was that he didn't feel well.

  The setting seemed to have changed. The stars' alignments differed from when he'd looked at them earlier. His fog-dreaming mind figured somehow that he was in a different part of the galaxy, far away from the Orion Arm, the area of the Milky Way where Human space (and his empire) resided. He couldn't figure out where, but he felt it was very far away.

  The stars were still bright, but he felt odd and scared somehow. Then something in the vastness of space caught his attention. It was something large, black, and ominous. He was in space, so he knew hearing sounds wasn't possible, but he still did. A buzzing sound, overwhelming and overbearing.

  Then the large black form, which snaked as far as he could see, zipped past him at impossible speed so he could not see what it was made of. He followed the tip of the black wave, turned, and saw a blue, cloudy planet just like Elysium-Prime. For a very small instant, he felt at peace. The planet looked peaceful and overflowing with life.

  Then the black wave arrived near it and started to sweep around the planet in orbit. It descended on the planet in tiny black thread-like tentacles. Everything happened fast after that. The black wave of eerie tentacles descended to the surface and devoured every living plant and creature on the planet. Then the tiny black threads moved back to the wave circling above. The amorphous black spherule continued on its way.

  What he saw made him scream like his body was on fire. The planet had been scraped clean of life. It was now a barren, grey-brown, waterless dead world. Even the atmosphere had been sucked away.

  He woke up suddenly with his wife, Elita, beside him. "Love," she said, gently brushing her hand on his sweaty face. "I think you just had an awful nightmare," she continued. Haakon was relieved. He had been dreaming. The eerie sensation of dread and panic was gone, but he remembered it well. He decided that he would not find any sleep that night. "I am going to get up; go back to bed, wife," he answered Elita as gently as he could. She smiled and turned around to burrow herself in her pillow. She knew her man well enough to know that when the dreams came, his night was over.

  He walked out of the imperial bedroom and started drawing what he had seen, even writing down some notes. It was not the first time he had had graphic dreams like this one. The ones before had been about the unification of Humanity and what he needed to do to achieve that goal. Sometimes they also announced impending doom that he either avoided or managed differently after the dreams. So, he learned to trust his dream visions, just like his mother had told him to when he was young.

  Now it was something different, and he hoped it was just a dream, but he doubted it very much. It had been too graphic, unsettling, and ominous.

  Back to the home ship

  The 1st New American Mecha Division, Gides-3 year 4124

  The twenty large battle mechas docked on the assault ship's exterior hull through a specially designed magnetic docking port. They all lined up with their backs facing the ship and clipped themselves onto the hull with a loud metallic noise.

  Squad Commander Cole Drax signaled the pilot to lift up when everyone was docked. The assault ship boosted its repulsor engines and climbed in the air, scattering a great gust of dust from the Gides-3 main spaceport's tarmac.

  As they climbed in altitude and the ground below started to blend into a swirl of colors, Drax took a few moments to think about the battle they had just fought on the planet. While he had been involved in other fights with other mechas before, the Gides-3 attack was his first time tackling against fully trained and modern-equipped opponents. Before that, the New America 1st Mecha Division had fought against pirates and small-time rebels with only outdated equipment and badly trained pilots.

  He took a quick glance at the empty spot right beside him. On the way down to assault the Ptomelyan forces on the planet, it had housed a mecha piloted by First-class Pilot James Atrak, one of his best soldiers. The reason for his absence on the way back to Genesis was obvious; Atrak had not survived the battle on Gides-3.

  He turned back to his front and looked up at the rapidly approaching New America ship. He tried to think about how violent the battle for Gides-3 had been and could only see one thing. Most mechas in the fight had the same tech levels from the same imperial-era designs. They all came from the same training academy with the same training system. The same battle doctrine and tactics. After all, the end of the Empire was only three years in the past, so for the most part, the four Star Nations still used imperial navy weapons and machines. He decided to talk about the necessity to change that with Admiral Kimmel and the 1st Mecha Division commander, General Short. Developing new tactics and weapons would be essential to win battles and ensure enough pilots survived the next fight.

  The assault ship traveled the distance from the spaceport to its home ship, the battleship Genesis, in only a few minutes. It soon entered through one of the big hangar doors on the side and into a large, brightly lit space that was the assault ship's base of operation. Drax signaled his men that they could exit their mechas when the vessel was landed and secured.

  The machine's frontal armor opened simultaneously like a flower spreading its petals, revealing the pilots inside a central armored cocooned space. The men of Cole's squad unhooked from the mechas and dropped on the steel deck. They all wore exoskeleton "skin-tight" armored suits designed for survival if they fought in a hostile environment or if their mecha was damaged. Their helmets were similar to the helmets first used two thousand years ago in the archaic F-35. Each pilot had the ability to get a 360 view of his surroundings. The Exomatic technology enabled the pilot to control the mecha by thought.

  Battle Mechas were first used on a battlefield during the war of unification fought by Emperor Haakon from 3105 to 3111. An Elysian scientist invented the weapons, and the Elysian Star Navy quickly accepted them. During the first year they were used, the other human enclaves did not have an answer on the battlefield, enabling Haakon to conquer many of the worlds he invaded with relative ease. They were so different and powerful compared to conventional soldiers like space marines or tanks that it was not even a contest. Equipped with top-of-the-line weapons for the time and the first land-based fighting machines with energy screens, they quickly ran down any opposition. By the time the Hadesians, New Americans, and Ptolemyans built their own, Haakon's forces fielded an even better version. Until the end of the war of unification, Elysium forces kept their edge. If they won the sky above a planet, the battle for control of the ground was always a foregone conclusion. The future emperor's battle mecha dominated their opposition. In 4124, the mechas were improved to the point that they could even fight small ships in space. They were often used to board enemy vessels. A squad of them could even assault a battleship with its energy screen down.

  The mechas were bi-pedals, twelve meters in height. Heavily armored, protected by a powerful energy screen, and with a back reactor, they could fly using their back and/or feet repulsors.

  They were constructed with over 10 tons of reinforced carbonite and durasteel reinforced armor plates. Battle mechas were expensive to manufacture and maintain but well worth their cost in a battle. By the end of the war of unification, all of the Star Nations and then the Empire only fielded mechas for most ground battles, albeit in different sizes and power.

  Cole Drax left the vicinity of the assault shuttle to walk toward the hangar's exit and try to grab some food and rack time. While the mechas were powerful, nimble, and agile, piloting them was very tough on the human body.

  "Commander Drax," called a voice behind him. "Yes?" he turned around to come face to face with Admiral Kurt Kimmel, the New American task force commander. "Sir," he added while making the military salute, followed by all his men near him. "At ease, men," said Kimmel with a smile, gesturing to the rest of the squad to continue on walking. "You've fought well today; go rest; I just wanna have a talk with your commander." Most of the men relaxed and gave silent nods to the admiral before making their way inside the ship.

  "Sir?" said Drax. "Commander, how was it down there," started Kimmel, following with a whisper since some of the men were still around. "What's up, buddy?" The Admiral smiled. "Very good, Kurt. Tough fight, but well worth it. We kicked the Ptolemyan's butts" The two refrained from embracing each other in front of the men and mecha pilots in the hangar bay. They had been friends and brothers since childhood, having grown up together on Washington-Prime. While their career paths had taken different turns, they were able to keep their friendship alive over the years. Kurt was born into a rich, wealthy family with a long history of admirals and fleet officers behind it. Cole was from the poor part of the megacity, without any history, money, or anything attached to his family name. He'd been a fighter all his life, using his fists to defend himself and survive in the terrible slums of Washington-Prime.

  One day, they met by sheer luck as Kurt was getting beaten up by older boys, and Cole joined in to help him. After that, they were inseparable. Drax helped the rich kid to navigate the difficult world of reality and violence that was the New American enclave on Washington-Prime, while Kimmel showed him what his life could be. Kurt's parents took a liking to Cole and helped fund his education.

  They eventually made it to basic training together (every imperial officer had to spend a year in basic training, either in the army or navy). After that, they parted ways as one was destined to be a ship captain and the other a mecha pilot. But they'd kept in touch all these years, and when Kurt became a ship captain, he made sure that Drax was posted under his command.

  They started to walk side-by-side. "I was worried about you, Cole. The battle seemed tough down there." "You have no idea, my friend. The Ptolemyans are well trained, and without that timely kinetic strike you ordered, my casualties would have been a lot heavier." Kimmel grunted like it was nothing. "Well, you called it, after all," he countered with a smile. "Beers in my quarter?" "I am so tired, man. I'll be there in a few hours but let me get some sleep first." "Okay, Cole. You get yourself rested, and then we'll talk. We are not done with this. The Hatar system awaits. I already received orders from the President to move to the next system and use the momentum gained with this victory here. We're even getting reinforcements. The Elysians are sending another task force. Once they get here, we jump to Hatar." "Any ground forces," said Cole with interest. "Yes, replacements soldiers for your losses and the 2nd Mecha Division's coming to help. Hatar is well-fortified according to military intelligence, so we'll need the added firepower."

  "Wow, the prez is serious about this," answered Drax with a low whistle. "Okay, Admiral sir," I will see you later after I've had a sleeper." "See you soon, Commander Drax."

  The two friends left the large hangar bay where the tech and workers were already starting to work on repairing and maintaining the mechas.

  .

  The Imperial Star Navy and military technology

  Imperial battleships

  While battleships were obviously the heavy hitters of the four human enclaves, they were not the only type of ship from the Imperial Navy to have been commandeered for war. The main warship elements were as follows in all of the human enclaves: Battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers. Battleships also housed a squadron of fighters each, and the Imperial Navy had fielded four heavy star carriers before its fall. Three were in New America, while the last was in Hades.

  Battleship

  3 fusion chambers

  kinetic triple gun turrets 600 to 800mm

  Central gun or mains 800mm

  Laser beams bow and stern

  Plasma torpedoes, 3 to the bow, 3 to port, 3 to starboard

  Ion Cannon - Bow

  Missiles tubes (nuclear-armed)

  Battleships were a kilometer long and weighed 400 000 tons at full load. Weight was a relative concept in space, but the Empire had classified each ship in terms of weight by adding up the weight of its individual components once the ship was built. The full load term meant that the official 400 000 tons included the complement of crew, fighters, mechas, and assault ships. It also took into consideration ammunition and the kinetic rounds the ships transported with it to feed its kinetic rail guns. While some designs were under study in all of the human enclaves, none of them had yet fielded a new type of battleship that was not modeled after a design issued from the Imperial Fleet.

  Battleship armament and defenses were the heaviest of all, so they were expected to bear the brunt of the fighting. The close-in battle would be so brutal that when a heavy clash was expected against enemy battleships, some of the admirals in charge of the fighting task forces didn't even bring the lighter ships below battlecruisers in range for battle. Commanders like Kimmel, however, liked a balanced approach, but admirals like the Hadesian Hermann Ludendorff favored the standard imperial fleet doctrine.

  Battleships bristled with kinetic guns reminiscent of twentieth-century dreadnought turrets, on top and below their hulls. They ranged from 600mm to 800mm. The central part of the ship, called the ventral cannon or the mains, housed a very large kinetic accelerator rail gun designed to fire durasteel and tungsten-hardened metal slugs to 0.10 of the speed of light and up to 800mm in diameter (it was a bigger version of the smaller kinetic guns all around the ship's hulls). While they were "dumb" munitions and could not be guided, their kinetic energy packed quite a punch when they hit an enemy energy screen or ship's hull. Imperial battle doctrine centered around close-in, knife-range attacks, so if a battleship captain was able to maneuver his vessel near his enemy, his kinetic guns could fire and have a relatively good hit ratio.

  Since the invention of lightspeed in the 2650s, most of the battle strategy was based on task forces making short lightspeed jumps to face off with the enemy's vessels, hence the usefulness of short-range unguided weapons like the kinetic guns.

  Next came the laser beams guns. These were powerful energy weapons located forward in the bow and aft at the ship's stern. They took their power from the fusion energy chambers, powering the battleships and protective screens. While they were not designed to take shields down because they did not create large explosions like the kinetic guns or nuclear missiles, once the shield's protection was gone, they could tear a ship up in no time with their continuous beams.

  Each Imperial battleship had ten torpedo tubes. Four at the bow, three to port, and three to starboard. Plasma torpedoes were smart munitions as well but were much more powerful than kinetic weapons and missiles. They were fired through specially designed torpedo tubes, and when they exited the ship, they were self-guided like missiles for a short distance. After traveling a set distance, depending on the crew's setting, they converted to plasma. They could reach a speed of 0.3c of the speed of light, so they packed quite a punch when they hit either an energy screen or a ship hull.

  Every battleship also had one ion cannon, also located at the bow. The weapon was designed to overwhelm and destroy a ship's electronics, similar to the archaic EMP of the twentieth century. The invention of ion cannons was relatively recent, developed to fight against the cybernetic hordes during the terrible war a couple of hundreds of years ago. It was the most effective way to destroy one of the powerful ships of the terrible enemy. Once the energy screen was down, one well-placed shot could disable a ship's electronic systems. This had been very useful against the Cyber and enabled the Imperial Navy to board them with mechas or simply destroy them with laser, kinetic, or torpedoes.

  Last but not least were the fifty missile launchers. These missiles could speed up to .2 c and were almost always nuclear-tipped. Their ordinance was normally ten kiloton nuclear charges, but it was possible to go up to fifty kilotons. These were the main weapons to take an opposing shield down. The standard imperial tactic was simple. You threw enough of them at a shield to try to overwhelm it.

  The ship's defensive armament included a protective shield and a close-in anti-missile anti-fighter gun batteries system, the Phalanx-10. A military historian had viewed an antiquated slug-throwing shotgun in a museum. He thought, "Why not?" The Phalanx 10 emitted a blast of small, self-guided, self-propelled smart munitions at incoming objects to intercept them before hitting the shield or the hull.

  Many new heavy ship designs were either on the drawing boards or in various building stages in the human enclave's shipyards, but in 4124 and as the civil broke out in earnest, every one of the star nations only had the good old sturdy Imperial Navy battleships to fight with.

  Ulysse System

  Hadesian Battleship Totenkopf, year 4124

  "Grand Admiral," said the holographic image of King Aleksander I. "Congratulations on your victory in the Ulysse system. The people of Hades owe you and your crews their gratitude." Communications within human space were almost instantaneous, thanks to the invention of the Hypernet in the 3400s. The Hypernet relied on hyperspace to transit communications in its fabric. It was one of the rare things that humans had been able to use hyperspace for (apart from the new Hades missiles and a few other examples). The ruler paused for a moment, or else the holographic projector lagged a little. He continued. "What is your situation?" "Thank you, your majesty," said Ludendorff, hitting his chest with his closed fist in the Hadesian gesture of respect for one's superior, even if he didn't mean it one bit. "We control the space and the planet in the entire system. Thanks to the new weapon, the battle was short, with very light casualties." He made a quick chopping gesture to show speed and closure. "The battle for the planet was also short. The Elysians didn't even have mechas to defend it."

 

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