(a/N: I literally wrote this for English class. It's probably the best piece of literature I've ever written. I hope you like it, and if so, please leave a review.)
The ships of battlegroup Tempest groaned as they exited the wormholes generated by their Einstein-Rosen engines. The group was made up solely of frigates, 10 ships formed a group, with more than 10 forming a battlegroup. Each ship was five kilometres long and armed with 40 twin-linked laser cannons. Each cannon fired a stream of lasers anywhere from 100-1000 petawatts in power. The group had been deployed 30,000 lightyears from the capital, the reason for the journey the fact that a system had gone dark. Rear Admiral Felix became concerned when he noted the lack of civilian space traffic. "Strange." He mused "Helm," he called "bring the fleet to yellow alert."
"yes sir," Came the ensigns response before he keyed the intercom "All personnel, to action stations."
"Sir," the coms officer called "Captain Asulf and Commander Astrid are attempting to contact us. should we answer?"
"Yes," Felix replied "they deserve an explanation."
A few minutes later the view screen flashed to life as life as the faces of the ship commanders appeared on screen.
"Rear Admiral, with all due respect," the captain, named Frode Asulf started "what in the name of the void is going on!"
"I have reason to believe that the sudden loss of contact with the colony wasn't an accident."
"Are you implying," Commander Astrid started to say "that it was insurrectionists?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying"
"that's exactly what I'm saying." Felix replied
"But why?"
"Taxation without representation?"
"I wouldn't say they didn't have representation," Astrid said "Every system that has a colony, no matter how small its population, has a representative in the senate."
"Maybe they just wanted to govern themselves."
"I can see that, however, that doesn't explain why, there is a procedure to leave the imperium."
Frode spoke next "AI, bring up every piece of information we have the colony."
"Affirmative." it responded in a monotone voice.
planet name: Silverpoint
Status: unknown
Population: 200,000,000,000 currently unknown
Location: Outer rim.
Focus: ship building, and industry.
Star base focus: shipyard and Defence
Planetary Defence Force (PDF) 50,000,000,000
Colonial Defence Fleet: (CDF) unknown
"Not good, so very not good." Astrid muttered out loud.
"My question is, how does a colony of 200 BILLION just, disappear?"
"SIR," the helmsman screamed "WE, uh, WE HAVE A BIT OF A PROBLEM!"
"What is it?" Felix snapped.
"Multiple CDF ships have been detected, any where from 25 to 50 vessels. We're outnumbered anywhere from 2 to 5."
"All ships to red alert, coms hail the enemy fleet." Felix ordered calmly
"The fleet haven't responded to our hails, however they did send us a message."
"what does it say?"
"It reads, 'Dear lapdogs of the Terran Imperium, We hereby declare succession from your dying state.'"
"All ships," Felix commanded "fire when ready, let's burn them from the void."
weapons, the CDF was mostly made up of corvettes and patrol boats, which, due to their role as anti-piracy vessels. lacked the FTL engines and armaments of true navy ships. as such, most of CDF ships were destroyed in the first strike, their main guns barely able to scratch the shields of the frigates, let alone actually have a chance of breaking through.
The entire battle took less than a minute. and by the time it was over, all that was left of the CDF ships were wrecks that were either venting atmosphere, had their entire crew killed, or had been gutted so thoroughly that salvaging anything of use was impossible. "Prepare boarding parties, I want every piece of information in their computers." instantly, hundreds of gunships began to depart the frigates, each gunship carried 500 personnel and had their own energy shields and laser cannons. the boarding parties moved quickly, sweeping through the wreckage and securing any valuable pieces of information. they suffered little resistance, what few surviving crewmen there were, were executed for betraying the Imperium.
***
It had been a few hours since the teams returned, Admiral Felix had decided on a show of force. He decided to broadcast what he was about to do to the entire Imperium. he manoeuvred his frigate into orbit before firing every weapon at maximum power. in seconds he had reduced the planet to ash and glass. He then carved the planets epitaph into the world in letters 20,000 kilometres deep and 20,000 kilometres wide. It read 'Fatum Iustum Stultorum' the just fate of the foolish.
