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Chapter 1 - Night

Terra was a broken world. The planet had suffered numerous failed resistances against the power of the Asgard. It had been an exceptionally long year, one by one new resistances had promised the people that they could free them from Asgard rule and one by one they had failed.

Terra had remained enslaved...

What had once been a green, lush planet with beautiful forests and mountains had been turned into a desolate, windy wasteland. It was scarred from the Asgard mining. All Terran people had been put to work in the mines under the lash of the Asgard's vigilant observers, the Ethereal. These beings were just a mesh of violet energy seemingly held together by some unknown force. They wore long drapes and seemed to hover above the ground without even touching it. However they were as ruthless as they were mysterious.

It had not always been this way, about a year beforehand many Terrans were not even aware of their dark past, or that there was a greater force beyond their world. It had all started when Terra was plagued by beings that were supposed to have remained in children's story books... however much to their surprise. They were absolutely real.

Then a few weeks after, there was a massive explosion in the sky as a giant unknown complex plummeted into the sea. Mass examination of the wreckage and interfacing with the remaining computers confirmed that the structure had once been Terran. This brought about mass confusion as nobody understood who could have built such a massive structure in space?

Then, with a thunderous roar, massive ships began to appear above the capital cities. The massive motherships that appeared somehow translucent, almost as if they were not completely existing in reality, open fired on the main cities inflicting a massive death toll worldwide of over thirty billion people.

Then the Asgard came with their command, declaring themselves as "Gods" and using their uncanny powers to make an unfortunate example of the Terran President, Jaresh Windlink who's lovely racoon neck was snapped from a flick of the wrist. With the president dead and the government in complete disarray, the Asgard decreed that Terra was once a "troublesome little world" and this had not been the first time they had been forced to invade it.

However, they had also brought an ally that had agreed to serve as the intermediary between the Asgard and the oppressed Terran. He was a horse, white fur, with long purple hair and the most powerful piercing green eyes. He was Terran, a cryptologist who had worked for the company Phoenix Grace during the discovery of the crashed remains of the Valkyrie, an ancient, seemingly Terran spaceship. He had willingly been working with the Asgard to prevent any disruption to their invasion and avert the Terran suspicions away from extra-terrestrial involvement. His name was Diamond Celestalis.

So Terra was divided into "camps" with its surviving people put to work throughout the planet almost as if the Asgard were actually looking for something. They had maintained through the Ethereal that they were after the planet's resources but some of the dig sites were so specific it made the Terrans wonder. It did not matter, they hated them anyway for what they had done to scar their world.

However some of the Terran people had escaped their world with the help of the people of Silmeria, a nearby planet that had only recently made contact with the Terran people. Like Terra, Silmeria was a desolate wasteland and its people subjugated under the malevolent eye of the Asgard for many years. However some had gathered ships and staged resistance to Asgard rule, which usually ended badly.

One of those ships was a battered old Silmerian cargo ship called "The Raven's Heart" which had once been an ore cargo vessel, which had transported precious minerals from Silmeria to an Asgard Processing Centre in orbit of the planet. The ship had escaped that run when it was brought to Terra for the transportation of people to a processing centre. The rebels captured it and moved it our of the system before the Asgard could destroy it. However they were now alone in a cold and unfeeling universe.

"Will you stop moving!" shouted Blackfire as he tried to carefully pull out a large shard of metal from a Kitsune's injured arm. He was a Dragon, green with distinctive black hair and cheeky grin. He had several tattoos up her arm that he had done back on Terra before he was put to work in a processing centre.

"Its not as bad as it looks" replied the Kitsune. A perfect blend of fox and a dragon. He was built more heavily than Blackfire despite his small size, the tattoos on his body showed that he was once part of the Terran military but that life was long since behind him.

"Ok, so what happened?" replied Anna who was peeking through the doorway leaning up against the frame of the large metallic, almost submarine like hatch into the mess hall. "Let me guess, you boys had a fight with the food dispenser" she chuckled, pointing to Munchy's arm who retracted it back from Blackfire's treatment with some form of macho pride.

"We were trying to contain that plasma leak on C-Deck" moaned Munchy as he winced a bit from Blackfire's attention. "You know the one that hasn't been fixed in..."

"Alright" interrupted Anna, walking into the room with her large bushy brown tail behind her. She was wearing dungarees that had accumulated black stains from all the grime that keeping this ship together entailed. She was a rather short brown fox with dark rings under her eyes, like strange markings that almost made her look tired. "I haven't got round to it yet... you did fix it right?"

"Y-yeah" winced Munchy as Blackfire applied some single malt whiskey to the wound on his arm making it sting intensely. "Bastard thing needed welding."

"Yeah... well" smiled Anna as she walked into the small, box like room with a single porthole looking out into the deep purple gases of that nebula they were concealed in. She walked over to a run down drinks dispenser that sat up on the bar of the mess hall, pouring herself a cup of coffee in the process. "Eclypse wants to leave the nebula tomorrow and..."

"Go where?" asked Blackfire, quickly averting his eyes from Anna's annoyed expression. Anna sighed and took up a seat right next to the porthole looking out into the nebula. Life aboard this ship had not been easy, multiple malfunctions and constant attacks meant that this ship was in a constant state of disrepair. This ship had not originally been armed however, Eclypse, their leader and a hell of a knowledgeable rat had managed to acquire both new shields and a new "chaff" missile defence system for the ship through the Silmerian Black Market.

Of course Eclypse was an enigma. He had "rescued" both Munchy and Blackfire from a penal colony on Terra due to their involvement with the resistance. Munchy was a military soldier, or had been before the war and Blackfire had been just a simple guy who had joined the resistance but was caught on his first mission. They made a motley pair.

Anna herself had joined Eclypse after the initial attack on Silmeria by Ada who had once been the planets ruler. The Silmerians had revolted after years of oppression and locked her inside a orbital prison that was immune to her Asgard powers. However the station holding her was attacked and she was set loose causing Eclypse to fleet aboard the Raven's Heart with Anna in tow.

Eclypse had tried to warn the Silmerians but the curious thing was that the Asgard had sent him there. If they wanted to invade Silmeria why would they had sent him there to warn the people. Were they toying with them?

"So...?" asked Blackfire looking back at Anna who was lost, staring out of the window. Anna jolted and returned to the room looking back over to Blackfire who was staring at her inquisitively.

"I dunno... he said something about taking the ship to Terra for the resistance or something... personally I don't care, beats the hell of just sitting in this nebula."

"I hope it's important this time... we are taking this ship into enemy territory... again" sighed Munchy, he grabbing his bleeding arm as Blackfire was getting ready to bandage it.

"It is important..." said Eclypse, the black rat entered the room from the doorway and closed the hatch behind him. All three of the others watching him intensely. "But what I tell you stays here..."

"There is nobody else on this ship" smiled Blackfire as he looked up at Eclypse's long snout. "Of course we can't tell anyone..."

"This is very important" said Eclypse with a deadly seriousness that everyone expected from him. "General Orlain contacted me on Terra..."

"The general is still alive!?" shouted Munchy. He had believed that General Orlain had been killed during the initial invasion. He had been an honourable racoon with a long history between himself and Munchy who had carried the rank of Master Sergeant in the Terran military.

"Yes, he has kept low... stayed out of harms way, but he is working with the Terran resistance cell"

Munchy sat back a little in disbelief, he had believed that a lot of his compatriots had been killed during the Battle of Chentrilla City last year in which the Terran military was devastated completely by Asgardian forces. Their bombardment lasted for days before the general surrender was sounded and nobody managed to escape their wrath.

"Anyway" continued Eclypse without so much as an emotional tone in his voice. He had always been cold, ever since he had lost Freya last year who had been possessed by an evil force which he could not describe and had killed him.

But he had been brought back. Brought back to assist what he believed where his gods. Turned out that they were the Asgard, seemingly evil as they swept him away to warn Silmeria about the return of Ada leaving Terra unprotected. He had been played, manipulated in such a way that he felt like an abandoned pet who had been left by the roadside in the pouring rain.

Eclypse twitched his whiskers and looked at the three desperados in front of him, they were all so eager to receive what contact or news regardless of it being good or bad. News meant contact and that made them feel not so alone in their struggle.

"As you all know..." he said, standing up putting one foot on a chair to make him seem somehow more imposing. "...there's a shipyard orbiting Terra. Raven's Nest?"

All three nodded. This disused shipyard had seen action during the Terra-Asgardian war that had happened almost 250 years ago. However it had recently become a hive of Asgardian activity and served as their outpost for overseeing operations on Terra. The shipyard was unusually shaped like a spider which was designed to stretch out over large capital ships, holding them in place with the six arms. There was a large docking complex built above the "spider's legs" to allow for maintenance to smaller ships and living accommodations for its staff and dock workers.

"Apparently the Asgard have got their hands on some pre-war ship design and are building a capital ship there, they want us to blow it up" sighed Eclypse looking down at the harsh, cold metal floor of this ship.

"So... what's so special about that heap o' crap?" asked Munchy, looking over at Eclypse, almost in an angry tone.

Eclypse folded his arms and shook his head feverishly. "Not sure, but he risked being caught to get this message to us... must be somehow important? Apparently some high-profile member of the Asgard occupation is going to be on this ship, overseeing construction."

"Diamond...?" smiled Munchy almost overjoyed.

Eclypse nodded, he could see the ecstatic expression on Munchy's face. He had been saying for a long time that the resistance needed to target Diamond as he was the Asgardian lapdog and would be a fantastic source of information. Eclypse knew in his heart of hearts that there was more to it then just simple information finding but previous experience had taught him not to pursue it.

"So we gotta get on the station? Get this Diamond guy and get off without getting ourselves killed?" applauded Blackfire sarcastically. "Sounds like fun" he said as he took a swig of the coffee that was sat on the table next to him, his scales seemingly turning a darker shade of green.

"In a manner of speaking... yes" said Eclypse in an almost emotionless tone. He had no illusions that this would not be difficult