The Soltairan Menace

It is the 24th century, Major Louis Donner is Commander of the United Star Cruiser Intrepid. While returning home from their latest mission in the Crown Point sector, the crew of the Intrepid find that they have become targeted by their own military. Unable to resolve the riddle of his new outlaw status, Major Donner is forced to try and uncover the answers while evading his own forces. Purely by chance it seems, he is reunited with his childhood chum and flight academy classmate, Ron McDonald. After mysteriously disappearing over twenty years ago, Ron suddenly appears flying parallel to the Intrepid in an enemy battle cruiser. To add to the mystery, Ron doesn’t look a day older than he did when he disappeared over twenty years prior. Through McDonald, Donner discovers that a race of flesh eating aliens called the Soltair, have been raiding small worlds in the Gumar cluster of planets. He learns that once the Soltair have vanquished an enemy, they are rounded up and immediately consumed or kept alive as a future food source. Donner learns that these same Soltair now have their sights set on Earth and the United Coalition of Planets. It is only after key members of his own staff are killed and devoured and yet others are abducted by this menace, that he is able to ascertain the origin of these beings, and ultimately their leader, the emperor Emach. When Donner himself is abducted, he is finally able to see and appreciate the full scope of Emach’s fanatical plan of invasion and annihilation. It is Emach’s hatred of the human race and its military leader General Thomas McGee in particular, that is the driving force behind his elaborate plan of revenge and devastation. It was sixteen June in the year 2306, and the soldiers of the massive Soltairan army reported to only one supreme commander, General Yerffig Emach. A descendant of imperial Soltairan ancestry, it was preordained that Emach would one day rule Soltair, the third planet in the Gumar cluster. Beaten and tortured as a child as was the custom of the Soltairan aristocracy, Emach grew up to be a singularly ruthless soldier even for the Soltair. As a young officer he led raids on neighboring worlds and various mining colonies, defeating and consuming the peoples of most of these worlds. Those who were not killed and consumed immediately, were rounded up, brutally tortured, and ultimately kept as a food source for his army. It appeared there would be no stopping his reign of brutality until word of his savagery made its way back to the United Coalition of Planets. A lone being named Biijwaye, (pronounced Beejway) an emissary from Rutaan, the eighth planet in the Gumar cluster, managed to escape capture when his tiny ship was thrown seriously off course during a surprise engagement with a Soltairan attack group. His ship managed to limp into the Coalition space port on Dravian 5, where he was medically cared for and was then able to report the horrific goings on in the far away Gumar cluster of planets. General Emach’s plan going forward, was to expand his campaign to include the little known Coalition member colonies on Tatrak, a small world located on the opposite side of Gumar. Once the Tatrakians were vanquished, it would be a simple matter to Emach’s way of thinking, to quietly pick off the other Coalition worlds one by one, then claim the entire quadrant for himself. However unbeknownst to Emach, Biijwaye had gained the attention of the Coalition, and the ear of General Thomas McGee in particular. McGee had heard rumors of sporadic raids on the mining colonies on the far side of Gumar, but until that moment, no witnesses had come forth to substantiate these claims. Through Biijwaye, McGee learned of a platinum mining operation under way on the far off ice world of Lazaron. This was the last of the small worlds left as yet untouched in the whole of the Gumar cluster, and was also the farthest from that star. So it was to be Lazaron where Emach would make his most costly error, and Thomas McGee would be the architect of his undoing. Emach gathered his most trusted subordinates in his war room to brief them on this final mission before pushing through to the Coalition sector on the other side of Gumar. The plan was an elegantly simple one. Emach would take a single Zyre class battle star out past Lazaron and coordinate with seven Soltairan combat ships disguised as independent ore freighters and commercial cruisers. He would order the remainder of his fleet held back and out of sensor range, to come in only when signaled. At an assigned moment, Emach would transmit an encrypted signal, the freighters would dispatch their troops down to the planet, and the Coalition miners would simply be exterminated. Emach would then bring in the balance of his fleet to orbit Lazaron while he shuttled down to the planet’s surface to claim this final world for the Soltair. McGee got on the com to USC command and called an emergency meeting of the Coalition high command, a select group of governing leaders including the Prime Minister himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, some intelligence has come across my desk that must be addressed immediately.” McGee began. “It has come to our attention that sporadic savage and unprovoked attacks have taken place on no less than five Coalition mining facilities. There have been no prisoners taken and by all accounts, the defeated miners and other civilians have not only been captured, but in many cases killed and devoured.” “Devoured, General?” Vice Minister Atkinson asked. “Yes, ma’am, eaten! Others who have not been killed or devoured, are being herded like cattle and used as their food supply.” The council members jumped to their feet in unison to voice their outrage. “You’re certain of this intelligence, General?” Prime Minister Boluk asked. “Yes, sir, I've had my source checked. His accounts are reliable.” “You said their food supply. Who is responsible for these atrocities? Who are they, General?” the Prime Minister asked. “Please, Mr. Prime Minister, if you’ll allow me to finish.” McGee said, and the ministry members took their seats once again. “We have it on good authority that these Soltairans, I believe that’s how it is pronounced, these Soltairans are about to launch yet another attack, this time against the mining colony on Lazaron. Now this is the last known world in the Gumar cluster of planets. The implication being that once Lazaron is taken, the Coalition member planets are next.” “Mr. Prime Minister, members of the Coalition ministry, I propose that we act immediately on this threat. We must preempt this attack. I propose we meet them on their soil before they have the chance to attack us on ours. I say let’s bring the fight to them!” McGee punctuated his last words with a loud thump of his fist onto the council table, then re-took his seat. “Mr. Prime Minister, council members, we’ve learned that the Soltair home world is far across the universe in that same Gumar cluster. Some mining parties went out there about fifteen years ago when it was rumored that platinum and some other precious and semiprecious metals might exist there in vast quantities.” McGee said. “Who authorized these mining operations, General?” Commerce Secretary Allen asked. “Mr. Secretary, as you know, the military no longer has jurisdiction over matters of a commercial nature. Commercial matters now fall exclusively under the purview of the commerce ministry. I'm afraid in this case as in many like them, these civilians just took it upon themselves to go out there prospecting on their own, hoping to strike it rich.” “Well then, General, the question remains what are we going to do?” the Commerce Secretary asked, “Hell, not only to bring these bastards to justice, but to protect our Coalition member nations going forward.” “I think we have only one option here.” McGee said. “We must be persuasive, force their hand as it were. We can’t let these bastards continue to get away with murd