[b]Ethereal Conviction[/b]

The skies of Sofia blaze with war. The artificial daylight spread by the surrounding region's orbital mirrors is sliced by intersecting flames of ion drives and punctuated by starburst explosions; contrails of debris raining into the atmosphere become tangled ribbons of cloud. The nightside sky is an infinite lattice of shining hairlines that interlock planetoids and track the erratic spirals of glowing gnats. People watching from the former Bulgarian capital's endless cityscape might even find it beautiful. From the inside, however, it's much different. The gnats are drive-glows of star-fighters. The shining hairlines are light-scatter from turbo-laser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town. The planetoids are capital ships.

The battle from the inside is a storm of confusion and panic, of galvened particle beams flashing past your star-fighter so closely that your cockpit rings like a broken annunciator, of the boot-sole shock of concussion missiles that blast into your cruiser, killing beings you have trained with and eaten with and played and laughed and bickered with. From the inside, the battle is desperation and terror and the stomach-churning certainty that the entire planet is trying to kill you. Across the remnants of the Federation, stunned crowds watch in horror as the battle unfolds live on their hologram projectors. Everyone knows the war has been going badly. Everyone knows that more Slavs are killed or captured everyday, that the Grand Army of the Slavic Federation has been pushed out of territory after territory, but this... 

A strike at the very heart of the Federation? An invasion of Bulgaria itself? How can this happen? It's a nightmare, and no one can wake up. 

Live via hologram, people watch in horror as the Franco-Iberian Coalition's cyborg army flood the government district. The coverage is filled with images of overmatched Slavic soldiers cut down my remorselessly powerful destroyer robots in the heart of the Slavic Council itself. Suddenly, a gasp of relief breaks out throughout the planet: the defending soldiers seem to beat back the attack. There are hugs and even some quiet cheers in living rooms across the world as the Coalition's forces retreat to their drop-ships and take off. "We won," families tell each other. "We held them off." 

But then the news reports trickle in - only rumors at first - that the attack wasn't an invasion at all. That the Coalition wasn't trying to take Bulgaria. That this was a lightning rate on the Council itself. Then the nightmare gets worse: the Supreme Emperor is missing. Ivan Dimitrov, the most admired man in all of eastern Europe, whose unmatched political skills have held the Federation together. Whose personal integrity and courage prove that the Franco-Iberian propaganda of corruption in the Council is nothing but lies. Whose charismatic leadership gives the entire Slavic people the will to fight on. Dimitrov is more than respected; he is love. Even the rumor of his disappearance strikes a dagger to the heart of every friend to the Federation. Everyone of them knows it in her heart, in his bones, in their very bones, that without Dimitrov, the Federation will fall. And now confirmation comes through, and the news is worse than anyone could have imagined. Emperor Dimitrov has been captured by the Coalition, and not just the Coalition - he's in the hands of General Francis Alonso.

Alonso is not like other leaders of the Coalition. Ignatius Xavier is treacherous and venal, but he is the former Spanish king's grandson;