Few hours before the departure.

Earth. Northern Hemisphere.

Beside the atmosphere piercing I-CA Central Command Center tower, existed four other skyscrapers of optimal height.

On the top floor of one of those skyscrapers inside a small office decorated with pre-Reboot era style, an old man seated on the main chair with his eyes closed.

-Beep-

-Beep-

Suddenly the intercom rang, the old man opened his eyes. His pupils were filled with darkness strong enough to swallow everything in their path. Although he was bald, he had a thick long black beard.

Stretching his bony hands the old man picked up the intercom.

“Are you sure?”

Listening to the other side, an ephemeral glint flashed in his eyes as he opened his mouth to ask with a tone drenched in ancientness.

“Alright. Keep a close watch and let me know.”

The old man ordered the person on the other side as the connection terminated.

Taking a deep breath, he dialed another sequence of numbers. Very soon another voice sounded from the other side.

“You heard the report?”

The old man asked, with an authoritative voice as the conversation flowed.

“So, what now?”

The old man asked, as he contemplated for a minute.

“Alright.”

After a small talk, he disconnected the connection.

I-CA was the new world government which consisted of top-tier powers from the decade of Reboot. There was a council of senators responsible for governing the I-CA. A total of ten seats in the I-CA senate which were divided among the three most powerful factions though not equally.

Among these powers, the Church of Darkness and the Malak family each occupied one seat. The old man headed the Church of Darkness and went by his moniker ‘Darkness’.

As for his name, no one had ever heard of it. In fact the person himself was so old that he had forgotten his name and preferred to be called ‘Old man’ instead. One of the most powerful persons on the planet with a formidable organization named the ‘Church of Darkness’ behind him. He had no Naval designation but no one would be brave enough to underestimate this Old man.

After a few hours the intercom rang again.

-Beep-

-Beep-

Old man picked up and quietly listened to the report on the other side. Although the report was short enough to last for a few seconds, the excitement from the news was not so small.

The connection terminated and he hurriedly connected with Admiral Khuraymah, the head of the current Malak family and only said a single sentence.

“We shall move ahead, the chance is here.”

Planet Earth was the most beautiful planet in the solar system but behind its beauty lay various hidden dangers.

The great Reboot left the human race scrambling for survival. It was only after the formation of I-CA and the Military Command that the human race could take a breather. The Military Command acted as guardians of the human race on the planet. The brave soldiers fought on the front lines and protected humanity with their advanced weapons and strength. Protection from what? Protection from mother nature. Protection from the deadly terra-formed beasts and creatures that were hell-bent on destroying the human race from the face of this planet.

Therefore in order to minimize the casualties from the never-ending war, the I-CA looked upwards for a way, towards the dark mystery of space. At least that was what the I-CA wanted the people to believe. Thus this led to the development of technology to explore the vast wonders of space in search of resources.

But alas, the greed for power and dominance had never been so intense. This greed gave rise to the creation of battleships and two different Naval Stations stationed in low-earth orbit each vying for dominance.

One of those Naval Stations was Lemegeton with a spherical diameter of about a hundred kilometers

The Naval Station was built with a spherical control module in the center, surrounded by cylindrical constructs like a gyroscope. The inner construct included a habitat which would move along the central module to create an artificial gravity for the crew and officers on-board. The outer construct was stationary and acted as a space port for the battleships of the I-CA Naval Command. The central module housed the reactor core which powered the station whereas the outer construct housed an electromagnetic weapon system capable of launching enhanced conventional zero gravity thermal weapons.

Docked in the space port was one of the two dreadnoughts of the I-CA Naval Command with a length of around two hundred and fifty seven meters, a beam length of around thirty two meters. The dreadnought was the epitome of the current I-CA technology with a nuclear fusion reactor core power system and ion thrusters capable of producing a constant acceleration of a single ‘g’ along with multi-directional deceleration. The weapon system included a mix of thermal and electromagnetic weapons which included the deadly railguns and ballistic missiles, a consortium of proximity mines, close combat torpedoes along with electromagnetic shielding.

Those in power in the I-CA believed in the principle that bigger was always better and the dreadnought was an example of that. With a state-of-the art communication system and radar technology along with the capacity of around two thousand officers, this was a living weapon of destruction in space.

The dreadnought would usually be docked in the spaceport and would only be given order of dispatch during extreme missions, which included surface bombardment and providing air support for ground troops.

Among the various officers on the Naval Station there was one named ‘Murphy’. Murphy was one of the technical officers in the power supply department which looked after the maintenance of the reactor core. Due to his timid nature and thin physique he was often bullied by his senior officers and fellow colleagues. It was a usual schedule for Murphy today. He performed the routine check for the fuel rods and noted the temperature readings of the cooling system along with the status of the power supply channels. After his shift he entered his cabin and lay down on the bed.

Just when he was about to go to sleep, his bracelet started vibrating. Murphy opened his eyes and locked the cabin door with the remote. He then proceeded to enter the small washroom and then suddenly his demeanor changed.

There was a hint of seriousness on his face and his eyes blazed with a never before seen spirit. He took out the bracelet and turned it over, placing it on the sink. With his attentive eyes, he took out a small pin and locked it in the small hole on the side, twisting it slightly, the small bracelet turned stiff and a string of encrypted messages started to appear on it. His mind hurriedly started to decode the message and a new message appeared in his mind which said.

[Begin the operation]

Murphy took a deep breath and resumed his normal countenance. He twisted the pin and the bracelet returned to its previous appearance. He wore it and went outside the washroom. He opened the cabinet and took out a small ring which had a trident shaped symbol on its back. Then he proceeded to take out a small automatic pistol with a silencer and loaded the magazine removing the safety switch. He wore the ring and started moving towards the central module. Very soon he stood in front of the door which had the name ‘Command Center’. There was a small console on the side which asked for biometrics in order to open the door.

Murphy took out a small blue color finger length rectangular box and placed it on the side. A series of scripts started running through the console trying to bypass the security systems. But suddenly alarms started to ring on the station.

These alarms indicated the presence of a hacker trying to infiltrate the firewall and security systems. Due to the threat of an intruder, the security system consoles were connected to each other forming a wireless Intranet. These consoles were required to broadcast a private key along with a relevant biometric information in the Intranet everytime one physically placed their palm to access the console. Every officer had a relevant authority in this security system which depended on their biometric information.

Murphy’s device was able to bypass the upper authority system but alas he was not aware of the hidden system of broadcast, thus the intruder detection system sounded the alarm.

Even though the alarm sounded Murphy did not panic, he calmly pocketed the blue box and took out the pistol. He held the pistol and pointed the muzzle towards the door. After just a few seconds the doors swished open and---

-Ptch-

Along with a small current, the person was shot directly in the head. The person’s upper body fell as it bent backwards at a weird angle along with the open eyes filled with confusion.

Due to the central module being devoid of any artificial gravity the officers had to wear magnetic shoes for them to remain stable, which resulted in the current situation.

The doors had proximity sensors and thus wouldn’t close unless one went out of their range. Murphy immediately deactivated his magnetic shoes and his body started floating. He reactivated them and his feet stuck to the wall. Bending his body to store potential energy he pushed himself and at the same time deactivated his shoes. His body shot forth like a stream of air current as he twisted himself in order to avoid colliding with the body, thus entering the room.

He hurriedly brought his pistol forward and shot the two people who stood there pointing the barrels of their assault rifle towards the door. The resultant recoil force from the pistol pushed him back twice making the bullets from the rifles lose target. Thus another two people were dead with their bodies twisted in weird angles. The bullets from their assault rifles punctured through the inner hull and were stopped by the soft cushioned layer between the middle layer and the outer layer which distributed the force from the impact. Detecting a breach in the inner hull, the automatic defensive systems were triggered and huge slabs of steel rained down the walls locking everything. The poor dead man on the door had his body crushed by those slabs with his blood splattering everywhere.

Murphy activated his magnetic shoes and landed down. He proceeded towards the terminal and took out a red rectangular usb stick as he plugged it into the computer system.

On the screen, various windows opened at once with lots of primitive computer codes running and very soon a small program was installed.

He sat on the seat and opened the program, which again ran through a hell lot of sub-programs already loaded in the system. He input a string of coordinates and location on the command then it began.

[Warning. Weapon System Online.]

[Targeting Naval Station Poseidon.]

[Bombardment commencing.]

Outside the Naval Station, the laser targeting module turned its head towards the other Naval Station Poseidon and locked on it.

The turrets opened and a silent string of ballistic pods containing batches of thermal missiles were launched using an electric catapult. Due to the silent nature of the space, they made no noise as they neared the Naval Station.

Then blue miniature ion thrusters powered by the thermal batteries pushed the pods closer to the station, one could see that the Naval Station had a thin layer of electromagnetic shielding which prevented it from the energy weapons. But alas these were thermal weapons. The thermal defense system launched a string of anti-thermal payload towards the pods but without any solid radar lock they were not all effective.

The ballistic pods touched the shields and lost their power but the resultant moment was enough to drag these lethal pods towards the hull. Majority of those pods were destroyed by the barrage of anti-thermal payloads blasting the missiles and creating a flaming wave.

Only two of the pods managed to make it through. They pierced the outer hull, penetrating the middle layer as they lost their momentum. Then suddenly, the Naval Station shook with enough force which propelled it almost out of the orbit. A long string of flame shot out from the circular rings of the Naval Station with debris floating everywhere.

Inside the Command Center, Murphy sat on the seat as he watched the real-time footage from the camera outside. A thin smile emerged from his face which vanished within a second. Then he hurriedly proceeded to pick up the assault rifles and pointed at the door.

Sparks of flames started emerging from the huge steel slab indicating someone was trying to breach the door. Just as the huge slab of steel was detached from the door and pushed aside, Murphy started firing.

His body being battered by the harsh recoil in the space without any gravity, yet he did not stop. Very soon his magazine was empty, he tried to load the magazine but couldn’t as a bullet swished past his neck, piercing it and almost separating it from the body. His almost headless corpse now was bent to an even horrible degree than the one at the door was.

Followed by the sounds of footsteps, soldiers from the Naval Command wearing space combat suits and carrying electromagnetic weapons entered the room. The commanding officer frowned as he watched the scene being displayed on the screen.

He took out a communication device and entered a string of commands.

“Admiral Daniel, there has been a situation.”

After conveying the entire situation the commanding officer asked for instructions.

[Search the body of the intruder. There should be something on the body from which we would be able to identify his faction. Lockdown the station and alert the level to war-time. We shall not take this lying down. Await further instructions and activate defensive protocol. I will be there soon.]

The commanding officer followed the order and instructed one of his men to search the body.

From the way the soldiers were calm and collected despite the gruesome scene in front of them it could be said they had seen their fair share of bloodshed.

Very soon the soldier found the blue rectangular box and the ring on Murphy. Turning his ring he could observe the symbol of trident on the back. The commanding officer took the ring and frowned.

‘Why would they attack their own Naval Station?’