Tevun-Krus #47 - Galactic Empire

The Wolves at Infernalon's Gate - A Short Story by @JosephArmstead

An episode from the Case Files of MAURKUS GRAYLE, RIFTSPACE SHERIFF

"An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war."
—Charles de Montesquieu, Political Philosopher, (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755)

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
—Bertrand Russell, Philosopher - Logician - Mathematician - Historian - Writer - Social Critic - Political Activist and Nobel Laureate, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970)

"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."
—Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180, (26 April 121 – 17 March 180 AD)

ONE

Parsyffia Sarvonne observed the passing parade with a jaundiced glare. She did not approve of grand displays of military might within the public arenas of the civilian sector aboard the station. The station was a celestial base, her home and place of work for the past five years, a place called Infernalon's Gate.

She was still wearing her usual gold and gray tactical body-carapace, emblazoned with the stylized winged insignia of her military unit, since she'd had little time to change into a formal ceremonial uniform befitting a rendezvous, even if unscheduled, with a non-human head of state. That suited her mood, though. She didn't much feel like playing nice.

Elite representatives from the Conglomerated Armies of The Ulysseum marched in full battle dress through the sport's stadium-sized amphitheater and park-belt of Sol VIII's Allied Space Nations Coalition's Switchway Transit Hub.

The Hub was a massive, Human-made, astro-station positioned just 6.75 million miles away from the solar-facing border of The Oort Cloud, outside the orbit of the planet Neptune. The ASNC's Switchway Hub was one of a collection of seven inter-networked, asteroid-anchored, scientific military bases in the Kuiper Belt, the last vestiges of Terran human-originated civilization before entering Rimspace. Those trans-Neptunian celestial bases, having parabolic Kepler orbits, had been designated within the IAU (International Astronomical Union) class of "Abbreviated Damocloids". Infernalon's Gate was an ASNC-maintained Wormhole Navigational Passage, a "WoNaP", that was anchor-locked some 585,000 kilometers (363,502.15 miles) off the Sol VIII Switchway Transit Hub. Once a person entered Rimspace, the word "human" was a term rarely, if ever, used with any degree of frequency.

It was the place where Humankind had, two and a half decades past, made First Contact.

Infernalon's Gate opened up on an area of interdimensional Space-Time called "Phlegethon" or "The Black Rapids". In Greek Mythology, Phlegethon was one of the five rivers in the infernal regions of the underworld, along with the rivers Styx, Lethe, Cocytus, and Acheron and the philosopher Plato described it as running parallel to the river Styx and flowing into the depths of Tartarus. Phlegethon was found to be populated by a quartet of alien species, first encountered sixteen months after Infernalon's Gate officially went on-line.

Parsyffia Sarvonne, an ASNC Commanders' Academy graduate, was Infernalon's SecurityChief. The Sergeant-Major was visiting the Switchway Hub as part of her regular travel circuit to and from select strategic bases in the Rimspace network.

"Look at it," a powerful voice said softly from over her shoulder and next to her. "Even though it hints at the worst, most base instincts of sentient-kind, there is a stark beauty to it that seizes the imagination. It even could be considered ... inspiring."