~ A shadowy man sat in a dingy little comms booth. The terminal in front of him was well-worn and had finger grease smears all over it. On its screen was Merlin, in a dark, secluded area on Tartarus. His image glitched out every so often as he spoke. “Three of my Bluffs went dead a few hours ago
The Admiral stood behind the ready room’s podium and lectured the four pilots on the exercises and functions she wanted to cover for the week. The screen behind her had a number of diagrams and statistics. Miko was absolutely rapt with attention, though it may as well have been completely blank to
Miko: Does taking multiple videos of you count as something crazy? Miko: Videos where you were out and about and unaware of being filmed? Eva: Ugh. That sounds a little crazy, yeah Eva: But it’s not too bad. He’s not, like, putting drugs in my food crazy Miko: Are you waiting until that starts t
The four pilots flew out of Tartarus Base and found a spot of empty space for them to perform their exercises in. While there was plenty of space between the base itself and the surrounding asteroid field, a good portion of it lay within the path of the patrol drones. Although the Admiral could hav
The chief of security panicked as he watched it all happen on his terminal. Warning after warning popped up on his screen as each and every single one of his dampeners were soundly defeated. Klaxons blared around him as security officers did their best to control the situation. But there was nothin
Klaxons rang all throughout Tartarus Base as the Admiral’s lockdown order went into effect. Civilians, merchants, and contractors fled to their habs, closed their blast shutters, and sealed their doors shut. In contrast, military and combat personnel swarmed in droves to do their duty. Armored hop
“It’s because their very existence helps prevent wars! Knowing that we’ve got technological superiority keeps every aggressive nation out of our territory!” Merlin laughed again. “Naive bitch! All the arms race does is make waste! Waste that ends up being used against normal people. Waste that end
Merlin flew over to Valos’ heavy frigate as his fighter escort easily polished off the drones that were chasing him. He swooped over to the frigate’s armored belly, and slowed as he came closer. And when he reached a certain distance, portions of the armor slid aside and folded into each other. As