[b]Shahan IVa[/b]
[i]Five years ago[/i]

A map of a few square kilometers of grassland had been projected by hologram from a device on the ground, red dots pinpointing anti-air artillery systems hidden cleverly in stealthy bunkers in the hills. A semicircle of half a dozen enemy positions surrounded a town: Vaanat. Once an old mining town and spaceport, it was a boom town searching for the minerals that powered computer technologies. Samarium, europium, yttrium, and other rare-earth minerals flowed from extensive tunnel systems mined by robots, humans, and alien workers. Now, the insurgency occupied them. Positions were fortified and bunkers were created from which missile systems emerged, shot their payload, and retreated back inside to be reloaded. It was thought that the enemies were printing new missile components to be assembled in factories far below the moon's surface. The prize of Vaanat was its improvised ship-killer: a gimbal-mounted system built from an old asteroid-cracker's mining laser turned upwards. The RKS [i]Rukshona[/i] had orbited over this side of the planet only to be split in half by the beam and lost with all hands. It was time for revenge.

Sadaet's team's communications station was set up inside a portable metal building by their outpost. An antenna honed in on the closest insurgent air defense station, picking up scrambled signals as the photonic communications sped between platforms. But things were sparse, and they needed to kick the hornet's nest. Sadaet leaned over the shoulder of a drone operator, sleeves rolled to his elbows in the sweltering heat, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Nearby, a sturdy robotic strike aircraft fired up its engines and rolled to the edge of its launch pad. Underneath, it carried two hypersonic glide missiles. A partner aircraft carried the same missiles, but with high-yield nuclear warheads. They had to punch their way through the missile shield to get to the ship-cracker.

"Alright, let's get the first one in," Sadaet ordered. Outside the communications post, the first drone lifted off. "Put it on a nuclear attack trajectory."

The drone operator coolly took over the controls, programming it in for what equated to a modern-day dive bombing. The drone would fly until it thought it had distanced itself from the air station before firing off its missiles. This one, however, was designed to be a decoy. Sadaet wanted it to fly in too close, fire its weapons too late. The rebels, figuring that they had made a mistake, would announce that they would be intercepting and destroying this strike craft. All of those communications would be seen by Sadaet.

It took a few minutes of flying before the drone reached the edge of the missile shield. He watched the screen as it banked inwards towards the red dot at the east end of the ring. The rebels popped their launcher of its bunker, revealing itself to the reconnaissance assets positions nearby, and fired. Sadaet's drone launched, not in time. He watched the blips on the map travel towards each other at tremendous speed, right as one of his crewmen shouted: "Got a lock!"

Over the intercom, a rebel's accented voice announced the drone's position and that they were coming under attack. Instantly, Sadaet saw data appear on his commander's screen. The location of the sender and the receiver. What was being said. Telemetry data. It was a poorly-secured system indeed. That's what happened when they used commercial datalink systems that weren't hardened and diversified: everything flowed forth on one channel, encrypted and hidden. The key had been in their pocket the whole time, so Sadaet just needed to find the source. He gave the command to jam it. Instantly, a signal was injected into the stream that scrambled the datalink. A simplistic AI caught a ride from their beam to the enemy data stream, flowing towards the air defense node and its command center. Instantly, the missile on Sadaet's map veered off on a random course and the drone flew away. The friendly missile hit the bunker and wiped the blip from the map.

With an opening, the second drone exploited it. Under control of the strategic nuclear forces and out of Sadaet's hands, he watched as it leisurely headed through the gap. The holographic map displayed, in perfect clarity, as both missiles were let loose. One headed directly towards the ship-killer. The other, for the town. His heart raced, watching the two yellow missiles glide across the hills and over the insurgent battle positions. Less than five minutes later, the ship-killer exploded. The gigantic laser vanished underneath a massive burst of heat and blast, vaporizing. The blast wave carried out a few kilometers over the grassland, its shock going into the ground and tearing up the tunnels. Rebels were buried alive, gasping for air as the fire sucked it all out of their hiding-places. The second one headed to finish them off: the command node was in the town. That one hit a minute later, effortlessly blasting down thousands of people and demolishing the coordination of enemy air defenses.

Sadaet listened over the radio as the nuclear forces announced their successful strikes. He frowned, listening to his commander acknowledge and announce the arrival of a bombardment group from the other side of the planet. "Keep their position surrounded," was the order. They would reach their position within a few hours. Every little blip of life would soon be gone from Vaanat. From the men to the women to the children, from the guilty to the innocent: all life would perish and the ground would turn to glass. It was only a matter of time.

[b]The Revenant[/b]
[i]Present day[/i]

Sadaet's room aboard the ship was sparse at first, just four bare metal walls with a window he was certain was electronic. A small bathroom with a shower was all his own, which was nice. Already, he had spent some hours setting up his equipment from the hotel. A crew of Helios Station drones had delivered equipment he ordered with the exquisite credit advance given to him by Stryker. His computer station, communications gear, and a table with various electronics and boxes of tools and parts occupied a large section of the wall. A personal drone, his own, sat lifeless on the table waiting to be fixed. On the floor, he had ordered a rug. He liked rugs: if he was walking around barefoot, the metal floor would get cold. He sat down on his bed and ran his hands through his wild hair. He looked up at the corners of his room, wondering where the Alliance had placed the camera. He knew they couldn't be without supervision.

A message on his phone sprang out of the background. He had been linked into the data system by Stryker and had access to the internal comms. It was from the doctor, someone named Varrus. He had been on the ship for hours but had never seen the person. Apparently it was for a medical examination, which Sadaet found a little questionable. Doing physicals? Did the Alliance have medical standards for deniable, black operatives? He laughed it off, before laying down on his bed. His tired eyes closed, feeling the soft warmth embrace of the mattress. He sunk into it, losing himself to sleep. Things went black for him.

Until a flash of light tore through his dreams. A rumble shook him. A fireball rose from pristine grasslands, blowing through buildings and incinerating faceless people. Debris flew through the air, ripping across the fields and swerving right past his head. The man awoke, shooting up from his bed. He felt the heat in the air and smelled... burning. The prairie was on fire. "Fuck!" he shouted. He stopped, hands on his thighs, looking down at the metal floor. He hoped nobody heard him.

"That fuckin' war," he grumbled to himself. "Shithole fuckin' moons." He checked his phone again. The message from Varrus was still marked as unread. He figured that he should probably show up for that. At least making friends with the doctor would yield benefits in the long run.

[@BKburke]