Hello, everybody, ^_^
After a year long hiatus, I'm back. To those of you
who care, I'm still working on Destiny and haven't
abandoned it. I'll get the fourth chapter done and
published as soon as possible. ^_^

Kurukshetra: The Darwon Invasion
================================

Prologue
--------

Author's notes:
--------------
Kurukshetra is the mother of all battles in Hindu
mythology. In fact,
two of the holiest texts of the Hindu creed, the
Bhagavad Gita and
the Mahabharatha, are devoted it. Since I'm Indian,
and I needed a
title and this series will be about the mother of all
wars, I have
decided to name it Kurukshetra. Kurukshetra is an
original work
belonging to the alternate history military science
fiction genre,
one which I intend to sell to some big publishing
house someday.
Naturally, I want to see how well this book will be
received by the
readers, which is why I'm publishing this prologue on
the net.

Please, tell me what you think of it.

***

July 26, 2578 would forever be remembered in human
history as the day
when the first human walked on the soil of a planet
not of this solar
system. Over the next six and a half thousand years,
humans colonized
hundreds upon hundreds of alien stars; birthing
hundreds more star
nations that spread like wildfire through the stars.
There were wars
fought aplenty throughout this period - in fact, the
years in which
there wasn't a war raging somewhere on someplanet*
could be counted
with the fingers of one hand - but the Expansion, as
the exodus of
mankind into the stars was called, continued unabated
baring a few
instances when an exceptionally large economic
depression put the
breaks temporarily on interstellar exploration and
colonization.
There were no encounters with extraterrestrials,
however, and slowly,
the initial sense of restrained expectation that was
just waiting for
a chance to bubble to the surface faded. It was
replaced by a feeling
of resignation as time passed and even the most
exhaustive search
failed to ferret out evidence of sentient
extraterrestrials. Still,
even though the hopes of finding an intellectual
brother race
disappeared, the wish and the dream remained imprinted
in a large
portion of the human population. For the longest time,
the fondest
dreams of this segment of the populace remained
unfulfilled, until
one fateful day, the exploration vessel NNS Umiraghe
happened upon
the Darwon during a routine scouting mission. The
vessel died soon
after, as did its crew when the Darwon took affront at
Umiraghe's
unwelcome intrusion into their space, which they took
as an invasion,
and the vast majority of mankind remained unaware of
this momentous
discovery for thirty more years; the loss of the
Umiraghe was written
off as unexplained after an exhaustive search failed
to uncover any
evidence of her. Then, one bright and beautiful
morning on New Wales
Sol System, in the year 9306 ACE, the rest of mankind
learnt of the
Dawronese, too.

    On that fateful day, seventy thousand ships warp
transited into
New Wales Sol System, the first wave of the much, much
larger main
invasion fleet that was to come five years later, and
after
smothering what token resistance it encountered, it
quickly conquered
forty other systems on the Cassandra warpchain*,
establishing a nigh
impregnable foothold into human territory. The nations
of humans
rallied quickly and under the banner of Terra, formed
an alliance to
counter the Darwon invasion. During the next five
years, the
frontline remained more or less stable, with neither
side being able
to gain an advantage over the other. The leaders of
the nations did
not realize the full extent of the threat posed by the
Darwon until
much later and the political lobbies of the different
factions in the
Terran political scene did not allow Terra to
completely mobilize
until the advent of the main invasion. As it was,
there were too many
points of contact along the warpchain that the
combined armies were
hard-pressed to defend them all and the invaders'
forces were spread
too thinly along the frontline to launch any major
offensive.

    Then came D-day.

    Five million ships, the main fleet of the First
Wave, launched a
massive assault along the Cassandra warpchain that
simply bludgeoned
out of existence all resistance. It was a rout, the
first month of
the assault, and the Long Retreat as the men and women
who fought and
died on the many battlefields on countless worlds
along the chain
called it, was the greatest single disaster in human
history. It took
a further six months before the Darwonese decided to
stop their
advance to consolidate their hold on the conquered
territories and
during that time, humanity learnt the true horror of
the fate that
awaited them. The Darwon, as it happened, were not
content with
simply subjugating the human population on the worlds
they conquered.
They genocided the human population, killing men,
women, young and
old alike, before they repopulated the now sterile
lands with their
own people.

    The realization came too late, however. Two
thousand colonies,
more than two-thirds of the populated worlds in human
space were lost
and only the most desperate defense could hope to hold
the frontline
for any respectable length of time; time urgently
needed to build a
new fleet powerful enough to drive back the Darwonese.
As it turned
out, the Darwon did not give mankind time to get back
on its feet,
and slowly, Terra was beaten back, until all the
colonies were lost.
In a period of less than two hundred years, mankind
was reduced from
being the masters of the known universe with colonies
on a thousand
suns to a wandering race with no sol system to call
them own.

    And yet, she fought. For three thousand more
years, the Darwon
pursued the few survivors of Terra, intent on
quenching the last
flicker of the flame of life still remaining on her
mortally wounded
body. Terra fought back with all the viciousness of a
cornered lion,
burning a thousand worlds of the Darwon clean with
nuclear fire, but
it wasn't enough. Darwon, with her thirty thousand-odd
children
worlds, was just too big to swallow whole and Terra
was doomed to
extinction. Still, with her last breath, she spat
contemptuously at
Darwon's feet and sent a handful of her children into
another
universe - thanks to a scientific discovery that her
scientists
accidentally happened upon. And when she died, she was
still howling
that the flame of Terra would never be conquered nor
quenched.

    Only, it wasn't a gateway into another universe
that Terra's
think-tanks discovered...

***

    Reynard Arsu stared at the plot stretched in his
mindeye* and
nodded in satisfaction. Before him in the mindeye was
his fleet of
eighty nine thousand ships and the four thousand
mobile support
bases, broken into twelve battle and six colonization
fleets. The
battle line was spread out over a distance of 130
light seconds in a
cone with the vulnerable colonization fleet safely
cosseted in the
center. They, he and his fleet, had jumped to the new
universe less
than two hours earlier in the middle of nowhere and
already the fleet
was as organized as it could be, with proper flanks
and scouts racing
out to gather intelligence about their new home, i.e.,
all were doing
their job as they were supposed to. The fleet owed
part of its
efficiency to the decades it had spent fighting the
Darwon, but its
commanding officer was responsible in no small part
for its keenly
honed edge, too. And Reynard Arsu, commanding officer
of Operation
Salvation, the last hope of Terra, was proud of it.

    "Admiral?"

    The confident voice of the intruder shook Reynard
out of the
heightened world of senses that was the hallmark of
mindeye and into
the blandness of the real world. He turned to greet
the speaker with
an open smile on his face.

    "Yes, Carter?"

    Captain Frank Worrell Carter, commanding officer
of the
Vengeance, twice recipient of the Medal of Valor and
Flag Captain to
Flag Admiral Reynard, did not return the smile. In
fact, Reynard
noted, his expression remained most pensive.

    "I just got a message from Commander Salvador of
the Artemis
attached to the recon wing of the Third Fleet, Sir. He
sent it
through the VLR* and marked it high priority. I think
you should see
it."

    Reynard's eyes burrowed.

    "High priority you say? Let's see what it's
about," he said,
taking the message chip from Carter and inserting it
into the right
port on his command chair. The message itself was
laconic to the
extreme, but its scope was world shattering. Reynard
turned to Carter
with a calm that belied the turmoil within and cleared
his throat.
"How many are aware of this message's existence?"

    "Four, Admiral: You, me, Chief Fosset and
Midshipman O'Reilly.
The good commander had the good sense to break all
protocol by
addressing the message directly to the Vengeance. God,
if this gets
out..."

    "It won't," Reynard barked, cutting off Carter.
"Inform Fosset
and O'Reilly that I'll rip them new assholes if so
much as a wisp of
this finds its way into the rumor mill until we can
either confirm or
disprove Commander Salvador's hypothesis. Give
Salvador and his
people a pat on his back on my behalf, and send an
urgent invitation
to the Fleet Admirals inviting them for a little
t�te-�-t�te on the
Vengeance at 2000 Hrs." Of course, Reynard knew that
his first two
orders were mere exercises in redundancy as Carter was
the kind of
man who anticipated his commander's orders and saw
them executed
before the actual order was given. 'Most probably he
sent the
invitations for the dinner without my permission,
too,' Reynard
thought with a wry grin.

    Carter nodded.

    "Join me in tactical after you have sent the
invitations. I fear
this is going to be an even longer day than we
thought. Oh, and have
someone verify this, will you? Remind that someone to
be as discreet
as possible and to report only to you or me."

***

    The Fleet Admirals, the Flag Captains and their
aides de camp
were all assembled at the Admiral's dinning room, the
one where he
always used to entertain his command staff. It was
clear from their
expectant faces that all of them were piqued with
curiosity, but they
kept their silence while they dined. Reynard insisted
that it was
better to have a discussion with a full stomach and
seeing as that he
was their commanding officer, they wisely chose to
keep their views
on the subject to themselves, even if it meant being
kept in the dark
until they had supped. Finally, the banquet was over
and table
cleared. Pregnant silence descended upon the room and
expectant eyes
turned on Reynard.

    Reynard, for his part, sipped at his wine,
savoring it as well as
any connoisseur. He set his glass on the table and
only then did he
explain his reason for inviting them. They listened in
complete
silence, though there were more than a few gasps when
he informed
them that Captain Salvador's premise had indeed been
confirmed.

    "So the way I see it, Gentlemen, we have two
choices ahead of us,
or rather, we must choose which theory we want to
believe, for once
we choose one, our course of action is decided for us
and set in
stone. Yes, Ian?"

    Fleet Admiral Ian Malcolm, commanding officer of
Third Fleet,
leaned forward, his hands clasped before him. He was
of average
height and not a tall man, by any reckoning, but he
had commanding
presence that made him appear as if he were the
tallest men in the
room among mortals, or as one of the tallest men in
the room in the
lofty airs that were the abode of Reynard and his
like. His cold, no
nonsense approach to life and everything concerned
with it and war
had won him more than his fare share of battles on the
battlefield,
and he was generally accepted as the second most
gifted officer in
the fleet, unsurpassed in the art of war with the
exception of
Reynard.

    "I'm not very knowledgeable in the more esoteric
aspects of Well
theory*, mind, but does not the arguments of the
theory preclude time
travel?" he asked.

    Heads around the table nodded and looks of relief
passed around
the table. The thought of standing by and watch the
massacre of
trillions of innocents had not appealed to them at
all.

    "Yes, it does," Fleet Admiral Charles Donohue
replied, casting an
apologetic look around the table. He wanted to believe
that they were
in a parallel universe, too, but he could not, not in
good
conscience. The thought of getting caught in a time
paradox was not a
pleasant one, but it might very well be that they were
heading down
the track which would ultimately seem them caught in
one.

    "But the Well theory is not TOE or have you
forgotten," he asked,
"Have any of you considered the possibility that the
Well theory
might break down under our present situation?"

    Reynard laughed, followed by the others, who took
courage in his
laughter, but his laugh was forced as were theirs. The
same thought
had come to Reynard, too and it was for that very
reason that he had
called them together; for their counsel.

    "Such a pessimist, you are, Charles. Still, it's
good to know
that there is at least one thing that's constant with
the universe."

    "I think Admiral Donohue's point is a valid one,"
Flag Captain
Uno de Silva opined. "We should take the possibility
that the Well
theory might fail when put to the test with out
situation seriously.
Admiral Reynard, this is what I propose..."

    And so they deliberated, arguing the pros and cons
of each
proposed action until fate intervened in the form of
PO Glasgow, who
interrupted the meeting bearing a sealed message chip
from Chief
O'Reilly. Lt. Wesley Milestone, the Admiral's aide de
camp, took
possession of the chip and excused the PO.

    "It's another message from the Artemis, Admiral,
only this time
the Commander's sent a video through the VLR," he said
as he handed
over the chip to Reynard.

    "Thank you, Wesley," Reynard replied, as he
removed the seal and
slid the chip into the relevant port.

    The lights in the room faded and the OHP came
online. A man
wearing the uniform of a Commander of the fleet
appeared onscreen. He
was shorter than the average Terran, but his
barrel-chested frame
more than made up for any deficiency in the height
department. He
sported the short cropped hair on his head that the
traditionalists
in the fleet still preferred and even though he was
not handsome -
what little beauty he had possessed once was marred by
a scar that
ran down his left cheek from his cheekbone to his
chinbone - he had
the air of command about him that only those few
destined for Flag
rank had. From his scar, Reynard deduced that he was a
member of that
miniscule fraction of the Terran race whose genetic
makeup was
incompatible with biogen therapies.

    "At 1947 Hrs, a standard Darwon patrol squadron of
approximately
thirty vessels spotted the Destroyer Vulcan of my
recon squadron when
her onboard cloaking system failed. I ordered her to
turn back and
head home for repairs, but the patrol changed vector,
too, and
accelerated in pursuit of her. Owing to the Vulcan's
initial base
velocity and vector, the patrol soon maneuvered her
into a packet.
They hailed her on standard Darwon fleet frequencies,
calling for her
surrender and followed with a single warning shot over
her bow.

    "The rest of my squadron had followed the pursuers
closely and at
this point, when the Darwon commander threatened to
open fire on the
Vulcan, I ordered my squadron to go weapons hot and
open fire on the
Darwon patrol. The engagement lasted approximately
ninety seconds
during which the Vulcan suffered light damage with
minimal casualties
inflicted on her crew whilst the Darwon patrol was
decimated.

    "I ordered my squadron to pick up the Darwon
survivors and sent
the Vulcan home for repairs with the Destroyer Weasel
as escort."

    Salvador paused for a moment to shift his weight
to his other
foot. It was clear from the way he handled himself
that he was about
to tell something that he thought was of great import,
but there was
a smallest trace of hesitation in his eyes, too, as if
he was unsure
as to how his superiors would greet his message.

    "Currently, I have in my custody three hundred
personnel of the
Darwon fleet, and one of them is none other than
Shura* Insha Alhou,
currently Theiru* Insha Alhou of the Darwon Imperial
Fleet, the
Executioner of Terra. I'm bringing him home, Admiral,"
he declared in
a firm voice, as if daring Reynard to disagree with
him. "My ETA is
2318 Hrs."

    The OHP faded into nothing and the lights came
back on
automatically, but none dared break the unearthly veil
of silence
that had descended upon the room. Of course, they all
knew about the
Executioner of Terra, Insha Alhou, who had used
biological weapons
captured from Terran military bases to dust nearly a
hundred of the
core worlds, Terra or Earth as it was called in those
times included.
His efforts had paid off rather nicely and won him a
dubious place in
Terra's history as the one who killed a trillion men
and women; the
greatest mass murderer in history. All of them had
dreamed of getting
hold of him in their childhood and all of them,
without exception,
had dreamt up at least a hundred ways of killing him,
each one of
them more painful than the one before. And now, their
fondest wish
had come true.

    "Well," Admiral Ian observed, finally, breaking
the silence, "we
can be sure of one thing. We're most definitely in a
parallel
universe."

    Immediately, everyone started speaking, their
voices full of
enthusiasm and the room descended into complete chaos.
However, not
even Fleet Admiral Ishida Shiroe, the biggest stickler
of them all,
tried to discipline the unruly mess. He, too, was
deeply involved in
the bickering.

***

Glossary:
========

1. Warpchain - A sol system usually has more than one
warp point*.
And all the sol systems joined together through linked
warp points
form a warpchain.
2. Someplanet - A later day word that is a derivative
of the ancient
English word somewhere.
3. Mindeye - An advanced VR interface wherein the
human brain
interacts directly with the computer through a
man-machine interface.
4. Warp point - Two gravity wells separated by a long
distance, but
linked together. A vessel entering one end of a warp
point exits
through the other.
5. VLR - A faster than light communications system
that is extremely
long ranged. The range and the near instantaneous
transmission of
data between distances separated by as much as thirty
thousand
parsecs is achieved at the cost of bandwidth, which is
very small.
The system is usually used to transmit eyes-only
messages in script
format and takes approximately one second to transmit
ten characters.
6. Tube - A high speed inertia-compensated rail system
that is used
to ferry the crew to battle stations, transport heavy
equipments as
well as provide fast transport for other more mundane
activities.
This is contrary to ops manual regulations, which says
that the tube
must not be used for mundane activities.
7. Well Theory - The most successful Theory of
Everything (TOE) to
date. Discovered by O. Suman Well in the year 8025
ACE, it combines
quantum mechanics and theory of relativity to a level
that is
impossible with other theories. The Well Theory and
its close cousin,
the Wire Mechanics are used almost exclusively by the
scientific
community to explain and define the world around us.
8. Shura - An officer of the Darwon fleet roughly
equivalent to the
Terran Commodore.
9. Theiru - An officer of the Darwon fleet roughly
equivalent to the
Terran Captain of the List.


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