Star Haven; Briefing

The forward command post wan't much to speak of, a holoprojector in a hotel ballroom with a lot of desks around it.  It looked impressive, but that was mostly just because it was a very tall room.  After serving at a dozen posts across the universe, Natalya wasn't really impressed by what she felt was an unnecessarily luxurious accommodation.  It spoke poorly to the character of her superiors that they had insisted on staying here.  There were plenty of more suitable quarters, and a warship in orbit would have had vastly superior communications equipment, better combat mapping, and the ability to pick up and go when the battle became a lost cause.  She intended to fight to the death some day, but not because her superiors had failed to provide an exit and needed her to buy them time.

"Commander Oerin, good to see you again."
There was a word that the Nielda saved for those they held in deepest contempt.  It was used to describe individuals who could assign a title to every single one of their ancestors, tell accounts of their ancestor's magical prowess, and never deliver so much as a puff of smoke of their own power or display any nobility of their own.  The word wasn't even positive in most human communities, it spoke of someone who was unwashed and unclean.  The word was greasy, and it fit the general like a glove.  To the Nielda, it meant inbreeding, uncommon among the truly great families but a deciding factor in the fate of those who had let greatness pass them by.  Many of these ignobles had shunned the company of those they deemed low born and unwittingly removed the very influx of power and innovation that kept the greatest families great.  No Gascan monarch had married within the nobility, either local or from any where else in the Empire, in nearly five thousand years, and their line had neither faltered nor been lost in the political crowd; a fact its citizens, like Natalya, were always proud to share.  The Tarans were much the same, and of old the Anatolians were as well.  The children of the Emperor were forbidden from marrying anyone who could be found within their relations on a tree set four generations back.  It was for everyone's good really, no one wanted to have to look at a tubby, pimply little git when they swore allegiance or watched an Imperial address.  It just didn't inspire confidence.  Besides, the Emperor was expected to be able to fight, and she couldn't see a man like General Harn waddling into battle.  It'd be like giving a duck a sword; and a fat duck at that.
"What are your orders, sir."
Harn began to pace in front of the holoprojector as it activated and a series of numbers and letters began streaming upward.  It was a familiar pattern; filing system information, coordinates, timestamps; most of it bueracratic crap but she commited it all to memory anyways in case she had to quote it back to someone later.  The relevant information was always in pictures.  Unlabeled picutes at that, to make sure anyone not present at the briefing couldn't just read it and know what was going on.  Of course, the pictures prevented audio bugs or limited telepathy from working it all out either.  All just security countermeasures easily circumvented by any major power, and almost certainly the enemy.  Gravagans would have just posted a cloaked spy in the room, Ga-Vok would have bugged the room and then hack the main frame afterwords.  The Seclorans would probably kidnap one of them and Psych it out of them, and the Harakai..well they wouldn't dare violate the treaty, especially not with winter nearing their borders.  They'd already begun wartime birth control restrictions.  In a matter of only a few years they'd have a horde of their own to send into battle.  The Empire was starting its own equivalent recruiting programs, and crackdowns on deadbeat senior officers like Harn were, at most, only a few years off.
"As you know, the evacuation of civilians is almost complete.  Myself and many of the senior military officials will be joining them shortly.  However, we received an envoy this morning requesting military support for a special mission."
Oh damn.  He was going to send them on a suicide mission, wasn't he?  This was not how she intended to die.
"Apparently a beacon was detected deep within enemy territory.  It was identified as belonging to one 'Hariel', another envoy.  You and your ship are to venture into enemy territory and determine the nature of this beacon.  If it is an enemy trap, destroy it or pass information back to command to ignore it.  If it is a friend, provide any assistance possible.  The Envoy will meet you at your ship.  Any questions should be directed to the Envoy.  Dismissed captain."

Natalya had no interest in looking into anyone's 'Envoy'.  And why hadn't he identified their allegiance, or even their species?  It was suspect to her, and frankly she felt like there were better uses of military resources than investigating ghost beacons and this 'Hariel'.  The thought glimmered that perhaps Harn genuinely didn't know,  and she had to admit, it did seem horrifically likely.  Still, didn't this seem suspicious to him too?  And if he did, then why didn't he voice his concerns, or at least warn her with his own suspicions?  Had he been ordered not to say anything, or worse, bewitched into silence?
She clenched her fist reflexively.  Her Mother had been a healer, her Father a soldier, and she'd inherited the most dangerous possible combination of their abilities.  She doubted she'd be any match for a professional mage, but it wouldn't stop her from trying.  No one bewitched her superiors; greasy, worthless pimples that they were, every being had the right to decide its own way through life.  Even if that right did often manifest itself as a curse.  In any case, she would not be asking her questions politely.