"About 2 hours your highness."

"s.h.i.+t."

Waking up with a slight headache the crown prince Henrik Vi Gruffydd VIII had an expression like he had just swallowed a bug, and that was not because of his headache.

"I lost huh?.. Let's head back to the castle for now."

After removing his armor and changing into a military uniform Henrik took a carriage back to the castle, where he met Olga Maximilla, a n.o.ble from his council faction.

"Your highness! Good you're here, that demon is bringing something truly outrageous before the council."

Slightly peaking his interest the prince decided to head to the council room to see what was going on. Arriving he opened the door without a care in the world the prince sat down at a forward chair.

"Please continue."

"Okay.. Of course I and the Galactic Empire are not asking to lease these areas from your territory for free-"

"You want to lease areas of the Kingdom?"

"Lease or borrow yeah, one area is a few blocks near the area around the central church which I intend to turn into a emba.s.sy and outreach center, the second area is a 10 square kilometer barren field that I will excavate and build a drydock, and the third is a small patch of land north of the city of Black Hollow I will turn into a military base."

"That certainly is a lot of land.. For how long would you want to lease them?"

"For as long as the Galactic Empire has a presence on this planet, about 500 of your years."

"500 years!? That's longer than the Kingdom was existed!"

"You seriously expect us to believe that ridiculous timeframe!?"

"This is obviously just a thinly veiled annexation!"

The 500 years part really upset a great part of the council, especially the crown prince's faction, but apparently not the prince.

"I take it we will still have partial control and tax income from those areas right?"

"The area here in town will be governed by a sheared system, with the Kingdom taking 80% percent of the taxes from the area."

"90%."

"83%."

"88%."

"85%?"

"... Okay, 85% it is. What about the other areas?"

"Restricted access, with no residential or commercial zoning. You can just consider them black sites."

"Black sites?"

"Areas that officially do not exist, you could just call them toxic mining zones, I will even supply raw ore to make the lie work. Of course they would need to be guarded by not only my own forces, but forces from the Kingdom as well."

"And why would we ever acc-!"

"Calm down."

Interrupting his council member the prince took a few seconds for the council to calm down before continuing.

"I expect you will compensate the Kingdom apporperly?"

"Of course~ I've already spoken to your sister about it in private, but allow me to use this opportunity to share the proposals with the council."

---

sSS-SYSTEM O-OoO-ONLINE, ICI-IIIIIq VERSION 'UNKOWN, sZ-SYSTEM CORRUPTzzz '. ONonon-ONLINE.

LANDING SEQUENCE CcCCQ-COMPLETE aAWAITING ORDERS, sCANNING P-PAYLOAD.... 5-56%..... 97.4%.... e-ERROR eEEEQE-ERROR, SsS-SURVIVOR L-LOCAqTED, tTT-TASKING NnnAANNANOMACHINES F-FOR TREATMENT…. tTTR-TREATMENT Ss-SUCCESSFUL, ssSQ-SURVIVOR R-R-STABILIZED.

…

..

.

Waking up the first sensation that hit her was cold, an unbearable chill forced her aching body awake as she tried, and failed to scream out in pain, realizing her throat was incredibly horse.

"Ark! ach aAAaaaha!!"

As she woke up and started moving she ripped off a large part of her back skin, as the piece of metal she had laid on had long since frozen along with it. Writhing in pain as she screamed her memories slowly started returning. Life on the cruiser, her military training, the ambush and pa.s.sing out in the cold vacuum of s.p.a.ce while her commander pulled off a desperate blind jump, but a large part of her memory still eluded her, and she didn't even remember her own name. With her training kicking into gear she ripped of even more of her own skin as she reached for a first aid kit. Reaching the kit she fumbled but eventually got hold of a black syringe, that she promptly stabbed into what remained of her leg. After a few hours the gray matter had started to work and she gradually started to realize her own situation.

"ICI you there?"

[aAAFFIRMATIVE.]

"Where are we?"

[UNnn-UNKNOWN, CONNECTION TO COMMANzD oO-OFFLINE.]

"s.h.i.+t!... At least the atmosphere is breathable, and I appear to have mostly full function, well, except for this…"

Looking down her body, most of her left leg had sever fostburn.

"And my head is itching.."

Scratching her head while looking around she noticed her current surroundings.

"What is this, some kind of metallic cave?"

[SssSCAN REVEALS AD-aaZ-ADVANCED COMPOSITE MATERIALS, aAND ORGANIC MATzERIAL.]

"Just tell me how to get out of this please."

[BbbZZ-BEHIND THzE eE-EQUIPMENT cCRATE.]

"Got it, also your language interface is severely glitched. Scan the crate for stuff that will help me survive will you?"

[SssZ-SCANI-]

"Just show me please."

Realizing it would take forever for the glitched ICI unit to show her what she need, the nameless woman instead asked it to show her, and her vision was overlaid AR information about the crate and the all the other junk inside the spherical room/cave.

"Jackpot."

Limping over to the crate she found a piece of junk to pry it open, revealing the goods inside.

"35mm hyper velocity self guiding penetrators fired with the flexibility of chemical weaponry… Or was it 36mm?"

REX-ALPH357 HYBRID

Named the absolute combat rifle of the century, the Rex alpha is the happy and super popular marriage of a coil rifles power with the reliability and flexibility of a chemically powered rifle. After throwing a ridiculous amount of founds at the idea, a unknown engineer managed to combine accelerator coils with a smoothbore 40mm chemically powered automatic rifle prototype, and prototype self guiding ammunition derived and miniaturized from the REX-144-3 Custom. The Rex alpha was first adopted by the 125th h.e.l.lwalkers and immediately replaced all prior personnel weapons except the Rex-0999 and Guardian-322 PDW in the battalion. Accelerator coils and barrel length were added or removed to create DMR (Dedicated Marksman Rifle), iDFGA (InDirect Fire Guided Artillery) and PDW (Personal defence weapon) variants, making the weapon utterly ambicus with the Empire's might in technological advancement showed in the Iron race containment war. The Rex alpha in its rifle variant looks like any other rifle, with its bullpup design and black carbon-polymer construction, and it functions just like one too. The real revolution comes with the ammunition choice, whereas ordinary gauss rifles can't fire intelligent munitions at high speeds without frying the stuff that makes it intelligent, the Rex Alpha can. That means it is possible to fit a soldier or drone with effective AD-LBD HEAT (Armor Defeating, Long burn Duration High Explosive Anti Tank) and 'HAVOC', or uHVAG (Ultra High Velocity Anti Grav barrier) ammunition, along with a whole slew of specialized ammunition by simply changing what magazines they brought into combat.

"One intact Rex Alpha and a few magazines of high velocity armor piercing, plus a spare vacuum suit with environmental protection… Now if my head just would stop itching all would be fine.."

Taking a few minutes to swap from her own ragged vacuum suit into the spare one, the nameless woman also covered her face with a reaper's mask and went to exit the strange metallic spherical chamber.

"What the h.e.l.l is this wasteland…"

Outside the spherical and metallic cave was a wasteland of snow, ice and hail. For as long as she could see, there was absolutely nothing but snow. Nervously setting a foot outside, her foot sank about half a meter into the snow.

"f.u.c.k this.."

Considering just shooting herself for a few moments, more rational idea's eventually won, and she headed out into the waste after gathering a few supplies.

"Any signals coming from out here?"

[WzEAK SqZ-SIGNAL tZQ-DISCOVERED, HEADINGf 14x4, RANGEz UNKNOWN-QUaaaa.]

"Guess I'll just walk forever and ever until I find faster transport…"

Stepping out completely into the snow, master armourer Lux Jameson of the Galactic navy started her tiring walk to rejoin whatever remained of her unit, but it would be a long and changeling, for the arctic desert of the Northern republic isn't kind or forgiving.

To the north of the Kingdom and past the mountain range that the angels call home lies the Northern republic, a nation at war with the Kingdom and the angels since its creation. Born from a gathering of northern tribes originally belonging to pains the Kingdom suddenly claimed at its foundation, they were displaced over the years by the Kingdom they realized they had to organize themselves so they could win back their promised homeland. Life in the republic is harsh, as most of the nation's ground is frozen year round, and the nation often suffers month long snowstorms.Tempered by the land and a promise to make it back to the nation's 'promised land' at some point, the people of the republic are hardened warriors and skilled magic engineers, born from the nations mandatory military service. With a arguably better military personnel and equipment over the Kingdom, they fall short in one important aspect of warfare: numbers. With even the best earth in the nation being poor for farming at best the population of the republic is lower than the Kingdom, even though they both have about the same territory.

Feeling like they've slowly been backed off into a corner with no future other than slowly wither and die, the people of the Northern republic those to fight. 'Fight or die' is the reality the people or the republic believe they are in, military service is required, but staying in the army after the mandatory years of service are up is an utmost honor, as 95% of the people ever on the high council are long time military veterans. Members of the high council are chosen from clan leaders and command the republic's joined military forces, and decide the long term military, social and technological objectives of the republic in a conference that is known as the great unifying talks, something that was currently ongoing.

"What are our losses?"

"A bit over 20%"

"That is severe.."

"But still within margin."

"That's true."

In the center of the largest permanent city of the Northern republic sits an ancient hall made of the scarce and precious wood and stone. The hall had a overall rugged look, with the ever present winter wind sc.r.a.ping at the outer walls, the hall endures, mirroring the people of the republic. In the deepest room of the great hall about 50 experienced fighters, mages and magic engineers were gathered around a table. The only thing that united the people of different races, age and gender was the undeniable fact that they were all leaders with the united goal of seeing the Republic flourish in the promised land to the south. The clan leaders each represented the major 50 clans of the republic, but unlike n.o.bles of the Kingdom, they shunned gaining favor and personal wealth, they only saw the betterment of the republic as a goal, multiple generations of seeing one's family and friends starve and freeze to death had that effect.

"But more importantly the Kingdom have rotated their elite forces away from the border, maybe we should use this chance to-"

"You know we can't do that my sister, we have to stick to the plan. Even if we managed to take a bit of land the Kingdom would win it back with the help of those detestable angels."

After interrupting one of the senior clan leaders interrupted his junior, the atmosphere seemed to turn hopeful and disappointed at the same time.

"I got a bit heated my brother, I apologize."

"It's fine, you belong to the generation that will finally lead our people out of this h.e.l.lscape of a frozen dessert, being opportunistic and hopeful is required."

With a joined chuckle from some of the older leaders the room suddenly turned completely serious as all turned to a single clan leader and awaited her next words with great expectation.

"My brothers and sisters of the North, after 23 generations of research an effective and production ready model have been derived from the prototype!"

""""""""""OOOOOHHH!!""""""""""

"What's the viability of the system!?"

"There's no theoretical limit on the system."

"With the jamming only affecting external magic?"

"Yes!"

"and is it mobile!?"

"The system only weighs 200 kilograms, it is transportable by a strike force, moreover the range is over a kilometer!"

As the other clan leaders hurriedly confirmed the viability of the system the room became more and more cheerful as the eldest clan leader took the word.

"MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS! Long have we waited, no suffered and endured for this day! Tonight we eat, drink and party! Share the news with the people you goveron, we have finally developed magic jamming! THE AGE OF THE ANGELS OPPRESSIVE RULE IS OVER!"

With a thundering applause spreading out from the great hall, the surrounding people all realized new times were coming, and their age of suffering was coming to an end.