[b]Sol, Asteroid Belt[/b]
Dozens of gigantic, cubical freighters lumbered through the void, their plasma engines burning brightly as they accelerated towards Terra. New vessels left drydock, being turned over to their new owners. With the more efficient warp drive and negative energy factories, FTL had became accessible to civilian businesses. Since all large corporations were nationalized, no civilian could leave Sol, but with FTL capability within the system, trade would no longer require kilometer-long cubical titans to move materials. Just one of the new in-system FTL ships could move, in a single month, a hundred times the cargo a Cubeship could in a year.

At the scrapyards, former Cubeship owners were selling their ships to the military in order to buy an FTL freighter. The military had promised to pay a fair sum for any used Cubeship, as their sheer size made them valuable as scrap. The plan was to use their materials in new interstellar warships like the [i]Försvarere av Humanity[/i]. However, there was also a new Dreadnought initiative. Since it was obvious that the Dreadnoughts currently in use were painfully obsolete, many of these Cubeships were being sent to be forged into new Dreadnoughts, armed with triple-mode turrets instead of a single, spinal railgun. The turrets would be capable of firing either standard railgun slugs, plasma-coated ones, or pure plasma bolts. The standard slugs would be used in engagements against Terran vessels, the plasma-coated ones would be the most commonly used ammunition type, and the pure plasma bolts would be used against vastly superior enemies. Of course, having made contact with Nouvelle, it was possible that plasma bolts would become a stable of Terran vessels, especially with the government able to build interstellar vessels cheaply for the first time.

Out of the military shipyards, a single interstellar vessel emerged. It was a giant cylinder, with a shuttle bay in the front, which contained five heavy VTOL SSTO planes. It had warp rings built into the cylinder, making them harder to target. There was a ring of plasma engines surrounding the shuttle bay, and a giant wall of them at the back. RCS thrusters were positioned across the hull, allowing for the entire ship to rotate in order to provide artificial gravity. On both sides of it, the name [i]"Pride of Ceres"[/i] was written in stark white letters, standing out well against the grey hull of the ship and the black of the void.

The vessel immediately accelerated towards one of the many large stations in the Belt. It was going to pick up a cargo that nobody had actually been told about. The official story was that it would simply be a dummy cargo taken to Alpha Centauri, but nobody on the crew actually believed that. Negative energy was too precious to waste on a test, but it didn't make sense to deliver anything to Alpha Centauri. They suspected that it might be a trade run to an alien planet, some entertained the imaginative idea that they were smuggling something into another nation. The sensible members of the crew just waited to see it.

Hilariously, they were all wrong. They were so caught up with the idea of aliens that they completely forgot that it might not even involve them.

[b]Levant, Former Israel[/b]
A child played in the streets of a makeshift village, the only thing she had ever known. She didn't know it, but her father was a soldier for a terrorist cell. Everyone there was, but all she knew was the radioactive remains of the city her parents said had once been the center of all attention in the entire region. They never said it, but it certainly wasn't positive attention. Another thing she was never told was the fact that the only reason they were there was because of the nuclear weapons left behind by the nation that formerly controlled the city. Her world was tiny, just that little village.

Very few noticed it, but a missile flew through the sky towards the village. It must have seemed like a fair response to the UTF, they destroy Paris, retaliation comes. It was a very human way of thinking, but regret was also a very human feeling, and it always seemed to come with such decisions. There wasn't any time to react, no cinematic scene with the last screams of those who died. It was instant, the entire village was obliterated so fast that there was barely any pain. 

Though the village was gone, warheads still remained inside the missile silos, lying in wait for whoever would venture into the wasteland to take them.

[b]UTF WarpComm Broadcast[/b]
"Paris is dark. Repeat: Paris is dark. A curfew of 9:00 PM GMT will be enforced by the Ground Army across all territories. Any suspicious activities must be reported to an Army officer immediately. Capital will be moved to Luna Station, all spacecraft must call off to the nearest port. Any vessel that refuses to identify will be intercepted and destroyed. If you live in the Western Europe region please report to the nearest bomb shelter. Updates as situation develops."

[b]Siberia, 2045[/b]
Explosions went off in the distance, shaking the tiny hut. Inside was a girl, no older than fourteen, cowering in fear. Coilgun shots resounded in her ears, as well as shots from weapons ranging from eleven to over seventy years old which still used gunpowder. She knew what was happening, and she was damn well happy about it. The UTF had finally taken notice of the atrocities going on in Siberia, and had sent in a force. The archaic weapons being used by the local so-called "Tsar" were no match for the coilguns used by the UTF.

So it came as a surprise when she heard the screams.

They were long, and not a single one ever ended. No shots could be heard, nothing but screaming. Having to know what was happening, she looked outside. There was a small vehicle, with a faded American flag painted on it. There was a large dish on top of it, pointing down at a mass of soldiers kneeling and rolling on the ground, screaming. It was an Active Denial System, a weapon that had been outlawed after WWIII. It was designed not to kill, but to immobilize the target with extreme pain, like that of being on fire. It looked like the UTF soldiers were being tortured, probably as a warning to anyone else that dared oppose the "New Tsar".

Then one of the soldiers dropped dead. It wasn't just crowd control anymore, they were feeding enough energy into the weapon to make it lethal. As if by instinct, she ran out right into the area of effect. The m1oment she left the hut, her skin began to boil. She kept running though, listening to the screams of the soldiers on the ground. She'd worked outside at sub-zero temperatures wearing almost nothing. She figured that if she could stand that kind of cold, then she could stand this kind of heat.

Running over to one of the soldiers, she grabbed his coilgun pistol from it's holster. She ran straight at the vehicle, burn marks beggining to appear on her skin. IT felt like she was being burned at the stake, but she kept running. After what seemed like an eternity, she lunged towards the vehicle. It's door window was nonexistent, having been through so much combat without seeing any repair. Ever since the collapse of the United States, Humvee parts were practically nonexistent. Without any thought, she jumped through the window and landed right on the lap of the operator. He reached for his pistol, but she fired first, hitting his head.

The pistol had little recoil, due to it's design. As blood dripped from his head onto her, she reached for the controls. The pain was greatest inside the cabin, the operator was wearing a radiation suit to protect him from the effects of the weapon. Still, she reached up and flipped the switch marked "Aктивировать" (Activate). The pain dissapeared immediately, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers outside got up, five more had been killed while she was trying to stop the "Heat Ray" as it was often called. Looking down, she saw a block of C4 explosives. It was obviously a self-destruct. Being a rare piece of equipment, the Tsar would have it protected from falling into enemy hands at all costs. It had an activator right on it, which also happened to have a timer on it.

[i]It appears that even the Tsar can care for someone's life.[/i] She thought, setting it to a five-minute fuse.

The moment she activated it, she opened the door and ran. She managed to reach a safe distance just before the explosives went off, throwing shrapnel all over the village. The Federal troops looked to see what had happened, and they saw her coming towards them, with the smoke still in the background. At first they couldn't believe that she had done it, but then they saw that she was holding a pistol that was still cooling from a high-power shot. Her clothes had splotches of blood on them, and her breathing was heavy but orderly. She was exhausted from the ADS, just like all the soldiers. 

"English?" She said once she reached the UTF lines. The enemy soldiers were being held captive, apparently they had surrendered.

Surprised at the question, the commander stood up to answer her.

"Yes, I'm Commander Mael, 21st Infantry Division. How do you know English?"

"Taught self, old books, instructions." She responded in a thick accent. "Grammar... confusing. Too many rules, not like Russian. Name is Praskoviya, Praskoviya Lovisa."

"What are you doing here? Why are you carrying a Federal pistol."

"Assault rifle too big for window." She said, smiling. It surprised the commander, he was told to expect any child to be traumatized, not joking. Especially not about weaponry.

"I mean, why do you even have a weapon?" He asked, clarifying.

"I saw weapon, A.D.S. War crime. Could not allow use, deactivated it, destroyed it."

Everyone within earshot looked shocked, they simply couldn't believe that she was the one who destroyed it.

"How?"

"Head-on attack. Enemy did not expect me, I killed operator, turned it off. Then destroyed to prevent future use."

The Commander's jaw somehow dropped even further, she had rushed an A.D.S. on lethal settings head on. Not only had she survived, but she had destroyed it, and the only weapon she had was a pistol! 

She dropped the pistol on the ground, then continued.

"Good luck with war." She said "Geneva Conventions say you protect me now."

"There is no war now, those were the so-called Tsar's last forces. They say he was operating the A.D.S. himself."

She simply stood there, her mouth opened slightly in shock. She hadn't thought about it until then, but she had succeeded where so many trained soldiers had failed. The Tsar had taken everything she had, her family, her possessions, and everything else. To think that she had been able to kill him... it was an astounding thought. Unknowingly, she began to smile.

"You attacked an A.D.S. head on, without giving in to the pain." He continued "You should consider joining up someday, it seems like you like toppling evil regimes."

"No, I would rather go to space." She responded. "Freedom in space, no people like Tsar."

"Then the Star Forces are going to have one hell of a recruit."

[b]Nouvelle, Present Day[/b]
After bowing their heads in return, the three followed the Seargent.

"Your people put a lot of emphasis on names." Said the Captain, taking great care to step slowly and gently in the lower gravity. "I apologize for anything we did wrong, these two are District Dwellers, they've never met royalty. They also don't have a reputation for diplomacy either."

"We took the non-verbal first contact course at the academy!" Said one of them indignantly.

"Your people are the reason that protocol involves kneeling and holding up a sword." She responded. "That reputation will wilt away the moment we repay the universe for what we have done."

"Good point." Said the man, surprisingly putting up almost no fight.

[b]Mars[/b]
The woman nodded, her movements indicating understanding. She spoke to one of her crew, who went and opened the outer airlock door to one of the vehicles, which slid open with a quiet hiss. The wind began to pick up, dust flying in from kilometers away to obscure their vision. She motioned to the two aliens, asking them to follow her to the vehicle.

[b]Saturn[/b]
The Admiral reached his hand out as well, glad to see that the Mandalorians still had some human culture left. He shook the Captain's hand, it was a weak handshake, not the kind one would expect from someone in the military. 

"The third planet is our capital, the largest station above it's only moon is where the Council currently is. Depending on how long the peace talks with the other species took, you might have to wait. You won't have to worry about any sort of battle though, it turns out that the other species wants peace almost as much as we do."

[b]Near Gliese, E.U.V Starfire[/b]
Fergus looked at the suit, specifically the pants. It was quite obvious that he wasn't paying much attention to the coat.

"I love the color." He said, a smile on his face. "You know, I wasn't going to say anything, but when you described Lahnha... I knew who you were talking about. I knew someone just like that many years ago, back before the war. She's who made me realize that I was from Gliese, it was indirect, and took advantage of subconscious thoughts. I knew there was something different about her, I always thought she was just another one from Gliese. I guess I was wrong."