Born of Ash and Iron, Chapter 1
Join Captain Volm in the first chapter of the first book of the Empirefall Chronicles, set in the Stellar Empire universe.
Captain Richard Volm gripped hard against the handrails surrounding the central command table. He surveyed the Type-88 destroyer’s command deck with a withering gaze. The small vessel had been “confiscated” from the Rhyno Commonwealth by Volm and his compatriots after they had rejected the Commonwealth’s “offer” of admittance.
“Captain,” His First Lieutenant saluted with his dark grey mottled hand. Like Volm, Lieutenant Alkora was a former political prisoner of the Rhyno Confederacy. They’d grown up together on Katchi and were the only two native Declanian on the crew. Their hairless, dark grey skin stood out and unnerved some warmer colored races. “None of the LACs made the subspace dive with us,” Alkora said.
The LAC’s disappearance was hardly surprising. Volm knew the Light Attack Craft were separated in the previous fight, drawing off the Commonwealth task force. He scratched his thumb on the textured handrail, briefly distracted by the uncertainty of their fate.
The Commonwealth builders hadn’t expected Declanians with their sensitive skin to serve onboard the craft, and every surface seemed covered in knurling or carbon fibre. Volm let out a small sigh, returning his attention to their escape. “Savant and Cascade?” He asked, inquiring about the two destroyers that had hung back to cover their retreat.
“We’ll know within the next few hours when our telescopes pick up the action,” Alkora replied. There was a hint of hesitation in his voice as he continued. “Surely it’s already played out, but we’ll need to wait for the light to catch up.”
Volm nodded. He understood the concept of the speed of light and knew diving into subspace allowed them to travel the relatively short distance between the planets faster than light could. Yet, it was still hard to wrap his head around the fact that less than fifteen minutes ago, he had watched the two destroyers turn back into the oncoming Commonwealth fleet so Volm and his crew could escape.
“Ack,” Volm said, moving closer and speaking softly to his friend. “I checked the Confederacy logs we seized. A small supply station is orbiting near Somari 8’s ring field. I want to lash the three destroyers together and dock with the station to maximize our ability to effect repairs.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Alkora replied with a half salute. “I’ll get Fireball and Crescent on the horn, and we can work up a repair plan.”
“I need a casualty report, too,“ Volm said, scratching his chin. “We might need to rebalance crews. Crescent got pretty torn up when her containment bottle blew.”
“Already have it, Cap,” Alkora said, clicking through files on his messenger pad. “We staffed each captured Type-88 Destroyer with three hundred enlisted, and twenty-odd officers.” He winced as he scanned the document, “The Hound, our ship, has one hundred eighty-eight enlisted and seven officers.”
“Effective?” Volm paused, his eyes fixated on the console's status report. “Or surviving?” A part of him knew what the answer would be before he even asked.
“All the numbers I have are surviving, sir,” Alkora replied. “Fireball has two hundred eleven enlisted and eighteen officers, and Crescent has ninety-eight enlisted and one officer.”
The news was difficult to swallow. Redistributing those numbers across three destroyers would barely fill half of the crew complement the ships were built to carry. Even if they abandoned the Crescent, they’d still be left understrength.
Volm rubbed at the dark, dry skin around his mouth. “It’s not like we have much of a choice.”
“Sir,” Alkora said, his voice tight and pleading. “We could run. We’re free now.”
Volm shook his head quickly, “Ack, we’re not running,” he said, trying to reassure his friend. “We didn’t let our incarceration turn us into beasts, and we won’t let desperation do it now.” Volm gripped his friend by the shoulder and gave a squeeze. “Our only crime was disagreeing with the central government.”
Volm smiled, knowing he was only giving a half-truth. It was true that Somari had been the dumping ground for political prisoners, thought criminals, and Ponzi schemers. However, it was only rumors that Irari was where they had dumped war criminals, mass murderers, and terrorists – he’d never been there, so he didn’t know.
When the garrison on Somari Prime evacuated, they left them without ships beyond a few light craft, none of which had stellar drives. Transportation between the binary star systems had taken a year each way.
When the Rhyno Commonwealth, the new government-in-exile of the Rhyno Confederacy, showed up with these destroyers, Volm was with the group that seized the vessel from its crew.
The crews surrendered without a fight and were now being housed as prisoners of war. The Rhyno Commonwealth was bringing an ongoing lawsuit in the INSTAR Courts, a semi-autonomous legal system with no real power, claiming that the seizure of the ships pre-dated the declaration of war and was, therefore, an act of piracy.
Volm scoffed audibly at the thought. Ironically, the people who oppressed him and locked him away for speaking against the government were now calling him a pirate.
Alkora looked back at his friend. “Sir?” he asked cautiously, interrupting Volm’s thoughts.
“Oh, nothing, Ack,” Volm grinned. “Just thinking about how we got here, and what it all means in the long run.”
“To anybody outside our little binary system, not a good Garn damned bit.”
“Don’t curse.” Volm shot back. He’d never been an overly spiritual man, but he felt fairly hopeless now, and if Garn did exist, he didn’t want to risk their ire. “But enough self-reflection. Meet with the other officers and start working out the crew shifts.”
“Roger that, boss,” Alkora said, as he saluted and left.
The loud metallic clank and screech of the air-tight door closing behind Alkora as he exited the command deck left Volm alone with his few enlisted crew and the steady hum of shipboard operations.
“Tyler?” Volm called to the nearest enlisted man.
“Yes, Captain?” He replied quickly, looking up from the plotting table he had been working at. Tyler was a typical small-bodied Eukar with a higher-pitched voice. He had donned an oversized sergeant cap pilfered from a former crew member.
“What were you in for?” Volm asked, knowing he shouldn’t be engaging in small talk, but he’d always been a talker, not a stoic, removed captain of the line.
Tyler shook his head, realizing the Captain wasn’t issuing orders. “Uh, uhm, officially? Inciting a revolt,” he replied with his higher-pitched timbre.
“What did you actually do?” Volm asked, with a knowing chuckle in his voice.
Scratching at his pronounced brow, he bit his lip, then replied slowly. “I was a spy.” He winced at Volm’s sudden surprise. “When they caught me, they mistook my go bag for the tools used in a recent revolt on Holt.”
Volm let a small whistle escape his teeth. “Avoided the firing squad.” He said with a slight shrug.
“I suppose,” Tyler replied before motioning at the command deck. “But I found myself in another one.”
Learn more about Stellar Empire on our official wiki.
Unlike my last SciFriday story, this is a series of my own IP that I’ve been developing with my friends and I Kickstarted a card game in this universe; Stellar Empire: Skirmish!
Excited!!!