Cyarkos Rhulson
The Black Admiral
The Best of Times Call for Desperate Measures
It was a time when the universe first began unfolding
before the civilized races. The Bjaki Federation had stabilized and
established a secure core of established worlds and a strong, stable
government. The skip drive allowed the trade of goods and ideas with the
equally large and peaceful Core Commonwealth and propelled ships into
the unknown void of space to explore and colonize, expanding the
Federation and garnering seemingly unlimited resources. New advances in
nanotechnology began to strip away the old limitations of arduous
maintenance protocols on starships and a new generation of energy
weapons and gravitational shielding provided ships with considerable
survivability and, therefore, confidence.
In spite of the seemingly limitless peace and
prosperity, fiery young Group Captain Cyarkos Rhulson came before the
various Councils and Assemblies with a number of ideas and propositions.
He claimed that the galaxy was a harsh and ruthless place, that the
current quiet could not last forever. He had mapped out an extensive
development, training, and expansion program for the Aegis and empire.
His plans included upgrading the entire armada to the latest equipment,
training them in specialized tactics revolving around these new
technologies, eliminating the nepotism and social stratics still
prolific in the Bjaki military, and expanding the Federation with
concentric rings of colonization and fortification.
For the most part, his views were seen as extreme, unnecessary,
and very on madness; however, he carried himself with a youthful
charisma that was backed up by exceptional insight and tactical
brilliance. He built a small but often powerful following throughout the
Federation that could not be ignored. While exploration and colonization
remained predominantly commercial or scientific endeavours, over the
space of several years, he was able to convince those in power that the
Bjaki Federation needed warships and crews of the highest calibre and
that they needed to be exceptionally well trained and coordinated, ready
for any eventuality. He helped in the planning, configuration, and
administration of mass upgrades to the Aegis and personally gathered the
best strategic and scientific minds in the Bjaki federation to develop a
new tactical operations. It was during the training of the crews on new
technology and tactics, during the simulated reacquisition of a captured
system, that the Admiral went Black.
War Games
Cyarkos Rhulson had coordinated a series of training
exercises that would simulate potentially real threats to the Federation
and incorporate the most modern ships and tactics. During Bjaki
Invasion/Repulsion Simulation 565A5-3, Cyarkos did the unthinkable.
Slowly and subtly, during the inception of the training missions, he had
managed to crew several of the best equipped ships of the Bjaki Aegis
with hand-picked, fiercely loyal crews that agreed with his assessment
of the hostile galaxy. He had filled them with arms and supplies and had
them gathered at the very fringe of Federation territory
The simulated battle went poorly for Cyarkos, he
seemed off-guard from the start and was constantly forced to fade back
as a small cluster of his ships were separated from the rest. The
fighter and bomber squadrons of his Command cruiser, the Lady Sophia,
were lost quickly as they plunged into simulated battle and were
"gunned down" and, under the rules of simulated engagement,
were forced to land on the cruiser for the remainder of the simulation.
Things were going poorly enough for the Group Captain that Captain
Tarine Siran of the Troop Transport Extrigent began to close in, calling
to request that her side pull back so she could board and control the
Lady Sophia. As the Extrignet began to close with the Lady Sophia, the
destroyer Victorious broke off its current target and moved to intercept
the Lady Sophia first. While the true reason for the move may
never be known, most observers at the time speculated the captain was
"an idiot trying to steal the Extrigent's glory".
As the Victorious moved toward the Lady Sophia, a
variety of tightly coupled communications broadcasts began to move
between several ships on both sides. It is thought that the Arsenal ship
Sculpture was the first of the conspirators to act, directly on the
orders of Group Captain Rhulson. The Sculpture was one of the
Punchdagger class, a notoriously over-designed vessel capable of killing
ships many times its own size. Still within the simulation protocol, the
Punchdagger opened fire on the Victorious with both of its massive
Behemoth railguns. The computers on the Victorious calculated massive
hits and shut down a variety of systems, including shields and weapons.
As the Victorious lay in a simulated crippled state, the Extrigent fired
off a volley of live seeker missiles that actually crippled the engines
of the Victorious. In the confusion, several ships suddenly broke away
from the fringes of the simulation and engaged a pre-calculated warp
path.
The ships that broke away included the Lady Sophia, a
Vigilant II class Command Carrier, the Extrigent, a Memphix class Troop
Transport, the Sculpture, a Punchdagger class Arsenal, and the Atlac, a
Jument class supply ship. Hand-picked by Group Captain Rhulson for the
simulation, all of the ships had a full compliment of weapons, supply,
and crew as well as an extensive group of scientists, strategists,
and observers that were supposedly appraising the engagement. The
logs of the crewmembers of the four ships suggest that Rhulson offered
everyone on the ships the opportunity to jettison in escape capsules and
return to the Federation.
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