May 12th, 2484 - Planet Vizran, Minefield Town - Minefield Post Office

Planet Vizran was a wasteland. Covered in snow and ice all year round, it was barely popular as a holiday destination; known for the unique, charcoal black sand that made up its beaches, and yellow and blue evergreens that made up its forests, but little else. Barely capable of sustaining life and home to a corrupt government, of all the worlds in colony space on which a civil war could break out, it seemed the most likely. So it was a surprise to no-one in the galaxy when the United Vizranii Front took up arms against the Imperial Government.

There were no sentient species native to Vizran; and so the population was mostly Human, Bungirban and Haalojan. Planet Haaloja had been utterly decimated, reduced to a field of space dust by the Imperial Flagship ‘The Raven’ during the previous war, and amongst the Haalojan fighters who fled to Vizran was the rebel commander Jokbaala. Jokbaala openly despised Humans, unlike many of his peers post-war; they had received aid from Human medics and various Imperial aid agencies during the war, and many went on to accept rehousing and work schemes on other worlds afterwards. Jokbaala and his fighters instead appealed to the Bungirban population of Vizran when shoring up troops for their civil war. The war raged across the icy surface for almost three decades, and although it was officially declared to have come to an end on the 16th of March 2484 with Jokbaala’s death and the collapse of the United Vizranii Front, pockets of rebels still came down from the snow-capped mountains from time to time to raid towns and villages.

*

‘That girl… must have lost her family to those rebels, right?’

The post office was empty, save for the two Bungirban women behind the counter. They watched the girl with contempt. She was Human, incredibly pale, and sat on a bench outside the door, shivering in her thin shirt and tattered trousers. It was a particularly cold day. The red-haired woman turned to answer her brunette colleague’s question.

‘That’s right’, the redhead said. ‘From the town up East, Taraharvest. She must have walked for days to get here…’

‘I wish she hadn’t’, the brunette replied, her ears twitching. ‘She’s Human … gives us a bad name if there’s some homeless Human waif in a Bungirban town … makes us look implicit. You know what those Imperials are like.’

‘I wish someone would take her in before she freezes to death’, the redhead said. ‘Of course, I couldn’t.’

‘Obviously me neither’, the brunette nodded seriously.

‘If she does freeze to death, I hope it happens before any Imperials see her.’

‘When she freezes to death … someone will dump her in an unmarked grave outside of town, I’m sure. What a sad fate. Well, life’s like that sometimes.’

‘I suppose it is.’

The girl turned to look through the glass door, her large, aquamarine eyes hazy and tired. She was absolutely defeated.

May 14th, 2484 - Planet Vizran, Minefield Town - Minefield Post Office

She came from the fog, when the stars were fading and the sun’s rays had just pierced the glistening, white skyline.

‘Do you need help, child?’

The woman who spoke those words was covered, from head to toe, by a cyan coloured robe, with only the lower half of her face visible. The girl flinched, as the robed woman outstretched her hand towards her. The hand did not stop, and rested on her cheek.

‘Do you want to die, child?’ the robed woman asked.

‘Yes’, the girl replied in a hoarse croak. ‘There’s no reason to carry on … I’ve lost everything.’

‘What if I could give you a reason?’ the robed woman asked. ‘What if I could give you everything you ever wanted?’

‘You can’t do the impossible.’

‘Let’s put that to the test. Protect me, Wulver.’

The wolf simply appeared. It walked out from behind the robed woman’s back, coming from the left, despite there being nowhere for it to hide on her right. It was an enormous, ethereal beast, glowing blue, with piercing white eyes and shining white fangs.

‘Tell me, child: would you like to achieve the impossible with me?’ the robed woman asked.

The girl’s heart filled to bursting with wonderment, and a shadow of hope was born. The hand was warm. She could not refuse.

May 15th, 2484 – Frontier Space, a Nameless Planetoid

‘This moon has no name, nor does this church. It was built by a race long passed, and is a relic of the ancient past. We will not name it; it is a temporary home. Remember that’, the robed woman told the girl. ‘You are Sister Clerica now. Leave your old life behind with your old name. You are a sister of Ulgara now, and by stepping foot in this sacred place, you have taken a path from which there is no return. Slack in your duties and you will be severely punished. Excel in your duties… and you will be rewarded with respite.’

‘Yes, Holy Mother’, the girl replied ... the girl who would don the name and role of Sister Clerica, of the Sisters of Ulgara.

She stopped, and gazed up at the ball of blue liquid speckled with orange and yellow landmasses.

‘Haaloja-2’, the Holy Mother mused. ‘We do not disturb them, and they do not disturb us. Understand, child, that the people who occupy that world have fought and lost the battle which we must ultimately win…’

‘Who … are we fighting?’ The Clerica asked.

For a moment, the Holy Mother said nothing, and simply stared at the planet above. Clerica noticed that her fists were clenched tightly.

‘Our enemy … is the Wulver Empire…!’ she said, her voice quivering with an alien emotion.