The Raygonians had stopped attacking. For two months, the Raygonian fleets stood still, their armies occupying the former Primian territories, not a single attack. This was the first time that fighting didn’t occur for over a whole month. The Primians were more frightened of an undeclared armistice than a full-scale invasion. Reconnaissance and underground information sources showed that the Raygonian usurper, Carra Bora, had stopped sending resources to the war. He was murdered and a Raygonian took the throne once again.

Carra Bora, said to have been allegedly a member of the legendary and mythical race called the Magi, controlled the Raygonian Empire for the entire duration of the war. He was said to have enough power to destroy planets with no effort but didn’t since he needed all the planets and slave labor he could get. He ruled over the Raygonians in a golden age: consistent victory over the Primians and their allied forces. But to have been murdered and by who is still a matter of debate among the officers of the military and the Senators; the soldiers had a different thinking. They were ready to go and attack them head on, raring to go and claim back their planets. Some younger officers were willing to do the same.

The Senate was bustling with noise as all the Primians, some in their military uniforms while others were in suits with merely sashes of their military decoration. There were two hundred Senators in all, sitting in their seats arranged in a semicircle and leveled, according to seniority with the eldest at the bottom, with a large marble table covered in a purple cloth with golden designs on the borderline that stood in the center so the Head Senator. The Emperor, with the power to start and end any session or argument if he pleased to do so, was on the adjacent side of the large semicircle and was heightened above the floor level so that a flag could hang from the balcony he was in. The room had a large rotunda made of granite above them as marble busts of previous Emperors worthy of remembrance looked down on them.

We should attack! That’s what they want! For the honor of our Empire! The Universe depends on us! It’ll be the end of us! The war must end! Constant bickering among them all had gone on for long enough. Emperor Aralias stood up and roared loudly, shaking the rotunda and silencing the Senators. They all looked upon him in his balcony and he had a furious look about him.

“If our fortune holds, we’ll receive a response from the Demons and Elves. With them at our side and with the aid of the Euclidians, that is when we shall attack! But until then my rule stands: no attack until they do, no treaty until they are near enough for a threat.”

Admiral Strongarm received his orders from Miles, who received them from the Emperor himself. Miles then excused himself and went to meet with Machii. One of the soldiers and his friends overheard the orders and walked up to the Admiral in protest. He was a new recruit.

“Admiral, we should go and attack them! They’re clearly up to something!” the recruit said. The Admiral shook his head.

“My orders are clear. We stay here and protect the Empire.”

“Those Senators don’t want to risk their careers for using a plan that could kill us all!”

“The Senators haven’t made a choice, it was the Emperor.”

“That Emperor doesn’t know anything! He cares about only himself, not the people dying for the war!”

That crossed the line. The Admiral grabbed the recruit by the neck and threw him against the wall. His feet were forced on the ground and he couldn’t move his legs, arms, or head. His neck was squeezed tightly enough for no movement but loose enough to still breathe. The Admiral then looked him in the eyes, looking extremely angered to the point of him going into the advanced state.

“Do you know who I am? I’m the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armada. I’m the head of the Second Family of the Imperial Lineage. I’ve lost two kids and a wife to this war. I’m the hero from the Battle of Catarrh-Catarrh and Crotona V. I was a POW during the Coralline front. I’ve known great men like Honda Wolfgang, Emperor Kratos, and Flint Mazaki that you couldn’t begin to know. And I’ve been fighting this war longer than you’ve been alive, you little mamakin. I am Grand Admiral Amos Reburticus Strongarm, son of Reburticus and Julia, and I’m loyal to the Primian Empire. Who the hell are you?”

The recruit said nothing and the Admiral loosened his grip and let him go. As he turned away and was a good three yards away, the recruit started to run up with a knife and thrust a knife in his back. But the knife didn’t go through: it stopped midway and broke. The Admiral turned and shot him right between the eyes and pulled the remainder of the knife from his back, which wasn’t fatal luckily. He looked down at the dead soldier, a gashing hole straight on the boy’s face and sizzled from the fresh blast of plasma.

“My condolences to an insubordinate, disloyal, disgraceful traitor who gave his life for his anger,” he told the recruit’s friends who were now standing rigid and scared with a salute. “I’ll not tolerate mutiny, nor will I be killed by a Primian before my death to a Raygonian. Is that clear?”

“Crystal sir!” they said in unison.

“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must see Dr. Moses for my aching neck.”