Forty six years previously, eleven hundred and eighty light years Rim-ward of sol, Priean System, Priean IV, Independent Religious Colony, Morisette Township
Take nearly twenty billion relatively free people. From the still billions of those who declare themselves religious distill them and you will always find those who simply speak the words of tradition, those of true personal faith and belief and those truly do believe not just in a god but that they specifically both talk to and talk for God, Vishnu or any other sort of deity. Most are shysters who believe nothing of the sort. Some will be taken as the mad or simply suffering the hangovers of neural miswiring. Distill again. Find those who not only believe but have both the intellect and the gift to talk to the masses and not a little luck. These are thankfully rare. Such people can be prophets, set fire to continents and burn worlds.
The good reverend captain Morissette had been such a man and he had known it and so had the Incorporated State. It had glad to be rid of him and less than happy to loose those he claimed but freedom to do anything even enslave oneself voluntarily was accepted. Morisette had sought to lead his faithful to a promised land of purity without the infection of the alien. To go to another star to do it was an irony lost on the man. Priean IV was to be his world to shape. Ample water, breathable atmosphere and well inside the life zone. Too marginal on the trade routes for BuCol for Morisette it was perfect and with only a little work it could have been a shining beacon of an Eden. It had turned into a backwater hell in six generations of theocratic mismanagement.
In the edge of the township a sea of mud brown melt block shanties spread outward to the endless rows of failing fields and broken muck. Most of the sad constructions were no more than the size of a garden tool shed, strangely windowless for a building made from glass. From where the first families still held to there now brilliantly white washed pre fabs a world of social divide lay, a word defined by colour of clothing and mud, of being clean or always covered with just too much of the local slime, of want and hunger and satisfaction and gluttony with the certainty that god wished it so.
A small boy held back his tears. He knew that his life depended upon it, that and the goodwill of his neighbours, old widow Hansons wrinkled old hands even now firmly holding his to hide the quiver. He held those tears back over the remains of his home as the church's eyes, thuggish oxen like men in great canvas like overcoats carrying cruel metal rods continued to smash what was left of his shanty to rubble in a sick sort of glee. A silent crowd of the drawn and malnourished watched on. In front of the growing pile of rubble lay six bodies in rude coarse brown cloth, there outlines deformed in ways that matched the diameter of the rods in unpleasant ways and at the heart of the house the single remaining working data pad almost pounded to dust. He cried for his family inside. He cried also though for the loss of dreams of the stars.
Twenty three hours previously, Cometary Halo, Astin System, Eight hundred and thirty eight light years Spin-ward from Sol,
The Charybdis for all her size was not spacious for her crew. They and even he were packed into cabins that were in truth smaller than his childhood home. That thought had often made him smile. It had also led to the regular forces referring to them as strat spam on more than one occasion though generally not within his earshot.
The man the boy had become was prematurely grey, a beard dusting a craggy face that spoke of an easy smile. It was lost in thought and far from his smile now as he contemplated the time and another room aboard.
That room was cramped with machinery and should have never seen human hand or eye. But it had six months previously. The box was not present on any security scan or record but then the hand that had positioned it had helped plan most of them. To the untrained human eye it would have simply not mattered, blending into the mass of systems. To the SI core that glittered at the heart of the room it was literally invisible, imperceptible filtered out of her view until it activated. Then the SI that in many ways was the Charybdis had its view of reality and certain orders very much altered.
In his cabin the man's eyes crinkled for a moment as the time passed and the security sirens did not begin going off, his officers did not come to escort him to the brig or the med techs to take him to stasis.
Slowly he mixed up a pot of tea, the ritual calming as each minute flickered past. He did not smile but now there was satisfaction as above his tiny fold out table on the plot the ships course began to change.
Sixteen hours previously, Astin system, Noor Secure Orbital Anchorage
Mark Hallsworth was no longer the trim figure of youth that had once ridden fast destroyers, nor did he wear a glittering set of regalia that he was entitled to. A simple serviceable standard officers ship suit in station office configuration and rank tabs, no matter how high they declared him to be was all he appeared in. When he wore what he privately thought of as the clown suit came the unfortunate side of the job, the part he detested, at least here on actual duty he did not have to act for the crowd. He could actually be what nearly eight years of continuous service in the space forces had molded him into.
The man would never claim it for himself his position however did demand some respect and so it was granted by the swift salutes and responses as he passed the teeming multitudes of busy bodies on the way to his temporary office aboard the anchorages main station. Passing the huge strategic space command logo he greeted Clarice his fussy librarian like assistant who then herded him through the office with the same sheepdog intensity she gave his calendar, her fiery will and known penchant for swearing in a way that only a veteran service spacer could letting only some through as he smiled and gave an odd word. Finally he had a chance to enter his own sanctum, the silence as the massively thick door thunk-ed closed blocking out everything save the sound of the air vents.
Relaxing his posture he gently sank into his chair as the strategy SIs and his own dumb message bots and his quite real staff begin to load his inbox up with another days morass of reports, the halo of news from the external datanet appearing in one corner as did private messages. Three hours later just before lunch after two virtual meetings one of which he had found satisfying the other of which had been a grey soul sucking affair with finance he finally got to his personal correspondence. He smiled as he saw on name on the list in particular. Ah yes he would be taking her out today, it really was the least he could do the man before he left the service. His right hand outstretched for his instant caffeine never made it as eyes danced down the page, the ceramic knocked aside as he almost swore, colour draining from his face.
In a surrounding sphere that moved at exactly sixty three light years an hour nearly every single ZMSF asset in known space mounting a star drive and a weapon would be either leaving port or already on active patrol, spreading outward in great search patterns, dropping hundreds of thousands of sensor buoys and drones as entire squadrons, flotillas and finally entire fleets went active, warships boiling outward like glitter in a gail. Everything from the smallest patrol sloop to dreadnoughts of the wall went to space, hiding nothing as engines flashed their presence outward in massive hard burns.
