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CHAPTER 11




Colonel Lambert made his way down the main hallway to Central HQ slowly. The staffers and other employees ignored him as usual, just another non-entity compared to everyone else this close to the flagpole.

Lambert touched his blouse and felt the certification slate that needed only two more signatures before he could submit an emergency funding request to finally unload the Izmir and move the battalion’s heavy equipment to the front lines.

Those with access badges walked through a weapons detection field and into the Situation Room. Lambert kept to the side of the hallway, out of the way of those moving with more purpose and speed than he could manage.

Someone still bumped into him from behind. Lambert bumped hard against the wall but managed to keep himself upright. The person in such a rush had the off-yellow branch insignia of Void Comms on her epaulets. She didn’t even look back at him before rushing ahead.

“Hurry hurry,” Lambert said to himself. “That’s the only person that’s actually in a rush to get anything done in here.”

Once he got to the main entrance, a hulking guard in Flanker armor that looked almost too small for him held out a beastly paw of a hand to Lambert, palm up. Lambert forced a smile and swiped his identity band around his wrist through the detection field.

“Lambert . . . you were here yesterday.” The guard lifted his chin slightly, displaying alabaster white skin on his neck.

“Indeed, the JAG review officer wasn’t on duty, but he is now.” Lambert’s smile quivered as he felt the eyes of the guard looking him over. “Or so I heard. You’ll see my HQ endorsement is still valid until the review officer can confirm or deny my request.”

“Marshal is on the floor. In and out. Don’t disturb him.” The guard pointed to a small hallway. “Better hurry before Marshal Van Wyck insists on full cavity searches for the un-cleared. Again.”

“Indeed. Failing that, I must wish for a doctor with small hands.” Lambert made his way into the claustrophobic tunnel and felt parts of his body tingle as the heavy scanners made sure he carried nothing explosive or dangerous in him or on him.

He shivered as he came out of the scanner and made out the JAG lawyer on the far side of the operations center. There being only one way in and out for everyone but the marshal, Lambert’s excitement grew as his scavenger hunt for authorizations and signatures neared its end.

In the center of the operations center, the marshal and a pair of generals and the Void Communications officer stood at the strategic holo tank. Whatever they were looking at was distorted by a semi-opaque privacy screen projected over them.

Lambert heard nothing, but the conversation seemed very intense between the three flag officers. The lieutenant inched away from the marshal, her hands set on the control ring.

A Cataphract soldier with a skull mask and crude sigils on his armor plating watched the men talk keenly.

“—it’s confirmed!” a general shouted as the privacy holo fizzed out. The Comms lieutenant raised her chin slightly and drew her hands back from the controls.

“I-Impossible,” Marshal Van Wyck sputtered. “This is a forgery. It is a fraud created by our enemies!”

“It came direct from the courier ship. Straight from the Elko system and the Highest.” The other general slammed a hand against the controls. “It’s real!”

The command center fell silent. The brute in Cataphract armor stomped towards the dais. A raised hand from the marshal stopped him in his tracks.

Lambert froze. He wasn’t entirely sure how serious this spat between the senior officers was, but the nervous silence from the combined staff officers and sections around him filled him with a growing dread.

A general twisted a knob and a large holo sphere appeared over the dais, coalescing into the Highest in orbit over a verdant world. The capitol ship of the Hegemony looked as pristine as ever. It was several times larger than the Authority-class carriers that formed the nucleus of every Hegemony task force and fleet. The vessel bore statues of notable members of the Most High council over multi-story hangars. A grand dome rose over the dorsal hull, a shining beacon of light against the darkness.

Children across the Hegemony were given toys of the Most High when they entered Standard Academia at age seven. Every day of class began with singing “Hegemony, My Heart” to a holo of the ship and portraits of the Most High council. Every time Lambert saw the ship, it filled him with a bit of pride, though he’d never come within lightyears of the vessel in his entire life.

The holo shifted to a naval tactical plot. Dozens of capital ships, all with Hegemony Naval insignia, converged on the Highest.

“This is Supreme Marshal Telemachus,” came from the holo. The voice was low and even, one used to giving commands and being obeyed. “The Most High have failed the Hegemony. Their corruption has sabotaged our military on every front. My soldiers have died, their patriotism and fidelity exploited to fill the Most High’s pockets. Worlds pried away from our Hegemony, campaigns lost from their graft and incompetence. What is the reward for calling out the corruption? What is the prize for integrity? Arrest and execution on the order of the Most High.

“It ends. Now. By my will.”

The holo lit up with torpedoes, trailed by squadrons of fighters all converging toward the Highest. Cries of shock went up as the Highest’s escort fleet peeled away from the vessel, leaving it helpless and exposed.

Lambert’s mouth fell open as the munitions closed in. Memories of his teachers telling him to imagine the Most High in the skies above and know the Hegemony was always watching over him lingered in the back of his mind.

Someone broke into sobs as warheads burst into brief stars against the Highest’s shields. More cried out in shock and dismay as the grand vessel reeled under the assault. There was no interdiction fire from the ship, the cannons and point defense turrets mute as the shields quivered. Shield emitter nodes overloaded and burst into brief pinpricks of stars.

Eleven shuttles burst from the forward bays and swept towards one of the retreating escort flotillas.

The massive vessel’s shields failed under the onslaught. The next wave of missiles fired by bombers erupted against the hull, shattering the grand dome into millions of shrinking comets as the atmosphere blew away. The ship listed to port, exposing the ventral hull to the final attack that broke the ship’s spine.

The Highest broke apart, gouts of fire bursting from the ruptured hull. The flames died quickly, leaving behind trails of smoke and still venting air. The next wave of missiles was unnecessary, but served to tear the living symbol of the Hegemony into a debris field. All she was and all that remained was destined to burn up in the skies of Elko Prime.

The eleven escape shuttles—undoubtedly bearing the members of the Highest Council—sped towards a small flotilla of ships breaking away from the escort fleet. Lambert bit his bottom lip, praying that the leaders might escape.

Fighters loyal to Telemachus closed rapidly. Lambert waited for the escort flotilla to launch their own interceptors. To turn and fire. To slow their march away from the remains of the Highest. To do anything to help.

They did nothing.

Rebel void fighters annihilated all the escape shuttles in less than a minute. Then the fighters circled in and around the wreckage, blasting any life pods or any chunk of debris large enough to shelter a human being.

Lambert’s good leg buckled. His cane saved him from falling to the floor as a final and total truth hit him: the Hegemony was gone. The Highest was the eternal symbol of the government and it had just been annihilated. A coup from the most lauded military commander in decades, carried out with ruthless efficiency to ensure none survived. No member of the Most High or the many senior deputies could form a continuance of government . . . not when they were all dead.

The grand network of laws, trade and the simple belief that everyone within the Hegemony existed to make life better for everyone else in the Hegemony was gone. Lambert thought of Bretton, a minor world on the fringe of the Hegemony that could only thrive under the protection of something like the Hegemony.

What would happen to his home? To all the people he knew that would desperately need protection . . . protection that should be provided by the men of Bretton, by his Eleventh battalion.

The worst realization that blossomed in Lambert’s mind was that the galaxy had just become a much more selfish place.

The holo shifted to the head and shoulders of a pale-skinned man with deep blue eyes and short, platinum-colored hair. A vine-like scar traced from his collar on the left side of his neck up to his hairline.

A Skien soldier.

Marshal Telemachus raised his chin slightly.

“The Most High are gone. The taint festering in the deepest pits of the Highest will never corrupt the Hegemony again. With the Senate, Council of the Peoples and the Ordinal Bureaucracy eliminated, I am now the de facto leader of the Hegemony. Member worlds will remain member worlds while the government is reorganized on more . . . equitable terms. I do not desire this power—”

“Liar!” someone in the operations center shouted.

“—temporary measure. Those governors and others involved in the corrupt system have no place in the New Hegemony. I have attached a list of unacceptable individuals. Sworn officers of the Hegemony military have my permission to remove and replace them where prudent and necessary.”

A scrolling list appeared by Telemachus’ holo.

Lambert’s head tilted back, as if the length and speed that the names appeared had struck him on the forehead.

Marshal Van Wyck’s name popped out from the list and pulsed red.

“Nobody move!” Van Wyck yanked a grenade off his chest with one hand. The pin clattered against the floor. “Skiens,” he pointed at the two generals on the dais with him, “take them into custody for treason.”

“There can be no treason when there is no Hegemony,” one of the generals said.

The brute in the Cataphract armor glanced at the holo of Telemachus, then back at Van Wyck.

“What are you doing? Arrest them!” Van Wyck pulled another grenade from his rig and held them both over his head.

Lambert decided he was not going to obey Van Wyck’s orders and ducked into the scanner tunnel. He ignored warning buzzers as more shouting broke out from the command center. Shrill screams rose behind him.

Overhead pressure from double explosions slapped Lambert forward. He fell face-first through the metal detector on the other side. The two guards yelled at each other, and the conflict devolved into shoves as someone banged against the main doors, begging for help. Smoke seeped through fresh cuts in the doors.

Lambert used his cane to push himself halfway up when gunfire broke out. Bullets punched through the door and struck one of the guards in the back. Lambert stayed low, crawling towards the end of the hallway as more soldiers raced towards the command center.

Bullets stitched a line down the carpet next to Lambert’s head. He kept moving, his focus on the other set of doors leading out into the less critical areas of the headquarters.

Just what was still under command of Marshal Van Wyck—or anyone else—was a question Lambert didn’t have time for. The more able-bodied soldiers in proper Hegemony military uniforms ignored him as he finally crawled out of the hallway.





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Framed