CARTANN CITY, CARTANN PROVINCE, ADUMAR
0800hrs local time
0800hrs local time
It had been many years since Max had returned home.
Despite all that had happened to him since he left, he had never forgotten his birth right as an Adumarian or held anything but love and affection for the place that had raised him.
Adumar was a strong world, populated by even stronger people. Living in isolation for many years, Max's ancestors had learned to be self-reliant, resourceful and, where necessary, ruthless. They were masters of combat and the blastsword and his childhood had been one of fights and frustrations, with little that could not be settled by grit and determination.
Now, two decades later, Lieutenant Max Dram studied the holomap in front of him, wondering how he might apply the same zeal to the Adumar of today.
Cartann City was illuminated before him, and beyond it the Perator's Palace. Somewhere inside there, his brother Osca sat the Perator's throne, though they had not spoken in years. Outside, mobs gathered to protest the state of play. One called for a return to the Empire, in whose bosum Adumar had flourished for decades. The other called for outright independence and the abandonment of anything that would stand in the way of trade.
For Max Dram, only one of these choices held promise. The other was the road to ruin. That was the reason he had brought his platoon here and even now readied to face his recalcitrant brother. He had to return his world to the Empire, to the destiny it deserved. The Warmaster had given them the choice, as he had all worlds, but Max's brothers and sisters were at risk of choosing wrongly. One way or another, he had to make them see.
His men busied themselves around him, dressing him in the traditional mantle of a provincial governor. He had held a position of high status in Cartann before joining the Imperial military and he would need to remind the court of that if he was to have any chance of influencing their decision. If they could not be swayed, he was not sure what he would do. Forty men were not enough to take a world, but he could not consciously allow Adumar to slip into obscurity.
"Tell the men to fall in" he said solemnly to his second. "We move out within the hour".
@Sreeya