Battle Earth X by Nick S. Thomas

precedent. If the fleet and her leaders agree to accept you as their leader, then I will stand by it, but they have not. You must stand down and bow to the will of your peers."
    "I bow to nobody's will."
    "Sir, Lo Yang fighters are in range of ours," Capwell interrupted.
    "Don't be a fool, Huang. We cannot afford to lose lives over a petty dispute."
    "There is nothing petty about this. We are fighting for the good of us all."
    As he finished, Cordero quickly drew his sidearm and rushed towards Huber.
    "Admiral Huber, I am placing you under arrest!"
    Taylor had seen it happen out of the corner of his eye, and as the Spaniard approached the Admiral, he launched forward. With one hand he took hold of Cordero's pistol, and the other struck him full force with a straight punch to the head. Taylor forgot his strength afforded by the Reitech suit, and the impact snapped Cordero's neck. He became limp and collapsed onto the deck of the bridge. Taylor was appalled his own savagery and was speechless. He looked around to see that nobody made a single move, but Huang had seen it all on the video feed.
    "Admiral Huber. Can you not see your failings? If this is how you run your ship, what hope is there for the fleet? I must insist you arrest Colonel Taylor immediately and stand down from your command."
    Huber looked to Taylor and could see the sadness in his eyes, but he was appreciative, knowing what the Colonel had done for him. He looked back to Huang with disgust.
    "You did this. You caused this young man, this young officer to die. His death is on your hands, as will many others today. I have never done anything to endanger the people under my command unnecessarily. I will not fire first, but know that if you do, you will be finished. I will ensure your death or imprisonment. This fleet will go on, and it will survive, but not while people like you meddle with power."
    "Sir, I have B squadron commander asking for orders. They are closing fast with Lo Yang fighters," said Vega.
    Huber looked back to Huang for an answer, but he said nothing.
    "Order the Commander to not fire unless fired upon."
    He had not taken his eyes off of Huang.
    "I am sorry we could not resolve this peacefully, Admiral."
    "Sir, I'm getting a massive energy signature five klicks off the port side," said Capwell.
    "What the hell is it?" Huber asked.
    He looked back to Huang.
    "What have you done?"
    Huang looked confused. "We are reading the same signature, but it is not of our doing."
    "What the hell is going on?" Huber shouted.
    He rushed over Capwell's console. The man seemed fixated on it. Taylor snapped out of his daze and raced to the Admiral's side.
    "What is that?" the Admiral asked.
    They were looking at what appeared to be some form of ship. It had a sleek slim profile and engines self-contained within the structure. The skin of the vessel partly mimicked the space around it and blended in well enough they had to look hard to identify it as a ship at all. It reminded Taylor of some of the stealth technology used by Karadag's forces in the first war.
    "Huang, are you seeing this?" Huber shouted.
    "Yes, whatever it is."
    "Alert all fighters, redeploy to form a wall between us and this vessel, but do not approach behind two klicks of it."
    He heard Huang issue similar orders.
    "Jafar, get your ass over here!" Taylor called out.
    The alien quickly came to their side and looked at the screen with the same puzzling expression as they had.
    "What is it? Where did it come from?"
    "Admiral, I have no idea," replied Capwell.
    "Sir," added Vega, "unknown vessel is powering up."
    "Weapons?"
    "No idea."
    "Get a firing solution on whatever it is and await my orders. And get that thing displayed on the ops table so we can get a better look!"
    As the screen projected before them, lights began to glow on the craft and encased it in two bands of blue light.
    "I don't like this," Taylor said.
    "Prepare to fire," Huber ordered.
    A dazzling flashed erupted around the unknown