Tempest Rising: Start of Things to Come

"The Start of Things to Come" is the first chapter of Tempest Rising.

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Life was manageable in the general's quarters, though the concept of manageability varied from officer to officer. The air was stagnant, yet circulated enough that you wouldn't feel you were breathing something solid. Faint background noise started low and then started to creep up as the compound's aural sensors flickered to life. Green light emanated from above, onto the face of the hardened general. It had been a long time since he hadn't had to wake to an alert or an alarm. War with the Vong had finally been settled in the galaxy, and recovery was now the primary focus. Bastion, the new heart of the Empire, was the first to be fortified, and the general had spent much time protecting the world. His loyalty to the capital was well worth rewarding. If only there was someone to present him with an award at the time. No, far too many men were dying on the battlefields of the galaxy against an oppressive and savage species, that for some reason is treated as if nothing had ever happened. Were they really to be trusted from this point onwards? The general shook the thought, and paid more attention to his graying hair.

The chronometer on the wall ticked off the standard minutes until it was time for roll call. The general was to have them stand at attention while some stylus-necked bureaucrat was to act observant and report anyone missing from the ranks. The men, most who had served for the Imperial Remnant during the war, had already gone through repeated drills this week alone. It seemed no one was willing to claim that the war was over. Some were on the verge of simply giving up. It was puzzling to the general how a group of men could just give up and walk away. That was not to be tolerated in the Remnant. If there was anything of the original Galactic Empire left, it was that deserters were still considered the lowest form of organism and only deserving of death by firing squad, or in special cases by lightsaber.

Ah, how the galaxy had changed. No longer was Palpatine's whipping boy in oversight of the stormtrooper corps. Operations had defaulted back to the local garrisons and contained control was the new form of sustenance. With each new year, there grew a number of even more terrible things amongst the people of the galaxy, and order was needed to prevent said things from tearing the galaxy apart. For a while, the corps had been thinking it was doing a good job of galactic maintenance. So it was thought until the invasion occurred.