As A Consequence

The Year was 2310, and the Royalists, including King George the ninth, were unceremoniously thrown off the Earth. Crammed into whatever ships that they could find, they travelled along the Orion Cygnus arm of the Galaxy to finally settle on a world they named Mastreel.

Fifty years later, in 2360, a ship from each section of the human race coincidently met in the Antares system. As both ships emerged, their proximity alarms sounded, and both Captains looked, in horror at the emblems on the ships, emblems that had not been seen in fifty years. They acted instinctively and simultaneously, as all of the old prejudices came to the fore, and both Captains yelled ‘fire’ at the same time. Thus fifty years of war were born.

It became a reluctant war with neither side willing to make incursions into the other’s space. When confrontations did occur, they often resulted in the protagonists veering away and not engaging, but when they did, losses on both sides were significant.

The Mastreel destroyer HMS Egrenta, encountered the Earth Cruiser RES Estentor, and Captain Caswell decided to engage. It was a hasty decision. The enemy ship was larger and more powerful, and the result was inevitable. A badly damaged HMS Egrenta limped away from the encounter. Without Midshipman ‘Gale’ Harkness, who sealed off the damaged section of the ship at considerable risk to herself, there wouldn’t have been anything left to limp anywhere.

Faced with a series of unprovoked attacks by a race called the Shi-az-ee, the war between both sections of Humanity came to an end, and they combined their fleets, turning their attention towards the new threat.

But hidden in an unlikely place, lurked the true enemy, waiting and watching, and seeking revenge, for something that had happened a thousand years ago.