I hereby claim no right to his works, nor any intimate knowledge to the story of Outsider.
Vanguard is an old concept of a story I had been working on concurrently with 'The Pale Horse'. The idea being that Humanity is in a position of being able to enforce their neutrality against either combatant; the issue is that Humanity is not really 'united', underlying tensions dictate a course of action that would bring humanity into the fray. In the end I 'shelved' Vanguard and elected to work on 'The Pale Horse' for two reasons: It seemed more challenging as a story and the outline was shorter.
I make no promises that I will be working on this story, I believe that it has its own strengths and weaknesses and I admit that I do want to write certain battle sequences that I had envisioned when I was fiddling with the basic premise of the story.
I will post the Prologue and Chapter 1 which is as far as I wrote when I was actively working on the story about two years ago. Like always I had a wide outline and some background information laid out so if anyone is curious about it I will answer any questions about the concept and the story I had in mind.
Table of Contents:
Earth
15th of November 2259
He should have followed Ellen’s example and retired decades ago, there were certainly plenty of times that he was close in doing just that and now he wondered how things would have turned out if he had elected to retire.
“So… Admiral Jardin, why do you think that you should be the one to be given overall command of the contact mission?” Senator Williams of the United States of America asked, his voice and expression barely betraying the condescension that the biggest loudmouth of the Homeworlder faction held for him.
“Because I am the best man for the job.” He replied while standing at attention, looking straight ahead as if he was still a cadet; he hated even being in the same room with these wastes of oxygen but if he was to achieve his goal he had to keep up appearances and make sure that the politicians would feel good with themselves, even at his expense.
“A has been relic that should have retired decades ago?” The Senator remarked with a smug grin on his face, a grin that all other representatives in the selection committee shared. Earth’s nations still held disproportionate political strength which was more than enough for the entire committee to be comprised exclusively by members of the Homeworlder faction. The very ones who constantly pushed for Earth to have overarching authority over all of the colony worlds, even the ones that had long since been self sustaining, thriving and would in a matter of years be strong enough to rival Earth’s combined strength.
“I am pretty sure that I have three continents, two moons and one gas giant named after me; this in addition to the Fleet’s scout ship that the admiralty saw fit to name after me despite me still being in active service.” He replied while keeping his expression straight and emotionless, a skill that took some time for him to master. He saw the Senator frown, everyone in the committee knew that this whole hearing was a farce; that the Homeworlder faction had already decided on who to give command of the expedition but he had a few aces up his sleeve to make them change their mind and his positive reputation with the colonial populations played a key part in his argument. He was after all the one who discovered half of the garden worlds and he was the constant pain in the ass for the military industrialists who run politics on both Earth and the Colonies.
“That’s true…” The Senator acknowledged. “Now tell me, why do you think that you are the best man for the job?”
“Because I am going to give you exactly what humanity needs right now.” He replied while keeping his expression stony cold.
“And what is that?” The Senator asked, his expression betraying both his surprise and curiosity.
You mean besides you in prison you fucking kiddie fiddler? He thought as he finally allowed his face to break into a smile as he stared straight into the senator’s eyes.
“War.”